First Anniversary.

My boyfriend and i went on our first date together in the middle of October last year. We saw Frank Sinatra Jr and his show, and it was wonderful. i was both excited and terrified of how the night would go, because it was a culmination of events that i thought would never happen.

You see, my boyfriend and i were aquaintances before we became close friends. And then we were best friends for about ten years, among a small group of men i would have done anything for. i had individual crushes on each of them in my own way, as i had grown to know them over years.

But in all that time they never really knew me, or my past.

They could never figure out why i was so depressed and angry much of the time, or why my behavior was so erratic and unstable. When i started to transition, it seemed like tentative acceptance at first, but then that quickly collapsed. Too much negative behavior on my part, and they decided that it had become barely worth it before--certainly not worth it now.

Which i could deal with. i couldn't expect them to understand, or forgive me for lying about who i was for so long. By then i had very quickly begun making new female friends, and working three jobs at once to inch my way toward surgery.

But losing my former best friend hurt the most, because i was in love with him. And he could not handle the transition. He 'freaked out' in his own way, and we effectively dropped contact with each other for a year and went our seperate ways.

With everything dead and gone that was before, i heard that he would be moving to the same city i live for better job opportunities. i jumped at the chance to reconnect with him, and offered him to stay at my house until he got established. He was very weary and uncomfortable with it, but eventually accepted.

Week after week we would spend time together just talking. And i told him everything. And he rapidly understood who i was and what really made me tick. And he gradually became comfortable with it. He said it was like meeting and getting to know a completely different person, who just happens to share identical memories from someone he knew before.

In his words, it was as if his best friend sunk into a vortex of angry despair and then died. Then after the grief was healed and gone, a happy and healthy twin sister showed up.

So i worked on him in my own way. And one thing led to another. Which led to our first date. Which proceeded through the next few weeks, until we were finally together. Something i thought would never happen, and always wanted.

i have dated many men before. They were the kind of men many lesser women would jump at the chance to have. For their looks, or their money, or their power. Some of these men went crazy when i ultimately refused them, and their entitlements. One of them asked me with frustration 'what did it take to get inside my mind and own my heart'? i told them all that whatever it was, they didn't have it.

My will is made of solid steel. Noble to some. Idiotic to others.

And i want *this* man. The one i have now. He is all i ever wanted.

My boyfriend was a happy, healthy, sports-active young man throughout school (his football jersey is one of my favorite thing to wear at night). But for the second half of his life, he has suffered a medical condition that has had a dramatic impact on his weight, and has nothing to do with diet. It's a condition that could be brought under control with medical intervention, if he only had the money. Or the insurance to cover it.

Kind of like me.

Someone once asked him how, as a straight guy, how he could be with a woman like me before her operation.

My boyfriend said he completely understood the hell of being trapped inside a body that you didn't belong. And that i'm one procedure short of being the perfect woman for him. And he's patient.

And that's one of the many countless reasons i love this man.

Sometimes, every once and awhile, he'll take a look at my blog to see what i'm up to. And so i made this video for him as a sort of card, and because he likes making fun of a good, cheesy montage! My music drives him crazy, even though he politely tolerates it. Since this is for him, i went through his mp3 player and picked out something i know he likes.

Although we've been together a year, we've only had the camera for six months. Not much footage to use, so it's a little slow. For our first anniversary, we went to see the Rat Pack is Back, and it was very fun! They were passing through on their way to Vegas. But we left the camera behind on that one. Some things are just for us. Nothing in here is new. Consider this viewable for only a limited time. Somebody out there has developed a hate for me, and is now flagging my posts and replies everywhere at random.



He is the kindest, most intelligent and warm-hearted man i have ever known. The way he reacts with the same nervous, male concern when i start crying over absolutely nothing every week. Or never complains when i put my cold feet under his shirt when we're on the couch each night. When he patiently waits out my ability to change my mind about something fifty times before i've finally made a decision...maybe. How flowers are there for me when i need them the most. Tolerating the dozen times a day i'll ask him what he's thinking, or describing how i'm feeling in excruciating detail.

And how it feels when we make plans for now or the future, as if we're plotting against the world together.

i love him.

Second Civil War.

So the christ hate machine is smug with superiority over their recent electoral 'wins' throughout the country.

Congratulations.

You have successfully stripped and/or suppressed the legal lives of others, and crushed their ability to create loving, monogamous relationships and stable family units.

But then again, you've also torn children from their parents before, under the fantasy directives of your imaginary, invisible overlord in the sky. So i'm sure we'll see even worse in the future.

How very christian of you.

In some of my darker moods, i wonder if it wouldn't be better if this country just ripped itself in half and started over, sans the religious oppression.


Let's take a look at the breakdown of that hypothetical conflict, courtesy of an anonymous poster, shall we?

'Blue states have 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. Red states get to wage a war with a fraction of funding it's adversary has. Blue states get two-thirds of the tax revenue. Red states and their "taxes are unpatriotic" policy gets to figure out how to pay for the war while running low on business income *and* public tax income.'

'Aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower in blue states than in red states, thereby offering the Blue state army a vastly higher motivated fighting force than the millions of red state Christian Coalition footsoldiers who just got divorced.'

'Blue states have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. Blue states will clearly have a massive advantage when it comes to supplying their troops with both food and water, not to mention a vastly superior R&D team to increase their military's fighting potential.'

'Red states have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs, which they will all have to pay for out of pocket), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. Clearly the red states will have a much more difficult time waging war with a bunch of fat, unsupported, demotivated soldiers who think God will save them from the immensely superior Blue army. Not to mention Bob Jones U. will be the best they've got in terms of intelligent minds in their R&D fields to support their military's technology.'

'It wouldn't even be a war.'

Sounds tempting.

Parental Supervision.

Used against you, and your adult will. For massive profit or political threat suppression, both done in the name of 'public safety'.

If you don't like it, just vote. You still have that vague right. After all, it's a theocratic, semi-free, developing police-state.

Partial excerpts from MSNBC.

'Is it the huge profits the government and their cohorts, the camera manufacturers, make on them? The District doubling the number of tickets it issued just two years ago, raking in $36 million last fiscal year? The fact that Redflex, one of the big manufacturers of these cameras, posted a 48 percent jump in revenue last year while the rest of the economy tanked?'

'Three cities Tuesday — two in Ohio, one in Texas — voted to rip the things down. In College Station, Tex., the camera manufacturer and their subcontractors reportedly spent $60,000 campaigning to keep them in place, more than five times the amount raised by the opposition, and lost anyway. Voters in Chillicothe, Ohio, went against the cameras at a rate of 72 percent. In Heath, Ohio, the mayor got caught removing anti-camera campaign signs from an intersection. He, and the cameras, got sent packing.'

'Nationwide, there have been something like 11 elections on automated enforcement. Your vote total: Revolting Peasants 11, Machines 0.'

'A handful of cities used them a decade ago. Now they're in more than 400, spread across two dozen states.'

'Ash, the College Station activist, started his campaign because he said they were a violation of due process, that there was no appeal beyond a municipal hearing. Red-light or speed cameras or both are banned in all or part of 14 states. The Republican governor of Mississippi kicked them out of the Magnolia State earlier this year. The Democratic governor of Montana did the same in July. Sulphur, La., put the issue to a vote in April — and 86 percent of the populace voted to get rid of them.'

'Man, in Arizona, people are hot.'

'The sheriff of Pinal County, Paul Babeu, took office in January and got rid of all the speed cameras the next day. Says they don't cut down on accidents, that they tie fundraising to law enforcement and that they render people "guilty until proven innocent."

'Overseas, people in Finland have destroyed them with explosives. Vandals in Britain attack them at the rate of 100 a year.'

'This newspaper investigated red-light camera safety records in the District four years ago, had a panel of three traffic scholars review the numbers . . . and found that not only the number but the rate of accidents had increased, sometimes doubled, at intersections with red-light cameras. Virginia Tech did a study of Fairfax's red-light cameras before the jurisdiction got rid of them in 2005, studying four years of data. The thesis looked at red light intersections, intersections without cameras but a longer yellow light, and a control group with no cameras and not-so-long yellow lights. The finding was that there was "no statistical difference" in the number of crashes with red light cameras and the others.'

'In 2006, the British Medical Journal looked at hospital admissions from car accidents over the previous eight years. The authors reported that "Hospital statistics show that there has been no appreciable reduction in injuries.'

And from Daily Mail.

'Britain has one and a half times as many surveillance cameras as communist China, despite having a fraction of its population, shocking figures revealed yesterday.'

'There are 4.2 million closed circuit TV cameras here, one per every 14 people.'

'As far as surveillance goes, Britain has created the blueprint for the 21st century non-democratic regime.'

'It is estimated that Britain has 20 per cent of cameras globally and that each person in the country is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.'

'The Chinese Government revealed the number of cameras it has as it announced plans to expand CCTV surveillance. It began widespread installation of cameras in 2003 to bolster its system of extreme state control which hails back to the dark days of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.'

'It said the increase would 'put the safety of the broad masses of the people first and foremost.' It also intends to combine surveillance cameras with new face recognition software, which has raised concerns about how the equipment will be used.'

'Figures released today showed that in Britain the number of Big Brother snooping missions by police, town halls and other public bodies has soared by 44 per cent in two years. One request is made every minute for officials to spy on someone's phone records or email accounts.'

From Los Angeles Times.

'Reporting from Lancaster, Pa...some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town's many tourists.'

'Mary Pat Donnellon, head of Mission Research, a local software company, vowed to move if she finds one on her block. "I don't want to live like that," she said. "I'm not afraid. And I don't need to be under surveillance."

"No one has the right to know who goes in and out my front door," agreed David Mowrer, a laborer for a company that supplies quarry pits. "That's my business. That's not what America is about."

'Hundreds of municipalities -- including Los Angeles and at least 36 other California cities -- have built or expanded camera networks since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In most cases, Department of Homeland Security grants helped cover the cost.'

From Popular Mechanics.

'In the old days, ordinary people didn't have much privacy, but neither did big shots. By contrast, today's government officials and big corporations often want to watch us, but they don't want to be watched in return. Shopping malls are full of security cameras, but many have signs at the entrance telling customers that no photography or video recording is allowed. Police cars have dashboard cameras, cities and counties are posting red-light and speed-limit cameras, and it seems that the dream of many government officials is to put every public space under 24-hour video watch. But try shooting photos or video of police or ?other public officials as they go about their business and you might find yourself in wrist restraints.'

'In recent months such cases have been piling up. Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pa., was a passenger in his friend's car when the police pulled the vehicle over for speeding. When Kelly began videotaping, he was arrested and charged with violating a state wiretap statute and thrown in jail overnight.'

To 'Serve' and to 'Protect'.

Unsolicited Offers.

A quick note.

My email address, blog responses, youtube comments, and facebook account are for friends, family, acquaintances and strangers who have something amusing, harmless or thought-provoking to say, as a stand-along comment, question, or reaction they would like me to hear.

And i welcome all of them. Even if they are critical.

One the other hand, i am not interested in becoming a tool for your agenda.

Put simply, i am not interested in your election, erection or congregation. And trying to develop an artificial online friendship with me just for said goals is not something i'm interested in either.

My vote, my body and my soul are for whomever i choose to give them up to. Unless i specifically ask for communication to help fill a void in any of those three areas in my life, consider me good.

My answer to your offer with any of them will be no.

Halloween!

At some point today i will take a very long nap, because i haven't really slept between yesterday and today. But it was so fun!

We went through a haunted house, and then went drinking and dancing all night. What else is there to say? There were people everywhere who had their imaginations turned loose. i love this holiday so much!



When i was a child, my mother let me be myself. She 'sensed something' back then, and had no problem with it, being the loving, open-minded and independent woman that she is. As i got older, the men in her life put a stop to it, and eventually wouldn't even let me dress up how i wanted for Halloween.

When i was five, one of them relented and allowed it. i was so excited about it, i couldn't decide if i wanted to be the wicked witch or the good witch of Oz. So i split the difference and went with the wicked witch's skin and the good witch's hair.

i was five. Cut me a break!

Witch pictures from then and now (with another old one thrown in sans make-up for better recognition).






i've mentioned before how i got to see the original hat.

The day after a holiday is like saying goodbye to a good friend you won't see again for another year. i can't wait for the next one!

Everything Is Connected.

And there are no fairy tales to match the endless bounds of reality.

Creepy Stories.

Specifically, creepy stories i've seen here and there on the intrawebz. Microwaved and served up again for anyone who may have not read them before. Why?

Because it's Halloween, that's why!

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A few years ago, a mother and father decided they needed a break, so they wanted to head out for a night on the town. They called their most trusted babysitter. When the babysitter arrived, the two children were already fast asleep in bed. So the babysitter just got to sit around and make sure everything was okay with the children. Later that night, the babysitter got bored and went to watch TV, but she couldn't watch it downstairs because they did not have cable downstairs (the parents didn't want children watching too much garbage).

So, she called them and asked them if she could watch cable in the parent's room. Of course, the parents said it was okay, but the babysitter had one final request... she asked if she could cover up the angel statue outside the bedroom window with a blanket or cloth, at the very least close the blinds, because it made her nervous. The phone line was silent for a moment, and the father who was talking to the babysitter at the time said, "Take the children and get out of the house... we will call the police. We do not have an angel statue."

The police found all three of the house occupants dead within three minutes of the call. No angel statue was ever found.


A young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. When night approaches, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows but one won't close.

She decides to leave it unlocked and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.

In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog.

Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub.

Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog's blood are the words "HUMANS CAN LICK TOO".


This is, so far, a very well done scary story told in the format of an ongoing video diary. Although there are sixteen chapters so far, many of them are no more than a minute long. It doesn't take too much effort to catch up.



One last little one...or i'll be here all day.