Progress in Florida, continued

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20100324/NEWS01/3240319

Apparently I didn't read the original story right. The Leon County Commission voted yesterday, 4-3, to tentatively approve the measure. The final version won't be ready until late April, with a public hearing scheduled for May. I hope this thing passes. The comments posted there and on another news site are all negative. One commenter said that they accepted gays, but "couldn't get past the transgender thing".

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I was out in the yard watching my nephews for a bit this afternoon while dinner was being prepared. They were playing with a miniature badminton/tennis set, but they weren't using as intended. They're six and seven, so I cut them some slack. Anyway, I glanced away for a moment, and I hear the youngest shout, "You hit my boob!".

I turned around to see what was wrong. His brother whacked him high up on the chest, almost at the shoulder, with a ball. I told him, "That's your chest. Little boys don't have boobs."

I can't believe I said that.

Progress in Florida

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20100321/NEWS01/3210329

I have MSNBC set to feed me headlines from the Tallahassee Democrat, what passes for a local newspaper around here. I haven't been here long enough to get a feel for the local politics, or most of the news that pops up, but the headline on this one caught my eye:

"Leon County mulls LGBT rights"

Leon County is where I live, and they're preparing to debate proposed legislation which would prevent discrimination in the workplace and housing against individuals for being G, L, B or T. I might try to get to the city center Wednesday to see what happens. This is especially of interest to me because I'm still looking for work.

On a related note, I met another trans person last weekend. She's a friend of a friend. She's not under a doctor's direct care, but she's taking hormones, and growing breasts. We had a couple of disagreements. One of them was based on her insistence that I should give up my beloved heels in order to better pass. I thought they stopped telling tall GGs not to wear heels years ago. Why the double standard for transwomen?

I miss my people in Virginia. I know I'm lousy at maintaining contact with people, and I can feel the support from afar, but I miss having someone to hug. No offense to Mister Sock.

Weird, but Okay

Last Friday evening I was detailed to baby-sit my nieces while everyone was out of the house. Actually, there wasn't much sitting involved, as the children are mostly self-sufficient. Sarah, who is 14, is usually competent to look after the rest, who are 10 and 11. Mostly I was asked to keep an ear out in case they got rambunctious or needed help with dinner.

I went out into the garage to rummage through boxes from the move. I've got most of my clothes in the house, and some of my jewelry, but I've misplaced the box containing my stud earrings. After a short, frustrating search, I was called back into the kitchen to help Sarah with dinner. She asked me what I was looking for, and I told her I was looking for my earrings. She gave me that look. Then she looked down at my feet (I got a pedicure last week) and pronounced that all I needed was a dress, heels and a tiara, and I could be a princess. She was joking.

I told her I was only missing the tiara.

I broke down and gave her the CliffsNotes version. She asked a couple of questions, which I answered, then she told me I was "weird, but okay."

It's a little thing, but I'll take my acceptance wherever I can find it. Small steps, right?

All Is Forgiven

I spent the last post venting my spleen, even though I didn't go into specifics. Today Florida showed a glimmer of being the land I thought I'd escaped to. We went out this morning to catch my nephews' last soccer games of the season, and the high temp today was 68 degrees. I was running around in a tee shirt in late February, and it wasn't some fluke of climate change. I am not 100% pleased with my living circumstances, but at least there was a small payoff in the weather.

Still Here, More or Less

I've been meaning to update this blog for several days, but I don't like to whine, and the last few drafts have quickly devolved into litanies of everything that hasn't gone right since the move. Just typing out that last sentence cranked up my blood pressure by a few degrees, so I'll try to stay positive. Or not.

Let me say this: if I had known life here was going to be like this, I'd have used the money for my plane tickets to place my things in storage and moved into a homeless shelter before coming to Florida. I'll write a bit more when I can compose a thought without conjuring my own hate and discontent.

Getting There

This was supposed to be my first post from Tallahassee, but things didn't exactly go according to plan. Before I get into that, let me recap the events since my last post.

Last Monday, we got the truck looked at. $1200 is a conservative estimate of the cost to fix everything. Even if I had the money, there was no guarantee the truck would make the trip, so we ended up selling it to a neighbor for $300. I booked a flight to Tallahassee out of Richmond, and made arrangements with another neighbor to get there.

Tuesday morning I went out and picked up my pre-order copy of Mass Effect 2. It is everything I could have hoped for in a game and more. It gave me something to do with my spare time between packing and sleeping last week.

Tuesday night was my last full shift at the hotel, but I made the mistake of letting them know that I had signed on to work until Wednesday, so I got dragooned into coming in for a couple of hours Wednesday night to show the new guy the ropes.

We spent Thursday and Friday packing out the apartment. You never realize how much stuff you own until you're trying to move. I packed up three or four boxes of clothes, and two plastic totes full of shoes, plus another four boxes of model kits.

Friday night saw the beginning of the worst winter storm Hampton Roads has seen since 1980. Our area got somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve inches of snow. It snowed, then sleeted, then snowed some more, and left the area blanketed in ice. Nate got the moving truck Saturday morning. We loaded all but a few essentials before calling it a day, and walked out to London Boulevard for pizza.

Sunday morning we finished packing, and Nate hit the road around 1500. I overnighted with a neighbor, and we got on the road to come to Richmond around 1000. My flight left for La Guardia, NY at 1450, and we arrived in New York a little after 1600. The next leg brought me from New York to Atlanta, GA a little after 1900.

Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson airport is a frakking zoo! From the arrival gate, I went down, and down, and down a long, long concourse back to the main terminal, only to travel down and escalator, go around a corner, and up another escalator, to reverse myself going up the other side of the terminal. I got held up in security lines, and got to my gate just in time to see the plane pulling away.

They put me on standby for another flight at 2249. Standby means you're waiting to see if there's an open seat. I was given the last seat, only to arrive at the plane and find the aircraft already full. So I'm spending the night in a nice hotel (the Sheraton Gateway), and I get to go back to the airport in the morning, and will hopefully arrive in Tallahassee a little after 0900. Wish me luck, or pray for me, or whatever you people do. In any case, I'll appreciate the thought.

I did get lots of nifty photos. :-)