Every Day Make Progress (Resolutions #4, 6 & 7)

In my efforts to simplify, I chanced upon a spare DVD drive when purging my technology. Whoo-hoo! As I type, DrEvil (my entertainment PC) is now digitizing two DVDs at a time. No matter how long it takes to do a task, you can't help but feel a great sense of achievement when you shorten by one-half the time required.

And if that feels great, imagine taking a task was going to take an infinitely long time and reducing it to a finite time. Yeah, that feels good too. I've started scanning! What was never going to be finished (cause I hadn't made any progress on it) is now started! Random Task (my printer/scanner/fax/etc) is busy scanning in my notes from high school. Yes... notes from high school. Mostly (typewritten!) reports and such. Also in this batch are all of my college essays (dot-matrix printouts from a Vax system that doesn't exist). I never had these documents in any lasting digital format (or lost the ones I did) so it feels good to scan them in. In fact, some of them were done on a Commodore 64! It will feel better to reduce this filing cabinet of papers down to a deck of cards.

Speaking of cards... making progress on that front too. I've started writing the program that will analyze all of my poker tournaments from this year. Problem is, I didn't have the tool written back in Jan, when I started recording them. I figured it was better to save them, even if it was in a format that I'd have to deal with later. Well... the tool I eventually used (I should have used mine from the start) creates Flash movies.

So, I've written a tool (in Flash) to view these movies and find what are my strengths, weaknesses, how I can win more chips and lose less. That means writing a Flash program to view/analyze flash recordings of my games, AND getting Flash to save JPEG images. Trivial for any real programming language, but in Flash, it requires (in the simplest case) running a Web server and communicating with a PHP script (which actually does the .jpg creation and saving.) Insane! Especially since I've nearly finished the real program written in Java ( should have used that from the start).

The insanity of Flash is also why I just quit my freelance job. (I got fired from my real job for being a transsexual, but this was a client I've freelanced for a few years now.) I just couldn't work they way they work. Which is to say, I couldn't continue to build high-quality kick-ass systems - on the fly - forever in the face of constantly changing requirements. And building them in Flash (for reasons discussed above) just made it worse. When I realized they couldn't build what they want using the technologies they insist on using, I tried to tell them, but they wouldn't listen to the to the only one with the degree in software engineering! LOL! Fine, but when I realized they didn't appreciate what work I was doing, I figured it was long past time to go. Darren, I made miracles for you; I hope you see it someday... so long, and thanks for all the fish!

Happy Leap Day!

Even a shop open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is closed for 6 hours a year!

One of our earth years (a complete orbit around the sun) does not take an exact number of days (one complete spin of the earth on its axis). It takes 365.2422 days, give or take.

The leap year was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46BC, to make the calendar tidier. The extra day every fourth year made the average year 365.25 days long. This was still about 12 minutes longer than the solar year, which you can get away with on the short term, but in 1267 a monk called Roger Bacon noticed that the calendar had slipped nine days in the 13 intervening centuries.

It then took the church until 1582 to accept that it was celebrating Easter on the wrong week. That year Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the calendar, introducing the system we go by today: every fourth year is a leap year, unless it is divisible by 100 and not by 400. This makes the year 365.2425 days, which is still a little under 26 seconds too long, but nothing to fret about. (Unless you live more than 1,000 years, and even then, it's only about 10 hours.)

As a one off, Gregory's reform also skipped the 10 days they had gained since Caesar's time, jumping from 4 to 15 October 1582. It is said that this provoked demonstrations from people demanding their stolen days back.

This gives me pause... what would happen if the Pope said that tomorrow would really be April 1st... While people might not fear the time has been subtracted from their lives (I hope), they might protest wages lost from their bank account. Since life is real and money isn't, we might not have progressed so much after all.

Gets My Goat!

I'm disgusted to even show this. In fact, I'm not... you're just going to have to click to see this photo of Afghans playing Buzkashi in Kabul.

Buzkashi... doesn't sound that offensive...

Buzkashi, or "goat dragging", is played with two teams of horsemen competing to throw a decapitated goat into a scoring circle.

Wha-wha-what?

Get these people some Polo equipment, or at least a soccer ball! Good god, throwing headless goats... as a game?

I don't get American rodeo sport events either. In fact, I don't really get men at all. This is what too much testosterone will do! An otherwise sensible human being throwing dead goats for fun.

I suppose if you're a rancher this might be a useful skill... for those times when you have to gather and burn the dead from a nearby village slain by your local Taliban... oh, did I just say that out loud?

Stating the (not-so) Obvious

Apparently, to the eyes of the 'normals' there isn't much difference between the people in the above photos. At the risk of stating the obvious, please allow me to state the obvious.

Transsexuals: These are the transgendered ladies in the left column... you would not think of them as men. They look and act like normal women, and think of themselves as women.

Transvestites and Cross-Dressers: The are the straight men in the middle column. You would think of them as dudes in a dress. They don't look or act like women, and they don't think of themselves as women. For various reasons, they just like wearing women's clothes - often with a wig. (The top one is a famous comedian, Eddie Izzard, bonus cool points if you knew that - the man's a genius!)

Drag Queens: These are the gay men in the the right column, usually provocatively dressed, and in a wig. You might think of them as women, you might not. They might look like women, but even if they don't, they act as an exaggeration of an (their) ideal woman. They don't think of themselves as women, but as gay men.

What to make of all this?

Well, since only transsexuals think of themselves as women, they are the only ones who might elect to undergo SRS (Sexual Reassignment Surgery) and they all take hormones. Since they consider themselves woman, if they are into men, they don't think of themselves as gay (because they're a woman...women are into men.) Most people think I'm 'straight' because I've never been with a guy, but I would consider myself more like a gay woman than a straight man.

In reality... I no longer see 'gender' as a 'requirement' (or barrier) for a soul mate. In fact, the labels 'gay' and 'straight' are meaningless to me... I'm into minds and personalities.

If all the labels confuse you, why not check out my earlier post on the Four Dimensions of Gender?

The Psychology of Parasites

We have learned so much about humans and human behavior by studying the behavior of other animals like us (and unlike us). But I wonder, what can we learn by studying the behavior (and evolutionary traits) of the single-celled life forms, bacteria, and parasitic organisms of which we ourselves are comprised?

(You did know you are a compound life form, right? What you perceive as your body is really just a complex ecosystem sustaining many different and exotic forms of life. Cool, eh?)

So I've recently read Parasite Rex, a book given to me by my dear friend Aosof from the Royal Society. He gave it to me a while ago, after he met Mr. Zimmer (it's his job to do that sort of thing), but I've only just been able to read it. Meeting him must have been some experience! This book is a eukaryote's and prokaryote's eye view of life... and it is AMAZING!

Imagine this... you are a complete "animal," yet you are too small to be see with a human's unaided eye (click the book cover). In other words, a white blood cell could kick your ass. Yet, in your world, you could be drifting along in a ocean (really just a river) and follow a cloud of urine upstream and into the body of some animal where you'd get into the kidneys and then bloodstream where you are now free to completely roam around the body until you find a new place to call home, perhaps the intestines, where you could be assured of a steady supply of food with no competition or threats.

Yeah, there's life like that. Pretty amazing little creature, eh? In his book, Carl describes this and other more exotic life forms that can actually manipulate the behaviors of their hosts! Seriously, it's a script right out of an Alien movie, except it's real life.

Some of these creatures can build hard shells around them (cysts) for when then environment gets too rough... no water, food, wrong temperature, etc. These cysts can survive for many, many years, even through unprotected space travel. Really neat!

Whether human or microscopic creature, we both have the same basic needs... to find food and shelter. So my point is... what lessons can we learn from studying creatures like that and applying their successful strategies to the macro world? We are just now using this knowledge to create better cures for diseases, but are there non-medicinal lessons to be learned as well?

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Before I was conscious, I was communicating.
I knew not what I said, but said what I knew.
Now, remnants of those converstations are being preserved,
Scanning letters from pen-pals, and some men-pals,
Like an archeologist preserving old bones.

The ebb and flow of friends, reduced to just memories.
Emma, Tuomas, Severine, M. Columbier too,
Brian, Melissa, Jana, Holly, I remember you.
Though I was just a passing shadow on your screen of life,
Your words were kept, your friendship never dies.

Sometimes we're rich, and sometimes lean, but sometime inbetween we'll meet again.

Your daily inspiration...

In death, time ceases to have meaning; all laws of physics become irrelevant.

Death is the opposite of time.

What dies? Certainly not the body; it just falls into its constituent parts of water and chemicals. That's just mere transformation, not destruction. What of the mind though?

What dies is merely the identity of the collection of parts we call a person. We enter this world naked, we leave it naked; once we understand who that someone is, death no longer bothers us. Nor does time.

Over-educated, Over-worked, Under-paid and Under-appreciated

My niece is dropping out of school at 15. My friend has two kids- neither one with any high school education. How can I assure someone that an education is important?

That may sound silly coming from me, but consider I've taken 85 courses at three different universities, excelled at nearly all of them, and yet... what do I have to show for it? I can make more money selling my body than I can selling my mind. Not that my body is all that... but that's the point!

So how can I assure someone that an education is important when my own has failed to bear fruit? How can I defend the institution I'm from when I can make more money as a whore?

If not money, then what about culture? Well, I can't relate to my family because they watch network TV sitcoms instead of reading books; education didn't help there either.

The only reason I could come up with was because an education is required to do X. But... what if 23 years later, turns out X really isn't what you want to do?

Two Kinds of Violence...

Did you realize that not all violence is created equal?

The difference between watching violence in a movie and in the news is very subtle, but very, very significant.

Consider watching, say, an explosion, or a car crash...
In a movie, the violence is fake. No one really dies.
But watch the same thing on the news, and you're watching someone die.

There's a difference, and whether or not you can feel it, there's a difference on your soul!

Consider that next time they show an event where someone (or many people) dies over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Your daily perspective...

You are what you eat... you know this right?

In the same way that the food you consume provides the building blocks your body needs to function (grow, fight germs, heal, etc.) so too does the media you consume provide the building blocks for your mind.

Seriously.

So what's you're media diet? As an example, consider music.

A person who consumes media content rich in classical music will have a different life outlook than one with a diet rich in pop, or rock, or rap, or heavy metal, or even jazz. (I love music; I'm not making value judgments here, just making facts.)

Works for video too. A person who watches too much violence not only becomes more desensitized to it (over-exposure to anything desensitizes) but they, over time, will develop violent tendencies.

Nonsense, you say... I watched Bugs and Daffy cause (and suffer) lots of violence, and it didn't effect me! Well, that wasn't violence, that was humor. Think about it... Pulp fiction is (supposed to be) violent... Bugs Bunny is (supposed to be) funny. When the bomb blows up Mr. Coyote, his face is all blackened and his hair blown back. That's funny. If it showed his guts flying through the air and blood everywhere, that's violent. Family Guy drives this point home in a spoof where Elmer shoots Bugs. Instead of the normal "cartoon violence, " we see graphic images of Bugs writhing in pain, disemboweled, with Elmer standing over him, delivering a final neck break.

I'm uneasy about making violence funny, too. There's just too damn much of it, especially to be used as a vehicle for entertainment. Shrug. Maybe it's just a symptom.

Well, hear me now, believe me later, but it's for the same reason why brainwashing works. Constant, repeated exposure alters behavior.
Constant, repeated exposure alters behavior.
Keep that in mind next time you pan through the TV guide!

Short Attention Span Theatre

I'm a bit shocked at the quickness in which Americans tend to forget, and at the same time (and for the same reasons), concerned about this election turning into Political Pop Idol.

Possible causes?

• Too much media prevents long term retention of any of it.
• The media is hyped (and hyping) uncontrollably
• Americans are so numb, they need actually need the hype to notice/care
• Americans are so hooked on drama, they need to interject it into everyday life

Well, don't forget, you are what you eat!

Plain Jane

Today marks a significant point during my transition: today, I went out with no makeup and plain clothes and was treated like a genetic girl! Yay!!!

To put it in other terms, when I first started trying, I hardly ever passed as genetic girl (GG)... I looked like a boy in girl's clothes. That was over a decade ago.

When I'm done transitioning, I expect to always pass as a GG.

So, today, I'm somewhere between 0% and 100%. Most people now see (and treat) me as a woman, but every now and then someones sees me as a boy (but even then, they still treat me as the woman they first saw! :)

This is new! Just within the past year, I finally started passing as a GG! Before that, if I was ignored, I'd pass, but when scrutinized... no. You can imagine how happy it made me to finally pass under a closer look!

Makeup (until recently) was essential, for I have pale skin and dark hair. But, after nearly two years of laser hair removal treatments, I finally have a 24 hour shelf life!

Also, learning to do my hair helped a lot! (Thanks Judith and the girls at Cortex!)

It honestly makes me as happy to pass as GG as it did finishing my Ph.D.! (It also felt just as traumatic getting there!)

So today I'm still not as confident as I want to be... I don't bring attention to myself yet, but after today, that seems closer than ever!

Music ... Food for the Geek

I'm so excited to have just rediscovered a large library of music (250+ hours) that I have not heard for nearly 20 years! Not just any music, mind you, but music that deeply inspired my own compositional style!

Wanna hear for yourself? Okay, check out the following two links, but don't worry about the graphics or what they are, I'll explain that later... for now, just listen to the music.

• Unreal
• Second Reality

Perhaps an explanation is in order? First some context on the music. Nearly 20 years ago, while in college, I was writing music for video games. This was a significant challenge for me because I was used to composing music using MIDI sequencers and synthesizers. In video games, the computer became the instrument.

Recall that this is before .mp3s and before the comparatively huge resources computers have now... back then, most computer programs were under 1.44Mb (they fit on a floppy disk) and most computers had, if you were lucky, 1/2 Mb of RAM available for everything... the operating system, the program, and the music. A typical mp3 is six times that large!

So, making music on a PC, or making a PC make music, was tricky business! When I started we only had four 'voices' where a voice could be a sampled recording. Again, there wasn't mp3 compression back then, so the samples had to be TINY (and recorded at awful quality) or you wouldn't have enough memory to play it. When I stopped (because grad school got too hard), we had 16-track editors, but again, you didn't have much memory to work with.

That first link above? Just four voices! The second one? Eight.

But what about the video? Have you ever heard of the PC Demo scene? The idea, back then, was to show off the processing power of the mighty 386. Again, this was waaay before today's quad and dual-core Pentiums. Your mobile phone is probably faster now. Amigas were doing it for a while, and they would have parties where groups of kids (programmers) would write these elaborate presentations filled with (then) mind-blowing graphics and animations ... you know ... things never before seen on a computer? That kind of stuff. As a young college student learning advanced math, computer architecture, and assembly programming, I was instantly hooked.

You had to be clued in to find them... this was before the Web. They were mostly European-based parties. And since it was a party, attended by people who were into real-life discos, the music had to rock as well.

It was all incredibly synergistic... listening to that music, watching the computer do animation tricks I'd never seen before, while at the same time gaining the knowledge needed to understand how they were built. It was also my first exposure to Rave/Trance/Dance/Electronica music, and I didn't know what to make of it. I couldn't break it down like songs on the radio because it was mostly effect-based, but I fell in love with it. I searched out every composer in the scene, every demo, and I saved those tiny music files. It was my first data-harvesting experience.

You know I save (and organize) everything digital, right?

So now, nearly 20 years later, imagine my surprise when I realized that the same mp3 player I've been using since that time (Winamp) plays all those files! With its help, I've now taken those 400 songs and turned them into mp3s! Listening to them is like a comforting reunion with an old friend... I'm filled with the energy and joy I once had... before the gender dysphoria set in... before life got complicated.

I can't wait to see the effect that consuming all this music will have on my composing! :)

Send me an email if you want a copy! (Oh, as an example of how tiny the sound files had to be... all 4,543 songs are less than 972 MB as originals; as mp3s, they are 16 GB! That's a 16-to-1 reduction over MP3s, which are themselves 10-to-1 reductions of CD-quality audio!)

Fast food, faster buildings...

I can't keep up! You've heard me complain that all Muncie has is fast-food restaurants, right?

Tell me if this makes sense.

TacoBell builds a new building, three blocks away from their old one. They then close the old one and leave the building decrepit.

Bob Evans does the same thing, but they build their building in the parking lot and then tear town their old one.

Then another TacoBell store on the other side of town does the same thing.

This is what you get if you believe in things like "the economy" ... madness!

And, just for fun...

There is a new restaurant opened up ... on the building it says, "Authentic Mexican," and on the same sign underneath, "We sell Gyros!"

Since when did the Mediterranean become a part of Mexico?

I thank God everyday the only sushi restaurant within 50 miles of me (itself just one mile away) is also the highest quality sushi restaurant I've seen. It's the only place I eat out at in this town.

Trans... not gender! Transcoding! (Resolution #4)

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” — Henry David Thoreau

Been going through a lot of old media lately, converting most of it to a common format. At this very second, there's one computer busy burning DVDs to disk (275 down, approx. 200 to go), one computer converting VHS tapes to mpg files (56 down, 18 to go), and one converting paper to jpg files. That's going to take a while. I mean, once the books are done, then there's the sheet music, and then all of the folders and papers from 10th grade through 23rd grade. (I'm not kidding!) That's the easy part... scanning the books is what I'm not looking forward to.

Fortunately, all CDs were converted long ago as was most video and photographs.

Why do this? If not just to simplify my environment and reduce entropy (dissolve it, actually), then think of space... right now what non-digital media I have occupies two bookshelves, a filing cabinet, and three boxes. I could reduce all of that down - with no loss in quality- to something the size of a deck of cards.

I don't even want to think of the work saved in moving just one more time.

It's all part of a larger plan for a happy life:

Step one, eliminate non-essential material goods. Toys, gadgets, knick-knacks, clothes, everything not needed, and everything which doesn't do something in the simplest way.

Step two, digitize personal media.

The result? Light living! It's scary at first, but is freeing at the same time.

In case you're curious, all together, everything will fit on three stackable, 1-terabyte drives, altogether about as large as a shoebox. Not bad for every photo, CD, DVD, book, notebook, VHS tape, cassette, and CD-ROM I've ever owned, ay? Still, I look forward to 10 terabytes in your pocket, or better yet, on a chip! :)

197 DVDs to go...
16 VHS tapes to go...
172 Books to go...
13 years of school notes to go...

My First Day In London; My First Protest

This day in herstory...
My first sightseeing day in London, February 15, 2003. I take the tube from the Queensbury area and alight at the Westminster exit and find myself immersed in the above... and below!

You remember the "Million Man" march on Washington? This was 5 times larger, and I unwittingly popped up from underground right in the middle of it!

My first day outside America, and already I'm an activist!

A Dream Defined (Resolution #7)

I think I got fired today because I'm transgendered. No matter, I was going to quit anyway; they weren't good people. The bad news is that I now don't have a job in Canada, making it harder to get a Visa. (That's why I hadn't quit yet.)

I guess it's no big deal cause the job I had wouldn't have supported living the lifestyle in VC I wanted, and as fate would have it, I had just prior stumbled upon an alternative path that has the potential to realize my fullest dreams there while also capitalizing on all my previous endeavors.

Moreover, it's a path which could lead toward providing a positive role model, not just for other transgendered persons, but for straight folks as well!

Curious?

• Step one: attend the last WSOP circuit event - conveniently held in the state where I live.
• Step two: play in 4 or 5 events, possibly the main event too (if things go very well).
• Step two and 1/2: win enough money to comfortably buy in the WSOP main event + Rio lodging.
• Step three: play in the WSOP final event
  
• Step three point nine: make the final table
• Step four point one: square up debts
  
• Step four point two: help out friends and family
• Step five: move to Vancouver (after staying in Atlanta for a good spell)
• Step six: compose music, write lyrics, produce music
• Step seven: finish my big ideas.
  

Don't you think a transsexual at the 2008 WSOP final table (and therefore on ESPN2 for the next year) might go a long way toward providing a positive image toward alternative genders? At the very least, it would make people think, and that couldn't be all bad!

Quotes from Blaise Pascal

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
Blaise Pascal

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Airline Rates Rise 1000%

One used to be able to fly all over Europe for one pound ($2), sometimes just 49 pence ($1). Now though it seems, Ryan air has done what it wanted to do and has moved on to stage two of it's business: ten pound ($20) flights all over Europe.

Still, it's better than the $200 I have to pay to travel around my region in the US.

(Don't believe me? Visit http://ryanair.com!

Always a traveller...

I just read my old travel diary from when I was 17 and jetting solo to France to spend some time with people I never met. Seemed like a good idea at the time (and in retrospect), but I was too American... I couldn't appreciate where I was and what I was doing, and the effect of being immersed in history and culture while at the same time, not really knowing much about it... well, the effects (along with culture shock) blew away my little mind.

I didn't get on well with my friends (they were all older and did two things: go to the beach (in Normandy) or go to the bar. Sounds ideal, but I was allergic to the Sun, and back then, very, very square. I didn't smoke, drink, or do any drugs at all, (LOL, not that you'd know it now!) and I was so young and high on life, I didn't much care to be around that kind of scene.

So, I ended up staying alone in Paris in a one-star hotel until I ran out of money, then spent a few nights at the airport until I could get a flight home on standby. I nearly got arrested for - I kid you not - playing a synthesizer (through headphones) in the restrooms! Turns out, I was stealing electricity. Who knew?

Looking back on the diary, I now realize that I'm a traveler. I mean, 15 moves in 15 years? And so I begin to look forward to the next trip. As I am (once again) on the verge of being homeless and jobless, I can't help but wonder... where to next?

You know, Eastern thought affirms that we are all travelers, and that the path of constant self-cultivation is a lonely one; yet one that we all must inevitably take if we are to derive true meaning from this existence. The only constant is change, right?

To have come so far... to have so far to go... to still be alone... will I ever cease yearning for stability and companionship? If so, will it be because I've met my soulmate, or because I've found inner peace?

And what does that make me anyway... a traveler who brings with her (in her purse) every important memory of her life? Imagine that... only the clothes on your back, yet contained on a small chip, in vivid detail, every sight, sound, thought, event, award, movie, song you've ever wanted to keep.

Is that the exemplar case of not being held down by material possessions, or is it technology-enabled self delusion, substituting material possessions with digital ones, and if so... does that matter, since it all fits in your pocket?

And what then, if such chip were lost... wouldn't that feel like losing a large part of yourself? (Yes, it would! Imagine losing everything in your home to a fire!) But... I can help to wonder, which inhibits growth more... having possessions or being without? From my experience, the things you own end up owning you... but is that because of their physical mass, or the psychological addictions they create?

My guess is that the physical mass sucks you in, weighs you down like gravity. Since I'm converting everything physical to digital over the next month, I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Not So Perfect

Since Jr. High, I've gotten the highest grade in every class I've taken except for one in high school, two at Michigan State, and two at Georgia Tech. Most people are impressed with the perfect record during my undergraduate years at Ball State, but I want to talk about the imperfect classes.

I got a 'B' in highschool for gym class my senior year. My teacher was Bill Harrell, the head coach of the Men's basketball team... you know, the one immortialized in the movie Hoosiers? He took our school to it's eighth state championship the year before and had, in my view, a disdain toward all non-basketball sports. He lowered my grade because I was doing 'dangerous dives' during our week of swimming. (We played basketball the other 20 weeks.) Although a backward, 1-1/2 sommersault 1-1/2 twists might look like a dangerous dive, I was just practicing my list of dives for the upcoming sectionals.

At Michigan State, I took a class on computer vision that thumped me hard, partly because the class required a knowledge of mathematics that at the time, was beyond majik to me. The follow-up course was more managable, but the math was still just as majikal.

That same year, I took a course on algorithmic graph theory, a real beast of a class, for it taught how to think like a generalized mathematical proof. I was more proud of not failing that class than I was of acing the others!

At Georiga Tech, my first class was one on computer language design. I hadn't yet learned to think in language grammars (word math) and that class was downright painful. The 2nd most painful class ever.

The most painful was an advanced mathematics course at Tech. After two straight weeks of not understanding even 5 minutes of any lecture, I dropped that class like Little Boy. It was an entire course on just one part of one theorem of some mathematician from the 1800s! I must have been on crack when I signed up for it initially.

So what did I learn?

>twirling hair<

Math is hard!

Saved By Simcoe (Resolution #2)

Today was another HUGE milestone day! I'm so excited, for although I am only taking one step, it is a large leap forward on my path to womanhood! Taking hormones can be viewed as just another sign of my commitment, but for me, today, it's so much more. Not only does it provide my body with 'vitamins' that I have been missing, but it brings me closer to female and further from male. I'm going to grow breasts... my body fat will redistribute... my skin will become softer... my hair will become fuller! Moreover, just being able to get a prescription for hormones has been a difficult endeavor, and I'm now indebted to the tranny who came before me through Indy. Let me explain.

While visiting my trannie friends in the SF Bay Area, they gave me enough estrogen and testosterone blockers for 2 1/2 months. (In pill form, they had since moved on to patch form and no longer needed the pills.) The original plan was to take the pills (once I got my life stable and in at least a not unsupportive environment) for a month, and if after that time I still felt like I wanted them, that I still wanted to become female, then I would continue taking them and during the second month, find a doctor who would then prescribe me the proper meds/blood tests, etc.

Well, I started on Oct. 4, 2007, just over two months ago. Unfortunately, I was turned down for even a visit by every endocrinologist around town. Turns out a transgendered person can't just go to a doctor for things sie needs, sie has to first get a psychiatric evaluation FOR TWO YEARS that says you're not insane, because, evidently, you must be insane if you want to change your gender. Oh no! :-/

I was down to my last week's worth of pills and did NOT want to interrupt my transformation, so you can imagine it was a stressful time!

Well, I stumbled across a tranny support board where someone ahead of me on the path recommended a doctor down in Indy that was 'sympathetic' to transgendered needs. Figuring that I'd at least get a referral to a shrink (who also won't accept trans visits w/o a doctor referral) I was at least happy to be making some forward progress.

Imagine my surprise, relief, and and joy when, after consulting with me for nearly an hour, he decided to prescribe hormones! Oh blessed man! He even offered to prescribe anti-depressants (cause most in my position are depressed, and if you didn't notice by earlier posts, I was, but I declined for a few reasons. Why? Well, that's another post. :)

So, I went from despair at the though of regressing, to bliss with a bone-fide prescription (with blood work tests scheduled!) all in one day! YAY!

Funny enough, it turns out, once you have the papers, you can go to Wal-Mart to get the drugs. I didn't (boycotting since 2001), but I did go to Target. It's interesting that the meds for something so exotic (changing your sex) can be gotten at places so common, even in small town America! It's because menopausal women take the estrogen, and the testosterone blockers are useful for certain kinds of prostate cancer. Who knew?

But that's how I feel... like I'm finally freeing my body from the cancer of testosterone... and she feels GREAT!

A Legal Sense of Humour (Resolution #3)

I filled all the paperwork at the courthouse today to legally change my name. YAY! This was a huge milestone!!!

Turns out, there's a lot you have to do (and a lot you have to pay!) In addition to lots of paperwork for the court, you also have to put an ad in the local paper for three weeks announcing the change, and you have to get the fact that you did so certified by the newspaper. You also have to pay the paper for the honor.

But, I did, and I strutted myself down to the paper from the courthouse in my stiletto boots and back again, and I was given a court date to appear in court.

Previously, my longest supporting friend asked me what my new birthday would be, and I didn't know what she meant. I had only just recently picked a new name!

When I got my court date, it was obvious what my new birthday would be... April 1st, 2008!

It seems life (and the court system) is not without a sense of humor!

A Great Start to a Great Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

• Resolution #1: Full time Clio; all Clio, all the time.
• Resolution #2: Doctor+Meds (to complete transition)
• Resolution #3: Make it all legal (Birth Certificate, D/L, Passport)
• Resolution #4: Digitize all media (books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, audio tapes, photos, papers)
• Resolution #5: Return to composing
• Resolution #6: Progress on private programs
• Resolution #7: Final table, WSOP
• Resolution #8: Forward progress on all previous resolutions

I didn't have a date this year, and I didn't want to go hang out in a smoky bar, but I did want to do something social so I played in a small (385 people) online poker tournament. The tourney started at 10pm and ended around 3am... I know cause I won! :)

I'll use the money to practice for the WSOP.

A promising start for the new year!

xoxo,
Clio

Worst Christmas Ever

Ever!

My family has a typical Midwestern approach to dealing with problems... ignore them and hope they go away.

Now, my family has gone from not talking about the white elephant in the room to actively insisting it isn't there.

After being obviously out to them for nearly two years, they refuse to call me she, or Clio, despite me looking like I do. Thanks mom! Thanks dad! (I pity them both.)

Worst Christmas Ever!

Swimming in the Gene Desert

Just found out today that I'm sterile. I went to the sperm bank a few days ago to make what I thought would be the first of a few deposits for after I'm on estrogen and no longer producing sperm. Too late. There will be no others like me. Genetically speaking, anyway.

At first, this caused me great pain. I mean, I didn't want kids now, but I did think of having them someday. I can't tell you how many people were insensitive to this by telling me that I can still adopt... I wasn't hurting because I thought I could never be a parent! There's a difference between being a parent and having a child.)

I didn't know if mom had given up on the idea of me having kids yet, so I was worried to tell her, but figured I should nonetheless. She's been pushing hard for nearly two decades so I figured knowing they would never come would be better than a futile hope.

When I told her how upset I was about this, she told me, more or less, to not worry about it because I would have probably made a lousy parent! LOL. I mean, literally, that's what she said, but in context, I took a deeper meaning from it, and in the end, her words did help.

You see, Ego was telling me that it was a waste for me not to have kids. If you knew me, that makes sense. However, I realized how little I connect or identify with the rest of my genetic family and that any kids I might have would have a much larger gene pool than just me to draw from... meaning my kids would probably be more like the rest of the family than me. Dunno if this is true or if my genes are more likely, but in any case, this seems very plausible, and if so, it is a pretty good reason to not feel sad!

Besides, we can change the world in many ways... we can have a child, pass along our genes and our knowledge... or, we could inspire a young mind with an idea... start a company that does world good... write a book that changes the outlook of millions, and so on.

And finally, I mused on the life of a spider family I've been living with. There's no food for a spider in my house, save one time a year when there are a few little wood bugs, but nonetheless, here comes one from a previous egg. I let it be, and watch it spin its web that will only collect dust. The life of this poor spider doesn't have much point (to me), and I'm forced to consider that maybe my own life is like that.

But even if it is, and I nonetheless desire to pass on my genes... there's always cloning!

On passing...

Okay, before reading any further, let's have some fun, shall we?

I want you to watch a video of two teams playing basketball, and I want you to count the number of times the team in the white shirts pass the ball.

Easy peasy, right? Here's the link, go on! You can do it!

Remember, count the # of passes by the white team!

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

+++ SPOILER ALERT! +++

How many times did the white team pass the ball?

Did you notice anything odd about the video? Did you see the gorilla waltz in the middle of the group and thump his chest before waltzing off?

For real, watch again if you missed.

If you did miss it, don't feel bad... amazing as it sounds, around 50% of people do!

In another experiment, a person standing in the lobby is approached by some stranger asking for directions. During the explanation, two men carrying a door walk right between the person and the stranger. During that time, the stranger is replaced by another completely different looking stranger. When done giving directions, the stranger asks the person if sie noticed that he's not the first person sie originally was talking to. Again, about 50% of people never notice!!!

Amazing, isn't it? Well, when I first started trying to pass (as a woman, not a basketball), I noticed a similar phenomenon. If on first glance, I appeared as a genetic girl to strangers, I tended to remain that way... it seems they expect me to be female, so they just continue assuming I am. Unless of course, they think I'm pretty, then I get scrutinized.

My Cali trannie friends have suggested that breasts are the most important trait for "presenting as female," but I've found hair to be equally important. Although both can be overcome with gloss/lipstick, heels (esp. stilettos) and earrings. Then again, you could have all of that and not pass if you walk, strut, or otherwise carry yourself like a man. Of course, if you have the legs for it, a skirt helps, but that will generally get you more attention, and thus, more scrutiny.

There will come a day soon where I'll always pass as a genetic girl, even in a swimsuit; I just gotta give the hormones time to do their majik. And when that happens, I'll look back on posts like this and go, phew! I'm glad that's over! :)

Jahiliyya - being ignorant of guidance from God

The last few days have been filled hosting for my Kuwaiti family. Yes... my Arab, Muslim family is now in the Midwest America... I felt obligated to show them a little culture while they visit the place furthest from.

If you ever read the 9/11 Commission Report (google "9/11 pdf"), it says that the roots of the fundamental Islamic movement can be traced to one man, Sayyid Qutb, sent by Egypt to study in the US during the 1940s (p.51). He was appalled by Western culture, saying we were affected by barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition known by Muslims as jahiliyya).

This was fine until he observed that jahiliyya was spreading, not just through the Western world, but also penetrating into Islam lands, thereby posing as a direct threat to Islam and her culture, caused by Western culture.

... there's more, but 60 years later, here we are, and simplistically, that's why 'they' hate 'us'... because our culture promotes god-lessness by worshiping money and actors, we advocate freedom but lack within ourselves the restraint needed to responsibly wield it, and we are barbaric; we don't care for our citizens and in some cases, even kill them, so how can we be civil to others?

Knowing that... I was in Kuwait 20 years ago and then, it looked like a middle-eastern city. Now they tell me with all of the corporations and media, it looks like an adjunct of America. Advertisements for Western companies are now peppered through the city. Western fashion with its emphasis on sexually evocative models line the store fronts. Etc., etc.

For what it's worth...

Of course, not all Muslims feel Western culture is undesirable, which causes further friction and fragmenting because that would appear to bolster Qutb's claims! (Now because of Westernism, Islam is being attacked from without and from within!)

I'm not sure we're entirely to blame for internal affairs within the Muslim world, but looking around at my America, I don't completely disagree with Qutb. I'm an ex-pat for precisely those reasons; I too feel the American people have lost their way. To me, it's self-evident in our apathy, obesity rates, drug use, materialism-as-substitute-for-love, and anger management issues.

Although I don't hate America for her decadence, it does cause me to blush.

Hello

We knew all along you can't keep a good girl down... but she's beginning to see the light!


And so the growth upward begins, not yet in favorable conditions, but with the knowledge that even in the worst... we always look for the best.

HRT starts today! (self-medicating)

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Goodbye

Reluctantly, and for health reasons, my consciousness has decided to implement an isolationist policy regarding my current circle of 'friends'. I am worn out from striving to be there and be helpful for my friends and, in return, always feeling let down and alone when I need help. In short, I'm fed up with being used, abused, and neglected. It all ends today. No more free information, no more free help, no more favors, no more meditation/prayers for them, no more no more.

We've officially hit bottom.

Signing off

A Pointless Debate...

I don't suffer fools well. I'm not sure if this is a virtue or a vice, but people must think me an opinionated, egotistical arse because of it.

Recently, I poo-pooed a slick-looking, HD-quality YouTube (oh sorry, GoogleTube) video of someone saying that Humans are not causing climate change. I was accused of having a closed, unenlightened mind because I refused to watch an hour+ long video on the grounds that I knew it was based on a scientifically invalid premise, yet it considered itself 'science'.

Here's some raw numbers in order to gain a perspective and to understand why I appear to be so dismissive.

But first, the summary.

=============================================
1- CO2 warms the planet
2- humans produced more CO2 in 50 years than found in the atmosphere over 400,000 years
3- humans are reducing plankton blooms, which 'eat' CO2
4- humans are reducing forests, which 'eat' CO2
=============================================

Humans are not only causing climate change but reducing the Earth's ability to self-regulate!!! Now comes the numbers and refs.

---

**Fact #1: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Uncontroversially, the more of it there is in the atmosphere, the warmer the Earth gets [1].

**Fact #2: There is around 750 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere with 800 billion tons dissolved in the oceans [2].

**Fact #3: The US alone has been putting 5 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere every year since 1990 [3]. That's 50 billion tons per decades, and I remind you, that this is long after America's peak industrial output. Looking at the rest of the world nations, the total annual output has gone from 10 billion tons (1960) to 25 billion tons (2000) PER YEAR [4]!

Very conservatively, that's 600 billions tons of CO2 produced in the past 50 years!!! Did you ever wonder why ice cores show we're at the highest concentrations of CO2 in the past 400,000 years [5]???

Now I'd be inclined to believe that despite this HUMAN influence, NATURE might self-balance, but HUMANS are also destroying the capability of NATURE to do this!

**Fact #4: Plankton convert CO2 from the air into Oxygen (supplying around 50% of the Oxygen in the atmosphere) while storing the CO2 in the ocean, but HUMANS are reducing this effect by destroying the ocean ecosystem by polluting the ocean with chemicals and by damming rivers which reduce sediment flow to the ocean. (Land sediment and the minerals in them are responsible for plankton blooms - it's what they 'eat'. Damn up the rivers, block the source of food for the bottom of the food chain [6] To put pesticides (things that kill living things) in the sediment is to put them in the base of the food chain.

While this seriously threatens our food supply, it is only one way human are causing/inducing/accelerating climate change by reducing the effect of the Earth to stabilize itself.

**Fact #5: Forests also convert C02 into Oxygen, the other major source of Oxygen in our atmosphere. HUMANS are reducing this natural conversion - causing a buildup of CO2 - by destroying forests. (For more forest facts, see [7] and [8])

---

You can come to your own conclusions, but don't think I have a closed mind simply because I won't entertain YouTube/Google videos of professor/skeptics saying that humans are not affecting the environment.

---

References:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

A Tale Of Two Tutus

In Nigeria, a group of men were arrested for dressing as Women. At first, they were charged with Sodomy, which carries a punishment of death. Yes, death... by stoning! Fortunately, that charge also requires four witnesses, so instead, they have been since been charged with "indecent dressing" and vagrancy. Vagrancy? Vaginacy, maybe...

Two weeks ago they were arrested. Only 5 of the 18 men could pay bail; the other 13 are still in jail.

In Uganda, being gay (which isn't the same as cross-dressing, btw, but try telling them a guy in a dress isn't gay) could get you life in prison.

However, in a bold display of juxtapositionalism, Sydney Australia seems to be okay with US Men In Tutus. And thus the phrase, "Toss another one on the Barbie," acquires a whole new meaning.

Your daily perspective...

1861 to 1865 - 600,000 people die (Americans kill Americans in civil war)

1929 to 1933 - 6,000,000 to 11,000,000 people die (Stalin ethnic cleanses)

August 6th, 1945 - 140,000 people die (American President Truman bombs Hiroshima)

August 9th, 1945 - 75,000 people die (Truman bombs Nagasaki)

(Holocaust deaths: 9,000,000 people)
(WWII deaths: 72,000,000 people, 47,000,000 civilians)

September 11, 2001 - 3,000 people die (Al-Qadea attacks New York)

December 26, 2004 - 225,000 people die (Indian Ocean earthquake)

... but which event gets/has the most press? Which is most important to you?

A Modest Proposal

A very, very, slick electric motor-driven car.

However, I wonder... from a physics standpoint... whether a car is gas or electric driven, it still must perform the same amount of work (W = F*d), right? So, if society driving too much (consuming too much energy) is the problem... would this be a solution, or a device that would keep people mired in their love affairs with driving by hiding the source of the energy? (E.g., burning fossil fuels to make electricity.)

I don't know if we fully understand yet all the implications of Ford's invention.

I do know that if everyone switched to electric cars, electricity costs would go through the roof; most companies already have brown outs in summer... can you imagine what the load would be with 2.4 cars per household charging up?

Hmm... biofuels make food more expensive, batteries make utilities more expensive... I know, let's make cars run on water! Yeah, let's grow food and water for machines while 1/3 of our population starves! Ah, if Jonathan Swift were alive today, instead of eating children, we'd be feeding them to our cars!

Your daily perspective...

I'm thankful for power and water NOT being the kind of election issue that it is in Sierra Leone.

Election business not all man business indeed!

Why I Won't Vote For President

Y'all can vote for bigots... I won't.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a leading US gay rights advocacy group, has just had a political debate on gay issues (broadcast on Logo).

Not one republican even responded!

Don't feel smug, democrats, all the front runners, including Clinton, Obama, and Edwards still believe that they are somehow better than gays by refusing to acknowledge gay marriage. If blacks or Mexicans were denied marriage rights, it would be a racism issue, but evidently, it's okay to be bigoted toward gays. (Yeah, I know, it's better than being put to death over being gay.)

You don't have to be gay to see the bigotry! It's a tiny step to go from thinking gay people don't deserve the same as you to thinking that anyone different from you is inferior - and claiming that God says gays can't be married is bigoted behavior justified by an irrational belief ... religion is not about intolerance!

Mark my words... "Separate but equal" legislation for gays will only be followed by similar legislation for blacks, immigrants, women, and any minority deemed a threat.

Now then, if a political candidate feels that way about their own constituents, how I can trust them to behave as a leader when it comes to international issues? If they can treat gays differently then themselves, it would be foolish for me to think they consider, Jews or Muslims for example, equals. It would be foolish of me to think that they in fact have the best interests - deep down - of anyone (minority or not) over their own. Full stop.

Deconstructing Gwen

Gwen Hughes is an angelic Diva that I am honored to call my friend. While I am merely internationally ignored, she is internationally renown for her performances and songwriting. Yeah, she's that good! If you want to hear for yourself, why not take a moment to check out her Electronic Press Kit?

She's humored my pesterings of musical questions and nurtured my ambition to produce a new, modern-Euro sound for her music in the past, but now she's gone one further... actually collaborating with me on two new songs of hers!

Now Gwen and I are two very different musicians (if I can even call myself that). We often talk at great lengths about how different our worlds are. True, I have modest keyboarding and music-producing abilities, but this woman sings and plays piano for a living... a real professional.

So I eagerly accept the opportunity to "re-produce" or "re-mix" one or two of her songs... but can I do it???

Well, I found it quite amusing that path I had to walk to be able to absorb her music, and so I created this post... let it bear witness to the genius that is Gwen.

Input

Two mp3s arrive in my mailbox. I eagerly listen to them. On first glance, they seem like complete songs... drums/bass/keys/vocals (all done by her). I play along with them, figuring out the chords (more or less) as the songs play and I think, "yeah, I can do this."

Now I should spend a moment discussing the ways one can go about re-mastering a song. The first method, identical to the way a DJ would re-mix a song off the radio, is to use the song itself as the building blocks to create a different song. The entails sampling the song into lots of little bits, which itself might require some audio processing.

For example, let's say I want to use a bit of the song as a base for a new song, but the part I want to use has vocals on it that I don't want. Well, you can consider a song to be like a layer cake: at the bottom layer (the lower frequencies) is the bass, and other instruments are found occupying higher layers. (Drums, especially hi-hits and snares, comprise the highest frequencies.) By using audio processing techniques, I can "cut out" instruments (even voice) from the original recording!

But, due to the fact that sound "leaks" between the layers (as harmonics) the end result isn't as nice as if I had started with clean recordings of each individual instrument.

Add to the fact that I'm serious... I want to create a 24-bit, 44.8KHz recording... and that I'm starting with a .mp3 (which is already lossy) and you'll soon see that any end result I do would have to again be redone with higher-quality source material.

It's not like me to do something 1/2-way.

The second approach, also widely used, is simply to re-create the song first, using local instruments, so that one can start with high-quality recordings. A bonus of this approach is that if done properly, one gets more than just a recording... one gets a capture of the creation process that can be edited (say, changing a note, or a trumpet to a sax)!

I knew before Gwen ever sent me anything that I would want to use the latter approach. Why? Because I'm a musician... I feel like I have a larger expression with MIDI data than I do with MP3 data. Besides, if I'm going to help write a song, I think it's reasonable to assume that I could play the song.

The Devil's in the Details

But with Gwen... that turned out to be a much larger problem! See, Gwen is a professional jazz musician... her stuff is a bit more complex than the usual drivel that I was used to on the radio. (Even the "sophisticated" stuff I listened to is pretty simple by comparison to jazz.)

While I could play along with her songs, I was a LONG way from being able to reproduce what she sent. I could add to it, but not create from scratch. No matter how hard I tried to hear what was going on, it was stuff I had never heard or seen before and I was stymied.

I knew however, that if I just watched her play the song once, I would be able to reproduce it. God has blessed me with that skill. So, frustrated, I called her and asked for the chord charts. This would at least verify that my chord guesses were correct.

Well, after busting my chops (rightly so) for not putting more time into learning the song, she sent me the charts. (Thanks!) I now owned a few pages of symbols that, when presented to a musician might actually "sound" like a song- but in my hands, were just stark reminders of how much I was not a jazz musician. Armed with a map to the song, I began my quest.

Creating Audio Samples

The first step was to take her mp3 and break it down structurally in a way that it would be represented on a chord chart. To do this, I loaded the song into CoolEdit and meticulously set markers corresponding to the start of key measures in the song.

The next step was to get my recording studio setup. For this part of the song, I needed a mixer, drum machine, and samplers for the bass, piano, and strings. That was the easy part, harder is programming the instruments!

I started with drums. The song only has a basic 16-beat drum pattern looped, so I figured that would be a good place to start. Using the samples I just created, I figured out the beats per minute (113) and set up my recorder to loop over the first 16 beats while simultaneously playing the first 16 beats of her song. I listened to that drum pattern over and over on a loop until I could anticipate each beat. Once I could play the drum pattern, I programmed the drum machine and took a deep breath in preparation of doing the same thing with the bass and piano.

Normally, I can pretty much play along with a song on first hearing, but *replicating* a song is completely different. "Anal-retentive" attention to detail comes to mind. I won't say how many times I had to listen to just the first bar of the bass+piano, but a few hours later, I had something close!

However, this was just "replicating" ... this wasn't "playing." With heavy rhythmic devices like drums and bass, this is okay, maybe even preferred, but with other instruments, the result sounds ... mechanical. So, I quantized the bass (forced the notes to align on specific beats) and armed with the chordal structure as well as a close approximation of exactly what notes were being played, I put the the drums and bass on a loop and tried to "feel" the song. In other words, I had to "figure out" the unconscious little motions that Gwen used to make her music. (This is why it's easier to do if you can actually watch someone do it!)

Now, I won't say I replicated exactly her fingers, but it's really close. If anything, I have a tendency to "hear" more than what is actually there, so my recording might be a bit "heavy-handed" compared to her delicate fingerings. That's okay; now that I have the notes in MIDI format, I can delete (or edit) them later if needed.

And so, after a total of around 8 hours of work, I've replicated about 25 seconds of the song!

Recall that the point of doing all of this isn't to replicate the song, but to START from that point. So, I'm looking at more hours of tedious work before I can actually start to be creative and start contributing to the song.

Well... no one said it would be easy! Of course, I'm sure for some people, it is!

If you're curious... here's Gwen's original recording and then my version. The instruments might sound different (easily changed) and the volumes might be different (easily changed) but the notes and rhythms should be there. And, even if they are a little off, I can change them too without having to re-record. I love making music ... well, I will when I actually get to make it! :)

A Jung Woman...

I recently had a conversation with a close friend about Jungian archetypes. It went something like this:

Him: Have you considered which of the 13 archetypes you are?
Me: Uh... I guess I would have to learn more about them first.

So, we chatted, and after he left, I refreshed my college Jungian psychology. Here's a Wikipedia link as good as any other I found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetypal. No doubt you'll recognize aspects of yourself in these 13 archetypes!

What I found particularly interesting (and just plain news to me) were the Anima and Animus archetypes. Now, prior to discovering them, I would have primarily identified with the "Wise" part of "Wise old man." That is... I seem to be able to do things with knowledge that others can't... perhaps even change reality... yet I never identified with the "old" and certainly not the "man" part. And I've since met people who seem to innately know more "useful" things (i.e., wisdom gained from life experiences) while I seem to have more skilled learning suited more to abstract problems and machines rather than human behaviors. Question to self: should I try to adapt that ability to learn skills to the realm of human behavior?

Shrug. Back to roles... I never played Role Playing Games (RPGs) before, so I'm not really sure which archetype I'd be. My only two guesses would have come from times where I would have identified with the Merlin role, or the Warrior Princess role. Aye-yia-yia-yia-yia!

Then along comes Anima. Okay, I certainly seem to be embodying the totality of what little I know about Anima - the feminine inner personality, as present in the unconscious of the male. My Anima has a name, I am she, and she is me, and we are Clio.

And then I find this page on Jung's Anima Theory and how It Relates to Crossdressing. Note: I am not a crossdresser, although empirically, I crossdress. The author, a (former) crossdresser merges traditional transgendered case study results with Jung's theories in a plausible and constructive style.

So it seems I have come home to open up (and heal) old psychological wounds prohibiting me from realizing my full potential. This much is obvious by fate, and I have accepted and learned from it. Now what?

Well, I am happier as a woman, yet I am not a woman. I am miserable as a man, yet I made a good one. As I will never be biologically female again (we all were once women in the womb) I have to come to terms with being somewhere in the middle... but where?

If you've ever lived (as opposed to visited) in a foreign culture, you are familiar with culture shock - that uneasy feeling that comes from being immersed in a different culture. It's like jet-lag, but for culture instead of time. It occurs each time one switches culture, just like jet-lag when switching time zones.

Well, gender dysphoria is like that too... I used to think I could get by living as the duality:

In number 69 there lives a transvestite,
He's a man by day, but she's a woman at night.
- Space, "My Neighborhood"

but the "gender-lag" from switching is ... uncomfortable. Further, it just feels 'weird' to be the male that my body is. It feels right to be the woman that is the embodiment of my Anima, and I prefer to be her... this much is certain... but who knew she was a, pardon my French, a chick-with-a-dick?

So what does integration bring? I don't know what one does yet with this knowledge, so for now, I'll just take comfort in knowing that I am what I am.

4 Dimensions of Gender

Wow, it has been a while. I've gone and missed my own anniversary! Maybe my friends will cut me some slack next time I'm a day late with the birthday card? LOL. Probably not! :)

If you've read with me for this long, I think it's finally time to post the first half of my thesis on gender. Sounds boring... isn't. Guaranteed to open your mind or your money back!

The pitch:

Most people see the people in the world as "gay" or "straight," based on what's between their legs and who's legs they like to get in between. This is overly simplistic and is a cause for much misunderstanding. In reality, there are (at least) four dimensions that make up a person's "gender" and this essay aims to unambiguously identify them and create a gender map based on these divisions.

http://prettygetter.tv/blog/4DoG.pdf


Hope you enjoy, please let me know your thoughts!

I've dated a ...

A funny little list I made while bored on a recent plane trip... it's part of a much larger list that, when presented here, could only look like the work of a self-obsessed megalomaniac. In reality, it was part of a deep, introspective quest, and I was just reminiscing over fond times with those I've loved.

I've Dated A ...

• By Career
• Beautician
• Chef
• Gypsie
• Dancer
• Psychologist
• Single Mom
• Writer/Editor
• Stripper
• Professor
• Musician/Singer
• Equestrian
• Girl Next Door
• Boy Next Door
  
• By Faith
• Christian
• Catholic
• Atheist
• Jew
• Pagan
• Muslim
• By Nationality
• American
• Korean
• Chinese
  
• British
• Italian
• Turkish

But to quote Bono... I still haven't found what I'm looking for (or what's looking for me), so, if your country/religion/profession isn't listed, feel free to ask me out... Sushi is an excellent first date! :) )