First day poetray!

This morning was a seething mass
Of biking bodies, wilting grass,
Excitement, angst, joy, boredom, fear
And wishes for a nine-month year.

I've got a flaccid pussy whip

It would seem that mine is the kind of confidence that would have already earned me an infinitely-adoring pussy-whipped boyfriend--or at least a lengthy list of potentials--had I a vulva.

Instead, when my confidence meets my clit, it causes all the males to either a) curl up and whimper like little boys, b) scamper away like scared rats, or c) growl and hackle like caged mutts.

Damn.

They just don't make 'em like they used to...

Tough love

Sometimes I get caught in little spirals of self-loathing

And feel the need to give myself only the toughest love

For some bruises to poke to remind myself of my goals

And weaknesses.

I always manage to snap myself out of that

Purest ecstatic self-loathing masochism,

Buoyed by the realization that normally feels like a lead weight that

The world hasn't gone out of its way to do me that many favors.

So I remind myself to love myself gently and with tender care

And take some time to pumice the callouses

And tend to the whippings' wounds that we all know we all know

I don't pretend to be extra-martyrific

Because we're all trannies sometimes

And we all need some spiritual cuddle time.

The five-month plan

H'okay, folks...we're coming down to crunch time here. Three semesters left, a twelve month lease, currently unemployed and in debt, single, and fresh off the island. What. To. Do.

Get moved in! Rent a truck, bust my ass, sort and shift, organize!!!

Get prepared for classes! Buy books, scout routes, write emails, seek advice.

Earn monies! Look at internship/hourly employment crossovers, pick up day labor on CL, get dressed to impress and put tire and sole (soul...) to concrete in order to suck it up and get it done the old fashioned way: a job.

Move and shake! Bike around Old Town at night, check out a new bar every week, attend free shows, go to events

Exercise! Rock climb, bike ride, walk jog run!

Aaaaand, somewhere down here towards the end of the list is "keep up with my blog". BUT, it made the list!

Honestly, I didn't even realize it would be five months until I counted. I just wanted it to be a reference to the five-year plan.

It's official:

I suck at life. I'd make a bunch of excuses, but I won't. More when I get home; thanks, faithful readers!

Sorry sorry, falling behind

AH! I have like three minutes to type this!

Been working a lot, keeping the shanty clean without running water, trying to decorate the bare walls. I've been spending a LOT of time with Tiger Paw getting her online presence ready; we just got done with the first draft of her group's profile.

Had a very close encounter with homophobia. So close that I could smell the motherfucker's hateful breath. More details on this later.

I have been bonding with Aaron like crazy. She healed me from my fever! With the touch of her hands! Incredible!

I'm getting incredibly tan, and I've already started visibly losing weight. Perfect fitness, here I come!

My three minutes are up! ADIEU!

Quick update!

I am sort of falling behind here! Just a quick update for now; I’ll try to time my typing and my internet access better next time!

I have worked with my hands to improve the place that I am living every day I’ve been here, whether it is by swapping out natural wood load-bearing beams for 4x4s, putting up walls, or building a bed frame. My work has been supervised by our landlord and friend, Tino. He laughs readily, is incredibly skilled with his hands, and has hands down one of the best jobs ever: transforming mostly-inert lava into arable and buildable land.

I’ve also exercised every day I’ve been here, mostly by busting my ass up and down steep hills. My first experience with a humongous hill was on the evening of Monday the 23rd, after meeting a wonderful woman named Tiger Paw. She is Aaron/Panda’s drum instructor, as well as a co-masseuse (more on the frequency and nature of work exchanges on the island later). She has wanted to create an online presence for herself for quite a while; this has now become one of my jobs! Keep a look out for her on blogger and facebook, and become her fan; she’s fabulous! That said, the hill up from her house was one of the most punishing physical endeavors I’ve ever gone through. I was running on fumes, with every last calorie sucked from the meal I’d eaten earlier that day. It was an intense, humbling experience; I cannot for the life of me have more respect for folks who run marathons, compete in triathlons, or go through boot camp and into the armed services. I woke up the next day refreshed, with just a healthy tinge of tenseness in my legs.

Panda/Aaron and I have been recording some video, and we are working on getting it serviceable for the web. We’ve also been doing some sound recording as well, which will be much easier to get into your greedy little ears! And photos are on facebook!

Right now, I am sitting at Shankari’s artists bungalow, surrounded by beautiful gardens, intricate tilework, babbling fountains, and even a moat! Most of all, I have been meeting the most wonderful people, including another B. Conversations have been stimulating, work has been minimal in duration but intense, snacks have been fed to me regularly—B has served me more cups of tea and island hors d’oeuvres than I’ve ever been served!—and I’ve produced more opportunities for learning: a woman who owns a macadamia nut farm near the ocean needs some WFFERS (is that how that’s spelled? Pronounced WOOF-ers) to help pick nuts.

Soon, guests will arrive and a potluck will start, and my stomach is more than ready for the endeavor. I still haven’t seen a beach; the ocean remains a far-off reminder of what I have yet to explore. Even living surrounded by relative desolation, I feel more vibrant and alive than I have in years.

Aloha!

B

Proper social networking

As some of you may know, I am a pretty traditional person. I like to

BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! *WHEEEEZE* A HA! HA! Ha haaa! Heh heh heh...whoo! Boy, I really had me going there for a second!

But in all seriousness, there are a few things that I am stubbornly traditional about. I always take my shoes off when entering someone's house. I think text messaging is used by many people in a profane and unconscionable way that has on more than one occasion driven me to the brink of insanity. And I think that social networking is ruining the way that humans have been interacting for thousands of years.

Or at least I used to. You see, I am a huge fan of words. I like speaking them, I like typing them, I like listening to them. Alliteration allures me. I use the rule of three so much, I essentially made a blog about it. Et cetera. (By the way, world, it's etc, not ect. Even the spellchecker knows that! GET IT RIGHT OR GTFO!) More than the words themselves, though, do I appreciate the narrative that they comprise. The continuity, the spontaneity, the sense of oneness with your fellow person as you both let down your barriers just a little bit and commune with one another.

Facebook doesn't much care for this. Facebook comes at you in pokes and IMs and wall posts, a rapid-fire assault of stimuli whose only sense of continuity comes in the form of a "news feed", which is to online communication as the news ticker is to broadcast journalism: fleeting, incomplete, and ultimately a distraction from what's really going on: Rachel Maddow's undeniable nerdy grace and beauty, or Anderson Cooper's steely, seductive gaze. Rawr.

The point is, I always thought a strong adherence to facebook was sort of shallow. I thought it was a symptom of what these damn kids are doing with their new-fangled technologies: missing out on all the fun that we old people had speaking to one another with our mouths to one another's faces.

However, I've come to change my tune. I realize now that what I once saw as a competitor to age-old communication styles has become an augmentation to our abilities, a neural implant into the brain of the collective consciousness. When I used to scowl at people who would dare break the barrier between internet and IRL, I now openly discuss things that originated on the facebooks. "Did you see that thing that I sent you?" I'll say. "Let's talk about it!"

In this sense, facebook can be used not as an end to itself, but the means to an end; that end, of course, is the free exchange of ideas, the sharing of opinions, the communal delight that comes from exploring new sensations and stimuli with your fellow people.

So the next time you see me, be all like "Dudechick, that thing you sent me on the weberverse is totally radical!" and I'll be all like "CHYEAH, riiight?!" In a manner of speaking

I never thought I'd see "proper" in the title of anything with my name on it...

Also: You're damn right I used nested colons in the fifth paragraph! EAT IT!

Life grants, Pt2

Oh man, here it comes, the first idea...

I want to have a Gender Awareness Day of sorts on campus. It would require a lot of people and a lot of time to get it to be something people would be really into, but I'm thinking a full-day event, spread across campus. Check it out:

• Heavy advertising: Chalking, Collegian, flea market booth
• Make little awareness buttons. I'm thinking it'd be fun to cut out little outlines of pants, skirts, blouses, and shirts out of pink and blue paper (yeah, I know, it enforces the binary, but we gotta start small with the general population) and then have people come up and assemble their own combination of two pieces of clothing. Or something similar...we could sell them pre-made, but I want this to be as interactive as possible! And, we would ask for a dollar donation for them, so we'd have to make them look kinda snazzy.
• A booth on the mall with people painting nails. Again, requested dollar donation.
• If we're really ambitious, a booth doing makeup: drag, women's makeup, and transman makeup (facial hair, whatever techniques can be used to masculinize a face). $1
• It would be great to have education booths with big posters about the different nonbinary gender identities that exist.
• If someone was willing to sit down with me and devise a sort of "curriculum", we could even have panels, a sort of "Ask A Transperson" format. Visible Voices participants, anyone??
• It could culminate on a campus-wide genderfuck day, with everyone dressing with a different gender expression than they normally do.

This is just off the top of my head. It would be easy to get SOGLBT in on it, as well as the feminist club, the women's studies office, and I'm sure other diversity offices would be down as well.

This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but I think this could also be an opportunity to legitimize the idea of life grants, or, if I may narrow the focus, Transgrants. We could make a club on campus dedicated to the exploration of gender and gender-related issues. We could get money from the school. We could raise a lot of awareness. We could throw fundraisers, we could invite speakers, we could plan events, and best of all, we could have a lot of fun!

No, scratch that. BEST of all, we could use the money that we raise to help up-and-coming transkids who need a little financial assistance to navigate life.

Who's with me?!

>That last question was rhetorical. IT'S YOU!!!

Life grants

I was just pondering the rant I wrote the other day--the one posted just below this post--and the feelings of anger and frustration it brought up. They weren't directed towards Barbie, really. While I found the general attitude towards life that she exuded to be incredibly vapid and distasteful, her self-absorption wasn't my biggest beef.

It was the thought that so much miscommunication and displaced frustration gets slung around at the people closest to us. Because honestly, we don't need infighting. We don't need to police ourselves. We need to band together, because god damn it, it's hard being trans in this country! As if the very real social stigma of gender plasticity weren't enough, many--if not most--of us have to struggle with the additional expenses involved in modifying our gender and sex. (Here I must give props to Zane for getting my gears turning by posting on facebook about the various expenses of getting his transition letters.) We're talking makeup, clothing, shoes, hair removal, binders, hormones, doctor visits, therapy, surgery...it adds up!

When I dwell on the difficulties of life for too long in one sitting, I have to kick back and imagine a world where those difficulties don't exist, just to keep optimistic. Sometimes those fantasies are solely that: fantastical. But sometimes--my hope is that it happens more often than not--certain pragmatic solutions will come to my mind. As the last week of class before finals draws to a close and my mind is consumed with study, I thought...

I wonder if there exists a group of forward-thinking benefactors of the future who provide "life grants". They would be similar to college scholarships in that they would fund an individual's pursuit of higher education, except education being funded would be of a much more material and lasting sort. It would be a way to, as the teachings of the Oracle of Delphi would beseech us to do, better know ourselves.

Or better yet, get some of those Obamabucks into funding Pell grants for transfolk! I can think of nothing more adherent to the first amendment--that is, nothing more American--than to support the right of transpeople to speak with a mouth, to present with a body, that most accurately matches the mind that does the speaking.

Does anybody know if there is a precedent for this? Have banks, for example, ever given loans with the express purpose of being spent on transitioning? Are grants given for educational pursuits that are not sanctioned by any major college, as a sort of "DIY higher ed"? And if so, how could gender transition be presented such that it would satisfy the requirements?

And if nothing currently exists that would even vaguely satisfy my curiosity, then I say...

Come! O siblings of all shapes and sizes, genders and genes! Come! and let us begin to form financial bonds amongst us, such that we might offer the transchildren of the future a better life, the sort of life we no doubt wish we had ourselves! Let us not tarry, but make haste towards our full self-realization, to finish our education, to emerge lettered and powerful into the world so that we might shape it to our fancy! Let us emerge AT ONCE!

*Ahem*...sorry, got a little olde schoole there.

"Genders and genes." I like that! With "genes" substituting for "sex". Get it?? Well don't, it's mine, you can't have it, nyah!

"Tgirl envy?"?!

I found the following email in the yahoo group TsDoItYourselfHormones. It is a group packed with transgender people--mostly MtF--who are trying to do hormones without going through the complete song and dance that society would like. The post "Tgirl envy?" was made by a user going by Barbie. The text follows, in its entirety.

When I read this, I just about lost it. I couldn't hold my tongue.

I decided to respond with what ended up being a manifesto containing a lot of my feelings about the unfortunate infighting and bitterness that rises up in the GLBT community. Something needed to be said. I post this here for your approval. (My emphasis in bold.)

Hi girls,

This post is about what is increasingly appearing to me as a bitter, jealous envy of tgirls on hormones by the other members of the transgender community, for example crossdressers and transvestites.

I am basing this on what i am seeing since i setup my Flickr photo album about 2 weeks ago. Here is the hard evidence that makes me come to this shocking conclusion.

On Flickr they have dozens of groups catering to Cds, Tvs, TG's, Tgirls, transexuals, and all gender variations in between. So i joined about ten groups which is common to do on Flickr and then posted my photos in each group which is what you do on Flickr, it's all picture sharing and no talk other than comments members can leave on your posted pics.

So without sounding conceited, i posted 2 sets from two photo shoots i did last week and this week, the second photo shoot you guys haven't seen yet, and let me tell you, they came out fantastic; i look so good in them i wish could meet the girl in those pics LOL!

But one thing i'm noticing is that all the girls in these groups, most of whom are not on hormones, in droves they lavish wonderful comments on the pictures of the Cd's and Tv's who post their pictures which again, without sounding egotistical, don't even come close to matching the sexiness and photographic beauty of my photos. But when it comes to my photos in the same group, you couldn't buy a comment even if you offered them a thousand bucks.

I mean, photos of the other girls there are receiving dozens of glowing comments on each photo posted in all these various groups, and my photos based on that should be getting flooded with comments, so the only reasonable conclusion to make of this disparity is that they have Tgirl Envy for girls like me who are on hormones!! My profile and pictures make it clear i'm on hormones so this must be the factor that is resulting in this "Tgirl Envy", i just coined this phrase so trademark rights are mine LOL!

Now, this post is not about me or how wonderful i think i am or look, i'm only using my recent experience to point out what i'm really believing is some sort of jealousy against Tgirls on hormones by the trasngender community who identify as CDs, TVs, etc.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, even if you don't look as good me LOL!!

Barbie :)

Alright, deep healing breath people. Is anyone's heart racing? Here we go!

Barbie,

First: Let's not try to paint with such broad strokes, shall we? To suggest that such a huge group of people--you refer to them as "other members of the transgender community"--are all "bitter, jealous, and envious"...well, it's just not a claim a person can make. Furthermore, I find such a generalization entirely out of line, especially such a hurtful one that is directed to a group that you claim membership of. We get enough of that shit from the real world. Which brings me to point number two:

Second: Perhaps there is some truth to what you have to say. Perhaps this "t-girl envy" that you speak of is a real thing. Can we really blame anyone for feeling it, when I think we can all admit to being more than a little bit envious of genetic females? Is that not the goal of many women here: to imitate natal females as closely as possible?

So yes, perhaps there are people out there who would like to emulate you. Perhaps there are people out there who react with jealousy when they see your (apparently, from the considerable effort you put into describing it, quite substantial) beauty. Perhaps their reaction to those feelings is to not shower you with the praise you feel you are owed. Is it possible that they don't lay down all high praises upon you because you just don't need it? Could their lack of support be the greatest compliment they could give?

Because maybe they can't make the decision you made. Maybe they can't go on hormones for whatever reason: financial, medical, psychological, or just plain old "life is fucking hard". It's a big step, and it's not for everyone. Many people wish they could, and many don't desire it at all, but they may all want that femininity in their life. I'm sure there are many women here who remember being jealous of those transfolk who were able to get on hormones before them, and even before then, of those natal females who had that feminine beauty they craved. Isn't that the whole point of transitioning: to achieve a standard of femininity that our society has made nearly unachievable? Which brings me to...

Third: I think this is yet another example of heterosexist, misogynistic, self-hatred leaking into our community. We're already surrounded by it. We have come to mimic and define ourselves by white male heterosexual concepts of femininity. The clothes. The shoes. The makeup. The perfect skin and hairless body and perfectly coiffed hair. That has become the standard that many transgirls come to live by. It is all the outer trappings of femininity that are required to "pass".

But that's not enough for the state, is it? No no, in order to be truly and fully recognized as a woman, in many places you have to go all out. Hormones. Surgery. Name change. Hormones. Surgery. New ID. And on and on and on.

And for those of you who can afford to go through the process, who were lucky enough to find out when they were young, who can take those steps and do it all the way...I say, you go girls! Because you're damn lucky. In larger American society--I can't speak for the world--the only conception of transfolk that most people have, if they have any knowledge of the concept at all, is "shemales". "Chicks with dicks." Sex objects for films. Or maybe a victim to rape and murder because they didn't quite pull it off. Whatever the case, there are penalties for not "passing" as a GG.

Here in our larger society, there is no room for that middle ground. No bearded women, no breasted men, no androgynes, no neuters, no gender queers of any sort that don't quite fit the binary. Cross-dressers are a punchline. Women wearing ties and packing junk are just lesbians for straight men to worship. Intersex people are medical anomalies. Society has carved out a special kind of torment for that section of the trans community, for those who the letters MtF and FtM do not apply. There is no road to success, no light at the end of the tunnel, no binary standard of "Woman" and "Man" to cling to.

And you write posts like "Tgirl Envy?" to blame your fellow trans-siblings for your consuming desire to be worshiped.

We are ALL fighting together.

We are ALL working for acceptance.

We are ALL beaten down by the slings and arrows of a cruel and barbarous society.

So I don't think your kind of talk has any real place here. It's not constructive, it's destructive. 'Cause the way I see it, honey, you ain't got a leg to stand on if you're trying to come in here and get some sympathy because the Flickr trannies don't shower you with praise.

Come talk to me when those transpeople who would like nothing better than to be you, start to curse you. When you've got a case to make, I'd love to hear it. Because I won't tolerate letting that toxin that the world throws at us every day sneak in here. I will not see our community torn apart from the inside.

Here, want a soapbox? You can have mine; it's spent.

TRANSWARRIOR B, OUT.

"I'm family," she said

I went to get my eyes checked after much reminding from my parents and forgetting by me. I wasn't wild about the fact that the appointment was at 8am, nor by the fact that I didn't get to sleep until about 4am the night before. We needed to get it done before the end of the year, when we lose our insurance.

I waited around. The receptionist has always been the smiliest person, like she always remember who you are and is delighted to see you. I swear I could hear a Minnesotan accent. The man who gave me the prelim procedures was very kind, hairy, and Hispanic, in that order. He touched my knee when joking.

I couldn't be roused, though. I had other things on my mind. In and out, such is the nature of obligations. I asked her where the cheapest frames were as I walked around and tested out my new astigmatism corrector, which looked like a miniature version of the ridiculously complicated "which is better, this or this?" lensed apparatus and was just about as heavy sitting on the bridge of my nose; I was presented with "less expensive" and wasn't thrilled by what I saw.

I was relieved of the facial cross I bore and was invited to look at frames. I showed her which of the eight that were my minimum options better suited me. She looked up my insurance to see if I had any more options.

Nonchalantly, she said, "I noticed your earring. I'm family, too."

I wasn't struck by it at first. The statement dug into my flimsy early-morning armor, but it kept some of its momentum, digging in, tenacious like a thistle. My insurance information came up and chipped away at the plate metal; my options had opened up. She showed me the display that increased my frame choices tenfold.

I told her I hadn't heard the term "family" before. I'd always heard "ally". She said she hadn't heard of that one. We chuckled at the generations.

She told me about her kids. Her twelve-year old daughter, apparently, has proudly stood up for her moms in class. She allowed a male classmate to come out to her about his gay dads.

I got it, finally. Family and Ally are not synonymous.

We talked about her gay church, about looking straight, about relationships, about supportive friends. I told her what I was going for with frames--androgynous femme--and she found the perfect pair for me. I told her why I thought my eyesight might have changed so dramatically since last year. When Kind Hairy Hispanic Man came back to get me--"I'm so sorry for making you wait, I thought you were dilated by now"--she gave me a card for the church she went to.

Maybe it was my dilated pupils, but the world seemed to glow that day.

Apparently, transitions change corneas. It's official!

11-24-10

The beginnings of a diary.

Woke up at 5am in a hotel room with my parents. This scared me shitless...it's one thing to wear baggy clothes and interact with them in short bursts, but it's another entirely to be wearing jammies and spending days on end with them. At least I don't have to worry about morning wood now.

As insufferable as the concept of my extended family can at times be, my confidence has received a much needed stroking today. Four kids, from 4 to 15 years old, clamoring for my attention without pause. I've never held so many simultaneous conversations. It's nice to know that at the end of the day there are some folks who think I'm alright.

Whether they would still think that if they knew who I really was remains to be seen, but I guess only a small handful of people have ever come close to knowing the majority of my identities, while the rest are stuck with what I present. And I forget that I can be pretty good at presenting.

I'm still crestfallen, but at least I know life goes on.

Potty talk

This has happened at least three times to me, to my knowledge.

For those of you who have never been in a males' bathroom, most follow a similar setup. Closest to the door are the sinks and mirrors. Next, often separated from the wash area by a partition, are the urinals; each urinal is often separated from others by its own partition as well. Furthest in are the stalls. Due to the first partition, the urinals are often not visible upon entering the bathroom. The only thing that obviously differentiates male and female bathrooms is the presence of urinals.

On three occasions, while washing my hands, I will hear the door open and glance in the mirror to see the person enter. The man will take one look at me and immediately exit. Presumably, he then sees that indeed the door says "Mens", and reenters. Sometimes he takes longer to figure it out than others. Never has anyone said anything to me, probably because they feel too sheepish from having left and then reentered so obviously.

What's great about this is that it's not just due to being especially femme that day. If a man walks in and sees a skirt, I can see how he might think he'd made a mistake. Twice, though, I have been wearing tight jeans and a fairly androgynous top. I think these men look at my ponytail and, being unable to determine my gender based on my dress, assume that they themselves made a mistake in the mostly instinctual act of selecting the correct bathroom.

It's probably my fault for not wearing my federally-assigned gender sign on my back.

Little victories

It really was little. But it made me smile, and it made me pump fist ftw.

I was merrily computing along when suddenly everything closed and only the desktop was displayed, sans icons. Of course, I went to the old new standby: ctrl+alt+del. When I got there, I decided to go out on a limb on a whim and click File>New Task (Run...) and typed in "explorer.exe"

Voila! Problem solved. A little victory for esoteric rarely-used computer knowledge!

I don't think "esoteric" is completely the right word...

Late-night law-bending

I dare say it's been a long time since I've been as satisfied with myself as I am now. There's nothing quite like jogging my normal daytime route in nothing but running shoes and a pair of panties in the middle of the night.

That is, except for jogging my normal daytime route in nothing but running shoes and a pair of panties and having a cop pull me over to ask if I "thought that was appropriate to be doing." He then so graciously wished me luck in "not getting any complaints" and went on his way to foil even more nefarious plots than my apparent covert degrading of community decency standards.

I didn't know the fashion police had such a large budget!

The near future

The nearest future seems much more futuristic than any past future. Suprisingly, the make/break dire predictions I'm forming in my mind regarding the next three months are not stressing me out. They are exciting me to no end. I guess technically they're eustressing me out.

I'll divide the expected changes into mind, body, and so...cial.

Mind:

• School: I just did my first semester at the institution I plan on ultimately graduating from, and I performed really well with minimal effort. Problem is, I didn't learn as much as I could have due to my lack of effort, nor did I get the 4.0 that I easily could have learned. So, changes must be made to get me motivated
• Reading: I've got so many damn books I've been collecting over the years, and maybe 1% of them have been touched even once. (That statistic isn't even an underestimate: I have far more than 100 books waiting for touching, so 1% is actually possible.) My official goal: read three books this summer. I'm setting the bar way low.
• Blog/journal: I definitely need to write more. Specifically, I need to write for just myself more. It's easier to get my thoughts out when I'm not concerned about my audience. At the same time, I also need to blog here. Yep.

Body:

• Exercise: I'm in perhaps the best shape of my life right now...again, with minimal effort. My goal is to exercise for at least 10 minutes every day. Even if that means doing five minutes each of pushups and situps. Even if that just means walking around in the sun.
• Diet: I'm gonna try to go vegan this summer. With Br's help, it won't be too hard. If I falter from veganism, I want to: a) be vegetarian, b) limit eggs and limit/eliminate dairy, and c) get on a regular eating schedule.
• Sleep: I want to get more sleep. This one will be tough, as the nighttime is the righttime, and I'm gonna be having so much fun with Br. Still, I want to get on a predictable sleep schedule. The biggest question will be: if I get to bed later than I want, should I wake up at the normal time and deal with the deficit until that night, or sleep in a bit later and risk throwing off my pattern?
• Chemicals: I want to minimize synthetic chemicals. This will mean making soap/shampoo, minimizing showers, and eliminating processed foods. This will also include fewer/no chemical indulgences.

Social:

• Bike program: This is my first priority. Volunteer at a bike co-op, learn how to assemble a bicycle from scratch, and then keep it. They are trans- friendly and seem to be huge hippies, in the best socially-beneficial sense of the term.
• Job or volunteering: I'd like to make some money doing something I enjoy. Even if I can't find a job, I want to spend my free time helping folk, and meeting folk who help folk.
• Video projects: I really hope to get this off the ground. I want to start turning all these fun ideas for videos that have been kicking around in my head into reality. This will involve tapping plenty of people to act and produce. This will mean lots of getting to know other people

Three is a magic number, so three things in each of three categories is thrice times thrice magic. Plus, I've run out of things to say. I know there are more, but I don't care to name them now. More later!

OMG I almost forgot about you down here, you magic invisible swatch!

Eureka! An It clicked! moment.

The phrase "waste not, want not" never quite made sense to me. Those dueling negatives always threw me off. I know the general meaning of the phrase. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the comma is a placeholder for the word "or", and so the phrase itself is to be used to admonish somebody who is wasting something, ala "now now, if you are going to waste that bit of it, then you must not have wanted it that badly in the first place!"

But that didn't quite make sense...it seems a little redundant, and not very effective at its goal. I mean, hell, if somebody is wasting something, it's probably due to the exact reason of them not wanting it.

Just a few moments ago, though, I finally figured it out. If the word "want" is replaced with "need", it turns into the more general moral lesson that it was intended to be: "if you never waste anything, you'll never be in need of anything."

I think moments like these are some of the best there are. A spark of creativity a/o inspiration, a sudden spontaneous learning, a brief panic because for all those years you've been saying/understanding something wrong to everybody you've ever met, and then a sigh of relief that at least the ignorance is over. It's kinda like Bananas Foster. Anybody have an especially similar moment?

When in Rome...

A volume of advice

I've noticed a disturbing trend, one that greases the gears of the consumptive capitalist machine, perpetuating the disparity of wealth between the classes in this country.

"Which one?" you might ask, or at least you would if you were taking the classes I am.

I'm talking about the "serving size" information on mass-produced products. I've already looked at it as far as food goes. Many note the disturbing trend of food companies increasing portion sizes over the past decade, without any real attempt to inform consumers of the change. What we have is a situation where the maker of a product, who has a vested interest in its sales and the demand for it, is telling us how much of the product to consume and how quickly.

And while this is an important phenomenon to study, it is notably different from the pattern I'm about to discuss, because our bodies have a natural food intake regulating response built right in. So while we may be buying more food for less, we are still filling up the same stomach. (I know, I know, there are undoubtedly thousands of studies that show that chronic overeating, obesity, diabetes, and the rest of the gambit of diseases we are made more prone to when we consume unnecessarily large amounts of food would suggest that our bodies adapt to such a huge caloric intake by making changes that ultimately result in our perception of hunger and satiety. Just...bear with me.)

For now, the focus of this discussion will be non-food products. Many of the same arguments can be made for food, natural resources, fuel, energy, and the like.

Think about the products that we use in the upkeep of our bodies. They and analogs for them are a firmly ingrained part of our culture. While the amount and tone of advertisements for "beauty products" is a bit sickening, most Americans would agree that at the very minimum, people need to own: toothpaste, shampoo, body soap, and deodorant. However, there is little solid agreement about how much and how often to use these products. Most people, if polled, would likely fall in the range of "brush teeth twice a day, wash hair and body in shower daily, apply deodorant daily or as needed." However, would their actual behavior match their reported responses?

My hope is that most people would actually perform these tasks a lot less! I think we should be skeptical of any company providing a good or service that is culturally thought of as a necessary commodity, and especially about any statement they may make about how much of their product to use.

Even if the recommendations made by the manufacturer are free of conflict of interest and actually reflect the mean results of scientific studies done to determine the average appropriate amount of product to use, this does not take into account the variation of people's bodies and how they will react to a given product. And why in the world would we want to be throwing (or spraying or squirting) our money down the drain for diminished results when we could be much more efficient with our rationing of these products?

Why cover the brush when you can get even coverage of your teeth with just a dab of toothpaste?

Why shampoo twice a day with a handful of chemical goop when you can shampoo less and with less and still attain the appearance you desire?

Why quickly build up a film over your body that will never penetrate the surface of your skin and will instead get washed down the drain with no effect when you could use a smaller amount of shower gel, or maybe go without if you'll just be around the house?

It may be clear that I advocate minimizing the amount of man-made chemicals (xenochemicals=word of the day) that enter my body. However, I also advocate not limiting my ability to realize my potential by failing to adhere to (certain) social norms. I'd invite you to walk that line with me in whatever way is most appropriate for you.

How?! I'll tell you how!

First, determine if you need to use a product at all. Do you really need that mouthwash if your toothpaste has little Scope swirls in it? Do you need an antiperspirant if a deodorant with fewer noxious chemicals in it would suffice? Do you really need a separate conditioner if you can find a shampoo/conditioner combo? This will obviously have an immediate effect on your spending...and your health!

Second, read the recommendations on the container. If you are currently consuming more of that product than is suggested, you should just go ahead and switch to the smaller amount immediately. Seriously. There's no need to rebel against "the Men" (both of which are named Johnson) by paying Them more.

Third, start reducing the amount of a product you use. Go ahead and wash your hair everyday if you want, but try a little less shampoo. Make an effort to make that smaller amount go further by literally spreading it further: after applying shampoo, massage the scalp to distribute product deeper into your hair; bring a comb into the shower and run it through your hair to distribute product down to the tips; and, if your hair is long enough, squeeze some of that soapy water that you combed into your tips back onto the top of your head. Don't let any product leave your body! The same applies for toothpaste. If you are spitting out chunks of unbrushed paste, try using less, and be sure to change your technique up a bit by being aware of exactly how your brushing style distributes the product in your mouth.

Fourth, start reducing the number of times you use a product. With toothbrushing, I wouldn't suggest this step, since teeth are notorious for getting painfully and permanently damaged when not cared for properly. However, maybe it doesn't make sense to wash your face right before bed; maybe washing during your morning shower is plenty. Maybe not shaving your legs is easy to pull off if it's winter and you're always in pants; maybe not shaving your face is the perfect way to celebrate the weekend!

What it really comes down to, though, is two things: being aware and being scientific. Observe your own day-to-day behavior; most of us will be very surprised at some of the eccentricities and oddities we exhibit when our minds are normally on auto-pilot! Approach every occasion of using a product as a miniature experiment. (Honestly, such experiments are a scientist's wildest dream: there are almost no confounding variables when dealing with a single subject, they can be repeated as many times as there are days, all the measures of variables already exist, and there is simply no question concerning objectivity: the nature of the experiment precludes the asking of the question!)

Think, "alright, I'm going to use 80% of my normal product, and I'm going to apply it 50% less frequently. At the end of a week, I will evaluate how my body has reacted to it, both beneficially and adversely, and determine if I can continue to reduce the level of the independent variable until I find that the negative effects begin to outweigh the positive ones."

Or, you know, use whatever words you want for it.

I thought as I showered, "I wonder how humans of old dealt with getting stink and dirt off of themselves. There must be some set of all-natural, non-xenochemical substances that kept people groomed for millennia." Then I remembered that I am living in modern America and that for most human history and in most societies people walked around constantly stewing in their own stench. Drat.

The smell of a human: only the most familiar, comforting, natural, and sexy smell of all time. Let your stink shine!!!

Poly-polyphenols

I've been trying to drink a lot of green tea, since apparently it makes you live forever. That's what the intarwubs told me. So imagine my delight when I saw this product on the shelf:

Apparently, Jackie is now kicking the shit out of aging as well! It's a pretty interesting product. It uses cane sugar as a sort of base for a really strong green tea extract. The product itself is green and definitely smells like plant resin. And indeed, it seems to be quite potent, at least according to this kinda-ridiculous chart on the side:

WhoaMG, that's a big green bar as compared to those small black bars! Of course, since statistics can be made to show anything, let's check this out. Alright, it is measuring polyphenols, and it seems that all teas (or at least the ones measured here) have them. What it interesting is that it is comparing InstaGreen to green tea itself, arguing that even though the product is mostly green tea, it is somehow better than green tea. Ah, but it is "per serving". So what is a serving of tea? Well, I would guess it is however much is in a regulation-size tea bag; maybe a few grams? So is this measurement comparing a few grams of tea to a few grams of powder? If so, that would make sense.

...riiiight. Apparently, to get the "best" effects, with 1tbsp measured at 11g, one should consume between 11g and 160g of this powder a day, dissolved in between 8oz and 48oz of water.

Let's get these numbers out there.

Total container: 512g of powder

Size of 1tbsp, according to package: 11g

Serving size: 11g-55g (mean=33g)

Suggested daily consumption: 11g-165g (mean=85.5g)

Estimated polyphenols per serving of green tea: 80mg

Stated serving size on nutritional facts label: 1.5tbsp, 16g, makes 1-2c

Stated servings per container on nutritional facts label: 32 (not "about" 32. Exactly 32.)

Stated polyphenols per serving: 300mg

Now, let's crunch them a bit. (I won't show my work; I promise you, you can figure it out!)

How long will this container last if one wants the "best antioxidant effects" every day? Between 3.2 and 45 days

How potent is this extract, assuming 300mg/serving, considering variable serving size? Polyphenols between 5.5mg/g and 27mg/g.

How potent is it with fixed serving size? 18.75mg/g

How much extract would it take to make a cup that has the same potency as green tea? 2.9g-14.7g, variable serving size; 4.3g, fixed size

How many 80mg polyphenol cups of green tea could I expect to make from this container? 35-177 cups, variable serving size; 119c, fixed size

How many days would this container last someone wanting to replace brewing a bag of green tea a day with InstaGreen? 35-177 days, variable serving size; 119 days, fixed size

Considering the fact that it is stated there are 32 servings per container and one would take one serving a day, how much faster would one have to buy more of this product if they obeyed the nutritional facts instead of working out a number of dubious claims being made on the package? 3-145 days, variable serving size; 87 days, fixed size.

9%-453% faster; 272% faster

Jackie Jackie Jackie...I thought we were friends.

Never trust an Asian martial artist movie star salesperson.