Christmas Eve Dinner With the Family

Our ornament tree

For years, it’s been tradition in my family that we have my dad’s Swedish meatballs (and, generally, some kind of seafood, partly because I don’t care for Swedish meatballs) for Christmas Eve dinner. This year was no exception, and it was a delicious meal.

The festively set table

Recovery: Day 1

So far, so good. Surgery went well yesterday. Everyone at the hospital was really nice. I realized this morning that it could’ve been a bad experience, but it all went really well. I kept receiving texts and Facebook posts until nearly the time I went in for surgery, which just made me feel so supported and cared for. My parents have been taking care of every little thing for me. They’ve been fantastic.

Top Surgery Tomorrow

Last Day Before Surgery

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’re probably aware that I’m having top surgery tomorrow . . . and if you haven’t been, well, now you know. I am so excited for it to finally be happening. I am rather less excited about the whole hospital/surgery thing. I don’t have much experience with either of those. Still, it’ll be what it’ll be, and my family and friends have been fantastic.

Giving Thanks For My Family

I know that for a lot of queer and trans folks, holidays are a time of immense stress (particularly if they involve time spent with families of origin). That isn’t the case for me, and it’s one of the things for which I’m giving thanks today. I spend every Thanksgiving with my parents, my older brother, and a whole bunch of other relatives and family friends. This year, there were seventeen of us: the four in my immediate family; my uncle; six family friends and the one of their nephews; my aunt, two of my cousins, one of my cousin’s friends, and that friend’s roommate. There was lots of good food; the younger generation watched Doctor Who and A Very Potter Musical: the day went well.  

People Make Me Feel Safe

I was at a self-defense training tonight, and one of the things the instructor focused on was managing our flight-or-fight responses. I realized that one of the things that I do — that I’ve always done — to center myself, to calm my nerves, to make myself less tense is to think about particular people. There have always been certain friends that have made me feel safe and happy, and for well over a decade, I’ve used the thought of them to cheer myself up or make myself less scared. Beyond that, if I’m with a group of people (family, friends, camp, organizations), I will often subconsciously choose someone to represent safety to me — as long as I know where that person is, I feel that things will all be okay. It’s mostly irrational, but it’s something I just realized that I do.

My Dad Taught Me How To Shave!

My mom has been hinting since the summer that my dad teach me how to shave. Well, actually, “hinting” implies subtlety; she’s been outright stating it. Two weeks ago, I approached my dad about teaching me: he was going out of town soon, and my best friend’s wedding was drawing nearer. I knew that I was going to be in the wedding photos, and I didn’t want there to be any chance of weird patchy bits of hair on my face in the photos (because it indeed is growing in patchy bits, not evenly at all). And so my dad got out his fancy electric razor and showed me how to shave my face.

See? Little patchy bits covering my dimples that don't actually attach to the rest.

Cocktail Hour at the Lake Elmo Wine Company (A New Video!)

Tonight, I went to the Lake Elmo Wine Company (a little, really fantastic, locally owned wine and alcohol store) with my mom for a cocktail making party/lesson. Despite the fact that it was technically “for women” (apparently, I still pass as a woman), it was a whole lot of fun. Here are my thoughts on it:

The Weirdness of Having a Public Blog

It’s a kind of weird having such a public blog. Partly because the quality of writing (especially since starting The Daily Post’s Post A Day challenge) is not always up to my personal standards — it’s a little embarrassing for so many people to see posts that I’ve just thrown together after almost running out of time. Mostly, though, it’s odd because a lot of what I write about is rather personal. Oh, I suppose my blog isn’t truly public in the sense that it doesn’t show up in a Google search of my name (yet — I check on a regular basis), but it’s visible to everyone, and I link to it on Facebook, so most of the people in my life could easily read it.

Music From My Dad

It being Father’s Day, I’ve been thinking  a lot about my dad and all that he’s done for me. It’s quite a long list, including both the big things like always loving and supporting me and smaller things like making my favorite bolognese and beef stew when I’m home. He has also influenced my musical tastes — Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, various folk songs.

Searching for Connection, or Looking for Heartbreak?

EXPLORING TRANS – FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2010, 1:21 AM

I’m probably never going to meet any of the people who were in my life before I met my parents, before I came to the U.S. It’s something I’m working to accept. Oh, I might be able to track them down — unlike some of my friends, I was one of the lucky ones. I have the names and cities of my birth parents, and the agency through which I was adopted still exists. And part of me really wants to find them, part of me really wants to meet people who are actually biologically related to me. Part of me wants to know whether I look like them, whether I inherited any of their traits or skills. Part of me wants to know — know for sure, know for certain — whether they loved me. Did they give me up because they didn’t want me, or because they wanted a better life for me?