Red Red Red Red Purple!

Even with my nail polish, it's easy to see which toe was broken.  Without polish, the nail is a deep blue.  With, well, the red and blue mix together to produce an interesting shade of purple!

But I look forward to the day when I can paint them purple on purpose.

It's still swollen too.  I think that's forever.

Meg 'n' Marian

Most of the pictures we took Sunday were non-Meg but I thought I'd share the couple I do have.

First is at the Metro station we departed from.  The second is Marian and me in the Hirshhorn.  Guess where? :)

Below that is Charity with her favourite hat.  Click to enlarge.

Out at Last, Out at Last!

I haven't been out a lot the past few months.  The last time was to see Orlando, in early March.  I missed game day, and I haven't been to game nights in quite a few months.

Saturday was a clothing swap but I have a lot of work to do to get my (already late) taxes done and organise my financial.  With the pending divorce, my cash flow is crazy and it took a number of hours to figure things out.  Plus I have to get off my current ISP, which is associated with the house, and onto a private ISP.  So I've been contacting people and businesses to change my address.

That was Saturday.

My friend Marian was also in town last weekend.  I wanted to get together but couldn't arrange it until Sunday.  Charity came along, and we met metro'd in to DC and met Marian at the Smithsonian castle.  She was chatting with the guard before I got there; the guard didn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary about her, or about us.  We were talking and she mentioned that she'd like to get some coffee and the guard interrupted and said there's good coffee inside.  We bought coffee and pastries and sat around and enjoyed a snack.  I went up to the information desk to find out what was going on on the mall (there were a bunch of teepees outside the castle, which turned out to be a Keystone XL protest).  The information lady didn't know but started to walk over to the guard with us, assuming he would know (I already asked; he didn't).  But it was nice of her to offer.

And so went the day.  When I say "nothing out of the ordinary," I saw no odd looks from the moment I left the apartment, to the metro rides, to the various museums we went to.  We were treated as anyone else (including having our bags examined by mall security) and we acted accordingly.

I did decide to take advantage of the restroom in the Hirshhorn art museum, because it wasn't crowded and we'd be heading towards more crowded museums from there.  Something horrible happened there.

There was no paper in my stall.  Fortunately, for me, paper is optional. :)

The restroom remained empty which allowed me time to touch up my lipstick after my coffee and we moved on to the mall area, and to the American History museum.

Another friend mentioned that she would be at a drag show (herself in drab) that evening but I had agreed to pick up my son around the time the show began so I had to skip.

Pictures tomorrow.

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Sunday Funnies ~ Herman

The first time I saw Jim Unger's Herman I was in a book store and I picked up one of the large "treasuries."  I thumbed through it and was laughing so hard I had to buy it so the other patrons wouldn't think I was insane.  Here's a mini-treasury.  I've noticed sometimes a character is called "Herman" but I don't think there's a fixed Herman-character.

Dress Your Age!

No, I think that ship has sailed

Don't you wish?

Good News, Everyone!

Today, the Washington Post had an article: 

Introducing Steven Petrow’s ‘Civilities,’ an advice column on LGBT/straight etiquette

I was surprised, to say the least.

And very pleased.  

I was unfamiliar with Mr Petrow.  I eagerly read the article about his upcoming columns and chats. 

And I saw was I was afraid I'd see: lots of sexual orientation items; one gender identity item.  And that was the "which bathroom" throwaway.

I left a comment to the effect that they should please remove T from the label if they don't mean T.  I read several other comments and commented on some comments (I don't like trolls; one that I replied to was deleted because it was that rude). 

Mr Petrow was associated with the New York Times.  He chimed in several times in the comments section of this article (a nice and unusual touch).  He had a lot of commenters who were familiar with him and fans.  I am looking forward to reading his columns.  I'll let y'all know if you should head there.  I think his first column is in two weeks and his first chat in one (although I may have that backwards).  Tuesday at noon is going to be busy for me: Steven Petrow, Gene Weingarten, and Alexandra Petri all chat at that time.  Ah well.  Perhaps an embarrassment of riches awaits.

The WaPo article is here.  Look for my smiling face in the comments. :)

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I'm Getting My Ears Pierced

NOT.

I've been thinking about it.  I've been trying hard to get over my aversion to punctures.  Yesterday I saw the cartoon below and my li'l tummy turned upside-down.  I can just imagine what it would be like if I had to try to stick a metal point into my skin, even if there was a hole there already.

When I was in seventh grade, taking biology, we had the opportunity to take a little sterile thingie and poke our fingers, to type our own blood (I was B).  A few weeks later, the experiment was repeated to see if we were Rh negative or positive.  I couldn't poke my finger.

I would make a very dead diabetic.

So once again, I'll defer this decision.  For now.

Oddly enough, I'm OK with fishing but
scared silly of getting a hook in me

We Need More ENDA

or fewer idiots.
Here are two pictures:

Both are ostensibly of the same woman.

They're from articles about the same woman.  The one on the left is in the first person, writing about how she  took a job as a substitute teacher in Texas while between assignments as a pilot.  One of her fifth grade students knew her for many years, and knew that she had transitioned earlier.  Her parents didn't like that and Laura Klug was fired a few days later.

The one on the right is from "redhotconservative.com" and is under the headline Texas Transvestite Teacher Confuses 5th Grade Students at Lumbarton ISD.  Keep in mind she is not a transvestite, and she is not the one confusing students (she just did her job).  The article goes on to refer to her as a man and contains other misinformation and mischaracterisations but had one tiny bit of fact:

Men who want to dress up as women are not a protected class under the 

 Constitution or state law and therefore the teacher can be fired.

Setting aside that the premise (she's not a man), we can indeed be fired.  Hence the need for ENDA.

Laura's article is here.  The incendiary trash is here.  That's me.  Fair and balanced.

Happy(?) ending: I found this headline yesterday:

East Texas School District Opts to Keep Transvestite Teacher

Again, starting with a mischaracterisation (repeated endlessly in the article) but, hey, it's in the New American.  That, for the unaware, is the official rag of the John Birch Society.  If you don't know what the JBS is, consider yourself lucky.

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Anticlimax

Friday's post, you may recall, simply said:

Tonight will be a new trans-related experience for me.  I'll do a postmortem next Monday.

I specified "t-related" because I was not out dressed.  In fact, I underdressed down because I wanted to keep Meg as low-key as possible.

I met a t-friend (S) and his wife for dinner.  Charity joined me.  Two men, two women, meeting for dinner.

I had never met my friend's male self before.  He had never met me, although our femme-selves had met several times; she had even come up to the apartment to change in the past.

Please bear with me; I'm having pronoun trouble.

I think our femme-selves get along well.  We always have good talks at soirees and other times we've met.  This was, for me, kind of an experiment.  I have come out to people who know my male self, and introduced most to Meg.  I haven't done it in reverse, and I can't figure out why that's odd.  I mean, people who know my male self don't know anything about Meg.  People who know about Meg know there's another identity in there somewhere.

By the way, I have met a few t-friends both as Meg and, um, not-Meg.  It's something I should feel comfortable about doing more often.  I prefer to meet people as Meg because, well, I like Meg.  Of the "two of us" she's definitely the more attractive one.

I think this is the first of more similar activies.  I don't like to have to set aside three extra hours to get ready/unready to meet with friends I have something seriously in common with, but I can easily meet a work friend after office hours.

I think I just have to admit there's two of me, and we're both equally good and nice people and it should be my preference who meets with friends.  There are caveats.  I have met t-friends who do not want to meet my male side.  Absolutely do not.

I guess there are four combinations of Meg and t-friend meeting:
both present as female: this happens quite a bit and is good.
both present as male: rare, but good.  Friends is friends, no?
I present as male, friend as female: has happened a few times.  I don't let my lack of preperation time keep me from meeting (or making) a friend
I present as female, friend as male: hasn't yet happened.

We'll see what the future brings.

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The Real McCoys

I've posted the Duplex, by the Glenn McCoy before (including yesterday).  Here are a few strips to brighten up your Sunday.  Click, unless you like your funnies newspaper sized.

Duplex ~ CDish

but both made me laugh.

Tonight

Tonight will be a new trans-related experience for me.  I'll do a postmortem next Monday.

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The Man's Nuts! Grab 'Im!

If you don't know who Ernest Istook is, check out his wiki profile.  It touches on highlights of his career, like his association with Jack Abramoff, his repeated attempts to return prayer to schools (by constitutional amendment), his massive fail running for Governor of OK, and his off-the-chart right wing views.

Now he's just Making Stuff Up for a site called "Talk Radio News Service" and on his very own radio show.  Istook is generally a smart guy I vehemently disagree with on pretty much everything. In fact, I can reliably figure out his views by inverting mine on the same topic.  Conservatives reading this are saying "ah.  Meg's a left wingnut."  I plead guilty.  One more step to the left and I'd probably be shot for treason. :)

And I wish he was actually revealing the world as it is, instead of as the voices in his head hear it.

The headline:

Obama Says Federal Employees Are Now Free To Cross-Dress 

will take you to the article.

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This Week's SImple Pleasure

I'm back in Virginia, with sanity intact.  AND I got to spend a lot of time with my youngest.

But NO trans-stuff while in New York.  Except for my girl jeans and belt, socks, (plain white cotton) undies, and one polo shirt.  And my pajamas.

But other than that ~ nothing.

On another (non-t) note, when I was in high school, I spent every penny I could find in the couch cushions and bought a quality Canon camera (a fully manual Ftb).  In 1972 I shot a couple of rolls of slides.  In 1975, I drove cross-country and shot a dozen or so rolls of slides.  All in all, I had close to 500 that were sitting in carousels in boxes.  Although my (now 40 year old!) slide projector still works (even after sitting gathering dust for at least 20 years), I wanted them digitised.  I did some research and found a place in Oregon, Digital Photographic Service.  One big advantage: they do all the work in the good ol' US of A.  Many ship the slides overseas.  Another advantage: they're a very small company; I like doing business with small companies and his was seven members, and I think that included the dog.  Another: kicky website ~ he doesn't take himself too seriously.  Another: personal service ~ I wrote him several times, worried about my slides.  I probably seriously annoyed him, but he still responded every time.  Finally: the price was excellent.  Two bits per slide and free shipping of the return.

The slides are all hi-DPI.  One of my Grand Canyon shots is below.

Why am I telling y'all this?  I bet a lot of readers of a Certain Age (and I know from how you get the pop references I have a few contemporaries here) have boxes of photos or slides.  Dave converted mine cheaper than I could, and mine would have mostly been askew.  In fact, he did them all for less than I would have paid for a quality slide scanner.

I have quite a lot of photos too.  Dave hasn't heard the last of me. :)

click to enlarge ~ it can take it!

Interesting observation. I never noticed.  And for my British Friends, substitute "Inland" for "Internal."  For the rest of the world, the American tax service (it's tax day) is called the "Internal Revenue Service."

I'm still in Noo Yawk. And I'm staying until I find that darn Afikomen!  That's all I have today.

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People Are Ignorant

This article appeared in the Washington Post a few days ago.

Lab-grown vaginas successfully implanted in girls in tissue-engineering first

Four teenage girls have received vaginas grown from their own cells in a lab. And they work.
These girls were born with underdeveloped or missing vaginas because of a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome that affects about 1 in 5,000 women. While their labia looked like those of other girls, their vaginas, cervixes and wombs, which are necessary for menstruation and childbirth, never fully formed.

The first paragraph is snarkier than perhaps it was meant to be.  The rest of the article describes the science behind this breakthrough.  And then the last sentence:

The breakthrough could also be meaningful to transgender people seeking sex-reassignment surgery, though the researchers did not comment on that possibility.

which is pretty stupid and has nothing to do with anything in the article.  But I guess some idiot "journalist" thought he was working for the National Enquirer and had to ask.  The fact that the researchers did not comment meant that they are taking their work seriously.

Me, I would have waited for someone to offer that as a possibility (many, far from all, of this audience would line up to get theirs) before asking and then reporting that the researchers had no comment.

I'm in Noo Yawk today so I can't easily update my page.  If I could, I'd have a brief poll

I'd line up!
( ) yes
( ) no

The full article can be found here. If you sort comments "oldest first" you'll find my two cents.

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Follow-Up

Coverly's Speed Bump has always been a favourite.  I can't just post one this weekend without including some other great laughs.  I especially liked the pie joke.

It is mine

I think I know them!

The pie joke

My older brother was terrified of Jack in the Box when he was little

Peterson Takes His Job Seriously

But he really needs to shave

Veet-Related Humoir

I was wondering why no-one commented on this.  It's because I scheduled it for yesterday and forgot to press the "post" button.

Below is a link to a Veet for Men review on Amazon.

Please read it when you're alone.  It will keep others from coming in and wondering why you're rolling on the floor, with tears of laughter keeping you from reading the rest.

The review is here.  It's an actual review; the original is the top review on this page.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why he gave it five stars.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

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Sometimes, I Don't Know WHAT to Think

Watch the "Don't Risk Dudeness" ads on the Veet page.  Is this really supposed to appeal to women?

update: Marci has informed me that they removed the videos from the Veet youtube page.  But you can go to the YouTube home page and search for "Don't Risk Dudeness" instead.

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Because I Like Colbert That's Why

I hadn't heard this previous apology before.  I did hear the original comment and found it to be pretty funny, but that might be because... well, see the subject.

If you're not a fan of the Colbert Report, you might have missed last week's big controversy (if he was a politician I'm sure it would be the new DC "scandal").

In a nutshell, his network produced a tweet which was a clip from his show which, out of context (the context being, he was making fun of the Washington Redskin's owner) appear racist.  The bit was typical Colbert reductio ad absurdum but that was lost in the quote.

In a news article about this (don't ask me why it's news.  I don't understand what's news anymore) the author wrote:

Going back through Colbert archives, this isn’t the first time the comedian been accused of being insensitive and declined to dignify it with a true apology. Back in April 2012, he offered a “Colbology” after people called him transphobic for his joke about pink slime (“Our beef now has so many hormones, it’s a member of the transgender community.”). Of course, the apology was very Colbert:
 
“I, Stephen Colbert, apologize to any of my transgender bovine viewers that may have been offended,” he said at the time. “No matter how you were born, no matter how you identify, I want to be clear that I would be proud to grind you up and eat you.”

Remember the pink slime?  Even out of context, this is funny.  It plays on the pink and it plays on the hormones.  And the apology (which I missed somehow) was funny too.

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The Things They Teach in Girl Scouts

If you go to this site, you can learn that, as a girl, you can not only be anything you want to be, you can wear pink when you do it!  Probably a short pink skirt.  This is actually on a Girl Scout webpage.

Life is good.  But there's never going to be gender equality at this rate.

Teacher

Pediatrician

Veterinarian

By the way... could anyone tell which outfit was which?  I couldn't.

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Grimm and Bear It

Mike Peters has been producing Mother Goose and Grimm for a long time and he still has it.  I know I'll get at least a smile when I get to MG&G.  Here are some that made me laugh out loud.  The first three, of course, were sequential.  I love the artwork.

And now for something completely different