queer revolution, travel and other weekend goodies

Let’s get the business out of the way first – I think my insems were too early. Although I did have ovulation twinges this afternoon, so who the hell knows. Oh, well. While this was Teh Last of Teh Last, it was also the Throw Away Insem, the one that probably wouldn’t work. But whatever, I’ll take my prometrium like a good girl and we’ll see what happens.

Last night, I went out. Woo! Out! The Athens Boys Choir and Katastrophe were playing a free (free!) show just down the road from me and as I love, love, love Katz, I was all over it. It seems they did a Trans 101 workshop (also free!) that afternoon. Yay. I missed it, but yay. Both these kids are cute as buttons and said all the right things and had a gaggle, yes, a gaggle, of little femme girls right up in front of the stage squealing over them (it was kind of like Elvis only these bois are cuter). By said all the right things, I mean that their songs and poems spoke true and clear and funny and sad and all the things you might feel in your life. Katz spoke briefly about the horrifying statistics on hate-crimes against queers in general and trans folks in particular and again, he said all the right things. That is, he didn’t say much, he simply named some of the people, some of the kids, who’ve been killed recently and told us, instructed us, to remember them, to say their names. He had a poem about them, “Queer Revolution,” a litany of sorts, with slides – pictures and names, lest we forget. There’s not space enough for me to list all the names, nor, sadly, do I even know them all, but you can go here to remember, to have names to speak so that we will not forget them. And then, on a lighter note, he finished up with my all time fave, “Tranny Got Pack.” Well, maybe my fave is the Waffle House one….. sooooo hard to decide. (That’s a music link, so watch your volume if you’re at work or worried about loudness.)

So Katz was great and he’s really what drew me to the show, but the bonus prize was Rocco (he introduced himself to me when I bought a CD from him – sqeee! (Lord.)). So um, yeah, I spent the whole show thinking how familiar he looked and how I knew the name Katastrophe from *somewhere*….. and then after I got home and read the liner notes with the CD (10 pages!) I remembered. Michelle Tea’s partner. Yeah. I am behind the times. Anyway, he was great. So great that my friend D, who’s a nice gayboy, said, as he climbed up next to me on one of the pillars for a better view, “oh my god! I have the hots for a transman!”* We speculated that he’d have to fight off the gaggle of femme girls to get to his new crush. In honor of the show, D wore his Lesbian Clothes – a tie and a zip-up hoodie. Adorable. He looked just like a lesbian. Good job, D.

Nothing like some hot trans men talking about social justice and peace and feminism to make you remember what it’s all about. MySpace links here and here. And, yes, I have a little celebrity crush. *sigh* But honest, y’all, they’re so good.

Also, I got a new, big girl couch this weekend, thanks to the KP. This meant, among other things, that my roommate and I had to quite literally break the frame of the futon I had been using as a couch so we could get it up stairs so she could use it as a bed. In retrospect, this is funny. Moving furniture sucks. But woo! Big girl couch!

In other news, I booked tickets to go to New York for a smidge during spring break. I was ambivalent about going – I want to see my friends up there really bad, but it’s sort of expensive, I’m not sure how to deal with cat care now that one of the cats is deaf and another still has some – ah – bowel issues, and the usual – I kind of love to be at home more than anything. But then I was looking for some old emails I’d written about school and I came across one I’d sent to Z the Ex from back in 2004 when I must have been up there for some Montessori related thing and then I totally wanted to go.

Yesterday I saw a magician. I was on the train, going from Ian’s back to
Williamsburg, and I was tired and feeling weird (what’s new) and I’d finished
my book so there was nothing to do but sit there. As we were whizzing along under
the river, a magician came clanging in from the next car. He had a little
folding metal stand with big loud metal bells on it and a black case that he
pushed in front of him and a nice black top hat. He was mumbling loudly in
Spanish and so, in spite of my heritage, I understood nothing. He set up shop
right in the middle of the train, swinging the black case up onto the metal
stand and arranging all sorts of implements on it. He tried to get this one guy
to hold his magic wand for him, it was pink lucite, I think, but he refused.
Then all the other people he tried shook their heads, too. It was so sad. But
then this guy sitting across from me agreed to hold the magic wand and tap on
the special magic box and so the show could begin. I got to open the magic drawer
in the special magic box and a small furry animal popped out and I jumped. Then
he did all sorts of other tricks, like making soap bubbles turn into giant
marbles and then popping the marbles or making a girl’s purple lacy panties drop
to the floor and then trying to give them to the guy across from me. In
addition to finding the small furry animal (maybe it was a mink?), I got to
hold the magic wand and tap on a small metal dish that was upside-down and then a
dove flew out from under it. Amazing. And then he was done. He collected
some money and packed up his case and rattled on to the next car, all in the space
of 2 stops, before we got to Graham Ave.
I walked home and stopped by the liquor store, feeling much better.

You know you wanted to relive that 10 minutes on the L train with me. So I’ll be in New York for a smidge in April. Who’s around?

*edited because, while I was quoting somebody and while this was back in the day and while my friend D wasn’t using it as a slur, that word I used before is not ok. My apologies.