first things first.

[aliyaskie]

If I'm going to come back and do this thing, this journalling/blogging/emodumping thing I've been putting off for a long time, there are some life updates I feel like I need to provide first.

• El finally lost the fight two weeks ago (today, actually, haha). She'd been fighting and fighting and fighting, and then she went into the hospital about a month ago and there was just finally, truly, nothing more they could do for her. She went home and had a palliative home nurse for a few days, then went into hospice on Monday, then by Wednesday, she was gone. I didn't get to see her, but the last time I did wasn't that long ago, and she wasn't herself before she passed anyway, so it's probably for the best. I was kind of a wreck about it for a few days, but about the way Mom told me and handled it, haha, not actually about her passing. I think I'm only now, thinking about it, starting to really process. Oh, well.
  
• Wow, it's been a really long time since the last time I gave any sort of life update here: I am now an aunt twice over. If you're friends with me on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably seen them both at this point, but if not, there are plenty of pictures to be seen. I will gladly foist them upon you if you're interested.
  
• In that same vein, J's moved up north and we've been living together in NJ since September 2012. We have a ginger kitty named Zak who is a royal pain in the ass, but since he was named after Geoffrey Zakarian, that's probably to be expected. (Poor kitty.) We have hardly been on vacation since we got him because we're afraid to leave him alone, even though he does just fine without us when we do and he's alone 9+ hours a day as it is.
  
• I'm coming up on 10 years with the firm, and I'm still in the same job I have been forever, with the same boss, same team, same everything. I have a new boss' boss, though, who after a single conversation moved me out of our primary office and into a hoteling situation where I'm in New York part of the time and the much, much closer office near J's work the rest of the time, so my commutes are generally much better and I'm less miserable most of the time. Clients still suck, and boss still sucks, and coworkers still kinda suck, but I don't have to deal with them directly nearly as much as I used to, and I'm getting to do new and interesting things. And at the very least, my commute two or more days a week is less than five minutes long, so I'm getting to spend much more time at home than I used to.
  
• I am the co-lead of the firm's local pride chapter, and as part of that, I get to do a bunch of cool things, but mostly, right now at least, I get to try to convince myself that telling at least a part of my story to people in July would be a good thing.
  
• I've been a part of the partners working group for the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, and it's been somewhat of a hassle, haha. But seeing what goes on behind the scenes is making me really think about trying to come up with a workshop of my own for next year's conference. There's a lot of need for partner content, and if no one else will do it, why can't I?
  
• I've also been considering starting/writing blog posts about my transition as J's transitioned, but I'm not entirely sure where I would start. "The beginning," you say, and that sounds all well and good, but the truth is I've already forgotten the beginning. I'm also still having all the same issues around ownership I've had throughout this whole process, which at some point I may get into, but not right this second. I posted this on FB and am sharing it here now for those of you who haven't seen it, because it's pretty dead on, except for the fact that J's always said I should feel free to tell whoever I want, lol.
  
• This newfound interest in blogging is at least in small part attributable to the fact that my teenage cousin is now a HuffPo Teen blogger, and I am both jealous and in awe of her maturity and articulateness. I'm also kind of stalking her a little bit on the internets, but only in the best, non-creepy way. Kids these days, I tell you what! But seriously, only partly attributable. The rest is a combination of a great many (truly not-at-all creepy) things. But you should still read her blogs anyway, because her latest one is about anxiety and I know a lot of people who used to read this here have at least a passing interest in the subject.
  

Anyway. That catches us up for now and are the key things that should be helpful if/when I start posting again regularly.
~a

Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- read comments.
(Please comment there using OpenID.)