Does anyone have any pointers on what to say to someone who has just said something to the effect of "why am I being hassled at the border? I'm White."

I don't want to "win" over this person. I want to change their minds. Or at least get zer to question what ze's saying and why ze's saying it. Or at least not just sit there and feel awkward... again ( Read more... )

Often when I reflect on my life, I criticize myself. I try to figure out a better way of solving the problem. But so many problems are context-specific; tied to a situation that will never repeat; tied to not knowing things that I know now.

I'll do better next time, I think ( Read more... )

Not "What do I think I should do?"

Nor "What do other people think I should do?"

Or "What direction do I seem to be heading down?"

But. "What do I actually want to do?"

It's a scary question.

It leads you down all sorts of unforeseen paths. Work. Love. Gender. Family. Religion.

Ask yourself this:

What kind of a person do you want to be?

And what's stopping you?

Your answer need not be simple, or constant or complete.

It should bring up fear, or pride, or both.

Conversations with my aunt over the weekend reveal the following ( Read more... )

[I've made a little edit]

The renaming/rite/of-passage/initiation is a little less than two weeks off now and it is dawning on me that this is a pretty big deal.

With "Sasha" I let an experimental pragmatic name hang on me to see how it affected my balance, so to speak. With "Amy," I am not only taking on a new name; grafting it on rather than simply ( Read more... )

My ears = pierced.

More specifically, after taking the fine suggestions of several people, I went with Rowan to the Sacred Heart outlet on Nelson. There I saw Stephanie who took excellent care in picking out where exactly to poke me. She labeled first, I double-checked, and Rowan, who was wearing corrective lenses unlike yours truly, triple-checked ( Read more... )

Before venturing into the land of the damned, I require a protective amulet ( Read more... )

                The hardest worthwhile things:

3rd        changing your life

2nd       being yourself

1st        trying the above, failing, then getting up and trying again

Many people, often including myself, are ashamed to feel bad. Perhaps we think that we have no righ to experience regret, remorse, anger, sorrow, resentment, or even discomfort ( Read more... )