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Categories
Imogen Binnie’s Nevada
Warning: This is going to read like a bunch of dis-jointed thoughts. I posted this stream-of-consciousness without doing any editing on it. It’s written just post-reading of the book while so, so many emotions are swimming in my brain
Do you ever have one of those moments where you finish a book and you are not entirely sure of the emotions that you’re feeling? Because that is how I feel right now. I just finished reading “Nevada” by Imogen Binnie.
One one hand, I feel this complete and total deep connection with her central character Maria. She…is going through a lot of similar stuff to me. Reading everything I seriously just couldn’t help but be like “yeah, sister, me too!” Or well, at least I had in the past. It’s complicated. Because like, I’m totally not her at all but at the same time I feel like I am if that makes sense. Like I didn’t do any of the crazy high school shit…unless you count accidentally running over my brother’s foot as ‘crazy high school shit’…but I have/had a lot of the same issues and realities in relationships as she does. And hell, I never just jumped in a car and headed west (I should have lol!) Closest I have gotten to that was that moment I decided I was moving to the Twin Cities. (Though a part of me still thinks I should have tried for LA.) I do have one, odd, but interesting question, and maybe I’m reading WAY too much into the character, but I really, really wonder if she is an Aspie. It…just fits way too perfectly.
On the other hand I have this sense of well…I don’t entirely know what it is over the relationship that Maria develops seemingly at random with a Wal-Mart clerk. I guess maybe jealousy is the correct term. I wish I had someone stumble into my lap, so to speak, at 20. I think it would have been very interesting. I know where I stood at 20, and where I stand at 32. And it could have been much more, shall we say, interesting. Closest I have had to that were my friends I made on LiveJournal and MySpace in the later part of the last decade. (You know. The one between the 90′s and the 10′s. Le sigh. I can’t believe the 90′s were that long ago.) I’m still friends with a few of them, and I consider at least one of them family.
Ok and on a third hand, or well, I guess I’m branching out to feet here, I feel a profound sense of longing and disappointment. Without giving away any spoilers here, I… Just the way the book ended. I was expecting something more and then all of a sudden it was like “oh…this is the about the author page now. But…But…Moooooooooooooooooooooooooore please!!!”
Honestly, I love this book. It’s just…awesome. You should take the time to sit down and read it. And interestingly, I don’t know what it is lately, maybe it’s the fact I’m finding books I enjoy lately, but this was ANOTHER book I finished in a mere matter of hours, not days/weeks like some books I have read. Ok. Time for dinner.
Categories
True Trans Soul Rebel
Full disclosure: I have never been very good at writing music reviews. In fact, the one time I tried writing one for a website, it got sent back to me by the editor laughing. However, I am good at pretending I know what I’m doing, so here it goes. My thoughts on Against Me!’s new album, “True Trans Soul Rebel.”
So much good music has come out in the last year. 2013 was the year that brought us the awesomeness of Daft Punk’s single “Get Lucky”, Katy Perry’s PRISIM with the AMAZING “Roar”, and of course, Beyonce’s super secret self-titled album that is, in my mind, the best thing that came out of 2013 musically.
2014 has been quiet so far in the “OMG I MUST HAVE” music department. That is…until now. For this week, Against Me!’s “True Trans Soul Rebel” was released. We have had acoustic versions of a few singles since the band released a 2 song EP last summer. To say this is one of the most anticipated releases from the band, though is a great understatement.
The album is a very personal look into transition, and the emotions that come with it. Laura Jane Grace has done a brilliant job putting just the right kid of emotion into the album. I gave the album a listen to today. I’m still trying to process all of the feelings that have come out of it. There were some tracks on the back-half of the album, specifically “Dead Friend” and “Two Coffins”, which definitely got to me. I was a bit teary eyed listening to them. Most of the album speaks too closely to me in some regards.
Overall, I would VERY highly recommend the album. Like. Go buy it now. Or click to listen to it on Spotify.
It’s been a while since I blogged about the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Probably TOO long since I have. Pretty much everything that I said back then still holds true today.
“These 160+ souls should never have had their lives cut short. They were people with the potential to go on and do great things. Who knows what they could have been or become. The only thing that’s known is that they did not choose to be who they were, or to die at the hands of hate. I encourage everyone to please stop the hate in this world.”
That is from the 2009 blog. I’m not going to re-hash what I said there, save to say that we are still being rattled with fear and hate and people are still dying because of it. Since 2009, though, a lot of good has happened. There is visible transgender presence in the media landscape1, there are projects like #girlslikeus and trans* people have not stayed silent when it mattered most.
But sadly, there is still a need for a day like TDOR. Sadly, people are still being killed, or driven to suicide, because of hatred and ignorance. The list of those who were died for being themselves can be accessed here. While it is a far cry from the 160 people who died when I first blogged on the subject2, the fact remains there are still too many names on that list.
I’m going to close this post with a quote from Anne Frank. Because, if people took the time to realize this, maybe so many of our trans* sisters and brothers won’t have to die at the hands of hate.
“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” — Anne Frank
Footnotes
- The biggest presence of a trans person in media right now is Laverne Cox who plays Sophia on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black.” But she is not alone. Since blogging in 2009 there have been musicians like Laura Jane Grace & Mina Caputo, journalist-turned-author Janet Mock, and child-star-turned-activist Chaz Bono who have all made important contributions to trans people’s visibility.
- We are once again getting conflicting numbers being reported on the number of people who died this year. The list I linked to above only had roughly 70 names on it when I looked. This morning, I came across a link on BuzzFeed which puts the number at 238, which would make it MORE than the number reported when I blogged in 2009. However, as you can see in that post, there were conflicting reports then as well.
Categories
Wake Me Up When November Ends
“here comes the rain again falling from the stars drenched in my pain again becoming who we are as my memory rests but never forgets what I lost wake me up when September ends”
Green Day “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
A very powerful song by Green Day. It deals with the death of Billie Joe Armstrong’s father. November is the month that I would like to be able to skip over and not have to deal with the pain of November 2012.
This time last year, I was staring straight into the eyes of what would turn out to be the worst month that I have ever had to deal with. For starters, I lost one of the best friends, anchors, reporters and producers that you could ask for. Secondly, I was dealing with a roommate who had just come off of surgery and unknown to me at the time, would officially die for a few seconds on the operating table the 3rd time that he was rushed to the ER because his incisions had re-opened. Throw on top of that a Presidential election, Sweeps, and the death of an aunt that I wasn’t especially close to on my mom’s side of the family, and you can see why I was very emotionally distraught by Thanksgiving.
“And it seems to me you lived your life Like a candle in the wind”
Sir Elton John “Candle in the Wind”
Probably the biggest reason that I would love to just skip over November this year is the fact that it has [been one year since we lost Jeannie.]({{< ref “/blog/2012-11-08_Only-the-good-die-young” >}}) Quite honestly, this is probably the hardest part of this for me to write. I can’t believe that not only is she really gone, but that it has been a year already since I got the devastating news. Thankfully, I will say, she had enough sense to actually pass while I was distracted with directing WCCO 4 News at 10 that night. It’s been an especially tough year for me because of this, because there were so many things that happened to me this year where she would have been the first television friend I would have messaged on Facebook. But… I know that she is looking down on and helping all of her friends with their newscasts every day.
And I’m not joking when I say it… I really miss you Jeannie. And, if I haven’t said it enough this year, thank you for all of the help that you have given me.
“Everybody hurts Take comfort in your friends Everybody hurts Don’t throw your hand, oh no
Don’t throw your hand If you feel like you’re alone No, no, no, you are not alone”
REM “Everybody Hurts”
The second part of why November officially sucks for me is nearly losing a friend / roommate to what for any other person would have been a routine procedure. You really don’t need all the gory details. But when you get a call from your neighbor that your roommate was rushed to the ER, they took him for emergency surgery, and oh yeah…she has no idea where in the hospital he is…it’s wicked stressful. On and add to all of that the part where no one prepared me to find him hooked up to a ventilator when I finally got to see him the next morning. Or you know, the part where he technically died. Twice.
The good news, is that he is doing much better today.
“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ Into the future”
The Steve Miller Band “Fly Like an Eagle”
I still can’t believe that it’s been a year already since all of this happened. It seems like just yesterday Rory and I were talking about his plan to take over the world, and I was prodding Jeannie that she needed to come up to the Cities and take a picture with the Mary Richards statue on Nicollet Mall. I guess time really does keep slipping into the future.