I met her outside of the opening of her wife, Sid Holman's art show, "Stealing Masculinity." I was there to recruit Sid to the Transgender Day of Remembrance show, which didn't actually end up happening. Catherine talked to me about how great it was that there can be shows about gender, and about what it meant to her that there were queer art spaces. I was deferential to both of them, as one is with a couple who have been together for so long.

I met Catherine again at a workshop, and she gave me a knowing smile. It's like she knew my story, and that she was telling me that I was welcome, and that I had always been welcome. Because she was amused that we were both there at the same time, and how that made us sisters in a way. She was beautiful and insightful, an inspiration to me. Because she was open about her lifestyle, about her queerness, about how satisfied she was. And she wasn't afraid.

Catherine, you shall be missed.

What a trip that it's all over and done with, and that I had a chance to read poetry tonight and pretend that everything was right in the world, dancing with my cis and trans friends and sometimes lovers, my goodness. It's been one heck of a week.

Monday I start my full time graveyard job, and I intend to keep this for three years if I can stay sane, applying myself to my full potential. That's the limit I think, three years and you end up sick and insane, scared of changing your life. At least with graveyards, I get a chance to see people that I know, keep part of their lives. My building rocks so far for work.

I know I'm going to miss the stress of the Transgender Day of Remembrance meetings. I know that I'm going to miss the sun. That said, it doesn't mean that I have to completely avoid the sun, or trans activism while I'm holed up at night, flexing my writng skills. I have an agenda, you see. While I'm rocking the overnights, I'm going to use my time to write in front of my camera display, write out that graphic novel I've been talking about.

And these weekends I'm going to rock being single. I am having the time of my life right now, and it's nice to have the privilege of having gone without for so long, to appreciate the good when it comes. Thank you Vancouver, for giving a half white and sometimes middle class dyke like me the opportunity, and ableness to achieve the goals that I have had the chance to accomplish. Thank you for my friends, and the challenges that I have faced re-integrating into North American society, thank you India for the culture shock that spurred these life changes on. I'm nowhere near perfect, , but I am grateful, world, for that which you have shown me, and that which looms on the horizon. Amen.

I made full time at the building that I really like. So I sleep while you work, and your dinner is my first meal of the day. But as long as I get to work by 11pm, we can go wherever you want, baby.

Tired, like bone tired, wandering home from my third overnight in a row with another one tonight and the fricking lock door to my apartment building has been obliterated.  It's hanging loosely by the last thread, accepts my key and then spins the entire device uselessly in the socket.  The lock that the landlord just changed last weekend.  Well, it could be worse I think.  So I'm buzzing upstairs on the wonky intercom to the new roommate, and luckily, after twenty minutes of incessant missed calls she groggily answers her cell phone.  Then I get to wait another five while she gets dressed and comes down to let me in.

In other news, Alicia came over unexpectedly last weekend and stayed all week.  Which was grand, because the girl I'm seeing didn't have time to see me during the week.  I escaped the awkward questions such as:

What is your ex wife doing, sleeping on your couch?  

And:

Why is your kitchen table covered in (new) sex toys, money, and Hallowe'en candy?

Or:

I thought you said you were going to be Bjork for Hallowe'en?



I worked that night, so I did the support worker friendly version of Bjork.  

I have until Saturday night to get this place into a semblance of order.  The girl I'm seeing is coming over to meet the new roommate, and then we're going to attempt to make mushroom risotto.  And the roommate took a lot of convincing to give me even a couple of hours of alone time with M.  I. Need. To. Relax.

The last two weeks have been full.  I worked six days last week, and then had one day off, and am working another four overnights.  My downtime was taken up by fun activities with my ex, like cancelling her off our joint bank account.  And awkwardly sharing space with each other, on two completely different schedules, I work nights.  But yesterday morning, I saw her off on her bus back to San Francisco, and I had a chance to feel a little sad that she was going.  By the end of it, we were laughing together, at least, I started to laugh at her really humiliating jokes directed at me.  Sigh.

Not to mention TDoR.  Almost there.  Almost.  There.  And I can sleep on Sunday morning even if things don't work out on Saturday.  Either way, win.

Hey daphaknee, this one's public so you can crucify me for it online if you want to ;)

I recently went to a D/s intensive weekend where the speaker talked about the Feri tradition of Paganism.  I've been thinking about spirituality more now, and I was raised agnostic.  My mother believes that organized religion is a tool to control the masses, and that it works through fear.  So she never sent me to church, frowned on me when I started experimenting with witchcraft, and then reserved comment when I started hanging out with the Unitarian Church.  The part in the Feri Tradition that really responds with me is the part about the Three Souls.

I've always believed that god and I were one.  There are three systems at work, the subconscious, the conscious, and the uber conscious.  For me, god is the uberconscious, she is the system in place in which I operate.  She is in everything, she is everybody. She is unreachable for comment most days.  She has a plan, or if not, at least a pattern.

The conscious mind can't talk to her.  She meditates on her inability to be perfect, to be godlike in all actions.  The conscious feels guilty, feels upset, feels bad.  The conscious deliberates on the the actions of the subconscious.

The subconscious is full of extremes, she is all hormones and drives, she is the force that effects change.  When she is hungry, we feed her or starve her.  We are less her master than her guardian.  We chase her and try to divine a pattern from her whims.  We must work with her because in her erratic movements, we see god.

The uberconscious is talking to the subconscious in a way that we cannot. 

I'm pretty sure that denial and indulgence are both types of hedonism.  Both extremes bring us closer to the godhead.  When we dance with the uberconscious, we inspire, we flame.  Denial and indulgence are tools we can use to master ourselves, and are two sides of mindfulness.  To move with awareness is to move with god.

The smell magically went away when we boxed up her clothes.  Jen and her dad are steam cleaning the carpet right now, and I'm getting ready for work.  I have a night shift tonight, and then I'm going to be coming home, sleeping, throwing on clothes and helping her unload the stuff.

The ex roomie's bed is in my room, under my foam mattress, it's like the princess and the pea in there.  It's just there until we have space to throw it against a wall, which will happen when we have more room to move.  I put up some posters on the walls, and Jen and I have been bonding over cleaning the place up.  I have a good feeling about this.  I'm waiting to hear from someone in vuge 's  apartment so I can deliver hundun's couch.  The apartment is coming together, and I'm kinda excited about this whole having a roommate that's not a stinky douchebag.

I'm probably nitpicking, but she stole my mixing bowl for three weeks, and when it emerged from her room, it was coated in rancid butter, stale popcorn, used kleenix and a bandage big enough for a toe.  Ew ew ew.

I've decided that the true reason I feel so strongly about having my current roomate leave is because of the smell.  I can't tolerate unpleasant smells, and I don't think that she eats well, so she smells like cheese.  Not good cheese, but a kind of foot cheese, and of stale axe body spray, and old incense.  Right.  Incense will save you.  Girls stay in her place overnight!  

I can tell if she's home, just by inhaling the air of the apartment.  I've seen her shower!  I have no idea where the smell is coming from.  It smells sweet, like ketones. 

Me and my soon to be roommate took some measurements of her room, and the smell nearly made my friend vomit.

A guy at the awesome vegetarian Thanksgiving party last night said that the cheese smell is a boy thing, but I have no idea.  All the cis guys I hang out with, and the trans, and the queers and the straights, they all smell ok.  All I see her eating is starch, onions, and meat.  He sniffed me last night, and told me that I don't smell like anything.  I think that he wasn't sniffing the right part.  I am fairly certain that I have odors.  I mean, I use goat soap, and cedar soap.

I should smell like goats in a cedar forest. But, at least I don't have to light the incense to get someone to come into my room.

Went to a chi chi cafe in South Granville and had a glass of red with some baked brie today.  I was coming back from meeting with Becki, the chair of the Women's and  Gender studies at UBC.  She rarely laughs, which is kind of terrifying, but I can't take that personally.  I just have to be funnier.

I wrote in my diary for about five pages, which seems ridiculous, because I was one of the youngest people there in the cafe.  Also at individual tables, two other, older women.  I wonder if they were doing self care too.  I hope so.

This is a skill I have just picked up.  Taking care of myself and treating myself as though I deserve lovely things.  I used to eat by myself all the time in Pune, that was a city where a girl could go anywhere. My favourite restaurant  was Shavaree, which was right outside the office.  I would check out the street kiosks for tea and bada pav, eat hot peppers to the amusement of vendors.  

I'm in love with Vancouver.  As much as I hate having to bundle up now to go outside, I've missed the fall.  This is my first fall back, and I've never been busier,  It's nice to take breaks again.  I like that the girl at work makes me tea, and we sip it, and I think about how much a break means to me.  

Because if you love yourself, you have to take yourself out on dates.