"Warring Ideals in One Dark Body"

Wow.
If you want to answer questions, emails, or posts in your lj/dw, or comments here (unscreened) are welcome.
The original post remains screened for more questions, responses, etc.

In your answer to someone else, you said you were moving "for the beginning of July" -- I hope that means 'To be there during that period, and not moving permanently -- we'd miss you! ;)
That was the text from someone I know who is moving. I reposted it in my journal a little hurriedly.
If I were going to be gone-gone, you, questioner, wouldn't find out out first here.
I'd miss you too. :)

Question: Which item from Chetwood Press would you most recommend?

Because I like to know: At the moment, your top 5 favorite SF authors. (I add "At the moment" so you don't need to feel bound to the answers.)
Sweet. I am going to give answers that are not strictly sf though. (I think I tend toward more dark fantasy and horror.) I haven't been reading much sf or fiction at all for several years.

Most of the answers are the same ones I'd have given for the last ten years. Octavia Butler. Jewelle Gomez. Grant Morrison. Katsuhiro Otomo.

Ray Bradbury, while not strictly sf, has a place dear to my heart. Ditto Walter Mosley.

In other news, pantryslut 's novella was a page-turner, oh yes, it was.
Yes, I know that's more than five. Hm.

Question: For future reference, who/what would you recommend I read? Any genre.


Tell me about your experience with being genderqueer and/or polyamorous. Are you currently involved with anyone?
Thanks for asking.
I worked security at the Program in Human Sexuality where many folks go to get started transitioning, so after a lifetime of feeling words like "girl, woman, female" as incomplete, at best, I went and got a brochure and continued thinking about gender for a long time. It helped a lot that there is a strong transgender community in the Twin Cities Metro Area (that included genderqueer folk, at least at the time), and I have very supportive friends. I was able to explore ideas and feelings without enduring a lot of pressure to "shit or get off the pot." Somewhere along the way I decided that though I meet the Harry Benjamin/DSM IV threshold for Gender Identity Disorder, I am sufficiently disenchanted by their conceptualization, language, and standards of "care" that I don't trust them and don't want to undergo any kind of surgery. The fact that I feel like I can live in this body (most days), even if it's uncomfortable, to me says that I'm not a man, even if I am, at times, quite mannish.

Another post touching on this subject is here.

Since I began having sex, I've discovered that I'm a tomcat. A Pleasant Pervert, as a longtime friend says. A Benevolent Fucker, if you will. That's my instinct and how I'm happiest. Though I occasionally experience transient jealousy, I love seeing friends and lovers happy and sated with as much love and sex as they can possibly stand. In speaking glowingly of polyamory in my own life, I am not putting down monogamy. Some people aren't wired for polyamory. Some aren't wired for monogamy. Some aren't wired for either. I enjoy many relationships; I don't expect that everyone would.

There are at the moment more than two and less than five lovely and wonderful people I'm involved with in varying ways. Some of them are friendships with kinky benefits, some are romances, some are special friendships, some shape-shift, some defy description, some are more than one at once. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Question: Were you born in the South? Have you lived other places? How is it there for you?

Do you like Death Note?
I must have slept on Death Note, though the plot line sounds familiar. Having looked it up, I feel quite intrigued.

Question: Do you like Afro Samuri?

What's the most exciting thing you learned recently?
There's a new baby in our community, born to good queer parents who will love and teach him well.
www.boondogglefilms.com OMG SO GOOD.
I am starting EMT class soon and I got some new 6" boots, the kind that EMS/Fire/Police tend to favor, and they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn in my life. When in doubt and surplus, buy the shoes the pros use. They are quite simply, bitchin'.

Question: What's the most exciting thing you taught (or learned) recently?

What do you wish for?
Though I'm not a Buddhist per se, the stock Buddhist reply of, "an end to suffering," would cover a lot (end of war, legalized same-sex marriage, end of persecution, end of violence, and a manifesto of other things).
Pot stands so I don't ruin the deck.
Clear communication with good listeners, direct questions, and "please" and "thank you."
Quiet neighbors between 10 and 10.
Moments with lovers on uninhabited beaches in uninhibited moments.
A copy of a Eudora Welty's short story, "A Worn Path."
A chance to heal myself and positively affect those around me.
To not have to eat cat food when I am old.

Question: What are you most grateful for?

What's your sign/Myer's Briggs/Enneagram, if you follow any of that?
Aquarius on the Capricorn cusp. Moon in Sagittarius. Some other stuff, but I forgot. Aquarius rising. Jupiter in Aquarius. Like four or five other things in Aquarius. Mars in Taurus. I was born in the Year of the Wooden Tiger, depending on which Chinese calendar you consult, if that means anything to you.  Myers-Briggs... I definitely test as an introvert pretty consistently. Everything else shifts depending on how flippant I am feeling when I take the test.

Question: Do you have a code you live by?

What makes things better? What makes them worse?
More good questions. The answers are not all about us, if that makes sense... just in the way of general information.

Worse - Shoulds. Commands.
I have a very hard time with commands. Because I know that I react strongly to words like "should" and because my reactions have gotten me into very hot water in the past, I seem to have unfortunately masked and repressed those reactions to the point where if I can find a way to accommodate a directive, I will. And I often hurt myself doing it. I know it's problematic, and (to use words I've appreciated a great deal from you), I'm trying to do better.

Keeping secrets.

Better - Laughter, massage, time with friends, time on the beach, sunny days in the park, time alone, hot tubs, buoyancy, sex, a quiet hour, forgiveness, when people can be gentle with me, when I can be gentle with myself, rosemary and lavender wrapped in a medium-sized, damp towel, microwaved for two mintues, and applied to my neck, curiosity, therapy, comfortable shoes, the very occasional beer, sometimes a walk, sometimes a run, reminders of anything I've done right or handled well, Reed's Ginger Brew, space to speak, space to listen, writing, a funny video, a clean house, Dragon Balm, reassurances. The words please and thank you and "could you ...?" and "would you ...?" and "I'd really like it if..."
That day y'all asked me out for ice cream, I could have kissed your sweet faces.
You, specifically, are authorized to prescribe me a chocolate bar, because it will make me smile, probably, even if I don't have one. I also respond extremely well to, "I invite you to take five deep breaths, if you can." And I'll thank you afterwards.

Question: What makes things better? What makes them worse? (I did say they were good questions.) :)

Damn, I can't really be first, can I?
No, it just looks that way because comments were screened. :)

What's the first book you really recall reading for yourself? What made it memorable?
Oh, probably the Little Engine That Could or The Monster at the End of This Book (Little Golden Book). The Little Engine That Could was really encouraging when I was frustrated trying to learn to tie my shoes or remember everything from calling Time and Temperature or something and Grover freaks out in the Monster at the End of This Book, but then it all turns out ok. It was funny to me, I think.

Do you have favorite parts of bodies on different genders of folk?
If I understand your question correctly, no. I appreciate the whole package and "parts" don't seem to make a difference as long as they're relatively clean and cared for. My first attractions without exception are always to the brain/heart and where that intersects with mouth as well as a number of other muscles.
I do seem to like how the sternum feels though. And I find hips fascinating. And armpits compelling.

Damn coolest thing you learned yet in anatomy/physiology?
Speaking of the neuromuscular junction, an action potential arrives at the axon terminal causing voltage regulated calcium channels to open and flood the axon terminal with calcium ions. Synaptic vesicles of acetylcholine (ACh) move to the terminal end of the axon and release ACh into the synaptic cleft by exocitosis. ACh receptors on the motor end plate of the sarcolemma are activated and an action potential travels along the sarcolemma down the T-tubules. Any remaining ACh in the synaptic cleft diffuses away and is degraded by acetycholinesterase.

The action potential reaches the terminal cisternae of the sarcoplasmic reticulum and calcium ions rush into the cell where they act on the troponin-tropomyosin complex to pull the tropomyosin away from the binding site of the actin myofilament. High-energy myosin crossbridges connect to the actin filament for the power stroke and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) + another phosphate are released from the crossbridge. The power stroke pulls actin filaments toward the center of the sarcomere. (You wink or stick your key in the lock or yawn or cum or do anything involving a muscle contraction.) So then the really cool part? Fresh adenosine triphosphate (ATP) connects to the cross bridge disconnecting it from the actin binding site--if it doesn't, well, that means you have a real problem because that's what rigor mortis is--and that ATP hydrolizes to ATP + P and the myosin head returns to its high-energy state. ATP also powers the pumps that return the calcium ions to the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Your muscle relaxes. And we're doing it all the time. I prolly did a billion of 'em just typing this. That's damn cool.

Last bit: Botulin suppreses the releases of acetycholine, causing paralysis. Black widow spider venom does the opposite, causing inability to stop contracting. Which is a problem. Especially to your heart, if venom gets there.

I have a lot to learn.

Question: Do you like it when I talk Biology to you? ;)


How'd you pick the name I know you by?
I was rapidly nearing 30, and I wanted a rite of passage, a bookmark, of sorts. I felt like at 30 years, I should get to have a name I chose for myself in addition to all the ones that were chosen for me. I wanted a name to remind me of resilience. I wanted a name that you have to smile at least a little to say. Also, my boss at the time was using my full birth name to indicate displeasure with some aspects of my performance, like a parent does, and I wanted to undermine her ability to tap into juvenile reactions by choosing a name that I'd not connect in any way to old patterns when it is called.

Question: Are you at WisCon? Am I missing yet another opportunity to see you this very as-we-speak-end?