O M G

So Claire has had new hormone therapy now for a month (more on that later) and she's been definitely broadcasting different energy. We finally have her T knocked down to where it should be. I keep catching myself staring at her, realizing that she looks so lovely lately. She's happy, radiant, and just oozes femininity.

So, we go to Outback for lunch/dinner yesterday by a very friendly mall in Atlanta and we had a great time. After a lovely dinner, we both used the women's restroom together. It's the only place we've really been to where Claire has been comfortable walking into the women's restroom if it's more than a single stall kind of place. She's very self-conscious about being read in the women's room.

We headed over to the mall proper after dinner to look at bedding and clothes. We hit Sephora and were greeted at the door with "hello ladies" - which made Claire smile. Sephora was a bit uncomfortable for me because there's this energy of people wanting to put *gasp* makeup on you - something this tomboy will have to be wrestled into. But we had a good time looking around, and Claire had fun. At one point she found something Kiddo in Iraq might like, and I said "oh our daughter would just love that!". Oops. Way to give it away, Annie. :)

So we decide to head downstairs, and as we're walking to the stairs a man (pretty tall, and so is Claire) glanced over at us, then his eyes snapped back to Claire with an appraising look. I'll be damned if Claire didn't get her first flirting look from a guy.

And of course, she missed it.

Totally oblivious. Figures!

So, she didn't know whether to be tickled, flattered, appalled or any other emotion. In the end, she settled for what I hoped she would: pleased, delighted and very amused.

It was a good day :)

Well, we followed that up by doing nothing around the house today, except that I made some new jewelry. I'm working on bettering my silversmithing skills and getting more comfortable with a torch. I made a gorgeous ring with a huge ocean jasper stone. I'm keeping this one - I decided that I will keep all my first attempts both as history and to take the pressure out of the process. I also made a cool funky pendant mixing silver and copper. I'll see if Claire will take some pictures for me when I'm done.

Claire is working on her rank in the Halo 3 community. She was delighted to see that you can choose your gender in Halo now, and the emotes will be feminine if you choose female. You can also have pink armor, although she opted for a very cool brown. As for myself, I can't join in. I have simulator sickness with first person shooter games, and thus I'm out of Halo.

Well, time to head off to bed. I hope you have a lovely week.

Annie

Matthew Shepard Act Passes the Senate!

I'm sure you know, but hey, mainstream media wasn't carrying any notice of it. I still remember the day I read of his murder, of the brutality and senseless nature of the death of this lovely young man. It broke my heart then, and it still does every time his mother's name appears in my inbox as the Matthew Shepard Foundation pushes forward in this fight.

Hate crimes are a special breed of evil. But now, if Bush doesn't veto it, perhaps local law enforcement will have more resources to handle vicious polarizing crimes like these. But he has precedent in this - he was governor when James Byrd, Jr. was brutally murdered.

Remember James Byrd, Jr.? He was the man dragged to death in Texas in the late 90s. Three white supremacists beat him with a bat and then chained him behind a pickup truck and dragged him for 3 miles because they didn't like the color of his skin.

George W. Bush, governor at that time, stated his opposition to hate crime legislation and refused to attend Mr. Byrd's funeral. Thankfully, Governor Rick Perry fixed that situation in 2001 and passed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.

I noticed that both of my senators from Georgia decided to vote against the Matthew Shepard Act. I'm not surprised.

I truly hope Bush doesn't veto this. As my email from HRC stated today:
But even as we celebrate this victory – we know we face a tough road ahead. The bill has to survive final negotiations between the House and Senate before it gets to President Bush. Even then, he has threatened to veto it.

I guess we'll see. Don't forget to keep the pressure on and remember to thank those who did vote for it, and let them know how much it impacts the real people out here.

I also heard that ENDA may drop coverage for GID. I'm not really happy about that, but I guess if it passes without it at least my job will be protected. Silver lining, huh?

But anyway... on to a lighter note.

Kiddo emailed me from Iraq today. She's getting better dealing with the psychological trauma of being a combat medic in the thick of things, and has found herself with an ardent (read stalker) Iraqi admirer. Apparently he became smitten with her when she patched him up in the hospital. She's in good spirits though, and a tough little cookie. But she's still just such a little girl to me in so many ways.

I went to the hardware store today at lunch to get some of the fake stained glass adhesive window film, and I "accidentally" stumbled across the copper section in plumbing. Well, I saw all sorts of potential in some copper tubing and small copper bits that I can use in my jewelry. I adore copper and silver together. So, that's where I'll be tonight, in my studio hammering away with Claire rolling her eyes at me ;)

Wishing you all peace and love in memory of Matthew tonight. May you stay strong Judy, and thank you for all you've fought for.

Annie

So much catching up

Wow, I've just realized it's been a month since my last post. We've had so much going on. I'll tackle work this morning (before I head out to it).

Work: we're in the middle of a corporate restructuring at my new job (yay me!), so I've been in charge of migrating all the data from one area of the new company into our databases. It's been a lot of work and people are getting a little frayed at work. On a good note though, I've been told that my company has finished an investigation into the homophobic remarks at work and people have been spoken to. I still take precautions though, because I know that although the comments are gone, the attitudes are still there and probably festering now.

On a side note, I have Claire's picture up on my desk. Yesterday, a coworker walked by and saw it and asked...

Get ready...

"Is that your daughter?"

I told him that was my partner, and it was cute the way the light switched on. He picked up the picture, looked at her, and said "that's so cool." Heh.

Bastard. Do I look THAT OLD?

Of course, Claire thought it was *great*.

Ah well, I'm off to work. Have a great day everyone, I'll try to get back on track posting every few days, we have a lot to discuss.

In the meantime, go to HRC.ORG and get contact info for your elected officials, today is the vote for the hate crimes bill!

Annie