The DonnaBlog

November 11

As has been the case many times over the past several years, as I write this I’m on the road, in the air, or otherwise traveling. This has been a constant for me lately – particularly because it recently struck me that I don’t know if there’s a single spot or place that I can call home.

Right now I’m halfway through my flights from Charleston to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  However the last week has been a flurry of road warrior.

I arrived in Charleston last Wednesday evening from Dallas. Elizabeth met me at the airport and we headed straight over to an event she’s mentioned for years but that I’ve never attended: the Carolina Coastal Fair.

I’ve been to many fairs in my life but nothing quite like this. It was another reminder of the cultural “growth” that has been part of my relationship with Elizabeth over the past couple of years, since I started spending considerable amounts of time in South Carolina.

When it comes to “home” in a very real sense the Charleston area has come to feel as much like home as anywhere that comes to mind. A significant part of that is most certainly where my heart is.  It’s also because Elizabeth grew up there and is the most capable, fascinating, and passionate tour guide/historian that you can imagine. Charleston is very much a part of her spirit in a way that I’ve never experienced a place being for someone and I’m the first to admit that it’s infectious. It just is.

Our life together there is indeed a full one, whether working around her house, doing things with her kids, visiting with her family, doing stuff downtown, eating, working out, going to the beach, or otherwise enjoying any number of the annual events she enjoys (fair, Haunted Hayride, re-enactment, and on and on….) it seems as though we’re awake early and in bed early, as well.

Some ask why I’m not there permanently – it seems to have everything and, in some ways, for me it does. But it’s not that simple. Back when I was doing corporate IT work I couldn’t get a job there. There’s very little need for tech professionals doing what I was typically paid to do so the decision was a problematic one. Now that I haven’t had a job job since April – partly due to the need to nourish my soul by spending more time with her there – it’s time to revisit what comes next on that front.

There are other complications, as well, that I can’t and won’t try to explain. Suffice to say – I spend as much time there as I can and the rest will work itself out.

Anyway, back to the Fair thing. This fair had all the rides you’d associate with a fair and, in fact, was probably larger than some state fairs. It was very impressive. But even more impressive was the food. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

I’m in probably the best shape of my recent adult life. I’m fitting in clothes with single digit sizes that I’ve never imagined fitting into. Some, including my mom, have actually encouraged me to gain a little weight but I haven’t figured out if it’s because I’m truly too thin or because it’s simply new territory that they’re not used to. Either way – any sense of being a judicious diet ended last Wednesday evening when we sampled pretty much everything we could find. We had skewers of lamb. We had ice cream. We had funnel cake with powdered sugar and cinnamon. We had a gyro. We had more, too,but I’ve blocked a bunch of it out of my head.

Perhaps the height of this Fair food orgy was a booth with all kinds of fried “things” that I’ve never seen before. One of the jokes about southern cooking is that they fry everything, and this booth proves it to be true. They had fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, and all sorts of other things you’d never typically stop to consider what it might taste like deep fried in batter. For my part – I had a fried Snickers Bar and I’ll admit that it was warm and yummy. They even had fried butter. I need to change careers and become a cardiologist there – it’s probably quite lucrative.

Anyway – it was much fun. The rest of our past week together has been much more hectic.

Thursday we started the drive to Washington DC to attend the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) national dinner and got as far as northern North Carolina. Friday we finished the drive, rested for a little while, and attended the dinner.

It’s the only fancy dinner I attend at this point and is held in the awesome Building Museum in Washington DC.  We both had a wonderful time.

Saturday and Sunday we took care of so  me things in the DC area and chilled in Northern Virginia with friends.

Monday afternoon we made the 200 mile drive to Charlottesville, VA where I was scheduled to speak that evening at the University of Virginia as part of their Proud To Be Out Week (PTBOW) festivities. They did an amazing job of pulling this event together in a very short period of time and I was tremendously impressed. Thanks to everyone who attended and made it so much fun.

Thanks for Jenna for these photos.  She’s got more on her Facebook page.

Afterwards – when I got back to the hotel a little after 10:30 – rather than spend the night there Elizabeth and I decided to leave and drive back to Charleston. Tropical Storm Ida was threatening to soak the southeast and we hoped to arrive in South Carolina before it did. Plus, we didn’t want to spend 8 hours of our last day together driving 500 miles in a car so we drove all night long, arriving for breakfast at Cracker Barrel outside of Charleston just before 7am.

As I mentioned I’m scheduled to speak at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids this afternoon, and then I’ll fly back to Dallas tomorrow.

It was a wonderful week. I half-joke that trips with Elizabeth and me would make an endlessly fascinating, certainly entertaining, ultimatelyh informative reality show. We have fun, we give each other space to do our own stuff, we approach things similarly.

Things are about to get more serioius.  I’m horribly behind on my email and hope to get caught up a bit in coming days. I also need to spend some time considering what comes next. I’ve got some significant decisions to make.

November 12, 2009

I’m flying again. Right now I’m on the final leg of this trip – from Grand Rapids to Minneapolis/St. Paul to Dallas. They upgraded me to first class – thanks Delta – and we should start descending shortly.

My day yesterday was a busy one. I landed at noonish and was met by Collette, an absolute firecracker of a woman who works with the LGBT Resource Center for Grand Valley State. We went to lunch before I had a meeting with the cast of Rent – they wanted to talk. That was followed by my talk from 4-6, dinner, a candlelight vigil for DOR at 8:30, and a panel discussion about LGBT lives from 9-11.

I didn’t get to my room until almost 11:30 and realized that my day started at 4am when I woke up to catch my flight there.  I suddenly realized how tired I was.

Here in Central Texas the big news is that the Fort Worth City Council passed a resolution to expand their anti-discrimination laws to include gender identity and gender expression in housing, public employment, and public accomodations. (details here, more details here).  Congratulations to everyone involved in making this happen.  It’s a BIG deal.

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about ENDA lately.  It will be moving soon.  From NCTE today:

Today, Chairman George Miller (D-CA) of the House Committee on Education and Labor announced that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will take its next steps when the committee marks up the bill next Wednesday, November 18; this is one of the final steps that precedes a vote by the full House. House leadership is optimistic about the bill that would ban from the workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, although they stress the importance that advocacy efforts for ENDA remain strong. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is the principle sponsor of the bill, joined by 189 co-sponsors, and along with Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) has been a strong champion of this legislation.

The Senate is also considering the bill and held a hearing in committee last week on the matter. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-WA) is the lead sponsor and strong advocate for the measure. When asked at a press conference last week whether there was any chance that gender identity would be stripped out of the bill, he answered simply, “No.”

This is huge stuff.  We’re on the verge of history.