The DonnaBlog

It has been a while since I posted here.  Part of the problem is the busy-ness of my days lately.  A bigger part, however,  has been difficulty with keeping my Wordpress stable.  On many days I couldn’t do an entry even if I wanted.   I came to within a day or two of reverting back to my old way of blogging, but I’m hopeful that I’ve got the second problem resolved for a while.  We’ll see.

I’m hoping to get a little more active with this blog over the next few weeks.  Again.  I’m also expecting that it will change a bit from its previous incarnation into something a bit different.  Change is good.

Quite a bit has happened since my last entry.  As I write this it’s 5:30 in the morning and I’ve been in South Carolina for a little over two weeks.  I came to spend Thanksgiving with Elizabeth and her family and have had a wonderful visit.  I’ve got two more days of  quiet time before things get crazed again for a little while.

As I may have mentioned previously I’ve started going to church again.  I could write for hours about my own personal spiritual journey and reaching a point of actually sharing it as part of a broader community.  I’ll spare you and won’t get into specifics at the moment.

The reason I mention it is that I’ve attended services in a number of places: Pittsford, Scottsdale, several churces here in the Charleston area, Austin, Dallas.  It’s fascinating to actually “feel” how things are different from one place to another within the same denomination. 

A couple of weeks ago the sermon was about the end of the church calendar year, and about Endings in general.  It provided good food for thought as I’m noticing a number of chages that seem like endings in my own life.  Sometimes ending simply mean changes and happen over time while other times they happen quickly and are more noticeable.

The corollary, of course, is that every ending is also a beginning.

Speaking of the church, a Roman Catholic cardinal made a statement earlier this week that gays and transsexuals can’t get to heaven (details here).  That didn’t surprise me, but I’ll admit that the rebuke from the Vatican to distance itself from this stuff was unexpected.  Last year a translation of the Pope’s Christmas message included a statement that saving the world from transgender people was as important as saving the rain forests (my Blog entry about it is here).  All I can say is that my spirit has never been healthier and more aware and I’m comfortable with the prospects of my soul’s viability when my own ending arrives.

Speaking of endings, news surfaces shortly after Thanksgiving that Mike Penner, who many of us also knew as Christine Daniels, had died of an apparent suicide.  Mike was a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times who came out shortly after Susan Stanton did and was the second “high profile” transgender outing in a short period of time.  Although she worked hard to keep a fairly low profile every time I saw Christine she seemed to be struggling – she just never seemed comfortable – and it was with concern for her that I learned that she had aborted her transition and started writing again as Mike.  Anyway, I wrote an essay for Bilerico on it last week (read it here).

Compared to recent weeks I had several media things to do.  I wrote the Bilerico Essay mid-week.  I also did an interview for blogtalkradio about workplace issues: you can hear it here.  My involvement in formal advocacy efforts is a fraction of what it once was, but that has freed up energy and time to focus it in more specific ways.  I’m happy with where I am right now – it feels like a good balance for me.

I received an invitation in the mail today from the President and his wife to attend a Holiday Reception in the White House on Dec 15.  It’s very impressive looking, and I’m both honored and humbled to receive this tremendous honor.  Now all I have to do is find a way to get there and back from Phoenix.  Holiday flights are rarely fun, cheap, or easy.

I’ve been growing my hair out but had a little “incident” earlier in the week where apparently I got out of bed in the middle of the night and decided to trim it for some reason.  I have only vague recollections of it, but the proof is right there in so I know it’s true.  The good news is that I didn’t do too much damage and went to a local stylist who did a wonderful job salvaging and, in fact, was great.  Thanks Nicole!

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen at least a half dozen women out and about who I strongly suspect are trans.  Part of me wants to simply go up and say hi but proper etiquette in these situations is to let the moment pass without any kind of acknowledgement to one another and that’s a shame.  Who’s to say what subtle aspects of ourselves make our “gift” more visible to other trans-people?  Sometimes it’s just that we’ve been around each other and can simply feel it, I suppose.  And there’s certaily no proof that any of these women are trans so that’s always a potential risk but I wish that there was some way to interract at that level….

As I mentioned, I’ve been in South Caroline for a little over 2 weeks and I’m getting ready to leave tomorrow.  I’ll be in the Phoenix area by mid-week – there’s a 1,200 mile drive from Dallas involved because I want my car with me – and I expect to be there for at least a couple of weeks.  At this point it’s open-ended so we’ll see how things unfold.  I have a number of commitments, a number of Holiday events to attend, and I’m actively looking for my next career opportunity so I expect I won’t get bored.

As I’ve discussed in the past the Holidays have taken on a more introspective personality for me in recent years.  When my son it was all very much about family and “together” but now that he’s grown and gone that’s not a significant motivator.  My father died a couple of days after Christmas in 1998 so that affects how I “celebrate” things – not in a morose or sad way but certainly with more thought and awareness.  When it comes to “endings” – it’s a time to reflect on where you are in life, things accomplished, things undone, and to make plans.  That’s my recent mindset during the Holidays so I may spend Christmas Day in Sedona or at the Grand Canyon, just getting away.  We’ll see how it unfolds.

Endings.  I see some coming.  I feel others are near.  It’s not about stopping them or even prolonging them.  It’s about accepting them, and moving on with new beginnings.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s an ability critical for healthy living.

And so – life goes on!