Yesterday, my AmeriCorps team was working at an event at the Statehouse promoting the new "One Test Two Lives" initiative to include HIV tests as part of routine prenatal care. We were asked to go upstairs and offer invitations to the event to the Important Government People, and told that we would find their offices on the third floor.

We got up to the third floor and found nobody up there except a lone state trooper behind a desk. He eyed us suspiciously. My teammate explained what we were there for and asked if the representatives' offices were on this floor. The state trooper told him that they were not. "Really?" asked my teammate.

Mr. State Trooper stood up and came around from behind the desk. "What? You think I'm lyin' to you??" he said, pretending to be pissed off. "You think I'm kiddin'??" We assured him that we believed him. This was clearly the most excitement he would see all day.

He took a pace around the five of us standing in front of his desk, ending up standing just behind me. I turned a little bit so I could at least see him in my periphery, since large state troopers standing behind me makes me just a little nervous. As I turned, he put his hand on my shoulder, which made me MORE than a little nervous, so I turned my head to look right at him REALLY fast.

"I like your hair!" he said. Then he rubbed my head.

Whee! Now I can check "get my head rubbed by a state trooper" off my bucket list!

Today is World AIDS Day.

Every day is world AIDS day until the virus is eradicated, but today is the day we are invited to collectively commemorate the global epidemic.

Nobody deserves HIV and nobody should be getting infected anymore. Do you know how to prevent the spread of HIV? If not, educate yourself. Educate your friends. Educate your community.

HIV can be spread by any form of sexual intercourse where a penis enters an orifice (mouth, anus, or vagina). You can reduce your risk by getting tested with your sexual partners -- if neither of you is infected, you cannot transmit HIV. You can reduce your risk by using condoms. Many clinics and community centers offer condoms for free. If you do not know where to get free condoms in your community, ask around. If there are no free condoms in your community, RAISE HELL UNTIL THERE ARE. Unprotected sexual activity is THE MOST COMMON way that HIV is spread. Make sure that you know how to use the condom correctly. Make sure your friends know how to use condoms correctly. Even if you never have sex, I guarantee that you know someone who does, and you could save their life by making sure they know how to use a condom.

HIV can be spread any time you inject a substance with a needle which has been used by another person -- regardless of what substance you were injecting. The needle is what spreads the virus, not the substance in the needle. The needle does not care if you are injecting street drugs or something your doctor prescribed. You can get HIV just as easily by sharing a needle for your gender hormones or insulin as you can by sharing a needle to get high. If you inject drugs or medication for any reason, DO NOT SHARE NEEDLES. If you absolutely must share needles, here is how to clean them. (I am alarmed that I could not find better instructions than that after 20 minutes of Googling, and will be rectifying this situation as soon as possible.) You can prevent the spread of HIV by making sure your friends know that sharing needles is ALWAYS an HIV transmission risk, regardless of what substance is being injected.

HIV can be transmitted to an infant, but this can easily be prevented! Medical advances have reduced the transmission rate from a pregnant individual to their child to less than 1% if proper care is received. If you are pregnant, you can protect your child by getting tested for HIV as early in your pregnancy is possible. If your pregnancy resulted from penis-in-vagina intercourse, there is also a chance you may have been exposed to HIV!

This prevention message is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood purple-headed HIV/AIDS prevention activist. You can protect yourself! You can protect your friends!

Dear brain,

Okay, I know you're excited about work! That's great! But, trust me, if you keep me awake all night because you're so excited about work that you have to tell me all your great ideas about what we should do at work this week, you will NOT be excited about work for very long. Come on now. We were doing so well with this sleep thing for a few days. Let's keep it up, okay? Sleep is good for you. Really.

Love,
Oliver Danni

I've officially been vegan for 7 years today.

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for so much today. :)

This is up there with the dancing kid at K-Mart.

I'm at the gas station, pumping gas.
A nicely dressed African-American man, maybe in his 30's, walks out of the convenience store. He nods at me. I nod at him.
"Purple hair!" he said, pointing.
"Yup!" I reply, smiling.
Then he starts singing. "Purple haaaaiiiiiir! Purple haiiiiiir! It's right over theeeeere, that purple haiiiiiir!"
I grin at him, trying not to laugh my ass off. He walks over to his car, which is parked at the pump behind the one I'm standing at. I resume paying attention to nothing.
Then I see him lean toward me, around the side of the pump. "Hey, what's your name?"
"Oliver."
"Oliver, eh? Did you just get back from New York?"
Huh? I don't know this guy, and I don't have New York plates anymore, so there's no way he knows I grew up in New York. "Uh...I live here," I said.
"Oh, okay. Never mind, you don't get it. Well, are you a follower of Jesus Christ, Oliver?"
"He's a pretty cool dude! I like him quite a bit," I said.
"A 'cool dude', huh? You know, he's not all fun and games, our Lord and Savior. He can be pretty mean when he wants to be!"
Nuh-uh! I dunno where he's going with this, but I know where I'm going with it. "Huh, Jesus is mean? Where in the Bible do you see him being mean to someone?"
"Oh, all over! You don't wanna mess with him when he gets mad! He gets real mean!"
"That's interesting. I admit I haven't memorized the whole Bible, but I've never read about Jesus being mean. Jesus was well-known for going around being incredibly compassionate and generous to everyone."
"...but he's JESUS! He's MIGHTY AND POWERFUL!"
"Yeah, he is very powerful. The power he has is that he LOVES everybody. LOVE is the power."
"...yeah. Love is the power."
"You don't have to be mean to anyone to be powerful."
He looks at me thoughtfully. "Love conquers a multitude of sins."
I nod. "That's why I like the dude."
He gives me a suspicious look. "Do you even go to church?" Ohhhh, I know that look. That's the "but you're a freak with purple hair!" look!
"Yes, I do," I said. "Do you?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, just remember that Jesus's power is about love, not being mean. If you read your Bible carefully, I think that's what you'll find in there."
He looked a little disoriented. But he was smiling again. "Thanks, Oliver. Have a happy holiday and God bless."
"You too my friend. Jesus loves you!"

He then got in his car and drove away.

I busted my ass at work yesterday emailing about 400 people from our volunteer database who have applied to be volunteers but have either not yet been contacted at all, or have not yet been enrolled in our new volunteer training.

I woke up this morning with an inbox full of "Yes, please let me know what I need to do to be of service to your organization!" emails to follow up on.

I LOVE VOLUNTEERS!

I LOVE MY JOB!

I'm not feeling well today so I will be working from home. I think I just ate something that disagreed with me, and I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow, but given that my stomach's upset and it could theoretically be a virus, I better stay home. I have plenty of work to do!

It is 11:47 and I am about to go to sleep.
I am so grateful that I have a job which I'm excited to get up early for.
Tomorrow we start Messiah rehearsals, and one of my teammates is going to come sing with us!
Thursday is Thanksgiving, my 7-year veganniversary. I'll be celebrating with my new vegan friends.

I have a lot to be thankful for!

:)

One of my Quaker lesbian mamas is one of the original editors of Our Bodies, Ourselves. They are releasing a 40th anniversary edition of the book, in 2011.

I've been invited to help edit the "Gender Identity" chapter!

I'm pretty excited to be a part of this awesome piece of gender empowerment history.

Wow, that show was really good.
I'm tired now. More later. It was good god good god good.

6:13pm. Call time's at 7. Time to go put on the fancypants suit and head out.

My solo sounded pretty kick-ass at dress rehearsal the other night. I'll post about the process of going from "oh shit I can't do this" to "fuck yeah I can do this!" in >2wks. (If I don't, remind me!)

Fuck yeah I can do this.

People are actually coming tonight, to hear me sing.

I better go get there!

Wow, I haven't really been posting much lately, have I.

Things are really good. We changed up stuff at work. I'm up in the Development department now, doing volunteer coordination and outreach and planning the client holiday party and all the really fun stuff that I was excited about when I signed up for AmeriCorps. I'm feeling really good about how open everybody was to working with me to create a situation that worked well for me, and also really proud of myself for standing up for my needs and saying "Hey, I'm here to provide good service, but I need these things to be able to do that, so let's work together to make this happen" instead of giving up or getting pissed off or sitting back and taking crap I don't need or deserve. I'm working HARD now, and it's draining sometimes, but it's draining for the right reasons. I'm having to pace myself, not because I'm overloaded and being taken advantage of, but because I'm having the opportunity to do so many awesome things that I enjoy that I'm having to be careful that I can actually do a good job on all the things that I'm taking on. It's a really good dilemma to have. I feel like I'm really making a difference each day, in little ways that add up to big ways. It's clear that the work I'm doing is going to have a lasting impact on the organization. I go to work, I do my job, and I come home knowing that when my service year is over, regardless of whether I choose to stay a second year, the volunteer program at my agency will be much stronger because I came on board this year. I'm right where I need to be, right when I need to be there.

I'm excited about my concert Saturday. A lot of my friends are coming. I was freaking about the solo, especially since I screwed it up REALLY badly the first week of rehearsing it, but I got someone to coach me and when I came back the next week it sounded amazing. So now I feel like, wow, I can do this. I can do this!

I'm seeing massage clients again -- not a lot, I just don't have the time, but when I can, it's wonderful. I missed that so much. I wish I had more hours in my week so I could do all these things.

Some weird stuff from my past has come up in the last day or so, stuff that at another point in time would have been nightmares and hiding and freaking out, but somehow right now it's just settling into place where it is, and instead of feeling traumatized and triggered and wrecked, I feel like..."This is me, that was me too, I was there and now I'm here, and I'm okay with that." I don't know if that makes sense. I don't really have good words for it right now. But it's good, it's all good.

So, I'm good. How are you?

I cannot be sick again right now. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
I don't have time to be sick. I have shit to do. I have a job to do. I have a show in 12 days. I have rehearsal in 40 minutes.
I also have a sore throat and backed up sinuses.
THESE THINGS DO NOT GO TOGETHER.
I don't know what else to do. I'm taking the immune system supplement. I'm drinking echinacea tea right now as I type this. I'm even getting enough sleep. I've alleviated as much of the stress in my life as possible. I can't be sick right now. I can't fucking be sick right now. I just WAS sick, remember? For two weeks??

I got the solo.

COMMENCE FREAKING OUT NOW.

3 weeks till show. I think my choir director has lost his mind.

PLEASE COME, if you can.

I auditioned for the MLK solo. I think I owe some high notes an apology. My new choir buddy, the Baptist preacher, says I sounded lovely. I think he's full of shit, but who am I to call a preacher a liar? I was about to go up to our director and apologize, but Pastor Pal said I wasn't allowed to apologize, so I just asked him if I could have a chance to do it over. He said I sounded fine, and he didn't need to hear me again. That either means I sounded fine, or "please don't ever break my eardrums like that again".


I mean, uhhhh...I auditioned for the MLK solo, and even though I thoroughly embarrassed myself, I'm proud of myself for standing up and doing it.

Oh, by the way? WE ARE SINGING "SHED A LITTLE LIGHT" BY JAMES TAYLOR. <3333333

Happy World Vegan Day!

I have more muffins! YAY!

www.worldveganday.org

My 7-year veganniversary is coming up this month. :)

My friend Lynn Waddington died this afternoon.

The last four months have seen the deaths of three friends and one grandma for me. All four were powerful women elders who embodied love for me in ways that I will never forget.

Bonnie, Jane, Suzanne, Lynn...thank you for your lives. Thank you, God, that I got to be part of them in some way.

I spend Wednesday at Earlham visiting my beloved friend Peterson, one of my queer Quakers, one of those people I just always feel me around in a terrifyingly affirming sort of way, and to have that even just for a few hours...god, that was SO what I needed yesterday. I mean, I need it every day. But, thank god I got it for a few hours, yesterday, at least.

We shared chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins and talked about gender and God and vegan food and institutionally-induced insanity and audiences and liberals and travel. What I needed wasn't the words. What I needed was the love. Not just on the level of "I love you, you love me, we're friends and we love each other yay", but on the level of "you and are are present with this Holy Sacred Cosmic Love and swimming around in it together, and in fact, it IS us, so we're swimming around in us together and how totally fucking awesome is that? Mmmm. Let's have another muffin."

Existing on that level just kinda renders me speechless, you know? I guess that's why I feel so home with Quakers.

I haven't felt it since I stopped moving. This is a scary revelation for me, after years of paddling as hard as I could to not be homeless, to get an apartment, to have a personal space of my own that I come home to every night and nobody bothers me. But this apartment has never really felt like mine, exactly. Not the way like how I feel at home in my car, on the road, toss my stuff in the back seat and take off as quick as I can. Most of the things that I own in this place, if I just decided to jump in the car and take off tomorrow, abandon all my stuff here...I wouldn't miss any of it. I'd take my teddy bear and my box fan and my Tarot cards. Maybe I'd take my journals, if I really didn't think I was coming back.

And, yet, I know it isn't time for me to take off now. I know, even though I can't hear the clarity as loudly as I wish I could. I have to stay here for now. Here in this city, in this service position, in this apartment, in this body. It's stay-here-time.

Whenever I see Peterson, there are two of me going on at once. One of me is 100% there with him, fully present with the time and space we're sharing, whether we're eating or talking or I'm watching him perform. The other of me is running in and out of the room, running in screaming LET ME IN LET ME IN LET ME IN and running out screaming I CAN'T LOOK I CAN'T LOOK I CAN'T LOOK. The other of me wishes every minute ze's alive that ze could be that, do that, have that. Ze's been wanting to be on the road, performing, for as long as ze's been me. Ze's scared to death of me now because of how many times I've tried to kill zim, it's true. But ze hasn't given up yet. I don't think "give up" is in zir nature. Maybe ze needs to teach me how that works.

Not a day has gone by in the last month that I haven't wished I could pick up the phone and call Bonnie. I keep trying to imagine what she would say, what wisdom she would offer, and I can't do it. I can't imagine it. It feels almost insulting to try, like, if I already knew what she was going to say why would I have ever needed to call her to find out? And regardless of what I believe or want to believe about death and what happens afterward, I still can't pick up the damn phone and call Bonnie.

http://www.cookiemag.com/homefront/2008/01/pinkboys?currentPage=1


The Pink Dress

Young Sam demands to wear a dress to school, forcing his parents to make a decision: protect him from ridicule or cultivate his self-expression?

By Sarah Hoffman

( Read more... )

"Today, I realized that Obama has the same slogan as Bob the Builder. This amuses me way more than it should. MLIA"

I saw this on www.mylifeisaverage.com today and started laughing so hard that it HURT. Now the next time I see that bumpersticker I'm going to bust up and crash the car. AWESOME! :D

I BAKED!!!

I made chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins!!
They are amaaaaaaaaazing!!
I have never successfully baked anything before. This is absolutely revolutionary.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

It came to my attention that Seventeen Magazine had printed an article which negatively portrayed a transgender person.

There was a time in my life when I probably owned more issues of Seventeen Magazine than books. Okay, maybe not, but that was only because I owned a lot of books. So, this hit me right in the heart.

So I wrote them a letter. It's really a letter for everyone, but it's addressed to Seventeen Magazine.

( here is my letter. please click here and read it. )

Hey Team Awesome.

I can't sleep.
I haven't been able to sleep through the night since my surgery, June 2008.
I have tried everything I can possibly think of. I have even tried medications. Everything is either too strong (knocks me out for 10+ hours at a time and/or gives me awful nightmares), not strong enough (puts me right to sleep, but then I wake up 2-3 hours later and can't sleep again), or just flat-out doesn't work. I am really not jumping at the idea of getting hooked on a pill that I won't be able to stop taking and won't be able to sleep without.

I have tried yoga. I have tried journaling at all different times of day. I have tried going to sleep later, earlier, even pulling an all-nighter to try to force my biological clock to reset. (MISERABLE FAILURE. NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.) I have tried relaxation, aromatherapy, white noise, music, meditation, adjusting my diet, fan off, fan on, two fans on, window open, window shut, showering before bed, exercising at various times of day...FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.

I can sleep for about two hours at a time, generally, and lately it's a challenge to convince my body to even fall asleep at all. Once I've finally convinced my body to sleep, and then woken up several more times during the night, I get progressively more tired until FINALLY, when it's time to WAKE UP, my body is all set to sleep for a few more hours.

WHAT. THE FUCK. DO I DO?

Any advice you may have to offer for fighting insomnia will be greatly appreciated.

I've just watched the SoulForce Equality Rides documentary on LOGOonline.com.

God, that was fucking intense. And I'm just sitting here far away from it, watching on my screen.

I love that people are that brave. I love that people do shit like that. I love that God calls people to do shit like that and they listen.

Am I like that? Can I ever be like that? Do I have that in me?

Do you?

www.soulforce.org/equalityride

Today I have discovered a neat trick!

I went to Borders, which I rarely do, mostly because it's just so expensive. But, they do often have a better selection of Tarot decks than any of the New Age-y shops, so sometimes if I really want a new deck and I want it right now and I don't want to order it online and pay more for shipping and then wait a week for it...I'll go at least take a peek at Borders.

Sure enough, they had one that was way up on my wish list, and it wasn't even locked away in the don't-touch-me cabinet, and it was under $20.

So I brought it up to the counter to pay for it, and this is when I learned the neat trick.

The cashier asked me, "Do you have a Borders Reward card?"
I don't.
"You can save $5 on your purchase today, and receive a coupon for $5 off your next purchase, if you sign up now!"
Really?
"Yes, I'll just need you to give me an email address."
I gave her an email address I haven't touched in years.
"And a phone number?"
"Do I have to give you a phone number?"
"No, that's fine. Here is your coupon, and here is your receipt noting the $5 you've saved today, and here is your Borders Reward card! Have a great day!"

Damn, that was easy! I could do that every time I go to Borders and save $5 just by giving them a different email address that I don't use!

I thought about it on the way home, and I don't feel that this is dishonest. They want an email address to send ads to, and they want me to buy stuff at their store. Well, they've got an email address, and it really is my email address, and by saving me $5 on every purchase I ever make, I'm a lot more likely to shop at their store. Everyone wins!

I had a dream that my grandmother was alive again. In real life, she had Alzheimer's and had forgotten that I was her "granddaughter" about ten years ago. In the dream, she did not remember me as her "granddaughter", but someone explained to her that I was her oldest grandchild and she immediately accepted that, and that's who I was. In the dream, she and I were in an alternate universe starting one week before her death, where she had accepted me as her oldest grandchild even though she didn't remember me from before that, and I had one week to spend with her. I knew it was an alternate universe and that she was going to die at the end of the week, but she didn't know any of that. She just knew that here was her oldest grandchild and we had a week to spend together, and that even though she didn't really know who I was very well, it was okay because I'm her oldest grandchild.

We spent the whole week doing pretty much all the same stuff we did when I was six. We played Scrabble. We read to each other. We went to the park and made faces at flowers. She let me help her cook all my favorite foods. We went to concerts, and she told me how exciting it was that I loved classical music just like she did, because when she was "my age" the other kids used to make fun of her about it. I don't know how old she thought I was. It didn't matter.

There was also this other really weird theme in the dream where the guy who was my neighbor when I actually was six kept coming over to visit. He's (still!) about a year older than me in real life, and I haven't had any contact with him since we were teenagers. In the dream, there was this weird dynamic where I kinda had a crush on him, and he totally had a huge thing for me, which was WAY never true in real life since we pretty much stopped talking after he kicked me out of his band when I was 11.

Definitely preferable to the dreams noted in the previous post, though it would be nice if I could also sleep for MORE THAN TWO HOURS AT A TIME FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I didn't take the Nyquil tonight, and miraculously managed to at least FALL asleep on my own, but yeah, two hours. Fuuuuuuuhuuuhuuuhhuuck.

My doctor advised me to use Body-Guard, which is an herbal formula designed to improve immune system functioning and relieve adrenal stress and fatigue. It is 100% vegan and contains colloidal silver, grapefruit seed extract, lomatium, black walnut, cat's claw, olive, pau d'arco, echinacea, clove, artemisia, thuja, cayenne, oregano, and thyme.

Whatever the fuck it is, I hope it helps. It finally arrived today, so I'm taking it now. It's definitely not as tasty as it sounds, but it's taken diluted in water, so I can't really taste it very much.

I'll let you know if it's good. At the very least, it better help me fight this cough, but if it fucks up my sleep any worse...well, I think it would be damn near impossible to fuck up my sleep any worse at this point, but I sure don't want to find out.

o, nyquil!
you are my new best friend.
instead of waking up every few hours so i can stress myself out some more,
i swallow you before i go to sleep
and then i don't wake up again for ten hours!
i sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep
and then i roll over but my eyes don't really open
i pry one eyelid loose so i can see what time it is
and then realize i don't care
because i'm still doped up
i lay there half-awake a few more minutes
appreciating how good it feels to take deep sleepy breaths of air down into my lungs
i'm still sick, and they're still full of mucus,
waiting to come back up if i get out of bed
but why get out of bed?
i have nyquil running through my body!
i will sleep some more!
for a moment i consider drinking some water before sleeping again
after all, it's been ten hours since i was last awake
but the motivation to move is all drained out
sleep is all that's good right now

o, nyquil!
you are a dangerous lover
i knew you were trouble the minute i let you slip
down my tongue
even before i'd tasted this dream of having everything leave my body
except
sleep
i knew you were trouble
and i'm following you there
breathe deep, roll over,
sleep, sleep, sleep again.


I continuing justifying this because I am still sick, but somehow I feel like this thing where I take a pill that makes me feel so good I don't want to leave my bed ever, and then sleep for 10+ hours a day, is probably not going to contribute to my re-constructing functionality in my life. Which, um, is why I don't take pills. Right? Mmmmm.

I wish I could fly.
I wish I could reorient gender entirely, instead of constantly having to fuck around with my fragile sanity to balance my own gender out.
I wish I had a house elf.
I wish I were happy.
I wish I had a family.
I wish I had more energy.
I wish I had regular, frequent physical contact with other human beings. The hugging sort would be fabulous. Not the handshake-hug sort...real hugs.
I wish I could save the world and not lose my mind.
I wish I had a real relationship with my body.
I wish I didn't get so misanthropic sometimes.
I wish people would pay me to read Tarot for them. I love doing it but it's so nice to get paid, you know?
I wish I had a blender that cleaned itself.
I wish I had dishes that cleaned themselves, too.
I wish everyone communicated in ways that made sense to me.
I wish that I could count on my friends, both in the day-to-day help-me-out sense and in the long-term not-suddenly-dropping-out-of-my-life-for-no-reason sense.
I wish I knew what to do.
I wish I were healthy. Really, really healthy.
I wish my brain did not do what it is doing right now.
I kind of wish I had a sexual orientation, but I reckon that would actually be more complicated than it would be worth.
I wish I could just sing all the time, and that's it.

Rather than moping in bed, I shall offer free Tarot readings.

Please comment with a question or request for general guidance! These will be quick (probably 1-card) readings, but fun as always. :)

It is totally NOT cool that I've been inexplicably having cramps in the you-know-where all day today.

Beyond that, I'm feeling physically "less sick", but not "nonsick".

My ankle feels awesome, though, and as my friend Natalya kindly reminded me on the phone this evening, perhaps being sick ensured that I would rest the ankle for a week or two longer than I thought I needed to, which is probably a good idea.

I am extremely frustrated with a number of key support people who have failed to return my phone calls. #1 on that list is my food stamps caseworker, with whom I have still never spoken, because I have been trying to call her to reschedule the appointment I could not make for nearly 3 weeks now. The appointment was scheduled for Sept 30. I called several times before and after that date to reschedule the appointment, which I could not make, and have left messages both on her voice mail and with her receptionist. She has returned zero of my messages, but I got a notice in the mail that I had missed my scheduled appointment. No shit I missed my scheduled appointment! I called repeatedly to tell her I couldn't make that appointment. As thrilling as it will be when I finally get this sorted out and my food stamps get backdated to Sept 16 and I have hundreds of dollars to spend on delicious food...it would be really nice to have some of that money NOW, when I'm squeezing my paychecks to take care of myself while I'm sick and have extra sick-related expenses but no massage income to cover the balance.

I wish that I could re-program my brain; just take it out, plug it into a monitor and a keyboard, and totally fuck around with it until it worked the way I wanted it to.

I wish I had someone to curl up in a ball with.

I wish I had a puppy.

I wish a lot of things.

Being sick is kinda lonely.

How was your day?
What are you excited about these days?

I'm not sure to whom this will mean anything other than me, but oh well.

I just did a Tarot reading of my chakras:

1: Knight of Cups/7 of Coins
2: The Hermit
3: The Tower
4: 9 of Wands reversed
5: Temperance
6: The Devil
7: The Fool reversed

Even without looking at the images on the cards, that's not a pretty picture.

I just got an email notification that my CouchSurfing.com profile had been inactive for over 4 months and would be deactivated if I did not log in.

I didn't actually ever use CouchSurfing.com during my trip, but MAN was it depressing to get that email reminding me that it's been over 4 months since I've gone anywhere.

I miss being in motion.

My friends Pace & Kyeli have produced The Freak Revolution Manifesto! It is pretty awesome and I highly recommend you read it.

Also, we have a forum for awesome people to discuss awesome things, located at http://freakrevolutioncoffeehouse.ning.com

Here is a post I made on the blog for the National AIDS Fund/Caring Counts program with which I am serving as an AmeriCorps member! It is about the benefit show for the Indiana Youth Group at which I worked a couple weeks ago.

There is an LJ feed for this blog at nafblogger if you want to follow the blog on LJ, or you can follow it on Blogspot if you prefer. I will post here whenever I make a post on the blog myself, but I highly encourage you to follow the blog on your own if you want to read posts from other members who aren't me!

Hi everyone!

I just want to let you know that I have not intentionally abandoned LJ for Facebook. I have been posting on Facebook more lately only because I can access it from work, but can't access LJ, and then when I get home in the evenings I've been working at a computer half the day and don't want to anymore. It sucks, because I'm a committed LJ user even though most of my LJ friends have migrated to Facebook and don't even read LJ anymore, but my LJ is and has always been my space to say whatever I want to whomever wants to read and comment and it's going to stay that way.

I also really want to thank all of you who have been LJing with me, whether for "all these years" or just a short time now. Now that I have a job where a lot of my communication is via email, I'm doing a lot of "informal professional" writing on a regular basis, and to my surprise I've had several colleagues and supervisors in the last few weeks compliment me on my written communication skills. I never really thought about that being something I'm "good at", because I do it all the time, so to me it just kinda feels like "something I do", you know? I breathe, I eat, I fart, I write...but, it seems that people really appreciate it. And I know that I got good at this because of you.

So, thank you!

Now that I'm aware of this, I feel some responsibility to be more intentional about using this gift to make a difference in the world. Please hold me accountable to this! :)

Also, I love you! Have a beautiful day! <3

Man, I really like eating. :)