Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Twenty-eight years ago today I rolled into Seattle for the first time. How different was the city then? The Boeing bust of the '70s was still fresh in everyone's memory, and the end of Boeing's dominance over the city's economy was just appearing on the horizon. Microsoft had moved to Redmond a scant four years earlier. Capitol Hill, my spiritual home and the then-new gayborhood, may have still had some light industry still in the neighborhood. Seattle had affordable housing, a bus system it was proud of that seemed to meet mass transit needs, and grunge in every sense. Not much later if at all it also had a Queer Patrol out of necessity, a notorious heroin economy with visible impact - see "grunge" - and not much going on work-wise for any techies who, like me, disdained Microsoft*.

I miss the fun, the funk, and the low-budget DIY spirit of Seattle then, but I was often too preoccupied to take advantage of it until this century: school, relationships, work, trying to be a straight dude. Is that gone, drowned in tech money, never to return? I don't think it's gone completely, and it can be saved. If we can save ourselves from going the way of Detroit, we can save ourselves from going the way of San Francisco.

On an unrelated note, attendance for last night's trans group at Lambert House smashed the previous record. I filled up an attendance sheet and mostly emptied the downstairs. Attendance had been so poor early this summer that the volunteer coordinator expressed concern about it to me and my fellow facilitators. The only even partial explanation I have for this is that the school year just started, so everyone's back from vacation and perhaps jonesing for some queer contact after being exposed to their families more than usual, but this is nothing like past years.



*Yeah, 19 years later I ended up working for the bastids, but that was partly to obtain meds to keep my then-wife ambulatory.

This is one of those entries when I feel like I need to write something if only to ensure people I didn't get eaten by a grue, but I don't have much of interest to write about, I'm afraid.

I no longer have any excuses not to work on the Lambert House database schema & UI again; I have everything I need. I wish I were as enthusiastic about it this time as I was five years ago, but now it just seems like a bureaucratic (and programming) grind that may be pointless, depending on the whim of city officials. The reporting requirements never get any simpler.

The Wendling was at my place last night. I yelled at him when I got home from my bike ride and found the bathroom window shut because it's hot out and I was sweaty. He said the noise bothered him.
"I have earplugs. I'll give you some."
"They're uncomfortable for me."
Goddamn Asperger's.

Speaking of heat, despite or maybe because of all the smoke from wildfires in BC and relative warmth in the Seattle area, I've been sleeping really well. Or maybe I'm still making up for Saturday night.

Speaking of Saturday night, I have an... interesting night planned with the Tickler this coming Saturday. And by interesting I mean maybe a little terrifying. Longtime readers can probably guess what I mean; it's the sort of affair where I met her. Mental note: shave and trim all the things Saturday.

Back into the work groove, which always involves fighting fires more than it ought to.

Lambert House last night. I finally got around to asking the director, Ken, what to do about folks in trans group who suck all the oxygen out of the room. This is a frequent occurrence, and I'm not proud to admit that I've never really known how to deal with it, so I didn't try.

Also, I told Ken about my tabling at Pride, especially that people wanted to know about the house's financial situation. He was hoping he could get some pro fundraisers on board before he had to message that, but he might have to reconsider, he said; props to him for being careful. As usual, I got an earful about incompetence and skullduggery at city hall, and stuff I need to do to the database to protect the house from it. I'm on it, but only time will tell if it's soon enough.

The Wendling is back with me for four nights to make up for when I was at Critical. I'd barely seen him for two weeks. Yeah, I missed him. He put his clean laundry away before I got home without needing to be reminded. That made me inordinately happy, and I told him so.

Other things that make me happy:

• Making plans with the Siberian Siren to make plans for the Folsom Street Fair.
• Planning a date with Much Younger Woman.
• Getting a record recommendation from the Tickler that I have no doubt is solid.
• Hearing from Ex that an old college chum has tracked me down, but doesn't yet know about my sex switcheroo.

I mentioned on Zuckerberg's data mine a few days ago that I was going to be tabling for Lambert House at the Trans Pride march & rally this Friday. On Sunday, Elaine Wylie, one of the organizers of Trans Pride, who I know socially from way back, said that Lambert House hadn't registered and that we'd better hurry up if we wanted a space, and we'd have to bring our own furniture because that ship had sailed.

I sprang into action, emailing and leaving the justifiably hated voicemail for the LH volunteer coordinator, B. As luck would have it, I had trans group last night, so I got to see B. He says that a) he had thought that was as good as done earlier, b) now it really is mischief managed, c) LH has chairs & tables, and d) I'm a Hero of Socialist Queerdom for sounding the alarm. Another fine coincidence is that B had just called an unprecedented meeting of the trans group facilitators to talk about what we can do to boost attendance. That table should be a good start.

And oh by the way, there's another LH volunteer, P, who I know from the poly community. She's tall, zaftig, and cute. She's an amazing dresser. She says smart things in a deep, sexy voice. She's queer - yeah, nearly all LH volunteers are. And she'll be at the table for Trans Pride along with your ever-hopeful nun. Now that I type that, it occurs to me that she may not be as cisgender as I thought. Mrowr!

First the happy stuff: date #4 with Brown Eyes. Yes, they do seem to happen fairly often. I'm OK with that. Nothing fancy, just a drink after Lambert House at the bar down the street where the old Monday night gang used to go. Then she drove me home while telling me stories that made me laugh 'til I cried.

Now the not-so-happy stuff: I've written here before about how Lambert House is staying in its current location thanks to an eleventh-hour loan. What I haven't written about is that because LH didn't technically have a space for next year at the end of this year, the city of Seattle wouldn't give them their usual contract. It's apparently been in their rules for ages.

I heard this from the chagrinned-looking volunteer coordinator. It occurred to me later that he had good reason to be chagrinned: he's one of only three paid staff, and the organization is now missing about a third of its budget for this year. The city will probably fund us for the second half, but that still means about a $40K shortfall. After the months-long, freaked-out scramble for cash and space that ate most of last year for the director, he's got to deal with this new hassle. Oy.

Yesterday didn't start well: I'd gotten to bed at a reasonable hour in anticipation of visiting Ex's dad in the hospital, but I woke up at 0415 and couldn't get back to sleep. So I drank some extra tea, did my usual morning thing*, got lunch with m'boy and then took him 25 miles up I-90 to the hospital in Snoqualmie.

Exdad wasn't having the best of days. He could only talk in short, often incomplete sentences, and he wouldn't take his eyes off the college football on TV. (Ex says he doesn't even like to watch football. He's a baseball fan, and has even had a baseball job. Ex's stepmother later told us to turn off the TV if we want to get Exdad's attention. Uh, what?) At one point I asked him if he knew who I was. He replied, "Of course!" A few minutes later he used my dead name, and I gently reminded him of the current one. As I told the Wendling when he asked about it, that didn't surprise or bother me in the slightest. Exdad tried to climb out of bed (probably to pee, says Ex), but he didn't even have the presence of mind to use the side without the rail, so we got the nurses to stop him, calm him down, and readjust his position a little. Poor guy. I'm guessing he'll be in there at least another week.

Where was Ex, you ask? She'd just had an infusion of something for her arthritis on Friday, and those always knock her out of commission for a few days. The text message with instructions that she sent to me ran on for hundreds of words. As usual I ended up ignoring most of it. Ex gets off on ordering people around as does her mother. Someday I'll get around to pointing that out to her, but it's not really my problem any longer.

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Got home, turned around twice, and took buses & a train to Lambert House, where I was supposed to crunch numbers. Knowing the director as I do, I texted him an hour in advance. No response. Got to the house. It was locked, and his car was nowhere to be seen. More texts. No response. A slice of quiche and an ill-advised mocha later**, more texts, buses, and trains. I'm on the bus home - after getting soaked - when the director said he was on his way because volunteer training just ended. I remember his mentioning that when we made the appointment so maaaybe I got the time wrong, but Christ on a pogo stick. We've rescheduled for tomorrow.

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Tried to nap in anticipation of part of the Chance of Rain festival. See "ill-advised mocha" above. My eyelids were stuck in the up position until 2300, after which I slept for ten hours. Silver lining: Chance of Rain is doing a day rave on the roof of the Monkey Loft this afternoon. I think I've earned it, thank you very much.



*Breakfast & workout.
**Bakery Nouveau. Damn, they're good.

Went to my second annual pah-tay with the Siberian Siren & her partner A at the SS's hair salon, Collage, on 5th Ave. Best piece of Pride gear: a BiBi-8 t-shirt. Yes, BB-8 in bi Pride colors, worn by one of many cute queer black women about half my age. As always, first rate food & booze because (co-ed) urban queers.

The parade is on 4th Ave. Since it's such a long parade, I don't feel too bad about missing the beginning & end of it. Indeed, A & I agree that the best part of watching the parade was watching the Siren watch the parade. Here's this hardass, hard-headed Russian, who in many ways has had a hard life, turning into a wildly enthusiastic child right before our eyes. Happiness.

The SS didn't want to do the sardine scene that is the Seattle Center, at the end of the parade route. She was under the impression that there was more Pride-related stuff happening on Capitol Hill than there turned out to be. Nevertheless, we still had a lovely walk, yummy dinner at Chop Shop*, and Molly Moon's for ice cream. (That last was my idea. It's a personal Pride tradition.)

Oh: there were four of us. A & the SS had a houseguest, H, a younger bi woman who was crashing under their stairs, Harry Potter-style. She was raised very Jewish, so talking about it with H was a weird blast from my past. Her advice: don't be a tall or fat straight woman in Israel; her sister is both.

One member of Chop Shop's staff, a fellow with an accent that may have been east European, tried to direct me to the men's restroom. Not happening. H was right behind me in the women's, and I asked her, "Did I just experience a transphobic bummer?" She said, "Yup."

Netflix and chill at the SS's place. This is not a euphemism for a lesbian orgy, for better or worse; we really did watch TV & veg out for a while. I took the train to the UW, then the 44 to Fremont and walked the rest of the 30+ blocks home so I could burn some ice cream and watch the sunset from Phinney Ridge.

For Pride next year:

• I've never been to R Place. Yeah, I know it's huge and full of kids and lowest-common-denominator music, but I have to do it once, right?
• Dimples & Blondie are not wrong about the Wildrose: it's better for dancing than drinking on Pride. The gay men's joints, e.g. Purr, the Cuff, and Pony, might be a better option.
• The Merc on Pride didn't suck. seelenschwester did a Lambert House benefit, which is of course dear to my heart. But I'm a regular at the Merc, so it seems somehow un-Pridelike.
• If I'm going to take a lady friend home, it needs to be well before midnight. I'm too old to stay awake otherwise.
• For heavens sake, mass transit from the Hill is useless after 0030.

*Our waiter was a chatty beardo, and the food was oh so hip & hipster. But damn, it was good, and the price wasn't out of line. I'm so conflicted when I eat at places like that.

I busted m'boy's chops yesterday morning about the toddleresque trail of mess he leaves all over my little lake place, and I got him to clean it up. There may have been raised voices and flying saliva at him when he said taking out the recycling is "my job". (I thought he meant throwing away his little bits of trash, but no matter.)

So I was a little relieved when he left my place before I did. We'd talked about him going to his mother's, so that's where I assumed he was headed. I was wrong, natch.

He was unreachable for the rest of the day because, as so often, he'd forgotten to charge his phone. I figured he was home watching news videos & wiki-surfing as usual. Ex became worried sick. Icing: last night was Lambert House, so I couldn't get back until 2130, even though Ex's texts prompted me to scram right after trans group.

This time, I was right: there he was on the bed with his laptop, with the blinds drawn even though it wasn't quite dark yet. I let his mother do the novel rectum installation - using my charged phone. She tells me he's been blowing off taking his anti-anxiety meds at night, which is why he hasn't been sleeping well, which leads to a host of other punky behaviors.

He doesn't want to take the meds because... why? I can only speculate that it's his usual reluctance to admit to anyone, including himself, that he has a problem and might be unlike most other people. Is it possible to forcibly insert sense into someone? If so, through which orifice does it go? Do I need to make a new one?

I'm ashamed to admit that Ex caught this & I didn't. I trusted him, as he's always whining at me to do, and for the gazillionth time he let me down.

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Happy thotz: I'm wearing thong underwear for the first time in my life and leggings with blatant lesbian symbolism for what might possibly be a first date. Or it might just be mending. Either way, they're perfect.

A Seattle inevitability has happened: Lambert House's landlady wants to sell the house out from under them, and the director Ken says she isn't making it easy on them. Sixty days and out. Luckily, even if he freaked way out at first, he seems to be on the ball about finding a suitable new temporary home. He's also shaking the trees for money for a more permanent home. I'm proud to say that I clued him into a potential source of queer cash. I'm being uncharacteristically but deliberately vague because it's still early days. Considering the number of adult queers I've met in this area who've passed through the doors, though, I'm optimistic about the longer term.

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Speaking of real estate, my ex & I close on the old place tomorrow evening. How convenient that they scheduled the signing party for when I'll be there anyway. Cash would be good now.

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I got a lovely letter in the mail from dagard's parents yesterday. They knew there was lots of spicy stuff about him that he wasn't telling them. He cared for them enough not to.

My mom? Knows everything you do about me. Yeah, even (at least the outline of) entries that I've locked. That is, if she remembers it. I guess I like to talk about myself too much. But as an excuse, let me just say that a) she asked for it - no, really - and b) her generation is the nucleus of queerphobia worldwide. If I lay some truth on her, namely that queers, trans people, and kinky people are, you know, people, she might spread the word.

It finally happened: I think I have a mild UTI. Dr. Bowers (a.k.a. Dr. Snip) did warn me that my new, shorter urethra would leave me more susceptible to urinary tract infections, just like a cisgender woman. I'll cope - and get my hands on some cranberry juice. I can't help but wonder if pigging out on pastries at work yesterday contributed to the problem; I don't do that as often as I used to.

And speaking of that, I've encountered a drawback of losing weight that I wanted to lose: clothes that I love don't fit quite right anymore. Moar belts.

Oh: Monday night was time to do the quarterly report to the city for Lambert House. Our newish volunteer manager asked me to run some extra queries to see how many kids his outreach efforts in the schools have brought in. The answer is: quite a few. That's most satisfying after a couple of bad years prior to this one.

Even better, we've done the quarterly report the same way for two (or is it three?) quarters in a row now, so I'm thinking it's time to hand it off if Ken the director will let me. Sure, hanging out with Ken is fun & all that, but getting enough sleep is important. There's always the danger of capricious municipal bureaucrats changing the reporting requirements again. Ken informed me that there's a tight deadline on the annual report; I envisioned myself running SQL queries with a New Year's hangover.

Better still, we now have a third trans person facilitating the support group meaning I get more Monday nights to myself. She's another facilitatrix, and she's in her twenties so the youth will surely find her much more relatable than me. It would be a good thing to have another trans man or better yet an enby (non-binary, for those of you who aren't hip to the queer lingo) in the rotation.