Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I'm listing slightly because my phone blew up at 0500 with automated texts from work. For better or worse, they weren't a false alarm. Upside: I had extra time to call Mom at an hour when I could be certain she'd be awake.

The demo for the absolutely minimally functional version of my eagerly awaited project didn't go off without a hitch, but it did go off. The database bone connected to the service bone, the service bone connected to the UI bone.

I wasn't thrilled about the lack of sleep because I was supposed to have a date with K tonight, but she postponed because she's still recovering from Critical, the local Burning Man event. She had a gazillion schedule & venue options for the next date, which I'm taking as a good sign. One of these options may be the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, which is a nice little segue into the next paragraph.

Instead of a romantic time with K, I hung out with elspethdemina and peeled stickers off of bondage toys for her. My favorite sex toy merchant gives her all and then some for SEAF, which I applaud, but she had an unusual message for me: SEAF needs volunteers badly this year, worse than usual, especially for strike. I can't do it because I'll be dogsitting for sure that weekend and possibly there on a date. (Why dogsitting? Because Aspiring Ex and m'boy will be in California for a cousin's wedding.)

I finished the volunteer training for Lambert House on Saturday. I've already made appointments with the director & the trans group facilitators to get stuff done. I'm pretty psyched about it, actually. After a couple of days of getting scared about Things Going Wrong and OMG-how-are-we-going-to-handle-it, it was a relief to talk to some actual kids youth about what they like & don't like about what volunteers do, and see that they're, well, normal kids.

This whole volunteer training has been an excellent opportunity to meet cute lesbians - who all have partners. I swear on a stack of women's studies books, though, that that wasn't the reason I was there.

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Two more zappy sessions and 52 days to surgery. I hope.

Saturday morning: Got up at the Abbey at 7:00, walked Bigpuppy, showered & changed at Lhasa, parked my car at Lambert House on Capitol Hill, then took the bus as instructed to Seattle Counselling Service for volunteer training from 10 to 5. It's pretty heavy stuff: active listening, "Oppression 101", suicide prevention.

Ate in the Sanctimobile and drove to Burien for Seacompression. Loads of fun as always: boozes sold, bought, and drunk; a reunion of my )'( camp; getting my rave on; a giant flaming DMT molecule; flirtations; glowing jellyfish with schematic swag; the inevitable and admittedly rather good fire dancers; and cluing a cute blonde woman who just moved here into the CSPC. (Context: Suspended Animation was hanging up a woman dressed as a unicorn. Business as usual for Seacompression.) Oh yeah! One of my random encounters from the playa was there, and walked me to my car. All kinds of awesome!

Sunday: Woke up at least 90 minutes earlier than planned, dammit, followed by more Lambert training, 10-5. Teen development, house rules & policies, "Trans 101", and substances. Our director is very keen to keep us on the right side of the law, and the right side of parents; he seems to be even more careful than the CSPC folks. I can't say I blame him, though, because with both kids & sexual minorities involved, we're under a microscope. It took all my self-control not to hijack the "Trans 101" presentation - more than I did, that is. They actually had some good info in it, e.g. don't ask trans kids personal questions about their transition steps. That's a good point, because many if not most trans people are not compulsive sharers like me. All in all, they seem to be a pretty good group.

I'm doing my laundry here at the Abbey during dinner & dog walking because I've got to work tonight. I'm going to need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

I did my shadow shift at Lambert House last night. It was pretty quiet; I mainly just shot the breeze with other volunteers - yeah, there was much Burning Man discussion - and helped them close up the house.

Some of the kids youth that use Lambert House are homeless. A very few of them, said a couple of volunteers, have "created their own problem" through substance abuse, etc., and may try to manipulate their way into getting stuff from us volunteers that we're not supposed to give them. The rules for volunteers include but aren't limited to:

1. No material assistance from individual volunteers to the youth, not even bus fare or rides.
2. No outing them. We can't acknowledge them in public unless they acknowledge us first.
3. No exchange of contact info in either direction.
4. No hanky panky with clients, natch, no matter how old they are. (Youth age out of the house at 23. I met one volunteer who used to be a client.)

The volunteer training isn't until next month. Lambert won't be a regular gig for me until after then.

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I injected myself with hormones as usual Monday night, and yesterday I ate most of the M&Ms out of my remaining MREs. Coincidence? I think not.

Days until the Grand Snip: 90.