Reclaim words.

I just lifted this video from Lori; it speaks volumes about how fear controls us, manipulates us, directs us, pushes us into the dark corners of other peoples minds who uses fear.


We recoil when anyone uses words which might hurt us, which have been used to inject fear, shutting us down, making us withdraw from the fight. When we withdraw from the fight when words of hate and fear are spat at us then they win, and we shouldn't let them control us with hateful words.

Jon's recent post "Mudblood and Proud of It" after years of being called “Mudblood Granger,” Hermione chooses to embrace the phrase. It is no different when the heroine in Hawthorn's "The Scarlet Letter" has to wear the letter "A" as a sign of her 'sin', a sign which tell everyone she is an 'adulteress'. As time wears on she accept the label and people begin to really know of her strong courage and character.

So it should be with us; yes, we are 'fags', 'homos', 'queers' but those words only create fear and rejection when we enable and empower those who use the words to extract fear, and retreat. When we let others define and create pejorative meaning of these words, we are wronged. We must reclaim and re-define these words for ourselves, we must wash the hateful connotation from our language so that they are turned around and become our shields which deflect the arrows of poison.

Winner in the Ukraine's Talent Concert-Amazing

Absolutely amazing. Please watch the whole thing. It's slightly over 8 minutes..

Most will not understand the commentary but the story portrayed is very clear.  An explanation is provided below.

"Ukraine's Got Talent" 2009 Winner for her 'Tribute to the fallen in the "Great Patriotic War"
of 1941-45.'

 Click Here and Enjoy!

http://www.4marks.com/js-external/mediaplayer/mediaplayer.swf?file=
http://gregory.4marks.com/movies/flv/VID0002148MBYB.flv&autostart=true

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to

tears and Miss Simonova won the top prize of about $75,000.

Mammograms are not fun.

I have some doctors visit next week which required me to have my yearly mammogram taken. Still 'Ouch', it's not fun even with implants. They won't do a mammogram of the breast that had cancer; but they took 4 pictures of the other. The last two, the technician had to push the implant out of the way to squeeze what was left between the plates. Still no fun. Hurts to see your breast squeezed down to an inch like a de-boned chicken breast.

Today is Valentine's Day; but Kay and I celebrated our 7th one yesterday, we have been married for 3 years and lived together before I got my head together and proposed. We each surprised the other with cards and gifts; I thought it was time to bring her a bouquet of roses, which I actually found and bought Saturday afternoon. She bought me a pair of earrings and a nightie. Thank you Love!!!

We do a lot of quilting and yesterday we began the day with a quilting lesson at our favorite shop and picked up a large bag of white scraps, we finished the morning with lunch with a friend at 'Three Crazy Bakers". They always have great things to eat and we are always hungry after the morning's lesson. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the Valentine's Day dance held at the Unitarian Church and co-sponsored by PFLAG. Lots of food but few people to share; we danced a little and ate a lot before we were off to the last event for the day.

The Universities Symphony is in their 20 season and last's night's performance was just to wonderful, and beautiful. Our symphony has gotten smaller and there have been some personnel changes, but that only make the sound of the group more together and musical. The first piece was Mozart's "Le Nozze de Figaro" which was a great piece to begin the evening.

The guest soloist Robert McDuffie playing Tchaikowsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35 for the second selection of the evening. McDuffie was incredible; intense fire and blaze of fingers dripping with physical and emotional angst mixed with extreme emotional expressive playing. The orchestra finished the evening with Tchaiksky's Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 35. This is one of my favorite pieces but I have never hear it played live. Wow! Kay and I were enthralled with the 3rd movement; the Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato. Simply engrossing to watch the strings plucking their strings; that sound is very different than when the instruments are bowed. Our favorite person in the orchestra to watch is the principal percussionist, ever thing he plays is always with intense emotion and physical involvement. His cymbal playing really does have a lot of flourish and makes his precision and musicianship impeccable, always adding to the percussion's musical oomph for the overall orchestral sound and performance.

Yesterday was I day I will cherish in my heart. I love you Kay!!!

New V Day

Well, it seem that both Kay and I have been selected to participate in the new production of the Vagina Monologues here at good old Valdosta State; I am so proud of her. We had our first cast meeting last night and they have selected 23 to be in the production. I like the ideas of our director and am expecting a great weekend.

This is a picture from last year's performance. I am so excited to be a part of these productions. As a Trans Woman, I am always excited in educating and advocating for stopping all violence against women everywhere; be it in abusive relationships, or just for being who one happens to be; gay, lesbian or transsexual or gender queer or gender questioning. We are all humans who should be given respect, acceptance and love for whoever we are or from those we meet.

I find that the friendships that I make as part of each cast last a long time, and I hope that by being who I am, others will come to know that I have the same wants, feelings, needs and expectations from others that I have extended to them. I hope that by getting to know me, they will go back to their classrooms and home towns and speak up for us whenever they hear anyone spew hate and ignorance or condone violence towards us.

Great LGBT Weekend for Me

What a way to close out a week or begin February. Kay and I went to our Diocesan Convention which was held in Savannah, GA. We arrive Thursday afternoon and registered for the convention; that evening we met up with 3 other couples at the Casaba Restaurant and had a great evening. The entertainment for the evening was their regular ‘belly dancer’ who was quite a performer and at the appropriate time, grabbed who else to dance, but me and someone else from across the room. No there are no pictures available, thank goodness. Before we could leave she grabbled all of us to dance again. Great evening!!

The convention: we elected a new Bishop only a few months ago and it was a wonderful breeze of freshness listening to our new leader as he explains his vision for the Georgia Diocese and our Episcopal Church. We had to leave the convention floor early on Friday as we had made plans to attend the organization meeting for this year’s SCC for early fall.

As this year is the 20^th Anniversary for SCC, the planning committee has several suggestions but it is going to be a party. I met some friends from last years Atlanta Pride Celebration over Halloween weekend and reconnected, we marched together in the first ever Trans March for Pride, a small group because the march was organized very quickly; like the day before. She has just transition while on the faculty at UGA, how awesome for her. The other friend works for Trader Joe’s and was the cashier when we rang out one day; we didn’t see him during pride but did see him in the parade the next day.

I was quite surprised to meet another person at the organization meeting who at least knew of me in my military life as she remembered by name for some reason. She was one of the Trumpet Instructors at the Navy School of Music. Although I studied woodwinds and conducting, I can not recall meeting her. The Naval School of Music is the primary school for Army, Navy and Marines band personnel and the Army’s enrollment is about 1/3 or less of the schools total enrollment. We didn’t really have time to reminisce about ‘old’ times since it happened to be the lunch break. I was very excited to talk to her about how we crossed paths before. The only other person I have crossed paths with who was at the School of Music was the Army’s Chief Repair Tech for the school. The next time I met him he was the Woodwind Repair Supervisor with Music and Arts Company, out of New Jersey. When he came to inspect our shop after his company bought our company out he was the one I told that I was transitioning. That was just 5 months before Music and Arts closed our repair shop and warehouse as a result of the company’s re-organization.

You never know who you might cross paths with from your old life, so just go with the flow.