Category: Personal

(Please rec at dkos too)

Michael is nineteen years old. He lives in Tennessee, otherwise known as hell on Earth for transgender people. He goes to school in a relatively more liberal part of the state but things are still ridiculously hard on him. Add to that the fact that his parents don’t really accept or care about him the way he is.

His parents, if you can call them that, are your typical homophobic conservatives who are not adaptive to any sort of change whatsoever. He came out to them as a boy four years ago, and you’d think by now they’d gain some sort of understanding or at LEAST want to learn more about being transgender, but that’s not the case with those people. His dad recently told him, paraphrasing, he is a GIRL and his dad will never recognize him as a boy. Ever. In case you haven’t figured it out already, this is mind-numbingly stupid.

It doesn’t help that there are so many misconceptions about transgender people, but honestly, it doesn’t help that they won’t take the time to learn about it and rid themselves of their incorrect views on it. His parents seem to think that transgender and intersex are the same, and that he’s somehow trying to say that he has ambiguous genitalia or looks. He looks like a guy, because, you know, he IS, but they argue that he doesn’t and they also argue that if he does, it doesn’t matter because he’s not a boy. They argue that he’s been constantly indoctrinated and brainwashed by people and by “facts” he read on the internet. Michael is a really smart guy. Probably the most intelligent guy I’ve ever met, really. When he first realized something was off with his body, he started reading about it. He posted on transgender internet forums and met people who were the same, so he could learn about what’s making him feel that way. This is a logical step for anyone. This isn’t some sort of secret plan to turn oneself into a boy. He wanted to understand and to be closer to people. He wanted to stop feeling so alone and scared.

So, okay, we’re in what I call “car hell” and I haven’t talked about it much because, well, it gets all personal and detailed and all that. And, we’ll knock figure it out, like we always do, like we always have.

And now the PBS radio has on Bolero. lol. Dad loved that. That was our nod to “classical music” growing up. heh. Dad was a Barbershop Quartet champ.

Okay, so, cars. I… hmmm …  I’m a Honda girl. I want another Honda. DH (Dear Husband in wwwmomland) is a Does It Run? How much $? guy. “Let’s limp along with it for just a little longer.” And, “damn, I could buy xyz with that amount of money!” And, “cars only DEpreciate (not like flutes which Appreciate).”

Okay, but dead is dead. Cars, I mean. Well, people too, sadly.

Prologue

The Middletown Hardees was packed with the usual lunchtime crowd. A day like any other early spring day in the gently rolling, farm-studded south-central Pennsylvania countryside, except that on this day the topic of conversation centered around reports of radiation released earlier that morning from the local nuclear power plant. The date was March 28, 1979, and the world was as yet still ignorant of the extent of the pre-dawn events at Three Mile Island’s unit-2 reactor. No one inside the Hardees was too worried, such things had happened before and always turned out to be minor.

Inside the control room at TMI-2 things were not so calm. The exhausted operators were desperately fighting to control a major meltdown as pumps and systems failed one right after another. Nothing seemed to be going right. Radiation levels at the plant gate were so far above limits that only operators and health physics personnel were allowed in. Site emergency had been declared shortly after 4 a.m. when thermal shock to the steam generators forced open the emergency main steam dump valves outside containment, setting off all the radiation alarms on that side of the island.

The few health physics technicians who cared to brave entry were immediately prepped and equipped to journey off-site again in order to take radiation readings at the Harrisburg airport, in Middletown and along the river on the Goldsboro side. The plan was to have the readings logged by the time the NRC arrived so important decisions about possible evacuation of the local population could be quickly made. They had been cautioned to try and remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Things were going well until the bright yellow Metropolitan-Edison work truck began sputtering and hesitating in the stop-and-go lunch hour traffic. Then it died altogether. The health physics technician [hp] who had been driving eased the one-ton truck to the side of the road just yards from a phone booth from which he could safely call the Island without alerting any locals who might be listening in on the CB channel. He clumsily exited the cab of the truck and made the short walk to the phone booth, resplendent in his full-over contamination protection coveralls and hood, full respirator face mask. He lifted the respirator atop his forehead as he entered the booth so he could talk. His partner stayed with the truck, using the opportunity to take immediate readings with his geiger-meuller. The level was significant enough that he kept his respirator firmly attached to his face. The truck and nearby phone booth were directly in front of the Middletown Hardees.

Inside the fast food emporium the lunch crowd was caught mid-hamburger. After a moment’s stunned silence, a hushed murmur spread through the crowd as they gathered behind the glass at the front of the dining room to get a better look at these creatures from out of a nightmare. Some left their barely eaten lunch and hastily made for their cars. Others just stood in dumbfounded silence and watched. Shortly another utility truck pulled next the stalled one, loaded the stranded technicians and their equipment, and took off back in the direction of the plant.

From that moment on all the air samples taken off-site were taken by helicopter. Among the locals, word spread like wildfire…

I have been meaning to write this for the past week, but with a certain overlord’s antics and another overlord’s pronouncements I’ve been a bit distracted.  My question is why do Tocquedeville’s diaries not seem to show up in the list on the right hand side of the page?  He published an excellent diary late (est time very late) the night of June 9th on globalization (https://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14130) that was barely noticed by most people because by the time they awakened the next morning it had slid down the front page.  My guess is that had it been on the list on the right hand side of the page it would have been read more widely.  He has long been one of my favorite writers in orange and it’s great to know that he will be publishing here.  A review of essays published just now showed me that I have missed a good number.  Is it because I was too busy writing about ATJs and autobanning patrols and other b.s. and Tocquedeville’s essays are actually included in the list on the right, well, then I will have learned a lesson and will waste less time in other places.

If this essay makes no sense, please tell me and I will delete.

You guys are getting me all melancholy. Homesick for New York.

Can you be homesick for a place you’ve never lived?

Imagine the most intense men’s cocktail in existence; a heady mixture of testosterone, adrenalin, and blood. Mix in a liberal amount of noise, money, and sweat and you may be getting close to the experience of a Balinese cockfight. I had been to a little village cockfight, but I had to leave due to the presence of my friend, who is American (As the inhabitants of the United States somewhat erroneously call themselves) and female. Women, at least all the women I know, do not do well at cockfights. They do not understand the religious reason for a cockfight, which is that in Bali, just like everywhere else in the world, the Gods demand blood. Oh, you think ‘western’ religions are immune to this? You obviously don’t know history very well, or perhaps you simply choose to ignore it, as many Americans do.  

The Dog usually writes about the Constitution on Friday’s (much to many readers chagrin) but this week he has come to a decisions which he would rather write about. As some of you might know the Dog has been looking into running for State Rep in the Colorado 30th House district. Those who have known about this have provided a lot of support for this idea which has amazed and gratified this old hound no end. It is this support and encouragement which makes this dairy so hard to write.  

I’m talking about “mad” as in eccentric, and genius, maybe more so, as in creative. Not to say that I am one, no… I lack the genius aspect. I just have an affinity for some. Been known to, on occasion, marry one or two. Heh.

NOTE: This is not a political essay. As my essays often are, it’s intended to be an Open Random, for fun  Please add your nominees to the pool in the comments.