I'm about 3/4 of the way through "She's not there", and its a tough bit to read. I mean, the early stuff, the early struggle with identity, the fight against oneself, the hope that falling in love would cure oneself, finding a partner and building a life only to realize that it didnt take the urge to be a woman away; all this is stuff I can really relate to. But this is the part where she's just about to have the surgery, and from here on, its going to be territory with which I have no link to, and might never know. But I'll grit my teeth and get through it.

If anyone happens to be in the Northern California region, come and see our production of a new musical theater adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett's "A Little Princess" at the Sacramento Theatre Company (in Sacramento, CA... if that weren't obvious). It's a wonderful story about never giving up on your dreams, about imagination and curiosity and understanding other people even if you don't agree with their choices. On top of that, it's a beautiful production with gorgeous music.

If you need more details on how to get tickets or find the theater, PM me.

Kristin Darken

I have been thinking a bit about dreams lately. I know that dreams may not tell you much about your past or your future, but I think they sort of point to where you are at the moment.

Well, ever since I moved it has been a battle to get sufficient signal to get on line. I have been using the Hot Spot on my phone but that gets expensive and I worry that the phone will melt. :) The house has "Clear" and my wifi works very spotilly. So, today I bought 50' of CAT 5 cable, measured 40', bought 50' and should have bought 60'. Sigh. I wish I had asked one of the men to do it but noooo miss independence had to get blisters, and sore knees of her own. Somebody spank the girl!

When I send this I will install the cable ends and hope that improves things. Wish me luck.

Well, thanks to Jaci being a big tattle-tale and telling you guys I was feeling grumpy, I got flooded with people ready to cheer me up.

Sniffle, I love you guys ....

Had an interesting conversation with my store's HR person last night, and she mentioned that when it was announced I was coming to the store, a few people came to her unsure how to address me as my trans status was known to them. She said "Well, her name is Dorothy. How would you address someone named Dorothy?"

The person said they should use female pronouns.

The HR lady said, "then do that for this Dorothy. If there's a problem, I'm sure she'll say something."

Gee, when you put it like that, it sounds so easy ....

The Family Girl Blogs (aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") Blog #56: Jealous Girl To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs

Oftentimes I find myself jealous of others, for a myriad of things. I suppose girls with similar... "problems" as mine do, too. When life has given you lemons, and you don't know about lemonade... I am a regular Jealous Girl. At least some of the time.

I got to wondering, the other day, what were the milestones in my transition and, for that matter, what were those of some of you.

well, last night, I was being left in charge of "zoning", which basically means making sure the shelves are clean, neat, and that the product is as close to the lip as possible. While this was going on, my supervisor told me that the reason why she was pushing me hard on getting it perfect was because she believes I have the potential to move up into a supervisor's role, should I wish to make that a goal. So I told her my long term plan would include me doing a less physical job, and she said she would talk to people and see about getting the ball rolling for me toward that end.

Here is the deal, I'm broken.

Yesterday afternoon I was carted off by the paramedics to the hospital. I don't remember what happened, only what people have told me and it is quite upsetting/frustrating/sad.

Because it needs to be said:

To all the people who take the time to read this little blog, and especially those who take the time to comment, thank you.

I happened to catch on the radio the story of Rehtaeh Parsons, a young woman in Nova Scotia who was raped and had pictures of her rape shown around her school, and how she has committed suicide.

So, I figured it was probably time for me to put up a more recent pic of myself. It's been a LONG time since most of my befores... But first, here's one more before:

I was talking with Kylie today, and she mentioned that she talks about me with just about everyone she knows - her therapist, her floor monitor, her friends - and when she does, she blushes. I find this idea, that the thought of me making someone blush to be hard to wrap my head around. But there you have it. Neat, no?

Sometimes, I wish I was a better writer. I have good ideas, but not as good at getting them out. For example, I made a series of stories about an organization called "Vision Spring", that appears to the outside world to be a charity that helps Gay, lesbian and trans people, but is in fact a group of people who have magical control over one of the traditional elements - Earth, Water, Fire, Nature, Light, Darkness, and the Air.

It seems like the more comfortable with myself as a girl I become, the harder it is to have male bits. Last night my parts moved a bit, and I had to fight back tears, and I also had to fight off the urge to take my box-cutter knife to them ....

Ah, well.

I'm feeling very paranoid today because of something my mother said this morning. I was about to tell her something amazing that I had found out last night. I said, ''You'll never guess what I found out last night!'' and she replied, ''That you are really a boy?'' with a slight smile. That got me worried. It's probably nothing but it's just the way she said it that made me paranoid. It was as if she knew something. Bleagh. I hope she doesn't.

I am a Christian.

Before anything else, that is how I identify myself and that is the core of my being.

Well, you guys can thank Jaci (AKA Tels) that I'm still here. I woke this morning feeling completely numb. Nothing mattered, nothing had any meaning of any kind. As I went through my morning routine like a zombie, I came to the conclusion I had to quit being Dorothy, since I had lost my family and my daughter didnt want to be seen in public with me. I dont know how long this would have lasted before I would have done something drastic, but fortunately, Jaci was online, and agreed to phone me.

Well, last night, we had Easter dinner with the family, and my sister-in-law said some interesting things. First, she basically put aside the work I've been doing trying to recover the memories of my rape and its association to my gender issues, saying such memories have been added to and subtracted from over the years to the point they are not reliable.

Well, with all the confusion I had at my house yesterday, I forgot to mention it was Tels' birthday, So Happy birthday, sis!

I'm supposed to be working on a paper for school about the evolution of RISC, pipelining, cache and virtual memory for my Computer Architecture course. Instead, I'm semi-crossposting the following from my main blog because I realize it's been a while since I wrote here, and the paper is boring; I'm a software girl, hardware gets in the way :P. Here's the post, and I'll go back to pretending to write this paper now. :)