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Home. Sam's made me a sponge cake with blackcurrant jam; the house is tidy and light; I have gardening work tomorrow.
I'm liking Inda. I've been reading it before bed and in odd moments. The house took a chapter or so to take me in; the school took me a few chapters, but I'm there now. I think I said I thought it would be upper-politically dense, and was put off by that -- but actually Sherwood Smith writes high politics as an emergent property of the small everyday politics, which are more fascinating the more dense they get.
I was reading Inda today on the plane, between two older women both reading too. We all had tea when drinks were offered (the other two with milk, me without; one of them and me with a gingernut, the other one with chips.) When the attendant pointed out to my aisleside neighbour and me our seat-divider was up we smiled at each other. My window-side neighbour asked me what name the Marlborough Sounds had when we flew past them, and then we made conversation for the last few minutes of the flight. When we landed we all wondered where the blank white card fallen on the ground had fallen from. This is fairly rare for me: active inclusion from cis women who I don't know. In Auckland airport, before, while repacking my bag after a small kerfuffle about sewing scissors, a woman at the same bench had made a friendly remark about the difficulty of repacking things in a hurry -- then, waiting to board, someone who I read as lesbian complimented me on my sandals and we talked for ten minutes about shoes and her career and my study not-quite-plans and things.
I was thinking coming home from the airport -- the difference from my usual experience, the inclusivity of people, must be because I was dressed nicer than I usually am, in a stars-on-black dress Justy just passed on to me which fits me prettily, and in those complimentable sandals -- maybe too because I was more being more socially confident, more self-including, for that. I know most cis people's gut reactions to trans people do change dramatically with how we present. And I know I am more gregarious when I like how I look.
But then I got home and (after cake, and cuddling, and talking about other things) Sam told me about what the US president is trying to do, and I looked online -- and I mean, FUCK, and also FUCK and oh by the way FUCK -- but is this maybe a day when trans people get solidarity? Only a very small question compared to the question of whether my sisters and brothers and siblings in the US are going to lose the legal right to their identity and legal protection from hatred, but the leaves are the tree. I'd like to think that's what it was. Things could get quite bad here in the next half century, with pressure from climate change and climate refugees. Things are already bad here for a lot of people. Solidarity is a good thing to practise, especially with anyone who's vulnerable, or anyone you can feel yourself othering.
I'm liking Inda. I've been reading it before bed and in odd moments. The house took a chapter or so to take me in; the school took me a few chapters, but I'm there now. I think I said I thought it would be upper-politically dense, and was put off by that -- but actually Sherwood Smith writes high politics as an emergent property of the small everyday politics, which are more fascinating the more dense they get.
I was reading Inda today on the plane, between two older women both reading too. We all had tea when drinks were offered (the other two with milk, me without; one of them and me with a gingernut, the other one with chips.) When the attendant pointed out to my aisleside neighbour and me our seat-divider was up we smiled at each other. My window-side neighbour asked me what name the Marlborough Sounds had when we flew past them, and then we made conversation for the last few minutes of the flight. When we landed we all wondered where the blank white card fallen on the ground had fallen from. This is fairly rare for me: active inclusion from cis women who I don't know. In Auckland airport, before, while repacking my bag after a small kerfuffle about sewing scissors, a woman at the same bench had made a friendly remark about the difficulty of repacking things in a hurry -- then, waiting to board, someone who I read as lesbian complimented me on my sandals and we talked for ten minutes about shoes and her career and my study not-quite-plans and things.
I was thinking coming home from the airport -- the difference from my usual experience, the inclusivity of people, must be because I was dressed nicer than I usually am, in a stars-on-black dress Justy just passed on to me which fits me prettily, and in those complimentable sandals -- maybe too because I was more being more socially confident, more self-including, for that. I know most cis people's gut reactions to trans people do change dramatically with how we present. And I know I am more gregarious when I like how I look.
But then I got home and (after cake, and cuddling, and talking about other things) Sam told me about what the US president is trying to do, and I looked online -- and I mean, FUCK, and also FUCK and oh by the way FUCK -- but is this maybe a day when trans people get solidarity? Only a very small question compared to the question of whether my sisters and brothers and siblings in the US are going to lose the legal right to their identity and legal protection from hatred, but the leaves are the tree. I'd like to think that's what it was. Things could get quite bad here in the next half century, with pressure from climate change and climate refugees. Things are already bad here for a lot of people. Solidarity is a good thing to practise, especially with anyone who's vulnerable, or anyone you can feel yourself othering.
