elainegrey

The weather is balmy here. Last night Christine and i went to take care of the neighbor's cat, then walked a variation of our nighttime walk called "Where will [Elaine] park the car Monday and Tuesday night since the complex is being patched and paved?" One of our cross streets does not allow parking from 2 am to 7 pm. On the other, there is a stretch of parking that was almost all full last night. As we investigated in short sleeves and with the sound of crickets, Christine remarked how much it seemed like a summer night. The waxing moon was quite bright; i expect it will keep me company as i walk home Tuesday night from where ever i find to park.

This morning was lovely, too. As Christine finished getting ready, i walked over for a last cat feeding. Patches was in the window: a first time for me to see him out from under the bed. As i walked back, i witnessed the caravan of heavy duty pickups and porta-potty trailer and orange reticulated equipment arrive. We'd discussed whether to let Edward roam: we decided he knew to come in when mowing happens, he'd come in for ripping up of pavement.

She and i are so different: i can't relax until i'm packed and everything ready. She was able to relax with me off and on yesterday afternoon. I had no idea she hadn't packed as we sat and watched a show in the long rays of the late afternoon sun. "I guess i should go pack," she said after the episode of "Cornwall Exposure"/Doc Martin ended. My adrenaline shot through the roof.

Despite feeling fragile and tender all yesterday afternoon, i felt the presence of my businesslike self this morning as i meditated in the early dark. I'd slept well, for which i am very thankful, and i managed not to be too panicky about the work left unreviewed Friday afternoon. I let myself sob and scream in the traffic crawling southbound on 101 after dropping Christine at SFO, and i'm back together.

It's been hard for me to learn that experiencing my feelings doesn't have to overwhelm my abilities to get things done. A friend recently wrote about feeling he could cry and cry forever. I've been there. I know there's so much packed up from my history, that a little of my grief at seeing Christine go is also a little grief for the years we lived apart.

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The last time i wrote about 2.f&f was 22 Oct, three plus weeks ago. ( planning )

Healthwise: ( running through the list )

Edward is such a different cat[1]. I knew when we took a local wandering tom in that he wouldn't be a housecat immediately. But his behavior with going out and staying in is so entertaining, if not a little exasperating. Last night he didn't really want to come in, but at 10 pm we went out into the pool enclosure (which has a bit of tree shaded lawn as well as a good deal of shrubbery) to find him sitting on the bench under the tree. He dashed away, but i had brought out string. He rushed to get the string, but Christine was there. He swerved, but then "gave in" and flopped on the sidewalk. Christine carried him in and fed him, and said he was famished. "Why didn't you come get me sooner?"

[1] For us. I know he's a fairly "normal" cat in other measures of independent cat behavior.

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Coming Out Day has a great deal of importance, but it's hard for me to stand up this year. I have privilege, i know. I am fairly out at work, many of my colleagues witnessing Christine's transition. I have out colleagues and team members. I just didn't feel like participating yesterday. In the evening i read a post by a Friend who suggests that straight and cisgendered folks address their awareness of their own experience and the privilege they have. I linked to that, more out of guilt of not taking a stand, than anything else. I went to take it down an hour later, again uncomfortable -- i didn't have the energy to deal with it -- but someone said they learned what cisgendered meant -- and that's a win.

My sexual and gender identity are not chiseled strongly in rock of my identity, and it's not because i'm "fluid." I think part of it is because so much of my life has been happily spent with Christine and i've not been forced to negotiate. We had straight privilege early on, and that shielded our space to develop our authentic selves. There were initial tensions over being out: i did not feel safe as a woman in physics. I was even odder as a woman not married to a physicist. (Most women physicists at that time were married to physicists more senior than they. The rare example of the talented woman and her less stellar husband in our department showed the tensions that developed when bucking the trend in one manner.) I was afraid of the effect of adding publicizing yet one more way i deviated from the physics community, or at least, my experience of the physics community as fairly conservative in certain ways.

So we developed behind the shield of that appearance of straightness and in a place rather disconnected from any formal discourse (other than reading about transgendered issues). I only had a few challenging conversations with one person who particularly challenged Christine's MtF explorations. He was FtM, and i remember mostly being puzzled and not quite understanding what his issue was but getting the emotional intensity.

But that's not what i need to write about.

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This morning's F&F action was to write some family members to see if i could get some birth and wedding date details from living folks.

I've also tried tracking down a friend from college -- and then discovered his personal address was in my mail client, if not in my address book. I sent him a belated Bday wish.

I'm not getting the early start on work i wanted today, but i've at least tended to a bit of my life.

Morning writing has mainly been in response to a "cold call" like email, where i've been sent an alarming message about a cement plant in the watershed. The correspondent signed his name and attached a photo, but didn't point out he's "a spokesman for the Quarry No group." http://www.quarryno.com/

One thing that bugs me about the activism against the quarry is that i think there's a huge NIMBY thing going on with the Cupertino residents who don't like the trucks and noise of the quarry that has been there longer than many of them have. I don't get the impression many of the activists are ready to forgo building and cement in structures. While i want the quarry regulated and managed and monitored, i rather thing it's a good thing that the extractive industry needed to support the bay area's sprawl is local to us. Cement is not being hauled from near Mt Shasta (i think that's the next closest location for cement), cement is not being extracted in some remote rural location where there are no citizens with time and clout to make sure it's well managed.

So i felt Mr Quarry No was trying to use me by sending an inflammatory message ("[Quarry] Expansion Spills Into Park") -- is it really? Or can you just see the piles of dirt? -- and not noting his affiliation with the activist "group."

Is it a group? Or is it him? He's also the owner of the domain, signs letters "[person], on behalf of the Members of QuarryNo." He's the founder of the group, per this article http://www.losaltosonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19575&Itemid=46 . A TV website says "[person] is the founder of a group called QuarryNo with some 400 members," but what constituties membership? Clicking the "sign up" button? There are no meetings publicized on the site, no place to join in discussion.

The creek group may have dysfunctional leadership, but there's a board and there are multiple voices.

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Today i'm supposed to write about "2. Friends and family" but i seem to have written about "3. Meeting and Community." I know my inspiration for moving focus every day was to make sure that i balanced the morning time i have across the different areas of my life. Does order mater?

Friends and family should include our cats, and i was thinking of the ephemeral nature of the nicknames we use with them. (What do i have to remember these nicknames, the tender moments that inspire them, when the cats pass away? I miss the sweetness of Greybrother and the force of Greybeard's personality, still.) Mr M has been "Honey bunny" for a long time, capturing his affectionate, easily spooked nature. I dubbed Greycie Loo "Bossy Biscuits" one day, watching her kneading Christine's lap one evening. She has a very self possessed air to her, an arch look, and an engagement in what we are doing. Edward had been dubbed "Honey bear" -- his pale gold coloring well described, his strength and size captured. Edward is endearing himself so deeply to me, in how when he comes home from a walkabout he often comes to find us and say "mrrow," and he's learning to come into the bedroom in the morning, an hour or so after breakfast time to ask politely to be let out.

So now our clouder is one on honey and biscuits, which is quite fun.
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Work skypes. I'm about to disappear into the all consuming activity.

I am stressed by it, but i did manage to leave it all night.