Category: family

Goodbye, Scratchy

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Tonight my heart is heavy. At 12:40 pm this afternoon, we said our final goodbyes to Scratchy the Tuxedo Cat, who we were privileged to have as a fur baby for almost 15 years, and boy, was he was loved hard. He led a good life right to the very end.

He was a wanderer, a free spirit, an escape artist, a skilled stalker, and a seasoned sofa-lounger. Scratchy made full use of his nine lives (plus a few extra), having endured such anomolies as losing a top front fang, having a chunk of his ear ripped off in a cat fight, and surviving a bullet shot to the head by an angry, senile man who at one time was our distant neighbor.

Throughout his life Scratchy was bestowed honors such as Continue reading →

Old Home Videos

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I’ve discovered the Motherload. The file where apparently all our old ‘candid’ home video clips have lived for the past decade or so. There are so many… and part of this process has included me figuring out how to rotate the videos from their original files, because it looks like many were filmed on Jack’s first 2008 iPod Touch, sideways. You may notice that Charlie is always either wearing a princess dress, or ballet costume, and when not wearing one Charlie is at least holding one ‘feminine’ accessory, or saying at least one sassy phrase. I’d forgotten so much of this. If there was ever any doubt…

Enjoy. Continue reading →

Welcome To America

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Thinking about the fate of the future often worries me. Honestly, the best way to describe the condition (and reputation) of our nation right now is with a pretty outdated, but perfectly accurate term:

Hot Mess.

My generation knows this phrase, despite its evolution in meaning over the years. But for the older folks who might be reading and are unfamliar with “hot mess,” here’s a definition, courtesy Urban Dictionary: Continue reading →

Today’s Meme: Feel Free To Trust Parents Of Trans Kids. Please.

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered the same, tired questions, over and over again, from misinformed people who have no experience with trans people. I mean, I don’t at all mind answering questions that come from a place of good intentions. That’s not always the case, though. Especially online, where there lives an entire community of boring, predictable evil-doers known collectively as “trolls.” They’re easy to spot. They’re the ones who use obvious trigger words and phrases to try and hook their victims readers, and then engage them in never-ending circular arguments that generally spiral into slanderous insults. Trolls deliberately intend to hijack, disrupt, attack, offend, and just generally cause trouble, and their favorite haunt is the comments sections of social media and news sites.  Continue reading →

The Torture Of College Application Season: Is It Worth It??

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The college application process ain’t what it used to be. At least, it’s not what it was when I was first applying back in 1991. I knew this going in to the process with my oldest child applying last fall, but I didn’t realize exactly how competitive and how much of a cheating game it had become. I’ve been paying enough attention to know that colleges had been getting more and more competitive over the past five to eight years. But I quickly found out that even more recently, as more research has been released and more books on the subject published, many colleges have buckled down even more harshly with regard to admissions, to almost ridiculous proportions, prompting many current college and high school students to ask, “is it even worth it?”  Continue reading →

DeVos, Severino, And The “Religious Freedom” That Will Harm Our Most Vulnerable

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A later version of this story published on Medium

Meet Mimi Lemay, an amazing Mom, trans youth advocate, and someone I’m proud to know through the wonders of technology. Mimi did this MSNBC interview in May, 2016, after the Obama era guidance was issued regarding transgender students in public schools. That guidance clarified how to best support transgender students in schools across the nation, in light of more trans students being “out.” Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, schools receiving federal money may not discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice released in 2016, under President Obama, joint guidance to help provide educators with the information they needed to ensure that all students could attend school in an environment free from sex discrimination, and that in no uncertain terms included transgender students.  Continue reading →

Holiday Letter 2017

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Another Christmas has come and gone – this one so quick I’m left dizzy in its aftermath. Didn’t finish the Christmas baking. Didn’t finish the cleaning and reorganizing I’d hoped to accomplish. Didn’t do any writing, as planned, with a solid week off from work. But now, I’m taking a moment to sit down and attempt to catch up at least a little, before I take my daughter to the threshold of hell the mall to spend her Christmas gift cards. Continue reading →

One Year Under A Trump Presidency

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One year ago last night in the mountains of NC, on a mini vacation we’d been hoping to make for years, my husband and I sat at our cozy dinner, in silence. Above the small, roaring fireplace next to our table was a big screen TV, monitoring the 2016 election results as they rolled in. State after state turned red and projected Donald Trump as the potential winner. I looked around, contemplating asking for another table, but TVs were everywhere, and they were all broadcasting the same thing. Five years of anticipation and planning for our 3rd, private, without kids getaway in 17 years of marriage had led up to this moment, and I felt disgusted. Continue reading →

Rules For Halloween

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Another Halloween has come and gone, leaving us almost within reach of the big feasting holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but still with enough left over trick-or-treating candy to bridge the gap. For the past couple of years (aside from enjoying the pieces nobody wants) I’ve done some post-Halloween reflecting. It is, after all, a great opportunity to practice developing social skills in real life, and I’ve enjoyed watching my own three kids evolve over the years. They’ve gone from shy, scared, young tots too afraid to utter “trick-or-treat” to confident young people who prefer handing out candy over receiving it, for the most part.  Continue reading →

Privilege And Pronouns

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Republished on Medium

Being the founder/facilitator of S.E.A.R.CH., and also a member of several online support groups for parents of TGNC children & youth, I hear a lot of the same concerns over and over again, which always reminds me how much more work we have ahead of us. Invariably, someone in the group always seems to mention that they have a skeptical friend or family member requesting scholarly articles regarding trans people, why they should be supportive, or what the scientific/psychological/psychiatric/medical research says. While it’s never the duty of a marginalized person to Continue reading →