Check out T rock group Blind Dog Wanders and a smart diva dance pop Lady Gaga

For those interested in new summer music to rock out to check out Blind Dog Wanders on myspace music.

An eclectic sound, based on guitarist Laura Gonzales' songwriting, BDW channel the driving rhytyhms of prog rock, and on "the Light" middle eastern/Indian grooviness. The vocals are lovely. It will be very satisfying to watch this group mature.

Too bad I don't live in LA to see them live. Oh yeah, they look great, too.

For those who are seeking new tunes to dance away to summer nights...check out Lady Gaga...whose working class roots and hard-nose business sense + high glam= the new Madonna...(Brittany Spears was supposed to be the new Madge...but Gaga has the creative vision in spades, plus the working class/cut your teeth in the clubs history Brit lacks).

She also likes boys who look like girls. Read about it here.

Oh, alpha male, stop being so uptight!

Was out in drab mode this week, and happened upon a shoe store. Discount. Extra cash in my pocket.

So of course I wasted a half hour...boys and girls shoes.

That is beside the point.

A father was shopping with his son and his son wanted Dora sneakers, which of course were purple and pink. Cute. Ol' Dad didn't handle it too well. He wasn't angry, just uptight. You know, so much you could tell that it really, really bothered him.

He reinforced several male gender rules:

Boys don't wear girl's shoes
Boys don't wear articles of clothing with girls on them
Girls are inferior
Girls opinions do not matter

The latter he did as he dismissed his wife's suggestion to allow the child to hold the shoes to at least calm the child down.

It made my stomach ache.

Believe me it was only horrible for me and the child. Everyone else in the store were oblivious to the rigid social structuring occuring in the back aisle. Possibly the roots of prejudice?

Anyhoo. No new shoes, only a brush with the blues.

Spring blues

Spring is the time of rebirth and renewel and fucking, and lots of late nights and warm sweaters, and not to mention a blanket, stars, a new pair of sandals, and a pretty sundress.

So far my spring has been anything but.

Oh dear, where to begin.

First I've been doing more reading than writing lately, and nothing supple on the T-fiction count, at least this month.

Maritally my T-ness has become quite the distraction. Sometimes I think I misjudged how she'd react when I came out. Part of me was like ..."well, duh." Of course she'd be freaked.

And the other part of me, the wistful romantic, really hoped her firery, artistic spirit would accept me. She hung out with people like me (read: gender variant, or open to gender variancy) all through college and grad- school. We hung out with people like me when we first dated Turned out she's become much more conservative.

Shit, not that I blame her.

(pause to sip my very cold, very white wine)

She has every right to be, but boy was I too optimistic.

Anyhoo, enough of me...I'm bored, you must be.

Anybody hitting the spring yard sales. Picked up a cute, light (read: super cool for hot summer porch nights) brown and gold spag-strap dress, similar style to one pictured here.

Been laying low

Work has been a beast, end of term which leaves little time for myself, especially after the demands of spring family activities have been met. The recession has hit this area hard, as most places, and I've noticed an up-trend with women taking charge of the household finances, as well as leadership roles in the community.

A colleague who teaches economics told me that if this recession continues to slug along, that we will see a reversal in many major corporations and wake up to a world where women are holding the reigns of capitalist power.

So where does that leave TG folk, and trans women? Hopefully not out in the cold. In my little corner of the world I've noticed transmen and women are getting more of their lion's share of water-cooler conversation, for better or worse. Regardless of whether people are praising, questioning, or trashing us, we're getting noticed.

And of course so much of what people are saying have to do with the trolley accident in Beantown, which is total BS. Just because he was she doesn't mean a damn thing. Yes, it is damaging to t-folk, because in this media frenzy world any spotlight can hurt or help....still one must look at the situation not the person. Damn, the boy was in love, he was doing what we'd all do.... leave the gender variance out of it.