"can i help you, sir?"

I had to entertain an executive’s 10-year-old daughter for a portion of my day today. I was just one in a line of employees in my department who had to chat with her about what we do. Secretly, I think he just forgot he was supposed to do something with her today, so he sent her to us.

I showed her a few things I’ve worked on and asked her a few questions. The kid is pretty bright, I will say that. It wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong; I like kids, and I’m good  with them. But there’s something about having them at work that totally throws me off. It’s hard for me to switch from work mode to kid-friendly mode sometimes. But she and I had a pretty good time.

At one point, she asked me if she could ask a few ice breaker questions that she’d brought with her. Her first question was simple enough: What historical sporting event do you wish you could attend? Easy: the 1908 World Series, which is the last time the Chicago Cubs won. Her next question: If you could change your name to anything, what would it be?

Yeah, what would it be? I was stumped. I’m actually totally at peace with my given name; it feels comfortable on me. It’s not super feminine, which I think would make me uncomfortable. Balancing my masculinity with a feminine name would bother me on some level, I think. I can’t imagine being a Sarah or Vanessa or Mindy. Those names are all perfectly fine, by the way; it’s nothing against the name, I’m just glad it’s not my name. The only names that had come to mind were those that could go either way: Sam, Jesse, Shawn, you get the idea. I told her I was at a loss, but she apparently wasn’t.

“You look like a Chase to me. That would be a good one for you. Or Chandler.”

“You’re not, like, a regular girl. You look like you’d want a cool name instead of a pretty one.”*

It might seem like a little thing, but in that few minutes, I felt like this kid actually saw me. She looked at me and actually thought about what I would like. She gauged my mannerisms, looks and personality and came to a conclusion that was incredibly insightful, in my opinion. I actually really appreciated it, even though I couldn’t express to her why. And then we were off, talking about her totally weird neighbor who had a baby girl and named her Xantha.

The whole experience reminded me why I actually like kids. No judgment, no expectations, no rules. A lot of adults could learn from that.

*Wanting something cool instead of something pretty could pretty much sum up my life’s wishes. Barbie? No thank you. Pocketknife? Yes, please.

I’ve been thinking a lot about family history lately, and that got me thinking about my grandma. She is really the only grandparent I had a relationship with; both of my grandfathers died before I was born, and my maternal grandmother passed when I was three. That left my father’s mother, and believe me when I say this: she was amazing.

She was born in a small town in southern Utah, and she lived in that part of the state for most of her life. She raised a bunch of kids – both her own and various neighborhood kids – through The Great Depression. She and my grandpa were hard core, doing everything themselves: hunting, gardening, sewing, canning, etc. She did a lot of that on her own while my grandpa was off working, too. She was a believer in hard work, kept promises and baseball.

She is the reason I am a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan today; she watched the Cubs back in the day when the Cubs and the Braves were the only baseball teams on television (because Chicago and Atlanta had their own television networks). Up until the day she went into the hospital, she watched any game she could find. I can’t tell you how many times the family would be gathered around, eating or talking, and my grandma would get up and announce: “I have a game to watch.” With that, she’d go to her room, turn on the television, close the blinds, and shut the door. We could still go in – we just couldn’t interrupt the game.

She passed away when she was 96, just over ten years ago. Continue reading

I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and that has bled over into my blogging mojo. I feel like I have a lot in my head, but it’s not really making a lot of sense.

I thought it might help to simplify, to get back to the basics. I’ve read a couple of blog posts lately that really resonated with me. A while back a post over at The Femme Domestic described getting the inspiration to just write what she knows. That’s it! I’ll write what I know. Done. But then I started thinking: what do I know?

Not to be a smartass, but the answer to that is I don’t know. I suppose I know about music. Sports. Psychology. Growing up gay in a large, Mormon family. The military. My professional field of work. Photography. Current events. What it’s like to live in the west. And the east. And the midwest. And the south. I feel like I know a little about everything; credit that to my curiosity and passion for learning. The phrase jack of all trades, master of none could’ve been coined for me. I don’t know that I’m ever sure of something until I arrive there to recognize yes, this is what I want.

Is that what I know? That I am a chameleon, and I always have been? I can adapt like no one’s business. I’ve always been able to find my way around, learn the ropes, or pick up the accent in short order. My therapist once told me that in her 20+ years of counseling, she’d never seen someone mask as well and as seamlessly as I did (look up Carl Jung + mask, if you’re so inclined). The competitive person that I am, I took that as a compliment at first. I’d spent so much time acting the way I thought I was supposed to that I forgot about myself, forgot about my emotions and thoughts. It took a while to unravel all of that, and it still comes up from time to time.

What does all of this mean? It means I’m recommitting to write with authenticity and intention. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but then Alphafemme wrote about re-connecting, and that gave me the push I needed. It’s not that I ever don’t write that way, but sometimes it’s easy for me to get gun-shy when it comes to revealing things about myself. It scares the hell out of me, actually. I’ve spent so long avoiding making in-depth connections; if people don’t truly know me, they can’t truly hurt me, right? But then I remember why I started this blog in the first place: not to write what I think anyone else wants, but to talk about my experiences, in my voice. That’s what I know.

So what if I’m all over the map; as long as it’s my map, I’ll go wherever the hell I please.

The other day I was trying to get my shit together and get out of the office on time for an important appointment I had at 5:00. I ran to grab a printout of something I needed for the appointment, and there was an amazing paper jam in the printer. We’re talking epic, accordion-style papers. I tried to fix it, but ended up calling the help desk to send someone up. I was kind of sweating it, because that printout had some sensitive information on it. I hoped that by unplugging the printer and plugging it back in that the printing queue would reset itself, but I didn’t have time to stick around to find out what happened.

I hit the freeway, breathing deeply, trying not to worry about my papers and trying to clear my head of the horrible day I had at work. Work is killing me these days in too many ways to list, so I often use my time alone in the car to decompress. I was finally relaxing a bit and thinking ahead to my appointment when I saw the car in the lane next to mine come right over and crash into me. I was in the far left lane, and she ran me out onto the shoulder of the freeway. When I honked, she flipped me off and kept going. I went from alarmed to angry in .5, pulling back into my lane and chasing her down to get her license number, then pulled up along side her to tell her to pull over (there may or may not have been some expletives involved during my mini-high speed chase). The next hour was spent waiting for and talking to the state patrolman and filling out my report. I missed my appointment, obviously, so I just went home.

When I got in the door, I nearly collapsed. Here’s something about me: I am amazingly calm and level-headed in the midst of a crisis, because the realization of what I’m actually seeing or doing doesn’t hit me until after the fact. Well, it hit me when I sat down in my chair, my hands shaking and knees weak. I felt exhausted, spent and overwhelmed. Add in the day I’d had at work, my missed appointment and all of the other things I’m juggling in my life, and all of a sudden it felt like too much, all at once.

I got that lump in my throat, and my eyes might have welled up for a moment, but then it was gone. I wasn’t trying not to cry, specifically; in fact, at one point I was bargaining with myself, telling myself I’d feel much better if I just did it to feel the release. Nothing. There are a few reasons, at least that I can see, why this happens:

Conditioning: I’ve said before that I grew up with five older brothers, who weren’t big on crying. Any time they made me cry, either from teasing or from playing too rough, their immediate reaction was to get me to shut up so they wouldn’t get in trouble. This involved cajoling, bribing, promises of bribing, distracting … you name it. Just as long as I stopped before my mom heard me. After a while, I just stopped crying in the first place so they wouldn’t have to do the damage control. Besides that, I got positive reinforcement from them when I got hurt and didn’t cry. That meant I was tough, and I liked it. Looking back, I can’t believe how tough I was during some of those incidents.

My own internal judgment: Anytime I feel on the verge of tears, there is a voice in the back of my mind that tells me to stop. To be tough. To not be such a girl. That tears are a sign of weakness. And I’ve spent so much of my life trying not to show weakness that I’ll be damned if I just start tearing up. [Sidebar: I show no such judgment if I'm tearing up during We Are Marshall, Remember the Titans, or a particularly amazing ESPN highlight or biopic.] I know in my mind that that it’s ridiculous to place those expectations on myself, but it’s difficult in the moment to change those habits. Another reminder that I still have work to do in that area. I hate feeling like an emotional black hole, drawing everything in but not ever releasing any of it back out. I don’t think crying makes me less butch or masculine or anything … but at the same time, it still feels so foreign and feminine to me.

Fear of losing control: Just because I don’t show my emotions doesn’t mean I don’t have them, because do I ever. I’m a passionate person, but I have the hardest time with that emotional expression in particular. I am scared that crying about issue x is just a crack in the dam that will eventually give way to other issues, and I’m not prepared for that. I’m much better than I used to be at paying attention to and moving through my feelings in the moment, but I still sometimes get this paralyzing fear that opening up a little bit will cause all kind of things to come to the surface. I like to be in control, and if the dam bursts, well. That’s a tough thing to rein in. Vulnerability has never been my forte.

It’s a work in progress, I know. I’m still learning that not everything can be managed, especially when it comes to emotions, and that some of my old issues coming to the surface isn’t always a bad thing. I always try to remember Leonard Cohen’s lyric – “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” – and many times, that helps.

I haven’t had all the time that I want to write lately. I’m under tremendous stress at work in a job I hate, so when I’m not at work or job hunting (shh), I’m trying to just relax. My personal life is also crazy for other reasons too, not the least of which was a car accident the other day in which some unfortunate soul decided to just ram her car into mine on the freeway.

But! There have been good things, too.

Quality time in the hammock

I saw Jonatha Brooke in concert again!

Want to be an OG on July 4th? Wear a glow necklace and drink apricot hefeweizen. FROM THE BOTTLE.

I saw Brandi Carlile in concert again, too.

I cuddled with a magnum of cava while my friend ... well, anyway.

I’ve had good times with great company this summer, including two amazing concerts, and more fun on the way. Here’s to more fun on the horizon – I need it to retain my sanity! And if you have the chance to see either Jonatha Brooke OR Brandi Carlile this summer, you should certainly do so. Both are amazing artists who make incredible music.

Oh, and the title of this post is from “Of Graves” by another favorite singer, Alexa Wilkinson: