Penny's Story
A cute little drummer living her dream.Archive for November, 2009
Hypaspace Rides Again
Dear me, was last night really my first drum set gig since surgery?
Wow; it was.
No wonder I feel ~so~ out of drumming shape. I’ve been practicing and jamming again for a few months, but last night was the first time I laid it on the line since January. I’ll tell you this: it felt really good. Performing music in front of people is one of the most incredible highs I’ve ever experienced, and as much as playing djembe in church each week is fun and spiritually fulfilling, nothing compares to playing drum set. And beyond that, it’s always super-awesome when it’s with the guitarist whose been an absolute joy to work with for over twenty years.
Last night was amazing. I played with Hypaspace, which is something I thought may never happen again. We played for two hours, and by the end I was wiped out. I hope I’m gradually getting back in shape.
The Darling Boyfriend came to see my play, and that was just neat. I got to introduce him to a whole other circle of my friends, which was mad cool. He really liked the show, and said that he thought the band was great. It was awesome.
I saw an old friend from High School too, he came to see us play. I should mention that my High School was an all-boys Catholic High School. Seriously. It was great to see him, and just goes to show that I can be me and the world can deal with it, even people from my way past. How cool is that?
I’m feeling at quite a loss for words lately. Even with my usual hyperbole, I’m just sort of having a difficult time putting the wondrous experiences of my life into words. So much lately I’ve been falling back on stuff like “it was amazing,” because there are no words that do the magical experiences of my life justice.
Anyway, it was great playing with Hypaspace last night, and seeing tons of people that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.
I.Love.Drumming.
w00t!
Meeting my Senator
So, I’ve been super-busy these last few weeks (as regular readers would notice), but I’ve got to try to catch up a little bit, as so many amazing things have been happening.
A couple weeks ago I met with my state senator to urge him to support the transgender civil rights bill before the legislature. I can say whatever I’ve said about labels, both my own and others, but I feel very strongly that no one should be discriminated against based on how the world perceives the rightness or wrongness of their gender expression. And so I think this bill is important. To say nothing of how much easier (and earlier) I think my own transition could have been in a world that understands the diversity of the human condition.
Anyway…
I met with the head of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition before the meeting, and also met a wonderful couple who went with me to meet our senator.
We didn’t get to see the senator for long, as he was late for a caucus, but we did sit with him for a few minutes. I told him that we were there to ask him to support the transgender civil rights bill, and he said that he would. It was sort of weird, because I had been lead to believe that he was a little more luke-warm on support than he seemed. He looked me right in the eyes and said that he couldn’t see why he wouldn’t support it.
So, yay!
I was pretty damned nervous going into the state house, but the day became a very empowering experience.
I am amazed at the person it turns out I am.
How Awkward, or Not
The Darling Boyfriend and I were talking the other day about our relationship and stuff, and he said something very interesting. He said that he felt sort of awkward about it, but that if we had met before my SRS, we might not have been so sexually compatible (for the record, we’re ~very~ sexually compatible).
And I pretty much said: “D’uh.”
I mean, really. He’s a straight guy. We’re not supposed to ever talk about the fact that having the proper naughty bits is important to our sex life, but of course it is. One of the things that confused me so much when I was younger was that I knew I wasn’t a gay man, and I knew I wasn’t attracted to gay men. Now that I have the proper body, and I have a straight boyfriend, it’s pretty obvious that that was a huge piece of the puzzle.
I mean, seriously, I’m a straight woman, and I want to have a relationship with a straight man. It seems like it would have been awfully difficult to do that before I had my body corrected. That’s pretty much what “straight guy” means, after all.
I told him rather than feeling awkward about it, I prefer to think that we met each other at the perfect time. (He emailed me for the first time the day after I broke up with my last boyfriend.)
He said that he doesn’t really like to believe in fate. And I said that it’s much worse than that – I believe in God.
🙂
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