So I’m skipping choir because I was too grumpy to not eat beforehand, and now it’s getting late and I’m too full to sing at all well.

I feel bad ditching everyone, but I will come next week and go home from work earlier to get dinner.

Sitting Phoenix for the weekend was fun but I am exhausted. I haven’t hung out with anyone pre-teenaged much at all recently — My world consists of adults, some legally still children, but in my mind very much adult.

I remember every year after sitting him why I don’t exactly want kids, really. I enjoy them, and with a partner who was really committed to giving a good, unique upbringing, I could really enjoy it. But I don’t want to play russian roulette with my life, where there’s a bullet reading “Has satellite TV, a station wagon and Mr. Clean under the sink” in the chamber. I do not want that life.

Phoenix’s parents are scarily the people most like my parents in town. They’re both mellow, natural-building, organic-food types. They both ended up with queer oldest children, and ended up owning a nice house in a pleasant rural town. They’re comfortable. And I don’t really want to be much like them.

In some ways, I want their ideals, not their reality. My parents now want a smaller house, and what I read into their saying that they want a simpler life is that they want something they don’t have to work so hard maintaining so they can travel and go do things more. I want that too.

I do not love you simply because you are different, you are not a novelty to admire and then to cast off. I love you because of your inner beauty, your inabilty to contain your true spirit despite all oppodition and your own fears.

My mother replied to my letter. She’s still thinking, writing a real response, but she answered. I think things will be fine, but I know I’m not going to get support from her any time soon.

Arvo Pärt’s Missa Sillabica, then Gabriel Fauré on at high volume, my meager dinner is vanishing. My soul feels overwrought with tension and emotion tonight. Time for some time alone with the cello, and some second dinner.

Phone conversations that end long after the tears stopped, long enough that they’re dried to the handset. Arvo Pärt on at full volume, harmonies, heavenly voices narrate the evening, a cacaphony of truth larger than anyone can comprehend. Pain, memories of pain, and ultimately that we are all nothing and that that truth is a beauty of its own.

Today rolled from mediocre to a wonderful climax.

Work was work. I had a meeting about money with the previous owner, which went well. My records pwn his records.

Last pizza night, possibly ever — the coffeeshop that holds the oven we use is closing, things changing. We’ll find another location, I hope. I’ll miss it. I finally un-tensed from the weekend and the past week after a couple beers and nearly a whole pizza to myself.

We hung out after everyone else left, waiting to let Christel into the radio station for her show. I didn’t realize she was still doing it, after the fight with her partner, but after the fight, the hurricane hit, and she grabbed recording equipment, pulled strings and got a press card, and got into the Astrodome and interviewed people. Most of the press was turned away.

The first part of the show was a live interview with a family from New Orleans, whose house was a block from the levee. They’re living here now, and the interview was great, and then they played forty-five minutes of interviews from Houston. Things are bad, there, folks. I’m going to get a recording tomorrow, I hope.

raijna called, and she is the most beautiful person tonight, having danced in the rain and swum in four-foot-deep floodwaters until the police chased her out. Don’t ever get sane, Jem. Not that kind of sane.

I’m grinning ear to ear, and random play has pulled up the Goo Goo Dolls.

Tonight, I ♥ life.

Please be okay, Caleb. Please.

All I can say is “Capiscum”. Yum.

When an app has only a dialog window on the screen, don’t make it skip the window list. It’s really annoying and gets stuck behind everything else. If it has another window, put that in the list as usual and raise the dialog above it.

Also, don’t raise a window if I drag from it. I know that’s a pain in the ass to implement, but it would really really help.

I woke up smiling.

When I tell most people who I am, what do I feel? Brave. Proud. Scared. Excited. Hopeful.

When I talk to my family, what do I feel? Fear. Shame. Terror. Frustrated.

I want the courage to send this.

Mom.

I think that what I just said is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say.

I don’t want to push you away like that. Of all the times I’ve wished I

had an ear to listen to what I’m thinking or feeling, it’s yours I miss

the most.

You know I’ve started taking hormones. After five months, now, I can

tell you I don’t regret it a bit. For the first time in ten years, I can

look in the mirror without wanting to cry. I’d much rather be as I am

now, and know why it was I wanted to cry than to ignore it. I don’t get

dressed and undressed as quickly as possible anymore, trying to ignore

my body entirely. I can shower without feeling ill afterward.

I’ve worked really hard on myself for the past few years to become someone who can handle this. I haven’t been seriously depressed in a

year now. Even this July, when the heat made me feel terrible, I didn’t

end up in the black cloud that I have every July and August for the past

four years. I’ve been working on my thick skin, and on not falling apart

at the slightest provocation. It’s not entirely smooth sailing, but

looking back over the past few months, I can regard it as quite a bit

happier than the year before.

This didn’t start as a shameful thing — just me acknowledging who I am.

It wasn’t until I moved back to Ridgway that there was fear or despair.

Please don’t blame this on the friends I keep. Please don’t blame this

on NBTSC. This is entirely my own thing. I don’t get a lot of support

there, even if it is the most accepting community I can think of. It was

among the most scary things I’ve ever done, coming out to them. I was

the first person among campers to come out.

Not being able to talk to you is really bothering me, but I really do

need respect that this is my choice, and respect that I’m sure it’s the

right thing for me, at least, and understanding at best. I really want

to get past this. There are things that go on in my life that I would

love to talk to you about, but they tie into who I am. I don’t want to

not talk, but I’ll keep it quiet as long as I have to.

I wish I could share the pride I feel at being able to stand up and be

who I really am with you. I’m sorry it hurts you.

I love you.

Rick. Ari. Aria.

(I sent it a couple hours later.)

I just had to tell my mother “No, I do not really want to chat about me. I need some understanding and respect. I’d love to have that talk, but that’s what I need.”

I think that might possibly be the hardest thing I’ve ever said.

I remember your handwriting better than I remember your face.