Happy Thanksgiving all!

New Pic

New Haircut today, still undecided..

E.O.W #2

The end of week 2 is coming to a close and it certainly went easier than week 1. I'm sitting here counting hours until I'm off for a 1-week vacation or staycation as my friend Todd so puts it. Guy #1 has ceased his bitching and moaning so I can only assume that he has been talked too. He has even come into the shop ½ a dozen times this week, which was something he refused to do previously. I can honestly say otherwise things just seem normal which really makes me happy!

I had my weekly electrolysis session last night and I have to say that Rita is awesome! I'm sure it helps having a past familiarity with her and mainly her sister so we always have things to talk about. Funny enough, she is the type of person that I could be friends with. She is upbeat, positive, compassionate and interesting. As far as the actual work she has done I'm seeing a lot of results faster than I expected which is awesome. I am looking forward to the day that I can be done with this and just get out of bed not worrying about hair anymore. Thanks god what is left is gray and hard to see.

Having next week off should be a blessing, it will be a week to decompress and when we get back it will be December (The holiday season!) Normally in days past the Latter part of Nov and all of Dec were rough months for me over the years. It was a great source of depression and misery for me. I'm thankful to be able to say that I'm looking forward to the holidays and my birthday this year. I guess having a huge burden lifted from your shoulders can work wonders.

I'm not sure if I'll be blogging or what I'll be doing with my week off yet. I do know that on Tuesday I have a hair appointment and then obviously turkey day on Thursday. Tonight Diane and I are meeting Cynthia for dinner so it should be a nice way to kick off the holiday week. We always have interesting conversations and she is a good source of inspiration having already walked the steps that I am currently walking. It's always nice having someone to share stories or bounce things off of.

I guess for now that is all the news I have. If I don't talk to anyone for the next week may you all have an awesome thanksgiving.

Karyn

Sometimes balance tips the scale

Well yesterday was the first test of whether guy#1 was going to be professional or a freaking dweeb,. Turns out he took the dweeb route. Yeah I know, I should have known better but hey I had high hopes. I always hope that the good in people will outweigh the bad.

Yesterday as we were working away I heard the door to the shop open, a few moments of silence and then a bang of the door closing. Sure enough he snuck in, tossed work on the table and then snuck back out. Now this is all well and good, but the first thing that's wrong with this picture is that we have a rule in here. If you need a job done you are required to talk to us to see if we have either the time or capacity to do it.

This rings true for every job that comes in here but even more true for jobs from other departments. Our company is set up in such a way that even though we are one company, we work as separate divisions even under the same roof at times. We do not work for his division so technically we don't HAVE to take his work. Basically it comes down to us doing a favor for him and his needs. Pretty sad that he needs a favor but cannot be respectful to come in here for it. He's an arrogant Fu … well you get the idea.

Yesterday when my shift was up I left the back door of the building and guy#1 was outside taking one of his many "I need a butt" breaks. Dee said she noticed that the minute he spied me walking out he turned in the other direction. I've been told he refuses to even acknowledge me and I guess he assumes by turning his back to me he's letting me know that what I'm doing is unacceptable and I'm being punished.

WHATEVAH!

This am when I came in my coworker Rich informed me that the minute I left he came in to discuss the job. So now it comes down to him being unprofessional and impeding workflow because he has a personal issue with me. Funny enough Rich wants me to do the job and ask plenty of questions so he HAS to deal with me! I'm not out to look for trouble so I wont go out of my way but if I do the job, he most certainly will have to address me.

I have to admit this turn affected my mood this am. I know I shouldn't let it bother me but it happens.

Funny enough lately I had been repeating an old phrase that an ex coworker and friend from the shop used to recite when people would make comments. "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make money". On a basic level this premise couldn't be more true because guy#1 doesn't pay my mortgage, support my family or hang with me. But this morning something would tip the scales and lift my mood.

Being in a closed in room here and having our email notification sound like a ding going off can be a bit of a pain. "DING!" Rich and I look at each other with that old "mine or yours look"! So quite a while ago I traded the ding for a "You've got mail, yay!" wav which was exactly brought me to the email I got.

My old coworker and friend had gotten word of my transition and took time to let me know he supports me and that it wont make him see me any differently, we were still friends. I sat for a minute and just tried to absorb what I had just read. I guess what got me what that this was someone who hadn't seen me in a while, he could have kept the info and just not done anything but yet, he went out of his way to send some encouraging words.

Now I know if you take a negative and offset it with a positive you can pretty much call the day a wash and move on. But in this case I really felt like that email had more impact on me than any negative guy#1 is putting out. It not only changed the direction of my day it really elevated my mood. It reminds me that not all people are bad people and there are a good cross section of people who are good people, caring people, people worth the respect and the time you have to give.

**UPDATE** As I was writing this guy #1 actually came in the shop while I was here! Wonder if HR layed it out for him!

The bottom line is that it doesn't take much to make someone feel valued. That letter made me feel exactly that. So Kev, if you are reading this … Thanks

~K~

My take on prop 8

Lately the big news seems to be not only that Prop 8 passed but that there are rallies all over the country calling for a repeal to the law. People are justifiably upset over the passage of a law that grants a class of people privilege. Over the course of the last few months on occasion I make it known what my political views are and like most of the rational people I believed that Prop 8 should be defeated.

My interpretation of how the constitution protects us tell is that a minorities civil right cannot and should not be allowed to be suppressed by a majority. Furthermore with freedom of religion as a fundamental right that we all share and one religion should not be allowed to weigh its moral beliefs on any group of people, especially not followers of that particular faith.

Yesterday morning while during my usual Sunday morning coupon cutting frenzy, George Stephanopoulos came on with an interview of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discussing the changes in the Democratic sway in politics and what this meant to Republicans. I have to admit I became rather intrigued with the Governor as he outlined some of his points of view on Taxes and such. When it came to the issue of Prop 8 I was again very impressed.

By nature I am what you might consider a liberal thinking republican, something you do not find very often. With every answer that the governor put forth I realized that there are some conservative people who are very forward thinking still around. The nice thing was that the governor had the almost identical view on Prop 8 and what should happen. In fact his point of view embraces the very idea that civil rights should not be put to vote in such a manner.

He mentioned how legalizing interracial marriage had been put to vote and it failed only to have the Supreme Court later over turn it based on the idea that you cannot remove rights from people based on a majority. The Governor fully expects prop 8 to not only go back before the Supreme Court of California but it will indeed get overturned as being an unconstitutional amendment. This was and has been my belief in how our rights should be applied.

 

 

SCHWARZENEGGER: But I made it very clear. I personally am -- for me, marriage is between a man and a woman. But I don't want to ever force my will on anyone.

I think that the Supreme Court was right by saying that it's unconstitutional. And that everyone should have the right, just like we had the battle in 1948 and the Supreme Court decision came down, that, you know, it was unconstitutional for blacks and whites not to be able to get married with each other, and they overturned that. And since then, that has been taken care of.

And now the Supreme Court says that it's also unconstitutional to not let gay people get married, the same-sex marriage. So to me, that is the important decision here, and everything else is not that important. So people can pass initiatives, like Proposition 187 passed under Wilson that said we should not give, you know, Latinos and those that are illegally here any educational services or any kind of medical services. The Supreme Court said, well, the people maybe had some intentions there, but it's unconstitutional.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you think the courts should overturn Proposition 8?

SCHWARZENEGGER: The court has overturned it. And now they went back. And the people have voted for it again, against the gay marriage. So the Supreme Court, you know, I think ought to go and look at that again. And we'll go back to the same decision, basically.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you believe they will.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that they will. And I think that the important thing now is to resolve this issue in that way.

 

Don't give up hope, I have a feeling in my heart that California will in fact do the right thing.

 

Here is the transcript

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=6264947&page=1

Karyn

EOW update

Well I'm in the last ½ hour of m shift for this week so that means I actually made it. It was a very emotional week for me and I'm looking forward to a few days of R&R. I have 1 more week of work and then we are shut down for the week of the holiday so I'll have a little more then.

I likened the end of this week to my friend Cynthia to the movie "It's a wonderful life".

In the movie there is a part where Jimmy Stewarts character is trying to calm a run on the building and loan. He takes to using his own money to keep the place open and with about a minute to spare he is left holding $2 in his hand. I remember him saying something to the effect of if they make it to closing that they stay in business.

Today was my building and loan run. I felt as though if I could make it to the end of my shift today that the worst part of my tenure here was over. Ok not so much worst as much nerve-wracking but you get the picture. All in all I think it has been a successful week. It's good to know I'm getting support. I got this email from one of the engineers this am that was really cool.

Hi Karyn:

I got your message on Monday and meant to swing by this week to offer you support and encouragement

Didn't happen so I'm writing you briefly now.

I wish you the best of success in your complicated transition over the next couple of years. Hope to catch up with you soon to see how you are doing.

Best regards,

*****

Can't get any better than that. That seems to be the consensus of the people that know me and I've yet to hear about anyone else who is negative… Good times!

Weekend is here!

Karyn

Day #4

Things seem to be falling into a quiet routine around here. One of the nice things for me is that my shift hours have me as one of the first people in the building. That helps keep me from feeling like I'm walking into a lion's den by being stared at. So far the people who I have daily interactions with, nothing has changed in how they treat me. I obviously don't know what they say when I'm not around but that doesn't really matter to me.

What has helped to some degree is that for me the changes are minor as I've previously stated. It isn't like I'm suddenly wearing skirts to work and trying to sit with the women. It isn't much of a stretch to go from Boy jeans and Tees to girls other than the jeans now fit me a hell of a lot better. In the job that I'm in I wear shop shirts anyway. For a lot of these people the shocker tends to be in the name change and pronoun area and they will definitely find it hard to see changes because for the most part they are already there

In another twist that I hadn't mentioned in my blog yesterday about guy #1 and HR was that the person that "sold" me out was the person that had my back and went to HR. I'm a bit blown away by it and I appreciate the fact that he cares enough to do that.

So far my experience has been that most people either just want you to be happy or they just don't feel the need to acknowledge it either way. That is to say that they may not agree with it but they just keep it to themselves. Another thing I've found is that you find acceptance in the places that you would have never expected or even looked for it. I've had some of the most macho of guys' wish me well. One even served in the originally ground assault of Desert Storm.

A friend a long time ago when I worked in the main machine shop used to keep the saying. "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make money" While we all want to be liked, we really need to remember that this is the point of our employment, especially in issues such as this. If someone here doesn't like me because I'm being true to myself then it needs to be remembered that they don't pay my bills. We aren't spending thanksgiving together and we certainly aren't going out for drinks after work. Those things are reserved for my friends and family, not people who have zero effect on my life.

The bottom line here is simply. I know other people who would love to transition and feel whole but are afraid to do so for fear of being ostracized. While it is a scary thing to do and not everyone will agree. The weight lifted off your shoulders and the support you do get is so much sweeter. Don't be afraid to be you!

Karyn