Dinner Party

The dinner party went well, despite my anxiety beforehand (what was I worried about? We invited six people, which meant eight at a table that comfortably fits six; it was a murderously hot day, so would the air conditioning keep the house bearable despite the heat from the cooking? Dr Skull had been having more trouble than usual getting around; did I mention how hot it was?). 

The menu:

• chicken with mushrooms
• grilled asparagus
• boiled potatoes with dill and butter
• baguettes
• chocolate pie with whipped cream
• white wine for those who wanted it

I cooked all of it, with a lot of coaching from Dr Skull, and it all turned out marvelously. The baguettes were especially good.

I forgot to take pictures, and probably I couldn't have shared them anyway since the kid and his husband brought along their two friends (from their 'friend group,' which is what kids today call people they met online and hang out with, frequently, online). These two flew in from Maryland and somewhere else which I don't remember. Also their friend from Kansas who is going to graduate school here came, as did Uncle Charger.

Shamus was very pleased. He loves having people visit, especially when one of them is Charger and two of the others are the kid and his husband. Although this time, his friend from Maryland was the very favorite.

Anyway. It took two days to clean up the kitchen, but now it is almost done. Just one...more...big...pot to wash. Ugh.

My Kid's Comic!

 Today my kid's comic reaches a scene I helped them with ---

Read their comic now!

New Comic From the Kid

It's called Paper Shells, and I helped with the university stuff!

To quote his husband: 

It's about domestic abuse, transphobia in the early 2000s, an english professor getting tenure, and TWO (2) whole werewolves called Paper Shells. Make sure to check out the trigger warning but go give it a look!

Go here to read it!

It's My Birthday

 Well, not until tomorrow. But we had a party yesterday, with order-in Italian and this:

A leaning-tower of carrot cake, which I made my own self, since Dr Skull cannot make cakes at the moment. I am not a fifth-generation baker, as you can probably tell. Still, it was tasty. The cream cheese frosting was especially good.

The kid and his husband and one of their grad school friends came over; also Uncle Charger. We had a good time. Next week is the kid's spring break and he and his husband are flying off to Maryland to visit friends. Maryland is where the kid plans to move if the situation does not improve in Arkansas.

The kid painted this for my birthday:

Jasper and my little cat Junti, may her memory be a blessing, cuddling together for once.

It was 20 degrees and wimdy when I took the dog to the park this morning. There were two big dogs there so he had someone to run with.

Comics for Gaza's Children

My kid has comics in this bundle -- you can get 121 comics for $10, with all the proceeds going to help the children in Gaza.

Get some comics, do some good!

Language, as a Concept

My kid, who is just finishing an 8-week intensive Latin class (they learn two semesters of Latin in eight weeks), taught entirely online, has something to share:

https://twitter.com/jasperlizard/status/1282482264866279431

on the last week of my 8 week intensive language course, i would like to say that language, as a concept, was a mistake, and should not have happened, and it is bad

— datefriend time @ one of these days 💖💛💙 (@jasperlizard) July 13, 2020

in latin moremur and moriemur are verbs that mean different things and the only difference is the i, which is not even the worst of it. cecidit and cecidit mean different things. but you see this pales in comparison to what english does language was a MISTAKE

— datefriend time @ one of these days 💖💛💙 (@jasperlizard) July 13, 2020

The Kid in Tulsa

Before the concert, the kid and his roommate are visiting a Jewish museum of art in Tulsa.

Here's the thread.

My favorite picture so far:

Cat Pictures

We brought the kid home for the summer today -- or, well, for the month of July. (He's taking an interim course in August, so he goes back then.)

Here's the cat, coming warily to greet him:

Pride 2019 and Local Xtians

The kid says there were no "Christians" haranguing the people at Pride this year (though there are always churches who march in the parade itself), but this made me smile anyway:

Last year there was a "Christian" dragging a cross on little wheels, you know, like Jesus did, and screeching at all the people and families there about how they would burn in hell and so on.

People surrounded him and chanted LGBT slogans until he fled in a sulk.

Free speech in action.

Also, one of the kid's friends is featured in this article.

Wednesday Linkage

Happy Vernal Equinox!

It has been unseasonably cold here for the past several weeks, but yesterday was a lovely day, low 70s and sunny. Today is rainy, grey, and cold my favorite weather. Also, I have five more days of Spring Break left.

Plans for today: buy new shoes for the Kid, and then go observe squirrels on campus (this is for his anthropology lab. Squirrel Lab, they call it).

Have some links!

Remember how Florida voted to re-enfranchise felons? Yeah, don't worry, the GOP has that covered.

Here in Arkansas, our voters approved a minimum wage increase. Our GOP legislatures respond by cackling "Will of the people? I'll show you the will of the people!"

Utah GOP defines woman: A woman is a person who serves the purpose of receiving a man's seed. (Hat-tip Nicole and Maggie)


On the other hand, in Canada, a court rules that your daddy can't interfere with your medical treatment. (Predictably, this has transphobes throwing screaming tantrums. Of course your children are your property! How dare the courts say your power over their bodies has limits!)

An example of reasoned discourse from the anti-Trans people

And to take the taste of THAT out of your mouth: American Boys

Always check your sources. Also, stay away from the National Review.

Dunning-Kruger in the wild. This person knows nothing about AAVE, or about the teaching of English. Also, no shock, they're also a giant racist.

Nice reviews of my story, "History of the Invasion Told in Five Dogs."

Spring Break

Mine started last night at 8:00 PM (after my Fiction Workshop) and the kid's started today at 10:00 (after his anthropology lab). We drove up to fetch him home around noon today, with the obligatory stop at the fancy grocery before we left town.

(Fort Smith, where we live, has only two grocery stores, Wal-Mart and Harps, and Harp's is only slightly better than the Wall. So if we want something fancy, like chocolate that isn't Nestle's, we have to wait for a trip up the mountain.)

Now Spring Break is officially begun. What will we do with it? I'ma write a ton. The kid will draw a ton. Also we must do a Squirrel Lab, which is something attached to the anthropology lab.

The kid is considering doing an anthropology minor. At lunch, we all received a lecture on tarsiers, and what is important about their eyes. As all y'all know, I was briefly an anthropology major in college, so I enjoyed this lecture immensely.

Tarsier at night

We'll probably also go to the dog park at least a few times. Also I am reading many many book. More on that later.

My Kid and HRT

So the kid has been on T for just over a month now.

All y'all who have been reading me for awhile know the kid has had issues with anxiety, depression, self-loathing, and worse for years -- since hitting puberty, in fact. (Which in retrospect should have been a clue.)

After one month on T, these symptoms have vanished. He sent me a message today saying, "WTF? I'm happy because I get to be alive. I'm HAPPY. Is this how cis people feel all the time?"

So yeah. If you're one of those ignorant potatoes who think trans people should have, I don't know what the fuck, more and more and yet more therapy to convince them they are actually cis people, you can fuck right off.

And when you get there, fuck off again.

I'm trying to get the kid to write something about this, and if he does, I'll post it here. But he's an art student, as he points out to me all the time, so maybe not.

My Kid Pre-Puberty -- That's some of his early art behind him

Our Visit to Planned Parenthood

As many of you know, my kid is trans masculine.

Over the past several years, we have done mountains of therapy, culminating this year with a new therapist who specializes in working with LGBTQ people (the genderman, as the kid calls him). The genderman agreed that the kid should start HRT (hormone replacement therapy) sooner rather than later.

He also advised us that Planned Parenthood in the kid's college town was the best place to go. (We live in Arkansas, so it can be hard to find physicians that will work with trans people, or prescribe HRT. Fun fact! It can also be hard to find a pharmacy that has T in stock. Ours had to order some.)

So Friday the kid had his first appointment with Planned Parenthood. And may I say, as happy as I have been to support Planned Parenthood in the past, this experience has increased my approval rating 1000%.

First, scheduling the appointment was super easy. They have an online portal, and you just find the time you want to come in and book it. They ask for other things, like if you have insurance and what you're coming in for, but it's all very easy to use.

And we had to reschedule, from Friday before last to this Friday, and that was also very easy!

The facility was small and a bit run-down, but very clean and cheerfully decorated. One wall had a trans-positive poster on it; another had a statement in both English and Spanish explaining that no one could make you get an abortion or any other treatment against your will, and that you had the right to call the police or social services if anyone was abusing you or trying to compel you to seek treatment against your will.

While the kid and I were there, two girls came in who looked like they were seventeen or eighteen, and a little later, two women in their 30s with a toddler in a bright pink parka. The toddler was there for a wellness check. The girls were there because one of them wanted birth control.

As far as I could tell (I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it was a small waiting room) no one who was there was seeking an abortion -- although if they had been, that would have been their business and their choice. This fits with the statistics PP releases, which show that most people show up for health and medical reasons not related to abortions.

The toddler, by the way, was adorable. Her mothers clearly loved her deeply, and she was happy and bold, toddling about the waiting room demanding that people  pick her up or look at her toys. Everyone there was enjoying her immensely.

The nurse took my kid back alone, to make sure I wasn't coercing him into treatment. This seemed to be standard procedure -- everyone had to go back and talk to the nurse first on their own first. (Except the toddler, obviously.) After my kid had been back there about an hour, they let me come in too.

First the nurse and then a doctor (all of them women, interestingly, and all of them very calm and friendly) discussed the kid's history as a trans man, how long he'd been out as a man, how long he'd been in therapy, and so on. Then they talked to him about what HRT would do and what it wouldn't do. They did a complete physical. They drew blood to run tests. Only after all of this did they prescribe T.

They also made sure the kid knew if he wanted to stop transitioning at any point, that was something he could do.

Over the next year, they'll be monitoring the kid's health and his blood work to make sure everything's working.

A second nurse came in and taught the kid how to inject himself with testosterone. And the nurse up front, who gave us the actual prescription, told us if the pharmacy or the insurance company gave us any trouble, we should call them and they would handle it.

Though the kid is a little nervous, mainly he is buzzing with excitement. The T is supposed to arrive on Tuesday, and he will probably start taking it then.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because all over the internet, people who know nothing about trans people or about being trans are making, frankly, ridiculous claims about what it's like to be a trans parent or how doctors force "confused" "children" into going on HRT, or how being trans is a "fad" or a symptom of misogyny or 9000 other things.

This is what it's actually like to be trans. Years of misery,  years of therapy, years of careful, even obsessive, thought and research. Only then does the trans person -- who is an adult, not a child -- start HRT.

And everyone, every step of the way, is being as careful as they know how not to make a mistake.

So when people make these really ridiculous claims, writers of transphobic blogs and Fox News fans, Jordan Peterson and Rod Dreher, about trans people, all they're doing is showing how incredibly ignorant they are.

Not to mention how incredibly hateful.

My Wonderful Kid

As we were leaving Planned Parenthood, a tiny little mob of protesters with their ridiculous gory posters lit up with delight -- fresh victims!-- and began shouting at us about how abortion was murder, how we were murderers, how every life was precious.

I mean, except trans people's lives, of course. Fuck trans people.

The mob has to stay a 100 yards away, by law. So they couldn't get in our faces. But as we were leaving the parking lot, one of them came over to smash his silly poster against our car window. I made an obscene gesture at him, which appeared to shock him very much. Apparently scarlet women are supposed to be too mortified to fight back.

tl;dr Donate to Planned Parenthood. They're the best.

Returning the Kid

The Kid goes back up the hill to school tomorrow. I'm going to miss them.

This semester, they're taking two art classes, Figure Drawing and Drawing with Color, as well as one of their required science classes -- in this case, Anthropology. Also a creative writing class, which they should destroy.

I'm teaching two Comp I classes, a class in World Science Fiction, and Fiction workshop. It's a TR schedule, so I should have plenty of time to write (which is pretty much almost all I care about, tbh).

Reaping What I've Sown

Since my recent illness, I've had trouble eating. The thought of food makes me queasy, which means I don't eat until I'm really hungry. And then once I've eaten, almost everything I eat makes me even more queasy. (I've stopped vomiting but it's still pretty unpleasant.)

So I've been looking for food I can eat that will keep me from being hungry and yet won't make me ill. So far cheese is the biggest win, but also perfectly ripe bananas work, as well as some (very bland) yogurts.

But you see the problem. This is a very limited diet. So I've been stalking the stores, searching for food I can eat which will also provide me with more nutritional benefit than my current diet (though bananas are pretty good, nutritionally).

But the point of this story: I've been using the term "nutritionally dense," which the Kid hates. "I need something nutritionally dense," I mutter as I wander the grocery. "I could probably eat oatmeal, but it's not very nutritionally dense."

"Nutritionally dense is a made up term," the Kid seethes. I actually got it from the Kid, who learned it in health class in high school. "It's bullshit."

"I can't live on cheese forever," I say. "It's just not nutritionally dense enough."

"It's a ridiculous term! It was invented to make us feel terrible about what we're eating!"

"Peanut butter is nutritionally dense," I say, "but bread makes me queasy. I guess I could just eat peanut butter on its own."

"It's a term invented by the patriarchy to oppress women and control our lives!"

At this point I began laughing.

"What?" the Kid demanded.

"That's a good one," I said. "Excellent technique."

"Oh, shut up."

"You know exactly the argument to use against me."

The Kid is grinning now too. "It's true, though. The patriarchy --"

"Okay, okay. How about we find some food I can eat that isn't cheese? How would that be?"

"You should try ginger tea," the Kid says, heading for the tea and coffee aisle. "Or maybe ginger ale."

"Those don't sound very nutritionally dense," I say, and the Kid rounds on me. I laugh. "Now I'm just fucking with you," I point out.

Life in the delagar household.

My Kid and also a link

You should stop by this post at Nicole and Maggie's blog for two reasons.

One, their excellent links on what you can do (this is a frequent feature at their blog -- just saying). We often feel, or at least I often feel, helpless in the face of this much corruption and evil, and N&M give us do-able things we can do to help stop the destruction.

Two, the tweet from Merriam-Webster about the word genderqueer.

Here's a self-portrait from my genderqueer Kid to go with:

Tuition Waiver

I went into school to turn in the tuition waiver for the Kid's fall semester. This is always such a hassle. I mean, it's absolutely worth it, since we get 40% off the tuition*. But jeez.

Every semester, there is some new required bit of paperwork. The required paperwork isn't actually listed on the form -- you don't find out exactly what you need until you try to turn in the paperwork, and then some apologetic human resources person says, Yes, you've got the waiver filled out correctly, and yes, you have the copy of your income tax form, showing this kid is actually your dependent, and yes, you have the enrollment confirmation, but this year we want (X) also!

So you have to go find that thing and make a second (sometimes a third, if the thing you find isn't the exact right thing) trip to file the paperwork.

It used to be just the waiver and the enrollment confirmation. Now it's like six different forms.

Still worth it, yes, but irksome.





*Nothing else, not the fees, not the room and board -- all of which are the most expensive part of a university education -- just 40% off the tuition itself. Still, this comes to almost $3000 saved per academic year, and that's not nothing.

The Kid's Apartment and Georgia O'Keefe

Today we moved the first part of the Kid's stuff into their new apartment. The second (bigger) haul goes up next week, when the Kid moves up to Fayetteville for the semester.

This is the exterior of the apartment, though you can't actually see the Kid's unit from this pic. They've got a top corner apartment, with big windows. Very nice.

After we moved the first load in, we went on up to Bentonville, to Crystal Bridges, to see the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit. This was several O'Keefe paintings and a couple sculptures by her, as well as a number of works by other contemporary artists.

One of my favorites was a collage by Mark Lewis, who is an artist from Tulsa. It just blew me away.

This is the collage, but believe me, this image does not do it justice. You have to see this one in person.


There was also this amazing collection by Cynthia Daignault, called Light Atlas. she drove across America, stopping every 25 miles to paint what she saw. These are small paintings, and just beautiful.

Again, this image does not do it justice.

If you can get to this exhibit, you should go. It's amazing.

The Kid

The Kid has been visiting their sweetie (the datefriend, as these kids today call it) for the past week. Today they are flying home, from PA to Fort Smith, via Detroit and then Atlanta. (My parents got the tickets with their Frequent Flyer miles -- we could never have afforded plane tickets, though we were considering a bus tickets for a time.)

The visit was a lovely success, the first time they and their sweetie got to meet IRL, though they've been dating for over a year, via Skype and Messenger and Twitter. (This is life in the future.) They hung out, watched movies, visited Gettysburg, ate together, lived together.

The Kid and their Sweetie Standing on a Monument at Gettysburg

And now the kid is flying home. This is the most anxiety-laden part for me. I mean, intellectually I know my kid is 20 years old and well able to navigate airports on their own. But some lizard part of my brain still consider this kid my tiny baby. My tiny baby, in a giant airport in Atlanta, trying to find the correct gate, all on their own! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

(I am, of course, fretting over nothing. They are doing fine, despite their slight phobia of escalators.)

I'll be glad when today is over however.

Pride Parade in NWA

We spent yesterday up in Fayetteville, at the Pride Parade (if you're LGBTQ in Arkansas, Fayetteville is your oasis).

It was the Kid's first Pride parade -- mine too. "Whaat?" the Kid said.

"Well, they're always in June," I said. "Obviously. And you know how I feel about summer."

"Oh, right." The Kid thought this over. "You must really love me."

But it was a wonderful parade. The Kid said they might happy-cry. I don't know if they did, but I'll admit I did, once or twice.

Before the parade, we walked up and down Dickson Street, admiring the crowd: sassy girls wearing rainbow flags like capes, lovely shirtless boys holding hands, tiny toddlers in rainbow tutus running through the crowd, stately grandmothers with canes and rainbow flowers in their hair, and so many dogs. The sole sour note was an Evangelical standing on wall with a bullhorn telling all these wonderful, happy, celebrating people they would burn in the fires of hell. The Kid flipped him off as we went past.

We stopped at the little grocery store where the Kid shops when school is in session, to buy bottles of water, and stayed inside there in the AC to drink them.

Then we went out again, and down the street to sit on the curb in the shade of a big tree and wait for the parade. Some of our friends and their kids found us there -- I'd been looking for them, sort of hopelessly, because the crowd was huge -- and we spent the ten or fifteen minutes before the parade started catching up.

Also still enjoying the crowd.  More dogs! More trans and gay and genderqueer and Lesbian people! A set of tiny redheaded twins in fairy-princess costumes! A tiny poodle in a rainbow tutu! A large man with an impressive beard wearing a shirt that said: TRUMP IS THE ONLY DICK I CANNOT HANDLE.

The parade itself began right on time. It was pretty wonderful.

The best parts, I think, were the UA-Pride organization, which the Kid has not yet been able to join, because their studio art class conflicted with it all last year; and the Socialists For LGBT Rights (there was a guy from the IWW there -- Dr. Skull shouted out to him something about Joe Hill, and made his day); and the local Jewish temple, Temple Shalom, marching in the parade.



Lots of religious groups marched, by the way -- not just the Jews! But obviously we were very pleased to see the temple there.

Also the atheists marched. That was nice too!

Also, two of my ex-students were in the parade. (That's not them above!)

All in all, a wonderful experience.