(no subject)

Edward is such a different cat[1]. I knew when we took a local wandering tom in that he wouldn't be a housecat immediately. But his behavior with going out and staying in is so entertaining, if not a little exasperating. Last night he didn't really want to come in, but at 10 pm we went out into the pool enclosure (which has a bit of tree shaded lawn as well as a good deal of shrubbery) to find him sitting on the bench under the tree. He dashed away, but i had brought out string. He rushed to get the string, but Christine was there. He swerved, but then "gave in" and flopped on the sidewalk. Christine carried him in and fed him, and said he was famished. "Why didn't you come get me sooner?"

[1] For us. I know he's a fairly "normal" cat in other measures of independent cat behavior.

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Coming Out Day has a great deal of importance, but it's hard for me to stand up this year. I have privilege, i know. I am fairly out at work, many of my colleagues witnessing Christine's transition. I have out colleagues and team members. I just didn't feel like participating yesterday. In the evening i read a post by a Friend who suggests that straight and cisgendered folks address their awareness of their own experience and the privilege they have. I linked to that, more out of guilt of not taking a stand, than anything else. I went to take it down an hour later, again uncomfortable -- i didn't have the energy to deal with it -- but someone said they learned what cisgendered meant -- and that's a win.

My sexual and gender identity are not chiseled strongly in rock of my identity, and it's not because i'm "fluid." I think part of it is because so much of my life has been happily spent with Christine and i've not been forced to negotiate. We had straight privilege early on, and that shielded our space to develop our authentic selves. There were initial tensions over being out: i did not feel safe as a woman in physics. I was even odder as a woman not married to a physicist. (Most women physicists at that time were married to physicists more senior than they. The rare example of the talented woman and her less stellar husband in our department showed the tensions that developed when bucking the trend in one manner.) I was afraid of the effect of adding publicizing yet one more way i deviated from the physics community, or at least, my experience of the physics community as fairly conservative in certain ways.

So we developed behind the shield of that appearance of straightness and in a place rather disconnected from any formal discourse (other than reading about transgendered issues). I only had a few challenging conversations with one person who particularly challenged Christine's MtF explorations. He was FtM, and i remember mostly being puzzled and not quite understanding what his issue was but getting the emotional intensity.

But that's not what i need to write about.

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This morning's F&F action was to write some family members to see if i could get some birth and wedding date details from living folks.

I've also tried tracking down a friend from college -- and then discovered his personal address was in my mail client, if not in my address book. I sent him a belated Bday wish.

I'm not getting the early start on work i wanted today, but i've at least tended to a bit of my life.