Slumber Parties, Podcasts, and Politicians, Oh My!

So, needless to say from my brief posts through the week, I've been getting the most out of my spring break.  Since I've been neglectful this week (sorry) I thought I'd give you a detailed breakdown of what I've been up to lately.

Silly as it my sound, I started my spring break off with a slumber party.  Why?  Because I never had one growing up and now that I'm a grown woman I can do whatever I want!  Seriously, though, it was strangely therapeutic.  There was Chinese food, bad movies, and abundant alcohol.  Shayrah and the other girls really went out of their way to make sure we had a great time and that we could make up for my lack of slumber parties growing up.  There were no pillow fights, we just thought we'd skip the pretense and have a big cuddle party in the bed instead.  We got very drunk, stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, and had a hang-over breakfast at Cafe Brazil in the morning.  All in all, I think it made up for the years of slumber parties I missed out on as a girl.

Click the link to see the "All-Star" cast version.

Saturday Chris took me on the first of several "decoy dates".  He told me to dress nice, he did the same, and we went out to eat.  He even got on one knee and asked me to tie his shoe.  Goof.  Once we finished dinner we took some of my youth to see a reading of 8, the new play about the Proposition 8 trials.  I've actually read the trial transcripts in entirety and the play did a great job in summing up the points and making the case for marriage equality without misrepresenting the other side.  After the play, the director asked all the audience members who were in a committed relationship with someone of the same gender to stand.  He asked those who were together for less than 5 years, 10 years, and so on to sit down until the last couple standing had been together for almost 30 years!  The experience got me thinking about how lucky Chris and I are to be able to marry in Texas, and how ridiculous it was that everyone didn't enjoy that right.

Sunday, Chris and I spent most of the day hanging out with friends, some who were briefly in town for the break.  We took a trip to one of my favorite places ever, Half-Price Books, where I spent $30 and walked out with an armful of treasures, including Naked by David Sedaris, the first two books of Series of Unfortunate Events, a copy of the game Twister, and a few more to boot.  Chris went to his parents house while we spent a couple hours in the book store and later met us for dinner.  At least, that's what he said.  I suspect he might have been working on his proposal.  The waiting is starting to kill me.

Monday, I took half a dozen youth on the Equality Texas bus to Austin to participate in LGBTQ Lobby Day.  We were assigned to discuss house bill 1300, the Marriage Equality bill, from a youth perspective with six politicians.  Surprisingly, only one of our visits was less than friendly.  Most representatives and their staff were enthusiastic about our visits, especially the representative of our district, Rafael Anchia.  As soon as we saw a rainbow flag in his office, we knew we were home.  It was a tiring but extremely rewarding experience to look people in the eye and ask them to help our friends get married.

Tuesday, I got a new iPod Touch and was thus distracted for most of the day downloading apps and other fun toys.  Yes, I prefer an iPod to an iPhone.  Call me old fashioned, but I think the "smart" part of smart phones gets in the way of the actual phone.  This way, I have a toy and a phone and I can keep them separated.

Wednesday, I started my new workout plan with the awesome app, Zombies, Run!  This thing is so cool.  It's part audio adventure, part exercise trainer.  It links up with your music and as you walk, job, run, whatever it feeds the story into your headphones inbetween music.  Sometimes zombies chase you and you need to run away as quick as you can or risk being eaten.  I have often said that I would only run if something was chasing me, now I have no excuse.  I had a brisk walk and jog around my neighborhood for nearly 40 minutes and can't wait to start the next "mission" tomorrow.

After getting home from my zombie chase, I called in as a guest to Dogma Debate to discuss the recent clusterfuck of the Fallon Fox controversy.  "Do trans women have an unfair advantage in athletics?" I was asked.  And of course, my answer was, "Hell no."  But no matter how many doctors testify about it and how many national and international sports organizations have trans positive policies, until we fight transphobia at its core, people will always see trans women as men.  Thus, they will believe we have an unfair advantage against other women.  The truth is, after hormones there's no difference between a trans woman's muscle and body composition and a cis woman's.  If anything, we have a disadvantage because we have the same muscle trying to move around a heavier skeleton.  That means we're slower, easier to hit, with slower reaction time.  But whenever a trans woman does well in a sport, the assumption isn't that she trained hard, that she earned the recognition she deserves.  No, instead it all goes right back to the magic dick theory.  Penises are magical, apparently, and even getting yours removed somehow gives you super powers against people who never had one.  It's ignorant and frustrating, but we have to keep fighting it until trans athletes are common place.

As for the rest of my break?  Chris and I are chaperones for the Spring Break Lock-In this Saturday night into Sunday morning.  If we manage to get any sleep, we might head over to the Fellowship of Freethought meeting to meet Seth from The Thinking Atheist.  But we'll see how that goes.  Enjoy the rest of your breaks, and the blog should be back at its regular schedule by next week.