Free five 5 hour disabled Access coursework for California Architect continuing education
Posted: June 1, 2015 Filed under: Blog Leave a commentBecause learning how to help disabled people should be free.
posted 1/31/13
Updated 6/28/13
Updated 12/20/13
Are there really FREE disabled access courses out there? Yes. Please read on!
First, if you are debating whether or not you should pay for this, visit this site for the least expensive pay site that I have found anywhere. Currently this site appears to cost $10 ten dollars less that others online.
Continuing on, here below is why I started this blog and the links to Free courses for your use:
Ever since it became a necessary for California Architects to have five hours of disabled access coursework in continuing education, I had wanted to find out if there is really free classes available for us to take. Looking at the renewal application, It looks like we have to take 5 hours of course work related to ADA, in other words disabled access. Looking around the internet, even though there are a…
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Where are the pansexual women to love?
Posted: January 22, 2015 Filed under: Journal | Tags: California, demisexual, journal, lesbian, memoir, okcupid, pansexual, romance, santa barbara, transgender, transsexual Leave a commentIt is so difficult to find a pansexual woman to be with when you are a transsexual lesbian in a smallish city. That is actually part of the reason I moved away from Honolulu, and came back to California. And yet, I wound up in Santa Barbara which feels pretty much the same size. 😛
Thankfully I have been able to make some friends in the local lesbian community, but that didn’t happen until a couple of women started a meet up.com group. Even though I’m willing to date older women and younger women, I’m not sure how much they are willing to date me. It doesn’t seem to matter how cute I am, how in shape I am, or how friendly I am. People seem to like me, but mostly only as a friend.
I’m about two months away from genital reconstruction surgery, and that will make me feel a little bit more comfortable in my body, and in bed with another woman. As excited as I am about this though, I’m not completely comfortable advertising it.
Living in a community that is mostly college age people and retirees, it is difficult to find somebody in the middle of their life like myself in my early 40s. After having so little success on OKCupid.com, I shut down my account for a while. Then at burning man, not expecting it at all I met a woman who was fantastic and I unexpectedly been in love with, but she lives 2500 miles away in Hawaii. I had some great times with her, and so much about the relationship was excellent but I don’t know how it’s going to move forward. I don’t know if I can move forward, but I don’t give up hope. Thankfully, I know I cannot be in a monogamous relationship and it just won’t work for me. At least that allows me to not feel trapped. When I have had a date here or there it’s been nice but not mind blowing.
Ultimately, I guess I really need to just keep working on myself and be happy by myself so that others will notice and want in on the action. If I can be happy by myself, then I will be at peace. I wish there wasn’t that piece of me that still wanted to have sex, get fucked, and make another woman come.
I have reopened my OKCupid.com profile, but there are so few women available here and online dating is bizarre.
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feminism’s “arab spring” and a unified front of gender
Posted: May 30, 2014 Filed under: Reblog | Tags: feminism, gender, gender politics, gender studies, isla vista, liberty, men's rights movement, rape, santa barbara, sex, sexual dominiation, shootings, yesallwomen Leave a commentWhy we are healed by trying to understand the experiences of other people. Empathy will make us stronger and less divided or divisive.
“in times like these, when the collective female soul is crying out for redemption and healing, i would urge our knights to be bold, and rather than shrinking into petty self-defensiveness, seek to understand things that they can never understand.”
read the full article: feminism’s “arab spring” and a unified front of gender.
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Chain Reaction: Genetics, Body Image and Body Dysphoria
Posted: May 27, 2014 Filed under: Genderqueer, Memoir, Self-discovery, transgender, transsexual | Tags: body, body dysmorphic disorder, Body Dysphoria, body image, chain reaction, chronic depression, depression, gender, gender identity disorder, genetic predisposition, Genetics, GID, self image, self-esteem, trans, transgender, transsexual, transsexualism Leave a commentBody Image and Dysphoria: I hate my body. Why are my mind and genetics at odds?
I quit letting Mary Jane dominate my life about a month ago. As a result, I am not able to disassociate as easily from the pain of having this body. Look at myself in mirror is painful. having the wrong genitalia is making me wonder if I will ever be comfortable enough in my body to have sex again. I know I will need many surgeries. Will I be ever able to afford the medical care I so desperately need?
I went on a hike this weekend with a local group of lesbians. I had a really good time, as I often do with friends who allow me to live in the relationship, but when pictures of me started to be posted online I was just reminded of how masculine my features are. People tell me I have a great smile. Wonderful. I wish I could feel the same way. It’s hard sometimes to not feel like I went from being a beautiful man to being an average woman.
I have always had a heavy build even as a baby. I have a rather nordic build, am six feet and two and a stout hundred kilos. This causes me to envy other transwomen I meet whose skeleton does not immediately out them. Although I have met other xx women my height, they usually have a much more delicate bone structure. And I always feel a kinship with them, knowing haw we both cannot find clothes off the rack easily. I come from tall people. On my maternal grandmother’s side they are five foot ten women and six foot six men. I suppose my massive bones have been a benefit when I’ve been hit by cars, perhaps pain in life comes from many vectors, and this scar on my soul is what has impacted me.
I feel like my size often outs me. If I speak on the phone people cannot see how large I am, so they often misgender me and I have to correct them. It’s annoying, but feels like a minor point compared having doubts I will never be able to enjoy sex completely and without reservation.
I also realize that looking at my childhood my chronic depression has been lifelong. It never really hit me until the trifecta of my mother’s cancer, my parents breakup, and her death hit me at ages 9-12. It feels like a genetic predisposition, which, considering my paternal grandmother killed herself a couple of years before I was born it is quite likely.
Compared to other genetic dis-eases mine would perhaps seem trivial to most. I wish I could feel the same way. That I am still generally able bodied has probably increased my internalized guilt, shame, and transphobia for being who I am. I hope that through this process of writing perhaps I can better understand myself, and the cosmos I experience.
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long black tears
Posted: December 10, 2012 Filed under: Blog, Genderqueer, Journal, Self-discovery | Tags: alone, belonging, family, friendship, heartbreak, heartbroken, journal, love, passion, suicide Leave a commentmonday is a day of long black tears
with heart torn and heavily bruised.
where i wonder again why didn’t i kill myself
so long ago, before i had met you.
only the simple joy of folding laundry
can save my life now.
why can’t i say goodbye to those
who go away, without remorse?
as a preteen i lost my mother
i should have just ended it all
way back then. for now i still have
the monumental pain of losing you.
moonday morning, bleak white sky
of winter. i only need to find
my direction again. a reason
to live again. without you in my life.
for now i am at a loss
with no reason to get up in the morning
and little hope of finding work.
and i wonder what i am to do with myself.
for what is my true reason for living?
how can i pull myself together and
find a way to make a new life?
it seems now all i can do is paint and sigh.
why? did i have to pin my heart on you.
no one should ever hang their reason for living
on the life and love of a lover, and yet
that is exactly what i made the mistake of doing.
i must refocus my heart to
the broadest face of humanity.
and live for strangers as well as
dear lovers and ancestors.
yet i will still long always
for the warmth of your
soft touch, and your sweat singing
salty on my skin in the night.
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Mourning on Moonday
Posted: August 27, 2012 Filed under: Journal, Self-discovery | Tags: depression, divorce, home lost, looking for a way out, love lost, mourning, pain, self lost, suicide Leave a commentSome days I wonder why I am alive, it seems like it would be more sensible to kill myself and end all this pain.
My life maybe considered easy by some, but for me it has been so difficult and filled with suffering. Although I have a plan I don’t see how it will solve my fundamental problems in life.
I just want a real solution.
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Pejorative Amazons
Posted: July 7, 2012 Filed under: Genderqueer, Journal, Philosophy, Self-discovery | Tags: aged, Amazon, button, codger, cracka, cracker, drama, dyke, emotion, faggot, ftm, hate speech, healing, journal, language, mtf, nigga, old, old farts, old people, pejorative, perfect speech, reaction, separatism, slur, slurs, trannie, tranny, trans, transgender, transsexual, trigger, tumblr, whitepeoplecollectionagency, xenophobia Leave a commentReblogged from http://valentinelovecraft.com/weblog/2012/07/07/pejorative-amazons/
Trigger warning: hate speech terms.
I went to a late Fourth of July party last night with my parents. It was composed of mostly their friends people of retirement age or older. As I have been living with my parents for the past few months I’ve grown accustomed to the differences with older folks and younger folks. Of course there are other classics, a lack of keen eyesight inability to sense what’s around them, and other dulled senses like hearing.
As a man I was taller than just about every other man around me now that I’m a woman I’m still taller than everyone and I stick out like a sore thumb. I was in the 95th percentile for men, but now I’m in the 99th percentile for women. At first I felt very awkward about this, but over time I’ve just gotten used to being who I am. Some other women have even complimented me on my height.
Anyway, as everyone was just getting to desert and hanging out around the kitchen there was an old codger next to me one barstool over that asked one of the other people there “Who’s the Amazon?”. He clearly could not see me sitting 6 feet away from him.
“Oh, that’s uh, W****’s daughter.”
It was surprisingly jarring to me. The funny thing is, I often refer to myself as an Amazon. I’m 6’2″ tall, and a friend who’s 6’4″ tall who’s a big drag Queen. We call each other on Amazons all the time, but when someone outside of our group does it, it all of a sudden feels pejorative. I was a bit surprised because I never really thought of Amazon as pejorative term before.
I’m reminded of the comments a woman I went to school with once made during a class discussion. She was kind of soft butch lesbian, and she noted that and she called his cells a dyke of her friends were dykes, she heard some analyses the term recently who was not part of the community and it grated on her.
Language exists primarily to communicate. But it can also be used as a weapon. It is all too easy for one to use the term does not directly apply to them in describing somebody else can cause unintended damage by using it. They may know it is damaging language and use it anyway, it is up to the speaker to be well attentive to the words that they choose.
I was always taught to never say anything unless it was true, necessary and kind. I know many do not follow this type of perfect speech, but I feel that we as a society would all benefit greatly if we were truly careful before we spoke.
Unless we truly consider the feelings of others when we act, we will never truly have peace on this earth. Namasté.
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Learning to love myself
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: Journal, Self-discovery | Tags: identity, queer, self image, self love, self worth, self-esteem, transgender, transsexual 1 CommentI tend to be hyper-critical of myself. This applies to what I work on and who I am.
Since I don’t really fit in to any conventional boxes, sometimes my differences from society at large puts a large strain on my psyche, as it often does for people. I don’t fit in, therefor subconsciously I am not as worthy a person as average folks.
In order to get past this I have to make great efforts to value my unique qualities and love myself. Having a severe dislike for the sex I was born into makes it all the more difficult to love myself.
So I find the best way to do this is to meditate. Focus on my dreams, remember all that I have accomplished. Remind my self that I am loved and am worth loving. Monitor my internal dialogue and force myself out of thinking habits which perpetuate misery.
I am learning to love myself. I have to remember to practice everyday. One can accomplish so much in life purely by believing that one has the capability. Belief is the most powerful magic.
Reblogged from: http://valentinelovecraft.com/weblog/2011/10/28/learning-to-love-myself/
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The tyranny of “Passing”
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Genderqueer, Philosophy, Review | Tags: androgyne, androgynous, androgyny, beauty, book review, gender, gender politics, gender studies, genderqueer, identity politics, queer, queer studies, trans, transgender, transsexual 1 CommentI was given some excellent advice by an older transwoman when I told her I was trying to pass, having just gone to living 24-7 as a woman a few months earlier. “Don’t” she said. “By trying to pass you only make yourself more nervous and will be more likely read by anyone you meet.
Now here at transadvocate.com is an excellent article on the perils of passing, and the difficult history of the term. I can also recommend the book “Nobody Passes“, an anthology of genderqueer perspectives.
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Bitter Knowledge of Morning
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Journal | Tags: again, body, confessions of a ladyboy, diary, gender, hangover, pain of being, queer, queer studies, rude awakening, trans, transgender, transsexual, transsexual desires, trouble in the flesh, wake up Leave a commentToday I woke up to discover that I still have the growth between my legs. I think some part of my psyche is still shocked to discover the scrotum and penis there every morning, a useless stranger that just won’t go away. My genitals are so useless to me now. I struggle to think of some way that I can get surgery to correct the problem. I still don’t have the money. How can I get insurance that will cover it? I still don’t know. It depresses me, piles my body dread ever higher. Except for down there, everything else feels like it is where it should be physically.
I think part of me must still want to have kids, because every time a woman I know says she wants to get pregnant soon I have to bite my tongue to not offer my services as a sperm donor. I doubt I would have the patience to stop taking estrogen long enough to ressurect sperm production. I am too happy with the results to want to go back to hairy muscular stinky body of manhood. Even if I did, I have my doubts that my sperm production would even be adequate, never having gotten anyone pregnant in the past sleeping with women.
So now I must spend my day searching for employment so that I can continue to try to save for surgery. I don’t know if or when the day will ever come. In the meantime I will try to ignore the shame between my legs until it is time to wake again.
Bloody Words of Valentine Lovecraft's Sordid Life 
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