My friend Jetta and I organized a letter writing party for CeCe McDonald, a transgender woman of color who received a second degree manslaughter charge for defending herself against a white supremacist attacker. The recommended sentence is 41 months. It is complete and utter horseshit, but is sadly a completely accurate representation of how people of color and transgender women are treated in this country.

We put together a letter writing party to send her words of support, and to help fight against the dehumanization tactics that are used in prisons. We told her about ourselves, our lives, our communities, and let her know she is in our thoughts and hearts. We drew silly pictures, wrote poetry, and made personalized stationary. In total, 6 people attended, with 14 letters written to CeCe, and 5 letters written to the governor of Minnesota.

It was a wonderful event, and Jetta and I are forming a group to write letters to incarcerated members of the queer & trans* family. They need to know they are not forgotten. They need to know they have support.

Movies
Source Code
The Thing
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Wrecked
War Horse
Captain America
Cabin in the Woods
Dead Snow
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Doctor Who, series 3
Alice

Books
Behemoth
Dr. Futurity
Handling the Undead
The Game-Players of Titan

People
Sarah (work)
Jacob (Folsom)
Marty (Folsom)
Amelia (Folsom)
Rachele (Folsom)
Ian
Marina
Leann

Concerts
Jeff Mangum
Godspeed You! Black Emperor

I watched a ton of movies in March! Most of them were terrible (but fun)

Movies
Hawking
The Stuff
Night of the Comet
Clash of the Titans (2010)
Starter for 10
Fright Night (2011) <----David Tennant in tight leather pants :D
Doom
Thor
Cowboys & Aliens
Doctor Who, series 2
Vertigo
The Hogfather
Night of the Living Dead (1990) <----I really liked this remake!
Hunger Games <---soooooooooooo gooooooooood! Saw in theatre 2x, would totally see again
In Time
Contagion

Books
Monstrous Regiment <---for book club, first Terry Pratchett I'd ever read

People
Jetta!

Concerts
none :(

Movies
Doctor Who, series 1
Wanted
Third Star
A Scanner Darkly
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Books
The Left Hand of Darkness
Chew Vol. 1, 2, & 3
Buffy Vol. 4
Leviathan

People
Charlie (Niko's roommate)
Joi

Concerts
John Vanderslice
SF Ballet, Program 3

I want science to be back in my life. I want to be intelligent, the kind of intelligent that makes discoveries and theories and pushes back against everything that is known.
Except for the few occasional desires to be a ballet teacher and a poet, all my life I've wanted to be a scientist. At 6 I wanted to be an archaeologist. At 12 onward I wanted to be a marine biologist. I went to university as a freshman with a declared major (marine science). Unfortunately that school killed my love of biology, but it did ignite a love of psychology. After I switched schools, I changed my major to psychology with an emphasis on the behavioral branch. At my second university, I then developed a love for statistics. Unfortunately, this was not a focus at the school, and they had nothing beyond introductory courses. I think statistics was one of the few things I was naturally quite good at, and I wish I had had the opportunity to see how far I could go with it.
I'm generally not naturally smart, at least where sciences and maths are applied. All through high school and college, I had to work very hard to be good at those. I enjoyed them, so it was not ever a burden (except for chemistry. Christ almighty, I fucking hate chemistry and have to try the hardest to even just get passing knowledge of it).
I've always wanted to be naturally smart. I wanted physics and chemistry to come easily to me. I wanted to instantly understand something, instead of studying for hours and hours and putting effort upon effort to wrap my brain around a concept.
I think this is the reason I stopped pursuing science after college. I applied for so many research jobs, even though I knew a psychology B.S. was worthless. I knew I'd need to go to post-grad for it to be worth anything in the real world. But it didn't come easily to me, and I was afraid. I was afraid that even trying my hardest, I wouldn't cut it. I wouldn't get into grad school, I wouldn't be allowed into the research field. I would get to a level of statistics that no matter how hard I worked, it would never make sense to me.
So I stopped trying. i went into library science because it was enjoyable and easy, if a bit boring. Science has been absent from my life in a meaningful way for 7 years now, and it breaks my heart. I want to quantify and study and explain and theorize and observe. I want to prove myself wrong with data and numbers and arguments.
I want the world to make sense, even when it's confusing and beyond my grasp. I always wanted physics to make more sense to me than it ever did. I want math and biology and yes, even that fucking hated chemistry to be what I immerse myself in.
Is it too late for me to be a scientist? It's all I ever wanted. How do I get back to it? So much time has gone by, and I don't know if it will take me back. I abandoned it out of fear, out of cowardice, out of complacency. I know that I will never be one of history's great minds. Does that mean I can't be involved with science in a meaningful way? Is there room for mediocre minds? That's what I'm afraid of. That unless I am amazing, genius, far beyond my peers, there is no room for me.

I am pretty much everything my 15-year-old self thought was cool. Like, if 15-year-old me saw 29-year-old me, I would think "whoa, shit, I wanna be like that when I grow up! I want those glasses and hair and piercings and tattoos and friends and dogs and apartment and job and bike and family!"

And now-me would want to tell then-me, "You too are cool! You are a pretty neat person!" And perhaps I would let myself know that I'll fuck up, and there will be bad times, but there will also be amazing times, and happiness, and wonderful adventures in my future.

And I imagine my 50-year-old self wanting to tell now-me the same things. 'Cause the way my life is going, I am going to be one BAMF 50-year-old.

Aaron and I are starting a book club! We've been talking about it for a little bit, and finally posted an event invite on facebook! I am so so so excited, and I can't wait for this to get off the ground. It will also be my first foray into running a safe space, so I am excited and hella nervous. I know I will make mistakes , but I am eager to learn and I want everyone to feel safe and enjoy the reading and discussions.

From facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/245602465513482/
We are starting a new book club that focuses on science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism that includes queer, genderqueer, and strong female protagonists.

On the last Monday of the month we will be holding an organizational meeting in order to hammer out any details... necessary to get started. Stuff like picking out a time and place to meet, coming up with a process for suggesting and selecting books, and (perhaps most important) picking out the first title we'll read.
We're still figuring out where to hold the organizational meeting. The top two contenders are the Oakland Rudy's (one block from 19th Street BART) and the Emeryville Lanesplitter Pizza (seven blocks from MacArthur BART). Now's your chance to weigh in.

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By way of example, here are some of the books that we're considering (though we are definitely open to more suggestions):

Fray (by Joss Whedon)
A stand alone sci-fi graphic novel set in the Buffy universe. As with the Buffy TV series, this comic features a strong female protagonist.

Left Hand of Darkness (by Ursula K. LeGuin)
A sci-fi novel that examines the question of gender by exploring a distant planet which is mostly genderless (though some have argued that it's more of a mono-gendered society).

Silence (by Heldris of Cornwall)
A medieval romance loosely connected to the Arthurian cycle which follows the life of a protagonist who was identified as female at birth but who was raised male for political and economic reasons.