On Becoming

For some strange reason, I've been spending a lot of my time on youtube, looking at people's video diaries, as they transition from male to female; and female to male.

These individuals are usually reflective, often funny, many times insightful.  Concerned with recording their transition, they get excited about voice changes, body fat redistribution, hair changes; or sometimes record the sadness of not transforming quickly enough.  It becomes a rite a passage of sorts, and is fascinating to see their physical changes, and the intense elation that comes with finally becoming something they've always felt cheated out of.

The journeys are hard, physically painful and slow.  The operations are gruesome, and take away the very parts they were born with.  But I've never heard it described with such poetry and spirituality as Unmeasuredinstances does:

And you feel reborn.  And I remember thinking, Oh My God, this is real.  This is real.  It was the sweetest sleep of my life.  I can't tell you how important that process was for me.  A sense of being born, a sense of spiritual awakening.

Makes me understand the intense joy of Becoming.

The Fake Girlfriend

Today, I went for a long bike ride to look at Open Houses in Washington, D.C.  I went with a male friend who's looking for a place as well.

We stopped off at Firehook near the Capitol, where intense young people worked on their computer trying to catch up on their policy work.  On the street and in the coffee shop, we met three of his acquaintances.

This is the conversation that ensued, as soon as they were out of out of earshot:

007: Wow, your friends are ridiculously good looking

Friend: ...

007: Next time, how do I stand next to you, but make it clear we're not dating.  I mean, they probably totally discounted me, because they thought we were together!

Friend: No, you can't make it obvious!

007: Why?

Friend: Because I like having a fake girlfriend!

Random Observations

Thank you Mr. Fruit Man
I know I’ve already talked about him before, but the fruit guy in front of my office is awesome. He comes to D.C. early in the morning with his truck, unloads his carts full of trail mix, apples, cherries, grapes, plums, bananas and pears, and transforms his carts in vending tables.

This morning, I made a special trip to the ATM to get some cash and bought:

-1 apple
-3 plums
-3 peaches

All for $3! OK if you hail from the 1950s (when a cup of coffee cost 10 cents), that’s pretty shocking. But believe me, nowadays, $3 dollars for 6 pieces of fresh fruit is amazing.

Kitchen Appliances - not a bad invention after all
Also, as a follow-up to my post about the utility of kitchen appliances, two nights ago I was preparing meringues with the remnants of egg whites. I measured the sugar and crème of tartare…Only to find out that my roommate had taken the electrical beater to her fiancé’s apartment. I was left with a whisk to beat the eggs into stiff mounds.

After 20 minutes of near constant beating, I realized it was an uphill battle, placed my sloppy mix into the oven, and cooked the meringues for one hour. Needless to say, meringues without an electrical beater aren’t meringues…they’re more like a thin layer of protein and glucose, attached firmly to aluminum fold.

This is not how my meringues turned out at all
Source

I'm going to be in a book!

Two guys, Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris, are publishing a book about "emotions", as reported in various blogs on the internet. They contacted me about my quote on May 8, 2006, a follow-up to a post on May 4, 2006:

Due to popular demand, I am reporting today that I do not have that weird worm-like feeling in my throat.

Though I am flattered that my picture will be in a book, I am a little alarmed that:

1) it will be the smallest picture on the page,

2) it will appear in the "weird" emotion section, and

3) my face will be plastered and obliterated with a quote about worms.

Anyways, if you see the book, entitled We Feel Fine: an Almanac of Human Emotion (scheduled to be released on December 1st, 2009), check out page 145.

I think I remember who took that picture in the first place, I'm going to have to thank him promptly and invite him to the launch party in New York.

Accumulating Stuff

I just came back from a lovely 2-weeks vacation to France (Lyon and the South), Croatia and Slovenia, but lost my camera there and unfortunately cannot share some pictures...

I'm glad to be back in D.C., but I now have to face impending deadlines and stresses I conveniently forgot about during my leave. One of my two roommates is getting married in September, and understandably, she will be leaving our apartment in August.

I am planning to buy a house in the next few months, and thus must:

1- Sort out my finances

2- Reapply for pre-approval

3- Find a house

4- Go through the buying process

5- Move

Oddly enough, the moving part has me the most worried. I am finding myself confronted by two opposing problems:

1-Not enough stuff

Roommate-who's-getting married is, little-by-little, moving her stuff out of our house, and into her fiancé's. And suddenly, we have no more blender. And vegetable peeler. And vanilla essence. And a small strainer.

And though I joked with her that she had more cooking utensils than Julia Child, I'm suddenly realizing that I DO need a blender, vegetable peeler, vanilla essense, and a small strainer.

2-Too much stuff

I'm trying not to put off the inevitably painful task of sorting through my closets and packing up some boxes. These are some of the items that are crowding up my closet:

-various garden tools and plant foods (I never garden)

-tons of Congolese Kuba cloths (I have no more space on my walls to hang them)

-liquors and other strong alcohols (I always end up serving wine with dinner)

-natural cleaning products (they don't work very well so I've switched to industrial-strength ones)

-waxing kits (I generally end up going to a salon to get my legs professionally done).

My room looks spotless, thanks to my huge closets. But I never open them in public, and the amount of stuff they hide will make moving monstruously difficult.

Sigh.

Father's Day

It was Father's Day yesterday. And though I don't often give him a pat on the back, encourage him in his endeavors to paint or refinish a cane chair, I admire my father very much. Maybe it's about time we thank our dads as much as we thank our moms, for sticking through with us, as we grow up to be adults.

Yet, not everyone is this lucky. Some fathers are no longer with us, and some fathers are not able to take care of their children. Obama wrote a beautifully touching letter this year about how fathers, or the absence of them, really shape up people's live:

[...] on this Father’s Day, I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago—crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter’s future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had—that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. [...]

It is especially powerful because he never had a father, and that makes him even more resolute to be there for his children. Watch his advice to fathers on this father's day:



He's redefining father's day: it's not just a thank you for those dads that are there, but a plea for those that aren't, to step up to their roles as parents.

Remembering the Holocaust

By now you’ve heard, of course, of the crazy man who shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust museum. The shooting happened just a few blocks from my work, so there was a frenzy around the National Mall. The incident was racially motivated, and the man lived his life eaten by hatred and anger.

Today, CNN.com released this amazing 20-mins interview with Eva Schloss. Eva is an 80-year old Auschwitz survivor, and she talks about her experiences of the Holocaust and her relationship with Anne Frank.

“For me, it’s a great insult, because I was there, experienced it, I lost my family. How can people say it's not true? And I think there should be a law to forbid to deny the Holocaust. Because it's not freedom of speech, it's really libel. Because it's proven that it is there. The Germans themselves took documents and photos, and they recorded every day (we got from the Red Cross the dates that my father and brother died). It was recorded by the Nazis. And where are those 6 million Jewish people?"

I call that interview pretty good timing.

On Drones and Cops

Source

I was going to write a post about how people in the metro are complete drones. Here they are, standing in the metro car, sporting their Ann Taylor Loft dress and flip flops, or beige slacks and leather satchel. They slowly move out of the train, and towards the escalator, queuing up nicely by the walking zone or the standing zone. They don’t smile, they don’t acknowledge other presences, and they rush towards the gates, and drop their newspapers mechanically into the recycling cans.

Every morning, I fight an irresistible need to go “Baahhh, bah!” like a goat, as I standing on the moving stairs. But I suspect that no one would even flinch.

As I was walking by my office this morning though, I saw a cop and smiled at him.

Cop: “Ma’am, can I ask for your help?”

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Cop: “I need to put this in your bag” as he shows me a can of diet coke.

I stutter and shift on my feet several times, thinking of the stories of unsuspecting tourists stuck in some overseas jail because they accepted to store similarly innocuous items in their suitcases. I look at his uniform several times, trying to see how official it was.

Cop: “I need to test the guards, I’ll be right behind you”.

An image of me in shackles surrounded by dozens of cops forms very clearly in my mind, so I say:

Me: “OK, sure”

I drop the can in my bag, and walk in the building. I put my bag on the x-ray belt, and flash my badge. The guards say nothing, and let me go on my merry way.

The policeman catches up with me in the elevator, and thanks me profusely. He asks me for his can back, and I say jokingly:

Me: “What, I don’t even get to drink it for my troubles?”

He unscrews the top, and shows me that the Diet Coke can is not a can at all, but a receptacle of some kind, stuffed with tissue. A young man who was riding the elevator with us blanches and quickly steps of the elevator. I try to probe a little more, but all I get is that this is connected to the Holocaust museum shooting that happened this week (about 6 blocks from where I work).

This is more excitement than this drone can take!

On Ambition

I went to dinner with some pretty ambitious folks last night and it was nice to hear of all the places in which they'd studied, traveled to, and experienced.

And though my job is not nearly as glamorous as my last one, I am relishing my newfound evenings and weekends, and reveling in going to happy hours with friends, and signing up to dance classes.

Yet, I feel vaguely dissatisfied that I'm not jet-setting to exotic places, getting a second Masters or a Ph.D. or doing a job where I save children and puppies. I felt slightly ashamed that I didn't display more ambition.

But sometimes I think: isn't it just as ambitious to build solid friendships, fall in love with a vibrant city, take some time to reflect, and balance it all with a job that still pays the bill?

Awesome Job by my Bank Account

My bank account did an amazing job of monitoring suspicious activities on my account. Last week, I bought a wedding present for a friend in the U.K. I rarely buy from overseas, so they sent me this message:




Dear Ms. 007 in Africa;

On regular basis, our Security Department review credit card accounts for activities that may be outside members’ normal purchase patterns. This is done in order to provide protection against the possible unauthorized use of members’ credit card accounts.

They have been unable to contact you to verify a recent transaction appearing in your credit card ending in XXX. Consequently, our Security Department has placed protective restriction on the account until you call or email us to verify the transaction(s) and confirm possession of your credit card. Please reply to this email or call our Security Department immediately at the number (555) 555-5555 (toll-free); if overseas you can call (555) 555-5555 in order to verify the following transactions(s):

05/19/09 $YY.YY “Randomwedding registry.COM” LONDON (GB)

To unblock your account, please provide the last four digits of your social security number and date of birth. Please disregard this email if you have already contacted us. If you have not been engaged in the above transaction(s), please contact our “Lost/Stolen Department” at the number 1-800-555-5555.

Please help us to serve you better letting us know of your travel plans at creditcard@randomaddress.org.

Thank you very much for your assistance. We regret any possible inconvenience caused you by this effort to prevent the unauthorized use of your account.

Sincerely,
Card Services



I have to say, I'm impressed!

OnBeing 2

And here is Gladys Mitchell, remembering Martin Luther King Jr's and his legacy, in 3 minutes 48 seconds.

http://specials.washingtonpost.com/mv/onbeing/53/

OnBeing

Check out this series from Washingtonpost.com where they interview kooky people with interesting points of view: OnBeing.

My favorite so far is an interview with Edward Fahnbulleh, a janitor from Liberia, who works two jobs because "he's not tired yet", and he can give money back to his friend at home to build a school and pay teachers. He seems like he's just having the time of his life!

http://specials.washingtonpost.com/mv/onbeing/69/

Portrait Project

I just learned that some pictures I took from the Congo, and later donated for a Silent Auction, sold at Buy-Out price. OK, so it was for my high school, but still, I'm encouraged to continue taking pictures. I'd really like to start with a portrait idea I have in my head.

I would like to take pictures of my friends. I'm not talking about the kind of pictures that you would put in your yearbook (looking stiff, a little fake, and overdressed), but rather, the ones that display people's personalities subtly, and in a simple and repetitive way.

I'd like my friends to pose against a white sheet against the wall (or on the porch), and a small chair. We'll see how it turns out.

I like how portrait photography can either be highly polished like that of Annie Leibovitz or raw and honest like Diane Arbus.

Source

My Favorite Place by My House

This is the Hi Market right around the corner from my house. It always makes me giggle when I walk by it. True to its name, it sells salty snacks, sports juices, and cigarettes.



This is the basketball court and the super bright kids' park I can see from my barred window. Sadly, a lot of drug deals and shootings happen right there, as it is surrounded by a lot of low income housing, dark street alleys, and has a number of unkempt yards that are ideal for stashing drugs.

I (heart) D.C.

I think I’m a D.C.ophile. 


For one, I always talk about how great D.C. restaurants are, express wonder over the funky home furnishing in people’s windows, and I smile idiotically at mothers pushing their hip-hop 2-year olds in strollers.  I think I really annoy my friends from N.Y and California, who just shake their heads at me with a smile that says “poor girl, she doesn’t know what she’s missing”. 

But really.  I sometimes walk home from work, a 1.5-hour stroll, from the heart of the business district, to my ghetto neighborhood I call home.

I walk from the Capitol, through Gallery Place Chinatown, trying not to bump into the hoards of Capitol fans (hockey) in their identical red sweats and baseball caps.

I then snake around through Mt Vernon Square/Convention center, with all its chichi new modern condos. 

(there are modern condos and yet these store fronts are rotting and deteriorating in the snow and the tropical heat of D.C.)

I follow through in Shaw/Howard University and wave to the babies in their strollers, and the old men chewing sunflower seeds on their stoop.  I slow to a crawl to look over a prim lady’s yard with wind catchers and plastic flowers.

I get out of people’s way on the busy U street,

(View from the top of a hill overlooking U street - see the National Monument in the background)

(A dilapidating house sits right across from this one with blue accents around the windows)

(Examples of nicely refurbished Victorian homes)

And I stop at the yellow house with pale ivy across from the community center.

I’m home!



Sigh, (I heart) D.C.!

 

Office Woes

Cubicle Emergency
Yesterday, I walked into the office, to find my cubicle locked. I never lock my cubicle, and unfortunately, my three copies of the key were in a drawer… in the cubicle. Thankfully, I had arrived a full 40 minutes before most of my colleagues.

The administrative assistant was also there, and had forgotten *her* keys at home today. She told me of a trick: “borrow the janitor’s ladder from the main closet”. She helped me to position it just so (making sure it was fully opened, and angled over my desk). She then averted her eyes as I climbed it in my short dress, and hopped over the wall, on the floor, and opened the door of my cubicle.

Source

A few lessons learned:

1-Always be nice to your secretary. She’s a great resource, but she can definitely make your life difficult if you piss her off (those pens you like so much? Sorry, she conveniently forgot to reorder them from staples)
2-Always call your secretary “an administrative assistant”. There’s nothing she hates more than being called a secretary
3-Give one of your colleagues an extra set of keys to your cubicle
4-Ask your colleagues for their innovative solutions. When I was recounting my story to my cubicle-mate, she told me she had fashioned this hook-thingy from a wire hanger, for an identical cubicle emergency. Brilliant!

The Treats Lady
Today, the Treats lady came to my cubicle for a chat. You know who I’m talking about – every office has a nice lady that brings impossibly sweet things to endear herself to colleagues. I always dread our chats because I invariably have to choose from her stack of rich blueberry muffins, and oily lemon-poppy-seed cake.

Source

I don’t really have a choice, because if I refuse, she will be irreparably offended. So I choose the healthier of the two options (was the lemon-poppy-seed cake the best option since it had lemon – a fruit – and poppyseed – a grain?) and am now devouring it at 9:48 a.m.

Sigh, so much for my diet.

Margaret Wertheim: The beautiful math that links coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry

Did you know that crocheting can be made into a huge, artistic coral reef, explain hyperbolic space, and help people understand abstract mathematical concepts?

Margaret Wertheim, a science writer, demonstrates how this "feminine art" can do all of that.

Source

Never underestimate the strange, innovative ideas people come up with!

The Euphoria of Being an Adult

Do you ever get this intense feeling of euphoria from doing things by yourself? I’m not talking about refinishing furniture, building a bookshelf, or cooking a perfect Julia-Child soufflé. I’m just talking about getting that feeling when you throw your lights in the washing machine, go to Giant to pick up those ingredients for dinner, or write your monthly rent check.

It happened to me yesterday. I was riding on the metro, and suddenly felt so proud of waking up on time, dressing professionally, and taking the metro ride to work…by myself. I’ve been doing all these things for years, yet, once in a while, I can’t believe I’ve actually made it adulthood, and don’t need my mom and dad to hold my hand anymore.

Who had the Majority in Congress

Here's a snapshot of who had majority in Congress since Roosevelt:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 to 1945) was a Democrat
1933-1945 - The Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress

President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) was a Democrat
1945-1947 – Democratic
1947-1949 - Republican
1949-1953 - Democratic

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) was a Republican
1953-1955 - Republican
1955-1961 - Democratic

President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) was a Democrat
1961-1963 – Democratic

President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) was a Democrat
1963-1969 – Democratic

President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) was a Republican
1969-1974 – Democratic

President Gerald Ford (1974-1977) was a Republican
1974-1977 - Democratic

President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was a Democrat
1977-1981 – Democratic

President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was a Republican
1981 – 1987 - Republican
1987 – 1989 – Democratic

President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) was a Republican
1989-1993 – Democratic

President Bill Clinton (1993-2001) was a Democrat
1993-1995 – Democratic
1995-2001 – Republican

President George W. Bush (2001-2009) was a Republican
2001-2003 – Democrats and Republicans split control of the U.S. Senate 50-50

- From January 3 to January 20, 2001, with the Senate divided evenly between the two parties, the Democrats held the majority due to the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic Vice President Al Gore.
- Beginning on January 20, 2001, Republican Vice President Richard Cheney held the deciding vote, giving the majority to the Republicans.
- On May 24, 2001, Senator James Jeffords of Vermont announced his switch from Republican to Independent status, effective June 6, 2001. Jeffords announced that he would caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats a one-seat advantage, changing control of the Senate from the Republicans back to the Democrats.
- The November 5, 2002 election brought to office elected Senator James Talent (R-MO), replacing appointed Senator Jean Carnahan (D-MO), shifting balance once again to the Republicans -- but no reorganization was completed at that time since the Senate was out of session.

2003-2007 - Republicans
2007-2009 - Democrats

President Barack Obama (2009) is a Democrat
2009 - Democrats

Sources:
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm
http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/appfacts.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress

How the Budget of the U.S. Government is Decided

The President’s budget is a mix of Obama’s wish list, and the recommendation of various Departments, agencies, and coordinating offices. Here's my (limited) understanding of how the U.S. Government decided its budget.

First Monday in February
Obama must submit his budget to Congress (Congress is composed of the Senate and the House) no later than the first Monday in February 2009. It represents a broad framework for his agenda.

April 1
Congress responds to the President’s Budget with its own version. Both the Senate and the House must submit their markups by April 1, 2009 (today). At this point, the budget is still a resolution and not law. It includes input from the administration, constituencies, and Members of Congress.

Depending on which party is in leadership, Congress’s budget can be either very different or similar to the President’s. Currently, the President is a democrat, and Congress is democratic as well (to give you an idea of how often Presidents and Congress were ruled from different parties, see next post).

It’s a little tricky to draw up a budget since it must reflect
- Budget rules,
- Actual revenues, and
- Mandatory spending (programs for which the Government is obliged to pay)



June 10
The Appropriation process begins – this is basically a fight over small non-defense discretionary spending.

Congress annually considers 11 or more appropriation measures, which provides funding for numerous activities. These measures fund national defense, education, homeland security, crime, but also government operations for the federal agencies. Congress has developed certain (arcane and complicated) rules and practices for the proceeding for these measures: this is the Appropriation process.

House and Senate Appropriation Committees control about 40% of the total deferral spending for a fiscal year, and the House and Senate Legislative Committees control the rest.

June 15
Congress completes action on reconciliation legislation

June 30
House completes action on annual appropriation bills

At the end of the process, Congress develops a Conference Report, a report accompanying the bill which explains much of the bill language and gives specific directions.

Finally, if passed, Congress sends the report to the President for signature.
At this point, the President can:
- Veto the bill. In that case, the process must start over again
- Sign the bill into law. And that’s our Government budget for the year

October 1
Fiscal year begins

Here is President Obama’s proposed budget, submitted on February 26, 2009