And we are free…for ten days

Ness and I are free of her brother and his girlfriend for a whole ten days. I’m very happy about that, even though things with her brother haven’t been as bad as they were previously. I still can’t stand his girlfriend. But enough about that because I’m sick of writing about that.

So my birthday is coming up…less than a month…and Ness is planning my party. It’s not a surprise that I’m having one, but I don’t know what we’re going to be doing, so that would mean that it’s a surprise. I hate surprises. My birthday is on a Friday this year, which means that we’ll probably go out to a bar for part of it, although I don’t want to get drunk. I’m sure some of my friends will try to get me drunk, but I’m going to have to refuse.

Ness and I usually go out twice a week, but lately we haven’t been. Which is good, because I’m sick of going out. When we do go out, it’s usually because we can get a couple of free drinks. I do have an itch to go to one of the gay bars though. The last time we went to one we saw the cops chase down two people and while they were doing that, this guy in a truck runs over a median and runs over a street sign and continues to drive on the wrong side of the street. Good times, good times.

Ness has been trying to get tickets to Wicked for my birthday, but it’s been sold out. She has one of her friends working on it because his landlord is the PR person for whoever. I’m not sure how it’s going, I know she’s still working on it. I’m hoping though, that this summer we’ll be able to go to NYC to see Spring Awakening. I wanted to make a trip to see it when it opened, but I don’t remember what happened that I couldn’t go. I wanted to take Ness to see Rent, but I just found out that Rent will be closing on June 1st.

Alright…her brother just text messaged her. I have to go see what the heck happened.

and finally…an update

It’s almost hard to believe how long it’s been since I’ve updated, but there’s a reason for that, besides not having the internet. And yes, there’s a reason we don’t have the internet…still. We always say we’re going to go to the AT&T store to get DSL, but then something comes up or we have way too much to do and that goes right out the window.

Ness and I have been working like crazy trying to save up for a place. The lease is up in a couple of months and we’re getting our own place, possibly with her dad, but most definitely not with her brother.

I’m currently in New York. My grandma turned 80, so Ness and I drove over for her party. We’ll be heading back and hopefully we’ll have enough time to stop by AT&T to get DSL sometime soon. I’m sure we’ll have time soon, things are starting to settle down now that the holidays are over.

Speaking of the holidays…Ness and I got engaged (officially) on Christmas. You’ll have to imagine what the ring looks like because we haven’t been able to get a pic of it yet.

I’ll be updating more because Ness and I have library cards now, so we go once a week. I’ll be using their computers until the internet situation is worked out.

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You know I’m mad when I can’t even come up with a title. Needless to say…

I’m not going to get the internet back at home anytime soon. We cancelled our cell phone service as well. We were on a shared plan with Ness’ brother. We’re looking into getting our own place after the holidays are over and getting on our own cell plan.

I really don’t feel like writing because I’m just so sick of the situation, but I wanted to just say that I won’t be gone completely. I still can access the internet at least one to two times a week and whenever we go over to our friend’s houses, I’ll be able to use their internet connection as well. I’ll still be blogging and check e-mails as much as a I can.

But for now, however, I just don’t have the patience to write about the situation and why all this has happened. I’ll save that for my next post.

I’ll be making some site changes…

Yay I got an extra day on the internet this week! I’m working on getting the internet at home again (a new ISP most likely) and until I make my decision on which is the best, because to be honest with you, I don’t know what our situation is going to be (whether we move out, someone gets kicked out, or what have you).

So while that’s being worked out, I’ve had a lot of time to think. A lot of time. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about my site architecture for a bit and want to change it up and make it simpler. It’s way to unorganized right now, for me anyway.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you all a heads up in case the feed goes crazy. Just ignore it if it does.

Free WordPress Theme: Pam

I’m offering up my old theme for download. If you didn’t catch what it looked like, it was a very simple theme. I don’t have the time to set up a demo site, but you can get a feel for it by the screenshot.

Requirements

You need to have the latest version of WordPress. Currently that’s 2.3. It will probably not work with anything older at the moment. Give me some time and I may release one for older versions.

You must, must, must have the SRG Clean Archives plugin for the archives, so go download it.

You must keep the link in the footer. Please don’t be an asshole about it.

Installation

Upload the “pam” folder into your themes directory. Activate it in the Presentation tab in the admin menu.

Support

You can leave a comment or ask a question over in the forums. Do not ask for help by e-mail or by instant message. I will delete your e-mails and ignore your im’s. You might even get blocked. To post in the forums, you must register there.

Keep in mind that I still don’t have the internet at home and can only check the my e-mail, my site, and forums when I can, which isn’t often. Right now it’s once a week, maybe twice, so be patient.

I’ll write up a more detailed download page when I have more time, but for now this will do. It’s still an early release because I’m sure I’ve fucked something up.

Download Pam

No internet, yet again

A lot of things have been going on as of late. You might notice that I haven’t been online, both on forums I’m usually active on, projects, and even IM. That’s because I have no Internet at the moment. I don’t even have television. Enough of that because I’m too irritated, frustrated, and annoyed to discuss it, so I’ll save that until I find a solution to my Internet woes.

Instead, I’m going to talk about other things that have been happening to me since I last wrote on Ness’ birthday. I stayed sober, I was the designated driver, and we had a great time. Ness got a gumball machine as one of her presents, so we’re both ecstatic about that. Who doesn’t love gumball machines?

Remember that rumor that Ness and I heard about a month ago that her brother and his ghetto, white trash, alcoholic girlfriend were going to have a baby? Well, we figured it was just that, a rumor, even though the rumor originated when her brother told her other brother. Anyway…well a month went by and nothing was said to anyone about it, so we figured it was just a rumor and forgot about it. Last Thursday, her brother text messaged Ness and told her that his girlfriend was pregnant. Seriously, you tell her over a text message? That’s not very mature, considering you live in the same house with us!

So, he’s having a baby with his 20 year old girlfriend. Whatever, you want to do that then go ahead. I’m not going to stop you. I’m too respectful of Ness to involve myself in her family’s affairs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion. I’m sure you can guess what that is, but I’ll say it anyway. Ness and I have talked about it extensively since we found out about the situation, but I need to write it out and get it out of my system. Hopefully, I can put it behind me, for now at least.

First off, that’s just disgusting. He’s 33 or 34 and she’s 20. She doesn’t have a job. She steals my cereal. She’s disrespectful. She’s immature. She can’t close the damn door and let’s in cold air, or the warm heat out. She’s spoiled. She’s 20. I don’t expect much from most 20 year olds. No offense, but most 20 year olds don’t have much life experience. I’m not going to say that I’m an expert on life experience, but I’ve been through a hell of a lot. Is she ready to have a baby? Absolutely not. Both Ness’ brother and his girlfriend live at home and milk their families for all they are worth. The good news is that she hasn’t taken a drink, at least I haven’t seen her, since she found out.

Not only that, her brother is too old for that kind of shit. He has two kids, one of which he doesn’t see because he’s too chicken shit to do anything about. The other one, he just started getting custody privileges with. How do you think your ex-girlfriend, who’s your children’s mother, is going to take the news of you having a baby with a 20 year old? Especially since you’ve only been dating her for 3 or 4 months. What’s the judge going to think? Not only that, but you live at home, with your dad! Everytime he gets paid, he asks either his dad or Ness for money. He doesn’t give it back, doesn’t offer to give it back, and when one of them asks for it back, or even some of it, he bitches and complains. He shows no sign whatsoever of him becoming responsible, growing the hell up, getting his own place, or making any sort of responsible decision about anything.

I’m not saying that an abortion is necessary. I don’t believe in it in most cases. But anyway, it’s not my decision to make in the first place. I just want to make that clear, because what I’m going to say, or what I’ve already said, may sound harsh.

So, what is he going to do? Really, that’s all I want to know. I live in that house. Does he plan on living there with his girlfriend and his new baby? Sorry, but if that happens, I’m leaving. I’m sure Ness would go with me. But then I’d feel horrible. Her dad can’t afford everything on his own. He’s been patient with Ness’ brother so far, although he didn’t take the news very well. He’s finally calming down a bit about it. But seriously…are you going to live with us? That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to support you, your girlfriend, and your baby. Not at all. You’re old enough to know better, to understand that using a condom isn’t 100% guaranteed, and to know that you aren’t ready to have another kid. You can barely handle the two you have now. If you were to gain even half custody of the two kids you currently have, you wouldn’t be able to support them. So having a third is a logical solution? I think not.

It’s funny because the day after Ness’ birthday, we went to the thrift store. I picked up an amazingly awesome tuxedo shirt (yea, I found one!) and was browsing the book section. Ness was browsing with me, and I’m not going to get ahead of ourselves here because it’s a long way off, but Ness and I have been talking about having kids. We really want to have kids, but we both realize that neither of us could financially support having a child right now. But it’s always nice to think about those things. So we’re browsing the book section and Ness comes across What To Expect When You’re Expecting. She buys it because it sounds interesting to her, and when the time comes around for us to have kids, we’ll have a book to start out with.

The next day, we find out and give it to her brother’s girlfriend. To be honest, I don’t think her mother is very happy with the whole thing either, considering her younger 14 or 15 year old sister just had a baby. But I guess her mother should be happy since she’s 20. I mean seriously! You’re 20! What are you doing having a baby?!? Shouldn’t you have been on the pill? Condoms aren’t 100%. Nothing is 100%. But you’d have a pretty damn good chance of not getting knocked up if you were on the pill andusing a condom. Hey, guess what!? There are risks to having sex…like getting pregnant! And you’re 20! If you were my sister, I’d slap you, or at least yell at you. Seriously. I don’t even give a shit about Ness’ brother anymore. Sooner or later, you’re going to grow up and realize that you were 20! You missed out on a whole bunch of shit. You weren’t ready. And you’re also going to realize how much of an asshole Ness’ brother is. You’re going to grow up, start thinking for yourself, and realize that you don’t have to be treated the way you do. There’s more to life than sex, laying in bed all day, eating, watching tv, and going to the bathroom.

I feel sorry for you. I really do. I mean, you might be overjoyed now, or at least happy, but that’s going to change. I mean, you’re not going to be unhappy with you’re kid, at least I hope to hell you aren’t, but you’re 20. You have so much to do, so much to experience, so much to live for, besides having a kid at 20. And no, partying is not one of those things. I just wished you would have realized all this before you started dating an asshole and before you got pregnant, because it’s going to be hard, and I’m really not sure you’re ready for that kind of responsibility.

Happy Birthday to Ness

Ness turns 24 today and while I already wished her a Happy Birthday, it’s only fitting that I wish her a Happy Birthday with a blog post. She is such an amazingly strong, beautiful, wonderful, kind, caring, and genuine human being. I really can’t talk her up enough. The past few months, she’s been my biggest supporter and my best friend.

Ness and I have been through quite a lot recently and I just want her to have the best birthday possible. I’m going do everything in my power to do so, so hopefully later on I’ll write a post about how well the party went. It’s not really a party, more of a gathering of friends at a bar…but a party.

So leave a comment and wish her a Happy Birthday because she deserves one.

P.S. It’s also Mandy’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Mandy). Weird how Ness and her share a birthday, while Mandy’s boyfriend and I share one…

Hi, I’m Transgender

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about being Trans. Ok, a really long while. I plan on doing some more videocasts but I’m lacking a camera at the moment, so that’ll have to wait, but I’m not abandoning that.

I’ve been in Cleveland since then end of May. It’s been a great few months here. I’ve been open to everyone I meet that I’m trans and make it no secret. There have only been a couple of occasions where I’ve been uncomfortable but for the most part, and I really do mean most, my experiences with telling people I’m trans have been amazing. I’ve talked about my lack of trust for other people numerous times, so I’m not going to get into that again. However, that’s slowly changing because of my interactions with people and friends.

I went out last night with Ness’ friend from work. I had met her, her boyfriend, and her friend Lisa before at a costume party where they asked me questions about being trans. Last night, we got to talking about it and I learned that because I was open about my situation, they’ve not only discussed it in depth, but they’ve also told other people about my situation. I’m really happy to hear that people are having conversations about this, even if it’s just a “How would you feel about your kid being trans?”

Everyone that I meet always asks me questions. For some reason though, they always preface their questions with something along the lines of “you don’t have to answer.” I always say that they can ask me anything because I’m very open about my life in this regard. Seriously, go ahead and ask me a question. I’ll be more than happy to answer. It doesn’t matter if it’s about sex, surgery, hormones, my parents and family, or how other people react.

The surgeries I’ll cover in my next videocast, but as for everything else, here are the questions I get asked the most.

1. What’s sex like? Well, without giving away too much information, because I’m not open about the details of my sex life, sex is great. I have it, I’m not ashamed of it or how we do it, and neither is Ness.
2. When do you plan on having the surgeries? When I can afford them. They aren’t covered by health insurance so I’ll have to fork over money of my own, or take out a loan and fork over money to the bank.
3. How does your family react? At first, they weren’t too happy. In fact, they threatened to disown me. However, my dad has told me in not-so-many words that he’s accepted it, even if he doesn’t understand or agree. I’ve told two of my three sisters, the two youngest, and both were, and continue to be, very supportive. The reason I haven’t told my other sister is because I’m not close with her, she wouldn’t care, and she’d probably make fun of me and call me a freak. No, I shit you not because that is the kind of person she is.
4. How do other people react? It depends on the person, their background, and how open-minded they are, but for the most part, everyone I’ve met have been supportive and completely cool with the whole thing. There have been a few situations, but nothing I couldn’t handle with Ness’ help. Most of my friends have been cool with it while I’ve lost some friends. Turns out, I don’t miss those friends one bit.
5. When did you know? I have memories of knowing from way back when I was 2 – 4 years old. However, I didn’t completely admit it to myself until I was 20. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I tried to make my parents happy, but that obviously didn’t work. They can take me as I am or move on.
6. How can I have kids? Well, physically, I can’t. Well, right now I could, but I don’t want kids popping out of me. That’s weird. It’s weird enough that I have all those “parts” when I don’t even want them. Basically, adoption, artificial insemination, and that sort of thing will have to do, because I can’t impregnate anyone, and I sure as hell don’t want to get pregnant. Once I can afford to, I plan on getting a hysterectomy.

There are tons more, but I’m having a brain fart at the moment and can’t think of anything else. I’ll make another post once I can gather my thoughts and put down some words.

The Cereal Thief

As I’ve said, I’m a pretty laid back person. If you know me, even if you’ve just casually talked to me, I’m sure you’ll have picked up on this. Aside from the fact that my OCD comes out once in awhile, I’m not anal about things and I tend to just not give a shit about a lot. The one thing that really chaps my ass, however, is when someone is rude, isn’t courteous to other people, and doesn’t respect other people. Now, I’m Italian and I come from a family that was in the mafia, so my idea of respect might differ slightly from everyone else’s. The point is, I take a lot of pride in the fact that I consider other people’s feelings, etc. when making a decision. Why? Because that’s how I grew up. You don’t want to do something that would come off as disrespectful. That’s just how it work’s in my family.

I grew up with six people in my house. It’s safe to say that as soon as you would buy something, such as cereal or snacks, it would quickly disappear. I’m used to cereal disappearing. When I got a job, I was able to buy my own food and my own cereal. My sisters, even my parents, were pretty respectful of me in this regard. If they wanted some, they’d ask me, or if I wasn’t around, they’d make sure to tell me later. Sometimes, I’d even find a new box of cereal waiting for me because they had eaten most of it.

When I moved out of my parents place and gained some strangers as roommates, I made my feelings on such issues very clear, and they were pretty respectful too. I never had a problem. Well, I take that back. I did have one problem after a party. I woke up and some asshole was eating my cereal. It had my name on it. He didn’t make that mistake again. In fact, I don’t think he ever came around after that.

Fast forward to now. Ness and I went to the store, and I got some milk because I had a super craving for one of my favorite cereals in the whole entire world; Cocoa Krispies. I had only gotten to eat one bowl from the giant box because that’s all the milk we had had at the time. Cereal is pretty fucking expensive shit. I don’t buy it often, I don’t ask for it often, because why spend $5 on a box of cereal when it’s going to last me a few hours? (Usually a few hours, if I have enough milk.)

Ness and I walk in the door, I open up the cabinet, grab the box of Cocoa Krispies, and I pause. I shake the box over and over…it’s virtually empty. There’s maybe enough left for a spoonful. A fucking spoonful. Seriously? You eat my cereal and only leave me a damn spoonful? That’s not fucking cool. At. All.

I have a sneaking suspicion of who stole my cereal. I know it wasn’t her brother because he doesn’t eat that “shit.” I know it wasn’t her dad because he doesn’t like it. And I know it wasn’t Ness because I’m usually with her when she eats, and because she would have told me if she had eaten all of it. That leaves one other person that it could possibly be. That’s right, my favorite person in the whole fucking universe.

The point isn’t the fact that she ate all my damn cereal. The point is, she didn’t ask, she didn’t leave a note, she didn’t say sorry I ate all your cereal. That’s fucking rude. If I were in the mafia, she’d be in Lake Erie right now. No, I’m not shitting you.

But what else would I expect from a 20 year old, ghetto, alcoholic? Maybe I wouldn’t be so pissed if she could form a coherent, grammatically correct sentence instead of her ghetto slurred shit. Too bad because she had been gaining some points with me lately.

On a better, happier note, Ness and I are about to celebrate our anniversary in about 30 minutes.

No internet = me not so happy

For the past 4-5 days our internet connection has been virtually non-existent. It would work for about 30 minutes once every couple of hours, but starting Friday, I couldn’t really connect for more than five. We called Time Warner about it, but they said they couldn’t see anything wrong. Oh really? Then why hasn’t it been working?

That’s alright though. To be honest, I was starting to burn out. It just pisses me off that it’s been 4-5 days since it’s been reliable. I mean, we pay a lot of money to Time Warner each month for TV and internet, and 4-5 days seems like a lot of time for it to be down with no other explanation then “We can’t find anything wrong.” I mean, if it’s been going on for this amount of time, you couldn’t send someone out to look? I’m not exactly a guru when it comes to internet connections and such. If I have to, I can set up a wireless network and add some printers and the like. I can do basic diagnostics if I’m having trouble with a connection card, and I can do a whole lot with Google. But if I can’t load Google, that doesn’t help me very much.

Last night, we had been invited to our friend’s, Leah and Derek, house for a Halloween party. I didn’t really want to dress up because, well, I just didn’t. Ness insisted that I did and she put together a costume so that I slightly resembled Duckie from Pretty In Pink. I say slightly, because it really was slightly. Ness was a French maid, she looked pretty hot, but she always does. I pretty much stood on the sidelines because even though I’ve become a bit more social since I’ve been with Ness, I still have a huge fear of large crowds. It made it slightly worse that the huge crowd was all inside in a tiny town house. Regardless, I had fun.

Towards the end of the night, when almost everyone was drunk, Leah decided it would be funny to come and sit on my lap and get in my face and act like she was going to make out with me. She kept whispering “sweet nothings” into my ear, literally, it was “sweet nothings,” and kept asking me if she was making me nervous. I just laughed. It was Ness’ idea. I believe I was one of the only sober ones in the whole place.

I was taking the beer slow because that’s the only thing that can really get me buzzed or drunk, but I had a few jello shots and one or two shots of Malibu Mango. Liquor doesn’t do anything to me, unless I drink it in ridiculous amounts. I haven’t done that though since the first wedding I went to. I stopped drinking about two hours before we left, but I was just getting tired so that’s why I stopped. That and I didn’t really feel like drinking anymore. I got drunk about a month ago, and since then, I haven’t felt the need to drink in excess anymore. I’m kind of over that whole thing.

For awhile, I thought it would be fun to get drunk every so often. But it’s not that I had a bad experience with being drunk, I just realized there was absolutely nothing special about being drunk. I’m too old for that shit. I was trying to make up for the fact that I didn’t really party before, but I don’t need to be drunk to have a good time. Especially when I’m friends with the most unpredictable, in a good way, people. That, and I’m dating Ness who is probably one of the most crazy people I know. She always keeps me on my toes.

Now that my internet seems to be working, I’m going to try not to burn myself out. I’m not really used to working with so much code in such a small time-frame.