This, that, and the other thing

[beetiger]

This: We took the little guy for a formal portrait sitting yesterday, at my friend Paul's studio. The goal of getting some nice nursing pictures, so that I can have a triptych with the one of the playful topless shots from my first trimester and the earth-mother nudes from my third trimester was definitely achieved. The goal of getting a nice portrait of him, and a nice family portrait, was sort-of-achieved: I like the pictures, but am not totally in love with them, and I'm anxious about paying Paul's higher-than-I-thought prices for them. (The previous series were technically modeling, and I didn't pay for them.) I'll share some of the proof jpegs if I get permission from Paul, not sure what his policy is.

That: I can't type very well from my nursing chair, but I can read webpages okay. Yesterday my rambling brought me to the page of the Jinkies, a multiple with an extremely complex gender identity. The body they share is transsexual (MtF, I think, though I'm not positive), and quite a few of the people within are genderqueer of some sort. I'm still trying to get my head around what it must be like to be a gay man in a shared MtF body, or what the difference in feel must be between being the trans-identified woman in that group vs. one of the women who isn't trans-identified. Fascinating stuff! I really like their user icons; they're all of the outside physical person they all are, but the expressions are different enough that I can believe they represent truly different people.

The other thing: Our budding local playgroup met at our house today. I'm happy for it; Rhys really prefers socializing without having to get in the carseat first, and was indeed a gracious host, by seven-week-old standards. We have a bunch to share, mostly having to do with living locally and having tiny babies. I hope/worry that I come off too much like a typical suburban first time mom, and that I won't be able to build friendships like this once my queer pagan geeky poly gamergirl self comes out. Then again, for all I know, the other folks could be thinking the exact same thing, as nothing non-baby-related has really come up yet. I haven't been hiding particularly; my altar is up, but not particularly in a baby-traffic area, etc. I don't really feel an obligation to do an infodump either. We'll see. I still think that many more people are much less mainstream than they look, that there are a lot of us slipping under the radar, day to day.

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are a lot of alternamoms or hip mommas or whatever out there.

And then you sheepishly let something slip out, worse feeling when your kids are school age and you are afraid that maybe no one will be allowed to come over anymore, and then you get a 'me too'.

I'll never forget when the woman down the block from me, pregnant, never met her husband, told me she was covered in tattoos all over her legs. The reason I never met her husband was he was a tattoo artist, and he worked nights. Her gay brother in law lived with them. ANd here I am thinking I am in uber Irish Catholic land and a gay man would not ever consider living around here, or a family wouldn't admit it. I know, thats not INCREDIBLY outrageous, but it was just a step to me finding out that there are more diverse families out there than I realized.

[cloverr.livejournal.com]

Hope we get to see the piccies!

[schitzie.livejournal.com]

... must go look at this jinkies thing!!!

[schitzie.livejournal.com]

Did look... and I'm rather shaky about it... far too many little similar points that jumped out and stabbed at me while reading through a few of the pages. Oddly enough, it's the fact that I seem to share a name with this person that's got me more shaky than anything else.

Not a name I gave to any of my pieces... my real name.

[rowyn]

The Jinkies page is fascinating. The line "You may not believe in multiplicity or agree that we are" grabbed me, because one of the things I was wondering about, as I browsed over it, was "How different is this from the way, say, I compartmentalize the various parts of my life?" I mean, I make up characters for RPGs and fictional works all the time, I write compose and daydream complex interactions and different perspectives for them. But, of course, I don't consider myself to a multiple people in control of one body.

Yet I can almost see myself doing that; and it's almost like the reason I don't is that it seems too magical, too special to be something that's really me. Like I don't believe in it. This strikes me as a very strange perspective for me to have. :)

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Are you still interested in the collection of NASA books for teaching children? I've finally found them again, and am very willing to ship them off to you if you like. Would need an address. Am still willing to take pots in exchange, but you've likely exchanged them all - seeing how late I am with this.

Thanks for keeping better touch than I!

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

We always have plenty of pots! Send your addy to beetiger at LJ, and I'll send mine back.