New Stuff Coming up the Pipe

Heyo,

It's been almost half a year since I posted anything here. Not dead, not silent. Many things have happened. I'll spare you the mundane details, but in a quick list:

stopped writing poetry,
was accepted into the MFA program at Oregon State University for creative nonfiction,
graduated grad school round 1 and nabbed my MA in English,
discovered Fleetwood Mac
hostessed a party dressed congruently with my identified gender,
got a letter from my therapist recommending me for hormone replacement therapy (!)
moved to Oregon,
changed labels from transsexual to transgender to bigender to trans to transfeminine (blog post coming about this soon),
got a job in the Writing Center,
started writing poetry again.

Between hormones letter and moved to Oregon, my Dad died. I'm not in shock anymore. I'm not angry anymore. I'm not in denial anymore either. I'm in the place where you remember the person for who they were, warts and all, good times and bad, and learn a lot about them by talking to relatives. I'm at the point where his death inspires me to do and not do things. The point where you let go of a lot of garbage you didn't know you were carrying around until you knew you could throw it out. The place where you both weep as the ashes disappear in the wind, and search for a good place to keep the cardboard box that holds them: in the closet? In the basement? Maybe bury them at some yet to be found scenic locale?

That place. I start school again in a month. I know I can't hurry this up. I'm sure he'll make it into my thesis more than I'd like. I hope I can treat him fairly when the time comes.

That's a lot of life happening up there. Probably pretty boring to read in list form, honestly. But too much to cover in a blog post. These things are supposed to be entertaining on some level, yes? Balance the self-obsession with some quirky stylistic or formal play? Zap the mundane with the extraordinary or collide the extravagant with the dull? Explode? Implode? Just plode? I've ploded enough for a while.

The major point I'd like to convey right now is this:

I owe Rebecca a breakdown/explanation/investigation into my understanding of my gender identity from like a year ago. I'll be posting about that soon. 

Working name: Zia. I want to expand it. More syllables, before or after.

~Z