outtake

recorded in february.

 

frisbee + photos

this weekend i was at an ultimate frisbee tournament. specifically, my team was at d1 regionals. i'm on a b team so it's awesome that we can even make it this far, and especially that we can actually compete once we're there. it was a really great weekend, and i'm going to talk about it a bit before i share some photos.

we drove down friday and i didn't do my homework and we had a campfire and s'mores and i went to bed very early. saturday we had breakfast and went to the fields and it was wet and raining on and off all day so my cleats got so thoroughly soaked and my feet still don't feel quite normal after 2 days of playing with wet socks + cleats.

the tournament was weird format with this thing called "clipped pools" where its not round robin in a pool your second match in your pool is determined by your first one. anyway, we won our first game pretty easily (14-3) and thus had a harder matchup for our second game. this one we lost 13-5, which feels like a more extreme difference than i remember the game being, but i'm not sure. one thing that's odd about frisbee it that i'm often not exactly sure what the score is while playing. or maybe that's just a me thing. anyway, i met a cute girl that game and told her she looked like adrianne lenker so it really wasn't that bad of a loss.

our third game saturday was the first game in the bracket section of the tournament. we won 14-7 and i don't really remember that much about it. before the game, we got a beautiful lunch at the dining hall of the host school and it was so so good and i'm not just saying that because i was hungry from playing. i had some indian curry and dumplings and a red bean paste bun and a little coffee drink thing and some grapes with really good surface tension.

saturday night we had a big team pasta dinner and i drank a single angry orchard and yet again went to bed very early.

sunday was properly the bracket play, and while we were guaranteed 3 games saturday the amount of games we played sunday depended on if we won. essentially, if we lost a game we would be kicked into a losers bracket, play one more game, and then be done. sadly, that's exactly what happened.

our first game was really intense and competitive. the opposing team had a player who was a lot better than all the others and we ended up running what's called a box against her. this is a type of zone defense and we affectionately call it a "fuck meribel" zone after a former teammate we ran it against. in this zone, it was my job to just cover the player 1-1 while everyone else played a normal zone defense. i fairly successfully took her out of the game, although she did end up scoring the winning point and we lost 8-6. i'm not too mad about it though, i played really well, just disappointed that we couldn't make it work.

our second game sunday a lot of the team was kind of demoralized from the first game and we definitely weren't playing our best. also, it was the last game of the season and the last game of college for the seniors on the team. we lost 9-8 on what's called "universe point" which was difficult. i think if we played them in most other circumstances we'd win, but i was just happy to be with my team. also, my mother and partner drove down to watch and while i didn't get played a lot the second game, it meant i got to spend more time with them on the sidelines.

we finished sunday watching our a team lose their game. it's ok though, they were kind of expected to lose because the other team is undefeated. they placed 2nd and secured a bid to nationals, and we placed 8th out of 14 teams. then we went and got lunch at the dining hall again and drove home.

one of these days i'll write about playing sports as a trans woman but i'm not there yet. enjoy the photos!

 

 

 

 

 

it’s about the process

it’s about the process

running down my face

working out the knots in my hair

the careful force of depressing the plunger

and i’ve always been

careful with force.

 

sold my love and bought a thunderstorm

open the window unzip the sleeping bag

watch the field without the horses

5 or seven of them

cap the needle.

 

ball jar and the door’s ajar

whipping in the wind

revisiting his dark materials

lately, i've been re-reading the book northern lights by phillip pullman. that's the name on the title because i have the uk release, but it's called the golden compass in the us. i have the uk release because when i was a kid living in burlington while my mom did grad school at uvm we made friends with our upstairs neighbor. she later went to oxford and i spent the night in her apartment and she gave me the book. i was in oxford because my grandfather's ex girlfriend (who we do still talk to) took me on a trip to london, which was the first time i had ever been to another country (unless you count being conceived in the virgin islands. or maybe i went to canada at some point first).

anyway i've been re-reading the golden compass bc it's the first book in a series. for a while, i said that the third book in the series (the amber spyglass) was my favorite book. too much time has passed since i read it for me to continue making this claim, so i'm rereading. also, i'm a woman now and have a lot more thoughts about politics and media so it's worth another read.

so far, i've been enjoying it a lot. lyra is a wonderful character. some of the world building has interesting implications about transition and power structures. maybe i'll write about it more if i feel like it. i am firmly opposed to watching the show or the movie, i don't care if they're good, don't send me anything about them or any pictures of them.

leaving my guitar behind

yesterday, i took my acoustic guitar to the shop. i got my guitar in december 2021 as an early gift for my birthday and i've played it a lot since then. if you want to see a photo of it you can look at the guitar tag on my blog. it came to summer camp with me for several years, and more or less goes wherever i go. in the intervening time, i didn't do any maintenance on it, which is not exactly good. when i took it in, the guy at the shop (his name is steve) said that the bridge was lifting. thankfully, it's not as damaged as it could be, so he's going to do some minor repairs and it'll be good again. i've also discovered that my action (that's the string height) is very low, about as low as it reasonably can be, so i might get that raised. he's also going to clean and oil the fretboard, which will really make the purple heartwood pop. it's been starting to look a little grimy lately, and i'm excited to see it clean again. it's good that i'm taking care of it, but i also want to be playing it right now, which is why i wrote this post.

 my guitar, sitting in steve's shop

 

 

 

 

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signs of spring

i went home this weekend.

until i got there i hadn't seen the right signs of spring. 

on campus there are no spring peepers in the small pond by my shed. i can't listen to them while i fall asleep. 

on campus i don't get woken up by birds. i can't hear them over the vents outside my window. 

i hadn't seen how full the stream near my house was with snowmelt. i saw the buds on trees, but they weren't all around me. 

i didn't know the frost heaves in my road; the mud didn't cover my boots. i need to sink into it all.

markers

today at work they made me test all the markers and pens in the art supplies cabinet. my supervisor told me she likes the reading i picked for book club about being a trans girl on ket. there was a bead stuck in the cap of one of the sharpie pens. uncapping a marker is a lot like uncapping a needle, but i would never fish a marker cap off the table. my fingers are covered in marker and pen, not blood

 

 

 

you can just do that

on tuesday, i did my first injection. i've been on estrogen for a while, but only finally got around to switching off pills. i don't think i've too drastically noticed a difference, but there's something nice about it being inside me for a week and not having to worry about it. 

i've never been scared of needles, or even worried by them. i'm maybe even a little too chill about them. the first time i got my blood drawn i'd say i was around 10 and the woman drawing it missed the vein. she dug around in my arm a bit, and it hurt. didn't put me off needles though.

it's amazing that i can just put a needle in myself. it feels like something i shouldn't be allowed to do. the world is beautiful and full of possibilities.