Friday

I couldn't think of a creative title, so you get the day of the week. :)

It's been one of those weeks from hell, if it wasn't obvious from some of my recent posts. Between flooding and moving, I also have some friends in town for the Creating Change conference. Oh yeah, my internet also went out for most of the day yesterday. Poor me...

I suppose I should clarify that the friends in town part wasn't hell. I've actually had a really nice time hanging out with Bil and Jerame again, it just came during a really grueling week.

I'm way behind on getting moved...I thought I'd have most of the small things that don't require a U-Haul out of here this week. With all of the apartment drama over the past couple of days, I think things are even more disorganized than they were at the beginning of the week.

I have the truck reserved for Sunday so I hope to be staying in the new place that night. Brilliant me didn't realize that there's some game called the Super Bowl that day, so moving help from friends has been pretty hard to come by. If you're in Denver and don't care about watching the game and would like to help me move, let me know.

Trannyface

A "journalist" from Telemundo decided to do the 21st century version of blackface yesterday at the Super Bowl media day by dressing in a ball gown, a pair of heals, and a wig and acting obnoxious.

I hope I live to see the day when misogynistic bullshit like this is seen in the same light as blackface is today.

Crappy apartment, part 2

Well, I guess I know why I didn't have any hot water this morning. I just got home and found all of my lights on, my furniture all over the place and fans everywhere. I guess my hot water heater blew up - AGAIN.

This is the third time they've been out here for the same thing in the year that I've lived here. Since my hot water's out, I also have no heat (see previous post about the wonderful heating system here).

To top it all off, I didn't get a phone call and they didn't leave a note so I'm just having to guess at what the problem is.

On a more personal note, I feel violated. Before I moved back to Colorado at the end of 2000, my house was robbed three times in a row. For years after that, I used to hold my breath when I came home that there wouldn't be any lights on that I didn't leave on, an open door, or some other tell-tale sign that someone had been in my home. When I walked in tonight and saw every single light in my place on and my stuff thrown about, it brought me immediately back to that place that I had almost put behind me.

It's almost 10:30 at night and I called emergency maintenance 15 minutes ago to find out what is going on but haven't heard anything back. I have no heat or hot water and am not sure if I should go stay in a hotel or what. I might take the day off tomorrow and try to get some big stuff (like my bed) moved to the new place so I don't have to stay here anymore. I really can't get out of this place soon enough.

Hot water

Have I mentioned lately just how much I hate the apartment I'm living in? I woke up this morning to find that I had NO hot water. Not that it ran out really quick, there just wasn't any when I turned on the shower.

It was really cold here yesterday and last night so I think my central heater has used up all of my hot water. I'm not positive on this one, but I believe the heater uses hot water from the water heater to heat the place. Anyhow, since my apartment doesn't seem to have any insulation, it's been on constantly for the past 24 hours.

Either that or the hot water heater just died. Whatever...I'm just glad I'm leaving in here in less than a week.

71,401

I just read that companies cut 71,400 jobs today. To put it in perspective - in one day, we lost almost 36% of the total jobs which have been cut since the beginning of the year (200,000). Compared with 2008, the year with the most jobs lost since 1945, we lost 2.5% of that total (2.8 million). Those are stunning losses, even after over a year of recession.

One of the casualties not counted in the numbers reported by the big companies today was my little brother. He sent me a text message this morning letting me know that he had been laid off. I already thought the company he worked for was despicable - they're the ones who fired me after I transitioned - but this really puts the icing on the cake.

My brother just had an appendectomy a little over a week ago and has a baby girl due in a few months. The timing really couldn't be much worse and the company definitely stuck it to him. They didn't give him any severance pay and his medical benefits end in less than a week.

If you're a web designer/developer in the Denver area, I'd recommend staying the hell away from SpireMedia. I've seen them do this time and again to their employees and it's just not worth working there.

If anyone is looking for a really talented interactive designer, please send me an email (there's a link on my profile). My brother is very good at what he does and is a great employee.

I hope everyone reading this had a better day than many in our country.

What's good for the goose

Have you ever spotted someone who you might have thought was transgender somewhere like a restaurant and spent any amount of time, either by yourself or in a group, trying to figure out whether that person was really male or female?

I've done it and still catch myself doing it when someone tweaks my gender detector. Well, not so much trying to determine someone's "true" gender, but wondering if they're trans. Having experienced this from the perspective of the person being analyzed, I know it's a really shitty feeling to have anyone deconstruct you like that. So why do I still do it?

Does it really matter to me if someone's trans or not? I mean, even if I'm convinced they are, I'm never going to walk up to them and let them know. I'm not going to treat them any differently...well, maybe I'd be a bit nicer.

I just wonder what it is within us that springs our inner detective into action when a couple of things seem out of place on the gender spectrum. Is it a cultural thing? Does it have something to do with some sort of primal mating urges? Are we just nosy?

Earth to Capt. Obvious

In her reporting on the Equality Summit happening this weekend in California, Autumn Sandeen of Pam's House Blend released this bit of earth-shattering news:

Vaishalee Raja, the Communications Director from Equality California, released a study in conjunction with the Equality Summit. The study reveals conversations with friends, family, and co-workers were the most important -- most influential -- in driving No On Prop 8 votes.

Umm, yeah...hope they didn't spend a lot of money to complete that study.

If you're reading this and I haven't personally asked you in the past, please consider this a formal request to NOT vote against my civil rights. Thanks!

Movin' on up

I signed a new lease today on a house that's a bit closer to work than the apartment I'm in now. I put a deposit down on it back in the middle of December on the condition that they fix and clean up a bunch of things. The house had a lot of potential, but it was a wreck when I looked at it. Honestly, I couldn't believe they were showing a house in this condition to potential renters.

I was originally supposed to finalize everything and get the keys this past Monday after I returned from Cancun. I went by to do the walk-through and make sure they'd done everything they had agreed to, only to find that the place was still basically a wreck. They'd done a couple of the more major things, but that was it. The guy from the management company who was doing the walk-through with me said that the owner had told him that everything had been done. I think he was as disappointed in the situation as I was and told me he wouldn't blame me if I walked away from the deal.

I'd told him that I'd have to think about it and that I'd call him later. That bought me some time to do some quick searching online to see what else was out there right now. Even with the shape the place was in, it was still the best deal I could find for a house in that location with similar amenities. I called him back and told him that I could give the owners until Friday to finish what they'd originally agreed to do over a month ago. We spoke again later that day and he said the owner was also upset that everything wasn't done - he lives out of state and was told everything was good to go by whoever he has here - and would have everything finished by Wednesday.

When we did the walk-through today, all of the major problems had been fixed but the place still wasn't in the best shape. I told them I'd finish up with any cleaning/painting that needed to be done and took the keys. I really hope I'm not making a mistake with this place...so far the landlord's aren't exactly making me feel all that confident.

Renting a place is always a crap shoot, so I'll just hope for the best. At least with a house, I don't have to worry too much about the living habits of my neighbors. I'm *really* looking forward to that. It's funny - I lived in an apartment before I bought my previous house and after that apartment experience, vowed I would never share a wall/ceiling/floor with someone else again.

By the time I left that house, I had decided that I hated doing yard work and shoveling snow and an apartment seemed like a welcome relief. Plus, I'd have all the community stuff like a pool and exercise room. Of course, I never ended up using either.

So, here I am in a house again. Will I be pining for an apartment in another couple of years? Maybe I can find some neighborhood kid to come over and mow my lawn and shovel my driveway and break this vicious cycle where the grass is always greener somewhere else.

The fifth Cylon

This post will probably only make any sense/appeal to those of you who are fans of Battlestar Galactica. If you are a fan and haven't watched the season premiere for the second half of season 4, you should stop reading this NOW!

I finally got around to watching the season premiere of the last season of BSG last night. Holy shit was it good! The utter despair of everyone upon finding the blackened and unlivable Earth was told in a very moving way, culminating with Dee's suicide, an event that was truly shocking. When it happened, I initially thought someone else had shot her. I had to rewind it again to understand what had just happened.

The question of who the final Cylon is was finally revealed. My money had been on Kara Thrace since the first four of the final five were revealed. When it turned out to be Tigh's wife Ellen, I had a definite WTF? moment. I never really liked either character very much (Tigh or Ellen) so that was somewhat disappointing. I just read an interview with the show's writers where they went into a little more depth about that story and it makes more sense now. I'm still a little bummed out though.

Speaking of Kara - what the hell is going with her? So she found her crashed Viper on Earth containing her dead body. So who is the Starbuck who's walking around now? I think it's going to turn out that humans are a Cylon creation - at least as far as the Earth Cylons go. The whole "this has all happened before and will happen again" theme that has run throughout the show. The idea of "the final five" is Cylon mythology akin to the Pythian prophecies the humans were following to find Earth. The human prophecies turned out to be bullshit, why not the Cylon's too? Either way, Earth was nuked 2,000 years ago so it's still hard to explain where the "new" Kara comes from.

I'm really looking forward to the final 9 episodes of this season. If you watch the show, share your theories for how things will play out in the comments.

Friend demotion

I was visiting a friend's myspace page tonight and noticed that she'd increased her "top friends" to like the top 25 or 30 sometime in the past few months and guess who wasn't on that list? I can't say I was really surprised since she hasn't returned any voicemails or text messages I've sent in a while. No, I'm not some crazy stalker...I'm talking about texts like "Merry Xmas!" or the rare voicemail seeing how she's doing.

I'm almost never on myspace and don't really do anything with it so I'm not sure why I even care. Or why I did what I did after visiting her page...

I demoted her! She used to be in my top 8, but I removed her tonight into the general friend area where all the other losers go. Yes, I really am petty like that.

The sad part is, I'm sure I'll feel bad about this later and reconsider the demotion.

Cancun pictures

I've posted the pictures to my photobucket page if you'd like to check them out.

I kissed a dolphin...and I liked it

Even though I said I probably wouldn't post any pictures of myself, here's one of me making out with a dolphin in Playa Del Carmen:

The "dolphin experience" was the only excursion-type thing I ended up doing on my short trip to Mexico. I really only ended up being there for two full days - the other two were travel days, so I don't know if they really count.

Speaking of travel - if I ever go to Cancun again, I need to make sure I fly in at some really late/early hour. We landed around 3:30, seemingly with everyone else who was visiting Cancun this month. It took TWO HOURS to get through customs. Ugh.

The resort we stayed at was beautiful. I hope to get all of my pictures posted up to my photobucket account tonight so you can check it out too. Other than swimming with the dolphins, the trip was mostly drinking, eating, and relaxing. Oh yeah, one of my best friends got married too. :)

I have some thoughts I might post that aren't really related to the trip, per se, but more in dealing with people who knew me before I transitioned and/or for who this (me being Jessica) is still really new.

I'm going to go upload those pictures now...

I'm back

I'm back from Cancun. It was really hot when I left so I came back wearing capris and flip-flops and worried that I'd freeze at least the bottom half of my body off. I shouldn't have worried though - it was a balmy 52 when we landed. Ok, that's 30 degrees colder than it was when I left Mexico, but still *really* nice for Denver this time of year. I guess we lucked out and missed all that cold weather that seems to be east of us. I just looked at the forecast and it's supposed to be in the mid to upper 60s this week. That should ease me back into things.

I'll post more about the trip tomorrow or sometime early this week. Tonight, I need to catch up on email and stuff and get some sleep.

Hasta la vista

I'm leaving for Cancun early tomorrow morning, so this will probably be my last post until I get back Sunday night. I'll try to get some nice pictures - I just can't promise any will have me in them. I've gained too much weight in the past couple of months to feel very good about any pictures I've seen of myself lately. Maybe someone will catch my "good" side...

They sent out a letter at work today letting us know that they're "postponing" any 401(k) matching for the foreseeable future. My company had a great match so it's quite a financial blow. There were other things in the letter as well about how we're doing financially. It sounds to me like they're setting the stage for some bigger layoffs if things don't get better in the next couple of months. I'm still feeling fairly secure about my job at this point, but I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed that things don't get any worse.

Ok - one more

I couldn't help myself and kept looking through the personals after that last post. Good thing I did - I think I may have come across the single best online personal ad I've ever read (I apologize for the jumbled mess, but didn't feel like reformatting what he'd posted):

HEY PSYCHO BEEYATCHS' I'M YOUR FOOT STOOL!

Since it doesn't seem to do any good to try and find a nice girl on craigs, I'll just go ahead and go for the ones I keep seeming to find. So, since I never seem to get what I want, I want the most messed up, drug addicted, disease infested woman I can possibly find. And If you're a smoker and pregant at the same time as the fore mentioned, that's even better than a woman who enjoys fellatio. She has to smoke. And I'm not talking about pansy smoking to be social or trying to quite smoking...NO! She has to be a HEAVY smoker. I don't care if it's tobacco or a crack pipe. My lady will have yellow teeth, stained fingertips and have the ability to blow smoke out of every orifice--at will. Because I want her to be able to blow smoke up my ass using whatever means necessary. I want the kind of woman who will have an affair with a coworker - man or woman. Or who wants to watch - only watch while she pounds away on every guy immaginable. Because that's what I'm best at. I want a woman who wants to blame me for every negative thing that's ever happened in her life. Someone who wants to brag to me incessantly about how good of a lover she is because all her ex's said she was the best they ever had, but nothing ever pans out between us. Better yet, I want the most sexually repressed woman there is, who will not have sex......ever....because it's against her Christian beliefs to enjoy it and whose only exotic sexual position is to tilt slightly to the side in the missionary (oooh, that gets me so hot). The more sexual hangups you have about not having sex, the better, because men love to be celibate and absolutely adore a woman who never wants sex (they're called priests and nuns). I want a woman whose friends will have sex in the closet of a church, while you are getting married. I want a woman who can't stop talking about how much money she makes at her job, always seeming to work it into a conversation. If your dad molested you, or you were raped and I never knew you at the time and you still want to blame me, come on in. Hey, lets not forget the women who are proud of starting their new carreers - working for escort agencies. If you are in a bad relationship and you want me to get out of it by having me pay for your schooling, I'm your boy.An addicted alcoholic is also a strong requirement. Nothing says love like holding a woman's head out of the toilet (when available) or in the throws of passion to have her vomit on my chest. The more unstable and irrational the better. My dream woman knows how to mess with my mind and emotions, and especially knows how to rip my heart out through my chest and eat it in front of me while it's still beating. (Of course we are talking metaphorically, not literally, but if you can litterally do this I'm all in). Please, please, oh God, please...why can't I find a woman just out on parole who was "falsely" accused of causing serious bodily harm (or attempted murder) on her ex husband? Can't decide if you should stay in Colorado and find out if a relationship with a man who who is true and honest or take a job in Dallas because the money's so good, baby I'm here for you. If you are going through a bad divorce and you are about to lose custody of your kids because you can't afford to pay for your attorney, I'm your doormat. I want the biggest fattest smelliest woman I can find, who tells me she's working on her weight (has been for years now but can't seem to lose those extra unwanted pounds) She's got to be big enough to be featured on Discovery channel and has to be lifted out of her house on a crane. That's my sweet honey child! My dream girl will send me initial photos showing a slim slender sexy powerhouse, and then she shows up for the first date looking like my grandmother. (My grandmother's been dead over 10 years by the way, and the pictures she sent were 20 years old). The hairier you are the better. There is nothing like a woman who wants me to go down on her, but I have to take a weed wacker to her first. And lets not forget about the women who just want to stay with me until the money runs out and then they're gone. Girls, I'm 47, 6'1" brown hair and eyes. I'm here for you to treat me like shit. Use me. Younger women are also welcome because they also need a father figure to rebel against. Let me be your dark older man desire, and then run off with a tatooed and pierced freak who lives off you or draws his own welfare check. (Not that there's anything wrong with tatoos, piercings or freaks, but since I'll never get them, let's move on). Oh, and until you can find your perfect man from your laundry list of criteria who makes over 75-100 thousand a year, use me and abuse me like the friggin' dog I am. Because everyone knows that you are looking for a true, honest gentleman who knows how to treat a woman (wealth always equals good morals, ethics and especially love) Prince Charming, and the knight in shining armour always have to have a price tag, a good 401K and meet a mininum fiscal financial requirement. Because that's true freaking love. I would love to tell every one of you I made this whole thing up, but these have been my experiences on Craigslist and on other dating sites.

Maybe I'm mental, but this guy definitely earned a response from me.

Craigslist personals

I'm feeling better today. Not 100% yet, but good enough to go into work. When I got in today, I found out that two more people came down with this bug and were out. We're dropping like flies!

I've rediscovered craigslist recently. I seem to end up there whenever I'm looking for something like a job or a new place to live. This time it was housing. Anyhow, I usually just stick to one of those categories and don't really look around in many other places. Probably because I know I'll get sucked in and end up spending money I don't have on something I don't need.

I went over and checked out the personals since they're free and you don't need to fill out a profile or give anyone your credit card to look. I guess you get what you pay for...

Here are a few gems from the Women4Women section. Note that they have sections specifically for "casual encounters" (read: sex), but these were in the relationship section:

anyone wanna come over and help me use this bottle in ways it was never meant to be used? very horny and looking for a beautiful girl to enjoy a night of kinky passion. plz send a recent pic. [included a picture of a girl sitting provocatively in front of what I believe was a beer bottle]

If I wanted a damn Man, I'd sleep with my damn Husband!

That was the whole post, no picture or anything else. WTF?

all i ask is that you be fuckin sexy, then lets talk : )
i get too many bad responses.
thanks hunny.
and yes thats me... send me a few pics, normal ones please. and ill do the same.

Again, her whole post. It also included a picture of a disembodied chest wearing only a bra. And she wonders why she gets "too many bad responses"?!?

Don't even get me started on the Men4Women category. If you ever forget what a penis looks like and want to be reminded, you can find plenty of pictures there. I suppose it's like spam - if people never responded to them, they wouldn't send them. I just wonder what kind of woman sees a post like:

Nice Bang For YOU! - m4w - 53 (Metro Denver)

Let's have some fun, write me back if interested! [followed by a rather hairy penis/torso pic]

...and goes running for the phone?

Oh well, it's cheap entertainment. :)

I hate being sick

I woke up feeling absolutely miserable this morning and ended up calling in sick today. This couldn't come at a worse time as I'm already going to be out Thursday and Friday to go to a friend's wedding in Cancun. To try to make up for the time off, I went in to work this past weekend...is this my body's way of saying I really should have taken a day off sometime in the past week?

Whatever it is, I hope this morning was the last (and worst) of it. It's 4:30pm right now and I'm feeling better, but pretty run-down. A guy that sits next to me at work was out for a few days last week with something. I hope I don't have whatever he had.

Sometimes good people support bad organizations

I was reading a friend of a friend's blog the other night and was reminded that sometimes otherwise kick-ass people support really bad organizations.

I hope this doesn't sound like an indictment/judgment about anyone in particular - especially Mickity, whom I've never met but, based on her blog, is someone I probably have a lot in common with. This is more of a reminder to myself not to automatically judge people who may be out ringing bells for the Salvation Army, supporting the Knights of Columbus, or even - *gasp* - shopping at Walmart.

There's a difference between the evil that organizations do as collectives and the individual people who may be involved with those organizations and I think it's important for me to remember that distinction.

My dad is starting to worry me

I went out to dinner last night with my family to celebrate my mom's birthday. Of course, you wouldn't know that her birthday was the reason we were having dinner together since she was basically ignored while my dad decided to start ranting about politics, the economy, and whatever other horseshit is being pushed into his head by the right-wing pundits he can never get enough of on TV, the radio, the internet, or in books. When most people retire, they take up hobbies like woodworking, fishing, or traveling. I guess my dad has settled on immersing himself in right-wing battshittery as his.

At one point, he mentioned that he likes to occasionally tune into liberal radio to see what "the other side" is saying. He couldn't listen for very long though, he said, because all he ever hears on Air America are "conspiracy theories". Not five minutes after that, he went on a diatribe about how America was coming to an end, he wanted to move to Costa Rica or Panama, was going to invest all of his money in gold, and wanted to get a concealed-carry permit. This was all supported, of course, by "facts" about how Obama was going to do the country in through "insane" programs like spending on rebuilding our infrastructure.

I really worry about our relationship sometimes. I usually just roll my eyes or occasionally argue with him about this stuff, but political disagreement is usually all it is. When he starts talking about making major decisions like moving out of the country, I'm not sure what to think. At what point do I - his bi, liberal, tranny daughter - become the enemy?

Walmart epidemic

I've had a couple of really long days at work, so haven't had the energy to finish the post about December yet. In the meantime, I ran across this tonight and found it fascinating.

It shows the disease-like spread of Walmart across the country from its start in Arkansas to 2007.

Belated holiday greetings

I was talking to a friend today when I was reminded that I have a blog and that it hasn't been updated in a while. It's funny just how fast time flies by these days. Actually, it's not funny at all - it's kind of scary.

Before I get into what has been going on in my life over the past couple of months, some quick housekeeping... Like usual, I said I would do something on this blog that I haven't gotten around to with the listing of businesses in Colorado who contributed to Prop 8. At this point, I think I've lost the will to sift through all of the data and put that list together. The L.A. Times has a great Prop 8 donor search page that you can look through if you want to follow the money trail yourself. I'm too emotionally burnt out over the whole thing to go dredging up that anger at this particular point in time. I think my first resolution for the new year will be to not make any more promises to the readers of this blog. :)

Ok, on to happier topics...

I found myself with a week off from work over Thanksgiving and decided to drive out to California to visit some friends and family. Originally, I was just going to hang out in the L.A. area but my plans changed when I found out that one of my cousins, who lives in Phoenix, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was scheduled for a double mastectomy the day before Thanksgiving so I changed my plans to head through Arizona and visit her on my way home at the end of the week.

When I got out to California, Susan, Caz, and I decided to head out to Vegas for a couple of days instead of hanging out at her parent's house the whole time. As far as Vegas trips go, this one was pretty uneventful but we had a good time (and lost too much money). I really enjoyed seeing Susan again - we can never spend enough time together.

On Thanksgiving, I was invited over to an aunt's house for dinner. I'm not sure if I mentioned it on my blog or in any of my shows previously, but my Mom took a *really* long time to tell her side of the family about my transition. So long, in fact, that I'd already had surgery when she finally told everyone in June or July.

I can't really blame her for her hesitancy in breaching the subject. I had an uncle who was terminally ill - and has since passed away, R.I.P. - and she thought that my news on top of everything that was happening with him would just add stress on the family. My Mom's side of the family is also pretty devoutly Catholic and fairly conservative so I'm not sure any of us had hope that the news would go over well. To our amazement, no one had a bad reaction to the news and just took it in stride.

Back to Thanksgiving. Dinner at my aunt's house would be the first time any of them had seen me since I transitioned. Aunts, uncles, and cousins - my Mom's side of the family is fairly large - would all be there and I was honestly dreading walking in the door when I arrived at the house. It had been a while since I had been in a situation where my transition was new to someone and I had to answer all of the questions that people have when they first find out. I wasn't looking forward to a night of messed up names/pronouns or the looks you get from people who are trying to deconstruct you and find some visual clue of the person they used to know.

To my continued surprise, the evening was no different than any other Thanksgiving I'd spent with my family in the past. For whatever reason, everyone acted like this is how things had always been. I wasn't asked any questions about my transition, didn't notice any strange looks, and no one had any problems with my name or pronouns. I'm not sure if it was some strange form of denial or that they're just really cool people but, either way, I was really grateful for their acceptance.

That night, I left with my parents for their place in Palm Springs. We stayed there over night before leaving the next morning for Phoenix. We'd found out that my cousin wasn't going to be released from the hospital until Friday, so we decided we would visit her on Saturday after she'd had a chance to get settled in back at home. One of my best friends lives just south of Phoenix, so I headed down there when I got into to town for a quick overnight visit.

I hadn't seen my friend or his family since Sean's wedding the year before and it was really nice to visit with them again. They have the cutest little girl and she was still as adorable as ever. This friend of mine - his name is Earl - was the bass player in the band I was in back in Omaha and we spent a good amount of time reminiscing about the "good old days". My life was much different back then and, overall, I wasn't a very happy person but I still cherish many of the memories we had together. At one point, he broke out a video taped interview we had done for a TV show about ten years ago and I had a true out of body experience watching my old self on the tape. I have a copy of the interview and may post it here at some point but, in keeping with my new years resolution, I'm not promising anything.

I met up with my cousin who'd recently had surgery along with a couple of aunts and other cousins the next day. Just like Thanksgiving dinner, it was a non-event in terms of them acting any different toward me and we all had an enjoyable visit, under the circumstances. I'm happy to say that my cousin appears to be recovering very well and is putting her tremendous spirit into fighting her way back to good health.

My parents and I left later that day to begin the long drive back to Colorado. We ran into quite a bit of snow on Sunday which made for an even longer trip in pretty challenging conditions. We all survived though and I think I rolled in to my apartment around 10pm that night.

I think that just about covers the month of November. This has gotten longer than I thought it would so I'll have to write about December in another post, if you're lucky. :)