Little Piece of Heaven

About 45 minutes north of Raleigh is a little town called Hillsborough. This quaint little town in the country is also a hotbed of liberal arts and cool people! I had the extreme pleasure of spending the day there last weekend (actually 2, but who's counting) with my good friend Terri and her wife, Patty! :)

We had SO much fun together! After a little while spent cooing over their many dogs and cats, we went to 'town' and had lunch at the new whole foods type grocery store. Lunch was hasty because we didn't want to miss the hand made puppet parade. :)

This parade was simply the cutest thing I've seen in a long time!!! There were people on stilts with bird costumes, little kids with fish on sticks (a school of fish), Chinese dragon type snake costumes, green man of the woods, and many more creatures of the Eno river present. There was also lots of drum, whistle, rattle, and other musical instruments to be heard along the way. All together it made a cacophony that was truly something to behold! I'd highly recommend checking it out if you hear of it coming to your area, or get a chance to head over to Hillsborough this time next year! :)

After the parade we Patty and Terri took me back to their place and let me turn a few pieces of wood! :) Patty is a wonderful artist and makes absolutely beautiful bowls, platters, ornaments, and such out of knotty, otherwise useless hunks of old trees!

Terri, in turn has a thing for chainsaws and is quite adept at carving up and rough turning the wood for her wife! Together, they make quite a team and it was SUCH an honor to be allowed to take part in making such beautiful artwork with them!

Southern Comfort = Queer Power

WOW! I mean really... WOW! I'm so totally and completely basking in the afterglow of SCC! I had SO much fun! I also met some seriously awesome people while there!

I love doing anything centered around queer people! It just makes me happy to walk into a room absolutely filled with people who cross gender, personal, political, and sexual lines on a regular basis! Being trans identified, this is as much an affirmation of who I am as anything! :)

More than that though, I truly see myself as queer! I mean, no matter how you look at it I cross "normal" boundaries on a regular basis. Gender-wise .. well, that's just obvious isn't it? At least as long as you don't start looking at the fact that I pass a little TOO well, and I am too often mistaken for your average straight middle class woman.

As for sexuality, I just don't think I could take it any farther than I already have (at least and not cross some boundary on good taste... ;)) I've dated and slept with men, women, and everything in-between... and enjoyed it! I actually prefer people who aren't all that 'straight', since it takes a lot of pressure off of me to be 'normal' as well. :)

Speaking of which... wasn't I talking about SCC? Oh yeah.. ;) So I met some awesome people there, went to a lot of seminars and learned a great deal (especially about the guys...). I also met this really sweet t-girl down there who totally swept me off of my feet and had me floating on air for like 3 days! :) LOL

What really surprised me was the number of people who wondered why I was there (back to the passing too well thing). That's a VERY weird experience for me, even if it is a little rewarding. Funky huh? I worked to hard on passing over the years that sometimes I accidentally go so far into 'normal' gender land that I get mistaken for one the natives. All along I just want to be appreciated for the exotic beauty that I have as a strong, queer, trans-woman. :)

OH well, the thing I learned at SCC was the being queer rocks because it gives you the freedom to be who and what you really are, regardless of the strictures of society around you. :)

Miss everyone already! :)
Maddy