Catching up.

I tried to generate a new user pic but it keeps throwing a useless error.

So, a lot has happened. Let's start with what hasn't changed: Wifey and I are still together, Roommate is still with us, and we're in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, yet. One of these will be changing later this year.

I've had some health matters, mostly preventative with a neurologist (I decided I was being a bit too forgetful for comfort and to get things checked out.) I am still dealing with bullshit for my HRT; every refill, not just new prescription, involves delays because new physician authorization is required. There is a bill pending in the Washington State legislature that I hope will help - while I don't live there my current work is for a company whose only offices are there and, thus, my insurance is a plan out of that state.

I do have a girlfriend but not the same one. She and I broke up about a year ago. We remain friends; we just needed different things and realized it was best to end the romantic chapter then rather than draw it out and both be hurt. She's an amazing woman who I am proud to call my friend.

I met someone in May of last year and we had our first date on US Memorial Day, enjoying the Canal Walk in Richmond. She lives in that area so I have been spending part of most of my weekends there for the past year. She also accompanied me on a camping trip in Ocracoke for my 50th birthday. I've also met a bunch of her family.

Pulling together the last two paragraphs: in January Girlfriend and I had tickets to see Taylor Tomlinson's show at The Altria in Richmond. In a subsequent discussion with ExGirlfriend I found out that she and her girlfriend did as well and propose that we all meet for dinner before the show, which we did. I got some ribbing from friends about how very lesbian core that all is.

That news also means I now have a riding partner again. She has been a passenger on my bike and, as of this month, got her own: a 2024 Honda XR150L.



This photo led to some jokes about how the bike on the right has over 10x the displacement and 3x the weight of the one on the left.

The BA plans fell through. After a flurry of communication on getting all of the paperwork - me receiving the forms and getting them all submitted - the office went on radio silence: I couldn't get a peep out of them. No clue what their problem is but it's not worth my time. I still want implants but I just am out of energy to fight the bureaucracy.

I've been to the theater twice and to two concerts. Both of the former were VA Stage Company: A Sherlock Carol and Fat Ham. The former is telling A Christmas Carol as if it were a Sherlock mystery (the phrase "Moriarty was dead to begin with" is stuck in my brain) and the latter is a take on Hamlet where our main character, Juicy, is a young gay Black man living in a city. For my friends across the pond: the UK premiere of Fat Ham will be put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Swan Theater later this summer.

As for concerts I had Streetlight Manifesto and Malinda. The former is SKA which isn't too much my thing but a dear local friend wanted company to attend so I did and found it more agreeable than I expected. The latter was a positively moving experience. Y'all might know Malinda better for the Google Translate Sings series in the 2010s; she's an accomplished musician and singer now. Girlfriend and I decided to take the train to Washington, D.C., to see the concert at the 930 Club. She closed with the song I was most hoping she would perform: "Lucky." I was in tears holding my girlfriend while listening to it. The song draws from the journals of Dr Kathleen Lynn about her life with Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, and how they were not just roommates.

There's so much more but that's the highlights. Dysphoria over botched surgery has been kicking my ass but I have a good place to fight it.

Since 4-20 was recently I'm going to indulge my inner 12 year old here and share a photo of what I saw on my motorcycle's odometer this past Sunday while I was in Surry.

Gunpowder Incident

Monday was the 250th anniversary of the Gunpowder Incident. Not to be confused with the Gunpowder Plot nearly 170 years prior.

Setting the stage: the Battles of Lexington and Concord were two days prior but news had not made it from the Province of Massacheusetts Bay to Colony of Virginia when Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, ordered the removal of the gunpowder from the Magazine (photo above) in Williamsburg, then the capital, under the cover of darkness. This was discovered while in progress and alarm raised, causing colonists to muster. Though the affair did not bring Virginia into a state of revolt it caused the already delicate political situation to become ever more fragile, setting the stage for revolt to break out that June.




Rather than deal with the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel again I departed by way of the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry to make my way back to Norfolk via Surry, Smithfield, Suffolk and Portsmouth. Doing so afforded this view of Jamestown from the middle of the James River. The brick ruins are the only above-ground structure from the capital city era; it is what remains of a tower constructed sometime between 1640 and 1699 (the historic accounts are spotty and uncertain.) The church partially visible behind the tower dates to 1907 as does the obelisk.