Of Largest Lineage

I come from huge families. My mother was one of seven, and my father’s mother was one of nine. Between them, I have fourteen first cousins, at least five second cousins, eleven first cousins once removed that I know about, and more miscellaneous spouses and siblings than I care to track.

Mom never forgave her siblings for moving away from each other. Most of the brood ended up within driving distance of one another in the Great Northeastern Conurbation, albeit in three different states, but one stayed in Puerto Rico, one followed work to North Carolina, and Mom followed the needs of her husband’s family and moved to Miami. Most of the seven are involved in the US military in some way, and some of my cousins continued that legacy, and that meant being passed around bases and active duty for years at a time, far from their kin.

Dad’s family all ended up in Miami, sooner or later. My grandmother used to visit relatives in Cuba, but she is long gone, and it is likely they are as well. Most of Dad’s side of the family made Miami their first home outside of Cuba, but Dad’s path passed through New Jersey first. I grew up there, getting acquainted with Mom’s nearby relatives first and not really recognizing Dad’s side of the family until they became our frequent reality after the move. Even then, Dad was an only child, so all of the relatives were a generation apart from me, whereas my maternal cousins were close to my age, so Dad’s family and I are not well acquainted.

After picking through the family tree to survey my safety within it, I find this a tragedy.

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Of Largest Lineage
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Single-Malt Workohol

Despair is a heavy burden, and I bear its weight by working out.

I am not diagnosed with depression or anxiety, but there are days when I wonder whether I should be. Hints of how I deal with anxiety are scattered throughout my writing, but depression is a rarer visitor. I’ve avoided any real accounting of my depressive symptoms of episodes because of one peculiar fact: they’ve been incredibly useful to me.

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Single-Malt Workohol

Future Dive

We always picked the Crawlspace. Nobody really liked the Crawlspace. Some of the roof is strapped to the half-dead chestnut tree whose roots are damaging the sidewalk outside, and the constant drip in that part of the bar was used to water a bamboo that no one dared call lucky. At least one bar stool was half of a barber’s chair that the owners never bothered to unbolt from the floor after buying Crabbie’s Cuts, and it still smelled like old hair. We were pretty sure that the combination of fluids that, over the years, made the light brown stain at the far corner swell to take up half of the floor would make a health inspector blanch, but the last health inspector who looked at the Crawlspace did an about-face at the door while reciting “NOPE” under his breath, so, that hasn’t been a problem.
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Future Dive

Answers for Trans Day of Visibility Questions

I arranged a question-and-answer session on my Facebook profile on this year’s Trans Day of Visibility. My friends and other visitors brought up some amusing, interesting, and valuable questions. For posterity’s sake, that’s all here now.

  1. Isn’t having the superpower of invisibility the other 364 days of the year awesome?

It’s kind of disappointing, really. It makes it so much harder to get appreciation for all of these selfies.

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Answers for Trans Day of Visibility Questions