Jumbled thoughts

I was out of town this weekend. Which means I was super busy and bad at communicating. I visited friends who were fabulous hosts and made me happy and welcome and made my life so easy. They showed me around town and fed me and took me to art museums and plays. It was wonderful.

But in the meantime, there are so many long-neglected posts that I should have been writing. There are books I've read, and plays that I've seen and want to discuss. There's Nightengale by Lynn Redgrave at the Taper and two shows I saw while I was away, Self-Organizing Men, which I finally finished reading on the plane, and the three books I started.

And then there are the things I missed while I was gone. I'd love to hear about Trans/giving and today was also Transgender Day of Remembrance.

There's the conference itself, which was kind of unremarkable but also frustrating. There was a notable lack of attention to gender and sexuality issues, and even at the times where race was discussed, it felt rather apolitical and low stakes, which was weird.

In fact, the best thing at the conference was the cute butch who I completely failed to meet. Sigh. She was well-dressed and in general adorable, but I somehow only managed to see her during panels and other occasions when it was inappropriate to talk. Of course, it's probably my fault for missing the major receptions and generally not being so good at introducing myself to strangers. And sadly, she didn't seem to give a paper or anything so there wasn't an immediate and obvious occasion for conversation, so I was left with the thought of just plain going up to her and saying something unforgivably awkward like, "you look cute, so I thought I'd say hi" or "hey, you look like you might be queer. Me too." I was afraid that approach could be construed as unprofessional behavior. So I just want to send good wishes out into the universe for the butch with the red shirt and white tie. She had a great haircut, fade-reminiscent but longish and spiky and cute ear piercings that dramatized an otherwise fairly conservative look. She also had a suprisingly high voice for her appearance, which I found adorable. Here's to conference cruising, and once again I curse my social awkwardness.