Tickin' down to the start of the l-o-n-g Memorial Day weekend...

If you can watch/listen to this one and not feel good you're beyond help (they dance like every guy I know!)

News you can use... or lose:
Women more likely to snoop at partner's emails: 13 percent of wives check husbands' text messages
I have a few friends who may wanna take notice of this... ;)
20 Compliments Women Want To Hear
(I have a few friends who may wanna take notice of this, too!)
Testosterone Makes Naive Women Less Trusting
Hmmm...

Good run this morning- a lil cooler than it had been earlier this week... Hopefully my Celtics will take care of business and close out their series with the Magic tonight... I'm not a big soda drinker but lately I've had a thing for Diet Dr. Pepper- dunno why... One of the nicest compliments you can give to someone is that the mere thought of them always brings a smile to your face...

Nuthin' major planned this weekend- just kickin' back with a lil downtime... Meeting up with a couple of friends this evening to catch the game... Some errands, shopping, etc... to catch up on tomorrow- wanna to get a new pair of X-trainers... Need to get my hair done again too but I'll probably wait 'til next week (it's a lil longer than I like but more, with the warmer/more humid weather my waves get really frizzy and unruly)... Work on my tan a lil more... Spend Sunday day at my mom's... Have a cookout to go to down on the South Shore Monday... Will probably find sumthin' to do in between that will involve a few- responsibly indulged!- adult beverages :) And of course, the reason for the holiday- remembering those who gave their lives in service of our country: freedom isn't free.

Alright, I'm off soon- have a good one!

"Woke up this morning, my head was so bad/The worst hangover that I ever had..."

Goofin' off while working...

There is no more underrated a coach in the NBA than Doc Rivers. None. The job he has done with a very good- but not great- Celtics team should not be under-estimated. Cleveland and Orlando were/are both, IMO, more talented teams this season, yet the Celtics have, as of this writing, had the best of both of them when it has counted. Coaching. In many respects Doc reminds me of KC Jones; he manages- but doesn't micro-manage- his team... Go Celtics!

I recently finished reading this: The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts, Wayne Allyn Root. Yes, Root is a shameless self-promoter, very bombastic. But if you can get past the messenger, the message is quite spot-on, both in identifying the many problems we face as well as presenting practical, Constitutionally-based/limited-government solutions to those problems. More than anything else his message, and the libertarian message generally, is and are about advancing freedom, advancing liberty. While I'm still not convinced the Libertarian Party is the most effective vehicle to advance those propositions (I did vote for the LP ticket in '08 and have voted for Libertarians in the past, but I do believe libertarian ideas can be better advanced thru the Republican Party, tho' that will likely set the more libertarian-minded against the culture warriors) as a nation we need to stop the acceleration toward greater and greater government and spending; we can't afford it, financially or philosophically. We're not Europe. Nor should we want to be.

I came across this YouTube vid recently: Barselotti's Bar in Amherst, Massachusetts ; I spent a lil time there between sessions at the library (shure, Kel!)... Any other past or present denizens of Amherst remember Barsie's?

I found this one- One-Night Stand Etiquette: The polite way to go about having a one-night stand- interesting (not that I would know about- or am looking for!- a one-night stand... :)

A nice stretch of weather around here! It's been good for my early-morning runs (hafta get my mileage back up, and my time back down, a lil more) as well as for finding/making whatever time I can to work on my tan (I got out this afternoon...) My gym workouts have been better again recently, and I've been eating more cleanly (high protein/low carb) more consistently again as well; I had kinda gotten out of those habits a bit the last few months or so (been under more time constraints- even for me- as well as a lil more stress than usual.) Between that, and the 'mones, my weight had/has slowly crept up a lil bit. Ugh. But it's already coming back down again; just need to keep at it... A good friend of mine out West has lost 40+ lbs; half the man he was! WTG, Jim! :)

I'm a lil leery of this: CBS Reboots 'Hawaii Five-O' Don't mess with a classic, brah!
Mahalo...

"Sometimes at night I see their faces/I feel the traces they've left on my soul..."

If you waste your time a-talkin' to the people who don't listen
To the things that you are sayin', who do you think's gonna hear?
And if you should die explainin' how the things that they complain about
Are things they could be changin', who do you think's gonna care?
-To Beat The Devil, Kris Kristofferson

(Hopefully this won't get me expelled from the Sisterhood...) On a couple of my online profiles I recently added the following quote from our 16th President (that would be Abe Lincoln!) "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Each day I'm more and more convinced that that is true, in many walks of life but particularly in the transgender world. Yes, life can be difficult and challenging for us- for anyone- at times, there are struggles and setbacks. Employment and financial struggles. Family issues. Discrimination. Illnesses. Relationships gone awry. Body image concerns. We all have our crosses to bear (or our bears to cross!) no one gets out unscathed. These challenges can be daunting. But ultimately it is up to us in deciding how we deal with and respond to them. We can wallow in our miseries, wail about how cruel and unfair the world is and how woe is us, compounding our misery (and making all whom we come in contact with miserable as well, or simply seeking to avoid us.) Or we can at least try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps/bra straps and in whatever ways, small or large we can, lift ourselves, our spirits, up, as well as those around us. No one likes a moody, miserable bitch!

Awhile back a friend opined that he found many T's to be, in his words, "drama-filled and bitchy." (I'm presuming he wasn't talking about me! :) Another friend recently commented to me: "I too have read a lot of the TG sites (not in a long time I might add) and they are all about wow is me approach to life and why me etc..." They have a point. Recently I've spent a lil more time in some of the online T chat rooms and reading some T-related blogs, than I had in awhile... ladies- lighten up! Again, I'm not belittling the seriousness of anyone's problems. We all have them. But going on and on and on (and on and on!) about how: wife/girlfriend/parents/siblings/friends/co-workers/world doesn't understand you, doesn't care about you, oppresses you. How you can't be who you want/need to be. How your job sucks. Or your lack of job sucks. Or simply being bitchy. Trashing any man who has the audacity to say hello. Or gals who are older/younger/more advanced/less advanced (whatever that even means)/hold different views than you. etc... Or adopting a divatude- c'mon! (And yes, I'm fully aware that I can ignore, or simply leave, such chat, blogs, etc... Often I do. but it is a shame that- too often- it is those voices that carry the day, that are the face of the T-world.)

And I guess that is ultimately the point of my- yes- rant here. Must TGism so often be seen, be presented, be lived as more a curse than a blessing, a dilemma than a delight? As John Milton wrote: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Or as another wise man (actually, a wiseguy- Tony Soprano!) once said: "Focus on the good times. Try to remember the times that are good." We can control our outlooks.

"Because the truth remains that no one wants to know..."

Learn to live on the good part. Forego those things that lay without it.
- Carmela Soprano.

Acceptance. Acceptance of ourselves. Of others. Of our realities. Taking what we can from the positives in our lives, embracing them while foregoing or, at least, making allowances for, those things that are beyond those positives, those good parts. For me this is a continual battle- not in the way you might think. I've long since made acceptance of, or with, this part of me. (Somehow I never was terribly conflicted over my TGism- it's never been a source of excessive guilt or shame or confusion, it is what it is, always has been for me.) Overall I'm at a pretty good place on that score, and on a few others, too (I'm more fit, more responsible, more caring, drink a lot less, and more than I once was/did.) Nevertheless, if anyone had asked me 10, certainly 15, 20, or 25 years ago if this was how I pictured my life being I'd have said no; I would fully have expected to be married-with-children/home-in-the-suburbs/reasonable hours job. But that's not my reality. And whether that would be "better" than what I have or not, I make ample efforts to try and live on the good parts of my life as it is, and I try to make allowances for the rest. I try to apply that in other areas of my life- professionally, for instance. I'm not doing what I would prefer, what I do isn't particularly fulfilling. (And yes, I do need to make greater efforts to improve, or change, that situation.) But I do make an effort to live on the good part/s of what I do, the positives that it provides and, if I don't forego, I try not to dwell excessively upon those things that aren't as positive, those things that lay beyond it.

And, while difficult at times, I try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Again, acceptance. It can be as simple as not getting- too!- pissed over a less-than-stellar run or workout. In my avocation, it is trying not to be as consumed with loss aversion thinking (losses hurt worse than wins feel good) particularly when wins are in excess of 59% (as they were this most recent season.) In relationships, too; while I won't allow anyone to take advantage of me, I try not to expect or demand perfect, 50-50 reciprocity. If it's a relationship that, on whatever level/s, I get something out of, I value, I try to make allowances for whatever limitations, whatever realities, exist on the other person's part. I try to live on the good part.

Where I often run into the most problems is when I feel as if I've failed others' expectations, others' needs, when I feel as if I haven't sufficiently been the good part to someone else's life, be they family, friends, romantic interests, employer/co-workers, etc... On that score I still need to better learn to live on my good parts, and better learn to forego expectations of others that lay beyond my capacity to fulfill. Acceptance.

(Who says you can't learn anything from The Sopranos?!)

"Everybody wants me to be what they want me to be..."