ok this definitely deserves its own post now

IMPORTANT UPDATE: A particularly insightful and attractive commenter has observed that the mysterious woodlands piano (see below) is almost indubitably the work of an ears with feet. Allow me a moment to illustrate:

Tori likes leaves inside so why not pianos outside?

Where else will abducted Tori play her piano if not in the woods?

Tori needs a new piano cause she burned her old one! why did u do that silly?

And finally--and most important of all--what lives in the woods?? FAERIES LIVE IN THE WOODS. Case closed.

couple sunday lynx

Here is a pretty neat NYT article on hairstylists and domestic abuse. The piece confirms a suspicion that AJ's had since the first time he saw Diana's Hair Ego way back when, which is that beauticians are in fact the vanguard of the revolution.

In other news, OMFG TYRA IS TOTALLY PAYING FOR ISIS' SURGERY! OMG OMG! too bad she didn't pay for it *before* the show--maybe Isis would be America's Next Top Model by now... curse you, underwater shoot!

As a fellow bedroom dancer, AJ is simply in awe of this fine individual. Respect.

Also: Mystery piano in woods perplexes police. Need I say moar??

Also these ads are sexist lol

this is pretty much how aj spends his afternoons too

lol-aj.livejournal.com has a RAGE

OK first of all some goddamn revolting queer purloined my puffy warm reversible Levi's vest last night. WTF! Who steals someone's clothes at a queer dance party?? AJ needs that vest cause he doesn't own a real winter coat and therefore has to layer. Give me my vest back, revolting queer! 

Secondly, AJ's car has real shitty tires and another one went flat on him today and I was turned away from SIX different tire stores (which were booked or closing) before I gave up and went home. Although AJ appreciates the feelings of manliness that changing a tire inspires in him, it is a universal law that finding a place to patch/replace a flat is never a simple task. And though driving around Lake Street in search of a tire store is vaguely reminiscent of driving around Coney Island Avenue* in search of a tire store, which is good for purposes of nostalgia and stuff, AJ still really misses Brooklyn where all the tire stores are weirdly open 24 hours a day.

H0WeVAR THE GOOD NEWS IS:

SCORE! This ingeniously designed new face mask (it velcroes in the back instead of being a huge thing that goes over your head which is also good cause it messes w/ my glasses arms less) has a hole cut around the nose with a flap over it so your breath goes OUT through the nose area but the icy wind can't come back IN! It also makes me look a little more like a storm trooper. Which brings me to my next question: does anyone want a balaclava? AJ spent good money on that thing--it's North Face!--and would be happy to see it find a good home, tho he does not recommend it for the bespectacled. Thanks for all the suggestions readers.

OK thats all i guess im supposed to wriet a paper  

---------

* I miss you, Coney Island Ave! :'(

wooooooooooo

OK AJs about a week behind on this one but...

NEW WATCHMEN TRAILER! NEW WATCHMEN TRAILER!

weeeoooo

also: Koyaanisqatsi???

OK EVERYONE CHEER UP again

Whoa AJ needs to like srsly remedy the moroseness into which his blog has fallen today so for your viewing pleasure he presents the music video of HIS THEME SONG.*

u can watch here if ur havin trubble wit my video

-----------------------

* AJ would be remiss, not to mention potentially in trouble, if he did not stress his great fortune in already being possessed of a girl who looks good (as a matter of fact I am trying to call her right now why isn't she answering). The remainder of the song speaks directly to AJ's experience, however. He h8s when ppl laugh at his hatchback.

RIP Chloe "Chlobers" Hernandez-del Valle (1991 - 2008)

Since we are all in a reflective mood today I thought we could also take a moment to mourn the passing of Chloe Hernandez, possibly AJ's favorite high-maintenance geriatric diabetic no-tailed partial manx. Chloe is survived by her human, Teresa, who has issued the following remarks:

Not all of you had the pleasure of meeting Chloe. Sweet, loving and not without her occasional flare of Diva-esque attitude, Chloe was a great kitty. Despite my ranting about the arduous nature of her special needs, she was a precious companion. Thank you all for lending me your ear to vent each and every time I 'couldn't take it anymore'. I especially thank those of you who helped with her care when I was out of town (or out on the town, xoxo Juan). I literally could not have done it without all of you. And I am glad that I kept her with me through to the end. It was a challenge to take care of her and it has been just as challenging letting her go. I love her and miss her. 

AJ is pretty sure everyone with a soul should miss Chloe the curmudgeonly adorable halfmanx. Aujourd'hui, nous sommes tous Chlobers.  :'(

more news, stuff on thursday, etc

AJ hates bein a Debbie Downer, but he thinks its sort of useful to try to keep up with this stuff:

Teish Cannon, a black transwoman living in Syracuse, was shot and killed last Friday night; community and family members agree she was targeted because of her gender identity/perceived sexual orientation. Much of the news coverage has been referring to Cannon as a gay man, though HRC (in their recent statement) and others working with the family are trying to correct this.

Also, AJ has been meaning to post this article from the Aurora Sentinel (Aurora, CO is where AJ's maternal grandparents lived for a long time!) on the recent death of transwoman Aimee Wilcoxson, whose alleged "suicide" is being questioned by her friends and family (the last sentence of the article is pretty much the saddest thing AJ has ever seen).

This Thursday, November 20th is the 10th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance and if you live in New York, or even if not, Jack at Feministe has posted some recommendations for action, including Housing Works' upcoming vigil and the Day of Remembrance at the Center.

If you live in the Twin Cities, where we are comparatively bereft of progressive POC-oriented intersectional queer organizing, you can still go to the Day of Remembrance service at the Spirit of the Lakes United Church of Christ (2930 13th Ave South), at 7:00 this Thursday. The Trans Commission at the U is also apparently planning a "collaborative art and information display" which will be in Coffman Union from 11:30 - 1:30 on the same day if you're into that sort of thing.

AJ wishes all of his readers peace in struggle!

monday news

Interestingly, Duanna Johnson made the New York Times.

A search for "transsexuals" on NYT turns up this weird piece from a couple weeks ago, in which the author waxes on about her trans twin bro, trans reproductive issues, and, of course, sea horses.

Continuing with the Times trend, AJ also draws your attention to this article on drinking in Wisconsin--Wisconsin is right next to AJ! and apparently it "[leads] the nation in binge drinking." AJ did not know that it's legal for minors to buy alcohol in bars in WI if they are accompanied by their guardian. That sort of makes AJ's inner libertarian (shh!) happy.

What in the hell? Prince is talking smack about the gays?? As a Minneapolis resident, homophile, and popular music enthusiast, AJ is not even sure how to respond. Plus I mean like you know obviously, hello. IDK sounds like someone needs to purify themselves in the waters of lake Minnetonka.

And just as a general aside re: Wanda Sykes, I really hate it when I pluck a titillating piece of news out of an otherwise unremarkable article but then twelve hours later its on every single blog in the blogoverse, rendering lolAJ redundant and dull.  my life is super hard  :(

Finally, the Biggest Loser only for cats is always an excellent idea.

jebus finally

All this prop 8 hullabaloo has finally turned out some interesting news: Wanda Sykes is gay, gay, gay. AJ is shocked.* R u shocked?

Quoth the New York Times:

In Las Vegas, the comedian Wanda Sykes surprised a crowd of more than 1,000 rallying outside a gay community center by announcing that she is gay and had wed her wife in California on Oct. 25. Ms. Sykes, who divorced her husband of seven years in 1998, had never publicly discussed her sexual orientation but said the passage of Proposition 8 had propelled her to be open about it.

“I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked — our community was attacked,” she told the crowd.

Unrelatedly: How about that gmail video chat??? 

-----------------------

* By shocked of course AJ means he's about as surprised as when Katherine Moennig or Jodie Foster formalized their outness. I think for a while word on the street with Sykes was that she tends to pop up at Lovergirl now and again. ONLY LESBIANS GO TO LESBIAN BARS, PEOPLE.

problem.

OK I am wondering if my readership can help me out here. AJ is trying to winterize in preparation for the next several months of bicycling to school and he's having sort of a problem. I bought some real cycling gloves, some hiking socks (I had been experimenting with doubling up regular socks but am finding truth in my crunchy Boulder-bred lesbian friend Nell's observation that if you sweat in cotton the sweat just stays there and so I've been spending a lot of time with soggy wrinkly chilly toes), and finally a balaclava. Herein lies the dilemma: AJ can't see without his glasses but if he wears his glasses with the balaclava his breath is funneled up out of the hole at the top and fogs up his glasses such that he can't see a goddamn thing (see fig 1). Wtf!

fig. 1

Surely there is a way to remedy this right? BTW this picture was taken inside so you can imagine how much worse the fog situation is when the lenses are cold. Also AJ can't wear contacts they feel like sand in his eyeballs. Any additional tips about biking in extremely nippy weather are also appreciated (I have yet to get fenders for my bike and also probably some fatter tires but maybe not til the snow gets really out of control).

In other news, stay tuned for lolAJ's next installment of Ask a Lesbian featuring Nell who is an expert on lesbians. I think a lot of us want to know how the lesbian community feels about all this business in California; I know I do.

Also: folks who are as intrigued and titillated by the 35W dancer (below) as I am might be interested in perusing AJ's other neighborhood-related videos (courtesy of google maps) such as sad drag queen singing Martha Smith, and uh, this dude. AJ has to concede that if these videos are any indication, he must live in a pretty bodacious neighborhood!

aj is rockin out w/ I-35W, Amanda the windows dancer

this is one of the related videos that pops up when i plug my address into google maps. it is exceedingly excellent

omgloltrannieswtf

AJ called up the benefits office at his university and the exchange went sort of like this:

[Backstory: the U's policy on partner benefits is be gay, be married, or GTFO]

AJ: Hi there, I'm calling because my partner is going to be moving in with me and I'm transgendered so we're wondering if she and I are eligible for same-sex domestic partner benefits.

Woman: Well, we use birth certificate gender to determine partnership arrangements, but we won't actually ask to see the certificate or anything. 

AJ: Oh OK, great

Woman: You see, we feel... [Woman takes on this weird didactic tone and starts explaining something about how once a person is further along in their transition they will change their birth certificate to match their identity but AJ is confused and pretty sure he doesn't like where she's headed so I sort of cut her off]

AJ: Uh yeah, super. So if my birth certificate lists me as female, she and I can just sign that same partnership affidavit as any same-sex couple and mail it in to you guys and that's it?

Woman (surprised): Well, have you had your birth certificate changed already?

AJ: Um, well no it's the same one I've always had.

Woman: No, like I already explained to you, we would then consider you a different-sex couple.

AJ: Wat! But you just told me you go by birth certificate gender!

Woman: Well am I correct in my understanding that your birth certificate lists you as male?

AJ: wtf no wai lady I was born female lol!

Woman: [spluttering]

lol AJ would be more annoyed but instead I'll just take it as an affirmation of my manly timbre.* I got paperwork sitting right here in my desk that I've been meaning to send in to get that birth certificate changed... now I'm pretty glad that I never do anything in a timely fashion. My girlfriend, who is basically a sweetie, feels bad cause she thinks she's forcing me to remain a woman 4eva.

The OTHER excellent news is called BEST BABS-THOMAS BEATIE INTERVIEW EVAR!!1

Highlights also include--

Thomas: I wake up in the morning and feel like a man. (me too, thomas, me too)

Also: AJ is sort of shocked that Feministing covered Duanna Johnson's murder. Of course the first commenter weighed in with, "Johnson looked like a troubled woman--not exactly a model citizen." 

Stay classy, feministing readers!

o rite, also via feministing, WETV brings you... SEX CHANGE HOSPITAL! \m/

-------------

* not that AJ thinks the transladies sound like dudes, of course, just that he assumes cispeople expect them to.

BABIES: IT'S ON!

that's aj right there on the right, btw. aj is not typically in the habit of revealing his SECRET identity to the internets, however dire circumstances have impelled me to allow this one exception.

oh and here's the shifty lilliputian my mom is replacing me with

JUST YOU WAIT LITTLE JOEY!!! YOU AND I AREN'T FINISHED YET!!1!

EVERYONE CHEER UP OK

moar!

worst day ever!

gays r bein all racist, gus the ugliest dog died, and aj has to write a paper

 

UPDATED TO ADD: oh no it really is the worst day ever -- Miriam Makeba dies at 76 AJ never got to see her perform this is awful :'(

Oh and also this... diligent readers might remember AJ mentioning Duanna Johnson's police brutality case over her beating in a Memphis police station back in June. Johnson, who was transgendered, was found shot to death last night.

nooooooo

LOL OOPS

wat a mess!

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.

o heres a lolAJ quickhit

With his mind still a-reelin' from the developments of the past week, AJ is now more than ever grateful for the intellectual guidance of the blogosphere--and I think io9 pointedly directs us to the question we've all really been wanting to ask this week without even knowing it: WHAT DOES THE ELECTION MEAN FOR SCIENCE FICTION?

AJ must in good conscience, however, warn his readers: linked photo of Gillian Anderson is EXCEEDINGLY SEXY. I can't believe it's not NSFW! Also make sure to watch the choice clip from HOME, unquestionably the gr8est epis0d3 EVAR unless ur my former roommate who can say wat is up with taht

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Thanks to a particularly vigilant lolaj tipster, AJ's attentions have been directed towards a somewhat smaller (in jurisdiction, anyway) recent social barrier breach--with which some of my readers may already be familiar. The town of Silverton, Oregon has elected our nation's first fluidly-gendered mayor, a move that in this instance suggests Oregonians' tolerance not just of transgenders, but also the hilarious nutjob community.

Something is sort of fishy about this dude and AJ can't quite put his finger on it but he suspects it is AWSOME in nature. (Btw, AJ initially thought there was a major pronoun/category fail happening with that first article but upon actually reading you'll notice Stu Rasmussen identifies himself as a heterosexual male who "likes to look female"). AJ has to admit, he's a fan of any public servant who explicates their gender identity via a segment on their website entitled Reality Check (OLOL@"Really?" ---that's totally how AJ feels about his gender sometimes!). Anyway Rasmussen gives folks the straight talk (pun!) on the situation:

"Some guys' midlife crisis is sports cars or motorcycles or climbing mountains or trophy wives or whatever. I always wanted cleavage! So I went out and acquired some."

Yes we can! AJ's lingering question mark is what the hell sort of town not only elects a transgendered mayor, but elects one who apparently missed class the day they explained what a palatable transsexual is (heterosexual male who had top surgery cause he likes to look female does not strike AJ as the most publicly intelligible subjectivity of all time). The only theory posited to me thus far is that logging industry-generated pollution may have addled Oregon's collective brains for the better.

Well... w2g Stu! Here's hoping he keeps on keepin' on with the "having more fun than a drunken cowboy with a new pickup" and whatnot. \m/

Also check out OR-based Homoblog Just Out for further coverage.

btdubs

also not to beat a horse thats already approaching its demise but how about that homosexual pwnage that got dished out california-style? the LA times had some sort of striking photos:

^^^FUCK YEAH!!!1 \m/

and conversely:

^ sad 'mos are sad :'(

U have to hand it to Cali for srsly knowing how to rock a tyranny of the majority--52.5%!! Californians like gay marriage bans just a tiny bit more than a high-speed rail (52.1%) and just a tad less than victims rights (53.5%). HRMHRMHRMHRMHRM

The anxiety AJ felt waiting for the polls to come in has induced an uneasy acceptance of his inner homonormativity. Also was I the only one who felt real bad for Palin when she was all tearing up during McCain's speech last night? I think AJ just really hates seeing the ladies cry...

also as an aside

What the hell? Just how many daughters of former slaves voted for Obama? So far I have found:

109 year old Amanda Jones in Texas:

and

114 year old Gertrude Baines in California:

One daughter of a slave voting for a black president is impressive and two is twice as many! Are there more?? AJ's cup runneth over, and by cup he means his heart which overflows with warm feelings due to these ineffably touching anecdotes.

UPDATED TO ADD: sweet I found an article w/ a video on Amanda Jones though she herself isn't exactly prominently featured

lol-aj.livejournal.com brings u some UPDATES

- AJ didn't do much for Halloween tho he did manage to dress up... AS A PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIE LOL!!

- It seems as though my mom and stepdad are totally going to become foster parents to a small HIV-exposed baby. WTF! Their intentions may be noble but one's things for certain: nothing sucks up EVERYBODY'S ATTENTION like a small HIV-exposed foster baby. THAT BABY'S GOING TO STEAL MY THUNDER!!! The baby is white, btw. He has a name that makes him sound like he's from Woonsocket, and he totally is!

- My dad was nice enough to have my double bass boxed and shipped to me, which was probably expensive. Now there is a crate bigger than my couch lying in my living room and if I know AJ, I know that crate is going to be a living room fixture for a while.

^^lol now what

- Overall, AJ finds Minnesota to be sort of a crappy state for the transgendered. I've had to resign myself to a Harry Benjamin-adhering doctor, the DMV is giving me shit about my license, and the U only gives out domestic partnership benefits to "same-sex" couples (AJ happily anticipates the arrival of his better half in the not-too-distant future). The matter of partner benefits is yet unresolved but we hope ultimately to have delicious cake and nom it too.

- Also the Obama campaign has called me four times so far today and I will be pleased when all this is over and everyone gets their facebook status messages back. And for those of you voting at the center of the universe, it would be foolish not to avail yourselves of this.

k thats all