California at last

October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 ~ Elliott

Currently camping/staying in: Morgan Hill, Paicines, soon San Francisco…it’s complicated. But we are in California! Yes.

I started writing this entry as a reflection on my life since I’ve been with Joey. We realized early in our relationship that we wanted to move out west. So did his son, Drew. I wanted to give you a sense of what we had to get away from in Syracuse…but I’m realizing that would take another whole book on my part. Suffice to say, Syracuse was slowly killing us for multiple reasons. We had our best friend and family-by-choice, Erica. And while that was huge…we still had to leave. The original plan was to get to California. The idea for the RV came later (though it had been a longtime dream of Joey’s, one that he had almost actualized in his previous marriage).

And so, here we finally are, in California. I suppose I could say “back in California.” I spent a lot of my childhood school breaks in San Diego, because my dad traveled for work. I also lived out here a few years ago, on my own (see my most recent book, Show Trans). But for the most part I’ve been an upstate New Yorker all my life. We travelled from coast to coast. Within a week I swam in the Atlantic and Pacific ocean. It’s pretty mind boggling.

There’s an Instagram feed on the side of my blog now, if you want to see pictures. I’m finding that’s way less hassle then trying to insert them in these text entries.

Since I’m not going to reflect on how we got here– not at this time– I am going to focus on the here and now, and just what that is. Well, first actually, I will give a brief list of what has occurred the past week or so. We traveled to Jerome, AZ one evening, briefly: an artist colony in the hills. We stayed at a Cracker Barrel en route. We spent one night off of Ventura Highway, waking up to an empty beach on a weekday for sunrise. That was amazing. That’s when it all really hit me that I am here and this is life.

There has been a lot of low times. A lot of stress. I still feel depressed, often. This has been hard work. It is not a full-time vacation. And we are not rich, or even really secure yet…

But the cats seem happy. Drew has wi-fi. I’m in California. Joey’s about to have surgery in San Francisco on the 20th, which is both stressful as hell but going to be so good for him in the long run and make his life easier.

And I’m sippin’ coffee and vaping in my camp chair, putting off a little longer my plans to make today productive if possible. It’s 9 am here, and skies are blue and the air is perfect. Yep. This is the life for me.

The Southwest

October 3, 2015June 27, 2020 ~ Elliott

The past few weeks have been a blur. That’s sort of cliché to say, but it’s accurate. I can’t believe how far we’ve travelled. We went from Syracuse, down through the southeast, and then headed west. We’ve been through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and now Arizona. We’ve been doing a lot of boondocking, over-nighting in Walmart parking lots and such to save money, but also staying at some lovely parks.

Some of the more memorable moments would have to be:

Swimming in the warm ocean waters at Buckroe Beach in Hampton, Virginia in mid September. I love bodies of water and swimming so, so much. I’m trying to find a way to swim several times a week.
The wonderful audience I had for my reading at the LGBT Center of Hamptons Road in Norfolk, Virginia. It was a support group for trans folks and I read an except of my first book about the struggles, limitations, and ultimately beauty of human connection at a trans support group. So it was pretty perfect. People loved it, and I sold a lot of books. Then we stayed for the group. It was a much more positive experience than I had in Syracuse at such groups. It was really good for both Joey and me, I think. We sometimes lose our hope for community.
Staying at a camp in North Carolina where we had to literally be the only campers without at least one confederate flag on our RV. Yikes.
Things started getting really, really beautiful awesome when we arrived at Caprock Canyon in Quitaque, Texas. That’s when it started to feel like the West. They have a herd of buffalo there! I seriously fell in love with them. They were…adorable and ferocious herbavores. I. Love. Them. The canyons were also beautiful as hell.
At Caprock Canyon we were able to go out into the canyons and find the perfect spot to view the lunar eclipse. You can read my partner Joey’s story about that here.
Albuquerque was pretty cool. We stayed in the parking lot of a casino for free. But they had good gluten free and veggie options for us at local grocery stores.
Joey and I jumped in “the Blue Hole” which is a very small but deep swimming hole in New Mexico. The water was super cold and clear. It was fun.
Last night we stayed at Meteor Crater RV Park in Arizona, and now we are at another park, south of Flagstaff. It’s beautiful here too. Tomorrow we are going to find rivers and swimming holes.

Let’s talk about my state of mind. How am I feeling? Good question, self. I feel like I’m finally living a life I want. I used to always wake up every morning, feeling like today wasn’t the day. Like I was waiting for something to make me happy. I don’t have the feeling so much anymore. That’s seriously profound for me.

I’ve struggled a lot with mental health, as a trans/queer survivor of repeated sexual, physical, verbal and emotional abuse throughout my life. That struggle has included a lot of depression. I don’t feel depressed right now. I’m having some PTSD stuff still. Nightmares. Flashes of unpleasant childhood memories. Things piecing themselves together, slowly. I’m still very shy and anxious around people outside my family and my cats. I’m even anxious around Drew a lot of the time. But I feel like I’m living something worthwhile. There’s a lot of practical stuff that needs to be done, so I haven’t had all that much energy for creativity. I say that, but it’s not exactly true. I’m just hard on myself. Still, I feel like these adventures will inspire wonderful things. Art. I have to be patient with myself.

On a side note, I’m actually making more money from booksales than ever. The future is ever unpredictable, but I think it’s gonna be alright. This is surprisingly an affordable way to live so far. I’m privileged to have Joey, who can afford to make some investments upfront. That’s been the key. But it’s seeming to work out so far, for all of us. I’m not losing money.

Bottom line: I’m happy and hopeful. Pictures forthcoming. What I’d really love is to just install a stream of them from my instagram show up on the main page, and then use these entries for text . Maybe there’s a widget for that. I’ll investigate.

Anyway. The stars are out. The air is warm but arid and pleasant. Goodnight, readers.

Our first week on the road (video)

September 10, 2015 ~ Elliott

Salmon River Reservoir: Richland, NY

August 17, 2015June 27, 2020 ~ Elliott

We’ve been spending some time up in the Tug Hill region. This place is really beautiful. Rocky beaches, great for swimming. We’ll be staying up here for a week or so eventually, so I’ll have more to say then. Right now I’m honestly thinking about some upsetting news stories I just read- about yet more trans women, of color, being murdered. I’m feeling very privileged to be able to do this, particularly as a trans person. Life has been really hard for very long. It’s kinda stupid how meeting the right person has improved so much for me. Not that it fixes everything…It just bothers me that people can’t get unstuck in this country (world?). I was stuck for so long. I still don’t have much money. But I have relative freedom now. I have support. Anyway. I’m feeling very privileged, and a bit sad, and scared. I still feel unsafe, often. A part of me doesn’t want to reveal where I am on things like this blog. A big part of me would rather just disappear. But I do think it’s important that all different types of (trans) people write their stories. And I also can’t help writing and sharing. I could just do it in a notebook, but that’s less satisfying for me than it used to be. So I keep writing. In other arenas, I’ve been sharing more about my mental health, and past, and family of origin. It’s…scary. It’s hard to shake off the feeling that something bad is going to happen. But that’s life.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

I’ve been feeling like the region around here is haunted. I know that sounds silly. Sometimes a part of my brain opens up and I find myself believing in the supernatural. It’s usually when my brain is seriously processing past trauma. Anyway, we were driving home the other night, through the country, and I saw three figures in the road. I was about to yell out to Joey to look out, when they disappeared. it was a man, a woman, and a child.

Joey’s currently hard at work with all the practical aspects of making this motorhome thing happen. I want to be more helpful in that area. My brain is in the clouds. It’s going to be ridiculously hot today. Lately I only really feel good when I’m under water. I should…work on that.

Skaneateles and Niles, NY

May 19, 2015June 27, 2020 ~ Elliott

Yesterday we took a motorcycle ride to Carpenter Falls in Niles, NY. That’s sorta near Skaneateles. We also stopped in Skaneateles to charge Joey’s camera batteries at a gazebo in the park. It’s an odd place. Way more upscale than Syracuse. It’s a little too quaint for my liking, but nice for an occasional drop-in. Further south at Carpenter’s Falls, we did a lot of hiking. Or at least what I consider a lot. Some of it down and uphill with unstable terrain. It was mostly worth it. I like a little hiking now and again. Joey loves it though. He is a backpacking, survivalist person. He’s done a lot of that sort of thing. I like nature, but my attention span is too short for that. Also I only like physical exertion in short, controllable bursts. It occurred to us for the first time that we probably appear strange to people as two men on a motorcycle. I ride “bitch” so to speak. Sometimes I think my gender is indeterminable in a helmet, but lately I’ve had a mustache. And a beard, but that is hidden. Also, our water bottle flew off the motorcycle on the ride there, and we actually found it on the road on the ride back. Being on the back of the motorcycle gives me lots of time to myself to think. I especially like when I’m very tired and the breeze feels amazing and the sun is setting and we are riding through the country side. It’s lovely. Not much else is coming to mind to say about this trip. Here are some photos though. My next trip will also be to the Finger Lakes, because I’ll be doing a reading in Auburn on Thursday night. Until then! Unless something else happens.

The falls we had to hike downhill to see.

Tully, NY

May 6, 2015May 7, 2015 ~ Elliott

Today Joey and I took an impromptu motorcycle trip to Labrador Hollow, south of Syracuse, NY (where we still currently live). It was a short trip so I won’t say much, but

My butt got sore on the way.
Joey ducked on the motorcycle so he wouldn’t hit a butterfly.
I drank water out of a stream because I forgot a water bottle.
We stopped at a nice and easy later and I got a water bottle.
The place we hiked is called Enchanted Hollow Falls!

The Rainbow Book Fair, New York, and Stamford, CT

April 24, 2015June 27, 2020 ~ Elliott

Right now I’m in Stamford, CT where we’re staying. It’s a short train ride to New York and saves Joey and me some money. We’re at a Starbucks down the road from the Super 8. Man, this city is dull so far. Saturday was the Rainbow Book Fair, which is why I’m in town. That went pretty well. I met some awesome people, such as gay romance author Leta Blake, who I tabled with. She was very nice and helpful and we bought one anothers’ books. She is the author of Training Season and several other gay romance books, and had come all the way from Tennessee! I also met Sophie Labelle, author of Assigned Male- A Webcomic About A Transgender Girl. She came all the way from Montreal. We traded books and stickers as well. Afterwards, Sophie came with Joey and me to the after party where there was free wine (woo!) I had a nice conversation with Pauline Park, a (trans)gender rights advocate who I heard speak back when I was at SUNY Purchase. I really liked what she had to say about nonbinary transition and some other stuff, and I told her so. After that, Sophie, Joey and I went for Thai food.

Sadly, I am home now in Syracuse and I cannot remember much of this trip. It’s amazing how fast my memory goes lately.

Boston and Providence

April 17, 2015September 6, 2015 ~ Elliott

OK, I realized that we are headed to Connecticut and New York City tomorrow and that I need to just write this Boston post already. Oh, if you are in New York City, you should come to the Rainbow Book Fair on Saturday. I’ll be selling/signing my books and giving a reading. I’ll also be selling my artwork. Do it.

So, back to Boston. Joey had his top surgery consultation in Brookline, MA. ~~It was our best experience so far, and I believe that is the surgeon he’s going to choose. We will most likely be back in Brookline for that in June.~~ (Later note: Do not go here, they are fraudulent!) After that though, his insurance company was being awful and he spent a good couple hours arguing on the phone with them. Luckily I think that’s taken care of and they are going to cover it. Which is still fairly rare, I believe, in the U.S. But they still acted like dicks. To alleviate my stress, I took a series of pictures of Joey looking stressed. I don’t think I mentioned that he got himself a DSLR camera, so that’s been awesome to play with. I also took some pictures with the telephoto lens of geese. We were parked next to a pond. This went well for a while, but then the geese decided to charge at me, and I just barely escaped unscathed.

After the consultation we went for coffee again in Jamaica Plain at Fazenda Cafe. That’s where my reading was last time. While we were hanging out, a person came up to me and introduced themselves as one of my facebook/instagram friends named Margaret. I was like, “Oh cool,” but kinda derp, and we talked for a minute and then they left. Joey was like, “Do you want to ask them to get coffee or something?” But they were leaving and so I just shrugged it off. After dealing with all the surgery-related crap, Joey was exhausted and didn’t want to drive home. Actually, he thought about it, but I confessed that I really didn’t feel like a 4 hour car ride and we decided to just stay near Boston somewhere. Joey spent a little over an hour in the parked car trying to find a hotel deal on his phone, because he really wanted to stay in the city. I once again took photos because I was incredibly bored and impatient.

After he gave up, we went to the Midway Cafe, which is a bar and music venue. It’s where we went last time for “queereoke.” And I ended up facebook messaging Margaret, and we all hung out and watched the live music, and it was cool. We also talked about Syracuse, because Margaret is originally from Skaneateles. Skaneatles? Skaeneateles? Oh well. Upstate New York. One of the bands was called Night Slice, and they had a song about geodes (in the sun/my favorite rock formation) and mothman (he’s a mothy mothy man). I was drunk. It was fun.

The next morning, we drove to East Providence and met up with my friend Red. We went to this place he likes, Seven Stars Bakery, and we talked for a while before driving home to Syracuse.

Uploading and formatting photos is annoying, so from now on, I’m going to make a gallery on flicker and link to it. (this will be a link soon). Maybe.

So I realized I haven’t really been holding up my “cat” promise with this whole “cat road trip” thing. I promise, eventually there will be cats. Maybe in the meantime, before the actual cat road tripping, I will just post periodic updates and Mittens and Snowflake. Because otherwise, my blog really isn’t fit to call itself “Cat Road Trip.”

This is Snowflake. She loves you. This is Mittens. She hates you.

Until next time.

Albany, NY

April 11, 2015April 11, 2015 ~ Elliott

Me at Professor Java's. — Me at Professor Java’s.

Tuesday afternoon, Joey came downstairs and said, “I’m going to Boston. Want to come along?” He had a consultation with another top surgeon. So we got in the car and drove halfway, to Albany, where we stayed the night in our signature Super 8 jacuzzi suite. The hotel was directly across from a juvenile detention center, which may have explained why it was cheap and also why we kept getting weird looks. At first I figured it was because we were two male-appearing-people staying together in a romantic suite. We’ve gotten homophobic crap in the past. At a hostel in Toronto for instance, they insisted on giving us a room with two beds. So in Albany, we forgot the key one time, we had to ask at the front desk. A woman, different from the person who checked us in, already knew which room we were in. So we got the feeling we were the talk of the Super 8. But we also mused that since anti-aging-transgender-magic makes Joey look like he’s in his early thirties and me in my late teens, they may have thought he had just picked me up from the juvenile detention center. We thought this would make a funny erotica story or porno. Then we realized it wouldn’t and changed the subject.

The next morning we went to a place called Professor Java’s Coffee Sanctuary, based solely off the name and that it wasn’t a Starbucks. It was pretty cool. My latte was fine and all. After that we stopped briefly in downtown Albany because I wanted to take a few photos. None of them really turned out as I planned, but eh. And then we drove to Brookline, MA, which is what my next post will be about. Coming soon.

Manhattan

March 14, 2015June 27, 2020 ~ Elliott

And so, to continue where I left off: our trip to New York City. We stopped briefly at the hotel to drop off our stuff. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on 57^th Street, right near Central Park. It was nicer than our usual accommodations, because Joey wanted to treat Drew. We had an amazing view. Then Joey and I hurried to the modeling audition at James Weber Studio in Chelsea. As previously mentioned, it was pretty straightforward and painless.

11013021_10205963890192424_4201885907348552976_n — Hotel lobby panorama!!!

There were some pigeons out the window on a ledge. This doesn't really capture how beautiful the lighting was. — There were some pigeons out the window on a ledge. This doesn’t really capture how beautiful the lighting was.

After that, we went to an event at the bookstore BGSQD which is now located at The Center (for the LGBTs) in the West Village. I signed up for this reading last minute, and the writer running the event, Michael Brodus, was very generous to let me join. The event was called Queer Loves and Lusts in a Post-DOMA World. “Celebrating the full range of queer relationship options on the 15th Anniversary of the night Michael Broder hit on Jason Schneiderman. An evening of words and deeds honoring the raunchy outlaw roots of LGBTQ love and celebrating the full range of relationship options in the wake of same-sex marriage—hooking up, dating, living together, cheating, breaking up, open relationships, groups, polyamory, fetish, kink—anything and everything we do to express our loves, lusts, commitments, and refusals of commitment in the era of same-sex marriage.” It was mostly poetry, but I read prose and got a good reception. I read about my relationship with Joey and it felt really good, given that we haven’t had much support back in Syracuse. Everyone was really warm and friendly, and the elbow-rubbing seemed sincere and not gross. Like making new friends rather than just networking. It was pretty awesome. And the other readers were great. I especially enjoyed the poetry of fellow trans writer Trace Peterson.

11043032_10205963010450431_1604286777863399443_n — Hotel view, day

There was a painting that caught my eye in the hotel. It seemed like Courage the Cowardly Dog, but with the male and female roles reversed. I pointed this out to Drew.

Some other stuff happened. We went to our favorite gluten-free restaurant, Risotteria, on the Lower East Side. Drew and I checked out guitars in a guitar shop. Alas, we could not locate a hurdy gurdy, which is one of his main objectives at this time. We got delayed on the drive home and slept over at a hotel in New Jersey. It seems like I’m forgetting a lot that happened on this trip, but really, my brain feels fuzzy and fried, and I am missing my glasses. I shall leave you with this picture of us at Risotteria.