Nail polish… I’ve been a bit addicted to it lately… painting my nails at least every 3 days!!!! I started a nail tumblr feel free to follow me over there

Larping… I was in an awesome Victorian LARP last weekend I have one next weekend and another in November!!! WOOT!

Sewing… I have heaps of things to get through! hopefully this weekend will be all sewing all the time!

My Hair… It’s so long it’s Bra Strap length at it’s longest!

and finally Wreck My Journal being on it’s way!!!!

(sorry this is incredibly short I wanted to get this out there and done before I forgot AGAIN! :-p )

I want to tell you a story. Like all good stories it takes place in a land far away, but not a time long ago. The place is a school in a small town of no more than 1,000 people. The students are around 16 years old. We are in the the hallway between classes. The boys are dressed in baggy jeans and t-shirts. The girls are wearing trouser or skirts except in a few tragic cases where they are wearing skorts, and simple blouses.

This story is about that boy right there , no not the idiot wearing the “no fear” shirt, no that on right there. He’s got bleach blond hair with bright blue fringe that is spiked up. He is wearing a black leotard with a silver sequined tank top and black and blue marbles satin culottes and silver glitter combat boots. He pauses to touch up his pink glitter lipgloss and continues on head down as if trying to disappear despite his outfit. That’s how he doesn’t notice the football player who shoves him hard into the locker and he friend who kicks the boy in the stomach.

The boy picks up his books and continues swishing his way to class.

That night the boy will go home where he’ll take a shower crying lightly and letting the pain out wondering, do I be me, or do I be who they want me to be. Do I win or do I lose?

This boy hasn’t eaten lunch at school in two years because then he might have to go to the bathroom and that’s not possible at the school. The boys won’t let him into the boy’s bathroom, he obviously can’t use the girls bathroom, and the school won’t let him use the locked unisex bathroom that is teachers only. So he doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch so that he won’t have to use the bathroom.

He is the only out gay person in his school and town, they weren’t ready for him.

That was nearly 15 years ago.

As that boy grew up he was determined that he would put a stop the homophobia and transphobia that he dealt with in school. That boy grew up to be a strong, loud spoken ,and fabulous woman. One that spoke at schools and conferences and continues to work hard to end homophobia in schools. One that stands here speaking to you now.

I am saddened that homophobia and transphobia continue to plague our schools, continue to plague our students. The current government and society overall seems to think saying “it gets better” is enough, that it will cure everything. It won’t. The government needs to take a strong hand on homophobia and transphobia, including that which is perputrated by the schools and their officials.

Our children deserve the right to express themselves, to be themselves without being harassed. Deserve the right to go to school without fear of bullying and abuse.   Deserve to feel that they are able to stand out and say I am who I am, and not fear the teacher blaming them for the bullying.

We tell our children “to thine own self be true”, we need to support them when they follow that advice.

I’m standing here to demand that the government do something about homophobia and transphobia not only in our schools but within it’s own administration.

I am here and I am queer and I won’t shut up.

This has got to get better, the government has to wake up and help stop homophobia and transphobia in our schools. Our future depends on it. We can’t keep telling our youth that “it gets better” with out making any effort to make it better NOW!

I challenge the government to improve our schools NOW, to make things better NOW, to stop homophobia NOW, to stop transphobia NOW. For the better of the our youth, and our world.

I have recently been volunteering at Bats Theatre here in wellington. Bats is an amazing theatre, I have a special fondness for black box theatres. Some of my greatest moments both in the stage and in the audience have been in black box theatres. Add in that at any given moment Bats is staffed by half of my friends makes it even more special and amazing for me. Then of course is all the amazing theatre that happens at Bats.

The benefit of volunteering is that I get to see heaps of plays now. Which is awesome, I could probably see three plays a night for the rest of my life and still wish I could see more! All the plays I’ve seen recently are wonderful independent NZ written shows on topics from Armageddon, to Robert Muldoon. I love these independent NZ plays cause you would never have seen them anywhere else. Some of them this might be the only time they get run. I just Love them.

At a recent play though that while it was very funny and entertaining I found one aspect of it deeply unsettling and semi homophobic. I have struggled to say anything about it since then. Not because I’m not capable of being outspoken. You all know I am! No my trouble is with the fact that these creative people put so much work into, so much love, how can I just dump on that? I don’t want to appear to be mean. I’m Creative, I put things out there all the time and I know how it feels to be heavily critisized.

I could never be a critic for this reason. I’ve always thought critics have an easy job sit there and point out flaws. I know now that it must be harder. I wonder if they sit there wondering if what they said is too harsh? Or just want to sit down and praise how amazing the writers are just for having written something and put it out in the world to be judged? I would be a wreck with the guilt and torn at the two wars within me. It’s easy when something is just rubbish, the hard part is when something is good, or has potential, if only this fatal flaw was pulled from it’s side.

Tonight thankfully I have no plays on just Rugby to attend. That is something I’m happy to criticize.

—-real post begins here—-
My new blog theme thanks Sam of Rooster Tails for the cool graphics. I’m probably not done yet… I’ll still be doing a few tweaks here and there.  Also there are a few bits of content that I really need to add to the pages…

Web comics… I mean they are comics and I read them on the internet… for free!!

My top 5 are(in no particular order):

• PVP Player vs. Player is as very nerdy comic mostly aimed at gamers.
• XKCD how do you explain this comic to those who don’t know about it… All I can say is when me and my husband talk about it we never seem to get the letter right we have called it XFCE XKFC and XKFD among many other things….
• Rooster Tails an awesome New Zealand trans/queer comic written by a talented trans comic artist
• The Knit Princess really funny knitting comic, probably only funny to knitters and maybe those close to knitters.
• Oglaf NSFW enchanted sperm, naughty stories, and irreverent humour
• and as a bonus Khaos Komix more Trans/Queer comics, this one tells several stories from lots of viewpoints, not so much funny like Rooster Tails, and more heartbreaking in bits.

Audible.com how I love thee… I love to read I read probably about 20 hours a week maybe more, which has always meant that my reading competes with my other hobbies(which I seem to have a lot of) meaning that I can either read or knit, read or embroider, read or cook dinner(okay not so much a hobby). You get the picture… About a two and a half years ago, after hearing on every single one of Brenda Dayne‘s podcasts about audible, I decided to give it a go and get a free audio book… Well I never had an audio device it worked with so I cancelled it.  Fast Forward 6 months I got an android phone , and guess what it had an audible app which meant I could download the books directly to my phone. Now I use audible constantly… I still read actual books but my reading time has increased massively cause I can read and do other things like knitting and cooking.

Related: The Septimus Heap books… I’m halfway through book 5 and I absolutely love this series… They are like Harry Potter but yet not at all like Harry Potter. They are well written engaging and amazing to read.

Honourable Mentions:

Getting a postcard from Jenni… I love mail that’s not bills.

Larping (of course)

The Guild (they are back yay!!!)

Homemade Gluten free Peanut Butter cookies

Spoonflower fabrics esp Doctor Who fabric!

Keyka Lou Patterns – I love these and have made several of them… I need more cute fabric to make more cute things for more fabulous people. (I really must blog about the things I’ve made)

Teaching fabulous friends new crafts, like knitting and sewing!!!

and finally the latest episode of Urban Numina