Jumping through Hoops: Going Abroad in 30 days

So even though they have my birth certificate with gender and name changed, they still wanted more documentation asking if either I have completed transition or am in the middle of it. I receive the email from the national passport center on Monday morning, and luckily I had a doctors appointment later that afternoon. So I'm sending this out along with the rest of the paperwork and my tickets because I paid for expedited passport because I leave in 30 days from today for Peru. However I fly out to Virginia on the 12th of January. I'm ok jumping through these hoops if I have to because once its done I won't have to jump through them again, and today my body actually matches all my legal paperwork ID and birth certificate. very grateful

Honoring My Experiences

So as much as I want to have my month Long Amazon experience,  I would be doing myself a very big injustice. There is so much to do in Peru and South America, that to limit my first adventure in the richness that will be surrounding me on my first trip to such a country will really create a disappointing experience, as I remember my Maui trip the first time I went to Hawaii.  January 18 is the celebration of Lima's founding, as my nurse shared. I fly in on the 16th into Lima, and I want to be able to explore and not start my trip off feeling rushed. This will also allow me to get any shots and immunizations that I will need when I'm in Peru, a lot cheaper than what I can get here. I was given, by my nurse practitioner, the name of a clinic in Lima that has at least one person who speaks English fairly well; the clinic should I need its services, provides excellent care with reasonable and affordable clinic fees available even to foreigners.  To pay what I need for the Amazon upfront has become more difficult as I've been playing catch up since surgery and and with the car being broken into. We will be mailing all my meds (ART, inhalers, estrogen pills-I've been weaning down from the injections) to the closest U.S Embassy to where my journey will be projected to be every 90 days; first Embassy will be in England toward end of March before crossing over to the continent. As of January 31st, my doctor will no longer be with Ward 86 as a PCP; however he will return on main that my doctor until I return from my trip abroad sometime in 2017. I will be in contact with my care team during my whole trip via email with my nurse practitioner, doctor & social worker.

Grrr. I lost the "See how long I could go without hearing the Little Drummer Boy" game as of 620p on 14DEC15.

I really dislike drivers who will speed up when they see you signaling and trying to move into right line for the off ramp, and after forcing you to barely or actually miss the exit, then puts on their signal to speed off into the other lanes of traffic.

This morning I received an email from the U.S Dept of State regardng my Passport, even though they have my birth certificate that has been changed with both name and gender;  they want a letter from my doctor I they signed with an original statement on office letterhead that either stated whether or not I was in the middle of transition and if that was still the case then they would only give me a two year passport. If everything has been completely done, in order to issue a full validity Passport reflecting a gender different from the one on some or all of my citizenship and/or identity evidence, Dr Dan needed to write a letter stating how long i have been under his care, and whether or not he feels I have had the appropriate clinical treatment for transition to the new gender and while him having to say/write "I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true and correct." Im grateful this email came on the day of my appointment.

I made love for the first time in my life last night after coming home from Saratoga Springs and Honoring Our Experiences Retreat (No it wasn't anyone from the retreat). I have never been able to equate sex and love together, and to those I found or I believed that I loved, and made it hard for me to connect sexually in any way it was someone who I genuinely cared about. for me sex has always been a weapon, a means to provide, a means to escape, or means to degrade to be little myself. For the first time in over 10 months, since the moment with tears in my eyes I felt I had just woken up from a bad dream and feeling for the first time "Normal," I allowed myself to be touched, to be intimate, and to honor what my friend Jody G. calls a magic vagina.

Since I was a kid far back at least 5, I was tucking before I knew what that was underneath my little sisters lace ruffle on the butt pink panties that I'd sneak from their room or the laundry and wore them to school; or I was trying to perform my own surgery, because all I knew was that the little thing dangling between my legs was not supposed to be there. Neither of my two younger sisters had anything down there & it was unfair that my they got to wear dresses and cute clothes; I just did not know how to vocalize how I felt. I never thought the day would come that I could finally be like my sisters, and this year has been amazing validation for me but vaginal sex scared me at yet I yearned for it growing up, then became someone who hadn't care much for sex and stopped dilating. Just more recently I've found myself eager to dilated for some reason and then last night I made love to someone and while I did not have an orgasm, having his cock inside of me with no condom (they knew I was positive and they were okay with that, as there is little risk for a top) as my virginity was taken was for its maiden voyage. He was a gentleman,  took ot slow, knew how to kiss, and we connected and made love, for my first time. And it was beautiful, and engulfed in a spiritual, mental, physical, emotion, and sexual interconnectedness.

This weekend resonated and vibrated so passionately and intensely within me, that all I could do was just be, & the strived to be present. I flew my flags several times this weekend, and they are in the colors of the Trans* flag. A gentleman at the the retreat came up to me and said I would have never known you will trans* identified or intersex as you are absolutely beautiful.  I got me thinking I have a choice to either share the duality and my journey, and I could easily go back and just try to be unclocked and under the radar. But I do not have the right to not share, or to hide as I have been given so much from the community, the tax payers, the many services in San Francisco that afforded me the life I have today. The more I share the harder it becomes to hide, as all one has to do is google my name to find more and more things about my work and community involvement.  So I thought about what he said, and for the Talent/No Talent Show I decided to step out of my comfort and I did my first burlesque piece, and written on my chest above each breast where the word tranny and trans, with underneath the breasts the word HIV positive, and in big letters underneath that across the stomach in capital letters is said ME. After the mirror broke I changed how I was going to show how I could not accept myself by the hood of my cloak over my face, and I started going back in for flight I could engage the group as Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am started to play. And when do we hit the refrain I am what I am the hood came off, the clothes came off, revealing couple taped up breasts over the nipples and with scats showimg and I let the flags fly with pride, beauty, and the feeling of being absolutely safe for the first time doing performance. After Gloria Gaynor, we moved into Israel's Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Today I share openly my duality because of my grandmother, before she passed away,  taught me the importance of embracing Andrew & Katerina when she started to call me AndyKat, which became my tailsman as I switched it to KatAndi, letting it become not only a nickname or profile name, but the name of my media company, "Katandi Media & Entertainment."

I feel so alive and This weekend was absolutely what I needed to allow my heartsong to sing in the gratitude chorus. I was able to be present for others this weekend, and it was amazing I love myself to be loved, cherished, and even more deeply allowed my heart to be held by every single person in the circle. I allowed love to heal me

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Angels in the Rain

I am officially that crazy white girl your mother warned you about. I'm driving home just as it starts pouring raining and see somebody dressed in black, dark skin walking again caught up in the pouring rain. First thought was you don't offer anyone a ride as white girl, Especially in Oakland this time of night; they could steal your car, they could be drug dealers they could kill you, you don't offer a ride to someone this late at night in Oakland. Then a feeling I haven't had in a long time, a very heavy impression, that I need to turn around and see if they need a ride. I was like oh f***. So I did a u-turn, and then it did another u-turn pulling up to where he was and offered him a ride. I gave him a ride from High Street by the tracks out to Parker past +Eastmont Mall. Turns out he just got off work at a liquor store in Alameda and missed the last bus, was going to walk to MacArthur to catch bus, did not know foothill ran all night. I want to take him to next bus stop ahead of the bus, but i was invested at this point. He was more than grateful as he couldn't keep from saying thank you enough and he actually said his faith has been restored in humanity. I told him just return the favor for somebody else later. He said most definitely

He was definitely my angel. I was already fuming and going home angry as my last uber fare ordered for her son, called me when I still 5 minutes away coming from Hayward area saying her app said I should have been there 5 minutes ago at the motel 6 toward airport when I'm still driving in the rain. And then when I'm halfway in the middle of driving him to San Leandro she cancels the ride. Black kid, and such and I was like do I leave him what do I do, and quickly decide I wasn't and couldn't just leave him on side of the road or kick him out of my car so I dropped him off at home and message uber and had an asthma attack from his cologne. He kept saying he sorry but he also followed by he shouldn't be apologizing not his fault. I made sure he back to San Leandro, and was heading home when it started pouring. That was when I saw the other guy and hoped that there would be somebody who would be there if I ever needed a favor such as that or if I was miserably was walking in the rain and they drove by snf saw me.. The final thought was it is Christmas after all, and so I was not going to be the Scrooge, so I gave it to the Divine plan.

+Eastmont mall where I have anxiety driving by there due to being held up at gun point 5 years ago, (when I started trans* sober living housing @ 7200 MacArthur,) and refused to give up my wallet as needed ID for plane to UT 2 day later to promote GIEC and the trans* SLE, and he was shocked i said no, especially since he appeared more scared of me and of the 2 trans woman who where with me (client and my asst. house manager- it was first of September after midnight and payday) as the gun was shaking and appeared to be a kid I did not think he'd ever actually shoot it, nor did if think he hit me with it; I refused unlike the other 2 and he and pistol whipped me across left cheek and ran off with their wallets and money for the month, so yes I was apprehensive.

***side note I got to meet Ms Billie Cooper when she moved into the house.- after everything I said I'd never move back to Oakland}