Just a Week!!!

This time next week I suspect that I will not be checking Facebook, Twitter or doing much of anything else.  Hopefully I will have had successful bladder surgery and will be sleeping.  That's right bladder surgery. Not what you want to share with everyone but hey it was going to come out in Wikileaks so I thought I'd get in front of it. 

It's not how imagined the Holiday Season even four months ago but living is always a surprise.  I should be fine I'm told but just in case there a just a few things I want to make certain I write down.

I don't if know if there has ever been a more blessed person than me.  I should be dead but I'm not.  That Joy, my spouse, is still in my life and we're still in love and still are making plans is a miracle. Our two adult children, Lesley having a smashing good time studying in Glasgow, Scotland and JD winging his way back from New York as I write this are simply the finest young people we know.  That is a major statement.  We know a lot of extraordinary young people.

We've had challenges over the last couple of years and sometimes it looked bleak but it always seems to work out.  I lost my job over a year and half ago and haven't had but one interview for a new job since then.  But that free time gave me a chance to work with the courageous people of Telling Our Stories and make a video that I never would've made.  I'm very proud to be part of this ongoing journey led by the Very Reverend Ed Hansen and hope that once I get past this surgery and one more (not as bad) can again help share our collective stories to all.

I am very grateful that Joy has a good job that she likes and works with people she really can appreciate.  It now provides Health Insurance for (right now) all four of us.  It has become literally a life saver.  We're paying for it but the alternative would be unsustainable for us right now so again I count my blessings.

We had to give our cars up this summer and it really sucked.  For a while, Congress couldn't decide whether or not to fund unemployment and when they did it was too late.  Joy and I have got use to using the city's Metro system.  It's not ideal but then again we are not contributing as much for our nation's insatiable appetite for oil and we found a really good book series (Decker/Lazarus Crime Novels) that help us escape during our bus rides to work or to Doctors and tests.  I wasn't always getting the best news from doctors for the last few months and reading is a reparative diversion for the soul.  Again no matter how I look at it I'm blessed.

Right now the news from Doctors is very promising. This surgery should do the trick and just like everything else it will be far behind me soon.  As you get older time seems to go faster because no matter how you count it there's probably less of it in front of you than there once was.  So I expect time to keep on fleeing and that's fine.  It really is a quantum blessing and I have no idea what that means.

I've been cleared this week for surgery and I've been told recuperation might take a while. With that in mind I wanted to make certain I write this.

Have a great Holiday Season!!!!!

Love and Peace to everyone,

Marie Fairman

Personal Blog Stardate - 313738.53

Here is my Wishlist for Stardate -313981.98.

1 - Complete repudiation of the Republican attack on President Obama in the mid term elections.

2 -  Meg Whitman losing despite spending additional 50 million dollars in the last three days.

3 - Carly Fiorina losing her race to incumbent Barbara Boxer and then finding work oversees sorting used hypodermic syringes with needles (gloves not included - actually frowned upon).

4 - Allow Craig Mortensen and Central Asian Institute take command in all manners regarding Pakistan and Afghanistan.

5 - The male members of the Democratic Leadership grow a set of balls and take on their adversaries like they actually exist.

6 - Repeal DADT.  Really.

7 - Make Marriage Equality a reality in all fifty states.

8 - Simaltaneous power outage of CNN, MSNBC and FOX News along with all the major broadcast networks starting at stardate - 313836.68 and lasting until stardate -313839.76.

9 - Bring back Better Off Ted on a network that will let it be itself.

10 - Civility be a employable position.

If you can help with any of these outrageous and utterly foolish dreams thank you.

A wistful trekkie,

Marie Fairman

It's Time!!

It's time.  I'm nearing my 60th year and I selfishly want something to happen before I...well am 60. That will July 25, 2012. Actually that would be a great day for it to happen.  I mean it's time now but if he can't do it till then that would be okay. No it wouldn't!!! It needs to be said NOW!  No more waiting!  No more capitulating! No more reaching out to others to understand the reality that has been with us since the beginning of existence!  What is it?  What is so important that it can't wait one more day?  

I want the President of the United States to say that he 

supports gay marriage. 

Today would be nice during his weekly YouTube address.  It's in the news this week.  Yeah today would be perfect.

Political suicide you say?  Well his enemies want him dead anyway.  What has he got to lose?  And tell me what have the Democrats got to lose?  Right now they can't take any of the credit for anything good that has happened in the last two years and are seen as responsible for anything bad.  You want people to get up in your grill about stuff you didn't do or do you want to change the conversation?

If President Obama made that statement, I believe it would define and galvanize the Democratic party.  It would show to the rest of the nation and the world that they are the party of true change.  Can you imagine the lift it would bring?  The Democrats wouldn't be afraid of anything!!!

Is this dangerous?  Damn straight it is.  People will want to kill the idea...Literally!!  They've been trying to deny and kill gender variance for ten thousand years and we're still HERE!!!!!!   But what was it, Mr. President, you said in Atlanta this week?  

"And I do want to point out, when you get in your car, when you go forward, what do you do? You put it in “D.” When you want to go back, what do you do? You put it in “R.” " 

Well put it in D!!!  You stating that you unequivocally support gay marriage will move us forward.  We need to hear a President, not a pretender to the Presidency but the actual President say those words.

And I think he wants to do it!

His stand on Prop 8 doesn't make any sense.  It's divisive?  That's why he opposes it?  There's more to it than that.  He can't possibly be opposed to gay marriage.  I'm afraid that the reality is that he is looking at it politically and it doesn't seem to be the right time because there are so many people still opposed on MORAL grounds.

Supporting Equality has been and always will be the moral high ground.  

The President and the Democrats should run to it while they still can get in front of it.  Gay marriage in the United States will be a reality very soon because it is just and it is in our DNA as Americans to ultimately turn to what is just.    

Now this is selfish on my part.  I know I'm going to die someday because I already have.  On the 30th of December in 2007 I had a massive coronary and it's a miracle that I am still here and can look back at the last two and a half years and marvel at what has happened in my life.  If I had died that day, I wouldn't have been backstage at the Kodak when Senators Clinton and Obama walked in together for the California Democrat Debate.  I wouldn't have seen Senator Obama go on to become President.  I wouldn't have seen the Inauguration.  I wouldn't have seen the Steelers win another Superbowl in 2009 and then the SAINTS, the SAINTS!!!! win in 2010!  And I wouldn't have been standing in the Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood, California when it was announced that Prop 8 had been overturned by a very conservative judge.  Talk about miracles! 

Make one more miracle happen Mr. President.  Say "I support gay marriage."  It's time.

GAY PLAYING STRAIGHT

In a recent article written by openly gay columnist Ramin Setoodeh, Mr. Setoodeh asked the question, "Can the public accept gay actors playing straight roles in theatre, television and film?"  He pointed out the Tony nominated performance in Promises, Promises of Sean Hayes and several other actors on TV and film.  Of Mr. Hayes's performance Mr Setoodeh wrote in part, "...his emotions often seem pale to the point of colorlessness...his relationship with his costar Kristin Chenoweth feels more like that of a younger brother than a would-be lover and protector."

Can the public accept gay actors playing straight roles in theatre, television and film?  My answer is a resounding yes. Most gay people have been playing straight in a much tougher venue for several Milena.  Life.  I'm sure Mr. Setoodeh has played this intolerable role and pulled it off quite well.  It is good to live in a time of revelation where many people can feel free to be themselves.  The LGBT community is enjoying the option to live openly as a person with gender variance.  I'm one of them as a transgendered person.  But with that openness comes consequences.  Not just the obvious backlash from the straight community often armed with their few Bible quotations but a more insidious and ultimately destructive force.  The shame of an openly gay person being gay.  I have seen this too many times in my life.  When LGBT individuals stand up and let the world know they are gay, they may find support in the LGBT community and close friends, but that is simply not enough.  

When you announce to the world such a statement you reject all you believed at one point to be true.  You can only live the new lie for so long without it affecting you.  You have stated that you are gay and proud to be so and I do not doubt for one moment that is what you believe.  But loving yourself, after stating this to the world, is hard to do especially when you have been told all your life that you can't.  Repeatedly I have seen gay people create a new persona that is not them but a protective shield from themselves.  When you are in this place of self loathing and self detachment you may say and do things that are destructive not only to yourself but also many others as well.  I fear that Ramin Setoodeh is suffering from this.  He is lashing out not at Sean Hayes or any other gay actor but himself.  Perez Hilton does the same.  Their words and actions are the manifestation of their own denial that they don't love themselves because they are gay and other gay people should suffer the same false notion about themselves.  

First of all, let's getting something straight and I know this to be true. God loves you as you are.  You are created by God as you are and there is nothing that can change that.  Accepting this is impossible for many gay people but it simply is the truth.  Once you know that it is true it doesn't matter what anyone says or does. You are allowed finally to love yourself.  Do you have to find a faith community to have this realization?  No. But you do need some people that can represent all orientations, station and status to reflect this for you to see your own worth.

Gay actors playing straight roles has been going on for the same time as gay people playing straight in real life.  I can't tell you how many thousands of times I have had to endure straight actors playing straight characters supposedly hopelessly and passionately in love with each other and simply failing with every syllable, kiss, embrace and other nuance of their lifeless interpretations.  As a director I have likewise known that one or both actors are gay and they have been viscerally real in their portrayals as straight lovers.  Perhaps the problem for Mr. Sedooteh is that knowing some performer is gay and  not being able to allow himself to see them as anything but gay.  That is sad but this will pass.

One of the magic qualities of performance, be it on stage, TV or film or whatever medium is coming, is that we as a audience watch it with our own prejudices and pre-concieved notions.  That contributes to our enjoying or being repulsed by it.  That's not going to go away or should it.  But when we allow ourselves to suspend disbelief and let ourselves get lost in the fiction that enfolds in front of us we can be rewarded with enchantment.  That alchemy is what elevates the rare performance to the exalted level of art.  

At some point (perhaps a near future generation) a child will know from the very moment of their own consciousness that they are what God has made and it is good.  We all will reflexively honor and respect this even in ourselves.  We must hasten that day.  Till then we need to get lost in the fiction.


With hope for healing in us all,


Marie Fairman

My First Blog Ever

Hello World! This is Michael Marie and this is my first entry to my blog. I will use this blog to give a more up to date accounting of my transition from the man that I have been for the last few decades to the woman I am becoming. It will also be a place where I can share my feelings and my thoughts about the state of politics, culture and religion and how it affects me and the GLBT community of which I now an a part of. It is my hope to help change the circumstance of that community and the greater community with which it integrates on a daily basis. Many truths have been revealed to meet in the last 2 1/2 years of Hormone Replacement Therapy. One of them is the great need for the transgendered folk to know that they are loved by God who created all of us in God's image and for everyone who doesn't believe that to help them realize this profound truth. I will dedicate my life to changing the hearts and minds of people to let them know that when they look at a transgendered person they are looking at one God's most precious children. Visit my website michaelmarie.com for a deeper explanation on this and other topics. And as the spirit moves me I will share my thoughts with all of you.

Thanks and Much Love to you all for Love is the only thing that truly changes the world.

Michael Marie