"If there is one thing that I have learned from all I've been through, it's that you only regret the things that you *didn't* do"

So it's Christmas Day and I'm spending it (by choice) alone; and as I've mentioned previously, it isn't my favourite day of the year. However, as a little treat, I decided earlier in the week that I would spend it by having a long walk in the New Forest and then watch the newly-released four hour extended cut of "The Return of the King" on DVD. So, Wednesday evening when I bought my groceries for the weekend, I picked up a copy of the DVD.

I'm a sucker for the process of film-making; the minutiae of how a Director's vision is translated into what appears on the screen. The extended editions of the three "Lord of the Rings" films are a treat for this, as each comes with two full DVDs of additional features covering just such detail. So, while planning to watch the film itself today, between Wednesday evening and this morning I have watched the extra features. And, right at the end of the last disk is a feature about Cameron Duncan, a young New Zealand film maker whom Peter Jackson (Director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of films) had known. I say "had known", for Cameron Duncan has now died from cancer at a tragically young age.

Now, I think it's a tragedy that anybody dies young; but what struck me so much about this feature (and Cameron's short films and TV advertisements which are included on the DVD) is just how insightful a person Cameron obviously was. I am not the slightest bit ashamed to say that I have cried a bucket in the last hour, during and after watching this documentary piece about him, and most particularly after watching those examples of his work. I certainly wasn't expecting this on this particular Christmas Day; what a welcome circumstance.

The last of the short films, called "Strike Zone" (made just weeks before he died) reflects his absolute love of the sport of softball, and includes the line which is the title of this post. I cannot agree more strongly with that line. Whenever I die, I do not want to die burdened with such regret; and I genuinely feel that, having resolved to pursue the path of social, surgical and legal transition to womanhood (for right and valid reasons) at this moment in time I could die without regret. Was I expecting to realise that today? No. A young New Zealand film maker has today given me a gift of realisation which I resolve to honour. I spent £23.99 on Wednesday evening to buy hours of viewing pleasure which I will watch repeatedly over the months and years to come; and in the process I bought a piece of emotional insight that is worth many more times the purchase price. I haven't even watched the main film yet and I feel enriched by the purchase.

In the final line of Strikezone Cameron says: "The one thing I don't want to be is to be forgotten and I think I've done a pretty good job of that."

[Via the New Zealand Herald]

Somehow I think you've left your mark, Cameron; certainly on me. Rest in peace.

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A spot of good (I think) personal news

In a previous post I mentioned that my liver function tests were giving my GP mild cause for concern, to the extent that he wanted to postpone my move to the maximum dosage of Ethinylestradiol. Well, two months on, the latest tests show that the liver function tests have stabilised so that it is safe to try the increase. Which will begin today.

So long as the tests don't show an increase to dangerous levels next time, and a stabilised level the time after, then I should remain at this dosage until after surgery. I asked my GP if there were any symptoms that I might notice if things were heading towards the red zone; he said "markedly increased lethargy". Well, given my recent insomniac entertainments, that shouldn't prove too hard to spot! ;-)

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Oooops... Domain name registration had expired...

So, in the past I've recommended that people access this blog through the domain name http://yakushitsu.co.uk (rather than through the blogspot.com URL) primarily because I always intended to move this blog to run under Radio Userland software and would just redirect the domain name when I had performed the migration... well, it probably would have been a good idea if I had remembered to renew the domain name registration; which has now expired and been suspended... what an idiot. Anyway, I've now renewed it and it should be active again "within 48 hours"; which, at this time of year, could mean anything! :-( Entirely my fault, and I apologise to anyone who's had problems accessing this blog in the last week or so.

Anyway, now I've got some spare time over Christmas, I intend to do the migration; but not until the domain name works again. Just exactly how stupid do I feel? ;-)

Update 25 December 2004 08:38 GMT - yakushitsu.co.uk lives again! :-) Much respect to easily.co.uk (the domain name registrar) for sorting out my muck-up, and well inside 24 hours at that.

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Season's Greetings

I'm not a big fan of this time of year, to be honest; for a variety of reasons. Because I'm not a Christian, it has no religious significance for me. Because I'm not motivated by material things, I find the rampant orgy of commercialism which abounds at this time of year, frankly, disgusting. Because I absolutely respect the right of others to hold whatever religious beliefs they choose, I feel ashamed at what the society I live in has turned this season into (even bearing in mind the point of view which says that the timing and motivation of this season has more to do with pagan celebrations such as Yule and Saturnalia than it does with alleged events of two millennia ago). I have no happy memories of childhood Christmases; and vivid memories of particularly unpleasant personal events which have occurred at this time of year, especially in adult life. So, all told, this period is a dead loss for me.

I don't like being a wet blanket around others who are more enamoured of the occasion than I am, and so I deflect all invitations to spend it with others. However, I know that many people derive a great deal of pleasure and fulfilment from it; and to all of you, whatever your personal views of this time of year, I wish the very best of season's greetings.

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This is why I like audio so much

One reason why I like listening to podcasts by other people is that occasionally you trip over something that really touches you, that makes you stop and think. IT Conversations has been going for about three years now, and the title is misleading, because the content isn't just about IT. As with this show. At this time of year, more than any other, download it, listen to it, and think about it, I urge you. Barry Schwartz has absolutely nailed the problems of excessive choice, in my opinion. And, judging by the gales of laughter from the audience as he was talking, he's a pretty entertaining presenter.

I subscribe to the IT Conversations' RSS feed in my news aggregator, RSS Bandit; the feed describes each new show as it's added, I add the ones that sound interesting to my personal queue, and then iPodder downloads them for me next time it runs. It's a slick arrangement, and Doug Kaye (who runs IT Conversations) has some exceptionally good ideas in the area of user-customisation of this service that I'm following with interest.

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The joy of rebuilding...

... laptops, that is! ;-) I've spent the last couple of days moving my stuff from one laptop to another, something I seem to do quite regularly, and have got it down to a fine art now. Actually, the *transferring* is pretty straightforward; I backup the \Documents and Settings\username directory on the old laptop, add my domain account to the new laptop, restore the backup on top of it while logged on as a different local administrator on the new laptop, making sure to overwrite every file, and that's pretty much that. No, the time-consuming part is installing all of the applications (particularly Visual Studio .NET 2003 - scratch a couple of hours to install *that* puppy). Still, all done now.

One thing I really love about most well-behaved Windows applications (and which seems to characterises all those I use) is the way they store user-specific configuration in the XP user profile, so that I can restore that user profile on a new laptop (with settings related to apps that aren't installed on that laptop) and the new system doesn't crash (well, why should it?); yet as soon as I install the apps, they're immediately configured with my settings from the old laptop. That is just what I would want, and I'm sure it wasn't always as easy as that.

So, I have a nice and nippy new environment, in that virgin XP-starts-up-in-a-gladsome-twinkling-of-an-eye state. I only have the apps I currently use installed (and I've been polite enough to remove the ones I'd installed from the old laptop, so its new owner doesn't have to) and it's configured *just so*; inevitably I will have forgotten to transfer some files that weren't in the \Documents and Settings\username directory on the old laptop (I usually forget *something*). But it rarely matters; once it's gone, it's gone. Once I've added the new user's domain account to the old laptop, I'll log in as local administrator, remove *my* domain user, delete my \Documents and Settings\username directory, and that's that. Ideally, the new user would wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch (or restore a pre-built image) but I don't think this particular user will be in the market for that.

Now, if only my new laptop were pink... ;-)

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VoiceOver Session Three - Insomnia? We Don't Need No Steenking Insomnia

Or, if I'm awake at 4 am in the morning, then I don't see why you shouldn't be too! ;-) So, here's a gentle tune to help you shake the sleep from your eyes... In this session: "Jonestown Mind" by The Almighty - included here from the CD "World of Noise", given away free with Q Magazine, May 1995. Download file here (MP3, 2.91 MB, 6 minutes 21 seconds). You might want to keep your hand near the volume dial...

Update 06.02 am - the download is broken... :-( have to find some more hosting space...

Update 16.14 on 20 December 2004... well, done, ISP chaps, for finally working out that, yes, it really isn't *that* hard to enable my paid-for space... sheesh.

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Maybe I'm in mourning

Last week was, for me, one of those intensely frustrating (and ultimately, upsetting) weeks. It began well enough; I had enormous fun recording my first podcast on the Sunday. Monday evening I attended my first session of speech therapy (which went well, I thought). Tuesday I was finally able to spend some time using some code that my colleague Ryan had created from a prototype I'd put together a while back, and applied it to the new features I've been prototyping for the last few weeks. Sensing that the two combined heralded good news for the company, we gathered together whoever was in the office and gave an impromptu demonstration, and I think it's fair to say that the lights went on for most of the audience; giving me the kind of feeling that embodies what I love about the job that I do. Add in my first appearance in someone else's podcast and a lovely email from Lee Ann Westover of The Lascivious Biddies (giving me permission to use part of one of their songs as the "intro and outro" music to my podcast... the week was really humming! And then, around lunchtime on Wednesday, the metaphorical fog rolled in...

... and it was as if none of the above had happened. I entered a few days of perpetual "blonde moments" in which I could hardly string two thoughts together, let alone two sentences, with a mood as dark as night. Things that had been professionally simple just days ago were now beyond me once again. My memory started playing up again. All in all, not a lot of fun. And, feeling as low as I did, I realised that attending my firm's Christmas dinner on Friday night was really not an option. Far from enjoying the occasion, it was likely to see me as miserable as sin and dampening others fun. This mood didn't really lift until Sunday afternoon.

Now, I've dealt with the dubious pleasures of mood swings for years; particularly when I was much more affected by Depression, they were pretty much a constant companion. Recently, though, their pattern and nature has changed. Since beginning my social transition to womanhood, I genuinely feel that the kind of depressive feelings I used to get have almost completely disappeared... to be replaced by an intense frustration that I am now sure stems from the realisation that my ability to use the professional skills I have is changing. More accurately, diminishing.

Let me put that in context; it's not that I can't do what I used to. Instead, it's that I can't do what I used to as well as *I* remember I used to. I'd hoped that this was going to prove a temporary challenge, particularly as it only really started to be an issue shortly after I started taking hormones; I was hoping it was a side-effect of the sudden changes in my body's chemistry. But sadly, I now think that may have been something of a red herring. I can't shake the notion (the resignation, almost) that this is how it is going to be from now on. And that leaves me with the reality that every time I use my professional skills in a similar area to that which I used to I feel intensely frustrated (to put it mildly) even if those around me (colleagues and peers) can't see an issue.

Basically, I think I'm just getting old! ;-) Maybe that's all it is. But the sense of loss I feel at this sensation of no longer being able to apply my skills in the way I used to, I can really only describe as akin to mourning. It sucks.

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RE: This evening after the party I went out(...)

So, having waxed lyrical about Douglas Coupland's writing in a previous post, I read this in Dave Winer's Scripting News

... They're software people who totally care about users, and are doing new things that people can really relate to. This, by the way, is the philosophy so beautifully expressed in Douglas Coupland's masterpiece, Microserfs. The concept of application software as a worthwhile end, the wierdness of nerd culture, the concept of 1.0.

[Via Scripting News]

If you still haven't read any of Microserfs, or indeed anything by Coupland, there's a sizable chunk from the book online at that link. Grab yourself a coffee, sit back and enjoy for a while.

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VoiceOver Session Two

Now online (MP3, 8.6 MB, 18 mins 50 secs). Only two songs this time; one a 90 second excerpt of "The Walking" by Jane Siberry, the other a seven minute edit of "Vidrar vel til Loftarasa" by Sigur Ros; both worth every second! ;-)

Production notes (HTML, OPML)

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VoiceOver Session One

Now online (MP3, 10.6 MB, 23 mins 12 secs). This is my first public attempt at "speech and music", so listener beware! ;-) I will be writing up some programme notes (with links to web sites and background information) in a day or so. Enjoy! All comments and feedback welcome, either as comments to this post, or as voice attachments emailed to koanbremner (at) gmail (dot) com.

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"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"

That was the theme of a series of television advertisements I saw a few months ago; I believe they were for the Emirates airline. In the one I particularly remember, I interpreted the story as being about two African men, on a business trip to some European city in winter, in their hotel room. They look out of the window and see that snow is falling heavily. Depending on your perspective, that might signal a trip to the slopes for some skiing or snowboarding, or a sense of dread at the thought of a long and difficult commute home. But if you've never seen snow before... the two men run to the hotel lobby, walk embarassedly past the reception desk, and then run outside and savour the simple joy of feeling snowflakes fall on their faces for the first time; and the child-like pleasure of throwing snowballs at each other. Such a simple thing, yet (for me) such a profound image.

A few weeks after I first saw that advert, I was talking with a friend on the telephone. David was excitedly telling me about the upcoming family holiday to Florida, and all that he was planning. One of the activities that he was most excited about was the prospect of hiring a Harley Davidson motorcycle and riding with the elder of his two young sons down to Cape Canaveral, for a memorable piece of father-and-son bonding. As we spoke, he referred to that same advertisement; this would be a time when he and Niall were doing something, together, for the first time.

As a Buddhist, I believe wholeheartedly in living "in the moment"; for now is all we have. The past is gone (except as a memory) and the future not yet here; what I have is a succession of "now's" and if I do not savour each of those while I have them, then I am the loser. So I try to remember the joy of doing something for the first time; recalling those moments from the past, and consciously looking for new opportunities to experience that feeling. Yesterday was one of those days, and one I hope that I shall long remember; for I took the opportunity to actively seek a new experience, which I found deeply rewarding (and enjoyable!)... and quite unexpectedly experienced something else that was so profound I'm still welling up with tears as I recall it.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to be a participant in an upcoming television documentary series examining a wide spectrum of experiences of people contemplating or undergoing social transition and gender reassignment surgery, as well as those who completed that journey in the past. For myself, I don't feel that I have anything particularly remarkable to say; but if someone else holds a different opinion, that is their right. Even as recently as a few months ago, I would not have considered doing something so public; for all that I am a confident, outgoing person, I'm also a very private person, who doesn't readily open up to others about my inner feelings. Which is probably the residual effect of keeping the reality of what I was hidden inside for so many years, beneath an outward veneer of masculinity. Recently, I realised that one of the reasons my own journey has been so painful and so long is that I had only the stereotypical images of what being "a transsexual" meant, as portrayed by the newspaper stories I had read in the past, and the sensationalist and salacious television and film portrayals I recall. The recurrent themes of rejection by family and friends, discrimination in the workplace, and the constant threat and all-too-often reality of physical violence, even fatal violence, did not exactly fill me with a sense of optimism about what lay ahead. I'm an ordinary person, trying to live an ordinary life, with (I like to think) some degree of success; if I had seen even just one or two portrayals of transgendered people in *that* light ten years ago, even five years ago, my journey to here could have been so much less traumatic.

Realising that, I feel an obligation to at least try to portray the positive aspects of my own experience, which far outweigh the negative, while acknowledging those negatives. Which is partly why I started writing this blog; and why I volunteered for the documentary series (and I do mean "volunteer"; no-one has coerced me into taking part, nor am I being paid for taking part). Indeed, there's no guarantee that I'll even appear in any of the eventual programmes.

Back to yesterday. Two of the crew (one of the directors and a researcher) came down to interview me at my home. They were here for nearly six hours in total (I certainly didn't envy them their drive home afterwards; I doubt if they'd had the good sense to stock up on some back episodes of Daily Source Code or Acts of Volition Radio for the journey, for example!) It is important to me that a subject like this be treated with sensitivity and respect (as well as honesty and reality) by a documentary, and I was reassured by the demeanour and attitudes of David and Willow. I was also glad that my partner Kim was there when they arrived, partly because she is a very astute judge of character, and partly because it would be difficult to talk fully about my experiences without being able to talk fully about her role; if she had felt uncomfortable, I would not have proceeded. As it was, we both warmed to them instantly, and I like to think we all had a lot of laughs as we tucked into sandwiches before they brought a veritable mountain of lights, cameras and sound recording gear into the flat. (I smiled at the thought that the other tenants where I live might have thought we were shooting a porn film!) Anyhoo.. I was fascinated by the whole process (I always have been fascinated by the mechanics of film and video production and editing) and the filming process was not at all scary or intimidating. I talked, as I have on many previous occasions, about what had happened and is happening in my life, and something about my hopes and aspirations for the future. If the final results are screened, you can watch them there; and if they don't get screened, well, I'll interpret that as an editorial decision that my ramblings were so much guff and wind, and therefore I'll save you the tedium of regurgitating them here! ;-)

So I took part in something I never had before, and I felt really pleased that I had put myself in the position of being able to do that. A perfect day, in fact. As they dismantled their gear and I started putting my own belongings back into the disorder they had originally been in, we discussed other shots that might be used at a later date; especially of me riding my (t)rusty Cruella. We loaded up their van, and I said goodbye to them in the entrance hall to the house where I rent a flat.

Now here's the thing; I don't want to embarrass David by what I write here. I don't actually think there's anything he should be embarrassed *about*. As we said goodbye, I shook his hand; and he leaned over and kissed my cheek in goodbye. Willow gave me a big hug, and off they went. Nothing particularly note-worthy... except to me. All David had done was said goodbye to me, as he would say goodbye to any woman.

He had treated me like a woman.

If you strip away all of the mechanics of the process of gender reassignment; the legislative and administrative hassles, the pain, inconvenience and risk of the surgical procedures, the fear and reality of discrimination and violence... I cannot speak for anyone else, but I can say that all I seek from the path that I am on is the chance to live my life as the woman I am. I don't care if anyone knows that I was born with male genitalia (which is why I'm not frightened to write quite openly, using my real name, about my experiences); that is an irrelevance, a temporary inconvenience, and will at some point become no more than a memory (and one I won't linger on). What I *will* remember... and for a long time... is how I felt when I realised that I had been treated like a woman by someone I had never met before.

Had I not volunteered for this documentary, I would not have felt that feeling yesterday. Whatever might happen if or when my contribution to the documentary series is aired, I have already been repaid many times over for my efforts.

I've been asked on more than one occasion, "what do you mean by 'living in the moment'?" Recognising the significance, to me, of what was probably an unconscious polite gesture; *that's* living in the moment.

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Podcasting, baby! :-)

Time to stop talking, and start... er... talking... I've pretty much figured out how to do this now, so I'm going to be podcasting shows with the working title of "VoiceOver". I've recorded a short introductory MP3 (4 minutes 44 seconds, 2MB) which I think of as a manifesto... basically, it gives a bit of background on why I'm going to be podcasting, and specifically what I *won't* be talking about.

So long as I haven't fouled up, the file above appears as an enclosure in the RSS feed for this blog Although you can still download and listen to the manifesto by clicking on the above link, I've decided to remove it from the RSS feed for the podcast, so that people who decide to download all of the sessions won't automatically hear it (but each session's show notes will include a pointer to it); which means that if you use an enclosure-aware aggregator or an application like iPodder, then by pointing it at the feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnalysisservicesAndSelf URL, the manifesto (and all of the subsequent podcasts) will be automatically downloaded to your system, as if by technology.

I'll leave it at that for a couple of days, so I can iron out any bugs or issues with the feed (hopefully none) and put the first podcast proper up on Saturday. It'll be a bit of a musical extravaganza... muahahaha!

One thing that I forgot to include in the manifesto was an explanation for the name, VoiceOver; well, partly because I'm going to be doing a voice-over of things that interest me, such as music; but primarily because I'm *over* and *done* with the voice I've got, will be starting speech and language therapy to change it on Monday, and want to record the change in my voice over time. So, VoiceOver... hopefully no-one else is already using that name, but I'll use something else if that's the case.

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