Tag: Myself

Yesterday morning was the parade portion of Boise Pride 2023. Every year for the past five years, we’ve attended our local Pride event. We attended our first one right after my daughter Avery came out as a lesbian, shortly before her 13th birthday. I’ve supported the LGBTQ community f...

I was planning a dream surprise party. For my ex’s 40th. (When I still loved him, of course). I’ll call him Darren. I was super excited! And STRESSED. There was sooooooo much to organize. I had to find a way of covertly arranging all the activities I loathed. Activities he happened to...

Have you ever wondered why people are so different from each other? Why do they have different moral judgments and values? Why do they have different habits and preferences? Why do they have different ways of enjoying life? I have always believed that people choose to be who they are and that eve...

After all, I drove him to the bookstore and put a copy of Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying in my father’s hands. And I knew why he wanted it. But, I believe in free choice. Dad lost most of his vision to a tumor and his ...

When I was nineteen I boarded a plane for Los Angeles without a plan. I didn’t know where I was going to live, or work, and I didn’t know anyone in LA. Determined to be an actress in films, naive to all that could go wrong, I climbed into a cab at LAX and told the driver to take me to th...

I have tried to shove my feet in others’ Jimmy Choos. They are uncomfortable and based only on making a good impression and keeping up with appearances. I have worn others’ old, sweaty running shoes with holes in the soles that somebody should have discarded years ago, like the secrets t...

An ocean of blue and a world of green. Spread across the Earth’s precious skin were black rugged rocks seasoned like an adornment of jewels. The land ended at the cliff and a garnish of coconut trees spread across small crevices and cracks. There was only water as far as my eyes could see and ...

It wasn’t my plan to leave though. My plan was to stay by your side for as long as it takes. My plan was to grow old with you and take my last breath with you. But then I looked at myself and my life and quite frankly, I didn’t like what I saw. I glanced in the mirror and I saw a f...

I spent the entire first half of my life trying. I tried so hard to be the best child, best student, the perfect wife, perfect mother. Being a parent is not easy — children expect you to accept anything they come up with and carry any load. When they’re young, I think that’s how...

We’ve all been there — you plan on just a short 15-minute shut-eye because you have so much you still have to do, … but the next thing you know, hours have gone by!  At first, I was frustrated that I had slept so long and missed out on getting things done. The dirty dishes...

Iam a chronic procrastinator. Despite writing numerous articles on productivity and self-improvement, I still identify as a procrastinator. When it comes to doing stuff that requires effort, I tend to postpone and delay them and spend time doing things that aren’t particularly productive. ...

Hatching is an artistic technique used in Western art. In French, it is named hachure, which is a technique artists use to create tonal or shading of the drawings. Sometimes, hatching techniques apply to painting or scribing as well. So, what hatching exactly is? By definition, Hatch...

This tutorial describes how I used DreamBooth from Google Research’s paper DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation. To train a Generative AI model able to create images of myself. The paper presents itself like this: It&r...

In photography, the little reflections in someone’s eyes are called catch-lights; without them, the eyes can look dull and uninviting. Even if they’re small, catch-lights can breathe life into a portrait. Which image do you prefer? I removed the catch-lights in Photoshop on the...

I arrived here in the midst of a traumatic and healing journey, completely unaware of what would happen next. Winters were harsh. I wasn’t sure if I would give up or if Berlin would give up on me. Everything appeared alien, new, and strange. Every day, I explored the city with a childlike c...

I did not want to use my vacation time to recover from surgery, but I also did not want to lose the vacation altogether. One of the worst things about this surgery, is that it will be a month after surgery before I can go in the water again. Since hot tubbing and swimming are two of my most favorite...

I want to share a brief story of what happened last night in Dublin. It began with me being hungry — and I am often hungry. I pulled up the Happy Cow app on my phone, which I’ve been using to find vegan restaurants in the places I’ve visited. While it doesn’t work g...

One of the most impactful lessons I learned was the power of embracing change. Moving to a new country was not easy, but I soon realized that the key to thriving in a new environment was to embrace change with open arms. As the saying goes, “Change is the only constant in life.” I embrac...

My plan B was to buy some disposable adult nappies. Don’t laugh. They are the best invention since Scottish toasties which is what I’m having for breakfast right now. Filled with haggis, caramelised onion chutney and matured cheddar cheese. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did go to t...

I have been on this strange feminine journey for my entire life. Most of the time I had no idea as to why or how this happened. I’ve always been attracted to females, so this didn’t make any sense to me. I like so many others had this idea in my head that in order to be a transsexual wom...

autism meant that I felt extremely uncomfortable with numerous sensory inputs causing me to self harm from a young age. I would bite my hands, hit myself, and eventually started cutting myself to deal with the overwhelm my body was experiencing. On top of my sensory difficulties, my body was also...

I’m trans, and so are my adult kids. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? I hesitate to talk about my family. Someone might decide I made them trans, by pressure or example. Bigots in redder states might use us to fuel their crusade to remove trans kids from their homes. I wonder if admitting...

Learning German on my own was a big adventure. At first, it seemed a bit scary, but I found some simple ways that really worked for me. I want to share these steps with you, hoping they’ll make your journey to learning German a bit easier and more fun. 1. Setting Small Goals  I star...