Rita Hester walked, talked, breathed, laughed, and cried. In other words she was a person. Standing at 6′2 (or 6′3″ by some accounts) she was one tall drink of water. Rita was also transgendered. On November 28, 1998, she was brutally  stabbed causing her to go into cardiac arrest and later die. Rita was out as transgendered to all who knew her.  To this day no one is sure of the motive. As there was nothing stolen, it certainly wasn’t robbery. It was, likely, a hate crime. And Rita’s murderer still walks the streets.

While I didn’t know Rita personally, I will think about her today and hope that one day soon all hate will vanish from the earth.

May it be so.

I’ve made the mistake and learned from it. Never will I become emotionally entangled with a man who orders well drinks, doesn’t eat grits, and to whom the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” is foreign. RACK had better be the adjective before sub, and he can’t have margarine in the house.

Okay, so I’m back to being completely picky — wanting my custom fit in an off-the-rack world. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. In a run of the mill fuck puppet, I don’t care. He’s just got to appeal to me for a short time, but a true sub has to have so much more.

Any oaf can order a martini, but it takes a man of taste to know that a Tanqueray dirty is something far removed from a Citadelle (clean).  Keep them seperate, Babycakes, or they’ll start fighting. And oddly enough there’s not room for vermouth in either of them.

And to get things completely, er, straight, you have to know more than Wolves are much cooler than ‘Pires. You need to be able to talk about why. Be a complete slut in my bed and an ice prince in public. Yep, Jack’s a man on a mission again. Look out.

The performance of Engelbert Humperkinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, was good but not what I expected. I know this opera quite well. As I child I had it on an LP and would listen to it for over and over on the big console stereo. I could sing along. Both my record and the today’s performance were in English — but different translations. It was also the first time I’ve seen it. While the orchestration was familiar, the libretto was far from what I knew. And it’s been at least twenty-five years since I listened to the opera. So today sitting in the opera house was like revisiting an old friend who’s changed over time – neither for better nor worse. Was I pleased? Of course. Would I go again? I’m not sure.

Last night I watched Third Man Out. I highly recommend it if you’re a fan of film noir. The main characters kept drinking these fabulous looking martinis. While I had more than enough gin in the house to shake up a drink, I really wanted one delivered to me from the hands of a professional. After the opera, I put my MP3 player on, did my best fag walk down 4th Street, and sat in my favorite bar stool at my favorite third place. In no time, a dirty Tanqueray martini was sitting in from of me. It was cold, and salty, and had the distinctive three olives. I paired it with a dinner of pot roast and mashed potatoes. Very nice. And there was some pretty good conversation with the bar master as well. At one point, I pointed out that there was a guy at the other end of the bar. The bloke didn’t want a drink or a meal. We just looked at him. “That’s a good way to get shot around here,” the bar master said. It was just about closing time, so you tend to wonder. Turns out that the guy just wanted to get in out of the cold. “I’d have bought him a drink or a meal,” I said to the barmaster. “I didn’t even think to just offer him a Coke,” the barmaster said.

I’ve also discovered the herbal teas at Starbucks. It’s become a ritual to go in and get a cup. I could just buy a box at make it at home — like I do the coffee. I bring it home to drink anyway. I guess that I just  like the atmosphere.

Anytime you can put on tweed trousers and a chenille sweater, it’s going to be a good day.

Please read about the people being memoralized on this Transgender Day of Remembrance.

As we approach the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I wanted to put up the Transgender Pride Flag to be in solidarity to our brothers and sisters in the Trans Community. While I’m glad people remember and memorialize those who have been killed due to transphobia, I am appalled by those who perpetrate such heinous acts against the transgendered. As I’ve said before, I have no desire to transition, but I’m a strong supporter for those who do.

I’ll talk more about Transgender Day of  Remembrance  later this week, and I will remember Rita as later in the month.