SLiPchick's Virtual Shadows

My favorite movie is The Fisher King , directed by Terry Gilliam . For anyone not familiar with the film, a superb synopsis and analysis of the plot and themes are to be found here (spoiler alerts). Basically it's a film about Sin and Grace and I've been having an extended dialog with Penelope about precisely those topics of late. I have a problem with the notion of Sin as it's typically formulated, as disobedience to a deity, as "missing the mark". Many of the behaviors that constitute "sin" in many vocabularies (sex, drugs, rock and roll,...) are, at worst, minor taboos if not overt pleasures to be taken in appropriately moderate doses. Regardless of that the notion retains a compelling quality. There's a sense of the erotic, the forbidden, the transgressive that it expresses; a violation of some "established order". This has some psycho-emotional (archetypal?) resonance that I'm still trying to tease out, there's clearl

I came across a major theme of my life a while back, I'll even say it may be the foundation of my "contract" for this earthly incarnation (if it makes sense to talk about things in that fashion). I think I came here with a deep sense that I don't belong here . That can be thought of in a number of senses, and has many implications across my life. From my therapy with Kitty, I've come to know a theme of my life is that I didn't come here to "fit in". That dovetails rather well with not belonging . Not belonging feels very much like how my love life has evolved and the themes of some of my most poignant "theme songs" ( Slip Kid , Take the Long Way Home , Don't Look Back ). I was born into so many peculiarities: gay parents, growing up and living in New Orleans (a crazy place to call home, I now realize), being transgender (though not recognizing myself explicitly as such for much of my life). Maybe it was my challenge to see wh

I haven't posted anything in a while. I have no excuse really. Saying "I've been busy." is a cop out. Closer to the truth is that I've allowed myself to become badly distracted and preoccupied by other things. Penelope has repeatedly cautioned me about this. And I'm prone to slipping into other activities that become time and attention sinks and lose myself and what's important. I'd purposely avoided getting involved in social media much beyond email, maintaining a minimal professional presence on LinkedIn, and blogging precisely because of the apparent tendency for them to become time wasters. Sometimes it's about a quick "fix" or more frequent or explicit feedback. Case in point:  When I started exploring my transition and relocating to North Carolina I discovered Pinterest and Tumblr and found I readily lost myself there to where I had to limit my time involved with them pretty severely. When I actually got to NC I reconnecte