The Josie Pages

Field Notes In/On Transition “All My Empty Dresses: Memoir Of a Strawgirl” Is Live! So, if you have been following this blog, you know I was nervously preparing my Indiegogo campaign to raise some money to help me live while finish writing and editing my memoir. Well, as of Wednesday, June 24th, I am doing just that. The first day was really successful, and a nice trickle since. I don’t have a big publicity machine, nor am I going to hire one or any of the really sketchy looking companies that say they will magically reach 100,000 people if you give them a couple hundred bucks. Here's the link below, to my campaign. I made what I think is a fun dorky ‘pitch video.’ I have gotten tons of shares of my campaign as well as what I think is a decent start for someone with no fame to speak of, but lots of good friends. All My Empty Dresses: Memoirs Of A Strawgirl This was not easy for me to do, nor keep doing. I am so nervous about asking people to help m...

Field Notes In/On Transition Kludging through life one clump at a time I completely missed doing a transition blog post in May. I don’t think I have gone so long without posting something. I did do a few movie and comic book reviews on my media review blog. I guess I was constantly saying, ‘tomorrow’, or after this certain event happens, then i will have more to write about, etc, et al. All the things that I detailed as coming up, in my end of april entry, about getting my crowd funded memoir going have happened, except I haven’t quite launched yet. the budget is pretty much worked out, and I think pretty reasonable, even if it seems like a lot of money, it’s actually not. One of the biggest upsides of self publishing in the 21st century and using the print on demand model is that you don’t have to do a humongous print run, and thus can save a lot of cash.You only print as many books as you need to fulfill the orders from the crowd funding perks. All my items for perks, ...

Field Notes In/On Transition Not Just Another Transgender Memoir? So, the job hunt thing, is morphing into something a bit more in line with what I actually want to do with my life, which is to become more committed to my own projects and try and still try to make a bit of money on the side to support doing that, until hopefully, the writing and the art come to something more than covering the costs of self publishing, or submitting to anthologies, and contests. I was doing a one day a week clerical job, but once I cleared up a lot of stuff that was late getting done, it turned into less than one day a week, and eventually just petered out. It was all very amicable though. So I feel good about it, as right after posting about this event on Facebook last week, a friend sent me a link to a local extras, or as they say, these days ‘background performer’. It does sound more professional than extra, and some people do pretty good at it.  So why not, it has the flexibil...

Field Notes In/On Transition Pushing Forward, Not Against I am trying to get more blogging done, and the easiest way for me to do so has been to set myself some movies to watch, and some reviews to write. So, all this week I have been watching quirky/obscure/not so obscure 1970’s Sci Fi films. You can read all the reviews from my ongoing solo blog film fest that I am calling “Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz!” But since I had choir last night, I wasn’t up to staying up late again and squeezing in a movie. I will come back to choir, which as you know is one of my anchors right now. I am so thankful I took that out of my comfort zone step of joining The Femme City Choir in the fall last year. In my last few posts, I talked about my struggles looking for work, and the things that keep me from going off the deep end of depression: my friends & family, my supports, my community. I have been trying to not go out for dinner quite as often and cook more at home. Even though...

Field Notes In/On Transition. Happy 'Transition Day' to Me! The spring equinox or thereabouts is the anniversary of my ‘officially starting my transition’... by that I mean, (and this is my personal start date, for my own reasons) the day that I started to take anti-androgens to block testosterone, as well as the day that I changed my name on facebook, as well as starting to send out forms, and enquire how to get the legal ball rolling on the legal name change. I also ‘came out’ to all my family and friends, close people in private first, then everyone at once... after a month or so I started this blog. I almost wince at the photos from a time not that long ago (2012) But that to me seems like a lifetime ago. I constantly have to stop myself from adding years to the seemingly endless amount of times that I have to answer the “so how long have you been transitioning?” question. Does it really matter? I keep saying “um 4 or 5 years, I think,” and try vainly to c...

Field Notes In/On Transition Last Night (Every Night) a Choir changed my life. Seriously, last time I posted in January, I chose the one day that month when I was feeling  up against it, and kind of lost, despite all the positive things I had started doing for myself, and the great support I was getting from my friends. ( Photography by RDM Photography And Art) What I really wanted to post about, was the great community I feel like I have become a part of with my choir that I joined in the fall, and the quiet determination that I was able to muster as my EI was running out with no job prospects on the horizon. Each week going to choir and learning to sing with others has given me focus and the joy of meeting and getting to know so many diverse, yet like minded folks who are in the choir. My choir is The Femme City Choir, and wow, we kick a lot of choral butt. It’s also the most proactive group of folks I have ever been involved with i...

Field Notes In/On Transition Long Time No Blog I’ve been trying to get together my thoughts to write an update for at least a month now. The holiday season for me is like for many, usually kind of a low ebb season. But this year I made a point everyday to try and find some people to spend time with, to do things ( a lot of it was eating and drinking) with people and actually going out to events invited to, instead of staying home thinking and fretting about things, wishing that I was strong enough to participate. It really made my holiday season great, having that mindset every day. The key was that every day I chose to go see some people, or follow up on open invites. A few days I stayed home and left off the makeup, and had some nice low stress solo time, listening to music (mostly for choir practice) binging some TV (Broad City), and playing some video games (Fallout New Vegas). I managed to get just the right staggering of socializing, and non-socializing that I s...