The storm, and the calm.

Yesterday was one of those days you just need to get thru.  I was up at 3, had both wet dogs in the truck and on the road by 4, long wet rainy drive to Raleigh but made my 9am meeting, dogs stuck in the truck, pouring, and finally letting up after work.  Wet, soggy, cold. damp - it was just one of those "yuck" days where it's nice to sit in front of a fire or go to the movies all day long.

The pups really didn't seem to mind, tho....Road warriors just like me.  These dogs are troopers, and they've experienced these things before so they've learned to take things in stride.

With yesterday's soaking rains, this became the wettest February on record in Charleston (story here).  We've had well over ten inches of the wet stuff.  I'm interested to see how that affects our spring, as spring blooms last year happened way in advance of the year before.  I remember a time, living in AZ, when we'd average 4 inches of rain for an entire year. 

None of this is a complaint, mind you.  It's just the way it is.  I'd rather have ten inches of rain and zero inches of snow than the other way around.  I'm thrilled to death that our daily temperature highs are typically closer to 60 than to 20.  It has snowed three or four times in Raleigh, but thankfully I haven't been around to actually see that.

I'm fascinated with a recent story about the Yahoo CEO's edict to end tellecommuting at the company (story here).   That's the exact reason why my contract is ending this week.

There has been quite a bit of strong reaction to it (one example).  I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of a backtrack on it sometime over the next week or so now that it has had the chance to land with a thud.

For me, our original  agreement of actually being in Raleigh on Tues-Wed-Thu provided the flexibility that made this commute tolerable.  When asked to make it a traditional 5-day week here, the decision was an easy one.  I'm happy to say that when I leave the office for the last time on Friday to drive home to Charleston we'll still be on good terms.

In the meantime, this week I'm training the PM who will be replacing me.  I suspect that Yahoo will be going through similar trainings....

It all gets back to that same thing: Balance.  I don't think I'd want to telecommute every day.  But at the same time I need some flexibility to manage my life.  Until recently things here had balanced well.  But things change, so it's time to go home.

I'm already looking at exciting things to do.  A certain someone and I are going to start taking SCUBA lessons and get certified now that my schedule is more settled.  We've been talking about that for a while but the blocker has been my ability to be at home over the days of the classes.  There are a number of photo Meetup Groups that I'm part of but I can rarely make the meetings because they're on nights that I'm typically gone.  I'm looking forward to putting more stability into my world....both for my own sake and for the pups.

A more daunting reality is that trans people typically have difficulty getting jobs (see recent CNN story) and I'm not immune to that.  I haven't had "the discussion" with anyone here at work but I'm not naive enough to believe that nobody knows.  In fact, I couldn't care less.  However, I'm also not naive enough to believe that learning about my past hasn't played had significant impacts on my career. 

That is the very reason that I was and remain so passionate about ENDA.  The barriers many of us have to face to get and keep a job are the very reasons it's hard to get and keep our head above the water.  It is more than an assault on our employability - it is an assault on our personhood.  Anyway - I need to get off the soapbox.  I'm in too good a mood to get my blood-pressure up.

Speaking of blood pressure up, my friends at CNN wrote to me and asked if I wanted to comment on a story they're currently running that's apparently generating quite the reaction.  The parents of a first-grade trans girl in Colorado filed a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission because their daughter is not being allowed to use the girls bathroom (story here).

I get these requests at, like, noon, and have a couple or three hours to write something.  Typical length is 600-800 words.  Anyway, I wrote the first thing that came to my mind and sent it off.  They're happy with it, so I suspect that will be published by this time tomorrow.  As usual, I won't read any of the comments.  I've learned that the hard way.

In the meantime, tomorrow is my second last day on this project.  As a contract worker beginnings and endings are part of the territory.  In a way, reaching them is actually a relief.