Here I "Is!"

Math has never been one of my strength's but it seems to me I have spent a couple of days away from Cyrsti's Condo which may have been a record for me since I started the Condo.

The simple answer to why is, life got in the way.  I headed down to Cincinnati to spend the weekend with Liz and my car had yet another malfunction- this time with the brakes. Over the past three months it has decided it has wanted nothing to do with holding fluids...oil, power steering and now brakes.  It's now getting past the point of diminishing returns.

Buying a car right now for me ranks right up there with digging my own grave, jumping into it and shoveling the dirt in on top of me- myself.

But (and I hate this saying) it is what it is.  Dammit!

On the bright side, I have plenty to chat about with all of you seeing as my life is nothing but a blog post anyhow.  Starting with this headline:

The highest-paid female CEO in America used to be a man. (from the New York Post)

Martine Rothblatt, 59 — who founded the $5 billion pharmaceutical firm United Therapeutics and also co-founded Sirius — had sex reassignment surgery in 1994.

“I can’t claim that what I have achieved is equivalent to what a woman has achieved. For the first half of my life, I was male,” Rothblatt, who has four kids and is still married to her wife of more than 30 years, told New York Magazine.

Rothblatt made $38 million last year as head of United Therapeutics, which she launched to create medicine for her daughter, who suffers from primary pulmonary hypertension.

First of all I haven't even had the chance to read any of the reaction to this "Jerry Springer" style headline.  But, then again it did come from the "New York Post." 

After a good night's sleep I will get back to you with it in the morning! (Tuesday)

Cyrsti's Condo "First Timer's?"

Clearly this "Holmes Community College" student in Goodman, Mississippi has never shaved all the hair off his body or rocked those heels ever before this womanless pageant?  (wink wink!)

Two Spirits

Every once once in a while, I happen across an article which goes into an ancient culture's belief in the "two spirits" gender identity.  In fact the acceptance of transgender people was common in many indigenous communities to the point they assumed the role of "shaman's"

My latest "discovery" comes from the New York Times and is called: Two Spirits in the Venezuelan Jungle By Jake Naughton  — Here is an excerpt:
A chance encounter with an anthropologist in Caracas led Álvaro Laiz to Venezuela’s remote eastern edge, where an indigenous people known as the Warao have lived for millenniums. Mr. Laiz was intrigued when he heard about transgender women the Warao called “tida wena,” or, twisted women, because he had been working on a global project about transgender identities in nomadic and indigenous populations. “For me it’s about identity,” Mr. Laiz said. “The kind of things that make you the way you are.” Like other women, the tida wena tended to the home, cooked and cared for children and elders. They also participated in the harvest of important crops, like the ocumo chino, a starchy tuber. Historically, tida wena were sometimes the second or third wives of polygamous men. They also occasionally performed the role of shaman — the Warao are deeply rooted in the shamanist tradition — and tida wena in particular are thought to possess two spirits, bringing them closer to the ancestor spirits that roam the jungle.

When ever I read of the number of cultures who embraced  the "Twin Spirits" (it's estimated to be documented in 130 American Indian tribes alone)  individuals, I'm at once shocked, saddened and frustrated at the lack of understanding we face in the modern world.  Even more so when you consider the bitter in fighting in our own community.

If you are interested in researching any of this, follow the link above, or search the subject on line.  It is very enlightening!

One person who I know has always researched the Twin Spirits subject in depth is a regular visitor to Cyrsti's Condo.  His name is Don and he is in the midst of medical issues. I hope you all can take a second to pass along some positive vibes to Don, from what ever spirit you worship.  Thanks!!!