Views from a BrewTown Sista (aka The Chronicles of Kayleah H. Madison)

WHOO! Day 2 at BTAC did start off with unfinished business. Mainly, I did a lengthy two-part blog about how I got from Rockford to Dallas to attend the annual Black Trans Advocacy Conference (BTAC). This time, not so much. I woke up to see what was going on in the nearby hospitality suite, just a few feet away. No one was there, so I looked to see if there was anything to eat. Luckily enough, I found one brownie from Jason's Deli, and returned to my room and ate it with pride and ice water, resuming the blog page from Tuesday. It's long work, but I did it.  i attended the BTWI workshop around 10am, with DeeDee Watters leading the majority of us. An exercise was performed, and we all got together in a circle and placed one hand on our backs. Dee Dee reminded us about having someone to watch our backs and we've got theirs. 

Greeting me at the train station in downtown Dallas was Vanessa, a middle-aged transwoman in pumps who is a retired international banker and, as it turned out, a former pro football player (I'll explain that later). She was accompanied by her friend and fellow transwoman, Amber. Those two at first didn't know who exactly I was--especially since I changed my Facebook photo to support the trans military who were basically getting the pink slip, thanks to the U.S. Government-so I walked up to them, introduced myself and we shook hands. They later helped me retrieve my luggage from the train and put them inside Vanessa's Mitsubishi Outlander ("...sing me a song from a lass that is gone..." If you watched the Starz hit drama of the same name, you'd know the song by now).  The two got to show me around Dallas, including the Sixth Floor Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy, and the adjacent memorial directly across the street. Vanessa ...

Well, the time has finally arrived for the Black Trans Advocacy Conference (BTAC) in Dallas,TX. I admit I stated yakking to my co-workers about my first meaningful vacation since I can remember last week, hoping that I don't jinx it  like countless other times. On Monday, April 22, for the first time in 30 years, I was taking the train to an unfamiliar city. The last time was way back in 1989, leaving my native Milwaukee for New Orleans and Dillard University (via Chicago).  My previous blogs had asked the question if I was ready to open up and allow myself to absorb the knowledge from these workshops and become a more confident trans woman of color. I may have been openly trans for over 20 years, yet I still get depressed with my life on occasion. Why? It's definitely not because I missed being my former masculine self. As I am promptly approaching the big 5-0 next year, the so-called "mid-life crisis" couldn't have picked a worse time to rear its fucked-up he...

Is it time to get excited about BTAC2019? Well, yes. I mean, the conference is NEXT WEEK in Dallas. I’ve been mainly 80% packed as I type this blog. The luggage set I ordered last month really has come in handy. Since I paid for the 5-night hotel stay & registration, I got a tad nervous that I’d have to shell out more dough for the nighttime events. However, I had nothing to worry about there. My co-workers at the cab company that I work with are a little jealous of me. They shouldn’t be. I’ve been a reliable driver for over three years, and unlike some drivers, pays attention to my own shit. This vacation to BTAC could be the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me.  Last night, I spent some time chatting with my trans elder, Kenia, about what should I expect at the Black Trans Advocacy Conference (BTAC). Hey, it was dull last night driving, so chatting with her really does help time fly. She had told me about her experience at another trans convention in Prophetstown,M...

Yikes! It's past 1:00 am this morning. I'm supposed to be finally receiving my special Dillard University 150th anniversary goodies in the mail today. I am an alumni of an HBCU, and I'm not ashamed of it. In a few years' time, it will be my graduating class' 25th reunion, and I'm so wanting to return back to Fair Dillard for the festivities, albeit this time as a trans woman of color under the name Kayleah H. Madison. Yesterday was yet another Sunday spent not getting groceries, but catching up on sleep, which I wound up doing a lot for no apparent reason. Hell, what would you expect on Sundays where waiting for a taxi is the equivalent of watching a lame-ass rom-com! Watching the NCAA tournament wasn't in the cards for me, especially since both Marquette and Wisconsin got blown out in their first-round games anyway. Neither of them were going to go far anyway. I stared at the calendar, counting down the weeks until I make my maiden voyage to the BTAC...

Don’t let this classic photo of mine fool you into thinking my hair has fully grown back to it 2013 length, as depicted here...or was it 2012? I digress.  I can say that I DO miss having my hair like this. I do agree now that I did apply too much makeup here, but try to remember this was back when I was still living in a motel room earlier this decade. Then again, I could’ve used a look like this for last summer’s Forest City Pageant! Hey, you never know what could’ve happen had I played with makeup more often during my slumber at the Clayton House Motel.  Some of my trans sisters have written autobiographies about their lives, from their beginnings to when they discovered they were different, to when they eventually made the transition to whom they are now. Writers like Janet Mock, Dahlia Husu, and Pamela Hayes have paved the way before me. I started writing Cocoon2Butterfly almost three years ago, and eventually lost the interest to type my story. How should I constru...

If you are reading this blog by now, the Academy Awards just took place last night. I've definitely been a fan of the show for countless years going back to my Milwaukee days. Green Book, which told the story of a Black pianist requesting an Italian-American to drive him across the Deep South in the early 1960's, won Best Picture, with Mahershala Ali winning his second Oscar in three years for Best Supporting Actor (his first was just two years earlier for the same award for Moonlight,  which also won Best Picture).  Kudos to both Regina King and Spike Lee, first time Oscar winners both. Nice to see Black Panther become the first superhero movie to win an Oscar, although the cast itself weren't nominated, but the supporting crew for costume and sound did.  Yes, I admit I am definitely a dreamer. Over the years no matter what I did, wherever I was, I would dream, if not vision, that it was yours truly whose name was called as the winner of an Academy Award. If #BrewTown...