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

Previously...(Part 2)  

previously...

Well,  it has been some wild ride since I posted my last blog exactly one year ago today. You may remember that I was talking about watching the IceHogs win over Manitoba with my new friend Erica. Since then, no one actually knew what kind of a chaotic whirlwind the world would have for the rest of 2020. An incredibly nasty virus. Working from home. Toilet paper riots. Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police. Mandatory wearing of masks. Social distancing. Curbside deliveries. Radical movements dealing with one incumbnent, racist President. A highly expensive, extremely high turnout at the polls. Current President refusing to concede to a new successor-and the nation's first Black & South Asian woman Vice-President. Anglo-Saxon nutjobs who've been brainwashed to believe anything & everything our outgoing President Nutjob says, even though the incorrect info. So much bullshit happened last year all because of ...

  As the journey towards my golden years continue, I know that I mustn't get to caught up with past memories, good or bad, and be thankful for what knowledge that I currently have and use it for inspiring those generations that will fill my shoes once I take my final nap. I'm still learning about that factor in my life. Also, knowing myself and my comfort zones, I'll have no idea how to face something irregular or sudden. So, I digress while typing this blog in my birthday suit, enjoying some breakfast while the winter air thankfully stays outside.  Last night, I was reacquainted with a friend that reminded me that I can still have some fun while once again preventing any signs of premature sheer aging...by letting my voice out. Here's the deal: Last year, during my first Black Transgender Advocacy Conference (BTAC) in Dallas, I mentioned to some individuals about little travel business here in Rockford, when my aforementioned whereabouts caught the ear someo...

This is my first blog since I was in Dallas for the Black Trans Awareness Cconference (BTAC) 8 months ago. Most of anything I posted from that went on Facebook, twitter & Instagram. You knew each of those nights ended long past midnight, and I had repeatedly fallen asleep in front of the laptop trying to blog about my traveling to Dallas for the first time on Night One. I do remember how comfortable those beds were at the hotel! I do recall on Facebook about what happened during the final interfaith session before we departed for home. (If you want to know what happened, you'll have to look up my FB page from the past May to discover everything).  Now, back to the present. This blog that you're now reading will probably be a multi-part blog to close out 2019 and the conclusion to a lengthy decade that had brought me a plethera of events which landed me in more than a tub of hot water. A decade that I can say started out with too many questions about future living situat...

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 ...