Just read an email from a friend in New Zealand who urged me (and a few other friends - it was a bulk letter) to make a will.

This is generally good advice, but the bottom line is, who would I leave my stuff to? None of my family would want the stuff in the house, and I'm not even sure about the house and land either.

My uncle Alan died a last year and it was a nightmare. His body was found in the house after five days and had to go to the coroner for identification because cats had eaten him. The council wanted mum and uncle Steven to demolish the house immediately, but they could do nothing until the coroner returned a verdict. The block was cleared, maybe too much. It looked like a sandpit when I was other there in December, and Steven and my Mum have not been able to sell it.  It was a total fucking nightmare.

So who do I have to leave stuff to. I have thought about this issue and have no good answer.

The right to know

Friends and associates are so ephemeral on the net. After an experience in Second Life in 2008, I've sometimes wondered...

How would you know on Facebook, Live Journal or a mailing list/forum if someone died, if all that happened was that they stopped posting?

...and this for me highlights the difference between virtual and actual friendships. Not of course, that one always knows what happens in the real world either. I was very hurt in 1995 when someone I knew for over 10 years in the public service and considered a friend Doug got married. Not only was I not invited (which I put down to the fact that I'd only just started my transition), I was only told about it well after the event, by an ex of mine who had been invited and assumed I knew!  When I came back briefly after a geographical in Sydney, I learned that Doug and his wife were living a few blocks away from my parent's house. I dropped in and his wife's first words were "Hey you look like a regular woman!" Great, and I never visited or contacted either of them again.

Yesterday I phoned Robyn, who had accompanied me to Phuket in 2000 and whom (I learned in retrospect)  had been an ex of Jenny's (and now lived a fair distance away). I felt that it was only right that she knew Jenny had died, and had a feeling no one else would tell her.

Long periods of Decline

Last night I phoned Mum and talked about jenny's death and it was a great help.

For six years my mother visited my father William in a nursing home once or more a week (with much appreciated help from Thelma Gunnell), since his double stroke on his birthday in 2000. That was the same year I went to Phuket, and it cast a pall over that event when i worried about my father. Selfishly I was glad that I no longer lived in Perth because I doubted that I could have coped with seeing the constant decline of Bill from the person I knew to the frail physical shell he became.

But that's what was in store  for jenny.

There was no cure, no way of reversing the process of steady decline that the Multiple sclerosis inflicted on her.  She was well past the stage were medical intervention could do more than just ease the pain. When I first saw her, she was walking. When I first met her in person, she used a walking a frame, and then it became a wheelchair at home, and a motorised chair enabled her to go shopping locally (and in which, to my amazement, she was able to go all the way to Wallsend plaza to get smokes!)  There came a point when she could no longer use a car and she sold it. When she could no longer transfer to and fro the chair she could no longer keep her flat and any degree of independence which, with the help of Homecare, she still had.

My father never had that - at one point he was getting out of bed ready for his birthday, and the next just a few degrees above being a vegetable - but he never knew it was coming. Jenny did, and on more than one occasion talked about suicide before it got to the stage where she could do nothing for herself and couldn't communicate either. She was a trained nurse, and knew what was coming. Yesterday she could talk, but she couldn't even use her remaining hand to do anything. So when my mother told me that  "it was a mercy that Jenny went when she did", I guess she knows what she''s talking about.

Lots of crying to do, either way

...is approaching real fast on 20th November.

I haven't done my web comic for it yet, like I did last year. In fact I haven't drawn any comics since Pegasus died (the one I used for his RIP was an existing sketch), all I did was rearrange the dates on ones I did before his death. But I need to for this, it's important.

The 1st of December is World AIDS Day and everyone focuses attention on the problem of HIV/AIDS and how it affects people. And this is a good thing. Lost friends to AIDS. But it tends to overshadow something like the Transgender Day of Remembrance. See, HIV is a virus that causes AIDS which untreated will kill people. The Transgender Day of Remembrance on the other hand, was set aside to memorialise those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice - people killing other people just for who they are. And while there's a chance that the average person might have heard about World AIDS Day, there's far less chance they they've heard of the Day of Remembrance.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm trans, so this is an issue that directly affects me. As if there isn't enough killing in this world, folk go out and find reasons to do more. Rather than examine themselves about the causes of their own homophobia and transphobia, some folk will attack and/or kill us. Not only that, but they'll do the same to people involved with us, or mistaken for us. Any wonder I get a little paranoid with dickheads in the street and on the bus.

And it's a fucking outrage.
You bastards (and bitches) who do this
- it makes me very very angry and very very sad at the same time -
how fucking dare you, how fucking dare you!

So I need to do something to mark the passing of others who died purely because of who they are, to mark this "fact of (trans) life". A few years ago I was going to organise a service at a local church. But, I was finishing my Honours, a bad organiser, and my father died just before that time. It never happened, though I was able to contribute to the Web Comic Project .

This year, I've been preoccupied with Peggy's death, which has upset me greatly. But I can still draw, still make comics when I'm focused, and I need to do that now. The theme this year is "to illustrate a word or a feeling that the Day of Remembrance makes you feel". You might just get a hint of this above. I'd better get to it.

Lest we forget:

Known Transgender Murders in 2008 (taken from this page):

• January 8th - Patrick Murphy, Age 39 - Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Shot multiple times in the head.
• January 22nd, in her 20s - Fedra - Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia - Found dead in a pool of blood.
• January 23rd - Adolphus Simmons, Age 18 - Charleston, North Carolina, United States - Shot to death while taking out the trash.
• February 4th - Ashley Sweeney - Detroit, Michigan, United States - Found dead in Detroit's East Side, shot in the head.
• February 10th - Shanesha Stewart, age 25 - The Bronx, New York, United States - Stabbed to death.
• February 12th - Lawrence King, age 15 - Oxnard, California, United States - Killed by a fellow student after being asked to be Lawrence's valentine.
• February 15th - Cameron McWilliams, age 10 - South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom - Suicide by hanging.
• February 22nd - Simmie Williams, Jr, Age 17 - Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States - Killed by two gunmen.
• March 15th - Luna, Age 42 - Lisbon, Portugal - Beaten to death, and thrown in a dumpster.
• May 26th - Felicia Melton-Smyth - Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Stabbed.
• July 1st - Ebony Whitaker, Age 20 - Memphis, Tennessee - Shot to death.
• July 11th - Rosa Pazos - Sevilla, Spain - Stabbed in the throat in her apartment.
• July 17th - Angie Zapata, Age 17 - Greeley, Colorado, United States - Beaten to death.

I was just talking to Susan who has 11 dogs of her own and was at some time going to go on walks with me. Anyway, I told her that Pegasus had died and she said that he should have gone to the vets before now and that he died because he hadn't.

When Peggy was ill before he seemed to recover after we gave him paraffin (the theory was that he had a hairball).  That was back on the 9th. My pay day was the 8th but two days later Bobby was bitten and I took him to the vet, so the money to take Peggy to the vet got spent on that. Peggy got better and it didn't seem to be as urgent any more. Then I paid a huge power bill (over $400) and I thought that I could wait until maybe this coming Wednesday (pay day) and do it then. I mean I'd been away on the weekend of the 18th. Kevin and Michelle (who has a car) had been away last weekend and left yesterday and weren't going to be back until Monday, so Wednesday seemed a sensible date.

But it was too late wasn't it? Shit, did I just piss away his life because I mismanaged things (and maybe because I was afraid the vet would tell me to put him down)? Maybe I could have got Jenny earlier. Maybe I should have taken him to the vet last week. I just don't know, because I don't know what he died of. He'd had intermittent breathing problems for the last year but each time it seemed like a mild cold. Did he catch stuff of me? Did he catch bronchitis from me maybe?

I just don't know. I just feel very upset right now.

 Pegasus died at about 9:50 - 10:20pm tonight.

I was on the computer in the front room for a few hours when I noticed that he wasn't in the room with me. I went out to see where he was and found him on a cushion near the front gate (see previous post). He was very passive but breathing very hard, with a dry nose. I went back to see what I could do and was with him for about 30 minutes, trying to help. Then I went over the road to Jenny's whose son is learning veterinary science and when we came back he was gone.

Tried phoning Kevin, who's away with his girlfriend until Monday but couldn't get through to either of them. I sent and SMS to Kevin which he'll get some time. Jenny helped me wrap him up in a couple of blankets and I wheeled him into the shed in a pram (that I picked up after community clean-up). Hopefully the bugs won't get to him until I can bury him tomorrow morning. I had to put Hallie in Kevin's room - she kept nudging Peggy, trying to get him to move.

I always knew that when he went, I'd bury him in the centre of the brick circle I made in the backyard. I don't use it that much, but Pegasus was at the centre of my affections so it's only fitting that that's where he should go.

I am very very upset right now. I plan to phone my Mum, and then get very very drunk. Tomorrow I bury him, and will do a proper R.I.P.

How I remember you, mate!

I had a waking dream of my late Aunty Glennis this morning.

It was in an orchid of apple trees. Couple would come to the orchid when they first became involved with each other, and sit in the branches of a tree. A great big black cat would then be dropped on to them and what it transformed into, and if and which of the couple that fell from the branch, would indicate how long the relationship would last and its quality.

In a corner of this orchid was a stage. I was observing the ritual listed above when a woman passes by. She looks a lot younger, but I know that this is my aunty. I say hello and she steps onto the stage and says that she has to go. I say that I'll miss her and that she was my favourite aunty (she was my only aunty) and she asks why. I tell her she died and she asks how. I tell her that she died in a coma in hospital and she says that maybe she'll come back if I'm so upset. I tell her that no, they've already had the funeral and the my mother sent me a copy of the service so it's a bit late. She says never mind and I hug her, and she waves goodbye and the curtain falls.And then I woke up and there was Pegasus staring into my eyes.

I miss my aunty, but it's time to let her go.

I just found out that they had Anna's funeral today.

Anna and Alex were the old Polish couple that were next door neighbours. Last Saturday I noticed lots of cars in front of their block, and then no one was there, until today. Found out from the daughter that she'd been very ill and that they'd switched off the life support last Thursday (which just happened to be the anniversary of my dad's death). I guess she must have died Saturday.

I feel... ...sad. I didn't know them that well, and often argued with Alex, but that doesn't mean I didn't like them. The daughter had moved a number of plants into the backyard and they were thinking of building on the back 1/3 of the block, which was totally overgrown. Then her husband had a stroke (minor, I was talking to him last week, when we put the extension to the fence up to stop Hallie from getting in) and her mother got ill.

I wish I'd know about the funeral earlier, I would have gone. So it goes.

Most People I Know (Think That I'm Crazy)
lyrics by BILLY THORPE

Most people I know think that I'm crazy and
I know at times I act a little hazy but
if that's my way
and you should know it then
in every way help me to show it

oooooooo yeah, yeah, yeah

For most of my life I lived a delusion yes
material gain has caused me confusion but
slowly in time I learned that my place is to
tell all that I meet the glory that God is

oooooooo yeah, yeah

and that's why

Most people I know think that I'm crazy and
I know at times I act a little hazy but
if that's my way
and you should know it then
in every way help me to show it

oooooooo yeah, yeah, yeah

Most people I know think that I'm crazy and
I know at times I act a little hazy but
if that's my way
and you should know it then
in every way help me to show it

 Billy Thorpe died this morning at age 60 from a heart attack,
as reported on the Today Show.

You know, I only really knew that one song of theirs, shown above, but it meant a lot to me, so I feel that way a lot. So long Billy!

Was going to go out today, get a few things done. Still might, but I've been playing silly computer games, and watching TV. But when I come back to it, I just need to grieve and cry.

Mark's booked a flight for me tomorrow to Perth from Sydney Domestic. Be gone for a week.