Theatre Game Plan

Spring 2011:

Classes:
Acting for Everyone
Stage Makeup :)

Extra Curricular:
Glass Menagerie: Light Crew
Fools: Light Crew(a little), Set Crew(a little)

Fall 2011:

Classes:
Lighting Design 1
Theatre History
RAW for Theatre
Intro to Production

Extra Curricular:
Doubt: Light Crew, ASM, Props
Dripping Spiral: Master Electrician, Light Performer, Random Techie, props, PR (anything Emily needed)
The King Stag: Light Crew, Light Board Op, Random Techie Stuff, Hair Designer
The Who's Tommy: Spot Op

Spring 2012:

Classes:
Movement
Intro to Theatre
Lighting 2
CMST Performance in our Everyday Lives
Women's Choir  ???

Extra Curricular:
Drowsy Chaperone: ASM, Light Crew
Talking to Terrorists: Stage Manager, Light Crew
???? The Vagina Monologues:  Acting(hopefully)

Drama: Conflict Resolution

I don't believe in conflict resolution. No matter what my name is. I hate the concept of talking about feelings and more so I hate people telling me that there is a problem that I need to resolve, when I don't have a problem or I've accepted the problem. I worked out my problem with my roomie and things are good. I did that by choice. I, however, do not like nor feel respected by my suitemates and therefore I do not want to maintain a relationship with them. I don't like many of them and with this passive aggressive thing they are doing, I hate them more. I have one pet peeve in the bathroom and that's not being able to see out of the mirror, which they insist on writing on. I don't say anything and just deal with it, why can't they just deal with shit. Its part of living with other people. I am basically just trying to ignore what bothers me to avoid conflict. I don't get why these damn people think that meeting will fix these problems.

Violence

Is violence always wrong? No. I believe that it can be okay for people to hit each other as long as it doesn't get out of hand and people do not actually get hurt. One of my guy friends and I hit each other all the time. We naturally have violent tempers plus its still awkward to show affection towards each other. We now hug but its easier for us to rough house. If one of us does something stupid we Gibbs-slap each other. We threaten and smack each other around. Its all in good fun and we would never actually hurt each other. I also did this in high school with my guy friends. My best friend and I were very violent, to the point of almost bruises. I don't understand why my roommate cannot handle any type of violence. I understand that she was in an abusive relationship, but if she's not the one participating in the violence, I don't understand why she gets defensive and angry. I like having my techie friends hit me and being able to hit them. It keeps us in line and sane, I don't see it as abuse and it doesn't bother me, so if it doesn't bother me, when it is happening to me, I don't understand how it is a problem and why other people feel the need to intervene.

My Name is Max

My Name is Max
Go Fish at MOVIECLIPS.com

I love this speech. It is amazing and for the most part it seems to apply, except not the dyke part. I am not a dyke and neither is the person I would direct this towards. It still works though.
       
         At this moment we're supposed to be sitting on our couch together reading and playing footsie absent-      
         mindedly. My name is Max. I wanna borrow your t-shirts and wake you up when I have bad dreams.
         Burst inot a smile when we're fighting cause you're too adorable. Pinch your butt when you're walking 
         up the stairs in front of me. My name is Max. Make up a name that only you'd call me. Make it
         something you'd be embarrassed to call me absently in public. Fall in love with me. We were supposed
         to meet so long ago. We're way behind. It's Max. My name is Max.

Its funny how you can find a person that you seem to click with, but it can never just fall into place. I just want to fall in love and have that person fall in love with me. I want to fall in love with my best friend (at least someone who could become my best friend) I dont just want a boyfriend, I want someone to be my partner. Be the person who supports my insane endeavors, encourages me and loves me not just in spite of my flaws but because of my flaws. I do feel like I am asking too much.

Making it Legal

Because of all the financial troubles I am running into, I don't know when I will be able to make my name official and legal. I really wanted it done before Spring semester. I feel it will eliminate a lot of confusion and I'll be happier. As long as my name is not my own, I feel that I am not who I want to be and can easily slip back into who I was.

Anger Cannot Heal

I never would have said this a year ago, but I now know that you cannot heal through anger. Being angry at someone for something they did to you, just is a waste of energy on your part and it throws negativity about. I used to be an angry person, before I became Maxine. I felt two emotions: numb and anger. I did not know how to deal with things and I found getting angry about them was my only solution. Over the summer, I stopped being that hostile. I saw the damage my anger did to me and others. I am not advocating avoiding justice or punishment when necessary but to make revenge your life's ambition, is a pointless task. Gloating about your revenge and walking about calling it justice is not right. Yes, if you commit a crime, you do the time, that time does not include psychological abuse and character assassination of the guilty party. I know they will never really get it. They are still in a child mentality. I've grown up, I don't need to blame someone for all the problems in my life.

Unhappy

I have been deleting people from facebook and in my life in general so that I can rid myself of the toxic environment I was in. Yes, most of these people are in the queer community. I have never done well with queer communities, I cannot handle how involved everyone is in your life. Also, I would prefer being involved in a group where if there is a problem between two people, it is only a problem between those two people.
I've changed. I have never denied that, and I like how I have changed. But there are so many things that make that difficult. People often treat me like they did before, which only makes my life harder. Theatre kids have realized this and they respond to who I am now. In many ways, they have never known me any other way. Theatre is the only place that I am safe to be myself. As crazy as it may be sometimes, I am never truly judged for it. I have also never felt more supported and cared about in any friend-base I have ever had.
I guess the thing that is so difficult with this is how offended people are about being taken off facebook, when they rarely talk to me. And to be honest, most of my "friends" require me to come around more or need me to come see them, but they don't bother to come see me or contact me. Some people are even mad at me and not talking to me, but god-forbid I cut them off!

If I am following my Laws to Live By, there is a rule stating that "if something or someone makes you unhappy, discontinue with it." Well I made these rules for a reason, might as well follow them.

Apparently I can't be a Mother....EVER. WTF?

So I cannot handle the amount of people who forbid me from having kids. I recently on my other blog(comment not posted) received a comment on something I wrote about a year ago about Glenn Sacks. It was one of my posts against MRA's(Men's Rights Activists) and someone commented. I have reason to believe it is a man, because why would a woman yell at me about women's work ethics? This man also posted anonymously because that is the only way men like to attack me. At the end of it he declares that he is praying to God that I will not ever be able to have children(male or female). I find that offensive! If I said that to ever person I dont agree with, I dont know if anyone would be allowed to reproduce, hell I wouldn't be born... This wouldn't bother me so bad if I didn't get told this at least once a month, often by people who claim to be my friends. Sure for a while I didn't plan to have children and I didn't want children, but things change, people change. I might want to have children, and to have people say that I would be the worst mother ever, really bothers me. Of course no one would understand how that is hurtful to me.

I've changed....

Life has been so crazy that I have forgotten to turn in my papers/work on the name change thing. I just dont have time.
I do have to say I have some of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Suzanne, who is the sweetest girl ever, not only has endless confidence in me, but has embraced my name on a level I would have never expected.
I will say that I am having a bit of trouble on the queer and feminist fronts. A couple feminists do not call me Max or Maxine, but still insist on "Kerri" which writing it out right now looks weird. It really feels like its not part of my name. Other than my name, a lot of other changes have been happening to me. I like them, many are strange for where I was not six months ago. I have forgiven people and appologized for my quick temper and judgement. I try not to hate people and I am working on not getting angry unless it is justified. I've accepted my bisexuality and I care about a guy. I even like children, like babies. I have held Noah, Brittany's baby and June, Alecia's baby. Both times it felt alright. I didn't feel threatened or uncomfortable. I felt natural. But God-forbid I tell my queer friends any positive experience with men or children. Yes, I was a heinious bitch towards both parties, but I have changed. I wish people could see it. I tell Suzanne about how I was and she cannot believe that I was ever that way.  But I was and I have learned how much pain I have caused by being, that way. I hate the judgement. I have gone to Church the past two Sundays, but I needed to have the Doubt excuse to be allowed to go. LaNae started to freak over me going to Church, Addy threatened to jump out the window about the babies thing. I have to wonder what would happen if I was to date a man.

Frustration

I expect this to be hard on people who have known me for a while since it is a dramatic change. But my one roommate had only met me once before the movein when I was still being called "kerri" and he cannot for the life of me remember that my name is Max. I dont think its all that hard. Almost the entire theatre department has gotten it down by now. A couple queers are having some trouble with it but overall everone is doing pretty well.

Full Time

Been in school for a week. Talked to both of my teachers about being called Max and they are really cool with it. Everyone in theatre is adapting well too. People I'm closer to have a harder time but they are picking it up well. I no longer have my job at the salon so I am truly Max all the time now. I love it. Its weird hearing it all the time but it feels good. I'm not used to responding to a name all that much because before it was the 'ary' sound I would hear and I'd respond to things like 'Gary,' which is just awkward. Max isn't as much of a problem and I've only met one other Max and he's a guy.

Beautician or Mechanic?

Sounds like a weird question, but I really dont know what I would rather do. Beautician is pink collar work, minimum wage, high stress and from my salon experience: a bunch of overly stuckup elitist snobs with no real fashion sense. Mechanic is a blue collar job, decent pay, little respect and a hard field for a woman. Both require me to go to a trade school, and to be honest both would require me to move since I dont like the cosmetology programs in Minnesota.
A mechanic would take more schooling. It looks like about 2 more years of my life, but overall the costs of being a mechanic and going to cosmetology school are about the same. I'm really not sure what I want to do about it. I think I really want to be a mechanic. I kinda have since I was a kid. But more importantly I like to take things apart and try to figure out how they work. I like to work with my hands, wear casual clothes and frankly not have to put on a fake smile when I am having a really crappy day. I want the backwards baseball cap and coveralls. I want to work with tools and get grease all over me, I want to be able to help people. I thought that I could help women by making them feel good about themselves and reclaiming their appearance as their own, but its not a reality. No woman goes into a salon thinking "I am doing this for me and not to look more pleasing." At least if I can fix cars and a woman is on the side of the road because her car broke down, I can help her without her having to fear being raped or killed by accepting aid from a stranger. I can talk to women and not belittle their knowledge.

Betrayed

I told someone today about the name thing and she was one of the people who I thought would be the most supportive, but no. She is refusing to call me Maxine and says that though she loves me, she's going to keep calling me "Kerri." It hurts soooo bad. I almost cried and if I wasn't on my way to the gym with my weight partner I might have. But I dont want her to think I'm weak for crying. Part of me is angry, another part of me is just hurt. I can't believe she would say something like that. I expect that from my family and frankly I'd probably be ok with my parents still calling me what they named me. She was one of the people who I wanted support from the most. She was like my feminist sister. And more importantly she's supposed to be a feminist. I'm making the CHOICE to change my name and take control of my life and she's not supporting my right to make that decision.

Facebook....the biggest leap

So I changed my name on my facebook today and I'm really scared. I have removed some family and people I dont really talk to. But I worry about having my parents on my facebook since I haven't told them yet offically anyways. I casually mentioned it to my mother and she didn't seem too thrilled with it, but I can't keep going on trying to live a double life. I get that work isn't going to be changed until I get it legal but my friends and family need to know. Its hard enough for people who know, to address me in front of people who dont.

Fears

I'm scared to tell people. I feel like people aren't going to take it well. And in a way I just feel stupid for wanting to change my name. I mean there is a lot about me that I hate or don't like, so what if I hate my name? What makes it so hard is having trans friends who change their names because of the gendered nature of their birth names. Its not because they hate their names. I guess I feel shallow and pathetic. I'm causing trouble for people that I really shouldn't be.

Not to mention, I feel like my family is going to be so mad at me. I know my mother wont be happy that I am rejecting the name she picked and my dad will probably make uncomfortable mocking of Maxine to help cope. Dad likes to mock names, its his thing.

My two best friends talked with me today about it and they said they would try their best, which is completely fine by me. It'll take me a while to get used to responding to Maxie let alone them processing it in their heads. But that did make me feel a little better, I just cant get over how selffish I feel over the name change thing. I hope this feeling passes soon.

Why I am Changing my Name and How it Makes Me Feel

I have always wanted to change my name. I hated the name given to me at birth for so many reasons. "Kerri" is at first a strange spelling of a name. Why couldn't my mother just spell it Carrie like a normal person? . I also hated the sound of my name. It wasn't pretty. But lastly, I hated that there was no decent nickname and its obviously feminine. The only nickname I got was Kare Bear, which bore its own problems from my mother's mother and her abusive tendancies to my ex boyfriend who was emotionally abusive. So even if the person calling me it has the best of intentions its hard on me.  I also always wanted to have a name that was more androgynous.

In 3rd grade, I started thinking about names and liked the names Samantha and Maxine. Both could be shortened to guys names. Samantha is far too popular and I prefer the sound of Max or Maxine, always have. Over the years since age 8 to age 23, I have toyed with several names. Many were celtic or Greek from my pagan days and none of them really stuck. So when I started to really think about it again, I came back to Maxine. I hadn't thought about it much over my teen years because there were the legal boundaries. I now know that Maxine is the first name that I want.

I am, however, having trouble coming up with a middle name. The name I was considering was "Nolan" after Nolan Ryan the famous baseball pitcher, who is one of the primary reasons that I became a feminist.

I did mention to my mother that I was going to change my name. I dont think she really believed me and she was not thrilled by Maxine. I need to continue doing research and decide on a middle name so when I am ready to go and get it changed. I will be completely ready.

I know that its my legal name and since I haven't made a public announcement to change it, people will inevitably call me by it. But I almost feel like people use my name more now than ever before. I might be more sensitive to it now but I dont ever remember hearing or seeing my name so much. I feel like I am always being called "Kerri." I mean as much as I used to hate when LaNae called me 'dude,' right now I would almost prefer it. At least its not 'Kerri.' I can't expect much until I inform people, but I just feel that its awkward to tell people. I have no clue how to tell people what I want my name to be.