Don't let your schooling interfere with your education.
~ Pete Seeger

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The County Fair

Thursday, and the sun beating down. The kids and I hop on the SUB (sport utility bicycle) and ride across town to the fair.

Long lines to the ticket booths. Twenty-two dollars buys a paper bracelet and unlimited rides in the carnival. "We want to do this ride by ourselves, Maddy. You stay right here!" "I think I'll go over there, in the shade." "Okay."

Two boys, buckled in. The Flying Tiger. The Tiger Express. A roller coaster, of sorts. Big smiles, and squeals of fright and laughter. "That was fun!" "Are you hungry?" "No, let's ride that one next!"

Growing hunger, and, at last, a rest. Cotton candy, corn dogs, and snow cones, sitting on the grass in the shade of a tent. Trin snuggles onto my lap.

Skin growing hot, turning red. Slather on the sunscreen, climb onto the ferris wheel. The three of us, high above the crowds. The slingshot casts a few people even higher, flinging them from the ground to 100 feet high in a second. "No way I'm going on that one!"

Swedish pastries. The prayer booth. "Want to take the test to see if you're going to heaven? Just two questions!"

Nah. It's not that hard to tell. Who needs a test?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Maddy"

I was going to ask how that all worked out with names...

David and Sarah Carrel said...

So I am curious as to what the people at the booth said about getting to heaven? At a fair?

Seda said...

David,
To tell you the truth, I didn't linger to chat with them. they had a booth that advertised an easy test to tell whether you'd get to heaven, just two questions. There was a big clear space in front of it where nobody wanted to go, so it was convenient to ask them where the ticket booth was. But like I said in the post, when they offered the test, I turned it down.

I guess folks really do like to be shown more than they like to be told.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller

Reading List for Information about Transpeople

  • Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green
  • Conundrum, by Jan Morris
  • Gender Outlaw, by Kate Bornstein
  • My Husband Betty, by Helen Boyd
  • Right Side Out, by Annah Moore
  • She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan
  • The Riddle of Gender, by Deborah Rudacille
  • Trans Liberation, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transgender Emergence, by Arlene Istar Lev
  • Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transition and Beyond, by Reid Vanderburgh
  • True Selves, by Mildred Brown
  • What Becomes You, by Aaron Link Raz and Hilda Raz
  • Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
~Hafiz