Thoughts on gender, gender identity, and gender presentation

One of the things that being more active in the LGBT community has led to is giving way more thought to gender and gender identity than I ever had before. Up to the last year or so, I'd only knowingly met one person who identified as transgender, and what I knew of that person and their situation was pretty much the extent of my knowledge on the subject. And even getting to know more transfolk and learning more generally hadn't caused much in the way of navel-gazing on the subject of gender identity and presentation.

( Until, that is, one of my coworkers reacted in unfeigned shock at the mention of my wearing a dress. )

I'm rather glad that my coworker did make that comment and spur this reflection. Knowing more people today than I ever have whose gender identity and presentation isn't something they are able to just take for granted, I think there's some value to not taking my own for granted either and giving it some thought and prodding now and again.

New laptop geekery

So, I finally, as in riiiight before the extended warranty expired, brought my laptop in for some last fiddly repairs. As it wasn't the motherboard again, I didn't actually think this was going to trigger the "no lemon" policy, however, it did. So I now have a shiny new Toshiba with way more memory and speed. Have spent much of today fiddling with settings, loading in stuff from the external hard drive backup, etc.

Goodbye, Vista. Hello, Windows 7.

I should probably read the documentation at some point. It says "Satellite" in letters that light up when it's on. It would probably be good if I had a clue what that meant. If anybody catches me tapping out a weird four-beat rhythm, though, I guess that'd be a clue. ;-)

Love the keyoard. There spaces between the keys are recessed, or the keys are more raised, or something. Anyway, less typos appear to be the result, and I just like the feel of it rather a lot.