Bob Dylan (original drawing)

Please allow me to introduce myself...

I never felt like I gave a proper introduction for myself on this blog, so I guess I could start right now.

Well my name is Mairead, pronounced muh-raide. It's Irish Gaelic. It's impossible to spell/pronounce and it was probably picked at random, but I like it, it suits me.

I'm a 17-year-old high school junior currently residing in Rich White Suburbia, Connecticut, USA, in the colonized lands of the Munsee and Quiripi tribes.

I'm White and 6th-generation Euro-immigrant, and my heritage is made up of Irish (about 75-85%), Scottish, with some English and German.

My sexual orientation is pretty fluid and currently under construction. Truth is, I like ladies, I like menfolk, and everything in between. Love is love and gender is pretty irrelevant. As for gender identity, I'm a cisgender girl, but I don't always present that way (although I usually do). Regardless, my preferred pronouns are she/her/hers.

I'm passionate about social justice, which includes feminism, GSM/LGBTQIA+ rights, neurodiversity, anti-ableism, anti-racism, ad infinitum. Yes, I am a raging politically correct feminist, deal with it.

I also really dig books, art, movies and music. I don't make much music myself (if you want to get a look at my tastes check out my [infrequently used] last.fm page), but I draw and paint, do some creative writing, and I want to make a career out of making movies.

I'm in recovery for alcoholism, and I've been sober since April 29 2011. I hope that this will last. I'm also in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I blog about meetings and sobriety.

Basically this blog will be about social justice, ragey-ness, books, art, movies, music, sobriety, high school, teen angst, and much more. I hope it will be half way decent.

True Colors souvenirs

"Will you stand with Planned Parenthood?"

"The best age is the age you are"

Maybe give this to my art teacher

"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"

Going to give this to my grandmother

Condoms, at left banana flavor, at right multi color.

Dunno how much use I'll be getting out of these.

I also got a "Another man against violence against women" pin for my dad, and a Rosie the Riveter pin for my mom. Plus a rainbow patch and a "Another intelligent, compassionate youth" sticker.

True Colors Conference

So I’ve been meaning to blog about this all week end.

Friday I went up to the University of Connecticut (2-3 hour bus ride from where I live) for the True Colors Conference, basically an LGBTQ+ convention, with members of the Gay Straight Alliance of my school.

Highlights:

• Dannel P. Malloy, governor of Connecticut, speaking at the opening ceremony
• Seeing more rainbows in one day than an average leprechaun sees in their lifetime
• A writing workshop, an original poem I wrote, to be posted later
• Souvenirs (to be posted)
• A workshop on drag (drag queens, drag kings, the history of drag, Q&A, etc)

That’s really all there is to it. It was my second time going