TMI: Old Crushes

So I was half watching "Wild Tigers I Have Known" earlier a movie in part about the crush a 13 year old gay/trans outcast has on his popular older friend and it got me thinking about like my old crushes, because I guess in a way I don't think I experienced the kind of longing, or the outcastness ostracism that gay middle schoolers did by putting themselves out there and I wonder if I'm jealous of that, though I'm not thinking so.
But as I was remembering I think the first time I had a crush on a gay was when I was like 16, on like my best friend on the football team Ed, something I'm not sure I recognized at the time as "being a crush" and I suppose that one of the guys in the group that I hung out with I may have been drawn to him maybe because i subconsciously had a crush on him. But once again I didn't think of it as anything sexual, because I really didn't recognize puberty was happening until I was like 14 (and when I was 15 one of my friends accused me of being asexual, which I'm not sure I refuted), so the crush may have just been a feeling of more just magnetic attraction
Going back to elementary school my first crush was a girl named Crystal and at that age nothing was even remotely sexual (though I think on our way to AstroCamp one year on our school retreat we were planning to kiss or something in the planetarium.) Oddly enough I think she became a bisexual.
My next crush was a girl named Claire was when I was like 12 and as I'm thinking about it most every girl I had a crush on back then, because I don't think I've "crushed on" a girl since I was like 15, but was a pretty androgynous and didn't have a "womanly body" or whatevs.
And now over the past year (!) since I've been on hormones I think I've started crushing more, which is kind of annoying.

This is going nowhere and really has no point so I'd just like to say it's not a Lemon Party without old Dick {UPDATE 12/14: and I'm super glad that someone else recognized the brilliance in that moment}
::dances the jig off stage::

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A TMI Classic: Disconnection

I really had nothing on my mind to write about this week but since today I spent a long time writing probably too much to Hubby, a kind of long winded apology for not being as dilligent and punctual on my previous letters. And the whole letter was about how I didn't want my suckiness to be a sign of wanting to lose touch, but was rather caused by my own neuroses and that I don't ever want to be disconnected from her. Which was the point of this TMI, about my precedent of losing touch with people whenever they're out of sight, It's from the 9th of August and if you haven't read it, it's new to you:
I've been stressing over this for so long and I think it totally ruined my last letter to Hubby, it was full of laments and worries about not being able to keep in touch with people, which is it seems stupid to write to a person you actually want to stay in touch with. But it was what was on my mind when I was writing and it's what came out. I really should like start planning what I write, and in a larger sense do; spur of the moment, stream of consciousness might not always be the best way to go through life.
But enough about that, it's TMI Thursday, though on nights like this, these posts would be bettered labeled as a therapy session where I just vent, because I have no scinitillating details or stories. One of my biggest regrets and character flaws that I feel I have is my absolute inability to maintain a friendship when I am not in the same zip code with someone. I don't know what it is exactly. I used to trot out the excuse of "any one that's not in my field of vision is dead to me" it seemed cool in that devil may care live in the moment way but I think it was to compensate for those times when I would just forget about people, like during breaks, or not budget time to call them. I should probably start this at the beginning otherwise I'll be jumping around so much and this will be so jumbled that your comprehension level will be the same as if I never wrote this.
I suppose it started at middle school. All my friends before lived relatively close to me and we would hang out a good deal in the summers. In my neighborhood I didn't really know any of the kids because I was bussed to a magnet school like an hour away and so that started my cycle of only being friends with people I knew from school. Home was perhaps a separate sphere, a bitter sanctuary where I didn't feel the need to be so perfect and on top of every thing but rather a place to sit in my underwear watching television. But in middle school it was different. I remember in 7th grade math class how we all had to mark where we lived on some map and I lived so far south from everyone else that another map had to be brought on. That combined with such a long bus ride, and being middle school awkward with acne and bad teeth and not nearly that level of wealth totally contributed to self consciousness and maybe feeling embarassed about everything. but I still had friends that I would hang out with that lived pretty close so that was fine, and in the summer we would have some football passing tournaments so I would see my other friends as well. But those feelings of isolation only increased when kids started throwing parties and I could never go because they lived in the valley or whereve and it only got worse in high school. I never got my licence because I was never confident about driving; I would use as my excuse that I tend to daydream like all the team and never thought I had the focus to be a good driver, but underlying that was just my parent's driving histories and how I was in like 4 car accidents before I was 11 and my mom one night got into a pretty sever multi car one. I'm sure that ruined my confidence and that fear was always in the back of my head. But as I couldn't drive my mobility in that area of the city was severely limited, but now as I write this I don't feel it was that big a deal at the time. I had friends and I was never lonely; that element of knowing you would see them all again in a few months really neutralized feelings of estrangement. By the time I graduated I was so ready to move on and start the next phase that that fall I never really thought about anyone; they were off at college and I had decided to do AmeriCorps; everything seemed ordered and in place.
My AmeriCorps year was perfect for me; everyone I needed to talk to and be close to were with me like 24-7 for months; I didn't have time to think about the outside world, but after our closing ceremony on the way to the airport I remember crying so much (before I passed out due to lack of sleep) that I may never see those people, who were my life for that year, again.
I tried to stay in touch with everyone who was important to me, and I was actually successful; I visited them in Texas and Florida, certain people I would call weekly, I even got back in touch with a few people from high school.
But as I got into college, according to popular legend, I really didn't talk for the first few weeks, I don't remember that, but when I went off to visit one of my friends who was working in Vermont for fall break, by myself a rumour was spread that I was delayed in a snow pile in Canada, which was incredibly untrue but still a great legend. And perhaps created my reputation as a loner type.
(I don't know where I'm going with this, and the rum...maybe its not helping)
Anyway everyone loved me but I guess I was still a little distant or withdrawn but it was fine. I started a frat yada yada. I guess my current malaise started. Being friends with pre Type-As has its problem, as they have planned their lives and schedule each summer with internships to further their future careers. Each summer this was the same, they'd be off doing amazing things and I'd be in L.A. chilling, because I never really cared about internships, ( I wouldn't know what to intern for) and I was more that life will work it self out. But over that first summer we had sort of an email mailing list which I never knew about until that fall ( for reasons I don't want to get into in this post) but apparently my lack of activity in that forum led to notions of my demise. Apparently I didn't talk to any of them until I called one of my girlfriends for her birthday, which, according to her, pissed off a lot of our friends because they thought I wasn't as close to her as I was to them.
Anyway time passes, everything changes I stayed the same. My friends from high school I lost touch with; people graduate and move, and the same with my AmeriCorps team and google searches don't really help when one of your friend's name is Katie Holmes (damn you Tom Cruise.) But I don't think it was the whole "preparing for life/doing amazing things" vs. whatever I occupied my time with. Sophomore year when I was freaking out over a lot of things and possibly terrifying Theresa with my depressive/suicidal thoughts she laid out a theory. I think I was telling her about a dream that I always had when I was really clinically depressed of everyone I have ever known or been close to, being a face on a series of hills and how if I did kill myself they all would be affected in some way, and how maybe I didn't get too close to people because I didn't want to be too close and then cause them more pain if I did commit suicide, hence my "distant" nature. And this came from my best and most important emotional friend. She probably was right at that point. I was quite unhappy with my life and being a boy and maybe I thought by forcing some distance, emotionally, between myself and others I would be in a way protecting them, though I think my distancing may have contributed to an aura of hidden mystery with me. I got that a lot. I'm sure my repressed transsexuality also helped to make me shut myself off to some people, to some extent.
The summertime separations were hard no lie, just because all of my friends were on the east coast where they could continue a sembalance of a social life, while I was stuck here with no one I know. But just like in high school the hope of the next school year and the knowledge that I would see them again sped the months along. But of course, as I am wont to do, while I was getting close to one group of people I became "too busy" to talk with some of my old friends. It seems that if they would call it would always be at a weird or bad time. And I never got around to calling them back. I think there was the fear of not knowing what to say, the fear of maybe our only real connection being our shared experiences without which our conversations would be full of awkwardness. The knowledge that our lives would never be so tightly wound again, that we were moving apart. But its not like I never stopped thinking about them I think I just stopped being confident in talking to them, like somehow I failed in some way.
That kind of thinking lead to a love of my life marrying someone else.
And actually I think thats it, thats what's troubling me right now. I think its the fact that, especially know when I've been called an inspiration and courageous by starting my transition that I feel pressure to be something extraordinary, to live some amazing life. And so I feel guilty about when my life consists of me being stressed and feeling inadequate and mocked by hidden glances. There just seems to be a life exemplar that I'm not living that I feel disappoints those who care about me. That and the fact I still can't get a job. And so I think i'm scared of that same old fear that with physical separation there will be an emotional one as well. I really feel this pressure and subconsciously hold onto this belief that without a job, at this point I'm a bit of a failure and so I'm embarrassed. I measure myself and find me lacking. Or maybe its that other fear that I'm really not interesting as a person and I have nothing interesting to say; that deep down we were never really friends but rather that connection was forged due to circumstance and common trial. Like now I have phone dates to schedule with some of my really good girl friends who are so far away and I'm just terrified, which is not okay. I think thats why I'm kind of liking my guy friends right now who I exchange taunting e-mails or drunken texts with; purely emotional less. And that safety blanket of knowing I'll see them back at Harvard Westlake or at Duke is gone and I think that uncertainty is something that is incredibly troubling, that playtime is over and the real world is all I'll know from now on; I need to get through that but I don't know how to yet. (Oh and the fact I'm a girl now may complicate a few of my relations with friends from high school. I would love to go our athletic alumni reunion but I'm sure that would not go over well. Or smoothly. But just most of those friendships are out until a move is made on either side. So frustrating.)
And though I keep in touch with aim and facebook and whatever they just seem so false and tinny. I'm not sure if I could call someone, like verbally at this point. I'm not sure my voice would stand for it. Plus I hate my voice right now.
But there are some people I do make an effort to reach out to and I think the fact that they haven't reciprocated is really exacerbating my feelings. I really need to work through my self esteem issues. And realize these people actually do care about who I really am, and they are maybe the only ones on this whole planet who do. And to lose them as I fear I have lost everyone else would be the worst thing I could do, in the near future or for the whole of my life. Maybe my therapists would help me get rid of this self doubt; I just wish I could trust her as much as I do this blank screen.Maybe I do do better at a distance and maybe I'm that egotistical where I want to only say my piece and control the flow of a conversation to direct it away from anything I'm not comfortable with. But that's not okay. I'm tying to be open and truthful in every aspect of my life and I feel that to keep anything from my friends is a cop out and a lie. I really need to let go and trust and hope for the best in all aspects of my life, especially one so vital and needed and vital. I think what I need more than anything is an unsolicited I Love You.
But this too will pass. Once I get this damn elusice job I'll feel better about myself and feel like a person. Until then I'm going to try to keep writing letters to Hubby every month at least, and also to Suj and maybe that will be my means of communication to all my friends. It really does convey such a sense of humanity and personality, of care and thoughtfulness which is what I want all my friends to feel about me. That I do love them more than anything. And I'm done otherwise this will end up being more of the same than it's already been. Ugh I feel like Eric Carmen, like way too much like Eric Carmen.

Yeah all of the above? It probably made no sense.

okay and as I wrote Hubby today one more instance came to memory, that I'm not sure if I wrote above but I can't read my own writing. Anyway it was about how a girl, a friend of mine in like 2nd or 3rd grade went to live in Africa with her parents, who I think we're doctors, and I promised to write her and send her tapes of her favorite show, Rescue 911. I of course never did and never read the letter she wrote to me, I think. Oh and a "romantic rival" of mine for her asked me to send her a tape, which was him singing a Color Me Badd song which I listened to and then lost someplace in my closet. I think that incident shaped my life.

oh and 30 Rock is so damn hilarious. There was a brilliant joke tonight about family skeletons in the closet and Jack Donaghy, in passing mentioned his brother Tim who "bet on NBA games." It was great for me.

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TMI: The Come Outs

So thinking about coming out and all that jazz today made me remember how I've come to my current place where I have nothing left to hide and too many people know way too much about me. But as I'm sure I've mentioned before I really dislike the phrase "coming out." Maybe it is more my self perception but I never really thought of myself as closeted really, though I guess my transsexuality was closeted behind the facade of just being a gay guy, so I wasn't in the closet but I was very close maybe. I'm trying to recall the only times people asked me if I was gay; once when I was like 11 and had no idea what my uncles were talking about so I said no because they made it sound really bad, the next time by my pediatrician when I was 13 and my mom had discovered some Victoria's Secret lingerie which I spent like all my allowance on, I think ,when asked by him about if i would have sex with guys or girls I replied girls, but I was at that age where I knew enough not to say guys and finally in the back of my chemistry class in 1oth or 11th grade when Katie, the girl I thought I was in love with (and maybe really was) asked me if I was gay. I at first misheard her and thought she was asking me if I was okay but when she clarified I said no because I didn't think I was and it is kind of weird to be asked by the "girl" you dig and tried to show affection to if you're gay, though looking back I think a lot of our time was spent in girl talk and me writing poetry. The only time since high school was in AmeriCorps when we were working in Sandy Hook New Jersey painting a hallway; it was one of those boring days so we were playing Truth or Truth and they asked me, they being a lesbian and a girl I was strangely attracted to who's grandmother was a lesbian, if I was gay. I replied I didn't know and they accepted it at that (though very soon afterwards one of those girls spent the night, yada yada very weird)
I really think everyone since then just assumed I was gay because as one of my friends told me I had "professorial hand gestures" which is an amazing description that I don't actually understand.
But all of the above were memories of denial instead of memories of coming out so let's move on. The first time I came out as a transsexual was my senior year in high school and I really am trying to recall what sparked it. i think it was around my 18th birthday and so I was getting kind of depressed because I guess I thought that 18 was the age and if I didn't do anything then. transition wise, I'd never be able to do it, or something like that. So one of my girl friends, who I let read a book of my poems, which she's lost over the years but whatevs, I told her during the middle of the school day and after asking me to clarify the basics about me feeling trapped yada yada she was quite accepting of it, though the fact that I waited until then where it was close enough to the end of the year where I could never have to see her again if it didn't work out gave me some safety. Later on during AmeriCorps Bethany when we were pillow talking somehow it came out that I had hooked up with boys which she was really fine with considering her dad is a southern evangelical preacher. I guess the second time I came out as transsexual was sophomore year and I really don't know how this came out. Oh wait yeah I do. Okay rewind. At Duke there is a preorientation program for freshman called Project BUILD and sophomore year I was one of the crew leaders. Every night of the week, in order to get to know one another and build bonds one person would give an interview where they would talk about their lives and any secrets or fears they wanted to share to be kept confidential by the team of course. My other team leaders were one of my favorite people who happened to be a lesbian, and a girl from france. For some reason, maybe because it was on my mind, or maybe because I felt comfortable in authority and wanted to give a memorable interview I resolved to come out and to have my interview on the last night. So we went into Biddle our music building and I came out to 6 other people, including a tobacco farmer from Greenville North Carolina. I don't remember if I cried during it or if any of our crewlettes understood what I was saying but it really helped me. So a few weeks later when I was drunk one night I promised Theresa I would tell her a secret another night. I guess she was sober because she remembered and soI pulled her aside one night and I don't know how much I explained or was capable of explaining but I remember her reaction " I knew there was something about you" Then maybe a week or so later when I was at some party a girl and I started hooking up and I told Theresa that I was going to reassert masculinity to which she replied "however it goes, whatever happens I'll love you just the same" god I heart that girl. Nothing major did end up happening that night and she eventually came out as a lesbian, a pretty butch one so life is strange that way that I'm now a lot more femme than she is.
I think the next coming out happened in Rome and these were all so so random. One night I was sitting outside of a club on Capri smoking with two of the girls from Trinity and once again I don't remember how these conversations get on these topics but I came out to them and we discussed boys for a bit and then that night, or maybe the next when I was walking back to the hotel I think i said something and Lena, another Trinity girl was like "you're gay? but you don't look gay." And now is when the story gets fun. So at the end of sophomore year one of my hyper prepared friends decided that the guys should get a house together for senior year and they included me in these plans. I was very noncommital because I could not see myself living with guys senior year but as I was in Rome and was talking more with two of my girlfriends we decided we should get an apartment for senior year. Word flowed back, as is bound to happen when they're both dating my guy friends and so one night I get a string of angry IMs asking me wtf is up and I tell them okay okay I'll explain. So it was our Fall break in Rome and I came back on a Tuesday from I think Naples and wrote a super long email telling them that I did't feel I could live with them because I was a transsexal and thought it would be a lot better for my sanity if I lived with the girls, but that I was still the same guy who enjoyed beirut and whatever. The only text I typed in the email (I attached a word document) was bombs away and I sent it that night as I was freaking out about it to Mara online. When one of my guy friends IM'd me after I sent it and asked me if I was there I totally freaked out and listened to Mara when she said I should go to bed. The next morning I went to the Papal weekly address and then spent the next 5 days traveling over Italy by train. When I got back and checked my email I got two brief letters of support from my guy friends and longer ones from Theresa and Suj, which really make me happy to this day. They all seemed quite proud of me and the girls were "blown away" that I wrote it to the guys but to me It was an incredibly cowardly way to come out. From across the Atlantic by e-mail as I was leaving my computer for a week and didn't have to see any of them for 4 months. But it served its purpose and they didn't get on me about not living with them anymore. I actually remember around that time I put up on Facebook that I was interested in Men which stressed me out far more than it should have.
Last year about this time, hmm. Everyone knew or assumed that I liked boys and unbeknownst to me other things as well. In those coming out emails I apparently wrote something about you can tell whoever you want because it'd be better that way and so my guy friend in Paris actually did tell and tried to talk through it with people including a friend back at Duke who told other people, yada yada, gossip spreads.(and I just remembered one way I came out was at a party I was discussing one of my classes with an acquaintance. The current topic in class was the money shot and she wasn't feel it and in a moment of sympathy I told her that yeah I'd be on the recieving end of it. So bizarre) So when, in another cowardly or efficient manner I came out in the "about me" section of facebook that" I'm a transsexual and will be starting hormones soon " it confirmed a lot of things and the word spread further. Some of my friends were pissed that i didn't tell them the hormone news directly and personally but I explained it was just a getting things of my chest type thing and I didn't mean to diminsh their importance. I actually came out to my brother over AIM and he actually seemed to freak out and didn't take it well which was kind of shocking considering he's gay (though is close to 30 and still in the closet) so that pissed me off but I never really liked him anyway. And so second semester was just so bizarre. I think there was a week where I came out to a person or two every night, over dinner, at bars, a few times by going upstairs at parties and showing people the facebook account having them read it say wow and ask me questions. Everyone took it well because I think I only told girls and people who I trusted wouldn't freak out about it. Strangely enough the last people I came out to in person where my roommates because it seemed that they already knew it, but when I did they had questions that I guess they didn't know if they could ask me, mostly about health and practical stuff. Actually the whole coming out weeks were an orgy of people telling me how proud they were of me and at a certain point like I was telling random people like it was a compulsion like I couldn't keep it in anymore. After semi formal with Hubby her sorority president drove us back and in the car ride for some reason I came out to a girl I had never actually seen or know of before. (a few months later I came out to one of the Trinity girls through AIM; once again alcohol was involved) I had tried to come out to Hubby earlier that night after numerous vodka shots through the facebook reveal (people really don't read those things) but she said she already knew, that my friend in Paris told them when I sent the email and so they had known the whole time, which kind of pissed me off that that moment was taken away from me. Using facebook was totally convenient but it was kind of a crutch where I would use it to break the ice. It also spread the word further. But it was probably better that way. There were certain times when like I was certain that everyone knew and it was quite evident in the overly enthusaistic way people started to treat me.But I didn't have to do too much really just post something and let the gossip/news mill do it's thing.It spread on its own well enough so I didn't have to do anything big, though I did because I was talked into it. Senior Week we had a Senior Prom and after, I don't know 13 or so shots to steady my nerves I went all dolled up where a tonne of people I didn't know ended up talking to me and apparently I blew a lot of people's minds, people who thought that what I had written on facebook was just a joke (i still don't find the humor in such a joke, especially one that was on there for months) So at that point everyone who needed to know knew and basically everyone in my class did as well. At Myrtle for beach week was like the first time I was treated like a girl, just because everyone knew and didn't care. Though I did find out later that me coming out had freaked out my guy friends who I guess didn't understand it but never really felt comfortable asking me about it. And I had noticed that distance increasing, but my closeness with so many others more than made up for it. But I still hadn't come out to my mom, which I had planned on doing when she came down for Graduation, but you can read that story here and here.
SO in short I've come out through e-mail, group settings, facebook, IM, by forwarding of e-mails, word of mouth, face to face and by wearing a dress. Oh and through assumptions and slow realizations as well.

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Just in Case You Were Still Wondering...

why I was so upset on, I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday it was because of a conversation I had with one of my friends who's in Durham who still keeps track of the going ons at Duke (dear ol'.) She pointed me in the direction of a story about Sarah Marshall ( my tranny "friend" at Duke who I had a few issues with after we hooked up) Anyway she's still living on campus and though she is housed in the male hall of a dorm she petitioned the university to be allowed to use the women's restroom. everything was fine until a dad of one of the girls spoke out against it in protest and now he's appearing on the Montel Williams Show to "speak on behalf of society" and the fact that Duke parents are always doing things like that.
Well that really upset me for obvious reasons but also because of the ignorance and the claim to be speaking on behalf of society. I mean even before Sarah started transitioning "he" was already more femme than a lot of the girls I know- she's not going to be lusting after anyone secretly in the bathroom.
But then I thought I should e-mail her to see how she's doing, because though I didn't live in a dorm after sophomore year and so I didn't have to deal with such shit, but y'know being a transsexual friend I thought it was kind of a responsibility, to offer support. But I thought that would be kind of awkward- a month or so ago when she reappeared on faceboook she friended me and before I accepted I wrote her an email

Hey, it's good to hear from you.
I think the last time "we spoke" was the saturday after LDOC when you left a rather acidic IM to me,why I still don't understand but it added a different level of stress at that time, along with coming out to my mom, writing and researching two massive papers and the whole graduation thing and seeing really good friends for the last (or a long) time. I was confused and upset about it for a time,and, to be honest, the IM(and the subsequent SN blocking) seemed like an erratic bitchy and somewhat bipolar move, which to some extent I had come to expect but I still worried about you and tried to defend some of your actions to my friends. I had meant to write an e-mail to you about it after the fact but I had much to do and I didn't want it to be writ in the heat of emotions. but I'm a strong believer in bygones. I just wanted to let you know circumstances and situations and feelings I had on the subject and where I stood, in an attempt at honesty and to clear the air about certain things. The way things end really can pollute our perceptions and views.
But enough negativity:
I've thought of you off and on during this summer, wondering how you were doing, and I'm happy to see you're back at Duke. Since you are in Craven (and you were quite worried about being able to come back I assume that your parents took the "coming out" (I dislike that phrase) well (?) If they did that makes me glad. I'm also happy that you seem to be so happy and truly enjoying life; it truly is a beautiful and wondrous thing

i sent it to a few e-mail accounts that I though kind of have been associated with her and none bounced back, but she didn't respond so I didn't know if things were now "cool" between us or what- it's kind of a limbo. I realize another reason I didn't write her recently was something in the article about a 'transsexual student awaiting [srs]' and I freaked out and got kind of jealous that somehow she'd "get it" before me and that once again I'm killing time and treading water (before I realized that such phrasing is incredibly vague and doesn't necessarily mean the surgery is imminent) but I was also jealous in that she was the subject of notoriety and kind of a prominent role, I guess. (i am incredibly insecure and jealous sometimes- i admit this.)

But then I read this earlier article about how the bathroom program was only a temporary thing and lasted a weekend and once there was a complaint Sarah (not Plain, but Tall) was moved, which was a relief because there are quite a few dorm rooms on campus with private bathrooms ( some of my guy friends had them and they weren't trans- just lazy and lucky with room picks) and I figured that the whole situation wasn't that big a deal but me being me I took other's supposed stress and tried to solve problems that weren't really there.
I know I didn't explain that like I wanted to but I've been meaning to write about it and that's what came out. I must admit though I am very happy I don't have to live with dormlife- there are benefits to being a "grown-up."

That being said I really wish I was back at Duke if only for the fact Regina Spektor is coming for a concert in November- green with envy I am.

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TMI: Family Ties

Stop me if you've heard this before. So of the ideas I had for this and things I wanted to include here I think I may have already written but I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to look and I may have confused this with time with my therapists so who knows. I doubt anyone reads these anyway; they're more for me to vent. And this is what I feel I need to vent about this week. So...
I don't know if I have a normal family, though there is no such thing as normal especially when it comes to family, but just the family dynamic and the sense of belonging and cohesiveness and mutual caring I don't think I've ever experienced. I guess it started when I was young; my dad was an alcoholic and though I don't know if he ever physically hurt my mom, I doubt she would tell me if I asked I remember, especially on one occasion when I was about 3 or 4 my mom bundled my brother and I into a car and we parked in our local grocery store parking lot and slept there for the night. They never got along that I can remember, all I can think of is them yelling at each other and me crying for them to stop. They got divorced when I was 5. Since then I saw him often when he lived out near us then he started moving around the country and I calculated that in the last 8 years I've sen him 3 times; once when we flew down to viist him after he was in a freak accident, 2ndly my high-school graduation and finally for graduation this year. I never talk to him because he really means nothing to me, though I was very close to writing him, for the sole purpose of berating him, calling his life a failure telling him that he would probably die alone because he was already dead to me yada yada, before I calmed myself down, in response to an e-mail he wrote saying he was disappointed in me. Considering how he lives in the deep south I really have no plans to ever see him again. My brother was born four and a half years before me and so we were never really close. When I was in 1st graded and was going to the same school as him, he was in the 6th and would have nothing to do with me, not even showing me around. Then of course when you grow up he enters puberty when I'm still a kid and when I'm at that tstage of trying to figure out wtf is happening physically he's off to college. Of course he was always my big brother and I always thought I cared about him and wanted to please him, and perhaps to some extent I still do but the fact we never have conversations and he seems to hate me sort of cuts that off quick. Even though I've known he was gay since I was either 12 or 13 and I, as the younger kid is wont to do, was snooping around in his computer and came upon a letter he wrote to one of his track friends begging him not to "let some gay shit" get in the way of their friendship, well for that reason and the fact that whenever anyone would ask him why he didn't have a girlfriend he would always reply that he was focusing on school, or that in college he had my mom and I come up (on the weekend of CIF finals no less) to see a reversed gendered romeo and juliet that had so many phalli. When I actually came out to him, over AIM but still, it was in december and when I told him I was a transsexual I remember him freaking out and asking me if I still had my penis and telling me I couldn't get "rid of it" for years and years and really not offering any support, which really shocked and confused me especially when I came home for winter break and his boyfriend is living in my house and my mom I guess was trying to be oblivious. Now that I've been in L.A. he's just incredibly contemptuous of me (and of course we've never had a real conversation, like ever) and dismisses anything I do with such an air of arrogance, though he's done nothing to warrant it, to the point where he's become just another asshole to me that I can do without, which sucks because I would love to have a big brother; I just wish he were'nt such a bastard. I've never been sure what caused this contempt that is so deep he couldn't come to my high school or college graduations, I have a few theories but I feel that it's one of those "all about me" things; one that he was jealous of me that I went to H-W and then Duke, both amazingly prestigious and privileged schools or that I was able to go to Africa for a summer and stuff like that and so he's jealous of the opportunites that I have been afforded, as well as the fact that apparently people who know us tell him that I'm smarter than he is, which has to be grating.. My other theory as to why he has not really accepted me is that even though he's almost 5 years older than me, and almost 30 now, I came out before him and that crushed his hope that I could give my mom her genetic grandkids and now that responsibility falls to him and now he's confronting his own fear of coming out (which at this point I don't understand, I mean he's been living with this guy, that I actually don't like and seems very white trashy, for a few years now, though maybe it's different for older kids) I can totally understand the feeling of not wanting to disappoint my mom, who after my grandma died around the same time the only male figure in my life, my uncle died, has been the most important person in my world and that fear of disappointing her was probably what kept me from coming out for so long. My mom, her brother was 20 when she was born and so all of my cousins are either in alabama, and so I never will see them, or are 50 and if I can be blunt they are a sorry lot. Though I looked up to them all when I was young; I remember when I was about 11 sitting at maybe a Burger King with 2 of them and them quizzing me as to whether I was gay, which at that point I didn't understand. Well two have been in prison, one is okay and the other has no money in his bank account and has been living in my house, smoking weed every morning and paying no rent fr five years. Oh he's 50 and I despise him, not even for the fact that he used to call me a "fag" (lovely word) And so I've never had cousins my age to grow and play with, or whatevs. Or maybe my brother's reticence comes from our family's religiousness. Both of my grandparents were ministers and I was being groomed to be the next generation until I was about 13 and stopped believing in their god when he couldn't transfigure me into becoming a girl. But so my mom is very religious and whenever anything homosexual or whatever came on television, for example she would decry the immorality of civilization (which thankfully she has stopped doing, I'd like to think because of me.) I've always loved my mom and she loves me, as all parents must,but I've always felt there was a distance between us, perhaps because of the gigantic secret I held for so many years, maybe because as a single mom who also was active in all these organizations so I never really saw her which always sucked because I would have loved to spend time with her but she was always "not there." And now as I'm about to move to San Fran the closeness that I thought we gained in the past few months is leaving and though she loves me I'm not sure she supports me. Like the fact I have no money for hormones right now is incredibly frustrating because I know if I were to ask her for "money for hormones" she wouldn't give it to me so I become depressed over the state of my life. At certain points it gets real lonely not having a family not having people you know care about you. I really envy those (obviously fake) families with large Thanksgiving dinners or Christmas parties; I don't even know my uncle's birthday. Family is what is meant to moor you, to give you some sense of place and belonging and the fact I've never felt that obviously contributes to the isolation I would naturally feel, "in my current state." I would love to know that there are people who live me no matter what (besides my amazing friends.) or no matter what I am. Even though I really think identical twins are kind of creepy ( half a soul!) I would love to be able to have that connection with someone. To never have done any of that childhood bonding stuff, to never have a real conversation (hell I'm lucky if my brother even says hello to me) it wears you down which was why I think for the past week (along with other stresses, aka working on living arrangements/job stuff/not wanting to be a boy-becoming a girl) I've been feeling just so fucking down. And I know I should try to cherish my relations and blood because I'll miss them when they're gone but I wonder about that, I can be a very cold person at times Maybe that's hwy I feel no problem changing my last name as well, because I feel no connection to it or any of it's holders.. sigh, Whatever happened to those Full House endings? I think I'm going to try to hug my mom now, while I still can.
end recording. (and yeah i don't think i can or did fully articulate what I was trying to. fuck. whatevs)

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TMI: I Want A Perfect Body

I should want a perfect soul. This post was originally going to carry on from Agrado's monologue in the last post where I was going to talk about how expensive this life is and will be. And I think that will be what some of this post will end up being about but in the intervening few hours this heat wave we seem to be going through, along with me eating (probably too much) has sapped much of my energy and enthusiasim for that. (and I still don't have a song for stuck in my head; I'm a mess right now) But I need to start this someplace so let's start here.
My life has always been an expensive one. First by going to the wealthiest high school west of the mississippi (according to one of my old classmates) then going to Duke where one year of school cost more than all 4 years of my brother's. Not to mention all the accesories and things you must do (i'm sure that throughout college I must have spent at least 7 thousand dollars on alcohol.)
And then of course there is the price of being a transsexual. Growing up I'm not sure how much money I spent buying clothes or lingerie (that my mom would inevitably find and throw away all without saying anything to me about it) or other enhancements (I think a pair of silicone prosthetic breasts, like professional ones cost like 450.) But all of those were minor expenses. The hormones I'm currently on, total about 400 dollars for about a 4 month supply. I need to somehow cobble together a full working woman's wardrobe (all of my clothes to this point hae been more party dress and club wear oriented.) In my mind at least I feel I have to leave in a big tolerant city, like New York or San Fran where people wouldn't care that I'm a tranny ( I can't live in L.A.- it feels too much like I'm trapped by the notion of home and the oppresion of my "past" here) but of course those are like the most expensive cities in the country, almost as if once people live there they're really open to all types because they're paying too much too hate and worry about if that girl has a penis. But once I somehow live in this city and split a 2400 dollar per month rent the upkeep on being a girl is incredibly high and a little frightening. Especially on like 30 thousand a year ( which I'm not actually sure how far that goes, but it doesn't seem like a lot. Of course I've never had to work in my life so I probably don't know the value of a dollar.)And though the upkeep alone is pretty high, just to reach the point where I need basic upkeep I feel at least in my mind that I need quite a bit of work. First my therapist and god knows how much she's charging but I also need voice therapy ( it was weird how I've always had this very sonorous and gorgeous and dignified voice, but I always hated it because it is in no way feminine, and though it is slightly better I still hate to talk.) I really need electrolysis just because shaving is a total bitch, but that's going to cost all total legs/face and misc. about 1500 dollars (thank god I'm not really hairy.) And then of course there are the major surgeries a tracheal shave, (electrolysis and a tracheal shave are all I really think I need right now) and forehead surgery as well as breast implants, a slight tweak of a nose job, the reshaping of my jaw and then the big one SRS all total is going to be around 15 thousand (and I'm quite lucky that I've always had rather girl features)And that's if it's performed in Thailand, where they have a tonne of experience because it is cheaper there but, call it ethnocentrism or whatever, but for most medical things I feel I would be more comfortable with someone in America.(and I'm not even sure what all other surgeries I may need; I haven't gotten that far in consulting) Right now I 'm happy because I look "like a girl" and even if I were to try to dress like a boy (I still get called Miss) that tends to confuse people more then when I'm wearing a skirt but it is like I am in the process of becoming who I've always wanted through the act of physically changing my body, and while I'm in the midst of it I'm as tempted to make myslef idealized and super attractive, right now I'm just cute, at times hot, but I do live in L.A. and I think I fall under the sway of the superficial.
Just the idea of how I'm going to get all that money is really scary, just because I don't know how to picture that amount and expenses for anyone just out of college are so high. (and yes there are dark times when I figure I could get a few hundred bucks if I worked as a sex worker, though I probably won't, though I never say never)But also the physical nature and results of all those surgeries gives me pause. I've never had any sort of surgery or gone under anesthesia and I'm not sure how my body would actually take it. Since I was a little kid I keloid and though it has gotten better in recent years I'm still scared of the scarring that may result. I mean I haven't even gotten my ears pierced for the very reason of I don't know if there will be a gigantic amount of scar tissue, or whatever. That is actually one of the reasons I delayed starting transition because I didn't think I would want to start it if I could never actually complete it ( i figured, in one of my self sacrificing moments, to suffer this life as a boy and just pray karma built up for the next life) but now when I am really just totally stuck in the middle I can see how and why some transsexuals choose to be non op. I don't think that's for me though. I mean my penis (which is really odd to say) has gotten to the point where most of the time I forget it's their but of course there are always those random and awkward situations, and also just when I actually want something sexually (desires which I have felt only in the abstract of abstracts for the past 5 months) that itself causes so many potentially harmful problems. I hear a lot of stories about other transsexuals who absolutely hated their penis all growing up, I hated mine for what it stood for and represented but never the physical reality of it, though that was before I was trying to fit into certain jeans and have no unfortunate bulges. But anyway in this one documentary my mom and I watched about transgendered inmates there was one inmate who was very self destructive and castrated herself and then removed the phallus and I had never thought about that. It guess I thought it was the reserve for people who felt they had no other option, or those with sever psychosis. But to be honest,though I would never actually take a pair of scissors or anything (though it seems like it would be so easy) I can understand that desire to have it gone of just wanting to be rid of it. (too bad I'm not fond of blood or pain.)It serves no function but to mark me not as a freak, but if someone were to be in that intimate a situation it would label me as a sexual threat and a disruptive element in most people's world views. And I have really begun to get upset with myself because I'm spending so much time and effort and thought on trying to perfect my appearance ( I thought I was above wanting breast implants- it seemed so shallow, but I would kill for just a B cup), to make my body the right shape, to convey the right movements, to be undetectable, gorgeous, desired that I fear many of my other interest may be taking a back seat. Even if it may endanger my health. (Though as I think of it I've been trying to make sure and prepare my body for this day to make it as pliable to ebing female as I could, by having my eating a bit disordered since I was 17, and like cutting out smoking because (GROSS ALERT) smoking removes the elasticity of the skin, including penile skin, so to wuit would allow for better vaginoplasty results. ) I never fully understood the so called feminine focus on looking their best, back when I was a boy I didn't really care how that body looked because I felt no affinity or connection to it, but now I weigh myself every 6 hours and obsess constantly about my hair and face and how to get better cleavage.
But like Agrado said, kind of, sure all of this is and will be so expensive, and though I'm not sure where the money will come from, the tens of thousands of dollars, but sitting where I am now I can say it has totally been worth it, and not just in the monetary cost but in the emotional turmoil fear and self doubt and feelings of isolation, and I really have no doubt that as I'm attending my reunion in 2017 those whole journey will have been the most wonderful part of my life. But I would always know that the next day will be even happier than the last.

and i really feel like that all made no sense and came out nowhere close to what i wanted. that was poor. ugh. i totally have to try to restate the crux of this post later. hopefully when i'm not sweating and feeling disgusting in a bad mood.

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TMI: Queer Kids, No?

(said to the tune of the Arcade Fire's No Cars Go)
Ok that is probably the worst title of one of these posts ever but I couldn't think of a better one, and I think it fits with the topic of tonight so I'll let it ride. Anyway I really hate how "important" I make this little things and how involved they are. Just to get in the right mood to write this I have to sit in a certain place, turn the lights down to a certain level, get moderately tipsy (and usually watch Ugly Betty but I've already seen tonight's like three times.) But these are one of those important things I need to do for my own sanity and also for you, beloved yet mythic reader, to get to know me a little better and understand in a small way, how I tick; I think that's what I really want more than anything with my friends and people who are important to me, for them to know me truly.
Ok here we go. I first thought of this topic yesterday when I was checking my bookmarks and saw that I had bookmarked a Youtube channel. It was the channel for Chris Crocker and I think I saved it some time ago because I thought he was gorgeous and also transgendered, and of course that's my one trick/seeming obsession. So I watched a few of his videos and, I don't know, I was sort of annoyed and irritated. I'm not sure if it's his personality or style or whatever but I was thinking I was "over" and never really comfortable with the "faggy" ultra femme big city fully self assured hipster style gay guy. I don't know why but...I think that's what I'm going to try to figure out here. I'm not sure if it's because at times it seems to be a caricature, or the appropriation of black women's slang (you know what I'm talking about) but I've never felt too comfortable with it. Perhaps because I feel it is kind of a stereotype of the "flaming queer" that "mainstream" America disapproves of and so in a way that image , that image of the promiscuous drug fueled club lifestyle, is a hindrance to equality and tolerance, but that can't be everything. Maybe it's just the lisp, I have no idea where it comes from. ( And about Chris, apparently he lives in a really small town in the South, and is not just a flamboyant Big City queer. It's all in this article, which really made me take a second look at him and sort of marvel. I couldn't even imagine how it hard it must be to be that out in such a small and conservative community, when I at times freak out and I live in L.A.)
Looking back at my childhood, because everything that's fucked up about anyone can be found when they were kids, but I remember (and I feel like I've told this before) my very first crush or person I was drawn to was Julia Roberts when she had almost a bowl cut and was wearing a jean jacket, so maybe I've always been drawn to the androgyne, or the pretty femme boy. Maybe it was because I spent a few years growing up, in the religious background of my mom and the avoidance of any outward sign of being different or feminine. Even know, when my mom is tolearting me being a girl after I came out to her she still sort of freaked out at the thought I may date a boy, so I guess her bias has seeped into my mind. I know in my mind I've always been femme but I feared letting that show. But everytime I've been in a gay club or whatever, at least before, there was always the idea that I was aggressive and dominant in terms of who would hit on me, which is the opposite of me sexually and so I felt jealous that I couldn't be tiny/tanorexic and obviously femme (though times change.) Maybe it was the fear of being thought of as different that affects me, though that is such a ludicrous notion now. Maybe it was because at the time I felt some pleasure in being the queer kid and I wanted to be the only one, as if my sexuality made me cooler, but only if no one else possessed it. Or maybe it's because they have such good skin and their makeup is better than mine. Once I've gotten to know them they've been good people but that initial recalcitrance, my perception of a party life I guess is hard to overcome. But I don't know I think it's how they may self identify, like if they self identify as a gay man then there's a bit of distance but once they identify themselves as transgendered then I'm far more likely to like them no matter what. Maybe it's because t that point there is more of a shared connection that I don't necessarily feel with gay guys, which I've never really thought of myself as. And I'm, in the stage where gay guys are really not into me because I wear dresses and have breasts and exude none of the masculinity in which they desire. I've never been so comfrotable with guys making out, though I'm not comfortable with most pda, perhaps because each act of love is an act of rebellion, but gay porn never did it for mem though that could be because I couldn't picture myself in that fantasy. I don't think I'm a self hating queer, as I've told so many people real lesbians, the kind who don't make out in bars or whatever just to satisfy their need for attention or to turn on guys, but real ones, have on the whole been the best people I know, but then I think about transsexuality and what I want. I would love if I was able to go completely stealth and be universally thought of as having ovaries, instead of in the slightly ambiguous place where I am pre surgeries. And maybe my transsexuality is an excuse or an actual repression of thoughts of being a boy who likes boys, an attempt to fit into where society says I should fit, in it's own very twisted way. But then I think of my rhetoric of wanting to break down gender and advance a more fluid notion of it, but I in some way am supporting the thousands year old and predominant binary system. Am I betraying the idea of LGBT pride by being what I am? I guess wanting a to be in a relationship with a guy makes me a conformist, that my wanting a vagina makes me a slave to the system; if I could go out with a little bit of stubble and still wear a dress and not give a fuck about reaction then I'd probably be freer than I believe I am, but I want that acceptance of "fitting in" and conforming to some idea of gender norms. And maybe that's why those flamboyant bois cause such turmoil within me; the fact that they can live so free within themselves and obvious that they don't fit into what society wants gendered or sexually and they don't care, that I'm just jealous. I know I'm going to hate this in the morning because I got drunker than I had planned and so my thoughts have muddled and this exercise failed. But, did you understand any of this? I'll see if I can recap; the femme bois who are prettier than me I don't think I like because maybe I have self hating issues, they hold back the cause of equality, I'm jealous or I am secretly all about a heteronormative society. But I'm still confused because I'm not sure how me possibly being "in love" with Hubby and wanting to marry her ties into that.
Ugh, that sucked. And I was so happy with how all my posts turned out today.

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TMI: Self Discovery through Pop Culture

This is probably going to be a little lean because this post, by its nature of me trying to remember things that happened over a decade ago and also the fact that I'm not drinking right now but I'll try cuz, I've done this once so its tradition.
Anyway as I watch Ugly Betty explain the difference between transvestitism and transsexuality, and Alexis Meade describing various feminizing surgeries, it seems an appropriate time as any, and I did say on Tuesday that this would be my topic if not earth shattering happened in my life so... andiamo. Oh wait I didn't really tell the topic umm...early signs I was different? Does that work? Whatevs; I still don't believe anyone actually reads this, so its just me and my therapist.
(I'm going to use the power of the internet to research a few dates so I know how old I was for certain things, though I prefer to do this in a rambling stream of consciousness style.)
I have a memory of being in some toy store and really wanting, I think it was, a female He-Man action figure that I really wanted to be and dreamed about being, which according to wikipedia was called She-Ra. The site claims that they discontinued the line in the middle of 1987 so I guess this had to be when I was no older than 4, which is wow! I had no idea I had any memories of anything that early. But I know I got that doll, I mean action figure and I remember playing a lot with her tiara.
The next relevant memory I have is when I was shopping with my grandma in some mall thats no longer there. I was still really young at this point I think, and my grandma and I were in some beauty store maybe, with like hair accesories and the like I guess. But I remember trying on a plastic headband (an "Alice Band": I like that) and wearing it around the store. I remember walking out of the store still wearing it and one of the workers rushing out to get me. I must have been young because I think it must have been written off as a cute innocent thing. I remember up until 2nd grade I would only play with girls; I remember jumping a lot of rope and then when one of my friends got hurt by a speed walker I remember crying over it. Like a lot. Like enough where the teacher had to console me, and I may have gotten to go home early. I think it was the middle of 3rd grade, maybe during a semester break (did we have those in elementary school?) I went to a church camp up in the mountains (the first time I saw snow!) and at a cafeteria lunch I remember the girls raving over my eyelashes and how cute I looked; I reveled in that. (God I was such a queen; its a tad embarrassing)
But I think it must have been sometime before this when, getting back to the pop culture point of this post, where I guess my mom and I were watching the Sally Jessy Raphael Show ( I am so dating myself with that.) The topic was something like parents who raise their children as the opposite gender. I was incredibly drawn to the show and I remember one of the guests; she was I'm pretty sure a Hispanic kid wearing a bright red dress with a really festive and ornamental head wear (in my mind I have a mental image but I think the exact memory has probably been corrupted by Ma Vie En Rose) and her mother was so accepting and I remember wishing that that would be me and that I could do that. But some socialization and knowledge of gender norms had sunk in because I knew that I shouldn't be too excited to watch it, or betray too much enthusaism because I didn't know what my mom would think. But I think I used it as a segue to ask her if there was anyone in our family who had had a sex change and apparently there is (some second or third cousin in Louisiana.) I'm trying not to cloud this to much with me analysis and implanting thoughts for 8 year old me. But maybe that gave me some type of hope and a realization that changing yourself wasn't something that only happened in the movies. I guess I was entering some sort of latency period (Freud is still b.s.), or probably just an acknowledgment that I wasn't the way "I was supposed to be" but of course I never stopped thinking about it. There was some case in the news about a girl suing to become a boy scout and as I was walking home from school I angrily wondered why a boy couldn't be a girl scout and then imagining my life as a brownie (wow these memories are actually really embarrassing) And according to this I was 8 at the time, wow, wow. On the first episode of X-Men the animated series on the first episode Morph died and I know he was my favorite X-Men because I wanted his power to change into whoever I wanted. According to this the show premiered in 92. And whenever anyone asked me what superpower I wanted if I could have any I would always say the ability to morph, though I never admitted it was to change into a girl. Actually I still want that power. But around this time I guess The Crying Game came out and though I didn't see it for years after I found out the secret and was so so so jealous of Jaye Davidson, hell I still am (such a gorgeous boy) plus the theme song was sung by Boy George who had always been one of my heroes just how he was so feminine and pretty, and I was definitely looking for signs of my "normality" and role models at this time.
As any good tranny worth her salt I remember dressing up in my mom's clothes whenever I was left home alone, and I missed a good number of days just because I was bored and I'd like to believe to smart for school, and every time I would get dressed I would try to keep the clothes on for as long as I could to just imagine that I could always be that way. I'm sure my mom had to have noticed the remnants of make up on my face and maybe some clothing slightly misplaced, but she said she didn't know.
When puberty hit, I don't know exactly when it started, I was incredibly confused by it all and since my brother and I never talked I had no idea what was happening so my mom got me one of those "What's happening to my body" book for boys, and I guess it came in a pack because there was also the girl version, which of course I would always secretly sneak away to read then hide it under my bed. Around the time my grandma died, when I was close to 13 I remember everynight praying to be turned into, just for a day, a girl, and because God could do anything I kept praying. But nothing ever happened of course, and my grandma died, so my faith in God hasn't really recovered yet. In the early 90's talk shows were everywhere and a common guests were the transsexuals and I probably watched too many of them but every time one would come on I would marvel about how pretty some were and wanted to be some of them, though I just wanted to be a normal girl and not necessarily have to go on television because of it.
A few more anecdotes; the first orgasm I ever had was reading a transsexual erotica story about a boy dressing as his sister for her wedding and of course I had no idea what happened when It happened, but yeah I had the internet and I would constantly be on transgendered related sites and looking for information, since I was about 12. Michelle's Midday Break was my favorite. Then when I was 14 my mom and I went to Chicago for her sorority convention and I remember going to the Victoria's Secret on Michigan Avenue and buying a bra, panty and garter set and felt incredible awkward as the attendant tried and failed to hide her giggling but a more matronly saleswomen was talking to me about control tops. My mom found these clothes; she had begun a habit of snooping around, and told my pediatrician, who was a pretty close family friend, who upon seeing me for an appointment asked me if I was having sex and when I replied no, asked me when I did in the future would it be with boys or girls I replied sheepishly girls; I knew the consequences of saying boys, but after my mom being so open when I came out I sort of really wished I had the courage to tell her the truth back then. I could say I missed ten years of my life but I wasn't ready and had no idea how to handle it. And plus, I still have plenty of time and things worked out for the best.

(yeah I know that was long and at certain times had no narrative form, but I think I did it more for me and once I started writing more and more memories came back and some even shocked me.There was definitely TMI. Okay this has been really long; I'll do my teenage years later, or maybe my theories on "causes" who knows- I'll probably forget.)

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Addendum

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in that long akward TMI post on Thursday, and I have a thing about ever reading anything I've written, so I'm not going to go back and check. As I sort of rambled about I don't know what love is but I think whoever I thought I liked, or loved or whatever that they all had different things that I just found incredibly interesting about them. And many times looking back I question whether it was true emotion that I felt or whether it was actually just me being intrigued by them, perhaps in a dispassionate or scientific way. Like maybe it was their upbringing, maybe it was tragedy or maybe it was their future dreams but I think that was the intrigue that drew me back. And perhaps some vulnerability that I sensed appeal to my mothering instinct- I've always worried that about this savior complex I think I have, where I always want to save all of the problems of the world or at least the problems of those I care about. I think I can better them I guess, and I fear that these may be what I'm actually feeling for the Beloved; like I want her to be more open emotionally and love unconditionally, but is taking care of someone, can't that be like a sign of love and not necessarily a selfish thing. And being interested in someone, like actually interested about them as a person, and not just sexually, isn't that intrigue perhaps a sign of love? I may just be trying to justify whatever it is that I don't know I'm feeling , but I would like to think that caring about someone's emotional well being and wanting to help them and keep them from some sort of pain, as well as being drawn to their personality and caring to discover the mystery of who they are may be, if not the essence of love, at least a part of it... or at least I hope it is :)

Foreigner- I Want To Know What Love Is (mp3) [you gotta love cheesy power ballads...and emoticons ;)

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Who Said Anything About Love?

So this is the first in the experiment of TMI Thursdays, to replace Sunday Confessional and as luck would have it tonight's topic was the same one I originally had planned to write about for a Sunday Confessional (before I decided to make them TMI Thursdays) which was blocked from me writing last Thursday because Le Internet was dead. And none of that made any sense but I think I needed to write something to get my brain flowing (if you could read any of my college papers the first two pages or so are basically that type of thing)
Anyway I think I may be in love and its sort of thrown me for a loop and I've been questioning a lot of things recently. As you may have guessed by my constant fawning its Hubby and she's a girl which sort of confuses me. It's not like I'm tied to any gender essentialist model or a sense of heteronormativity, god knows even if I weren't a tranny or a cultural anthropologists in this day and age such notions seem somewhat outdated, it's just that I'm not sure if what I feel is love and I'm going through all past "relationships" in my mind and heart and trying to decide if I have ever actually been in love. Lord knows I've had some crushes and infatuations, and like any school girl dreamt about marrying a certain someone and being 60 and old together, but I think those were just romantic idealized notions that being a teenager and fancing myself a poet I clung to and aspired to be.
Like the girl at H-W where in 10th grade I ended up writing her a book of poetry, and then her asking me if I was gay in the back of our chemistry class in 11th grade. I would have sworn I was in love but I think I was just in love with the thought of being in love.
Then there was April from my team in AmeriCorps who I made out with a few times, yada yada, who also asked me if I was gay (hmm a bit of a pattern) then there was Bethany who was probably the closest thing I've had to a love, if it was not love. She became attracted to me when I told her about the poetry I wrote for Katie and when I got shipped to New Orleans with the Red Cross every day of my deployment there, when I got off work at 8 and she was home from teaching kids in Baltimore I would call her outside my crappy hotel room and we would talk for like an hour and it was all so natural and so pure. Then we became a couple for the rest of our AmeriCorps time and I even took a red eye to Fort Lauderdale to surprise her with a christmas present, which really freaked out her dad before I won him over. I think part of the reason I was drawn to her was the fact she was a southern daughter of an evangelical preacher but she had that spark of adventure and desire for something more, and maybe I was that something more and something different to her, I don't know, but even after we moved apart we would still talk often and were stuck in a type of pseudo relationship where I'm pretty sure we could have gotten married if we were like in the same state and not living two very different lives. She got married to some guy that she met because of Hurrican Rita when I was in Italy, which really freaked me out because conceitedly I believed he was kind of a second choice pig.
It's just that sexually guys are more my type. I'll make out with pretty much anyone, guy or girl, because making out is fun but I don't think I wanna like fuck any girls. The only time I got involved with two trannies it just got sorta of out of control because I just wanted to talk then yada yada alcohol, yada yada naked. But in high school I realized after like 2 years I had had a crush on a guy on my football team. Nothing happened (though I wonder what became of the likely lad) and in college I had a crush on a really good guy friend for like three years ( I have an IM from sophomore year where I was discussing him being my type "if he were gay" with my girl friend dismissing the possibility) then us hooking up quite a few times senior year (my gaydar is amazing) before I grew bored of it. And I only lust after male celebrities (if you hadn't noticied)- I only want to be the female ones. But I know thats not love because I was only interested in getting in their pants- I've never had a real emotional connection with any guy; only with my girl friends, and especially with those few cases where I wonder if it was love.

Like with Hubby, we met at Oktoberfest and by two hours of us knowing each other she became my Hubby and we were completely comfortable, like we had known each other for years. Then last semester going to her formals and dancing the night away, and then dancing the morning afters away, I mean I never dance! And all of our Thursday Thursday conversations and poetry readings- I have never had an akward or bad moment with her around. Hell we've already planned our wedding and lives (when we're 50 year old cat ladies) And now with her halfway around the world we write each other the longest emails, and longest regular letters with such a blessed comfortableness and familiarity and everytime I see a message from her in my inbox I must admit that whole day is tremendously better. Even if its not love I know we will be friends till the end of this life, and maybe longer, because it feels like we might have known each other before. But I don't know what love is, or what it feels like besides such joy and familiarity and knowingness, and that notion of self improvement. Like I know I want to become such a better person for her, so she'll be proud, (one of my biggest fears is to disappoint her while she's off doing amazing things) and I'll be worthier, kinda like in As Good As it Gets when Jack Nicholson at dinner tells Helen Hunt that he has started taking his medication because she makes him want to be a better man. Thats what I feel. I mean I've never thought about her sexually in any way, but is that perhaps a greater love? Maybe it is just an incredibly sororal love, an agape of sort, or maybe its soul love, which seems to me to be the highest of all; I could deal with that I think. (It's a little sickening how mushy this is; I blame my iTunes shuffle for knowing my mood.)
I've already told her if I can actually write her the first Thursday of every month, an actual letter, it will be the greatest thing I've ever done. And at that point in September of 2009 (wow) I should be sure of these feelings. And maybe if it is actually love (at least on my side of course) I shouldn't be thinking about it because that will make the wait even more interminable. I should repress and repress more. Yeah its not love, it's just a silly phase I'm going through ( a great song by 10cc [speaking of s*m*n] covered by Tori Amos [speaking of covers])
Sigh, god I love that girl. Does this mean I'm a lesbian now? (and if so how did I go from being a gay guy to a lesbian?) I'll guess we'll see in 25 months.

(and yes the title is from Joe Jackson's Different for Girls...I guess it really is)

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Sunday Confessional; Coming is Going

Just a warning; this post contains WTMI (way too much information)
One of the main reasons I started transition so late (it's all relative I know) was because in all my research over the past ten years I knew that the hormones will, necessarily, make you sterile. I love kids and always have, and always decided that I would be an amazing parent (no matter what gender) and as I have gotten to the age where many of my friends are in long term relationships/ married and having kids, or probably because of the amount of estrogen in my body, I've been thinking about kids and babies a lot. Like incredibly often (as you can probably tell by this blog and the sheer number of babies that are mentioned). I tried looking at storing some "dna" for the future but the costs seemed too high, especially for a college senior with no job prospect and a mountain range of debt, so I decided to take the bullet for the good of me, overall.
At the start of transition that was a huge milestone event for me. Around the end of February I realized that I hadn't masturbated or had an urge to since basically the end of December. A friend (and I use that term quite loosely) who was transitioning as well told me about how she had issues masturbating, so I wanted to see what was up (pun kind of intended) So I did it and it took a lot longer than normal and when I came (hate that word) it had about a tenth of hte volume as normal. My history with orgasming (or cumming, whatever) is kind of weird. The first time it happened I was reading some erotica about a transsexual bride ( I was 14, I think it was called The Replacement Bride or something) and when stuff started coming out I had no idea what was happening ( my dad left when I was 6 and my brother and I don't talk really.) I was a "normal" teenage "boy" and so yada yada, but too many of the times I wish I didn't have to do it, because much of the time it seemed more like a bodily necessity, like going to the restroom than a pleasurable act, and other times I was quite disgusted with the whole thing. I could go for 6 weeks at a time; my sex drive has never been too high.
Time passes. Through very random circumstances I ended up being a top (with two transsexuals, oddly enough) and both times it was quite akward, I didn't want to do it and so I never came close to coming (ugh). More Time passes again and now its late March, I guess. I have very little sex drive, erections have become a foreign word basically and when I did masturbate I guess it had become tantric, because the orgasm was there,but...nothing else was. But I haven't really had any sexual thoughts at all lately so it hasn't been a problem. I had been told/warned that after 6 months a lot of the changes become permanent, sterility being one of them. I'm pretty sure I reached that point a month or two ago, and its not like I can have a sperm count test- I haven't seen any of my own sperm in months. The "boys" have shrunk (thank god- the girls are growing) and so I am the last of my family (besides my brother, and I really don't care about my family name.)
That has been and will probably be one of my only and main regrets. I've always wanted kids, for kind of selfish and arrogant reasons. I always wanted to see what my genes would produce, and how amazing they could be with my nurturing. At times I thought that was just kind of a masculine trait but I still can't shake it. And I know adoption is out there, and there are a ton of kids who need homes, but I wonder if I would be able to love them the same, or would I always be embittered that they are not my blood, or whatever. Plus I have no idea what kind of state or agency allows "people like me", to adopt. I thought I was used to being a marginalized member of society, I am black, but not being able to adopt will really piss me off. And this is one thing I have not told my mom. One of the only things she gets upset about, or sometimes when she's frustrated , is how she wants me to get married (to a woman I suppose) and have some grandkids and I have no idea how to tell her that I can't. (And I think I may have come out before my brother, who is gay, so this may put pressure on him to have some kid so my mom can have a genetic grandkid- she deserves one) The only thing that gives me some hope is that growing up she would always be quite upset and disappointed about kids not being adopted, and always used to talk about being a foster parent, so I may be able to cast it as a noble act. Plus as Ev always tells me "count on stem cells" and cloning could be sweet. But it still hurts and feels inadequate, like what if I am in Hubby and we actually get married, yada yada- I would love to see what our kids would look like. Too much of the time I feel like John Lithgow's character in The World According to Garp.
But since I can't have kids of my own, and they're going to look nothing like me anyway I may do the Jolie thing and try to start my own League of Nations. Then I can always claim it was part of a greater and more noble scheme. I guess giving up a future beyond me is a worthy trade for loving the life I am living in this time; I'm far more happy than sad and as for the future que sera, sera. And all that jazz. ::sigh::

[post # 100, woo!]

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Sunday Confessional: How I Came Out To My Mom Part II

(continued)
It was from 6 p.m. my mom's time and she replied to my forward with " hasani, why did you send me this article? is this your way of telling me you're a transsexual?"
i read this. and i read it again and then I started laughing. I jumped in the shower to try to get my head and then I started freaking out; I remember just cursing and having no idea what to do. I took some cigarettes outside and started to chain smoke. I had maybe 4 days to write 2 huge papers that I hadn't really started and now that was another night where I could not possibly think of anything besides that or concentrate on school. I really wished that I had told her a week later when I was done with school, so that just added to my stress. I was also thinking about just how from that point on my worlds would be colliding, like if I had ever wanted to "be a boy" at home I really couldn't how everywhere I went from that point on, my relation with my mom would never be the same and neither would I. So at this point I was in a total state of breakdown. Suj, who had that point basically moved out, had gone up the stairs past me but as she came out she saw me and saw me freaking out and I told her what had happened. Of course she was empathetic and tried to convince me that it would be alright and that she had to already have known, which made sense since lingerie I bought and a few dresses not to mention $400 dollars prosthetic breasts that I bought had all "mysteriously" disappeared. But of course that didn't really help. Theresa came over and they convinced me to go out to take my mind off of it. The whole time I was thinking that I should call my mom, but I had no idea what I would say; How would i start that conversation "hi" My mind was spinning a thousand feet per second. Theresa and I went to Dain's to have a few beers and calm down. We talked, mostly me freaking out, then she vented to me about the problems she was having in her relationship. We went to see a band down the street and I had a few more beers (some of which I didn't realize were like 10% alcohol.) There ended up being a lot of hugs and so many more tears that night. Eventually we all agreed that I should probably write her an email, since I could better organize my thoughts that way. Of course they said I shouldn't do it drunk, but when I got back to my place of course I did. It was a long and rambling letter that I'm sure is akward and poorly written that I haven't read since.
I didn't mean to tell you this way. I am so so so sorry- I've just been really emotional recently. I didn't know what else to do and I love you so much so I wrote a letter. I really hope you understand it. I'm sorry I haven't slept well recently ( worrying about telling you at Graduation was one of the many reasons) so it may be sloppy. But i will understand if you hate me and want nothing to do with me.
All I remember is crying so much while writing it, while writing about just growing up and all the pain and everything. I sent it and my mom responded within half an hour with:

Hasani of course I don't hate you. I am your mother and you are my child. You will always be my child. We must talk about this so that I will understand.

I love you. Please get some sleep.

That helped some but I still didn't sleep well. I was still freaking out so much. The next day was the draft so Jay and I went to a sports bar and I brought some reading to do (which is interesting because Jay was apparently really freaked out about my drunken admissions from Thursday night) then we went to a Durham Bulls game that some of our friends were going to. It was an absoultely breathtakingly gorgeous day, it was beautiful. The whole time I was dreading and waiting for my mom to call and just as I was telling one of my friends " i wonder when my mom is going to call" she did. It was like the 6th inning and I didn't want to talk at a baseball game, and I still had no idea what to say; I was so nervous. So I didn't answer the phone. I got home and after doing some more reading I went outside and called her at about 9 that night. I just remember my voice being so weak and being so apologetic; I know I didn't cry when I was talking to her though. She just (expectedly) had a tonne of questions and expressed maternal concern mostly. She was so calm and nonchalant that I asked her if, like Suj and I thought, if she had suspected anything and to my surprise she said no that she just "thought you liked soft things." She just told me she loved me alot and was proud of me and called me her child instead of her son, which I totally picked up, and held on to. While we were talking one of my friends came up in his Excursion with his frat and they all jumped out, bumped up the music, and started to have a dance party. Obviously that was not the setting for a conversation. The next day was such a good day. I had the greatest weight of my life off my shoulder. I had, at that point, come out to everyone in the world who was important to me (and a lot of random people on the way as well) I had planned on telling my mom at graduation in about a week and a half but I realized this was better, though I did worry because I was so relaxed that I wouldn't have the tension that I thrive on to write those papers. But that day I read Kate Bornstein's My Gender Workbook and talked to my mom again. That monday I wrote my paper on Drag Bingo and in about 19 hours I wrote 33 pages for it. The next day for my gender and language class I wrote 13 pages in 7 hours. And I was done
I realizied that if I had waited to tell my mom until graduation that at that point I would then have something hanging over me and I would be freaking out about it. But now that I had told my mom and was done with classes I was totally and utterly FREE. My mom and my relationship was closer because I didn't have to hide such a huge part of myself from her and we talk a lot more and hang out alot more often now and I couldn't be happier. That wednesday, a week post LDOC, a day after finishing school and a few days since coming out to my mom I celebrated by getting my hair done and going shopping with no regrets or negative thoughts. It was fabulous.

Christine Daniel's blog- Woman in Progress
Leonard Cohen- Famous Blue Raincoat.m4a

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Sunday Confessional: How I Came Out To My Mom

It's time for another Sunday Confessional! (woo! yay! get excited. ugh) Anyway I'm exhausted from my life of doing nothing so much so that I fall asleep at 9:30 every night- that should be my confession; god it's embarassing. But it is not. And now is time for the show ::curtains rising::

So this is about how I came out to my Mom. It happened about two weeks before I had planned, but looking back it definitely worked out better (and is probably more fitting with how I lived my life in college; drunken late at night with very little thought or planning.)
It all started on my Last LDOC (last day of classes) at Duke which I was involved in putting on this year. I was in charge of giving away thousands of shirts that day, as well as personally get drunk and enjoying my last day. Hubby arrived after being in Mexico for a week, the concert went amazingly and the whole day was perfect. Even though I was totally drunk that night (and told one of my friends Kiwi friend that I like my guests "well lubricated") I got to bed I guess at a reasonable hour. The next morning, the 26th, I had to present my research and paper on Drag Bingo in Durham to my Ethnographic Fieldwork class. I had done some research but I was nowhere close to having anything written for our paper, which was about 70 % percent of our grade, due the next Tuesday and for which during the course of the semester we had to turn in multiple progress drafts that of course I just didn't do, on the basis that I was a senior and I "do what I want." I got up at around 8, which had become incredibly normal for me since started taking the hormones and feeling quite sick in the morning, and screwed around on the internet per usual. I found some clips on youtube about Drag Bingo and the divas (that I wish I had discovered months earlier) that I could play in my presentation and hopefully take up some time. I then went to the L.A. Times website which I normally do to check up on whats going on in the world and saw on the main page a headline "Old Mike New Christine" a play on the name of the new Julia Louis Drefyuss sitcom (daughter of a Duke Grad)
From that title I had a few specific ideas about what the article would be about, but I've come to realize that being transgendered I tend to leap to conclusions, or see transgendered tendencies in many things and to assume. Plus I was still drunk.
Anyway I read this article and for some reason it affected me more than I had anticipated. One of the sportswriters for the times in this article came out as a transsexual and I remember just reading it and feeling so proud and happy for her; I read the article at least three times before I decided I better head to class. I guess it was the fact that I recognized the name Mike Penner from many years of reading the sports section ( and a quick aside, just seeing that name is really weird to me now I think of her as Christine Daniels, as I should) so I felt like I knew her. And secondly, and far more likely and important, everything she wrote about her depressions and feelings and longings were exactly like how I had felt for so many years that I instantly felt a greater connection and sense of kinship. And the courage that she had, to come out to like half a million people just totally blew me away.
After this I was really just happy and buzzing and that was all that I could really think about, it was a good thing my presentation was on a similar topic about gender identity and compartamentalization in society. So i made a rum and coke for class, cuz I refused to go to class during reading period sober, and made my presentation, which sucked but I had an interesting topic so everyone loved it. It was one of those days where everything was so beautiful and perfect and Duke is lovely in the Spring. As i was walking through campus and down Towerview/Morreene towards my apartment Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat shuffled onto my iPod. To this day I don't know why the song touched me so, but on the walk back, and in my room I must have listened to it 9 times in a row. Maybe it was just the pure emotion of his voice and the meaning behind the words I don't know and I couldn't tell you. The whole time I was listening to it everything became so much more beautiful and the world seemed so alive and wonderful and I was full of such hope. It was a truly perfect moment. I got back to my computer and I read the article again while the song was still playing and for some reason I started crying hysterically. I think I was just so full of joy and happiness and the beauty in the world (not to mention estrogen) at that moment but I cried hysterically for half an hour. It was a wonderful moment that I'm failing to capture properly, but that is the nature of emotions.
Our neighbors were having a party that night so after a few hours had passed I went the 10 feet over there. One of my friends Bri who had graduated the year before was there and I was so happy to see her. She was a little drunk (as we all were- I had sucked flaming sambuca through a straw! I got mostly fire) and she asked me to give her my three moments that year that had blown my mind. I told her I wore a dress to our Senior Prom, and after a few minutes of convincing her that it wasn't gay prom or whatever she understand. When I told her it blew my mind Megan, my neighbor told me that "it blew a lot of people's minds" which I had sorta gotten (though it still weirded me out that people talked of me.) Anyway Bri, Jules and I went outside for about an hour smoking ciggies and drinking and talking about stuff and I was getting incredibly emotional. I then went into the Beirut room where I was on table and sort of drunkenly exclaimed to some of my friends that I was on hormones, yada yada, which I thought they already knew but apparently freaked out some people. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but I remember sitting various places and talking to people and being weirdly emotional and inappropriate and open, which I tend to regret in the morning.
After awhile I went back to my place and I sent Christine this e-mail (at 3:20 in the morning):
Christine,
I'm sorry you're probably getting a lot of mail now and are probably not sure which ones are supportive/which ones to open. But I just wanted to say (even if you never read this) I am so happy for, and proud of you. I'm a transsexual as well, I've been on hormones for about 5 months now, and your article just made me so happy, like maybe there is someone else out there, but also because the courage to do that is amazing. I'm a senior in college and I've sort of been coming out to my friends...and everyone else, but I've never come out to half a million readers in one act.I don't personally know you but I feel like you're my sister and I really wanna wish you so much good luck. I have always read you off and on, but now I will feel quite honored to read anything Christine Daniels writes.

I had started crying hysterically again of course. I then drunkenly decided to forward the article to my mom, to see what her reaction would be concerning transsexuality, sort of priming the pump for me coming out. So I forwarded it to her with the personal message "I am so proud and happy for her." I thought nothing of it and went to pass out.
The next day I decided I really needed to start working on these papers. I got up that morning just sort of sick of being myself, of being the tranny kid that everyone knew so I started to freak out and wanted to get away from myself. There was a follow up article that day about Chrisitne about all the support she had gotten and that made me happy but also a bit sad I guess. I really needed to try to be normal. So I went dressed like any normal guy to Chapel Hill to study. I got a lot of reading done and as I was waiting for the shuttle to take me back to Duke my mom called at like 5 p.m. When she called I sort of freaked out that she was calling because of the email but she only asked me what I was doing and if I was planning to stay in Durham for a bit after graduation. Anyway I got back to Duke and read some more before I got to my apartment to research some more. Then I checked my e-mail.

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Sunday Confessional: 6 Months!!!! (and a Day)

It's Sunday and I've been in church all day (ugh) so I decided that Sundays would be as good a day as any to let you delve deeper into me (and that sounds incredibly dirty.) Therefore, in honor of JP II each Sunday I'll be giving you far TMI about me.This is the first in a however long series
6 months ago today...well I was still shaking off a rough morning/day after. BUT, 6 months ago yesterday was the day I embarked upon this magical mystery tour of mine by starting Hormone Therapy. I had my last final of the fall semester that Friday night (Italian 63 with Andrea) and I had promised myself I would get through finals before I started (I didn't think it would be wise to have something that big on my mind when I should be trying to learn everything I hadn't over the previous 14 weeks.) So that Saturday morning I took my first estrogen, antiandrogen and progesterone pills. There was no whoa! moment where I could feel whatever, but psychologically I did realize I had chased the white rabbit and was going down his hole.
So I celebrated that night by getting high (which strangely enough was the last time I've done it- I don't know how I've managed that but its sorta dissappointing. College is the time to do all of that, when everything is acceptable as "experimentation" before you graduate and it becomes a "problem.") I got high and then ended up hooking up with someone that I had been hooking up with off and on that semester. It was one of those that you don't expect to happen again, but then it does and its sort of akward and bad and you definitely regret it in the morning. But the next day with the miserableness of that boy next to me and my own dreams of burgeoning femininity on my mind I realized I was better than that and moved on (and probably had Cookout, which I miss dearly :(

That was 6 months ago today and as evidenced by my intense mood swings of the past two days and my crying fits today I would say they've had an effect. My regiment is something like the following
1.25 mg of Premarin (conjugated estrogen)
300 mg of Spironolactone (antiandrogen)
200 mg of Microgest (progesterone)
and 2 mg of Estrofem (estradiol)
There have definitely been changes; I've started cooking and small talking and dancing, which if you knew me, you would totally know that was so not me. Also I've become even more sensitive, and at times will cry at the sunset, or as the case has been when I get drunk. When I had planned to start hormones my original plan would be to measure any changes, physical or otherwise, and make it scientific-like, with my roommates the biologist and the psychologists observing me as a type of experiment. That didn't last (or start) when I decided to undertake my own experiment and drink every night of my last semester at Duke. My liver is still recovering.
But the most important changes have been that now I am effectively sterile, which is troubling at times (and I'm sure I'll bitch enough about that later) and that I have BOOBS!!! Well, they're not that big but they're still there and definitely noticeable to the point where I can't go topless. I tried measuring them and somehow I'm a 38A (?) I'm not sure if that's right but if it is, it's amazing! I feel so special; right now I'm pretty sure I'm the only "boy" to graduate from Duke with a double degree and boobs. I'm accepting names for them; any suggestions are welcome :)

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