Monday, August 29, 2005

I want an old drug?

I need some goals. Well, that sounds pretty simple, eh?

Goal #1 - Get some goals.

Transition, I suppose, was a pretty big goal at one time. It's not really any more.

Sure, there are the standards: Lose weight, make a million dollars, find the love of my life. I don't know, it seems a little trite to add those in. It sounds like New Years Resolutions.

I have to dig a little deeper. I have to go back to basics.

What am I, at my soul?

Y'all will probably laugh at this one.

A writer.

I like the flow of words. I like how words evoke emotion. I like the ability to entice - to thrill.

I like to make people laugh.

I was fairly prolific at one time but my output has tapered off considerably. Just getting through life was hard enough.

Withdrawl sucks. The ideas tend to pile up in my head (which may, in part, explain my extreme randomness).

Or maybe they aren't ideas - they are just the voices I haven't named yet.

I actually think the acting will help (I don't see how it could hurt). Getting a feel for the flow of a scene, the timing, the getting into someone's head.

So, it's settled. I will resume writing.

Be afraid - be very afraid.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Oh Look! An Eclipse!

I really wouldn't mind being on 'What not to Wear.'

I could tolerate the abuse of the hosts. I really wouldn't mind their advice. I would embrace it.

I really wouldn't mind the $5,000 for a new wardrobe.

Can't we just skip to the advice and money part? Oh, and leave out the 'being on TV' part as well.

I need to clean out my closets. My personal style has changed so much over the last few years that there are things in my closet that I either:

1. Barely recognize.
2. Cringe at seeing.

Let's not even think about the things that don't fit.

I have a LOT of clothes but I only wear maybe 10% of them

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

A Dream Dies

I had a tactic that I wanted to employ. It was a goal I have had out there.

In about a year, my finances will be in a place where I can do the following:

Move to a new city.
Get a new job.
Make a clean start.

Of course doing this successfully depends on my being able to assimilate.

Well, forget it. It can't happen. It is not possible for me. There is no point to the attempt.

That sucks.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Pachinko Anne

I sometimes feel guilty when I visit family.

No, that's NOT the reason.

I make the trek up there a few times a year and somehow word always gets out with my friends.

Not to sound monotonous....I don't hide the fact. I just don't advertise it.

You see I can't spend all that much time there and it seems everyone wants some time. I spend my days travelling between the homes of people that I have known for decades. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with my friends.

But I still feel guilty.

I stay with my parents. My brother usually takes time off of work (I don't ask him to). There they sit...at home...waiting for me to make an appearance.

I want to spend time with them - all of them. I really do.

This time I blew off my friends to have more fmaily time.

It seems that I should just get up there more often.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Back Story

Do you tell everyone of your 'function'? That is the real question.

Do you hide it? Sure.

How?

I tell a story.

There are important aspects to telling your story. I prefer not to lie overtly. So I tell the truth - selectively.

Why did you get divorced? We grew apart.

Why don't you have kids? I can't have kids. We tried to adopt but we kept having to move. Considering the divorce, I think it is actually better that we never had them.

Why can't you get pregnant? I don't really have regular periods. I have some hormonal problems that I am getting treated for. At my age it is getting pretty risky.

The list goes on. I don't talk about my marriage all that much so I pretty much appear aloof.

Part of 'the story' that makes it work is in the presentation.

Don't tell all of it.

Don't tell too much of it at once.

Remember it is background, the canvas of your life. Bring the subject back to the present.

Stay consistent.

If you are called on it then you have five choices: Sing, Bedazzle, Boomarang, Amnesia and Run.

Sing. Come clean. If you think the relationship can handle it then spill.

Bedazzle. Tap dance faster. Warning: Things will usually fall apart at this point. Your relationship with this person will probably fail.

Boomarang. Turn the confrontation back on the person. Why are you scrutinizing my life? Be offended. Make accusations. The best defense is a good offense.

Amnesia. Forget the questions as soon as they are asked. Answer a different question than the one asked. This is the senility defense.

Run. "Oh look an eclipse!" Run the other way. Don't return the persons calls. Start over again somewhere else.

I don't recommend any of these. I have done a certain amount of all of them to a certain degree. I haven't lost any friends with any of it.

Do what you will.

Monday, August 08, 2005

It was a very good year

"I wish I could have transitioned at 5."

I knew what was going on at 5. I knew that I was a girl who was being forced to play the role of a boy. I also learned that this is not something you even hint at. You will be ridiculed and threatened.

To survive you must act like a boy - the best you can.

If I would have told my parents then (and they took it as something more than a phase) then I am sure I would have seen the inside of a shrinks office. My guess is that it would have gone next to nowhere (I don't think they would treat me at that age back then.)

"I wish I could have transitioned at 8."

Better, right? It was still the 70's and it was very rare that they would treat a child for GID. Who knows, maybe military school would cure me? We didn't have much money. Starting over again was not a viable financial option.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 10."

I was really feeling the conflict now. My friends (mostly other girls) were starting to feel awkward about things. My goal of a normal life was slipping away.

Oh joy. I was the first to hit puberty in my class. Nature is cruel.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 13."

The era of being a teenager and all of the expectations. I was gangly, tall, and right on the fringes of being socially acceptible. I was the tall, smart, band-geek. Yeah, there's someone on the fast track to popularity. Maybe there was hope for a transition at 13 but I was too chicken to say anything.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 16."

I knew it was going to happen. I was going to transition. I knew about transitioning since I was 8. But I was taught that this was a sickness of the spirit. God would cure me. I just had to let him.

I fought. Hard.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 18."

I was on my own and fairly self-sufficient. Still, God was going to cure me. BE A MAN.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 21."

It was hard. I was desperate. I had to act like one to BE one. God would help. I married my good friend (and subsequently ruined her life). I joined the military.

"I wish I could have transitioned at 27."

I was still in the military but my heart was never in it. I didn't fit in. I stayed because I didn't see another career choice out there. My marriage was a sham. I still knew that I was going to transition. I started taking hormones. I waited for everything to fall apart.

A few years later my military career ended. Shortly thereafter, so did my marriage.

I transitioned. Strangely enough, the world did not end. I kept my familiy. I kept my job. I kept my friends.

As a mind-exercise, I think about what would have happened if I had taken a different path. If I had started on the path earlier. You always expect the worst, I think you have to.

If I could tell myself something back at age 8, or 13, or at anytime on my journey?

"You surround yourself with good people, that is your knack. Trust that they are good. Be yourself. Be honest. Trust."

Friday, August 05, 2005

Tyranny of the Innate

What we perceive and judge is always compared against our own experience. Things are judged with a perpective of 'same' and 'different', with varying degrees of each.

You see a person walking towards you on the street (okay, on the sidewalk). You may notice that the person is shorter than you but has close to the same hair color. They speak the same language as you. You are calm that day but they seem very angry.

Your experience of them is flavored with a mix of sames and differences.

Sames: Hair Color, Language.
Differences: Direction of movement, Height, Attitude.

It is the contrasts that give our experiences their uniqueness. You can attempt to see where they are from your shared sameness and attempt to understand the differences.

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Children challenge their parents (in many ways). When they get to an age where they can question, the most common query is 'Why?'.

Very often, the parent replies with 'BECAUSE!'.

The answer is innate, or unexplainable. The argument does not have enough language in common with both of you to properly convey the answer. There is not enough sameness to relate.

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If you give directions to someone, they may go like this:

"Start at the Safeway in Berkeley going North. Turn left at the third light. Go two blocks. Turn right on 3rd St. We are the 4th house on the left."

Directions (bad, though they are) are crucially dependent on the starting point. Where they are describing and where you will begin following their explanation are the same. If you forget the Safeway part, you are lost.

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Why do some consider transsexuality wrong? How could they not understand?

Because their experience does not have the sameness to follow the explanantion. The idea that their body and mind are misaligned is completely out of their experience, so different, that they have very little chance of understanding.

So how do you explain things? You have to find the points of sameness to orient the explanation. Find out what they do understand then proceed from there. The trick is finding the points in common.

Take heart. Even if your initial explanations are not fully accepted, with experience comes linkage. We find common points along our journeys. With time comes opportunity. With relationships come context. With context come points of sameness and therefore easier communication.

With communication comes enlightenment.

I was born to follow the......Sun?

I am heading home for a visit. I really enjoy heading home but I wouldn't want to live there again.

Home is the place where my old name still comes up from time to time.

Home is where my Mother and I have the fights we should have had when I was 15 (You aren't going to wear THAT are you?).

Home is a place where all these transition issues ultimately don't matter. Our family is still the same.

Home is where all that is on TV is CSI:* and the Sci Fi channel.

It is where they make me bake as soon as I enter.

There are moments of awkwardness and times of just relaxing.

The more times I go up there now, the less I hear my old name. Mom never screws it up any more but we had some intense quality time when she took care of me after surgeries.

I think it is not a matter of denial but rather a matter of getting used to it.

So I will visit and each time it should get better - in theory.

Still, I really am looking forward to it.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Vuja De - The strange feeling that you have experienced NONE of this before.

When I was in school, I was a band-geek.

There, I said it.

I loved it. When I went to my reunion last year, it was if no time had passed and nothing had changed. It was my element.

Anyway, one of the things I strove for was to get better at playing. I had taken private lessons my entire musical career and it paid off.

But I wanted to get better. So I spoke to my then current teacher and some friends and I found out who was the best in the area. The price was prohibitive for my folks so I ended up paying for the lessons myself.

I went to Roy.

Wow, how to describe him.....energy, joy, weird, serious, a wise guide.

A mentor.

A friend.

Lessons were not all playing exercises out of a book. They mixed philosophy, religion, New Age-I-ness, lectures, fun.

We didn't always agree but we respected where the other person came from.

For instance. Roy believed in reincarnation. I didn't. He would rhapsodize about prior lives

"You know, I think if you boiled 'me' down to the basic element, I think it would be 'teacher'."

I agreed with that. Still do.

He taught me things I would consider bizarre. Visualization, for instance, was key. I thought a lot of the new age stuff was wacky but it worked.

Don't argue with results.

After High School, I went to college in another corner of the state. There I had a teacher who despised Roy, and pulled no punches telling me so.

Since I was supportive of Roy, I was therefore garbage. He pulled no punches telling me so. Every Monday morning.

For two....solid.....hours.

This guy taught me something to. He taught me that my self worth is not based on what HE thought of me. My self-worth came from within.

Years later, that lesson served me very well.

I returned to where Roy taught the next year and we resumed where we left off. I had some initial trouble transferring. He pulled some strings and got me in.

I remember vividly saying.

"Fantastic! My life is complete!"

His response. "Great, I guess we can all just sit around and watch you die."

That was over 15 years ago.

A couple years ago, I tried to look Roy up. I thought it would be nice to catch up, talk about who we actually were when we were boiled down to our elements. I wanted to hear one of his reincarnation stories.

Roy died several years ago - back in 2000.

The funny thing is, I was sad because I missed him and wanted to see him, but I didn't cry because he died.

Roy believed in reincarnation. I'll catch him on his next lap.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Put up or shut up

Why do some people believe that in order to create real change that everyone has to come out and describe their genitalia at birth?

It is like activism is being reduced to streaking during a school assembly.

Those who prescribe the 'EVERYBODY OUT' strategy seem to be:

1. Unwilling/unable to assimilate.
2. Already have someone to spend their lives with.

If everyone can't run a marathon then should we just cancel all marathons?

If little Johnny is allergic to peanuts then should we spray Agent Orange on all the peanut crops?

You can fight without a full disclosure. Justice is justice. What is right is right. Do I have to be a specific race to fight against injustice against that race?

Some people have been thrust into the spotlight (through tragedy or design). They are in the center of things. They can use the spotlight to fight for change.

Some people can be activists with only minimal exposure. Limiting their 'outing' to a select group.

Some can be activists without any exposure at all. Try the tried and true method. DONATION. There are people out there who will fight the battle face to face. They WANT to fight the battle. Support them. It doesn't take a lot if we spread it out.

What irks me is when people get on their soapbox (in the safety of a forum) and tell EVERYONE ELSE what to do and then call them cowards if they disagree.

Who made them a General? I didn't enlist for that battle. I'll fight on my own front and in my own way.

Who are you to say the battles I am fighting are unimportant.

Thank you armchair quarterbacks. If you think this battle is so important I have only one thing to say:

Put up or shut up.