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Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
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Friday, 2002.08.23:
Welcome to the new Blogger section. There's some times when I just want to write things but I'm too lazy to write them out into a full Rambling, so here is a running log of what's going on. It's almost a diary, just more random. Anyways, the first blog is probably going to be the longest...
...
Coming out is never easy and usually I recommend that you prep people for it and ease them in. But sometimes you just get caught in an awkward position and you suddenly show up in a skirt...
I figured my appearance as Amber for the first time might be shocking. But I wasn't going to do anything weird, right? It wasn't like I was going to pop out of a cake or anything. No, instead I walked right through the front door.
His reaction? Nothing. Not a peep. Here's the kicker: here I was in my girlie sneakers, jean skirt, blue tank top, dark blue jacket I recently got, purse, and my long hair loosely tucked behind my ears. Cute. I'm in my Girl Voice---which I'm told is quite a bit different than my Guy Voice. And he didn't even notice. This requires a bit of explanation, so allow me to set the stage...
A few weeks earlier some other T* girlfriends and I talked about meeting up for something. You know: chit chat, chow, company. The last time we all really met together was eons ago! So the date was finally settled on Friday. Of course I'd be going in Girl Mode and I was bringing some pie. (Razzleberry! And I got one of the last warm ones!! Mmmm!!!) And so I went. Wonderful evening, and I met a new person who was out on Left Coast for vacation, I think.
The only problem here is Fridays are usually the Guys Nights. That is, almost every Friday my roomies and other friends get together and we do dinner and maybe something else. (Video games, movies, home video, pool.) Coming from my T* friend's house meant I would not be changing out of Girl Mode. Thus I would have to confront my friend Rod in the face.
I've been meaning to bring it up for a long time but I just didn't feel the timing was right. I figured that he figured something was up since the past few years and so it seemed that this was one way of breaking the news to him that I was sort of leading a double life. It was about the right time that he was told. What better way than visually shoving it in his face?
(Yeah,
right...)So I find myself in the car driving back home, only 15 minutes away from mine. I pop the hands-free earpiece into my right ear and deftly snap the plug into the bottom of my cellular---I do it all by touch. I hold up my phone about eye-level so I can still see the road and the number pad at the same time. Dial. Ring. Wait. Click.
Roommate: "Hello?"10 minutes or so left. I dial again but to another T* friend this time. I was looking for moral support and at least hearing her voice was comforting. (Thanks!) I asked her what she thinks I should say and I could hear a large sigh preceding her response. "I don't know, man..." she says to me in this whimsical fashion. But, what else could she say? I'm just going to have to deal with this using my own devices...
Me: "Hey, it's me. I'm on my way back."
"You gonna surprise him [that you're in Girl Mode]?"
"Yeah... Is Rod there?"
"Yeah..."
"Could you prep him or something?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"Uh, maybe tell him that I'm coming home and I don't quite look the way I normally do...?"
"OK..."
"Thanks. I'll be there in like 10 minutes."
"Okie. Bye."
Conversation paraphrased because I don't remember the exact words.
I slow the car down and align myself on the curbside. Shift to Park. Turn off engine. Sigh. Open door. Grab cell phone and purse. Stand. Close car door. Deep breath. Stare at starry sky. Walk to my apartment building. Front door in the distance. Closer. Closer. At the door. Sigh. Insert key into lock and turn. Remove key. Right hand on the cold doorknob. Deep breath. Turn doorknob. The door swings open. "Hey, guys," I say in Girl Mode.
The living room is a total bachelor pad. Video games, DVDs, computers, shoes, and lots of CAT-5 cable running this way and that. A small patch of carpet is open in front of me like a bared midriff, and that's only because it's leading from the main entranceway to the stairs. Steve is sitting on the floor with his laptop, eyes transfixed on the glow of the LCD display. Seth is perched across the room on a dirty 30x30" black card table, eyes also fixed on his display and right hand gliding with mouse movements. And friend Rod sitting almost straight in front of me at that same black card table, his right hand also quivering from mousing but his left hand curled like a an eagle's claw, ready to strike down upon the ASDF side of the keyboard. All three are so engrossed the current video game that they take no notice of my arrival. Can it get any more anticlimactic than this?
I slip off my shoes and sit down next to Steve. I watch this brilliant battle unfold before my eyes. A few watchtowers stand in the middle of a snow-driven path carved through dense forests. Orcs, Humans, and Night Elves rush past to the North with their little battle chants and they clash against the opposite side. Steve begins cussing and quickly the snow is covered with carcasses. "We lost," says Steve. The game ends.
I'm still sitting next to Steve and say something like, "tough battle, eh?" Steve or Seth say something back. Rod gets up out of his chair and ambles over to me. He hands me $20 that he owes me, I say "thanks." I'm looking straight at him. I put the money back into my purse and he walks back to the kitchen. Not even fazed.
I give a sigh, roll my eyes, and walk past the black card table on my way upstairs. I head to my room, change in to sweat pants, a roomy sweatshirt, and snap on a hair band. I amble downstairs a few minutes later.
Rod is at the table (and borrowing my laptop for the games) and then I hear/see him slapping keys in fury. My laptop blue-screened and I had to reboot it. Rod steps out of the way and I slide into the chair. Minutes later it's all rebooted and I even call over to him, "It's ready. Hey, do you want to play?" He says, "no." I shrug and enter a battle with Steve and Seth.
An hour or so later Rod is leaving because it's late. We all say goodbye and that's it. No reaction at all. * I'm quite frankly speechless. I need and explanation what's going on in Rod's mind but I'm not going to press for it.
Monday, 2002.08.26:
I wrote Rod some e-mail. Our mundane conversations basically go like this:
To: Him
From: Me
Hey. You want to talk 'bout last Friday night sometime?
To: Me
From: Him
Whenever. Name the time that's most convenient.
To: Him
From: Me
'k. Maybe Thursday. Tomorrow is out and Wednesday is usually out.
To: Me
From: Him
Okie.
To: Him
From: Me
OK, I just cleared out Thursday night. Wanna do dinner or something then? I dunno. The bar and grill? I can pick you up from your house around 7:00p.
btw, I didn't invite Steve or Seth. It'll just be the three of us. You, me, and my alter ego.
Wednesday, 2002.08.28:
A friend called up last night and wanted to talk. I couldn't because I was in the middle of helping another friend write her resumé. I hate it when I have to push people off because I'm "too busy". I'm always busy. I meet up with a different group of people almost every night or I'm doing something different. Don't ask me how I do it.
Electrolysis was hellish to say the least. It has been a long time since we've hit my face and we hit all the bad spots. I was recoiling under some of the pain, but I'm a tough girl. Always have been. So I just winced a little and breathed real slow like. I got through the session with not anesthetic as usual---more to the point, I don't have any left. It'll be weeks before I go back. I've passed that magic point where the hair just isn't coming back. I could probably tweeze the rest of the hairs and save money. I still have some genital electrolysis left to do even though SRS isn't on the horizon.
Spoke to a friend before electro yesterday and she had spoken to me in her Girl Voice and I didn't even acknowledge her! She put this guilt trip on me yesterday saying "hey, I was trying and you didn't even notice!" Erghghg... :( Actually, I did notice but I didn't know what to say and I was in the middle of helping my other friend with her resume. (Yes, I've been helping two nights in a row.) So, sorry!!! I really thought it was pretty good. Just a tad more work and I don't see how you're not going to pass almost perfectly. In some ways, I'm envious.
It's weird writing things up here knowing that some of your friends are actually reading these entries. On one hand I want to say what's going on in my mind; on the other hand I don't want to say something that's going to upset them. Eh, I guess I can't please everyone...
Working at home rocks. Barefoot, only a few feet from the fridge, air conditioning, fast DSL, and those Chocolate Death cakes. Wait, my roomie ate the last of them. Drats.
Finally got a stupid piece of SQL code working today which failed before because some columns had null values and I was using the like operator. I've messed around with this enough that I know I'm going to have to use multiple or conditions. I'm such a nerd. Wait. That's my job. Oh, I guess I have to be a nerd. J2EE...whee. (Not.)
Stupid chest hurting yesterday. Granted they are not big (or barely noticeable), but that still does not excuse the fact that they are hurting. I still remember three weeks ago when my brother smacked me across the chest with a rolled up magazine and that stung like hell. (I have a great poker face so I didn't even let out a whimper.)
Bear market out there. My stocks are so suffering. Ugh. I was hoping to use them to get me through transition but it doesn't look like I can count on them at all. I'm having problems saving up enough cash and here a friend was just about to buy a $500,000 (yes, 1/2 million) townhouse. *sigh* I hope that I can get through this period in my life soon and then get back on track to career, finding housing, and maybe even finding love again.
Thursday, 2002.08.29:
3:17a.
Thank goodness for Michelina's microwavable entrées. I'd never make it through the night (or morning as it may be) without a little boost of marinara, macaroni, and grated parmesan cheese.
Seguing on that note, you know I have a weakness for cheese. I'd get Kraft stock but, alas, they are aligned with Philip Morris. There's even mutual funds out there that only hold stock in "sin" companies? Apparently the ROI is pretty good but it's against my ethics.
Anyways, I'm working through the night 'cuz I couldn't sleep. I figured out a solution to some JSP/JavaScript problem anyways so it's good. Now there's a host of new GUI controls and back-end rendering methods that are taking care of some parent-child window interaction. Pretty cool...
Enya's playing on MP3 thanks to SmoothJazz.com. They just started playing ads on the station (probably since the RIAA royalities thing earlier this year). The funny thing is that the ads are for the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is in California. Yet, the streaming broadcast goes out worldwide. I can just imagine some guy off in China thinking: What's the Monterey Bay Aquarium?
It has to make you wonder now how relevant physical location is anymore when it comes to information dissemination. Heck, you're probably somewhere else in the world right now while I'm sitting out here on the West Coast. You have to admire how information flows around these days.
11:30a
Recommended audio diversion: Bob Rivers Twisted Tunes. More specifically, "A Big Ton O' Moola". *rofl*
...
And now the final part of the episode with Rod and I.
We met up at the restaurant. It's a quaint yet rowdy joint. I don't drink but if I did I would've liked their 1/2 off beer Thursday Night Special. I'm in Guy Mode, having just come from work. He's in Guy Mode, because well he's always in Guy Mode. Duh.
We order and then grab our plates of
charred ex-cow and ex-chicken products. We find a booth and settle our
work-weary bodies down across from each other. He winces---they put mayo
in his sandwich. How dare they!So we chow down and talk about this and that. Sometime, mid-meal, we get around to the real reason we were there. I ask him what he thought about the previous Friday. His reaction was most interesting:
Him: "I wasn't really shocked. I was ... curious."The conversation rolls forward and I'm just flabbergasted that he did not notice until I walked up the stairs. (Inconceivable! *) I query him if he knew what was really going on and he says he's at a loss for words so I try laying it out for him. He listens to Korean Pop music (K-pop) once in a while so I asked if he knew who Harisu was. I'm surprised he did not. (I was hoping to make use of analogy. Drats! Foiled again!)
Me: "Huh? What do you mean? Didn't you even notice something was odd?"
"Actually, I didn't even really notice you until you walked up the stairs."
"You're kidding me..."
Conversation paraphrased too.
So I tell him the "usual schpeel": inside I've felt different since I was a kid, really started investigating in 1998, started physical transition in 2000, now going out looking like a girl in 2002. I add the reason he saw me in Girl Mode on Friday was because I was coming from a dinner where I was meeting other transgendered friends and that I had been trying to avoid seeing him in that mode for years.
He listens intently and says at the end something about, "wow, you've had this weighing on your mind for a long time. So why didn't you tell me?" I nod and say something about how I was worried about his reaction and that's why I've avoided telling him. He gives me this whatchoo-talkin-bout-Willis * reaction. He's like, "that's not a problem! I hope you didn't pay a lot in therapy." I tell him it was about $3,000 (I think). He says something like, "that's not too bad. But if you had paid more me and Seth could have told you you had issues! What do you need therapy for? Just talk to us." That was cool.
Later on I ask if he (Rod) had an inkling that any of my issues were going on. (Here's the interesting part.) He says that while we were in school together he couldn't quite tell. But after I got out of school it was becoming obvious that something was wrong. He was betting I might be a closeted gay, my friend Seth said I wasn't. Rod said that there were little clues now and then like my fetish for scented candles, the way I kept my room, my general personality, and my oddly colloquial relationship with my now ex-girlfriend---he said I was never really serious about her the way other guys are. (There's probably more truth in that than I'd like to admit.) And then he tells me about the thing that made him really think something was amiss, about one of my birthday parties where I got a special gift from him and some other friends: a year subscription to Playboy. Rod said I had the most interesting reaction: it was the same reaction that his then-closeted gay friend had. Isn't that something?
I couldn't help but keep shaking my head. I thought, was I really that obviously uncharacteristically non-masculine? I've had a bunch of people say something to that effect for so many years. (No guy I know has floral print bed sheets. What grown man has that many stuffed animals. You never talk about getting in bed with other women. Etc.) I guess it's a good thing he doesn't know about my bad habit of dancing around the kitchen while I'm waiting for food to microwave or boil---don't ask why I do that.
About the only thing he really had a problem with was my ignorance of the various global crises that plague our modern day. He was saying that there is no excuse for me not knowing what's going on between us and China, India and Pakistan, Saddam Hussein, etc. Oops, sorry. I've been so busy trying to keep up with life that keeping up with world news has been near the bottom of the priorities list. So, I know I have to get back to reading news and all, but I need to solve some things first.
Oh yeah, he also didn't think "Amber" was a very fitting name. "Allison" is what he suggested. Hehe.
All in all, it was a very good night. He's not totally turned off by the news. More to the point I may have just gained yet another heckler to make fun of my transition process. (It's all in good fun, y'know?) Would I do it like this again? Maybe not even though it looks like it may work out.
Friday, 2002.08.30:
Thank goodness for Comedy Central. A few friends and I did deep dish pizza and watched a few shows of Premium Blend. This one guy did a great Chris Farley impersonation.
Non sequitur: backed up my office laptop to my clunky old desktop at home. That old little box cost me $3,600 in 1996 and it was the bomb: 200 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 2 GB HDD, 8x CD-ROM, Diamond graphics adapter, Pentium Pro architecture, 17" monitor. And now all I use it for is a backup device for my laptop which now runs circles around it. It's humbling to know that whatever you pay for in computing equipment can never be considered an investment because it depreciates by the second. Heck, this bad boy desktop system doesn't even have USB.
Non sequitur. Fixed my dance pad. It apparently had a broken ground wire. I messed around with the cord, slit it with a box cutter knife, and spliced a section of the black ground with some new wire I bought. A few inches of electrical tape and the thing was back working again! Yay! Ever since my pad broke I was considering building my own, but I can't find anyone with a table saw willing to help. But thank goodness for my dad having taught me some things in my childhood---male privilege? I don't feel totally helpless all the time as a result.
Saturday, 2002.08.31:
Long weekend. I could tell you that I'm going to party every day and night and go back to work on Tuesday with a massive hangover and bags under my eyes, but I'm not. If things work out I'll just be kicking back, cleaning my room, seeing my parents, watching a few DVDs, and maybe going over to my parent's place. With the non-stop life I lead I'm probably anemic as well. Rest will be a good thing.
Oh, BTW, Break Reminder is a very handy piece of software. I've been having RSI/RMI problems lately and this software is forcing me to take breaks. It has helped relieved quite a bit of stress already. 30-second "micropauses" and 10-minute "rest breaks" flash onto your screen and temporarily lock your keyboard.
BTW2, StickyKeys is a great thing too. It totally reduces stress because you don't have to hold any of the CTRL, ALT, or SHIFT keys at the same time you strike another key.
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Entries may show the mood for the day. From best to worst moods here's the list:
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Ecstatic -
Happy -
Good -
OK -
Blech -
Sad -
Abysmal
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