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Friday, 10 April 2009 (neap tide) 7:14am I just started downloading last night's Daily Show, Colbert Report, 30 Rock, The Office and Parks and Recreation. It's a good thing I don't watch teevee, huh? 9:54am I think one of the employees at the gym snitched on me. We've never actually spoken beyond Raphaela introducing us when I started there way back when, and I've always felt they've given me the hairy eyeball. Raphaela, not a fan of this person, noticed it as well. Anyway, since I'm not going to Gold's anymore, I finally realized there's no point in me carting my towel and magazine rack and books to and from my current gym. Most gyms frown on leaving stuff there, but the fact of the matter is, everyone does it, especially at a tiny place like this. Someone's towel has been hanging off one of the locker doors in the women's dressing room for a month straight, there's a fair amount of stuff on top of the lockers and also people's towels and clothes and such hanging off hooks in the shower room. So, for the past week I've been keeping my magazine rack (which The First gave me to for our last xmas together in '99, and it's still the most useful thing anyone's given me ever) and books on top of the lockers, and I found an usued hook in the shower room. Nobody else uses it, and it's quite literally out of the way. When I was retrieving my towel from it yesterday morning, I turned and noticed the employee in question watching me from the doorway. I smiled (after jumping a little because I'm easily startled, which I'm pretty sure I picked up from my mom) and went on about my business. As I'm about to leave the gym a couple hours later, fully dressed and headphones on and about to face the world, a small woman I've never seen before stops me. I'd actually first noticed her when she came in earlier; she's been sitting next to the front door for at least forty-five minutes, and my best guess is that she's the owner's wife, judging from how they've been interacting while he's been on a protracted phone call. Not a big fan of the owner, I have to say. He's a little too alpha for my tastes, which is logical enough for a business owner and doubly logical for a gym owner. He mostly just ignores me, probably because he parses me as male, especially considering how seems to flirt with every girl who walks in. It kinda reminds me of back in '99 when Fernando would flirt heavily with Sara, then do the hey buddy how ya doin' sock-on-the-arm thing with me, because neither of them are fags, y'know, and while they'll tolerate my presence and even play along with my whole i'm a girl thing, but they won't go too far with it, what with aforementioned non-faggery. Heaven knows there've been many many men like that over the past decade, and surely more to come. I also recently overheard a fascinating if uncomfortable conversation between the owner and Cassiel recently. Cassiel's a female-to-male tranny, and the owner asked him all the same questions that us male-to-females get all the time: so, you're serious about it, huh? what's your sex drive like? And, of course, the money question: are you going to go...you know...all the way? When men ask me that question, their attitude towards the question is one of two things: horror at the notion of anyone willingly giving up their penis (which I haven't and probably won't at this point, because my genitals do not determine my gender, thank you drive through), or a certain excitement at the the idea of a brand new hole to fuck. What was fascinating about listening to the owner grill Cassiel was that I'd never actually heard a female-to-male being questioned, though I'm sure it happens all the time. Cassiel was purposefully vague on the surgery question, leading the owner to pontificate on how wonderful it is to own a penis, how it's the best thing ever and wherever you go in the world the penis is respected. Yeah. Presently, this woman who may or may not have been the owner's wife asked me if the green towel was mine. I said it was, and she said that I needed to take it home or it would get thrown away. What the hell? I pointed out that lots of other people leave there gear there, and she repeated that I shouldn't do it or the towel would get thrown away. well, I said through gritted teeth, my hackles raising in way I haven't felt in months, i guess i'll just go get my towel so it doesn't get thrown away. I hope you tell other people that, too. I wouldn't want all those other towels to get thrown away. I turned and walked to the shower room and retrieved my towel. Feeling more pissed off by the second, I decided to put my towel in my bag. It was a little damp, sure, but at least that way when I walked back out she wouldn't know for sure if I had the towel or not. Maybe she'd ask me if I took it, and I'd say yes, and she'd say she didn't see me carrying it, and I'd shrug and leave and even though she'd have defeated me in this battle I'd still have won the war. Unfortunately, she'd left by then. What? Had she just intended to be there long enough to give me static about my towel? All the same, I decided that I wouldn't bring that particular towel back. I'd bring in a different towel, and what's more, I would only use it in the shower room or locker room. See, normally I always carry it with me when I'm doing cardio or working with Raphaela or whatever, but I realize now it's not necessary. I never actually dry myself with it. So, my new towel won't be so obviously associated with me, I'll make sure that I'm unobserved when I'm using it, and if it does get thrown away, what the hell, it's only a towel. I'll still win. The point being, I'm pretty sure that one employee snitched on me to the woman. Boy, it must be hard to be the kind of person who would do that. 3:21pm Hunkering down and writing the synopsis to my book. Third person, present tense, no more than seven pages double-spaced. This? This is not so easy. | ||
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Thursday, 9 April 2009 (killing hurts give you the secret) 11:09pm Didn't make it to the gym this morning thanks to another night where I just didn't sleep very well. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, but couldn't get to sleep or even feel tired, so I got back up an watched a movie. John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, to be precise, a movie most people hate but I adore. (That's usually how these things go.) Hopefully I'll make it back tomorrow. I did have a stroke of luck regarding the Thursday afternoon food pantry, though. It's usually at two, but Marc called me at noon to let me know that A) it had been pushed back to four, and B) he went ahead and grabbed a bunch of stuff for me, mostly anything with the word "tofu" in it. I hooked up with him and got a loaf of sourdough bread, two packages of tortillas (one healthy-ish kind, one not as healthy, but I can only be so much of a chooser right now), and five packages of Trader Joe's tofu spring rolls. This should help me nicely through to the next pantry on Sunday. I'm not eating as conscientiously as I was a few months ago, but not much is like it was a few months ago. None of the jobs I've applied for lately have called back. I've been applying for a lot of things lately, jobs and otherwise, and none of them call back. | ||
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Wednesday, 8 April 2009 (mieke's melody #5) 7:37pm I'm pretty sure I did sleep last night. Perdita was with me part of the time, but not all. Used to be that so long as I was on the bed, she'd be there too. No longer. She's also not quite as needy when I get home, either. Until recently, as soon as I walked in the door she'd yowl at me until I picked her up and let her rub her face against mine. She's over that, it seems. And in general she's just not as affectionate as before, occasionally even shying away from my hand. I hate it, I want her to love me as much as she did before (or at least express it in ways that I can anthropomorphize as love), but she doesn't, and what choice do I have but to accept it? At least she has her regular place on the desk as I sit and write, so whenever I'm at my latop she's in my peripheral vision, almost as though she loves me and likes being around. That's something. 9:18pm These are desperate times, and I have a pretty good idea of what they call for. | ||
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Tuesday, 7 April 2009 (sweep 2) 9:02pm I'm accepting as a matter of faith that there's still a world outside the Black Light District. I've seen it when I've occasionally peeked out my window (it looked gray and ugly) but otherwise, I have no proof that it actually exists. I don't know if I slept last night. I suppose I must have, but it sure didn't feel like it. All I remember is lying in bed for what felt like forever, occasionally looking at the clock and seeing that a few more hours had passed. By all rights I should have been exhausted, since I worked with Raphaela earlier in the evening, and she was particularly brutal. Then again, maybe that's why I was so wired. The fact that I haven't felt the need to nap today might imply that I did get a full night's sleep, and just didn't realize it. Maybe it was one of those nights where I dream about not being to sleep. My brain hates me, so it's entirely possible. Hopefully I'll have better luck tonight. | ||
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Monday, 6 April 2009 (rocking) 1:45pm I signed up for a whole slew of events in a Transgender Job Fair coming up later this month at the LGBT Center. I'll take whatever edge I can get. | ||
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Sunday, 5 April 2009 (sweep 1) 8:11am I started watching Before Sunrise last night, but it's even crueler than Synecdoche, New York. I'm not really in the mood to watch a movie about people falling in love. 3:11pm Free lunch! Sorta. After the food pantry this afternoon, my friend Hal from The Power Exchange took me to lunch. He's the one who brought the food pantries to my attention in the first place, and thanks to the fact that he volunteers for them, has often been able to grab the stuff that I like for me ahead of time. (It helps that I don't eat meat, because the tofu products aren't popular anyway. All the same, I've gotten the hairy eyeball from some people because of the preferential treatment. One fellow asked me how I managed to get on the fast track, and all I told him was it's a long story. If he ever asks again, I'll tell him what he wants to hear: we used to hang out at the same sex club. He can fill in the rest of the blanks.) It's very generous of him, especially since I know he's not expecting any sort of repayment from me. Never have sucked him off, never will, and that's okay. He's just a nice guy, which is contrary to everything this town's sexual upper-crust insists about The Power Exchange. But I knew that already. 5:40pm I just rocked the audition for the short film. I don't know if the kitty tail helped, but it certainly didn't hurt. It also helps that the filmmakers were already familiar with me, having seen me perform at The Garage last month and in December, as well as in I AM SNOWMISER. (When I was telling Erin about it later at The Dark Room, she squealed: famous person!) They said they were really happy when I requested an audition, and when I finished reading my story, the writer said: i love your work. That felt nice. I think I may have also found one of the girls who'll be in my AIRspace piece in June. She looks the part. 11:42pm Whooboy. Bad Movie Night was rough. Star Wars: The Clone Wars isn't the worst movie we've ever done, but it's up there. I don't think I can blame it for how mush-mouthed I was, though—I couldn't enunciate to save my life. Maybe I used up all my vocal mojo during the cold reading at the audition early. Still, when all is said and done, I looked pretty hot tonight. That's all that matters. | ||
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Saturday, 4 April 2009 (totentanz) 11:21am At the gym. Because. 11:55am Sweat has broken. Now, to burn. 3:24pm Continuing on with the housecleaning. I've reached the trickiest part: thinning out the 'zine and chapbook herd. 10:19pm I have an audition tomorrow afternoon for a short experimental film about sex between women. They're looking for "queer performance artists, actors, and spoken word poets" to come and read a prepared piece, and I'm pretty sure I qualify. I'm going to read "Will the Night" as my audition piece, because it also qualifies. sometime after midnight The trick is understanding that the phone isn't going to ring whether you're waiting next to it or not. | ||
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Friday, 3 April 2009 (slow dissolve) 5:33pm I went back to the gym yesterday and the morning. It occurs to me that I'm not eating as much as I was employed. I'm not starving intentionally or otherwise, but I'm just not as hungry, which comes in handy combined with the fact that I can't afford as much food as I used to. Here's to hoping that results in the loss of some fat-pounds. You know, the bad kind. There's still a lot of clothes I can't fit into yet, like these pants. sometime after midnight Watching Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York late at night when you're feeling troubled about your life and your creativity? Harsh. I loved the movie, but, ouch. | ||
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Thursday, 2 April 2009 (skeleton lines) 11:22pm On my way to the St. Stupid's Day parade yesterday I parked at the old office and went inside , the first time I've done so since I left. I didn't really want to, but my copies of the femme visibility anthology had been sent there. So, in I went. Some people acknowledged me, some didn't. I'd imagine the fact that I was wearing kitty ears and a tail didn't make my reappearance any less uncomfortable for them. Pity, that. My old desk and computer are gone, unsurprisingly. If I were ever to return, I'd be starting over. But I'm not returning. Unless they ask, I suppose. Otherwise, it's all over. After the parade, I hung out with Sadie. Something else I haven't done in a while, since she was gone in January and went into a heavy hermit mode when she got back. I'd written her off for a while, since I'm getting pretty good at accepting it went someone, even someone whom I often consider my best friend, drops me from their life. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but there it is. (I haven't heard from the agent since last week, not even an acknowledgment that she received the manuscript. I suppose this means I should nudge her now and again over the next couple of weeks, and if need be start looking again.) We walked to Dolores Park and lay in the grass for a while, watching the lack of clouds in the sky. It was nice. The Power Exchange was supposed to have reopened tonight, but it didn't, due to permits and stuff. | ||
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Wednesday, 1 April 2009 (maybe 2) 8:29pm No gym this morning, since I walked several miles over the course of the afternoon with the St. Stupid's Day parade. It all looked much more real with the 3-D glasses on. | ||
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