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Monday, 31 December 2001 (toys that don't care) 4:07pm "Spending a quiet evening at home, actually." That's the answer to the standard question about our plans this evening. Barefoot and Rox are long gone, as are Dana and Costanza, and if Orky's having a party (or going to one) he didn't let us know. So we're in for the night. Just as well, really, since going out sounds like an awful lot of work. So we rented Jurassic Park III and Burton's Planet of the Apes from the local video store and more than enough food. It seemed only fair to get fun stuff, big mainstream movies that I was super-reluctant to go in the theater, considering that I recently subjected Madeline to Carnival of Souls, Hannah and Her Sisters and The Big Picture. Enough of the heavy stuff, already. (It's me saying that, not her.) The other good reason not to go out into the world is the traffic. Trust me on this one—you don't want to be out driving amongst those people, although I'm sure they're good patriots, each and every one. (I'd like to get a bumper sticker that reads, "If you cut me off in traffic, the terrorists win.") We'd thought about doing the acid tonight, but decided against it. Tripping at night, at least for me, has been done to death. We'll be saving it for an upcoming three-day weekend, so we can actually be out in the world a little. (Although it would have been nice for Baraka.) For better or worse, I've found that I can smoke grass again, a discovery which was prompted by a generous xmas gift from jonco. Not a lot and not often, but it doesn't result in a mind-numbing nihilism like it did for the first few months. And I'm getting the munchies lately whether I'm stoned or not. The doorbell just rang; it was someone from PG&E, saying they needed to work on the gas line. I didn't quite follow what the problem was, but I couldn't help noticing the neighbor from next door was standing nearby. I'm not sure if there's any significance to that or not, but it again strikes fear into my heart that we may eventually have lateral neighbors, people who figure that since they're in a garage, they can make as much noise as they like. In interest of full disclosure I feel I should point out that I'm currently listening to Sonic Youth's Goodbye 20th Century, which in almost any beholder's ear qualifies as little more than noise. But it's not loud, damnit. The first three-quarters of 2001 weren't all that bad, particularly compared to what much of '99 and '00 were like. The remainder of the year has sucked really hard, and I'd be saying that even if it weren't for The Great Overshadowing. I believe that makes me self-centered.
I'm sure 2002 will be much better.
If I were the Resolutiony type, I might make one to not munch so damn much. But I also know that it's not something that can be Resolutioned away; I suspect it has more to do with mood than anything else. The gym is closed tomorrow morning, thus getting me off the hook, but it's back open on Wednesday. That's not related to any Resolution, mind you. |
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Sunday, 30 December 2001 (dolls inside the walls) 11:03am In what can only be described as a supreme act of will on my part, I went to the gym this morning. I'd made the decision last night, but I didn't mention it to Maddy for fear of jynxing myself. It's one of my few superstitions, borne of experience: if I talk (or write) about it beforehand, it won't happen. It's like dancing or boiling water. Don't think about it. Just do it. And in spite of knowing full well that my metabolism will slow back down to a crawl if I give it half a chance, I still had to coax myself into it using a library book I've had for weeks, Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America. In addition to simply wanting to read it, it's hardback and the perfect size to read while on the crosstrainer, fitting nicely as it does inside the magazine rack. Believe me, these are important details; most paperbacks simply won't do, and magazines don't work for me. Used to be I could just find a picture that I liked and have that in front of me for an hour on the treadmill. (In '98 I got a lot of mileage out of a picture of Celebrity Skin-era Hole from People.) Not anymore, it seems. The book should keep me going for a while, as the Bruce Campbell one did. I'm hoping there isn't an influx of New Years Resolutioners in the next few weeks, but there probably will be. Makes me glad that going to 24-Hour Fitness isn't an option anymore. The question becomes whether I should be reading a memoir of clinical depression while I'm personally depressed—it's not's likely to provide the same kind of catharsis as, say, listening to Blood on the Tracks during a breakup. And, of course, I'm not clinically depressed. I've simply lost my job and direction in life, in non-coincidental succession. That doesn't call for antidepressants. It's just life sucking, as it often will. Mind you, I'm not denying the existence of clinical depression; I don't doubt that it's very real. If I didn't accept it on faith from other people's testimonials, I really couldn't expect anyone non-transgendered to take my deal seriously. At least they know what it's like to be depressed. Wanna know how shallow I am, how crass, how likely I am to miss the most obvious of points? I really, really dig the cover. I absolutely adore her overall look, and it kills me to think my stomach will probably never be like that, no matter how many first-thing-in-the-morning crunches I do or how many literary carrots lead me to the gym. Not lost on me is the ironic lesson of her unhappiness, that the book wouldn't exist if she wasn't so miserable. Ergo, maybe there isn't a connection between the two. Maybe you can look good and still feel bad. It wasn't a concept I could wrap my brain around when I had a 48" waist (I don't know what it was at its widest, but that's probably close), but I understand it a little better now. Heck, I can use the women's restroom at the Evil Sony Metreon or the truckstop between Los Banos and Pacheco Pass with nary an unkind blink in my direction. So I should be happy no matter what, right? Perhaps, if I can just flatten my stomach. |
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Saturday, 29 December 2001 (hecklers chant) 10:46pm It's official: I've gained five pounds this month. I'm no expert, but I think it may have to do with the fact that I've been eating more and exercising less. In an attempt to not be rooted to our couch all day long, we went to the Red Vic and sat on one of their couches for Baraka, a movie I've been trying to see for going on eight years now. It was very much worth the wait. After puttering around the Haight for a while (including finding a used Miss Murgatroid CD at Amoeba, no simple feat) we went into the Inner Sunset. We were on an unsuccessful mission to find a copy of The Silent Miaow in one of the area's plentiful used bookstores, though we eventually wound up in Le Video. Stanley happened to be there, and we talked for a bit. He assured me that the door is always open—whenever I want a job there, its mine. On the one hand it was nice to hear, since I'd been worried that I might have blown future chances when I backed out last month. On the other hand, I really don't wanna work there again. But if times get desperate enough...
I corrected his pronoun usage. He didn't seem to mind.
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Friday, 28 December 2001 (dante's anthropomorphic zoo) 4:43pm If I don't buy one a United We Stand Pistol, does it mean the terrorists win? |
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Thursday, 27 December 2001 (sharpening her talons) 7:56am My weight is creeping back up to 170, probably from the pizza and Krispy Kremes and meals at IHOP earlier this week. I was just doing as the Fresnans do. 1:21pm Much of xmas eve afternoon was spent going through boxes of old family stuff. Mostly pictures, but also a lot of school stuff, including my mother's high school ID card and beyond. If I didn't know where my pack rat gene came from before, I do now. Unlike some trannies I could name but won't (although if I did, it would be Maggie and The Other), I wasn't threatened by any of it, the abundant evidence of my original identity. I can't deny its existence, and really, why should I? It would just tempt someone to hold it against me, and blackmail only works if you have something to hide. (Although I do hope my mom keeps to herself about the bedwetting until I was twelve. That's just plain embarrassing.) Sure, I was a chunky geek, but I've come a long way, y'know? I'm rather proud of it. More disturbing to me are pictures from the nineties, during which time I was usually over 250 lbs and hairy. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Those, thankfully, are much rarer. The best find (for me) was pictures of my deceased cat Mary from the day I got her, on my eleventh birthday in 1984. (Not as a birthday present; I'd long since known I'd be getting her, and that just happened to be the day she came to live with me.) They aren't dated, but they were in an envelope with pictures of me opening presents, and the pictures of Mary involve her ripping into a paper Garfield placemat. So the timing fits. Good lord, but she was cute. Kids these days haven't totally given up on single-button joysticks and blocky graphics, it seems; when I mentioned that same day—this last Monday, not June 16, 1984—that my old Atari 2600 was sitting out in my mom's shed, my younger niece Amber asked if she could have it. We dug it out, but were unable to find the power or teevee adapters. So I did a quick bit of research online via Atari Age, determined exactly what parts we'd need to buy (as walking into a Radio Shack and asking for help in connecting a 20+ year-old game system would surely increase the blank-stare factor by a factor of a hundred) and went in search of them with Maddy and my other niece Nicole along for the ride. After a trip to a couple different Radio Shacks we were able to find the proper parts to hook it up to the teevee (and since dealing with an employee was inevitable, finding one who wasn't trying to increase their commission helped), but the power adapters remained elusive. Still, not bad for an impromptu xmas eve shopping trip.
Besides the fact that I was thrilled about a fifteen year-old girl being so interested in my
old video game system, I was happy to do the running around because it meant they were cool
with being seen with me, even in places where they might potentially run into people they
knew. Indeed, a friend of Nicole's was working at the Krispy Kreme we stopped
at before heading home, and set us up with a dozen free donuts.
Older relatives can be something of a social liability or even an outright embarrassment, though
it helps that I could be Nicole's sister—the difference in our ages is the same as that
between barefoot and I. And Maddy doesn't look a day over twenty-five. (The condition of her
body is that of someone considerably older, but it's better to look good than to feel good,
right?) Anyway, the point is, it's nice to know they aren't at all embarrassed of me,
considering what I am. I suppose it helps that I'm not quite as obvious as I was
when Amber visited in '99.
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Sunday, 23 December 2001 (you did not exist) 9:38pm Ugh. Why is it that the older you get, the more you feel like a twelve year-old around your mother? And, I swear, I didn't do nearly as many dumb things when I was was twelve. Forgot my keys again, though thankfully she was home when we arrived (and the trip out here was much less congested than on Thanksgiving—take that, Osama!), and there was some miscommunication about dinner. Both Maddy and I could have sworn she said that she'd like us to join her and her boyfriend, but that it wasn't a big deal, and upon returning home after having eaten out (my mom was making salmon, which Maddy doesn't like) we discovered that she thought we'd agreed to eat with her. At least we'd called before we ate out, though at the time I'd considered it more of a courtesy than cancelling a date. She chewed us out very lightly for it, and probably made us feel more guilty about it than she'd really intended. It's that special gift which probably only mothers have. I'm not saying I don't screw up on a regular basis under normal circumstances, but I seem to do it twice as much in her presence. In all fairness, she's really not that harsh. If she was twice as bad, she still wouldn't be half as shrewish as Maddy's mother, who considers any attempt to leave her presence to be an insult. For our next trip to the Midwest, half of the planning will be airline tickets and time off from work and all, and the other half will be figuring out how to avoid her. AMF Sierra Lanes, nee Blackstone Bowl, has an air hockey table. It's the same model as at Circus Circus, which I prefer to the one at the Metreon. Make your travel plans accordingly. We also went by Tower Records, which is borderline ritual for a Fresno trip—for some reason, it's better than any of the locations in The City. Anyway, I recognized some employees who have been there for at least ten years now. Once, I might have felt sorry for them. Not so much now. Speaking of Circus Circus, I still maintain that one of the greatest compliments anyone's ever received was when an employee at the buffet saw Maddy's stripeys asked if she was a trapeze artist. I didn't get any such compliments, or any questions at all, about my red-and-white stripeys today. It's the first time I've worn stripeys in Fresno, at least with a skirt that was short enough for them to be visible, and didn't get more than the occasional cursory glance. I was also in full battle gear (defined herein as wearing eye and lip makeup), for reasons I couldn't quite identify beyond just really wanting to be. Maybe to test the waters or something. Like, at dinner, Maddy commented that she was proud of me for using a women's room in Fresno by myself. (I'm no more or less likely to be read if she's with me, but usually I prefer to go in with her as moral support.) Y'know, I'm coming to the conclusion that I pass fairly well even in this particular cowtown, so I might as well be able to do these things by myself. Doesn't mean that I'll never be read—nobody is one-hunnerd percent passable, and when I look in the mirror I have a hard time believing that anyone is fooled—but I can't live in fear of it. Not anymore, anyway. Wasn't able to get together with Danny. Shock value? Nil. When we got back from air hockey and dinner mom said that jonco had called looking for us, but didn't give a number (i.e., his wife's family) where he could be reached. Livingstone's the eventual destination of all roads, but energy levels weren't quite up for the trip, so I guess we won't see him until tomorrow. I'm bummed about not getting to hang out with either of them tonight, but as my mother kept reminding me, I should have communicated better. Of course. That must be it. |
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