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Tuesday, 10 July 2001 (nobody 'cept you) 9:04am This morning I saw a "Pimpin Ain't Easy" license plate frame on a Honda Civic. Ignoring the horrendous punctuation—the apostrophe isn't that difficult to use correctly, people!—I think that's the postmodern equivalent of a deadhead sticker on a cadillac. 9:52am If there's one thing San Franciscans seem to love, it's an excuse to dress up, and quite a few people at the Silent Film Festival at the Castro Theater on Sunday were taking advantage of the opportunity, in appropriate 20s-style garb. I don't really have anything that falls into that category (unfortunately), so I just wore a short black velvet dress with red and black stripeys. In retrospect I should have put my hair up in pigtails and said I was doing Mary Pickford. Not that anyone would have asked, although I'm sure Madeline would have appreciated it. The first movie we saw was the 1926 Eye-talian acid trip Maciste All'inferno. It was the third of the four being shown that day, however, so the theater was at least three quarters filled by the time we got in. As we started down an aisle to get to some empty seats at the end, I apologized to a man sitting in the aisle seat, mostly out of habit and also because I was rather clumsily wielding my backpack. He said there was an empty seat next to him if I wanted it; unfortunately, there was only the one seat, I thanked him for the offer and we moved on. After we'd been seated for a few minutes, it occured to me that the guy must have liked my looks. (What he could see from that angle, which would have been my legs and posterior.) Otherwise he surely wouldn't have invited me to sit next to him. Think about it: when was the last time a stranger in a movie theater offered you a seat? Either that or he was lonely and desperate for someone to talk to, which seems even more likely. Of course, going to a movie theater always implies the risk of being within the gravity well of stupid people, at the Castro has never been an exception—indeed, it can be worse in some ways—even during a specialized program like this. The theater was emptied out before the final movie, It with Clara Bow, and we wound up with some intellectually questionable types sitting behind us. Remarkably, they were quiet during the movie, laughing at the jokes and not at how funny people looked and acted back then. Which is to say, they weren't like your typical Castro audience during a Hitchcock film. I had my doubts at first, though. As the theater was filling slides were shown on the screen, alternating between sponsor logos and factoids about the festival and silent films in general. (Kinda like you'll find at any multiplex these days, but with interesting information and not as intrusive. God, I miss the days when the screen was simply blank before the movie. I feel sooooo old.) A recurring theme was the loss of a large perenctage of the films made in the first few decades of last century, for reasons ranging from neglect to natural disaster to, most sadly, deliberate destruction. One of the slides described a fire at one warehouse or another, in which almost all the films featuring Theda Bara were lost. One of the people behind me asked aloud, "Who's Theda Bara?" I wonder if they heard my involuntary groan. Okay. I'm not a complete elitist, honest. I don't expect the average person to know who Theda Bara is; I wouldn't expect most self-described film buffs to know who she is. I'd never even heard of her until after I got the film degree I'm still paying for. So it's that I'm turning up my nose at them for not being well-versed in a comparatively obscure silent film stars. It's this: how dim do you have to be to not be able to work out a detail like that from context? Do you suppose her name have been mentioned had she been, say, a seamstress from Jersey who never travelled much?
One of their friends replied, "An actress." I guess if the incorrigibly dumb people travel with friends who
are capable of adding two and two, we should be okay.
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Monday, 9 July 2001 (let it come down) 7:30am As tempting as it may be, gazing into the abyss is a bad idea. The part where it gazes back into you really sucks. 3:03pm The abyss reference was actually about coming face to face with someone I've never actually met but have always been curious about, and seeing in that face something uncomfortably familiar. Not something familiar within myself, necessarily, but something I've been running from for years. It was a tranny who reminded me of The Other, quite frankly, radiating that sort of anger and insatiable bitterness that I'll always associate with her, that scared me so damn much. I still wonder if, had she not been such a profoundly unhappy person, I would have transitioned earlier. Pointless speculation of the highest order. I guess it was a little prophetic, since in a couple months I'm going to be facing that even more unpleasant abyss, the visual field test. It's the thing where you click a button every time you see a white flash of light against a barely off-white background. Doesn't sound like much, but it's fantastically tedious, and the ophthalmalogist (when I finally saw him after two hours, most of which I spent reading Howard Lyman's Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat while the occasional nurse or intern poked at and/or shone lights in my eyes) kindly informed me twice that it'll be worse the next time, as it'll be a blue light on a yellow background. I believe the words he used were "more taxing" and "more demanding." Nice bedside manner, doc. Really, I was hoping I'd never have to do one of those things again, but now I get to anticipate it being even ickier than before. Not really a detail I needed to know. I don't think he looked me in the eyes once the entire time. I think that qualifies as ironic, I'm not sure. My endoc has a tendency to intently study the pen in her hand while talking to me, so I don't suppose it necessarily means he's not doing his job adequately. And he was quite busy. And maybe it's what I get for going to UCSF. Anyway, I have "pigmentary glaucoma," which is to say I have more pigment in some places than I should, and it's causing excess pressure where there shouldn't be, which is more or less what glaucoma is. I guess it's in an early, not especially harmful stage, since at this point they aren't doing much more than watching it, i.e. having me come back in September for more tests. (Including one called, ironically enough, HRT. Sorry, folks, but that acronym's already spoken for in my personal lexicon.) (On that note, when I was asked if I take any medication daily, I said I was taking hormones for gender reassignment; remarkably, it didn't become a tangent like I was afraid it might, particularly since it was a rather green intern asking me the questions.) I almost didn't ask the ophthalmalogist a question I'd been wondering about, for one reason: it felt like a dumb question. It's amazing how many things I've wanted to ask in my lifetime but haven't for fear of getting a withering look—or, in more recent years, getting flamed—for being stupid enough to even have to ask. Usually I'd just find out some other way, or just not get an answer. Lord knows there've been any of a number of questions I've had over the last few years about transitioning, and more specifically the effects of hormones, that I never asked for that reason. Most of them I've worked out for myself, and I'll skip the easy opportunity to rant about mailing lists. That said, I have felt much freer to ask questions of my new endoc than my old, who surely would have rolled her eyes and shook her head at me. And frequently did. The dumb question in, um, question regarded laser eye surgery, if this would make me ineligible. He replied that it wasn't something I would want to consider if I had glaucoma. I forget exactly how he phrased it, but something about the tone of his voice bothered me—as in, how could I be so stupid as to have to ask something like that?
Naaah. It's probably just me.
So we discovered this on Saturday as we were walking down 9th towards the store. The first thing to catch my attention was that the neon sign was down. The owner's sufficiently cheap that if it had been stolen or broken or what have you, she probably wouldn't pay to replace it. (To her eternal credit, though, she puts most of the capital where it belongs: in Stanley's capable hands, stocking the store with what's probably still the best selection on the west coast.) Then I noticed the newspaper on the windows...granted, it was taped to the outside of the windows, which was kinda weird...and then we were close enough to look inside. Yep, the place was gutted. Ouch. Stanley was in there cleaning up, and explained that they'd lost their lease on the particular location. Or the lease had been taken from them. Or something. He wasn't entirely sure himself, since he wasn't directly involved in that end of things. Rather, he had the unenviable task of trying to cram the stock of both stores into one location—no simple task. The net result, as we discovered when we went into the other location, was to make the store seem even more claustrophobic. Trust me, it was pretty cramped to begin with, and not in a good way, not in that small-yet-cozy bookstore or library feeling. The new store always felt very impersonal to me; the owner, of course, thought it very modern. Hey, she's French. (Why, yes, that does explain everything.) I asked if Pandora still worked there, as the last few times I hadn't sensed her presence. According Stanley, she recently moved out of state; his understanding was that she'd followed a new beau to Pittsburgh, of all places. Damn. Must be love. That was all he knew, and he wasn't even aware when she left, since he didn't get his invite for her going-away party until a week after it was over. I observed that it was similar to me and Louise's party, excepting for the fact that I wasn't invited at all, since she pretty much ignored me for those last few weeks. This lead into a minor bitch session about Louise. It was probably mean of us, especially since she wasn't there to defend ourselves, but damn, it felt good.
Still, though, if Le Video hasn't entirely fallen off my list of places to look
for work once this gig finally disappears, then it's a lot closer to the bottom
than it was before. And that kinda sucks.
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Sunday, 8 July 2001 (KOE-vin) 2:31pm Finally saw American Movie. I liked it a lot, though it reminds me of why I decided not to try to get into filmmaking, independent or otherwise...
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Saturday, 7 July 2001 (sunsquashed) 2:01pm For the want of a nail, y'know?
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Friday, 6 July 2001 (subjective loss, day 83) 9:18am No gym last night. Maddy had an appointment, and after that it was chinese food and teevee. We'd settled in to watch Tranny Talk on public access, but it was a repeat of the single episode we've seen all the way through (don't you hate it when that happens), so we just watched Invader Zim instead. We're having lunch with my dad today. For some reason, that requires me to get at least a little made up. I'm not sure why; I guess I'm afraid that if I don't present to some degree, I won't be taken seriously. I know him well enough to know that he probably doesn't give it that much thought—and even bare-faced I surely look much different to him, especially considering how seldom he's seen me since I lost the weight, started on 'mones, et cetera—but you know how it is with your father.
We're going to the gym tonight, though, so I sagely brought along the makeup-remover sheets we
use. Sometimes I astonish myself with my foresight. (Although Maddy deserves a bit
of the credit on that one as well.)
I go to the front desk and invite my father and his wife to come back and see my office. I don't know, exactly. It just makes sense, seeing as how they're so close. After all, I showed my mom my cubicle when she visited last year, so it seemed only right. And, like last year's parental visit, there was a bit of a mixup regarding directions. Last time, my mother had a hard time finding my office because she claimed I never gave her directions; it was later discovered she'd misplaced and subsequently forgotten about them. this time, my father claimed that he came up to my office rather than meeting me at the restaurant because I'd never told him what it was called or where it was, although I have email evidence to the contrary, including a reply from him with said information in the body of the message. Why is it so difficult to give my parents directions, or at the very least, to for them to hang on to them? (Madeline's theory: because they're parents. I think she's onto something.) Anyway, it went well. There was a bit of nervousness all around, but that's to be expected. Maddy was able to join us, and having her there helped my nerves tremendously. They used male pronouns and my birth name, but I didn't object. I figure I'll wait until I have ID saying otherwise before I start making a fuss about that. And, knowing me, perhaps not even then...
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Thursday, 5 July 2001 (aluminum or glass: the memo) 11:22am We made it, though we almost didn't. Someone (read: me) did/said something they (read: I) shouldn't have, and the day was almost derailed. But the thought of having a repeat of last year on almost any level was a bit too much to take, so we went forward with our plans. If we learned anything, it's that sometimes even plans which have been around for a while require tweaking. We hadn't even ordered before the decision was made to never return to the Hindquarter. Just not our kinda place, not by a long shot. The only reason I'd ate there in the past was because barefoot is an inveterate carnviore; if King Yen didn't offer Mongolian Beef, he probably wouldn't go near the place. If it's just the two of us again next year, as I suspect we will be, we're eating at Pink Godzilla. Mmm. Sushi. Between uncooked fish and cooked cow, I'll go for the fish every time. Sometimes I suspect that's even more alien to my family than the whole "I think I'm really a girl" thing. We found the beach without any great difficulty—I got a little turned around, but compared to last month, it was a vast improvement—and were even able to park. Most importantly, Maddy enjoyed herself. I'd been worried that when all is said and done her reaction would be, "I don't see what the big deal is about." She appreciated the big loud noisy anarchy of it all. The main displays from the Boardwalk were partially obscured by trees, but that was okay because of all the amateur skyrockets and whatnot being shot off much closer. And the (terribly expensive) houses on either side of that particular stretch of beach provide a nice echo effect. Then there's the element of danger that comes from drunk people playing with explosives. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of the appeal, watching the occasional skyrocket explode before lifting off. We did almost get hit by the hull of a roman candle which thudded to the ground a few feet away. It would have sucked mightily had it landed on us, but since it didn't, we were able to enjoy the fact that on the side it said "Golden Rain." (The joke doesn't need to be made, but I'll make it anyway: if I had wanted a golden rain, I would have stayed in San Francisco! Because, you see, it reminds me of "golden shower," which is...oh, never mind. If you have to ask, you probably don't wanna know.) Of course, I'd rather be watching drunk people with explosives than sharing the road with them, but since we both worked today we didn't have much choice. We encountered at least three accidents on the way home, one of which resulted in us sitting on highway 1 outside Santa Cruz for about an hour or so (and when we finally went past it, the carnage looked pretty intense) (although, for the record, we did not rubberneck, thank you very much; peripheral vision did the job), and another near Half Moon Bay which probably would have delayed us just as long had I not realized that we were near the Old Princeton Landing; I know that area just well enough from Neil pilgrimmages to be familiar with the side roads, so we managed to keep moving. Eventually.
So it went well. We're planning on doing it again next year,
by which point I suppose it'll have become a new tradition,
even if it is an updating of an old one. barefoot's already
said that they should have come with us—I hope he can
learn to appreciate sushi within the next twelve months...
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Wednesday, 4 July 2001 (persuasion u.s.a.) 10:08am I've decided I'm not going to weigh myself for a while. When the machines ask, I'll just say 195. That's all they need to know. Today, we're going to get it right. No matter what.
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Wednesday, 3 July 2001 (the world is a war film) 9:10am You were my mechanical bride So I've started going to the gym again. I managed to will myself out of bed on Sunday morning—well, getting out of bed isn't the tricky part—to go to the neighborhood place, and Maddy and I went to our mutual favorite 24-Hour yesterday after work. We're planning on going again tonight. We'd tossed around the idea of driving to Santa Cruz tonight to see Tomb Raider at the drive-in, not to mention since it isn't a schoolnight I've considered going to Trannyshack and/or Camera Obscura. (Yeah, yeah, we've been informed that Tomb Raider sucks, but Maddy really wants to see it, and how better than from the comfort of our own car? Beats the hell out of a multiplex.) But we're trying to behave, so at the very least the movie is out, and after working out I may not have the energy left to go clubbing. Not to mention I'd have to wash my hair, and I've discovered the hard way that it's damn near impossible to style properly until it's completely dry, and we don't have a blow-dryer (that I know of), and...in any event, I sorta have that forward inertia. It may just be guilt from my behavior last week up through Sunday, I don't know. Or from looking in the mirror recently and seeing that hint of a doublechin, and knowing that it's nobody's fault but mine.
Meanwhile, my father's coming through town on Friday, and we're having lunch. His idea,
in fact. Which, I guess, is good.
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Monday, 2 July 2001 (after cease to exist) 9:36am (Because when we were at Lee's on Saturday, we asked for some catnip. He thought that I was asking to buy grass, and had even gotten as far asking if an eighth would be enough before the miscommunication was realized. Grass, we have more than enough of since we smoke comparatively little. It was, in fact, catnip we wanted.) So we went to a barbecue at Lee's place, along with Dana, Costanza and Ump. Lee's been out of Bolinas for a while now, living and farming on an old military compound in Santa Rosa. A fascinating place, probably ranking higher on the "visiting" than "living" scale, though. I like to think of myself as adaptable, but really, I don't come close to him. He makes me feel so middle-middle-class, it ain't even funny. It was also the most...well...masculine I've ever seen him. Hardly butch, and he's still little and wiry, but to look at him you wouldn't think he was my first makeup guru way back when. (And, really, all he did was give me the shove I needed in the right direction, but it was more than anyone else was willing to do.) Of course, he has neither the time nor the interest in that sort of thing these days. I have to admire that. That morning, we'd had our couples counseling session, the first one in a while. We've switched from every other week to once a month, since we're doing much better now than when we started. Which is the whole point, I suppose. Much of it was spent talking about me, the fact that it was the first time the shrink had seen me in a dress—I'm usually a bit more stealthy—when I'll finally change my name for real, come out officially at work, that kinda thing. You know, moving forward. She actually made me feel confident, like I'll have a chance in hell of making it work. That I'll be accepted, even in the women's restroom, in spite of being on average a head taller than 90% of the women in the company and have this telltale voice. Right before we left on Lee's on that evening, he made a pronoun slip. I don't know that I've never noticed him do that before. It stung a little, although I know it was completely unintentional, and I consider him to be one of my earliest supporters. I'd even been wondering earlier if it had struck him how far I've come since we first met. It was just a little mistake, no big deal, and I certainly don't hold it against him. All the same, it felt like the universe trying to tell me something. Don't ever expect it to be easy.
As I suspected it would be, rabbit is yummy.
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Sunday, 1 July 2001 (the old man smiled) 4:06pm Sometimes, catnip is just catnip.
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