Her shrink is especially concerned, and recently read that incidents of queer harassment and bashing have been on the rise. Terrific. It's something in the air. That's gonna be tricky.

4:33pm

A friend forwarded me an article earlier this week, saying that "they couldn't resist sending it to me." It was a New Orleans story that had been making the meme rounds, with the provocative headline Transvestite gang pesters Magazine Street. Sister Edith had sent it to me as well, but that's what we do, shooting links and fragments back and forth at each other over IM. The person who "couldn't resist" sending it to me is not someone I hear from very often, maybe a couple times a year. That I came to mind when he read an article about "males ranging in height from 6 feet to 6-5" wearing "the same midriff shirts and wigs with twisted, dreadnaught hair" is not doing my head any favors.

Do people get that I'm not a transvestite? That I'm not a cross-dresser, that I'm not simply (as my drunk straight coworker put it that night) "a guy who wears girls' clothing?" I identify as female, I've legally changed my name, I've spent several thousands of dollars over the past decade on hormones and electrolysis...does any of that matter? Does the rest of the world just see me as a tall boy who dresses somewhat femmey and wears eyeliner, and nothing I've done changes that?

Before going to the Pacific Film Archive on Wednesday night, Vash and I stopped in at Hot Topic so she could get more hair dye. An employee who was no taller than Vash (but not wearing anything like Vash's de riguer platform shoes) asked me how tall I am. Can I tell you how much I hate that question? I might as well tell you how much, because I sure didn't tell her my feelings on the subject. I cringed involuntarily and said I'm six feet tall. (At least one doctor in the past has determined that I'm, in fact, six feet and one-half inch. Fuck that bullshit. I'm six feet, and it takes the better part of my willpower not to claim to be five eleven, like the brother of mine who was born on the very tail end of the Baby Boom but chooses to identify as Generation X.)

She started gushing about how swell it must be to be so tall, how wonderful my life surely is as a result. I meekly countered that it's not all it's cracked up to be. She wouldn't hear a word of it, insisting that it couldn't not be wonderful. I told her that I would have preferred to be five eight, then agreed that it was nice to be able to reach the top shelf before beating a hasty retreat.

I do not like being tall. Period. It wasn't my goddamned idea, and I try my best not to think about the fact that there is nothing whatsoever I can do about it. Yes, some genetic girl are my height. Yes, it's what's often referred to as supermodel height. But I'm not a genetic girl, the one this tall are far and few between, and I sure as hell don't come to close to supermodel (or even just model) status in any other way than being abnormally tall. Being this height is now doubt a good thing for many people. It is not a good thing for me, and it's getting increasingly difficult to deal with, especially as whatever thin veneer allowed me to (mostly) pass is disintegrating.

I realize I should be careful about how much I complain. After all, I'm a child of the post-Twilight Zone generation. I know that if I bitch too much about something I'll get an ironic comeuppance, like losing my legs in an accident or something.

So if you're listening, Universe (or God, or whatever): there are worse things than being too tall for your chosen gender. I get that. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

7:30pm

I will cop to a predeliction, a tendency, a downright habit of being paranoid. I listen for slights, especially these days. When I think someone has given me a funny look as we cross paths—especially if their conversation stops—I lisen carefully for a red-shifting slur. Often I may have heard something, but I'm not certain. The two clearks at Whole Paycheck today, standing a few feet away as I waited at the Customer Service Desk to buy a Muni FastPass— the guy either say i'll ring it up or i'll ring him up. It was definitely monosyllabic with a short "I" sound. I'm not so far gone as to think that it would have referred to me rather than the FastPass, but I just don't know which word was used.

There is no doubt in my mind that as I was walking down Market towards 14th a few inutes ago, passing the Ace Hardware, the person whose face I never saw who shouted that's a man!, was in fact referring to me. That was not just me feeling persecuted, needing to lighten up.

Now, I'm very fond of him. He's my gay boyfriend, and I've always said that if I was into boys and he was into girls, we could have a lot of fun together. But I'm not and he's not, so there you go. Thinking back on it after he finished the poem (because of course it would have been very wrong for me to think of such things while he was reading), since I had a visual to work with, I imagined going down on him. I found I couldn't get enthusiastic about the concept. (Whether or not he would have been interested is beyond the point. Fantasizing, or even academic ruminations such as them one, do not require consent.) I love him to death, and if there's any boy I might want to suck off he's the one, and yet, nothing. No desire, no inclination. My nonexistent bisexuality continues to not exist.

8:09pm

Waiting at a corner on Market today, a man wearing a sandwich board advertising a computer sale approached me. He said loudly that I was the second girl with pink and blonde hair that he'd encounted today, then attempted to hand me a flyer. I lift my hand, palm outwards, and stepped away. That's sorta my I want nothing to do with you, bugger off pose. He then asked, of all things, if I like seafood. Sure, if someone's obviously trying to ignore you, ask them on a date. Good plan. The light changed and I started walking across the street, much to his displeasure. He started yelling after me you're not very friendly, are you? maybe you shouldn't have even left the house today if you aren't going to be friendly! At no point did he announce to the world that he'd figured out that I'm really a man!, so I'd have to say I came out ahead. And, quite frankly, he was right. I would have preferred to have not left the house today, mine or Vash's.

This was while I was on my way for my long-delayed vision checkup at Kaiser. The good news is, my eyes haven't gotten any worse over the last few years. The not so good news is, because I have astigmatism in both eyes (or something to that effect), I may not be able to wear soft contact lenses, and even the harder kind may not give me twenty-twenty vision. So said the actual eye doctor. He couldn't tell me whether or not I'd be eligible for Lasik, though he did give me the number of their Lasik clinic so I could make an appointment. Oh, goody. I just found out today that I've somehow managed to go three days over my two weeks of PTO, so I'm going to be trying to keep days off at a bare minimum from here on out. In light of this, I went ahead and ordered new precription sunglasses, even though I'd hoped to have Vash with me when I picked out frames in order to keep from making a really stupid choice. With any luck, I'll know whether I won the coin toss before I go to Fresno.

As it is, I probably won't be home for the next couple nights, as Vash and I are planning on seeing some scary Japanese puppet movies at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Hopefully the barking from upstairs won't freak out Perdita too much.

10:21am

I've stepped down from my "Whatever The Hell It Was I Was Did" position on The Tim & Roma! Show. It was mostly fun and not much of a time commitment, but I really need to focus on my own stuff. I'm sure they'll do just fine without me.

Vash and I are going spelunking in September, possibly to Moaning Cavern or Mercer. Probably Moaning, since I've been to Mercer before. Granted, I was...how old at the time? Twelve? Fourteen, tops? Two decades ago? Still. Been there, done that.

3:02pm

Something I've learned the hard way over the years is that it's often better to accept being seen as stupid or incompetent. If you try to explain or defend yourself, they won't understand and it'll only make things worse. Best to take the loss and move on.

6/24/06
7:30pm
Walking towards the car from the Sea Biscuit. Noticed them earlier. Slight misease. No comment, at first. Upon return, their numbers increased. Looking straight ahead, keeping quiet. Eyes focused on me. To my back: "That's a man!" Laughter. Continuing to walk, just a few paces left. Looking out at the ocean, casually, unreactive. Laughter and exclamations of gender secret continuing. A half dozen, averaging a dozen years old. My own zip code, a ten minute walk, unsafe? The lock clicks open. Open door, sit down, casually. Continuing. Glancing up ever so casually—walking towards the car. THEY ARE WALKING TOWARDS THE CAR. No reaction, casual, they're not talking about me, someone else, nothing to say, the same from the library? Open phone, check for nonexistent messages? They're around the car as Vash pulls away, oh god, that's it, the contract has been broken—it will happen. They got closer, I am a freak, unnatural, a man (present not past), it's only a matter of time, but what changed? What went wrong? The hair, the clothes? Has it always happened and I just tuned it out? If I were to never wear a piece of black clothing and it would help, I would. Will it? Can it? Can anything? No matter what I do, will there always be something? When it happens, will I fight? Or will I accept my fate, allow them to fultill their self-deifined destiny? If they have a knife, will I extend my forearms, remind them to cut lengthwise? If a blunt object, the back of my head? If you're going to do it, do it. Make me a bloody martyr to your cause. Put me out of your misery.

10pm What. The. Fuck? I ride the train to and from work every day. (When I haven't spent the night with Vash, that is, so about three days a week on average.) the train pulls up. I get on through one of the middle doors and go to my favorite seat. I have my pass ready for the inspectors. It's all good.

Tonight, while still reeling from the encounter with the kids earlier in the afternoon (and the despairing crying jag which inevitably followed), Vash and i took a train to Pink Saturday. She got an the front to pay cash, and I attempted to enter one of the middle doors like I usually do. [Brief interlude, from sfmuni.com: If you have Proof of Payment, you may board a Metro streetcar by any door. Just sayin'.] Pressed the button. Nothing. Fine. Went to the front door. My pass was still in my bag. The driver got pissy, explaining to me like the idiot he knew me to be that I had to have my pass ready at the front and couldn't just walk on through whatever door I pleased. I said that I ride the train every day and it's never like that otherwise. "Fine," he snarked. "You just keep doing it like that." Shades of Tom. Why are people fucking with my shit so much lately?

6/25/06
12:30pm Heading downtown. Don't know who I'm introducing, if I'm supposed to say or not say certain things, anything like that. Whatever. I can wing it. I brought kitty ears, but I'm not wearing them yet. I have this highly stupid theory that since Vash is wearing hers, people's attention will be drawn away from me. Worth a shot, whatever it takes, can't hurt to try. (Okay, that last part is a lie. It CAN hurt to try. It's frequently agonizing.) I'm not wearing a hint of black aside from the choker around my neck, and, from a distance, my decaying burgundy Fluevogs. Red fishnets, orange-red Anya dress, suede Penny Lane coat. Some dark eyeshadow with black liquid eyeliner, but otherwise makeup in reds and pinks. Will wearing colors tip the balance? Is it my usual goth/punk look as was suggested Thursday night? If I start wearing pastels (whatever I can find in my damnable size), will those kids change their mind? There's no small irony in conducting this experiment on Pride Sunday when I'm going to be hosting a frickin' stage. (they love you when you're on all the covers) (when you're not then they love another) I have no idea how much of my current trauma will get broadcast; if I can find a way to make it funny, I suppose. So peculiar to wrestle one's demons in public. I wouldn't have been asked to do this I hadn't made a habit of doing so; my celebrity is based to an extent on revelation. In any event, I'm feeling highly blase about it. I'm sure I'll be fine when I get on stage, when I become the loudest voice in the ghetto.

5:38pm So that was hosting at Pride. I made it through my prepared material in about two minutes, and most of the audience was unenthused by it—except for Dave McKew, who was cracking up. He was pretty much the only one, but at least I know he has a sense of humor. After my first "set," he told me that I need to slow down, relax. I sually need to be told that in these cirumstances. The next two times I went on I was totally winging it, though I did get some ad-lib inspiration from backstage. Maybe I'll get asked back, maybe I wont.

My only real regret about hosting the Trans Stage is that I didn't get my Manson on and shout out how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people? Oh well. That's for another time.

9:50am

As a general rule, I don't read reviews of movies I'm planning on seeing. If it's based on a book or a story I'll try to read that first, but otherwise, I don't want to know anything about it going in. Often a title or an intriguing poster is enough to pique my interesting, such as John Sayles' Limbo. I finally got around to watching it last night (exactly seven years to the day after my first attempt), and liked it a lot. So now I'm reading the reviews, which is often the best part of the moviewatching experience for me, to see what others thought of it. This is especially true for Bad Movie Night material like Glitter or Battlefield Earth; the criticism is more entertaining than the movies themselves. Anyway, aside from Roger Ebert, nobody else seemed to like it all that much. I hate it when that happens.

11:00am

I ran into Sara from SFinX on Sunday (say that five times fast), and she's cool with me doing another work-themed show next June. The tentative title is Employment Boogaloo: Workin' for the Weakened 2. It's a little known fact that the US title for its namesake was Electric Boogaloo: Breakin' 2, not Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo as most people call it. If I can do my part to raise awareness of that issue, then it'll all have been worth it.

In the meantime, please avail yourself of the hot gay porn to be found at Sherilyn's Grindhouse. You know you want to, and I'm tryin' to make a little money here, folks.

12:10pm

After having lost my sunglasses last October, I've finally made an appointment with Kaiser Vision to get a new pair. It's not that I haven't needed them in the meantime. I just haven't made an appointment, between not thinking of it at the right time (it usually occurs to me on the train) and the daunting nature of the Kaiser phone system, which doesn't make it easy. It's for this Thursday, and in addition to new sunglasses, I'm also going to look into contact lenses. I've resisted them for years since my eyes don't like having things put on them, but the time is right.

Among other things, I've mostly gotten over my touching-the-eyeball fear; Lord knows I've had to remove more than a few errant makeup clumps in my day. And I'm tired of wearing glasses. So very, very, very tired. I hate how I look in them in general, and even moreso in pictures. It was also suggested during the why doesn't sherilyn pass? rap session at the Eagle last Thursday with my almost-castmates that losing them out might help. They obscure whatever makeup I may have around my eyes, and certainly don't make me look any more girly. (Ryder said I looked sexier with them on, but hey, to each their own.) Worth a shot, as far as I'm concerned. Lasik would be ideal, but I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, Sister Edith tells me that a friend of her has had facial feminization surgery almost a dozen times now. Very little original flesh is left on her face. That scares me. A lot. I don't want to be reconstructed. I'm keeping the consultation appointment, however. Better to be reconstructed now if it'll help prevent having to do so after having my face kicked in by some basher punishing me for being unnatural and an abomination is the eyes of god and stuff. That's a mighty big "if," of course. Getting work done on my face could make me even more of a target. Maybe not wearing glasses will make the difference?

Of course, once I've been spotted and identified, that's that. I doubt the people who've harassed me (the ones in my own neighborhood) will reconsider their opinion of my gender just because I'm no longer four-eyed, nor will they think I'm a different person entirely just because I've had some work done on my brow.

Observation: the people who tell me that I shouldn't let it bother me, that I shouldn't care what other people think of me, are not the ones who are with me when these things actually happen. They mean well, I realize that, but they don't see how it makes me feel. They don't know what it's like to be me.

3:50pm

Meep! I've posted my first Craigslist personal ad. If I wasn't a San Francisco hipster before, I'm one now.

9:18pm

Ever notice how nobody riots for art anymore? It's always for useless things like Ikea openings or, worse, sports. Used to be they'd happen for premieres of controversial classical music. How great is that? Stravinsky's Rite of Spring caused a riot. Man. I wish I could produce something that would cause people to riot. It just doesn't happen anymore. Even The Passion of the Christ and Fight Club are just filler on Target shelves.

I finally saw American Splendor tonight. I've been a fan of the comics for years now, and I really liked the movie. Vash and I have been talking about a doing an autobiographical comic; it's an idea I've been kicking around ever since I read Splendor for the first time. (Pitu see, pitu do!) Like so many of my ideas, nothing ever came of it. Of course, I wasn't dating a visual artist before.

Busy, long weekend. QOM on Friday followed by a brief barhop, spent the night in Oakland, harassment on Noriega, a brief foray into the Castro for Pink Saturday before deciding to just head back to the Black Light District to watch Ed Wood, hosting the Trans Stage for an hour on Sunday (the microphone just had to fritz out while I was introducing Dyspecific as "the band that makes me wish I had a lisp," didn't it?), and finally doing mostly nothing at all, unless burning mp3 DVDs while watching Lost qualifies as productive, which I don't believe it does.

8:04pm

About a month or so back, Vash and I went into the Hot Topic in Stonestown. They had some boots that I liked and which were in the double-digit price range. Problem was, they didn't have my size in stock, US Men's 11.5 or US Women's 13. They don't even go up to 13 in Women's, which doesn't surprise me, since the majority of real women don't have feet as big as mine. (And most footwear made to fit feet my size is too fetishy for me—I'm tall enough without stiletto heels.) They said they'd order a pair in Men's 12 and would call me upon arrival. Never did get a call. So the drummer for one of the bands I introduced yesterday at the Trans Stage happened to be the Hot Topic employee, and while we were chatting, she confirmed that the boots did arrive and that I should have gotten a call.

I went in tonight. The drummer was not working. I picked up what I think were the original boots off the shelf (I'm actually not entirely certain, but they seem likely) and took them to the counter. I think I ordered these last month in 12, and was supposed to get a call, but didn't. Okay, I'll go in back and check. Men's or women's 12? Men's. (cringe.) Okay. Hold on. A few minutes later: I'm not sure if these are men's or women's 10, but— Actually, I need them in 12, not 10. Oh. They only go up to 10.

So there you go.

Speaking of which, it was a good show. While I felt like my piece could have used another draft, it was well-received. The crowd didn't come after me with pitchforks and torches, anyway. It was also quite an honor to share a stage with Joan Jett-Blakk.

3:47pm

I was offered the lead role in a play earlier this year. I turned it down for assorted reasons, not the least of which being I had a lot of other projects coming up—my Twilight Zone episode, Working for the Weakened, Transforming Community II, all that. (I didn't know I'd be in Transforming Community at the time, but Zone and Working were still plenty). Those are over now, as hard as that is for me to believe, and no doubt coincidentally I've been approached once more about being in the play. It's been pushed back until mid-July, so it would work a lot better with my schedule. Opening weekend is when I'm going to Fresno, but other than that, it looks doable. If they can push it back one more week—I promised my mom I'd be there, y'know?—I may well do it.