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Wednesday, 31 May 2000 (which will) 9:21am Madeline has been ill for the last couple days, and I'm not surprised. It's warm and it's getting warmer, and that's never conducive to health. I'm seeing my endocrinologist in a little while, then going back to work. Both are making me nervous, like I'm not looking forward to what's waiting for me at either place.
and, somehow, this is all too familiar...
The doctor, as usual, fretted about the weight I've gained, and ignored me when I pointed out that the nurse wasn't patient enough, that it's not like I've put on 20 or 30 lbs, etc. And, like every time, she was in shock when she saw that I take Meridia. How can I possibly be taking Meridia, yet still gain weight? Of course, I'd probably be 140 by now if I'd lost as much weight as she seems to be expecting me to. She decided that it must be a carbohyrdate addiction and that I should lay off the donuts. I told her that I don't eat donuts (true), but she didn't believe me. The important thing is, she did write me a new prescription. I was once again tempted to quit the stuff entirely, but I'm simply too afraid of what might happen. Despite Maddy's observations otherwise, my doctor continues to consider my breasts to be underacheivers. I'm not unhappy with their development, and Maddy is convinced they've had a growth spurt over the last month or two, but the doctor simply shook her head and asked if small chests are common amongst the women in my family. My only female blood relative is my mother, whom I don't think is very well-endowed. (Quite frankly, I've never paid much attention to her breasts, which I'd have to say is a healthy sign.)
Sometimes it seems like the strongest argument for SRS is so I
won't have to see her anymore.
4:32pm Hate. I've managed to alter most of the other biological tendencies which I find distasteful (appetite, masculinity), so why I can't I do something about my urge to hate? No matter how much I try to keep it in check, it always gets me into trouble. If not merely trouble with other people (and it certainly has), then trouble with my own conscience, which is far less forgiving. A drug, an icepick through the forehead, something...I don't want to be held accountable for these feelings...
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Tuesday, 30 May 2000 (gone like kohoutek) 7:22am The national holiday is over, and everyone's back at work except me. Brian gave me the day off, so it's not like I'm slacking. It still feels very odd, though, particularly considering that last year I would frequently work on holidays for want of anything better to do. If nothing else, I'm going to the optometrist (sunglasses, glaucoma testing and looking into laser eye surgery) and to the Great American Music Hall to get eels tickets. It's almost like being productive. I've managed to resist shaving since Sunday morning. The regrowth is much lighter than its ever been before, though it's still tempting to call and make an appointment for this week. Indeed, even more tempting than if it had been thicker—maybe the proverbial iron is hot right now. Alas, I'll just be happy with it as it is now, and wait until the actual next scheduled appointment. It's not so long, really...
I got the classic restroom doubletake yesterday. I was in the men's room
at a restaurant which will go unnamed, washing my hands at the sink.
A guy started to walk in, saw me, stepped back, looked at the sign on the
door again, looked back at me, back at the sign on the door...by which
point I was finished and walked past him. Considering that I wasn't wearing
any makeup, I'm sure there's a lesson about my passability to be gained.
Don't know what it might be, though.
It was with a profound sense of embarassment that I explained to my optometrist that I had, um, well, lost the notebook with the glaucoma notes she'd given me last year to take an an ophthalmologist. There's really no way to explain such a thing without sounding stupid, so I suppose I should be grateful that I've come accustomed to looking like an idiot over the last couple years. Made it easier to handle. So she redid the test, which involves putting drops in my eyes (a process I loathe, part of the reason I don't wear contacts) and poking at them with a big scary blue poker thing. Actually, the poker thing probably isn't that big (perspective, y'know) and the way it glows is actually kinda cool, but it's still disconcerting as hell. This time, rather that just give me another note which I'm likely to lose, she said she'd type up a letter to send to the ophthalmologist, and to just let her know when I've gotten a referral from my primary care physician. Ah. Yes. Right. My primary care physician. Being on insurance, it would certainly stand to reason that I have a primary care physician, ha? According to my insurance card I have one, though I've never actually met the person. I told her I'd ask my endocrinologist tomorrow. Barring that, I'll actually contact my somewhat arbritarily assigned PCP and ask them. It's times like this in which I'm not sure I'm entirely cut out to be a grown-up. As for laser surgery, she said that is an option for me, but that my vision is almost too good for it. I'm nearsighted but hardly blind, and the procedure is usually done on people with more severe problems. In my case, the potential risks may outweigh the benefits, and the glaucoma doesn't help either. Oh, that just figures.
The prescription sunglasses should be arriving in a few weeks. I spent
a comparatively obscene amount of money to get a set of frames that
I actually like. Very similar to the non-prescription cheapies I
bought at Walgreen's, but with a brand name attached, thus moving
the decimal place significantly to the right. I'm not proud of this,
but it needed to be done. Wouldn't be surprised if they don't arrive
until the San Francisco summer gets here, meaning I wouldn't actually
be needing them, and if so I ain't gonna complain.
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Monday, 29 May 2000 (hitchhiker) 12:51pm Mina got her first exposure to catnip today, and it reminded me of someone who's never smoked being confronted with a bong. Not that she coughed, but she didn't have the first clue what she was supposed to do with it, either. Been a druggy weekend, but hey, it's all from gawd's bounty, so it must be a good thing.
A less good thing is the return of the upstairs neighbors...
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Sunday, 28 May 2000 (meretricious) 3:11pm Around 10am this morning, a thick fog rolled in from the ocean; I could see the edge of the bank itself as I was driving home from Daly City, appearing to rest on the ocean. It was exquisitely beautiful, and it lasted for about an hour before the sun burned its way through. Had dinner with Brooke last night. She's been staying at Dana's until she joins Hienrich in Germany in a few months. Dana and Costanza are at Convergence 6, so Brooke has the place to herself. It was quite nice, since we don't get to see her very often, and will even less so when she moves (duh). I'm still not sure I agree with her almost random observation that I'm "so fucking beautiful," even if the sticker on my monitor suggests otherwise. We've been fairly productive by Sunday standards. Did some shopping, paid the rent, cleaned the apartment, replaced the dying xmas lights in the living room and put up some new posters. It's all about the environment.
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Saturday, 27 May 2000 (carrion) 7:12am The last thing I heard before I woke: don't you know who you are?
I seldom have an answer for that one, either.
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Friday, 26 May 2000 (tidal) 7:04am I'm not going to rule out the possibility that my dream yesterday morning was to an extent caused by a combination of Walgreen's generic Nyquil, slightly aged Mendicino grass and a serious mindfuck of a Voyager cliffhanger. And when Seven touched her forehead, smiled a little and said, "I'm known as Annika here," well...you get it or you don't, I suppose. 9:53am I just heard the "you've got mail!" thing from TFQ's computer. Why am I not surprised that he's on AOL? 10:55am So a message was sent out by the company president this morning. As long as you have no pressing business matters that must be handled this afternoon (please check in with your manager on this point), please feel free to start your weekend early and leave at 2:00pm this afternoon.Realizing that this could be construed as someone else telling her employees what to do—president of the company be damned—The Den Mother sent this out to our department: Check with me first to determine if you can leave at 2:00 -Thanks! :)Of course, the president's original message had told us to do just that, but pick pick. I suppose panic must have set in, because ten minutes later she sent out an addendum: The message I sent out was in regards the president's message. As you all know right now we are really swamped and I doubt we'll be leaving early due to the work lead. Please check with me to discuss your particular situation and work load.
That's right. Don't loosen your grip for even a moment, or they'll walk
all over you...a good manager must never ever trust their employees...
I won't be back until at least noon on Wednesday. Odd.
maybe you can't know how it'll end, but have you given any thought to where you'll end up?
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Thursday, 25 May 2000 (just like you imagined) 7:00am Maybe this means I'm never supposed to sleep again. 9:04am I first woke up around 3am, as I often will. I went to the bathroom then fiddled about on the computer in the living room, as I often will when awake at 3am. At about half past, after starting some stuff downloading, I went back to bed. I woke up again at a quarter to five. I went through my usual routine (urination and Napster-less internet music bootlegging), but something was wrong. Sitting at the desk, I thought I head something somewhere making a low thumping sound. Feeling very creeped out, and although I'd have to be getting up again soon, I went back to bed. As I was getting back in bed, it came flooding back: I'd had a bad dream. The dreams I have during my second sleep are almost always bad, but this one was particularly nasty. It was a year and a half ago, during the early stages of my breakup with The Ex. The settings looked a little different, but I knew where and when I was. I'd been there before, and I recognized what I was feeling all too well. She was angry with me, incredibly angry, for breaking her heart and hurting her and wasting so much of her life the way I had. The guilt and shame were overpowering, made worse by the presence of my mother, who was agreeing with everything she said, yes, she's right, you've been incredibly selfish and hurtful, you've disappointed the ones who love you, and she has so much lost time to make up for, you know she's with him right now in fact— In the dream, I'd actually collapsed onto the ground, sobbing, because it was really happening, I was right back where I'd started. It was January 1999, and I was destroying everything around me. In the real world, I wasn't holding up much better. I curled up against a comforting though worried Madeline and began crying. Hard. I knew it had just been a dream, but it was hard to shake off. My eternally agressive subconscious apparently felt I'd gotten too much distance from that awful period in my life and wanted to make sure that I remembered what it was like. I seriously considered calling in sick to work. My head got seriously congested, and I could barely open my eyes. Just like the old days. Except it's not the old days anymore, not by a long shot, because I had Maddy there to comfort me, something I'd always lacked before. For a while after the breakup, for as much as I needed to at other times, I could only cry around The Ex. Tended to make an uncomfortable situation all the more so, though she did the best she could to comfort me. Eventually I got to where I could let it out without her being around, which I suppose qualifies as progress. But I never really had the physical shoulder to cry on, someone genuinely sympathetic who could personally afford to let me do so—indeed, by mid-April The Ex told me she couldn't be emotionally responsible for me anymore, which in restrospect was the right thing for her to do, although it hurt badly at the time. Maybe it was the next step in breaking up, which she had to take because my courage had run out after taking the first one, the one my dreams forced me to relive.
Or maybe it's meant as a reminder to appreciate what I have now, that I can roll over and
into the arms of love, that for the first time in what feels like forever, and in spite
of some false starts, I'm no longer in this alone...
who cast the final stone?
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Wednesday, 24 May 2000 (...still) 5:10pm sfgoth was down for most of the day. Just another reminder that this all could come crashing down at the moment. All the hype aside, I've never believed the internet is bulletproof. Maybe it once was, before anyone knew it existed. But now...
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Tuesday, 23 May 2000 (homespun) 9:02am Uh-oh. I downloaded the Grateful Dead 5-CD box set So Many Roads 1965-95. I've never much cared for them, but it was free and I thought it might be interesting. Does this make me a hippie? 10:57am What the fuck is mapisp32, and why does it keep performing illegal operations? Thank you, Outlook.... 7:51pm And, a moment to breathe. This is has been an earn-my-keep kinda day, and as if to make sure, I'll be here at midnight just to make sure a certain launch runs smoothly. It's good to do this sort of thing every once in a while for the juice it gives me in the eyes of the higher-ups. That, and I still take a certain amount of pride in my work. In spite of that pride, however—or maybe because of it—the proverbial ball has started rolling for me transfer out of this department. To greener pastures? Maybe. They sure look that way from here. I know and like the people I'll be working with, I'll theoretically feel better about my job (which is to say, I won't be the slave of the marketing department), and it goes without saying that I'm thrilled by the idea of being away from him. I'm not so foolish as to think that there wouldn't be people wherever I end up that don't also get on my nerves, but after a while the devil you do know gets so fucking boring you just have to take your chances on the stranger. The lighting can't possibly be as nice (unless I get an honest-to-dog office, which I won't, so let's just stop thinking that way right now young lady), nor am I likely to have as much wall space to play with. I'm quite proud of what I've done to this cubicle, my cave, my little domain, my e'er-so-spoooooky chamber which keeps The Den Mother at bay. Wherever I end up, though, will be home, and I'll make it mine. I was always nervous about developing breasts. As counter-intuitive as this sounds, for as much as I wanted/needed to start on hormones and change my body to a configuration which made a bit more sense, I hoped I would remain fairly flat-chested. This is probably because I've never found them as aesthetically pleasing as everyone else seems to, and I at times in the past have had, well, fat guy breasts. (We've all had the misfortune of seeing them at one point or another.) The weight I lost prior to transitioning flattened out my chest, allowing the hormones the opportunity to do it right. And they aren't, as Madeline occasionally needs to remind me, fat guy breasts. (Or bitch tits, for that matter.) It would seem I'm more comfortable with my arguably ersatz mammalian protruberances, since I dressed in borderline club mode today. Waist-cincher minus bra and a tank top under a fishnet shirt. Velvet leggings rather than a skirt, though, no doubt my concession to having to still use the men's room—I continue to labor under the delusion that regardless of how I look otherwise, wearing a skirt is required to cross that line. Oh, I'm very much looking forward to being able to use the women's room, but I'm not quite there yet since I haven't officially come out to the company, and I won't do that until I'm completely through with electro. Still, like Neil said, it's no secret what everybody knows.
In any event, if the shape of my body hadn't been obvious to the people around here before, it was now.
I'm not entirely certain why I didn't go more stealthy today, except that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Maybe it was
to counteract the condition of my face, still traumatized from the recent electro barrage.
Which, in a way, seems like all the more reason to dress
conservatively, or at least what passes for conservatively with me. Alas.
I did it, I liked it, I'll do it again.
I left the office at about half past eight to pick Maddy up from her appointment, went home, ate and relaxed with her for a while, then headed back here. By virtue of some roads being closed (not uncommon late at night in the city), I almost drove by Roderick's. I'm very glad I didn't. I would have felt too much like a kid looking through the fence at the baseball game they can't join. How bourgeois am I, anyway? I was inexcusably rude to the janitorial staff. They'd just waxed the lobby floor, and told me I couldn't go in yet. Perfectly fair; they were doing their job, and more importantly, at nearly eleven at night. I got haughty, saying that I simply must get inside, period. Like somehow my job was more important than theirs. Which it ain't, not by a long shot. One of the security guards said it would be dry in about ten minutes. I thanked him for giving me the information I required and turned away. He commented, jokingly, that I must really like my job. No, I replied over my shoulder as I walked back to my car, I just don't want to lose it. Which was completely uncalled for. I just know karma's gonna bite me square on the ass for this one.
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6:05am Fresno is a desert. Period. Fresno is a flat arid valley which someone decided to settle in because it had a nice view of the mountains. By the time I showed up, pollution reduced that visibility to perhaps a dozen times a year. Maybe. If you're lucky. Otherwise, it was hot and miserable.
I left it for many reasons, and among those reasons was the aforementioned
heat. So if one more person tells me what a bee-yootiful day it is,
I cannot be held responsible for my actions.
Also, I also must acknowledge that I've become one of those people. Not the people who think that "sunny and hot" equals "pleasant," but almost worse: one of the people who thinks this qualifies as truly hot. I spent most of my life dealing with summers much worse than this, and for the first couple years after I moved here I found it quite amusing when people who complain about the heat in the Bay Area. Just goes to show how much this place will assimilate you.
As I mentioned before, though, direct sunlight is bad for recently zapped skin. Worse,
every little red welt is like a heat receptor...
The first was my brother Tom's wedding. I don't remember much about the ceremony—it was a boring, gawd-filled affair, not to mention I was ten years old and was already developing a distrust of the institution of marriage because of my parents' separation two years previous. A few years and two children later, it was over. As near as I could tell, all the good which came out of it was some painfully beautiful (not to mention beautifully painful) music from Tom and two daughters who may never get to know him, and now are probably old enough now to not want to. Conk got married in '90 or '91. It was also another very religious ceremony; just like with Tom, he'd met his fiance around the time that he was born again. It was all very frustrating for The Ex, who was discovering the difficulty in getting me to dress nicely—I greatly resented the concept of "dressing up," and considered a shirt with buttons to be more than enough. It was a battle my parents had been waging most of my life (which is probably why my mother covets the picture of me in the tuxedo so much), and I'm sure they were happy to hand it off to The Ex. In '92, The Ex's parents renewed their vows. They'd originally eloped in Vegas, and while they never regretted it (indeed, I find the idea of the Vegas elope romantic as hell, and in the final days of our relationship The Ex and I almost did just that), they were finally able to afford the real thing. More importantly, The Ex's grandmother always wanted to see her daughter married in a church, and The Ex's mother felt compelled to oblige. This also had the effect of increasing the pressure on The Ex and I to marry. Tradition and all. Anyway, being the reliable boyfriend of the only relible child (her siblings are varying degrees of useless, and their SOs were quite useless), I wound up with a bit more responsibility than I might have otherwise. I didn't mind, really. I was happy to be useful, and there would always be time to read. I tended to have a lot of down time at The Ex's, and nobody considered my fondness for crawling into a corner with a book to be rude. I had no "duties" as such during the actual ceremony, thankfully. Indeed, my clearest memory of the ceremony is probably the one that sticks out in most peoples' minds whether they want it to or not: The Ex's younger brother collapsing. He was one of the groomsmen, and at one point simply fainted. Turns out he'd been drinking for most of the day (he was no more than 12 or 13), but hadn't eaten since god knows when. I wasn't too surprised. He wasn't much better at the reception, and since I wasn't drinking, it fell on me to be on puke-watch for both him and a number of others. The eternal burden of the teetotaler. Well, truth be known, I drank on occasion back then, but never in public. Then there was barefoot's wedding in late '97. I was not part of the wedding party, thankfully (I was very uncomfortable with my appearance) , but was given a semi-sacred duty: playing the music during the ceremony. This was back in the dark days before CD-R technology, so he was using tapes. It was very simple, really. Before the ceremony, he had a mix tape playing. When he took his position at the altar, I would put in the tape with the (processional?) music for the bride to walk up the aisle. Then, after the ceremony, i'd put in a third tape, for their walk back down the aisle. Best of all, it allowed me to hide out away from the crowd. What could go wrong? I'd tested the entrance and exit music earlier, made sure the tapes were in the right position. No problem. Good to go. Being anything involving large numbers of humans, the ceremony started a little late. No problem; the music kept playing. I'd never heard Lucinda Williams' original version of "Sweet Old World" before, and I liked it. The time came. She was ready to walk down the aisle. I put in the tape, and...nothing. Nothing at all. Ever have one of those moments when the entire world is exploding, and it's your fault? That's exactly where I was. I popped the tape back out, made sure it was the right one, put it back in, turned up the volume a little to make sure I was at least getting sound, and still nothing. Nothing except that mumuring crowd sound we all know so well from movie scenes where weddings go wrong. With a look on his face that I recognized from any of a number of instances of road rage, he ran over (away from where he's waiting at the altar because I screwed things up, oh this cannot be happening) and within a few seconds had it fixed. The music started, he ran back to the altar, and things continued apace. What had happened was, the tape deck was set to auto-reverse, and the previous tape was playing so long it automatically flipped. In essence, I'd put in side A but the machine was playing side B. I'd never used this machine before, barefoot hadn't mentioned anything about that, and (as I would for the rest of the day remind The Ex and anyone else who cared to listen) auto-reverse has always been a pet peeve of mine. It's a moving part which can screw up too easily, and on more than one occasion I've had a walkman hit a snag in a tape, think it's at the end, start playing the other side, hit the same snag, flip back over, and continue on like that until all matter in the universe decays. Anyway, I played the exit music properly, and everything was okay. Barefoot swore he wasn't mad, and indeed everyone thought it was funny. It didn't ease my severe sense of embarrassment. (An embarrassment which would only increase when I would see the pictures from that day. Christ, I was ugly.) Dana's friend and my fellow bridesmaid Bianca told a story yesterday about a similar mishap, her point being that things like that are just little details and not worth getting upset about. When all is said and done, the memories are still happy ones. Mostly...
This time around, though, it's going to be different.
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Sunday, 21 May 2000 (temporary like achilles) 6:40am In retrospect, it's extremely obvious: I should have cancelled yesterday. He had one foot out the door on his way to a wake, for crying out loud. That's gotta qualify as being disrespectful of the dead, or something. Granted, I offered to do so, but he insisted he was up for it. The real lesson learned, though, is that I have to stop going in the morning. It's all evenings from now on. I got too much sleep Friday night, and being of that somewhat rare species known as a "morning person," I was too awake yesterday. Worse than that, I was too aware. I couldn't disassociate myself from what was going on. Thursday night, I'd been up all day and expended much of my energy, but yesterday morning I still had the full day's energy in me. Bad. Very bad. I'd taken six or eight vicodin (I forget), but it help much. My brain was too conscious of what was going on, and I could tell from the first poke into the skin that it was going to be a bad one. Hell, he'd even used some of the spray without me asking, but no matter. When the conscious mind is fully functional and the pain receptors are being stimulated, bad things can happen. Not only couldn't I disassociate myself, but for every zap, my mind would conjure up an equally painful emotional memory. As if it was trying to remind me that life isn't always fair. Not only do I have to be undergoing this process for god knows how much longer, but it isn't the only time or only way I've been hurt, now is it?
no, of course not, remember this one? remember how that felt? it wasn't so long ago, was it? or this one...or this one...? life never was fair, life isn't fair, life never will be fair, there's always going to be pain, no matter how good a person you try to be, so quit your fucking whining already.And it was bright and hot outside, what some people insist on calling "a beautiful day." Miserable, absolutely horribly miserable. (Even beyond the fact that I detest bright light and my eyes are physically sensitive to it, direct sunlight is bad for post-electro skin.) I'm going in tomorrow night, and I also scheduled and appointment for Thursday night. It means that Shrine is definitely out for next weekend, but so be it. I want this to be done. I need this to be done. I don't want want to touch a razor to my skin until all the dark hairs are gone for good. However long it takes. It's taken this long because I've been lazy, and I must make amends. I don't want to have to miss the fashion show, whenever it occurs, but this takes precedent. I'm still going to Dana's today, and I'll still feel incredibly self-conscious and out of place, but at least Brooke will be there, she knows me and I can hide behind her...
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