My Face for the World to See (Part II): The Diary of Sherilyn Connelly a fiction May 16 - 28, 2003

Wednesday, 28 May 2003 (no ropes, no strings, no obligations) 1:22pm Though I'd had it with me at the El Rio on Sunday, it didn't occur to me until Monday night that someone might find the pejorative use of the word "whore" on the sticker on my lunchbox to be offensive. If anybody was bothered, though, they didn't say anything. The reason that it was the 3rd San Francisco Sex Workers Film and Video Festival as opposed to 3rd Annual San Francisco Sex Workers Film and Video Festival, Scarlot Harlot explained to me, is that it's simply too much work for her to organize one annually. The fact that they aren't every year made me feel a little better about the fact that I hadn't been aware of its existence before. The next one will probably be in 2005, which, I told her, would give me plenty of time to make a short of my own. She said she pictured me coming back with my "rock star entourage." I was there by myself that night (much to Rosinha's sadness), but evidently she thinks I look the part. 5:42pm whore·spot·ting v. The act, upon learning that there are sex workers in the vicinity, of looking around and trying to figure out who is and who isn't. When I told the guy at the El Rio on Sunday night what the occasion was—it amazes me how people will pay the cover at a bar without any idea of what's going on—he asked, "So there are people here who have exchanged sex for money? Do you know who?" It didn't sound like he was looking for a date; rather, he sounded analytical in a very creepy way. (Or vice versa.) Before I had a chance to tell him that it was none of his business, he admitted that it was, in fact, none of his business. Besides, it wasn't like I knew the sex and/or employment history of everyone there, and wouldn't have told him if I did. The others were a pair of dykes on Monday night who crashed the party right before it was over, probably slipping under the cover charge. They phrased the question a bit more delicately, or at least less judgmentally. They also asked if I was one myself. It wasn't the first time I was asked that question over the weekend. (The girl at the El Rio, the descendant of the Blind Girl from City Lights, clearly didn't believe me when I said no. She seemed to be actively trying to get me to slip up and admit it. We were talking about the Exotic Dancer's Union, for instance, which lead to a discussion of labor unions in general. When I said "We have labor unions to thank for the forty-hour work week," she leapt on it: "You said 'we!' You are one! I knew it!" For some reason, she so wanted it to be true. In any event, I was always careful not to sound offended by the question. I wasn't offended, but it's kinda of a loaded question, y'know? Anyway, the party unraveled around midnight. It was conveniently located at 111 Minna, practically around the corner from the Manhattan Lounge on Market. Since the night was relatively young and I was dressed for it (a short black faux-snakeskin dress with a slit on the left side which probably goes up much higher than decency suggest), I decided to go to Death Guild. (Sidenote about the dress: when I bought it in January '99, it wouldn't zip up all the way. Now I weigh about ten pounds more than I did at the time, yet I can slip it on and off with it zipped up. That should be an object lesson to me about the ultimate meaninglessness of what the scale says.) (The key word being "should," of course.) The crashers asked if they could join me, and while in their khakis they were dressed almost too square for the Lexington, let alone a goth club, I said they were more than welcome. Which they were, of course. Death Guild has no dress code that I know of, and it's still a free country otherwise. Except that they left on their own when I stopped to use the restroom, and by the time I went outside, they were gone. Fair enough. I said goodbye to Rosinha, who was in front with the gutterpunken trying to figure out what to do with herself, and headed up New Montgomery. When I hit Market, I met up with the crashers again. Evidently they'd figured my description of the club as being "just around the corner" would be enough to go on, except that they didn't know which corner to go around. They walked with me to the club, and I stopped at a pay phone to call Maddy. When I got off the phone, they'd disappeared once more, and I didn't see them again for the rest of the night. Maybe they were made nervous by the horde of people dressed in black. Sure, okay, whatever. One of the first people I encountered inside was Sara, who complimented me on my new glasses. Of course, it didn't take long for me to remember why I usually don't wear glasses in clubs: a combination of vanity and self-esteem issues. (If I can't see them clearly, it won't hurt so much...) Once again, I give a loud thanks to the ocular deity for not making me so nearsighted that I can't function without them. I guess it's a question of dynamics. At the Festival, I stood out, looked just different enough to get noticed in what seemed like mostly positive ways. (Even after she told me that I was beautiful and asked to take my picture, that exquisitely gorgeous black woman always seemed to be smiling at me whenever I'd glance in her direction. Only in retrospect do I realize that she looked familiar, in that way where you recognize a face even though may have never seen it in person. She might have been someone relatively famous, I honestly don't know.) Here, I was nothing special. I blended in. Once, that was all I wanted. Now, I guess I need more. That doesn't mean I'll stop going out to goth clubs; I tried that once (although it wasn't my idea and I still needed it but couldn't have it), and it didn't work. The scene isn't the center of my social universe anymore, but it's still important to me, and I don't eschew the g-word. Not much point, really. Weaselboy was there, and I asked him about the possibility of Danielle reading at Bride of SpookyCon in July. He told me that it's been postponed until October, but that they're going to start having poetry nights at Jezebel's Joint and he can probably get her hooked up there. That would be so perfect. Danielle reading at Jezebel's would be like a homecoming. 8:25pm The final evening of our recent late night-a-thon took the form on Tuesday of karaoke at Annie's with Ted and Kelly. Annie said she was really hoping the Emily artist would come in while we there so he could finally see me, insisting that he would simply fall in love with me. Annie doth flatter, but, as we've established, I'll take it. After the obligatory post-karaokial meal at Sparky's (good lord, but their pancakes are average) we took the well-schnookered Ted and the still relatively spry Kelly home. I went inside with them to get a long-reach stapler which Ted is graciously loaning me to use in the construction of my next chapbook, which, if all goes well, should actually exist in time for the reading at Adobe in June. (And, although it was killing me, I managed to keep up my veneer of professional detachment and not ask to see the cover of How Loathsome #4, which is rumored to be pretty much done.) On the other end of the enjoyment scale, Maddy and I both had our last insurance-covered dentist appointment—in other words, our last visit for probably a good long while. My teeth and gums were in healthy enough shape that the he didn't inquire about my brushing and flossing habits—a good thing, since he's a really nice guy and I would have hated to have to lie to him. I've never had the best dental hygiene habits, and the fact that my teeth are in such good shape is a testament to the fact that I eat a lot of vegetables, avoid sugar, and drink almost nothing but water. That's the weird thing: he said I seem dehydrated, and need to drink more. As anyone who's ever tried to buy me a drink can attest, my water intake is quite high to begin with. Go figure. Since we just didn't get enough of the Midwest when we were actually there, on Thursday we're driving to Fresno. Actually, it's for Nicole's graduation party on Saturday, which is a much better reason. It's looking like there'll be some familial dramatics, but I know from experience that it won't reach the fever pitch of what we witnessed in Kansas. Never has. I think it's the whole laid-back California thing. Last | Top | Next

Tuesday, 27 May 2003 (gasping, scratching, clawing) 4:08pm It's easy for me to forget how idiosyncratic my speech can be. Often my humor is so subtle or metaphoric that only people who know me well are aware that I'm making a joke at all. This is not bragging, and it doesn't mean that I'm going over peoples' heads, or that if someone doesn't get my sense humor I'm smarter than them. It just means that I can be...esoteric. (I blame late 70s Woody Allen movies, specifically Manhattan and Stardust Memories, for having an undue influence on my sense of humor and speech patterns.) I became very aware of it last night while talking to Rosinha Sambo, whose native language is Swedish. (Or so I assume, since that's where she lives, but for all I know she was born elsewhere—she frequently mentions her African background—and learned another language before moving to Sweden. It isn't English, at any rate, but, as they say, her English is better than my Swedish.) Every so often I'd cringe as I realized the reason she wasn't laughing at some of my jokes was because she didn't have the first clue what I was talking about. There's no question that she's very intelligent (don't worry, this one is in English); it's just that I often use, shall we say, bigger words in a more convoluted fashion than are necessary to get the point across, and phrased as an ironic joke. Fluency in American English and a ear for tone are sometimes necessary with me. She didn't seem to hold my hyper-idiomatic speech against me (and Oscar knows I did a fair amount of uncertain nodding and smiling myself through her thick accent), and kept me informed as she made her business arrangements for the evening. She was determined to get paid tonight, particularly after having done two guys the night before for free (I was unclear on the reasons), which most definitely was not going to happen again. Damnit. The main problem was that since being a prostitute is perfectly legal in Sweden (it's only illegal to buy sex, not sell it), she didn't really have much of a cop radar and wasn't too keen on getting arrested. He didn't look like a cop to me, but what the hell do I know? I said that I couldn't tell for sure, but that if she was getting a bad vibe then she shouldn't take the chance. Just goes to show why I'd be such a lousy prostitute, in addition to the fact that I find boys icky—every man would look like a cop to me, and I'd probably use that as an excuse to not have anything to do with them. Eventually she hooked up with a group of gutterpunken led by, of all people, Michelle's ex-roommate. I don't really know her, and though I surely looked familiar to her, she probably couldn't tell from where, and we never spoke. Just as well. She's never done anything to me personally, but I know she caused Michelle and Rocco no small amount of grief, and mistreated their cat Petunia. So I didn't have much to say, and I kept my distance as Rosinha indulged herself with the ex-roommate's friends. (Yes, clothes were kept on.) Towards the end of the evening, much of which I spent dancing by myself, Rosinha told me she was sad to see me all alone. I got the impression she didn't necessarily mean in a business sense, either. I told her I didn't mind, that I was used to it. (Maddy, for the record, was at home. Saturday and Sunday had been very late nights, and Tuesday was promising to be another, so she was giving herself Monday to rest.) She asked for my email address and made the offer of lodging and work if I'm ever in Sweden. Hooker with a heart of gold, indeed. Raffle tickets had been sold somewhat aggressively (but necessarily) all weekend long, and the drawing was finally held. I just missed winning a "one-hour date with Tallulah" by a single digit. I don't know exactly what it would have entailed, but I was intrigued by the concept and bummed to have lost. (I can imagine what she would have said to people afterwards: "All she wanted to do is talk. Would you have guessed that from looking at her?") I did win a copy of Annie's aforementioned Sluts and Goddesses video, though, which was pretty cool. Annie wasn't there, so I had Scarlot Harlot sign it and told her the brief yet still boring story about when I first saw it. I think it's important to tell people when they've had an impact on your life, however small. Last | Top | Next

Monday, 26 May 2003 (faces and names) 3:59pm Still living. Just been doing a lot of it elsewhere these last few days, mostly at the 3rd San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Video Festival. At the Festival's party at the El Rio last night, Tallulah Bankheist (who sounds like she should be a drag queen, but isn't) identified the color in my hair as blue-black and said that not many people can make it work. Even though she had a mostly empty drink in her hand, I took it as a sincere compliment. Our original plan on Saturday had been to simply go to the noon screening to see our friend Pam's short films, and it kinda snowballed from there. When we arrived and actually saw the full schedule, we decided to get a pass for the day. Except for a brief trip back home at at two in the afternoon to stock up on supplies, we got our money's worth, staying until the bitter end—half past two the next morning. As I explained to Jennifer Blowdryer, who was in town to receive the Golden Dildo Award for her Smutfest series, we'd just spent two weeks in the Midwest but didn't feel home yet. Maddy didn't, anyway; she hadn't been looking forward to heading back quite as much as me, and came home to the news that her state disability benefits have run out. Not exactly a joyous return. Therefore, when the opportunity to spend the day and a fair amount of the night watching movies mostly by and about sex workers presented itself, she realized it was just what she needed. And lord knows that I would have rather been there than at The Matrix Reloaded, still showing in countless googolplexes. ("That's not fair! You haven't seen it, so you're not allowed to criticize it!") Scarlot Harlot and the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network deserves what little money we have to spare much more than Mr. AOL Time-Warner, who appears to be doing well without my individual financial support. Jennifer was kind enough to introduce me to Annie Sprinkle, with whom I've crossed paths on any number of occasions, but never properly met. (Maddy did have her picture taken with Annie—well, Annie's breasts, anyway—at the opening of the LGBT Center last year.) I would have liked to have talked to her a bit more—like about first seeing both her and Scarlot in Annie's Sluts and Goddesses video in my Images of Eroticism in Art class during my first semester at SFSU—but she was understandably busy. I did make Robin from Cinema Sewer jealous, at least. Up in his neck of North America, the best they get is Ron Jeremy. Ewww. It still amazes me that I've yet to run encounter Maggie or The Other at one of these events. The Other seems most likely, since she has in fact worked in the industry. (Stripped for a while at the Market Street Cinema, as I understand it.) Of course, it's entirely possible she's denying that now, much like she denies so much else about her past. Which is her prerogative, and her secrets are safe with me. As I was talking politics last night with a woman who said she was descended from the actress who played the Blind Girl in Chaplin's City Lights (and why would she lie about that, really?), I made reference to the documented fact that Ronald Reagan believed we were in the End Times. She said she was very surprised that I knew about such things, since I was so young—no more than twenty-four, twenty-five, tops. I told her that I was in fact about to turn thirty. I don't know what they were using to spike the drinks at the bar, but it was obviously potent stuff. She told me that I should be more self-confident than I am. I assured her that my self-confidence has in fact taken a quantum leap forward over the last few years. When Tallulah's new band Whore Church (also the name of her cabaret/collective for which she also received a Golden Dildo) played, event emcee Kitty Kastro of Tranny Talk and I were among the first people dancing, we were shortly followed by Dee Dee Russell of Dee Dee TV, and most people watching didn't realize that the floor was being temporarily monopolized by Access SF producers. Dee Dee herself didn't realize it until after Whore Church finished and I introduced myself as one of the producers of kittypr0n. She said that she loves the show, and even talks about it on hers. She also said that she'd visited the show's site, and among the words she used to describe it were "esoteric" and "educated." I'm fairly certain it was a compliment. The final party of the festival is tonight. Danielle Willis is going to be in town the first couple weeks of July and is looking for a gig or two, and she's worked in the past with quite a few people who've been attending, so hopefully I'll be able to do some networking for her. sometime after midnight The festival party was a dead end as far as finding a speaking gig for Danielle, but I do now have a standing invitation from a famous Swedish prostitute (the page is in Swedish, but it has a picture) of a place to stay and pimp-free work should I ever make it to her country. I didn't have the heart to tell her I'm not a working girl, and it wouldn't have been relevant. Either way, it was very sweet of her to make the offer. Last | Top | Next

Thursday, 22 May 2003 (after hours) 11:01pm The flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco yesterday was a lot more tolerable than the one in the other direction two weeks ago. The fact that I hadn't been awake for thirty hours straight this time around probably helped. We kept hearing over and over that, according to the Fucking Department of Fucking Homeland Fucking Security, we were on Orange Alert. Right. Sure. Whatever. I'm sure Osaddam is somewhere seething with anger because we're on Orange Alert. Take that, you big evil terrorist wrongdoers! Hate our freedom, will ya? Grr! Look at us, we're all standing united and stuff! Ugh. Sorry. It's all gotten very very old. Actually, it's been old for a long time, at least since the first Tower was hit. Our upstairs neighbors picked us up from the airport. We didn't ask, nor had we even considered doing so. They offered. It was totally their idea. They didn't have to do it, but they insisted. Such good people. Ritt says that when she started taking the sheets off the bed on which Maddy and I slept, Sebastian got upset, pointing at the bed and saying "Nin! Nin!" ("Nin" being his approximation of "Sherilyn," pretty good for a two year-old and certainly preferable to the way his grandmother pronounces it. Besides, I think The Fragile was extremely underrated, so it amuses me on that level, too.) I guess he hasn't forgotten about me just yet. Last | Top | Next

Wednesday, 21 May 2003 (always returning) 10:18am Randomness. Partially because he has an unusually large head for a two year-old, Sebastian has long hair, so much so that other children often think he's a girl. Is that why i relate to him so well? If so, is that a bad thing? Would I not get along with him so well if he had a buzzcut? When other kids call Sebastian she or refer to him as a girl, his parents let it slide. That's too cool. Maddy tells me that her mother wanted to take a picture of him and I standing side by side and call it "The Midget and The Giant." Sebastian is two years old, and I'm a relatively slender six feet tall. He is no more a midget than I am a giant. I'm glad she didn't directly ask me. Maddy says she's intimidated by me, which is a good thing; nobody else seems to be. In fact, most of her relatives have told her that I'm very easy to talk to. (Sometime in the late nineties a Billy Crystal flop called My Giant came out. I never saw it, but I really hated the advertising. It was fairly innocuous, I suppose, playing up the fact that it was Billy Crystal paired up with this guy who was, well, gigantic. This was right before I started transitioning, and I was feeling extremely anxious about my size. All I could think to myself was, what if I'd been born with that body? What if I was over seven feet tall rather than just six, if I wasn't simply tall but regarded as a giant, but felt the same way inside? I would have been fucked beyond belief. Believe it or not, I'm not quite so neurotic about these things now.) The only pronoun errors since I've been in the Midwest have been from Maddy's older relatives, and I know they're accidents—Genevieve in particular seems very sorry about them, and assures me she doesn't think of me as a boy. Out in public, with strangers, I'm doing just fine. I don't even feel like I'm getting an unusual number of stares, and when it does happen, I'm fairly confident it's because of my height and/or the way I'm dressed. (e)'s going on a nationwide tour later this year to promote her new book, and the possibility of me going with her has been discussed. The main problem is financial, of course. I really want to go with her—and I know she doesn't want to go alone—plus I'm ready to see the country, even if it is mostly from the road and the various venues where she performs. For as much as I want it to happen, I'm not getting my hopes up too much. I went to the grocery store a couple times with Maddy's paternal grandfather; the first time I offered to come along, and the second time he invited me, which is proof that he both likes me and doesn't mind being seen with me. Anyway, the clerk asked me if I was a granddaughter. I said that I was a granddaughter-in-law, then immediately cringed in anticipation of the obvious question: which grandson did I marry? Thankfully, she didn't ask. Later I realized I should have said I was his mistress. Ah, the spirit of the stairwell. Maddy's father's side of the family makes an effort to pronounce my name correctly, and usually does; Maddy's mother do not really try, opting instead for "Sheryl Lynn." Her mother insists that it's "a regional thing." No, putting a sack in the deep freeze rather than a bag in the freezer is a regional thing. This is just not giving a shit because, after all, it's not like it's my real name. Ritt is the only person out here who knows the name on my birth certificate, and while it isn't anybody's business at all, at least she can be trusted with it. (I suppose it's possible she's told B.D., given the Spousal Freedom Of Information Act, and that's okay; despite our considerable differences, he seems to respect me.) I just know that if Maddy's mother found out, she'd use it. When I first visited in '99, she asked Maddy what she should call me. A very odd question, considering the only name she'd been told, or ever would be, was Sherilyn. She also requested that I only be in boy or girl mode so it didn't get confusing. While I was still early on in my transition and wasn't fulltime at work yet, the question implied that she considered me to simply be a cross-dresser.. She probably she still thinks of me that way, and doesn't think that Maddy is a real lesbian. If she was, wouldn't she be with a real girl? I try to let the name thing slide, but at one point after she'd already been corrected a few times I mildly lost it with her. I asked her if she can say "Marilyn." Yep. Can she say "Sharon?" Sure, that one too. Therefore, I pointed out there's no good reason that she can't say "Sherilyn," since there are no sounds she's unaccustomed to saying. She then walked out of the room repeating it to herself: "Sherilyn, Sherilyn, Sherilyn, Sherilyn..." God, that was almost worse than her not getting it right in the first place. (Of course, I also know that some people in my own family can't/won't get it right. Nicole corrects them whenever she hears it, as well as pronoun errors, but it's probably futile. Odds are some of them just use my birth name when I'm not around anyway.) Saturday evening was the obligatory barbecue at Genevieve's house, and I brought along my Anya dress for the occasion. (I'd also meant to bring one of the flowers from the Isotope tiki party for my hair, but forgot.) I put the dress on in the morning, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I'd never hear the end of it from Maddy's mother—she'd just keep going on about how much she liked it and how different it was on me and gosh wasn't Sheryl Lynn's dress just the cutest thing ever? So just before we left the motel that morning, I changed into a simpler long black dress which she only commented upon once. Even that felt like too much. Much to my own surprise, I seem to be good with very young children. At the very least, they seem to like me. I don't get it at all. I have learned to greatly resent the notion that Midwesterners are, by definition, more moral and upstanding than people in the rest of the country. They're not bad people, nor are they inherently good people. They're just people. It's amazing how many women I've met out here who have had at least one abusive partner. Clay Center is a tiny town with seventeen churches, but all that xtianity didn't do Maddy a damn bit of good when her ex was permanently damaging her spine by slamming it against the hood of a car, or when Genevieve's oldest daughter was nearly beaten to death by her first husband. So don't tell me that California is sinful or a bad place to raise your kids, or talk about solid Midwestern values. And I'm not saying that Californians are, on the whole, better people, either—although if you're queer and want to live your life in a minimum of fear, it's the place to be. Fact of the matter is, people are fucked up all over. 10:11pm Home. Safe. Tired. Last | Top | Next

Tuesday, 20 May 2003 (deep blue day) 10:54am Maddy has pointed out to me that her parents did not pay for my airline ticket, begrudgingly or otherwise. They paid for hers, which then made it possible for us to afford for me to come along. (The payment came in the form of two checks for one hundred and fifty each. Inexplicably, though they were dated a couple weeks apart, her mother mailed them at the same time. I considered doing the same when paying her back last week—two checks with different dates in the same envelope—but figured it would be lost on her.) They've never expressed any interest in seeing me, let alone offering to shell out money for the privilege. In all likelihood, her mother was disappointed to hear that I'd be visiting. She also reminded me that during The Talk, Maddy did not immediately shush me. It was a little while later, when it became clear that nothing was going to get through to her mother. Not that anything has ever gotten through to her in the past, but, you know, hope springs eternal. Anyway, Maddy just wanted it to be over with, and she knew that if I unloaded with the full list of grievances, we'd be there for hours. So you see. 7:19pm I'm pretty sure I got clocked today. We were at the mall again, and I got a nudge-n-nod followed by a look back and an audible "Oh my god." I know what that one means. Oh well. One obvious time out of this entire trip ain't bad, and most importantly, they kept walking the other way. My weight is holding steady at 170, so evidently I've behaved myself fairly well. (We also just watched Real Women Have Curves, which makes me feel a little guilty for being so weight-conscious, but, hey, I'm not exactly Real, am I?) That I've been able to do things like eat tofu right out of the box without anyone giving me static about it has helped. There's been some light teasing from Maddy's paternal grandfather, but that's okay. It's how he is, and by all indications, he likes me a lot—he respects anyone who can bullshit on his level, and if I may be so bold, I can hold my own quite nicely. Anyway, at some point when Maddy's mother was in his kitchen and I was in the living room—I did my best to not be in the same room as her when I could possibly help it—he said that the vegetarian stuff was for Maddy and I but that he was eating meat. In a vaguely petulant tone no doubt meant to imply solidarity, she replied, "Me, too!" Seeing as how he's been disliking her for at least three decades longer than I have, I don't think he considered it a bonding moment. 11:26pm A good way to relax the night before flying home? Reading bad reviews of The Matrix Reloaded, which I don't want to see. It's especially entertaining knowing how many people are outraged by them. Last | Top | Next

Monday, 19 May 2003 (demilitarized zone) 10:43am One stroke of luck on this particular Midwest excursion is that I've remembered very few of my dreams. Those which I have remembered have been fairly benign, at least by my standards—typical anxiety stuff. Until the one last night. I've had maybe a dozen sexual dreams over the course of my life, and have had sex in my dreams roughly a dozen times less than that. A Freudian could probably tell me whether the fact that I continued to wet the bed into the early double digits has anything to do with the fact that I've never had a wet dream, but I'm not about to hazard a guess. In any event, I (finally?) (it depends on how you define the act) had sex in a dream last night, and it was just wrong. Wrongest thing ever. With the wrong person, that is. Otherwise, it was kinda nice, and that made it all the wronger. And I even knew it at the time—I don't usually behave any different in dreams than I do in real life, which may account for my nocturnal chastity—and spent most of the rest of the dream dealing with what happened, and feeling too embarrassed to tell my friends. I was lucid enough to realize after a while that I was dreaming (they'd never wear black lipstick like that in real life, and I even asked if it was mine, though I haven't worn it in a long time either), but still. It's not what my head needed. I'm aware that it probably even happened at all because of my hormone levels, which have never quite recovered from going off the provera. If this is what it's like when I'm still on the prometrium, which is a poor substitute for the provera and an even poorer substitute for the orchie which I can't afford, I can only imagine what will happen when Maddy's insurance finally goes away and I go off the prometrium. Actually, I don't have to imagine. Ugh. Meanwhile, my niece Nicole turns eighteen today. I hope she has a better go at it than mine, which was the occasion of my first mid-life crisis. 12:15pm This is what happened. Although it's intended to be in present tense, it'll probably switch to past quite a bit. I'm bad about that. The original lodging plans for the trip to Clay Center, Kansas were Ritt and Sebastian at her paternal grandparents' house and Maddy and I at their mother's. I hate, loathe and despise this plan but see no alternative since we can afford neither a rental car nor a motel room. More to the point, we can't justify the cost of either. While we're in Omaha on Sunday, their paternal grandfather calls to say their grandmother is sick, and could the four of us possibly spend the first night in their mother's house? Big problem, as there is barely enough room for Maddy and I, let alone Ritt and Sebastian. Bigger problem: in a tactical error worthy of Custer, Grandpa has already called Mom, who is creaming her 9XL jeans at the thought. Grandpa apologizes, then gets motel reservation for Ritt and Sebastian for at least two nights, by which time Grandma should be feeling better. Maddy and I are still slated for mother's house. Grandma calls Mom to tell her that he goofed and that only Maddy and I will be staying there. We don't hear her response, but can make an educated guess. We leave town a little later than we'd hoped on Monday, stop at the Wal-Mart in Beatrice, encounter stopped traffic and finally get to Clay Center around four. Our first stop is their Great Aunt Genevieve, since she's going to be leaving town on Tuesday and not returning until Friday night. Also, she'd recently lost her husband of sixty years. (He slipped and fell in mid-December, went into a coma, and died on Xmas. Due to the family's unfortunate reluctance to disseminate bad but important news, Maddy and Ritt don't hear of this until Xmas Eve, depriving them both of the opportunity to say goodbye to him—especially Ritt, for whom it would have been simply a three-hour drive.) She also holds a special place in Maddy's heart for being the only (1) member of her family, extended or otherwise, to wholeheartedly support her in her decision to move to San Francisco and do what it takes to be happy. We arrived at four and stayed for a couple hours. She gave us some things to take to Grandpa's place. From there, we go to Ritt and Sebastian's motel room to check in. Oddly enough, it has two beds and fridge, a bit more than the two of them would need for a couple nights. I immediately fall in love with the room, but feel my heart breaking (my sins are freezing) as I know we have to stay with Maddy's mom. A fresh wave of despair set in. In spite of Grandma's illness, we've been invited over, plus we have the stuff from Genevieve, so that's our next stop. We plan on staying for just a few minutes, their Uncle Randy and Aunt Jeannette arrive. Since seeing as many relatives as possible is ostensibly the point of the trip, and they're thoughtfully gathering in one place, Maddy calls her parents to invite them to come over. A few minutes later, her and I are out on her grandparents' back porch; I'm hugging her as she's bawling, harder than she's done in a long time. (It's reminiscent of the time I almost broke up with her back in 2000.) The call, it seems, did not go well. Maddy's father chewed her out for not immediately calling when we got into town, claiming they were worried sick and very angry. (Side point one: we emailed them when we arrived in Omaha, and they never replied. Side point two: her grandfather had already informed him that we were in town, so in fact he knew good and well that we'd arrived safely.) Since he was angry, Maddy suggested that maybe they shouldn't come over after all. He countered that maybe we should stay with Ritt that night. Maddy is stunned into silence. There is a pause, and then she hears him telling her mother than he told her to stay at the motel and that he hung up on her. Except that he forgot to actually hit the off button on the phone. The combined effect of her father effectively telling her she's not welcome in his house (and for no really good reason) and then gloating because he thought he hung up on her is too much. Hence the long jag on the porch. I comfort her as best I can, and reassure her that she has every reason to feel the way that she does. Ritt then calls her father and tears into him for how he treated Maddy, and all he can say in response is her name, over and over: "Ritt. Ritt. Ritt." And finally: "Goodbye." "Fine!" Ritt replies. "Fuck you!" Daddy's Little Girl, always clearly his favorite of the two, has crossed a line. They never call back, nor do they come over. Although the rest of the evening has a certain pall over it, there's still a certain amount of consolation in the fact that at least Maddy's buzzkill of a mother isn't around. The sad truth is that everyone's happier as a result. It's getting late and nobody's eaten, so pizza is ordered. A lot of it. A Vegetarian is ordered for us, although I also eat a couple slices of Cheese. I probably eat as much pizza that night as I had in the last two years. It is, of course, comfort eating in the classic sense. I am conscious of the fact that I weighed 170 when I left Omaha. We finally leave around half past one in the morning, and on the way to the now serendipitous motel room, we stop at Maddy's mother's house and put an envelope containing two items into their mailbox. One is a carefully-composed note (it went through three drafts) which reads as follows: We're sorry your feelings are hurt. We'd like our visit to be enjoyable for everyone. We can be reached at Cedar Court Room #124 or at Grandma and Grandpa's. The other is a check for three hundred to cover the airfare which her mother had somewhat begrudgingly paid so I could join Maddy. (On Maddy's previous solo visits, her mother never asked after me or even mentioned my name.) (She probably would have mispronounced it anyway.) I'd been uncomfortable from the start with her paying for us, since it would oblige us to her and she's been known to wield that power like a blunt object, to say she's being taken advantage of. I had also decided that, no matter what happens, I was not staying in their house. Not a wise move financially, but three hundred bucks plus motel fees are a small price to pay for autonomy, not to mention my pride and a little tiny bit of privacy, and we wouldn't have any of those with her mother around. (No matter how uncomfortable things have gotten between my mother and I, particularly that bad period in the late nineties, she never so much as implied that I wasn't welcome in her home, nor has she acted like I owe her anything. I try to keep her informed when we're driving to Fresno, but if I forgot to call she would never get that angry and petty about it.) Bastian and I sleep well enough, but Maddy and Ritt don't. Ritt in particular is plagued by dreams of fighting with her father. He calls the next morning around eleven: "We need to talk." He hasn't found the note yet, and is calling of his own volition. And talk we do. (It takes a while for us to actually get out there, as none of us are in anything resembling a hurry.) Sparks fly, although most them are doused by their mother's crocodile tears. A lot of past misdeeds which had never been uttered before, mostly involving their mother mistreating Maddy both physically and emotionally. At first she denies it altogether, and then comes up with all sorts of excuses, among the most frequent being that she was abused as a child as well, and it's a cycle against which she's completely powerless, but she asks Gawd to forgive her every day. Maybe this is just my Californian crunchiness, but I don't buy it. I do realize it's a cycle, but it's no excuse, either. Basically, everything she says is either self-pitying or vapid, afternoon-teevee pop psychology. She also, as she so often will when working towards maximum teariness, invoked THE CANCER—which went into remission twenty years ago and of which she was officially declared free ten years ago, yet she claims could kill her tomorrow. My personal favorite line was how she abused Maddy while she was undergoing treatments for THE CANCER because she wanted to be hated so if she died, her beloved family wouldn't mourn. Yeaaaaaaah. Okay. When it was pointed out that she hit Maddy both before she was diagnosed and after it went into remission, well, you know, she was abused as a child, too. But she asks Gawd to forgive her every day... When I finally spoke (in response to her mother implying that Maddy should just get over it), she snapped at me that it was none of my business. Before even Maddy could respond, Ritt leapt in and said that it does concern me since I'm Maddy's wife. For her part, Maddy surreptitiously shushed me. Her and Ritt had told me beforehand that I could participate, but the strategy had evidently changed. I spent the rest of The Talk quietly stewing, sometimes literally biting my tongue as so not to call bullshit or bring up dozens of examples of Maddy's mother mistreating her, more than a few of them as an adult. But I obediently keep quiet, gripping Maddy's hand—she later says she can judge my reactions by the tightness of my grip—and not speaking again until spoken to. (The three of us were sitting close to one another; I comforted Maddy, and Maddy comforted Ritt. Their parents sat apart and made no move towards one another. Maddy's mother never even looked at her father.) When it was winding down and mine were the only dry eyes—since I couldn't speak and be Maddy's advocate, I had to remain as detached and analytical as possible, viewing even Maddy more as a character archetype than anything else—her father asked if I had anything to add. I played the independent mediator and pointed out that while a lot had been aired, there was a lot that hadn't been said, and not to be surprised if more is dredged up in the future. I felt it was important, since their mother kept hinting strongly that this was it, how wonderful that the slate was clean and they were once again a shiny happy family. Nuh-uh. Don't work that way. Her father agreed, and while her mother nodded, I think I frustrated her. Or maybe I'd just like to think so. Maddy's father finally admittedly, sincerely, that he was happy for her. Her mother did not. He also didn't mention Ritt swearing at him on the phone; she'd suspected that he might have hung up right before she said it, though it's also possible he decided to pretend it didn't happen. As I suspected they might, Maddy's mother again offered to let us stay with them. I said "I think we'll be staying at the motel," and immediately regretted sounding so uncertain and passive. I should have phrased it as "We're staying at the motel," which doesn't allow any wriggle room. (Yay semantics!) Either way, it worked. Later, we discovered that Maddy's father and grandfather decided to split the cost of the motel room for the rest of the week, even though Ritt and Sebastian would only be in it for one more night. I refused to take the check for the airfare back, but if her father's guilt compelled him to pay for the motel room (and he knows that we'd be staying with him if he hadn't blown it), so be it. She then announced they were having a barbecue. Actually, she went back and forth between it being spontaneous and insisting that she'd emailed about it, which neither Maddy nor Ritt had received. As is usually the case, her motivation was obvious: she wanted us to spend time with her creepy relatives. Her jealousy of her husband's side of the family is no secret, such as the grandparents with whom Ritt and Sebastian were going to be staying. It was four in the afternoon, and we managed to beg off for a couple hours so Sebastian, who had been fantastically mellow and well-behaved given the extreme emotions he was witnessing (especially from his mother), could nap. We all needed it, and we said we'd return at six. Now, when Maddy had her root canal some months back, she got a prescription for Valium. Through methods too nefarious to repeat in front of an impressionable audience, she managed to get far more than she needed. We a plan for them, and the time was now. Ritt and I took a half a pill each before we laid down for our collective nap around five. The alarm went off at six, but we didn't start making motions to getting up until around a quarter to seven. Ritt and I took another half Valium each, and we didn't actually leave until half past seven. We were very happy that we'd managed to kill a good ninety minutes off the time around their mother. Besides us and her parents, the other barbecue attendees were their paternal grandmother Rose (kinda creepy), their Aunt Faye (darn creepy) and Faye's adult son Wayne (extremely creepy, not to mention spineless—Faye didn't like his wife, so she broke up his marriage and had him move back home). Dealing with all of them was much easier with the help of the duh-duh-duh-drugs, especially for Ritt, who said she's never felt so relaxed around her mother. Though only Maddy's mom was morbidly obese (and you haven't seen the definition of either word until you've seen her arms), the others were pretty hefty themselves. At some point it was brought up that I used to weigh at least a hundred pounds more than I do, and they wanted to hear my secret. I was at a loss for words. I mean, what can you say to someone like Maddy's mother, who has four different kinds of ice cream in their freezer, hides candy throughout the house the same way an alcoholic stashes booze, and does everything she can to avoid physical exertion (except for picking up her grandson, putting him in danger when she does so)? Avoid sugar and saturated fat, and exercise regularly? They've surely heard those things before, and it isn't going to make any difference coming from me. It's creepy to hear someone I've never met tell me they have my picture on their wall, particularly a friend/relative of Maddy's mother. Obviously there are people I've never met reading these words, and that's fine (hi! how's it going?), and it stands to reason that after over three years of putting a new picture of myself online every month that I have been masturbated to. That's okay, too. (I'm not going to lie. It's flattering. I don't want anything to do with them otherwise, but sometimes I want to go into a straight bar and have boys hit on me. Maybe I'll go to Trannyshack in the near future just to have a few chasers express interest, then leave. Provided I don't have to be directly involved beyond simply being in the same room, being regarded as a sex object is a kind of validation. I'm glad it's far from the only one I have, though.) But to be told by Maddy's Aunt Faye that she looks at a picture of the two of us every day...for some reason, that makes my skin feel all icky. Nature has a way of making up for humans, though, and it came in the form of a thunderstorm. I haven't witnessed a good one since the relatively freak San Francisco electrical storm in September '99, and it's one of the few things Maddy misses about the Midwest. We were treated to a nice one, though, and I loved every minute of watching the lightning as the storm rolled in, staying outside until it got so rainy and windy that even their covered porch was no longer dry. The thought that most people in town were probably inside watching teevee rather than enjoying the lightshow was a sad one, until I remembered that they live in Kansas—which is to say, they're used to this sort of thing. It was gorgeous, and almost made up for all the stresses leading up to that moment. On Tuesday, we got their grandparents' local ISP dialup info so we were able to get online from the motel room (or wherever we took the laptop) and not have to worry about Maddy's mother being online or her accusing us of taking advantage of her. We had a motel room, reliable net access and Ritt was even letting us use her car. Things were going right for all the wrong reasons. Last | Top | Next

Sunday, 18 May 2003 (we have buffet) sometime after midnight Back in Omaha. B.D. suggested that I probably never thought I'd be happy to find myself in Nebraska. I pointed out that it has in fact happened before, when I last visited in 2001. Omaha seemed like a refuge from Clay Center that time, too. Actually, that's not fair; the town's not really that bad (to me, though Maddy has very legitimate reasons to be uncomfortable there), I like Maddy's relatives, and they like me. It's her mother. I said back then that if I never saw her again it'd be too soon. Well, guess what? I saw her again, and it was, as I suspected, way way way too soon. If I could arrange it so that neither Maddy nor Sebastian (especially Sebastian, since he's genuinely unsafe in her presence) had to be exposed to her, I would. No such luck. Except for the occasional stripeys, I've been wearing mostly fishnets and half-slips. I did bring jeans along, and almost wore them today, but decided that I wasn't quite ready to dress down. My work here, as it were, is not quite done. We're flying home on Wednesday. Last | Top | Next

Friday, 16 May 2003 (you can't kill the rooster) sometime after midnight I love and miss my friends in San Francisco, my adopted home, the place where I belong. They're the best bunch of friends I've ever had, or probably ever will. I would be so much less without them. I've been writing a lot, but I'm not quite caught up yet. 5/12/03 10:45am On the way to Kansas. Maddy and Ritt are in front, and Sebastian and I are in back. This is the first road trip in well over a decade in which I've been in the back seat. Sebastian is an extremely good kid, very smart for his two years. So I'm told, at least; I don't have much experience with two year-olds, since I was kinda distant when my nieces were growing up. It's one of my regrets, but the fact was, I couldn't relate to them at all. It would seem I'm more comfortable around small children as a twenty-nine year-old tranny than I was as a thirteen year-old boy. (Maybe it's an estrogen thing, I don't know.) I'm very grateful that my nieces don't resent me for my emotional not-thereness. Then again, as uncommunicative older relatives go, I was at the least of their problems, and I'd like to think I'm making it up with Nicole now. At the Wal-Mart in Beatrice, Nebraska, Maddy and I got a serious ping on our tranny radar from the Southeast Asian checkout girl. It was probably a false positive, though, considering that she was in a Wal-Mart in Beatrice, Nebraska. Whether tranny or genetic girl with what some might call slightly masculine features, I found her quite beautiful. I was particularly taken by her hair. There wasn't anything special about it, I suppose, just long and slightly gravity-defying. After making our purchases (I had to remind myself that I shopped at Wal-Mart purely out of necessity) we went to their little diner thing to get food to go. While waiting for our order, I finally worked up the courage to talk to her, if only to compliment her hair. Odds were against seeing her again anytime soon, and I always appreciate it when someone goes out of their way to compliment my appearance. Even if it's vaguely creepy, like the other day at the mall when the older woman came up to me and said "You're so cute!" I was dismayed by my initial shyness, since while I wouldn't call myself an extrovert, I sure as hell shouldn't be too intimidated to approach a pretty girl. It reminded me of being at camp as a preteen and being afraid to approach to my objet d'crush, a situation which happened more than once. Perhaps my anxiety about our eventual destination was finding other ways to manifest itself. Anyway, we talked for a few minutes, mostly about hair. (In theory we could have discussed Nietzsche or how the WTO suppresses democracy in developing nations, but I was the one who established the topic.) I somehow managed not to mention her unnaturally blue eyes, which is probably what most people bring up. I don't say "unnatural" because of her ethnicity; even with my pale skin tone, they still obviously would have been contacts. Anyway, while she didn't necessarily seem down to begin with, I'd like to think I brightened her day a little. It's been a long week. And, as usual, it isn't over yet. Last | Top | Next