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Monday, 20 November 2000 (all this useless beauty) 8:07am Yesterday was an extraordinarily long day. It wasn't bad (although we did end up at Fisherman's Wharf), but my sense of time was out of whack, probably owing to have only slept three or four hours. My stomach never stopped hurting (still hasn't), though I'm wondering if that was as much due to lack of sleep as culinary misbehavior. I've been getting my body used to certain kinds of food, stuff which actualy borders on healthy, and it doesn't like it when I make it deal with rich or fatty foods. Certainly, it wasn't happy with me when I gave in to a lasagna craving. That's why I don't mind so much being back at work now: it's easier to behave, to stick with a regimen, to not give in to temptation because there's no temptation around. I tried on a top at Wilson's yesterday which fit but didn't do anything for me. Then I tried on a black dress at Hot Topic which I really liked but didn't quite fit. Que sera. This year was the first time I've voted without using the pointy stylus and punchcards; instead the ballots reminded me more of scantrons from school. When done, you put them in a machine which beeped its approval, and you went on your way, flush with civic pride. It took me a while to figure out where that beeping was coming from; at first I thought it was someone's cel phone. Nope, it was just the machine confirming that you filled out the ballot correctly. The gentleman using the washing machine next to me didn't, and the machine kept rejecting his ballot. Seems he'd made a "mistake," and crossed it out. Surely the machine can tell, right? This isn't a constitutional crisis, folks. It's business as usual. We were at Fisherman's Wharf because we wanted to go to T.G.I. Friday's (shush, you), and I seemed to remember having seen one there. Problem was, I didn't know the exact location, and we hadn't checked before leaving the house because it was an impulse after driving home from somwhere else. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf, deep in the heart of tourist country, and discovered that it's impossible to get information. Nobody who works in that area knows where anything is. I can only assume that the people we asked either are extremely new and as such haven't had time to observe the surrounding blocks, or they teleport in. (Ignorance and stupidity, while also viable options, are cruel charges so I won't suggest them.) Checking online now, I see we were within a block of our intended destination. Appointments. I hate it, but I have people to call. Never did get in touch with Phil for this next weekend, but it's bordering on urgent. I'm kinda screwed for this week, of course. It's growing in faster than I've ever seen. Plus I have to make a motel reservation for Fresno. We'll probably be heading out on Wednesday night. This sucks both because we're heading to Fresno and because that same night Bondage A Go-Go is having a release party for both the new Manson and Nine Inch Nails albums. But I don't want to deal with the holiday traffic on Thursday morning, either. Alas.
I'm going to Anodyne's salon tonight so she can do my hair, although getting it all spiffy hardly seems worth the
effort considering the way the face it's framing looks right now. In any event, I hope she'll forgive me for Friday night.
It didn't occur to me until just now to ask my mom if anybody's staying with her;
in theory her guestrooom aka her computer room aka my old bedroom may be available.
Oh well. Xmas, maybe.
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Sunday, 19 November 2000 (one time one place) 5:29am Ungh. My body is not happy with me. I ate too much last night, owing largely to the fact that I got stoned. Not a good idea for me anymore, purely for munchie reasons. Well, that and the fact that it's a gateway drug, meaning that I'm fated to become a heroin addict any day now. 6:17am Okay, I give up. I'm going to make an appointment to get zapped next weekened, 'cuz my upper lip hair is coming in way way WAY too fast and too dark. I look like a teenage boy desperately trying to cultivate a moustache. Then I look a little closer and see the scarring. Little pits where, presumably, hair used to be. I guess it means hair will never grow there again, which is good, but it's also evidence of the hair's former presence, which is bad. But I'm stuck with it, and I suppose I knew from the start that I'd never have Fiona Apple's complexion.
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Saturday, 18 November 2000 (morituri salutant) 8:44am It's a shame what you can miss when you let yourself get distracted. Anodyne's boyfriend's birthday party was last night, and we'd RSVP'd in the affirmative (at least, I did), but a flareup of homegrown drama kinda derailed those plans. There was nothing physically preventing me, but my will was gone.
Flaking on Anodyne is bad enough, but the really annoying part is, I would have been up and around at the
time to see the Leonid meteor storm. Ach.
A year is long enough, I think.
Prior to receiving the news, I was engaging in the more baser forms of retail therapy.
A big Ebisu sushi lunch (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm vegetable tempura and a caterpillar and unagi), followed
by trolling the book and comic stores in the Inner Sunset, walking away with R. Crumb's
The Complete Dirty Laundry Comics, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (the paperback
version is almost small enough to carry around), and Sagan's The Dragons of Eden, which I
think actually completes my collection. Crisis solved, right?
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Friday, 17 November 2000 (standing proud before the signal) 8:04am There's nothing quite like that new bus smell. Muni's adding (or replacing, I'm not sure which) new buses to their fleet, and it's about time. On the other hand, they have the same kind of flourescent lighting found in many of your less humane office buildings, including but not limited to this one. Worse, the ceiling's a lot lower than in an office, so even less time passes before your eyeballs start to burn. Be sure to bring your sunglasses. 8:37am We're losing another one, a graphics designer. As they go, he's one of the good ones (he's not The Fidget Queen, who of course is never ever EVER leaving), and coincidentally a Scot by the name of Whitman. He's been in and out of the department over the last year and a half, sometime for INS reasons and sometimes for disgruntlement (my theory). He was even promoted about a month ago, probably an a attempt by The Den Mother to get him to stay. Apparently, it didn't work. There's a compulsory goodbye-lunch for him today, which at least gives me an excuse to get made up. It'll be scary not having Brian to hide behind, though. I suppose that's just what one more duty of his which will fall upon Pike. 1:20pm "I'll have the...I'll have the...I'll have the...Baja Burger! No—the Western Burger! It's better!" 4:37pm I unsubbed from a high-traffic internal company mailing list a couple weeks back because I was sick of it. The office manager tried to convince me to resub at first, but now I think he's even tempted to bail. In the meantime, he's sent me the one worthwhile thing to emerge from the list in my absence: a cute monkey picture. For that, I am truly grateful.
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Thursday, 16 November 2000 (poles apart) 8:09am There's just no telling what's going on inside my body. My new endoc sent me the forms to take in when I get my blood tested again next month, but apparently the lab didn't get it quite right last time. She'd specifically asked for my total estrogen count—it's not one of their standard tests, so she made a very clear notation on the form—and instead they merely did checked estradiol levels. Which was enough to give her a general sense of where I'm at, but still isn't what she asked for. Her notes on the new form make it much more obvious, even pointing out that that estradiol and total estrogen levels are not the same thing, so please do the tests she asked for, not just the ones they decide she needs. Damn, I like her.
I'm reminded of when I was applying to San Francisco State University. They needed my
grade school transcripts and my social security number. For some reason, it proved very
difficult to provide them with both. I had to go back to the special transcript vault
place two or three times until they got it right, and I almost missed the admissions deadline
because of the friggin' SSN. I'm still not sure what went wrong with that; at one point they
seemed convinced it was five characters long, and I'm pretty sure a
schwa was involved.
And yet, somehow, I got in.
The (philosophical? semantic?) question I've been asking myself lately is, where exactly have I been for the last two years? Hormonally speaking. The goal was to adjust my estrogen and testosterone levels to female level; that did not happen, obviously. So where was I? Intersexed, if you will, or hermaphroditic. Not in terms of genetalia, of course, but the whole damn point of taking hormones is to compensate for the genitals you have (or don't have, depending on whether one's glass tends to be half-full or half-empty). It's a weird thought, and not exactly the trip I signed on for. I went into the grand mysterious "it" with the understanding that the taking of the hormones would have the desired effect. The "desired effects" are (and I quote from the e'er-so-controversial Standards of Care): Biologic males treated with cross-sex hormones can realistically expect treatment to result in: breast growth, some redistribution of body fat to approximate a female body habitus, decreased upper body strength, softening of skin, decrease in body hair, slowing or stopping the loss of scalp hair, decreased fertility and testicular size, and less frequent, less firm erections. Less empirical, but more emotionally satsifying, are "the reasons": Cross-sex hormonal treatments play an important role in the anatomical and psychological gender transition process for properly selected adults with gender identity disorders. These hormones are medically necessary for rehabilitation in the new gender. They improve the quality of life and limit psychiatric co-morbidity which often accompanies lack of treatment. When physicians administer androgens to biologic females and estrogens, progesterone, and/or testosterone-blocking agents to biologic males, patients feel and appear more like members of their aspired-to sex. Am I suggesting that none of the above was achieved under the original regimen? No, I'm not, and I did in fact qet quite a few from both Column A and Column B. My breasts have grown, my body's shape is different (I'm no Iris Shaw , nor am I likely to ever be), I'm told my skin is softer, I'm nowhere near as furry as I once was, and while I've never been a picture of virility, I'm hardly even a sketch anymore. And, yes, the quality of my life has improved. To what extent that's directly attributable to the hormones rather than them simply being a catalyst, I couldn't begin to guess. (Wouldn't Pyschiatric Co-Morbidity be a great band name?) Do I feel and appear more like a member of my aspired-to sex? Sure. I guess. Maybe. I don't know. I have no frame of reference. I don't know what it feels like to be female. I've never been, and I never will be, not really. (To quote Sheryl, I've never been there, but the brochure looks nice.) This is why the strident, almost militaristic feminism found in so many m2f trannies, especially those waving the L-flag around like they're on a mission from their Goddess, has always struck me as false at best and condescending at worst. There is such a thing as trying too hard, kids. I'm not denying the existance of sexism, nor the need for feminism. I am saying that declaring a man you consider worthy of your friendship to be an "honorary girl" is insulting, and reveals you to be no better than those whom you view as your oppressor. Transitioning is about as personal and act as can be; turning it into a political statement seems to me a horrible waste. Then again, I'm sure they see it quite differently: that not taking the opportunity to, as it were, wave a flag for their gender/orientation/combination thereof is in fact the waste. But I digress. As for how I appear...I ain't goin' near that one. My therapist told me that when she started transitioning in the mid-seventies, it was under the questionable aegis of a university, and that it was treated almost like an experiment. For the first couple years, not much progress was made; it was then discovered that her dosages were entirely too small, and when it was corrected, she transformed at a much faster rate. (It's a word I tend to avoid, although my new endoc uses it as well: "transform." It almost seems too fanciful. Of course I'd like nothing better than to be transformed, but I can't let myself believe it works that way.) When she was telling me the story I thought it sounded pretty awful, and indeed it was not a pleasant memory for her, but she was telling me to illustrate how much things have changed over the decades. Not as much as we'd like to think, apparently. I've been thinking about dropping her a line, letting her know what's going on. I haven't had any contact with her since I was looking into relationship counseling for Maddy and I earlier in the year—but hey, who seeks out a therapist when all is well? I'm sure she's used to this sort of thing. I don't blame her at all for having suggested my old endoc, mind you. It was purely my decision, and in fact my new endoc had also been brought up as a possiblity. I goofed up, as simple as that. But maybe if she's been getting other negative reports, she might save someone else the time which I feel like I've lost... I've also been considering writing my old endoc and explaining my reasons for leaving her care. It'll be an exercise in diplomacy, to put it mildly.
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Wednesday, 15 November 2000 (at the end of the century) 5:32am See? This isn't so bad. I can do this. Although I suppose it helps I've been in bed before 9pm the last couple nights.... 7:20am I cheated and drove this morning. I call it "cheating" because I've been trying to dedicate myself to the idea of taking public transportation on a regular basis again. The morning drive has just been taking too much out of me, particularly that one point where "making a left turn" has transmogrified into "dodging SUVs." Right of way? It belongs to whoever was able to afford the Range Rover, motherfucker! It's a Wednesday morning, however, meaning that if I left early enough I could park in the Batcave, and Maddy's staying home, so it wasn't as if both of would be driving. If she were going to work, I'd probably have taken the bus. But she isn't, so I drove because the roads were comparatively empty (no SUVs to dodge at that evil corner) and I can park all day for free. Work's been very slow this week, but since Voyager's on tonight, I suspect things are gonna pick up. Thanksgiving is, of course, a week from tomorrow. It's still uncertain whether we'll be going out that night; my mom isn't opposed to the idea, but apparently her company is foisting a turkey upon her (and, being Fresno, she's wouldn't dare feign vegetarianism), and at the moment she's not even sure how many people will be attending. My brothers haven't been especially communicative with her about it. But, I promised her Maddy and I would be there, so be there we must.
Which is why I have an appointment with Anodyne on Monday at her new corporate salon to get my
hair done. I'm not facing Fresno with visible roots.
Meanwhile, my old cubicle has (another?) new occupant, a rather cute girl. Good. It's about time one
sat there.
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Tuesday, 14 November 2000 (late home tonight) 7:56am I chose unwisely. 8:26am We didn't go to the movie. If we had, my computer at home might still be alive right now. I guess it depends on how one views fate: whether the mistake I made was destined to happen no matter what, or if the outcome might have been different had the actions leading up to it occurred at a different time. No way to tell, and I don't suppose it matters much one way or the other. 12:47pm I took an early/long lunch and ventured into the Haight this morning, my eventual destination being Amoeba to get the new Manson album. (This was after seriously freaking out a security guard in the downstairs restroom. My mistake was to turn and look at him when he did the "Hey, you're in the wrong room" bit. Must remember: eye contact, bad. People catching glimpses of my back and shoulders as I rush past, good.) As far as the employees were concerned, I was probably just another pasty, black-lipsticked Mansonite coming out of the woodwork, the real deluge of which would arrive that afternoon after school let out. Not counting the ones who just got it on Napster, of course. Speaking of such things, I noticed one of the MP3 IS NOT A CRIME stickers on the register, except the it had been altered with a black marker to read PIS A RIM. Whether that was to provide a scatalogical chuckle for the employee or as a searing political statement against digital music worthy of Lars Ulrich, I can't say. If the latter, I wonder if they remember Garth Brooks' less successful crusade against stores that sell used CDs in the early nineties. In a lot of ways, it's the same as the current battle against digital music: the fear of the record companies losing profits.
If nothing else, I was spreading the wealth around. Nothing/Interscope's shareholders got paid because I bought
Holy Wood new, and Amoeba can continue to pay the rent since I bought Nurse With Wound's The Sylvie and Babs
Hi-Fi Companion and the Crumb soundtrack used. And, if I don't have to rebuild my OS from scratch (Safe
Mode, don't fail me now), the two extra tracks from the double-priced Japanese import version of Holy Wood are
waiting on my computer at home. Capitalism rolls on.
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Monday, 13 November 2000 (the mercy seat) 7:24am There will be no heroes to emerge from what's happening in Florida right now, at least from a partisan standpoint. Both sides are showing their true colors, and it's quite ugly. Makes me glad I didn't vote for either of them.
I did, however, see an interesting poll on CNN last night. Of people who didn't vote at all,
66% of them now wish they had. To quote Maddy, "Well, waaah!"
Anyway, after the taqueria we hit the comic book store. As always, I'm a sucker for a bargain shelf, as I
left with The Blair Witch Dossier, The
Crow: Flesh & Blood (oh, yum), and The Birth of Heroin and the Demonization of the Dope Fiend. Maddy was also kind enough to swing by City Lights on Friday and
get me Blue Paige, which I'd successfully talked myself out of buying. You'd almost think I have time to read, which I don't. But if I ever
do again, by gawd, I'm ready for it.
Of course, right now drugs are the Great Evil. A century or two back, the crusade likely would have been to keep kids (and adults) from masturbating, which is how
we got graham crackers. It was hoped the purity of the ingredients and the physical act of their consumption (since, after all, you need both hands
to eat graham crackers) would keep one from exploring one's naughty bits. Which is why this
seemingly innocuous poem is so erotic: a young girl (is her last name "Wiggins" or "Higgins?") extolling the joy of eating graham crackers while living
in mortal fear of "a spankin' on my bottom?" Um...I'll be right back...
I don't know about tonight, though. I'm not sure if I'm in the mood for a slow, b&w German film with subtitles. It's nothing against slow or b&w films—if they ever bring back Eraserhead I'll probably try to catch every showing—or the subtitles. It's just that I'm either in the precisely right mood for it, or the precisely wrong one, and it would probably be better to err on the side of caution. Maybe we should go home and watch The Graduate on DVD. Seems a little safer. Or, I could just read. But what?
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Sunday, 12 November 2000 (what goes on) 4:18pm It is very, very difficult to get decent service when purchsing fish in this city. I don't know why, it just is.
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Saturday, 11 November 2000 (no love lost) 7:28pm Though I was cringing in fear as we entered the store this evening, it would appear that Petco has gotten the fucking hint and is no longer playing xmas music. The song when we entered was "Shiny Happy People," and even as a hardcore R.E.M. fan I don't much care for the song, it was a distinct improvement over the holiday dreck playing last time. Although the tank is now fully habitable, we didn't get any fish. There simply weren't any that we like, and we wanna do it right. Tomorrow we'll be going to a place in Chinatown, one that I ventured into during my travels earlier this week. A much wider selection, and some really beeeg fishies. Not that we'll be getting really beeeg one, but they're awfully neat. Maddy and I went to Rae's today. Though our attempts to help her braid her hair proved unsuccessful, she was still kind enough to make me a couple red "ponyfalls," big long attachable ponytails. They're seriously neat, and make me wish I was actually going to a club sometime in the near future. Barring that, there's always Thanksgiving. She also took my measurements, since it's been a while and I've lost a little weight. Chest: 40". Waist: 36". Hips: 39". All of which is good, I guess.
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