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Thursday, 30 November 2000 (a song for) 10:32am Finally, flu shots are being given today. Well, "given" is the wrong word since they aren't free, nor are the accompanying pnuemonia vaccinations. Color me red, but it seems wrong that disease innoculation is considered a privilege, not a right. Revolution! Revolution!
Meanwhile, I'm getting my shiny new work computer tomorrow. I guess I can't complain too
much about the system.
So said the nurse (I'm tempted to put that word inside scare quotes, but I won't) as she pulled the syringe from my shoulder rather abruptly. No more abruptly than she inserted it, I suppose, having barely dabbed my arm with alcohol before plunging it in. All things considered, it was one of my less pleasant needle experiences, reminiscent of the "dancing vein" from last year. Anyway, the way she said it I half-expected her voice to reverberate over a loudspeaker and sirens to start blaring. For the number of times I've had pointy things intentionally put into my flesh over the years, it's the first time I can think of offhand in which I started bleeding—at least, the first time in which bleeding wasn't the point (as opposed to drawing blood). She stuck a cotton ball on it, quite gingerly, but enough so that when she pulled it away I had several red tufts of cotton sticking to my arm. She then handed me another one and an alcohol swab, I got the distinct impression she was trying to keep the physical contact to a minimum. Ah, to hell with it. She was a "nurse," at best.
As I left, she said there was still some blood smeared on my arm. I told her that people would think it was just
another lunch hour for me. I didn't see any reason not to confirm her reaction to me, just a little.
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Wednesday, 29 November 2000 (no deeper blue) 7:24am So I dreamed last night that I happened to meet one of the more famous SRS surgeons on the west coast. I wasn't seeking him out, I just stumbled upon him through dream logic. He was played (so to speak) by Alan Arkin. For some reason, that was very comforting. 11:01am I've been craving sushi since last night. Instead I made the latest in a long line of beeg salads, since I already had the stuff and it was ostensibly healthier. Not sure how much longer I can hold out, or if I should even try.
I'm not checking the scale anymore, at least not until I can be reasonably sure that
it'll tell me something I want to hear. Seems fair, I think.
I don't know what I'm going to do for next month's picture, since I haven't seen any of myself in the last few months which I haven't loathed. (The picture above is a cheat, being one of the better from Paige's catalog shoot back in May.) (May 5, 2000. You remember that day, right? The planets aligned and the world ended.) My webcam hasn't been behaving, so I can't cheat and use one of those. Well, technically speaking I can, since it doesn't matter one way or the other. The silly little rules I've established exist in that nebulous area between "arbitrary" and "meaningless." For a while I'd had this notion of the pictures being like a visual record of my "progress," although a wholly inaccurate one because of the lack of consistency from month to month. Since they're almost always taken in different circumstances, lighting, etc. You see. I did notice something interesting the other day while looking through the October issue of Barbie Bazaar (not a magazine I usually look at, and for whatever's it worth I was reading Summer's copy, but the Addams Family-esque Barbie and Ken on the cover kinda did the trick): a really bad publicity picture of Carolyn Jones, Morticia from the original Addams Family series. Mind you, I'm not dissing her; she was quite beautiful. But, wow, it was an unflattering picture. Eventually I figured out why: in it, she has the same Nixonian jowl action so prominent in my October picture. I haven't seen it in any others of her, but in that one, it's quite noticeable. Her agent was not doing his job that day. It should be taken into account that since she was playing Morticia, Carolyn Jones was kinda by definition beautiful. Look at what it did for the otherwise unnerving Angelica Huston. (I'm going to reserve comment on Daryl Hannah.) Still, though, in the comedy-goth-goddess sweepstakes there are two other serious contenders. No, not Christina Ricci as Wednesday, because of her age at the time. I'd just as soon avoid even virtual charges of statutory rape, thank you very much. Rather, they're both blink-and-you-miss-them performances, which are often the best kind. The first is whoever played the original Lily Munster in the Munsters pilot. I don't know her name, and it isn't Yvonne DeCarlo. I've only ever seen her in the three or four seconds shown from the pilot in A&E's Fred Gwynne edition of Biography. By all means, check your local listings and set your VCR. You'll be glad you did. The other, which you're less likely to find on the air anytime soon, is Janeane Garofalo (hang on to something) on The Ben Stiller Show from 1992 as Juliette Lewis as a vampire in a spoof of Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, crossed with the Universal horror films of the 30s. (Got it?) Maddy and I were watching it on tape the other night, and though neither of us had been doing a very good job of hiding our fondness for Janeane, by that point we were reduced to pointing at the screen and whimpering. It was one of those perfect moments.
By the way, for as much as I liked The Ben Stiller Show, I find the idea of writing a graduate thesis on it a bit much. Then again, in college I wrote a paper drawing parallels between Luis Buñuel's
L' Âge D'or and Showgirls, so I guess I don't have room to talk. Then, as now, I was frequently at a loss for things to write about.
And there's a very good reason I didn't go to graduate school.
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Tuesday, 28 November 2000 (a far cry from dead) 7:27am I understand that language must evolve. Words change, meanings shift, and the proper spelling of a word is never entirely set in stone. When those things cease to happen, the language dies. Still, though: "lose" is spelled with one o, not two. "Lose" is a verb; "loose" is an adjective. Okay, it can be a verb—you loosen a bolt, for example—but if something disappears or goes away or is considered a failure, then you didn't loose it. You don't loose a battle or loose your keys or loose your religion. You lose them. To suggest that "loose" and "lose" are the same is like saying "tight" and "find" are the same. It just don't work that way.
Now, I am extremely prone to typographical errors, and I am not claiming to be a perfect speller. But this has
gone beyond simple misspelling. This is almost as bad as the abuse of the apostrophe.
Meanwhile, Dana's reached her breaking point and is strongly considering leaving San Francisco. I saw the same thing happen with
Tania, and I can't say I'm surprised to see it happening again. Nor can I blame her.
I'm not impatient by nature. If I have to wait for something, I'll wait for it, because it'll happen eventually. This came from an observation when I was younger that the excitement I might feel over, say, the impending new season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was often dulled by the fact that it would coincide with the new schoolyear. Christ. That'll really harsh your mellow. Might as well just relax and not stress too much about the passage of time. Except when it came to beginning hormones. I felt no small amount of anxiety about the fact that I was starting at 25. It was too damned late. HRT is at its most effective in the late teens and early 20s. Yeah, okay, so 25 is better than 30 or 40 (this is not ageism, it's a question of the long-term effects of testosterone on the body, not to mention socialization), but why couldn't I have gotten my shit together when I was 18 or 20? On some (many?) level(s?), I knew. It's just that the self-knowledge was seriously outgunned by the self-denial. So at 25 I started, consoled myself that the time was right, and went on about the business of deconstructing my life, confident that I was on the right track. Only to find at 27 that I didn't have quite the momentum necessary, owing to extreme imcompetence on the part of my mechanic. (Is this metaphor making a damn bit of sense?) Again, in fairness, it't not like I haven't made any progress at all. I just have to accept that I haven't made as much as I should have. And that it can't be changed. And that waiting a couple more weeks, or however much longer, isn't going to kill me.
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Monday, 27 November 2000 (hurry down doomsday) 9:35am Whatever happened to Jill Schoelen? 4:00pm Turns out my little Palm project has been wreaking havoc with our servers, throwing off the all-important numbers as the people who've bothered to install it re-sync. It's causing the numbers to be inflated, "sometimes by hundreds of thousands." Which isn't as impressive as it sounds (the Palm thing is 50 pages, meaning that only 1/50 of those "hundreds of thousands" are individual syncs), but still not bad. I've moved it to a different place on the server where it won't cause as much trouble, and hopefully, I'll be able to use this as leverage. Obviously, the project wasn't a total waste of time. 4:38pm OmigodomigodomiGAWD, Robert Tilton is back on the air! For some of us, that's as wonderful the return of the aformentioned Jill would be. (If you followed low-budget horror movies in the early nineties, you miss her as much as I do.) And, weirdly, enough, his program Success-N-Life is on Black Entertainment Television, of all places, at four in the morning. There's as good a reason as any to get up early.
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Sunday, 26 November 2000 (did she jump or was she pushed) 2:16pm Wow, that was quick: I'm back up to 200. Maybe the eight-pound rule is true.
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Saturday, 25 November 2000 (sine qua non) 9:23pm When I arrived at my zapping appointment this afternoon, a nasty surprise was waiting for me: the stereo with the CD player was broken. Oh, he had another one with a tape deck and a turntable (!), but no CD player. I so wish he'd told me that on the phone when I made the appointment, but I suppose it's possible it was still working at the time. I'd taken the bus out there, so I promptly went to a phone and begged Maddy to dare the Bay Bridge and join us, with her boombox in tow. She was only too happy to oblige. In addition to the non-recommended dosages of prescription and/or over-the-counter substances I ingest to help me get through a session, music is very important to process. More specifically, music I've chosen. We all have our own ways of dealing with pain, and that's mine. (Yes, along with the Green Death and the vicodin.) The session lasted four hours, and I think he got most everything; he left some of the upper lip hair for fear of scarring, and I can appreciate that. (I'm trying to be not quite so demanding about it as before, since there is definite scarring around the corners of my mouth now. Whoops. That's what I get.) I told him about my recent changing of endocrinologists in midstream, and he was practically shocked by my testosterone levels. He said that at least now he had a better idea of why the electro is taking so long. It's never a fast process, but I should be showing more progress than I have been. Now, I tend to take things he tells me with a grain or salt or two, but he essentially confimed what my new endoc told me. Was I merely too trusting of my old endoc, which I suppose it forgivable, or mind-bogglingly naive? It's spilt milk, I realize that, but...damnit...
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Friday, 24 November 2000 (estate sale) 11:49am The conventional wisdom, as I understand it, is that one gains about eight pounds over the holidays. My theory is it's a result not of the holiday meals, but the road food. We left town at around 8pm, and didn't hit Gilroy until 10pm. To those who know anything about driving in the Bay Area, that means the traffic was horrendous, so much so that we decided to wait in a truck stop until it cleared up. I had one of the better quesdillas I've come across in a while, thus restoring my faith in the abilities of the American redneck to make decent Mexican food. I suppose it makes sense that it would be better in California than in Kansas. I'd originally intended it to be an appetizer, prelude to pigout, but it didn't happen. Just as well, since it still had more saturated fat than I typically eat in a week.
The number of cars passing per second finally dropped to an acceptable level around 11pm,
and we headed out. Still didn't make it into Fresno until 2:30am (not 1:30am, it turns out),
and we were back home again in twenty-four hours. Holiday travel done right.
My mom seemed a little shocked this weekend when I mentioned that I not only love sushi, but I frequently crave it. That's one of the relatively few things she was shocked by, though. She didn't seem to mind my hair or the way I was dressed, which was probably as skin-tight as I've ever been around my family. At the very least, the changes in the shape of my body were hard to miss. My younger niece saw me last year so she wasn't too surprised by anything, although it was the first time the older has seen me since at least '98. Interestingly, her immediate reaction was, "Wow, you're tall!" I'm no taller now than i've been in at least ten years, although she's of course grown quite a bit in that time. (I'm embarrassed to say, I don't know exactly how old my nieces are. 15 and 17, I think.) I suppose it's because I'm thinner than the last time she saw me, and as such I might appear taller. Perspectives, and stuff. The younger seemed to like my clothes, especially my buetz and my jacket. We also discovered that we have the same fishnet shirt from Hot Topic. (Either I'm doing something very right or she's doing something very wrong.) All in all, I doubt my presence was a big deal to them one way or the other. At the most, I'll probably give them something to add to when conversation with their friends turns to either queers or weird relatives in general. The uncle who's getting a sex-change. Doesn't every teenager have one these days? Really, the heavier drama was the fact that they were in the same place as their father Tom, surely the first time that's happened in years. Despite my mother's protestations when i changed my hair a few years back, nothing I could possibly do can compare with the impact he's had on the family. And, happily, there didn't seem to be any tension between Tom and I. If he thinks I'm going to hell for my sins, he kept it to himself. That's all I can ask. And I have to give my mother a great deal of credit: she was making an obvious (but not overly) effort to use the female pronoun and call me "Sherilyn." The one time she slipped she apologized profusely, and I assured her she didn't need to worry. After twenty-odd years, she can take a little more time to adjust if she needs it. Uncommon for a holiday, my father was in town. Didn't go see him, though, primarily because he was hosting his wife's family for Thanksgiving. Not the best time for whatever might happen when he finally sees me in person. I mean, I'm sure it won't be horrible, but still, tact demanded that I keep my distance.
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Thursday, 23 November 2000 (i ain't marchin' anymore) 4:19pm Oh, man. How long do you have to be away from Fresno to forget that you do not get a room at the Motel Six at Blackstone and Griffith, unless you're looking to buy drugs? Six years, apparently. I swear, it was like sleeping in a haunted house. At half past one in the morning no fewer than three sets of eyes followed me from the car to the lobby, and the person ahead of me in line looked at me and said, "You're not from around here, are you?" (I informed him that I grew up in Fresno, but still: when you're getting a room at a motel the night before a major holiday and attention is called to the fact that you look like you're from out of town, something ain't quite right.) Two more people were loitering around outside as we walked to our room. Maddy was too tired to care one way or the other, and slept accordingly. Me, not quite so much. We technically have the room until tomorrow, but I don't care. We're heading home tonight. To beat the holiday traffic, you understand.
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Wednesday, 22 November 2000 (complicated shadows) 9:18am Well, I guess that settles that. I'm back. The fever is gone—in retrospect, the worst of it was probably on Sunday and Monday—and my stomach is better, though still not happy with me. At least I know where the clean, 24-hour rest stops are between San Francisco and Fresno, so I should survive the trip tonight. It's not uncommon for the president of the company to announce of days before holidays (especially those holidays typically involving travel) to announce that people can leave early if they want, and it's even less uncommon for The Den Mother to immediately follow it up to us by saying that we need to check with her first. So, you know, like, whatever.
The main reason I'm hoping for such an announcement is so that Maddy can make it to San Rafael early
in the afternoon. (We've been catsitting for Summer, who's discovered the perfect way to deal with the
Thanksgiving madness: spend it in South America. No fool, she.) Otherwise, we'll have to go later
in the evening after the regular commute traffic has thinned out, let alone the holiday traffic. Only
after that's done can we leave town, although I hadn't planned on leaving town until late anyway. Ugh.
It all makes me wish I was still sick. Sick enough, anyway.
LndngOnWtr: I put a blacklight in my desk lamp. My eyes have been sensitive to light recently, and the overheads do the job nicely.Reading it now, it doesn't feel like me. Some of my frustration was genuine—he did have a tendency to tease me at the wrong times, especially regarding the silly goth thing I'd very recently gotten into—but I had no excuse for tearing into him the way I did. Between the stress of the breakup and the hormones starting to kick in, I pretty much lost it. I apologized to him a couple days later, he accepted the apology. Burnout was originally going to go the show with us that night, but after my outburst he cancelled (understandably), so it was just The Ex and I. This was probably not the wisest arrangement, as once we left the apartment we seemed to waste no time in beginning to snipe at each other. Typical "you did this wrong/yeah but you did this wrong" relationship post-mortem stuff, arguably a healthy process, but the at the wrong time and place. We were at least able to behave ourselves when Jonathan actually came on, and always he put on a great show, but we left by the end of his first set. Our fuses were both so short by that point, it seemed wiser to just go home so we could at least contain the inevitable explosion. I'm expecting things to go better this time.
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Tuesday, 21 November 2000 (the other end of the telescope) 9:26am "Um, yes, I have an appointment with Anodyne." "Your name?" "Sherilyn." A pause. "Excuse me?" "Sherilyn." Another pause, and a very confused look. "Shirley?" A bit louder. "Sherilyn." "Sharon." Slowly, deliberately, aware that many sets of eyes are on us. "Sher-i-lyn." "Sherilyn. Okay. Go ahead and take a seat." As we walk away, over the loudspeaker: "Anodyne, Shirley is waiting for you."
On some level, it's very funny.
So...I guess...this means...I'm going...to Fresno. And to work. (Not necessarily in that order.) I may be jumping the gun a little bit as to my wellness, but I suppose I'll find out tomorrow morning.
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