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Thursday, 29 November 2001 (behind the rainbow) 3:20pm The phone hasn't rang today. I'm not expecting it to. The phone bill arrived, however. In spite of my best efforts, they continue to charge us for services we don't use, their clever tactic being either not cancelling them like I've requested or cancelling them but balancing it out by adding on a different service. I also wouldn't rule out the possibility that the low-energry employees they have answering the phones are simply that incompetent. And, of course, the name change hasn't shown up on the bill yet, resulting in a bit of awkwardness when I called to (once again) try to fix things. Since it's still under the old name, I got sir'd and mister'd like crazy. It was difficult keeping from asking them to please stop doing that, and in any event, it surely would have confused them. But there's good in the world, too. After getting off the phone with the phone company and downing two bowls of cereal to bury the frustration, I put on KFJC. Robert Rich, the ambient artist whose music took us through our 'shroom trip last month, was on the air. They were playing some new stuff and talking about a show he's doing next month at the Morrison Planetarium in Golden Gate Park, one which I'd pretty much written off for financial reasons. (Same as with an eels show next week.) They had a pair of tickets to give away, but rather than just do the boring nth caller thing, the tickets would go to whoever could best describe what "glurp" means. It's a word which is in Rich's lexicon regarding his music, but they wanted the most creative answer. Creative, nothing. I know good and well what glurp is. I called and, feeling a little nervous when the DJ Nozmo King handed the phone over to Rich, explained that it's a sound Oscar makes. Which is true in a onomatopoeic sense; every so often, Oscar will...well, he'll glurp. It's the only word that fits. Rich liked my answer, and I won the tickets. That was all off the air, thankfully. When they came back on, Nozmo announced that they had a winner, Sherilyn (pronounced correctly!) in the 415 area code. Rich said that he'd almost went with the caller before, who said glurp was "the distance between two ideas." Which was plenty creative, but he liked my answer the best, which he paraphrased as being "An onomateopic description of a biological sound, a gurgling noise her cat makes." He also added, "She nailed it." (I'd given the sleeping Oscar many hugs since I'd gotten off the phone, and he then received another.) They then proceeded to waste valuable minutes of college radio airtime discussing how much they loved cats, with Rich talking about his which had just passed away and Nozmo waxing on their "unlimited capacity for forgiveness." I couldn't have been more proud.
Oh, the phone did eventually ring, but they didn't leave a message. (To answer the obvious
question, because the caller ID which PacBell tried to convince me I didn't actually have
listed the number as "unavailable," and I really didn't have the energy to deal with what
was almost certainly a telemarketer. My throat nearly went sore earlier from having to
say "No thank you" to every useless service PB tried to shove down it.)
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Wednesday, 28 November 2001 (nyquist oxide) 8:50am I'm going to my speech therapist's office this morning to work alone. Terri has elected not to join me anymore, since previous attempts didn't go very well: last week I arrived half an hour late and she'd already left, the previous week she was ill, and the week before that I'd forgotten the notes on the software and we weren't able to calibrate it properly. I feel a little guilty about it, particularly since two of the three times it was my fault, but her decision is understandable.
I haven't heard back about the interview last week. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to
be officially nervous about it. (No, really.)
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Monday, 26 November 2001 (hellinahat) 4:57pm My big plan this morning was to make my eventual return to the gym. It got sidetracked by what seemed like a more worthy plan, to call around and get my name changed on my bills. The phone, cable and trash companies are all taken care of. I was actually just following up with the phone company, since I'd originally called them last week and they'd asked me to fax in copies of my new DL license and SSN card. I'd never gotten any kind of acknowledgement that it had gone through, so I was doublechecking. Which was fine by them, since it gave them an opportunity to ask me to switch to a more expensive service, one which we'd detangled ourselves from a few months back. The cable company didn't require any kind of extra proof, though they guy I spoke to was terribly curious. Before he brought up my account, he asked if I was changing my name because I'd gotten married. I took that to mean he hadn't read my voice, since it's still uncommon for men to change their names after getting married. When my birth name came up, but before I told him my name, he asked (jokingly, I think) what was wrong with Jeffrey Connelly, which is a "perfectly good name." Rather than pointing out that it was none of his business, I said that it didn't reflect who I was anymore, which is true. Then the biggie: "Have you gone all the way?" He asked it in a very genial fashion, which didn't make it any less obtrusive. "Depends on how you define going all the way," I replied. Until that point I'd been sitting down, and I suddenly shot to my feet and began pacing, as is my wont when I'm nervous on the phone. (During the interview last week, I practically wore a trench into the floor.) He laughed and said I knew what he meant. The next question would probably involve my clothes. In what approximated an attempt to be coy, I said that I'd changed my name with the DMV and Social Security Administration, and beyond that, I like to keep a few mysteries. He laughed again and seemed satisfied with the answer. He confirmed that I was going by "Miss," in spite of the fact that there hadn't previously been a title on my bill. I guess there will be now. The only problem with the trash company was getting them to spell my name right; for some reason it kept coming out as "Sherilwn." At least it's an original misspelling. Next up is the car registration and insurance. That's for tomorrow. I received my new ATM card, but naturally I had to go to the bank itself to get the PIN activated. Afterwards, for want of anything better to do, I headed across the street and went into Tower Records. Wasn't planning on buying anything, and I wasn't even necessarily in a browsing mood. I was just nearby, so I went in. Now, I'm not saying I'm above or superior to mainstream pop culture—we've been thoroughly enjoying Buffy lately, and I'm sticking with Enterprise in spite of myself—but, my god, it's like a vision of the inferno. I just don't get most of what's out there. Then again, I don't suppose it gets me.
J.T. LeRoy
was interviewed on Fresh Air this morning. I read his autobiographical novel Sarah,
about an androgynous twelve year-old boy working as a tranny prostitute recently, and
while it was kinda tough to get through I'm glad I did, especially because Gus Van Sant
is going to be filming it. Anyway, based on his voice, I never would have guessed
he was a boy. (By his own admission, he's not entirely sure what side of the fence
he'll end up. To use that particular metaphor.) I guess it helps when as a six year-old
your mother is passing you off as her younger sister. I'm not jealous, exactly, but hey,
it's an advantage.
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Sunday, 25 November 2001 (zeroes) 5:15pm I'm lead to believe it's been stormy outside the last few days. Can't say for sure, because except for a short trip out yesterday afternoon to hit the drugstore and get new rice and seaweed, we've pretty much been holed up in the apartment. I am so so so glad we decided to drive back on Friday afternoon. Now we just have to work out the timing in the other direction.
In spite of the cheese influx (and other little bits like the pumpkin pie we had back at my mom's after dinner, or the fabulously
greasy french fries at Casa de Coffee), my weight seems to be holding steady around 168. Not that I pay attention to the numbers. My legs have been starting to feel a little sore, which I can only attribute to
atrophy, since I haven't properly worked out in weeks.
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Friday, 23 November 2001 (can odyssey) 10:12pm It was a swell plan, and would have worked like a charm except for the fact that this is a nation of idiots, and as such many of my fellow countrypeople decided to drive rather than risk the scary terrorist-infested airlines. Since you can't possibly get on a plane these days without it being hijacked and crashed into a building. Utterly chronic problem, don't'cha know. The normally two to three hour drive to Fresno took five, with an entire hour spent crawling between Gilroy and Hollister, a twenty-minute jaunt before anyone had heard of Osama bin Laden. Admittedly, the entire trip was actually a little shorter than last year, but damnit, it was supposed to take practically no time at all, being Thanksgiving morning. Grrr, and stuff. And, unfortunately, by the home stretch we'd both gotten a tad grouchy. We'd stopped in Gilroy and ate at the same truck stop as last year, and made a terrifying discovery: the quesadillas which kicked so much ass before before really aren't very good at all. We briefly considered that maybe they'd changed their recipe, but that's unlikely. More probable is that our tastes have changed significantly. That a quesadilla fried in butter and filled with either Velveeta or Kraft slices (couldn't quite place it) did little more than upset our stomachs is probably a good sign. In bowing to the realities of road food and holiday dining, I've probably eaten more cheese in the last 36 hours than I have in the last three months, or will again until xmas. Unsurprisingly, my mom was unable to find any "ethnic" restaurants (she expanded her search to include Italian, Mexican and Thai) open on Thanksgiving, and we wound up at Black Angus. Steakhouses aren't exactly at the top of my list these days, but that particular place does have a certain sentimental value, as it's where we'd gone for that holiday in the late nineties before Earl came along and decided he didn't like our tradition. Anyway, they claim the Cheesy Garlic Bread is merely composed of "French bread, creamy garlic, and Cheddar, Parmesan and Jack cheeses," but that's only because they'd get in trouble if they mentioned the heroin. It's the same problem King Yen has with their hot & sour soup. For the actual entree (good god, am I still talking about food?) the others insisted on getting turkey, but I went for salmon and shrimp, discovering that it came with red potatoes and broccoli. It almost felt like I was back home. Next time I'll have to see if I can just get the potatoes and broccoli. And, as long as I'm obsessing on the amount of cheese I ate, at lunch this afternoon with my dad I had a vegetarian patty melt, ergo swiss cheese was involved. I think that covers it all, and hopefully Courtney will forgive me, considering the circumstances. Never did hook up with Danny (or make it out to Livingstone's), and of course the other siblings were nowhere to be found. We racked up a whole bunch of Good Kid Karma, I suspect. A bit of advice, though: if you're given a choice of watching Meet the Parents and The Matchmaker, go for the latter. I haven't seen it, but it has Janeane Garofalo and can't possibly be worse than the former. That piece of shit grossed $166M? I'd ask what modern movies are coming to, but I'm not so naive. They're already there. My mom has switched to AOL and moved the computer into her bedroom, meaning no more access to this account (AOL claims it's compatible with telnet, but it doesn't quite work in practice) and net access at all only when she's awake. And yet I'm trying to convince myself to start visiting more often. It'll probably build character. Thursday was mainly about being with my mom, and Friday we had lunch and generally hung out with my dad. Beforehand, though, we braved the mall to see if the Hot Topic there had a particular Emily sweater in Maddy's size. A mall in Fresno on the busiest shopping day of the year—it was almost too scary to resist, and going through a place like that felt like an important test to me. If I got any odd looks for reasons beyond the fact that I'm tall and the girl I was with had blue bangs, I really didn't notice. I was even wearing a short pleated skirt, though I opted for black leggings rather than stripeys. No point in drawing unnecessary attention to myself. Though, again, I'm 6'1" and my companion has blue hair. Yeah, I'm real stealthy. When my father answered the door, I couldn't help noticing him look me up and down a couple times. There was nothing particularly lecherous about it, but I also know he's always had something of a wandering eye. All things considered, though, he seems to be handling this new paradigm fairly well. I'd like to think it's because when he looks at me sees someone who, however foreign their "lifestyle choices" may be to him, seems to have their shit together. I come across to him as intelligent and emotionally stable. And, entries like this one notwithstanding, I rather think I am. (It has been suggested that as a side effect of being a tranny I must be nuts, too. I used to think it worked that way—The Other was so far off her rocker it was collecting dust—but I don't anymore.) After we ate lunch, I availed myself of his typewriter, an archaic yet strangely satisfying technology—it must be great to compose on one—to fill out a Declaration of Legal Name Change, a document which should look legal enough to satisfy those who don't think my name on my DL and SSN card are sufficient. And it's a whole lot cheaper than going through the courts. I may not need it at all, but it'll be nice to have. I was a little surprised when I told him about it and he pretty much just nodded. Like most fathers, usually he has an opinion on all things legal. He probably just figured he was out of his league, and that if I felt this was the right thing to do then it must be. My mother would chalk it up to an inability to see past the end of his own nose, and sometimes I think that's the case, but it's awful nice not to have him fight me on any level, to tacitly support me. Still hasn't quite gotten the pronouns correct, but that's tough for everyone. It also didn't help that we talked a lot about when I was a kid, and I'm not about to insist that anyone refer me as "she" when I was an eight year-old. I'll leave that sort of historical revisionism to Maggie. For better or worse, I started out as a boy, and there isn't much I can do to change that. A boy whom upon seeing the cover of Olivia Newton-John's Soul Kiss began to get even more uncertain about his self-image than he already was, but a boy nonetheless. And, based on pictures he showed me, one who was kinda cute in that young boy way which I am of course meaning in the completely and utterly nonsexual sense, thankyouVERYmuch. It all went downhill for me once I hit puberty and began to grow facial hair, but that almost goes without saying, doesn't it? At the wedding, someone asked jonco why he wore a beard; he said that if he didn't he'd look too babyfaced and nobody would take him seriously. It's genetic, and I guess in my case it works. So, overall, the holiday wasn't as hellish as I was expecting. Now to start fretting about xmas. (What, me learn?) I was eating frosted mini-wheats out of the box as I wrote much of this. I think it explains a lot. |
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