Afterward, Vash picked me up (we're rehearsing in Berkeley) and we returned to her place. I hadn't expected to see her until the pony munch tonight, especially after we spent so much time together this past weekend, but she'd had a really rough day and didn't want to be alone, so I was more than happy to oblige.

Damn, but I was angry eight years ago. (And my landlords were not trying to screw me; the lease thing had been a typo on their part.)

I spent most of the evening at Java Beach, editing and re-editing the bits of the manuscript which I eventually sent to my friend, who may or may not then send it to her agent and/or some other connections. Something will happen, or it won't, and I have no expectations.

This morning, I met up with a guy who advertised a laptop-compatible sound card on Craigslist. It worked fine and dandy on his system, but not at all on mine. Windows acknowledged that I have a Card Bus slot, but not that a card was actually put into it. So I have a fracked headphone hack and card slot. Whee. Still need to focus on getting a new car at some point, too. I'm neglecting that in a big way.

The trip to work from there was an adventure, which I got to share partly (and quite unexpectedly) with Cindy and Johanna. Seems the commute sucked ass for everyone this morning, so I had plausible deniability for getting to work two hours late.

At lunch, I went around the corner to South Park for an impromptu picnic lunch Chicken John threw for his donors. (Twenty bucks through PayPal.) He was giving everyone yellow ribbons, and as I started to rather artlessly tie it on, a woman with long blonde hair and a casual-goth look not dissimilar to mine asked if I'd like her to "style it" for me. I said yes—grunted it, anyway, since I had one of Chicken's campaign posters in my teeth at that moment—and she tied it to the strap of my laptop bag in a much nicer bow than I ever could have.

She introduced herself as Dame Darcy. While I'm aware of her work I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm familiar with it, though I did establish that were were about a degree of separation away from each other by virtue of Poppy and, to a lesser extent, Caitlin. As is so often the case, the tricky part was establishing mutual friends without descending into Weaselboy-esque namedropping, which I find rather distasteful. Besides, my existence is neither verified nor justified by who I know. Anyway, we hung out for the rest of lunch, talking about various upcoming projects. She also said that when she first saw me, she thought I looked like I could have been her sister. High praise, indeed.

Tonight is the first Creepshow rehearsal. Though I know it'll be fun, I'm strangely ambivalent about it, leaning towards thoughts of i should be working! the book ain't gonna write itself! Which goes to show exactly why it's a good thing that I'm in the play: I need the distraction. (Because, what? My life is lacking in distractions otherwise?)

Ennui's boyfriend Jack wasn't home when we got back to their place. She wasn't sure where he was, but didn't seem too worried, either. He got home while we were asleep, and after we woke up but were still in bed—Ennui's bed, to be precise, Jack usually sleeps in another one—he said he was going to a bagel place down the street, and did we want anything? So he took our orders, and returned shortly thereafter with bagels and orange juice, which he served to us while we were still in bed. It's just how they roll.

I left after breakfast and went straight to the Sea Biscuit to write for a couple of hours. It was there that I accidentally brushed up against the headphone jack (with the headphones plugged in, natch) and heard and icky snapping sound. The jack had been dodgy for a while now, probably because it's been used daily for nearly a year now and wasn't built to last in the first place. Still, though. Ow. Fixing the jack itself would involve replacing the motherboard, also known as "buying a new laptop," so I'm on the hunt for a new PCMCIA soundcard. Because that's really what I need occupying my attention these days.

Vash joined me at the Black Light District later that afternoon, where we got ready for the big Open Studios private party thingy for which we were volunteering. The extent of the dress code was "classy, but something you can get messy." Which, to us, meant kitty ears. I also went with the tail, because, why do one if not the other? I figured they would either be nonplussed by how we were dressed, or they'd ask us to lose out the cat stuff.

As it turned out, we were a big hit. The organizers were thrilled with us, both because we added some color to what was otherwise a somewhat monochromatic event (the colorful art on the walls notwithstanding), and because both worked hard. We were mostly working for the caterer who didn't mind either. We started out serving hors d’oeuvres, which I hated, because it involved interrupting people and offering them stuff. That's way too much like flyering for me, even if the food was consierably tastier than the flyers. Thankfully, I was able to switch to bussing—carrying a tray around and picking up empty glasses and plates and stuff. That was much more fun, kinda like a sport, and best of all, relatively minimal humie contact. Sometimes I'd ask people if they were done with their stuff, and occasionally they'd get cranky if I tried to take things away too soon, but for the most part everyone was cool. Vash and I both oberved that some of the partygoers refused to acknowledge our presence at all, and it probably wasn't because the kitty ears spooked them. Good thing there's no such thing as class in America.

The animalishness continued on Sunday at the Castro Street Fair, where we were ponies in Anna Conda's Freakshow Petting Zoo. It was my first time ponying in public, or, really, at all; the ears Vash painted for me had only dried that morning. So, unlike the Dog and Pony Show or the Masturbate-a-Thon, which were relatively contained environments, this was very much leaping in headfirst and out in the open. I'm used to that sort of thing by now, though, and it was a lot of fun. It helped that we were in the genuinely queer part of the Fair, an area called Sugar Valley, where all the weirdos and freaks congregrate. This belies the fact that to the Norms, we're all freaks, and those of us who were being ponies are only a little more out there than the men who take it up the ass. But in this context we were the truly bizarre, and it was fascinating watching how conservative the average faggot can get confronted with such things. I have no idea what Larry Kramer would make of it, but I've decided that Harvey Milk would have approved.

We did that for about six hours—which is tiring, lemme tell ya—we made our way out of the still-bustling Fair and drove into the Mission. Though the occasional hairy eyeball was turned to us by some of the natives, one of the things I love about San Francisco is that we were able to walk from The Dark Room to 16th & Guerrero and back with our ears and tails on, and nobody really cared. It's just what streetlife is like. I kept the ears and tail on during Bad Movie Night, and why not? (I also had my bit hanging from my belt; I'd worn it for a little while at the Fair, but if there's a way not to drool copiously with it on, I haven't figured it out. But I'm still new.) It's my show, everyone involves accepts me for whatever the hell it is I am, and it does nobody any harm. Which is more than I can say for the evening's feature, The Fog. I love the original and hold no ill will towards the concept of remakes (as I try to establish in my writeup about this month's theme), but this movie just pissed me off. I felt like it had something against me personally, and was taking it out on everyone. But I had Steven Leyba there as a new co-host and Vash next to me for the latter half of the film, so we survived.

This week, things speed up. A lot.

Oh, swell. I broke the headphone jack on my laptop. I only use the jack every time I write. Terrific.

Tonight, Ennui and I are going to the Found Footage Festival.

Anyway, it was fascinating to watch Vash's reactions to my doctor, she found his beside manner and overall attitude to be just as appalling as I'd described, perhaps even moreso. She was particularly bothered by his question about my sex drive; she knew he focused on it based on his archaic belief that a "true" transsexual is horribly troubled by their sexuality, but it was disturbing for her to witness all the same. I held fast regarding his latest attempt to reduce my estrogen levels. No, no, no. Not unless the bloodwork shows it needs to be done, and thus far it hasn't, and quite frankly, I'm not putting myself through it otherwise. If something does go wrong and his repeated "no reputable doctor" threat comes to pass, well, I'll just go to an unreputable one.

From there, we went to SomArts for volunteer training; Vash and I are going to be foodrunners (meaning we run food) at a big private gala thingy for Open Studios this Saturday. We've decided we'll both be wearing kitty ears. (As opposed to Sunday at the Castro Street Fair, where we'll both be wearing pony ears.)

After the meeting we went to the sushi place in Pacifica and ordered way too much food, but ate most of it, then returned to the Black Light District. We engaged in some of the best and most reassuring processing in a long, long time, then crashed.

Earlier today at the library, I got the book of Spadling's Swimming to Cambodia (which was on hold), and after poking around the biography section I wound up with Naked by David Sedaris and Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years: A Memoir by Diane DiPrima. The latter is someone I've heard of but am not familiar with, but I figure it's high time that I get to know her work, especially given that I'm back-to-back with her in It's So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. I know enough to know that I'm in very good company.

The overall lineup, in the order the pieces are printed in the book, is: Michelle Tea (duh), Sandra Tsing Loh, Felicia Luna Lemus, Cintra Wilson, Jill Soloway, Laura Fraser, Frances Varian, Cookie Woolner, Parisa Parnian, Adele Bertei, Beth Lisick, Ali Liebegott, Mary Woronov, Nicole J. Georges, Chelsea Starr, Trina Robbins, Diane DiPrima, Sherilyn Connelly (!), Laurie Stone, Jewelle Gomez, Ellen Forney, Samara Halperin, Jenny Shimizu, Dexter Flowers, Eileen Myles, Silja J. A. Talvi, Tara Jepsen, Kim Gordon, Kat Marie Yoas, Kate Bornstein, Cindy M. Emch (yay!), Debbie Rasmussen, Mary Christmas, Meghan Ward, Jennifer Blowdryer, and Rhiannon Argo. Now that's a goddamned book.

sometime after midnight

After my car failed its smog test once again, I went to Mission Creek and wrote for a couple hours while waiting for Jarboe. We had coffee and then dinner at the Ethiopian place down the block, after which I dropped her off at her place with a promise to play hooky together sometime. (you are a cat!) From there, I went to the twenty-four hour Starbucks in Laurel Heights to get more work done.