I am alive! And significantly altered on left-over wine on a Monday night. But what the fuck. I’m 49 and working in an absurdly easy job until my youngest graduates from high school. In the river of life this is a long back-eddy, Mercury in retrograde, whatever. Moving backwards to move forwards. Backwards! (Onwards.)
Being interviewed at L.L. Bean was a surreal experience. The dead faces, the exquisite cheerfulness. Do you realize I have never in my life worked for a corporation? Except that one summer between sophomore and junior year, when I worked for the Curry Company, renting rafts to tourists and making their camp beds in the back-country of Yosemite. It is so fucking odd to go into a place where a whole bunch of people are making good money subscribing to the imperative of a commercial myth. World Class Customer Service. Figuring out how to feel good about riding the cash cow, I call it. And if anyone from Bean reads this blog, my job chances will be fucked. So be it. No one is paying attention.
And hey, I’m provisionally second-job employed. Money does turn out to matter, when you don’t have enough of it. Beyond that, I read somewhere recently, once you’ve got enough to live on more doesn’t make you any happier. So how did dollars become the ultimate measure of success? Nothing else turns people into such craven grasping wretches...not sex, not love, not alcohol, not drugs, not the hope of fame, not the fear of death. From time to time I think, I never learned to care about money, I fucked up my life. And the rest of the time I think...what an incredible moment! What a fucking rush! Once safe housed fed, the greatest pleasure is just to be alive; the rest is meaningless quanta of difference. You drive a fancier car than me. So the fuck what. I got to work safely today, and home again too. That’s all that matters.
Oh, and connecting with another. That matters too. What were the most important parts of my day today? Talking to friends. Jessica. Jenny. Feeling those moments of sympatico, empathy, non-exclusive non-familial non-sexual love. You spoke to me, I heard you; I spoke, you heard. Thank you. I love you.
Except for me mentioning it in this sentence, nothing in this entry is particularly about being trans. Being trans doesn’t define me. If anything defines me, it is that I write. Go ahead, I dare you...read me. It’s like fucking, only more intimate.
In between the previous two paragraphs I checked my e-mail and read a post in the Facial Feminization Surgery Yahoo group, in which one trans woman advised another to go to Dr. Z if she wants to be made artifically stunning, and to go to Dr. D in Argentina if she wants a natural feminine version of her old face. If you weren’t beautiful before, she says, you won’t be after, just female you. And just like that, I long-term plan to get a Dr. D face. So, something trans after all.
Speaking of which, a friend taped my performance at the Femme Show for me and I put it on YouTube as a link you have to know to access. It so doesn’t suck, and I’m eager to share it with people, but I’ve kept it private out of concern that the wrong person at my son’s school might get ahold of it, and he would be embarrassed. but if you’d like to see it (and you don't go to Wells High School), let me know, and I’ll send you the link.
As part of an ongoing experiment the nub of which is to edit myself less the older I get, I’m posting this now.
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