GenderBendy

Quasi-spousal musings

I have a fantasy which breaks taboos central to all the families and cultural circles in which I have ever lived. To indulge in this fantasy makes me feel transgressive and afraid, because it involves desires of which, from earliest childhood on, I have been taught to feel ashamed. It also makes me cry, because I've wanted it so hopelessly for so long.

My fantasy goes like this: there's a man (or otherwise masculine person) in the other room, reading the newspaper. I am in the kitchen, making a cup of coffee for him, the way I know he likes it. I bring it in and put it on the little table by his elbow. He looks up at me and smiles and gives my hand a squeeze and says, "Thank you, my dear." I smile back and lean down for a kiss. Then I go back in the kitchen and continue cooking brunch.

Whoop whoop whoop! Feminist, queer (in the man version, anyway), and anti-conventional alarms all going off! But there it is: sometimes I think I might just like to be (except for the married part, probably) somebody's wife.

Hey, it's not bad to do sweet little things for someone you care about, even if it does look like serving them. I can't believe I have to assert that, but such has been my upbringing and my romantic history to date.

Also, I will say in my defense that this imaginary perfect husband of mine is not my lord and master. He's my partner. A minute after the above scenario ends he gets up and comes in and chops veggies for the omelets I'm making for us both. Later on we'll work in the garden together - he'll heft the flagstones I can no longer heft (my hero!). Later on again we'll have friends over for a dinner we both cook. Later on again there will be, as Joni Mitchell puts it, so much sweetness in the dark. And through it all (so my fantasy goes) he cherishes me, telling me again and again in whatever ways come naturally to him that to him I am the most beautiful, most desirable woman in the world.

In short, he is a gentleman, I am his lady, and we are in love with each other. Isn't that a pretty fantasy?

Even if I was done I fear my dreamboat will be hard to find, and I'm not done. Here's the really tricky part: this paragon is also going to have to be at ease with the fact that for nearly half a century I had a male body and lived as a man. He can't love me because of it, though...although I guess it will be OK if he appreciates my history and struggle - how could that not be part of it? (I honestly can't see yet how this part works.) In any case, he can't ever want me to be a man again, not even for one second. And he's going to have to have the patience, creativity, insight, and wit to figure out how to love a woman who for the first fifty years of her life has only ever had secret crushes. I am so inexperienced and so very skittish. Loving me will be a challenge, a conundrum, and a gamble.

Yeah, a gamble; because I do think there is a payoff. I happen to think that I have some truly out-of-the-ordinary, extraordinary love to offer to the right person - to a smart secure sympatico grownup with unconventional and discriminating taste. If you appreciate natural femininity, you'd have to look a long time to find a woman more on-purpose and joyful about her femininity than I am. There's also all this devotion I've been saving up in my secret girl heart for all these years: first-love intensity aged through long but undaunted adversity, then sparked to effervescent life by the miracle of midlife revelation and release. Some lucky someone is going to give me that first kiss. (Or, nearly first...first since the surgery. Too bad, Jasper dear, we turned out to be so romantically incompatible.) That and what follows could be fucking intense, for both of us.

Another thought: I probably know more than any other woman you've ever been with about the burdens and paradoxes of being a masculine person in the world. Who better to appreciate your natural masculinity than someone who inhabited masculinity herself for four decades?

Besides which, you'll never anywhere find a finah desinah vaginah. You're going to have to not get your undies in a knot, though, if you can never beat me at chess.

All together, my love is a curious and rare vintage at long last come to maturity and ready for decanting. Could be vinegar, could be transcendent. I wonder if anyone I'd like to try it with might ever like to try it with me. Here's cautiously hoping...

Night thoughts

10p
"Bonne nuit," l'infirmière a dit. "Good night," said the nurse, making it a gentle teasing command as well as a courtesy, and she turned off all the lights and closed the door. The orderly tiptoed in five minutes later to empty the bulging catheter bag, as Lisa had expressed carefully light anxiety about its fullness to the nurse. She had learned fast to grab her chances to ask for what she needed and to do it in ways least likely to piss anyone off. The art of being a proactive patient...tonight it had also earned her oatmeal cookies for a bedtime snack, the time to brush and floss and have the kidney tray of spit be emptied after, a third pillow, and the hand-cranking of the old-fashioned hospital bed back to flat.
Lisa had also made the split-second decision to answer the "any pain?" question with a no, trading comfort for clarity of mind. Time for more one-finger typing - her chosen coping mechanism. But then, feeling sleep come on, she set the phone aside, confident that she would be awake again before daylight, and in fine condition to do justice to her chosen title.
***
1130p
Stent, dressing, drain, catheter, ice packs: like being fucked by a frozen robot. Lisa gave in and called for pills. Oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid with a moderate to high risk of dependency. So be it. The hard stuff while she could get it. Waiting for the warm wash of the drug she tried an experiment: nipples still wired to anything down there? They had been before, especially the right one...future lovers take note. Hmm...hard to tell so early, but not nothing. Definitely not nothing. Who said being fucked by a frozen robot couldn't be hot?
***
330a
Morphine dreams...Lisa jerked awake when she heard the patient in the next bed bark "house!", whatever sound she actually made. And she thought: so, I guess I'm really a woman now, huh?
No. Not in any way I was not before, anyway. In fact, since the operation I have been feeling more mannish than I have in years. I feel like Dave again. What the fuck is up with that?
Partly circumstance...the lack of opportunities, weirdly, to see myself in a mirror...unisex gown and the difficulty of shaving...being with a sister whom I see rarely enough that this is the first time I have felt that we were sisters together. But, also, now that it is absolutely clear that I am not and can never again be physically male, I feel free to act more male again. I was groping for this idea in my last post when I wrote about turning to the world with love in a new way.
I still plan to get the perm and second ear-piercings I planned for the weeks of recovery, both as treats and as visible signs of change to give folks something else to talk about besides my genitals. I'm not done playing with femme yet; but there may yet be stone-butch daddy times ahead too, or who knows what.
What I have done this week, it turns out, is engage in a radical gender-active form of body modification. The penis and testicles had to go. The new parts could turn out to be lots of fun, but they do *not* define me. Rather, they position me at a safe and natural starting place for further gender inquiry. If I am genderqueer, which is entirely possible, maybe the only reason I couldn't say so until now is because I needed to approach it from a fundamentally femme stance.
I am still so not done.

Garden vigor and chess aggression

...until I'm actually under the knife; fifteen until I leave for Montreal. Because of parenting arrangements my life runs on a two-week cycle, so tomorrow morning will be the beginning of the last cycle before I pack my required supplies, do one last compulsive check of my lists, unplug the electronics, crack the windows and lower the shades, give the cats one last scratch behind the ears, and then start driving through the Maine summer, west and north. 

The evidence is subjective, but I think I can feel the difference from having stopped hormones last week. Yesterday I went out to continue a big landscaping project, moving gravel, screening, putting down new ground cloth, putting the gravel back. I have been doing it in small steps because I keep getting tired, but this time I felt unusually strong, and kept going for close to an hour. Just a good day, or testosterone? Who knows. I have been exercising more again, so that could be why too.

It's also interesting to note that I enjoyed putting my boots on and feeling a little butch (in a lithe and slender way) as I clomped out to wield that shovel. Grrr-hunh! This may not relate to hormone levels, though, so much as to a returning sense of comfort with occasionally inhabiting slightly more masculine presentations again.

Then there was playing chess this morning. More often these days when I go to the site I just observe strong players - it's my form of TV sports. Today I played, and after the first few foggy-brain warm-up games, I start to feel intense about wanting to win. The computer matched me with a player with a much higher rating than mine, and I fought a long hard fight, trying to hang onto a draw; then, when he finally beat me, I immediately asked for another match, got someone slightly higher-rated, and in a sustained effort of concentration, crushed him. Then, just for good measure, I checkmated someone else. Then I had to walk around for a minute and work on unclenching my shoulders and jaw.

OK, so a couple of ways of feeling stronger and more masculine than I have in a long time. I confess I enjoyed them both, in a mixy conflicted way...but if they go away again, so be it.

Am I really really really sure I want to do this? It would cost me half of the surgery fees to bail now, but I still can. Really really really? Yup, really. Same answer every time. Of course I have doubts. Of course I am afraid. The deepest emotional note, though, has never varied: change or die. And hey, in between raging and mourning and wishing it would all just go away, I'm also having fun. Gender adventure ho! On into the unknown! She said manfully.

 

In suspense

...to go until surgery, and I hang suspended between an old unsustainable life and a new unguessable one. It’s a squirmy time, seldom comfortable, but I feel a deep sense of rightness. Yes, it is drastic what I am about to do, but it is the right choice for me. Or the right gamble: there is no way to know what it will be like until it is done, and once it’s done there’s no turning back.

I also hang suspended between two fundamental modes of sexuality - yang and yin, out and in. I have to stop taking hormones next week, so the accoutrement, which the estrogen has rendered more or less inert for the past two years, will be once again serviceable, and I could, if I wanted, try to find someone to help me take it for one last spin. Last chance to be the one with the phallus. I’ve thought of it more than once...but, nah. The last several times I tried it felt awful, and once I thought I was going to die. I’m already *so* done with that.

Then there is the other half: soon I will have a vagina. By fall sometime I will be allowed to seek a moment, if I want, where the other person is the one with the phallus, and I am the one with the yielding inwardness. I haven’t the least clue what that will be like. I think it might be wonderful, but I can’t imagine. I will own to a slow-waking but powerful curiosity.

What I’m mostly looking forward to is the end of certain ongoing outrages. I look forward to the eradication of the unsightly bulge. I look forward to arousal without tumescence. I look forward to the permanent decrease in testosterone level: my body may become softer still, curvier still; more body hair may melt away; my face may become a bit more feminine. Oh, yes please, to all of these.

With arrangements pretty much made for this surgery, the implacable wanting part of my mind stirs again, and I find myself at odd moments already mulling the next step - breast augmentation? Facial surgery? Which first? How soon? Want want want want.... Dysphoria: proof that something can be intensely uncomfortable and incredibly boring at the same time. No fucking fun. I'm re-instructing myself about how important it is to take it slow.

It’s odd how big this step turns out to be. Afterwards I won’t look any different clothed, which is all anyone has seen for the past few years. I won’t sound any different. My mind will be the same (I assume, mostly). My daily life should be pretty much the same. Not like changing my name and pronouns, which altered every single social interaction. So what’s the big deal?

Well, on the personal level, I will have abjured maleness forever, in a way I have not yet; and the strong sense I have had for the past few years of romance and sex being on hold will be gone. That should be interesting.

Beyond that, I wonder about further social change. It’s a running joke in trans circles how often people ask or seem to want to ask, “Have you had the surgery yet?” Let’s push past the assumption of casual nosy prurience for a minute and look harder at that: people really seem to care. I get this sense of blunt atavistic sexual dynamics moving under our civilized veneers - alpha and beta, dominance and submission, the fucking and fuckable. For better or worse I am transitioning publicly: people will know I no longer have a penis or testicles. It will be fascinating to see how I am treated and how I feel in the world when that is true.

There is a third level of change: what I will call, for lack of a better word, the spiritual. My spirituality is not God-centered; it is based rather on a vision of existence as an elusive ever-evolving mystery and joy and beauty blooming out of the tension and play between fundamental opposites: all the colors between black and white; the spiral between straight line and circle; the evanescent present between the lost past and unknowable future; mortal life between eternal being and nothingness. If I do have a concept of God it is of one single Particle of Being which traces an impossibly complex path at an impossible-to-conceive speed through the infinity of empty space, leaving behind the afterimage of all that is, including us - and then existence consists of the God-particle being both there and not there at every point at every time, in an all-encompassing dance of paradox.

In this spiritual view, masculinity and femininity can perhaps be seen as opposite sides in a human form of this cosmic dance, as a being and nothingness each of which yearns towards the other, defines the other, completes the other. I'm not sure I completely subscribe to this formulation; and I also wonder whether it matters, or even makes sense, to say which one one is. Still, it feels natural to me to approach the dance from a feeling of what I understand “yin” to mean, and I know that to do so brings me joy.

 

Maine's Transgender Revolution video

I'm turning 50 next Tuesday. If I figure out what that means, you can be sure I'll post about it. ;-)

In the meantime, video is now available online of a panel discussion I recently helped put together about the past, present, and future of the trans experience in Maine. The panel was presented by the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine on March 21st, 2012, on the USM Portland campus, and it went really well. My fellow panelists - Margaret Cook, Jamie-Lynn Emma Kane, and Alex Roan - were all excellent, sharing personal stories and general insights in a wide-ranging conversation which was variously funny, touching, profound, and inspirational. We also had some wonderful input from the audience.

Links:  Part One  Part Two

Brief personal viewing notes: I hate my voice still. I have *got* to do something about that. But, I thought I rocked the dress pretty well...panel day turned out to be the first really warm day of spring I anticipated in this post.

Anyway, if you decide to check any of the video out, happy viewing! :-)

Note to a male acquaintance

Dear Dick*,

Back when I was a man and we had conversations, I could tell from your body language, expressions, and responses that you were listening to me. You made eye contact, you nodded in comprehension, you smiled or laughed sometimes and looked thoughtful other times, and when it was your turn to speak you said things in response to what I had just said. We didn’t always agree, but we were exchanging content.

Now that I am a woman the balance of exchange when we talk is markedly different, because it is clear that you have stopped listening to me. When I speak your face goes blank and you stare away from me. I can practically see my words bouncing off your impervious brain. Then, when I am done, your face re-animates and you say whatever it was you were already planning to say at the end of your last statement. I hear little or nothing of what I have said reflected back to me, just your own opinions and conclusions. You interrupt me or talk over me more often, too.

The first few times you did this I was miffed, but also a little pleased, because I figured it meant you were really beginning to accept me as female. Now it just pisses me off. My physical presence and voice have changed, but I still have exactly the same mind. I can only conclude that your new disregard for what I say arises out of a general sense on your part that women have nothing useful to contribute.

Once when we were talking you interrupted me so many times that I got angry enough to say “Stop interrupting me.” You startled slightly, as though waking from a daydream, nodded as though I had said something interesting, said “Yeah,” and then went right on with what you had been saying before. You were play-acting the give and take of conversation, but you could only hear your own voice. You silenced me, you jerk.

I hope that when I was a man I never acted as superior, overbearing, or dismissive as you sometimes do to me. I don’t think so - I was raised a good feminist - but you never know. If I did, I apologize now to whomever I did it to. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how privileged I was and how entitled I was acting. Now I understand how belittling it is to be judged and dismissed by another. Now I have felt the powerless frustration of the ignored. It sucks.

I still like you OK, Dick. You have many fine qualities. We can still work together, banter about inconsequential things, whatever. But the funny thing is, my clear sense that you no longer respect me has made me lose respect for you. I find myself, quid pro quo, giving the things you say less weight in my mind. That’s sad and less than noble on my part, so I fight against the impulse...but not too hard. You started it, dear, and it hurts, the way you treat me.

There, I’ve had my vent and feel better. I would thank you for listening, but I don’t suppose you have. You seem really settled in to your habit of ignoring women. On the off chance that you have actually listened, I hope next time we talk you’ll actually listen to me again, the way you used to. I hope, but I’m not hopeful.

OK, Dick, see you around sometime.

~Lisa~

*A pseudonym for a composite of several men I know, all of whom have other names. I mention this because the one man I know who is actually named Dick still listens when I speak. If you are him reading this, Darling, it’s not you. :-)

That old male feeling

This morning I dreamed that my mother, alive again, had just survived an attack of acute appendicitis. My sister and brother and I flew to the hospital to see her. (In this dream I was a man again, as I still often am in dreams.) We found her in a wheelchair - in the gift shop, oddly - looking old and frail and grim. My sister greeted her, and my brother stood and was seen, but it was only when I knelt and she embraced me that she cried, and I knew it was because now that her eldest son was there to be strong for her, she could let go.

In this dream I again inhabited a specific psychological/emotional state which I used to experience all the time. In this state my shoulders, lower back, and jaw all clench slightly, not with anxiety, but readiness, and I feel tall and solid. Any sense of my own vulnerability or need goes away. I take a stoic breath and hold it, bracing to receive the impact of whatever hurt, my own or others’, I am about to absorb. And, I take a lofty detached pleasure in my own ability to endure. I feel noble.

I have always thought of this state as my personal version of the essence of maleness.

I think now it was this feeling I was referring to when, in the same journal entry back in November of ‘08 in which I first wrote “I just want to be a girl,” I also wrote “I am so sick of being strong.” I now read “sick of” not only as “weary of,” but also as “ailing on account of”, which provides another entry on the ever-growing list of possible answers to the question: why break free now, after so many years? How about, because I had played the selfless noble man role for so long that I was starting to die inside?

Yes. So, for the past three years I’ve rejected this noble man feeling as a part of an old bad way of living which was killing me.

But, I’ve also missed it. It was one of a small number of things I really liked, and which I thought was valuable, about being a man. Also, I have been struggling to find a definition of femininity which doesn't involve some form of weakness; but still, consumed as I have been by the crucial business of figuring out who I am as a woman, I had to push the man-feeling away.

Just recently, though, I have started to feel safe turning back toward that old male time and selectively reclaiming parts of it, and in that spirit I have been experimenting with reclaiming some form at least of that old sense of male strength. it’s more complicated, though, than just saying, OK, I’m calling that old mode "womanly" now. It’s not. Besides, there are aspects of who I have been becoming I definitely want to include in my revamped definition of strength: my impulse to nurture, my sense of resonating to the feelings of others like a sympathetic string, the way I’ve been able to let go into life as an emotional being...the power of flirting, even. These are forms of femininity which feel natural and good to me and which I plan to keep, thank you very much.

So, can one do both?

Well, the other day I was having a meeting with a volunteer at work, and for whatever reason she had a small emotional meltdown. Her lip began to tremble and the tears came. In response I felt that old noble tension come into my shoulders, that impulse to squelch my being and take her pain onto myself, whatever it was. I took the accustomed stoic breath...but then I let it out again. I’ve been practicing not holding my breath, and unclenching all those old male muscle groups too. “It’s OK, honey, I know how it is,” I said, which, by golly, I do. I melt down routinely now, every couple of weeks - usually in decorous private, but not always. I fetched her some tissues and then sat with her, breathing and relaxed, until she felt ready to go on. 

I found a hybrid strength and helped someone - yay! And, it didn’t cost me my soul. Does that sound melodramatic? Yeah, maybe...but if you can’t feel the truth behind it, you don’t understand trans. Change or die, literally or figuratively, my friend Dar said recently. Yeah, that’s right. Change or die. 

But, maybe, you don’t have to discard everything from that old life. Both-and, darling. These days I’m all about both-and.

Hey baby, click on me!

The feeling of wanting a special someone in my life has been building for a long time, and I guess with my surgery scheduled I could finally give myself permission to look, because earlier this week I went to Zoosk.com and submitted a “woman looking for men” profile. I picked Zoosk because of their hip young vibe, figuring they would be more accepting than the stodgy old established dating sites. This was my self-description:

Well, I'm trans. I hate to lead with that, because it is not nearly the most important thing about me, but I figure it's good to be clear from the start. In short, I was born with a male body and lived the first 46 years of my life as a man, but that was all a mistake and is in the past, and now I am totally grooving on living as the woman I was always supposed to be. (I am in the process of getting the male body issue fixed). Aside from that, I'm a non-profit manager with sidelines in writing and crossword-puzzle construction; I have two teenage children, one in college and one in high school; and my big project right now is to become fluent in French. I have a dream of moving to France someday for a while to teach English, so if we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, darling, you better be willing to travel... ;-) (Note: I'm curious whether the gatekeepers at Zoosk.com will allow me, an out trans woman, on their site. If you're reading this, they did, and good for them. But if you are the gatekeeper and you are about to reject my profile, shame on you.)

Yep, shame on them. Everything I entered was rejected with boilerplate e-mails citing “inappropriate content.” While deleting the last shreds of my profile I wrote in the “why are you leaving?” text box that I felt I had been discriminated against and would appreciate an e-mail back with an explanation of the rationale of their decision. No reply.

Next I went to match.com, whose services I had used when I was dating as a man looking for women. According to one ranking table I found they have the largest customer base of any dating site. Lo and behold, my profile, with the same descrip above, was accepted! Good for them.

In my first 24 hours my profile has been viewed 54 times, and I have been winked at about a dozen times.

It’s gratifying, of course, to be winked at, but I wonder if some of these guys have done anything more than glance at my headshot before they wink, because with about half of them when I clicked to view *their* profiles, they had become unavailable. I take that to mean they went back to learn who they had winked at, discovered I’m trans, and shut me out.

Yes, I am assuming rejection. I wish I wasn’t, but on the other hand, I already know from abundant experience how freaky my mere existence is for most men. Kinda cute, still has a penis...fuck fuck fuck, run screaming from the screen! Also, most of the guys who have winked at me live thousands of miles away. Tulsa? WTF? How did you even find me?

I’ve done some searching too, and winked at four guys, discovering in the process a little more about who I am looking for. All four sound cerebral, and look and/or sound unconventional and quirky; I detect humor and engagement with life in all of them; they can all spell and write; and they are all tall. This last is shallow, I know, but I *do* so enjoy feeling petite and svelte standing next to someone... :-p I sent one, a writer in Mass, a one-line e-mail, because some word-play in his profile made me smile. No answer so far, and no other e-mails.

So here I am, sweet 49 and never been kissed. I’m feeling vulnerable and tentative, but also curious and eager; and as with surgery, I hardly dare imagine how good it might be. I might discover, for the first time in my life, what love and sex are both really about...which would be terribly sad in a way, but which could also be fucking incredible.

Voice truth through comedy

Almost a month since I last posted. Sorry! It’s because of a big development still in process, which I’m not ready to write about. Soon. In the meantime, a reverie on performance and voice.

I posted back in early August about my first experience performing on stage - a monologue I presented as a guest in the Femme Show which came touring through from Boston. Well, tomorrow night, it’s stage two of my performance project: I’m trying out a completely new routine (this one for straight people) at the comedy open mic at Slainte in Portland.

I am so not nervous, which I love. Of course, as in the Femme Show, my heart will be beating as I step up, but there is none of the old male-era fear - just an eager hunger for the rush, the heightened awareness, the challenge.

Last month I went with my friend Jessica, who has comedy performance experience, to check out the venue. Small crowd, young, male - mostly comics waiting their turn. The comedy was generally raw and profane, often pushed hard in an attempt to shock. Jessica leaned and whispered, “This is why I stopped doing stand-up...it’s such a boys’ club.”

Interesting wrinkle - I don’t think anyone read me that evening. “You ladies,” the MC said, addressing Jessica and me, and then we were the two ladies at the front table. Just in the past few months I have been passing more and more; and once people read you one way, I find, they really seem wired to stick with that. Illustrative anecdote: I presented a workshop at a conference a few weeks ago, and at the end, after an hour of me talking, one of my participants complemented me on my voice - she said it was so deep, I sounded just like Lauren Bacall. When I have to talk a lot I tend to drop back into male range, but she had read me as female in the first minute, and that remained her take.

Anyway, I hope that tomorrow night I continue to pass right up until the reveal of my first line - it’ll be more fun that way. Might be the only time too...if I keep doing this, soon I’ll be known as that trans woman comedian, and I may never get to startle an audience with my transness again.

I’ve had a lovely exchange of e-mails about comedy theory with my friend Dan who does volunteer voice work (of a very high caliber) at my radio station. He’s a serious student of standup, and gave me valuable critique of the video of the Femme Show routine. He has also urged me not to worry about whether I get big laughs or not, but just concentrate on the material and be as real as I can. This has always been exactly my plan, so I was grateful for the corroboration. And, he offered advice about finding a character’s voice, about letting go into it - and he was talking about “Lisa” as the character.

Hm. Fascinating. First reaction: no, that’s not right. Lisa is me; “Dave,” that guy you knew before, he was the character. But wait: I played Dave for my first 46 years, non-stop; I didn’t speak a single word myself. Surely at some point it’s not acting any more, it’s just being. And also: when I stop thinking about talking and just talk, I still sound more male than female. And I do continue to struggle with voice, so much...not to find a “feminine” voice, whatever that is, but just to find a voice I can be comfortable speaking in - a voice which sounds like me to me. Also, there’s no changing that I got a male vocal instrument - so the reaching for feminine feels artificial, often strained. So: am I Lisa who used to play Dave, or someone as yet unnamed playing Lisa, or what? No. I’m Lisa. But finding my voice is still much more a fruitless and frustrating labor than a natural relaxing into deeper realness, and it’s making me crazy.

Which brings me back to tomorrow night: the dominant vocal sound at the open mic was loud and deep....one male voice after another. The MC was particularly in our faces, as though he was projecting to a thousand-seat coliseum rather than a narrow bar. I think my best approach when I step up to that mic is going to be to take a deep breath, let most of it out again, and then nearly whisper my first line...and then, all the way to the end, keep it light, gentle, glinting with twisty little touches of humor in pastel hues. One of my worst lines at the FS was when I went loud and deep to convey vehemence. So, emphasis with vocal music rather than vocal strength. Capricious; whimsical; eccentric. Breathe! As I interpret my routine, I’ll be feeling deep for the sweet strong bizarre feminine voice I know I have hidden somewhere in me...striving to let it free. Breathe! The more radically my work differs from the dominant male mode of the room, the better it will be. Breathe! Take the time to be in the moment, then see the bigger joke this all is and ride the wave. Breathe! Yes, OK, I believe I'm ready.

Chatted up

Last night during the First Friday Art Walk, for the first time in my life, I got hit on. As a woman, I mean, by a man.

It was at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA. I was staring at  the work “Sturm und Drang,” by Stacy Howe, when a strong masculine voice spoke next to me. “Powerful piece, isn’t it?”

He was maybe 60, casually dressed, with artfully unkempt grey hair and beard, full unsmiling lips like my father’s lips, and aggressive eyes. Despite our similar heights I felt loomed over. I arranged my throat for the feminine voice I had been practicing all day. “It’s intense and disturbing,” I agreed.

He began to explicate, pointing out features. His voice was deep, and he spoke loudly. His comments were insightful, knowledgeable, and stated as fact. I felt invited to admire his intellect.

As he spoke he contrived to step back and give me the full-body once over. I was rocking the femme: sandals to show off my lavender toenails, a swirly above-the-knee black skirt, a skin-tight curve-enhancing spangly purple top, big twirly silver earrings, and my new ultra-femme designer glasses. I had my hair clipped back for a soft over-the-shoulder fall, and had made up my eyes.

I listened with my arms fenced across my front and felt acutely my lack of experience responding to a man on the prowl. I wondered if I thought he was attractive, but I was too discombobulated to tell. All I knew was that I didn’t have a clue what to do, and that I wanted to get away.

This proved hard to do. He controlled the conversational rhythm. He would pause for an affirmation, but then cut in again, leaving me no chance to disconnect.

I saw another woman approaching, attractive, physically confident, stylishly dressed. She tapped him on the shoulder. He made an impatient “wait a minute” gesture and turned to her. Clearly at least friends, they greeted each other, hugged, bantered. I gathered from their conversation that he was an artist, and retired. I could have walked away, but I didn’t.

Then he was focused on me again. The other woman hovered. Scraps of coherent thought flitted through my brain: should I drop a hint that I’m trans? He certainly seems practiced at this. Hm, I don’t feel required to have any ideas of my own. What’s with the frown line - doesn’t this man ever smile?

The other woman somehow snagged him back again, and I saw my opening. I touched his shoulder. “Sorry, I have to go,” I said. “Nice chatting with you.”

“Nice chatting with *you*,” he said, like a last reaching out of a hand, and then I was away, feeling giddy, relieved, gratified, womanly.

Whadayathink: should I go back next month?