Friday, April 02, 2004

Adding things up

It’s basically been over a week since I wrote in here, but I guess you could say I haven’t had that much new to say. Well, just nothing major to say, so maybe as separate items they were small, but together they all add up.

This past weekend, I put a note up on an FTM board that I was ditching all of my guy clothes and if anyone was interested in some of the clothes, they’d better get a hold of me soon. Bobby, who I met during the Cotillion, gave me a call and stopped by Saturday afternoon. He picked up some ties and a few shirts, but otherwise we just kinda sat around and chatted for 4 hours. We had some pretty good conversations, including a hypothetical situation:

So, Bobby, what if they could switch our genetics around and I could give you my Y and you could give me one of your X’s, but in doing so, you’d now be half white, half asian (Bobby is Chinese). Would you do it to be genetically male, yet also be half-asian and half-white?

He said “No.” He’d rather be an FTM with his original ancestry than a genetic guy without it. I told him I’d have no problem being a half-asian/half-white genetic woman, instead of a white MTF. I’d be ok with any race, just to get rid of the GID.

The following day, last Sunday, I hung out with Claire and Amber in the city, then met Amy, Rachel, KateW from the UK, and KateW’s mom. We ate some thick pizza over at Zachary’s again and talked about KateW’s upcoming FFS. As I mentioned a few things that I had gone through with my recent surgery, such as the depression about 2 weeks after it, she said she'd read my journal and was prepared to deal with it if it came up.

I stopped by to see her in the hospital Wednesday night. Yep, train wreck, but she was doing pretty good. She didn’t have much bruising, except for a little under the eyes, and she was quite mobile. Claire had visited the previous night and told me that KateW was quite coherent. KateW said she remembered a little from the previous night, but not much. I told her she probably wouldn’t remember much from my visit as well, and that her memories would probably be more vague than sharp.

Claire mentioned that KateW had thrown up blood at least once before she visited and that it appeared Kate’s already made it through the worst of it. Kate was still fighting through some of the remnants of having a catheter when I visited, but hopefully she got all of that worked out. Yes, people do have discomforts they have to work through with surgery/FFS, but I guess I got fairly lucky with my first two nights in the hospital. But since the drugs have a memory loss associated with their use, you don’t really remember much of the discomforts.

Claire and I had dinner after my visit. She’s still working through some of the facets of her transition, so it was good to talk to her about it. Claire has come a long way over the past year, and her essence has really shown through.

The following morning, I got up early to meet the owner of one of my main vendors for coffee, although HE was the only one drinking coffee. We talked a bit about my transition and how things were going with it. He also talked a little about his own family, and how they’d all dealt with some of the dynamics of a particular situation. I think a lot of people are afraid to admit that they are seeing a therapist, but once people know about my transition, and the accompanying details such as my own therapist visits, people seem to open up to me on occasion to talk about their own little secrets.

He also asked about how things were going at work, which many people ask me, and I simply say that things are going pretty good....quite nonchalant, in fact. I told him about my therapist’s 5-90-5 rule, with 5% really supportive, 90% not caring, and 5% morally opposed, and that I’d run across the good 5 and the non-caring 90, but hadn’t seen the bad 5 yet. I told him they usually come out later on, and I’m sure that they are around....somewhere.

Tonite, Amber drove over to just kinda hang out. We ate some Japanese food, her some soup and sushi, while I downed some Rock N Roll (grilled eel), a Chicken Roll, and a regular California Roll (sorta-crab with avocado). Again, we talked about different aspects of our lives. Doesn’t all of this seem very Seinfield-esque? I once joked with some friends that there was a new reality show coming out called Sex and TSity about 4 transsexuals who lived in San Francisco who talked about sex and life, but never really did anything but sit around and eat. They all laughed at the reality of the situation.

Anyway, after dinner, I remembered that one of my friends was working her usual Friday routine as a bartender in a local bar. We walked a few blocks to the place, then, after spotting Kathy at the bar, sat down right next to her. Kathy only noticed that someone was moving to the seats she had her coat on and promptly moved it as we approached. Julie grabbed two napkins and went into her little speech about her already announcing last call, but that she could get us something if we liked. She looked right at me for a second, then went, “OMG, I didn’t even recognize you.” Kathy basically said the same thing when she noticed Julie’s response.

We all chatted for a while about my recovery, our different jobs, how I was obsessing over my nose, and the program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, with Julie’s boyfriend telling us how he shaves his face after having watched the program. I’d met Julie’s boyfriend before about 3 months ago when I was still presenting as a guy, and wasn’t sure how he would react, but he seemed fairly ok with the entire event. And like I said, he was very social in the discussion about his face shaving.

Little milestones this past week included new bank checks, a new name plaque, new business cards, and my new bank card. Cool....but I still have a ton of name change items to work on.

Anyway, I think I’m caught up...off to bed

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