Skirting the Question

Pulled from the pages of my written journal

I’m sitting on another flight, this one from San Antonio to Dallas, then on to Phoenix for my consult tomorrow with Dr. Meltzer. I had a great time here; dancing two nights and hanging out with some old college friends.

On my layover in Dallas, I said hi to Lauren who was so kind to drive to the airport to see me. We hung out for a bit catching up on what each of us was up to. I think she also wanted to see my FFS results in person. ;)

After arriving Friday evening, I caught a cab to our downtown hotel that sat right on the Riverwalk. I arrived about 6pm, made it downtown, checked in, freshened up, and still made it to their rehearsal dinner at 7pm. As I was walking down the street to the restaurant, I have two of my college friends cross right in front of me on a corner of the street. Now, Steve hasn’t seen me since last October, and Bob saw me on Super Bowl Sunday, but both had seen me in girl mode. Steve catches a glance at me as he walks by, but goes on about his conversation with Bob. I decide to follow them to see how long it takes for them to recognize me. I had spotted our restaurant right before they crossed my path, but they crossed to the other side of the street. They made it all the way to another restaurant where I hear them say that they think it’s the restaurant. Now, I should have just asked them which restaurant they were looking for, but instead, I just said that we had to go across the street to the other restaurant. They both recognized me at that point, and we all said hi. We hopped across the street and found the wedding party along with 2 other college friends who had gotten an early start on drinking. The other Steve walked up to say hi to the other guys then began to introduce himself to me. He’d never seen me in girl mode, so he really had no idea how I looked now. He says, “Hi, I’m Steve” and shakes my hand. I continue shaking his hand and say, “Hi Steve,” then smile. I keep shaking his hand and smiling until his eyeballs light up and he lets out a surprised “Oooohhhhhhhhh.” He was pretty amazed and even later told me he was wondering who the hot chick was walking in with the other guys. I then said hello to the bride and groom, and a few other friends as we sat down for some tex-mex. Steve continued to ask questions since he was a bit curious (and drunk), but I didn’t mind. He also told me that he was proud I was being me. He asked me when I knew and I told him I knew by age 7, but that I’d never known any different. He said his mom had known since age 6 that she was a lesbian, but hadn’t accepted it until he was in high school. I told him I never knew that and he said that he hadn’t told anyone until recently, but he was doing ok with it now.

After dinner, we decided to go dancing at a place on the Riverwalk called Polly Esthers. They had three floors dedicated to either the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s. We danced on the top floor where the other guys were interested in a bachelorette party, but also found the dance floor a little more spacious. Unfortunately, it was the 80’s floor, but the music wasn’t that bad. We danced from about 10 to 2am. I had a blast until my feet started hurting, at which time I crashed on a couch for the last 30 minutes. When the DJ said it was the last song, I had one guy come up to me and ask me if I wanted to dance. Up until that time, I’d mainly just danced in our little group of about 5 guys and 1 other girl. It was my first offer, but because my feet were hurting, I turned him down.

After dancing, a few of the group were hungry, so we found about the only thing open: Denny’s. We walked back to the hotel after putting away some food, then crashed in bed about 4am. It was only 2am for me, so it wasn’t that bad.

Lucky for us, Tracy, my hotel roomie, and I were in the room next to the exercising room. What a blast. About 8:30am, someone started riding the exercise bike….whirrrrrrrr…..whirrrrrrrrrr…..whirrrrrrrrrr. Then it stopped so I was back to sleep. The phone rang around 11 something and Tyler called with some items to talk about. After my phone died and I had returned to the room, the guys called and said they were off to lunch. We caught up with them shortly. After lunch and chilling out for a while, we were off to the wedding reception. I wore the Nine West dress and the Banana Republic cardigan. The outfit looked pretty decent, I think. After one of the best wedding meals I’d ever had, we were outside on the dance floor. Now, when I arrived Friday afternoon, it was pretty warm and muggy. Yuck! On Saturday, they had a cold front move through that left things pretty chilly. On the dance area, it was pretty chilly, so as soon as the music started, I was out dancing to stay warm. After a few songs, one of the Steve’s whispers to me that someone must have told the DJ that we were from Missouri, because he was playing all the backwoods 80’s crap. OK, he didn’t say exactly that, but close. I agreed, so I rambled over to the DJ to request Outkast. He says, “Which song? Hey Yeah?” I nod confirmation and give him a big thumbs up along with a warm smile. So, after that, he sorted changed his songs to a little more modern stuff, but still played a lot of the classics. The reception shut down about 11, and the party bus dropped us off at the hotel slightly before midnite. We freshened up then were off to find another dance club. Unfortunately, the one we did find wasn’t really happening, so we were off to find other entertainment. To keep a boring story short, we ended up in an Irish pub called Durty Nelly’s with an older Irishman named Don Johnston (yes, I had Miami Vice flashbacks) singing his dirty songs. At least they were funny. During his story telling songs, though, he’d incorporate people sitting right around him into the song. He asked where two ladies were from, and they said Pasadena. He ponders for a moment then asks, “Texas or California?” They say, “Texas.” Somehow, he wanders and starts on California. He asks them if they’d ever been to California or San Francisco. Then, and I quote, he says, “The girls wear their skirts so short in San Francisco you can see their balls.” At this point, I am standing with my 3 other friends no greater than about 2 meters from the piano playing Irishman. (If you look at the bottom right picture on this site, I would have been standing right about where the blonde woman under the flag is standing) I turn to my friends and say, “I should flash him”, then laugh. I’m not wearing a skirt, though, but just black slacks. After a few more chords, he looks at us and asks us where we’re from. Since we’re standing, I lean in and say very slowly, “S a n F r a n c i s c o,” then smile ear to ear. His eyes light up and he says, “San Francisco. I’m in trouble now.” He looks to the rest of the bar and says, “It’s ok though, they’re girls.” I wanted to whisper to him, “…but I used to be a guy,” but I didn’t since there were too many drunk Air Force guys in the bar. I think we crashed back at the hotel sometime around 2:30am.

On the whole issue of using T’s for jokes though, I mean, I can laugh at my situation and I know how messed up being TS can be, but we’re stuck with this Gender Identity thing and it sucks. Most everyone trivializes it because they don’t know someone that has gone through it. By knowing someone who has been through transition, it puts a perspective on things that many people will never know.

I got up this morning for a short run along the Riverwalk and around the Alamo. The Alamo is way smaller than they portray in the movies, although I haven’t seen the latest reincarnation. I showered and dressed then headed downstairs. Claire called when I was waiting on a taxi, and the two newlyweds came out of the hotel about the same time. After hanging up on Claire, I said my farewells to them, and off I went.

The only time I was sir’d the entire weekend was when I tried calling one of the hotels to see if they had a shuttle, the rest of the time I was majestically referred to as “ma’am.”