Pastrami

So...my trip to New York City....

It was an early flight out of the Bay Area into Chicago for a short layover. Beth and I were both there around the same time, but via different flights. She was also at Midway while I was at O'hare. Both of us were flying to New York to participate in the Transfigurations show at the igallery. Being Superbowl weekend, I saw a ton of Bears fans headed to Miami or walking around in their jerseys...just in the airport.

Beth and I arrived in La Guardia around rush hour. Fortunately, we were headed into the city, and not out of it like everyone else. We decided to stay at the same hotel as the artist, Jana Marcus. She picked a very posh place just north of Times Square called Michelangelo. It sounds befitting an artist, right?

As soon as we ran the bags up to our room, we were off to the premiere opening. We arrived to find a few friends already there, with more to arrive soon. The picture layout looked wonderful and the place was actually packed solid.

While chatting with Jana and entourage, I noticed a young man eyeing me. He was slightly taller than me, young, and fairly attractive. I soon recognized him as one of the subjects of Jana's timeline series. It's amazing how much he has changed with time...even since the one year on hormones. (Wow...testosterone is such a powerful drug.)

Jana soon introduced the two of us. He complimented me on my 'appearance' and didn't know I was T...especially since my photo did not make this showing. Had I not seen his pictures, I never would have known he was T either. I caught him eyeing me a few more times during the weekend, but when I saw him head off to iceskate with his female friend, I thought they might be dating. He lives in Southern California now, so that would be a bit hard anyway. (They weren't dating, btw.)

Saturday morning involved sleeping in a little, then Beth and I headed off to the Museum of Natural History. There was a lot of cool stuff, and some not so cool stuff. We soon picked up a straggler...one of the museum volunteer curators that found a liking to Beth. After the museum, we headed off to the afternoon panel at the art show.

Jana talked first and went over what she put into the show. She went through a lot of the slides that didn't make the NY show, including all of the nudes. That was the first time I was present in the room where my nude was shown. I probably felt nervous for about half a second before I went "oh, whatever". I used to go topless all the time in boymode, so it's really no big deal. Plus, her shot doesn't show that much down below.

Next, we watched the Aidan's movie about his transition and the effects it's had on himself and family. It's a remarkable look back at who he was. It's really amazing looking back to see how most of us never do that well at living in the wrong bodies...and then how comfortable when we do have the right one.

After the movie, we started the panel. It was myself, Beth, Aidan, Lyle, and one more whose name escapes me right now who chatted about our lives and the project. Most of the people in the audience were not T, but a few were. It was a very cool glimpse at how the project has affected us. The group went out afterward, and then a smaller group of us kinda wandered around Saturday night. Once Beth and I made it back to our hotel room, I convinced her to walk with me down to Times Square to get a picture or two...all well past midnight...and with tons of people still out doing the touristy thing.

On Sunday, I decided I was going to cram in as much touristy stuff that I could. While Beth was off having brunch with a few family members, I had brunch in the East Village with a pair of NY friends. I dragged them down to Battery Park in the freezing wind blown cold so I could catch a distant glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. We then headed slightly northeast to walk past Ground Zero before jumping back on the subway. It was so cold we had to duck into several places just to stand there with the doorman so we could warm up.

"Just act like you own the place," I said in a jokingly manner. I'm sure the doormen were happy to help out a few frozen damsels in distress.

Beth later joked that you could tell the temperature by how soon one of us said a four letter word to describe how cold it was. (And, yes, it wasn't necessarily the temperature, but the fraking wind that really caused the real trouble.)

After warming up and regrouping with Beth, we headed for more site-seeing. This time we ran by Rockefeller Center and went to the Top of the Rock. Since the Superbowl was on later that day, the lines were super short. In fact, there weren't really any lines at all. After that, it was mainly just Beth and I. I talked her into going up in the Empire State Building. Again, no line at all. I think we maybe had 5-6 people in front of us at the actual elevator, when on a normal day, the line to buy tickets would extend outside the building. We literally walked through tons of roped off sections made for the usual lines.

Both buildings provided incredible views. They had guides on what was visible, and even included 'ghost images' where the Trade Center Towers had been. It was amazing just how big they were.

I guess I'm one of those that could just sit up there all day and look out at the world. Even in college, I resided on the 7th floor of one dorm. I'd just sit on the balcony at night and look out over the city entangled in the rolling forest. Unfortunately, the wind-chill led me to shorten my observance time. I talked Beth into a little Korean barbeque which happened to be right around the corner from ESB.

We spent that evening at a cool little bar that had an all-female activity going on for those of us not participating in Super Bowl activities. Our New York visit was coming to a close.

Because we ate relatively early in the afternoon, Beth and I were both kinda hungry when we finally made it back to our hotel room. I was looking for something sweet, while Beth was looking forPizza. We saw a deli open near the hotel and ran down in the four-letter-word-in-2-seconds cold. I saw cake which made me fairly happy. Back across the street, I saw a Dunkin Donuts with a Pizza Hut attached. I asked Beth if she wanted me to see if they were still open, so I ran across to the corner. The door was locked.

"They're closed."

I turned around to see two guys sitting in an older model 2 door sedan.

"Why didn't you and your girlfriend order something from the deli?"

"Umm...she's not my girlfriend...and she was interested in pizza."

"Ahh...well, me and my friend just got off work and picked up our pastrami sandwiches. What are you two up to? "

"Ummmm...we have an early flight in the morning."

"Well, let me ask this...are you female?"

OK, OMG!!!!! WTF? I go to a transgender panel where an FTM can't read me, but something about me leads this guy to ask if I am female. In this case, he wanted either a yes or no answer.

"I'm female...what made you ask me that?"

"I dunno..."

"Did you think I was a transsexual?"

"No no no...it's New York...I gotta ask."

Beth has now followed me across the street.

"Hey, what's going on?" asks Beth.

"These guys wanna go up to our hotel room," I say.

"Hey, I didn't say that."

OK, he's right...he didn't say that, but that's what he was thinking.

Beth and I walked back to the deli after ditching them. I had cake.

The next morning we caught our flights home. Ahhhh...no more four-letter-word-temperatures.