Dodging raindrops

I went running between the rain showers this morning. After that, I ate a small bowl of cereal in front of the computer while listening to the TV. Ricki Lake was on with one of those ‘Look at Me Now’ episodes. And as you might guess, they had a transsexual on there who surprised an old friend from high school. Suffice it to say, she was able to recognize her friend right away. The TS wasn’t your normal Jerry Springer type. This one kept it mainly real.

I don’t know how much people will be able to recognize me after surgery, but I’m sure they will still be able to. Once people know to look for me as a girl, they do pretty good in picking me out, but otherwise, I don’t think they would recognize me.

I was hoping to catch a sunset and a sunrise before surgery, but with the current weather lately, I don’t think that is going to happen. Well, surgery rapidly approaches. Surprisingly, I don’t feel that nervous yet. I’m sure it will hit me the morning of surgery. I’m also a little excited, but just like being nervous, I’m doing ok. I think there are still a lot of things that I need to get done, that I’m worried more about them than the actual surgery. I know that sounds so funny, but that’s the way it is.

Although I have been full time for a few days now, this surgery does mean quite a bit. It means hopefully not having the anxiety of wondering if people will see me as a woman or not when they first meet me. Sure, I still need to perfect the voice for interacting with people, but just walking down the street, no one should be able to tell...or that’s my goal at least.

My spirits will probably be down severely while dealing with the pain from the surgery, but hopefully I won't act/be/seem like a total bitch.

Anyway, this is my last post for now. I’m sure I’ll be filling in a few posts later from hand written entries in my journal, but don’t look for anything soon.

Prep work

Sunday - February 15, 2004

Ahhh...what a packed past week it has been. I thought I would be able to relax this weekend, but I just haven’t had any chill time yet. I headed to the city to pick up Claire, and on my way to her place, I drove past City Hall to get off the mainly beaten path, but instead, noticed a CNN van. I then realized that all of the media was down there covering the same-sex marriage issue. As I pulled up to a stop light, I saw Gwen Smith and her wife crossing the street in front of me. I honked...no response. As a fellow TS, I have also learned to ignore honkers. I honked again...still nothing. So, I tried as best as possible to make it a “friendly” honk with a quick double honk, if that can indeed be considered friendly. Well, Gwen may have still been following the TS credence, but her wife looked over as I waved frantically at them. They motioned for me to pull to the side, so I did. I asked if they were getting married since all of the same-sex marriages have been performed over the past few days, but they said they were already married (yeah, duh, Kara), but that they had friends in from out of town that came here specifically to get a marriage license and potentially married. That is so awesome. I’m so proud to live in the San Francisco Bay Area such that the politicians are going out of their way to provide equal rights to all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation and gender.

I asked Gwen about her upcoming journey to LA for the transgender V-Day since it has been a consistent topic on GenderPeace. On the website for V Day, she is listed as one of the presenters, and as she told me, they are also honoring her for all of her great efforts. Congrats Gwen!!! She even gave me a V-Day flyer. I told her I wouldn’t be able to make the event next weekend since I have facial surgery this week. I wish I was able to go since I have a ton of friends going, but hey, facial surgery only rolls around once in your life...and now is my time.

Anyway, even with the slight detour, Claire still wasn’t ready when I reached her apartment, so I just waited outside for her. She was soon down, and we were off to meet Amy for lunch over in Berkeley. Claire took us to a joint called Bongo Burger where she frequented on occasion during some of her college years there. It was definitely pretty good.

We walked around campus, and a packed campus it was for a Sunday. There appeared to be some youth debate competition. None of the students were fazed by any of us three, though, from what I could tell. I’m pretty impressed, but then again, these were the smart kids...the ones that could debate.

After that, we went shopping, of course. I picked up some items for my stay during recovery, as well as a few items for my return to work. After I tired them out from so much shopping, we went for some heavy pizza at a place called Zachary’s that Claire raves about. It was pretty decent, although the wait was incredible. I was done after that. Done as in: tired. Done as in: ready to go home. I dropped both of them off, then cruised home. I still have a lot of cleaning to do in my apartment, as well as putting aside the boy clothes since they are taking up too much room.

Hello world!!!!

Hello world! It’s me! Yep, I’m full time today. Whoo hoo!!!

Actually, I went in to work this morning for a few more hours, just to finish up a few last things. I kinda went in androgenous mode, by simply wearing a big poofy ponytail with baggy women’s jeans, a red Old Navy T-shirt, and my purple zip-up fleece jacket. I didn’t see anyone at work the entire time, but I wasn’t really worried about it anyway.

After that, I went to lunch with Michelle and Brooke down in the South Bay, then cruised back home to take a nap. I set the alarm to go off at 5:45pm, but I forgot to turn the alarm on. Doh! Well, I woke up at 6:30, then called Claire to tell her I was running way behind. I put on a little more “going out” makeup, then picked up Marina on the way to Claire’s. We were initially going to get some pizza, but I talked Claire into Thai food since I was still extremely stuffed from the burrito at lunch. Plus, I think I might grab a personal pizza tomorrow night...artichoke hearts and garlic on one side, with pepperoni and onion on the other. They’re just my favorites. Anyway, getting pizza is on my list of things to do before surgery this coming week. I also want to get up early to watch the sun rise from the local hills, and I also want to see the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. Hmm...what else before surgery. Oh yeah, I’d really like to talk to my sister before, but I don’t know if she will call or not. It’d be nice to hear her voice before I go under...just in case something happens to me. I want her to know that I still love her.

So, after the Thai food we went dancing at The Cherry Bar. It’s a lesbian bar, but there are still a few guys there. Claire figured she’d at least go with me just to make me happy. That was only the second time I’ve been there, but I don’t go there for the women...I just like going there because there isn’t any pressure of men staring at you in some weird lustful manner. I had a total blast on the dance floor, and with the great music they played, I had one of the best times ever. Marina even requested an Outkast song for me, and I had the greatest time dancing my ass off to it. Every once in a while, Claire and Marina would make it out to dance with me. :P I don’t know if it was just knowing that I don’t ever have to go back to doing the guy thing again or what, but I had just this overall happy feeling tonite. I was me. I felt wonderful.

OK, well, it’s actually early into Sunday morning, so I am headed to bed.

Good night world. See ya tomorrow.

Good-bye

Uuuggghhhh.

I staggered out of work tonite just after 11pm, right when Claire called me. I still have some more work to finish up before I am out for FFS, so I’ll be heading back in tomorrow morning...but not in boy mode. I figure I’ll do an androgenous mode of some sort. Today is my last day as a guy...period. Tomorrow I am me.

I talked to Claire as I garnished some cash at the ATM, bought some milk and cereal at the grocery store, then found dinner at a Burger King about to close. Double cheeseburger. Yum. OK, yeah, it’s comfort food for putting in some crazy hours at work lately. The past three days I’ve put in 38 hours, which is way more than I’ve worked in three days in quite a while, and not something you really want to do with major surgery approaching. Hopefully, though, we resolved all of the major issues that popped up this week.

Claire laughed at me as I left my ATM cash in my car while buying the milk and cereal, then dealt with me switching back and forth from sorta female voice to male voice when I was going through the drive-thru. I think she even called me a dork in there a few times.

I had a ton of calls on my mobile phone today with people either saying good bye, or those asking how I was doing as I approached surgery. I imagine my phone bill will probably be high with so many calls not in my free minutes time. Oh well, I’d rather hear my friend’s voice than worry about money.

Ok, bed time.

T-Minus Day 1.

Good bye boy-dom. Hello me.

Wild Abandon

Yet another busy day at work. I left there right at 11pm tonite trying to resolve a lot of issues. On one issue, I can’t determine how they are having the problem, nor can I repeat their problem, which to me indicates that the problem lies somewhere else. On the other problem associated with our foreign supplier, I actually dug up an old email from June of last year that told them they needed to resolve the same issue which just reared it’s ugly head. They never did anything to solve the problem. Grrrrrrr! The second problem also has a couple of parts to it, so I’m taking a firm stand on eliminating the foreign made parts from one of our projects. In our conference call with the supplier tonite, Pete, who deals more with the purchasing side of our projects, said I was getting a little too passionate about some of the items, and that it showed. Eh, perhaps so. But what's really bad is when the engineer in the meeting is talking more about the quality of the parts than the manager of the quality systems. Sad.

In an awesome piece of news this morning, and throughout the day, San Francisco began issuing legal wedding licenses. As one proponent this morning indicated, the city was issuing the license, but that they would not force any church or religious organization to perform the weddings. Perhaps that’s what scares most people: that their church would have to accept gay marriages. But they won’t. They can continue their discrimination of the very people that God and Jesus would probably fully accept into their religion. I mean, come on, Jesus was the one who went out of his way to practice diversity and love for all. He was the only one who would help the lepers and people who had been treated badly by society. Anyway, allowing gay marriages would provide the same rights to those that are straight, and prevents discrimination of basic rights. It allows the government to issue a marriage license and, thus, the extension of benefits to loved ones. It doesn’t force religions or churches to provide gay marriages to those they don’t want to marry. I’m sure there are plenty of churches and justices of peace that would provide such service. I mean, what is it going to hurt allowing gay people to get married? Is it going to raise the divorce rate? I don’t think so. Is it going to destroy the sanctity of marriage? Puh leeez....have you watched Jerry Springer lately? There is so much disparity and destruction of relationships on that show, and in everyday life, that gay marriages are not going to change the overall level of marriage sanctity associated with the straight population.

Oh, yeah, I like scanning my horoscope every once in a while, just to read them for fun and a different take on life sometimes. Lately, they seem to say a lot about moving into a different part of my life. Today’s seemed pretty cool as well:

Cancer
You're the one making all the noise. You have energy to burn. You're like a child in overdrive when all the world is his or her playground. Don't be surprised if children or childlike adults follow you through your day, drawn by the scent of wild abandon that you trail behind you. You used to be one thing, and now you're becoming something else. The spirit of transformation is on the move in your life. You're the instigator of restless change. You nurture anyone who needs a shot of your happiness. You're a free-floating friend to all who would play with you.

How funny, huh? Scent of Wild Abandon...yours at Kara's Perfume Shop, or for best results, just stick close to her for a little while.

Anyway, it’s late, and I am headed to bed. One more day of work...hopefully.

T-Minus Day 2.

Old Smokey

Work has been hectic, hectic, hectic. And I’m not even talking about anything with transition. The problems from last week are still hanging around, and although the products are fine when I analyzed them here, they don’t seem to be performing properly at two different customers. On top of all of that, I am trying to finish off a lot of projects before I am out for a while. On top of that, we’re trying to get everything straightened out with the projects my boss was working on since he is leaving. On top of that, a huge problem popped up with some products made at our foreign production site that were going to be used with our new project. On top of that, I still have regular weekly items to handle. Finally, and this is kinda just a minor item....I’m transitioning from male to female. Ooops...perhaps that is a big one.

Speaking of work, HR has decided to have ‘sensitivity training’ while I am away. I was hoping to come out before I left so that I could begin working on a few items that will need to be completed upon my return...such as email changes, name plate, etc. My HR contact says that she’ll take care of it while I am out. Hey, that sounds good to me.

What I was really hoping for, though, was the chance to say ‘bye’ to some people before I transitioned. I wanted them to be comfortable asking me questions before I looked different. Perhaps I will talk to a few of them before I leave on Friday.

Finally, one good piece of news. I was informed a few weeks ago that I won a digital camera at a conference I attended in LA. It arrived today. It’s an ok digital camera, with 2.0 megapixels. My current camera is 2.1, so I’ll probably just keep it. I still have no idea what I will do with the one I won. Looking on ebay, it could fetch a little over $100, but is it really worth it to do all of that, or do I just find someone who can use it?

T-Minus Day 3

Shrug

Still no word out of the company on how they plan on notifying my employees.

After playing sports with ‘da boys’ yesterday, I was pretty sore. I hadn’t been out in quite a while, and my body paid for it. My arm also felt extremely sore, in the same spot I had my lab tests taken. I rolled up my sleeve to find a nicely sized bruise that I hadn’t spotted at all lately. I looked for a bruise the few days after the blood was “drawn” last week, and I never really spotted anything. It’s rather surprising that it took this long for it to pop up. After FFS, I’m going to be pretty bruised, especially around the eyes. I’ve never had a black eye before, but now I’m going to have two of them. Since this bruise on my arm took so long to develop, I wonder how long it’s going to take me to get over the bruising from FFS.

In a conversation with a TS friend this evening, I was asking her about the whole work and disclosure situation. She described to me how she attempts to explain GID to “straights.” I mean, it’s hard enough figuring this out as a TS, how can “straights” really comprehend what we are going through? I asked her, “How do you explain GID to people who have no concept for gender identity? It’s like trying to explain what ‘red’ is to someone who is blind.” I really don’t see how most non-TS people really might be able to understand us. The best we can hope for is simple tolerance and compassion...and understanding that transitioning is the best solution to our condition.

Mark and I were both working late tonite trying to finish up things before this Thursday. He didn’t realize I would be out for surgery next week, the same time he starts a vacation. He was hesitant at first, but was soon asking a few questions like, “What exactly are they going to do?” So, I explained for him what was involved with FFS. He also asks a funny question in his normal Mark tone, “So, is K... your real name? I mean, for our sake, you could have changed it before you moved out here and we never would have known.”

I told him that was my real name, and then shared with him that my new name would be Kara. He didn’t have a problem with that. He then proceeds to tell me that he had no clue about what was going on.

“But what about all of the questions and comments?” I ask.

He just shook his head and kinda shrugged his shoulders.

T-Minus Day 4