Nine Months: A Season of Change

Three days ago, on Wednesday, it had been nine months since my surgery.  I am thinking now about when I was nine months from my surgery, back in October of 2008.  Funny, how that seems so long ago.  What's even weirder is that somehow I know I haven't changed much, if at all, except in my body.  But it seems that much, if not everything, is changing around me.

In one sense, that's literally true:  I'm living in a different place now.  It's not at all far from where I had been living, but it feels very different.  The block on which I had been living was definitely more blue-collar--although, ironically enough, the Noguchi Museum was on one end of it and Socrates Sculpture Park was less than another block away.  And the light was very different:  The combination of small brick and slate houses and apartment buildings along with the factories and workshops--some active--on the adjacent streets that parallel the river gave the light a quality that could seem as spacious as those lofts but as defined as the spaces between the sharp edges of the steel exteriors of some of the buildings that contained those lofts.  On a rainy or misty day, the light--an almost steely gray--could soften the edges of those buildings and make the horns of tugboats seem like serene echoes of the currents those boats plied while imposing a silence, like that of a Sunday during wartime, over the streets.  

Here, on the other hand, the light is more of a constant stream, like the traffic along the street on which I live during rush hour.  And if the street on which I lived had order, this one has more organization:  It's lined with townhouses, with apartment buildings near each end.  Around the corner is Broadway, along which I shop for food and household items, order and pick up Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern or Japanese meals, get my nails done and have my shoes cleaned and repaired.  Two blocks down Broadway is the subway; along Broadway is a bus that connects this street with the one on which I used to live as well as with two other subway lines and a few other neighborhoods.   Every morning, one can see the streams of teenagers headed in one direction--toward Long Island City High School, which is just a block and a half from the Socrates Sculputre Park.  And one will see another stream of people, mostly young, but some of whom are around my age, headed in the other direction--toward the subways and their jobs.  Most of them aren't dressed for blue-collar jobs:  Some are in suits, or at least white or light shirts or blouses, dark bottoms and dressy shoes, while others are in the sorts of outfits one associates with "creative" young people.  

In some odd way, this street and the ones nearby remind me a bit of the Paris neighborhood in which I lived.  I think it has something to do with the scale of the buildings and streets, and of the kinds of people I see coming and going.

But there has been more than a change in scenery during the past few months.  I've also noticed that people are relating to me--for better and worse--in ways that I hadn't expected.  As an example, James and I spent a good bit of time walking through the Village and Chelsea a couple of nights ago.  Our urban soujourn was interrupted every couple of blocks with spontaneous hugs.  He and I met several years ago.  I have always liked him, but I can honestly say that I've really gotten to know him just recently.  What I am seeing in him is--I hate to use this term, as it's been rendered so banal--an intensely spiritual but completely non-religious person.  In other words, he's turning out to be the sort of person with whom I can have a real conversation about things that matter.

When I first met him, he was just starting to transition into life as a man after living for more than thirty years as the partner of a woman who died almost two years ago.  He says he was one of a dying breed:  a "stone butch."  I must admit, I admire stone butches, although I cannot imagine myself as the lover of one, much less as one myself.  


I guess being a man now disqualifies him from being a stone butch.  But there's another reason why the label may no longer fit:  I think he wanted whatever my hug could offer him.  I certainly didn't mind that:  Being the good stone butch, he certainly gave me pleasure when he embraced me.  I just hope he enjoyed it as much as I did, if that's what he wants.


Yesterday, when I went to see Dr. Tran, a new employee at Callen Lorde rode the elevator with me.  I didn't even know her name, but she embraced me as the cab arrived at Dr. Tran's office.  Should I ask what that was about?  


After my appointment, I rode down to Bicycle Habitat.  There, I placed an order for a wheel that Hal will build for me.  As I usually do, I spent some time there catching up with Josh, Sheldon, Pancho and the other employees there.  On my way out, I exchanged "good-night"s with them and Charlie, the owner.  As I was leaving, he picked himself up and hugged me.  


I've known him for about twenty-five years.  That's the first time he's done that.  While he's always been friendly to me, he never seemed to be particularly affectionate, at least not in physical ways.  So the unselfconscious suppleness of his embrace surprised me a little bit.  Well, now I know of at least one thing his wife likes about him!


And then, just a little while ago, I went to Hannah and Her Sisters for a manicure as well as my first pedicure of the season.  Tonight, Annie, who doesn't speak much English, did my manicure as Karen did my pedicure. While filing the nails on my left hand, Annie propped her head against my shoulder.  And, as she worked, I noticed that she was holding on to my hand a bit longer than she usually does.  Later, as I sat with my toes and fingers in the nail dryers, she rubbed her hands on my forearms and, again, propped her head on my shoulders.  And, finally, as I got up to leave, she hugged me.


She said something to Hannah, which she translated:  "You are a really sweet person."


Hmm... Spring really is in the air, isn't it?  It certainly is a time of change!

Still More To Come?

So...after a weekend in which current and former love figured, it was back to reality. And I'm not talking about the TV shows that, in spite of what they're called, are "reality" in the same way that Twinkies are food.

So, after that weekend, today shouldn't have come as a surprise: The classes were great and the department meeting was long and boring--though, to be fair, not as long or boring as the previous couple of meetings were.

I still can't believe how tired I felt last night. The ride I did yesterday, while nice, is the sort of ride I used to sneak in between commitments. Yesterday it was a fairly big deal. These days, just being on the bike is a big deal for me. At least I didn't feel sore in or around my new organs. However, the ride showed me that I do need to lose weight.

Speaking of bikes, I've ordered another. It will be made by Mercian, as two of my three bikes are. However, unlike my other Mercians, which are "diamond" frames (often referred to as "men's " bikes), this one will be a "step-through" or "ladies'' frame, in which the top bar is dropped rather than horizontal as it is on the "men's" bikes. This means, among other things, that it will be easier to ride in a skirt or a long coat or sweater. Plus, this new bike will be equipped with fenders, a chain guard and "porteur" style handlebars.

From what Hal at Bicycle Habitat (from whom I ordered the bike) says, I'll probably have the bike in late July. If it arrives then, it will make a nice, if somewhat late, birthday present to myself. Of course, I'll be celebrating two birthdays this year: the Fourth, which is my natal birthdate, and the Seventh, the date on which I had my operation.

Now I'm feeling tired again, mainly because I've had a long day. And I'll have another tomorrow. I won't complain, though: I have a feeling that there's even more--of what, I'm not quite sure--to come.

What Was Happening Then

Rode about 12 miles today: to Bicycle Habitat and back. Hal was doing a bit of work on my three-speed for which I don't have the tools . The trip there was also a good excuse to ride into SoHo. I still like the energy and some of the architecture, even if Broadway was long ago turned into a mall and there don't seem to be natives of the neighborhood anymore. There don't seem to be artists, either: Their time in SoHo passed about twenty years ago.

I once worked around the corner from Habitat, which is how I found about the shop. Hal was working there then; later, he would leave for a few years. Charlie, the owner, wasn't there today, but he always seems to be there. I guess that's normal when someone owns a store for more than 30 years.

Sheldon was also there. He was an old riding buddy, along with "Crazy Ray" and a couple of other co-conspirators. Back in the spring, I encountered him at the shop. He had just started working there; it was the first time I saw him in a decade or so. The interesting thing is that I find myself talking with him in ways I didn't back then. As you can imagine, he's learning things about me that he couldn't have suspected, much less known, back in the day. And I'm learning that there's more to him than I thought there was. There would have to be in order for him to remain married to Danielle!

Anyway, somehow we got to talking about travel and, specifically, France. He knew that I'd taken trips to France, but didn't know that I'd taken as many as I have, or lived there. And I didn't know that he spent time there when he was a young vagabond musician. He was playing the music of his native Trinidad, which made him and his band something of an attraction over there. He spoke fondly of his time there: He had, as I had, happy experiences with the country and the French people. And he has never spoken any French: He said he simply "met people." And I'm sure they were taken with his smile, which is friendly with a charming little touch of mischievousness.

And I talked about my bike trips. I took two of them, if I recall correctly, during the time we were riding and hanging out together. I don't know how much he knew about the last one: It was around the time we lost touch, I think.

That was the trip on which I was pedaling up the same Alpine climbs that the Tour de France cyclists, led by Lance, scaled. I prided myself on my climbing back then, and I was happy to see three stages of the Tour. However, I felt that I was spinning my wheels--OK, it sounds like a terrible pun, but it fits--during that trip.

The last major climb I made--on a bike laden with full panniers and handlebar bag--took me up le Col du Galibier. It is one of the most renowned climbs. Unlike l'Alpe d'Huez, one of the first climbs I made, the road didn't reach the top via a series of virages. Instead, the climb was almost straight--and steep. Plus, depending on where you're coming from, you have to climb either le Col du Lauteret or le Col du Telegraphe to get there. Neither one is terribly difficult--or, at least they weren't given my conditioning at the time and in comparison to other climbs I'd done. But either is enough to take something out of you before you start on the road up Galibier.

I told Sheldon a story I've related elsewhere (When you open the link, scroll ten paragraphs down.) about my ascent and descent of Galibier, and how it started me on my present journey. I mentioned the message I received and how it foreshadowed what I would experience at the end of that day, when I saw the woman who made me realize I simply had to begin my gender transition.

What Sheldon may realize is that I may have learned as much about him--and myself--in telling him the story as he learned about me. Not to aggrandize myself, but I feel that, these days, when I tell such stories about myself, I can gauge not only what a person is actually thinking (which may or not be what he or she is saying) but also something about how that person relates to his or her own experience. In Sheldon's case, I realized that he has had to be willing to learn things about himself that he could not have imagined--and learn them at a much earlier age than I did. Maybe moving to another country when you're twelve years old will do that to you. And I thought that moving to another state at age thirteen was an education--and letdown!

Anyway, it wasn't just happy or satisfying, it was invigorating, to have that conversation with Sheldon. But it was strange to talk about something that was happening at a time when we saw each other nearly every day and he didn't know about. Some language must have a word for such an experience.

Lives Begin And End With The Old And New Years

Today, over lunch, Bruce pointed out, "This will be your first year in your new life."

As he's been in my life for longer than any other friend I have, it was especially gratifying to hear from him. And Charlie, the proprietor of Bicycle Habitat (where I bought my two Mercians as well as a bunch of parts and accessories) said the same thing, almost verbatim, when I stopped in his shop.

On the penultimate day of this year, it's difficult not to think about the upcoming year--or the one that's passing, or the ones that have passed. In some small but odd and interesting ways, they all intersected today.

I've known Charlie and Hal, his ace mechanic for only a couple of years less than I've known Bruce. I used to work for American Youth Hostels, when it was located on Spring Street: just around the corner from their shop on Lafayette Street.

Today, when I went into Habitat, I saw Esta, Charlie's wife, for the first time in about twenty years. She concurred with my perception of time: Our last meeting was shortly after the elder of her two sons was born, and he's twenty-three years old now, if I'm not mistaken.

Of course, the last time she saw me, I was essentially a different person. She said as much. Actually, she said that she doesn't recall me, as I was then, so well. I didn't mind that, actually. But then she also said that even though she couldn't recall my male incarnation that well, something was "familiar" about me when she saw me today.

She's not the first person to say that upon seeing me again after a long absence. I didn't ask what she meant. It might have been my speech, my body language or any number of other things.

I've encounters with people I hadn't seen in some time and even though I couldn't very well visualize the way those people were in earlier times, they were also "familiar" in some way.

I don't know what she was picking up on. But I know that I tend to remember people by something more essential, if I do remember them. It could be some glimpse I had into their characters, or even their souls.

Getting a glimpse of somebody's soul, however, isn't always as wonderful as it sounds. Indeed, nothing can be more terrifying sometimes--especially, it almost goes without saying, when you see darkness there but have no language for expressing it or any other means of defending against, or fighting, it. That is what sometimes happens to children.

And it happened to me more than a few times as I was growing up. Perhaps the most extreme example came with a longtime family friend. Something about him had always given me the creeps; I knew, for reasons that I could not explain, that neither I nor any other member of my family was safe around him.

Tonight my mother explained at least part of that man's dark essence: "He was manipulative. That's something you had to understand if you were going to spend any time around him." Yes, that was something I felt when I was a very young child, even though that word wasn't yet in my vocabulary, much as the language of self-help books and pop psychology wasn't part of most people's everyday parlance at that time.

He always managed to get people to do things that were not in the interests in their well-being. That's how he was on a good day. On a bad day, he'd wreck something in your life without your seeing (at least not immediately) his hand in it. Then he would offer his hand to help.

By now, you might have guessed what he did to me. Yes, he sexually forced himself on me. I'm still not exactly sure of when was the first or last time he did it. I know that the first incidence of his forcing himself on me that I would recall--when I was thirty-four years old--took place when I was about nine years old. Though it was his first sexual exploitation of me that I would recall, I know it wasn't the first or last I experienced with him.

When he "finished with" me that day, he made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. I kept that promise for about twenty-five years. The truth was, for many years afterward, I wouldn't have known what to say, or how to say it, even if I didn't have any fear of what he "might do to" me.

So why am I mentioning him now? Well, I was talking to Mom a little while ago, and she told me she found out, the other day, that he died in February. She learned of this from someone else he manipulated and took advantage of, though in very different ways from the way he abused me.

In one sense, I am more fortunate than that person who gave my mother the news: I haven't seen the man in more than thirty years; he was in her life until near the end of his.

So how do I feel about his death? Well--as terrible as this is to say--not a whole lot. Not having seen him in so long, I am past hating, and even fearing, him. Whatever rage I felt over what he did to the child I was is gone now: That child, by necessity, has become me. He cannot harm that child again, just as he cannot harm me now, or anyone else who came into contact with him.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that he didn't improve the life of anyone he met. In fact, I'd say he wrecked a few lives and derailed a few more. But, at least now he can no longer hurt anyone.

I can't say I feel relief or an urge to sing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead," or anything like that. All I know is that another chapter of my past is done, on this penultimate day of the year that started in one life and ended in another.

From Wholeness to "Juvie"

Very few things in my life have felt better than getting on my bikes this weekend. I was talking with Charlie, the owner of Bicycle Habitat, about that. He said, "Well, it's the first time you've gotten on a bike as a whole person. Of course it's going to feel better."

Today I went to pick up the bike that's going to become my next commuter/errand bike: a Raleigh Sports ladies' three-speed. It's one of those classic English three-speeds, with fenders and a chainguard. I had them give it a once-over, as it's been a while since I've worked on a three-speed hub. Besides, would the great tranny goddesses if I got my hands dirty doing something like that? I guess they'd've understood: My nails are a mess anyway. Now, if I'd just had a nice French manicure or one of those nail-paintings and ruined it while working on machinery, well, that just wouldn't do, would it?

Anyway...I wish I could've ridden during the day today: The weather was even better than it was yesterday. At least I got to ride home from the shop, which is a distance of about seven miles.

And that ride came at the end of a strange day. Or maybe it wasn't so strange, given who I am. And its strangeness comes not from any paranormal activity or anything related to it. And nothing unusual happened in my classes. It was just the feeling that was odd, almost disconcerting. It was so, in part, because of my own doing.

I talked to two faculty members today. They've always been friendly toward me, and they were today. But I could see that they were being friendlier toward me than I was toward them. I wasn't upset at them: In fact, I hadn't seen one in a while, as he was at a conference. I felt a little guilty about not being more talkative with them, and I wonder if they're reading anything into it.

It had to do with the defenses I've built up since the goings-on of last week. I really didn't want to talk to any of my colleagues, even the ones who've been supportive. You might say I've gotten a little bit paranoid: After one person--Deena, the secretary--whom I thought was an ally treated me as she did and a purported feminist--Laura, the coordinator--accused me of something I didn't do, I'm starting to feel as if I can't trust anybody who works there. And, because the department chair seems all too willing to accept, at face value, what people like them say about me, I feel as if I don't have any support. That makes me question the value of the service (on committees and such) I've performed for the department and college.

Those very same defenses came down, or at least softened a bit, in my classes. The students seemed even more receptive to me and perceptive about what they've been reading than they usually are. We were doing fairly mundane material, but the classes were a joy to do.

Equally joyful was bumping into three students I hadn't seen since last semester. They seem to be doing well; of course, they all asked how "it" went. Not that they couldn't ask about my operation; it's almost as if "it" is a kind of shorthand in the way that "the big event" is for some other goings-on in other people's lives.

One in particular was happy to see me, as I was to see her. She's very overweight and has a harelip. One day last year (her freshman year), she told me she felt I was the only one of her professors who didn't look at her as a fat girl with a harelip. Why should I?, I wondered. She's a rather smart young woman who works hard and isn't afraid to try something new: What else should I, as her professor, have seen? Besides, I thought she was very nice. That she seems not to have trouble making friends, and even getting dates, with her fellow students is evidence of that.

So here's what's strange: When I'm around my students, I feel like I'm around grown-up people, or at least people who are in the process of becoming that way. Sure, some of them do things we would think are silly or irresponsible, but they also seem to learn when I or someone else points out the error of their ways and offers advice, if they ask for it. I also know that a few of them may have had non-existent "crises" or other "situations" that they used as reasons for missing a class or an assignment. Still, I trust them, not because I'm lenient or don't care, but because I know that the only way to help someone, especially a young person, to become trustworthy is to trust him or her. If that person knows her or she did something dishonest, I would hope that he or she would learn and do something better from the chance I give. On the other hand, if you treat people as if they're going to do wrong even if they haven't, they'll do something subversive simply because they don't trust you.

In contrast, when I'm anywhere on the campus but in my classrooms, or around many of the faculty members and administrators, I feel as if I'm in some place that's a cross between a junior-high school and a juvenile detention center. The same sorts of games that go on in those places are standard operating procedure at the college, or so it seems. There's the same sort of petty cliquishness, and the same sort of intolerance of people who are, or seem to be, different from themselves.

It's telling that every handicapped or LGBT student I've taught, advised or counseled at the college has transferred or dropped out of it. It's equally telling that Latino and Asian students don't stay, and the Latino staff members feel something one longtime administrative aide expressed to me: "more like a stranger here than I did on the day I started." That day was 24 years ago.

Furthermore, there is not a single "out" member of the faculty. Three profs told me, privately, that they are gay or lesbian and made me promise I wouldn't reveal their identities. Two of them got tenure before most of their students were born; the other, I suspect, fears not getting re-appointed. I think now of the time I went to Kingsborough Community College and New York University and saw lots of faculty members' office doors adorned with "Safe Space" signs. Students know that they can talk to those profs about their sexual or gender identity and not be judged, much less "outed." On the other hand, students know only by word of mouth that they can talk to me. And they probably don't even know about those other profs I just mentioned.

I'm starting to feel I am, on a smaller scale, like Dr. Stanley Biber (who trained Marci Bowers) when he started performing sex reassignment surgery in the days when it was still called "the sex-change operation." He had to "fly under the radar," for the nuns that ran Mount San Rafael Hospital would not have approved. And, in those pre-Internet days, people found out about him through a kind of "underground" network that consisted mainly of other transgender people.

So...I can get on my bike as a whole person now. But I can't be that way at the college--not even among colleagues who've known me since I started there, years before my operation. Or maybe now they resent me for being whole instead of just a label that they saw in one of their textbooks.

Pseudomona and the Old Gang

Today I went to see Dr. Jennifer. It looks like I'm going to be off my bike for another couple of weeks.

The ray of sunshine--if you'll indulge me in a completely inappropriate metaphor--is that we're supposed to have a Nor'easter this weekend. Charlie and Max will be happy about that: I'll be indoors and they can climb all over me to their hearts' content.

I don't see how anybody could have one of those guys cuddled up against them and still hate cats. In fact, I don't understand how people hate cats. After all, every one I've ever had has been friendly, sweet, polite and cute. Maybe I just have good cat karma or something.

Anyway, Charlie and Max have pseudomona to thank for keeping me home. Pseudomona: It sounds like a Greek play about someone pretending to be Othello's wife. Of course, such a play wouldn't be possible, as the ancient Greeks were writing plays about a milennia and a half before Othello was born.

If you ever read Othello and need something pithy to say in a class discussion, use this: Quoth Iago/ Lusty Moor. It'll bring a smile to even the most jaded teacher or professor.

Now, pseudomona isn't causing me any discomfort. But Dr. Jennifer says it could keep the last part of my healing from happening the way it should. And, when you've waited as long as I have for the operation, you don't want to mess it up.

Plus, given that I've done about 30 years of serious riding, missing another couple of weeks isn't so great in the scheme of things. But it's still a pain in the rear. At least it's not a pain in...all right, you get the picture!

After my appointment with Dr. Jennifer, I walked through Chelsea and the Village to Soho, where I met Bruce for lunch. He looked as un-well as he sounded over the phone. That, of course, made me want to make chicken soup for him. Since we had neither the time nor facilities for that, and Bruce, understandably, didn't want to trek very far, we had what might've been the third- or fourth-best option: miso soup at a Japanese eatery a couple of blocks from his office. (Chinese hot and sour soup is usually my next-favorite option for medicinal purposes.)

My chicken soup-making impulse was piqued by seeing Bruce in a rather "down" mood. Of course, having what might be a low-grade flu doesn't help his mood, which doesn't help him to feel physically better. He must have some Puritan background somewhere along the way: When he's unproductive, as he says he's been, he's unhappy. But what else could he or anyone be when unwell? Besides, he can make me seem like a slouch sometimes, so he needs to let up on himself, at least for a while. As if I haven't told him things like that before...

I know I'm talking about a friend: In typing the last sentence of the previous paragraph, I smiled a bit. We've known each other for 30 years, or close to it, and he's always been a bit of a workaholic and his own worst critic. I doubt he'll change in those ways. The only reason I'd want him to change is for his own mental (and possibly physical) health. But, otherwise, there isn't a thing I'd change about him.

After our lunch, I stopped in Bicycle Habitat, a couple of blocks from Bruce's office. Just what I needed to do, right? I made my first post-op visit there last week, when I saw Hal, the dreadlocked mechanic/musician who just bought a house in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up. But nobody he grew up with is there now. Anyway, I couldn't help but to notice that he seemed to have aged a bit in the three or four months since I'd previously seen him. We didn't get to talk for very long, but I had the sense that something else is going on in his life.

And I saw Sheldon, whom I bumped into back in May, I think, for the first time in a decade or close to it. He's an old riding buddy and was a mechanic in a shop I used to frequent in the neighborhood in which he lived. It's funny: He was dating Danielle, and all of the other guys in our posse were in committed relationships with women. And I was with Tammy. He married Danielle; those other guys married the women they were with in those days. Or, at least, they're still with those women. I am the only one from that "gang" who's not with his or her flame from that time. What can I say?: Each of them got the girl, and I became the girl. Or, more accurately, I was the girl all along.

He told me that Ray, one of our group, was still with Kyra. She and I rode together and had coffee (and nothing more than that!) a few times before she met Ray, which was around the same time I met Tammy.

The last time I talked to Ray was a couple of weeks after 9/11. He'd called in the middle of the night, practically in tears. He'd worked on the site, voluntarily: His skills as a plumber and metalworker were very useful in sorting through the debris of that place. However, his physical courage--which, at times, bordered on machismo--was chipped away by some of the things he found, which included body parts.

I told him to get away from that site right away. He'd been there night and day for two weeks straight; nobody had any right to ask any more of him, I said. He insisted that he couldn't "abandon" the people, whether or not they were living. If I'd had more presence of mind, I'd've told him not to abandon himself, or his own health, at any rate. Instead, I told him to get out of there and "come to my place, if you want to." Tammy, much to her credit, favored that.

But I never heard from him again. And the old gang went our separate ways. A while back, I found myself thinking about him and wondering whether he was OK--or even alive. After all, who knows what he inhaled during those days and nights among the still-smoldering wreckage.

At least I know he's OK, at least after some fashion: Sheldon offered to give him and Kyra my phone number and e-mail address. If they call, it could be very interesting, to say the least!

Another Countdown

Today I saw the doctor. Next week I see my gynecologist again. My fingers are still crossed: I hope to get the "all clear" signal. To do what, you ask? Well, to ride my bike and have sex. And, possibly, to do some heavier lifting, though I'm in no hurry to do that.

If I do any or all of those things, my lack of physical activity for the past three months will be evident. I thought about that today as I was walking around in Chelsea and the Village after seeing my doctor and before I went to the college.

I feel so flabby. But people--including my doctor as well as a waiter (whom I'd never before met) in the Turkish restaurant where I had lunch--told me I looked "really nice." Actually, I'm noticing the flab just now. But I actually was feeling pretty good about the way I looked. I wore a boat-necked purple blouse under a long navy cardigan and an A-line skirt in a houndstooth pattern of blue and gray. Hal, the dreadlocked mechanic at Bicycle Habitat, half-jokingly said that my outfit matched my Mercian perfectly.

It was the first time I'd seen him since a few weeks before my surgery. He says he's just bought a house in the neighborhood where he grew up. But nobody he knew in those days is there now, he says.

I know that neighborhood. It's right next to the one where I grew up--and Prospect Park, where I rode almost every day for years.

How many more days until I can ride it again? Eight, if all goes well. But I wonder how far I'll go. Well, I guess no one has to worry that I'll run away from home on my bike. As if I were going to do that at this point in my life, anyway!

Who Knew It Would Come To This?

OK, so what did I do on a wonderfully gorgeous Sunday that wasn't too hot?

You guessed it: I went for a bike ride: To Nyack and back, again.

One good sign is that I actually felt better, physically as well as emotionally, at the end of the ride than at the beginning. My legs actually ached early in the ride, as I was pedalling through the Upper East Side, Yorkville and Harlem to the bridge than when I was coming back, some fifty miles later. By then, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time: my bike disappearing under me. That happens when you're in good shape and you have a bike that's well-fitted and well-suited to you. At this point, I'd still have to give much more credit to my Mercian than to my training, or lack thereof. Kudos to the folks at Mercian Cycles in England who built the bike and to Hal of Bicycle Habitat who measured me and really listened when I described what I wanted in the bike!

Plus, as tired as I was at the beginning of my ride, I was in good spirits. The crepes I made for myself turned out well. Charlie and Max were being even friendlier than ususal. And Mom and Dad were very encouraging when I talked to them. Yes, even Dad, even after I nagged him. And Mom, being Mom. I described some of the anxiety I'm feeling about the job I'm about to start. "You'll be fine," she insisted. "You've come to this point. It'll all work out."

Now, my mother never, ever says things like that unless she means them--and knows what she's talking about. She knew I would stay sober. She knew, at various times in my life, that I'd find my way, whatever that means.

One good sign, according to her: My conversations with Dad are getting longer. It used to be that I'd spend half an hour on the phone with her and half a minute, if that, with him. This time he picked up the phone and I talked to him for twenty minutes--a record!--before spending the rest of an hour with her. That ended only because they were going out.

Mom and I had a good laugh, though. I mentioned that I'd asked Dad what he's been doing and how much he's been getting out of the house--and exhorting him to do even more, even when he's bored. Anything can get boring, I reminded him. But sometimes boredom is just a sign that you're dealing with something else. That's better--certainly for him--than wallowing in his Lazy Boy recliner and thumbing buttons on the remote control.

"He didn't know he would end up with a nagging daughter, did he?"

"To go with his nagging wife and everyone else who nags him!" she deadpanned. Both of us broke out into titters, which turned to laughs when my hormones kicked in.

Ah, yes. All those times we don't know what we're getting or what we're getting into. Like Mom learning that her daughter is named Justine (the name she would have given me if the "F" were checked off on my birth certificate). Or Dad taking me shopping. They survived and, I suspect, know that they still don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Even after fifty years of marriage. And their "son" coming out as their daughter. There may be no more secrets--or at least not very many more--but there are still surprises and mysteries.

Speaking of secrets: As we were talking about my new job and what it could mean, I confessed that when I was younger, I wasn't planning my future--not even when I was in college. Sometimes I'd say that I was thinking about law school or teaching or getting a job with a magazine, but those were half-baked notions, at best. The only constant was that I wanted to write; teaching or graduate school weren't even on my radar.

The truth was, I said, was that I simply didn't want to think about the future. I didn't think I'd make it there and, if I did, I knew that I didn't want the things anyone else wanted for me, whether it had to do with jobs, marriage or anything else. I didn't want the responsibility, I admitted, but I also felt I wouldn't be any good at being a professional and white collar worker with a wife and kids in a house in the suburbs.

The funny thing is that now I can sort of see myself as a professional of a sort, and that I can integrate writing into that life. And I may very well become a wife. I'd like that, really. Dominick says I'm a nurturing person and I actually like the role. Will I end up in that house in the suburbs? Who knows...especially with the so-called mortgage crisis.

Who knew that it would come to this? Not that I'm complaining. I knew I didn't want to be a husband or father, even as I was making some attempt to be the former. But I never knew that I'd actually get to live this life, the one I always wanted.

Who knew?