Snowstorm

School's out....for today.

It snowed last night, let up this morning and snowed some more this afternoon. In all, eight or ten inches, depending on which report you believe, covered the streets, cars, houses and the park. It's the biggest snowfall we've had in couple of years, at least.

But the worst part of today's weather was the wind. Of course, it makes cold weather feel frigid. What made things worse today was that it whipped the snow around, turning puffy flakes into needles against the skin. Garbage cans and all sorts of other objects tumbled down the streets and sidewalks. I think that's the real reason why schools closed: Navigating was hazardous, if not dangerous.

So today was a day to curl up with a good book....and catch up on my reading. One thing I'd forgotten about being a student: You're never caught up. Same thing with teaching: There's always a pile of papers and students who wanted them returned yesterday. With an "A," of course.

You're never caught up...on work. On the bills. In love. In...well, you name it. How is that?

If I were to catch up, what would happen to me? I forget who said that when you don't have any more bills to pay, you die. Or is it the other way around? Would I have to find another job if I didn't have a stack of students' papers and exams in front of me?

No work left to do. Nothing to look forward to. What would that be like? I hope that's not what the days after surgery will be like. I mean, after all, I've never looked forward to anything as much for as long as I've anticipated the surgery. I know that there will be other things to do, most of them things I'm already doing.

Well, I know one thing: I won't be shovelling snow. I won't be able to do that. Besides, I don't think there'll be any snow to shovel at that time of year. But, as they say, you never know.

For now, I have a day off, work, hope and anticipation. I guess it's not a bad combination.

Size Matters

OK, now I'm going to tell you something counterintuitive. (Oh, that word is so pretentious. But I used it again!) It might not matter much in the scale of things, but here it is: Size didn't matter as much to me when I was living as Nick as it does now.

Now, you're probably wondering why I'm worrying about the size of that. Well, guess what: You have a dirty mind. I was being entirely literal. And, because I'm a lady, I would never, ever talk about that!

So the hormones haven't tempered my mischieviousness. Oh, well. The doctor didn't say that they would, and I never said that I wanted them to. What the doctor doesn't tell you won't hurt you: Is that how it goes? Or is it that what you don't want can't hurt you? Either way, I'm safe, I guess.

About the issue of size: I noticed it again when I went to get my nails done. On occasion, you'll see a man getting a manicure, but 99% of the time--even here in New York--all of the patrons as well as the nail finishers are female. I am taller and bigger than most women though, I'm told, I'm not at the far edge of the bell curve. On the other hand, as a male, I was average--almost militantly so--in both height and body size. As a matter of fact, when I was in shape, I was thinner than most guys and smaller overall, save for the shoulders I developed from weight-lifting.

Today I realized why I notice my size even more in nail salons than in other all- (or mostly-) female environments. Just about everyone who finishes nails, at least in this city, is Chinese or Korean. The half-dozen women who do that work in the salon I usually patronize (Hannah and Her Sisters in Astoria) are Korean. And so were all of the nail technicians in the places I patronized before I started to frequent Hannah and Her Sisters. Next to those women, I seem like King Kong.

I haven't had my nails done outside New York yet, so I don't know if the situation holds true everywhere. From what I could see, it seemed to be the case in the part of Florida where my parents live, but not in Paris or Istanbul. Before going to those places, I had my nails done, so I didn't have to avail myself to the local equivalents. Now I wish I had, just to see what they were like.

Some sociologist or labor historian should undertake a study that would explain why seemingly every nail technician in New York, or any urban or suburban area in the US, is from China or Korea. We know why, for example, Jews came to dominate the garment industry and how they and Italians pretty much were the film industry. Or why for more than a century, the vast majority of cops were Irish or machinists were German. But why are nail technicians Chinese or Korean?

Maybe the answer won't matter that much. But less consequential matters have consumed great amounts of intellectual and other kinds of capital.

For now, I guess I'll have to get used to standing out in a nail salon the way an NBA center next to one of the jockeys at Aqueduct Race Track--at least until Amazons take over the nail salons of this city.

Will size matter then?

The Frontier

Today I saw part of the Tour de France coverage on TV. The Tour is divided into 21 stages, each lasting a day. One stage might be long and flat, another a race against the clock, still another--like today's--an arduous ride, full of climbs.

Today the TDF cyclists pedalled through the Alps from France into Italy. I recognized the road: I pedalled up and down it myself seven years (already!) ago, on my last bike tour. You don't forget a road like that: beautiful and treacherous, like the countryside and the journeys some of us take through it.

Seven years ago, I cycled in the opposite direction from the ones in which the racers rode today: I was coming back into France from Italy. But I encountered the same kinds of climbs and descents--through a cloud, then and now. Except they descended into light rain and slick roads; I, on the other hand, was pedalling under a preternaturally clear sky just a few minutes after emerging from nearly opaque air.

For today's riders, the wet roads were a danger: A wrong turn or even pedal stroke could send half of the pack tumbling to the pavement. What a lot of people don't realize is that a road surface slicked by a light rain is even more hazardous than one washed by hard rain: The light rain mixes with oils and other substances that would be swished away by a harder rain. The resulting film has ended the day, and the Tour, for more than one rider past.

Rain is not the only hazard. At high altitudes (2000 meters+ on that ride), clear, sunny skies sap moisture from your body: Cyclists, hikers and other sorts of adventurers have met their endings without realizing they were dying. So you drink even when you don't think you need it.

Clouds or sun, wet or dry, coming or going, there is also the frontiere--what we call the border, what others might call the boundary. There stands one of the longest and steepest climbs of all. On one side it's called Col d'Agnel, on the other, Colle d'Agnello. For me, for today's riders, for anyone who crosses, this climb is one of the most difficult anyone will face. (If I recall correctly, it's the second-highest peak in the Alps, after Mont Blanc.) For the racers in the Tour, it is an ascent that will soon be followed by a descent and a stretch to the end of the day's stage; for me, it was a climb that prepared me for yet another, one of which I had a premonition while pumping and gasping my way up Agnel/Agnello.

After decending the Agnel side, I pedalled another thirty kilometers or so to a village that was probably abuzz during the ski season but was, on that summer day, all but deserted. It was late in the afternoon; even though I was in much better shape than I am now, I was ready to eat and collapse, in no particular order. I spotted an uncharacteristically boxy building which I figured--correctly--to be a ski dorm. A couple of young men, probably caretakers or other workers of some sort, looked like they were fixing a pump or some other necessity of the building.

Pardon, monieur. Y-a-t'il une lit disponible?

J'en y crois. Demandez l'acceuil.

So someone was at the reception desk. Good sign. I found him; he explained, "nous voulons fermer ce nuit; il n'y a pas des voyageurs."

Sauf moi, I deadpanned.

Oui. Yes, I was the only one.

Je suis arrive d'Italie. J'en ai ascende le Col--I pointed in the direction of Agnel.

He stared. Je suis tres, tres fatigue, I sighed in a tone of voice I almotst never used, especially around another male.

D'accord. Quelque chose sera possible. He said perhaps he could do something, just aller a manger--he pointed to a cafe down the road--et reviens. Yes, I would come back, I said. He motioned for me to follow him and pointed to a shed. "Velo--la": I could leave my bike there.

I walked down a road that crossed a creek to the cafe. The Eagles' "Hotel California" played on the radio; the Beatles' "Get Back" followed. I remembered reading somewhere that "Hotel California" is one of the most widely played songs, and the Beatles the most commonly played group, on French radio.

Aside from me, there were only a few regulars, all of them at the counter. Actually, considering that it was a Sunday evening during the off-season, I was surprised to see even those few. They were chatting; I glanced down the road and the mountains I had just pedalled. For the following day, I'd planned to continue on toward Annecy and Chambery. I knew there would be a few more climbs--one of them, Izoard, is one of the more famous ones on the Tour. Beyond that, I only knew there would climbs, though I didn't know which ones.

That was part of the premonition I had on Agnello. The rest of it went something like this: I would have to repeat a climb, but after that, I wouldn't have to do any others.

I had no idea of what any of that meant. However, I knew somehow that I would confront something and that afterward, I could not remain as I was. After crossing the frontier, so to speak, I couldn't go back.

Two days later I pedalled le Col du Galibier, one of the two most famous Tour climbs. And I had that revelation that I'd never have to do it again; later that day, I finally confronted myself in the person of a middle-aged woman going home from work in the town of St. Jean de Maurienne, practically next to the frontier I'd crossed at Agnel/Agnello. After seeing the way she occupied time and space, as a woman--the way I'm supposed to-- I knew I couldn't go back, though I tried.

Now I'm here and don't want to be anywhere else. Nor do I want to go anywhere else but wherever's next, whether or not I have to cross a frontier. And I'll climb if I have to, but only then.

Name Change (I'm Still Justine!)

Tonight I had to make another name change.

No, I didn't have to become another person. I am still Justine Nicholas Valinotti, nee Nicholas Valinotti Jr. It's my progeny, so to speak, that got a new identity.

You see, I found out there's a website called Tranny Times. (So much for my originality!) Therefore, I had to come up with a new name and link.

I thought about a couple of others. I wanted to stick with "Times" because it reflects my aim to describe some of the quotidian details of my last year before my gender reassignment surgery. And, of course, I wanted to keep "Trans", or some form of it, in the title to encapsulate the blog and to keep the alliteration I had in the title. But "Trannygirl Times" and "Trans-lady Times" sounded too much like porn sites. While I may discuss sex (You have been warned!), I will not (consciously, anyway) satisfy anyone's voyeurism. After all, I am a lady!

The Second Puberty

On days like this, I'm not sure of whether I've underachieved or simply gotten the restoration my mind--and body--needed.

I slept until almost 8 this morning. I don't get to do that during the workweek, and it seems like a luxury even though I'd gone to bed some time after midnight. So, according to doctors and sleep experts, I still didn't get as much sleep as I'm supposed to.

Then again, I don't know anyone who sleeps that much, except on a holiday or sick day. Even then, people don't get that much more sleep than they normally get.

One thing I've noticed since I've started taking the hormones: I get to bed later and sleep later than I used to. These days it's harder for me to get up very early. And I find that I'm not as consistent as I used to be in the amount of sleep I get every night.

Other trans people have described similar experiences to me. I don't know why the transition affects our sleep. But I can, if nothing else, venture a guess based on my own experience.

When I was about to start my tranisiton, my doctor told me that I would go through a "second puberty." In other words, my body would go through changes very similar to those experienced by 12- to 14-year olds. What that meant was that, among other things, I would grow breasts, some of my facial features and other areas of my body would become more feminine, and I would become more intensely emotional. And I could gain weight, as kids often do in their puberty. All of those things have come true: I'm somewhere between an A and a B cup (Conventional wisdom says that a trans woman's will be one size smaller than her mother's: That's about right, in my case.), I am always addressed as "ma'am" or "miss" by strangers--even today, when I was riding my bike in shorts and a baggy T-shirt and without makeup--and, as for my emotions, well, if you've been following Tranny Times, you don't need any explanation of that. And, as for my weight gain, I hope I follow another pattern of puberty in losing it as my new bodily characteristics mature.

The point is, in puberty and in the adolescence that follows, one is living on a child's external clock while the rest of the world is running on Grown-Ups' Standard Time (GUST). Or vice versa: You have a GUST bodily clock while the world is running on children's time. And, most of us yo-yo between both states. That is why it seems that we're sprinting ahead of or falling behind everyone else when we walk. We, like kids in their early teens, never seem to keep abreast with the rest of the world. You might say--sorry, Thoreau--that we're hearing different drummers from the rest of the world.

That, I believe, is also the reason why kids of that age will often write poetry--sometimes very intense--or engage in other creative pursuits that fall by the wayside somewhere in their late teens or early adulthood. I think now of the poetry workshops I used to do as a visiting artist in the schools: The most incredible stuff was written by sixth, seventh and eighth-graders. And most of them would never write poetry or short stories again after they left adolescence.

That is one way I'm different from pubescent boys and girls. I've been writing in one fashion or another for as long as I can remember; if I haven't abandoned it by now, I don't think I ever will.

Back to sleep: Ever notice that that kids in puberty can stay up all of one night and the next but sleep all through the next day? Or so it seems. And--I think back to being a camp counselor--you practically have to lift them by their feet with a crane and drop them if you want them to wake up early enough to be on time for anything? Or so it seems. I couldn't count how many kids showed up at the mess hall just as it stopped serving breakfast!

(All right. If there's a pubescent kids' defamation league, I'm probably on their "hit list" now. Some days I'd be more worried about them than the Mafia, FBI, Mossad or any so-called terrorist organization. Other days, I'd be about as worried over them as I am over the prospect of a blizzard on this hot midsummer night.)

Now I'm ready to sleep again. Tomorrow: Same time (well, more or less), same pages.

Thursday Night; Hey, You!

What is it about Thursdays?

It seems that every Thursday night, like this one, I am tired. Sometimes it satisfying: Thursdays always seem to be the longest and busiest day of the week; the good side of that is that I can accomplish something or other. And even if it doesn't rank that high on the scheme of things, accomplishing something, whatever it is, feels good.

But sometimes I feel pure and simple exhaustion: You know, when you know the next day is Friday but you don't know how you're going to get through it. The funny thing is, when I feel this way, it's when--because--I haven't accomplished much of anything, even if I did a lot.

Today tended toward the first kind of Thursday I described. I can't say what in particular I accomplished, if anything. I didn't work particularly hard, even though I had my class to teach after my day job. I'm not even sure that I taught my students anything in particular, even though I'd planned to do so.

So, why do I feel rather satisfied? Hmm...Maybe I'm not so tired after all. I feel as if I shouldn't be: I'm taking hormones, but I can't honestly say I'm doing women's work. Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty about that. I can cry the way we're supposed and allowed to, but I don't have to, and can't, bleed in the same way.

Could it be that simply being what you're meant to be, or who you wanted to be (depending on whether you believe in destiny or choice), is something of an accomplishment? Even if you get to do it just for one day?

Without any prompting from me, that's pretty much what two different people told me today. One, a student in the class, said "You're completely who you are. That takes courage. That's something. Be proud of that!" Hmm...Well, I guess he knows something about courage: He came to this country, this city, by himself when he was fifteen years old. And he lived on the streets. Now, at age 27, he's a rep for a surgical-supply company and is in college. Not bad, I'd say.

A fellow faculty member echoed my student's comments. We were talking about relationships, affairs, marriages (He's been in three.) and such. He brought up the old subject of beautiful vs. sexy. "Well, I'm not such a pretty woman, am I?"

"But you know, more people than you realize find you very attractive, even sexy."

"Really?"

"Sure. You're so completely, unabashedly yourself. Believe it or not, integrity is sexy--at least I think so. And you look like you're really enjoying being who you are. You're not like the person in your old photos."

Integration is catnip. Have I stumbled over another of life's big secrets? Ha!

But, well, if people like me because I like me, I guess that's a pretty fair deal. Simple, too--or, at least, it sounds simple.

I think of all this as I'm listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall. To me, it's the last great rock 'n'roll--and, certainly, progressive rock-- album. Of course I love "Comfortably Numb," but the song I'm thinking of now is "Hey You." On one hand, I have felt the alienation the song's narrator/persona must have felt; on the other, I completely understand the longing for--and fear of--human interaction the song depicts:

Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with you ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home.

This song has always reminded me, in some way, of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which is probably the one poem by T.S. Eliot I can stand these days. Not just stand it--I still feel it; I still love it, even as much of his other work leaves me cold these days. I mean, do you want to know how many times I asked myself Do I dare and Do I dare? You don't? That's probably a good thing: I can't count that high. After all, I was an English major and teacher. I don't do math, as they say.

The first time I heard the song and the album--shortly after it came out--I was, coincidentally, re-reading "Prufrock" for a paper I was writing. And shortly thereafter, I discovered another wonderful poem about a person's alienation from/relationship to him/her self: Juan Ramon Jimenez's "Yo no soy yo":


Yo no soy yo.
Soy este que va a mi lado sin yo verlo,
que, a veces, voy a ver,
y que, a veces olvido.
El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,
el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,
el que pasea por donde no estoy,
el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera.

I'll make an attempt to translate it here:

I am not I
I am he who walks by my side without my seeing him
Who, sometimes, I go to see
And who, sometimes, I forget.
He who follows, silently, when I talk,
he who forgives, sweetly, when I hate,
he who walks where I'm not,
he who's left standing when I die.

The one whom Jiminez describes is something like the one whom the narrator of "Hey You" calls.

I didn't have the courage to make that call for a very long time. And when I finally had no choice, I was scared. But that person I called is here, is me: She demands a lot sometimes, but she will not leave me any more than I would leave her. Or any more than she left me through all those years I was pretending not to want her, to want me.

I've climbed mountains, on bicycle and on foot, and have had conquests of one kind and another. But conquests aren't always accomplishments, much less victories, because you can never be at peace, much less in harmony, with whatever you've conquered.

So, before this becomes even more of a literary wankfest (Will I have one after the operation?) than it probably already is, I'll ask: So what did I accomplish today? Another day of being who I am, completely. It's all I can do and want.

Hey you, it's Thursday night.

"Tea" Is The First Three Letters of "Tears"

Around noon today, I started sipping a large styrofoam cup of green tea. So what does that mean? Well, I guess I'm not Japanese because I used the wrong vessel and drank my tea alone. And I'm not British because I was drinking the wrong tea at the wrong hour. Oh well.

But I digress (already!). I was at one of the college's computers, working to create some materials that will help faculty advisors advise. I've done the more-or-less interesting stuff, so now I'm into such tasks as making tables and creating links. No writing or thinking involved in those jobs. Somebody's gotta do 'em, I guess.

Anyway, I was doing one of those chores that you don't go to graduate school for, and...what happened? I started to cry. At first, the tears were like the drops of rain that just barely touch a speeding train (think the TGV) because it's going so fast. Then the tears streamed like hot sea water mixed with lemon juice and vinegar. My eyes stung and dripped the tingeing liquid down my eye sockets and cheeks.

The stinging and tingeing actually felt refreshing, in some odd sort of way. It was not the first time my crying felt that way, but I didn't experience anything like it for the first forty-five years of my life. Not that I can recall, anyway.

So, you ask, did I break up with my boyfriend? Am I getting cold feet about the operation? Did someone die, or did I get some other kind of bad news?

No, no, no and no. (All right. It doesn't have quite the same ring as "Tomorrrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." What can I tell ya? I ain't Shakespeare.) Does that mean I have to spend another few hours and few hundred dollars on therapy for the answer?

Another no. And my therapist, doctor, social worker, friends and mother all say so. I didn't talk to all of them--or any of them, for that matter--today. But I've mentioned impromptu sobs like the one I had today to them, and they have all given me the same advice: Don't fight it; you probably need it. And, in fact, the therapist, doctor and social worker all predicted that I would have these low-grade crying jags after I spent some time on hormones.

I've been taking them for five years now. I don't mind the sobbing and tears: In fact, I often enjoy them because I feel so much better afterward. And, sometimes I even feel better while crying than I did right before the tears began to flow. But I wonder if I'll ever get used to it. Should I?

Again, everyone says not to worry. For one thing, I can get away with crying in public now, although I wonder how well it would go over in a professional situation. Today didn't count: I was working by myself. If you cry and no one's there to hear it...

The roses won't tell your secret. This morning, just before I left for work, The Jaynett's "Sally Go Round The Roses" played on the radio. It's my favorite "girl group" song because, well, it doesn't sound like the "I'm nothing without my guy" laments we heard from Little Eva and most other acts of their time. I grew up with that sort of thing. I kinda sorta identified with them because both they and I didn't have the love we longed for. The difference was, they lost theirs and I didn't have--and didn't expect to have--mine in the first place.

But "Sally" is something else. It's more like Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" than any of those other songs. "The roses, they can't hurt you. They won't tell your secret." If you have a secret and no one tells it...what? It means you can stay in the closet until someone outs you. If you have a secret and have no one to tell it to...it's still a secret. But what of it?

Actually, I wasn't thinking that deeply about that song, although it would've been worth the effort. I was simply responding to the feel of it: its obsessive yet subtle rhythm that seems to come out of nowhere, its call-and-response introits and refrains in gentle but persistent voices that don't quite grab you but get a hold on you anyway and don't let go.

But lemme tell ya: I've cried over songs that weren't nearly as good as "Sally." My doctor, therapist and social worker said that this is normal. And, not long ago, my mother told me she sometimes experiences spontaneous sobs like the ones I let out today. Not to seem sexist, but estrogen really does remove a filter between you and the world--one that I didn't even know I had until I lost it.

Mom says she doesn't cry when she's sad, necessarily; she cries because she needs it. That is, her body as well as her mind and spirit must cleanse themselves. You're flushing toxins out of you when you cry, she said. My doctor said something like that, too. The poison has been made; all you can do is let it out of you, mother says. Don't worry so much about what made the poison; it's in your past; it's gone now. "You're close to living the life you want; soon you'll be there. Just do what you need to do--including crying."

And my therapist said something like that, too. All right. So I have a crying spell when I'm alone or among friends; that's OK. But what do I do when I'm on stage, literally or metaphorically.

I guess I can excuse myself and go to the ladies' room. It seems to work for the other women in my life. And I can continue to drink my tea; it helps to bring on--and heal me with--tears.

Is this what the British and the Japanese had in mind? Tea for tears; tears for healing. Makes sense in some weird way.

Another Day, Another...?

Another day, another...?

Another day further into this year? Another day passed in my life? Another day closer to my surgery.

Well, duh, you might be telling yourself. The answer is, of course, "yes" to all of the above.

I've never before had a whole year to count down. When I was in school and couldn't wait to get out, graduation seemed far away and abstract, even though I'd seen others don their caps and gowns and walk up to a podium where someone handed them a rolled-up piece of paper tied with a ribbon. Maybe it was because nobody in my family had done it before me. On the other hand, I know people who've had gender reassignment surgery. In fact, I've known two "before and afters", and I met others post-surgery. While I can imagine the surgery itself only somewhat, I can somehow--"Visualize" is not quite the right word; nor is "imagine" --the experience of going through it, and what I might feel.

Empathise--maybe that's the right word. I'm empathising the surgery. I never could do that with a graduation or any other impending experience. Maybe it's because most of my peers have gotten diplomas from high school, many finished college degrees and some of us went on to higher degrees. Just in the sheer numbers, graduation is not such a special, unique experience. Nor is retiring, though that may change. So who else counts off their days? Inmates on death row? Now there's a real stretch for a comparison!

So the analogy to graduation wins, by default, I guess. Maybe I'm making that analogy to my situation because I received an e-mail from a website called "Find Your Classmates" or some such thing. I followed the links to a page from my high school graduating class.

Now, I've never had any nostalgia for any school I've ever attended, probably high school least of all. But I guess I felt like Primo Levi in "Si Questo Un' Uomo" (which, in America, was published as "Survival In Auschwitz": one of the grossest mis-translations in history), a book in which he recalls his internment and escape. One inmate he describes was a real wheeler-dealer: shrewd to the point of avariciousness, nonetheless capable of saving someone's life, however inadvertently, because his impulse toward self-preservation was so great. Of that inmate, Levi muses, "I would love to know what he's doing now, although I have no desire at all to see him again."

That's a pretty accurate description of how I feel about some of my classmates and others from my past. I don't want to bump into them, but I'm curious to know what's become of them. Why? I guess that it has to do with one of my oldest and most persistent weaknesses: my fondness for a story, any story. Of course I want a good one, but I'm even curious to know how the shoddily-constructed and improbable ones go. Maybe that's why I became a student of literature and a writer.

And the ones who turn out differently from what you expected: Why do they? Could, should we have known that they would? One of Allen Ginsberg's "angry angelheaded hipsters"--or a wannabe--was hoisting his baby grandchild up to the camera, doing something I never saw him do back in the day: smile. And it looked genuine. The way that baby looked, I guess I would've been happy, too.

Then there was my only namesake in that class. Of course, she wasn't my namesake in those days, but she would've been had I been born with a female body. Yes, my mother would have named me Justine. She told me that when I was about fourteen or fifteen, I think, most likely when I mentioned the girl with the name that should've been mine. At least it is now; I guess, when you think about it, it always was, after all.

The one and only kid with whom I kept up contact after graduation wasn't on the site. He and I haven't talked to each other in twenty years, at least. There was no falling-out, no rancor. It was just, I think, that one or both of us realized, a few years after leaving that school, that it was all we had in common anymore. Really, it was all we ever had in common: that school, or more precisely, the way we experienced it. And at that point, I was tired of talking about, much less remembering, it.

What would he think of what I've become? What would the wannabe hipster say? Or Justine?

Welcome to Transwoman Times

I have one year left.

When I say that, you're probably thinking retirement or--death.

Rest assured that neither is the case. I'm nowhere near old--or, for that matter, rich--enough to quit working. And, as far as I know, I'm not going to die, at least not in the immediate future.

You see, one year from today--on 7 July 2009--I will undergo gender-reassignment surgery. I plan to share my thoughts and feelings about my impending surgery every day, or at least every chance I get.

Sometimes people ask me whether I'm nervous about the surgery. I'm not, really: I'll be full of drugs and knocked out while the doctor does her work. I've been warned about the pain I'll feel afterward. That doesn't worry me, at least not yet: I'm anticipating it, but I can't imagine how or whether it will be similar to, or different from, other pain I've experienced.

Tonight I am writing after a day at work that was no different from others at this time of year. This day was another Monday after a long weekend: It's always difficult to return under those circumstances. But this weekend was different: It began with a Friday, the Fourth of July--which just happens to be my birthday. My fiftieth. That doesn't disturb me nearly as much as turning forty, thirty or twenty, possibly because of what I'm looking forward to.

Not long ago, a friend said that what I'm doing is as close as I can come to giving birth because I am, in a very real sense, giving birth to myself. She is mostly right: Since taking the first steps toward this transition some seven years ago, I have been in the process of being born. And during the forty years before that, I carried within me the person I am becoming. There were times when that girl, that woman, seemed dormant or even dead. And, believe me, I spent more time and energy than I can measure in trying to kill her.

She has cost me a lot, but she is making me a wealthier (and healthier) person now that I'm giving her--me--what she needs. I may not be a pretty woman, but the woman I am fills me with her light--which is still, at times, brighter than anything to which my eyes are accustomed--when I see her--me--in the mirror.

Nothing could have prepared me for becoming her, for her becoming me. And I don't know what, if anything, can prepare me for that day one year from today. I can plan, I can anticipate, and fortunately for me, my parents have offered to accompany me to the hospital when I go for my surgery. They were no more prepared--or surprised, really--than I was for the day when, for the first time in my entire life, I was entirely honest with them about who I am. And, although my therapist, former social worker (and current friend), and various other friends and friendly acquaintances have offered advice and various kinds of support, none of us can really anticipate what will come next. It's as if I've researched the country, learned its language and packed my bags for my trip. But, for all of my planning, will I be ready?

But then again, how much of my success or failure, memory and forgetting, tears and joys, were really the results of mine, or anyone else's preparation?

At least I know one moment, one year from now, won't be a continuation of the past, which is what most people mean when they talk about the present. There is tomorrow; there will be dying, and we will be born, all of us.

But we're different after we give birth. I know that much. The question is, how will I be different? If I pick an outfit to wear that first day after I leave the hospital, will I still want to wear it? Will I be like those mothers who, during their pregnancies, binge on foods they'll never touch again after their babies are born?

I know I'm getting ahead of myself. But this is the first time in my life that I know where I'll be and what I'll be doing on some specific date in the future. It's hard, for me anyway, not to speculate.

For now there is the journey. And there will be a birth: mine, and whatever else that brings.