The Day After The Super Full Moon

The other night we had a "super full moon." Higher-than-normal tides usually come with it. What that means is that when the tides recede, they leave even more sandbars exposed than are usually seen when the tide is out.

These above photo, and the ones that follow, come from Point Lookout, where I rode yesterday.

 













It seemed that everyone there was happy. Why wouldn't they be? The overcast sky opened to bright sunshine, and everything seemed so peaceful. I pedalled into some wind on my way out there, but that meant an easier ride home.

Isn't that what everybody wants?

A Simple Life?

Normally, I'm happy to get home from a trip to Florida.  These days, I'm happy to see my parents, in part because I don't know how many more years they'll be in this world.  But, apart from them and some lovely bike-rides (The good and bad news is that they're all flat!), I have almost no motivation to go to Florida.


Since I got back last night, though, I'm feeling a little wistful. I think the feeling started on Monday, when I rode down A1A through Painters Hill and Flagler Beach.  Along the way, I stopped, for no particular reason, in one of those stores that sells things made out of seashells.


The proprietress was one of those friendly, helpful and sun-bleached people you meet by the sea, though not necessarily by the trendy beaches.  "Anything I can help you with, let me know," she intoned in a voice of sunshine and sea salt.  She wasn't one of those surly, hipper-than-thou storeclerks you see working in trust-fund enclaves.  She probably wasn't making a lot of money, but she also, most likely, didn't need to. 


I imagined myself in her place, but with my cats and bikes.  I imagined myself closing the store and riding Tosca up and down A-1A or along any number of other roads.  It used to amaze me there weren't more fixed-gear bikes in Florida; this time, I saw a pretty fair number in and around St. Augustine.  Of course, their riders were young, or seemed to be:  I don't expect a senior citizen who hasn't been on a bike since he or she was a teenager to hop on a track bike.


Anyway, I'll be back to my normal rides, work and such soon enough.  One day, if I can afford it and don't have to worry about property values, I might have a house that looks like this (ha, ha):

Aftermath

It's really true:  the guys are too hot and the girls are too cold.  And you can blame it on the hormones.


My friend Lakythia and I had planned to go cycling today.  However, the temperature didn't reach the legal drinking age and the wind speed exceeded my age.  So, instead, we opted for a dim sum brunch in Chinatown.  


Those of you who take estrogen have probably notice that you're more sensitive to the cold than you were before, and those of you who take testosterone feel the heat.  Well, I've noticed that since my surgery, I am even more sensitive to cold than I was when I was taking estrogen and anti-androgens. Of course, the level of estrogen in my body is now higher than it was before the surgery, and most of the testosterone I once had is gone.  


But at least I enjoyed the dim sum brunch and Lakythia's company.   I just wish she could have met Charlie:  They would have appreciated each other's sensitivity, I think.  


And, after talking to Millie and Mom, I know that in the near future--say, a couple or a few months--I want to adopt another cat.  Another rescued cat, to be more specific. They both know that, and Millie will probably find my next feline companion, and Max's next roommate, if you will.

Critical Lasses In Edmonton

Now I have to take a trip to Edmonton.

No, I'm not going there to take in an Oilers' game.  And, while the idea of biking or hiking in the Rockies and taking in the Edmonton night life appeals to me, I've never made going there one of my goals.  

Lately, as a result of Sarah Chan's Girls and Bicycles blog, I've been reading about Edmonton's bicycle scene.  Until I came across her blog, I thought that cycling in Edmonton looked something like this:

You might accuse me of New York Provincialism.  You've seen an example of it on that famous New Yorker cover:

Since I started reading Girls and Bicycles, Edmonton Bicycle Commuters and other sites, I've formed an impression of an active--velocipedically as well as politically--cycling community.  And it seems to embrace diversity--and, yes, there's more of it than I, the jaded New Yorker, expected--in ways not commonly seen.

How can you not love a place that has a "Critical Lass" ride?

But the thing that really got my attention was a practice of Bike Works, the bicycle cooperative EBC operates.  On the first, third and fifth Sundays of every month,  BikeWorks is open only to women and transgenders.

Now that was an eye-opener for me.  I didn't think that there were enough transgenders, let alone transgendered cyclists, in Edmonton for them to be so recognized.  There's my NYP at work again!

If I ever were in Edmonton, of course I would check out BikeWorks on a women's/transgenders' Sunday.  However--and, as someone who hasn't been there, my view is admittedly limited--I have mixed feelings about  such a practice.

On one hand, I'm glad that a bike shop or cooperative wants to make its facility female- and trans-friendly and give us a "space."  In a sense, they're acknowledging that there aren't enough such spaces and hours.   And I know that sometimes (actually, often) I want to be around other women only, not out of any animosity toward men, but because of our particular ways of seeing and experiencing things. 

On the other, I have to wonder whether that will help or impede our acceptance by the larger cycling culture, and the culture generally.  I feel the same way about other gender-segregated institutions such as schools, and ones that are dedicated to LGBT people.  Some educators and psychologists raised the same concern when the Harvey Milk School was opened in New York.

Don't get me wrong:  I'm happy that the folks at BikeWorks recognize that there are indeed transgendered cyclists and that we, like other female cyclists, sometimes feel alienated and excluded from the larger cycling culture.  I don't doubt that they are trying to make us feel more welcome and to counter some of the condescension and hostility female cyclists have long complained about in cycle shops and clubs.

Still, I find it interesting that such a thing is happening in Edmonton and not in New York, at least to my knowledge.

A Crossing

After work today I flew to  San Francisco and have been taking in the Bay Area hills and wind from my bike.  And, yes, I rode by Stanford:

All right.  So I wasn't in the Bay Area.  I was really in Hollywood.  Well, kinda sorta.  I was actually in a neighborhood called Holliswood, which isn't far from where I work.  But I had never been in it before.    At the intersection of Palo Alto and Palo Alto, a car pulled up to me.  A woman whom I would have guessed to be a few years older than me leaned out of her window and asked whether I knew where the Holliswood Hospital is.  

"Sorry, I don't.  Have a good day."

Well, I took a right at that intersection, and two blocks later, there was the hospital!  I felt bad for that woman:  For all I knew, she drove miles in the opposite direction.

Anyway, as it was an utterly gorgeous, if somewhat windy, afternoon, I just rode wherever Arielle took me.  Much of the time, I didn't know where I was.   I didn't mind, really:  Along the way, I stopped at a drive-in convenience store for a drink and snack.  Two men worked there:  I got the impression they were the proprietor and his son, and they had lived in the town--Lynbrook--all of their lives.  And they seemed especially eager to help me--even more so than the other customers, for some reason.

Then I took my Diet Coke with lime and Edy's dixie cup to a schoolyard/playground a block away. I went there because I saw benches in the shade:  I'd been in the sun for a couple of hours and wanted to get out of it for a few minutes, even though the weather wasn't hot at all. There, another black woman a few years older than me started a conversation with me upon seeing Arielle.  She started riding again "a few years ago," after having both of her hips replaced and back surgery.  She says that even though her rides aren't as long as those of some of the cyclists she sees, it's "what I enjoy most in my life, apart from my grandchildren."  I'll think about her the next time I'm whining (even if only to myself) about feeling subpar.

 When I got on my bike again, I finally  knew where I was when I had to stop at a grade crossing for a passing Long Island Rail Road (Yes, they still spell "Rail Road" as two words.)  commuter train.  

I had stopped at that same crossing, which was on Franklin Road, the last time I cycled there.  That was eight years ago, at this time of year.  Then, as now, I didn't get there intentionally, but I didn't mind being there.

I took that ride eight years ago at about this time in September, if I recall correctly.  I probably do, because I also recall it as being around the time I started teaching at La Guardia Community College, which begins its Fall semester around this time of the month.  And it was also about three weeks after I moved out of the apartment Tammy and I shared, and into a neighborhood where I knew no one.

Even though it was less than an hours' ride from where Tammy and I had been living (in Park Slope, Brooklyn), the block to which I moved--which is only seven blocks from where I now live--seemed even more foreign to me than Paris did when I first saw it.  So, for that matter, did most of the rest of Queens, not to mention the Nassau County towns through which I pedaled then and today.

I think that day at the railroad crossing, I knew--or, perhaps, simply accepted the fact--that I was entering a new and very uncertain stage of my life.  I knew what I wanted and needed to do:  In fact, a year earlier I had the experience that taught me I really had no choice but to do it.  And I also realized something I didn't quite understand at the time:  that I wasn't going to be riding "as" Nick for much longer, and that also meant that I probably wouldn't be riding with the racers and wannabes.  

Why didn't I know what all of that meant?  Well, I did know one thing:  that the difference between cycling as Nick and cycling as Justine would not be just a matter of wearing different clothes, having longer hair and possibly riding a different bike.  But how else, I wondered, would they differ? I even asked myself whether I would continue cycling.  After all, I didn't know any other cyclists who were transitioning, and I didn't know (or didn't know that I knew) any who were post-op. Would I even be able to continue?

Well, of course, I found some of the answers through my own research (This is one time I was thankful for the Internet.) and from women cyclists I know.  And, since my operation, Velouria and others have given me some very helpful advice. 

One thing hasn't changed:  I often end up by the ocean even when it isn't my intent.  

I was happy to go to there, though:  Only a few people strolled the boardwalks, and even fewer were on the beaches. I didn't see anyone swimming.

And then there were the couples that remained after the summer romances ended:

Actually, I know nothing about them.  I took the photo because I liked her skirt.

And, once again, I ended up in Coney Island, where I rode down the pier to take a couple of photos.

The young man who was just hanging out was the only other person there.  He asked me what I was doing tonight.  Now that's something I wouldn't have anticipated at that crossing eight years ago!

After 9.11: Riding Without The Guys

Now, two days after the anniversary of 9.11, I'm thinking about how that day changed my cycling life.  I'm not going to talk about how it changed my life because that's way beyond the scope of this blog, much less this post.

None of the cycling partners I had at that time in my life are cycling partners now.  In fact, most of them dropped out of my life, or I dropped out of theirs, not long after that time. 

I'm thinking in particular of someone we used to call "Crazy Ray."  I met him back when I was an active off-roader; later, he, a few other guys and I did road rides.  

He always seemed to be riding the line between physical courage and insanity.  One of the things I prized most about my pre-transition life was his respect.  When we pedaled through the trails--and sometimes off the trails--in the Catskills and in Pennsylvania and Vermont, I didn't do all of the jumps or other stunts he did.  And I didn't barrel down hills with the abandon he did.  But I was in really good shape in those days, and I could keep up with him in every other aspect of our rides.  None of the other guys in our "crew" could say that--not even the ones who were a decade or more younger.  He noticed that.

But, he once told me, the real reason he respected me was that I wasn't a "bikehead." And, he said, he admired the fact that I have the sort of education and do the kind of work I do.  That, I thought, was interesting, as he seemed satisfied with his work, and was certainly earning a lot more money than I was.  But, he said,  there were a lot of things he wished he learned, but felt he couldn't.  I suspected that he had a reading or other kind of learning disability; I offered to help him if only to figure out what kind of help he would need and whether I could give it, or refer him to someone who could.  He said he would take me up on it, but he never did.

I think that he felt a bit insecure, not only around me, but around his girlfriend, who was working on a PhD in, if I remember correctly, sociology.  I know that he felt insecure around some of her friends and colleagues, whom he met at parties.   I told him he shouldn't; he actually sustained thought and expressed himself well.  "But," he said, "I know I can do better."

I'm sure he could have done "better."  Maybe he has. I haven't heard from him since about two weeks after 9.11.   

We had our last phone conversation in the early hours of one morning that was, as I recall, chilly for the time of year.  Actually, he called me and cried.  That wasn't like him.  "Ray, whatever it is, you know I'm cool with it."

"It's not like that, he sobbed."  I heard other voices, and machines, in the background.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the World Trade Center."

"What are you doing there?"

He explained that he'd gone there to help with the rescue and recovery.  His metalworking skills, which he gained from his work as a plumber, were needed.  So, as soon as it was possible to ride his bike there--a couple of days after the planes hit the towers--he went to help.  That was more than a week before our phone conversation; he had been at the site around-the-clock ever since.  And, as you can imagine, he had gotten almost no sleep during those long nights.

"Why don't you go home, see your girl?"

"I can't.  They need me."

"But you've been there nonstop.  Nobody can ask more of you than you've already done."

"Yeah, but..."

"But nothing. You can't take care of anybody else if you don't take care of you."

"All right.  Maybe tomorrow I'll go home, for the day."

"Would you like for me to bring you anything?"

"No, Sarah will do that for me.  But thanks..."  He was crying again.

I never heard from him again.  Nor did I hear from any of the rest of our "crew."  I know that at least one other was working at the World Trade Center site in those days after the attack.  

That fall and into the winter (which was one of the mildest I can recall), I rode, almost always by myself.  I didn't mind that; actually, I was trying to make sense of a few things--or, more accurately, some things made perfect sense and I was trying to deal with them.  

Most of them related in one way or another to the gender transition I would undertake.  Tammy realized that I was headed for it and there was no way to stop it; when I offered to live the rest of my life as Nick, she said, "No, you can't do it just for me. In fact, you can't do it at all."  

9.11 didn't cause me to re-evaluate my life or undertake my transition.  However, less than two months before that day, I had the experience that caused me to realize that I could no longer live in this world as a man.  I had always known myself as female, but I spent more than forty years trying to live otherwise.  Just a few weeks before 9.11, I realized that I simply could no longer pretend.    And, just after 9.11, I found myself thinking about the people who died that day, and how many of them had unrealized dreams and unfulfilled lives of one sort or another.  I realized that had I been in one of those towers, I would have had the "M" on my death certificate.

And so I embarked upon my transition.  However, the transition didn't entail only what I did consciously and willfully.  It also involved those parts of my life from which I passed, or that passed from me.  And it, like 9.11, would change my cycling life as well as the rest of my life.

Gender Studies

OK, now I’m going to offend Floyd “I have a naturally high testosterone level”  Landis  and get myself barred from every gender studies program in the world.  But it will be a lot of fun.  Here goes:

All cyclists are, or should have been born, women because

•        We absolutely must have the right shoes.
•         We absolutely must have the right bag.
•         Not having the right outfit can ruin our day.
•         We accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!
•     We know that titanium is sooo 1996.
•     We spend more to get less.
•      We justify maxing out credit cards and raiding 401 K’s by saying, “I bought it on sale!”
•     We can never be rich or thin enough. (Don’t I know about this one!)
•      No matter what we do, we end up with “helmet hair.” 
•      Our spouses/partners/loved ones simply cannot understand.

Trust me:  I know!

Out Of The Closet This Summer

First one heat wave, then another.  Now I'm really glad that I had my surgery last, rather than this, year.

According to meteorologist, last summer was wetter than normal.  I didn't notice it, but when it wasn't raining, it never seemed to be terribly hot.  So, while I wasn't able to ride my bike or engage in any outdoor activity but walking, I was able to spend much time outdoors when it wasn't raining.  

If I were recovering this summer, I probably would be indoors more, and I'd probably read and write even more than I did.  

Now I'm thinking about how I used to suppress in my identity in the summer.  In cooler weather, I could cover myself more, and hide some of my more masculine features more readily.  You know which ones I mean!

Plus, it was more difficult to wear makeup, as I would sweat much of it off.

I think that keeping myself in the closet during the summer is one reason why I spent so much time cycling and, to a lesser degree, swimming and in other outdoor sports.  You might say I was channeling my anger over having to be someone I wasn't.  Ironically, my lycra shorts accented my most masculine features!

Now I don't even think about those things.  Today I slouched around in a ratty pair of shorts and a T-shirt, with no makeup.  And two men--one in a store and another who works as a doorman a block away--were flirting with me.  The storeowner was enraptured by---my French.  He's Lebanese.

But, seriously...It's nice to enjoy summer as I am now.  There are plenty of women walking around wearing less than I wore.  And many of them look better than I look.  And, yes, I am one of them...even in the middle of summer.

I'm so glad I had my surgery--last summer.

A Little Less Than Half An Hour Forward

Today I got on my Mercian fixed-gear bike for a little less than half an hour. I got one of the saddles the doctor recommended.  I know I'll need to fiddle with the position:  That's always the case, at least for me, with a new bike or saddle.  I'm almost entirely sure, though, that I'm going to swap seatposts (the seat is attached to it, and it is inserted in the frame):  the new saddle, a Terry Falcon X, sits further back on the seatpost than my Brooks did.  Consequently, I used a seatpost that angled back a bit rather than the kind that goes straight up.


Whenever I've ridden after a layoff, I feel euphoric to the point that I don't notice the creakiness in my body--at least, for a little while. I didn't ride long enough to lose that feeling; I could have ridden longer, but I didn't want to risk anything.


The point is that I'm on my bike again.  That's what I'm telling myself.  Yes, I've gained weight, and I know it's harder to lose at my age.  But I'll do it--not just for my looks, but for my health.


 I felt good because, well, it simply was nice to be on my bike again.  But I also realize that I'm not thinking about the cyclist I once was.  I never will be that cyclist again. At least, it's not likely that I'll be that kind of cyclist.  Why?  For one thing, I'm older and my body is different.  But, more to the point, I'm not the same person as I was when I raced, worked as a messenger in Manhattan or rode up and down the Alps, Pyrenees, Green Mountains, Adirondacks and Sierra Nevada.  Or when I cycled those long, almost endless days along the ocean in New Jersey, Long Island, Florida and France or along the Mediterranean from Rome to Nice, then up the Rhone to Avignon and Lyon. 


For me, it is not simply the passing of my youth--or, as some might see it, an extended childhood.  Honestly, I probably could not have done much of my riding if I had any more responsibility than I had.  But I the reason I didn't remain married or have children, or embark on one career or another that I could have chosen,  wasn't that I wanted to avoid commitment.   The truth is that the path I took was the only one I could have taken, or at least the only one I knew how to take.  And, I probably did less damage to other people's lives--and possibly to my own--than I might have otherwise.

Whatever distance I rode today--it wasn't much--was, I hope, an integral part of my new journey.  I still haven't the slightest idea of where it might lead or what kind of a cyclist (or woman or anything else) I might become along the way.  Whatever happens, I probably won't be like Paola Pezzo or Rebecca Twigg.  Then again, I don't think I'm going to be like Angelina Jolie, either.


Wherever I go, I have those past rides as memories and resources.  But I cannot go back to them, any more than anyone can go back to any part of  one's youth.  Plenty of people have tried; I know I have.  


After I rode, I went to a new greenmarket that's opened in my neighborhood.  The smell was most enticing when I entered; as I had almost nothing beyond some cereal and cheese in my place, I bought as much as I could carry.    After that, I called Carol Cometto, the manager of The Morning After House, where I stayed before and after my operation.


I immediately detected a note of sadness, or perhaps resignation in her voice.  "I'm closing this place at the end of August."


At that time, she says, Marci Bowers is moving to Palo Alto.  I knew that she'd talked about moving there; she's always liked the Bay Area. However, Carol said she wouldn't go with her.  "I've been in Trinidad all of my life.  I was born in San Rafael"--the hospital in which Marci did my, and many other people's, surgery--"and everyone I know is here."  


I feel bad for Carol, but I can't say that I'm surprised.  I love them both, but they were a bit of an odd couple, to say the least.  Part of the reason for that is their differing histories and styles.  It's not odd to find Carol in a place like Trinidad: being soft-butch/grown-up tomboy is not at all incompatible with being a sort of modern-day pioneer woman.  Carol has worked on the railroad and performed other jobs that required her to endure extreme weather and other kinds of conditions.  In a way, she reminded me of the narrator of Stone Butch Blues, who--like the other "butches" around her--were able to find work and fashion lives for themselves in the factories of Buffalo during the 1950's and 1960's.  Years later, after the factories closed, those same women could find work only in the supermarkets and department stores, if they could find work at all.  Some of them even married men.


That leads to an interesting question that some academician might want to research:  What would happen to people like Carol if places like Trinidad, Colorado (which has never really recovered from the steep decline in coal mining) and the surrounding ranch and desert areas were to become, say, a new corporate headquarters?  What would become of a middle-aged butch whose work was mostly physical and done mostly outdoors?


Anyway...I realized, after talking to Carol that the whole Trinidad experience, as wonderful as it was, is past for more reasons than simply my own experience.  In a funny way, it reinforces what I sometimes feel:  that everything and everyone else in my life is changing even more than I am.    And, it seems, the only constants have been my writing, teaching--and gender identity--and bike riding.

Getting Out: Anonymity In Chelsea

Another gorgeous spring day when I couldn't ride and all I could do was read a bunch of papers.  So what's a girl to do?


Well, between papers, I did some saddle shopping.  It's scary to have to start over again, trying a whole bunch of different saddles.  Well, I hope I don't have to do that.  I'm looking at the ones with the cutouts:  what are sometimes called the "donut" saddles.  They're what Dr. Ronica recommends.  I want something that fits, but I don't want hideous graphics, either.  That was one nice thing about the Brooks saddles:  They always looked good.


It seemed like everyone in New York was riding bikes today.  Everyone except me, that is.


I took some time off (for good behavior?) to run an errand.  I sold two of my Brooks saddles on eBay and I promised the guys who bought them that I'd ship them tomorrow.  This semester, I've had some time late Monday afternoons when there weren't department or college meetings.  But then I remembered that tomorrow I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist after work.  So, I decided to go to the main post office in Manhattan to mail those saddles.  


That post office is the only one I know of that's open on Sundays.  Besides, it's a beautiful building, and it's right across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.   All you have to do is walk in any direction from it to find something to amuse, annoy, shock, entertain or endanger you.  


So I strolled down Eighth Avenue toward, then past, the Fashion Institute of Technology.  I taught there one semester--a geological age ago, it seems.  While there, I dated another part-time faculty member who was divorced and about a decade older than me.  Back in those days, I was the "before" photo:  a triangular torso and a shock of a beard along my jawline and chin.  I really fit in!


Anyway, one day, she and I went to an exhibit that was held at FIT.  I forget what, exactly, the theme was, but I recall seeing dresses from 200 years ago or thereabouts in France and England.  I pointed to one.  "That one's beautiful," I exclaimed.  Catching myself, I intoned, "I'd be interested to know how they made it."


"No," Lea said.  "You want to wear it."


That was the only time that my gender identity ever figured, in any way, into any of our conversations.  But, it seemed that it was rearing its head any time I entered or left the campus.  You see, it's near the end of Chelsea.  Because I was in such good shape in those days, I had at least one man approach me for sex any time I walked that stretch of Eighth Avenue.  


And, when I first started to venture out "as" Justine, some guy would hit on me.  Some of those men took me for a drag queen, if not a very glamorous one.  (Wearing lots of glitter never appealed to me.)  I don't think they were the sorts of guys who liked transsexual women:  It's been my experience that such men usually aren't gay.   The guys who were hitting on me in those days thought I was one of them.  I might've spent the night with one or two of them, but in those days I wouldn't simply because I didn't want to see myself as anything but a heterosexual male--albeit one who knew that A-line didn't refer to a segment of the New York City transit system.  


Today I walked down that way for no particular reason except that it's pleasant on a day like today.  (Then again, what isn't?)  I practically brushed elbows with dozens of gay men who were coming as I was going, or vice versa, depending on your point of view.  


Not one of them paid me any mind--at least not that I noticed.  What's really ironic, though, is that it didn't upset me.  At other times, I fret when I think I'm not being noticed, at least a little.  Lots of us go through that when we know we're aging and we don't look the way we once did.  Then again, I don't have a memory of myself as young and pretty.  I wasn't really good-looking as a man; whatever attractiveness I had came from my physical conditioning.


So...I walked down eight city blocks and not one man paid attention to me.  Funny, how that, in other circumstances, could be a source of sadness for me or other women.  Or it could cause us to feel relieved, especially if the streets were in a rougher neighborhood or the guys were drunk.  But today I experienced what may be the ultimate irony:  I walked by hundreds of men, and they walked by me without giving me a second glance, or even noticing me in the first place---and I took it as an affirmation of my womanhood.  Who'd've guessed that I could go to Chelsea to be sexually anonymous?!

Off The Bike, Under the Papers

I really must have been paying for some past misdeed or another.  It's been an utterly gorgeous spring day and I can't ride my bike. Worse yet, I've had to spend most of this day reading papers, and tomorrow it looks like I will do the same.  


Eventually, I won't have to grade any more papers.   Eventually, I'll get back on my bike--or so I hope.   Dr. Jennifer is on a leave of absence, so I saw another gynecologist, Dr. Ronica.  She says to stay off the bike for now, but won't tell me when I can get back on.  Hopefully, I'll do that when my infection heals and, hopefully, it will heal soon.


She is something of a cyclist herself:  She told me she has two bikes and rides every chance she gets.  So, I take her seriously when she says she has seen other cyclists who developed a tear and an infection, as I have.  And I'm listening to another of her recommendations, even though it goes against one of my cardinal beliefs (at least, as pertains to cycling):  that I get one of those saddles that has a hole in the middle--and a softer nose than the ones I've been riding.  So, it looks like that means bye-bye Brooks and hello...Specialized?  Terry?


Oh well.  I used to think that real men rode unpadded leather saddles.  Now I don't have to worry about being a real man--especially now that I know that nothing in this world takes more balls than being a woman.  And that's one of the reasons why I wouldn't trade it for anything--not even to ride a leather saddle with copper rivets again!


Then again, if I never much cared for leather with studs on it, why should I be so focused on a saddle with rivets?


Once those papers are all done, the students have their grades and I'm back on my bike, I can think about other things.  Well, I'm thinking about other things, anyway.  That's pretty much what I've tried to do for the past few months.  Actually, I haven't tried; it's what I have done.  I never knew that would be a consequence of my surgery, or my transition.


Given what a workload I've had this semester, I think my students have done pretty well.  Some would say it's because I've done pretty well.  Maybe that's true, at least to some extent.  I guess I can say I've been a pretty good instructor, at least given the circumstances under which I've worked.   It'll seem better once I start cycling to work again, I'm sure.  I just hope that day comes soon, and that I don't have to miss riding on another day like today.

Off The Bike, Again!

Yesterday marked ten months since my surgery.  Before I know it, I (as I am now) will be a year old.


I just hope I can take a really nice ride that day.  Yesterday I found out I'm going to be off my bike again for another week or two. Just when the weather was getting good!


Over the last few days, I thought I might be developing an infection.  There was some yellowish discharge and I felt twinges, but not a burning sensation.  (The latter would have been an almost sure sign.)  So I went to see Dr. Jennifer.


She found a small tear inside and said that I should stay off my bike at least until my next visit, which will be next Friday.  Oh, dear.  I don't think of myself as superstitious (I have slept in cemeteries twice and walk, even at night,  by the one that abuts the campus where I teach.) but now I think that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't have said anything about starting a bike blog!  


I will visit Dr. Jennifer again the week after next as well.  I just hope I heal before then.  Oh, please, great goddess of the transwoman cyclists, let me heal so I can get on my bike again.  Yes, even though my motives are selfish:  I want to ride and I've gotten fat.  


Now, without sounding too much like Joseph Campbell or anyone like that, I guess it's really true that one creates one's own mythology.  It doesn't even have to involve deities or powers:  Any belief by which someone chooses to live is a myth.  That, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that said belief isn't true.  At least, that's what I tell myself when I think that I'm going to win Lotto and that Elvis is coming back. ;-)


Oh well. I'm going to be very busy during the next couple of weeks.  So, maybe I wouldn't have been able to do much riding.  At least it's good to think that way.  But some is better than none.  And riding to work again has definitely made my workdays go by more quickly.  


Whatever I tell myself, I want to ride.  

My Next Blog.

Coming soon:  New blog.


Yes, I've decided that I am going to start another blog.  It will be related to bicycling.  I'm just thinking about whether I want it to be free-form or to have a focused theme.  I'm leaning toward the latter, as there are a number of cycling blogs on the web already.  I just happen to subscribe to a few of them, in addition to Gunnar's blog, in which he often mentions bicycles and cycling.


That doesn't mean I'm going to discontinue Transwoman Times, at least not yet.  I'm not quite ready to let go of it, even though I'm starting to sense there isn't as much for me to say here as I had, say, a few months or a year ago.  


I'm guessing that my new blog will start some time around Memorial Day.  By that time, the current semester will have finished.  Plus, ironically enough, the holiday seems appropriate for starting a new venture. No, I won't drape my new blog with banners and flags and such.  However, if my new blog has begun by that time, I will at least make mention of the tributes made to those who serve.  Now, what they serve is definitely debatable.


Now I'm thinking about that because I just may have talked a student out of joining the Armed Forces.  Like many others who've joined, he sees it as a way of guaranteeing that he has a job for at least a year or two, and of paying for college.  I pointed out that there are other ways of getting the same things, and though he may have to spend more time, effort or money in the beginning, those outlays will be worthwhile.  No matter what else he does, he will have more freedom than he would have in the military.  "Once you sign up, they own you; you're their property," I pointed out to him.  "And they can do whatever they want to you.  In fact, when your tour of duty is finished they can keep you."


He thanked me for telling him those things.  I think that deep down, he knew he didn't really want to join, but he has all sorts of pressures and is therefore anxious about the future. Those anxieties are still better than the alternatives.


Anyway, I'm feeling very sleepy, so it's good night and fair adieu and all that.'