I Love Figure Skating And I'm Not Sorry

OK, so I've broken my vow not to watch TV. But it's not TV that I'm watching: It's the Olympics.

Specifically, I'm following the skaters. Last night, the pairs competed; tonight it's individual male skaters.

Now I have to admit to being disgustingly politically correct: I feel the urge to apologize for the fact that I'm watching the skaters. Why is that? Well, I can almost hear the voice of some gender studies graduate student reminding me that skating competitions reinforce gender roles. In one of the pairs, the girl looked young enough to be the guy's daughter, or at least his niece. And, of course, one of the ways in which figure skating resembles so much ballet is that the man picks up the woman, twirls her around and lowers her onto the ice in exactly the right position so that she can do a twirl or spin of her own.

My inner '70's feminist recoils or screams, depending on her mood, in horror at the spectacle. Yet I'm loving every second of that spectacle. Does that make me some kind of horrible reactionary? Have I become a Bourgeois Bitch?

Well, truth be told, I was always something of a BB. I mean, I like comfort and pretty things, and I seek refinement and relate to the world through my emotions.

OK, so I've established my credentials for the first "B." So what gives me the right to call myself the "b" that rhymes with "witch?" Well, other people have called me that, but I've long since learned that what other people say about you doesn't make you what you are.

Rather, I now realize that I am a "bee-yatch" because, it seems to me, that the unspoken, unwritten definition of one is a woman who does what she needs and wants to do, and doesn't apologize for it.

And I don't apologize for the fact that I'm enjoying the couples who skate their way into traditional gender roles and male figure skaters who are, well, male figure skaters. And, yes, the female figure skaters, too.

But I'm not really watching TV. Really!

Meetings

Today I guess I had a taste of the "real world": I spent most of it in meetings. If I told my students, or any other young person, that if they enter a profession, they will spend much of their time in meetings and will spend much of the rest of their time doing paperwork, I wonder how many of them would decide to be bus drivers or haircutters instead of teachers or accountants.

All right, I've got my whining out of the way. Classes start on Thursday. So I get a "day off" tomorrow, which I'll spend preparing syllabi and other materials for it. Maybe I'll sneak a bike ride in there somewhere.

At least the food at lunchtime was really good. Among the foods were a couscous, pasta and potato salads and sandwiches made of grilled vegetables on whole-grain rolls. And to chase all that tasty, healthy food were some desserts that looked healthier than they actually are: dark chocolate-covered whole-grain pretzels, a raspberry coffee cake and a few other "healthy" snacks. Finally, there were regular and diet versions of Coke and Sprite to wash it all down.

The meal reminded me of a soda float someone used to make with diet Coke and one of the really rich brands (e.g., Ben and Jerry's or Haagen-Dazs) ice cream. This person--a college classmate--reasoned that the diet soda made up for the high fat and caloric content of the ice cream. I must admit, I've employed worse logic in my time.

The lunch came courtesy of one of the publishers of one of the required textbooks. When I wasn't in meetings, I was in a "workshop"--which everyone in the department had to attend--conducted by reps from that company who were introducing a new edition of that book. Those reps are really good at what they do: They smiled and said encouraging things even as I and a couple of other faculty members said, in essence, that the book is not terribly useful for the course in which it's used (Freshman composition) and the level of skills the students bring to it.

It's not a bad book, really. In fact, it's very good for what it is. It's just not a book that the freshmen (most of them, anyway) have the skills to use effectively. Maybe, after they take the course, it will be helpful to them. But in the composition class, there are so many other things we have to teach them in order to prepare them for the rest of their college classes and to make up for all of the things high schools (at least the ones here in New York) seem not to teach anymore.

A few of the faculty members--young ones, mostly--would not voice such concerns. But a few of us older and more cynical, I mean wiser, instructors voiced some of our criticisms. When the reps acted like good reps--which is to say, they acknowledged us without hearing us--we turned to each other and rolled our eyes up.

Sometimes I'd like to bring some of my younger students to a gathering like that to show them what they have to look forward to in the "real" world.

All right, I'll stop being cynical. In spite of everything, I felt really good today. No, I take back "in spite of." I can see a difference in the way some colleagues are reacting--or should I say responding--to me, compared to the beginning of last semester or last year. Someone told me that they can see the confidence I have in, and the peace I feel with, myself. Those reps will probably never see me again; they will take their act to another campus. On the other hand, I feel more like--a peer, for lack of a better word--to Jonathan and Helen and other colleagues in the department. I may not have some of their accomplishments, but I have others. But most important of all, I am feeling more confident about myself. And, as Joanne, a tutor in the Writing Center, said people are responding to that.

Six Months: The Paradoxes of Coming Home

Exactly six months ago today, I had my surgery.

I'm thinking now of that conversation I had with Marilynne's daughter just after Christmas. We agreed that on one hand, it seems that the time has passed very quickly, but on the other, it seems like a very long time has passed. Somehow that paradox seems to relate to another: That we lived the vast majority of our lives pre-op-- and even pre-transition-- and now so much of my previous life is fading, or has already faded, into the background.

And there is yet another paradox: Knowing that there are things I did because I lived as a guy named Nick, yet realizing that while I was doing them, I was Justine. As an example, I had relationships with women who were attracted to that guy. Yet I know now that even though I was repressing myself, I was--at least in some way--just as much a woman as I am now. And that is exactly the reason I felt the need to make my transition and have my surgery.

Some day relatively soon, Marilynne's daughter will have lived the majority of her life post-op. Given my age, that day is not likely to come for me. Still, there are times when it feels like this part of my life is the longer and greater part--that, in fact, I feel somehow as if I have always been post-op, or at least the woman who entered new stages in her life with her transition and operation.

Spending time with Dwayne after work accented the feelings I've described. For me, that makes sense, as he is the very first person to whom I "came out." He has never called me anything but Justine or used any pronouns but female ones in reference to me. In other words, he knows about my previous life but never saw it. So, even though that part of my life was much longer than my current life, he knows only a summary of it, if you will, and it is the point that came before the starting point of my current life. You can say that, I suspect, about anyone who meets and develops a relationship with you in the middle of your biological life.

When Dwayne and I embraced upon meeting, I felt in some way as if I'd "come home." I told him that, and he said he felt the same way. Oddly, that's what I felt the first time I met him, which is the reason I was able to "come out" to him.

Then, I knew I'd come home but had practically no idea of what that meant. Now, I am learning about my surroundings, if you will, but everything I learn--whether it's about my body, or about the ways I experience what's outside my body or within my mind and soul--feels inevitable and organic, if not predictable.

What I'm learning makes complete sense even if it's not what I expected. And that's the reason I'm learning it. That can make time go very quickly and make the past seem even further in the past.

Just Around the Corner

I am so exhausted. So what am I doing, writing on this blog?, you ask. Well, I'd rather whine to whoever may be reading this than to myself. Call it whatever you will.

I've spent all day unpacking and I still have so much left to do. Why is it that I never recall just how much work it is to move? One would expect that I'd be ready after all the moves I've done. I have an excuse this time: the short notice.

Now I'm thinking of something John, Millie's husband, said as we were returning the van. "If I could sell my house for about a million and a half, I'd just leave everything behind and start over." I can say that if I were made such an offer, I'd probably be tempted, too.

The bruise on my left side has grown. I guess that's to be expected, given all the bending and lifting I've had to do. Dang, it's ugly!

Millie called tonight, as she did last night. She reminded me that since she still has visitation rights to Max and Charlie, she'll be over this way sooner or later. And I'll be at her place again, probably for Christmas.

It's been weird, spending three days with no background music. I still haven't unpacked the speakers. They're in one of the hardest-to-reach boxes. I'll get to them sooner or later.

Now I'm living right around the corner from many of the stores in which I shop and restaurants and cafes in which I eat. I can't help but to think of my first visits to those places, some seven years ago. That's when I first moved onto the block from which I just moved. I'd just met Millie; I hadn't met any of her family members. I didn't know anyone else in the neighborhood. In some way, I felt even more like a stranger among strangers than I did when I first went to Europe.

When I first went to Europe, I'd just graduated college. But I toured on my bike, so I felt I was, in some way, a peer of many of the people I would meet, however briefly. Plus, I felt no special attachment to the college from which I graduated--or, really, to almost anyone. About the only people with whom I made any real effort to stay in contact were my mother, my maternal grandmother and Elizabeth. If I hadn't had them in my life back then, I probably would have stayed away even longer than I did.

When I first moved to the block I just left, Tammy and I had just broken up. We'd been living together for four years, and during the last year, I became a recluse. I was even distant from Tammy, even though we were sharing the same bed. When I moved out, there was really no reason for me to see her again, much less to return to the neighborhood in which we lived.

Now I am on another block where I know no one. But just around the corner, there's so much that's familiar to me.