Bridges

Tonight my composition class took their final exam. All composition classes take the same final exam, which faculty members in the department create. It consists of an article of five or six pages, of which students are given copies during the last class meeting before the final exam. Then, when they take the test, they're given a shorter article on a related topic. The students are asked to write an essay comparing and/or contrasting something each author says. And the students are also asked to compare what each of the writers say with their own expereinces.

The longer article, which appeared in the New York Times magazine around the time of Obama's inaguration, discusses the variety of cultures and heritages that make up his and his wife's families. The other article talks describes a man's futile effort to merge his local school district, in which nearly all of the pupils are wealthy and white, with a neighboring district that's mostly poor or working-class and black. The man pointed out that in the lifetimes of the children, the majority of the American population will be nonwhite. He said something to the effect that his district couldn't deny its children the opportunity to interact with "future Obamas."

You can imagine how well his appeal went over!

However, one of the administrators in the neighboring district, who said that such a merger would be a "logistical nightmare," said that the kids are already interacting more than most adults realize: at malls, movie theatres and such. "They don't need for us to build bridges between them," he claimed. "We're the ones who need the bridges."

That statement reflects much of my experience. When students know about my gender identity, they're interested, on average, for about five seconds. Then they want to know what grades I "gave" them on their latest assignment. If they don't know, they seem surprised when they learn of my identity. They may ask a few questions. Then it's on to other things.

On the other hand, some of the faculty members and administrators, who congratulate themselves on having voted for Obama, act is if my identity doesn't matter. Next thing I know, I find myself accused of things I hadn't even heard of, or having my willingness to work hard and help people, as well as my other better qualities, used against me. That is exactly what happened in the position in which I worked last year; it's practically a rerun of how I was drummed out of the last college in which I worked.

However, the students in my composition class--the one everybody has to take--made it a point of telling me how much they enjoyed the class. Now, some of them may have been buttering me up. But I think at least a few meant what they said. "You are such a good professor," one explained, "because you are who you are--a joyful and caring person."

The young woman who said that is active in her family's church. More often than not, she's wearing a cross pendant. And she's not shy about her beliefs.

But she likes me as a prof. So did another student, who also said that I "dress much better than the other professors." This student is thinking about taking design courses, which would mean going to another college. However, she said she would like to stay at this college because "it's suited me otherwise."

"How so?"

"Well, it's nearby. My family doesn't want me to go far away. And my courses have been good.

She, born in this country to Mexican parents, lives in a part of Queens that's almost entirely black. The college's student body is about 80 percent black. Oftentimes, after school she goes to Richmond Hill, where some of her friends and relatives live among multitudes of Indian-Guyanese people.

That is a typical day for her: one spent crossing bridges. Hopefully, I've done something to make the journey more fulfilling.

Save Me From Changing

This is the time in the semester when students want to hand in assignments that were due months ago--and to go over those assignments line-by-line with them. And they want more time to rewrite the assignment.

Well, OK. I just had one of those students now. Her excuse was that she was going to turn in the paper yesterday, but she had a doctor's appointment. She never asked me for an extension--until now. And I made it quite clear to her, and the rest of the class, that the deadline was last Wednesday.

And then she'll complain to the department chair, the dean or anyone else who will listen.

As if I'm not under enough pressure now. Evangelists are supposed to save people's souls. People like the student I mentioned think that my job is to save her ass.

And then I come home and call Mom and Dad. Dad answers and gives me, practically verbatim, the same monologue he gave me the other day. He knows what he needs to do, but he doesn't have the will to do it. I can give love, and maybe not a whole lot else. Certainly, I can't give someone the desire to be the kind of husband and father that he now laments not having been.

Perhaps I seem callous. But I've listened to him, even empathised with him--I spent lots of time depressed, too.--but he says he has no interest in anything, not even sex or food. He knows he needs to eat, and that getting laid probably wouldn't be a half-bad idea for him, either. He also knows he needs to shower, shave, get dressed and get out of the house--for any reason at all, really.

When I told him that I have days when I don't want to leave the house and face all of the people at work, he said, "Well, it's your job. You have to do it." True enough. But, I explained, the teaching, advising, mentoring and other ways in which I interact with people--as much as I like doing those things, most of the time--aren't just the way I make my living. They're a job in the real sense: They're a purpose, one of my purposes. The only other thing about which I feel the same way is my writing. They are my raisons d' etre.

That, I explained, is what he really needs. He needs to create a purpose, a job, for himself. There are people who've lost their jobs, yet still wake up in the morning, shower, shave, dress and go to the train station. From there, they might actually take the train downtown to look for work. Or they might go to a cafe or some other place where other people like them congregate to encourage each other, compare resumes and such.

He could make his job something as basic as keeping up the yard or some part of the house. His old job isn't coming back, ever. Even if it were to return, my father probably wouldn't be hired for it; He is too old, in the eyes of those who are hiring. But he still has a lot to contribute, to himself and members of his family. And it isn't monetary.

But he needs a job. That is the way he identifies with, and values, himself. He needs a purpose, whatever it is. For the first time, I am understanding that a person's purpose changes over time. Back in the days when people died of things today's paramedics treat every day, perhaps they didn't have to change purpose: There was only survival, and most people grew their own crops and slaughtered the animals they ate. And they got married at 14 or 15 and had ten kids, four of whom might live long enough to become bearers of children themselves. When life is brutish, nasty and short, your only real job is to survive, and to ensure the survival of your family and race.

Now people like my father live much longer. Their jobs, or the instutions for or in which they performed them, become obsolete and and disappear. Their children move away and move on.

The scenario I've just described can happen to anyone. I can already see how some of my own jobs, my own purposes, have changed over the past few years. And I suspect that they will change again, however incrementally, after my surgery--which I hope to be ready for, and to do this July 7.

Presence

Today I talked with Mom, as I usually do on Sunday mornings. And I talked with Dad--I mean, really talked--as I've begun to do only recently.

I wish only that the circumstances were better. Mom sounded exhausted and unhappy when I called. My father is spiralling deeper into his depression, which is exacerbating the other illnesses he's suffering. He has no interest in anything--not in eating, not in reading, not in watching TV, or even my mother--or other women.

Talk about a cosmic bad joke: We should be worried that my father's eye isn't roving!

He berates himself for having been a "lousy" son, husband and father. I remind him that the past is exactly that. He can't do anything about what kind of son he might have been (which, I suspect, is better than he says, especially considering the father he had) and, frankly, I no longer care about what he did and didn't do for and with me thirty or forty years ago. I also remind him that he treated me well when I visited back in August and at Christmastime. And that we talk now. That's what matters to me.

However, today I gave him my sternest warning yet: He could kill my mother. Not with a gun or knife, of course. He is exhausting her in every way a person can; he could cause her emotional or physical collapse. Of the two, the latter is more likely. But, I said, if either happens, he's responsible. The one thing for which I would never forgive him is taking Mom away from me--and my brothers, nieces, nephews and other relatives.

I tried to assure Mom I am happy that she wants to go with me when I have my surgery, and that I would understand if she couldn't go. She was talking about that today. She said she told my brother not to expect her at my nephew's high school graduation in California next month. She didn't say the same thing about accompanying me to my surgery. I would love that she came with me, I said, but I care more about her well-being. I'd rather that she live a few more years than to destroy what she has left in trying to support me. I feel her support already; her physical presence would be the proverbial icing on the cake.


She gave birth to me. Whether or not she takes that trip to Trinidad with me, she'll be present as I give birth to my self. I hope she understands that.

At least she understands why I'm doing what I'm doing. A few other people do, too. And I'd like for more to understand: not for myself, but for others who are following or will follow a path like mine.

Sometimes the ones who understand are the ones you expected to. An example is one of my colleagues at work, who's a playwright. He was in the Tet Offensive and wears his love of sports and women on his sleeve. A regular guy, in other words.

But he spent a year talking to me about my transition before I brought in some old photos of myself. "All I have to do is look at these," he exclaimed, "to know why." I didn't even pick any extroadinary ones of me; just a few that were handy. "All I can see is sadness and anger in them, " he explained.

He also gave me an idea: An essay accompanied with those photographs, and some recent ones of me. I think I'll do it. The thing is, there's one photo I'd really like to use. In it, I have a long, thick, almost unruly beard, and I'm standing in front of a stone wall in the late autumn twilight. Actually, if I recall correctly, it was a rather mild day in winter, and part of the photo's autumnal quality comes from the way the earth tones of my flannel shirt echo and accentuate the hues of stone and shades of setting sun--as well as my reddish hair and beard.

I was about twenty-five years old; if I recall correctly, that photo was taken just a few weeks after Cori, a friend of mine, committed suicide. I spent the last night of her life with her: She'd called me, and hearing the distress in her voice, I dropped whatever I was doing and went to her place. I think she felt that I could help her with some resource I didn't even know I had--or, more precisely, was doing everything I can to realize I had.

You may have guessed what she told me: That her conflict was the same as mine. Of course, she didn't say that it was the same as mine; she expressed her feeling that she should have been born female. For most of that night she was holding on to me, literally--for her life, it seemed.

And I did not keep her from drowning. Or, more precisely, hanging herself, which is what she did the next day: three days before Christmas.

A week before that, my uncle Sonny died suddenly of a heart attack. And a little more than a year before that, my maternal grandmother, with whom I was closer than I was to any human being besides my mother, succumbed to one of the many ailments her diabetes and high blood pressure bred in her.

Anyway, the photo captures not only the pain, rage and sadness I was feeling. It also, I think, captured my status as an "outsider." It was almost as if the photographer were showing the hostility to the world that underlies the life of an Amish person, a Hasidic Jew, a Luddite or anyone else who isn't one of the "cool kids." And, of course, there is an echo of the world's hostility to which the outsider reacts, consciously or not.

I want to use that photo in the project my colleague suggested. However, the print I have of it is faded and otherwise not in very good condition. So I decided to get in touch with the man who took the photo. I hadn't talked to him in more than twenty years; I recall that we had a falling-out, but I don't recall why.

Although I'd guessed that some photofinisher could restore that photo or make a new copy of it, I thought it would be better if I could have a new print from the negative. That is, of course, if the photographer still had the negative. That is, of course, if he were still alive: When he took that photo, he was about the same age that I am now.

Turns out, Tom is alive and living in Florida. When I called him, he was entertaining guests. But he took the time to tell me that he probably didn't have the original negative, but that someone who's skilled with Photoshop could restore the photo for me.

I apologized for being out of touch and that we'd parted on such bad terms. "I don't remember why; it was so long ago. But I really want to hear more about you. Why don't you write me an e-mail. "

"I'll do that."

"If you'd like to tell me more about why you want the photo, please tell me."

"OK."

This could be interesting, to say the least!

Dreams, Fatigue, Sleep, More Dreams

I thought the dentist gave me local anaesthesia for my surgery. Here I am, two days later, still feeling tired. Yesterday I slept early in the evening, then got up and stayed up late. This morning, I was awakened much earlier than I had anticipated by a mail carrier delivering a package to me. Late this afternoon, I dozed off for a while. Now I'm awake late at night, again.

To be fair, I know that the anaesthesia didn't, or at least shouldn't have, made me tired. But I have to wonder if it wreaked havoc with my sleeping patterns. Hopefully, I'll return to some sort of normal sleeping schedule soon.

Bruce asked me an interesting question yesterday: Have I had dreams about my upcoming surgery. I haven't, that I know of. Then again, I don't make much effort to remember my dreams. Once in a while, I do recall one, but not because I was trying to hold on to it.

Were I to dream about my surgery,or anything related to it, what would the dream be like? Would it be one of those dreams from which I awaken in a cold sweat and with my heart racing? Or one in which I feel as if I'm falling through my bed?

I seem to never wake up from a pleasant dream. So, who knows? : Maybe I've had a happy dream or two about the surgery after all.

A pleasant dream about a surgery. Hmmm....? Perhaps it's more realistic than it sounds. Early in my transition, I told my social worker that I felt as if I had awakened from a bad--and very long--dream. That is why I felt anxiety and exhiliaration at the same time: I felt the anxiety over what I had experienced rather than what lay before me, which I could not imagine anyway. I could only anticipate and plan some of the things I would do, such as "coming out" to family, friends and co-workers. But I could not foresee what the results of those actions would be. At least they've been, for the most part, better than I'd hoped. After all, I am getting closer and closer to my surgery, aren't I?

Lilacs

Finally...lilacs!

They came in late this spring. Perhaps it had to do with the cold weather we had until a couple of weeks ago. Actually, we had a heat wave for the last weekend in April; then, the weather turned cold again until the other day.

Or maybe the lilacs are appearing only now because we've had so much rain this spring. Not being much of a gardener or horticulturalist, I can't even give an educated guess.

But at least they've arrived, and I picked up a bunch from a store near me. I was tempted to buy them from a sidewalk display I saw as Bruce and I were walking up Prince Street in SoHo. There, the blooms cost ten dollars a bunch. At the greengrocer that sells flowers on Broadway near Steinway Street in Astoria, a like group of branches with clusters of light purple petals cascading from them cost half as much as they did in Manhattan. I'm glad I waited until I got to off the subway in my neighborhood before opening my purse again!

Lilacs are one of the few things in this world for which I don't mind paying more than I should. You might think that's frivolous, particularly for cut flowers that won't last more than a week--or two, if I'm lucky and careful.

So why are they my favorite flowers, you ask? Well, there's the color, which is the most exquisite shade of the hue I like best because it's feminine in the most complex possible way: It's translucent. I mean that in the old sense of the word: It moves from one kind of light to another. I can see, feel and smell the steely grayish-indigo of a late-afternoon, late-winter sky coaxed open by rays of sun that almost feel too strong because they are the first of the season, having come without warning.

In other words, the color of the lilac reflects the vulnerability that underlies the strength of one who survives. And the aroma of those flowers conveys the feeling of that color.

You probably know the opening of The Waste Land: "April is the cruellest month/Breeding lilacs out of the dead land." The promise of spring, which is the first and sometimes only hope of this world, is wrested from the death-grip of winter. From there, we--I--have no choice but to nurture that first or most palpable birth of the season. Fortunately, I would not want to do anyting else, and I believe there are other people who feel the same way.

It is the only first step I, or anyone, can take if we want to follow the other steps toward the conclusion of The Waste Land: the conclusion I seek. Here it is: "Shantih. Shantih. Shantih."

Oral Problems and Sleep

Well, there are certainly some things that don't change with one's gender. Today I experienced one of them--namely, something oral.

I know what you were thinking. (How would I know, right?) But it's not that. However, it did involve a man sticking things in my mouth and inflicting pain on me.

Yes, today I had oral surgery. A root canal I had about ten years ago developed an infection. And it just happens to be in the tooth directly below my sinus cavity. That, according to the oral surgeon (and a few other sources) may be the reason why my headaches and sinus problems are frequent. True, I do get migraines. But I also get other headaches that I know are unrelated.

I hope he's right. For now, I've got a real headache. But most of the pain is coming from the surgery. Actually, the pain isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, I wish it would go away.

The weird thing is that I expect my cheek to look puffed up, like what one might find on a cross between a squirrel and President Nixon. But, looking at my face, one couldn't tell that my gum was cut open and stitched. So, I could go out with Dominick: I am still more or less presentable, or at least as presentable as I can be made to be. But I'm not going out with him or anyone: I'm just too tired. In fact, I fell asleep before I booted up my computer and started writing this, and I'll probably go back to sleep after I finish or abandon this entry.

Jean Valentine once told me that a piece of writing is never finished, only abandoned. I may have financed some psychiatrist's time share in the Hamptons when I told that to my composition students one semester, back when "bear" referred to me and not the Stock Market. That's what I was: The Scare Bear. Now I try to be a Care Bear. People tell me that I am one.

Tonight will be about self-care: the medicine the surgeon prescribed to prevent an infection from forming, Tylenol with codeine (the kind for which you need a prescription) and of course my estrogen and anti-androgen. The first two drugs I'll take until they run out, which will be in a few days. Now I'm realizing that I'll be taking the anti-androgen only for another few weeks. And the dosage of my estrogen will be reduced.

But I'm sure I'll be on Tylenol with codeine or some other really strong painkiller for some time after the surgery. Maybe an anti-infection pill, too.

One thing I don't need now is a sleeping pill! My eyelids are growing heavier. So I'm abandoning (I cannot lie to Jean!) this entry. But not whoever is reading this, and especially not the one who is writing it.

The End of a Class or the Beginning of a New Stage?

Today it was good-bye to the Poetics and Rhetoric of Hip-Hop class. I'm really going to miss the students in that one. Some are graduating; I may see some of them or the others again. Still, I was about to cry at the end of it.

Students paid tributes to me, which I wasn't expecting. They said that they never knew hip-hop could be so closely related to classical English poetry and that they never knew how poems or songs work until I explained stresses in poetic lines, and their similarities to beats in music. They also said that I was one of the most inspiring teachers and unpretentious people they'd ever met.

The odd thing is that I didn't see it as another "nail" in the coffin of my current life. Instead, I started to feel as if that class was an early step in my new life. I was teaching my own ideas in my own way; I'd never quite done anything like it before.

What's really interesting to me, though, is that in spite of the fact that all but two of the twenty-seven students in that class were black (Caribbean, American or African) and the other two were Hispanic, I never was conscious of my whiteness. You might say that I stepped out of race, or at least my own race, for a couple of hours every week.

If that sounds like an escape, well, it is--from stereotypes and other kinds of misguided expectations. In other words, it's an escape from a kind of willow prison: one that is easier to bend but just as difficult to break as one made of concrete or stone. In some way, I felt as if it were part of my process of transition from life in one gender to living in another.

And from the time I started this transition, I realized that it was, in many ways, a new stage of my recovery. It took me fifteen years of living clean and sober--and as much depression and, at times, much more anger and pain than I experienced when I was abusing alcohol and drugs--to arrive at the point at which I could start my gender transition. Now I sense that teaching the hip-hop class--or, more precisely, the students in it--has begun yet another stage in my recovery: my recovery of my self, my essence.

Maybe my essence is no more beautiful than my body. (That's saying something!) But, deep down, I really would rather relate to people (and animals, or certain ones, anyway) through love than by other means. I really would rather trust people than to deal with them with suspicion. Actually, Cady Ann, my department's secretary commented on that. She told me that she warned a student from another class not to mistake my kindness for weakness or stupidity. I know that people cheat and do all sorts of unethical and simply unsavory things. But no-one ever has a chance to become trustworthy unless someone trusts him or her. Of course, there is always the risk of having that trust betrayed. Still, some people violate rules, laws and other people even when they are constantly under surveillance and the threat of punishment.

Now, I know what you're asking yourself. And I'll answer it: I caught plagiarism in one student's final paper. When I pointed out to him, he looked abashed. He even apologized for "letting [me] down."

If that's the worst thing that happened in that class, I'm pretty damned lucky. Or something.

Goodbyes and First Steps

Tonight the good-byes are beginning. I have met one of my classes--Writing for Business-- for the last time this semester, and in my current life. Most of the students probably don't know that I'm about to have my surgery, but they seemed to sense that I'm about to embark on some large undertaking. Some are graduating; others asked me what I'm teaching next semester. They all seemed to know that somehow I would be different when the Fall term begins.

Honestly, I didn't want to leave that class. I can only imagine how I'll feel about the hip-hop class tomorrow. It's turned out to be the best and most satisfying work I've done since I did poetry workshop with chronically ill and handicapped kids at St. Mary's Hospital for Children in Bayside, NY.

But my students must move on, just as I will. I hope some of them will remain in contact with me. I used to discourage that, but now I see what a mistake that was.

One good-bye I hope I don't have to say just yet is to Janine. Last night, I talked with Diana on the phone. She relayed the news from Janine's sister: Janine is in the hospital, where the doctors found another tumor at the base of her brain. So it seems that it will be even more difficult than it has been for her to get out and do any of the things she used to do by herself, with Zybicek, with me, Diana, Marie Jeanne and Michelle. I'm going to send her a card, but I'd really like to go to Paris and spend even a little time with her. (I'm not sure of how much time or energy she'd have for me, given her condition.) I don't know how or when I could do that, though.

Ironically, Diana brought up the day I mentioned in "The First Girls' Day Out." We went to Brighton Beach, where I changed into a bathing suit one of them--I still don't know which one--packed. Diana recalled a detail of that day I'd forgotten: My fake breast fell out of the bathing suit when I arced into an oncoming wave. I wonder what sea creature may have found it, and what he or she might have done with it.

She said that it was "one of the most enjoyable days" she ever spent. I feel the same way; I explained to her that it was really my first "girls'"outing. "I felt that a new dimension developed to our friendships," I said. "I'd left something behind, but I also came into something."

"That's because you stepped out of gender," she explained. "Actually , we all did. It became something different from what it was when you were a man hanging out with us."

When I think of it, I feel not only that I stepped out of the gender in which I'd been living; I'd, well, simply stepped out. It was like taking my first steps in the world. I felt scared and exhiliarated at the same time; I was cursing Janine under my breath for insisting that I change into the bathing suit but thanking her for being there as I took those first steps, each one less tenuous and furtive than the one before it.

"It was odd," Diana recalled. "But you were being you, and you were exactly where you should have been."

Now, if that's not affirming, then I don't know what affirmation is.

Happy Mother's Day

Today I experienced something I still haven't gotten used to: people wishing me a happy Mother's Day. I don't know whether I ever will, or should, become accustomed to the experience.

It's not that I mind people perceiving me as old enough to be a mother: At least they're not taking me for a grandmother! Plus, I still remember how I felt affirmed as a woman when I heard that greeting on my first Mother's Day in my life as Justine. So, in all, it's not a bad thing, I guess.

Still, I have mixed feelings. I still feel as if I don't have the right to be wished a happy Mother's Day. After all, I have never raised, much less given birth to, any children. I may adopt a child. Even if I do, I will not have endured and sacrificed what my own mother gave in order to bring me and my brothers into this world, or countless other women who've given new lives to this world--sometimes at the cost of their own. I could never repay Mom in any; that she wants to accompany me in my surgery is icing on the cake.

Then again, Dominick and other people have told me that I'm maternal. Very often I feel that way, particularly when a student--or anyone, for that matter-- comes to me for help or guidance. I've been told that some of my female students, as well as other women, look to me as a role model. I still don't understand why, although I'm happy to oblige them.

Another thing people have told me--and I'm finally owning up to--is that I'm nurturing. I've had moments when it might seem otherwise. Hey, I'm not perfect. But I do believe that in any situation, I should deal with people in a caring way. I mean, what other way should I be if other people are, as I am, living souls who happen to be living human lives for reasons beyond our control.

Does I merit a "Happy Mother's Day" wish because I am as I've just described? I don't know. But if people want to express such a wish to me, I welcome it. Perhaps it's not politically correct to say what I'm about to say, but here it is: I can think of nothing more difficult--and more honorable--to do.

So to any mother who's reading this--and to my own Mom, even though she never has and probably never will use a computer--a hearty Happy Mother's Day wish from me!

Senses and Soloists

Some of my best days include sense-memories. Today was one of them.

This morning, I took my usual trip to the farmer's market on Roosevelt Island. It seemed that the fruits and vegetables were fresher and more plentiful than they have been in months. Given that this is the middle of spring, that's to be expected. There still isn't much locally-grown stuff, but at least most of what they were selling came from Florida or California rather than the far end of South America. Not that I have anything against Chilean grapes or Argentinian pears, or anything from any other country. It's just that domestic production, even from as far away as California, tends to be fresher. Compared to the Tierra del Fuego, Fresno or Salinas is local.

Another reason why everything seemed fresher was that the market itself seemed fresher. A nice spring breeze after an early-morning rain can make almost anything seem dewy. However, there was something about that air that also brought out the sweetness in the scents of the grapes, the tart aroma of the strawberries and the pleasant pungentness of the basil. And I could practically taste the almost translucent sweetness of this year's first good corn.


What filled my nose seemed to go straight to the memory centers of my brain. Before I knew it, I was in those wonderful markets I used to find all over France and Italy when I was living in and travelling in those countries. Save for the middle of summer, most of the time it's not much warmer in much of France and northern Italy than it was late this morning--just under 70F. And there the morning sun often as not follows a predawn shower or precedes rain that passes through before noon.

If one must experience deja vu, one can do much worse than I did today!

These days, I feel that my senses are always alive in the way they were in my old life only when I was stimulated. It took something like a bike tour in a foreign country to bring that out in me. Now, it's as if my senses have no "off" switch. Much of the time, that's wonderful. But for someone like me who suffers migraines, sometimes it can also be a bit too much. At least today wasn't one of those times.

Well, at least I'm at an age when I am no longer shocked about finding out that my heroes were wrong. Arthur Rimbaud, who used to be one of my favorite poets (He's still worth reading for his sound, especially in the original, and his imagery, though his concerns can be a bit tedious.), wrote about the derangement du senses. I don't think that derangement is necessary; if you pay attention to your senses, you'll do just fine. If you want to sharpen them, there are all sorts of ways--including, of course, taking estrogen. But some of you guys may not want some of the other side-effects!

Tonight Dominick and I went to see The Soloist. Excellent acting, interesting story and engaging cinematography. I'm thinking of it as sort of an inversion of Les Miserables: Nathan Ayers and Jean Valjean both ran from their pasts, though for entirely different reasons. Valjean, of course, does so voluntarily after escaping from prison in Toulon; Ayers, in contrast, is driven out of Juillard and away from his family by the voices in his head that grow ever more insistent. He leaves what could have been a life of praise and reward for one of scorn and pity on the streets of Los Angeles; Valjean runs to Montrueil-sur-Mer, where nobody knows him, and becomes a very well-respected member of his community. He even manages to become the Mayor. Inspector Javert pursues him across the miles and years and tries to make him "pay" for his long-ago crimes; reporter Steve Lopez wants to bring Ayers back to the life of promise he had as a young virtuoso.

In the end, the townspeople don't want to give Valjean up. And Ayers doesn't want to give himself up, if you will, to a life of concerts and possible celebrity. Both men want to live out their lives in their own versions of peace: Valjean in the community that he has adopted as it has adopted him, and Ayers with nothing but the music he so loves.

Finally, both Javert and Lopez arrive at impasses: The former realizes that he can neither arrest Valjean nor allow him to go free, for after saving people's lives, he is, as Javert realizes, a much more complex man than the criminal the inspector always assumed him to be. And Lopez is frustrated by the fact that in the end, he cannot transform Ayers into someone who would be at home with the artistic directors and conductors of the world's great opera houses and troupes. Javert deals with his dilemma by tossing himself off the Pont au Change into the Seine; Lopez can only console himself with the fact that he helped Ayers to get off the streets and into an apartment and arranged for his long-lost sister to meet him.

All right. You didn't come to this blog for some two-bit comparisons and analysis, did you? I'm going to stop. I'm tired, anyway. At least I'm going to bed after having my senses awakened and seeing Dominick and an excellent movie. Things could definitely be a whole lot worse.

This Afternoon I Am Happy

The rain finally let up this afternoon. The sky didn't clear completely, but enough blue broke up the clouds to fill the streets of SoHo and the Village with the kind of light that makes the city seem almost like a garden. People--residents and tourists alike--seemed to emerge from skins of fleece and down and wool that have bound them to their need for warmth and sleep. And sidewalks burst into color, from the vendors selling purses of woven beads and printed skirts to the patrons at sidewalk tables that have probably opened for the first time this year. A terrier stretched his leash to leap at the hem of my ankle-length skirt and play with me; his owner, a burly man with a thick Bensonhurst accent, cooed-- to the extent that such a man could coo-- "Ooh. My baby likes to make the ladies happy."

In other words, it's the sort of day that reminds me of why I love urban strolls so much, especially in that part of my home city. Really, in the nearly forty years I've strolled and ridden my bike in that part of town, lots of stores, cafes--and people--have come and gone. Coldwater flats have turned into condos; decaying piers have become playgrounds for the children of yuppies. People I have known and loved have been born, lived and died on those very streets. Yet the only other walks that seem as much like quintessential urban strolls are along the streets around the Saint Germain des Pres and from the area around the Musee Picasso to the Place des Vosges and the Canal Saint Martin.

On a day like today, all I could feel--in spite of my headache--was life, including my own, opening like a flower. Call me Pollyanna if you wish; I don't care. Tra-la-la.

Bruce said it's no wonder that my parents have been accepting, and my mother has gone beyond being supportive. "You're doing it all with such enthusiasm," he said over lunch. "Who wouldn't respond to that?"

It seems a bit ironic that I should feel my life opening up now, one day less than two months from my surgery. Or maybe it's not so ironic. After all, it's what I hoped for when I began my transition. Of course there have been difficult and intense times. But I always had a sense that something like this was on the other side, wherever that may be.

Now if I can keep this up for at least the next sixty days....

Some time after that, I'll be taking a walk like that one, a bike ride like the ones I took along the ocean. Perhaps it will be in the fall; the light and the colors will be different. So will the tone and texture, if you will, of the air.

Oh, this must be a really happy post. Charlie has just leapt onto my desk. Being the curious kittie that he is, he's curious about what I'm writing that's got me smiling. No, Charlie, it's not naughty or subterannean. I've been a really good girl today. Really.

He believes me. You can't lie to a cat anyway, so of course he believes what I'm saying. I think he already knows that I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks: He can't get enough of me, or so it seems.

I guess he also knows that I didn't know that the day would be so nice. That's why I didn't leave the windows open when I went out. So, neither he nor Max had their ledges. But since I've come home, they have been able to bask in the early evening light and to refresh themselves in the cool breeze that accompanied nightfall.

And when I came home, they found me in a great mood. I hope they're at least as happy as I am now.

That's what I hope for my friends and family, too. And for Nick, the person I used to be. After all, by living through those times, he brought me to these times.

Just sixty more days....

Two More Months: What Next?

Two more months. Two more months. Two more months.

All right. So you're tired of hearing it. I'll say it another way: sixty-one days.

Naah, I like two months better. Somehow it seems shorter, more manageable. What is it? Two payments on a rent, mortgage, credit card or any number of other things you can think of. Of half of a college semester.

And now two months stand between me and my surgery. Now I really know it's close. I'm thinking of all of those things I want to do before the surgery. As if something is going to end that day.

Of course, some things will end: The current state of my body, for one thing. My legal status, for another. And, I hope, the feeling of being neither here nor there--or plain-and-simple alienation--that has, for too much of my life, bound me like a strait-jacket of gray rain. The "gray drizzle" of William Styron's depression would have looked good to me on some days.

Over the past few days, I've wondered how it will be when I return to work in the fall. Some of my colleagues know that I'm going to have my surgery. Actually, I'd bet that quite a few know, along with most of my students. You know how it works: If you tell two people, one will tell a friend and the other will tell your enemy--or, at least, someone who doesn't like you. And at least one of those people will keep the cycle going.

I wonder if they expect some sort of complete transformation. After seeing me, are they expecting someone prettier or more elegant--or at least more "feminine" or "girly"--when I return? How about someone nicer or smarter? Or ditzier? Will I suddenly come up with ideas no one else could have even dreamed?

Let's see...They'll want me to come in with Jennifer Lopez's body? Or Hillary Clinton's mind? Or Gloria Steinem's or Mother Teresa's soul?

Tomorrow will be another day--on the road to my surgery. Tonight will be another night's sleep; another chance for Charlie and Max to curl up with me. Will they see me differently afterward? Will I seem different to them?

I'll find out in two months.

Meantime, I'm trying to make the best of this weather. It's rained for almost a week now. In the wee hours of this morning, we had a downpour that made forward vision all but impossible. It wasn't even gray: It was almost too intense for gray but too raw and, at the same time, too opaque for any color at all.

I should think the colors will be the same, perhaps more intense. That's how I've experienced them, and so many other things, since I began this journey. Sometimes I feel as if the hormones pulled away a layer of skin and left my nerve endings intact. I wonder whether the surgery will do more of the same.

Just two more months...

The First Girls' Night Out

While at work, I missed a call from someone I haven't talked to in a long time. I'd turned off my cell phone while I was teaching, and by the time I could call back, I was ready to leave the campus. That would have meant spending only a few minutes with her as I walked to the subway. Or it would have meant remaining on campus for quite a while longer.

I had a pretty good day at work, but I was very tired. But now I'm starting to wish I'd called her.

Diana was part of one of my first "girls' " days out. Just before I started living full-time as Justine, she and three other friends of mine went to Brighton Beach on a beautiful summer day. Actually, we sort of ended up there spontaneously: We'd all gotten together near Diana's home on the Upper West Side and, next thing we knew, we were on the beach.

The soft breeze from the ocean and the light that reflected off the water wove my hair into patterns of light. At least, that's what Diana said. I trust her on that: After all, she's an artist. So is Janine, another one of our friends who accompanied us that day. Later that day, Diana confessed to me that she was a bit anxious about meeting me that day: It was the first time we'd connected since I began my transition. "I feel guilty saying this," she related. "But all I could think was: 'I hope she's pretty.' And, you are."

That coloring in my cheeks wasn't sunburn. Still, Janine concurred and declared that I was "solaire"--as if the sun was radiating from me.

That was when I first realized something that's been very useful to me: The only thing better--or at least more powerful--than a man who can make a woman blush is another woman who can perform that feat!

I think I was still aglow the following night, when we went to an outdoor dance performance at Lincoln Center.

Anyway...I've wanted to talk to Diana and Janine, and to the friends who accompanied us that day: Marie-Jeanne and Michelle. They and Janine were visiting from France; Janine has known Diana and her husband Don for years and stays at their place when she visits.

She used to come here every year or two, sometimes more often. For a time, I was going to France every year. I would spend a day or two with her, some time with other friends and a couple of weeks on my bike in the countryside.

But she fell ill about four years ago and got worse. The last time I saw her--in August of 2006--she was in a wheelchair. Since then, I've received a couple of e-mails from her and talked briefly. I know she doesn't have internet access at her place, so that would account for the infrequent e-mails. However, the times I talked to her, she sounded very tired and not well. So, naturally I've been worried about her.

I hope Diana has some good news. None of them know yet that I'm having my surgery, though I don't think it would surprise any of them to find out. I don't think they're the kind of people who tell you that they're fine, they love you however you are, then disappear from your life. I want to have another girls' day--or night--out with them, especially before my surgery.

Whenever I talk about my travels to France, someone invariably says, "The French hate Americans." Or, "They were rude to you." In other words, they make declarations about what they haven't experienced. Maybe I really do--as I've long suspected--have the world's strangest karma. Even when I was unhappy and angry, I met some good people. The women I hope to see again are examples. Janine, Marie Jeanne and Michelle are about as French as brioches, and they are some of the warmest and friendliest people I've ever encountered. And I managed to meet them in a country where "everybody hates Americans."

Plus, they all know that I've experienced France in ways that most tourists don't, thanks to all those kilometres I pedalled. Marie-Jeanne once declared, Tu connais plus que les francais--I've experienced more of France than the French.

They knew me as Nick, but if we meet again, I would be tempted to relive our first girls' day and night out: my first ever, with any women. Of course, I've learned that you can't really recreate any experience. All you can do is find out what about it made you happy and work with that. But of course that won't stop me from trying. After all, you don't forget your first girls' night out.

Lasts; What Will We See Next Time?

Some people celebrate "firsts": the first date, the first job, the first apartment and...well, you get the idea.

But now I find myself marking "lasts." Today's "last" was a fairly minor one. But I can't help thinking about it.

My department's last meeting of the academic year was held today. Nobody relishes meetings; they're always too long and feature too many battling egos. Today's meeting wasn't quite as bad in this respect as the previous two or three meetings. But it was indeed long: I had almost no time between it and the class I taught.

Although I see, if only in passing, most of the faculty members on most days that I am at the college, this may well be the last time I see a few of them before my surgery. Most of the rest will be gone in a couple of weeks, once final exams are done. I won't see them again until late August: the beginning of the new semester, and my first post-recovery days.

And what--who-- will they see? Even more to the point, at least from my view: What will I see?

I expect to have the same abilities and the same accumulated knowledge and wisdom (such as they are!) that I have now once I return from my surgery. But will my interests and priorities change? Is there anything I do now that I won't care to do?

I've changed over much less than what I'm about to experience.

No Bike Ride In The Rain; What Women Want

It rained most of the day today. So I didn't do something I thought I would do for the last time before my surgery: I didn't pedal in the New York City Bike Ride, which used to be known as the Five Boro Bike Tour.

I've done rides--including the New York City/Five Boro--in the rain before. But riding in such a large group in the rain can be dangerous. It's not that the ride itself is so dangerous in the rain: At least, it's not unlike other rides I've taken in the rain. The peril comes with all the inexperienced and unskilled riders who show up.

Very often, people who haven't ridden in a long time or who aren't very good or are simply careless get in the saddle. They make sudden turns in front of groups of people. Or they get tired and stop right in the middle of a crowd. Both of these things have happened right in front of me. Once, a guy who had whose bike was better than his skills and conditioning and who had more attitude than intelligence jacknifed in front of a group of people who were in front of me. They tumbled; I narrowly missed them.

But I saw a stream of riders rolling down Vernon Boulevard, which skirts the East River only a block from my place. I did. for a moment, wish that I'd gone with them: It's been a while since I've participated in such a big ride. Just last week, I did a longer ride, half of it into headwinds, than the NYC ride. However, if someone who isn't a cyclist knows that you are one, he or she is bound to wonder whether you're doing the ride. There are lots of people who know of no other ride save for Le Tour de France. And I know people who can name only one other cyclist besides me: Lance.

So that means the only two cyclists they've heard of are a cancer survivor who's broken records--and a tranny. Do they think that cycling is a sport of freaks?

Before I started living as Justine, the only pleasure I got from dressing--aside from going en femme--was when I put on my cycling clothes. Tammy used to say that it's the one opportunity for men to be peacocks. She's right: I used to have all manner of jerseys and other items in every kind of design and color scheme you can imagine.

The only problem is that they're all made of lycra. I simply don't have the body for it anymore. And, the shorts reveal the fact that I haven't yet had my surgery!

I talked with Mom this morning. She may not be able to accompany me to the surgery, she says. I believe her when she says she wants to come with me. But she says that given the state of my father's health, and the toll it's taking on her, she may not be able to accompany me, or to go to California for my nephew's high school graduation. She promises to do everything she can to ensure that she'll be with me. Now, if only my father's condition would improve.

What seemed to be a case of the flu a few months ago has degenerated into a myriad of other problems, which have exacerbated depression that has underlay much of his behavior throughout his life. It deepened after he lost his job; since then, interludes of equinaminity and stability have laced his malaise.

He's always been obsessive, but lately he's been overbearing with my mother. From what she says, he's either hovering over her or sleeping. Sometimes he won't talk; other times, he laments being a "lousy" son, husband and father. Mom and I have both told him he can't do anything about the kind of son he was, but he can be a good (or at least better) husband and father. And he can start today.

He and I had a difficult relationship. But that is in the past. It's not easy now, but at least when I've most recently seen him, he's made some effort with me. That's really all that matters to me now; the past is done. He may not be the most demonstrative person in the world, but he can treat people well. Whatever else he does, I will always credit him for the way he treated my maternal grandmother. The only person who has ever mattered more in my life is my mother, so anybody who treated grandma well can't be all bad. Mom agrees with me.

The funny thing is that she and I always wanted the same thing from him: Someone who is a supportive and consistent, if not constant, presence. A few days ago, Anne and I were talking about the qualities we value in the ones with whom we spend our lives. That is the difference between her previous and current husband, she said. We cry, sometimes because we're unhappy, other times because we're tired, and other times...well, we don't exactly know the reason, but we need it. Her current husband gives her his shoulder, holds her, talks to her.

Really, what else could she, my mother, I or any other woman want from a man (or woman)? Dominick has been that sort of man for me, but one doesn't necessarily need a romantic relationship to have that. Whether we're strong or something else, we need someone who offers an ear, a shoulder, a word of encouragement. It's not a matter of looks or money; those things rarely last, anyway.

Mom has not had that sort of man. But it's not too late. I'm more fortuante, I guess. Sometimes I feel guilty about that: She has done so much more to deserve to be loved and cared about than I ever did.

But I think she's glad that at least I've decided to pursue that for myself. Perhaps that is the reason why she wants to accompany me to the surgery.

Dogfights and Dreams

A dachsund rolled onto her back the way one of my cats would. A French boxer sniffed her belly then stepped over her. A couple of minutes later, what looked like a Husky pup climbed onto her back. Then a white dog with spots over most of his body and black around his shoulders, paws and ears stepped to the side of the dachsund who, as if on cue, rolled onto her back to be sniffed again.

And the humans who accompanied them--all young women--chatted and giggled as clouds swirled and drifted away from each other, allowing just enough of the setting sun to blaze off the flickering ripples of the East River that lapped against the pier on which we all stood, directly across the river from the United Nations.

This scene filled me with an eerie sense of deja vu, as if I had awakened from some repetetive, inevitable dream. Those young women were all young enough to be my daughters or even--if I had lived a different sort of life in another time and place--my granddaughters. Yet somehow they seemed like the moments that immediately followed some long-ago memory.

They didn't remind me of anyone in particular--not any famous person, nor of anyone I've ever known. And save for the daschsund, the dogs didn't remind me of any I've ever known. Yet they all seemed familiar somehow.

Lately people I haven't seen in ages have appearing in my dreams. When I was a kid, rumor had it that if you dreamed about someone, that person would die.

So who have I dreamed about? Last night, it was about a girl with whom I grew up and haven't seen at least since I was a teenager. She was, if I recall correctly, a year older than me, and her two brothers were my age and a year younger than I was. They were all children of a family friend. I was particularly freindly with the one who was my age. Interestingly, he looked to me as a sort of benevolent older sibling. He used to tell me that he admired my intelligence and the ways I could express myself. As we got older, he also used to tell me, "I wish I could deal with things as well as you do."

Then, it struck me as really odd. After all, I was struggling with all sorts of things that I would not talk about until many, many years later. I've mentioned some of them on this blog. But then they were like the dangerous cargo inside a ship that could only drift from side to side or lunge forward into darkness and a storm.

One of the things he said I "dealt with" better than he did was seeing the man whom I know molested me and who, I feel almost entirely certain, did him as he did unto me. Or something like it.

Anyway, in last night's dream, his older sister said, "I wish you could have done something for him."

I can understand--and even agree with--what she says. Maybe I could have helped him more than I did.

Or could I ? If anything, I may have been doing even more to keep my own experience secret. I had repressed it so far that I almost never thought of it as a "the closet."

The boy of whom I'm speaking never quite said that the man, who was another family friend, molested him. At least I don't remember that he did. And, as I've said before, I certainly didn't talk about the ways he sexually abused me for about twenty-five years after the fact.

But my young friend did tell me that he was "really afraid" of that man. For that matter, I was, too. However, I don't think I ever told him that. The truth of the matter was that all I actually did was to be was to be the sort of kid he wanted me to be: I went along with whatever he said. Hey, I even laughed at the guy's sick and dirty jokes. Plus, I think that in some way he actually knew I was a "better" kid than his own were: I did well in school, didn't get in trouble (actually, didn't get caught) and was an altar boy. But most of all, I kept my fear of and anger toward him within me. It may have helped me to survive, but it certainly kept me from moving forward for many, many years.

What came of my young friend? I know that he'd fallen into drug addiction, and I've heard that he was doing worse things to finance his addiction. He may well be dead: Perhaps that's what his sister was telling me in that dream.

If he is, then...what? What did my anger at that man, or my anger generally do for my friend or anyone else? Whatever it did, it would have been as familiar and even more predictable than those dogs--or the humans that accompanied them--on the Long Island City pier.

What Does A Woman Do?

Getting down to the wire now. It's the first of May. Just the rest of this month and June, and one week in July, until my surgery.

It's odd that we had hot, sunny weather last weekend and for the first two days of this week--as April neared its end. Yesterday was rather chilly; today was warmer but it rained on and off throughout the day.

This week, people have been complimenting me on the way I've looked. However, I see the extra pounds I'm trying to lose (I don't think I would've worn a bikini this year anyway.), the ways in which my facial and bodily structure could be more feminine and the knot I tied so sloppily in my scarf.

Of course those are not the things that make me a woman or not. Still, when I see all those women who seem so much more graceful, not to mention prettier and smarter, than I am, it's hard not to compare myself unfavorably to them. And I'm kicking myself for the sausage I ate last night and the pasta and cheese I had today.

I guess I'm not immune to the societal mind-fuck. Any number of people have told me not to worry.

Today, Bruce mentioned that a part-time worker in his office is teaching a Women's Studies course. She feels threatened by a particular male student in the class, he said, and she's worried that he'll attack her or commit some other form of violence. She's gone to the campus authorities (He didn't know which school.) and was referred to people who referred her back to the people who referred her to them. Now she's at her wits' end.

I recalled situations--when I was still living and teaching as Nick-- in which I was threatened by students. In One, a kid off the streets didn't want to do the work and wasn't happy that she was getting "F's" on all of her assignments. She threatened to bring in her boyfriend, which she did. But he was so drunk that the other students were snickering. I just barely kept myself from doing the same.

Another time a student threatened, "I'm gonna put your head through that wall." I notified my department chair and the campus security chief, who sent two officers to the next class session and removed her.

In another incident, a young male student threatened to run me over the next time he saw me on my bike. He was removed, but in some, ahem, coincidence, I wasn't re-hired the following semester.

And, last October, a student whom I'd never before met ambushed me as I walked from the campus to the subway, accused me of following him and threatened to kill me. I reported the incident and about two weeks later, I saw him in the library. I summoned campus security officers, who took him away and, I found out later, instructed him to stay away from me, as I wasn't following him and had no wish to do so.

As I related that last incident to Bruce, I realized that "They responded as they did because the college didn't want their tranny to get hurt." He agreed and said, "Sure, they wouldn't want that kind of PR."

And, during the years when the other incidents occured, I was riding my bike practically everywhere and lifting weights. I had not consumed any alcohol or drugs for several years, and I'd never smoked. (I still haven't.) As my body was shaped such discipline, my face and indeed my aura reflected the anger I felt at simply having to live as a man and not having much of anything else go the way I wanted.



But, honestly, I don't know what I would have done in any of those situations had I been born with a uterus. Other female instructors who are more diminutive than I am have also expressed fears for their safety. I don't know what advice I could give them, save perhaps to take martial arts classes--something I've never done.

Now I know one way in which I haven't, or haven't had to, think like a woman. Not to say that being trans protects me, though living as male probably did.

What does a woman do?

Fatigue, Lunch and Survival

I can't believe how tired I've been. Yesterday was the first time in weeks I haven't written on this blog.

And now here I am, sleepy again. But I want to write. So here I am.

Yesterday I had lunch with Anne. It's really odd that you can work in the same place as someone else and not see that person for months. I don't think I've seen Anne since the beginning of the semester. In the meantime, she's become noticeably more pregnant with a boy. And I'm closer to beginning a new life with a female body.

Perhaps I will get to know her even better than I do now. I would like that, actually: I enjoy having a conversation with her because she is educated and truly smart. In other words, she values her education but isn't impressed by it; she really understands that it's more important for people to find what makes them happy than it is to fulfill someone else's idea of achieving success. She mentioned her sister, who took up vocational studies, got a job in a financial company, married and had kids. Their father compares her unfavorably to Anne, which is not what Anne wants.

Only in looking back do I find it so remarkable that she could talk about that, the life growing inside her and the life she is building with her husband in such a seemingly casual way, and that, spontaneously, I shared something about myself that I've only allowed to a few other people in my life. It's no wonder, then, that I don't feel defensive about who I am when I talk with her.

When I think of her, when I think of Regina, when I think of Millie, I realize that, as different as they are from each other, I love them all for basically the same reason: We empathise with each other as women, even though our experiences as women may be very different. I will never have a baby, as they all have had (and Anne will soon have again), but they know that I am experiencing the fatigue of bearing a new life that I will soon bring into being.

They also seem to understand that I have only recently learned something they've probably known all of their lives: that if a woman is to survive spiritually--which is to say that if she is to survive--she has to be tough, not through coercion or violence, but through the force of being who she is. The only means we have of survival, much less to thrive and prosper, is through the power of our own essential beings.

Being a woman is being a survivor. And one survives only through fighting for one's self. Certainly Anne and Regina have had to do that in their professional and personal lives; Millie, I'm sure, has had to do the same thing within the family to which she was born. All of them survived, not by trying to beat men at their own game, but in acting in their own plays. After all, one doesn't win a game played against the very person or people who made the rules.

That, by the way, is one of the reasons I've undertaken the journey I'm on now.

Time Travel

Let's see...I began this bright, sunny (and unseasonably warm day) by listening to the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" and "Here Comes The Sun" while eating my corn flakes. It's pretty hard to be in a bad mood after that, and I didn't try.

Even a trip to the dentist wasn't so bad. I had my routine cleaning and checkup, and the doctor warned me that I have an infection developing at the base of a root canal. My root canal teeth were nothing but trouble--until I had one pulled after I woke up in worse pain than any I experienced before the root canal.

Then, thinking I would arrive late a committee meeting at the college, I flew on my bike, only to find that I actually made it about fifteen minutes early.

After that was the best part of the day: The guest appearance I made at Professor White's History of Hip-Hop class. There, I talked about the poetics of hip-hop: the stuff I've been teaching in my course. I took them on a trip in my "time machine" to find the "beginnings" of the music: specifically, where the three-beat line came from. Most students were surprised to learn that a generation before Shakespeare, John Skelton wrote poems that consisted of rhyming trimetric lines. And he even began one of his poems with "Whyll I'll chylle."

My department chair came to the lecture. She seemed to like it, in spite of the fact I couldn't play some of the songs I wanted to play because the internet wasn't available in the room. It didn't occur to me that there would be any place in the college where I couldn't access YouTube, as I have from other rooms. Had I known that, I would have brought some CDs with me.

But it all seemed to go well enough. The students were certainly primed for me, and I was for them.

And throughout the day, various people said that I looked "radiant," "pretty" or simply "good." I know I was smiling, even as I grew tired in the evening class I taught.

Could it be that I'm finally bringing, or adapting, the things I loved in my past to my current life? I know I must, and want to, do more poetry readings and guest lectures. It seems that when I do such things--which are both creative and social--I cannot help but to transcend whatever has bound me. I am opened, whether or not I wanted to be--or, more precisely, whether or not I believed that is what I wanted.

So now I know that some of the things that got me here are going to help me move forward after all. They kept Justine alive when I was living as Nick; now I can live as Justine by honoring Nick in all of those things in which he kept my spirit alive, and which he left as legacies or even gifts for me.

Forward--transcend! OK, so you can't imagine some drill sergeant barking that his troops. Nor can I. But why would I want to? A march may have brought me here; now it's time for a journey.

Coming Out and Glowing

It seems that my energy or aura or whatever you want to call it is changing. Four different people--who, as far as I know, don't know each other--told me that I was "glowing" today. Now, I haven't been around any nuclear power plants lately, so I think there must be other causes.

Like...bike rides by the ocean. A walk by the ocean--my long printed skirt rippling in the wind and grazing pools spun by breaking tides--with a tall gorgeous man. A very flattering haircut and eyebrow style and tint--and a facial massage. And some make-up in sunnier tones than what I've been wearing for the past few months.

And today I did something I haven't done in a long time: I gave a poetry reading. The setting was, shall we say, intimate. In other words, there were only a few people in the audience for every poet--four, including yours truly--who read.

I felt like I stumbled a bit with a couple of my poems. I decided to read a couple of older poems, a couple of new ones and some recent work. I think that the audience was on my side: Most of them knew me, or knew who I am.

In a way, I felt as if I were "coming out," even though people in the audience knew, or have heard about, me. Some of them didn't know about my poetry before today. They knew me as their professor or colleague, but not as a person who could transform the raw materials of life into art through words and sounds.

It's ironic that reading "as" Justine should still be a relatively novel experience for me. I've done only a few public readings since my transition, but I feel that those poems--some, anyway--were written by Justine even though I didn't sign them with my name. Still, the conditions under which I wrote some of them are entirely different from the ones in which I live now.

But it felt like some kind of victory, however small, to read those poems today. Time was when I was reading just about every week--usually in some bar or club, but every once in a while as a featured poet in an art gallery or library. Poetry reading on Friday night, long bike ride on Saturday, another (possibly shorter) ride on Sunday morning, another reading on Sunday. Or sometimes I'd read somewhere after taking my Saturday bike ride and one of two things would happen: I would end up in a bed that wasn't mine, or I'd go for another bike ride on Sunday.

If I could've lived as Justine, I could have lived that life forever--or something close to it.

But today's reading and the weekend's bike rides and walks along the ocean--and Dominick's company--gave me an energy that I never could have found when I was living as Nick. Back then, I was all anger and intensity. Interestingly enough, some people actually found those qualities attractive, if only for a moment or a night. What kind of people were they? People with those same character traits. This meant, of course, that they were almost as fucked up as I was. And we all know that crazy, neurotic (or psychotic) people are good for at least one wild ride, maybe two. Anything more than that and you'll eventually make work for your friendly neighborhood divorce lawyer--or cops bearing restraining orders.

Ooh...It feels soo good that all of that is in the past. So, today I get to bask in the glow of wherever I'm walking. And people who've never met each other say the same things: I'm radiant. I'm glowing.