A Scandal and Two Tragedies

OK...Today we have two tragedies and one scandal to choose from. First, the scandal: Mark Sanford, the Governor of South Carolina, disappeared for a few days. Upon returning, he said he was hiking the Appalachain Trail; the truth is that he was in Argentina with his Buenos Aires bonita. And he apologized to his wife and the public.

Now to the tragedies...Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, of course. Everyone knew that Farrah wasn't long for this world; her cancer outgrew her outsized will to live. But no-one saw Michael's death coming.

Maybe it's because I'm getting on in years, or maybe it's because I'm blonde, but I don't recall any scandals surrounding Farrah. Now, I'm not saying that she lived the life of a Carmelite nun. But I don't think she did anything in her love life that one might expect of a very attractive woman of her age and time. And she was much more than very attractive: She was one of the most beautiful and, at one point, one of the most famous women in the world. Sure, she had a divorce. I think it was only one divorce, anyway. For someone on whom the limelight shone as glaringly as it did on her, that ain't bad.

Now, Michael Jackson never should have dangled that baby off a balcony. And he probably should've been more careful of whom he brought to his mansion. I mean, if you're a bachelor and your place is secluded, tongues will wag if you bring in 13-year-old boys. But I wonder whether he really did even half of the things he was rumored to have done.

As for Mark Sanford: Well, he makes Sarah Palin look good. But, although I'm not a Republican (I tried to be one; couldn't do it.), I don't think that his behavior is a reason to bash the party. Of course, we just had eight years of a Republican President who was easily the worst President of my lifetime, if not since Grant. But I think that lots of Democrats in Congress and elsewhere contributed to the mess we're in, by supporting the Iraqi and Afghanistani invasions and legislation that allowed CEOs to raze the pillars of the economy and take the marble home with them.

No, my beef with Sanford is that he disrespected a woman he promised to love. In other words, he committed exactly the same crime as Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat. Funny, how they were such moral crusaders--Sanford with the right-wing Evangelical Christian organizations in his state, and Spitzer during his days as New York State's Attorney General, when he cracked down on prostitution. I always used to think he wasn't so different from all those Immorial Minority types who tried to dictate other people's behavior.

Bill Clinton was no model of marital fidelity, either. But at least he didn't go around telling other people how they should and shouldn't conduct their lives. Still, I can respect him only a little more than Sanford or Spitzer.

They are hypocritical cads, pure and simple. They are in marked contrast to Ryan O'Neal. Over the years, I've mocked his over-the-top acting performances, especially the one in Love Story. But he stood by Farrah, marrying her during her last days. For that, he has my respect, even admiration. And, of course, so does Farrah, for how she fought her illness and made more people aware of its prevalence and effects.

Now to Michael Jackson. By the time he was in his early 30's, he did more powerful, creative and innovative music than most artists do in a lifetime. Thriller changed pop music not only because it's still the best-selling album of all time, but also because it made pop music more multi-dimensional: It made dance more integral to the experience of the music people were listening to, and its video made that medium not only legitimate, but also integral to the way people expereinced the music. And, of course, it put MTV on the map, in part by showing that the videos were not merely promotional materials for the music, as trailers are for movies; they were worth watching and listening to unto themselves. If people never came to see videos that way, MTV would have had no raison d'etre. But even if another artist had made a video that was a work of art unto itself, MTV might not have lasted more than a couple of years: One of the complaints about it (a legitimate one) was that Black and Hispanic artists weren't featured. And, let's face it: Where would music in this country be without African-Americans and Latinos? Even country music couldn't have happened without the blues. (In fact, whenever I hear Hank Williams or Patsy Cline, I think of their music as white people's blues.)

OK, so you aren't reading this blog for cultural criticism. I think a lot about Michael Jackson now because I've long thought quite a bit about him. Even though he hasn't done any relevant music in nearly two decades, he's still a cultural icon. Plus, I cannot help to think about him because of a comment someone made to me as I was preparing for my transition.

Someone I met at the LGBT Community Center just before I started my transition compared what I wanted to do to what Michael Jackson did to himself. In other words, this man--gay, by the way--likened my wish to start taking hormones and to have SRS to Michael Jackson's cosmetic surgeries and whatever else he was doing. This man said that Michael "mutilated" himself through "self-hatred." (And, this man pronounced, I was doing the same thing to myself.) What that man said about MJ may be true, though I suspect that the truth is much more detailed than that.

At that moment I resented, not only the last part of his statement, but his comparing me to Michael Jackson at all. By that time, Michael seemingly had become a grotesque parody of himself--or of something. I was astounded that anyone, especially that man, could liken what I wanted to do to "cosmetic" surgery. If anything, I was not trying to polish the outsides; I was trying to bring out who I really am.

Then again, for all I know, Michael was trying to do the same thing. Or, he may have simply wanted to preserve his youth, or at least the image of it. He certainly was a handsome boy back in his Jackson Five days, and was still not half-bad looking by the time he did "Thriller."

Now, I hope someone doesn't think I'm a racist for what I'm about to say. OK, here goes: According to the standards of beauty in much of Western Culture, it's easier to keep one's youthful--and therefore "beautiful'--appearance if one has fine facial bones and skin. It just happens that whites have finer facial bones than most other races have. Also, the standards of beauty are based on whiteness in just about every other way you can think of. In other words, by the standards to which much of the world has grown accustomed, youth=beauty and beauty=white. So one has to become whiter to be more youthful.

Now, I'm not saying that I subscribe to these standards. I think Halle Berry and Denzel Washington are two of the most physically beautiful people on the planet right now. And, if I'm not mistaken, both are in their 40's now. So it will be interesting to see how they look ten, twenty, or even forty years from now. Of course, being celebrities, they will probably have cosmetic surgeries. But whatever they do, I don't think they can look the same in twenty years as they do now. Who can?

I think that one of the problems is that blacks who are celebrities in mixed audiences is still a fairly new phenomenon. Of course, decades ago, entertainment, like so much else in life, was segregated de jure in much of this country. It's still segregated in other ways, but Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy are much better known among white audiences than Moms Mabley and Pigmeat Markham were.

This meant that prewar black celebrities like Mabley and Markham were judged by the standards of their audiences. So were black actors and dancers. So, if they aged as other blacks did, that was all right: That was what the people expected.

Once audiences integrated, the standards for black beauty, as well as so much else, changed. Black performers had to succeed in terms of white standards, and had to age by those standards as well. Lena Horne's ageless beauty is still celebrated past her 80th birthday. But, if you look at her, she has aged more like a white woman, mainly because she has a caucasoid facial stucture and other features.

And that, I think is what Michael wanted to do. That in no way compares with my reasons for transitioning.

So I'll let him rest in peace and be grateful for the great music he left us.

On Leaving, And An Open Letter to My Brother

My students had their final exam today. After they finished, I went to my office and began to read a few of them. The truth is, I didn't want to leave, at least not right away.

That exam was my last time in a classroom with students until my surgery. As they finished their exams, I watched each of the ones who remained. At one end of the room, to my left, sat Ayesha, a young Bangladeshi woman who has a very interesting outlook. Toward the front and center of the room was Cadnuel, a gentle Haitian man with whom I practice what remains of my French. To his left, Ange--the one whose husband picks her up and who, according to her, would accuse her of being a lesbian if he knew she were hanging out with a female prof. Behind her, at the back of the room, Sharon was finishing her essay. Like Ange, she has a conspiratorial sense of humor and a penetrating intelligence. And, at the right end of the room, by the windows that do not open onto the trucks and the drivers whose skills and cars aren't quite nimble enough to maneuver around them, tall, meticulously-dressed Glenna was getting ready to hand in her paper.

As each one of them left, I felt one step further removed--or, more precisely, one step closer to being on my way from--the past three weeks, the past few months, the past year, the past years, the years that are long past. I was yet another moment beyond that person my brother, Elizabeth, Jay (the male one) and Tammy believe I took away from them. I could not any more bring him back than I could even be the person who, in their minds, took him away or destroyed him. And I was yet another world from that angry young person who could not get rid of his rage, not through religion, through relationships (much less marriage), through abusing alcohol and drugs or foreswearing them, through pushing my body to its limits on the bike or in the gym--and for whom the appreciation of students and others and the love of friends and partners served as more fuel for that inferno of rage that I could just barely keep at bay.

I could feel those people--the ones I've been--leaving, just as my students were, although, of course, the circumstances and outcome were entirely different. Back in the day, I wanted to drive people away as soon as they came, by whatever means, into my life. I even warned people with whom I got in relationship that they were making a mistake: I would turn into an emotional werewolf, and there was nothing I could do about it. Just don't be here when it happens, I'd tell them.

And, now, tonight, I didn't want those students to leave. After they were gone, I didn't want to leave. After spending some time reading exams, I called my mother and father. I wanted to know how they were doing, and how the visit of my brother (the one who isn't speaking to me) is going.

My brother took Dad to his appointment with the doctor. Near the end of the day, they and my mother went to the boardwalk at Flagler Beach as a cool wind was starting to blow off the ocean. I would've liked to be there, because I grew to love that spot during my last two visits to Mom and Dad--and, of course, because I'd like to see my brother again--not to mention his kids.

I have not seen or spoken with him since I "came out." That was almost six years ago, just as I was about to begin my life as Justine. Although I knew it was unlikely to happen, I hoped I'd get a chance to talk with him, however briefly, when I called.

If we were to talk, I'd thank him for what he did for Dad--and Mom. Dad's condition has been wearing on Mom, anything that makes him better even for a moment restores her, even if only a little. I really am happy that he took them out. I know that's who he really is, not the person who cut off contact with me. That, of course, is the reason I want to talk to him again. I really don't care about the others who've tossed me aside. Between Elizabeth and Jay, they threw away more than forty years' worth of friendship with me. I've made other friends; perhaps one or more of them will give me so many years worth of companionship. But, at my age (or, more accurately, my parents' age), I don't think I'll get replacement siblings.

Can I tell you something, brother? I don't mean this disrespectfully to you, but I always wanted a sister who could love me in the way only a sister could. I think you'd like that. Really. I know we're different, but do you remember how, when you were a child, you used to confide to me what you wouldn't tell Mom, Dad or anyone else in the family--or to your teachers? Mom even said as much: that you listened to me, and I to you. Well, now you know why. You felt like a misfit, though for different reasons than I did. You knew I was different--not better, just not like other people--and that I understood.

You didn't want to be that misunderstood kid who couldn't help but to disappoint and get into trouble. So was I. But when you were young, you were more diffident and quieter than I was, so people assumed you weren't smart or that you weren't trying. I knew better, and defended you--not from the blows of other kids, but from the sarcasm and other jabs of adults.

And because you were the kind of brother you were, it was a little easier--though never easy--to be who I was, to become who I'd become. I think that, deep down, you understand that and know that I have always appreciated you for that.

Besides...Do you remember how happy your daughter and I used to be when we spent time together? The very last time we were together--that weekend I "came out" to you--your wife remarked on how much she liked to do things with me. And I know you love your kids--I can hardly think of any other man who loves his kids as much as you love yours!-- and like seeing them happy. I'm sure you give them lots of happiness. But why not allow someone in who can add to it?

To sum it all up: You're a fine brother and a good man. A very, very good man. I really hope that we'll see and talk with each other one day soon.

Soon I will no longer be, in some sense, the person you used to know, or even the one who "came out" to you. Maybe you will never again approve of what I am. That's all right. Think what you will of me. But at least think of me as your sister--or sibling--and your children's aunt, or whatever you want them to call me. Do they ask about me? What do you tell them?

All right. I am one step further from whatever answers you might've given them. Here I am now. You can catch me as I'm leaving or meet me when I return. For now, I've got some papers to read. But you can interrupt that, if you want to.

Drugs and Other Changes

Now my surgery is only two weeks away. Fourteen days...each one seems to go faster than the previous one.

Today's also the day my medical regimen changes. A few days ago, I mentioned that my hormone dosage would be reduced to one-eighth of what I had been taking. For nearly six years, I've taken two 1.25 milligram Premarin pills twice a day. Starting today, I take only one-half of one of those pills, once a day.

And I no longer take Spironolactone, my anti-androgen. So it's good-bye Spiro; it's been nice knowin' ya. No more Spiro. Boo hoo.

Robin, who is Dr. Bowers' office secretary, warned me that I could lapse into a crying jag, or that I could have any number of other kinds of mood changes. As if that's anything new. I guess I should warn people about that. I mean, if I start making unreasonable demands (Just ask my students--I never, ever do that!), they should at least know why. Right?

At some point my body will have to adjust itself to the new, lower dose of hormones: This will be my dosage after the surgery, too.

Another thing: I can't take aspirin or ibuprophen. It's pretty weird: My hormone dose has been lowered because they're coagulants (and because my body won't need as much after the surgery). But I can't take aspirin or ibuprophen because it thins the blood.

My blood has to be just the right consistency and texture. Sounds like Dracula is in charge of quality control. Ahh, yes. Zees ees Chateau Justine, 2009 vintage. A fine texture, a full body, aroma of vanilla, bouquet of cherries and berries, and an undertaste of chestnuts and oak.

What did I just write? I haven't drunk any wine in almost 23 years. Do they still write wine reviews that way? And what in the world am I doing, comparing my blood to wine? I guess I accomplished something: I've offended every Christian in the world. As non-religious as I am, I didn't mean that. Really, I didn't. Oh, well. I guess my Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish friends will still talk to me. Let's see...There are about equal numbers of Christians and Muslims in the world. So I guess this is neither a net loss or a net gain.

Good thing I only took one statistics course, eh? Imagine what silliness I could create and havoc I could wreak if I knew more!

Back to my drugs: On my way home from the college, I had to stop at the Duane Reade in Woodside--the only drugstore that I knew for sure would still be open at that hour--for a bottle of Tylenol. I can't remember the last time I took it. I just hope it's as effective as aspirin or ibuprophen if I should get a migraine between know and my surgery.

I've been taking aspirin for my headaches mainly because, as I understand, it has the added benefit of helping to prevent heart attacks. Back when I was riding my mountain bike with Crazy Ray and his crew--actually, hopping rocks and streams and bounding off ledges and cliffs is more accurate--I used to take Ibuprophen because it seemed to work faster than anything else on my pain. I guess I was a sissy: Crazy Ray never used to take anything.

If he could see me now...

Actually, I had to be in a pretty fair amount of pain before I'd take the ibupro. Otherwise, I never took medications unless my doctor prescribed them. Sometimes, not even then. Once, I had an excuse: Back when you needed a prescription to get Claritin D, the doctor ordered a bottle for me. I took one pill, and it kept me awake for three nights. And I could see my heart pulsing throughout my body. The doctor said he'd never seen a reaction like it.

As with every doctor I'd ever had until seven years ago, I never told him what I really felt--only what ailed me at that moment. But that wasn't his--or their--fault, really. Well, maybe with the exception of one really awful doctor I had. Fortunately, I went to him only once.

That incident with Claritin D strengthened my resolve, which began the day I became clean and sober, not to take any sort of drug unless my life was at stake. When I went into therapy over my childhood sexual molestation, the doctor wanted me to take anti-depressants. I never filled the prescription he gave me and, of course, I lied about taking them. At some point, my resolution not to take unnecessary drugs mixed with my natural stubbornness. Not taking the antidepressant became another way of saying "F*** you" to "the system," whatever that meant.

Now I've just ended almost six years of taking a medicine--for that is what the hormones have been for me--every day, twice a day. Now I'm down to a quarter of my previous dose, once a day. In two weeks, that's all my body will need.

In two weeks, I'll be going to a place where I've never been before. In the hospital, I'll see people I've never met before. And, after I'm released from the hospital, I'll spend two nights in their "day after" house with other people who've had the surgery, but whom I haven't met.

Then I'll return to people, places and things I know.

The Right to be Sexual; The Need to Be

Yesterday, my friend Sonia Pressman-Fuentes forwarded me a Times article about the leadership of the gay-rights movements. You can read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/weekinreview/21peters.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Why%20THe%20Gay%20Rights%20Movement&st=cse

Essentially, the article says that the ever since the Stonewall Revolution of 1969, there has been no singular dominant leader of the LGBT rights movements in the way that Civil Rights had Martin Luther King, Jr. and Women's Rights had Gloria Steinem. The article makes sense, although it quotes one scholar making what I think is a not-completely-accurate statement. Dudley Cleniden says that one of the reasons the LGBT rights movement hasn't had that sort of leader is that the movement is "fundamentally about the right to be sexual" and because of that, "it's hard for the public to see it as a moral issue."

I agree on his second point. But on the first, I wrote this to the editors of the Times:

Dear Editor,

In "Why The Gay Rights Movement Has No National Leader," author Jeremy W. Peters includes historian Dudley Cleniden's claim that the gay-rights movements is fundamentally "about the right to be sexual."

I think that what Professor Cleniden described is the way much of the public perceives the gay rights movements. That perception reduces homosexuality, or any sort of gender non-conformity, to a mere "lifestyle choice" and insinuates that if people like me simply put on a pair of pants or "butches" got lessons on wearing make-up and skirts, all would be well.

Rather, the struggle is about our rights to express ourselves and love other people as we are. Frankly, I don't care what most people think about my sex life (such as it is!); what I want is the right to live the kind of life I want and can fashion for myself as the person I am. In other words, if I want to marry someone who wants to marry me, why should it matter whether or not I've had my gender-reassignment surgery yet, what the gender of the other person is or which state we live in? And, if we were to hook up, why shouldn't we have the rights (e.g., in declaring taxes and such) other couples have?

It comes down to this: What right does any government or any other institution (or individual) have to tell someone whom he or she can or can't love? And, whatever our love is, why can't we express it as other people do? Why is it that other people can have pictures of their spouses and kids (or boyfriends or girlfriends) in their offices, but we can't? That, to me, begs another question: Why should someone be forced to submit to an institution (heterosexual marriage) that will not work for him or her simply to stay in the favor of one's employers or country? (Yes, there is a "glass ceiling"--or the door--for people who aren't in M-F couples.)

But I think Professor Cleniden and others are right when they say that for much of the public, gay rights doesn't have the same moral imperative that the racial equality and women's moments have had. So, it is harder to find a leader like MLK whom most people are willing to respect. And that, I believe, is the reason why the modern civil rights and feminist movements, which started within a decade before Stonewall, had until recently made considerably more progress than the LGBT rights movements.

Let's see whether the Times publishes it. Maybe it's too long; maybe they won't like my tone; perhaps it's not quite their style. Or maybe...who knows?

Once, a loong time ago, I wrote a letter or an op-ed article--I forget which--that they didn't publish. I think I was drunk or high or both when I wrote it; I don't even remember what I wrote about. I recall only getting a very polite rejection letter that was probably more skillfully written than what it was rejecting. It was the sort of document that expresses gratitude for your interest in their institution but leaves absolutely no room for interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the letter's intention. In other words, it was seemingly airtight. In This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff describes a letter like it he received from a prep school to which he'd applied.

Back to the business about LGBT leadership: I think one thing Cleniden implied is that most straight people, even the more open-minded ones, simply can't or won't identify with a gay, lesbian or transgendered leader in the same way they can relate to someone who's of a diffrent race or birth gender from themselves. Many religious people could, in Martin Luther King, see someone who shared their values. And, of course, plenty of women identified with Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan. Sonia never became quite the public figure that either one of them became (She didn't want that.)but many women can see something of their own struggles in hers. I know I can. Now, if only I had her intelligence....

This year's Pride March will take place on Sunday the 28th, which is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. I was almost eleven years old on that day in 1969; I don't recall hearing anything about it back then. I would not learn about it until much later. I guess I feel a bit like those women who were young girls when the modern feminist movement started or all those African-Americans who were children when MLK led the march on Washington. All you can do is to be thankful that those events happened at all, and adopt them as part of your own history and heritage.

Now I see there is an odd synchronicity in my life as a trans woman. As I was going to a therapist and support groups, working with Housing Works and holding on for dear life to my life with Tammy, I breifly met Sylvia Rivera. She's supposedly the one who threw her red high-heeled shoe at the cops who surrounded the Stonewall Inn. Shortly after I met her, she died. I attended her wake and funeral and was welcomed as if I were an old friend by people who didn't meet me until that day. Another irony is that in that funeral's guest book, I signed my name immediately below Charles King's. He's the co-founder and president of Housing Works and, shall we say, had a bit of a history with Sylvia. And there I was, with the only people in this world to whom I was "out" at that moment.

Then, when I came out for good---that is, when I started to live and work full-time as a woman--Sonia reached out to me. I'd written an article about "coming out" at work for Women's eNews. Of course Sonia, as one of the co-founders of NOW, reads that site every day. So, you can only imagine my surprise when I received a very warm and affirmative message from her.

Sometimes I think that maybe movements don't always need leaders. But I am certain that each of us needs our own leader or leaders, if you will, no matter how self-directed we may be. For me, they are women who have shown me how it's possible to be a woman. Of course Sonia is such an example for me. Sylvia's tactics may not have been the best, but she did show how possible and necessary courage are for us. Millie's kindness has not only helped me through a few situations; it has provided me with yet another example. And, of course, I have my mother.

I wonder whether I'll be such an example for someone. Of course, no one ever sets out to be one. It just happens when one who has integrity does what she needs to do for herself and her world. Sonia certainly had dreams of an education and career that few women could attain in her time, but I don't think she grew up thinking she'd help to start NOW or draft workplace policies that are used as models. Sylvia, as near as I can tell, was thinking only about surviving her abusive father and the Times Square streets on which she found herself at age 11. That is, until she and other trans people, cross dressers and gays were harassed by cops. As for Millie and Mom: Does--Can--any woman ever imagine some of the sacrifices miracles she will be called upon to make and perform, sometimes simply to sustain her husband, her children--or herself?

Really, all I've done so far is to keep myself--my true self--alive. For me, it hasn't been about being sexual or even of one gender or the other. It's been all about my spirit and loving and being loved as the person I am. I guess, in the end, there really isn't anything else.

Time, Again

Am I looking forward? Biding my time?

Rain again this morning, and late this afternoon. Officially, it's the first day of summer. But the weather is as it's been for so much of the past three months: gray, damp and cool.

That's how it was during the spring of 2003, my last in boy-drag. At least, it was my last working in male costumes and using official documents with my old name. Cool and damp, right up to the summer--and well into it.

Sometimes I feel as if it was the way it should have been. It's as if I wanted to operate undercover while I was "coming out." When I had to perform as Nick, I didn't want to be too visible, much less noticeable. So the clouds and gray air gave me the cover I needed, or wanted, so that I could layer enough clothing over myself to protect Justine, who was so close to the surface that at times I couldn't contain her at all.

By the time I started "coming out"--first to friends, then to family members and work colleagues--I had been taking hormones a few months. The effects of them were becoming visible, although no one seemed to have an inkling as to what was causing those effects until I revealed what I'd been doing.

I think the fact that I had been living a "double life" in which I was attending everything from support groups to political rallies as Justine surprised people even more than the fact that I had been taking hormones, much less having the feelings I had for so many preceding years. To borrow a cliche, I had been hiding in plain sight. I even ended up (unintentionally) on a couple of the networks' evening news programs and was doing a community-access cable TV show as Justine, something I never would have anticipated.

All of that, under the cover of clouds and behind a curtains of fog and rain: the way I have spent this weekend. If time moves through such mists, it's hard to imagine how it can be forward. Time stands still on sunny days, at least ones that are remembered, as in dreams and childhood; only moments are frozen in clouds. But I see the days marching forward now, at the end of this penultimate weekend of my current life. Two weeks and two days until my surgery: time can only move forward, the rain and clouds and fog notwithstanding.

And I've realized something else: For all that I've criticised my body, I don't hate it. At least now there's hope for it. But more important, I am not even thinking about whether or not I'm "passing." That I can see myself as a woman who's put on some weight and otherwise could look better is an advance from simply hating who I was. I wore my rattiest clothes and no make-up, and I felt like the person I truly am--even if I'm under the cover of clouds and rain.

What I find interesting is that neither Millie nor my mother is surprised that I'm not afraid of the surgery. Mom says she could never imagine doing anything like it, mainly because she never wanted to undergo surgery of any sort. But she sees why I'm doing it, and understands why I haven't thought of turning back. Today Millie says she can't see how I could consider anything but what I'm doing, and that she would be surprised if I ever had any thoughts of returning to my old life.

Forward--in curtains of mist and rain. Whether there's more rain or the sun ahead, there's no other way, and I'd want it no other way, now. If you're looking forward and moving ahead, you're not biding your time, are you?

The Face Of A Woman With An Umbrella

Today my dry-cleaner made the same joke my friends have been making: that she's moving to Seattle for the weather. Well, there's a silver lining in that: She speaks English, which is her third language, well enough to tell the joke convincingly.

Even if she'd botched the joke, it would have been charming because she is so cute and sweet. I know of at least a couple of guys who've expressed disappointment that she's married.

Yes, it rained again today. I guess I'm getting my feminine umbrella-holding technique down pretty well. Actually, it's more or less the same as holding or carrying a lot of things: I hold it with my fingertips and make it seem as if I could twirl it at any moment. I try to make it as lithe as my middle-aged-guy-body-with-pubescent-girl-boobs can make it.

It seemed to be working. I was walking up 21st Street, toward the dry-cleaner when, I passed an auto repair shop staffed by South Asian men. They were all staring at me; one of them yelled, "Come here, honey." And another said, "Can I see you tonight? Can I have your phone number?" Mind you, a much younger and prettier young woman passed before me, and they didn't give her the kind of attention they gave me.

The funny thing is that, aside from the way I was carrying my umbrella (which is printed with a reproduction of one of Monet's water lilies paintings), I was pretty frumpy, or is it dumpy? What's the difference? I tossed my clothes, which were from hunger, onto my body, which certainly isn't showing any signs of recent hunger. As I walked out of the house, I felt too fat, old, and anything else negative you can think of, although my face in the mirror, if not pretty, at least reminded me of why I have been making my changes: It reflected vulnerability, and even a kind of tenderness, along with a certain kind of radiance which, people tell me, I cannot suppress even if I want to.

In other words, at the risk of seeming vain, I can say that I now have a face I am not ashamed to show. All I have to do now is work on the body.

But, let me tell you, there's something about being a woman with an umbrella. It seems that men are always looking at you when you're holding one. I was also carrying a handbag with me; there's something about the combination of it and an umbrella that seems to get attention. Maybe they think of Pariseiennes or London girls strolling the boulevards on a showery or drizzly spring day.

Now I'm recalling a photograph: one of the few I took that I liked. In it, a woman is standing under an umbrella at a bus station. As I recall, I shot that photo from the rear, and the woman's backside is visible all the way up to her shoulder blades, onto which her brown hair cascaded. Someone suggested that I enter it in a competition; I have no idea of whether or not I still have the print, or even the negative. Any time I have looked for photos I've taken, I'm surprised at which ones I still have and which ones I don't.

What's even odder is which ones I remember, and how I remember them. If I ever do find that photo, I wonder if it will look anything like the what I've described now, which is to say the way I remember it. Maybe if it wasn't impressionistic, I made it so by describing it.

Then again, even if I had their talents, I don't think I could have made anything like the paintings Monet and others created. Or even a film. Well, maybe that. What would I call it? Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Sous Les Parapluies de Cherbourg? Well, I've been called a putain, but I'm certainly not one of Picassos Demoiselles. And I ain't in Cherbourg. All I am is a woman with an umbrella. At least I think, if nothing else, I'm carrying it with some grace.

Memory and Nervousness, Or Lack Thereof

Tonight I was talking with Aunt Nanette. Actually, she's my mother's aunt, but I have always referred to her as my own aunt. My father had no siblings and my mother had three brothers (one of whom, Joe, is still living), so I didn't have a lot of aunts to choose from. Uncle Joe is still married to Gen; Uncle Sonny divorced Aunt Pat (whom I still call "Aunt") when I was in high school and Uncle Nick split with his wife before I could develop any memory of her. And, as much as I love my uncles, being who I am, I always wanted more female relatives. Aunt Nanette does fine.

Anyway, she turned 85 yesterday. She'd called the other day to thank me for the card I sent her. "That was very thoughtful of you," she said. "I'm touched." I've never known her to be sarcastic, so I accept what she says at face value.

Although we've talked often, we still haven't sat face-to-face since I began my transition--or well before it. In fact, now that I think of it, I don't recall having seen her since Uncle Nick's funeral. That was almost twenty years ago. And my most vivid memories of her are a good bit earlier than that--from my Rutgers years and earlier. So the image I have of her is of a woman who wasn't much older than I am now. And the picture of me that's affixed inside her mind is most likely of a young man with a beard and a scowl.

Elizabeth used to refer to me as Homo Scowlien: Scowling Man. Other people had similar impressions of me. Maybe Aunt Nanette does, too--although she never fails to call me "Justine" or use feminine pronouns when referring to me. On the other hand, I think Elizabeth preferred Homo Scowlien. (OK, so her Latin wasn't so great in those days. Mine never was.)

Anyway...Enough about Elizabeth. Aunt Nanette is much more relevant and interesting than she'll ever be. Tonight Aunt Nanette was asking about my upcoming surgery. I talked about the doctor, the things I've been doing to prepare for it, and the things (like the course I'm teaching) I'm doing so that I don't think about it 24/7: After all, I think being so occupied with anything, no matter how good, is unhealthy. At least it's never been good for me.

She asked me a question other people have asked: Are you nervous about it? I replied, honestly, that I'm not. I've always had the feeling that the closer I came to the date of my surgery, the more uneasy I'd feel about it. Hmm, maybe eighteen days isn't near enough.

I explained that I've done a lot to prepare myself mentally for that day, between all the time (and money!) I've spent on therapists and such, and the exchanges, in person and on-line, I've had with other transgendered people. I've been in good hands, I've said, and I feel that I'll be in good with Dr. Bowers and her staff. And, of course, Mom and other people have been supportive.

She didn't express surprise over my explanation. However, I must confess that I'm surprised that I'm not nervous about this. I mean, I'm glad that I'm not. But does that make me well-prepared, or simply insane? Maybe both, and a bunch of other things.

It's really strange: I've been absolutely terrified of asking people for dates or help with anything. And of job interviews. And of starting new jobs. And, strangest of all, I was more scared as I embarked on the last bike tour I took in France than I was on my first. Then again, I had a premonition that I wouldn't come back from it. In a sense, I didn't--at least, I didn't come back as quite the same person who left, and I knew it that day when I hugged Tammy so desperately when she met me in the airport.

I know that, in some sense, I will be a different person after my operation. But somehow it doesn't scare me: I've been envisioning it for many, many years. I also know that there's still much that, no matter how much I've prepared, I can't anticipate. That's true of any change we make in our lives. The difference is, I know that now; when I made other major changes, I didn't understand that.

Still...I wonder why I was nervous about such things as job interviews or asking someone on a date. The potential outcomes were--at least, after I reached a certain age--more predictable than what I could experience. When you ask for a job or date, or almost anything else, the worst thing you can envision is that the person says "no." Most of the time, that's where it ends. And, even after having more rejection than I ever wanted to experience--although, most likely, about as much as most people encounter--the prospect of facing it again still struck fear in me.

Now I'm facing a future--both immediate and distant--that is potentially far more complex and complicated than the outcome of simply asking another person for something. And I am not nervous. At least, not yet: I still have eighteen more days to go.

The Weight of a Secret

Rain again today. We had a reprieve for all of two days, during which it was overcast. People I know are thinking of moving to Seattle--or London--for the weather.

Or maybe it'll be better in Trinidad. Only seventeen more days until I go there; nineteen until the surgery.

Another week has ended in the class I'm teaching; it resumes on Monday and finishes on Wednesday. Robin, who is Dr. Bowers' office manager was right: The time is moving even more quickly than I ever imagined it would. It's odd: In the class I'm teaching, I feel that I've gotten to know the students rather well over the course of only three weeks. I guess that's what happens when you meet four nights a week instead of two, and for three hours a class instead of one or two. And I feel that I learned even more about the students who are in this class and took the composition class with me during the spring semester than I did during that semester.

I may have some of those students again in other classes, but I already feel as if I will miss them. In spite of my resolution to myself that I would not make more of that class or this time than I would of any other class or time, I am developing a particular attachment to them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they're my last class before my surgery, and next week's class sessions will be the last ones until I return from the procedure.

And I have talked with them about it, and about some aspects of my life up to this point. Some of it is funny, even though I'm not trying to make it so. I mean, how else can it be when you've been an altar boy, Boy Scout, soldier and husband? If nothing else, I think Theatre of the Absurd has nothing on my life. The difference between me and the ones who wrote those plays is that I have something like a sense of humor about it.

If I were to meet any of those students again, say, five years from now, I wonder what we would say to each other? Would they want to talk to me again? Or will I be just another terrible English prof who traumatized them?

Now I'm wondering again about what my younger self and I would say to each other were we to meet. I'm thinking about that day--on this date, if I remember correctly--just after my penultimate semsester of graduate school ended. That would be in 1992. I was teaching college freshmen on a graduate assistantship. I supplemented that by doing poetry workshops with kids in public schools, as I had done during the previous five years, with the Teachers and Writers Collaborative.

If I recall correctly, I was doing my very last residency, in an elementary school in the South Bronx. I had been working with very young children: second graders, as I remember. Well, one of them--a girl with big brown eyes who was all circles and ovals--asked if she could talk to me "alone" while the other kids were having lunch. Of course, I agreed.

I should have known what was coming next. Other kids in other schools made that very same request. And they all talked about the same thing: Sexual abuse from a family member. Of course, they didn't use those words to describe it. But, even though they may not have known that what their family members were doing to them was a crime, they felt uneasy about it, and obviously needed to talk to someone. I always wondered why those kids came to me.

Until that day, that is. As Maritza told me that her two older brothers and father followed her whenever she went to the bathroom--which didn't have a door--I felt a mudslide of my own blood and of something else--a kind of gooey fire--descending through me. I don't think I said anything to Maritza, and I just barely made it through the two workshops and the conference I had with two teachers and an assistant principal after lunch.

Then, in spite of the driving rain and the unusual cold for that time of year, I shuffled almost aimlessly to the subway station. And, for no reason I could discern at that moment, I boarded a train headed in the opposite direction from the way home. Yet somehow I felt I couldn't do anything about it: Something beyond my own volition was commanding my steps.

The train rattled and rumbled through tunnels and a couple of underground station before clattering up a sharply curved ramp of track to a series of above-ground stations. Then it descended to tracks that were just below ground level yet open to the sky above them.

Those open-air tracks were punctuated by wide, cavernous stations. At one, Morris Park, a dark-haired white teenaged girl and an older woman who might have been her mother or grandmother disembarked the train. Somehow I took that as a signal that I was supposed to exit there, too. But I could not. Cold air rushed in; the train closed its doors; somehow I felt even colder than before. And I knew somehow that I wouldn't be getting off at the next stop, or the one after it. In fact, I knew that I would be on that train for a long, long time. Yet I could do nothing about it: I could not even lift my hands or move my lips to speak.

The next morning, I woke up on a park bench near Gracie Mansion--about halfway between that school and my place. The last thing I could recall was those train doors closing at Morris Park. A woman asked me if I was OK; I stared at her.

"Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee?"

I shook my head. That was the first voluntary motion I boarded the train. She looked at me, pursed her lips as if a question were going to come out, then thought better of it. Then, after a long pause: "Can I call somebody for you?"

Again, I shook my head. I wasn't even thinking of how I looked or how long since I'd eaten or showered, but I knew I wanted to go home. She said, "Can I get a taxi for you?" I nodded.

She hailed a yellow cab and asked where I was going. Finally, my first words since I left that school in the South Bronx: my address in Brooklyn.

Inside my apartment, I dialed Bruce's number and described, as best I could, what I'd just experienced. I assured him, even though he already knew, that I hadn't been drinking or taken any drugs: It had been several years since I did either. He listened patiently and asked whether I wanted to meet him. I said I would, after I made one more call:

"I need to come down and talk to you. It's something I've got to talk about in person."

"When?," my mother asked.

It was a Friday afternoon. By the end of that weekend, she, Bruce and Elizabeth would hear about something that I hadn't talked about , because I couldn't, since I expereinced it when I was nine years old: molestation by Mike Spinnato, a close family friend.

About twenty-five years later, my body felt like a mass of nerve endings with a cold wind strafing me from the front and something immolating me from within. On the day Mike unzipped his pants in front of my face in a bathroom stall of a White Tower restaurant near the Bronx Zoo--and, I realized later, the Morris Park station-- I had no words to describe what he'd done, much less what I felt about it, and I feared talking about him in the same way I feared talking about any other adult to my parents, or to any other adult. Somehow I felt that even if I was wronged, I would be blamed.

That girl in the South Bronx school probably felt something like that, too. So, most likely, did a few other girls before her who told me similar stories. I would love to know where they are now, and to give them what I couldn't when they wanted to talk to me. Maybe they are all right now; whether or not they are, they understand that nothing is heavier than a secret--at least, that kind of secret.

I would say something like that to the person I was that day. And now I remind myself of that.

The Future, As Justine

Three more weeks until my surgery. Exactly three weeks from today...

Pretty much everything I need to do in preparation for the surgery is done: I've had the necessary medical checkups and sent the results to Dr. Bowers. I've sent all of my payments, bought my plane tickets and made arrangements for my transportation from the airport and my first night in Trinidad, CO.

And I have just received the prescription for my new dosage of hormones, which I will begin to take next week. And it is the same dose I will take after my surgery.

For the past six years, I've been taking 200 mg. of Spironolactone and 5 mg. of Premarin every day. The Spironolactone is an anti-androgen, meant to counter my testosterone production. I won't need it after my surgery. As for the Premarin, I'll be taking only .625 mg of that every day starting next week. My current dosage requires me to take two 125mg pills twice a day; my new dosage calls for the equivalent of half of one of those pills, once a day.

Before I started taking my current dosage, I spent three months on about half of it. That is standard procedure so that the doctor can see how well (or whether) your body tolerates the hormones and anti-androgen. Because I'm tough--because I'm a woman!;-)--my body took to them; my mind practically screamed, "I want more!"

Lemme tellya, I wasn't craving them for the taste. I call Premarin the "pee pill" because it comes from pregnant mare urine (hence the name) and, well, tastes like it--a sugar-coated version, anyway.

Now, if this sounds like drug addiction, let me explain. I'm not really craving the substances themselves, or even the good feeling they give me. (Decades worth of depression and anger disappeared practically overnight once I stared to take them.) Rather, I wanted them so much for the same reason I want the surgery: They are building blocks for the rest of my life, as I want to live it.

When I started on the road to my transition, I was thinking about the rest of my life for the first time. In fact, it was really the first time I envisioned having a "rest of my life." Until then, I never really expected to have much of a future, and if I did, I figured it would suck no matter what I did. So I didn't do much to prepare for it. Sure, I went to school and got degrees. But I attended college and, later, graduate school for a lack of anything better to do; it was almost by accident that I found myself doing the sort of work I do now.

I had some vague ideas as to what I might do with my education; I had some equally vague notion that I wanted to be a writer. But no future I could discuss with anyone seemed in any way plausible to me, and it would never, ever be mine. How could it be, if I were forced to be some person I never wanted to be?

But the day I met with Jay, the intake counselor at Center Care, and bared my soul--that of a woman--to her, I could, for the first time, imagine myself having a future of my own, much less caring about the quality of it. I felt that for the first time in my entire life I was completely honest with somebody about something.

That is not to say that my future was, at that moment, certain or secure. I had no way of predicting what the next day, much less the next few years, would bring. But at least I finally had reason to work toward, with and on it: at least it would be mine, not someone else's expectation of it.

I would not be married, or alone, because I was trying to fit into someone's or some culture's expectation that I should be a husband and father or that I should lead a solitary life until I became a "family man." I would not try to fit myself into careers for which I was unsuited or had no interest.

In other words, I had my own life, as my own person--whatever those things might mean--to look forward to. That alone is reason to do what I've been doing.

That alone is reason enough to spend all the time and money I've spent on counseling and therapy, on prescriptions and the surgery. That alone makes what I have sacrificed--the relationships and the security, all of the certainties--seem less and less consequential as time passes.

And that alone has been--happily for me--reason to continue what I've begun, and not to return to what I've left behind: Forty years of fear and shame, of hiding and lying, of mendacity and despair, of fear and anger, of alienation and isolation. And more than anything else, pain and grief. And to whatever I might've gained, however tenuously and temporarily, through those years.

All of that, all of the work and accomplishment of the past few years, have brought me to this: three weeks from my surgery.

We never really know what getting what we've always wanted will bring us. But, three weeks from new, I'll start to learn. And now I have reason go to that future, to learn those lessons: They will belong to me, to Justine.

Tranny Serendipity

Is there such a thing as Tranny Serendipity?

If there is, I expereinced it today.

Getting dressed for work...I'd just pulled a jewel-necked top over my teenaged-girl breasts and middle-aged woman's body. Its hue--a cross between magenta and fuschia--brought out the violet zags and shapes in a jigsaw-printed tiered ruffle skirt that was a kaleidoscope in purple, coral, brown and a sort of dove-gray color. I've worn it before and gotten compliments on it. I was deciding what to wear over the top.

A knock at my door. The landlady: She said she'd bought a shirt that didn't really fit her, but it was too late to return it. Would I like to try it on? Certainly.

I don't know whether she'd intended to wear it as a regular shirt, but it fit me perfectly as an overshirt. Its purple crinkled silk-like fabric brought the outfit together! And, it changed my mind about the shoes I would wear: Instead of my gold faux-lizard wedge sandals, I slid my feet into my purple peep-toe bowtie pumps--and perfectly balanced the shirt my landlady had just given me.

On my way to work, I went for a badly-needed manicure. (My nails were starting to look like driftwood.) I chose a shade of mauve that had a tint of lilac. Two strangers, as well as two of my students, complimented me. And my landlady said, "Wow! When you get dressed, you look better than I do."

Some landlady, huh? First she completes my outfit. Then she makes me blush. And she didn't even raise my rent. Hmm....

She has two young sons. Did she want a daughter? Is that why she was dressing me up? Well, I must say, she does have taste.

Today I really wanted to look good--or at least as good as I can look. In class, we were talking about gender in relation to some of the poetry and stories we've been reading. Teaching that class has been a very emotional experience for me, and it seems that every night, at least one of the students strikes some nerve of mine with a comment about one or another of the readings.

Tonight I wrote the words "Male," "Female," "Masculine," "Feminine," "Boy," "Girl," "Man" and "Woman" on the blackboard, and asked students to spend a few minutes writing about what those words evoke for them. Some of the responses were what I expected: "masculine" and the other male words evoked strength and dominance; the ones about femininity evoked emotion and nurturing.

One student, Angie, said that to her, "woman" made her think of expectations, roles, sacrifice and submission. And, "asking for permission," she added.

On the other hand, men are allowed to feel a certain confidence that allows them simply to proceed, she said. An example of this can be found in Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (the one that begins with, Let not to the marriage of true minds). According to Angie, only a man could have written the poem's final couplet: If this be error and upon me proved/I have never writ, nor no man ever loved.

As great a poet as he is, those lines proved that he was still thinking like a man, Angie said.

One thing that makes all of this so interesting to me, aside from my own life experiences and interest in poetry, is the exchange she and I last week. Yes, she's the one who winked conspiratorially as she said that if her husband, who was waiting for her, found out she was hanging out with me, he'd accuse her of being a lesbian.

Here's a conversation I'd love to have with her: How does she reconcile her religious beliefs with views that are even more feminist than those of a lot of women who call themselves feminists? And, I'd like to hear more about something she mentioned to me: She's trying to keep her daughter, who's in her early adolescence, away from cosmetic formulae and procedures. When her daughter was about to shave her legs, Angie talked her out of it--for the time being, anyway. Angie herself doesn't wear make-up--not that she needs to. I wonder how her husband feels about that, and how she reconciles it with the notion of being submissive to the man's wishes.

Is there some sort of intellectual serendipity that brings you, when you least expect them, the answers to vexing questions ?

Like this: Charlie's licking my arm. Should I stop writing this and play with him? OK, that's not so vexing. I know what I'm going to do. And I don't know what will turn up next. Will it come at an opportune moment?

A little serendipity of any kind is a good and helpful thing. I think the fact that I am about to have my surgery is the result of a whole series of bigger and smaller serendipities.

Younger, Skinnier, Prettier

It finally stopped raining this afternoon. We'll see how long the good weather holds up.

I took a short bike ride to Forest Park, which is a few miles from my place, and through Dominick's neighborhood, except that he wasn't there.

It seemed that every female I saw was younger, skinnier and prettier than I am. The weird thing is that when I look at my face in my mirror--say, when I'm brushing my hair or applying makeup--I actually like what I see. Perhaps most people wouldn't say I'm beautiful, or even pretty. But I have been told that my face is "inviting" and that it expresses "tenderness" and "vulnerability."

Well...I certainly don't make any effort to be aloof or haughty. And I suppose I can empathise with a pretty fair number of people, some of whom would seem to have little in common with me. If I am exuding those qualities, I'm happy. And I know that people respond to happiness.

OK, so maybe I have Angelina Jolie's soul. But I wouldn't mind having her body.

So, instead of all of those young, skinny and pretty girls, all of you guys can have a dowdy, flabby middle-aged woman. You'd all make such a trade. Right? Of course you would. And you know why: If girls wanna have fun, all of you guys want a girl who's having fun.

Take it from me: When I was a young man, I dated women like the one I am now. OK, I'll clarify that. I've never dated a trans woman--at least, not to my knowledge. But I've dated a few women who were at least ten years older than I was. None were skinny, though none were fat. Two of them had nice legs; all of them had beautiful eyes. All except one were divorced and all of them raised kids, whether while or before I knew them.

Take it from someone who dated older women and is now the older woman: We're more fun. We're more interesting. We know how to do all kinds of things you haven't yet imagined. But we can teach you, if you're interested.

Here I am, bags and all. I invite you.

With or Without TV

Three weeks from today, I plan to board the flight that will take me from LaGuardia to Denver International. Then another to Colorado Springs, where I'll spend the night before I'm picked up by the hospital's escort service.

I'll be entering that plane at LaGuardia on my birthday: the 4th. Some people have told me that the 7th, the date of my surgery, will be my new birthday. I will return home on the 15th. The day before that is, of course, Bastille Day. But it's also the anniversary of my name change, my first day clean and sober and my discharge from the military.

Maybe I should just make the month of July my birthday. Or something.

Now I wonder if I might be making another new beginning. Yesterday, analogue TV signals in the US were turned off; now there are only digital signals. My TV set is not equipped to receive digital transmissions, and I didn't buy one of those converter boxes. Furthermore, I don't subscribe to cable or satellite TV, and don't plan to.

So...that means I can't watch TV. Will it affect my life?

At the moment, I'm rather enjoying the hissing swish of rainwater plumes kicked back by car tires nearly gliding on the drizzle-slickened street just outside my window. I wish it would stop drizzling, raining, pouring or otherwise precipitating (Is that a word?): It seems that's what kind of weather we've had for the past three or four months. The skies have been gray and the air's been so moist that I have difficulty pulling my front door shut so that I can lock it. Of course, that might also be a consequence of my diminished upper body strength: Do I blame the hormones or my relatively sedentary lifestyle?

But if we must have precipitation, it's nice to hear its echoes. And, Charlie and Max seem to be purring even louder and more deeply than they usually do. Perhaps their voices echo in the rain and mist; maybe it's just easier to hear them when there's no TV blaring.

But they seem even louder than they did on other nights when I didn't have the TV on. Something about this place just seems to have become quieter. I don't mind it. Being distracted is overrated; at least, it's not as good as being busy. And, when there are no distractions and the business of the day is done, then I will busy myself with living.

Last night, I told my brother Mike that one of the reasons I chose to teach a short course this month was to keep myself busy. "Are you having second thoughts about the surgery?," he wondered.

"No. I just don't want to be thinking about it during my every waking hour."

"Mmm.."

"Obsessing about anything isn't healthy."

"I guess you're right about that."

"Sure. Look at Dad."

"Yeah, that's all he does."

Not to pick on him, but I must also say that my father spends most of his days in front of the television set. For a few weeks, when he was in the deepest part of his depression, he wasn't even doing that. Imagine: Spending twelve hours a day with The O'Reilly Factor and Faux, I mean Fox, News actually is an improvement in his condition from what it was a couple of weeks ago. I can just see the ads now.

Now, of course I didn't watch those shows. In fact, if you don't count Law and Order, Cold Case and Prison Break, most people would say that my TV-watching habits were in middle-to high-brow territory: Healthy doeses of PBS programming interspersed with Sixty Minutes and other news-magazine programs, leavened by the occasional movie and sports event. No reality TV shows (Whose reality do they show?), no Desperate Housewives, no Entertainment Tonight. The only game show I watched was Jeopardy.

Of course, I didn't watch any of those programs faithfully. I wasn't always home when they aired, and I never could be bothered to tape them. I never felt any real sense of loss over missing an episode of any program.

As for cable and satellite TV: I've subscribed to them, only to find myself watching the same two or three channels (out of 500!) and to find the same programs repeated. I don't suspect the situation has changed much, so I have no wish to start a new subscription. Plus, some of the worst customer service in the world comes from cable and satellite TV companies.

I am free of all of that. I'm wondering how I'll feel about this decision when I'm recovering from my surgery. I do plan to read and write a lot. And, of course, when I get home, I'll be spending lots of time with Charlie and Max and, hopefully, with my human friends.

There was a time in my life when I lived without a television. For about two years after I returned from France, I moved a few times and lived mainly in single rooms. I would say that I was content not to have the tube, but I wasn't really content about anything. Mainly, not watching TV made me feel superior to other people and helped me to create a rationale for my alienation and anger. It was true that I wasn't participating in the deceptions and lies practiced and accepted by the ruling classes and, well, just about everybody else. But of course I was living in my own delusions about what it meant to be well-informed and -educated and, well, simply to be.

Now all I want is to create some serenity for myself and whoever happens to spend time with me.

Now raindrops are plonking against the roofs of parked cars. Charlie and Max are sleeping. Soon, I will be, too.

Homecoming?

Twenty-five more days until the surgery. Twenty-two until I leave for it. I teach English; I'm not supposed to be this good at counting!

I'm still thinking about that student's question: Who's homeless? And my response to it: What is a home?

Now I am at the desk in the house where I have lived for four years and on the block where I have lived for seven. This is probably the closest thing I've had to a home in a very, very long time--if indeed I ever had one.

Now I am recalling the day a couple of months ago, during spring break, when Dominick and I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Afterward, we stopped by the house on Dahill Road where I lived from the time I was eight until I turned thirteen. From there, we went to El Viejo Yayo, a restaurant around the corner from the Bergen Street apartment in which I lived for seven years before I moved in with Tammy.

Perhaps the house on Dahill Road was a home for me at one time. I had no choice but to be there, and Mom and Dad had no choice but to have me there. It wasn't bad, really: If anything, having a bedroom with a window that opened out to the length and expanse of Brooklyn, all the way to the Verrazano Bridge, probably helped to develop my imagination, or at least my mind as I know it, whatever it is.

My brothers and I walked four blocks to school every morning. We'd walk those same blocks home at lunchtime, and back to school after lunch. Then, depending on how much energy or homework we had--or whether or not we were facing punishments--we looped or bolted back to the house after the last school bell rang. A couple of hours later, we'd eat supper with us; Dad would also be at the table, unless he was working overtime. He almost never spoke at the table; we didn't say much, either. Still, we did have a sort of bond at that table.

Did that make that house or my family a home? Probably. Then again, Eva and I used to eat dinner together just about every night, but I hardly think of us now as a real couple, any more than I think of the place in which I lived as a home. We ate at the same table; sometimes, we worked in the same kitchen on preparing the same meal. But now I recall that we never shared those experiences. We were more like people who happened to land in the same place for a period of time, much like the farmhouse in the no-man's land between the Allied and Axis lines in which Adam spent a winter with local peasants, the local Nazi constables and resistance fighters. They were all inside that house for one reason: to survive the brutual and seemingly endless winter that gripped the Vosges that year. Once spring broke, they all parted ways and never heard from, or about, each other again.

Adam once told me that no matter how much clothing he wore, no matter how big and intense the flames in the fireplace, no matter how much tea or soup they sipped or gulped, he and the other men in that house were cold. And hungry. Those were really the things he and they were trying to escape; you can cope with an odious political ideology, he said. We do not die from darkness; we die from cold. I would not know until many years later that Federico Garcia-Lorca wrote that; later yet, I would begin to understand what he meant.

Survival is not about defeating the forces of darkness; it's about coming in from the cold. As near as I can tell, it's the purpose of having and entering a home.

What do you do when your own body is not a home? That's what I was thinking when I nearly burst into tears in front of the class. If they were to ask me, I'd've told them it's the reason why I undertook my transition and why I'm about to undergo the surgery.

No matter what I did with and for other males--or what they did with and for with them--I never felt their gender was my home. I always knew I didn't belong there; the more intimately and intensely I understood that, the more desperately I tried to fit into it. And, as you probably know, my efforts failed miserably, and at times I failed pathetically.

I sense that the female gender is a home for me. At least, since I've started to live in it, I haven't felt that insatiable, gnawing emotional hunger and the endless spiritual cold I experienced for so much of my life.

Would my students have understood any of that? Does Dominick? Do you, Dear Reader? Can anyone?

Oh, that was quaint as all hell: Dear Reader. But what the hell.

I really feel I've been on my way home. But I'm not sure of which is more difficult: Remaining in a place in which has never been home, returning to a home in which you've always lived, or coming to one for the first time, having never seen it but knowing full well that it's where you've always belonged.