Where Are The Women?

I don't know whether it's possible to be an urban cyclist without having or developing some sort of interest in architecture. One of the wonderful things about New York and some other cities is that you can find a gem where you weren't expecting it.

This beauty is right across the street from the new Yankee Stadium:

I hadn't been in that part of town in a long time, so I don't know whether or how recently the building was renovated.  I suspect that it was fixed up as the new stadium was built, but I also suspect that it hadn't deteriorated very much, as so much of the neighborhood around the old stadium (which was next to where the current stadium stands) had for so long.

If people couldn't tell that I hadn't spent much time in the neighborhood just by looking at me, they had to have known once I started taking photos.  Then again, maybe some architecture lovers have trekked up that way.

Wouldn't you love to live in a building with this over the entrance?:

Or this by your window?

                          

For a moment, I wondered whether someone might get upset with me for pointing my camera at his or her window. But building residents may be used to that sort of thing.

So, how did I end up there?  Well, I just hopped on Tosca (my Mercian fixie) and pedalled across the Queensboro (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge.  After descending the ramp on the Manhattan side, I found myself riding past Sloan Kettering, Rockefeller University and lots of dimpled blonde toddlers escorted by nannies or au pairs who were much darker than them.    As I rode further uptown, the kids got darker and didn't have au pairs or nannies.   None of it was new to me, but something would be after I passed the building in the photos.

In Manhattan, almost everything above Columbia University is commonly referred to as "Harlem," and in the Bronx, almost everything below Fordham Road is called the South Bronx.  As it happened, I pedalled through the places that are, technically, Harlem and the South Bronx.  But I also passed through a number of other neighborhoods that consist almost entirely of people of color, most of whom are poor and whose neighborhoods are lumped in with Harlem and the South Bronx.

I ride in those places because there are some interesting sights and good cycling.  But today I noticed something in those neighborhoods that, I now realize, makes them not only different neighborhoods, but different worlds, from Astoria, where I now live, and Park Slope, where I lived before moving here--not to mention neighborhoods like the Upper East Side and Yorkville, which I also rode through today.

In neighborhoods like Harlem and the ones I saw in the Bronx, one generally doesn't see as many adults, especially young ones, cycling.  And, as one might expect, the bikes one sees are likely to have been cobbled together.  I'm not talking about the kinds of bikes one can buy used from any number of bike shops or the ones available from Recycle-a-Cycle and other places like it. Rather, I'm talking about bikes that look like they were spliced together from bits and pieces that were tossed out or found lying abandoned somewhere or another.  

As often as not, the bikes and parts don't go together.  I'm not talking only about aesthetics:  Sometimes parts that aren't made to fit each other are jammed together and held together by little more than the rider's lack of knowledge about the issue. 

It was usually poor men of a certain age who were riding the kinds of bikes I've described.  Younger men might ride them, too, but they are more likely to be found on cheap mountain bikes, some of which came from department stores.  A few are the lower-end or, more rarely, mid-range models of brands that are sold in bicycle shops.  Those bikes were probably acquired in one degree or another of having been used; none of them looked as if they were purchased new.

But the most striking thing I noticed is this:  I did not see a single female of any age on a bike in those neighborhoods.  It make me think back to other times I've been in those parts of town and I realized --if my memory was serving me well--that I never saw a woman, or even a girl, on a bike.  

I started to have those realizations after I stopped at an intersection a few blocks north of the stadium.  A very thin black man was crossing the street.  He approached me and, in a tone of consternation, said, "You're riding a bike?"  For a split-second--until I realized why he was asking the question--I thought it was strange and ignored him.  But he persisted: "You ride a lot?"

I nodded.  

"Be safe.  I don't want a nice lady like you to get hurt."

"I will.  Thank you.  Have a nice day."

I realized that I may well have been the first woman he, or many other people in that neighborhood, had seen on a bike.     

How would his life be different if he saw more women on bikes? And, even more to the point, how might the lives of some of those women be different if they rode bikes?  And, finally, I wondered, how might those neighborhoods be different?

They Ask About "It"

My birthday's about three weeks away.  The anniversary of my surgery is three days after that, and the anniversary of my name change (and a couple of other things) is a week after that.


Maybe I'm turning into a proverbial (or not-so-proverbial) old fart, but none of those things seems so monumental right now.  When you get to my age, you've experienced a bunch of birthdays already, so it's no more of an event, really, than having your morning cup of coffee (or tea).  As you get older, time passes more quickly, so events come and go at a faster pace.  Paradoxically, learning that has been teaching me to ( in the words of someone who's much wiser than I am) live in the moment, not for it.  You do what you can in this moment precisely because it will be gone before you can even begin to think about it.  


What's got me onto another ramble into two-bit philosophy?  Well, today I bumped into someone I haven't seen in two years, or close to it.  Kyra was a tutor in biology and chemistry when I was in charge of the tutoring center at the college.  She was a good tutor for the main reason she's good at most of the things she's good at:   She has a warm, inviting personality and relates well to people.   


Today she was visiting a friend who just happens to live near me.  We got to talking about one thing in another; she's trying to decide whether to go to graduate school; of course I'd give her a recommendation--for that, or a job or whatever else she wants to do, I promised.  


Then, she asked me, "How did it go?"  I knew what she meant by "it."  She wasn't being coy; she just knew that I knew what she was talking about.  I told her that I experienced no pain and that my life got crazy for a while but it didn't have to do with "it;" now it seems almost inconceivable that I lived as long as I did before taking my trip to Trinidad.  


Everything I said was true.  But what I didn't tell her was that, in some way, the question seemed odd to me.  Or, more exactly, not quite relevant.  I felt the same way on Thursday when I bumped into Diane, who had been a student of mine at the same time I was running the tutoring center.  The last time either of us could recall having seen the other was at her graduation a year ago.  That was about five weeks before "it."  

And, yes, she asked me that same question about "it."  So did Sharon, who was a student in the last class I taught before "it."  I encountered her in the hallway during Finals Week; it was the first time I'd seen her since that class. After taking that class (Intro to Literature), she was inspired to change her major to English, she said.  She also asked how "it" went.


I was happy to see all of them.  And I appreciate their interest in my situation.  However, it seemed strange that they should ask about my surgery or its aftermath.  That it went well and I'm happy with it seems as normal and routine to me as brushing my teeth in the morning.  The surgery seems like just another event in my life now.  Yes, it changed, in some way, how I see and feel about myself.  And the years before my surgery, not to mention before my transition,  seem as far in the past as the Paleozoic Era.  


I'm not sure that it's because I have changed so much as a result of the transition or the surgery.  Perhaps it's simply a matter of moving on with my life--and, in my case, being fortunate enough to be moving on with a life that I had envisioned for myself.  Some people have told me they've seen a change in me;  I can see something different in the photos Bruce as well as a couple of complete strangers took of me.  The simplest explanation I have of it consists of a confidence and peace with myself that I never had before.  When you feel those things, it almost seems redundant to talk about them. People who know you see them; sometimes other people respond to them.   And, when such serenity and joy become normal--that is to say, when you carry them within you even when day-to-day situations are exasperating or annoying--they become the reason and means for what you do, and whatever event brought you to them starts to seem like just another moment, albeit a very good one.


So, while the surgery was a happy occasion for me, and seeing my newly-formed parts of my body (and spirit) developing has been wonderful, it seems strange that anyone else--even someone who hasn't seen me in a while--would express interest in them.  It's a bit like asking an experienced doctor how her licensing exam went.  We've made it through those events in our lives; there is only this moment.


Maybe that was the whole point of having the surgery.  It was an event I anticipated for a long time and dreamed (and despaired) of for much, much longer.  And why?  So that it wouldn't be an event to anticipate or enshrine---so that I could live as a woman.  


Still, I am glad that they asked, even if the answer doesn't seem so relevant now. And I'm glad they're progressing with their lives.

When The Transwoman Becomes A Stranger

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  The very title of this blog is starting to seem strange, almost alien, to me.


Maybe that was the whole point of everything I've done for the past eight years (almost).  I'm having a harder and harder time thinking of myself as anything with the prefix "trans" on it.


The funny thing is that I've come to this point partly because of two unlikely influences who would probably hate each other. Actually,  one would hate the other.  The other might just keep a kind of clinical distance.


One of the people I've mentioned is the author of "The Dirt From Dirt."  No, I didn't meet her, and have no wish to do so.  She is a "butch," which I respect as being a particular kind of woman.  (Some people would say the same thing about me.  I wouldn't disagree with them.)  That is probably the only point on which I agree with her: I don't see "butches" as women who want to be men but won't, for whatever reasons, go through the transition.


To her, biology is destiny.  If you were born with XY chromosomes, or just happened to end up with an "M" on your birth certificate because the doctor decided that you were one, well, then, you're male.  She hates and resents them because of their privilege, yadda yadda yadda.  While I know that male privilege exists, I've learned that you don't hate someone for having privilege they did nothing to get.  If you're going to hate, save your animus for those who use their power to unfairly take advantage of other people.


What she hates even more than biological males are transmen, especially if they lived as butches or simply lesbians before making his transition  She sees them as traitors who, in their treachery, support the hetero-normative gender binary.  (Say that three times fast.)  To her, they're impersonating men and people like me are impersonating  women.  Worse still, in her eyes, is that we're imitating what she sees as the most exaggerated behaviors attributed to the gender in which we're living.


I can honestly say that she's not describing me.  I'm not one of those trans women who shrieks and demands that men hold doors open for her as she's tottering on four-inch heels.  On the other hand, I do some things that most people wouldn't regard as terribly feminine, and I make no apologies for doing so.


My other influence on my thinking is a woman who doesn't want to be identified in my writings or anywhere else.  She's married and has dated only men in life.  Yet she won't call herself "straight" or "heterosexual."  Instead, she simply sees herself as a sexual being and calls her sexuality "fluid," as I call mine. She says that "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are descriptions of behavior rather than names for identity and that people use those terms, as well as "bisexual" as ways of fitting people into boxes.  And, really, the reason why I've done what I've done is that I never could fit into the boxes.  (With the weight I've gained, there are a lot of things I don't  fit into!)


So, the woman I won't name is the polar opposite of Dirt:  She does not rail against the gender binary, yet she won't reinforce it.  (She also seems to recognize the notions of homo-, hetero- and bi-sexuality are extensions of it.)  On the other hand, Dirt claims to hate male privilege, yet she unflinchingly supports the very thing that allows it to exist:  Rigid definitions of gender and sexuality.


Now I've come to realize that if any trans label ever applied to me, it's "transgendered," the adjective, not "transgender," the noun.  But even "transgendered" and "transwoman" are not completely accurate descriptions of me, or many other people to whom they're applied--any more than homo, hetero and bi are.


As I told the woman whose name I won't divulge, I have used the term "bisexual" only as one of convenience to describe myself.  Or, more accurately, it's the only term most people understand in anything like the way I've ever understood it that even remotely applies to me.  And, I would say the same thing about "transwoman" and my gender identity.


I guess the best way as I could describe myself would go something like this:  I am a woman who came to be who I am through different experiences and other means than other women have come into themselves.  However, it is in part because of those experiences that I am a woman:  I was in the world of maleness, but I am not of it and was not fully part of it.  And, partly because I am a woman, my sexuality is fluid, for I think that a woman's sexuality is inherently more fluid than a man's.  That is not to say that women are more likely to be gay or bi or whatever, but that heterosexuality, as most people understand it, is not as integral to women who live as straight women as it is to straight men.  (Actually, I think that no one more staunchly believes in the gender binary and traditional notions of hetero- and homo-sexuality  than a man who's on the "down-low.")


So...Am I going to change the title of this blog?  End it?  "No" to both questions.  I have used this blog to talk about my experiences during a time of transition in my life.  I was, when I started this blog, living as a woman but was still making my transition to femaleness.  And I am still learning what it means to actually overtly live as a person whom I could be only within myself for much of my life.  I cannot forget any of those experiences:  They have made me what I am.  And I hope that someone has been learning from, or even entertained by, them.


Therefore, even though I'm continuing this blog, I probably won't post in it as frequently.   I probably will write more in my Mid-Life Cycling blog, which, in some ways, is another chapter of this one.

I Rode That Way Then Because This Is How I Ride Now

"Velouria" wrote about me and this blog on her "Lovely Bicycle!" blog.  

She made me blush.  I may not know much, but I know this:  The only thing better than a man who can make a woman blush is another woman who can make another woman blush!

Part of me wonders whether I deserve such a wonderful write-up. First of all, look at the photo at the top of her blog and the one at the top of this one.  Not only is she (or whoever took that photo) a better photographer than I'll ever be, she's also more beautiful and stylish.   Take a look another look at that photo:  Do you really think I can compete with that?

Also, look at the layout and design of Lovely Bicycle!  I wouldn't have a clue as to how to do anything like that. And, finally, read her writing and compare it to my ragged prose.

But, hey, what can I say?  I'll take the compliments.  Besides, she's right definitely right about the fact that I've experienced two completely different aspects of cycling, and I'm one of the very few people who's experienced both of them.  

The funny thing is that I was the "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie...named Nick" precisely because I wanted to be "the woman who cycles to work in a skirt and heels."  Or, more precisely, I was the hard-riding guy precisely because I always knew that, deep down, I was, and was meant to be, that woman cycling to work, to the marketplace and down a country lane to the sea.

So why did I live and cycle as I did?  Well, I have to admit, I enjoyed competitive riding, whether or not it was sanctioned in a race, and the camaraderie that accompanied and followed it.  But I now realize that I wanted to ride as hard and as long as I did because I had so much anger in me.  By now, you probably realize what forged much of that anger:  the cauldron of rage that roiled from the fires of my unfulfilled desire--to live as the woman that I always knew myself to be.

Some guys' worst nightmare is finding out that the girl for whom they've fallen was once a guy--and probably even more of a guy than any of them ever were!  Of course, I don't mean to make light of that:  Too many of us have been killed over that. But, it's hard not to see the irony in it, and to apply it to my cycling life:  What if some of those guys I used to ride with and against were to meet me today?  

Actually, one of those guys has.  And he's taken it very well.  He has an even stronger sense of himself than I ever imagined he did.  What am I saying?  Back in the day, I wasn't even thinking about whether he or anyone else was secure within his own skin.  There was simply no way I--as I was in those days-- could have thought about that. 

But as for the other guys...well, I'll tell you about one of them.  He would have utterly despised me, as I am now.  Or, at least, he would not have been seen with me, whether or not either of us was on a bike.  But I know for a fact that if no one else were watching, I am the very first person he would have come to, for love, advice or just about anything else.  He would have--if he were honest with himself--spent the night with me rather than with his wife or any girlfriend he ever had--or, for that matter, almost any other woman and absolutely any man.  He would have gone for rides with me for the same reasons he would have gone to museums, poetry readings and stores, and walked the streets of Paris, San Francisco, Rome and Boston with me.  

Actually, he wouldn't have done any of those things with me.  He did those things with me.  What's more, he did them with me, and in the presence of his wife and girlfriends.

By now, you've probably figured out who that man was.  Yes, he was me.  And he was who he was--including that "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie"--because he was me:  the "woman who cycles to work in skirts and heels."

My Image And Likeness

Today I had a really nice lunch with Bruce.  I think I still had a bit of an endorphin rush after yesterday's ride.  And the kind of weather we had today doesn't dampen spirits:  It was windy and rather cool for this time of year, but the sky was so full of sun that even the puffy but scattered clouds seemed like bundles of light.


Maybe that's why I brought my camera with me and asked him to take some photos.  It was such a pretty day:  I felt as if its light could make me look good, or at least not too scary.  For the past few months, I've told myself that I need to lose weight and get botox and that all sorts of other things must happen before I could have any photos taken of me.  I think I got spooked after someone at the college took a photo of me on a day when I was tired, wasn't wearing any makeup (By the way, I'm not wearing any, save for eyeshadow and lipstick, in any of the photos I've posted.)  and was generally feeling ragged.  And he posted that photo onto the college's website.  From there, it ended up in Google images, so that for a time it was the first image anyone saw of me if he or she Googled my name.


Pre-transition, I used to hate being photographed.  I hated it so much that someone had to wrestle a camera out of my hand after I grabbed it from someone who used it to take a photo of me.  Had I not been wrestled, I would have smashed that camera.


Early in my transition, I allowed myself to be photographed for any and no reason.  I guess I felt liberated and didn't care that I was hardly (if at all) "passing."  Bruce, Elizabeth and Dominick took some photos of me that I liked--and, at various times, I've posted some of them on this blog and in other places.  In those early days, it seemed that I was changing practically every day.  At first, it simply was a matter of the novelty of my transition and the fact that I was trying new looks.  Then I started taking hormones and they had their effects.  


But after a couple of years, I wasn't as enthusiastic about being photographed.  My appearance didn't change much for a while and I knew that I wasn't a thing of beauty or a joy to behold.  I was waiting--until I changed some more, until I had my surgery or awoke from some dream that left me looking like Angelina Jolie.


Then, I was photographed a few times just after my surgery.  I looked the way people look after surgeries of any kind:  tired, in spite of the joy I felt.  For the first half of the fall semester, I didn't do much besides go to work.  Then, as my energy came back, I decided to lay low anyway:  I wasn't looking for a new love, or a new anything else, in my life.  As someone I know would say, I was "cocooning."  I was waiting for not only my physical healing (which had already happened by that time); I was also waiting to blossom. As fall turned into winter, I guess it made sense that I would feel as I did.  I wasn't in a hurry to meet someone new or to make any major changes in my life; I wanted my metamorphosis to be complete--whatever that would mean.


It was during that time that someone took that awful photo of me.  


Now...Perhaps getting on my bike again has made me more confident.  Even in the condition I'm in, I think I look better with or on my bikes than in most other ways.  Getting out in the sunshine and open air helps me, too.  


And, as Velouria has told me, I look better in pale lilac, powder blue and related hues.  Those are the colors I like best, anyway.  And they're the ones I've been wearing most of the time lately.  


She and Gunnar told me that the photo that someone took of me on Saturday in Juniper Valley Park was pretty.  Bruce and other people have told me I'm looking good lately.  I'll allow them their delusions, and me to enjoy myself.  That sort of thing can be addictive, you know--just as getting photographed is becoming for me, or so it seems.

Today I had a really nice lunch with Bruce.  I think I still had a bit of an endorphin rush after yesterday's ride.  And the kind of weather we had today doesn't dampen spirits:  It was windy and rather cool for this time of year, but the sky was so full of sun that even the puffy but scattered clouds seemed like bundles of light.

Maybe that's why I brought my camera with me and asked him to take some photos.  It was such a pretty day:  I felt as if its light could make me look good, or at least not too scary.  For the past few months, I've told myself that I need to lose weight and get botox and that all sorts of other things must happen before I could have any photos taken of me.  I think I got spooked after someone at the college took a photo of me on a day when I was tired, wasn't wearing any makeup (By the way, I'm not wearing any, save for eyeshadow and lipstick, in any of the photos I've posted.)  and was generally feeling ragged.  And he posted that photo onto the college's website.  From there, it ended up in Google images, so that for a time it was the first image anyone saw of me if he or she Googled my name.

Pre-transition, I used to hate being photographed.  I hated it so much that someone had to wrestle a camera out of my hand after I grabbed it from someone who used it to take a photo of me.  Had I not been wrestled, I would have smashed that camera.

Early in my transition, I allowed myself to be photogrape

Serendipities

I got up late today because last night, after riding, I stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. Then I couldn't sleep when I got home.


After showering and having a sort-of-vegetarian supper, I went to Columbus Circle  to meet Joe.  He lives in New Jersey and advertised a bike on Craig's List.  Last week, I sold my three-speed because it was small for me.  I liked the ride and look of it, but even with a long seatpost and stem, it never felt quite right.  Plus, I would have had to change saddles, as I did with my Mercians.  And that Raleigh three-speed, which was painted a bronze-greeen colour, simply would not have looked right with a new saddle.  (I had a brown Brooks--a very traditional leather saddle--on it.)


Anyway, Joe had some car troubles but finally made it to Columbus Circle.   His fiance, Deanna, accompanied him.  When they had just entered Manhattan, she called me.  "It's been a day from hell," she sighed.  I thought she said "date."


"This is his idea of a date?," I wondered.


She defended him; I laughed.   It wouldn't be the first time any of us laughed.


At any rate, the bike is what I'd anticipated:  It's a larger ladies' Scwhwinn Le Tour III, from around 1978.  The finish, once a rather nice pearlescent orange, is chipped, cracked and marred in all sorts of ways. But everything worked, and the price was right.


I'm going to work on it.  I'll probably change the handlebars and seat, and I'm going to add  a rear rack and  fenders.  So it'll be a commuter/beater bike.


After I bought the bike, Joe and Deanna said they were heading downtown and invited me to accompany them to the Cafe Esperanto.  When we got there, we found that it had closed for good. Instead, we went to Cafe Reggio, which I hadn't gone to in years.  It's not that I disliked the place:  They always have my respect for looking and acting like, rather than merely caricaturing, a funky bohemian cafe from back in the day.  Reggio served esperesso and cappucino before most Americans knew what they are; today Reggio's versions are still among the best.

But the best part was staying up half the night and talking about theatre (Joe is a sound engineer), art, politics and thinking generally.  He asked what I thought of Obama; after I explained why I've never been crazy about him, we got into a long conversation about foreign relations, conspiracy theories and such.  

It made me think of what my youth ight have been like if a few things had been different. It  was exhilarating to be on Macdougal Street, one of my old haunts, even if it was almost wall-to-wall people.  And there I was--the clean, sober woman I carried within me during those days of drunken bitterness.  Best of all--though it makes me a little sad now that it's the day after--is the way the conversation and their company stimulated me.  I almost never feel that way after spending time on campus, among some of my so-called educated coworkers and acquaintances.  That's one of the reasons why being at the college has been so dreadful lately:  In addition to all the pettiness, there is a severe lack of intellectual stimulation.

Ironic, isn't it, that I find mental stimulation on a Saturday night from a guy  who got a two-year degree and a woman who got her certification in cosmetology?  Also strange, n'est-ce pas, that in middle age, I'm finding the sorts of excitement I wanted in my youth, and that I found it when buying a used bike?

I guess that even when I find order in my life when I ride my bike, cycling--in some way or another-- also makes it unpredictable and serendipitous.

The Layers of Passing

A sunny morning turned into a hot, muggy afternoon and evening. I hope we don't have weeks of this kind of weather.  

Early in my transition, and before it, I dreaded the hot weather, and summer generally.  When the weather was cooler, I could wear more layers of makeup and clothing.  But, as the weather warmed and I wore less, it was harder to keep the missle in its silo.  It was also harder to make mountains out of molehills, or at least to pass without people noticing that I had molehills.  Now I have a range of hills:  two up near the ridge and another one to the south, near my midlands.

I don't believe I did what I just did:  I described my own body the way the boys I knew would talk, in the actual and metaphorical locker room, about girls' bodies.  Does that mean I should turn myself in to the political correctness police--or, egad, to "Dirt"?

Anyway...I tried all sorts of things to make myself passable when the weather warmed up.  And, whenever I went swimming, I hoped that things wouldn't pop out or wash away.  That's what happened to a gel insert I  wore inside the bra part of  my swimsuit, which bagged at my rear end and was tight everywhere else.  

Today I wore a short denim skirt, a mauvish-lilac (or lilacish-mauve) jewel-neck top and flip flops as I did errands and went to the new green market on Broadway.  I looked like other women my age, if taller and heavier than average.  It's been that way for a while now:  Most people don't give me a second glance; I'm called "ma'am" (and, every once in while, "miss") by store clerks and other people, and every once in a while someone flirts with me.  

Actually, there's a guy on the block who's been flirting with me just about every day, when I pass by him on my way to the store or the bus.  I don't think he needs a green card, so I'm guessing that he's lonely--or that he sees me as a challenge.  

He started flirting with me practically the moment I moved on to this block.  It was almost winter then; now, for all intents and purposes, it's summer.  He's seen me add coats and scarves and boots, as the holiday season turned into the dead of winter; and I've shed those layers--at least some of them.

It's supposed to rain late tomorrow afternoon.  Would anyone want to see me all wet?  Don't worry:  I won't enter any wet T-shirt contests.  But I want to go swimming.

My New Blog

Today I started something new.

No, I didn't meet the love of my life or establish a business.  I also didn't undertake a construction project or enter another twelve-step program.  Nor did I write the first paragraph of my latest book.  (I'm still trying to publish the one I've already written and finish the one I've been working on!)  However, this new beginning does involve writing.

It's the new blog that I more or less promised a while back.  It's called Mid-Life Cycling and, as its name implies, will focus on the experiences of a female cyclist of, shall we say, a certain age and an unusual life circumstance.  In it, I will certainly talk about past and current rides as well as equipment I have used and am using.  

The real reason I've started it is because I've come to realize that, apart from a few family members, cycling and writing have really been the only constants throughout my life.  Almost everything else in my life--including my gender identity, transition and surgery-- is, was or became entangled with one or both. So, you will probably find posts on any number of topics and subjects.  But they all relate, in one way or another, to cycling--or my experiences of it, anyway.  I don't plan to focus on my experience as a transgender or transsexual:  After all, I've done, and will probably continue to do, plenty of that in this blog.  However, I will probably mention it, as it is affecting, and being affected by, my cycling.  

Finally...The way it looks now is not "set in stone."  Like the content, the layout and overall visual style (to the extent that I have it) will evolve. 

So, whether you're a cyclist or someone who just wants to read about someone who wants to read about how someone is navigating her new life as a middle-aged woman, I hope you'll read Mid-Life Cycling and steer your friends to it.

The First Day of Summer (Session)

Tonight I met my Summer Session students for the first time.  One of them took a class with me during the regular semester, then dropped it.  He was having family difficulties of some kind--I didn't ask.  The others seem to have heard about me from their friends.  That could be a good or a bad thing.  Actually, I don't mind it as much now as I might at the beginning of the regular semester.  One thing about summer students--especially ones in a class like the one I'm teaching, which is Writing for Business--is that they're, paradoxically, more relaxed and more focused than students during the regular session.  They're taking the class in the summer because they want to be done with it--and, in some cases, their degrees--sooner than they would otherwise finish them.


Three students in my current class told me their friends said, "Take her, she's really good."  On my way to the class, another student whom I'd never met before stopped me to ask what I'm teaching next semester.  And, after class, I found a message from another student on my voice mail.  She  wanted to know whether I was teaching the research writing class, which I sometimes teach and she has to take.


It's nice that students want to take me and recommend me to their friends.  However, I feel that  it's put me in a box:  I feel as if I have to continue to teach in the same way as I've been teaching.  Members of the administration also tell me that the students say positive things about me.  So I get the feeling they want me to freeze myself in amber and to come out of it only when I perform in front of class or at a meeting.


I'm feeling the need to change, although the direction in which I would move is just beginning to become clear to me.  Whatever it is, it must be a path that will allow me personal and spiritual,as well as professional, growth.  None of those things seem possible for me at the college.  I am starting to understand what the former director of academic advisement told me when she left:  "People come here to die."


I transitioned and had my surgery so I could live.  That's what I want to continue.

Ex Cathedra From The Queen of Corona

Here is one of my "dream trips":  I would go to Paris in August.  And there would be no tourists there.  


Barbara, Sue and I experienced something like that today.  None of the streets we cycled will be mistaken for le Boulevard St. Germain, but they were interesting in their own ways.


We rode by the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City.  It used to be the Silvercup Bakery, which used to supply bread to New York City schools as well as any number of tables in Queens and Brooklyn--including, sometimes, those of my immediate and extended family.  As I remember it, it was basic white bread.  But it was just fine for peanut butter and jelly, or other kinds of, sandwiches.


The streets around it were deserted even though they lead into Queens Plaza, which lies at the end of the Queensboro (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge.  One of them is even cobblestoned.  So Simon and Garfunkel actually knew what they were talking about in that song!


By the way, their "Queen of Corona" is fictional.  "Corona" means "crown" in Italian, Spanish and Latin, so she would be the "Queen of Crown."  However, there is a "King of Corona"--or, more precisely, a "Lemon Ice King of Corona."  They actually have a right to their self-proclaimed title.  I have tried the eponymous frozen confection, as well as many of the other flavors they offer.  The lemon and other fruit flavors actually have fruit in them.  Ditto vanilla and pistachios in the ices named for them.


But Barbara, Sue and I didn't go there today, as our ride didn't take us that way.  However, we have gone there any number of times before, and we did stop at Gino's Pizzeria on Cross Bay Boulevard, in Howard Beach.  One of the last remaining Italian neighborhoods in New York surrounds Gino's and supports yet another great pizzeria--New Park--a few blocks up and on the other side of the Boulevard.  In both eateries, one usually finds families or older single men.  It's not normal to see three forty- or fifty-ish women together, much less riding bicycles.  But either pizzeria--Gino's if you're on your way to the Rockaways or New Park if you're going the other way--is worth, if not a detour, at least a stop.


We rode to the Rockaways even though we knew the boardwalk would be crowded.  After all, today is Memorial Day and the temperature got up to 85 F (about 29.5 C).  At this time of year, there is even more difference in temperature between the beach and areas only a mile inland than there is in, say, the middle of August:  The water in the ocean is still only about 60F (15C), so the breezes from it can be rather brisk.


Instead of riding the boardwalk, we rode along a road that parallels it.  So we were still treated to the play of the warm sunlight flickering on cool waves and, as our ride progressed, turning into what I like to think of as "sea haze":  It can almost obscure the sun and the blueness of the sky, yet it has its own sort of steely translucence, like the ocean itself.


In all, we rode about thirty miles, as we took a route that meandered through Brooklyn (All right.  Maybe things don't "meander" through Brooklyn!) before returning to Queens in Lindenwood, a neighborhood a bit inland from Howard Beach.  I fiddled with my saddle with a couple of times in the first few miles.  Barbara and Sue were expecting that, as I am riding a new saddle on doctor's orders.  It'll be a while before I know whether it's a "keeper."  


It's a Terry Falcon X saddle.  As I was riding it, I knew it was reminding me of a saddle I rode back in the day, but I wasn't sure of which.  Actually, now that I think of it, I was recalling two saddles:  the Sella Italia Flite, circa 1992, and a French Ideale 2002 I rode about a decade earlier, during my first foray into racing.  I rode that 2002 on my racing bike and I rode the Ideale 90--an all-leather saddle very similar to a Brooks Professional--on my tourer.  Apparently, Ideale went out of business not long after I started riding their saddles. If you find an unused alloy-railed model, you can sell it to some Japanese collector on eBay and retire.


The 2002 was a nylon-based saddle with thin, dense padding and a very nice leather covering.  They were similar to a saddle Cinelli used to make, but were less expensive. And both the 2002 and the 90 seemed to flare more gradually from the tip of the nose to the rear than Brooks or Cinelli saddles. Brooks saddles--at least some models--seem almost T-shaped by comparison.  The Brooks may be somewhat better in quality, but I actually liked the shape of the Ideales somewhat better.  And it's echoed somewhat in my new saddle.  


And the Terry seems to have a flattish top which rises somewhat toward the rear.  That's what was reminding me of the Flite, which is one of the flattest saddles I ever rode.  Vetta used to make a similar model that was even flatter:  They were my favorite for a time, but Vetta had stopped making them by the time mine fell apart.


Of course, the Terry differs in one significant way from those, or any other I've ridden:  It has the "hole" in the middle that the doctor recommended.  I think it will take me a while to see how or whether I like them, or whether the hole is in the right part of the saddle for me.  Another thing that will take at least a few more rides to decide whether I like is the length of the saddle:  It, like most women's-specific saddles, is a bit shorter than most men's saddles.  


All right...Those of you who aren't cyclists are probably still wondering how someone can make such a fuss over a bike seat.  It doesn't make much difference if you ride only around the block.  But on longer rides, and more time spent  on the  saddle, you will notice whether it's right for you.  Plus, I don't want to undo all that nice work Marci did down there!

Companions on Longtime Journeys

Today I did a brief bike ride along the industrial waterfront of Long Island City and Greenpoint and through back streets almost devoid of vehicular traffic.  One of them--named Rust Street--parallels railroad tracks that cut through silent factories and cling to the banks of Newtown Creek, which has been called the most polluted body of water in the United States.


Actually, I had a specific reason for riding that way:  On my way back, I stopped at Russo's bakery in Maspeth, which has--to my tastes, anyway--the best sfogliatelle you can get without taking the next flight to Rome.  I wanted to pick up a small box of the miniature ones and bring them to the barbecue at Millie's house.  Alas, they had only a couple of the larger ones left:  not enough to fill a small pastry dish.  Instead, I bought one and ate it right then and there.  I also purchased a small cheesecake topped with fresh fruit (strawberries, grapes and slices of apple and cantaloupe) drizzled with a light glaze.  Everyone loved it; I thought it was the best cheesecake I'd eaten in a long time.


Millie's friend Catherine came to the barbecue.  I like her very much, but I wouldn't call her a friend simply because I see her only at Millie's barbecues and lunches and dinners.  On the other hand, she and Millie have known each other since they were five years old.  I don't have a friend like that; I met Bruce, my longest-standing friend, during my senior year at Rutgers.  Then we fell out of touch for a couple of years and bumped into each other near Cooper Union late one summer afternoon.  That was in 1984:  I remember that because it was during the first year since my childhood that I was living in New York.  I also recall that I was leaving work, which at that time was at the old American Youth Hostels headquarters on Spring Street.  


Honestly, there are only a couple of non-family members whom I can remember from my early childhood.  Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have remained friends with a childhood friend.  I suppose that in one way, at least, it would have been like other longtime relationships:  Knowing that person for so long could have been the very reason why such a person would have remained friends with me--or for wanting nothing to do with me--after I "came out."


Millie and her husband John knew me for less than a year before I started to live full-time as Justine.  Sometimes I think it's the reason why they accepted my change as readily as they did:  After all, they couldn't feel the same sense of loss that some members of my family and other people who knew me for a long time might have felt.  Plus, almost immediately upon meeting me, Millie decided that she liked me, and she tends not to change her mind about that.  


She reminded me that very soon, a year will have passed since my surgery.  Already!  And tomorrow I'm going for another bike ride.  Destination and itinerary are to be determined.

The Dirt On Their Phobias

One of the wonderful and crazy things about the Internet is that you can find almost anything and everything on it.  You never know what lies only one mouse-click away from the next site you're going to visit.


That was how I found some blogs I now follow and enjoy:  Lovely Bicycle!, 1410 OakWooD and A.E. Brain come to mind.  Ironically, I found Lovely when I was convalescing and couldn't ride my bike.  During that time, I also found 1410 Oakwood because its author found me when we both commented on the Velo Orange blog.  And he sent me a very nice message.


But now, as I near the first anniversary of my surgery, it seems as if I'm finding all the L's and G's who hate trans people.  The author of Joe.My.God is not himself transphobic.  At least, he doesn't seem to be, from the stuff he writes. (How does he post so many times a day?)  But some of the people who comment on his posts  hate us just as much as Fred Phelps thinks God hates "fags."  One in particular seems like a gay version of an Angry White Man.  At any rate, he just seems like some bitter guy in late middle age who just happens to be gay.  He thinks that everyone in the world--including, and especially, trans people, got and have some sort of privilege to which he seems to feel somehow more entitled.    For all I know, he might be Fred Phelps or someone of that ilk posing as a gay man.  That wouldn't be hard to do on a blog.  Then again, somehow I don't think Rev. Phelps would pose as a gay man, no matter how deep the cover.


Then there is the author The dirt from Dirt.  (I assume her nom de web is Dirt.)  She--and most of the commenters on her posts--so hate anything that ever was or could have been male that they have to bash male-to-female transgenders.  We have, ahem, chosen to live as the women we are.  Most don't do what we do in order to uphold the patriarchy and don't have access to the male privilege (which, I know for a fact, exists) she seems to think we have.  If anything, we have to give up that privilege--at least, I know I did.  And lots of women I know--including straight women and ones who make "Dirt" seem like Paris Hilton--have said as much to me.


"Dirt" is one of those people who seems to think that if anyone gets what he or she wants, it's come at her expense.  She might call her way of thinking radical feminism or butch separatism or some such thing, but her mentality is really no different from that of an Angry White Male, or almost any Tea Bagger or anyone on the Far Left. They all have the mentality of a kid who just saw his or her parent give a new toy to a younger sibling.


I usually try to keep such people as far away from my life as I can, simply because too much exposure to their bile is toxic.  Now, Dirt has the right to hate or resent me or anyone else for whatever reasons she deems appropriate.  The thing is, she's completely unwilling to let anyone else have that right. So, for that matter, is the bitter old queen who comments on Joe's posts.   Maybe some of us act and dress the way we do because it fits who we are and allows us to move about in the world as we need to.  And, given that I'm probably not applying for any job they'd want, I don't see how I'm keeping them from getting one they want.  


I don't mean to imply that only bitter butches and querulous queens have such hatred and resentment.  A former friend of mine accused me of changing gender, in essence, so that I could get the jobs and have the men she felt she deserved.  I'll grant her that she deserves those jobs more than I do. But then again, I'm not applying for them.  As for the men:  Her belief that I am, or could be, competing with her in that area is one of the silliest notions any person of my acquaintance has ever held.  Most men consider her more far more physically attractive than I am (and, truth be told, I agree with them) and she makes more of an effort to get dates with them than I ever did.  She defines herself by her ability to attract men to a degree that I don't think I ever could, even if I wanted to.  (For that matter, I never so defined myself by my ability to attract women, either.)  Plus, for me it's not about getting a man or woman; it's about getting a companion. On top of those things, my taste in men is completely different from hers.


That woman holds a PhD in Comparative Literature with a certificate in Gender Studies.  Now you know why I'm not impressed with such things.  Hmm...She did have a female lover once.  Perhaps she'll go that way again.  Then, she could hook up with Dirt--and they'll make only two people, instead of four, miserable.


It's not as if I didn't know there are transphobic G's and L's--and liberal academicians.  I just never knew how vicious they can be simply because of their irrational fears and hatreds.  I should be as powerful as they must think I am if they fear me so!