Anxiety or Anger?

Got to the luncheon for new full-time faculty members late. Real late. As in 1:30 for something that started at 12:00 and ended at 2:00. There's nothing in my job description that says I'm supposed to go to things like that. But I figured that I'd better make at least an appearance.

Talk about bad timing! I came in as the provost was on the podium. So it was really hard to go unnoticed. And I all but tripped over the college president. And my department chair.

Oh well. If I don't have this job next year I guess I'll just have to...

How will I follow that ellipsis? Well, if I knew, do you think I'd've ended the sentence with it?



Anyway, even after all of the teaching I've done, I don't like to talk to large (or sometimes even small) groups of people. And the provost--who, I learned at that moment, knows my name!--called on me and asked me to talk about my (professional) self for half a minute.



Now, these days I really don't want to talk about myself with anyone who's known me for less than five years. I just don't see the point of it. I'd rather slink off into a corner and read, write or try out a new computer skill.

I heard one new prof talk about all the professional societies he belongs to, all the scholarly articles he's written and conferences he's chaired. My writing is, of course, not of the scholarly kind, and I haven't done all those other things academicians are supposed to do--except teach.

Actually, I'm not misanthropic or anti-social. In the right situations, I actually enjoy talking with people. I just don't like to be forced into it, especially with large groups of people who, it seems, aren't actually listening to what I say but are sizing me up.

And then I had to be part of a group picture. I probably wouldn't even have minded that so much, except that the person I most distrust in the college was taking the shot.

Who is she? The editor of the college newspaper. I will say that it is better than other campus papers I've seen. But the fact that, under her editorship, the paper has won awards gives her a standing with the administation that a low-level instructor like me doesn't have.

I learned that last year, when I complained about her to the administration of the college. For a year before that, she'd been stalking me and trying to get me to sit with her for an interview with me--about the fact that I'm transgender. Yes, she said that. Now, why would I want anyone to write an article solely about that aspect of me?

Then, toward the end of the year, she stopped me in the hallway to say that "someone"--she wouldn't say who, but I have some ideas as to who he/she might be--told her I was getting fired from my old job for sexual misconduct. Of course, she wouldn't tell me who, or what she wanted to know from me. I told her "It's not true." But she persisted. Finally, I snapped. "If you don't leave me alone--and if my name appears in that paper, for any reason at all--you will regret it."

Of course, the administration defended her on the grounds of "free speech" or some such thing. But doesn't the person being stalked or slandered have rights, too?

I dunno. Maybe it's a good thing all of this is happening. Then, after my surgery, I won't have--or be able-- to look back wistfully at this time.

OK, so I'm being faceitous. It's really not a bad weapon for dealing with stuff like this.

And, after the surgery, I probably won't see most of the people who were at that luncheon. Or that editor: She'll have graduated by then.

4 septembre

Monday the 1st--Labor Day--was the "unofficial" last day of summer. But today, the 4th of September, might be the first real day of fall, though you wouldn't know it from the weather we've had. The date sounds like the first day of fall, and you can practically see the skies growing dimmer and the days shorter when you hear of it. And the way most of the world writes it--4 September--looks and feels like the first day of fall.

In Paris, there's a rue 4 Septembre, which commemorates the date in 1870 on which Napoleon III was captured and le troisieme republique--still the longest-lasting French regime since the Revolution--was declared.

On la rue 4 Septembre, a very kind soul saved my cul. It was my second time in Paris, and I was drunk a good part of the time, as I so often was in those days. At some point during my second night there--I'm not quite sure of when--I lost my passport, traveler's cheques and some antique postcards I'd bought in Italy. And my cash, except for a few francs. Well, the American embassy couldn't or wouldn't help me because I didn't have any money or another ID. Mind you, this was long before the so-called War on Terror.

Well, I just happened to remember the number of the last traveler's cheque I cashed. And since I knew how many I'd bought and how many I'd used, I knew how many I'd lost. From there, I could figure out the serial numbers of the cheques I lost.

But being in the days before cell phones or calling cards, I needed cash to make the call--to Barclay's, in London. So I went to one of the cabines--places that looked a bit like check-cashing places but have cubicles and phones in them where you can make long distance calls and pay the attendant for them afterward. I'd hoped that someone could help me.

Inside, I met a woman who was probably about 40 and looked the way a less-glamorous, though still very attractive, sister of Leititia Casta might look. (In those days, though, nobody had heard of her yet.)

Bonjour, monsieur. Comment ca-va?

Pas bien, madame. J'en ai perudue ma monnie, ma carte et mon passepuerte.

C'est terrible! Je veux vous aider.

Merci.

The call to London would have been a few francs, at least. But she offered to dial it, and I promised to pay her after I got my money back.

She even offered to call the US, if I needed it , or any place else. Pas necessaire, I said. Merci beaucoups.

So she dialed Barclay's for me, and the next day they wired new cheques to the woman at the cabines. Then she called a French employee at the US consulate and explained my situation. The next day, my checks arrived. I tired to give that kind woman a gratuite, but she would not take it. Instead, I gave her a bouquet of yellow roses. Honestly, I would've married her right then and there!

I suppose losing my stuff was some sort of cosmic, karmic retribution for what I'd done the night before: I skipped out of a cafe without paying for the seafood quiche, salad, a bottle of white wine, a religieuse and espresso I had. Many years later, I went back to that place, across the street from the Gare de Lyon. By then, I had not touched any alcohol or recreational drugs for a few years. I'd just gotten off the TGV from Chambery, and later that night I would go to see friends I had yet to meet the night I helped myself to an unauthorized free repast. I ordered that same meal--That quiche aux fruits de mer and salad nicoise were even better than I remembered!--without the wine. When I paid, I gave the waiter an additional fifty-franc note.

Monsieur, ce n'est pas necessaire. He probably thought I was a tourist who didn't realize that you don't tip in France.

Oui, d'accord. Mais, vous et ce cafe m'en traite tres, tres bien. C'est un cadeau. Actually, he was an excellent waiter and it was a nice cafe. I knew that because I was leaving it happier than I was when I walked in.

Ah...

Vous me rendez tres heureuse...

Talk about the subconscious! In French, all adjectives are masculine or feminine. Which meant that in those days, to express the contentment I felt, I should have said "heureux." Today, of course, I would say "heureuse." And, believe me, I use it far more frequently than I ever said "heureux," even though I had a lot more years to use it than I've had for "heureuse!"

But if that waiter didn't think I was a dumb tourist and was too polite to say so, he didn't notice or didn't care. So, as we parted he said, Merci. Au revoir. J'espere que vous reviendra.

Oui, je reviendra. Au revoir. A bientot.

Another thing about 4 septembre: On that date in 1985, I wrote what I consider to be my first worthwhile poem--indeed, my first worthwhile piece of writing, if I've ever produced any:

The Lies of Spring

Last fall we walked
along the bank of this river.
Somebody warned you
not to come here with me.

We saw our faces, calm and clear
on the surface of the water.
You leaped and disappeared
into the mud below.
I stood, blinded, in the twilight.

I did not jump
because you told me
the water’s very cold.


Today I walk alone
on this weathered shore.
A single lily pokes through
mud that is your bones.

You once told me: This flower
Is the first sign of spring.

That poem was published in a few literary magazines. And, when my students have asked about my own writing, if I'm feeeling inclined to show it to them, this is one of the poems they see. One student wrote to me a couple of years after he was in my class--he'd graduated and was working in another state--to tell me that he was going through some of his papers and found a copy of this poem. It meant even more to him, he said, than it did back when he was in my class.

He told me that since he'd had me for that intro to literature class, he had come to understand loss and grief --and the price some have to pay in order to achieve, or simply survive-- in ways that he never could've understood before. He related the specifics, which I won't get into here, and said that even in the "darker" poems-- like "Lies"--and in my presence, he saw a sort of light that has helped him to navigate the crises he'd experienced since graduating from school.

Mind you, he wasn't some pseudo-alienated wannabe artiste/trust fund kid. He was a business major, and graduated only two years older than I was when I completed my baccalaureate degree. (He'd worked and done some other things before coming this country, and to college.) I would love to see him again.

If any of you are thinking about teaching, at any level, this is the one and only reason to consider it. The kind of pay and benefits you get from teaching or being a professor are attainable elsewhere, and with less investment. You may not have your summers off because you may need more money. And education is the only industry in which the professional--the teacher or professor--is subordinate to the white- and pink-collar office workers. And they don't let you forget it.

In such conditions, giving whatever it is I have to offer to a student like the one I've just talked about is almost an act of defiance. So is, in fact, treating just about any student like a human being. I think of that scene in Jesus of Montreal in which the director charged with putting on a Passion play trashes a studio because, he says, he couldn't stand to see the photographers, director and other film-production workers treating one of the actresses with contempt.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm helping people navigate the fourth of September. Fall and winter are on their way, but as hard as they may be, they are simply two more seasons to survive. And other people--the right ones--and our inner resources, whatever they are, are all we have to take us through them--or 4 septembre.

Le 4 septembre sera passe; en allez. Yes, it is passing; it has passed: onward to the next season, whatever it will bring.

Coming Together

Just finished teaching another class and reading some more papers. You know, it ain't so bad.

OK, I know. I teach English so I ain't supposed to say ain't 'cause it ain't right.

Now I think of that old cigarette commercial (remember those?). What do you want: Good grammar or good taste?

Even with all that I've said about education, I realize that, if nothing else, I can make my classes into environments of intellectual and even spiritual integrity. Whatever else comes, I can teach things that are useful, relevant, interesting and even fun. And I've been told that sometimes my students find me useful, interesting, relevant and even fun.

It seems that yesterday and today, everything I'm doing in my classes is working. I haven't felt that way in a long time. In fact, in an e-mail to another professor (another one? I guess I am one after all!), I said I felt as if I'd done more good teaching yesterday alone than I did all of last year.

And, it seems that the people whom I thought were judging me aren't after all. Or maybe they're making different judgments from what I had assumed. That's what Mark, another new full-time prof, says. It seems that during the last couple of days, people are praising everything I do. In fact, even someone whom I kinda sorta rebuked had kind words for me.

It started when Michael announced that he was screening a film of Jesse Jackson's 1988 speech in his class, and invited others to come in. Sam, the longest-serving prof in the department responded with his objection to bringing politics into the classroom. Then, a few--including me-- of us put in our two cents.

I said that we shouldn't use our classrooms as bully pulpits. But, at the same time, if we're going to avoid political views altogether, we'd have to eliminate most of the works of literature in our curricula. I did it in a lighthearted, almost whimsical way. And I've gotten a lot of praise for it. Michael says he wishes he'd written it. Even Sam, who rebuked Michael for "being political" and me for "missing the point," at least saw the humor in it and another comment I made.

So this is what being a prof is supposed to be? Hmm...

Just when I was ready to give up, things are coming together, just as Mom and Millie said they were. I have my whole name now; in a little more than ten months, my body will be a reflection--or at least a more accurate likeness-- of who I am. And that person I am is, and is becoming, more whole than I was just a couple of weeks ago.

Now here's something that is making sense to me: "whole," "hale," "healthy" and "holy" all come from the same root word--hwalen--in Old English. To be whole is to be healthy. To be healthy or hale is to be healthy. And they are all wholly holy.

Also: "saint" (or "sainte", the feminine form) and "sante" have the same root in early French. "Saint" and "Sainte" mean "holy" or "blessed." And "sante" means "health." Tres interessant.

All right. You might say the hormones are making me feel this way. Maybe. But I think something else is acting on them, and me. Although I probably gained a pound or two after all that barbecue, I feel lighter. And I think other people are sensing it. Yesterday, Celeste, another prof said, "Hey, there's the Justine Smile again."

You want one, you got one. Yes, it's all coming together now. The ones who called me "sensitive" are right. And this is the good side of it--for them, and for me.

If this is what life will be like until my surgery, I'll take it. And I'll do the best I can to bring it all together.

I guess that's been the point of my gender transition and everything that goes along with it. And I think that those who've stood by me--Mom, Millie, Bruce and others--understand that, and that's the reason why they're being supportive.

All together now...

Summer Ends With Coney Island?

Labor Day. Classes have already begun, so what does this day mark?

Well, according to our grandmothers' arbiters of fashion, we're not supposed to wear white again for another nine months--until Memorial Day. Then again, I don't wear white very often anyway. I must admit, though, that being the mischievous soul I am, I just might wear white if I get married so that the people who know me best will get a good laugh.

But now I'll be serious. (Seriously, now, you've never known me to do that? Right?) Tomorrow I return to classes, so there'll be no denying that I--and my students--are in school. That, of course, means "fall": no more summer. However, it's hard to think of this as the "fall semester" when the weather is, and will be, bright and sunny and tomorrow's temperatures will be like today's: near 90F.




However, going back to school always accentuates--at least for me--the reality of one phase of life ending and another beginning. And I feel it more acutely than in years past. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this is my last Labor Day, the end of my last summer, before my surgery. Also, today I took a ritual bike ride to Coney Island. I may not be able to do that next year. The doctor said that two weeks after the surgery, I could go back to work but could not engage in any heavy physical activity. So I may not be ready to pedal again by next Labor Day.

Now, you might accuse me of transposing my mental and emotional state on the world when I say what I'm about to say. But here it is: I also realized that Coney Island, at least as I know it, is also ending. However, it has nothing to do with my impending surgery. Rather, it has to do with changes that are happening, and are about to happen, to the place.

I've been reading and hearing that Astroland will close and the rides will be torn down. Someone who wants to build seaside condos or some such thing bought the park a couple of years ago, and is letting the owners of the rides stay until their lease expires, which will be this fall. Or something like that.

Of course, that means that Coney Island will look very different from the rather funky old amusement park and boardwalk I have always known. I guess this change was inevitable: If someone saw fit to build condos and co-ops in Far Rockaway, then any of this city's waterfront is fair game. That inevitability, however, does nothing to lessen my sadness over it.

More to the point, I sensed something in the air, if you will. For the first time I can remember, I saw throngs of young people of the kind you expect to find in the stores and clubs along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The surliness they encountance is really just a pale imitation of misanthropy. I guess young people--I include myself, not so long ago--have always thought that saying "F*** You!" to the world, or seeming to, is somehow hip. But if you're really going to say "to hell with the human race," you had damned well better earn that right. I say this as one who never did--and now never wants to!

Of course, any realtor worth his or her license knows that when you see such young people--and the packs of German dudes with backpacks--that so-called gentrification is near. And, well, what can I say about gentrification? I love to see the sun rising and setting on the sea, and there are lots of people who can pay lots more money than I can for the privilege.

Then again, would I miss hearing bodies even more overweight than mine screaming curses at their kids because they had too many of them? Hmm....If I have to choose between them and the trust fund kids or German dudes...

All right. You probably think I'm being snotty and judgmental. You're probably right. But if you've been going to Coney Island for as long as I've been (more than 40 years), you'd see what I mean.

And you'd also notice this: You go to the candy/soda shoppes where they sell salt-water taffy, candied apples and such and ask for a cherry lime rickey.

"Huh?"

If you grew up in Brooklyn, you know what I'm talking about. It's made with seltzer, cherry syrup and either a lime slice or a shot of lime flavoring. It's the perfect balance: fizz, sweetness and a little bit of tang. Hardly anyone makes them anymore. If you can't get one on Coney Island....

Might I have had my last cherry lime rickey--unless, of course, I start making them for myself? That wouldn't be difficult to do. But there's still nothing like getting one from an old-time Brooklyn soda fountain--especially one in Coney Island.

Hopefully, I'll be able to find one soon, and after my surgery. I wonder if I'll have cravings then, and if this sublime libation will be one of them.

Will it be one of the things I'll find in my first summer of my new life? I hope so.

Anyway, until then....

Coming Together at the End of Summer

Just got back from a barbecue with Millie and John. It's great to have such good friends living right across the street from me!

I met Millie the day I moved to this block. Two weeks ago--the 17th--marked the sixth anniversary of that move and meeting.

That day seemed like the hottest in the history of the planet, and that summer still seems like the hottest I can remember. I came to this block with two cats: Charlie I (I now have another cat named Charlie.) and Candice. Since I moved them into the apartment before I brought in any of my belongings (Contrary to the delusion they believe, humans belong to their cats!), the first thing Millie saw when I moved in was me with my cat totes in my hands. I think that she decided right then and there she liked me.

That day, I had no idea that one day--not so far into the future, as it turned out--I would spend afternoons, evenings and days in her house, sharing barbecues, holiday dinners, my birthday and cups of coffee--and, after I made the switch, tea. Or that I would baby sit, however briefly, her grandchildren. Or that her any of her friends--like Catherine, whom she's known since they were children, and who shared chicken, ribs, corn-on-the-cob and lots of other foods with us today--would become a part of my life.

And I don't think that Millie or anyone else on this block knew what I would soon undertake. I am talking, of course, about my gender transition. That guy who moved onto the block is turning into a girl! Oh my!

But, as it turned out, I could hardly have met anyone more generous or loving than Millie or John. We always need people like them, but I don't think there was ever a time when I needed people like them more than at the time when I met them.

Some might say that they are like parents or an aunt and uncle for me. I wouldn't argue that. For one thing, they're only a few years younger than Mom and Dad. And Millie, in some ways, reminds me of my mother. She can seem fierce because she's often loud and strident. But her way is really a reflection of her passion and compassion. Also, she,like my mother, doesn't suffer fools well but also doesn't abandon people. And she and my mother are both Italian American. Even the foods they cook, and the ways they cook them, have their similarities--although there's still nothing like my mother's lasagna, chicken or eggplant parmagiana, or cheesecake.

But maybe the most important trait they share is this: Once they accept a person, they will accept just about anything about that person, for better or worse. Of course, I've known that about Mom for a long time, so while I didn't quite know how my gender transition would affect my relationship with her, I didn't expect her to banish me from the family. But I didn't understand that quality in Millie until she learned that I was indeed undergoing my changes.

And now, a couple of weeks after a nice visit with Mom and Dad, I am ending--at least unofficially--my "last" summer with Millie and John. It seems fitting somehow.

This is a disconcerting yet exhiliariting time of my life, one in which I feel both anxiety and joy, like the strangest yet most beautiful dream I've ever had. This is a time I never could have envisioned when I first moved to this block, or before that, because I can envision myself as the person I've always wanted to be. I'm drawing closer to her, to being her.

My mother and I were talking about it this morning. I now have a job that I long wanted, although I had given up hope of getting it. And, at the same time, I can look forward--not too far forward now!--to something I've wanted for as long as I can remember.

All right. I'll admit it now. I'm happy to be teaching full time and hearing people refer to me as "Professor." Yes, the education system can be a cesspool sometimes, and education administrators can be petty and arrogant. But that doesn't matter when I am in the classroom because it doesn't matter to my students. All they know is that I'm teaching them. And if they learn from me and like it, we're both doing our jobs.

Funny how, faced with having a full-time college faculty position for the first time, I fell back into denying that I wanted it, or that it is a good thing for me or anyone else. Instead of seeing myself as someone who can share my love of reading and writing, I saw myself as someone who'd become "the enemy."

In other words, I was denying an aspect of who I am. After forty-five years of negating (or trying to negate) my essential nature, I should know better, shouldn't I?

All right. I won't self-flagellate. (That's as bad as self-medicating. Trust me, I know.) I'll go with the opportunity to be who I am. Mom and Millie--who have never met, or spoken to, each other--both said the same thing: "Your life is coming together now."

My life coming together: That's what I wanted six years ago. Actually, that's what I've always wanted, and what I would guess everyone wants. Maybe it's happening in ways, and with people, I never anticipated. Then again, I never claimed to have any great powers of prognostication, and no one's demanding them of me now.

Coming together as my last summer ends. All right: Before I drag this blog into a probably-futile search for symbolism or other "deeper" meanings in that statement, I'm going to stop for tonight.

From Passing to Passing Through

So what happens when you're a transgender woman less than eleven months before surgery and you go into the city's most resolutely bourgeois (as opposed to merely affluent) neighborhood with four days of growth and wearing lipstick, a flared printed skirt and sleeveless blouse?

Well, if your four days' growth is anything like mine, nobody seems to notice. In fact, nobody seems to notice that you're a woman who's not young, but possibly youthful--certainly not yet middle-aged, though old enough to be.

People have actually told me things like that. I could practically read it on the mens' faces. It didn't matter whether they were professionals, shopkeepers or the construction workers who were ripping up a couple of streets. I don't know whether those weren't gender-savvy or simply didn't care. Or, perhaps they knew and like--or are simply intrigued by--trans-women.

Maybe I shouldn't probe for the motives behind courtesy, and simply enjoy it. I don't remember who told me that. Someone-most likely the same person--said that I am entitled to it, even if I am a newcomer to living in my gender. And the best way to honor anyone who's good enough to be courteous, in whatever ways, is to allow that person to extend the courtesy to you, and be grateful for it. Above all, don't abuse it. And don't see it as entitlement. I've seen more than one trans woman demand--whether with verbal or bodily language--that doors be held open for her.

One certainly encounters a lot of it in the neighborhood I mentioned: a stretch of Metropolitan Avenue that extends from Middle Village into Forest Hills. Along that stretch is the electrolysis school where I go for treatments. The place--for better and for worse--has a 1950's-suburban feel to it. The houses on the side streets are bigger than those in other parts of Queens, or the rest of the city. Some of those houses are surrounded by stretches of grass that might even be called lawns.

And, along Metro Avenue itself, one finds the kinds of stores found in the "downtown" areas of so many towns all over the US about fifty years ago. Nearly all of them are small and family-owned. You can tell that the owners know their customers: I would bet that the at least one of the women's clothing stores I saw caters to women who went to school with the store's proprietors, and to the customer's children, grandchildren or neices. And there's even a soda shoppe that you might expect to see on a set for Happy Days. Eddie's Sweets--Now tell me, where else is there a shoppe with "Sweets" in its name?--has the counters and fountains that you've seen in all those pictures and movies made in and about the '50's. You can almost imagine your parents (or grandparents, if you're younger than me) sharing an ice cream soda in a fluted parfait glass. I'm told they make their own whipped cream for their Sundaes. I'll definitely have to check it out.

Hmm....an old-fashioned soda shoppe with old-fashioned courtesy. Is there a connection? ;-)

Anyway, I've gotten to the point where I don't miss a beat. When I first started to live as a woman, I used to pause and wonder what was going on when a man held a door open for me. I remember coming out of the Jeu de Paume. Marie-Jeanne and Janine were waiting outside. Marie-Jeanne gave a knowing, and slightly scolding, grin as I hesitated at a door held by a well-dressed man. After I finally walked through the door, Marie-Jeanne gently chided me: "Joo-steena, tu es en France. En france!"

And, when I went out with Mom and Dad on her birthday, Dad held open the door to the restaurant. Mom passed in front of me, but I waited and hesitated. That was the one moment when Dad looked frustrated with me. He was trying so hard to be what he thought a man should be to his daughter! (Hey, he even took me out clothes shopping two days before that!) But I think I reverted to Nicky's behavior: If Dad held the door open, Mom passed through first. Then, as I followed, I would wait a second for Dad to follow me, and I'd reach back to prop the door.

Funny thing is, now I don't even think about passing through a door held by a man (or boy) who's a complete stranger, or at least didn't know me before I began my transition. Same thing with the men at my job: The older ones invariably hold the door open, and I think nothing of simply walking through and softly thanking the man who held the door. The younger professors may or may not hold the door, but the male students--of whatever background, and whether or not they're in one of my classes-- extend those cuourtesies as often as the older men. In fact, the really "ghetto" young men--as opposed to the ones who are trying to seem "ghetto"--are just as consistently courteous an anyone else.

I know I'm long past the point at which "passing" as female is a game. And the days of "Is it a guy or a girl?" or "Which one do they think I am?" are , I hope, over. Now I'm just a woman of a certain age, as far as seemingly all strangers--and most people who know me--know or care.

Tomorrow's Another Year?

Ah yes. Tomorrow. Haven't dreaded an upcoming day so much in a long time. Well, what's coming next will last for another year, at the most.

After the exchange I had with the department chair yesterday, I don't know how I'm going to get in front of my students and, with a straight face, emphasize the importance of following directions. Or of just about anything else I might do with them in the classroom.

You see, I followed directions and then this department chair accused me of "going over" her "head." All I did was to follow the usual protocol, in this case for changing my name (Justine Valinotti will now be my primary name on all college-related documents and other materials.). I went to the department secretary, just like we're told to do. I filled out a form; she filled out another and told me to bring them to the college's human resources and payroll offices. That I did.

While at the HR office, I asked about my health benefits. Since I am switching from one payroll system to another, even though I'm remaining in the same college (Go figure that one out.), I thought I might have to fill out paperwork to make sure my benefits are continued in my new position.

The person in charge of benefits said she had no record of my being hired. That might've made sense, as I was hired later than the other new full-time faculty members. But then she asked whether the department had sent a PAF (Personnel Action Form, which makes new appointees official and puts them on the payroll). I didn't know, so she called the chair of my department.

Well, I got an earful from the department chair, who was convinced that I went over her head. I politely explained that I followed protocol, and that perhaps I had gotten some improper insruction somewhere along the chain.

"Well, you never go over my head," she huffed.

Once again, I very politely gave her my sincerest reassurance that I would never, ever dream of doing such a thing, and that I followed the normal procedure, which begins with the department secretary. Again, she insisted that I go to her first "for anything."

"Well, I followed instructions. That's what we always tell our students to do. And look where it got me."

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. Just remember to..."

"I know...Come to you first." "Yes" "And I'll try very hard to keep a straight face when I tell the freshmen how important it is to follow instructions."

The compliance officer insists that this treatment has absolutely nothing to do with you being who you are. (If it talks in code like a white liberal...It must be a white liberal!) Of course she'd say that. What else would someone who wants to protect her record for not having a discrimination lawsuit on her watch say?

Well, far be it from me to break her record. Don't want her record sullied. Instead, let's ruin mine. What the hell....I lived on pure and simple mendacity for the first 45 years of my life. What's another year in the classroom?

The Last Summer

Another summer's winding down. But not without a fight. Today was pretty warm, but very humid. This isn't quite late enough for the final heat of summer, but it shows summer's not quite over yet.

About which I have very mixed emotions. On one hand, I want this and the months that follow to just fly by. They're what's standing between me and the surgery. On the other, I know that this is the "last" summer. I use the quotation marks because I mean "last" in a metaphorical as well as literal sense: as a symbol as well as the reality.

It seems that there are always "last" summers. For one generation of Brits and Europeans, it was 1914; for the following generation, it was 1939. Perhaps in this country those terminal vernal seasons came in 1941 and 2001. (Actually, I feel very sure about 2001: After all, I lived through it.) And some Southern writer--I think it was Percy Walker--said that in his part of the world, it came some time around 1950.

I think for a lot of people in my generation--particularly those of us who are LGBT--the "last summer" might have been 1980 or 1981. Back then, some of us heard about young men dying from "gay cancer." But the disease had not become an epidemic; most of us who weren't living in the Village (Chelsea wasn't yet Gay Central) or the Castro district had yet to see anyone die in such an awful way--if indeed we had seen anyone die.

Ten years later, I would teach a college class for the first time. Then, I realized how much that "last summer" mattered. Anyone who came of age after it grew up with the idea that a careless or random--or any at all--sexual encounter could be lethal. In my day, we only had to worry about herpes and pregnancy. Not that either--especially the latter--is anything to sneeze at. But compared to AIDS--well, I don't have to say any more.

I recall a party I went to shortly after returning from living in France. At that party were nearly everyone with whom I was friendly during my undergraduate years.

In those days, I drank a lot and dabbled in a few drugs. So you might dismiss the perceptions I had. Hey, I dismiss most of them. But I had a premonition that I knew was stronger than any of the drugs or booze, or any other vibe at that party. Somehow it was revealed to me (I know. I hate that kind of language, too. But it's the best I can do in this situation.) that a germ of death had been planted and that someone--or some people--in that room carried it. And they, or others in their circle, would die from it.

Sure enough, within ten years, five people who were at that party would die from AIDS-related illnesses. I doubt that any of them knew he or she (Yes, a woman.) was infected: Almost nobody--not even a doctor-- outside a couple of New York and California neighborhoods was even thinking about the disease.

It's rather ironic that a party full of the proverbial sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll can seem almost innocent. How so? Well, what we did, we did in--if not ignorance, than at least unawareness. That was probably the last time all of thus in that room could not connect sex and death. All the young people in that first class I taught, a decade later, had been coupling the two almost from the day they knew what either was.

Anyway, I know I've gone off on another tangent, but there's a point coming up (and you should put a hat over it). It's about those "last summers": They were times when something in everyone's life was coming to an end, whether or not anyone knew it. Even if no one knew for sure, some of us had a sense that something was changing, possibly dying. It might be the people they know. Or that the place in which one lives, works or shops is about to be tamed beyond recognition.

And what's changing for me, besides whatever the gender will change. Stay tuned...

Sleep and Dreams

Got up late; got out late. I guess I shouldn't feel too guilty: after all, it's Sunday.

Strange, that at age fifty, I find myself going to bed and getting up later (when I can get away with it) than I did at forty. It's not like I'm going out dancing every night or even that I get to spend so much time with Dominick.

And I find that either I can't sleep or I get the sort of sleep that even police sirens, thunder or anything else can interrupt. The cats can curl up at my side or feet and I wouldn't even notice until something else woke me up.

I wonder if the hormones affect my sleep, or if my changes in it simply are a matter of aging. Another thing I've noticed is that I seem to have more dreams closer to whenever I wake up--and that I have them even if I fall asleep in my big comfy chair for an hour. And, it seems, the dreams are richer in detail. I've never made any great effort to remember my dreams, but I find that I can do more of that, too. At least, I can recall dreams for a little while after I wake up. I could almost never do that when I lived as Nick.

Whatever sleep I get also seems cathartic at times. After it, I feel just about the same way as I feel after a fit of crying, laughing or giggling. I guess that's a good thing. After all, primal scream therapy wouldn't be so becoming of a lady now, would it? ;-)

I don't recall my doctor or anyone else telling me that hormones could affect my sleep patterns. I haven't done much research on it, but I suspect someone else might be wondering--or has experienced--the same thing. Maybe this is a gender difference: Many women I have known went to bed later than most men. Now, for women of earlier generations, it may have been because they stayed home while their husbands left the house every day to work. Or, like my mother, they couldn't iron clothes or simmer tomato sauce or do any number of other things while everyone else was awake.

Me...I find that when I forestall going to bed, I'm reading, writing or preparing something for the following day. Hmm...My writing is becoming more lunar. And the moon is usually seen as feminine: The moon deities of the Greeks, Romans and other people have, more often than not, been female.

Hmm...If I really wanted to be vain, I could call myself Moon Godess or some such thing. I'm your Venus...

All right. I'm not here neither to endorse nor malign one of Gilette's fine products, which I use myself. (Yes, I hope Google Ad Sense picks this up and my check is in the mail. ;-) What kind of woman does that make me?) Can you imagine me as the first transgender to publicly endorse a product? I'll be there, right next to Anna Kornukova. (Would I be expected to spell her name right?) Then, after they know whose razors and pantyhose (whichever ones are on sale) I use, maybe, just maybe, they'll want to know about the books I read, the music I listen to or the art I look at.

Dream on, you say. I'll take you up on that. Dream, dream, dream. Perchance to sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream. To dream.

I'll sleep to that!

Tastes

What're we gonna write about tonight, Brain?

The same thing we write about every night....


It's tranny and the blog,
Tranny and the blog.
One's changing gender
The other is insane.

Ah, yes...One of the finer artifacts of American culture: Pinky and the Brain. The hormones haven't changed my love of cartoons for children over the age of thirty. Besides P&B, there are Beany and Cecil, the Roadrunner cartoons, most of Bugs Bunny (especially the episodes with the Tasmanian Devil) and the short-lived Mighty Mouse series from Ralph (sp?).

And singing the "Pinky" song--and barking the "Narf!" at the end--makes me laugh even more than it did back in the cartoon's run. Yeah, I know, it's the hormones again.

So I still love this stuff and will defend it as much as I would Leaves of Grass, many of Emily Dickinson's poems, Rhapsody in Blue , the first Godfather film and almost anything from Thelonious Monk and Billie Holliday as great and important American cultural artifacts. I mean, what would this country be without any of those things and the Bill of Rights?

None of those tastes have changed yet. Somehow I suspect they won't. And I think my dislikes are even less likely to change. I mean, if I never liked The Three Stooges or understood the need for just about anything Clint Eastwood or Kevin Costner made, I don't see how I'm going to like them with a body powered by estrogen. (I'll admit that Swing Vote, which I saw with Mom and Dad, was good and I actually liked Kevin in it.)

So which of my tastes have changed? Which ones might?

Like many other people, I'm watching the Olympics. This is probably the first Games in which I'm paying much attention to the men's diving, water polo and track and field events. Bicycling, as you can imagine, has always interested me. But to the other sports I've mentioned, I've never before paid that much attention.

All right. Accuse me of looking at guys who aren't wearing much and who are flexing, bending, pumping, sweating and grunting. I'll make a halfhearted denial. After all, I have to preserve my reputation as a lady of refinement and taste!

But I also found myself paying very close attention to the women's beach volleyball. Now, if I were still a guy, you could accuse me of watching the tall women in bikinis rather than they game they were playing. But Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Tranor (How can you not love a sport in which an athlete has a name like that?) have a combination of power and speed that rivals that of the Williams sisters, in my opinion.

Same thing with women's soccer. But I got hooked on that when Mia Hamm and her wonderful team won the World Championships back in 1999. The funny thing is, I responded to their wholesomeness as much as any fundamentalist might have. For me, they were women who genuinely loved (or seemed to love) what they were doing and didn't engage in showboating, trash-talking or any of those other loathesome behaviors of too many major male athletes.

So what other tastes of mine will change, or remain the same? I've a feeling I'll be writing more about that in this blog.

"You're So Sensitive"

Let's see...Today I've been called "sensitive" four times: once with a positive connotation, two other times negatively and the other with a more-or-less neutral meaning.

It's not as if I haven't been called that--or worse--before. But I seem to hear it more frequently, and in other contexts, than in my past.

This morning Olga, who's the legal affairs officer at the college, not only said, "You're so sensitive," she also mentioned that it has been noted. Valerie, the English Department chair, said I was "sensitive to things lately" and, moments later, lauded me for being "sensitive" to students. And, during another electrology session, the young Italian-American woman who was plucking and zapping me said, "You're just, well, sensitive, in any way I can think of."

Blame the hormones! Why? Well, for one thing, Canada has nothing to do with this, so I can't blame a country that was honorable enough not to get involved in our current war. So "Blame Canada" won't work. However, there is lots of literature--and the words of my doctor--to tell me that taking estrogen can turn you into a seeming mass of nerve endings. I was warned of that when I started taking the hormones. And, just as everyone promised, I was crying over dopey songs I heard on the radio.

But, even though my dosage hasn't increased, I feel (pun intended) as if a new undercurrent of vulnerability is pulling me into another tide of emotion fueled by raw nerves. Am I going through a substage of the "second adolescence" one experiences when taking hormones?

Most of the time I enjoy the tears and laughter that wash over me like an afternoon shower and (usually) pass. But yesterday I felt so raw I had to put on a stone face and not look anyone in the eye--or look anyone's way at all. That's hard to do when you're sitting in a circle with about twenty other people, as I was at the workshop. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.



And one of my new colleagues in that circle seemed to be playing her own little game of stare-tag with me. She sat opposite me in the circle, and kept on staring at me. I could feel it. I was ready to bolt through her and the others to get out of that room.


Right now, I'm still feeling as if a layer of skin has been removed from me and I want to hide from--or bitch-slap--that prof and anyone else who might've been staring at me.


And they say I'm being sensitive. As if that were that were anything new!

Illusions

Today I went to the college for the meeting and faculty development workshop. Riding my bike there was great: A cool breeze tossed my hair and fluttered my skirt (Yes, I rode in a skirt!) under a clear blue sky. For at least some of the time, I could imagine that I was in Tuscany or Provence.



I think guys really like to see women pumping their legs. (Why else would they look at me?) Any time I ride my bike in a skirt or a pair of shorts, at least one guy slows down and/or shouts "nice legs!" More than one has tried to get my phone number and even more intimate details.



Yes, I'm an educated, independent, career-minded woman who loves flattery from men. Or women, for that matter. Call me an egotist or reactionary, but, hey, I guess it's less narcissistic to enjoy hearing that you're beautiful than it is to tell other people that you are.



And, when I got to the college, a few of my now-colleagues, and others I bumped into, told me I looked "really good." Ah, yes, the powers of relaxation. How long before I undo all the good that visit to Mom and Dad did for me?

Well, I didn't respond to any of those comments. Inwardly, I more or less dismissed them: They were just pro forma expressions of politeness. And I was in no mood for any of them.

Actually, I didn't feel much like talking or listening to anyone once I got inside the college. It wasn't just a case of "returning-from-vacation blues." Rather, I felt sick to be there: so much so that Ruth, a tutor who's just become an adjunct faculty member, heard the grinding and groaning in my stomach.

Valerie, the department chair, introduced me as a new full-time faculty member. I wished she hadn't, especially after the polite applause in the room. Most of the other faculty members know who I am, at least a little. But having all of their eyes on me, even if for a nanosecond, was more than I could take.

At the first pause in the discussion, I bolted out of the room. Anyone who noticed might've thought I'd gone to the ladies' room or something. Which I did. But when I came back, a couple of people curled their mouths upward the way people do when they want a baby to smile. Of course, it didn't work.

Afterward, a couple of faculty members asked whether I was OK. I wasn't, and told them so. I couldn't explain why. at least not to them, without getting into a longer conversation than I wanted.

I really didn't want to talk about the kinds of treatment I got while on my previous job at the college. Although no one at that meeting had anything to do with it, some of them are definitely part of the mentality that allows such things to happen: the white liberal mindset, in other words. And every one of them still has faith in the notion that education, or at least schooling, makes people more enlightened and tolerant.

Well, after the way I was treated by so-called educated people at the college last year, I don't think I'll ever have any faith--that's exactly what you need to be part of it--in the institution of education, ever again. I don't even know how I'm going to, with a straight face, get in front of a classroom full of students and act as though any of the work they do in my class, or any other, is going to work for them.

Oh, well. I got through every day of the first forty-five years of my life on mendacity. I guess I could walk into classrooms and do it for another year. So I'll just shut myself down, the way I did in that workshop today. And say what they want to hear, and portray myself in a way that allows them to flatter themselves. People respond to illusions, not reality, anyway. Just look at who gets elected to public office.

Let's Go, Already! KISS

Not much accomplished today. Oh well. I've still got another day of freedom left. On Wednesday, I have to go to a professional development workshop at the college. Then classes start next Monday.

I'm still torn between opening the windows during the next eleven months or barreling through those months on autopilot. Right now, I just want to get to the surgery already. The new job seems like an inconvenience, something that has to be endured. I already know a lot of faculty members--and the chair--in the English Department. But somehow I wish I didn't. I also wish I had a job in which I didn't have to spend so much time interacting with people. I'd like to be able simply to come and go. Why couldn't the provost have made me a paper-pusher? I could work by myself and not have to hear any more questions or comments about me or my life. I wouldn't have to be part of any duplicity or to live by any mendacity. All right, so I did that every day for 45 years. What's another year?, you ask. Just one more year of telling mellifluous (or as mellifluous as I can make them) lies. That's not much for him or anyone to ask of me, right? And, Malcolm, you only have to hear the "N" word one more time. Just one more time.

Of course Malcolm had it harder and faced it all with more courage than I ever could. So maybe I shouldn't liken my situation to his.

Right now I want only to be around people I know very, very well and trust completely. All the politicking, all the going along to get along (which usually doesn't lead to getting along anyway), all the aimless, mindless chatter is just a waste of emotional and mental energy. Most interactions with academicians, with the so-called intellectuals, are no more stimulating than listening to a Wall Street trader bark out an order. And even that's more enlightening than reading articles with titles like "The Otherness of the Other: Post-Structuralist Deconstruction of The Yellow Brick Wall."

Why couldn't I have reported to work on some job in which no one notices when I come or go? I could just ask HR for my leave time and come back after the surgery, with no one the wiser for it. As it stands, I'll go in on Wednesday and everyone will have something to say, or are afraid to ask directly, about my getting the full-time faculty position. And I really don't feel like talking about it with anybody. Nobody grills you that way when you have a desk job.

Not dwelling on the past has been a great help to me. Bruce says as much. At this time next year, do I want to be thinking much about this time? I think now of the chef who, when asked what he'd want to eat if he were going to die tomorrow, mentioned the foods he didn't like. "At least then I wouldn't be sad to go," he said.

That's sort of the way I feel. I don't want to look back wistfully. I want to move forward, to the next steps in the life I'm building. Nothing complicated, please.

Who Knew It Would Come To This?

OK, so what did I do on a wonderfully gorgeous Sunday that wasn't too hot?

You guessed it: I went for a bike ride: To Nyack and back, again.

One good sign is that I actually felt better, physically as well as emotionally, at the end of the ride than at the beginning. My legs actually ached early in the ride, as I was pedalling through the Upper East Side, Yorkville and Harlem to the bridge than when I was coming back, some fifty miles later. By then, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time: my bike disappearing under me. That happens when you're in good shape and you have a bike that's well-fitted and well-suited to you. At this point, I'd still have to give much more credit to my Mercian than to my training, or lack thereof. Kudos to the folks at Mercian Cycles in England who built the bike and to Hal of Bicycle Habitat who measured me and really listened when I described what I wanted in the bike!

Plus, as tired as I was at the beginning of my ride, I was in good spirits. The crepes I made for myself turned out well. Charlie and Max were being even friendlier than ususal. And Mom and Dad were very encouraging when I talked to them. Yes, even Dad, even after I nagged him. And Mom, being Mom. I described some of the anxiety I'm feeling about the job I'm about to start. "You'll be fine," she insisted. "You've come to this point. It'll all work out."

Now, my mother never, ever says things like that unless she means them--and knows what she's talking about. She knew I would stay sober. She knew, at various times in my life, that I'd find my way, whatever that means.

One good sign, according to her: My conversations with Dad are getting longer. It used to be that I'd spend half an hour on the phone with her and half a minute, if that, with him. This time he picked up the phone and I talked to him for twenty minutes--a record!--before spending the rest of an hour with her. That ended only because they were going out.

Mom and I had a good laugh, though. I mentioned that I'd asked Dad what he's been doing and how much he's been getting out of the house--and exhorting him to do even more, even when he's bored. Anything can get boring, I reminded him. But sometimes boredom is just a sign that you're dealing with something else. That's better--certainly for him--than wallowing in his Lazy Boy recliner and thumbing buttons on the remote control.

"He didn't know he would end up with a nagging daughter, did he?"

"To go with his nagging wife and everyone else who nags him!" she deadpanned. Both of us broke out into titters, which turned to laughs when my hormones kicked in.

Ah, yes. All those times we don't know what we're getting or what we're getting into. Like Mom learning that her daughter is named Justine (the name she would have given me if the "F" were checked off on my birth certificate). Or Dad taking me shopping. They survived and, I suspect, know that they still don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Even after fifty years of marriage. And their "son" coming out as their daughter. There may be no more secrets--or at least not very many more--but there are still surprises and mysteries.

Speaking of secrets: As we were talking about my new job and what it could mean, I confessed that when I was younger, I wasn't planning my future--not even when I was in college. Sometimes I'd say that I was thinking about law school or teaching or getting a job with a magazine, but those were half-baked notions, at best. The only constant was that I wanted to write; teaching or graduate school weren't even on my radar.

The truth was, I said, was that I simply didn't want to think about the future. I didn't think I'd make it there and, if I did, I knew that I didn't want the things anyone else wanted for me, whether it had to do with jobs, marriage or anything else. I didn't want the responsibility, I admitted, but I also felt I wouldn't be any good at being a professional and white collar worker with a wife and kids in a house in the suburbs.

The funny thing is that now I can sort of see myself as a professional of a sort, and that I can integrate writing into that life. And I may very well become a wife. I'd like that, really. Dominick says I'm a nurturing person and I actually like the role. Will I end up in that house in the suburbs? Who knows...especially with the so-called mortgage crisis.

Who knew that it would come to this? Not that I'm complaining. I knew I didn't want to be a husband or father, even as I was making some attempt to be the former. But I never knew that I'd actually get to live this life, the one I always wanted.

Who knew?

40 Turns 50

Forty days and forty nights...

Of course nearly everyone in the western (and much of the non-western) world thinks of the Bible and the Flood when you mention "forty days and forty nights."

Me, I think of that exquisitely sad song by Muddy Waters.

Forty days and forty nights
Since my baby left this town
Sunshinin' all day long
But the rain keep comin' down

I used to have a recording of that song. If someone from another planet were to ask me what "the blues" are (is?), I'd probably start with it. Between the piano work and Muddy Waters' voice, you can practically see the sky opening and hear a primal wail in the wind :

Keep rainin' all the time
But the river is runnin' dry
Lord help me it just ain't right
I love that girl with all-a my might

Ooh, baby. Rainin' all the time and the river runnin' dry: How much more despair can someone express? In "Forty Days," I believe Muddy Waters gave us a musical version of a concrete poem about loss and despair.

Fortunately for me, I'm not feeling that kind of despair. So maybe it means I won't be a great artist or original thinker. C'est la vie. I'm happy to be right now. And, oddly enough, I can better appreciate stuff like Muddy Waters' song when I'm the way I am now than when I'm in my own sadness or grief.

What is it about forty days, anyway? For me, today is the 40th day since I started this blog and my one-year countdown to my surgery. So the 40th day means I have 325 days to go. All of this occured to me just as I was about to start writing. Now I've forgotten what I had planned, or whether I had anything, to write about.

Forty days and forty nights turn into...forty years. Mom and I were talking about our recent milestone birthdays. She said that when she turned fifty--as I did last month--she didn't mind it, but all through that year she thought about Uncle Sonny, who died a few months after turning fifty. Other than that, she said, turning fifty was actually better than turning forty.


I would agree with her on that last point. When I turned forty, I was--paradoxically enough--much more anxious about my future than I am now. It's not that I've gotten rich or anything like that. And I didn't see a pretty picture in a crystal ball. In fact, I'd say that, if anything, it may be even more difficult for me to predict what the coming years will bring. There is the surgery, of course, if all goes according to plan. But other than that, I really don't know what else to expect.



At forty, on the other hand, I expected more or less the same as what had come before. I was probably in the best physical condition of my entire life; I had that sense of invincibility the young so often have. I did not imagine myself becoming older or less firm; if anything, I didn't expect to live long enough to see that. I was going to die, at whatever age, while pedalling up or barreling down a mountain on my bike, or in a current that was more powerful than my ability to swim it.

However, just before I turned forty, something else happened: I met Tammy. That would lead me, however unintentionally, to the journey I am now undertaking.

Not long ago, I told my mother that just about everything I did before making my transition was an act of desperation. Getting involved with Tammy may have been the most desperate act of all; near the end of our relationship, I committed the single most desperate action of my life. Somehow I knew, but would never admit, that there would be great changes in my life, and that there would be at least a period of pain and loss.

My relationship with Tammy was my very last attempt to hold on to the image I had of myself--which I conflated with my life--as a heterosexual man. Ironically enough, the first two years I spent with Tammy were the happiest--or at least the easiest--of my life before my transition.

I think it was Ortega y Gasset who said that there are three stages of a person's life. Up to the age of fifteen or so, one is essentially a child. From about fifteen until about forty or forty-five, one tries to construct a life according to the expectations of family, society and one's self. But, at forty or forty-five, one realizes that it's no longer possible to live in fantasies or fictions. At that point, of course, many people--especially men--have their mid-life crises. Some go downhill and die (or kill themselves) not long after; others redirect themselves.

So...I met Tammy at forty and started to live full-time as a woman at forty-five. Maybe it's not what Ortega y Gasset had in mind, but it does square pretty well with his timetable. At forty-three I saw that woman in Savoie who made me realize I couldn't take another step in this world as a man; at forty-four I started to take steps toward my current life. Those two years were, if not the most difficult, the most intense of my adult life.

The day I got back from that trip in which I saw that Savoyard woman, Tammy met me at JFK. I wasn't expecting it; she didn't expect to meet me but at the last moment found out she could take the day off after all. She really wanted to see me, she said.

We locked our arms around each other, my elbows jutting out at the most acute angles my body could create. Neither of us, it seemed, wanted to let go, not even as uniformed attendants tried to move us out of the lobby. I could not let go, not at that moment, not for as long as I could hold on...to her; to our apartment with four cats, seven bikes, dozens of kitchen utensils and appliances and I-couldn't-even-count-how-many books and very full closets; to the dinners we hosted and the nights out with friends--hers, mostly. Holding on...to a life that nobody, not even us, knew very much about. One in which she indulged, then tolerated my "cross dressing" and I said that I wanted no more--though no less--than that. No, I said, I will not move to Chelsea or get the surgery. Yes, I want to spend my life with you, whatever that means.

So what, exactly, happened at around the time I turned forty? You might say that I cranked up the level of mendacity precisely because I was beginning to realize just how mendacious I had been simply to live as I was from one day to the next. You might even say that it was that mendacity that led me, finally, to my realizations: I was on that bike trip in the Alps--the one in which I met the woman I mentioned--because Tammy had given it to me as a birthday present. Why, I asked her? She was working and attending law school, and that was my reward for "taking care" of her. It was all part of the life we were building together: That's what I said about being, in essence, her wife and that's what she said about her work.

Forty days, forty nights, forty years. We thought it would progress somewhat like that. Or so I led her to believe, or so she believed. Forty months...That's about how much time passed from our first meeting until that day at JFK. For the next forty weeks (I'm not making this up!), the illusion, fantasy or whatever you want to call it, came apart, piece by piece.

Tomorrow will mark the sixth anniversary of my moving out. The forty days that followed included getting a job, finding places to shop and eat and meeting people, some of whom would become friends or at least allies. Some met me as Nick, others as Justine. I was still working in my boy-drag with my boy-name. I would do that for--you guessed it!--another forty weeks.

After all that, turning fifty is a cinch. Am I right, Muddy Waters?

Talk to Me; Make Me Pretty

Today I took a break from electrolysis. Three days in a row...I didn't think I'd get through the first session. But I'm going for more next week.

So what did I do today besides my laundry, cleaning my apartment, surfing the web or feeling upset about that new teaching position that everyone else seems to think is so wonderful? I went for a haircut and facial. I figured I might not have time for them--or at least the facial, anyway--for a while.

I've been going to the same place for the past five years--Zoe's Beauty in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Until April, Toni had been cutting and coloring my hair. But she's left to pursue other interests: According to her mother (who looks a bit like Diane Keaton), she's going to Paris, where she's going to attend a school for theatrical make-up. I loved the work she did on me, but somehow I always had the sense she'd want to at least try other things.

So how did I find her, and the shop? One Sunday, a few weeks after Tammy and I split up and I moved into the neighborhood where I live now, I was riding my bike. Back then--six years ago--I was presenting as female a couple of times a week but was still a year away from living full-time as a woman. And it would be months before I'd begin to take hormones. Anyway, on that Sunday--rather hot, as I remember--I'd been out riding for a while in my bike-guy clothes and was sweaty and probably grungy. The neon sign and neo-Victorian/hippie chotchkes in the window streamed into view. I crossed the street to check it out.

I lingered over shelves full of nail colorings and eye make-up when a voice intoned, "Can I help you?"

I turned around. There was Toni, looking at me even more quizzically than she sounded.

"Make me as pretty as you are," I deadpanned.

Now, if you saw Toni and you saw me, you'd know that was quite the request! But she didn't back down or try to talk me out of the store. Instead, she asked, "Where would you like to start?"

The rest, as they say, is history. I proceeded from buying nail polish and lip gloss to facial creams and powders. She always seemed to know what would work for me: not only what would look good on me, but what my sensitive skin could handle. I don't know whether she'd ever worked with a transgender before she met me, but she even recommended some lotions for shaving.

Then, when she started cutting and coloring my hair, I learned about the mystique of the hairdresser. In those days before I'd begun to live full-time--before I was even "out" to any of my family or friends--she became a sort of second therapist to me. In fact, she was the first to encourage me to find a guy--at a time when I wondered whether I "passed" and before I realized just how horny guys actually are. (Was I like that?)

I don't recall having those kinds of conversations with a barber. Then again, that may have had more to do with me than the barbers.

To top everything off, Toni was only twenty years old when I first met her. Most barbers I'd seen were about three times that age.

Anna does just about as nice a job on my hair as Toni did. I like. And I like talking with her. Imagine crossing Rachael Ray with Rosie, without Rosie's anger. And, because Anna is a Brooklyn Italian-American, the roots of mine she touches aren't only in my hair! (Toni, who's half-Italian, grew up in Queens.) Still, I miss Toni. I guess we miss a lot of the "firsts" in our lives.

And then there's Ella, a slender Polish woman of my age who always refers to me as "my lady." I have had about half a dozen facials, so far, and I am convinced that even more important than the techniques or the products used are the person who's using them and the atmosphere she (or he) creates. I mean, except for those few minutes when she plucks my eyebrows (something I don't think I'll ever get down no matter how adept I become with brushes and powder-puffs), I am totally relaxed. Maybe that is the point of getting the treatment.

So let's see--Anna cut some of my hairs. Ella pulled a few hairs and scraped and washed away old skin and other things from my face. I guess, in some way, they're doing similar work to the electrologist. Or to my therapist and social worker. It's all about peeling something away to get to the essence of what I am. And--this is something that really would have suprised me earlier in my life--sometimes I actually like, no, love what I find. I think it's what people see when they tell me I look radiant or--ready for this?--pretty. And sometimes I really feel like I am.

Well, I guess everyone is, or can be made, attractive to someone. The key, I believe, is to be attractive to one's self. That's not as narcissitic as it sounds. It's really nothing more than a belief in one's self: having the same confidence that one has a rightful place in this world that one's mother (well, at least the mother one should have) has. I think that's what was expressed in one of my favorite sculptures: Rodin's Je suis belle.

Je suis belle. Thanks to everyone who helped me learn that.

Next week, I resume souffrance to be belle. It's worth it. ;-)

The New Job--Meet the Old Job

Today I was thinking about the job I'm about to start next week. To tell you the truth, I was feeling angry about it. For one thing, I was essentially told by the Provost of the college that I was going to take the job. I really and truly hate being dictated to--even when the thing that's being dictated to me may well be "good for me." Even my mother never said things like that when she tried to get me to eat spinach or lima beans or other such green things. Then again, she never had to persuade me to eat them.

Well, all right... I'm in a very different situation now. Yes, the vegetables are good for me. But I'm not always sure that teaching--or being in school in any way or form--is. Of all the things I've ever done, I feel that teaching is the least honest and that being in school is the surest sign that I've failed. You know what they say: "Those who can, do."

Which is exactly the reason why people who bemoan the fact that school "doesn't teach you how to think" are barking up the wrong tree. That's exactly what school, at any level, isn't supposed to do. People who can actually think never, ever become teachers. Or, if a teacher starts to think, he or she can't remain a teacher for very long unless he or she essentially lives a life of mendacity or simply numbs him or her self.

School--from pre-K to post-doc--is always about maintaining the status quo. All you have to do is watch the Olympics to see that. Most spectators, whether they're in the "Bird's Nest" or in front of a TV screen, are not celebrating the athletes for their artistic or technical perfection, or even (in some instances) their good looks. Rather, they are applauding the triumphs of their countrymen (and women). Where do people learn such mindless xenophobia and learn to call it patriotism? Nearly always, in school.

Some say that may be true in subjects like History, but I think that the curricula of the so-called objective sciences are just as skewed toward the status quo. Students are inculcated with just as many unverifiable ideas and beliefs in a physics class as they would be in a seminary. And, of course, everything a student experiences reinforces the gender binary system and lots of unconsciously held beliefs about the inferiority of one gender, race, nationality or whatever, to another. Not to mention the idea that if one is born into anything, he or she should stay in his or her "place.

The last fistfight I got into was with a graduate school classmate who expressed disbelief that I had any Italian heritage in me because, essentially, I'm too literate. I've had professors tell me that I could always go into construction or some such thing. And, I've had colleagues who were professors who pretended to be allies of mine and stabbed me in the back. Not to mention my supervisor on my last job.

How can I get in front of students with a straight face after some of the things I--and they--have been through at the hands of educators? Or knowing that most of the time that I have taught, I have simply mouthed other people's words?

Every time I've questioned the notion that I should teach, someone coos (as if talking to a baby), "But you do it soo well" Well, just because you can do something well, that doesn't mean you should do it. What if you were good at killing people--should you do that?

And, honestly, almost any time someone says I'm a good teacher and that's what I "should" do, it's a taunt. The person saying it is almost always someone who's doing something that pays much better than what I do, and wouldn't be caught dead or allow their kids to follow a career in teaching or scholarship.

Oh well. One more year of it. Then the surgery, and whatever comes after it.

In Love

Last night I was with Dominick. Yes, he was there for me after I was having chin-hairs pulled out and zapped by two gorgeous blonde women. One of them was probably my age or older and looked a bit like Kim Novack. The other was much younger and Russian.

Hmm...Sounds like something advertised on the back pages of The Village Voice or The New York Press. Except that anyone who responds to those ads is probably paying a lot more for the privilege than I pay for my sessions.

It's one of those things Dominick likes to hear me talk about but would never want to experience himself. Not that he would have any use for it--unless, of course, he's absolutely sure he never wants to grow a beard or moustache. But even then....

Anyway, I went to his place after the electrolysis session. He showed me the kinds of reports that must be submitted for each of the kids in his class. Even in their rather soggy prose, those accounts are heartbreaking to read: kids who are old enough to be in school but still can't dress, feed or speak for themselves. I also couldn't help but to notice that the kids came from poorer neighborhoods and, I surmised, were members of "minority" groups.

Dominick mentioned that some of those kids also have asthma and other medical problems. He said that he's more and more convinced that most of the kids' problems are environmentally-induced. It was then that I realized why he has chosen to work with special ed kids: He grew up in an often-unstable home and some of the difficulties he's had may well be a result of what he comes from.

I admire him for having the courage to work through his difficulties yet retaining the gentleness those kids so need.

And it is that gentleness--which deepens as he's getting older--to which I respond. It may be the reason why, I realized last night, I really do love him, and he understands what that means.

I'll admit now that I had been proceeding with caution since I've known him. Some of that, I suppose, is just the natural reaction of someone of my age and experience. But I also realize now that over the past few years, I have learned a bit about loving someone in ways that transcend even forgiveness.

To tell you the truth, I was never in love with anyone with whom I "had a relationship." Those unions--or whatever I could or should call them--were nothing more than acts of desperation. I thought I was holding on for life; now I know that I was merely holding onto the life I knew at the time. It didn't matter, really, whether I was with a man or woman: Either way, I was acting as I though a man should. And I never was very good at it.

Then again, I wonder just how good I am now at being a friend, lover, daughter, or any of the other roles I've continued or taken on. Dominick tells me I'm a wonderful person. Mom and Dad say that we had a good visit. But when I talked to Mom this morning, she mentioned that she found a photo of me on a bike, back in the day, and I was "really skinny."

"Yes, I know I've gained weight."

"Mmm..."

"Did you notice it?"

"Welll...yeah. I'm not going to say you don't look good. But you could look better."

"I know."

I know...Being a good woman, friend, etc., isn't about my now not-inconsiderable weight. But still...Dominick always tells me I look great. He always does. At least, he always seems beautiful to me. I don't recall feeling that way about the others I've been with.

But the really wonderful thing about seeing Dominick last night is that, well, I realize that I do love him, without reservation or hesitation, and that--OK feminists, shoot me for this one--I can actually see myself as his wife. In other words, as his partner in life and as a nurturer--for him, as well as anyone we should bring into our circle. (We have talked about adopting a child.)

I guess that, all of the other tribulations aside, my relationships with Eva, Tammy and the others never could've worked because I knew I could never really be a boyfriend, much less a husband, no matter how much I tried. In other words, I couldn't love them completely as the person I am.

I still don't yet know what dimensions and limits, if any, there are to my love for Dominick. All I know is that I love him as I am, as a woman. Before I began my gender change, I could not do this, because I was not allowed to and because I couldn't and wouldn't allow myself.

Now I can, because I can love unabashedly, as a woman who is unabashedly herself. Last week, I came to realize that is how I love my mother and father now. And, maybe, just maybe, my relationship with Dominick will be that sort of love manifested in a partnership.

I hope. I allow myself to hope. I allow myself. And Mom. And Dad. And Dominick.