2010. Holy Shit.

I could ramble for pages about how 2009 was. But here are the bullet points:
Stayed at my job for another year.

Had chest surgery (can I get a hallelujah). It was intense, for sure. I’m glad that I got it done finally, and at the same time,  I wish it had been on different terms, but I’ll get to that later. June 11th was my surgery date. I was so sure that I was going to pass while under that I must have bothered our HR person a half a dozen times to be sure that all of my life insurance was lined up to ensure that my brother and partner were squared away.

Watched the simultaneously slow and yet too quick deterioration of the only cat I’ve ever liked. He passed away. and I’m still sad about it.

My brother almost died in November. It was horrible. He’s adjusting and doing well in school. I’m proud of him for having come so close to his dreams, closer than most ever even think of trying. He’s also going to be a dad in a few months

Reconnected with old friends in Savannah.

Lost my partner. Well, I didn’t lose her as much as she just… quit. Most difficult and painful experience of my life thus far. No conversation about the reasons. No understanding of what happened. Not understanding why after 2 years, we didn’t deserve a “hey, this bothers me” or a “Hey, i need some shift in this area”. Just… *FLIP* of the switch and I went from enjoying being in love again to moving out. I think I always thought that love fell under the “greater plan” instead of the “free will” clause of spirituality. But I suppose that it’s probably a combination of both. I don’t know what’s more painful. Knowing that you fit so perfectly with someone and the powers that be would retract their offer, or feeling like you fit so perfectly with someone and having them crowbar their compass needle to ensure improper alignment. In simpler terms… I think there’s a difference in forcing something to work when it doesn’t, and forcing something not to work. Either way, the loss is great. Intimacy… it’s a funny thing. Feared and Desired at the same time. I respect the balance. I hate the denial of of one to the greater detriment.

Despite the loss, I wish her happy. Truly. I’m glad she’s got great family and friends. I”m glad she’s got such awesome dogs. I’m glad she’s got a roof over her head. I did my best to leave her with anything I thought would make her life easier/better/more comfortable. I’m glad she’s experiencing other people and has found her sexuality again and is enjoying her body. I mean, it’s hard… really fuckin hard… but ultimately, I do just want her to be happy. I miss her in my arms. And I miss her in my ear. And god damnit, I miss her smile so much. And I would hope that one day she would miss the “us” and miss the connection and want to connect again on that level, but I can’t hold my breath on it. I hope that she didn’t read the valentine that I asked her to save just in case she had a john cusack moment. I hope that she didn’t throw it away. I hope it’s sitting there. Safe. But hope – like intimacy – is a funny thing.

I’m meeting new people, and enjoying having conversations. Enjoying my motorcycle being out of the shop. Enjoying my dog. Enjoying my art. Enjoying learning where my skin ends and the air begins. If given the choice, I would have done surgery alone, instead of counting on a partner to pair it with… but it is done now, and it happened the way it happened, and my focus now is on validating myself about my body. I haven’t shared my bed, or  a heartbeat with any one else. I don’t care to, and I’m being very honest about that. I’m learning to feel safe again. Solitary.

Speaking of safe and contained. I’ve been learning about rope. Different styles, different knots, different harnesses, etc. It’s a combination for me of learning and also forcing myself to feel IN my body. I spent 20+ years trying to disassociate myself from my body, and this is an exercise in forcing reconnection until I believe it’s real. Sitting with myself bound against myself and discovering how that feels. To know *exactly* where my ankle ends and *exactly* where my shoulders connect is an amazing experience. The photographic evidence serves as a reminder for me to look at and realize … I look amazing.

I have an apartment. It’s 1 bedroom. It feels warm.

I am making shifts around my employment. Putting my money (or decrease of) where my convictions are. I’ve done some volunteering stints, i’ve donated some monies. I’m excited about doing more of it. I’m excited to move into a phase of my life where I can feel good about what I’m doing on all fronts.

That’s the 2010 wrap up. I’m going to be writing more. I think it’s important. For now, people ask me how I”m doing. And I have to say that I feel like I was a comet. Who collided with another comet. And it was beautiful and powerful. And now, pieces of me have left with that comet… and I have dispersed into millions of pieces, which from a distance look like stars and beautiful… but in the center of that supernova… lies a boy who feels like his head is under the bathwater… listening to msyelf breathing… and hoping to separate the eluvium from the solid. in due time. and i smile, even when i don’t want to.

1/4 Mile High Club

All packed for a night’s adventure, we parked a block from the hotel after seeing that parking garage rates were $30 for an overnight stay. Surely for that amount of money my truck would receive an evening of pampering; maybe a buffing of the bumper, a complimentary gallon of bubbly, or a wheel-pedi. But anything short of that made $30 for a local parking spot seem a bit ridiculous, especially with plenty of street parking, being after 6PM, and knowing that the following day would be Sunday, with no foreseeable parking drama.It was a night to celebrate 6 months of newly found amazing, with the few arguments being as easy to manage as a short southern summer thunderstorm. Almost always, politics was in the eye of it, rolling itself at me while my futile rubber bullet points bounce off of her, and her – possibly valid – but unfortunately rather idealistic points roll off of me, soaking my socks but ultimately disappearing into the drain where I flush most of the political topics I encounter. It was time to celebrate splashing in cammo and flower print galashes when it does rain, and enjoying sunny days on the porch the rest.

Blow past the front desk (because I’m a planner, and checked in under the radar earlier in the day). The backlit 24 brought us up up up and to the room where I got to see the day light her face up with the amazing eye-level view of the space needle and the city through a giant picture window, accompanied by a card and bottles of champagne.

We sat in awe of the view for a good half hour and cracked the first bottle. Then came showers and we prepped to go to TrannyShack. S came by to enjoy the view and some drinks with us. Took a cab to the Tranny Shack show – which by the way – ROCKED…….HARD! It was hands down the best drag show I’ve ever seen (and after working at Blake’s in Atlanta for over a year, I’ve seen plenty of them).

Back at the hotel. Cracked the second bottle of champagne and watched as my gf put on a pair of heels that gave me the strangest feeling of lust. They also, happen to have made her the perfect height for me to bend over, palms on the ledge, and force to look down on the streets of Seattle, buck naked (minus the heels) while I drilled her from behind for the entire city to see. Cars drove underneath us, people crossed intersections, late-night after parties happening in neighboring hotels. Hair wrapped around my fist I asked her what it felt like to be the Slut of Seattle and every answer she gave me was music to my ears. The queer scene that unfolded would shame most staple-bound high gloss jack-off-journals. It was the erotica I’ve always wanted to read, but didn’t, starring – me. Ta fucking daaaaa.

I can’t tell you how amazing the view is from the 24th floor … since I suppose it has to vary depending on the eyes judging it. But I can say that to have the giant space needle ahead of you while looking over the sweetest ass in the city is the best view I’ve ever had.

Thank you, Seattle! And thank you, most amazing lovely girlfriend of mine.

Fun Sized

Today my office is empty. The PPC specialist no longer works here. Joel is on vacation.
Sooooooooo – it’s me.
Lights off, headphones on, door closed.
I’m pretending I’m an executive at some big headquarters office, let’s say Coca-Cola.

And then I hear the candy dish fill up. And I immediately have to walk over and look at it.
Nothing shiny, thank god. Only the leftovers from downstairs. The forgotten jolly ranchers and starbursts and werther’s knock-offs.
I can walk by the candy dish all day long, but the second I see a twix wrapper or a 3 musketeers or a York Peppermint Patty wrapper, I come unglued. I have to take one, no two, well, I’ll eat one and put two away for later…

And while we’re on the subject. What the fuck is “fun sized”. I heart Snickers. I do. Frozen, Fried, however I can get ‘em, I heart snickers. But I heart – “Fun Sized”.

It’s not fun sized. It’s “just big enough to piss you off” size. Nothing little should be called Fun Sized. Fun sized is a foot long snickers bar. THAT is fun sized. I feel guilty eating 4 fun sized snickers just to feel half satisfied.

I know I don’t have a 7″ member. I don’t go around calling it fun sized. No. That would be misleading.

I say – “I’m big in Asia!”

Epic Naked Fail

7:47PM I rushed in, 2 minutes late for my appointment. This appointment that I’ve been dreading and avoiding for a decade now. This appointment that has caused me so much anxiety and fear of rejection and vulnerability that I’d just decided it wasn’t something I wanted to subject myself to. But – Dr. Hester, being amazing and comforting and calming and exhibiting the same energy vibrations that Elese Lebsack does left me after my last appointment with a warm fuzzy enough to schedule one. I scheduled it. I rushed over after tutoring. And I was worried about being late.

I *hate* being late. I am one of those pride-myself-for-always-being-on-time people. Anyways.

Sign in, sit down. The new assistant comes to the front and despite my requests a half a dozen times by now to change my fucking chart to be reflective of my initial instead of my birth name, she belts it through the waiting room. I shift nervously and my gf gets up and I follow without anyone in the waiting room noticing the play.

Weigh in. 180#. Nice. I must have a lot of change in my pockets today, and my jacket is obviously heavy.

Into the room we go. Blood pressure. Fine, though if my birth name is uttered again I’m sure I will bust the glass on the gauge. “What are you here for today?” she asks.
“My….(stutter) yearly?”.
“Oh,” she says “It says here a checkup”.
“yes, well, it is a check up”.
Did she ask you what your appointment was for when they booked it?”.
“Yes, well, no… I told them I needed to get a check up and they told me they had a 7:45 with the doctor I’d wanted and they said okay, see you then”.

She looks nervous and says she didn’t know that, so she hadn’t set up the room. Then she looks at my gf while tapping away at the keys on the computer.
“Are you still taking testosterone?”
“Yes, once a week” I say, looking at the back of her head looking at my gf.
“when was your last menstrual cycle?”.
At this, my gf and I are both confused. Does she think that the appointment is for me or for her? My gf responds that she should probably ask me. The girl admits that she’s new. I try to break the splintering ice by joking that I was a test patient and they stuck her with the hardest patient she could get as a newbie.

“Okay, so I’m going to go get the things to get the room set up. Is everything the same?”
I’m confused and not sure what she’s asking. “I”m sorry?”
“Is everything the same?”
“Is what the same. I don’t know what this is supposed to look like. The last time I did this I was being rushed through a basic training medical checkup”
“But it’s all the same?” Waving towards her lower half.
I am aggravated. No, not aggravated, embarrassed.
Girlfriend to the rescue, “everything is the same”.
She’s embarrassed even when she returns to the room with the special supplies, and tells me she is leaving now and to take off all of my clothes.
“All of them?”
“yes, the doctor will be in shortly”.

I don’t understand why I have to get naked, but I do after some grumbling. Gf is reassuring as ever. There is a knock at the door and in peeks a head to find gf sitting in a chair and me standing behind a paper sheet, having not had enough time to even get my socks off.

“Hiiiii” … enter older lady with an aircast.
“Hello”
“Uhm… we’re sorry but we didn’t know that you were coming in for a pap. I’m going to see if the doctor can do it, but we may not be able to”
“Okay”… I stand holding up the sheet.
NAKED.
My gf and I exchange our “not impressed” looks. I’m embarrassed beyond belief and feeling overly vulnerable now so I get dressed in a hurry. While dressing my gf says “probably some feedback needs to be given about their training program. I agree. For being a trans-friendly clinic, your newbie had no idea how to handle a transman live and in living color. After a few minutes the older lady returns.

“Yahhh, um, I’m sorry, but we’re not going to be able to do this. Is there anything else that the doctor can do for you today? A prescription refill? We can schedule another appointment for you”
When I say awkward silence and stillness you could cut with a knife – I mean it.

Another appointment? Do you really think I’m going to go through this again? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I tell her I will just wait for my doctor (who I really really did like after our one appointment, I mean – obviously I liked her enough to schedule this dreaded fucking exam of my middle earth) to refill my prescription. She apologizes again and tells me to come out and reschedule when ready. I do, knowing I have no desire to keep the appointment we’re scheduling but my face is hot and I’m nervous and if they retook my blood pressure again, surely they’d get a mind-blowing number. I go back into the room. My gf comes in a few seconds later.

We wait. We wait because I want to see “my” doctor. I just want some validation in the form of a smile or a pat or a handshake.
We wait for 30 fucking minutes, and after the 5th time of saying I really just want to leave. We do.
I ask for my copay to be applied to another visit.

The older lady tells me she’s going to write up some feedback about the situation for the clinic and asks me for the best number for the assistant manager to contact me about what happened. I’m racing to get out of there like a bird stuck in a drain pipe. The older lady keeps asking if I’m going to come back, once, twice, the third time I was almost out of earshot of it. The newbie assistant looks pitifully at me from behind the desk. My gf smiles, not having revealed to me yet that she’s told older lady that it took 10 years for me to schedule this appointment, and that they blew it, she smiles proudly and holds my hand as we leave the building.

It’s the first time since we’ve dated that she instinctively paused once we left to cue ME to have a cigarette. I was quiet. She was consoling and apologetic, but still I felt bad that she was having to be exposed to the embarrassment.

I do not feel as if I was mistreated. I feel as if I was mishandled. Not due to malice, but ignorance. My gf and I both saw what can happen with the lack of training in situations, and why so many transmen don’t get checked regularly. I’m unsure I will keep my second appointment. I am sure that feedback will be given.

I am sure that I love my gf, who then took me to Babeland for a little shopping and over to the War Room to see my bestie and a double jack and ginger.

And I love that when I was in the car, trying to sort out how I felt about what’d happened. Was I angry? Sad? disappointed? embarrassed? and asked her how she would summarize what’d happened… she said:
“EPIC Fail”

It was the laugh I needed.