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!”

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.

Had a surgery consultation today.

My girlfriend was amazing, solid, asked great questions, and maintained eye contact with me while I, draped in a baby blue Genghis Kahn styled robe made of paper and plastic, stood in front of her, two surgeons, and a medical assistant.

“Okay, let’s take a look” echoed through the room.

“How long have you been on Testosterone?”. I answered him.

He asked me if my chest had shrunk at all since I started my therapy. “I don’t know,” I said and then joked that I don’t make it a habit to look at them”. He smiled and laughed a little, as did my girlfriend.

They looked, measured, doodled a little, held up a stencil template, pushed, pulled, and discussed while drawing on my chest.

I haven’t been felt up that much in almost a decade.

“Well, this hasn’t happened for awhile” I joked. We laughed.

Even my gf commented that she hadn’t touched my chest that much.

We went over my options, and the details of the different scenarios. We shook hands.

Now comes the saving. I figure I’ll be able to have surgery by September.

I want one of those pencils!

I’m going to tell you something that is going to shock you.

It may even force you to question whether you know me at all, but you deserve to know.

I am absolutely fucking anal about people touching my food/drink/snacks – basically anything that I had to haul myself to the store for, shop aisle by aisle for, pick out for myself by me, pay for, load into my car, drive home, and put away into my cupboard, on my fridge shelf, or onto counter space. I know. But my calibrated brain has an inventory of my items right down to the number of hazy plastic sleeves that hold my cheese-food-product, the scoops that were taken out of my butter in a tub, and the level that my cheerios are at. I know. Trust me, I know.

Unfortunately, this little compulsion is accompanied by the urge to hoard. An aggregator, amasser, stockpiler of my bounty. I buy it (or it’s gifted to me) and I decide that one day I’ll really really REALLY want it, and I’ll have the perfect treat for myself. The classic Hoardus Maximus. Veni Vidi Hide-i. I have withstood hours of questioning, mockery and testing of the reaction I have to my delectable riches, and that’s alright … because I know exactly where a marzipan egg, butterfinger, and gold-foil covered chocolate coin is that you’ll never find. Waterboard me all day long, but you will never know the true location of all of my prizes. Okay, so maybe I don’t even know where all of my little preciouses are, but they’re safe, and that’s all that matters.

I digress.

My point is, that I decided a few weeks ago, after finding yet again that I needed milk (even though I know for a fact that I haven’t touched this particular milk in a good week), to write a friendly little reminder to my household and guests how I was feeling a little protective over my goods.

I realize that this image is blurry, despite S’s camera’s tries, but it says “DO NOT TOUCH MY MILK!”. Upon further investigation one would see that it’s all in CAPS, the DO and the NOT are nicely underlined, and it’s an exclamatory sentence.

You can tell by the “!”

Just in case you thought that it wasn’t written to you. I covered my bases. That little notice on the other side by the cap. The cap that you have to remove to get to the glorious bovine silken goodness inside? That says MY FUCKIN MILK!

Again, you will notice the emphatic “!”.

Today when I smiled down on my bowl of honey nut cheerios (at the same level I left them), I went to fill-er-up with milk and saw that my milk had indeed been befouled.

In case I couldn’t read it, it was written very clearly

“I touched it uh huh!”. The sting of that familiar exclamation point. The burn, the burn.

Set off with one smiley faced O. A big, calcium rich smile of a grinning O.

Fail.

My girlfriend – is amazing.

No, I know, everyone thinks the person they are dating is super at first. La la la. But let me explain.

My girlfriend has known me since I first visited Seattle to determine if I wanted to move here. And yes, I was at the end of dating someone, and she was always seemingly involved, but there was something about her that piqued my interest and demanded my attention. In all the right ways. I was secretly at full salute upon sight. I never made a move, out of respect.

After my relationship had ended, I would see her and take her home in my pocket to do unspeakable things with her. A sweaty night on the dance floor of Cherry brought the opportunity to dance with her and I was taken aback by her moves and how she just flowed with me. But it wasn’t the right time.

A BBQ I went to, she came with her then girlfriend and aside from a hello and meeting of the gf (ugh that sucked), I ate my hot dog and watched her out of the corner of my eye. I took her home that night too, but she didn’t know it.

Gay City’s opening I tried not to choke on the cupcake I shoved into my mouth and ran after her, attempting to appear nonchalant, slowing my pace down to say “HEY” to which she turned around, returned the hey, a little friendly banter, and she was off. I took her home that night too, but she didn’t know it.

A few run-ins at the bar, seeing her dance on stage, it was a personal show for me. I know, it seems creepy, but I wanted her so … so … badly. Still, I didn’t make eye contact, much less a move.

Finally, in Oly, a tap on my shoulder and a swift look at the perp gave me a pleasant, though Jack-induced hazy, view of HER. Casually determining that both of us were single, I made my move. A few days later, back in Seattle, I agreed to a date. Surely, any mystery surrounding me would dissipate and I wouldn’t be able to take her home with me any more, but take her home I did – and this time – she was there – and she knew it.

And she’s been my girl ever since.

She has seen my face, voice, temperament and body change.

Hell, she’s witnessed me go from a to a and keeps me wanting more. She’s positive about our sex, our future, and our commitment. She makes me feel good. She lets me love her, and that may sound strange, but I’ve had my share of women who just don’t want that to happen. She lets me take care of her, and, she takes care of me, in all the right ways.

I salute her differently now, and I know it.

Throughout my life, I have been able to readily identify with an array of literary characters. Pinocchio, the Velveteen Rabbit, but most true to my life would have to be the Ugly Duckling.

The little kid who didn’t quite fit in, but spoke 3 languages fluently by four and a half and was programming (overseen by a computer engineering father) at the age of five on an Apple II+. In case you’re wondering, it came fully loaded with a screaming 64K of RAM, had dimensions of 40″x46″x12″, and weighed in at just 20#, all of this of course, didn’t include the monitor. Between the kidnapping worries (my brother and I were both toe-heads and white in a predominantly poor area of Taiwan who obviously belonged to the American family) and the risk of my little brother wandering off into the rice patties, we were safely tucked away from normal after school interaction behind a 15′ cinder block wall. This left me plenty of time to get to know myself and do such amazing things as spend 6 weeks or so programming a 2″ book of code so that upon winning each round it would spell out my name. As in, the final product producing a message of  “CONGRATULATIONS <YOUR NAME>!” to which my little freckled face would light up with the green glow full of excitement and validation.

Moving along, elementary school was no fun, my mother teaching at every school I attended. We relocated every 2-3 years internationally and upon returning stateside, where it was quickly revealed that I was not cool there either. We settled back into our roots in Savannah when I was eleven. You know, with the cool kids whose parents had hung out in college when they were still just one shot of tequila-fueled poor decision away from creation. Square peg, round hole. No-show birthday parties, mocks in permanent marker in the gym. Was it my shoes? I remember a classmate’s older sister telling me one day at a basketball game of my brother’s that she knew I was having a hard time, but to keep my chin up, cause it would all change for me in highschool. I will never forget that act of reaching out, but she was wrong.

Highschool proved no better. My mother trying desperately to get me to fit in. By this point, I knew I was too far gone for that to occur. I wore baggy jeans, flannels, All-Stars… TURQUOISE, Fuckers! I was not going to be headed to Cotillion. I was not going to go to UGA and major in something cute only to return to Savannah and marry into a prominent last name. I wanted to ride my Santa Cruz board, go fishing, cuss like the older boys at the Marina, you know – be normal?

But normal is defined by grocery aisle gossip and gasps over telephone calls, followed by exaggerated “Oh I knowww”s and “bless your heart”s, and my mother fell for it time and time again. Surprisingly – even with the awful forced perm, two sets of braces, skinny bones, and extremely introverted personality, I wasn’t cool — or attractive. Actually, I didn’t even exist. I wanted to be cool. Who didn’t want to be cool? Who didn’t want to be liked? I Just wanted to be seen, for fuck’s sake. Appreciated for being a good skater, a scholarship awarded all-star select soccer player, an intellectual. “NOT GONNA HAPPEN <YOUR NAME>!“

High School ended. Years went by. I got funny. I refined my humor in college. I refined myself with the same attention that a professional ice sculpturist does. Chainsaw for big ugly pieces. Dental pic for details. And after settling into a career, some solid friends, and myself a bit more — I emerged.

It’s only recently that I’ve figured out that I was a gosling surrounded by ducks. It’s only recently that I see myself in a mirror and respect myself. Broad shoulders, big arms, kind eyes, genuine smile, good skin. I smell good.  I’m funny, witty, smart. I make people laugh! I’m, on some days, very handsome. I have good friends, the love of an amazing woman (who, ps. was her highschool class president and the same girl I lusted for years ago reincarnate), I’m respected as someone with integrity and honor, someone people can count on when the gettin’s hard. I’ve started to make my way in the world, and people notice me — in a good way for the most part.

I’m grown up now, and although if facing my now-self as my then-self I would probably punch my now-self in the face for saying this… if I had to choose to be cool then, or be cool now … I pick the latter. My glory days are happening. My biggest moments are happening now. I don’t have to whip out old yearbooks full of “you’re so cool”s or remember that one play I made on the field or that one time I took the title of homecoming _______.

Plus, we all know what baby ducks end up looking like. They’re not the most impressive in the aesthetics department. And these ducks? Divorced, miserable, no self esteem, repeating the same mistakes their parents did at a UGA party, staring at their Cotillion card stashed away in their yearbooks and reminiscing about better times.

But a swan… that is another story. I’m a fucking swan, and I am probably one of the only people that I remember from back then who looks back at my highschool photos and doesn’t wish that I was still that.

<CONGRATULATIONS B!>

Saturday started with a great breakfast and a trip to SAM for their Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit. To be able to walk up and look Augustus in the eye left me in even more awe than finding a parking space across from the museum on a Saturday. His ears protruded slightly. This led me to believe that we may have been friends. You know, sipping on wine, swapping stories about Bacchus and Helen, planning our next territorial conquests while slapping some meat on the grill and patting each others asses — in that purely platonic ‘atta-boy way.

Saturday afternoon we drove up to Olympia, dinner with the gf’s folks, and out to Jake’s on 4th. A recap of my times at Jake’s on 4th:

• Time 1 (NOV07): Hammered on the town with S and the Bestie under the assumption that we wouldn’t see anyone we knew from Seattle and low and behold, a tap on the shoulder revealed what was then an insanely amazingly hot sexy beautiful woman that I’d lusted after for months… who became my now insanely amazingly hot sexy beautiful girlfriend that I lust for on the daily.
• Time 2 (FEB08): A night of dancing. Was pretty much empty. Fun to re-live initial ‘meeting’ with the gf.
• Time 3 (MAR08): A night of identity crisis.

Let me explain. I like to dance, but my leg was hurting and I decided to sit it out this time. I did, however, take advantage of the opportunity to adequately enjoy libations and watch my lady dance with her friends.

Then it started. First, the bartender was a complete ass to me when I asked him what he was putting in my gingerale.  Seattle is the only place I’ve ever been to where gingerale is a rare commodity. I want a Jack and Ginger. You know – GINGERALE. It’s made by Schwepps and Canada Dry. It comes in a can. No mixing required. When I asked him what he was putting in my gingerale he quipped back at me “THIS is how you MAKE a GINGERALE”. Okay, buddy. Maybe save some of the 8 ball for after work.

Then the mean-mugging on the dance floor came. I’m trying to figure out why I’m having such an off-night. Surely, I’m not being inappropriate. I’m sitting quietly smiling at my girlfriend. A woman walks up to me and asks if I’m alright. Sure, I am. I’m fine. Then she proceeds to tell me that it’s alright, and her husband ‘had a hard time the first few times he came too’.

*SCREEEEEEEEEEECH*

I smile, because I appreciate her gesture. She walks away. And then I realize – they all think I’m a straight boy. Two brain synapse pop off one after another.

1. This is fuckin fantastic! I am totally passing.

2. How RUDE! I make it a point to never *try* to make someone feel uncomfortable. Yet, here I am, with everyone assuming I’m this straight redneck boy who is entertaining my bisexual girlfriend.

Let me set the record straight. I know that it’s easy to assume that we’ve talked extensively about what type of household we are and whether we’re ready for the added responsibility and companionship. We have figured out scheduling, have taken time to sleep on it, packed ourselves into the car with some bottles of water and a blanket—- and now we have come to the lesbian pound to pick out the perfect 3rd for our bed! That one looks good, ohhh… not from this angle. What about that one?? No. Bad Shoes. That one? Not lively enough. That one? Yes yes! Get her! oooooo she’s taken already, we’ll have to see if that lady leaves without her. Is there a waiting list??

Please.

I’m just out – having a good time with my girlfriend. And, honestly, for a community that so often feels excluded and vocally so, to display the same attitudinal negativity towards a ’straight’ person, is ridiculous. We’ve all encountered the wasted asshole who thinks he’s going to infiltrate the lesbians and mount his trophy first in the bed and then on his myspace and various other social platforms, but unless someone is really being aggressive, I think it begs for some tolerance. The same tolerance you seek when you’re out in the masses. The same tolerance I do my best when I’m out to ensure you’re receiving.

Think about it.

It seems presumptuous and slightly narcissistic to just assume that you want to know about me, but being that this is my first entry, I will entertain the idea. I’m in my early 30’s. I sold my soul to protect people’s egos for a living. I’m an absolute geek. I drink socially. I smoke anti-socially. I have great roommates, an amazing dog, and I just remembered that my girlfriend’s panties are stuffed in my underwear…where she put them this morning as I left the house as a fun Friday sexy gesture. It’s 8:30AM, and yes – this is a normal day for me.

8:41AM. Ham and cheese croissant, check. Coffee check. Craigslist missed connections, check. Another rainy day here. Surprise surprise. Thankfully, my window provides a plethora of entertainment on any given day, at any given time.
I see other people working in the building across from me, namely a man who waves his hands around wildly. At first, I thought perhaps he was some maniacal overly-zealous boss. Upon second glance, I realized that he was, in fact, signing. To this day, 6 months later, I still have no idea if there’s an interpretor hidden behind the blocking brick or a webcam.

But by far, the most fascinating thing for me, is to just look down on the sidewalks and watch how people interact (or fail to) with their world.

And that they never look up to see me smirking at their puzzled-that-they’re-failing negotiations with the tall slender green box marked with a P (or screaming after the ticket-bitch), adjustment of packages, dislodging of wedgies, coffee-spills, alley urinations, near bicycle-biffs, bumper tapping, late-for-work hauling, bustling, phone call having.

Or smiling.

Or curious.

Or thinking about the fact that I could easily sniper them off from this vantage point.

Never.