passing as a child, taking it like a man

I had my first passing-and-trying-to-use-my-ID experience the other day. I was buying cigarettes at the Quick Stop by my house. I asked for a pack, and the guy gave me the most skeptical look in the world, and said, "Uh...can I see some ID?" I handed it to him, and he stared at it for about two minutes, then scanned it twice. Then he gave me kind of sheepish look and sold me the cigarettes. I just worry about this happening at bars. "Excuse me son, did you really think you could get away with stealing your butch sister's ID?" Oh well.

I think I did a pretty good job of getting through my low-testosterone slump. Sure, I bought what Mo would describe as a "pity burrito", but no other wild purchases and very few morbid thoughts. As I mentioned, it's hard to be sad with Thanksgiving coming up.

Also as mentioned, I'm going down to Arcata with the dude to visit some friends of his from home. I don't think I've ever been introduced as anyone's "boyfriend" before. Deliciously awesome on a number of levels.

Babe-raham Lincoln

Over this past week I got some stray facial hairs in my "Abe Lincoln Area" aka the rest of my potentially beardable face besides the mustache, which was a thrill. But I shaved 'em off, because I can't really stand to look scraggly like that. I can be patient.

As far as T changes in personality, I've been noticing that I'm more likely to, or at least be tempted to, yell things out car windows or say snarky conversational things to cashiers. Do men generally feel like they have this social license moreso than women, or am I just more confident to yell things because I'm more confident in general? When we were dropping people off downtown in Portland this weekend, some drunk people ran across the crosswalk and I yelled "You drunks! You crazy, crazy drunks!" There was also a man with the tag still on his umbrella, and I wanted to alert him to the fact as we drove by, but I refrained.

I played a show at a trans/gender/queer art show last night. It was awkward enough because it was held at the non-profit where I work (the "stage" was right in front of my office door) but also weird to hang out with the Eugene young trans mostly female bodied/identified crowd. They're all so nice, even overly nice, and it peeves me a bit. I felt a little bad about singing Party and Bullshit, but I guess it was okay. On the one hand I wish I had more trans friends, but I think I'm realizing I'm not into hanging out with people just because we're both trans. And the straighties in Eugene aren't so bad.

I've been noticing that I get into a little depressive slump the last few days before my next shot, i.e. now through Thursday. I don't know if it's happening at the moment--I'm wildly tired and at work, which wouldn't be good for anyone's mood--but I'm going to make a concerted effort (as Joanie Baloney would say) to be on the up and up. After all, Thanksgiving and California vacation with the manfriend are just around the corner. Wines and turkey and pies, and then beers and sandwiches and drugs. What more could I ask for?

Whatezvs.

Needless to say, SF was the bomb. I did all sorts of terrible tourist things, like buy a copy of Tales of the City in Books Inc. and pose with it in front of the Castro Theater. I hiked to the top of Corona Heights Park and picked a buttercup and pressed it in the pages of the Maupin book. I'm ridiculous.

And now I'm back in the Euge, back at work, back with cold feet--that is, literal cold feet, because the damp here doesn't seem to get the "do not disturb" sign implied by two pair of smartwool socks.

I had a pretty severe allergic reaction to Ben's pet rats last night (Black Mamba and something else, the poor little dears.) I was having a lot of trouble breathing, and I kind of feel like I had some small seizure or something, and so work is even more arduous. I don't know what this has to do with gender, but I just needed to complain.

I do feel my voice actually changing, though, to the point that it's slightly deeper in everyday conversation. A song I started writing two weeks ago already doesn't need a capo. I'm trying to sing a bunch to keep my pitch semi-reasonable, but it's a small battle.

My mustache tufts are getting rougher, and are spreading inward. Soon I'll be 'stache-capable.

I shot myself in the butt for the first time last Thursday, and it wasn't so horrible. I was given a few glasses of white wine on the train by some young men from Omaha, and when I got home I, with a certain amount of trepidation and excessive use of alcohol swabs, injected successfully with surprisingly little pain. And boy, the rush I felt afterward. You kids should try it some time.

The usual trangsty musings and a brief record review.

The mannishness is slow coming, I suppose, despite any hair tufts or disconcerting zits. I got she'd by four different people within an hour of waking up, and I teared up this weekend at the Finnish national anthem. At least I'm comforted by the thought that all this silly inbetweenness is on its way out.

I'm also getting excited about the fashion freedom I'll have once deliberately trying to pass won't be as much of a concern. I watched "The Legend of Leigh Bowery" for the third time last night, and Mr. Bowery is still virtually my god, or at least my patron saint. It got me excited about clothes as art, as madness, as something horrifying and challenging and shocking, and not just something to make you look pleasant and respectable. I used to be more that way with clothes, but realizing that I needed to be read as male kind of put a lid on that. Egh. Sequins here I come. I at least want to glue some tiny mirrors onto my bike helmet.

But I'm going on vacation to the bay area this weekend, and I plan to somehow get a taste of the trans-appreciative culture that's been denied me. Or just get drunk at gay bars with my straight brother. Either one.

Completely incidentally, I also keep listening to music made by my good friend and all-around kind person Will Stratton. He just released a new album, the bemusedly titled "No Wonder," on Stunning Models on Display, and it's quite good. For those unfamiliar, he does a deliciously comforting take on the usual soft-voiced well-trained clever-tongued singer-songwriter. His songs, and the tracks "Vile Bodies," "Who Will," and the title track, especially, are like some thin but impossibly warm blanket in a wood-paneled basement apartment: completely tangible, familiar, oddly comforting. The "Vile Bodies" EP has some pretty swell stuff, too.

The Life and Daylight Savings Times of Rustycakes.

Oh, what a weekend. Even now there's a new roundup of T-news!

-It may just be the Pall Malls, but I think as of this morning my voice is really starting to take the plunge. Even just humming scales to myself in my office just now, I've lost a few upper notes (and some dignity, apparently, if I'm humming scales to myself in my office.) My throat somehow feels bassier, even if it doesn't totally sound it yet. This weekend when I was playing a song I wrote just a few months ago, there were a couple notes where I had to emphatically switch into a less-than-ideal falsetto. Ben said he thought he saw the trace of an adam's apple, but I think he, too, is humoring me.

-The little wisps of dyke-mustache I had pre-T are starting to build up steam. I kind of have to shave every day or every other day, especially because it would be super awkward to just have this stubbly right-above-the-corners-of-my-mouth (is there an actual word for that part of your body?) In any case, here's hoping it spreads. I wouldn't want my facial hair options to be limited to the fu manchu.

-I almost got in an argument with my mom. I never would have been assertive enough to even almost get in an argument with my mom before. But she was talking about how this whole utilizing medical resources business is "unnatural" and that if there was a way I could live without it I should really try, and I almost lost it. As in, I said, "I don't want to argue!" a little to loudly in the Chinese restaurant and then said that she wasn't going to change my mind about anything and this is really important to my ability to live a fulfilling life and I'm not obligated to educate her about trans issues or explain anything to her. Usually I just start crying our don't say anything. Woo for saying what I mean!