Calliope
06-26-2007, 03:26 PM
See that picture? That was me:
Grass stained shirt and dusty knees.
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in,
They've got implants to remove;
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too.
[...]
I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived;
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won.
And he says "Oh no, oh no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I, we always talked;
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness -
"But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me,
And I was just like you."
(When I was a Boy - Dar Williams.)
I just hit the wall one morning (sure, there were a few psychological presagements along the way... I started to see all that "passing" was the world humoring me; I kept saying "I can't really afford all this maintenance") and, instead of shaving, lotioning, plucking, makingup and everything else, I simply stepped out. Like, naked, unplugged, raw.
Three days later, a beard (amazing how fast it all grows back!), a pair of carpenter blue jeans, T-shirt, vest, straw "cowboy" hat and, presto, a man (more or less). Neil Youngish. Got read as a woman once or twice nevertheless. Hilarious, that. Over at the chichi earring store, the lady sneers, "We don't have earrings for men." Oh, horrors (I flip my hair, revealing dangly earrings).
So, what happened to me?
I think I just got exhausted by all the upkeep. Not bourgeois enough to afford the hormones and all, it's all labor muscle in the morning. It really does feel liberating to stop worrying about so many appearance details every second of the day. I just couldn't bring myself (poor as hell) to go buying another expensive skirt or whatever to keep the buzz on.
Actually, quitting cigarettes occupies more of my current mental strain.
Went up to Haight-Ashbury the other day and looked around. Aha! Choosing one way or another seems just dumb. Back to the hippie: "Is it a boy or a girl?" Now I'm readying my sorry ass to leave Silicon Valley (blech!) and, alas, my kids (who are leaving my world, whatever I do, thanks to their vicious mother), and go do what I was so passionately gonna do ten years ago.
Join a commune (a particular commune) where all this gender jazz doesn't matter, matters by personal choice, whatever, there's deeper human stuff goin' on. Half the guys there in the photo look just like Butterfly Bill! The other half look like Andrea Dworkin! No one drives cars. No one yaks on a cell phone. No one votes Republican. No one stands in front of a cash register all day!
I'm there!
But - it was marvelous spending a full year en femme. (My New Member Introduction was June 30, '06.) A real education! A trip! Fascinating. Probably saved my life (considering the context [details mercifully omitted]). I wouldn't trade that year for anything!
And best wishes to everyone here - especially the people I actually liked !
Wanna play cricket on the green
Ride my bike across the stream;
Cut myself and see my blood
Wanna come home all covered in mud.
(I'm a Boy - The Who.)
Grass stained shirt and dusty knees.
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in,
They've got implants to remove;
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too.
[...]
I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived;
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won.
And he says "Oh no, oh no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I, we always talked;
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness -
"But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me,
And I was just like you."
(When I was a Boy - Dar Williams.)
I just hit the wall one morning (sure, there were a few psychological presagements along the way... I started to see all that "passing" was the world humoring me; I kept saying "I can't really afford all this maintenance") and, instead of shaving, lotioning, plucking, makingup and everything else, I simply stepped out. Like, naked, unplugged, raw.
Three days later, a beard (amazing how fast it all grows back!), a pair of carpenter blue jeans, T-shirt, vest, straw "cowboy" hat and, presto, a man (more or less). Neil Youngish. Got read as a woman once or twice nevertheless. Hilarious, that. Over at the chichi earring store, the lady sneers, "We don't have earrings for men." Oh, horrors (I flip my hair, revealing dangly earrings).
So, what happened to me?
I think I just got exhausted by all the upkeep. Not bourgeois enough to afford the hormones and all, it's all labor muscle in the morning. It really does feel liberating to stop worrying about so many appearance details every second of the day. I just couldn't bring myself (poor as hell) to go buying another expensive skirt or whatever to keep the buzz on.
Actually, quitting cigarettes occupies more of my current mental strain.
Went up to Haight-Ashbury the other day and looked around. Aha! Choosing one way or another seems just dumb. Back to the hippie: "Is it a boy or a girl?" Now I'm readying my sorry ass to leave Silicon Valley (blech!) and, alas, my kids (who are leaving my world, whatever I do, thanks to their vicious mother), and go do what I was so passionately gonna do ten years ago.
Join a commune (a particular commune) where all this gender jazz doesn't matter, matters by personal choice, whatever, there's deeper human stuff goin' on. Half the guys there in the photo look just like Butterfly Bill! The other half look like Andrea Dworkin! No one drives cars. No one yaks on a cell phone. No one votes Republican. No one stands in front of a cash register all day!
I'm there!
But - it was marvelous spending a full year en femme. (My New Member Introduction was June 30, '06.) A real education! A trip! Fascinating. Probably saved my life (considering the context [details mercifully omitted]). I wouldn't trade that year for anything!
And best wishes to everyone here - especially the people I actually liked !
Wanna play cricket on the green
Ride my bike across the stream;
Cut myself and see my blood
Wanna come home all covered in mud.
(I'm a Boy - The Who.)