Normal

No matter what font I choose, this font happens.

I'm reading a book called Normal, by Amy Bloom, whose name is inexplicably familiar to me, though I am not certain I have read anything else by her. It's about Female-To-Male transsexuals, heterosexual male crossdressers, and finally, the intersexed, commonly known as hermaphrodites.

Endless fascination. I could do about a hundred riffs on the subject(s), but I'll try to limit myself to some hopefully cogent thoughts, as the endless toil of phone answering again beckons. I'm also still pondering a talk I went to with Rachel last night about GLBT issues and religion.

I think perhaps a good entry point, therefore, would be the conversation I had with Randi, a Male-To-Female transsexual where I work. It wasn't really even a conversation. The box office was crowded and loud, and people were sort of going back and forth shouting things, as happens occassionally. Randi was across from me at Albert's (the treasurer, my de facto boss, and another story) chair, and one of the noisy men I have trouble keeping straight was saying some noisy thing with a lot of swearing in it. And Randi, a very slim, tall, well-but-a-little-tartily dressed African American woman (ok, tartily is not quite right. I say tartily because she's thinner than I am, and there's something about her sexuality that is sharp and metallic and therefore threatening, therefore to be distrusted), Randi looks up and says something to the effect of "Don't use that language, there are Christians in here, myself among them."

Without thinking about it, I look up, and catch Randi's eyes, and smile. I know the kind of smile it is, it's a sly one, a little grin, a you-and-me-are-in-this-joke-together smile. I get good results from that smile. People like to be together, and people like to be together at the exclusion of those who are not in the together at the moment. Jokes are the best for this. Jokes, between friends, are like a clannish sort of love. I like this smile, too. I feel worldly-wise and smart when I wear it, fun, my insecurities just a jacket that this keen minded, sharp, sparkling eyed person wears from time to time. Randi, however, does not appear to like this smile.

"Why're you laughing?" she says, smiling back in an uneasy way I am not used to from her; she always seems so confident. "I am a Christian." She's laughing too, but something in our exchange has gone wrong. "Don't laugh at me, you'll hurt my feelings."

"I know," I say, or "I believe you," or something, backpedeling as fast as I can. I know there is still a sly bubble of laughter in my voice, as much protection as her smile, I now see, may be. She looks suddenly vulnerable, her eyes want my approval, but don't want to ask for it. Oh no, I think, I've done something wrong. I, who wrote my whole thesis on religion and gender-crossing, do not even have the necessary skills to have a normal social exchange with the only real gender-crosser I know. What, exactly, I wonder, is the joke? What did I assume Randi and I were sharing, that we clearly were not?

First of all, I should admit that from the beginning, Randi made me nervous. There is really nothing masculine about her, in any overt sense. Yet, before I knew her history, every time she came into the office, something inside me said, man, or at least, not a woman like you. I thought I was being ridiculous and crazy. So her voice was a little deep, this was clearly unwarranted. But I couldn't relax. I was on tinterhooks every time she was in my presence. Of course, this could partially be explained by her outspoken, politically incorrect, and, in my ever-so-careful, academically-trained mind, often incoherent opinions on everything from race to sex to the war in Iraq. (She voted, if anyone is interested, for Bush, and she indicated this by gesturing to her hard-won genitalia.) However, whether or not this was a factor in my discomfort, I have to say that I felt a good deal of relief when it was finally stated clearly that she is a transsexual. I also felt clever, and intuitive, and generally grand about my own perception, especially when I just learned that Heather, a co-worker who I think is generally on top of things, did not know she was a transsexual at all.

All right, so, my always very limited relations with post-revelation Randi were, in my mind, a bit more comfortable than those with pre-revelation Randi, and gave me fodder with which to ponder (Do you ponder with fodder? Well.) all sorts of questions of femininity, hers and mine, and where they intersected and did not intersect. Apparently to the point where I had invented, completely unconsciously, a secret understanding we could inhabit together.

I'm worried about this, though not in a terrible way. After all, I doubt that Randi has given this moment a second thought. Just yesterday she made a comment to tall young Michael (explanations later) about how nice it was to have a "real man" in the office, that women "got nervous" without one and "these two foo-foos," (meaning, I assume, Albert and short older Michael) did not count. So, while I would still hate to be offensive to her, I assume that political correctness is not high on her list of priorities.

But I want to know. What was the joke? Is it (and should I be ashamed of this, if it is so?) that she is a sexual deviant, socially speaking, and therefore occupies a transgressive space in religion. I, on the other hand, am not a sexual deviant, or not in any obvious way, and not in any obvious way a deviant at all. The church has been happy to have me. Nonetheless, I am a mental deviant, and in some ways a spiritual deviant, from some of the doctrines of the church. So, somehow, her public and visible transgression enrolled her in a transgressive Christian club, we might say, which I myself am enrolled in, though without my consent, no one need ever know. And that was the joke, which somehow she was supposed to get? I think maybe I expected her to get it because her incongruity with mainstream Christianity is so obvious, and that... well, I'm not pleased about that. I would like to not make such assumptions, even if my society does (as though that is a breezy sort of task.)

I think it's something like that. That her difference is so public, and so others (namely me) can project a shared differentness, or use her as a place to locate difference.

I'm not sure this is readable, but I do think the ideas are interesting, so ask me if you don't get it and I'll try again.

Time to post this, since it is several days after I began.

Missing Things

I don't know why the font will never stay the way it was in my first entry. I liked that better.

I realized that my last entry was April 25, my uncle Alan's birthday. I do not remember for sure anymore how old he'd have been. Not 50 yet, I don't think.

Uncle Alan, I miss you. I imagine that you would teach me how to drive (maybe even standard or a truck), and sort out my romantic life or lack thereof. But that's just because you're missing, so I imagine you would fill in all my missing skills/needs.

What I really want to know is whether you would have liked the woman I've become as much as you liked the girl I was. You gave me the best compliment of all in valuing my opinion. I only wish you could hear my thoughts now. I miss yours, and your big hands shoving a pickle in my mouth when I least expected it.

Goodbye again. I wish I thought of you more, but sometimes it's strange how often I do. They're making a movie of Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. More on this later. I love you.

Not Irrelevant and Boring

Apparently the sight of a clock ticking away my lunch time does not make me a prolific blogger. It's rather more difficult to try to come up with coherent, thematically organized ideas when I'm sitting here at the keyboard than it is when I am just wandering around in my own brain. Perhaps it would be better if I simply posed a question, since after all I have to be back at the strenous task of phone operation in a mere five minutes. All right, let's see... this relates to something that's obsessing me lately, and I'll tell you more about that later. (Wow... it's weird how as soon as I write "you" I feel more comfortable, more as though my thoughts have grounding... but that was last post's topic, wasn't it?) My question, then: Why do we feel compelled to judge feelings and states of mind as more or less real after we have had them? I think you know what I mean... you're in love, perhaps, and then a year or so later you decide that could not have been actual love. Or you get mad, furiously, blind-with-rage kind of mad, and in a day or so you dismiss that feeling; something must have been wrong with you, hormonally out of balance or whatever. But other feelings of the past we cherish as involiable fact. I adored my babysitter; I was devasted by the death of a loved one. I wonder if this judgement is simply based on what is acceptable to your current self-image. It's a bit disturbing, and the kind of thing I tend to get bogged down in whenver I'm feeling uncomfortable with anything I'm feeling. Do you think this is something that matters, or is it just a way to avoid reacting as immediately to things as I might, were I not so concerned with the reality/validity of what I was feeling? I know that when I do react impulsively it always feels good at the time, but may be followed by intense guilt if the results are not so good.

Perhaps I should call this blog, Tell Me I'm Not Crazy After All Please, and That You're Like Me but Not So Like That I Am Irrelevant or Boring.

Perhaps everybody should.

(But not really really everybody... that would be too generic.)

;)

With a Little More Substance

I suppose it's time to make a real post to this journal that as of yet no one really knows exists. Nonetheless, I feel some amorphous obligation to say something beyond how much time it took to set up this blog. I'm mostly sort of curious as to why I have actually decided to set one up, or... what kind of space this will turn out to be. Like, will I be seduced into laying bare all sorts of dark and hidden secrets, because of the illusion of privacy laid over a very public forum? Or is it the very fact that it is not private but not... with any direct, specifically intended recipient that makes it appealing? I think that may be the case. I can be more forthright than I actually would be to a specific face... or, even if not more forthright, at least more.... long winded! And yet it isn't just me, there's at least a charming possibility of communion.

*chuckles* Which brings us straight back to my web address name, doesn't it? Transubstantiated chicken... named in honor of the fact that as a child I assumed that if I simply knew the words the priest said over the host at Mass, I too would be able to transubstantiate any food into the Body of Christ. I was quite captivated by the idea of presiding over entire dinners all made of the Real Presence, perhaps keeping this a secret from the other guests.

So that's a good place to end the beginning, I think. Welcome to my charming possibility. Tell me what you find, what you think. I can be the amorphous partner for you also. :)

Dear Heaven, that was complicated

But I can't tell you about it now, because I've spent so much time attempting to set this up that I am about to be late getting back from lunch. So I hope you will await my continuation with baited breath.