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Tuesday, 10 May 2011 (a crashed car with a history) 4:09pm Worked out with Yvette this morning. Rita is still elsewhere, which is a shame, because I kinda wanted to tell her about the Fox Hunt. I think she'd appreciate it. Marta's staying over tonight—she's also going to be recoloring her spumoni-toned hair with 'N Rage Twisted Teal, which I'm excited about—and tomorrow night she's in a big fancy reading. Thursday night we're planning on going to a piercing class at the Citadel, Friday I'm on my own, and Saturday night is Frolic. As I say, it's good to have things to look forward to. 7:11pm Ugh. My throat's beginning to hurt. This can't be good. | ||
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Monday, 9 May 2011 (write your initials with mine) 2:17pm At My Desk at Greenhouse. I've called in my long-overdue hormone refill, meaning I'll probably spend much of Wednesday or Thursday at the godsdamned San Francisco General Hospital Pharmacy, made all the more scarier by the sea of red tape in which I'll have to swim to get my Healthy San Francisco renewal acknowledged in their system. I suppose it might not be as bad as it was last year, but I really have no reason to believe that'll be the case. Marta and I have also made plans to have dinner with Davina and Mouse next week—dinner, followed by some Talking that Mouse had originally suggested back in March, Talking that was indefinitely deferred to an unknown time which has turned out to be now—and we're looking into the possibility of a Los Angeles trip in July to hang out with Melissa and Howard. It's good to have things to look forward to. | ||
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Sunday, 8 May 2011 (burying the dead so quickly) 2:59pm At Borderlands. Somehow managed to get a table with an outlet (and just enough 3G reception to tether) either in spite of or because of Sunday Streets outside. Marta's not with me like she usually is at this point on Sundays, since she had other things to attend to. But we've been together since late Friday night, and even managed to squeeze in a bit of afternoon sex today, so it all works out. And it's been a busy enough weekend already. The Fox Hunt festivities yesterday morning were supposed to start at ten in the morning, but we didn't even get out of San Francisco until around eleven, laregly because because I didnt't get out of Cinematic Titanic on Friday night until nearly midnight, and I absolutely refused to stress about getting to the hunt on time. As it was, arrived at the Venue—a "clothing-optional resort" in the South Bay, what B-movie buffs tend to think of as nudist colonies around half past noon. We missed the first couple hunts, but that was okay. To get into the Venue at all we had to stop and register at the front office, right next to the security gate. Thankfully, the reservation I'd called in a couple weeks ago actually went through, and after the gate raised so I could park Phoebe in the lot, a middle-aged, pink-haired dyke with drove us up in her car to the "staging area" where the actual hunt was taking place. She was a bit gruff at first, but warmed to Marta and I as the day progressed. The Hunt's headquarters were at a big luxury cabin a ways up the hill, and it felt a little weird when we first arrived since everyone was upstairs on the balcony watching intently (and excitedly, it seemed) as Marta and I got out of the car. The immediate general consensus was yay! more bunnies!, which became a running theme through the day as I tried to explain to people as non-dickishly as possible that I'm actually a cat, not a bunny, but it seldom worked. And I don't think the ears Marta made for me using the awesome purple fur are especially bunny-like—certainly they're no more a rabbit color than a cat color— but they're perhaps not quite identifiable as cat ears, and as she pointed out, since she's more explicitly a bunny they probably concluded that I must be one too. For the most part I didn't argue the point with anyone, because, whatever. I'm not unaccustomed to people misjudging my identity, and it still beats the hell out of being told I'm an otter. We also got told several times over the course of the day that Marta and I are incredibly cute together, and that much is true. Marta didn't take any pictures of me, though the picture I took of her in the BDSM MegaYurt is one of my favorite pictures of her ever, and plenty of pictures were taken of her and I together at the hunts themselves by the professional-seeming photographers who were along for the ride. People who didn't want to have their pictures taken where given bright orange ribbons to put around their arms, though I expect there'll be some creative Photoshopping happening. The hunts went more or less like this: the prey—two foxes (including Smash) and a lemur in the first hunt we were there for, and just the foxes in the second hunt—were given a five-minute head start into the woods above the cabin, and then the groups of hunters went off after them. We chose to just tag along as observers, rather than than doing any actual hunting, which would have involved circling and/or grabbing the prey, which we weren't quite prepared to do. (Maybe at the next Hunt one, which we're told will be in September.) Mostly for us it just involved walking around in the woods, which was nice, and yay exercise and all that. A couple people recognized me from other contexts, including a pony trainer whom I'd been negotiating with in late '07 when Vash and I were attending munches and starting to get into the scene. She'd seemed enthusiastic at first about becoming my trainer, and then after Vash and I broke up, suddenly she was all sorry can't do it have a good life plzkthxbai. Pure coincidence, I'm sure. And there were other ghosts around, and stories of ghosts (at one point I was tempting to raise my hand and say say, speaking of her, do you know how she got that name? funny story...). Some will manifest eventually, I'm sure. For as much as the furry world seems to be comprised of gay men, the animal role-play world is more girl and/or hetero-couple heavy—we didn't see a single pair of gay men. Which is pretty much how I remember it from back in the day. Also, we discovered that The Dog and Pony Show is still going on, though under a different name. I'm not so crazy about the new name, but it does make "The Last Dog and Pony Show" as a title a bit prophetic, if by a couple years premature In any event, we may be volunteering at the event his year. Or not. Finally, after a remarkably good lunch at the restaurant, noodlety! The Venue's whole raison d'etre is non-chlothedness, so we got nekkid and made our way to the hot tub, which was already filled with people from our group, including all the other transsexuals—there were, unless I miscounted, four of us in the tub at the same time. And it was probably where we interacted the most with the quote-regular-unquote Venue people, the ones who were just there to swim or sunbathe or play volleyball in the pool whilst nekkid, and perhaps were not thrilled about all the furries and people wearing kitty ears and whatnot who'd invaded for the weekend. I knew there'd been some controversy about our presence at all, that it went against the "family-friendliness" of the Venue. Because, you know. I have to say, that part overall was quite lovely, the hot tub and all, if there'd been more time it would have been nice to swim. I can see Marta and I going back again on a non-event weekend to make a more leisurely day of it. At one point we couldn't help but notice that a helicopter was hovering overheard far longer than it might have needed to. I imagine that happens a lot. Then came the High Tea at four o'clock. We were a little unsure if we were going to get to do that or not, since while we knew it was an additional ten bucks, we had not known that we were supposed to buy separate tickets for it online beforehand, since there wasn't anything about it on the main website. We did manage to get in, though—I think the fact that one of the organizers of the Tea used to be in a band that had played Wicked Messenger helped, though it didn't do too much to make our persistent feeling of aw, c'mon, let us play too! go away. (It was a feeling that was difficult to shake for much of the day for both of us, Clare moreso than I.) So we were all sitting at long tables on the back porch of the main cabin—which very few people were actually allowed inside of other than bathroom visits—being served tea 'n crumpets 'n fancy cheeses 'n tiny sammiches and stuff. It was actually really nice, though it was it also hard not to feel a little tiny snubbed by the Tea's actual host at one point, as the website had asked for the guests, if so inclined, to bring entertainment: "to offer up a story, a poem, a dance routine, a song, or whatever else strikes their fancy.". When she asked if anyone did bring anything, I raised my hand (I brought along Unthology to read "The Last Dog and Pony Show," because I'm just that fuckin' clever!), she acknowledged that I'd raised my hand, and the entire subject was dropped. Okay, then. The Tea was more or less over by six, and even though there'd been no shortage of food, I still wanted to get an actual meal at the restaurant. Along for the ride was a girl who Marta and I had hung out with at the Tea, a girl who also identified as a cat—her and I bonded over that fairly quickly—and it became obvious that the three of us were going to spend the rest of the evening together. I didn't anticipate that we were going to actually play together on any level, even just making out, largely because neither Marta nor I were particularly attracted to her. But it still felt nice to have made a new friend and not feel quite so much like the outsiders. Of course, San Francisco is still an insidously small town even when you're at a nudist colony in the South Bay, so we had some mutual friends and acquaintances, and as we were having dinner she began to seriously open up about the emotional fallout from an encounter with one of those acquaintances. She even admitted at one point that it probably qualified as TMI, since it inolved secks and all, but I wasn't surprised it was happening, mainly because people have this weird tendency to open up to me, even slash especially when they discover I'm a memoirist (and haven't received the memo that I habitually reveal other people's secrets on my goddamned blog). In any event, I was as supportive but non-opinionated as possible, and making sure not to actually say anything bad about the acquaintance. Or good, for that matter. Or anything that qualified as a personal opinion about them at all. I may be an idiot, but I'm not a fucking idiot. (The rape joke I made as a callback to an earlier callback didn't sitover very well with her, but it made Marta laugh, and that's what matters most to me.) The evening's climactic play party in the BDSM MegaYurt was a little on the anticlimactic side, at least for us. The other option was the Venue's own dance party that evening, flyers for which were on just about every surface, and which some of the regulars invited Marta and I to attend, which I took to be an admirable attempt at solidarity between the long-warring nudist and furry factions. And the dance was equally intriguing, but we were there for the Fox Hunt and all its attendant activities. And the main reason the play party felt anticlimatic was because we couldn't stay very long anyway, still having an hour-plus drive back to San Francisco ahead of us. As I'd suspected, the girl pretty much went off on her own, and Marta and I played with each other, mostly noisily making out on the floor, which we're very good at. sometime after midnight Another not-especially-well-attended Bad Movie Night, this time for Color of Night. We've been losing more than we've been winning lately, but that's how it goes sometimes. | ||
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Saturday, 7 May 2011 (a fertilizing rather than a destructive event) 5:11pm Marta in the (equipped but currently unused) BDSM MegaYurt at the Fox Hunt. Wearing dresses is still a newish thing for her, but as I've always suspected, when she wants to, she can rock the "fashion model in the sixties look" hard. And she has worked as a model before, which comes as no surprise. | ||
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Friday, 6 May 2011(don't worry, that guy's gotta see us) 11:22am Bootcamp this morning, and now at Greenhouse at My Desk. This will be another productive month, it will. There's a story which has been making the rounds online about Japanese mind-controlled kitty ears, and considering how often it's getting forwarded to me, I can only assume it makes a lot of people think of me. Which I take as high praise. It's good to be associated with the right things. 2:45pm Okay, done for the day. Heading now into the Castro for Cinematic Titanic. The doors don't open until half past six and the show itself begins at seven, but I don't have much better to do with myself, and at least getting there super-early increases my chances of both getting good parking and a good place in line. 5:10pm It's been a categorically beautiful week in San Francisco, and I haven't speen much time outside in it. And now I'm standing in line outside the Castro Theater, and not only is the temperature dropping, it's windy as all hell, and my skirt keeps wanting to blow up. I really, really hate that. Part of the appeal of this sort of skirt is that they're designed to keep their shape and stay down, but not in a wind tunnel like this. It's seriously frustrating, and I'm having to hold it bunched against my leg, and I have over an hour to wait. Godsdamnit. On the plus side, I'm getting in for free. As a consolation prize for not getting to do the sound for Cinematic Titanic this time around, Jim was given a couple of passes which he in turn gave to me, because he knew it's more my kind of show. Really, it just goes to demonstrate how blessed my life is in a lot of ways. I do acknowledge and appreciate that, even at times when I'm mostly just feeling irritation at the weather. 6:51pm Finally got in, snagged my favorite seat, got my hand stamped, scurried down the street to the nearest taqueria to get a burrito, then smuggled it back in. There'd been talk about having dinner with Tenebris and his mate before the show, but the timing didn't work out at all. Nor did sitting together, since they prefer to be up close and I'm of course, married to my favorite seat in the back row. But KrOB arrived unexpectedly and is sitting with me, so I don't feel like quite as much of a loser I might have otherwise. 9:22pm The show tonight is a double feature, and between movies they had those of us who were sticking around for both shows wait in the lobby. Our little group was me, KrOB, Tenebris and a Bad Movie Night regular by the name of Goodman. It's always fascinating when circles intersect, and after Tenebris went back inside the theater, Goodman asked me where we'd met, especially since the two of them had been bonding over movies. I said it was at a monthly furry party at Tenebris's place, not a club night like Frolic at The Stud, but a movie/game event. Goodman nodded, but didn't bat an eye otherwise. He's one of the few straight boys at Bad Movie Night who's never given me shit about wearing a tail, and he was one of the people who sent me the story about the Japanese mind-controlled kitty ears, so I think he's long since figured me out. | ||
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Thursday, 5 May 2011 (knowing your enemy) 3:41pm Slightly more productive day today, but not by much. And, again, a it'll be a Thursday night not doing what I've been doing last several Thursday nights. Most annoyingly, a couple of hetero kids (different from last time, at least) have planted themselves on the couch to the right of My Desk and they're loud and they're in my peripheral vision and it's completely messing up what little concentration I can muster in the first place. I'm sure they think I'm the interloper, and they're probably right on several levels. Everything is off, everywhere. 7:42pm I'm not spending the evening at The House of Boxed Steam tonight as I usually do on Thursdays, but Ilene's home and I'm home and we're both online, so there's that. I've also been going through my closet to see what fits now, because narcisissm is clearly the answer to my problems. | ||
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Wednesday, 4 May 2011 (going fetal) 10:27am Bootcamp this morning with a substitute who may or not become the permanent substitute when the regular instructor leaves next month, took Marta to work, and I'm now at My Desk at Greenhouse. Feeling less sleep-deppy today, so I'm hoping that'll translate into actual work being done. I'm also glad that it's an incredibly beautiful day, because that should mean fewer people will come upstairs into the loft area. It's mine, damnit! 2:50pm It doesn't take much to poison a well. And it's something of a specialty of mine. 4:11pm Just got my first official To-Do List item on my SJSU student page: the Student Certification Form for financial aid. Exciting! (I'm choosing "excitement" as my default enotion rather than "terror.") 7:12pm Rare night alone at home, not to mention a Wednesday without at least having dinner with Marta. Feels very strange. | ||
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Tuesday, 3 May 2011 (the last time we spoke) 12:04pm Ugh. Sleep deprivation. I worked with out with Yvette this morning without having really gotten enough sleep last night (hence the dep), and at I'm now at My Desk at Greenhouse, attempting something resembling productivity. It's not really going very well, especially since there's been some snags in my work-work. I've been working with a new person besides the marketing guy, and the new person is not quite so communicative and/or open to my suggestions. And when I predicted that a lousy naming convention would cause some problems, the new person just brushed if off. Then the problems happened exactly as I predicted, and on their side, not mine. Alas. Meanwhile, My Agent has sent off Bottomfeeder to a new publisher, and we're still waiting to hear back from another. Whenever it goes to a new publisher, though, I alwyas look at their roster, especially the last names that start with the letter "C." Helps the inevitable fantasizing, and I must admit, I wouldn't mind seeing my name on a list that also includes Roger Corman and Dennis Cooper. Wouldn't mind that at all. 3:11pm Okay, that's about as much as I can muster. Heading out into the world. Gotta stop by the old NakedSword office to pick up a package (taking Sister Edith up on her office to have large things and things which require signatures to be delivered there), and then to pick up Marta from her evening job downtown. 3:42pm Oooh! And I just got a call from Dennis Uniform Manufacturing, saying the skirt I ordered last week has arrived. Good thing I'm heading out direction anyway. 5:50pm Picked up the new skirt, hung out with Sister Edith for a while, and am now waiting outside Marta's office. The bouncer in the store next door keeps giving me odd looks. I certainly can't be the oddest thing he's seen around here. 6:01pm Just got flirted at by a couple of (to indulge horribly transphobic language, because I hate myself and all) street trannies. One older, one younger, a Jedi and her Padawan. I was trying to keep to myself, just waiting for Marta to come out, not in the mood to talk to anyone about anything, but they were having none of it. I was looking in a different direction without trying to be obviously looking in a different direction, headphones on, and they complimented my hair. I eventually turned around, as casual-seeming as I could muster, and they said it again. I obligingly took off my headphones, and they complimented my hair again. I thanked them, hoping that would be it, and the older one—a bit of a controlled-substance casualty, as a disproportionate number of older trannies in this town are—asked me a question I couldn't begin to comprehend. I faked my way through an answer, then she asked me where I'm from. I said: here. san francisco. She replied: i haven't seen you around at all! To which both me and her Padawan replied almost in unison: well, come on, it's a big city. To which I thought but did not add: plus, i try to avoid the tenderloin when at all possible. i'm horribly classist that way. The Padawan then said to me: we have similar styles! And it was true, as she was very much gothed out, in full-on battlegear and also sporting fake dreads. I complimented her on her hair (overdue, I admit) and she practically blurted out: wanna hang out with us? I thanked them for the offer, but declined by saying I was meeting with someone, which had the advantage of being true, the now-overdue Marta. A few moments of silence through which they continued to stare at me intently, I said that it was really nice to meet them, and started to make motions to put my headphones on. They nodded and moved along. 6:07pm A very well-dressed, respectable-looking kid just asked me if I'd like some 'shrooms, calling it fungus, as though that qualified as code. 6:11pm Oh, thank goodness. Marta's out at long last, and we're heading to Black Light District. | ||
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Monday, 2 May 2011 (blinking lights (for me)) 5:13pm It was, in fact, a nice day outside yesterday, and after I left Greenhouse I headed into the Mission, and Marta and I spent a bit of it in Dolores Park, because that's where you go when you're in the Mission and it's a nice day. She also took in the waist of my new skirt a little bit, making it fit perfectly, and also giving me yet another good reason not to let my stomach expand again. We got dinner from Cancun at ate in the backyard of The Dark Room, though she didn't stick around for Bad Movie Night, because she never does. Thankfully, we got a decent crowd for The Last Boy Scout. (Getting listed in SFist Tonight probably helped, and it always strokes my ego like nobody's business when liberally quote from my writeups.) The news about Osama Bin Laden's death came through during the preshow at about a quarter to seven, and I'd like to think I was one of the first people to make a tasteless joke about it in front of an audience, when we actually started the show at about a quarter past eight: ladies and gentlemen, i'm proud to report that our long national nightmare is over: the body of bruce willis has been found! Because it's the start of Bruce Willis Month, y'see. I'm clever like that. And no gym this morning, even though I really do want to start going to Damiel's abs class again, because a bunch of us hung out in the lobby after the show, mostly going through the best Tweets about the Bin Laden's death and everything around it. 2011 is what 2011 is. Myself, I can't get happy about anyone's death, even of a national boogeyman like Bin Laden. I just can't. Maybe it's because I'm an atheist or whatever—I've noticed that Christians (Tom comes to mind) usually don't have any problem cheering on killing—but my personal sense of morality finds bloodlust distasteful, even when it's wrapped up in notions of patriotism or justice. So, no gym this morning, and no Greenhouse, either, as I decided to take today as a much-needed housecleaning day. That, and reblondifying and repurpling my bangs. All of these missions were accomplished. More could have been done on the house, of course, and my vacuum cleaner needs attention that I don't know how to give it (I keep meaning, and keep forgetting, to have Marta take a look at it, because she's smart about these things in a way that I am not), but enough got done that I feel good about it, and my hair looks great. I'm at Borderlands now with Marta, because she asked me to come out here to write and then have dinner with her, and that's not a request I've ever turned down. We're doing a lot more of this sort of thing than we used to, spending evenings together that we wouldn't have otherwise, and I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm finding a get a lot lonelier at home a lot faster than I used to, and it was always more her schedule and obligations than mine that kept us from spending more time together. And now that doesn't seem to be quite as much of a problem as it used to be. | ||
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Sunday, 1 May 2011 (marie floating over the backyard) 1:21pm Arrived at Greenhouse at nine as planned and having been working ever since. I do keep hearing that it's a nice day outside. After we hit Fabric Outlet to pick up some of the purple last night, Marta and I parted ways. I ate dinner at The Dark Room, then headed into a unfamiliar-ish part of town for a monthly furry party. I'd been corresponding with the host, Tenebris, and he made me feel welcome, which I appreciated, especially since it felt a little weird going alone, without Marta or Ilene, the latter of whom went out dancing last night, and of course not getting to see her until gods only know when kinda stings enough as it is, but going out dancing on Saturday nights had become a semi-regular thing that I was really enjoying, and now I don't know when, and it just makes me all feel so helpless). As I was taking off my boots in the entryway, Tenebris kindly warned me that it was thus far just a group of gay men, and I would be the only girl. I laughed and assured him that I'm not unfamiliar with the demographic. It was a group of about ten men sitting around a table, just starting to play a card game called Killer Bunnies. I couldn't tell if anyone recognized me from Frolic, but one of the younger ones (in a shark t-shirt) very much recognized my Ramona Flowers bag, making him the first person to actally identify as such. Out loud, anyway. At first I declined to join in on the card game, but then I realized that it would defeat about three-quarters of the purpose of attending. So I joined in, not really comprehending the rules very well (I don't have a brain for games) but participating all the same, the ice slowly breaking, I think. More games were played and more people arrived through the evening, including another girl, one who paid me no mind so I paid her as much. I did chat quite a bit with Tenebris and Sharkboy, the former of whom asked me how long I've been in the fandom (which is what the furry world seems to be referred to from the inside, the "fandom," a word choice which I find fascinating) and though heavens know there are pictures of me gratuitously wearing kitty ears dating back to 2002, I think it can most accurately date it back to The Dog and Pony Show in 2007. With a bit of a not-entirely-voluntary hiatus for the three years that followed. Tenebris himself was there, but doesn't remember me. No reason why he should. There were a couple pronoun slips here and there, especially while we were playing Werewolf. I think they were more based on the fact that it's just weird to have a girl in the presence than anything else—the other girl mostly kept to herself in the teevee room, and a lovely teevee room it was with a ginormous screen, but I didn't spend much time in there because someone put on Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist, and, yeah, no thank you—and both Sharkboy and Tenebris were quick to correct them which I appreciated. And by the end of the evening, one of the guys who'd seemed especially uncertain about me was stroking my tail as I was standing and talking to someone else, and if that's not the ice breaking, I don't know what it is. The person I was talking to as my tail was being stroked (which I was only conscious of because I saw it in my peripheral vision, since of course it's inanimate fabric attached with a binder clip to the back of my skirt and thus completely lacking in nerve endings) was the boy who'd danced with Ilene at the last Frolic and led her down into the rabbit hole that I'd so wanted to follow, though he admitted that he doesn't remember seeing me there, which of course played directly and quite innocently into my whole "invisible friend of the hot girl" anxiety. I know they've been emailing—he gave me his card as well, saying that he makes fursuit bits, and might be able to help me with something—and that they'd made plans to get together for tea at least once, so I guess I must have come up in conversation enough for him to recognize me, and he also already knew (as I recently learned) that Ilene's not going to be at the next Frolic. And I was still having a very strong sense of me too! me too! which hasn't gone away since that night, and hinted that even though Ilene won't be there, I'd be happy to, as it were, walk where she walked. (so, you know, for whatever it's worth, next time, if you want to dance with me like you did with ilene last time, i wouldn't mind that at all, especially not if there's cuddle-pile possibilities...) But I have no idea to what extent that he picked up on that, between timing and distractions and my perpetual difficulty in expressing wants in verbal communication. Not to mention I had one foot out the door. Everyone else was relocating to the teevee room to watch what Sharkboy was promising to "the best werewolf movie ever," though I didn't catch the name, and it's probably just as well. On the one hand I felt a little loser-ish to be leaving so soon to go home to go to bed (which again brought to the forefront of my brain the fact that Ilene was out dancing somewhere), but on the other, work needs to be done, even if that work is sitting at my laptop mashing keys to make squiggles appear on the magical screen in front of me. It's the path I've chosen. 3:03pm I'm informed that it continues to be a nice day outside. I'll go out into it eventually, at least to go to the Mission for Bad Movie Night. | ||
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