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Wednesday, 10 September 2003 (halo fourteen, track six) 9:00am You don't have to tell me everything. Just enough so I'll recognize you when we pass each other on the street. 11:52am A masseuse at the Waddell Clinic told me I have "a beautifully formed body." Feh. I'll bet she says that to all the thin trannies. I thanked her for the compliment, of course, even though I don't come close to believing it. The physical itself went well, though I wish I'd told the doctor not to worry about my modesty, that the kid gloves were not necessary. While it's far from "beautifully formed," I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of my body, either, especially not in front of a doctor. That's probably not the case with the majority of her transgendered patients. Some refuse to even let her touch them, as she put it, "down there." I'm pretty sure she that's a reference to the penis, which some of us pre-operative types like to pretend doesn't exist. Which is all fine and good, but a little counterproductive in terms of one's health. Evidently some of her more shy patients have gone on to develop problems which could have been prevented otherwise. Personally, I would have been more comfortable had she let me simply be naked rather than have to wear that damn paper gown. In any event, everything looks and sounds the way it should, my reflexes are fine, and since I don't seem to be having any kind of adverse reaction to the spiro, she's upping my dosage. She also remarked on the flatness of my stomach, saying that my abdomen was firm enough to make it difficult to feel my stomach for problems. Because of so many years of it being spherical, I still have a difficult time regarding my stomach as flat, even if for the first time in years I can finally look down and see the aforementioned unmentionable organ. (That would be the penis again.) Not that it's my favorite sight, but it's nice in principle to be able to do so. Since I'm all healthy and stuff I won't be seeing my doctor again for six months, though I'll be coming back to the Clinic next month to continue the Hepatitis shots I started last night. Prevention, not treatment, since I'm VD-free—although, now that I think about it, the HIV test seems to have slipped through the cracks again. Damn. Anyway, based on my current behavior I'm not at risk for Hep, but the vaccination is free, and these days there's never any telling where my life will lead. I was a little concerned at first that given the (improving) condition of my left arm the nurse might have some difficulty finding a vein, but he said they do it in the shoulder, not the vein. Of course. Duh. Just like every other vaccination I've ever had, and I'm always first in line at flu season. Needles are used for things other than bloodletting and heroin, after all. He told me that even if he were to be injecting into my arm, it wouldn't be too difficult, and that I'm one of the easier ones. That's entirely too plausible. It was two injections, one into each arm. Despite my lack of a desire to get pierced or tattooed, I don't have a problem with needles, so I wasn't particularly tense or nervous. I even got a slight case of the giggles beforehand, thinking of the vaccination scene from The Tall Guy. So I wasn't at all ready for how the first injection hit me. It wasn't painful beyond the negligible pinch of the needle breaking the skin, but it was intense: I involuntarily gripped the chair, and I could very much feel the vaccine entering the muscle. In my mind's vision of my body I suddenly became very aware of that muscle; it was the center of everything. I think I may have even shuddered. In a flash, I understood IV drug usage. Yes, it generally goes into a vein rather than the muscle, but Jesus Fucking Christ, if this was what it felt like to have a non-narcotic injected into your body— Except that it isn't, at least not as a rule, since the the other injection felt perfectly normal, no different from a flu shot at Walgreen's. The nurse told me that it was pretty much the same stuff into the same place in both arms, and there shouldn't have been any difference. Wow. Okay. Even now, that first arm still feels a little sore and the other one is fine. I have no idea why there was that reaction, but I'm kinda glad it happened.
Afterwards, over dinner at Ananda Fuara, Maddy I reminisced about whip-its.
It was coincidental.
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Tuesday, 9 September 2003 (the price that you pay) 9:17am The Boss has returned. He didn't pay me much mind yesterday, which was nice, but I'm on his radar today. He said he's still happy with my work, though I need to be a little more thorough in following up things with him, take the initiative more, et cetera. Oh. Yeah, I suppose I should. 10:28am Not only did I not read first in the open mic at K'vetch Sunday night, I missed the first half of the show. It was for a good cause, however: I was driving Lynnee around in a search for an amp and stuff so Silas Howard, ex-Tribe 8-er and co-writer/director of By Hook or By Crook, could show a rough cut of his new documentary about the late Kris Kovick. (She passed away before I showed up, but, as Tara says, she's part of my history.) We eventually wound up at the Tribe 8 practice space, which was pretty cool. It's always fascinating to see inside the creative process, even just in the form of their whiteboard with titles of new songs (including a few I've heard Lynnee sing a capella), chord changes, etc. Neat. Shortly after we left on our mission, Lynnee asked if Maddy and I were having problems. I was floored; he must have seen her and I earlier, standing up the sidewalk from Sadie's as we dealt with my latest transgression. It figures that he can spot dyke drama from a mile away. After all, he's made several dozen trips around blocks which are in entirely different zip codes than me, and lived to tell about it. It felt good to talk about it with him, very comforting. His persona onstage (and, much of the time, off) is that of a professional goofball, but when you need him, he's one of most compassionate people you could hope for. I did read when we finally got back. It went fairly well, even though I blew the last line. It was a piece I've read a few times before, but never at K'vetch, and in fact it's what I should have read last month. Sometimes I don't make the best choices.
(i feel like i know her)
For internal use, she recommended
Rescue Remedy.
My more scientific leanings won't allow me to say it's the reason, but since I started taking it,
my arm has been able to heal. Placebo or not, that's a good thing.
On Saturday afternoon I met up with Anders. We discussed our upcoming club and matters of a cosmic nature—the stars and planets are getting to be the only explanation for how screwed up we're all getting these days, if there is in fact an explanation—before heading over to a friend's barbecue. Mmm. Jerusalem couscous. Yum.
He and Erin decided to rent a movie and
call it an evening, and although they rented Soderbergh's Solaris, I declined an offer to join them.
Really, if I wasn't going to watch the movie with them I should have just gone straight home, but I didn't. Maddy
was out for the evening, having gone to see R.E.M. with Shauna, so it would have been one of those
rare occasions of having the apartment to myself. But I didn't want to go home, so, as I say, I did not.
Further bad decisions were made from there. There were no actual occurences, though there was
a reckoning when I got home.
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Friday, 5 September 2003 (misdirection) 9:10am I wonder if, when you wake up from a dream wishing you'd had a chance to do something specific in it, if you ever really would have.
Thunder one day, and an earthquake the next. San Francisco's natural environment
is finally doing some interesting things, and I somehow managed to not notice
either of them. Just goes to show how self-absorbed I am.
A Modern Times employee said she really liked my set at the Camp Trans Benefit, and suggested I do a reading at the store. The person who actually arranges these things is out of town (as always seems to be the case), but I'll be getting in touch when they return. Yay. It's nice to be wanted.
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Thursday, 4 September 2003 (sunfall) 10:04am All four chapbooks (well, both copies of each) sold at Modern Times, so I went there yesterday with the consignment contact to restock them and get paid. At a forty-sixty cut, I got $4.80 altogether. Pretty cool, especially since they sold to strangers. I wonder if they'd heard me read somewhere, or were just browsing and thought they'd looked interesting. Hell, maybe they just liked the cover of Sublimation and decided to get them both. Who knows? It would be kinda nice if they contacted me, though. My email address is included for a reason. Then again, there are people who have known me for years and have things to say to me but don't, so I guess you never can tell. It's oddly circular to be referred to as "unapproachable" by people who have made the conscious decision not to approach me, though. I think I need to read The Long Hard Road Out of Hell again.
It also occurs to me that my first actual paying gig is coming up. The others have been either free events
or benefits. Which is totally fine, and I hope to do more but this is the first time I'll be actually compensated.
It'll be nominal at best, like what I made on the chapbooks, but that's not the point. It just feels nice,
is all.
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Wednesday, 3 September 2003 (cloud relapse) 3:39pm After bouncing around a bit, Chick Nite's time has been finalized: 8pm, on September 19. It's overlapping almost dead on with the Litquake event happening three blocks away, so attending both in their entirety won't be possible. That's San Francisco for you, and I'd still prefer that all the cool stuff happen at once than not happen at all. And does any of it matter? No. It really do.
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Tuesday, 2 September 2003 (big exit) 10:12am (e) and I went to Death Guild last night. It was mostly fun, but the not the best night there for either of us. Guess I'll have to give it another shot sometime. 11:04am Ugh. Everything is...off today. I don't know how else to explain it. The fact that I can't get my hair to behave is probably symbolic, though. 3:02pm If your computer can handle Windows Media files, go to http://www.marilynmanson.com/manson/archives.html. Select "Peep Show." Watch "I Will Love You Until I Die," "I Love You With All My Heart," "Lunchtime Discussion of Art" and "The March Hare." The navigation is a tad unwieldy (the scrollbars on the right are the only way to go up and down, and to play each title you have to click on the little Windows Media icon next to it), but the images and sound are all safe for work, although depending on your environment you might want to make sure your speakers aren't turned up too high. That, my friends, is genuine kittypr0n. I wish I had some reliable way of contacting Manson about using that footage on the show, because it's perfect.
It's all about the little things, you see. The small pleasures are what keep you going and make everything else worth it.
Bucky almost didn't travel back into the City with me at all; he considered staying in Berkeley with a female acquaintance who'd shown up for the reading, and in fact I had been silently rooting for him to do so. Not that I didn't want to take him back, but, well, the neo-romantic in me was pleased with the thought of him hooking up with her, even if they are just a coupla fuckin' breeders. So many connections are being missed these days, it would have been nice to see one being made. But, no, he'd decided to come back and see Clint, and of course we got back into town long after festivities with Clint had broken up. Alas. Just the kind of day we'd all had.
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