(no subject)

So last night, El___ showed up at the bookstore before I got a chance to call her. We chatted a bit, and I asked her out. She seemed pretty interested. We're looking Sunday, and I'm going to call her tonight and we're making definitive plans. Possibly movie or coffee or a meal. We'll see. And I am getting vibes that she might be interested/attracted.

Then I decided to talk to Co____ and ask her what she would think if she was in the position of getting asked out on a date and then the person told her, yes, I'm attracted to you, and yes I like hanging out with you, but no, I already have a primary partnership, but would you still like to hook up/hang out? Because I don't want her feel hurt or misled. So it was good to troubleshoot with Co___ -- I gave her my spiel, and she said it sounded good to her. I didn't tell her WHO I was going out with though, but I told her I'd fill her in after it goes down. So we'll see.

Melanie and I's song just came on the radio -- "I Just Want 2 Love You". I'm only partly kidding. Speaking of, I hope I might get to talk with her tomorrow. Though I may call her today too, just to make sure she got the FedEx.

Tonight we're having a work outing that includes tattoos, take-out, sitting on the lawn at the Field Museum consuming beverages and cocktails, and possibly going out afterward. I love my co-workers. I was going to get a 3rd tattoo, but instead I'm going to do some more thinking and shopping on exact design, and I might get my bear re-inked, depending on time and price.

It's taken me 20 minutes to write this short post because I keep getting interrupted. I'm soooo hungry, but the office ordered stuffed pizza in honor of an intern's departure. The legacy of stuffed pizza will make me eternally grateful of Chicago. yum.

See, that's just too much.

Now I'm OVER-full. I always do that with stuffed pizza. One piece isn't enough, two is way too much. But I'm still very very happy and sated.

I'm excited for this weekend, which will hopefully be a nice blend of home time and social goings-on. Tomorrow I'm planning on sleeping in, doing laundry, washing dishes, and vacuuming, which involves moving things off the floor so the vacuum can be run. Then in the late afternoon I'm meeting up with Mr. Ryan, which I'm excited about, because I always love hanging out with trannyfolk and genderqueers. And I love Nookie's. So it's a good pairing. Then I'm going to the drag king show that night. I'm actually just going by myself, which is sort of weird for me. But I'll know several folks there, so it's not like I'll be hiding in the corner or whatever.

Then Sunday will be my hang-out/date thing with El___. But that's all I have planned for the day, so I'll probably just bum around at home, run errands, etc. the rest of the time. Damon is leaving town on Saturday and will be gone all of next week. It'll be weird to not have him around, especially now that I have more free time with the bookstore done.

I'm still in really good spirits these days. And I'm sleeping pretty well, too. I haven't taken any melatonin in the past 3 nights, and I haven't taken much kava either. Though I'm going to try and take it fairly regularly, just to keep myself in check and at a more even keel.

Oh, I forgot to mention that after I wrote that long post about the dilemma with the "friend", she called me last night and left a message. I didn't call her back. In fact, I just felt paralyzed when I heard the message and just deleted it, and sort of put it out of my head. Which is why I'm just now mentioning it, I suppose.

This morning I listened to Barbra Streisand on my walkman on the train, and I felt so...subversive. Like, I would look at people looking at me and think "I bet you'd never guess in a million years that I'm jamming to Babs".

Coming in and out of your life isn't easy.

identity?

I also forgot to share my grand conclusion that formed on the train while listening to Babs...

I decided that my gender identity is 75% fag, 25% dyke. But my sexuality is about 75-80% dyke, 20-25% fag. This produces some confusion for myself, because I'm obsessed with looking at guys, but that's not who I want to fuck. Wha? Yeah, I don't know what I mean. I'm also pretty much 100% queer-identified, queer-attracted, which means any one trans or genderqueer, no matter what end of the binary they lean towards or come from. But seeing as I'm usually the loan queer on the train in the morning, I'm thinking in more "straight" terms as far as categories. So what does all this mean and why does it matter? It's just related to my recent revelation that I do really love women and I'm really attracted to them, particularly queer women. I think I had started to avoid lesbians, starting around the time of my transition, because I was anticipating a community backlash or something, so I sort of decided to backoff first. It's also sort of weird feeling of belonging and not-belonging with dykes.

When I first came out last summer, there were several folks that I described myself as being "psychologically male and female, but wanting to be physically male to house my multi-genderedness". But this would sort of confuse them -- they'd have a harder time switching to male pronouns, and I think they just saw me as wanting to be really really butch. So I gave up and was like, fuck it, I'm a guy. Just call me Ray and 'he' cause I'm a guy. So then I got sort of railroaded into that transmale mode. But I'm not a man. I wasn't born a guy trapped in a female body. That's not me. I know some guys are like that. Don't get me wrong -- I like my male name, male pronouns, being perceived as a guy by larger society. But by and large, even though I occasionally have "penis envy", so to speak, I'm pretty much happy that I have a pussy. Not so much about the chest, but that's what starting a savings account is for....