you better back down before you get smackdown

I finished the citations, and I should probably get some other work done while waiting for the edits to be returned to me, but instead I find myself at trusty livejournal.

Today I get my new glasses. Hopefully I will be making a bold statement, just like limenal. Or maybe a trendy statement. I'd like to make a hot statement, but geeky thick plastic glasses are a specific taste of sexiness, so I can't expect miracles to happen. But if I find myself hot, then at least I can always have sex with myself. And I'm pretty damn good in bed. I mean, at least with myself. I think I've gotten pretty good feedback from other folks, but I won't want to make sweeping generalizations about anyone's opinion other than my own. When it comes to myself, I can generalize all I damn well please.

Yesterday afternoon I went record shopping with Damon and came home with many successes from the $0.99 and $0.49 bin, including Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good. I came home and made it into a hot sample. P. Diddy (or any other high-falutin' producer-type who has tons of money), if you're reading this, I'll hook you up. You know you want it.

Last night we watched Bridget Jones's Diary. I haven't read the book. I vigorously avoided it, mostly because I was working in a bookstore the whole time the phenomenon hit, so I was sick to death of see it's cover and hearing about it. So when I heard they were making a movie, I succeeded in avoiding it as well. But then I started to hear decent things about it, and last night I was in the mood for something light and silly. The operation was successful. And I actually enjoyed the movie, with all it's cringe-inducing plot twists. For some reason I think it helped that everyone was British.

I got an e-mail from this guy in highschool. From that highschoolalumni.com site (which used to be free, but now isn't -- however it's still free to have your listing). I haven't talked to this guy since graduation and we never hung out. But we had classes together for about 5 years. I was sort of thrilled to hear from him, even though part of me suspects he thinks I'm someone else. I'm listed on the site as my current name with my birth name as my maiden name. If I just listed my new name, no one would recognize me. If I just listed my birth name, I'd have to come out everytime I got an e-mail from someone. Part of thought about doing the latter anyway, because I figured the chances were low I'd pursue significant contact with anyone who e-mailed me. But in the end I decided to list both names and come out immediately and if people think it's scary and bizarre and don't want to e-mail, well, it's not different then before I listed my name. And this way the word would spread throughout my old circles in Atlanta, since I'm never there to directly inform folks. So whenever I actually get an e-mail from someone, I'm impressed. Then my second thought is that they don't get it, and think I'm someone else. This guy Marcus e-mailed me and mentioned some play, and I had no idea what he was talking about. But then again, it was 8 years or more ago, so perhaps I genuinely forgot and it was some experience we shared. Who knows. Now I'm trying not to get any hopes up about hearing back from him.

Speaking of old friends, I need to e-mail my other friend and tell her I won't be in Seattle this weekend. Boo.

baby mama non-drama

This may scare some people who read my journal (though probably not kisha and others, who've written about this before, including today), but for some reason in the past week or so I've been thinking more about having a kid. And being a parent. And being a father specifically. Not that I have specific parenting tasks which are gendered, but more that society does, so I like the idea of being a dad who's just a great parent and doesn't follow the expectations. In other words, the opposite of my own dad.

At Walgreens on Sunday, I noticed I was buying cornstarch baby powder and baby wipes (along with various other toiletries, kitchen supplies and marked-down valentine candy). And neither purchase had anything to with a child. But the clerk might think so. Then I started to wonder how people would think of me as a parent, and I think I'd be a pretty good one.

It probably doesn't help that MelRo has friends who just had a baby, and I had a friend who had one last year, and I have friends getting married this year (with some talk of future family planning). They just feed the seeds. No pun intended.

I don't know for sure that my future family includes raising a kid. But I feel pretty sure it does. And weirdly enough, I sometimes envy the ability to have things happen 'on accident', because I have excellent coping skills (i.e. coping with learning that I'm about to be a parent), plus I'm old enough and more mature and steady, and most importantly, nearly ready. And it's also hella cheaper to have a kid that way -- adoption expenses are high. Though perhaps if you add up the doctor's prenatal care and birth costs, it might end up being comparable. I haven't done tons of research since I'm not actively planning anything outside of my head or in the near future.

Maybe it's also in my head because my boss is the family law expert of the organization. So everyday I'm reading all about these cases and laws involving kids. And I've mentioned before how impressionable I am. If I worked for real estate attorneys, this entry would be about planning to buy a house.

when I grow up.

An interesting (though somewhat scary) discussion going on HERE. And by the way, in case I've never mentioned it, dannyboi is cool as hell and I like having long comment discussions with him.

The summer after coming out as trans but before starting hormones, before moving, before my last relationship ended, I helped a friend of mine move all his stuff from an apartment in Pilsen up to Wilmette. Those familiar with Chicago know that's hella far. We made the drive three times in one evening, because the car was sort of small. I listened to the Deathmatch Volume 1 tape on repeat. We conspired to live together when he got back from Toronto, and it would be a tranny household and haven, complete with a weight bench, a german shepherd, a subscription to the Source, my turntables, and our combined stereos and computers. I ended up bailing on this scheme later, a little bit because I feared his drug habit and whether we would be fiscally compatible (things I don't care less about regarding friendships, but sometimes get wussy about regarding living with someone), but I also decided it would be really good for me to live be myself for the first time (and it was).

On the drives, he talked about his transition and being on hormones. About his beginnig moustache and trying to grow sideburns. About coming out at work, and trying NOT to be out at work. He's the one that taught me how to know if someone found out if you're trans (because they were fine with male pronouns before, but then suddenly start messing up and/or stuttering on any gender related conversation topic). But I also remember him talking about how when he first came out, he was really into being a boy, and experiencing being a boy, and being boy-identified. But then he realized that he was more than 25 years old and it was time for him to be a man. I remember this part of the conversation very vividly. And I think about it a lot. Because part of me know what he means. Then part of me wonder what exactly it does mean, and why do I think I know.

For the most part, I think of it terms of being an adult. And taking responsibility. Maybe sometimes I tell myself "be a man", but I don't mean it like "toughen up" or be macho or whatever. I think I mostly mean "be an adult", but there are obviously connotations and associations with "being a man" that I can't and don't ignore. And sometimes I feel bad for accepting them. Other times I just see at as language I can manipulate for myself -- the problem comes when I'm expressing things outside of my head, i.e. to other people.

I still sometimes like to be a boy, or more accurately, call myself a boy. It seems more playful and wholesome, more fun or more sexy. But I'm not afraid of being a man necessarily. Or at least not because I want to hold on to being a boy.

I'm curious to see how this new generation of tranny boyz will grow and what sort of adults they will become (myself included). Will they become "tranny men"? Will they be like the lost boys of Peter Pan who never grow up? I don't have many role models for tranny adults. At least not FTM models.