And now I found the key to the eternal dream.

[raybear]

My therapist has been getting on my nerves lately with his cognitive behavioral methods. Can't a man just be self-deprecating for a little bit while telling a story? Quit calling me on my isht, it's tiresome. Or, you know, why I pay him. Whichever.

After today's session, I ran a couple errands, including dropping off five large garbage bags of clothes to Brown Elephant, thereby completing the semi-annual Closet Cleaning ReOrganizing Expedition 2007. When I open my closet door now, things don't fall out, you can access all the drawers, the ridiculous number of undershirts has been managed, and all the pants remaining are the ones that make my ass look good. So the idea of purging and letting go has been on my mind in various forms, and as soon as I got home, after thinking about some things I talked about in session, I decided to pull out this box on the porch of memoribilia, mostly in the form of photos. I forgot that the last time I was home, over six years ago at christmas time, my mom had been in the middle of a photo reorganization project, and she sent me home with tons of pictures of myself when I was younger. I went through them today, and even found one of me holding my cousin (who just e-mailed me to invite me to her college graduation) when she was a baby -- I might scan it and make it into some sort of embarassing card for her. My other favorite is one at the age of 3 wearing a t-shirt that says "Hot Dog" on it, along with a picture of a hot dog. I will be scanning that one too.

I didn't make it through all the picture, I only had half an hour, but I found it remarkably soothing, not traumatic or strange at all. Even then I started coming across random later pictures, like my high school flannel and birkenstock years (and this was pre-dyke!) or even a random outtake from a Lambda holiday card shoot, which is me at only 9 months on T? It's hard to tell, only that I'm in that nebulous stage of second adolescence androgyny and I have a chin beard. But mostly it was picture after picture of me as a kid. And yeah, as a girl. It just suddenly didn't seem a bit strange that in my world, girls grow up to me men. There didn't seem the least bit of a disconnect. I could trace the line perfectly.

What was way more disconnecting was seeing me in an airbrushed Bart Simpson t-shirt, tucked into some khaki shorts (and bloused out to a ridiculous degree) along with Tretorn sneakers, and remembering how that was one of my favorite preppy outfits that made me feeling super-styling.

I think the next project will be sorting, saving, storing these up into more reasonable containers than the current bulging ziploc bags thrown in a box on the porch. And figure out how to scan the cream of the crop to post here, of course. I think I'll be staying late at work one quiet night and make good use.

Comments

[sebastian6.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Your subject for this entry struck me as I've been working on recording myself performing a version of El Dorado for the past two days. I've been wanting to record myself playing songs to help me get my performance confidence up and work out some kinks. Weird to see that song line the day after I worked on it so hard. Must mean something.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

It means we are cosmically linked!!

[sebastian6.livejournal.com]

Through Jeff Lynne!

[vfc.livejournal.com]

And I listened to that album today while sorting laundry! I'm officially freaked out.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

It just suddenly didn't seem a bit strange that in my world, girls grow up to me men. There didn't seem the least bit of a disconnect. I could trace the line perfectly.

This totally makes sense to me, like deeply and without question, the way that only in reconsidering it do I realize other people might not feel the same.

pastdue was asking me how we met, how things were between us, and I realized that if I have any real sense memory of you not being male it's just faded away. Like if someone told me that or referred to it, my instinct would be like, what are you talking about? Followed by maybe a confused, oh, uh, OK, sure, mabe that's true. Maybe you were just never not-male to me or, you know, I read those hippie children's books so many times...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

hahaha, totally! sometimes i look at the pictures, and you know, kids are fairly androgynous and it was the late 70s/early 80s, and boys had long hair, so it's not that weird. and then even when i am wearing something like pink pants, my first thought is, see! i was a fag back then! so fey and dandy!

[limenal.livejournal.com]

I can totally picture that Lambda outtake in my mind. Although not to be a timeline nerd but if it was a holiday shoot, wouldn't it have to be about 2 months on T or else a year or so?

The other day I was thinking about how you went to Atlanta that Christmas and I drove you to the airport in the freezing Altima and we listened to your mixtape with I Just Wanna Love You on it for psyching-up purposes. And then of course the storied AirPhone call, but I was more thinking about the mixtape and the airport ride. It is weird how young we both seem in my memory and how old we felt at the time. It is also weird how at the time, it wasn't clear that that would be the last visit for years, it was more like the first of many potental awkward visits, or so it seemed to me. Now it's frozen in my mind as this landmark thing.

This comment went further than anticipated.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Haha. I like when comments go on. I remember it was so cold and dark (because it was so damn early) and I also randomly remember doing laundry at your apartment and my suitcase of dirty clothes open and spread out on the kitchen floor. Its funny, when I think of that apartment, I mostly think of it as we both lived there, even in the beginning, like econ_queen was always your neighbor, not your roommate.

And as regards to the timeline, I was confused as well, because I didn't have facial hair only two months onto T, but then I realized the pictures were taken WAY before the holidays, because they had to be developed, then selected, then printed, then mailed out. So it might have actually been the summer!

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the first paragraph. I have wondered myself why everything must MEAN something in therapy. I am dealing with my own therapy drama. He was on vacation. He was totally checked out our last two sessions and I refused to pay him for it.

It's like people who have good sense of humor never go into therapy, a disclipine that needw it more than any other. Well maybe astrophysics, but let someone who cares worry about that.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I busted on my therapist in the first 60 seconds because he was sniffling and clogged up and I was like, uh, are you sick? He said he just caught a cold and was on some sudafed that should kick in soon, and I was like, "oh THIS will make for an interesting session." He laughed, but then I think he overcompensation by paying too much attention.

Damn, good for you on withholding payment! Make them earn it!!!

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

His checked out-ness was horrible. He was asking really IMPORTANT questions like, "When did you realize you wanted to have sex with women?" in this barbara walters voice that made me go, "whaaa?"

He stresses me out because I am just waiting for this relationship to sour. It's like I wanna be like, "Hurry and and disappoint me!".

I remember your tretorns...

[sorting-laundry.livejournal.com]

(insert evil laugh here)
-k

Re: I remember your tretorns...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I was totally thinking of you when I came across some photos. My favorite is a picture from a birthday gathering where everyone looks zoned out and bored and doesn't realize my father is taking a picture -- except for you, striking a "Its Great to Be Here!!!" pose.

Re: I remember your tretorns...

[sorting-laundry.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- "It's Great to be here!!" was my default pose for many a picture back in the day. My parents always said they wished I would just "look normal in a picture for once."

Oh, well... There's something to be said for feigning a level of excitement inversely proportional to the actual excitement one is feeling. It's its own form of propaganda.

As for your statement in your original post: "It just suddenly didn't seem a bit strange that in my world, girls grow up to me men. There didn't seem the least bit of a disconnect. I could trace the line perfectly"

I don't really see any disconnect either. I mean, it only makes sense that you've grown up to be a man. Otherwise we would not have gotten along as well as we did. If you had been girly, we would have been stuck playing make-up and doing each other's hair, and all that crap. Instead we played Leisure Suit Larry, went to the mall to poll people (rather than shop), and made up crazy songs. We also referred to each other with guys names, come to think of it. The only upside to the gender you were stuck with at the time is that if you were a "boy" back then, my mom probably would not have let me spend the night as often. "Girls aren't supposed to spend the night with boys."

Cheers!
-k

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[dagnahixi.livejournal.com]

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