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By Rebecca, April 20, 2012 9:22 pm

Free association from a writing prompt

As you can see, this emotional identity experience began as a low pressure system off the coast. While a close observer can note the swirling patterns of confusion and building frustration, most people would simply see a windy day.

As the system moves closer to land, its effects begin to become apparent. Heavy rainfall and high winds, coupled with personal doubt and suicidal tendencies, plague the area for months or years. Because these violent weather systems have no where to go as they beat themselves on the shore, it’s possible for them to last indefinitely. Continue reading 'Will as a weather system'»

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By Rebecca, March 23, 2012 2:41 pm

My body is a weather system, complete with bright spring growth, warm summer days, pounding autumn rains, and frigid winters’ nights. An entire world, enough to give climatologists years of data, dissertations worth of study. Yet my seasons have nothing to do with a changing calendar, they are unheralded by the phase of the moon or the tilt of the earth. I am not a closed system, but one whose course is altered by mood and emotion, shifting slowly over years or changing drastically within a single, brief instant.

Spring causes my roots begin to flex and contract. I sprout flowers from the tips of my fingers. The grass that is my skin begins comes to life once again. I am alight with budding leaves and the constant sound of birdsong. The cute waitress flirting with me causes my hair to stand on end and cool ice-melt streams to run down the crevasses of my body. A friend’s laughter causes burrowing animals to stick their heads above ground. Every fibre of my being grows toward the rising sun.

Summer is flush with life, my blood pumping and lungs full of air. My body is made of chlorophyl, converting every moment into pure joy. The wind plays through my hair, and my toes dig into the living earth. My face is a flower, turning toward love and happiness as if following the sun. The days of my body are long in summer, insatiably hungary for sensation, to touch and to feel. I ache for sex, for skin on skin. I cum like lightening cracking in a summer storm, and the rain pours down. Continue reading 'Storms Beneath Her Skin'»

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By Rebecca, March 8, 2012 5:43 pm

As I previously mentioned, I’ve been dipping my toes into the world of listing myself as bi on OKCupid. I haven’t gone on any dates, or even exchanged phone numbers or anything, but have had a number of interesting conversations. I’m still annoyed with the propensity for men on OKC to simply star me (indicating they like my profile) or send meaningless messages like “Hi” or “Ur cute,” but it’s been an interesting experience. (In a good way.) One conversation in particular has been on my mind, though:

Well don’t you sound very interesting! I’d really love a new transgender friend! I’d love to get a drink or maybe smoke a joint with you sometime, and see how well we click! . (Emphasis added)

There was more, about his open relationship and how he’s looking for friends and not necessarily hookups, but that’s the part that stuck with me.

Continue reading 'Affirmative action in friendships'»

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By Rebecca, March 6, 2012 3:13 pm

Part One of this writing exercise is here.

No fair! My feet didn't come with a flower!

Below the waist. My feet, like my hands, are slightly bigger than I’d like, hairier than I’d like, but I can’t really complain. They’re not huge, it’s occasionally obnoxious to find shoes in my size but never impossible, and hair removal has thinned much of the worst growth. I still have some patches around my ankles that I need to shave when I shave my legs, but no body is perfect. My legs rival my chest and face for the most dramatic success of hair removal. I shave my legs, much more in warm months, but don’t grow the same thick brambly forest that I used to. As of today, I haven’t shaved my legs in at least a month, and while they’re hairy compared to my shaved-this-morning face, they’re night and day compared to when I was in high school, pre hormones and hair removal. My legs are, like my arms, places of strength. I don’t run – it hurts my knees – but I bike and walk and swim and climb ropes and trees and lovers. I’ve been working on strengthening my hips, something a physical therapist said would help my knees, but don’t have much to complain about.

At the same time, my legs and arms have shrunk the most over the course of my transition. I joke that, since going on hormones, I’ve gone up two cup sizes without gaining any weight. All that mass, my previously mentioned boobs, had to come from somewhere – lots of it came from now-departed muscle mass in my arms and legs. I’m still stronger than lots of my girl friends, who knows whether as a result of testosterone or simply genetics, but decidedly less strong than I was before hormones. I’m not complaining, however, other than the occasional struggle at circus or the gym. But no pain, no gain. Or something.

Continue reading 'Body Map, part two'»

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By Rebecca, February 8, 2012 2:16 pm

When my brother graduated from college, I was just finishing my freshman year at Northwestern. With one or two exceptions, I was closeted to most of my college friends. (Or is it “closeted with?” ACT tutoring is messing with my head. What’s the proper idiom?) My first major negative experience with a therapist – the one who told me I “probably wasn’t trans” – had scared me away from seeking medical or therapeutic help in figuring out my trans identity. I was still figuring a lot of things out, something which is probably true for most college freshmen.

A moment of my visit to my brother’s graduation sticks out in memory, and still occasionally gets me ribbed by family members. We were at a restaurant in town, my family and I, celebrating my brother’s impending  graduation. People were ordering drinks, and someone (probably my dad) made it clear I could have an alcoholic drink, too, should I so desire. So while everyone around me ordered beer or wine, I ordered a rum and coke.

Looking back, the reason I did it (and the reason my family finds it funny) is because I didn’t understand that there was a difference between beer or wine and mixed drinks. So while I probably could have ordered beer or wine without incident, ordering a rum and coke was cause for conversation.

Remembering all this still makes me a little embarrassed, because I hate not knowing how to behave. A big part of my transition has involved figuring out how to behave, how to present, how to interact, how to identify. And a big part of my hesitation around transitioning stemmed from not wanting to feel like I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know how to do something, not wanting to feel like I didn’t understand. Continue reading 'In defense of awkwardness'»

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By Rebecca, September 27, 2011 5:55 pm

Hopefully won't end up in police custody like she did, tho.

I talked with my therapist recently about ‘the rest’ of transitioning. I don’t mean The Surgery, although that’s something which is still on my mind, I mean moving from actively transitioning – changing my name, going on hormones, fretting about levels, watching my boobs grow, constant hair removal – to simply living as a woman. (As if living were ever simple, for anyone.)

More specifically, I said I’d been having trouble getting motivated lately. Sure, I could spend extra time doing my makeup, extra energy wearing a skirt, extra effort walking in heels. But I’m never going to look like Mexico’s beauty queen over on the right (using her as an example simply because she came up when I did a Google Image Search for ‘beauty’) so why not just throw on jeans and a t-shirt?

Laura, my therapist, smiled and said that’s part of what being a woman is all about.

Except I’ve become very used to the idea of transition as moving toward something: getting hair removed, growing breasts, buying a new wardrobe. The idea that I’ve arrived (or am close to arriving) at status quo, at whatever ‘normal’ is going to be for me for the foreseeable future, is battling it out with internalized transphobia and, more simply, internalized desire for the unobtainable female ideal.

On good days, I’m able to remind myself that I’m not only attractive “for a trans woman” (whatever that loaded statement means) but simply attractive as a woman. Touring this summer demonstrated that; it may not be that all the girls wanted me, but enough did to be a boost to my confidence.

On bad days, however, I feel stuck. As if I’ve reached my asymptotic height. And while convincing myself that transitioning was possible has helped keep me sane for so many years, I now need to put the breaks on that line of thinking: there is a limit to how I’ll look, determined by genetics and biology. I’m never going to be 5’6″ and 120 lbs, or have a 36-26-36 figure.

But that’s OK. I’m working on it being OK.

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By Rebecca, August 8, 2011 5:43 pm

I’ve been really bad about posting lately, going from my height of posting once every other day to not posting for weeks on end. I’m going to try and get back into the posting groove, and thought I’d start with some more thoughts about being in Kansas City and being back.

The rest of the trip was as enjoyable as the first chunk. I got to see more shows (some good, some less so, but all fun) handed out a shit ton of postcards (probably around 2,000), and was the highest selling show in my venue, Loft 122, meaning I won the coveted Kansas City Fringe Festival Hangover Award and received a bonus performance on the final Sunday of the festival. Woo! Being in Kansas City reminded me how much I like performing and how much I particularly enjoy the festival atmosphere: lots of friendly people, tons of things always going on, built-in socialization opportunities, and a very finite list of tasks to accomplish.

I’ve been thinking about that since I got back to Chicago and my stress level went back up. Being in Kansas City meant I didn’t need to worry about everything, just a very specific thing: getting people to see the show. And I really only had one tool to do that: going out and talking to people while handing out postcards. So I didn’t need to think about contacting colleges to perform, festivals to perform, researching grants, thinking about my next show, thinking about Kickstarter fundraising, and on and on and on.

I’m trying to recapture that while back home, to give myself a finite list of tasks. Say, contact ten colleges by the end of the week, three festivals, find one grant, and so on. Make things I can reasonably check off my list, instead of just feeling like I need to do everything all at once.

Being in Kansas City (and DC back in March) has also awakened some wanderlust in me. And I’ve begun researching grad school. Eeek!

Continue reading 'She lives!'»

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By Rebecca, July 5, 2011 11:21 pm

View Larger Map
Two weeks from tomorrow, I leave Chicago for Kansas City and the Kansas City Fringe Festival. I’ll be driving, most likely by myself. My mom is attempting to talk me into taking her car, a Subaru Forester station wagon/SUV type thing. She wants me to drive her 2007 or 2008 Forester instead of my 1998 Toyota Corolla. The Corolla I like. The Corolla I’ve had since graduating from college. The Corolla covered in LGBT, leftist, and radical bumper stickers.

Continue reading 'A tale of two cities'»

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By Rebecca, June 27, 2011 4:58 pm

Happy (post) Pride! I hope everyone had a fun weekend, whether you were Pride-ing or not. I had lots of ridiculousness this weekend (in a good way) and thought I’d share what I did.

Friday night I went to Backlot Bash, a mini music fest in my neighborhood behind a local gym. (Hence the ‘backlot’ part.) My neighborhood, Andersonville, is pretty lesbian-y, and Backlot Bash is specifically women-focused. A friend of mine was very excited about the Friday musicians, as they were all acoustic, so we had dinner together and went over. She made yummy vegan pad thai, which was a new culinary experience for me, but much fun.

Backlot Bash was pretty perfect for a Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are usually pretty crazy, but Friday was lots of folks in lawn chairs, good lesbian acoustic rock and folk, and really excellent people watching. It also ended around 10, which was good since I wanted to get as much sleep as possible to prep for Pride. But I definitely want to look up the musicians who played – Katie Quick, Katie Todd, Edie Carey, and Catie Curtis – as they were all excellent.

Continue reading 'A Weekend of Pride Festivities'»

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By Rebecca, June 21, 2011 5:42 pm

I had another meeting with my doctor today, Dr Cook. It was the first since he gave me my assignments last week. The appointment was tough, but ultimately productive. (I hope!)

One of the things I’ve said, which I’ve discussed here before, was my frustration at still feeling lousy. That is, I’m doing what I want to be doing: transition(ing/ed), performing, writing, freelancing, dating. In another way, I’m doing all the right adult things: getting my teeth cleaned, paying my bills, shopping for groceries, and so on. So if I’m doing everything ‘right,’ why do I still feel like shit? Why do I still want to hurt myself?

In response, my doc talked a lot about how we ingrain our behaviors and – ultimately – write certain paths in our brain. When I was younger, wanting to hurt myself as an escape was entirely legit. (Wow, it was awesome to have a medical professional validate that.) I couldn’t transition, felt like I couldn’t come out, was developing in ways that were absolutely wrong for me, and felt very trapped in many ways. In that situation, the escape of self-harm (which I fortunately did avoid) is a release valve when everything else is stuck.

But now, everything else isn’t stuck. But my brain is still trained to go straight for that release valve.

Continue reading 'Getting off the dirt path'»