It’s been odd this summer, to come out in such a public way. And yet I kind of think all trans coming outs must be sort of like this, if you are lucky enough to live among queer people already. The manic episode did nothing but fuel my confusion, only to see the whisps of madness fade away until I realized, yes, I am a man, and needing to do something about it as soon as possible.

Unfortunately the referral to the hormones doctor is rumoured to take up to six months. The recovery time from this episode could take another few months. And the saddest news of all, my new apartment won’t be ready for me to move in until October or November. Which means I’ll be living in this care home for another two and a half months at least. Ai ai ai!

I’ve grown comfortable though with the pronouns, the he him his stuff. I’m still using my packer and still feeling okay with it, although I still want to upgrade to a silicone softy one. My dog still loves me and that is good.

Actually a lot of people are really supportive of me right now and that is really nice. I’ve been finding some old friends on Facebook and then basically people I haven’t seen but know. Right now I’m up to 139 friends, which is a big relief because sometimes I forget I have friends.

One of my best friends is sick right now and her auntie just died. I wanted to go visit but I would have to take public transport and I only have two bus tickets left. I’m planning to use them to go get my discounted bus and leisure pass. It’s been a weird summer.

The doctors and nurses keep harping on marijuana being bad for me. I’ve been pretty much sober ever since the hospital, which might be why I’m recovering so fast. At the same time it’s pretty hard to imagine life completely devoid of pot. I miss it, a lot, but I know it’s better to get some time away from what thoughts made me all paranoid and whatever. I’m thinking really clearly now, although a bit depressed. French and Saunders on Youtube are entertaining me though.

Anyway, off to bed I go, to re-read “What they did to Princess Paragon” which is the most funny book for summer reading. I highly recommend it.

So I’m supposed to get referred to another psychiatrist to deal with my trans issues. Apparently my shrink is better suited to the bipolar aspects of me. On that front apparently I am recovering really well, my sleeping is supposed to be pretty normal and I am getting used to my medication. I’m going to A Bipolar Education Group and I’m also supposed to be finding out about starting a psychiatric rehab day program, which would give me something to do in the days. I’ve been pretty wiped out frm my manic episode, as one can imagine. I lost 30 pounds in the space of a month or something, which is kind of good but kind of not. I get 130 bucks a month spending money while I live in this mental health approved home, and that can’t pay for new clothes. I smoke again, which is also bad because it wipes out some of my money for other fun things I could be doing instead. Luckily this is all a temporary situation. LUCKILY since for the rest of the month I’m bunking with an elderly schizophrenic woman I’ve secretly dubbed Poo-Television Lady, since she can’t seem to grasp the concept of where to find the toilet paper and believes everything on the television is really happening. Especially troublesome since one of the other bipolar women in the house is addicted to Turner Classic Movies.

Ted Turner also has bipolar. I’m telling you, WE RUN THE FREAKN WORLD! now you know why everything seems insane!

Anyway, my mum found some of my old shorts and the one that fits my new bulge the best is ironically a total girl’s pair of shorts. They look butch but the label says girl something on it. Or SOMETHING GIRL> hey, that could be a new label!

And on the catwalk, capri’s by Something Girl, pret a porter.

I do my little turn on the catwalk.

I should go, I have to get back to internetless land and weather sharing yet another night in the room with Poo-Television Lady.

I’m used to poop because of my sister, but that still doesn’t make it fun. No scatplayer here!

Oh yeah, anyway the nurse and the pdoc both think I’m doing well for how extremely manic I was. I think I’m doing well too.

One of the funnier things I said when I was crazy was that my Ex, Velveeta, was going to show a video of my asshole contracting and expanding at the Whitney, and that it was called Story of the Eye and it was about George W. Bush. I was an asshole really, but I still think that was the funniest manic myth I spun.

There really is a video of my asshole in the possession of One Velveeta Krisp. We shot it at ECIAD in 2001. She denies it’s mine, apparently it’s just meant to be The Anonymous Asshole.

If you don’t know who Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is, she wrote all about the emotional stages of dying and death. Being trans isn’t about dying, but the idea is triggered in my head that it is a type of death of sorts. I think maybe shedding a skin is a better idea of what it feels like.

Ever since I have finally for sure for sure come out as a man, things have really changed and I’ve realized I have a lot to discover about myself. For one thing, I’m coming out as a bisexual man. THAT is quite the turn from being a lesbian. Also I’ve got to say, I’m still more attracted to women than to men, which brings up all kinds of bad feelings the queer community seems to have about bisexuals. It’s an entirely different set of identity issues which I have to deal with now, like getting a new deck of cards.

And yet I never felt that I fit in as a lesbian. I fit in as butch, and that’s totally a different thing because that’s more about gender presentation than sexual orientation. I was always getting weird looks about why I identified with and was attracted to bisexual women more than other lesbians.

That all being said, the lesbian community was a great place to grow up in, especially in the 90’s. I don’t know why. Maybe because that’s when a huge wave of transgendered activism and art suddenly poured out of that era. I could relate to that far more easily than the lesbian community, for obvious reasons, but I still think there was kind of a pansexual playfulness to the times that I latched onto.

I doubt you can find a single lesbian in this day and age who hasn’t seen a friend decide to transition. I know there is always a sort of sadness at seeing ANOTHER butch decide to be a man. Maybe I didn’t transition earlier because I didn’t want to cause sadness, even though it made for a conflicted me. I think a lot of transgendered people were kind of like “Okay, when is he coming out already? Let’s place bets!”

When I was nineteen I think I really knew I was probably going to transition, but I put it off. I just remember very clearly looking at myself in a mirror and while I have a nice female body, realizing it still wasn’t what I was envisioning for myself. The breasts especially. I really never knew how to deal with those. And the periods, I never liked my period because it seemed like such a pain in the ass.

There are some weird questions I have to ask another trans person about how my body will be after hormones, but maybe they are too intimate to list here. I know I’m excited about how certain things will develop, like my voice and my facial features and hair and muscles and things like that.

Right now life is kind of weird because I’m in a ladies care home. LADIES!!! I still go to the women’s washroom because I’m still very very female bodies. I’m pretty much wearing a packer all the time. That’s a type of useless flaccid male genitalia made out of various sundry household goods, I’m hoping to buy a real packer sometime soon. I haven’t bound my breasts yet because I’m waiting to try and make one with my friends Cindy and Megan. Chest surgery is going to cost about $4000. There’s a surgeon in town who does them. I have no idea when I’ll have the cash to do that.

And the hormones, if my doctor is sympathetic enough I might be able to start on them soon. It takes about 2 years for the big effect, and changes continue for about ten years. Some men say it’s like going through a second puberty. And my puberty was bleak!!!!

It’s also funny because I am transitioning to a feature filmmaker as well. I’m going to be making an hour long documentary about researching my families various homelands AND the process of transitioning. It will be funny I hope, parts of it anyway.

Then of course there is the fact that violence happens a lot to trans people. Maybe that’s where the Kubler-Ross stuff caught my eye. And there is a lot of depression and suicide that can occur. All these landmines in the way of me just trying to be true to myself and become someone I feel comfortable with. It’s a lot to take in.

And it doesn’t help that a Nelly Furtado song on the radio keeps making me feel weird!!!!

This is a wicked video “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley

Before I go for the day, I found the link to “A Trailer for the remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula”!!!

Check it out homes!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=8127419

It’s kind of bizarre knowing now I am moving into a phase of my life where I’m learning to accept becoming part of a minority that is hated and feared and bashed on and so on and so forth. On the other hand, that’s been the case with most of my identity issues.

Today I went for lunch with a contact person to get in touch with the FTM community here. It was a nice lunch, and anyway I found out the good news which is that I might be able to get on hormones sooner rather than later, depending on what my doctor thinks. This week I have an appointment to see my psychiatrist and then my mental health nurse, so I’ll talk to them more about it. There is supposed to be ANOTHER psychiatrist in town I will have to see for consultations and then a doctor who’s going to monitor my hormones and see how that goes. I dunno. It’s all pretty complicated, the medical aspect of it, when the very simple basics are just me jabbing my butt every two weeks with a needle and getting my boobs reduced. I think it’s the mental aspects of it that are intense, learning to live like a man and so on and so forth.

Learning to be a NICE man especially, I’ve seen way too many guys try on the brute aspect of it and that doesn’t suit me. Even if I was born genetically male, I STILL wouldn’t be too enamoured of the shovey angry punch other guys kind of guy model.

Hormones!!!! I’ll let you know as soon as I get a prescription.

I’m having a Coming Out Party with a bunch of my friends, hopefully, and anyway, SO FAR after the terrible spring the coming out as a boy seems to be ging well. People just seem to want me happy and that is good. I am slowly recovering mental health wise as well, I’m kind of lazy these days, but that’s a medication side effect. I’m living with an old lady with schizophrenia who took my medication one night AND yells at the television. Well, shakes her finger at it anyway. I seem to be wearing my packer when I am out of the house. It’s pretty weird.

I hear my weiner dog barking, I should go. I had a nice time on the computer today though, I found out some interesting stuff about chest compressors. I think I am going to try and make one.

Gmail suggests sites for people to look at based on what you write about. So imagine my surprise when it suggested I look at USB Gender Changers.

In fact, when I went crazy I tried to ressurect an ipod with a dead hard drive. None of my IT Priest skills came in handy, not even wrapping a rosary around a USB cable. I guess this means I’m back to my Pagan roots. I even recycled it because I’m trying to be kind to the environment. And throwing an ipod into the garbage just seemed sacreligious.

It’s true I love Mac IT work. I applied to minacs once to do tech support but they never got back to me. Have you ever seen a dead mac icon? Oh, it sends chills down your spine! At least my computer is happy with me.

I’ve decided to apply to Canada Council to do a documentary this next year about tracing my genomes AND doing a gender transition. I am going to learn about borders and crossing the borders while doing it. I doubt I will do any filming in airports, but I will say how border crossings went. I’m hoping to get to a tribe in Asia with my uncle, but we’ll see. I was hoping to get on a Camel while the song My Humps plays!

It’s such a goofy song! My lovely lady bumps. Check em out!

Oh yeah, and here’s a dude complaining about those leftover lady bumps. I know the feeling being a freakin’ E CUP DUDE!

I recently heard from my Auntie that little people will chase you and some times they beat up men! Oh no! Something else to worry about after transitioning!

Little people are known the world over, but in Cree culture we try to live with them and their antics. Apparently they are really really ugly, and about 2 feet tall and move quick, faster than you can believe. They like shiny things and sugar, and people sometimes put out bundles of sugar for them.

In my family they have been seen by at least two cousins and my mother. But I’m sure more people have seen them. We just call them little people, and they are more of a supernatural type of being. I’ve also heard they like to live around waterways.

One thing you should never do is make fun of them or otherwise provoke them if you spot one, and try not to get angry when they start throwing peas at you or whatever. Some people even just live with them and build tiny furniture for them. I’ve heard of at least two wearing cowboy hats. They are very much a real phenomenon, and I for one always respectfully leave out sugar if I hear there have been little people wandering around some place I am living.

The Little People, a Cree exercise in supernatural tolerance and acceptance. Just try not to get the fuck beat out of you by dating a woman they are keen on.

Friend For Dinner by HK119

I really shouldn’t read about chest reconstruction after supper.

The one good thing about going manic AND coming out as male is that I got to say I identified as male before doing all my stupid shit and vacillating and being a general creep and then be all “Oh yeah, I’m still a guy. A STUPID GUY! OH MAN SO STUPID!” But I still think there was something interesting in all of this . . .

Like the fact that fuck it, when I have manic psychosis, for some reason Nina Hagen and The Doors make sense.