I won $101 dollars playing pull tabs at the Sufferin’ Dufferin last night. It was enough to buy mysef and two friends two rounds of import beers, and some extra to fiddle with. I’m really tempted to buy a DVD I have wanted for a long time, since this is extra Surprise money. Hmm. What to do. . .
*******UPDATE***************
I bought the DVD for cheap on eBay.
I have kandy korn!
This morning a terroist attack rocked London. And I la di da’d around all afternoon on public transit, not a care in the world, shopping. I bought pricey honey-carmel scented soap and candy bath melts. One Roman Dirge baby T (fat girl in skintight T alert!), three panties, and two cute t shirts from Old Navy. And that was about it. Then I split a 6 pack with a friend because I promised I would buy her beers. And that was my day, it was lovely. If I got major artist fees I would shop every day.
I’m not feeling the hot flashes as much, maybe that part of T is over. People ask me if I am going to keep taking it. I would have to say, no, not unless something really happens to change how I think of myself in the world. I’m pretty comfortable in this wacky gender called Butch Dyke. I think it’s a place I want to keep living in for a while.
In fact, I almost feel more girly after having tried T. It’s hard to explain. I will mine my daily thoughts for a way to explain it. I do know that the other day I was shaving my legs (I haven’t done that in about six or seven years) and I thought “This is not a manly thing to be doing.” Same with wearing the Dorothy’s-Ruby-Slippers nail polish. And buying a T shirt that says “I am a little fairy princess.”
I’m just a 21st century gender terrorist.
Yesterday was a weird day. I found out I had gotten my money from my reserve for graduating, so I did a happy dance and smoked a joint. Then this morning I checked my mailbox and ta da! A nice little artist fee. It’s like getting paid to be me.
But last night the weirdest thing happened, a friend told me she thought I sounded manic, and for some reason it made me really angry. I think because the last time she said that, next thing I knew cops were at the door. But I was manic then. And then I got really confused, and had to run over a checklist in my head of manic symptoms. Not talking too fast, not getting involved in big plans, I did feel happy, but that was probably mostly due to having some cash in my pocket. Either way, I did not feel like I was manic at all, actually yesterday I felt pretty sluggish and tired. And depressed. Until I got money.
Because in a capitalist society money = survival.
Another online friend said she gets pissed when her bf or mum tell her she seems manic because it feels like a form of control. I think that’s what made me mad, just that pointing out someone is manic is a lot like saying “Go to the Hospital you Subhuman fuckup!” I don’t know, no one ever tells you you seem crazy in a calm way. It’s never a normal event.
Man, I don’t even know what I am trying to say.
So I did do a thorough check in of me, and I can pretty much confirm that I’m not crazy. In fact, I feel pretty even, and I’m still faithfully taking all my medications, including a pretty heavy duty anti-psychotic that can knock a manic episode on it’s ass. I know there’s always the possibility of breakthrough episodes, but I just don’t think I’m having one of those. I think I’m pretty stable. Hmm . . .
Of course now that someone outside of me has mentioned it, now I have to do check ins on myself for the next week, which is a pain because people hate when you seem self absorbed and pre-occupied. At the same time, I probably was going to check in on myself just because of the T anyway, so it’s no big deal.
I trotted off to the post office and picked up my new phone, spent the next hour changing some phone numbers so they were stored to my sim card. Replaced the sim, and fiddled around with all the new things on my new phone. It has polyphonic ringtones. Get this: when my phone rings, it sounds like an actual old phone! It is so cute! I was terribly excited and thought oh yay, my life is turning around.
But then I went on friendster and got an admonishment from a friend for mentioning accidentally touching his cock, AND found out someone I like is currently taken, which they never bothered to let me know. I mean, it’s not like I demanded that she keep me up to date or anything, so I can’t really complain, and besides that she does live VERY far away. As for the cock thing, I dunno, maybe I have really bad boundaries. Growing up native, people just routinely made lewd crude jokes all over the place. I mean, some of my elders have thoroughly embarrassed me by teasing me about my sexuality, not in a mean way mind you, just, I dunno, that’s what they do. It’s an Indian thing. If you’ve never experienced it, you wouldn’t understand it.
Anyway, I felt cruddy for a while, and didn’t even have the chance to call mum to vent because she’s up in Northern Saskatchewan at a cabin on a lake, lucky woman. Then the worst thing happened: Internet Explorer decided to be fucked up. I click on it at the little icon bounces up and down like it’s yelling “I’m ready, I’m ready!” and then it just stops, and doesn’t open. All “Fuck you!” Sigh.
It’s overcast and I am still on the job hunt. Bleh.
But at least I have my phone again, an even better phone, a cuter, lighter, smaller phone.
The T isn’t doing anything to me besides giving me the occassional hot flash. Not a Menopausal Woman hot flash (those look way way more intense), but hot flashes nonetheless.
I’m grumpy. I’m going for a walk before it rains.
We were prepped, we were ready. The needle was fearsome. My friend let me hold it for a while before he wielded against my bare bum. 50mg of depo-testosterone, all that kaffufle and it just came down to this ridiculously benign looking amber fluid.
We went to his bedroom, where I bared my butt and got into position.
Deep breaths. He had a very nice bedside manner.
“Aaaah! I”m nervous!” It reminded me of my trips to the piercer, that nervous energy that crawls into the palms of your hands and tickles like you gotta pee right now.
“Have you ever done play piercing?”
“Yeah, just surface stuff on my arms.”
“Well this won’t even hurt as much as that because it’s only breaking the skin once and it’s coming out the same way.”
We did some more deep breathing.
Then I was ready.
It was a sharp pinch, and then it was over. I thought an intramuscular injection would hurt a lot more, but it didn’t really. I’m sure if I had to do it every two weeks I would think it stinks though. I felt a bit giddy, general euphoria. I had done it, there it was, it was in my system. Who knew what the next two weeks would hold for me?
One of the first effects I noticed was a tingling in my crotch, not a I have To Pee tingle, more, I dunno, a This Turns Me On tingle. Not quite, but that’s the closest I can describe it. And I felt my body temperature rise. My hands seemed warmer.
And yet, the sky didn’t fall. Later on when my friend’s boyfriend kept wanting to watch boxing on tv, I didn’t connect with it because of boy-hormones. I mean, essentially I feel pretty much the same as I did before.
Another friend got a shot, she called me up today and asked if my clit was throbbing, which it isn’t really, but I have only been awake for a short amount of time.
I’m excited to see how this works for the next couple of weeks it’s in my system.
********I have a phone again! A friend is lending me her ancient cell phone so now the temp agency can get in touch with me, and people can ask me out on dates. Ask me out on a date while the T makes me horny!********
I think I went through the biggest part of my gender confusion when I was about nineteen years old. I remember this one time I was telling an older butch friend about a dream I had where I was a boy, and how it really made me wonder where my gender stood. There was this other woman hanging around, non-butch, totally didn’t get it, while my friend just kind of nodded and agreed that any masculine woman these days has a moment where ya wonder, am I male or female?
There is this opening story in Stone Butch Blues about how the protagonist, Jess, is constantly asked if she is a boy or a girl. This was the constant question of my childhood too. Are you a boy or a girl? To think that even adults think they have the right to interrogate a child on their gender, that is sick.
At this point in my life, eight years of really doing major soul searching on whether or not I wanted to transition into a man, I have accepted that my gender is a question more than any answer. More than any allegiance to a binary, I have come to terms with living on the border of boy and girl. I know I wouldn’t be happier with a more masculine body. Hair, deep voice, no, that’s not really me. I don’t feel completely comfortable inside a girl body either, but it’s something I can work with until the day I shed this body and go to the other side, where something tells me I won’t be a boy or a girl.
At the same time, ever since I was nineteen, hearing the fabulous stories of what a shot of testosterone can do, I knew I wanted to have that experience. Only once, a needle sinking into my butt, a couple of weeks of male hormones, possibly one or two minor physical changes. My dalliance inside maleness. And eight years after making the decision to temporarily modify my hormones, to possibly put a couple of gendered questions to rest, some trans friends of mine are giving me a shot.
It’s the most exciting thing to happen to me all summer so far, and so of course with summer night drinks with friends I’ve excitedly told them about this new development in my life.
Okay, so I’ve had trans friends for ages, I mean, ever since I was in youth groups. I knew shit came at you for being trans, transphobia, yes, I thought I was really prepared for it. I also somehow thought that because I have educated and informed myself about transgender politics, I dunno, everyone else would have done the same thing.
Anyway, people have really freaked out about me getting this shot. They’ve challenged me on my gender, some people even said I wasn’t butch. They’ve tried to talk me out of it. Some people have said they don’t want to hear about how it goes. They’ve demanded to know what my body is going to look like after having one shot (this is a strange one, because my body is my own business). I’m just being an open honest dude about it and realizing that my openly transgendered butch status is turning me into an Other on a daily basis, with weird taunts about why in the world a nice girl like me would have a shot of T.
We decided we would do it this weekend, and I’m seeing them tonight. I’m a little intimidated by the needle, more so than what’s going to take place in my body. The last time I got a needle in the butt was just before they strapped me down in four point restraints for three and a half hours. Soooo, being a leathergirl, of course I have to re-enact the scene to reclaim that moment in my life. My friends aren’t tying me up, but we’ll probably have a nice chat about boy hormones and ladies and things of that nature. It’s an inch and a half long intramuscular injection, and apparently it can really hurt. I can take it, but that doesn’t make me like it any.
This is an experience I just have to have in my life, a chance to see what difference, if any, having testosterone in my body makes. It comes from a deep desire to understand and know the human condition. And even though people have been really vocal about not wanting me to do it, it is my own journey that I’m on, and this is just one of those destinations I have been planning for a long time.
I doubt I will decide to continue taking hormones, but then again, no one can say with certainty what the future holds.
I was plodding to the bath to wash away the day. My landlord was making the Canada Day rent rounds. I gave him rent money, then he said “The Fire and Health Inspectors came to the building last month.”
“Oh,” I say very innocently. Shit shit shit, that was just before the Big Clean of 2005. That was when I could barely make it from my bed to the door. It was awful, and the mice were having some kind of carnival in my boxes.
“Your apartment was filthy.”
“I know, I’ve cleaned since then.”
“I have to inspect it again next month.”
Sigh. What I hate is that these “inspections” so far haven’t come with any warning. I know bc tenants rights have changed with the Campbell government, but I don’t know if the old rule that you had to give 24 hours notice still stands. For all I know he could drop in any time he feels like it. Like a Santa Claus with no presents.
But I’m embarrassed that he saw my apartment when it was at it’s all-time worst.
At the same time, I am glad a lot of other tenants in the building have mental illnesses, so he doesn’t turf you out right away or scream or anything. He’s pretty decent overall.
Candidate Name: Cuthand, Thirza
Candidate ID: cuthandt
Candidate Email: f——-@excite.com
Evaluation Name: Administrative Support Skills
Evaluation Date: 6/26/2005 7:30:25 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Questions Completed: 43 of 43
Elapsed Time: 14 Minutes 34 Seconds
Questions Correct: 35
Overall Score 81%
Scores by Level
Basic 88%
Intermediate 94%
Advanced 55%
Scores by Category
Administration 73%
Filing 100%
Math 70%
Spelling 83%
End of Report
(Thirza can change the world through proper filing!)
Sometimes straight people are exceedingly stupid.
My last girlfriend and I were making out in front of a Scotiabank security camera, my eyes were peeking at what we looked like, tongues slipping and sliding inside girl mouths, when I heard a surprised man’s voice say “Thirza?”
It was some guy from school.
“She’s not gay,” he said of my sweetie, the woman I had just been macking on, the lady with dildos and harnesses and whips and lesbian porn in her bedroom.
“Well, no, she’s bisexual,” I said.
“No, she’s straight.” He was convinced. No way a girl could be that feminine and enjoy the company of other women, much less a rather masculine woman.
Some would argue that queer people are just as stupid. I think I have mentioned before the prevalance of dykes who shun uber-femme women in the community. I can’t tell you how many of my lovers told me their pissed off stories about being given dirty looks or ignored outright by card carrying homos.
It does make for some awkward moments, being a butch who likes femmes, who especially likes bisexuals, to carefully choose who is safe to make the moves on. And it’s true, in my life there have been many gorgeous femmes who turned out to be straight girls. But that doesn’t mean every well coiffed lady is straight as an arrow.