Double feature

Official TGAW activities yesterday included two movies at different locations, but the organizers had nicely scheduled them so that both could be attended.

The first was “Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance,” about gender variant musicians, and was really enjoyable.  The producers, who were present at the screening, explained that their original concept was to do a road movie about themselves on concert tour.  They quickly decided to expand their subject to include other gender variant acts that they met and sometimes performed with as they traveled.  It worked!  They mixed performance footage, interview footage, and out-the-car-window road footage into a truly wonderful exploration of gender variant music.

The second was “Maggots and Men“, was a rather challenging story of Russian revolution circa 1920.  The producer, again, who was present, said with a laugh during discussion following the film, that it wasn’t a “serious” documentary, and yet he seemed to have done his research well, and produced a historically authentic movie.  So where’s the queer?  Well, on the surface, the producer is trans and he used many of his transmasculine friends in the cast.  The content of the film then, while not primarily about queerness, shows a number of very queer secondary aspects.  The justification for this can be seen in different ways.  First, there is certainly historical accuracy, but on a deeper level there is the common theme of revolution, both in government and in gender.  Deep stuff.

Alison was home at 6:00 and I explained to her my plans for the evening and that I had to leave right then to get to Harvard Square in time to grab a bite to eat before the first show.  I didn’t think she would want to rush out the door that fast and I was right, she chose to miss the first movie and instead have a leisurely and quiet dinner at home.  We met at the Brattle Theater then, for the second movie, and I was glad to see her.  She asked how the first movie was.  “It was awful!”  I pleaded.  “Everyone there for the movie was–young.  No one was even half my age.  I was scared.  I was afraid they were going to attack me, like… like rats!”  She laughed.  “But you love rats.”  We watched Maggots and Men and stopped in Charlies for a bit before coming home.

Transgender Awareness Week

This is it.  November 20th has been established in recent years as Transgender Day of Remembrance, and this year, the whole week of November 16-20 is Transgender Awareness Week.  There are activities each day this week in Boston.  Last night (Monday the 16th) I saw a screening of “Diagnosing Difference” at MIT and tonight…I drank beer.

The movie was shown in MIT’s “Rainbow Lounge” to which I had never been, so that was interesting for me.  The movie, I have to say, was a bit disappointing.  It certainly held my attention and was enlightening, but I felt it lacked…something.  It held my attention because I was keenly interested in the subject, but I’m not sure it would have held the attention of casually interested people.  I didn’t sense structure and flow to the movie.  And then, specific to the content, I felt it was a bit one-sided.  It presented the experiences and opinions of 15 or so trans people who were all very much opposed to having Gender Identity Disorder listed in the “DSM”, the official catalog of mental disorders.  Absent from the movie, I thought, were opinions in favor of GID staying in the DSM.  Now, I personally don’t think it belongs in the DSM, but I would have liked to see the opposition presented.  Also absent were suggestions on alternatives to the existing system.  Some of this was discussed within our little group following the movie.  Overall, it was a good night.

Tonight, the scheduled TG Awareness Week activities in the Boston area weren’t particularly calling to me, so I made up my own activity.  I went drinking at Silhouette Cocktail Lounge, the last place Rita Hester was seen in public after she was murdered 11 years ago.  It was a pilgrimage, I suppose.  I didn’t go to protest or make any statement.  I didn’t go seeking information of any sort.  I didn’t go of morbid curiosity.  I wasn’t on a séance.  I went just to be there, and do something I do–drink.  I looked up the bar ahead of time.  Yelp reviewers said it was divey.  A major attraction of this bar is cheap beer.  It sounded like the kind of place I was familiar with, a place where I would feel comfortable, and be able to fit in.  And so I went, and I didn’t get murdered.  I met Irene, and Owen, and…(Rob?), and Lizzy, and they all liked me and asked me to come back.  I drank beer, I peed in the lady’s room, I came home.  It was exactly what I expected, and exactly what I wanted.  I do think I’ll go back.  Who knows, at some point in the future, perhaps with enough alcohol in me, I might actually confess why I went there that first night.

A couple of them probably know anyway, but it was cool not to talk to about it.

Roger that

Background for the punch line:  Alyson and I were regular watchers of the ABC Sci-Fi show “Defying Gravity” earlier this year.  The story is a near-future NASA run manned space flight thing and one quirk we found funny, then annoying, then hilarious, was how often the characters would say “roger that” as a way of saying “okay.”

So now Friday:  Dinner was with Alyson’s family at a Chinese restaurant, which was very nice, if a little odd for all the relationships represented at the table.  After dinner, Alyson and I got on the Red Line with the plan of “going out” but without a destination yet.  We tossed around ideas and ended up at Tequila Rain where Guerrilla Queer Bar was staging their monthly invasion.  We drank a little bit, danced a little bit, and explored the giant four-story complex that is Tequila Rain, Jillians, and Lucky Strike.  Scooting closer to home while the trains were still running, we came back to Cambridge and got off at Harvard Square to close Charlie’s.  Home, and with the alcohol munchies, I amazed Alyson by throwing together trail mix from various stuff I found in the kitchen.  We ate and checked emails as I told Alyson a crazy story of a little asteroid scare at work that day.  It involved me emailing various people at NASA, me issuing the report on the asteroid after it was obviously missing us and after there was nothing else to say about it, and finally notifying the person at NASA headquarters of what I had done.  With great dramatic buildup, I said to Alyson, “You won’t believe what his reply was.”  “What?!!” she asked with eyes wide in anticipation.  “Roger that.”  We rolled on floor laughing…into bed.

 

Lovely Thursday

Breakfast:  oatmeal

Lunch:  salami and provolone sandwich

Afternoon:  lovely lecture on general relativity

Dinner:  clam chowder, salad, tuna sandwich, cookies

Later:  trail mix

Bravery–and the Yankees–rule

Tuesday was:  work, picking up my bike, going by the grocery store because I knew we had little at home, fixing dinner, and watching voting returns on the internet.  Maine lost, Kalamazoo won.

Food yesterday:

Lunch:  left over chili

Dinner:  toasted soybean appetizer, bluefish, rice, salad

Weight Wednesday morning: 164.

Food Wednesday:  Bagel, meatloaf, baked potato, salad, movie popcorn, alcohol.

In the evening we saw the Coen brothers’ latest, “A Serious Man.”  I commented when we left that I didn’t get it.  I understand from reading on the internet that the movie was close to home for them, and that you understand more if you are Jewish.  I think much, much, went over my head, which is why I made that comment.  One thing I noticed though was that religion didn’t do the characters in the movie any good–it didn’t help them figure anything out, it didn’t explain anything for them.  (The Bible didn’t explain anything for us as the audience either, except to provide foreshadowing.)  So after the movie, in the car ride home, it kind of came together for me when Alex said that much out loud–that religion (or god) didn’t help anyone in the movie–and said that he saw that as kind of the point of the whole movie.  Ha!  In that sense, the movie might be seen as in the vein of another movie Alyson and I saw recently, “The Invention of Lying,” Serious Man with this dark view of religion, and Invention with its message, as I paraphrased after seeing it, that religion is the mother of all lies.

(I know I haven’t mentioned Invention in a recent post.  Sorry, I’m trying to add some backdated posts, but I may or may not work in mention of that movie.)

Anyway, Jen and Alex picked us up for the movie tonight.  They were confused about the time and were actually running an hour early so after I pointed that out, we had a drink at Flat Top Johnny’s first.  We met a few of their friends at the theater:  Sean, Matt, and someone else, I forget who.  After the movie, my brain having been teased with alcohol, I went to close Joe Sent Me on my own.  The fearless radical there was not me, but a woman there by herself wearing a Yankees jersey.  Guys commented on that when she left.  I added some comment about bravery, internally being quite amused at how often I’ve been called brave for being transgender…

(I thought it was cinnamon.)

Work.  Took bike to shop.  Made chili for dinner with Alyson.  Laundry at the laundromat.

Breakfast:  oatmeal with brown sugar and  clove (by accident.)

Dinner:  chili with crackers, asparagus, 3 cookies.

Later:  cheese and crackers.

Weight this morning:  steady at 164.

 

3/4 of a cookie

I woke up feeling relatively good, but laid in bed for a very long time just because it was Sunday and I had nothing to do.  Finally decided to go for a bike ride for exercise.  That quickly fell through when a shifter cable broke early in the ride.  Leaving my lame bike locked up at Alewife then, I hopped over to Porter to catch up with Alyson and Rachel, who were hanging out at Zing.  The plan was to all go to a movie later, but Rachel decided not to go.  Just Alyson and me then, saw “The Informant.”  Redbones, and then cookies from CVS were further comforts.  And…that was the day.

Breakfast:  1/2 bagel with cream cheese, 1 kiwi fruit

Lunch:  Parmesan bread stick from Zing Cafe

Dinner:  Redbones:  1 square cornbread, 1/4 chicken with beans and slaw, fried okra, root beer.

Later: 3/4 of a cookie.

Happy Halloween

Saturday, 1am, drunk.   It’s ok, right?  It’s Halloween.  It was a pretty tame Halloween really.  I piddled around the house this morning, went shopping in the afternoon.  Bought the scale, but not the shoes.  Made spaghetti with Alyson for dinner.  Jen and Alex canceled their Halloween party (and confessed later that they were going to someone else’s party.)  Alyson and I were on our own then.  I suggested Davis Square.  We tried Burren first, but they were having a party with a cover charge.  Across the street was J-Tree with no cover charge.  Tough decision, hm?!!  We drank, we checked out all the costumes.  We ended up hanging with three women and having fun conversation.  I ended up buying drinks.  Whatever, we had a Halloween and it was fun.

So the new scale is the $15 mechanical one with the big dial.  It’s pretty easy to read, but doesn’t show fractions of pounds like the digital models.  The shoes…I’m fixated on clogs.  I’ve wanted them for the last couple of years actually, but haven’t been as desperate for shoes as I am now.  Dansko and Sanita’s seem about the same price.  Sanita’s look slightly better mode, and the store on Mass Ave has them in large sizes.  They’re just so…more money than I want to pay.  *sigh*  But I look down and so many women are wearing them, and I walk so much and so need good shoes.  I need to bite and just buy them.

Weight, with clothes on, and by the new scale, 167 to 170, hard to say.  With jeans and breast forms off, more like 164.  I think it’s an improvement from last week.  I measured about 170 last week at Ellen’s, and decided I should try to lose about 2 lbs per week.  Maybe I’m on course.  We’ll see.

Food today:  Salami and provolone sandwich for lunch, then, a McDougal’s soup.

Dinner was spaghetti with vegetarian tomato sauce with broccoli for a vegetable.

And…lots of drinks at J-Tree.