Am I allowed to exist?

Friday, November 30. After a couple hours of sleep, I was up for work and Stacy gave me a salad for lunch again. It was nice to have that salad ready for lunch time, but I needed breakfast. At work, it was time for 10:30 coffee. Four ginger snaps and coffee made do for breakfast.

At lunch time, (not long after coffee) the salad was good, but I wanted just a few more calories. Gareth had mentioned earlier that Jimmy, the guy that drives the lunch truck, had been asking about me. How sweet. How could I not go buy something from him? I got a coffee milk and dropped it in my purse on the way down to the bus stop to run a mid-day errand.

I had visited the community boating web site and seen that this was the last day to claim locker contents before it was all given to charity. I was very happy to find all of my stuff there in the lost and found bin. I also couldn’t resist taking a couple of items that weren’t mine: An unopened can of soda, and a women’s winter scarf. I needed a scarf after leaving my nice one on a commuter rail last year. All I had now were boy scarves, and I wanted a girl scarf. With my stuff in a plastic bag, I made a quick trip upstairs to tell the director that I had happily found my stuff and that I was leaving now. I couldn’t resist asking him though…

“If you have a moment, I have kind of a strange question” I began. I know, I’ve regretted asking this question every time I’ve asked it, and I’ve sworn off ever asking it again, but this was a special opportunity. I was alone with the director of the whole organization, at the end of the whole season. It seemed ok to ask his perspective from this point. “Was I, ok this year? I mean, you know, I sailed here for a few years, then skipped a year, then came back, as a woman…” He was nodding, understanding. and patiently waiting for me to finish. “…and I wondered if you had heard anything…negative.” He was still nodding. “No, he said. No one has said a thing.” I was smiling tentatively now. “Oh good” I practically interjected, “I guess, no reaction from people is the best possible reaction.” Wanting to just express some general appreciation for his organization, I elaborated, if nervously. “Always before, the most rewarding thing for me was to take new people out for instruction and teach them sailing. I, didn’t know how that would go this year, but I tried it and it turned out to be every bit as successful and rewarding. I really enjoyed this year.” “That’s great” he said smiling and nodding. “Hey, you know, over this winter, we have a few dates for work parties. I could get you those dates…” “Oh, they’re on the web site” I acknowledged. I’ll watch for them there…” I thanked him again and left, for once actually glad I had asked this question of, “am I allowed to exist?”

Stacy love

Thursday, November 29. Grumpy in the morning and feeling ugly, I stayed in my office with the door closed all morning, only poking my head out once to retrieve last night’s doggy bag from the hall fridge. Some time after noon, I walked back to Stacy’s and buzzed again. She greeted me at the door with a smile and handed me a key. I was instantly in a better mood, and we talked and had nice conversation while I tweezed more hairs from my face. I was really being away from work for too long but it was so nice to talk. She gave me a tub of yogurt to take with me for an afternoon snack. Wanting a few more calories and a little more pleasure, I bought a cherry Coke at Darwins, went and filled my Prozac prescription, and returned to work

In a happier mood, I wasn’t feeling so ugly any more but it was true that Sunday evening was actually my last shower. See, Stacy and Jessica’s place is pretty dilapidated, and without going into detail about their shower, let me just say that I wanted another option. I called Lisa. “Where exactly is the shower you were saying is somewhere in the building?” “Meet me. I’ll show you.” Fascinating, it was. After the tour of a couple of little known corners of the building, we swung by my office and I gave her that suit jacket that used to be Tina’s. Daphne called around the end of the day to remind me about a presentation on HIV research at the Boston Living Center. She thought of me when she saw that it was free and that they were serving food. Hey, I’m not below that. I went.

At the BLC there were indeed nice hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks, but I ended up not eating so much because the presentation and the conversation among the attendees was just fascinating. The presentation was about the recent vaccine trial that was halted in failure and how to understand the reports of this that were appearing in the media. Audience looked to be mostly gay men. I didn’t notice any other obviously trans women there. I did see Alex…I feel so bad that I never sent him my comments on the supper club. Maybe he’ll forgive me if I tell him I was in jail?

On the way home, who did I run into at random, but Kuan-Chung! We started talking and wanted to talk longer than just the train ride back, so he got off with me at Harvard to tag along for a bit. I knew I would need more food that I ate at the BLC so my first stop was the 7-11 where I got a sandwich and lemonade. The two of us walked back to my office. “Oh, it looks just like where I work!” he exclaimed as we wound our way through the hallways. “Just the posters are different.” That is, it’s a pretty generic science lab. He works in bioscience, I work in astronomy–only the posters are different. He shared a cookie with me before I walked him down the stairs to the bus stop to send him home. He’s so pleasant, so nice, he must have been so bored to want to hang out with me! I checked a few things on the computer, before returning to Stacy’s. Thursday happens to be one of her nights off. She was home and happy to see me–in bed.

Kuan-Chung love

Non-work related, I caught up on a lot of Sonia Kiss stuff, sending “here I am” emails to a number of friends, and checking messages and stuff on various social networking services. For the evening, I knew Stacy was going to a dance, and Jessica had talked about Meredith coming down and wanting to see me. Around 5pm I emailed Jessica and also left a message on her answering machine saying “hey, let me know if I can come over.” A little after 7, I think, the phone rang. It wasn’t Jessica, but Kuan-Chung! He asked if I had had dinner and if I wanted to go to Chinatown with him. Frustrated with Jessica, I agreed immediately.

We ended up going to a Vietnamese place and having a nice time. He bought me dinner, had me take the doggy bag, and gave me some left over apple pie when we got back to his place. I had wanted to go back there to get another bag of clothes. I filled my tote bag with some warm and long sleeve tops, a few other little things, and left for my temporary home, Stacy and Jessica’s place. (Oh, one thing I grabbed was a suit jacket I had been holding onto since early spring. This belonged to Tina, who lost track of it one night with Sisters when her drinking was out of control. I took it home with me that night, and emailed her a couple of times telling her that I had it, but apparently it wasn’t important enough to her to make plans to get it back. I’d kept it in my closet until now, but…I currently don’t even have a closet. I thought it might fit Lisa, and that she would give it a new home.)

I got there a little before 11pm, I think, and was glad to see all of the lights on. I did kind of expect Stacy at least to be there. I was glad to see that Kate was still up so I wouldn’t have to worry about waking her. I tried the back door in case someone had left it open for me but it was locked. I rang the doorbell in front, got buzzed in, walked up to the apartment door, tapped on it quietly and waited. And waited. No one ever came. What could it mean? Somebody was home and buzzed me in. If it were Jessica or Stacy, shouldn’t they let me in? If it were Kate, she might wait and let Jessica or Stacy come. Problem is, Jessica wages war against Kate and so the two of them avoid communicating with the enemy at all costs. So it’s possible that Jessica, avoiding contact with Kate, just assumed that Kate would let me in, but that Kate, knowing it was not her guest at the door, felt it was not her job to open it. It’s also possible that Kate just assumed that Jessica or Stacy heard the door when in fact they didn’t and while she buzzed me in the outer door, she didn’t feel it was her job to take any further action. What bullshit. At any rate, I was a victim of Jessica’s senseless war against Kate. I was pissed. I left and headed back to my office to sleep on the floor.

On the bench outside Darwin’s was an opened but mostly full bag of cashews. Here’s what I’ve come to. I picked them up. The bag looked clean, perhaps just forgotten. Perhaps someone reconsidered and decided to stick to their diet after all. I slipped the bag in my purse and walked on. In my office, the cashews were a welcome midnight snack. My phone did ring about midnight, but I was still pissed and wasn’t about to answer it. Sat in front of the computer in a sour mood doing nothing until late. Finally lied down on the floor, rested my head on my tote bag, draped my coat over me for a blanket, and closed my eyes for a few hours.

Wendy love

Natick. Wow, how long had it been? It was really nice to be back. That place is cool, so relaxed. I was happy with myself that I remembered most everyone’s name. And of course everyone remembers me (and actually seems to like me!) I had a few offers to buy me a drink but I declined them all. Inside I was really driven by humbleness, but the explanation that came out of my mouth was that I was staying away from alcohol. Sheesh. That’s something you can’t go back on. I was stuck staying dry for the night anyway. Wendy, understanding that I had no money, did later offer to buy me a bowl of chowder when she was having some herself. She’s really a nice person. Thoughtful and considerate. At the end of the night she insisted on giving me $30 cash. I had her drop me back at Alewife, took the train back to Harvard, crashed again at Stacy’s.

Wednesday, November 28. As I hurried off to work in the morning, Stacy offered me a few orange sections and sent along with me a breakfast bar and big salad that she had made for me the night before. I was hurrying because this was technically my first day back at work. First day on the clock, that is. A grueling day it was too: I straightened desk. I’m not sure I did much else work related.

Sonia goes to court

Tuesday, November 27. Stacy fixed me a nice breakfast of cereal. I took my pile of mail that had arrived at the apartment over the last month to work with me, set it aside while I read emails at a leisurely pace, then went to coffee. Today at coffee I felt much more comfortable with my appearance, after having had a chance to tweeze the most obvious whiskers from my face, and to dress more completely as Sonia with hip pads, breast forms, and that nice cowl neck sweater from Dina. After coffee, I started opening envelopes and going through mail, setting aside the most important looking pieces. One had come from the court with a copy of the sentence and saying that I would be scheduled to appear in court again on the first Tuesday following release. Now, there was no other mail with the specific date and time I was to appear, but I had just been released yesterday. I was guessing that it would be mailed out today, and that I would get something by the end of the week telling me the specific date and time. I had heard people say that it was typically the week following release. Still…..the only piece of paper I had in my hand actually said “the Tuesday following release” which strictly speaking was, today. Crap. I guess I should make sure.

It was lunch time so I decided to just run over to the courthouse and ask in person. It was finally time to buy a 7 day T pass to get me over there in a hurry. At the courthouse, I showed my paper, and explained that I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t supposed to appear today. “Let me check” the court worker said, and disappeared. Back in a minute, he handed me a stack of forms. “Fill these out.” Oh shit. I knew what that meant. I was supposed to be there that day, and, the usual time to appear is 8:30 in the morning.

Well, it wasn’t exactly planned this way, but Sonia was finally going to appear before the judge. The court’s attorney stifled a giggle as we approached the bench, but that was the only reaction I got from anyone. So there, now that I’ve appeared before the judge as Sonia, I’m done!–I have absolutely no occasions left where I would ever want to dress as a male. It’s a milestone. It feels really good.

Results of court were unpleasant. They are going to make me wear an electronic tracking anklet for four months. Unfortunately for them, they need me to have a home address where the anklet can ensure that I stay. The problem of course being that after a month in jail, I’m homeless. They told me I had two weeks to find an apartment and they turned me out on the street again. What insanity. On the train, back to my office, checked emails again, returned a message to Wendy. She wanted to pick me up in an hour to go out for dinner. “You’re buying?” I asked immediately. “Ah, I guess so!” A few minutes later she was calling back again. “Dinner is off. Pick you up at 7:30 instead?” Rats. A real dinner sure would have been nice. I settled for a Dunkin bagel from the Alewife station while I waited for Wendy to pick me up.

On the street again

Monday, November 26. I’m released after 35 days in jail. On the way out the door they gave me a check for the money in my canteen account, $53.98, which was what was left of the $75 I came in with plus $30 that Kuan-Chung deposited for me as a gift. Across the street at the court house, I recovered my purse, containing an additional $1.31. Making me much happier though, my purse contained my wig and the gold necklace from Trina. I went in the men’s room, straightened up as best I could, donned wig and necklace, and walked out looking (at least somewhat) like Sonia for the first time in a month.I was wearing a man’s button shirt and sport coat, no hip pads, no breast forms or bra, no makeup to cover my beard shadow, but I held my head up and walked out on the street. The ticket machine at the train station confirmed that none of my bank cards worked. As I expected, they had all been shut off. $1.31 isn’t enough to by a bus fare these days, but weather was nice enough for the 40 minute walk to my office.

I arrived just in time for morning coffee, where people were happy to see me, and all acted oblivious to my rough appearance. After checking in with various people and checking emails, I walked “home”, to my old apartment in hopes of talking to Al.

Sure enough, he was there and filled me in on part of the story of my disappearance. True to form, some of the story he omitted, and some of it I had to dig out of him. He explained to me that all of my belongings were locked up in the basement, but couldn’t tell me why or under what conditions I could have them back. I asked him who got stuck with the manual labor of moving all of my stuff to the basement and he was mute. “You?” I asked. “Surely not the landlady. Did she pay someone?” He was speechless, looking at the floor like a child shamed to death for, say, breaking a vase, and trembling in fear of punishment. “I was persistent and refused to move on to a different topic of conversation until he gave me an answer. He startled at this realization that he was going to be forced to answer. He startled and his whole body shook like a marionette. Finally in a hushed voice, he said that Kuan-Chung moved everything, after the landlady boxed everything up.

It absolutely boggles my mind how he could be fearful of divulging this information, how he could be ashamed, what backlash or retribution he imagined could come from it. In my mind, I had asked a simple question because I wanted to know who deserved my apologetic feelings for them being troubled with lugging my belongings to the basement. In his mind…what? What? In his mind I must have been accusing him of something terrible? I haven’t come right out and said this about Al yet, but seriously, he has some profound mental disabilities. It’s really tragic. Regardless, knowing I had no money, he insisted on giving me $20 as I left.

No more could be done there, so I went back to my office where I could read more emails. I had over 2000 emails in various places to skim through, tens of thousands of others that had been delivered to me, but that I would just archive without looking at. A few hours later, I was done, I knew Al would have left for his work by then, and that Kuan-Chung should be home.

Back to the apartment, Kuan-Chung was very happy to see me and fill me in on much of the story that I didn’t get from Al. He also fed me a dinner of dumplings in tomato sauce, and let me into the basement to recover what I wanted of my belongings. I found my tote bag and filled it with the essentials for spending the night at Stacy and Jessica’s. I rummaged through boxes just enough to find a change of clothes to wear the next day and happened to find a very nice cowl neck sweater that Dina must have given me but that I didn’t even recognize and so I’m sure I hadn’t even worn yet. I also used the house phone to call Daphne and Jessica, leaving voice messages for both of them. Finally, saying goodnight to Kuan-Chung, I walked to Stacy and Jessica’s place, found them home, filled in yet more blanks in the story of what everyone had done to deal with my disappearance, and eventually slept, between the two of them, in a real bed.

Stacy Letter

Saturday, November 17. Muscle problem being completely controlled by medicine now. Haven’t been writing much here because I’ve been writing to Stacy instead!

In a 14 page letter started Wednesday the 14th, I told her all about a hospital visit one day. “…at least a change of scenery, a car ride, a look up at the open sky on certain one of the nicest days in November.” I talked about food and bragged about my weight, telling how one officer was baffled at how to put a waist chain on me at one point because I was so skinny. I told how a side effect of the hospital trip was that I got bumped into a different part of the jail when I got back. I wrote:

The different areas of this place have very different “personalities.” The area I was in before was kind of like nursery school and this place is more like high school. In area #1, (let’s call it) lots of us laid around and napped all day. I’ll see for sure tomorrow, but there seems to be a busy social scene here and I’m pretty sure that napping during the day just won’t happen. In area #1, the teacher sat in the room with us and nobody thought of misbehaving. In area #2, the teachers stay in the teachers’ lounge as much as possible and we kind of self-rule by gangs. In nursery school, class size was 12. Here in high school, there are 72 of us packed into study hall. And, maybe most interestingly, in area #1, Kirin was right, that no one cared about my story. He ended up being the only one there that knew my name is Sonia. With the little micro society here in area #2, inquiring minds want to know. I was quickly interrogated about a few of my obvious quirks–like my shaved arms–and I was ready to just out myself as trans and it’s looking now (Thursday, 5:15pm) like I’ll be known as Sonia here!

I wrote back to her about lots of stuff that she had written me about. I jabbered more about my diet. She had asked me in a letter if I would go back to male mode if I had to look for a new job when I got out. My reply was a little vague:

Job hunting male mode would sure be a last resort. I get so many mixed signals on this I don’t know what to think. I’ll do whatever I have to do, but there are so many encouraging signs that I will be accepted as Sonia at future jobs.

The letter went on to talk about various lousy jail policies, my hospital trip, my now improving health, and…shaving:

Oh, another nice thing about this area is that we have more razor time. In the other place I barely had time to shave my arms. Last night I had time to do my legs as well! That creeped out a couple of guys but it felt so nice to have smooth legs again. A couple of guys nervously asked who I was shaving my legs for and seemed somewhat relieved when I said “just for me. No one else.” Seriously, guys shaving their faces got just as much flak. A few people sneered at them asking if they had hot dates for the night or asking them why they bothered to shave in jail. Fair enough, hm?

Later in the letter, this:

Hey, you’ll like knowing that you were wildly popular today. I’m not sure how so many of them saw you, since we were in that little alcove instead of the bigger room but lots of the guys saw you today and were all full of questions afterwards. [It turned out that many of their visitors had had the chance to talk with Stacy while waiting, and that stories were then passed on from the visitors to the inmates.] You can also share my happiness that there was not a single negative comment. It probably helped that just yesterday about ten of us sat around and I was prompted to tell all about me as Sonia and they all shared what knew from other transsexuals that they had known. The short of it is that out of 70 or so guys, we have a few that are totally out as gay, and it’s nothing much different for me to be out as trans, and everyone is ok with that.

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Surviving

Monday, November 12. I had hints of this yesterday but today it’s been very clear–my muscle problem has lessened. I can still feel it when the medicine wears off, but it’s pain I can tolerate and still function. Maybe this problem will be gone by the time I leave here?