Catsup

…and poppa tomato says “Catch up.” I have been here before, a week behind, that is (no, I don’t mean county) so here’s a multi-day entry to Catch up.

Monday April 14 was the day before court again. I stayed home, piddled, worried. It was too late to do anything to prepared. Tuesday morning as I left, I told Stacy I was pretty sure they were going to send me back to jail. I had to tell her so she would know where I was when I didn’t come back. As it turned out, they didn’t want to see me in court today. Never mind that it was the Tuesday after a completed sentence, I had a date for May 20, so they just told me to come back then. Woohoo! I was free for a month anyway. I headed back to the house to find Stacy gone. I thought she was out shopping and running errands, but I learned from her later that she had gone looking for me. She was so sad over the thought of me going back to jail that she wanted to be there with me at court. Of course I was gone from there early and she had no chance of catching up with me. She told me the story later of how she had to go to three different places looking for me but how people somehow knew to ask her, “Are you looking for xxxx? (my boy name, still my legal name)” and then tell her that I had left already.

That evening then, I felt like getting out and doing something with my trans community. I considered Natick, but the train costs money, it’s a long trip, and I wasn’t up for it. I went to Tiffany Club’s Tuesday Open House instead. I’d never been! I’d been to a couple of their Saturday house parties, but never on a Tuesday. I kind of expected to feel like I was crashing their party. After all, I know their organization well enough that I don’t need it explained to me, yet I’m not a member. In the end, I was really glad I went. I got to hang out with some of the members as they talked about various club-related issues. It certainly did give me a new insight into TCNE.

On the way home, I seemed to be collateral damage in a racial discrimination incident. I’d bought a bad-for-me snack at Wendy’s walked down the block to the nearest bus stop and decided to wait there. I expected to have five to ten minutes yet before the bus came and thought it would be good to get as much of my snack eaten as possible before getting on the bus. There was another guy already waiting at this stop, standing with his back against the bus stop sign, facing the oncoming traffic, right on the edge of the street where he couldn’t possibly be missed by the bus driver and where he could see the bus coming from a couple of blocks away. This made me feel confident to sit on a step and eat so I could manage the food better. The step was one or two feet from the sidewalk, the sidewalk abutted the street, so I could see the bus coming as well. I got almost everything down when I saw the bus coming, about half a block away. I stuffed everything in my purse, the other guy waiting stood so he was no longer leaning against the bus stop sign, and in fact stood in the street to make himself as visible as possible. I was in the middle of the sidewalk, walking perpendicular to the street and sidewalk, toward the street and the other guy standing there, when the bus blew by us at full speed. No, it was not an express bus, a limited stops bus, or anything of the sort. The driver was supposed to stop. You know what I think? The guy waiting was black and it was 11:45 at night and the driver chose not to stop.

Wednesday, I still wanted to do “something trans” but thought I had better stay away from Sisters of Worcester, for this week anyway. Ashley had already announced that she planned to be there, and I didn’t want any chance of Sisters of Boston politics detracting from the atmosphere at Sisters of Worcester. Searching around for alternatives, I decided to go to the CineMental / Aliza Shapiro showing of “The Living End” at the Brattle Theater. Ten bucks, a block from home, gay culture, no alcohol, and home at a reasonable hour. Perfect. What I took away from the movie was that AIDS had, for the main characters in the movie, turned life into death, and death into life. The gun, an instrument of death and therefore symbolic of AIDS, was enabling them to live, as in live with wildly enhanced vibrancy. In the closing scene…sorry, but I’m going to spoil it for you here…Luke yields the gun, thus ending their escapade and yielding the two of them to the dreaded living death that surely awaited them. (Now hey, don’t lecture me about misconceptions about living with HIV. That’s just the way the movie was.)

Thursday I went to the Transcend group meeting. It was great. There were actually several programs on different topics. It was interesting, I learned, and also got to socialize a bit with some of the girls. I was surprised when Stacy showed up part way through the evening! The poor thing should have been sleeping, as she had to work that night as usual, but she had a special interest in one of the programs and so sacrificed sleep.

By Friday then, I was feeling all caught up on tranny socializing, the weather was warm and sunny, and so after work I just went for a walk through the Boston Common and Public Garden to see what was budding and what was blooming. The willow trees were bright green with buds, tulips were well up, although none were blooming yet, cherry trees were heavy with buds. The star though, was the dogwood trees. They were all at their peak, and practically opaque with blooms. I was there just before sunset so they were all lit from the side and presented more as sculpture installations than flowering trees. Redbuds were beautiful too. Home for salad with the girls, I started watching a movie with them but couldn’t do it. I fell over asleep half way through, probably before 11pm. Woke up at 2:30 and crawled under the covers.

Saturday, I was back out on the town and out of control. I took the bus to TCNE again, this time for the Saturday House Party. Sharon had emailed me earlier in the week and told me that she was hostessing, so how could I not go? It was great to see her and lots of other peeps. Fun conversation and lots of bad-for-girls snack food to pig out on.

Walk to Waltham Center this time, still feeling bitten from Tuesday’s incident, I arrived just in time to see the outbound bus dropping people off. One guy said to me as he walked by, your bus will be late. We’re were about 20 minutes late. Crap, I realized–that bus was my bus, but it still had to go to the end of the line, turn around, and come back. Now I was worried that the last trains would be gone already by the time the bus arrived in Central Square. I decided on a plan: If the last outbound train was gone, I would walk home (a short and easy walk) otherwise I would take the train downtown and go to RISE. There, how’s that for absolving myself from guilt? I didn’t choose to spend all my money dancing, it was fate! The bus reappeared shortly, now only eight minutes late by my watch. I told the bus driver “Good job making up some time there” and he laughed. It seemed certain I was going dancing until the bus had to hit every, single, red, light as we approached Central Square. I watched my watch and visualized the last train leaving Alewife, Davis, Porter, Harvard Square… “Entering, Central Square” I imagined the automated announcement on the train saying as the bus stopped at the next to the last stop before the subway entrance. Here a bunch of people stood up to get off, and out the window I saw another bunch of people heading toward the bus to board. I didn’t have time for this. I skipped out the door, sprinted around the corner and down the stairs, and, yes, people were still waiting for the last train. Thirty seconds later I was stepping onto the train and was off for a night of dancing.

1am, RISE was opening at 1:30 (that’s half an hour early) but I needed to pee. Next door at Flash’s, there were quite a few people on the sidewalk, talking and smoking, I cut through them but the door was blocked by a bouncer with his arms crossed. A big sign was taped to the doorway stating that restrooms were for customers only. “Are you open?” I asked. He evaluated me, I tried my best to look like I didn’t have to pee, his expression changed subtly as if to say “I suppose so, but you’d better not just pee and come right back out this door.” He nodded and stepped aside. I went straight to the bar and–what else could I do?–ordered a drink. I’d barely started on it, when someone across the bar standing up to leave caught my eye. She was very tall. She was…Beverly! “Hm!” I thought, “who will Beverly be with?” Trailing just behind was…Dina! This was perfect because I had been thinking of Dina recently, missing her, and, well, mentioning her name in conversation with a mutual friend of a friend. I waited for them to thread their way through the crowd toward my seat by the door. I said Beverly’s name as she walked by but it must have all been too out of context to register with her. Then I stood and faced Dina as she walked by. “Dina.” Blink, blink, “Sonia?!?” What fun. I talked with them for just a moment though, as I didn’t want to interupt their evening. Before long it was 1:30, I was slurping the last of my drink, stopping in the restroom on my way out. (Well? It’s easier to wait when you can sit with your legs crossed!)

RISE was really good. It was a Craig Mitchell birthday party with him upstaris and Etiquitte in the lounge. One funny scene was in the lounge, early in the night, when a guy approached me with a bit of nervousness, asking “Is this a gay club?” “Oh, yeah!” I said with a big smile. He looked distraught. “I mean, uh, lots of people here are gay, but it’s a mix…” I backpeddaled quickly. “There are gays, straights…and me” I explained with a little bounce and a gesture towards myself. He looked a little bit relieved to have “me” to talk to. I’ll never know…did he think I was a straight biological woman? Anyway, I must have seemed safe to him in this scary place full of gays, and he had more questions. “What kind of place is this? What kind of music is this? Do I like it? What do I like about it?” He didn’t think he could dance to it. My encouragement to “feel” it, didn’t make sense to him. “Have you been upstairs yet?” “Oh yeah, that was nasty” he exclaimed with wide eyes. I sighed. I didn’t think I could help him but I tried to explain one more time that the people here are friendly, the music very cool, and that he should hang out for a while and give it a chance. I don’t think I saw him after that. Poor guy. The cover charge most likely made that an expensive lesson for him.

Sunday I slept late of course, did some laundry, and listened to Ethan’s internet radio show.

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.

CD Aunts and Grandmothers

Saturday the plan was going to the FoRCC roll call party with Daphne. I met her at South Station when she got off work at 3:00, we went back to her place. We got to RCC at 11:15. I was pretty frustrated, but couldn’t complain because I hadn’t communicated my wishes to her plainly enough. What I should have said is that I really hoped to get there early so as to have lots of time to seek out and get to know better some of my CD “aunts and grandmothers”—girls that are like a generation or two ahead of me in CD time. You know what I mean? You start going out as a new CD and you’re like a teenager. Wild and exuberant and daring and exploring and testing limits. You do that for a period—a year or two, I think, and then you move out of adolescence into your CD “young adulthood” you’ve got some social skills now, you’ve mastered your look and your personality, you might even have a reputation(!), but you probably haven’t quite found your place in the world. You might drift away from your first social circles, find new ones, you might go back to your roots. Then, if you’re lucky, you settle down in whatever part of the TG landscape feels best to you. Some of these girls were at RCC, and most of them I don’t know very well yet. Me, I’m kind of graduating from my teenage phase, I think, and looking for new horizons. I’d love to listen to wisdom of some of my elders at this point. *sigh*

So, 11:15 didn’t leave enough time for that. Vonnie was wonderful to me, as she has been. I had a nice time talking with Paula. She was so happy to realize that it was Daphne and I that were dating. Dianna, I stood and listened to her tell one story, and I gave her a hug goodnight when she left. That’s all I really wanted to hang around her more. Junie, I embarrassed myself in front of. It’s only been like four times that I’ve met her now, so I was pretty sure I knew who she was, but it was late, I’d had a couple of drinks, and I blurted out, “who are you?” “I’m June Casad”, she said in a very sincere voice and looking into my blurry eyes. *sigh* I think she knew I was struggling. Lace? I still don’t know who that is. I hear she was there. *sigh* Still just a name to me. Crap, crap, I’m still so bad at meeting people and getting to know them. < Oh, one girl I really liked meeting was Denise, but I just met her at the end of the night and was drunk and just got an introduction and a picture with her. I wish I knew how to contact her now. She looked so advanced in transition. Really, I can’t imagine her passing as a guy.

I liked seeing Amy Avalon there. I’d been thinking about her just recently. And then I didn’t get to talk to her except to say hello goodbye. I love her because so far, while I’ve been in my “teens” I’ve thought of her as being in the generation just ahead of me and I’ve looked up to her. She’s past her teens, and into that more sober phase of finding her place in the world. How do I know? Well, people tell stories of how she was just like me, going out every week, going dancing, and then she started appearing at fewer CD events. That when she did, she would show up with unshaved legs sometimes. I know I’ve seen her lots of different ways, from looking very finished and perfect, to…male mode! I’ve heard her talk about how she’s considered FFS, and thought hard about where she was and where she wanted to go next. Very cool stuff, and always, I’ve thought, facing just the sorts of issues that I’ll be facing myself before long. How did she look Saturday? In a very short and very flirty black skirt that was tiered and lacy. Like, how fun for a Saturday night with the girls?

Hmm, what else? Wendy and Natasha both bought me drinks. I talked with Terri for a bit. There was a Diane there that was a good friend of Terri’s. I said hello to Dahlia, Jonelle, Winnie, Mellisa, Nadia. Talked with Wendy, Erica, Danielle. Saw Dina leave looking very drunk. Ashley didn’t show up. Omg, not fair…I know there were lots of other girls I talked to but forgot to mention here.

Sunday with Daphne was about as lazy as a day gets. We napped, ate, napped, ate, and basically did nothing. It was nice. The weekend with Daphne was nice, but sadly with too much tension. Daphne and I both have money problems, roommate problems, and health problems. Both of us are kind of sick with worry about problems that we’re not dealing with well. Both of us are kind of wondering about our relationship together. With all that though, it was nice. It was a weekend together.

Wendy birthday party

Sisters on Friday was a good one. I left home at 7:30, caught the 90 bus, the orange line, the 137 bus, in quick succession and was making record time. Not wanting to walk the last leg, I started calling people at random to see who could pick me up. Dina. She was just leaving her house to pick up Danielle. Negotiated in a flurry of phone conversations, Wendy ended up picking up Danielle, Dina scooped up me, and we all arrived at the hotel by 9:00. The crowd turned out to be the biggest one since our opening night in January. One special attraction was that Wendy had invited people to come and share her birthday cake. The cake was fun, and furthering the reverse giving, Wendy also brought little presents for everybody. I got a little bottle of red nail polish. Girls kind of went in different directions at the end of the night and six of us stayed to close down the hotel bar. 11:30 they were kind of shooing us out, and Daphne and I drove home.

Bachelorettes to capacity

The next day, I processed asteroid data from Dina’s bedroom computer and we took our time getting cleaned up and ready to go back out in the evening. We met Danielle and went to Lauren for dinner. It was really nice to spend time with just the two of them, trade stories, and get to know each other better. They were wanting to come up with some activity that we do next, they suggested Jacque’s, and I couldn’t resist. It was Saturday night and Jacque’s would be fun. It turned out not be fun getting through the door. When we arrived we were told that the place was at capacity and we couldn’t go in. Dina snuck in through the smoking door after a while, but when Danielle and I tried, we got caught and sent back outside. We were standing around talking when Jon came out. He discovered that we weren’t allowed in an threw a nice little fit for the bouncer, deploring that the girls that the place exists for are kept out while the bachelorette parties fill the place. Who knows if the protest did the trick or not, but after a few minutes, we were allowed in. Inside it was fun to hang out, it was fun to see Jon and Vicky again, since I’ve met them a couple of times but still hardly know them. And it was fun to see the other Sonia again. I heard someone say “Sonia” behind my back, and my first thought was, “that’s right! I remember meeting another Sonia here on a Saturday night.” Funniest line of the night was from Vivian (? I think that was her name) who was listening as Jon and Vicky were explaining that it was her who introduced them eighteen years ago. There was a little pause and Vivian shyly said “I was ten years old”–A funny way of saying either “I’m embarrassed at the lower bound that was just placed on my true age” or “I’m 28 now” which is of course a funny reference to the way that through makeup, clothes, and starry eyes, we all typically look much younger than we really are. Just before midnight I dashed out the door to catch the subway before it turned into a pumpkin. Home after a long Friday, I slept hard. In fact, all of Sunday went to sleep and rest, with the cell phone turned off.

A brilliant dress

Friday evening was Sisters and after the usual nice time at the hotel, things got wild crazy fun. Ashley asked people where they wanted to go after the hotel, and then declared that we were going to…someplace, I don’t remember where, but it was a straight club. Steffanie threw a little tantrum at this. She wasn’t comfortable at any straight club and said that she was going home instead. Ashley reconsidered and the next choice was Pure, a lesbian club. This turned out to be a perfect choice that made everyone happy. The club was lots of fun, there was dancing, girls, and queerness. One fun surprise was seeing some of the MFP girls there that I had met at the picnic. Coincidentally, I had worn my big floral print dress this night. It was popular at Sisters because apparently not many of them had seen that dress, but then it was wildly popular at Pure. Some girls had to compliment me on it, saying it was “brilliant” asking where I got it. Here, I messed up, I’m afraid. It actually came from the Goodwill Store, but I was too embarrassed to admit it. After repeatedly refusing to say where I got it, I finally said it was vintage, and they were happy with that. My gosh, I know there’s no shame in shopping at the Goodwill Store. I just, don’t know what came over me. I wish now that I had not only freely told them where it came from, but that I asked them exactly what they meant by “brilliant.” Maybe they liked it just because it was so feminine? Because it had so much motion on the dance floor? Because it covered my silicone assets so well? I dunno. After the dance club closed, I did something a little different and went with the girls to Bickfords. I hadn’t done this since my first time out last August. I got to see how Ashley’s group was a regular there, and also got to see a group of guys get thrown out of the restaurant for making rude remarks about us. The waitress was wonderfully protective of us! Dina had promised to give me a ride home after Bickfords, but it was so late and she was getting so tired that she invited me to just come to her place. I went, and wow was it nice. Dina’s beautiful, and has wonderful style and makeup skills, and one of my favorite parts of her is her soft girl skin. She uses a rotary epilator and I think maybe it does the trick.

Sailing and Sisters

Friday I broke a little bit from the usual Sisters routine. As I’d explained to Ashley recently, It’s a huge pain for me to get to the Sheraton. Most convenient would be taking a cab. The fare is over $50. Next most convenient is the commuter rail. Of course that still involves two subway rides to get to the commuter rail, the train ride, and then a cab from the train station to the hotel. Transportation cost, about $20. Time, about 2 hours. Then come various combinations of buses and walking to reduce transportation costs more, but travel time ends up stretching well over 2 hours. Why have I done this every Friday for the last ten months? Mm, Sisters is lots of fun, but also I feel I made a bit of a commitment when I signed up as moderator. Also, tedious transportation is part of the trade off I make for not having a car. I do hate cars.

So anyway, this Friday after work, instead of hurrying straight to Sisters, I went sailing instead. Weather was just as beautiful as it could be. It was Friday after work, and an absolutely perfect day for sailing. I had the best time taking a couple out for instruction, they loved me, and then I was on the street in Boston at 8:30 in jeans and a t-shirt.

I looked through my phone list to see who I might call to confess that I wasn’t going to make the Sheraton. I called Dina, then went home to fix dinner and get cleaned up to meet the girls back downtown at Lauren and Jurys. It worked out great for me. I got to sail, I saved the headaches of getting to the Sheraton, and I still got to see all my Sisters.

At 2am when Jurys closed, Stacy and I were busy talking and decided to wander through downtown looking for a bite to eat. We looked at News and South Street Diner and decided against both. We ended up in Chinatown, we ate, we walked back to Stacy’s car.

I asked her about the smashed up fender and she told how she had fallen asleep at the wheel last week on the way home from RCC and hit a guard rail. Ah, that kind of settled it–she was sleeping at my place.

Femming up Dyke Night

The week flew by! Another Friday, another Sisters. This Friday I was done with rushing and decided to come home, fix my self a nice dinner, take my time getting ready, and just get there whenever I got there. Dinner was nice, it was nice to paint my nails, they turned out really well, but then I was doing the math and I really needed to get out the door. Once again, threw stuff in a bag to change at the hotel. Actually I did some of my makeup on the ride there. Got to the hotel around 9:00, sat down at a table in the bar area and got out stuff to do my eyes and lips. Dina coached me a little on my eyes, and I paid attention because she does such a good job on hers. I could tell she was dismayed with my crude work, but I was ok with the way they turned out. Into the changing room to trade my jeans for a dress, and the butterfly emerged from her cocoon. The overall look turned out surprisingly good. I didn’t realize how good it looked until I saw some of Ashley’s pictures the next day. They were good enough I asked her for a copy to use as my URNA profile. Posted, I got an immediate compliment from Jamie. Isn’t she the sweetest to notice and say something?

For clubbing after the hotel, something very rare happened. Ashley agreed to go to Toast, and…we all got right in! See, it was pouring rain this night, and I guess that kept lots of people away. This was my first time at “Dyke Night” Friday at Toast. Girls—oh, I have to say “gurls”in this context—were complaining that the place was dead, but I thought it was just fine. Had fun with my gurls, had fun chatting with the lesbians, had fun dancing, got fairly drunk. I really don’t know how that happened even. I had three drinks and had barely started on a fourth. That was all it took to get me pretty messed up. I was weaving all over the sidewalk on the walk home with Jessica. Slept over at her place again. Dave was there again, so, um, yeah.