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The Partner's Part

In the ‘middle path’ thread, Marlena wrote:

While being single all these days years has sucked in other ways, one benefit is that it helped me find my equalibrium on the trans spectrum. I can dress generally when I want. The fact that I don’t want to do so constantly — and in fact if I do it a lot I get tired of doing so — tells me something. However, since the vast majority of CDs are in relationships where they’re in either the closet or with an SO who isn’t “do what ever your want” enthusiastic, they never really find their equalibrium point. So on other forums, I hear a lot of pent-up desire talking. I suspect if they had the opportunity dress every day, a lot of them would find that doing your make-up every morning soon gets to be a chore.

and michelleNYC’s recent comments made me think: do wives/girlfriends act as a kind of safety, an anchor, for MTF transfolk? Do we give CDs/TGs a sense of being tethered, so that they don’t go flying off into experimentation & sliding down the slippery slope?
Do we provide a kind of relief, even if at the same time we’re resented for how we might restrict our partner’s gender expression?
I’m a little worried about saying the word maternal outloud in this context.

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PBS Pride Shows

Just a reminder to check out your local PBS schedule during June. Our local PBS channel has been showing some great shows for Pride Month: things like back to back episodes of In The Life, a celebration for Oscar Wilde’s birthday, a great little documentary about Queerspawn (the children of LGBT parents, & in particular about Family Week in P-Town), a profile of Audre Lorde. Especially check out the late night programming; tonight at least it was all programming about LGBT folks. Screaming Queens, Susan Stryker’s documentary about the Compton Cafeteria Riots, is on the 30th.

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Writer's Desk

I took this photo in order to figure out my desk ergonomics, & it surprised me to see exactly how much of my life it reveals.
desk

Starting at the upper right corner and going around clockwise, you can see: backup ream of HP paper on top of paper sorter stack; vintage lamp; large candle; my father’s old mahogany inbox; iPod (20 gig with black earbuds for subway safety); “Trans in the City” mug (a gift from the Hetrick-Martin Institute) of tea; scissors.

Center bottom: new underdesk keyboard drawer & old trackball mouse precipitously perched.

Starting at the bottom left corner: copy of Sims2 Nightlife on top of my computer tower & external hard drive; ashtray, cigarettes & matches; another inbox with articles I’m reading/using for the new book.

On the hutch, my bottles of painkillers, muscle relaxants, anti-depressants & allergy meds (so I remember to take them), a green page holder, Merriam-Webster’s Page-A-Day calendar, & the upper right corner of my new HP all in one printer.

On the top plane, above my monitor, the bottom edge of my Sandman “Still Life with Cats” poster with four postcards tucked into the frame: (1) Buster Keaton dining with an elephant; (2) postcard from the first Rufus Wainwright show I saw; (3) Our Mother of Sorrows 9/11 prayer card, and (4) Greta Garbo photo (the one the US postage stamp was drawn from).

If you look really close, you can also see that the monitor view is of the message boards, and in particular Lynne’s post about how to prevent CP and RSI, which is what caused me to take the photo in the first place.

(You can see a much larger version of the photo here.)

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Blame It on Bill Irwin

Last night, after hearing from one of my preview readers that the first chapters of my new book come off as dispassionate, I sat around a little overwhelmed, a little frustrated, & a little sad. Not because she was wrong, but because she was right, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I couldn’t work on the manuscript at that moment because I wanted to burn it, so I put on PBS just in time to catch a documentary* about Bill Irwin. For those of you who don’t know who he is, you might have seen him as “The Flying Man” who fell in love with Marilyn on Northern Exposure (oh, how I miss that show), or you might remember him from that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” video that was played to death. It’s less likely that you saw The Regard of Flight (which was one of PBS’ Great Performances series), or his Broadway shows, Largely New York and Fool Moon. But you should have.
A Buster Keaton fan can’t help but love Bill Irwin, for the obvious reasons, but this Damfino just loves that there’s someone around to make me laugh. Being the somewhat hyper-verbal type that I am, I don’t find a lot of intellectual humor very funny. Mostly I think it’s mean-spirited, actually. But a pratfall or a spittake done well gets me every time. A pratfall with a good reason behind it is even better. Hat tricks rule, in general.
The documentary ended with them interviewing Irwin himself about becoming an older clown – pratfalls and physical humor aren’t easy – and he talked about what he might or might not do as a “retired clown.” But what he said that hit me between the eyes is that being an artist is largely about what’s inside you, & looking at that honestly, and then telling the story.
The timing was impeccable. I’m not really excited about the idea, because I’d much rather hide more and show less. It’s so much easier to be pedantic, but so much more boring, and so much less useful. So I’ll forge ahead, pull out my spleen, and see what comes of it.
But I’m blaming Bill Irwin for the whole terrific mess.
* And whatever you do, don’t read that awful essay on the PBS site about the documentary. It’s exactly not the introduction you want. Honestly, the Bobby McFerrin video would do you better. I’m particularly fond of the Northern Exposure episodes, but I loved that show too. What you really want is to see The Regard of Flight, which you can buy here.

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Dear Mike

Dear Mike Papantonio,
Enough with the ‘Anne Coulter as transsexual’ crap, please. I work with transwomen all the time and believe me, the trans community doesn’t want her.
But the thing is, you’re sinking to her stupid levels by insulting her that way. Whether or not she’s masculine or feminine doesn’t matter; what matters is that she’s full of hate, opportunism, and idiocy.
There are some damned cool trans people in the world, and some damned cool masculine women, neither of whom wants to be insulted by being compared to or having anything in common with Anne Coulter.
Helen Boyd
author, My Husband Betty

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Rufus Does Judy

A couple of nights ago I went to see Rufus Wainwright perform Judy Garland’s 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall — at Carnegie Hall. For whatever reason I was kind of dreading going; I don’t know why, but my best guess is that the show just got too much hype beforehand. Betty opted out of going pretty early, so my very good friend and downstairs neighbor (who was a friend long before moving in downstairs) came with me. He’s both a Rufus and Judy fan. We were seated quite far away from Sarah Jessica Parker, but quite close to Justin Bond, which seemed quite a propos.
I may have been one of the only 100% Rufus fans there; I’d never heard the 1961 concert, which I suppose makes me a very bad faghag indeed. In the weeks leading up to it, I thought about listening, but decided not to. I would probably be one of the few who wouldn’t be comparing it to the original, and I kind of liked that.
Rufus has one hell of a singing voice. The songs where he could belt them out I love especially. In fact, I’ve been wanting him to do a recording of standards, because I love so many of those old songs and I love his voice. Finally, he’s taken my advice.
In a Time Out interview, he mentioned how singing “The Trolly Song” from Meet Me In St. Louis would probably be that gayest onstage moment of his life. Oh, and it was!

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
– as we started for Huntington Dell.

I didn’t see it so much as a gay seance (as the TONY journalist put it) but almost like a finishing touch to an era of gay awareness, and hopefully the beginning of a new one. As my friend said, on our way home, “The next generation doesn’t need Judy the way we did,” and while I think he’s right, I also think it’s a shame. We wondered too if there were as many gay men there that night in ’61 as there were tonight, and then wondered if maybe the only difference might have been that more of them are known to be gay now.
I’m glad at least that Rufus will be around to introduce this new generation of gay men to these songs he grew up singing, because some of them are not only touching, but sexy, and triumphant – and just remarkably pretty melodies with perfect lyrics. From what I hear, the event was filmed, so I expect both a movie version of the concert (probably with footage from both performances) and a CD of the music. Hopefully, anyway.
Other reviews can be found in my Rufus Wainwright thread on the boards.

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Study: Aeneas

I took a series of my lovely, patient Aeneas recently, & I’ll be sharing them over the next weeks.
eyeball
Here’s his right eyeball, for starters.

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Tiger Balm, Cat Balm

A word to the wise: if you should ever have an ailing shoulder, knee or wrist, please take care to wash your hands thoroughly before playing with yourself.