Just Lorelei

Looking back at the latest posts on this here blog, I was noticing that things were getting kind of heavily political.  Which is all well and good, but is not the primary focus of this here Transproviser.  This was always meant to be a blog about a little bit of everything.

Some politics sure, and some music and if I ever get around to it, some of my thoughts on improvisation, especially as it applies to being transgender.

At it’s heart though, this is a personal blog.  A way for me to share a little bit of who I am and what I think with the world.

Today is a snow day for me.  The second in a row in fact.  So I am presented with the rare opportunity to take some of the thoughts that roll around in my head in the wee morning hours and get them down in black and white.  Turn those nagging electrical/chemical impulses into words on the page.

So if you don’t mind, I’ll just jump right into it.

You probably have figured out by now that I’m a transgender woman.  I know you’re surprised, but it’s true.  And when it comes right down to it, I’m really more specifically a transsexual woman.  It’s a little embarrassing to my radical sensibilities, but I really don’t consider myself to be genderqueer or any of those other nifty and boundary pushing identities.  I think of myself as a woman.  Simply and entirely.

I am also trans and proud of it.  It’s a valuable part of who I am and my journey in the world.  I ID as transgender to show solidarity with my brothers, sisters and others who fall all along the gender variant spectrum.  Also because I am not overly fond of the phrase “Pre-op” transsexual.

I consider myself transsexual because I am in the process of medically transitioning to my “true” gender.  I have been on HRT for several years and my body and mind have changed dramatically and wonderfully!  However, I have not yet had any surgeries and frankly don’t know if I ever will.

Certainly there are surgeries I would like to have.  I am aiming at a number of them.  I may eventually even choose to get the full “gender confirmation surgery”.

The main reason I have not gotten any of these surgeries is less radical and more pedestrian than I would like to admit.  I am an artist.  An actor and a writer and explorer of places and ideas.  Consequently I am not terribly wealthy.  These are only profitable professions for a small minority.  The rest of us do it because we have to, we are compelled.  And maybe, hopefully, someday, I will make money doing what I do.  Just not now.

So I work day jobs.  I do what I have to do to pay the rent and keep food on my table and live life as fully as I am able.

I made a choice when I decided to transition that I was going to simply let myself be the woman I had always been.  I would live as myself and take what steps I could to conform my body to that reality.

More though, I refused to wait any longer.  I would not wait for some long off day where I could afford to have all the surgeries and such that we are told are the requirement to be a “real transsexual”, “a true woman”.

I AM a woman.  I AM a transsexual.  Surgical status be damned.

So here I am.  This is why I identify as both transgender and transsexual.  I am NOT pre-op thank you very much.  I am not pre-anything.  I try as best I can to live my life in the moment.  To do and be what I can in the now.

Life for me is a journey in which the present is just as important as the destination.

So I take baby steps and make attainable goals.

And I try to pay attention to the details along the way so I can better share them with you.  Because I feel if I can share my own experience, the broad strokes as well as the little details, I can enrich the body of what is known about us.  De-mystify our trans identity a little so that other folks may realize we are not so very different.  We are people, same as anyone else, with similar loves, hates and everyday troubles and triumphs.

The same dichotomy of identities even.

I am both Lorelei Erisis, the larger than life celebrity who loves to stand on the stage and work the energy of the crowd and Lorelei who has to keep kicking her elderly orange cat off the table and trudge out in the snow to go pay the rent.

Often what you see here is Lorelei the celebrity or Lorelei the politician.

It’s Lorelei the woman that I want to talk about today.

And of course the idea of identities.

HRT has brought for me a tremendous number of changes.  It’s essentially a second puberty so that ought to be unsurprising.  But it still manages to be so.

One of the really radical changes for me has been in my sexuality.

When I was a teenager I assumed I was going to be the “gay one” in my circle of friends.  It was a lot of years before I would accept my repressed gender identity, so I took the dressing up and other side-effects of that repression as well as the fact that I was a pretty snappy dresser and a little overly fond of showtunes to mean I must be gay!

Imagine my surprise when it turned out I was really attracted to women and not so much to men!  As it turned out in fact, the only one in my little geeky-nerdy group of friends who always had a girlfriend and went through almost the entire, fairly small circle of available girls in our clique, was the “gay one”.  If only he could have come out earlier, some of the rest of us might have been able to get a date!

Eventually though I settled into an identity as bi-sexual.  But really it was more that I was particularly open-minded than that I was actually attracted to men.

I never had a lot of trouble meeting women and had a bad habit of falling passionately in love pretty easily and regularly.  Even when I began experimenting with gender pretty openly, I never had a lot of trouble.  Despite my childhood fears that my gender variance would mean I was going to end up alone and unwanted, I found quite the opposite to be true.  Quite a number of the women I dated very much liked the fact that I would do “drag” occasionally.  I even met several of them while out “en-femme” as they say.

Flash forward and I have accepted my gender variance and allowed myself to finally be myself.  Realized that the “drag” I was wearing was not the dresses and makeup, but the suits and ties!

And flooded with hormones a funny thing has happened to me.  I have fairly suddenly and a bit unexpectedly gone from theoretically attracted to men in a “yes I find that to be an attractive man” way, to “holy crap that guy is hot!” teenage-girl boy-crazy!!

Additionally, I have had the wonderful occasion in the work I do to meet a great many beautiful people with all sorts of gender identities.  Some extremely hot ones in fact!!  So I adjusted my sexual identity accordingly to consider myself to be pan-sexual.  I am attracted to people simply because I find them attractive, regardless of gender or any other factors.  And I try not to worry about it.

This has meant that socially and personally I identify as Queer.  It is an identity I am comfortable with and proud to proclaim.

But, this is a journey and so I have come to something of a crisis of identity lately.  Though I continue to identify as Queer and find myself attracted somewhat to women and others.  I find that what I want, what truly gets my heart racing, what gets me all hot and bothered, is men!  And yet, despite  my revolutionary pose, or perhaps because of it, this makes me oddly uncomfortable.  I find myself having to adjust to the idea that despite my Queer & Kinky identities, I am much more of a straight-girl than I am completely comfortable with admitting.

And I haven’t the faintest idea what to do about it.

As an Out, kink friendly transwoman, I have I can assure you, any number of men who would like to do all kinds of unmentionable things with me.  But gods forbid I should be able to find a guy who will take me out to dinner or a movie and maybe if we hit it off, go back to his place and fool around a little on the couch over a nightcap.

I haven’t even the faintest idea where to find a nice, cute guy who might be into me too.  Gay bars aren’t really any good.  Mostly they’re filled with gay boys who just want other really hot gay boys!  There simply aren’t any “tranny bars” close enough to justify a night out.  And straight bars are a tease.  I find most guys I might meet there are simply too afraid to approach a 6’4” Out transwoman in public.  Even a damned pageant queen!!  And the ones who are into me are too afraid to admit to it publically.  They’ll fuck me, but they won’t be seen with me.  Fun as that is, I just can’t get into that.

Just Lorelei

Don’t get me wrong, I love hot, dirty sex as much as the next girl.  Heck, given that I spent 5 years in a long-term relationship with a famous and notoriously dirty dominatrix, I’ve had experiences and done things that most people will only ever read or fantasize about.

But I’d really like a little vanilla-ish romance now!  I want it so badly it hurts.  I’d like to let go of being Lorelei Erisis, trans-activist for a few minutes and just fall into the arms of a beautiful, strong man.  Ideally one who is tall enough to not be dwarfed by me.  Who can see me as simply the beautiful woman I am.  Whose self-identity is strong enough to be seen with me.

I have no idea where to find him.  He’s not popped up on any of the dating sites I’ve put profiles on and if I’ve met him in real life, he hasn’t had the cojones to speak up yet.

I hope I meet him soon though because I’m ready and anxious to explore what it means to be a straight girl.  Even if it is an Out, Queer, Trans one.

A Trans-Analysis of SNL (and some really blatant self-promotion)

Lorelei Erisis doing what I do best!!!

There are those moments when I think to myself, “Lorelei, keep you’re your trap shut”.  Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don’t.  This is clearly one of those moments where I don’t.

There was a sketch on SNL last weekend that’s got all kinds of folks up in arms this week.  It was one of SNL’s standard fare commercial parodies starring guest host Jesse Eisenberg and several other cast regulars.  The sketch was a commercial for a fictional product called, “Estro-Maxx”, an estrogen supplement for male to female transsexuals hoping to speed up and simplify their gender transition.

I haven’t watched SNL regularly in years, so I had no idea about this sketch until this morning when I opened up Facebook and saw several of my friends and acquaintances from the trans world expressing their horror and dismay over this particular sketch.  Some were even calling for a public apology from NBC as well as a removal of the offending sketch from all media and future broadcasts.  In short, it was a shit-storm.

So, trans-activist that I am, I clicked the link, ready to formulate my own facebooked expressions of dismay but also trying my best as a comedy person to keep an open mind.  One minute and 55 seconds later, my impressions were similarly divided.

As a transwoman, I was deeply unsettled by the depictions of a transwoman with a beard and one with a mustache.  I was also jarred as an activist by the sloppy pronoun usage in referring to these transwomen.

But as someone who has spent most of their life studying, performing and working in the comedy field, I couldn’t help but think maybe there was something there.  I’ll admit, I did laugh a couple of times.  Not a hearty laugh, but enough of a chuckle to count.  I still felt somehow offended, but there were details that kept nagging at me.

As it happened, I had to get to work and get on with the day to day of paying the rent and living life.  But I kept an eye on the opinion threads through the day, wanting to feel out how other people were reacting.

The more I thought about the sketch though, the less offended I was.  There were little details that made me have to think.  Inferences I made based upon what I know about comedy and from a lifetime of eagerly staying up late to hear Don Pardo say, “Live from New York!”

When I got home just a little while ago I watched it again and discussed it with my friend Widow Centauri, who I met while she was doing standup and I was running the show at The Hollywood Improv.  Here are the conclusions that I’ve come to.

(click the link  below to watch the actual sketch on NBC.com)

http://widget.nbc.com/videos/nbcshort_at.swf?CXNID=1000004.10045NXC&widID=4727a250e66f9723&clipID=1279560&showID=61

First, yes it is offensive.  It’s comedy though and sometimes comedy ain’t pretty and almost all comedy is offensive to someone.  Even “self-deprecating” comedy is simply making the comic themselves the butt of the joke.  They are offending themselves.  And before you shout, “What about Bill Cosby?!?” at me.  Just consider how his kids must feel about his jokes.  Or Noah?

The line between when people feel offended and when they laugh, tends to lie in direct proportion to how actually funny the joke was.  I’ve seen comedians get away with the most incredibly, outrageously, the-ACLU-should-be-alerted, offensive material, because the audience just couldn’t help but laugh!  Because it was super-friggin’ funny!!  Because it was delivered well and the timing was just so.

Now the folks at Saturday Night Live have to turn out a fresh show every seven days.  An hour and a half of material that people are going to reasonably expect to be funny.  But that isn’t always going to be gut-busting.  With that much pressure, some of it will be “merely” clever.  Kinda funny.  Hopefully at least smart.

So, back to the sketch.  It was kinda funny and the more I examined it, kinda smart too.  It works on a number of levels.  Transsexual folks are only one of them.  It’s a very effective skewering of all those commercials offering health products to women.  Menopausal women especially.  On that level, it’s a pretty note for note replication of one of those commercials.  For it to work as satire though, you need an unexpected element.  For that, in this context, transsexual women are perfect.

On deeper reflection, I am forced to believe that this was in no way meant to be a skewering of transwomen.  Though there are women-with-beards presented, it in no way resembles the standard “gender-panic” type joke that you usually see pointed at transpeople in the popular media.  It is nothing like Letterman’s tasteless joke when Amanda Simpson was appointed by President Obama last year.

In fact, given the very specific reference levels of the sketch, I would say that it was written and performed by folks who, while they may not be perfectly sensitive, are at least familiar with and surprisingly informed about transpeople in real life.  There were elements of the sketch that, while easy to miss in the first flush of reaction, were pretty trans-specific.  Like the idea that the initial stages of gender transition are never as quick or as dramatic as some of us would like it to be.  Or showing transwomen as respectable people living our daily lives, in positions of power even!

I also read a number of comments from transpeople around the internets who noted that for once, we were not portrayed as over-sexualized freaks.  Heck, most of the women portrayed in the sketch weren’t even in dresses.  They were mostly in casual pantsuits!  They were probably dressed the closest to how actual (or at least, white, middle-class) transwomen dress that I’ve yet seen on television.

The sketch really could have been quite a positive piece overall.  But then came the facial hair.  And you could almost hear a thousand transsexual and transgender people go “Booooo!!!  Hissssssss!!!!”  And honestly, if it had been me, an actual, honest to Gods, transgender woman, writing the sketch, I would not have gone there.  But it wasn’t me, it was a bunch of (as far as I know) young-ish, cisgender guys.

Folks whose job it is to come up with, write, perform and often produce themselves, fresh funny material in less than six days every week for several months a year.  And hopefully not offend anyone too badly.  A job I would kill for, but by no means an easy one.

I actually thought, upon examination, that the “Estro-Maxx” sketch had a lot in it that was specifically applicable to transpeople, potentially funny to us and not necessarily a lot of other people.  But SNL has a lot of other people watching who also need to be made to laugh.

So, beards on transwomen.  In comedy terms it’s an unexpected juxtaposition of elements.  One of the basic building blocks of comedy, put a couple of disparate things together and build the yucks.  It ain’t always pretty, but it’ll make the Coors Lite buying segment of the viewing public laugh and keep them tuned to an otherwise oddly specific sketch.

But wait!  It goes a little deeper than just that even.  When we first see the bearded transwoman, she’s going through an airport security scanner.  The bored looking guard overseeing this doesn’t even blip at the women with obvious facial hair going through the scanner until he sees the scan and the scene implies he’s seen her genitals, at which point he finally reacts.

I kept thinking about this and it seemed to me, the more I thought about it, that this was actually a pretty astute observation of how genitally obsessed people in our society can be.  I can tell you from personal experience that I encounter this sort of thing all the friggin’ time!!  People will be completely unfazed by the fact of a six foot four woman with a gameshow announcers voice towering over them, but they cannot let go of the idea that my genitals might not be the standard issue for most women!!

But then, the guard does not react with the boring old, standard issue comedy, shock and horror, total disgust face.  The guard actually seems interested and happy!  He even shows up in the final tableau!!

The mustache on the other hand, I can’t defend except to say that for some reason it was a hilarious mustache in and of itself.  Seriously, you could show me 30 seconds of just that ‘stache and I’d be laughing my fool head off.  But probably it wasn’t appropriate for the sketch.

All told, I did not think the “Estro-Maxx” commercial parody was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages or even close to the funniest thing I’ve seen on SNL.  (“Wake Up And Smile” was.  Trust me, Google it.  It’s friggin’ twisted)  And I can well understand why many of my transsexual/transgender sisters and brothers are so offended.  But I have to say that I found it surprisingly smart and somewhat funny.

It’s never fun to be the butt of the joke, but I can tell you one thing.  When they’re making fun of you on Saturday Night Live, it means people are paying attention.  You are important enough to make reference to.

And transpeople are that!  We are finally beginning to be heard.  The media juggernaught has taken notice and the advertisers will not be far behind.  That is something SNL got dead right.

Now, the question is, what do we do with that spotlight?!?!

As far as SNL is concerned, I know what I’d like to see.  I’d like to see a transsexual/transgender host or even cast member!!  If Lorne Michaels and NBC want to make a gesture to the trans community I have a suggestion.

Let me host!!!

I’m a Second City trained improviser, actor, writer and sketch comic who has been doing comedy one way or another since I could first make words come out of my mouth!!  And I’m also a genuine Bona-Fide transsexual woman!  Heck, I’m even a transgender celebrity.  A columnist, an activist AND a pageant queen.  I was the very first Miss Trans New England!!!

How do you like them apples!??!?!

And if one transgender woman’s not enough for ya, I’ve even got funny friends!!  I’m sure my friend, stand-up comedy veteran and also genuine bona-fide, etc., etc., transwoman, Tammy Twotone could be convinced to join me!  You could get a Comedy Transwoman Two-fer!!

So whaddya say Mr. Michaels???  Will you let me host?

How about you internet friends?  My trans sisters and brothers and everyone else reading this???  Do you want to see a flesh and blood transsexual woman making the funny for you on national TV??  Do you want your voices represented?

Then make it so.  Time for us to grab control of that spotlight ourselves.

Get out there and tell SNL and NBC that you want Lorelei Erisis to deliver that famous line, “Live from New York!  It’s Saturday Night!!!”

Lorelei Erisis, Tammy Twotone & LezleeAnne Rios

Tell Lorne Michaels you want Lorelei Erisis to host SNL

Slainte!

Let’s All Pull Together To Pass A Trans-Inclusive ENDA Now!!!!

Trans-Inclusive ENDA Now!

Okay folks, I just got off the phone from a nationwide conference call with some of the best minds and hardest workers in the trans community discussing ENDA.  We discussed the realities and the misleading falsehoods, the details and the broad scope.  It was a lot to take in quite frankly and I’m still trying to process a lot of what was discussed.

But since I’m an improviser and I believe in being in the moment and going with your gut to take you where the truth is, I wanted to share with you some of my initial impressions.

A lot of what was discussed were political details.  Hows and whys and the procedures to make this happen.  Good stuff and absolutely fascinating to a political junkie like myself, but not necessarily easy to convey without some additional study.

Basically what I got though was that this version of ENDA stands a very good chance of being passed and being passed as a Trans-Inclusive Bill!  It is not perfect, nor will it be.  There are problems with ENDA.  Not insurmountable problems though.  And certainly nothing as catastrophically bad as the conjectures that have been making the rounds of the interwebs for the past few days would seem to imply.

There will be no “Genital Inspector General” appointed and no spot checks at the restroom.  The provisions in regards to bathrooms don’t make me especially happy, but it’s nothing we can’t work with and it actually is an improvement on the current workplace situation.

Mind that: “Workplace Situation”  ENDA will not affect the restroom transgender people may use when they go out to Mackey D’s or at The Courthouse.  It governs only workplace related issues.  Basically the situation is this.  An employer will not be able to force you to use the “wrong” restroom.  Though they may be able to prevent trans employees from using the “right” restroom IF it is a multi-stall restroom and they have provided an alternate solution.

That’s important.  They must make a reasonable accommodation.

I agree, not ideal and not happy.  It still gives employers the ability to single us out and create a “separate but equal” situation.  It IS better than the current state of affairs though.  Where first of all, we have no actual employment protections anyway.  And second of all, as it stands today, employers in many states MAY actually force transgender people to use the “wrong” restroom

And that brings me to my next point.  ENDA will not be the end all be-all.  It’s not even going to be all that great.  I mean, if you can describe historic friggin’ legislation as “not all that great.”….  But it will be, as Gunner Scott aptly put it, “the floor that we’re starting on.”  It will be a building block on which to base state level protections and education about transgender issues.

And that is good.  That is excellent.

We will still need to pass laws at the state legislative level to provide stronger, better protections for our community.  But these stronger, better laws will have a national precedent to help us springboard them.  And once we can get them passed they will trump the weaker ENDA.  Meanwhile, ENDA will still provide at least some protection for transfolks in places that do not currently have any protections at all!  And some protections are a heck of a lot better than the no protections at all we have right now.

Yes, it’s true, it will be a bit of time and probably several stages before we see any actual language.  There is a lot we do not know about the final form ENDA will take.  But that’s just how it is in politics folks!  That’s how every bill gets passed.  The legislative process requires us to take some risks.  To take chances.

Right now, as a community, we are going to have to take a leap of faith!!!

ENDA needs our support to happen as well as to stay Trans-Inclusive.  It’s time to stop bickering among ourselves and pull together as one, unified and powerful community.  This bill must pass and it must pass this year!!!  We will wait no longer.

So get out there and call your Congress People.  Call your Reps and tell them that you as their constituent, as their VOTING constituent, need them to help pass a Trans-Inclusive ENDA now!  Then call your Senator, so we can get them buttered up and ready to throw on the grill once the Bill comes out of The House.

There’s a tremendous amount of energy out there in the trans community right now.  If we can focus that and join ranks with a single purpose, there is nothing we may not accomplish.

Now Go!!!!  It’s time to get to work and there is not a second to waste!!!

ORIGINAL IMAGE AND CAPTION REMOVED BY REQUEST

ENDA Rally at City Hall in Northampton

People Come Together!!!

( To look at the Bill yourself, go here:  The Library Of Congress: Thomas Jefferson Legislative Information Section And search for Bill Number HR3017 )

Northampton Trans-Inclusive ENDA Rally News Segment

Northampton Trans-inclusive ENDA Rally Article in The Socialist Worker

Photos by Madeline Burrows and Elle St. Claire (Amazing Shot, but Sadly Removed -LE)

Raw

I was going to write about some drama, some politics that have been going on in  the trans community recently.  But honestly, I’m a little tired of trans politics right now.  It’s spring and I’m much more interested in human life and love and everyday things like waiting for a boy to call or figuring out what your heart is saying.  What MY heart is saying.

After all, that’s why this blog is called “transproviser”.  It’s about all things trans, but it’s about life and improvising as I go along too.  I want people to see when they read this blog, that as fabulous as I can be, as big as my public image may seem sometimes, I’m a real person.  Just like any of you.  I drive myself crazy hoping the cute boy will call.  I worry about the people I love.  I question myself and cry and sometimes drink too much when I’m alone.

And this is why I even do the things I do anyway.  Why I fight for “trans rights”.  It’s not about semantics to me.  Offensive words and flickering media.  It’s about everyday life.  Having a roof over my head and food in my pantry.  A job that’ll pay the bills so I can take my girl out every so often.  So I can have cab fare home if the cute boy turns out to be a douche.  It’s about taking care of my family and taking care of my self.  And about every single other person on the planet, trans, black, white, Hispanic, muslim, geeky, poor, hungry, being able to do these same things themselves.  Take care of themselves and take care of their families.  However they may define family.

It really and truly bothers me when anyone is hurting.  When I meet a homeless man who asks me “what was the most painful experience of my life?”  I stop and think.  This is honesty.  If I take it seriously, this is a moment of real connection.  So I tell him in order for him to tell me.  I share my pain so he can share his.  At a personal level, while looking into the eyes of another human being.  It’s an intense moment.  Like all moments it passes and we both retreat back to our roles.  But for a second it was there.  That is why I fight.  That is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

I’m scared.  Jumping tracks into what I really mean to say.  Steering away from the abstract.  I’m scared.  I’m just beginning to find who I am.  To find the new me.

I have been afraid to completely step away from the old me though.  I don’t really know how.

The writing flowed like an opened vein until that moment.  Just here.  Now I am at truth and my fingers suddenly are typing through mud.  The past is threatening to revisit my now.  To come from the then to where I am in the moment.  Can I even handle that?  I deal in all these abstracts, what happens when I have to live with the reality of my ideas?  I claim to be sex-positive and kinky and poly and pan and all of these things.  I have legitimately had adventures well beyond the experience of many I meet.  Whether vanilla or kinky.  You would think I’d be free.  But still, when someone touches me I freeze.  My breathing stops.  I talk and talk and talk and you would think by my words and my confidence I was immune from the same insecurities that plague all human hearts.  But I’m here to tell you I am not.

I am just as starved for human touch.  I am just as insecure.  I am just as afraid of rejection and heartache.  I am terrified of hurting someone else.  Of causing another pain.

In sexual terms, I have been looking to find a top to whom I can bottom.  But I have recently discovered a sadistic side in myself.  I think it is a reaction to my fear of causing pain.  It’s a pretty extreme reaction too.  It’s a pretty intense fear.

Again though, I dance around the truth, whirling in the abstract.  Why is it so hard to simply say what I mean?

Or am I?  Can you see beyond my words into the truth of what I’m feeling?  Can you see that these are not abstracts?  That this is not just a dance but an actual example of my fear?  My fear for instance of hurting another human being manifested by my careful avoidance of names and specifics.

Well if that’s what you guessed you win the zero-dollar prize.

And the worst part of it?  The worst part for me the writer and for you the reader?  This is actual life.  Not semantics or politics or polemics.   Or even good fiction.  This is a glance inside of me.  And there is not going to be a tidy ending.  There is not a solution which through this writing will miraculously and stylishly present itself.  It is life, wonderful and painful and messy and now.  There is no summation.  No wrapping up statement that’s going to happen.  My difficulties will still be that real and present as will yours.  But maybe by my opening my wound for you we can share a moment for a second.  A bit of truth a bit of connection before this, doesn’t end so much, as simply stops.

Saturday Night At The Club

Really needed a little loud music tonight. Beautiful people sway and sweat. Youth doing what youth do. Blithely unconcerned just dancing, grinding, drinking. I seek solace myself in the overwhelming numbness of the beat, the bass. I am pushed to extremes and my mind races.  I see old solutions in new places.  Try and find myself in who I was.  The writer in the dark. I’m not much for dancing tonight just need to be washed in the energy of the crowd. I want to be recognized and remain anonymous. The writer in the night.  I wonder why I never meet cute boys at the gay bar. They’re not here to meet me they’re here to meet themselves. I’m a woman! But where do I meet a boy who can sweep me off my feet. Accept me, be attracted to me for who I am. It never seems to happen at the nightclub but that’s where I go anyway. Where is the boy who can appreciate me, not be afraid of me?

So I’m talking to a cute boy at the bar. Dangerous hot and teaches Latin!!  I’m maybe making way managing small talk forcing myself to not be shy. Then some girl takes a slow dive to the floor in front of us. Next thing I know hot boy is helping her up and he’s gone.

All I can think is, “bitch”.

I wish I knew some smooth lines or could make myself not be so fucking shy. Maybe have a few less stupid morals. Pain in the ass standards.

I just want to get fucked. Why should that be so hard?

Oh I see, not giving a fuck is apparently the trick!! Just don’t try, don’t care and maybe I’ll hook up.

The cute boy is back “whenare yougonna buy me a drink” in a hot east Boston accent.  Demanding in charge and dangerous.

I buy the drink I don’t hesitate even. Captain and Coke.

Like I said hot boy. Big muscles not short either. He asks what I do. I tell him pageant queen writer. He says he writes poetry. I ask him his favorite Latin poet. Catullus. I’ve heard of him and all the other Latin poets he names. Fave non Latin poet? Elizabeth Browning. Holy shit umm I’m floored. Like I said dangerous hot looking like the kind of Boston guy that might follow me into an alley. Masshole bent Sox cap even. Camo tshirt. But smart and forward as fuck. He asks if I want to come back to his place with the girl who’s been puppydogging him around the club. I decline. I’m feeling a little self-conscious about my body tonight. Didn’t bother with any shaving so I have a fine fuzz on my chest. Plus I’m in no mood to share this one with some little alt girl. I want this boy all to myself if I’m going to fuck him.

Let him think about me for a while. Take out my card occasionally. Think about calling me.

He drifts away into other convos and I dance with some friend’s friends. Two beautiful girls. Mocha and milk chocolate. I joke about being too hot. They encourage me to take off my sweater so I show them my new tits. Little perky and sensitve when mocha beautiful tests their tweak!  I dance and abandon.

Life is good. Apparently the only thing I need to do is simply not give fuck. Simply stop trying. Stop caring.

Huh. Whatever works.

The complete text of my speech from Trans Lobby Day at The Massachusetts Statehouse

Yesterday I was honoured to be given the opportunity by Gunner Scott and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition to tell my story of employment discrimination at the Trans Lobby Day event at The Massachusetts State House.

It was a truly marvelous gathering of Transgender people and our friends and allies including legislators and members of the clergy.  I was humbled to see so many of us turn out to represent our community by working on direct action to pass a much needed Transgender Rights Bill.

It was wonderful for me to have the chance to share a podium with so many other fine speakers.  Below is the complete text of my own speech, telling the story of my long search for employment in Massachusetts and the discrimination I faced while I was engaged in it.

Transgender Lobby Day Speech

Hello.  My name is Lorelei McLaughlin.  I am a Transgender Woman and a native New Englander.  Although I’ve lived all over the country, I was born in Northampton, grew up on Cape Cod, and graduated from Barnstable High School.  I currently live in Holyoke.

About a year and a half ago I returned to Massachusetts from Southern California.  I had lost my job, which I held for several years, due to my transition.  I moved back because I felt my physical safety was at stake, but the main reason was because of the rapidly declining health of my Nana.  I had decided to come home to Massachusetts to help take care of her.

When I moved back to Massachusetts I took to finding a job as if it was a job.  I had several differently targeted versions of my resume.  I scoured craigslist and any other local job boards I could find.  I picked up the local classified sections.  I sent out scores of applications and wrote a sheaf of cover letters for all occasions for months on end.

I could fill out all the applications I wanted and no one turned me away directly, but I could never actually talk to a hiring manager or have an actual interview.  I would walk into a place with a help wanted sign IN THE WINDOW only to be told that, well, they weren’t actually hiring right now but would be happy to put my application on file.  I couldn’t even get anyone to LOOK at my resume.

There is for me a happy-ish ending that illustrates just how bad the discrimination we face is.  I did not let myself become discouraged.  While I was looking for work, I also volunteered to help with various non-profits and community organizations.  I networked like crazy, asked everyone I met if they knew of someone that was hiring.  I was asked to serve as a Board Member of Northampton Pride but still could not even get a job bussing tables.

Finally a local psychologist, Dr. Shelley Janiczek Woodson, put out that she needed an Administrative Assistant for her expanding practice.  I jumped on it.  We exchanged emails and she asked me to come in for an interview.  She was the first person to actually interview me in the 1 1/2 years of looking.  The first person to treat me as a potential employee and actually look at my resume.  She hired me practically on the spot.

Even so, she was warned by her colleagues against hiring me.  They said it would hurt her practice to have a transgender person at the front desk.  She took a chance though and her business continues to thrive.

I found the one person in a thousand willing to look at me as a person, but I was lucky.  We need this law to help the countless other transpeople even to get their feet in the door, to be given not special opportunity, but the same opportunity as anyone else.

Thank you.

For more information on how to get involved, please visit the MTPC website and support the fine work they are doing.  Also please contact your local legislators to urge them to support H1728/S1687 “An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes”.  And if you don’t live in Massachusetts yourself but know someone who does, ask them to contact their own legislators and do the same!

A useful handgathered assortment of links for more info about Dr. Kenneth Zucker

A new friend of mine recently asked me this great question and I thought as the author of “Ask A TransWoman” it would be helpful to share my answer with the rest of you.

“I know that Kenneth Zucker is going to be one of the people revising the DSM-V. This of course is not good news for the LGBT community. I was wondering if there was a counter reaction towards Mr. Zucker’s beliefs, and how he would like to catagorize LGBT community as being mentally ill….. {a friend} explained to me that you would be a good resource to start, so I was hoping that you might be able to point me towards the right direction.”

This is one of the biggest issues for the transgender community right now and yes, there has been a tremendous reaction in the community.
The things Mr. Zucker tries to do to transgender kids and that he previously did to the Gay and Lesbian Communities are shameful and no one I know believes he is a person that should have anything to do with the revision of the DSM-IV (to release the DSM-V).
I have a lot more to say but a lot of it would simply be rhetoric. However, allow me to point you in some more distinctly informative directions.

My friend and employer, psychologist Dr. Shelley Janiczek Woodson has been an active and vocal opponent of Dr. Zucker and his policies. Here is an excellent open letter she wrote to request his resignation as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair for the DSM-V. The site it’s hosted on, Andrea James’ “Transsexual Road Map” is an excellent resource in itself for info about transpeople in general and the controversy over Dr. Zucker specifically.

Also here is a link to an episode of the excellent podcast “Trans-Ponder”. Trans-Ponder is a podcast by two absolutely, fantastic, geeky, smart and fun transgender women who are married to each other and regularly have great trans community guests on their show. I’m a regular listener and a fan! in this episode they discuss some of Dr. Zucker’s recent tactics.

Finally here’s a piece of video from LGBT newsite “Pam’s House Blend” of my own former MD, Madeline Deutch speaking at the GID Reform Now protest at the American Psychiatric Association 2009 Annual Meeting.

Hope some of this points you in the right direction.

An Open Letter To California (And All Americans) About Gay Marriage

Hellooo California!!!  Are you there!?!?  Because I’ve got some things to say about this whole Gay Marriage issue.

Forgive me while I resort to internet slang but, OMG, WTF!!!!

Where is the liberal bastion of free thinking and human rights that I used to admire?!?!

What happened to the gleaming Camelot of the West Coast that seemed so open-minded and accepting to me when I was desperate to escape the Midwest 8 years ago?!

What kind of topsy-turvy, bizarro world do we live in where Gay Marriage is legalized in Iowa and Maine, but not California?!?!?!!?!

Seriously, you’re going to make me break the “!” and the “?” buttons on my keyboard if you keep this up Cali!!!

Somehow, I fail to grasp the logic of your Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Prop 8 but also allow to stand the 18,000 Gay Marriages that were performed during the minute and a half that all marriages were considered legal and sacred in your state.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell Mister Sulu that he can’t be married to the man he loves either.  I’ve seen that guy wield a sword.

But you just can’t say that a certain group does not deserve the same rights as everyone else, except these folks who managed to cash in on our “Short time limited offer!”  If I had known that Equal Marriage Rights were simply an infomercial offer, I would have encouraged my marriage oriented Gay friends to send in their $19.95 +S&H, tout suite!!!  Maybe they could have gotten a Popeil Pocket Fisherman along with their marriage license.  Or a set of Ginsu Knives as a wedding gift from the State of California!!!

I’m not saying I don’t think these folks don’t deserve to be married.  They Do!!!!  I’m just saying that the law shouldn’t be allowed to be seen as a “sometimes, if it’s convenient, or if we mess up it’s okay” kind of thing!!!

I just don’t see how your Supreme Court’s decision makes any logical sense California!

Of course I don’t really understand how we could have fought to assure equal marriage rights for all Californians (I was one of you at that time;  a proud Angeleno!!), on a constitutional basis no less, only to have what was declared to be a Basic Human Right taken away by a so called “popular vote”!!  Huh!?!?  I thought Basic Human Rights, especially ones protected by writ of Constitution, were not open to the whims of “popular opinion”.  Isn’t it the job of the courts to protect the Constitution from things like this?

Please forgive all the quotation marks I’m using here.  I simply don’t believe that Proposition 8 had anything to do with popular opinion at all.  I actually believe, foolish though I may be, that most Californians, most Americans in fact, are pretty open-minded and fair people.  This is a country founded upon virtues of Tolerance and Respect.
It is my well-researched opinion that Proposition 8 is the result of a well-financed and bigoted campaign of hate and intolerance by a relatively small minority.  I won’t name names here.  I’ll just say “But isn’t that wrong Davey?”
But I digress.  Allow me to reign in the sarcasm here and ask you all a question I have asked before.

Shouldn’t all Americans enjoy the same equal rights?  Is there some thing that I’m missing that somehow makes homosexuals fundamentally undeserving of the same privileges that heterosexuals enjoy?

I have never understood the mindset that believes gay people are undermining basic family values whilst at the same time denying them the ability to support those very same values!!!

In the past few months I have heard many arguments for and against the issue of Gay Marriage.  Even from people whose inclination would be to support our brothers and sisters in their fight.  One argument along these lines that I’ve heard a lot of is that Gay People should leave “Marriage” alone as a strictly Christian Sacrament and settle for civil unions.  I disagree.

First and foremost is the fact that our Government treats marriage and civil unions as different entities.  With civil unions being a distinctly lower grade with fewer rights.  I was “Married” once myself and believe me, whether or not the priest performed the ceremony didn’t amount to a hill of beans without the proper government forms and consents. I know when I did it, I had to get permission and approval from the great State of Illinois, as well as pay a fee.  I’m pretty sure that makes it squarely an issue of “The State”.  As in that which is separated from “The Church”.

I was somehow under the impression that one of the things that makes this a great democracy is our separation of church and state.  I believe marriage is a civic issue.  Marriage, although also a religious ceremony, is primarily a civic issue in this country.  And we’re supposed to have a separation of church and state.  So a civic issue, and I believe, a civil right it is.

It’s not so long ago that the same bigots who oppose Gay Marriage were calling interracial marriages unnatural and wrong.  And calling the couples who dared to defy that sentiment perverts.

As for marriage being a Christian sacrament.  Yes it is.  But the idea and the label for it, long predates Christianity.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention here that I am in fact an Ordained Minister and Student of Theology, among other things.

I’ve done a bit of digging about this, because I wanted to have something intelligent to say to the 500 people I spoke to at a rally in Northampton, MA back in November when Proposition 8 was first passed.  A brief perusal of the history of marriage reveals that our concept of it has changed radically over the last couple thousand years. most noticeably and dramatically in the last century or two.

Arranged Marriages for instance are no longer common in the Western World.  In fact this whole idea of marrying the person we love is really new!  Women are no longer expected to maintain the home and bear a good crop of chilluns’.  Men can no longer summarily dismiss their wives if they feel they have grown tired of her or she is somehow unclean.

And they certainly aren’t allowed to sell their daughters.

Why shouldn’t we allow Gay People to get married?  Doesn’t that support the good moral values that religious nuts are always accusing homosexuals of undermining?

I’ll spare you the specific bible quotes.  But trust me, for every piece of scripture I hear denigrating homosexuals, I could quote you ten other completely ridiculous scriptural laws forbidding all kinds of things that no Christian I know pays any attention to.

For one thing, The Lord is really effing serious about this whole “Not working on The Sabbath” thing.  Violators are supposed to be stoned to death.  By contrast, homosexuals are briefly mentioned as not being allowed to be part of His church.

To take this all a step further, Christ Himself was the one who turned all of that Old Testament nonsense on it’s ear and pretty much said we should all love each other and leave the judging up to Him.  Presumably he was talking about Gay Folks as well as Sabbath Breakers and Menstruating Women.

To conclude, I believe that it is not Gay People trying to make a religious issue into a civil matter.  Nor is it mainstream Christian folks trying to make a civil matter into a religious one.

It’s a few powerful bigots making a mockery of the teachings of Christianity and the Values of Good Americans to support their own closed minded and hateful beliefs.

Please.  If you believe in this country.  If you believe that all people should be allowed to lead lives of dignity and respect.  If you believe that we should judge not, lest we be judged.  If you believe in the ability of humanity to rise above our petty differences and move forward into the new Millennia.  I urge you to support our Brothers and Sisters in California and around the country in their fight for equal rights and the chance to legally Marry the person they Love.
This is not just an issue for Californians, or for the LGBT Community.  It is an issue for all of us.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Slainte Chugat!!!
Reverend Lorelei Erisis

I Got My Hair done For The First Time!!!

I got my hair done the other day for the very first time!!!  It was a major milestone for me in my transition.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Umm, Lorelei?  How that heck have you managed to avoid ever getting your hair done?!!?!’

I mean, I’ve had haircuts certainly.  And I even had my hair stripped white once so I could dye it bright blue for my wedding.  It’s a long story.  Someday I’ll show you all the video.

Anyhow, like I said, I’ve never had my hair DONE.  All girly at the salon Done.

I’ve been letting my hair grow for a couple of years now, since I decided to go ahead and really, truly, actually transition.  It grows like a weed, I’m really lucky, and it had gotten really long.  Like halfway down my back.  It had actually gotten so long that it was getting caught in my armpits when I sleep and I would often end up cranking my neck when I tried to turn over.

I’ve actually had long hair for most of my life.  My parents were good hippies and in all the pictures of me as a little kid I’ve got longish curly blonde hair and people would always say when they saw the pics, “Oh, what a cute little girl!”  It is little wonder I have gender issues…  At some point though, anatomy got in the way and people started to say, “What a cute boy.  And what nice hair he has!”

I cut it for a minute in Middle School in a desperate attempt to get teased less.  It really didn’t work though so I let it grow back as soon as I got to High School.  The point between short hair and long was soooo wretched and awful and Mullet-esque that I felt greatly compelled not to do anything so foolish as cutting it again!

This caused some problems socially, as I considered myself neither a hippie (my parents were hippies and a girl’s got to rebel somehow!) or a metal-head.  The two main long hair social sets.  I thought of myself as more of a punk.  I preferred the Dead Kennedys and The Sex Pistols to The Greatful Dead or Def Leppard!!!

I was also fascinated by mod/traditional skinhead culture and style.  I was friends with a number of what I thought of as Garden Variety Skins.  Not the Neo-Nazi type mind you.  The ones I knew hated them for giving skinsheads a bad rep.  They weren’t necessarily rascist so much as angry and alienated.

Still, I certainly wasn’t going to cut my hair, so for a while when anyone asked I told them I was “A Skippy”.  A skin-hippie.  I dressed like a skin, but I had long hair and I have never been very angry or violent.  It did help keep all the short kids with a chip on their shoulder from picking on me though.

I also discovered that girls often liked me because of my hair and were not shy about saying so.  Let’s face it, I was a shy Doctor Who fan who liked to get all dressed up like a girl when I was at home alone.  I was going to take every compliment I could get.

Still, my realization of the fact that girls liked my hair gave me good reason to resist all urges to cut it.  Even to get that big Roostertail Mohawk I have always wanted!

After I got off Cape and moved to Northampton (the first time), my friends quickly began to notice that anytime I was hitting on a cute girl, I would take my hair down.  I usually kept it in a ponytail.  I often still do.

I would be talking to a girl and eventually, my hair would come cascading down, long, dark blonde and naturally wavy.   And  surprisingly, it usually worked!!!  I was absolutely incorrigible.  There’s more shameless tactics I used in my adventures trying to meet cute women, but that’s for another time.  Allow me to stay hair-focused here.

Eventually I moved to Boston and my hair stayed with me.  I became a club kid, and a Goth.   Concurrently.  Trust me it’s a much harder balance than you would think.

And I discovered Manic Panic!!!  My long hair entered it’s multi-coloured phase.  It was streaked purple and red and green.  All done at home.  Usually by girlfriends or drunk friends or even drunk girlfriends!!!

I got my hair trimmed every so often.  Every six months to a year usually.  And it was never more than getting rid of the dead ends.

Then, after my hair and I went traveling around Europe for a piece, I came back to Boston to a seriously unstable girlfriend a fair bit of apathy about my life there and decided it was time for a change.  Time to go, go, go!!!

So I moved to Chicago!  The windy city!!  And like I said it was time for a change.  I went and I found a reputable hairdresser and I said, “I want to cut it off.”  At the time of course that had a different connotation than it does when I tell people that same thing nowadays.

I cringed as I heard the scissors near my head.  I practically got my ears lopped off from flinching at the sound.  I got my first “guy haircut” in a little more than a decade.
I usually kept it in what I thought of as the “Superman Style”, short but slightly wavy on top.  This generally rapidly progressed to what I referred to as the “Mad Scientist” style.

My hair has always been very fast growing and thick.  Despite my new attempts at “being a man”, I never got any better about how often I visited the hairdresser’s.  I tried to do it every six months at least, but that meant I often ended up with big, unruly hair.  Styling it for me usually consisted of running a strong brush through it and hoping for the best.  I begged, I pleaded, but more often than not, my hair simply did as it pleased.

I kept my hair short for some years after that.  Through Chicago and a Marriage and all the craziness afterwards leading to my move to LA.

I was desperate that if I kept my hair short, I could pull off this whole being a man thing.  Like I said.  It didn’t work.  And when I did decide to transition I immediately began growing it out, or more specifically, simply not cutting it.  For a fairly frightening minute or two, I looked a little like Kenny G on a bender.

Still, even when my hair was long and girly again, something was never quite right.  For all my bluster, I am as insecure about my appearance as any transwoman.  Any Woman for that matter!!!  My hair was the same basic style it had always been and so I always looked just a little like “Mac” to me.  No matter how girly I am becoming.

I had been putting off getting my hair done for the longest time.  Finding all kinds of excuses not to do it.  Finally though, I had a big show coming up.  I’m hosting Northampton Gay Pride!!!!  Kind of a milestone really.  An out and proud TransWoman hosting Pride!!!

I was going to have to look my absolute best!!  It was time to get my hair done.  But where?!!?  I agonized.  My very patient friends listened to me agonize.  At last, my friend Annie took matters into her own hands and arranged for me to meet with Debbie Droy, “The Foil Queen Of Main Street”!!!  Debbie is the owner of The Underground Day Spa on Main Street in Northampton.  And she is FABULOUS!!!!!!!!

I walked into the Main Street store front with the London Underground inspired sign and down a flight of stairs, it is indeed underground, and came out in a very light and airy and pleasant feeling salon.  It is actually only kind of underground, the widows open up on a nice bright and sunny back entrance.

Debbie asked me what I had in mind.  I should mention here that I know I am a nightmare type of hairdressing customer.  I haven’t been living as a girl very long and I don’t speak “hairdresser’s” at all.  I think I kind of stammered something like, “Kind of a trim maybe and some kind of coloring maybe kinda-sorta-thing.”

But Debbie patiently asked me all the right questions and had a great manner.  Very friendly and professional and sure.  She was fast, but she never rushed.  She washed my hair and trimmed it so it regained all of it’s natural bounce and curl. Then she put in the bleach for the blonde streaks I wanted and worked with my idea to do something fun without going too extreme.  I have a tendency towards doing extreme things.

She put the foils in my hair and talked with me pleasantly about all kinds of things and then I got to sit in the steamer for the first time!!!!  Debbie gave me the latest copy of glamour to read (at my request) and I felt so damned girly!!!!!!  It was great!!

I remember watching women in those steamer/dryer things at the salon as a child with my Mother and it seemed like such a special club!  And I wanted so badly to join!!

Here I was at last.  In the girl’s club at the salon, getting my hair done.

When Debbie took the foils off, I saw a brand new Lorelei emerging.  She had given me these wonderful looking blonde streaks and my hair looked so good!  She blow-dryed my hair so we could get a good look and it looked fantastic!  There was less “Mac” looking back at me from the mirror.  I felt new.

I thanked Debbie, who assured me if there was anything I was unhappy with I should come back and she would tweak it for me (my language here, a little tech-y, I know).

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my hair though.  In fact I couldn’t be happier!!

I thanked Debbie and asked for propaganda so I could tell my friends!  Then I walked out into downtown Northampton.  No makeup.  Sweating with the 98 degree heat.  And I felt Beautiful.  OMG!!!  I felt so confident and happy!  Like I could do anything.  Simply because I had a Great New ‘Do!!

I even got hit on in the street by a pretty young black man!  Very pretty.  Yum.

I never had any idea how marvelous it is to get your hair done!  I could never quite understand why all the women I knew were always doing it.  I mean sure, I understood the desire to be well presented and to want to look pretty.  But I had no idea simply how good it feels!!!

Yaaayyyyy!!!

So thanks Debbie Droy for my first real sexy hairdo!!  Thanks Underground Day Spa!!!

I highly recommend giving them a visit.  It’s well worth it.  They were more than trans-friendly.  They were trans-relaxed.  And they have a whole range of Spa services.  Massage, a steam room, facial treatments, waxing and of course Great Hair styling!!!

I’ll be going back to try them all!

Slainte!

Underground Day Spa
151 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
413.586.4050

http://www.theundergrounddayspa.com

Fabulous!!!

The New Tech Voyeurism

I have a Confession.  I like to watch.  Everything.  I am very curious.  One of my absolute favorite things to do is simply to sit somewhere busy and “people watch”.  Or walk around on a crowded city street.  When I’m waiting for a movie or concert to start, I will spend most of the time looking around the theatre to see who else has come out to see this thing, participate in this experience.
I once went to a screening of Pasolini’s Masterpiece Salo, which is based on a novel by the Marquis DeSade, mainly so I could see who would show up to a public showing of it.
Of course I like to watch cute girls (and boys too!), but I especially relish watching all of the characters go by.  From the busy businessmen to the cuddling couples to the fucked-up frat boys, I watch how they carry themselves, how they move through space, how they interact with each other and their environments.
The crazies are a particular treat.  Especially when they’re good and removed from reality.  I will almost always listen to their stories.
I will watch and try to figure out what these random people’s stories might be.  And as the old saying goes, “God is in the details”.  How a person is dressed, what they’re reading, or drinking or carrying.  I have my own special tells though, specific things that give me the richest information.
Shoes for instance.  I can tell quite a bit about someone from their shoes.  A man in a nice suit with a pair of loafers on is not a man who likes to look good.  He is wearing the suit because he has to.  It’s his uniform.  As soon as he gets home, he will probably slip into his favorite, ragged sports team t-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts.
On the other hand, a man in a slightly ragged suit with nice shoes, is possibly not making the highest salary, but he’s going to be a much more interesting person to meet and he possibly even takes pride in his appearance!
I can also, personally, learn a lot about a person from the books that they have on their bookshelf (or the lack thereof).
But for me, the thing that tells me the most, that adds colour to the pencil sketch, is music.
Which brings me, in a kind of a roundabout way to the actual subject of this particular blog.
I am sitting right now in the Haymarket Café, a little place in Northampton Massachusetts of which I am inordinately fond.  I have a pot of lemon ginger tea and a nice spot by the front counter, where I can see all of the coming and going, ebb and flowing of the people around me.
I also have my trusty, slightly ghetto-ized Mac PowerBook.  Sylvia.
She’s a few years old, and a little cranky.  She won’t turn on unless she’s plugged in and has a USB keyboard because her built-in one no longer works.  She also has a USB track-ball mouse plugged in because I do a lot of work with music and video editing and I hate the trackpad for that stuff.  But she still does what I need, mostly, and I am very fond of her.
All of this makes for an unusual setup, with wires and peripherals everywhere.
But still, I digress.  I merely paint the picture of this moment.  A six foot four, drop dead sexy transwoman with an uber-nerd setup in a crowded, socialist coffeeshop.
What I have discovered, that I wish to share with you, is that a new (at least to me) feature on iTunes allows me to listen to and browse the music libraries of any Mac users sitting nearby.
For me, this is the holy grail of people “watching”.
As I write this I have been switching back and forth between various music libraries, scanning through the artists and hitting shuffle.  One person is heavy on hip hop, another pretty folky.  There’s someone who really like local music.  And someone who favors Ani DiFranco and NPR.
I found out that Lady Sovereign has a new album that I had not yet heard about.
It’s interesting to try and figure out who these people might be.  A Smithie, a townie, a bored suburbanite or a political activist?
I wonder if they even realize I am listening?
All I really know are the names of the playlists.  “Jane Smith’s Library”, “Chouzou”, “Lindy’s Music”, “Guerre de Fleur”.  Even those details help to tell the story though.  Are they whimsical or straightforward?  Angry, with a lot of NWA and Rage Against The Machine?  Or a little sappy with a music library heavy on the Abba and light on the Metallica.
There are mix CDs, where the tracks were never named, just the album.  “Judy’s Random Retro Mix” and “Some Love Songs For Lucy”.  Or just “Jason’s Disc”.
While I was writing those last few lines, the library I was listening to went from Sade to the Pogues to something simply called “track 8″.
I keep looking around to see if I can match up playlists to faces.  I am convinced, because I can hear their music, that they can somehow read these words.  That they are looking at me because they know!
I tend to forget that I stand out in a crowd sometimes simply for being who I am.
I suppose they just might read these words though.  It is a public blog.  Anyone can click through.  Maybe it was your music I was listening to.
I have been sitting here for several hours and I have barely spoken a word to anyone around me.  Even though they are very close.  It is you that I have been talking to, while I have been listening to their music.
And even now, when I was about to wrap up, hit Save, take off the headphones and close iTunes, I am informed via a helpful window, “One or more users are connected to your shared iTunes library, are you sure you want to quit?”
Of course not.  It is somehow gratifying to find that they are watching me!
Far be it for me to turn off the feed.
Now I want to scroll through my own music library and wonder, who I may appear to be?
It’s a brand new voyeurism for a brand new era.  This is “Radio Around You”.