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freeze dried

I have become convinced that our identity (including gender) becomes freeze dried during prepubescence. From there we then grow as individuals, both intellectually and in life experience, but that essential core remains unchanged.

It’s funny, I only need look at my children and they confirm this for me. Their essential characters have remained the same only they are morphing into adults with the added complexities that it entails.

What happens to us is that we are impacted by the world and that unique character is affected by the things we learn. If we are very fortunate, we will be able to understand what we should abandon and what we should swallow but the challenge is that we are too young for the level of discernment which is required. Thus, we are often left riddled with baggage to remove later.

The key is then to go back to that nude version of ourselves only with the nuggets of wisdom we have picked up along the way hopefully engrained. If there is an advantage to aging it is t…
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ticking

"An extremely quiet child" they called you in your school report
"He's always taken interest in the subjects that he's taught"
So what was it that brought the squad car screaming up your drive
To notify your parents of the manner in which you died

At St. Patrick's every Sunday, Father Fletcher heard your sins
"Oh, he's unconcerned with competition he never cares to win"
But blood stained a young hand that never held a gun
And his parents never thought of him as their troubled son

"Now you'll never get to Heaven" Mama said
Remember Mama said
Ticking, ticking
"Grow up straight and true blue
Run along to bed"
Hear it, hear it, ticking, ticking...

They had you holed up in a downtown bar screaming for a priest
Some gook said "His brain's just snapped" then someone called the police
You'd knifed a Negro waiter who had tried to calm you down
Oh you'd pulled a gun and told them all to lay still on the …
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equidistant

I have never stood here before.

This is a first for me in that I am sitting at an equidistant point between transitioning and not.

There are several reasons for this but one is that it is not easy to live in two gender roles. You sometimes even confuse yourself and presenting in one form in society is easier. Also, nothing stops you from enjoying life and keep any interests I currently have and, should I choose transition, it could be purely social in nature.

On the other hand there are still remnants of my current life which command my attention and keep me firmly in my current role.

In truth, we should be able to live life as we want but society seems to beg that we decide. They want to know where you stand because, like it or not, so incredibly much about our existence is still parsed out by gender.

That equidistance sometimes confuses me because I vacillate between the two poles, some days more sure of one than the other. Has Joanna advanced over time? Yes admittedly she has but t…
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a classic look I like

For me there is simplicity and elegance in a long coat, classic black pumps accented with pearl earrings and necklace. I guess you could say it's almost timeless.

I don't wear this coat out often because it's a little too dressy for everyday use but it's not going anywhere either and will stay in my wardrobe.

Although I wasn't yet born, it takes me back in time to the 1950's when I put it on...


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the skull by the bedside

Life is fleeting and recently I featured a short video where it was recommended (only partly in jest) that we keep a skull at our bedside as a reminder.

I am at the age where friends and acquaintances are sometimes diagnosed with cancers or brain tumors and we marvel at how they are still too young to face such challenges; except our mortality doesn’t play favorites and it can come fetch us at any time. I lost a close colleague to pancreatic cancer a few years ago who never made it to 60.

Thinking this way does not make me despondent but instead reminds me how important it is to treasure every moment of our existence. There are so many things we stress about that have no value and they evaporate into nothingness a short while later. Hopefully I am becoming wiser as I age and learning to be more discerning about what to give importance to.

The fact is that I don’t think about my mortality enough for if I did I would really learn to truly live my life one precious day at a time; no dwel…
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Blood on the Rooftops

"Dark and grey, an English film, the Wednesday play
We always watch the queen on Christmas day
Won't you stay?

Though your eyes see shipwrecked sailors you're still dry
The outlook's fine, though Wales might have some rain
Saved again

Let's skip the news, boy (I'll make some tea)
The Arabs and the Jews, boy (too much for me)
They get me confused, boy (puts me off to sleep)
And the thing I hate, oh lord
Is staying up late, to watch some debate, on some nation's fate

Hypnotized by Batman, Tarzan, still surprised
You've won the west in time to be our guest
Name your prize

Drop of wine, a glass of beer, dear what's the time?
The grime on the tine is mine, all mine, all mine
Five past nine

Blood on the rooftops, Venice in the spring
Streets of San Francisco, a word from Peking
The trouble was started by a young Errol Flynn
Better in my day, oh lord
For when we got bored, we'd have a world war, happy but poor

So let's skip the news, boy (I'll…
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trusting your instincts

There is a handwritten journal that predates this blog by 2 years. The reason I began to write was to sort out my emotions about being trans and how I was going to manage my life around it.

But later another motivation was added.

I became indignant about people who didn't share my life experience weighing in on what they thought made me tick; all in a way that I couldn't relate to. This was too much to bear for someone who had struggled over this difference for so long. Hence, I read everything I could get my hands on to be better able to arm myself but also hoping to find concrete answers. Those who read my blog know it is the product of a perfectly lucid mind so the mental illness diagnosis used to dismiss trans people will never fly with me.

After all that reading, what I ultimately learned is that we need to trust ourselves because there is a dearth of reliable information out there. Trust your instincts instead.

A lot of the fake science that has been concocted against us…
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