Update, 8/29: Looks like I won’t be able to participate in the Atlanta Queer Lit festival in October– I’d posted this event earlier, when it looked more likely.  If you want to connect with me in Atlanta, looks like the September 11 event , 2 PM, at the Ravina, is the one to go to.  Thanks! JB

This one sees her story as a “tragic love story,” the love story being Christine’s marriage to her wife Lisa.  Thesis here is that the loss of that marriage was too hard for Christine to bear, and that she de-transitioned back to Mike in hopes of salvaging the relationship.  This article would have a lot more teeth, if you ask me, if the author had managed to interview Lisa, the wife in question, although it’s clear enough that she wanted her privacy and wasn’t in the mood to muddy the waters at this late date by speaking publicly.  I respect that decision– living all of this in the bright light of the public eye is pretty hard; it’s one reason Deirdre/Grace has generally not had much interest in speaking publicly about matters that are, almost by definition, private.

It is clear, though, that a good rule of thumb for trans folks is to know that the changes in your romantic relationships are often the hardest to bear, and that the aches and pains from those changes can outlast transition itself.   I’ve seen this again and again– the euphoria of transition gives way to melancholy of what’s lost–often, the love from the people that we our own selves love most.

And another good rule of thumb:  all of this, which is hard enough for tough characters, let alone the vulnerable souls that trans folks usually are–is about eight million times harder to deal with in the harsh light of celebrity.   For so many of us,  ”get yourself on a talk show”  is such a mandatory element of transition that it feels like one of the standards of care.  But more often than not, that’s exactly the wrong place to be, unless you happen to have nerves of steel, and/or your relationship itself feels safe and protected.

In short, trans people are well advised to consider the sign that used to hang outside the house of the meanest lady in my home town:  CAVE CANEM.  Beware of Dog.

From Criggo.com, a truly fantastic blog focussing on not-especially-well-edited items in the country’s newspapers.

The Man Who Sold the World.

So I posted here a thing I wrote about David Bowie this morning, but now I am thinking twice about.  Originally I was thinking about how much I loved his music, back in the day.  And yet how grumpy i was to learn that he wasn’t really bisexual, at least according to the Wikipedia piece I read– apparently it was all theatre.  I wrote all despondently that it’d have been nice if the thing he’d been pretending to be really was who he was.

But now, a full six hours later, I begin to suspect I’m full of hooey.  Maybe the reality doesn’t matter.  Maybe what matters is the theatre, and the music.  That opened plenty of doors all by itself. And perhaps we never know who artists “really” are, and it’s naiive to expect them as performers to be–what is the phrase?— their “true selves.”

Anyway, I’m taking this down so I can think about it a little more.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

Both stories–including the faux one–are bringing out rounds of applause for folks “sticking it to the man.” Americans love these kinds of stories. It’s the heart of a whole genre, which you could call the “Take this Job and Shove It” narrative.

Everyone identifies with the underdog. What no one’s admitting, however, is that they--we--are just as often the boors throwing our luggage around. Or the boss leering at an employee. Or a person whose publicly bad behavior drives other people to hit the emergency chute and slide away.

Who’s the over-dog?  You are.

I’ve been on eight jillion plane rides in my life, and on about seven jillion of them, I have seen that guy, the one who just has to pop out of his seat. Or his friend: the woman who just wouldn’t check her giant steamer trunk, and then insists on shoving the thing into a space that just will not contain it. Or, more humbly, the person next to you who takes over the arm rest. Or, on a crowded train, that person who somehow just never got around to getting her stuff out of the (otherwise empty) seat next to hers.

How about when you’re on a road at night, and some clever soul decides to tailgate you with the bright lights on?

Or, my local favorite here on our (otherwise quiet) lake in Maine– that guy on his JET-SKI–doing donuts around and around in a circle, engine roaring, rattling windows of cabins for miles around. I guess the important thing is, HE’S having fun.

Then there are all of you who wear t-shirts with obscenities on them. Hey, guy with the FUCK CLINTON T-shirt, back in 1999? Thanks for the conversation I had to have with my six year old about what “that word means.”

It’s not news that bad behavior is everywhere. I don’t have any solutions. But I do think that when stories like the two that have rippled through the Inter-Tubes over the last few days come around, it’s worth taking a few moments–as we all hail the pluck of the hero or heroine driven to desparation–to admit that the assholes whose bad behavior has driven these souls to hit the emergency chute?  Are us.

the embedded player below is so unwieldy I suspect it may be easier to make this work by simply going here and selecting track 9, 10, and 11. But if you want to try your luck below, hit the play arrow, let the first tune start up, and then hit the Forward arrow until you get a good stream on track 2, and then hit Forward again, etc, until at last you hear D.S. come up on track 9. Like I said, more than a little unwieldy, and if you can’t quite get this to work, well, what the heck. It’s back to Lady GaGa for you.

July 2005

Like most Mainers, we draw courage in the face of adversity from the idea of a perfect, invincible summer.  No matter what else befalls us during the year, we know that by mid-June we will be among the most blessed people on Earth.  Which partly explains why, a few days after our children finished up at Belgrade Elementary, our family packed up the car and headed to–Wyoming.

Wyoming (State motto: Our Bears Think YOU Taste Best!) is a state a few miles south of Kennebunkport and well to the west of New Hampshire.  For the last year or two—while our boys are still young– we’ve been hauling them off to national parks in June, hoping to do as much traveling as a family as we can before adolescence kicks in and they go over “to the dark side.”  It was this philosophy that led us to Arizona last year, to a tour that included not only the Grand Canyon but also the Boot Hill cemetery in Tombstone, the only graveyard I know of that has its own gift shop.

Wyoming, of course, is the home of Yellowstone National Park, a thermomagmatic anomaly best know for its fumeroles, mudpots, and geysers.  Maine, for its part, has no geysers, although Waterville has an abundance of a thermomagmatic property called “geezers” which erupt, approximately every thirty days, during meetings of the Colby College Faculty.  These geezers go off like clockwork, usually starting off with a simple phrase like, “I’d like to suggest we change some of the language in this amendment” and winding up a few minutes later spewing and covered with delectable froth.  They’re like a mug of cappuccino, only smarter.

We began our adventure in the Grand Teton National Park. (“Teton” is one of those vague French words which roughly translates as “gazunga.”) After that, we strapped the whole family into a perfectly safe inflatable raft and sailed off of a waterfall in the Snake River.  We all agreed that this was fun, but that it might have been more efficient to simply spray the whole family with a fire hose.

The next night it was on to Yellowstone, where we stood around with our fellow nature-loving Americans and watched the earth spew out nasty-smelling glup.  We were also lucky enough to spot one of our nation’s endangered species, the Winnebago.  One evening we saw a whole family of Winnebagos grazing by the side of the road.  We would have taken some pictures of them, but we’d been warned by park officials that when they’re taken by surprise, they can charge (usually with a MasterCard or Visa, but sometimes the more dangerous ones have  American Express).

A Group of Giant Cactus

At Yellowstone Lake we engaged a small watercraft and trolled for trout.  My older boy Zach caught himself a very impressive three-pound fish with the relaxing name of “cut-throat.”  My younger boy, Sean,  sat in the front cabin playing Gameboy, and enjoying the violent motion of the boat, which shook him up like a martini. Later, he said that this was the “high moment” of the vacation.

Finally, we headed over to Cody, Wyoming, where we endured a rodeo.  Late in the evening, every human younger than twelve years old was invited into the ring for the “calf scramble,” an arcane activity that involved a fifty dollar bill attached with masking tape to the rear end of a very small Holstein.  This animal was then chased by two hundred or so greed-crazed children, as loudspeakers overhead played the theme from “Saturday Night Fever.”

Our boys returned from the ring empty handed, covered in dirt, discouraged.  “That was no calf-scramble,” Zach muttered. “That was just a mob scene.”

It was hard to argue with this, and as we drove back to the Bill Cody ranch, we fell into silence, each of us thinking longingly of our home back in Maine.

We woke up in our own house on the Fourth of July. We all got out of bed, walked down to the lake, and stood there watching the loons.  “I liked America,” said Sean.  “But I’m glad we’re back.”

This terrain, I suspect, is ground that more and more of us will find ourselves treading in years to come. Zoe’s a friend of mine, so do know that this gush-a-thon comes from a not disinterested party. But I loved this book. I suspect lots of my readers will love it too.

Zoe’s got a lovely web site too, which is linked here.

In this video on the New York Times site today, it’s reported that Pakistan has a big problem with members of the upper class not paying their taxes. And so, to humiliate scofflaws into paying their taxes, the Pakistani government is sending in transgender tax collectors.  According to the reporter, “The theory is that people will be so embarassed, that they’ll finally pay up, just in order to make them go away.”

Another giant step forward for my people.

Oh well. If this whole professor of English thing doesn’t pan out, now I know I have a backup plan. Collecting taxes. In Islamabad.

Come to think of it, there are plenty of people in America who would pay good money to have me go away.

The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance is having a special night in honor of its 35th birthday.  On Thursday August 12, you can join Jenny Boylan and her spouse Deedie at FORE STREET–our favorite restaurant–in Portland Maine, starting at 5:30.

Or, if you prefer, you could dine at a different place with Richard Ford. Or Ann Beattie. Or Richard Russo.  Or a half dozen others.

If the cover fee is too much for ya, you could join us at the SECOND special event that night about 7 PM, in the Portland Public Library, at 7 PM, for champagne.

Or you could just hang out with us at the all-night swing dance at Space Gallery, starting at 8:30.

If you’ve always wanted to sit down with the Boylans and ask us the question everyone MOST wants to ask us and is too polite to ask–you know, “What is Oprah Winfrey REALLY LIKE?”, we hope you’ll join us for dinnerr on 8/12.

Space is extremely limited.  So follow this link right here to the MWPA site for more information and for reservations. Oh, I’m afraid Jenny and Deedie will be eating dinner when you arrive at this FULLY OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION.

See you in August!

J