Thursday, September 26
Do you have the time to listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at once?
At the school drop--off, the lower school teachers and aids are usually at curbside to gather the little hatchlings and herd them toward their classes. The upper school kids are SUPPOSED to head toward 1st period classes (to clear out the area) but most don't move immediately and hang-out to see or be seen. My little proto-lesbian friend,Brie, was waiting as always, and gathered me up to walk arm-and-arm toward 1st period potions.
"My my Miss Christy aren't you the fashion plate today! Please tell us, who are you wearing?"
Even Brie's horseshit (gathered from years of futile dressage lessons) wasn't going to disrupt my record setting vibe today. "Thank you for asking! The skirt is from Nordstrom's, from their famous juniors department, and my top came from the highly exclusive `school store'. I believe both the top and the bottom were made by child laborers in China who were paid slightly less for a day's labor than you paid for that Tall Mocha Frappuccino on the way to school this morning. Accessories, of course, are from Claire's Boutique. And you, my dear, are looking lovely as well. I'm sure if Jennifer Lawrence started playing for the other team, you'd be high on her list."
No sooner did get started in our mutual admiration society than one of the lower-school teachers flagged me down, perhaps just to kill my buzz. "Chris? Chris Dancer? Oh, I mean `Christy'. Sorry. Ms. Weston asked me to flag you down and have you visit her in the office for a minute before class starts."
Buzz kill buzz kill buzz kill. "Yes, ma'am. I'll head there right now."
I turned to Brie, and before I could speak, she said, "I'll save you a seat at the concert -- front row so you can look up Taylor Swift's skirt."
Ms. Weston's door was open like she was waiting for me, and when I knocked, she just motioned for me to sit in front of her. "Christy, I know this is your first day `coming out' in public, and you must have a thousand concerns and fears about how you'll be accepted. I want you to know that we want to do everything we can to smooth your transition. Is there anything on your mind?"
I utterly did not know what she was talking about. I was as happy as I'd been since we went to Disney World a couple of years ago. Maybe happier. If Ms. Weston pulled out a life size Minnie Mouse and let me pose with it, I'd be on top of the world.
I was, quite frankly, pretty conservatively dressed, blending in with every other 9th grade girl with a just-above-the-knee khaki skirt, the standard girls monogrammed golf shirt, and conservative makeup and accessories, I fully did not expect to stand out, and planned to just keep a low profile all day. I instantly though of a hundred snarky things I could say to Ms. W, but decided to err on the side of caution. "Ms. Weston, I really appreciate your concern. My friends are all surrounding me in a rugby scrum to make sure I don't get any hassles from anyone."
"Yes, Christy, I know your friends. `Rugby scrum' is a good way to describe them."
"But if I have any problems, Ms. Weston, I'll be sure to come to you."
"Mr. Petrie is the upper school guidance counselor. Have you met him yet?"
"No, ma'am. I figured he was pretty busy editing college application letters."
"Yes, well, you're right, but I've asked him to take a special interest in you. Why don't you go meet with him on your free period? I'm sure he'd like to make a connection."
And there is was. I'm going to be `managed'. Sigh... I'll spend the next three periods thinking up stuff to whine to Mr. Petrie about. Then he can solve my piss-ass problems, and feel all warm and successful about himself. Yeah, that's the ticket.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll be sure to see him 4th period."
"Bye-bye, Christy. Have a great day!"
I went to a whore who said my life's a bore
She said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.
I walked out of her office and walked straight into Madison. The sister wives kinda treat Maddy like the poor dumb one, and frankly, I think she'll be voted most likely to become a pole dancer out of our class. That said, she's lovable and I'm sorry we're not as close as Brie and I are. She's in 9th grade general math, which is in the room right beside Algebra where Brie was waiting for me.
"How'd it go?"
We talked and walked slowly. We had about 5 minutes to kill. "Oh, fine, Maddy. Ms. Weston is bending over backwards to make sure I'm OK. I think I'd probably do better if she backed off. Now she wants me to meet with Mr. Petrie at 4th period."
"The school counselor? I've heard he's neat."
I had a gut feel Maddy was going to be spending a lot of time in his office over the next few years. "I'm really worried that he will confuse my gender issues with sexuality issues. Ya know?"
Maddy thought long and hard and finally said, "No, I don't know. I'm not sure I understand at all."
We stopped and I turned to look at her. "Maddy, this is really an overly simplified way of looking at it, but here goes. First, gender issues. Some people are born boys and happy with that. Some people are born girls and happy with THAT. However, on both ends of the spectrum, there are girls who really feel like they should have been born boys, and boys who really feel like they should have been born girls. You with me so far?"
"I think."
"Now, on the gender line, I'm like 100% -- I was born with `boy' equipment but always, as far back as I can remember, self-identified as a girl. But, many people are somewhere in the middle on that spectrum, not quite girl and not quite boy. You keeping up?"
"I'm trying but this is really all kinds of confusing. Gimme a while."
"OK, and I hate to do this, but there is also a sexuality spectrum. Lots of girls are born girls and happy with being girls, but also are sexually attracted to other girls. Same with boys. I'm mechanically a boy, who identifies as a girl, who is attracted to boys."
I could see I'd lost Maddy a while ago. I'm guessing her earliest memories were tucking Barbie and Ken together into bed, and when she learned about penises a few years ago, I'm sure her very simple world suddenly made lots and lots of sense to her.
"Look, we're gonna be late. Maddy, I love you, and I'm glad you're my sister wife. We'll talk a lot in the future, OK?"
Maddy seemed to be OK with that, and we walked to class silently. She had a look on her face like I'd tried to explain the color red to a blind person, but she was trying, and that was a lot. A LOT.
I went to a shrink to analyze my dreams
He said quit my whining it's just bringing him down.
First, second, and third periods went `swimmingly' as the snobs like to say. No one said anything. I got used to sitting in a skirt. One or two immodest accidents almost occurred, but were prevented by Mamma Brie's constant look out. Teachers called me Christy. Even other kids in my classes all remembered to call me Christy. In algebra, I had to go to the board and solve an equation, and had to remember that my skirt had no pocket for my calculator. Why do skirts not have pockets? Who thought that was a good idea?
Biology is all lectures right now. Mitochondria. Cell membranes. DNA. RNA. Amazingly, since all of that is wildly intertwined with gender, my gender never came up. You would think a savvy teacher would have used me as a teaching tool, but no.... Ditto U.S. history, although unless Betsy Ross was transgender, I'm not sure how my situation would have been a good teaching tool.
I normally spend 4th period in the library. It's activities' period (I think they used to call these study halls') and while in theory every student has a different activities period, in practice all of the 9th grade classes meet first thru third and fifth thru ninth periods. You would THINK the sister wives would use this as a period to hang out, but the school frowns on that. They want us to be in an activity, like cheerleading, or French class, or student council, or something like that. I'm not in any activities, so I hang in the library (a marginally acceptable alternative) and try to keep my head low.
Mr. Petrie's office is a mess, looking out on the quad' (which is actually triangular, so I don't know why it's called a quad) I guess so he can keep an eye on errant student behavior. Like I said to Ms. Weston, the rap was that he spent 110% of his time forging college entrance essays (well, that's not zactly what I said), so his desk was a pile of badly written essays that he was trying to punch up. Poor guy. I'm the one supposedly needing counseling, but here I am wondering if I should just let him have a good cry. If I was casting a movie, he'd be top of the list as a harried counselor. Sorta like Lisa Kudrow in `Easy A', except older and with bad hair. That kinda made me Emma Stone, which brought a smile to my face.
"So, Ms. Dancer, what can I do for you today," he asked, spewing out what I guessed was the standard question he'd ask if I was trying to apply to Stanford or threatening to drop out and join the Army or coming out as a male-to-female transsexual.
"Actually, I'm pretty cool. Day's going fine. How's your day?"
He seemed totally taken back, like no one had ever asked him that before. "Ms. Weston suggested I become your point-of-contact during your, er, ah, transition, to make sure..."
"Warm, loving, inclusive environment. Yeah. I get it. I'll help write next year's school catalog. When does that need to go out to prospective parents, by the way?"
I quickly realized maybe I was pissing off the wrong person, and I tried to do an attitude check.
"What do you do during your free period, Christy?"
"I just kinda hang out at the library and keep my head down. Been doing that since 7th grade."
"Yeah, I noticed you don't have an extracurriculars. You know, that's important for a well rounded student. We highly encourage you to do something. Highly encourage. Here's an idea. Mr. MacCarthy is the drama coach, and he's just put together the winter play. Drama club kids hang out in the drama room during their free periods reading lines and practicing. He's still got a few filler parts in the play. You should go to him tomorrow and ask for a tryout."
"What's the play?"
"I don't know, exactly. Some avant-garde version of a Shakespeare classic."
Hmmmm.... Mr. MacCarthy was also the 11th and 12th grade English teacher, and an opportunity to suck up to him shouldn't be ignored. But... "What if I don't get in the play? What if he doesn't cast me."
"You'll get in."
"But, really, I've never tried out for a play."
"You WILL get in."
Ahhh... I could see it all clearly now. The fix was in. I was going to be the school's happy little trannie girl in all the photos, but on their terms, not mine. Putting me on stage would be a coup d'gras, or whatever. French wasn't my thing.
"What if I don't like drama?"
"Perhaps girls' tracks and field?"
Suddenly, `Merchant of Venice' or whatever appealed to me. "Tomorrow, 4th period, Mr. Petrie?"
He smiled, "Yes, tomorrow. Mr. MacCarthy will be expecting you. Now, if you don't mind, I've got some more extraordinarily badly written personal essays to edit. Would you like to see how someone explains his pacifism on a West Point application?"
"Thank you, Mr. Petri. I'll see you later."
I scurried to the library to kill the few minutes before lunch. Maybe broadening my circle of friends wouldn't be too bad. Also, I could look forward to vomiting on stage in front of 500 people. There's that.
Sometimes I give myself the creeps
...It all keeps adding up. I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid or am I stoned?
Lunch was less about me and more about just the crap of school. I did OK on my Spanish test, and 100% on English, but Brie was suffering in French (why French, Brie? Do you plan to live in Paris and grow your armpit hair?) and the Emmas appeared to suffer in English. Only Madison seemed happy, but Maddy was overjoyed with C's. (So were her parents.)
I was half way thru a p-nut butter sandwich before I dropped my drama bombshell. Not surprisingly, Brie took it as a personal affront. Of course, Brie juggled three or four different 4th period activities, and appeared to be spending her life burnishing her resume, perhaps to get into the Sorbonne. However, I was her little pet project, and she resented sharing me with some other gaggle.
"Christy, how do you know you're going to like drama?"
"I don't. In fact, I probably won't. I'm being `managed' here, Brie, and there's not much I can do about it. The school wants to keep eyeballs on their little trannie girl, and drama's their best bet."
Maddy spoke up, quite unusually, "I didn't think you liked the word `trannie'."
"I don't, Maddy. I'm using it to emphasize how little I like being `managed' by the school."
"Oh..."
Brie and I walked together toward English class. "How's the wardrobe fitting?"
"Pretty normally, really. I mean, I feel... how should I put it... it's emotionally comfortable, even though parts are physically hard to get used to."
"The bra, you mean."
"Yeah, the bra. Also, I never stopped to realize that girls shirts are cut differently than boys. For the same size chest, you're narrower in the back and wider in the front. It actually takes a little getting used to."
"We could write a book on how badly women's clothes are cut. You've been wearing women's undies for like a couple of weeks now continuously, right?"
"We'll, panties, yes. W-a-a-a-ay more comfie than what boys wear, although I could see some problems if I was... ahh... how do I say this..."
"Differently endowed?"
"Yeah, differently endowed. But getting used to wearing a bra for eight hours is weird. How do you get used to it?"
"You grow up looking forward to it. Every little girl, or most little girls, want to be like Mommie and big sister, and that means wearing a bra, and we can't wait until the day when we go buy our first bra. We don't want to take it off. We want to sleep in it. It's a sign of becoming a woman, because all of the other signs suck so badly."
"Yeah, you know what the Emma's have been doing to me, right?"
"What?"
"Every time I get bitchy, they slip me a tampon. I have like 5 now."
"Keep `em. A repository of free, spare tampons is a god send in the girls room. You'll hear the plaintiff cry of the she--woman who gets her period in the middle of the day and forgot to pack a spare tampon or three in her backpack. You can make friends really quickly that way."
"Speaking of which, has there been any rumor at all about me using the girls restroom?"
"No. Seriously. No. Nearly everyone kinda figured you for either a really effeminate gay boy or what you are now. You'd be surprised at how little you are a topic of conversation."
So, the rest of the day was more English essays, more Spanish verbs, and some more insanely boring CompSci.
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it.
Mom picked me up, and I immediately let her in on the new drama club news. I think she was taken with how lively and happy I was (I'm guessing she had fears that my first day publicly `out' wouldn't go well) and she took a few minutes processing the whole drama club / avant-garde Shakespeare thing.
"We'll, that sounds nice," which was her usual way of acknowledging something she was only mildly in favor of. "When did you decide you liked drama?"
"About three seconds after Mr. Petrie gave me the choice of that or girls track and field."
"Ahhh... do you need me to talk with Ms. Weston?"
"Nah. I understand. They want to keep an eye on me. They want to make sure I'm not using my free period to cook up some revolutionary transgender witchcraft or something. I'm cool with it. Maybe I'll like it."
I could already tell Mom had some trepidation about her newborn transgender daughter being paraded up on stage. She could also probably visualize the whole `vomit' thing.
"I'll be fine."
Am I just paranoid
Or am I stoned?