Work takes it's toll.
Admittedly, I only worked a few hours today(7), but combined with the longer shifts I've been doing the past week, the short nights sleeping on the floor and the general frustration that working in a supermarket entails(heightened by the Christmas season) I've found myself on a short fuse today.
I managed to keep my cool at work, mostly. One colleague who thinks she's my boss kept rubbing me the wrong way and received a couple of angry replies to orders, but she soon realised that she wasn't helping by taking control and let me get on with things, so that helped.
But - as we all know - I'm not a people person, and by the end of my shift I was done being smiley and cheery to total strangers, and just wanted to go home and relax. Not possible in this house, of course, because it's not MY house. It's tiny, cramped, and I can't do whatever I want. Which in today's case was put my boobs on and get dressed so I can feel normal. But, besides the point.
Eventually Mum went out(though Mel was still in) and I did some coding and listened to podcasts. I was trying to do the code for the new trans blog I mentioned yesterday, but my short temper and tiredness got the better of me and I threw my laptop across the room, damaging further an already damaged and precious product.
I'm at the stage where my anger and frustration at the coding has me wanting to host the new blog on blogger.com . I don't like doing that, because it affords nowhere near the control that I like on here.
Oh, this is a stupid, irritating post to read probably. Fuck it. I started off thinking it would be a nice way to get my stress out, maybe stumble across something insightful about why I was so moody today, but instead it's just me moaning about things, and reeks of my pre-2005 writings, with some boring code stuff thrown in.
This is why I hate having a job. It's used up all my brain for today. But I have to start posting everyday again, so this is what you get.
Merry fucking Christmas, you gleaming bastards.
23 December, 2007 - 19:21Comments (View)
Talk is cheap.
So a while back, when I wrote my first "notaphase" post, I said that "an explanation would be forthcoming". It hasn't been. Mainly because all the people who need to know more details have spoken to me about it(almost, anyway.) And it seems like some people don't want to know any details at all, or else realise that it's kind fo awkward to talk about(thanks!).
It can be awkward to talk about in real life, because the conversation can tend to feel like I'm on trial - like I'm having to prove that I really do feel like a woman on the inside. It's obviously hard to do, since no-one can ever feel what I feel(at least not now - get a move on, science!).
Some people just plain don't want to talk about it, either. Gender is a really complex issue(although most people don't realise it) and questioning it or defying genital-based logic can confound and scare people. I have managed to build up a nice, small-but-loyal readership here again after this summer's dry spell, and I don't want to drive them away by constantly talking about how normal I finally feel when I've got my tits strapped on.
So, in the next few days I'll be putting another blog on this site(the third) dealing specifically with my transsexuality. The first post will be on the problems of name-choosing, I think. The detailed history of why I'm doing this can wait a week or so. Because that is a looong post.
22 December, 2007 - 22:04Comments (View)
I am an enormous geek.
Earlier a customer's goods came to a total of £28.56 . The mathematically inclined among you will notice that 56 = 28 x 2. No big deal. I, however, laughed a little(luckily not noticed by anyone else).
That would have been the end of my geekiness on that occasion, but then the dude gave me a coupon, that reduced the total to £28.06, which actually made me a little angry.
At this point, I'm becoming a caricature of myself, I'm pretty sure. Especially since I found myself later singing Hard 'n' Phirm's "Pi" song to myself. Check it out -> http://effinfunny.com/atributetopi.
A longer post tomorrow, I'm sure, but I wanted to get this little one out of the way before I forgot about it..
Oh, and big shout-outs to my peeps. Yo.
21 December, 2007 - 17:23Comments (View)
Something happier?
Jeez, re-reading over that last entry is a depressing experience entirely, eh? Still, let's try and be a little lighter with this one. If it isn't, I blame you. You've been warned.
Tomorrow night I'm performing same lovely stand-up comedy at the student union as part of my assessment for this semester. I'm still not entirely sure what's going into my set, apart from a graph detailing "How Many Millions of Men Want To Put Parts of Themselves into Parts of Britney Spears" vs. "Time". Yes, you may laugh out loud at that one. You have my permission.
Also going into the set will be a letter from Endemol UK detailing why my application to be on Big Brother was rejected. It's not real, but when I read it out in class yesterday people thought that it was. They laughed too, which was handy.
I'm pretty good at writing these sorts of fake-letters. I can get the authorative tone right, I think. I'm considering having another go at a podcast for this site(after Christmas) doing a reading of one of these types of letters each week. Say, 4-7 minutes each.
I don't expect it to be a barnstorming success, but speaking to Ian Tomey the other day I realised that I really should be doing as much as I can to produce content whilst I still have time to fanny around.
In other news, I'm managed to rig my A-cup bra so that when you look down my shirt it looks like real boobs. Which has me pretty damn pleased(although I'm still under no impressions that I 'pass').
12 December, 2007 - 15:23Comments (View)
If you can't stand my slightly-depressing introspection, don't read this post.
I went home this weekend to eat without worrying about cost, and to catch up with Mel and see the new flat. Plus it'd been a while since I'd travelled on a train, and we all know how much I love that.
Last time I went home I hadn't washed my everyday clothes in a while, so I had to wear guy stuff. It felt sucky. Pretty much all the clothing I wear nowadays conforms to my gender identity(girl stuff, obv.) and when I go back to man outfits the difference is obvious and I don't like it. I spent the first 19 years of my life not knowing how much better I felt wearing the 'right' clothes, so I thought everyone was meant to not really enjoy clothing. But now that I wear what I really want to, the baseline of comfort has changed, and going back to boxy t-shirts and flat-assed trousers is distressing.
This time when I went home I wore girl stuff. Mel was fine with it, because she's fine with this whole thing, but Mum definitely wasn't. Her eyes flickered down to my trousers when I first arrived, and although on saturday the top I was wearing was vaguely man-ly, the pink one I wore today was not. Once I'd gotten dressed she kept giving me worried looks, and I think at one point she went to the bathroom to cry.
Heaven knows I'm not the biggest fan of my mother, but making her cry is not top of my list of 'fun things to do of a Sunday'. The whole weekend it felt like there was an elephant in the room, but I don't know how to broach the topic. And the last time Mum asked me what was going on in my life we had an argument that led to me writing out suicide notes to all my friends and nearly taking a razor to my wrist(I guess I'm lucky in that I realise how selfish it is to kill yourself, since nothing else would've stopped me breaking the skin that day).
It's odd. I can be 'out and proud' to everyone in my life about my transsexualism. I answer questions, joke around, take advice on bras. I like to think of myself as refreshingly open and wry about the whole thing(at least compared to the stealth-TGs). But I have no idea how to talk about this with Mum. Her first son died, and I feel like telling her this would kill the second son too.
Still, I'm staying there for Christmas hols, so the topic will have to be broached sometime.
10 December, 2007 - 01:25Comments (View)
Not feeling it, dudes.
The radio show tonight was a bit of a shambles. We weren't clicking right, and - as one listener pointed out - the banter was missing a certain something. Luke also drank a 35 of Vodka as the show went on, which unnerved me and slowed him down a little, to be honest.
Charlie was mentioned too much, as well. I had hoped to simply say that the full write-up was on this site and that wouldn't be using the radio as a forum for that kind of talk, but Luke insisted on getting the whole story out of me 'for our listeners' and I insulted Chuck a bit too much. An e-mail from Paul said he was listening and none too pleased, but I'm not sure.
Either way, I couldn't care less. If he tries to beat me up, then that just confirms his schoolboy mentality. Besides, as I said on the show, he's clearly not amazing in a fight.
My sleep cycle is a bit messed up again, as you may be able to tell from this late/early posting time. I was doing well until a few days ago when I pulled an all-nighter. I've been thinking about getting back into polyphasic sleep again. Who knows.
Oh, and it's coming up to New Year, so I'm thinking about those resolutions. It's tradition(dating back 2 years now) for me to attempt to give up caffeine on Jan 22nd, so we'll so how that goes. It hasn't worked yet, clearly.
07 December, 2007 - 03:03Comments (View)
Exciting and Inciting.
So yesterday something pretty nasty happened in standup class. And I'm not talking about my act. Well, that was nasty too, but the main thing I'm talking about really was nothing to do with my act.
It was all to do with the radio show, specifically the episode from a couple of weeks ago when Ben Wadling co-hosted. During the show I started telling someone else's joke from stand-up class, ironically of course. Labouring under the thought that it was Mister X's joke, I dismissed it as rubbish. Ben told me it was Mr. Y's, and I said that in that case it was good.
I then proceeded to get Mister X's name wrong multiple times(in a manner that made it sound like I was insulting him, when really I was just confused) and then said "I fucking hate him".
Turns out that a couple of days ago, Mister X heard the podcast of this episode and was none too pleased. In fact, he was fuming. He came into class yesterday and started making digs whilst on stage before our lecturer arrived, but no one really heard him. He said something about how he liked to use public forums to attack people when they can't respond, and I yelled "It's the bravest way!" - trying to take the piss out of what I had done. It was my mia culpa. But I don't think he understood. No surprise.
During his set, X made a few references to the show, but no out-and-out personal attacks on me like he'd been promising("When I get up there I'm going to utterly ballistic"). He did, however, end his set with an attack on one of our lecturers, who is entirely un-deserving of X's scorn - not that it doesn't entirely go to pattern.
After the session was over X talked to me. I say 'talked', he yelled. Yelled the standard stuff - how he was gonna "kill me" if I ever did anything like that again, how I was out of order, how I didn't have the right to talk about people on the radio. The entire time I stood there listening with a smile on my face(smiling shows them that they're not in control) and when he'd finished I told him that I didn't care what he thought - he was a cunt and he could fuck off.
A quick digression to explain why I particularly don't like this person. From day one(when he compared me to Chris Crocker) this guy has bullied me every chance he's gotten. I don't like to use the term 'bullying', but that's what he did. Took my saddle off of my unicycle and pretended that he'd found it and that that was all that was left. The next week he took the saddle off again to use for as a prop in class - without asking. He's sexually harassed me on two occasions, despite being told not to. He's exhibited blatant homo/trans-phobia towards me, and tried to get a nickname of 'Warhol' going. Because Andy Warhol was gay, and at the time X thought I was too.
So when I say he's a cunt, I'm not saying it in a flippant way. He. Is. A. Cunt. To me, to others. And I called him out on it. And he didn't like that.
Back in class, he continued to yell at me, and had to be led away under request of our lecturer. As he walked out of the room he yelled "Fuck off and grow a vagina". Some more transphobia there, your honour. Just for the record.
(Oh, and if only it were that fucking easy!)
I ended up getting a ticking off from our lecturer, who admitted that bullying had taken place, but told me I should've gone through the official channels. You know, the ones that have failed me my entire life.
My lecturer did say that I should apologise, but rescinded that after he saw how angry X really was. I've been told to leave him alone.
I don't know where this post falls into that edict. I feel I've been fairly honest, and admitted fault(I should not have used the radio in that way, I accept that). I've also outlined my reasons for my hatred of this guy, so maybe those in the class who fall more on his side of the argument will see my perspective.
Above all, I want this post here because I am so very, very worried* that he will kill me, and no one will know why. If they find my raped and mutilated corpse tomorrow - you know who did it. Well, sort of.
*Not worried at all. Been beaten up by bigger and scarier people than X, and survived. Oh, and I'm not a coward, so that would probably give me some advantage in a fight. Oh, and I told him all this. That made him a bit angrier.
Oh, and to make something clear - when I say he's a cunt, that's opinion. Not fact, obviously. Just have to say that for libel reasons.
05 December, 2007 - 19:09Comments (View)
Working on other people's babies.
Well, 'babies' might be a stretch, but it's pretty close to the truth. I've spent this evening editing my recording's of The Four Amigos' radio show - removing the copyrighted music, shrinking the file size.
It's been something I've meant to do for a few weeks, but it's hard to convince yourself to mess around with waveforms when you could be watching Battlestar Galactica.
Onec I was done with the files, I also made the guys a website of their very own. Because I'm nice like that.
I'm not entirely sure how it looks on Internet Explorer(can't check until tomorrow) but on everything else it should look like this:
I think it's pretty. And it's my first piece of 'beautiful' HTML too, which I'm pretty proud of.
04 December, 2007 - 00:59Comments (View)
From one wheel to no wheel.
So, my unicycle was stolen. Nicked. Pilfered. It happened almost a week ago now, and it still hasn't sunken in, really. And I'm not entirely sure why. Friends here at uni have remarked on how they are angrier about it than I am, to which I've replied that it would be ridiculous to be upset over a unicycle.
But of course, it's not ridiculous at all. That wheel has been my main mode of transportation for going on two years. It was one of the few things I missed when I was in America, to the extent that I almost laid out $200 to replace it whilst I was over there. Riding it makes me feel happy, and free. It beats walking by a longshot. I should be a hell of a lot angrier than I am.
So why aren't I?
Well, first I know that anger isn't going to do anything. I can yell and scream all I want, but that's not gonna make the wheel turn up in my room un-announced. I also know that I have my other(larger) unicycle in storage in Dorset, and upon my next trip home I shall return with it(and a sturdier lock, to be sure).
The main reason I'm so calm about this, though, is my faith that this is all part of the plan. I'm not religious, and I certainly don't believe in some kind of universal consciousness, but I do believe in causality. Every single event since the beginning of time has led up to that unicycle getting taken from me. There's a reason it's not in my possession anymore, there's a logic to it's disappearance. And that gives me an odd comfort, and I know that this could be the universe where I get my wheel back at some point. I hope to see it again soon, and whilst I have that hope I can't feel anger.
Which is a very mature perspective. On a unicycle.
03 December, 2007 - 03:54Comments (View)
Summing Up
As part of my course I've had to write a 1000-word essay on how this semester has gone, and my abilities as a writer and performer. Since I haven't posted anything here in a while, I thought it would be good to put that up.
New posts will resume tomorrow.
I don't think it outside the remit of this assignment to start by saying that, although I keep a ‘daily’ diary of my exploits, one of my biggest weakness as a writer is dealing with introspection and self-evaluation. I tend to find myself either sounding maniacally arrogant or suicidally self-pitying, and as I work on these types of tasks I find my self hatred increases exponentially, until I must walk away from the computer, or - in the worst cases - delete the offending work entirely.
On that subject, I officially name this "Draft 17".
So, onto the afore-mentioned and oft-dreaded self-eval(that was a lot of hyphens for one sentence.) As demonstrated aptly by everything I've written so far, I can be a little too personal and revealing - in both my written work and performance. A quick explanation would be that I wasn't always like this - I was content to keep myself to myself until I stayed with a family of hippies in New Mexico this past summer, and was taught to be honest about my feelings and reasons for doing... anything I do, I suppose.
I'm still coming to grips with how much of myself to reveal, both on-stage and on-page, and I'd say that that is my biggest weakness at this point in time. Performing stand-up in front of class has often-time been a chilly affair, as the audience has confessed to being "weirded-out"(to use a verb that isn't a verb) by the level of intimacy. Deep, personal confessions such as those I've brought to bear before my colleagues do not have a rightful place in a 5-minute set; they are something to be earned over time. I do myself and my audience a disservice when I forget that.
My other main weakness is my lack of diversity in writing style. While I am proud of the fact that I can write well in any format - prose, poetry, dialogue, etc. - I find that everything I put out has a similar cadence. Usually, my output consists of wry, mildly comic, self-deprecating, articulate-yet-loquacious, long sentences that thoroughly abuse the English language's wonderful punctuative symbols - the hyphen, the parenthesis, the ellipsis.
I am in two minds about my inability to move outside of this particular way of expression. Whilst it is, obviously, advantageous to be able to write in as many different styles as possible, there is a certain charm to be found in picking an idiosyncrasy in writing and sticking with it- turning a foible into a defining, recognisable characteristic.
This ambivalence is easily resolved. In my personal writings I shall happily stick to this not-so-tough-on-the-full-stop-key-by-boy-that-hyphen-slash-equals-button-must-get-a-little-worn-out method of getting my thoughts on paper(or screen), whereas in my university work I will attempt to branch out to other styles(maybe short, sharp sentences? The horror!), perhaps by teaming up with others in my class to write on an extra-curricular basis, allowing their own styles to influence mine.
I lightly broached the topic of my performance earlier, remarking on the "chilly" atmosphere in the room when I spoke of my personal life too frankly. I daren't say that that is the only problem with my performance 'talents', however. When we were visited and judged by Richard Coughlan, he remarked on my inability to stay in control - that particular instance saw me being heckled, my props thrown across the room by the audience and me helpless to respond, throwing back a feeble "It's not like I'm the one on stage, is it?" when asked a question by an audience member.
While I am unsure of how a cold crowd would react to my particularly... individual act, I can take a very much needed lesson from how this performance went - audiences are not my friends. They are not there to listen unconditionally, and any chance to one-up the guy on stage will be taken mercilessly. I need to stop looking like I need their approval, stop showing signs of weakness. Stop commenting on those weaknesses whilst I'm on stage ("I was going to bring my unicycle, but I'm not allowed") that make me look vulnerable.
I also need to work more actual gags into my set. I have grown up influenced perhaps too much by American stand-ups with an anecdotal approach to comedy. Jen Kirkman, Paul F. Thompkins and Bill Cosby, for example. All are gifted storytellers, but the patience present in their audiences has been built up over the years by slowly evolving from joke-jokes to the comedic monologues they perform now. I need to bear this in mind when I write my material.
I have traditionally shied away from doing standard gags, because of this emphasis on watching the American story-tellers, but also because I held a sense of mystery of how a gag is written. It's like double acts. I can watch a double act perform stand-up(like The Sklar Bros, Hard 'n' Phirm, or Reno 911) and laugh uproariously, but I cannot work out how it's done. I'm sure it's obvious to others, but no matter how many times I ask Mr. Daniels to do it again, I can't see how he manages to saw Debee McGee in half and then parade her around unharmed. It used to be the same for jokes - I couldn't work it out.
The lessons with Matthew Willetts have greatly helped with this, however. The first thing we were taught on this course was how to write a gag, the basics of jokes. Armed with this knowledge, and aware of my current limitations as a story-teller, I will move more towards just telling good gags on stage.
This piece has come across more than a little self-pitying, and that is not the way it was intended - it is simply my writing style taking hold again, against my best intentions. I am quite happy with my writing and performance abilities, especially safe in the knowledge that I have the vast majority of this course left to experience and learn from. I'm already doing better than I was an hour ago - I've managed to make it to the end of this assignment. A quick spell check and it'll be done. I guess the 17th draft is the charm.
02 December, 2007 - 16:21Comments (View)