Category: navel gazing

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Meme x 2

A couple of recent memes:

  1. What is your favorite word? indeed.
  2. What is your least favorite word? relax
  3. What turns you on? genderfuck
  4. What turns you off? passivity
  5. What is your favorite curse word? cunt
  6. What sound or noise do you love? rhythmic handclapping
  7. What sound or noise do you hate? led zeppelin
  8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? fighter pilot (i’m not kidding)
  9. What profession would you not like to attempt? corporate anything
  10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? you were right.

and

  • If you get something out of a vending machine, it’s most likely the: MetroCard
  • A word you sometimes catch yourself misspelling: relevant (or is it revelant?)
  • You least want people to see you as: dull
  • You’re a little scared of: street crime
  • The least attractive thing you do in your sleep: snore
  • The number of contacts in your cell phone: lots
  • How many of them are relatives: plenty
  • You lose your cool when someone: condescends
  • When you go to the drugstore, you often can’t leave without buying: rolaids
  • Your dance moves can best be described as: masculine
  • The majority of your underwear is: dirty
  • Something you eat even though you hate how bad it is for you: ice cream
  • You think you’re really not a great: writer
  • How much cash is in your wallet right now: $12
  • The majority of your shoes are this color: black
  • You don’t think you’ll ever be able to get rid of your: bad skin
  • If your breath is bad, it’s most likely because you had the: cigarettes
  • You feel embarrassed when you: fart
  • The last public place where you used the restroom: City College
  • Something you don’t like to debate in mixed company: obama v. hilary
  • You don’t think you can pull off wearing: skinny jeans
  • Something you own entirely too much of: ants stuff
  • Someone you would love to see in concert who might bring down your street cred: devo?
  • The last thing that you spilled on yourself: tea
  • If you were on a reality show, the producers would likely portray/characterize you as the: humorless feminist
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There is Nothing Like a…

… No, not a dame. (Or a Dane, for those of you who saw Betty’s performance with the Butch McCloud cast).

Rather, there is nothing like a resume for making you aware of what exactly you’ve been doing with your time. There are moments, reviewing and updating mine, that I want to put things in parentheses

  • 2008: survived Wisconsin winter
  • 2002: wrote unpublished novel
  • 2001 – 2008: played Sims for sanity’s sake
  • 1993 – 1997: traveled extensively through SE Asia
  • 1991 – still: worked on novel that I still can’t seem to get right

… stuff like that. It is interesting to see things drop off as time goes by – my job with NYPIRG in the early 90s is gone, as is my time working as an office assistant at CCNY. A long time ago my jobs at RKO Video and at my sister’s bakery disappeared.

Though sometimes, you know, I still want to mention that I was a paperboy: nothing like delivering papers to develop strong thighs and self-motivation. (I know you’re out there, fellow former paperboys! & If there are any female fellow paperboys, say hello!) I did come to suck at it because I developed a healthy fear of dogs. Amazing that I still went on to canvas door to door years later. It’s amazing what you can do to avoid the 9-5 grind.

No job yet.

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Divergent Lives

My lives have diverged, some days in ways I can’t even measure.

Recently, at my 20th HS reunion, people wanted to know if they should call me Helen. Worse yet, I met up with an old friend who was in town for Comic Con and he wanted to know what to introduce me as.

But the worst is when it comes to work: on the one hand I’m a published author who has lectured at quite a lot of U.S. colleges and universities, who was recently nominated as one of the Top Ten female bloggers, and who has teaching experience at the college level.

On the other hand, I’m a freelance admin and bookkeeper who has also tutored and edited for the past couple of years.

When I look at my one resume (my author CV, to be accurate), I’m convinced the the temp people are going to want to know why on earth I need a temp job. But the other looks a little thin for someone who is approaching 40, & really looks like I haven’t been doing much for the past couple of years, which I haven’t, because I’ve been busy promoting a book and teaching, of course.

It’s a funny life. But I still need a job.

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There Goes the Neighborhood

So I’ve been back in Brooklyn a few weeks, and in three months the neighborhood has changed drastically. Mostly not in a way that pleases me, either.

  1. Jack’s is, after all, closed. Not only will I miss the pot roast, but I will miss the place for the sake that it was the first place I heard a song by Spoon. That is, I heard a cool song, and asked who it was, & the server said “Spoon.” I think it was their “Back to the Life.” Anyway, a place that played music cool enough for me to discover will be sadly missed.
  2. We now have a 7-11. I’m really not even sure what to think of that one.
  3. Our local favorite Greek diner is remodeling.
  4. But the worst change of all is this: My favorite pizza joint, Lenny’s, no longer makes zeppolis.

And I’ll tell you why it sucks: because when I first moved to Brooklyn, and first went into Lenny’s, I felt like I was home. Old Italian guys making pizza who’d been making pizza for decades, photos of Italians on the walls, those awful formica stalls, fountain soda, italian ices out of paper cups, and yes, zeppolis.

I’ve always had this vague feeling I was born in the wrong era. I’m beginning, more and more, to be more sure that I was, watching the change all around me. I still haven’t gotten over paying more than 50 cents for a cup of joe, after all. Why people ever agreed to pay $2 for a cup of coffee that you have to prepare yourself so that now that’s all you can buy, I’ll never understand.

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Pretty Boxes

I wish these sorts of things didn’t entertain me, but they do.

Make sure you scroll over the boxes, since they tell you things, like my masculinity score (ha), my extrovert score, & best of all, my trust score.

Like I said, entertaining. Click on the “Reserved Inventor” text to go take it yourself.

(thanks to the newly-found blog of java for the link.)

(I took it twice.)

Update – here’s Betty’s:


(which explains, at least to me, why we work together so well.)

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The Trip to SC Pt. 1

This one, on the way down to Spartanburg:

9 april – With only 45 minutes left of charge on my laptop, and having been assigned to an Amtrak car with no power outlets, I thought I’d take a minute to say: it’s nice to take a train down south in spring. Things have gradually gotten a little greener, a little brighter – from the first new greens on a weeping willow I saw in Elizabeth to the bright green buds on everything just south of Philly (which is about where I am now). I played Sims for a while – what better use of limited battery power? – and I will otherwise mostly read and listen to music; at 7PM, I eat dinner. I even have a reservation.

I arrive in Spartanburg about 4am; it’s about 4pm now. Apparently we get to Manassus at 7:22, as a lady who just called her sons who are going to pick her up there then. Really, I love cellphones on trains.

We must be approaching Wilmington; things are looking awfully financial. I think my interest rates built at least one of these buildings.

(A lot more to come on the trip to SC.)

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Wish List

I’ve found myself back in Brooklyn after teaching a term at Lawrence and a semester at Merrimack, needing work.

I’d prefer teaching work in the NYC area, or lectures at colleges or the like, but really I’ll consider anything that pays okay. Lecture gigs are always good fun.

I am, of course, for hire as a coach, to help find transition resources, and for other trans-related stuff. I’m happy to provide an ear or a shoulder to cry on for trans people & partners alike.

I’m also a decent editor, writer, and admin. I’m a good lecturer and teacher. I can bookkeep if necessary. If you want to see more about what I do and what I’ve done, my author website is the place to check: www.helenboydbooks.com.

But if any of you know academics, especially in English or Gender Studies, please mention me to them.

& While I’m at it, I need a new literary agent who represents fiction, too. & A grant to finish writing my novel.

Okay, I think that’s it for now.

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US Pets

Oprah‘s doing a show on puppy mills today that I can’t even stand to watch, and I’m not even a dog person.

There are reports around that many of the people who are victims of this subprime mortgage scam are having to give up pets because the rental places they’re moving to don’t allow pets. As we well know, having three cats, & from having numerous friends with pets who had to move, it can be difficult to find a place to live with them.

Volunteers here in Park Slope catch, neuter, and release feral cats. Others like BAFN foster, save, and check in on pets that have been left behind

So why is this the case? With all the people who are currently unemployed, why don’t we have a New Deal type program to take care of our nation’s animals and to change the laws that would keep landlords from barring pets? I can understand restrictions on how many pets, or how many pounds worth of pet (our three cats, for instance, don’t do nearly as much damage as one large dog could), or whatever. But we’re a nation that loves our animals, and yet you have horrors like animal abuse and puppy mills and the stupid decisions that separated people from their pets during the Katrina evacuations.

It seems there’s plenty of work to do, and improving conditions for our four-legged Americans might be a good place to start.

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Constructing Your “Woman”

Lena Dahlstrom posted a video on the mHB message boards made by the Feminist Majority Foundation called “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” and the women in it reminded me, once again, that I don’t feel femme-y enough in either style or presentation and reminded me as well that I’m offended by this PR campaign to convince people that feminists aren’t awful, ugly, fat, hairy women. So when another partner commented about being the resident “big hairy dyke” I thought, “me too.”

I’m aware that others see me as smaller than I see myself, or at least tell me they do, and of course I wax or hide most of my hairiness. Most people wouldn’t think of me as a dyke but I have for a while now, even if I’m still cautious about adopting a lesbian identity out of respect for those who are lesbian-identified and who might see me as something of an interloper. But dyke is an identity I’ve become comfortable with since I think it suits me (no pun intended) & in a lot of ways frees me. (I use ‘het dyke’, too, when it seems right.)

You all know the joke about what women would be like in a world without men, right?

Answer: Fat, hairy, and happy. Continue reading “Constructing Your “Woman””

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Being Helen Boyd

So here’s my dirty secret, which I re-realize every time I update my author site, helenboydbooks.com: “renaming” myself Helen Boyd for the sake of publication (& some privacy, theoretically) was about the smartest thing I’ve ever done in terms of my own self-confidence. Why? It gives me the feeling, sometimes, that I just work for her.

Which kind of allows me to shove my lack of self-confidence to the side and do what I need to do.

(Of course it did nothing for me in terms of privacy, since it was very shortly afterwards that I started using my legal name on this site & in my bios & elsewhere.)

I wonder if trans people experience anything like that in their own “renamings,” if they let you get rid of old baggage that might have little or nothing to do with gender.