On Monday, I visited my doctor for my annual physical, just the routine stuff. As usual, when asked to get on the scale, I took off my shoes, watch, bracelet, and would have emptied my pockets had there been anything in them. I stepped up, thinking, well, more like hoping it wouldn't be too bad, while knowing in my heart it certainly wasn't going to be good. Still, my panic rose with every little push I gave the balance weight, thinking, please stop now, come on, come up, oh no, this just can't be. . . 176 pounds? The office nurse told me she'd take off a pound for my Carhartts (heavy carpenter's pants- typical dyke affectation), like 175 pounds would make me feel better.
Sigh.
I suppose that sooner or later everybody -at least women- mentions how fat they are, or think they are, in their blog. Food and weight, especially when the issue is too much of them, aren't a big issue for many people of the earth, but they sure are for me. I usually get told, "Oh, you're lucky, you can eat whatever you want." Well, so can you. I was born hungry, I will die hungry. I have no stable weight. It's been a meal-to-meal battle my whole life. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm going to eat next- even if, like now, it's not much and it's a long way off. I was a rather chubby child, and my parents actually had me on Weight Watchers while I was still a pre-teen (ah, conditional love). I didn't manage to lose the "baby fat" until I was sixteen and my parents took me to buy a couple of nice outfits and the salesperson (who was marking things for alteration) made a completely innocent comment about the size of my ass. My parents didn't know whether to be happy about the ensuing weight loss, concerned about the speed it occurred, or pissed that by the time those new outfits were ready, they were already too big, and never looked good on me. By the start of my junior year of high school, my belly curved backwards when I sat down, and my favorite look was a pair of skintight bellbottoms- remember Landlubbers?- with a clingy scoopneck top. Just typing that makes me laugh now!
Monday's little session at the scale had about the same effect on me as the sales clerk's indication that we'd need try the next larger size to accomodate my derriere (can't figure out how to do that cute little accent thing). It's now Friday, and I'm lightening- day five. "Dieting" is a word that has given me the horrors since those days on Weight Watchers (which does work, BTW, but it's slow), so I can't use it. I like "lightening" better anyway, since that's how it feels. My body feels light, and nearly transparent, like light is shining through it. My head feels light, too, blood sugar low, probably a little toxic with whatever junk is trapped in those fat cells getting released, and just a touch of the buzz, the euphoria that anorexics know. Yeah, I'm dancing with the dark side, a little. I eat on a rigid schedule, the portions are small, and a nutritionist might get a bit stern with me, particularly over the PB&J I eat every night for supper. Look, I have yogurt and fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch, four cups of tea during the day. The peanut butter is organic. The preserves are a boutique brand. I make the bread myself, and I have a glass of lowfat soymilk with it. I love it, and better yet, I start feeling bloated before I finish eating, so I don't even feel like eating again before I'm in bed, asleep, safe from food for another day. Oh, and no, I don't purge- but only because I know it doesn't work.
For all the issues I have with food, I do love it so. I've been cooking since I could reach over the kitchen counter, and baking bread since I was eleven or so. Total trivia: one of the most important aspects of my move from NJ to NH for college in 1976 was the switch from Hecker's Flour to King Arthur; they're very different to work with! Of course, in those pot-smoke-tinged days, there was always a big box of Jiffy Baking Mix in the cupboard, and when my housemates would awaken in the wee hours to small, purposeful sounds from the kitchen, they'd smile and head downstairs. The munchies for me meant pancakes, great golden stacks with plenty of cheap margarine (four pounds for $1!) and Log Cabin. I make wonderful, healthy stir-fries with mounds of vegetables, and amazing grilled cheese sandwiches, crisp on the outside and liquid on the inside. Mmmmmmm. . . this is dangerous territory, especially on a Friday.
How's it working? Okay so far. My belly skin is sagging, a good sign that means what's under it is shrinking faster than it can keep up. The problem, of course, is that I have no idea what I look like. I know that when I look in the mirror, I get a fat-lady funhouse-mirror image that bears very little resemblance to what's actually reflected. I'm aiming for about 155 pounds, which has always been a good weight for me. We'll see how it goes.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Drug dealers
"The only difference between a pharmaceutical manufacturer's representative and a drug dealer is a tie." Back in the bad old days, when a rep could openly fly a bunch of docs to Myrtle Beach for the weekend so they could play a little golf, courtesy of BigPharma, I used to say this to their faces- and they would laugh. They'd still show up in twenty minutes when my grandma's doctor prescribed some new antibiotic that cost $120, and hand it to me with a smile. All that has fallen a little out of favor these days; seems there were suspicions that it was affecting what doctors prescribed to their patients. Heaven forbid. You should have seen all the blue-and-orange clocks, paperweights, notepads, and pens with "Vioxx" on them in the trash the day it got pulled. The TV ads are the best, though. I saw a cartoon a while back where a woman was saying to her doctor, "I want that drug where everyone's in the park having a good time."
If there's a more lucrative business on this green planet, though, I have no idea what it could be. The drug companies get to pose as society's great benefactors while robbing you blind, and the doctors are largely complicit. I used to do evening medication shifts at a nursing home. . . I'd leave my regular case-management job at 4:30, grab a box of supermarket sushi, and change into my scrubs while driving across town. Ride the elevator to the third floor, psyching myself up, and when the door would open, I'd scream, "Are you ready to rock and roll?!" I had twenty patients I hardly knew, and four hours to get these horrendous witch's brews of drugs into them. Twelve minutes a patient, they all look alike, and none of them look like the photos in the med ID book (a tuft of white hair, a pair of glasses, a sweater). Nearly all of them were in their 90's. They were all on Lipitor. Lipitor is an anticholesterol drug. I couldn't believe it. Quit taking that shit! High cholesterol didn't kill you! Have a steak! The tariff on a month's Lipitor- which, BTW, isn't available in a generic? Oh, about $110 a month. So here I am, crushing it up in applesauce, ice cream, whatever, with all the other high-priced (and inappropriate) junk they were on, and shoveling it into their uncomprehending mouths. Most expensive dessert you'll ever eat, and from the reaction, it was pretty nasty.
Of course, as a nurse, I've got to play by the rules. Or did, until I got prescribed some expensive drugs that my insurance company wouldn't pay for. Now, if you look in the back of the book you got from your health insurance company, there's a long list of things they don't cover. One whole category is anything having to do with that messy sex change stuff (now though, they'll pay for both my mammograms and prostate screenings; I guess all is forgiven). So, I was going to be paying out-of-pocket for my Estradiol and Aldactone. Estradiol is, of course, a "synthetic" estrogen, derived from soybeans, and it's pretty cheap. Aldactone is an antihypertensive and a diuretic, and an androgen blocker. That is to say, it blocks both the synthesis and the binding of testosterone. It's pretty necessary, although it's been linked to tumors, and, of course, you've got to get up in the night to pee pretty often. You only take it for as long as you need to. It's also fairly expensive. I was taking 100mg twice a day; depending on where you buy it, 100 tabs of the generic, spironolactone, will run you around $90. The brand-name stuff? As much as $250, even eight years ago when I was on it. Forget that.
One of the informational websites for transgender people had a section on pharmacies "offshore" where you could get your medications cheap. I checked a couple out, and went with one in New Zealand. I'd always wanted to go there, and this might be as close as I ever got! There was a warning on the website where I got their address to not tell them what you wanted the drugs for- as if that combination of drugs is ever used for anything else. I placed my order, and within ten days, it was delivered. One-hundred 100mg tabs of genuine Searle Aldactone, made in England, shipped to New Zealand in its Euro-style blister packs, packed up by the lovely people at Seven Oaks Pharmacy in Auckland, through customs in L.A. marked "supplements" ("Comin' into Los Angeles, bringin' in a couple of ki's. . ."), and delivered to my door in New England for a total cost of $25. Twenty-five dollars. One-tenth what they cost down the block at my local CVS. Plus, of course, I had some great New Zealand stamps to give my nephew.
Remember all the outcry against "black market" Internet pharmacies? All the warnings by the FDA about how dangerous they were? Dangerous to who? You? Like you can't read a set of instructions, or be trusted with your own safety? Oh, that's right, your pharmacist can give you all the warnings and look what you're on and check for interactions and your allergies. Right. It's just a piece of software, people. It's too late anyway; nearly all those offshore pharmacies have been shut down, replaced by scam artists who will gladly take your credit card number. I loved it when the drug companies cut a deal with the gummint to give them a discount as long as nobody was allowed to negotiate a better deal. Ya might want to pick up a tube of K-Y when you're down at the pharmacy, it's such a royal screwing.
Oh, and the warnings about not letting the pharmacy know what I wanted the drugs for? When I changed my name [to a girl's name], I sent them a terse, one-line email notifying them that the name on my credit card had changed. I got back a one-word message: "CONGRATULATIONS".
Lovely people, those Kiwis.
If there's a more lucrative business on this green planet, though, I have no idea what it could be. The drug companies get to pose as society's great benefactors while robbing you blind, and the doctors are largely complicit. I used to do evening medication shifts at a nursing home. . . I'd leave my regular case-management job at 4:30, grab a box of supermarket sushi, and change into my scrubs while driving across town. Ride the elevator to the third floor, psyching myself up, and when the door would open, I'd scream, "Are you ready to rock and roll?!" I had twenty patients I hardly knew, and four hours to get these horrendous witch's brews of drugs into them. Twelve minutes a patient, they all look alike, and none of them look like the photos in the med ID book (a tuft of white hair, a pair of glasses, a sweater). Nearly all of them were in their 90's. They were all on Lipitor. Lipitor is an anticholesterol drug. I couldn't believe it. Quit taking that shit! High cholesterol didn't kill you! Have a steak! The tariff on a month's Lipitor- which, BTW, isn't available in a generic? Oh, about $110 a month. So here I am, crushing it up in applesauce, ice cream, whatever, with all the other high-priced (and inappropriate) junk they were on, and shoveling it into their uncomprehending mouths. Most expensive dessert you'll ever eat, and from the reaction, it was pretty nasty.
Of course, as a nurse, I've got to play by the rules. Or did, until I got prescribed some expensive drugs that my insurance company wouldn't pay for. Now, if you look in the back of the book you got from your health insurance company, there's a long list of things they don't cover. One whole category is anything having to do with that messy sex change stuff (now though, they'll pay for both my mammograms and prostate screenings; I guess all is forgiven). So, I was going to be paying out-of-pocket for my Estradiol and Aldactone. Estradiol is, of course, a "synthetic" estrogen, derived from soybeans, and it's pretty cheap. Aldactone is an antihypertensive and a diuretic, and an androgen blocker. That is to say, it blocks both the synthesis and the binding of testosterone. It's pretty necessary, although it's been linked to tumors, and, of course, you've got to get up in the night to pee pretty often. You only take it for as long as you need to. It's also fairly expensive. I was taking 100mg twice a day; depending on where you buy it, 100 tabs of the generic, spironolactone, will run you around $90. The brand-name stuff? As much as $250, even eight years ago when I was on it. Forget that.
One of the informational websites for transgender people had a section on pharmacies "offshore" where you could get your medications cheap. I checked a couple out, and went with one in New Zealand. I'd always wanted to go there, and this might be as close as I ever got! There was a warning on the website where I got their address to not tell them what you wanted the drugs for- as if that combination of drugs is ever used for anything else. I placed my order, and within ten days, it was delivered. One-hundred 100mg tabs of genuine Searle Aldactone, made in England, shipped to New Zealand in its Euro-style blister packs, packed up by the lovely people at Seven Oaks Pharmacy in Auckland, through customs in L.A. marked "supplements" ("Comin' into Los Angeles, bringin' in a couple of ki's. . ."), and delivered to my door in New England for a total cost of $25. Twenty-five dollars. One-tenth what they cost down the block at my local CVS. Plus, of course, I had some great New Zealand stamps to give my nephew.
Remember all the outcry against "black market" Internet pharmacies? All the warnings by the FDA about how dangerous they were? Dangerous to who? You? Like you can't read a set of instructions, or be trusted with your own safety? Oh, that's right, your pharmacist can give you all the warnings and look what you're on and check for interactions and your allergies. Right. It's just a piece of software, people. It's too late anyway; nearly all those offshore pharmacies have been shut down, replaced by scam artists who will gladly take your credit card number. I loved it when the drug companies cut a deal with the gummint to give them a discount as long as nobody was allowed to negotiate a better deal. Ya might want to pick up a tube of K-Y when you're down at the pharmacy, it's such a royal screwing.
Oh, and the warnings about not letting the pharmacy know what I wanted the drugs for? When I changed my name [to a girl's name], I sent them a terse, one-line email notifying them that the name on my credit card had changed. I got back a one-word message: "CONGRATULATIONS".
Lovely people, those Kiwis.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Seduction
It is so seductive, this blogging. I haven't posted anything in a week and a half, but not because I have nothing to say. Quite the contrary! Right now I want nothing more than to swathe myself in fleece- for some reason I always get cold when I write- and spend half the night drinking tea and eating sourdough toast with brie, listening to the wind outside and wondering when the power will go out again, earnestly working on something that quite possibly no one might ever read. Instead, of course, I will make tomorrow's lunches, fold some laundry, and get to bed early so I can get to the gym before work. As it is, I keep getting up between sentences to see if the broccoli's done, let the dogs out, let the dogs in, the interminable busyness. At least if I have this page up when I walk by, I'm more likely to be putting a sentence together than eBaying after something. So, if you think blogging is useless- or not, because if you did, you probably wouldn't have chance to encounter this- it's saving me money and helping to at least slow the process of the barn filling up with old motorcycle parts.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Blur the Lines: Encounter at the DMV
"Next?"
"I just got married, and I'm changing my name."
"Do you have your marriage certificate?" I handed the freshly minted marriage certificate across the counter, and she started to turn back towards her computer, then froze, looking at the form. "I'll have to talk to my supervisor. . ." she said slowly, without looking back at me. I sighed. This was either going to be easy, or it wasn't, and it was beginning to look as if it wasn't. She made her way to a cubicle in the back (the cubicle of an obviously important personage, as it had a door), and disappeared for a few moments. She reappeared with her supervisor, a very concerned looking woman a few years older than she, and they went together to confer with a uniformed state policeman who stood nearby. He looked very seriously at the document, and shook his head decisively, a definite no, of course without looking in my direction (all of ten feet away). The supervisor came over. "This state doesn't recognize same-sex marriages."
"That's not what this is." Keep that understanding smile on! "My birth certificate still has me designated as male. That's why I'm listed as the 'groom'." I handed that over, too, and she went back to confer further. Another decisive shake of the head.
"We gave you an "F" on your driver's license years ago- how did you get that?"
"I provided the proper documentation." Still smiling.
"But you must have had a whole sex change!" Everyone standing in line waiting for their license renewals was getting well rewarded for their time today, that's for sure. I just kept smiling. "And you're all medically female."
I nodded happily. "But my birth certificate says 'male'."
Her frustration was evident. "We have to talk to our lawyer. We'll call you, and it won't be today. This is the first time we've encountered this."
"Oh, without a doubt!" I laughed, and at that, even a DMV supervisor had to smile, albeit fleetingly. When I transitioned, transdyke or no, I was all about the girl thing. Didn't want to be mistaken for a guy, not ever. How could you blame me? After a lifetime of getting asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" by total strangers, I finally had a definite gender. Still, after a few years the long curls, the dresses, the nail polish and makeup all fell by the wayside. Boots and Carhartts are better on the small New England farm where my partner (now wife) and I live. Of course, as a nurse, I've got to be careful with paperwork, and mine was all in order. I still even have my letter-of-passage, an early transition document from my therapist that I was to hand to the police if they stopped me crossdressed that effectively says, "This odd freak has a mental illness, wearing a dress is normal for it, please leave it undamaged." Until Jan. 1, 2007, though, the Health Department [in the state where I was born] had never listed gender on their birth certificates; now, though, when I wanted to get a passport for a trip to Canada this summer (thank you, Homeland Security), they had opened the creaking vaults and rolled out the ancient scrolls to find the original record. Hey, they declared, you're a boy! My partner and and I walked into our town clerk's office one fine morning a few days later, asked for a marriage license, held our breath. . . and they smiled, congratulated us, and wrote it up (with much checking of particulars). We were married in our living room with a few friends and neighbors in attendance; the elderly Justice of the Peace had made some hasty scribbles in his book to smooth over the gender references in the ceremony, and we put on each other's hands the rings we'd first exchanged on a Provincetown beach nearly four years ago. When summer finally comes to these frozen hills, it'll be time to party.
It all came down to one line on a document. If that doesn't show the absurdity of the marriage laws, then what will? Of course, there are a lot of questions to answer. . . like, will the DMV want to take my "F" back? I don't see how they can, since I met all their criteria, but who knows? They get to make the rules, and they enforce them as they will. What happens to our marriage if I go in front of our county (conservative, Republican) Probate Judge and attempt to persuade him to write a court order to have the Health Department in another state change the notation on my original birth record? Lots of people, married before transition, and whose relationships have survived, would like that question to simply go away. As far as my passport, my lawyer friends have advised me to write in "male," perjury is the last thing I need leveled against me, and besides, all of my trans friends in the UK and Europe are in that boat anyway; they can't get their birth certificates changed at all. Better just be ready to unpack everything on the motorcycle at every border crossing. Better be wearing clean underwear, too. -g.
"I just got married, and I'm changing my name."
"Do you have your marriage certificate?" I handed the freshly minted marriage certificate across the counter, and she started to turn back towards her computer, then froze, looking at the form. "I'll have to talk to my supervisor. . ." she said slowly, without looking back at me. I sighed. This was either going to be easy, or it wasn't, and it was beginning to look as if it wasn't. She made her way to a cubicle in the back (the cubicle of an obviously important personage, as it had a door), and disappeared for a few moments. She reappeared with her supervisor, a very concerned looking woman a few years older than she, and they went together to confer with a uniformed state policeman who stood nearby. He looked very seriously at the document, and shook his head decisively, a definite no, of course without looking in my direction (all of ten feet away). The supervisor came over. "This state doesn't recognize same-sex marriages."
"That's not what this is." Keep that understanding smile on! "My birth certificate still has me designated as male. That's why I'm listed as the 'groom'." I handed that over, too, and she went back to confer further. Another decisive shake of the head.
"We gave you an "F" on your driver's license years ago- how did you get that?"
"I provided the proper documentation." Still smiling.
"But you must have had a whole sex change!" Everyone standing in line waiting for their license renewals was getting well rewarded for their time today, that's for sure. I just kept smiling. "And you're all medically female."
I nodded happily. "But my birth certificate says 'male'."
Her frustration was evident. "We have to talk to our lawyer. We'll call you, and it won't be today. This is the first time we've encountered this."
"Oh, without a doubt!" I laughed, and at that, even a DMV supervisor had to smile, albeit fleetingly. When I transitioned, transdyke or no, I was all about the girl thing. Didn't want to be mistaken for a guy, not ever. How could you blame me? After a lifetime of getting asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" by total strangers, I finally had a definite gender. Still, after a few years the long curls, the dresses, the nail polish and makeup all fell by the wayside. Boots and Carhartts are better on the small New England farm where my partner (now wife) and I live. Of course, as a nurse, I've got to be careful with paperwork, and mine was all in order. I still even have my letter-of-passage, an early transition document from my therapist that I was to hand to the police if they stopped me crossdressed that effectively says, "This odd freak has a mental illness, wearing a dress is normal for it, please leave it undamaged." Until Jan. 1, 2007, though, the Health Department [in the state where I was born] had never listed gender on their birth certificates; now, though, when I wanted to get a passport for a trip to Canada this summer (thank you, Homeland Security), they had opened the creaking vaults and rolled out the ancient scrolls to find the original record. Hey, they declared, you're a boy! My partner and and I walked into our town clerk's office one fine morning a few days later, asked for a marriage license, held our breath. . . and they smiled, congratulated us, and wrote it up (with much checking of particulars). We were married in our living room with a few friends and neighbors in attendance; the elderly Justice of the Peace had made some hasty scribbles in his book to smooth over the gender references in the ceremony, and we put on each other's hands the rings we'd first exchanged on a Provincetown beach nearly four years ago. When summer finally comes to these frozen hills, it'll be time to party.
It all came down to one line on a document. If that doesn't show the absurdity of the marriage laws, then what will? Of course, there are a lot of questions to answer. . . like, will the DMV want to take my "F" back? I don't see how they can, since I met all their criteria, but who knows? They get to make the rules, and they enforce them as they will. What happens to our marriage if I go in front of our county (conservative, Republican) Probate Judge and attempt to persuade him to write a court order to have the Health Department in another state change the notation on my original birth record? Lots of people, married before transition, and whose relationships have survived, would like that question to simply go away. As far as my passport, my lawyer friends have advised me to write in "male," perjury is the last thing I need leveled against me, and besides, all of my trans friends in the UK and Europe are in that boat anyway; they can't get their birth certificates changed at all. Better just be ready to unpack everything on the motorcycle at every border crossing. Better be wearing clean underwear, too. -g.
First Post
A blog. What will I do with a blank page? Alas, there will probably be no common thread or cohesion, except that everything will be seen through the eyes of one who has grown up a bit different. If I stick to the pieces of my own life, there will be writings on health care, gender/ queer issues (and, of course, gender/queer health issues), motorcycles, tai ch'i, living on a small farm, cooking, very much etc. Who will read it? I have no idea. The real first post, "Blur the Lines: Encounter at the DMV" is the reason that a friend suggested I create a blog, and it will follow this directly.
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