Health

I dug out from a foot and a half of snow this St. Patrick’s Day morning.   It reminded me of how sick I was when I faced the almost two feet of snow from the St. Valentine’s day nor’easter.

I was alone then, but now I have my parents to care for, my mother snoozing under rugs in her recliner, my father nattering about technical concepts in his shorts and singlet.  The corned beef is simmering on the stove, and they drowse.

It may well be a race to see which of us dies first, but they are also mine to take care of, and while that is hard and lonely, it gives me something to get up for, something to work for.

Don’t you need someone to love, even someone who doesn’t really know how to love you back?

Somebody to love, which gives you as much health as you can scrape up, eh?

Respected

I often said that if I had a choice, I’d rather be respected than liked.

That sure sounds like the motto of an iconoclast.

What does it feel like to be liked, to be one of the crowd?  I’m pretty sure I don’t know.   But I do know what it feels like to be not respected, to be thought of as stupid.

As a girl, though, being liked seems to be a key factor.   Popularity, rah-rah. 

And as a tranny, well, not being respected seems to be very, very easy.  

That’s one reason why I care that people understand, because that’s always been my tranny defense, offering context, even as other trannys chose other defenses.  TBB, for example, chooses to be entertaining.

I was an indvidualist, and I know how to not want everyone to like me.   But as woman, I have a different view on that without the chops to change, and as a tranny, I fear being disrepected as a clown or a pervert.

And that’s hard.