Postmodern Jukebox

 

This will be a short post, as I don't have too much to say today.

Today, I had to rush to do a week's worth of laundry, so that I could be ready for dinner with Vicki and to see Postmodern Jukebox in Tarrytown.  It was nice to get back into Marian mode for this trip, as I feel more comfortable in female mode than in male mode.  No, I'll never be mistaken for a pretty woman.  But at least, people will say that my clothes look good on me - as Vicki said tonight.

Vicki arrived 15 minutes later than originally planned, as I was running late with things in the apartment. As I was returning to the apartment to get our e-tickets, Vicki rang me to tell me she was here.  She was pleasantly surprised to see me coming out the front door as she hung up the phone, as I always seem to be late for the things we do.  And then, it was off to Tarrytown for both dinner and the concert. When we arrived in Tarrytown, we found that our favorite Indian restaurant was closed for good.  So we ended up going the the Green place down the block - and had no problem getting a table.  I told Vicki that I had Indian the night before, and she noted that it was just as well that we were forced to eat Greek tonight.

Once done at the restaurant, it was off to the theater, and they were still checking vaccination cards.  Both of us were lucky to have everything recorded online, and we went inside, not needing to wear masks.  YAY!  Even better, the seats we were in had much more legroom than the balcony seats that I was in the last time I was in the theater.  Better than that was the performances of the musicians and singers.  Wow!  This was a show well worth the money we paid for our tickets to attend.  I'd gladly pay the money to see this group of people perform again.

All too soon, it was time to go home and strip off my bra.  It was a long day, and sleepy-time comes quickly to me in my "old age".

Come on baby, drive my car....

I'll bet that you don't know what this car is. One thing I can say is that you couldn't pay me to drive one.  With that being said, my latest drive home from RQS's place took over twice as long as it should have taken, and some of that was caused by me refusing to listen to routing instructions from my phone's GPS app.  At least, we were able to see "The Automat" this weekend, as we didn't need a car to get into NYC.

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Yesterday, I drove to RQS's place to visit with her and to see "The Automat" at the Film Forum.  She offered me the choice of watching this film or The Godfather in a 4k restoration.  Given that I can watch the latter on either of 2 days this coming week, it made more sense to see the documentary while it's in the theater.

One of the things about watching documentaries is that one has to have a moderate interest in the subject for it to hold your attention.  Given that the last Automat closed roughly 60 years ago, it's amazing that this restaurant chain still tugs at the hearts of many New Yorkers and Philadelphians.  Yet, it does, and it's a concept that should have been able to survive had the chain had good management in turbulent times.

I won't go into my analysis of the chain's demise.  However, I could have done some historical work for a thesis to be presented at a business school.  Let's say that I could see several easy to fix reasons for the corporation's demise, and wish that someone in power had explored them before shutting down the chain.

A death of an acquaintance.

 

This picture has nothing to do with about what I am writing about today.  Yet, it was a reminder that I had to get around to writing about a death of someone I haven't seen in years.

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Years ago, I went to school with a man who joked about forming his own Klan.  (Spelling that word with a "K" is intentional.)  This man was raised by an intolerant Germanic father, and he inherited many of his attitudes from his dad.  At that time, I liked this person (I didn't have good taste in people then), and I ended up buying an insurance policy from him when he was in the insurance business.  

Over the years, we lost contact, and he went his own way with his life.  Yet, I was shocked to hear from him via Facebook, and I felt that he had the same attitudes he had in his past, as he was a Trump supporter. When he died, I decided to look at his Facebook page, and I was surprised by several things.  First, he was no longer posting stupid things on his Facebook page, and there was little trace of the Trump support he showed in the past.  Next, it appeared that he married again (he was already divorced once when I knew him), and that nothing showed up in his feed showing what this woman looked like. And finally, it looks like he had done a complete turnabout in regard to racial relations.

Sadly, I will not be in the NYC area when a memorial service is held for him.  I would like to find out what happened to him in the years since we were together.  I wonder what he would think if he were to find out that I am transgender.  Unfortunately, some things can not be known....


PS: I later found out that he was still on his second marriage.  Never trust personal data shared on Facebook.

Dressing

One of the problems with being transgender is learning how to dress yourself so that you blend in with other women.  I've made more than my share of mistakes in the past, and I have been overdressed more times than I'd like to remember.  But learning from our mistakes is the best way to learn how to blend in with other females.  So, I realized early on that there is only so much a transgender self help group can give me.

I'm not knocking transgender support groups.  We need groups of people with which we can feel safe. But Transgender people need cisgender women to use for our patterns of femininity.  For example, I learned that I could never wear a dress like the one above to a casual function.  Instead, I would either need a very casual dress, or to wear some sort of trouser based outfit.  Additionally, we need to pattern our speech patterns and conversation topics on those cisgender women often use - and those do not involve most sports.  (Yes, women participate in sports.  But sports are not the focus of most women's lives.  Instead, it is usually their family lives that they will talk about with other women.)

Once a transwoman gets to a certain point, she must go out and make those mistakes one learns from.  And I have made a lot of those mistakes since I've gone out as Marian.  But now, I have to figure out what my next steps will be.  Soon, I expect that I will be getting my ears pierced.  This is a small step, but one that may be noticed when I go out as Mario.  Each step forward towards femininity is a step away from masculinity.  How far do you want to go on your journey?  As for me, I'm still figuring out that question for myself.

 

Bored Meeting

 

 

Unfortunately, I don't have time to write the post I planned to write today.  Last night's shareholder revolt board meeting fizzled out, but took longer than planned.

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One of the problems of sitting on a co-op board of directors is that much time is wasted for reasons that are hard to explain.  Last night's meeting is typical of our public meetings.  We were smart enough to gather a list of questions from the shareholders and to have prepared answers before the meeting.  And we held the floor to answer those questions before any questions from the floor were allowed to be asked.

Things went smoothly, and we were able to close out the public part of the meeting by 8:30 pm.  But we still needed another hour to complete other business left to the board from our last scheduled meeting. By the time I was done, I was fried - and still had another call to make.  At least, this call was much more enjoyable....

An unplanned co-op board meeting

 

This is not the image of anyone on our co-op board.  All of our members are unhappy about what has gone on as of late.  Yet, like people who love pain, we keep on serving our small community.

Why do I say this?

Although I an "out" to the board, I am not generally out to the co-op as a whole.  I never appear as Marian while representing the co-op at board meetings.  So I generally change into Mario mode before going to co-op functions.  Last night, I had to leave the video off at an unplanned zoom meeting, so that I could strip off my makeup while attending a meeting.

Tomorrow will be worse.  We have a planned meeting to address concerns arising from an unpleasant maintenance rate hike.  One shareholder has forced this meeting, and we must deal with a potential shareholder rebellion.  Luckily, we're using zoom for this meeting - and can cut people off at will.  Finally, a benefit we gained from the Covid-19 pandemic.  But I'd rather have shareholders who are all happy....

My only free day this week....

 

As most of my readers know, I live most of my life as a female these days.  Yes, I'm legally male, but that isn't stopping me from enjoying most of the things that have been traditionally reserved for females.  And yet, there are still things that keep pulling me to spend more time as a male - such as romance.  For that reason, I have my daily calendar marked up with "Red" and "Green" days.  Today, I noticed that I have some "Red" events scheduled after I get home for two weeknight evenings, and have two completely "Red" days scheduled over the weekend.

A while back, Fran told me that her decision to "Out" herself to the world happened when she had a meeting that required her to present as a male, but showed up for that meeting as a female.  Since I want to control my "Outings", I've had to develop a good method of scheduling my time to retain that control. (This is part of why I was so pissed off at someone a couple of years ago.  But I won't bore you with that story now.)  I don't mind outing myself to people - there are people with whom I've outed myself, simply because I felt there was little risk in doing so.

For the next few days, my evenings are taken up by zoom meetings, dinner with a new friend, and time with RQS.  There's not much "Me Time" left.  Vicki said that's normal and OK - it's nice to know that you're spending time with someone again. The reason why one goes to meetups is that one needs to occupy empty time in one's schedule.  "Me Time" can be found by removing unneeded things from the schedule.

Right now, I have created "Me Time" by dropping weekend meetups from my schedule.  And weeknight meetups are next to come.  Yet, I will miss the meetups, as they served a purpose when I needed to be with people more than I do now....