The Serpent's Wisdom

I didn't really keep a journal during Hurricane Isaac. Perhaps I should have. Parts of it are kind of blurring already in my memory.

Tuesday, August 28. The wind picked up gradually over the course of Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening the wind was blowing a bit harder when we lost power at around 7 PM. We gathered in the kitchen, which came to be like our living room for the next several days. It was like a family night by candlelight; we played board games until we got bored of those, and then we headed off for bed. The people upstairs played guitar and generally had a party.

Sleep was elusive. Normally I sleep with a CPAP machine as treatment for apnea, and without it sleep is more like a sequence of dreams that suddenly end and I'm awake. Gusts of wind would occasionally wake me up, the temperature was tolerable but the air was still in the bedroom with no fan or A/C.

Wednesday, August 29. I recall being awake Wednesday morning before the sun came up with the storm going full blast. Wind was blowing the rain more or less horizontally. We opened the kitchen door to see debris in the back yard, leaves and small branches, pools of water (the water never got high, though we later learned that Isaac dropped nearly twice as much rain on NOLA as Hurricane Katrina). The moon was full or nearly full which gave the storm an eerie glow, by which we were able to see what was happening outside. While we stood there by the kitchen door I watched a branch snap off the tree across the yard from us; I looked up at the swaying trees right above us and then looked at R* and said, "It's time to go inside. Now."

A. informed us that his bedroom had sprung a couple of leaks, and he'd moved his bed out of where water had been dripping on him. We had to catch a few of these leaks with buckets, some in places where water had never come through before. We had been worried about water coming in under the door, but it never got that high outside.

We spent most of Wednesday eating canned food cold and hanging out in the kitchen. R*'s phone still had charge so she would read occasional updates on the storm's progress; the center of it had essentially parked about fifty miles away. We caught naps when we could sleep. That evening we played Rummy until folks were sleepy.

Candlelight was not bright enough to read by, so night became a long stretch of boredom, laying alone with my thoughts while being too hot and sweaty to sleep. The bed was absorbing my heat and just holding it there and it got so I felt like I was laying on a heating pad. Eventually some sleep would come. Wednesday night, I was still awakened by occasional wind gusts; the tropical storm was still in the neighborhood.

Thursday, August 30. Thursday we were able to go outside and look at the damage done to the neighborhood. Not too bad, considering; a few trees down, but most looked unscathed. Branches down. Power lines down. The road had a large puddle near the storm drain, which had become blocked with debris. We took a walk down the block to the levee and stood looking at the river and canal while the wind and rain came down on us, still strong. The Coast Guard had posted a pair of boats in the canal nearby. R*'s phone lost its charge, but she found an emergency radio, so we listened to that for a while. Thursday night, sitting around in the kitchen no longer felt like family night; we were just exhausted and hot and bored at this point, eating the last of our canned meals and trickling off to bed. Unable to sleep, I came back out into the kitchen and sat there with my thoughts a long time. R* took to sleeping on the floor, having noticed that the tiles were cooler than anything else in the house. I wound up doing the same that night. I was able to find a position that wasn't too uncomfortable and eventually was able to get some sleep. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and it was totally still, and warm, and quiet, and pitch black.

Friday, August 31. Friday the sun came out and it got significantly warmer. A heat advisory had been issued, meaning that the heat index was 105°. We'd heard on the radio on Thursday that the National Guard was giving out ice, water, and MREs at a place just across the canal from us, so we headed out around 8 AM on Friday to get some. We stood in line with people who were mostly patient, though one guy got a little testy with the guards, complaining that the line of cars was moving much more rapidly than the line of people standing in the sun. He was probably right but not by much, and it mattered little in the end because we were the last folks to get water and MREs and they had to turn everyone after us away. (We heard they restocked and reopened a bit later, but that didn't help the people in line then.) From the radio we learned that some of the outlying rural communities had flooded, and there were concerns of a possibly imminent levee break affecting people on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Another big point of contention were the lingering power outages. Without power, businesses couldn't get running, and people were running out of the stuff they'd stocked up on before the storm. People used precious gasoline running their cars to use the AC to get a little relief from the heat or keep medicine cool.

The MREs were fairly hearty fare, certainly a bit better than eating food from a can, and perked us up a bit. We had bottled some water before the storm but it was starting to taste a little stale; the freezer and refrigerator had lost all their coolness by this point, so the ice was very welcome. We put chunks of ice in hand towels to keep ourselves cool, and took cold showers. Words cannot convey how thoroughly damp and muggy the air had become at this point; anything that got wet would not dry. We wore clothing soaked through with sweat; changing to fresh clothes would bring a half hour of relief. Our hair became a mess of sweat and grit that washing only cleared up for a short while. Mold grew in places that hadn't even gotten water on them. Ants of all types were coming in the house now, too. I slept on the floor again, getting somewhat better sleep for a change.

Saturday, September 1. Saturday was much the same, and is the day that is most blurry in my memory. Still no power, and another heat advisory day. I got a nap in the middle of the day, falling over on my bed exhausted. After waking I was able to study for a bit -- my classes start next week, but I have my books and wanted to get started. We took another walk around the neighborhood in the evening, and what we saw was not encouraging; standing on the levee we could see that most of the Bywater, Ninth Ward, and even the West Bank across the river were still dark. We were too hot to even eat the MREs at this point; we drank ice water and fanned ourselves and did as little as possible.

Sunday, September 2. Sunday I suggested we go to Walmart. As I said to R*, "I can't believe these words are actually forming in my vocal chords, but I think a trip to Walmart would lift our spirits." It would be an alternative to staring at the walls (we were too hot to even read at this point) or sit outside to be eaten by mosquitoes, which have become very active since the storm. Walmart is a long trip for us, requiring two buses, but we weren't in a hurry, having little else to do, and the buses were air conditioned. We ate at Walmart and shopped very, very slowly, still in no hurry. I could tell, looking at the people around us, which ones were still in hurricane crisis mode (they had water and ice in their shopping carts and had a haggard look to them) and which were restocking. I was kind of shocked to see the fruit, vegetable, meat, and dairy sections of the store so barren; they had probably had to throw out their entire stock after losing power and had not yet gotten in much to replace what had been lost. Finally we left the store and made our way back home. On the bus ride I noted a number of business that had gotten their lights back on since we'd passed them that morning, including the store just across the canal where we do a lot of our shopping - not yet open, but now lit. A neighbor told us a bucket truck had been spotted a couple of blocks away in the neighborhood -- the best thing we'd heard all day! I fell asleep on the bed, probably with mild heat exhaustion; I'd dipped a tee-shirt in ice water and draped this over me, but it was only cold for a few seconds. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday had been heat advisory days. I was woken up by the buzzing thump of the power coming back on around 6 PM.

Today we've been killing mold and fire ants and washing sweat-soaked bedsheets and drying them in the sun, which is blazing hot today.

I was in bed before 8 PM last night. Guess I was tired! But between the intractable muscle pain in my shoulder (now starting to finally show some signs of responding to meds and therapy) and the boatloads of schoolwork this term, I've just been completely spent.

Last Monday I had a migraine. In the afternoon I got a call from my sister, telling me that our mom, who had been in the hospital for a while fighting what was thought to be an e. Coli infection (I think this was later decided against and AFAIK the original cause of all this has still not been definitively identified), had been moved to an ICU in Jacksonville, Florida, and was going into surgery, and did I want her to call me with the results? Weary and not entirely over the headache, I said, well, text me if things are more or less okay, call me if not.

One AM, my phone rings. My sister, exhausted and on the verge of tears, said the surgeons believe our mom has a 10% chance to live and that she and dad had been told to say goodbye. She was in severe septic shock and it was believed that her intestines and pancreas were so damaged they would have to be removed.

Tuesday I woke early, and faced the reality that I was not at all prepared to fly right away. I thought it would be as easy as booking a ticket, throwing some clothes in a suitcase, and rushing to the airport. And while on the face of it that doesn't sound like a complex course of action, it becomes pretty daunted when you're emotionally stunned, have a lingering migraine, and are not used to traveling. If there's one thing I've learned in the last week it's that I have to have more contingency plans. I didn't make it out that day, though my sister said, as she put it, that the doctors "didn't expect anything to happen that night" (by which among other things they meant another surgery).

I sent an email to my ex, who called me to say she was not far away and would meet me in Jacksonville.

Off the plane in Florida, I was met by my visibly-drained sister and dad at the airport. We went to the hospital were I saw my mom hooked up to more IV lines and machines than I thought it was possible to be hooked up to. It was difficult to stand by the bed without bumping into things. She had a respirator, two IV delivery machines, continual dialysis, and another box blowing warm air into a soft air cushion keeping her from getting too cold. She was sedated into unconsciousness, though as the nurse explained, her body was still reacting to pain even though she was not aware of it.

From that point on though, over the course of the week the news was all good.

The first bit of good news was that mom would not have to have any organs removed. A length of intestine was removed, but not the whole thing; the colon and pancreas were viable after all. Her heart was checked and was fine.

The second day I was there they stopped keeping her under continual sedation, though mostly she slept. They also removed the tube puffing air into her lungs and made her cough, which she struggled with. Her color was starting to come back. She struggled to talk, though she was not able to say much more beyond asking for water (which we couldn't give her) and to say she was in pain. The next day she seemed to plateau a bit, staying largely asleep and not being able to interact with us much; this day was I think the hardest, since we went from watching her improve by leaps and bounds to staying the same. In the days after that, though, she was lucid. My ex, encouraged by mom's progress, had to return home at that point.

I never knew how exhausting it could be just being in a hospital. I wasn't even doing much of anything. The routine was, we could be with mom for half an hour every two hours. We had the chaplain come pray with us a couple of times. My cell phone got more usage in a week than it had in the entire previous time I owned it. We spent long stretches of time catnapping in the waiting room, and even still we'd leave the hospital utterly drained. I got a motel room just down the road from the hospital, though my dad and sister were hoping I'd stay closer to their house about two hours away. The problem was that the ride back and forth (in an un-air-conditioned car during a record heat wave) was an additional drain I just didn't want to have to endure every day.

As I made preparations to fly home they were talking about the prospect of moving her from ICU. When I stepped off the plane in Boston I saw a text from my sister saying that they had moved mom out of ICU. I suspect that folks in health care learn not to use certain words lightly, so when they use a word like "miracle" I suppose they mean it.

ETA: Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and wishes. :)

In 2002, my friend Heidi, who I knew at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in New Orleans, told me I would be attending divinity school in Boston. "I've seen it. It's going to happen. You may as well pack up right now and go."

I was like, Boston? Divinity school? What? I'd never been to Boston, had never contemplated living in Boston, had no reason to move there, and even more significantly, had no money to move there. I had an interesting life in New Orleans and had no desire nor motivation nor means to leave.

And even if I did trade New Orleans for Boston, I had no money to attend divinity school. The UUA's designated divinity school in Boston is Harvard Divinity School. Never mind that any form of school was hopelessly out of reach, divinity school was extra out of reach because all divinity schools are private and therefore expensive -- and Harvard was extra-double-hardcore out of reach.

And even if it was within reach, I had no motivation. Ever since I dropped out of grad school in 1999, I had more or less a semi-annual tradition where I'd contemplate going back to grad school, even look at a course catalog or two, look at the idea from several perspectives, and then decide against it.

And even if I did decide to go to grad school, divinity school was an option I'd considered and rejected. I feared the consequences of making a pastime out of mysticism, of what ways my message would potentially be warped if keeping a roof over my head depended on making a religious message that would sell.

So, in 2002, when Heidi told me this, it seemed like the most unlikely, outrageous prediction anyone had ever made about my future.

In 2003, even though my marriage was drawing to a close, I developed a new relationship that made leaving New Orleans even less likely. But in early 2004 my new relationship also drew to a close; plus I hated my job, my living situation became unstable... and R* and F. came back into my life and asked me to come live with them.

In Boston.

Well, not Boston, but you know, a suburb. A suburb about two miles away from Harvard. Where I finally landed a permanent job. A job with benefits that include a huge discount on tuition for courses at the Harvard Extension School. Which offers courses in religion taught at the Harvard Divinity School. Including one by Dr. Helmut Koester in early Christian history that intrigued me enough to sign up.

So, 3 years later, there I was, going to divinity school in Boston.

I am sabrinastar on nanowrimo.

YES, i am signing up for this even though the World of Warcraft expansion is coming out in the middle of the month. I wasn't even sure i was going to do this but the idea's been haunting me for a week, and it seems like a suitably impulsive/creative thing to do.

In other news, i heard from the IRS, they finally sorted out the situation involving my name change and will be sending me my refund plus my "economic stimulus" check (which i never received). Just in time to pay for the heating oil, ha ha. Not freezing my tush off for the next two or three months sounds pretty stimulating to me. Hopefully there will be a little left over for a new video card.

While digging through my boxes last night for some old notes i want to incorporate into my ongoing writing project, i found my cache of old newsletters from transgender support groups to which i belonged almost 20 years ago, along with correspondence i received during that time period from folks like Dallas Denny and Holly Boswell.

The correspondence i want to hold onto, but the newsletters may have some historical value. I'd love to find out if there are any LGBT archivists in the area to whom i could contribute these. They'd take better care of them than i have. Anyone have any suggestions?

I've managed to avoid having any serious, deep thoughts on any topic for two weeks now.

I haven't been bored or depressed, or had any emotional troughs or plateaus at all, over the last two weeks either.

I'm sure there's a correlation between A and B above, but to map it out would require deep thinking, which i am going to put off as long as possible.

The last two weeks coasted on a kind of pleasant baseline with mild peaks of happiness. This is, i think, the way vacations are meant to be. Perhaps it was even the way life was meant to be. Americans have this terrible propensity to make vacations into "quality time," which we approach as a venture. Like other ventures, quality time is judged to be a success or failure against a list of criteria drawn up before the venture begins. (This isn't the same as setting up an itinerary, BTW. It's more like... it's more like Americans expect vacations to have an "enjoyment budget" which goes broke if you spend too much time dawdling or not enough time doing "quality activities.")

Argh, this is beginning to sound dangerously like deep thought. Enough of that. Sooner or later the cosmos will force its way back into my awareness, and like it or not i'll start noticing new patterns of ickiness i never commented on before, and will be compelled to blog about them. I'd rather put that off if i can.

I don't feel physically rested (i need a new bed, i think the one i'm using now is costing me sleep) but i feel emotionally rested. Reality seems "rounder" and a bit more unfamiliar and curious to me today.

"Some studies have shown that crimes against the trans community accounts [sic] for 10 percent of all violent crimes in America." from National Day Of Remembrance Honors Murdered Trans People. I wish there was more information on this claim, it's the first time i've seen it.

I also wish there was more discussion in the trans community at large about the racial dimension of anti-transgender violence. Maybe there isn't enough awareness; or maybe it is not brought up because white transfolk are nervous about speaking for transfolk of color.

Anti-trans violence is painfully personal for me; tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my sexual assault. Was i targeted for being trans, or for just being a woman? I will never know, but i *do* know that being trans affected my decision not to go to the police.

I'm still here. As i wrote last week, i just haven't felt like i have anything new to say. All the news is SSDD, there's nothing new to say about any of it. My philosophical views have not progressed or evolved in the last month. No topic has grabbed my attention long enough to be worthy of a rant. And my personal life... well, remains private, mostly.

I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about how much i have to shut down my meta-Marxian sensibilities to play video games like Civilization or The Sims, but i couldn't muster enough interest to write it.

So what have i been up to? Dealing with lingering stress from the move and a long commute to pick up the kid at day camp every day. My creative attention has gone towards WoW fanfic and RP, and plot work and conceptualization for my novel, which is finally starting to shape up. I've had a hot date or two as well. ;)

I did see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with cowgrrl last weekend. I quite liked it, much more than the last movie. It felt less "by the numbers" to me.

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

The officials who run the Miss Spain pageant have changed their eligibility rules so that mothers and transsexual women are allowed to compete.

It’s a strike for… equality?

Won’t it be a shining moment in transgender history when, say, three to five years from now, a galla wins the title of Miss Spain and goes on to have a huge public tussle with the people who run the Miss World pageant?

Eyup, i’m looking forward to it.

It’s kind of sad that the right to be equally objectified alongside women-born-women seems in some ways like a step up. I could write a lot here about the origins of beauty pageants, their fundamental heteronormativity, reinforcement of the male gaze, and, and let’s not forget that modern pageants exist to sell products by bathing suit companies. That stuff is not really what i want to write about today, and it’s easy enough to research if you care.

The average galla, like the average WBW, wants to feel that people think she’s pretty.

I don’t mean “hot” or “doable” or “sexy,” or “i’d hit that.” I’ve been told many times by numerous men that i am an acceptable recipient of their transitory lust — as long as i promise not to say anything to their wives. Few of them bothered to waste the air it would have taken to call me pretty.

So at this point in life i am not concerned about whether or not someone will invite me to bed. But do they think i’m pretty?

Prettiness is… i don’t know. I shouldn’t call it “validation.” It’s more a kind of acceptance, a kind i’ve been starved for my whole life.

I don’t know whether it’s something we’re taught while we’re growing up or if it’s just a reflection of a natural desire to belong and be accepted. It doesn’t matter; either way, it’s too often used as a way to manipulate girls.

It’s not that i think it would confirm that i’m a woman to be told i’m pretty. But most girls, i suppose, are told at least a few times while they’re growing up that they’re pretty; but your average galla, at least those my age, were never told it.

I think my mom said it to me once when i was 14, or at least something to similar effect. I had come out to her, and at first she kind of freaked out. One night, though, she showed me how to brush out a wig, and gave me a few other pointers on dressing and presenting a bit more femininely.

How can i express what that felt like after 14 years of being firmly repressed?

And how do i square this up with what many of my feminist friends have told me, of how it was drilled in their heads non-stop from the time they were small that they had to spend a lot of their time primping so they would look pretty? It is no surprise when WBW meet gallae and hear us “squee” because someone told us we’re pretty, and conclude that we’ve just bought into the social superficial nonsense surrounding femininity and have no idea what it’s really like. I can’t blame them; they were overdosed on the thing which we were starved of, and not only does either treatment make us all pliable it also divides us, causes us to mistrust each other.

Honestly, i don’t find it ‘liberating’ to spend more time in the morning making myself presentable, or to pay thousands of dollars (and cry many tears) to have facial hair removed so i will be more acceptably pretty. But it is ‘freeing’ in the sense that it means i do not have to continue to abide by the course that was set for me by god and country during the first two decades of my life. From my perspective, it more closely resembles the freedom to live life on my own terms.

I am jumping from the fire into the frying pan.