detroit rock city

I am inspired to write about some of my memories from my former life in Detroit proper after reading a post about third world cities from sweet trini. I was pondering what she wrote and a couple of incidences had immediately come to mind. I wish I had been blogging back then, but in reality I probably would have not wanted to write about it. I was a pro with a good job living in the ghetto. No one could understand why I would live in such a place, especially my family. I am prompted to wonder why I chose to live there for seven years. Insanity I suppose? Maybe a mortal danger fetish anyone? It was a bad decision that decided to live with.

I had a constant fear of getting shot or jumped. I guess that fear is exactly what keeps you from getting jumped or shot. I learned to be very alert to my surroundings and to try to keep and look cool, like I should be there and not scared that I am there. I had a dream recently that gave me the same feeling in my gut as when I lived in D. The feeling where you are always casing your way out if you need to get out in a hurry. Always make sure you have a way out. I luckily found mine in 2002.

On to the motor city chronicles. The night I moved into the house on Vaughan, I parked my truck out front and left the door unlocked. I was stirred eventually by the cops trying to get a naked guy high on acid out of my truck by spraying pepper spray in through the sunroof. He was handling the steering wheel as if he was driving to get way from the cops and fucking my vehicle up in the process. The guy’s friends eventually coaxed him out of the truck and into police custody. I should have realized right then and there.

At first the neighborhood wasn’t so bad because D had ordnance that all public workers including cops had to live in the city to be employed by the city. There were a few that lived directly on my block which made for a somewhat safer neighborhood. After the city repealed the live in the city rule, all the cops slowly moved out and the crime moved in. I think the only reason I was never broken into was because the neighbors thought or at least expected that I was a cop. In most neighborhoods bars on your windows are a common security measure. My little bungalow had no bars. But of course I had nothing that anyone would want anyway.

A cop used to live in the house next door and we were relatively friendly with each other. He moved out eventually and the house stayed vacant for about a year. The new occupants were crack dealers. Abandoned houses were on every block, and the crack dealers would have their people break into the houses and set up shop. Most of the houses were built in the forties and fifties and they all had small tin door near the side door of the house where the milkman would put your fresh milk. There was another companion door on the inside of the house where you would get your fresh milk without going outside. The crack dealers would serve out of the little door to keep things inconspicuous. There were tons of crackheads always coming and going, even in the daylight, with kids playing right on the sidewalk out front. Needless to say, having a crackhouse next door made me very nervous. Especially when the main dealer would stop by. I and a bunch of my neighbors were constantly calling the cops to complain. My slumlord even tried to remedy the situation so I wouldn’t move out. He was more worried about his house than he was me, saying that I left the house vacant they would move right into it. The cops raided the place twice before someone bought it and renovated it. I was raking my lawn one day during all of this shit and came across a syringe. I was lucky not to have stepped on it or accidentally stuck by it. I surely would have caught hiv. Such fun.

There’s many more where that came from, but we’ll save those for another time. Detroit is a burned up and torn down remnant of what it once was. Their slogan was “It’s a great time…in Detroit! I did get out because I was able to, but unfortunately there are many who can’t and some that won’t. When people are in survival mode, I agree that they could give a shit about arts and humanities. In a way the in-humanities abounding are all absorbing in that environment. A place where life is already cheap, and yours could go on sale at any moment. I noticed in me that eventually I became desensitized to all the trash, burned out houses, party stores, and stripped cars.

Stripped cars…that just conjured up another wonderful memory. One night I was sitting in my living room watching tv when I heard a car revving hard for a couple of seconds, and then a horrible screeching noise for a couple of seconds afterwards. This continued in repetition for a while until it became really loud and I had to look at what it was. It was someone who had stripped a car in front of their house down the street, taken the wheels apparently, and then dragged it up the street on its frame to leave it in front of someone else’s house to deal with. Before I looked outside I was boggling my mind to figure out what could make such a wake the dead sort of noise. It all made sense once I saw it, where the noise was coming from, but not why they were doing it. I was speechless after having laid eyes on the spectacle, that sort of “now I’ve seen everything” feeling. All I could do was to shake my head and call the cops to have it removed.

I had a fun Saturday night, one which I will write about before I forget all about it hopefully.

down and out

I have been fighting with a deep depression lately.  I have been generally feeling down for about a couple of months now.  I hop it stops soon.  I am worried that the hormones have stopped working.  I am struggling to keep weight on, my breast growth has stopped, I am totally depressed, I woke up with morning wood, I have had several nights of night sweats, hot flashes, and I have a general feeling of dread.  I should probably make an appointment to speak with my doctor and go see my endo soon.  It doesn’t help anything that my job is in the shitter.  As soon as something bad happens, however small, I start to worry that my little world is going to end.  I am teetering on the edge of oblivion as it is, so close I can feel its cold empty winds.

I became really upset this afternoon at work after speaking with my project manager who is soon to become my group leader.  He tried to convince me to move my vacation starting in CW50.  He basically reiterated to me today that if I want out of this doomed project I would have to quit.  Asshole.  I came away from our discussion feeling oppressed and broken.  I went back to my desk and worked for another hour and a half, sobbing the whole time.  I started to get scared that I am not going to make it.  With this life I mean.  I am not sure I am strong enough to live through this transition.  Ending it all seems sometimes like a suitable solution.  Work is making me feel oppressed and trapped.  I had hoped to keep my job long enough to make it to surgery.  I am not sure I can hold out that long.

I have been watching a DVD of the documentary “Trans Generation” that Chloe burned for me.  It makes me sad to watch it, because the feelings and experiences of the subjects are exactly the same ones I have and they hurt sometimes.  It echoes the doom I feel.  The doomed existence.  I wonder how it makes “normal” people feel when they watch it.

I wonder sometimes if it is better to try to live with the feelings as long as one can without transitioning, and then commit suicide.  The ones who love you have to give you up anyway, why not make it final?  It seems easier to not put yourself and everyone around you through the pain of transition only to kill yourself afterwards.  Just keep it all inside until it breaks you.  I feel like I was born with a defective mind.  Why couldn’t I have been just like everyone else?  I realize true personal happiness is just a fable, but I realistically think that I will never be able to get even close to it.  I personally feel now I was just accepting my fate by deciding to transition.  There really was no other feasible option.  I am just fucked up, a bad egg.  I shouldn’t have lived.  I am an anomaly, a mistake.

When I see people looking at me with that “what a freak” look on their face, I just think to myself, consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to put yourself through all this to attempt to achieve some semblance of inner peace.

gonna make it

I’m going to pat myself on the back a little now.  I have effectively dealt with some of the chaos in my apartment today.  I have done the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and washed and dried the laundry.  I managed to file away all my paperwork that had been piling up.  I wrote several letters to inform services that I subscribe to in reference to my name change.  All of my german services such as eBay, T-Mobile, T-Com, car sharing, and the company that manages my building.  That takes care of everyone that needs to know.

I wrote the other day to northwerst airlines regarding my missing miles from my travel back to the states for Easter of this year.  They only credited certain legs of the trip to my account, and since I won’t be flying back to the states twice before the end of the year, I need the miles.  In order to keep my silver elite status I have to fly at least 25000 miles per year.  Three round trips are enough to reach the required mileage.  With the missing mileage credit, I will have over 100,000 miles saved up.  That will get me a free round trip ticket from Europa to the states, but I don’t think I get the mileage should I fly that way.  I think they would be better spent with a little cash for an upgrade to business class or something.  I dream of flying business class just once.  Now that I have elite status, I usually am able to fly first class on domestic flights.  The flight is short between Boston or Providence and Detroit, but hey it’s first class.  Big seats with plenty of leg room and all the drinks and snacks you can consume in an hour and a half.

There are still a couple of things on the list to complete in the next bit of time.  I need to start writing the treatment questionnaire for my psychotherapy to apply for further sessions.  This one is a lot shorter than the last one thankfully.  I also need to contact the guy that my therapist recommended to me to translate my letter to my health insurance company regarding my gender change and my treatment wishes.  I found tonight in writing just a short formal letter was difficult, so I think I had better have the English text I have already written translated.

I also need to contact the opera singer to ask if she would be willing to work with me on my voice.  I really need to get working on it.  I feel nervous when I have to make a phone call to someone I don’t know because they always assume by my voice that I am a male.  I feel kind of stupid having to correct them.  Voice training is becoming one of my top priorities.

I also unearthed the letters to my extended family today.  I definitely need to deal with that situation once and for all.  There really isn’t any more doubt in my mind that I am on the right track and I am not going to change my course.  There is nothing holding me back and I should get it done finally before something bad happens.  I think I will print the letters out new at work some evening this week. I plan to send them out by the end of the week.  I have to hold myself to it.  I should probably check with Annie about the last addresses that I am missing.

I am giddy that I found those boots online today.  I have been trying not to be compulsive about buying shoes, but it is hard sometimes.  I really have an addiction to shoes, always have.  I need to get some sweaters and warmer tops for fall and winter. I will probably go on an H&M shopping spree in the next couple of weeks.  The bottoms I want to make myself.  Vogue has a pattern for some tapered jeans that are all the rage right now.  I bought some stretch denim in blue and also a black weave dyed stretch herringbone yesterday.  I should probably make a list of the things that I want to make.  Here goes:

Knickers-woolens-denims
Tapered jeans-denims
Short pea coat-fake green lambs fleece
Overcoat ¾ length- black or brown wool
Overcoat long-black or brown wool
Pant or Skirt suits for work in woolens
Casual skirts- corduroys or denim or wool
Bermuda shorts – woolens

As you can see I will be a very busy girl over the next two months before I am allowed to go on vacation.  The suits for work will be sort of an ongoing thing that will not necessarily be finished anytime soon.  The pants and skirts are much less time consuming and I can whip those out in a matter of hours, so I will probably work on those first.  After all, I need to have stuff to wear with my new boots that will be here on Wednesday.

I am feeling good about myself today and I hope it continues…

Frustration

This past week has been quite rocky.  The third of October was for me the six month mark since I started living full time female.  I don’t regret at all making the switch.  My regrets are more related to the lives I have affected with my fits of denial and acting one way but feeling another.  I have been very frustrated this week for many reasons.  My vacation time has been tentatively settled with work.  As it stands now, I have from the 24th of November until the 7th of January free, that’s six weeks.  I am really looking forward to that time.  I am assuming however that it will be changed this week at work.
My project manager was supposed to call me on Wednesday, but he never did, surprise surprise.

I am also very frustrated that the temp engineer working with me is getting mired in the details of his design and therefore he is already a week behind in releasing for manufacture.  I am ultimately responsible for what he does, and it will surely be at least another week late before it is finished.  Friday we didn’t speak to each other because I was pissed and had put some restraints on what he is doing in interest of getting him to bring his work to a close.  He is caught up with trying to satisfy every concern that can be accommodated, even things that could totally change at assembly and at which point all the time he has spent will have been for naught.  He is a good engineer, but temps seem not to have the level of motivation to bring things to completion, since they don’t carry the responsibility that comes with full time employment.  Motivating factors like poor reviews, pay reductions, and ultimately getting fired.  I have to try to be tough with him next week, to provide a little motivation.  We are to meet tomorrow t discuss the status of his work so that I can take a beating for it being late in our internal Tuesday meeting with project management.

I suspect that part of my frustration may be hormonal.  I was due to have my double shots last Tuesday, but it was a holiday here and the doctor was closed also on Wednesday.  I received my shots on Thursday morning finally.  I had a therapy appointment that afternoon in Ffm.  As soon as I got off the train at the Hauptwache I began to sweat profusely for no apparent reason.  I am thinking that I should probably schedule a visit with my Endo soon to check my levels to see if anything has changed.  I have been feeling generally down lately, even though I have been achieving things.  I feel rather trapped because of my vacation situation.  I am not able to move freely, and that is killing me.

Another point of frustration has been getting my hair cut (butchered).  I desperately needed to have it trimmed back to a healthy length, but I am definitely missing it now.  My stylist had visions of long bangs in the front, which I was skeptical of since I still have the bald strips on either side of my forehead.  For the first couple of days I had the leaning towards crying out of frustration that I let him do this to me.  I was just getting the hang of dealing with my long hair and not washing it every day.  Oh well, it’s too late now.  He lightened it a bit too much for my liking as well, although the lightness tends to help camouflage my problem areas.  I have also been slowly coming to accept the fact that my hair will be a frizzy mess no matter which product I put in it.  That sucks, but it’s a fact.  I have two bags of failed shampoos, conditioners, and styling products.  Since none of them work particularly well, I should probably minimize my losses and use them all up instead of throwing them away.  I have been on a quest for the miracle product that will tame the wild beast that is my hair, but alas, it doesn’t exist.  The last straw was last Thursday when I went into a hair care store in Ffm where the saleswoman tried to push a bottle of conditioner on me that costs 28 euro for maybe two weeks supply.  I realized at that point I have to stop.  I also love how they give you samples to try that would only be enough for someone with a pixie haircut.  I need industrial size samples to have any effect.  I mean, come on, 28 euro a bottle?  I am wondering if they put like fetal stem cells in it or something.  One good thing that has come of my recent haircut is that it seems a lot fuller (excessive layering) and doesn’t take half as long as it did to blow dry it.  I am also learning how to use a paddle instead of a round brush.  I was very close to the point of violently ripping all my hair out, now that’s frustration.

One sort of good point to this week was that I finished the blazer that I had been working on for the last month.  It fits well, except for the sleeves are too short.  Then again this first blazer was only supposed to be an experiment with fit and technique.  I managed to get most of it done based solely on my memory of tailoring techniques since I didn’t have the tailoring guides.  I cheated a little by disassembling an ill fitting jacket I had made a couple of years ago.  I tried using fusible interfacing which in the end isn’t going to work out.  I bought some horse hair canvas interfacing Thursday in two different weights for the next jacket.  I also discovered the secret of achieving perfect sleeve heads.  They are not to be pressed at all after insertion.  I used a stretch fabric and cut a size 42, which I am not so sure about the fit if I use a non-stretch fabric.  I suppose it would be ok if the sleeves were the appropriate length.  Overall, I am happy that I was able to complete a wearable jacket that fits like a glove, and that I know exactly what needs attention on the next one.  Everyone that has seen the fruit of my labor is astounded that I made the jacket myself, and that make me feel good.

In my never ending quest for well fitting shoes, I have again been let down.  I went shopping for a dark brown casual pair of boots yesterday.  I found a really nice pair of lace up mid calf boots at Dielmann, but they only had them up to size 41.  I could put them on, but they were a bit too tight especially if I wanted to wear a heavier wool sock in winter.  They were the perfect style, so I am going to try to go to another larger Dielmann to see if they by chance still have a 42.  It would seem that 42 is a popular women’s size, but most stores, if not all, only stock one single pair.  The other smaller sizes they have plenty of, which end up being sold at the end of the season for cheap money because they didn’t sell.  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  EDIT—I just took a break from writing this to check to see if I could find the boots online…I just ordered them and they will be delivered in the next couple of days!  Yay!!!  They only cost 89 euro, which is a great price for leather boots.  I have satisfied my craving for a casual jeans kind of boot.  Now I can concentrate on making knickerbocker jeans to go with them.

I should try to clean my apartment today.  The clutter is getting the better of me and it needs to be dealt with, now.

treated

I have had an interesting week of treatments.  I finally made an appointment with a dentist for the first time in over ten years.  I made up for all that lost dental time in one week.  I wasn’t in the chair for five minutes and he was already drilling.  Apparently I had three fillings that had broken away and they needed attention.  He did two that day and then the third on Thursday afternoon.  They conned me into scheduling my professional cleaning for the following day, Friday.  I think he used every cleaning process known to man on me.  Nearest I can tell he used high pressure citric acid water, sandblasting, some kind of weird ultrasonic thing, dental floss coated with sand, and a good ‘ol fashioned scraper pick.  It was a nightmare.  I am lucky I didn’t choke.  There was water and sand spraying out of my mouth constantly.  My face was covered with a fine layer of sand after he was finished.  The inside of my lips were totally raw which made smoking very painful.  I asked about the condition of my teeth, to which he said everything was in order.  Good enough.  I don’t remember cleanings being so messy and thorough, and painful.  Granted my addictions to smoking, red wine and coffee along with my aversion to flossing added up to stained in between areas that needed industrial strength treatments.  I plan on having a cleaning once a year from now on.

I went to therapy on Tuesday, which went harmlessly enough as we discussed the different identifying genres of the underground life.  We discussed my recent foray into the goth-wave-punk underground.  Around the end of the session he asked me how I feel when I talk about the past and Kpo.  I was on the verge of tears when I started to think about it.  I left there and rode the train home, weeping the whole ride.  Staying out all night over the weekend really fucked up my sleep schedule which in turn made me vulnerable to feeling really depressed.  I need to learn to not be so fatalistic about everything.  In general I feel doom and gloom when I feel something will not work out or is insurmountable.  I get anxious and feel like my little world is going to end.  Depression I guess I should call it.  I should be happier though, I am taking care of things that I have needed to attend to.  I am slowly chipping away at the chaos.

I went to electrolysis on Wednesday evening.  Clearing my cheeks took only 22 minutes.  I will have to start combining areas to come out to a full hour.  I am happy that the end of electrolysis milestone is slowly approaching.  I just hope my skin survives.

I was hoping to fly back to the states for a couple of weeks, but my group leader denied my request for vacation because I am behind schedule with the new design.  I almost started crying, but I held out.  I will be taking about six weeks off starting November 24th up until the second week of January.  I like the idea of having so much time off from work, but I would rather spend the time when the weather is warmer.  I guess I could go skiing somewhere, maybe the first week of January.  I hope to start my vacation as soon as I get back from Japan.  We are tentatively planned to be there starting the festivities of the design review on the 21st of November.  I will probably be forced to start my vacation on the first of December, at which point I will not come back to work until the 15th of January.  I am trying to see this positively, I will have plenty of time to work on my winter wardrobe.  I am almost finished with the jacket that I started a month ago.  All I have left is to insert the lining and buttons.  It is coming out nice.  The next one I will have to extend the sleeves about an inch.
I met Marion and Christiane at the Pilhuhn Friday night to party because Marion is flying out to Brazil for three months next Wednesday.  I was having a good time until Sabine latched on to me.  She was so drunk and wouldn’t stop talking about caring for her husband with lung cancer.  I feel for her and her plight, but she stole most of the night away from me.  I should have been talking with Marion the whole time.  I’m not sure how many beers I ended up drinking, my tab came out to 13.80.  I got home around three o’clock and slept until two yesterday afternoon.  I felt totally drained of energy once I got up.  I rode to walmart to get some food and soy milk.  I laid down for a nap at around 7.30 on the air mattress that Chloe had been sleeping on, with the intention of sleeping for an hour or so.  I woke up to pee at 2.30am and went to sleep again in my bed.  I had some really weird dreams.  I feel recharged this morning.  Today the stores in the city centre are open from 1 to 6p.  A rarity in these parts.  I plan to assemble the lining for the jacket today and then go and buy some more olive corduroy, I just hope the color matches.  I bought the first bit of it last fall, and the bolt is surely not the same.

Chloe should be coming back either today or tomorrow.  More than likely she will return tomorrow.  She has been to Italy and probably somewhere else, exactly where I don’t know.  I will miss her when she goes back to live in the states.  She will probably not want to live there anymore just like I have been tainted by the European feel.  I will be getting my hair cut and colored tomorrow in Ffm with Jesus.  I am excited yet apprehensive that what he is planning will actually work.  I will have to trust him.

I didn’t want to become a weekly blogger, blogging weakly, but alas that is what I have become.  Maybe I can break out of my slump in the face of depression.