Wow – though I know it hasn’t been all that long, it sure seems like it has been a long time since
I was last in Detroit!
I guess with all of the trips to Albany,
and then all of the work we have been doing on my home, it just seems like it
has been forever.
Speaking of Detroit!
I had a grumpy comment posted on one of my Flickr photographs:
“Would you PLEASE stop tagging all of your photo’s with ‘Detroit’?! No one cares
about your pictures but you and all of your middle aged friends!”
My first inclination was to get irritated, but the more I
looked at it and thought about it, the more I thought it was amusing. I have
been pretty prolific on Flickr (** blush **) and a fair share of those photos
are tagged for Detroit, so I guess I must drive
people that are trying to find photos of Detroit
absolutely nuts. Sorry ‘ bout that!
So anyway, it got me to thinking about a few things. The
first thought that struck me was that it was almost a compliment as he
presumably didn’t realize that I am not exactly what I appear to be, and
neither are my “middle aged friends”. The second thing to cross my mind was
that I think I’m a bit embarrassed by my obsession with taking my own damned
photograph. It started out as a perfectly understandable desire to make sure
that I had some memories to look at when I get older and uglier, and perhaps
some sort of self vindication, but it’s morphed into something more – an
obsession, a compulsion, an evil trip down an egocentric and egotistical road!
(** GASP!! **).
My blog has become something that I am kind of proud of, and
now I have to ask myself – is the blog about being transgendered in the real
world, or is it about Kim’s photographs? On the other hand, the vast majority
of the traffic to my blog is from Flickr, so how many people would stop reading
it if I pulled my head outta my backside and stopped posting so damn many
photos? Hmmmm, might have to find out . . . tomorrow . . . right now I have
pics to upload. . .
My trip to Detroit
was a fairly miserable one, with me sick, hacking, and coughing the entire way.
Believe me, you don’t want to see a photo of that trip! The good news is, although I had been miserable for my
entire time there, the night before I left for home I suddenly felt a lot
better! Hoping that the healthy feeling was going to last until morning, I
found myself pulling skirts and tops out of my luggage for my flight home –
it’s time to travel pretty!
It’s been about a month since I last entered the world as
Kimberly, and I’d have to admit that I was a bit nervous as I got ready. When I
had myself all together, I took a look in the mirror and wanted to sob at the
sight of all of the wrinkles that have attacked my face in the last few years.
My wife has been very fortunate and has virtually no wrinkles despite the fact
that we are the same age, but unfortunately my genetics were not so kind as
hers. Still, it is what it is, and so I headed out to put my bags in the rental
car and to get a cup of coffee from the hotels breakfast area.
Of course the first thing that I noticed was that it was a
pretty messed up day out there – very dark and raining. My new shoes were so
slick on the rain covered parking lot that I could have just about skated to
the car if I’d wanted to. After I got my bags put away in the car, I headed
into the hotel to drop of my room keys off and to get a cup of coffee for the
drive to the airport. I dropped off the keys at the counter, where a young lady
thanked me and wished me a good trip home, and then I made my way to the coffee
pots. I made it about half way there when I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey you!”
I turned around to see Cheryl, the customer service
representative that has always been so nice to me here.
“Good morning Cheryl! How are you?” I replied.
“Oh I’m fine, thank you. I take it that you are feeling
better huh?” she said with a grin, while giving my outfit the once over.
“Honey, you look great!”
“Awe thanks! I think I’m getting too old for this shit
though. Everyday it’s more and more wrinkles.” I told her while making a boo
boo lip.
“Do you dance?” she asked me from out of the blue.
“Are you kidding? I have a full blown phobia of dancing – just
the thought of it scares the hell outta me!”
“So what do you do when you go out then?”
“Pretty much sit there like a bump on a log.” I told her
with a laugh.
“That’s a shame. You should dance. I’d love to see you
dance!” She said with a wink and a smile.
“Thanks, but no thanks!” I told her with a laugh as I poured
my coffee. We said our good byes and gave each other a quick hug, and then I
turned around to find pretty much the entire staff of the hotel behind the
counter looking and grinning at me.
“Have a good trip home!” One of them said.
“See ya next time.” Said another.
“Count on it!” I said, and gave them all a little wave as I laughed
and made my way to the car.
I had a brief conversation and laugh with the woman at the
US Airways counter as she checked my bags in.
“And you’re just a touch under the weight limit on that
one!” she told me with a smile as she took my huge suitcase off of the scales.
“Yeah, you know I really need to completely unpack that one
when I get home. I travel so much that I rarely bother to completely unpack it
anymore and for the life of me, I don’t see how it can be almost 50lbs for this
trip. I don’t recall putting anywhere near that much stuff into it.” I told
her.
“Hah! You don’t even know what’s in your bag? That would be
so funny when you open it and wild animals come running out of it!” she told me
with a giggle.
Yeah, about that bag? I’ve been home for two days and still haven’t opened it . . .
Going through the “full body scanner” at the airport, the
female TSA agent literally laughed when she saw the results of my scan.
“Well, I’m gonna have to pat your legs down and I’ll show
you why!” she said. Still grinning, she pointed at my skirt and the hundreds of
little beads that were sewn on to it.
“You see all of those fancy beads on your skirt? OK, now if
you will turn around and look at the monitor behind you, you can see that you
have just about given our software a heart attack.”
I turned to look at the monitor that she had mentioned and
had to bust out laughing myself, because there were hundreds of little “X’s”
all over the lower legs of the cartoon figure there, apparently showing all of
the places that the software recommended the agent personally inspect. There
were a LOT of these little beads on my skirt,
and so the cartoon graphic looked like a little blizzard.
“But it’s my favorite skirt!” I told her with a wink as she finished
with her inspection.
So much for happy happy joy joy – from here out the blog is
a downer . . .
So does anyone remember my telling you about finding my
long lost half sister Tracy a while back? We
were separated when she was about six and my father “gave her” to a couple
in Georgia.
The bad news is that I lost complete touch with her. The good news is, letting
someone else take care of Tracy
was probably the only good and decent think my alcoholic father ever did.
Anyway, I found her about a year ago through the internet and we have spoken a
few times since then. I suspect that she has plenty of demons of her own given
that every photo I have so far seen of her shows her in a bar. I can’t talk too
much trash about that though, because I’ve been there and done that. While
Tracy and I have not really talked much since I found her, I also ‘friended” her
daughter on Facebook and am seriously worried about the little girl. She is
only fourteen, and all of her posts are regarding doing drugs and her
“relationships” with boys, and most of her posts use language that makes this
ex-army sergeant blush.
Last night she posted about being in the hospital after
taking a fist full of sleeping pills.
Was it attempted suicide or just stupidity that prompted her
take almost two dozen? I try to talk to her and encourage her, but you can only
push so hard when you’re just some strange uncle talking to a niece that you
have never met and who lives half the North American continent away from you. A
cute little girl, already hooked on drugs, suicidal, and apparently with no
adult supervision. It makes me want to sob and scream at the same time. I wish
that they would invent time travel so that I could go back and shoot my father
– the one who started all of this mess. The fall out from one abusive alcoholic
has resulted in the destruction, or at least serious damage, to at least three
generations of my family now. One messed up little person after another.
Thanks dad . . .