UNITED STATES OF ATTENTION-WHOREDOM

Congratulations America, you are now a reality show. 

And I'm playing to get kicked off.

FRIENDS!!

Wow. What a shocker, huh?  You may have noticed that I was quiet throughout this whole debate/campaign/election shitshow. Sure, I'd post a silly meme now & then (Vlad & Donnie riding shirtless and bareback anyone?) And I think I might've written a scathing Adventure in Reality about Donnie's extravagant and supernatural ego.

I had intended this blog to be a reprimand for all the social media *noise* that preceded this election--the puff-chested posturing, the vitriol & name-calling & bullying, the histrionic doomsaying, the desperate lecturing that became threatening at times, the ignorance of "how America really works." I wanted to line you all up, smack your skulls together like big meaty dominoes and shout "America is not a dictatorship! Or a monarchy! You're all right-fighters and pissing contestants! Just shut the fuck up and vote!"   

Politics is such a sporting event and that's just how the media plays it. Just like someone who will call the Seattle Seahawks My Team!!  despite having never played for the Seahawks, we do the same with our political candidate of choice. We over-identify, we see them as an extension of ourself, a magic wand who will swish into the White House and abracadabratify all our wishes into laws. Overnight even! 

And we try to force others to see how magical & effective OUR chosen candidate will be, and how destructive & invalid THEIR candidate!

But the President isn't endowed w/ all that magic. We do ourselves a disservice to get so lathered up about something that is ultimately an individual privilege and responsibility.

NOW though, I want to swirl back in time--not too long ago--when I voted in my first election. I was 31 years old and had been eligible to vote in 3 previous elections but had CHOSEN not to. In fact, the very first election I could've voted in, I instead drank a cup of Drano and spent the next month in the hospital (long story…gender dysphoria much more severe than any elected official could fix) That was 11-8-88, the Bush/Dukakis snoozefest.

Trump cartoon from 2005

But on 11-7-2000, I decided I was officially a grown up and I needed to get my ass to the polls. I demanded it of myself. I had always lived life so far inside my head that politics couldn't reach me. I hated whispery old red-face Ronald Reagan with a passion whenever he appeared on my childhood TV. I could just see the phoniness of him, how he helped shepherd all the born-again sheeple into a "moral majority" along with the scummy tv evangelists of that era. 

But despite Ronald Reagan's efforts to be Big Brother around the world, my thoughts remained my own at home. 

My dedication to not voting continued through '92 and '96. I had trouble taking Bill Clinton seriously because he had fucked a tawdry stripper w/ my dead girl name!!! I didn't care about Washington in the '90s, I cared about surviving my own life each day, and wiping my mind clean with alcohol before bedtime. 

In the 90s there were no issues on the ballot that were "socially relevant" to me.

But in Y2K my life had taken a  surprising turn for the better, and I was able to care about things beyond the base of the survival pyramid. I had caught some of the debates between Gore and Bush & was frankly disgusted, nauseated by Bush's gibberishy aw-shucksy dumb redneck display. I was frightened by how much he appealed to so many people! He had that familiar Reagany sway over the lowest of brows furrowed into the limelight of corruption!

Couldn't people see how clownish? What a buffoon? I mean, Gore was beige as hell, but he could put words together in a sensible fashion. I had to do my part to prevent this re-Reaganing of America. So I pulled myself together to vote in that fateful election. Ironically, I was living in Bloomington, IN at the time. I got to see Florida in its full frontal ugliness from a geographical distance that made it look all the uglier.

And I thought the Reagan 80s were bad until I lived to see the Bush 00s. I think we will look back on the 00s and find few other eras in American history as monstrous. I won't go into my thoughts on election fraud & who pulled off 9/11 & exactly why the banks collapsed right before Bush left office -- I AM YOUR CRAZY UNHINGED TOTALLY UNREASONABLE CONSPIRACY FRIEND, LIVE WITH IT OR UNFRIEND ME NOW!!! --

But I voted in Y2K and the world went to hell in a Dooney & Bourke bag anyway. 

Orange angles, green skeletor

So were the Bush 00s the absolute worst years of my life? No. They were actually the best years of my life. It saddens me to say it, but 2000--2009 were absolutely magical for me. I was not untouched by the events of that era---quite the opposite. I was devastated and very psychically linked to 9/11 and the wars that followed. Not a day passed that I didn't mourn or relive or rage against Bush and his fraudulent administration. 

And one thing that was painfully clear to me was--this dumb redneck who couln't even pronounce words with more than 2 syllables was not running the show all by his lonesome. He was too dumb to conceive of and execute all the madness. I recognized his key players--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft.

These were the seasoned, well-oiled men pulling the puppet strings. And I had not voted for them. None of us had any choice about them.

BUT, I was young & in love, we had lots of cool friends, we lived very creatively & collaboratively, I think I was at the peak of my creative genius in the 00s! How fucking awesome is that no matter who is in office? No matter how many bodies are dying in a war you never would've chosen for the world? I lived the most authentic, most thoughtful life I could EXPRESSLY FOR those who sacrificed themselves for the Bush admin's lies.

I know….I can hear you all screeching about white privilege. But what did you know about white privilege in 2004? That wasn't a buzzword until we got our black(ish) President a few years later!

I knew it would happen. Moments after my heart ballooned with pride & Star Trek arias fast forwarded me into an all-inclusive future, on 11-4-08 I knew that the great white underbelly of America would surface from its soggy lair & expose itself in some perverse manner. And surface it did. Obstruct it did. Disrespect it did. Demand birth certificates it did. Undermine it did.

And until last year it was all pretty passive/aggressive. Until the vermillion billionaire rode the escalator of the Apocalypse into our midst and announced his own plan for world domination. Hope & change gestapo-style. Law & order without either. Walls. A WALL!!! A wall? To keep rapists out?

Sorry, I'm still reeling from things he said a year ago. And this is not just a gibberishy aw-shucksy redneck. This is someone who has said things I never even heard people say before PC code rearranged our everyday vernacular. Not even so disturbed by the obscenities as by the hatred.

ANYWAY, here we are. The day after Election Day 11-8-16. This outcome is still shocking to me and I've been typing this across the hours, trying to make sense of or find some sort of comfort in what America has chosen.

Because that's the hardest part for me--the people have spoken. And this is truly not what I expected them to say. I expected a tight race for sure! But not a Trump win. And I can only blame…people. Us. YOU!!!

Let's get one thing straight. I began as a Bernie supporter, and switched to being a Hillary supporter w/out too much misgiving. I don't think Bernie Sanders would've had much better luck than Obama has had with Congress. He's considered such a whack-a-doo lefty, he would've been obstructed at every turn. But Hillary is moderate, experienced and (I thought) fairly respected. 

I will admit that at 8 o'clock last night I was expecting her to win. And I had no illusions that it would be a proud Riot Grrl moment for me. This was not, for me, like the Obama election. 

Obama was a junior senator who had captured the nation's attention when he gave a speech at the '04 DNC. He rose from obscurity on his own merit. He was no one's partner or relative. He had a weird name & he was black (enough to be black).

Hillary is someone's partner or relative. She has been circling the Presidency for years, waiting for her moment to strike. She's been around a long time, working hard & even doing a great job in some areas. She is not a rising star though…she has not risen all by herself  like I would want my first female leader to have done.

I think I wrote a blog last year about this country not being ready for a female leader. We are still a nation of immature frat boys. And this is something I meant to reprimand you all for--your inner frat boys have been revealed. I have a few friends who supported Trump, who were able to sum up in an intelligent FB post why Trump was working for them & why he had earned their support.

That's fine--I can respect that. But I did have to unfriend a few really vocal, dickish guys whose Hillary hatred trumped their Trump love. These guys were not as hard for Trump as they were against having a GIRL be the boss of them. 

And that's sad for me. It reminds me of the sign that was posted at the hardware store where I used to buy art supplies. The store was owned and operated by a woman and the sign said "A woman must work twice as hard to be considered half as good as a man." 

And I feel like Hillary has worked AT LEAST twice as hard at being a public servant as Donnie Trumpo has. But….the people have spoken….

I really did think we were past that idiotic level of sexism. Just like I thought for a moment in '08 that we could finally get past racism. Now I know Barack may get gunned down the first time he has a broken tail-light back in Chicago…

And I know now that backlash against an authority figure is often more powerful than the authority figure itself.

THAT, my friends, is probably the only thing that comforts me in these hours directly after this election.  I have no real idea what Donald Trump will be like as a world leader, as a commander in chief, as a …god forbid…lawmaker. But I do know that if he fucks up left & right, we will let him know about it. WE, the People, will rise up and put an end to it. Demand an end, an impeachment, whatever it takes.

This I believe about us. I saw where the backlash against Bush led us… I am witnessing sadly the "whitelash" against Obama. There will be a backlash against Trump, and I think it will be tremendous. HUGE.

I just watched Hillary give her concession speech through my own unexpected tears! Then Obama spoke about unity and a peaceful transfer of power. I want to say how much love and respect I have for President Obama. I have felt honored to have such a kind, eloquent, composed person as my President and I'm sadder than I could've imagined that it ends this way!

Peace, friends! Love!

An Act Of God or Inactive God: Top Surgery part 3

Friends,

I'm feeling so much better than I did last week, and the better I feel the faster my memory of this adventure fades, so I'll try to wrap it all up in this post.

********

On surgery morning [10/4] I woke up feeling relaxed and foggy and detached. Exactly how I'd like to feel all the time, because who cares what happens when you feel that way? I could do so much more in this world if I didn't have emotions. I need a sympathectomy not a mastectomy. This is what my head was thinking instead of panicking

and I liked it.

But one thing did manage to creep into my psyche--would my snack from the night before interfere w/ the anaesthesia and would I be one of those people who was awake but couldn't move during the whole thing? Yay, thank you mind.

When I was checking in at the surgery center, I noticed they spelled my name with a 'Z' --  Zin? really?--and I had to do my paperwork all over again. Yay for that too. [This tiny, simple name that I've chosen has turned out to be very PRAWBLEMATIC. But more on that another time.]

I got called back to the prep area pretty quickly. I said adieux to Moonchild & put my bodily integrity in the hands of cold calculating medical professionals. I took off my clothes,  peed in a cup,  got a needle shoved into my hand, then Dr G came and drew purple lines on my chest. 

The anaesthesiologist came around this time & I asked them about how often people are awake under anaesthesia. And they looked at each other like, Not this question again. They both said That only happens on TV.

I felt better. Dr G had to run off to do someone else's surgery before mine, so Moonchild came back to my little hospital tent to hang out. I was feeling pretty relaxed. I was actually almost…excited about it!

Cartoon boobies

It seemed like I was lying in that tent for awhile--for the length of someone else's surgery--but finally the nurse came & gave me my "happy juice" as she called. it. And the next thing I remember…

…I was waking up and another nurse was standing over me saying "SHE HAD A SEIZURE!!!"

I tried to say "Who had a seizure?" But my voice did not work at all. The nurse noticed I was awake.

"VIN!!!! YOU'RE AWAKE, VIN!!! HOW ARE YOU? YOU WERE SLEEPING SO GOOD!!!" 

I tried to ask again about the seizure, but I still had no voice. The nurse patted my hand and said "WHY DON'T YOU SLEEP SOME MORE. DO YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU YOUR PAIN MEDICINE?" I nodded. She slipped some more happy juice into my IV & I slept for several more hours. 

When I woke up again I could tell it was late afternoon and I could see hurricane clouds swirling in the windows. My ALL-CAPS nurse showed up shortly to begin motivating me for departure. She was a real comedian, sort of reminded me of Aisha Tyler (comedy-wise not looks-wise). But she was really pushing for me to laugh and respond to her, and I just couldn't. I still didn't even have a voice. But the more I didn't respond the louder & more slapstick she got.

She made fun of my pink flannel shirt that I wore for its extreme softness factor: VIN,THIS IS LIKE AN OLD UGLY RUG AT MY GRANDMOTHERS HOUSE!!! As I was getting dressed I got dizzy & hyperventilated a little. She said "VIN!!! YOU'RE GONNA BLOW THE HOUSE DOWN!!!" And she fluttered the curtains at me. I felt like I was in a play again. I tried to laugh just so she would stop, but nothing would come out.

I could see the other nurse taking care of the patient across the way. She was a real Florence Nightingale, all tender and serene. But my nurse was … different from that. I'll just say she made the start of my recovery very memorable : )) And I never did find out who had a seizure, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't me because I felt okay and also…they were using my correct pronouns, so I was not 'She' to them.

Your tits are illegal. Cover'em up.

Moonchild & I made it back to our hotel room and I hovered in my Vicodin paradise as the Bahamas got battered and the death toll rose in Haiti. That evening the path of the storm shifted and it was headed right for us. Even in my haze I knew we would have to make some timely decisions about getting home.

And even in my haze I could tell I was pretty butchered up.  I was wrapped in a very tight bandage that seemed to be "holding everything together." And out of this bandage came dangling two bloody octopus tentacles. Aka "drains". 

Friends, I used to have an iron stomach. I could eat anything. I could inhale any odor or behold any gore without so much as a nostril twitch. I was an embalmer for the love of god. And even grosser, a taxidermist. I could ride any rollercoaster or carnival ride without puking. If my years of childhood bulimia trained my vomiting reflex to be voluntary, then my years of extreme alcoholism did just the opposite. 

I stand before you now, a wretched wretch who will retch at the slightest bee fart. I can barely watch food being prepared. I can't ride carnival rides, especially ones that spin around. I can't watch sloppy television programs like Shameless or The Walking Dead. 

So you can imagine how I felt about having to open up these octopus drains and squirt the blood out of them every few hours. I actually left that up to Moonchild, but every time I almost puked. I just had to tell myself, You cannot puke or you will bust open and be a slab of ribs & a beaty little heart w/ no protection. That worked.

[And I have to say that Moonchild missed his calling as a nurse! Anything I couldn't handle, he was right there handling it, blood, gore, psychotropic meltdown, et al.]

The pain was also a lot different than I was expecting. It felt more like I had been lasso'd by a piece of barb-wire right around where the girl-nips used to be(and under the arms) rather than sliced open. And even though the pain medication worked really well, the tightness and restriction of the barb-wire never went away. And I really had to keep my imagination in check or I would get all claustrophobic & panicky. Luckily the pain meds helped w/ that too.

[I know I sound like a huge druggie, but the best part of a medical vacation (aside from surviving the surgery) is the drugs. DON'T JUDGE ME.]

After watching the storm all night & calculating all the variables, Moonchild & I decided we would leave the East Coast early early Thursday a.m. Matthew was supposed to make U.S. landfall Thurs night or Fri morning and evacuations were starting in some of the counties just north of us. We didn't know what traffic would look like. I didn't know how my whole situation would hold up. But we wanted to be at home, not in a hotel during a hurricane.

So we packed up & got on the road at 5 am Thurs [10/6]. I tried to sit in the front seat but it was too much like a rollercoaster & I almost projectile vomited on the windshield. So I lay in the backseat watching the skeletal clouds dance. Traffic wasn't too bad & we made it home to find only 2 puddles of cat vomit waiting for us.

In the grand scheme of surgeries, I know this was a relatively mild one. But it was much more than I was bargaining for. I seriously thought I would be bedridden for about a week, then I would suddenly feel fine by the second week, back to writing and submitting and getting a goddamn haircut.

Scars & stitches & tape goo & legal nipples

But here it is three weeks later and the lasso has loosened, but I still feel like I'm leaning into a barb-wire fence. The healing process has been grueling. Getting my bandages & drains removed one week after surgery ( & driving to the E Coast again) was difficult. I didn't really want to see my chest while it still hurt so much. But voila! There it was, and my nipples looked really scary. Like they were barely attached and might peel off at any moment. Barf.

I rationed my pain meds so I was able to do my radio show 2 weeks after surgery. But shortly after that the Vicodin was gone and I was on my own. Week 3 without pain med = the hardest part of the adventure. (If I really wanted to throw my life away, I would start a slow dance w/ opiates right now. That is some pleasant shit. Luckily I still have delusions of making something of my life.)

Now starting week 4 post op and I'm doing fine on Tylenol and have resumed most normal activities. Nipples still attached and looking less pukeworthy. I'm starting to feel like this was all worth it after all. I was plagued by doubts for about 8 weeks but now I'm starting to be plagued by amazement.

And I'll be sending hurricane relief to the Bahamas and Haiti. I've been in the Bahamas during a hurricane & it ain't pretty. Now it just seems like the right thing to do.

So, I hope you have enjoyed the Top Surgery Adventure. One thing I can guarantee El Trumpo-style--there will never be a Bottom Surgery Odyssey here in the Octopus Diary. Believe me.

PHOTO DISCLAIMER: I'm aware my photos have been stolen & manipulated in the past. Yeah, I know about this. And though it's really creepy and invasive, I'm not going to let it stop me from sharing with people who may have interest in my story. If you need to steal my photos for your art, I'll let that be a reflection on you. Good Day.

Pre Op Psychoactive Euthanasia Yoga Party

FRIENDS,

On top of having phantom nipple pain I also have a monster headache today, so I will try to relay this portion of the story as justly & eloquently as I can…

**********

After watching the storm all weekend and seeing that it had stalled in the Caribbean, we took off for the East Coast early, early Monday [10/3]. We arrived at Dr Garramone's office at 9:43 for my 10:00 pre-op appointment.

One thing I didn't realize is that I would be sharing my 10 am appointment w/ about 5 other guys. We all had to fill out big packets of legalese paperwork that had some scary warnings & disclaimers. All stuff about how risky surgery is, how results may vary, how death is a possible side effect, etc…stuff I already know but prefer to remain cognitively dissociated from. It took me the longest to get through the paperwork, so I was the last one to see the doctor.

I could've been kinda upset about having to wait for 4 other people to see the doctor, but I was too excited to be upset. I realized that this was a once in a lifetime venture & I pulled on my big boy thong with lacy trim & waited. I was a little nervous about meeting the doctor as he is pretty legendary in the trans community. I expected him to be larger- and louder-than-life. But he was quite mellow and medium-sized. And way younger than I thought. 

I don't really remember what we talked about during the appointment. More scary stuff about where incisions would be made, and how I would have to take an active part in the healing process. Stuff I had meant to prepare myself for in the 6 weeks before surgery, but you all know that didn't happen. After the appointment, Moonface & I did all our preparatory errands--getting prescriptions filled, stocking up on post surgical necessities like Activia & compression socks, getting checked in to our hotel room.

It was late afternoon before we were settled into our room and my surgery-nerves were taking over. All the doubts & uncertainties I had held at bay for 6 weeks were now realities that loomed only hours away. I'd had surgery in my 20s and one thing I remembered (& was very worried about) was the nausea from the anaesthesia. I remember writhing in vertiginous torment for hours before finally throwing up gallons of bright purple liquid later that evening. I was really hoping to NOT relive that experience.

Luckily, someone was kind enough to supply me with a terrific anti-nauseant for this operation. I'll just call it a "medical edible" and assume you know what I mean. 

I was told this antidote was best eaten BEFORE the nauseating chemicals were administered. My plan was to have it as an evening snack and then just drift off into a peaceful, dreamless slumber. But…my nerves were already at the forefront & I wanted to shut them down. So I nibbled my medicine a little earlier--about 5 pm. We turned on the news to watch the storm a little. I started to feel a little relaxed. I thought, "This is great. Just what I needed."

Then we decided to go eat dinner. And, friends, I don't know what chemistry was at play here, but as soon as I ate dinner, the psychotropic properties of the "edible" kicked into high gear. And I was off on the most juvenile, overblown, exaggerated, unexpected fever dream/waking nightmare I've had since….

……I don't know…? ….7th grade?

Just what I did NOT want in the hours remaining before scalpel-time!!!

The first thing I felt was just disorientation and pure panic--I'M HAVING SURGERY TOMORROW!! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN???

And of course I was certain I was going to die. But I was going to be brave & die anyway, because what better way to die than during top surgery, right?

Then came the GUILT. Those of you who know me know I'm a master of guilt. I've been told I would make an excellent Catholic. Somewhere in my youth I must've gotten the message that feeling guilty about everything you do is super virtuous.

So I was a horrible person because I was spending all our savings on my selfish operation, I was guilty for hoping that the hurricane would hit anywhere else but SE Florida, I was guilty for putting Moonface through all my shit, I was guilty for being born female and not just accepting that. I was just a big hunk of guilty meat rotting on my bones & I can't even describe how HUGE the guilt was in my altered state. It was ridiculous. 

I felt guilty because I know people my age who have already survived breast cancer, and what would they think of me just volunteering to lose my two blobs of bitchflesh? Yep, I deserved to die.

I tried to remind myself that I DID need this operation, that I AM trans, there are words for it now, there is help out there for people who hurt in the way I do--not so much the physical way but that obscure unspeakable psychic pain that debilitates in separate but equal degrees.

But I couldn't convince myself of anything but horror and doom. 

After the guilt came a kind of sadness. I was pacing around our hotel room spouting guilt-gibberish & doing yoga because I knew I would be incapacitated for a few weeks (if I survived at all). I'm a pretty active person & I don't like how I feel when I can't exercise. So I was trying to get my joints & muscles all limbered up for their down time. It helped dispel some of the guilt & sadness.

Then things just got bizarre. I felt like I was acting in a play, mostly because the hotel room looked like a stage set. I kept asking Moon "Are we still doing a play?" 

A little after that, I started to see myself as a dog that was about to be put to sleep. I think I was even panting & jumping on the bed on all fours & treating Moonface like a dog would.

(When Moonface first moved to Florida he had a young Tibetan mastiff who died during surgery. And I kept feeling that the human version of that story was about to play out.)

ANYWAY…  this psychotronic diversion lasted for HOURS and was much more intense than I can describe adequately. It was really quite frightening for awhile!

I imagine most guys on their pre-op eves are happy, excited, sure they are doing the right thing & that they deserve it.

I did not have that experience. I was wracked with nightmarish questions & visions & doubts. And I'm sure that's how I would've felt with or without the medical edible--that just served to crank the volume of my neurosis up to 11.

BUT!!!! I did eventually drift off into peaceful slumber & had ZERO nausea after anaesthesia!! So you can bet I will be voting yes on Amendment 2.

***************

So, spoiler alert, I did survive the surgery. And perhaps I'll write a little bit about Surgery Day. Next time. In the Octopus Diary. 

Pre Op Detox: Top Surgery pt 1

Octies & Gentlepusses,

HTF are you??? I am fine in a post-surgical, not-quite-back-to-normal, all-my-Vicodin-is-gone-and-I-must-admit-I'm-no-longer-on-medical-vacation way.

That's right, last we "spoke" I had just made my appointment for Top Surgery & I was taking a hiatus from Octopusworld to get ready for it!!

And what an adventure this all became, from the moment I made my appointment, to this very moment 2 weeks after surgery, it has all been more than I bargained for. That's not such a bad thing; I know now that jumping right into the surgical portion of my transition was the right thing to do. I had planned on waiting til sometime in 2017 to do it, and now I am so glad I did not wait!

You all know I am a Hobbit. A hedonist. A kiddult who does not invite stress or noise or pain or people into my life lightly. I live my life in constant defense against those unpleasantries, so to schedule an event that creates lots of stress, pain & peopled-interaction is really against my religion.

But the money we had saved to turn our garage into a creative workspace was just burning a hole in our electronic spreadsheet after we learned that houses w/ garages are worth more than houses w/ a creative workspace & no garage. I proposed the idea of top surgery to Moonchild and he agreed that would be a good alternative way to spend our savings.

I asked him a few more times "Are you sure it's okay? Are you sure it's okay? Is it still okay if I make an appointment for top surgery?" And he kept saying yeah, it's okay.

 So I made the appointment. And I was immediately beset by panic & the reality of all the strength & nudity that would be required to get through this invasive medical upheaval.

I thought a good way to keep my panic in check would be to get really healthy. Detox, exercise, eat like a strict hipster-mommy bunny rabbit. Make myself feel like I was in control of my own flabby mortality.

But life had other plans for my pre-surgical waiting period. Just about everything that could go wrong in 6 weeks did:

A friend died.

My computer died. Stuff went wrong w/ the house. Stuff went wrong w/ the car. Stuff that usually doesn't happen to us kept happening.

Not to mention all the humiliating medical hoops I had to jump through. I was told I would need to get a mammogram before surgery and that flipped me out. I scheduled the mammogram for mid-September & spent all of August in abject fear of having to pull my tits out & put them in a vise.

But…the mammogram was no big deal. I dreaded it & dreaded it & it was over in the blink of a non-judgmental digital eyeball.

However…I was also required to get "medical clearance" from my physician. This I did not dread as much as the boob-fondling. And yet, it was so much more traumatizing.

Our usual doctor died last year and we have a new, young doctor whom I have not really gotten to know yet. During my medical clearance I discovered how little she's been paying attention to my holistic situation. She wasn't prepared to do my medical clearance, she thought I was there for a ….gross, I can barely say it….Pap smear. "Aren't we doing your Pap today?"

No. Look at my chart. When have I ever done a Pap? That's right--NEVER. 

I handed her the paperwork for my surgery--which clearly stated Chest Reconstruction for FTM Transgender Patient--and as she looked at the results of the previous week's mammogram she asked, "Why are you having a double mastectomy when your screens are benign?"

And I had to point out the part about being "transgender." And she seemed surprised, perplexed, dismayed and embarrassed. Which made me feel the same way, but worse.

I've been lucky on my "journey" so far to have a good network of local medical professionals who are invested in helping the transgender community. This was my first experience with a doctor whose mind it hadn't even crossed--oh this patient is on testosterone & is seeking chest surgery…but WHY???

Anyway--my intentions to achieve ultimate health and happiness before going under the knife were thwarted from all angles by life's tainted uncertainty. Instead I arrived at my pre-op appointment on Florida's East coast a stick of homo sapien jerky, gristly and fat and cranky and ready to bust into tears like the sissy boy I am.

Oh yeah…did I mention that the weekend before my surgery a hurricane formed in the Atlantic & was scheduled to hit FL that very day? 

The surgeon's office had called me on Thurs Sept 29th to tell me that they had received all my requisite paperwork & I was set to go!! And I had 24 hours of pure relief & happiness--This is really happening!! -- all dashed by Fri Sep 30th when I saw the weather report & the storm heading right for my operating room.

I was right back to wondering--Is this even going to happen?

Well, you all know it did happen, but there is more to the adventure. This was just the prologue. Unfortunately, I still do feel like a pizza with an autopsy (and two little Frankenstein-stitched nipples for pepperoni). So you will read the rest of this story as I'm able to type it.

I got to meet the holy god of top surgeons (Dr Garramone), I got to experience some lovely drugs, some interesting nurses, some body trauma I wasn't expecting…but the real pinnacle of insanity happened the night before the surgery. I will regale you w/ that adventure next time….

….in the Octopoussoir Diary!

**********************

Sorry I have no new writing or art for you. But remember, there's plenty of epic poetry sprinkled throughout the summer blogs to keep you RIVETED. And I can't wait to feel well enough to get back to it.

Obituary Of Consciousness

FRIENDS,

Will Donnie Trumpo die in an airplane crash a few days before the election? I don’t know. Only the Clintons know that.

But things could get interesting this Fall.

Your Octopus Diary has been getting lots of hits lately from Russia and China. I know Russia is looking for Hillary’s emails (I don’t have them), but what is China looking for??

I’m a bit paranoid about this. South Korea is also checking in occasionally. Hello my new friends & search engines to the east!

THE SERIOUS PART

Here is the serious part where I tell you a friend committed suicide recently.

We all think our friends are amazing, especially after they die. But when I say this girl/woman was amazing…extraordinary…magnificent…kooky…enigmatic…blunt…outspoken….

contrarian…humanitarian…

I couldn’t mean it more.

I hadn’t seen her since we were in our 20’s. But I thought of her often before Facebook, and then found her on Facebook. Still we didn’t interact much on FB –

I don’t think she admired me as much as I admired her—

But…strangely, when I was going through my Great Depression of 2014 I thought of her a lot, especially in those moments when I was barely holding on.

I knew she struggled w/ episodes of mania & depression. She struggled hard through those episodes & wrote beautifully about it in her ‘zine. (That’s what we had before Facebook Snapchat Tumblr Twitter)

And strangely, right when I was going through my horrible episode, she actually made contact with me on Facebook. We reminisced about our days as riot grrls in the 90s. (Riot grrls were people who did stuff besides type on the internet or hack the internet. They weren’t always girls, but mostly they were)

It really brightened my head for a few days to talk to her again.

And then she disappeared … as she was prone to doing.  I sunk back into the Great Depression. And I thought of suicide often. And Robin Williams committed suicide & I REALLY thought about it after that…

I understand the utter horror of feeling like ending your life is the only relief from your own demons…

So it really hurts me to know that my friend was suffering that badly & I had no idea & I couldn’t even find her online to reach out to her anymore…

I have to make a conscious effort not to think all day long about why she may have done it…how could she do it when she was so fucking great?

She spent time with Alzheimer’s patients. She enjoyed that. I would be scared shitless to spend time with Alzheimer’s patients. (You all know I prefer the company of dead people)

But that’s how amazing she was! And it hurts me that she didn’t know how much the world needed her.

She did not survive her final episode of depression, but I, a useless cynical anti-social mediocre piece of crap, did. How is this the way?

I am very grateful I survived, but I do have a little bit of survivor guilt going on.

Anyway, I could go on & on about how great my friend was…it may sound too cliché if I say anymore though…just know that this does not make sense to me.

All right, Friends. I hope you are all doing okay. Please know that I don’t subscribe to the “suffer in silence” motto. If anything is wrong, I am here. Send me a private message if you aren’t the type to openly express your tribulations. 

Installment Plan of Consciousness

FRIENDS!!!!

Here it is. The final installment of the Epic Poem. Yes, it is all one poem. I wrote it from daily notes I took while trying to …keep my mind distracted in 2015? Anyway it reminded me of Howl or some thing maybe Shakespeare would write. It's too long to submit to regular poetry places.

Luckily I can share it here until Trumpo & Putin come to silence me Pussy Riot style.

And, folks, enjoy it. Because for the next few weeks I will be concentrating on getting into optimal shape for surgery. That means I probably won't be sitting at my desk writing very much. So, yeah, this long long poem should get you through the summer.

TW: very very long poem w/ vitriolic nouns & verbal vinegar

**********************

OCT -- DEC

Part 4 begins w/ brain chemistry of fine silk

I'm finally drunk on oxygen

A bunch of angry guys claim they were raped by sorority sisters

I choose to believe

But I can't take the journey into light for them

A waning smirk of moonlight, too cowardly to lead

I expect to be punched not kissed on the lip

But there was the kiss--sent to my inbox

My face was dusted for prints of disbelief

A smear, a campaign to lure me from my cave?

3 million 4chan orphans displaced from their basements, Can we give them asylum? Change their diapers between

Games? (collect their baby pictures from the mantles of their mental health)

Will they find new hide-outs in younger mothers' wombs?

My skin erupts in lesions just thinking about it. Sunspots, indoor cancer. I can't combat the rash of refugees. FU Jesus, I choose to read the enemy's manifesto. To know him as I knew myself at the console of my inguinal triangle.

An epic hallucination, young hive-master! Low-fiving all reset buttons to childhood. Fetushood if possible. Separation of church and sperm.  Integration of egg & stake. All over my hand like lava. Just wait 3 weeks. 

(20 days to be exact--new egg anatomy is external jelly with shell embedded. New egg law = must soak in saline cup until man woman & census takers agree there's room for one more)

Resist the moon-colored half-tablet

You may still be the star of YouTube's panic attack culture, for yours are rare gems not just pearls clutched for attention. Well, that was my nervous break, off to the clubs now!  Cancel my sympathectomy.

Bitch be trippin in her own ego boots. I roll my eyes that barely qualify as art supplies. With my own pastel brown I doodle more bloodshot, heart-tattoo eyes. I forget to breathe at the psychiatrist's & she charges extra for my monotone hysteria.

I just met my family again. I remember them. New people in there now, some young ones with the same pastel eyeballs I got in the genetic whirlpool app auction. Unnerving feature film so familiar yet utterly foreign (& subtext buried next to its open wound interpretation). I wanted to be the highest octave of Iroquois DNA but my lilting jewel-tone heart particles will go on.

I'm packing my 2-spirit suitcases & taking flight, Across the highway--a phallic trajectory in my second class seating chart citizenry. Why do I always sit by the tall guy, the loud chick, the farting asshole, the fat lady on the snake-bodied plane? Why do they always have to sit next to the compact perfectly polite silently judgmental prick?

Psychotronic interference on a dead doctor's birthday, the curse still hangs in the air. A sword of Damocles edged into a twist above the toilet. You never noticed it there before, hanging by a thread of your own hair. And did you notice the frog in the bowl before it menaced your bits like a rubber missile? You laughed, the curse is lifted!

Now you may walk out of jail. Into a sun-drenched paranoia, roomier than orange jumpsuits but still your throat's zipper tightens. You close the deal in a beige handshake bandage room. The sterile hugs, the remains of a Japanese lunch in your teeth, let's get this done. My brain ballooning like a buyer's market in technicolor popcorn bursts. My past haunted cement gun meadow grey.

The new neighborhood is not a kinghood, clergyhood or mayorhood. Already uncovered lesbian hearts on both sides &  oh my, a gay couple walking their mop dogs. A pox on our community? I wait for the signs. Stop octagons bonding with unholy suds. Stick figure vaginas v. full feature length penis film. Transgressive cult v. wholesome family. 

There will be no close-captioned karaoke in this subdivision. My own mind ghetto gentrified even if Billy Bob remains behind the fence. A ghost w/ a leafblown intelligence quotient, pouring gasoline on the notes that come from my throat. Busy red-necked ghost, busy busy body, industrious & loud about it & constant as a black dog panting and skirting the body fence, liberally musking my personal property line, panties drying in the sun's pre-paranoid glare.

A panther & a snow leopard displaced from their privilege by ghost dogs. We must remember to honor ghosts. They are most unruly when they are feeling snubbed, shut out of the awards ceremony. We would be nothing without the post-traumatized spirits left here as bellhops for our human baggage bondage felineage chimpanzeal firearmature! MARTYRDOM!  DIM SUN!  Create more roles for dearly departed supporting souls!

 [Post mortem gentrification of their timid zoo exhibit safe spaces] Relocated to a new cage. Strange scent. Sharky texture, taste of other panther dander in the air. These fierce cats dive whisker-first into the sand, into the leopard-spotted arms of Mother Nature.

Glitching rosettes make an artificial animal print. Botched gardening job marketplace for code farmers & seed hackers. I used long chains of ridiculous words to keep the curse from crossing the highway w/ all my treasured mortal contraband. I crossed my fingers and toes and hair, praying uptightly that my luggage-baggage hybrid cherished its carousel moment in a fluorescent aura'd concourse.

Build a wall of American babble! Tall words from the Bible--use thee & thine conservatively, beget a liberal nubile, sayeth unto airport security, 'break a non-stop leg.' Continuity of literal & figurative skeletal structure. Stick figures in the freezer, to microwave later in favor of full feature length meal. 5 courses. Gate 11C. 

You don't appreciate your mind until its gone. Neither do I.

I'm so blessed my mind came home & I fed it fish. I had sex w/ it and we listened to the radio's smoky echo. You have a filter and I doesn't. You have fiberglass between you. I have no barrier between worlds, physical or meta. My mind called the dj when the song was done saying fuck, you should be a bartender or somethin man, a microphone guru, a reversion therapist. Monday comes and I tell it to get a job. It writes poetry into a computer & tests it for lead and other poisons. Botulinum, oleander, plagiaristic ivy fibers.

Magically the karma juggles itself & I jack off to a higher authority while my mind watches. One thing is, today requires white male wasps to mention masturbation. I jack off. I jack off. I jackoff. Congratulate me. I can handle myself. Watch, mind-witches!

I won't debate magic. It has no captions. It's not smart enough to understand itself; magic is its own sexy assistant. How did the clowns become Republicans? They were the original tiny car people with so much parasympathy. They were bottle vegetarians, corn worshippers by nature, and the females' menstrual blood is blue, just like in commercials.

How did they become red-face black-blooded meat-worshipping anti-shamen in just eight years' time journey? How public-served the platter of media-built Femicrat hedonism, destroying all fragile male china egos on the tile floor?

First heart-boulder passes from my body like a kidneystone. An arduous journey through tollbooth nerves. Every micro-inch a toll, ever fibrous mile a scalpel dragged across the land, manifest surgery. Big pulsing emerald in your chest, treasured only a few months before inexperienced father orchestrated rage robbery. Birth-heart stolen but a new jewel crushed under the weight of your carbon inhale, waiting to be coughed up in the name of love.

Unpack your Samhain candy from its wrappers. Your treasured sugar weakness has got you through many job interviews, past your tollbooth of teeth so orgasmically. No exaggeration, sugar ten times sexier than cum. And no sweet baby candy lottery liability, never knowing what you'll get.

Give your candy flu to perimenarchaical children, banging your Westminster door/clock chimes. You think they have no idea how their skin feels against your eye. But they love every squirm of your gaze. Subconscious innocent level of a game called human nature 4. Play now. 

Tear through the ionized wind in your golf cart limo, open to clowns but occupied by detergent-white beachfront I-can-afford-to-be-eccentric look-at-me, but-not-too-closely privilege. Eccentrics are out early today, like the homeless. They lean against my denial, clowns tied to Salem circus tent stakes.

Children, you're not yet 3-D. Prince of yourself! Duchess of true evol future link asexual asylum homoerotic solution to one percent beasts v. 99 problem angels. Kings & queens of Darwinning, the -ism of the chosen, risen from templates only dreamed of in blogspots, only available through underground surgeon hand me ups in the past operating waiting birth defect peasant room. To coin a bitter phrase, these sacrificial angels come in SASEs. 

Lick the skin's torn zeitgeist envelope, from throat to inguinal triangle autopsy, a corner officer whistles at traffic flown against the coroner's octagon of stop. Stop unzipping in the news from a gunshot's inner untold ballistic behaviour. Bits of centipede coined on the sidewalk. Segments step off, mind the crack, untrained, deplaned, uber alles.

Brown November is a raw unloved nerve. A wonderland without production. Lilliputian & silver-leafed, mental angel snow not yet fallen on your marriage. A 30-day headache planted phantoms in uterine cortex, remembering the dawning of your estrogen, your incipient monsterhood. When I was 12 I wanted to be left-handed so badly I almost contracted incurable epilepsy switching right brain bulb on. This girl blinded herself w/ Drano in late adolescent spring. I drank a crystal mixture to end it all, Drano in November '88 election Fall.

Never forget. She is someone I'd like to be friends all over. Between with and without, I'd be her within. As long as I am without me forever. And him to future along, like space luggage.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder before Racial Dysphoria? We'll see at the next Mental Illness Olympiad. 

Illness around as long as brains. Brains came from cum inside and after eggs. I am channeling ee cummings for once. This is almost impossible to do. Thank you all combos of my triplicate code which I won't reveal to hackers uninvited. Undisclosed. Dislocated.

There were defects in the very first assembly line in Heaven and we can see them today, still on our roadways. Our visible growth plates so medium-sized our egos can hardly bear to look. The counted calories of evolution, the hatchmarks of how tall our generosity, our eggs so alone in their wide personal space berths.

Our HiQs and Mensa muscles are being destroyed by the print media low brow mogul bullying from inside publications that promote self-scrutiny and drunken consumerism. My mind is menstruating all over the map. Mouth down under drooling opiate necklaces, masses of platelets tip-toeing tectonically from great facial invagination. My lost tooth loses no uterine pulp. Pure, clean, genderless blood to the eyeball barrister, only a microscope jury reveals the deep XX impurity. Even hormones of god won't fix that!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trans men & their liar bios. I can't be stealthy, I bleed from wherever all over the couch. Onto cheap squares of cotton sewn by children into the core of my being. All my emotions in that spillage. Never once cried until 2014 levee breakage leakage fractured eye socket bio. Made and broken in Taiwan bio, graphic alliterative anime bio. I'm not proud but I'm covered in egg. Humbled by boys I never knew as girls, as they know my ugly embarrassing ancient pronoun life w/ the most dishonest autobiographical deadname telling the story of a lounge act whore. With that name hunting me down everywhere eyeballs were? Storing data about my failed feminine attempts.

Enjoy it. Slurp it up, boy-bitches! You are not the enemy but you humiliate me anyway. And I'd rather be body-murdered than ego-shamed. Guess who'll kill anyone who uses 'butt-hurt' in a sentence-- the Governor of your own for-profit prison system. The more you trap yourself in your wonderland of hate the more you can pocket all the time and watch every chronic addict trapped in zipperspace, cyber solitaire aquarium, buttonhole prophet dimension. Still roaming in a black out, a planet foreign as a country on a cruise you never took from a port of call you never made to your mother about that recipe for noodles. Enjoy it. Slurp it up.

Edit me out of this place, Magic Carpet Cab Co. My address covered by your insurance, on your beaten persian pathway. No zeros, ones on this triplicity's civic search engine. My memory's a three layer lasagna for visual learners, or garage surf salary for the auditory special needs aka annoying other mothers' loin fruit recipe. Figure out this 3-line enigmatic stanza generator.

Skate away w/ me on the brown ice of post apocalyptic Thanxgvng. Magic carpet GPS delivered me to a doorstep vaguely sadistic, no definitive landmarks announce my homecoming, I ring a doorbell, a family answers & invites me in. I have two thumbs, an eye, a heart, maybe even a spade. Passing as human again.

I cut back on my meds, have a girl scout cookie, drug-choice of childhood. Fetal lemon bars sucked & pooped past homunculus umbilicus. Newly minted, chocolate smeared, news delivered in envelope skin next generation clairvoyant in that artificial manner. I laugh because once I foretold the news & now I'm supposed to respond.

I didn't have the psychic chromosomes, I had to write them in. My own liberties left a long empty line for character assassination. Or spontaneous religious combustion. I call my alter companion personality. My first amendment freedom fighter on a blastocystic level, founding fathers down to their cell walls. Exploding in print across the pond in Paris, then the most vicious Dear Jacques letter, sprayed w/ a perfume of gun powder, cauterized flesh.

The romance farted & died.

A "transgendered" luncheon I hardly remember w/ my lasagna brain. How many "transgendereds" have Jesus, have always felt Jesus, when I could only smell the death of man in any moldy Bible cobweb church pew tomb. I need to get home to my toolbox. Some assembly prevents suicide. Give me privilege or give me death-meth-math-mothballs-huge inheritance-thanks grandma.

Did Vin survive Juliet's nervous breakdown, or was it his all along? If I keep writing long elastic automatic assault paragraphs like this one we may find out before another mediapocaplyse distracts us from squirrel sunset leafblower corroborated horror story on a frontpage porch to the south, I read this whole life sentence & nobody yawned, nobody ranted, nobody posted how blessed on Facebook, brag about being horny again, off the SSRI nightmare circuit, you reflect the ideal orgasm candidate. Poster child for rubbing & rubbing & tugging & growing number. A vertical tear. A lateral wardrobe change, a skin costume graft & even Goodwill won't touch your social leprosy. 

I must be responsible for sounding the trigger alarms I know I will trip in so many pretty heads. You can't do that parallax twilight see/monkey saw zone life sentence episode. Season six forever. You have been warned, I expect no flowing of diagonal citizen crocodile cop tears. I expect lateral cooperation -- I am a student trapped in a professor's body.

Ghost was a blowjob queen. She boos & hoos all night about the chore. It's all ghost-poet gibberish, it comes out paranoid, a bouncing paycheck of vocab babble, vernacular tabernacle cackle. Walls surrounding american family life. Ding-dong! Edit the evolution. We must go faster for we should've been there by now.

Edit the elastic parameters of poetic justice, license platelets. No plasma gravy w/ art in our time. Dinner time! Come & edit the errors, enlarge the algorithms of success! Use exclamations for utmost urgency. What Chinese exclamations tattooed on the bud-tender's arm length? Beauty! Motherhood!

Beasts. Fairy tales told to knocked up teenage women of any plastic terminal number. I order a strain of chronic pie so potent. I order an ounce of perpetual crumbs, a stay at home calendar, lost before I could crack the packaging. Bonding with nature in synthetic fibers. Congratulations on the mists of your oblivion!

Stoneybrook the institute for the Study of Masculinities. More than one kind of man? The gun kind? The baseball kind. The preacher kind? The disappearing kind? The magician, Pope, king? That lean power hunger turned to fat in the business factory? Dad factory too(not as many safety regulations as mom's disputed suicide birthday factory) The 80% in Congress, the 99% of the 1%. Pacman minus sliver of pie story is his. We make his story pun at her expense? Or we pay her to be our friend/wife/prostitute for eternity? Blowjob dad dude babysitter lover, rose petal begrudging against wallet pocket bulge not rushed by blood, thirsty for penetration of mob mentality, not that bulge, oh no… I meant the distant bulge of the 11th dimension Y chromosome curiosity dictating pattern of human evolution…

Never ask me to believe you are the victims, victory speech troll venom. We all fucking win. Gender studies as a stanza--how's that working for ya? 

Inability to think thoughts that have any neural traction. Every thing must come by divine insight or be totally overlooked. Alzheimer's Eve. Making sense is something I never was good at. Song lyric bird nest alphabet soup endorsement from a high friend, in places we never ought to insert our espionage.

Friend request from a little fucker I haven't seen in a long time--let be fwend!! I was always your friend, mate. You let go of my smile, my hand-picked summer. I had to replace you w/ cherries. It sucked, so sour to the triskadelic heart valve twisting aperture into your fresh sushi mind. I love you, it's nothing more complicated than that. You are the one I would be if I were born in your place. Simple as that.

The Last Few Suppers of The Year bring poisoning. Ghost germs & vampiric bacteria won't die under acidic duress. So back up the bulwark they flow, oystering vomit valve in paroxysms, rewinding the last few suppers and dropping them in the return slot. What's that? Anachronism. Someone wrote this poem long after I did. Someone rewound a Pollack in the bathroom at an auction. Depreciation at its finest hourglass figure. Slash salary.

Itch from the auction last hourglass shower, undulating lemniscate of skin, it retracts claws, licks infinite landscape of cell growth in favor of laser expensive hijinx technique. Itch for the trigger, be your own undoing, the leaning lurching listing tower of Belle Reve. But the finger landed on a trigger in California…

San Bernardino cubicle terror. Radicalized accountants. Obedient wife & weapon between desert & ocean gap. Pay with your blood for being dickish american money monks. Keys to abandoned house--leave baby out of it! Bring more guns to focus, cameras to wear like journalistic mind insulation. And we got'em & their secrets dead too lying silent, never again tweeting like stool pigeons. Shit doves. 

Learn a lot from terror seminars. How to use "upsell" tactics. From shit-covered cross sections of wildlife to all Allah entitlements covered by extravagance insurance, you will appreciate at auction. Under [preferred god] beauty is no longer "feminine" Comedy is no longer "masculine" 

How we tell who we want to fuck? It's up for debate. Live scripted television chowder-headed chutney-faced debate. From this pool of infinite lemniscating genius figurines. Not a famous poet or photographer among them, though our most recent national embarrassment knows how to paint. He cleanses his karma with linseed oil. So far it's working. 

I know how to undo things.

I am a famous poet, a rocket scion test subject, I am someone who says 'I am' all day long, I am this, I am that…hear my voice in the next paragraph, like Wonder Mike in Rapper's Delight, spilling my guts, big bold automatic thought noodles. So no one accepts these empty bliss baskets

Blessing bags w/out socks, or whiskey. Sounds of cursing on the curb.

I was expecting an older gentleman!

I am an older gentleman.

NO!!!! Nooo. You're a lovely young lady!

And there go my radiance & confidence in matching foot-hurt steps to the Twilight's eerie anti-tune, zoned for horror but lying within deed restricted limits. I read for the Long Boat Key crowd, then knock myself out of the park, Hindu cushion, ersatz post modern foreskin…

…this foreshadows what's to come. Tarantula venom. A real toll for the burning bridge behind you and you pay with patience decades long, and you pay again with money, continuous wads, no lump sum for the body gods. You pay again w/ dignity, your guinea pig status hung low on the totem pole's scrotum. And you pay once more with the knife, good old time travel blade distorted shapes and cookie cutter scars for life. Faded memories meow from the Xmas void. Past presents, we ask and tell our parents for hours. Conjure future-shaped saint relatives.

I can't catch the slung shrapnel of arrows but I have a strange new forcefield now. Field of aroused sprouts, herbs & succulents. Keeps me immune to stink eye, beak-play, public execution, for unlawful carnal knowing, displayed in splayed tarantula stockade, cross-hatch crucifix unstunk by eye contact from this future of folklore that couldn't possibly walk in the flip-flops of Mesopotamia. 

Cradled callous in foreskin forcefield footwear, your keratinized journey kernel bursting open in vertical tears along the horizon, your cognitive counter-melody, your powerful & aroused human traffucking, leaving the garden lush, warm plastic snow in a Xmas globe. 

6-8-16