This Blog is Moving to a New Location

Hi, and thanks for stopping by! In order to save time and consolidate my creative efforts, I'll no longer be posting any new entries on this blog. Instead, you can find all my transgender materials at:

HeartCorps.com

And all my newest writings, photographs, original music and videos on my web site at:

MelanieAnnePhillips.com

Working Weekend

Ya know, I seem to be posting in this blog (as opposed to my other eleven) most often of all these days. As I've mentioned before, I just feel a lot more free here to express myself. It's the one place that nobody will be offended or put-off if I mention a little something about transgender issues in the course of casual conversation. Feels like this here place is closest to my heart, even though it seldom touches on my art, my science, or any of the other myriad of things in which I engage and about which I ponder.

This blog entry is entitled, "Working Weekend" so I guest I best get on with that - at least as a starting point, and then (more than likely) I'll drift off topic like Andy Rooney on "60 Minutes", as usual.

I'm self-employed. Have been, more or less, since 1980 when I went freelance in the movie biz as a director, editor, writer and producer of everything from low-budget features to educationals, industrials, and even a few local television commercials. In fact, as the first of many side-notes, the first feature film I directed, The Strangeness, is coming out on a 30th anniversay DVD release in August with all kinds of bonus features like audio commentary by myself and my two partners in the project. It was a hoot getting together after all these decades about this old project from our college days.

Point is, I'm self-employed. So, to support my family then, and to support me and Teresa now, I have to keep at the game to some degree, pretty much all the time (especially in this economy).

Since 1991 I've spent most of my time teaching writers how to write better fiction. Sometimes I do seminars or ongoing classes, but mostly I create software to help writers structure their stories and also sell DVDs, books, and audio programs I've created to teach the Elements of Story Structure and the Art of Storytelling.

Now, I'm definitely interested in this topic but not as much as my time spent on it would seem to indicate. In the end, though I love to share what I've learned, it is really just business when done to the degree that's required in order to keep the wolf from the door.

Gets a little thin. Nonetheless, there it is. But it takes a lot of gumption to get myself geared up for the neverending battle.

A couple months ago I got it into my bonnet to post all my recorded archives on the interent as streaming videos, mp3s and such, so I could shake this sense of obligation as custodian for all the philiosphies and understandings I've come up with over the decades and have never shared before.

I'm well along into that now, though there is quite a bit more to go. But, since it doesn't make any money, I have to do it in addition to my work efforts. And truth be told, I don't really like either of those endeavors much.

So here I am on a Saturday, bright blue sky and temperatures around 80, just a week into Summer, and I'm converting to mp3 the soundtrack from a 12 hour video series on story structure I recorded in 1999. No don't that just beat all.

I was watching Garth Brooks on a five DVD set I bought at Wal-mart a couple years ago before we moved from Gold Country in California up here to Salem, Oregon. Never opened it until today. In fact, I haven't felt like watching any of the 300 DVDs we own for some months now.

I'm missing my kids who are back in California. I'm missing my friends who are back in California. I'm loving Oregon and wishing everyone else would quit their jobs and sell their homes and come up here to live near me. Not likely though, I imagine.

But today - well it feels like one of those Sundays (yeah, I know its Saturday, but it feels more like a Sunday). It feels like one of those Sundays in the early Summer in California whan I was a kid - even before my mom remarried when I was seven. (She got divorced when I was one).

We lived at my grandparents' place during those intervening years in a modest home on a quiet residential street. On Sunday afternoons in the early Summer there was a gentle golden color to to light. Often slight breeze would blow in through the open screenless windows and softly rustle the lacey curtains on the two side by side windows on the front of the house in the dining "nook" area we ambitiously referred to as the dining "room".

In those days, I could walk out into the back yard and there were no walls along the property lines. Sure, there were chain link fences in this housing development from the 40s and early 50s (our house was built in 51 I believe). And there were no heavy hedges or eye-blocking plants along the fencs. It seemed so open to a small child. I felt I could look up and down the backyards of the stree (we were in the middle of the block) all the way to forever - to adventures I had not yet lived. (Imagine my surprise if I could see my life today!)

There was such a feeling of peace and that all was right with the world. I had one of those childhoods free of abuse or anger and filled with love and freedom to just be me. (It was only as I spent more time in school that I came to understand that the world isn't as kind a place as that and you have to build a shell and wear a mask, even with friends, even all the time, even to yourself lest you see just how little your life of compromises resembles the real you and to experience a pain to grat on account of it.

Garth is doing "Friends in Low Places" now - my favorite song of his.

Well this Saturday feels like those Sundays from my early childhood. Kinda all Tom Sawyer-ish, without the dangerous parts.

Miss my mom a lot. She's been dead these twenty years now. I've never really cried for her the way you'd think I would. I guess I just don't feel that she's really gone. She just stopped.

And so I think I will too.

God, what a lonely night!

Sometimes I like to be alone. Sometimes I virtually require it. But not tonight.

Teresa and I went on a hike today to a pond we discovered in the wilds of a nearby park. You trapse through 8 foot high grass along a deer trail for about ten minutes, then cross a wide meadowy area, and then climb down a steep hill covered in thorny blackberry brambles.

Don't ask me - we like this kind of stuff.

Well, anyway, last time when we discovered this pond it was about 500 feet long and a couple hundred feet wide. There were huge fish in it - a couple feet in length, some of 'em, and lots of 'em!

And there was something else in the water - beavers! At least, we thought they were beavers, frolicking in the water like otters. But, after I uploaded a video of it all on You Tube, it turns out they were Nutria. Now that's a beast I'd never hear of in California, but here in Oregon they are well known.

It is kinda like a two foot long rat - a rat's tail, but the head of a squirrel and the body of a beaver. And it likes water.

In California, as I discovered on a web search, they were eradicated in 1973. But in Oregon, Washington, Texas, Florida, Lousiana and such, they prevail. Some love 'em 'cause they're cute. Others see them as vermin.

Point is, when we came back this time, the pond was completely dry! As we discovered once we negotiated the brambles, there was a kind of channel to the Willamette River that fills the pond during the Spring rains and melt-off from the Cascades. When the river falls, the channel is blocked and the pond is land locked.

The fish swim in during the high water, get stuck and then follow the pond down during the four weeks it takes for that huge body of water to completely vanish.

So, once we got onto the pond bed, there were no Nutria to be seen. But after topping a low hill that used to be an island, we found the fish. Scores of them, lying dead on their sides in various stages of decay.

And as we approached, but buzzards took to the air. There were about a dozen of them, having their annual feast. Some fish were just bones and a head. Others were fully plump and untouched, still half submerged in the last puddles, but all dead.

I'm glad we were that late because if I had found them when they were dying I would have felt obligated to try and save them, and I don't need that kind of job right now. Why? Because it is a lousy night to be lonely.

I felt REALLY lonely on Father's Day. In fact, I had to call my son to tell him I was going to make it easy for him to wish me a happy Father's Day. That was after six O'clock at night. He wasn't even going to call.

Now, y'all know he works for me doing my shipping, and I live about 1,000 miles away from him to the North. He was always kind of a hermit. So I wasn't feeling lonely and sad because he didn't call. I was feeling crappy because I have this clarity now.

It's been building, and yesterday, Father's Day, I woke up with a big dose of it that hasn't left me since.

You know that song by the "Who" that says, "I can see for miles and miles"? Well now I can.

I see how I was so self-focused in my career, and then self-focused in my transition that it was all about me. Oh, sure, I showed up for every school play, took my kids to beaches and museums, hung a little present for them on the shelves in the living room at Christmas time every night when I had to work late and couldn't see them before bed.

Thought I was the greatest Dad ever! But that was just more of my own egocentric self - coming from the head, not the heart, full of self-righteousness, so sure of the correctness and fairness of my actions on behalf of others that I never stopped to listen to what they were trying to tell me.

I always gave presents at holidays that I wanted people to have - what I thought they should have - not what they really wanted. Sure, the presents were in the categories they enjoyed, but weren't the things they wanted.

And most of all, they wanted me, for some inexplicable reason. God, when I left Mary she said, "you have to do what you have to do" and I took it as cold and unfeeling. In fact, she must have been torn to pieces inside when I left after all I had put her through with transition. And what she was saying was she still didn't hold it against me.

And I f**king took it as coldness.

THAT's what I'm talkin' about!

I've been that way all my life. Probably learned from my mom, God rest her soul.

So now, rather than a lifetime of memories of just holding my kids, playing board games with them, taking Mary to her favorite places - instead of that I've got a head full of memories of me pressuring and cajoling others to follow my lead, go to my places, get my love on my terms only - and I've got an empty heart full of regret, if that isn't a contraditction of terms.

So togight Teresa is feeling under the weather and has gone into the bedroom to sleep it off. I'm alone in the living room.

I called my step dad yesterday and his mind is going. And they've got him on some sort of pills he didn't want and they insisted and now he can't even remember where he lives. Damn! And I hardly ever visited him.

Sure I held some grudges about him not being forceful enough to insist my mom go to the hospital when she took sick and then died. But, of course, I didn't insist either. But that's okay, right? After all, I'm a girl at heart and don't have that kind of assertiveness. Bulls**t!

Just more of my self justifications. Mom needed me and I wasn't there for her. She died. My dad must've been heartbroken and there I was actually telling him I thought it was his fault and that I didn't respect him - him, the man who stayed up all night to finish a homework assignment for me - him, who became scoutmaster for two years so I could have a troop to go camping with. What a bastard. (Bitch now, of course!)

Seems I'm not heard anybody, projected my own interpretation of their actions and their intent.

So why my daughter still thinks to send me flowers on Father's Day and write a loving note and taleks to me several times a day on email - well it just eludes me. And Mary sent me a gift certificate for Amazon.com. Me, who left her, moved 1,000 miles away and ran up our debt on the equity line for all my surgeries over the years that she's now paying on her own because my credit is so crappy due to chasing toys that she had to take the re-fi loan out in her name and her liability only.

What a creep I am!

So, as I sit here lonely and full of self-ridicule and regret, I thought I'd call my daugter since it is Monday and she works 12 hour from 9 to 9. But no email came in today. And me email to her went unanswered. And her cell phone just goes to message.

And I emailed Mary and haven't gotten a reply. And I emailed our friend Alan (Teresa's former fiance - Yeah, I did that too....) He and I are the best of friends. He spends he full two weeks of vacation each year visiting us, 1,000 miles away from his home, one week two times a year. But he didn't respond to his email either.

And my dad's cell phone just goes to message. And my words just go out in this blog. And the recorded program on my DVR is doing the only talking in the room, save for the two remaining cats we have whom I'm ignoring their desire for companionship in order to write this, just like I ignore eveyone else. And I think of the two cats we lost and how many times I ignored their innocent overtures to pet and snuggle.

Yeah, the sun is just going down. Last rays disappeared a few minutes ago. The sky will be full dark in a little over an hour. And I'll be here. All alone. Separated from all those I should have been so closely tied to, save for my poor Teresa feeling ill and sleeping in the other room.

God, what a lonely night!

Father's Day for the Transsexual

Just a guick note. Thought it might be worthwhile to write something about Father's Day, 20 years after transition.

Well here's the scoop. My daughter sent me fresh Sunflowers (my favorite flower) by special delivery from California (I live in Oregon now). The arrived on Friday (py phone she told me they don't deliver on Saturday or Sunday).

I always had a dream of a an older- style, 1880's house with a white picket fence around a flower garden that featured sunflowers. Well, I've owned a couple of homes, but none like that. And due to the modern age of the houses and the cultural environment, such a garden wasn't practical.

Here I am in Oregon, living in a modern apartment, but my daugter remembered my favorite flower and thought enough to send it along. With a note:

"I love you very much, my Mel. Thank you so much for all your support over the years. I have so many wonderful memories of us together and look forward to creating many more."

Well that sure warmed my heart a bunch. As long as the flowers last, I've got that white picket fenced garden in my heart - bless her soul.

Now, my son... Well, he's a typical 30 year old man. He doesn't express his feelings well, though he is quite a wit in terms of expressing humor. Even as a child he was a bit of the hermit, as we tried to get him into little league and soccer and karate and sea scouts, but he never lasted long, losing interest, mostly in the social aspects.

We paid for him to attend an automotive school in Laramie, Wyoming after high school, but he was the loner there as well and didn't have a very good time. Even when he was called up cold and asked to work for Mercedes Benz in Beverly Hills just weeks after finishing his studies, he found the environment lonely and felt isolated.

Since then, almost for ten years now, he's worked for me, handling all my manufacturing and shipping out of the home where he lives with his mom in California.

He's got a great character - caring to the point of hurting when others are having a bad time of it. Sharp as a tack. And without a mean bone in his body. He calls me every couple of weeks with some exciting thing that happened, sends me emails with links to things that please him, and since we do business together, we're going back and forth with email and the occassional business phone call all the time.

Being the no-nonsense kinda guy he is, he prefers to send gift cards, and has made that his mark with everyone for the last five years or so. Haven't gotten one from him yet, but expect I might, since he usually sends an Amazon.com certificate.

Mary, my wife, sent me a $25 Amazon certificate just this morning. She also hates to shop for just the right gift, which is (I guess) where my son gets it from. But isn't it wonderful that though we haven't lived together for about eleven years now, we're still married and she thinks enough to send anything at all? In fact, she often sends cards, very sweet ones, with the warmest greetings for both myself and Teresa with whom I'v lived for the last decade.

Now Teresa is a bit uncomfortable about Father's Day. First of all, she didn't have kids before transition and always has felt deprived of a true parental experience. When we were living in CA when we first got together, I tried to involve here in the raising of my kids so she could have some of that feeling.

She's been very well treated by Mary and the kids, who give her presents at Christmas (in fact we often go down to CA and share Christmas together). My daughter corresponds with Teresa by email all the time.

But, Teresa's always felt a little uncomfortable with being a pseudo-parent - especialy one who "took their father away", though we all know I was already preparing to move out when I met her. But that's another story.

Teresa is also a bit gun-shy of the holiday as she and her father have only spoken by phone since her surgery back in the late 1980's. As a result, she was unsure of whether to even wish me a happy father's day until I brought up the subject a bit earlier.

My own dads - I've got two - are on better terms. My step-dad lives in a convalescent home in California. He had a minor stroke a few years back and has a few minor disabilities that make it easier for him to live there than on his own. He also was never a very good money maker, so he really doesn't have the funds to live on his own anyway.

When he had his stroke, I came to see him in the hospital every day until he was out of danger and able to look after himself and move into a recovery home. Since my transition, he's never called me by my new name and still refers to me as "he". So, when I get his calls on my birthday or Christmas, it's "Hi, David!"

He does this not out of meanness, but out of love. He is a born again evangelical Christian, and considers what I have done an abomination. BUT - he is NOT a hypocrate. In fact, he believes so strongly that the Lord loves everyone and that it is not our place to be judmental that he warmly greets me with genuine affection, enjoys our rare phone conversations, and also enjoys our even more rare visits.

Last visit I went to see him with my daughter and her (at that time) fiance. They have since married. At that visit, he stepped around calling me "he" or David because I have healed by then from my FFS (facial feminiation surgery) and if he had used the wrong pronoun, people would think we has having another stroke.

My step-dad never kept close contact with my kids or Mary, and left right after my mom's death to spend a couple years in Israel, following his Christian heart. But the kids have always resented his lack of initiative with them, Mary has pretty much disowned him (as well as my son) but my daughter did come to that last visit.

She invited him to her wedding last March and even offered to assign someone to provide him transportation, but he declined to attend with no reason given. I'm not sure if she will be keeping a plate that emotional table for him any longer after that.

My natural father, he lives up in Washington state now (after being in San Diego for most of my adult life until about five years ago. He's almost 83 and still runs a mile three days a week. In fact, as was always the case with him, I still can't keep up with him walking up hills or flights of stairs, and I'm just 56. ("Just"? When did that happen?)

He and I are on much better terms. Teresa and I visit every three months or so and stay at his house. Since I moved up here a couple years ago, I've finally seen my half-brothers and half-sisters a number of times. In fact, my dad and one sister and her husband flew all the way down to CA for my daughter's wedding. We all sat at the same table together. ( I also danced with my father for the first time, as well as with Mary). Teresa couldn't attend due to an injury, but if she had been there the oddness of it all would have been complete - My daughter, her new husband, her dad who changed sex, "her" wife Mary, her son, and then the dancing.

In fact, my daughter wanted me to be with her in the bridal cloister to help her get ready (along with all the bridesmaids) and then wanted me to walk her down the aisle! Bless her heart. So, I did both those things and then danced with my dad, my wife, and my daughter in the father-daughter dance in which no one else was on the dance floor and the two of us slow danced, smiling into each other's eyes to the music of "Sunrise, Sunset" (the wedding song from "Fiddler on the Roof".

Well, I'll be calling my dads a little later. Right now, I'm just waiting for my hair to dry from showering, then I'm taking myself out to breakfast at IHOP for Father's Day.

In invited Teresa, but with her mixed feelings about the day and the fact that she is uncomfortable around crowds to the extent that she has had panic attacks in the past, she won't be joining me.

Later, if the weather holds, she'll be joining me for a nice walk up at Silver Falls (a state park that has eleven wateralls, three of which you can walk behing). I'm also going to buy some new tennis shoes, since one of these has a split in the sole. I'll be cleaning out the car - haven't done that in too long and going to pick up our hormone prescriptions at the pharmacy (we're both out at the same time this very day!).

Now, doesn't that all sound like a fine Father's Day for the Transsexual?

Relevance

How old are you? Yeah, I mean you, the reader. I'm 56. I was relevant once.

A couple of ages ago I was a pioneer in the online TG community. And in those days I was also a pioneer in creating a whole new theory of story structure and a whole new model of psychology.

But that was ages ago.

Of late, I've found myself struggling to find motivation - because I have no purpose - because there is no meaning - because I'm not relevant.

I've been having a lot of dreams lately - dreams of people I love, past and present, both living and gone.

These dreams are unlike any others I've ever had. They take place in different familiar (though not real) locations, in which events that never happened seem like the stuff of memory. Their whole reason for being seems to bring to the surface ancient feelings I've not experienced in decades - some not since being a small child.

You know the mind has two halves and four parts. The halves are intellect and passion. And each is divided into two - intellect is made up of logic and reason, passion is comprised of feeling and emotion.

Logic is the process, reason the result. Many paths of logic combine to create what we see as reasonable. Feelings are the individual passionate experiences we have, emotion is the sum total of them all. Many distinct feelings, like colors on an artist's palatte, blend and combine to form the emotional backdrop of our self-awareness.

In my dreams, as more and more frequently in my waking hours as well, something will trigger a feeling I haven't had for many many years. Like methane gas trapped under water in the soil since the last ice age, they slowly rise to the surface and burst once more, each like a unique frangrance not sniffed in eons. Together, they create an amotional scent.

But unlike the mood they originally formed so long in the past, my rare feelings now form a great cloud of sadness. It is an odd experience to have each feeling memory be a pleasant one yet their collective smell is acrid and hurtful.

I've been wondering how this could be for a few days now. Today the haze was lifted and my answer became clear.

Back in the day I was a child in a family. There was only my mom and step-dad on a daily basis, but we visited my grandparents on my mom's side several times a week. And my natural father visited me nearly every Saturday. Then there were aunts and uncles, one set right in the same town (my grandmother's sister and her husband) - my mom was an only child as well - and some more distant one's on my grandfather's side elsewhere in the state.

Though I seldom had many friends, there was cub scouting and boy scouting and later college and my new friends at USC cinema. I got married, had two kids of my own, and was involved in both my son's Indian Guide experience as the tribal chief, and also as his Webelos Leader when he arrived that far through his own cub scout experience.

That was just before transition, back in 1989. At that time I had directed two low-budget feature length movies and scores of big budget industrials and educational films, also working as a writer, editor, and producer as well.

To the point, I also had a network of business acquaintances and associates with whom I came together on one project or another from time to time.

Those were days of hope - a career, a family, a gathering of friends. And then I went into transition and it all dissolved.

Here's how it happened. I wasn't getting on in my career as well as I had hoped. Couldn't break into the "movie industry" making entertainment films. I had financial problems - six months behind in my credit cards. My mom had fallen on hard emotional times taking care of my grandmother who had a series of strokes. My mom and step-dad lost the business they had bought with money inherited from one of my aunts who died. (Another aunt had died years earlier and left me half her house after it was sold. I used the money to make one of those feature movies and never got any of it back).

In short, my dreams were starting to falter, my hopes shrivelling. So in 1986 I started exploring gender change. Then, in 1989, my mom died, then my grandfather died, then my grandmother died. We got kicked out of our rented house and moved into the house I inherited - a tiny place I grew up in.

Day after my mom's funeral I started hormone therapy and never looked back.

I worked REALLY hard to keep all my friends, my family and my career. And I was successful. And then I threw it all away - not in a moment, but over the last twenty years.

When I went into transition it hurt my kids in ways I couldn't have imagined and probably still don't know. My son works for me handling the shipping of all my products, my duaughter and I talk on the phone all the time. My wife is still very cheerful with me on the phone and we send each other cards and are still married, even though I've lived with Teresa for the last 11 years.

But what I lost was that wonderful fabric of family and friends - the social network that I enjoyed as a child and was on the way to creating as an adult. I remember us all getting together when I was small on Summer evenings. I'd swim in my little inflatable pool, my mom, grandma and aunt would chat together in the cool of the darkening sky, and my grandfather and uncle would drink Coors as they sat in their wooden lawn chairs in the back yard.

I've got movies. Trying to get enought money to transfer them to DVD. I did transfer all my own videos of my own kids that I had taken on old VHS tape. And of late I've been scanning and posting all kinds of pictures of them when they (and I) were young.

What I've lost is that I slowly pulled away from them all. First I was self-focused in my transition. Then I started dating even while living with my wife and kids. Then I moved out with Teresa. First an apartment in the same town, then 2 hours away in the mountains, then six hours away at the other end of the state, now out of state to the town I'm currently in - 1,000 miles away.

Oh, I'm still on friendly terms with them all, family and friends included, but we don't see each other every day anymore or even every week or month. I go down two or three times a year. Friends are still friends, but I don't get to drop by any more to see what's going on or invite them to barbeques. I'm kinda retired too, so I don't have any business relationships any more either.

Plus, Teresa and I haven't made any friends in any of the places we've lived in the last 11 years. Well, maybe one or two that we see every few months, but nothing on a regular basis.

And so, these feelings from my past that rise to the surface carry the same sweet flavor they did when I last experienced them in a tightly woven social fabric. But now, they almost taunt me with the striking contrast of the isolation in which I now live. And my overall emotional mood goes sour. I embrace the feelings, craving those tastes, but they turn bitter in my mind's mouth as they are just thawed out experiences from the past, not freshly harvested ones from my present.

From this pain I realize that it was the other souls in my life in which my life had meaning. And without them, there is no meaning. Without meaning is no purpose. And without purpose there is no motivation. Which brings us back to square one. The only difference is that now I know why I have no drive to post or teach or strive or build. And it leaves me feeling superfluous and completely without relevance.

You know what I like about this blog?

I can talk about anything. You see, I'm into a lot of stuff - I direct movies, I compose music, I run a HUGE business based on teaching story structure. I've got my kids, my wife, my life partner, my friends and associates. I'm open on my web site, live my life effectively in stealth, since no one ever asks (don't ask, don't tell?), hike the backcountry of Yosemite for a week at a time, and on and on. (Check out my personal web site at melanieannephillips.com to see the complete list).

But out of all those activities, and all those places I interact and/or post information, there's only one place I can talk about anything, and it's right here.

You see, nobody's offended by hikiing. Nobody's put off by my music complsing (though they might not like my style). But there are still a lot of people who are uncomfortable with my history as a transsexual.

Like most folks in the community, I used to think that was their problem - take me or leave me - YOU work it out! But now, twenty years later, I've come to feel that I don't want that sort of thing getting in the way of someones enjoyment of my photography or their ability to connect with my classes on story structure.

The answer for me isn't to go stealth as so many others do. No. Tried that - didn't like it. I always felt like I was lying and could never get close to people lest I blow my cover. The answer for me isn't black and white - this or that, but more gray-scale.

Simply, I have a main web site that links to everything. But there's no more reason to talk about my gender background on my story structure web site then there is to talk about my hiking on my music web site - it just isn't part of the subject.

But it goes beyond that. Again, simply put - why in the world woud I want to constantly beat myself up by insisting on shoving my transgendered nature in people's faces as a requirement for them to enjoy any of many other things I create and document?

I mean, that's just being masocistic - cutting my own throat (er, sado-masocistic?) Sure, I could be an "in your face" sex change poster child, but why would I want that?

As an artist, I want to share my art - to have it appreciated as I appreciate it. You see, when I create something it is because I have a notion or an experience that I find unique and or memorable. I get excited about it. I want to share it. I want to connect with my fellow human beings so that they get to enjoy the exact same notion or experience just as I thought or felt it.

It's a present - a gift to others. And my reward is the joy I feel when they enjoy that gift - AND the connection I feel at knowing that my singular experience is now shared. I know some people are loners, hermits, or even anti-social. But me, I enjoy watching a movie in a theater ten times more than watching it at home, even on the big screen.

Teresa, my life partner, feels just the opposite. For her, crowds are unpleasant. She hates traffic and noise and distraction and interaction (though she is very good at it to be point of being charismatic). She used to live in a small town on a peninsula in Alaska next to a glacier, just to get away from the cities of the lower 48.

Yet, she also posts all kinds of things on the internet. Mostly about the television show, "Lost" in which she has become. She obsesses on it, pours over freeze frames looking for clues, then gathers together photos, quotes, wikipedia research and fashions brilliant theories about what's behind it all.

These she posts on a major "Losties" fan board and then gleefully watches as the number of views and comments grows, responding to the intriguing or combative ones and stoking the fire of her inspiration.

But, she never meets any of these people nor talks to them on the phone. And, she never EVER says anything about her own TG past. Why in blazes WOULD she?!

But here - here on this blog on this TG web site I created to share my experiences (for the benefit of others on the same path, for the better understanding of those not of a TG nature who stumble in here, and also for my own artist's satisfaction of sharing) - here I can say anything about anything without offending anyome (more or less, as long as I stay away from the political or religious).

But you know, since this site is about TG stuff, the only offense anyone will take if I talk about hiking or music or coin collecting or photography or poetry is that they may get bored. But they won't feel uncomfortable.

Imagine, taking a sugary-sweet candy and coating it in a bitter shell. Who'd want to eat that? Well some people might like the contrast, but I can't imagine that if your point is to share this wonderful new candy you created you'd have your best presentation by having people have to eat through bitter to get to it.

And that's the risk of mentioning the TG stuff in my posts elsewhere, but a risk that doesn't exist here.

Now, is t a flat and level playing field? Hell no! That's because there's one more component here - my own self-image. 99.9 percent of what goes on in my head has nothing to do with TG stuff. But if you even mention your TG background to a "civillian" then at least half of what they think about you is TG.

In other words, even just letting them know will tip the balance to the extent that people do not see you as you are anymore and never will. And that's even worth than them not experiencing my art and intellectual endeavors as I intended.

Want proof? I got a nice note from someone the other day who had read my book on story structure. The subject heading was "To a brilliant woman". I konw they meant it as a complement, but I couldn't help thinking that it also meant, "You are really smart, for a girl!"

Now if that is the way it is just being a woman, imagine how it taints every other interchange with others if they know you are, were, (forever will be?) TG? How can anyone appreciate you or your work just for its own merit if it is always put in some other context? i.e. Up And Coming Black Artist - First Korean Astronaut - Winner of the Women's 100 Yard Dash.

There's no getting away from this, but c'mon, do I have to go out of my way to shovel as much stuff between me and my audience as is humanly possible?

And yet.... As an artist, my transition is part of the artist's journey. It is a major thread in what matured my vision, molded me into the kind of creative individual I have become. BUT - my art isn't all about TG subjects, NOR does the subject permeate everything I do at some subliminal level. Sometimes, sure, but not often. Rather, it is an additional perspective from which I can draw when creating. So, you may see its brush-strokes in the finished image, but I'm not painting pictures of paint brushes.

Then, of course, there's the business concerns. If I put a big placard up on my story structure web site "Story Development Software from Melanie Anne Phillips - Former Man" I can't see that is would help sales. I'd probably go out of business.

(There was a guy named Chuck who inherited 100 grand a couple decades ago - true story - and he used it to open a burger joint called the "Up-Chuck". He went out of business in a week. I'd rather not take THAT path, if you don't mind).

So call me merchenary or say that I'm selling out. Go ahead - I've given you a command....

Great. Got that out of your system. Okay, then. So other than financial, it is the articstic thing and that is why this is the only place I can say anything.

Got it?!!!

Star Trek Struck

Just saw the new Star Trek movie. I didn't know if I'd love it or hate it, but one thing I never expected was for it to shine a light on some emotional issues I'm grappling with right now.

First of all, the movie itself - great new renditions of the characters, lots of action, solid special effects, no plot to speak of, and one big problem I'll get to in a minute.

Second of all, the emotional issues. I lived with my wife for ten years after transition. I found myself drifting farther and farther away from her during those days (due to wanting to explore my new life). I met someone (Teresa), moved out, and then gradually moved farther away geographically - 90 minutes, six hours, and now a two day drive from Northern Oregon

During this time, I had worked really hard to maintain my relationships with her and my kids. At least I thought I had. But my idea of a relationship was to drive down, tell them all about what I was doing lately, then drive back.

Email was the same - sharing all the things that were important to me so they wouldn't feel left out. Now is that stupid or what? You don't show people you care by talking about yourself. You do it by asking about and listening to them.

I see now that each of them, especially my son, was relentlessly reaching out to me - looking for some sign - anything - to indicate that I really loved them, cared for them, cared about them. But all they got was my endless monolog about myself, dismissal of their overtures, and continued proof that I obviously didn't care about them.

Of course I cared about them more than my own life. But is that really true? Would I have gone into transition and robbed them of their father and of a normal life and a parent they didn't have to explain to friends and romantic interests? Would I have left and moved in with someone else? Would I have moved farther and father away? And would I have rebuffed with disinterest all their attempts to share their interests with me.

Hey, I'm a larger than life character. I live a big life. At least I like to think of myself that way. But how many public figures far more successful and famous than my meager status have been prominent and yet horrible parents. Beloved by the public but disappointing to the point of causing pain at home?

But you know, even twenty years after transition I hadn't seen it. It just never occurred to me. I was STILL so self-justified from the days when I got through transition by justifying it in my own mind as a moral imperative.

You probably iknow what I'm talking about. If you are in or went through transition, you have to muster your resolve. You have to risk family, friends, career et al. And the only way you can do this is to basically say, "I was born this way - didn't have a choice - therefore I don't have a choice now, and so I'll do this thing, regardless of the cost, and then do the best for everyone that I can afterwards.

For those of us who are long-time post-ops that's the quality that most bothers us about newbies. Those just starting out are so self-justified they literally CAN'T SEE how much IRREPARABLE damage they are doing to those around them, and how SELFISH they have become.

They see themselves as soldiers of human rights, starting in their own back yard - martyrs in the cause of being true to yourself. And these evangelists (because it suits their current purposes) trod all over everybody else's feelings, unawares, oblivious.

What about real sacrifice - those who work all their lives at jobs they hate to support their children - those who put their loved ones first, not saying "I put them first after this one thing which comes before them."

Truth is, you go into transition you ruin lives. Most will recover and build something frome the rubble - some won't.

But the damndest part is that as long-time post-ops, our attitude about newbies is the very same self-justified attitude we are complaining about in them. We self-justify by saying, "We've been there, done that, see a higher truth, and therefore can pass judgment about those newbies and their selfish doings." We see it as our duty to grab them by their frilly lapels and force them to see the pain they are causing. And all the while we still aren't seeing what's best for others. We've forgotten how close to suicide we all were, how much at the edge of mental illness, drug abuse, or all of the above. We sit in our self-satisfied new lives, decades after all the pathos and expect these poor souls to just step out of their problems and see the big picture. In other words, we're still telling them about us and aren't paying any attention to them.

I think I had that attitude before I started transition. I think I felt so crappy about my own self-worth that I had to be the center of attention to keep proving to myself I could be. I think in one way or another everyone who successfully transitions must have been the kindest, gentlest ass-hole in the world before they even started.

You got gender identity problems? Then you're an ass-hole. Can't help it. The kind of negative self-worth issues transgenderism causes will turn you into one before you are out of your teens. Not to infer that all ass-holes are transgendered, mind you. There's plenty of causes of that malady, but I'm only concerned with this one (because its all about me, isn't it?)

So having developed this trait of justifying myself, I relied on it to get through transition, move away from my family and keep the focus on myself, all the time feeling I was a god for how much I strived to keep in contact with my kids.

Bullshit.

How the hell did they ever manage to stay connected to me all these years? Well, they haven't now. I've pretty much lost my son - not to hatred (though for all I know there's some of that) but to dis-interest. My daughter used to call me every day. Then once a week. Then we'd email every day. Then a couple times a week.

How often did I call her? Almost never. And why? Because in order to feel that I was loved (self-worth issue) calling her wouldn't prove anything. But if she called ME, well then, she loved me! So to insure she would call (because she missed me) I didn't call her, thereby creating a vacuum that would draw her to me. Or at least that must be pretty clear to what my heart was thinking, even though such concepts, while familiar, were always just outside the conscious realm so I had plausible deniabitlity.

My son used to call me all the time and ask me to play video games over the internet with him. I had the game, but I just wasn't into that so I declined. He used to ask questions about guns because he liked the concept of target shooting. Wasn't my cup of tea so I deferred him to Teresa who has experience with firearms.

In short, I kept trying to get him interested in hiking and photography and writing and all the things that matter to me, even while slapping his offered hand away in the things in which he was interested.

And now, it's "Cat's in the Cradle" time. I loved that song as a young man, vowed never to let that happen to me. Yet here we are. That's how it works.

So - what does this have to do with Star Trek? Here the BIG problem I told you I'd talk about....

It's a time travel story. Because of the events that occur, history is changed for Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, et al. In other words, all that happened in the original TV series, the Next Generation, and all the movies is erased as part of the plot of the new movie.

They didn't just say to the audience, "We're re-telling the legend and there will be many changes in our rendition." They said that and THEN said, "And by the way, all those wonderful emotinoal moments and all the characters you came to love like family never existed. Those stories never happened and never will happen."

Well isn't THAT a slap in the face. I don't care about being true to the way the story was told before. But I take all kinds of exception to all that being wiped away.

But, and here's the connection, isn't that my situation today? The future I might have had with my kids - the ball games, the birthday parties, the little day to day experiences that draw people together - all of it was erased by my self-justified transition, leaving the family, and moving away. I killed that future as surely as Star Trek killed the past.

I've always kept the belief that I'd "make it all up to them someday". I remember first having that thought one Christmas when I gave my parents (who had no money for a new couch) a picture of a sofa with a note saying I was going to make one for them. Never happened.

And I kept thinking that someday I'd make enough money so my mom could retire in comfort. She died in 1989.

In fact, just about any grandiose promise I've ever made I've failed to deliver (except of course to myself, as evidenced by the person I've become).

There is now making up for it later. And I've come to realize that. So, I figured if I can't make up for it, then at least I can keep promises from this point forward. But how can I get everybody back in my corner? How can I show them I have enough value to make it worth their while to give me another chance? (Note self-worth still sitting in the middle of this?)

I thought I'd begin by reminding them of all the great times we had as a family before transition began. I'd haul out the old videos and convert them to DVD and give copies to each of them (did this two years ago). Then I'd scan the best of the old family photos of our many vacations and special events from when the kids were little and turn them into an album I could present to the whole family with a CD copy for everyone, including a few pix of me now doing things with them to create the bridge I needed. (Did this last Christmas).

And lately I created a blog for the family pictures and videos I had not yet shown them so I could give them an ongoing experience of family as they checked in with all my frequent updates and new postings (Started that last week and was working on it just before I started writing this post).

But you see, just like Star Trek, I not only charted a coure to an alternate future, but I had always erased the past. How? The moment I revealed my decision to change sex, all their memories of who I was and what I was all about changed in that very instant. Everything they thought and felt about their family and their place in it and their relationships not just with me but with each other and all the other people we knew - all that changed into a new reality, retroactively, just as surely if some stupid time travel gag had re-written the past.

So all the harping I've done for the last couple of years about the past is trying to sell them on a history that just isn't there anymore. I'm trying to say, 'remember how you felt about this?" but they can't, because history has been changed and those things never happened.

Sure, they can recall the events, but the feelings are no longer there. They've been altered. Psychologists will tell you about retrograde changes that occur in old memories every time new information is added. Have any of us not re-evaluated someone based on new information? Have we not heard the phrase in the movies, "I thought you were my friend" when someone learns someone they trusted turned out to be working against them. Suddenly all the feelings they had of happiness or security are replaced with feelings of betrayal instead.

Note that betrayal isn't added onto the old fond memories - it replaces them. At that moment, the old feelings cease to exist and they are never coming back.

What a fool I've been to keep slapping the whole family with all these old momentos. Since they no longer mean anything to anyone but me, constantly drawing their attention to them is just perpetuating my life-long habit of putting the focus on me. It looks to them as if I just want to talk about those now, rather than what is current in their lives, which I still don't acknowledge since I am so desparate to reconnect I don't have time to come up for air from my own tunnel vision effort to force them to remember the past as "I" see it and then connect those feelings to me today.

All about me again.

Here's the rub. Now that I finally realize this, is there any way to correct it from 1,000 miles away? Those original family feelings were made not in an instant, but like snowfall building slowly into drifts. Every little question, every meal, every television program watched together created them. And transition washed them all away.

Now I'm 1/24th they way around the globe from them and all I have is phone and email. Since there is no past I need to build a new relationship with each of them and with all of them together as a family. But my daughter is married and away from home for five years. My son is thirty and has made good friends with the next door older neighbor who show him how to build things and takes him fishing. And Mary, my wife, has learned to be completely self-sufficient.

Even if it were possible to build new relationships with them, would THEY want to be any closer to me than the distance I've pushed them away? In other words, if we met for the first time today, being the people we have all become, would we have any reason to get to know each other? What's more, how many people you meet for the first time who live two days away have become your close friends?

I suppose Twitter and Facebook and email can make new friends and grow them closer, but you know, I'm 56 and I'm not sure that works for me. (Me again, see? Gotta be on my terms. I want them all to be closer, but only in the way I choose).

Clearly this attitude has got to change. But even if it does, what can I do? I have to believe there's still some sort of connection amongst us all. Perhaps the past was altered but not really erased, just an alternate reality that still has some touch points, some aspects of significance to us all.

I love it where I've moved. I love who I'm living with. I love the person I've become. But I love them all too. My task now is to listen like a SETI station for that faint voice from across the void. To tune in and connect and find common ground for communication. And, if possible with such an astronomical distance between us, build a relationship from this day forward, based on who we have all become in this parallel universe.