Trans/plant/portation

Walla Walla was a blur of activity this weekend, what with a memorial for the lovely Mary Hanna, who passed away last month and whose illness I wrote about a couple of times, the short-lived attempt to hunt wild turkeys, and a party on Friday night, which was the setting upon which I agreed to wake before dawn to watch someone shoot at birds. But Saturday night wasn’t the terminus of our weekend plans. Sunday brought with it the Tranny Roadshow, also previously mentioned in this blog.

I was happy to provide an interview to the local paper. Well, I was happy and not a little trepidatious. A lot trepidatious, but who’s measuring? Turns out that the article was pretty well done, even if the editor did miss a typo in the first paragraph.

I prepped food for an after-party event at our house, and wandered over to the venue for the sound check an hour before the start time. Meeting the lead organizer as I walked in, he told me that they’d just had the fastest sound check ever and they were done already, two minutes in. And now I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Ooh, new transpeople. I should talk to them. And then I remembered.

My experience with a lot of transfolk is that when we get into large enough groups, it starts feeling like it’s and after school special of Who’s Too Cool for School? Everyone gets dressed in extremely hip ways—they’re wearing ironic clothing, like shirts with religious overtones, or they’re sporting working class wear, like gas attendant jumpsuits or trucker hats, or they’re Goth, or something that makes it very clear they are not here for a wine tour. The next aspect of WTCfS is that everyone knows each other but not you, so for me, I get stuck standing a little outside their conversation circle, trying to find an in or at least hear what they’re discussing, but this is difficult for all of the inside jokes that I have previously not been privy. The only other option here is not an attractive one: I can try to jump in and say something, but I risk either being completely ignored, which makes me feel like a braces-wearing, pimply 8th grader all over again (and puberty twice is really enough), or I may get the quick, “uh huh,” said with a condescending jerk of the head before their previous line of conversation resumes. There is a very low chance that they may find me charming enough to step aside seven inches so that I’m not stuck outside the circle like some uninvited electron.

Trust me, these things have happened to me. I had been so excited for them to come to little Walla Walla, and I figured it would be a show some people in town really needed to see, but looking at the troupe I was worried, like I’d been sitting down with the Union-Bulletin reporter. Why should they have my best interest at heart? I wasn’t a hip, urban transman from DC anymore. I was some guy with neckwear from a tiny city in the middle of nowhere.

Okay, way to make it be all about me, I told myself, thus ensuring it was all about me, at least for the time it took my dendrites to send that message across my synapses. Just relax. Ask how their trip has been so far.

We made a little small talk. Some of the performers introduced themselves. They seemed friendly enough, if not way, way cooler than me. I watched as people made their way into the room, finding seats and getting comfortable. I wasn’t nervous to read in the slightest, but I was aware that I’d been alotted 10–12 minutes. I didn’t want to read too fast, but I didn’t want to go over my time, either.

Two older ladies sat right in the front, smiling broadly. I’d said in the article that the show was reminiscent of old Vaudeville. Were they here thinking they’d get Benny Goodman and Laurel and Hardy? Oh, crap.

A man came in with his mother, who appeared to be in her 70s. He asked Susanne, the faculty adviser for the event, if he could get coffee and bring it in here. She said sure. He looked uncomfortable through the whole show, but his mom had a blast.

Then there was an older couple who looked like two hippies from back in the day, him still sporting a long ponytail of now-white hair, she in a flowing flowery blouse. Directly behind them was The Knitter, who I recognize now from bleeding heart liberal events I’ve attended all over North America. There is always a knitter, as if there’s an underground knitting community who scour the notices about local events so that at least one of them will be in attendance at each. Because we have to remember that knitting is important. Or something. I suppose I do admire someone who can watch the stage and not drop a stitch. That’s real multitasking.

Red Durkin, comedienne extraordinaire

The show began, with a comedienne, who made us all laugh, repeatedly, the whole time she was on stage, which is what is supposed to happen, so I gather. I’ve watched enough unfunny comics to wonder why the industry isn’t afraid we consumers will sue them for false advertising. But she was the real deal.

Second performer picked up a guitar and sang, self-created songs except for one Sarah Harmer cover, which he did well.

My turn. The “local performer.” I approached the stage, which uh, didn’t have a step, even though it was at least 26 inches off the floor. I was certain I would wipe out before I’d even made it up there.

I was not graceful, but I made it. Ha! I was triumphant. My knees were intact, sturdy, even. I remembered I was supposed to read something. Good thing it was in my hand.

“This is a story about Becky and Bertha,” I said, “who were the names of my breasts when I still had breasts, that is.”

And we were off to the races. I got a lot of laughs and even a guffaw or two. I might have sped up toward the end a little, still worrying about my time limit, as if Jim Lehrer were there to call time.

The rest of the show was fun, with another musician—she broke out a ukelele—a juggler, a couple of spoken word performers. The audience gave us more applause, and suddenly, we were done, sans big bows from the troupe, which I thought was a little unorthodox. But what about this wasn’t orthodox?

I dashed home while Susanne helped them pack up their things, as it was my job to set out the spread for the party. They weren’t ready for our hospitality, but they were happy for it, and we met up with a few students who had brought them to campus. The conversation was great, we focused on what we had in common, and I worried no longer that I didn’t fit in. It was a long, long breath of fresh air. And it made me want to make Walla Walla a more diverse place.

I’ve got a reading coming up Sunday evening as a local performer in the Tranny Roadshow, and thus I wasn’t terribly surprised when the Union-Bulletin, the local rag here in town, contacted me for an interview. I mean, it would never have happened had I remained in DC, unless one counts the Mirror company as a reputable newspaper. As it is, the “U-B” as people (affectionately) call it, is a bit more than a stone’s throw from being a paper that one retrieves gratis from the brightly colored  bins that litter the sidewalk like plasticized hawkers near a carnival. Apartment Guide! Great Jobs Listing! FREE Yellow Pages!!

It’s not that I have anything against the U-B, it’s that people I like have things against the U-B. Their Web site needs an overhaul, for one, with a one-inch column in the middle for the actual article content, and a thick bar at the right advertising things I will never buy, even if I live for 100 more years. I just can’t get worried enough about my nonexistent prostate, and I am not going to learn some random mom’s secret for white teeth. I suspect malware is part of her solution, see. But really, my indifference to the U-B is that there doesn’t seem to be any real reason to get a copy. I hear everything I need to from word of mouth or my news feeds. I know when the WW Balloon Stampede is coming, and I’ll be there. The rodeo happens the same Labor Day weekend every summer. If a resident of Walla Walla knows more than 5 people in town, then she probably will hear about every event for the next upcoming weekend that she cares about. If I wanted to know what the Elks Lodge is up to, I need only walk three blocks over and ask them. It’s just not that big a town. And I’m sure they know that’s a stumbling block to keeping revenue up.

So maybe I’ve been missing out by not procuring the U-B regularly, and now that one can’t read their articles online anymore without subscribing (even the New York Times is cheaper), perhaps I’m too cut off from the goings-on in my own city. After all, Walla Walla is light years away from having any interest in a Wallist-type blog.

The other thing that concerned me when I got the reporter’s email was that my bleeding heart liberal friends tell me the U-B is unflinchingly conservative. Now, I don’t care what they do in their own home, but I don’t want that stuff shoved in my face, know what I mean? Just what kinds of questions were they going to put to me regarding something called the Tranny Roadshow? On the other hand, I’m the one peddling my sex change memoir to every agent I can Google, so I’m not exactly hiding in a cave.

I thought about her offer, and talked to a few people, and said okay, let’s meet up. We agreed to meet at Cafe Perk, in the middle of downtown, which granted, is two blocks wide by six blocks long, but it has a heart, damn it. I tend to go to this place only when I’m having a meet up with someone, because the Patisserie has too many people I know in it, and I don’t want to blow the feeling of just rightness that I have when I’m trying to bang out another chapter or short story with memories of invasive questions and avoidant answers, the kind of repartee that Sarah Palin wishes she had with Katie Couric.

I got there a little early on Monday morning, and ordered a nonfat chai. I forgot to specify a vanilla chai, since out here in the Pacific Northwest, “chai” means “burn your mouth out” and true to form, I felt the tastebuds on my tongue sizzle and die. For some reason this made it a little difficult to speak, like I’d experienced when I’d gotten my tongue pierced at 28 and the thing had blown up to twice its normal size. Three days later I was fine, I swear, but in the meantime I sounded like I was wearing vampire teeth. Great. Maybe my mouth would settle down in the next 8 minutes.

It did not.

She seemed extremely young, like 4, so maybe she was a prodigy or maybe she would just ask softball questions, not wanting to get into the nitty gritty of What It Means To Be Transgendererer. I smiled. She looked like she was from Minnesota. Very Nordic. I guessed her father’s name was Thor.

Gosh, she was just so excited to write this article, to run in Thursday’s edition. Usually she got to write about things she knew. I could picture the small and worn-out newsroom: buzzing fluorescent lights in the ceiling, desk calendars filled with notes (buy ham) and doodles (Obama with horns on his head) dotting the desks, a ripped section of carpet fixed unceremoniously with duct tape, and one very tired entertainment editor contemplating retirement as he reads the press release that just came over the fax machine. Trans what? Give it to the pre-schooler, I’m not handling this.

I decided to give her a break. If I was the first trans person she’d ever met, maybe I shouldn’t be a total card.

We talked about how I’d come to know the Roadshow even existed. It’s not a very interesting story, and hopefully it will be revealed in tomorrow’s paper. It’s true that I met my future wife there, but it wasn’t our first date. I was still in the wake of a crappy breakup with a crappy person who’d spent two plus years being crappy to me, but I noticed that there was a cute, smart woman at the show. So what if our first date wasn’t until 10 months later? When she asked me why I thought people should go to the show, I had regular, plain, somewhat accurate things to say, but I did flippantly include the “you never know, you could meet your future partner there” line. I’m curious to see if that made it in there.

She didn’t ask either of the two worst questions to ask a trans person, which, for everyone’s edification, are:

1. What was your name before?

2. Can you come to the ladies room and drop your pants so I can see your hee haw?

Both of these have been asked of me, one on many occasions. I won’t say which.

She did ask, however, how I identified, and I didn’t want to answer that one, mostly because I didn’t think it was relevant to the article—it would be like asking the bronco riders how they identified as rodeo participants—but also because I didn’t want to be pinned down for all of my fellow residents to read, at least, not until they all jump on some list that gets hung on Main Street listing their most embarrassing moment, because that seems about equal to me. But her manner of asking was nice, almost apologetic. So I said that these terms are in contestation within the trans community and that they have different meaning in mainstream culture, and I didn’t want to take all of that on in this one article as my personal legacy.

See? I should go be a politician. We moved on to the show and I said it would be a lot of fun, tickets aren’t usually free, and people should check it out. She asked why I’d pointed the show organizers to the local liberal arts college. The smart ass in me wanted to reply that I thought it better than sending them to the local Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church. But honestly, I don’t know about venues in town outside of the college. The Fairgrounds seem a skosh too big.

The reporter was nice, nodded a lot, didn’t seem to want to make me out to be a laughing stock—which we all know I do quite well enough on my own—and I felt pretty good after it was over. Now we’ll see, tomorrow, what the editors have done to the story. And come Sunday night, I’ll know how much of a success it was. For all of the LGBT folks in town who don’t get a lot of open air gay time, I think this will be a good thing.

And yes, I’ll pick up a copy of the U-B tomorrow. It’ll be the first one I’ve bought.

Freecyle in Wallyworld has been interesting of late. One person is currently looking for free “horse, unicorn, and pig decor.” Um, decor? Really? I mean, there is pig kitsch out there, there are tons of plastic horses and ceramic unicorns, I know, because I had them all over my bedroom when I was 9. But decor? I don’t think anything related to any of those beasts could be classified as interior design accessories. And I can only see powerfully bad installations of said horse, unicorn, and pig-related objects. Add to this that the same person is also looking for chicken feed and a working VHS recorder, and I really start to get nervous.

Superior Court for the County of Walla Walla is going to get X-rated as a two-day trial begins on some wretch/letch accused of owning child pornography. I am morbidly fascinated, and I think I may head over there to see how Walla Wallans define such things. I’m not aiming to be the next Truman Capote or Dominick Dunne, but I think it will be interesting also to see what kind of coverage the trial gets here.

Speaking of local coverage, I’m giving a short interview on Monday morning to a reporter from the Union-Bulletin, in advance of the Tranny Road Show coming to town next weekend. I’ll be a local reader, pulling something from my memoir, most likely. I’ll also be interested to see what angles the reporter takes on the show, and if there’s any way to create an article about the event without it becoming a Trans 101 lecture. I’ll be careful with my quotes, I promise.

Finally, the SuperNanny is coming to Walla Walla! Or more precisely, the SuperNanny producers are actively looking for a family in the area so they can do a show here. I’m not sure why they’d pick Walla Walla, of all places. It won’t be easy to get all of their equipment here. But I’ll keep a lookout for the London taxi, cuz of course I’ll be snapping pictures of JoJo and Company if I see them.