Good morning, computer.
“Good morning, Julia, did you sleep well?”
Very well, thanks. Anything going on? What’s in the mail?
“Just the usual. Nothing of great importance. Jessica in Washington State
Computer, do you think I have back fat that is in urgent need of removal?
“No Julia, you are perfect in every way. No one can pull off back fat, front fat, or thigh fat quite like you.”
Thank you. You are sweet. You can delete that one. Anything else?
“Who was that man that was feeling up my keys last night?”
Oh that was Nick, my friend. He drove all the way from Chicago
“Oh ... is he staying long?”
A few days. We haven’t seen each other in many years, why do you ask?
Oh, just curious, that’s all. You usually write the blog late at night and I enjoy our time together. And here it is, six-thirty in the morning and you are just now getting to me. You were out all night, I guess with your Nick. It’s just not like you, Julia.”
Why computer, are you jealous?
“Perhaps a little, but you are here with me now, and that’s all that matters. What are you going to write about today?”
Well, it’s funny you should ask. I’m struggling a little bit here trying to come up with an idea. That’s the way this process seems to work lately. I sit down, stare at a blank, white screen and just begin typing, hoping for something good to happen. Let’s see. .... hmmm, well there is this little thing that has been nagging at me ever since I started this blog.
“Tell me, Julia. Pound my keys. Pound them hard. I’ve been a bad computer.”
Will you stop that? You are creeping me out! Ever since you accidentally opened that piece of spam from the girl with the dog collar and the whip, you’ve been acting weird. Just cool your jets, okay?
“Yes m’am. You are right. I am a worthless dog who doesn’t deserve one precious second of your time.”
ENOUGH! That’s it; I am doing a complete scan of you this morning.
“Oooh baby baby ... you know how I love it when you scan me ... come on, scan me ... SCAN ME GOOD! ...”
Reader, I do apologize for my computer. You should not be subjected to this kind of nonsense. Lately though, I have gotten several tweets and e-mails from some well-meaning women who seem to feel that it would be worth my while to hop on a plane to Bavaria or some other exotic place to partake in what they call their ‘secret, forbidden delights’. Now listen up. I’m fifty-nine and when you hit my age, your priorities begin to change. When I see the words “secret Bavarian delights” I immediately think pastry, for which I would board a plane in a second. But it seems that Anna, my young Teutonic pen pal from across the ocean, had other things in mind, most of which involved her, a pair of handcuffs, and a German Shepherd named Skippy. CLEARLY, there was not one mention of pastry.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not dead yet. I would like to have someone in my life to canoodle with once in a while. I’m a big believer in it. Canoodling is good for the cardio-vascular system, and probably a lot of other medical systems whose names escape me at the moment because it’s six-thirty in the morning, and I’m still waiting for my kidneys to wake up. But my ‘golden age’ of random and exotic canoodling is over; unless it involves chocolate, of course.
Honestly though, the odds of me finding someone grow dimmer all the time. It’s difficult enough for people my age to meet others under the best of circumstances, but when you throw in the transgender thing, the list of potential candidates shrinks faster than Rick Perry’s voter base after a debate.
And I get that, you know? I’m not so naïve as to think that just because I reconciled my gender issue, everyone is going to do the same. But here’s the thing; my being transgendered only becomes an issue when it becomes known to the people I meet. Here, I’ll give you an example.
About twenty or so years ago, the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only featured Tula, the stunning transgendered actress who was one of the ‘Bond’ girls that you see floating around in the background of those movies. She received little or no notoriety prior to the knowledge being leaked that she was transgendered. To the male movie-goer, she was just one more in the cadre of the seemingly unlimited supply of gorgeous females who wanted to bed down dear old James. It wasn’t until she was ‘outed’ that she began to receive tons of press, as if being transgendered made her any less gorgeous. But I will bet you a plane ticket to the Bavarian Pastry Tour of 2012, that there were men all over the world who, after hearing this news felt a little weird. And as I said, I get that. But the issue is with those men, not with us. Their reaction cuts to the very heart of what we as a society deem correct or not correct behavior when it comes to matters of gender. Is the conservative Baptist minister in rural Tennessee
I have had the same thing happen to me. My one and only foray into the mysterious world of heterosexuality was with a gentleman I will only refer to as “BB”, short for Bagel Boy. He was forty-six and owned his own bagel-ry. More than that about him I cannot reveal, for if I outted him, it would surely damage his reputation for stud-liness among the local ladies. That, by the way, was his request, not my choice.
The short version of this story is that I would go into his shop on Sundays after my bike ride for a coffee and a salty bagel with butter. BB was always friendly and flirty, often not charging me for my coffee or adding extra butter to my bagel. Sometimes, as he handed the goods to me, he would briefly grasp my hand and smile that smile that said, “I want to do more than just toast your bagel”. I confess that such attention made my heart flutter. I mean, how could I not respond to free extra butter?
On one particular Sunday, he actually asked me out, much to my surprise. We agreed to meet later that day for dinner. And though I tried to be blasé about it (as if handsome men asked me out all the time), I floated out of the store, rushed home in a school girl frenzy, and spent the rest of the day primping for that evening.
Everything was perfect. We laughed, talked politics and discussed movies, everything one would normally do on a date. In fact, throughout dinner, he kept hinting that he would like more to happen and subtly inquired if I was interested as well. I most certainly was, but there was the little matter of my previous life to reveal, and that is never an easy thing to do.
I began to babble incessantly “So BB, we’re talking canoodling here, and to be honest, I have never done so with a man before and I would definitely consider you a suitable candidate for my official deflowering but there’s this thing I have to tell you and you’ll probably hate me and .....” and on and on.
I must say this about BB; He was polite. He handled the news graciously and insisted that it didn’t make any difference to him, but I knew better. I could see his eyes widening and hear his heartbeat crank up into the danger zone of anxiety. To his credit, he tried not to show all of this, but it was to no avail. Like I said; he was polite.
He drove me back to his place after dinner so that I could pick up my car. Once there I was surprised that he actually asked me inside for coffee. Maybe he is a person of substance, I thought. Maybe it really isn’t an issue for him. Maybe....
We had our coffee on the couch. He flipped on the big screen television and we quietly watched some movie, though neither of us was really watching. I kept waiting for him to make a move, anything that might indicate his intentions. Finally, he spoke.
“So .... can I see IT?”
“See it? See what?”
“You know, ..... IT”.
Now I just don’t go around whipping out my nether regions to just anyone. You will never see me at the mall, for instance, walking up to total strangers and saying, “honey have I got an X-box for you to play with!” But that’s what BB was asking. He had reduced all that I was as a woman, as a human being to what I had down there. For him, seeing ‘IT’ was all he wanted, a story for him to tell his buddies at the gym. And you know what? Fuck him. And fuck anyone who believes that what and who we are is the sum total of what’s between our legs. I got up, laughed in his face, and left. No amount of extra butter is worth that kind of idiocy.
“Julia?”
Yes computer?
“You’ve gone on for quite a while here. Don’t you think you’ve said enough?”
l
Yeah, you are right computer. Maybe I’ll write a book someday about all of this.
“Julia, are you really going to scan me?”
That depends. Will you behave?
“yes.”
Okay then. Let’s go out for bagels!
That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody Hug, Everybody eat. Abbondanza!
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