I Feel Pretty, and Witty, and GAY!!! & Happy Feet 2

So here in my new adopted family it is not unheard of for one of us to break out into a random song....okay, okay, it's usually me.

The other day, however, the Nieceling let me know that if I was going to break out into song that I HAD to sing:

I feel pretty.  Oh so pretty.  I feel pretty, and witty, and GAY!!

It was hilarious and we all laughed really hard, but that night when I went to bed I had to be honest with myself.

I feel plenty witty.  I'm an author, so wittiness is like a pre-requisite.

I also feel plenty gay.  I mean...DUH!  And being here in NY there seems to be a bountiful amount of beautiful gay boys for me to flirt with.

It's that pretty thing that chokes me up.

You see, I can't remember the last time I actually looked at myself in the mirror.  I pretty much make it a point NOT to do so.

I know you're wondering why.

Because in my head, I'm Vic, but physically I'm still Vee and it's heartbreaking for me.  I hate looking in the mirror and expecting to see a man but only seeing a female.  As a matter of fact, I've but my hair twice in the last month, it's now to the middle of my cheeks and today was the first day that someone said to me "Excuse me sir."  I grinned so wide when that happened.

But you know what?  I still don't look in the mirror.  I avoid them with extreme fervor and that's nothing on going out in public and having to use the restroom and having to force myself to go into the women's bathroom because I don't want to cause a problem.

But today I went out with the Nieceling and my older adopted sister to see a free prescreen of Happy Feet 2 and I was blown away by how awesome this movie is.  The story line was excellent, but the lessons that ran rampant through the whole movie was even more amazing (there is even a gay couple in the movie.  Will and Bill Krill. Bill: "We can have our own swarm"  Will: "We're both men."  Bill: "We can adopt.").

Realizing that everyone is different but that means that everyone is special.  That sometimes people will pick on your differences but that you have to find that something strong inside of you that will help you to stand up in the face of that bullying (think: "It Gets Better.").  But the greatest lesson: The very thing that makes you different and special, makes you beautiful and gives you the strength and power that you need to overcome any obstacle and any challenge.

And I wish I could tell you that I came home and stared at myself in the mirror and told myself that I'm a pretty gay boy, but I'd be lying and you all know I'm very brutally honest, especially with myself.

No, I still can't really face that reflection that doesn't show what I feel and see on the inside, but I can tell you that I have realized that the very thing that made my family turn their backs on me, the very thing that made me lose friends, the very thing that drove me to move all the way from Florida to New York, is the very thing that makes me special, that makes me different.

It's the very thing that makes me beautiful.

And one day I'm going to be able to face my image and see Vic and not some strange mixture of Vic & Vee or just Vee and I'm going to smile broadly, square my shoulders and sing at the top of my lungs:

I FEEL PRETTY! OH SO PRETTY! I FEEL PRETTY, AND WITTY AND GAY!!!

And I'm going to mean it.

I'M BACK BITCHES!!!

So this isn't going to be a normal "Vic" post but I just wanted to let you all know that I am back from New Orleans.  Got here safely.  Had a ton of fun in New Orleans (there are people with photographic evidence to back that up-LOL), there was a few bad moments, but they were separate from GRL and totally connected just to me, but I was rescued by a Greyhound attendant (I'll blog about Dre' tomorrow) who is now one of my "boys."  There was only one very bad, horrible, heartbreaking moment at GRL when I was insulted by an author in front of everyone, but *shrugs* I found out that I have so many friends and now new sisters, mothers, brothers, to back me up that the sting from that hurt, that rejection, that insult and humiliation was almost completely erased.  Almost.

Anyway.  I'm back in Florida and already making plans to save up money for next year's GRL in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October (18-21: Hard Rock Cafe Casino & Hotel).  I want ALL OF YOU to come so start saving up your money now!!  If you do $50 a month you'll have $600 saved up by October. Everyone can do atleast $50 a month right?  And you won't even NEED that much!  LOL.  Well unless you plan on shopping.....

Anyway, I'll blog tomorrow about GRL and post the pictures I took and some from others, tell you about Dre' from Greyhound, and even about getting my heart broken by an author I used to enjoy.

I did miss you guys, I miss my family from GRL now though. {sad face}

Here's a poem that TangledO from Goodreads sent to me.  It made me cry (but in a good way).  Enjoy!


"How to Make Love to a Trans Person"
by Gabe Moses

Forget the images you’ve learned to attach
To words like cock and clit,
Chest and breasts.
Break those words open
Like a paramedic cracking ribs
To pump blood through a failing heart.
Push your hands inside.
Get them messy.
Scratch new definitions on the bones.

Get rid of the old words altogether.
Make up new words.
Call it a click or a ditto.
Call it the sound he makes
When you brush your hand against it through his jeans,
When you can hear his heart knocking on the back of his teeth
And every cell in his body is breathing.
Make the arch of her back a language
Name the hollows of each of her vertebrae
When they catch pools of sweat
Like rainwater in a row of paper cups
Align your teeth with this alphabet of her spine
So every word is weighted with the salt of her.

When you peel layers of clothing from his skin
Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient
Even though it’s highly likely that you are.
Do not ask if she’s “had the surgery.”
Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt
If you are being offered a body
That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel
A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies
That come with some assembly required
Whatever you do,
Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape
Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
Looks almost natural.

If she offers you breastbone
Aching to carve soft fruit from its branches
Though there may be more tissue in the lining of her bra
Than the flesh that rises to meet it
Let her ripen in your hands.
Imagine if she’d lost those swells to cancer,
Diabetes,
A car accident instead of an accident of genetics
Would you think of her as less a woman then?
Then think of her as no less one now.

If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of muscle
Reaching toward you when you kiss him
Like it wants to go deep enough inside you
To scratch his name on the bottom of your heart
Hold it as if it can-
In your hand, in your mouth
Inside the nest of your pelvic bones.
Though his skin may hardly do more than brush yours,
You will feel him deeper than you think.

Realize that bodies are only a fraction of who we are
They’re just oddly-shaped vessels for hearts
And honestly, they can barely contain us
We strain at their seams with every breath we take
We are all pulse and sweat,
Tissue and nerve ending
We are programmed to grope and fumble until we get it right.
Bodies have been learning each other forever.
It’s what bodies do.
They are grab bags of parts
And half the fun is figuring out
All the different ways we can fit them together;
All the different uses for hipbones and hands,
Tongues and teeth;
All the ways to car-crash our bodies beautiful.
But we could never forget how to use our hearts
Even if we tried.
That’s the important part.
Don’t worry about the bodies.
They’ve got this.