Two bunches of curtains enter from the left.
 
1st Curtain: Have you noticed?
2nd Curtain: Noticed what?
1st Curtain: Nothing.
2nd Curtain: Ah nothing! No. You?
3rd Curtain: Me neither.

Exit to Rear.
10 minutes pass.
Plastic cups of sand are served. 

An announcement: Your stars have all been schmooed. 
 
The End.

All the unicorns killed themselves. That's why you don't see unicorns anymore. To be a unicorn is to kill yourself. When you kill yourself you become a unicorn. You join the unicorns. That's the meaning of unicorns.

There are people who don't ever want you to change & who wont accept the most radical changes you undergo. They want to fix you forever in their narrative, all too often as the villain. Run from these people. Run as fast & as far as you can from them. They will murder you as certain as if they stuck a knife in your heart.

Dear Noam Chomsky--
What does all the world’s toilet paper have to do with the use of the past participle? And why is it like this in this jar all the time with 3 bright new pennies?  Are you clear? Have you ever read John Fante? Killed a fly

with an elastic band? Sung Good King Wenceslaus

---with feeling?

I cooked a salmon tonight

half of it was perfect

the other half is swimming your way.

Yours truly, etc.

=Cat's Rules=

They gave me a piece of paper that told me to report to room five. So that's what I did. It hadn't occurred to me yet to disobey them. It just didn't seem like something that could be done. You followed orders and things worked out for the best. That was the general idea you got.

In room five, there was an old man behind a desk and on the desk a chessboard. On the chessboard were a couple of long teeth that looked to be those of a wolf but that I knew to be human, human teeth being longer and more wolf-like than you expected them to be before they were extracted. There were also half a roll of breath mints and .38 detective special.

"We've found you guilty," the old man said, bluntly getting to the point.

I felt as if I should have recognized him from somewhere, but I couldn't quite pin down where.

"Guilty?" I said. This was unexpected. "Guilty of what?"

"Of everything," he said.

"That's not possible. Not of everything. Who says so?"

He pointed to a cushion on the floor beside the desk. On it lay a gray cat, curled up. sound asleep. I hadn't noticed the cat before. I felt like I should have recognize the cat, too, from somewhere, but that's how it always is with cats and old men.

"You're kidding. How can a cat make that kind of judgment?"

The old man shrugged. "You're living in a cat's world. Surely you knew that. You chose this world, after all. Now you have to abide by the rules. Cats have the final say. That's just the way it is."

"So now what?" I asked.

"The only question left is whether you'll pick up that gun and do the right thing," he said.

I couldn't believe my ears. "What are you saying? That I should kill myself?"  

"We can't tell you what to do. Those are the rules. We can only hope that you do the right thing," he said.

For a wild split-second, I felt like grabbing the gun and shooting the old man and then shooting the cat, or vice-versa. What kind of crazy world was this, anyway? And no matter what the old man said, I had no memory at all of having chosen it. Who would? Unless the other choices were even worse. I seemed to remember a world of cannibal gnomes and another of space werewolves, among others even less desirable. Or was that just a false-memory? My imagination again?

Looking back now, bad as they were, those worlds seemed infinitely better than the one I chose where I was condemned by a cat and expected to pick up a gun and shoot myself because I was guilty of everything.

Oh what the hell! If this was life they could keep it! On an impulse, I picked up the gun, pressed the barrel to my left eye, and pulled the trigger.

They say that at the moment of death your whole life flashes before your eyes. It seemed like the bullet was taking forever to arrive. I was at the train station, standing on the platform. The train was late, having problems somewhere up the line; no one could explain more.  I was between here and there. It was no big deal. Nothing much had changed at all. I had time to do a lot of thinking. Beside me, someone asked hopefully, "Is that the train?" I looked up. I looked up.

I once had a friend—in my pre-transition phase, unfortunately—who was a martial artist. And I mean a real martial artist, not one of those Bruce Lee wannabes with a black belt from some strip mall martial arts school, who taught hand-to-hand combat to military personnel. For a while, he was coming over to my house every week & he'd futilely try to teach me a few things but really he was practicing some stuff of his own on me. He'd encourage me to "really fight back" & I did my best to oblige him but I wasn't much of a fighter & he'd quickly wrap me up helplessly in some submission hold that I could hardly not think of as vaguely sexual. I doubt he was thinking of it that way. But who knows? If he was, there was a missed opportunity there.

Anyway, one day he came over and wanted to demonstrate/practice a choke hold he'd been adapting. A choke-hold, he explained, doesn't literally choke you. Choke-hold is kind of a misnomer. What a choke-hold actually does is cut off the blood supply to your brain and, if executed properly, causes you to pass out. He told me that he would do it slowly and when I felt myself blacking out to tap him on the forearm. He stood behind me, positioned his arm so that my throat was cradled in the inside crook of his elbow, lifted me onto my toes,  and proceeded to slowly squeeze. Slowly…he said, but within a second or two, I saw black spots in front of my eyes & felt my vision darkening & my knees buckling. It was absolutely painless. It was like falling asleep precipitously, like maybe after taking way too many Xanax. I was so taken by surprise that I nearly didn't have time to tap his forearm…

Ive thought about that episode many times since. Ive replayed it again & again in my mind. It seems the perfect way to die. An absolutely dreamy way to die. Swift, painless, plunged into darkness, unconscious before you even know whats happening. I often fantasize about it sexually. About being killed like that.  I'm wearing sexy lingerie and the guy doing it has his cock up my ass and he's fucking me as he works his arm under my chin. There's no tapping his forearm. He doesn't intend to let go. He quickly tightens his arm and I'm like a rabbit in a snare. It's too late before I even think to raise a hand. I'd like to die like that, brain-starved, cock-stuffed, as he spurts inside me, dead before he drops me to the floor. 

Is that weird? I guess its weird. I don't hear too many people fantasizing about anything like this. Maybe they do and just don't say it. It's not the kind of thing that ordinarily comes up in conversation. Too bad. Conversations would be a lot more interesting if they did. I'd be more inclined to join them instead of just remaining silent.

I want to be solitary. It's great. The best thing in the world is to get away from other people. It's glorious.

Said Charles Bukowski.

It is a "he." Chromosomes don't lie and so far science has not figured out a way to change them. No matter what operations the tax payers were forced to pay for, at best this is an "it."

—Random comment from a story about Chelsea Manning who was delivering a talk on the dangers of government surveillance. 

But it was typical of 90% of the comments from the yahoos on Yahoo this morning. These sorts of people, as a last resort, always revert back to "chromosomal determinism," as if you are destined to be only what your chromosomes say & nothing can change your fate. It's a weird sort of update of Christian/Protestant fatalism that basically believes that God has written your life story in stone and nothing you can do in life can change that story one iota, for good or ill. 

Well, aside from ignoring all the other factors that make up one's gender—psychological, hormonal, social, sexual—including  a recent study just released that showed that transwomen often have identical or nearly identical brainwave patterns as biological women—a belief in genetic determinism is just a miserable way to live one's life. In fact, it's not living it at all—merely going through the motions of a script already written on one's chromosomes. And, indeed, that is exactly the dull mechanical way most people go about sleepwalking through their lives. Their anger, resentment & fear—yes fear—of anyone who dares to actively choose the life they want to live comes out loud & clear in these kind of ignorant, close-minded comments. 

There's no point in trying to convince these people any differently and it certainly shouldn't be the reason you choose to undergo SRS if by doing so you're hoping that you'll be seen as a "real" woman by close-minded mental miniatures like the above commenter.  There just isn't room in those cramped walnut-shell minds of theirs for any bright expansive new ideas to take residence. They'll march straight to the grave having seen and understood 1/10000 of what the world has to offer. So long as you're far enough away from their dangerous ignorance, they are to be pitied. 

For him who confesses, shams are over & realities have begun; she has exteriorized her rottenness. If she has not actually got rid of it, she at least no longer smears it over with a hypocritical show of virtue.

Said William James.

Oh fuck, look! She's at it again, writing contemplative essays & posting cutesy girly pictures instead of re-blogging luridly captioned photos of bare-assed transgirls whacking off while sucking giant cocks!!! What the fuck kind of tranny blog is this?!?!

Your life is your life. Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
—Charles Bukowksi

It's not Selflessness if You're Not Being Yourself

I hear it a lot. The argument that it's selfish to come out as trans, especially when you're older & have established a life based on your outwardly perceived gender identity. Even if you've come to realize that life is largely a lie, the argument goes that you should tough it out. Continue to live the lie for the sake of everyone else around you who've come to rely on that lie as the foundation for a good part of their own lives.  You've made your bed, as the saying goes, now go lie on it until it becomes your death bed.

These same people will insist that it's selfish to disrupt your marriage, traumatize your children, shock your friends and family by coming out as trans. Better to keep the secret, live in the shadows, be quietly unfaithful if you have to. Better to just stuff it all down and never acknowledge it even to yourself. But, of course, you know that's impossible. And the things you do to "let the pressure off" make you feel sneaky, dirty, guilty, because you are all of those things. You're a big phony and you know it.

It feels like shit. 

So you keep your secret. You maintain the facade of the good father, the good husband, the good son, etc. But you're just kicking the can down the road. Because chances are all those people you think you're fooling will at some point find out the truth if they don't suspect it already and you can bet they most likely do suspect it. Trying to hide the fact your trans is like trying to hide the fact that you're an alcoholic. If you're "successful," it won't be until after you're dead that what they may have long-suspected is finally confirmed. That's how you define success—by putting off discovery of what you are until after your dead. And if somehow they never suspected the truth while you were alive, can you imagine the seismic shock when they discover it after your death? They'll come across that secret stash of clothes, those computer files, those chat logs and emails, that porn stash…you know where the skeletons are buried and you can almost guarantee they won't stay buried forever. But you'll have taken the easy way out by then. You died. Congratulations. You were the consummate escape artist. And so you can't be asked any of the difficult questions you spent your whole life avoiding, you won't have to see the hurt and disappointment on their faces, you don't have to weather the blast of their rage and their accusations. You avoided it all. You're the Queen of Avoidance. Your betrayal will be complete and you won't have to answer for it. Is that what you meant by being unselfish? Letting those you left behind, those you professed to love, discover your little secret on their own? Letting them cope with your infidelities now that you're beyond the reach of their pain, self-blame, recriminations, and outrage? Now that you don't have to proffer any explanations? Throwing up to them how little faith you had in their ability to love and understand you? Is that what you  consider being a responsible person?

Because that's how they'll see it. That you didn't trust them enough to accept the truth. Oh, they might well not have accepted it when you were alive, they may have been every bit as shocked and ashamed and disgusted as you imagine they would have been, but once you're dead, they'll blame you for not giving them a chance. That's how people are. They'll blame you for selfishly (oh, the irony!) keeping yourself a secret from them, for denying them the chance to get to know the "real" you. They won't consider that you did them any favors by lying about yourself to them all your life. They'll feel cheated of knowing the "real" you. They'll feel doubly-betrayed. They'll be offended that you thought so little of their love for you. It's life's joke on you.

And the truth is that if these people really were worth sacrificing your life for then they would be the kind of people who would accept the real you. You shouldn't have to lie to them to get them to love you. They should be every bit as understanding and loving as they like to think they are, as they will claim to be after you are dead. Why not give them the chance to prove it now? 

Yeah, its a shame that it took you so long to discover yourself  and that your false life is now entangled with the real lives of others. You built on a faulty foundation. But does that mean you should continue to build on it, to make the tower of lies, illusions, and half-truths even higher?  If you made a mistake at the start, does that mean you must persist in making it to the bitter end? If you took forty steps in the wrong direction does that mean you keep going in the wrong direction? Is that kind of consistency really any kind of virtue? Is that really the definition of unselfishness?

And is it really unselfishness that keeps you in the closet or is it just fear and cowardice? Is it unselfish to keep on pretending to be someone you're not and cheating behind the backs of those you profess to love? Is your cheating and lying and subterfuge truly for their own good or is that just a rationalization? Aren't you just taking the easy way out by acting the martyr? Maybe that wife of yours would be better off if you gave her the chance —at least the choice—to leave a marriage with a man who doesn't feel like a man, a faux man who most likely isn't satisfying her, never has satisfied her, and never will. Did you ever think that maybe by sticking with your obligations instead of following your own path of fulfillment you're cheating her (and everyone else in your life) out of a chance to find her own path to fulfillment? Are you really that vain, that egotistical to think that these people can't survive—even thrive—without you? Can you imagine the anger a woman must feel when she discovers how deeply and completely she's been betrayed over the course of a lifetime? 

You can do your duty, stay the course, and die knowing that you fulfilled your obligations, onerous as they might have been, that you denied yourself the only life you'll be given for the benefit of others if it makes your quiet desperation any easier to bear. But don't fool yourself. There's no guarantee that's the way anyone else will see it when all is said and done. You may not have decided to make the break, to walk out on your life to start another. But you aren't being faithful to that life your clinging to, nor to yourself, nor to anyone else. You're cheating. You're cheating  not just yourself but those around you from the chance of accepting or rejecting you for who you really are.You're cheating yourself and those your life touches out of the chance to live authentically. You're giving up not just your own life but stealing a part of every life you touch.  

And isn't that the primal fear we have in all relationships? That if the people we love only knew who we really were they wouldn't love us anymore?

Isn't that what's really keeping you from becoming who you are?

You can go back to fooling yourself and everyone else in just a moment. But take a minute or two to ask yourself that question. Ask it honestly for once. 

And then you can go on to live or die with the consequences. 

If the people around you don't understand you, it probably means that you're with the wrong people, or you're just on the wrong planet. Your imagination is your rocket ship to all the planets that exist in inner space. Travel to one of them.