Thursday, December 24, 2009

She only sees what she wants to see

I find it somewhere between vaguely amusing and hair-rippingly infuriating the things my grandmother sees and says about my appearance.
For years she has nagged me -SO kindly, of course, you almost can't say anything because she's so well-meaning...- about my glasses. My black, rectangle-frame glasses, that look just like the ones before. "They hide your pretty eyes," she says, "You look like you're hiding behind them." She thinks I should get other glasses or contacts. No. They make it easier to communicate without words, they fit well enough, they match everything in my fairly utilitarian wardrobe, and provide me with adequate peripheral vision. And contacts dry my eyes out like mad.
My grandmother dislikes the way I have from time to time kept my hair in the past, short butch cuts that I used at school to swing around the gender-variant scale. I have had to pass these off as the result of a "$10 haircut," not a stylist who did just what I wanted, in order to keep myself in the closet to that half of the family. I finally have long hair again, and she commented this past weekend that I looked "So much better with your hair long, dear."

One of the main benefits of long hair is that it provides a veil, a shield to hide behind when I need it.

I want to scream.

In other scream-related news, Le Batard called me. I was not ready for this. I don't remember if I mentioned this here, but the last interaction we had before we left did not go well. Basically, he was an utterly insensitive, probably a manipulative jerk, did not pay attention to specific things I spent a long time explaining, and attempted to go against my wishes on a few counts. We had not spoken from before Sept. until yesterday, and I'm still not sure how to talk to him. I'm shaking and angry, even angrier after talking to my Dad last night pointed out a few more points where he'd been a jerk and I'd been too gracious to title it so at the time. Monkey and I are going to talk to him on Boxing Day, and I'm not sure how this will turn out. I don't know exactly how I want it to turn out. I wish he'd grow up and stop using people.

Wish us luck bashing his head in.
(metaphorically, of course.)

I'm also running at odds with my gender again, but not much I can do about that right now. 4 days of forced femininity have really warped my cycle of fluctuating gender ID & presentation. Whenever I've done this "forcing" before, it's rather fucked up my system, hormonally, but that's probably also due to the stress inherent in such exercises. I hope that a few days to settle down and let myself be 'male' or 'female' at will will reset me.

~Brill

2 comments:

Java said...

You're an interesting bird, my dear. I hope you feel comfortable enough at home to be yourself, in whatever form that takes.

Your grandmother doesn't understand you. I'm not surprised. You and I are alike in many ways, and she has never understood me, either.

Cameron said...

Ah...the joys of family! Many hugs sent your way. I too get the frustration of this. I have to admit, I don't shift my "presentation" around my family, so they just deal with me as is (of course, I don't have the dual presentation scenario to deal with - I only find myself in the one - male.) ...one wonders if they are ignoring, or willfully blind or what - "there is none so blind as those who will not see." I do come away banging my head hard on the car dashboard every time I see my family too though. The subliminal constriction makes me crazy. The last time I attempted the true gender appearance shift was at my step-son's wedding - you've read the great blog post about The Dress! LOL! I got out of that church after the happy ordeal, and tore off that dress at the first available gas station bathroom - ahhhh...back to good old male presenting me. I thought I was going to have hives.
As for the LeBatard...if this is related to the back story and the individual I think it is, well...grrrr. I think that booting him out of your orbit permanently is entirely appropriate. Head bashing completely appropriate, metaphorical or otherwise! No one should treat our Light so cavalierly or so miserably! Thats my two cents....would be interested in your dads take on it in that discussion, at some point.