this is your real life experience

Back from the opening. It went swimmingly. Everything was eaten, including my terrifyingly green cookies. Hurrah! And all my dried fruit, the fruit and veg trays, the bowls of apples, bags of chips, and plates of scones.

Oh, and there was art, too.

Really splendid art, in fact. There are some great artists in Vancouver, currently struggling to survive on disability benefits. If I were polemical, they way they've been treated would pull a plethora of polemics from my... er... pulsing pout. Yes. See later notes on spoken word comma problems with.

(Polemics would be much more fun, actually, if they all had to be based around a single initial letter, or, say, use only one vowel, like Eunoia.)

A friend of mine had a wonderful piece, a red board filled with narrative, with a door that opened in the upper left (its upper left, the viewer's upper right) with symbolic objects in it. I won't overdescribe, since the work itself is much more eloquent. But he is a dab hand with this art business and I am very much looking forward to seeing his work evolve.

The pieces were loosely in response to the changes to disability welfare. They were all created by people who were receiving benefits and had to deal with the government's changes and the huge stupid form that was sent out to everyone.

It was difficult, because the art was good, and the show was a great success, so I was happy; but it came out of so much pointless suffering, so I was angry and sad.

The Carnival Band played (although my friend who's in it wasn't there), and there was a popular activist hip-hop trio. (There was a parade before the art show, and as the trumpeters went by, I heard a police officer say, "I don't know. I just don't know.")

There was also spoken word. I will just say that I am all for earnest young women expressing themselves earnestly and youthfully, but I sometimes think people should be forbidden from listening to Ani DiFranco's spoken word until they've had enough experience to realize it doesn't all have to sound like that. In fact it would be quite nice if it didn't.

The Interurban Gallery has big glass doors that open up, so people from the neighborhood came in as well, and got food and drinks and art. It worked out really well.

* * * * * *

I have an appointment coming up with a psychiatrist to evaluate my Real Life Experience -- two years, under the current standards, of Living as a Man.

If that sounds goofy, well, that's because it is.

I myself have lived as a man for four years, but last time I tried to get that recognized, they said it didn't count. They wouldn't even look at my documentation. Let alone my goatee.

That was all via email. One day, after two psychiatrists who hardly know me have confirmed I am who I say I am, I will post that amusing and painful correspondence.

It's the same psychiatrist this time, so I'm not all that enthusiastic, but I am quite literally without options, and very lucky to have this appointment at all. Only people who were this far in the process when the old clinic shut down got even this chance.

I have been having a pretty good time, though, asking people I know to write letters confirming a common consensus that I am a Real Live Boy. I've offered to write them all letters confirming their own genders, should the situation arise.

If only the Blue Surgery Fairy would whack me with his wand.

This entry is alarmingly alliterative (eek, there I go again), mostly unintentionally. It is a sign I should... rest. Should rest.

* * * * * *

The co-conspirator has had a long day untangling the great and petty dramas of humanity, and is currently watching ER. I watched for a bit. The violence is all right, but I can't bear all the foreshadowing.

-rf