It’s 12:33 so I’ve just turned 72 and thirty minutes old, according to my birth certificate.

 

Funny, I don’t feel 72. I wonder what that’s supposed to feel like.  I walked 10k steps yesterday and two days before that without incident.

 

One Lucky Duck

 

I have no chronic aches or pains, my BP is good and most of my other systems are functioning up to par.  I have only one working kidney, but it’s doing okay, my kidney doc tells me. Moderate kidney issues, but that’s probably to be expected since it’s doing the work of two kidneys, and probably has been for most of my life.

 

(I found out I had only one working kidney when I went in for an ultrasound for some other reason and the technician found the atrophied kidney.  One of my aunts had only one working kidney, too, so it might be a congenital thing.)

 

I’ve been getting Happy Birthday messages for 24 hours already, since some of my friends are in Russia and Down Under. Tia/Kat called me from Russia as her clock struck midnight (she is a night owl) to sing Happy Birthday to me in perfect English.  That was fun! She is a dear.

 

My sis Laurel sent an ecard, as has Nancy Graf  down in California. (Nancy is always prepunctual!)

 

 

Thank You, Mom!

 

I have always thought that birthdays should be about our moms, since they are the ones who did all the major work to bring us into this incarnation.

 

I mean, really!

 

As the hour of my birth approaches each year, I try to put myself in my mother’s place, realizing what she was going through to deliver me.  Gadzooks, I NEVER wanted to experience that for myself, so I can’t even imagine (truly) what it was like for her.

 

I remember her telling me one time, tongue in cheek, that every time she found herself in a delivery room (three times), she told herself, “You know what causes this! NEVER AGAIN!”

 

I tell ya, I get that!  I am so glad I knew I was transgender (without knowing the word for it) from a very young age, so I never felt compelled by societal pressures to put myself in the position to ever have to enter a delivery room!  That was never on MY agenda, at any time in my life!  Thank you, no.

 

Stay away from me, guys, unless you wanna be my buddy!!!

 

I have a love/hate relationship with guys.  I am one, but for far too long (until I met DeForest Kelley and some Warner Bros. gentlemen), the guys I was forced to be around as a  teenager (my uncles, my dad and his subcontractors on construction sites, ranch hands, etc.) were mostly rude, crude dudes.  They didn’t possess any attributes that made me think well of them or make me want to get any closer to them (even as friends).  I was grabbed, jostled, crudely propositioned, and almost raped.  This does not leave a good taste in one’s mouth or pleasant memories in one’s mind.

 

Dad said demeaning things.  My period was “flagging,” according to him. And because I am ticklish, he would often try to tickle me and kiss my neck, and whenever he succeeded, I would collapse and fall to the ground in a feverish attempt to escape.  One time when I did that, he joked to Mom, “She’s well trained! Kiss her on the neck and she lays down!”  That probably got a groan or grimace out of Mom (a victim of incest at a very young age, under 3) , but I don’t really remember her reaction.

 

Yeah… not the kind of thing one would expect a dad to bring up!  It mortified me!  I was a virgin.

 

MEN TELEGRAPH THEIR DESIRES

 

It was comments like that that clued me in to what men were thinking as I matured into what looked like a young woman. I was told by a married man at a train station where I worked that he wanted to “nail” me.   (How romantic, you know?! Gag a maggot!)

 

I was labeled a lesbian when a boss in southern California informed me that he had set me up with one of his friends “because he has taken a fancy to you. He has no money, but he’s a good guy.”  I told him to “un-set me up” and leave my love life to me to choose. That’s when he said I must be a lesbian. No, I’m just not yours to command, bastard! (On a previous occasion, he was sued, and the gal won bigly, for harassing her and trying to coax her into an intimate relationship with him. You know, the Trump type. The kind of guy who assumes,  “I own you. I’m paying you to do a job here, and part of that is satisfying me and/or my friends!”)  (Oh, hell, no, you do not own me.  I left there pronto.)

 

So, that’s why I have a love-hate relationship with most guys.  I steer clear unless they telegraph to me, loud and clear, that they do not view me as anything other than an equal and the possessor of my own autonomy.

 

Bumper Stickers I’ve seen while driving:

HEY, VIRGINS! THANKS FOR NOTHING!

NEVER GET ON ONE KNEE FOR A GIRL WHO WON’T GET ON TWO FOR YOU

MY OTHER TOY HAS BREASTS…

9 OUT OF 10 WOMEN ARE BATTERED AND I’M STILL EATIN’ MINE PLAIN

GAS, GRASS OR ASS — NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE

LIFE’S A BITCH — DON’T VOTE FOR ONE!

 

 

 

THE GOOD GUYS

 

I can count the truly good guys in my life on the fingers of one hand. That’s pretty damning, isn’t it?  DeForest Kelley, Ted Crail (although he did try to convince me that agreeing to an affair with our boss, who was hot to trot with me  — and in a gentlemanly way told me so, but did not persist when I declined — would be a smart career move as we sat on a plane between Salt Lake City and Sacramento one time), Dans Alpern and Kronstadt, and one other. (If you think it’s YOU, you may be right, but you may be wrong! You’re probably right, though, if you’ve never felt in the least opportunistic or predatory to me. If that’s you, congratulations! You occupy the fifth digit on my hand!)

 

So, even though I’ve always known I’m a guy, I have been conscientiously careful NOT to come across like most of the men I grew up around.

 

If I’m standoffish with you, fellows, there’s a reason. 

Men have taught me how to regard/interpret the male human being from a very early age.

 

I was even hesitant — and more than a little paranoid — when the Kelleys started being so nice to me.  I wondered, “Do they/does he have alterior motives?” They were a “Hollywood couple,” after all. And I had no idea, initially, what they were like behind closed doors!

 

Fortunately, there was zero need to worry.  They were on the up and up.  But it took me a while to be able to truly confirm that.

 

I was –and remain to this day — perhaps overly cautious!   Not enough to avoid walking regularly, or shut myself up in a cloister, but enough to keep at arm’s length most men unless their body language tells me they’re safe to be around.  I’m pretty intuitive in that way. I’ve honed the skill.

 

It’s a survival skill for most of us with female body types.  Most men would be horrified, I think (and I certainly HOPE!), if their female friends told them about the many close calls they’ve had in their lives.

 

RAPE CULTURE

 

This culture has encouraged  and legally supported the “boys will be boys” rape culture. In 31 GOP-controlled states, it’s legal for rapists to gain visitation rights to the offpsring that result from their violation of a female human being. And they’re trying to outlaw abortion, thereby”owning” female bodies.

 

So, the threats are real, and it isn’t paranoid to be wary. It’s prudent.

 

Until men face consequences for their actions, it will always be prudent to be a little paranoid.

 

Question: How did this Happy Birthday post become Beware of Male Human Beasts?

 

It’s called Stream of Consciousness, folks!  Eegads!!!