Yesterday’s EVER NEW podcast (click here to watch it!) with Thorsten Walch was so much fun!

 

Hannah and I had a DE-lightful time with Thorsten, who has translated my book “DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal” into German so fans there can enjoy it in their native language. (The link above is to the English  version. Following is the link to the German Language version. You can pre-order it now, and PLEASE DO!!! It is scheduled to be released on June 3rd or a bit sooner: https://www.ifubshop.com/star-trek-b%C3%BCcher/deforest-kelley-ganz-nah-pers%C3%B6nlich/

 

I don’t think my dear co-host Hannah McCrane was able to get a word in edge-wise, but she hung in there like a trouper and commented whenever she got the chance (or whenever Thorsten and I paused long enough to ask if she had a comment or question for either of us).  And Roger Noriega, who coached me as I learned the Streamyard podcast system, stopped by for a few minutes, too. Thanks, Roger!

 

I haven’t listened to the podcast yet (which I usually do after doing it live) because it’s nearly two hours long and I’ve had some chores to catch up on, so I can’t refresh my memory on everything we talked about, but I do know it was a lively discussion and that we had a wonderful time.  I’ve asked Thorsten and Bjorn Sulter (the publisher) to visit EVER NEW again just before or after the book debuts in Germany, and they have agreed to do it. So, that’s another episode to look forward to.

 

In Other News

 

Not long after the podcast ended, I realized the mail carrier had probably come by, so I traipsed to the mailbox and found it crammed to the brim with a lot of small packages, all of them to me, one of which I wasn’t expecting. I spotted Hannah’s return address on the bulky package and smiled, DE-lighted to be receiving something unexpected from her. (My birthday was last Saturday. I did NOT expect a gift or card from her. Silly me!)

 

When I opened it up, I read the lovely, heartfelt card and what Hannah wrote inside it first. Then I unwrapped a small 5″ x 7″ something … and when I got it unwrapped, I saw that it was framed artwork (image below) and realized that she had commissioned an artist friend of hers (Reg O’Connell at regco.art) to create this masterpiece for me based on the image and inscription below it.

 

I gotta tell you, I cried!  I was sooooo touched by it.  Hannah had no idea that every time I have seen that inscription since then, I have always wished I’d had a name for who I was (transgender) back then so I could have told De and Carolyn about it. I know they would have honored my truth and switched my pronouns … and here, Hannah and Reg have done it for De!  I think De is smiling in heaven (if heaven exists, and it should for people like De!!!).  I’m just thrilled to my toes.

 

Lisa Twining and Greg Barton have also rendered me as male in images, and they’re all on my office/den wall, too.

 

       

They make me happy, and truly SEEN as I am. My brain recognizes ME in them!

When friends will do things like this for you, you know you’re loved and accepted unconditionally

 

When I had my chest masculinization surgery a couple years ago, from my educational past arose a cloud of Cle Elum school chums who united to send me love, support, and a gift card so I could outfit myself after surgery in the way I felt comfortable.  I can promise you, I cried then, too!  I cherish their card and early support to this day, and I will carry the gratitude to my death.

 

Here in my own family, the change wasn’t embraced or welcomed. It was more or less ignored.

 

Maybe they were embarrassed, or just not willing to acknowledge my truth.

 

I’m still “she” and “her” to them. But things are easier now because I’m so far past the surgery and it’s no longer so obviously “off my chest” and (to them, probably) in their faces.

 

I’ll never forget the time I was in my kitchen hallway (shirtless) when my mid-40’s nephew walked into my side of the house, spotted me, got embarrassed, and apologized before backpedaling back to Jackie’s side of the abode.

 

I laughed and said, “Phil, I have a guy’s chest now.  It’s okay!”

 

But away he went, feeling as if he’d somehow violated my modesty.  Heck, I was so happy to be able to walk around with my shirt off, I was feeling 100% immodest!  BRING IT ON!!!  You know?  (Unless you’ve been in my situation, as I had for 60 years, no, you probably don’t know, but being shirtless is so liberating, it’s indescribable! Especially being shirtless and seeing the chest that I was always supposed to have instead of the one puberty saddled me with.)

 

So, every time someone boldly faces my truth and treats it as honorable and respect-worthy, I can’t help but cry.  On the rare occasions when I’m with someone in person and they refer to me as him or his, I come close to crying.  Most non-family members do that these days, thankfully.  Someday maybe my own family will.

 

But I’m  NOT holding my breath, you may be sure!  I’d croak too soon to see it happen!

 

PRONOUNS PLEASE!

 

By the way, Thorsten and Bjorn both asked if I wanted my pronouns changed in the German edition. I thanked them and said no. During my times with De and Carolyn, I was referred to as she and her, and I wanted to maintain the protocol. I haven’t changed my pronouns in the English language version for that reason, too. I was “posing” as a heterosexual female most of my life, and in the book I do a lot of faux “lusting” after Doctor McCoy in stand up comedy routines and such. Those incidents would take on a different meaning if I changed my pronouns.

 

I am not a gay male.  I am a heterosexual male, albeit celibate for obvious reasons. (I don’t have the correctly assigned anatomy to couple with another being as a heterosexual male.)  But it is only on the rarest of occasions when I can even imagine coupling with someone.  Deepest love has to factor into it, and I have never been that deeply in love with more than two or three people. I have dearly loved a number of people, but not in a romantic way.

 

Maybe that’s because I’ve always known myself to be in the wrong body to engage in romantic relations and that doing so would leave me feeling unfulfilled and frustrated. I don’t know.  I do know that I’m not torn to  feeling any lack of a romantic physical connection. I’m happy and joyful, so being a life-long bachelor doesn’t really matter, thankfully!  It would be horrible, otherwise, and I can, and do, commiserate with those who do feel a lack. I’m just extremely fortunate that I don’t.