Ne Plus Ultra Pants

Evidently none of those people I met in 12 step meetings are real alcoholics because none of them admit to having acquired the Herpes. I know I’m not the only person who made “poor partner choices” on alcohol. Having the Herp on your new man-dingle is about the most fabulous thing ever. I mean, there’s just more real estate to share the love virus, more shingle for the shack as it were. Just awesome.

I’m bitching about it because, like many a small pain, it is dominating my man-scape just now. I recalled my friend’s commentary on the whininess of men-who-used-to-be-women and held it up against my own experience. I’m whining, but I daresay I’m not a Whiner. And I will add: the whiniest people I know are born-men.

Several come to mind, two of whom I absolutely adore. There’s a flavor of man, a subset, that we’re all familiar with. They’re typically very sensitive. They’re the tooth in your mouth you try not to get coffee or ice-cream on. They’re broody; often things aren’t going well for them, things you and I can’t find flaw with. The men I’m thinking of are generally strong men with decently dark senses of humor – they’re not identifiable off the bat as Big Babies. But they will bitch about a thing ad nauseam. Because they’re, well, Big Babies.

It must work for them. I envision their fathers having been the same, or their mothers paying especial attention to every boo-boo, every sting, every time the world flagrantly disregarded the comfort of their little prince. In my house I got pats for being stoic. This is me, every knee and elbow gory as a Mathew Brady Civil War document from some implausibly fanstatic seven-bike pileup – no helmet mind you, it’s the 70’s - looking up at my mother for solace, succor, with an absolute poker face: “What a brave little soldier you are! Not a peep out of you!” I don’t think I cried for 27 years.

I don’t know women who whine, or more accurately, I don’t seem to hang out with any. The women in my life are tough. They’re like the type of lawn bag you want when you’re cleaning out your garage, and getting rid of broken glass, nails, and a random carcass, not that thin shit-sack you’re kicking yourself for buying because it “saved you” three dollars and now every piece of crap is on your floor, having burst through the herniated membrane of $1.99 polypropelene. My girl-peeps are QUALITY. SHTRONG. HEFTY even. They’ll bitch and moan, but – and here’s the critical difference – they never seem to take themselves seriously. My “men who whine?” Oh, it’s very serious. That little drop of black ink finds its way into their reservoir, coloring and tainting every life-sustaining molecule, graying the pond, darkening their brow. Of course, there’s a whole culture to support this, you know, starting with Romeo, to James Dean, and I’m sure at least one of the Jonas Brothers is moody.

What I’m really thinking about is that it has been about a year now since I decided to go all man stylie, man-in-the-pants. I had been hanging around this skirt, this tomato – okay, she was my girlfriend – and it was pretty evident that, at least in my mind, we were having a heterosexual relationship. I think it was the “ghost penis” phantom limb phenomenon that got me. The transvestitism, my chivalry, fetish for male accouterment, my love of the ladies, even the anxiety sweats and tremors when forced to shop in the “women’s” section of Target could be symptomatic of garden-variety sapphistry, but when you’re pretty sure there ought to be something there that aint, and when it frustrates you to near hair-tearing madness that the thing you feel down there isn’t actually there?….well, you might be trans.

I dreamt of surgery this morning, and it was wonderful. The surgery was unspecified, but upon awakening I knew it was about my breasts because in my dream I was so very happy. I wasn’t fearful, I was excited.

My friend Mxliwizt (alias) emailed me his chest doctor’s website. There were before and after pictures of my friend’s chesticles. Seeing pictures of boobs on this guy made me feel like my brains were sucking my skull like a supernova gone black hole. It made me feel like I do sometimes when I see me. It’s one thing to have a tiny dick, but it’s quite another to have these random fat sacks swinging from your ribs. The dick part I’m okay with; I’ve had a good run with the vadge, and testosterone has made me feel insouciant enough in those parts to compensate for a certain je ne sais quoi a more Jurassic member might give one.

Imagine, if you will, that you’re a woman who wants to stay a woman - imagine unzipping those jeans, you know the ones that make your friends jealous, envision ziiiiip, spreading that vee of zipper, pulling the elastic of the fantastically cute Craftmafia undies you bought off Bust.com and lo and I do mean lo and behold, there hangs a nutsack.

I’m just saying.

This is not me whining, by the way.This is a manly kvetch. This is insightful stuff, right here. This is your friend Sam, reporting from the depths of his tranny pants.*

*what Jessica and Ed's two year old son Gus calls his training pants.