Monday, 7th March, 2005

Fleeting Glimpses

Do you feel as though you've "come a long way" since Jan 2002, and if so, in what ways?

Ah, if ever I needed an excuse to drop into a completely self-reflective bout of navel-gazing, I think that's it

In certain respects, that's an easy question to answer — and the answer would be "yes". On a superficial level anyway, if you compare photographs of me taken back then and the ones I took over the weekend, then there's a distinct improvement in the way I carry off this whole 'looking like a girl' malarky.

...

And then, if you take the way I write as an indicator, then "yes" also — it pains me to read some of the things I've written three years ago (I'm dismayed by my constant use of "giggles" for example). Certain events and evolutions in the code have influenced what I write about, and who I think I'm writing for — and nowadays, I think there's much more of a cohesive 'purpose' to what I'm doing.

...

There's an improvement (?) in terms of length as well. Compare Thursday, 17th October 2002 and Monday, 28th February 2005 for example — one is slightly longer than the other

So in terms of my diary, yes, things have come a long way — partly through a desire in me to take what I do seriously, and partly due to a shift in my perception of 'audience' — I'm trying to picture myself writing three years ago, and all I can think of is someone who hasn't really understood who she's writing for. As I've said before, the minute I realised people were reading this crap, the way I wrote changed.

And of course, the minute I let people write back to me, it all changed again

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There's also, I suppose, the way I feel about my transvestism — in particular, the thoughts I have on how our community fits in with the rest of the world. In some respects, yes, I've come a long way i terms of how I think about all that — partly to do with conversations with friends and strangers, but mainly due to actually meeting other transvestites and the people they interact with.

But I think that's only natural isn't it? You have particular views about something, determined by your own experiences, but then when you meet other people who might have experienced things from a different perspective than yourself, you're forced to rethink how you might feel about them.

My perceptions about what it means to be 'out' for example, have been changed dramatically by meeting people who aren't in the position I'm in — who can't, perhaps, just be as open and carefree about the whole deal, who stand, perhaps, to lose a lot more than me if their crossdressing because public knowledge.

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And then, if you were to take this website as an example, then again you could say I've "come a long way". It started out with a pretty flat pink chunk of text with some images on it ... but then I started playing with coding, threw everything into a database and it's all gone a bt crazy since then.

The minute I started appreciating just how I could control the typography using CSS for example, things got a whole lot better

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Having said all that, one of the areas in my life that I haven't come too far on is my work. I was talking to my colleagues about it two weeks ago, and I picked up a general feeling of "maybe it's about time you did something else?"

And, they're so right — I've been slogging away at these sodding stripes for about five years now, and though I'm overjoyed with the output, they really don't seem to be going anywhere.

Now, maybe that's because I'm not aggressive enough in the way that I promote them (please! will someone buy just one of them?!), but also, I think I've got a mental block on them. I kinda feel that I can't move forwards from them until they've at least reached a point of basic recognition.

Does that make sense?

What I mean is that I feel they have to go somewhere before I can put them to bed and move forwards in my own head.

It's so frustrating sometimes, to see everything moving so fast in the Art world, and to feel that you're stuck on the periphery, looking in while no-one is taking a blind bit of notice to what you're doing...

...I'll come back to this in a minute.

...

So, if I was a superficial person, who took looks and the content of this website as an indicator of how good a person I was, then yes. I've come a huge way since I started this little ahem 'journey'. I'm (and I hope this doesn't sound vain) prettier than I was back then, I write more (and perhaps better) than I did, I know lots more people, my coding is better (but not great) and I've had links from the likes of Tom Coates and The Guardian...

...but what's really important, to my mind at least, in terms of asking myself how far I've come, is how I perceive myself.

If I cast my mind back to January 2002, I can remember a slightly nervous little trannie, desperately trying to find others to talk to. I can remember almost as if it was yesterday (and funnily enough, having stopped drinking BTW, I can remember yesterday a lot better than I used to be able to), sitting in my studio, using dial-up (yikes) and getting an email off Sarah West, who had tracked me down after I tried to get into the Chatroom.

I can still remember the first time I went in there — someone (not sure who — think it was Cabroncita) said "that's a very brave close up Siobhan".

I felt really small at the time — I felt like I was some kind of kid looking in at this world of adults who all knew each other.

My perception of myself was that I was a naive child, who needed to prove herself a lot before she was taken seriously.

And has that changed?

In some ways, yes. My self-esteem has, at times, shot through the roof. At moments over the past few years, I've caught myself thinking "Bloody hell! I'm Siobhan Fucking Curran!", and being dead chuffed about it.

But at other times, and in particular just right now this very second, I've felt so bloody small, as if no-one on the planet takes anything I do seriously.

You'll have to forgive me for a second here. I know that this isn't the case — I know, for example, that I'm loved by the most beautiful woman in the world, and I can't describe just how much that means to me. But in terms of my own self-perception, I just feel so utterly useless.

Now maybe, this is a reflection on what has happened over the past week or so — or maybe it's got something to do with why what happened, um, happened. And I know that over the course of the next few weeks, things are likely to change as the drugs kick in. I have, at times, caught glimpses of the person I feel deep down that I am (funnily enough, I was thinking about this last night, before I was prompted). Little moments of taking myself seriously, fleeting glimpses of someone who's strong and self-assured.

But they're only fleeting.

...

So, I guess, before this lapses into paragraph after paragraph of self-absorbed whining about the state of my head at the moment, I should say that yes, I've come a hell of a long way in these past three years.

But it doesn't feel like it at the moment.

A Brief Montage

12.10pm: Siobhan has a chat over the phone about how things are going

12.20pm: George throws up all over the bedroom floor

Fangirlism

(via flickr.com/people/si08han)

There was a photograph on Tom Coates's photostream the other day that I thought would be fantastic to use as the basis to one of my images. I hope he doesn't mind me using it like that

Rachel, IMG_7794 was never intended for sale — I was just trying something out. I dunno. I equally dunno how large I can get it without it breaking up. Probably about 2ft x 1ft is its limit.

And in all honesty, looking at it, I wouldn't frame it at all. It needs to bleed right to the edge.