Sunday, 22nd January, 2006

Best Fifteen Pounds I Ever Spent

journey london train

Rather a hectic weekend that. Pretty much a non-stop booze-fest broken only by a couple of short meetings, an evening of chilled cinema, and the necessity of sleep.

I've been stuffing my face with curry in Southfields, lamb and goats' cheese in Spitalfields, and pork in Clapham. And in most cases, all washed down with far too much wine

I doubt anyone is remotely interested in a blow-by-blow (fnar) account, so I'll keep this brief and only mention a couple of three things.

One

Breakfast On Pluto (which I went to see with Kris and Fran on Friday) was an unsettling experience. I'd read K's review of it — and was going to see it based on her recomondation really — but the bit about the Troubles had slipped my attention. I was expecting to watch some kind of fairy-tale trannie extravaganza — and when men with balaclavas started running around, blowing things up, shooting everyone I was, well, winded a little I guess.

Funny really — I'd assumed that all that stuff from twenty to thirty years ago had been sufficiently 'put to bed', but I was quite surprised to find myself in tears half-way through.

Bloody good film though Except, (and I know I'm probably the only one who felt this) well, Cillian Murphy's voice, I found, got a bit grating after a while. Gorgeous, gorgeous man ... whiney voice

Two

I've been carrying a parcel around London with me all weekend. It wasn't very heavy, but it was a bit awkward. Nothing too exciting — just one of my prints that I wanted to give someone (she says, inadvertently ruining the surprise) — and not staying in the same place every night meant that I had to take it with me yesterday when I visited Tate Modern.

Tate Modern, indicentally, is home to The Most Beautiful Room In The World™ — the Rothko Room which houses the paintings he made for the Four Seaons restaurant in New York. I kinda feel I have to spend some time in there every time I go to London, just getting lost in fields of colour, watching with mild astonishment the people who come in and spend no more that fifty seconds looking at them.

So anyway, I'm sat in front of a sea of purple (Currant Purple™ if I'm not mistaken, actually), while my bag and my parcel is downstairs in the cloakroom.

...which is my rather longwinded way of now laying claim to have had a piece of work in the Tate

Three

Now then, about last night. Last night was a bit decadent if I'm honest. Despite my weeks-ago-extravagence of buying some new (boy) clothes, I still wanted to find a new jacket. Something seriously nice, not too smart yet fitted and tailored enough to be officially termed "A Bit Swish™". Figuring that as she is my most sartorially-adept friend, Miss K would be the perfect person to drag (ha ha!) round the shops with me, and so we met up at Selfridges at about 5ish and did the first thing that should be done whenever shopping: drink.

Two large glasses of Merlot/Rioja later, and the pair of us are winding our way round racks and racks of tops and trousers. There was some really nice stuff — but they had price-tags that said things like "£700" and higher — as well as some so-so stuff, which without fail was too big for me.

I'm not, as I've said in the past, a huge fan of shopping. But there was a certain element of glee to be had when at the end of a large rail of jackets — down in the tiny section marked "36" — I found a jacket that (a) fitted me perfectly, (b) I could afford, and (c) had the rather nice word "Armani" stitched on the label.

Chuffed with ourselves (and even more chuffed at the fact that since there was a sale on, I paid even less than the tag said), we headed off down Marylebone Street to a bar to meet up with Kim and Ian.

Which, incidently, was where we were posting those photos from last night.

Actually, I have to say, I'm impressed with how many people turned up to see us last night, just on the basis of a photo on a weblog — but you're an awfuly shy lot aren't you?

K and I came to the conclusion that the crowd that had come to see us must have been intimidated by our fame and beauty, and decided to pretend to just be regular pub-goers so as not to feel embarassed.

(Basically, no-one turned up. But we, as transvestites, are well-used to the practice of self-delusion, and managed to retain our misguided impression that we are hugely popular and famous and that our adoring fanbase would — to quote a lovely old chestnut — crawl fifteen miles through broken glass just to stick matchsticks in our shit )

After that, it's the usual story I'm afraid: drink drink drink, stagger stagger stagger, lose ticket for bus, dark patches of disjointed memories of travelling, late-night discussions (which hopefully didn't keep anyone awake ) over more wine and DVDs, followed (naturally) by head-stomping hangover in the morning.

Feeling (a) a little ropey this morning, and (b) a little swaggery in my new posh jacket, I got myself to Euston and hopped (no, not really) on the train.

This train (because I'm on it at the moment) is very busy. I just went to try and get a coffee and couldn't get through one of the carriages because of all the people in the aisle.

Actually, I say it's very busy, but it's not where I am. The ropeyness and swaggeryness got the better of me, and I figured the word "upgrade" was in order. So I'm now sat in the First Class Quiet Coach, loving every minute of it and only slightly wondering if the sound of my typing is annoying anyone — because it's that quiet

Like I said, best fifteen quid I ever spent. It goes slightly against my Socialist principles, but fuck it — I can't travel with the proles now can I? Not in an Armani jacket

Iffy

quip tech geek

Do you have a friend called "Fiona" who sends you emails? Does you friend shorten her name to the first two letters? Does she, therefore, end all her emails thus: "fi"? Do you wonder why she doesn't therefore begin all her emails thus: "if". Are you a sad fuck like me who spends too long staring at code that it's started to take over your everyday language?

What I hate, is looking into the fridge, and getting continuous 304 — NOT MODIFIED

Opportune Moments

tranny hotels

One of the things that I find about going away from home for a few days — unless, of course, the reason I'm going away is to visit some function where the wearing of dresses is mandatory — is that I spend a good chunk of time Not Dressed™

Being the single, carefree, trannie-about-town that I am, obviously, wearing womens clothing on a day-to-day basis is something that I do, um, daily. I don't need to leave town, get away from the wife and kids, hole-up in some seedy hotel or anything just to put on a skirt.

But as I was checking-in to the hotel on Thursday night, and doing all the usual "new hotel room" things — looking for gadgets (no bloody hairdryer!), flipping through television channels, and arranging pillows in a "Yes, this is how I think I'm going to pass out" way, a thought struck me.

"Just how many men, right now, are checking into hotels across the country, and preparing to spend the evening wearing snatched fragments of clothing, because it's the only opportunity they have?"

There were two follow-up thoughts to this, I must just say. (1) From that, and the assumption that the number of men engaged in such activities must be huge, I'm fucking lucky aren't I? (2) Whats the point of all the millitant ranting and raving that I do? Can someone like me ever make one bit of difference to the general status quo where what we do, we do in secret? Should I, for that matter?

Maybe this is OK? Maybe this is what we want?

I dunno. It's just nice to end sometimes with a question, rather than a punchline...

LOL — very good

Sorry — seemed quite negative that didn't it? I'm just having a moment or two of Self doubt™. It'll pass, and I'll be back to my Little Miss I'm The Most Important Trannie In The World™ self any minute now.

Defining Yourself On The Basis Of Isms

tranny rant labels

When I was young (not that I'm not young now you understand. I mean "younger", obviously), I was your usual run-of-the-mill 6th-form art student.

As a usual run-of-the-mill 6th-form art student, I had to study Modernism, and generally throw myself into the World Of Art™ (© Thames and Hudson, I bet), and each week, we were thrown into a whole new world of isms and the like.

Impressionism begat post-impressionism. Post-impressionism begat Cubism, and Fauvism, and Dada (ism?). Dada begat Surrealism. Cubism begat Futurism. Fauvism begate Expressionism. (Exodus chapter 5 verse 19)

But a whirlwind tour through early twentieth century art movements is a bit out of character for this weblog (is it?), what I wanted to mention was that each time a New Thing™ was presented to me, I found myself thinking *"Aha! I'm a [insert art movement of the week here]^h^h^hist.

I wanted, I guess, to belong to something — to be able to resort to others to define what it was that I am/was. Each time I came across a new artist, I would — in much the same way that each time I hear a song and think "Oooh, that's about me!" — think "They're just like me! I can cut-n-paste their manefesto into my life!".

"Labels" are things that crop up perenially in the communicational world of transvestites. There's the continual "TV vs TS" thing that (quite frankly) is rather boring really — but there's always someone who wawnts to chip in with some kind of cut-n-paste definition of themselves. And equally there's always someone to counteract with the well-worn cliché of "I'm not an [A-Za-z0-9], I'm just me"

Personally, I think that defining yourself as "something" is a no-no (feel free to pick me up on this seeming hypocriticalness BTW — I seem to be contradicting myself, but I'm not. Really). We all, all of us, change our views and ideas on a basis that's not daily, it's secondly. I'm not the same person one minute to the next.

I think it's very easy, sometimes, to be overwhelmed by the onslaught of information that gets shoved up our arses the minute we discover a world outside our wardrobe — and it's easy to jump to conclusions and throw ourselves into one pot or another because it's easier to be defined by someone else than it it to truly find yourself — or accept that you can never find yourself, because "yourself" is a bizarre notion that runs away like a kitten with a ball of string every time you try to tie it down.

In general then (because really my body is pleading with me to go to bed and try and recover some sense of liver-normality after the pounding I gave it this weekend, and my brain is such that any Interesting Idea™ that presents itself to my brain runs the risk of getting lost in a sea of circular arguments in which I disprove and re-prove myself fifty million times), saying "I am this" before you've had the chance to explore every single other possibility is something that will come back to haunt you later in life. And that applies to saying "I am me" too — because you can't ever say that until you have at least some ruminent notion of what "me" is.

And if, after you've thought everything through, you come to the conclusion that yes, you are you, and you is $foo — you have to be able to accept that $foo is a variable.

Because variables will, as we all know kids, vary.

And anyway. What do you do if one day, you wake up, and you're $bar?