Being Bodil

Experimental

Posted on the 14th of October 2007 at 18:02 by Bodil

I discovered last night that I don’t look as bad as I expected with my hair up. I discovered tonight that I like Picnik‘s ready-made colour filters a little too much, but at least they add a little variation to my bathroom wall.

My God, I need a nose job.

Survivor

Posted on the 12th of October 2007 at 21:56 by Bodil

I survived.

Kristiansund is an unremarkable town of about 15 000 inhabitants, excreted across three islands off the coast of central Norway. Its residents consider the township to be a sprawling city, and take themselves and their glorious city state very seriously. Its three major industries are offshore oil, electricity and garbage processing (I kid you not). If you enjoy the harsh weather, the parochial culture and the xenophobic uniformity of the populace, you will very much enjoy living there.

Into this wart on the backside of the world I was born, 32 years ago (although I will dispute that figure vehemently in public). And unto this unseemly backwater I returned, one week ago, to confront everything that kept me down throughout my adolescence, and stare it in the face and tell it to deal with what I’ve become or feel free to go off and fuck itself, if it wouldn’t mind.

And you know, it wasn’t all that bad. The occasion for the trip was the annual LAN party for which I keep being drafted as the head of the networking crew. I’ve known most of the people involved from the start, twelve years ago, some even longer. So, if nothing else, it’s an occasion to meet and hang out with old friends. This year, of course, it was also an occasion to introduce them to my new self. I arrived in boy mode on Thursday, and left in boy mode on Tuesday, but the four days in between I spent as Bodil–the most consecutive days I’ve done so to date, in fact. It all went splendidly well, everyone was great (women complimenting my appearance, men being more characteristically circumspect about such things, ever mindful of the Penis).

And on Saturday night, I brought a few friends and went out into the rural nightlife. I’ve always imagined this would be something particularly dangerous to my health and self-esteem, knowing the lovely people of Kristiansund as I do. I should have been justifiably nervous, but my confidence was high, and it never even actually occurred to me that I would do anything but pass perfectly. Of course, I didn’t, but what should by right and tradition have been a transphobic bloodbath was transmuted, through sheer unassailable confidence (and force of personality, I’d like to imagine), into a very few minor semi-unpleasant incidents–because the hidebound idiots must have their turn, or they wouldn’t be hidebound idiots–threaded into the pleasant weave of a surprisingly enjoyable evening. In fact, the one incident of any note, in which a quite unappealing woman came over to me and threatened to have someone beat me because men should not pretend to be beautiful women (a threat she did not follow through on, obviously, and one for which I told her off rather forcefully–and in an appalling lapse of politeness I failed to thank her for inadvertently calling me beautiful), only served to highlight the fact that most people, even in Kristiansund, are in fact quite lovely and decent people, such as the sweet girl who came over to me after the incident and asked me not to let them get to me. I assured her I didn’t, and thanked her for redeeming her home town.

Of course, I also had the opportunity to introduce Bodil to my family. They’ve all known for quite a while, but this was the first time they actually met her in person (“her,” I say–it’s not a matter of a split personality, rather a need to clarify the terms; “me” would be too ambiguous). My father is stoic and uncommunicative, and I couldn’t tell you what his opinion about the whole thing is, but there’s no visible expression of disapproval. I guess that has to be a good sign. My mother, though, is as disapproving as ever, in her own characteristic way, but not about the whole transgender issue. Basically, she just likes to complain (as do I, admittedly), and she complains about how I dress too indecently and use too much makeup, about my hair (all right, my wig, I admit it) being too extreme and unusual. She does not complain about how her son is a freak and an affront to God, so I suppose I should consider myself fabulously fortunate to have such great parents, considering some of the horror stories about coming out I’ve heard. It’ll take them some time yet to accept me fully, but I’m confident they will in the end. Admittedly, it’s not like I’m giving them much of a choice.

My brother took one look at his lovely sister, exclaimed “oh my God,” and refused to look at me for the rest of my stay. This might sound really bad, but in fact that incident alone pretty much made the whole trip worthwhile. I do so enjoy freaking people out of their narrow little reality tunnels, and I’m sure I quite exploded his. I’m sure he’ll learn a lot from the experience. It was also absurdly hilarious.

I find myself, despite myself, actually looking forward to my next trip this Christmas. Family time on Christmas Eve is going to be subtly different this year, I can assure you, and for once I think I’m actually going to enjoy it quite a bit.

Speaking of holidays, happy Crowleymas to one and all!

My Foot Hurts

Posted on the 30th of September 2007 at 23:14 by Bodil

Quick report on the week just passed.

Monday, I had my chest lasered. It was quick and painless (well, it stung a bit, but nothing at all compared to the agony of facial hair removal), and only cost a third of what I expected it to cost. The treated area was red and spotty for two days afterwards, but no pain, no swelling, and most importantly, no pimples. Still no noticeable hair loss either, though, but I don’t expect any hair falling out until next week. I would, however, have expected the beard to start falling out by now, but it’s still growing with annoying tenacity.

Then, work. Work is fatigue. It’s going really well, but I’m starting to feel a little stress. It eats up all my spare time–I come home from work, vegetate a bit in front of the laptop, then go to bed and wake up in the morning for more work. Three-day weekends are a blessing, even if Monday is actually school day, not holiday.

I went out, sort of, on Friday. Only to hang out at some friends’ place for a few hours, but it included a particularly long trip to get there. There’s about a ten minute walk to get to the tube station, and it’s really cold outside, and my nose is prone to extreme runniness in cold weather. And it ran. This, of course, resulted in my makeup getting messed up–in particular, a bit of the makeup I lather on copiously on my upper lip to hide my stubborn beard. By the time I got to the station, it was quite noticeable. And I panicked, of course. But you know what? Nobody noticed. The tube ride was another ten minutes, in public under bright lights, and nobody noticed–they only saw a stylishly dressed girl (if I do say so myself), and never noticed the slight flaw in her makeup that might give her away. By the time I got to where I was going, I didn’t even care. I was practically oozing confidence.

I also walked home afterwards (45 minutes, gah, boring), and was not raped. This is apparently unusual, according to some. More importantly to me, I was passing. My new shoes very generously gave me a huge blister, though, which still hurts. If they didn’t look so fab, I’d hurt them back.

Saturday, I stayed indoors and did nothing. Experimented a bit with makeup, will definitely stick with the old look.

And next weekend, I return to my home town, and meet my parents for the first time, in a way. It’s going to be awful, because I hate my home town, parochial little shithole that it is. But it’s also going to be, well, not good, as such, but definitely very important. Hopefully, good too.

The Big Day

Posted on the 23rd of September 2007 at 19:12 by Bodil

The big Saturday night wasn’t actually better than the previous day’s shopping spree. Well, nothing beats shopping, but a whole day being Bodil in public without so much as a single funny look comes close.

I went with a friend to see Pablo Francisco, whose act is actually getting a bit old, but I still laughed. His warm-up act, Flip Schultz, was absolutely awesome, and while he doesn’t come close to Pablo’s energy on stage, he was considerably funnier.

Went to a party later, with the regular crowd, and here’s the big triumph of the day: I travelled there by tube, and when I got to the station, there was a huge crowd of children bunched up in front of the ticket machine. I’m nervous around children–it’s notoriously difficult to pass around them, and they’re not known to be politically correct about it when they clock you. So when one of them notices me waiting behind them, I give him a shaky smile and brace myself for the puzzled stares. Instead, he says to the other kids, “why don’t we let that lady buy her ticket first?”

After that, believe me, I was soaring for the rest of the night. :)

And the party was nice too. I looked fabulous, of course, and here, by popular request, is a picture I took of myself after I got home, half asleep on the couch in front of the laptop, trying to summon the energy to remove the makeup and go to bed, instead of falling asleep on the couch fully dressed, wig and all, like I usually do. (Miraculously, I succeeded.)


Sorry, that’s all there is. :)

I lied, though, when I said I didn’t get a single funny look. At the party, there was this guy who kept staring at me across the room with this look of shocked fascination on his face. He’d evidently clocked me (not hard to do; if my suspiciously deep voice didn’t tip him off, which it really should, overhearing the conversation on my side of the room certainly would have), and had evidently never seen a tranny before. While I found it quite amusing, looking his way with a coy smile and seeing how fast he could turn away embarrassedly, I didn’t really mind awfully when he left either. He literally didn’t take his eyes off me, except to look away hurriedly when I looked back, and that dumbstruck expression on his face looked like it had frozen there.

I wonder what he was thinking. “How can someone with a penis look so perfectly gorgeous?”, I’d like to assume. And don’t try to tell me otherwise. :)

Shopping Day

Posted on the 21st of September 2007 at 20:53 by Bodil

Today was the big shopping day. I’ve no idea how much I spent, but it was definitely all worth it. Best of all, I found this absolutely awesome coat at at store that looked hideously expensive, and almost didn’t buy it because I expected it to cost two months’ rent, easily. But I went back and checked the price, and it turned out it was quite ridiculously cheap. So very pleased now.

The pimples have stopped appearing too, although I’m still sore and spotty. Nothing makeup won’t hide, so I fully expect to look fabulous tomorrow.

Today was a very good day. :)