Tag: celesteh

My Mother’s Last Pie

When I arrived, it was sitting on the counter. I hadn’t fully expected to see it, a part of me thinking that it couldn’t be real. But there it was, looking more or less like I remembered. Maybe the color of the crust had changed, but it just looked so typical. Like any other of my mother’s pies.

I looked at the knife holes in the crust, searching for special meanings, but there were none. They looked hasty, as if the pie had been assembled as part of a larger process and not prepared specifically for this occasion. Indeed, it had been one of many pies that she’d made that day and frozen unbaked.
Like all her best pies, it was apricot. The baked syrup had bubbled out the slits in the top and around the sides, as normal. It was a little bit browner than usual. My sister-in-law apologized for leaving it in the oven too long.
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe we were going to eat it. I couldn’t believe the general lightness of mood. I tried, gently, to broach the topic with my brother who seemed puzzled by my point of view. I tried a different track, “This pie should be enrolled in the first grade.”
He laughed, “It’s not that old!”
“Actually it is. We found a label on it that said ‘2001’” said his wife.
“It would have to be.” I concurred. “Mom died in 2002 and didn’t have a chance to make any pies that year.”
My brother shrugged it off and turned his attention to the thanksgiving turkey. I tried to ignore the pie, sitting there. Eventually, it got moved to the top of the refrigerator in order to clear up counter space. It almost slipped from my mind. Except that it didn’t slip from my mind at all.
I had plans to spend the night at a friend’s house. She arrived at my brother’s house in time for dessert and with an entourage. Encouraged by her presence, I again tried to cast doubt on the advisability of eating a six year old pie. “What if the power went out or something while it was frozen?”
My dad explained that he had given the last three pies to my brother over 2 years ago. My brother said, “the first thing I did was bake one of them and eat it. It was delicious.” He saved the second one for last thanksgiving and the third one for this year. It was the last pie made by mother that anyone would ever eat.
As to a power failure, he’d had one for three days. After the first 45 minutes, he’d rushed the pie over to his neighbor’s (still working) freezer for safe-keeping. The pie was still frozen solid at the time and, he argued, unharmed.
My friend was a biologist. Normally when I see her consume something, I feel like it’s risk levels are acceptably low. So when dessert was served and she took a bite of the pie, I felt like maybe I could too. Still, I spent a long time thinking about it, voicing my objections. My brother assured me that he was just as happy to eat my share and I didn’t need to.
This pie would surely kill us all.
How could they not see that eating this pie, made by mother those six years ago, before any of knew she had cancer, when she seemed well, how could it not kill us to eat it? But they ate and didn’t die immediately, so I asked for a slice.
I stared at the tiny sliver on my plate for a long time. It was a different color than I remembered her pies. The fruit had browned slightly with age. I took a tiny bite. I chewed slowly. And then another bite.
Did it’s age change it’s taste? The texture was different. It was more like a pie made with jam than with whole slices of fruit. But the taste, I don’t know. I can’t think of it now. I couldn’t think of it between swallowing one bite and putting the next in my mouth. Now, I don’t know if I could even remember the taste of her pies when they were new: fruit picked and baked on the same day.
Instead with every bite, the undeniable truth – that this pie would certainly kill us in horrible ways – got harder to ignore. This was a mausoleum pie. Not a pie for the living.
I took three or four bites in total and then looked sadly at my plate. It was my last ever chance to eat my mother’s pie. Her apricot pie. Her specialty. Something she excelled at. Made with love. I would never again have the opportunity to eat such a thing and I couldn’t do it. I felt like an important moment had come and I wasn’t up to the task. I felt like crying. I worried I would forever remember the terrible moment of having to choose between total panic and rejecting the pie. My sister in law informed me kindly that it wasn’t a big deal. Nobody thought it was a big deal. Not my dad who provided the pie. Not my brother who saved the pie. Not my sister in law who baked the pie. Not the friend of my mom who arrived in time for dessert. Nobody.
Except for me.
I knew my truth of death-dealing pie was irrational, but there was no visible middle ground between joyous object and horrifying object. No room to grieve for the pie or for myself.
I’d also brought a pie. In case we decided not to eat the other one. It was a sweet potato pie. I took it with me when I left. My brother hoped I would leave it, but his wife told me not to, fondly patting his stomach. One left over pie for him to eat was enough.

Moving Quickly

So I went in this morning to see the social worker and she wasn’t gate keeper-y at all. This clinic gives T to anybody who won’t be harmed by it and at a wide variety of doses. “We have lots of genderqueer patients,” she said.
She asked me for a lot of personal background, like where I went to school and if I took drugs and whatnot. She asked about a definition of a man and a definition of a woman. I complained about gender essentialism, and that was ok and, indeed, she agreed when I said the question was “inherently essentialist” and problematic. No “in the wrong body” or other dualist things. It was very low key.
Then, afterwards, she took me down to have about 500 (ok, like 5 – 10) vials of blood removed to be tested for lord knows what. The most critical one (unless I turn out to have somehow picked up an STD, which is supremely (nearly divinely) unlikely) is a cholesterol test. T is a type of cholesterol, so if mine is high, being on T could push it out of hand. Actually, this is probably more of a concern if I move back to France and start feasting on baguettes with butter and cheese again.
I don’t like getting blood drawn. It smarts. Also, I need that blood! I’m totally using it right now! They also took some pee, which I’m much less attached to, but anyway. I should have probably asked more questions, but instead I was marvelling that my appointment with a prescribing doctor is next Tuesday. Holy Smokes!
I’m pretty excited. I came home and went out for a celebratory cup of coffee (it was too early in the day for a drink, also, blood loss would probably make me more easily drunk than normal. (just kidding.)
This is momentous, and (as always for me) I have some worries.
What if my friends stop talking to me or are transphobic / unsupportive? Also, what about my family? What if Nicole’s family gets all upset at her? I mean, I know that a lot of people are transphobic, but normally I think of them as neanderthals who somehow fell through a wormhole into modern times. But some people I care about might turn out to be secret neanderthals.
Also, this is going to change the way I smell. (I will soon reek like a teenage boy, alas. I’ll try to take showers much more often.) What if my dog doesn’t recognize me or dislikes me or something? I wish I could start this with her around so she would know it was still me with a different smell.
Anyway, despite worrying about my friends, family and dog, I was still up and I’m an American, so I decided to go shopping! Err, yeah, I went to REI (an adventure sports store) to look at socks . . . and biking stuff . . . and more biking stuff. I wanted gloves because last time I fell off my bike, my gloves saved my hands from road rash. I don’t have them here and anyway, they’re not warm enough for this time of year. So I was looking at gloves when a guy came up and asked me if I wanted help. I told him I wanted gloves.
“The women’s gloves are on the other side.”
“I don’t wear women’s clothes.”
“Women’s gloves will fit you better.”
“They have little flowers on them.” (Indeed, they do.)
“No, they’re exactly the same as the men’s gloves. Here are some without flowers. Try these on.”
“They fit exactly the same as the men’s gloves offset by one size.”
“See, I told you they were the same!” He seemed to think he had won. This went on for a long while, actually. He took me to another glove department, clearly hoping that I wouldn’t notice that he was handing me all women’s gloves and kept talking about the merits of each one. Then, after having run out of merits, he switched to stories about being in the airforce and how there are no vegans who are true athletes. Eventually, he realized that no matter how much he talked, I wasn’t going to commit to buying a pair of women’s gloves and so he wandered off.
Ok, yeah, so I have mixed feelings. On the one hand soon, I will never have to deal with that kind of crap again. On the other hand, I feel like I’m fleeing the fight against gender essentialism being fought by my brothers and sisters. Like, ‘so long suckers, have fun being kicked out of barber shops! I’m about to pass!’ Except that it’s not like I fought at all. No, I was a good little passive shopper and didn’t tell him to stick it up his ass, and just sort of waited for him to give up. So passive, I didn’t even get angry until later and instead just wondered why my anxiety was acting up. (‘Hm, it is as if my person has just come under attack. I wonder what caused that?’) Like, I’m just so used to it that it didn’t even really register.
Now, I want to go back and kick his ass. But I didn’t. I didn’t resort to violence. I didn’t use my words. I didn’t even absent myself. I bought men’s gloves when he wasn’t looking.
I don’t want to make this a bigger thing than it is. And, you know, I really don’t like to fight. I hate having to get into a fight to get my hair cut or whatever. I know that I should speak up, but sometimes, you know, I just want to buy some damn gloves from a store that hasn’t given me grief in the past. (I did ask him later if he had a men’s shirt in a smaller size, so I guess I made his lack of dissuasion clear. I dunno.) And, also, let’s be clear, the wrong doer in this situation was him, not me & my lack of self-defense.
I don’t know how strongly I’ll be able to conform to a male stereotype anyway, as I like art and dressing well and other suspect activities, so it’s not like I’ll stop being genderqueer or IDing thusly. And while I want to stand in solidarity with my gendervariant, metaphorical siblings, I don’t think that foregoing hormones is a way to do that. I mean, I would never ask that of anybody. If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.
My last main worry on the transition front has to do with me being a special snowflake. I’m rather unusual for a woman, but much more typical for a guy. I go from being tall to being average height. I go from having unexpected interests to encouraged ones. I go from cross dressing to not. I go from lesbian to guy-who-likes-women (I refuse to ID as straight. I just won’t). So yeah, I’m a special snowflake. Except that I don’t think my most interesting traits are tied in with my gender presentation. I’m a composer. I go on long bike trips. I blog. Certainly my experiences of gender inform and influence my entire life (and vice versa) but if I had nothing more going for me than being a tall, female cross dresser, well, that wouldn’t be so much to go on. (I’d still have my looks, but still.) I’m only a slightly less special snowflake. Also, I don’t plan to go stealth, so maybe I’m an even more special snowflake? Again, not so much to go on. My gender is really not the most exciting thing about me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Every 4th Thursday in November is the American holiday of Thanksgiving. It is basically a harvest festival where people gather together with family and friends to stuff themselves with food and feel grateful for things that are going well in their lives. Traditionally, people eat turkey and other autumn foods like cranberries and pumpkins. It became a federal holiday in 1941. There’s a cultural idea that this festival dates back to early colonial times. It’s true there was a feast of thanksgiving back with the Pilgrims, but it was in honor of a military victory and not repeated the next year. There would be similar festivities to celebrate other victories and these were held at any time of year. The had mostly fallen out of favor by the mid 1880’s, until Lincoln declared two of them in honor of Civil War victories.

Some folks who I’ve talked to described hearing this like learning there was no Santa Claus. Sorry. Personally, I like the idea of having a harvest festival and having a national holiday that is secular and non-statist-patriotic. It’s a cultural disaster that we’ve established this connection to that particular feast with the Pilgrims. It’s as if Germany established a holiday and said it commemorated their successful invasion of Poland. So I’d like to reject the Genocide Day aspect tacked on to what ought to be just be a harvest feast.
One of the traditions associated with the holiday is making a list of things that they are thankful for. I’m thankful that I get to see my family today, since it’s unexpected for me. Also, that I have the resources to deal with my immigration problems and will (eventually) be able to return to my school. I’m thankful that I had a useful telephone conversation with the foreign student office. I’m thankful that I will soon be getting one last needed document in the mail. I’m thankful for their advice. I’m thankful that stupid “anti-terrorist” restrictions on who can learn about what kind of technology in the UK won’t apply to me. Indeed, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to laugh at the idea of a Silicon Valley native sneaking overseas to get access to sekrit British technology. I mean, not that they don’t have any. At one time, they had a total monopoly on the secret of excellent musket design. It’s just that, well, the silicon wafer computer chip was invented in my neighborhood, so to speak. The ipod was invented in my home town. (My dad worked on the nano.) Alarmingly, as the US now spends very little money on R&D, it may be the case that Brits do have some advanced technology not available here. Um, but we invented MySpace. Anyway, I’m getting off topic.
As soon as my admission letter and proof of lodging come in the mail, I forward them off to my visa service who goes and stands in line at the British consulate in LA and then I should be able to travel very shortly afterwards. I want to believe it will be like a week longer, but that’s overly optimistic. I need to get plane tickets (it turns out that same day sales are rather pricey (my credit card bill is for $1500)) but I don’t want to do it until I have a better idea of when exactly and at the same time, I need to be concerned about financial details. Maybe I can fly standby. So, yeah, I’m thankful that it’s all going to work out, hopefully soon.
Sometimes people say “Happy T-day” where the T stands for both Thanksgiving and turkey. However, I’m a vegetarian. My friend Sarah sent me a poem in honor of this:

The turkey bird,
it cannot fly.
I’d rather have
a piece of pie.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

This last Tuesday was Transgender Day of Remembrance. It’s a day of mourning and protest in memory of folks killed for being transgender. Alas, trans folks are the most likely group to experience hate-based violence. The FBI reports, alas, that hate crimes were up last year, which implies that it was a bad year for trans folks as well.

Part of the reason that hate crimes are so high for trans people is because they are often a more vulnerable group. Queers in general experience economic discrimination. Trans folks get it much much worse. Imagine if you had to lie about your job history. It would be hard to get a good job. A disproportionate number of trans people end up in sex work. Many trans people end up homeless. (50% of MTF transsexuals lose their jobs when they transition.) An economically vulnerable class is also a physically vulnerable class.

What can I do about this?

Ok, so you don’t go around beating anybody up. And you would call the cops or something if you saw it. Good for you. But you can do more.
Trans folks are vulnerable due to non-violent hostility in work environments and other types of discrimination. So don’t discriminate against trans people! If somebody around you does, say something. Something like, “that’s not funny.” Or “I have trans friends and don’t appreciate your saying that.” Or “I think X prefers the opposite pronouns and therefore we should use them.”
Obviously, you should treat trans people with respect. Outing folks is not cool. Making fun of somebody who had unknowing contact with a passing transperson is not cool. Jargon free: If your friend think a person is hot and then finds out the person is trans, don’t make fun of your friend. It is possible to both be trans and hot and that is awesome. Or if your TSA/immigration coworker patted down somebody, don’t make fun of them for that, and especially not where the somebody can hear. (Just sayin’)

no, alas, I didn’t go to the protest

There was one in SF, but I was occupied with related business. Namely, sitting in the waiting room of SF’s gender clinic. The website said to show up at 2:00 for new patient intake. It did not mention that this particular intake is not in the building’s main intake. I should have asked somebody if I was in the right place, but I was too busy feeling extremely daunted. So I waited for nearly 2 hours and then got to talk to a nurse, who asked me questions.
What is your earliest memory of having a gender?
Please leave your answer to that question in a comment before going on reading here. It’s ok, I’ll wait. hmmm hmm hmm hmmm hmmm
So I said something about having to wear a skirt to catholic school. That’s not what she meant. She meant something more like, what’s the earliest memory of you having a concept of the gender that you would come to embody in adulthood? Like, when did you first realize that you were (really, deeply, actually) a girl or boy and what was that experience?
Leave a new comment answering the second question. Take your time. I’ll still be here.
Having been interviewed about such topics multiple times in the Netherlands, you’d think I’d have an answer for these things but I don’t. Geez, I spend my time trying NOT to think about these sorts of questions. I just, I dunno, write music and stuff. Also, I have philosophical issues with the phrase “true self.” And “in the wrong body.” Like, this body got me all the damn way here, so it’s not wrong. What, am I supposed to long for a brain transplant? I AM my body. Dualism is bullshit. I’m tall. I’m somewhat handsome. I can ride a unicycle. That’s not a “wrong body.” It’s just a body that inexplicably refuses to grow a goatee.
And without dualism, you also lose the idea of “true self.” My true self is sitting here on the sofa, typing. My true self drug it’s ass down to san Francisco to wait for hours to answer gatekeeper questions. Ok, sure, there are parts of me that are absolutely non-negotiable. And there are parts that are becoming increasingly stubborn. And this inexplicable lack of goatee ability has some inhibiting impact on my ideal presentation. Part of my problem with the idea of “true self” is that I think it robs me of agency. I decided to drag my ass down to answer annoying questions. I can pick whether I want to do this, or go nuts, or do something else. I construct my own identity by mixing the negotiable with the not, having conversations with myself, others, the world around me. I am my own man. Mine. Created by me. And since I own me, and since me IS my body and since everything I do all the time is changing me, I should get to be in the drivers seat about what I want to do to me and how I want to change over time. Some stuff is going to happen no matter what I think about it (eventually, I will die. Alas). Some stuff, I can effect.
The whole gatekeeper thing annoys me. If I have to ask somebody permission before painting my bicycle, it’s not really my bike. It’s a bike that they control. So if I want to modify my body, and I have to get permission first, then it means that they are in control. My body doesn’t belong to me, then, it belongs to a medical establishment. And as we’re rejecting dualism here, that means ME. I belong to the medical establishment.
that’s crap.
Rather than try to explain this worldview, I got quiet and defensive. I’m NOT in the wrong body! *sigh*
They didn’t chuck me out on my ear, but instead made an appointment for me to see a social worker, a week from T-day. That person can refer me to a doc who can write prescriptions. This is the normal procedure. The nurse insisted that I see one particular social worker. It’s funny that when I was in Holland, they wanted to send me off to transition and thought it was odd that I wanted to discuss it further first and here they seem to want me to discuss it further.
I really suck at lying. I probably suck at truth telling too. I would do terribly on a lie detector test, overthinking everything. This is why I got rejected from England. These concise, tell-em-that-they-want-to-hear answers are not easy for me. Still, I’m considering trying to lie anyway. Rawr! I’m very binary identified! I am incredibly manly! I have been convinced of my manliness from my earliest memory! I have no doubts or concerns whatsoever! My family is entirely supportive!
Jean says that is a whole lot of fabrication . . . enough to make a suit out of. (Only problem is that I’d still be naked afterwards.) I don’t know. Maybe a social worker will tell me how to bring this up with my family. (Or maybe the fam reads my blog. Yikes. Meh.)

Speaking of my family . . .

My brother is planning on baking a pie for thanksgiving that my mother made. My mother died in 2002. But she was really in to preserving fruit. It broke my heart to throw away the outdated jars of applesauce that she had given me in 2001. she didn’t just put things in jars, but also froze them. My mom was also the pie queen (more so than Lois). When apricots were in season, she sprung into action, making jam, preserves, canned half apricots, frozen apricots and pies. She made so many pies. But instead of baking them, she parked them in the freezer and baked them when needed. My mom left behind a freezer full of frozen pies. And her pies were really fantastic.
I don’t know, but I’m guessing that her last pie probably dates from 2001. That’s a six year old pie. Freezer burn + morbidity all in one package. I’m not sure my mother would want us to honor her memory by eating a six year old pie. I have trepidation regarding the experience, frankly. Aside from all the concerns associated with eating a pie that’s old enough to be in the first grade, I feel that it’s likely that a pall will be cast over the gathering. It will be a pie of mourning.
So at that very opportune moment, I can say, “So I have an appointment with a social worker a week from today . . .”
I’m sure the social worker wouldn’t approve. Also, I wish I was making this whole thing up.

Continuing From Where I Left Off

When last I typed, I was sitting on an airplane which I had been placed on by British immigration agents. I wondered if the cabin crew was aware of my situation. They didn’t act like it. They offered me wine when they offered everybody else wine and did not treat me differently than other passengers. When I asked if they had any extra vegetarian meals, the woman handing them out found me one and then started to give me a form to request one for my next flight. So perhaps she didn’t know.

When we landed, I hit the call button. The airplane aisle was was jammed with people. One of the cabin crew caught my eye and made hand symbols to ask if I was asking about my passport. He told me to go to the front of the plane. So I guess they did know.
I got off and there was a man there holding the envelope that I knew to contain my passport. I asked for it back, but instead he brusquely told me to follow him. The people working in detention in Britain had all been fairly friendly and scrupulously polite. They explained what was going on and what was about to happen. Nobody got cagey until I asked who was paying for my ticket home. This man, however, did not explain anything, but walked ahead with his lips slightly pursed. He wore an airline uniform, but seemed to consider himself some sort of diplomatic, immigration agent. He took me to American immigration, and gave the border agent my passport. He spoke about me to the agent as if I was not present. I began to detest him. Some people are just doing their jobs and some people see themselves as above you. He was the latter. Since he treated me as invisible burden, I will do the same to him for the rest of this story as a sort of a petty revenge for having to spend time following his wordless, brisk-walking arrogance.
I had to go to a secondary interview to get back in the US. I had hoped that I would just get back my passport and be on my way, but alas. I was told to sit in a big room with many chairs and two or three american immigration agents, seated behind tall desks. There were only a few people in the room. I looked at them and guessed they were foreign. I wondered what would happen if the US wouldn’t take me either. Didn’t they have to? After a short wait, I was called forward. A sympathetic agent said, “so what happened?” I explained about how the NYC British consulate’s web page gives incorrect information as to how they accept visa applications and my mistaken belief that I could get in with a tourist visa. She was entirely empathetic, but then pointed out that America would have done the same thing. “I know!” I said, “you have to stop doing that! Well, I guess it’s what you have to do by law, but still.” She blamed George Bush. For being required to hassle foreigners and for my having experienced the same. Damn him.
She stamped my passport and returned it to me. Huzzah. It has a refusal stamp in it, something that will probably cause me problems in the future. Or not. I think Britain has a reputation. From immigration and customs, I went to ticketing. To pay for a last-minute transatlantic fare. Well, that answered that question. The fare was a bit over $1000. My credit card was denied. I called them and they asked, as a security question, for the cell number I had when I was in Connecticut. I failed security. Finally, the officious jerk who had been leading me everywhere, and seemed to think my fare to be far too low, grew impatient and left. The ticket agents didn’t like him either. The guy I was talking to, who was clearly family, said it happened to everybody. The woman next to him said her niece had been sent back when she went to study at the London School of Economics. And she had a visa! The friendly ticket agent said even some cabin crew had been caught up in British immigration. He blamed George Bush. The other agents concurred. Damn that guy!
My credit card company relented and I paid my ticket. The guy I was paying told me to fly west with Jetblue, since they would have the cheapest tickets and the most flights. Then he took me down to the baggage office. He was so nice. “It happens to everybody!” he kept saying. Then he said that he used to live in San Francisco and if I did fly an affiliate airline, he would tell everybody to be nice to me. I gave him a bag of reeces pieces.
The baggage office, also friendly and polite had more bad news. My bike hadn’t made the flight. I explained that I was continuing onward via an out-of-network airline and they took my address. My bike will be arriving via fedex delivery, probably tomorrow.
I went over to the Jetblue terminal at JFK airport and walked up to a customer service agent and purchased a ticket for the next flight to Oakland. “Do you have any bags to check?” “No.” I said ruefully. The last minute ticket was $120 or $130, I forget which. I was amazed at my good fortune. I spend two or three hours waiting in the airport. I called Nicole who empathized and Ellen, who offered me a ride from the Oakland airport and finally my dad my said, “You know what you should do?!” in the tone of voice he gets when he’s got an outside-the-box idea. “You should go see if there’s an Irish consulate in San Francisco.” He left a pause, waiting for my reply.
“But I’m trying to go to England.”
“You should find out how Irish you have to be to get an Irish passport.” He was giggling now, very taken with his suggestion.
“I’ve got just as many British ancestors, but that didn’t seem to help much.” Indeed, I had mentioned them to the immigration agent who interviewed me.
“But Ireland needs labor! You might have to promise to work in Ireland!” he giggled more.
Suddenly, the exhaustion of having gotten so little sleep and then being up for so many hours hit me. I told my dad that I regretted not having his phone number memorized, since I therefore couldn’t have called him from detention. As I type this, I wonder what suggestions he would have had for while I was detained. Mostly, I think I wanted somebody to know where I was. We hung up.
I got on the next airplane. It was a much nicer plane than the last two. I had a row to myself and lay down across it and slept for the entire 5 hour flight. Ellen met me at the airport and took me home, where I now sit. Still tired. I need to contact a consulate, either the one in New York or the one in Los Angeles or both and ask what to do. I need a copy of my Mills College transcript, to send it with my visa application. I need to make copies of my house keys, since, of course, I didn’t bring them, since I wasn’t going to be in Berkeley at all. I need to take a nap.

Detained

I am sitting on an airplane, waiting for a transatlantic flight. It’s my second in less than 24 hours. I don’t have my passport. The captain of the plane is holding it until we get over the ocean. The passenger next to me has just told me what time the flight arrives. It’s the first time that i’ve been told. I haven’t paid for the ticket, but am concerned that i might have to.

Alas, i am not describing a confusing dream, but rather my current situation. After a red-eye flight and 6 hours of detention, i’m totally exhausted. I’ve been refused entry to the uk and am on my way back to new york, where i’ll have to find my way back to san francisco. My tearful parting with my girlfriend last night is fated to be shorter than we either anticipated.

I was in new york to apply for a student visa. They no longer accept in-person applications. Their web site, though, allows you to file for one, but not to make the appointment. I was flattened with stomach flu before i could discover why their appointment-making system was constantly broken. My time scheduled in the us was drawing to a close and i had not submitted. I decided to mail in the documents from the uk and get the visa during winter break. I bought return tickets yesterday morning, so i could prove my plans if asked.

Then, i got on my plane. Concerned about visa issues, i left my bass guitar with nicole. I didn’t want to seem as if i was trying to sneak in to play gigs and earn money. However, i didn’t make it as far as baggage claim before falling into detention.

The immigration officer seemed friendly and chatty. It was six-something am and i hadn’t had coffee, but tried to be friendly in return. She asked why i came. I said i was visiting the university. This answer has been satisfactory on several previous occasions. This time, I had noticed signs up advertising delays. They noted that extra security takes extra time. The extra time in this case included her asking for some clarification on that. She seemed so personable that i didn’t become alarmed when she began taking notes. It wasn’t until she asked what kind of dog i had that i started to become alarmed.

She told me not to be alarmed, but to follow her to a waiting area. At heathrow terminal 4, there are some lines leading to immigration agents. In the very middle of the lines, there is a little pen with some seats. It would seem like it was just a waiting area for old people or folks with kids, if it weren’t for the chair-height barriers surrounding it and most especially the door of the same short height. The door had a latch on it, so when the friendly agent lead me there, she flipped up the flimsy piece of plastic to let me in and flipped it closed after me to keep me inside. That non-lock was useless for imprisoning someone, but the psychological impact was clear. “Oh fuck.” I said, as she left.

A man came around some time later to lead me to baggage claim. We got my bike and put it and my backpack on a cart. He had me follow him to the customs area, where he searched my bags. I thought this might be the end of a process where i would soon be on my way, but all he searched for were documents and his questions were repetitions of ones the first agent had asked. Then, he lead me back to the immigration area, but to a security door on the right of the room.

The door opened to hallway full of parked luggage carts with glass-walled waiting rooms on one side. He told me to park my luggage and then took me to a foyer between the waiting rooms, where i was asked to empty my pockets and patted down. I was allowed to keep my wallet and change and lip balm, but not my keys or cell phone. I tried to retrieve on of the many bags of reeces pieces that i had purchased immediately before my flight, but was told that candy was against the rules.

Then, i was deposited in the waiting room where i spent the next several hours. There were signs up indicating that pictures were disallowed and (perhaps to protect themselves against possible artistic talent) my pen had been removed, so i have tried to commit the room to memory as much as possible.

It had one exit door which was unlocked and lead to the foyer. One long wall was glass. The other two walls had many doors leading to small rooms where detainees could be questioned, finger printed, photographed. The room had two long rows of ugly chairs, facing each other. Near the middle were two small tables. It looked much like other police waiting rooms that i’ve seen.

I wished aloud for a cup of coffee and a woman, also waiting, told me that i could just ask for one. So i went back to the foyer and asked for it and got nescafe from a vending machine. I announced my intention to retrieve and take my zoloft, but was told that i could not. A doctor must be first consulted. Also, the door from the foyer to the hall was locked. This seemed to make my situation seem more serious, but, when i was told then to have my photo taken, i was called sir. I felt happy to be passing and a certain thrill of excitement at being held. This was kind of exciting! At least, when it wasn’t incredibly dull. I felt homesick and had a perverse desire to be sent back so i could see my family. But then i thought of my boarded dog and other tasks in birmingham and hoped otherwise. I wondered what it meant that my happiness at passing surpassed my dismay at being detained.

I had to sign forms. I was given documents. I waited. I wondered if my passing was going to screw up my paperwork. I waited. I tried not to eavesdrop on other people’s interviews which were highly audible through thin walls.

I heard my name from the foyer. “Not a man, but a woman dressed as a man.” Laughter. “Why would she do that?” Laughter. Then, “I just patted her arms.” amid more laughter. They were teasing the man who patted me down. I wondered how this changed my situation.

An officer came to interview me. He asked all the same questions. I complained about the new york consulate and stressed that i had a return ticket and that the dutch consulate told me it wasn’t illegal. The officer said that he wouldn’t have had me detained and he would recommend that i be let on my way, but that i had knowingly tried to enter with a tourist visa when i was aware of student visa requirements would count against me. Apparently, ignorance of the law was an excuse.

The officer took me to the medical officer to discover if i would be allowed to take zoloft. Somebody there took the pills from me and googled them or something to make sure it was legal and a reasonable dose. There was no doctor present. It was decided that i would be allowed to take my meds. I wondered if needing them went into my file.

The pat down guy acted the same as before. Another guard, who apparently missed that conversation, was very insistent at correcting the officer when he said “she”. I guess clouds have silver linings.

I used the room’s pay phone and my credit card to call my berkeley home number, since i had it memorized. It was late so i left voicemail.

The officer came back and told me that i was being sent home, but it would not hurt my ability to get a student visa. He gave me a document which stated this. I left another message with ellen and then called jean, who has a very memorable phone number. It was 2:30am at her location, but her tone changed when i explained the situation. I wished i had my dad’s number memorized.

Some Quebecois were also detained. Most everyone sat in silence but the two animatedly shared their stories and opinions. The man had been detained because he was staying with a friend and didn’t know the address. As it happened, he knew the friend’s mobile number and that the friend was waiting for him at the airport. H was finger printed, photographed, questioned and then hopefully somebody thought to talk to the friend to get his address.

The canadian woman had come back too soon after a long stay. So much for the commonwealth.

And then more waiting. Somebody came around to collect me an hour before my flight. She had me take the luggage cart through security. My bike was xrayed. Then, she walked me to the gate. I was allowed to use my cellphone and to sit, while she held my passport and watched my luggage. I called my kennel, my supervisor and my afternoon date. When it was time, i was told to pre-board. My bike was left at the top of the jetway, to be moved to the hold. I was the first person on the plane.

And now i’m on the plane. Too much airplane food. Not enough sleep. Too many carbon credits in debit. The novelty of the situation long since worn off. My morale is low.

As he was giving me bad news, the officer said two things that stick with me. One was to imagine how america treats those with paperwork problems. I got this more than once, from different people. America’s stupid anti-foreigner policies are hurting citizens.

The other thing was that britian had to be extra vigilant because other european countries weren’t. He painted a picture that seemed to put britian as the outer defenses of fortress europe. The enemies were at the gate, but britian stood strong. I congratulated him on having successfully defended britian in this case.

Talking about music

Aileen asks, “Is it just my limited experience, or is there really a paucity of sound-related terms in English?”
I’m intrigued by her question! Do she mean for describing a single sound event? I don’t speak any of my second languages well enough to give a comparison answer, but here are some technical terms in English:

timbre, tuning, tone, rhythm, tempo, loud, soft, dry, resonant, rich, rough, pure, metallic, high, low, nasal, tremolo, trill, vibrato, dissonant, consonant, atonal

If you are talking about a single sound event, most words would talk about the sound quality, so some of the above wouldn’t apply, as they refer to to multiple sound events. So you would likely want to talk about duration, amplitude, timbre and pitch. Amplitude is straight forward enough. And pitch is usually described in terms of high and low. timbre, the quality of the sound, is where you get the most words

Scientifically, any sound can be described by a finite number of sine waves. Specify their amplitude, pitch and phase and how they change over time. Timbre is strongly linked to how these sine waves are related to each other. A pure sound is one with few, harmonically related sine tones.
Harmonically related means that the frequencies of the sines are related by whole number ratios that are relatively simple. If you add the numerator and the denominator together, the smaller the sum is, the more pure the timbre. When talking about sounds this way, the lowest sine wave is often called the fundamental, and the higher ones are called overtones. (Many musical sounds have overtones that are just simple multiples of the fundamental.)
When the component sine waves of a sound are close to each other – specifically, so close that they fall within the critical band, you get roughness. (think of an instrument tuning, the sound is first rough, and then there’s a beating sound which gradually slows until they’re in tune.)
A rich sound is one with a more harmonically related overtones. If you get a whole lot of overtones (I think specifically odd ones), the sound is nasal.

Overtones that don’t have simple relationships with each other are called enharmonic. Enharmonic sounds are often described as metallic, especially if they have a lot of low or mid range frequency content and few highs and a bit of duration to them.
Noises, like twigs break, things clicking, etc, have more high frequency content, and are strong enharmonic and also very short. Sustained sounds with lots and lots of enharmonic content are called noise. Mathematically, noise can be described as the sum of an infinite number of sine waves – over an infinite amount of time, of course. Very short noise, as mentioned, is usually called “clicking.”
Vibrato is where the pitch moved up and down around a central pitch, where the deviation is too small to be perceived as moving to another note. A glissando is when it goes from one pitch to another, where the source and destination are perceived as separate notes. A trill is a sound that moved quickly between two pitches which are perceived as separate notes. A tremolo is a fast variation in amplitude, again with a specific amplitude center. Becoming louder is crescendoing or fading in. Becoming softer is decrescendoing or fading out.
Some timbrel terms describe the environment (whether “real” or “electronic”) in which a sound event occurred. A cathedral has a really long decay. If you clap your hands, the echo can go on for several seconds. a sound recorded in that environment would be described as resonant. Similarly, a sound recorded in a room with no echo would be described as dry.
There are a lot of other ways in which people describe sounds, but these are often metaphorical, describing the means of production, or comparing it to another sound. for instance a “booming” sound, is a low sound like, well, a boom. Vocal sounds are made with the voice. Screeching sounds. String sounds. Etc. some words are onomatopoetic. Crackle. Crunch. Crack. Clunk. Thunk. Boom. Whoosh. Sploosh. Splat. Vroom.
We have the most terms to talk about musical sounds, but the sounds most essential to survival are the non musical ones. A breaking twig does not have harmonically related overtones or sustained duration, but it might mean a predator is about to get you. It might not be a coincidence that so many of our onomatopoetic sounds describe these kinds of noises. Important sounds that communicate practical information.
Ok, a lot of the technical terms that I’ve named are actually italian, but are also part of the musical esperanto in that they’ve been adopted almost everywhere. (Crescendo in actual esperanto would be malsilentigxo.) I haven’t done much in other languages but dabble and listen to news podcasts, but if there’s one language that seems to never suffer from a paucity of terminology, it’s English.
I will concede, though, that English is not the best language for expression emotions, except for anger, which it, alas, excels at.
In unrelated news, tomorrow my dog goes to a kennel and in the afternoon/evening, I go to London. the day after, I fly to New York, where I still don’t know where I’ll be staying. Which I’m trying not to think too much about.

Book Review: Strong Imagination

Before I begin, I want to share that the reason that I have time to type a book review is that my mixing board is not broken at all. You may recall that I mentioned earlier that my synth got battered in shipping. This caused some of the jacks to get bent so they weren’t making good contact, which is easily fixable. So all is well.

Last spring, when I was whining about being on a really long waiting list to see a shrink, my friend Vivian gave me a book called Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature by David Nettle, which explores a link between insanity and creativity, just as the name implies. Nettle makes a convincing case regarding the nature and cause of madness. To briefly summarize: madness of all forms has both a genetic and an environmental component. In cases where of identical twins, when one becomes schizophrenic, the other has a 50% of becoming so also. This is a much higher risk than the general population, but still only half. Factors that can push people over the edge include divorce, death of a family member, social isolation (say, from moving far away) and basically everything else in my life that’s happened to me since 2002. I really like this part of the book because it makes me feel like I’m super together for not being more crazy.
Ok, since going mad is a huge problem, why do these genes persist in the population? Well, that twin who doesn’t go mad is likely to do very well in life. People who have increased risk for insanity tend to excel, especially in creative persuits. He then broke down mental illness by profession. Poets are just nuts. Alas, for poets. Next in line are musicians, especially composers. And it goes through all the creative fields and then into more practical ones.
The author sees two primary classes of mental illness. One is schizophrenia, and the other is a polar disorder. What he means by polar disorder is people whose emotions tend to run out of balance. So he’s grouping depressives and bipolar people together and argues how they’re related on a neurotransmitter level. He claims that depressives also have periods of peaks, but they don’t get as out of control as people who are bipolar. While schizoid personality types are good for creative thinking, the periods of peaks (short of mania) for people with polar disorders tend to be good for getting work done. He specifically mentions composers here. Especially in the old days of ensemble writing, before MIDI realizations, composers would have to write things and then wait months or years to hear it. A sane person doesn’t go into work that’s so thankless and so short of rewards. Most people need positive stimuli more often to keep working on something.
He never mentions anxiety disorder, aside from in his list of mental illness by profession, but from other reading, I know it’s strongly linked to depression and the same drugs are used to treat it. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced the highs of creative energy that he described. I do know that I tend to be overly pleased with myself. I always thought of this as some sort of personality flaw, but I guess it’s essential to my line of work. Also, the way I approach composition is more praise-seeking than the old way. What better way to get positive feedback than through commissions? I get a vote of confidence when people ask for one and then (so far) specific praise for the output that I deliver. And while I hate performing, I do it anyway because I like the attention. I’ve written pieces of music performed by others and then sat in the audience and listened. Fewer people come up to talk to me afterwards. And, most importantly, this does not get me chicks like performing does. But more on that last part in a bit.
So Nettle makes a convincing case that the genes associated with certain types of mental illness are also correlated with creative output, which explains why they persist in the population despite their huge liability. Appreciation of creative endeavors is a human universal. In every society that has ever existed, poetry and music have been considered important. Anthropologists have never found a group of people without music and without poetry. Even in societies where survival is difficult and everyone works at acquiring food (ie, no specialization of labor), poetry and music are valued. And people who are good at poetry or music get high prestige. Even if they have a bad time of it for a while, people will donate food. Creative output is essentially human, much more so than using tools or the other ways we’ve sought to set ourselves apart form other animals.
Nettle then goes on to ask a much deeper question: why do humans value creativity? Here, he turns to evolutionary theory. Male peacocks have crazy tails. You’ve seen them. It requires a huge number of extra resources to keep those tails looking good. A male with an especially nice looking tail has to be able to get a lot more food. One with a scraggly looking tail is not faring as well nutritionally. And that’s why, the theory goes, peahens (aka, the female of the species) find the tail so sexy. this male is really good at feeding himself and staying healthy. She thinks, if I breed with him, there’s a good chance my offspring will be healthy and able to feed themselves too. Therefore, the tail is sexy because it’s a drag on the bird. It’s inefficiency is what makes it such a great indicator of success. And it shows off values that are important to the survival needs of peacocks.
Humans don’t have much in the way of plumage, but we do have really big brains compared to other animals. And big brains are very important to us as a species. So somebody who is creative not only has a really big brain, but they have excess to waste on poetry and music or other creative output. Somebody who can tell a good story is thus not only smart enough to survive, but they’ve got brains to spare. I’m not explaining this as well as Nettle did, and, indeed, it’s a little slippery and weird, inherently. Animals find excess to be sexy, specifically excess that’s tied to some essential part of their species. So for humans, this is thinking power. It’s important to remember that this is statistical. You might find your pulse increase for accountants (yes, I know, it’s a stereotype – Charles Ives invented the actuary table), but statistically, creative output is one of the things that people consider when looking for a mate.
I say “people.” Nettle says “women.” Going back to peacocks – they don’t mate for life. A male can go after as many peahens as will have him. His investment in the next generation is very small, so he doesn’t have to be picky. People, though, invest quite a bit more in the next generation. Most people in the world practice monogamy. (Even in societies that allow polygamy, most people in it have only one mate.) I read several years ago a theory that early humans tended to mate for about two years if they didn’t have a kid. after that, they tend to move on. this was valuable behavior as they seemed to be infertile with each other. If they had a kid, they would tend to stay together until the kid was 7 years old. At that point, a kid doesn’t require as many resources. Giving birth is a much higher investment on the part of a woman than men’s part in conception, but 7 years of monogamy means that they’re both very strongly invested in the child. So the mother invests more resources, but not that much more.
Think of that movie March of the Penguins. the males and females look pretty much alike. The males didn’t have any special plumage. But both parents had a nearly equal part in taking care of the kid. Both of them had to be extremely strong to reproduce and both of them had to be completely dedicated to their one offspring. A female could only lay one egg and a male could only keep one egg warm. therefore, their contribution was more or less equal. So when they were searching for mates, they’re both looking for somebody strong and healthy. Any plumage that the males developed would be equally important on the females. they both need to be able to march out, find food, march back, feed the kid, etc.
But, alas, Nettle is trapped in the male plumage theory. As dubious proof of the essenitaly male nature of creativity, he has a graph of gallery shows for male and female painters in the first half of the 20th century. I wish this was a joke, but it’s actually in the book and he appears to be serious about it. He does acknowledge the role of sexism, but brushes it aside. However, he would have been hard pressed to find a graph more influenced by sexism. For an example, Frieda Kahlo, who was awesome and had an incredible amount of output, didn’t get a solo show until near the end of her life. She was an international celebrity before anybody even thought to give her a solo show. Her work now is considered iconic and is extremely popular, but the sale price of her painting is still much lower than other male artists with less fame and popular appeal, and she’s on display in fewer museums than one would expect. She is not at all an isolated case, but rather just one of the most blatant. If Nettle had looked up a graph for white vs African American shows, he would have found similar data. Having established creativity as a human universal, it would be stupid and incorrect to argue racial difference based on such a graph. But here he does it with sex differences.
Ok, fine, there are sex differences in other species and there are some sex differences in humans too. But humans have nearly equal fertility investments in child rearing, so sex differences should be much less. Furthermore, peahens don’t have fancy tails. If it were the case that creativity was an essentially male persuit, there would be no genetic advantage in giving women the dangerous personality types associated with creativity. They would get none of the reward and bear none of the burden. Indeed, since personality types and creativity are so closely associated, the rate of male vs female insanity should indicate the rate of creative potential. And it’s very near the same. (Women are more likely than men to have a polar disorder.)
Quick, name a female sex symbol! Madonna! What does she do? She sings! How many female sex symbols are creative? Singers, dancers, actors! It should be completely obvious that male heterosexuals are as captivated by creative talent as straight women. (And queer folks having kids value this also.) Only blinding levels of sexism could obscure this.
I’m really tired of folks trying to say that composing is inherently, biologically male. The arts are human. Any attempt to assign them to gender is misguided and silly – or it would be silly if it weren’t so dangerous. And the lengths that women go to in order to create, fighting systems specifically put in place to keep them out, should emphasize the universality of creativity. Given the obstacles preventing women from getting gallery shows in the first half of the 20th century, the fact that there are any at all seems to imply a possibility that women have more creative capacity than men. I don’t think this is the case. I think the higher rate of depression in women is environmental, caused by things like barriers to creative recognition. I think the struggles past women have gone through to get their work out in the world is testament to the human spirit.
So, all in all, Nettle makes a pretty good argument, despite being a sexist ass who needs to revise some of the last chapters. He also gives advice to folks to try to stay sane. A personality type at risk to insanity can be helpful, but actual insanity is not. People who tend to succeed are organized and hard working (alas for me). Hard work is a greater part of creative success than other factors. So don’t feel bad about your mental illness. Work hard, get help if and when you need it. Poets are sexy.