No, I didn’t pine away for lost love and expire like some Victorian tubercular poet...but damn it was a close thing.
So many tears shed, so many Ravonettes song listened to over someone who was pursuing their own mysterious agenda with my heart.
I don’t enjoy daily access to my extended fleet and lack the garage space to continue with my Stutz project (working on cars is my preferred means to combat depression) so I must seek solace in Bettie and Veronica.
It is an international ménage à trois, Veronica is a bad girl from St. Louis, Missouri, 3809 Union blvd. to be precise and Bettie, conceived in California at the Calty Design Centre and brought to life at the Higashi Fuji plant, 1200 Mishuku, Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture.
More about good girl Bettie next post, we are here to gossip about Veronica.
She is only happy going fast on smooth surfaces, the Sharkbite coil overs make the deplorable side roads between Hamilton and Toronto (well to be honest most places in Ontario) an exercise in noise, harshness and vibration. Veronica likes to drink to excess but is happy to swig unleaded regular grade unlike Bettie who can only stomach high test. The t-tops leak in the rain, the AC stopped working during the second Reagan administration...I assume and the lumpy cam L82 motor generates enough heat to melt the soles of my pumps.
I had lunch with my father today, he picked me up in a V8 supercharged Jaguar sedan, OMG I missed riding in a long wheelbase car. Having owned many a sports car his zen advice on driving a slammed ride was “you just have to look ahead and know where to put your wheels”.
Veronica might be a bitch to live with on a daily basis but she looks sooooo damn hot. The C3 body style is better looking than any Ferrari and is rivalled only by the Lamborghini Miura in exuding pure feminine sex appeal. The less said about her agricultural underpinnings the better.
On days I don’t have my daughters I will even drive her to work, nothing beats the kick from showing up in a Stingray, the Ramones or Sylvie Vartan blasting and the smell of a hot car, the heady mixture of gas, oil and rubber.
The picture above captures pure unadulterated automotive joy at getting Veronica out of storage....true love....or the closest I can find.
This summer I haven’t taken her to any shows or cruise nights but I have flown home in the wee hours with the t-roofs off (tangling my fine hair into knots in the process), been caught in a near tropical storm where I couldn’t see past the length of her hood, sat at one am blissfully content listening to her hot engine tick and cool in the still evening air.
God help me I love her.
Here is the latest from the Dahlmanns, "He's A Drag" I tell you I lived this song!
Have you ever had a love affair that makes you miserable?
Have you ever had a love affair (sounds more adult than dating) that makes you miserable? I do not mean after it is over and you are trying to mend a broken heart but when that affair is actually ongoing.
I might be smiling in the above photo but inside I am miserable and lonely.
I have been dating someone for a while and everything seemed to be going well. In fact I fell for them hard. Don't ask me to explain it, looks, personality, I don't know, except that I was hooked. Eventually I even confessed my secret and they didn't freak out or run away.
At this point it should have been all sunshine and lollipops but they are elusive, a week may go by with only handful of texts despite us living minutes apart. Plans to get together almost invariably are cancelled at their request, sometimes at the last minute.
At first this behaviour would drive me to distraction and then tears. We talked about my concerns all they made all the right noises but little has changed....gotten worse?
I decided to step back and to let them initiate any future contact and if it were not forthcoming I would have a clear answer to my fears.
I am finding it very difficult to maintain the I don't care attitude. I hear the phone alerting me to a text message or phone call and I lunge for my cell like a drowning sailor. I want to call or text but I stay my hand as not to appear any more desperate than I am.
When they call or heaven forbid when we get together I am on cloud nine. Invariably our time together is short and the day ends is disappointment. The uncertainty of when we will meet again is the worst and I have literally made myself sick. For the last two weeks everything I eat tastes like I have been sucking on a leaky Eveready battery. A quick on line search links such a symptom to everything from depression (doh) to diabetes.
You might ask, “if this person knows all about you, they will know of this blog and will end up reading this very post” I did show them the blog but they haven't read it and will likely never see this.
I hear you say dear constant reader, “why don't you bug out?” Believe me I have asked myself the same question ad nauseam but I am enamoured (oh gods even worse I might be in love) and they give me just enough attention to keep me hanging on, like a damn fool.
Now on the plus side today at work I was helping two women who remarked on my sultry voice. Later I overheard them remark, “look at her she could do anything why is she working here”. A co-worked said that they told him that I looked like a Bond girl. Now that is high praise indeed.
I hope they were thinking of Tatiana Romanova from Russia With Love.
A delightful older lady, a regular customer, (she was wearing a gorgeous pink Chanel suit) told me that I should be a model with my figure.
Thanks ladies you helped make a bad day feel a little better.
Great goggly moogly, (Utterance of great surprise. Common in blues songs)I almost let the month named in my honour go by without an update on my super fabulous life......ok sarcasm off.
On the plus side it seems to have finally stopped snowing though we did have a little flurry a week ago. Summer tires are back on the daily driver.
In general and to my chagrin life has been the same, job (she shakes her head derisively), search for new job (she weeps quietly in the corner) have seen no improvement.
I had high hopes on the car front but lack of garage space this season means that the Corvette may have to stay in storage and the Stutz remain unfinished for another season. The Lincoln and Electra may get brought out of hibernation for a week or two of exercise and minor repairs.
Last week, I revived Elvis from his slumber
fired up and idled as smooth as silk
I did take my 1971 Schwinn Stingray out for a ride to welcome spring to the Great White North.
I have been making notes for more in-depth blog posts, tackling IMPORTANT issues but my heart is not in it today.
I am still struggling with relationships. I have to remind myself that so are many "normal" people with non-transsexual histories. I have known for a while that I want a real relationship, one that will lead to long term stability and domesticity.
I have also learned that I have no control over who I develop feeling for and usually those are the wrong ones who cause me nothing but heartache and misery. Unwittingly I have had the same effect on others....so karma?
Too many bad days and nights with a dark cloud hanging over me feeling as depressed as a Ravonettes album.
I don't have to tell anyone about my past and I mostly feel that they don't have a right to know until I am ready to tell them. But tell them I must, I feel that I can't be myself and be open and free with a potential partner unless they know my superhero origin story.
trying too hard to channel Jayne Mansfield
It is not an easy thing to admit and rejection is always a risk. Sometimes the rejection is instantaneous and other times it percolates and they realize that they can only see me for who I was, not who I am.
It hurts no less either way.
Hugs,
April
PS. Not my motorcycle in lead photo (two wheels bad, four wheels good)....but it does belong to a cool chick
I promised some more specific blog posts but I am feeling pretty blue right now. Relationships....enough said. So instead I am going to be vain and post a bunch of selfies I took in the car (Bettie) after a visit to the salon.
Yes, I used the beautify filter on camera, heck I just had a 45 minute electrolysis touch up session the same morning, cut me some slack.
I really liked the photos so dear constant reader I am sharing them with you. I know I know my benevolence knows no bounds.
I am wearing my pale pink suede jacket, hair was highlighted a little lighter than normal and trimmed. I snapped the photos while waiting to pick up my youngest daughters from school.
you can see the wrinkles in this one LOL
In my last post (featured in the T Central banner no less....I will endeavour not to let the fame go to my head....does it come with a tiara?) I talked about forgetting my past. I am still struggling relationship and career wise but not a day goes buy when I don't have a quiet moment to thank God, gods, the universe, Elvis that I was able to transition and that I am a woman now.
If you know in your heart it is transition or die, have faith, it is possible, for worse and better your life will never be the same. We few, we happy few, we live two lives in one lifetime.
Here are two fifties pop standards re-imagined from the Stubbs The Zombie video game soundtrack:
In a quiet moment at work I had the opportunity to jot down a list of topics I wanted to blog about, tolerance and intolerance, spring, hate, fashion and dating.
In the interests of quantity over quality I will address each topic separately over the next few posts or not depending on whether something far more interesting happens in my life.
In the last few weeks I have had the strangest feeling, I forgot that I am transsexual (was transsexual), that I used to be a guy (ugh shudder....I think I threw up a little in my mouth).
I am lucky that I pass, don't use the term "won the genetic lottery" if I really did I would have born female. Don't think for a minute I take this ability for granted.
the fifth Ramone....Bettie Ramone
No longer do I break into a cold sweat when entering a crowded room, meet a new person or go on a job interview or date....same thing really....am I right girls! Of course there was always that little voice in the back of my head reminding me to check the pitch of my voice, the strength of my hand shake.
That voice has not been completely quiet but I have realized in my day to day interaction with co-workers, friends and potential romantic partners I have forgotten that I used to be a guy, I am April, the woman they perceive me to be.
Plans are made to get together for brunch with just the girls, a date is going well and I happily imagine a potential future together...as if I was always female.
Of course this self realization comes at a price, as soon as I realize that I am seeing myself as who I am now and not who I was, reality comes crashing back around my ears.
I fear that the friends I have made would shun me, co-workers would whisper behind my back, I would no longer be April in their eyes. Even worse are relationships. Would they be horrified and feel lied to or cheated.
Make no mistake there are amazing people out there both cis men and women who are accepting and can look beyond a person's transsexual history.
I am stealth but I have too much history to hide my past forever from a potential partner. In addition I know that I could not have a meaningful long term relationship without the other person knowing everything there is about me.
Not dwelling on ones transsexual past and getting on with living ones life is a great thing, however I still feel the weight of my history. Perhaps as I move forward that burden will become lighter.
The other week I was invited to a murder mystery dinner. I was told that the mystery would be based on the Clue board game. I was Mrs. Peacock, the religious wife of a Republican senator who was running for President. Talk about type casting!
All I was told was that I needed a blue dress and pearls. I found a great deal on a pale blue dress with black lace trim at Winners. Even better than the price was the fact that it was a size six!
I had a great time but was somewhat disappointed that I wasn't the victim or the culprit, the murderess turned out to be that hussy Miss Scarlet.
Here is a great pop tune from Transvision vamp with just enough rockabilly attitude to grab my attention back in 1988, maybe it was the name of the band or perhaps it was lead singer Wendy James' sexy look.
Time for some humble bragging, as I think I have mentioned before customers at work have more than a few times asked if I am or more realistically were a model.
doing my best Russian super model selfie pose
To be asked if I am a model is flattering and really makes my day. Most of these welcome compliments come from older women so perhaps to them I don't look completely over the hill. To be serious for a moment I never dreamed that someone would ever say that about me. It was only a few years ago when I hated to look at myself in the mirror and that I feared that transition would be an impossibility, that I was too ugly too male. The other day I was feeling rather unattractive when one such customer approached me. She said, "you must be a model, you are so tall and thin"......followed by a pregnant pause....then she added "and pretty too". LOL, she had no idea how close she came to death at that moment. Oh well two out of three ain't bad. Later in the day a very well dressed and rather handsome man came in. He said that I looked like a Russian super model.
damn, I wish
For once I was at a loss for words (did I mention that he was really hot). A quick discussion of my racial/ethnic background followed. No, I told him I am English but perhaps there is a rouge Viking gene in there (you know from all the raping and pillaging) to account for blonde hair and blue eyes. Honestly I am often asked if I am Scandinavian, I usually joking reply that yes, I am pure Aryan. Later in the day I was speaking with my mother about the super model comment and she told me an interesting story. My parents emigrated from the UK to Canada when I was very young. Passage had been booked on the Queen Elizabeth but a strike meant that they sailed on the German liner Bremen. Not the one sunk in 1941 obviously but rather the post war Bremen, the flagship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line (North German Lloyd). The Bremen was actually the former French troopship Pasteur that was refitted at great cost in 1957-1959 for sixty-five million DM.
On July 9, 1959, she began the Bremerhaven - Southampton - Cherbourg - New York route. A luxury ship she was considered one of the most beautiful passenger liners of her time.
OK sorry for the history detour, I can't resist, back to the story. My pink skin, blonde hair and blue eyes were apparently the subject of much on board appreciation. One German couple took a particular interest remarking that, "I was exactly what Hitler wanted". Yikes...shades of Boys from Brazil. That reminds me of the Nazi Lebensborn program to promote the breeding of pure Aryan children between SS men and racially pure European women.
cheesy 1961 movie about Lebensorn program
The most famous child of this program was Frida Lyngstad, the dark haired singer for ABBA.
end note: The Breman made its last New York run in 1971, after going through a series of owners the proud ship that was first launched in 1939 and took Canadian troops home after the war and French troops to Vietnam sank in the Indian Ocean in 1980 on its way to be broken for scrap in Taiwan. Perhaps a better fate....
