My brain needs to behave or else I'll have it removed

I am currently in the midst of a losing battle with my brain. See, my brain does this thing where it decides that it's going to either torment me with insomnia or torment me with nightmares. It's one or the other. I haven't had a good night's sleep in TWO G*DDAMN YEARS, with the exception of the nights when I get drunk. Alcohol is a natural depressant. It's good at knocking you out. Unfortunately, substance abuse/addiction was a problem for my biological mother (have I mentioned I'm adopted yet? I can't remember...) so I'm very cautious about how much and how often I drink. I can't rely on alcohol to put me to sleep otherwise I'll wind up an even bigger mess than I already am.

Last night, my brain had no choice. I took valerian root (in case anyone is worried, it's a natural herb that helps your body produce melatonin, which is a chemical that your body is supposed to produce naturally, but some people don't get enough. Melatonin puts you to sleep. I'm not popping a sh*t ton of sleeping pills).

My brain put up a fight for a while, but eventually gave up, and I fell asleep. But I was not free.

No, my evil brain was like, "YOU CAN MAKE ME SLEEP BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE ME LIKE IT!" and gave me nightmares.

One particular nightmare from last night stands out to me.

As you've probably gathered from previous posts, I wear men's clothing. Sorry for stating the blatantly obvious, but I promise there's a reason I bring this up.

When I first started to transition, I kept all of my girl clothes. I would look at them hanging in my closet and hate them and love them at the same time. I hated feeling obligated to pretend to be what I wasn't; I missed being someone my parents loved.

My parents DO love me, as a side note. I wasn't out to them at the time and I was relatively convinced that they'd stop loving me and shun me forever if they found out. I started taking medication for my anxiety a few months later, and this illogical worry basically went away.

I went full steam ahead with the transition in January of 2010. I bought a binder and a bunch of guy's clothes, practiced talking with a deeper voice, and started introducing myself as Pete. But I kept my girl clothes in my closet, partially as a reminder of who I had been, but mostly as emergency backup clothes if I had to go to a family function or hang around people who I knew weren't okay with it.

In April of 2010, I moved into a new apartment with Purple-Haired Roommate. I packed up my girl clothes into big trash bags and prepared to move them to my new apartment. I looked at the bags containing my girl clothes, of which there were at least six. My boy clothes took up a mere one and a half bags. I thought to myself, "This is pointless! I don't even wear these! I'm clinging to them like a security blanket!"

I donated every item of female clothing I owned, with the exception of one Alice in Wonderland t-shirt (which I kept because Alice in Wonderland is my favorite book and not because it was a girl's shirt) to Salvation Army that afternoon.

The point of that long and (seemingly) useless story was this: last night, I dreamed about those clothes that I had kept.

In my dream, I had the bags of clothes in my closet. I never touched them, but I knew they were there. And then, for some reason, a little girl who was a friend of one of my siblings, was playing at our house and she found the bags of clothes and took them. I'm not sure if she lost them or gave them away or what, but my brain was quite insistent that those clothes were GONE and not coming back.

Dream Me apparently has a much worse temper than Awake Me. Dream Me dragged the little girl to my parents' swimming pool and held her underwater while she thrashed and cried.

I don't remember if the girl died in my dream or not. I don't think she did, but don't take my word for it. I have a worse memory than Dory from Finding Nemo.

I woke up terrified. My brain had turned me into a murderer!

A friend of mine, who has quite a bit of experience in the medical field, stopped my panic when I told him what had happened. Doctor Friend knows a decent bit about psychology. He told me that under no circumstances was this dream a reflection of my homicidal capabilities; instead, I was informed that, most likely, my mind was trying to deal with the clash between my male self and my female self.

Apparently, this dream was my mind's way of trying to "kill off" that girl part of me that I wish wasn't there.

I didn't get why Dream Me got so mad that my girl clothes were gone. If I was trying to kill off a girl part of me, wouldn't the clothes being gone NOT spark homicidal tendencies?

Doctor Friend says no, that I still have lingering attachments to the girl part of me, but on the whole, I have a lot of suppressed rage and guilt and this is my body's way of handling the entire trans situation. In a nutshell, I want the girl part of me dead and buried and forgotten.

I think he's just waiting for me to really snap.

SAMANTHA IS HOME FROM JAPAN!

SAMANTHA IS HOME FROM JAPAN! I'm so excited!

One of my best friends has been studying abroad in Japan for nearly a year. She just got home and I'm really, really excited! I missed her so much!

One of the things I love about Samantha (that is her name preference) is that she's trans as well. I've gotten to know a lot of trans people throughout my process of transitioning, but there are two that I met before I started to transition who have been behind me every step of the way. Samantha is one of them.

She was born biologically male, but identifies as female.

One of the awesome things about her, though, is that when we're hanging out, all of the trans stuff goes completely out the window. We're so wrapped up in being weird with each other that all the LGBT issues become secondary. For me, at least, I've always seen Samantha as a girl. Some other people may not, but she's always been a girl to me. It doesn't even occur to me to see her any other way, especially when we're hanging out and being ourselves and attracting strange looks from people nearby who have no clue what the f*ck we're talking about.

The conversation between Samantha and I gets so ridiculous that sometimes even we can't follow it. It usually goes something like this:

Me: (random story)....the end.

Samantha: Well, that was random. And pointless.

Me: I hate you.

Samantha: No, you don't. You love me.

Me: No. I definitely hate you. I'm gonna set Sniffleface on you.

Samantha: You can't. He works for me.

Me: Then I'll set Laser Rainbow on you!

Samantha: Nuh uh. He's too scared of Sniffleface to come near me.

Me: I'm gonna hit you!

Samantha: (Japanese)

Me: (random unrelated Spanish)

People nearby: What the hell...?

Did that make any sense to you? Because it made very little to me, and I've been in the midst of those conversations.

My point is, Samantha and I see each other for who we really are. Absolutely insane freaks. Gender has nothing to do with the fact that we're both f*cking crazy.

Why are bathrooms gendered?

My GRE is finally out of the way! I got a 420 on the quantitative section and a 530 on the verbal section. For those of you who (like me) have trouble discerning how exactly the GRE is scored, in simple terms, I could have done better on the quantitative part but I ROCKED the verbal part!

So, instead of knuckling down and studying the night before my GRE, I figured it would be a good idea to go to a gay club with Oldest Little Brother and a friend of ours (who is a totally awesome femme lesbian) who had just turned 18 and never been to a club. I know how I work. I would have been stressed all night and not slept at all if I'd stayed in. I figured that going out and taking my mind off things would be best. Which, it turns out, worked out perfectly.

The only blemish of the night was when Oldest Little Brother, Femme, and I went to Starbucks before heading to the club.

This incident is probably so meaningless (to them) that they don't even remember it. But it's another one of those things that seems meaningless to people who aren't trans, but that stands out like a sore thumb to those of us in the club who have gone through it.

Bathrooms.

Those of you who are trans are probably cringing right now.

Those of you who aren't may be a little confused.

You see, stores and businesses usually have bathrooms for public use. To the untrained eye, this seems convenient. You don't have to run down the street to find a place to pee. And even on a deeper level, this may still appear to be a good thing, because most public restrooms are gendered. One for women, one for men.

The problem comes in when you get gender-queer people like me who can't figure out which restroom to use.

I still appear feminine enough that walking into a men's room earns me weird looks and glares and sometimes even questions. Yes, I have put this to the test. BUT, it's very awkward for me to use the women's room. I feel like I'm walking in on something private, something that I should not be privy to because I do not fall into the elite group allowed to use that particular restroom.

My college is quite up-to-date on these issues and in a lot of the buildings on campus, they have family restrooms. This kills two birds with one stone, because parents can bring their children in there without having to worry about which-gendered-parent and which-gendered-child are allowed in which restroom, and also because the gender-queers on campus can use them freely and not have to worry about choosing a gendered restroom, both of which can be equally uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, a lot of public businesses are not quite there yet.

I informed Oldest Little Brother and Femme that I had to pee like a racehorse, and took about two steps toward the restroom before freezing up. I turned around, started to say something, stuttered incoherently, and finally stopped and resorted to looking helpless.

Oldest Little Brother: What's up?

Me: Um...are these single-person restrooms or do they have stalls for lots of people?

Oldest Little Brother: Single-person. Why?

Me: Um...will I get murdered if I use the men's room?

Oldest Little Brother: This is the most liberal city in the state. What do you think?

Me: Oh yeah.

And I used the men's room without incident. Turns out, nobody in Starbucks cared.

The advantage to living in one of the most liberal and open-minded cities in my state is that I can do stuff like that and generally not have to worry. The downfall is that you still get some intolerant people who have a problem with it.

My trouble is this: men in particular can get hostile, if not downright violent, toward people who don't meet gender stereotypes. I don't meet gender stereotypes for men OR women. I'm kind of my own category. But physically, I still look rather feminine, and regardless of where I am, there is still the risk of being hurt and/or killed if I don't choose carefully when it comes to the gender binary. It sucks, but it's real.

Like I said, the incident probably didn't even register to Oldest Little Brother and Femme. But for me, I'm seriously thrilled that I managed to use public restroom and didn't wind up in the hospital for it.

Invader Zim has no pronoun

This post may very well take a while for me to complete because Mia has taken "attention whore" to a new level. She's figured out that I have to pay attention to her if she stomps all over my keyboard while I'm trying to type.

I had a very interesting night last night. I forgot that I'm a real person and can actually make a choice to socialize (however bad at it I may be).

So I have a class with a girl who I had a class with last semester but didn't get to know very well until we had this class together this semester and recognized each other. This friend is a huge fan of Invader Zim, as am I. Actually, she likes most of the same things I like. I was at her house yesterday and I fell in love with her bookshelf. I think we're made for each other and she just has yet to acknowledge it. You know who you are...

So Invader Zim Friend and I met up at a restaurant for dinner with some of her friends and her boyfriend, none of whom I had met before. Meeting these people was almost like being back in Ecuador.

Sorry, Invader Zim Friend. You have to share my heart with Ecuador.

People met me, and didn't question my transition AT ALL. I think I got one question about it the entire night, and it wasn't even a nosy one. I'd be bitching and moaning about it right now if it was, but it was such an unfazing question that I don't even remember it. Yeah, everybody was like, "Hi, Pete. Nice to meet you," and fell into conversation about somebody's wife and somebody else's friend and going to anime conventions.

One thing I love about Invader Zim Friend is that she makes no distinction between pronouns. At first, I kept pointing out when she called me a "she," and she'd be like, "SHIT! I'm sorry!" and I'd tell her it was no big deal really, I was just noticing that she said it. And then she made a reference to her boyfriend and referred to him as a "she." I thought it might have been a slip of the tongue, or perhaps a subtle insult. But it turns out not to have been. Later, we were talking and she referred to one of her female friends as "he." And then she referred to another male friend as "she," and I finally asked her about it.

Me: I noticed you really don't make distinctions between gendered pronouns...

Invader Zim Friend: Yeah. I told you, it's nothing personal. It's just what I do.

Me: Cool. As long as you're not doing it to be mean.

Invader Zim Friend: No! Of course not! I just don't pay attention to pronouns.

It feels nice to fall under the same category as everybody else, for once.

I'm brilliant when I'm drunk!

Just when I thought things were calming down, I have to go and make a move that shoots my stress level back through the roof.

I'm taking my GRE on Saturday. I STILL haven't finished the application to my grad school of choice. And I'm also working on starting a business in Quito with Ecuadorian friend. You'd think that all of this, on top of dealing with trans issues, would be more than enough stress for one single human being, right?

Wrong.

It seems I just can't get enough of it. Because I'm paranoid that the business with Ecuadorian Friend will go under, and because I'm also paranoid that I won't get into my grad school of choice, I made the decision at 11:00 the other night (while drunk) that I need to apply to ANOTHER graduate program in case I don't get into the one I'm already applying to.

The college I currently attend has quite a good literature program. And, as I mentioned before, I am pretty much addicted to school. My initial plan had been to get my master's degree in library science, work as a librarian, and use a portion of the money I made at that job to get my PhD, hopefully while continuing to work. Yes, this is a very long-term plan.

But lately I've been worried that I'm not smart or efficient enough to get into that graduate program. The logical part of me says that I am and I'm worrying for nothing, but the insane anxiety-riddled part of me still screams that I'll fail the GRE (which is actually impossible to fail), I'll graduate college with no job prospects, my parents will kick me out of their house because I'm an opportunity-less loser tranny, I'll wind up living on the streets and die in a dirty box, and also get eaten by rabid sharks while I'm at it.

Thus, backup plan #3 was born.

So I called my dad at 11:00 at night, drunk, to ask his permission to apply to my college's literature graduate program.

Me: Dad?

Dad: Yeah, honey. What's up?

Me: I was wondering...because I'm applying to library school and all, but that's the only place I'm applying to and I might not get in and the business in Quito might not work out and I don't want to wind up working at Borders or PETCO forever even though I'll have a college degree--

Dad: What do you need, hon?

Me: Can I apply to my college's grad program for literature?

Dad (after a long pause): Well...what sort of opportunities would that open up for you? With library school, you could be a librarian, but what sort of job could you get with a master's degree in literature?

Me: It would be a step toward my PhD, and with a PhD I could teach college. And with just a master's degree, I could teach community college.

Dad: I thought you didn't want to teach. Isn't that why you switched out of the teaching program?

Me: College is different, Dad! People WANT to be there. And I'd be teaching about books.

Dad (after another long pause): You can do what you want, honey. And it's good to have other options in case something doesn't work out.

Me: So I can do it?

Dad: Yeah. That's probably a good idea, actually.

Me: Yay!

I actually said, "Yay!" to my dad on the phone. I'm pretty sure he picked up on the fact that I'd been drinking, but did I really need to drop my immaturity level even more? Probably not.

I can't decide if I should stop drinking altogether because I do stupid sh*t when I'm drunk and get into trouble, or keep it up because I get brilliant ideas when I've been drinking and also because I can speak absolutely flawless Spanish when I'm drunk but not when I'm sober.

I think I'll keep it up because I'll need the Spanish for starting the business in Quito.

This is why I'm moving to Ecuador

So I learned the hard way (yet again) that when I can't sleep, watching a movie that will evoke any kind of emotion whatsoever is a BAD idea. I woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep, and Marine had just arrived home from whatever the hell it is he goes out and does during the day. He was bored and I was wide awake, so we watched Repo Men, which I had never seen. Yeah. GREAT idea, Pete. And then when I woke up from nightmares about people ripping out other people's internal organs, all I could do was berate myself for watching the damn movie in the first place. And of course, when I woke up from these nightmares and went and woke Marine up crying that I was scared and I'd had nightmares and there was definitely a serial killer in bed with me, he was like, "Mehhhhhh, you're fine, I need to go back to sleep. I gotta be up at 9:00." Which is SO early. Because I DIDN'T have to be up at 6:45 for my 7:30 work shift. I envy him working nights. I'm also a little bitter because if someone really did sneak into my room and rip out all my organs and leave me bleeding and dying, Marine would have failed magnificently at his job. Why does he think I keep him around? It's so he can beat up and/or scare off any criminals who come my way. Because he's a former f*cking MARINE and he's terrifying.

I didn't even like the movie that much. I wasn't scared of it. I was mostly grossed out. I like Repo: the Genetic Opera better. It has Sarah Brightman in it. And I worship her.

So after yet another horrible night's sleep, I had to get up and come to work. I am currently sitting behind a desk in a mostly empty building helping NO ONE because only insane people who sit in a corner by themselves and don't talk to anyone come to the library this early in the morning.

But I know that, when people do start arriving, I'm going to have to deal with everyone thinking I'm a girl.

Because a kid sitting behind a desk with a flat (as much as I can make it) chest and short hair and men's clothes is DEFINITELY a girl.

Okay, so I fit the standard of some butches. But honestly, short of pinning a note on my chest that says "I AM A BOY," I have no idea what else I can do to give people the impression that I am, in fact, male.

I lower my voice as much as I can. The problem is that I have an unnaturally high-pitched voice. Like, high-pitched even for a girl. I answer the phone and people think they're talking to a 9-year-old schoolgirl. I think maybe they think that I'm one of my supervisors' daughters and I've been given the task of answering the phone to keep me from tearing around the library in a hyperactive fit or something. And then they realize that I'm actually an employee when I'm able to answer their question. They probably hang up either very confused, or thinking that I'm an adult woman with some kind of speech problem or vocal cord issue that pitches my voice even higher than is normal and socially acceptable.

I'm also very short. I've tried and tried to grow, but it doesn't work. It's not like I drink copious amounts of caffeine and it's stunted my growth. I don't even like caffeine much. I drink tea like it's going out of style, but even then I usually drink caffeine free tea because I'm scared that if I drink caffeinated tea that I won't be able to fall asleep. Which, really, I shouldn't bother to worry about because I'm never able to fall asleep anyway so the tea probably won't make worse what already isn't happening.

But I also drink milk like nobody's business. Not the gross fat free milk, either. No, I drink organic whole milk. A LOT of organic whole milk. You know how parents tell you that you'll grow up to be big and strong if you drink lots of milk? That's a LIE.

I drink roughly 8 glasses of milk a day. And I'm still just barely five feet tall. What the hell, Mom? What was the point of that lie?

So people see short person and they're like, "Ooooh! Short person! It must be a girl because females are naturally shorter than men!" Even though Ecuadorian Friend is a man and about an inch taller than me. Maybe. An inch might even be an overestimate.

I've also mentioned before that my breasts are more like continents than actual breasts. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about this beyond wearing my binder, which doesn't flatten them enough to make them unnoticeable. Eventually I'll get the double mastectomy I've been dreaming about for years, but I can't do that until I'm on hormones and I can't get on hormones until I've seen the right doctor and I can't see the right doctor until my other doctors all figure out what the hell they're talking about and actually manage to give me valid advice. And I also need to quit smoking, because I have to meet thoroughly unreasonable health expectations before I can start HRT.

The problem, I've realized, is that I was born a GIRL. And I lived as a girl for TWENTY YEARS. I wouldn't have these issues if I'd been born the way I feel that I should have been born.

This is why I'm moving to Ecuador. There, nobody cares how I identify and they won't question it and they'll just offer me more whiskey/rum/anything alcoholic and we'll all have fun and I can start my business and be a rich Ecuadorian bookseller forever.

Abigail the man-bug

When I was a sophomore in high school, the mother of a friend of mine came home with a box of plastic bendable bugs. The reason why is still unclear. This particular friend had a very squeaky laugh, so I called her Squeaky Bird for most of the time I knew her.

Squeaky Bird brought one of the plastic bugs to school. I have always been very easily distracted, and I spent hours playing with the bug, which I decided was a boy and named Margaret.

Squeaky Bird eventually got tired of me borrowing Margaret day after day, and she eventually brought me a bendable plastic bug of my own. I was thrilled! I named him Abigail and carried him everywhere with me in my backpack.

I had another friend who had a math class with me. This friend was a percussionist, but she and I would spend our math hour blatantly not paying attention to the teacher and pretending to perform various surgeries on Abigail. Abigail had multiple health problems and needed numerous lobotomies and liver transplants.

Percussionist is now applying to medical school.

I don't know what happened to Abigail. He seems to have disappeared in the move from my home to my college dorm several years ago. I do recall bringing him to the dorm with me, but I haven't seen him since.

Whenever anyone asked me why the bug's name was Abigail when I had made it clear that Abigail was a boy, I would shrug and say, "That's just the way he is."

I felt a very deep connection to Abigail.

Questions that get asked of my dad

It got pointed out to me yesterday that I am remarkably similar to my father, despite the fact that he's labeled me a bleeding heart liberal and I've made sure he knows that he's a bit of a hick.

My dad and I get along amazingly well, despite our differences. At least, I think we have differences. I've been told a lot lately that my dad and I are similarly weird.

The thing with my dad is that I find myself asking him a question, and then stopping and realizing that at no point in my life did I ever imagine that combination of words coming out of my mouth. Here are some questions that have all been legitimately asked of my dad:

1) "Why would you give me a gold necklace as a present stuffed inside a frozen muskrat carcass?"

2) "Why is there a deer leg in the basketball hoop?"

3) "Why is there a dead hummingbird in the freezer?"

4) "Why are you vacuuming the mounted caribou head on the wall?"

5) "Why are there coyote testicles pinned to the wall in the barn?"

6) "Why are you arranging logs in our driveway?"

7) "What exactly do you plan to do with that dead animal?"

8) "What would make you think that you don't need to go to the hospital when you drive a drill bit completely through your finger?"

9) "Why are there dead coyotes hanging from the ceiling?"

10) "Was saving money on dinner by bringing home a roadkill grouse and cooking it absolutely necessary?"

And my dad's usual response to all of this? A shrug.

I love my dad to pieces. He is very big into hunting. I'll eat dead animals, sure, but I'm not a huge fan of having them scattered all over the house and hanging from the ceiling and finding them in our freezer. I don't know what made my friend think that I'm similar to my dad.

Oh yeah. He said, "You're both insane."

Okay, that may be a legitimate concern. But at least I'm a different kind of crazy than my dad.

Things blend together

My new kitten has been named Mia. I don't know if she cares or not about her name, but she has taken to following me everywhere around the apartment, sitting by the door looking heartbroken if I leave, and laying next to me on the couch looking as adorable as possible while I'm trying to read or watch TV. She's figured out that staying as close to me as possible maximizes the attention she gets. I try and give an even amount of attention to each cat, mostly to reassure Maggie that I still love her and am not replacing her, but it's difficult when you have a tiny black shadow who winds herself around your ankles when you're trying to walk and puts her head directly in the way when you reach for anything.

Remember a while back when I was all mad because of a lack of good trans literature? My system came to my rescue yet again! The literature IS out there, and I just needed someone else to find it for me. "Someone else" being my working-class literature professor, who assigned a book called Stone Butch Blues for the class. It's by Leslie Feinberg and it is a FANTASTIC read. I recommend it to all.

Some of you are probably thinking, "He's crazy, right? He's been so adamant that sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things and now he's talking about a book with 'butch' in the title, and butch applies to lesbians, who typically identify as female! I do not understand!!!"

Don't worry. I shall explain. Like, right now.

Yes, I have been very insistent that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things. That's how it applies to ME, and that's how it applies to many people. However, there are exceptions to every rule.

Maybe I should have covered this before, but honestly, I was focused on how gender identity and sexual orientation apply to myself and the majority of people, which was probably very selfish in retrospect. And, seeing as I am an exception to many rules, I feel bad about it. It's just that stuff like this is generally very difficult to explain, and sometimes it's more convenient to explain it in the simplest terms possible. But here is a more complicated aspect of gender identity and sexual orientation, put as simply as I can:

Gender is a spectrum.

Sexual orientation is also a spectrum.

If you really think about it, EVERYTHING is a spectrum. No one really defines anything in exactly the same way, right? For example, you probably have a different definition of "femininity" than I do. The guy sitting next to you probably has his own idea of what that is. We each define our own gender and sexual orientation and race and class and religion and just about anything else we can think of in our own terms.

The thing is, since everything is a spectrum and not a category, things are bound to blend together sometimes.

I am NOT the leading expert on butches. The term, the identity, the lives of, all of that, don't ask me about it because I'll be like, "Um...right...and speaking of dinosaurs, did you know that triceratops were like the deer of the Cretaceous period?" and you'll be like, "Whoa! He's like a ninja of distraction!" and then you'll be so absorbed in me talking about dinosaurs that you'll totally forget what you asked me.

Stone Butch Blues covers an area where gender identity and sexual orientation merge: a specific community of butch lesbians, who often dress in male clothes and can be perceived as male, but generally still identify themselves as female.

I don't want to go any farther into this description, for fear of:

a) offending someone
b) offering up potentially wrong information, seeing as I am again not an expert

I can relate to what happens in the story on a certain level. I am often perceived as female and it annoys the f*ck out of me. I cannot relate on some levels because I am NOT a woman. There IS a difference between transmen and the particular type of butch described in the story.

What really struck me about Stone Butch Blues are the areas to which I CAN relate. The prejudice, discrimination, and blatant humiliation; being perceived in a way that you don't want to be perceived; being different and unable to help it; everyone trying to change who you are to fit their own standards. It's something we all go through, EVERYONE. I don't care who you are, whether you're a part of the LGBT community or not, I can guarantee that you've experienced some kind of prejudice or discrimination based on something about yourself. Everyone has. It sucks and it shouldn't be that way at all, but it still happens.

I knew my system wouldn't fail me. I now have another book to add to my arsenal.

I have a baby

Randomly, my coworker just walked in carrying what I thought was a sword in a sheath. Then she pulled it out and it was actually an umbrella with a sword handle. My immediate thought was, "COOL! Where can I get one?!" and then I realized it was an umbrella and not a sword, and died a little inside.

One of my biggest attributes/flaws is the fact that I have a giant smushy heart and it's very difficult for me to say no to people. It's also very difficult for me not to take home every animal I find. Seriously, in Ecuador, I think I drove Ecuadorian Friend a little bit crazy because there were thousands of stray dogs in the streets, and every time we saw one I'd have to stop and yank on his sleeve and point and yell, "Mira al perro! Quiero el perro!" ("Look at the dog! I want the dog!") Eventually Ecuadorian Friend was like, "You know what? There are eight thousand dogs around here. Do you really plan on taking ALL of them home?" and then we drove by a cat and I was like, "Mira al gato! Quiero el gato!" and Ecuadorian Friend just gave up. He did respond when I wanted to take HIS dog home with me. He laughed and said no f*cking way.

The thing is, whenever I see an animal, no matter what it is (SERIOUSLY, no matter what it is. I've been stopped from taking home bats, squid, jellyfish, snakes, and spiders) my automatic reaction is, "OH MY GOD, IT'S SO CUTE AND I BET IT NEEDS A DADDY TO LOVE IT AND CUDDLE IT AND TAKE CARE OF IT!"

Physical attributes make no difference to me when it comes to animals. In fact, you might even go so far as to say that the uglier it is, the more I want it, because I know that everyone else thinks it's ugly and I get upset that they think it's ugly and decide that whatever animal it is deserves lots of love and affection and that I'm the one to give it.

Because I know how it is to be rejected for being weird or less than desirable. Some people find out about my transition and automatically label me as odd and therefore worthy of avoidance. Not everyone, of course. Most people are totally fine with it. But this happens often enough, along with being interrogated, made fun of, not believed, and even losing a few friends, that it's affected me decently. Therefore, whenever I see an animal that no one seems to want, my automatic reaction is to jump in and protect it because I know how bad that rejection feels.

A perfect example of this is yesterday. I was out on my porch, smoking a cigarette (yes...I slipped...), when my neighbor came out onto his porch.

Neighbor: Hey, Peter. I have a question for you.

Me: Sure. What's up?

Neighbor: Do you still want a cat?

(We had discussed me possibly adopting an older cat of his, but this fell through due to the fact that I was supposed to be moving to a new, fairly small apartment with my coworker and that the older cat kept beating up his kittens, so the cat wound up going to a shelter.)

Me: Why?

Neighbor: I can't keep mine anymore and if I can't find someone to take her, I'll have to take her to the shelter.

Me: Which one?

Neighbor: The black kitten.

He ran inside to get the kitten. In my brain, I was going through all the logical reasons that I most certainly could not take this kitten.

a) I'm moving back in with my parents, and I can't keep adopting animals when it's their space I'll be occupying
b) my roommates probably don't want another cat in the house
c) the cats I already own will not like a new kitten in their space
d) I already have two cats, a rat, and a hedgehog (all of which were also rescue animals)
e) I do not NEED another pet

As soon as Neighbor appeared with the kitten, though, every single reason that I should not take the cat vanished from my head. Neighbor passed the kitten to me over the balcony, and within two seconds, that was it. My heart had melted and I desperately needed that kitten. No one else wanted her! I could not allow that poor little baby to be rejected so harshly!

Neighbor: Do you want her?

Me: Yes!

Neighbor: When?

Me: Now! Let me go see how she gets along with Jack and Maggie.

I took the kitten inside. She's been in my house ever since. My other cats are not very happy about the newcomer. Or rather, Maggie is the queen bee of the house and she isn't happy about the newcomer. Jack is perfectly content as long as he gets an adequate amount of attention, so he doesn't really care but he pretends to because Maggie the Boss cares.

I did worry about how my roommates would react to the new cat, but that turned out not to be a problem. My female roommate, whose hair is currently purple, came home very shortly after I acquired the kitten.

Me: I borrowed a kitten!

Purple-Haired Roommate: What?

Me: I borrowed a kitten.

Purple-Haired Roommate: Oh. From who?

Me: The neighbors.

Purple-Haired Roommate (peering into the bathroom that the new baby was currently exploring): Can we keep it?!

Me: Um...yeah...I kind of agreed to take her.

Purple-Haired Roommate: Cool! I love kitties!

Me: You don't mind?

Purple-Haired Roommate: Dude, you're moving out in a month and I love cats anyway. We're good.

Me: Sweet!

Purple-Haired Roommate: What do your parents think of this?

Me: Uh...they don't exactly...know yet...

Purple-Haired Roommate: Let me know how that works out for you.

So I was in the clear with Purple-Haired Roommate. It works out because she likes animals a lot better than she likes people, and she'd do the same thing I do and adopt every animal on the face of the earth unless forcibly stopped.

My other roommate is a former marine, and I was less concerned about convincing him. And then I decided that, as Marine crashes on our couch and didn't come home until 4:00 in the morning anyway, he had no say. So when Marine finally arrived home in the wee hours of the morn and WOKE ME UP, our conversation went like this.

Marine: Hey.

Me: Wha...?

Marine: It's okay. You're okay. It's just me.

Me: Mmmmph. I'm sleepy.

Marine: I just got off work.

Me: Nnnng.

Marine: Come out in the living room.

Me (staggering--due to being only half awake--out to the living room): We have a new baby.

Marine: What?

Me: There's a new baby.

Marine: What the hell are you talking about?

Me: She's black. Where did she go?

Marine: Um...I have no clue?

Me: The neighbor didn't want his kitten, so I took her.

Marine: So...there are now three cats in this house?

Me: Yes.

Marine: (rolls his eyes)

Probably inside his head he was going, "Have you no willpower?" But he can't judge me because I say so.

The kitten, as of now, has no name. Her former owners called her Tinker, but I don't think it suits her. In my head, I've labeled her Pichincha because that's the mountain that Quito is located near.

My giant squishy heart will definitely land me in trouble one of these days.

Americans are nosy

Well, being back in the U.S. is certainly unusual. I've been fairly sick the last few days, I think because of the climate and altitude change between Quito and my home, the fact that I went from eating fairly healthy Ecuadorian food to processed American crap, and the fact that I spent 12 full hours in an airport/on a plane.

You'd think I'd have gotten sick after arriving in Quito and having to change from everything I was used to, but no. That change was fine. It was the switch back that got me.

I'm seriously considering moving to Quito. Not only are my health problems minimal there, but my transition is secondary to everything else.

The first thing I did upon arriving in the U.S. was go through customs. The inspection was a barrage of "ma'am" and "miss" from the officers. I don't know if it was something specific to Ecuador or just that I wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember a single person referring to me with a female title. Yeah, a few people slipped up and called me ella instead of el, but when it came to gendered titles, I don't recall any being attached to me. But from the moment I've set foot back here, every "ma'am" and "miss" I hear echoes even louder in my brain, like people are deliberately saying, "I'M GOING TO CALL YOU A GIRL OUT OF SPITE AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!"

I really miss Ecuador.

A big difference I noticed was that when I was in Ecuador, people really didn't question much. They just went with the flow. If we were planning on going to a certain restaurant for lunch, and then someone announced that we were going somewhere else, there would be very few questions. Mostly the response from everyone was, "Okay, cool. Let's go."

It was the same with my transition. If I mentioned it to someone in Ecuador, I got very few questions. The response would generally be:

a) "Okay. Cool."
b) "You're not drunk enough. Have more whiskey."

If I mention it to someone in the U.S., the variety of responses are more like:

a) "What makes you feel that way?"
b) "What does your family think of that?"
c) "How many people know?"
d) "Are you getting surgery?"
e) "Are you on hormones?"
f) "Do you see a doctor for that kind of thing?"
g) "How many years of therapy do you need before you can start hormones/get surgery?"
h) "Do you bind your breasts?"
i) "Why doesn't your binding make them flatter?" (Maybe because my boobs are more like continents than actual breasts...)
j) "Do your employers know?"
k) "Are you planning on telling future employers?"
l) "How do people usually react when you tell them?"
m) "How supportive are your parents?"
n) "Are your parents contributing money to your transition?"
o) "Do you get a lot of awkward questions about it?"

People, Americans are f*cking nosy. Seriously, if you were transitioning, would you want any of those questions directed at you? I don't know about you, but that's not typically information that I'm comfortable giving out to someone I've just met.

Granted, if you're someone I've known for a while, the situation is different. I have no problem telling someone I'm familiar with about my transition. But if I just met you, I do not want to give out details about my therapy, my financial situation, or my family in relation to my transition. Actually, I probably wouldn't want to give someone I just met details about any of that in relation to ANYTHING, let alone my transition.

Yes, I'm a very open person. But seriously. There are limits. These limits have been made a lot more clear to me since I came back from Ecuador where nobody f*cking cares about your personal life as long as you're getting drunk and/or having a good time.

I'm definitely moving there. I bet it's better than Antarctica.

I don't look for trouble, trouble finds me

Guess what? I'm not dead! Yet.

Ecuador was certainly an unusual experience...I didn't realize until I went there how boring I really am. I love the country and have every intention of going back. I just need to maintain the image that I'm awesome because the friends I made there are under the impression that I'm not a complete and total geek.

Remember how I said that Ecuadorian Friend didn't quite wrap his head around my transition? Well, he gets it now. I'm actually quite flattered, because after we'd been hanging out for a day or two, he told me, "When you came here, I was expecting (girl name). But now I only see Pete." Yeah, thanks for finally getting what I told you a year ago.

In all honesty, though, I'm f*cking thrilled. I had expected clashes, even arguments about it. We had none. And all I had to do was be myself for him to understand me. Why can't everyone have that kind of revelation?

But I think Ecuadorian Friend underestimated his friends' capacity to understand, let alone accept, my transition. All of them were completely fine with it. If I tried to give them my generic explanation, "En mi cabeza, estoy un chico," (translated: "In my head, I'm a boy") they would just nod and say, "Yes. I understand. That's okay." I hardly got any questions at all about my gender identity. People were more curious about my sexual orientation, to be honest. The majority of questions I got consisted of:

a) "You want more rum?"
b) "Do you like boys or girls?"
c) "How does sex work if you have girl parts and you're with a girl?"
d) "Is there anyone here you have a crush on?"
e) "You want more rum?"

All of which I was okay with answering. I'm not sure if they were expecting me to be an American prude, but they seemed fairly surprised/impressed when I answered honestly and rather graphically.

People in Ecuador stared at me a lot, and my immediate assumption was that it was because they couldn't figure out my gender. When I commented on this to Ecuadorian Friend, his response caught me off guard.

Ecuadorian Friend: Oh, they are staring at you because you are white.

Me: ...not because they can't figure out if I'm a boy or a girl?

Ecuadorian Friend: Probably they are not even thinking about that. It's strange to them to see someone so pale.

It was weird. I've never been on that end of racism, if "racism" is even the proper term for it. Not really racism...just being judged by my color. Yeah, I've never had that happen before. I'm used to being judged about my sexual orientation, gender identity, maturity level, and even my height. But not my race.

Granted, I'm pale even by Caucasian standards. I have about as much color as a sheet of blank paper, and if I'm out in the sun for more than three seconds, I get a sunburn. My friends have commented on it before, mostly childish jokes that I'm a vampire or a ghost. But I've never walked down the street and had dozens of heads turn in my direction for the sole reason that I look like I'm made of snow.

Although, to be fair, my skin color did get us into a scrape or two, and out of a few scrapes as well.

Within a day of me being in Ecuador, I was dubbed El Gringo ("the white boy") by Ecuadorian Friend and everyone we hung out with. I don't understand why...

Anyway, Ecuadorian Friend and I went out with two pals of his, one of whom was a modern-day hippie and the other of whom I didn't get to know very well. The four of us decided it would be a good idea to go bar hopping in downtown Quito and get royally hammered. The problem arose when Ecuadorian Friend and I decided to leave Modern Hippie and Other Friend to head for a nearby gay bar. I was excited to check out the LGBT scene in Quito, and Ecuadorian Friend (although rigidly straight) was interested in seeing what the gay bar was like. We were about five feet out the door of the last club we visited, heading in what we thought was the direction of the gay bar but in retrospect was probably just any old random way, when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by five very threatening-looking people.

Apparently when you get mugged in Ecuador, you're supposed to let the muggers take what they want and not fight back, because muggers could potentially have knives/guns/weapons and that's the safest thing to do. Well, apparently a drunk Pete is a hell of a lot braver than a sober Pete. And also a hell of a lot stupider. When I saw one of the guys going for Ecuadorian Friend's wallet, what immediately went through my mind was NOT, as is logical, "Let him take it and we can get away safely." No. What went through my stupid brain was, "Ecuadorian Friend needs help! I need to save him!" And I grabbed the mugger by the arm and hauled him away from Ecuadorian Friend.

I'm not entirely sure why the muggers went for him and not me, considering that whenever anyone in Ecuador sees a gringo, the immediate assumption is that they have money. But whatever their reasoning for not paying attention to me before, I sure had their attention after that. Ecuadorian Friend had enough sense to haul me across the street and run for the nearest police car. Unfortunately, we were both inebriated enough that one of the muggers caught up with us easily and grabbed me by the throat.

Imagine a six-foot-two-inch tall grown man who clearly either works out or leads a rough street life (or both) attempting to strangle a five-foot-tall, drunk white (seemingly) "girl" who looks as though "she" is about 16 years old. Now imagine a just-as-small Ecuadorian kid who weighs even less than said "girl" pouncing on the mugger and hauling him off. That's what Ecuadorian Friend did for me.

After this incident, in which a nearby couple managed to flag down the nearest police car and the police failed to find all but one person involved, Ecuadorian Friend told me that none of his other friends would have done the same thing for him that I did. I got called a hero multiple times that night. Now, I can't deny that I like the attention. But I do wish Ecuadorian Friend would give himself some credit. I stopped someone from stealing his wallet; he stopped someone from strangling me. Sorry, Ecuadorian Friend, but I value my own life more than I value your wallet. You're a hero too, whether you like it or not.

On a more positive note, me being a gringo is also the reason that Ecuadorian Friend's car wasn't impounded.

We were going to the beach, and it's about a 9 hour drive from Quito to San Vicente, where we were planning to stay in an apartment with about a thousand other people. This was a holiday weekend, and the beach town we were in was packed. EVERYONE went to the beach for the four day long holiday weekend, and just about everyone was tipsy--if not all-out drunk--for the entire weekend.

There are certain hours of the day in Quito when certain cars are not supposed to be on the road. Due to the 9 hour trip ahead of us, Ecuadorian Friend, three other people, and I packed ourselves into the car and took off, regardless of the law. Needless to say, we hadn't been on the street even half an hour before we got pulled over. Ecuadorian Friend got out of the car to try and reason with las chapas (Ecuadorian slang for "cops") and try to keep them from impounding his car. One of the first things Ecuadorian Friend did was point me out to las chapas and repeat a lot, "Es para èl." ("It's for him.") It was explained that I was a gringo on vacation and the group was trying to show me a good time. Ecuadorian Friend succeeded in coaxing me out of the car, at which point las chapas got a good look at me, and it sunk in that I really was a gringo on vacation.

They wandered away from the car and whispered to each other for a few moments before approaching us again.

Five minutes later and with my wallet $80 lighter, we got a police escort to the nearest highway.

I haven't really enjoyed the beach since I was a child. I spent most of my childhood vacations being forcibly dragged to the beach by my mother when I would have much rather spent my time reading. My idea of vacation is relaxing. Books = relaxing to me. Therefore, me + books + free time = perfect! But no, instead I was trapped on a vast expanse of death sand, death sun, and death water, all my whining and complaints being either ignored or silenced. I usually either resigned to tears or ignoring my parents.

But this vacation was very different for me. Ecuadorian Friend had activities planned every single day. I barely had time to wind down, let alone work up the energy to complain about it. Which, it turns out, I wouldn't have anyway because I was astounded to find myself loving every moment of the excitement and chaos and noise.

I was relatively shocked to discover that I had one of the best times on the beach that I'd ever had in my life.

There were two things that tainted the beach. One was death. Seriously.

We were packing up to leave, just about getting ready to walk out the door, when one among our giant group of friends happened to glance out the window (our apartment was about 20 feet from the sand) and point out the crowd gathering down by the water. Naturally, curiosity got the best of us and we all had to cram ourselves against the window to see what was happening.

The friend who was hosting us in his apartment and his girlfriend headed down to the beach to see what was going on. Meanwhile, from the third floor window, the rest of us watched as two police officers attempted to interact with a very small, completely limp body. We saw the small, limp body being loaded into a fire truck and be raced off to (I assume) a hospital. Group of Friends and I were under the impression that it was a child that had been loaded into the fire truck, possibly a child who had drowned. Then Host Friend and Host Girlfriend came back and gave us the full story.

A 12-year-old boy who had come to the beach with his parents had gone too far out into the water. The parents had called the lifeguards. By the time the lifeguards arrived, the kid was nowhere to be found. The lifeguards went searching for the kid, with no result. Upon hearing this news, the kid's mother had fainted (that was who we saw being loaded into the fire truck). We saw a boat out in the water for a while, that had been sent to search for the kid, but it eventually came back to shore, presumably with no results.

I haven't heard anything about the kid since this incident, but the consensus among Group of Friends was that the boy had probably drowned. This threw a heavy blanket of solemnity over our last few hours at the beach. I, at least, was near to tears at having witnessed such an event.

So my vacation was undoubtedly the most interesting I've ever taken. I'm excited but also a little scared for the next time I go back to Ecuador, which is a necessity now that Ecuadorian Friend and I are working on starting our own business. Things could calm down a lot from the last time...but on the other hand, things could get just as hectic, or more so.

The other thing that tainted my beach experience also took place on our last day there. I was warned about 8,000 times not to drink the water. I was very careful not to. And then, as we were eating our breakfast and packing up to leave, Host Girlfriend presented us all with a big container of juice that she had made. We were all grateful, and several of us drank the juice eagerly. It wasn't until an hour or so later that we discovered that Host Girlfriend, upon finding out that we were out of bottled water, made the juice with water from the faucet instead.

So now I'm going to die of dysentery. This sucks. Death by velociraptor is the only acceptable way to die. I'll have to make sure that whoever puts my obituary in the paper lies and tells people instead that I died of being eaten by velociraptors.