November 25, 2007

Almost There

Posted in schedule, surgery, transgender at 4:17 am by Michael

Surprise, I can’t sleep again.

Tomorrow at this time we’ll be in San Francisco getting ready to go to the hospital. I say that apropos of nothing, other than wow… its close!

Last night Anh, Peri and I went to El Gaucho for dinner. We had a sitter for the Samwich, and John wanted to stay home and decorate the Christmas tree and watch TV. Not a night to get into a power struggle with a seven year-old. El Gaucho is definitely one of our favorite places – it’s where our wedding reception was, and the combo of food and service is hard to beat. Who would have known that a windowless room could have so much charm?

While we were sitting waiting at the bus stop, Peri says to me “Aren’t you nervous that they are going to cut into you? Isn’t that icky?” Uh, yeah… very nervous!

Dinner was great, crab and shrimp, Caesar salad tableside (plenty of mustard – I’m convinced that’s the key), steak and ribs. Yes, we ate too much, but it was grand. At one point, the wine captain (who’s a woman) comes over to pour for us and asks “Are you celebrating a special occasion?”

I look at Anh.

Anh looks at Me.

I say: “Well, yes. It’s a little uncommon. Are you sure you want to know?”

This was not fair of me to say. Any human with a pulse, and an ounce of inquisition is going to want to know with that kind of buildup.

“Sure! Tell me.”

“Well, I’m transgendered, and tonight is my last real dinner before I have a bunch of surgery next week. This is a special restaurant to us, and we thought it would be great to eat here tonight.”

“Wow! That’s great, congratulations!”

There was more… but I’ll leave that out.

The server leaves, and I say to Peri: “Anh gave me the best advice ever. ‘If you aren’t ashamed, don’t act like you are ashamed’ And, I’m not ashamed!”

Peri: “Cool!”

Dessert was fun, dessert wine was fun too (and they bought us dessert, for no reason, which was very nice.)… cab home, pay the sitter, bedtime. Till 2am… can’t sleep, which brings us to here.

One story from last week that I forgot to mention – glasses. Dr O. strenuously insists that post the nose cast coming off, no glasses (or sunglasses) should be worn for a month. Now, I’m kind of blind. I wear contacts all the time, glasses when those aren’t in, so this should be a challenge.

Now, as you can imagine, Dr. O has a “good” solution for this.  First, take a piece of half inch tape, and wrap it around the bridge of your glasses, leaving about a two inch tail, sticky side in, going up (to your forehead). Carefully stick said tape to your forehead, so your glasses hang, without touching your nose.

This is an awesome engineering solution to this problem. I commend the thought, the effort and the inventiveness of the solution. We’ll see how desperate I become.

I’m bringing 4 sets of contacts.

Twelve hours left in Seattle. Still have to pack.

Earlier, (because I’m still a geek at heart) I was thinking about two of my favorite Yoda quotes, which are apropos for this situation (not sure this is what Lucas had in mind). These may be so common that they are trite, but hey, my blog, my trite quotes.

“Do, or do not, there is no try.”

And

Luke: “I don’t believe it!”
Yoda: “That is why you fail.”

I’m in “Do Mode”, and I do, in fact, believe.

Today should be a busy posting day….

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