Photo by Wilson Vitorino from Pexels
 

Part 23 of 29

Monday, October 14, 2013
Last day at camp, sort of bittersweet. We got up much later than yesterday and not a few of the girls were moaning about the amount of wine that they drank the night before. The phrase 'wine is a mocker' - in my father's voice, naturally - ran through my head but I wisely kept it between my ears.

Not all of my father's pronouncements fell on deaf ears, I have consciously avoided the drinking that many of my fellow freshmen seem to think makes them adults once they are away from home. I've sampled the wine that Eve and Grandpa drink at dinner sometimes, but it seems sour and unappealing to me. Give me a glass of milk or apple juice any time.

Breakfast this morning was the stereotypical female kind - yogurt and granola, fresh fruit, that sort of thing. Well, some of us did finish up the last of the ice cream from last night's dinner - wouldn't want it to go to waste.

We packed up all our things and piled them in the vans, then took one last wander through the woods together. We even saw a family of deer in one of the meadows.

On our way back someone started singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall and once again I couldn't help but think how different this camp was to Bible Camp. The counselors would have had apoplexy if someone had sung that on the church bus!

Both Grandpa and Eve were waiting to pick us up at the college since buses didn't run too often on the holiday. On the way home Grandpa asked if I had remembered to change my driver's license since my official residence was in a different state now. Since I hadn't been driving I never even thought of that.

"Better take care of that pretty soon. Besides, your picture doesn't quite match your present appearance, does it?"

"Are they going to give me any grief?"

"I doubt it, you have a license, just bring the envelope from one of the letters from the college to prove your address and fill out the paperwork. Pennsylvania is one of the states where you can mark an X under gender so you don't have to lie. Just wear your hair loose and nobody is going to question you."

"X?"

"As in taking the fifth. The answer is none of their business. Way back in the stone ages, like when I first got my license, it was nothing more than a piece of paper with a name, address and simple description of the person who was supposed to have it. Back then it made sense to specify where the person was male or female since that eliminated about half the potential fakers. Come to think of it, I suppose your current appearance puts the lie to that bit of wishful thinking, doesn't it?"

"Pretty much."

"Nobody back then would have dreamed we would have the technology to put a full color picture on a license, let alone the technology to morph bodies into a pretty good approximation of the opposite sex.

"That has its limitations, too, since the picture on my license is a good forty years old - too cheap to take new pictures, I suppose. Then you consider that you are somewhere between M and F by your own choice and the system just plain needs an X under gender."

"Should I get my license changed too, Grandpa?" asked Mary Ann.

"You could if you wanted, but your father wasn't crazy enough to disown you."

"It would be kind of nice if Angel and I had the same address."

"And you're welcome to stay as long as you want, darling. I have no doubt that you two would be walking down the aisle with us if our hypocritical, family values touting government wouldn't cut off your financial aid the minute you got married."

"Well, if Angel can stand living in sin then so can I. So when are you and Eve going to be taking that walk?"

"After Christmas and before New Year's," answered Eve. "It looks like your folks and my daughter can get time off so we can have the wedding then. We're going to have to find a time to visit the bridal shop pretty soon I can find a wedding dress and you two can get bridesmaid's dresses."

"Really?" I asked.

"Of course! You don't think we could get hitched without you both there, do you?"

"Wow! Me a bridesmaid! I just wish I could call Mom and tell her, but I never know when Dad would be home and get upset."

"You could always smuggle a letter to her via my folks," suggested Mary Ann. "I'm sure they would be willing to take it over to her sometime when your Dad isn't home."

"I suppose… But it feels so sneaky."

"That's because it is sneaky. Your mother wasn't the one to disown you, she proved that over Labor Day. Doesn't she deserve to know what's happening in your life even if your father doesn't like it? She has the right to live her own life, too."

I knew she was right, but it still felt underhanded. My father may have disowned me, but I didn't like undermining him with the family.

"Angel, there's something you need to remember about marriage," Grandpa said. "I know you've probably heard that when you get married the two become one. That, my girl, is a pernicious lie. There are two people in a marriage and they are both independent, thinking, separate beings. If they become one then one has taken over the other, and there is no longer a marriage, just one empty husk dominated by the other partner.

"Marriage is a partnership, and neither one has the right to dictate the other's actions. Sylvia and I never promised to obey anyone and neither will Eve and I. We're partners, individuals who wholeheartedly want to share life with each other, but who still remain individuals. Keep that in mind and you and my granddaughter will prosper."

This whole 'being and adult' thing isn't all that simple.
 

Thursday, October 17
Every time I think I'm getting comfortable with living as a woman something comes up and slaps me upside the head to prove how little I know. Sometimes I wish my obsession with bras had started when I was seven or eight, early enough so that my mother could have taught me all the things I don't know about being a woman.

Who am I kidding? If I had said anything about feeling like a girl I would have ended up being prayed over and having the Devil driven from my puny little body. Not one of my better ideas.

This started because I was complaining that my own hair was getting long enough to make it a pain to wear a wig. It was maybe three inches long, but not long enough for me to think it belonged on a woman. That's me - neither fish nor fowl, boy or girl.

I've been surprised that I have curly hair. Really! I've never been allowed to grow it long enough to see that, but it has some loose curls now. Mary Ann just gave me that look and told me I should get a permanent so I wouldn't need to wear a wig.

See what I mean about the gaps in my girly education? There is no way on God's green earth that I would have thought of getting a permanent. Not in the data banks in my head.

Just how do you get a permanent? I know my mother gets her hair 'done' every so often, but I have never seen just what that involves. Men do not go anywhere near beauty salons unless they're dropping a woman off in front of one.

More sexist drivel. I know! I know!

I asked Mary Ann but since Eve has taken care of snipping off her split ends she hasn't been to a beauty salon since we moved in with Grandpa. So we knocked on their bedroom door and asked her. She got this funny look and just gave me a big hug. Then she played with my hair and Grandpa grumped and snorted at all the foolishness.

We all saw right through the old fraud.

Eve and Mary Ann went into consultation mode and played with my hair a bit more, turned me around a few times for a 360° view and decided a head-full of tight curls was just the ticket. I got nervous when they waxed ecstatic about the 'Little Orphan Annie' look. I hope they were kidding!

Not content to wait to make a phone call for an appointment tomorrow, Eve opened her laptop and logged on to her salon's web site and made an appointment for the works tomorrow afternoon.

Ain't technology grand?
 

Friday, October 18
Today's Alternative Philosophy class focused on Carl Elliott. His field is bioethics and he is a gadfly to the mental health field. I just wish I had time to read more of his material, he is funny and opinionated and makes you think! I even forgot that I was going to go to a beauty salon when I left the class.

I was nervous!
 

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the place looked a lot like an ultra-feminine barber shop. Barber chairs - not in plain black-and-white leather and enamel like I was used to - big mirrors, individual counters with obscure tools and bottles galore, and half a dozen women sitting in those chairs. There were other chairs with hoods that looked like something out of a science-fiction film (brain-sucking machines?) and magazines galore, but not a one of them featuring cars or chiseled bodybuilders.

Well, what did I expect?

My overwhelming first impression was sulphur! For a kid raised on eighteen years of fire-and-brimstone, Hell-and-Damnation preaching, this was not reassuring. Vanity, oh vanity, Satan is thy name.

My father has a love-hate-relation with beauty salons - just a few weeks of Psychology and here I am making a diagnosis. On the one hand it was important that my mother looked her best because her appearance was a reflection on him. On the other hand, Vanity was a sin and something so gosh-darned feminine made him nervous. And here I was about to get a permanent at a beauty salon.

Can you be nervous and thrilled at the same time?

Yup!

Actually, it was a wonderful experience once I calmed down. Have you ever had someone pour warm water over your head after sweating under a wig for several months? Then shampoo and massage your scalp until it must have glowed? Once I was nice and relaxed they proceeded to wind my hair on bobbins and rip it out by the roots. Eve made a snarky remark about suffering for beauty, but I kept my mouth shut. I was afraid if I opened it up I would get little pieces of hair in it as the lady snipped and shaped my hair.

Once the tensile strength of my hair had been tested-almost-to-destruction, she poured some evil-smelling potion on my head, wrapped me in plastic and let me sit until it started to eat into my scalp. I couldn't even scratch with the layer of plastic bobbins lining my head.

Eventually my hair was drenched in another evil-smelling liquid and I was rinsed off, much to my relief. Once I was rinsed I was again dosed with some arcane potion and pieces of tinfoil were wound into my poor, abused hair. Maybe the tinfoil would protect me if they stuck me in the brain-sucking machines?

Again I was marinated, rinsed and finally blow-dried. After all that I finally got to see the new me.

I thought I looked OK in the wig, but I was so gosh-darn cute that I couldn't believe it! Fer cryin'-out-loud I looked perky!

Eve and the stylist asked if I liked it but all I could do was nod furiously because my voice had stopped working.

Magic! It had to be magic!

With the long haired wig I looked like a nice girl, one that I wouldn't have given a second glance at Sunday School. OK, I wouldn't be stupid enough to have ogled any girl at Sunday School, but you get the idea! The kind of girl my father would approve of.

Back to using Dad's standards again. Am I ever going to get past that?

With the curly hair my pointed chin was emphasized, giving me a pixie kind of look.

It's a good thing I wasn't wearing any makeup when we got home because Mary Ann would have destroyed it when she grabbed my face and kissed the new me. Grandpa gave me a lecherous chuckle and invited us out to dinner.

There followed a furious burst of activity as three women primped for a night on the town. With Grandpa resplendent in his Mark Twain white suit we were ostentatiously lead into the restaurant, where we were met by Charlie and Audrey Pymm. Grandpa must have been busy while we were primping, the old bugger.

We had a lovely evening swapping lies and telling stories, and not once did we touch on any topic that my shrink would discuss with me.

Amazing!
 

Monday, October 21
Lots of reaction to my new hair, most of it positive. What I hadn't planned on was the scrutiny of the guys on campus. I hope I never looked at a girl like a couple of those dudes looked at me. I think I know what 'undressing with your eyes' means now.

How a girl wears her hair makes a big difference. With the long wig I thought I looked rather nice, but the curly hair seems to suit me much better. Odd to think that shorter hair makes me more feminine.

I was glad to be wearing my engagement ring a few times, sort of posting a 'back off' sign for some of the less inhibited types. Sorry, but I seem to be basically lesbian in my outlook, I can appreciate a good-looking guy but women make my heart go pitter-patter.

On the whole, that's better than having some other parts of my body take notice. Love hurts, eh?
 

Wednesday, October 23
Mary Ann and I got our new licenses today, mine with the little X under gender. Not a problem, just a couple of hours sitting on hard wooden chairs waiting for the wheels to grind. Naturally they made my new hairdo look ugly, but what do you want from a license photo. I think they use a special filter to make your picture look like you're headed for a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

Now all we have to do is wait for them to mail us the actual license in a couple of weeks.

 
Friday, October 25
Visit with Audrey today. The major topic was my weekend in the woods with the girls. What did I think? How did I react? Any guilt at being a male among naked women?

When I told her I felt like just another girl in the group she homed in on my halfway between male and female status. Was I satisfied? Shouldn't I make a choice and stick to it? She asked a lot more questions than usual, but by the end of the session she just smiled and told me she thought I was doing splendidly and we could cut back to once a month unless some crisis occurred.

Nice to know I'm coping well. Sometimes I'm not so sure.