A Thought For Penny

Some things, you just never want to have to write. This is one of those.

Saturday night, I received a cryptic email hinting at bad news, but without any specifics. After a day of text tag, I was able to make the phone call. I learned that my friend, Penny Perfect, had taken her own life on Saturday. We see this all too often in our community, but I'm not going to dwell on that. Those are statistics; Penny was a sweet, thoughtful, timid person.

I think I got as close to Penny as anyone online. We corresponded frequently, and I even convinced her to share an online chat late one night. She was terrified, but I think I put her at ease before it was over.

She spent more time in her shell than out, but she desperately wanted to give something to the TG community. Toward that end, I assisted her on a long project creating a web site, TransScribbled. It was a compendium of links to sites that would provide information and support to folks like us. Penny did all the heavy lifting. I suggested a few sites, gave feedback on the design of the pages, and did all the proofreading. It was launched through a post on Meg's blog, and Penny was very discouraged by the response, or lack thereof.

We bonded over the difficulties of having social anxiety. She had it much worse than me, but I knew the sensations she felt, the panic, the distance. I spoke the language. We soon found that we shared musical interests as well. She shared some Tom Waits files with me, and I made several recommendations on artists and albums. We both like a fair degree of dissonance.

Penny took her blog private after the TG/TS wars started flaring up. She found the nasty battles very upsetting, to the point that she feared that making comments would lead the harpies back to her. She stopped commenting, and that was a shame, as she had a gift for saying just the right thing, something I envied. She eventually started commenting again here and there anonymously, signing them "pp".

I spoke with Penny's wife, Aeify, for nearly a half hour Sunday night. She had a companion blog to Penny's, called A Perfect Luv. Whenever those two wrote about each other, you could feel the intensity of their love. They were the real deal, I think.

Aeify wanted me to know that Penny thought the world of me. This last summer, when I was pulling away from all my online friends, Penny was one of them. I have since been slowly trying to rebuild bridges, but Penny had not been among those. She sent me a nice note after Melissa's death, giving her sympathies, but that exchange didn't end up leading anywhere. I feel like I failed Penny. My head knows that I probably wouldn't have changed anything, but my heart differs. I could've been a much better friend to her.

Keep a good thought or prayer for Aeify. Penny adored her, and I can attest to her character after speaking to her. She will be needing a lot of support. You can write to her at aperfectluv at gmail.com.

That's my Penny, for your thoughts. Godspeed, hon.

I Feel Pretty and Witty and Gay

Feeling pretty full of myself today, looking at my pics from Saturday's Transgiving meeting. Just plain feeling pretty, too. My external efforts at transforming myself for an evening are bearing fruit. What you see here is very close to the way I have seen myself in my head, a standard that I have been approaching steadily for some time.

Did I mention that I felt pretty?

Frankly, I don't know how I could function living every day as Leslie. It took me two weeks to figure out this outfit. Some parts were still being changed just before I left the house. If this were a daily thing, I suppose that the perfectionist in me wouldn't be so strong. When it's only once a month, a fashion misjudgement lingers for a long time.

The outfit: The boots are new from Payless, $50 list price, bought for $23. The black skirt was bought last Christmas from the clearance racks at Macy's for $7 and change, finally getting a public wearing. The top (Kentucky blue!) was borrowed at the last second from my wife's drawer. The pendant likewise.

The dinner was a smashing success. We had 27 in attendance, possibly the largest group we've ever had. The one hangup was a Kentucky football game. The stadium is about a mile from our meeting site, and our street is a major post-game exit artery. About a half hour before meeting time, the game ended, and the street became one-way. I am accustomed to arriving early, and it was doubly good to be early Saturday. At meeting time, we still had only about eight people present, and we began delaying the start time. People began trickling in, telling tales of being two blocks away and then detoured, spending 45 to 60 minutes in game traffic. Yikes!

So, the meal got a late start, but the bird was terrific, and the company was better. There were a bunch of first-timers, and I have to think that most left with a very good impression. Sylvia and Cassie did a great job organizing the event.

I was brimming with confidence. I knew that I looked good, and the confidence followed. There was no hurry to shut down the dinner, so I got to stay later than usual, and though she called me toward the end, my wife did not seem upset by my delay.

Here's a question: if one feels compelled to analyze one's feelings of joy, does it diminish the joy itself? Does the effort to quantify feelings necessarily lessen their impact? I sense instinctively that joy should be an absolute, a simple yes or no prospect. But I am ill-equipped emotionally to just let it happen. Even in the midst of a great evening, I was reflecting and almost observing myself to gauge my emotions. Bottom line, I know that I was quite happy celebrating Transgiving, and approximating my internal vision of my ideal Leslie.