I’ve finally gotten occupancy of my new flat. The landlord got out very late on tuesday evening. Moving is a drag and he left a harried unsweptness in his wake. I can’t complain as I’ve done the same. Nicole has been cleaning and organizing everything. She will make for a radical librarian. She’s been shelving my books. The travel books are all together. She has placed my guide to belgium between the guides to france and the netherlands. Next to the netherlands is germany and boredering on the german guidebooks is one to deenmark.
This flat doesn’t have cable. The landlord has left a tv, but my primary concern is for internet access. I foolishly told the landlord that i wouldn’t need a landline, so now i am trying to get it reconnected. British telecome is experiencing a glitch the last few days which prevents them from enrolling new customers. I have no internet, but i can stroll around the estate and chance upon open networks and update my blog.
There is some possibility that my american homeowners insurance will cover my bike. I’ve been glaring suspiciously at anyone who rides by on a brompton. Mine had a weird rear bolt and a trailer hitch, but, obvoiusly, i haven’t seen it. I have recently noticed, though, that while bromptons are extremely popular in london, i never see them locked up outside. People keep them in sight and bring them indoors. Nicole saw a woman place one in a shopping cart. If i get insurance money, i’m tempted by the titanium frame. The steel frame is a bit heavy to drag everywhere. If i don’t get money, well, i still kind of need a folding bike to commute to brum. I have a fabric shipping bag that nicole made for bromptons. I have two bags designed to attach to the luggage rack scheme specific to this kind of bike. I even have standard pedals for one. So it would seem logical to get the same kind of bike again. And one of those locks that comes with insurance.
In other news, i’ve now switched from american-style t to eurostyle. I’m on something called sustanon. The way american t works is that it’s in castor oil (which does not actually come from beavers) -an impossibly thick oil. You inject it into a muscle and it slowly leaks out. It peaks after a couple of days and leaves your body after 10 – 14 days. By comparison, my sustanon is in peanut oil, which is much thinner. It has multiple types of t in it, all with different half lives. So as one is disappearing, another is becoming bioavailable. The standard cycle for this is 4 weeks, but i’m at 3 because i hate the gap at the end and i’m sometimes a day late with a shot. Like last time, for example.
I looked at the drug information booklet. Normally, i try not to or else i start imagining i have all the bad side effects. But i looked this time and it said to alert your docyor if you’vee ever haad bone cancer as this could cause a problem. Well, i actually had a tumor in a bone about 12 years ago. It was benign, but the surgery was really painful. I wonder if i remembered to tell the endocrinologist? Is this specific to sustanon? I don’t want to have more tumors in my bones, but it would really suck to have my voice and chin hair frozen at 15 year old boy. Maybe i should call my old doctor? I’m sort of between them right now.
Finally, i’ve just gotten conformation of xena’s kennel booking. I fly to california on monday. They want her to have been vaccinated for kennel cough several days ago. This would have been a good thing to tell me over the phone when i said her vaccination for that wasn’t current. And they’re not answering their phones.
To wrap up: all my stuff is in boxes. I have no internet. My t might give me cancer. The dog boarding i have lined up won’t take my dog.
Things tend to go the same amount of badly whether i plan in advance or not.
Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins
Supercolliding since 2003
Second Guessing
I have a real problem with second guessing, which makes it extremely difficult to make decisions. I read something recently about how brain scans show that we decide immediately and rationalize later. This might be apocryphal, but if it’s true, it means that I’m just messing with my decision -making process and probably not getting better results. So when it was time for me to decide where exactly I was going to be removing my stuff to the next morning, I was paralyzed with indecision and changing my mind at every moment. I barely slept. I woke in the night and couldn’t feel my hand, not because I was sleeping wrong on my arm, but because of how much I was tensing it.
I finally reasoned to myself that it really didn’t matter which I picked, I just had to pick something. Within a few months, I would have had something positive come out of it and decide I’d made the right choice. I’d say, “well XYZ sucked, but if it hadn’t happened, I never would have met ABC and then JKL wouldn’t have happened, so it’s really great I took that flat.” Both would therefore be the right choice. So I went with the better location because I didn’t want to have to call the landlord and then go get my stuff back from him.
I let a SUV thing. It was my first time driving on the left side. I loaded it up with stuff and then struck out on the motorway and then drove through central London, getting extremely lost. I’m glad to have a GPS thingee. I almost hit one other car once, but they honked and danger was averted. I probably was also too far over to the left, because of being used to seeing the road from a different perspective. Anyway, I arrived and stuffed all my belonging’s into a closet in my new landlord’s flat and then retired to Paula’s flat, as my new landlord had not yet vacated the flat to be mine. He’s an ok guy, but dealing with him is kind of strange, “oh, look, my cheques say ‘Ms.’ The bank must have been confused because my name is a girl’s name in England. heh. I’ll need to ask for a new checkbook.” Being stealth without any kind of legal status or anything except T and bravado, is well, it helps being foreign because it gives cover to any off mannerisms. And anyway, I went to stay with Paula, but not before I backed the rental car into a bollard and took out part of the rear light fixture. I sprung some extra £ for zero deductible on the insurance and that was money well spent. But it’s still highly displeasing to back into something and hear breaking glass.
Paula’s flat is ripped to hell because she’s remodeling her living room. This timing is just bad. So Nicole and the dog and I went to Brighton and camped. Brighton is a cute beach town. It rained one of the days, but was largely ok. We’d been talking about doing a bike trip, but I just felt stressed and wanted to relax, so the only biking we did was between food, the beach and camping. We came back on Saturday for gay pride and marched with FTM London. It’s really weird being at pride – or especially in the parade – and not knowing anybody. But there seems to be a good trans community and I’m looking forward to getting involved in it as I’m hoping it will be a major source for my social circle as it forms.
Originally, my new landlord said he would remove himself by this weekend, but that changed to Tuesday. So I’m still without a flat. Nicole and I were talking about biking to (or from) Oxford as a nice way to fill the time of homelessness, but it’s scheduled to rain the entire time and I was extremely tired after camping and then being in a gigantic crowd of strangers – not all of whom are entirely in favor of the whole LGBT acronym. I wanted to nap. So the bikes stayed chained up and I napped. And then we watched TV and were generally as lazy as one can be in a flat with no living room. This lack of space is kind of trying. I’ve been attempting to avoid second guessing. If I’d taken the other room, I’d be moved in and unpacked and working by now, but it will all be equal soon, so who cares, so stop thinking about it. Things can’t be changed now, so deal.
This evening, somebody rang the bell to ask if we were the owners of the bikes that had been chained to the doggy ride were no longer there. Indeed, my bike and nicole’s bike have both been nicked. The dog trailer, however, was left behind. somebody with a lot of patience sliced through both a chain and a U-lock and made off with two green Bromptons, neither of which I will ever see again. They also got my tire patching kit, an extra headlight and my clips.
This move has been suxxors. If I were somehow transported back in time to re-decide, I would go the other way. Man, I loved that bike.
I’m flying back to the US in a week to play a gig. I need to do quite a bit of work on the piece, but I don’t have a flat. I don’t have my bike. I am displeased.
Too much of a good thing
My friend paula let me know that one of her nieghbors might be searching for a subletter. It was kind of uncertain. Would he go? When would he go? I went to look at a flat in Lewisham that day and agreed to rent it because it was the first place that would have me and because it had many advantages.
Then, i got a call about the subletting thing. It’s an entire flat, right by the tower bridge, for not much more than i was going to pay for a room to the south. The location is astonishingly good. The rent – given the location – is astonishingly reasonable.
So, despite that i have to be out of brum <em>tomorrow</b> and despite having given a small deposit to the lewisham landlord and etc etc etc, i went this morning to look at the tower bridge flat. And i told the guy yes and even left some stuff there, but i am completely uncertain now that i’ve stepped away.
Whatever i do at this point, i’m flaking on somebody. I should have told him that i would let him know in the morning, but the timing is insane and i’m not exactly military-grade when it comes to dealing with pressure. So i said yes, but now i don’t know and i need to know by tomorrow morning, because i’m going to rent a station wagon and i should have an idea to where i’m driving it. Also, if i flake on tower bridge guy, i need to let him know that before he goes to the bank and sets up the direct deposit.
So, lewisham is not as central. The tower bridge is unthinkably, i-can’t-believe-it central. I say i want to do urban living, and that often means one bedroom flats in big buildings. It means taking the dog to a park and not having a garden. It means, often, living alone.
I’ve never had a hoisemate/ living situation ever get quite as disfunctional as the one i’m leaving. I’ve never lived alone either. Alone would be an improvement, for certain. I don’t want to get all Bridget Jones, but i do wonder sometimes: if i died suddenly, would anyone even notice? I mean, i certainly don’t want to suddenly keel over dead, but if i do, i don’t want to think my corpse would go undiscovered for very long. I mean, my dog will need to go for a walk. So, alas, i’m kind of afraid of living alone.
I kind of want a garden, despite my urban affectations. Also, the lewisham landlord’s daughter makes extra cash dog sitting. I would likely not need to find a kennel in july. I would have housemates. A huge, sunny room, a garden, another dog to keep mine company. And no gap.
The tower bridge guy is not leaving until next weekend. Paula has recwntly torn her living room to bits. She’s in no mood for me + dog + girlfriend. However, its what there is. Or a hotel. Or camping on a hastily planned bike trip while my maps are packed someplace.
So living right next to Paula would be awesome, as i’m very fond of her. Otherwise, i’m about 30 – 40 minites away. And my commute to school is also lenngthened. Or i could have an awesome location for an amount only slightly beyond my budget. With no dog sitting. No garden. No idea where i will spend tuesday night.
Also, i’ve been stealth with tower bridge guy. I can say that documents say ‘miss’ because of confusion around my name. But if he sees my passport or something . . .. In addition to everything else, i was stressing about this too.
What would you give up for location? This whole move is about location. About trying to be in the middle of things. But also about trying to find community and feel less alone.
I’m stumped. I have 12 hours. I’m a terrible flake.
Glad to be Leaving
I actually have no idea why the bill for gas and electricity is so large, but now I know why it came to a name that I don’t recognize. It used to be in the name of one of my housemates. The guy that moved out (thank god). When he moved out, he didn’t tell anyone. I finally asked his sister weeks later and she confirmed that he was gone, although I was pretty sure that’s what had happened when I saw that the TV and all the toilet brushes disappeared.
When he left, he changed the bills to be under a fictitious name. And didn’t tell anybody, except possibly his sister, what name to look for. So last week, I saw a letter from the electric/gas company addressed to an unknown name, and realized that I had given no money to either company in quite a long time. I opened it and it alerted me that the gas and power was going to be shut off in a few days time unless we sent them money. A lot of money. The bill is incredibly high.
I called the company and asked if it possibly dated from before we moved in. They refused to discuss anything with me unless I faxed in a copy of my tenancy agreement. I couldn’t not get them to agree to delay shutting things off, even. So I did that and they promised to send a revised bill and have not done so.
And then I started talking to my housemates. The sister refused to pay anything and demanded to know why I had called them. (Personally, I think of it as kind of a disaster when power and gas get shut off, but I’m also the sort of person who replaces lightbulbs. Indeed, I’m the only person in this house who replaces lightbulbs.) She claimed the electric company was lying about the amount that we owed. We had already paid bills for the time covered under that bill, when it was in her brother’s name. I asked if she could produce copies of these bills, as that would surely help resolve any disputes. She got suddenly very shouty and defensive.
There was an interesting phrase on the bill. It said it was extremely accurate because they had sent somebody around to read the meter. Apparently, the previous bills all said they were the amount that the residents had called up to report.
Now, this is pure speculation on my part, drawn from conjecture and partially remembered rants of my very ranty ex-housemate, but what I suspect is that he was calling them up every month with invented numbers on the meter. Then he switched it to a name unconnected with him and hoped that nothing would get shut off before his sister moved out.
How much is the bill? Less than my monthly rent in London is going to be, but not much less.
The gas/electric company promised to send something within the week, when I explained that we were all about to move and I needed to see something in writing to present to my housemates or else I would get stuck with the whole thing. They made false promises about mailing things.
There’s false promises and duplicity all around. And I’m going to get stuck with the entire bill. Because the only way I’m getting any money out of the lying weasel or his sister is going to be to take them to court. And the whole process will certainly involve a wall of manic shouting from both of them. I have more financial capital than emotional capital. I can pay money and make the stress go away.
I was joking earlier that the vibe living here made me pine for the good old days of a disintegrating marriage. Truly I have cursed myself to an expensive divorce.
Yay! I have a room in London!
Today, I exchanged money for a key to a house in Lewisham, London. I have a gigantic room that looks out on a garden. The garden is magnificently overgrown. Somebody planted many lovely flowers several years ago and then it’s been neglected for years, so the flowers grow and twine in glorious tumult. The room has tile floors. It’s kind of echo-y, but that will improve as I move my stuff in. It’s large enough that I will be able to set up my gear and have enough room left over that I think I’m going to try to freecycle a couch.
I found the room via Outlet, a gay flatmate-finding service. I don’t know if the owner is queer herself or not, but she’s part of that community in that she makes costumes for drag queens. She’s off to some week long festival in Scotland to work with a drag troupe. She also has a gigantic german shepherd (alsatian). Xena get along famously with the other dog. And the owner’s daughter is willing to make pocket money dogsitting, so it seems I won’t have to find a kennel when I go to that States in July.
Lewisham is in the south east of London. South of the Themes is not considered as hip as north, but I’m not hip. This room is big and the rent is less than my mortgage used to be, so I’m happy. After I let the room, I walked into the center of Lewisham. There was a market going on, which was unremarkable except that a march came through it. There was a guy with a bullhorn and some chanting people and another guy with a trumpet, who would play a lick in between the chant lines. The chant lines didn’t change, so neither did the lick. He played the same 3 or 4 (out of tune) notes over and over and over again. I thought it was weird just on the basis of that, but then as they approached, it turned out that they were doing publicity for a faith healer. Friday night!
Is this every friday night? Is this a one time thing? How do you get 50+ people to march around chanting and handing out pamphlets for a faith healer? As entertaining as this spectacle was, it was also kind of alarming as highly-motivated Christians don’t tend to get on well with my people.
Nearly everyone marching was black. The rest of the market was mixed. After they went by, the commentary among the spectators was amusing. They mostly seemed confused, actually. I’ve always thought of faith healers as an American phenomenon. Some of the commenters were clearly unfamiliar with the concept and not exactly open to it.
The area has a very Oakland-like vibe in general. Including both diversity and snark! I went to a nifty diner and chatted with some people there.
I went to see two other flats on Saturday. The landlords for them were also really cool. I hope I can keep in contact with them. I had two more to see, but canceled, since I’ve got this room.
So I’m going to be moving in the next week.
I might as well be trying to move to Mars
I’ve called or emailed more than 30 landlords. I’ve called 10 or 15 letting agents. I’ve seen two flats, both of which silently rejected me. I’ve got an appointment to see one more. My existing rental contract runs out in 10 days.
The most productive conversation I had today was with a letting agent that suggested I give Xena away. Right. I’m going to give up my loving companion so I can have a shitty studio.
Brits have a reputation for being a nation of dog lovers. But when I think about it, the only people who say that are, themselves, British. No foreigner ever remarks on how beloved pets are. In fact, most Brits seem to be afraid of dogs. If they’re not afraid of being bitten, they’re afraid of some other, unspecified evil. Dogs smell bad. They shed. They might chew things. They might spontaneously burst into flame and destroy the entire neighborhood as they run around setting it on fire.
French people – they love dogs. The Dutch are fond of dogs. Brits? They wet themselves in terror. Which should not be surprising as that seems to be their response to anything slightly out of the ordinary. I cannot believe that these are the same people who beat the Nazis. I think that evil Nazi scientists must have introduced a mutation into the British gene pool which causes a general inability to cope with anything.
I don’t know why I think it would be better to live in London than Brum. It will still be in this fucking country. Sure, they have the NHS and Doctor Who and an active squat scene, but just because their infrastructure is slightly less dismantled than US infrastructure . . . well, I mean, at least America is full of Americans. We might be all a bunch of fucking cowboys, but cowboys can cope with shit. Also, cowboys like dogs.
My budget for a studio is now greater than my mortgage payments were for my house in Berkeley. And I probably won’t find anything. I’ll be lucky to find anything even if I stay in Brum. It was only a fluke that I got this place and it’s sort of falling apart and it’s the best that I’ll ever be able to do in this fucking little country.
Edit: 21 June 2008
I deeply regret any pro-cowboy comments that I’ve made.
NHS endo
I’ve just talked to an endocrinologist in a british hospital. The hospital, Birlingham City Hospital is a newish building. It has large windows and an airy, almost pleasant interior. There is a large central atrium in the center of the outpatient wing. This is part of a shared waiting area. It’s almost like cafe. Food and drink are available.
I arrived early for my appointment, as directed and checked in and waited. The receptionist asked where the patient was. “I’m the patient.” She double checked everything and aplogized. Later, when a nurse called me, she also double checked my name and address. The NHS has me listed as “Miss Celeste.” My efforts to change this have, so far, failed, alas.
The endo’s assistant asked me a bunch of questions and sort of hinted at scary things that can go wrong on T. Blindness?!? Um, not that I’ve noticed.
The endo then came around to talk to me and ordered a million blood tests and said his assistant would write a letter telling my GP to prescribe sustanon, which is the form of T given to transmen in Europe. I can do it every 3 weeks instead of every 2. Huzzah. I’m to return in 6 months for a follow up.
He ordered 17 blood tests, so now I’m now waiting to have my blood drawn. The tests are for various hormones, cholesterol, glucose levels, things that I don’t recognize. Gods help me if they have to take 17 vials. I’m using that blood!
Anyway, the hospital is clean and bright and airy. I’ve also been to a hospital in france, alas, and this is altogether more pleasant. But that was Paris’ “worst” hospital, so maybe this isn’t a fair comparison.
Seeking London Lodging
I’m currently combing the internets looking at flatmate listings for London. I hope to find LGBT-friendly folks someplace fairly central that will take my dog and I for £110/week or less. This is more than double what I’m paying now and I’ll have to also ride trains a lot more. And yet, it’s still definitely on the low end of what’s out there. I have faith, though. Somebody will be taken with my dog or that I have a recipe for cactus chili (somebody was recently kind of amazed when I talked about eating prickly pear leaves, so you never know).
My queer-focussed ad says:
I’m a 32 year old ftm looking for London housing starting by July 1. I’ve been transitioning for about 6 months. Before that I was a dyke. I’m a post-grad student, with a dog. She’s an 8 year old lab mix. Friendly but reserved. She is old and spends all her indoor time sleeping and would not require any attention from you. She gets on very well with other dogs and has lived well with cats before (she’s overly curious at first, but soon returns to her sleepy state).
I’m looking for a home with some communal space and queer or queer-friendly housemates. I’m from California originally and like to think of myself as relaxed and easy to get on with. I’ve spent the last 3 years abroad and plan to live in England for the next 2 or 3 years while getting my PhD. I like to play music, but I’m not loud. I don’t mind if you are.
Feel free to contact me at celesteh@gmail.com or to pass along my information to your friends who need a housemate.
I really don’t want to have to be stealth in my home. Some of my mail gets addressed to Miss or Ms. I recently told my cable company representative that my bank had mistakenly listed me as “miss” because they thought I had a girl’s name. This story is apparently believable – different cultures/countries do gender names differently, but it wouldn’t explain why my former landlords were all using the wrong pronouns. So I don’t know how much choice I have about being out – not that I want to live in fear of being found out.
Part of what was nice about being in Holland is that I was kind of just a regular person again for a while. It would be nice to be like that more of the time.
I’m in Brum
I got to the ferry terminal before 9:00AM on Sunday. The check-in supervisor agreed to check in my dog then. She gave me a hard time about the dog having two chips and her rabies certification. At the time, I was alarmed that there might be an issue with getting on the boat, but I think the woman was just annoyed and wanted to give me a hard time.
I was super, super, super grateful. I expected to be told no or to have to pay a high last-minute fare, but neither of those things happened. Apparently, I had a very flexible ticket. So, it was with great joy that I learned I could get on the boat and wouldn’t have to buy a new ticket. Huzzah.
Checking in to the ferry means biking up to the check in booth where you present your travel documents and receive a cabin key. If you have a dog, they have a chip reader you must use. Then you bike up to the Dutch border patrol who inspect your passport and give you an exit stamp. The agent frowned at my passport and turned to her coworker and explained in Dutch that the picture looked like me, but the passport seemed to say I was a woman. There was obviously some kind of problem! She turned to me. “I’m transsexual.” I said in English. She asked if I had any documentation proving that. I offered to show her my testosterone ampoules. “You must have this problem with your passport a lot.” she said. Actually, a panhandler had called me “mevrouw” in the train station that morning. The agent looked shocked. How could anybody think that?! She let me on the boat. “Have a good trip, sir!”
One advantage of biking onto a ferry is that immigration at Harwich is not nearly as awful as immigration at the airport. I think this is partly because there are not conveniently located holding pens. If detaining somebody is really easy, then they’re more likely to do it. If it requires leaving your booth, finding a supervisor, etc etc etc, well, it’s too much trouble. I was barely hassled at all. Alas, the gender marker on my passport was not any kind of an issue.
But the problem with biking onto ferries is that they’re really meant for cars. Especially the daytime ferries. I was the only biker at all. I biked over to the train station to discover that no trains were running. I talked to somebody. “What train were you planning on catching?” she asked. Um. I wouldn’t think it would be making too much of an assumption that you could just get off one of the twice daily ferries and then get on a train at the attached train station. That’s just crazy talk! Finally a bus came by and refused to take me unless I folded everything. He came back for me an hour later. I’ve now been all over East Anglia by bus. It’s lovely country. Narrow country roads. Rolling farmland. Pretty little pubs. Bed and breakfasts. We went from tiny shut-down rail station to tiny shut-down rail station where nobody got on or off the bus.
We finally rolled in to a working station. I asked for an itinerary from the agent. “You can’t get there tonight.” he said. I could get as far as London, which my ticket specifically didn’t cover. Note to travellers: do not buy tickets between Brum and Harwich which say “not London” for the route, as such a route does not exist. The agent said I couldn’t go that way. I whined. He relented.
I called Paula and explained my predicament. She was not exactly thrilled. She had to go to work in the morning. I whined. She relented. It was a warm night at midnight, when I stood ringing her doorbell. I pondered pitching a tent on the grass in her courtyard. Presumably, the neighbors would complain. I kept ringing the doorbell. Mine wouldn’t wake me up either, actually. But hers finally did and she let me in.
The next morning, after peak hours on the train had passed, I biked across London to the cheaper station to Brum. My ticket still said “not London” and as I was on the second day of using it, I was not entirely sure about it. The station agent didn’t want to let me past the fare gates. I whined. He relented. Note to travellers: when facing disasters in the UK, try whining.
I called Eric, who had my keys. He was at school. So after my train came in, I biked to school from the train station. Brum is hilly once you get off the canal path. Also, all my stuff for gigging + bike touring stuff + dog. I got to school and drank some water and got my keys and then went home where I put on clean clothes. I desperately wanted a shower after sweating so much, but Nicole’s train (from the airport where she arrived that same morning) was past due. I just wanted to wear socks that hadn’t been worn for three days previous.
Nicole was not pleased at my lateness, but I whined and she relented. It took me voer 24 hours to get home. I’ve flown inter nationally and made train connections, etc and been home faster. Every time I try to cross the UK, something goes horribly wrong or near wrong. Also, biking down Oxford street really sucks.
People I would like to thank: Kendra for letting me sleep on her futon unexpectedly (and lending me a SIM card), Paula for letting me sleep at her apartment unexpectedly, Eric for being around with my keys.
I missed my fucking boat
I thought i was supposed to check in at 22:00, so i came at 21:48 to give my self a few minutes.
The people behind the desk wouldn’t even acknowledge that i was pounding alarmedly on the door. Finally, i saw a police van and they told me i was too late. The boat sails at 22:00. It was 21:55. She said she was sorry.
If i can check in to a boat tomorrow before 10:13, i can still take xena. Otherwise, i can’t go until tuessday because she will need to be re-treated for ticks. Not that there’s any poasibility of her having any. But the re-treatment will be bad for her health.
Fuc fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Now i’m on train back to den haag that i couldn’t even buy tickets for because the fucking macjine at the ferry terminal only takes coins or dutch cards.
Nicole, eric has my keys. I will email you his phone number when i get to kendra’s house and can get some juice in my phone.
I knew i would fuck this up somehow. Fucking god fucking damn it. Fuck, i have a dr appointment. I’m such a fucking idiot.