Trans appearances (1 of 2): "Clocking it."

With trans men (i.e., women who take male hormones and try to present as male), there's been a few factors for a while that I've known of, that allow you to clock them.

Like, very short height, wide bottoms, and what I've heard described as the "munchkin voice" (a deepened voice, but one pushed through what I assume is a somehow irreversibly female-formed vocal tract).

I've also heard recently that they tend to be more balding, since male-pattern baldness is carried on the X chromosome, and so, unlike natal men who are XY, the XX-typical women of trans men have double the chance of drawing that card. 

But what really got me lately was something that I saw posted on a notoriously toxic internet messaging board, which I came across when I was trying to identify Zizian social media accounts and a Google search kicked up some helpful stuff on there and then I ended up just reading around more broadly.

What someone said is the key key thing that never fails them, is to look at the brow ridge: men have more jutting foreheads and brows around the eye sockets, while in those areas women's faces are flatter, like those of children.

And now, I can't unsee it.

Every single damn time I see a trans man, I hone in on their brow and forehead region, and BAM, you clock them.

Two glimpses into the life of a coworker --

specifically, the life of my one (younger) (taller) (Latino-American) coworker at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1)  At 5:13pm during a dinner shift where he has not shown up to drive deliveries, he writes the group chat --

I am on the way sorry my dog is having an issue

2) He says his (cool) girlfriend got him petunias that glow in the dark.

. . .

(. . .)

Getting old...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) I tell a story about how back when I was in like sixth grade, this one teacher used to get the same gift for every teacher who turned 40: a nice bouquet of flowers, arranged in a Metamucil bottle.

And, after I tell that story, I realize that I'm well older than that age, now.

Also, when Brian Wilson dies, I text the news to a college friend with whom I had seen his first concert tour after completing Smile, and I say that I'm glad we went, and my friend texts back --

That's been 20 years now!

2) Because my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker turned 30 earlier that week, I make many jokes about that, the next shift that I work with her.

Like, she walks by, and I'm like, "Can you hear that, can you hear that," and when people say what, I say that I hear bones creaking.

(She then says to me, too, that I'm older than her, so my bones should be creaking, and I say that they do, and that's exactly why I'm sensitive to the changes happening in her.) 

And, I tell her that she should get a new pair of glasses, because she didn't pour eggroll sauce in the little take-out cups, but rather cleaning fluid (it wasn't; it was just a bad joke, and one, incidentally, that didn't land well).

And, when she says that she's tired and has a migraine and wants to leave work, at first I say she should just walk out the door and leave and not tell anyone, since if our one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones can just not show up to work without calling, she can just walk out the door anytime she wants, without telling anyone.

But then, upon further reflection, I change my joke, and I say that since she had her birthday, she has to be in bed by eight o'clock now, and that's why she needs to leave.

Once, too, I call her "Pi [her first name]," which really catches her off-guard and makes her laugh in a slightly confused way.

("Pi" is what you call someone who's older than you in [Thai], and it's what she calls me since I'm older than her, and there's no possible way on earth I can call her "Pi"). 

3) When I go to clear a patio table, there's a napkin stuffed in the umbrella-hole at the center of the table, and I think back to a story that is told of me as a toddler, where I was at a family dinner and standing on someone's lap and I started getting really weirdly woozy for some reason, and my grandmother realized I was staring at the big ham-bone that was in the center of the ham and drained of marrow, and so she stuck a napkin into the end of the bone so that I couldn't see it anymore, which worked, since I couldn't see it anymore, and so I stopped being woozy.

I'm not old enough to remember that, but it's been told of me, and my grandmother has been dead over twenty-five years now.

Two cracks...

...by the husband of a (white) couple who I know from college and caught up with this summer:

1) When I meet their kids for the first time and ask how old they are -- their older daughter is 11, and their younger son is like 7 or 8 --  I tell their daughter, "You know, you are closer in age to the age that I first met your parents, than the age when we first met to how old we are n..." -- and immediately the dad jumps in and is like, "No, we are not playing that game."

2) When we are out and about, we pass by a hospital, at which the husband comments that both the kids were born there, and so I turn and start applauding at it, and immediately he's like, "You should be applauding [his nickname for his wife's first name]."

Addendum.

While the owners of the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now are in (Thailand), my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones has taken up a leg workout that she does in slow moments at work, where she does ten squats in a row while standing behind the cash register.

"You can't do hip-hop dancing at work!", I told her, the first time I saw her doing that. "[First name of the male boss] and [first name of the female boss] will see you over the video camera and you'll get in trouble!".

I also told my coworkers that I caught her hip-hop dancing at work, and I was like, "I saw her doing this!", and I squatted down like she did, only I paused and kind of moved my butt a bit when I was at the bottom of the squat, like it was some kind of twerking move.

Then, I'd stop that, and I'd be like, "She can't do that at work, she'll get in trouble!". 

Another recent day at work...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) The (very fat) (bearded) (white) homeless man shows up again to use our patio furniture during the dinner shift, like two days after he first appeared.

"I don't like this," I say to my coworkers. "It's becoming a habit for him."

So, I step outside and am like, "Hello, Sir, can I help you?"

And, he looks up at me, and just this mean looks crosses his face and he snarls at me, "No."

So, I just let that wash over me, and I'm like, "These tables are for dine-in customers at our restaurant, if you need a place to rest, there's a public bench just around the corner," and as I say that, I point up to the main intersection that's like 3 storefronts up.

And, he doesn't say much, but as I go back inside, he gets up and goes to move along, heading off in that direction, as I can see through the front windows of the restaurant.

2)  My one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones doesn't show up for her dinner shift, since the owners are gone for a month on vacation in Thailand and although that day is usually her day off, she must not have looked at the schedule closely and seen the change that she was supposed to work that day instead of having it off like she usually does.

There's a fair amount of drama and texting, and as best as we can figure out, she was going to the movies that evening and she's probably in a local cineplex, and not only is she not looking at our messages, but she also probably won't look at them until the busy part of the evening is over, at which point it won't make sense for her to come in at all.

"But it's okay," my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker is like. "It's quiet, we can work without her."

And, I'm like, "Yeah, that's true," and then I add that I **love** this, since we can hold it over her head whenever we work with her from then on.

Later, too, I start creating all of these scenarios for why she might be gone, like, maybe she met her true love, and she's driving to Las Vegas right now to get married.

Like, maybe she was gardening this afternoon, and she raised her head, and across the street was this other guy gardening, and their eyes met, and he was so hot, so now she's going to Vegas.

Or, I said that I had seen posters around town for an all-female rockband -- I hadn't -- and I said that maybe she's at auditions.

Or, I said that we should count the sake bottles, because maybe she stole one and drank it this afternoon and passed out and didn't come to work.

Or, I said that maybe she went to the one local bakery that she likes, ate too much baked goods, passed out into a food coma, and they wouldn't notice her there and wake her up until they close the store at 6 o'clock. 

I also said that we could blackmail her, and tell her that she has to give us each fifty dollars so we won't tell the owners that she didn't come to work, or, alternately, if we had her punch-in code, we could have clocked her in and she could earn money for not being at work, which is a system that maybe we could do on slow days when the owners are in Thailand, where we arrange that one of us doesn't show up but we'd still clock them in, and then we'd all be paid for not working and they'd never find out.

Also also, I said that I finally figured out what her (Thai) name stands for, and I treated it like an acronym, and turned it into a short phrase about her not showing up at work. 

3) After work, my one (female) (Guatemalan) coworker tells me that she and her (American) fiance just found out that she's a month pregnant.

He has a six year-old boy and she has a ten year-old girl, and they are both surprised, but she kept saying in (Spanish) that this is a "blessing from God."

A recent dream:

The other month I dreamnt --

I'm kneeling by the washing machine in the laundry area of the basement of the front house and the washing machine door is open, and I pull out a navy blue fitted bedsheet that is the entirety of the washing-load, and as I look at it, I wonder why I put in such a small load, instead of waiting to wash that sheet or instead of putting other things into the washing machine along with it.

And then, I wake up.

. . .

(Now **that** is a mundane dream.)