Autobiographical Fiction

December 30, 2024

Assigned F(aggot) at Birth

I hold a book "written" by Erica Kane called Having It All. — Erica Kane truly had it all. Including her own book! Yes, this may be a photoshop of me and the book, but the book is real. All My Children commissioned a marketing promo stunt book by a fictional character.

I arrived nameless as the doctor put a pink bow on my head: a diluted scarlet letter F.

My parents believed with their whole hearts that I’d be a boy. No reason. No shadow penis on an ultrasound. Only faith in my father’s chromosome-carrying sperm.⁽¹⁾

I imagine, on that snowy evening, when a nurse asked them for my name, they both blinked, and my mother continued watching Remington Steele.

My father abhors being wrong, especially when a woman (girl) tells him so. But perhaps he clocked my birth as a half-win, proof of his virility against his ex-wife’s divorce petition stating his infertility.

Perhaps he considered my moments-old self the test run for his future baby boy. A lady from his Missouri Synod Lutheran Church wrote that exact sentiment in my baby shower card, and I read it 35+ years later.⁽²⁾

This left naming me up to my mother.⁽³⁾

Names are powerful. They speak to destiny. Continue reading “Assigned F(aggot) at Birth”

April 7, 2023

This Barbie is a Trans Nonbinary Person.

Life in smooth plastic. It’s fantastic!

As a child, I had an army of Barbies. Not a modest country’s army. Like US military spending army. I got Barbies for every birthday and holiday. I had my mom’s old Barbies. I accumulated more Barbies from neighbors whose teenagers didn’t want them anymore, and plenty of garage sale finds. My maternal grandma made me a Barbie birthday cake where the cake was Barbie’s dress, and in the middle of the cake stood Barbie.¹

My Barbies had an ice cream parlor (garage sale find), a horse stable (stolen from my younger brother), and an off-brand Barbie home (Christmas gift from the JCPenny catalog).² I’d decorate their home with craft supplies and random things I found. Those little plastic pizza separators in personal Pizza Hut pizzas I’d earned in book reading contests made great Barbie stools.

Barbie could be anything. Barbie was in charge. Barbie served ice cream. Barbie rode horses and raised rabbits like me. Barbie went on dates with other Barbies. Barbies spent a lot of time obsessed with fashion. Barbie was an astronaut. Barbie was a supermodel. Barbie gossiped. Barbie fought, despite a largely unbendable body except for Figure Skating Barbie. Barbie was also friends with all the other Barbies, Kens, and even the lone Skipper.

Barbie was a storytelling and fashion vehicle. I could act out my little stories, and in between, Barbie could wear the loud neon fashions of the 1980s and 90s with too many ridiculous heels that mine mostly forwent. Continue reading “This Barbie is a Trans Nonbinary Person.”

May 22, 2022

The Girly Perfection of Flawless Polished Nails

Greco Roman statue that is chipped on the face

How I painted my fingernails like a man

I hated painting my nails. While I zealously painted my toenails for decades, I hated painted fingernails. They always chipped, and I’d pick at the remaining polish and destroy my nails as layers peeled away like onion skins. I couldn’t stop myself from picking them apart.

Until my late 20s, I was too poor and cheap to get professional manicures. But even when I did (not often), I’d dread the walk over to the neat little racks showing off what brands and colors the salon offered to pick mine.

My nails have always grown quickly and are strong and thick. Every keyboard bares indents from my nails, water carving through stone to form a river over time. While they eventually break, my nails stand against the wear and tear I’ve put them through, like ranching, gardening, and washing dishes. I’ve never had gels or professionally applied length because I could have natural long ones. Mostly, I’d look down at my nails one day, and they’d be very long again. Or I’d break an index fingernail, and suddenly keyboarding was catawampus. Or a cis woman would notice my hands, exclaim at how very long my nails were, and share how disappointingly brittle hers are.

But polish? Every chip made me feel like a failure. Like a little bomb telling me I did something wrong. I just had them done; they should be flawless like a woman in an advertisement with her flowing hair, lush makeup, and buttery hands with flawless nails.

Intellectually, I know no one’s nails are flawless, even if fresh from a manicure.

Every little chip felt like another flake of failure at being feminine, at being a woman. Continue reading “The Girly Perfection of Flawless Polished Nails”

August 4, 2020August 3, 2020

Following the Paths of Grief

(kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up)

Grief has kept me away from this space, away from engaging in the writing I love, and away from what seems like the barest minimum of human connections. A grief that shuts down, just as much as it can hone.

I didn’t write here, but I did write a lot about organic electro-optic materials in photonic computing, coming to a website near you. Even in grief, you must pay the bills.

My cat Hermione died. Her cancer came back, and there was nothing we could do. Hermione knew it was time, even if I still don’t want it to ever be time.

Me, Hermione, and Jacob — My precious baby Hermione

Continue reading “Following the Paths of Grief”

June 17, 2010

The First Thing I Ever Cooked or Made: PB&J

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich by Aaron Gustafson — Peanut Butter and Jelly, the way my brother was expecting.

The first thing I ever cooked — or rather made — by myself in the kitchen was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was about 5-years-old at time, and my family, all four of us with one on the way, lived cramped in a 700 square foot studio apartment. Oh, and during the week, my Grandpa lived there with us too as he worked as contractor on the home my parents were building.

I am not what you would call an aficionado of pb&j. I certainly ate my fair share of it as a child, but probably haven’t eaten one in 10 years. I remember making this particular sandwich for my younger brother Jonathan. As I made it, he played supervisor. He tried to caution me against pressing too hard with the knife on the soft, overly-processed white bread. And I’m sure he also attempted to get me to cut the crusts off it, which, as a proto-feminist, I surely scoffed at.

When I finished and proudly handed it him, Jonathan frowned and pointed out that he wasn’t going to eat it as I’d broken through the bread. Yes, the first thing I ever made in a kitchen was rejected. Ironically, 20+ years later, my brother would wholeheartedly eat about any food put in front of him, including pb&js with knife holes in the bread. I also bake my own bread now.

Inspired by the First Meal I Ever Cooked question over on Gluten-Free Girl’s blog.