Getting some stuff done, while recouperating
Posted: January 27, 2015 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: bedroom, coming out, crafting, crocheting, gender identity, genderqueer, janitors, lgbtq, mental health, non-binary, queer, work 11 CommentsThis is pretty much the best type of leave of absence anyone could ask for. Last week, I was in the hospital, but I wasn’t sick or incapacitated in any physical sense. And being out of work for this week, I’m able to get to some stuff I’ve been putting off, in some cases for years.
This week,
– I’m getting my car inspected.
– I’m going to therapy Mon. and Fri.
– I’m meeting with my new psychiatrist.
– I’m having lunch or dinner with a couple people.
– I’m working on finally finishing this blanket I started 2 years ago.
– I’m finishing a piece of writing, a collaborative blog post with Michele Witchipoo.
And the big thing I’m finally getting around to: I am cleaning my room.*
My room has been a disaster area for mostly my entire life. I mean, I guess there were periods of time where I kept things organized throughout my childhood, but largely, it’s a watch-where-you-step zone. There is a method to the madness, but it doesn’t work all that well, and there have been times recently where I can’t find something. I have a tendency to not unpack bags and also a tendency to not want to touch things because they have sentimental value and are buried somewhere down there. It’s like an archaeological dig. This room has not been cleaned in probably 2 years – lots of dust and hair and just grossnesses. At least no food or stuff like that – I’m good about that.
I guess I have a confession: I am a janitor who is a messy person at heart.
Really only a partial view. Need a panorama for this mess!
Almost done with this blanket!
I have a fair amount of anxiety about returning to work next week. I have never been out of work for this long, ever. People might be asking me questions that I need to be prepared to field. Although it may be tough to believe in my line of work, I was temporarily experiencing quite a lot of stress, and many changes were under way, leading up to being out of work. I think I can manage it better once I get back, but I won’t really know until I’m in it. Either way, I know I’ll be ready to go back – only so much I can do with huge swaths of unstructured time. (I’ve also been playing thought experiments about how hard would it be to come out as non-binary at work? Everyone really likes me there – I think they could get on board. We’ll see…)
*When I say “my room,” I’m referring to the room where my partner and I sleep, and where I store a lot of my personal belongings in big disheveled swirls. We don’t hang out in there or watch TV or anything because it’s not all that aesthetically pleasing, at least for my partner. Also, it is the attic of our house, so it is very cold in the winter.
Saying good-bye to my mentor / co-worker
Posted: December 15, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: co-worker, emotions, gender identity, genderqueer, janitors, manual labor, non-binary, relationships, retirement, school, sentiments, work 3 CommentsMy co-worker just retired on Friday. This is someone I’ve seen almost every day for the past 8 years – not many people in my life I can say that about! (My partner, and others at work, basically.) I will miss him a lot. Some people have a lot of co-workers. I really only have just one. I have one supervisor, one co-worker, and one other person on the cleaning staff who is only there for 4 hrs a day (more of a higher turnover. A co-worker, but it doesn’t feel the same).
We didn’t actually work “together,” but we worked the same hours and we were still a team. I clean the first floor, and he cleaned the second floor. We probably only saw each other for a total of a half-hour every day. Still, I felt very connected with him. We commiserated together. We listened to each other. If I needed anything, I knew I could go to him. I knew if I helped him out with something, I was being highly appreciated for it.
I’d have to say he taught me more than any other person, in my journey to becoming a janitor who is very good at his job. He always had an opinion about how things should be done. And he had a lot of tricks-of-the-trade up his sleeve. He always wanted to pass those on to me (and anyone else who had the patience to learn from him – most didn’t). He was really difficult to understand. He’s from the Caribbean and has a super thick accent. He also has a speech impediment (I believe) on top of that. Over time, I began to be able to understand every word out of his mouth. Most people – teachers and other people in the building – could really understand roughly half or less of the things he was saying. Even after interacting with him every day for years and years and years. Sometimes I felt the urge to be his interpreter, but I think he might have felt insulted, so I really only did this if it really seemed necessary.
One of my favorite word-disconnects he uttered, was anytime he was talking about someone with Alzheimer’s, it would come out sounding like “Old Timers.” How great is that? I’ve pretty much started using that in my own lexicon. There are plenty of other neologisms and intonations I’ve adopted from him. Just one way I will always remember him.
There was a party for him after school in the library (this is the first “library party” I’ve attended – usually I haven’t felt like I was welcome / I haven’t gone). We ate cheese squares and broccoli & cauliflower. We drank Pepsi and had sheet cake. He made a brief speech and he cried. I was touched. He was presented with a few gifts, including a scrap book the Social Committee made for him. I contributed two pieces for it. This is what I wrote:
I think that he saw me as male. Or at least as not female. He always referred to me as “Man,” or, more like, “Mon” (the Caribbean thing). He was old-school in a lot of ways, but he never once tried to do something for me (unless he was showing me a better way to do it) or told me I couldn’t do something / lift something. I always appreciated that. There’s no way I’ll ever forget him. He impacted my life in ways he may never know…
Janitors in pop culture #3 / awesome film about a transwoman
Posted: November 4, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: film festival, gender, gender identity, getting published, janitors, lgbtqia, movie review, mtf, queer, stereotypes, therapy, trans, transgender, writing 4 CommentsI recently was at an LGBT film festival and specifically planned ahead to catch a film from Finland called Open Up To Me (Kerron Sinulle Kaiken). If you want to see it, this blog post is going to contain details you might not want to read about in advance, just a heads up!
Super highly recommend this film. It follows the life of Maarit, a transwoman, for a few months, starting at the point of her last appointment with her gender therapist – the tone of that first scene, the therapist’s farewell message, is: now spread your wings and fly. Maarit had been forced through a lot of sacrifices in the process of becoming who she is. She is separated from her wife and estranged from her teenaged daughter (we get the sense the daughter is open and figuring this out for herself; it is the mother who is standing in the way.) She has moved away from where she once lived and worked as a school social worker. She now leads a lonely existence and works as a janitor within a huge office building.
There are only two or three scenes where she is depicted at her work (and it’s just her coming and going. Loading a van, pushing a cart full of supplies). The story is not about that work, other than utilizing it as a plot device for somewhere she has landed and is unhappy about. She (understandably) yearns to get back into her chosen profession of helping people as soon as possible. She wants this so badly that she ends up posing as a therapist (through a series of misunderstandings) while on the job.
Which brings me to a reason I loved this film… It falls back on some unpleasant tropes common to trans characters in the media, but it ends up twisting them and rising above those ideas, to portray Maarit as a very human, very real, complex, well… person.
Transperson as deceitful: Although Maarit deceives someone about her profession (and she quickly comes clean), she never once is attempting to deceive anyone about her transgender status. She is proud, self-assured, and upfront with those around her (on an as-needed basis), even in the face of speculation and slander, discrimination, and violence.
Transperson as hypersexual: Maarit is not portrayed as a hypersexual person. It is clear that she is looking for intimacy, emotional connections, and a long-term partner. Instead, some of the characters around her are hypersexualizing her, and that seems more about them and their own issues, rather than who she actually is as a person. The film makes this very clear.
Transperson as dangerous and/or tragic: Maarit is in a very difficult place (there are other aspects of her life that have fallen apart. I won’t give away every detail!) and there are certainly scenes where she is in over her head, where she is compromised, where she seems desperate. It feels realistic – it very much seems that some choices she makes are due to (and only due to) being pushed so far into a corner, and she’s just trying to find her way back to where she can live her life. Those choices are not about who she is, inherently. It’s circumstantial. Some of these scenes, although hard to watch, feel triumphant at the same time. For example, at one point, she is attacked by an ex-lover. She ends up punching him in the face and ending the attack. Awesome.
I’m so glad LGBT film festivals exist – opportunities to get out there and see films I wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. This year, I saw this one, and another trans-specific one (52 Tuesdays – sadly, I didn’t enjoy this one all that much. It felt overly melodramatic, the characters didn’t feel believable.) My partner and I have gone to other films over the years, and it’s interesting that it always seems like there’s films for men and films for women. We’ve been to films before where we’re the only ones in the theater who are not cis-men (that’s an assumption, of course, but over and over again, it has been very much divided, and it is so bizarre to me.) At these two films (which were both well attended), there was a very diverse cross-section. I liked that.
Also, the film festival puts out an annual literary anthology, and this year’s theme was personal pronouns. I submitted, and my piece was accepted! I’m now officially published, in an actual book with an ISBN # and everything!!!
The piece was a re-working of these two blog posts:
While I was “out,” part 2 – partly out of the closet, fully out of the loop
While I was “out,” part 3 – coming back
I keep thinking I’m bigger and more masculine than I actually am
Posted: October 21, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: androgyny, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, janitors, lgbtq, non-binary, queer, school, testosterone, trans, transgender, work 10 CommentsI’m not complaining; it’s not a bad thing! My surroundings sort of facilitate this, which is fine by me. As a janitor at an elementary school, I spend most of my time, during the work-week, with women and children (if I’m with anyone at all). Every teacher I interact with regularly is relatively feminine in her attire, mannerisms, and speech. (There are a handful of men who teach / work at this school; I just don’t happen to see them on a regular basis.) Every child running around me getting ready to head home for the day, is tiny. I wear a work uniform which is super masculine by default. (Like, we don’t have “women’s uniforms” and “men’s uniforms.” We just have uniforms.) In addition to the uniform, I wear men’s pants and men’s hiking boots. I imagine my movements are relatively masculine. I’m working, I’m using big, sweeping motions. I saunter around slowly, sometimes with my hiking boots untied.
I am surrounded all day long by tiny furniture. The classrooms I clean are for kindergarteners through 2nd graders. (My co-worker cleans the bigger kids’ rooms.) Some of these table tops are seriously 2 feet off the ground. I have to essentially bend in half in order to spray and wipe them all down, daily. (My poor back!)
Not an actual room I clean, but a good representation.
I’m only 5’4″ (or maybe a little shorter than that. I like to think I’m 5’4″ – I’m at least that with my hiking boots on!) but I feel like a giant! Sometimes I sit down in the teeny tiny chair at the teeny tiny table and just catch my breath / think / relax. It’s sorta like I’m in a fun house, where my self-perception is distorted because of my surroundings.
It’s tough to get your knees to fit under the table. Again, not actual school/teacher/kids, but a good representation.
I like this feeling a lot. It helps me feel more like the way I see myself. The only tough thing about it is when I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror (this happens at home too, it’s not just a work thing) and I realize how tiny and feminine I actually am! I seem to especially hone in on my neck, for whatever reason – it’s so dainty and slender and like it could snap right in half so easily. My wrists too; it feels like my hands could snap off at any time. These feelings don’t really translate into me feeling like I should be taking more testosterone and becoming more masculine. They’re just sorta… fleeting, at least for the time being.
Another thing that’s going on at work that’s somewhat related is: age. The kids stay the same; the parents stay the same. (Not really of course. Kids grow up. I just mean I’m perpetually surrounded by kids and parents around the same ages, they cycle through, while I get older and older.) I used to be the youngest person who worked at the school, for years. Now, there’s a teacher who is younger than me. When did that happen?! (It happened last year.) Also, parents keep looking younger and younger. Many of them are, in fact, younger than me now, which is a shift. In fact, just yesterday, a parent recognized me from high school. She was in a grade below me. It was super weird!
It’s just not the same as it used to be: kids and parents these days!
Back to school / Janitors in pop culture #1
Posted: September 4, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: career, co-workers, Good Will Hunting, janitors, jobs, loneliness, manual labor, movie reviews, movies, retirement, Robin Williams, school, solitude, work 9 CommentsThe day before yesterday was my first day back to cleaning up after students. It was terribly hot and humid (more so in the school than outside) and I promptly got a gross warm-weather cold; all stuffy in the head! I’m back to working late nights. Overall, it will be good to get back to it; right now it feels awfully lonely.
As an ode (of sorts) to my co-workers, and working all together this summer, here’s a partial list of the most frequently talked about topics:
– basements / sheds / generators / dehumidifyers
– cell phones / provider plans
– donuts and other snack foods
– retirement
– grilling food / alcoholic beverages / being a host
– “got any weekend plans?” / “how was your weekend?”
– teacher quirks
And not a whole lot else…
The cool thing about having been writing here for over a year is I can go back and find out what I wrote, at this time last year. Here’s what it was.
I’ve been thinking lately that I’m writing lots about trans and queer identities and experiences (awesome!), but that I’ve been ignoring the other half of my moniker. So, I’m going to start a new series, from time to time, that highlights portrayals of janitors in movies, TV shows, books, whatever. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while!
First up: Good Will Hunting. 1997. Directed by Gus Van Sant. Screenplay by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
In this movie, Matt Damon plays a bad-ass boy genius working as a janitor at MIT. He solves an impossible math equation (in secret). He then is “discovered” by a professor, is forced to see a therapist in order to avoid jail time (for assault – he likes to get into fights), and is trying to find a balance in his life between love, his natural talents, and what he actually wants to do. (Writing out this summary from memory, the movie sounds so outlandish and absurd. It’s actually pretty gripping; look out for Robin Williams in one of his more serious roles, as Will’s therapist. Also look out for an awesome soundtrack by Elliott Smith.)
The first time we see Will, he is mopping a hallway floor. The movie people might have wanted to get a janitor-consultant for this movie (haha), because he is doing it all wrong. Will is pulling the mop straight out of the bucket and slopping it all over the floor (without wringing out the excess water ahead of time.) Completely unrealistic. Also, the hallway is full of students, which is not an ideal time to pull out the mop. Talk about slipping all over huge puddles of water en masse!
Hardly working. Doing math.
Later on in the movie, Will is talking with his therapist, Sean, about careers. (I’m condensing the dialogue a little, for efficiency.)
Sean: I mean there are guys who work their entire lives laying brick so that their kids
have a chance at the opportunities you have here.
Will: What's wrong with layin' brick? That's an honorable profession. What's wrong with... with fixing somebody's car? Someone can get to work the next day because of me. There's honor in that.
Sean: Yeah, there is, Will. There is honor in that. And there's honor in, you know, taking that forty minute train ride so those college kids come in the morning and the floors are clean and the wastebaskets are empty. That's real work.
I could be reading too much into it, but the tone of the therapist’s voice, while delivering that last part, is complete, total snark (his character plays up the snark quite a bit though – to match Will’s tone.) Basically saying, “just keep sticking to what’s ‘honorable,’ and see how far you get.”
Sometimes, I too talk with my therapist about being a janitor. She has said, “you are probably the smartest janitor.” She must not have caught Good Will Hunting, haha. I’ve conveyed that sometimes I find it totally absurd that this is my job. (I may not be a bad-ass boy genius, but still, in a lot of ways, “janitor” is a strange fit for me.)
In spite of this, I can easily see myself retiring from this job. (Retirement at age 55, here I come!) There is absolutely no “career” I can envision pursuing (I’ve always felt this way. Maybe that will change with time; I won’t hold my breath.) I mean, I envision pursuing lots of other endeavors – writing, radio DJ-ing, volunteering in myriad ways, but “janitor” seems as good a way as any to actually make money…
School is out for the summer
Posted: June 25, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: anxiety, changes, emotions, janitors, manual labor, school, summer, trash, treasures, work 7 CommentsMonday was the last day of school over here. Such an exciting time for students and teachers!!! A time of adjustment for parents, I imagine. For janitors, it doesn’t mean much. We’re still working, we’ll just be doing different (but just as physical, if not more so) tasks. And, it means we’ll be switching from working nights, to working early.
A lot of times, people (outside of work) ask me if I work during the summer. They assume that I don’t. For the record: school janitors work all summer long. How else would the school look all shiny and new on the first day of school???? Little tiny elves?!!
This has historically been the hardest time of year for me. Everyone is so excited about the nice weather and their upcoming freedom. Teachers are clearing out their rooms in anticipation of new stuff they ordered for next year. I start getting really emotional about everyone leaving. I start trying to save as much of the stuff they are throwing out. I start fretting about being ripped away from my routine, and having to work closely with my co-workers all day, every day. I start isolating as much as I can get away with. I know this is some strong language for what seems like no big deal, but it really has felt this extreme for me.
It’s been getting better the past two years. Like everything else in my life, I’m starting to be able to handle it easier. I feel more at ease with my co-workers, and the idea that I will actually be working with them. I chat with teachers about their summer plans. I don’t try to save everything they throw away; I’m becoming more selective. As a side note, anything I do get out of the trash, I immediately create a strong bond with it, for some reason. Stuff from trash is much more valuable, often, than stuff I choose to buy. Not sure why.
But I still can’t let myself get swept up in the energy of the last day of school. I don’t make an effort to say good-bye to all the kids or anything. What they do at our school is, Kindergarten through 4th grade students all go out early and position themselves out on the bus loop, so that when 5th graders head out to get on their buses, they get a big send-off. Then everyone boards their bus, and all the buses take two laps around the bus loop as all the staff cheer and wish them farewell. And kids are allowed to hang out the windows, just this one time, and everyone is yelling and cheering and crying. I cannot be there for that. Maybe one day. I just stay in the building and dump garbages, because it is too intense to be a part of that.
So far this year, I have found in the garbage:
- dozens of envelopes, in different bright colors
- two coffee mugs, one which says, “I ❤ Tea, I ❤ Teaching”
- a plastic travel cup with straw
- a bunch of tracing paper
- some books, one which is called, “Subway Art”
- a bunch of Teddy Grahams and string cheeses
- A North Face jacket, which will actually fit me
- silly bandz!!!!!
And really that’s it so far, which is a very good thing! The past few years, there have been times of huge upheaval. Asbestos removal about 6 years ago, massive room changes about 3 years ago, new carpet installation 2 years ago. Anything like this, and teachers toss out soooooo much. And I respond in a frenzied fashion. I cannot see useful things go into the dumpster. This year feels so smooth and relaxed, in comparison. I am glad.
A partial list of some stuff I’ve found in the past:
- an iPod shuffle
- another iPod shuffle
- Nintendo DS games
- lunch boxes, so many lunch boxes. I’m always in the market to upgrade, haha.
- a long-arm stapler
- a long long list of art supplies and books, calculators, cameras, just… stuff.
- silly bandz!!!!!
This time around, I am ready to try and enjoy the summer.
I am not “your,”or anyone else’s, janitor
Posted: May 12, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work, Uncategorized | Tags: class issues, gay, gay male, janitors, lgbt, lgbtq, manual labor, power, power dynamics, queer, relationship, relationships, work, working class Leave a commentDear (anonymous) Sir,
A few days ago, you asked the internet through a google search, “does my janitor who is a male like me and im a male (gay)?” And the internet took you to my blog, in the hopes it would help you find your answer. (Yes, the internet does have its own hopes and dreams!) I highly doubt you found what you were looking for, so I decided to fill in the blanks, in case you try again in the future. I will be taking some liberties and making some assumptions, in order to create a concise response. If I am off base, please, call me out!
I’m sorry to let you know, the internet cannot answer questions that are this specific to your personal experience. You can glean a whole lot of information that might help you put words to your feelings, which is super helpful. But the internet does not know your situation, does not know your janitor, and does not know anything beyond whatever it is that people write on it. Is there a chance that your janitor wrote about you on the internet? Yes, maybe. But you will not be coming upon that writing by asking in that way.
In order to learn more about this, you would have to interact in real life. Also, you may want to ask yourself instead, “Do I like my janitor, like, do I like like him? And if so, do I want to do something about it, despite potential consequences?” You might want to weigh the pros and cons. You might want to feel out the situation in more nuanced ways before jumping to conclusions or potentially propositioning him directly. You could ask for advice from people you trust and are close to. Hell, you could even anonymously ask for advice in myriads of places online (again, I’d suggest focusing on your own feelings and not your janitor’s)! But you will not come upon much success by googling it.
Equally important though, please disregard everywhere in the above paragraphs where I indulged the idea of “your” janitor. He is not your janitor. You do not own him. You may not know this, but he doesn’t actually even work for you! I am going to assume you are not his direct supervisor, and are instead someone who works in a building (as a lawyer, businessman, teacher, or some other profession where you work in a space.) And he cleans your space. You, in a way, do own that space. It is sort of “your” desk, “your” trash can, “your” chalk board, etc. That is fine. But, again, he is not “your” janitor.
Let’s go out on a limb and imagine you are his supervisor. In this case, and only this case, it could maybe be appropriate to call him your janitor. My supervisor does this – she will refer to us (the people who do work for her) as “my guys.” This has the potential of fostering a sense of camaraderie, like we are a team, and she is our leader. This could be OK. But to singularly be someone’s something, even in this context, would be strange. If you are his supervisor, I’d suggest cutting out the “my janitor.”
I’m just going to say this directly, as a janitor who cleans classrooms. I am no one’s janitor. I am employed by a school district. My salary is worked out through the annual budget, which comes from taxpayers. I am in a union; I pay a union due, and they do work on my behalf. I clean classrooms that are, spaces owned (in a way) by teachers and utilized by students. I do not work for teachers. If teachers have a problem with my work, they could go to the principal and/or my direct supervisor. The reason she is “my” supervisor is because, ideally, she has our collective best interests in mind. And because she is above me, on the power scale, and it is therefore obviously not actually owned by me. It is more appropriate. “My boss.” “My professor.” “My doctor.” “My therapist.” These are common and straightforward. “My busboy.” “My waitress.” “My maid.” “My landscaper.” This is a different story; this is slippery. Watch your step.
Sincerely,
Not Your Janitor
Ask your doctor if Shift Work Disorder is right for you
Posted: April 1, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: circadian rhythms, doctors, excessive sleepiness, insomnia, lifestyles, oversleeping, physicians, schedules, shift work, shift work disorder, sleep, sleep patterns, work 9 CommentsLast week, we were watching TV, and a commercial about “shift work disorder” came on. A rugged older gentleman in a flannel shirt was explaining about how he hadn’t realized how his job might be affecting his sleep patterns and quality of life, until his doctor asked him what hours he works. I laughed out loud. Then the commercial (which was for Nuvigil – used to improve wakefulness) went on to tell you to talk to your doctor, and then it went through the lengthy list of side effects, you know – the usual drill.
I think it is awesome to have dialogues about what’s going on in people’s lives and what might be improved, whether it’s with a prescription or other changes in lifestyle. And if having an official diagnosis helps more people figure out what’s going on and what they can do about it, more power to them. Just… personally, I find it absurd that this wouldn’t be a natural line of thinking. I think about this kind of stuff all the time.
I don’t work overnights (and am so glad for that), but I do have an “off” shift. Otherwise known as the “B-shift.” (My co-worker pronounces “shift” as “trick,” so I might interchange the two words from here on out – just a heads up.) I work 3pm-11:30pm. It is currently 12:50AM as I write this; I’ll probably go to bed by 2AM. This is what I do, Monday through Friday. It means that I never see my partner during the work week. We have to catch up via telephone, notes, and emails, which is sometimes extremely frustrating. It means that I don’t see much of anyone during the work week. Like, some friends are going out to dinner for someone’s birthday? Sorry, can’t make it. You’re going to the movies? Sounds like fun. I stopped being jealous over the stuff I was missing out on a long time ago. Better to just accept it. And, on special occasions, I can always just call in sick or work a half day or something.
I’ve found that there is often a natural camaraderie amongst people who work strange hours. For example, I’ll sometimes go to the grocery store, still in uniform, around midnight, and the cashier always wants to tell me what time she gets off work. And if I haven’t been in a while, she’ll ask, “Where you been?” Maybe the summer has passed by (I work like normal people during the summer), so I’ll say, “Oh, I was on a different trick.” And she’ll say, “That’s always the reason! Whenever I haven’t seen someone in a while, it’s because their trick changed.”
So, essentially, shift work disorder is a medical condition that can be diagnosed and treated by a doctor. (Phew!) It occurs when your job calls you to duty and you end up fighting against your natural circadian rhythms. It’ll cause insomnia when you’re trying to sleep, and ES (excessive sleepiness – so relieved that there’s a medically coded shortened version for this term!) while you need to work. Shift work disorder was invented in 2011 to help people figure out why they feel tired.
Whoa. Ok, lemme try to go back to the point where I do think this is all positive if it helps people improve their lives. I just worry people will see an ad on TV, or their physician will bring it up with them first, and they’ll just mindlessly pile on more pills to the over-medicated masses.
Like I mentioned, I don’t work overnights, so my experience is not nearly as extreme as many people’s. But I do want to point out that I feel like my work / sleep schedule has actually created MORE room for circadian rhythms to do their thing, according to the seasons. It seems only natural that people would feel the need to sleep more during the winter months, if they could. But I’d imagine most people’s schedules don’t allow for extra sleep. They have to get up with their alarm and get to work. Me? I can sleep as much as I want, apparently. I don’t generally have much going on in the mornings or early afternoons before work, so, often I’d let myself sleep 9-10 hours a night when it really seemed like I naturally tended toward this, roughly November-February. (A luxury, I know.) I was actually starting to feel concerned about all the oversleeping (I was wasting so much time!), but it abruptly righted itself; in February, I could no longer sleep in. As if, my body knew that spring was on the way and I better start getting ready!
Brand new diagnoses coming soon:
– sitting-on-the-couch disorder
– texting-while-driving disorder
– junk-food-for-lunch disorder
– gender identity disorder
Oh, wait…
Rumors flying around the kindergarten classroom
Posted: March 7, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work, Passing | Tags: androgyny, gender identity, genderqueer, janitors, lgbt, lgbtq, non-binary, passing, trans, work 9 CommentsA couple of days ago at work, I was passing by 2 kindergarteners who were putting on their boots, getting ready to go home for the day. One whispered to the other, “Is she a boy? She looks like a boy.” I thought it was super cute – it’s cute how kids think that if they whisper, there’s no way you can hear them. It’s cute how kids’ gender categories are only “girl” and “boy,” no matter how old the person they’re talking about is. It’s cute how kids are so curious.
Then tonight, a book fair was going on. A mom and her daughter arrived a little early and the mom asked me where it was being held. We were about half- the-hallway’s-length away from each other; I gave her directions to the cafeteria. She said thanks and I started to turn the corner when I heard her say, “Oh, I was just wondering?” I turned to face her again and she continued.
“What’s your name?”
I told her my name, which is a slightly androgynized version of my very feminine name.
She said, “Oh ok, sorry, I thought you were someone else. My apologies. For my daughter.”
“Sure, no problem.” She then told me her name (I forget now) and, “Nice to meet you.”
I walked away from that having no idea what motivated those questions or who she might have thought I was. No one ever mistakes me from someone else. I don’t mean to be boastful, but I’ve been told that I have a very distinct face so many times that it’s become a source of internal pride.
As I thought it through, all I could imagine was that this was a kindergartener here with her mom (she looked to be kindergarten age). The kids had been increasingly wondering whether I am a boy or a girl, and this one kid even spread the word to her mom. And her mom was helping clear it up for her. I’d rather it not get cleared up!
This is why I’m seriously considering going by a masculine-sounding name.
janitorqueer 