ninaherenorthere.com

I recently discovered that my mother found my blog. The exchange went like this:

Mom: I can’t keep a secret. I saw your blog. What, did you think I wouldn’t find it?

Me: It only took you a year.

I always knew it was only a matter of time before my mom, an IT professional, Googled me, clicked, and followed two links. Right before we hung up the phone, she said something like, “Don’t let my reading your blog affect your writing.”

As much as I’d like to blame my mother for all my shortcomings, failures, and blocks, and although I haven’t been able to open my blog without seeing her little mommy face, which I can’t in good conscience describe now that I know she is reading, I will not blame my inability to post for awhile on my mother.

I’ve also been completely slammed with trying to finish a book proposal. I contemplating blogging about that process, but then I came across the following question and answer in Poets & Writers magazine.

Q: What is the dumbest mistake that a writer can make in dealing with their editor or agent?

A: Be very careful about what you blog…If I am submitting your book to publishers and an editor wants to buy it, they’re probably going to Google you before they even call me. And if they find things out there that are curious or disturbing?

So now, sitting on my shoulder next to my mother was my agent, whose face I can in good conscience describe because it is always smiling and positive. Next to my agent are the potential editors that she is trying to woo. My shoulders hurt a bit from all of the weight on them. But please prospective editors, understand that I’m not calling you fat, but rather referring to the burden, metaphorically speaking, of your potential readership, or skimmership. And just so everyone knows, this is not of those things that can be helped by picturing the audience naked.

But really, what is curious or disturbing? Is using a cliche? Maybe. Is bad grammar or spelling errors? Perhaps. Is admitting you read Poets & Writers magazine? Definitely. And what if you and the premise of your book are both curious and disturbing? What if that is the whole point?

I tried not to let my fears about the publishing industry contribute to my block, and instead focused on my fears about my boss. I tend to think it’s safe to blog about work as long as I don’t explain why I use the day time stamp rather than the hour one to indicate when my posts are published. It’s also safer now that I moved from contractor to employee because it’s much harder to fire someone than to not hire someone for having a blog, especially one that never mentions the company name.

The only reason I’d want to blog about work is that it’s been taking up a large percentage of my time and energy for the past month or two, and I need an outlet to whine or mock it. Like today, I am dreading my fourth full-day training session, during which I will grow increasingly agitated about a methodology built upon bad metaphors (scrum, stories, and sprints to name just a few). I will remember what it was like to sit in a Wharton classroom surrounding by future Arthur Anderson consultants while caring about nothing other than my “P” for pass and dreams of a career I could love. When I realize a decade has passed since then, I will go to the catered food table and have another donut.

Work, my book, and my mother were only a few of the reasons I kept hitting “Save as draft” rather than the “Publish” button. There were also the typical writer fears, or at least mine, the self-questioning flagellations: How come you’re not funny anymore, say something funny, goddamnit; do you really think people care about your life because they don’t; you’ve waited long enough, this better be good—earth, moon, and sun-shattering good; trans this and trans that and trans shut up already. From experience, I know that the best way to get over blogger’s block is to say something, say anything. Then hit post.

I couldn’t take it anymore, the weekends as Nick, the weekdays as Nina, the world sharing joint custody of my name. So, a few weeks ago, I spoke my boss and to human resources and under my own volition, I started taking field trips to the single stall bathroom on another floor. Then, in the last hour of my workweek, I sent an email to a few dozen co-workers, informing them of my new name and pronoun switch. I offered example sentences: “Nick does an excellent job with the copy. He really knows the [insert my company name] voice.” On the following Monday, I showed up at work and like magic, everyone was calling me Nick. A nameplate soon followed.

It was a relief to change my my name in the workplace, and for the most part the process has been smooth. People mess up occasionally, more so with the pronouns. I prefer it when people don’t notice their mistake, otherwise they blush and apologize and I jump to say, “no, worries” or “it’s okay,” before looking down at my notebook and starting to doodle.

It’s not the most natural thing for me either, having a new name. It’s particularly difficult because I have my old one, too. Recently I eliminated any mention of my name from my cellphone voicemail message so as not to alarm those who know or those who do not. And I have two email address, one that has my former name built into the address and the one where I am myself, Nick. I still have two names because that’s how it goes, I think. Because there are people I’m afraid to tell, bureaucratic paper trails I’m afraid to get lost in, people I don’t want to burden, people who don’t need to know that much about me.

I have not told the adult learner whom I’ve been tutoring for a year about Nick. I have not told the person who cleans my house, nor my dentist. I have not changed my name on any official paperwork, not on my benefits, my passport, my mail, nor my credit card, which has prompted several strangers to comment on the beauty of my former name. I have not changed my name at the gym where I’m sure there is a corporate manual that requires the front desk workers to address us all by name as part of a personalized customer retention plan. I have not been adamant about my mother and my brother calling me Nick, even though they are aware of it. I have not been very clear about Nick with my literary agent, nor anyone involved with my book project, since like my blog, the working title of my book includes my former name, and really that just means more mistakes and more discomfort for everyone.

I am aware that I could be more proactive, perhaps even tackle the official paperwork, but I’m not ready. I don’t know if I want to be a female Nick on my passport. I don’t know if I want to be a male Nick who often passes as a female and yet is put in a hostel room with six dudes. I don’t know if I will take testosterone. I don’t know if any of these things matter, if a name change can be just that, a name change.

Sometimes I’m so tired of the name change that I want to give up and revert. I’m tired of leaping to introduce myself before you do. I’m tired of of your slip-ups which may only be one for you but they add up to over a hundred for me, each with its unique brand of awkwardness. I’m tired of telling you about my new name and watching it go in one ear and out the other and feeling that I need to rip off my shirt and show you the gashes across my chest so that you can see how much Nick means to me. I’m tired of having to compose a narrative about it, prove my struggle to you, to well up with tears in the corner of a bar so that you can see that I’m “emotional about it.” I’m tired of your issues with male privilege when you never had any issues with my class privilege. And I’m tired of your total ignorance about your cisgender privilege. But mostly, I am tired of your mourning, of hearing you say that using my new name will “be hard because it’s ingrained.”

A couple months ago, my therapist, in what I imagine was a plea for patience, asked me to try to hold the two names side-by-side, to hold both my feminine and masculine sides. But my names have nothing to do with with masculine and feminine. They are correlated with darkness and light with invisibility and visibility with despair and hope. When you call me by my old name, it translates in my head into, “I like your vagina.” And is that something you really want to say to me? 

I’ve also noticed that it’s really not that hard to to call me Nick. Mistakes do happen, but when you try, they become the exception not the pattern. First, change my name in your phone. Then, actually try calling me Nick. Exaggerate, do it purposefully, overuse it.  And please stop throwing around my former name like you own it. It’s not yours.

I told a friend I was tired the other day, that I was out of patience to deal with those that don’t have some experience with trans people, that I just don’t have the energy to spend time with these people, which included her. ”Well, then that’s my loss,” she said. “And your loss.”

So, I took a deep breath and began to educate one more person.

I really am kind of embarrassed to be writing New Years Resolutions in February, but I’m going to do it anyway.

• Learn to cook five new vegetables.
• When I hear a voice in my head that says, “No, stop, don’t, bad idea, you don’t want that, you really really don’t want it, no, stop, no” make sure I don’t hear my actual voice say, “Sure!”
• Stop ignoring, avoiding, half-assing the abs portion of every workout.
• Participate in a 1-2 day yoga retreat.
• Finish my book.
• Bring a plate, bowl, spoon, and fork to work so I stop wasting disposable utensils. (This resolution is for next week, I swear, not for the whole year.)
• Experiment with a creative endeavor that isn’t solely writing based.
• Floss my teeth regularly.
• Start thinking of my resolutions for next year in December.
• Use lists for blog posts when I lack time and energy.