My Life as a Boy — Chapter 151

x
Jack Calisher outside his lumber mill, 1878, didn’t expect to die that day, but he did.

Recognize this street? Well, you should. You died here in a gunfight in 1878, and that wasn’t the first or last time you died, but it’s an easy Past Life to remember, because the trauma was so strong. It wasn’t that big a deal to die — here you still are to tell the tale. “Death Row” was the name given to this Old West “Main Street” that saw over 100 gunfights in its day.

That’s one thing about death that people don’t generally realize. Death is not permanent.  In fact, death is so damn impermanent, it’s a pain in the ass, and I’ll explain why. You finally get the hang of a life you’re living, and wham! Along comes Death to wreck the show … but wait, weren’t you just barely crawling along, whizzing around in a wheelchair with a bottle of oxygen and a long clear plastic tube.

So how would you like to remember this death? You’d rather not re-experience a death? I don’t blame you, death is never pleasant, although it can be a great relief if you’re in terrific unbearable and unrelenting pain. Still, it’s not something we naturally seek, nor are we intended to. You’re here to do a job because you can. You were born with the ability to carry out your work mission. Whether you do it or decide to whack off for your whole life is entirely up to you. Continue reading

My Life as a Boy — Chapter 101

x
At this age, the competition hasn’t yet become a problem, but as we age together, we start to compete for family, social position, pecking order…you know.

I know a hell of a lot of girls who only think about making their girlfriends jealous. Oh, here’s an outfit that will make you the ENVY of your crowd. That’s always the ambition in some circles, notably those that cater to the reality show concept, which is to live under the continual eye of the camera and interested parties, and to be utterly scriptless.

Dream on, sister. Those reality shows did, indeed, start during a long television writer’s strike that resulted in a 90% drop in work for writers, but that soon changed, and now all the reality shows are scripted.

If they weren’t, they’d be even more boring than they are now, because people are very unimaginative and don’t move from square one anytime soon. In short, given no prodding, they’d just as soon do today what they did yesterday and the day before, except they are SO bored, bored, bored, for God’s sake. You know, honey, as a boy, I just would never talk like this, and I didn’t. Don’t censor yourself. Keep true to your aim. “Stay on target, Luke, stay on target.”

Girls tend to stick together, but it’s because we need support. Men have their own male support groups — those are the guys your husband goes to all the games with, and plays golf with, and handball with, and goes fishing with, and plays cards with and discusses higher ideas with … no, erase that last item. That’s the night his friends cover for him while he spends half the night with his mistress. Continue reading

My Life as a Boy — Chapter 51

x
I remember posing for this shot at our apartment building on 186th & Grand Concourse in 1943.

1943 was an exciting year. I was able to understand a little of what was being reported on the radio. My “Respawn Day” was December 27th, only 20 days after Pearl Harbor, the surprise Japanese attack on the American Naval Base and Henderson Field, that took the lives of 2400 Americans and wounded another 1400.

The attack wasn’t actually a surprise and eventually the truth will come out. The United States couldn’t enter the war to help the British in both theaters of war, because sentiment in America was to keep out of it, as if they could.

Had Great Britain been totally defeated and England occupied, there would never have been a D-Day Invasion of Normandy, and the Germans would have gone right on to attack the mainland U.S. as soon as they were able, so they could set up a 1,000 year domination of the planet.

That sounds terribly effective, but another couple hundred years, nobody ever heard of them. That’s the way Nature operates. There’s a big ball of luminous dust where the planet on which you were its leader used to be.

Nothing is stable. Homeostasis, the point where there is zero fluctuation in the body, is not a state you’d be likely to enjoy, although if you’re a big fan of heavy drugs and downers, you’ll do just fine inside a body that is essentially dead.

Continue reading

My Life as a Boy — Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Here I am at my birthday party -- when else does anyone shoot a photo?
Here I am at my 11th birthday party — when the hell else does anyone shoot a photo?

I look kinda sad, and I was when this photo was snapped. It was a boring birthday party with the usual cake and ice cream and the usual presents and exclamations of “Just what I wanted” and “how beautiful”. I sure wish I had a photo from a couple of hours later, when the party was over and we were smeared all over with cake from the cake fight. Any break from routine was welcomed at our house, especially from anything humanly ordinary.

One of the first things I learned as a young girl was that girls can never be The Boss.

Not only bossness, but everything of real value and worth was denied women — not just me, but every woman, and my Mom Eve was determined to get me past the blockages she and her mom had experienced from the Boys’ Club.

What is the Boy’s Club?

It’s the attitude of pretty much all men — that women are servants, sex slaves and have no soul.

The soul part is true — we don’t HAVE souls. We are souls. Continue reading

My Life as a Boy — Preface

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

Relaxing as myself on summer vacation -- the rest of the year was spent as a boy.
Relaxing as myself — LeslieAnn — on summer vacation — the rest of the year was spent as a boy.

I didn’t like life as a boy; oh, sure, you got all the rights and privileges and perks of being a boy in a man’s world, but I had to constantly hide my gender. I bound my breasts down, wore socks to make a bulge and luckily or unluckily, my voice was naturally deep, like a 60 year old cigarette smoker — like, really deep.

My girlfriends used to make fun of my voice, and even though I could sing high harmonies in a perfectly fine soprano voice — and I can still hit the high notes today — I couldn’t make myself speak comfortably in a high squeaky voice, and I never did. Continue reading