The alphabet meme: Z

is for zodiac sign: Scorpio, at least according to the astrologers. But it's total hogwash. The stars don't determine our fates.

The alphabet meme: Y

is for yummy food you ate today: Steak au poivre (though the sauce had only a tiny bit of pepper) and fries. Dessert was mixed berries with crème fraiche.

The alphabet meme: X

is for x-rays you have had: (They sure had to work hard to come up with something for X.)

• I get a chest x-ray every year.


• My teeth get x-rayed every year.


• When I was about 12 I ran down a hill into a tree and hit my arm, so they x-rayed that. I did crack a bone slightly, so they put a cast on it.


• The doctor probably x-rayed my feet when he wrote a letter to my draft board saying why I'd have difficulty being in the army. (The draft board doctor agreed.)


• Back in the 50's, before they realized this was dangerous, they had x-ray machines in shoe stores, so they could see if there was enough room for the toes.

That's all I can remember.

The alphabet meme: W

is for your worst habit: Procrastination.

The alphabet meme: V

is for favorite vegetable: Potatoes. I love starches. Unfortunately, I can't eat them very often. We never have them at home. What I do get to eat sometimes is asparagus, which I think is my second favorite.

The alphabet meme: U

is for what you consider unique: I am going to assume that this is asking what I consider unique about myself.

If you go back to the original meaning of the word, "one of a kind," then I don't think there's anything particularly interesting that's unique about me.

Unfortunately, the definition of "unique" has expanded. It now just means "unusual"--hence the term "more unique" is no longer non-sensical, as it once was. (In my opinion this change of definition has made the word "unique" worthless: one can just as easily use "unusual." We now have to say "one of a kind" or something similar when that's what we mean. So I no longer use "unique" for anything.)

So, what do I consider unusual (it still begins with "U") about myself? Well, being a politically active crossdresser is a rather unusual. I can only think of one other in New York City: Clover Honey. (But she moved to New Jersey, so does she really count for the City?) There's also Juli Owens out on Long Island. There are also a handful that participate occasionally.

Of course, being a crossdresser is, itself, unusual.

The alphabet meme: T

is for time you woke up today: About 9:15, which is actually a little earlier than usual (It's great being retired). That's because I went to bed a little earlier than usual last night--before 2:00.

The alphabet meme: S

is for status: Well that's certainly an open-ended one. At the moment my Facebook status is: "Caprice Bellefleur is regretting something she ate or drank last night." But that's a little obsolete. I've been feeling better the last half-hour or so, and actually ate something for the first time today.

So I guess it's time to change my status. Now it's: "Caprice Bellefleur is catching up on the internets."

The alphabet meme: R

is for regrets: I think there are two kinds of regrets. One is regrets in hindsight--what you'd do differently if you knew how things would turn out. I'm sure most people have lots of them. I do. I think they're usually the less interesting ones, though.

More interesting are regrets about decisions you made that were wrong, and that you knew at the time were wrong, at least somewhat. I have two of them. I regret staying at my first computer programming job too long. I should have left after a couple of years, because we weren't keeping up with advances in the industry. I sort of knew this, but it was a nice place to work (a university facility)--the people were all nice, the work wasn't too demanding, we had flexible hours and no dress code (something of a rarity in the early 80's). The programmers were left alone to do our work. The pay wasn't too bad, at least after the first couple years. I was satisfied, though I knew I could do better.

Then, after I was there for about 4.5 years, there was a reorganization, and a change of management. Things were very different. We, the programmers, were no longer given carte blanche. The new management did not like our independence, though a certain amount was tolerated because they knew they couldn't do without us--they hated the flexible hours, because they couldn't keep an eye on everyone all the time. We were misled about management's intentions, even outright lied to--I was told I would be getting a raise as of a certain date, when it hadn't been approved. And my boss knew it wouldn't be approved at least a month before its supposed start date, but he didn't tell me.

I wanted to get out, but there was a big problem--I didn't have the skills that were then in demand. I managed to find something after nearly a year of looking. (I learned a lot about headhunters in the process--especially ones who would send you out on interviews for jobs you really weren't qualified for--a real waste of time.) It was working for a marketing consultant, who had a contract with a big mail order company. The guy knew nothing about programming, but wanted to make all the decisions. He didn't really lie to me about what my job would entail, but he certainly lied to the headhunter, saying it was new position, when in fact he had fired my predecessor--and then refused to give him his last paycheck. He hired two of us at the same time. I couldn't figure it out, because there really wasn't enough work for two people. He soon fired the other one, and I realized he never had any intention of keeping both of us. (He then boasted about making sure that he did this after only 29 days, because that way he wouldn't have to pay the headhunter his commission!)

He was abusive to the two other employees (one especially), though at first he let me alone. Then, a couple weeks after he fired the other guy, I made a mistake, and he let me have it. So I walked out. Literally. My old place had said I could come back, and as bad as it was, it was better than the new one. But I learned a valuable lesson: Never work for an entrepreneur--they think they know everything about their business better than anyone, even experts in the field, and they view every dime of expenses as taking food off their plates.

It took me two more years to find another new job. For the rest of my career I was well behind the curve technology-wise--though right at the end this turned out to be an advantage. By the late 90's they had stopped teaching the old technologies in computer schools, but there were still some places that used it--and we old dinosaurs found we were a bit in demand, especially during the run up to Y2K.

Oh, yes, this was about regrets. My second regret was semi-wasting my first dozen years in New York, because I was too shy and scared to take advantage of many of its attractions--rock clubs, etc. I sat at home for a lot of my mid-20's to mid-30's.

The alphabet meme: Q

is for what you do in quiet times: Quiet times. What's that?

Life is different when you're retired. In some respects most of my life is quiet. Someone asked me recently if I make it a point to get out of the apartment every day. No, I don't. There are plenty of days when my longest excursion is to take the garbage out to the compactor chute down the hall. Sometimes this happens two or even three days in a row. It doesn't bother me a bit. I have a comfortable apartment, my wife and I each have an office (and we each have a bathroom), so we get enough "space."

I spend a lot of time at the computer. I'm a semi-retired moderator on the myHusbandBetty message boards, and I at least skim everything that's posted there. I read my e-mail, and some news websites, some blogs. I play pinball on the computer a little--the one that came with XP. I watch surprisingly little television, and read relatively few books. It's a nice, quiet life.

The alphabet meme: P

is for people you were with today: I'm a day late on this one, but I think I have a good excuse. If I had done it yesterday before I went out, then the only person would be my wife. But I didn't get home until after midnight, and I was too tired to do it then anyway.

So now I have some time to really do it. Except it's really for yesterday, not today:

• My wife, as I said.


• Alma Gomez, another volunteer lawyer at the West Village TransLegal Clinic Name Change Project.


• 5 clients at the Name Change Project.


• My friend Cleopatra Queen of Denile and her roommate, at a performance by the Maestrocities.


• Jenny Lee Mitchell (Deirdre of the Maestrocities), and her friends from Europe that I went out with last Thursday.


• Andy Sapora (Chauncy of the Maestrocities).
  

The alphabet meme: O

is for overnight hospital stays: Zero. I guess that's not quite true--I'm sure I was in the hospital a few days when I was born. Back then they didn't rush people out of the hospital as fast as possible, the way they do today. And I was quite small--a couple ounces lighter and they'd have put me in an incubator.

But I've been very lucky health-wise. Another zero: number of stitches I've had in my body.

The alphabet meme: N

is for number of piercings you have: Zero. I'd love to get my ears pierced, but it would totally freak-out my wife.

The alphabet meme: M

is for your favorite muppet: I'm so old, I did not grow up with Sesame Street--I was already in college when it debuted. I remember, if only vaguely, seeing Rowlf the Dog on the Jimmy Dean show when I was in high school. I never watched The Muppet Show very much.

So the amount of my contact with the Muppets is way, way under average. But from the little I've seen, I think I like Kermit the best. I'll always remember his little shudder when someone mentioned eating frogs' legs.

The alphabet meme: L

is for last restaurant you dined at:
(Shouldn't this be "R"?)
Trattoria Spaghetto in Greenwich Village. This was the suggestion of my friend, Cleopatra Queen of Denile, when we went out last Thursday. The food is decent, and reasonably priced. The service is fair, at least if you sit inside.

The alphabet meme: K

is for what you'd like to kick: "Kick" has two very different meanings--the original, "to strike with one's foot," and the more modern, "to give up," especially a bad habit or addiction. Since I don't have any habits or addictions that I'd like to give up, I guess I'll have go with the first definition. Except I can't think of anything I'd like to strike with my foot. So I'm going cheat a little and use a verb phrase.

I'd like to kick the Republicans out of power.

The alphabet meme: J

is for favorite juice: None. Not worth the calories.

The alphabet meme: I

is for instruments played: None. I have no musical talent whatsoever. I tried the drum when I was in elementary school, and had a few piano lessons when I was in high school, but basically I'm hopeless.

The alphabet meme: H

is for hometown: Cleveland Heights, Ohio. I escaped over 40 years ago. It was a pretty good place to grow up in, at least back then. But I wanted to get away from being treated like a child, which my parents pretty much did, at least until my senior year of high school. And Cleveland was a rather dull city in the 60's.

My brother now owns the house we grew up in. He bought it from my mother's estate. My mother inherited it from her father, who bought it in 1945.

The alphabet meme: G

is for favorite game: On my computer I usually just play good, old Pinball for Windows, the one that came with XP. On my cellphone I play Chuzzle, despite the fact that the phone version has a couple of bugs in it. I also play Klondike solitaire, especially when I want to keep my phone silent.