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7:33 a.m. - Thursday, Dec. 26, 2002
Ms Leslie Strives for Normalcy at Xmas
I�m making progress.

For most of the 25 years we were married, I allowed myself to be drug by my poor wife, who loved Christmas, through the season. She did everything. I did almost nothing, except try to have patience and civility and not to seem too distracted by the tormenting personal photo album that flipped through itself over and over in my mind. That, and worry about the money.

After I ran away from that life in early 1996, I had less reason to pay attention to the holidays, and more of an inopportunity (yes, that�s right) to become absorbed in my own obsession with the haunting past.

Last Christmas� no, now that this Christmas is over, I can�t say that�..

Christmas of 2001, as I sat in my darkened apartment, wondering how much longer life was going to last, crying for the past, and all the other abnormal stuff I do, I realized that I didn�t need to go any lower on Christmas day. The little mind-traffic-controller deep inside me let me understand somehow that I was dropping below the threshold of sanity and descending into a dark valley from which there may be no return. Or maybe, like Mike Tyson, who recently got tired of being stupid, I just got tired of being depressed.

I made the decision to change that day. I had done nothing at all for Christmas. All of my family learned long ago not to bother me and certainly not to expect anything from me. Most of them loved me anyway. My family is a lot goofier even than me. There wasn�t much I could do that Christmas, but I did send a few greetings to people whose e-mail addresses I knew. And I resolved to make some improvement, however small, in the way I coped with winter and the holidays for 2002.

I kept that decision in mind all year. Even while dieting for surgery and doing all that travel and physical modification, I kept remembering my decision to try to do something better during the holidays. And so, with no small effort, I think I did.

I had thanksgiving dinner for the first time since 1997. It didn�t� measure up to yours, I guarantee it, but it was custom-made for me. Then I went and had not one, but two Christmas dinners. On Christmas eve, I went over to Ann�s house. Mike and Jamie were there (her daughter and son-in-law who live in Baton Rouge. Now pay attention, doggone it!) and per our previous discussion, I made Mike get up and give me a hug. She made a pitiful attempt at resisting as she stood and came to me, but I think she was pleased with the hug. Jamie was astounded. Mike isn�t a hugger. She should be though. She gives good hug, and I think she needs to be hugged a lot. Like me, she doesn�t always believe she�s lovable enough to be hugged.

David (Ann�s oldest son, who lives around the corner) came late for dinner, brining his wife Debbie and her two little wisps of daughters. When they saw their little dolls in identical bassinets and the extra clothes, they went absolutely wild, which isn�t a long trip for them, to be honest, with glee. I don�t know what�s wrong with me. I�m finding pleasure in the excitement on a young child�s face. I got a huge kick out of watching these two bonding with their babies. I also got a lot of pleasure knowing that I had been thought of too. Mike and Jamie gave me a pretty pin for my dress. A little rhinestone moon and stars pin because they know I�ve been getting a few things with the moon and star motif. Ann spent the time to crochet for me two crochet-things. I�m not well-versed enough in things female to know exactly what they are. Bigger than doilies but smaller than tablecloths. You tell me. One of them is a butterfly pattern; chosen because of the parallel drawn by some people between me and a butterfly. The other is a row of hearts. Whatever they are, I think I'll have them framed and hang them so they�ll stay nice and I can see them often. She also gave me a little teddy bear who�s wearing a sweater with �Best Friend� stitched on the front. She�s not one for sentimentality either. Sometimes I tell her she�s really a man, but not often though, because she gets mad and slugs me. So, I do attach a lot of importance to the sentiment on the little bear. It�s something that�s hard for her to say.

I also talked with Jamie for a little while. I think it�s the longest we�ve talked, just the two of us, since he has known me. He�s studying to be an attorney. He had never given much thought to the legal status of transsexuals or other transgendered people. As we talked about my adventures in finding an attorney to help me petition the State of Mississippi for recognition as a female, he seemed to really take an interest. As always, I love to see that little red and gold sunrise of recognition that crosses a face when the owner of the face begins to comprehend something. I had a great time talking with Jamie. I don�t think he realizes how much I admire him. Someday I�ll write the reasons why.

Yesterday I went to Christmas dinner with Deana, her sister and other assorted family. Their roots, generally speaking, are embedded deep in the soil of hard work. They�re the people who build ships and houses, not the ones who plan them. They�re the ones who carry the steel and weld the seams, or who drag the heavy bundles of roofing across a blistering roof. They struggle to break off a piece of the American dream for themselves in the process.

We arrived at the sister�s middle-aged tract home to find a scene of chaos. Two of the husbands were carving huge piles of ham and turkey on a table in the kitchen while the wives, three or four of them, danced around each other in the narrow, small kitchen preparing the gravy, potatoes, and other dishes peripheral to the meat. A half-dozen children under the age of seven ran like a herd through everything until there seemed to be more like sixty than six. It was my first typical, normal, all American Christmas in a very long time.

I had brought some cheap, generic gifts, wrapped for the children, and had stopped to buy flowers from a family hawking them on a street corner on Xmas day for Deana�s sister, Tania. I was mostly on my own to find a vase for the flowers and to get them into some water, which I did. Then I visited a few minutes with some of the other women who had been elbowed out of the kitchen. Just as the meal was about to be served, I happened to meet a little girl who had been separated momentarily from her herd. I knew it would be trouble but I couldn�t help myself. I explained to her how I had no children at home, but that Santa had mistakenly left some gifts there. I told her I thought one of the might be for her and asked her to bring me the large knitting bag full of gifts I had brought.

I didn�t realize that there was a room in the house with a tree full of unopened gifts. I thought that by early afternoon all the children�s gifts would have been long-since plundered. My bad. The little girl took her gift with wonder and glee, only to be told by her mother that she must NOT open it until after dinner. An anxious, knee-swinging, barely touched Christmas dinner was assured. It wasn�t a full minute, I don�t think, before the little cutie appeared out of the uproar with her little brother in tow. He looked at me in a kind of religious awe as sister explained how Santa had made a mistake and left presents at my house. Then we found one for him. Oh, now mama was getting irate. She was quickly joined by the others as one by one, the kids began appearing in front of me. I loved it. I guess I still have enough hell left in me to get a kick out of watching the kids absolutely dying to tear into their presents while the parents threatened, harangued, pled, and finally gave in to the inevitable. Even more, I enjoyed seeing that every child was excited and pleased with the gifts once they were finally allowed to open them. It made me feel big inside.

I won�t try to describe the anarchy that developed after dinner as the kids were finally allowed to attack the other presents that had been laid under the tree for them. It would take too many words to create an accurate picture of the parents, vying for space to get pictures of their kids, of the wrapping paper building on the floor like crinkly snow, or the fit of sailor-ese coming from Tania�s lips as she fought to make her video-cam work while the magic moments quickly passed her by. Little by little, the bedlam drove me closer to the edge of the group until very close to the end, when they started calling my name. I accepted my gift with embarrassment and surprise. I hadn�t expected anything from these people, other than the chance to observe and partake a little bit of their �normal� Christmas.

My gift was a small glow-in-the dark figurine of a unicorn. I�m still trying, frankly, to understand all the symbolism and meaning of that one. I�m trying too, to figure out just where I�ll put it. But I�ll put it somewhere, I guarantee that. And each time I see it, I�ll remember how truly excited Tania and her daughter were to give it to me. I�ll remember them dragging me into a darkened bedroom to demonstrate for me how it glowed an eerie atomic green in the dark. I�ll remember something I should have already known; That it really can be better to give than to receive�. And that by gracefully receiving a gift, I can bring some happiness to others too.

Finally�. The scene I think I�ll remember most.

Amanda, the almost-four-year-old daughter of Lenny. And Lenny, the aging biker with his wild blonde hair sticking wildly out from under a leather Marlon Brando-style cap. Lenny, with a treasured Harley-Davidson T-shirt stretched over his beer-swollen belly until it just wasn�t up to the job of staying tucked into his low-slung jeans anymore. Lenny, with tattoos that started at his wrists and never ended anywhere, as far as I could see.

I can never think of Christmas again without seeing big, bad Lenny sitting on the floor before his adoring little girl and helping unwrap biker-Barbie with her little leather pants and tiny helmet. Putting the helmet on Barbie and smoothing her hair before showing Amanda how to work the miniature kick-stand and sitting Barbie astride her shiny hawg.

What a strange world this is.

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