6:36 a.m. - Sunday, Jun. 29, 2003
MsLeslie Writes Again
Yes, Yes, I�m still here!
I�ve been busily learning everything I needed to know to get my computer back up and running. Some of this is stuff I didn�t really want to know, like the new� or new to me at least, Windows XP operating system can only be installed on one computer. If anything about that computer changes, it somehow �knows� it and requires you to either call Microsoft and cry or go to the store and lay out another hundred bucks for a new key.
So here I am, sitting in my little apartment with the internal organs of four unrelated computers scattered around me, screwing hard drives and floppies into this case or that case, plopping memory DIMMS, or SDIMMS, or whatever into the slots in random order, just trying to get my new OS to run. Then, at the first sign of success, I get the message that I�ve installed my Windows XP too many times and I have to get another. It makes me feel somehow like a hostage to Mr. Gates and his sovereign nation. What could be a better impetus to start learning about LINUX?
Anyway, I�ve got all the best equipment back into my old computer frame, including my new 120 gigabyte hard drive and my best and biggest old 12 gigabyte hard drive. I�ve installed BOTH Windows 98 and Windows XP. At startup, I can choose which way I want to go. So far, I pick Windows 98. XP hangs and freezes every five or ten minutes. I think it�s getting better though, when I cripple my graphics card. Now I�m wondering if I should take it all apart again and put it into my newest ATX case, along with my newer, faster CPU, newer motherboard, and newer graphics card. I tried that the first time, but the darn thing wouldn�t boot up. Then I discovered that it wouldn�t boot because the floppy disk was getting caught in the drive. But of course, by the time I figured that out, I had already pit every into the old case with the old motherboard and the old other stuff. Shit!
So now, if I change it, will I have to pay another hundred dollars just to see if I can run Windows XP? And what should I do with the absolutely brand new top of the line motherboard I just bought, but can�t use because it needs a different type of memory cards than what I already own?�. And an even faster CPU wouldn�t hurt either.
This, my dear hugged and un-hugged friends is what �happy thoughts, deep breaths� is all about.
Happy Thoughts:
I found time to meet my commitment to go to line dancing class and actually line dance. Or attempt to line dance anyway. Just as before, I saw that I wasn�t the largest, most masculine, oldest or least sexy woman in the class. Maybe none of those, but I was definitely the clumsiest woman within a mile of the place.
We lined up on the wooden parquet of the smallish dance floor like a rag-tag platoon from the stockade in a Beetle Bailey comic strip, in more or less two lines, sometimes two and a half, depending on where there seemed to be room to move We practiced our steps reeaaaaaaaal slow a few times, sliding, kicking and stomping what we felt to be our left feet, or our right, in various rhythms according to whatever unheard drummers we each heard in our own heads.
After a few trials, the instructor seemed to surrender to the inevitable and just put on some music. That�s when the fun began.
My problem is that I honestly do have a memory that�s blown all it�s circuits. I found it impossible to remember the series of steps defined for each routine. So I spent the music time going against the general trend of the other twenty or so students as they sashayed to the left and right, and spun around this way and that. I haven�t had so much fun since the last time I paid a dollar in tickets to ride those bumper cars under the Seattle Space Needle.
But the main thing is� I did it. I moved my feet to music and I did it in public. Like others before me, the group allowed me to live, even when I disrupted the flow of the dancing. They just kind of moved around me, showing the same patience, or maybe it was resignation that I�ve seen in the traffic in the cities of Thailand.
Sorrowfully, there�s no class now until August. The instructor needs surgery. Most likely for his heart, or ulcers, or both. If I want to travel further along the path to line dancing euphoria, I�ll have to wait.
And �nother happy thought:
I got a call from my attorney�s office late Friday afternoon. It seems the judge signed the order for my change of gender and name without so much as requiring me to come to court for his entertainment and interrogation. I am, as of last Friday, a citizen of the United States, a resident of Mississippi, and a woman. My new name is Leslie Elaine Smith. Officially. Done Deal.
The easy part, which in a normal world, would seem to be the hard part, is sending a copy of the court order to my birth state of Utah. Once they receive the order, they will issue an amended birth certificate. Believe it or not, Utah has already been through this process a number of times. They actually have a written procedure for changing one�s sex on a birth certificate. They will send me a copy of my new birth certificate with my new name and changed sex. There�ll be no notation of what was amended. Then, with my court order and new birth certificate, I can go down to the local bastion of ignorance and backward-thinking, also known as the DMV, and they will, according to their own letter from the boss, finally, finally, finally, change my driver�s license. Then, if I get arrested, at least they won�t throw me into jail with a bunch of guys. But then, I don�t get arrested much. Honest.
So there ARE happy thoughts intermingled with the deep breaths in my life. I guess that�s the way it�s supposed to be. I have to have both or I won�t be really alive. When I�m through taking deep breaths over this whole computer thing, there�ll still be deep breaths over my battle with my weight, and dancing, and finding people to meet. Deep breaths over the things I�ve lost and the things I�ve thrown away� and the things I never had. And then happy thoughts about the things I�ve seen and felt and done� and accomplished. It really IS all about balance and harmony, isn�t it?
Happy Thoughts, Deep Breaths
Leslie Elaine Smith
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