Cocoon2Butterfly: The Beginning of The Bitch
It's September 18, 2016. first time I've done a blog in 4 months. Summer 2016 will come to a conclusion sometime Thursday morning and officially bring in the autumn weather. Well, not yet at least. The weather is actually quite nice in the mid-70's to low 80's right now. Native American summer, perhaps? Maybe so. I digress. The only thing this country is probably dreading is an obvious one: What asshole will replace Barack Obama in the White House? We're in for some serious shit, no matter who wins in November.
My birth month of October is only several weeks away, and I start to get a bit giddy at my age. With last year's addition of my legally becoming Kayleah, I now have THREE things to celebrate in October. So, what the hell can you do to commemorate an occasion like starting life with a new identity? Friday, October 7 will mark the ONE-YEAR anniversary of my name change. I try to contemplate this question as I gobble up a few pieces of Wisconsin-made string cheese. Ol' Mariah, my longtime roommate/pain up my black trans ass, is nearby watching me type this summary via my new laptop that I bought in May. It would be great to have a little celebration with some of the friends we've known over the years. However, life will always come first, no matter what we say or do. This is where life, and sometimes death, can cause friendships to fade into the past or become permanently severed. In other words, we've lost contact with a good number of folks since residing in a goddamn motel room for almost five years. Not having your own set of wheels can add to that as well.
17 years since leaving Milwaukee for Rockford and there's a lot of stuff it seems I haven't even considered attending or even seeing in person. Blame that on a combination of lack of interest, transportation, and the obvious, money. You wouldn't think there are places in the town of nearly 150,000 people (4x less than Milwaukee's size) about getting into the thick of things. If Rockford was a Southern town, maybe it would have some charm of its own way.
You already know about October 26....my 46th birthday. It falls on a Wednesday in 2016...and chances are good I'll be working that night driving around Rockford. That's been my job since March. Working with the SpeeDee Transportation Co. They do taxi runs across town, as well as daily medical & courier runs outside of town, even into Chicago. Talk about a long time on your ass!!! I've been driving at night for the longest time, meaning a lot of times I see the stars in its wonderful glory. With the days now getting shorter as autumn approaches, I am getting ready for the colder nights ahead. So much for an active life. I can freely pee almost anywhere under the cover of darkness! Keep in mind not many places outside of McDonald's and various gas stations are open 24/7, meaning my dining options are few.
There are, however, a good number of adventures when doing this. I've driven a taxi in the summer heat and in the depths of winter. Through torrid rainstorms and blizzards. Neither are so much fun to drive through. Especially when you're doing this on so many hours of sleep. I admit I've nodded of more than a few times behind the wheel, and it's too close to fearing the worst, regarding if I have an empty cab or with a fare in tow. 12 hours doing can linger on forever if the runs aren't there, such as after bar time, around 1:45 am here. Yes, I have driven home my share of drunk folks. Some have made a pass to me, which I declined. How many taxi-driving transwomen of color are there in this country, anyway? I do have conversations with a few of them, some from working with that now-closed itty-bitty cab company from 2015. Hair, makeup, nails, politics and lottery tickets are some of the topic of discussions conversated between me and my passengers. Few of them speak English well. One Saturday night I had a cab full of Latino gentlemen, all mainly speaking Spanish. Sigh. Thought I was in Tijuana for a moment.
Some cab rides were worth it. Those folks bought me grub from Steak n'Shake-by the way, their milkshakes are GOOOOOOOOD!!! Type 2 diabetes aside, of course. One person handed me a bottle of body spray, something I proudly use before leaving home. (sniffs loudly) Heavenly scented! Many buy me non-alcoholic drinks to get me through the night. The majority do leave me a few extra dollars as a tip; few as much as $20! I keep that in a special place. Speaking of which, I lost a $350 fare by leaving my fare money above the driver's side visor, easy pickings to a thief. Since then I do carry a pouch that has my money inside.
I know what you're thinking. Yes, it can be dangerous for a woman like me to drive through some parts of Rockford that aren't safe at night. Well, relax. I regularly pray thanking God to watch my back when I drive. To date, I have not been attacked, though two weeks ago I was driving someone around 12:36am Saturday morning and he left the sliding door open. Mistake #1. The van's interior lit up like a candle in an abandoned house, visibly showing the party I was carrying. Mistake #2 was having your valuables exposed as it was. I noticed some yahoo walking up the street with hands in the pocket of his zipped-up hoodie (already a bad sign), a knit cap on-in 70-degree weather- and what looked like a bearded mask covering his face.
He came by the cab 10 minutes later asking about a certain fare, then it happened. This bastard pulled out a gun to the passenger, demanding her iPhone and her money-all of $11. He also asked me to get out of the van, but I refused. I saw up close he was definitely wearing a mask; the gun he held the woman up with looked fake. He eventually ran off with just that. At his angle, he never saw either the money pouch or my Samsung On5 smartphone. Maybe I can thank my obesity for hiding that. She was definitely shaken up following this. I had to catch my breath and realized what just happened. I thanked God that this incident did not turn worse. I also knew I needed to find another job where I won't have to see this get worse.
Over the months I haven't had the luxury of making some close friends since being at SpeeDee. There have been a few people I've gotten along with,though not surprisingly all women. The main one at the dispatch controls is Jennifer (Jenni), who dispatches the graveyard shift of 11:00p-7:00am five days a week. She is a cocky girl, as I found out. So she is a tattooed chain smoker and recovering ADHD, like her daughter. I started getting close to her while she was battling to pass a kidney stone. Tears of extreme pain were clearly seen on her pink skin as rust and body damage were on the vans I drove. Some nights she was so wasted from the medication to ease the pain you could hear her slurring on the communicating "chirps". That's how us drivers could communicate with the dispatcher. This was not Jenni. If you pissed her off by missing an important time call she would verbally shred you into the next Ice Age. After a few weeks, she thankfully got to pass that damn kidney stone, and she was back to her vocably cocky self.
During this summer, I decided to write a book about my days before and since my transition. I was mainly going to use my blogs as a basis for them...all five years-plus of them!! Little did I know that the folks at SpeeDee already knew I was trans. Blame that on my size, I guess. Yet I was welcomed with open arms. Thank you, former IL Governor Rod Blagojevich for signing an anti-discrimination law vs the LGBT .....before he eventually was impeached for wanting to buy out President Obama's old US Senator's seat. I told Jenni I was working on this project and right then and there, came out with an idea that has since became the working title of the book: Cocoon to Butterfly. I later altered it to give it sort of a hashtag feel to it (#Cocoon2Butterfly). It's nice that along the way I have met some people driving a cab who are open to working with a trans person like myself. They all know I do my job with speed and safety, with a little bit of my old self mixed in, too. So much for being uncomfortable with being around people like us huh?
There are, however, a good number of adventures when doing this. I've driven a taxi in the summer heat and in the depths of winter. Through torrid rainstorms and blizzards. Neither are so much fun to drive through. Especially when you're doing this on so many hours of sleep. I admit I've nodded of more than a few times behind the wheel, and it's too close to fearing the worst, regarding if I have an empty cab or with a fare in tow. 12 hours doing can linger on forever if the runs aren't there, such as after bar time, around 1:45 am here. Yes, I have driven home my share of drunk folks. Some have made a pass to me, which I declined. How many taxi-driving transwomen of color are there in this country, anyway? I do have conversations with a few of them, some from working with that now-closed itty-bitty cab company from 2015. Hair, makeup, nails, politics and lottery tickets are some of the topic of discussions conversated between me and my passengers. Few of them speak English well. One Saturday night I had a cab full of Latino gentlemen, all mainly speaking Spanish. Sigh. Thought I was in Tijuana for a moment.
Some cab rides were worth it. Those folks bought me grub from Steak n'Shake-by the way, their milkshakes are GOOOOOOOOD!!! Type 2 diabetes aside, of course. One person handed me a bottle of body spray, something I proudly use before leaving home. (sniffs loudly) Heavenly scented! Many buy me non-alcoholic drinks to get me through the night. The majority do leave me a few extra dollars as a tip; few as much as $20! I keep that in a special place. Speaking of which, I lost a $350 fare by leaving my fare money above the driver's side visor, easy pickings to a thief. Since then I do carry a pouch that has my money inside.
I know what you're thinking. Yes, it can be dangerous for a woman like me to drive through some parts of Rockford that aren't safe at night. Well, relax. I regularly pray thanking God to watch my back when I drive. To date, I have not been attacked, though two weeks ago I was driving someone around 12:36am Saturday morning and he left the sliding door open. Mistake #1. The van's interior lit up like a candle in an abandoned house, visibly showing the party I was carrying. Mistake #2 was having your valuables exposed as it was. I noticed some yahoo walking up the street with hands in the pocket of his zipped-up hoodie (already a bad sign), a knit cap on-in 70-degree weather- and what looked like a bearded mask covering his face.
He came by the cab 10 minutes later asking about a certain fare, then it happened. This bastard pulled out a gun to the passenger, demanding her iPhone and her money-all of $11. He also asked me to get out of the van, but I refused. I saw up close he was definitely wearing a mask; the gun he held the woman up with looked fake. He eventually ran off with just that. At his angle, he never saw either the money pouch or my Samsung On5 smartphone. Maybe I can thank my obesity for hiding that. She was definitely shaken up following this. I had to catch my breath and realized what just happened. I thanked God that this incident did not turn worse. I also knew I needed to find another job where I won't have to see this get worse.
Over the months I haven't had the luxury of making some close friends since being at SpeeDee. There have been a few people I've gotten along with,though not surprisingly all women. The main one at the dispatch controls is Jennifer (Jenni), who dispatches the graveyard shift of 11:00p-7:00am five days a week. She is a cocky girl, as I found out. So she is a tattooed chain smoker and recovering ADHD, like her daughter. I started getting close to her while she was battling to pass a kidney stone. Tears of extreme pain were clearly seen on her pink skin as rust and body damage were on the vans I drove. Some nights she was so wasted from the medication to ease the pain you could hear her slurring on the communicating "chirps". That's how us drivers could communicate with the dispatcher. This was not Jenni. If you pissed her off by missing an important time call she would verbally shred you into the next Ice Age. After a few weeks, she thankfully got to pass that damn kidney stone, and she was back to her vocably cocky self.
During this summer, I decided to write a book about my days before and since my transition. I was mainly going to use my blogs as a basis for them...all five years-plus of them!! Little did I know that the folks at SpeeDee already knew I was trans. Blame that on my size, I guess. Yet I was welcomed with open arms. Thank you, former IL Governor Rod Blagojevich for signing an anti-discrimination law vs the LGBT .....before he eventually was impeached for wanting to buy out President Obama's old US Senator's seat. I told Jenni I was working on this project and right then and there, came out with an idea that has since became the working title of the book: Cocoon to Butterfly. I later altered it to give it sort of a hashtag feel to it (#Cocoon2Butterfly). It's nice that along the way I have met some people driving a cab who are open to working with a trans person like myself. They all know I do my job with speed and safety, with a little bit of my old self mixed in, too. So much for being uncomfortable with being around people like us huh?
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