Career Metamorphosis

This is an edited version of my story but sadly I can't get the underlining off, sorry.  I hope you enjoy it!                      

  

 Career Metamorphosis

By: Philippe Roth

Damn this recession—the self-help industry is in the toilet. Everyone is choosing sustenance over self-awareness. I close my eyes and press my solar plexus, activating Manipuraka. Inhale patience, I chant, it has only been six months since Ted The Life Changer’s seminar. I am the most positive person. I am the best wedding toaster. I am the most uplifting eulogizer. Exhale self-doubt! I open my eyes to find the YOU KICK ASS mug gawking at me. Failure washes over me. Life coaches need clients, not posters of waves cresting. Sure I’ve been through a lot of transformations: veterinarian, chiropractor, esthetician and pastry chef. I cringe, anticipating my father’s running gag: “Helen, why not join the circus?” “The circus?” I laugh. “No thanks, Pops, traveling around the country with freaks in spandex is not my idea of a career.”

I am about to call my mother when the phone rings. “Hello, Helen’s Hella Good Life Coaching.” The line is silent for a moment, and I anticipate a recorded message telling me my prescription is ready.

“I am seeking some assistance.” The voice is snakelike and dramatic—clearly a nut job, but I am broke.

“How about coffee?” I say.

“I’d prefer something more private. The Main Library, tomorrow at ten? I’ll be wearing purple.”

“Ok, but I charge a $250 processing fee.” I do not charge a processing fee.

“Fine.” says the voice.

Then I realize I am not acting positive, so I quickly add, “Together we can move mountains!”

            I arrive twenty minutes early, something I learned from Ted The Life Changer. I find a table and fan out my materials to make them look important. A large purple mass approaches, sits down, and extends its hand to me. Its perfume makes me heave. “I’m Sandra,” it says. We shake hands and I look down at my materials. I have nothing to offer. “Maybe I should start,” it says. I nod.

             “Your father and my father were fishing buddies. You were always very nice to me.” I have no idea who this is. I look deeply into its huge sadly painted face. OMG, I do remember—it’s Sanford. He was this fat, friendless kid I was forever giving advice to. “Pick a hobby like coin collecting,” I once told him, “and you’ll be sure to make friends.” I am silent for an eternity.

            He grabs my hand. “I need your help.”

            I muster up an image of Ted The Life Changer pulsing in front of his super cool multimedia display and say emphatically, “Banzai!”

            We meet every day for six weeks. Sandra explains that most transsexuals seek the advice of other transsexuals but that seemed stupid to her. If you want fresh milk go to the cow, right? My plan is to teach her to be a woman. But if you think being something makes it easy to teach someone else how to be that thing, you are wrong. I go home every night tortured. Dutifully she observes and takes notes, but it isn’t working. Then it comes to me! I tell Sandra to let go of perfect. Women are not perfect. When you try to act perfect you are acting like an outsider. Act like an insider, I tell her—be a woman on the inside. I challenge Sandra to take all the fake stuff off and then try to be a woman. It works. I see a woman emerging, and she is terrified. I tell her to lie in bed, visualize a cocoon, and chant, “I am the butterfly trapped inside.” Our sessions get more and more dramatic; I yell and jump up and down. “Butterfly, break out of your shell. Get the hell out of there. Let the world see you!” Ok, at the end she does work on the outside stuff: hair, nails, clothes, and make up. “Sandra, be careful,” I warn. “You are a delicious woman cake. The outside is just icing—too much and it’s disgusting.”

Months pass; we become friends and then business partners. Now she’s my warm up girl. We put on quite a show traveling around the country in our fabulous purple bus. We have a disco ball and a smoke machine. The women weep—really, I am that good. Sandra goes out first, dressed like Bette Midler, and pumps up the crowd. “The woman you’ve been waiting for,” she says, “the woman who turns caterpillars into butterflies, Wanda The Womanizer!”—I had to change my name, but that’s a small price to pay for a spectacular career.

Free to be you and me

I have an obsession with free things.  I really think this has to do with the fact that my father was old when I came into his life and of course he was also Jewish.  I simply cannot avoid free stuff.  When I stay at a cheap motel that offers a free continental breakfast I get up extra early so that I can not only eat terrible bagels and drink concentrated orange juice but I have to put extra stuff in my pockets like an 80 year old yenta.  So it goes without saying that things like "buy one get one free" at the local grocery store always get me to buy things I do not usually buy.  Just tonight I bought 2 almond Hersey bars because I got 2 for free.  And just to prove to the cashier that the chocolate was actually for my skinny ass and not someone else in my family I proudly ate one whole bar while she was checking me out.

Potty

I took my daughter to a brand new library today, which had a "toddler bathroom." I should not have read the sign to her I just should have said "let’s use this other bathroom."  Because once we were inside I also had no choice but to also use the miniature toilet. So the cartoon image for today is of a giant woman sitting on an itty-bitty toilet.  My daughter thought it was really funny.

New Year - New Information

So apparently blogging is meant to be spontaneous, off-the-cuff, ad hoc, ad lib and brief.  In short, I had been overworking the damn thing.  I am also super late to the party according to Wikipedia "As of 16 February 2011 (2011 -02-16)^[update], there were over 156 million public blogs in existence." So my new year’s resolution is to blog everyday and not worry about it.  That’s it, I’m done.  Seriously that’s it. Honest! Really if you want more you will have to read it tomorrow not today, tomorrow. Peace, shalom, check you later, hasta manana.

Ekimba -Not a light Snack

So as most of you know I hurt my back unpacking and schlepping when we moved here.  So instead of going to an OT I got my old friend Ekimba to help me toughen up.  His name evokes just what he is, an imposing black man who knows how to kick ass.  I just didn’t realize what a sorry ass I now have.  Ekimba and I used to be roommates when I lived in LA back in 1999.  And yes we did party like it was you know THAT year.  So when I signed up for a large group of session with him I must have had amnesia concerning how much of an ass kicker he is. So this morning it all came rushing back to me as I lay panting on my living room floor with a tall black man standing over me. Back in the day he used to give me some quite useful diet and exercise pointers.  But the most annoying was his intolerance for late night snacking.  We would go out in West Hollywood until the wee hours of the night stumble back home and all I wanted was microwave popcorn.  To be clear I had the habit, way before I met Ekimba, of eating a whole bag of microwave popcorn and watching infomercials after any long night of drinking.  You can ask any of my college roomies. Ekimba put a stop to that.  I was only allowed a protein bar.  Sadly like a bad acid trip I remember how revolting these protein bars were.  I had to microwave said bars for 10 seconds to make then soft enough to ingest.  I say ingest because it was not eating.  I could almost taste one as I looked up at Ekimba this morning and whined “It hurts.”  “It should,” he says.

Iron Goddess of Mercy

Here I am sitting in the hippest of hipster coffee shops, Café Intelligentsia in Venice CA on the hippest street in LA, Abbott Kinney.  Where one tea has the titillating title “Iron Goddess of Mercy.” The name makes me oddly think of the Indian Goddess Kali who is so horrific (She is depicted as a 1000 year old warrior woman who carries the severed heads of her enemies) I would not want to drink any fluid associated with her. The coffee is fabulous I will give it that.  Awesomely prepared, executed and served.  So lets talk about the “look” of this place shall we?  Most of the men are wearing glasses.  There are a smattering of hats, one beret and a few wool caps.  One woman in rollerblades, which seems dangerous with hot coffee served in a china cup. The women mostly wear leggings, low booties with a men’s style shirt.  Black grey and brown are the colors of choice.  Everyone looks up when you walk by.  And the staff is by far the hippest of the crowd. To add a little spice, a towering transvestite in a bike helmet just walked in. Other than the tranie, facial hair seems to dominate the room. There is also a movie filming near by so a PA (Production Assistant) occasionally rushes in and orders 10 coffees as if the rest of the planet does not exist.

After living in this hood for a few months I have realized there are real hipsters and there are faux hipsters.  I am neither as I shop at the gap.  So how do you determine the difference?  A faux hipster combines one too many hip elements, a fedora and leggings and booties and a tassel bag.  For a man he may have wild facial hair, brightly colored kicks, a vest and Buddy Holly glasses.   So if you remove one or two hip elements does that change the faux hipster into a real hipster, sadly no.  Sometimes it is something really subtle like foundation.  A hipster woman does not wear foundation.  Or on a man maybe too clean sneakers. The elements that make a hipster are quite elusive, like Sasquatch or a really good sitcom.  Dude it’s just like a feeling?

Which Courtney?

So I got the bangs and luckily do not look like Maria anymore.  I do however look like Courtney. My Stylist said, Love? "No" I said "Cox."