Doctor News and Other Updates – It’s All Good

21 Jul Doctor News and Other Updates – It’s All Good

Hi Everyone,

This posting is a day late; yesterday, July 20, 2012 was the day of the Colorado Batman Movie incident, and I did not have the heart engage in anything as trivial as my transition blog.  Remember the victims and families, and work everyday to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

My Doctor Called

Like the heading says, my doctor called, and it was all good news.  If you have been following my posts…(cricket, silence, cricket, silence…) then you know I’ve been agonizing over waiting to hear from my doctor since I had come out to her on July 2nd and asked for her help guiding through my transition.  Well yesterday she finally called – finally for me, routine acceptable amount of time had passed for the rest of the planet.  I was great.

She provided me with all of the initial contacts I would need and places I would need to go, and let told me she was still in the loop, would handle all of the referrals I would need, and would monitor and be following my progress through reports and office visits.  Then, she said there were a few things she needed from me; like, would I be changing my name and if so is that how her staff and herself address me, and also whether or not they and herself should start using feminine pronouns when referring to me or how did I want to handle that.

This was all so immediately both wonderful and overwhelming; she knew exactly what to asked in such a positive way I was choked up and wanted to cry with joy.  I told her I was not ready to use my new name just yet except as an online personal and some forms and documents relating to my transition, and that I also was not to hung up on the pronoun thing, and probably wouldn’t be until I was going more full time and obviously presenting as a woman.  Then she asked again how should she refer to me, and I told her it was most important to me for her to be comfortable around me and she could use my male name and pronouns or feminine pronouns – whatever feels good at the time.  I also told her that I would shortly begin introducing myself to new people that I meet as Friday Anne (Keyes), but again, although I would inform the folks I interact with on a regular basis of my status change and my new name, I’m not going to beat anyone over the head with it.

I’ve also noticed even at this very preliminary stage of my official transition that when I mention to professionals that my medical benefit package would all the necessary transgender procedures I would need up to and including SRS, I have been immediately taken more seriously and a lot of soft stepping around issues quickly evaporates.

The medical professionals that my doctor recommended to me is not only top-shelf and World renowned, but it is also located in a town where I used to live, and it is only about a 15 minute drive from my house.  Coincidentally, and I believe unknown to my doctor at the time, the therapist she recommended – also very highly respected in the community, is part of the same practice in the same clinical center.  For the moment I am not going mention the institution, its location or the names of the surgeon or therapist since I’ve only just today mailed off all of my intake forms to them, and having not yet been accepted as a patient, and not knowing their policies, I don’t want to jeopardize their privacy or mess up my chance of being accepted there.

This was supposed to be about a two sentence post about my doctor calling me back, so since I’m already this deep into it, I’ve been looking for an opportunity and excuse to list some of the music projects I’m working on here and there, mostly for cathartic reasons.

Big List of Music Projects

1. Finish recording the last 2 or 3 sections of my gigantically long “March to the Gates of the Sun” suite, then add a few incidental instruments and vocals to all sections, make a good mix down and put the whole thing to bed.
2. Start mapping out my next big unfinished piece from the old day, “From the Sun”.  This will be another huge piece, but necessary to complete so I can get on with my life.
3. I’ve been working on a musical adaptation of the misnamed Egyptian “Book fo the Dead”.  The correct name for this ancient collection of Egyptian burial texts, incantations, poems and songs is “The Book of Coming Forth by Day”; coming forth – a little more uplifting than Book of the Dead.  A wonderful award-winning author by the name of Normandi Ellis has reinvisioned some of the classical translations of this collections of spells, hymns and prayers, and presented them as a series of very readable and enjoyable, eloquently, beautiful flowing volume of poems or odes titles “Awakening Osiris”.  What I want to do is to set this collection of 68 or so song, prayers and hymns to music, as individual musical vignettes with instrumentation to match each scene she creates, to accompany a fair realization of the her poetic text.  This would be a huge project; 68 songs or hymns as unique themes, another 20 or so unique themes for each of the major players – Osiris, Amun, Ra, Isis, etc, and a number of vamps, bridges, an overture and a conclusion.  Will I ever get this done – maybe.
4. I’m trying to learn the piano part for “Rhapsody in Blue”.
5. I’m in the middle of transcribing Alfred Reed’s “Russian Christmas” for piano, and then arrange and record it for a full electronic rock orchestra treatment.
6. I’m trying to do the same thing with a piece titled “Overture in ‘POP’ Style” by Bill Holcombe, but I’ve only just started the transcription.
7. I’m trying to learn everything from Yes’ “The Yes Album” on piano – I’m about half done.
8. I’m trying to learn Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on piano.
9. Someday i would like to set the 50 or so page long sentence at the end of James Joyce’s :”Ulysses” to music, but this is probably just a pipe dream.
10. I’m trying to learn the harp, but I don’t practice enough – no discipline.

That was fun.  I’m also starting electrolysis this week, and every week for the foreseeable future, I’m getting my ears pierced tomorrow – yeah!!, and I should be able to set up appointments to begin therapy and my medical transition later by the end of the week or the following week.

Thanks for listening!  Love,

Friday.

P.S. I’ve worked with a lot of word processing software over the years, but WordPress, in my opinion has the best spell checker ever.

07/21/2012

FAK