The Josie Pages

Field Notes In/On Transition The Real New Year’s.... For me (and a lot of my friends seem to grok this) The real New Year is in the autumn, when the weather changes and school starts to get serious, ball sports are in playoffs, hockey is starting. (how times change) You start wearing heavy jackets, boots all the time. You start rueing the shorter days, and enjoying all the feast-full holidays that keep us going through the long winter. Winter is coming, and while here in Vancouver it wont’t be all that snowy and cold, it will be just as annoying as all y’all’s winter. That's what winter is all about.  That’s a whole other blog post, what I’m getting at  is that it’s a more thoughtful time and a time when you actively pursue “change” a bit more aggressively. To continue the obvious new school year comparison, you have new classes, new teachers, new friends, enemies, crushes, and so on. It’s my experience that the more schooling a person has lived/worked through. ...

Field Notes In/On Transition... Tears Of The Buddha Redux Aka:  Persona Aux Gratin Starting off with a story of how I got the nickname some few of you may know, use for me; “Buddha Rhubarb.” Those of you with a heavy 90’s bent to your musical tastes may recognize “Buddha Rhubarb Butter” as being the title of the “most 90’s” band of them all Soul Coughing But I was given that nickname at least a year before I had ever heard of Soul Coughing (still one of My favourite bands, I have all Mike Doughty’s solo stuff too) ... The legend goes as follows. There was one of those “Parties at Fish’s,” an East Van 90’s rite of passage, where I was for some reason allowed to play a guitar.  I was sitting cross-legged, in a wasted haze playing a kind of noisy slide on this old acoustic (that was plastered in silver stickers that read “Rhubarb”) to an also cross legged group of young hippy kids to whom I was no doubt blathering on to, whilst mangling music with the Guitar....

Field Notes In/On Transition The Name Game Shakespeare had that star cross’d lover Juliet speak this truth:  “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”  The name change thing is kind of kicking my ass right now. It’s very daunting to me for some reason. It took me most of my life (first 30 years or so) before I was comfortable with my name... since then I’ve always gone by Joe Boyce Burgess. As a kid I was always Joey, rarely or ever Joseph, or Joe. In fact except maybe only in some sort of bureaucratic lineup has anyone ever really called me Joseph. I can’t recall my Mom or any other authority figure from my youth ever calling me Joseph. Technically though it’s still my name. For now anyway, until I can get up the gumption to fill out the paperwork, and go get all the little things done, like fingerprints taken. All very daunting, as I sometimes still feel like someone or something is going to force me to s...

Field Notes In/On Transition Peace, Love, Furniture & Grok Transition is, on the surface... all about surfaces, presentation, but of course it goes deeper than that... But it is where you start. I feel like almost all aspects of my life are in transition. Of course one could use that old saw... “the only constant in the world is change”. Definitely true. But my experience of transitioning my gender, has me changing many aspects of my life, and taking chances not just in my appearance, but also my relationships with friends, family, my work are also in flux.  The space around me is also in transition. I’ve recently and slowly started to redecorate my small apartment. It’s challenging being an accumulator of Stuff, and keep a tidy living space. Which is what I do, how I live, I have maybe too many books, DVDs, graphic novels, bits of artwork, ephemera and kitschy toys etc  My furniture is either hand me down... my huge clunky ugly but very comfo...

Field Notes In/On Transition To Sir Without Thinking, Ma’am I have spent most of my transition so far being very forgiving on people getting the pronouns wrong etc, calling me Sir, Buddy, etc. This of course still goes on, no matter whether I’m wearing a pretty dress or jeans and a tee shirt, lipstick, big eyelashes. I still get Sirr-ed all day. Usually without the hesitation involved for those trying to get my name right. In those cases you can see the wheels turning as they get it right and feel good about remembering, which in turn makes me feel good that people are consciously making some kind of effort. The Sir thing, though seems to be much more of a subconscious polite form, in that even those who will mostly call me Josie, and even she, instead of he, still say Sir . It has alot to do with working in a store I think. We have certain almost unconscious etiquette that we maintain when making transactions for goods and services. Ma’am and more so Sir are used wit...