FYI

October 3, '11

Just your basic entry really. So much is happening that I am not writing much at this time, and this site is starting to look like it's not going anywhere. Not so. I'm maybe just a tad preoccupied with other things at the moment, singing being the main of those. And to be perfectly honest, if my singing is going where I think it is going, then I won't be doing anywhere near as much writing, or anything for a while, as singing is how I want to express myself.*

My feminization is proceeding apace, and I am in line for my final evaluation prior to Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS). If all goes according to plan, I should be getting my boygina in the spring. Yea nanci blu.

I was out to visit my 'folks' in August and all went extremely well, as we buried the past, my father much relieved, my step mother and I newly aligned, she also recovering extremely well from her oncological perturbations. I experienced a huge emotional catharsis, and am much the better for it.

Perhaps in conjunction, but not without other adjuncts, I have experienced a huge (did I say huge? that might be a bit of an understatement) break thru with my singing apparatus, and am seeking a compatible singing coach to help me whip what amounts to a new voice into shape. I receive unsought for and spontaneous appreciation of my singing and playing everywhere I play and sing these days, and I hope soon be performing for a living. An old dream, and a cherished one that I will never give up trying for as long as I think I have what it takes, which I think I do**. Almost daily my voice gets stronger and stronger, and I experience new depths of ability that are blowing my mind. It's like someone took the 200 lbs of chains and other impediments that were somehow on my back off, and I am now experiencing for the first time what it feels like to function sans chains or whatever it was that was fettering the free and natural potentials of my vocal equipment. I look forward to surprising a lot of people.

Let's see, other stuff. Oh yea, I had a bed bug attack, mostly transients, and had my place sprayed. There was silver lining to this, in that I purged myself of a whole bunch of stuff really only relevant to my old life, and my place is now in a better shape, uncluttered by old ghosts and unnecessary  and I think I am finally on the track to looking after it appropriately. It really was a mess there for a while as I stayed caught between my past and my future.

I should also mention that while at this particular juncture, i.e. september/october/december, i am usually in full depression, it so happens, due especially to the work I have been doing in the last three years I believe, that I am nowhere near being depressed. It is my belief, subject to a couple more time points and observation, that I am no longer experiencing the manifestations of my once bipolar state. I attribute this to the therapy I have been doing the last 20 odd years, to the breakthru I had regarding PTSD and anger episodes in the last two years, and to the unlooked for result of my Real Life Experience started in June of 2011, when I fully accepted and incorporated "nanci" into my self. This latter, it seems, and I believe, was incidentally the final key to my experiencing what Carl G. Jung termed "Individuation," which I consider to the the penultimate step prior to self actualization. Of course, being the lay bitch that I am, who knows if I really know what I am talking about. What I do know is that my life seems to be working now, and it's full steam ahead. What do all those crazies know. If being nanci is what it takes to experience life the way I am now experiencing it, then so be it, and 'nanci' I am. Nanci blu that is, in all manifestations of the word.

All in all dear reader, I am now living my life, full time. I am spontaneous, clear, happy, and certain, and feel my feelings in real time. Who knew. Wow.


nanci blu, Oct 3'll

*Ok, here's the situation. When I was somewhat younger than six, I heard my father whistle for a cab. His whistle was so loud and piercing that at least one witness remarked at how good his whistle was. I, of course, was hugely impressed by my father's lipisoidal prowess. Cut to ten years later when I was an emerging teen, and wolfe whistling was a prerequisite to teen life. I tried for weeks to whistle, unsuccessfully. Then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I emitted a piercing whistle, a chirp really, but it was definitely a wolf whiste, and I knew I was on the right track. I could do it. It took me a subsequent three weeks of constant, 24/7 practice to perfect my own style and such. Suffice it to say that I was a chip off the old block, and my whistle, while never tested, was at least a rival to my father's. Cut to twenty years later.I am in a strip joint, the cobalt I think, and there was a woman from the states doing her act, which involved snakes or something like that. She had some posters she was giving away, to the loudest whistle. I of course joined in the general melee, and was doing well. This other patron, unknown to me at the time, singled me out I guess, thought I had the right stuff I guess, and started coaching me as I whistled. We won, and I think it was indeed in part to his 'getting my back' and coaching me along that won me the day. I would like to say that I gave him the poster, but I don't think I did. I really should have. I had my whistle. What did he get? Nada.I didn't need the poster. Regardless, I went away pretty impressed with myself, even if it was just whistling. I had won a contest, and in a street cred kind of way, amongst real combatants, to whom wolf whistling was considered a skill, and a required part of one's street equipment.

So what, right. Well, here's the significance. I have been trying to sing for 50 years or so now. Up until this year, my singing was mediocre, inconsistent, and of little merit. That, of course, has not stopped me trying. Given my bipolar state, during mania, I would experience some fairly impressive improvement in my singing, which  would, however, disappear as fast as my mania did. But then just this summer, in the spring of my depression zone, I experienced the equivalent of the wolf whistle chirp that got me on track to becoming a preeminent street cred wise wolf whistler. I have been at it hard ever since, exercising my vocal chords that is,  and am experiencing** the same escalation of ability as I did during the tweaking stage of my whistling. Of course, there are muscles involved here, my vocal chords, and I think it may take them a little time to perhaps get stronger. Not really sure, other than it all seems to be working. Now all I need is a venue. I'll keep you posted.

As for the guy in the bar who coached me to a winning berth, the significance of that is how I responded to his ministrations. It is my belief that he became a father substitute in that moment, hooked into my need for a male role model, the type of role model that I never had, and that had my father been of similar mind, and had paid that kind of attention to me, our lives would be vastly different today. And who's to say which path would have been better? nb.