Because it’s important to finish what I started, I’m writing a concluding book tour post from the airplane even though I’d rather lose myself in my library book. I’ve read more of the novel This Is Where I Leave You (by Jonathan Tropper) during the first two hours of this flight than I read during two weeks on the road. I finally have what feels like true, uninterrupted relaxation. Ahhh… Alas, I am compelled to provide some closure.

The last few events, all in the state of Massachusetts, went well — great turnouts, each with a completely different crowd vibe. Over the course of a trip, my nervousness faded away and was replaced by a pre-event giddiness as I developed a rhythm of preparation, reading and storytelling ease, and my own style of engaging the audience through questions, eye contact, gestures, posture, tone, and humor.

I like that first moment, looking out over the group, guessing who they are and why they are there, letting the need to know go as I find the friendly and interested faces that I return to again and again for encouragement. But I love the ending even more, when these people approach me individually and I learn something about them, share a moment, a connection, sometimes deep and personal. Actually, I love the events in their entirety. My heart is fully invested in this speaking thing.

In Amherst, I read at Food for Thought Books, which as far as I’m concerned is like the Madison Square Garden of alt literary tours. Every queer person or group I admire reads here, one of the few collective bookstores left, and a spacious beautiful one at that, with a podium of snaking iron and curved wood, and a red curtain for a backdrop.

The large audience surprised me by not laughing in any of the usual places, but there’s something interestingly weird about this geographic area, like it’s been stuck in its own liberalism for too long and has acquired a progressive stuffiness. I appreciated being asked to read my short humor piece from the recent Original Plumbing “Family” issue. The uber queerness of it contrasted nicely with the total ignorance of the character in Nina Here Nor There, otherwise known as me five years ago.

I guess I have to admit that speaking at Harvard brought out a bit of pride, an ego-driven sense of accomplishment standing behind the crested podium, or maybe it was a, “Look at me now, Fuckers” attitude. I was rejected as an undergrad, and while my desire for their acceptance, then and now, partially comes from an elitist privileged place, I have always found something untainted and amazing in the people I meet surrounding this institution.

The Harvard event was the best on the tour. I think this had to do with their widespread promotion. There were ALL types of people there, students, grad students, faculty, teachers from other colleges, local queer and trans kids, aspiring writers, and a few of my long-lost friends. And every single person appeared to be truly into the whole event. I think three-quarters of the room asked a question. It was the only time when the Q&A didn’t peter out naturally, and I had to look over to the organizer to end what was turning into a long night.

For my last night, I spoke at Boston College. The building looked and felt like a church, and the room was covered in crosses, saints, and Latin. I had to quickly change the passages I slated to read when the student organizers told me the administration had looked at my website and I “couldn’t advocate for same-sex marriage” or “read about dildos,” or anything I extrapolated to be equally inappropriate.

Which is why this night felt awesome in a way unlike any of my other events. These students pushed for me to come to campus, pushed themselves to learn about a topic – trans folk – in which they knew little to nothing. While all the other schools I spoke at have like 10 to 30 queer groups under a larger umbrella, BC has only one group – they call themselves the campus gays – and they were the only people who showed up at the event since it was closed to the general public.

It was a good turnout for a rainy night, and because everyone in the room knew each other, it had a familial atmosphere. I offered a bit more Trans 101 here and altered my manner to be even more encouraging with questions than usual. I really liked these kids. They smiled a lot. And they inspired me, the way they were out and proud in an environment that was not particularly supportive of them. I’m sure this sounds ridiculously patronizing, but I got the sense that they were good eggs, like they were going to really succeed in this world in their own diverse ways.

After the event, I had the world’s worst veggie burrito. (I’m coming home SF!) On most other post-event nights of the tour, I had a drink with a random grouping of whoever wanted to join, which was always bizarre and great. But on this last night, I was alone, exactly what I needed, a brief moment of private reflection and celebration.

This tour was all that I could’ve hoped for and then some, a success on every level (except I’m a dipshit for never putting out a mailing list). Seeing my parents and connecting with old friends added a huge bonus to the experience. I am grateful for all of it, especially everyone who opened up their homes to me, offering me not a couch but a guest room.

By the time I returned the rental car (with nearly 800 miles in one week), I was already plotting for a way to keep running with speaking engagements, to develop a presentation and maybe a workshop. There’s something in this that I really love.

Last night, I returned to my hotel room, briefly flipped through the channels on the TV, then turned off the lights and went to sleep. It was 8:30pm. I was exhausted, like Justin Bieber on a fifty-stop international stadium tour, except I am playing at gender-neutral housing floors, LGBTQ Centers at colleges, and fringe conferences like Transcending Boundaries.

Of all the conferences I attended this year (Philly Trans Health, Butch Voices, Southern Comfort, WPATH), Transcending Boundaries has been my favorite. This is the gathering ground for outsiders to the outsiders, queers of all stripes – trans, genderqueer, intersex, poly, kinky, asexual – and although my behaviors and looks are rather vanilla in these surroundings, my heart is as freaky as they come.

I led a writing workshop, my second ever, and without a doubt, the most anxiety-provoking event on my schedule. But people showed up (about 20), the first hurdle at any conference with tons of programming. And, they even wrote during the exercise portion. It’s so interesting to me that the participants can talk to the end of time about the obstacles to writing, but if they’re in a room and told to write, inevitably their pens will start moving. I feel relief when this happens — the weight of silence lifted and reassurance that the prompts I offered (usually too many) prompted something.

I threw out the identity words, all the ones that fell under the Transcending Boundaries umbrella, and let people define these words for themselves, not dictionary definitions but personal definitions. The greatest surprise was everyone’s eagerness to share what they wrote. One person said that this was the most comfortable they ever felt writing and sharing. Then it hit me: In what other writing workshop context could these people write about being intersex or trans in complete safety, letting down their outsider defenses for a moment.

This environment affected me too, because for my author reading, part of the Saturday night entertainment, I read a scene from my book that I’d never felt comfortable reading before: the sex scene. I joked that it was kiddie erotica, a warm-up to the second part of the night: Tristan Taormino and Kate Bornstein read from the new Trans and Genderqueer Erotica Anthology. Nice company, eh?

Finally getting to meet Kate, who so kindly endorsed my book, was pretty awesome. Her keynote address and her simple presence inspired me; her support, encouragement, and advice was an added bonus. This author event, in the grand ballroom, was the largest venue and largest crowd I’d ever read to, and their laughter indicated they were having fun. The ASL interpreters seemed to be having the most fun, using their whole bodies to translate what was mostly sex writing.

I still find myself thinking about this day, the inclusiveness of it, the people beaten down daily by dominant culture, finding a home, space, and  community.

****

On Sunday morning, I drove to Hanover, New Hampshire via Vermont (apparently there are only a few highways in New Hampshire). Everything in New England is like one to two hours away from everything else, and I’m really enjoying the road and the fall scenery. Sometime in the past weeks, the leaves went from red/orange to nonexistent on the creep toward winter.

At Dartmouth, I spoke to the gender-neutral housing floor at a Sunday brunch, doing my best to engage a crowd that was tired, in sweatpants, part queer, and part just wanting to live in this specific campus housing – this second group laughed particularly hard when I did the, “I’m just a straight, white guy” imitation of my brother.

After the formal part of my event, I ate a late lunch with a few of the students (rugby players like me once). I particularly liked hearing about their experiences as being out on campus. In the groupings of dyke college students, there seems to be queer activist types and closeted sporty lesbian types – I was the latter, not quite closeted, but I had a girlfriend rather than an identity. These students were so well-spoken and mature that I kept thinking we were around the same age until they would throw around the terms “thirteens” and “fourteens” to describe the class of 2013 and 2014. I graduated college in 1999, which in this context sounded long time ago.

Last night, I spoke at Brown as part of their Transgender Awareness Week to a relatively large crowd of interested undergrads – by far the most students in one room. I read mostly the funny scenes and sweated so much that armpit stains bled all the way to my forearm. One of the kids came up afterwards and told me that he lives in Nebraska and that a few kids in his youth group read my book this summer, and that it helped them out. There have been a handful of these moments so far, someone approaching me in tears to tell me how much my book mattered to them, that it was the first time they saw themselves reflected in literature.

Throughout the writing process, I didn’t think all that much about the people who would read my book. I mean, I did theoretically, in the sense of my “audience.” But not in the sense of actual people with actual experiences connecting with me as a character, and now me as the author, a person, like them, with struggles and triumphs.

I am loving every moment of this trip, even when the kids text while I speak, or when only a few show up and the ones that do appear as if they are one blink away from nodding off. I am in Amherst now after a small lunch at Hampshire College. I am trying to accept that I am tired, that I may be tired until this tour is over. But I know that when I step to the front of Food For Thought Books tonight and see the rapt faces of a few folks in the crowd, I will get my second wind. I always do.

“You know we’ve never lived in the same place,” Alley said when I arrived at the train station. We’ve known each other for almost ten years and I hadn’t really thought abut that. Alley is one of my best friends, and about once a year, we get a few days together. This time required careful orchestration for Alley to switch some shifts in the Yale Hospital Emergency Department where they are a PA, and for me to line up my schedule to stop through before an event at Wesleyan.

On my way to New Haven, the Wesleyan Event was cancelled (the early fall snowstorm left the school powerless for a bit and caused some issues.). This change in plans created an extra night of chill time that instantaneously turned my stay with Alley from a visit into a full-on vacation. Our goal was maximum relaxation, to excel at doing nothing. It was pretty magnificent.

In the mornings, I did my *work* while Alley went to their garage, a self-designed workout cave that so completely shows Alley in their natural habitat, heaven-on-earth, special place, that I had to include a picture. Then, in the afternoons, we strolled New Haven, which in my opinion is a cross between a quaint town and small city, with arts, culture, a low-buzzing energy, and a handful of decent (I’m spoiled by San Francisco) bookstores.

Each night, we went to yoga class at the Balanced Yoga Studio, where Alley goes regularly yet sporadically depending on how much time they are working out compulsively and obsessively in their garage. For me, so used to attending yoga in San Francisco, it was great to experience classes from a different angle — smaller rooms, smaller classes, and a smaller community that took me in immediately. The angle I struggled with was that facing the walled mirror, forcing me into an intimacy with my reflection while I practiced.

After a few days in Jersey (with quick stops in NY and Philly), where I stole moments of practice – meditation here, a few sun salutations there, a practice while watching my teacher Janet Stone’s Ananda Vinyasa DVD (while my mom observed and made comments to me like, “How come you can’t get your leg as high as her?”) it was nice to be in a dimly lit, warm vinyasa class with a beautiful teacher and a single quiet yet powerful collective Om.

Three nights of yoga was enough to bring me back into the rhythm of my own morning ritual – the work-in-progress travel version — and start my days with my 10-min meditation, sun salutations, and pranayama exercises. As I spend more time away from my SF apartment with my altar (what I half-jokingly call my serenity corner) and consider longer travel, I am experimenting with ways to take my home morning practice on the road.

It certainly helped that Alley would give me their apartment for the evening before going to sleep at their girlfriend’s place, conveniently located downstairs in the same building. Some people might call Alley’s place a bachelor pad, but it is really a woodland forest for mystical, magical, or mythical creatures with multiple genders, like the two of us.

Real tree branches sprout from the walls in the living room and bedroom, complementing a few branches painted onto the walls. A tree theme subtly permeates, and is mixed, of course, with medical everything from mugs with detailed anatomy diagrams to an art piece that lines the long hallway, a string with suture clamps holding up  postcards, cut-outs, and drawings. Between Alley and their friends – mostly midwifes – evening conversations at restaurants and bars always seemed to turn to “catching babies” and medical emergencies.

As I consider places that I could steal away to for a month to write, practice some yoga, hang out with some good people, New Haven makes the list. Especially when Alley throws around the word, patron, a fun concept to think about because it makes me feel all literary and shit.

Alley and I met through the Gay Games in Sydney, Australia in 2002, although not at the Gay Games themselves. Alley was part of the NY Women’s Soccer team I met and played with there, and despite training the team, Alley never made it to Australia for family reasons. We met shortly after the Games when I was visiting these new soccer friends in New York. Alley and I connected immediately, saw each other before we could see ourselves. We may only get a few days a year. But I treasure them.

I am on the train, headed north, passing over bodies of water I do not know and Connecticut towns I’ve heard of but have never been to. I’m making the change from public transport to rental car in Boston, where I’ll drive to southern New Hampshire. I’m staying with an old housemate and rugby teammate from college. This is the last bit of my mini-vacation within my tour, a respite of quality time with my loved ones.

I should probably tell you about my event at Penn last night, but I’m kind of obsessed with the Amtrak train I just got on. There is free Wi-Fi, electrical outlets in every aisle, ample leg room, and the seats are more comfortable than most couches. I’ve always loved trains. They are the perfect compromise between car and plane because they avoid traffic and sharp turns, and there is an endlessly changing landscape outside. I’m going to try to keep this short, so I can get back to the graffiti, industrial plants, and forests blurring by in a fall kaleidoscope.

So Penn last night… I actually returned back to campus for the first time in a decade (I graduated in ’99) a few months ago. Back in June, I strolled the entire campus, took in all the changes, like my favorite cheesesteak spot turning into a bar with neon lettering and umbrella cocktails. Walking past all my old class buildings, I realized I’m just getting into that phase where I actually appreciate my college and my education, or at least the reading, writing, thinking, and discipline skills I learned.

Back then, I never entered the LGBT Center, unaware that it even existed. I claim it’s because the rugby house was my lesbian epicenter, but the truth is I probably would not have referred to myself as a dyke while in college. I had a girlfriend, a fellow rugby player and my housemate, starting my sophomore year, and yet there is a big difference between being in a relationship and embracing an identity, culture, and community.

Speaking at the LGBT Center (and going to the dinner with the staff first) allowed me to reclaim some of that missed undergrad experience, or to circle back to it, perhaps even now enter this community as an adult. I enjoyed being an outsider during my college days, and without much thought, this led into me ignoring most everything as an alumna until the planning of this visit.

Receiving such a warm welcome and meeting the staff that work to make this a positive and safe space for queers on campus made me feel included right away. I was proud to hear that there is a health policy that covers transitional care for trans students (this is pretty revolutionary), and I found myself eagerly asking to be put on listserves and connected to Facebook pages.

The event itself went super smoothly. I read a few passages from the book, told a couple stories – some planned others organic — and fell into a comfortable rhythm where I felt both at ease and engaged, alternately serious and jokey. Seeing the interested, smiling faces in the audience, of the strangers and those I know, made it all the more fun.

Almost all of my friends in Philly showed up (with friends), all from different parts of my life – a friend from high school, my best friend from freshman year of college, a rugby teammate, a friend from San Francisco. Afterwards, a couple of us had beers in front of a fire pit on the roof of a bar that definitely didn’t exist during my time in Philly. I thought how weird it was that these two friends of mine were meeting (a similar random connection occurred on Sat in NY), although maybe unexpected is a better word than weird. I’m starting to think that it’s these unplanned, unknown, out-of-the-ordinary moments that make the concept of a “tour” so exciting. That and trains. I gotta go. Newark is passing by outside, and I can’t miss that.

Next stop: New Haven and a few days off with an old friend…

I ate almond croissant french toast for brunch yesterday. “Isn’t it outrageous?” my mom asked. She is a health nut, but a sucker for certain foods that contain almond, banana, coconut, or ice cream. We drove for a half hour to get this well-known dinner in Stockton, NJ, a speck of a town with great character — an inn, general store, vintage cars parked on the street, and a live band playing in front of the farmer’s market where I sampled apples, pumpkin cheesecake, and warm pure dark chocolate. After eating, my parents and I walked down to the Delaware River and across the Hopewell Bridge that connects New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

It was one of those effortless days, where I felt myself floating like the leaves falling off the trees around me. On the ride home, through the near rural back roads, I stared out the window and watched fall. Those colors, man do they amaze me: bronze, auburn, golden yellow. Take an East Coast kid away from autumn, and this season really does strike an impact upon return. The trees, they own the own the landscape, right now. It is so quiet outside, the rustle of branches, the crunch of leaves beneath my feet, the only sounds.

I went for an afternoon run, the light slanting down with day light savings now in effect. Running through the Princeton streets, passed all the local schools and the houses where I partied, the memories jump into my head. I kept expecting my high school soccer coach to step out of his house, and say, “What?! Now you run?”

My mom made her famous (in her mind) drinks for cocktail hour, margaritas with jalapeno-infused tequila, and we sipped them as I watched the end of the Giants Patriots game with my dad. I spent the evening on the couch, the Krieger chatter and TV shows background noise, trying to prepare for today, for my first college event, at Penn.

I have to pack now. In only a few days, the entire contents of my suitcase and backpack exploded onto the guest room floor. But I wanted to take this moment, a few last minutes to revel in the peace.

I noticed that my dad hasn’t referred to me by name once. I am fine that my mother refers to me as “Nina…Nick,” a self-correction of good intention. I like the pictures of myself as a kid, a teenager, a young adult – a girl – all around my parents’ house. I stare into them when nobody is around, see myself fully and completely, different shell, same person. And I was fine with the “she” references, the first few at least.

But this morning, while my parent were discussing the plans for the day, for loaning me their car, they referred to me with female pronouns so many times, I thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit. Discussions in my family are neurotic and Jewish, repetitive and circular. They probably could’ve agreed on when to give me the car keys with only about 10 pronoun references. But when you need to have the same conversation three times, this number escalates to 30.

The “she” “her” “she” routine went on for so long that I had more than enough time to have an internal dialogue with myself. How do you feel? I asked myself. Are you angry, hurt, sad? Where in your body do you feel this? What is going on inside? Do you even care? But I only felt numb, catatonic, crushed, speechless, dead. I guess those are emotions, though I’m more apt to say I was void of emotion. That I felt nothing.

I rationalized my silence. I can let this go, I told myself. I thought of dinner the night before, the moments when what my parents were saying, whether we agreed or disagreed, didn’t matter, how I focused on breathing in their presence, the three of us in the same room, at the same table, still new, still fragile, a broken vase put back together, the glue drying.

This again, I thought. This tired old confrontation where I shake my parents from denial, only for them to discount my words, my identity, the things that matter to me, that I have paid and fought for. I lacked the energy for conflict. I had just flown across the country. I was jet lagged. I had a speaking event at a queer youth group that afternoon. A train to catch to New York. A queer memoir storytelling event that night at the Queers for Economic Justice center.

The theme of the queer memoir event was “Speaking Truth to Power,” a serious sounding subject addressed by the other readers with humor, theatrics, and poignancy. One of the readers shared their experience producing a calendar for Brooklyn Boihood, of finding and creating a place for masculine of center people of color. Another shared an entertaining story about navigating the college lesbian basketball scene, coming out for her partner, only to be forced back into the closet by a homophobic coach in Kentucky, and finally delivering the final fuck-off of truth.

Dan Horrigan performed an amazing story of working at a summer camp, how he began as “water cooler closeted” – shooting the shit with co-workers without mentioning his “boyfriend” and a handful of cultural gay references. I love that term, water cooler closeted. It reminded me of my visits home to my parents house for ten years, that even though my dad knew that I was gay, I avoided any dyke references. Over the years, no matter how many times I spoke up, there were so many others when I kept my mouth shut, my throat blocked, my body shutdown.

Toward the end of Dan’s story, he’s let go from the summer camp for being gay. He does confront his boss and receives payment for the last three weeks even though he’s asked not to come in, thinking of himself at the time as the Gay Robin Hood. But the part of his story that stuck with me is the reflective part, that which comes from his current self looking back on his 19 year old self, the adult who would march into the LGBT office, research his options, and take a bigger stand rather than quietly taking the money.

He briefly mentioned a recent suicide of a gay kid, fifteen years later, in that very same town, not by way of direct connection, but as an acknowledgment of the ripples we create. I was feeling these myself, the storytellers speaking their truth to power, the youth group teenagers, out and proud – being themselves through the challenges of adolescence. It is from my community that I build my strength, that I will open my mouth, feel the vibrations in my throat, and say to my parents, “So, about that ‘she’ thing…”

I am on the airplane, flying to the East Coast, about to start a two-week speaking tour, mostly at universities. I’ll be talking about my book, (trans)gender issues, my writing process, anything I want really. This is my tour, conceived and planned by me, with the help and support from many other people, of course.

Back in March, I made a spreadsheet with the LGBT groups of a dozen or so schools I found on the internet. I sent each one a form letter. I introduced myself and my forthcoming book (unreleased at the time), and pitched the idea of me speaking at their university. Very few people responded and only one school invited me: Brown. Committing to go to Rhode Island 8 months down the line on the semi-arbitrary date of Nov 14 concerned me. What if I couldn’t book any other events? I told myself I could always just go for a long weekend. I told myself to take this one small step and commit.

In retrospect, I had the wrong concern. The question I should have been asking is: What if you spend the next 8 months sending emails into the black hole of cyberspace, reaching out and following up with schools and friends, staring at New England maps until your eyes hurt, looking at your calendar like it’s a sudoku puzzle, booking planes, trains, and automobiles, dealing with student groups, faculty advisors, contracts, fees, logistics, and promotional materials?

This tour is my dream, born out of desire and driven by small steps into uncertainty. It’s missing the sense of obligation and pressure that I felt around the launch of my book with publicists and sales numbers lingering in my psyche. During those first few months, I learned many things about event planning, taking risks, and myself, especially how much I enjoy reading, speaking, laughing, and connecting with people about writing, social change, and the pleasure and pain of being alive. Underneath the nerves and adrenaline, I hear myself come through that mike — my voice, my heart, my humor – in words that I rarely anticipate, despite all my preparations. I experience myself as natural, uncertain, vulnerable, and grounded, much like I do in my writing and yoga practices.

It was somewhat of a surprise to discover how much I enjoy engaging with the teenagers and college kids. I think I used to worry too much about fucking up, messing them up, saying the wrong thing. It prevented me from noticing what they have to offer – wide-eyed hope, passion, open-mindedness, a stake in shaping the future – and what I have to offer them.

At a reading a few months ago, a high school GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) showed up. A kid approached me during the book signing session and explained that he had been a dyke for a few years, but just recently came out as trans. He fidgeted, slumped, shrunk into himself, and stood like most teenagers, the ants of youthful insecurity crawling all over his skin. He told me both his names, first the female one he’d been born into as if he were mandated to share that, and then the one that he was taking as his.

“Is it hard?” he asked. “Being trans. I mean, I know it is. I guess that’s a really big question.” He averted his eyes and adjusted his stance as I stumbled in my reply, tried to say yes and no; it is hard but beautiful; the greatest challenge and the greatest gift. The words came. Words always arrive. They matter less than I once thought. I’ve discovered that the most powerful thing that I have to offer is my smile, the one that comes from the deepest place inside of me.

The owner of the bookstore bought a copy of my book for this kid and asked me to sign it for him. It was one of the very few times I eagerly flipped to the front page and scribbled away. I ended the inscription with “you are great,” something I believe with absolute certainty. From across the store, I watched the owner hand the book to him. He read the inside and looked over to me. In the flicker of his shy, proud smile, I could see that he believed it too.

Tomorrow afternoon, I am going as a guest to the LGBT youth group in the town where I went to high school. I am really excited about it. Tomorrow night, I’m reading in NY as part of a Queer Memoir event. I’m excited about that, as well.

I’m excited about everything on this tour — all 11 events in 7 states, the down time I built in with old friends I haven’t seen in too long, the dates set with new friends I’ve only met online, even the few days I’m spending at my parents’ house in Jersey, my very first stop.

I’m going to try to keep a tour diary here on this trip. I’ve never really blogged in diary fashion before. But I’ve also never gone on a tour before. I feel like I’m living a fantasy, and I’m curious about how it will unfold…