work culture

This was a journal entry from my last day at work at my last law firm. Just some thoughts on the work environment/culture that I need to be happy:

I dressed in a suit yesterday. I spent some money putting this outfit together, but I wanted to go out with a bang. Black suit, skinny black tie, red silk pocket square, high heeled spectator shoes, pompadour. People noticed. I showed up at my going away party and they gawked. I wonder why I waited so long to be this person. I wonder if I had been more daring with my expression earlier, I might have been happier? 

I stopped by John's office to thank him for teaching me legal writing. This was sincere. As much as I've been unhappy with his management style and the culture he creates around him in the last two years, John is a fine lawyer and a fine person to learn writing from. I told him that I remember working with him as a summer associate and him being the only person the entire summer to pay attention to the work I was doing. I said, "I learned a lot just watching you take the first draft to the final." He said, "Stay out of trouble," a few times, because I don't think he knew what else to say. The first time he said it, I said, "Wait - no. I can't guarantee that I will."

I asked him, finally, about having ass-length hair and facial piercings at the start of law school. I wanted to know where that person went. We talked about his nipple piercings. I told the story of Jessica Rockstar shooting me in the face with her breastmilk, how the piercing left holes that made the spray come out like a showerhead. He talked about his brother's Prince Albert doing the same. Yesterday at my going away party I felt like I could express my personality, say the slightly off color things that are so important for me to say. Not even risky stuff, but things like, "I want to eat my own name" when offered a slice of "Good luck, [Bananarchist]!" cake. M. talks about being a prankster at work, of disregarding hierarchy and being playful. I'm fascinated. This is the person I need to be in my workplace, otherwise I'm not going to like it. Why did I wait so long to wear a suit? 

I took the suit to Home Depot and Ikea yesterday. I was running some errands. People really don't know what to do with a person of indefinite gender wearing a tailored women's suit, a necktie, a pocket square, and high heels. Double takes and stares. The kind of staring where you look back and they look away quickly, as if they were just looking at something in your direction. This used to bother me so much when I was young. When I would get called sir. I would feel the urge to correct. When people would say, "Are you a man or a woman?" But now, the running dialogue in my head is not that they stare because they hate or judge or anything negative. I say to myself, they stare because they have never seen a person so striking and attractive. If someone asks me, "Are you a man or a woman?" I want to answer, with a smile, "I don't know! Take your pick!" and lick the side of their face. The latter I mean metaphorically only. I wore a chest binder yesterday for the first time. Note to self: ask boi friends how to get in and out of the thing without dislocating a shoulder.