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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

entry arrow11:35 AM | Meme for Page 123

[tagged by gibbs]

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Mark the fifth sentence. Pick up the next three sentences and post. (In other words, post sentence nos. 6-8 on page 123.)
4. Acknowledge the book and the author.
5. Tag 3 people in turn.

Gibbs, the first book I grabbed had no page 123, but here's the second one...



It's Jan (formerly James) Morris's acclaimed autobiography of gender reassignment, Conundrum: An Extraordinary Narrative of Transsexualism, which Cecilia Hoffman gave me a few nights ago because I'm always interested in reading about ... the weirdest things.

In this passage from page 123, Morris recounts her children's gradual acceptance of her new gender, confronting the necessary dilemma of having a father one day, and then a mother the next:

Helped along the way by sensitive teachers, they seemed to escape the miseries of school taunting, and the more feminine I became, the closer to my own reality, the closer I felt to them too. There was no moment of instant trauma in our relationship, no matter when, standing before them as a man one day, I reappeared suddenly as a woman. The process was infinitely slow and subtle, and through it all anyway, as I hope they sensed, I remained the same affectionate self.

It's a delightful, and sensitive read. Mark read it in half a day.

[tagging dean, ned, kokak, and zarah]

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