As I generally place no importance on the merely physical (it is that I am honestly rarely aware of the merely physical: an error in observation more than proof of a superior character) it is particularly disturbing to me when I become preoccupied with my own body. Some piercing vision I blind myself from to get through the task of looking in mirrors and fixing my hair ordinarily; ordinarily, I can see myself without really seeing myself, a deeper sight which, when rarely and horrifically achieved, convinces me that this is the way all people see me always, this deeply ugly and blemished creature, and makes me loathe myself.

I caught sight of myself in the train window and realized why people seem always to perceive me as a frightened, weak, shy thing; up until that moment I was perfectly at ease and content, but I looked terrified and defeated. No other affected expression seemed to change this: no slight smile, widening or narrowing of my eyes, parting of my lips coud give me outwardly the manifestation of the comfort and settledness I felt - or had, until this anxiety. I looked small, brittle and helpless, my eyes cold and empty - so I wonder do I always look this way? Even in companionable silence, even engaged in conversation? If this is the first impression I create (and it always seems that it is) how long does it persist? Am I powerless to reverse it?

And I am small, and I do cross my legs and draw them close to my body, and I cross my arms, too, or rest my head on one hand, that arm resting tight against my side: no, I do not sprawl confidently, carelessly. My shoulders slouch out of habit and I nest myself into corners for comfort. I am comfortable wedged in, withdrawn and curled tight, but does this say anything about who I am or how I feel?

Obviously, I think not, no more than I believe this face I cannot help and its natural expression really prove some insurmountable passivity. But I am sometimes almost pathologically aware that this is how I am perceived.

I cannot stand to be watched - and I feel always that I am watched. On a train, in a crowded square, doubtless someone's eyes are on me, judging and dismissing me all in an instant. I pass into their lives with no choice in the matter, and am summarily forgotten, discarded, unwanted. I do it too, which is why it deeply disturbs me: I judge people in order to feel better about myself; unless I capture a moment of self-destroying pure scientific objectivity, or unless I fall in love with them (and, egotistically, view what I love in them as the qualities I lack) then I am silently judging. And this, I fear, is their unacknowledged judgment of me: there goes a girl who doesn't pick up her feet enough when she walks so her shoes squeak and scrape against the concrete; she must be fearful and weak. This I assume yet the truth is no one gives a damn what I do or what I look like; I am a stranger passing meaninglessly, if at all, in and forever out of their lives.

And yet I know there is also a mood in which I want - desperately - all eyes on me: I am beautiful, I am brilliant; look how expressive my fingers are, merely sliding against, caressing one another; I am reading Virginia Woolf on a train. I want to be admired, recalled to a stranger's mind the way I sometimes conjure up images of people I sat across from on a DC metro seven years ago. That is not me, but nevermind: take this body and create an idea of me in your mind. I often feel I am performing, affecting a superior tone with those I fel are not my equals. My feminist conversation in the café last week: was that not enjoyable not only in itself, but also because I performed gloriously? Érinne thinks Kerry is a southern democrat and because of a felony conviction cannot even vote; Consuela claims no interest in politics without remorse; Amanda is, simply, dumb. I was haughty, I was forceful: it didn't really matter what I said, because I could dazzle with phrases better than they. With conviction in my superior knowledge I put myself on display: do you suppose my face looks the same, as empty and spiritless, in these moments?

The prevailing mood is certainly not one or the other extreme: I am centered, comfortable in myself, and don't give a damn what anyone thinks. I seek conversation with equals, to participate in honestly and with mutual respect; I do not often feel oppressed or want to dominate. I have overstated for effect; I have painted myself in the worst possible light once again.

But this face, this body, they truly do cause me anxiety when I allow myself to dwell on their reality, rather than continuing to see the world as I do, in essences and words, through feeling and not matter. I do, progressively and alarmingly, dissociate my self from my body, so that the notion that this body is the most almost everyone will ever know of me is abhorrent. If only we could really express ourselves bodily, if we could choose: I would be tall and slender, with long bony fingers, and much smaller breasts, and harder angles to my face, and more striking eyes - this, if I could translate who I feel I am into what I appear to the world to be (so in a limited sense one empathizes with the torment of being transgendered). This face, this body - they lie about me every day; and people make their assumptions; and based upon this some may think they know something about me; but no one does.

I do actually wish to be somehow invisible, seen through, reduced to (elevated to, I mean) my words: this is who I am, at least so far as I understand. Everything else detracts, stands in the way of possible communion. I am not my body, no matter how I dress it, how I carry myself, how I screw up my face. It feels to me a hard shell, a restricting barrier, which I - whatever various thing I call I - must break through. Its preparations and ministrations only distract me from what I feel is my real work; I am at my most detestable when I consider it and occasionally become fixated on it; it stands between our mutual understanding.

Anyway it is rare that I become so painfully aware of my body and so troubled by how (I imagine) it reflects me. Ordinarily I can go through the motions of unity to engage the world as it is. But still there is always this nagging sense that the whole labor of presentation is false.