Woozle/Tigger
A Hastily-Written Remembrance
Tigger, aka Ann Veronica Simon, was my close friend from 1981 until her death in 2003, and we were travelling/cuddling companions from 1985 to 1989.
She was one of the few people who ever "got" who I was. When I finally figured out in 2000 that the gender issues I'd had all my life were in fact gender dysphoria and that I am therefore transfemale, she was immediately supportive, saying something like "oh, that makes so much sense – you're a girl mouse!"
I remember encountering her in 1979-80 when she and the other Goresum Foursum (JC&E) were still in middle school, but we didn't talk and later on she didn't remember seeing me around then. The year after that, Jenny and I became friends and at some point J decided that Tigger and I should really be in touch with each other. The evidence (see Letter #1) suggests that Tigger wrote me first (I'd been considering writing her but was hopelessly nervous about it) though sometimes I remember it the other way around.
I can't actually remember when we first met face-to-face after having met only via letters, nor can I remember the circumstances behind our first substantial conversation. I don't think she ever visited me while Jenny was still alive, so that must have been later. I do remember her visiting for Jenny's funeral, but I remember her staying at E's... it's all very muddled, and deeply shadowed by grief over Jenny.
What I do remember about our first conversation is that we were still both ridiculously nervous around each other, and attempts to converse kept fading quickly into silence... until I started making pretend conversation about how "woody" or "tinny" various words were (after Monty Python). This apparently struck a chord, and we spend the next hour or two going back and forth along this theme.
This kind of thing remains my idea of fun, and apparently it was hers as well. This is just one reason we got along.
1985
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After surviving the discovery of Jenny's body in the summer of 1984, I came to the realization that I needed to get to a place where there was meaningful human contact if I was going to survive much longer. (Grief plus social isolation plus gender dysphoria and ADD are a potent and deadly cocktail.) After a bit of revision, I hatched a plan to go live in Ann Arbor (rent an apartment) for the summer, then accompany her to her first year of college at Brown (using my large station wagon to help with the move-in).
Somehow, she agreed to this plan... and somehow it all worked out.