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Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
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Sunday, 2002.09.01:
Back pain.
Oh those poor women who have it. Guys just don't really quite understand. Sure they look at the "package" but not the total package. These things weigh quite a bit! The reason why this thought was triggered is because I'm probably almost big enough to use an A cup and I can already feel the weight. Granted, I realize I've got quite a bit of muscle weighing it down, but even adjusting for that I can see how any woman with larger than B cups may run into problems. Bras aren't just for looks---they do have a rightful place!
Oh, a note about passing. I'm envious of some of these transmen! OMG, they pass so well. In a way it's sort of a downer to me when I think that hormone therapy seems to work so well on the natal female body. MTFs have to work damned hard to pass, and a lot of it depends on genetics. If you were lucky to be small and cute then hooray for you---the majority of MTFs are not that way. FTMs, even if you're not tall, if you even partially look like a guy I'm sure you're going to be taken for a guy. Of course, I shouldn't complain about things because there is a sort of tradeoff thing here: MTFs have better-looking SRS results than FTMs, but FTMs have better response to HRT than MTFs---check out the body mass redistribution and the voice. MTFs usually have it easier getting higher-paying jobs than FTMs pre-transition, but FTMs have less personal maintenance to worry about post-transition. In a sort of perverse way you can look at the situation and conclude both camps are equally screwed. Check out some video. But, gawrsh, you have to admit that some of those guys on that page are awfully cute. (Don't read into that.)
Roommates.
I should have forseen this but I think I've just wandered into a precarious position. I have two roommates, R1 and R2. R1 is getting married next year, maybe about mid-year. R2 is planning on buying a house and very possibly will be married in short time. That leaves me to search for housing. Right up until a month ago I thought I had solid housing arrangements for at least another 7 or 8 months, but now my visibility into the future just went to weeks. You see, I almost have a guaranteed roommate in R1 for the next few months, but R2 is now becoming a wildcard. If he buys a house, will R1 and I move into it? But, if R2 get's married, I really don't want to be stuck in a house with newlyweds. I don't care if we've been real good friends for the last few years: 1) I'm in transition and 2) I've never met the girl. Unless that girl is very progressive and is willing to share a house co-ed style (which I'm guessing she won't be) I can't see my roommate arrangements lasting more than 3 or 4 months into the future! What should I do...? Hm. Must think. Maybe it's time I get my own apartment---no way in heck I'm buying a house in this area and also having cash left over for transition. I can't move back with my parents because we have two vastly different lifestyles. And my other friends already have roommates. What a tangled web I'm stuck in...
BTW: go visit Mascu-Land!
Monday, 2002.09.02:
Not quite a complete disaster, but close. Thanks to a couple of kind-hearted souls I actually had a decent time at a party I went to. This problem arose because I didn't know enough people and people were really not opening up. I don't know why but some attitudes were downright rude. Maybe I might be hyper-sensitive but somehow I think that isn't the case.
Tuesday, 2002.09.03:
Tossed and turned all night. We've had a heat wave in our area and I didn't noticed I was dehydrated. (Also possible effect of spironolactone.) I got fed up at 4:00a and hopped down to the kitchen. 16 oz of orange juice later, I was feeling pretty good. I slept pretty good after that.
...
11:30p
My friend who invited me to last night's party called back and we had a little chat about things. Little pieces fell into place as to why people might have been preoccupied and standoffish. I also heard some real funny things. So I'm in a better mood.
Wednesday, 2002.09.04:
I finally pulled off one of the most difficult things you can do with the Final Fantasy X Chocobo Catcher mini game: I got a 0.0 time! Because of this my roommate (whose save games we were using) just got some new super weapon thingy. My time was about 37, I had 14 balloons, and 1 bird hit. Doing the math it worked out to like -2 seconds. It took me about 45 minutes of doing races to get that... If you ever buy a PS2 you should definitely consider FFX.
*sigh*
Another one bites the dust. Another friend is being "downsized" due to lack of resources to keep her around. We saw it coming and now the day is here...
Thursday, 2002.09.05:
I hate some of the drivers around here. I was making a left turn and this guy zooms out from behind me, around to my right, and then cuts me off! The nerve of the guy. And then only two minutes later I'm in the fast lane going straight and a large SUV decides to make a last-second decision not to turn left in the lefthand turning lane and so he pops out right into my lane and I'm going like 35 mph. So, I hit the brakes real quick and neither of us gets hit. But jeez...
Lunch. Pure crap. Today was Taco Bell. Soft tacos and a burrito supreme. Mmm. I wish they'd bring back the chili cheese burrito, tho. Mmm. Cheese.
Out to another friend. The hits just keep coming and coming, don't they? We must have spent about 3.5 hours in the restaurant talking about our lives, careers, and of course my TS issues. She was very cool with it. You expect the worst and hope for the best, and then you roll the dice. I couldn't have asked for a better reaction. Hey, if you're reading this then "thanks" and a great big bearhug!
Just read a book that she gave me all about Tarepandas. I love these little guys! They're sooo cute. I admit, I have a stuffed Tarepanda and the 2002 Tarepanda calendar. I don't care if I can't read Japanese---I go for the images. My friend who gave me the book also has a mega huge Tarepanda, probably about 3 ft in length. Can we say ohki (big)? The official site in Japan is here.
Friday, 2002.09.06:
My doctor checked my blood pressure this morning. 141/88. Holy moly. That's amazing! Why is it that every time I go to her office that I get these high readings? My main physician clocked my blood pressure at 122/72 (which admittedly is still high for anyone) but that's nowhere near the 141/88! I think it's more a case of lack of sleep, junk diet, and no exercise. I've been doing this kind of crap routine for about 4 weeks now ever since my old DDR pad broke. I need to get back into a healthy routine. I'd get sleep this weekend but I'm helping a friend move and a friend from out of town is coming in Sunday night! Wow.
But the cool thing about today's appointment was that it has been about 3 months since my last visit to this doctor when she prescribed me the estradiol patches. I've had a bit of development but didn't think much of it. So, the doctor says, "lift up your shirt so I can examine your progress." She feels around and then says: "Wow. You've been on HRT for only three months?" I take that as a good sign. Come to think of it, clothes have been fitting a little differently.
She was going to prescribe a progesterone but then I said I may want to hold off for a few months as to not accellerate the breast growth. She agreed that might be good so we're going to wait three more months before changing my regimen. At that time it may include other high blood pressure mitigating medication. Ugh.
Saturday, 2002.09.07:
Headaches. I woke up this morning with a little headache that wouldn't go away. My mouth was all pasty and I was feeling edgy, so I knew I was dehydrated. I went to the bathroom then slipped back into bed trying to ignore it. The headache grew. I finally gave up, got out of bed, and drank a ton of water. About three or four minutes later the headache was gone...
I'm assuming it was a combination of me not drinking a lot of liquids yesterday and the spironolactone doing its job of purging sodium from my system. Each time I've had headaches (which I never used to get!) I have thought it was related to low sodium and hydration. So usually drinking a big glass of water and then eating something with mondo amounts of salt seems to help. Minutes later usually the headache goes away...
I'm still trying to get used to a friend who has just started calling me "Amber". I know that's what I want, but I just find it peculiar in some respects because I'm still not-Amber most of the day because I'm not full-time yet. As I said to her, I guess it's going to be a learning experience for the both of us! But, it's cool she was very quick to accept that change is imminent.
Also, today marked the first day I actually wore a bra not to make me more feminine but to make me more masculine. (Huh?!) No, really. It was the occassion where I was helping a friend move houses and I could only really wear a t-shirt and jeans. I usually layer so that the jacket forms a bulky secondary layer which helps block out the chest shape. So in this case I turned to my new found friend: sports bras. Using them helps to flatten things a little so the "points" aren't so obvious. And there was minimal "tenting" effect (you know, where the shirt between the breasts gets pulled away from your chest, in effect a tent). The bra also provided a bit of a protective barrier when bumping into things. The CoolMax lining was indeed, cool.
Oh, good thing I got a new phone with a headset jack. My ears would have fallen off after the 2-hour 15-minute phone call I just ended. It was well worth the $44. Plus it has a built-in answering machine.
Sunday, 2002.09.08:
12:30a.
Still thinking about last Thursday that I came out completely to my old friend. She wrote me a bunch of e-mails after the encounter and it was to my girl e-mail box. I think I know why it was bugging me that she immediately started referring to me as "Amber": I felt an immediate sense of loss for the person I was.
That may sound strange but it makes sense to me. I feel like my male persona just died in a sense, as if the 25+ years of my life just vanished in a microsecond, as if I never existed in the first place. It was like I could never go back to my male self after Thursday night because that person was no more.
What stirs within me right now is a sense of sadness and loss. I know we haven't forgotten about "him", but referring to "him" in the 3rd person makes it tough to think that I haven't just bridged the genders but I've crossed the bridge and left "him" behind. Enough of this depressing stuff. I'm off to bed.
9:11a.
Hallo. Another full day ahead. I did get to bed finally around 2:30a, so almost 7 hours of sleep was good. Today's schedule looks like: exercise, shower, lunch, house hunting, clean room, write music, go out with out-of-town friend. Tomorrow is going to be a full day, so part of me hopes that I'll get to bed early. I need gas to boot.
Are you a reader of Kate's pages, too? Well, it's worrying a bunch of us that there aren't any entries past the 24th of August. Really, she was saying something about how she found out she was anemic and how she'd write more "tomorrow", tomorrow being the 25th. Well, it has been two weeks since then. I hope everything is OK and she just got busy (again). Oh, like I'm one to talk about being "busy", eh?
11:05p.
Tonight was a true comedy of errors. I'm still laughing. Ha. Ha. Hahh. Allow me to brief you on the details.
Sylvie, a friend from the T* community, decided to hop into the area and we planned to meet up. We planned to meet, go for dinner, chat, and then take her home. I figured that things would just kinda go something like that. Oh, no no no. But tonight it was not to be that easy.
It all begins with a phone call from Sylvie. She calls me at home, only about 90 miles out from where I am and says that she'll be up in my area in about an hour. I tell her that that is just bogus because with traffic I figured it might be about 2.5 hours. That would mean the earliest she would arrive up here would be around 6:45p. So she takes my advice: pull off the road and find a bathroom, get a refill on your drink, and prepare to be stuck in traffic for a couple of hours. And that's exactly what happened. Now, being delayed from that might not have mattered, but the way the rest of the evening panned out it threw everything into the air.
Strike 1: Brainless. I get to Jen's place to pick her and Sarah up and we're just milling around. I'm in the dinning room area looking at this curious black plastic box with a tiny peephole to one side. I'm looking around for any text or a button or anything, but I happened to let my inner voice out: "hey, this isn't a digital camera or something is it...?" Unfortunately Jen hears me and immediately collapses onto the floor in a spasm of laughter and tears. Sarah looks at Jen's quivering body and asks what's so funny. It's just then that I peer over the opposite side of the black camera-looking thingy and white text reads: "Panasonic Electric Pencil Sharpener." Sarah then begins cracking up. I grab the nearest non-lethal object (i.e. baseball cap) and hurl it at the convulsing Jen.
Strike 2: Dinnerless. So I get a call around 7:00p-ish and she says she's down at her friend's house (where she'll be staying overnight) which is only about a 25-minute drive from me. She says that instead of going to dinner with me she'll catch a bite with her friend. I say OK and ask that when she's done for her to call me on my cellular. We hang up.
Strike 3: Foodless. Now, because of that, now I'm dinnerless so I call up friends Jen and Sarah and we agree to meet up. Sarah makes a call and Andrew is going to join us for dinner. So we meet at a diner and order. I'm looking for something light so I order what I thought was a salad. I mean, for $5 you'd expect a nice-yet-plain salad right? Well, nooooo... I get my plate and on it is a 1/4 chunk of iceberg lettuce, a handful of diced tomatoes, and a tiny bowl of dressing. I'm like: "I can't believe this cost $5! Not only is there hardly any food but you have to separate it yourself!" I could have just picked up the hunk of lettuce and gnawed on it, but that would be unlady-like. So now I have to manually separate this chunk-o-veggie into edible bits. $5?! HA!!! Fortunately my late lunch of In-n-Out was still nestled inside my gut.
Strike 4: Clueless. Sylvia finally calls me and I get directions. We navigate via Sylvia's instructions over to Sylvia's friend's house. Jen looks at the instructions and tells me, "hey, this can't be right." She's noticing that the road name and instructions don't match. After scanning a map and us bouncing various thoughts between each other, she realizes that I mean Central Avenue and not Central Expressway, two roads which happen to run parallel to each other. The light goes on and then everything makes sense.
Strike 4.5: Homeless. Ethan, Sylvia's friend, is clearly not comfortable with all the new visitors that have just arrived at the house. I mean, he's pleasant, but we can't talk there. So, we decide to go out and grab coffee. I can't say this was really a "Strike 5" because we sort of knew this was coming up. But this provided an interesting inconvenience.
Strike 5: Roadless. So we cruise to one of the local drags and try to find a coffee house like a Starbucks or something. We can't go down the main road because it has been closed for some street fair. Ugh. We gotta go elsewhere.
Strike 6: Drinkless. We find some lot out in the back close but not on the drag and start looking for the Starbucks---I mean, they should be everywhere right? Well, uh, no. We walk 4 or 5 blocks to find one. We get within reading distance of the text on the door and we realize we've been conned: "Today's closing hour is 6 PM." Argh! We grumble and walk the 1/2 mile back to the car.
Strike 7: Aimless. We're just looking for some kind of coffee house or place where we can sit and chat with Sylvia since this is the first time any of us have met her in person. But nooooo... No Starbucks or other places around. We wind our way through the city searching for one for like 15 minutes. We have no real idea of where we're going and it just seems like there is nothing open at all. But we do finally spy a Starbucks and I aim the car towards it.
Strike 8: Hearing-less. So I am about to make a righthand turn at this stoplight to enter into the mini mall holding the Starbucks and as I'm slowing up I hear this rising cacophony of shrieking voices from the back seats. It was like a duet of wolves howling at the moon: "don't turn right! Don't turn right! DON'T TURN RIGHT! DON'T TURN RIGHT!". I stop, the car lunges a little. "Don't turn right because there's no way into the mall! Go forward!" Ugh. Now they tell me. Not that I can hear anything anymore.
Strike 9: Team-less. So we get into the Starbucks. I say to everyone that I'll be buying. But, Sylvia goes ahead and orders and pays for me. I say that I'd buy so I can pay for Jen and Sarah's drinks too. But nooooo... Sylvia buys hers and mine---not that I'm complaining that it wasn't a nice gesture. I really did appreciate it! But that made the situation odd. So I ended up paying for Jen and Sarah's while Sylvia paid for hers and mine. Uh, get that? Weird.
Strike 10: Store-less. We sit down at a table and begin relaxing. I sip my caramel macchiato and then one of the workers comes over: "just to let you folks know we're closing in a few minutes." We have to leave?! But we just got here?! Sure enough, they close at 10:00p and it was indeed 10:00p. We sulk out of the store.
Strike 11: Nothing-to-do-so-we'll-just-give-up-because-we're-out-of-ideas-less. We give up. We just call it a night. I drop Sylvia back at Ethan's place and I drive Jen and Sarah back to Jen's place. It was late anyways, but what a waste.
Strike 12: $h%#less. I back out of the driveway and I notice that Jen is having a real hard time with finding her keys. I do a quick change of gears to forward and rapidly pull back into the driveway to give them some light from my headlights. The whole maneuver was so quick that it freaked Jen out some more. She immediately dropped the keys in fright and then fell to the ground convulsing in laughter. On the way down to the ground she looked like one-legged chicken trying to fly, convulsing up and down in a sort of hopping motion. Sarah also looked like she was about to collapse so I just rolled my eyes and drove off.
But now let's go to their perspective.
I just talked to Jen and got the skinny on why they were doubled over in laughter. I had been driving like a mad woman foaming at the mouth and all, pretty much the entire evening. I blame this entirely on the fact I didn't know where many places were. We were truly in uncharted territory and I was more reactional than methodical. Usually I plan my routes and I know exactly where to go and get in the right lanes way ahead of time. But I was making microsecond decisions and the car buckled with my jerking. So Sarah was already freaked out. Now, the icing on the cake was that I pulled into Jen's driveway to drop Jen and Sarah off at the end. When I backed out I very loudly scraped the air dam (damn!) as I backed out of the driveway. That just sent Sarah over the edge and she was actually the first one to start laughing like all heck. I didn't quite understand that and when I zoomed back into the driveway to provide them some light it only compounded the situation making Jen hyperventilate with absurd laughter.
So I guess if you ever want a roller-coaster ride you can hop right into my car any day. I guarantee it won't be a boring experience.
OK, but the real bummer of the day: I spent like 6 hours cleaning house today and Sylvia didn't get a chance to come over and see it! WaaahhhH!!!! (I'm so melodramatic these days. [The other day I literally prostrated myself in front of my ex-manager on his cube floor begging him to help with some issues. Loooong story.]) Well, the good thing is that this is the cleanest I've seen the house in like 8 months and it forced me to clean up my room. There's a silver lining in every cloud...
Monday, 2002.09.09:
131.1 miles in 13.5 hours.
The comedy of errors continued today but not with such fervor. I almost would have assumed it would considering how the day started. More specifically, plans from the very beginning looked like they were about to disintegrate. Again.
8:30a I hear the phone ring. I roll over and struggle to grasp the phone. I clutch the cold plastic body and draw it close to my ear. "Hello...?" I mutter, still fighting the effects of grogginess. It turned out to be Sylvia. At unbelievable 8:30a. I switch to Girl Voice and ask what's up. She says she's just about on her way over, something about how it would be easier on everyone if she was dropped off at my place rather than I pick her up. In half an hour. I'm thinking at this point that this is pure craziness and I'm banging my head against the pillow. "Why...?" I stammer trying to figure out what the heck is going on. I finally get the information that Sylvia is at Ethan's place and that he would like to take the carpool lane to work because his office is near my home. So, instead of me going to pick Sylvia up, she would be coming to me. I think I said something to the effect that that would force me to take a very quick shower and basically get up out of bed quicker than I had planned. (I didn't go to bed until 3:30a.) I guess I agreed that that would be OK so I hung up and took a 20-minute Power Shower, probably the fastest one in recent memory.
I get a call around 9-something and it's Sylvia saying she's walking up to my door. Indeed she was. She apologizes profusely and notes that it wasn't her idea to have her dropped off. *sigh* I say it's OK and she comes in. (So she finally did see our neat and tidy place!!!) I run up and down my own stairs getting ready and by about 9:30a we're ready to go.
We get gas and we're on the road. We have a long ways to travel and we've got a schedule going on today. We cruise up the highway with @$$h0lic drivers all around us. Considering my stellar performance maneuvering my own car yesterday I supposed part of it was me. But I was going speed limit straight down the highway. In fact, I was tailing other cars in the same direction so it's not like I could have gone much faster anyways. This major nut in a big blue 1/2-ton pickup jumps out from behind us and weaves his way ahead. I reached for my digital camera to get a shot of that bastard's license plate (mmm... 4.1 megapixel...) but when I turned it on it just turned off. HUH? I flicked the mode dial again and it would just go on then off. I handed the camera to Sylvia who said the dislay read "L6". (That's actually "
Lb" which
means "low battery".) Apparently some time between last night and this
morning my camera's battery decided to discharge itself! UGH! That means
I would not be able to get any shots on my camera all day!
*whimper* We agree a disposable camera would
do the trick, though.We arrive way early for the first office visit on our day-long agenda. The girls at the desk agree to see Sylvia early and so they do their thing with her. I take a nap and then go to use their bathroom. After finishing I go to flush my problems away when I noticed the handle was stuck. I sigh and figure that I really needed to flush and wasn't going to let someone else fix the toilet. So I pop off the porcelain top and see the operating lever is bent. I bend it back and voila the sound of rushing water fills the silence. I giggle as I mentioned to the staff that their toilet is fixed. Amber to the rescue again.
We've got time to kill but we're early for lunch so we go to Chinatown! We find parking in the central lot and pop out into the bright sunlight above the parking structure. We're clueless where to go but Sylvia has the name of a restaurant to go to. We walk there and realize it's not a dim sum place. So we amble back to the parking garage and debate. We see there's a hotel so we stop there and ask for suggestions.
Thanks to a handy bellman's directions we're seated moments later in a nice yuppie-ish Chinese restaurant. They are serving dim sum! We see the interiors are very nice and we ask if there's a dress code---Sylvia is in t-shirt and jeans, me in a jacket and denim shorts---and the guy gives us this "no way, this is San Francisco!" OK... So we get seated and order our vittles. This is one of those nice places you write down what you want and they bring it to you---no little ladies pushing carts filled with steaming baskets. It's expensive but very very good. I'd go there again, but I'd at least wear a blouse and nice shoes. We felt very underdressed.
During lunch I've got this building headache. Part way I feel dizzy and nauseous. I tell Sylvia where my medical insurance cards are and contact info, but reassure her everything is alright. I must be really sleep deprived because I'm crashing. And crashing hard. But after lunch I'm feeling well enough to walk briskly.
Back to the car we wind our way through the crooked streets of the city to the next office. I'm beat so I konk out in the corner and nap for like 1.5 hours. Sylvia, meanwhile, is getting examined, poked, prodded, measured, and analyzed. We finally finish up and we're out on the street again. (BTW: our parking expenses were really minimal all day since we used a lot of metered parking.)
We're done and wondering what to do. We decide it's time to head over to a quaint shopping plaza and so we wind our way there. We start walking through the plaza and realize that it's not the one we thought it was! We were two blocks away! Ugh! So we meander the two blocks over to our real destination (which looks a lot like the other) and just mill about. She's interested in some wool shop but we don't see what she wants. So we hit this chocolate factory place. OMG. Heaven on Earth! Anyhow, she buys stuff; I don't because I'm trying to cut back on the sugar.
We take silly pictures and then it's off to shop. We hit this megastore and it's like 9 floors of shopper's paradise. We hit the basement, 1st floor, and 2nd floor, get thirsty, grab drinks in the basement, and head up to the 3rd, 4th, 5th. From the time we entered until the 5th floor we must have spent over 2 hours in this one shop! Most guys would not have lasted but we were feeling the power of shopping flowing strong within us. At 7:50p the store announces it's closing. NOOOOooooo!!!!!! We barely covered half the store!!! So we run up the 5th floor and we cruise it real quick. We had spent most of our time on the 1st floor looking at purses and wallets and watches. (We're inexperienced shoppers, OK? We don't know how to allocate our time better. [And we also thought the store closed at 9:00p.]) So I pay for neato new Nine West wallet and we're out of there.
Back to Ethan's area we have dinner at some Chinese dive. It take Sylvia back to his place afterwards and we take a bunch of pictuers on the disposable. I give handshakes and hugs and I'm off to home. 13.5 hours since I left my door this morning, over 130 miles driven. Wow. I'm beat. I'll collapse now and grumble about my stupid digi cam battery tomorrow.
Tuesday, 2002.09.10:
Late for a meeting so I dialed into it via conference calling. They have one of those Polycom SoundStation phones. I had a very hard time making out the words in the meeting and most of it was due to background noise and voice reverberation. I wish they'd redesign these meeting rooms with accoustics in mind.
Lunchtime.
Unpleasant news. I'm wearing a loose jacket and loose t-shirt when my friend (who knows what I'm going through) leans over the lunch table and whispers: "When your jacket pops open like that you're showing. You gotta start wearing a bra. Welcome to my world!" Ughugh. Some people would be overjoyed they have "graduated" to having to use one but I look at this as one of the annoyances of transition. I'd much rather hold off the breast-growing part until later and then all of the sudden go through two weeks of hell where they'd just go from nothing to something. It would make "passing" at work a lot less traumatic.
Later today.
I'm talking to my roommates when when of them says, "hey, stand up straight for a sec!" (I'm hunched over a chair.) He has this really stupid grin on his face and I know what he's thinking. I'm like, "nonononono... Stupid." I guess it must have been the light-colored shirt that I was wearing. And that makes two different people coming to the same conclusion: things are happening. Oh yeah, my 6P jeans are roomy. I never ever thought I'd say that because I used to squeeze into them but right now I actually have room to spare on the waistline. What gives?! Is this supposed to happen so early or am I just going anorexic/overstressed or something?
It's not that I don't appreciate that changes are happening, I just worry that I haven't gotten the rest of my life lined up yet. At this rate the future could be arriving sooner than later. I still find it really funny now that when I say I'm trying to "pass" I mean I'm trying to maintain my life as a male. I don't quite recall when I passed over that magic invisible line but I guess it happened. Scary.
Wednesday, 2002.09.11:
What a long day.
In class all day at some project management communications skills. Very good class. What makes it even better is that we're all professionals in the technology field and so the problems we're facing are similar. There are only a couple meek people in the class and the rest of us have been very vocal.
I think we can definitely say that I am an ENFP instead of INFP. I guess as I've become more sure of myself I have become more outgoing again. I hope I'm not being rude or out of line in the class but I think I'm the one asking the most questions, interacting with the instructor, and driving conversation in our break-out groups. I'm getting quite a bit out of it already.
If you're wondering what made me take this class it's because I've been leaning towards management-type positions over the recent years. I've been a club leader, board member, volunteer, convention promoter, even created organizations. It's funny that I've always considered myself introverted and yet I am a real hands-on people person. I guess that this whole transition thing is helping me to realize that I have larger goals out there and they include being a fighter for the people. I guess I've always been but somewhere along the line it got buried in psychological quagmire.
I wouldn't go so far to say I'm a natural born leader but more I think it's the case that I'm not one to sit on my hands and watch the world go by. I take action when I see that something needs fixing. I hope I've applied this principle to my own life and not just other people's, you know? I guess you could say that I've been given the skills, the reasoning capability, knowledge, and the power to do things like this. It's only logical that I end up in leadership positions.
Tomorrow it's another day of interactive discussions. This is the first time in a long time I've been eager to get up in the morning.
I've been spending way too much time rambling in this chronological format. Will bloggers replace Ramblings? Probably not, but the Ramblings will probably become more sparse and more concentrated on a particular topic. (As if they haven't been?) Ramblings will likely be an all-in-one discussion whereas bloggers will be just a play-by-play log.
Digi cam seems OK. Battery is holding charge so I am assuming that on Monday I had accidentally just flicked the mode selector to "Play" and that kept it on and drained the battery. My battery is rated at about 3 hours but it's much shorter due to the 1 GB IBM Microdrive. I will gladly make that sacrifice. Let's put it this way: at 1600x1200 medium-compressed JPEGs I can get 1,780 shots on the camera before I have to change media. I am such a geek some days!
On the other hand, my cellular phone's been losing signal a lot. I called up the service provider and they think it's very likely due to damaged hardware. Good thing for extended product warranties. I never buy them but in the case of the cellular I made an exception.
On to more serious topics, today was the anniversary of a day I'd rather not remember. 9/11. As a friend and I chatted on the phone tonight, America has a less than positive reputation in many parts of the world (arguably so?). However, taking out the towers was not acceptable. In doing so it didn't just affect America but also directly impacted nationals representing 60+ countries. Was it really worth the symbolism of destroying one of America's institutions compared to the catastrophic loss of life and global impact? Were the original objectives achieved? I think not.
I was caught up all day today with the class, assisting writing my roommate's resumé, and trying to get through the hundreds of e-mails that flooded my mailboxes. In a way I felt a little selfish that I just ran around and didn't stop to recognize the moment. But now I have a little time to unwind and write this down.
So, sorry to all of you who have written or who have called. I'm trying to keep up but I'll be hard-pressed to answering it all in the coming week... Thanks for reading.
Thursday, 2002.09.12:
The project communications class has been bringing up a bunch of interesting ways to read between the lines of what people are saying and how to build mutual respect in almost any situation. I dunno why I'm really bringing this up but I'm having a pretty good time with this class---and it's not just because I'm getting out of work for three days.
I think you can apply these skills to everyday life in many aspects.
You might be able to even use this when coming out to people or trying
to explain your viewpoints. It lets you try to build a bridge between
you and the other person than continuing to just let emotions rule
the conversation.And good thing about those warranties. Some accessories for my camera were replaced almost without question. The phone is going to have to be replaced later because the store didn't have my model of phone in.
Actually got a rough "sketch" of a song done. I'll call it the "unplugged version" because it's just me and the piano. Well, the piano is actually an Alesis NanoPiano which is being controlled via MIDI out from my Korg X3 synth. I think the song is going to be remixed into something more dance-able after I figure out how to adapt the melody to my PC's software synth. (The same synth is producing the audio samples on the Radio A.W.Z. page.) I don't think this is too shabby for a cheap studio.
Pink's Missundazstood and Sugar Ray's self-titled album are playing in the background now.
Had ramen for diner. I'm not talking about the little plastic packaged noodles, no I mean the kind of ramen you get from a real Japanese noodle house. Yummers.
Friday, 2002.09.13:
I'm so beat. That three-day class was excellent and very draining at the same time. I'm glad it was only three days long. I was expecting two phone calls tonight, neither of which actually happened. So I'm going to bed. I am tired beyond all belief.
Cellular phone replaced under extended warranty. Yay. They gave me the new phone and new battery, so I need to charge it for 8 hours, fully discharge it once, and then recharge.
Went for Indian and waited forever for a table and then forever for food. We were all ready to just walk out but hunger took our strength of reason away and we stubbornly stayed. They ran out of some entrées too. Ugh. There's a better place in the City, but that's a bit of a drive away. Why can't there be more better North Indian places around here?
Saturday, 2002.09.14:
You know, some days you can already tell it's going to be one helluva day when your morning blows up...
First off, I get a call from a friend finally after trying to reach him for like 4 days. Immediately after we began the conversation I sensed something was very very wrong. He had this undertone of seething anger and venom laced every syllable. He was like: "I don't know why you're thinking I never return your calls but I was in a meeting the first call and a wedding prep class yesterday night." Using my newly-found management communication skills I withheld espousing judgement right then and there and instead asked a bunch of questions, some leading and some open-ended to try to figure out what was the dealio. It turned out that when I first called him he was at a client site and was too tired to return the call that day so he returned the call on Thursday morning. On my work voicemail. While I was in class since Wednesday. Not at work. And not checking voicemail. So Thursday night I had written him a message asking if he got my previous message and asking him to call me, not knowing he already did. And Friday I called his cellular again asking why he wasn't returning my calls and why it was that every time I called him he wasn't picking up the phone. To compound this, I learned that Friday night he was also in a wedding prep class and got chastised over his cellular ringing because he forgot to turn it off. So, naturally this morning he was raging P.O.'ed at me. Fortunately one of us stayed calm and the situation seemed to be diffused within about two minutes. He got to vent, realized that he left a message at work when he should have left it at home, and that he was in error for not turning his cellular to silent. I found out I forgot to set my work voicemail vacation message and forgot to check my work voicemail. Anyways, we got everything resolved and hopefully we're back on good terms.
Then my cellular phone issue. Yesterday I had been trying to reset the security code from the default Nokia code to my own. I swear to you that I did exactly the default code! And it wouldn't let me in to change it. I thusly called AT&T this morning to ask tech support what I'm doing wrong. So I get the rep on the line after 10 minutes of holding and I'm walking her through what I did both verbally and also tapping keys on my phone. I say: "well, I went to this menu and the security settings and changing the code and ... uh ... no way ... no way...?!" She asked me what happened. I just reentered the default code and right then it was letting me change it. I grunted real darned loud ("Aaarrrrggghh!!!") and she started cracking up. "I swear to you that last night I tried it and every other combination I could think of! This isn't fair! The whole world is against me! What a world... what a world..." I was beyond embarrassment and we both had a good bit of morning entertainment. In the end she was consoling me, "well, your day will hopefully get better!" Yah. Me hopes. *sulk*
Then I'm getting out the shower about 1/2 hour later and I throw on one of my favorite baggy sweatshirts. It almost literally falls off my shoulders. What is happening here?! I never remember it being this baggy before. I don't know...
And then (yeah, the hits just keep coming!) I get a call at home from some representitive from the county and she's saying that she's looking for a polling place to be set up in my area and is asking if she can use my garage. (Elections are approaching.) I paused and tried to think of something witty to say but instead just flat out told her that we have no garage. She gives this, "oh, sorry!"
And that's my morning. May I also state that this all has happened just in the last 1.5 hours?! Oh, and I'm late to leave the house and I've got to meet a friend up for lunch about an hour away when I only have like 40 minutes left!!! (Did I mention that my car is also running on empty and I have had virtually no sleep since last night? [Sounds like we're going to have another unmitigated disaster today!]) It's going to be one of those days I tell ya...
5:42p.
Yes, indeed it has been "one of those days", and it's not even over yet! So I get up to the City and I'm late by an hour because of the fiascos this morning---you know, the chain effect. I take this really odd back-end route to get to my friend's place and I wish I had my digi cam along because it was really beautiful. The speed limit was 25 MPH so as the road is winding uphill I got a great view of this park.
But, anyhow I get out on the road which intersects this other road I need to take. I misread one of the signs (which basically says to do a U-turn on the righthand side) and end up passing the last road I could have taken to make my turn. As a result I had to travel 2 or 3 minutes downhill away from the turn because there are no other places to get off this windy mountain road! This only adds to the frustration and delay. I call my friend back and tell her where I am and she snaps at me "OK, just get here, and stop calling me because it's annoying." Oops. Another person P.O.'ed. *mega sigh*
I do finally end up at her place and am waiting outside the building for a couple of minutes wondering why she isn't outside yet. It dawns on me: I realize that I might be at the wrong building. I trek up the backside of the apartment building and she was standing in the middle of the parking lot. Sure enough I had parked at the far end of the complex and it was about a half block from where she was. Argh!
She and I walk all the way back to my car and I'm looking seriously dejected. She consoles me and then I unload all the crap that has happened that morning. She does some unloading too. 15 minutes later both of us are feeling so much the better. Thank goodness she understands what's going on.
The rest of the day went good. Spent time down at the waterfront watching this guy fighting with a dozen kites strung together. It was really cool to watch him be able to control that many kites with such precision. He would make the pack of kites soar high up into the blue, lunge down at the ground without mercy, and just inches from impacting he'd yank on a string and the kites would jump back into the sky. He was also having great fun with the kids (and my friend and I) who were just mesmerized by this display. He had enough control to make these kites fly down and slowly inch their way to us, almost touching our hair, and he'd playfully yank the control cords and the pack would zoom over our heads the long streamers behind the kites would flow right around us like a blanket of steam from a sauna. It was very cool.
We walked here and there, later checking out a homemade paper expo (like bags, notebooks, and paper with flowers and stuff in it). Finally her friend came by and picked her up. I shook his hand and they left. I scurried back to my car and it was back on the road home. Thus, it wasn't a total disaster but hardly what I would call a well-planned day.
I'm beat. I've been running all day pretty much on a can of Pepsi and Ferry Corsten's (System F) Global Trancemissions 02. (De Srta. Amber: A mi me gusta mucho la canción "Razorfish".) Time to take a nap before I try to convert that "unplugged" track into an actual song or something...
Sunday, 2002.09.15:
Apologies to all, again. I'm still beat and I just need to recover sleep so I can think and so I can get my life back together again. As a result, I may take a number of days to respond to e-mail...
I did finally finish up with the music thing I was slapping together but it turned out crappy. It's way too "soft", too muddy. If I had more time I could go back in, gut the thing, and add make all sorts of adjustments. Music is a lot like painting. You put a bunch of things together on an audio canvas and some things turn out better than others. You take step back and realize just how messed up parts are. So you go and add some more stuff or remove extra things. You clarify the "message" you're trying to get across. I guess I'm just out of practice. If you're dying to hear it then head over to the radio page. (Note: This link rotates frequently so if you're reading this entry more than a month from now then the music has probably changed to another project.)
I finished up the song around 6:30a and had to wake at 9:30a. Ugh. I can't keep doing this too myself...
I went to a friend's place for lunch and we barbequed steaks. They were great! Rosemary-infused, soy sauce-marinated, and cooked medium well. I thought it was a lot of meat but it went down nice and easy. Mmm. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about T* issues. I think I almost reached another point where I can find more reasons to remove lingering doubt about transition. I might write a Rambling about that soon just to formalize my thoughts.
Crashed at home when I got back. Listened to the song again. Winced. I'm thinking I'll gut the pianos and replace them with a guitar. The whole thing is too John Tesh-ish.
Did a birthday party with 10 other friends. I love big parties but it's hard to hear the opposite side of the table.
Gaining weight. Not much, but back on the rise. That's good, IMO, since I hit 124.5 lbs recently and that's just too light. I'd love it if the weight went to the right places but that's really just a pipe dream. I have to be patient, and that's always hard.
Had a good voice day. Found my groove where the tones were projecting from the front of the mouth rather than the back. It's less stress, better quality, and sounds "crisper". In some ways I think I've made leaps since I started training 3 years ago, but after pondering that more it's lots of nuances that have changed. The general technique is exactly the same but I didn't have the muscle control I do now. I also feel that I'm finding that "groove" where the voice is really part of my personality.
Non sequitur.
This oral hygene moment is brought to you by Austin Powers*: My fav brand of floss is definitely Oral-B Ultra Floss. I was curious a year or so back and picked up a pack. (You know, just browsing around the store and deciding to try different products.) It took me a while to get used to it but once I did I have to say this product is awesome. Pull it tight and it's as thin as any floss. Relax a little and the fibers turn into a spongy matrix which provides quite a bit of abrasion. This really gets down between the teeth and I have to say I've never had cleaner interdental areas before---that translates into very little scraping at the dentist's office. Especially used at least once a day it virtually stopped all bleeding and other nasty stuff. Amazing.
Monday, 2002.09.16:
I crashed today again. OK. Body is telling me something. I woke up tired and more groggy than usual. Stumbled into the shower, forgot to restock the conditioner so my hair is dryer than usual. Darn. Then on the phone w/ my financial advisor---who has probably pushed me more into debt than not---and solicited for advice on how to get something in my portfolio to move in the positive direction. I've lost so much money through the stock market and most of it was earmarked for transition! I may have to resort to hollowing out certain savings accounts when/if I go full-time next year. I was heavily leveraged in the tech (ouch) and it fell hard. Anyways, I'll be fine but it may take much longer to finance transition than I had hoped. ... So out to work and attended a pointless hour-long meeting. The solution is obvious to me and it's only the first meeting I've attended; my colleagues were right that the organizer of the meeting is virtually spineless and so nothing ever gets solved. This is so typical of so many meetings around here. Yay for Corporate America. On the way to lunch one of my friends was in my group and is walking behind me. He taps me on the shoulder and says those dreaded words: "strap's showing." Damn, damn. I've started using a sport bra since about last week sometime and I guess a little bit of it was showing around my t-shirt. *sigh* I readjusted my shirt and pushed the straps out a little wider but I wonder how many people noticed. One of my colleagues (who is lesbian) flew in to our site (because she's working on the East Coast) and passed me in the hallway. "Nice hair," she says admiring the length. She's probably figured me out ('cuz she's a smartie) and was probably looking for other "signs". Of course, like I know that for sure but I'm pretty sure she's met other gender-variant folks before. After all the facts are she's lesbian and lived in San Francisco for quite a while. Whatever. ... Crashed in my cube around 4:30p from headache and exhaustion. Took a nap, woke up and told my project manager I'm through for the day, and then eventually stumbled my way back to home. Slept until about 8:30p-ish when a friend called up. She's in a tough spot being in a small town and not having a lot of T* and financial resources. Why does everything have to always come down to money? ... Then I'm reheating dinner and one of my roommates pinches me in the back right about where the back of a bra would be. "Dude, you should know I almost never wear a bra at home," I say. He gives a wry grin. He's a hoot, sometimes annoying (heh, I know he's reading this too), but a good guy. This whole transition thing is fascinating for most people, and I wonder how much more fascinating it is to have a good friend going through this quite literally before your eyes!
More randomness just so I can have that cathartic release via writing.
Those cash-advance offers from credit card companies. I hate them. I do not want a preprinted check with my name, address and credit card info on it, especially when these blank checks could be used by virtually anyone who gets mine. I can quickly turn those checks into confetti with my happy large-capacity shredder (link to PDF). Another Costco find. Yay.
Additional happiness by mail. Some clothes I ordered months ago are finally being shipped after some supply backlog was cleared up recently. Thank goodness for Internet ordering because I probably never would have started getting women's clothing without it. I remember I was too scared to go into stores; the Internet was private and convenient. Heh, that's probably also why Fredericks of Hollywood has such a large male following.
Blood testing. My endo is requesting I get tested again for hormones, lipids, and something else. The thing I hate is fasting for 12 hours. There's no way in heck I'm going to fast right now with my health being weakened so. I think I have about two months before I have to do it so I will hopefully recover some energy by then.
And someone put me in nomination for one of the busiest people over on a message board I frequent. I don't know if this is an "honor" I'd really like to receive.
Fixed one of my roommate's old stereo speakers with...toilet paper and Scotch tape. One of the cones is slightly detached but by patching a flexible buffer to one side of the cone it stopped all of the rude noises and distortion. Funny.
Since I got out of work early now I have to go and continue logging and working for a couple more hours...
Tuesday, 2002.09.17:
Finally got some sleep. Thank goodness. Made a dreadful concoction for dinner which would cause most people to gag: macaroni and cheese with SPAM chunks. What could be more unhealthy than that? Well, if you love sodium and you love cheese then I highly recommend this. Disgusting as this may be I still think it's better than fast food.
Wednesday, 2002.09.18:
To balance out the previous day's putrid meal I got a pretty tasty grilled chicken ceasar salad. It was pricey at $9.75, but delish. Worth the money? Eh, probably not. I would have rather paid about $6.50. But that's just my "perceived value". I did get value out of the lunch meeting, tho, where I was with a couple of old colleagues. We talked about the job market, our not-so-happy jobs (or rather mine), and how kids are nothing but disease-carrying agents of infection. (My colleague now affectionately refers to his kids as "germ factories." How cuuuute!
)Dinner was sushi. I'm actually trying the uncooked sushi and it's hard to get used to. I think I really prefer the cooked stuff. The raw fish just doesn't taste like anything. Bland flavors and expensive too. This place has really good unagi.
It must either be me or something but the Sisters * are hurting again. This is only the second or third time. Ah, stupid growing pains. The other day I did roll over onto my side and I could have sworn that they were more in the way than they usually have been. It's possible they're spurting again. Oddly enough the hard cores haven't been so hard lately. They went from being like a couple of balls of dense dough to being more pliable. I'm also getting used to the bouncing thing. It's weird.
Got some more sleep too last night and laundry done. Life needs attention to simple things to keep it going. I'm trying to get into bed early(er) due to early morning meetings.
Thursday, 2002.09.19:
Early early morning:
On the phone for 1 hour 45 minutes and the call ended around 12:30a or something like that. We talked about lots of transition stuff and it reminded me of how I got to this stage and why it took so long. I hoped I helped her sort out some things; it helped me to do the same.
Wrote e-mail back to an old friend who I came out to a couple weeks ago. She and I have been talking about bras and support issues. I would have never guessed when I met her 12 years ago that I'd be talking about bras with her and not in a sexual sense. It is all too weird some days. Even she said something to that effect!
I spent the rest of the time getting something to eat and writing up a description of my morning schedule. Given that it's 2:05a right now, after I upload this, check e-mail one more time, and get a shower, it'll be 3:30a or later when I get to bed. And I have to be out of the house by 8:30a so I can get to work early for a meeting. That means I have to be up by 8:00a. I'll only be getting 4 hours of sleep!!! Geez. All the time I thought I had just went out the window. This seems to be a recurring theme these days, though.
Later in the day:
Got a chance to wash my car. Thank goodness. It hasn't been washed in weeks because I've been running around everywhere. I don't demand perfection but I hate it when I grab the handle of my car and my palm goes black with dirt and dust. That's just not kosher.
I also finally got around to doing the dishes at home too. They've been sitting out for days, accumulating because no one else washed them. (What? They don't wash themselves?) Bills can be automatically paid. Too bad dishes aren't that way.
So my life is coming back into order. I'm catching up with old e-mail, bills, laundry, note taking, doctors, car, and most importantly sleep. Ah, balance. A calm before the next storm.
Friday, 2002.09.20:
In the parking lot I noticed this car with one of those "equality" bumper stickers and next to it a rainbow heart. Curious, I looked around the car for other signs. Affixed on the dash was one of those bobbling hula girls ... and right next to it an identical hula girl. Cute.
What's up with these jeans? Sheesh. It must be my imagination or something but it's getting harder to put things in and pull them out of my boy jeans. This isn't the only pair that's having this problem. It's like things in the pockets are getting stuck. With the girl jeans I never cared as much because 1) they had no storage to begin with and 2) I have the purse/bag to hold stuff. But the boy jeans is a problem because I rely on the pockets to hold everything. If the problem persists I guess I'll be wearing jackets with deep pockets.
Saturday, 2002.09.21:
The Dyna-Flex is a really cool ergo toy. It's a gyro that you power by flicking your wrist in a circular motion. Supposedly you can get these things up to about 9,000 RPMs. No kidding! It took me a few tries to get the hang of it but I can get it going pretty easy now.
Friends also came over later on. Played a great couple of party games: Super Monkey Ball 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Sunday, 2002.09.22:
Finally returned to a message board that I frequent. I haven't read this seriously in about a month. I ended up putting up some 30+ posts in the early morning hours.
Today's agenda: clean house, clean room, log notes, sleep. It's going to be a lazy day. Chillus maximus. I can't remember the last time that I had a day like this...
My eyesight is getting worse. Too much time in front of the computer probably. I was noticing star-like patterns from oncoming headlights a few days ago and the text on this screen is looking a little blurry. Stupid astigmatism.
Later on, feeling very weak at dinner. It's like I was about to faint again. A couple very minor headaches earlier in the day. What is up with this? I did feel much better after getting some food in me. And I was feeling semi-faint about an hour after drinking coffee with condensed milk in it. I'm wondering now if I'm affected more by sugar and that when it wears off I just shut down.
Also talked to a friend for a couple of hours. Afterwards called the friend back to work on her voice but she declined. You see, she pulled off this amazing thing earlier in the day where she had done something very cool with her voice that I'd never heard before. I didn't even know it was her because I was thinking, "no way this could be her. Who other girl could it be?" (She has a high-pitched guy's voice and has only once shown me her girl voice.) She's been dreading working on her voice for a very long time and right on the phone she pulled off an amazing transformation. The trouble here is that she was doing it as a joke. So when I called back later and asked her to repeat it she couldn't remember what she did! All I can say was that it had a very strong nasal quality to it but there was something else there that just made me think that her voice was better than better. The trouble is that she won't admit it was something good because she still thinks it was a comical attempt at a voice.
I've got such a ways to go on mine. I'm getting to a point now where I almost like it. But as this other friend pointed out, I hit the a sort of ceiling as the pitch of my voice rises. I'm actually using the upper range already so there isn't much room to go upward. I would prefer using a lower-pitched voice so I had that wiggle room. I don't know...
Monday, 2002.09.23:
Saw The Sweetest Thing couple days ago. Cute movie. Sort of falls in the "chick flick" category but definitely has elements of There's Something About Mary.
Tuesday, 2002.09.24:
Crashing. Hard.
Despite having gotten a good bit of sleep (7+ hours) last night I think my body is finally having serious problems. Don't be alarmed but the laundry list of things that has been happening now in the past few weeks include: extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, blurry vision, weight loss, dehydration, slight hair loss, mental fogginess. You must be thinking to yourself "holy crap!" The short list of things I can think of that might be responsible for this include: intense workplace stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, too much tea/coffee/soda, not enough water, and lack of sleep. It doesn't help that I was trying to cut out red meats and eggs from my diet---B12 and/or iron deficiency--- and my hormone balance has been flipped upside down. My thinking is that the result is: fatigue, anemia (anaemia). On the worst-case scenario I can think of diabetes and cancer. For the meanwhile, I'm just going to try to get my diet and exercise routines back on track. I've cancelled a lot of my engagements and plan on sleeping and changing my diet.
I've dug my own hole and I gotta do something. I used to be able to do this but I guess my health is becoming more fragile. I'm a tough person so I'll hopefully pull through OK but I hate having to change my chaotic lifestyle. It makes life interesting.
Onto other more amusing topics, I bring up this topic because there are a growing number of readers without regular experience using urinals and because I always found this amusing. So:
Q. How many men does it take to occupy five urinals?A. Two. That is because it is the unwritten protocol that there must be at least a 1 urinal distance between you and the next person, unless there is no other option. Thusly, you get these permutations:
Case1: _ | P | _ | P | _
Case2: _ | P | _ | _ | P
Case3: P | _ | _ | P | _
Key: _ = open; P = person occupying.
Any of these puts a third person in a "disqualifying position" where
they must now violate the 1-urinal-spacing code. Then politics plays
out because you might evaluate which of the two people you know better
and use the one closer to that person. Makes you wonder what it would
be like if women only had parititions instead of stalls...Got my annual eye exam and ordered a new pair of distance glasses. What I wanted was the kind of glasses my friends have that have the magnetic sunglass clip-on. The problem here is that my optician only carries two lines of glasses that do this: Takumi (not the best picture, I know) and some other brand I can't remember. The Takumis are by far the best of the two and I have to say I like the weight and the style. Now the part I don't like is the price. Get ready for this: the frames alone are $428. With my VSP coverage that drops them to about $288, but even still that's a frickin' boatload of money---if you'll excuse the français. Which means when all is said and done with the anti-reflective coating and lenses I'm shelling out about $365. Belive that?
That's probably why many friends I know get their glasses when they go back to Asia. It is much cheaper there. They're of course getting different brands but to get magnetic clip-on eyewear is much cheaper and apparently more common. I suppose I could also have gone elsewhere than buy from my optician but I'm too lazy. I'll consider it next time.
In my convoluted logic, what makes the cost of the glasses OK is harkening back to my Ray-Bans. I got them (as a gift actually) about 4 or 5 years ago and they cost about $188 I think, HighStreet I think. I thought that was an exorbitant amount for non-prescription sunglasses, but they have certainly held up to all the abuse that I've given them. If you look at the rims you can see the battle scars etched deep into their hides after countless drops to tile floors and sidewalks.
So, I part with my $365.
The bright spot of the eye exam was that my vision hasn't changed all that much. I swear it has been getting worse and that's likely due to eye strain and my terrible recent health aforementioned. But, no, the doctor said I just need fine tuning in my prescription. Must get sleep now.
Wednesday, 2002.09.25:
I think I need a multi-vitamin pill. Vitameatavegemin anyone?
Drank gallons of water between yesterday and now. In addition to getting my diet back on track I'm going to try to start drinking more water. I have a feeling a compounding factor of yesterday's horrific symptoms was dehydration. I've never had a problem with spironolactone (which is a water pill, diuretic) before. In hind sight, though, it has been really warm down here and I've been drinking almost exclusively tea, coffee, and soda. After reading a few web pages which claim that tea prevents some absorption of water and nutrients from food, I think I'll be indulging in tea a little less. Almost passing out twice yesterday was freaky. Well, I see my general physician this week so I'll put the question to him.
Speaking of which, this is getting interesting. I see him about once every 3 to 6 months to check up on my blood pressure and such. The last time he saw me was pre-estrogen. This time is after I've been 3-months on estrogen. Hehe. I wonder if he'll notice.
Later that day...
In my quest for regaining balance in my life I spoke to some folks at work and we may be able to put together a nice arrangement. I may be able to cut down from a 5-day work week to 4 days. Yup. I have plenty of PTO to burn off and what better way than to get a 4-day work week? Hopefully I'll use that extra day to do all the extra errands I want to do. Or, even better, get together some of my other jobless friends and go hiking or something.
Here's a depressing time management calculation:
So that leaves me about 4 hours to do personal stuff per day. But we didn't include dinner. Assuming dinner takes about an hour, now we're down to 3 hours of usable time per day. That's hardly anything! It's a good thing I don't watch TV. I'm looking at the above and the only things I can really cut corners on are sleeping and morning prep.
Sleep 8:00 Shower/Morning Prep 1:00 Exercise 0:45 Travel to/from work 0:45 Work and lunch 9:30 Total 20:00
Thursday, 2002.09.26:
Found a very cool-looking picture of the Milky Way. Granted, it is computer-assisted but it's nonetheless very cool. Also found some equally cool-looking movies.
Friday, 2002.09.27:
Saw my general physician and he went back over the symptoms of this past Tuesday. He says that it may be due to dehydration or anemia, and that being overworked isn't helping. He was asking if I'd been drinking enough liquids or getting enough iron. In the end he got a blood sample and he's sending it off to be analyzed for electrolytes and hemoglobin.
I guess I'm just too tired in general. I don't have the resiliency of youth that I once had. As my manager said earlier this week:
You're getting old.
NooooOO!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, 2002.09.28:
Finally saw Sprited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) in the theaters. I love Miyazaki Hayao movies. Next to this there are two other ones that remain favories: Whisper of the Heart (Mimi o Sumaseba) and My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro).
Went back to my parent's place and was looking through stacks of old photos. They sure brought back a lot of memories---some memories I'd prefer not to revisit, but I guess everyone has those. As I was flipping through the piles one thought stood out in my mind: "I can't believe what I put those poor kids through." I mean, looking back now I was weak, naïve, and off in my own world. I couldn't relate to other people. I now look back and find it amazing that I even had a girlfriend at that time. And the poor people I pestered along the way. Ugh.
Most things look obvious in hindsight and I can see why I did what I did back then. I wish at that time I knew what I know now. I probably would have had a much better experience and we all would have had a lot more fun.
Sunday, 2002.09.29:
I know my diet is lacking; I have a lifestyle which moves like a bullet train. That's partially why I probably have ended up in this fix. The only way out of this I figure are to change my lifestyle. But what do you change? Diet is one of the easiest things I think I can do right now. All it would require is being more choosy in my meal selections and maybe take a multivitamin. It's hard to know if you're getting the right allocations of vitamins and minerals when every meal is from a different region of the world: India, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, America, Great Britain, Middle East, Mongolia, Cuba, Italy, etc. It's wonderful living in a diverse area but it also means it's difficult to tune what I'm getting. It also didn't help that I have been taking a lot of tea, coffee, and soda with meals---I recently read it can reduce the absorption of vitamins and minerals by up to %45!
So the search for a decent multivitamin-mineral supplement begins. I found a few seemingly-trustworthy book reviews and suggestions on where to get some decent vitamin packs. Yesterday my Mom showed me her mega jar of Costco vitamins with lutine. I opened up the jar to see these huge pills. Now I remember why I stopped taking the scary-sized pills. (Hey, sometimes size does matter!) The only thing I know I need to watch for is too much potassium due to the spironolactone's potassium-sparing effect.
...
And I just read on a mailing list where some newcomer posted something to the effect: "I wanna marry some horny TS. Where can I get some?" WTF?! Why does it seem like so many people think TSs are all sexual perverts? That is so not true. Not everyone is an exotic sexual toy. There are so many of us that are just trying to get by with normal life. Assimilation is the goal, not wild bedroom entertainment.
Monday, 2002.09.30:
Called up one of my doctors this morning to ask if it's OK to take multivitamins while on my current regimen. When I called in I immediately gave my guy name even though I was in Girl Voice mode. I caught this and corrected myself to my girl name. I have a tendancy to get the two names mixed up. Actually I have the same thing with signatures. I get relaxed, forget which mode I'm in at the time, and then I get either my name or signature mixed up. I really hope that when/if I get to full-time status that this mess clears itself up. Trying to remember two sets of identification is just too much for me, especially early in the morning before my brain has woken up.
Oh, and the multivitamin: my doc recommended one tablet a day. She said it's a good thing to supplement your diet with them. I was worried about potassium build-up, but I don't think that will be a problem. I did pick up a multivitamin pack this weekend and it lists 95mg of potassium. I first thought this was a lot until I read my bottled orange juice: an 8 oz. serving of OJ contains 500mg of potassium. 500mg!!! So, if I cut out the OJ (which is no big deal) then I'll even significantly reduce my potassium intake anyhow.
Time to cry.
So I tried taking the vitamins and these things are frickin' huge. I swear to you I had yet another very unpleasant experience which reminded me why I hate taking pills. I literally gagged on a couple of the pills. Here I was in my room trying not to barf all over my carpet as I clutched the edge of my desk mentally trying to overcome the muscle reflexes. Somehow I stopped the sensation, managed to get a mouthful of water, and staggered to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet lid for the next couple of minutes waiting, just trying to calm my nerves. I only got down 4 of the 7 pills. This is ridiculous. I can't do this. I've always had strong reflexes and have serious problems handling anything over the size of an M&M. I don't know what to do about this. I suppose I can chew the pills but that's going to taste nasty as all heck. I could go out and find chewables or powders. Or I could try for pills a tad smaller. I don't know. I just know I can't cause myself to gag otherwise the pills and whatever else I'd eaten will go to waste. And I had a really good salmon teriyaki dinner too. I think I'm going to go off and cry out of frustration.
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Entries may show the mood for the day. From best to worst moods here's the list:
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Ecstatic -
Happy -
Good -
OK -
Blech -
Sad -
Abysmal
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