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Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
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Thursday, 2004.04.01:
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Happy April Fool's Day. hehehee...
Friday, 2004.04.02:
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Hehehe... Happy post-April Fool's day. Lots of jokes went around like at work someone sent out this e-mail about some server-side change that would end up affecting all of our applications---I almost fell for that one. Other people decided to make a bigger show of things like the North Carolina Marshmallow Trees. And, of course, yours truly had to do something. Last year we reprogrammed my roommate's phone. This year the focus was on the virtual community...
Amberspace is sort of a growing brand name for this site and in fact if you Google for Amberspace it is now the #1 hit supplanting even the domain, amberspace.com. The credit really goes to Kara for her suggestion: Amberspaced. It was too good to pass up. So with the help of her, Reise, Sianna, and even Claire we launched a mini publicity attack on our web sites and an active message board.
Want to see what you missed? Click to
see!...
On the down side of today, I'm really sort of hurt and depressed because a good friendship seemed to go sour and then went south from there. I wish I could patch things up but my hopes aren't high.
I finally got a chance to talk to a friend about a seething issue that had occurred months ago. We had been growing distant since last May, maybe, when a bunch of things happened. But I'm not going into that now. Anyways, due to a series of misunderstandings, misread emotions, miscommunication, and plain bad timing, things came to a head last November.
It's really too bad we didn't talk about it then or afterwards, but I guess with everything going on in both our lives it has been difficult. So, hopefully we'll get the chance to talk things out this weekend. Even if it resolves nothing, I her to understand that I always meant the best though my ways aren't the most forgiving...
Wish me luck.
Sunday, 2004.04.04:
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My tummy hurts. I know I brought it on myself, but still. It hurts.
I was out last night eating "cheap Chinese food" and the food had no kick in it. So I opened up the jar of hot chili pepper and oil and heaped a few gobs of the stuff onto my meal. It was mildly tingly at that point. Well, it wouldn't catch up to me until later.
Around 4:00a this morning I was aching pretty bad. I don't know if it was in fact the chili oil or the fact I did overeat a bit---crab and mahi mahi sandwiches for lunch, sweet potato fries, side salad, Starbucks' chai frappucino, and spicy Chinese. Whatever it was didn't agree with me. Let's just say I was feeling much better about 9:00a this morning. And after weighing myself I found I was about 4 lbs. lighter. Ew.
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I called up my parents on a whim just to see what we're going to do about Easter next weekend. Traditionally all the holidays are family days so it would be bad if I was to not show up this year. Of course things are more complicated this year. Last year this time I was already living in my new place, leaving the house in Girl Mode but showing up at my parents' in Boy Mode. No more. They've always said if I come over I'd "come over as we remember you"---I've stopped yielding to that. I went in Girl Mode to Thanksgiving and Christmas, now Easter.
I got Mom on the phone today when I phoned them and we actually had a long talk about stuff in general. I think she just needed to vent as well, so I tried to be a passive listener. Then somehow we got onto what's new and happening with me. I told her I just got some new awards and things. My Mom made the mental leap:
Mom: So, they're in your ... name?Wow. That was the first time I had heard my Mom actually say my name. She's been so reluctant all the time but there it was. I know it sounds like a small thing but it is actually a really big thing because it was the first time. We'll see where this goes.
Me: Yes.
... Amber?
Yeah.
To recap, my parents have never been openly hostile about my transition but they have been openly disdaining even to the point of writing me nasty letters.
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Yesterday I was at the Cocoon House making poems on the kitchen refrigerator with the magnetic words. I didn't get to finish this one. I did think it interesting the one I wrote the last time I was there still was on the fridge.
That place is a real special place. Those who have endured FFS with Dr. O. have a unique bond there. Pain, blood, and rebirth. In some way I'm in awe with those that get The Works done because it is so radical. You see them before they go in and most have this sort of concerned look on their face. Then when they come back after their short stay in the hospital they've got the bandages making an X over their noses, a swatch of white covering their chins, and this dreary look brought about by their physical ordeal and the pain killers. They mumble because their noses are all plugged and taped up and it seems like they're in slow motion.
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I've been kinda down since Friday because it turns out I pissed off a friend (if I can even call her that now) last year and she's been carrying something around all these months. I don't know how it can be patched up but I would think it a waste to let an argument ruin everything. It's a long long story and I'm working through it.
It's also nice to have other friends to call up on a whim and vent at. I do feel better having had that opportunity.
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Ran out of hangers in my closet! Eep! Yes, that's right. I have no more plastic and wood hangers so I have to use wire hangers. Oh the horror!!!
I guess my collection has been expanding to that point again. So I went through and purged a few more items from it. I've gotten rid of almost all of my old guy items (I still keep big fluffy sweatshirts and hoodies 'cuz I'm a Hoodie Girl) and now I'm actually starting to eliminate a lot of my old girl clothes. Yeah! I'm throwing out the stuff that I bought 6 years ago when I was first experimenting. Boy, that brings back a lot of memories---lots of scary new experiences. It's really interesting that I look back at this all now and I have a hard time remembering how my life used to be.
Monday, 2004.04.05:
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One of the biggest detriments to my productivity has been these instant messaging systems. They are so intrusive it's hard (at least for me) to keep a steady stream of thought. But, they carry a lot of benefit because it's really helped strengthen my relationships with people. There's something about that real-time interaction that you just can't get with letters...
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I feel sort of bad for some people I respond to over e-mail and later meet in person. Not that I get a humongous amount of e-mail via this web site, but I do get enough where it's really hard to remember who is who. I was talking to one such person over the weekend that I had corresponded with in the beginning of her gender journey---she said I was one of the first TG people she had contacted. Honestly, I can't remember our early conversations and I have no e-mail log of them. *sigh*
Tuesday, 2004.04.06:
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Well, tonight was certainly interesting. "Third door on your left"---or so I was told. I tentatively crept past the doorway which unfolded into a pretty typical small windowless office space. I could see the backs of people's hair and some chairs sitting in rows. A woman looked up from the far side of the room and greeted me, "are you a consultant?" No, I'm just a guest. I looked to the right and there was my friend dressed in red waiting for me.
"Glad you could make it!" my friend beamed as she stood up to greet me. She was dressed nicer than usual---in a skirt no less! (This girl never wears skirts. Ever.) She had this excited look in her face and a little shiny consultant pin attached to her lapel. I could tell this was going to be an interesting evening already because I was supposedly going to be one of the lucky ones getting a pedicure.
So I find a seat among all these other women as the meeting begins. The regional sales director gets up and welcomes us all. Then they went over everyone's sales successes for the past week. A few people are real rising stars and they will probably end up getting some really nice bonuses this month. And there was my friend and I listening to all of it. Finally we get to the good part. Or so I thought.
Since no one in the room had a cosmetology license they weren't allowed to touch anyone else. In other words, they could dispense the product(s) but they couldn't physically work on us guests. Oh well. So much for being papered. No, this was auto-pamering. They still gave us a whole bunch of products to use.
It was all sort of a blur with us having our feet in warm tubs of water with a menthol soak, buffing cream, shaving, mud wrap, Saran wrap, and lotion. And at the end of course they were giving away prizes and trying to recruit more consultants. Great. You have to love multilevel marketing organizations. Why was I here? Oh yeah, free foot/leg stuff and also to support my friend.
What struck me as odd as a picture on the wall. No, actually, three different pictures of their founder. I looked at these images and the most un-politically correct thing came to mind: gee, she sort of looks drag-queenish. No, really. Like purposefully way overdone. And this person is supposed to inspire others?
I had to sort of chuckle at the irony of it all. Here I am, a TS who advocates appropriate use of makeup and other cosmetic stuff, listening to a pack of GGs hawking tons of product, some wearing too much makeup themselves, all led by a founder who appeared to we more face paint than most stage actors. Heh. What a world...
Wednesday, 2004.04.07:
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I'm still wondering if people are going to try to rope me into last night's beauty clique.
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I happened to be cruising around the usual Shoutcast lists looking for electronic music and there it was: Nectarine Radio. I didn't know Scenemusic.org was broadcasting demoscene music---play via Shoutcast. Ah, the memories of Mod4Win, ScreamTracker, IT, FT2 ... Skaven, Necros, Beek, etc. I looked up Virt and was very impressed with the orchestral renditions. You have to hear Skyview City and Battle. But if you want a good laugh listen to this.
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Ugh. I hate the fact Java is pass-by-value. I needed pass-by-reference on two objects I needed to swap. So I ended up having to marshal the objects into another object. Grr.
On the upside, my new XML over SOAP server/client is working quite well. An XML document contains updating instructions and a payload of parameters and it's neatly tucked in a SOAP message. I demoed it for my team yesterday and they were like: "wow, you mean we can actually update our databases using a stateless message-based system? Cool!" Well, they didn't use those exact words, of course, but they were nonetheless impressed. Then again, I'm chiding myself for not having embraced the technology back in, what, 1998? I had gone to a conference that year when it was becoming bigger news. Hehehe...
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After putting in an RSS extractor into my web site compiler I realized one fatal flaw: it only records the last blog into XML. So, what happens if I don't daily publicly post my site as I make new entries? Or what if you don't turn on your feed reader every day? Yup. I'm going to work up something so maybe it converts the most recent 10 entries into the blogdaily.xml file.
Thursday, 2004.04.08:
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Amber's Quest for SugarDon't ask why I wrote that. I'm just thinking of food. Maybe it was because my roomie brought in a brownie pie with heavy cream on Monday. Maybe it's because I bought some eggs two days ago and I'm thinking about baking tonight. Hm.
Amber was stuffed to the gills
But room for dessert she insisted still
And there lay the solemn pie
No one ate it, who knew why
To the stares of all there
She considered it a healthy dare
She unhooked her jaw
and into her maw
crust and meringue
went in all but the tin
Aglow with happiness consumed
And a healthy belch warmed the room.
Friday, 2004.04.09:
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Yay. My RSS feed script is now updated to throw in the last 10 most recent entries. Hopefully if you're using some sort of feed reader that it will load up the entries in a way so that all the new entries get displayed first. I don't know if I implemented the spec right but the validator says this feed looks fine. Looks like RSS is really catching on...
First, people wanted to surf the net---the Internet. Then, people wanted to put up their web pages with hobbies and photos of their kids---web hosting/online albums. Now, people just want to rant online and have everyone else chuckle at their frustrations---blogging/RSS. I'm just waiting for a lot of people to really start putting together feedrings where one blog entry links to the next. Oh, and feedfinders with dedicated RSS search engines. And feedrags where editors aggregate the top 10 weekly blogs. Oh, our society is doomed to waste so much time online. Wait, I'm writing this blog wasting time too!
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Quote of the Week:
If William Shatner ever pulls you into the bathroom and asks if you want to see the captain's log, just say no. I fell for that nine times!
--- Patrick Stewart on Conan O'Brien
Sunday, 2004.04.11:
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Happy Easter.
I spent today over at my parents house. They still call me Andrew, which is just really really weird. I mean, no one that I can think of (besides my parents) refers to me as that. Nor does anyone else use male pronouns. *grumble* Oh the up-side, it was nice to be with my parents and have a civil dinner. Mom and I baked oatmeal and choco-chip cookies. Mmm. Dad and I helped with the casserole. Mmm. And I found some different sparking cider to go along with the meal. I'm thankful despite how tenuous our relationship is right now we at least can talk.
I think my boobies are shrinking. I swear. I don't know. I obsess about them only because I've been on HRT since June of 2002 and while there are plenty of changes that have gone on they have been so subtle it's hard for me to say "yeah, this stuff works." I will figure that I have 5 or so more years before all the cells in my body cycle through; who knows what the next couple years will bring?
I was up in the City yesterday with Mina and her husband. The cold was so biting it was hard to enjoy the outdoors. But we were in shopping and entertainment centers all day. Somehow we ended up at the Metreon watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's a good movie! Go see!
I can't believe I didn't notice this until yesterday: Ghirardelli has a second "R" in it. Aiyaaaa! I've been spelling it Ghiradelli all these years. Nononono, it's GhiraRdelli! How embarrassing...
Monday, 2004.04.12:
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The Mop Syndrome.
Reise and I were talking about our old days and one thing she pointed out is the haircuts we all had. A good number of us had that sort of mop-top hair where the top layers are long but get truncated around the ear length. The under layers are also truncated about the same length so the entire thing is both long and short at the same time. We figure it's about the longest that guy can grow his hair without seeming like a punk or looking non-masculine. She remarked:
You know, we should start tagging guys that have that haircut...and tracking them to see if they end up T.Indeed.
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Your humor link for today: (Martha) You Rock. Courtesy of Dave Ross.
Tuesday, 2004.04.13:
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I was digging through my files on my desktop and came across this old file which I haven't seen since about '98:
Untitled Sample. (1:16)This is/was the intro music to a game I was programming for the Playstation. It sounds a bit raw but what don't actually see are the limitations. I was using a legal-yet-crippled amateur dev kit so there were a lot of things we couldn't do. And the way the old PS1 worked was that you had to load all the sound samples into the shared memory and then you could use a MIDI script to play back the song automatically.
Listen: MP3 (1.3 MB)
I was not amused by this considering I was brought up in the world of MODs (e.g. MODPlug, ScreamTracker, ImpulseTracker, FT2) and we had a lot more control over things as well as pure digital samples. Plus, my main editor was ST3 at the time; I wasn't about to try to compose things in MIDI. So I took matters into my own hands and wrote a tracker converter for the Playstation.
That gave you much finer control over the entire songwriting experience, but you only had access to effects like volume, pitch, stereo pan, and tempo. You could loop noisy 8-bit samples (ooo ... 8-bit), but the looping caused clicks when the sample repeated. Also it required polling on the only reliable thing I had at the time: refresh rates. It's funny because a song on a PAL system (50 fps) would run slightly slower than on an NTSC system (60 fps). There was a formula built in to try to compensate for it but it sucked.
The playback system actually was used in a game demo a few of us developers put together. And I saw one other team make use of it. But that was about it. It vanished into history after that. Too bad, because I thought it produced one of the richest audio experiences that was available at that time.
Thursday, 2004.04.15:
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I was all ready this morning to go and check out my electronic tax filing status so I turned on my desktop at home. I walk away and go to brush my teeth when I hear a beep. Beep? I spin around and look out of my bathroom over to my computer screen and I see a dialog box on the screen. Something about it not being able to write to C:\$M???. I click it. Then another one pops up. And another one. About that time I let loose a barage of F words.
So, my home HDD is probably dead. I just hope I can load up my 2nd HDD with Windows and copy the old data off of it. And my dead drive is less than 2 years old! UGH. I'll have to look for the warranty...
On the upside, I did get my taxes done. So yesterday eve I was actually quite bored. So I called up Kara to bug her 'cuz she was going shopping. Yay. At least when I returned home later that night my computer was working absutively fine. I guess it's a good thing this site is actually being compiled on my laptop instead...
Friday, 2004.04.16:
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Brr. It is really cold. I've been walking with my roomie in the mornings and I swear it isn't getting any warmer in the morning. Maybe just a shade lighter, but certainly not warmer.
Grr. My main computer still is down. You know what's funny? I was just rearranging that computer so I could back it up easier and now it's down. When I think back, I did think it was odd that a few days ago my Windows startup sound disappeared. That should have been the first clue. I don't know.
Yuck. So I have these bleaching trays in my mouth now. I finally got them this week so I can hopefully change the color of my teeth from schoolbus yellow to something closer to bone. I've been thinking about it for years but it's about time I take action.
Eep! I was so tired yesterday that when I got home I almost literally rolled into bed. I woke up this morning and one question entered my consciousness: did I take my contacts out? Argh, no! The worst part about it is that I had to put them on early yesterday---meaning my 12 hour contacts went 22 hours. That can't be good.
Yay!! Taxes are done, so that's one major thing off my mind. Too bad I can't check my filing status easily because the files are on my dead hard drive. Good thing that the tax software makes you print a hardcopy.
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For your Friday fun, do you remember the Hampster Dance? Well, now there's YetiSports.org. They even have a song with a karaoke version.
Sunday, 2004.04.18:
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Yay! I'm proud of myself.
I made my first baked marinated chicken breast. And it was yummy.
A side of green beans and rice completed the dish.Until now my repetoire (if you can even call it that) of foods I prepare was limited to pasta, soups, Hamburger Helper, salads, and various baked items. But I was sorta abandoned today for dinner so I paced around the kitchen wondering what I should do. Then it dawned on me: I'd like some chicken. And, I can probably make it at home! A comment about using Italian dressing as a marinade came forth from the depths of my memory. So, I ran out to the store and picked up a pack of chicken breasts and some Italian marinade---purported to have a little more citrus and garlic in it.
Marinate for an hour in a Ziploc bag ... preheat to 375 ... bake for 35 minutes ... check for white liquid instead of pink when poked with a fork. Halfway through the cooking I stepped out to clean my room but was lulled back into the kitchen by the smell of something good. I was thinking: that can't be the chicken... No, it was. I started a frying pan and sauted some green beans in a bit of butter with a dash of salt, fresh rice had just finished in the rice cooker, and the chicken now sat out on an empty burner cooling down. I assembled the rice, beans, and the chicken breast on a plate and dug in. Mmm! The chicken came out thoroughly cooked yet very moist and tender. Yay! Successful dinner #1!
Tomorrow night: the rest of the chicken breasts (which will have been marinated overnight by then) and pasta with asparagus spears...
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While we're on the topic of food, I've recently reconnected with a friend who wants to go out and try various 3- and 4-star restaurants in the area. This is kinda cool because I get to try new things and so does he. Last week we had some kind of mixed seafood dish, and a steak with a cabernet. This past Friday he chose another mixed seafood dish, I got the white bean cassoulet with côtes du rhône. I thought the cab was better.
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I'm starting to assemble my SRS packing list. I talked to Jen the other day about it and she gave me a bit of advice other people had given her. One of the things I didn't think of was a portable cane...
Monday, 2004.04.19:
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Hi. Part II of the chicken stuff. hehehe... So, tonight I'm planning to use up the other part of the chicken in another grand experiment. Unfortunately, two people will be my victi---errr, volunteers. If all works out it should be pretty interesting. Chicken over angel hair pasta with a garlic-butter-mushroom sauce topped with capers, oh and a side of broccoli. I'm nervous. It could totally bomb. Thank goodness Quiznos is open late.
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Thinking about all this food and while talking to Reise about hamburgers, I remembered this one time that my Mom made burgers...
It wasn't too many years ago when my Dad really loved using his Weber to grill up hamburger, steak, and kabobs. He got the motivation to have one of our traditional summer hamburger parties and so we dusted off the grill and Mom made up the patties. But that's the source of the problem.
Mom makes good patties. She loves sauteed onions and garlic mingled with the hamburger meat. She rolls them into balls and then pats them into mouth-watering patties. So what happens when she finds that hamburger meat is selling 2-for-1 at Safeway? Well of course she doubles the recipe. But not the way you'd expect.
She had only been planning to make 8 or so patties because usually that's what one package makes. Well, she didn't want to freeze the second package so she gets the "bright idea" to make each patty twice as thick! (I'm still shaking my head at this.)
Imagine, if you will, a pair of seasame seed burger buns, lettuce, tomato, relish. Onions. And maybe a dab of mustard and ketchup. That's already pretty thick, right? Now add to that a 1.25" patty. That probably weighs about, oh, 3 lbs.?!
This is the kind of burger that makes you very glad you do have some veggie roughage in that burger because, believe you me, that solid slab of meat is going to wreak havoc on your digestive system. In other words, it's pleasure and pain all grilled together into one---diverticulitis anyone?
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Oh, I bet you're just dying to hear how the cooking experiment went. It could have been better, but it wasn't too bad, really. The mushrooms and capers rocked. The chicken would have been fine had I not forgotten about it and left it in the oven for 10 minutes too long. The broccoli was a bit too cold. And the overall it was too salty. But that is being pretty critical. Overall it wasn't half bad and if I were to make it again I know what I would fix.
Someone posted an egg drop soup recipe on a message board. Hm. Maybe I'll try that next.
Wednesday, 2004.04.21:
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In-N-Out burgers: mmm. Protein Animal Style Double-Double In-N-Out burgers: messy but mmm! Any sort of warm food after 5 hours of meetings: priceless.
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You what I think is funny? Someone sent me some photos to my web e-mail account and it filled my mailbox. So what does Hotmail decide to do in order to warn me my mailbox is almost full? It sends an e-mail message. (Which of course only makes the mailbox even more full.) Which braniac thought of that?!
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So, yesterday I was fighting with my home computer. HDD1 has bad sectors right in the Windows' files, especially where the user profiles are being stored. HDD2 is fine, but when I tried loading the WinXP OS onto it the setup program complained it couldn't figure out what kind of a drive I had. (Huh?! It was WinXP that formatted it in the first place!) So I thought I was mondo screwed at that point, but then I remembered, aha!, that I had my old 8 GB IBM drive around. So that one, HDD3, is now happily loaded witn WinXP and now I'm trying to figure out how to get HDD1 data onto HDD2, fix HDD1's sectors, then reload WinXP onto HDD1. I thought about sending HDD1 back for warranty repair, but the cost to ship it over there is prohibitive and there's waiting for it to finish being serviced. So, I may just buy a new drive. Argh!
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I think I'll call this Hugh's Yanni Moment. But I think this, that, these, and this make up for it. My, he has a big, err, um, gun too. hehehehe...
Friday, 2004.04.23:
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What is up with some of these guys? I swear to you, I must have a sign on my back saying "will date g33ks". Everyone that has shown the slightest bit of interest seems to all fall into that category. I'm not saying I have anything against geeks because, well, I am one myself. But, I'd rather have someone that is complementary to my personality. Maybe another way of saying it is if my mate is a g33k then I hope he's a cool, outgoing geek. You know? Instead here are all these guys that are just ... *sigh*
Saturday, 2004.04.24:
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He put down his fork and looked in my direction.
"Has your name always been Amber?"Time, which had just been zipping along in our little soirée, suddendly came to a halt. It felt like the entire restaurant paused too. I know I felt my pulse suddenly quicken and I was speechless.
Think, Amber. Think! He doesn't know. He shouldn't know!
His gaze was still locked on me. And all other 6 people at my table seemed to perk up at this conversation. Of the people at the table that know of my past I sensed they also froze a little.
What did he mean by that? Shit, he's still looking. The more I pause the worse this gets...
I immediately squelched my surprise at his question and tried relaxing as much as possible. I tried to create a little smile as I said the only lame thing I could think of:
"Yes as far as *I* know. What are you asking...?"I tried mentally putting myself in the frame of mind that what he was really asking was if I had a Chinese name. I forced myself to believe that so that my responses would be as relaxed and truthful as possible. And it would seem that my guess was correct.
"... well, you know. Some people have other names ... well what's your middle name?"I knew I couldn't miss a beat. Doing so would be sending that uncomfortable signal that something isn't quite right. Relax.
Me: Elizabeth.Whew. Disaster averted. Geez!
Him: Elizabeth... Amber Elizabeth Chan. Well, I guess that figures then.
Me: I'm a fourth generation here.
Call me really paranoid, but when someone asks me point blank if I had another name while I'm out with my friends (some who do not know) a wave of fear hits me. I don't know if they're asking because there was some clue that tipped them off or whether it's an honest-to-goodness question born out of curiosity.
The situation last night was that about eight of us went out for dinner. One of the bunch actually works abroad but he makes monthly trips out to our office just to physically keep in touch. I have never met this guy---we'll call him Kev---and he has had a rather interesting life. There was a time in his life where he was a runway model and used to be surrounded by stunning people from all over the world. So, this guy knows beauty. He's also worked at a bar where he's seen plenty of drag queens come by after neighboring clubs closed for the night. I figured that made him more trans-aware. (I pass just fine but there are still plenty of cues if you know what to look for.)
"... so it was crazy. The other bars would close around 2:00a and the clubs nearby closed at 4:00a. I used to see the weirdest things. Like when the clubs closed you'd get the performers, the owners, and some of the patrons. And there would be guys dressed as girls... And then around 4:00a the drug dealers would show up ..."Anyways, so Kev and I spent a lot of time talking trying to get to know each other. (And, no, if you're wondering I'm not interested in him. He's much older and married with three kids.) He's a cool guy and we must have talked for hours on end. On the drive to the restaurant, with the group at dinner, on the drive to the bar, in the bar, after everyone else in the gorup left the bar, on the way back to his house. My voice is so sore from using it all night long. Oh, he bought paid for my drink too. He gets a Cool Guy Point.
Sunday, 2004.04.25:
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OK. I've reminded myself why I don't paint my own nails. I'm a klutz. (Oh, big news flash you're thinking.) So there I was on the couch watching a DVD painting them when I realized the reason why my pinky was sticking to my leg was because it had a partially dried coat of polish on it. Argh. So I retouched that only to notice my other pinky was feeling sticky-weird. (Because in the process of moving the first pinky I had lowered my opposite hand to my leg.) And even now I'm typing and one thumbnail is grazing the other one on the space bar. It's not that I can't do this right, it's just that I'm really impatient and am not more careful.
Oh, so the DVD was Down With Love with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. Aww! Cute movie!
So I did a new experiment tonight. Yes I did more cooking experiments with, yes, another breast of chicken. (You'd almost think I'm tired of chicken and I am.) This time around it was sliced chicken, marinated, and with the leftover sauce I used a new trick: deglazing. Granted I couldn't really didn't need to because there was so much marinade that none of those little black crispy bits formed. Anyways, so there was some leftover alcohol on our counter so I threw that in after the chicken had been removed. When I was done reducing it I had a thick sauce to pour over the chicken. Mmm. Totally yummers.
Spent last night up at Kara's with some of the other gang. It was a fajita party so we all brought a little something to eat and had more than enough. One of the people there is training to be a professional chef and she took the helm of the stove. Later we ended up watching Win a Date with Tad Hamilton---skip that. And Reign of Fire---skip that too.
A couple interesting things about this bunch: 1) we're mostly TG, 2) many of us are the same age. I sometimes think it's weird having peers who are also going through the same transition period and who are more than people with a common medical condition.
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Oh, in totally different news I found out something annoying with Mac OS X. Hit F11. You know it does that Exposee window thing, right? OK, hold down SHIFT+F11 and it does it slower, right? Well, hehehe, hold down SHIFT and repeatedly tap F11 at least 10x. It'll make the windows bounce for like a minute. Here's the best part: it would seem once you do that you can't cancel the bouncing---you have to let the system bounce until it's happy it has bounced enough.
(And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to the Apple Store and try it yourself. Then casually stroll away.)
Monday, 2004.04.26:
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Oh brother. So this guy, Rick, I know is going to a wedding and apparently he needs a date. I wasn't on the original invite list and it really doesn't matter to me if I go or not because I'm not all that close to the groom. Anyways I don't know what to do with Rick. Here's an excerpt from this quite entertaining conversation (yes, it's entertainment at his expense):
Him: Grant told me to ask if you wanted to go.Aaaaaaaaa!!! His way is like "well, if you really want to go to this wedding I'll see if I can make it happen" not "I think we can bring guests and I'd like you to join me".
Me: heheh
Him: apparently, we can bring guests. Do you want to go?
Me: *shrugs* I hadn't thought of it.
Him: Do you know Ramesh?
Me: I know who he is. :)
Him: Think about it
Me: Are you saying I should go?
Him: I'll talk to Ramesh if you want to go
Tuesday, 2004.04.27:
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She slices, she dices, she juliennes. It's Chef Amber at Kitchen Stage. ... Yeah, right.
On a whim Marianne and I were talking a couple of days ago and she happened to mention that there was a cooking class tonight she wanted to go to. So I inquired, what is it? She said it was some sort of basic knife skills class. I was like, I don't have an excuse not to go so we signed up on the spot. It was cool. I learned a whole bunch of things. We went through knife construction, care and sharpening, slicing, and so on. There were onions, fruits, veggies, and even a chicken. Very cool.
I love cooking not only for the taste but the art in it. I was inspired by Kyle who, IMHO, is quite a master at plating. Maybe you might recall that cooking episode last year. It was amazing. He'd like drizzle something here or there, arrange this thing, then BAM! he'd kick it up another notch with a suprise arrangement. Really inspirational.
Me, being the so-called artist, loves to play with shape, color, texture, and (of course) taste. So, given that I know how to prepare the food properly and I have the right equipment, I think I can make some really tasty, interesting dishes. Give me some time. Maybe when I come up with something good I'll publish it.
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Today was a total skirt day. We're talking 90 degrees or hotter, sun bearing down on your parched skin, and warm breeze. So it was a short sleeve shirt left open, lacy tank underneath, and a thin black-with-floral-print skirt. Hair flowing out, sunglasses on. Yup. Even my boss commented at the end of a meeting, "you look really nice." Aw...
An interesting observation: if you had talked to me a year ago I still would have been hating skirts. I really didn't like them at all. I can't remember now what didn't jive with me then, but I can tell you I've changed my tune. It still is true I rarely use skirts, but I have to say I have found a lot of uses for them. I love the aforementioned long black floral, my red linen one, my short khaki, my stretchy jean, and my new lavender-sky blue silk skirt. They're fun, actually purport to give me some curvature through the hip, and look good. Of course, my next fashion foray will probably be dresses---I hardly own any. Hmm...
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The impending SRS. Questions still loom large in my head. Will there be complications? How will my life change? Will I be annoyed with the maintenance? Do I really want to do this? Is there another way? Do thongs chafe? When one undertakes a journey to change the way the world perceives them she steps into a realm where the old rules no longer apply. The path you may have been walking in life is forever altered and you can never really go back. And every step forward is a step into the unknown. I don't know what will happen in the coming years, let alone the coming months. It is all so ambiguous. I think I am doing the right thing for me, but it's an uphill battle some days. It makes me think twice about whether this is the best way to live this life.
Well, isn't it nice to know that post-op I can accomodate one of these? Um, well maybe not. Anyhoo...
(Link stolen from Gwen.)
Thursday, 2004.04.29:
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Yuck. Resin chips stuck between my teeth. Ack.
A few weeks ago I got fitted for teeth bleaching and the color difference is actually pretty impressive. You have to take into consideration that my teeth seem to stain pretty easily as well, or they're transparent enough to show the yellowish dentin inside them. Anyways, since this whitening process is working well the color of my sole crown is way more yellow than the rest of the teeth---I get to replace it. Well, the old crown was taken out today and a temporary one made out of resin was installed. Unfortunately the resin squeezed inbetween the neighboring teeth and there's razor-sharp resin chips sitting there. I've been playing with them all morning to get them out w/ little luck. I'll have to get my floss later...
Following links on the web I found a little utility on the Web called Speech Filing System. It does pretty good voiceprint and fundamental frequency analysis. The best part of it is that it's easy to test how my voice is doing in a normal conversation. I know that my average f0 is about 180 Hz, which is actually low for a female. (Most women in my office are at least 215 Hz.) But I know that with a little more effort and practice I can get the f0 back up to about 210 Hz, which should put me back in "normal range" for most women out there. Conversely most guys are around 120 Hz---my old voice was typically around 105 Hz and I could drop it down to about 67 Hz if I remember correctly...
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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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