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ramblings |
Diary 2
2002.04.20
There is no common theme here. More than half of this has nothing to do with transgendered topics. So there.
:P
Picking up the pieces
As part of Earth Day 2002 my city was asking for volunteers to do a city-wide clean up. I was out of bed way too early today---and, yes, I had to use both of my alarm clocks to get me up. So, my friend comes over around 8:00a-ish and we jump in my car. About 15 minutes later we arrive in parking lot where the other volunteers from my district were supposed to meet.
8:20am: only he and I are there.
8:35am: a van with a small group of people show up.
8:50am: a few more cars show up.
... but no sign of a significant group of people or van or something that would have held the coordinators and the equipment. Then someone says that the station has two parking lots. Argh. So all of us jump in our cars and speed around the block to the other lot. Almost immediately within a half block we spot people in orange vests. Ah, now we're in the right place, I'm thinking to myself. At least there were a number of other people who were given bad directions as well...
It turned out the mayor and the district councilwoman was there and they greeted us and gave us a little pep talk. What's funny is that while listening to the speech I couldn't help but think: this sounds a lot like our company meetings. It was just the tone of voice and diction which made it feel like I was hearing another boring meeting full of corporate jargon and fluff. Ever play Bullshit Bingo? Yeah, I got that feeling.
Aside from that, it was nice to see the mayor out there. Out of all 10 districts he could have visited he came to this one. You figure that our city has 10 or so districts because according to the year 2002 census we have about 894,000 residents (!).
My friend and I got our clumsy metal pickers, some bags, and a map highlighting our route. He also got gloves but they weren't very useful---apparently he got the last "pair" and that "pair" was actually two lefthand extra large-sized gloves. Not only did that mean he was half-gloveless, I couldn't use one of the gloves because my hands are clearly not extra large.
We drove out to the starting point, parked the car, and immediately started picking up crap. People: please don't throw litter out on the streets! Ugh. Not even going more than 20 feet from my car my friend and I had already picked up multiple bottles, countless straws (and straw wrappers), newspaper parts, fast food bags, etc. It's somewhat disheartening to see so much trash; driving by you don't tend to notice all the trash that gets accumulated on the curbs and the sidewalks.
An hour and a half later we barely got more than 3 blocks away from our starting point. Really, there's that much stuff. My friend took one side of the street and I on the other. There was this one point where he was stuck in front of this shop for like 10 minutes picking up trash. I was almost down at the end of one block by the time he had finished... But 11:00am came and all volunteers were to regroup in the parking lot where we had met, so we turned around back to my car.
We got back, threw the equipment in a pile. We ended up briefly chatting with our councilwoman, too. That's when I found out that I was sent to the wrong district clean up crew.
The coordinator thought I was in
District 3 when I'm really in District 4. Oh well, the point was that I wanted to
volunteer and I got to do so. Maybe they'll have something again in a month and my
name now is on their list.It felt good to get out and do something for someone else without expecting any reward or recognition. (They had a free lunch planned but I went back home and had pizza with friends.) I miss volunteering, really. I started doing it now and then in middle school (about 13-14 years old) and continued up until I went to college. Then I just stopped because I got too busy with life. I think that we all get sort of tend to focus on our own lives and I think that we lose sight of the fact that we are really a community. What makes communities work is teamwork and sharing. This is sort of my little way of giving back to the city that I grew up in. If we all got out there and helped other people we could make some sweeping changes for everyone's benefit.
Music making
That silly electronic song that I've been writing is almost complete now. I've been trying to figure out what to do with the "verse" (for lack of a better word) section for about a week now and I think I'm happy with just appregiation. I was hoping that I could find something interesting to put in it without having to write a melody line as I'm trying to create a style that's closer to trance music. I always end up doing stuff that's closer to pop-like electronica. Go figure. Anyhow I think I'm pretty satisfied with the end product though I'll probably pick it apart for another week or so.
I have belonged to an Internet-based digital music group (i.e. other musicians like myself who do digital-only compositions from our computers) since about 1995. I've always felt it somewhat odd in that group of guys. Everyone is so much more masculine than I and it has always been reflected in the music I've written. Most of the others do much more hardcore dance music where as I've tended to lean towards jazz and pop. For comparison, I'm more Jan Hammer whereas everyone else is more ATB and Chemical Brothers. I'm not going to say that my style is more feminine, because it isn't. But it's distinctly not as testosterone-driven as the other guys.
Anyhow, I'm close to finally releasing it. I'm debating all these sort of triplets and secondary appregiation. Plus the transition section (no pun intended) in the last 2/3rds feels too melodical. But I like the 32nd-note staccatos on the lead---I've liked that "feature" on leads after I've been listening to a lot of streaming Euro-trance. This music style is definitely a lot more biting than what I've written in the past. Then again the music software I'm using makes writing electronic music so much easier that it's natural to get this kind of sound. Hm...
Shifting
By last Thursday I think the subtle changes from the spironolactone are starting to accumulate. My tolerance to pain in electrolysis sessions has decreased in the past three weeks, but fortunately I've near the final stages of facial clearing now. My energy levels are quite a bit different than they were 4 weeks ago---I've had a lot more energy in general and have been emotionally more happy. (We could debate whether or not this was a psychological by product of going on spiro, but I'll leave that topic for later.) And, Thursday I nearly broke down crying in the car.
Let me stop here and insert into the conversation that I don't cry. Never. Ever. When I'm sad I mope. When I'm depressed I ponder. When I'm in excrutiating pain I wince---during some electrolysis I got a little misty-eyed but nothing major. I just don't cry.
I don't know why but I was talking with another friend who is going through transition as well (note: she's an MTF too) and for some reason when we parted something she said something which just struck something in me. It wasn't anything profound; in fact it was just an ordinary topic between the two of us. So anyhoo, I got to thinking in the car driving back to my house that night about things and started feeling weird. The bottoms under my eyes felt heavy and I started sniffling a lot---basically the tear ducts were conducting a lot of moisture, you know. I knew I was feeling relatively sad/depressed at that moment and I could feel the water sort of of pooling at the edges of my eyes. And then I was like: hey, what's going on? In that second I figured it was probably hormonally-related and quickly turned my thoughts elsewhere. That probably helped me avoid actually starting to cry.
One person wrote to me saying "welcome to the emotional roller coaster." Yup. I have noticed that in general my ups and downs are a bit more pronounced than before. I've always been pretty level emotionally and able to contain both excitement and depression to nominal levels.
There's some other minor stuff that I've noticed but I'll probably get to writing about them some other day.
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