Unexpected HRT Side-effect #8

Shuffle Meme - Part 1

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

feed-the-roses tagged me on this, and it looks fun! Now I’m gonna go ahead and do it completely wrong.

For starters, I don’t have a single, unified music collection. There are albums that I’ve fixed the metadata and art on; they live in Groove. There is a considerably larger collection of files that haven’t been fixed yet, and they get played in Winamp (which is currently enjoying a revival, by the by). And I’ve been using Spotify of late.

I also did some serious curating here. Although I used shuffle to get a random sampling of artists, I thought it made more sense to me to list my favorite tracks.

Without further ado:

Spotify

Mega Dis Bomb The Bass - Mega Dis EP I love Beat Dis. I fucking love Megablast! What’s not to love about an update that combines the two? (Also highly recommended: d4xx’s Step 2 Dub Remix.)

Suicide Jag Chemlab - Burn Out At The Hydrogen Bar I’ve had a copy of KMFDM’s Death Before Taxes Remix of Electric Molecular in my library since forever; but this year I decided to revisit Chemlab’s back catalog and I am so glad that I did!

Out Of Touch Hall And Oates - Big Bam Boom I realize that this has been doing the rounds on Tumblr; but for me, it has a different association: I played a lot of Saints Row 2 last year, and this became my go-to song while driving to a soon-to-be crime scene.

Everybody Wants To Rule The World Ted Yoder - Songs From The Orchid I instantly became a fan of Yoder after catching his collaboration with Curt Smith. Also: the hammered dulcimer is such a gorgeous-sounding instrument; it deserves more love!

Human The Chain Gang Of 1974 - Felt It’s such a bittersweet song; as if the subject is revisiting their regrets in their last few moments of life...

Why does the list stop at five? Well, because practically everything else I listen to on Spotify is from my ‘80s playlist and revisiting it here might get a bit redundant!

On to Part 2...

Ramen

During the initial months of quarantine, the tent pole of my day was making ramen for lunch. I make no claim that the end product was particularly authentic; but it was a nice way of breaking up the monotony of working from home.

(I will however give a big shout-out to my friend J for teaching me how to make immaculately soft-boiled eggs.)

At this time, my go-to addition was thick-sliced ham - it's a relatively inexpensive and plentiful protein. This also pleased our two youngest cats, who adore ham and would converge on the kitchen on an intercept course for the purpose of acquiring their own cured pork off-cuts.

In due course, I moved on to making other things for lunch and the older of the two - Gracie - took this change in stride and left me to my own cooking devices.

Not Karkat though! She is definition of "High intelligence, low wisdom" - no matter what I am doing in the kitchen, she has determined that it could be at least slightly ham-related.

This is both cute... and rather inconvenient, as her chosen method of communicating her desire for ham is to circle my legs and rub up on them while meowing loudly (which is all good and well until I'm carrying a hot and / or heavy pan).

So... this is my life now. All cooking will, on a go-forward basis, involve delicately stepping around an insane kitten - like some kind of cuisine-themed, cat-based version of a sword dance!

Ōkami

When my daughter was younger, we started the habit of co-playing video games. I would be in charge of the controller, and she would direct me. These are some of my fondest memories.

One of the games we played through was Ōkami; which is an absolute (but often overlooked) masterpiece. (For the uninitiated: you play the part of Amaterasu, a white wolf (and god); and her traveling companion Issun, a tiny artist. The selling point of the series is the latter’s ability to paint on-screen, triggering the former’s supernatural powers to solve puzzles and defeat enemies.)

The game was recently re-released on the Switch, and we sat down together last night to play it. In a charming reversal of earlier days however; now my daughter holds the controller and I advise.

When playing games herself, she’s generally adhered to more casual fair. (I really want to stress that there’s nothing wrong with this. Deus Ex: Human Revolution had an excellent metaphor for this approach: it has no “Easy” mode, only “Give Me A Story”.)

That changed a couple of years ago when she fell in love with Hollow Knight; and she’s been seeking out greater challenges ever since. Ōkami is the latest such iteration; and I could not be prouder of her.

This is long overdue; but thanks to @ghastspidergwen for the tag! 🙂

...

Last song: Lust For Lies, by The New Division.

Favorite color(s): they change periodically; currently in are dark reds, greens, and teals!

Currently watching: whatever delightfully absurd game-streaming compilation my kiddo chooses to share with me. (The most recent was PointCrow trekking a straight line across the entire Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom map, sans upgrades.)

Sweet / savory / spicy: all of the above! My only corollary is that I quickly find too much of either sweet or savory to be overpowering; and need to alternate between the two.

Relationship status: currently celebrating my 20th year of marriage!

Current obsession: I recently reignited my passion for customizing the 8" figures from the short-lived GI Joe: Sigma 6 line (and just finished indexing a 200-page notebook specifically to record my ideas in).

(Honorable mentions: learning to play the blues on the guitar; learning to play Elgar's Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod" on the piano; creating updated versions of the Warhammer: 40,000 Chaos Champions I originally converted in my youth; downsizing my not-insignificant stockpile of nerdy collectibles.)

...

There's zero pressure to join in; but the following people routinely brighten my dashboard, and I would love to know more about them! 🙂

@cronnissar,

@foone,

@owlrageousjones,

@transmechanicus,

@socialistexan,

@whenflowersfade.

Nine people i'd like to get to know better:

Tagged by: @bell-of-indecision, thank you so much for tagging me <3

Last Song: Gmfu by Odetari,6arelyhuman

Favourite colour: Dark red, violet, pink

Currently watching: Death note, ep6

Spicy/Savoury/Sweet: Spicy

Relationship status: Single

Current Obsession: Mbti types and cognitive functions.

Tagging: @somin-yin @a-cloud-for-dreams @axepen @hinsaa-paramo-dharma @basic-bitch-alkali @rhysaka @blackknight-100 @squishywizardd @reykalot

Dress-up

An interesting aspect of the trans experience is looking back on one’s former life, and inspecting certain signs, behaviors, interests and activities through the lens of hindsight.

In this particular instance: for many years I have enjoyed video games in which one can control the appearance of the various player characters. I have spent considerable time armoring my rogues, outfitting my Sims, and coordinating the ring attire of virtual pro-wrestlers.

It occurred to me recently that I was in some respects engaging in a kind of ersatz dress-up. Much like actual dress-up, I also now find the skills that I developed being applied in my day-to-day fashion choices: pairing tops and bottoms, socks and shoes, and so on.

I can’t even begin to untangle what aspects of a person's behavior are based on their biology and others, their social identity; but it’s fascinating, digging up these examples where - even while boxed in by the gender expectations of that time and place - I was seeking, and finding, ways to escape that jail.

After months of silly overwork, I finally got to see my stylist! I feel so much better now that my hair is both multicolored and a more manageable length. 🙂

Unexpected HRT side-effect #7

Muscle strains.

I knew I was going to (and wanted to) lose muscle mass on HRT, and that this would significantly lower my functional strength. I assumed that during this process, I would simply adjust to my new strength levels as I went along.

Not so - my brain continues to assume it’s working with pre-HRT muscle capacity.

As a result, I keep injuring myself in new and novel ways. For instance, I used to buy 40lb containers of cat litter at the store; but after straining the muscles in my forearm several weeks in a row, gave up and switched to 24lbs instead. I don’t recall ever having strained a forearm muscle prior to that.

Now my neck and shoulders are kicking my ass; I assume from either tanking a forty pack of water or moving my desk (or both).

I imagine at a certain point I will (like everything else) unlearn this habit and replace it with something more fitting. Until then, I find myself pausing before certain physical tasks and asking myself: “Wait, can I still do this?”...

Signal

Several friends of mine have recently switched to Signal as the messaging app of choice; in significant part due to privacy concerns with other messaging apps (specifically, those owned and operated by Facebook).

Now, I’m not hip to the intricacies of said privacy concerns; however, after using Signal for a bit, I will note the following:

Pressing the enter key does not send your message (unlike, say, WhatsApp). It just adds a line break. As someone that writes particularly long messages, I cannot stress what a game-changer this was for me.

It has the most comprehensive spell check dictionary I have ever seen in any application, ever! I cannot stress how tremendously frustrating it is for me to use a word like ‘tremendous’ in other applications and have it redlined! (Point in question: Signal recognizes ‘redlined’ as a word; Firefox does not.)

So: if, like me, you write ridiculously long messages filled with needlessly prolix vocabulary, perhaps Signal is the app for you.

(Original from wintersbucky; via feed-the-roses.)

(Original from theavengers; via feed-the-roses.)