Shuffle Meme - Part 2

I have two of note:

There’s an indentation above my right brow; when I was born, the obstetrician had to use forceps - and was a little too forceful in doing so. (Very few people realize this is a scar, however.)

On the left brow, there’s a half-inch long scar from a rejected eyebrow piercing (which I, alas, foolishly failed to address until it was too late).

For the most part, I’ve managed to avoid picking up scars; with the following exceptions:

A small circular scar on my upper arm, from a tuberculosis inoculation.

An identical scar, but from the removal of a mole whose countenance had offended my dermatologist in some capacity.

A constellation of minor scars on the torso, where I was struck by flying glass.

A line running halfway around the base of my index finger (a combination of accidental self-injury, and subsequent surgical repair efforts).

The various scars resulting from gender reassignment surgery (which included a laparoscopic component, so there’s a smattering of satellite scars on my abdomen).

Altogether, I’ve been pretty fortunate in this regard. 🙂

Do you have a facial scar?

Dresses

Each year my company celebrates Christmas with an all-employee dinner. I greatly enjoy socializing with my colleagues, but I’ve always found these events a bit overwhelming and have tried to dodge them where ever possible.

Not this year however! I am out, and very much planned to celebrate in style... Which, of course, did not happen (what with there being a very disruptive killer virus on the loose and all).

All the same, I bought myself a delightful Christmas dress - I was particularly smitten with the lacy sleeves. So imagine my confusion when it arrived, and instead of getting the dress on the left:

...I received the one on the right (sans sleeves).

Two months later, I realize that these are in fact two entirely different dresses and that I had mistakenly ordered the second one on the insane assumption that the brand only carried the one sangria-colored number.

I... am not a smart girl.

Delightfully, they still had the original dress in stock (and only in my size to boot); so I have one winging it’s way to me now!

My spouse and I just had the most wonderfully absurd exchange regarding a hypothetical scenario in which the titular protagonist of the 1968 musical Oliver! was portrayed by the (inexplicably and uncommented-upon) fully-grown actor, Henry Cavill.

This lead to the following delightful mental image:

Identity crisis

I came across an interesting article recently, of the “Ten signs your self-esteem is in the gutter” variety. My self-esteem has indeed been in the gutter these past few days, so it was certainly a topical read.

A major reoccurring theme was: “Self-esteem should be a function of how you see yourself; not how others see you”.

This makes a lot of sense: self-esteem is, by definition, the measure of the value we place on ourselves. However, only we can truly know what is in our hearts, our minds; each and every facet of our person; who we truly are.

This unfortunately poses a challenge for me; as I do not, in fact, know who I am.

A person in my orbit once told me that he felt as if he had a mask for every occasion; a performative persona that he would adopt depending on the audience. However, he could not discern the person behind the mask; and this troubled him greatly.

It’s a sentiment I can sympathize with. I feel as if my personal identity is not a unified whole, woven from many individual threads; but rather, a fractured collection of parts that do not interrelate.

Matters have of course further been complicated by my gender upheaval; because one of the foundations of my character was that of a man, a husband, a father. I am none of these things now; and while I have technically replaced these epithets with woman, wife, mother; I don’t feel as if I actually have the requisite underpinning of experience to claim them.

As my friend Abigail wryly noted: we are women, born yesterday.

For now, I default to a measure of self-worth familiar to many raised male: that of one’s utility. As I am stretched rather thin at present, this does not seem to be working well; and alas, brings us full circle: it is a function of how others see me; and not how I see myself.

“Oh boy! It looks like I’m going to make it through the entire night without a single nocturnal panic attack!”

The nefarious 6:41am:

Lip service

There’s only a handful of hairs left on my top lip; everything else has been obliterated via laser hair removal and electrolysis. All the same, I get pretty self-conscious about the few surviving stragglers and run a razor over them every now and then.

I just did that now, and somehow managed to lop the top off of two hair follicles (which are of course, as is their want, bleeding profusely).

HOW?! This is like playing Minesweeper with a 5 x 5 grid and literally one mine in the bottom left corner, and still somehow hitting it on the first try!

Paste

Yesterday my daughter and I were talking about tomato salsa. That discussion veered in a very strange direction, and is repeated here verbatim for posterity:

Me: “Did you know salsa is technically a fruit salad?”

The Daughter: “No it isn’t! Salads have leaves... and stuff... in them.”

Me: “Then how do you explain tuna salad?”

The Daughter: “I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds gross!”

Me: “It’s just tuna mixed with mayonnaise. You know, like in sandwiches.”

The Daughter: “Mayonnaise”, (pause to summon up indignance),"...is a paste!”

Me: “I think the maybe word you’re looking for is ‘emulsification’?”

The Daughter: “I don’t know what that means. All I know is: mayonnaise is made of two solids; and one of them is grease. And grease... is a paste.”

I never thought I would see, firsthand and in my own household, Millennials killing the mayonnaise industry!

Double oh-no

I swear, self-administering an intramuscular injection is like flying a space shuttle. It seems so simple - all you are trying to do is move an object in space from Point A to Point B - and yet there are so many little variables you have to keep track of; any which of one could result in a catastrophic failure if not accounted for.

Tonight I did my Estradiol shot; and I swear in short order I:

Couldn't relax my thigh muscle (despite my best efforts);

Inserted the needle at an angle;

Hit a vein on the way in (unavoidable, but annoying).

I'm not sure what the problem was with (1) - maybe the way I was sitting? I suspect (2) is because you are supposed to make the skin taut, and I've been doing that by pulling it in a single direction... Maybe I need to stretch it taut instead?

The things I put myself through for the sake of aligning my mind and body...

Me

And the photoshoot results are in!

It's not often I do something like this - I'm still very self-conscious about my appearance - but it's nice once in a while to see how far I've come.

Unexpected HRT side-effect #4

I have no ability to regulate my temperature anymore. At least, not compared to how it used to be. Blazing sun? Sign me up! Below freezing? It’s all good! But... not anymore.

Now, that in and of itself wasn’t unexpected - pre-HRT, I read a comment from a trans girl to this exact effect (and indeed, that entire thread was the inspiration for this series of posts).

What really gets me is when and where my newfound lack of temperature tolerance likes to strike. Today, I was sweating bullets and getting flushed because I was eating soup. Soup!