Unexpected HRT Side-effect #14

Once upon a time, there was British company that operated a series of entertainment venues offering tenpin bowling, arcade games, food, and drink.

(I understand that this is not dissimilar from the popular Dave & Buster’s format; or the Texas-specific Main Event chain that the former acquired.)

I was employed in one such venue as an ‘Alleycat’; which is a whimsical appellative for someone that served the bowlers (and thus prevented them from leaving their lane, and delaying the game schedule).

As such, I had unfettered access to the various drink dispensers (both alcoholic and non-); including the soda fountain.

At the urging of my housemate, I recreated a beverage from his native Germany - a blend of cola and orange soda referred to by the genericized trademark ‘Spetzi’ (lit. ‘Friend’).

(This may seem a rather unappealing admixture; but it works surprisingly well!)

Unfortunately, the budget for my particular location was mismanaged; and I found myself working many shifts with a sub-skeleton crew. This spurred a search for a suitably sugary beverage to fuel the Alleycats.

The result: a combination of 3 parts pure Icee syrup, and 1 part Sprite. This devilishly cloying concoction was dubbed ‘Pixie Juice’ by our resident rave girl (and there’s not a day goes by that I miss its saccharine embrace).

Some examples!

Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola

Vanilla Coca-Cola with Orange Sunkist

Strawberry Fanta and Sprite

Mtn Dew and Blue Powerade

Root Beer and Ginger Ale

If you’d like, please comment with your favorite combinations!

Shuffle Meme - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Now, the music from my library that I’ve actually taken the time to clean up...

Groove

Turbo Killer Carpenter Brut - TRIOLOGY Literally the perfect horror-themed synthwave song, and with an amazing accompanying video. I have very happy memories of racing through the hills of Pennsylvania with the top down and this blasting at full volume...

Sun, Rain And Fire Dee Mac - Eve Of Destruction I’ve mentioned Dee Mac before - not only is she a tremendously talented genre-bending artist; she’s also worked incredibly hard to evolve her vocal style - and it shows!

i ‘ m  e v e r y t h i n g  y o u ‘ v e  e v e r  w a n t e d ImCoPav - H E N T A I  M I X T A P E I’m not the biggest vaporwave / Eccojams fan; but I unapologetically love this entire, absurd album.

Variation IX. Nimrod Holst - Variations On An Original Theme, Op. 36 The crown jewel of The Enigma Variations; a majestic tribute to overcoming adversity.

What Have You Been Living For IRIS - Underground Arts, 09.07.19 In celebration of their 20th anniversary, all three members of the group assembled for a show studded with highlights - amongst them, this spectacular rework of a song originally destined for the cutting room floor.

Retro Reverb Records Festival, Live On Nightride.FM Let 'Em Riot It was this performance that sold me on the work of LA native Alan Oakes; combing uplifting melodies with a wistful look into the past.

スターヴァージン サクラ SAKURA-LEE - Star Virgin II A stand-out in the world of anime-themed future funk; leaning into the utter ridiculousness where her fellow artists fear to tread.

Ben Kedim Yatağım (ft. Rob Dougan) Sezen Aksu - Biraz Pop Biraz Sezen Dougan disappeared for almost a decade and a half to run a vineyard; and celebrated his return in this collaboration with Sezen Aksu, the Madonna of Turkey.

I’ve No More F***s To Give Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. - Awkward Encounters While Walking My Dog The perfect antidote to a bad day; and with such delightful wordplay to boot! (There’s also a fantastic little live performance.)

Stand Alone (Peter Vanek Remix) We Were Strangers A delicate remix of an already haunting slice of Americana.

On to Part 3...

I love, love so much the way my daughter draws facial expressions. They’re always so animated!

eboy inkling go [squid noises] 

Pain tolerance

Last week I happened to have an electrolysis appointment, followed immediately by a laser hair removal appointment.

Electrolysis involves permanently destroying the roots of undesired hairs with a fine-tipped, superheated needle. It smarts; but is generally bearable.

Matters change however in areas of the body with high numbers of nerve endings - like the upper and lower lips. Which is where the hairs are. On my face.

My electrologist is very aware of how much discomfort this procedure produces; and does her best to minimize the pain. All the same: it's common for her to end sessions with the phrase "You can breathe now". It's a literal instruction; in the last few minutes I will hold my breath in an attempt to ignore the pain.

(I cannot, alas, grit my teeth; as this would flex the very muscles underlying the areas my electrologist is working on.)

At my laser appointment, I discovered that my regular technician had left the clinic; and that my session would be conducted by a replacement.

Now, said technician was incredibly nice and did everything she could to put me at ease. (This was wise; it takes courage as a trans person to disrobe around strangers.) No complaints there.

I also know that in my prior sessions, I had the laser practically set to "Max". (The settings aren't quite that simple, mind you; I understand that the technician can control the size and intensity of the laser pulse, and the wavelength and how far it penetrates into the skin.)

High settings result, of course, in more discomfort. The treatment works by (once again) superheating the roots of unwanted hairs; albeit in patches approximately the size of a quarter. Where electrolysis involves singular, painful pokes in the skin, laser hair removal is more akin to sudden explosions of pain below the surface.

If there's no hair in the area, you feel nothing. If there's a lot of hair, it can really sting. (God help you if there's a long, ingrown hair snaking its way under the skin!)

I let the technician know I was okay with higher settings. (Another consideration: laser is, on a per-hair basis, extremely fast; but it is also not cheap. Turning down the power is an exercise in avoiding discomfort now, only to have to pay for additional treatments later; it's not a compromise I was willing to make.)

Well, I don't know what she set the machine on - I'm currently guessing some kind of wavelength with greater penetration of the skin -because she zapped my collarbone (where there is notably no visible hair) and I about screamed.

The only time I've felt laser light-related pain of this magnitude was (a) the aforementioned ingrown hair scenario, and (b) when my technician used a new machine that was later determined to be "Running hot".

(The latter actually left a couple of burn marks on the skin; they looked like dark splotches. Given their unfortunate location, one could posit - most inaccurately - that I had known carnal relations with a cephalopod.)

As painful as those experiences were, they were also isolated (perhaps one zap in every ten or twenty). This was just... constant. I was glad to be wearing a mask, so that my technician could not see me clenching my jaw; beads of sweat were running down my forehead. It was bad.

I came within a hair's breadth of tapping out and asking my technician to dial the power back; but again, could not stomach the cost. (A prevalent issue: American healthcare is needlessly costly; trans healthcare more so, do it's perceived elective nature.)

Things actually got better until we got to the lower inside portion of my left forearm, which again was agonizingly painful. I have no idea why this was the case - there's virtually no hair there; there were no visible marks left from the procedure.

(Sometimes you find small, yellow bruises from small blood vessels that were accidentally zapped; no evidence of that here either.)

It's still sore in that area; four days later. Whatever happened there was clearly non-trivial, and something I will bring up with my technician next time I see them. (This is also a prevalent theme: me trying to power through things I bloody well shouldn't.)

Anyhow, I mention all of this solely to state that the stupid pipe-cleaner swab they used in today's nasopharyngeal test was somehow worse than both being stabbed with electricity and shot full of lasers, and that I hope wherever the people are that designed the blasted thing, that their day is ruined!

Clint Eastwood

Last night my spouse hit me up with one of their best impressions. With the most gravely, world-weary voice they could muster, they said the following:

“I want to do a Clint Eastwood impression, but... ...Turns out you need to know... ...Some of his lines.”

I love them so much!

Current song: "By Any Other Name"

Well... That's not great.

A newfound pain

...Ruining a perfectly good item of clothing by accidentally sticking your thumb through the lacy part. I’ve done this twice now! Girl clothes are awesome; but definitely more delicate than I’m used to...

A year in review: 2020 edition

Looking back on my progress this year.

(To be fair, the first picture is from March of 2019 and really shouldn’t be included; but I was still so camera-shy at the start of the year there simply aren’t any pictures from that period.)

Absence

Apologies for not being particularly present of late; I’ve been dealing with some frustrating health issues.

As I noted previously, I was gifted a cold by a coworker in early December. The following week I contracted another respiratory virus. This was was rather more severe:

First, it induced acute bronchitis; the net effect of which is that I ended up in the ER with an oxygen saturation level of 85%. The blood tests, EKG, and chest X-ray all came back clear; so I was discharged with antibiotics and a course of steroids.

The day after, the virus began to affect me neurologically. My long-term memory, short-term memory, and focus all started to wane. I developed a sensation of weakness in my arms, palpitations, insomnia, severe anxiety, and an impending sense of doom.

The palpitations, anxiety, and sense of doom thankfully receded. Unfortunately, I also lost the ability to regulate my temperature and my blood pressure when changing position.

It looked like I was over the worst of it, until I spontaneously developed neuropathy in my lower limbs. That earned me another trip to the ER, where they ruled out - in their words - “Anything super-deadly”. (I also got my first ever IV catheter, which I found kind of annoying; and a lumbar puncture, which was pretty interesting!)

The neuropathic symptoms have also receded somewhat; but the weakness in my left arm has grown worse, and now there’s a tremor in my second and third fingers. I’m currently waiting on additional neurological tests to determine the cause (’waiting’ being the operative word; after all, heaven forbid I have an MRI without my health insurer getting to sign off on it first)!

I know where a lot of people’s minds are going to go given the timing, and I don’t blame them; but: it wasn’t COVID. Two antigen tests, three PCR tests, and a nucleocapsid antibody test all indicate that this was a routine respiratory virus that just got completely out of control.

Two fun sidebars though:

First: between the tests from last year’s check-up, and the tests from the ER, I discovered that my lymphocyte numbers are routinely low. As measures go, it’s not a one-to-one predictor of immune health; but it does suggest that there’s something not quite right with my immune system, and that this might explain why even minor illnesses cause me significant secondary issues.

Second: I’ve written at length about how COVID tests set off my PTSD. (It’s not a rational reaction; but one borne of my younger self confusing their invasive and required nature with past violations of my bodily autonomy.)

The second go-around at the ER, the nurse performing the test was extremely thorough and as a result, I experienced arguably the most discomfort of any test to date. However, I was able to manage the situation well; in large part, I now recognize, because that selfsame nurse had a warm and sympathetic bedside manner.

That leads me to think that it’s less the physical discomfort of these acts that I find triggering; and more that they are being performed without care or consideration for my person. I’m still trying to make sense of the ramifications of this insight; but it’s beginning to seem like the core of the problem is that I’ve been dehumanized in the past, and this is what I’m so afraid of happening again.

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.