In An Ideal World, We Would All Have Access To The Healthcare - Especially Of The Life-saving Variety

Dose two

Well; three weeks later, and we got our second COVID vaccine doses.

Although I wish this was not the case, I went from zero to full-on flashback in bout twenty minutes; and expect to remain in some variation of that mindset for the next few days.

I would like to stress for the new reader: this is not a side effect of the vaccine, and I strongly recommend that (where medically possible) everyone get it. This is purely my past history interacting with current events.

On the bright side, in a little over two weeks I will start treatment with a new EMDR therapist. I am very much hoping that goes a long way towards bringing these sorts of undesirable episodes under control.

Cold: addendum 1

I still have a cold. I'm still trying to practice my singing and it's still being impinged upon because of my symptoms.

Currently I have some phlegm in my throat; and it's fine and well until I get up to A4 and then it starts to resonate, and I make the most ungodly noise that sounds not entirely unlike Chewbacca trilling.

It just so happens that I'm trying to practice in the region of A4 / B4; so to say that this is inconvenient would be an understatement. Likewise, there isn't really a solution - clearing my throat might help for a hot second, but the problem very quickly reasserts itself.

I know I just need to be patient and wait for this to clear but... I don't want to! I just want to sing...

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!

Winter fox

My friend Elizabeth invited me to an online painting class on short notice. It was an absolute blast, and we had a great time! Here’s the finished result:

This was actually a really interesting exercise in that it was technically an acrylics class, but all I had to hand were watercolors (bar the small amount of white acrylic I used for the snow).

It was quite challenging: trying to keep pace with a medium that required more applications of pigment to achieve the same depth of color, took longer to dry, and could not be used to over-paint!

It’s not going to set the art world on fire by any measure, but I’m actually really happy with how it came out under such constraints!

(Also: still sticking with canvas, despite it’s unsuitability! I really need to invest in a pad of watercolor paper already...)

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!

…And again in the season one Babylon 5 episode, “Infection”:

“You and the rest, you forgot the first rule of the fanatic: when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy!”

That JMS repeated himself virtually verbatim goes to show that this is a message he felt very strongly about (and rightfully so)!

That video of Alex Hirsch reading S&P notes for Gravity Falls conveys a few things to me:

1) the U.S. entertainment industry (especially animation) is run by older conservative types who make up offensive terms and get really mad about them.

2) the people who run Disney would be the first to fall in line with a fascist regime.

3) most of the media we consume is tailor-made and watered-down to appeal to the tastes of older, deeply religious conservative audiences.

4) conservatism, not the left, is and always has been the biggest voice of censorship in American culture.

Unexpected HRT side-effect #9

I sometimes get asked by people that have to stare intently at my face (usually in some professional capacity):

“Your skin is so good! What’s your secret?”

And I tell them:

“Every two weeks I shoot my thigh full of the cool, sexier estrogen!”

As with a number of other effects, I knew that I could expect softer, better skin. However, I didn’t truly appreciate with any kind of granularity as to what that actually meant.

For one thing: I have no breakouts, no blemishes; I changed literally nothing about my diet or skincare routine, and suddenly my face is completely crystal-clear.

(The one exception to this seems to be immediately after I load up my progesterone; although even here, ‘blemish’ seems kind of a strong word for a series of nearly imperceptible bumps.)

For another: my pores have shrunk! This caused some issues in the first couple of weeks, as it effectively forced some of them to trap their contents; but that went away after a little over a month and it’s been plain, small-pored sailing ever since!

The one downside - and it really isn’t much of one - is this: I am actually allergic to cats (which is probably not a great trait in a cat owner); but have great tolerance providing said cats are not rubbing themselves on my face. Doing so would set off a reaction where my lips would tingle and I would break out in hives.

Since starting HRT, the time in which this reaction occurs has gone from many minutes after the initial contact to practically seconds. It really isn’t much of a problem (and truthfully, I’ll gladly accept hives as a consequence of cat affection); but it’s interesting to see how yet another tiny part of my life has been impacted by the simple expedient of transposing my hormone levels!

Routines

I have a trans friend named ‘G’. She started her transition when she was 58; and it was perhaps three years after that I began my own journey and we started talking. She has been an incredible source of advice on the subject of hormone therapy, for which I am eternally grateful.

(She is also the recipient of a painting I recently completed; one of the few small ways in which I could think to pay her back.)

The two of us having been discussing for some time the strange phenomenon of when we can (or can’t) see our female selves in the mirror. I’m not sure if this is something that affects a large proportion of trans women or is perhaps more limited to just the older crowd; but it’s definitely something we both deal with.

I have a routine in the morning (or did; I’ve recently been struck down by a non-COVID virus and I’m waiting to see how that shakes out). It looks something like this:

Put up hair,

Reinstall helix clicker rings,

Apply makeup,

Let down and style hair.

During stages (1) through (3), I am acutely aware of every facial feature that I cannot currently control and broadcasts masculinity. As soon as I get to stage (4) however and the hair drops, suddenly I can see myself again in fully female form.

It’s interesting because the first set of feelings are not, per se, dysphoric in nature. Rather, it feels like... imposter syndrome? G and I have discussed how our preparatory routines are, in some respects, akin to a magic act; so perhaps seeing the mechanisms by which the tricks are achieved causes ones suspension of disbelief to temporarily halt?

What we do both know is that the more time passes, the more we both become comfortable in our new identities. This is why I wonder whether age plays a factor in the phenomenon - almost as if the adoption of a new gender requires clearing the (significant) backlog of experience as a prior gender...

Third generation Daemonettes! Juan Diaz really captured their unearthly grace in a way unseen before or since; and the sculpts are highly sought after (as evidenced by their 2016 rerelease via the Made-To-Order program).

Diaz also produced a set of Seekers; with the riders sculpted in a similar style (and one, memorably, perched as if preparing to launch herself at an enemy, daggers first)!

I have a set of my own that I desperately need to paint up (if and when I can actually decide on an appropriate color scheme)…

My FLGS had gotten a troupe of some oldhammer daemonettes, and I just couldn't resist that temptation.

Holy crap these models look good for being made in 2001.

Trayzn: "I am an expert, dear colleague, in the location and acquisition of antiquities. I have scoured this galaxy in search of artifacts both rare and priceless; and my service to the Infinite Empire is second to none in this respect.

And yet there is one thing, I must profess, that I have not be able to find: your story to be credible."

Orikan: "..."

Orikan: "BASTARD!"

"Stop laughing Trazyn, I have a Gf, she's just from another dynasty"