Signs I Was Obviously Trans And I’m A F***ing Idiot For Not Realizing It Sooner #1

Post-meeting meeting

A coworker called me today post-meeting just to complement my choice of floral top. It was highly unexpected, but quite welcome!

(An unfortunate consequence of moving to a remote working environment is that there are very few opportunities for these sorts of small but significant personal interactions. So this made a very pleasant change of pace!)

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

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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

Blue Hair

I popped into the mall today to see if the meat and cheese stall had bacon jam in stock. (They did not). I was deep into the act of perusing the other products when a tiny voice rang out:

“I love your hair!”

I turned to see a little girl of perhaps five years, dragging her parents to a standstill just to impart this critical message. “Well - thank you!”, I replied.

Then, in the indomitably declarative fashion that only young children can manage, she responded with: “IT’S BLUE”!

Yes. Yes it was.

It’s been a long and arduous day; but this one interaction was an absolute highlight, and one I will cherish!

Test

Last week I was at Minneapolis' very own CONvergence convention. A fantastic time was had! Obviously, attending a large public event in the current viral climate is not without risk; but I felt considerably more secure in matters given that (a) the organizers had capped attendance at 3,500 (half the size of the previous year), (b) required all attendees show proof of vaccination and (c) instituted a mask mandate.

Unfortunately, post-event, it was determined that an attendee has tested positive for COVID and had informed the organizers as such. They in turn notified all other event-goers, and provided information on the afflicted individual's path through the convention for contract-tracing purposes.

Unfortunately, it transpired that the two of us had attended a panel together; and despite the extremely unlikely possibility of having contracted COVID from this person, the sensible course of action was to go get tested myself.

This did not fill me with joy. As I have previously documented, there is a facet of my younger self - splintered by trauma - that bristles at certain medical interventions... And I knew this would be one of them.

At the start of the pandemic, my spouse required a routine medical procedure; and in advance of that, was required to get a COVID test. I drove them to the in-car test site, and my spouse rolled down the passenger-side window to talk to a fully geared-up nurse.

As many are no doubt aware, those first COVID tests required collecting a sample from the very, very furthest reaches of the sinuses; using what is essentially an extremely long Q-Tip. While not necessarily a painful experience, it can be irritating at best and deeply unpleasant at worst.

Both my spouse and I were a little taken aback when the nurse instructed them to tilt their head back and place their hands firmly on their knees because, and I quote, "Trust me, you will try to stop me".

The nurse swabbed my spouse's sinuses, and it was fine, and other than my spouse feeling like they had been somehow poked in the back of the eyeball, all was good. I, however, was a nervous wreck; because this act had in my mind overstepped the threshold of acceptable bodily integrity violation.

(How does that work? I can't say, as it isn't rational. I am pro-science, pro-safety, pro-vaccine; but the damaged part of me responds viscerally and insensibly to certain medical procedures - evidently of which, this was one.)

Later, my spouse experienced a terrible cold; and their general practitioner recommended another COVID test to be safe. This was at a walk-in clinic, and even though I remained in the car, I still ended up shaking at the thought that my beloved was being harmed in some way.

I have spent far too much time since then conceiving of how I might be required to submit to a COVID test myself some day, and how that would effect me. Fast-forward to that day.

There was a no-appointment clinic near our house. They have a rather slick online registration system; there were some issues completing the process, but a person met me at the parking lot and helped finalize matters. Then they went to retrieve their test apparatus.

Now, to the credit of the test manufacturers: they had clearly taken steps to improve the (deservedly-maligned) collection kit. The swab was a little shorter; no longer needed to reach the very back of the sinuses; featured a very slim, flexible stem (particularly helpful for deviated septum-sufferers); and the cotton tip had been replaced by a small, gentle sponge.

The technician was very nice and explained that they would gently hold the swab in place for the count of five, and in turn I explained that I'm sure everything would be fine and painless - but there was a possibility that I might become upset afterwards and that it was absolutely not their fault.

Then I scrunched up my eyes and held my hedgehog friend very tightly and the technician inserted the swab in my nose and ran it about inside my head and true to her word, the experience was not in the slightest bit unpleasant.

I then proceeded to thank her, albeit stutteringly, because as predicted this invasion of my bodily space had still had a triggering effect. I received my results less than an hour later and they were, of course, negative. Three hours after that, I stopped crying.

It's so strange - yesterday I had laser hair removal; and per my request, the technician turned the power up quite high. There were some moments when it really stung; but... nothing. Not a trigger. Likewise, in a few days I have to get my second HPV immunization; and despite knowing that it will sting (the manufacturer attests this to the "Virus-like particles" it contains), that should be fine too.

Why am I freaked out by some medical procedures, and not others? I really don't know. Probably there's a logic to it; but if there's a pattern, I've yet to discern it...

Unexpected voice training side-effect #2

When I got my new car, I was delighted to learn that it came with a hands-free voice assistant. You press a button, and then the scene plays out as follows:

Car: Beep boop. “How can I help you?” Me: “Play that one sad song. I know, I know. That’s the kind of day it is.” Car: “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” Me: “Play that one song.” Car: “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” Me: “Just cancel.” Car: “I’m sorry-” Me: “CANCEL!” Car: “Cancelling.” Beep boop.

See, as awesome as this feature is, it really struggles to understand anything I actually say.

Until I started using my girl voice.

Legitimately! I’m not sure if this is simply because it’s in a higher pitch now (and the microphone can pick it up better); or if it’s because my accent has been slipping (and the original training data was chiefly American). Whatever the case: it’s a a welcome and unexpected reward for the work I’m putting in!

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!

Nails

On a scale of one to chipped, my nails are currently at “I’m Prying Open Pistachios With Them And I Don’t Care”.

Bags

Last week I stepped into the bedroom and there was a Ziploc bag on the floor. This was more than a little confusing, as they nominally live in the kitchen, on top of our refrigerator.

My best guess was that either my wife or I picked one up, absentmindedly brought it into the room, and left it there.

Fast forward to last night: it is perhaps 3 or 4am; and there is a strange rustling coming from the foot of the bed. I get up to investigate, at which point our youngest cat rockets out of the room... Leaving behind ten Ziploc bags, full of tiny teethmarks.

I love her so much... But she is absolutely, quantifiably, an idiot.

Strange bug

I had a very strange bug today. We have a web application that makes extensive use jQuery and a third-party JavaScript library to serve up some tasty-looking data grids.

In the grids are some date columns, which are to be formatted "MM/dd/yyyy" (i.e. "02/24/2021").

Things looked great on my local machine. They also looked great in our development environment. When published to production however, these dates suddenly reverted to ISO 8061 format ("2021-02-24T00:00:00").

Standard practice is, of course, to try and determine what key differences exist between these three locales (even though ostensibly there shouldn't be any).

Well... The libraries are being served up externally, so it's not that. The grid configuration is the same; so rule that out. The data is identical.

The only difference is that the local and development versions are compiled for debug, and the production version is compiled for release.

And lo! What do you know - that was the critical difference.

It's worth stressing here though: that's crazy. It would be like a car refusing to start because you added a bumper sticker. At no point, logically, should the compilation mode affect what's going on with the front end.

And yet here we are...

Dose two: addendum

I feel like I might have spoken too soon on my COVID vaccine side effects dying down; I’m now four days post-hoc and it feels like I still have some issues (muscle aches and swollen glands on the injection side; feverishness if I overexert myself).

It’s physically irritating, mentally debilitating, and it only fuels my anger more towards the sum group of people inflamed this situation for their own selfish reasons.

(I will also add: a couple of years ago, the spouse and I caught a very strange, persistent cold virus; the lymph nodes in my upper torso and neck flared up like nobody’s business and remained that way for almost eight to ten weeks.

It scared the hell out of me, as that kind of persistent swelling is generally associated with far worse ailments; and I was still in my passive ideation phase at the time and was pretty convinced that This Was It. Thankfully it went away on its own; but in retrospect, I’m realizing that this episode might be another unprocessed issue I now have to unpack and deal with.)