Financial Straights

Financial straights are dire.  I am currently trapped in a dead-end job which recently cut all part time employee's hours, and have somewhat ridiculous requirements for moving to full time.  I have insurance but it seems like they don't want to pay for over $1000 of should-be-covered medical bills.  My student loans take more money every month than I make.  Who's got two thumbs and is boned for the foreseeable future?  This guy.

So I've made a list of things I'd like to sell.  I have LOTS of stuff.  I'm pretty sure that if you like, I could find that one thing you've always wanted in my basement or garage.   Plus, I'm the man your man could smell like.  Look away, look back.  I have two tickets to that thing you like.

Here's a list I made.  All things will go to the highest bidder/best offer.  These things will go on offer to you folks first, then after a while I will put them on Craigslist, Ebay, or Amazon.  I'm thinking a week, so speak quickly.

~~~~~~~squiggly lines~~~~~~~~~~

Nintendo DS lite with games, (Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades with guitar dealie and pick-stylus, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Black with Snively stylus, Horse Life, Brain Age, Harvest Moon DS, Lego Star Wars II, regular stylus that fits in a slot in the bottom, charger) $125

Paperbacks

Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman $2

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman $5

Misery, Stephen King $5

On Writing, Stephen King $5

Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg $5

Firefly: The Official Companion, Volume One $10

More Joy of Sex, Alex Comfort $2

Squee’s Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors, Jhonen Vasquez $5

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (movie picture book) $10

The Hard Questions, Susan Piver $2

Hardcovers

The Apartheid of Sex, Martine Rothblatt $10

The Stowaway, R.A. and Geno Salvatore $2

Food Porn Daily: The Cookbook, Amanda Simpson $20

Wicked: The Grimmerie $40

Fashion: A History from the 18th Century to the 20th Century, Kyoto Costume Institute $25

The Illustrated Book of Signs and Symbols $5

The Encyclopedia of Mammals $10

Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, Karen Casey $2

32GB wifi+3G 1st generation iPad with InCase Convertible Book Jacket, Camera Connection Kit and warranty coverage remaining until April 30, 2012.   $700

Zebra candleholder $10

Frog candleholder $20

Lantern tealite thing $1

set of 3 glass candleholders $15

Lionface slippers, size 9 $5

Totoro backpack $20

Sheepskin throw $20

Selection of Nerf Guns $40

~~~~~~~squiggly lines~~~~~~~~~

I'm on a horse.

Gender Neutral Bathrooms

Hey, I didn't ask for them.  But my job is going to take down the mens/womens signs on our two single stall restrooms.  Because of me.

That's pretty cool.

(It's not like anyone ever paid attention to the signs anyway)

Literature

I've been meaning to post something about the books and films I've seen that have resonated with me.  I don't have anything more relevant or interesting than a list, but it's a good list.  Many of the films I've acquired over the years have a fairly common theme.  Either they have Ewan McGregor in them, or they're on the topic of flexible genders.  (Or awesome, there's plenty of those.)

Films:

Breakfast on Pluto - Cillian Murphy as an adorable Irish youth, with Liam Neeson as the village priest and her illegitimate father.  While it is serious at times, it has a cheeky humor to it that I adore.
Orlando - Tilda Swinton plays first a young man, then a young woman, and all of them Orlando.  Cursed, or perhaps blessed with immortality, Orlando somehow swaps sexes midway through the film.  Woohoo!
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything!  Julie Newmar - A rollicking film about a... Troupe?  Gaggle?  Murder? of self-described drag queens on a trek across the USA to get to the Drag Queen of the Year competition in LA.  Starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo.
Kinsey - Liam Neeson plays Alfred Kinsey, who founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.  While this one is often a more difficult one to watch, it affords a glimpse into the life of a man who made a career out of sexual studies and concerns.

Books:
Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett - The 31st of the Discworld series, this is the only one of that series that I have read.  I know, I know, shame.  But I picked it up in an airport and spent the flight feeling oddly emotional as I read it.  (Should have known.)  It's really an adorable book.

I think that's all I have on published literature.

What triggered this post, aside from a desire to go through and make a list of all the best queer/drag/trans themed movies and books I could think of/own, was Jamie Wyman Reddy allowing one of her characters a brief flash in the spotlight.  Her 'screen test' as she calls it, can be found at the link below.  It's a brilliant look into a situation that hits close to home, and it stands as an attest to Jamie's abilities to look inside a character, even one very different from her, and speak from the inside out.

http://jamiewyman.blogspot.com/2011/06/eli-character-screen-test.html

My friends

Some days are a slog of boring.  Get up, check the 'net, go to work, get home, check the 'net, maybe go for a run or some thing of that sort.  Some days are ridiculously busy.  Get up, put gas in car, do laundry, go to two appointments, squeeze in a run between grocery shopping and shower, then go to work for a pathetically short shift, then go home and crash in a haze of exhaustion.   Some days I crave knowledge and want to learn everything, and some days I don't have the patience to read a single sentence, and any effort to educate me is resented.

But every single day.  Every last day.  I realize yet again that I have the most amazing friends a guy could ever have.  This afternoon, I left a comment on a blog of a beautiful woman I haven't spoken to in far too long.  Moments later, I got a message on facebook about it.  We didn't speak for long, but she asked if I was transitioning.  I told her I was, and the sheer love and acceptance was felt, oh was it felt!  She said she was proud of me.  Last night, I spent an evening at a goodbye party for a good friend and co-worker.  I got to see another of my former co-workers.  I have developed a burgeoning bromance with her husband, but she and I only worked together for a short time before she transferred to another location.  I have a huge amount of respect for her, plus, she is downright adorable. I came out to her and her response was "we love you."

I've never been the sort to cry about stuff.  How could I when all my emotions were wrapped under gauze?  But the love I felt today from a few lines of chat, and last night for three little words, made tears come to my eyes.  I like being able to feel overwhelmed by the emotions I possess.  This is way better than before.  

To all of my friends, I love you.  That is never going to change.  I love coming out to see you.  I wish so many of you lived closer.  You are all incredible people, and I am honored to know each and every one of you.

Not Suicidal

I've grown fond of saying that I had an 80% mood increase overnight when I realized and let myself embrace the idea of this whole overwhelming business.  The thoughts I was having before were... not bad, but numb.  Nothing meant anything.  I was trapped.  And the moments of clarity I had were during panic attacks, which are not the best time to do introspective work.  Basically, the only times I felt like I was being honest with myself were the times I was unable to breathe normally, acutely aware of something being wrong, but completely devoid of the ability to understand what it might be.  Something simple like being male identified would never occur to me.

No wonder suicide happens in untreated cases of this.  I was honestly considering it during some of the hardest moments.  At this moment, it seems like a far-off distant sort of silly thing to think of, but dark places have a way of getting to you, I guess.  It wasn't just the body image thing.  I am being overwhelmed by debt and family issues.  Work is a challenge.   I've always been very aware that something is wrong in my life.  I've been on medication, psychiatric and otherwise.  I've been to therapy.  I remember when I was going to a therapist in 2004, I brought up gender identitiy, though the therapist deigned to talk about it.

Having that knowledge of a problem, coupled with the other things I've had to face lately, far outweigh the knowledge that my life is actually pretty posh to an outside observer.  I work for a cool place, I don't have any expenses but the occasional drink and food at work.  I don't have to pay rent, nor did I have to buy a car when the truck died.  I'm very lucky to have such an easy life.  That disconnect has always been something I've been acutely aware of as well.  I know I have an easy life, and I know that I have no real right to be overwhelmed by difficulty.

At this point, the difficulties are becoming manageable.  Even though I have almost no money, my mood has been through the roof.   My body image issues are so much more understandable now.  The thing that's been an issue has been identified.  It's like that moment on the show House when Dr. House suddenly knows what's causing the person to suffer.  All my life has been a repetitive series of "No, that's not it." and the moment I figured it out, it brightened everything.  Eureka!  I have found it.  I'm not a woman with overwhelming and crushing depression.  I'm a man with a physical issue, that I can take logical steps to resolve.


Life is great.

Transcript from my Livejournal

I'm going to post this entry from livejournal, which was not from very long ago.  It was private, for my eyes only, but it was shortly before I figured out the whole... trans thing.  I have a few of these in my journal, sitting and gathering dust.  I don't know what to do with them aside from air them out.  Dirty laundry.  Hehehe.


---


depression is a pretty good way of describing it

i spend all my life hiding in fantasy because i don't have the coping mechanism to deal with confrontation

it started with that cuntbitchwhore that ruined my life and it just has never ended.

i've never felt as miserable or betrayed as I did then, because she told me I was bad and wrong and that everything that had been secret had been told. I think everyone knew anyway, but no one had talked about it. 

that feeling of hot and cold all over, prickling skin, sinking feeling, echoing hearing, blacking vision

she hadn't spoken to me for three months

it was like an emotional evisceration. 

I was already sick and weak. She was like the lioness performing a coupdegrace to an ailing gazelle.

now

feeling is a luxury for those who aren't bleeding

i have to bandage it cover it up hold it closed hold it tight because if i let the feelings in or out its like releasing a stomach wound and my entrails spill out over the ground

its everything now. I keep myself in a shell of safety, buried under swabs of cotton that keep my me from bleeding through. When the red seeps through i add more cotton wrap it tighter

when anyone says anything about anything beneath the cotton i get the same pricking skin echoing sinking blacking out and i'll do anything to make them go away and stop 

the cotton is stuff fantasy clutter 

my friends are outside the cotton i don't want to bleed on them


the cotton is gone for right now so im getting this out. i have such a rotten hateful core, a terrified child inside, who doesn't know the least bit about how to exist as a human being of the age that i am

i spend these moments boomeranging between a lust for revenge and infinite sadness and furious misplaced anger

how do real people deal with this? i can't be the only one that keeps so much inside. at least when I snap it's wallowing in self-pity and endless crying. I hate everything and myself and I want to curl up and die. 

And you know what? FUCK THIS. FUCK EVERYTHING. All this crushing despair and bullshit is because someone came into my room and suggested I clean it. They even brought me clean sheets. That's a fucking nice gesture. Why can't I be grateful for it? What the FUCK is wrong with me?

It's because I already know my room should be clean. Because I spend all day every day hating myself because my room is a mess and wrapping on more cotton and more gauze. So someone comes in and says "I got you this and could you maybe clean" and its suggesting that they hate me too because I can't achieve a simple task like cleaning my fucking room or buying sheets for myself

AND

It's because my stupid stepmother wants me out of here. I've bathed this room in a layer of FILTH as a protective gesture to keep her the FUCK out because I want her out of my life. She wants my room so she can use it as a sewing room. Like the room she took from me before, which is still not a sewing room. 

I spend my life holed up in my room except sometimes emerging for food or human interaction and the rest of the time I stay hidden so that I'm not bothering anyone.

Things I don't have to do

I don't have to make my mother understand.  She's going to come to it from her direction and her own way.  And that's fine.
I don't have to be "right" or "wrong".  All I have to do is be.  I'm a man inside and someday I'll be a man outside, too.  And no matter what anyone thinks about that, it's going to be.  Because it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, all that matters is that I'm happy with a male body.

Yes, I am committing to a lifetime of... challenges.  But I don't have to be daunted by them.  The filter of "this is how I should act" is slowly falling away.  I'm feeling better and better about just being myself, even though I'm still remarkably feminine.  Old habits, you know.

OH.  And I don't have to be superior online.  I've spent a long time establishing an internet presence, one that isn't a d-bag.  I don't want every discussion I have to be dominated by this, but I don't really want to hide it at the moment.  I may want to hide it someday, but my friends are always going to know, and their respect will be valued.  I got off topic there because I'm exhausted.  But the point is, I'm not a d-bag, and I don't want to be a d-bag, and I'm not going to start lurking on livejournal, being a d-bag.  The end.

Even though I'm constantly saying I want to be a misogynistic douchebag.  I don't really.  I just think it's funny that apparently FtMs do that.