Latest Posts by pamprinninja - Page 5
Sleeping arrangements: addendum 1
This has obviously been on my mind, but it was only very recently that I was able to connect all the pieces.
I believe that I was subjected to some kind of trauma during my early childhood. I have no memory of these events; but evidently they left some kind of impression on me because I experience flashbacks.
Some factors that trigger these episodes include high levels of general stress; moments of emotionally-charged interpersonal conflict; and nighttime. (Also: certain bedroom activities that are probably best skipped here.)
Well: I have a lot of undischarged stress at present; so come nighttime, things get... flashbacky. Generally what happens is that the spouse and I end up falling asleep like this:
Now, I really want to stress that my spouse is awesome; they always makes sure to communicate that I'm safe, and if I want to be closer that's okay, and if not, that's okay too. There's nothing they’re doing in this scenario that's an issue.
For me though... Well, as the diagram indicates, there is a Zone Of Safety at the corner of the bed and moving outside of it induces anxiety.
When the flashback reaches peak criticality, I'll move off the bed entirely and on to the floor. (It used to be that I would relocate to our walk-in closet, but apparently the space between the bed and the wall is now sufficiently protective per my brain.)
So here's the last piece of the puzzle: when trying to explain this situation to a friend last night, it occurred to me that I had things the wrong way around. The problem is not that I have to be on the floor; the problem is that I can't be in bed with another person.
It's not safe.
...And that brings us full circle. As I stated: I don't know what the nature of the initial trauma was that began things. Based on this latest clue however, the implications are clear... and I can't say I like them.
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...
Sleeping arrangements
Appleseed - Book 2: Prometheus Unbound by Masamune Shirow
Communication
“A European says: 'I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?' An American says: 'I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?'" - Terry Pratchett
I had the privilege of attending a university with an extremely large contingent of foreign students; many of which I counted as friends, and learned a great deal from.
Sometimes their command of the English language would fail them, and they would apologize. Each time I would say the same thing: "You speak English much better than I speak any other language. You have nothing to apologize for".
This trend has continued over to my IT department, which has featured from inception various individuals of international origin. Occasionally these team members would hit a language barrier, and I would do my best to patiently explain and / or listen to them.
Frustratingly, I found that some of my American colleagues were not willing to similarly engage. Like all such generalizations, there are plenty of diverging outliers; but there is most definitely a tendency in American culture to blame communication failures on the other party.
Some years ago we employed a Soviet emigrant; an exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable individual, but someone for whom English was not a strength. This wasn't an issue until he was moved - against my protests - into a position that required significant communication skills; and ultimately this became his undoing and he was dismissed.
I was saddened to learn today that this same situation has been repeated with another non-native English-speaking colleague. She was assigned new responsibilities that required an extensive amount of communication and coordination (despite being initially hired in on the strength of her technical skills); and now she too has been dismissed.
Perhaps I am oversimplifying; but it is very difficult to see these conflicts as the one-way failure that termination of employment would suggest.
Holding out
During last week's singing lesson, Chelsea - my instructor - proposed that I try my hand at the classic Can't Help Falling In Love. This represents an interesting challenge, as the chorus reaches all the way up to B4 (and my current range quickly falters at around G4 and above).
I really wanted to nail this, so I made a point of practicing extensively every day this week. Unfortunately it became quickly apparent that the persistent cold I've been dealing with has now taken up residence in my chest; and that this was severely hampering my efforts.
Suffice to say, I was more than a little trepidatious as to how today's lesson would go!
At one point we started working on switching from chest voice to head voice (a process whereby you close certain vocal muscles, pitching the voice up). I generally struggle to do this on command, but there is one specific line in one specific song where it I find it easy (and indeed, had started to switch into head voice long before I even knew that was a thing).
I was demonstrating this and Chelsea paused: "You know that", (checks reference note), "...You just hit a C4, right? That's higher than what we've been working on. You've been holding out on me!"
...And I was just filled with the most girlish sense of glee!
(Evidently I need not have worried.)
Due to scheduling, my next lesson will be in a little over a week and a half; so let's see if I can't spend the intervening time nailing those high notes!
Bruises
Last night I got hit with the flashback stick, and spent most of what should have ostensibly been time in bed as time sleeping on the floor instead.
As a double whammy, I feel like both of my thighs are now bruised on the outside. This does not please me; not least of which because retreating to the floor has been a more common occurrence of late and that's bad enough without adding extra layers of physical discomfort on top of it...
Photoshoot
As part of the process of becoming a US citizen, I was required (yet again) to travel to Detroit and visit a USCIS field office for a 'biometrics' appointment. As the name implies, they measure your statistics, take photographs, and fingerprint you.
(While I can understand the desire to prevent known malcontents from falsely acquiring official documentation, the process is overly invasive and to top it off, costs the applicant $80. That's a discussion for another day, however.)
What they did not tell me at the time is that the photograph would later appear on my official Certificate Of Naturalization - if they had, I might have worn something other than an oversized hoodie. Alas.
Now I have to have my Certificate reissued as my legal name and gender having changed and fortuitously, the USCIS allows for this (although there's another $555 fee, because of course there is).
Thankfully, they will let me supply my own photograph this time. So I put on my best dress, did my hair and makeup, and met up with my photographer nephew at the local park for a photoshoot. I'm excited to see the results!
As a fun bonus for the day: on the way home, I stopped for bubble tea at a new Vietnamese restaurant. I recommended the place to my coworker yesterday; and was entertained to see him walk in five minutes after I did to collect an order. I was more delighted to see that he didn't actually recognize me at first - presumably because he's never seen me in a dress before!
Periscope tail
Our kitten likes to play a game where she runs away and then slowly sneaks up on the person she ran away from. I struggled at first to tell this apart from regular skittishness until my wife pointed out the difference - when we're playing, her tail sticks up like a periscope.
It's so cute - she'll go flying down the hallway but with happy tail! Then there will be some meowing, and the sneaking begins...
Cold
I've had a cold for what feels like six weeks now; very low-grade symptoms, but annoyingly persistent.
Nominally I would bear this with good grace; but it's both dragging the pitch of my voice down and is effecting my efforts to push my singing range higher.
Very, very inconvenient!
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...
Blank lines
I would like to meet the Microsoft employee that oversaw the inclusion of Visual Studio's infamous "Apply Cut or Copy to blank lines when there is no selection" feature and shake them firmly by the C5 vertebrae.
(Original from theavengers; via feed-the-roses.)
Ramen
During the initial months of quarantine, the tent pole of my day was making ramen for lunch. I make no claim that the end product was particularly authentic; but it was a nice way of breaking up the monotony of working from home.
(I will however give a big shout-out to my friend J for teaching me how to make immaculately soft-boiled eggs.)
At this time, my go-to addition was thick-sliced ham - it's a relatively inexpensive and plentiful protein. This also pleased our two youngest cats, who adore ham and would converge on the kitchen on an intercept course for the purpose of acquiring their own cured pork off-cuts.
In due course, I moved on to making other things for lunch and the older of the two - Gracie - took this change in stride and left me to my own cooking devices.
Not Karkat though! She is definition of "High intelligence, low wisdom" - no matter what I am doing in the kitchen, she has determined that it could be at least slightly ham-related.
This is both cute... and rather inconvenient, as her chosen method of communicating her desire for ham is to circle my legs and rub up on them while meowing loudly (which is all good and well until I'm carrying a hot and / or heavy pan).
So... this is my life now. All cooking will, on a go-forward basis, involve delicately stepping around an insane kitten - like some kind of cuisine-themed, cat-based version of a sword dance!
Unexpected HRT side-effect #13
For years, I've had a nuclear technique at my disposal: 'The Look'. It's a three-quarter profile, dimpled smile that would instantly summon bashfulness on her part and result in an averted gaze.
Not anymore though! I tried this a little while back, and... nothing! No effect. Through rigorous scientific testing (i.e. randomly and unexpectedly applying The Look), we have determined that it just... doesn't work anymore!
We have no idea why this is - only that it coincides with the changes that have slowly been taking place in my facial structure. It's okay - it doesn't impact our relationship at all - but it's still fascinating!
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!)
Current song: "By Any Other Name"
Well... That's not great.
It's just business
I don't think anyone here needs convincing that there's a bit of a sociopathic streak running through the C-level suites of American business.
I was reminded of this however when I witnessed an executive use the idiom "It's not personal; it's just business" unironically while discussing potential layoffs.
This phrase was purportedly coined by mob accountant Otto Berman, and famously popularized by fictional mobster Michael Corleone (signaling his murderous adoption of the criminal life).
Suffice to say: anyone that uses this phrase as originally intended lacks empathy; that it has gained such traction in America's corporate sector (and as justification for profit over all other concerns) speaks strongly to the moral terpitude of the latter.
Charcuterie
Ah, my spouse knows me so well! For Valentine's Day they got me my own charcuterie board, and I had to put it to use right away!
Ahhh, I love them so much! ❤️
A newfound skill
I have yet to develop the requisite gentleness to avoid punching holes in lace; however, it does appear that they can be darned just as easily as any other type of fabric (arguably better, in that the repair seems less visible than in a plainer cloth).
This is a timely addition to my skill set as I just stuck my thumb through another item of clothing!
Fire drill: addendum #2
Did I say five days? I meant seven days.
We found another three issues while rolling our changes to the production environment. There are no words.
My boss’ boss spent several years working in the UK; and he knew immediately how angry I was when I sent him an email that started out with: “Right.”
So: this week will now be dedicated to fixing some of the more egregious mistakes in the design of our customer database (and by extension, problems with the data).
Tomorrow will be an interesting day, as there will be a meeting where the other teams will be informed of the changes we are making. (Note: not asked for their input; merely informed.)
It’s going to be interesting!
Fire drill: addendum #1
Did I say two days? I meant five days.
It is a known quantity that our customer database contains both structural flaws and a significant amount of bad data. We have another IT team working continuously on addressing these issues.
However, for a variety of reasons, it’s my team that tends to discover these problems. That’s exactly what happened this week; and it added another couple of days to the firefighting efforts.
I cannot express enough the tremendous frustration that comes with running into an obstacle of this nature. The are plenty of other industries in which a past decision can come back to haunt you; but the abstract nature of software development lends itself particularly well to ensuring these landmines are unnoticed until, of course, someone inevitably steps on one.
Fire drill
We launched a new website this week. It's a modest undertaking; a small on-demand portal for our customer base to update their service information.
Here’s how it works: the user has to register for the site using the primary email address we have on file. Any other email address? No bueno. This was discussed ad infinitum in the lead-up to the launch.
No sooner is the site live than we start getting issue reports from the customer service team: “This client cannot log in. The site keeps telling them they can’t register because they don’t have the right email address.”
To which IT replies: “Well, are they using the primary email address on file”?
...And customer service says: “No. Why would that matter”?
Turns out that they have a requirement that the customer be able to use any email address on file; and that at no point did they feel like mentioning this.
So anyway, that’s why the first two days of these week ran sixteen hours apiece while IT frantically patched the new system.
Darker
If my writing has taken a slight turn towards the darker of late, it’s because of this:
I have a tremendous aptitude for self-denial; specifically when it comes to convincing myself that I am not worthy of focus and attention (and thus by extension my concerns, challenges, and issues).
This is of course most notably exemplified by how I managed to deny the obvious regarding my transgender status for so many years.
When I did finally come to that conclusion however, I was at least thankful that I had escaped a lot of the vicious side-effects that other trans individuals faced: crippling dysphoria; self-loathing; depression; a propensity for being predated on, and so on.
What I’m now recognizing is that I did experience many of these things; but could not express them in terms that made sense to myself (let alone other people). This is a good thing; but it also means exploring those thoughts and memories, and I do a great deal of that work here.
So: nothing to worry about here; just digging through an old Pandora’s Box!
Purges
A friend introduced me to Andrea Jenkins and her powerful work “Eighteen”; and I recall thinking to myself “Well, at least I can be thankful I never purged my belongings.
Then I remembered that I threw out my dress because I was convinced I wasn’t going to live much longer (i.e. experiencing a particularly strong episode of passive suicidal ideation) and needed to make sure nobody would find it when sorting through my belongings.
The more I think about this, the more I realize there have been other times in my pre-out life when I’ve permanently disposed of items; either because my self-esteem had hit rock bottom and I was in full “I’m a monster” mode, or because I feared their discovery (or both).
I suppose it’s better that I’m being honest about this with myself; but all the same, it’s not a happy set of realizations.
Signs I was obviously trans and I’m a f***ing idiot for not realizing it sooner #1
This is something I beat myself up a lot about: I knew, at age twelve, that I was different. At twenty-two, I was actively trying to bust out of the gender box. For a variety of reasons however, I kept it sealed for another fifteen years; an act for which I am deeply remorseful.
Hopefully I can diffuse my regrets - if even only a little - by noting, tongue-in-cheek, all the obvious signposts that I blew past on my way to the city of Obviously Not-Cisville.
To that end:
Somewhere around 2008-ish, I spent a lot of time in a particularly dark corner of the Internet; a site that has been aptly described as the “Mos Eisley Cantina of the online world”. A place that, paradoxically, was filled with the most socially malfeasant individuals, yet accepted all.
There was a board that had originally been dedicated to the subject of cross-dressing; but for obvious reasons was now home to a thriving transgender community. Equally understandably, a major topic of conversation was achieving certain transition goals - e.g. modifying one’s physical appearance - without professional medical guidance.
(Bluntly - DIY’ing hormones. I’m no going to judge anyone that goes this route; although there are legitimate safety concerns to be aware of.)
Anyhow, this is all a long-winded way of explaining why, when sorting through some backup files recently, I stumbled across three guides I had presciently saved from those days. In order: “Cute Boy Aesthetics; “How To Achieve ‘Trap-Mode’ Aesthetics”; and “How To Girl”.
But me? Pshhh! Totally not trans! 🙄
My friend Elizabeth introduced me to her friend Scott;and he is an incredible guitarist. He also routinely organizes online shows via his Facebook, which have been a thankful distraction during this strange and stressful time. Check him out!
Carrying
I was talking to my spouse in the kitchen the other day; and to be cute, I hopped up onto the counter. Apropos of nothing, they picked me up and carried me around for a bit!
(I was somewhat worried that it would be too much for them - I’m not the lightest girl - but nope, they made it look easy!)
It’s another one of those moments where I got to experience a long-overdue moment of alignment between mind and body. I cherish it.
A newfound pain: addendum
Not that this is in any way, shape or form a surprise but... sheer tights are fragile. Like, super fragile. You so much as even look at them the wrong way and a run spontaneously appears!
This makes lace look positively durable in comparison...
Singing
An interesting part of the transition process is that it represents not only a kind of second, physical adolescence; but also a psychological one. You are afforded the opportunity to review your identity; cast aside the parts that are no longer relevant; and replace them with entirely new and different ones.
One manifestation of this phenomenon is that I continue to discover interests - some new, some old but hidden. Like singing.
Seven months or so into my new life, and I was on my way to see IRIS perform live in Philadelphia (an event that really deserves it’s own post). This made for an eight-hour drive; so I loaded up the USB drive in my car with music - including their new album - and set off.
Cruising through the hills of Pennsylvania, I found myself listening to the same two tracks; and in a first, I began singing along. (I am told that my starting range is very similar to that of IRIS front-man Reagan Jones, which is perhaps where part of the appeal lies.)
This went on to become a routine - whenever commuting, I would fire up the same two songs and sing along. Eventually I incorporated a number of other songs into the repertoire; in particular, Unknown, from Awakening.
(This is a song that has a great deal of personal meaning to me: from the day of release onward, it invoked an emotional response that I could not identify but wanted to experience again and again. In hindsight, it’s obvious: it had become an expression of my inner gender war.)
The song features some comparatively high notes that are simply outside of my current range; and while a year of offhand practice has brought me closer to them by sheer dint of brute force effort, they are still unattainable. Further progress would require professional intervention.
This being the case, I had my first singing lesson yesterday. I was incredibly nervous beforehand; but Chelsea, my instructor, did a great job of making me feel comfortable and otherwise being terrifically encouraging.
(It’s also worth noting that I did elect to cover my transgender status, as knowledge that I have what are fundamentally male vocal cords is rather relevant to the subject at hand. Her response - “Congratulations!” - is to me a shining example of how people should react to such news!)
Although I was not planning on it, Unknown has become our first practice song; and Chelsea fully believes I can extend my range sufficiently to cover those higher notes and more. To say that I cannot wait for our next session is an understatement!
Jingle
🎵 “The worst part of shaving as a trans girl Is when you nick your nip” 🎵