MeghanIsMe

Not on Facebook because she reads my posts there!

I'm feeling sad that train girl (the local trans girl I have a big crush on) and I have not gotten together in person since I've gotten back. She asked me to get some cheese curds for her and I made a stop at Mars Cheese Castle just to get them. And we've talked about getting together in person several times; at a dog park, or in her back yard with a fire. I have now invited her to come to the new/old place to watch some of the anime I just bought with me, when we have appropriate COVID mitigation measure in place. (A Corsi-Rosenthal box, open windows, plus good masks is enough for Miriam to feel like the risk is acceptably low.) I have some books that she was really interested in too, including an automobile mechanics manual that's now a bit over 100 years old. She asked what I'd sell it for when I said I was getting rid of it, but it's not worth much, and I told her that even if I didn't have a crush on her, I think she appreciates things like that in the same way I do so I'd be happy to just give it to her.

Yes, I did in fact tell her I have a crush on her and that, if she wasn't in a closed relationship and it wasn't for COVID, I would quite likely ask her out. She's only the second person in my life I've ever expressed interest in before the other person expressed interest in me. In the past, it was terrifying, and as I may have written, I think I didn't really know how to relate to people in that way as a boy. I thought I was demi-sexual, and that I needed a long time with someone to feel safe and comfortable with them.

Now? *sighs* In all honesty, I *really* want to go out and be slutty with other trans girls (I mean, I'm gender-flexible here, but that's where my brain is mostly at right now) and I'm fairly sure I would have no problem expressing that to them. It's so incredibly frustrating that I finally know who I am and what I want and be unable to do much about it. I have a lot of fear that by the time we know things are safe enough for Miriam, nobody will be interested in me anymore and I won't be able to fit into that kind of scene. It's causing more distress than most anything else in my life, with some obvious exceptions.

There's a trans woman who lives in Regina who I've been talking to regularly on Facebook. I first saw her on a big FB group, and when I noticed she lived in Regina I asked her if she was aware of the local community. It turns out we have a ton of interests in common; trains, slide rules, fixing vintage things. Even more coincidental, she knows the Kenosha/Racine area really well, having dated a woman who was from that area, and having traveled there a lot with her dad who was a long-haul trucker and frequently had loads to bring to or from JI Case in Racine. At this point, we've also had two 3-hour-long phone calls! And in a continuing string of coincidence, she lives very, very close to the temporary apartment Miriam and I are in while our condo is rebuilt.

She also has serious chronic pain like Miriam, so the two of them have talked about that and gotten to know each other too. I really like her, and in fact am kind of crushing on her a bit. In a comment on Facebook, I told her that if it were not for the combination of Covid and, even more so, her being in a closed long-distance relationship, I would quite likely ask her out. And yet, because of Covid, her chronic and unpredictable pain, and my unpredictable mental state, we still have not gotten together in person.

That's only the second time in my life I have expressed romantic/sexual interest in someone who didn't ask me first, and the first time it was with Lisa who I'd known for nearly 10 years. (I'm so glad I asked Lisa!) I think this has a lot to do with transitioning. When I thought I was a boy, I didn't really know how to relate to people that way. As a girl, I think I do. I used to think I was demisexual; now I think I was just scared and confused. I've told Miriam that (again, if not for Covid) if there was a hookup app for trans people, I would seriously consider trying it out. I was *terrified* of hookup apps for the longest time, and I'm so frustrated that as I'm finally figuring myself out Covid is keeping me from exploring these things.

And yeah, that's still the biggest stressor in my life. Isolation due to Covid. I hate it so much.

Last night, Miriam had a funny realization about an instance in the past where I'd behaved like "a typical guy" in a way that seemed out of character for me.

Some years ago, when she and I were attending Gen Con together, we went by a booth where women were demonstrating a Japanese card game called Tanto Cuore. It's basically a rethemed Dominion, to be honest, and I hadn't really been interested in Dominion up to that point. But unlike Dominion, which is themed around building a sort of medieval fantasy fiefdom, in Tanto Cuore you are hiring lots of maids to come work in your mansion for you. Instead of Dominion's currencies of copper, silver, and gold, you are buying the services of the maids with love. Yes; love.

The art, and maybe the whole game, is very much anime-style fan-service stuff, chock full of various girls in various maid outfits with little blurbs about their personality or quotations from them as flavor text. The women demoing it were also dressed in maid cosplay, and I was just squeeing over the game and the outfits and the cute girls and everything. I got really excited about this game and ended up buying a fancy copy that had some special Japanese foil cards along with all the base cards, and I bought matching card protectors sleeves with pink backs from them too. Miriam made loving fun of me about how out of character it was for me to get so excited about a game like this because it's such a typical guy thing. There were so few ways that I was a "typical guy" and this really stood out to her. I thought it was funny too, but the game was just super cute and I had to have it!

Last night, she brought that game up again and said she'd realized that I wasn't being a typical guy after all. I was being gay as hell!

Nailed it!!

I admire trans girls, and trans folks in general, who don't pass and don't care what people think about how they look and just go live their lives as they are. They're so brave.

I got to the condo and saw that there were workers inside, busy drywalling. I zipped my bunny hug up over my shirt, took my dangle earrings out, and got my hair into a low tail before going in. I was too scared.

My whole life, I've been scared of social situations, and hated taking up metaphorical space. Now that I unavoidably take up some metaphorical space every time I go somewhere dressed fem, it's a significant barrier I have to overcome just to go somewhere people will see me as me. Sometimes it's too much.

Once, I think even as recently as four years ago, before Europe, I might have felt so good about being myself and about normalizing public gender nonconformity that I might have just gone in and not given a damn. These days, I want to be me, but I also just want to be left alone.

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A couple days ago, after laser, I was trying to park the car in our space and the front wheels got stuck in a rut caused by runoff over melting ice. I tried for a while, but I wasn't going anywhere. I was starting to feel scared that I might have to get some help from other people somehow, and I was dressed fem and wearing makeup and the idea of interacting with other people, especially men, was really scary.

Someone driving by in a pickup stopped to help without me asking. A middle-aged guy with a big beard. I hid my purse on the passenger floorboards and tried to hurriedly defem myself as he walked over, probably without much success. But he didn't seem to care what I looked like, and just got behind the car and helped push until it slid out of the rut.

So that's how all that is going. I think there's progress, but not wanting to be noticed except in certain contexts has been such a core part of my being since dealing with how awful other people in school were to me as a kid that it's really hard to get past.

And some people think trans people are doing it for the attention. If they only knew...

So, things to journal about. And by things, I mostly mean gender. So many experiences, thoughts, and feelings in my life center on gender lately, even a year into HRT and several years into thinking I might be a woman instead of agender.

I WAS A TEENAGE EXOCOLONIST

I've been playing I Was a Teenage Excocolonist and the game is amazing. It's exactly the sort of media I wish there were more of for me to discover. It's also had some content that's inspired reflection about my own experiences.

My character, who I named Meghan, has turned thirteen and is starting puberty. She's sometimes tired, and sometimes moody, and has had her first period. The game isn't over the top about this, but explains what's going on and ends its narrative with "Welcome to puberty, Meghan."

I stopped playing for a little while because I was having Thoughts and Feelings.

This alternate reality Meghan experiencing puberty was meaningful to me, and it made me think about my own, real life experience of puberty. I tried to remember what it felt like and what it meant to me and the answer I found is "not much." I don't think I was horrified like some trans folks who knew themselves better were, but I don't think I was excited about it either. I don't really remember what I thought or felt about my voice changing, or my body getting hairier. It's thirty years in the past so my thoughts may not accurately reflect reality, but right now I don't remember feeling anything about it at all. I haven't taken a survey or anything, but I feel like this must not be a typical experience? Puberty probably meant a lot to most people, right?

Just as I never felt connected to being male, maybe I didn't feel connected to puberty either. Maybe this is another aspect of what I think was a kind of life-long disassociation from my body and self. Playing this game and searching for my feelings about my own puberty, the only ones I can really find are sadness that I didn't get to experience bio-female puberty as a teen and get to grow up having feminine experiences and maybe being more in touch with my life and myself. Sadness that I can never have that.
Miriam noted that HRT-puberty is pretty meaningful to me now, and it really is. But it's neither the same thing nor the same timeline, and I'll never know what that's like.

VTUBING AND MY PUPPY-GIRL AVATAR

When I realized recently that I could create a cute video puppy-girl who could synch with my movements and replace me in webcam feeds, I connected that with the idea of streaming games online as a way to try to be social in this time of isolation while also getting to be a version of me I loved and who was completely new to me. I created the avatar and synched her with me and getting to see her moving her head and blinking like an adorable mirror-image of myself was amazing. I was literally giddy with joy. As I kept alternating looking at her and seeing myself, I was bouncing in my chair and holding my hands to my face, or making quiet, fervent comments to myself about how great this was and how happy I felt.

Later in the day, I'd been feeling depressed and listless for a while. Miriam was on the couch and I joined her. She asked if I wanted to play a game, but I wanted to just lie down with my head in her lap while she played. I wasn't sure what was in my head and figured it was just another random span of down-ness. At some point though, I realized I was thinking about the vtube avatar I made and how happy I was looking at her. And that happiness was making me sad somehow. As I talked with Miriam about it, I realized I was sad because I got to pretend, for a little while, that I looked cute and pretty. I was sad because I didn't look like that and it really hurt.

Miriam reasonably pointed out that she doesn't look like a cute anime character either, and that's true. But I responded through the tears I'd started crying "but you look like a girl." People recognize her as a woman, and they do not recognize me as a woman, and it's possible that a lot of people never will.

I think I'm going to be able to integrate this experience into my thoughts and feelings, and I'm still really looking forward to playing some games online with people as an anime puppy girl. But those feelings were an unexpected gut-punch that I had trouble even recognizing for what they were. Miriam had thought that I might have that reaction, and as I frequently am, I was impressed by her insight. I keep getting blind-sided by things like this that make perfect sense to me in retrospect, but that I had been completely oblivious of prior to the experience.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

There has been so much joy, and so much pain, in this process of transition. I feel so much and so deeply about so many things. And maybe that's part of that HRT-puberty I mentioned earlier. Maybe it's just me being in touch with myself in ways I never have been before. It's been a hell of a ride. It's been completely worth it, but it's really hard sometimes.

And I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by family and a partner and other loved ones and friends who are completely supportive of me. It's hard to imagine going through this and losing people I care about at the same time just for being who I am.

If you have other trans people in your life, please: be kind to them. This is hard. Miriam is in a support group for family of trans people and was just reading about a 12 year old girl who was disowned by her family for being trans and is in foster care now. Her new foster parents were looking for help there. It breaks my heart.

Is it any wonder why trans people are at risk for mental illness and suicide? We're just trying to live. Please, be kind. You don't have to be understanding if you can't, but at least be kind.

In today's mail, a replacement pair of flower earrings in trans colors! I had bought the first pair at an outdoor queer market last Summer and they were the first item of personal adornment I bought that were specifically a trans thing. I lost them in the fire, and having them back is pretty meaningful to me.

I lost some ephemera that was really important to me too. Things like the first package I ever received with my real name on it (from Thrift Books) that I planned to keep somewhere. But so much more meaningful than even that was a card that Lisa sent me not long before the fire, along with a care package of Cadbury Eggs and other things. I had that card standing up on my desk so I could look at it from time to time and feel love and joy and acceptance.

But these earrings were replaceable at least. They are a small piece of happiness, and I'm really glad to have them.



Also in today's mail: On Facebook a while back, I saw a company was offering free posters to anyone who signed up for one. I thought it was a pretty cool poster so I signed up! It seemed like the questions were expecting people in trades and fields that I am not in, but I filled them out as best I could.

it took a while, but today my poster showing global allocation of EM frequency bands arrived!

I don't actually have any immediate use for this. I just thought it would be funny, and actually kind of cool, to have it.



And lastly, a set of 21 pairs of little flat-back stud earrings arrived today! There are bunches of shapes like rings, stars, moons, hearts, and so on. I'll have fun mixing and matching, especially once the new piercings are fully healed!

Today was a good day for packages in the post!

Earlier today or yesterday, someone on Facebook expressed that straight women never compliment other women on their eyes, and that doing so is pretty clear flirtation. I've been wondering, off and on about the accuracy of that statement since I've never really been good at flirtation, and have, like, no experience being flirty as a woman.

Just now, though, I recalled playing Wylde Flowers. Amira, the aggressively flirty lesbian doctor in the game kind of makes me weak in the knees with her comments on things like my character's "lovely eyes." Maybe there's something to this!

Do any women I know, queer or straight, have thoughts on this that would confirm or refute this concept? Inquiring minds want to know!

Got holes poked in my ears a couple days ago!

I'm happy with the location and the look combined with the first set. I was originally thinking of having them a little higher, but I think following the curve of the lobe is better. If/when I get the third set, it will look like an arc instead of a line like I was thinking of (and like Marin has in My Dressup Darling), and I like that. In retrospect, I might have liked the first set to be a little bit lower instead of centered on the lobe end. Or maybe not. No biggie!

I'm happy. And I was having a little of that post-pain euphoria afterward too. Floaty!

The piercer was great, and has good taste in music too. It was nice hearing Sufjan Stevens: someday I'll get copies of some of his albums.

I should note that this second set of piercings was a birthday present from my parents. They sent me money for it in November for my birthday, but I've been too crazy to get it together and get them done. I've been less crazy lately, and that's really nice.

In other appearance related news, a couple bralettes arrived in the mail for me yesterday too. I had a couple in the past, but have been without since the fire. I'm a little larger in that area than I was, and the bralettes have an actual shape when I wear them. Even better, Miriam touched me and said that, yes, they feel like breasts under that fabric.

Yesterday and today are the first time I've been able to walk around in just panties and a bra and feel gender euphoria rather than some level of shame like a complete impostor. I *so* want to walk around like this all day at home! But it's cold as hell where I am so now I'm wearing pajamas

Also, I created this meme about my HRT experience for a transfem shitposting group. It got over 60 reacts, so I guess it was good!

Lots of girls who thought they were only attracted to women start HRT and find that they're interested in men. I always thought I was basically 50/50 bi/pan. Now, though, I'm leaning more like 70-80 percent toward women. I've realized that one reason I've always liked yuri media so much is that, without really acknowledging it, I was envious of the experiences of the women in that anime and manga.

A friend commented that he's heard the same thing (about being envious of the experiences of women in such media) from two other women who've transitioned and it's definitely a thing! I said:

It's not yuri, but my favorite manga is probably Azumanga Daioh, which is just a slice of life comic about a group of high school girls who are friends and their daily lives. I love it so much that I've never read the last few pages because I kind of don't want it to end, you know? I wish I could have had a high school experience like that.

I want to write more, but I honestly can't put words together as well as I could before the fire. I'm having symptoms that actually sound a lot like what people describe long Covid brain fog to be like, but I think it's just stress and anxiety and fear.

Ella (the dog) typically lies against me while I sleep, which is like the fulfillment of a childhood dream every night. (As a kid, I always wanted a dog to snuggle while sleeping, but none of my parents' dogs wanted to do that.) This morning, after I woke up (actually, was woken up by the loud crash of our cat knocking my jewelery box off the dresser [We just adopted a cat last week! More on that later!]), I moved to nestle against Miriam. Soon after, our cat came by to stand on our pillows and purr, and then lie down against my leg. Being somewhere soft and warm and touching all three of the living beings I share my space with was a damn good feeling.

I have joined several trans-fem groups online and keep feeling so much joy and kinship as I read through them.

A far-away friend (actually Kate, my undergrad advisor) sent me a bag to replace my magical girl (mahō shōjo in Japanese) purse/messenger bag that I lost in the fire at my condo a few months ago. The one I had before was light pink text on brown: this one is rather less subtle!

That said, I feel safer, somehow, taking this out with me instead of my small purple handbag. Being hung up on the handbag makes no rational sense to me. I'm out there with long hair, dangly earrings, boots with heels, and fem-looking sweaters and stuff, but somehow a handbag is a bridge too far? But this bag has worked sort of a baby step toward feeling less scared by a traditional fem-looking purse.