MeghanIsMe

I find it a little hard to keep up here because writing everything up for Facebook, and then copying it here and to Livejournal manually, takes time, and I don't always do it at the same time even though I keep wanting to. At one point, I was thinking about learning enough Javascript to write something that will automate this for me, but I didn't follow through. (Though I did end up sort of pivoting to learning enough C++ to write LED control code for my computer case lights!)

Anyway, some stuff has been happening!

Someone posted a meme that I related very strongly to and I wrote about it. The meme text said:

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In text attributed to blueberrygoth, it reads "ive known so many "cis" people who've told me they thought they might be trans or nonbinary but they don't really experience dysphoria so they felt like werent allowed to call themselves trans. how many people have had to live their lives in the closet because they were told they werent in enough pain"

Then, follow up text attributed to thatse-corvid-core-babey reads "i've said it once and i'll say it again. EUPHORIA is the greatest identifier of a trans person. not dysphoria. dysphoria is hard to define and thus it's hard to regulate what is and isn't dysphoria. but euphoria? that feeling u get when someone uses the right pronouns? that "i can't contain my smile" sort of joy? THATS what the trans experience is all about. that's what unites us"

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I wish someone had told me this 25 years ago. I was too disassociated to feel much dysphoria, but the euphoria was *always* there. I just didn't understand.

I do have dysphoria now that I understand who I am and I feel the ways my body doesn't match. But the absolute delirious happiness I've found since consciously living as the correct sex is worth it a thousand times over.

While I was out at Costco yesterday getting my prescriptions, I talked to the pharmacist about getting the two accounts I had there (from two different doctors prescribing with two different names) combined. He confirmed which name I want to use and said "I'll get that taken care of for you Meg." Literally, the whole rest of the day, I was having flashes of joy about him calling me Meg and seeing me as a woman. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I spent a little while saying to myself, out loud, "I'm Meghan. Meghan. Meghan. I'm Meghan," and I simply don't have words for the joy I feel just knowing that and seeing that other people know that.

I self-medicate with food, and I've been having a really hard time not stuffing myself to the point of real pain sometimes. I've been trying to be more active and bike more and lose weight for a long time, and I was getting somewhere this past spring and summer, but now, I don't know. I don't really know how to deal with what's going on in the US.

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I had a gender focused day a few days ago. Miriam and I drove to Tonawanda, NY to notarize and mail my affidavit to correct the sex on my birth certificate. I was waiting until I had documents to do a name change at the same time, but I decided it's time to get that done in light of current events. A friend there Miriam has known for a few years but whom we've never me in person helped tremendously. She then took me thrifting and was a huge help again in finding clothes, creating outfits, and getting them on me to try out. She's also talking about more thrifting and helping me put outfits together (which I've always had trouble with) and about helping me learn to dye my hair. I'm really excited about both of those things!

I found another weird irrational gender thing. I'm cleaning up, and crushing soda cans to fit in the small bin for recycling pickup here. Stepping on cans to crush, or actually, crushing them at all, them feels like a "guy" thing and makes me kind of dysphoric. I bought a wall-mounted can crusher, which does seem to help a lot. It also keeps empty cans from piling up all over, which is one less bit of debris to get in my way. There is *a lot* of stuff to get in my way down here. I'm working on it, but it's pretty stressful.

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Despite the state of the world, we need to keep taking care of ourselves. I need to keep taking care of myself. It's hard.

I got the flu and Covid vaccines on Tuesday. As always, I have no reaction at all (other than minor local muscle soreness which was gone the next day) to them, which always makes me wonder if they're effective. But I got them.

To sign up for the vaccinations, I had to list previous shots, and which vaccines they were. I can't remember details like that! I had the two original ones in the Netherlands, and a booster in SK before I had a health card so none of those are on any official record I can access. I gave approximate dates, and for the kind of vaccine, I wrote "I can't remember." That was apparently good enough.

Honestly, I was kind of annoyed when I've been asked which kind I wanted. I had the option in Regina, and I said that I didn't care, and they told me I had to choose one, but didn't have any information about the differences. What information am I supposed to use to choose one, if I haven't been keeping up with the literature? Isn't this what medical professionals are supposed to do?

It's good for folks who have knowledge and want options to have them, but the medical professionals are supposed to give me the best preventative available based on their knowledge and judgement, not based on my knowledge and judgment! I am not a medical professional! I actually trust experts, unlike a disturbing number of people out there who seem to think Youtube videos are the equivalent of professional knowledge.

A friend on FB said that the vaccines are of similar efficacy but some people have a strong reaction to one or another, and in that sense it's a matter of personal choice. I wish staff would have told me that. It made me kind of anxious to choose one without any data to make that choice with, and this process should be as easy as possible to get the most people to do it.

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On a happy note, four or five months ago, when I was looking for a swimsuit for the first time, I was terrified. I almost couldn't get myself to go to a store in person, but Miriam helped and encouraged me, and I felt pretty safe at Torrid, and I bought a one-piece swimsuit with a fairly modest skirt. I ended up really loving it.

And today? I am the proud owner of a two piece string bikini and bottom set. I will only be wearing that one around people I feel safe with, but I really love it too! And though Miriam came with, I was able to go into a women's clothing store that was *not* Torrid, and just look around and try stuff on.

Sometimes, something reminds me of the vast amount of progress I've made over the last years.

Not everyone wants to see pics like that, but if you do, let me know how to send them to you? I like sharing...

The way my hair pours in gentle waves down my chest and over my breasts after I shower reminds me of when I first had long hair in my, I think, early teens. I had seen plenty of fantasy novel covers and other art with women (or mermaids, or fem faeries, or what-have-you) painted with their hair strategically concealing those terrible female nipples that society has decided are inappropriate to view. As that young teen, I liked trying to arrange my hair like that, feeling like maybe I was kind of pretty (though I probably wouldn't have used that word): like a mermaid from a fantasy novel.

Still took another 25ish years to figure out that, just maybe, I was trans. I'm slow sometimes.

Anyway, I have new lemony body wash and it smells SO GOOD!

I bought a network media player at the thrift store and it does exactly what I wanted: I can play music and videos from my computer on the TV and/or receiver. Great!

So I tested it out by watching the beginning (which turned into the first half or so) of Project A-ko, which I haven't seen any of since before transitioning, and I had Thoughts about it.

This movie has some real problems in terms of the way gender is treated, and also problems with stereotyping of Black appearance (which I will admit I was *completely* oblivious to until Miriam pointed it out). I acknowledge those problems, but this isn't about that.

I first saw this movie in the edited, English version on TV - maybe it was the Sci-fi channel? - and have loved it ever since. It's so *bizarre*. It's so *surreal*, and those have been elements I've appreciated in media for as long as I can remember. But watching it again, now, it strikes me that this is, by at least some measures, yuri.

Years ago, when I was still with my ex, I bought a boxed set of Kashi Mashi at Best Buy. I loved that show for a lot of reasons, including several that were deeply personal. It was only a while after transitioning and learning what yuri media is and how much I love it that I realized that Kashi Mashi, one of the anime that is near the top of my list in terms of personal meaning and connection, is yuri. I've thought about the implications about this kind of media being what I connected with long before I realized I was something other than cis, and about how there were signs for a long time. I'd never thought about there being any media like that before then.

But I saw Project A-ko for the first time probably as long before I saw Kashi Mashi as my first viewing of Kashi Mashi was before the present. I think I was in high school. I loved it for reasons I was conscious of, but maybe there was a reason I wasn't conscious of: it's a story about two girls fighting over the love of a third. (And aliens, and super powers, and giant robots, but that's beside the point.) I remember one of my parents' friends commenting that the Western dub/edit had removed "lesbian subtext" that was there in the original version and wondering what that subtext was. Having seen the Japanese sub, there isn't subtext: there's text. This love for B-ko and jealousy of A-ko on the part of C-ko (Yes, they are more-or-less literally named "Girl A, Girl B, and Girl C) drives one of the primary conflicts of the entire movie. Women loving women are the people I identify with and feel attraction to, and maybe they always have been since before I figured that out.

I dunno. I don't have any huge thoughts or revelations about this all, but it's one of those things that I think I'm going to be thinking about for a long time.

Miriam bought me a corset, and I love it *so* much! I usually really avoid wearing this shirt (it's one I thrifted shortly after the fire), and felt very "guy" wearing it. But wearing a corset, it shows my reshaped silhouette in a pretty euphoric way.

Getting squeezed in a really tight hug for hours at a time is a really nice bonus. I've loved the way a corset feels since way back when I was with someone who did a lot of ren faires and got to try hers.

These past couple of weeks were difficult in a few ways. Miriam's parents were for a week. Her dad is pretty conservative in a lot of ways and I got kind of upset with him a few times. I got sick about halfway through their visit. My best guess is I caught something while at the dentist without a mask while people were in close vicinity of my open mouth for an hour or more. Today, I finally feel like the symptoms are just ghosts of their former selves.

I reaggravated my neck and shoulder in the same place that I hurt it while I was in Wisconsin. I think it's because of all the coughing I was doing while sick. That started around when her parents left on the 15th, got really bad on the 16th, and is still giving me twinges as I move around today, but it's finally mostly better after a week of pain meds and a heating pad. I need to be careful not to type too much or do other things with that arm though, or it gets worse again.

Five days ago, I wrote:

"I think I've aggravated whatever was giving me pain in my neck and shoulder while I was in Wisconsin. (Maybe related to all the coughing I'm doing?) There, it was some of the worst pain in my life: far worse than when I broke my wrist. It's not as bad now: I am functional and able to write. But it's around a 7 when lying down and is keeping me from sleeping. I can get in a position while sitting up where it's more like a 4-5. That's while on several painkillers.

I'm also still dealing with symptoms from being ill and trying to manage all of that on like four hours of sleep. And when I did sleep last night, I had a dream where my dad told me that if I needed him he's a phone call away, and obviously he is not, so I kind of don't want to sleep anyway, except I'm exhausted. So I'm basically a mess right now. Sorry for not being communicative."

So yeah, there's some grief too that's keeping me down. That was exacerbated today by going to CostCo to pick up prescriptions and seeing Christmas decorations. I've been expecting some kind of holiday grief to come along, and today was the first big wave of it. I managed to not cry in the store at least.

On the way home, between grief, loneliness, and isolation, I ate a bunch of cake bites. I bought some after deciding that I was not likely to binge-eat them all too quickly. I was wrong. I ate half the CostCo sized container on the way home. I was feeling pretty disappointed and upset with myself while I ate them and thoughts of self-harm were in my mind, but then I thought of the inner-child work I've been doing with myself. If I was taking care of Little Meghan, and someone wanted to hurt her, I would fuck them up. And I am Little Meghan, and sometimes she eats too much because she is really sad and hurting, and that does not mean she is bad. It means she is a human being who hurts and deserves love.

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My birthday was nice, if kind of lonely. At least Miriam and her parents were there. We ordered tasty Regina style pizza and pretty unremarkable cheesecake from a local place, Western Pizza.

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I've been having some one-person girls' nights on the couch, snuggled up with my dog and my stuffed animals under a warm blanket and watching sapphic media. Those really help get me away from my thoughts sometimes. Miriam helps a lot too: I was feeling particularly bad on the morning of the 11th after my attempts to reach out in a few places online didn't get anywhere. We were at a grocery store to get something her parents needed and while she was inside she bought me a bouquet of flowers. I cried sad, happy, and deep tears against her in the car, feeling loved, and thought of, and cared for, and validated. I would be lost without her.

Ella is confused by the sounds I make while watching voice training videos and it's pretty adorable. She's sitting in my lap and sometime she looks at my mouth or looks me in the eyes, I think trying to figure out if she should be paying attention or doing something.

A blanket we bought came with a blue satin ribbon as part of the packaging, so I tried to tie it around my neck in a big bow, thinking it would be cute. Then I looked in the mirror and it sort of looked like a necktie. O HAI THERE DYSPHORIA!

I'll just put that ribbon away now. *laughs*

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Yesterday's movie on the treadmill was Kase-san and Morning Glories. (Some spoilers here, in case you're concerned about that.)

The way the two of them communicated was so refreshing! They're not perfect, especially Yamada, but Yamada has never dated anyone before and is trying to figure that out. Kase, on the other hand, seems more experienced, and is caring and thoughtful.

Yamada is too cute for words. She may possibly be too cute and innocent for this world.
There are moments of drama, but they are resolved quickly rather than drawn out into long spans of will-they-won't-they as happens in other media like this I've consumed. One isn't necessarily better than the other, but Kase-san and Morning Glories was almost entirely relaxing, sweet, and positive, and sometimes that's a really great thing.

I was concerned by the choice Yamada makes at the end to go with Kase to Tokyo for university, but that was in part because I didn't quite understand what her original plan was. I don't know if she's ready, in terms of maturity and ability to think about things in the long term, to pack up her life and move somewhere entirely new and far from home to be with a girlfriend - that ended up not working out so well for me - but I also don't think it's as bad a choice as I was first worried it might be. And none of us start out having the experience to make these choices well: sometimes you just have to do them and see what happens, I think.

I would really like to read this manga.

*Adds it to her online wishlist

Wow, I have a lot of yuri in there... And a book about historic industrial architecture of the United States. Niche books on architecture are expensive. 🙁

Introspection and realization from a conversation with Miriam yesterday evening:

I figured out some years ago that I've made a lot of the worst decisions in my life because I was trying to make them rationally and ignoring my emotions about them. However, reading Milk Morinaga's "Girlfriends" again led me to a realization about one such decision I made even further back in time than others that I've had that realization about. (Some spoilers about Girlfriends here, which are relevant to my realization.)
Girlfriends is a yuri love story about two high school girls, Mari and Akko. For quite a while, Mari is clearly crushing on Akko but has no idea that she is, despite patently obvious signs. She wants to spend more and more time with her. Going on a group date with other friends, Mari started crying at the thought that Akko might find a boyfriend and have less time for her. Together at Akko's home one evening, Mari was looking at her sleeping friend's face and thinking about how pretty her eyelashes were and, without thinking about it, leaned in and kissed her. (Which she was immediately ashamed of doing because of lack of consent. But she told Akko later, who brushed it off. "Is that all? Friends kiss all the time!") Mari learns that Akko had a boyfriend who she slept with the year before Mari met her, and was basically heartbroken at the thought that Akko might still have feelings for this boy, even while telling herself how her pain didn't make sense because she hadn't even met Akko a year ago and it's not like she and Akko were dating or something. And there's more.

Yet, they'd been close friends for something like a year before Mari finally had connected the dots, as she was rushing up the train station stairs to get to Akko as quickly as she could because the escalator was too slow, and realized that she has romantic feelings for Akko.

I was telling Miriam about this and saying that though from an outside perspective Mari's cluelessness is amazing, it actually kind of makes sense. I can imagine being a teen who has never even considered the possibility that girls could be attracted to other girls trying to figure out what all these weird feelings mean. It connects to experiences of my own. One is my complete failure to realize I was trans despite clues written in metaphorical giant blinking 500-point font letters. Miriam had her own experiences as a teen that show how much most humans want to interpret things in ways that fit their preexisting models: she had sexual dreams about women and logically concluded that she must have been a man in those dreams and that's why she was attracted to women in them. Being something other than straight wasn't a negative thing for her: it just didn't fit her mental model and she never even considered the possibility.

Now I've thought for some time that my own belief that I was completely gender-agnostic in terms of who I was attracted to was because I wanted to validate my own feelings of queerness somehow. Maybe I'd decided that this was my community, somehow, and being a boy who only liked girls didn't fit into that self-concept. I'd talked to Miriam about that before, and repeated my thoughts on it as we talked. Shortly after, while brushing my teeth, I realized that probably wasn't exactly it. "There's more to it!" I exclaimed, in what was likely a completely unintelligible attempt to vocalize through a mouth full of toothpaste.

I came back in the room and said that this was probably, in fact, another example of me making decisions that made fundamental alterations in the course of my life by analyzing them logically and ignoring how I actually felt. I went to my first fan convention by myself, without my parents, in 2002. I met a guy there who, not too long afterward, tried to get me into bed. I was completely unprepared for that, even at the age of 23, as a terribly shy person who hardly knew how to have friends, let alone how to engage with someone sexually, even less someone who I thought was of the same sex. But was I actually interested in men? In the days after, I thought about it and decided, rationally and logically, that it didn't make sense to exclude half the population of the planet from consideration as romantic or sexual partners merely because they were male. I couldn't think of any rational reason not to be bi, so I must be bi.

Friends, I like girls. I like girls a lot. I might just maybe possibly go for a masc person if there was something special about them. But there would really have to be something special about them. (I think my sweetie Erik fit into that category.) And while the shittiness of a lot of cis guys is, in fact, a rational reason to feel that way, it's a lot more than that, and it's stuff that I can't really explain rationally. I just really like girls. Kind of like I know I'm really a girl and it means everything to me to be one, even though I still have no real rational explanation for feeling that way and didn't figure it out for 35 years because it "didn't make sense."

So I think that I thought I was basically 50/50 bi for most of 20 years because *not* being bi didn't make any rational sense. It helped (or, rather, hurt) that I had no real idea how to relate to people that way as a boy so it's not like I was really learning about myself from experience. I didn't have anything making me question my mental model.

After getting home from a bike ride yesterday, I blocked three people who left a laugh react on Facebook to a picture of me I posted publicly some time ago: one of me shortly after getting my hair done at the salon. I changed it to friends only, but I suppose my picture is probably out there getting passed around somewhere anyway. It's the second time something like this has happened, and I don't really have strong feelings about it that I'm conscious of. But I suspect they may be there anyway.

On one of my rides to the lake, I was passed by two women in jerseys riding together and it made me think of watching Long Riders! and what it would be like to have friends and/or partners to ride with. It made me feel lonely, though the ride was really nice.

Speaking of Long Riders!, Miriam jokes that watching the show was a bad influence on me, and she may have a point. I have discovered a group that organizes brevet rides in Saskatchewan and I want to do one next year. Brevets are a sort of combination race/touring bicycling event. There's a set route and checkpoints, and you have a set amount of time to finish in, but it's explicitly non-competitive.

The shortest ones are 200k with a route from Regina to Fort Qu'appelle, to Southey, to Regina and they have a 13.5 hour time limit. I'm going to aim for one or more of them after the winter. I used to be in physical shape good enough that that distance felt approachable, and I'd like to get there again.

(In case you're curious, the longest ones are 1000km and you have 75 hours to finish.)

And I found a stepstool in the dumpster a couple days ago, so my days of standing on stacked up paint cans or rolling chairs are over! For now anyway...

I've been low-key dreading our next-unit neighbor seeing me dressed fem. He's one of the condo board members and Miriam and I have talked to him on a dozen or so occasions, a few times at length, since the fire in our unit forced him out of his for a few months last year. He seems like a nice enough person; an older man who is retired and spends most of the Summer at a cabin he has somewhere. I saw him back outside a day or two ago though, and he spends a lot of time sitting on a yard chair in front of his unit reading or doing other things when he's here, but so far he hadn't seen me dressed fem.

I was going out the front door with Ella and two long, narrow cardboard boxes (a few inches on a side by about 5 feet) to recycle. I realized he was sitting outside and gave him a quick greeting that he returned as I scurried around the corner toward the dumpsters. Returning, I was pretty anxious. I was scared to go back around the corner, as if on my first appearance my narrow lengths of cardboard had somehow obscured my crochet sandals, my hair put up with little clips at each side, my dangly leaf earrings, or my knit sweater with shoulder cutouts, and this time he was definitely going to notice I was dressed like a girl.

But I walked back to my front door, admonished Ella for being slightly barky at him, gave him a little wave, and went inside. Nothing terrible has happened yet and the world is continuing to exist.