Sunday, October 31, 2010

Riding the Hormone Rollercoaster

So, while I still sit around and avoid posting the serious stuff, I figured that the best thing to do would be to write something else.  Today is Halloween, and while I am not planning on doing anything for the holiday, it happens to be one of my most favorite of holidays.  Halloween is not special to me because it is Halloween but because it is the beginning of the holiday season.  Next stop THANKSGIVING!  Now, Thanksgiving is a real holiday! 

Another thing I can’t wait for is Tuesday.  Election day is long overdue, and we all know what the best part of election day is.  No, it has nothing to do with the free election of representation, but everything to do with ending the ceaseless commercials, automated telephone calls, and those signs, oh the signs! By this Wednesday, it will all be a somewhat distant memory!

So, this weekends project was a run through my wardrobe….  Unfortunately, it resulted in the culling of a rather large percentage of my closet.  That’s not a good thing considering how finite my resources are at the moment.   I do however have a ton of time on my hands, so maybe that will result in some thrifting or constructing some clothes on my own.  But then again, probably not since even both of those options cost money that I would be better advised to spend on medication or blood tests or something of that nature.
In other news, I was watching Father of the Bride, and broke out into a hysterical fit of crying.  Don’t ask me why but it just seemed appropriate at the moment! HA  I sat there sobbing until the commercial break, and just as quickly as the feeling overtook me, it was over and back to business as usual.  The next thing I knew I was standing in the fridge with a jar of sweet Gerkins in one hand and a box of saltines in the other.  God I love the rollercoaster!

Tomorrow, or rather at this point, later today, it is laundry day!  Once I get my clothes clean and put away, I am sure that it will be time to have another laundry day.  I really wish that the world would get over its phobia of wrinkled clothes,  Because honestly, laundry would be hella easier if you could just sort your laundry into loads by drawer.  That way, the laundry goes from the dryer to the drawer in one fell swoop.  In fact, if you thought about it, you could just take the drawer to the laundry room and just pile the clothes right out of the dryer into the drawer…  I suppose for that to work however, would probably require drawers to be sorted by color and not what type of clothing is it.  Would that even create a problem anyway?

Speaking of, another pet peeve is when people pronounce drawer as “draw”….

Thursday, October 28, 2010

88 MPH

I am craving a burrito at the moment like no other.

Today was pretty uneventful, I actually wrote a very long blog about my past, and have decided not to post it until I feel as though it’s done. I had to stop about halfway through the story just so I could take some time and build up some strength to overcome the emotions that are stirred up by accessing this sort of stuff. I am sure that a lot of you have had similar stories in your life.

Not to give away tomorrows blog, but more than 650 cases of child sexual abuse are reported every single day. The follow-up statistic for those children are crazy, with high percentages of them ending up in jail or with some sort of STD… If you have a child, PLEASE talk to them, make sure they know they can trust you to do the right thing, be there for them… And if they tell you someone is being sexually inappropriate with them, no matter who it is, pay attention to them!

In other news, I think I may have concussed myself this evening. While I was in the bathroom cleaning the sink, I noticed that there a moth caught in the window of the shower. Being the old softie that I am, I stepped on the bathtub, opened the window, let the moth out, and then closed the window. As I stepped down I suddenly noticed that my foot was going to land on a travel size bottle of shampoo on the floor, so I attempted to divert, only to entirely lose my balance and fall backwards hitting my head on the bathroom counter. Unfortunately I didn’t come to with the image of the flux capacitor in my head, but instead I found broken bottle of Pert on the floor, and a large lump on my head. That being said, if I don’t wake up tomorrow, you all will know what happened.

Why is it that the only time house makes unsettling noises is when you’re home by yourself? I spook really easily even though I live in one of the most boring neighborhoods in the world. It’s just the sort of place serial killers just love…. Or at least that’s what the movies lead you to believe.

With all of that being said, I will apologize for the brevity of this blog, but I promise you that I will more than make up for it tomorrow, er, today, just later .

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Credit Where Credit is Due in Full by the Thirtieth of the Month.

Do you ever wake up and hear music that is not really there? This morning I woke up to The Cranberries “Zombie”, it was very loud and very vivid. I reached over to turn off the malfunctioning alarm clock only to determine that it was not the culprit, rolled over to look at the stereo and TV to find both were off. So I conceded, I mean if you are going to give up and listen to a song that you aren’t playing by your own will, there are a lot worse songs than Zombie that you could be stuck listening to.

I would like to take a moment that I do in fact like The Cranberries, and Zombie is one of my favorite songs of all time so **raspberry** if you feel otherwise.

Back to the story. Naturally I started singing along to it, that’s what I do.

On another side note, if you are trying to develop your fem voice, singing along to female singers is a great way to do it. The down side to this is that you can only stand so many show tunes and the Andrews Sisters, and to many great female artists sing in a pitch, with so much range, or in such a way that it is actually counter to picking up fem speaking characteristics. So, pick carefully, you don’t want to sound like a guy with a falsetto or Janis Joplin.

Okay, back to the story again. SO, I started singing, and the music stopped…. I got out of bed, and the house was empty, and everything in the bedroom capable of making crystal clear music was off and in proper order. I then started to look for The Cranberries CD, which I would like to add that I also own a copy of it on tape too in case you were unaware of how old the album was. The elusive album turned out to be residing in my car and as it turns out, the music was entirely in my mind. Which makes me wonder, what else is just a figment of my imagination?

The dog told me he wasn’t imaginary…

My parents on the other hand… I am starting to wonder, I mean, are there really people out there that are so entirely contradictive to themselves? It seems entirely plausible that my mind could be entirely messed up enough to fabricate their existence. “God loves everybody, except gays, trans people, and democrats.” “We will help you pay for college, here is $150 for tuition.” (Yeah for those that may think that $150 is a lot of money, it didn’t even pay for thee credit hours even when I was in college)…

In other news, I think it’s quite ironic that when you call the credit card company and tell them that you have lost your job and would like to repay your debt but will not be able to make payments until you are gainfully employed again, they tell you that they can not do anything to help you… Then, when you stop making payments because you still have no job, and therefore no income, they then try to reduce payments, and work with you.

Now if you don’t like conspiracy theories, then plug your ears, er eyes, for the next paragraph. In reality, what they are doing is making you default on your payments so they can jack up your interest rates to the “default penalty”. This is usually somewhere around 22-25%, they then try to con you back into making payments so they can keep your account open, and extort money from you claiming that you don’t want to mess up your credit. The reality is, by the time they jack up your rate to the default number, your credit is already jacked up. At any rate, if you choose not to play their game and fall into their trap, they start charging you late penalties until you meet your credit limit, and then start charging you over the limit fees as well for an additional six months to a year. This way, they can rack up charges on your account so that the account is delinquent for roughly double your principle. THEN the credit card company sells this bad debt to a collection agency for half of the balance which is by this time pretty much all of your principle. So at this point the only thing the credit card company actually loses is some time, and a small fraction of their principle, the rest of the “balance” is just tacked on fees. Its like if I lent you $5 today with the understanding that you would pay me back $6 next week, next week comes around you only pay me $5, I Haven’t technically lost anything, I just haven’t gained what I was promised. Or then I could turn around, and start charging you an additional dollar a week until your balance is now $10, I then sell this balance to another friend for $5 telling them that you actually owe me $10 and they stand to make a $5 profit by just collecting. IT IS ALL JUST A RACKET!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Chalk is Cheap!

This is a plea to you young to-be parents out there, PLEASE give your child a normal name, and SPELL it correctly.  This is one of my biggest pet peeves.  Why is it that people think it is important to give their child a crazy name?  They all to often seem to follow a pattern, for little boys it tends to be some variation of an old name, and then often they throw in a odd spelling and it turns out looking something like Kalen.  I know you’re reading that and know for a fact that however you read it, is NOT the way the parents pronounce it.  Little girls have some choice, they can either have some random word as their name like, Sparkle,  or they can have some obscene spelling of a classic name like, Gessikka…  Both of those are nothing compared to the obscene spelling of a random word for a name like Apiffany.

How many times have you picked up the phone to have your last name mispronounced?  It doesn’t matter how simple your last name may seem to you, it never fails that it gets butchered from time to time.  Even for the most hardened of mangled last name veterans, a little piece of you just wants to smack the person on the other end of the phone and tell them EXACTLY how to pronounce your last name.  Now, imagine if that happened with your first name as well! 

I understand that the main argument for this type of naming structure is to prevent the classroom with three Brians, or two Jennifers,  but trust me, what is worse, having the same first name as someone else, or having a name that nobody can read…  If you want a truly unique name that is unlikely to be found repeated in a classroom, go back in your family tree.  I am always amazed at how contemporary the most historical of names can sound.  You want something out there, pick a good family name, so at very least when someone asks your child why their name is so weird, they can reply that they were named after their great so-in-so Blah Blah…

Besides, everybody knows it’s fantastic fun to be in a class with four kids with the same first name and a substitute teacher.  “Brian, will you please come to the board and complete this math problem?“ Everybody in unison now “Which one!? *giggle giggle*”

Speaking of the “board”, I would like to take a moment to talk about why a chalk board is truly superior to the current standard “white board” (aka dry erase board). 

First of all, you can always identify when you will be unable to write on a chalk board, because no chalk = no writing.  A dry erase board is always littered with markers in all states of their life cycle.  Inevitably, half of them are dry, which even on a “dry” erase board is not a good thing.  The probability of finding a functioning dry erase marker is inversely proportionate to the number of markers located on the board.

The claimed reason for the shift from chalk to dry erase is supposedly due to the sensitivity of electronics to dust.  In the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s this may have been a valid point.  Computers were highly mechanical devices with plenty of moving parts.  Today however, computers are nearing completely solid state.  In a few years, likely the only moving part to be found on a computer will be the power button, and only because people need actual buttons to not destroy touch screens while turning them on and off.

Need another reason why chalk is superior?  How about the complete absence of VOCs.  I suppose depending on how you look at this it could be both an advantage and a disadvantage of the dry erase marker.  While it is quite evident that some teachers enjoy getting high while talking about the symbolism of The Scarlet Letter, even Hester Prynne could tell you that huffing markers is not good for you.

Finally, in a society where under funded schools are EVERYWHERE.  Chalk is cheap (I was aiming for a good chalk pun)  Dry erase markers are incredibly expensive, and the only good ones are the name brand variety which are REALLY expensive!  Lets go back to LOW TECH!

There is no Ice in Iceland, or My Freezer

So, while this may appear as though I have written two blog entries in the same day, in reality, that is not the case. Truth be told, I have been writing blog style journal entries in my computers word processing program for quite some time with the intent of eventually publishing them on the internet. Then last night I decided to do it after watching some seriously messed up people on youtube.com and thinking to myself how being a sketchy person like that used to make me feel AMAZING! Of course, being that way was years of ADHD medication and psychotherapy ago. To be completely honest, I would really rather be that person than the “well adjusted” and miserable person I tend to be today. Thank you society for making me “normal”

In other news, if you are unaware the economy sucks right now. There should not be a point where you have to take college education off of your resume to make yourself more competitive in the job market. Yet that seems to be the case.

So, I would also like to discuss a company that for the sake of possible litigation shall remain nameless. Let just call them Fears and Bobuck Company. This company operates a division solely devoted to repairs and parts for the stuff that they sell. This in theory is a fantastic advantage for the do-it-yourselfer types such as myself. The theory is that, I buy a hypothetical appliance, for this example we shall say a refrigerator, from Fears and Bobuck Company, sold under their hypothetical brand name… um… Spendmore. Now while we all know that this Spendmore refrigerator is actually manufactured by a company that for the sake of this hypothetical senerio shall be called Aquatic-Vortex, we still buy this appliance at a premium knowing that we have a huge company like Fears and Bobuck Company to stand behind their “brand name” appliances with both support AND parts. Logically one would deduce that said Spendmore refrigerators parts would be available from Fears and Bobuck Company’s very own parts stores… THAT is where you would be wrong. If your Spendmore brand refrigerator breaks a $10 plastic automatic ice cube flipper-outer rod, Fears and Bobuck Company’s parts store must “order” the $10 plastic automatic ice cube flipper-outer rod and then charge you $8 to get the $10 plastic automatic ice cube flipper-outer rod shipped to you in 7-10 business days. Okay, I am not sure how many of you, if any have ever worked in shipping before, but in case you were unaware, average transit times for a certain tan (because they actually have another similar color trademarked) colored shipper range from 1-6 days across the entire united states, including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, AND Alaska… So, lets say that Fears and Bobuck Company’s parts distribution center is in Alaska, that way they can get their ANC perks. (look ANCs up if you don’t know what I’m talking about), This leaves between 1 and 4 days for the Fears & Bobuck company employee to pick up the $10 plastic automatic ice cube flipper-outer rod, put it in a box, and slap a tan colored shipping company label on it (that I would like to note would likely cost way less than $8 for a company the size of Fears and Bobuck). You’ve got to be kidding me! HOW THE HECK AM I GOING TO LIVE WITHOUT ICE!

Transition to a Non-Teriyaki Flavored Post Gender Apocalyptic World

So, I’ve been told that every day has a purpose. Pretty much anybody that tells you that is full of it. Lets take today for example. Aside from the fact that I feel miserable, it has served no purpose beyond filling out a date on the calendar. I suppose this all pretty much started at about this time last night. I could not for the life of me fall asleep. I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that my emotions are so turbulent lately.

Now before any of you say what comes next when someone indicates that they’re having emotional troubles, no I do not need medication. I don’t feel as though happy pills are the solution for what I am feeling. Really quite the contrary. My emotions aren’t a mess because I lack direction, they’re disheveled due to lack of momentum.

As I am sure a lot of other trans people are aware, transition seems to come in one of three varieties. Fist goes to the lucky bastards that through one way or another decide at 16 they’re transition bound and by 18 are well on their way, by 21 its done. Then there are the older gang, that just happens to have a butt load of resources at their fingertips, and seemingly over a year or two it just gets done. Then there is the category that I fall in to. We are the people with finite resources (aka money) that for one reason or another always manage to be two steps behind the ball.

This on a side note brings about a question that I don’t really know how to answer. My doctor asked me “is money the only thing holding you back?” and without hesitation I said definitely. Now in retrospect, it’s likely not nearly that cut and dry. Sure lack of money does put a damper on the whole process, but is lack of it alone enough to postpone a truly dedicated trans person? That convolutes the whole answer for me. I suppose if I felt that I would rather die than live another day as a male, money alone wouldn’t stop me… Then on the other hand, do I have to be on the verge of suicide to qualify as a genuine trans person? Maybe I am more a genuine trans person because I have come to terms with what must happen for me to be happy long term and weigh that against the hand I have been dealt, to come up with a rational retort to the minds irrational demands for instantaneous results.

On to something completely different, has anybody else noticed that teriyaki flavored ramen seems to be extinct? I want my damn teriyaki ramen back!