Easy is over yonder

Breaking a lifetime’s habit of nail biting is taking some work, even with me finally feeling motivated to have good nails.

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We want information! Information!

For several years I’ve turned away from a lot of physical measurements like weight and (except in the most general terms feasible) the dimensions for sizing clothing, because I know that the numbers have been bad, and that since I was stalled out thanks to body loathing and health problems from making any progress, it [...]

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Tiptoeing in

Coming out in stages to Mom.

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So this is my skin

I’ve hated my body in varying degrees from mild disorientation and annoyance all the way up to full-fledged thinking that being a brain in a jar would be preferable, as long as I can remember. There have been a few stretches where it let up: one in college, when my health was better than it [...]

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With a flower in her hair

I have a history with camellias. They grew in glorious abundance around our family home, and I always loved their blossoming, for itself and as a sign of spring in general. But they also play a part in a memory I’ve never confided to anyone until now. It was spring of my senior year of [...]

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Aesthetics are real, too

“In Defense of Eye Candy” is an article about computer interface design, but the more I read it, the more I realized that it applies to gender identity and presentation just as strongly. One of the features of kyriarchy (and I love that word, and am so glad to know it) is the idea that [...]

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So this is my face now

I grew a beard when I was college and kept it up until early this year. In retrospect I’m kind of wondering why I didn’t pick up on the gender dimension of my more or less constant body horror earlier on, but that’s how it goes sometimes – I got distracted by the disability dimension. [...]

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Oh, I recognize this barrel

I’ve been posting with my new identity to a few places I’ve been active at before, and find myself enmeshed in all the usual arguments about unrecognized privilege, discrimination’s existence without consciously bigoted intent, all the Awareness 101 stuff. At the same time, I’m reading and thinking about the discussions at trans places about moving [...]

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Listening practice

I’ve never been as good as I should have been at listening without rushing into comment. I think I’ve improved with the decades, but still…one of the hardest things for me about my new situation is recognizing just how often I still need to hush up and listen to others, because I don’t yet have [...]

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Self-reconciling kitty is self-reconciling

This week so far, four of my long-time friends have told me some flavor of, “Wow, you seem a lot less stressed this week.” So far I’ve replied with something along the lines of, “Yes, I made some big progress on old personal stuff. I’ll tell you more when I get a bit more sorted [...]

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