The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Well, I know Molly can’t read my blog, but whatever.

I made some mistakes with Frisky. To be fair, I was growing up. But when it became apparent that he was my mother’s dog, and that my mom had basically turned a 360 on her opinions on having a pet and loved Frisky completely, I kind of slid away from him. We were like friendly coworkers. Sometimes we interacted, but for the most part, he did his thing, and I did mine. It was only when I saw how much Natalie interacted with her dog, and that Frisky was getting older and a bit ill, that I realized my problem. The reason Frisky didn’t hang out with me is because I never set out to hang out with him. I couldn’t just assume he’d want to be around me. I had to make a connection.
Granted, it’s not like I didn’t have good times with Frisky before that point. I did. He was a great dog. But I just wasn’t trying to connect with him. I wasn’t trying to be his friend. I spent the last bit of Frisky’s life doing that, and I found it rewarding. I was glad I reached out when I could.

When Molly came into our lives, I knew I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I made before. Sure, I’m still a computer person who plays video games, and a dog isn’t really going to want to hang around with me while I do that, probably, especially when Mom is spoiling her to death. But I make sure to make time to visit with her. I take time to pet her and play with her every day, and check on her if I’m around. I got to know her. I get to be her friend. And it pays off. She likes me. She listens to me. She’s awesome.

Granted, she’s spoiled rotten. She’s picky as all get out about her food. She’s scared to death of everything. She gets to chew anything she can pick up because my Mom thinks “it’s cute.” But all in all, she’s a pretty good dog. I love her very much, and I am very glad she wants me around.

Happy Birthday, Molly.

Are you going to say to me “This can never be,” are you going to say to me, Withered Hope?
Sad sack!
Sad sack!

A post of complaining. I recommend skipping. Here, watch this instead. You’ll have more fun.

Here’s what’s going on, I guess.
So Sunday, Jonathan and Shauna decided it would be a good idea to get Molly groomed, as it was obvious my mom never was going to and they were going to the dog groomers anyway. So they took Molly and did it. This really upset my mother, as she thought Molly looked cute all shaggy and stuff. Of course, she was ignoring all the matted, dirty fur and things like that, which is why Molly needed to be groomed in the first place. She was also freaking out about the idea of Molly being in a cage for any length of time at all, and was sure Molly would be angry at her. It… yeah. Anyway.
Molly gets back, and Mom is all moody that Molly looks different now. She’s clearly upset. We all try to cheer her up, but to no avail. She’s unhappy about this turn of events. This is when Cole arrives, and we go upstairs to play games and wait for Cara because we were going to get snowcones.
A bit later, Jonathan and Shauna come up, and they tell me the situation. Apparently there was a fight. Anger flared up over the fact that my mom worries so much about this dog, but won’t attempt to support me by even doing something like trying to call me by my name. She got told off, and started crying. Shauna and Jonathan just wanted to let me know. I hugged them and told them how much I appreciate their support. I mean, I don’t want us all fighting. I want us all to be the awesome family we are, you know? But still, the fact that there’s so much love for me there, and that they want everything to work out for me so much that they’d do that… it means a lot to me.

Anyway, this made my mother’s mood worse, of course. I tried to talk to her, and she asks me if I’ve been telling Shauna we’ve been fighting. I said no, because we haven’t been. But that’s just because I go way, way out of my way to not do anything in front of her that would cause a fight. I can sense fights brewing. I can sense how everything will explode if I do things the way I want or should. I feel like our relationship is so strained, so fragile, and I’m trying so hard to make it work. If I’m myself, it’ll break. Even the little things I do, like using my true gender when talking about myself, bother her. We haven’t been fighting, but I’ve been holding myself and my life back a lot to keep it from happening.
She said she’s been doing good in supporting me. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. She and Dad are being fantastic in helping me out in many areas, such as house-buying, but in this one? This whole being myself thing? They’re not with me. As far as I’m aware their position is still “I can’t look at you doing this to yourself.” Which is basically getting me out of their life. Which they don’t seem to understand still. Even though I’m teaching and working and doing literally everything but being around them as myself, and that someday that shit has to end.

I’m complaining instead of explaining. Anyway.

Now it’s today. Today was going pretty decent for me. I mean, I had to get up early and work the truck, but that’s not so bad. Hours and all. I also taught, and that went pretty alright, too. Things were going fine.
Then we were having a conversation with my dad, and for the first time today, Mom refers to me by my old name.
My stomach dropped out from under me. I felt terrible. It took me awhile to figure out why, but I think it’s because she had been yelled and screamed at, but took nothing away from that experience.
Either way, bringing it back to the song, it just feels like my hopes of ever getting my parents to understand are stupid at this point. It feels like it will never happen. It feels like I am going to lose my parents. They don’t want a daughter, and they don’t want me. I feel like I’ve tried so hard to keep that hope alive, that they would, and this is just another thing trying to blow out that candle. Maybe it would be for the best if I went. I don’t know.

I love my parents. They love me. I want them in my life.
I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of them being the only two people in my life who don’t understand. I’m tired of them being the only two people who make me feel like a freak, or that I have something to hide, or that I’m less than a person. I’m tired of his hope that they’ll understand someday that keeps me from doing something about it. I’m tired of worrying, every moment I’m around them, that we’re going to start fighting.

I talked with Ecks after I ran to my room, turned down Jonathan’s invitation to go play board games with people (I just wasn’t in an emotional state to meet new people. I’m sorry, Jonathan. I hope it didn’t ruin anything.) and just curled up in depression and lost hope. We talked, and he’s awesome, and he’s right. I mean, I’m not going to let this stop me. Nothing is going to stop me anymore. Not when I’m finally myself for the first time in my life. I will wake up tomorrow, and I will continue on. No thoughts of suicide, no inability to get out of bed, no overwhelming feeling of failure. My parents have done a lot, but I got rid of those things without them. I was responsible for becoming myself and succeeding, and still am. I don’t need their approval. If they want to be a roadblock, they can be, but they should get out of the way. I’m going anyway.

And that’s what’s happening in my emotional life. Did you see that funny video? You should have just watched that up there. Goodnight.

I’m up to the Five Mole bosses, all of which are Number Three, which is still a fantastic gag. Earthbound is still a great game.

While I’ve been playing through, though, I’ve really been wondering about the level ups in this game. They seem randomized, something I never really paid much attention to, but it’s coming out now because goodness, Jeff has been getting terrible fucking level ups this time around. I think I had two separate levels where all he got was +1 Max HP. No stat increases, nothing but an extra hit point. He was constantly getting one-hit-killed for quite awhile with updated gear and everything. Paula was a little better, but not by much. I know Ness has always been way more survivable than the other party members, but I just didn’t remember them being such glass cannons. Maybe I did even more grinding in my youth? Who knows!

One thing I know I didn’t use in my youth were Jeff’s gadgets. Last time I played through the game, I discovered the Slime Generator, and how it breaks the combat wide open with how obscenely useful it is. This time around, I decided that I might be missing other things just as awesome, so while I’ve been using the Slime Generator a ton since I got it again (because seriously, it is that good) I’ve been trying to remember to try all of Jeff’s other unique items that kind of stand in for him not having spells. So today I used the HP-Sucker. Uh, it’s no Slime Generator, to be sure. It’s pretty well completely garbage. Very low chance of hitting, and when it does you get like 10 HP. What a waste of a turn. Maybe it’s not surprising that I didn’t discover the Slime Generator so long ago. I seem to recall there’s an gadget that removes enemy shields, though. That one might prove as useful. I’ll try to find it. (I’m not using any walkthroughs or anything for this playthrough. Just pure memory.)

Really, though, Earthbound does have its flaws. The inventory system, while neat, is just so broken. Ness’s inventory ends up filled with so many stupid key items, like the ATM card and Receiver Phone, that you’re essentially unable to actually store anything on him. Still, it creates so many dumb little touches and cute things around it. For example, the For Sale sign. I love this item for no reason. In a game with such a small, shitty inventory, it just feels so powerful to be able to clear room by selling things, instead of dropping them. Find better gear? Sell the old gear immediately! It feels like I’m breaking something, though in reality, I’m actually letting my inventory be cluttered up with another item in the For Sale sign. Still, I always carry it with me. I can’t help myself. Using it to make a little room feels better to me than randomly eating a food item or something.

Anyway, my emulator keeps crashing on me for some reason, which slowed my progress today. Still, I’m going to keep playing. I still really enjoy the game, and if I can push past Fourside, I can finish. I always find that to be the sticking point. Once I get to Summers, it seems like the end of the game rushes to me.

On The Stick did an SNES draft. It was totally fun, just like their NES draft! But it had one huge flaw.
No Earthbound.
Blew my mind. I mean, Final Fantasy 2 is a fine game, but when you’re picking that over Earthbound? You’ve got your RPG priorities wrong. I wasn’t really mad? But the idea of doing a “protest” and replaying Earthbound stuck in my mind. Then I started thinking about the last time I replayed Earthbound, and what a delight it was to revisit it, not being completely useless at RPGs. So I decided to do it. I started playing Earthbound again. Named my party Alex, Cris, Brer, and Ecks, and set out. Then I was thinking about commenting on twitter, but that seemed more a thing to do here. So here I am.

Today I played up to getting the Pencil Eraser. Here’s what I noticed.

The game, as it always has, has a lot of heart, but I personally enjoy the way that the game does the “chosen hero” thing. Buzz Buzz mentions you’re a chosen hero, but you don’t really tell that to anyone, and nobody but Pokey really even knows about the prophecy, though of course that is relevant. At the same time, it’s like your parents always knew. When you head out the door after the meteorite crash, your mother tells you to have a nice adventure. She knows you’re now an adventurer. It’s just kind of accepted. Same with your father. He just accepts you’ll be traveling about to save the world, and makes sure you have the cash for it. It’s like… it’s like Ness had always wanted to be an adventurer, in the same way someone has always wanted to be an artist or something like that, and his parents are ready to encourage him and support him because they know he can do it if he sets his mind to it. It’s just really endearing. You really like your parents in the game. It’s cool.

When you get to Twoson, the game really takes the kid gloves off, though. Even grinding up to the point where I didn’t even have to heal during the Frankystein Mark II fight, the Ramblin’ Mushrooms and Walking Sprouts are just brutal. Hitting your single character with the “Feeling Funky” mushroom debuff and PSI Magnet is really kind of cruel, especially since there’s nowhere to buy better weapons and armor in the Twoson. On top of all this, Twoson is where you get things like the Bicycle, Pencil Eraser, and the Receiver Phone, which basically make Ness’s inventory all but useless and full of key items. You need Paula desperately, if just for the extra inventory space, but they just take awhile giving her to you. Which is weird, because you get Jeff like… immediately afterwards. Well, after his little side thing in Winters, anyway.
In any case, I think Twoson, almost single-handedly, is why I thought this game was so hard in my youth. It just doesn’t let up! Of course, being smarter now, more willing to use PP to kill regular enemies and whatnot, it’s a bit less of an issue, and once you manage to get to Happy Happy Village, the difficulty calms down a bit.

But I’ll have to experience that another day. Time to bed. We make a great team, don’t we? Be sure to turn the power OFF instead of just pressing RESET, alright?

I had heard lots of good things about Age of Empires Online from Giant Bomb, and I wanted to try it. Since it is free, that seemed easy to do! So I went to the website, where I clicked a button that said “Download now!” It downloaded a little thing which, when run, downloaded another thing, and had the game installed, which then needed to patch, but that’s cool! Once it was all patched up, I could play.

I get into the game, and click to start. It asks me to sign in to my Live ID, which I do just fine, but then it asks me for a “Live Access Code.” I have no idea what that is. I go to the main website of AoEO again, and it doesn’t mention anything about an access code. What the fuck? So, of course, I go to the forums, because surely there’s a solution there.

You see, the Access Code is basically a CD key. You get one when you download the game through the Games for Windows Live Marketplace. You can look it up there.

I didn’t get the game from there. I used the button on the website that it was telling me to use very eagerly to try the game. It gave me nothing. When I opened the Marketplace, it didn’t show that I had downloaded AoEO. It didn’t have a code for me. I had to download it AGAIN, though the Marketplace, to get a code to be able to start the game.

Nice going, Microsoft!

(The game’s kind of cool once you get into it, though.)

I bought a physical CD from a physical store.

It felt kind of weird.

I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t bought physical media before for songs. But the last few actual albums I bought with a physical CD I kind of ordered on Amazon and then pirated, and the copies were never opened. Zero Day and Tonight would be those. Not even opened. I don’t know why I got the physical disc at all, really, except it kind of feels nice to have an actual object, and it was from the Borders clearance thing, so it was basically like 40 cents more than it would cost to download it, and TMBG can gladly have an extra 40 cents from me or whatever.

But while I was buying this physical CD (it was Join Us by They Might Be Giants) I just felt really awkward and out of place. It felt surreal to be buying music from a store. The world is already at that point for me. I decided to listen to it once on CD on the way home, to make the physical nature of the purchase worthwhile, but of course I broke the shit out of the case trying to get it unwrapped, so that’s fantastic. I buy the physical media, and it doesn’t even last! Lovely. And now that I’m home, it’s ripped to my computer, put on my iPod, and I will never, ever use the physical CD again.

The album? Well, I’ll talk about that another day. Let me be honest: I’m completely exhausted right now, moody, and just want to go to bed, preferably with a wuff. But I am too stubborn to not write something on this blog. So this is what you get! Tomorrow will be better. Later.

Today I decided I would stop feeling useless and sorry for myself and fucking ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. Because, you know, that’s the best way to not feel that way. I hadn’t really written any fiction in awhile, so I decided that’s what I’d do. I’d sit down, and I’d write some fucking fiction, like a writer! Yeah, that’s the ticket, I would write something. Fuck yeah.

I sat down and opened Microsoft Word, and tried to think of a story idea I’d developed enough to actually write down. Sadly, all I could come up with was an idea I had for some furry porn, but dammit, I was going to write something, so I started writing on it anyway. It’s porn time! Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.

I occurred to me about a page or so in that I had really made no reference to these characters being furries yet. I went back and started changing some things, but it felt wrong, so I changed them back. I guess they’re humans then, that’s cool. I mean, I hear some people like pornography involving humans, as strange as that sounds. I continued on. A thousand words or so later, I realized how little this story had to do with fucking. I mean, fucking was a big part of it, sure. But that wasn’t the point. It was about these characters finding love and falling into this odd situation with technology. You know, a cyberpunk kind of story. Only with fucking. I had been percolating the concept so long in my head, I made the characters, to me anyway, too people-y, and thus I wanted to tell their whole story, not just their bedroom antics. I didn’t let this revelation stop me though. I mean, I finished the story. It went where it was going, and when it got there, it was done.

I then looked back over the whole thing. What I had was neither pornography nor a serious, literary short story. If it was supposed to be pornography, well goodness, I’d have to add a lot more description of all the fucking that occurs in the story. The framing device would probably have to be thrown out, because it’s a downer, and pornography is supposed to be an upper. If it’s a serious short story, it’s lacking conflict. What conflict is there is brushed over quickly. I would need to spend some time really fleshing out the characters more, make them not pornographic stereotypes, and show the conflict more between them, instead of just saying it happened. The framing device could stay, but would need to be more seriously involved in the story. The more I thought about it, basically either path would basically double the size of the story, at least. Not that that’s a bad thing. But basically, the story has a ways to go after this first draft, no matter how I slice it. I’ll probably try to make it legit.

The whole experience, and this is the reason I wanted to write about it, really made me wonder about the difference between writing porn and writing a short story. I mean, in my head, there’s a clear difference. One is a legit craft that I work on honing, and one is something fun I do to distract myself when I’m horny. But a lot of work I’m most proud of, including the story that I’ve managed to get published, have near-pornographic themes and depictions of sex. I set out to write those to write a short story, one that works as I believe a story does, and has conflict, characters, and so on. But when I set to write something pornographic, I mean, I’m still thinking about a lot of the same things. The only difference is the solution to whatever conflict there is has to be fucking. But that’s a possible solution in a real story, too. No reason it can’t be. There’s also no reason a “legit” story can’t be sexy. Granted, a short story might not be the best place for a superfluous sex scene, as you’re trying to keep your used space to a minimum, but some sexy times are always nice, if they’re appropriate for the characters.

I think what shocked me is that I didn’t set out to write something I wanted to make really good. I set out to write that pornographic distraction. Yet that wasn’t what came out. It’s that intent, I think, that I’ve always used to determine whether or not a story is pornographic whatever, or something I should make really good and think about publishing. Again, this story needs a lot of revision before it is any good, but the pieces are there. When I write porn, I normally take a “fuck it, just write, it doesn’t matter” kind of approach, and do things like not name the characters or basically anything else I have difficulty with when writing a story. It was kind of refreshing to do that and have something come out that I see potential in, because it was so low-stress. Normally when I have a BIG IDEA and want to write it out, I find it very stressful and often throw bits away in frustration instead of continuing to roll. This… wasn’t too bad. I could keep doing that.

I don’t know, it was an interesting and successful experiment, not only because I wrote a short story draft, but because, well, it did help me not to feel like a useless asshole. So good for me! Victory all around!

What do I want to write about?
I want to write about loneliness, I guess.
Just skip this post if you want, no worries.

I feel like things are pretty decided on the “I have to move out” front. I feel my parents pushing me away, not wanting me in their lives and trying to get me to go back on everything I’ve ever wanted, and I doubt they’re going to take me seriously unless I call their bluff, get out from under them, and start living my life. So away I should go. I’ve run the numbers. I should be able to do it, I think, without too much issue. I’ve got to find a place, of course, but I’ll get started on that soon. Things will work.

When I think about reasons I don’t want to leave, though, I find it surprising that Molly is kind of the top of my list. I mean, she’s very much my mother’s dog. But she likes me a lot. She’s always happy to see me. If I’m sitting here, feeling depressed and lonely, I can go downstairs and sit with her on the couch and at least cheer up a little bit. She’s just always so happy, so pleased that I’m there. I loved Frisky, our previous dog, of course, and he was friendly too, but I was much more one of the people he was watching over and protecting, if that makes sense. Molly wants to be around me, comes to me when she’s scared to hide. She’s just… yeah. I feel stupid that writing that kind of shit brings me near to tears, but here we are. That kind of devotion, so in my face, just melts me.

I’ve got fucking awesome friends and a boyfriend I love. I shouldn’t feel lonely, perse. Frankly, I enjoy alone time anyway, quite often. But even though life is going great, I still do break down from time to time. It’s hard not to sometimes. That’s just life. Molly is my escape plan. If I am feeling really unbearable, she’ll be there to make me feel loved. Silly, maybe, but effective. Losing that kind of scares me. I’m so used to doing it now, I don’t know how else I’d cope. Cara is like, “Oh, get somewhere that allows pets and get your own dog!” and I mean, I suppose that’s an option. I never really thought about it. I guess it might also be an excuse to make my mom accept me more. She’d put up with me for her “grandkid,” I bet. However, it’s also a lot of extra expense that I don’t know if I can handle. So much of that “extra expense” money is still going to be tied up in transitioning for a long while. And I don’t know if Brer wants a dog around when he gets here… I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s why I’m worried about moving out! Stupid, huh? But that’s what’s been on my mind since I decided dragging my heels would make things worse here. Might as well get out there and get the being murdered my mother assumes will happen over with, you know? No time like the present. Onwards to my apparently obviously imminent death!
(Times like this, I’m glad she doesn’t read this. I love her. I don’t want to be this snarky to her face, but fuck, I have to let it out somewhere. I’m allowed to be frustrated. Just not an asshole.)

You know what’s super interesting? OTHER PEOPLE’S DREAMS!
Yeah, sorry, but this dream was kind of vivid and fucked up, so I will share it. Get out your dream interpretation textbooks and tell me how weird I am.

The first moment I can remember was that there was this tournament. It was something multidimensional. It was taking place on earth, but creatures from all over were involved. The night before, the tournament had happened, and something crazy had happened, but I had woken up the next day with complete amnesia about the events. All I remembered was that we’d done something great, I was on a team consisting of me, my mother, Harrison Ford for some reason, and a ton of My Little Ponies. (Yes, for whatever reason I think it stranger that I was teamed up with my mom and Harrison Ford than My Little Ponies.) Also, since we had won, or something of the sort, we had access to some sort of guild hall. So I went there.
The place was gigantic. A mansion really. People had already picked out rooms and such, and I wandered through, looking it over. My mom was swimming in a gigantic pool in the middle of the gigantic living room area, apparently. I asked her what had happened last night, and she filled me in. Apparently there was some sort of bomb threat. Some sort of interdimentional explosive compound had shown up, and our team, me especially, had been key in diffusing it.
It was then that Rainbow Dash rushed into the room. Apparently we hadn’t gotten it all, and she was calling the whole team together again to try to finish the job. The dangerous compound was some sort of red blob. Rainbow Dash explained, (In my dream, she was a chemist, and I didn’t really question this.) mostly for my benefit, that the way to diffuse it was to cover it with this green blob compound, and run it through a filter. That filter was a human brain. This was dangerous, of course. Apparently last night, I had been the filter, which is why I couldn’t remember it, but the amount she found today was so much more. More than just memory loss could occur. I volunteered, but everyone said no, I would be at much more risk than a new person because I did it last night. That’s when Harrison Ford stepped up and volunteered.
I combined the two blobs, and then pushed it into one side of his head, pulling it out the other. Each time I did this, his expression got more and more vacant, but the red was disappearing from the blob. Soon, most of the red was gone, but not all, but Harrison Ford was looking pretty bad. I didn’t want to keep going. I turned to ask Rainbow Dash if this was enough, but she wasn’t there.
I ran outside, into some sort of Mall area, looking for her. She was nowhere to be found. I was getting fucking desperate, and I remember feeling that way. Intense, real emotion of being lost and alone without her guidance. Eventually, I found her, though.

There was then a series of flash-forwards. I learned how to make portals to connect dimensions and places, so I could keep in touch with my teammates, who were going back to Ponyville after the tournament, of course. It was a much different method than pony magic, and I remember Twilight Sparkle being very interested in my technique. I also started to use them just to jump around the world. I went back to Brer’s house, and surprised him. I made Jonathan and Shauna take pictures of empty bathroom stalls at Disney World during their Honeymoon so I could focus on them and open gates there any time. (I figured bathroom stalls gave me the least chance of drawing attention to the portals at a place as busy as Disney World.)

Eventually, I went to my ex-girlfriend, Natalie’s, house. I don’t really know why. I was definitely visiting, though. I had many suitcases and bags. Her house was absolutely nothing like her house used to be when I was visiting. It was pretty huge, seemed to have Brer’s living room attached to it for some reason, and was stuffed to the brim with comic books and manga, which was something she liked, but never to this extent. I mostly just remember trying to leave, and having trouble because, apparently, I had brought a ton of comic books and stuffed animals to her house, and I was having difficulty sorting mine from hers. I woke up from the dream going through her many shelves to try to figure out where my stuff was. I couldn’t even find all the luggage I brought.

And that was my dream! I woke up then, and played Tiny Tower in bed. I’m awesome. Seriously, though. I never remember my dreams. Why did I remember something as nonsensical as this? My brain must just be amazing. I’m also just surprised about all the Pony influence. The Harrison Ford thing I get, as I had written that Cowboys and Aliens ramble right before going to bed, but I haven’t experienced something pony-related in quite awhile. Eh, who knows.

I’m not sure how to organize all this stuff that’s been in my head into a coherent essay, but I’m just going to go for it anyway. Sorry if it doesn’t make much sense or seems really scattershot.

When I went to visit Brer, I basically conquered my last thing that I was worrying about with the whole transition thing: I started using the correct bathroom. It’s really such a stupid thing, when you think about it, but I was so fucking nervous. But it’s just like anything, and I knew that: act like something is wrong, and something is wrong. Act like nothing is wrong, and nothing is wrong. It was not a big issue at all, and will continue to not be. It also just seems stupid that something like a bathroom would be the main indicator of “you made it” but that’s kind of what it is to me. That’s the main sorter of people into gender groups on a daily basis, and now I’m on the correct side of it. That’s what I wanted.

I really expected some sort of push back from the world. Some sort of horrible fate to befall me because I started going out as myself, and not worrying about it. Nothing has come of it yet. For all the fear my parents beat the fuck into me about Southeast Missouri being intolerant, everyone I’ve encountered and discussed this stuff with has been fucking fantastic. Everyone who is not my parents is so understanding and supportive, it really makes me feel stupid for having lived this long being so scared of being myself. And while it was subtle, and not the huge weight off my shoulders I was expecting, I feel so much better. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m not acting confident, but am confident, and maybe that’s not a useful distinction as far as what it lets me get done (because let’s face it, fake confidence is good enough in the majority of situations) but as far as me feeling good while doing it? It means a ton. It means a lot to me that I can believe in myself. It’s been a long time since I could say that and really mean it.

The parents are still being stupid. If I was being overly dramatic, I would say that I think that them being like this will end up being one of their biggest regrets in life. I love them so fucking much, and I know they love me, and once they understand how much better I am doing, and how much happier I am, they are going to feel like garbage for fighting against me for so long. (Okay, I guess this was a stupid, ineffective ploy to be dramatic without being dramatic, but surely you can indulge me a bit in my own diary blog post, hm?) But, you know, I get it, to some extent. They want the best for me, but can’t face the fact that what I’m telling them is true, and that I am working towards the same goal. I’m frustrated, but I’m their daughter, and that’s that. I can’t imagine life without them. I know they’ll be there for me. That’s what matters.

Really, though, the worst thing, if you can call it that, about the transition is people apologizing to me all the time. Nice people, trying to wrap their head around a new name and new pronouns… well, it takes awhile for it to click. I know that. But they apologize every time they get it wrong. I don’t know how to react to it. I just feel lucky that they’re even trying at all. How do you tell someone that yes, you really would prefer them to get it right, but that it’s not hurting, insulting, or otherwise doing bad things to you for them to make mistakes sometimes? I’m still working on the answer to that one. Still, if people being very polite and apologizing to me is my biggest worry, I say that things are going pretty well in my world.

But yeah. Things. Things are going well. I’ve been noticing other things, though, which I will record for posterity, so I can see how stupid wrong I am in a few years time.
I am so fucking hungry recently. I don’t know if it’s giving up sodas (you’d think that would have died down if it was, as it’s been several weeks now) or the hormones or what, but fuck, I am so hungry. I’ve gone from eating a meal a day, maybe two if it’s a social occasion, to just feeling starving all the time, and eating three meals a day, often out of hungry desperation. I just cannot remember being this constantly hungry before. I have no idea what this means, but it just feels like it can’t be random coincidence. I dunno.
The other thing is that women are talking to me more. Conversations that used to just be a slight nod of the head or a “sorry” suddenly are becoming actual conversations. I had a cashier strike up a fairly sizable conversation with me about the flavor “sour apple” at a gas station, and another woman I was in line with at Wal-Mart started a conversation with me about one of the magazines on the rack, for some examples. This isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. I am good at polite conversation. I just don’t remember that kind of encounter happening before, really. It just feels like a shift in how the world is interacting with me. It feels like something has changed, you know? And, well, I suppose something has, since I’m going out as me now. This might be another point of insanity, though.

Overall, though, things are going great. They’ll be better if I get the job I interviewed for today (And hi, background check people, if you read this!) but, you know, either way. Life is worth living. Life is great. I think I’ll keep at it.