Ch 25: Personal Journal Entry 6/9/13

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend,

To me right now all the days blur together, and my weekend isn't really a weekend because I do more homework and masters course-work on the weekends than I do during the weekdays.  I know I procrastinate.  I got 2 more job offers for similar positions through Insurance Sales companies.  Still holding out though, have to apply for unemployment soon, probably will do that in the next couple days.

Last I wrote you was Wednesday morning.  I don't know what happened Wednesday but that afternoon I got hit by a wave of depression, didn't really want to do anything, decided I wasn't feeling too well and didn't end up going to class. Arranged everything to catch up though, finishing up my final for my class on Wed tomorrow, meeting with a classmate to go over our presentations and proof each others stuff.  Then PFLAG on Tuesday, still not sure if I'm going to march in the LGBT parade or not later this month.  I don't know though I was in a funk Wednesday night, evening, seem to be doing better now. 

Thursday I hung out, slept in, did some household chores, chatted with an old friend from high-school.  Been doing a lot of reconnecting with old friends, I guess more because #1 I seem to be more social and want to be more involved in other peoples lives than I used to, and #2 I found as a guy I tried to wall off my internal self too much and thought I could take on the world by myself so to speak.  But the more and more I go forward the more and more I find that trying to do it all myself was more a weakness than a strength.  I need good people around me to help me out and support me on my journey.  Enjoy good conversation, bounce ideas off of them and overall just have people who are willing to hang out and listen.  I find I want to know more about other people and how things are going than I used to as well, I guess you could say I'm a little less self-absorbed, though I do still tend to talk about a lot of stuff that I'm going through, though I suppose or at least I think that it is because of all of the stuff I am going through now it can be overwhelming at times.

Friday I got back into a more normal routine, played quite a few games but was having fun.  So my mood was improving and going in the right direction.  Actually went to bed early and started getting on a normal sleep pattern again as well.  Almost finished the last book of the Wheel of Time, exciting stuff, getting towards the end of the world, Rand fighting the Dark one to save the world from evil perils.  lol.  I know most of you don't know what I'm talking about but some of you will check it out, and others know the reference.

Saturday I woke up, we had a nice breakfast, I did some surfing of the web for a bit, then got dressed up and we went out to the store.  Getting dressed to go out now is like exhausting sometimes lol, not that I mind it it just takes a lot longer than it used to, got to make sure I've shaved any spots that are exposed, then the outfit picking out, then the makeup and then the wig and the hair styling it's a lot of work.  Worth it in the end though, ahh well, then we went to the store, where I am told a guy was checking out my butt but saw my face and got embarrassed.  I also had my first ma'am which was exciting, lady in the deli said it when I went to get my deli products.

So, I smiled and was happy that I got some positive looks, got some strange looks too but those are starting to go down as I think I'm passing better than I used to.  As my facial hair falls out and is less noticeable I think that's the biggest part to passing, the rest of it can wait, while I'd like to have breasts that are noticeable my mosquito bites will do for now.  Having long hair can make simple things difficult too, lol, eating and just being outside can be annoying with the wind and your hair flying everywhere.  The makeup and the heat combination I think makes the wig hair stick or get attracted to my face more than it should, but I'll deal with it, it's not that big of an annoyance just something I never thought about until I did it.

We got home and I researched and in my web surfing have tried to find good examples of kickstarter campaigns that worked well and in which people actually met their goals.  Thinking of running one myself at some point and my friend who is helping me with the video has asked me to find some that I like and send her examples.  While I have found campaigns that have worked, I am having a really hard time finding videos of kickstarters for trans individuals.  A lot of the programs reference people to their blog or have pictures and typed words without a video, surprising that it is, maybe if I was better at searching YouTube I could find some there.  Anyway if you guys know of any good ones to use as examples please send them my way.

So, sunday rolled around, my wife went out to the Old Port Festival with some friends, and I played some games in the morning.  I was approached by some of my gamer friends, one in particular who wanted to Skype with me and get to hear my voice and talk to me to try to get to know me better.  She at first being a gamer friend and not knowing her irl outside of the internet very skeptical and thought I was pulling her leg when I first came out to her, thought my link to my blog was going to unleash a virus on her computer or whatever which I can totally understand.  I mean it's hard to trust people, but eventually she came around to trust me, read my blog and apologized up and down for not believing me sooner.  Her mother was a FtM transition, and I guess it hit close to home, our 'condition' while there are many of us out there is still fairly rare.  So now I'm her friend and she explained getting to know me better and being able to talk to me on Skype like getting up on Christmas morning, she was just sooo excited to get to know who I am.  I found it endearing and enjoyed our conversation, while we mostly played the game and would talk about the game, it was still fun to hang out with a 'girl-friend' who totally platonic just wanted to hang out and share interests.  I don't know I guess I found it strange that someone wanted to know me as a friend just because of my condition, while overall I have had pretty overwhelmingly positive reaction other than certain minority issues it never ceases to amaze me the kindness of others and their willingness to help you.

In our conversation at first I was nervous as I still sound like a guy, need to take some time to practice my voice training.  I did find this website on the voice training process for those of you interested:
http://www.mindfulcommunication.com/transgender.htm

This isn't the site I was thinking of, though I think the link I was thinking of is on Laura's Playground somewhere.  I'll have to track it down and post it as someone else gave me the link which I thought I had saved in my favorites but apparently I hadn't.  Oh well, either way she was very nice about the voice and didn't treat me strangely because of it.

And then sunday afternoon / evening I did my homework for my masters course, and started on my final.  I sat with my wife and we had the extended version of SuperBad on while I worked on my homework.  I was surprised to find it unopened and laughed at the extended scenes and talked to my wife and asked her why we hadn't watched this before.  I suppose we both just forgot we had it, probably not a terrible thing as watching movies on our shelves are probably not at the top of the list of things we are concerned about.

to be continued...