Fashion-able

I have just returned from a short shopping foray in the city centre.  I am on the hunt for some new shoes.  I am having bad luck lately with finding shoes that fit well and don’t hurt my toes.  I am cursed with the lust for pointy toes.  The curse is that I have really narrow feet and they tend to slide right to the front and crunch my toes into the toe box.  I need a nice pair of brown shoes since my wardrobe color palate has gone in the direction of browns and greens.  I already bought a pair of Bronx pointy toes in dark brown in size 41, and even though they fit, they are by the end of the day really painful.  I have tried every combination of insoles and gel inserts to no avail.  I think I will have to donate them, although I wouldn’t want to curse anyone else with such torture.  They also have the same shoe in black.  I usually wear a size 42 but when I tried them on they seemed too big.  I suppose if I were to put my thick gel inserts under the ball of my foot they might be enough to hold my foot from sliding.  I think it would be best to just give up on pointy toes and go round.  Oh well…

I spent the past weekend getting my apartment and paperwork organized so that I can concentrate on sewing again without being distracted by the chaos that my living situation had become.  I even fixed the towel rack in the bathroom.  There a few holidays coming up in the next couple of weeks that I want to take advantage of to sew some sassy new threads.  The weather here has been total shit lately.  Tomorrow it is only supposed to get into the fifties and I have no good coats to wear.  I either have light summer or heavy winter stuff to wear.  I am hoping I can make it through without having to spend money on something that I should be making.  I have more than enough fabric.

I have seen a couple of looks that I want to style myself.  One of the looks is sort of an 80’s style.  The bottom is either tapered almost skin tight jeans that are ankle length and slightly too long so they gather a little between the ankle and knee, or a fitted denim just below the knee pencil skirt, both out of black stretch denim which I bought a couple of months ago.  Then comes black leather ballet flats with the little bow tied with a lace.  I found a shop on the walk home that has them and I hope they have my size.  I will have to check later this week.  The top should be preferably a horizontal striped light jersey knit with a v-neck and three-quarter length sleeves and rather clingy.  I bought a belt to complete the look tonight.  I found a Turkish cheapo store that had belt buckles that can be customized with your choice of letters, a la Madonna’s “boy toy”.  The teens that bought one before me chose “bitch”.  I chose a smaller one and filled it in with “cunt”.  There were some older women there buying shoes and one of them remarked that she couldn’t understand why the teens wanted to wear a belt that read “bitch”.  I am glad that Germans tend to not know the word “cunt”, as it is surely a bit more nasty than bitch.  I am wearing it right now and it makes me feel really sassy!  (I hope mom doesn’t read this)  I think the only people that would know what my buckle means would be the Englanders and Americans.

I bought some chic black suede low top Adidas sneaks with hot pink stripes on Saturday.  I wore them today with a denim skirt and black tights with my aqua Art Rock baby T that has a hot pink paint splotch to tie it all together.  I wore a black cardigan with it since it is still a bit on the cool side here.  I felt really cute today.  I like having the option to mix and match to put a look together.  I also did cool toned eye makeup today, which I hardly ever wear.

Over the weekend I went through my patterns and the Burda mags to find separates to make.  I found a blazer that I want to try out in muslin first to check the fit.  I can buy Vogue and Butterick patterns here but they are really expensive.  The other problem is figuring out the correct size to cut.  European sizes are all over the map and vogue and butterick sizes are according to experience at least two sizes larger than what I have bought off the rack.  For example I have size 11 Levis that fit even a bit loose in the waist, but the jeans that I have made from vogue patterns are a size 16.  Tops and jackets are even worse.  My winter coat was a size 42/12 off the rack, an H&M blazer size 44/14, so I am a bit bewildered as to which size pattern to cut in vogue or burda.  I will probably try a size 18 in vogue and a size 44 in burda.  Both of which will be made in muslin first so as to not waste fabric.  The only problem is it all takes time, and if I need to go smaller, I will have to do another muslin to make sure the fit is correct before I go to the good fabric.  I bought some really nice beige fine stretch twill at a fabric store around the corner to make a summer suit.  I am planning on making a blazer and pants, and if there is enough fabric left over, to make a matching A-line skirt too.  I bought four meters at 18 Euro a meter, ouch!  I pre washed and dried it yesterday.  I ironed it before I folded it up and it felt really nice to the touch and it has really good hand.  I’m sure it will come out nice as long as the fit is correct.

I am happy that I have my groove back and the lust for making sassy outfits.  We’ll see what comes out of it and if I can keep it going.  I realize every morning the gaps in my wardrobe.  I am just starting out and I need to make due with what I have.  I also don’t have so much money to spend so I am trying to make the clothes that I need and buy only what I can’t make such as shoes.  Shoes…Speaking of which, I need to see an orthopedist or a podiatrist to get some arch supports made.  My left ankle has been hurting me here and there for the past couple of months.  I also need to have my cholesterol checked again since I have almost consumed the 100 Simvahexal tablets that I was directed to take by Dr. Hoppe.  I hope it will look okay.  It is also time again to visit my psychiatrist for my quarterly check-in.  Thursday I will be clearing my neck with the torture again.  She should be able to get it all within an hour I suspect (hope).  She worked on my cheeks two weeks ago.  She was almost done and I had to tell her to stop.  It hurt terribly every step of the way and I couldn’t handle it.  That was the first time that I ever told her to stop in the 60+ hours that I have completed thus far.  I suspect it was because I forgot to take an Ibuprofen before I went and the Emla had not been on my skin long enough.  I need to book the car tonight for Thursday.

saving energy

I visited my therapist this week and came away from the session with a little bit more self awareness relating to personal energy.  I have always viewed the whole issue of personal energy as bullshit, but he has enlightened me to what it could mean to me.  I have been feeling oppressed lately by certain people because to a certain extent I have let them oppress me.  This oppression as I describe it is vague and up until the therapy session, I really didn’t understand how it was possible, but rather just that it happens.  My therapist explained to me that I give too much of my personal energy to the oppressors and therefore they succeed in their oppression.  This concept makes sense to me when I consider it in physical terms.  For instance, when my ex feels it her duty to say whatever it is she says to me, and I react by getting angry and writing a bunch of words in my defense, by doing this I am giving her my energy.  He instructed me to try not to give up my energy to such people, but rather focus it on things I consider worthwhile.  I understand this better now because I can rationalize and see explicit examples of how personal energy applies to the physical as well as the spiritual.  The spiritual aspect I consider to mean my psychological state.

I assume that considering personal energy in such terms has possibilities to help me navigate this ever increasingly tricky world.  I am not yet sure how to harness the wild beast that is my personal energy, but it is blatantly obvious that I can only benefit from controlling it better.  I have been wondering why I am constantly unhappy about certain circumstances and feel helpless to change how things play out.  The old cliché about choosing one’s battles lies at the heart of controlling personal energy outlay.  When I contemplate my behavior in the recent past I realize that I have given too much of my energy to futile pursuits, even when I was able to see beforehand that they were futile pursuits.  It now makes total sense to me why I was physically and mentally tired all the time.  I was blind to the fact that it all has to do with energy and the focus of it.  I’m not totally sure of how this plays out in practice, but I am going to attempt to consciously control it better.  Only I have the power to control how things affect me, although I am somewhat powerless to control what will happen around and to me.  Positive and negative things will happen, but how I let those things affect me is the key.  I feel this is a power of sorts that I never consciously realized I had, but now I do and it makes me feel hopeful that my life can only get better.  Keep your hands off of my energy!

I rearranged my living room yesterday finally.  I have been contemplating it for a long time now.  I am glad I did, because now it makes the space seem a lot larger and homey.  This past week was very tiring with very little me time.  Monday and Tuesday were very difficult days at work as described in my post from last Sunday.  I decided Monday night that I would take control of my destiny at work on Tuesday morning.  I felt it was time to draw the line to signal that the circumstances could not continue as before.  It worked out well, although the situation was difficult to confront.  As previously mentioned, therapy proved to be very beneficial.  Afterwards that evening the cost analyst invited me to dinner to try to reconcile our differences, or at least that is what I suspected his motive was.  Most of the conflict at work has to do with him, and Tuesday I called a spade a spade and had written evidence to back it up.  He didn’t try to reconcile our differences, in fact we discussed completely work unrelated topics.  That tells me that to a certain extent the confrontation at work was in the end a justified confrontation.  For me it is not about winning or losing, but rather accepting the reality of the situation.

After dinner I came home to organize my paperwork in preparation for the meeting with the tax man on Wednesday night.  I hadn’t organized my personal paperwork for about nine months.  It was a lot to catch up on, but I managed to get it done.  My work permit expired on Thursday, and I received a letter at work on Wednesday from the employment administration explaining that they needed more paperwork from me to renew it.  I called and spoke with the responsible contact and she explained what the problem was.  Everything she needed I had at hand and told her I would hand deliver on Thursday morning.  It seems everywhere that I have attempted to change my name has got it wrong.  I have received letters addressed with every possible combination of my new and old name.  It’s kind of funny, except for the fact that I have to try to straighten it all out.  I visited the tax man that evening which went fairly smooth because I brought as much personal paperwork as possible with me.  He gave me his respect for pursuing my gender change and I thanked him for his kindness.  I was introduced to the concept of “world taxation” and what it means to me, interesting.

I was able to drop off the paperwork at the employment administration office on thursday without delay, which I found very refreshing.  I went to my electrolysis appointment that evening to have her work on clearing my cheeks.  I’m not quite sure why, but I squirmed the entire 132 minutes she worked on me.  Sometimes the electrolysis is not so painful, and others totally unbearable.  I don’t understand it.  As a consolation, it will be completely finished sometime in the future. Friday morning I had to go to visit the immigration office to get a temporary work permit to keep me legal until I receive the official permit.  That didn’t take much time, again refreshing.  I went to my bank afterwards to have them order me again a new bank card, because the first new one still had my old name on it, although the letter was addressed to my new name.  Friday evening I went to La Bodega with Mari, Christi, and Helmi to have dinner and a couple glasses of rijoha.  We talked very little about work.  We mostly discussed irrational fears, such as my fear of being deep underground in a place like a mine or something.  It was a fun evening and the conversation was light.

Yesterday was an unusually stormy day with high winds and thunderstorms.  I took the opportunity to rearrange the living room since braving the elements seemed like a bad idea.  There was a break in the storms which I used to go do some food shopping and buy a new tube of lipstick.  I have never in the past completely used a tube of lipstick before it went bad and had to throw it out.  I ran into a problem trying to buy a new tube, they don’t stock the particular color from Clinique in Germany.  I bought the tube at Marshall Fields in Detroit a few months ago.  I had no other choice but to try to find a similar color and try it out.  A good thing about the store I bought it at is that I can bring it back if it doesn’t work for me.  I’ll give it a couple of days and see how it works out.  I am a blogging maniac today.  I will break this off now so I can get showered and shaved and hopefully start working on a pair of jeans.

Now for something totally different...

This is my 100th post. Definitely a milestone. Whoo-hoo!!

Social and political philosophy has always been an intriguing subject to me. In my college years I was identified by some sort of test to have a higher literary aptitude and there fore was chosen to take part in higher level literature courses rather than rudimentary “English” courses. This distinction may seem a bit of a stretch for any normal college or university, but one must consider that I attended a purely engineering oriented institution. Usually in such institutions not much weight is given to literary thought, but commonly weight is given to only scientific principles and bringing a student’s English competency to that of basic college levels. I have always had the proclivity for idealistic thought, or at least the interest in thinking about the underlying principles that affect us all in society.

I did some data mining last weekend after posting which proved to be worthwhile endeavor in the end because I ended up finding some thought provoking material. I started looking for information to explain the current events in the US as of late. The particular issues that drove me were the US/Mexican border/immigration issue, the neo-conservative religious right and their disappointment with dubya, and my bible thumping friend and colleague who wrote to me saying that he would have to think about my “lifestyle change” and whether or not he would be able to correspond with me anymore.

First off, I have to mention my distaste with the so called “minutemen” from the southwestern states that have taken it upon themselves to patrol the US/Mexican border. This group, in my New England opinion, is inappropriately using the term minutemen to label their group which I find very offensive. The real minutemen were named such because they were prepared to defend the colonists’ wish for independence from the oppressive rule of the English, men ready to take up arms in a minute. A bunch of yahoos from the southwest who feel it is their duty to defend our borders from the evil Mexicans because our government has failed them I find terribly absurd.

One must ask the question, how did their ancestors cross the border? One of the founding principles of the US is that it is a country founded on free immigration, and that anyone from anywhere has the right to come and seek citizenship. Their ancestors were obviously not denied this right, so have they simply forgotten this fact? And this inclination to take up arms at the drop of a hat couldn’t be more antiquated. I do understand where it comes from; dubya has done a very good job with fostering such thought with all the needless conflicts he has started during his reign as dictator. It really bothers me that unarmed illegal aliens are being greeted by armed hillbillies supposedly defending our borders. They should have instead applications for citizenship or work visas in hand, and if the immigrant refuses to fill it out, only then they should be turned away. I am all for controlled immigration, which obviously needs to be revisited because the current system is not working. To simply selectively decide who can enter the country based on a personal bias is dangerously wrong.

I do stand very firmly on the language issue. I believe English as the national language must be upheld. My grandmother emigrated from Canada in the early part of the last century as a French speaker from Quebec who accepted English as the national language and therefore learned and spoke it. She didn’t question this as it was a fact that to become an American was to be able write and speak English. I stand by this because I have also practiced this principle in my life. When I moved to Germany, it was very important to me to learn the language, even though I do not plan on becoming a citizen. I feel it is only fair that if I have chosen to live here, that I must learn the national language. There are certain responsibilities that come along with being allowed to move around at will. Preserving one’s ancestral heritage is also very important, but language is just a small part of that.

Now on to the neo-conservative religious right (ncrr) and their disappointment with dubya. It was almost totally predictable that he would lose favor when his platform that lured the ncrr didn’t pan out. I think the one issue that lies at the heart of it all is the oil issue. I saw oil security as a thinly veiled objective that everyone dismissed as not a valid issue. Now that the ncrr cannot afford to drive their V10 super sport utility vehicle to the next anti-abortion rally or to the spaceship church on Sunday they find dubya unacceptable. The blind deference to his policies I also find very disturbing. The policies that set in motion after 9/11 designed and propagated to preserve our security couldn’t be any more contrary to what the country was founded on. I am glad that people are starting to wake up to the absurdity of it all. When one allows oppression of a certain group they don’t agree with, they open themselves up to being oppressed as well. It goes both ways.

I guess what lies at the heart of all these problems is that many people have relinquished their ability to think and make their own decisions to someone else who supposedly knows better what is good for them. I have been recently confronted with this because of my friend and colleague has told me in response to my change that he must think about whether or not he can accept me. He has called my life change a “lifestyle” change. This classification I know well. It is a typical classification from the ncrr of such issues as homosexuality and the like, because it is easier to trivialize such issues as a mere “choice” rather than recognize the issue as an innate characteristic. I suspect that he will make his decision based on what the man banging his fist on the pulpit says, or what the good book tells him, instead of deciding for himself. The higher being gave us a mind and free will for a reason. I believe that religious teachings are just a reference to help us decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, and not an absolute plan for life. He is a very intelligent person and I hope that he will allow me to continue to be his friend. If not, oh well.

During my surfing I found everything from hardcore Nazis to thought provoking social commentary. The sites that I enjoy reading and find thought provoking are the ones that ask tough questions and attempt to rationalize them through discussion. The one-sided totalitarian sites I can do without. Discussion is good, blind deference to extreme views is bad. I happened upon the concept of archaism. As I understand it, it means basically that the world will return to a more primitive form of order eventually through the passing of a cataclysm. This line of thought would return us to countries or groups based on a unifying factor such as ethnicity for example. The argument is based on the idea that unification and peace comes from a common underlying factor that a particular group possesses as an innate trait, such as race. This should not be interpreted as a form of racism as many groups have extremetized. I realize that extremetized is not a word, but you get my drift. Early societies were based on ethnicity (e.g. the Celts, Romans, Greeks, etc.) and for the most part were peaceful within themselves as an entity. Within this construct as it is presented, it is conceivable to have a nation of transsexuals for instance. I found the principles that were discussed interesting to consider at the very least. You can read them for yourself here. It is difficult, if not impossible, to subvert human nature, even though it is constantly attempted.

Simplicity

Today I finally got off my ass and re-vamped my blog face.  I have been meaning to do it for a long time but until today have never taken the time.  Which is rather lame of me because it took all of five minutes or less.  I wanted to get rid of the explicitly transsexual references and also the ones relating to me being married.  I originally wrote the texts that I have revised last summer when I started this blog.  They fit my mindset back then, and with everything that I have experienced in the last ten months, the words no longer fit.  Back then I was amidst trying to accept my transsexuality and therefore wanted to explicitly write it in text.  Now that I have accepted and feel very comfortable with it, I no longer feel the need to shout it from the mountaintop.  And besides, what I wrote was kinda absurd and more than I actually feel should be there.  Simplicity has its virtues.

I am nursing my upper lip today because I went through an hour of electrolysis on it yesterday.  If there are any would be transwomen reading this, I would like to give some advice relative to hair removal procedures.  Laser treatments are a falsehood in that they are claimed to permanently remove hair.  According to my experience this is not true.  My electrologist lambasted me for having laser treatments during the time I was in the states.  She told me that laser is not permanent and sooner or later the hair grows back colorless and somewhat finer in texture.  Case in point.  Back in early march it took three hours to clear my upper lip, lower lip, and chin.  About four weeks later it took just over an hour to clear the same area.  On Thursday night it took almost an hour and a half to clear my chin and lower lip, and yesterday took just over an hour to clear my lower lip.  In principle, electrolysis successively reduces the amount of hair, so the amount of time to clear a given area should successively decrease.  The only explanation that I can come up with is that I experienced a laser induced dormancy re-growth.  This re-growth is probably influenced by the body’s tendency in summer to dispel the winter induced vitamin D stockpiling.  The dispelling of vitamin D is evidenced by increased hair and nail growth.

I am hoping that all that will grow back has grown back, and electrolysis will only get easier and easier in the future.  I have been working on beard hair removal for almost three years now.  I was very discouraged this week when I came to the realization that the amount of hair has not decreased.  The sheer amount of pain associated with electrolysis, not to mention the time and money, is depressing in and of itself.  I still have hope that someday I can get rid of my razor once and for all.  Shaving my legs and pits I can live with, but shaving my face continually is to me unacceptable.

I went to a biergarten on Wednesday with Fredi, Meck, Walter, Siggy, Gerhard, and Anja.  Anja no longer works with us, but we like to all get together once in a while.  Anja came a bit later than the rest, and she didn’t recognize me at first when she sat down.  Fredi had told her about my change beforehand to prepare her.  At the biergarten the conversation didn’t focus on me at all, but rather on other things and we all had a good time.  I did feel a little self conscious though, as I had a full beard which I have been able to somewhat hide with some makeup tricks I have learned.  I look ok as long as you don’t look too closely.  

I am glad I look now very different than I used to.  I think that most people automatically assume the negative when they think of someone changing their gender, when it comes to appearances.  I am extremely satisfied with the look that I am able to achieve and I feel that I don’t need to obsess over it.  I have found what works for me and I stick with it.  I am also learning how to be flexible when time is at issue.  The thing that takes me the longest is drying my hair.  Showering, facial skin care, shaving, and makeup take the shortest amount of time.  Applying my makeup takes all but ten minutes or less.  I have also learned how to take care of my hair and sleep with it so that I don’t need to wash and style it everyday.  That is really a challenge because of how long it is.  My hair reaches half way down my spine.  I love my hair even though I still have racing stripes on the top of my head, but those will eventually be dealt with.

Thursday at work was an extremely frustrating day.  I was on the verge of tears when I left to go home to prepare for my electrolysis session.  I was so exasperated from work that the pain from the electrolysis didn’t really affect me.  I cried for a while afterwards and decided to go to bed early to put an end to the terrible day.  Work has become so frustrating that I am finding it harder and harder to turn it off when I am outside work.  That depresses me and makes me feel that I need to find a new job.  The whole problem stems from poor management.  I was brought over here again with the specific intent of developing the next generation of a specific type of test stand.  The first generation was designed almost ten years ago and we have not been given the chance to technologically modernize it since.  The design department has always had new ideas, but we have never had a chance outside of a customer contract to further develop the product.  Customer contracts always have a fixed budget and a fixed time schedule.  Those constraints do not allow for development, they only allow time and money to copy the same thing over and over.

The past three years of the development project have been spent in endless meetings discussing market demands and therefore no real design work has taken place.  Me and the other design team members have never been completely free of working on customer projects, and therefore have never been ginven the chance to focus on the development efforts.  Upper management has probably been lied to, or doesn’t want to accept that our immediate managers have decided it was more important for us to work on customer projects.  Therefore upper management thinks we are a group of lazy and unmotivated engineers who have no interest in the future of the product.  The perception is that we do not know how to reduce costs, but the reality is that we have never been given the chance.  A cost analyst was hired some months ago to help us reduce costs, but since I have had no time to work with him, he has decided to do my concept design work on his own.  New ideas and a fresh perspective are good to an extent, but to totally redesign the wheel is not going to work.  Most of his ideas are ideas that we have shown him and he has bastardized them to the point where they will not work at all.  And he presents them as his own ideas.  Some of the things he is proposing we have already tried or abandoned because we determined they won’t physically work.

My frustration is derived from this endless confrontation with someone who has become familiar with the product within the last six months and the team that has on average over ten years experience with the product.  We have been judged on evidence that doesn’t exist yet.  We are constantly told that we did a shitty job even before we have done the job.  I do not make the decision as to what I work on, that is what I have managers for.  I am there to make design decisions and design things.  A meeting is scheduled with the company president on this coming Tuesday for three hours with no agenda.  I am assuming that we will be further told what idiots we are and that we need to reduce costs on something we haven’t been given the chance to design yet.  I think I will prepare a little ditty of my own, a bomb of sorts to try to clear the air.  People from outside now have become a part of the team and I resent the false impression they have been given by management.  I am at the point where I don’t care if I am fired or not, so I have nothing to lose.  I aim to take ten minutes to explain my position and how I see the non-progress of the development project.  I feel that I must or I will go crazy.

Die Krone

I went out with Marion last night to the Goldene Krone to see a band and have a couple of beers. The Krone is an age-old tradition in Darmstadt. It is a very old place with lots of features. The ground floor has a disco on one side and a pub on the other side. Upstairs there is a room with a stage for bands and the like, a small movie theater, and another pub room with a pool table. I like it because if you aren’t having fun in one room, you can easily go into another where something completely different is happening. The Krone is one of those really dark dingy places that definitely shows its age, and that’s all part of the charm in the atmosphere.

As I rode my bike to meet Marion, I noticed that there was an awful lot of broken bottles and throngs of teenagers everywhere. I assumed it was graduation day for all the teens. As I got closer to the Krone the density of the crowds grew. Right in front of the Krone was apparently the main party point for all of them. The street had been closed and there had to be thousands of them there partying. I was a bit hesitant to lock my bike up anywhere near the chaos. Large amounts of teens and alcohol are not a very good combination. Marion and I managed to find each other and we went inside. We milled around between the rooms for a while until the band began to play. They were pretty good. I don’t know the name of the band, but their style was a cross between brit-pop, goth punk, and indie rock. The last time I went to see a band was with Helmut to see Wishbone Ash.

The highlight of the night happened right before we were to leave. We decided to see what was going on in the pub on the ground floor. On the small stage was a three man band called “Heiner, Rainer, and ein andere”. It rhymes in German, trust me. A Heiner is the nickname for persons born and raised in Darmstadt, and “ein andere” means “another”. Heiner plays the piano, Rainer sings and plays the tambourine, and another plays the drums. Their sound is really raw, but they are fun to listen to just the same. They were playing Beatles toons when we happened upon them. There were a couple of older men sort of dancing to their music in front of the stage. One of them latched on to me and tried for several songs to get me to dance with him. Marion ended up dancing and I followed. In the end I ended up dancing with him for a couple of songs. Marion finished her beer and we left. As we were walking out of the Krone, I remarked how sweaty the old guy was, and she said “welcome to the club”. I guess I will have to get used to being an object of manly desire as it comes with the territory. It was fun anyway.

When we went outside, the ground was completely covered with broken bottles. Marion remarked that when she graduated it was nothing like that. Kids these days. My bike was still there where I locked it, but it had been lightly disturbed. Luckily everything was still intact and nothing bent. The tires still had air in them, so I was able to pedal my ass home, dodging the shards of glass along the way. It was good to get out for a change. We managed to talk about things other than work the whole night and we had much fun.

give till it hurts

She can save her righteous hypocrisy for someone who doesn’t know her.  I wish I was one of those people right now.  The whole time we were together I never once saw her do something in the way of community service or the like.  Maybe she has finally taken enough time away from trying to fix herself to help someone else.

I shouldn’t do this, but I am going to anyway.  Love is a tough thing to experience.

When it comes to giving of myself, I would rather do something in the way of community service rather than helping individuals out (financially).  To clarify, in community service one can give financially or give some time to do some work of some sort.  I have found community service to be very satisfying, knowing that I have helped someone out that needs it and would surely be grateful for it.  I have actually contemplated getting involved with some sort of community service to become more involved in my community, to help others out, and possibly meet some new people.

Someone recently asked me if I had any friends outside of the trans community and work.  I thought about it for a second and the answer was no.  That troubled me a bit.  I long to have a night out or something where there aren’t any conversations about trans issues or how work sucks.  I figured community service was a good bet to take my mind off of being lonely, and hopefully replace that feeling with satisfaction that I was doing something good for someone I didn’t know, but I knew needed it.  I am going to look into it because I thought of doing it myself, and not because she mentioned it, that was pure coincidence.

Now on to the clarification of why I shouldn’t, but still do, help individuals out financially and in other ways.  I should first state that I feel that personal relationships should be mutual.  Even though I feel that way, I continually get into personal relationships where I get burned in some way.  I simply cannot say no, that is my problem.  Here’s some history…

Marcus.  He was a star football player in high school until he decided he was going to break someone’s jaw over a girl and was sent to jail. End of football career.  I met him when I started college and we were the same age.  He made his way through life leeching off of girlfriends, all of which he would physically abuse.  He always had some sort of warrants for his arrest hanging over him.  He was always trying to pull one over on everyone.  When he would fall on hard times I would lend him money.  When he had no place to live I would drive him around until he found someone who would let him stay the night.  When that didn’t work out, I would sneak him into my mother’s house.  I was like one of his girls, the only difference is he didn’t beat me and he didn’t fuck me.  I would end up paying for everything because he couldn’t hold a job.  His childhood friends had no problem saying no to him, so I was left holding the bag.  I bailed him out of jail for $1000 once, with the understanding that he would show up for court so I could get my money back.  When it came time for the court date, the answer was “court, what are you crazy?  They’re going to lock me down and there’s no way I am spending the summer in jail.”  I lost my bail money and he was picked up three weeks later by the sheriffs.  By the time I finally got away from him by moving to Detroit, I had lost over $3000 on him, and got a broken foot to boot.

Then there was Donna.  I met her when I was with Marcus at a club night.  I took her home and slept over but nothing happened.  I saw her a couple of more times before we had sex.  A short time later she told me she had a three year old daughter and that she was pregnant again, but it wasn’t mine.  Her daughter lived with her parents in Taunton.  I decided to stay with her anyway.  As her pregnancy progressed, she ended up living in a foster home right down the street from my mom’s house, where I was living at the time.  A short time after she gave birth to her son, we decided to move in together in an apartment in Fall River.  She regained custody of her daughter again and all four of us lived in the apartment together.  I supported all four of us for a year and a half.  I bought her a car and a new television.  It all ended when I found out she fucked some toothless crackhead in our bed.  There’s more to the story, which I will write someday, but that is the long and short of it.

Then there was my last relationship.  We moved in together about five months after we started dating.  She moved in with me in the house I was renting.  She started college but hadn’t finished, so I offered to support her while she went back full time to get her degree.  I paid the tuition as well.  I bought her a car.  Without getting into too much detail, I supported her for the whole seven years we were together for all intensive purposes.  When we got divorced, she got a nice chunk of change and my car, which she is probably still driving today.  The story isn’t quite as simple as that, but I am the asshole nevertheless because I decided I needed to be female to be happy.

When I moved back here, I met up with Kirsten and Tommi again.  Kirsten is trans like me.  They were planning on moving to another house and asked if they could borrow some money for six months.  I loaned them 2500 euro without any paperwork to keep them honest.  I trust far too easily.  A short time later, I spoke with Kirsten and she played dumb, asking “did you lend Tommi money?” I told her yes and that I had the understanding that she knew about it.  She told me she didn’t know about it.  She also told me that he had used her for money and she had no idea where it all went.  I called and spoke to them both at the same time and they both had conflicting stories about the money.  At that point I basically wrote the money off as gone and I would never get it back.  Kirsten told me she was going to have Tommi arrested and deported.  I called again about seven months later to find they were still together and that they didn’t have any money to pay me back.  I again wrote it off.  I don’t ever expect to see that money again.

Replacing the starter in Linda’s car on Monday made me feel good that I helped her out.  The actual work I hated though.  My point is that I feel that I am a female, and most females don’t usually work on cars.  So it was really something to get me to do that again.

I have a definite problem with trusting others too easily.  I have routinely stayed in bad relationships to the point where I can’t take the abuse anymore.  I’m not quite sure why, as I am still trying to figure that out.  The closest thing I can come up with is that I have this intense desire to feel needed and loved, even though I fully know that the other doesn’t necessarily love me.  My only hope is that my relationships as a female will be different.

I’m not sure what the point of writing this post was.  I am really confused by what my nutter ex is trying to do to me now.  She is trying to convince me that I am an egotistical and very self centered person.  She is succeeding, obviously.  I was silent about her since the last time she was trying to push me over the edge, because she almost succeeded.  This time she has duped me into thinking that she actually cares about my sister and I let her in again.

I don’t claim to be a victim.  Everything that I have got myself into, I went into fully knowing that I would be hurt in some way in the end.  Going into transition was something that I knew I had to do for myself, and I tend to think the shit I put myself through before was just a distraction so I would have an excuse not to do it.  For instance, my father will never understand, I am married, I don’t need it that bad, I don’t want to be a freak, etc.  Most of my life I have treated myself badly.  Maybe I shouldn’t have made it this far.  Maybe I should have been crushed while welding by the one ton steel door that was always vicariously held up by a bent hook behind me.  Sometimes I wonder if all of this is worth it, life I mean.  I have tried to make myself comfortable with my gender, which I finally am, but I have fucked up the rest of my life in doing so.  Not really, but it looks like that right now.

One thing for sure, I am not going to stop being female for anything.  She can play all the head games she wants, it’s not going to stop me.  She isn’t going to write a keyword someday that’s going to remind me of an issue that I am not dealing with, because there aren’t any.  The fact that she doesn’t get is that the issue I wasn’t dealing with was that I knew I was female and couldn’t accept it.  I am and I have.  I wouldn’t let myself have this for whatever lame excuse.  I am doing it and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it, so get over it.

Stop trying to “help” me.  All you are doing is making me bitter.  I hate you for that.  I don’t like to use that word, hate, but that is what I am feeling right now.  You are like a gangrenous leg that needs to be cut off, but I have no tools to sever you.  When I think about how you make me feel, regardless of what you say your intentions are, I don’t see it as anything else as you trying to get me to either de-transition or kill myself.  You can try to play innocent, but this is my perspective.  I don’t care what your side of the story is at this point; YOU are a mean and self centered person.  My behavior is my business, not yours.  It is not your responsibility to tell me when you think I am not living right.  Leave me alone.

happy mayday (again)

OK, it’s clear, I’m slightly depressed.  The past four weeks were very stressful on many fronts and it has taken its toll.  I should preface this by saying that I am really happy that I finally started living full time.  My mild depression usually happens when a certain person barges back into my life.  I have noticed a pattern and it has to stop.

At work, I am plagued by poor leadership which in turn makes everything more stressful than it needs to be.  I have quite a challenge in front of me with the start of working full time on the development project.  I have to be really clever with my designs to enable us to achieve our cost cutting measures and still maintain a high level of quality.

At home over Easter I set my expectations a bit too high.  Plus just being there does something to me.  Everything went well, but the dialog I had hoped would happen, didn’t.  I am hoping that the next time will be even better.  I will continue to visit as often as possible.  There was simply too much going on with the sisters, and everyone was exhausted, I could tell.  I’m just glad I was able to be there in any case.  I love my family, and I am thankful to have them.

There is someone who wins the award for the only person in my life that doesn’t accept me.  She knows who she is.  Funny thing, all the people she said I would have to give up in my life have remained.  Some relationships haven’t disintegrated; they have merely changed a bit.  I am happy and thankful that the negative possibilities have mostly turned out positive.  Sadly though the one relationship I counted on the most is gone, obliterated beyond repair.  I have tried to keep on the high road, but I keep letting myself be dragged down by the negativity and I suffer for it.  How I am feeling right now is case in point.  (I feel like I have written this same paragraph a couple of times already?!)

I can only imagine what she must be feeling, causing her to view everything that I write in a negative way.  Taking everything I do or write and turning it against me as if I am some sort of insensitive monster.  I am not an insensitive monster.  I am Christine, and I like being myself.  I need to learn to be stronger when it comes to fighting off the negativity.  Don’t go away mad, just go away.

Maybe the next time I get a negative email, I will post it here so everyone who reads this can understand what I have to deal with, and make her think twice about doing it again.  It’s starting to make me feel physically sick.  How could I be such a bad person and no one else but her tell me so?  Why do the people that I deal with on a daily basis not scold me for being such a terrible person?  Probably because I am not a bad person?  I have my faults just like anyone else, and I know what they are and I am working on changing for the better.

I have less of a problem expressing my feelings toward others now.  When someone does something for me, I make it a point to tell them how much I appreciate it.  I like being able to tell someone that I care about them and not have to feel funny about it.  Life is too short to not let others know they are needed and appreciated.

I need to break out of this slump and do some positive things for myself.  Such as making some jeans for summer, and perhaps a blazer too.  I enjoy sewing very much, but I haven’t done anything since my trip to the states to get my name changed.  Two months have passed, too long.  I have put off buying jeans because I have enough fabric to make several pairs.  Some of the colors I have don’t necessarily match my color palate, something else she was wrong about.  I have discovered that black and blues don’t work for me, but rather browns, greens, and antique pink.

I met with success in changing out Linda’s starter earlier today.  I actually got my hands dirty again.  I will hopefully not have to do anything like that for a long time.  At least I know I am still capable of doing such things should the need arise.

I think I will take a nice hot bath and relax.  

happy mayday

I began my sleepathon on Saturday night at Linda’s.  I fell asleep while visiting with her and Chloe.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open.   I woke up at ten yesterday and blogged and wasted some time writing an email.  I went back to bed at 1 and got up at 4.  I took a shower.  I planned to go get my bike from the bahnhof, but in the end I decided to eat and go to bed.  I’m up early today, I feel finally caught up on the rest.  I thought I was depressed, but I realize it is just what someone else is putting on me.

Even though I know none of it is true, it makes me angry and I think about it constantly in my head. Eventually I start to believe it is true and that makes me sad.  Then I realize it is just her, she has struck again.  I didn’t see this one coming.  Things had been silent for a couple of months.  I try not to let her in anymore, but it still happens.  I am getting better at controlling it, or rather identifying it.  Controlling it will come in time.  I don’t need these useless negative episodes setting me back.  If things don’t change, I will get a new blog and email address, but she still has my number.  I guess that would force her to call, but that will never happen so I would be safe in principle.  If you don’t like me then stay away from me.

I am going to change the starter in Linda’s car for her, since she can’t afford to have it professionally done.  I really don’t want to work on cars anymore, but I see a definite need and I know how to do it.  I have never liked working on cars; I saw it only as a necessity to driving one, and because I knew how to do it.  Now I don’t own a car, so I thought I was safe.  The only thing that I am apprehensive about is whether or not I will have the strength to break the bolts loose.  We shall see.

I am looking forward to maybe going to a biergarten with Mari and Christi later today.  The sun is shining and I feel good again.  Happy May Day.