opposition

I am compelled to write out of desperation.  It seems with every day that passes, I come to regret ever leaving Europe.  It was by far not a perfect place, but a place that I had the chance to be with my Love, legally and without impedance.  I do not feel like a US citizen anymore, because the values of this land could not be more opposed to mine.  The inalienable rights the founding fathers wrote of are bullshit.  My rights are limited by a stodgy right-wing undercurrent that is so full of double standards, they have forgotten what a pure standard is.

I am going to start working on finding my way back to Europe.  I don't plan on ever coming back.  I had a bad feeling about making this move, but I chose to ignore it.  We'll work it out, I told myself.  I wish it would, but in the end I think it will be just lots of wasted energy for naught.  It is difficult being here after being exposed to how things could be done better, not perfectly, but better.  Getting to know cultures that actually care enough about the future to plan for it, and make the necessary sacrifices for the betterment of generations to come.  Here we just think about ourselves, and who gives a flying F**k about tomorrow?  I am beginning not to care if tomorrow ever comes, in fact, I am near to hoping it doesn't.  That seems better to me.

I feel hopelessly lost at the moment, and so filled with regret that I am choking on my own bitterness.

shaku and stiring

I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions lately, with the instability mostly attributed to the hours I have been keeping. When I get overtired everything seems so heavy. I think it would help my condition if I try not to take things so seriously. If I am destined to have a writing career, it will happen on its own. Me pushing too hard is not yielding very good results.

I am satisfied with what I have written so far. I have been approaching my writing with a optimistic and positive eye, but I think I need to temper the positivity with a bit of the negative. After all, not everything I see is agreeable. I have been sort of ignoring what I think is completely pretentious and of poor quality.

I am gaining invaluable experience in the fashion industry. I have no one to coach me, and unfortunately I must go about this completely cold. I think that I am doing very well so far, considering the lack of experience. I am trying to meet and talk with as many people as possible.

After AIFW is finished, I plan to continue the journalism on my own. I will have to seek out events to report on, on my own. Doing that I think will be what puts me on the writing globe.

I think also that copywriting would be much less stressful, and I wouldn't have to deal with the flighty people. But the problem with that is: I love fashion! And I noticed that I felt completely comfortable attending the shows. This all happened so quickly. I wished I had time before to make new pieces for myself to wear. I am just making due with my old rags, but at least they are the rags of my own hands. That feels especially good. I am actually at a place where there is a high chance of meeting someone like me in that regard.

I will try to keep an open mind and be as calm and relaxed as possible, and it will work itself out, somehow. I just hope my editor still wants to work with me, the problem child. I had a serious melt down last night that I am not proud of. I only hope I haven't soured any of the fresh relationships that I am trying to forge.

This is niether the beginning nor the end of my writing career. I think it has only yet to begin.

This is all just a warm-up. Stretching the rusty fingers and massaging the matter.

more than wot?

Just read back a bit of what I posted without reading a second time. It just shows how ridiculously insecure about myself i can be. I over compensated myself in my writing and in my thoughts. Something to think about.

evaluation obscura

I went to Ffm today to meet with my therapist to submit the paperwork that I had to collect. I had a letter from my endocrinologist, urologist, physician, self assessment, and the letter I sent to my extended family. I had to have the self assessment and the family letter translated into german by a woman in vienna. german always reads a bit cold to me, no matter how well it is written. She did a good job, but it is costing me a lot. I probably should have got a second opinion on the cost. Oh well, what’s done is done. I will know better next time. Both versions will be submitted.

He handed me a copy of the report to read and give feedback on. I had to refresh his memory about the amount of time it could take until I have srs from the point the evaluation is submitted. The timing of course depends on a positive judgment by the MDK. 12 months worst case. He seemed a bit too convinced that I will get approval, he started telling me how often I should visit with a shrink after surgery as if it was already in the bag. I just want the paperwork to be submitted already. The time that it will take to get a yay or a nay from the MDK is also stressful waiting time. I should start to prepare myself for a possible negative answer. I’m not quite sure what plan b looks like yet, but I had better come up with something.

We started discussing why I have been down in the dumps lately. I tried to explain to him that I feel like parts of my life are in a static state. I told him I became depressed after I returned to work after vacation. Being hit with the raging chaos at work, further delays by him, winter grayness, and relationship ripples were on my mind. I tried again to make him understand that my mobility is greatly limited if I want to continue with the health insurance route I am derailed on. I will begin to plan my future once I have a surgery date. Since I have no control of the timing, I have to sit and try to wait patiently. I don’t like very much not being able to plan my life. I got frustrated and started tearing up, so I changed the subject to my physical healthcare problems. Something positive in my life at least to talk about other than the NUn01. I knew before going there that I wouldn’t be able to get through to him, I tried anyway and then gave up. It wasn’t worth me getting upset about something I can nothing about.

I began reading the evaluation and became irritated that there were so many errors in my biographical information, not limited to simple in context math mistakes. For example, my father’s birth year was incorrect, but the year he died and his age were correct. If you are able to do simple subtraction in your head you can easily notice the numbers don’t work out. Reading my sexual history made me angry too. It seemed they focused way too much on the homosexual experiences that I had before transition. They just kinda breezed over my heterosexual experiences as if they were a trivial note. If you would have asked me back then how I identified back then, I would have said heterosexual in theory, but bisexual in behavior. I still contend that the only times I ever did anything with men was when I was cross-dressed, and there was a reason for that. I knew they would want to treat me like a female and want to have sex with me as an exchange for their affection. I guess that was my only outlet where I could receive affirmation of my inner feelings. You can believe me if I had the choice to be with a woman in that situation I would have preferred it. I usually felt disgusted with myself after doing something sexually with men. I did get aroused, but I think that when one has testosterone coursing through their viens, sex is sex. It doesn’t matter with who or what, as long as the desire has been satisfied. I have always had a guilty feeling about the men I had sex with because it never felt entirely right to me. I had always felt entirely comfortable with most of the women I had relationships with. The closest thing that I ever had with anyone remotely male in terms of a period of time longer than a night was with rita. She doesn’t count though because she was like me. I have always been a girl who fancies other girls. I will have to write a more accurate account of my sexual history for them and correct all the factual mistakes.

On a different theme, there is a pet peeve of mine that I have been meaning to get out. I get very irritated when I see someone wearing an obviously expensive suit jacket, and you can tell it is expensive by the maker’s label still basted on the sleeve. People that buy expensive suit jackets that don’t know enough that the label comes off before wearing are too ignorant to deserve wearing such a quality garment. I feel better that I got that off my chest.

crack flavoured coconut

I just cracked a coconut on the kitchen floor to harvest its meat, but not before drinking its milk. you can tell a fresh one by how much air it takes in when you open one of its eyes. alnatura has the best coconuts around. lekker. i eat a coconut a week, when I am able to find them. Nun01 showed me how to crack them. luckily the buildings are all concrete here, so smashing the coconut on the kitchen floor is very effective and only damages the coconut. this one was really hard to crack. I won though, in the end.

I guess I will die healthy, or healthier. I’m not sure. I have been drinking very little alcohol, mostly limited to a glass of red wine and rarely a beer. I drink lots of really strong coffee out of tiny cups. since the nuNo1 is idddalian, coffee has become an essential part of life. thank the dog for bialetti moka express espresso makers. its so temping to overdose on espresso cause it tastes so goooood. I have been experimenting with making soy lattes, yummy.

a couple of weeks ago I experimented with a recipe for indian style lentils. I was impressed with myself that I had all the spices required. it called for cinnamon, ground cumin, turmeric, ground extra hot red chili, cardamom, and cloves. I used beluga lentils cause they are so black and wonderful tasting. it had just the right amount of heat, but I will double up on the other spices next time. I also tried to make chipati or papadams. they were really tasty. they had lots of fresh ground black pepper and garlic. I ate the lentils over a few days for dinner and every day I got better at rolling the papadams. I enjoyed that dish very much. the papadams were the most difficult part.

I haven’t bought any meat to cook in a long time. I usually eat just veggies and/or tofu. i eat meat at lunch at work for the protein. I have eaten potatoes only twice in the past seven weeks. for breakfast I have been eating self mixed musli, consisting of; rolled kamut, rolled rice, sliced almonds, coconut slivers, and some raisins for a bit of sweetness. I eat it alternately with unsweetened and sometimes sweetened soy milk. I like to eat some toast with almond butter too, saatenbrot is the good stuff. it is full of seeds and whole grains and totally brown. I have to toast it a couple of times until it gets the right crispiness. and of course a really nice cup of lavazza espresso to go with it.

I have lost lots of weight over the past several months. I was always typically floating between 165 and 170lbs for the past two or three years. I am down to 150lbs. over the past two weeks I have been 150 and 154, depending. I have lost most of my body fat. I like how my body looks, but I know if I go any lower, I will not be well. I haven’t been trying to lose any weight, it has just sort of been going away on its own. I eat three meals a day, every day. I try really hard not to skip any meals. its amazing how many calories of sugar an average person like me ate on a daily basis. you don’t really notice it until its gone. the weight loss started when I had problems with my intestinal flora dying off. the flora is now alive and well and I try to support it as best I can. I learned that having a healthy gut also means having a strong immune system.

tonight was supposed to be a list writing night of all the things I need to take care of in the next bit of time. things seem to be piling up. I decided that I can’t have much influence on the chaos at work, but I can manage it in my private life. I am nearing finally having my paperwork to apply for surgery. I have been waiting on it for many, many months now. my therpist is still dragging his feet big time. it seems as though my evaluation is the most difficult thing he has had to compose in his career. I was promised to have the documents in hand before xmas, then january 9, then january 14, then january 28, now it seems I will get it by the end of february. one can probably guess that I am not at all happy with the situation.

since I have been back home and working again after five weeks vacation, i have become very depressed. things hadn’t been going exactly well on the relationship front either. we are working on things together and I am convinced that we will find solutions. we love each other very much and have trouble being separated from each other. thank the dog for skype video calls. and the calls are free. I seriously doubt that our realtionship would have survived this long if it weren’t for video calls. I know it helps me a lot to be able to see her, even if I am not able to touch her.

I was in a deep funk the past two weeks. I was sick with some sort of virus the week I started back at work. I missed two days that week. I was relieved to not be traveling anymore and to be back in my place for a bit. but I missed being with the aquanun. there were some issues that were eating at me, and we had a discussion when she came to visit me. we weren’t really able to solve anything at that particular moment, but at least we both had a chance to express ourselves and to get a better understanding of how we are both feeling. communication is very essential, especially when you’re dealing with krocodiles.

I have been discouraged by the fact that some very important parts of my life have been static. namely the surgery evaluation and my job. I went to a kickoff meeting for the new order from VW, and it started almost exactly as the previous one. chaotic. too many questionable issues that the guy who sold it couldn’t answer. the answers will surely be costly ones. I have a trip scheduled with fredi and thilo for next wednesday to go to VW in wolfsburg. the factory there is like a small city. everything VW. a positive point from the previous project is the cutting edge design that I engineered. the machine is in the final stages of assembly on our shop floor. I am anxious to see it run up to full speed to see if it stays together. it should. if it works, it will be the only machine of its kind, at least in any of the auto manufacturers’arsenal of testing equipment. that design again challenged my engineering skills, and I am proud of the results.

it may be because I am down that I notice more people being insensitive to me and my gender. just yesterday I was making a latte in the cafeteria and one of the sometimes friendly staff walked by and I said what the germans say at lunchtime, and she said the same thing back ending with “der herr”, which means “the man” instead of “die damen”. I get kicked sometimes when I try to be nice to others. she was undoubtedly not even paying attention to me and her autopilot decided because of my voice I was a male. I have been trying to simply avoid those persons that do not respect me. sometimes trying to be nice only gets returned with something negative.

I was in amsterdam last weekend with the crocomelious. once the storm on friday night blew over, we had a nice time together. we watched a nice movie about gay cowboys. we drank some nice rosso di montalcino, and ate bimi broccoli with pasta and a nice fennel salad. I also helped the bleeding nun wash lots of dishes for four hours and was disintegrated by the time it was over. I haven’t worked that hard in a while. it was an idddalian restaurant so I pigged out on the biscotti and coffee. we also ate some nice thai food and bought some really nice gay pink tulips. I also got some good olive oil and almond butter and probiotics too.

I am going to end this now and go to bed. rest assured that I will be posting more in the future. I have this nice black new thinkpad to do damage with. I got the one you can go swimming with. not really, but woteva. I like it. I have some writing that I did on a newer trial version of word that I will post if I can figure out a way to read them again. I have no excuses now. I am in love…deeply

zusammenreißen

I have been a total wreck for the past several weeks. I am not able to tell if my levels are screwed up, or if just all the work stress and private stress is getting to me. Could I finally be losing my mind? I have been crying way too much. I think it all started downhill the last time I went to therapy and got more bad news. I’ve noticed a pattern. I have been only going to therapy once a month since I was waiting for hours to be approved. I go there feeling alright and then the bad news drags me down. It then takes me the next four weeks to crawl out of the depression, and then it’s time to go back for more bad news and delays.

I desperately need to get a grip. The episode from last week still stings. The project that I spent the last two years working on and was moved here to do, and completed, I received no verbal credit for my efforts at the product launch. Talk about being shit on.

I did receive an email from my therapist over the weekend stating that the hours were finally approved. I received the confirmation letter from my health insurance. I got 25 hours. Eight of which goes toward covering the hours on credit and the writing of evaluations. If all goes well, I could possibly have my evaluations in hand within six weeks. That’s an optimistic estimate. I am glad that he is working on the evaluation, but I can’t help but to feel skeptical.

Thanks G! You totally brightened my day. You are certainly more than enuff, and where I come from, too much is never enuff.

I have no choice but to try keep myself together.

sacrifice

It seems in order to be able to love yourself; one sometimes must give up the possibility of being loved by another. That is the sacrifice. Is loving yourself enough to sustain? I think not. What I have done to enable me to love myself has alienated me from the human race. I am an exception, and no one likes exceptions. Am I too tall? Not convincing enough? A novelty? Is my transsexuality enough to render me utterly unattractive?

I’ve been thinking about looking for a high risk job. One that pays a lot of money with a high risk of being killed on the job. I find it more and more difficult to name something worth living for. The depth of loneliness that I feel reminds me of how I felt in my teen years. I had suicidal thoughts back then too. I had breakdowns every so often. I hid them well. The lingering ache of despair is still with me. The only thing I have ever been good at is my work, and even that has turned to shit.

I’m not sure if I am going to continue writing. What’s the point? There is none, and apparently there never was.

dissed

I got totally dissed at work yesterday. My company was hosting an open house for our customers and launched many new products over the past two days. One of the products was the machine I was the lead mechanical engineer on, and the original concept was mine. If one were to have read my posts from the last year and a half or so, you would know just how much of me that I lost fighting my way through that project. Yesterday was the german speaking day and they planned the unveiling of the machine at 4.30p. My entire former department was there, I invited myself since no one else did. The group manager that I had so many problems with in the last part of the project gave a speech about the new machine, and at the end of his drivel he thanked the team members by name. He mentioned everyone except me. That was a total diss! Some of my colleagues turned and looked at me with a questioning look on their faces. I started to get pissed so I left and went for a smoke. Helmi was trying to calm me down. He even mentioned the temp that is a total kiss ass and a terrible engineer. The costs in the end are less than the market leader’s. I would say that is an accomplishment that I share a large part of the credit for, and I wasn’t even acknowledged.

I spoke with my boss afterwards about what just happened. he told me that the gm. that just fucked me over ruined my name with upper management. He told them that I blocked all attempts to save costs in my design. He told them that I couldn’t make deadlines. He said I am not capable of managing a project on my own. He played judge and jury over one small portion of my 12 year career. I have no choice now but to leave. I am getting totally fucked, with sand mixed in. I gave up a lot of my free time to make that machine happen and to have it ready for the open house. I want badly to make an appointment with the president to present my side of the story. It won’t do any good though, so I’m not even going to bother.

I prepared and gave a presentation to VW in kassel on Wednesday. I stayed up until 12.30 the night before to put the presentation together. I had made snapshots of the machines to put on the slides before I left work. I got all of it organized and the pictures placed. It ended up being 27 slides long. I planned my hair washing f0or the day before so I could save some time that morning. I woke up looking all pasty with little bags under my eyes, blah. I got ready fairly quickly, in under an hour. I wore my favorite H&M skirt suit with a lavender blouse. I left with time to spare because I had to carry a beamer, a laptop, and the project binder. The laptop and binder weighed a ton. I was lucky I was on the platform having a smoke and a coffee before boarding because the conductor had the train leave five minutes EARLY! I’m usually the type of person that has to run to catch her trains. If I would have been a few minutes later and still on time, I would have missed that train through no fault of my own. I made the ICE in Ffm and searched for the project manager. He was sitting in the car where I had my seat reserved. I sat at a table and worked on my presentation the whole ride. It was exactly enough time. I was glad that there was a long cab ride to the facility. The facility smells like gear lube oil inside. Most of their xmissions are manufactured in kassel.

We were joined by the R&D department manager for most of the day. The presentation went fairly smoothly, and I was able to answer most of their questions. They asked for an electronic copy of the presentation, which I gladly gave them. My project manager told me beforehand that the presentation would be a stress session because the customer wasn’t convinced that one of the machines will work. I assume that their concern was expressed to the dept manager and that’s why he took part in the presentation, to make his mind up for himself. He asked a few questions and that was it. Either my PM was exaggerating or I was able to convince them that it will work. I felt good that it went so smoothly. I am getting really good at putting together presentations in short order. Pictures help a lot. People like colorful things. The pm gave me complements to my boss for my being well prepared and convincing before the customer. I was complemented one minute and kicked in the teeth the next.

I did get to see K from the UK yesterday though. He stuck his head up over the partition at my desk and said my name . I turned to see who it was and he instantly brought a smile to my face. I miss him. We worked together the first summer I spent here in DA. We went out and drank many a beer together that summer. I only get to see him every so often, so it is always a treat. He and his new bride invited me to come to the UK before I transitioned on the job. I wasn’t sure if the offer still stood, but he was one of the few who wrote me after reading the letter that I sent to all of my English speaking colleagues. He was standing by my side at the launch when I got dissed. I saw him on my way home and we chatted for about a half hour outside the canteen where apparently there was a buffet for all those who were involved with the two days of events. H came down the steps and saw me talking to K, so she came over. She told me that the asshole realized as soon as his speech was over that he had forgotten to mention my name, and that he felt embarrassed and would apologize to me today. I didn’t get an apology today. A few people told me that they told him that they didn’t think it was right that he didn’t say my name too.

It was good at leas to see K again. This was the first time he has seen me live since I made the switch. He asked me again when I was coming to visit. I told him that I had thought about coming to visit, but I wasn’t sure if the offer still stood. He told me that he wasn’t sure either, and that he wanted to see me in person again before making the offer again. At least he was honest. He commented that he found me to be more outgoing and generally happier than in the past. That made me feel good. He said the ideal time would be to come in August. I clicked with his wife when I met her in the states. We sat on the couch at her sister’s house and talked for a while. She’s cool, and he’s cool too. I definitely want to plan a trip there in August.

I bought some new sneaks online through ebay. I scored some really fly pink and white adidas gazelles. I always wanted to get a pair back in the late 80’s when I was into hip hop. Most of the white hip hoppers preferred the red or the blue ones. It took 20 years (that’s scary that I can say that) but I will finally get my gazelles. I also bought a pair of chocolate brown suede retro adidas track sneakers. I have a black suede pair of them already. Adidas is about the only producer that makes a women’s size over 41. Their 42 2/3 size fits me perfect. I only had two pairs of sneakers, with both being black and white.

I went to see my endo on Monday morning. I asked him if there was anything he could do hormonally to foster more breast growth. He suggested that I apply an estrogen gel once a day in addition to my regular shots. He told me that my estrogen level after one month on a higher dose was 274. Beforehand it was only 41. I experienced a growth spurt that was prompted by the higher dose, but it didn’t continue for very long. I am anxious to see if the gel will help also with my moodiness. My moodiness has been mostly caused by all the shit that I have been dealing with lately. I am getting so fed up with everything. I feel like fighting instead of flying these days.

hope less

I will be another year older at the end of the week. I realized today after my therapy session that I will more than likely be sitting here on my next birthday still without surgery. My therapist insists on waiting to write my evaluation for surgery until after the next block of hours are approved. In a nutshell: he took four months to submit request for more hours, his request was outright denied by the lunatic evaluator (six weeks), he wrote an appeal (six weeks), the uber evaluator is now down to questioning nomenclature, sends letter to my therapist (four weeks), Therapist writes letter to evaluator (today). 16+6+6+4=32 weeks. For 8 months my therapist has been bungling his way in a lame attempt at getting more hours.

8 fucking months! I think he is stalling so that I will give up on my health insurance and pay through the nose to have him write the paper. That is the point that I am at right now, I am almost ready to just take the hit and pay for it, just to get it over with. Waiting for my health insurance to make up their mind is killing me. The latest letter doesn’t question my transsexuality at all, in fact it doesn’t even recognize the fact that throughout my course of treatment including before and after surgery, I am required to be in therapy. It’s the law, actually. I feel like I am dealing with total incompetence. I know more about the law than the doctors who are supposed to administer according to it. That fact gives me so much hope. The letter also read that they were suggesting that I don’t need therapy at all, and fifteen minutes a month with my doctor would be sufficient. That actually would be sufficient. The only times I have become unstable in the recent past is when I have gone to visit him, and continually get bad news.

Both my therapist and psychiatrist said they would write the documents I need to apply for surgery. I just apparently have to piss away more of my life waiting for them to get it done. I made an appointment with my psychiatrist for the middle of July to get him moving again. That I have accepted I will have to pay for. I should probably just pay and get it finished. Then I will stop going to therapy altogether. I do get something out of the therapy, but what little I do get is not worth all the hassle. It’s all bullshit anyway. I have helped myself more than therapy ever has. Fuck it! I guess I will be poor for a couple of months.

The ongoing disappointments have really started to mess with my head. I was in the bathroom at Konstablewache sitting in the stall peeing thinking about how I could get things moving. The thought ran across my mind of injuring my genitals so they would have no choice but to perform the surgery. That thought scared me. I haven’t had thoughts like that in years. I think one could say that I am already mutilating myself and the surgery will be the last straw. I have taken hormones to mutate my body, and I do electrolysis to remove my hair.

I also fantasized about dropping out of society. Sell everything and go live in a squat somewhere. Maybe a’dam. I want so badly to break free from the chains that I bind myself with. I stick to a dead end job so that I have national health insurance that is more expensive than in the states, so I can visit a lame therapist who is supposed to approve me for surgery so that the insurance will pay for it. Paying for it myself is not a viable option because I don’t have that kind of money. I had that money back in 2004, but I bought a house instead of a neo vagina. If I was smarter, I would have saved all that money and just rented, because it was imminent that my ex would eventually leave me anyway. What’s done is done. Now I am poor, and still without my neo vagina. The surgery isn’t so important that I will finally have what I want; but more so it represents a new beginning to my life. I will be able to move on without having to worry so much about treatment. I could move to somewhere else in Europe or go back home and start over again with nothing. The point is I will be able to do that, whereas I am holding myself back to get through without going into debt.

Then I thought about being a non-op and just moving on anyway. That option would probably require castration if I am to continue living the female gender role. I can’t take the massive dose of hormones I am on forever. Eventually, somehow, the twins have to go away. I feel like the challenge is to swim through a cesspool to get the prize at the other end. I am wondering if all that shit is really worth the prize. My life won’t be any different after as it is now, depressing. I feel waves of sadness running through my body, and warm tears running down my cheek. It’s time for sleep.