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Sunday, 20 December 2009 (accustomed to loss) 11:12pm Small but enthusiastic crowd at Bad Movie Night. Thankfully, it was a short movie (Santa's Slay), so I got home comparatively early. I need to get some sleep, since I'm up at five tomorrow morning. | ||
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Saturday, 19 December 2009 (losing another one) 1:32pm Gym this morning, Mocha 101 now, The Dark Room tonight. | ||
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Friday, 18 December 2009 (alone in the dark) 10:43am My appointment with Damiel went well. He showed me all the ab exercises I'd used last time as well as reintroducing me to the machines and the Fitlinxx system. Best of all, he told me that he has an official class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at six in the morning which does all the ab exercises and more. That's perfect for me, since while I can do the cardio machines by myself with no problem, I really need someone to guide me along when it comes to the stretches and crunches and whatnot. I'm a child, basically, and I crave structure, and having a regular session with someone else—even a group session—is crucial. And best of all, it's all included in my monthly gym fees, which are absurdly low to begin with. I miss working with Raphaela, but that was a different time. 2:36pm Deja frickin' vu. When I called Lyon-Martin last week, they told me I was due for bloodwork, so we made an appointment for today. Turns out they had been mistaken, and I didn't need to get the bloodwork done until February. However, they didn't catch the error until I was actully at the clinic. I have not been having the best of luck with the system lately. 7:52pm Final weekend of Life of Brian. It's been fun, and I even get a line in the show (i'm not!), but I've never really felt connected to it, either. If not for it, though, I wouldn't have anything performative happening this month at all, not like last year with both Snowmiser and Christmas Sucks and AIRspace. Sometimes I'm in demand, but mostly I'm not. Indeed, I had a hell of a run this year, and I can't reasonably expect 2010 to be as busy. I may not even be in the National Queer Arts Festival, which is fine. What 2010 will definitely be is the year that I complete Landing on Water and find Bottomfeeder a publisher. (Still waiting to hear back from both the editor and publisher regarding the latter, so who knows? 2009 may be the year. That would be a fucking xmas miracle.) | ||
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Thursday, 17 December 2009 (not of the body) 2:31pm Last night was Marta's birthday. I picked her up from work, and we headed to Japantown. After dinner at one of the places with the plastic food in the window, we saw Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Kabuki. I liked it a lot, far more than any other Anderson movie. It was a good evening all around. I called the Pharmacy, and on the fifth attempt I got through. They said that my prescription was ready to be picked up. I'm in line right now—and, remarkably enough, the line is only halfway to the door rather than all the way as usual. It's a godsdamned Xmas miracle. 2:52pm Oh, for frak's sake: the person I spoke to on the phone hadn't actually checked, and it turns out my prescription is not ready. It'll be another hour. Fuck Xmas and its false miracles. 5:16pm Went to the Potrero Whole Foods to have some comfort babaganoush and stock up on Clif Bars. After an hour I called the Pharmacy several times, finally getting through. The person I spoke to on the phone was confused by the whole thing and seemed more interested in finding out who had helped me at the counter earlier (what was she was wearing? what was her name?) than just telling me if my stuff was ready. I'd like to think I'm not prone to public outbursts, but judging from the looks people walking past were giving me as I talked on my phone outside the Whole Foods, I was evidently raising my voice. Went back to the Pharmacy, where by some miracle, my prescription was finally ready. Only a week later than it should have been, but hey, who's counting? 9:43pm An hour and at half at the gym, and no small amount of sweat. | ||
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Wednesday, 16 December 2009 (keeping the theme) 7:47am ...and again to Stonestown this morning. Damiel was there, and we made an appointment for seven on Friday morning. 11:48am I finally got through the Pharmacy. They said they got the fax, but it won't be ready until tomorrow. Uh-huh. | ||
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Tuesday, 15 December 2009 (a sort of advocacy) 8:15am Went to the Presidio YMCA again this morning, but possibly for the last time. 2:31pm Since I'm prone to anxiety, I doublechecked with my supervisor to make sure he's happy with the changes I've made to the wiki, and my work in general. He is. Whew. 4:01pm I think they're leaving the phone off the hook at the Pharmacy. I've called at least a dozen times and keep getting the "fuck you" message. 9:45pm Endorphins are fun! Not as much fun as, say, taking a hit of nitrous and kissing a girl while you're both on Ecstasy, but still fun. 10:02pm Just got back from the Stonestown YMCA. It helps that attendance has surely decreased because the showers are closed, but still, it's practically like having the place to myself. Did an hour on the treadmill, reading The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History. | ||
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Monday, 14 December 2009 (illusory self-motion) 7:31am Workout fail. This weekend, I dug up an older pair of bicycle shorts, the pair I'd stopped last year because I shrank out of them. I've put those extra inches on in a big way. So I made it to the Presidio YMCA this morning and got onto the treadmill, moving my arms and legs and everything, when I remembered the real reason I don't wear that particular pair of shorts anymore: they keep rolling up (from below) and down (from above). I really need to get a new pair entirely. I've been thinking that I'm going to stick primarily with the Stonestown YMCA. Even though the Presidio one is much more convenient to my office, the Stonestown one is more convenient to home, plus the machines have the Fitlinxx system, which will be great once I actually start using them. I've kinda forgotten everything Damiel showed me about him, and I need to make a new appointment with him to start from scratch. Besides, I just don't like the vibe of the Presidio location. It just don't feel like home. This is my equivalent of rock bottom, physically speaking. I've been here enough times to know. There's always that point where I'm all so i'm fat, or at least out of shape, and what of it? there's nothing wrong with that. it's politically progressive in this town to have a huge fucking stomach. And that lasts for about three hours before I'm all wrong wrong wrong. this will not do. wanna wear my pretty clothes! And I'm firm believer in being myself as much as possible, and the true definition of myself is someone without a huge gut. Besides, though I know she loves me no matter what, Marta really like how I looked in my shiny pants. I'll wear them once again, yes I will. 8:01am I came in to find a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium waiting for me to install it onto my work computer. Neat! The building's fire alarm is going off. It's like an electronic banshee. I'm still at my desk because I heard someone outside admit to accidentally setting it off, and I have my earplugs in and Princess Leia headphones on. I don't leave home without 'em. 11:32pm Well, that was inevitable: complaints are starting roll in about my writing. At my supervisor's request, I've been going through the company's wiki and editing it, restructuring it, basically making it (as he said) "not so embarrassing." It was the first definite thing I was told to do when I started last month, though I didn't have much direction, either. He gave me cart blanche to make whatever changes I needed, including deleting things I see fit. So I have been, though I've also been careful to make sure that all the meanings stay the same, that I don't lose out any important information. Evidently my changes have raised some hackles, specifically about my tone and my voice. This would seem to imply that there's been, perhaps, a level of snark, but that's not the case at all. I've made a point of keeping my tone neutral, though I'll fully admit there's been a colloquial bent to it—indeed, that's one of things that got me hired, my style in my previous technical writing (mostly limited to a how-to document I wrote at NakedSword). I certainly don't feel like I did anything wrong, and it's not like the complaint was that my writing was bad. Indeed, just in terms of grammar and sentence structure, it was a vast improvement over what was there before. Frankly, my writing was too stylish, and admittedly jargon-y. Oh well. It's not like my name is on it, and if they don't want the full benefits of my word-wrangling abilities, so be it. I'm still happy to be doing it at all. And it's kinda neat to be dangerous. keep an eye on her! she's a loose cannon! Meanwhile, my first big emergency/chaotic project has been dropped into my lap. Seems it's been gestating ever since Friday, and with a lot of people working on it from all directions, to the extent that I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with it. Kinda reminds me, for not the first time, of CNET in '99. Classical webmonkeying. And in addition to my supervisor (who is thankfully happy with the work I've done), I have at least one big fan in the organization. She's a graphic designer who doesn't actually work in the office, but we met at the big luncheon last month, and she was highly impressed by the fact that I worked at Organic in the nineties. Plus she absolutely adores my hair, mentioning my pink dreadlocks every chance she gets. Sure, why not? 2:31pm I called in a refill on my hormones last week to the San Francisco General Hospital Pharmacy. What I hadn't noticed on the bottle was that there are no refills left—Marta had to point it out to me. I called Lyon-Martin on Friday and asked if they could fax in a refill. The person I spoke to said they'd ask my doctor to do so. Swell. A little while later, they called to say that my doctor had said I still had refills left, which was not at all true according to the bottle, and a call to the Pharmacy also confirmed this. The girl from Lyon-Martin said she'd call the Pharmacy and get it cleared up. Okay. So Lyon-Martin (an organization which I love, by the way, and am eternally grateful for, especially after my horrible experiences with my previous douchebag of a doctor) called me a little while ago to tell me that they cleared it all up on Friday, so I should call the Pharmacy and find out if my refill is ready to go. I really hope it is, since I've actually been out of hormones for a couple days now. And I don't like not having a steady influx of estrogen into my body. It makes me feel not-right. 3:01pm I've called the Pharmacy several times, and keep getting their "We're too busy to talk to you, call back later" message. Fine. I'll try tomorrow. I don't especially want to go there today anyway, and they'd probably just scold me for not waiting three business days anyhow. Gods, I miss getting my hormones through Walgreens. That was the best. I have no idea if I'll get medical benefits when (when!) I get hired for real here, but I kinda doubt it. 7:20pm At The Dark Room, playing Wii with Jim. Because we're grownups, and that's what grownups do. I stopped at the Sports Basement near my office after work and got new workout shorts. They're not actually bicycle shorts, they're longer and baggier, and I think I'll be much happier with them. I won't be forcing the rest of the world to look at so much of my body, at least. I've also started wearing a tank to while exercising. Up until recently it was just my bicycle shorts and sports bra, but now I've been wearing my NakedSword/Kink.com shirt (which I wore during Working for the Weakened) as well. If anyone's been offended by it—and even someone who doesn't know what NakedSword is can probably figure out what "Kink.com" refers to—they haven't said a word. | ||
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Sunday, 13 December 2009 (diplomatic obfuscation) 11:51pm I had dinner with Marta at Sunflower last night, worked the sound for Life of Brian, then hooked up with Marta again and headed back home. The Office and 30 Rock, sleep, sex, Clerks and big salad, reading and napping, and finally heading into The Mission in time to get Marta to a book club meeting. Bad Movie Night was our annual showing of It's a Wonderful Life, which always pisses people off, but also packs the house, which is kinda the point. I wasn't hosting, which was fine. I was perfectly happy to sit behind the counter and futz around on the computer while other people were doing the heavy lifting. | ||
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Saturday, 12 December 2009 (the redundancy of procreation) 12:07pm Came straight home after Life of Brian at The Dark Room last night. There'd been some talk about hooking up with KrOB at Midnites for Maniacs at The Castro, and there were some members of the Brian cast and crew went off to parties and other events, but I didn't really have the money for the former and nobody invited me along on the latter. (I don't get invited places a lot.) I was up at sixish and at the Stonestown YMCA by the time they opened at seven. Did about an hour on the treadmill, reading the current draft of the Landing on Water manuscript, feeling like if I got any more self-absorbed I'd disappear inside myself. (Then again, if I don't take this level of interest in myself, who will?) I still haven't figured out the exact logisitics of working out for the next few months. The showers at the Stonestown YMCA are currently closed for renovation, which is ulimately more of a blessing than a curse, since it means that fewer people are there, plus Stonestown members get to use other locations for free. And the Presidio location is closer to my office, but it's also tinier and busier and more packed as a rule, which I don't like at all. They're also much more stringent about the amount of time one can spend on each machine—thirty minutes and move the frak on, please—though it may not be as much of an issue later in the morning. If I can get there at five in the morning, say, I might be able to use the treadmill for an hour without anyone caring. And right now, it's all about burn burn burn sweat sweat sweat. For dinner last night, I got a side order of beans and rice from Taqueria Cancun. It's actually quite a lot of food for three-fifty, and drenched in my beloved (and dirt cheap) Valentina hot sauce, it's very yummy. I'd been getting back into burritos lately, with sour cream and cheese and heaven knows how much lard in the tortillas, and I just can't do that. My body, my metabolism, won't allow it, not if I don't want my waistline to keep expanding exponentially. And I really don't want it to. Yay for fat-positivity and down with the patriarchal beauty standard and all that progressive Mission hipster hoohaa, but by gods it's just not for me. Sadie once said, not unkindly, that my desire to not be fat—not to mention my attraction to thin girls, i.e. Marta/Ennui/Ripley/et al—means I've been brainwashed by aforementioned beauty standard. Okay, sure, fine by me. I'm shaped by cultural influences just like everyone else, and just because my likes and preferences can be culturally deconstructed doesn't make them any less valid to me, and I've never been one to deny my true nature just because it doesn't align with someone else's politics. I'm sure there are people who would say that my transsexuality is as a result of being raised by my mother. I don't think that's true, especially because I first got the inkling that something was goofy with me genderwise before my parents my split up, and it's not like my mother used to make me wear dresses or makeup (though it would have been awsome if she had)—but even if it were the case, well, it doesn't change the fact that I am who I am now, and I'm happy with who I am. Except for the part where I'm too fat to wear shiny pants, but I'm working on it. At The Sea Biscuit now. Tried to go to Mocha 101, but just like last week, they weren't open when I got there around ten. I think I'm beginning to notice a pattern. I don't feel quite as comfortable here as I used to, and not as comfortable as I've been feeling at Mocha 101 lately, but I have my old table, and it'll do. | ||
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Friday, 11 December 2009 (turning the tide forward) 11:30am At Mocha 101. Hit the gym this morning, thirty minutes on the treadmill and ten minutes on the StairMaster. I used to do a lot more of both, and I will again. And the crunches. Gotta get back into the stretches and crunches. That's really how it works, to make this huge gut recede so I can fit into my old clothes and not feel like I'm dying. That's the real pathology of it: the fatter I get, the more I feel like I'm dying. It's not pleasant, but there it is. | ||
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