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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 (enter the hall of ice) 10:43am I just called the Pharmacy, and they told me (in their charmingly brusque phone manner) that my hormones are ready to be picked up. I'll find out for sure in about two hours. And I don't know what I'll do if they've screwed up yet agian. 12:59pm Mission, much to my surprise, accomplished. There was almost no line to speak of, which is damned unusual. And probably a fluke. But, whatever. It's all done for the next three months. Oh, spironolactone. How I've missed you. In fact, I've nearly gone batshit crazy without you. | ||
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 (hexerei im zwielicht der finsternis) 10:11am After the hail died down a bit, I left the Hospital and hung out with Jim and Erin and Maggie the bulldog at The Dark Room for a couple hours. I then with to dinner with Marta at Old Jerusalem, where she suggested that maybe I should try going vegan again. Heaven knows the thought has crossed my mind lately, but it's so much trickier now that I don't have either the income or the access to refrigerator and kitchen space that I had at NakedSword, and you know, godsdamnit, it was just not fair that I lost my job, especially not when my frakking archnemesis kept her, and while a lot of good did come from me being laid off (it got me into gear on finishing and selling Bottomfeeder, for starters), it still hurts and it threw off my exercise regimen and...gods, you'd think I'd be finished mourning by now, wouldn't you? I mean, I'm done mourning the loss of Vash, so I should be able to get over the loss of a job, especially when I have a new one. Huh. It occurs to me that the anniversary of my last day at NakedSword was this past Saturday. For the matter, the eleven-year anniversary of this diary passed last month without comment. I'm not not really keeping up with such things these days, I guess. After dinner Marta and I went to Mission Pie to work for a little while (you can't see me because i'm not here! whoosh!), then headed to Pete and Sarah's to watch Caprica. Waiting in my mailbox when I got home was a self-addressed stamped envelope. Those are always a little jarring. This one was from an agent I'd queried back in July, one whose official position is that they answer all queries within a month. Hey, who's counting? Even more jarring was the fact that they returned my query letter, and scrawled at the top: sorry for taking so long! apologies not for me. I'm not sure why they didn't just email me, but I guess they didn't want my stamp to go to waste. Actually, the more I think about it, the more great it is. I've been bemoaning the fact that I've yet to get an actual honest-to-god rejection letter. Oh, I've been rejected plenty of times, but always over email. This is the first real physical "fuck you" I've received, and the fact that it's my own letter with their chickenscratchy writing at the top is even more poetic. This baby's getting framed and going on the wall. And, of course, getting a belated rejection from an agent stings a whole lot less when you've acquired a far more awesome agent in the meantime. Everything works out the way it's supposed to. I also cut my dreads last night. Not the synthetic-hair squid, but my natural hair, when has been growing and dreading on its own for nearly three years now. I was starting to grow past the squid, and I don't really care for the way it looks at all, so I cut half the length, making it shorter than it's been in years. (Again, I cut my natural hair. The squid itself is fine.) Looks a lot better now, and more importantly, makes me feel better about myself. I'll take whatever I can get these days. | ||
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Monday, 8 March 2010 (early morning cold taxi) 4:52pm It's hailing, and I'm pretty sure it's my fault. Or, at least, it's hailing as an externalization of my internal mood, which is...like small bits of ice falling form the sky, I guess. Falling at angle, that is, because there's a strong wind. Very pleasant. I'm waiting it out at the San Francisco General Hospital Pharmacy, which I'd hoped to avoid. So when I renewed my Healthy San Francisco account at Lyon-Martin on Friday, they told me the final step involves going to the Hospital to...something. Make sure Hospital knows, I guess. All the paperwork Lyon-Martin gave me was for new accounts, not renewals, but I was assured the process was the same. It said to go to the main lobby between eight and five (because poor people on what's essentially health-welfare don't have better things to do between those hours) without specifying days of the week, so I figured, it's a hospital, right? Surely that would include Saturday. Except it didn't. I went on Saturday afternoon and the security guard told me that the Healthy San Francisco desk was only open during the week. Seems like the kinda thing you'd want to specify on the paperwork so that people can more properly schedule their visits, but what the hell do I know? On the plus side, at least it was confirmation that I'd only have to go into the lobby, not the godsdamned Pharmacy. It even said "Healthy San Francisco" on the desk. That had to be it. So, I would return on Monday. Leave straight from work, maybe a little early, and get there well before five. Making it the first of two trips I'd make there this week, as I also have my new prescription to pick up. I called them this morning to confirm that they got the prescription order from my doctor. They said that they did, but the person sounded a little confused, pointing out that I still have refills. Yeah, I explained, I do, but the quantity of spironolactone is incorrect, so my doctor made the new one. Clean slate and stuff. They seemed skeptical but went along with it, asking when I'd be coming in to get it. Obviously I want it today, I want it yesterday, I've been desperately needing it since last month and I've been going out of my frakking skull without it, but I also know this system well enough to know that I can't reasonably expect to get the Healthy San Francisco stuff taken care of and pick up a new prescription on the same day. One would foul up the other. The system needs time to process. So, I said I'd pick it up on Wednesday. Gonna go straight there after I get off work at noon, maybe a little early. I asked them to confirm the quantity of the spironolactone as to make sure I didn't go through all this again, and they offhandedly said: oh, the same as before. Trying to keep my voice steady (sitting in Phoebe, the only place I like to make phone calls at work because I don't like everyone else hearing my personal conversations), I asked her to please actually check it for real, because it shouldn't be the same as before, as I'd established not two minutes earlier. Sounding slightly put out, she looked it up and quoted me the correct amount. Doesn't mean the one I pick up on Wednesday will be the correct amount, but that's a long ways off. Made it to the Hospital today at about half past four. As I'm standing in line at the Healthy San Francisco desk (waiting behind a woman who is shrieking at the clerk in Spanish, while the woman's son is running around also shrieking in Spanish as well as kicking and hitting every surface he can find, and every so often the woman and the child shriek at each other), I realize I can't find my California ID. Well, frak. This could be bad. The shrieker and her child finally leave, and I tell the clerk that I'm renewing my Healthy San Francisco account and I went to my medical home (Lyon-Martin) like the letter had requested and did all the stuff there and then they told me to come to the Hospital to finish the process, and that I'd have to go the main lobby, which is where I am now, so yay, I'm almost done, right? Nope. The clerk informs me that I've been misinformed (including by their own paperwork) and that I have to go into the godsdamned Pharmacy to complete the process. Even though she's at the enrollment desk. Because it's just that, enrollment, not renewal. Why on earth would those two thoroughly separate procedures take place in the same place? They wouldn't, and they don't. So. Frak frak frak. I first swing back by Phoebe to get my driver's license, which I don't like using as ID just because of my tendency to lose things, then went into the Pharmacy. For better or worse, the window I had to go to was not the prescription pick-up line in which I've spent so many house, but a different one, actually a series of windows with one of those "Now Serving XX" electronic signs overhead which don't seem to have any actual bearing on reality since the number dispenser hasn't actually had numbers in it since the Ford Administration. There wasn't even a line of people, which would have been nice to show me the procedure, so I just sat down at the window and hoped for the best. I explained to the guy that I'd received a letter from Healthy San Francisco saying my account was about to expire and that I needed to go to Lyon-Martin to renew it, and that I did that and that they said I next needed to go to the main lobby of the Hospital, which I did, and the person in the lobby had told me I now needed to go into the Pharmacy, so here I was, and the whole time the guy has this baffled look on his face, probably because it was one of those times where I think I'm speaking in English, but in fact I've reverted to my native alien language without realizing it, and all he's hearing me say is eep eep ork ork eep. Happens all the time, though usually it's when I'm asking for something much simpler. (I received countless blank stares at coffeehouses when ordering a mocha with nonfat milk, for example. For some reason, that never ceases to baffle people.) Dude had no clue what I was talking about, and my attempts to rephrase it (ork ork eep eep ork) didn't help at first, either, and all the while I can feel my face growing flushed and it's getting increasingly difficult not to just lose my shit entirely and scream and pound and cry because this should not be so difficult, and the red tape isn't even the whole problem (though it's a big part), but why do people act like I'm so fucking difficult to understand? Is it because they're so distracted by how weird I look? And, really, there's a never a good time for this sort of thing, but I'm especially fragile right because of the headtrip the dumb stupid fucking poisonous testosterone is playing on me, and... When his Universal Translator finally kicked on and he realized what I was asking, he assured me that the clerk at the Healthy San Francisco desk had no idea what she was talking about (and, by extension, the nurse at Lyon-Martin) and that I've probably done everything I need to do renewal-wise and I should just not worry about it. Granted, he can't use the comptuer sitting right in front of him to, like, check the renewal status or anything. Because that would make sense. As calmly as I could possibly could, I got up and walked away, and walked to the front door only to see that its hailing. Of course it is. | ||
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 (compounds and elements) 3:56pm Actually, that's not true. If I find out in the next five minutes that the book is going to be published, I'll still be thoroughly thrilled. Maybe right now would be the perfect time for the news. My landlord is over again, continuing to work on the bird problem. They've been living in the vent that leads from my bathroom to the outside and which goes over my bed, and of course they've been making the most noise directly over my bed. The fan hasn't actually worked in years, so he replaced the fan on Friday. It didn't make the birds go away, though it's awesome to have a working bathroom fan again. So, he just not put a piece of chicken wire over the vent on the outside, based on the theory that birds are currently not in the vent right now (we can't hear them at the moment, which is all we have to work from), and they now won't be able to get back in. Here's to hoping, anyway. In any event, I am once again very grateful to have a landlord who puts in as much effort as he does. Most don't. | ||
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 (the daughters of quiet minds) 8:32am Both the dress rehearsal and last night's opening of Caddyshack were a lot of fun, though it was kinda sad-making, as shows there often will be when I'm already feeling down, because of the fact that I know I'm only asked to be in plays when they're desperate and/or they don't have to worry about me screwing up the balance (because, let's face it, I'm never going to be taken seriously in a "sexy" role unless the fact that I'm obviously not a real girl is the point of the joke, and even then they can always get someone better than than me, especially since they know I refuse to play such a part), plus the female lead this time around is a girl who through no fault of my own has always made me feel huge and big and male, none of which is helped by being called "he" and "dude," a couple times over the course of the evening. Getting made up before the show last night probably didn't help, because nothing ever does. Also not helping was the fact that according to the scale at Lyon-Martin (and confirmed by my scale at home), I weight around 240. How the hell did that happen? I haven't been to the gym in over a week, but I'd been going five days a week for at least a month before that, and it's not like I sit at home eating mayonnaise with a ladel, so...then there's the fact that my blood pressure, for quite possibly the first time ever, is high. And why is it? The frakking testosterone, that's why. The frakking poison. I was unable to get a refill on my spironolactone last month (because my doctor accidentally made my previous prescription for two pills once a day rather than two pills twice a day like it was supposed to be, so I ran out quickly and didn't even figure out the discrepancy until it was too late), and for the past few weeks I've been operating on a bare minimum, scrounging from old leftovers, taking maybe one-tenth of what my dosage is supposed to be. I'm really feeling it, too, and I don't like it. DO NOT WANT. A lot of people in this town worship testosterone, and they're welcome to it. (Said worship—and usage—also makes them sexy and gets them laid. Me, not so much.) (Not so much before I met Marta, that is.) I'm beginning to think I should get serious about getting an orchiectomy. Take off and nuke the site from orbit—t's the only way to be sure. In the meantime, I can't wait until I get my new prescription filled next week and the testosterone gets pushed back down to the neglible levels where it belongs. After the show last night, I ran into a little 19 year-old dyke from the Trans Panel (she recognized me, not vice versa) on her own in San Francisco for the first time, gave her a brief tour of the Castro and then walked her back to the 16th Street BART. So that was nothing if not unexpected. 7:57pm Just had what felt like the worst service ever at one of my favorite sushi joints, Nippon Sushi in Pacifica. It's kinda heartbreaking. It was just me and Marta at one table and about eight people at another table, and though we ordered first, the big table got served first. We had to wait forty-five minutes three simple rolls. And when they did finally arrive, one of the rolls was wrong. Of course, it had been so long since we ordered, it's not surprising that their memory was hazy. All the same it's kinda heartbreaking. I'm sure I'll go back eventually, but I've just been having a rough couple of days—the weight, the blood pressure, what feels like more and more people referring to me as a boy—and I really needed better treatment from my favorite comfort-food restaurant. I have no idea what the timeframe on this sort of thing is—hell, I didn't expect my Agent to get the manuscript to publishers for another few months at the earliest—but if any of them decide they want it, which will of course be a joyous life-changing moment which I'll never forget, I hope it doesn't happen for a week or two, until after my hormone levels are fixed. I'll be able to appreciate it much more than I could right now. | ||
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Friday, 5 March 2010 (a meaningful moment through a meaning(less) process) 10:11am No writing at Mocha 101 or anyone else today. My landlord is coming over at noon to look into a problem I've been having with birds in the ceiling over my bed—it's nowhere near as constant or pervasive a sound as the giraffe was, but it's still extremely annoying, especially early in the morning—and then I have two appointments at Lyon-Martin, one to renew my Healthy San Francisco account and one just to follow up from my labs a couple weeks ago. 5:43pm Clearly, the only reasonable course of action is to buy new lipstick at Walgreens. Preferably something cheap and dark. sometime after midnight I've come to hate my body. (Candy said it first, but it's no less true for me. And her body was much better than mine.) | ||
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 (even if you're never awake) 12:11pm At Mocha 101. I'm not letting myself with futz with manuscript any longer, even though I keep thinking of things that could be improved. Hell, there will always be room for improvement, even after it's been published. Instead, I'm getting to my backlog of non-book work, including a bunch of Bad Movie Night updates. It's good to always have stuff to do. 5:23pm Now, off to The Dark Room for the dress rehearsal of Caddyshack. Just to watch. I'm not doing the sound or anything this time around. sometime after midnight Well, that hurt. And my head is just not in a happy place these days. | ||
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Wednesday, 3 March 2010 (the evil that never arrived) 9:11am The gods were not willing, as I did not make it back to the gym this morning. On the plus side, my Agent sent me a list of the publishers now reading Bottomfeeder, including a few who had rejected it before. Scary and exciting. | ||
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Tuesday, 2 March 2010 (a humbling passion) 10:38am No gym yesterday morning or today, but my tailbone is feeling better. I'll go back tomorrow, gods willing. I wrote my supervisor last week offering to start helping him out with tech stuff around the office, to become a kindertech. It took him a while to respond, which always makes me nervous, but he talked to me yesterday and is all for it. Yay! The more I make myself useful, the more they have to keep me around, and maybe even (gods forbid) hire me for real. | ||
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Monday, 1 March 2010 (the end of the last night) 2:10pm With the assistance of ibuprofen and willpower, I made it to The Dark Room last night just fine, and I wasn't even walking all the funny. Thankfully, I wasn't actually hosting, so I was able to stay behind the counter on my laptop and not have to put too much effort into being funny. And we got a good crowd, which always feels like a a minor victory. (Erin also pulled me aside at one point and praised me for all the effort I put into Bad Movie Night, especially the preshow. That felt nice.) Meanwhile, while we were discussing Bottomfeeder's pitch and which publishing houses we'll be submitting it to, my agent mentioned Random House. As in, an example for a possible home for the book. I'm not getting my hopes up at all , but it sent a little shiver down my spine all the same. That she even thinks it has that potential is exciting, especially since other agents have rejected me for lack of commercial potential. I am so ready to show them wrong. 7:12pm At Marta's house. I'm finishing up my application for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in August (Marta's already applied, and in perfect world we'll both get to go), and soon we're heading to Pete and Sarah's place for Caprica. | ||
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