I'm Not Dead Yet!

Note – this post was written earlier in the day time.

Hi again blog.

My mood has stabilized significantly since yesterday. The tears are still close to the surface but for now at least I don’t have to make a concentrated effort to hold them back. Tonight I’ll let myself be as emotional as I need to be and I’m going to do it in a healthy, nondestructive way. (That’s my plan anyway.) 

The two people I feel closest to in San Diego, (the only two people I actually feel close to) are going away and I’m going to be here by myself.  I plan on getting my ass out and making new friends in the trans community, but what if I don’t forage any close relationships with anyone? If that’s the case all that will be keeping me here is my job.

Once the dust settles from my divorce I’ll be starting all over again and I have to say that the idea of moving to a new city and rebooting my life is rather appealing to me right now. After everything is squared away between me and my wife I’m going to get an apartment in Hillcrest with a six month lease. That will give me time to get settled, to meet new people and to save money. What I do after the six months is up in the air.

If I’m happy where I’m at I’ll just stay here. San Diego is a pretty nice place to live and I have a steady job. If I’m unhappy then I’m going to move away IF I can make sure that I’ll have a job lined up for me. Also, I’m already half way towards retirement with the organization I’m currently employed by and it would be foolish for me to throw that away. (So I’ll be able to retire when I’m 41 if I want to, although I’ll most likely keep working as I’d get a lot more retirement money if I do 30 years vs. 20.) 

If I feel like it’s time to move on there are a few different places that I’m thinking about going. I don’t like to plan really far in the future so this is just for fun. Still, I’m used to moving around all over the place thanks to the Navy and after all that I’ve been through here it might really be a good idea to get a fresh start. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking.

Florida – I haven’t said this since I was a little kid, but right now I really want my mommy. =(  I want to be close to my family and I could really use their support right now. I know also that there’s a great gender therapist over in Sarasota, which looks like it’s a really nice place to live. I’d be able to dive out on the weekends to visit my family and vice versa. The cost of living out there is super cheep and I could afford a nice apartment with just my VA check. Both Sarasota and South Tampa look to have thriving LGBT communities as well.

The problem with moving to Florida is that uh, it’s Florida. It’s kind of the deep fucking south which is not the friendliest place for gender variant people such as I, and of course I need to be able to work so that I can support myself somehow. Also, fuck fire ants. Seriously.

Chicago – I was born and raised in Chicago, so I have roots there and I still feel a strong connection to it. I also have family and old friends there and I know my way around. Chicago has a bustling LGBT community and I’m sure that I’d be able to find plenty of support there. Oh, and the food! Best food in the world. I fucking love Chicago.

However I hate the weather. In the summer time people die from the heat and in the winter they freeze to death. Also, while there are people I know there, I’m worried that it might be a bit awkward for some of them that I’m going to be so, uh, different than I used to be. One of the points of moving away from San Diego would be to have a fresh start and going back to Chicago might be defeating the purpose. There used to be a strong Navy presence there but they’ve moved most of the various schools to Texas so it would be hard for me to find a job.

Oh, and all the Portillo’s will make me fat. I’m so hungry right now.

San Francisco – The Gay Capital of America. This one is a no brainer. In San Francisco I might actually not be queer enough to be noticed by anyone. =P It would be the safest place in the country for me and it’s a beautiful, diverse and wonderfully weird place to live. Hell, even if I was heteronormative I’d love to live there.

If I could afford to. The cost of living in San Francisco is crazy and I’d have to be very financially secure to move out there. That’s the only problem I can think of. If I could afford it I’d fucking go now.

Seattle – I’ve never been there but I’ve always wanted to go. Washington is a beautiful State with a diverse ecosystem which is important to me because I love nature and I don’t like living in the desert like I am now. Seattle appears to be a very liberal city with a lot of culture. The LGBT community is huge and I keep hearing that it’s an awesome place to live if you’re trans. I just feel drawn to Seattle like it’s somewhere I’m supposed to be. I can’t really explain it.

I need to learn take a little vacation up to Seattle to check it out. There are a lot of Naval facilities at Bremerton which is really close to Seattle. (Hour long ferry ride.) If I can get a job lined up I’d really like to move there. It feels right.

That’s enough typing for now. I’ll blabber on about more pointless nonsense later!

Paige

Today I moved from my house back into my house.

OMG it feels so good to finally be able to sit down and rest. My wife and I spent the entire day moving furniture. Tomorrow I'm going to pay for it. In the mean time, here's a little update.

I woke up this morning in strong girl mode, but when we started moving crap around I flipped over to strong guy mode. This seems to happen when I have to get shit done in a timely manner. I'm typing this now in guy mode, which doesn’t happen very often.

We cleared everything out of the bedroom and then moved my desk into there. I was afraid that it was going to fall apart and it almost did, but then my wife slapped a couple of l-brackets on it and we rocked that shit. Good thing my wife is non-gender stereotype conforming in her own way because I don't know anything about that stuff. (She owns all the power tools.)

We have a twin mattress that we moved into the bedroom for me to sleep on and the queen mattress and frame are in the living room right now until Tuesday when my wife's Dad is bringing down the twin mattress from her parents house. Then they'll take the old bed to the dump.

I got the dresser into the walk in closet and it's very easy to access. My wife is going to move her stuff out of there once I can squeeze my book case in here. Then I can finally throw away the old plastic crap drawers that I've haws since we first moved in together in Japan.

After we moved around just about every piece of furniture to another part of the house we went to Ikea and picked up my loft bed. My wife is paying the utilities now, (electric and internet) which came out to 120 bucks. The loft bed was 119. Sometimes things work. The boxes the thing came in were a lot bigger than I had expected, but I have a Honda Fit and the seats fold down to the floor. I've worked miracles with this car before, and once again I was able to bend reality to my will in defiance of the Gods. So uh, we made it fit. (Is that why the car is called a “Fit”?)

Right now the bed is unboxed in pieces. My project for tomorrow is to put the darn thing together. My wife will be in class so hopefully I'll be able to do it by myself. I put this damn desk together by myself so I think I'll be able to pull it off.

I'm a little worried that the big screen TV wont fit in here. We took some measurements and we were able to move the desk away from wall, but now there's like a three by three foot space that serves no purpose, and I'm trying really hard to use every inch that I can get. If it fits then we will get some seating in here and in the daytime and the early evening it will be the TV room. (More like a – theater; the things huge.)

If it wont then I'll put it up on Craig's List and we'll use the old analog TV in the mean time until we can afford a better one. Personally I don’t give a damn one way or the other. The big TV is fucking cool but it's just more “stuff” that's not essential to my life. (My wife want's to keep it.)

If we go with the little TV everything should fit perfect. Then between the TV and seating I'll have a nice little area for meditation and exercise. I think I will get a little round table for people to put their drinks or food on.

As I type this right now I can feel myself sliding into girl mode. In real time. Just thought I would document that.

So I have my little world set up here now. I have my most favorite show in the know universe, Mystery Science Theater 3000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000 playing on the little TV in the background. It's very comforting to me. When I was going to get married to my wife, (the big family wedding and not the quicky wedding in Japan) I had a little portable TV/DVD player and I remember I was watching MST3K. It was once of the Hercules movies, but honestly I can't remember which.

OK, now I'm rambling. I worked my ass of today and I'm completely spent. I'm tired and tomorrow I'm going to be in a lot of pain and I still have so much to do. Eh, oh well. Time for go to bed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KN2JhPc0wM

Stuck in female mode, other random bits of info

Sorry it's been so long since I wrote.  I've been pretty busy lately.

As for the work situation - no one has said anything.  All they would know anyway is that I've been diagnosed with GID (gender identity disorder) anyway, so it's not like anyone could do anything to me.  As a helpful person on the Bigender.new forums pointed out to me, there are no laws protecting trans people from being fired just for being trans, so coming out at work ain't gunna happen.

I had my first appointment with the gender therapist and she is wonderful!  She has apparently delt with the VA beffore and she has put me on the fast track to getting HRT.  My first appointment with the endocrinologist is December 20th.  According to the woman I spoke to at the clinic the second or third appointment will be when I get my prescription.

I had a weird episode where I woke up as Page and I was stuck in female mode all day.  Now when I'm Page I feel like I want to spend the rest of my life as a woman, and due to the fact that I couldn't switch back I started to think that I was transgender and that I was going to have to start planing my transition.  (If you haven't noticed, I can get very neurotic when I'm in girl mode.)

The next morning I woke up in guy mode and as always, I couldn't figure out why the hell I thought that way.  Some people on the boards have had similar situations, one person going into female mode for weeks at a time for example, and their advice was very helpfull to me.

I met with the UCSD researchers again today and I guess that they're going to do some tests on me, which I think is supper neat.  FOR SCIENCE!

Final note, I've just learned what Pansexuality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality means and that's apparently what I am as opposed to being bisexual as I've been describing myself up to this point.  Gender is pretty much irrelevant to me and the penis and vagina are just two sex organs you do different things to in order to make them feel good.  Yeah, more labels, but labels help us to communicate who we are to one and other in the most simplest terms.

OK!  I think I've covered the most important stuff that's been going on.  I promise to update more often.