lighterthanair: Rupert Giles in a magic hat (mine is a magic hat)
I'd love to be snuggled under a blanket right now, hiding from the chilly rainy weather that doesn't seem to want to go away this month, and the only thing stopping me is that my Kindle still needs to charge a bit more. I have 2 books to read by the end of the week, 1 of which I'm halfway through already (Betsy Dornbusch's Exile, also a reread) and 1 which I haven't started yet (Craig Cormick's The Shadow Master) but that I've promised a review by... Oh, for some reason I thought it was June 1, but it's actually June 4, so I have longer to read it than I thought. I'll be able to get it done by the 1st, though, really, since Exile won't take me too much longer (I'll probably be able to finish it by the end of tomorrow), and I don't have much planned for my days off work on Thursday and Friday except for some cleaning and cooking, and I highly doubt I'll be doing enough of either to take up 2 days of time. So I'll get to enjoy some relaxing time with new books then.

I expect I'll get a lot of reading done next week, too. I switched shifts around with a coworker, so instead of having a 4-day weekend, I work Saturday to Tuesday, have Wednesday off (for reading), work Thursday, then have Friday to Sunday off. Roommate's coming back for my birthday (which is June 7) and will arrive in the evening on Friday, so I'll have most of that day to read, and leaving early on Sunday, so I'll have most of that day too. And on Saturday we can go out for a delicious meal and possibly some book shopping and maybe taking a nice walk if the weather's good! Then I'll only work 3 more days before I'll have my usual Thursday and Friday 'weekend' off work again and can catch up on more reading.

I say 'catch up' because I have fallen behind somewhat, and review copies are piling up faster than I can read them. They already have, really, and always will, but it's getting particularly bad, so I want to has a massive reading fest or something so that I can whittle down the pile a little and get more reviews written.

It's an addiction, reading and reviewing all these books. It's hard to believe I've been doing it for almost 4 and a half years now. There have been times where I've thought that maybe I should stop, that I don't really want to keep up the responsibility of having to review when what I'd rather be doing is just more reading, but I keep going back to it, and I do enjoy talking about what I think about the things I read. And I like knowing that I'm doing a little bit to help publicity for good books, too.

I shaved my head last weekend. Not for the first time, but I liked it a lot before and it was getting long enough to be annoying, but too short to just tie back out of the way. So out came the clippers and away went the hair. I like it best this way, I think. It makes me look more boyish. Not manly, but boyish, and that's closer to what I actually want for myself, so I'll take it! Even if everyone else who looks at me sees only the outward signs of being female (boobs, me wearing a long skirt because it's comfortable and nobody can see my legs), I know I can look in the mirror and see a face that's a little more like how I think I ought to be. And that makes me happy.

I've been making more use of my camera, too, and getting more pictures while I'm out. I'm not bad, really, but I'm not that great either, and I think it wouldn't hurt me to read a couple of photography books so that I can get some tips on improving. For every picture I get that I like, there are about a dozen that are mediocre, and about 3 dozen that I just reject out of hand because they're not focused properly, a bad angle, looked great on the digital camera screen but aren't so great on the computer screen... I know that much of it is trial and error, and a bit of editing too, but I think my skill has hit a plateau and I need something new to get me improving again.

Aaand I just discovered that a cheque finally cleared my bank account, so I have enough money to get cat food and stamps without having to use credit! Possibly some cat litter, too, but I think I can make what I currently have stretch until I get my next paycheque if I'm careful, so I may not need to. But the other things are definitely needed; cats need to eat, and I have an important letter to send! So now I can depart the online world happy. My Kindle isn't fully charged yet, but I don't want to wait any longer, since time's running out and I don't have long before it'll be time to go to sleep so I can get some good rest for work tomorrow.

Opposition

Nov. 18th, 2012 10:23 am
lighterthanair: (reflection)
I'm having another one of those "this isn't my body" moments. Or not so much moments as days, since this feeling came on me yesterday and really hasn't left since. I don't know if it was because of me listening to some new music, or just one of those times when it hits me harder than normal, but I really don't want to be stuck in this body right now.

When this happens, I know exactly what body I should be in. It's a body that's not fat or female. It's androgynous with a leaning toward pretty-boy, without definable sex. It moves smoothly and doesn't hurt and lets me express myself physically without looking stupid or like somebody trying to be who she isn't, and can't be. But those last things are really just icing on the cake. The cake itself, that's the androgynous body that I wish I could be living in.

I'll never physically reflect my mental body, even a little bit. Not without more money than I can ever hope to make. Even if I lost weight and got down to an ideal weight, I'd need cosmetic surgery to remove my breasts, and I can't afford that. And probably never will. And because I don't have the luxury of being a female who identifies as begin male, I can't even begin to get help for that. I've often envied people who identify that way. They go through a lot of shit, yes, but at least people are starting to recognize that their gender and sex don't have to match up, and there are places they can go for assistance.

For a female who identifies as agendered? Or anybody who identifies as agendered? Let's just say that while this society is slowly coming to grips with more fluid expressions of gender, it's still largely stuck in the binary state. One thing or the other. No third options. No alternate checkbox on a form. At best, I might be able to get counseling to help me discover and love myself.

What then, if I've discovered myself and know that the self I am inside in no way matches the outside? Can I actually still love being who I'm not?

I tell myself that in a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. I know, and that's enough. And online, nobody knows what I look like. If I tell people what I want to look like, without pictures of me they don't know if that's the truth or not. It's a bit freeing. More than a bit! Here, on a site that exists solely for a person to express themself, I am who I say I am.

Even if the physical world doesn't quite agree.

Part of me wishes I didn't feel this way at all. It would be one thing to just hate the body I'm in. I could just say I don't like that I'm fat, or female, or any of the other things wrong with myself. But to know what my mind wants me to look like, what it tells me I ought to look like... That's got to me some kind of torture. It's like holding food up before a hungry person and telling them that they'll never get to eat it.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to work toward being who I want to be, and expressing what I want to express. It just means that there are going to be days, like today, when it all hits me harder than others.

(At least I have a good icon to go with this post now. That's something to be happy about.)

September 2015

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