The trip to Florida was amazing and so much fun. I simply don't have time for a full post but I have some down time next week I promise to get caught up. It has already been placed in front of me to make it an annual thing. :D
My story gets told to the rest of work tomorrow. At least all of those that really need to know. O_O
I have a nose revision on Friday and the following week off. I won't be able to see anyone until the 12th of December.
Jan 3rd is 33 days away. I am so scared, happy, freaked out, excited, scatterbrained, hopeful, and terrified all at once.
I won't be seeing family for Xmas this year. I simply am not able to get in touch with anyone regarding the upcoming changes. :(
That is all I got for now. As I mentioned I will follow up with more next week when I have some actual free time. I am not sure I actually remember what that is.
More soon!!!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Leaving on a Jet Plane
Today I am getting out of dodge.
I get to hop on a plane and fly to visit a dear friend and her family for the holiday.
Since I am not being invited to my parents (because of dad). Oh well. I know I will catch up with mom later.
In the mean time I will get to fly down as me. Spend a number of days soaking up the sun. Sharing time with friends. Then come back. All as me.
But most importantly I hope I am charging up the soul's batteries. Since when I come back I will be down to just over thirty days left before full time. Not to mention the department at large finding out. I could probably really use the boost.
I will post when I get back about how it all goes and hopefully have some stories.
See you all soon.
I get to hop on a plane and fly to visit a dear friend and her family for the holiday.
Since I am not being invited to my parents (because of dad). Oh well. I know I will catch up with mom later.
In the mean time I will get to fly down as me. Spend a number of days soaking up the sun. Sharing time with friends. Then come back. All as me.
But most importantly I hope I am charging up the soul's batteries. Since when I come back I will be down to just over thirty days left before full time. Not to mention the department at large finding out. I could probably really use the boost.
I will post when I get back about how it all goes and hopefully have some stories.
See you all soon.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Teardrops on My Pillow
Two weekends ago I got a call from my Brother on Friday night.
Sadly I had been kind of avoiding him. I felt bad about it but I just felt that if I did talk to him it would turn in a direction that would be uncomfortable and awkward at best.
Yet I felt compelled to answer it this time thinking I should stop and actually talk to him for a change.
It could not have been a worse decision.
Now it didn't start of bad. He brought up his favorite topic. The local NHL team that we are both huge fans of. Discussing things about the team the some of the issues they have been dealing with. Etc.
Nothing earth shattering with that. I don't mind it either for a couple of reasons. First if it gets a person comfortable talking to me, good. Second, talking about something familiar is always a good thing.
Well it didn't last long.
Sadly we got into what is going on with me.
I don't have a problem talking about it. I informed him of where I was at and what was happening.
I could hear some sadness in his voice, I assume in regards to losing his little brother. I made mention that he is gaining a little sister in the process. Not really sure that went over very well. I am trying to get people to look on the brighter side of things.
I know I have had to otherwise I would have lost my mind a long time ago.
We kept on this line of thinking and discussing the changes coming when the worst happened.
He interrupted me and started saying how he didn't understand how I could ever look like a woman. To the point that he actually started laughing about it and attempting to compare me to a famous model.
Did I mention he laughed?
It wasn't an uncomfortable laugh either. It was a plain cold laugh of 'you are going to look so ridiculous and I cannot believe you are doing this' laugh.
It hurt.
A lot.
If fact I think I was crying for the rest of the entire call.
I did manage to hide that. I also responded.
First I told him how unfair it was that he would compare me to someone else. Let alone a super model.
Really?
In today's day and age models are all what they appear.
Cindy Crawford once famously stated she wished she looked like Cindy Crawford.
Thus holding me to an impossible standard wasn't fair at all.
I was simply trying to be me.
I did my best to explain to him that even when I am trying to be a boy. I hardly if ever get identified as a boy. Nope I almost always get viewed as a girl these days no matter how I am dressed.
I also did my best to convey the idea that when dressed up a bit. I seem to attract a fair amount of attention and advances.
People seem to think I am pretty. So why should I accept what he thinks.
I understand he is struggling with it. I didn't get angry or mad at him. I just tried to tell him that no matter what he thought it wasn't what everyone else thinks.
As if he is one to judge at all. He ignored his family, ended up getting divorced, moving to the ends of the earth, hardly sees anyone or his kids, and now complains about how lonely he is.
Like this really make him a pillar of how to live life and judge others. What exactly has he done?
Nothing.
Yet he is my brother. I would like him to remain my brother. He can be a great person when he wants to be. I have learned and experienced a lot from him. Even if it was the wrong thing to do.
I just didn't need this now.
Plus as hard as I tried I wanted to end the conversation and get off the phone. I really didn't want to talk to him anymore after we went through all that.
Sadly I spent almost another hour on the phone after that. Still getting teased and laughed at.
I finally made a plea to get some sleep as it was late, and I got him to let me go.
It hurt.
It still hurts today.
I try not to dwell on it because in the long run his opinion will not matter much.
Maybe one day it he will see it, maybe he won't.
But I am not living my life for him anymore.
I am doing it for me.
No one ever likes to be laughed at, in that manner.
Worse still as it came from family.
I know I cried myself to sleep that night.
Sadly I had been kind of avoiding him. I felt bad about it but I just felt that if I did talk to him it would turn in a direction that would be uncomfortable and awkward at best.
Yet I felt compelled to answer it this time thinking I should stop and actually talk to him for a change.
It could not have been a worse decision.
Now it didn't start of bad. He brought up his favorite topic. The local NHL team that we are both huge fans of. Discussing things about the team the some of the issues they have been dealing with. Etc.
Nothing earth shattering with that. I don't mind it either for a couple of reasons. First if it gets a person comfortable talking to me, good. Second, talking about something familiar is always a good thing.
Well it didn't last long.
Sadly we got into what is going on with me.
I don't have a problem talking about it. I informed him of where I was at and what was happening.
I could hear some sadness in his voice, I assume in regards to losing his little brother. I made mention that he is gaining a little sister in the process. Not really sure that went over very well. I am trying to get people to look on the brighter side of things.
I know I have had to otherwise I would have lost my mind a long time ago.
We kept on this line of thinking and discussing the changes coming when the worst happened.
He interrupted me and started saying how he didn't understand how I could ever look like a woman. To the point that he actually started laughing about it and attempting to compare me to a famous model.
Did I mention he laughed?
It wasn't an uncomfortable laugh either. It was a plain cold laugh of 'you are going to look so ridiculous and I cannot believe you are doing this' laugh.
It hurt.
A lot.
If fact I think I was crying for the rest of the entire call.
I did manage to hide that. I also responded.
First I told him how unfair it was that he would compare me to someone else. Let alone a super model.
Really?
In today's day and age models are all what they appear.
Cindy Crawford once famously stated she wished she looked like Cindy Crawford.
Thus holding me to an impossible standard wasn't fair at all.
I was simply trying to be me.
I did my best to explain to him that even when I am trying to be a boy. I hardly if ever get identified as a boy. Nope I almost always get viewed as a girl these days no matter how I am dressed.
I also did my best to convey the idea that when dressed up a bit. I seem to attract a fair amount of attention and advances.
People seem to think I am pretty. So why should I accept what he thinks.
I understand he is struggling with it. I didn't get angry or mad at him. I just tried to tell him that no matter what he thought it wasn't what everyone else thinks.
As if he is one to judge at all. He ignored his family, ended up getting divorced, moving to the ends of the earth, hardly sees anyone or his kids, and now complains about how lonely he is.
Like this really make him a pillar of how to live life and judge others. What exactly has he done?
Nothing.
Yet he is my brother. I would like him to remain my brother. He can be a great person when he wants to be. I have learned and experienced a lot from him. Even if it was the wrong thing to do.
I just didn't need this now.
Plus as hard as I tried I wanted to end the conversation and get off the phone. I really didn't want to talk to him anymore after we went through all that.
Sadly I spent almost another hour on the phone after that. Still getting teased and laughed at.
I finally made a plea to get some sleep as it was late, and I got him to let me go.
It hurt.
It still hurts today.
I try not to dwell on it because in the long run his opinion will not matter much.
Maybe one day it he will see it, maybe he won't.
But I am not living my life for him anymore.
I am doing it for me.
No one ever likes to be laughed at, in that manner.
Worse still as it came from family.
I know I cried myself to sleep that night.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Gonna Make You Sweat.
“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.” -- Tina Fey, Bossypants
I like this quote for a number of reasons. It is so very true that we try to hold ourselves up to impossible standards. You have seen the digital alteration of models to make them look better. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U]
Even worse when they alter a woman's figure into something unobtainable. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq5sVyTpbmI]
Lately there has been a movement entitled Thinspiration. The idea is pretty and fit(mostly skinny) girls showing off with hard work what they now look like.
There is also an anti-thinspriation buzz where they deride these girls saying that starving yourself to try and reach a body that isn't possible or unhealthy.
They are both right.
And they are both wrong.
I fully understand women come in all shapes and sizes. It is physically impossible to all be 5'6", 110 lbs and a size 4 or even 2.
Which brings us to why I am talking about this anyway.
Recently I had been feeling, well for lack of a better term, fat.
Not that I actually was, but I was feeling lethargic and bloated. I still watch my diet and I was still walking a lot. It just seemed as if my body was just caring extra weight and/or flab around.
Something also occurred to me as I was pondering this a few weeks ago and noting my weight was sitting a bit on the higher side. One I was I have reached the two and a half hear mark of being on HRT. While I haven't avoided activity I haven't exactly done a lot of higher intensity stuff as I used to. Knowing this, I felt that this was sufficiently a long enough period to say that my body had change and really wasn't like it used to be.
Suffice it to say I had shifted form the influence of testosterone and wasn't feeling the easy calorie burn anymore. I was feeling blah.
So the time had come to add something to my routine. I can still eat sensibly and keep walking, i just needed a little more. I found this:
If you are not familiar with some of the exercises I highly suggest googling them. I like this because it is simply and fast. I do this first thing in the morning it takes me 15 minutes. (I am not trying to do it fast I have long held that taking the time and doing an exercise in a controlled fashion is far more productive than trying to speed through it.) I than can hop into the shower and start getting ready for work. I am in week four and I can tell you it is HARD. That first week was killer as I have been doing it five days a week.
The effort as already been felt. My body needed this extra work. I am enjoying it. I already feel better but I know it will take time to really see the results. I must keep the following in mind.
Now the list was compiled with women in mind. The picture with it is classic thinspiration thinking. Work out like this, look like that.
This is where they are wrong.
I'll never look like that, it just isn't in my shape or DNA.
That doesn't mean I have to accept the out of shape feeling I was having. Which is where I disagree with the anti-thinspiration crowd.
I am not a size 16 nor am I a 2. I am solid 8 and I am more than happy at that. Yet I want to stay there comfortably. I won't starve myself, but I started eating healthier several years ago. Now I am just wanting to increase my fitness level to say their easily and not feel so guilt when I consume something yummy.
This is why I feel the anti-thinspiration mindset is right. Embrace your body both good and bad. Learn to love it and find ways to feel good about it.
Just don't fall into the trap that fat is beautiful that I see quite often on these types of sites.
You are not going to be a size two the thinspiration crowd would like you to think. But that doesn't mean you have to let yourself to. Take care of that body. It is the only one you have. So be the best size 2 or size 16, or wherever else you fall. Just do take care of it. Don't starve yourself, just eat better. Get some exercise.
Find that balance. Really these two groups need to come together. A happy medium is the best place for you to be at. You'll feel better, which means you will look better to others around you. Find an exercise program that works for you and watch what you eat, but enjoy yourself from time to time too.
Don't be something you can't but don't be miserable about it either.
You need that body to go out and enjoy life. Best take care of it.
Even worse when they alter a woman's figure into something unobtainable. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq5sVyTpbmI]
Lately there has been a movement entitled Thinspiration. The idea is pretty and fit(mostly skinny) girls showing off with hard work what they now look like.
There is also an anti-thinspriation buzz where they deride these girls saying that starving yourself to try and reach a body that isn't possible or unhealthy.
They are both right.
And they are both wrong.
I fully understand women come in all shapes and sizes. It is physically impossible to all be 5'6", 110 lbs and a size 4 or even 2.
Which brings us to why I am talking about this anyway.
Recently I had been feeling, well for lack of a better term, fat.
Not that I actually was, but I was feeling lethargic and bloated. I still watch my diet and I was still walking a lot. It just seemed as if my body was just caring extra weight and/or flab around.
Something also occurred to me as I was pondering this a few weeks ago and noting my weight was sitting a bit on the higher side. One I was I have reached the two and a half hear mark of being on HRT. While I haven't avoided activity I haven't exactly done a lot of higher intensity stuff as I used to. Knowing this, I felt that this was sufficiently a long enough period to say that my body had change and really wasn't like it used to be.
Suffice it to say I had shifted form the influence of testosterone and wasn't feeling the easy calorie burn anymore. I was feeling blah.
So the time had come to add something to my routine. I can still eat sensibly and keep walking, i just needed a little more. I found this:
 |
Do this first thing in the morning before your brain knows what you are doing Do 2x: 50 Jumping Jacks -- 5 Pushups -- 20 situps or crunches -- 20 Mountain climbers -- 30 second plank -- 7 burpees |
If you are not familiar with some of the exercises I highly suggest googling them. I like this because it is simply and fast. I do this first thing in the morning it takes me 15 minutes. (I am not trying to do it fast I have long held that taking the time and doing an exercise in a controlled fashion is far more productive than trying to speed through it.) I than can hop into the shower and start getting ready for work. I am in week four and I can tell you it is HARD. That first week was killer as I have been doing it five days a week.
The effort as already been felt. My body needed this extra work. I am enjoying it. I already feel better but I know it will take time to really see the results. I must keep the following in mind.
Now the list was compiled with women in mind. The picture with it is classic thinspiration thinking. Work out like this, look like that.
This is where they are wrong.
I'll never look like that, it just isn't in my shape or DNA.
That doesn't mean I have to accept the out of shape feeling I was having. Which is where I disagree with the anti-thinspiration crowd.
I am not a size 16 nor am I a 2. I am solid 8 and I am more than happy at that. Yet I want to stay there comfortably. I won't starve myself, but I started eating healthier several years ago. Now I am just wanting to increase my fitness level to say their easily and not feel so guilt when I consume something yummy.
This is why I feel the anti-thinspiration mindset is right. Embrace your body both good and bad. Learn to love it and find ways to feel good about it.
Just don't fall into the trap that fat is beautiful that I see quite often on these types of sites.
You are not going to be a size two the thinspiration crowd would like you to think. But that doesn't mean you have to let yourself to. Take care of that body. It is the only one you have. So be the best size 2 or size 16, or wherever else you fall. Just do take care of it. Don't starve yourself, just eat better. Get some exercise.
Find that balance. Really these two groups need to come together. A happy medium is the best place for you to be at. You'll feel better, which means you will look better to others around you. Find an exercise program that works for you and watch what you eat, but enjoy yourself from time to time too.
Don't be something you can't but don't be miserable about it either.
You need that body to go out and enjoy life. Best take care of it.
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