Alice.

Sunday December 17, 2006

Madonna "Music" What It Feels Like For a Girl

Music

Wow. Never thought I'd listen to Madonna. Some of it's pretty catchy, though. Confessions on a Dance Floor has some pretty good house and club techno. Truth be told, though, that I like pretty much anything that sings, warbles, or pumps the beats. With the exception of Ska. I hate Ska. My current iPod / iTunes statistics:

Songs

7,934

Duration

22.2 Days

Disk Space

37.48 GiB

Genres

98

Artists

225

Albums

629

With this whole Madonna thing, plus the comment my flat-mate from Panama had ("What? Are you a woman, or gay?") reminds me of when I visited the apartment of a pair of gay lovers, friends I had met who worked at one of the local Subways. My best friend at the time and I were browsing their music collection on their X-Box, when one pops his head out of the kitchen (mixin' up some drinks) and apologizes for the amount of Madonna on the machine, "Yeah, we're, y'know; GAY."

It was a lot of Madonna.

I find it's also pretty strange how many songs Madonna has about just being a girl. The one referenced at the top here describes the situation pretty well - it's okay for girls to act like boys, but boys consider acting like girls to be degrading. Weird lyrics that put me a bit on edge, being so uncannily related to my situation. I seem to find that with a lot of music - something happens, and I immediately think of a song that describes the situation perfectly. Like a soundtrack for my brain.

Site Hosting

In unrelated news, I have a new domain, orianagroup.com, which currently hosts Trac and Subversion repositories for TurboMail, a TurboGears extension I have previousally written about, and protected access for one of my clients, who specifically asked for centralized task tracking. Neat!

It's hosted at WebFaction - hosting for geeks by geeks. They offer a variety of packages and a truly wicked administration control panel. They have a video demo, plus lots of information on their blog.

Personally

So, I can hardly believe I've been on HRT for 179 days now. (I've been on an anti-androgen three months longer.) That's six months! I put up a JavaScript counter under About Me, on the side... cause damn. I'll summarize what I've found so far:

Physically

Breast Development

I had a core of breast development before I began HRT due to an already off-balance physiology. After a month or two they began to hurt and Rinii made fun of me. ;) Now, they only hurt a little off and on, growth has slowed (I think), and I'm not very well endowed. I'm well endowed enough, though, that I need some form of support. These nifty undershirt things with an extra under layer and elastic are great. They're comfy, and after a bit of modding (yeah, I mod my clothes) are even more supportive.

One strange side-note to this is that my areola have become smaller. I'll be taking it up with my endocrinologist.

Hair

Well hair everywhere on my body other than pubic hair and head hair is growing in much less than it did in the past. I'm glad that I never had very active facial hair growth, but it's thinned out substantially. It pisses off my electrolysist, I can tell, 'cause I can't shave for two weeks so she can have a chance of grabbing the bastards when she zaps them. It's funny - I've turned into quite the patchy bastard. My leg hair is actually lighter and sparser than Rinii's! *happy dances*

My head hair is also nicer - it's straightened itself out a wee bit, plus it's looking a lot healthier than it did before, but there might be other contributing factors to that.

Skin

First, my skin has gotten a lot more sensitive everywhere. That's neat, except, and even my electrolysist has commented on this, getting hair removed hurts like a mother f***ing b***h! I mean, holy crap! Luckily I only get done once a week, and I take plenty of Tylenol beforehand. It helps.

Second, my skin is softer, smoother, and drier in places. One woman, after shaking her hand and her giving me a close look when I wasn't looking, turned to me and asked if I was a musician. I replied that I do enjoy writing and creating music, and love singing, but why do you ask? She pointed and said she thought I was a pianist from the look of my hands.

Not to mention certain things are far more pleasurable, and, er, vigorous than they were. *peers round* Yesh. I hope I don't bother my sister too much, who'se bedroom is right below mine. -_- Yesh.

Mentally

Emotions

I've noticed that I'm a fair bit more emotional than I was before. I've gotten very angry, very depressed, very tired. Extremes seem to be order of the day, and almost all of what I've been feeling I've internalized. I've grown more introspective as time goes on. Oh, and I'm less able to put up with bullshit.

Being Lonely

Yeah, I'm lonely. Words fail to describe just how lonely I am with only one friend in town, whom I never see; Rinii and Colter in Dawson Creek, and I so rarely hear from them, though I did tonight; Adam has moved to just outside of Calgary; and I'm still getting over my first full-on crush. *sigh*

Caught Between

I've blogged about this before, in my untitled entry from September 8th. Being caught between the genders doesn't come up often, but when it does, it's rarely pleasant. Traveling to Panama was hard, despite having a good friend to room with. It helped prove to myself that I can not hope to be happy without expressing who I really am. Suppression will no longer work.

Externally

Being Read Half-Way

It's strange to see the concentration on stranger's faces as they try to decide just what I am. I've mentioned in passing several anecdotes: the staff in a jewelry store, an exotic dancer suggested I flash her for shits and giggles, etc. It makes me euphoric when people "read" me as female, when strangers call me "maam". My own mother is beginning to mistake me for my sister... from behind. ;^)

Surgery

Tonight I described to Rinii, step by step, the process of SRS. She was suitably grossed-out, and declared that if she was considering such surgery, that would have put her off, and said how dedicated I must be.

Wow.. that's a lot of text. 'Took three days to write, and there are probably things I'm still missing. Excuses for more entries, I guess. :P

— Alice