Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Looking for the horoscopes in the New York Post this morning, I came across a disturbing story of a woman who was killed when pieces of a building's facade fell and crushed her. It reminded me of all the thoughts I've been having lately regarding freak accidents and sudden death or injury. As I left the bodega, I heard "ACTION!" and Joaquin Phoenix went sprinting ahead of me and I noticed all these extras crossing the street. I must've been assumed to be an extra so I didn't look into the camera that was not far from me however tempting it may have been.

The past few days have been so uncomfortable and obstructive. Post-sickness is almost worse than just being sick in the moment. Refraining from certain foods while feeling slightly off, achey muscles, fatigue, and dizziness make for strange days. Slow and lazy, unamused, uninspired, uninterested, all the feelings that aren't debilitating but just enough to puncture through the body and make living feel like work. I didn't drink for some days and slept early. I followed that awful BRAT diet. I ate rice out of my rice cooker with saltines and ginger tea, fell asleep 5 times a day and had terrible acid reflux. Yesterday evening, I tried to drink but had a hard time swallowing. I had a single glass of white wine at my friend's birthday gathering then ordered another and could barely finish it. I went to bed scared I'd wake up sick again but I am feeling back to complete normalcy. No acid reflux, no drowsiness, no soreness, just normal.

Walking down the street right after sunset, I ran into some men that I know. They are sort of like older brothers, or, my older brother's friends, or, my best friend's older brothers. I'm not so sure where to place them but they make me feel very safe to be me but also in some ways criticize the things I do. They invited me into the restaurant they were standing outside of for a drink. I told them I wasn't drinking but I'd eat some food. I told them all about how I had started HRT and how I could feel the changes coming. Men always seem so enamored by the effect hormones have on me. Women usually just laugh and say things like "You're like me now!" or "Welcome to the club!". When I tell men that my skin is getting softer or that I won't go bald, they turn their heads like people in movies. The instant I start talking about growing breasts, its all eyes and ears and many many jokes. I seldom am offended by jokes and my own personal rule is that if I love you, it's very hard to offend me. So when my 'older brother-type figures' in my life crack jokes about my transition, I don't really mind at all. It actually makes me feel more human and accepted. It wouldn't be fair to be exempt from all the foolish humor just because I'm not privileged in some way. Insisting on immunity simply because you are this or that only highlights whatever 'this' or 'that'' may be. If I scolded every man in my life for the stupid jokes they make, I would have no men in my life and they wouldn't have me in theirs. The jokes and humorous questions said to me by the men in my life are rarely ever actually offensive, but if I put on my activist mask, everything they say would suddenly become hushed and beaten, and what's the fun in that? If someone says something questionably dumb or something that I know may be offensive to someone else, I will tell them in verbalized slapstick that what they said is stupid. Other people in the LGBT community have expressed that I don't use my Instagram well enough because the lack of social justice and queer activism is a waste of the large platform I have. 14,000 followers is a lot of people but who's to say that silence isn't activism? My image online has morphed into something less personal and more secretive. I try not to post anything too telling of my world. It consists primarily of selfies, screenshots, and photos of strange things. I wondered if it was true that I wasn't using my Instagram profile to its best potential. It wasn't until I received messages from people of all kinds who said that they admired my lack of an activist's presence that it came to me that maybe acting as if I was just your typical city girl, that the deserved freedom of being would speak for itself. Is a trans person simply being not activism? It's also not my life's work to explicitly educate the masses through a platform that is conducive to poor judgement. I have things to do, people!


Going to go buy some groceries and eat udon then hopefully go see Uncut Gems in the evening.

warmth, m.


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