My Old Journal

Okay, I just wrote an incredible amount in here, and then goddamn AOL booted me due to "inactivity." Apparently typing doesn't register with them as doing anything productive. So I lost the whole thing and now I'm going to try and retype what I said.

Anyway, this is the inaugural entry. I'm not in a great mood, though, and not just because AOL sucks. (I swear, if there was a way to access AOL chat rooms without actually having AOL, I'd get rid of it. If anyone knows a way to do it, please E-mail me.) My oestrogen poisoning came last night, around 10.00. (Oestrogen poisoning is what I call that obnoxious monthly reminder that I'm female-bodied. I'm not spelling it out for you ... you figure it out.) Fortunately I was awake and up and about, although I was pretty tired because I usually go to bed much earlier than I did last night. I was at a GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) mixer that my GSA was running, and it ran till 11.00. I got home at 11.30 or so.

Overall I'm doing okay, though. I got my driver's license on the 16th and it says Male! :D This is a huge deal for those of you who aren't trans. Absolutely huge. I was very fortunate because my learner's permit also said Male, and they just transferred all the information over. When I filled out the form for my permit, I didn't check a gender, and they looked at my birth certificate (which is as yet unaltered), looked at me, and put down Male. :D When I filled out the form for my license, though, I put Male. I'm not letting them put Female on there for anything. It does have my legal name (which I'm not telling you) on there though, but I can get that fixed when I turn 18 and get everything else taken care of.

So tomorrow's Thanksgiving. I know what I'm thankful for ... well, a lot of things, really, but what I was going to say is that I'm thankful for that M ion my license. :-) Plenty of other stuff, though. I have an enormous extended family, and count my lucky stars every waking nanosecond that I have them. There's nothing quite like knowing someone loves you and is proud of you, and will stick by you no matter what. It's a very fuzzy feeling. :-) I'm thankful that I had enough to eat and clothes and a place to live and a good education and enough money that I can go buy two cans of pumpkin so I can make bread for Thanksgiving tomorrow. :D (If anyone wants the recipe, I'm more than happy to pass it along. Just E-mail me. It's really good.) But mainly I'm thankful that I have people whom I love and who love me, and that I can count on that. And also that I'm free enough to be myself and love myself for who I am, not for who I pretend to be. And my family, all the bzillions of people who I count as my family (blood relatives and family are completely different - some people are lucky enough that their blood relatives are their family, but I'm not one of those people), loves me for me and not who they wish I was. They don't want me to be anyone or anything other than myself, and they don't care who that self is, they just love me for me. Nothing matters to them but who I am deep inside, and I love them infinitely for that.

On Friday I'll put up the December holiday decorations. :D I take them down on December 26, and put up a Happy New Year sign. I take the sign down on January 2. Then the mantel looks really naked for a while, till I get used to it again. :-)

Everyone have a great Thanksgiving!

The decorations are up in the living room! :D They look good, although the Happy Chanukah banner keeps falling down because I used Scotch tape. I need to get duct tape or something. Or at least masking tape. The Indian corn is still on the front door and my homemade stuffed scarecrow, Bob, is still sitting in the dining room. They don't go back to the attic until the first day of winter.

I'm very organised, have you noticed? :-) I like for things to be organised, but I'm not a total neat freak. My room often has stuff strewn about, but not a lot because it's very very small. Maybe 8'x12' or something. I love my little room though. It's very cozy. My house was built in the 1920s (it's a colonial remake), so there's no central air, just radiators in every room for heat - even in the tiny little downstairs bathroom. And two in the living room because it's the biggest room in the house. :-) Anyway, my room is so small that in the winter when the heat's on, the whole room becomes very warm and comfortable. The whole house becomes very warm and comfortable, even without turning the heat way up. It's a good thing. :-) The radiator in the study, where the computer is, is right next to the computer so I can put my geet up on it, which is a very nice thing when my feet are cold and the heat is on. It does kind of stink not having central air, though, because it gets hot in the summer. But we have a large supply of big fans that can be transported down from the attic, and two A/C units, one of which lives in the living room and the other of which lives in my mother's room. I don't use a fan or anything in my room ... I have two windows, neither of which gives me a great view of anything except the sunrise and the construction going on at the house behind mine, and in the summer they're both wide open so I get lots of fresh air. And I can listen to crickets when I go to sleep. :-) It's a very nice arrangement.

I was talking to my online friend Vaughn yesterday - the guy who taught me how to shave in an Instant Message - and he gave me some great advice, which I am now going to pass along to you as a reward for reading all of this even though I'm not sitting next to you with a gun to your head. :-) He said that meditation works wonders towards getting your body to do what you want it to do. He's had to stop taking T (testosterone), but by meditating for half an hour every day and envisioning himself as a bioguy (genetic male who is also male-identified), he's kept his T levels up even without putting anything into his system. Mind over body - very cool.

He also said something that made me very happy indeed. I've been shaving every four days for about four months now, and I told him that my face was still rough even right after I shaved. I've been applying a lot of pressure to the razor and getting razor burn because I thought I wasn't getting a close enough shave, and still it was rough afterwards. Even with a brand-new blade. He said it was supposed to do that and would be that way from now on. He said the skin is toughening up. Basically, right after I shave, it feels like a bioguy's face feels right after he shaves. The fact that this is supposed to happen and will continue to be the case makes me so very happy! :D I told Vaughn that I felt like I was really on my way now. I feel like I'm making real progress. From here the world, baby! I'm on Cloud Nine right now, I feel like I could take on the whole world. I'm making it happen! Bring it on, I can handle anything. I can do anything. I feel like I often feel when I'm listening to really good music, particularly show tunes - that if I could angle myself just right, the music would pick me up and I could fly. :D

Okay, now that I've gone off on that little euphoric rant ... I'm going to close out for today. By the way, not only can you feel free to E-mail me, if you're on AOL, also feel free to IM me if you ever see that I'm on. My screen name is Michael G 328.

I was just reading my last post ... God, I'm such a dork. :-) No big deal, though ... as faults go, I guess that's not such a bad one to have. I have a friend whom I look up to a great deal, and she's a dork too. :-) She even says so. She's very proud to just be herself, and if that means being a dork, then so be it. The world needs more people like her.

Not much going on these days ... I'm busy working on the cover letter I'm sending out with my college applications, which explains my gender situation and why I'm applying under a name that isn't my legal name yet and doesn't correspond with the name on my school transcript and SAT scores. Also working on the essay ... it's over 600 words and it needs to be 500, so I'm working on being more concise with it. Gotta talk to my English teacher about that.

Since I worked on all that yesterday, though, today I'm just hanging out. My mother went to work for the day so I've got the house to myself. Ah, sweet freedom. :-)

There was another GSA mixer on Friday. It was fun, but the music was so loud that I got a bad headache. I went outside and my head got a little better, but then when I went back in it got worse. If I hadn't taken an Advil my head probably would've split wide open, and that would have made a mess. So I'm glad I took an Advil.

Otherwise, though, it was a fun time. It was a dance, though, and I don't like to dance (well, I do, just not that type of dancing) so I hung out with my buddy Michael B, who doesn't like to dance either. No oestrogen poisoning this time around! :-) It's due back around Christmas. [sigh]

A belated happy Chanukah to those who observed, and a premature merry Christmas and happy Kwaanza to those observing! :-)

And a happy new year, of course. Not new millennium, though. The millennium by our calendar doesn't start till 2001, because we use the Roman calendar and they had no concept of 0. It was the Mayans who came up with the concept of 0. By the Christian calendar, the millennium started in 1997, I believe. They calculated Jesus' birth year wrong and he was actually born in 3 BC. And the world hasn't ended! Rejoice! :-) However, celebrate the millennium in whatever way you want. I just feel obligated to clarify these things. Best of luck with Y2K, even though I don't forsee any huge mechanical problems. I think it's going to be the people who get weird, either by panicking or by assuming that they can get away with anything and thus trying to loot stores or something. Knock wood all around. :-)

Well, my oestrogen poisoning showed up again yesterday. [sigh] Oh well, it happens. Going to my grandparents' house in Rhode Island tomorrow for Christmas Eve (I'm Jewish but my family is Catholic - I'm adopted), which is always fun. Then at a different house Christmas Day, also with the family.

Something else happened yesterday - I had my first kiss. :-) I was with a friend at my house, and we've kissed on the cheek before, as I have with just about all my friends. S/he (I refuse to mention the person's gender until I have his/her express permission) missed and hit my mouth, I guess ... I didn't even notice. S/he apologised, and I said it was fine, because I honestly hadn't even noticed that it was on my mouth and not my chin, which is where s/he was aiming. S/he looked at me for a second, and then we kissed again, for real. So that was my first kiss. :-) It wasn't like fireworks or anything ... it just felt really natural and normal. Like it wasn't even my first. But even without fireworks, my heart did skip a beat or two. :-) No worries though, I'm still alive. I need to cut down on the fast food.

It makes for a nice feeling ... especially since I'm so fond of this person, and s/he is so fond of me. :-) We're best friends. At any rate, I'm glad that it was this person who was my first. And I didn't have my first kiss until I was almost 18, so nobody feel bad about themselves!

And yes, this person knows I'm FTM and sees me completely as a guy. S/he has been incredible about the whole thing, since when we met (I was already living as a guy) s/he didn't know anything about trans*ism, and now knows as much as I do! I can't teach hir anything anymore. :D

Everyone be sure to unplug stuff before midnight on New Year's in case there are power surges! Happy holidays and happy Y2K! :-D

Christmas was fun. :-) Got some cool stuff - not bad, considering I'm a Jew. :-) Saw the family, which is always nice.

Regarding my first kiss ... I've decided to dub the person in question "Les," as that's a nice androgynous (gender-neutral) name. Pronouns will continue to be written as "s/he" until I get permission to do otherwise. I forgot to mention in my last entry that the kiss occurred on the winter solstice and during a full moon! :-) Les and I thought that was kind of cool, as a full moon on the winter solstice is bloody rare. And yes, the moon was up - it was right about sundown, a little after 4.00p.

Not much going on ... going to mail my college applications within the next couple of days. I'll try to get my essay, which is finished, posted before too long. Again, happy Y2K! Everyone unplug your computers before you head down to the bomb shelter! :D

Wow, it's been a while. A few people have told me that I need to write in my journal, and I had a little free time, so here I am. Lots going on - "Les" and I broke up in January, after about two weeks. S/he's not ready for a relationship. No worries.

Got into college, got a scholarship, got my black belt. 2000 looks like it's my year - at least so far. Knock wood for me. :-)

I'm looking into starting T (testosterone). Hopefully within the next six months. I'll keep you posted. With any luck, I can have top surgery in August 2001.

Getting ready to close out the school year ... last day of classes is May 24 (Thursday), and graduation is June 7 (Wednesday).

Not much else going on ... I already wrote about all the exciting stuff going on in my life on my home page.

Been a while again ... sorry about this. HotBot was giving me error messages for a long time, and not letting me log in, and stuff like that.

Graduation is tonight! And my diploma has the right name on it! I'm so excited.

Let's see, what else? I was having a really hard time getting over Les, until a few weeks ago, when a good friend of mine and I started developing an interest in each other. And now we're going out. :-) So it's all good. Les will always have a very special place in my heart, though ... s/he's my first love, my first kiss, and a really wonderful person anyway. I think s/he knows that. (Yes, we're still friends.)

This new person I'm with is a girl, by the way ... I don't think she'll mind me saying that. I don't know if she cares about having her name posted, so I'm going to leave it out for now. She's really sweet and smart and really cute, and we'll leave it at that. :-) A devout Catholic, no less - and still bisexual, by gosh. :D She's just an incredible person.

Not much else going on ... graduation and the new girlfriend are the biggies. Oh yeah ... I have an appointment with an endocrinologist (hormone doctor)! :D August 18th I'm going to Children's Hospital for a consultation with one Dr Spack, who supposedly is great and specialises in youth. And since it's through Children's, insurance should cover it. YAY! I'll keep you all posted on how things go, when I get my prescription, etc. Unfortunately, prior to getting the prescription, one has to go through a less-than-enjoyable gynecological exam. My first, no less. :-( Worth it though.

Everyone have a good one!

My girlfriend broke up with me last night. After 23 days. It wasn't working, that's what she said. It's not me though. We're staying friends. We didn't get to talk much because it was midnight and she had to be up early. I'm hoping to talk to her tomorrow. She very much has my heart.

Not much else going on ... hopefully getting a new computer within a week or two. Everyone have a good one!