Apt News

I got an apartment. Its kinda small with just a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom but I think it'll be enough room for just me.

Not much else to say.

Thus ends my 'couch surfing' tag and 'living alone' tag starts.

Quick Update 12-24

Just stopping by to say I'm still here.

Wow, the clouds have parted right in front of the sun just as rain begins to pour down on the Hasting's patio I can see from inside. And now a few minutes later the rain has slowed but the sun remains to blind me out the corner of my eye.

Yesterday I played Santa too my friends. I handed out the gifts I had bought for them, collected a few hugs and went home happy.

My family had our Christmas get together last week so Christmas day is a free day for me. I'll probably just stay home and play Mass Effect 2 or watch movies.

Update on my housing situation: I was going to get an apartment with a couple of friends but they are taking a very long time to get their apps filled out. I've decided to get an apartment by myself. There is an apartment complex that doesn't do credit checks, there's no lease to sign, light, water, trash, and cable are included, the apartments come with a microwave, tv, bed, and fridge. In the short run it will cost me less to move in there but more per month than I would have been playing with my friends. I'd like to wait but I don't like imposing on the friends I'm staying with now much more. I've all ready told them that I would be out of their hair by the end of this month at the start of this month.

So I'll soon be getting my first apartment alone.

Gilly

Slow week I guess

So it's been a week since I posted and I really don't have much to say. I've been a little down lately which usually means no posts until I start feeling better or I feel guilty enough about not posting to post something. While I haven't been posting here I have been as active as ever on Facebook just because it's so easy to 'like' someone's status or interject with a short comment.

Not much going on right now that I want to talk about. I've been playing Fallout 3 while listening to episodes of the podcast 'I Love Lard' which has the odd side effect of when I think about the podcast I end up picturing the hosts broadcasting from a bunker under the Capital Wasteland. Next week I have a party with the film club from the local college on Friday, I'm not 'in' the film club I knew one person and they invited me to one of their events and I kind of hit it off with few people and I do love film so now I show up at their events and parties as a friend of the club, and a party at work the next day.

That's all for now,
Gilly

My power is OVER 9000!

Not really but I needed a title.

I do feel like my drawing skills have gone up a couple of levels, though. I finished drawing the first draft of a comic I wrote last week. The idea for the comic came to me suddenly and I felt compelled to write it down immediately, which I did longhand over the course of an hour. Wednesday of last week I sat down and drew half the comic and planed out the panels for the other half. Last night I made a push to finish it and almost did. Today after work I drew the last few panels and called the first draft done. The comic is twenty-one pages long, not counting the cover.

I'm very happy about having got this far with it.

The story of the comic is very goofy and kinda screwball but it's good practice. I've started thinking about trying my hand at a serious subject but I don't have any real ideas yet.

That's all for today,
Gilly

Mostly Rambling about RotS and Anita Blake

Still feeling a little down but not too bad.

I called my mom and dad yesterday. I really don't call them often enough. It had been about two months since I last called but I saw them in person mid-Oct so it hadn't been that long since we talked. I called because it occurred to me that I didn't know if they knew I wasn't living in the same place anymore. So I called and let them know. When I told Dad he seemed to want to say something when I mentioned staying with friends until I found something more permanent but I interrupted him and changed the subject to how they were doing. They're fine though Dad's arthritis has been acting up due to the changing weather. Mom mentioned that my sister had called them but hadn't mentioned that we weren't living in the same place or that we weren't living together anymore.

I watched Revenge of the Sith again last night. Meh. It's still the best of the prequels but still doesn't come close to the greatness of the OT. How would I fix the prequels? I sometime think about finding copies of the shooting scripts and doing a rewrite but I'm trying to work on my own stuff so not going to happen. The first thing I would do is pull out all that Chosen One crap. The whole "bringing balance to the force" stuff is the main thing weighing down the prequels because it doesn't mesh with the OT. If you watch the movies in numbered order, it gets a lot of talk time in the first three movies and then in the last three no one mentions it. I would make the prequels about Anikin Skywalker, a hot shot pilot who was also a Jedi trained by Obi-Wan. He would just be a Jedi who gets seduced by the dark side and ends up destroying the Jedi order. The most important thing to me would be for Anikin to become Darth Vader in a way that flowed into the OT. Right now as the prequels stand I have a huge disconnect between Anikin and Vader. They just don't feel like the same character to me. I could go on but I think I'm in danger of ranting.

I've started rereading Blue Moon by Laurell K Hamilton. It's the eight book in her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. It's not as good as I remember. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I can see the slide toward more sex based stories. I really liked Anita Blake in the early novels. She was badass killing vamps and raising the dead in her day job. She wasn't falling into everyone's bed and when she started dating a guy he was a stand up guy who wanted to wait before having sex. Then she rejected that guy and went for the guy she had been rejecting from the first book. The began a slow but steady shift from her day job and police side work to vampire politics. This shift also brought with it an increase in sex. Sex is fine if it's there from the start. I read her Merry Gentry books, which had sex in them from the start, and enjoyed the sex in them. I read Anita Blake books for the badass vampire hunter who worked with police on supernatural crimes. That character has mostly stopped existing in the books after the ninth book. Now vampire politics drive the story with lots of sex thrown in. It's not the story I want to read. And I haven't been reading them. I read the tenth book and skimmed the eleventh and just couldn't connect with the story anymore. It's saddens me because I really did like the first nine books. So when I see a new Anita Blake book I want to read it and sometimes I peek inside but it's just so much vampire politics and sex that I just can't get in to it.

Ok I think I've ranted enough about that. Till next time.

Gilly

Quick Update 11-19

My life has settled into a new rhythm. It's been a little less than two weeks but it feels like I've been staying with J and her family for much longer.

Not much has happened lately. I've been feeling a little down but I know why this time. Tomorrow is Transgender Day of Remembrance. All my trans and feminist blogs have something to say about it. In the end I just end up reminded that being trans means I'm more likely to be killed or to kill myself, which feeds my depression. I just read something that said 175 transgender people(that have been reported as transgender) have been killed since last Transgender Day of Remembrance. That works out to almost one every other day.

When I started this blog I launched on TDOR with an article about those killed during the previous year. I tried to find out who they were. I wanted to tell 'their' story not the story of how they died. It took me several days of wading through numerous articles. I cried a lot while reading them. It hurt to read about people who were just living their lives and then they didn't get to anymore because someone else didn't want them to. Last year I was in a really bad place and wasn't even reading a lot of blogs because they were just making me feel worse. This year I thought I would do it again but I couldn't. I opened up a bunch of articles but couldn't bare to read them.

On a different topic I've been watching AMC's The Walking Dead and loving it. I've also been playing the zombie maps in Call of Duty: Black Ops. So I'm getting my daily recommended dose of zombies.

Till next time
Gilly

Just about today

Today I was at work at 8am and got off at 5:30pm. I sliced meat, worked the main cash register and sliced more meat which means I spent most of my day standing in two spots leaning slightly forward causing my back to hurt.

I feel a little down right now. I'm not sure if it's just because I feel so tired or if I'm starting a depressive episode.

I made a small change to the text at the top of the blog. I changed bi-romantic demisexual to pan-romantic asexual. I've been giving a lot of thought to whether or not I am asexual or demisexual. Demisexual means that a person normally does not feel sexual attraction for other people except for when an emotional bond has been established with a person. Asexual means that a person does not feel sexual attraction for other people period. After much thought I realized that I really do not and have not ever felt sexually attracted to anyone. Even right now that I'm crushing hugely on this guy I don't want to have sex with him. I want to cuddle and kiss and touch but sex not at all. Now wait how can you be crushing on a guy if your not sexually attracted to him? you may ask. Well that's where the pan-romantic part comes in. I do want to form relationships with people on a level that is more than just friends but without sex that's the romantic part. I'm also very open to who I might form these relationships with that's the pan part. If you're still confused google asexual and poke around you'll probably find some answers or leave a comment. I haven't gotten a comment on a blog post in a long time so I would totally love one:).

Hmm I'm feeling a little better now that I've written this. A little blog therapy maybe.

Till next time,

Gilly

Weird/bad dreams

The past two nights I've been have very vivid dreams. It's hard to piece together a real narrative because they're just all over the place. I remember doors that you could knock three times on that would then open up on someplace 'else'. Knocking on one door and then another would open both up to the same place in the 'else' so you could create a shortcut through the 'else'. I remember a mechanical fortune telling machine, kind that give out slips of paper, with a skull in it. The others I was with were afraid of it and I didn't like it much either but I thought it might have some answers. I remember a woman my own age or younger who in the dream was my mother but still young because of something to do with the doors. I remember being afraid when the doors developed a way to hide when they were open to the 'else' with some sort of illusion. Until then you could see the 'else' through the open door but with the illusion you couldn't it looked like the door had opened to the next room like normal. That's just the parts that I can turn into words that make sense.

I remember walking into my room, sitting down and feeling depressed. I felt that empty feeling inside, the hopelessness of feeling my world fall apart, the pain of existing. It consumed my mind in the dream. When I woke up I felt confused. I could remember how I felt but I didn't feel that way anymore. Like when you get hurt in a dream and wake up briefly still feeling the pain.

I kind of know where these dreams came from. Some of the images I can remember tie into things that I've been thinking about. The feeling of depression I know is from thinking about how I haven't been feeling depressed during the past three weeks. During the past three weeks that I've been dealing with not having power and the inevitability of my eviction from the apartment I haven't felt depressed. I haven't even felt mildly depressed. Part of that is knowing that there are things going wrong and dealing with them. When everything is great I start feeling that things are going to fall apart again which can cause me to have a depressive episode. When nothing is going wrong, there's nothing I can do to feel like I'm 'dealing' with what is wrong so the feeling stays. When things are going wrong I can do something, which makes me feel more in control and thus better.

Huh I think I just had a minor epiphany about what causes me to feel depressed.

The dreams a kind of nice cause they could turn into a story if I worked on it but they leave me feeling mentally drained in the morning instead of rested.

That's all for today.

Gilly

What am I doing here?

When I started this blog, I already had a personal online journal on LiveJournal. I wanted to start a new blog a write about important 'issues' but that only lasted about a week and then I was writing about my life again. I wanted to write words that had meaning and weight behind them but all I ever seemed to write about was my own unimportant life.

And you know what; I'm okay with that. I've realized that I'm not a writer of "serious business". I'm a fiction writer. Every time I have ever sat down and tried to write something factual I failed. But I can sit down and spin a story easily; maybe not the best story but the page won't be blank when I'm done. I'm not quitting this blog. I'm accepting it for what it is; the story of my life. I'm still an Infowhore and I'm still going to be speaking but I'm not going to worry about trying to find important things to speak about. I'm just going to speak about my life which I'm already doing a lot of anyway I'm just not going to feel bad about it.

To cement this turning point in my thinking about this blog I've changed the description of the blog to:

Welcome to my little blog. I'm here to speak about my life as a geek, nerd, otaku, transgender woman, writer, reader, bi-romantic demisexual person, video gamer, infowhore and most importantly as a human being.

Gilly

Update for Tuesday Nov. 9, 2010

This is just a quick update to say that I'm now staying with my friend. She has given me use of a small room in her house for a few weeks until my future roommates and I find a place. It's a little uncomfortable for me being in a place where someone else is already living. All the places I've lived in before I moved into them with my sister at the same time so there was never any feeling of being a guest. I recognize that I am a guest but if I'm going to be there for more than a few days I need to start feeling more at home while still being respectful of my hosts.

I had my first hot shower in four months. It was incredible feeling water running over my body that wasn't ice cold. Having real light after dark is also very nice. The real treat has been being able to plug in my laptop and use it for more than the two hours my battery lets me. I'm looking at getting a larger battery for my laptop, one that would give me around ten hours of use time.

Not much else to say at this time. If you missed it below this post is one about what happened Sunday night and my night in a storage unit.

Also I'm switching from the 'homeless?' tag to 'couch surfing' tag during my stay with friends, even through I have an actual bed.

Gilly

Update a day late

I posted Sunday night that I was going to stay one more night and get everything out early the next morning. Well I didn't stay the night in the dark apartment. I just didn't feel safe there anymore. Hearing the landlord's threats about police action kind of fed into my anxiety about staying there and it felt a bit overwhelming, so I packed everything up, took one last shower, and walked out.

I had my messenger bag with netbook and other sundry daily items in it; a large duffel bag full of clothes; a bag about 2/3 the size of the duffel with books, alarm clock, blanket, socks and underwear, and anything else I hadn't packed; a small bag with my shaving cream, shower gel, shampoo, toothbrush, and toothbrush; and finally a trash bag with my cat's litter box, bag of litter, bag of food, water and food bowls, and a jug of water. I think it was a good idea to leave last night because I had totally underestimated how much stuff I had left. If I had moved everything in the morning I would have been wiped for the rest of the morning but because I did it last night I was able to sleep it off and awake fresh.

Which brings me to where I slept last night. I slept in my storage unit. It wasn't too bad. I had my mattress, pillows, and blankets so I was pretty comfy. It only took me a few minutes to clear enough space to lay my mattress down. Then I fixed it up and went to sleep. When I went to sleep the unit didn't feel that cold but during the night the temperature fell off fairly quickly and in the middle of the night I was freezing with only one blanket on me.

A tip for anyone in cold weather: if you feel cold in the middle of the night; get up, find another blanket or two and add them to your bed. There is nothing worse then shivering all night long when you could have just gotten another blanket, which is why I got up, found another blanket in my stuff, added it to my bed, put on a pair of sweat pants and a long sleeve shirt, and went back to sleep feeling much warmer.

The next morning I woke up before my alarm went off. I was a little worried about having over slept because it seemed awfully bright but really I just am not familiar with how bright it gets in there in the morning. I should have gotten up then to get dressed and leave but I decided to wait out my alarm. When I did leave it was full bright out which made me feel kind of conspicuous leaving the unit. I was almost to the front gate when I saw some people across the street. I ducked back between the rows of units and waited for them to leave. When I couldn't see anyone I walked to the front gate. I decided that it would be better to slide under the gate than to possibly attract attention to myself by trying to climb over it. Once I was out I started walking like I hadn't just slipped under the gate.

The worst parts of last night were carrying everything to the storage at once and trying to slip out unseen in the morning. If I were going to stay in the unit for more nights I would probably work on leaving before it got full light out or find another way besides the front gate to get out. Right now it's a little cramped but that's because I have a lot of boxes full of books taking up extra space when they could be on the shelves that are also in the storage. Even if it was still cramped I could get a larger unit for not much more. A uninterrupted power supply could power some decent lights for quite a while. Some blankets on the walls to hide the bleak metal would also double as insulation and help muffle sounds from inside the unit. A small propane stove and I could even cook. To secure the unit at night from intruders would take two hundred pounds of weights attached to the door to make it very hard to lift and an alarm that would trigger if someone did lift the door more than a few inches.

I think about this way too much. ^_^

Gilly

Getting out just in time

Since Friday when the friend I'm going to be staying with called and said that I could move in on Monday I've been counting the days. Tonight is my last night in the dark apartment and tomorrow I move in with her. And not a day too soon. Earlier today I received a call from the landlord which I didn't answer and let go to voice mail. The landlord left a message saying that if he didn't get a call from us he was going to be changing the locks and calling the police on anyone seen in the apartment after that.

I had planned on moving my stuff after I got out of work. I'm now going to be getting up early, moving my remaining stuff to my storage unit which is close to the apartment before going to work and then never going back to the apartment again. After work I'll pop by my storage unit get my stuff and head over to my friend's house.

So I'm leaving just as I am kicked out. It feels like I've dodged a bullet.

As always, I'm going to be fine.

Gilly

Oh on a side note today I borrowed my sister's vehicle to move a few things that didn't get moved last Wednesday. While I was at my storage unit I noticed an outlet near my unit. This discovery makes the possibility of me living in the unit that much more feasible.

Good news today

Ok I was a little hasty in crying foul on the universe. The water has been turned back on. I'm not sure why I turned the faucet on but I'm glad I did. When water started to sputter out and then flow it seemed like a miracle. I quickly turned on the shower and rinsed my hair out before filling the water gallon I bought Sunday night(I wasn't taking any chances). I took a shower that even if the water was cold felt like the best shower I had ever taken.

I talked to my sister who said she got a txt from the landlord asking about the water. She didn't respond but she said that she had heard from those that live next door that he sometimes forgets to pay the bill and the city turns it off. Its a bit disconcerting to think that your water could get turned off on a Sunday but I guess they work seven days a week.

Also Monday, I got my storage unit. It's a 10x10 non-climate controlled. The units are fenced in and access is by a keypad controlled gate. I could totally live there. There's no on-site security and the units are off the main road so there's little passby traffic. When I say live there I really mean sleep there. I wouldn't be spending a lot of time there; just like an hour or two before and after sleeping. There's easily enough room to put my stuff, I really don't have much, on one side and my bed on the other; if I had to I could upgrade to the 10x20. Downsides of living in a storage unit: no electricity, no water and no toilet. Until I got home and found the water back on I was in that situation so it wouldn't be too bad and as I said I wouldn't be spending a lot of time there.

I actually went online to get ideas about how to deal without running water. I found a few guides to living homeless and one blog written by a guy who was homeless for several years but is doing much better now and wanted to share what he had learned. My biggest concern was how I was going to stay clean and good smelling without taking showers. The other night I resorted to using a wet hand towel to wipe off my body. Some ideas that he had were joining a gym to access their showers, sneaking into the showers in the sports center of a college or using the showers at a pool. The gym idea is probably what I would have done. There's a 24 hour one not far from the apartment and it's on the bus routes so it would be easy to get to if I did become homeless. Using the showers at the college while cheaper would require me to investigate how easy it would be to get in what hours they're open and what hours they're least busy.

One other downside is that the gate doesn't have a way for a person to get out. There's a sensor that detects cars when they roll over it on the way out but not people. I would have jump the fence to get out or crawl under the gate. The gate has a pipe running across it's midpoint so it wouldn't be to hard to get out. As long as I left in the morning before it got too late in the no one would see me and if they did I'm not breaking in; I'm leaving after checking my storage. Coming back after dark would present fewer problems as I wouldn't have to hop the fence and as the units are not on a main road there would be little chance of being seen.

I doubt I will need to use any of these options but knowing that I have options makes me feel less stressed about the future.

Gilly

Not so good news

You know I think the universe is just fucking with me now. It feels like it's playing a game of "let's see how much emotional range Gilly can go through in less than a day."

Yesterday I got the good news that I would have a place to stay but not until the 8th. I told myself I could live in the apartment in the dark for a little more than a week, no problem.

Last night I went to refill my cat's water dish, turned the faucet on and nothing happened. The landlord has turned off my water. What really galls me is that it was Sunday which means he must have had the handyman, that is supposed to work on the apartments when something breaks, do it. The same handyman who never got around to fixing the slow draining tub or leaky pipes or running toilet. No, he doesn't have time to fix anything but he can turn off my water on a Sunday!

My overall plans are the same. I'm going today to rent the storage. Wednesday, I'll put all my stuff in storage, that's when F, who has a truck is off, is going to help me move everything. Then I'll stay in the apartment as long as I can or until the 8th and then go to stay with J2(J being one of the other guys I'm moving in with and J2 being the friend who is lettting me stay with her for a little while). Finally once we(FJM) have a place move my stuff out of storage to there.

I'm more and less ok in different ways but overall I'm ok.

Gilly

The friend I was talking to about staying on her couch has said I can stay with her. She being real cool about it and is even moving one of her boys into one of her other boy's room while I'm there so I'll have a room of my own. Her mom is visiting for a little while so I can't start staying with her until the 8th or 9th at the earliest. I think I'll be ok staying where I am until then. I still have to move my stuff into storage which I'm going to do during next week.

So I have a definite place to stay until we(F,J,M) find a place.

Ok this is going to be a little long and rambley, so I'm going to start with a quick summery. First off I'm doing ok, not great but ok. Second I'm still living in the apartment alone except for my cat. Third the power got shut off Friday morning. Fourth M who wasn't going to move in with the rest of us until January is on board to move in as soon as we have a place. Fifth I really am ok, just in the dark.

For the past week starting Monday I've been living with the fear that the light was going to get turned off. Coming home to see the kitchen light still on has never felt so good. Because the light company wouldn't give me an extension on paying the overdue part, I had planned on praying to any deity that would listen to keep the light on until I could pay it Friday afternoon when I got my paycheck. Friday I was off work so I had planned to wash clothes and then go get my check in the afternoon when they release them. I was just starting to pack my clothes into my bag when the lights went out. Even though the breaker jumps a lot, somehow I knew it wasn't the breaker. I walked down the stairs and to the front door. I opened it and looked to the left where the light meter is and saw the man just finishing up. I said, "Hey," and he said, "Hey, it's getting turned off cause it hasn't been paid." He sounded a little defensive like he's had to deal with hostile people too often. I just nodded and said, "Yeah I know," and went back inside.

I called the light company to find out how much it would cost now with the disconnect and reconnect fee which came to more than I can pay right now. They told me and I was polite and I hung up before I began to cry. Then I had a little break down and wailed to the universe about how unfair it was to let me get so close to being able to pay it and then just dash my hopes like that. I collected myself after only a few minutes and went to wash my clothes.

On the way to wash I stopped to talk with my sister. Yes I'm still on speaking terms with her despite how she left me. It's not something I can explain but even though I know I should be extremely mad at her, it just doesn't feel worth it. She is the closest family I have besides my parents. I grew up around her and have lived with her for eleven years. I've lived with and helped raise her three kids. It's a very strong bond that I don't want to lose. Anyways I stopped and talked to her at her boyfriend's business which is just down the street from where I live and told her that the light was off. After a few minutes I left and walked to the laundry mate.

I had grabbed Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn on my way out of the house to read while my clothes washed. It is a really good book and I'm going to try to write a review of it in a few days.

Walking back from the laundry mate an idea began to crystallize. A plan you might say. I'm going to put almost all my stuff into a storage unit and couch surf until we have a house or apartment lined up. I'm talking with one friend right now about staying on her couch and have a couple of other people I can ask.

In the mean time I'm staying in the apartment with no electricity. It's not too bad. I can do without tv or my x-box. I have books to read. I had to buy an alarm clock that runs off batteries and a small lantern so I'm not stumbling around in the dark. I've been spending my afternoons in Hasting's cafe to use their free wifi and outlets so I'm not cut off from the internet. They're open until 10pm so I can stay there until late if I want.

The real inconvenience is going to be not being able to cook on the stove or even microwave food. I get a free meal everyday that I work at the deli which along with a couple small snacks later enough for me to get by. Days that I don't work I would cook something for lunch large enough to have leftovers for the evening. Now I'm not sure what I'll be doing.

Good news though M, my best friend and co-storyploter is on board to move in with the three of us as soon as we have a place. He was going to wait until January due to family responsibilities but things have resolved themselves. I'm glad he's moving in now and not later. It's been a while since I've had someone to call my best friend. It's hard for me to get close to people but with him it feels like we've known each other for many more years than we have. Since I got fired from the cookie store I haven't been able to see him as often as I used to when we were working at the same place.

That's about everything that's been going on. I know it sounds bad but I'm doing ok really.

Real life writes the plot

Ok basically next month is going to be nothing like I thought it was going to be like. First off I'll now living alone. My sister has moved out. She told me yesterday morning. I don't really mind being alone but I was kind of depending on her for rent and half the bills. She lost her job about a month ago an my job doesn't pay a whole lot so we've been falling behind on bills and rent. Now that she's moved out I'm really in a bind with the bills and rent. Now it may seem like my sister has screwed me over but the bigger picture is hard to explain without writing several pages about my our lives so just believe me when I say I'm not mad at her.

Second I'm not going to be able to do Nanowrimo. I really wanted to try this year but with this going on I don't think I can face up to a brand new project. I will keep writing the stuff I've been working on.

My light bill is over due but if they hold off until Friday I can catch it up. Rent wise I'm up the creek with no paddle. I figure the landlord won't evict me until sometime in November hopefully not until the end.

Yesterday afternoon I went to my old workplace to see some friends. While there I asked if they knew of any cheap apartments which led to me explaining everything. That's when F said that he, M(the guy I've been working with on that series and my best friend) and another guy that I know but not too well have been planning on renting a house together and if I wanted I could join them and lower the amount everyone has to pay.

So now I'm looking for a house we can rent. F has said that they can have money saved up by the end of November to pay for first months rent and the deposit. I gathered that they hadn't planned on finding a place until around January but because of my precarious situation he's pushing the others to do it sooner.

It's weird the way life can work out. Monday morning I thought I was facing homelessness. By that evening I had been invited into a new home made with friends. It's not a perfect solution there's still a chance my light could get cut off early or I could get evicted before we find a place or save enough for rent and deposit. Despite this possible disasters I can't feel too worried about them cause at the other end is home.

Nanowrimo

Ok, so I've got a bit of a heads up for any regular readers my already irregular posting schedule is going to become even more irregular next month. Next month is Nation Novel Writing Month I'm going to be participating. Basically this blog is going to be pretty quiet for about a month. I may post some updates on how much I've written but don't expect regular posts about anything else. I may prepare a few short reviews about webcomics I like to be auto posted during the month but again don't expect too much. Maybe next year I'll be a strong enough writer to churn out tens of thousands of words a day and post on my blog everyday. Right now I'm lucky if I can post more than three times a week.

Nanowrimon is when people around the country try to write an entire novel in one month. For the purposes of the event a novel equals 50,000 words. The novel can be any genre, pretty much anything goes as long it's 50,000 words. There aren't any prizes or awards except for being able to say you did it. There maybe some sort of web badge I can put up but I'm not sure.

I first heard about this about four years ago. Two years ago I was unemployed for a month and starting to write more. I posted word counts for awhile on twitter and someone suggested I try to do it. After doing the math about how much I was writing versus what I would need to write I decided not to try. Last year things were in such a mess with me running the cookie store after my boss skipped out on us that I didn't even have time to realize it was that time of year again. This year I'm not unemployed but my job isn't too demanding and I'm not managing a store by myself and I feel like I've experienced real growth as a writer in the last year, so I'm going to go for it.

I may not meet the 50,000 word goal in the thirty days but I am going to try. I feel I need to at least try. I feel like if I put it off for another year I may never do it. Two years ago I found myself lacking and did not try. This year I find myself lacking but I am willing to try.

Also I'm not sure what I want to write so I'm looking for ideas. So if you have an idea for a novel that you don't mind giving away, send it to me in the comments or via email. Thanks.

Into the Mysts

So, I was catching up with some webcomics and ran across this Penny Arcade strip about the possibility of a Myst movie being made. For those of you who haven't heard of this game, it was a puzzle game from the mid 90's the was quite popular. The player character is nameless, genderless and only referred to as 'stranger'. The comic strip depicts a man as the main character. My first thought was, "They would change the character to a man for the movie." Then I remembered about the character not having any identifying traits during gameplay and yet I had a very strong feeling that the character 'I' had played was a woman.

These days if I'm given a choice between playing a man or woman in a game I play the woman. It feels more right and comfortable. I played Fallout 3 as a woman. My first character in Dragon Age: Origins was a woman.

Myst had no character selection screen. You never see any part of your character and as I said the few characters you do meet call you 'stranger'. So why did I think I was playing a woman? Not having a predetermined character I, as many others who played the game did also, inserted themselves into the character.

I find this very interesting because as I said the game came out in the mid 90's and I played it either in 1999 or 2000. This is at least four maybe five years before I realized I was transgender. Even before I could consciously think of such a thing as being transgender, I projected a female personality onto a blank slate.

On one hand this is mildly validating but on the other it's just another point of data letting me know just how clueless I was back then.

Gilly

Writing about someone who really isn't me but really is me

I've been writing a story that features a character that I only recently realized was me in a different form.

Recently I reread an old post of mine and suddenly saw the words I had only recently written for this character in a year old post. I knew that I was putting a lot of me into this character but to see just how much I was projecting myself was a little scary. It's scary to think that this character is me and that anyone who reads this story will know more about me than I let most people I call friends know.

And yet I can't bare to strip myself out of the character. I don't think she would survive the operation. She is too much me that to do that would kill her. I know this because I don't hear her voice in my head. I hear her best friend's voice. I hear the snotty blonde who imagines herself to be a rival to her love's affection. But I don't hear her voice because her voice is my voice. In a way I'm writing an autobiography of things that never were but in a different time and place might have been. It's less and more challenging because my lead says what I would say in her place but she doesn't talk to me. She doesn't tell me what she is like or what she likes. It all has to come for within me.

Which sounds rather strange when you think about it. I mean the other characters who do talk to me are really just me so everything about them comes from within me too. But her details are my details making it more personal and harder to reveal. Hardly no one lives an open book but a character in a story is laid bare by the author or in this case the author is laid bare by the character.

I think I've said my piece about voices in my head and writing about myself for today.

Gilly

Time Machine 'Fix'

(Minor edit to replace wife with fiancee. I thought they were married but when I checked online for a plot synopsis I saw they were engaged not married.)

A while back I got to talking with friend about time travel movies. He was mostly against time travel in general while I was more supportive of the idea. His main gripe was that most movies with time travel didn't do it very well. The Time Machine was brought up as one of the better ones but still not great. I thought some on the story of The Time Machine and came up with a way to 'fix' the movie so it ended sooner and with a happier, and I think cleaner, ending.

When the time traveler is in the future, he is told by the head morlock that he can't save his fiancee from being killed because it is his fiancee's death that caused him to make the time machine. So, him saving her would cause the time machine to not be built, causing a paradox.

However I came up with a way to save her without causing a paradox. If he were to go back in time to the night she was supposed to die and instead of just saving her, he brought her forward to the time he left from, while making it seem as if she had died, his past self would still have the motive to make the time machine. Thus his fiancee is saved and the time machine is still made and no paradox is created; only a stable time loop.

Now it's easy for me to come up with this plan since I'm outside of the problem and not weighed down with depression and grief of having lost my loved one multiple times. I think the morlock could have figured this out but he had no reason to help the time traveler. Although once the time traveler knew why he couldn't just save her, I think he should have been able to figure out how to save her and preserve the timeline. He did build a time machine after all which means he must be pretty smart, right?

Anyway that is how I would 'fix' The Time Machine. Keep in mind that I liked the movie as is and am not saying that because the movie didn't do X I don't like it. I'm merely suggesting another way that the conflict of the movie could have been resolved.

I'm thinking of trying to write a series of posts like this where I come up with ways to 'fix' other movies or just analyze their plot holes. Of course now that I've mentioned it the idea will probably languish untouched for months. I'll try not to let that happen. ^_^

Gilly

Drepression/Panic Attack

Saturday something unsettling happened.

I went in early because the regular slicer had been sick and it wasn't clear if he would be there Saturday. Well he didn't show up so I ended up slicing for the day. I was worried about getting back in the swing of slicing but after a couple of hours it felt a little like I had never left. It felt good to be back in the saddle as they say.

After work I went over to Hasting's to use their free wifi. I found an empty chair in their cafe and pulled out my netbook. I had planned on going through my feed reader and getting caught up on everything. It's been a little more than a week and I had over a thousand items to wade through. It took me longer than I thought it would but luckily I had packed my charger in my bag that morning and Hasting's has plugs for you to plug your laptop into. I finished up, unplugged my netbook, put it to sleep, stowed everything and walked out of the cafe.

I considered the time and decided to walk down the street to a different bus stop than the one closest to Hasting's so I could get home sooner at the expense of walking a few blocks. As I was about to cross the street things started to go bad. Watching for traffic to clear I suddenly had the thought, "That suv is going fast enough and all I have to do is step off the curb RIGHT NOW."

I stepped away from the curb, took a deep breath and cleared my mind. I made it across the street and kept walking to the bus stop. I felt puzzled as to why that thought had entered my mind. I hadn't been feeling depressed and nothing upsetting had happened, so why was I feeling the urge to kill myself. As I walked my thoughts shifted to negative feelings. I began to feel like everthing was spiraling out of my control and everything was going wrong with my life. Normal depression thoughts for me. I counter with repeating, "Everything is fine. My life is good." over and over to keep any other thoughts out of my head.

As I walked the feels seemed to strengthen and I had to stop walking a couple of times to calm myself down. I discovered that running my hands through my hair like I was petting a dog helps me to calm down some. When it came time for me to cross the street again I felt overwhelmed by the number of cars that seemed to be barreling out on me. I couldn't force myself to cross when any cars were even in sight. After crossing I once more had to stop to calm myself before crossing one final street to the bus stop. As I stood there waiting for the light to change so I could cross I felt surges of panic every time a car passed by. Finally the light changed and I was able to walk to the safety of the bus shelter.

I had one more monment of panic when I looked for the shelter and didn't see it right away in the dim twilight but it was there and I felt a little relief at seeing my destination. Once in the shelter, which is little more than a bench, three plexiglass walls and a roof, I turned my back on the street and concentrated on relaxing. By the time the bus came I was much more in control but still didn't trust myself to look at traffic. Thanks to years of riding the local buses, I felt safer once in the bus and didn't have anymore spikes of panic the rest of the way home, though I also did not look out the windows at traffic either.

The walk home from the bus stop nearest my home was also fairly uneventful thanks to the low traffic volume on that street though I did still feel depressed and was scared silly by a dog barking in a fenced yard(I am usually not scared of dogs barking). Getting home and into my room helped to drive away some of the fears I was feeling but I still curled up on my bed and hugged my stuffed lemur for about an hour.

I wrote the above Sunday night before I packed up my dirty clothes and took off to my laundry mate. On the way I had a disturbing thought. I was still thinking about Saturday and how upset I felt about feeling the urge to kill myself. Then I realized that the reason it upset me was because I really don't want to kill myself. But what about the day that it doesn't upset me? That will be the day I give in to those urges. That will be the day I kill or try to kill myself. I won't even care that I'm doing it I'll just do it. That really scares me. As one of my characters said, "No one want to kill themselves until they do it."

New Writing Plateau

I feel like I've reached a new plateau in my writing. I feel like I've found my groove. I'm not saying that I've become a great writer but I am a better one than I was a few months ago. And I'll be still better in a few more months and so on. Right now though I've made a minor break through which I'm celebrating.

Writing used to be something I only did when inspiration hit. I needed a good idea and I needed to work out some of it in my head but not too much or I wouldn't be able to write it down without feeling like I was rehashing something I had already done. Most of those efforts didn't last long enough to make it to a completed story.

In the past few months I have gotten into the habit of writing everyday. Usually I work on the project I've been working on with my friend. Sometimes I write my own stories which feel easier to write now. I don't feel the need to have the words perfect on my head before typing them out. I feel freer to just write and if it's good it's good; if it isn't good then I trash it and write some more. I'm less afraid to write badly which frees the mind considerably. When every line has to be perfect the first time you write it you can get stuck very easily but when you know that you can always fix or delete it later, you can just roll right over those bumps.

All in all this plateau, this break through, is really just me relaxing into writing what comes to my mind without trying so hard that I choke. It's an easy concept but it can be hard to implement.

The Advantages of Not Having a Car

Most of the time I don't really care one way or the other about owning a car. During the past eleven years I have owned a car about half of those have been without a car.

Owning a car can be liberating. Being able to just go anywhere at anytime is a privilege most car owners don't appreciate. Of course owning a car means it is your responsibility. Gas, maintenance, insurance, state inspection, and gas. Being without a car means not having to worry about those things. If you ride the bus someone else takes care of it. Of course everything is a trade off. For not having the responsibility for the bus you have to go where the bus will take you when it takes you there.

Last night I as I leaving Hastings I walked by the outside patio of their cafe and heard someone speaking. Curious I walked closer and realized that it was poetry. Later I would find out it was a gathering of poets and poetry lovers who get together twice a month to read poetry. I sat in on the rest of the readings and had a good time listening to the poetry. If I hadn't been on foot walking to the bus stop I wouldn't have heard them. I would have missed out on this experience. I would have missed a chance to make new connections with these people. I didn't really talk to anyone cause well I tend to stay quiet until I get to know people better but I'm going to go back next time they get together and maybe I'll get up and read something myself.

None of this would be possible if I had a car. So sometimes not having a car can lead you to things you might not otherwise find. It can make you slow down and see things you might have missed.

News of a kind

I've mentioned a few times the series that I am working on with my friend, right? Well just to remind you. About a year ago he came to me with an idea for an animated show loosely based on our workplace and coworkers. After a couple of months of talking about it, I started writing the first script and have been working on more scripts for the past year. Originally I wanted to have a completed episode by the end of this year. Unfortunately neither he nor I are artists so that kind of stalled out.

I have a new idea though. I've started taking my scripts and rewriting them as short stories. My new goal is to launch a website to act as a home for the stories. I'm co-opting my previous deadline and planning for a late 2010 or early 2011 launch.

Walking in the Rain

To offset the dark tones of the last post I thought I would post something positive.

Lately it's been raining in my area. I love the rain but I didn't know how much until the last week. It was Friday and I was walking to my bank from work which is about six blocks away. When the drops started falling my first thoughts were, "Oh great I'm going to be soaked by the time I get to the bank." At first I felt kind of annoyed at the rain then I felt my mood begin to lighten and suddenly I felt great. The rain tapping across my head, arms face and body felt great. It was like someone flicked a switch in my head from moody/depressed to happy. Twice I was asked if I needed a ride and I turned down both offers. After cashing my check I started to wait near the doors where there is a covered area for the bus. As I waited there I started to feel uneasy. I knew something didn't feel right but I didn't know what. It seemed strange that I had been feeling fine before when walking in the rain but now under some cover from the rain I felt off. So I stepped out into the rain and slowly like before I began to feel more at easy, happier, better.

I've been caught out in the rain a couple more time and felt the same thing.

Dreams and other thoughts

I had a dream a couple of nights ago. I was in a doctor's office, the doctor was telling me about some test he wanted to run, I wasn't really paying attention until he mentioned getting a sample of my eggs. I stopped him and said that wasn't possible. He went on to explain that it was a very important test and it would hardly be any trouble for me at all. I then told him that I didn't have ovaries for him to sample from. He went on saying that ofcouse I did and that they were right here, he gently poked a spot on my abdomen. When he poked me I looked down and saw I the shirt I was wearing was open and I could my body, that is except for being a little thinner and having larger breasts it looked like my body. I looked back at him and very reluctantly said I was born male. He paused, hmmed, said then I didn't need that test then and went on with his explanations.

I've had dreams like this before. Not exactly like this. In these dreams I'm me but not me. I'm me after transition. I love this dreams for the hint of the normal life I could have, the life without this pain of not being me. I hate them because they end and I awake in the nightmare that is my life.

I want to talk about suicide. I have thought about it. Really thought about it. Sometimes while waiting to cross the street I will look at cars and trucks and wonder if this one is going fast enough to end me. I once walked past a steamroller and thought about diving under the roller. When I worked as the slicer at the deli I thought about using it to slice open my arms. I don't think I will ever act on these thoughts. As long as there is someone who cares about me I will not act on these thoughts. I could never hurt someone like that. At least I hope that I will never hurt the people who care about like that. I am depressed but I don't want to die. These thoughts of suicide scare me sometimes.

Ending a bit of a dark note here but please don't worry. This is not a suicide note. I'm not planning on killing myself. It's just been on my mind. The above paragraph is distiled from weeks of thoughts. I'm not emo or going goth. Not that there's anything wrong with that.^_^

Till next time
Gilly

Sorry I've been away

Almost two months since I last posted here. I've had a bit of trouble with the internet at my house so I'm only online when I'm at a hotspot. I've been doing ok. I got a new job a few weeks ago and got my first paycheck friday. I'm back at the deli I worked at two years ago, which I quit shortly before starting this blog. I wish I could say that I only went back because I had no other options but that's not true. After I got fired from the cookie store I let myself wallow in my depression. I coddled myself rather than force myself to look for a job. The best I could manage was one day visiting three businesses and filling out two applications. One day out of about forty.

But that is mostly behind me now. I'm still feeling depressed but a little less I think. I've been writing more for the project I started with my friend at the cookie store. I've also been working on a couple of other stories which may or may not be good, it is still to early to know for sure and I am working on them only in private so I have no feedback but I am hopeful.

My battery is running low so I'm going to stop here but I'm going to try to write a couple of blog posts tonight and put them up some time soon. Till then Bye.
Oh yeah here's a pic of me that I just took:

I Got Fired

I don't feel like typing up the whole story so I'll just say I let my temper get the best of me and I did something I wish I hadn't and now I'm without a job.

I was fired yesterday by my regional manager. I feel a little numb about the whole thing that is when I'm not feeling hopeless about the future. This job was my life. I Don't know what I'm going to do now. The people I worked with are like family and now I've been thrust out of the home we created at work. I may be romanticizing just a little. I've only been there for two years but I can't imagine working anywhere else.

I'm ok moneywise for a couple of weeks maybe up to a month if I'm very careful with what I spend money on. I'm thinking of taking that time to try my hand at writing for money again.

The event that got me fired happened Saturday. I was suspended for a week during which the regional manager came down and decided to fire me. Early in the week my sister told our manager(she works at the same store I did) that it may have been the hormones I was taking that caused me to lose my temper the way I did. She also told her that I use the name Gillian online. I was a little worried that this might create some tension between us until my sister told me that my manager had said I might be happier if I expressed some more femininity and that I would make a beautiful woman. So now we're closer than we were but now I'm not working with her and I feel so sad.

This too shall pass. One door close and another opens. I'm going to fine. I promise.

Gilly

It's my birthday

I say this not to inform anyone but to explain why I got a card from my parents. A card that very blatantly features the words son, boy, and man. I come out to them as trans two years ago. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been but they seemed to et the idea. Until recently when I noticed that card they were giving my for Christmas and now my birthday are very much for a guy. This isn't to say that I'm totally sad today. My sister gave me two cards today neither of them 'for a guy' and I've gotten more than a few happy birthdays via facebook and txt. It's just, they're my parents. You know. Well enough moping about that, I'm going to read the internets now.

Writing update

Well two days ago I finished the second script for the animated series I've been working on with my co-worker. I don't know if I mentioned when I finished the first script but it was done two months ago and took two months to write. Which if you parsed that last sentence means I took two months to write each script. This is the single longest piece of fiction I've written at fifteen pages. I am immensely proud for staying with this project but I know that I couldn't/wouldn't have even started it if I didn't have my co-worker(here after reffered to as Neil) to keep me focused on the project. He came up with the original concept and characters. He has helped me come up with numerous plots. He is half the creative team on this project. I don't know what I would do without him.

You know one of the more satisfying things I've done lately has been handing a script to Neil and watching him laugh as he reads it. It also lets me know that I am writing stuff that is funny to other people and not just myself.

On a slightly different note I found a notebook with about half a dozen partial stories in it. Some are ok and some are good and one made me go 'who wrote this?' cause it seems much better than anything I've written before. I'm thinking about reviving my second blog as a flash fiction blog instead of the serial story that stalled blog. More on that as it developes.

Stopping now cause my cat is threatening me bodily harm if I don't give her snuggles.

Recently I had a bit of a revelation. As you may know I am the assistant manager at my job. What you may not know is that I don't always feel like I've earned it. I sometime feel like everything I'm doing is wrong. That I'm failing in every aspect of my job. I can look around and 'see' that I'm doing my job just fine and the store is not failing because of me but I still 'feel' it. So I put as much effort as I can into the store because not doing so make me feel like a failure. Everything that goes wrong feels like someone telling me I'm doing a bad job, whether or not it's something I can control.

I've learned to deal with these feelings and thoughts. Somedays are worse than others. Somedays I feel fine. Others I cry in the bathroom.

The other day was a bad day. First there was an email about a customer complaint. Then another customer came to the store about a cake we had messed up. And then another one called about another cake we had messed up. None of these complaints were my fault but I still felt like I was being told I sucked at doing my job. I tried very hard not to break down. But I couldn't not break down so I went to the bathroom and had myself a cry. Afterward I felt better for having letting it out.

I bought a book called The Depression Handbook. I thought it might help and if I had bought it five years ago it might have been of some help. Today I'm beyond that book in dealing with my depression. Every tip and trick and all helpful advice that fills it are things I've taught myself over the past few years. On one hand I feel good that I am managing my depression fairly well. On the other hand I'm like, "Is this as good as it gets? Am I going to feel like this till I die?" I wanted to see that the path goes on and instead I got a map to where I am now. When I was done reading the book I threw it across the room. Not a very mature response I know but it was how I felt at the time. I wish I had had some sort of realization about where I was headed, some sort of positive message to end on but I didn't.

I'm just typing sweet nothings to any who read this to let you know I'm still alive.

Poetry Corner

Ok so I was trying to write one thing and something entirely different sprang to mind. It has either been a very long time since I posts a poem or the first time I have. I'm a bit too tried to look right now. So with out any more a ado I bring you:


"Sounds of an Author"
by Gillian Gilbert (Gilly) [Last name withheld]


Scribble Scribble Scribble

Note Note Note

Write Plot Write

Plot Write Plot

Read Read Read

Rewrite Rewrite Write

Rewrite Plot Write

Rewrite Write Rewrite

Read

Rewrite Rewrite Write

Write Rewrite Rewrite

Read Read

Rewrite Rewrite Rewrite

Let Story Escape...

[END]

A flash in the dark

Today a woman said to me, "Thank you, sir.. I'm sorry, ma'am." Then she smiled and I smiled back and she walked away with her cookies.

I make note of this cause it feels good when I'm gendered female by others. It feels right. I make note of this because so much of the time I don't feel good and I don't feel right. This is like a flash of light in a dark tunnel reminding me what light looks like.

Someone got fired

No not me. Someone else. At my work. We've been short a few times in the last couple of weeks. Big even amounts. Thursday we were short. When I asked the woman, who I didn't want to think was doing what I thought she was doing, if anything had happened on the short register, she lied to me. I didn't know it was a lie but I felt it. I told me manager what I suspected. She looked over the security footage and found her stealing. So she was fired.

Part of me wants to be proud that I 'solved the mystery.' Part of me wishes I had stayed silent. Part of me wishes I wasn't quite so clever. The woman who was fired was my friend. (And you out there who wants to say if she had been my friend she wouldn't have stolen from the store, well you can just hush up cause sometimes people do things that don't seem very friendlike but still are friends.) But the larger part of me knows that I did what I had to do. As my manager said, "This is why you're the assistant manager." I looked out for the store's best interest. I did my job. I still feel lousy.

checking in

So it's been a bit since I posted. Actuclly it's been a bit since I've been able to finish a post but anyway something happened today that I wanted to relate.

So I'm at work and I'm rolling out cookie cakes for the first time in like forever when I hear someone call out "Ma'am, how much are these?" I look up cause even through I'm nowhere near the front counter I know they are talking to me and when I look up I see that they are looking back at me. I step out from behind the rolling table and walf over to the counter and tell the teenage girl who was calling me the price of what she was pointing to. Her jaw drops and she begins saying, "I'm so sorry I called you ma'am," and variations of such for a couple of minutes. I found her utter horror at her 'mistake' to be quite amusing but did my best to get her to understand that it wasn't a big deal.

But is it a big deal? Gender is 'serious business' for most people. Calling a guy a girl can lead to yelling or even physical violence. I feel like I'm in a state of flux. I can abide being called sir because I haven't made my stand, yet. I do prefer ma'am through. I wonder what the girl would have said if I had said I preferred to be called ma'am?

This brings to mind another incident from a few days ago. A man and his young daughter were watching me make pretzels. As he watch me he was talking to his daughter telling her that I knew what I was doing and to watch me. Throughout all of it he referred to me as she. When I then had to serve him he slipped in a questioning, "sir?" To which I just smiled. Before he walked away he made one more comment to his daughter in which he again called me she.

Right now that seems to be my lot in life. To pass some of the time but only when I'm not talking to the person. I could be upset about this but really I'm not, cause even this is more than I thought I could even have. I've been on this journey for sometime now. Stuck in a holding pattern waiting for the skies to clear. I think it's time to brave to storm.

Enough metaphor for now what do I mean by this? I mean that I'm within a stones throw of telling my boss and everyone at work and in my life that I don't want to hear his name anymore. That I want to be called by my name and referred to as she. I want to say to customers I prefer ma'am. I want to live openly as myself.

I want this so bad but I have to choose it for myself. No one is going to give it to me. I have to take it.

***

Oh yeah and that guy called me at work again. I was busy at the time told him I was and when he asked if I would call later I said I didn't know and hung up. I talked to my sister about his first call and she agreed that him asking me to come over to his house seemed sleazy.

Meet Bits

This is a sketch I did for the animated series I'm working on. Bits is a Latin American cookie god who inhabits a body made of stitched together cookies.

Blog course correction

When I started this blog I had thought I would use it as a place to write "serious stuff." This is part of an early post I wrote in dec. of '08:

Mondays I will be writing about books, movies, tv shows, or video games. This won't be a review based column, more of a "Hey, this something I like and here's why" column.

Wednesday's column will be about trans stuff. From news items of interest to personal updates on my own transition, this is where you'll find it.

For Friday I will have a column similar to Monday's, except it will focus on media found on the web.

I had some plans didn't I. I want to try to get back to what I wanted this blog to be. I'll still be posting about whats going on in my life but I'm going to try to include more posts like the ones I list above. Not on a set schedule like I thought I would.

Anyway just wanted to state this out loud. Move along nothing more to see here.

Go on scoot!

Self-Revelation

Ok so I'm two days late with this post.

Anyways, during the time I was trying to decide whether or not to call the guy who called me at work(see my last entry for full details, also thank you Krystal for your comment it helped me a lot) I started thinking about how I felt about that kind of attention. Did I like it? At first I thought yeah it's nice to be noticed but then I started to think about what that guy had noticed. He had looked at me and based solely on my looks decided to call me at work and try and arrange a meeting. At first while I was still thinking about calling him I thought about asking him for a photo so I could know who he was. Then I started thinking about whether or not we were even compatible. Would he mind I was transgender? What would he say if I told him I wasn't gay but bi? What if he wasn't a geek/nerd?

Seriously that last one worried me the most. And at some point the thought popped into my head what if he just wants sex? And I had to think about that. Did I want to have sex with a semi-random stranger who called me cute? No I did not. My thoughts kept churning and soon I was wondering if I wanted to have sex at all.

Somehow I ended up on the troper tales page for asexuality. I started reading and I found myself identifing with some of the stories there. I found a link to Asexual Visibility and Education Network and did some more reading and well I think you can see where this is headed. I am still reading and examining my own feelings but I think I am asexual.

Now to forestall any blank stares I'm going to do a little explaining, keep in mind I'm still a newbie so you might want to check out AVEN for more complete info.

So What does it mean to be asexual? Well in basic terms it means a person is not sexual attracted to anyone. Sexual attraction being defined as wanting to have sex with another person. This does not preclude romantic feelings for others.

So I am now identifying as bi-romantic(attracted to both sexes but not for sex) transgender asexual. I have more thinking to do and will likely post more in the future.

So this guy called me at work..

Wendsday a guy called the store and asked for me. He said he wanted to talk to me if I wasn't busy and I said not really and went to the back room where it's quieter. Now I'm thinking, "What is this customer going to complain about?" So I get to the back and ask him what he wants to talk about. He says he was in the store a little earlier and just wanted to talk. I ask him his name. He gives it to me and I still don't know who he is. I can be pretty bad about remembering people so I ask if I know him, he says no, he just wants to talk to me. Now at this point I'm getting a vibe off this guy like maybe talk is not the word he wants to say. I tell hiim to hold on for a minute, take the phone from my head and start thinking hard about everything he's said. I realize either he just wants to talk to me or he's trying to come on to me(keep in mind that in day to day life I don't pass as female). I consider just hanging up the phone cause the whole thing is just too awkward but I don't. I get back on the phone and say I really don't have time right now to talk. He says ok but could I call him after work cause he thinks I'm cute. Well now I know where this is headed at least. I say tonight isn't good cause I have to go to sleep as soon as I get home to work in the morning. I mention that the day after tomorrow I'm off work. Then we have a brief conversation where in he asks me to come to his house in a nearby city and I decline since my car is not in such good shape. He gives me his number and I say I'll try to call him.

I didn't call him. I thought real hard about whether or not I should. I had said I would. My sister and co-workers said I should cause I'm kind of a homebody and I should get out more. Then I thought about whether I wanted to call him and realized that I really didn't. I was really flattered that someone would call me cute but that doesn't mean I have to talk to them or go out with them. In fact the part where he asked me to his house was mildly creepy. Not saying that he's a creep but just the way he went from can we talk to can you drive to this other city in in sentence kind if felt weird.

I feel kind of bad about not calling but I don't want to call him out of guilt. What do you think?

Also in the last few days I realized something else about myself but that deserves it's own post which I'll write tonight. Until then, bye.

Writing more

It's only been a week and a half since my last post which is an improvement.

Now on to what this post's title is about. I've been writing more. To be more specific I've been writing more fiction. To be even more specific I've been working on scripts for an animated series a coworker and I have been working on. It's quite an ambitious project considering we've got rough story plots for three seasons of about 15 episodes each, three movies and a spat of holiday specials. So far I've got one complete script written and I'm working actively writing another. We don't yet know how we're going to animate it but we'll cross that bridge when I have more scripts written. I have said that I want at least the pilot done by the end of this year.

All this started about five months ago when my coworker, after one of our many discussions about movies we'd like to make, said we should work on a something together. He came up with a lot of the original ideas for the series but I've been adding my own and at this point there are some ideas that we can't remember who came up with them. At first I was skeptical about the series but after a few discussions I was hooked and after a month of talking I bought a notepad and started making notes. I'm doing most of the writing but it doesn't feel like I'm working alone. We talk so much about the series and throw ideas back in forth so much that this is a collaborative effort.

I'm also just started working on the script for a comic that will feature a year in the life of a superhero by showing all 365 days. Working title right now is 365 Hero. Obviously it won't go into great detail about each day, in fact I plan to have each day represented on a single page with a two page spread about once a week for important or visually spectacular days. I estimate it will run between 450 and 500 hundred pages. I'm not a great artist so I don't know when this will see the light of day. Ideally it would be published weekly covering one week time wise as well. After the year ended it could be collected in an omnibus edition. This is still very much in the planing stages.

Wow, I don't dream small do I? :)

Well thats all for now.

It's been a month..

It's been a month since I last updated. Not much has happened. I'm taking it day by day. I cut my hair. I lost and found my mp3 player(it was in my bag the whole week). My X-box red ringed and the replacement froze after a few minutes of being on. I read a book in one sitting(Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn). I finished the first script of a series I'm working on with a friend. I bought new pants for work. I got my sister a job at my work.

Ok some stuff has happened.

I want to relate something that happened today. I was helping a woman and she was asking her daughter to tell me what she wanted. She said, "Tell her, him?" then she looked at me with a questioning look at which point I said, "Yes." I meant it as a question but she took it as an answer and said she saw my name tag, which has my male name on it, but then saw my earrings and wasn't sure. I've noticed if I don't wear my earrings I get a lot fewer ma'ams(not that I get very many at this point) than if I do. I wonder what she saw when she looked at me. Girl. Boy. Neither. I wonder but the answer really doesn't matter. I'm me and all I can be is me so I'll just be the best me I can be.

depression lessening?

Just making a note of the fact that I cleaned my room tonight and built a three drawer dresser. These two actions may be indicate that my depression may be getting better for now at least.

Thoughts on coming out

I've been thinking a little bit about what it would mean for me to come out as transgender at work. I started thinking about this when I reread a post I made several months ago in which I stated:

I've said before many times that I need to come out at work. I think I'm going to stop saying it cause it doesn't matter. [..] This is not to say that I won't come out at some point but I'm not thinking of it as something I have to do but as something I will do when the time is right for me.

Reading later posts I can see that I didn't stick to this bold idea but thanks to me having written it down it has a new lease on life. I have decided that I don't need to come out at work right now. I've also decided that I don't need to hide anymore. I've taken little steps toward not hiding like wearing my transgender symbol necklace and using pink hair ties.

Today I took a bigger step. Today the new manager asked me what my necklace meant. I've been asked before and most times I have changed the subject or said it was personal. Today I answered her question by simply saying, "It's the symbol for transgender." I hesitated but spoke clearly and without shame. I even showed her how it incorporates the symbols for female and male while adding a combined one. And nothing bad happened.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic or just a drama queen but really I expected some sort of reaction from the universe. I just took a big step toward living a more open life and nothing bad happened to make me hide in the closet. Maybe the world doesn't revolve around me and the sun rises and sets with me there to watch it and a watched pot will boil but in twice the time and maybe the world isn't such a scary place after all.

work woes update

Ok so I'm feeling a little better. While I still don't like how Employee X was treated and I will be watching the new manager for more asshatness, I am not planning to quit right away. A couple of employee's came to me today and said they were not planning on quiting, which made me feel less abandoned. Another employee told me that she admires me for keeping at my job even though it has been really stressful on me and for not taking that stress out on anyone else. It really made me feel better knowing that someone had noticed the work I had been putting in to the store.

So I have decided to stick it out for a little while longer at least.

work woes

So Wensday the new manager started working at my store. She and employee X for one reason or another did not like each other. New Manager(NM) didn't like EX's work ethic and EX didn't like some new person telling her what to do. (I realize NM is the manager and she is in charge but she is still an unknown quantity the everyone). So when NM made the schedule for next week she cut EX's hour from 35 to 4 which prompted EX to quit.

I talked to NM about EX and asked why not just fire her if she didn't want her working there. NM's answer was that she didn't want to deal with having to write her up and then fire her. She would rather make EX quit than fire her.

Later we were again talking about EX and NM brought up how she had seen EX basicly doing nothing while on the clock. I then said NM should have written her up then and if she had ignored that then she should have been fired. NM said that she didn't want to be the bad guy.

NM doesn't want to be the bad guy but manipulating someone into quiting seems to me to be a bad guy move.

Several people have told me that they're looking for new jobs. I feel like everything I worked for the past few months to keep the store running is for nothing if we fall apart. I feel betrayed by my coworkers. I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to find a new job. I don't want to work some place that I feel dread going to everyday.

NM wants to run the store by the book. She's told me repeataly that she needs me. I wonder what will happen if she want to enforce the male dress code that includes short hair and no earings on me. Will I quit? Will I submit?

I feel so confused.

I'm still here for what it's worth.

I've wanted to post a couple of time in the past week or so but my posts keep getting derailed by the fact that I have been feeling more depressed than usual. So I figure I'd write a little about that.

I am depressed. It's easy to type but so hard to say. I've only said it once in passing to someone. If I were to tell more people part of me would feel like I was just fishing for sympathy.

What makes it harder is that I am functional in day to day life and I actually excel at my job. But I don't feel happy most of the time. At work I sometime begin to feel like everything is wrong that I'm doing a terrible job and the store will soon begin to fall apart. I KNOW that none of that is true but I still feel it. I have to remind myself that everything is fine that I'm doing the best job that I can and the store is running fine. I have to do this almost constantly some days.

To be a little random here is a pic of my cat Pia. It took me almost fifteen minutes to get a pic in which she wasn't just a blur.

I have returned

Due to paychecks and bills lining up just right I was left with a little extra money this month, which I spent on a new netbook. That's right I have rejoined the internet world so expect longer and more frequent posting. But not right away. Right now I'm working on installing all the programs I use to use on a daily basis. Things like a feed reader and openoffice and Miro and tweetdeck and stuff I can't remember right now. Also I need to rebuild my bookmarks from scratch. Plus I'm going to be looking into finding some free animation programs for a project I'm working on with a coworker.

So I'm back but not really until later in the week. See you all then.

Gilly

Since I haven't done so in a while, I'm posting a pic of myself. Please excuse the wet hair I'm typing this up between showering and going to work.