I got a binder so I wore it a few times during a week and really liked it and then my boob hurt, and so I stopped wearing it. But my boob got infected, and then I had to go to the breast centre to get it aspirated. It turns out inverted nipples are more likely to get bacterial infections. What a fucking drag. I always knew those nipples were sus!

Anyway, I’m on antibiotics now. I was on different ones before and now new ones and I have to see the boob doctor again on Thursday.

I really liked having a flat chest tho, and I mean obviously it has to heal but I’m not even sure if I should bind with these nipples of mine. Not if this will be a recurring issue. Cause mastitis fucking SUCKS.

It really confirms that I should get top surgery though, because I don’t really want to walk around with boobs forever. I mean I never had issues with them before, they always seemed like such friendly easy going guys. BUT NO turns out not so. Plus it would just be safer for me to not have them so I don’t get clocked so easy by passing strangers. Obviously I am open about being trans and probably can’t go stealth anyway cause I’m more high profile. But like, yeah, when I’m in a store I don’t want someone I’ve never met to know about me that easily. It’s gonna be a while tho.

In other news… I am very tired of having a broken heart. Like, SO TIRED. I know healing is just a process and blah blah but fuck. I’m dating people again and like, trying to put myself out there. But honestly I’d just prefer to lay on my couch and cry. And I’m trying to get all my crying in this month before I go on T because I hear it’s harder to cry. And being a super emotional person, crying is honestly like, relieving for me. Like I can’t do it in front of anyone but my therapist. But even alone I cry frequently even before I got this broken heart. So anyway, if crying is what is gonna get me over this broken heart, then I want to get as much in as possible before it’s harder.

I’m otherwise fine. Work is busy but when isn’t it busy? I need to catch up on some things. I really want to travel again. I know I went on a trip literally only two months ago BUT I MISS IT! I mean I wouldn’t go to New Orleans again this year. But like, New York would be nice. For like a real visit not just an overnight. And that’s pretty close.

I’m also starting to see my calendar fill up with work trips including my residency in Vienna at the end of the year and it’s A LOT!

I sometimes feel like I have too many balls in the air, like I’m just fucking up with keeping on top of my practice. I know if I had someone helping me with admin I would have, like, almost twice as much time to actually create again. And THAT would be so nice.

There were some people talking to me about helping me substantially upgrade my art career. Ever since I talked to them I’ve been trying to think of things that would actually help me. Admin for sure. Maybe an agent. Some representation by a gallery or something. I have video distributors but that only goes so far.

And then also just cash flow problems suck. Like people who promise thousands of dollars and then it doesn’t come FOR AGES!

I was supposed to get paid by a university I did work with, but they sent me like six forms to fill out and I got overwhelmed and closed the email and then I forgot which university it was with. All I know is it was an American university and I mean how many fucking American universities are there? The answer: A LOT! And I work with a lot of different ones so like I don’t know where it is in my email anymore. It’s lost to the sands of time. All I can hope is at the end of the fiscal year an accountant asks why they still have these hundreds of dollars.

And there’s other confidential issues in my career and fuck it’s just annoying. Like I can’t bitch about it or no one will want to work with me anymore.

Also I am having anxiety about how my career is going to weather me coming out as a trans man. I mean I’ve been working on a script for years about violence against Indigenous women and even tho I have an extensive lived history with misogyny against Indigenous women I’m worried someone will tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about or I don’t have a right to tell this story because now I’m a man. And then just worrying about all the times I’ve been slotted in the women’s programs and like maybe there’s no space for me in the mainstream programs, or maybe suddenly I will only get my work seen in the trans programs. And what if I don’t want to make work about being trans all the time what if I want to explore other things too? OR what if I do want to make work about being trans all the time and people just find it unrelatable and don’t show me as much?

I had a conversation recently with someone close to me and it was SO CRINGEY the way she was talking about trans issues and also probably she was a bit drunk when she called and ugh.

I mean I think I’m gonna start asking cis people what their genitals look like more often, since they seem very interested in what gender is in my pants when I think it’s actually in my soul. Maybe not. Maybe only when I am annoyed. It’s just been very clunky experiences talking to the cis people in my life these days. I saw this meme a long time ago with like two philosophers talking and it’s like “When trans people talk about gender” and then this photo of a little kid with different shapes and a teacher helping them and it’s like “When cis people talk about gender.” AND OMG IT’S TRUE! Like ok lady I don’t have time to give you a reading list of all the things I’ve learned about being trans since I was eighteen, and probably you don’t care either you’re just being an asshole and think this is funny.

Anyway. UGH.

And leaving the lesbian club behind is weird. I love lesbians. But yeah I guess I’m not one. And I don’t really feel like, fully embraced by the gay mens community either yet. It’s just a fucking weird transitional time in my life.

AND my heart is broken! And it doesn’t have anything to do with my gender but like, major heartbreak AND a major life change are two very big things to deal with.

So that’s probably why I feel like I’m not using my time wisely, I’m just processing all of this AND my therapist is on leave. I see my temporary therapist tomorrow and I don’t even know where to start with her. Do I start with falling in love with an emotionally unavailable person? Or do I start with this shift in my gender? I don’t know. I got a tangled ball of thoughts to unpack.