It’s now midway through my fifth week on T. So far so good. I haven’t noticed any significant external changes except for private below the belt ones. I’m noticing the peach fuzz on my cheeks more now though. But that might just be because I keep going back to look at it. The other day I took a shirt out of my drawers and it smelled bad and musty. It was so bad that I washed a bunch of clothes and bought scented sachets to sit in the drawers now. So hopefully that helps. But it was interesting that my sense of smell was more sensitive to pick up on how gross that shirt smelled. Like I’ve taken shirts out of that drawer lots and didn’t notice anything before.

I’m continuing to need a lot more food. I just got more groceries again today because I was running out of protein snacks and those are kind of the best. I got a giant box of granola bars. Who am I??! I just know they are more solid and would satisfy me better than a bag of chips. I am not gaining weight either, it’s just hovering at a number that’s lower than my typical average. So obviously my body is doing something with all this food.

I keep taking pics of various parts of my body, I just want to see what is going on everywhere. I hear ass hair is the first hair to start coming in but I haven’t been taking pics of my ass. I kind of wish I had a partner who could pay attention to things changing but I’m still really feeling shy about dating. I’ve been trying. But I’m just so concerned about someone not being attracted to the person I am becoming. I think I’ve just heard too many lesbians complain about male secondary sex characteristics so I just don’t really feel like someone would be super into me now and also in a year. BUT at the same time I’m not going to be dating lesbians so that shouldn’t be a huge worry. I still don’t know where my attractions and desires are going to end up.

However I do still feel really drawn to Femmes and feminine people. I don’t know, there is a pool of people who date both butch women and trans men. And I have mostly dated people in that pool even before I came out as a trans man.

I don’t know. I’ve been trying to see if my face changed much in the last month and the only thing that’s really clear is I got masculine glasses finally instead of my more feminine pair. Also I got progressive lenses because I’m old and need to read tiny print. I thought I adjusted to my progressives really well but today I stepped on a curb weird because I was trying to look at tiny birds in my intermediate lens area.

Today I worked on a treatment for a new feature I am working on. It’s a transmasculine horror film! I’m hoping it works out. I finally had to make rules around finishing it and right now I’ve scheduled two hours of writing every day next week to get it done. Two hours doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s about the top amount I can do in one day. I’m still gonna be done in time for my self imposed deadline. And then I can get feedback from my story editor.

I’m also trying to make a short video about HIV/AIDS based on work in the Vtape archive and other Indigenous HIV positive video and performance artists. I feel so weird tho cause I always give my work a personal bent and I don’t know how to do that with this video.

I did do a lot of things before I got on T to make sure I’d be ok if I ended up having sex with people with sperm. Like get on birth control. But also I started taking PrEP. I have to get my blood drawn every three months to do STI panels while I am on PrEP. So that’s interesting. I did that today. It’s helpful to have that routine when I’m sexually active again but today there’s not really any reason to since I haven’t fucked anyone recently. Oh well I guess it’s better to be safe.

But I feel weird if I talk about PrEP in my video and taking it. I know it probably makes sense but it feels weird to me for some reason.

I also got a monkeypox vaccine a while back and it left a mark that is taking forever to go away. I don’t know if that’s good but also I don’t want to discourage people from getting the vaccine. It’s definitely a heavy hitter vaccine that’s for sure. But OK I am all set to be the slut I wish I could be but also I think I am probably demisexual or something because I have a hard time thinking about sex with just anybody. Maybe I need more T.

My moods are a bit low before I get my shot, so I am trying to get used to that.

What else? I don’t know, I’m constantly balancing the desire to be extremely productive and cash in on current opportunities being offered to me, and the desire to let myself have leisure time. And it ends up with me working for days on end or else scrolling facebook for too many hours in a day. I need a happy medium. I love the idea of having a weekend, but sometimes work happens on the weekend. Like it’s just too unpredictable, there’s all kinds of reasons I might have to work eight days in a row and stuff. And I mostly do freelance work so sometimes I don’t say no as often as I should, because when else is this $500 gig gonna come up right? I’m starting to get to the point as a full time artist that I can be ok if I don’t get a grant (as bummed as I would be) because I’m consistently getting other gigs to keep me going.

I used to date a lawyer who worked all the time and it kind of bummed me out until I tried to date someone who wanted to talk all the time and I realized I didn’t have time for that either. I miss the lawyer, I think dating people who have a lot of work to do is actually probably the better option for me.

Anyway, I need to go snack on something. And there’s new groceries here so hurray for that!