Well I had my surgery consultation on Monday and I have a surgery date now! Mid-August! I mean it’s more precise than that but I am trying to have some mystery. The plastic surgery office that does top surgeries is really curious because a lot of their other procedures are for rich ladies, so it’s very pink and shiny and glossy. But also when I was there it must have been top surgery consult day because everyone waiting was trans men/non-binary people. And I was also I think the oldest person in the waiting room, besides maybe the parents of one of the patients. So I felt old and like oh god I’ve lived with my body this way for so long and I dunno. I get old trans person regret sometimes for not transitioning sooner. BUT that is all gonna change.

I made an Instagram story about getting my surgery date later and I just noticed I was so ridiculously happy. Not ridiculous maybe. Just genuinely happy and it’s nice to feel that. I’m really excited about how it’s going to change my life. Also a little sad about how it’s going to be to recover from it, but I’m sure that will be fine. My Mom is coming to look after me for the first two weeks, so that’s nice. Hopefully we don’t drive each other crazy. I think I’m gonna try and clear out the bedroom a bit because I will probably spend a lot of time in there.

I was standing in front of the mirror flexing because I guess I’m that kind of guy, and I can see the upper part of my pec flex, but not the lower part because it’s covered in chest tissue. So I’m curious to see what it will look like when my pec is more visible. I think I’m going to be really happy with it. I hope so anyway!

I had to read this LONG informed consent form for surgery that is like, all these things could go wrong, just so you know! And I mean for the most part I know all of that. I’m nervous but excited and even though I have been more ambivalent in the past, I have been very sure for a while now. I talked about it with my therapist because she kept trying to check if I was ambivalent and told me it was fine if I was. But honestly I’m really sure. It took me years to be sure but now that I am, I just want to get it done.

ALSO the great thing is that it is happening at a good time in my career when I can take these weeks off work and heal. And I’m gonna be ok! I have already started to get things for home. I got stairs for Posey to get on my bed, but she refuses to use them so I might sell them and just leave her on the floor. She usually sleeps under my bed now anyway.

I’m way more serious about masking right now too, I don’t want to get COVID again from something ridiculous like taking public transit. So masks it is!

I also have to stop smoking weed, but they said oils and edibles was fine. It’s just something about the combustion in cigarettes and marijuana that I have to watch out for. So today I cashed in my American dollars for Canadian dollars and bought some THC Oil, and a THC Chocolate. I don’t know, I’ve never been super into edibles. I kind of hate how long they last. With a joint you know your trip will be over in an hour, but with edibles it could go for hours and hours! So I’m suspicious of them. I have these super strong gummies and I ate a corner of one and was still high way in the middle of the night so yeah I hate that ha ha. I have all this dried flower that I can’t use until October, which is too bad! Also a friend is growing me a plant, all this to say that in October I will have a lot to be smoking with my new chest that will finally be healed.

I am really happy that it’s finally happening. I’ve wanted this for so long! Even when I didn’t really know I wanted it, I kind of did. Like it was just always in my mind like wow I would love to have a chest that doesn’t get sexualized the way a chest with bigger breast tissue gets sexualized. I just want to walk around in shorts. I want to lay flat on my stomach and not feel like I’m squishing myself. And mostly though I want to see myself more accurately reflected in the mirror.

I think I’m gonna look super hot! Ha ha omg I told this friend I wanted to transition so I would get hotter and he said that was a terrible reason ha ha. BUT OMG I know it’s deeper than that, but if looking like a sexy guy is a byproduct of my transition then I am super happy with that.

Yesterday I was headed to the gym when this homeless guy across the street started yelling at me. I think he was angry I was transgender, but it was hard to tell because I was listening to a soothing song on my AirPods the whole time this was happening and I didn’t really feel like turning the music down and listening to whatever bullshit he was trying to say. He could also have been angry I was wearing a mask, who knows! What’s his problem!? Anyway the streetcar was coming pretty quick so I wasn’t too worried. And he was gone when I was coming home.

I am curious about how people are gendering me if they don’t know me. I know this one question baby trans people ask where they go to strangers and want to know if they see them as a woman or a man and I vowed to myself I would never ask someone that question. Because on one hand I kind of don’t care, and on the other hand it seems to open up a whole bunch of new trans insecurities that I’m not interested in. And also it makes whoever you are asking feel weird because suddenly it’s like “DO I PASS?” and they don’t even know which way you are headed. Anyway, I am curious if strangers see me more as a man now although I don’t want to ask that question of them.

I did get called sir this morning when I did my laundry after talking to one of my neighbours. And he and I haven’t had a lot of contact to my knowledge so I don’t know if he knows who I am. I was wearing a shirt with no bra, and a packer. And we exchanged some words (not mean words) and so he could hear my voice. So then I wonder what combo of traits he picked up on to call me sir. My shaved head? My voice? My dick? I don’t know. It was nice though.

Anyway if I wasn’t getting surgery this summer (hopefully) I would be trying to get my nails done because I feel like I want that again. But anesthesiologists need to see your nails so they know if something is going wrong, so no nail polish for a while still. I mean I could get it and then get it taken off but ughhhh no I’m too lazy for that. It is interesting though to transition and notice what feminine qualities I still have. Like, I’m bisexual but honestly I think I’m pretty faggy. And to be totally honest even when I was a butch dyke I felt more like a fag. And I like dick so that kind of makes it make sense. Even my therapist asked if I was feeling more faggy these days, because last year when I decided to transition I was saying I might be more interested in men. But also there’s some pretty femme gay stuff going on for me. Like the way I move around and stuff, and even though I know I’m supposed to learn to speak in a lower pitch I kind of still have a queeny voice when I’m excited. I think also though I have just spent so many years not caring about gender norms because I was a butch dyke, that being kind of a femme fag is also sort of sensible for me. I know there’s femme trans men though who are WAY more femme than me. But whatever it’s a spectrum, and even though I have some feminine traits I still feel like a dude.

Gender endlessly fascinates me.

I’m wearing my packer again, I had a long period of not really caring. And now it’s not so much that I care, more that I’m just going through one of my dick periods I guess, when it’s nice to feel something there. Most of the time I’ve been on T I haven’t been packing. So I don’t know what changed now.

Sometimes I think it’s just trying to add more things that help people gender me as a man. I know I can just tell people what I am, but it would be nice for more people to get it right when they first meet me without me having to explain. I stopped doing my nails so I would have less obvious “woman” signifiers, but really now I think I’ve tipped into masculine appearing enough to be able to fuck it up with nail polish. Because there are tons of pretty goth boys out there with nail polish and stuff.

I need to wear hats more. I totally got sunburned on my scalp this past week. It was too much sun! My hubris from my years with hair has ruined me!

I bought a Nutribullet with my GST money and have been making smoothies with protein powder, which has been fun. I would love to make more, I should get groceries.

Anyway I hope that homeless guy doesn’t become a regular on the street here, because I hate getting yelled at even if I can turn the music up and not hear their bigotry.

My life is so weird. I’m temporarily extremely poor, AND YET I did manage to pay all my bills, my rent, my CRA payment, and buy groceries. So I’m really not in terrible shape. My credit card debt is sad though so I would like to fix that. I am just gonna have to keep throwing cash at it until I can get a big chunk of money to pay it off. I hate being an adult. I have almost $5000 in my RSP, but I am gonna have to take out $3500 of that to pay for the part of my top surgery that doesn’t get covered by OHIP. It’s fine. I mean, I guess I could have a gofundme for that cost and maybe people would want to support it, but also I hate asking for money. Which is also hilarious because being a filmmaker means constantly asking places and people for money.

I think one of my local film fests got tired of me being naked in my videos because they definitely aren’t programming my naked videos anymore. I didn’t realize trans tits were still shocking but I guess they are. Or maybe they are just tired of that, who knows! I actually don’t know if they won’t program this one video this year because they haven’t decided yet, but also it’s got a play piercing scene in it (for art reasons) so I’m pretty sure they will pass on it. That video has been popular other places though, so it’s fine. I just find it curious to watch how festivals continue or discontinue being interested in me.

My top surgery consultation is coming up and I am SUPER excited about it! I have a ride to get there even which is nice, because I think it’s an hour and a half on public transit to get to Mississauga and I will need to pee after an hour probably so that’s anxiety inducing. There needs to be way more public bathrooms in the world. And not those European bathrooms that extort you out of 50 euro cents at your most vulnerable time! Pay toilets are the worst. I found a pay toilet at the bathroom at Burger King in Vienna which is even more egregious because come on, people eat your food and you won’t let them poop for free? COME ON!

Anyway enough of that.

I am poor right now, but I could get paid for something or another at any minute and not be so worried. Plus I know I have $3000+ coming at the end of this month, so I can’t really complain like I am gonna be poor forever. PLUS I might get a big payment if a certain government organization gets extra money to give to me. So really I can’t predict my bank accounts future. If I did get the big payment I could pay off my credit card debt in a day. So like, that is decent. I will live! Or I will be poor for a while longer until the universe decides to pay me for all the work I’ve done in the last eight years or whatever.

I don’t think being poor is noble, it just sucks. I definitely wouldn’t take a vow of poverty, although I don’t have priest aspirations anyway so it’s unlikely that would come up. My Grandpa was a Minister and one time him and Grandma won an RV in a raffle and even though Grandma never took a vow of poverty, she lived her life like she had and was totally mortified that they won this prize. I think they sold it back to the dealer. They definitely didn’t bring the RV home.

I ordered some things from Amazon so also I can’t really complain about the system today I guess. And I DO have groceries in my kitchen like I am not starving like when I was living in Strathcona and spending my last dollars on weed. I do not spend money on weed if I am SUPER POOR anymore which I think is a good change. I’d much rather eat and have somewhere to live. ALSO to be honest I think I have to cancel my personal trainer soon, partially because it’s too much out of my budget but also because I am getting surgery hopefully next month or so and I won’t have a use for the trainer for several weeks with my lil t rex top surgery arms.

I started the process of changing my name, but didn’t anticipate that I needed a long form birth certificate, so now I am ordering that. Which will be four to six weeks. And then people online were saying Ontario was taking four months to process the name change forms. SUCH A LONG TIME! I do think my old name was kinda rad, but it doesn’t fit me anymore and I like Theo Jean Cuthand way better. With Jean pronounced like the French dude way. But I guess that can get misheard as John, kinda funny. I hope changing the rest of my ID isn’t a pain in the ass. I was gonna change my gender marker, but someone told me they knew a trans man who had to do a prostate exam because his gender marker was changed and suddenly the health care system where he was switched up his care like he was a cis man. So yeah… I still want to be able to get PAP test reminders.

I have been sexually active again, this honestly doesn’t happen as frequently as I would like. But anyway, he flushed the condom down the toilet and I got all worried about the plumbing because I’m pretty sure that’s a NO. But then also he came a lot in the condom and I was wondering if he wanted to flush it because he was worried I would fish the condom out of the garbage can and try to get pregnant. I don’t know, it was a lot to think about and I’m still not sure how to word stuff to sexual partners but he probably SHOULDN’T keep flushing condoms. And he doesn’t have to worry about me trying to get pregnant because I am getting a salpingectomy this fall and definitely NOT able or interested in having a baby. BUT ALSO we’ve only hooked up twice and haven’t had big conversations about stuff like this. STILL I would like to see him again and have the condom disposed of properly. So I should probably say something. I’m really still unused to having sex with sperm producing partners. Ha ha I probably sound so weird right now.

My therapist is pleased with me not being so STUCK in the love department, because I was really like determined to have a specific kind of relationship with a specific kind of person, and now that kind of all went out the window and I’m open to many different types of people. It’s been really nice. I’ve gotten more in touch with finding masculinity attractive. BUT also still liking many types of people. Like, I still desire femmes and women and non-binary people. I’m just not so driven in that concept of needing to marry a Femme and spend the rest of my life with her. Now I don’t even know if I want to get married, and I could date any gender and fall in love with any gender. It’s nice. I deleted my Tinder because it was keeping me in the Lesbian section after I changed my gender to trans man, and now I restarted with a new profile with my new name and my gender and the matches are way better. A lot more gay men, not really any lesbians. Some straight women. I don’t know how successful I will be, so far I haven’t matched with any cis women, but that’s ok. I didn’t really know how to set myself up on there, but I appear in searches for men so I suppose that is what counts.

I only have a few more weeks of being able to fuck around before I am benched with my titless chest while it heals. So I suppose I should try to be more sexually active while I can. Also though sometimes I’m honestly just fine getting off by myself. It’s gotten convenient again since I’m back to working from home where porn and toys is in easy reach. I wonder if the pandemic ruined me.

I just spent the last week presenting my work at the Flaherty Seminar. They have this whole thing about no preconceptions, so the featured artists have to keep it quiet until after their films screen. BUT ALSO I guess I didn’t really do much research into a typical Flaherty Seminar because afterwards I found out it has a mega reputation for being kind of antagonistic to filmmakers in discussions. I think if I had known that I would have been more apprehensive but lucky me I was totally ignorant of the Flaherty Seminar’s history. BUT ALSO I actually had a really good time at the Flaherty. People responded positively to my work, and there were a ton of interesting conversations happening and also really strong films. So it was a good experience for me. It is pretty gruelling though, there’s three screenings a day and three discussions and a happy hour and you all go to the Skidmore cafeteria for breakfast lunch and dinner.

I was SO EXHAUSTED by the end of it, I didn’t even really have time to jack off which is hilarious for me because I’m so used to working from home and having orgasms multiple times a day. And there were cuties at the seminar and also a lot of them were queer because it was the Queer World-Mending seminar. So tons of queer artists. But I honestly couldn’t even get off by myself, never mind bringing someone else into bed with me. Which was also fine honestly because I was sleeping in a little dorm bed.

I feel like I should do a more exhaustive review of the Flaherty Seminar so that anyone coming by here would be impressed by my intellectual exercises about it, but honestly I am still trying to catch up on rest and finally relax.

After the Seminar, I went to the Hessel Museum at Bard College for the Indian Theater exhibition which I am screening four videos in. It seemed to go well. I did kind of miss the Seminar tho, just because no one deadnamed me or called me by the wrong pronouns there, and at Indian Theater people kept messing it up or not registering that I am a dude. Which just gets further exhausting because I’m still not used to asserting my gender and also because cis people get really offended when people assert their gender. I mean not always, but it kinda pisses some people off and it’s just annoying for me to deal with that. But also I met this sweet elder there who is kind of a big deal so she gets a pass for not always getting it because she was genuinely trying.

I had a good time though at all the events. I got to see some old friends and meet new friends and think about a lot of stuff. And see a lot of art. And now I am trying to get my name changed so my ID is gonna take a while to get sorted out, so this is probably my last international trip for a little while. I really hope I can get the name change form in soon because I’m stuck in Canada until it’s all done.

There were some other things that happened on my trip, but I’m not gonna tell you all of it. It was a special time for me though, something I am definitely going to remember.

I finished making my game! I am giving it to playtesters right now and waiting for feedback. I had to troubleshoot how a Mac user would play it, so that was a whole thing (and I still haven’t heard from my mac friends if they could get it to run!) so we’ll see! Mac computers are suspicious of anything that doesn’t come through their app store, so you have to go through this whole rigamarole to be able to open apps made with things like Unity. But it’s done!

Here is a trailer of the game with some highlights!

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I’m still not entirely happy with the diner art dec tho, I think I might swap the wallpaper out for something else. But white walls ALSO seems too simple. So I dunno! I really like the street level though and also the dungeon. The last level, the maze in the graveyard, is also pretty cute. I tried to give the timer some leeway so people trying to leave had time to figure out the area, but I might make it harder. I can see some things that could use fixing but also I wanted playtesters to have something to work with so I know more about what to fix.

I’m not sure what to do now! This has been my main creative project for the past several months and now it’s just, almost ready to release to the world! I have stuff to do on it still but I’m not great at marketing plans or anything. If I had more cash maybe I could hire a publicist. But funds are tight right now and I also have to pay CRA a chunk of money on Saturday. I posted this video on all my socials (except Bluesky) so hopefully it gets a bit of traction. I didn’t get a good video of the conversation tho, which kinda sucks because some of that is intriguing. I just clicked through too fast when recording. But yeah it’s done basically! I learned so much on this project, my game development skills really elevated! It’s only my second video game ever. And I already have an idea for my next video game! So I’m definitely going to continue improving on these skills. I was thinking the next game would be more like a series of puzzles to solve, so now I have to work out what that would look like. Also I did a dialogue system in this game, and also wrote that part using Twine so that was also fun.

Also there’s a ton of queer people in this game, so it’s kinda cool that it’s coming out during Pride month. Well it probably won’t get released this month though because I have more to do when I get feedback on it. BUT I would still say it’s birthday is this month! It’s a Gemini ha ha ha.

I will continue to update here about any other releases, like when you can finally buy it!

I have recovered mostly from COVID. I have tested negative since last week and I’m slowly getting back into life. A lot of my work is done on my laptop so it’s just thinky stuff. I have a rash though, it could be covid or allergies, who knows, it’s going away tho.

I got back to work on my video game and solved some mega problems that were preventing it from being a winnable game. And then I struggled with coding it to win or lose properly. I did a build of it last night and it was MOSTLY working except I have to delete the saved games because that’s messing up the variables. I need it to reset itself after losing. Also the canvas for the Vampire Health Bar is attached to her for some reason in the build, while in the editor when I run it it is in it’s proper space in the corner of the frame. So I need to solve that. I also have to get the take damage function to work properly because I was trying to do something and ended up deleting it. It does the thing I want. But it also still needs to damage her. I was getting a null error and decided not to destroy her sprite but to make it invisible when she gets staked so she would SEEM destroyed and also the camera follow transform wouldn’t go “OH MY GOD WHO AM I FOLLOWING?” which is sort of the error it gets when the sprite gets destroyed. And I need to make the selection zone smaller so that she can be in love and also bite someone without also biting her companion. I could turn off the ability to bite that person, but I’d rather make it POSSIBLE to bite them but not ALWAYS. If that makes sense. I just need some space between them and her.

BUT after I smooth out those errors and add some sound effects, it’s basically a fully functioning game. I also want to do some credits tho. I was thinking of having a vampire and her lover have a conversation to do the credits, but now I don’t think I want that. I think I just want a screen with credits, like scrolling credits or something. Plus I want to put McMaster University and Museumsquartier and Canada Council logos on at the end to show who supported the project.

I’m really excited though, I’m hoping this weekend I can finish it. I think it’s possible! I just have an hour long work thing tomorrow and I’m doing an hour and a half of other work every day for a while. So I think I have enough spare hours to hyperfocus and finish the game. I was watching a tutorial for scrolling credits in Unity and they were like “Let’s put the programmers, animators, department head” and on and on and I was like shit, that’s mostly all me. I am not gonna make obnoxious credits though that list every duty I had making this game. Cause I did it all! I’ll probably just write “Game by Theo Jean Cuthand” and the funders and the year. I don’t know what else to add to it, special thanks I suppose! A lot of friends did listen to me blab about it while I was going through my creative process.

I really like some of the code I wrote for it. I think just because the functions were sometimes very customized, so the code words are cute. And also I had to set a variable for if she is in love or not, so that another script will make another character follow her. So there is a bool called “InLove.” Which is pretty cute. If you don’t know what a bool is, it’s just a true/false statement. Which I kind of like in regular life too. Because I don’t often feel grey areas if I am in love or not, it’s usually just true or false. I mean there is liking someone but that is not the same as love! I suppose if you wanted to make it complicated you could make InLove an integer and then quantify HOW MUCH you love someone. But I don’t really need that for this game.

I also started working on a google form to send playtesters. I am gonna get some friends to try this game and then fill out the form so I can get some feedback. I am hoping to be able to get this done and documented and send videos in to Canada Council for my final report. And then that will be one more final report off my plate! I need to finish that one AND another final report so I can apply for ANOTHER grant in the fall. I think I can do it! It’s really encouraging to have this one so close to being done. Because then I can REALLY focus on the other project which is a script, which has been languishing while I focused on the game. And I AM excited to write the script too, it’s just been really hard keeping two different projects in my creative space at the same time. And video game development is so different than script writing, like it just uses my brain in a way different way. I did write a lot of dialogue in Twine though, so that was similar to how I write a film script. But the script in a game can have so many branching conversations which is what makes it kind of exciting.

I learned a lot while I was making this game. It’s more advanced than my last game, Bipolar Journey. Bipolar Journey was very difficult to lose, except for the last level I guess. But you could get pretty far pretty easily. This one is different because there’s a goal and two variables you need to win, and a timer in the last level. And it has a dialogue system and lots of other interactive things. You can bite people! Except for your familiar I suppose. I think it’s fun. I don’t know how many times someone would want to play it. If you know how to win it, it can go really fast, but hopefully people meander around. I’m curious what kind of feedback I’ll get.

It would be nice to show it in a gallery. I already have an idea for my next game which would be good in a gallery too. But I’m pretty sure I’m gonna release a version on itch.io for something like five bucks. Not a ton of money but it would be nice to get paid a bit more. People keep asking me about when they can play it, so it seems to have a potential audience.

ANYWAY I was told to take it easy after COVID and I really did try for a long time, but I like my work too much to really relax. PLUS I gotta make money.

Oh man! I was doing so good! I’d made it for over THREE YEARS without getting COVID! I did so good! And then I went to a dance party with tons of Indigiqueers and Two Spirits and three days later started feeling bad. I thought maybe it was allergies because all the flowers in my neighbourhood were flowering. BUT NO. I finally was like ok I better test for COVID. And this time it was positive!

Shit shit shit.

So I got COVID after all this time. I was being sloppy with masks, I got too cocky. And there are some extremely IMPORTANT things coming up, so once I am cleared to go back into the world I am gonna mask again. Because I am not gonna end up canceling top surgery because I got COVID a second time. And also other career things are happening and I just can’t be sicky like this again.

I feel like I get better every day but really I think new symptoms come and then go. I mostly deal with fatigue but today I was also extremely dizzy. I started reading about dizziness in COVID and long COVID and was worried I would feel dizzy forever. But it went away. It might come back.

I cancelled a bunch of things so that I could be ok, or as ok as possible. I know it’s when people make themselves keep working that they get long COVID. So I am trying to avoid doing work. Which is hard because I really like the work I do. I swear my brain is just like “OH come on we could just do this thing, or this thing.” No. I am really trying to be strict about it. Which is hard.

And some people were asking me to help them with various things and it’s just like I have COVID I cannot help anyone at all right now. It’s been four days into COVID and I only had enough energy to type this blog today.

Some people did offer to help me out, which has been nice, and some of them sent or dropped things off. So that was nice. I’m finally able to do the dishes today and take out the garbage. At some point I have to do my laundry, so that will be a whole thing. I was just going to wear a mask and wash my hands really well before I go do it. I’ll probably wait until Monday when hopefully I am less contagious.

I had to go tell all the people I had been near that I had COVID which made me feel bad, although they were all happy I told them and wished me well. So that’s nice. And to my knowledge none of them got it. But who knows. I have to see my therapist on video on Monday though because I still need to talk about my feelings in my life but obviously don’t want to get her sick. I know I could NOT see her, but I think I’d prefer to see her. Even if I am a bit dopey.

Anyway, I am gonna run out of rolling papers tomorrow too, so I will have to figure out how to get some.

I called the surgeon’s office today to see if I was up for being called for a consultation date, and they said I was the next person they were gonna call so they scheduled it with me for July! I could have gotten late June but I’m away that week. July it is! I’m so excited, they emailed me some registration forms that I got all eager beaver and filled out already. I feel pretty happy about it! I don’t know how soon after that that I can get the actual surgery. And hopefully I know if we are shooting this film this fall or not, so I can schedule accordingly. I know based on some issues we might not be funded for this film this year (the script is ready, just one other financial thing needs to be figured out by a certain time), so my reward for not being funded was to get my top surgery earlier. Otherwise I might have to schedule for November or December. I should know by July though, in time for when we schedule it.

I’m so excited! I got a wedge pillow and a set of dog stairs heading my way. Posey always wants me to pick her up when it’s bedtime, but she needs to do it on her own while I am healing. She jumps on and off the bed all night also, so I need her to be able to go up and down whenever she wants. I recorded myself sleeping this one time and apparently I pick my dogs up all the time all night and don’t even actually wake up for it, or I don’t remember doing it anyway. So I have to train her AND ME not to pick her up while I’m sleeping.

I’m excited to see what I look like with a more masculine body. I mean logically I know a body with breasts can be masculine, but also I just want to see my pecs. I can feel a ridge of muscle under both my breasts so I know SOMETHING is going on there. But it’s not impressive to me as long as it’s being obscured with breast tissue.

ALSO I want to go to the gay bathhouse, BUT ALSO I don’t feel comfortable going there before I get top surgery. And also I think top surgery will make me feel more comfortable in the men’s locker room. I’d probably not take off my underwear anyway, but not having to wear a binder or bra would make me feel like I fit in more. I know I could try these spaces now, but also I just want people to see me for who I am more easily.

I won’t be able to get sunlight on my scars for the first year, but hopefully there will be a summer when I can take my shirt off more. I always really did want to be able to walk around shirtless and not be sexualized as much as people sexualize people with breasts.

I was looking at facebook memories the other day, and found some from when my Grandpa was dying. He was having an alert day and happy to see so many of us visiting him. And he was counting us and shaking hands and then he pointed me out and told everyone I was a good man. And at the time I’m sure I just thought it was him being silly. But reading that now I was like OH MY GOD! My Grandpa knew I was a man! I don’t know if he always knew, or if he was seeing me clearly because he was dying. But he recognized me as a good man. I’m really happy that I read that memory. Part of my sadness around transitioning later was that my Grandparents never got to see me grow into the man I am. But Grandpa saw it.

I visited my Mom this past weekend while she was nearby briefly. It went well, I feel like therapy has helped us a lot. Not “perfect” but I don’t think many interpersonal relationships are perfect. It works though. She wants to help me when I get top surgery, which is good because I don’t have a partner to help me and my friends here are busy people unfortunately. But yeah, I think it would be good for someone to be around the first week at least.

I am balding and I can’t deny it anymore! I still don’t want to do the things to stop balding though. I’m trying to figure out how to lean into it and be a sexy bald guy. It’s not doing that receding hairline thing tho, it’s really thinning at the crown. I wish I had the receding hairline instead but I can’t choose how I’m going to go bald. My dad’s hair is thinner, and my Grandpa had VERY thin hair when he was old. But neither of them have gone the whole way and shaved their heads. And I think I AM going to shave my head. I tried it earlier this year and wasn’t happy with it. But maybe I just need to get used to it. And wear more hats. I finally dug up my Cock hat that I got in New Orleans last year, so that will help ha ha. I actually have a ton of hats, I just need to dig them out and start putting them in a rotation. I mean I can also walk out with a bald head tho I am sure it will be fine. AHHHH baldness. It’s such a funny thing, I mean you either lean into it or try to prevent it it seems. I know there are sexy bald guys. AND ALSO in a weird way it is kind of gender affirming. I know baldness isn’t really a gendered thing though, lots of people go bald. But bald men are more expected so hopefully it just helps people gender me the way I want.

I have gone up to 70mg of testosterone today, after checking with my nurse about levels. I could have stayed at 60 but we are just seeing if this helps me get more effects that I want.

I did something sort of silly and got shaving cream and a razor while on vacation and started shaving my face. I did it a few times but now I kinda miss all the peach fuzz I had. I know it will probably come back, and also that none of it was terminal hairs anyway. But it at least had given me a bit of a fuzzy cheek feel. I did really like the act of shaving my face though. That was pretty euphoric. So funny, to want a furry face but also enjoy shaving it.

I’m in a good mood today. My vacation was amazing and I had so much fun. I don’t know if I will write about it here, you can see more on my Instagram if you want to know what I did (@cabbagetownstomper). I’m really happy that I’m in a place where I can have casual sex more easily also. Dating only women in the past was such a barrier omg! There’s just a limited number of queer women. And sex with guys didn’t make sense until I was also a guy. I had a number of crushes on Queer men though through my adult life but yeah obviously I was more puzzled than anything about that. UNTIL NOW!

Therapy today was also good. I talked about transference stuff last week, so this week was nice because I was talking about desire for all these other people. ALSO I only mentioned my ex once in passing and the conversation wasn’t focused on them so that was a really good sign. I feel like I am SO CLOSE to being truly emotionally available again. I’m really not in love with anyone available right now. Which is always kind of a weird feeling for me. But also exciting because that means I could fall for anyone right now. Maybe they would be more compatible, whoever they are. Or maybe I can be more firm about what I want in a partner versus someone who is more of a casual lover. Maybe there’s not that same pressure on it now that I am almost a year on testosterone.

July 25th is my 1 year on T!!! Still a ways away, but it’s nice to be noticing the changes over the last year.

Monday will be 38 weeks on testosterone! I like making these posts cause I can more accurately see changes over time.

First of all, my voice is different! It’s just getting lower and lower and really fascinates me when I’m talking. I made a recording last year and then one on Wednesday, so you can hear the difference.

Also my face, I dunno, I guess it’s different? I also lost weight on T, so that could be making a difference.

I’ve also been building more muscle but I feel awkward about trying to show it here ha ha. My muscles are getting bigger though! I’ll try to get some cute pics when I’m on vacation maybe.

Facial hair is still MIA. And my Dad said he didn’t try to grow a beard until he was 30, so it could be a LONG WAY AWAY still. If it ever comes.

BUT also bear in mind that I started at a very low dose, and only got to my top dose a few weeks ago. So I don’t know how that has impacted my timeline.

ALSO I am probably holding off on muscle pics of my torso until I get top surgery. Because there’s PROBABLY pecs under there, but I can’t see it yet. I do know my stomach is still very soft but I can feel muscle under it now. And I can do sit-ups finally! Maybe I will make a video of doing sit-ups and pull-ups when I can do a pull-up too. It is a goal of mine for sure! I didn’t really think too much about what it would be like to have upper body strength until my personal trainer got me to do a sit-up a couple weeks ago. But it’s nice! Things feel lighter too when I am carrying them.

Anyway I am really happy with my transition so far, even tho the only extra hair I have gotten is nose and ass hair.

I’ve been feeling dramatic this week so far. I was in therapy yesterday being like “I wish I never met my ex! I never want to fall in love again!” I know I’m just having a hard time but UGH I never want a broken heart like this again this fucking sucks. And my therapist was like “You know rejection and break ups just happen a lot, even people who are with their partners for ages will have someone die at some point.” And yes that is true but also UGHHHHHH I hate this. I mean no one likes having a broken heart though. They’re just so uncomfortable and embarrassing. Like yeah I fell for someone who doesn’t give a shit about me, how awful is that? How do I keep it from ever happening again? And that brings me to the “I never want to fall in love again!” feeling.

But my therapist says she doesn’t want that for me. Which was kind of nice to hear. It’s been very frustrating trying to date for most of my life though, I’m just not very good at it. I think specifically I choose bad people. Not like “EVIL PEOPLE” more like BAD FOR ME. And my therapist and I have been working on it. And I am dating people very casually right now but nothing has solidified into love yet, or maybe never will, so yeah it’s hard. I am trying to move on.

I think though also dating as a trans person has changed for me more recently because I have changed and gotten on testosterone. And it has changed the way I date in positive ways, like not being hung up on any one particular person right now. My therapist says I am not the old me anymore but I am not the new me yet either. So I’m kind of in this weird middle space where I’m rethinking how I want to have sex and relationships. Like I’m starting to not be into being penetrated for health reasons (I CAN but I have a tilted uterus so it’s uncomfortable in specific positions). And I am more upfront about what I need to be able to cum, and queer people are generally open to that. But then also sometimes I just don’t even want to have sex again. It’s very ridiculous, these were all things I used to like and now I just don’t know. I probably will like them again at some point. I mean probably the people I’ve recently had plans to have sex with I would still have sex with. It’s just complicated in my heart and underwear right now.

My dick had a big growth spurt more recently since I got on 60mg of T. It was growing before but SLOWLY and now it’s just kind of getting longer in a more dramatic way. So that’s nice. See I will probably want to share that with someone. I’m really curious about feeling what it’s like to have sex as my body changes.

But at the same time my heart is just super raw and has been for a while. I thought I was ready to date other people again until I found out my ex blocked me. Now I’m just like ARGH even though I already knew they weren’t going to talk to me again. It’s kind of silly, they probably blocked me as soon as I unfriended them last November, and I just never went looking until last week when I got super curious. But whatever. The weird thing is there are still other ways I could contact them, but I’m not going to because obviously that isn’t something they want. And probably not something I want either, I don’t want to beg someone to pay attention to me. That’s so ridiculous. And I don’t really want someone to get pissy at me for trying to talk to them. UGH.

I’m in such a bad mood. Someone could say the smallest criticism to me right now and I’d just be like “Well yeah fuck you too!” or something. Ridiculous. Times like this it’s just better to stay alone.

BUT I have to get out of this foul mood because I have what might be the most important pitch of my life coming up on Thursday! I honestly can’t keep holding on to this disappointment and anger because I have to do something productive and exciting and get people interested in my vision. Arg. I mean maybe that’s a lot though, it’s fine to be angry. I just have to be able to do my work still.

I was trying to figure out how to make a boolean value a static so I can call it from another scene. But I mucked around with it all day and haven’t gotten any closer to solving this. The problem is the boolean is called from a dialogue manager in the inspector but I’m trying to make it a static in a script so I can check it in another scene. I was trying player prefs, I was trying statics, I am thinking of trying a game manager with a don’t destroy on load script. I really just wrestled with it all day and now the day is almost over and I had to have this moment of despair on my blog because of course everyone loves that ha ha.

I will be ok I know that. I will probably fall in love again someday and maybe it will work out in my favour finally. My astrologer said I should concentrate on my career this year more than relationships, so I will try that. I mean that’s what I’ve done my whole life though, when love stuff doesn’t work out I just work super hard on my career. And I got really far in my career. And I just need to get a bit further, I just need to get my head in order so I can do a good pitch, and finish this video game. I’m so close! Good things could happen! And the video game is super cute and interesting and there’s just this one thing I gotta figure out and then I can finish this!

I AM SO CLOSE to wrapping up some major projects this year. I know it will be ok. And I do have cute dates coming up and I probably will kiss more people and things will probably improve for me. I just wish I hadn’t been blocked. But on the other hand I mean I WAS the one who did the initial unfriending. I should have expected this.