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.

CW: This might be mostly about working out but I am not so interested in the weight loss side of things because I am trying to build muscle

OK so I have been seeing a personal trainer at the YMCA for five weeks, and we’ve been working on getting me some muscles. Today she got me to do a set and a half of sit ups for the first time. Ha ha omg I did the first one after being like “OK so I have never been able to do a sit up, I’ve only done crunches and not even very good.” And she’s like sure just try. And then I did a sit up! And I was so amazed that I just laid down after and was like “OMG!” And then I was like “OH wait should I do some more?” ha ha and then I got ten done. I’m honestly amazed, I’ve never been able to do a sit up. I’ve barely been able to get my shoulders off the mat when I tried doing them. And this was just like BOOM sit up! I couldn’t do tons of them but fuck ten reps is ten reps more than I’ve ever been able to do.

I’m honestly so shocked! I was hoping one day I would be able to do a pull up (still working on it) but this was the first sit up ever. EVER!!! And here I didn’t think I was working my abs much. My muscles are just so much happier on testosterone, and I’ve been working out at least two times a week. I also walk my dog a lot more, and do walkable errands in the neighbourhood more. So I’m just stronger and I don’t get as breathless as fast anymore. It’s really nice. And I’m started to see some definition in my muscles, especially legs, arms, back. My stomach is more round but obviously there’s muscles in there because I can do a sit up now. I don’t really mind if I keep a round belly, I just like having muscles and being stronger.

The good food box arrived today and again it felt really light compared to the way it used to feel before my testosterone gave me more strength. It’s so cool noticing my strength increase. STRENGTH!

Anyway maybe I don’t only want to talk about my sit ups.

I’ve been doing ok. The early part of the week was kind of rough on me. But I had a good therapy session today, and also that good personal training session. And also even though I get career rejections, there are also opportunities I am getting that are so fancy I can’t even talk about them until they happen. So that has been really nice. I’m going to Syracuse in a week and a bit, so that will be an adventure. I am going by train so I’ll be curious to see what crossing the border is like. Apparently I don’t have to get off the train? Ha ha I guess we’ll see where I end up. But whatever happens I need to be back in Toronto to get my flight to San Diego. So I have a couple days between coming back and going away again and hopefully that gives enough room in case some shitty thing happens in transit.

Hopefully no shitty things transpire!

I’m trying to figure out how to let go of the past. I guess that’s always happening. I really don’t want to still be hanging on to people who won’t even talk to me. I know in a lot of ways people have left my life for good reasons for me too. But it’s weird anyway I guess. But not everyone is meant to stay.

And I’m not gonna talk about reasons and seasons and stuff about why people are in your life, I know there’s a lot of cycles that have to end and stuff.

And really I haven’t known either of the people who don’t talk to me since I’ve started transitioning. So they don’t really know me anymore either. I guess maybe those relationships were supposed to end before I transitioned. Like some people just can’t come with you into the next phase of your life. It’s sad but I have also hung on to people way too long until it hurts.

Anyway, I think I hate having my chest touched. I thought I would like it but people recently were pretty rough with it and I’ve just felt so much desire for me to have top surgery already so people won’t pay attention to that area in the same way. I think probably a different type of lover would have a better relationship with my chest. But yeah also I just need to tell people what I want in bed and what not to do. Stop squeezing my god! I hate that. Fucking Grindr lol. I can kind of see why some trans men keep their shirts on in bed. I know the people I’ve been fucking would leave that area alone if I told them though.

I FINALLY got the girlfriend to follow the vampire at a respectful distance, enough that she can’t get bitten or in the way and is just this cute companion. Next I have to wrestle with this Dontdestroyonload coding so that she can follow through all the levels. I think it might be more straightforward than I think. After that it’s just tying up loose ends and making some winning and losing screens and then this game is done. I’m so relieved!!! I’m really glad the follow love script worked in the end, I was stressing that my character being followed wouldn’t work. But it does! If it didn’t work I was going to add a canvas with a heart that would turn red if you fell in love, but that’s not as fun and visual as your girlfriend following you around. So I’m glad it worked. It was a vector 3 offset that worked, surprisingly. I was struggling so hard ha ha.

Anyway, I found out my ex blocked me. Or maybe changed their name, I don’t know, but they don’t exist on facebook anymore in my searches. I didn’t look SUPER HARD but enough to know they’re not available to me to see. I should have expected it I guess. I thought I could just unfriend them and that would be that. It’s kind of funny to find out I got blocked the night before I finally solved this coding problem of the girlfriend being too clingy. I feel kind of shitty about the whole experience now. I don’t like having bad blood with exes and I just feel really hated by people right now (probably global transphobia is also helping with that feeling). I also have another ex who doesn’t talk to me ever since I got worried because she said she was alone on Christmas 2021 and asked if she broke up with her partner BECAUSE I LEGITIMATELY WORRY FOR FRIENDS and she got pissed at me and since then our friendship has been total garbage. She doesn’t even watch my Instagram stories anymore, and I am so tired of apologizing for myself so I’m not even bothering anymore. I mean I guess there is a reason they are exes.

The funny thing is I have a really good ex who I’ve also had a rocky history with, but I don’t know I just kept trying to tend to our friendship over the years and now it’s been really good for a long time, like years. And at some point we weren’t even fb friends at all and it was pretty hostile between us. So I don’t know, sometimes relationships are salvageable into a really nice friendship, and I guess sometimes I just have to know enough to give up on people. I don’t like giving up on people is the thing. But when it hurts to try and mend things, its just useless.

I tried, is all I can say, I did the best I could and for those two people my best wasn’t good enough. I suppose things will be fine, neither of them was paying my rent or anything, neither of them have children or pets with me, I’m not tethered to either of them with finances or contracts. It just sucks to see the divide grow between myself and people I once deeply loved.

I think also though is that there’s this growing anger in me about being treated badly by people. My family was pretty shitty to me last year when I tried to go home to visit, and that is still something I’m having a hard time with. And now I’m trying to break more into the Industry with a story with a lead who isn’t a white cis het man so of course that’s not going as smoothly as I would like because capitalism in film is racist and homophobic and we don’t get lots of money for our stories. I’m also adjusting to being a man in a queer world that can be very anti-man, or has a lot of misandrist sentiments anyway that make me feel shitty about myself.

BUT I should be happy because I solved this big problem in my video game. It was really such a difficult thing to fix for me, and now it’s done and I’m so much closer to being able to wrap it up. ALSO I wrote five pages of my new script, so that was a good accomplishment. I don’t think they are five GOOD pages, but they are five more pages than I had yesterday. Ugh I hate being whiny but honestly things can suck and it’s ok to acknowledge that. But things can be good too!

Even tho I am crying around about exes here, I am actually dating some interesting/fun people right now. Nothing super heavy or serious at the moment, but like some sexy dates, some super cute wholesome dates, things in my love life are well rounded. I guess it’s just a polyamorous thing to kind of have a broken heart at the same time as being excited about other people. And to be honest my heart is NOT as broken as it was last year. Last year it was like SMASHED on the floor broken heart. I didn’t even really want to date. But now I do, and I’m having fun. And most of my friends are not saying shitty things to me about men, it’s just this feeling I guess from coming out of the Lesbian community and not being a Lez anymore.

I solved this one major issue I had with my game, and now I have two new problems to solve. For the longest time the vampire wasn’t falling in love, but now she is and after a conversation with some other sprite, it will follow her and now I need to make it not follow her so closely so I need an offset. But none of my code is working. I’m wondering if I need to add something to get the offsets to work. When it did kind of work, the girlfriend sprite looked like she was humping the vampire and it was very irritating. So I need to get it to just like, smoothly follow at a respectful short distance. I’m not sure why it’s being so difficult. Also I have to make the sprite dontdestroyonload so that she can follow her into other scenes, but only if she is following the vampire. And then I also have to make a singleton I think so that the sprite doesn’t end up having TWO of itself when she comes back to the street level.

I know I am so close to having this game be finished. I need to fix the audio though, I tried a few different things to get a stake sound to happen, but it’s being a weirdo and like, rapidly repeating the sound so it doesn’t work. I know it’s likely just a setting I need to fix. And then also after I get the sprite to follow Carmilla into other scenes, I need to code it so that she can trigger the winning screen if she falls in love, has blood, and makes it through the maze to her crypt. I think it will be fairly straightforward. Most of the hard stuff has been programmed and now it’s just these last fiddly things.

I’m excited to almost be done this though. It just took two residencies and a Canada Council for the Arts grant. I’m pretty stoked that it managed to become a thing. I’m also excited to get this final report in and then start writing a new game design doc for the next game I want to make. So far it’s been living in my notes on my iPad.

I never really considered I would ever be a game developer. It’s kind of a fascinating thing to do though, I don’t know. I like solving problems. And making it do what I want.

LATER

I was writing this and just never finished for a couple days. I am now writing this on Saturday. I am still puzzling out my problems.

It was Trans Day of Visibility yesterday so that was ok. I was visible. I’m not sure how to not be visible. I got a certain specific type of fame before I transitioned, so now I’m just dealing with that and my career and trying to decide if I want to go the whole way and become formally known as Theo Jean Cuthand instead of just TJ Cuthand. I’m starting to be more comfortable with Theo, so I think I might actually start going by it. It’s weird debuting a name. Because I really didn’t want to go change it everywhere. And I probably will keep some tjcuthand urls and handles. But I do like being a Theo and it would just make things easier if it was more universal that my name is Theo. I want to do a name and gender change on my ID this year, but so far I’m trying to schedule it around international travel, because I will have to get a new passport and everything. And I just travel a lot. I’m also trying to figure out when I will have time to do my top surgery. Right now it’s going to be in early December or late November I think. I might be in post around that time, but it will give me a chance to not have to carry things around. I can do that remotely. I wish I could get it sooner but I don’t think I can. It’s getting weird around here, Canadians are trying to import transphobia (or like rehydrate their own I guess) and it’s so tiresome. We are not remotely all Christians up here. We don’t have to listen to some fringe groups little book that probably doesn’t even have things about trans people in it. It’s so tiresome and unimaginative. Fascists are so fucking boring, and they want such a flavourless oatmeal world. So boring! I can’t imagine making up that many problems.

Anyway, it would be nice to get my name and gender and surgery before they start getting pissy about trans health care up here. They’re already starting to go after schools, which is so shitty. Going after children is despicable, and exactly what the settlers did to Indigenous kids. It’s part of genocides. And I know I’m already a survivor of one genocide, but having yet another potential genocide piled on is not on my list of things to experience. I’m a scrapper though, and my family were fighters for a long time. So I think I’ll be ok. Also honestly it’s mostly a loud ugly minority of haters, who can’t even use their real names online. And when I think of the people who do know me, they generally find me likeable. So yeah.

Last night I went to the gym and worked out for an hour and a half. It was a half hour of cardio followed by an hour on weight machines. I think I did a good job even though my abs hurt when I left the gym. I did the captains chair and the hyper extension bench near the end of my workout, so my abs were super worked out and I haven’t worked on them much before. It’s nice! I am seeing my body change which is exciting. I can feel a ridge of muscle under my chest tissue on both sides so I think I AM getting bigger pecs, but of course they are covered with mammary glands right now so I can’t see them. I’m going to be so curious to see what I look like after top surgery. It’s such a funny hobby to get into, to start working out.

I know I’m still not feeding myself properly though because my muscles aren’t getting the heft I want them to. I need to up my protein and carbs. But also I dunno I mean how long does it take to build muscle?

Anyway. Love life right now is cute. I’m just dating various people and having fun getting to know them. And having sex again! I’ve met people generally respectful of my gender, and the kissing has been super fun. Also have a sweet crush on someone so that’s nice. And I guess I have a crush on my therapist but that’s transference and not going anywhere anytime anyway. But it does make things extra fun I think.

Maybe I just like having crushes, I don’t know. I like liking people. And most of the time it doesn’t go anywhere but it’s still fun. Oh except for those times it sucks I guess ha ha. It’s interesting finally dating multiple people who are into me. I’m not really used to that so sometimes they are being sweet and I’m like “Weird.” Ha ha aww. The last time I felt Big Time Feelings, the person I was dating wasn’t very flirtatious with me, so I guess that’s what I got used to. But I like being flirted with.

I think my voice deepened this week again. I took my first dose of 60mg on Monday so it’s still very early on this higher dose, but I noticed when I went up to 50mg a while back my voice dropped in a couple days and it seems to have happened again. It’s probably my favourite testosterone effect so far because my voice started changing so early.

TMI for the next paragraph:

I had a dream I was touching my dick and it was big, not cis big but trans big. I remember feeling pretty happy about it. And then I was curious about what was going on down there so I took a pic and it IS a lot bigger than the last time I checked. It made me feel pretty happy, bottom growth was something I was excited about. I’m hopeful I can use it soon with someone else.

Unrelated to my dick, I started seeing a personal trainer at the YMCA and we’ve had two sessions so far. She already noticed progress in the second session. I was able to do more pushups, and I could hold a plank for a longer time. In fact even the first time we met up I realized I was able to do things I hadn’t been able to do before. Like the plank, I could sort of do a regular plank but only on my knees, and now I can do them on my toes and hold it for longer. Also I can do pushups way easier, it was funny because the last time I did them with her I felt like I could go longer if I wanted to. And we went from 2 sets of 12 reps in the first session to 3 sets of 15 reps in the second session. So I’ve been watching my muscles finally start to get bigger and that’s been super cool.

It’s way more motivating to work out when you can see your body changing into something you want. And I think honestly I always did want masculine musculature more than what women’s bodies look like typically, so before working out was kinda meh. Also it just FEELS good to work out so that’s cool. I try to go to the gym three times a week including the one day I see the trainer. I don’t want to go every day, but also it’s close enough that it’s more or less convenient to go, and my schedule is so varied that there’s generally enough free time to go.

I’ve got an idea for an art project that is making me laugh a lot and people are helping me out. I don’t know that I will release it under my name though because of reasons. But it’s still been really fun to suddenly get an idea and figure out how to execute it without a grant.

I’m still working on my video game. I had some kind of error happen and now the dialogue manager doesn’t work on my street scene, so I have to get it fixed somehow. The version of Pixel Crushers Dialogue System I was using just got improved though so I am hoping the new version works better for me. Although tbh I don’t know if I was able to download the new one. I tried!

I’m coming up to near the end of my residency at McMaster. End of the semester I will be done! Also I am going to Syracuse next month, and then also next month is my vacation with my friend!!! To San Diego and Joshua Tree! I’ve never been to either place so I’m pretty excited, also I need to be somewhere sunny. The snow just kept hitting us this month and it was getting so tiresome.

I feel like the changes I’ve gotten on T have made me feel a bit more confident about dating guys. I don’t know why I don’t feel weird about dating women and non-binary people, but guys make me wary because I don’t want to be with straight guys who are mentally misgendering me so they can sleep with me. I feel like my voice and having more muscles makes me feel I’m more obviously a guy. Not that it matters anyway because I haven’t been able to have sex for a while because of reasons. BUT SOMEDAY I will have sex again and I want to feel confident in my body when that happens.

I’m going up to 60mg of testosterone on Monday, which is an average dose for a lot of trans guys. So that is exciting. I am in male range now, but I think going higher will get me more masculinization. So I am looking forward to this. I remember when I went up to 50mg I noticed my voice did a sharp drop within a week. That was pretty cool.

I have been thinking a lot about how going on testosterone has changed the way I approach dating. I am A LOT more laid back about it. Like I can date multiple people now and not feel really obsessed about a person or possessive. I feel like I am way less jealous too which is nice. I also changed my priorities because for so long I was looking for a partner to live with and have children. And now I don’t want children, and although I could still live with someone, I don’t feel it’s necessary for me anymore. It would have to be a serious connection because I’m worried about losing access to stable housing if we broke up and I had to move out of the co-op. But so far everyone I am dating is also very laid back and not looking to cohabitate, so that’s good.

It makes me miss my ex though, because I was so not the right type of partner for them at the time we were dating. And now I think I could possibly fit in with them better. For one thing I wasn’t dating anyone else and they had some serious relationships, so I was all focused on them and pretty needy. And I know it’s ok to be needy, but I think I overwhelmed them. While the way I am dating people now involves giving everyone a lot more space than I was able to before testosterone. I don’t mind so much when someone takes hours/days to message me back. Especially as my career has required more and more of my time and focus because sometimes I can’t message back for hours or days either.

Although I don’t know maybe if I met them again I would turn into a pest. I was/am pretty heavy in love with that person and it’s not going away and what if I just latched onto them again?

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed about being on testosterone is my ability to date different genders has expanded a lot. Before it was SO NARROW. Femmes only! But now I could date lots of kinds of people including cis and trans guys.

I haven’t fallen in love with anyone new for a while, but that seems to be ok. Some people I am super curious about have potential. I’m trying to just be open to life I guess.

I haven’t had a ton of sex on T yet, but that’s mostly due to medical reasons and not a lack of desire. Desire for sure has increased overall. I have had TONS of orgasms on my own though ha ha and those definitely improved after testosterone too. They are way longer for one thing which has been really nice. And a bit easier to have. I’m trying to learn how to communicate around sex and kink more effectively. I’ve gone into sexual relationships all wrong for most of my adult life where I wouldn’t really get into specifics about what I wanted, so then obviously I wouldn’t have the kind of sex I wanted. I’ve been improving but I’m realizing I need to really work on it. Like I need an elevator pitch or something for the sex I want to have. Especially on Grindr because they are very upfront about what they want there and always ask about it.

BUT ALSO I do need at least one partner who wants to explore a bunch of things with me. Because I have a LONG list of things I want to do. And also I need to be more experienced as a top, which I have had very limited experience in. Mostly I’ve been a bottom. Anyway blah blah blah ha ha I just want my sex life to elevate.

Watch me play Carmilla! It’s not done yet, but a lot of features are working so you can see those. Also the cemetery level is near perfect and you can see that again (it’s been cleaned up!).

Also I narrate this game play so it’s kinda silly. But you can hear my genuine anxiety when the timer is nearing the end in the cemetery level! I was worried I would lose, and instead I beat it, but I pressed a button too soon for the calming almost winning screen to stay for very long. I have lots to fix! Like if I just add wait for seconds on the code for the last game, it would hold that screen long enough to see it.

Also it needs a lot more sound design, and I’m not done with the Diner yet either. And not all the conversations are enabled and some of the health bars aren’t in the right spot or the right layer or the right size. And the falling in love thing is still being coded and I am trying multiple different ways to get it to do what I want but honestly it’s going to take a lot more work.

BUT I feel like the development of this game is nearing the end and I’m pretty confident it will be done by the end of March. At least done enough that my friends can properly play test it for me. After I do that and get feedback and work on it a little more, it should be ready to release on itch.io. So that’s exciting!!!

OHIP approved my top surgery! YAY I got funded. I still have to pay like, $3000 for contouring because that isn’t covered by OHIP. But that’s fine, I have that much money. I don’t know when I am going to do it, I need to get a consultation first and then I have to schedule it around a big project that is hopefully happening this year. So it might not happen until next winter. Or else it will have to happen in the early summer if I can get in that fast. I also have to find some friends who are willing to drop by and help me out while I am recovering. And I’m just always trying to be so independent but there are friends I know who would feel ok dropping by, if they still live here at that point.

I’m excited about my upcoming vacation to San Diego for my birthday. I want to do so many things! And then we are going to Joshua Tree for a couple of nights. We have an Airbnb near the beach in San Diego, so that’s fun. I just wanted to be somewhere sunny and have fun. ALSO maybe I’m just going to start going away for my birthdays, since that’s what I did last year too when I went to New Orleans.

Posey is good. I am discovering she likes things like apple if it’s a small enough piece. I thought she didn’t care for apple. Actually I thought I didn’t care for apple either, but I’ve been buying honeycrisps and they’re so good.

My diet is getting better since I’ve gotten on T. I think it’s because I’m more motivated to build muscle so I’m more obviously looking masculine. So I am eating a lot of high protein things like nuts and peanut butter. And peanut butter cliff bars are amazing and I am also drinking high protein shakes when I work out. And I’ve started drinking a glass of lactose free milk before bed because I read that it helps you build muscle in your sleep. And since I’ve been eating more apples I’m starting to do better with my fruit intake. I also eat berries but that was always true. I also don’t eat so much candy, before I used to eat TONS of candy and my triglycerides were high. And now I barely eat candy. I still get sweet cravings at night though.

I’m doing better overall I think. I can see ways my body and face are changing and that makes me happy. Also my voice keeps getting deeper and keeps cracking and things. So that is pretty affirming. I might just end up being a muscly guy with a square jaw and a deep voice and I think I could live with that. I mean there are other things that have changed that aren’t immediately apparent though. I think after top surgery a lot of my dysphoria will be resolved. I don’t have too much bottom dysphoria, so I think that will be the end of my surgeries unless I decide on metoidioplasty. But that’s a ways off. But who knows you know I can’t say for sure all the things that will happen in my life. I do want to do a name and gender change on my ID, so I’m going to need to get a letter from my doctor and pay all the things to update it all the places. Such a drag. I dread it just because of the paperwork involved. But I want to do most of these things soon before fascism really gets bad here and makes transitioning harder. I mean it might be fine though I don’t know. I’ve found the moral panic over trans people really tiresome.

I remember when being gay was appalling to most people though, and I do remember how people tried to tie our community to pedophilia a long time ago. So it’s kind of like I’m just old enough to see these weird cis-heterosexually driven moral panics rise up again and again. They don’t always work, but sometimes they do! So it’s best to stay vigilant I suppose. Like they worked in Nazi Germany. They half failed in the USA after gay marriage was legalized but then they’re coming back so I dunno. Canada is still pretty good. I likely won’t leave here to live in another country, unless shit went down. But whatever.

My vampire video game is nearing the end. I installed a dialogue system on the BDSM Club level, and now all the characters say stuff. I made it so you can choose to bite someone by pressing “B” instead of just touching them. And that totally resolved an issue of it not being consensual by anyone when they got bit. There are still consequences if you kill someone. I fixed the persistent data issue where the vampire health bar was not updating in each level you played. That was a simple fix in the end, I just needed a static float I think. It was a static something or another that the game could remember from level to level. So that’s ONE qualification to win fixed. I’m pretty happy with how it is turning out.

I need to finish the Diner level and put in all the people to talk with there. I also think I need a couple more people on the street level. And then I need to put the dialogue system into the Diner and Street levels. And then figure out how to code a character following the vampire through multiple levels. That’s probably going to be the most challenging. Then I have to write code to check if these two things are met for the character to win. I don’t think that will be too too hard. After that and tying up loose ends like the game over screens and the start screen and game play instructions screen, I think it will be done! I am anticipating finishing by the end of March. Then I can get my Canada Council Final Report in and move on!

I also need to write a script. And so far all my creative time has been going to this game. I find it very hard to switch my creative brain over between projects, which is too bad. I have people interested in this script though and it’s not done at all so I really do need to figure out a way to get it up to speed. Plus I was asked to read at Glad Day in April and they want a screenplay so like obviously I’m just going to read a scene or two, but I need to write it. So maybe that will motivate me. I kind of ended up getting a lot of grants one year and obviously I need to finish them so I can get more. And I want to apply for a big project after this that will go over a few years, so I need to clear these two final reports so I can apply. AHHH I also need to fill out my travel grant final report.

I was asked to do a short residency this summer but I had to turn it down because I need some space to do this bigger project. It’s too bad there’s not enough of me to go around.

I am super conscious of how much my time is worth these days. Like, if someone else will do something for me if I pay them for it, I would much rather do that so I can work on my projects. I know this is pretty privileged though. When I think about my life when I had so little energy and was working a long demeaning job like call centre work, I could not muster up energy for projects like I can now. I don’t think I want to teach either because I’ve also seen some people feel demeaned by that job too. I like mentoring people in more informal ways if I’m getting compensated, but ugh, teaching university classes sounds awful. I’m sorry I can’t do it!

Anyway. Blah blah blah I gotta go to the dentist in a bit so I should go I guess before I get stuck writing and never finish this.

OMG it took me so long to write another entry here! I used to write more frequently. Anyway, I did get locked out of my site for a few days, so it took a while to get back here AND have time to write.

I don’t know, things are good. I solved that problem in my vampire game of the character needing to kill everyone to see consequences. Now it just takes killing one other character to face consequences. Right now my issue is trying to program persistent data so that the Vampire health meter is the same when she switches levels. Then I’m going to be drawing more assets, because the big thing after that is going to be putting in a dialogue system. I have all these hopes for elegant detailed conversation but realistically I know I can only program short conversations between the vampire and the characters. I know you can buy premade dialogue systems, which definitely is tempting. I also have a materials budget from McMaster so I could spend it on that. I don’t know. I tried to buy another premade thing from the asset store but it wasn’t doing the code I wanted. So I didn’t use it.

I also made the diner level, it needs people in it and a few more details. But it looks pretty cool. I think the wallpaper is kind of ugly tho and I’m wondering if I should make it a white diner with red accents. Ahhh!

Work is good. Busy! Besides that there’s been some work on my feature so that has been exciting. Hopefully things go forward this year. It’s been such a long development process and it’s exciting to finally be heading into soft prep. But we have to get some money together so it’s gonna be a bit.

I’ve been doing a residency at McMaster so I’m trying to be on campus twice a week. This week I only went once tho, because I saw an astrologer on Wednesday night and it went quite late. So I needed to sleep in.

(CW for weight talk in next paragraph)
I am still hovering at the same weight I was when I came back from Austria. It’s nice I guess. I also wonder how much of my body changing is because I’m building more muscle? Testosterone does do things to your metabolism also so it’s likely also helping. I still eat a lot, I’m not starving myself. But I exercise more which is making my body feel good. I’m going to the gym later this evening. I’ve been going a couple times a week. I just do cardio there but I think I’m going to try and get a personal trainer or someone to show me how to use the weight machines. Because I’ve been doing dumbbells at home to gain muscle but the weight machines look fun and like I could actually work out with heavier weights.

Anyway it’s just been work these days, haven’t done a lot of socializing outside of that. It’s nice that I work with cool people as a general rule, they are all positive people. Oh no my hand is shaky! Why is that? I totally just ate and had some juice so it can’t be low blood sugar. Plus my health has improved and I’m not pre-diabetic anymore anyway.

I’m trying to become one of those people who casually tidies throughout the day. I did some today, it went pretty decently but of course things got all messy since then.

Posey has been doing great, she loves her walks, she loves snoozing next to me, and she’s more perky on a walk since she got smaller. I love her. I’m so glad I get to be with her. I feel fortunate!

I’m pretty happy overall these days actually, which has been really nice for me. Definitely an improvement since I was taking Depo-Provera and got all suicidal. But now I’m not on any birth control and I’m on a list to see a gynecologist to get my tubes tied but it will be months before that happens.