I’m so exhausted. I went to bed late last night and then woke up early because I wanted to google something I was curious about. And then the dogs wanted to get up. So it was 6:30am and I got up. I will try to have a nap today I guess. But also yesterday I forgot my Vyvanse and it made me SO fucking sleepy all day, I didn’t realize I didn’t take my morning meds until 5pm, and that’s too late to take Vyvanse. So this morning I DID take my Vyvanse, so maybe it will keep me awake.

It’s too hot in my apartment. It works best with the window and porch door open to let air through, because the air conditioner is WEAK.

I’m genuinely afraid I will probably die of a heat related illness. Like heatstroke or something. I have crappy air conditioning and I’m on psych meds that interfere with how my body deals with the heat. I know I have dealt with the heat this far. And it’s not even that hot of a day today. But it’s always this time of year that I look forward to the fall when it’s leather jacket season again.

We are supposed to get air conditioning in our co-op in the next two years. I really hope so. I’m so tired of this.

I had a hookup last night with an insanely sexy construction worker but it was SO HOT in my apartment that we sweated all over the sheets and then I was laying there alone with my dog on damp sheets all night and it was GROSS. I really need to wash these sheets actually. It’s really bad! I hope I can wash my clothes and sheets in two loads, sometimes summer surprises me with how much laundry I can do when it’s shorts instead of jeans.

My puppy ripped my sheets, so I need new sheets. But poor boy summer continues so I’m living with these ripped sheets. I feel like a tragic trans bachelor. And I’m back to surviving on chef boyaredee and beans and oatmeal. So it’s very poor diet wise. Although I am having so many blueberry and fruit smoothies and those are helpful I guess.

The dietician said it’s better for me to eat blueberries than drink them. But I don’t want to chew on a bowl of frozen blueberries. They’re frozen for a reason! A smoothie reason.

I’m doing laundry. My sheets are too gross to even contemplate sleeping in them for one more night.

I wish I had in suite laundry. I have to use a shared laundry room and I get anxiety in there if it’s busy, or if people leave their laundry in too long and I have to move it. Shared laundry can be such a tense environment! Hate it.

Anyway I don’t know if there’s anything terribly remarkable to comment on today. Not really, besides climate change sucks. And poverty sucks. I still owe my therapist for our last session before she went on vacation, and I owe a dog sitter, and I’m sending emails to family members for grocery money. It’s annoying. I’ve been waiting months for one payment from a university. I am tired of that. And CRA STILL needs to update my name and now the Business CRA says I have to make a specific change with the regular CRA, and regular CRA has a three hour wait because civil servants got cut back. It’s tiresome! And I find it hard to commit to hours at home by my phone and laptop, when I also need to do things like walk my dogs or get my meds or any multiple things that come up in a day. Three hours is very discouraging. And in the meantime I keep having to give out my deadname for one particular account. It’s SUCH a headache but honestly I just need to pick a day to stay home and do it. The minutia of bureaucracy will be the death of me.

I haven’t given an update on Todd recently, but he’s growing and learning. It’s his first summer and he is discovering the places in the house that are cooler, like being on the floor more, or laying next to the fridge, or in front of the fan. I feel like a bad dog dad for not being able to provide him with air conditioning. We do have a cooling mat for dogs, or we did. It got peed on a lot, I might have thrown it out. Todd is having lots of fun going for walks, there’s many things to pee on out there and he has perfected lifting a leg. He has ONE Ball, the other one is still undescended. The vet is unconcerned though and says they can get it out when he gets neutered. He isn’t getting denutted until it’s his birthday though. Or like, probably just after his birthday, so he gets a nice day. The vet says dachshunds shouldn’t be neutered until they are a year old and their growth plates have done a thing.

And Todd is probably the most classically dachshund dachshund I have had. He’s got a LONG skinny back, and a very dachshund face. Posey has kind of a shorter nose than him, I think she has a great grandma who was a chihuahua or something. One time a dog identifier filter said she was a chiweenie and she might be. But mostly dachshund. But Todd is like, very pretty and fits all the features. He’s a sweetheart.

It was so stressful when he was a baby. And having so many disturbed sleeps with him was hard. But he’s becoming quite a sweet dog now. I mean he always was, but he’s starting to mellow out a bit, unless he’s got the zoomies. It’s nice to see him maturing. And he’s very cuddly which was nice. He was always a cuddler though, he used to make me hold him while he slept. And he still does sometimes.

He was right next to me last night though, and he was so hot and I was so hot and the sheets were so sweated on and it was very uncomfortable.

If I keep having hookups the way I do, I think it might be time to get more than one sheet set at a time. I’ve been cheaping out because of poverty, but only having one set of sheets is SAD. And I can’t do laundry all the time or I have to enter the high anxiety forced social area looking like a slut.

ANYWAY I am not retiring from being a slut, but I am thinking more about wanting a romantic partner. But a romantic partner who is also a slut. Because then we would match better. I feel like I have so much I want to experience as a bisexual trans man, but I do think sometimes how nice it would be to have someone to travel with, or someone to make dinner with, or to go on dorky movie dates. All kinds of things that aren’t totally sexual. I still want the sexual aspect of it but also MORE variety in how I engage romantically with men or anyone that isn’t purely about having orgasms would be good. I think I need to rewrite my Grindr profile.

I am still on Tinder but I think I got shadowbanned for being trans. Serves me right for letting cis het women see me in their feed.

I have finally finished my transition video! I had a super strong urge to get it done this weekend, in time for a specific submission deadline. ALSO I knew I wasn’t going to add more media to the story. I tried to add some new images but it messed with the ending, which is a fairly strong ending. I went back and forth on the title. For a while it was going to be Man Oh Man! Then it was going to be Whatever Happened to Baby Dyke? Neither of those worked because except for maybe a couple of spots, it wasn’t really a comedy. Then I wanted it to be Sunlight Through Trees but there’s another film with a similar title so I had to adjust and now it’s Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees. The title comes from a dream I had when I was anaesthetized for my top surgery and saw myself in a forest looking up at the tree tops and the sunlight was coming through the leaves.

It was a long time coming together! I’ve been collecting images and voice memos and videos this whole transition and I kind of end the video in April of this year. I could have gone longer considering my two years on T was just this last week. But I feel like the arc of the story is better this way. Even though it ends before a lot more of the fucked up stuff happens in Canada.

I’m glad I have another video out there. Last year I spent the whole year finishing my video game, so I didn’t really have a video to show for a while. And games just aren’t as popular as films in regards to festivals etc. So I DID make a whole extensive video game, but I don’t think it was really celebrated. Which is too bad. I did show it at Union Docs which was nice, but we had technical difficulties.

But now I have a new video to show places, and it’s a more accurate video of who I am today. So much of my past work is about being a butch lesbian, and now I am a bisexual trans man. I suppose there was The Lost Art of the Future but I was so early in my transition that it was hard to see me as I am now. I mean the funny thing is very little changed. And yet so much DID change. I have a flat chest now, and a shaved head. And a deeper voice. And I think I smile more which is funny because in so many trans masculine transition timelines we end up not smiling to look more masculine. But I was just happy I think.

Anyway, I hope it gets picked up places. I did include a lot of the current anti-trans legislation that is being advanced in the US, Canada, and the UK. I was having trouble with the headlines looking ugly beyond just the ugly content, but I made some revisions and it’s way better now.

I’m working on my transition video again. I think I’m closer to being finished it. It needs credits. I have to find a better png of the Toronto Arts Council logo, because they funded it and I had some other logo in another project but the resolution quality sucked when I put it in my video. So yeah gotta fix that. If I could finish it this weekend that would be amazing. Sometimes it takes so long (and this did) but sometimes when I’m editing it can wrap up so quickly.

I feel like all the headlines are kind of a lot. But also they go away in the last 1/4 of the video where I am just talking about what I have noticed. So maybe it’s ok? I think the content of the headlines is also just gross since it’s anti-trans laws and politics in the USA and Canada. And the UK. So it’s kind of meant to be ugly. It’s hard to work with ugliness. I suppose I could also make the headlines skinnier by adding white to either side of the headline to make it look a bit better. Ahhh confusing. Trying to make this ugly stuff visually appealing. I might need to make them smaller, I looked at it again and I like the ones where it’s a little less obstructive. Like there are big spots where the date is there and I don’t mind that getting obstructed at times, but going over the image is driving me a bit crazy. I have to find a happy medium! And then do it to all of the videos.

It’s weird that this video has so little actual video in it. Like the background is video, but most of the images are stills, and the audio is all voice memos. I think I need to bulk up the audio track though. It’s needing something but I don’t know what. I don’t know what audio besides my voice would work. Like background audio. The seasons change but I don’t know if that is helpful. I mean maybe the audio IS just my voice and that’s ok. Because that’s such a big part of transition, the voice getting deeper.

ANYWAY taking a break and thinking about it. I might go to the gym in a bit. I went on Thursday and was gonna maybe go today or tomorrow. I haven’t been for most of this summer until this week and I really pushed myself in the chest press (55lbs!) and my pecs still hurt.

I am re-evaluating my relationship to cannabis, because I know I am way more productive when I’m not high. So I’m thinking of making more rules around my use. I used to not do it if I had work that day until I was done, but now I think I might wait until the evenings to do it even if I don’t have a scheduled work thing. Because to be honest I always have work that I have to do. I have projects going on all the time. And I need to catch up on all of them.

I also continued re-reading an old diary from the beginning of my transition and was like WOW I had my heart broken by three different people in three different ways and only one was a romantic heartbreak. But all the people I had conflict/heartbreak with were women/femmes. And I remember two of them were very specific about demonizing me for being a man, or demonizing me for deciding to take testosterone. And it’s funny when I look back on it now because I realize those types of reactions were the reasons I delayed transitioning for so long. I wasn’t looking forward to being evicted from the relative innocence I was assumed to have because I was a woman. It’s so weird. I’m glad those people don’t have the same influence on my life now. Only one is still in my life but we don’t talk as much as before and that’s better for me.

I FIXED THE UGLY ha ha I went back into my video and fixed the thing making it not work. Now I still gotta think about audio. I remember one time I made a video in art school for my sound class and they were like “The audio is just you talking though” and so ever since then I’ve been like omg me talking is not enough! But maybe it is enough. It’s a very text heavy monologue as I discovered things about my body. And even then I didn’t really get into everything that I noticed changing because it began as a record of my voice and face. I don’t have a piano ha ha. If I made an honest video about myself the soundtrack would probably all be Tori Amos ha ha only I can’t afford her. Maybe when I get a guitar I can make soundtracks for myself that have original tunes. I have a ukulele but I’m not going to try to learn and compose a 14 minutes song for ukulele for this video by the end of summer.

I did tune my ukulele this past week and tried to learn some chords, but I think I was high (see above paragraph about this) and I didn’t really delve too much. Besides the ukulele the only other musical instrument I have in my house is a harmonica my Grandpa kept in his bedside drawer. Which is adorable really but I don’t want to learn that right now either.

I remember when I was a kid I tried to learn to play a harmonica and I had a book and a tape and it kept saying this thing about how I had to BEND my breath or something and I found it so confusing I think I gave up. It was like that Schitt’s Creek Fold in the cheese thing. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BEND MY BREATH?!

I was hoping my transition would give me a satisfying big beard in my progression photos but that did not appear. I think there is something going on with my face hair but it’s all blonde and not very exciting. I keep shaving it off anyway. Some guys dye their hair so it’s darker.

Anyway I think I actually might finish my video this weekend! I am coming to terms with my audio only being my voice. And visually it DOES look really good, I just have to do some last edits to make it look the best it can be and where all the clips are doing the right thing. And put in my credits. I don’t know who all to thank though. Do I thank people who worked on my video? Or who helped me while I was transitioning? Or who were just around and supportive? All the images were taken by me almost. OH my friend Riki took a pic that I included. And we went on a vacation together where I filmed other stuff. I don’t know about thanking the doctors and nurses involved because part of me wants to preserve their anonymity. I will probably do cheap credits where I just thank a minimal amount of people. I would thank my therapist but I don’t want anybodies to know who she is. No!

A while ago I realized something sad. I have wanted to be famous since I was a kid, and I am famous to a certain degree amongst certain people. But it also means a lot of people watch what I post or do. And a while back I posted a pic of an ex/current friend and they felt self-conscious about being tagged and didn’t want their real instagram to be mentioned because it would mean other people would know their account. And I did untag them but I felt too big and sad. Not physically big, but like, a large personality with a lot of attention that a lot of people don’t want on themselves. It was kind of a lonely feeling and I wondered how many people avoided me because I was too famous for them to be comfortable with. And I know what people usually do is then surround themselves with other famous people but then THOSE famous people are also self-conscious about who is included in their public life. It’s frustrating. I wish these were Rich person concerns but I’m not rich. I’m mostly poor. I should have added “and Rich” to my wishes to be famous. A lot of people want to be Rich and Famous but for some reason I ended up just wanting to be Famous, or just articulating the famous part anyway.

I actually have been thinking a lot about making a project about being poor. I feel like there’s so many things I could say about it and how it forces you to make choices you don’t want to make. It’s one of those projects that needs to simmer for a while though.

Two years ago I took my first subcutaneous injection of 20mg testosterone cypionate in a nurse’s office at my clinic. Maybe it was 25mg. I don’t totally remember my starting dose only that it was low to begin with. Because I was still tippy-toeing into my transition and thought I would “microdose” testosterone. That idea soon went out the window as things got better and better for me and I wanted to embrace being a trans man. I still did a slow/low introduction to testosterone but over the first year eventually ended up at 70mg. There was a brief period where I went to 80mg this year but then I could not cry for the life of me and was low level irritable all the time and HATED how it felt. So I went back down to 70mg and have been a happier more level human who still can cry when I get upset and no longer gets irrationally pissed off.

It’s been a miracle hormone for me. I know if I made a list of all the things that improved I would still forget all the amazing things. My orgasms changed which was fascinating, they are more like male orgasms now. I hear this works the other way with trans women who go on estrogen too. I got more confident, I got more outgoing. I started wanting to work out more, and eating more protein rich foods. I went from having a sweet tooth to being ravenous for any type of protein filled food especially peanut butter. I got hungrier more overall, it’s calmed a bit but definitely in the first year I was devouring all the food I had in my cupboard and fridge. SO HUNGRY like that No Face guy in Spirited Away.

I also got less romantically obsessed with crushes, which was nice. My desires changed, the people I desired changed. The way I found dates changed while I navigated gay hook up culture. I also got a lot of little romantic mini-crushes on men and non-binary people and women, but they didn’t devastate me when they didn’t work out the way I was devastated by romance on an estrogen dominant system. I felt a lot calmer and patient about dating. And there were so many people to hook up with and flirt with. I live in a big city and I know that’s part of the reason it’s so much easier getting dates now. But still it feels nice to actually feel desirable, something I didn’t really feel as a butch lesbian.

I started trying to get into more men’s spaces, but for most of the transition so far I’ve ended up in mixed queer spaces where men and women aren’t entirely sure where I belong or what I am looking for. Am I a dyke? Am I a fag? So many men have facial hair and as a Plains Cree man that has been one of the things I ended up lacking compared to other people with testosterone dominant systems. I feel like if I had a beard it would be easier for queer men to read me as a bi fag. Unfortunately no because no beard so far. I sometimes want to get bisexual flag pins or something so people know I’m open to a lot of different types of people. But then I guess they would still not be totally sure what I am or what I have between my legs.

When I got top surgery, my ability to be read as a man made huge strides. I got sirred all the time when I went to London UK, and it was nice! No one really thought otherwise. A guy bumped into me going into the men’s toilet (it was disgusting, that toilet in particular) but he said “Sorry mate!” And it was such a British way of being included with the men. No one called me mate before.

I learned a lot about men’s bathrooms. One is that often a bathroom will have ONE stall for men, and a lot of the time if it is busy someone will be taking a dump in it. AND that takes a lot longer than sitting to pee. So I have waited for a long time for that one stall. I appreciate gender neutral bathrooms that just say if they have stalls or urinals, because honestly I would prefer the bathroom with all the stalls. I am growing tired of the one stall though and am hoping in this next year I can graduate to a stand-to-pee device so I can use the more plentiful urinals in the men’s room. ALSO that toilet in Trainspotting, Scotlands Worst Toilet? That toilet def exists because I saw it in London and I saw it in Buenos Aires. It’s like, you hover and pee and wash your hands and try to never think about it again.

I listened to my voice changing and watched things in my pants get bigger and muscles bulk up and fat redistribute. And my hairline changed and although my hair had been thinning since I was 20, now it was REALLY thin and I started shaving my head.

I think shaving my head was the hardest thing to adjust to about my new embodiment of Theo, because hair is so important to anyone, even cis men. So giving it up was hard. And it was awkward to look in the mirror for a while. Until I got used to it, and then I just saw a sexy guy with a shaved head in the mirror. I recently watched a Matteo Lane stand up bit about his hair transplant surgery. They take TEN HOURS to do hair transplant surgery!

My top surgery I think took maybe two and a half hours? Maybe less I don’t totally remember because I was knocked out. Maybe two hours? I know I went under at 3:30pm and I think I was getting discharged at 5:30 or 6:00pm.

Now I want to get bottom surgery and so I am starting the process, next month we write the letter for funding. I chose a surgeon I want, we’ll see how it goes and I won’t say her name here until I know if it’s for sure, or more likely after it’s done. My nurse practitioner who has been helping me with all my trans health related care sat down with me and went over some basics of the surgery I want. The surgery only takes an hour! Way faster than top surgery. Obviously it’s not phalloplasty because that’s a very long involved surgery. BUT this surgery I want could lead to phalloplasty if I desired. I was talking about it with my therapist and was like “I don’t think I want it, but maybe?” She said “You don’t want it for now.” Which is true, I think over time my mind has shifted about how I want to live in my particular gender. And honestly I don’t think I can say things will stay the same, because I just recently got more comfortable with adding one more part to my bottom surgery that I thought I would be fine without. But now I’m like hell yeah I want balls! But also you know, I might change my mind. Bottom surgery probably won’t happen for another year or two so I could shift how I feel. I don’t know!

There’s a group of people on reddit who want more ambiguous genitals with like, a dick and a vagina at the same time. And as a bottom that’s really appealing to me too. I know people have all kinds of reasons why they want their bodies to have or not have certain elements. But for myself that feels more like what I will end up going with.

I also changed my name and gender on all my ID and that was a fucking PAIN IN THE ASS. I still am looking at a 3 hour phone call with CRA to update something and just DREADING it and avoiding it. But everything else is changed except my name at my alma maters. I think maybe someday I will try to get my degrees re-issued with my real name on them. But all my ID matches me, what I look like now and who I am and my gender. Getting through the borders is a lot easier now, although admittedly I’ve only crossed the American border and not other borders on my new passport. And there was that snag the last time until they saw my status card and said I could come to America and work any time because I have status in both countries. BUT that wasn’t a gender related snag at all, which was nice. When I left Buenos Aires my passport was still from before I got my facial tattoo even, so the airport person was concerned I was not the person in the passport. BUT new passport is much more accurate of a reflection of me. So yeah, a relief!

I know I can’t ever be stealth, because anyone could google me and find out who I am. But to be more stealth in situations where I’m with strangers is kind of ideal. Like yeah I want to be able to walk into the mens room and use the toilet (just maybe not the horrible shitbowls I’ve seen sometimes), I want to be able to go into the men’s locker room and not get weird looks. I want to be able to walk around with my shirt off at the beach or whatever.

So a lot of changes, essentially I still feel like the same person. But things definitely shifted for me even just internally in how I relate to the world. In good ways. My mental health really improved too, like a low level sadness I was just accepting sort of vanished. It’s nice.

So I opened an old diary from earlier in the pandemic and read through a tragic relationship. And wow, with the benefit of time and distance I can see so many things that were wrong about that situation. Like, there were a lot of hot/cold, push/pull stuff going on in the relationship. Long silent treatments and then these weird apologies and then it would happen again, over and over. And for some reason instead of walking away like I would now, I would stay and try to work things out. I don’t know, I would also take on too much responsibility for why things were fucking up in that connection. Like I had legit reasons to complain and ask for better behaviour but instead I would bend over backwards trying to fix it.

And I was so convinced it was meant to be when it was just a big mess. Wow when I read my diary from that time period I just want to tell myself to give it up and walk away and save my dignity. UGH. Gross.

My therapist recently asked if the reason that my relationships haven’t really worked out so far is because I’m being protected from unsuitable partners and I kind of think it’s true. It’s a valid question anyway, especially since for the most part I’m glad most of my romantic relationships either ended or transitioned to friendships. I just feel so bummed that I wasted so much time looking back and pining for someone who couldn’t even be respectful to me when we were dating. Ugh it’s depressing. BUT also I did have to go through kind of a romantic transitory period while transitioning where I wasn’t spending time on someone else. So in a way it was good I was single the beginning of my transition.

I think the other good thing about reading old diaries is seeing how I have changed so much. Before testosterone, I was so fuelled by romantic obsession. Estrogen is a wacky hormone! And it’s not for me, although I know everyone has a bit of estrogen in their system. But my testosterone is more dominant now and although I do get romantic feelings for people, they’re not obsessive like before. Like they are curiosities. And if someone wants to follow up on my curiosity for them maybe I would let the romantic feelings get bigger. But so far no one has really picked it up. So I don’t have big romantic feelings for anyone really right now. I have crushes and stuff but they tend to start with sexual desire more than romantic desire. I’m not aromantic though. Just, things are different.

I feel bad for myself when I was hopelessly in love with someone who didn’t love me at all. And I just kept trying to make it work. But if I was dating that person now, I would have walked away as soon as they started being inconsistent.

Also I just don’t think I have the same feeling of romantic scarcity that I had when I was dating them. Being a lesbian and looking for lovers was fucking HARD and I was pretty demisexual I think so it was hard finding people that matched. But now dating as a bisexual trans man, there’s so many more options and even just having sex and finding sexual partners is ridiculously easy. I’m not romantically dating anyone right now, but I don’t feel like, as almost desperate as I felt dating as a lesbian. I feel more calm and centred and like, if someone comes along then great, but in the meantime I am doing my career and having casual sex and hanging out with friends. Also I don’t feel jealousy the same way. Like, I can date or fool around with people and not get anxious when they are fucking other men/people. Things are just a lot easier.

It’s hard to look at someone who broke my heart and be like “Wow they did me a favour.” But they did. I don’t know, reading this old stuff was illuminating.

I also finally deleted their phone number and blocked their Instagram. So it’s like putting the final nail in the coffin I guess. I’m sure they don’t even check up on me though. And their Instagram was always private so I never really knew anything about them since the end of our friendship/relationship. Wow that was a weird time in my life. I am so relieved it’s over. And hopefully I can stay on testosterone so I’m never that lost in “love” feelings again.

I’m really busy right now, ever since I got home. I’ve been catching up on work. I didn’t have a lot of time for work in Saskatoon and now it’s like, back to all my jobs. I’ve been having meetings and stuff. I actually missed two meetings by accident, one was because I put the time in my calendar in Saskatoon and forgot to update it to EST. So it was two hours behind in my calendar and I missed it! And then the other meeting I missed because I was hyperfocused on doing my syllabus. So that was too bad but I caught up with all those people now. I really need to set more alarms for myself, I lose track of time so easily. My calendar used to be a good enough reminder but it’s not working like it used to.

I was throwing my hands up in the air and like, giving up on Canada Council grants. But then someone convinced me to give it another shot. So I am slowly getting all the materials together for the fall deadline. I was also intimidated by doing the budget, but the budget is not as horrible as I assumed. I have one project I think I can do in two years, and then hopefully another project I can finish in a year. BUT ALSO I might just make this one big project a three year project. Because it does have a lot of steps, AND I can include another project in at the same time. Because I would like to work on more than one project.

My transition video was on hold during travels. So I haven’t worked on it for a while. I need to edit in a lot more things. It’s taking so much longer to edit now that there are background videos, so I need to figure that out, or hit render more I guess. I am hoping to finish it by the end of this summer though.

OH something exciting in my transition did happen! ***TMI WARNING****

I had an appointment with my nurse practitioner who deals with trans health care to talk about metoidioplasty. Which is a bottom surgery. I’m hoping to get a simple release metoidioplasty next summer. So that’s a thing. I don’t feel like I have to fit a particular shape of a guy though. Like I do feel like a man, but I’m ok with genitals that aren’t like a cis man’s genitals. But they could work in a way I appreciate more. So that’s happening. I have to pick a surgeon. She gave me the email address to ask if OHIP has worked with funding particular surgeons, so I have it narrowed down to three or four surgeons and am going to send an email about them. There’s one in the USA I particularly want, but I’m not sure I’m small enough fat wise for her. It’s complicated!!! I hate bmi stuff but yeah it comes up a lot.

I’m being bothered by my fighting dogs right now. Play fighting. Well I think Todd is being annoying to Posey. TODD cut it out! He’s such a brat. Puppy adolescence is no joke! He’s very willful and ridiculous. And he goes to sleep so late and he wakes up so early. It’s hard because he’s bouncing all over me while he’s awake. So it makes falling asleep and staying asleep difficult.

I’m doing the syllabus for my class so I’ve been looking through the online journals and stuff for readings. I’m realizing I may have to revise which films from which directors I am showing because there’s more writing about one film than another.

I’m having a good time otherwise I suppose. I also have to get materials ready for a workshop later in August because some of it has to be translated into Spanish. I’m hanging out with my dogs and mostly sticking close to home. It’s nice just being home for a little bit. Although I remember I got antsy about wanting to travel while I couldn’t because of my name change going through. So maybe that’s just my curse, to want to travel when I can’t and want to stay home when I have to travel.

I do like traveling though. I think the anxiety comes from me needing to get dog sitters all the time because I have sucky dog babies ha ha. They’re sweet but yeah, organizing that is stressful.

I have therapy on Monday! I had to skip this past week because I was traveling and then she was unable to reschedule. So I am gonna be happy to get to talk to her again soon. I haven’t seen her since before Saskatoon so that’s a whole thing to talk about. And I guess other things happened. I got a job! That’s right, I didn’t talk to her after that happened yet. I did tell her in an email because I will be able to pay her higher rate when I get paid. I need to redo my budget actually.

I’m struggling for the rest of the summer though, because money is few and far between right now. So that will be a pain. Posey had mystery bloody poops for 24 hours and I almost had to find money for the vet, but then she got better and I think it was just dog anxiety because she went to my friend’s house with their roommates for a night. Blood poops, so dramatic! She’s fine now. There was a series of texts back and forth about her poops. So that poo emoji IS helpful.

I made it back to Saskatoon for my first time in two years. It’s been really nice. Something I like about coming back to my territory is I learn new things about myself every time. I visited my cousin and she let me try on my late Grandpa’s cowboy hat. And even though it’s prob 2 sizes too big for me right now, it does look really good on me. And then my Uncle John decided to give it to me, so I have that now and it’s really nice! I actually also decided I want a felt cowboy hat. And then I talked to my Dad yesterday and he offered to give me his Grandfather’s cowboy hat from the 50’s which is a brown Stetson flat top. So someday I will see it I suppose!

I also visited my Dad obviously, and I’ve seen my Mom a lot and it has been nice. I saw a couple of cousins and a bunch of friends. And my Uncle John and one of my fave exes/friends. I also went to Sasktel Jazzfest and took mushrooms with my friends and watched Jewel and Melissa Etheridge. I knew very few of their songs but it was still fun. There was a thunderstorm when Melissa got on and I was surprised they went ahead with it because normally the Jazzfest cancels outdoor concerts during a thunderstorm. I guess Melissa’s team was determined to play though. And like, the rain did let up about ten minutes into her concert so it was fine really. She didn’t get hit by lightning anyway.

I also got a psychic reading from one of my fave Youtuber tarot readers, Cosmic Tarot. It was SO fucking accurate holy crap! I was pretty amazed. I’d been watching her collective tarot readings for Taurus and also Sagittarius and they often had points that resonated with me. And I like her style of doing readings. So I had to get a personal reading because I was looking for a psychic and she really tapped into my energy it was incredible. I’ve had a couple of disappointing psychic readings in the last couple of years, so I was so pleased with this one. The other ones just didn’t “fit” with what I was experiencing at the time. But this one made sense in so many ways. I won’t detail it here.

But one thing I have been noticing which she picked up is this closer connection with a spiritual world. I’ve noticed it since I began transitioning. I mean I knew spirits were around and have had experiences before, but this is getting more and more clear in the last two years. I’ve been able to communicate with my Grandpa without any tools or anything, just in this space. I don’t know how to explain it. Telepathically I guess. It’s not like I have to say my answers or questions out loud. But it def feels like he communicates with me and I “hear” his voice although it’s not an audible hearing if that makes sense. Also I’ve been seeing spirits finally. A lot of stuff in my peripheral vision, but also some full on apparitions in front of me. One was a little girl back at the Whaley House in San Diego. But mostly they are lights or shadows, like orbs and light forms and stuff.

There’s also some spiritual stuff I found out about myself by coming back home and talking with relatives who have some spiritual knowledge. So that’s been interesting, and of course not something I will talk about here in public except that it makes things make sense for me. Like protective things and that sort of stuff.

It’s been a good trip, and I am so relieved because I was apprehensive about coming back to Saskatoon. I mean, not everyone is getting my name or pronouns right. But they are trying which does mean something to me. And no one has been acting fucked up to me or anything. Most strangers here just see me as a dude which is nice. And my friends are all still my friends and I got to see a lot of them and catch up on Saskatoon gossip. There’s a whole kink/leather world in this town that I was never really a part of while I lived here, so hearing stuff about that was kind of cool. I was never really a part of the film community here either. I’m not sure why that was, I just didn’t gel I guess. I am much more rooted in Toronto now.

I like coming back to Saskatoon for this visit, but I go back home tomorrow evening and I am pretty sure I’ll be ready by then. If I stayed two weeks it might start to drag on and get weird/shitty. But I think this is like, eight days, and it’s been fine. I’m also staying with a friend instead of my Mom and that’s been good. BUT I have seen my Mom a lot, like almost every day except for a couple days. I think it’s better for us that I’m not at her house the whole time. Like, we can see each other and be happy and then go to our separate spaces at the end of the day and it’s fine. Even before things got weird last time, she would always be a bit stressed out by me being at her house, like the way I would take up space and stuff. And I dunno, I guess I feel weird being a grown up and being in my Mom’s house all the time. SO I think it was a good move.

I miss my dogs!!! I love them so much and I get to be home for a good long while when I return to Toronto. My next trip is to London Ontario for a few days to get settled in as the Artist in Residence/Professor. I’m going to be commuting I think with one night a week in London and taking Via rail there and back. So we’ll see how long that lasts. I mean it has to last ha ha it’s my job. I just got a teaching position there for the Fall term which is a film studies class so I am making up the syllabus now and I think it will be super fun. It’s Indigenous Cinema! I am having a hard time whittling down which films to show, there’s so many good ones!!! It’s really nice that we have this problem, that Indigenous Cinema is so deep and beautiful from so many filmmakers and so many countries. I mean even though the last few months was rough, I really do love the Indigenous film community and all the work people have done.

I’m trying to crack my self consciousness around dancing and music. Like, I just feel very awkward dancing in public which is kind of weird because I used to love dancing in public until someone made fun of me. Which is shitty, esp since they were also a person who likes to dance so I don’t even know why they were acting like that. ANYWAY I am still very awkward about it. And not going to dances which isn’t helping.

I’ve also got a mental block around being musical. Because of my Mom being annoyed by me singing when I was a kid. So I’m trying to break that barrier too, not so much about singing (although I do like to sing alone at home a lot) but more around playing music. I have a ukulele but I haven’t played it in a long time. I actually would like to try getting an acoustic guitar. I think I could have fun learning how to play it. I don’t really want to play in public or in a band or anything, I just want to do it for my own satisfaction. Like spend Sunday afternoons learning a song or something. I don’t know!

I’m also trying to get back into Duolingo even though I find their decision to use AI suspect. ALSO I heard they got rid of the gay content so that they could still operate in Russia which I think is a bad move. Personally I don’t like when my community is eliminated in online spaces. Just a feeling I get.

I am practicing Spanish and German. I forgot all my Spanish but actually so far it hasn’t been bad. I also forgot German or so I thought but I’m doing ok with that too. Maybe I didn’t forget as much as I thought I did. I’m not paying for Duolingo Plus. It’s just regular Duolingo. And it told me today that the German word for Job interview is Jobinterview. But then Google translate told me Job Interview in German is vorstellungsgespräch which is very different than just two English words squished together. I would rather learn the big unwieldy German word because accuracy is important.

I don’t know how I will have time to add learning two languages and a musical instrument into my life, considering all the work I’m still doing, but I may as well. I don’t even have to be doing it all the time anyway. But I haven’t got the guitar yet, so it will be a while before learning the instrument comes up in my day to day life.

I have to empty my sharps into my big sharps container! Ahh I wonder if I should take mine to the pharmacy finally? I have like, a GIANT tub of sharps and it’s probably just getting to the line where they ask you to stop. So I should prob take it in and exchange it.

I remember I had a job for a couple of summers where I would go look for used needles in Saskatoon’s inner city, and one time my partner and I were looking and someone was like “Someone left their recyclables over there!” And it had been some street involved person’s secret stash of used needles. I think we took it but left an empty sharps container behind. I don’t totally remember. I just remember finding it cute they called it recyclables.

Harm reduction is important!

Man! That box of needles looks rank, ha ha I think I’ll do it now since I need to get toilet paper anyway and it’s finally cooled off.

I have to record a workshop on Friday on Procreate and Unity and it’s not an exhaustive workshop, more like a demo to get people used to the tools. So I’ve been all angsty about pre-recording it because my Macbook has been overheating and shutting down when I use Unity with other programs open. And I had to record Procreate on a separate device. The Procreate demo went fast, I was just making a background and some sprites. 12 minutes! There’s other demos that go more into detail, but I realized I only have an hour for this whole workshop. So I still needed to make AN ENTIRE GAME in Unity. So I did that too tonight, in MANY small screen recordings. I was stopping every time the computer was thinking and you know, not able to do anything, as it does. And the parts at the end when I had to learn why something wasn’t working, I cut that too and just ended up showing what worked. The game itself is not totally finished, it’s just an intro to unity. But the player moves and it has a function.

I didn’t know what kind of game to make until today. I know how to do collecting objects, so I needed to do a destroy script, only I called it PickBerry, and the game was to pick berries off a bush. So the berry sprites disappear when the hand touches them. And then I wanted them to make a bloop noise, so I tried to do PlayOneShot but that DID NOT WORK. I ended up doing all kinds of stuff off camera to get it to work. And it DOES work now, and I showed what I changed to do that. So I cut out my boring attempts to solve it because no one needs that in a workshop. And anyway, the screen recordings are 41 minutes without a lot of editing. I deleted one moment when I forgot to stop the screen recorder. I made 20 screen recordings and then put them all in Premiere Pro and tomorrow I will edit more out of it. So in the end I DID manage to record a demo under 40 minutes. Which gives me extra time to blab about my career in games. My career in games is like, small, I made two games. But there’s things about it that I’ve learned I guess ha ha.

I had a great time in New York last week, I came back on Monday. I saw a lot of art, I went to the Guggenheim and saw the Jenny Holzer show which was incredible. She is one of my favourite artists. I got a hat from it that says “Protect Me From What I Want.” I wanted the hoodie though, and I think I WILL order it when I get more money. It says “Savour Kindness Because Cruelty Is Always Possible Later.”

I got lost in Central Park and then found and saw a John Lennon mascot which I initially thought was Jesus until I saw the little glasses.

I also went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and let me tell you that was HEAVY. Holy fuck! There’s a wall that has human remains behind it from bodies they are still struggling to identify. And the main exhibit in the middle which tells the story of that day is really intense but you can’t take photos in it. Which I think is reasonable considering the content. The part that made me cry was a scrolling text of all the voice mails of people checking on their friend who had been in one of the planes. I was just reading them but you could listen to them too. But I was already crying too hard reading them to be able to listen, I knew it would make me even more of a mess.

I later was thinking about as Indigenous people we don’t really have a museum about our trauma. And maybe we don’t need it, but also maybe we do? Maybe it needs to be laid out there for non-Indigenous people to learn about what happened. Because people just kind of don’t want to look at what happened to us. And also I think we’re very private about what kind of trauma is in our communities as a safety thing. I dunno, just some thoughts.

I went to the sexy party for trans masculine people and friends the same day as the 9/11 Museum which was a VERY AWKWARD switch from the emotions of the day. I think if I had planned better I would have gone to see art that day instead. BUT the party was lots of fun and I met new people which was cool. Someone recognized me in the backroom and told me how much they loved my films which was kind of hilarious.

I feel good about doing the demo for Unity today, because I realized I DO know a lot about how to make a game. I’m teaching a class on video game development in the Winter term so I’m happy I’ll be able to do it. I don’t know if I will have to pre-record all the Unity demos though. Because it does cut out the boring time where the computer is working and can’t do anything. But also the class time is longer than an hour FOR SURE and hopefully students are following along.

I also have this for that class now which might be a good intro to Unity and C#. I’ve got to think of specific functions I want to teach students, and how they can find out answers to their own specific functions they want in their games. I’m going to be learning how to make a character that can jump this fall, so hopefully I’ll be able to give them more options for their player controller. Because all my players have been floating heads so far which are very easy to program.

I’ve also got to make some curriculum for a workshop next month on Storytelling, because it needs to get translated in advance into Spanish. So I’ll be doing that. I like teaching skills, I feel like people need to be empowered to tell stories in videos and video games and I know how to do that nerdy stuff and like talking to students. So it’s fun for me, plus getting paid to do it is helpful for me as a struggling artist.

I’m so exhausted now. I spent a lot of the day making sure most of the code I was using was going to work. Because I had to type it all in again. And I think being apprehensive about if the Macbook crashed and deleted screen recordings. But it never crashed because I quit Chrome before working on it. Chrome is a RAM hog. Ugh. Hate it. So yeah in the end it worked out. But I’m glad I recorded today because I can edit it and output it tomorrow morning before I have to go somewhere.

I have to see my doctor who did my Salpingectomy tomorrow afternoon, I think it will be fine, my incisions FINALLY stopped spitting out stitches and healed over. So that’s a relief. I think I might start putting scar sheets on them because they are very dark right now.

Anyway I should get ready to go to bed. I get to see a friend from far away tomorrow so that’s exciting! Hoping my Goodfood box arrives in time, but also might end up having to make something else for us for dinner.

I’m in New York City! My pups are being lovingly cared for back in Toronto. I’ve been here since Thursday and will be here until next Monday so I got another week here. I did the Tosquelles themed film series that I was programmed in at the Museum of the Moving Image and tomorrow morning I am going to go see the accompanying show for it at the American Folk Art Museum. So that will be fun. I saw the Jim Henson Exhibition at the MoMI and it was fucking AMAZING ha ha I saw Big Bird IN THE FEATHER and Miss Piggy and Kermit and many other celebs like some Fraggles and Statler and Waldorf and a Skeksi and also Sarah and the Goblin King’s costumes and the Goblin King STILL has a giant bulge ha ha. And I think also Cookie Monster and one of the otters in that jug band. Many muppets, many smiles from me ha ha. I showed in the same building as Jim Henson! I was in the same space as Big Bird!

I tell you that’s gonna be a highlight for a while.

I also went to MoMA PS1 and saw more great art. Today I used my Artist Lifetime Pass to the Whitney to go see the Whitney Biennial. I went from there to the Grand Central Oyster Bar and had twelve oysters and a swordfish steak which is probably the most expensive dinner I can kind of afford while I’m here. There were two oysters that were each the size of a chicken cutlet and I had to open my mouth really big to get it in. I almost had to bite them in half they were so big. I wanted to go there for my 46th birthday this year, but I was having passport delays (because of birth certificate delays) so this was my much delayed birthday dinner. So I don’t feel too guilty for spending that much money on oysters and swordfish.

I also got a latte and a tart au citron from the Whitney’s bakery and it was TOO MUCH MONEY. 31 Canadian dollars!!! I should have asked if members get a discount. But it was a great tart! But also I am swearing off eating in museum bakeries/cafes/restaurants from now on.

I stopped at a deli for a sandwich on my way to one of the screenings this weekend and it was way more reasonable. And I ordered burgers on Uber Eats when I was at the hotel, which was way cheaper too. So I think I just got to avoid the super pretentious places for eating. The Oyster bar is not pretentious but it is expensive.

Tomorrow afternoon we are going to a bagel place and then taking the ferry to the gay beach. Which will be exciting. I’ve been carrying around a stick of sunscreen AND using it AND a hat and I’ve managed to avoid burning myself except for the first day when I tried to take on the sun and lost. One day I wore my hat and it was so hot that it was literally WET with sweat and I had to take it off and let it dry during a screening. I also brought my cock hat but I was gonna save that for Pride weekend.

I have a ticket for a sexy cis and trans party on Pride weekend so I am excited about that. I also went to a gathering for the solstice the first night I was here. Tonight I went downstairs to hang out with the Union Docs lab people who were having a BBQ. And I should probably start winding down since I gotta get up early and go to the American Folk Art Museum.

I’ve been doing the subway while I am here which has been a lot better than I thought. I only got lost one time when I took two different wrong trains. But I found myself again! I think it’s been way faster to get around here on the subway, my Mom and I used to use cabs a lot but they always got stuck in traffic. If my Mom was here she would hate the subway though because she’s got a bad knee and there’s a shit ton of stairs and people walking fast. There are some accessible stations but not enough. Anyway, when we were in London in the fall we did take more public transit but it was hard and we could only go on routes that had minimal walking. While here I’ve been walking so much.

OMFG I keep forgetting to write about this! Well, I had hooked up with a guy back in Toronto and while we were fooling around his hand grazed my left side near my nipple and I swear to god there was an erotic sensation! It does feel like something is going on there. It kind of tingles when I touch it now, both sides actually. Not TOTALLY how my nipple used to feel before it was a graft, but it is closer to an erotic sensation. If I pinch it it hurts a bit which is a good sign. Although I knew I had deeper sensation anyway. But the surface being a tingle now is very encouraging for me. I hope when/if I get a revision on my sides that my sensation doesn’t get knocked back again. The other cool thing is the tingly part is even bigger than my nipple. It’s the skin around my nipple too. It’s a pretty wide area actually. So I’m feeling like maybe that sensation will come back.

It would be nice if it does. I’ve been unenthusiastic about letting guys play with my chest just because it was so numb for so long. But it’s been ten months now and I’m feeling like nerves are more connected than before.

Anyway New York has been fun so far, and Union Docs is showing my video game and my videos on Thursday so I am looking forward to that. I’m going to play a demo of my lesbian vampire game and then show some videos (or vice versa I dunno lol) and then the audience can take turns playing the game.

I also got some (very pricey) books from the MoMA PS1 bookstore, I got Revolution is Love: A year of Black Trans Liberation, and then I got Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey which I am SUPER excited to read because I logically know sleep is helpful, but also feel so guilty sometimes if I need a nap. So maybe this will reinforce my respect of my own nap times.

I don’t remember if I wrote about this already, but the thrill of hook up culture is starting to leave me. I’m asking myself questions like “What if I had an ongoing relationship with someone who actually cared to learn about what makes me feel good and vice versa?” A lot of guys just seem to want to stick it in and I’m thinking maybe the Bottom label doesn’t work for me anymore because I want more attention on my cock than my hole now. I don’t know I would always like both being stimulated, but guys don’t really pay attention to my cock which is an issue and why I’m thinking dating for love might be better for me. There was one guy who was amazing at it though and I will probably hook up with him again. I guess it’s a learning curve? My therapist said maybe I should start teaching them what I want which is probably the best idea. Some guys are just selfish though and I need less of them coming over.

I have had more and more romantic feelings for men and men-adjacent people this last couple of years, but still not an actual romantic date with a masculine person. So I aspire to that at some point. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been asking people on romantic dates though, but no one has said yes yet, or not that particular group of people anyway. I was on Grindr the first night I was here but ugh I don’t really think I want a Grindr hookup here.