Technical Difficulties

So I was trying to add my Youtube playlist to the sidebar here, and it keeps giving me a random selection of other people's vids, none of which are in either my faves or my custom playlist. Meh.

A Postcard from the Wall

I haven't been posting a lot lately, and I apologize. The truth is there hasn't been a lot to write about. I'm stuck in another of my ruts. I go to work. I come home, where I sleep, eat, read, use the internet, and play the 360. There is some variety as to what order I do those things in, but it's the same shit day in and out, and it's wearing me down again. I've been back to work about a month, and that's great, but work is only one part of what it takes to make me whole, and a lot of the rest is missing.

It's strange. On the outside, I feel fine. In fact, I feel pretty good. A couple of days ago, I stepped onto a scale for the first time in a year or more, and discovered that I'm not nearly as heavy as I thought. I'm still a little large for my size, but I'm down fifteen pounds from the last time I weighed myself, and that's no mean feat, especially for one who likes to snack as I do.

Underneath the surface, though, I'm a mass of roiling despair. You know that Nietzsche quote about gazing into the abyss? I wish I could see that. At least I'd know something was looking back at me from the black. Some days I feel as though I could end it. I've always viewed suicide as the coward's way out, and I am not a coward, but there are days when it's a chore just to get out of bed. Sometimes I just can't see the point anymore. There's just no joy in my life right now.

It's not that there's no pleasure at all. On the contrary, I've found plenty of little things to carry me along. I've been building a Youtube playlist of the songs I've heard at work. Give it a listen, and maybe you'll get a sense of the sounds of my job.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=29B52928D441DE51

Six weeks or so ago, both of the outside cats here went into heat, and the kittens are now in the process of being farmed out. The family are keeping a couple, and one of the little critters has glommed onto me, so maybe Spot won't be an only child anymore.

I've been reading some good books lately. The latest is horror/thriller novel entitled Feed. You can read all about it here:

http://www.thefeedbook.com/

Imagine a time in which blogs take over the news from the traditional media outlets. I won't give away the plot or premise of the book, but the gist of it is that a major, civilization-ending catastrophe arises, and the traditional news sources drop the ball, leaving internet-based media to pick up the slack and keep people informed. After a time, blogs become the news medium of choice. I'd like to write something like that, but I'm having trouble keeping this up. That brings me to a logical conclusion.

I think I'm going to step back from this blog for a while. I'm not quitting. I just need to sort some things out. I called this my "Trans Blog", but lately it's become a clearing house for whatever is on my mind, and lately that's a whole lot of nothing. I'll come back when I have a better idea of what my place is here. It might be next week, or further out, but I will return.

Progress in Florida III - Success!

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20100512/NEWS01/5120330

In a 5-2 vote, the Leon County Commission approved the wildly controversial changes to the county's current human-rights ordinance. The changes are designed to deter discrimination and include more protection for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Three cheers for Leon County!

I don't know when the protections will kick in, but it's a start.

Back to Work

I've been back to work for about three weeks now. I got my first full paycheck from the new company yesterday. Florida doesn't take a state tax out of people's payroll, so it was a nice check. Today I'm off, so I think I'll treat myself to a haircut and maybe a manicure. It's nice to be employed again, but work is only a slim buffer against depression.

I've gotten into this weird rut where I feel melancholy at home, but happy at work. Maybe it's the music. Every hotel I've worked in has had it's own special mix, but this place has the most eclectic selection of all of them. It's a mixture of some current pop, classical jazz and a lot of ambient dance stuff. Right now they're playing John Mayer, but during this shift I've heard DJ Shadow, Zero 7, Lusine, Yeasayer, Thievery Corporation and a slew of other electronic artists. In between all the downtempo club stuff I get snatches of hard bop that wouldn't sound out of place in a Yoko Kanno-scored anime. It's all so mellow; it's almost impossible to feel down about anything wrapped up in the sounds of this place. Maybe I need to buy an MP3 player and download some of this stuff, so I can carry it around with me. Maybe.

On a positive note, I forgot to take my studs out last night before I came in. I started to take them out, but the Front Office Manager told me they looked professional, so I could leave them in. After the flap at my last job, this was a tremendous relief. Small victories, right?

Another Sign of the Impending Apocalypse

I signed up for Twitter.

Yeah, I know I've said repeatedly that I wasn't going to, because I don't care that much about anything. Alas, last month Keith Olbermann, one of my media heroes, broke down and started a Twitter feed. Every night since, he's cited various people's tweets on the air. The chance to interact, even in so impersonal a way, was impossible to resist.

I don't plan to use it all that much, but then, that's what I said a few years ago when I started blogging. We'll see.

Going Back to Moderated Comments

In the beginning of this blog, there was comment moderation. I was easily distracted when this thing began, so I removed the moderation so folk could comment at will, without worry. I changed my policy a few months back to disable anonymous comments. I figured anyone who wanted to say something would be willing to share their IDs. The last few weeks, I've gotten a lot of spam "comments" loaded with links to Chinese language chat and porn sites. I already don't have ads here because I can't control the content. I don't want my blog associated with ladyboy dating and trans pornography. That's enough of that. I'll try to be more attentive to my readers now.

More Like Myself

I haven't been out of doors en femme, as Jaye, as myself, since January. That's the longest span I've been without dressing since I moved out of Charlotte in September 2007. That's been hard to bear. My friends know I wear women's clothing all the time, but it's been so long since I presented myself in a female manner.

How fragile one's identity can be. Since I came out to the older children, I'm intermittently being peppered with questions about this and that. I've tried to be understanding and accommodating, answering their questions to the best of my ability without straying into TMI territory. I've been showing the girls my jewelry. The younger one has even asked me for tips about makeup once or twice. It's not enough. I've been reduced from an out-and-about transperson back to a closeted crossdresser. It's killing me one day at a time.

Over the weekend, Nate's ex bought a couple of sets of those stick-on artificial nails for her daughter and herself. They're the inexpensive kind, and they pop off with the least provocation. They rode off to the beach a little while ago, leaving the remains of both packs on the counter downstairs. I'm afraid I gave into temptation and picked out enough loose nails to fit myself out with a set. I haven't worn my fingernails long for a while now, and haven't kept them polished since the debacle at work last August. They're pretty, if a little gaudy, certainly flashier than I would have indulged in at a salon. All the same, it was nice to have pretty hands again, even if only for a few minutes. It was nice to feel more like myself again.