• Today is the...

  ...One Year Anniversary of my SRS.

  Click to enlarge.

  It is 10:00 AM. One year ago today I was near the end of three and a half hours of surgery. It has been a long year in my crotch, but things are coming together and I could not be much happier with the outcome. I have zero regrets. Zero. Thank you to my Transition Team; Thanks Mom, Teresa, and thank you to my Therapist.

   

  Everybody wanna get down,
  when you hear the sound and you bump the beat,
  365 days a year, 24 a day, 7 days a week.
  Christina Milian

Thursday, February 10th, 2005

• Okay, I know this...

  ...doesn't amount to a hill of beans really, but it was one year ago today that I arrived home from having vaginoplasty surgery in Scottsdale Arizona. Most of my friends cannot believe it has been a year already. I myself am glad that it is not one year ago right now. I am most happy that the portion of my life with the sore and questionable (will I ever heal???) crotch is in the past. It was (and at times continues to be) a wondrous time, but man, it takes it out of ya (me).

  My First Year Surgery Anniversary has come to a close.

  I have updates for my Transition Diary and I will write em' soon.

   

  'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
  be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
  John Howard Payne & Henry R. Bishop

Saturday, February 12th, 2005

• First off, I apologized...

  ...to my mom for being so, so.... so... well, so me. A good friend gave me a little guidance regarding how I might go about it and I owe her for that, because it really helped. Mom and I are fine now and I am trying very hard to be more positive, and when I cannot be positive, to just be quiet.

  "Oh good, Trish. I will look forward to this change."
  Oh nothing is changing in my diary, bud. I say whatever I want to say in here.
  "Dratz."
  Well cut me some slack. If I cannot say it here, where can I say it?
  "In your dreams?"
  In YOUR dreams.

  The thing with my mom was a real bummer. I have to work on some things, re: myself. Enough of that for right now.

  I went to my endocrinologist on January 28th. I had postponed many times due to finances but I could put it off no longer as the next time I needed my hormones refilled, they had to call him. I was afraid that he would not refill them without my having seen him, so I went. I explained that I can no longer afford to see him if more then once a year is required. He is very expensive and somewhat exclusive. This was fine when I had a good paying job, but them days is over.

  He understood. So now I do not have an appointment with him for another year. He gave me a script for a years worth of estradiol. Now I just wait for the statement to arrive in the mail to see if he gives me an "office discount".

  No mail yet.

  Time passes.

  More time passes.

  *crickets*

  The mail arrives.

  The endo statement was with it. What's this? No "office discount". Called them. Silly them. They forgot to give me the "office discount". They will deduct 50% and send me another statement. Yay.

  My endocrinologist has never really been a huge part of my Transition Team, if much a part of it at all. He more or less is detached from me and just makes sure that I am not dying before writing my scripts. It was kind of like when I was going to a psychiatrist to get my anti-depressants. He would listen to me for forty-five minutes, nod, and break out the script pad. Anyway, see you next year, Mr. Endo.... maybe.

  Update on ye old being rear ended on the freeway back pain:
  I did finally get in touch with the "doctor in a trailer" (through his nurse) and I guess he just totally forgot about what he said about trying to help me find any financial assistance if County Medical Services turned me down. He had said way back when that he wanted to help me to get an MRI of my back, but I guess he forgot. I also told him (through his nurse) that somebody suggested a chiropractor to me and I wanted to run it by him (through his nurse, I guess) and see what he thought. He said (through his nurse), "We don't have anything to do with that, do what you want."

  Thanks. I so knew you cared.

  So, I have been seeing a chiropractor. I have seen him four times this week. I swore bigtime very many years ago that I would never go to a chiropractor. I am not about the bone crunching and the whole thing in general, but I am desperate. I can no longer afford physical rehab, I can get no financial assistance (even though it will all be paid back), there is nothing else I can do at this point. So it's straws I am grasping. The chiropractor is much less expensive then other options and there are many more office visits to be going to, many more bones to hear crunching, crackling and grinding, lot's more exercising to be done, AND, and this is a very important and, he is running a tab until the insurance company reimburses.

  I retrieved from the lab x-rays of my back that had been done some months ago and gave them to the chiropractor guy, as requested. He looked at them and said, "I don't know why they didn't see this." as he pointed out to me a possible cause to my pain. I said to him, "...because they are not about me. They flat out do not give a shit. They are nice to me and all, but beyond that..."

  Now, I am not wanting to jinx anything, but I will just say this: After the four visits, my back is not totally on my mind twenty-four hours a day now.

  "Really Trish?! It is working?!?!"
  Shush shush shush shush and SHUSH!
  "What??"
  You are going to JINX it.
  "....but do you think it,"
  SHUSH!!

  On my SRS One Year Anniversary (two weeks ago to the day) I went (as I do a lot just to get out of the house) to the mall to hang out and drink Diet Cokes®. It was run of the mill mall stuff, but there are two things that stand out to me.

  The first was a young girl of about probably seventeen years old. I swear, she looked exactly like Michael Jackson (King of Pop) would have looked (I bet) had his cosmetic surgeries been successful, or if he had stopped at some point, or something. Anjya know what? She was really pretty. She had great charisma.

  The second stand-out-able is the guy who works at the food court who I have come to adore, for lack of a better way of putting it. Man, his eyes smile. He looks to be about twenty-six (but who knows, I am so bad with ages) and he looks like a thinner and a little more rough around the edges version of Charlie Sheen. I never do this, but when I order my Coke from him, I cannot help but smile. I don't know if he is smiling back or not, but it sure seems like he is. I couldn't know for sure as I am looking only into his eyes. It's all I can manage. Damn. Cute ass dude.

  "Cute ass, dude?"
  Watch the comma. Watch the comma.

  Sitting and gazing at this guy is worth getting "food court chair sore butt" for shore.

  Anyway, that was my SRS One Year Anniversary. A Michael Jackson (had it worked out well) looking girl and a guy that could never happen. Mom and I are going to take a sentimental trip to Scottsdale someday to kind of recreate the SRS trip but without me being in the freaky "it is good to be in outer space" state of mind this time around. We are just not sure when it will happen. We both really want to make the trip and this time I plan on bringing my camera.

  Hmmmmmm....

  You know what really confused me when I first started "coming out" and participating in the "TG community"? I had thought, I guess by virtue of the clothes and the makeup and all things feminine dahling, that we "in the TG community" were all the same, with all the same goals, all the same feelings and all of us having the same thoughts about ourselves and what we were or were not, more or less.

  I looked upon everybody that I had met, and I mean everybody as being just the same when it came to the reasons for being in "the TG community". To me there were no drag queens or kings, there were no crossdressers or transvestites, there was no nothing except those of us who knew that we were not in the correct physical bodies for the gray matter that occupies our skulls.

  To put it simply...

  "As only Trish can do..."

  ...I thought that any person wearing makeup self-identified as female. I thought that any person I met who had a dress on was somebody who would be in the process of transition, or be starting transition when possible, or is just living miserably and would continue to live in misery because transition would just never be an option. (And for gosh sakes this is not a cryptic message to anybody who might think I am referring to them. It is not.)

  It took me a long time to figure out that when I would confide in another person in "the TG community" my deepest and most emotional thoughts and dreams, that quite often I was actually doing this with a man. Not that men are not sometimes the right kind of humans to confide in, but you want to know when you are doing it. Many times there are things that I want to share with other women only, or "transsexual" type persons.

  The fact is, there are a whole lot of men in "the TG community" and many many many times they do not volunteer this information up front. So as it turns out, many men let people like myself confide in them, share deepest thoughts with them, letting us think that they self-identify as women, without giving up that they do not. They are men.

  This bothers me in more then one way. The first is obvious; I am giving up very personal information to the opposite gender/sex without knowing it. I think we all know that this is less then desirable.

  "But Trish, isn't that what you do with genetically born women?"
  I suppose you could take that hard line you turncoat, but at least I identify as female. My inner core (to myself at least) is female.

  Secondly, it was totally confusing for me to receive input about life, "transgender" issues and what not from somebody who self-identifies as male when I thought that they were coming from a female self-identity.

  I think to myself, "I am finally able to speak with another person who understands! Somebody who is going through the same thing!"

  Think again.

  It is totally confusing to try and make sense of or relate to somebody who puts on a dress and says "I am a woman" when unbeknownst to me they only do this for one or two days a week (or even a month) and they do not tell you that for the remaining 98% of the time they are happier then pigs in a blanket to be men, which makes them primarily and majorly...

  ...men.

  So here I am trying to relate all over again to men, which I have been trying to do already for years, but now I don't even have the advantage of knowing that is what I am doing.

  It would surprise me when I would attend a "transgender event" and somebody who I had previously met as being female would show up now presenting as male. I would think to myself, "How icky. They must be miserable." I would assume that they just didn't have the time to pick up their clothes and makeup on the way to the event. But the truth is, they identify as men 98% of the time and wanted to attend as a man. They are actually enjoying themselves. Then it hits me: When we had previously met, on maybe even more then one occasion, I had confided everything to a self-identified man. Now this would be okay if I knew it, but I didn't.

  So all I am saying here is...

  "...give peace a chaaaaance... All I am saaaaying, is give peace a..."
  Oh jeez. And *I* am corny?

  Ahem. So all I am saying here is, when a person is first "coming out" and starting to share with the "transgender community", beware, half if not more of all the input you receive from the "transgender community" is going to be from men, they just do not tell you that they are men.

  Men are cool. Men are great. As I have said a whole lotta times, I like men, mucho gusta-li. But men who present as women and who are not up front about their intentions, feelings or goals when sharing with other "transgender" people are not. And I realize that just like it is said, there are many different kinds of people out there, BUT, they should be honest about where they are in the TG Food Chain or they are going to confuse the shit out of a lot of people, like they confused me. And some of this goes back to the "transgender hierarchy and Top O' Da TG Pop and transsexual kings and queens" and is not going to end because being a "lowly crossdresser" at the "bottom of the TG heap" is such an "unimportant" place to be. Thar be nobody lookin up to ya down there.

  Well first thing you know Jed's a CD with big hair.
  Kinfolk said "Jed move away from there."
  Said "TS is the place you ought to be."
  So they loaded up the truck and moved up the hierarchy.

  Post-op, that is. Holy grail, queen bee.

  Some people are very up front about who they feel they are, such as Tri-Ess: The Society For The Second Self©. Tri-Ess is "an international social and support group for heterosexual crossdressers, their partners, the spouses of married crossdressers and their families." That is totally honest and it is up to me to know that as a "transsexual", a person who self-identifies as female, there is theoretically not going to be a whole lot of relating or learning there, beyond a certain point.

  Many other organizations have a real "mix" of people and one has to be a little discriminating when it comes to sharing and receiving information, thoughts or feelings. It took me a while to figure this out. Actually, it took me a long while.

  "But you are slower then the average bear, Trish."
  I will give you that.

  What I wrote here is not to be judgmental of anybody. I am just saying....

  "...is give peace a..."
  STOP.

  I am just saying... A person has got to be honest with this stuff, with themselves and especially with each other or we don't get anywhere, individually, or on the whole.

  "Like you give a hoo-haw about the whole, Trish."
  I do, kinda.

   

  If what you feel is true, you really feel it you, make them feel it too.
  Write this down now. You gotta be sincere, honestly sincere!
  Bye Bye Birdie - Lee Adams

Thursday, February 24th, 2005

• Some people might...

  ...know what this is right off the bat. I know others have experienced this, but to me it was a whoooollllleeee new happening. Having had Reassignment Surgery not all that long ago (in the scheme of things) it was a bit, no, make that a lot... freaky.

  On my way to electrolysis two days ago, I made my just about usual early morning restroom stop at a fast food place that is mid-point between home and destination. I walked in, headed straight to the restroom, closed the door, noticed an early morning "bathroom done just been cleaned and deodorized" scent, hung up my purse, skillfully peeled a sanitary seat cover from the wall dispenser, laid it across the seat and sat down.

  I peed.

  "Wo Trish, so many talents."
  Tis nothing really.

  I used a couple of squares of tissue, then two or three more squares to finish up. I stood up, pulling my underwear and jeans along the way, then lifted my leg in preparation of flushing the toilet with my foot. As I did this, my eyes gazed with horror into a toilet filled with ...reddish ...brown ...tissue. Oh shit. Is that from me?

  *gulp*

  Blood??

  *GULP*

  WTF??? (That means, WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!)

  *PANIC*

  Oh man. That toilet tissue was white before I used it.

  "Okay Trish, stay calm."
  I know, that is what I was trying to do.

  My mind was totally imagining all kinds of grisly gruesome ghastly things.

  "Okay Trish, do not let your mind play games with you."
  Hey, I wouldn't do that. Give me an ounce of credit already.

  "Okay Trish, recreate the scene."
  Yeah, that is what I will to do.

  I came up with the idea (on my own) of recreating the scene. I once again sat down to pee and use some tissue to see if I was bleeding in some damn way. I always gotta pee so this was easy. I repeated everything as before only this time I studied the tissue straight from the roll, after using it and before dropping it into the bowl. Paranoia strikes deep and at this point freshly driven snow would have looked pinkish red to me, so I studied it with intensity twenty times over in an effort to convince my slightly obsessive compulsive brain that there was no crimson coming from any part of my body. There was none and I hoped this had been a one time event, if the red even came from my body in the first place.

  I stood up, again pulling up my underwear and jeans along the way and started to lift my foot to flush. Only this time I observed something that started to make me feel better. I dropped my foot to the floor. I noticed that the toilet tissue that had been in the bowl a while was now really dark dark dark red. It seemed the longer that the tissue floated in the toilet water the darker in color it became.

  I began RIPPING tissue from the wall, tossing it strategically into the bowl and watching as specimen squares A, B, C and D began changing shades before my very eyes. D was lighter then C which was lighter then B which was not as dark as A was becoming. Praise the Lord. The "blood" had not come from me. It turned out to be some sort of chemical reaction between the toilet paper and the cleanser that had been left in the bowl.

  "Oh that's screwed. Oh that is screwed", I kept thinking to myself, in a thankful sort of way.

  I spent about fifteen minutes in that bathroom conducting experiments. I even brought a bunch of that toilet paper home with me so that I could conduct some experiments in my own lavatory. I also stopped there on the return trip to use that toilet again. No cleaning solution? No "blood".

  I guess you'd have to file this under, "Shit You Never Thought You Would Be Doing On A Tuesday Morning", or "Little Inconsequential Daily Detours de la Life".

  ...or how about filing it under, "Things That Make Me Feel Better About Being Alive All Of A Sudden". That is the stupidest file. I hate that file.

  I have more to write about, just no time today to do it.

   

  You scared me to death.
  Laurie Strode

Friday, February 25th, 2005

• Wow, I screwed...

  ...up. In my Transition Diary entry of January 29th, my One Year SRS Anniversary, I thanked my Transition Team and left out just about the most important person of all, Julie B-S.

  Damn. That was lame.

   

  Thank you Julie.
  Trish

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

• I had better...

  ...write something here if for no other reason than to keep this thing semi-alive.

  I have been seeing the chiropractor for my back twice a week (injury from being rear ended on the freeway in June, 2004) and the chiropractor continues to add more and more exercises I must do daily. This is becoming time consuming. Oh, and my back, although at first seemed to be getting better is having some "setbacks" as the chiro doctor calls them. I am not going to talk about this subject anymore today as it is not a good one.

  Other stuff...

  I haven't burned my "Post-Op Candle" yet. That is the candle that was a gift to me that I said I was going to light some time after (SRS) surgery. This while I lay in my room and reflect on things... and do whatever the mood strikes me to do. Well, it has been a bit over a year and I have yet to light that candle.

  "Why not, Trish?"

  WO!
  "What?"
  You scared me. I didn't know you were there.
  "I'm always here, Trish."
  I spect.

  Anyway...

  Because I want to use that time to reflect on good things and not just on how to get into a position that does not make my back ache. So for now the candle sits just looking pretty. ....someday.

  I have not seen my therapist since October 19th of last year. Almost five months? Dang. I need to go see him but it isn't in the cards right now.

  I miss my son. In the last few weeks I have missed landmark events in his life. There is just no way that I could have been there. Stuff like his first real date. Going shopping for nice clothes for that date, then sending him off and seeing him when he got home. He was so excited about it and I could not be there to be excited with him.

  *frustration*

  I am spacing my electrolysis appointments a bit further apart now for two reasons (this has been attempted once or twice already). The first is because I need a little more time in-between to let the hair grow, and the second reason being the skyrocketing price of gasoline. I have a long drive to electrolysis appointments and gas is just not happening right now. It is absolutely out of control. I am trying to skip every third week. Go on Tuesday, then not till the next weeks Friday, skip a week and then go again on Tuesday and on and on.

  Thank goodness for date books.

  I have been using a date book, a scheduler since I was about eighteen years old. I still have most of them, going back to the 1970's. They are all in one box except for last year's which I put in with my "going to Arizona SRS 'souvenirs'" as it kind of chronicles my year after surgery. It is interesting reading them once every couple of years. They bring back many memories, almost like a diary.

  As you can imagine some or these memories are great, some are not so great, some are sad and some are downright painful to think about. Entries mark everything from relationships to my son's birth, music rehearsals to vacations. Movies and plays I've seen, where I've seen them, toilets backed up and seminars for work. Anniversaries of all kinds, parties and funerals (not many of the latter thank goodness knock on wood bigtime knock-knock-knock. And one more for whatever, knock).

  I don't see how anybody could escape using some sort of a planner. Once something is written, it cannot be forgotten, unless of course you forget to look at what you've written...

   

  ...So take a letter, Maria.
  R.b. Greaves

Friday, March 18th, 2005

• My electrolysis person...

  ...had to cancel my appointment for this week because of a few personal issues that she needs to deal with. So that means that I have not been to electrolysis for two weeks as of today and my face is starting to show it a little bit. If I can make it to May without shaving that will mean that in one year's time I will have only put razor to face once, last November I think. That is very cool.

  I went to the chiropractor today and I was able to say to him, "Why yes, this week, since Saturday I have walked ten plus miles." That's right, I have finally started walking for fitness again. It feels SO right on. I am now walking two miles a day. Today is my "rest day". Tomorrow I will start again and hopefully be up to walking three miles per walk in the next few days. I would like to work up to three to five miles a day. Will I start running again? I am not sure. I have to see how my body is. But I do know that the walking is no problem. I am super happy that I kept the Nike® running shoes that I had used when I was running three to six miles a day some years back.

  What got me to walkin? The "encouragement:" of my chiropractor. He said that the work we are doing (adjustments, my exercising etc.) will not be advantageous if I do not get moving and moving pretty consistently. I feel good about this. I love walking/running. I had written that the mountains I live in are not good for walking, but I found a place that is relatively flat, at least for a short distance where I have measured off a half mile and just walk that back and forth. I think it will work.

  There are worse places to walk then these hills, with it's beautiful views of valleys, gentle breezes, blue skies and bunnies crossing the road. But I do take my cell phone, for not all the creatures around here are hug-able. I don't have a way to carry a pistol that is conducive to work out clothing, but I will get one if I have to.

  I think this will be very good for my (since I quit smoking) weight also. At this time, at six feet tall I am at about one hundred and fifty four pounds. I would be more or less happy to get down to one hundred and forty five pounds. I will go lower if I can. Anyway, I am walking again and I think I will be sticking with it.

  My neck and back (not related to walking) have been hurting me the last three nights. It has kept me from sleeping well. It's been bad. Today when I went in to see the chiro guy he "adjusted" it. Adjusting anything else (like my back) I can pretty much deal with, but... "Lay on your back ,Trish. Good. Let it go, let it g..." *CRACK!* "Good. Now again. Let it..." *CRACK!!*

  Damn, I hate my neck cracking.

  Last Friday I found a dollar bill on the restroom floor at Wal-Mart. I stuck it in my pocket. I took it out when my mom and I were back in the car so I could do the gloat thing over my treasuristic find. Only then did I notice the writing on it: "wheresgeorge.com... See where I've been." I am familiar with wheresgeorge.com so I knew what it was. As it turns out, two years ago this dollar was "released" from a woman in Washington State, the woman who had written the note, on the note.

  I logged my find at wheresgeorge and emailed her to let her know I had come across it and she emailed me back. That was fun. But it also turns out that this person has entered something like hundreds of dollar bills into wheresgeorge and so her reply to me was rather blasé. She must be semi-used to people coming across her released dollar bills. Oh well, it was exciting to me. Now it is my turn to release the dollar bill into the wilds.

  I refilled my estradiol (estrogen) prescription a few days ago. The estradiol that I had been getting as I had written some time back has risen in price four fold, but the pharmacist was able to give me another brand that is just a little bit more expensive then the original (thank GOODNESS). So I am in estrogen for three more months.

  This is a little late, but my mom and I a couple of weeks ago did the Academy Awards® score sheet thing again. Before the ceremony starts we predict who we think will win an Oscar®, we also mark down who we want to win an Oscar®, and then while watching the show we keep track of who actually did win an Oscar®. This year was kind of a crap shoot as we only saw one of the movies that was up for awards (Finding Neverland), but we did it just for fun. We only a day or two ago got around to tallying up the final results of our predictions and quite naturally I... kicked... my... mom's... BUTT.

  Mom: sixteen. Trish: seventeen.
  RAH RAH RAH!!

  I am so Louella Parsons.

   

  My thoughts today are with Teresa and her family.
  Trish

Monday, March 28th, 2005

• It has been over...

  ...three weeks and I still have not been to electrolysis. My electro person continues to deal with some personal issues beyond her control. Hopefully I will be going back to see her very soon.

  My son is on Easter Break and I will be picking him up tomorrow morning. He will be staying with us until Friday. Not long, but at least it is something.

  I am still walking for fitness. I started my third week on Saturday. I am now walking two to three miles a day. Mostly two and a half to three.

  I am not going to mention that I have been feeling sick (like cold or flu sick) for the last three days unless it turns into something.

  I shaved my legs yesterday. Woo hoo!

  I have a new turquoise hoodie. Woo hoo!

  Woo hoo!... Woo hoo!... Woo hoo woo hoo woo hoo! It's my birthday, it's my birthday!

  I am with lust. Nakedhotsweatylust.

  Galdarnonmyhandsandkneeswetandsteamyskinonskingyratingandmuskydrippingwith...

  "Sa-LAP!"
  Ouch! Oh... ahem... uh...
  "Are you finished?"
  Oh, yeah. Thanks. And never do that again.

  Anyway...

  Not much is up right now.

   

  And then up comes Zafo. I'm, like, "Yo, Zafo. What's up?"
  He's, like, "Nothin'" and I'm, like, "That's cool."
  Liam Lynch - United States Of Whatever

  Addendum: 10:15 PM... My son is not feeling well, so it is off. I will not be going to pick him up to stay with us. Oh well.

  I also forgot to write that with this no trip to electrolysis thing, I had to shave my face. So I didn't make it with shaving just once in a year. Oh well.

  That's all.

Wednesday, March 30th, 2005

• As it turns...

  ...out, there was a misunderstanding over where my son lives and he is actually quite well enough to come and stay with us. He was expecting me to be there yesterday morning until his mom told him that I would not be coming. Confusion abounds. Nobody's fault, just confusion.

  He was pretty disappointed and so was/is I. But as it turns out, I am becoming more under the weather (sick) with each passing hour so whatever happened happened for whatever damn reason for better or for worse... or whatever.

   

  Cuz this is my United States of Whatever!
  And this is my United States of Whatever!
  Again... Liam Lynch - United States Of Whatever