The Fandrogyne

~ Went out to meet a friend the morning, to get help getting giant bags of cat litter home, and while I was out we stopped by the Granville Street Diner to give their food a try. Despite hearing reviews from locals like, "The food's not that great," or, "Don't bother going there," I found it a pretty good place. The food wasn't spectacular or anything, but it was exactly what I was hoping for, and the hot hamburger I had was really close to hot hamburgers served by a restaurant that I miss because it's back in the city I moved here from. I haven't had one in almost a year, and it wasn't exactly the same, but it was close enough to be comparable, so I was pretty happy with it.

The service was extremely fast, and I haven't yet found another restaurant that serves bottomless mugs of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate for only $2. So in all, a good restaurant when you want cheap tasty food but want something a bit more substantial than fast food.

~ Had a dream that I came out to my parents as transgender, and despite knowing I've told them such before in real life (though mostly that I don't identify with my physical/assigned sex), in the dream, they freaked out. Maybe because I'd made the decision to start living with a male appearance and was working toward that in a much more serious way than they'd ever seen, I don't know, but they were both extremely unhappy, talking about how they'd lost a daughter and were really upset and didn't know how to handle it.

I can get people not knowing how to handle it when someone comes out to them, because it's a mental readjustment you have to make, but even in the dream the whole "I've lost a daughter" bit stung, because they haven't had a daughter since I was in my early teens and decided that nope, I don't like being female, even though I'd never heard the word transgender at that point. I even remember one time, out shopping with my mother, when she made some comment about me having grown up so well but to her I'll always be her little girl, and I turned around in the middle of the mall and said to her that I am not a little girl. And I think she took it to mean that I was embarrassed by her and that I'm a grown person and not a kid, but even that hurt because only 2 days before that I'd talked to her about why I hated being female and the assumptions people made about me when they saw female attributes. It felt like she was trying to shove me back into some parent-approved box that I had just finished telling her I don't fit in.

So it's not like my parents haven't heard some of my trans issues. But I don't think they remember them very well, because we barely see each other anyway and conversations are so far apart and my issues aren't central to either of their lives. In the dream, I tried to tell them that getting so wailingly upset and making the announcement all about them was derailing and offensive, because I was being brave trying to be honest with them about a big part of my identity and struggles and they're now making it all about how hard it is to be them, having a kid with those struggles.

I have no idea why I had this dream, but wow, do I ever feel uncomfortable about the next time I talk to either of them...

~ But in happier news, I got a lot more Final Fantasy X played last night! I got through the horrible Blitzball game in Luca, and it only took me 4 resets before I actually won the tournament. I know winning isn't essential to the game progressing, but it just feels wrong to let Wakka's last game be a failure instead of a victory. I won, 1-0, and I consider even a single goal to be a good thing because I am absolutely terrible at that minigame!

I stopped playing right before the Chocobo Eater boss battle, and did a bit of level-grinding right before that so I'd be in decent condition when I fight later.

~ I did get some writing done, though I'm not caught up to where I should be by NaNo standards. Closer than before, though. I'm a bit less than a day behind now, instead of two days, so it won't take me much effort to catch back up. I just need to sit down and actually write, instead of getting distracted by fun video games.

~ Emotional self-care seems to be off to a good start. I started replying Final Fantasy X, because it's one of my favourite games and it's a comfortable and fun game to play when I'm feeling low, so it seemed like a good choice.

I didn't get too far, in between doing a couple of other things last night, but I got off Besaid, so at least I'm through the opening tutorial phase and into the story proper.

~ Despite spending a chunk of the night playing video games, I still managed to stay on track with my wordcount goals, which I'm happy about. I got some great advice from lassarina on writing scenes instead of a cohesive story at first, then tying things together later, and looking at it all that way helped a surprising amount to get me over what seemed like a cycle of "expository dialogue, travel, expository dialogue, travel." That's stuff's about as fun to write as it is to read...

~ I discovered the #makingwinter hashtag on Twitter, and now that just has me wanting to work on all manner of crafty projects. Big warm ones, like scarves and blankets, rather than the usual bookmarks or other embroidered things I've been doing lately. Mostly I've been working on more kogin-inspired bookmarks (all currently finished ones are listed in my Etsy store, if anyone wants to take a look at them), but seeing the tasty food and warm things that everyone's been showing off on that hashtag makes me think now might be a good time to look into a couple of other projects that might be cozier, to keep some of the winter blahs away.

~ I ranked high enough on the last Pokemon Shuffle event to get a Gardevoirite!

~ Still staying on top of my wordcount goal for my unofficial participation in NaNoWriMo. Not doing it officially means I don't feel as guilty if I miss a day for whatever reason, or only write 1000 words instead of 1666, but my goal is to teach myself to write steadily, consistently. Getting to 50,000 words is no challenge at all for me now; one November I did that in 12 days, just to see how quickly I could do it.

But a big block to my writing has been burn-out, and that leads to never finishing a manuscript. I've learned a lot about writing first drafts. I've learned a lot about editing. I've learned a lot about what appeals to readers, what pitfalls to watch out for, all the things I learned from reviewing for so many years. Now it's time to give myself the lesson that I hope will be the final piece in the puzzle and allow me to complete something that can be further worked on and hopefully, with some time and luck, be turned into a manuscript that an agent or publisher might consider taking on.

~ I finished rereading Courtney Schafer's The Tainted City and moved right along to The Labyrinth of Flame, which I've been so excited about for, oh, about 2 years now. I have such high hopes for this book being amazing!

~ Taking a melatonin pill right before bed does help me sleep, but there's every chance that it helps me sleep too well, since I got about 12 hours of sleep, was in the same position for much of it and so woke up with a load of body aches and trouble moving, and had disturbing dreams in which I started to have hallucinations, seizures, and started to lose control of how my body moved. Maybe I should stick with half a pill when I need it, instead of a whole one, and see if that cuts down on the vivid dreams and too-deep sleep.

~ Sarah Chorn of Bookworm Blues wrote a great rant on the accessibility problems at conventions, and it's well worth the read. It's been a while since I've had an obvious physical limitation (doesn't mean I don't have less obvious ones), but I've still encountered opposition at multiple places when I try to tell them, "Guys, you're not mobility accessible. You need to be!" One company said they couldn't provide a ramp because they only rented a building and couldn't force the owner to put one in without good cause, and said they figured anyone coming for an interview would tell them in advance about mobility problems so they could arrange said interview off-site for better accommodation. (So they required full-disclosure from an applicant, which is sketchy, and then they'd have every reason to not hire that person if it put them in the position of having to force building renovations if that person stuck around...) One employee left that same company because of mobility issues, after the automatic doors stopped being automatic and problems with mobility due to dwarfism made it very difficult for him to open those doors and even get into the building.

I know that at some point in my life, there's a good chance that I, either temporarily or permanently, will end up facing mobility issues again. And Sarah's right: accessibility shouldn't be something that's praised, it should be standard. The lack of it shouldn't be something so frequently encountered by people who need it to be different, and who are thus excluded not only from fun extracurricular stuff (though cons aren't always extra-curricular; sometimes attending them is part of one's career), but also from getting jobs or buying groceries. This stuff shouldn't still happen as often as it does.

Well, it's done. I closed down my book review blog. Almost 6 years of my life, and I'm leaving something behind, and that's really hard to do. But the wheel has turned, and sometimes when things become too heavy to keep carrying them, all you can do is put them down and decide to keep on walking without them.

The door may be closed, but it's not locked, though. I'll probably still post a review there every now and again, when the mood strikes me. But it was taking up so much of my time that I felt guilty whenever I took time to do other things, like work on embroidery, or play video games.

Or write. I haven't done much actual writing in years, because of the effort I put into reviewing. So that fell by the wayside, and now I want to pick it up and start walking forward with that instead.

And to that end, I'm taking a little break from online stuff for a week, to step back and enjoy some of the other things in life that got shunted to the side. Probably most of this will involve marathoning some TV shows and playing video games, going for walks, that sort of stuff. And trying to remember that I don't need to feel guilty for doing any of them.

~ I seem to be at that stage of having a cold where I'm useless as a human being, much less an adult. I just want to curl up in bed with an endless mug of tea and some books, and not come out until I feel better. Unfortunately, my body seems to also be conspiring against that plan, because I'm still going through stress-related insomnia, which makes my restless legs act up, so lying in bed isn't the most comfortably thing because of pain.

Thanks, Obody.

~ Did some reading last night, watched a couple of YouTube videos, and just generally tried to rest and relax. Can't say that I accomplished much, but it's probably better that way, if I'm feeling so cruddy.

~ I did catch Ho-Oh in Pokemon Shuffle, though. I had to use a whole load of money on Great Balls to do it, because the battle was seriously annoying and I didn't want to keep doing it over and over again and hoping for the best with a low catch percentage, but I did catch it, and now I can spend half a billion battles trying to recoup some of that money I just blew.

~ Technically finished all my responsibility reading for the month! This makes me so very happy, and it's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I still have to write up a final review, and I do want to read T Frohock's Without Light or Guide and review that on Friday morning, but after that, I consider myself free to read or not read however and whatever I want to.

That may not sound like such a big thing to most people, but when you've been running a relatively popular book review blog for almost 6 years, you start to feel the pressure of always having to provide regular content, always having to clear off the review copy pile (which never ends, and that's a blessing-curse of the best-worst kind), and so many books get left by the wayside because you don't have time or energy. I get to step back as of November first, and I think that's the right move for me because it feels like a lightening rather than a pure loss.

~ I made garlic beef yakimeshi for supper. It didn't turn out as flavourful as I'd hoped, probably because I lacked both mirin and any greens to add to the mix, but it was still tasty. Next time I think I'll add more garlic, and probably some chopped green onions, and I think that will help make it taste a lot better.

~ I made a turkey chili last night. I didn't have as many of the usual vegetables that I typically put in a chili, so it's mostly beans and tomatoes and meat, but it's still tasty, and after a weekend of not eating anything that resembles healthy food, I think my body was craving something with even a small amount of vegetables.

It wasn't as good as the usual chili I make, but it was pretty good anyway, especially with garlic naan.

~ I played Final Fantasy VII to distract myself. Got Vincent in my party, and started heading through Mount Nibel. For some reason I've always loved level-grinding in this area. I'm not sure why. Maybe because this is the area you see in the story Cloud tells in Kalm, when you see Sephiroth be awesome and have level 3 spells, so it feels like the kind of area that can make you strong. Either way, I've never minded spending a while getting lost on the twisty paths, because the battles are good and I get quite a bit of experience.

~ Caught both Celebi and Lugia in Pokemon Shuffle. Now I have almost 2 weeks to work on catching Ho-Oh before that event disappears. Fingers crossed that I can get strong enough, because so far it's a tough battle and I haven't managed to defeat it once, let alone catch it.

~ Fully caught up on Once Upon A Time now, right up to this week's episode. I have my theories about what's going on, but I can't tell if that's because I'm so used to the way the show pulls twists and turns all over the place and I'm getting used to thinking how the writers think, or if I'm just falling for the hints of misdirection. Or if I'm just hoping something will happen even though it never will. I guess I'll have to wait and see, really. At least now that I'm caught up, even when I don't have TV anymore I can watch the most recent episode on the CTV website, so I can stay caught up instead of waiting for this season to appear on Netflix.

~ After the lack of sleep and the loud pounding and the interruptions of yesterday, and the accompany higher-than-normal level of housework that accompanied it, I determined that last night needed to be a fun night for me. Or at least a relaxing one. That meant tea, video games, and reading.

~ Finished one book (which could have been good but needed a lot more editing), and moved on to a second, which caught my attention from the first page and promises to be a lot of fun. I hope my suspicions pan out with this one!

~ Played some Torchlight, which is fun for whenever I want to just do a mindless dungeon crawl and feel like I'm getting somewhere even if that "somewhere" I'm getting is just better equipment so I can handle a tougher dungeon crawl.

~ I currently rank a little above the 5000 mark on the Mega Banette battle in Pokemon Shuffle. That's my highest rank for any event battle so far, and I'm hoping that I don't drop below the 23,000 mark when it's all over. I want that Mega Stone! And I worked my butt off to get a team that could get that kind of high ranking, even if it isn't as high as some people manage. I like to see payoffs for my hard work. I'm strange that way.

~ It's getting cold enough that my chestnut sapling probably shouldn't stay outside any more. The grass was covered in frost at sunrise, which looked beautiful, but I want to take care of my baby tree as well as I can, and that means keeping it from getting too cold. I know that trees survive winters all the time (obviously), but this one's only been planted since June, so it's young and depending on how hard the winter is, it may not do so well staying outdoors.

So indoors it will come! Now I just have to find a place to put it where it will still get sunlight and won't be destroyed by cats. The last part is the hardest part of all; one of my cats will chew any kind of leaf within her reach, and getting munched on by a cat probably isn't any healthier for the tree than the cold would be!

~ Had a terrible bout of insomnia through the day. First I couldn't get warm, despite my face feeling like it was on fire plus me being able to feel that my skin was actually warm enough. It was like my body was filled with weird pseudo-ice, making me cold even though I wasn't cold, if that makes any sense. But after struggling through that, I started getting annoyed with every sound, every wrinkle in the blanket. A melatonin pill, muscle relaxants, and calming tea did nothing to put me to sleep. It was just one of those days when I was destined to not get any sleep.

I did sleep later, though, which is good.

~ I bought my first binder! I'm probably a little too excited about this, but I can't wait until it arrives and I can see what I look like in it! I've tried to bind before, usually with lousy homemade wraps that take forever to put on and then may or may not actually stay where they're supposed to for longer than a couple of hours, and the hassle just wasn't worth the payoff. So I'm hoping that a shirt that I can wear much more easily than a wrap will help bring a bigger payoff for less effort.

~ Caught Giratina in Pokemon Shuffle! Now, to hope that I can rank in the Mega Banette battle and get a Mega Stone this time. I didn't manage to rank high enough to get the Absolite last time, which disappointed me, but I'll push to get the rank this time!

~ Someone will be coming by to do some roofing tomorrow, which means having my sleep interrupted, combined with the landlord coming over to do a few things to finish winterizing the house (mostly cleaning the furnace filters), so I anticipate not only very broken sleep, but also having to do a bunch of housework again to get ready for him arriving. I did a bunch the weekend before last, of course, but over a week has passed and things get messy or need doing again, so, tonight is a cleaning night.

Then hopefully he can come and do what he needs to do and then largely leave us alone for the rest of the winter. I do best when I'm largely left alone and can live and work to my own schedule.

Fortunately it's both compost pickup and recycling pickup tomorrow morning, which will mean a whole load of stuff can easily be taken out of the house and left for somebody else to deal with. I love that recycling pickup is curbside in this city!

~ Speaking of recycling, though, I'm very tempted to start making a weekly trip to the recycling depot with cans and bottles, so that I can get a little bit of money back. Curbside recycling doesn't give me a deposit back. And I don't have a car, but the depot is less than an hour's walk from my house, so it would be an okay trip in most weather, and even if I only got a couple of dollars back, that's a couple of dollars I wouldn't have otherwise, and I have a ready excuse to get out and walk more.

If I don't start doing that before winter, it's definitely something I'll start doing in the spring. But so far I hear we're going to have a mostly mild winter, not nearly as much snow as last winter brought, so even this year I might have plenty of clear weeks where I could make the trip.

~ As always, grocery shopping on Friday morning was fun. I took advantage of a few sales and came home with plenty of toilet paper, some ground pork, ground turkey, simmering steaks... Most of what I buy at grocery stores now is meat, because vegetables are so cheap at the 2 farmers markets, so it's better to just get meat when there are good sales and get vegetables elsewhere even when they're at regular prices.

Unless there are some good fruits or vegetables on the markdown rack. Last time I got 5 ears of corn for $1.49, which is a good price for this time of year. Most of the stuff there isn't much good unless you're going to use it within a day, maybe 2, but sometimes I can find some amazing deals on markdown produce.

~ One of the grocery stores I went to has a walk-in medical clinic, so even though I was tired and had groceries to take care of and just wanted to come home and go to bed, I sat there for an hour and a half until I got an appointment. Got a prescription for my asthma meds, filled them the next morning, and yay, I have things that let me breathe properly once again! Expensive, but I prefer oxygen to money most days anyway.

Sadly, my meds are more expensive here than they were in the last province I lived. By about $30. Which is very unfortunate, since it's not like I'm going to stop needing them any time soon, so that's an extra expense on top of the regular expense and bleh, why do I have to be unhealthy, anyway>

I also got this year's flu shot while I was there, which was cheaper than it was in the other province, but not by enough to offset the increased cost of the asthma meds. To offset the cost, the pharmacy would have to have paid me $10 to get the flu shot. They were usually around $20, before. But even then, I never paid, because my asthma entitled me to a free flu shot each year. (Pre-existing lung conditions occasionally have minor perks.) But that same allowance isn't given by this province, so I went from paying nothing to now paying $12, on top of paying $30 more for my regular meds.

But hopefully the vaccine will help keep me from getting as sick this winter, and my regular meds will do the rest to keep my lungs in decent working order. I hate that they cost so much, but I do like not being sick.

~ I earned enough points doing surveys to get a $10 payout! I have plans for this $10. Not huge plans, because it's only $10, but I'm going to have a little bit of fun with it. Money I earn from surveys like that is my fun money, money that doesn't need to go elsewhere, so I'm pretty happy earning little bits here and there to help me buy a video game or craft supplies every once in a while.

~ I finally splurged and bought a microwave, too, which, even though it was expensive (though it was still the cheapest microwave there), will help me make sure I eat more leftovers. Leftovers are a pain to reheat without something convenient like a microwave, so sometimes I just wouldn't go through the hassle, and some food would go to waste. No longer! So even if it was an expense, I think it will save money in the long run.

~ I've been having so many problems with my Internet connection lately. Sometimes it works wonderfully, high speeds and everything... for about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes less. And when it stops working, I'm left with no Internet connection for at least half an hour. I'm not sure if it's the router in the living room, or the signal booster on my computer, or something else entirely. I can't find anything on virus or malware scans, which means that "something else" isn't too likely, but that still leaves me with two options that I can't do much about. Other devices do work when they're closer to the router, but also sometimes they don't, and the router needs to be reset, so in the end I just have no idea.

I suppose I should try to see it as a mixed blessing. A sporadic Internet connection means less opportunity to get distracted by online stuff when I ought to be doing other things. The Internet's great for a lot, but it's also great for killing certain kinds of productivity, and really, sometimes I do need an excuse to step away and do other things. Not necessarily step away from my computer, because there's plenty of work I can do on it without needing the Internet, but step away from YouTube and Facebook and other distractions that I really need less of in my life.

Still. That doesn't make the lousy connection any less frustrating to deal with.

~ Was absolutely unproductive last night. I played some Torchlight, washed the dishes, read a little, and otherwise just screwed around online.

Which doesn't sound too bad, because I'm trying to keep activity to a minimum until I get my health card and can get new medications for my lungs, but there's still plenty of things I could do that involve me being perfectly stationary. Like reading more. Or making a whole load of progress in a video game. Or catching up on some TV. That all counts as being productive, I figure, when it's all stuff I want to do. But instead I just jump from one activity to another and don't get much accomplished with any particular thing.

Sometimes I frustrate myself that way.

~ Now that the weather's turning colder, I feel like I should knit things. I think I know where most of my yarn stash is packed, but I'm not so sure about my knitting needles, so finding supplies might involve many chilly trips to the basement. Still, it will be worth it when I can get back to some half-finished knitting projects.

Though I really ought to finish my current embroidery project before I do anything else like that...

~ There's a new farmer's market nearby called Mango Fresh Produce, which unlike the regular farmer's market is open all week long. Because I was woken up early again, I decided to take a walk and check it out.

They don't have much there at the moment, and it's only been around for about a month or so, but it's nearly all local produce, except for the imported stuff like daikons and starfruit and different kinds of tea! There's more variety there than at the farmer's market I usually go to. I bought ginger root, a daikon, some yellow plums, pears, a bag of garlic bulbs, and a persimmon, and it all came to less than $12.

There was more I wanted to buy, like cinnamon pecans and ground cherries, but that's enough for now, and I can go back another day and get more fruits and vegetables.

They're also practically next door to a local bakery, so except for meat, I can get just about every perishable thing I eat in one small area. I love it!

~ And now I just feel spectacularly dizzy and nauseous, so I think I'm going to spend tonight lying down a lot.