Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Whose Mother!@#$ing Bangs Were Just Sucked Into The Wrong End Of The Mother!@#$

Joe

Once a week, I meet with my guitar instructor; and will usually arrive as he's finishing up with the previous student. The latter happens to be an incredibly sweet, cheerful, older fellow by the name of Joe; and I always enjoy our little interactions.

Today, Joe addressed me as "Young miss"; and while the accuracy of this statement might be disputed on both the first point (I wish I was still young!) and the second (in as much as I'm married), the sentiment was nonetheless greatly appreciated, and a highlight of my day!

Unexpected HRT side-effect #11

Sore thighs! My goodness.

To be fair, this isn’t really a side-effect of HRT, but rather my chosen delivery mechanism: intramuscular injection. Let me back up:

There are a lot of ways to ingest estradiol (everyone’s favorite, sexy estrogen). Pills (swallowed), pills (held under the tongue), pills (held under the lip), patches, creams, injections, implants...

How much of the hormone actually absorbed into the body (as opposed to being accidentally digested, say) varies between methods; and what works for one individual might not work for another.

I was advised early on that injections were the way to go; and that’s the route I took. I think it’s worked out pretty well in terms of the speed of my results!

However, it does mean that every two weeks I get to to inject 1ml of estradiol cypionate into my thigh muscle.

The injections themselves aren’t fun, but are actually pretty painless if all steps are followed to the letter (a process that really deserves its own post). Barring the occasional mishap, they are quite tolerable.

However, the muscle does not immediately absorb the estradiol. Instead, a depot is created - a little 1ml bubble of fluid that lives in my thigh and slowly releases it’s hormonal goodness into the surrounding tissue.

The day after it can feel pretty sore (as if I had caught my thigh on a piece of furniture); and frankly, it feels kinda weird having this tiny marble in my leg. It’s a small price to pay however for getting to be me; so I pay it gladly!

Professional wrestling is a strange blend of fact and fiction; a form of theater in which the characters are extensions of the athletes that portray them. Fans are encouraged to participate in the performance; to display the sort of passion and vitriol normally reserved for world sporting events.

To be clear, however: it is a performance; and there should be no room for the kind of fans that cannot distinguish between, say, booing a villainous character, and hurling the kind of abuse that leaves performers and fellow attendees deeply disquieted.

I have attended AEW / ROH events; and they are upfront about their expectations regarding fan conduct, and the consequences of violating said expectations (up to and including immediate ejection from the arena).

However:

At one such event, I had the displeasure of being seated next to a small cadre of inebriated fans that kept up a continuous stream of obnoxious, disrespectful, and at times, highly offensive chants for the entire duration of the show.

In wrestling parlance, these fans were attempting to 'get themselves over'; a phenomenon that could be understood as similar to heckling in that a portion of the audience has decided that they, in fact, should be the focus of the show.

(And - also much like heckling - neither those performing, or those also in attendance, care for this behavior.)

Having grown weary of the group and their incessant personal grandstanding, I asked arena security to intervene - who promptly did no such thing. The chants were also sufficiently loud that Christopher Daniels - then sitting at the commentator's desk - signaled for these fans to desist (which, inevitably, they did not).

I am deeply sorry that Skye Blue - one of AEW's quickly-rising homegrown talents - found herself in the position of suffering a tirade of abusive comments from a fan with zero comprehension of appropriate conduct.

However, I am more frustrated that the man in question was not removed until the match had concluded.

I am not sure as to why the delay; and when in doubt, try to apply Hanlon's Razor (i.e. inaction as the result of mismanagement; rather than some sort of malicious intent).

Whatever the case may be: while AEW has the right idea regarding their policy of fan conduct, they need to be a great deal swifter in applying it.

Skye Blue is such a lovely lovely wrestler its so sad she had to go through this

i dont understand why theres still people like this in 2024 :(

Clothing

It’s fascinating to me how much male and female fashion differ; and how much variety there is in the latter.

It used to be that I would buy shirts; and I would buy pants; and generally speaking, pretty much any shirt would match any set of pants. Getting dressed was limited to randomly picking out one of each.

(To be fair, one can go fairly in-depth with male fashion; and I will be the first to put my hand up and state that I did not do so, as - I now recognize in retrospect - I found the act of shopping for male clothing dysphoric.)

Now I have all these amazing pieces of clothing; but there is so much variety - so much range! - that that any one item will only match a few others (or even none at all)!

I will invariably find myself thinking: “Now I need to buy x to go with this”... And I am loving it!

I made a t-shirt. Absolutely no idea what I was thinking at the time, but now it’s out of my head and into the world. There’s pastel pink and blue halftone edging on the lettering for... reasons.

Orikan: *Rewinds time*

Trazyn: "...A single thread of fact within this tapestry of fiction you have woven."

Orikan: "BASTARD, BASTARD, BASTARD!"

"Stop laughing Trazyn, I have a Gf, she's just from another dynasty"

(Original from theavengers; via feed-the-roses.)

Winter fox

My friend Elizabeth invited me to an online painting class on short notice. It was an absolute blast, and we had a great time! Here’s the finished result:

This was actually a really interesting exercise in that it was technically an acrylics class, but all I had to hand were watercolors (bar the small amount of white acrylic I used for the snow).

It was quite challenging: trying to keep pace with a medium that required more applications of pigment to achieve the same depth of color, took longer to dry, and could not be used to over-paint!

It’s not going to set the art world on fire by any measure, but I’m actually really happy with how it came out under such constraints!

(Also: still sticking with canvas, despite it’s unsuitability! I really need to invest in a pad of watercolor paper already...)

Spironolactone

A friendly PSA:

If you take Spironolactone in tablet form and your doctor and / or the instructions indicate it should be taken with food, TAKE IT WITH FOOD.

Studies strongly indicate that absorption of the drug is significantly higher when accompanied by food.

(This message brought to you by me, a girl that completely ignored the giant instructions on my pill bottles and took her Spiro on an empty stomach for months on end.)

Another Test

It came to my attention this afternoon that a colleague had left the office on Friday, feeling unwell; and come Saturday had tested positive for COVID. This individual is someone that works two offices down for mine and is often in close proximity.

This meant, of course, that it would be wise of me to go get tested again. The last time I was tested, it triggered a lengthy flashback.

(As always, I stress: my response to these kinds of medical scenarios is a result of my PTSD, and not an indictment of medicine. Get tested, get vaccinated, protect yourselves and others!)

Anyhow: I wasn't super thrilled about this turn of events, and let my boss know that I was heading out and most likely would not be back for the day. He did very kindly point out that we had some test kits in-office (allegedly; nobody seemed to know where); to which I countered that the last thing my coworkers needed to see was me in tears.

Fast forward: the system for registering an appointment at the test site worked well this time; and apart from a small hiccup (they had moved a mile down the road to a new location), everything was pretty much the same. The technician asked me to sit in the car and came back with a swab and sample vial.

Now, here's where things differed slightly: when my spouse was initially tested (all the way back at the start of the pandemic), the swap took the form of an elongated Q-Tip. Having this pushed all the way to the back of the sinuses was unpleasant; but I understand the discomfort subsided quickly as soon as the test was completed.

When I was tested for the first time, the swap had clearly been updated with comfort in mind: there was a thin, flexible plastic stem with a small, soft, sponge on the tip. It wasn't inserted fully into the sinus, and frankly, there was no pain or discomfort to speak of.

This is what I was expecting to see again; so imagine my unpleasant surprise when the technician withdrew from its sterile wrapping what I can only describe as a fiercely-bristled pipe cleaner.

The technician proceeded to tell me to hold my breath for five seconds, which was also a new and highly discouraging change in procedure.

I warned her that I might be somewhat unresponsive after the test was administered and not to take that personally; and she understood. Then came the part where I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and felt this monstrosity enter my left nostril. The technician counted to five while sawing this thing back and forth along every side of my sinus cavity.

To be clear: I am no stranger to unpleasant sensations (which I will note shortly). This, however, was absolutely misery-inducing. I broke down crying the moment the technician turned away from me.

Six hours later, and my sinuses still hurt. They itch, constantly; and my nose has been running all evening. I cannot possibly fathom which person thought it was a good idea to take what was already an invasive, annoying test - and make it infinitely worse.