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By Rebecca, May 31, 2011 7:19 pm

Back from the doctor. Going back on lexapro, 20mg/day. If and when I go off again, I will not go cold turkey. Lesson learned.

He’s also dropping me from 6mg/day to 4 of estradiol. His thought is that my estrogen (~4,500, literally an order of magnitude higher than it should be) coupled with my testosterone (a reasonably low 12) means that A) I can afford to drop estrogen more without impacting my testosterone levels, body hair, mood, etc, and B) dropping estrogen might actually help with my anxiety and depression.

This isn’t new info, but he also gave me a temporary perscrption of klonopin, a much stronger anti-anxiety medication. The idea is that I’ll use that to keep me sane for the next week or two, until the reduced estradiol and increased lexapro kicked in.

Fingers crossed, cuz what I’m experiencing right now fucking sucks.

Continue reading 'Meds update'»

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By Rebecca, May 30, 2011 3:12 pm

Self Loving: Biking along Chicago’s incomparable lakefront, knowing the journey is the point, not worrying about speed or distance or time. Enjoying the air, the view, the sensation of flying next to the water.

Self Loathing: Biking along Chicago’s lakefront, comparing myself to every beautiful woman I see, never feeling slim enough, curvy enough, busty enough, pretty enough.

Self Loving: Switching to a new (closer, more responsive) doctor to try and adjust my antidepressants to something more effective.

Self Loathing: Rushing into the switch (through my own laziness, not the doctor’s fault) and dropping hormone and antidepressant dosages way to fast. Panic attacks. Anxiety. Dizziness. Thoughts of self-harm.

Self Loving: Going to bed at midnight instead of two, three, four AM.

Self Loathing: Tossing and turning in bed, checking email, reading websites, IMing with friends until two, three, four AM.

Self Loving: Getting off my butt to apply for jobs, work on my show, apply for grants.

Self Loathing: Starting to apply for jobs, work on my show, apply for grants and then get overwhelmed and dizzy and lie on the couch until it goes away. Except it doesn’t, because the stress is still there.

Continue reading 'Self Lo______'»

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By Rebecca, May 27, 2011 4:02 pm

That’s right, I’m wading back into Israel. Not satisfied with my recent post about Israel, Obama’s speech, and the 1967 borders/lines/whatever, an article I saw in my Google News feed caught my eye. The Sacramento Bee disappointingly reprinted a total fluff piece entitled “New York LGBT Center Taking Sides of Anti Semites.” The subtitle is “Michael Lucas Organizes Boycott,” and the piece is by none other than one Michael Lucas. Way to be classy. I’m not linking to the piece, since it’s total propaganda, but it did make me really curious about the organization being referenced, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. And, more broadly, is Israel supporting a state of apartheid?

(For the record, I do think this discussion and disagreement is newsworthy, I just think it’s really poor reporting to reprint a biased self-written press release supporting a specific position. So I’m not opposed to the Sacramento Bee reporting something,  just on how they chose to report.)

Continue reading 'Israeli Aparthied?'»

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By Rebecca, May 26, 2011 10:26 pm

I just finished Nineteen Minutes, a book by Jodi Picoult about a high school shooting, what leads up to it, the aftermath, and the trial of the shooter. I’ve only read one other Picoult book (My Sister’s Keeper, about a younger sister who was specifically created through artificial insemination to provide her very sick older sister organ and tissue donations) and I enjoyed both of them quite a lot, even if they were also both sort of emotional rollercoasters with some similar narrative structures.

What made Nineteen Minutes such a hard read for me, though, was the portrayal and discussion of bullying. Peter Houghton, the shooter, was bullied since his first day of school. Was a sensitive and not particularly athletic child. Was a gamer and a computer programmer, dabbling in making his own videogames. A loner. Unpopular and massively teased as a result. Suicidal. And, ultimately, homicidal. Was, as I’ve thought about a lot, someone I could see myself having become in different circumstances. Someone I still sometimes – unreasonably, I admit – worry I am. Continue reading 'Jodi Picoult’s ‘Nineteen Minutes’ and being part of the ‘in’ crowd'»

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By Rebecca, May 25, 2011 3:24 am

One of my roommates recently got me hooked on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a sit-com about four horrible people who own a bar together, and the hilarious hijinks which ensue. The characters on the show are consistently petty, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and on, and on, and on. But since they always lose in the end, you feel OK laughing at them.

Intermittently, starting in the first season, one of the boys in the show becomes involved with a ‘tranny,’ as seen here (sorry it’s not a great clip – someone lemme know if there’s a higher quality version):

Continue reading 'It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Trans characters'»

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By Rebecca, May 24, 2011 10:19 pm

From this past weekend,  when I may or may not have been in an altered state of consciousness.

There is incredible time dilation – things that subjectively must have taken mere seconds feeling like they’ve lasted forrrrrrever, even though they objectively been mere seconds (it feels like you’re thinking of a ton of different thoughts but I think it’s really thiking the same thought continuously but forgetting each moment of thinking so the single second of thought feels like one million tiny cuts of seconds) (this sentence felt like it took 3 or 4 minutes to type but it must have only bean thirty seconds cuz my typing speed continued as normal and annie and piet’s discussion was objectively only a few thoughts further)

A LOG OF THINGS: A BLACKOUT TEST

annie’s terribly creepy frog prince

“becc’s gonna lose it”

why do i get cough-y when i’m high?

the rhymes in this song are really sub-par

too tall frog, not two toe wog

annie and the sorcerers apprentice making out with gomez

xmen, discussion of what to watch when high

boy with the striped pijamas

tinfoil ball

laughing at the holocaust

oh it’s so sad

kissing

can focus for bref moments with intense focus (but not enough to write this sentence)

can you get me water? ahhhhhhh

welcome to masterpiece theater

it’s actually a metaphor for the sentate

get out of my bar freak

TWITCH

So much twitching. This is only somewhat enjoyable

unreasonable sollution of the stick seatbelt

i want to be everyone in this movie

professor x is gonna SAVE LOGAN

this doesn’ really make my pains particularly less

you want salty things

i don’t wanna be a ruiner. it’s stilled with instand gratification i’ts eyrthing you could every dream it could be

i wantt some pizzaa…. and i wish i hadn’t had as much

why would his shoes not make it

riff tracks

wait when when did they kidnaprogue? oh right she ran into the woods after being tricked to leave

oh james

i want that chocolate sooo baaaaad

why do they have so many badass cars? where does prof x get his money

i forgot how cheesy some o these special effect are, but the movie is still sooooo gooooood

test of science

it’s like the room zooms in, become less high while juggling, but then zooms way back out when high

it’s like the room zooms in it’s like the room zooms out it’s like the roomzooms in it’s like the room zooms out

what convenient colors to denote evil

shoulda run up to him and punched him in the face

still unwilling to make sacrifices….that’s what makes you weak

i would read that comic. of malcom x using magic to turn someone black, and martin luther king has to stop him

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By Rebecca, May 23, 2011 1:53 pm

Picking on Israel went really well for the aggressors...

Following my last post, I’ve been trying to do some research to figure out why Obama’s urging to use the 1967 Israel borders as a starting point was a bad thing, and why it pissed off Israel (and a bunch of other folks). Here’s what I’ve been able to figure out.

In 1967, Israel was attacked (again…) by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the Six Day War, so called because that’s how long it took for Israel to kick everyone else’s ass and over double its territory. That’s right: Israel was invaded and ended up with more land than it started with. Specifically, Israel ended up with the Sinai Peninsula (since returned to Egypt), the Gaza Strip (which Israel has already pretty much withdrawn from), the West Bank (which Israel has also basically said they’re wiling to part with, even though Jewish settlers keep making new settlements), East Jerusalem (which Israel is most emphatically not willing to part with and no one seriously expects them to), and the Golan Heights (which is, as far as I can tell, the biggest point of contention concerning the 1967 borders). For more info, check out Wikipedia’s page on Israeli-occupied territory.

But even the use of the word “borders” is making some people upset. Someone on Twitter sent me this link, which talks about how the map to the right describes armistice lines following the 1967 Six Day War, not mutually agreed upon borders of a cohesive, internationally recognized and legit state. And, apparently, the pre-1967 borders/lines/whatever were really just the result of the cessation of hostilities in 1948, when soldiers (mostly) stopped shooting at each other for the next two decades. (Noticing a pattern here?)

As far as I can find, the outrage over Obama’s comments, from right wing US politicians as well as Israel, is pretty much manufactured. This has been the US’s official position for the last 20+ years, and shouldn’t have surprised anyone. But is it a good position? That, not surprisingly, is much more difficult to determine.

Continue reading 'How Obama pissed off Israel – the 1967 “borders”'»

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By Rebecca, May 22, 2011 10:56 pm

Can someone explain to me why using the 1967 Israeli borders as a starting point is a bad thing?

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By Rebecca, May 19, 2011 10:20 pm

I was at a trans discussion panel at the Center On Halsted tonight and one of the panel members was Jamison Green. He mentioned a survey on trans terminology that I thought I’d share:

Greetings! Ten years ago, we conducted a short survey of our community’s reactions to the use of descriptive terminology in the professional literature of gender identity issues. Basically, we were interested in reforming the literature so it could speak respectfully about transsexual and transgender persons. To do that, we wanted to find out which terms transsexual and transgender people liked, and which they didn’t like. The results of our study were reported at the 2001 scientific symposium of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), and had an immediate impact on the hundreds of medical and social scientists who were present.

A lot has changed since 2001, and we thought it would be interesting to re-open the survey, collect new data, compare the results 10 years later with the original results, and present our analysis at the 2011 scientific symposium of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly HBIGDA) this September.

We are asking community members to rate and give us their opinions of certain terms which have been used in the literature, and some of the terms put forth by the community itself, so we can communicate the community’s opinions to the members of WPATH and (we hope) more widely in a subsequent academic publication. Continue reading 'Survey on trans terminology'»

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By Rebecca, May 18, 2011 2:17 pm

You don't need me to find a topless woman for you...

My roommates and I moved a fridge last night and felt very proud of ourselves. Our landlords were getting rid of their fridge and gave it to us (since it wasn’t really very old), but only had the moving guys bring it up to our sunroom. So one door-removed-from-the-hinges-to-fit-the-fringe-through-later, we have a shiny, huge new fridge. That isn’t really relevant to this post, other than I’m excited about it and the fridge-moving immediately preceded a conversation I had with my two roommates about being topless.

Our apartment has central heat and air, but we try not to overly rely on them in the interests of keeping our energy costs low. So there’s usually a few weeks of the summer where, with fans on and windows open, the apartment is livable, even though it gets pretty hot when you try to go to sleep. We had one of those evenings a few weeks ago (yes, in Chicago it can go from being almost 90 to barely 50 in the span of a week) and I ended up sleeping topless. Which made me come to the conclusion that I should be allowed to be topless in my own apartment.

I am not a stranger to discussing and thinking about toplessness, but this is the first time I have made a concrete decision about a specific space in my life where I think I should be allowed to be topless. I actually realized that being topless would make me feel good, both physically and emotionally. (Insert comments about exhibitionism here, if you must.) I’d talked with one of my roommates about this that very hot weekend, and she said that she wouldn’t be joining me, but didn’t care if I bared my boobs. Last night, I asked my other roommate if he was OK with me being topless in the apartment

He said ‘no.’

Continue reading 'So you can be topless but I can’t?'»