ColorQuiz

Viv took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Has a powerful drive towards sensuousness...." Click here to read the rest of the results.

I was a bit sick of the previous, pompous blog name so there... I changed it. Also, I'd like to say that I am safely out of my depressive semester but into my "so fragile" one. Really... I feel emotionally fragile. What does this mean? Well, lots of things, but mainly that I don't feel like seeing anyone but a couple of people, don't feel like going out or anything. Just getting used to life as 90% transitioned, meaning everywhere except work, no surgeries. Sucks at a very patent level, but it's also wonderful to be this far along.

So, moving on.

I started singing lessons about two weeks ago. I'm going for mezzo-soprano opera singing (oooooooh), which I've always loved. I have the fondest memories of singing along to the few opera cassettes that my grandfather had (he was a big Vivaldi and baroque fan, but mostly instrumental stuff)

The challenge (there's always a challenge in transition/self-realization stuff) is that I started HRT about two years ago with my vocal cords already thickened by Testosterone. So "naturally" singing high is no longer an option.
I guess if I had to characterise my voice I'd say it's easily a female alto/male countertenor. For the longest time I believed my voice was incredibly low, which in my female perception was, but really wasn't. In chest voice I'm easily a tenor and I slide comfortably to head voice and beyond.
In regards to speaking voice, I haven't been sir'd on the phone in a loooooooong long time.

Speaking I got mostly down pat; now singing, that's a different challenge.
My technical target is to become a mezzo-soprano/soprano through the sopranista path and achieve a voice as awesome as that of Joerg Waschinski () and many others.

Lunch... ttyl.

Your newscast for this hour

:(((( Unkymoods.com is gone :(((

Their emoticons were really cool and free :(

Oh anyway...

I started writing 'diaries' at around 12 years of age and even though I've struggled with the idea, I'll never be able to write a 'diary' per se. That is, a daily account of feelings and impressions. Instead, they are more like state of me flashes every month or so.

My thoughts for today...

Testosterone-induced sex has a way of perverting feelings to the core, warm female feelings we get during growing up. Men are sexual and always oversexed after puberty starts shooting stars into their heads, and since you're supposed to behave in this stupid way, your normal girl yearnings get twisted into sex fetishes we don't want to admit to. Because, if you like to feel a child's warmth and softness and want to hug them and protect them, at some point the testosterone will ask you if you wouldn't like something *else*. Or pregnant women. Or things related to women's world that you yearn for. Since testosterone behaves as an independent agent in its interaction with conscience and the body, one feels ashamed by this unknown voice that always seems to "know" you are really just a dirty guy at the bottom.
And this causes shame and distrust of oneself, so much that it either alienates one's budding sexuality into masturbation or forces recognition in the wrong way, as a fetish, adding to the misunderstanding.

pudgy?!

Here I am... struggling with myself for the resolve to go to the gym. I'm not fat, but I've gotten kind of pudgy this passing winter of hormone-induced reshaping.
And I can't. I can't go more than once every three weeks or so. Pretty bad, I know.

Probably the fact that I pass about 95% or more of the time has made me comfy in my fat :) Or that I am considered attractive by a considerable group of people, men and women. Very cute men and women... btw.

Ok wait... that was HISTORIC. Recap.

Close to 100% passing? (with my work uniform I still pass pretty good, but it decreases my chances)
People who think I'm attractive and sexy and who don't see me as anything else than a a woman?

Batman you shay?? :D

And what about this one? About 3 weeks ago I went out with a guy for the first time in my life! Is it me, is this Vivian... isn't all that the stuff of dreams? Despite the drier legal aspects I am a woman to the world!

I started blogging here last year in June... only three months after starting hormones. I was 16 pounds lighter (ouch) but also didn't have a semblance of the feminine appearance I have now. Thanks hormones. Thanks job for letting me afford facial hair removal.

man...! I fell asleep writing while laying here on my bed! I'm gone to see Mr and Mrs. Smith with my roommate! :)

Angeles

Angeles
Originally uploaded by firebee.

She's my niece and I adore her. We were celebrating her 3rd birthday at a Chuck E. Cheese's and I was clicking like crazy... only to find 90% of the pics were *seriously* out of focus. Oh well, at least a couple turned out ok in an artistic sort of way :P
And no, she's not asian ;)

Miss Independent

I don't like Kelly Clarkson's stuff but I think "Miss Independent" is not a bad song (I consider myself to be like that a little bit, heh :P); the music wasn't bad, she sings ok in a Mariah-Careyish way, but it's still really light and merely "entertaining" as a friend would put it ;)
That without mentioning the video, which sucked totally.
The Hani Radio Mix of that song is a lot like the song I'd have liked "Miss Independent" to be. It's totally house but with touches of good electronica, as in the fact that it still feels like a real song and not just dance fodder.

So hello! ^.^ It's been a while again since I wrote something here and interesting stuff has been happening.
I went through a bad patch again of depressive feelings... not outright depression like last time but feeling pretty helpless and hopeless. Thankfully, little things almost everyday helped cheer me up. Like the fact that on the phone I'm automatically ma'amed and/or thought of as female without even trying a single bit. Also, the same happens 90-98% of the time I'm out with people. My worst times are those close to or right after laser when I have a shadow and it brings out male details to my face which I really *don't* need and *don't* want. Besides, to put it simply, when I have the shadow on my face I look like a woman with an ugly black skin condition. Even if I pass, I look terrible and I don't like that.

Another life-saver has been my family. My found family not my blood relations: D., N., S., and the children A., T. and K. Their love is my support everyday. Funny how I could never have enjoyed their love if I hadn't transitioned and been able to appreciate it.

I know this is old news but going back to the ridiculous male pretense this morning feels so strange. I had a nice chat with a vendor lady this morning and she didn't hesitate to call me "ma'am", even after me giving her my boy name. I also called Bose to check on an order and the guy was totally ma'aming me and being nice.

What a stupid charade.

Btw... I'm listening to some music from an unpublished new friend I met last weekend at a gender conference and to be honest it's pretty good. And I am *not* a friendly critic... ever.

Everything turned out OK yesterday , yay!

* D. had her corrective lipo and it went really well, she is now recovering at home, yay!

* S. is back from GRS, yay!

* I got to talk to N. and she's coming over next tuesday, yay!

As for me, I'm ok. Going through a period of emotional indifference to transition issues which I hope will last. I am also flooded by the good vibes from D. and S. They are so happy!


In an effort to understand S.'s GRS (and total morbid curiosity) I watched a slideshow of Meltzer performing a vaginoplasty.
It did stir me a little all those feelings of "never" I have, but I'm ok. I'm trying to see it in as clinical a way as possible, no emotional involvement.

Warning: *VERY GRAPHIC*






And it's a beautiful friday morning.

*yawn*

I'm sleepy... zzzz

*yawn*

Today is going to be a long day. Not a bad day or anything though. I'm going to watch over D. while she has some surgery and later at night going to pick up S. to the airport.

Feeling kind of like "k whatever". More than a tad cynical and on the verge of having my transition issues in the forefront, but for now I'm holding on. In the last few months not only did my friend S. did have GRS but another friend had FFS. Also lately I was reading this board and found out about lots more people having GRS ('tis the season, getting ready for summer) and about one very young and pretty girl having FFS (which I always thought she never needed). She was working as a waitress last I heard so I wonder where she got her $40K. Parents probably. Some people have cool parents in this world, yeah. And some of them are even rich.

Overall, feeling "blah functional", which is the blah where you can still function with your friends and family without making an issue of your internal state.
Feeling *very* avoidant though. Don't want to have any kind of contact with anyone but my family and friends.
I am also feeling like I don't give a heck about passing or anything like that. I'm just content with my androgyny for now; like the David Bowie song says, I feel that "there's no point in re-exposing you". Myself, in this case.

Anyway, got to do some work. Hope it's a sunny day outside.



The Motel
David Bowie

(excerpts)

For we're living in a safety zone
Don't be holding back from me
We're living from hour to hour down here
And we'll take it when we can

When nothing is vanity nothing's too slow
It's not Eden but it's no sham