Life... updated: The Vivian Channel

i hope you can forgive the self-serving and full of !!!!!!CHEESE!!!!!! subject line. I'm not a 13-year old, I'm really not! I don't even think it was funny!

Venus Envy has also woke up from the slumber of lack of updates and it's been blazing with them for like two weeks. Great! I guess this also means I *have* to get myself writing new reviews and present the much anticipated (by me at least) Venus Envy review... ... I've been through a lot of stuff these weeks with my job and my personal life which isn't quite done... The preliminary conclusions have been drawn though, which makes me immensely happy:
* MY SO and I have faced the music and recognized we need to change the way our relationship works. Focus on the wealth of good things, be more free towards each other and ourselves and accept that it's not the same world from a few years back we live in.
Basically meaning the deep deep things that connect us need not be lost by petty everyday-living grievances and age-old rancor, they're just more important. We are who we are and even without my boatload of gender related tension our thing was never the picket fences. I now believe I have a future of connecting with her in lots of different, freer ways and not just the regret of failure. It makes me very happy to see we'll not lose each other as soulmates after all.
As Placebo would put it, Soulmate dry your eyes/Soulmate dry your eyes/Soulmates never die.
*IT LOOKS like I'm not going to be out of a job in the next few months which is absolutely uber cool! Granted, it's still the same lousy type of manly job I'm at now, but at least that's what's paying for my transition needs and life in general so you could say happiness is still coming :)
In the future I'll be looking for a better job anyway, but at least with something to fall back on. This money dry season is also going to end, oh yes..... I miss shopping so much! snifff snifff sniff
Completely unrelated, but also new: As soon as I get accepted by the Admins at Genderpeace.com (a forum mostly for TS Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers) I'll be posting yet another bio piece on the life of the gal. It's interesting how these life info blurbs change the more you move through your transition, how you remember stuff you had blocked and gain new understanding of things. The past is changing all the time said Leto II, and he was right.

Stay cool,
Vivi

TG webcomic update

Looks like From Then On Forth is back. The art has improved lots and the comic looks and feels even more Venus Envy-ish (don't kill me Elizabeth) than before. The jokes are still not too strong but I'm sure she'll hit her stride with time. Welcome back! :)

blog

I haven't been happy lately with the look of my blog. I should learn some HTML and have it look better. Hmmm.

Since I haven't posted a decent piece of writing in so long I might as well share some news with you:

My first support meeting went really well. The atmosphere, even though most were very self-conscious, was relaxed. The woman in charge of the meetings is wonderful, I'd rather not say anything than interrupt her. She's got a strong, powerful voice, deep yet feminine for a woman her age. She's a minister and like teachers, ministers learn to give power and resonance to their voices in order to be heard. She would throw me into a lake if she knew but she reminded me in various respects of my grandmother. She's quite younger but the look was very much like my granny's at that age and also her voice and way of speaking. Interesting.
My grandma.... I need to call her. I haven't done so in a while. When I left where I left she was the only family person I was sad about leaving on her own. She played a big part in me coming to the big city. Speaking of, last sunday my honey and I went to see Madonna at Phillips Arena. It was AWESOME! The show was unbelievable, the dancing wonderful and the song versions rocked! Phillips has terrible acoustics though and at times one could only hear an indisctinct mash of sound and voice. We had a great time my SO and I, we didn't want it to end.
It was pouring rain when we got out, pouring really, there were rivers flowing into the storm drains and at every street corner. 3 long blocks to get to the car.... oh well. We got soaked of course. I was wearing a black corset top, red skirt with a cute star patch and black 3 inch strappy sandal heels which had gotten real slippery. At one point I did what most women would were doing: take off my shoes and run. Boy that rain was too cold for comfort. Or is it that I'm more susceptible to temperature changes now? When we got home it was still raining hard and we had to park a little far from our apartment. We got out again and right away I started getting these shivers all over. I was all shaky, my teeth were chattering like crazy and I couldn't say a word without repeating syllables. I'm definitely not as resistant all over since I started on the mones; but that goes with the territory, right? Even though I never liked being too strong or big (6'), it does have its uses. You need to depend less from other people to do stuff and it's a security plus when someone is eyeing you for something nasty too. I used to get beat up at school up until I was about 10. After that the big galoot gene kicked in and guys thought it twice before messing with me. I was in the process of shutting down myself for the long night of adolescence so my oozing soul darkness also helped keep them at bay. I haven't been in a fight since my 2nd year of high school, for which I'm grateful now. I don't want to get into anything that will cause me harm.
Aaaaaanyway, going back the support group, it was a very nice experience (which I'm eager to duplicate). I even made a friend there with whom we've emailed or chatted regularly since then. I liked it there that everyone had gender issues to deal with and nobody was judgmental. It certainly felt very warm there in our little circle. I'm fretting now whether to go or not to the SCC planning party where there's bound to be a lot more TGs and my social skills will have to improve a notch... I'm really nervous :[


On a side note, I've got a sore throat. I think I'd been coming down with it for some days but all the top-of-my-voice singing at the concert wrecked it for good. My fem voice is coming out much better now technically but since I'm unable to reach the high notes, I'm forced to the resonant bassoon. Speaking of voice, I feel like a teenager again. I've progressively raised the pitch and I'm now getting more comfortable
My friend from the support group tells me my voice sounds great, but I know she's a dear. I do know it's much better now than a month ago though. My next step is to eliminate more traces of maledom from my voice and rise from the dull nasal tomb. That last part is proving hard but I'm optimistic about the future. I think that bar some bone-set male traits I'm becoming a nice looking woman in my own right. And looking more and more like my mother and the women on her side of the family in the process... jeez :)

ground to major bye bye tom

do you like girls or boys?
it's confusing these days

support group!

Today I'm going to my FIRST SUPPORT GROUP MEETING! I'm so excited I'm biting my elbows!

Small Jean Genie

Last Tuesday I went out with my laptop and "let the blood flow on the keys". I was kinda depressed, I have to tell you. I feel positively stupid about the fact that I went to the outside of a night club to write in a laptop but well.. that's me for now. I'm posting it raw, I won't do any editing, so if you find inconsistencies or poor worded feelings think of it as a pseudo stream of consciousness notes piece ;)


It's strange, but nice. I'm writing one of these posts off line, in Notepad and outside Le Buzz in Marietta, GA (a cafe popular with TG people in these parts, mostly gay guys in bermuda shorts though). I'd never been here and the fact that there's little movement doesbn't tell me much about the place's habitual life. It's 9:20 on a Thursday, after all. I'm outside now and a guy came to talk to me and was really nice, he must have thought I'm from a newspaper writing a review on the club, me clacking away on my laptop. I do have to write a thing on it if I ever come back properly, that is with some other company than a laptop. Some new girlFRIENDS maybe? Yes!
People come and go and sounds come from inside, but no one stops here. I guess I must be really strange out here on my own, no drink or anything while everyone is there inside. But that's Vivian for you... very shy :o The music is not bad though, at least not bothersome, Guess you could call it "generic euro club" with some current hit every once in a while (I've heard two versions of Beyonce's cry of sexiness already). I have to say I don't know if it's the right place to come with a laptop to write, but then again that's me. COMPLETELY unable to do anything normal.
A techno version of "You're so vain" A couple of lesbian girls go by now, I recognize a butchy one by watching her walk. Another lesbian, she talks to me this time. I sound so horrible, I have no idea of what to say or how to. I'm going to be a pain in the ass for any half-socialite I team up with. She looked nice and all, the lesbian woman mean, all guyish and strong. Letting myself at last be the way I was meant to be is proving to be a strange but pleasant ride. There's little male inside me anymore, I've eradicated most of it zone by zone. All my male is on the outside, my bones, my voice, my wall. My wall... it still holds up. One of the main problems I guess is the fact that I'm not full time. I still have to interact as male everyday at work (TRY at least, everyone knows I'm not succeeding though
"I'm every woman" plays now. I wonder which will be the "gay music" of 2020. Madonna?
The stone butch went by again, walking all straight like a guy. Just add toothpick to mouth.
It might seem that I'm laughing at these people but nothing is farther from the truth. I respect them, I'm TG after all, it's just that I'm feeling a little strange, that's all.
I always feel jumpy when around people and night spots make me dizzy with self-consciousness. I guess it'll pass, but for now I need a little group security.
Sigh, but I'm determined to get myself to the support group this Saturday. Terrified as I am, I have to move out of this shell. Also because it's a sad remnant of my yesteryears. Back then it was necessary, today it's more like something that it's just there, like a Norman castle. It's ruinous and everything but its walls still cry repel.

I came here to finish a poem I'm writing (The Angel Tree) but I'm kind of stuck, it won't go any further from its twenty scattered verses or so.


Same night, an hour later.
I left the premises of LeBuzz after I finally realized I was not finishing my poem and most important of all, that I was sticking out like a sore thumb.
I'm at a $tupidBuck$ now, amid fratboys and middle aged newspaper readers. Just a pun though, the place is quiet and nice, and it looks like I could have a lot of their drinks. The Chai Tea Latte is awesome. It's my first time in a Starbucks (they spelled my name "Vivien" and not "Vivian" on the cup, guess I can live with that. I like it that way too.)
I don't like the building itself much. It's a modern tall ceilinged thing with exposed air conditioning ducts, which makes it not comfy at all. They close at 11 :(
Voice report: Well, even though I've achieved some sort of good pitch and diction at home, I'm a total mess when people are looking at me. I manage an improved "Mr. Softee" voice (refer to earlier post for definition) but it just doesn't do the trick. That I'm not terribly passable and my demeanor is terrible should add to the problem. And I HAVE to shave my arms before tomorrow; the hair subtracts from my otherwise nice forearms and hands.
I'm not going to talk about my Adam's apple tonight. NOTE TO SELF: NEXT TIME GET A STRAW, that way I won't have to flash "the apple" to everyone around.
I have a problem right here (points head) with avoidancy. I'm missing a lot of stuff, and that's only because I shun all human contact by looking away. People must think I'm always looking at something else in a spacey manner, in fact, I'm just fixing my gaze elsewhere.
Gosh, this Chai Latte is good! At least I dont look THAT out of place here though, even among the fratboys and the middle aged readers. Back at the cafe my gender variance was normal, though my activities were abnormal (shunning everyone, sooooooo inconspicuous), here the clacking is just fine, and my TGness is abnormal. Girls are cutesy around here, boys rough but pampered.
The clerks were polite enough to me (I was terrified). I am sitting in one of the four corners of the place, another of those inconspicuous places I choose.
If I ever get the money and the will to go to a therapist my avoidance should be the first thing on the table. I really hate it, and would be very happy without it.
It wasn't always this way though, I became hyper-avoidant during the grueling last years of my adolescence, early 20's (who'd say I'll be 26 in a few months!)
A couple of black guys scribble notes in legal pads, one of them looks at a book with pictures (I'd say medical, though it could be Moon shots for all I know), underlining stuff.
From far, I pass easily. Close, they figure me out and I'm not a tall woman anymore but a cute tranny with small obviously femenine boobs. Strange, when people see me now en femme they don't think "crossdresser" anymore, the word in their minds (the concept in their minds anyway) is "transsexual". And it doesn't bother me as I regard myself as a cute tranny, but I'd like it to move forward from that soon. Of course it's not going to happen soon, but dreaming costs nothing as they say where I was born.
4 minutes till close. I guess I'll pack my stuff and leave now. VOICE VOICE VOICE VOICE


Raspberry Beret (that's what I'm listening to)

Well guess what,no one said goodbye to me so I didn't have to use my voice. I guess I'd done enough revealing for one night. 11:20. Blogger is down for another hour so I think I'll spend it writing and browsing. I rarely sign on to Messenger these days, I don't feel like chatting with anybody. I haven't been on irc for a while also, I can never find someone fun to talk.

Guess my RLT is running in these instances. RLT means you can't skulk back into your male shell for protection. RLT means facing the music. It's as hard as it seemed it would be!

Why would a guy as fem and with such a nice voice as Prince sing things such as "when I was your man blah blah blah". Prince is truly androgynous though, like David Bowie. You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on, you know ;)

Wheeee!

I bought me a new car! Well it's not exactly new but it's 2001 which makes it six years younger than the rolling junk I had before. Now I'm enjoying the luxuries of air conditioning, a stereo that actually sounds good and a smooth ride.
This Saturday I'm going to my first support group meeting... my heart takes a fall, my teeth chatter, my hands shake uncontrollably! Yes, I'm KIND of shy.
Last time I tried to go to a support group I got lost in the slums of Atlanta and without air conditioning in my car I was half baked by the sun. Needless to say my hair was a mess, my makeup was ruined and my mood was... stormy. It's best that I didn't make it that time though, it'd have been triple hell. Anyway,

These are my guidelines for Saturday


Dress
@ Don't be over the top
@ Use your pros (breasts, legs, waist, smile)
@ Play down your cons (jaw, rib cage, arms, hips)
@ dress hip and cool, but kind of normal


Voice+Speaking
@ don't forget to push back and up your larynx
@ a high pitch is always better than a low pitch
@ relax and let your diction flow
@ speak melodically not in a monotone (hard!!)
@ speak slowly!!!!!!
@ don't freeze
@ don't panic


Demeanor
@ just be yourself
@ avoid 'gay' mannerisms
@ do not try to overtly impress everyone with your accomplishments


Socialization
@ don't be afraid
@ be prepared to see people much more advanced than you (don't let your spirits fall)
@ be prepared to see people much less advanced than you (don't think you've made it)
@ relax, be the girl you are
@ let yourself "fall into" conversations, you don't need to be the life of the party

role models but mostly the future in the past

It used to be when I was a kid that I'd look up to this strange and wonderful world where everything found a spot, and rejoiced. People who were happy and successful in their lives were in my future, if not in my present, and I was to be like that. Later came some bruising truth, swooping down from the unknown heights unmerciful. I still saw those people and those happy places as something hard to reach, but I'd get there someday.
My total breakdown started around the end of my adolescence and just paused to gather its strength while I enjoyed loving my partner, though when it came, it was horrible. Years piled on years of frustration and incertitude, of sharp displacement and being lost, of disconnection with my family and the few friends I'd known, of silence; my whole life came down. I looked at the successful people and the happy places then and thought time had worn me too much for such beauty; my best option was to die and be done with it. I didn't kill myself not out of lack of courage (though the prospect scared me terribly), but because there was a deep bright flame inside me which inspired me to keep on, to walk past those feelings.
I was a kind of Major Tom, alone and cold in the silence of my tin can and with no way of getting anywhere, myself lost in the void with no stars.

David Bowie has some of the best and most beautiful songs for just about every feeling. This is Rock and Roll Suicide, but it could be just any suicide:

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suciide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Don't let the sun blast your shadow
Don't let the milk float ride your mind
They're so natural - religiously unkind



And the second part, the one you know is true but would like to believe anyway:


Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone

Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Oh gimme your hands.

Ain't it cute when someone calls you "love"? ;]

afraid of all ghosts

I'm kind of depressed. I feel that the first part of my life was largely wasted by the place I was raised in and my family. I was never supported the right way (or much in anything), the way which could have made my life better now. Parenting, that is another word for guidance.
If someone had cared back then to look beyond their own ideas I could have come to terms with the things which bothered me my whole life. My TGness would have been way advanced if my mother had just once been the guide I so much sought. So much heartache and doubt forever removed. Sometimes I think I'd benefit of a procedure like the one in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'd have my parents erased, the memory replaced with benevolent icons who died tragically in a car crash.
My mother the village idiot, my father the stone-cold bastard, my stepfather the man in the iron mask. They never cared. If someone had cared I wouldn't be so scarred now with so much sadness. No, no; I could be teaching Literature or Philosophy, or I could be a great writer! I have well in my mind the constant problems that being discarded by those assigned to protect you brings. And money, which no one ever gave me beyond basic needs. How am I ever going to be in the same universe as a $30.000 Ousterhaut FFS? Oh yeah, it's not something you really NEED to live, but then again Epicurus says you don't really NEED to drink wine when water would do fine right?

The voice thing

Changing one's voice is hard business. There's so many things! It's not just the hard pitch shift, but also the voice mannerisms and intonation. Whoever thinks that being trans is being lazy (ie not "trying hard enough" to be a man) should try this. Oh yeah :)
And it sounds so strange! I never realized how much I'm attached to my voice and way of talking until I heard this alien fem voice emerging from my throat. Bad and so beginner as it is, it's still much better than the soft rumble of my male voice.
I have to change everything. Even my way of pitching my voice for joking is very male, which bugs me since I joke all the time.
Anyway, I sense I'm lagging behind in my voice. I'm easing myself into this gay guy voice, a Mr. Softee of sorts, and it's something I dearly don't want. I mean, I don't mind being taken by gay (like I have a choice, no one takes me for a guy-guy anymore!), but that is not my goal. I want to pass and be regarded as the woman I am.

FFS

I've been looking at my face and how easily recognizable as male it is. The illusion of femininity does hold up a bit, but from far and not for long. It's very brittle.
If I had the money or a good job I'd certainly go to Dr. Ousterhout, but do you have around $30.000 ? Me neither, so I'm thinking I'm going to be stuck with this old stupid farce, sorry face, for a while. Hormones have helped heaps though, my face used to be much more masculine and ugly than now. My expressions (especially when I smile) have a nice deal of femininity in them thanks to the hormones.
But well, other things look more reachable, like a tracheal shave (I'm afraid of the possible complications though), laser, an orchiectomy and the eventual boob job. SRS, with its high fees and high psych costs belongs in Ousterhaut land.

crunch

These days have been getting progressively harder as they go by.
My job may be gone in less than two months, my partner and I are going through rocky roads and today... my shamble of a car broke down. And I was supposed to get my face lasered very soon, something which will so obviously not happen soon now. I'm a bit depressed by this, I hate my beard and all the things it brings (clocking, rashes, ingrown hairs, heaviness of the face, etc... brr!) but I must pull together and find a new job. Ideally, I'd love to find a job where I could express my gender variance but now any job which isn't too masculine (I couldn't stand one like that) will do.
I need to zap my facial hair, get a new car, get a new job and not lose my living standard in the process. All without any credit or monetary help. Looks hard. If I could get an IT job it'd be great.
Meanwhile, my transition goes on. My breasts keep on growing and changing and look now like (i believe) nice and large Tanner IIs. The best thing my mother gave me? Her breast genes ;) I'm also working everyday a bit on my voice and it's making a difference I think. Something I do find a bit alarming though is the fact that I'm hardly writing at all, something I thought would come back swiftly when my maleness was evicted. Anyway, I still have a "silent" depression over the fact that I lost everything I've written all my life when my hard drive expired. Stupidity, lack of backups, yes, and it hurts more because of that.
Anyway, it's going to get hard soon so I better find me something to do in the way of moneymaking and breadwinning. I shudder to think that I'd have to leave my hormones even if for a little time.