Well, I got top surgery! A lot of details will either come later in my comic or can be found on this art piece I made about the recovery process. I just already wrote everything out either in notes to storyboard or in that description or to my therapist, I don't like repeating myself aha.

Onto stuff I actually wanna write, well, I've kinda just been sitting around doing nothing. For the first week I was completely out of it but now, with tomorrow being two weeks post-op, I'm growing listless. I make excuses to take walks down to the local dollar store to buy one thing each day just go get out of the house. Yesterday I went out to the creek and wandered around it a bit and thought about stuff. An ex visited earlier to drop off some food and to pick up my bras and binders cause I sure didn't need them anymore.

I got pretty upset last night. I was thinking so much about life and transness. I discovered a very toxic reactionary internet space for 4chan-adjacent trans people. They had those wojacks for trans women and these little goblin creatures with blackface lips for trans men. It honestly infuriated me. I'm used to offensive content, but the way these people made fun of other trans people while constantly being pathetic doomers... Like yeah sure your life sucks sucks to be you. Yeah wow HRT does nothing and you'll never pass? Then why are you fucking taking it? You're lying and spreading negativity to hundreds of mentally unwell people for no reason. Ugh.

While talking to my therapist, we got into how much mindset matters... Some people are chronically unlucky and fucked by life, I've seen it in people I've met, but for most people, its mindset. You think you're chronically fucked until you go outside and talk to people and turns out this random ass person you're chatting with was homeless with no friends and all their family dead at 13 and they clawed themself up to where they are now. Then it's like, oh holy shit I have so much to be thankful for, I'm my own worst enemy. If you want something, you don't just roll over and cry about it. I feel that strongly now after how hard it was to get top surgery. I'd have a setback, I'd lay in bed and cry, then I got up and dug up some loopholes and I made shit happen.

It's hypocritical, though, for me to be so determined with my transition and then completely aimless with the rest of my life. I think I find something I want to do and I kinda imagine it and I do nothing about it then a few months later I realize I never wanted that at all. With transition, I know exactly what I want, but with life in general? No clue. In all likelihood, I could see myself falling upwards. I work in a physically-small retail store. People come and go so often. I could easily end up becoming a team lead and then a manager just from sitting on my ass waiting until everyone else quits leaving me the most experienced person in my department and applying when yet another manager transfers or quits. Is this good or bad? I don't know.

I want to figure it out, though. Now that I'm single, own a car, post-top surgery, basically friendless, and upgrading to full time work once I return in November... My future is entirely up to my own discretion without a single other consideration. It's lonely, but the only way to go is forward. It can only get better. When you go through awful things and you survive, things feel a lot less threatening.

I'm planning on scheduling a psychological evaluation and getting a diagnosis for whatever it is that's wrong with me. I am already diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and because of my tics I "suspect" I have tourette's. I also suspect something else beyond that. CPTSD?  Autism? ADHD? Why do I suddenly relate to people with OCD? Only a professional can sort me out. I'm not a heavily pro- prof. dx diagnosis person. I  don't really care what people self diagnose with. I think diagnosis in general only matters in cases like my own where it'd help specify my treatment plan and grant me the ability to access medications beyond antidepressants. I think identifying with your diagnosis can momentarily help you realize you're not broken and there's others like you, but people often overcompensate and try to normalize their symptoms instead of understanding that recovery means you should stop acting in such a way where you feel the need to put your disorders in your social media bio.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking about starting antidepressants again? I'll give it some time. I'd been taking D3 because I'm deficient and believe it or not it actually did improve my mood. But 2 weeks before, 2 weeks after, I can't take supplements. But guess who's officially 2 weeks tomorrow and thus will resume the D3? We'll see how I feel on that... Plus my recent low moods are understandable. Recovering from surgery, struggling to do basic things on my own, CANT WORK OUT, I'm cooped up inside lonely as fuck. I'm super thankful my mom's been visiting me daily. Also with 2 weeks, my restriction on driving lifts, thank fuck. I might go out and run around stores tomorrow just for the fuck of it. Imagine...... going to the pet store and looking at the cats....

As mentioned in my previous blog, I had several days off in a row and I spent them all following the KonMari method, after listening to Marie Kondō’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.

How'd I do?

Good in some spots, bad in others. I decluttered a LOT, but even with half as many boxes, I still have no clue where to put those boxes.

I will say, I feel very refreshed now that everything's put away, even if I don't like how it is put away, even if "put away" means a bin is tucked into a corner. I finally feel like I can stop fretting over the house and engage in my hobbies again. For example,  I've resumed posting pages to my top surgery comic. August was the month of setting up and transitioning. Finalizing my move by sifting through my belongings and only keeping what I, well, wanted to keep. Buying a fuckload of stuff, including many pieces of misc. household items and an entire fucking CAR... Somehow, I think I'm actually doing pretty fuckin' good, all things considered.

I'd say there's still decluttering to do, but I, like, know how to do it now? I have the ability to decide more clearly? But yeah, I cleared shit OUT. Somehow my pic of all the bags and boxes has become lost media, but whatever. Picture several trashbags and like seven boxes to be taken to Goodwill, not to mention a bag of electronic bits and bobs to recycle.

And, as mentioned, this decluttering has brought on a new issue. I don't know where to put the remainders. Finding homes for the objects as they say. I unfortunately believe the solution is making a few more purchases. I don't exactly own much furniture. Like, a bookshelf sure would mean that my books wouldn't be in a box under the bed, which would mean space under there for something else. Just one dresser means all of the non-hangable clothes need jammed in there, plus dedicating one shelf of it to the fish tank I have laying on top of it, and that fish tank meaning my tiny TV that's lasted me since high school is now in the closet until I wanna take it out and use it for video games...

Oddly I'm a bit repulsed by a lot of organizational tools. Like, the example images for those door hanging organizers. Just buying more things to jam all your stuff into, instead of asking how much of this stuff you should just get rid of. But there certainly is a point sometimes. I just am unsure which pieces would benefit me.

Of course... I also am a bit against buying new things for organizing for a pretty basic, physical reason. I'm on the fourth floor, the top, of this apartment building with steep steps and no elevator. Living in a very small town and chatting with a coworker, she revealed these stairs are damn near infamous. She had a friend move into this building once and she was saying she woulda said no to helping him out if she knew how bad the stairs were. When moving in, every single one of my helpers threw in the towel early. I'm lucky I'm mildly fit... I'm far from active and healthy, but when I average 15k steps a day at work, my baseline stamina is perhaps triple of all my peers. And I still tire so quickly and easily! I think I'm completely allowed to humblebrag here. I feel unfit and I'm still running laps around everyone I know. How do people get things done.

Anyways as cool and epic as I am, those stairs still are a lot and I am not fucking hauling a bookshelf up them. Anything I do bring has better be small and light. Maybe bigger pieces can be saved for when I move out at the end of this lease, find a place closer to the ground (preferred,  because I've learned the hard way that heat rises and I'll always be cooking at a higher temp than it is outside) or someplace with an elevator. Then I could do the big shit. Til then I'm thinking door hanging shit and more plastic bins.

Honestly, I don't know what I’m doing for the future in regards to living. I talked to my boss and we decided I’ll go full time in November, giving me a few more weeks of part-time after my top surgery in the first week of October. Two weeks of medical leave after, plus two weeks of light part time work. Then full time. All that to say, sounds like I’ll be sticking with Walmart for the future so I… Suppose I’ll be floating around this area until I figure out my next step? I get free IT classes through Walmart, so at least sticking with that and seeing where that goes. Hanging in the area til I’m either transferred to another store or I get a tech job somewhere. I don't fuckin' know!

While looking for information on apartment organizing I somehow ended up learning about journal and planner organizing and heard about bullet journaling. I think I'll try it for 2026. I'm already quite happy with my diary and planner combo. The planner I have now works quite perfectly for me, it's only downsides being a few extra pages that are useless to me. So it'd be interesting to just, when I need to replace it anyways... Hand draw the aspects that are useful and go from there. Perhaps I've mentioned it, but I've always been a mess of many notebooks and planners and calendars. I think bullet journaling could help me out, consolidate a few of my extras down into one book. We'll see in a few months!

That's about it. The feeling of, like, being Done with the move only really started yesterday. That's when I finally got everything put back and feeling good. So I don't have much development beyond that! But that was a huge amount of development and a shift to more  "intentional" (oughh buzzword buzzword) living.

its been hard to blog lately as i cut back entirely on personal stuff. because then if im not getting up to professional stuff either, what do i talk about if not oversharing my relationships lmao? well after a month it seems ive gathered enough info to chirp on a bit.

im going to it! everything is lined up, confirmed, paid for, etc. got my real id in, the whole nine yards. now theres just simple prep to do like, what am i bringing in my carry on bag vs whats staying with the general luggage, lol. i mean obviously the fursuits are going into luggage for the flight. got air tags for mine and my partners so we can track 'em down in a worst case scenario. even after two last minute roommate cancellations we were able to get things back in order and once again have a full room of people ready to go.

i have prepared some stuff for funsies. my partners mother got us some fanny packs and one matches my kangaroo fursuit, Ambergris, perfectly. finally, i can have a pouch despite being a partial fursuiter! i diy'd some pins to represent the species since people mistake him for a cat a lot.


I'll put more pins on it last minute as the rest of my favorite pins are on my work vest.

So yes I'll primarily be partial fursuiting with Ambergris here! I am however also working on another fursuit and will bring a part of that to FWA as well. My feline truesona, Nate. well, just his paws. im almost done with them! i'll be able to finish them up in a day or two. one needs its sewing finished and both need their markings trimmed up!



I figured these will be nice to have and wear when I'm not full out fursuiting, as a cute accessory to represent myself, etc.

i have some big plans for personal projects! im of course going to make a blog rundown of what happens, but im also going to get footage to maake some cute themed gifsets as well as using some clips to make an amv of all my summer events! probably using this song because why the hell not, everyone else is using it to make amvs of their summer plans!

im getting really hyped. the scariest thing is the flight! but im gonna take a lot of anxiety medicine beforehand. i might even take some melatonin. anything to reduce my brain functioning so i can be nervous! but once im there itll be epic. im really looking forward to the sexual side of things especially. anthrocon is such a clean con, meanwhile fwa has motherfucking bad dragon as a vendor!

i also got my covid booster a few days ago to keep me nice and protected during fwa. holy shit, it FUCKED ME UP! i lost several days to recovering from that! seriously, heavy fullbody pain and a pounding headache if i stood up. i only got out of bed to take a hot bath and read.then back to bed. and slept 11 hours despite being in bed the entire time. thankfully feeling much better now, just injection site soreness and general unease but ah well.

not much else i can think to chirp about, especially when its about time to get ready for work!

howdy. back again with some bloggin' and postin'

learning to cook has been going good. been making soups, dips, and more fish cakes. a "friend" has offered to help teach me to cook, which will be a lovely time.

CATWYRM
im thinking of transitioning catwyrm from neocities to nekoweb, exclusively because neocities suppresses nsfw sites. when neocities itself added the 18+ button and stated it would be hidden from the main search but added to a special search function, i was happy! happy for it to be openly acknowledged and given its own space! ....but there is no special seperate nsfw search. there hasnt been for years. i dont think its happening...

this means all sites marked as 18+ are suppressed entirely with no way to be discovered unless directly linked to. indefinitely.

meanwhile, nekoweb allows nsfw content entirely and openly so long as it is clearly marked as such and the landing page of a site is SFW.

this didnt bother me for a long time, but lately the frustration at being suppressed has eaten at me. especially because catwyrm is 99% 
nonsexual! i just talk about sex sometimes! god forbid!

mento health
had a weird moment in therapy today where my therapist gently asked if i was ready to start lessening how often i see her. and here i was thinking i needed to see her more! i feel like i have so much childhood trauma to work through, i guess? she pointed out some people work better leaving old wounds alone and moving on. i dunno, we're gonna poke at it a bit next time. i guess in her defense, i do seem to be fine on my own... every time i come in im like "yeah, i had this crisis situation, but i handled it myself, and it was easier than it was the last time i had a similar issue. my depression and anxiety are both lessening as time goes on and i gather new coping mechanisms and adjust my mindset. even the agoraphobia and car anxiety that were ruining my life earlier are more like, background thoughts? and now im just fine with the fact that im gonna be driving 8 total hours to another city to talk to a gender surgeon?"

shes probably like damn my work here is done this dude is fine. and maybe i am? i dont know! i think i need back on antidepressants before i say im fine tho

gender
yes, speaking of which, my consultation for top surgery is in exactly one week. i will be driving 4 hours to another city, having the consult, then i will be driving back home the same day. i have a list of questions made up, and im going to be printing them out soon so i can take notes and not forget any information. you are free to look at my list of questions here.

well, see ya. i will be working in the background to do the nekoweb swap. later today that same friend mentioned earlier coming over. if we are lucky, the rain will not be so bad and we will get to go to the creek. as long as we arent sopping wet im fine with however muddy it is out there!

Well that lasted a bit longer than expected. The free RSS viewers are all just, nonfunctional? And at this point it's like. Um. I'll just... Link the actual Dreamwidth now instead of doing all this embed shit. LMAO ANYWAYS

Another day, another blog. My site has had a big update to its general appearance and layout! Old version is privately archived on a flashdrive. And probably publicly archived on the wayback machine, I know the sites had a few snapshots on there from myself and others.

Food
So, I'm getting back into the business of cooking better food more often. The other day I made fish cakes. I boiled potatos as I baked fish then mashed them together and put in green onions, ginger, all sorts of stuff, then fried it. Definitely need more ginger next time so I can really taste it, and I should double the recipe so I can freeze plenty for later.


Speaking of which, I’m thinking about getting a metal bento box to hold my work lunches. I… Admit my faults, and one fault is that I usually buy my snacks at work instead of packing them. I need to block out time for packing! And when I do pack, I don't wanna put that shit in any plastic like I do now, god damn! We make fun of boomers for the lead poisoning stare, just wait til gen beta is calling us plasticbrains.


Relationships
As you can see I'm going back to the subheading format I had in the lost weekly blogs. The relationship subheading was always the most problematic and the one  that needed purged. I will be very careful with using it for now on. I will be as vague as possible while I blog about the life stuff.

TL;DR The polyam stuff is... Polyamoring... Never had I expected that someone would approach and express interest in me. I thought I would have to be the one to initiate and pursue everything! It sure makes things feel weird, because I was/am the reluctant partner, but having people express interest in me is like oh! Oh I see. And how I feel is exactly how my partner feels. Polyamory truly is a "Holy shit, two cakes!" thing, isnt it?

I had a moment the other day. I went to my partner and a friend and was like "Guys, I had an epiphany! It just clicked in my head! I don't have to feel insecure or insignificant compared to anyone my partner sees! Even if the other person is 'better' than me in some way, I am still the best me that exists! I have so much to offer that is unique to myself such as my personality, humor, body, hobbies, worldview, politics, actions, etc! And, fuck it, I'm good enough for myself! I love you but I don't depend on you to define my worth!"

And to that they very supportively and sweetly told me that they're happy I discovered the concept of confidence.

Gender
Speaking of the polyam stuff, man, gender dysphoria sure is an extreme force lately. The usual you could expect. I'm thinking about getting a trans therapist to see weekly because man... The gender stuff is kinda bogging down my current therapy? I can't process and work through my past trauma when my present dysphoria is it's own new trauma each day. Guh. Anyways, gotta send another email to my future-surgeon to further hash out payment stuff ahead of time.

Also, I have been promoted to Admin in a FTM online forum. It's nice. The forum is full of kids so my job is entirely just cleaning out inappropriate stuff and banning bots n trolls. I don't do much beyond that. But it's nice. They deserve a safe environment to be in, even if I myself don't engage much because I'm an old fuck that has no idea what they're all on about.

C'est la vie!

January 29, 2025

A day off after a string of closing shifts, let's go.

Frankly, the day is already thrown off schedule by the fact that I have to overcome my phone anxiety several times in a row to call my representatives and urge them to fucking do something about the federal funding freeze. Of course, they won't. They're all republicans with a desperate desire to be reamed by every nazi they see. Not that democrats are any better, I think they lose on purpose because they get more donations by people desperate for them to win, then. But that's just infuriating, and I've been under enough stress lately as is. Endless rage isn't good for the heart.

Well, anyways.

I've been a boring adult lately. I'm finally at a point with my new job where I actually have leftover money from each paycheck, and so I'm learning more about savings and investment and shit for it. Only short term for now. I only wanted a new place to park my savings, as my normal banks saving account interest rate is literally like 0.002%.

Yesterday I made a high yield savings account with a 3.8% interest rate and put the savings money there. Keep it far away so I can't impulsively dip into it all while it at least generates *some* interest.

I've also started playing around with stocks again. I apparently left $12 in my Robinhood account so I've been fooling around with it. For example, I am currently up $0.13.

I was also thinking about T-bills but frankly that shit's confusing as fuck so I dunno.

In other news, I'm contemplating embedding this blog onto my Neocities. But the thing is, I am quite private... I feel apprehensive about more than 2 or 3 people reading this. But I'm sure Neocities inflates its viewer stats, and embedding would only bring it up to 5 viewers after all, but dang, still, y'know? Eh.

It's also time for me to lock the fuck in with my side business because now that I'm feeling recovered enough to dedicate time to, well,  anything beyond survival... Well, I should do it.

August 01, 2024
My birthday was nice. I self-sabotaged but then made plans last minute. We also had some set-backs, ended up leaving for the mall an hour later than intended because a friend needed help with something, and that was bad because we were set to visit BF's grandma after the mall day and we'd already given her a time estimate which meant that was an hour less of birthday time, and then we got into perhaps 30 minutes of roadwork, and I have car-based anxiety mind you, so, it was a rough start and we postponed grandma time by an hour to compensate.

But then BF and I finally arrived at the mall and just walked around a bit. Well, first, we got sushi. I just got a california roll. One roll is the perfect size meal for me. I'm never stuffed, but I am full. I suppose the portions are perfect for keeping up the "eat until you're 80% full" idea.

I drank water while eating but afterwards we went to a coffee shop and got boba. We got iced matcha with blueberry bubbles to share. Then we explored the mall. We kinda just browsed around a few stores, but then stopped in Lush for a good while.

I'd seen that you get discounts if you bring in old plastic Lush containers to recycle, and I certainly had plenty of those, so I brought in all the ones I'd set aside for the occasion. I wasn't set on buying anything, but certainly on turning those in to be recycled. I browsed around a bit, sniffed plenty of things, then eventually found a section full of "knot wraps."

They were variously-sized square cloths meant to be used for... Anything you can think of. They're inspired by furoshiki, which are Japanese cloths used to wrap things to carry or for gifting. I browsed around a bit and found one that fit my aesthetic sensibilities and also was quite interesting. This one that I liked was a collab with Atelier Element Present, a Japanese art studio for artists and designers with Down Syndrome. I thought that was cool.



I hope it is not weird to say but I love an article that has a fun fact and story. I love having things to make a conversation out of. I feel like nowadays our items are all without souls so it's valuable to me for something to have slightly more intent and story behind them than simply "It is profitable to make this generic item of this solid generic color."

I deliberated a lot on getting it but then realized if I didn't like it... It's a limited edition Lush item that will never go bad. I can absolutely regift or resell this thang. Which re-assures me against buyer's regret. But, I am happy with it still some days later. It is pretty and it will be very useful to carry things and also, it's the perfect size to be a fursuit bandana as well. Also it was basically nothing after the recycling discount and stuff. Very agreeable to me.

After that we went to Barnes and Nobel and browsed the books. It's so aesthetically satisfying, that store. Everything's overpriced but still, isn't it all pretty though. Especially all the stationery and candles and mini-home decor. It's like I'm making a mental Pinterest board when I'm there.

But yeah I went in with the goal to buy Authority and I did just that. I saw the 10th anniversary covers for the rest of the Southern Reach Trilogy but I got the classic cover because I prefer it and it will match my copy of Annihilation. I cracked into it already, even though I typically don't read multiple books at once. I'm already in the middle of Jurassic Park but I couldn't help it.



And thus that was my day :) Yesterday for part two of my birthday, and as part of another friend's birthday hang-out, we watched Godzilla Minus One. I had just seen it, but I will ALWAYS rewatch Godzilla to see my friends' reactions to peak fiction. Another friend who couldn't make it told me that he'd like to marathon some older Godzilla flicks with me since he couldn't make it to this movie night, and now I am excited for that as well.