Archive for the ‘sick’ Category

Infectious Experience

Monday, January 11th, 2010

I can easily say that so far, this new year / decade has not started well.  Hopefully it’s not like the whole “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” scenario.  It started with me getting sick with a head cold right on New Years Day.  How wonderful…

I hate being sick.  It doesn’t happen often, but for some reason I’ve been sick twice in the past 6 months.  This one was worse than the last.   It didn’t seem that way at first, but after five days of blowing my nose raw it was pretty obvious.  Then suddenly I stopped getting better, and the awesomeness coming out of my nose turned neon yellow.  So on Saturday, I went to Urgent Care to get my sinus infection diagnosed.

While I was there, the doctor informed me that my left ear had wax buildup.  That’s the same ear that had blockage problems last year.  So, on Sunday, I decided to try the ear wax removal drops I have and see what happens.  I figured I could take care of it.  Instead, the drops got stuck in my ear.  I couldn’t get them out.  I tried just about everything from a q-tip to jumping up and down to a blow drier to sleeping on my ear to let it drain out.  Nothing worked.  So all night and all day I had a blocked left ear that was kind of annoying.

So that meant today I got to go back to the doctor.  How fun!  This time they flushed my ear and got the offending wax out.  Finally the water drained!  My god what a relief.  I was then informed that I had an ear infection to go along with my sinus infection.  That’s wonderful.  I don’t know if I’ve ever had an ear infection before.

What I found odd…my doc told me that most people complain of a big ear ache along with an ear infection like mine.  I didn’t really notice.  It was a little uncomfortable and the whole being deaf in one ear was annoying.  Otherwise, I guess I never noticed.  Makes me wonder how high my pain tolerance is.  I know I don’t get headaches often and I only keep tylenol in my cabinet because someone might need it at some point.  I must be weird…

So yeah, things are getting better.   I should be finally breathing easy again by the end of this week.  I’m sick of blowing my nose, and I’m sure my roommates and coworkers are sick of hearing it.  I’m excited though…today was the first time in a while that I’ve felt truly hungry.  So I made myself a big dinner, and it was fantastic!

Let’s see…let’s go backward.  New Years Eve was fun.  Chris and I went to our friend’s Sarah and Kit’s house.  It was a great time.  We played Pit and enjoyed everyone’s company.  There was good food and a lot of laughs.

Christmas isn’t what it once was for my family.  We didn’t do the gifts thing this year.  No one could really afford it.  So it was really just food and family.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s great.  It’s just doesn’t feel like it did when I was a kid.  Plus, we do everything on Christmas Eve now since my siblings have families.  I’m really the only one staying over at my parents’ house now.  I miss that feeling of wonder and excitement of childhood Christmases.  All things change I guess.

I did end up spending money on myself though.  I bought an electric blanket.  My parents had one on my bed when I was at home, and I just loved it.  I haven’t regretted buying it at all so far.  In fact, I’m sitting under it right now.

My family went to see Avatar, which…awesome! If you haven’t, go see it, and go see it in digital 3D.  I have already gone to see it twice.  I may see it a third time before it leaves theaters.  Such a cool film.

I can’t forget to mention this.  Right after Christmas, a great friend of both mine and Chris came to visit all the way from San Francisco, California.  Her name is Lisa.  She went to college with both Chris and I, and she’s the coolest hippie I know.  We spent the Monday night after Christmas hanging out, catching up, sharing good food, and loving every minute of it.  She is a friend I hope I stay in contact with for the rest of my life.  We have such a great connection.

Lisa, Chris, and I are such kindred spirits.  There are so few people that I can talk so deeply with about things that are so personal and sacred.  I trust them with anything.  Lisa, Chris, and I talked about something that I’ve felt for a long time.  It’s this feeling…no…longing to go home.  By home, I mean back to where our souls come from.  This world is so mundane, so harsh, so hurtful…yet we’re here…trapped in these fleshy shells with such limited perceptions of time and space.  I know a big part of me yearns to be released from my entrapment, but I know I still have things I have yet to do here.  I may not know what those things are, but…I just know.  Both Chris and Lisa share that feeling, and it’s nice to know that I’m not alone in feeling what I feel.  I think that is a wonderful thing to share.  I am so grateful to know both of them.

Let’s see…since I haven’t written since Thanksgiving really, none of my readers know of the crap I had to deal with in December.  The big one was that my car’s fuel pump finally died.  All of my plans for a new laptop went out the window.  I had to put my moneys toward a shiny new pump to make my car run again.  $700 dollars later and I got just that.  My car has been running beautifully ever since.

Out of that fiasco and disappointment, I did some thinking and really decided that I really did need a new laptop.  I finally decided to sell my iMac.  I figured it was the only way to get the laptop that I really needed.  So I went about doing that and success!  I was able to sell it.  I realized also that I had some software licenses on it that were also worth money that I could sell separately.  I ended up coming out quite well in the deal.  I got myself a shiny new fiery red Sony Vaio laptop with some nice fixins on the inside.  It’s been serving me well for a couple weeks new, and I am quite happy with it.  That was really my Christmas gift to myself.

So, that means…I can actually do some of the things I’ve been holding off on.  Unfortunately due to my getting sick for so long, I’ve had no energy to do any of it over the duration of my time with this laptop.  So, as this week progresses, I’m guessing more will get done.  I’m feeling my energy come back with each day.  I’ve been doing theming research for drupal.  So genderverse should be set within a week.   Mark my words!

I have another major post I plan on writing in the next couple days too.  I have had something on my mind that I feel I really need to share.  So stay tuned for that.  In the meantime…I’m sore from my terrible night’s sleep last night.  I’m still recovering from my infections, and I’m tired.  So…yes I know it’s only 10:30pm, but I’m going to bed.  Sweet dreams all!

Question of the blog: Do you ever feel like I feel about this world and experience?

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Posted in family, friends, sick, spirituality | 2 Comments »

Seven years of Jessica

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

It’s hard to believe, today marks the 7th year of my blog.  On October 1st, 2002, I started my blog, then called my diary, on TransLife.net, which is now a mostly unused site that is in desperate need of a rebuild.  Things certainly have changed in all that time.  It’s hard to believe I began my transition so long ago now.  At 28, I’ve almost lived a third of my life as a woman.

Lately Chris and I have been watching How I Met Your Mother (which is an awesome show by the way), and it has such a strong sense of nostalgia.  Today I feel that nostalgia.  I’ve put a lot of energy into telling my story over the years.  It’s had its ups and downs.  It’s gotten me in trouble.  It’s gotten me notoriety.  I know it’s had an impact on people, because I hear from those people on an almost daily basis.  That makes me feel good.  It by far outweighs any negatives…hands down.

I started this blog with the intention of sharing my story with the world. I wanted to be an example to other trans folk that are too scared of what might happen to them if they came out.  I wanted to help educate the world on trans issues.  Most of all, I wanted to show the world that people who are trans aren’t freaks.  We’re every day people with every day lives that are just like everyone else’s.  I think I can say I accomplished a lot towards those goals.

Over the past seven years, this blog has become more than that collection of goals for me.  This blog truly helps me understand myself better.  It helps me in a very cathartic way too.  I feel like once I’ve written about an issue I have in my personal life, I can almost let that issue go finally.  It helps me get things off my chest.  I truly feel like I’ve become a better person because I’ve written this blog.

It’s a great feeling knowing that I’ve been able to do all of the aforementioned stuff just from a silly thing like a weblog.  OK…I think I’m done with both reflecting on things and patting myself on the back. On to new stuff…

Not much happened since the post on the 15th.  I caught a cold.  That’s been fun.  I’m still recovering.  Let me tell you…I am quite sick of mucus.  I’ve gone through at least three boxes of kleenex.  All things considered, though, it hasn’t been a terrible cold.  It was mainly a head cold.  Lots of congestion, though my ears never did that whole “one ear has different pressure than the other” thing.  Thank god…I hate that.  I’ve just had a raw, runny, drippy nose.

Oh…some progress on this site!  I finished my bio. You should go check it out.  It has fancy lightboxes for the photo displays.  I think I’ll tackle the speaker page next.  I’ve been thinking about speaker fees.  I want to get that online pretty soon.  After that, I’ll tackle the photo gallery / media section.  I’m trying to figure out how to use Ruby to build an xml feed for my photo gallery.  That may take a bit yet.

I’m excited about a shindig that’s planned with some of my Milwaukee friends.  We’re having a geeky lady shindig in a few weeks.  It’s going to be fun, exciting, and nerdy all at the same time.  I’m sure I’ll write about it in an upcoming post.

Chris’ 30th birthday is just over a week away.  About a year ago, I decided I wanted to throw him a surprise party.  That kinda got spoiled when he decided he wanted a superhero costume party instead.  Well and now that’s probably not happening either.  Instead we’re going out to eat.  Amazing how things change.  I’m looking forward to it.

There is a small hang up though.  That same evening is the LGBT Community Center’s annual meeting, which I have to be present at to get elected to the board.  I’ve officially filled out the paperwork and so forth to run for the board.  I talked to the president about the situation, and apparently I definitely have to be physically present at the meeting at least for a portion of it.  So, I’ve worked it out with Chris so that I can disappear for an hour to get elected.  I think it’ll work out just fine.

Money’s been a bit tight this past week.  I have my phone to blame for that.  The bill for the fancy Android powered phone finally came due this month.  I had stored away money for it, but even so, it made things a bit challenging.  I made it through ok though.  That’s really the last big out of budget expense I have. So it should be smooth sailing from here.  That’s a good feeling.  Speaking of good feelings, I also should be getting my health insurance cards any day now.

That’s pretty much it for me.  This is the calm before the storm.  This month is going to be stressful.  I have two speaking gigs, elections, post-elections, party, halloween, best friend birthday, and of course…work.  I hope I have some down time in the coming weeks too.  I guess its good that I’m sick now instead of later.

Wow…a post shorter than 1000 words.  I can’t remember when the last post was this short.  Oh, before I forget…Question of the blog:  Chris an I are of the mindset that turning 30 will be great and that our 30s will be our best years.  Are you looking forward to your 30s? / Were your 30s awesometastic or craptacular?

Tune in next time for more excitement!

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Posted in LGBT, Personal Growth, Transgender, history, sick | 2 Comments »

Medicine Head

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

Today was terrible.  Last night, I took a half of a dose of nyquil to help get some sleep.  It worked and I slept like a rock.  When I got up, I was groggy and also was really stuffed up.  So I took a 12 hour decongestant.  From that, I ended up having that weird low energy but awake feeling all day.  I felt like my body wanted to sleep, but my brain was wide awake.  I hate medicine head.  Because of that, I didn’t really get anything accomplished today save touching up some photos.

Chris and I went to the store to get some DVD-Rs and a few other things.  We went to get some cat food, and he was looking at the usual Purina Cat Chow that he always gets.  I was looking at the Iams and the Purina One stuff.  I’ve been buying Iams for a while.  I looked at the ingredients list of all the foods and went with the Purina One stuff.  It was 20 bucks for a 16 pound bag instead of 11 dollars for the cat chow.  Chris was not pleased.

We ended up having a discussion about the food and how I felt it was important to buy better food since it’s about healthy happy cats.  For Chris, it’s always been about pinching the penny, which I understand.  I justify it this way…I’ve easily spent 20 bucks on one meal for myself.  Eating well…6 or 7 human meals might fit into 20 bucks.  Most people would fit four meals into 20 bucks or less.  20 bucks feeds our cats for 3 to 4 weeks.  I think that’s ok to spend that much. Plus…the extra ten bucks a month isn’t a budget breaker.  That’s my side of the story.

So, I decided to do some research.  I found this great website on ten reasons not to buy cheap cat food.  Later on, I shared the article with Chris, and we had more of a discussion.  Chris was really upset to hear that ash is a common filler in cat food.  That really bothered both of us.  So I started looking for cost effective cat foods.  I found a couple websites that have good information.

After reading those, I felt like an ass.  Turns out the food I’ve been buying isn’t much better than the cheaper food that Chris has been buying.  In fact, the cheapest good food out there is Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s Soul…which runs at $25 for a 15 pound bag.  That’s over Chris and my price limit by 5 bucks.  You’d be hard pressed to find any middle of the road cat food at a reasonable price.  Most of the foods rated even above a 0 overall were in the 30 to 40 dollar range for a 15 pound bag.  It’s really shocking to see that.

So, we’re going to talk to a vet or two to find a solution to this problem.  I think now that Chris is aware of it, he’s concerned about it too.  I think we’ll come up with a compromise…we always do.

It’s past 11:00 and I’m feeling tired.  I’m not usually tired this early.  So I think I’ll take advantage of it and get to sleep.  Otherwise I’m going to have to go find some food.  I’ve been eating all day!  I’ve never been this hungry when I’ve been sick.  Weird!  Sweet dreams all.

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Posted in cats, sick | 1 Comment »

Dreaming of wedding bells

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

Dream

Last night I had a dream.  That’s not a huge surprise since I dream regularly and remember most of them.  This dream was special though.  If you possibly missed the title of this post, it was about a wedding…my wedding.

It didn’t start that way though.  You know how dreams change shape as the dream progresses?  This definitely did that.  At first, I was just going to a wedding.  Then, apparently I was a bridesmaid in the wedding.  I ran into my old coworkers from my previous job.  Not sure why they were there, but they were.   Then all of a sudden…it became my wedding.  I was one of the two brides.  Get this…it was an arranged marriage too.  I had never met the other girl.  An arranged lesbian marriage…crazy huh?

My bride was a pretty girl.  She had kind of a sandy blonde or light brown hair.  It was shorter, like a pixie cut.  She was around 5′6″.  I remember having good conversations with her and feeling like I really connected with her.  It wasn’t like that at first, but over time, I really fell in love with her.  I very much remember that feeling of love in my dream because it was pretty strong.  A lot of strange things happened in the dream, like a train of some sort.  I remember a UFO…weird random dream stuff.  She was still constant though.  When the dream was over, I was a little sad.

I may have made a decision to not date again, but that dream really made me long for love like that.  I think perhaps some day…my princess will show up.  I’m not really in a location now that makes finding my true love easy, but that’s ok.  Maybe she’ll just appear at some point.  I’m ok with that.  Good things come to those who wait I guess.

Sick

Chris got sick last weekend.  It was a bit of a cold or flu.  Not sure.  For him it included nasty headaches, a fever, a sore throat, vomiting, and mucus.  I knew with him getting it, I’d likely get it too.  Sure enough, but Wednesday, I had a sore throat too.  It’s been odd though.  I had a light sore throat.  It lasted about a day and a half.  It was never terrible.  I’ve not had a fever.  I’ve never actually felt sick.  My energy level has been normal all week.  I’ve had a little bit more coughing and sneezing, but it’s not been that bad at all.  Today I dealt with a runny nose.  I’ve had no stuffiness problems, and I’ve never felt out of it.  So far, this is the best cold I’ve ever had.  I wish being sick was this light every time.  Still, I hope it goes away soon.

Avatar: the Last Airbender

I know…I know…I’m being a geek talking about an animated series.  Still, Chris and I are big fans.  We’re watching the final season, aka book three: Fire, and it’s just fantastic.  Today we did a six episode marathon, and it was excellent.  The writing of the show has never ceased being impressive.  There’s never a moment where the characters break.  You don’t get gratuitous moments just for the sake of having them.  Everything has a purpose and so far, ever twist and turn has been gripping and beautifully done.  The animation is stellar, and the comedic timing is just pristine.  This series is truly a masterpiece.  It’s unfortunate we’re five episodes from the end.  Like with any good series, it’s sad to say goodbye to characters that you really love.  It’s like saying goodbye to family.  This is a series I need to own.

Car Washing

Chris used a term “we” today in referring to his plan to wash his car.  He was very consistent in doing so.  I assumed he meant that he thought we should clean our cars together.  So we did, and let me tell you, we did a very thorough job.  It included vacuuming, interior surface cleaning, armor all, then an exterior wash,  dry,  window glass cleaning, and a waxing.  Chris’ car is new.  So the wax brought out a beautiful shine.  My car is going on ten years old.  The paint job has dulled due to neglect…what can I say, I’m not much for spending time with my car other than driving.  So I bought some extra strength wax to restore luster to neglected surfaces.  It took a while, but after several coats and some elbow grease, the shine is starting to come back.  It’s going to take a few more washes and deep scrubs to get it back to decent, but it’s on its way.  It was a lot of work, and overall…we probably spent four hours working on it.  Oh…and we managed to burn out Chris’ vacuum.  It was 10 dollars from the Hope Gospel mission…no big loss.  Neat cloud of smoke it produced though.

Website Updates

No surprise the website updates are coming along slower than expected.  I’ve got a bunch of transcendingproductions.com up, but I’m still working on the content.  Plus I have to figure out how I’m going to load the content into the main display portion of the site.  I’m not sure if I want to do it completely dynamically, or if I want to do static pages.  I’m leaning towards static pages that pull from ajax calls.  We’ll see.  Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have both done.

Dart Board

On a minor note, Chris and I went to a garage sale across the street this week.  Unfortunately, they lied and the garage wasn’t for sale.  However, there were some great deals on other stuff there.  Namely…we found an unused electronic dart board for five dollars.  I was excited! I always wanted a dart board.  Immediately I set about hanging it.  Just to test it, we hung it on a screw that was already in the wall.  I won both games.  Haha.  I’m sure there will be many rematches though.

Anyway, after that, I set about hanging it in a space that doesn’t have a table in the way.  I followed the instructions to a tee.  They said regulation is to have the center of the bullseye at 5′8″ off the ground.  The top screw was to be at 65 and three quarter inches with the bottom screw at 50 inches.  I measured and got it set up just right.  Oddly it seemed a bit low.  So I measured…sure enough, the bullseye was at 4′10″.  It was way off.  I double checked my measurements and they were exact on to the instructions.  So I googled it, and the regulation measurement was right.  The instructions for hanging were ten inches off.  I was so upset!  I e-mailed them to fix the problem.  In the meantime, I had already set the anchors in the wall.  So, I had no choice but to drill new holes and just use the screws alone.  It’s all set now at the regulation height.  What an annoyance those directions were though!

Sleepeh Kittehs

It’s been a regular event since I moved in with Chris to have a kitten cuddle up under the covers with me when I go to sleep.  For the bulk of the duration of me writing this post, I had Scarlet curled up on my chest purring away.  She’s since moved to just next to me by my right leg, and Meat, aka my black kitty, is curled up on the same side just off my hip.  Both are out like a light.  That’s where I should be right now too.  I think I will too.  Sweet dreams everyone.  I hope you have dreams of love and happiness.

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Posted in Love, Uncategorized, Web Design, dreams, sick | 1 Comment »

Food Poisoning

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

A few weeks ago I had the flu, and I was glad to see myself get past it.   Being sick isn’t fun at all.  Then this weekend happened.  Saturday was a blast.  Chris was in town, and we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum.  The Calatrava is a stunning building, and the artwork inside is also.  Afterwards, we went to a restaurant on the east side called “County Clare”.  It’s an Irish food place. I’ve eaten there before, and it was good.

This time I decided to get a burger.  I know…not very Irish, but I hadn’t had red meat or a hamburger in quite a long time.  I figured…why not.  Seems it wasn’t cooked very well.  A few hours later, the toilet and I were spending some quality time together. It was a one way conversation mostly…I don’t vomit very often, but I managed to do so a lot last night.

Sunday we had planned to go see “the Watchmen”, but I was just drained.  I ended up sleeping most of the day.  Finally at about 6:00 I was up and moving around.  Here I am…not 5 hours after that already in bed again.  I hope I’m back up to 100% tomorrow.

I’ve been meaning to blog all week, but my free time disappeared.  I’ve been working on freelance all week, and it looks like this next week will be no different.  I guess that’s a good thing, but my personal life has taken a dive because of it.  I didn’t really have time to do much of anything besides work and eat.  Even my sleep was cut short.  The check will make it all worth it though.

I had something interesting happen over the past week in regards to gender.  I’ve been thinking about my voice and how it’s still somewhat gender neutral. For the longest time that bothered me.  If there’s anything that gives me away, it’s my voice.  But why do I care if I’m “given away” as trans?  As the past few weeks have progressed, I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I like my voice where it is.  In fact, I think my voice being gender neutral is great.

One of the things that bothered me is that when i went through voice training, the entire purpose of it was to teach me how to conform to the social expectations of female speech.  Basically it was forcing me into a gender binary normative behavior.  But I don’t accept that gender is a binary.  So, my voice truly represents me as the transwoman that I am, and I’m proud of that.  I like the fact that when I’m around, I make people think.  Screw gender norms.

In other news, I did my taxes last weekend, and I was relieved to discover that I am getting a return.  I thought I was going to have to pay due to my business, but I had enough items to write off and not nearly enough income to have to pay.  So that’s good.  I also will be finally paying off my medical bills.  Apparently my account went to collections, which I felt bad about, but since I was willing to pay them straight away with my tax return, they were willing to give me a discount.  So that’s great.  I’m soon on my way to having less monetary stress on my plate.

I have plenty more to say, but I think I will save it for another day this week.  I am rather tired despite my sleep.  I better get some rest so that I’m recovered for the work week.

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Posted in Freelance, friends, sick | 3 Comments »