Sunday, 9th January, 2005

Unaesthetics

I'm hating my hair right now

Not in a "I wish I hadn't grown it, I am going to get it all cut off" way, just in a "it's annoying my face" way. It seems to be just the right length to refuse to tuck behind my ears and drape itself right across my cheeks — which is (a) annoying, and (b) probably what's given me this little crop of spots.

OK, it's not a 'crop' per se, it's two — one on my forehead, and one on my hairline

I'm also still wishing I could style it into some kind of remotely butch way for when I don't want to look like a girl. As a boy, I look like a fop

...

The other thing I'm none to happy about, visually, tonight, is both of my websites. Maybe it's because I've been staring at the screen too long, I'm just suddenly finding that white-on-pink isn't the most legible colour-scheme to use for a text-intensive blog. Maybe tomorrow, I'll fiddle with the blog-only site. I can't change the colours on my main one — they're kinda part of me by now. Three years I've had this colour (#9D759D) and I an't changing it now

...

For some reason, at the moment, I seem to be in a bit of a grump about a lot of things. I've noticed recently, that I'm feeling all frustrated about a lot of things that are going on — trying to plan a visit home in a couple of weeks, trying to sort out what the hell I'm going to do with my life, trying to get all the piddly little things that are half-broken around me working — it's like, I dunno, there's two things that are really getting to me:

(1) I don't seem to have any time

Actually, I have loads of time — it just doesn't seem to be time that feels right to do things in. That makes no sense, so I'll try and explain ...

A typical day for me at the moment, goes something like this: Wake up — drink coffee, smoke fags — stare at logs — read a few blogs/rss feeds — tweak code — get annoyed at Internet Explorer — smoke more fags — realise it's 1.30 and nearly time for my favourite TV programme* and lie on the bed infront of the telly — wait an hour for show to come on, because actually it wasn't nearly time, it just felt like it and I wanted an excuse to take a break — stop watching telly at 4pm — stare at logs for a while longer — fruitlessly scour a few blog sites for places to stick my RSS feed and grab a few more unsuspecting visitors — talk with Kath until late in the evening — poke around Roses' Forum — get annoyed — rant a bit — lurk in TG Chat to see if any of my friends are there — finish wine bottle — sleep

(The New Yankee Workshop. Seriosuly — I love this guy It's ludicrous really — he has a great big workshop filled with powertools, and all I've got is a drill and a shed out back with enough space for, um, a toilet. But I love his gentle massachusetts accent, and even though the stuff he makes would never find a place in a house of mine, I just love watching him make stuff. Not very trannie, I know. But *pfft)

So you see, a whole day at my disposal to really get something achieved, and I've achieved sweet FA

I want to get so much done at the moment, but I just can't seem to get into the little space in my head where getting things done == fun

(2) I feel utterly powerless to make a difference to things I care about

Despite my self-indulgent ramblings about my woes, my cats and my love of wine, I'm not a girl bereft of opinions. In fact, I'm full of them. There are quite a few things I care passionately about: politics; religion; transgenderism; wine...

I'm finding though, that at the moment I'm feeling utterly powerless to voice these opinions — or at least, voice them confidently enough to be able to stand my ground and argue my case.

Let's take trannieism as an example.

There was a thread I was reading earlier in a certain forum, and something that someone said popped out and made me get all huffy. I can't remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of:

[snip] [paraphrase] My wife exhibits a stereotypically male attribute. Maybe she's TS

I know — it was a joke. And usually getting narked at jokes just shows you up for being far too serious and oversensitive about things. But...

That really got my goat up. It got Kath's up too (she stomped upstairs muttering something about "bloody stereotypes" when she read it). There's a massive difference, I feel, between making a witty quip, and demostrating a complete lack of understanding about any issues relating to a group of people outside of your own demographic

Sometimes I read things that people have written along the lines of "I've always done girlie things — I played with dolls, hated football..." and I think to myself, is this how far we've come? Are we still designating gender based on outdated classifications of whether or not we like Barbie or Action Man?

It bugs me mostly though, because if we want people to take us seriously, and not view us with ridicule, then we've got to start looking outside of our little cosy sanctuary — where everyone is 'pretty' and wearing pink is qualification enough to know what it's like to be a woman.

If we define women by tired clichés, then we can hardly complain when people do exactly the same to us and bracket us all together as a bunch of weirdos/pervs/freaks.

I love our community — it's a wonderfully supportive, caring, lovely environment, one in which I can go out and look like I sometimes want to look, do what I sometimes want to do, and behave in whatever way I like. But I think that if you immerse yourself in it, to the point where the only viewpoints you get on the subject of transvestism are from other transvestites, then you're missing out on a really important, and massive, set of viewpoints. Most of which, whilst maybe not quite lining up with what we all tell ourselves (for example, that old chestnut about how we can't be offensive to women — we're flattering them, such a naive approach...) are just as important, and should be listened to and thought about without being instantly dismissed.

...

la la la Ranty rant rant rant

I should go to bed. Two things to mention first though: (a) I have not drunk any alcohol today (b) On Sunday night (ie today: it's 12.20am here though) Kath and I are going out for a meal, to celebreate that we've been together for a whole year. And I'm still absolutely head-over-heels in love with her.

Just wanted to share that

Rachel W writes:

Hi

May be you're looking at the getting thingd done/fun thing the wrong way round. May be try this..

$gettingThingsDone = 'fun';

Just a thought.

Hugz Rachel

Rachel W writes:

... perhaps this would be better, then you can substitute whatever it is that you consider fun to be...

$gettingThingsDone = $fun;

Hugz Rachel

julia writes:

no please don't cut your hair I've come across lot of guys in adland who where their hair in a pony tail — you look fantastic with longer hair

Julia, I wouldn't dream of cutting my hair — I just wish it was long enough to tie back properly. It's been almost a year since it was last short, I just hope it's not going to take another year to get long enough

Rachel, I like it

How about this though?:

foreach( $gettingThingsDone as $job) { if ($job['excitement'] != "tedious") { echo "yay!" ; } else { grudgingly_do($job) ; } }

A break from routine

A year ago today, I was doing exactly what I'm doing right now — running a bath and getting ready to go out on a date with Kath. The difference this time is that this is not our first date. Oh, and we've already arranged whose house we're staying in tonight

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but last year, during the day, I went out and bought entirely new bed-linen. She still pokes fun at me about this — like I expected her to 'come back to my place' on the first date But it wasn't like that, really. I just thought, that if she did come back, the last thing I wanted her to think was that I slept in a pit of a bed

...

Today has been a lot more productive than normal I did, in the end, comepletely redesign my weblog-only site. I think it's looking a lot less cluttered than before. The drop-shadow thing works well on siobhansplace.co.uk, but it was a bit too gimmicky for tranniefesto.co.uk

Much happier with it now

So, anyway, I'd better go get myself clean.

nu wong writes:

"action man"?