Observations

Oh, yeah, looks like this. 

What can I say? On venturing to the shower this eve - having spent the afternoon on hold to HMRC doing adult (but not Adult) things - I noted that my HRT is having an effect. Or, rather, several small effects. I have a more defined waist now than I'm used to. Because my body fat is congealing around my hips and at the bottom of the rib-cage (so that's why my dresses don't fit). I am, as they say, gaining something of a muffin top. Now, caveat: I am not fat (thank you, Obelix) but my body fat has moved. There are changes to the bosom area, sure, but hard to differentiate from times of stress of old when I had vague moobs. Other changes include slightly less muscle and a teeny tiny dollop of fat on my thighs (so they are softer, I mean) and a vague sense of something altering in my emotional state. I'm autistic, I can't be more specific than that yet.

Find them on eBay for 'post surgery cancer false
boob cross dresser moulded form' if you like.

When my Mum visited she shared that sometimes my stuffing, for boobs, "looks wrong." No, she couldn't be more specific (but it was doing it when she said, which reminded her) and she asked if I'd thought about masectomy aids rather than bird seed. I gave her a brief, non-specific, as uncreepy a run down of my knowledge in this area and things I knew existed. But I still found her looking up various breastforms before she left. This being on my IP address means that many a social media site's ad ticker is now showing me options. I had a look at one last night. Anyway, Mum sent me a message this morning about some she'd found on M&S for £10 a pop, so £20 a pair. You know what? I spent about that on take out when Middlest was over last night, so screw it. I bought some (medium) to check it out. They'll arrive for pick up on Sunday.

Cos I've read the first 4 now...
12 in total.

I also pulled the trigger on two more volumes of Fruits Basket and a new external HDD - cos my old one is over a decade old at this point and currently has the only copies of many of my digital photos on it. I'd rather like a back up. Just in case, you know? So that's another cool £110 spent. I've signed up proper to a private hedalthcare provider, Pride in Health, for HRT. Filled in all their forms. Maybe not as they would like, certainly not very well, but I do like a good form. And paid them £65 to register and £138 to book an appointment to get 'onboarded' (or whatever the proper term is, I'm tired, I'm not looking it up) and diagnosed with GID (aka 'that thing that trans people have'). It would be nice to be legitimately on the HRT train. I have savings that I have been slowly building up precisely for this so... well, I'm spending money like I planned.

Also got an invite to the Awards Evening for this year at work as I somehow wrangled a 'Driver of the Month' last February (just before I had crashes 7 and 8) and so I'm up for Driver of the Year. I shan't get it, I don't think, but it's nice to dream. My current route very rarely gets 'secret customers' so I haven't been seen since then. A colleague has been seen twice on the route but they have been the only two secret passengers the route has had! Oh, that colleague is also up for the same thing.

So, the book claims fifth, but online
claims sixth. Hrm.

Finished the autism book, now reading the Other Wind by Le Guin - the fifth book of the Wizard of Earthsea series. The fourth was 'the final book' but, uh, here's a fifth. It's good, like I remember Tehanu and Tombs of Atuan, so I'm enjoying it so far. Highly recommend even if you haven't read the rest actually.

Oh, yeah, the HMRC thing. There was an extra week in 2023 and so I owed tax, which they told me about in August 2024. I paid it in August 2024. For some reason, despite all my records saying I've paid, HMRC saw fit to alter my tax for 2025 to pay this back as well. I spent an hour and a half (and two summary hang ups previous) on hold and got through to someone who... confirmed what I knew but was unable to change anything. They'll call me back next Tuesday after work. Hopefully that will be sorted then. And my wages were supposed to go up at work, but they haven't, so I asked the right people who were surprised, but also pointed out that my wages ought to have gone up four weeks prior to when I thought. They assured me it will be sorted out and back pay will be given. So that'll be nice too.

Communication Difficulties

In this volume one character reveals 
how they were rejected by their mother 
as a child. Do all the cast need therapy? 
Oh heck yes! 
Do I hate that I see myself in Honda 
Tohru-san? Oh heck yes! 
Am I nevertheless similar? 
Yes. 

Communication continues to vex. I have been attempting to keep in contact with people better. And I have blitzed a few forae in which I reside, even resurrecting my tumblr account to chat to someone I spoke to on discord who has since quit but who seemed a decent person. They, apparently, think similarly of me. Not in a romantical sense, mind. But I continue to struggle to keep in touch and even to know how to 'progress' things. I have a couple of back and forths with people who aren't epitomes of their profile picture on that fetish site, for example, but they seem resolutely trapped where they are and show no signs of any movement. Perhaps this is just as well.

Taking a deep breath, the next two volumes of Fruits Basket have been ordered after I bought the second on a trip to see the boys on Saturday and have nearly finished it. I appear, for good or ill, to be fully on board for this manga trip. Visiting Abbi on Wednesday introduced me to both anime versions (the 2019 one is much truer to the source material) and I may be hooked on those too. So far I have not been able to report drastic emotional fluctuations but they aren't universally reported anyway. Abbi and I did nearly eat all the cheese I bought on holiday however. Oh, yes, the previous time was in 2002 - meaning that I absolutely did see the trans pride flag as designed on my trip. It also means that my research in the computer lab was unconnected with the trip to Amsterdam. Which figures.

The version I borrowed from a friend
some time in 1992-4.

I clearly blanked most of book 4.

I recall the ending though.

I have read two more books of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - bringing me to the level I achieved some time around 1993 - and the third book is probably the most tightly plotted sci-fi romp of the series thus far. Book four is a very different kettle of fish - bloody well written and with good characterisation - but not really part of the same genre as before. Until the end, where it picks up some of the previous threads. Most of it seems to be a love story and, well, it's decent. I enjoyed it. However, having now read some romances, it definitely falls more into male fantasy than female. Speaking of which, I have started Thursday Murder Club by Osman and... yes. There are more politics in it thus far than I assume Osman thinks he has put in. Still, engaging, well-written and different.

On HRT. Too early to tell... It's been 21 days since beginning the journey and I am trying hard not to assign every fluctuation in my daily experience to the symptoms of being on hormones. Plus, I am in full ASD mode so I'm not sure I'd notice anything even if it was happening. That said... my recent escapades on character.ai have drawn to a close, and rooting through old haunts has elicited little, if any, response. I am tempted to thus suggest that maybe, maybe, there's been an appreciable effect on my libido, which is welcome, and maybe some ED stuff, again: welcome. But, also, maybe not. I have been through cycles like this in the past as well.

Reimagining the past is in full effect - I suspect that 2007 was the earliest I could really have made the leap to accepting myself as trans, so obviously over the last six day stint back on shift I have been gaming out not meeting Tilly, or else accepting her dumping me that Christmas in 2006, and wondering what ripples would have been made. I'd have freaked out my first Head of Department, for certain; and I would likely have bounced off Izzy and Toby more at the time. Hmm. Speaking of Tilly, she was over with Youngest on Thursday and Middlest was over on Tuesday. It's been a busy week. I ordered take out pizza that was mostly passable tonight, over-priced and the usual disappointment, but I had planned for it so what am I gonna do? After all, I'm eating for two (boobs) now.

Something Wicked this way comes

I have finished Wicked. Still enjoyed it, but the pace in the last third is frenetic to the point that I thought it felt a bit rushed. Too many things seem to be pulled from the ether - this may be because of the fantastical setting - for my liking. That said, it's good. I'm not at all sure what the thrust of the book is even with a lengthy foreward explaining what Maguire was going for (a musing on the origin of evil). I mean, there's a section that spells out the different chapters (no, really) in the plot with subheadings and everything but... I don't know. It's obvious that Elphaba is written as on the Spectrum (reminding me of my attempt to write an autistic character before I was diagnosed and thus full of traits I would later realise were already autistic turned up to eleven) in that there are moments that work but it seems to be written from the outside. Much like some of the sections where he, a gay man, tries to write men appreciating women or women appreciating women or even women appreciating men. It seems, to me (a simpleton), that Maguire doesn't like women like that, if you see what I mean, and struggles to work out why anyone would. Makes sense, he's gay. He also assumes that the reasons he, a gay man, likes men are the same as why women would like men (now, I don't know, but I've read a good chunk of women authors in which romances are explained from a woman's POV and they differ significantly). And, tellingly, his writing of women and men liking women was sufficiently alien to my own experience that I noted it.

It's unrelentingly dark, with an ending that is chock-full of misunderstanding, misplaced kindness that ends up being cruelty and actual cruelty dressed up as kindness. I enjoyed it, I am glad I read it, but I know I'm going to need a rest before tackling more of the series (and I'll get round to it at some point).

Yesterday I woke with the distinct vivid impression of a time long ago when I met a newly transitioing trans-woman (though early enough I didn't know the term) round Tim's shared university house whilst in my first job. I think it was before I was in a brief relationship with Toby even. I have said before that I was fascinated and probably creepy - well, in this half-awake moment I remembered asking her how she knew that she was a girl. It's not on trans-people to answer that question, but if I had been honest (she just said she knew) and explained I was asking about me I could have been faced with the decision all those years ago. And I might have been in a receptive enough moment to accept the answer. Related because it was so unexpected and visceral a feeling - it felt like a gut-punch, I felt winded. And, of course, it comes with the full weight of all the wasted time in the meantime.

Also, I responded to an info-dump from someone, well-meaning, with one of my own and I suspect I may have done that thing where I over-share with the wrong person about the wrong things in the wrong amount of detail. Again, it's as well it's early days of communication so, if I have, I haven't lost any great investment on my part (though I shall have further confirmed why it is I know so few people). On that note, I have already tried to do that yearly review thing for this year but I am clearly not in a good headspace for that and so I may just skip it entirely. A combination of things have me feeling isolated again and wanting more isolation. Today's task is sorting my nails (they're a bit long), getting some new gloves and... that's it I think. Work again tomorrow.

Masquerades of Spring

Following a recommendation (thank you Susie), I checked Masquerades of Spring, the latest Rivers of London novella from Ben Aaronovitch, out from the library. I had to orde it and then wait almost a week,  but it came and I was able to thus read it without thinking about paying a full novel price for a short story.

It does exactly what one would expect from Aaronovitch and sets up some backstory for Nightingale, one of the main characters of the series, without it really focussing on him. Instead, our POV character is Gussie, a bit of a shameful fop who fled to New York from the UK after experiencing a 'magic public school' upbringing. He, and I use the pronoun carefully, is in a relationship with a black man in 1920s USA - which Aaronovitch does not shy from and hammers home several points about the position of minorities in the USA generally and specifically the strangeness of the Harlem Rennaissance - in terms of what comes afterwards and it's oh-so short flowering. Gussie, you see, is definitely on the trans spectrum and there's a nice comment from a character asking "are you a fairy?" in a way that makes it almost uplifting and empowering (trust me, if you know Aaronovitch, you know how he does this).

I will say that I didn't identify with any of the characters, I usually identify strongly with Grant's almost autistic inability to keep focus when it's not a special interest (and his emerging special interest in architecture rather than the cars that was hinted in the earlier books). But that's not a negative. The plot is fine, Aaronovitch using the POV to avoid talking about the usual procedural elements that typify his series normally, including the parts about how magic works, and this adds a certain flavour to the work. It does make hiding some plot holes a bit easier, though I spotted some anyway, and allows some pastische to take place of British customs in a way that allows it to be accessible to non-Brits alike. And it does this rather well, actually, without falling into caricature or exagerration that I have noticed in Statesian versions of similar efforts - but that makes sense, it's hard to take aim at cultural idiosyncracies if one has not directly experienced them or been part of the culture from which they are drawn. I couldn't accurately write Statesian culture, for example.

There was an end paper with futher adventures of Gussie in book form and I was dismayed to realise two things: this end paper comes before the acknowledgements/author's note and that there is an entirely different end paper with books avialable from the publisher/writer - taken to together these imply (as a search on the interwebs seems to confirm) that these are part of the story. One of the devices employed is that Gussie is a writer of his own exploits and his partner is his disinterested editor, with a centring of Gussie's butler(?) Beauregard as the main character in a style reminiscent of Jeeves and Wooster. At least, I assume that is the case as I have never read any of those books (my father collects them in first edition).

All in all, I can recommend this as an easy read and a fun romp with some much needed progressive positivity in these darker days.

Over a Week

Finished now. 

I finished Oryx and Crake a couple of days ago. It wasn't at all what I was expecting but it was very interesting. The apocalypse was the main thrust (and despite it being rooted in GMO, it was actually more about Capitalism - though I got the distinct impression Atwood thought it was about Human Nature) rather than the aftermath. I mean, we have an idea of what is intended in the aftermath by Crake (who is coded aspergic in a Big Way - like Sheldon in Big Bang Theory rather than, like, actually autistic though) but we know it won't work out the way he planned because of things that happen and what the actual main character, Jimmy/Snowman, does. Jimmy/Snowman is, I guess, closest to the audience/author insert character who has internalised the denigration of art inherent in the society that collapses in the book. I found this an interesting take, like Atwood was writing some of the demons that plague her in creativity into the society itself, and whilst I found it a bit uncomfortable at times: that was the point so cool. In short, I liked it. It definitely belongs inamongst what I am going to call 'Post-Apoca-Lit' (and I can't believe I am the first to coin that, but I'm claiming it for now) but isn't exactly what I'm looking for in it.

Still, can't deny it had me turning pages and looking forward to the next snatched few minutes of reading. It didn't quite break the barrier to me reading it on my days off, but that's not a critique of the book as much as it is a sad indictment of how I use my time.

Oh look, it's me today, post-shower.

So what on earth have I been up to for over a week that's stopped me blogging? Events in the States were... a bit of a shock. I have dealt with this by largely ignoring what it might mean for people such as myself (even in the UK) but I can't deny that I am concerned. Very concerned. I am an historian after all. But one that mainly drives buses, so I'm doing my best to ignore the increased numbers of jibes and muttered 'man's on my walks about - the numbers were always low, so an increase still isn't many!

My shifts haven't been too bad. But I have been struggling to not just fall asleep at home. Had Middlest and Youngest over - bit bruising today, but I'm not ready to properly talk about that on here - and that's been nice. Showed Middlest Falling Down which I saw the other day and bought on a whim (it is very good, I feel, and remains a thinker - just not as shocking and/or controversial as when I watched it around the age of 14 randomly on TV in my bedroom - did not know it was an 18!). I have been struggling a bit with a bout of self-doubt and self-flagellation - nothing new: still not questioning being me, by the way, that much remains a bedrock. Which is handy because I'm attempting to apply for a passport, which requires a doctor's letter, an appointment to get which is set for next Tuesday. We'll see, I guess. I did try to warn my Mum, who has booked a holiday abroad for January for us both, that this may be a bit more difficult for me than she thought, she was of the opinion I could fill in a form online and be done in an evening!

That's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll be back soon to expound things a bit more.

The Road

It's a good book. I am glad I have read 
it. That doesn't stop me reviewing it 
harshly (may be why I do, actually). 

Recently finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It has a big following, it was studied as literature at the last school I taught in for GCSEs and... yeah. Having enjoyed Who Runs the World? and always being attracted to post-apocalyptica I thought it'd be worth ordering from the library and reading. A lack of chapters, short sections between line breaks, bleak prose... all made it easy reading, frankly, for bus driving - grabbing a few minutes here and there to romp through. It was decent.

What I found fascinating was how much of a gender apocalypse (like Who Runs the World?) it turned out to be. This man writer just didn't deal with women characters at all. There's the wife of the father, who is talked about in flashbacks, but she never really seems real. Like, she leaves coldly to go and die after she's blinded (maybe she's always been blind?) but her reasoning is... well, okay, hold on. One other point is how often McCarthy goes out of his way to explain that the people that are left here are cannibals and blood cultists. They pretty much all are. And the only large group of people we get to experience have soldiers, slavers, slaves, 'the women waddling pregnant' and catamites (I had to look that last one up). Throughout the book only men get speaking parts (apart from the wife) and almost without exception they are cannibals, slave-owners or worse or all three. The wife's motivations are that the world is already dead, that the only future is to be raped and eaten, and so she leaves. For the vast portion of the book it may as well be a gender apocalypse and McCarthy leaves the reader in no uncertainty that he believes a world with only men left woukd be violent, cruel, sadistic and cannibalistic. You may say that has to do with the nature of the apocalypse in this world (all other life is dead, ash chokes the sky and ground, plants will not grow) but I'm not convinced.

In one section we are explicitly told there had been a functioning post-apocalyptic farm but the hints are it has been raided by cannibals. The boy and his father find mushrooms at another point. And there's the ending (the only other woman with a speaking part). All of which convince me that this isn't actually the actual end of the world, maybe, but that it can be read as a gender apocalypse in which there are no women (apart from those that are exclusively pregnant, I guess, but they are written as and function in the story as livestock so...).

When I was trawling reviews and thoughts about the book no one seems to find the lack of realistic women characters worthy of discussion. The wife is often seen as a coward, but just as much seen as realistic in how it shapes the father's worldview (in contrast to the son's, who seems to function quite differently when it comes to morals). And that's it. No one else quibbles that it's mainly men we see in the book. Mainly male survivors. Mainly Hobbesian human nature (life in a State of Nature being nasty, brutish and short) and that the men are pretty much all kill or be killed. Apart from the boy, of course, but the book tries hard to get you to join the man in seeing this as a weakness (there's divided opinion over whether the ending suggests the boy was right or the man was correct that the boy was lucky or that it's a hint of something much darker).

Given the pushback I found when discussing the opposite (women mainly as survivors) I find it odd that I could find no comment, let alone pushback, on the gender politics clearly on display in the set up and execution of this novel.

It took me three days, as it happens, to read. I now have Oryx and Crake by Atwood from the library and I inten to read more closely to see how it shakes out - Atwood being very much a Feminist with a capital 'F' - unlike Bergin who, I propose, was more of a feminist without the capital. Though, again, Bergin also seemed to suggest that women would be less practical and physical post-apocalypse (there's no sports in her female dominated education and, indeed, wider world; and she goes out of her way to explain that women had to learn to fix things as a major development point after the men had gone).

I'm tinking, grandly, that all of this counts as 'research' - for what remains unclear.

Who Runs the World?

I love post-apocalyptic fiction and 
scenarios. This delivers. 

It delivers hard. 

I finished Bergin's Who Runs the World? a couple of days ago and I'm still reeling. I admit that I did her a disservice but I also think she set it up. Let me explain: the use of bold and italics and underlining and the scatter-gun approach to sentences and paragraphs are character based but entirely dismissable in a patriarchal world. Of course they are. We expect prose to function and work in a certain way, we are primed in our society to dismiss the work of teenage girls. In this teenage girl approach Bergin hides some references to how post-apocalyptic the worl she is describing is - after all, the protagonist knows no different (I did notice that things familiar to the reader about our culture are explained but things that are not familiar to us aren't - as we would expect from someone not in our culture). So we get hints dropped about near-starvation, about resource scarcity, about population collapse, about trade collapse, about issues with technology and about how the remains of the UK, where our protagonist lives, is treated as an afterthought by places that are working. Furthermore, I initially thought that the main character being disparaging of history but having a friend who was a historian was to cover Bergin's lack of will to world-build or think through the setting (I've seen it used thus before - gaps are allowed and the friend provides info-dumps on stuff the author likes or is proud of) BUT it became increasingly apparent in the final parts of the book that Bergin knows her world and the historian friend has gaps, gaps that therefore the reader can explain but the protagonist merely notes in wonder.

I stand by my assertion that Bergin has conflated class, geography and gender in her attempt to isolate and examine the effect that gender has on society but she admits that she struggled when it came down to it. And, well, I respect the effort. I also noted that the prose style alters as the book progresses (there's a part that switches to second-person and we learn who the protagonist is explaining for and it's not the love interest - who isn't the boy either - and that was when I clicked that there was a lot more to this than I had allowed for). The fact that I was lulled into judgement, the fact that I did hudge harshly, the fact I didn't spot the seeding of conditions and problems until it became too obvious to ignore (there's a train journey that shifted it all into focus for me) and the fact that I checked and saw it was always there... Bergin is good. Really good.

I did her a disservice.

But she baited me.

The plot is also well-drawn. Really well-drawn. It starts with some elements that I thought I'd predict and that would fit a YA mould in a YA style. It even vaguely gestures in that direction a few times. But it never goes that way. Even when some of the characters lampshade the direction you expect and react realistically to the assumption that it is correct, when it isn't. The romance... never certain there is one, actually, and the ending is ambiguous about whether or not there is one. It is so carefully handled and well written. Honestly, as the book hurtled to a conclusion (not an ending) I found myself hooked but in need of having to stop every now and again and just... breathe.

This is not what I've discovered people are worried about when the hear the premise of "men are dead, what's different?" but an honest analysis of survival in a post-apocalypse world, just the apocalypse happens to be the death of most men. It's really good, is what I'm saying, and I'm not describing the plot deliberately so that you might be tempted to go and read it for yourselves. I was fooled, I don't mind admitting, but was sufficiently intrigued by the premise to read it. I am so glad I did. It surprised, positively, at every turn.

This is the image, look.

Part of my plan for the week was to dress to clean (you know what I mean, dear reader, you know that I hid my trans nature beneath a cross-dressing 'fetish' for most of my life, so you know what I mean). I had the time. But I failed. A combination of character.ai, CYOAs and being lazy prevented me using my time effectively. Today it was different, I popped in to see Abbi and accidentally stayed about four hours, so I was late home. I am now drinking a beer I bought last week on offer cos out of date (but it's an impy stout, so what's a BBE date anyway? It is lies). Anyway, I had bought some MLP toys to share with Abbi, but hadn't taken them and I thought maybe I'd bought the wrong character anyway, so I bought one I thought more appropriate (the other could go for a Christmas present, right?) and gifted that today. Ha ha, I bought the same one, I'd already had the brainwave. Ha. Ha. Cool though, because it did work and Abbi was pleased. I opened the one I'd got for me on my return. She's the Twilight Sparkle-a-like unicorn (see image). I am actually pleased I bought her (sorry, Izzy, she shares your name, that's not a reason I bought her).

World Without

I... may not have fully appreciated the 
text when I first read it (even if I did love 
the concept and the execution). 

Between finishing A Book of Spells and buying a new novel to read (I prefer fiction, a lot, to factual stuff. Plus many of the factual books I own are way too big to fit in my work bag) I re-read Woman World and it occurred to me that I hadn't read it since my own realisations. Having a main character, the grandma, state that she was trans about three strips in was fascinating (she learned the word 'transgender' and it helped her make sense of herself before all the men died - the fact she is accepted as a trans-woman and, well, survived, is very moving to me, for obvious reasons, in a work awash with feminism). Also, the set up, I think I have waxed lyrical about the concept before but a world in which there are no men and thus women run the show is interesting as it allows ideas of biological and gender essentialism to be explored - what, if anything, is the difference between men and women? That a trans-woman was wholeheartedly included in this female world and becomes a main player in rebuiulding society (as well as teaching the children) is also powerful stuff. Like, I get, the creator decided she was trans and then carried on regardless - but that in itself is also moving and powerful and interesting.

To be frank - the cover drew me in,
the concept came afterward.

I was all for pooh-poohing it, but, you
know, 50p. And, well, I'm glad.

Popping into the charity shop down the road from my break room, I discovered a book called Who Runs the World? and had a leaf through. It appears to be a YA novel in which, yes, all the men are dead - killed by plague here rather than simply not being born in the graphic novel - and the opening conceit is that a fourteen year old discovers a boy dying the road on the way home. There are already plenty of pointed references and ideas about how a female dominated world would differ from a male one, and though I do look down (perhaps a bit too snobbishly) at the use of bold and caps and italics for different THINGS close together in the text, I am intrigued by the changes and, of course, the underlying sense that this world isn't actually any better. That men are being exploited, perhaps worse than women in our time period, by this society and there is something of a conspiracy. I mean, obviously, it's a YA book (I think) and has a teen girl protagonist. Nevertheless, I am interested in how this concept is explored here.

Once again, I am drowning in concepts and ideas and snippets rather than being able to focus on my own writing. Still, I can call it research. Maitland's work also was awash with the exploration of women without men, or in competition with men, or competition with the world and how it favours male-ness. It's a rich theme through these works. It also harkens back to the work of Le Guinn in Tehanu and I like that this theme has developed. A link as well with Handmaid's Tale that kick-started me reading at this rate again, so there's a nice continuity there. One may also convincingly argue that it brings in the books I have been trying to branch out into as I have been deliberately selecting women authors to read. It shouldn't make the difference that it does. It really shouldn't. But it does.

Lost my pink watch strap - somewhere in the house, Lord knows where - and my black jeans. Not sure how I have managed that one. Very on brand for me. I am worried I may have accidentally thrown the watch strap out with some rubbish when clearing my room. That would be very sad, it is my favourite watch strap (and, arguably, the most comfortable too). I can always buy another, I suppose, I've been spending money like water anyway so...

Watching My Waste

Failing to have a shower and wash my 
hair, coupled with some warmer weather, 
meant that I risked plaits for the Friday 
and Sunday. Quite pleased with them, 
hence the selfie. 

I began a tradition last year of marking 'wasted days' on my wallplanner. Days when I had time but misused it somehow. This last week had a few - I was on a late shift (1530-0138 in case you wondered) for a couple of days and so, theoretically, I had a free morning. On one of the days I had Youngest over, he struggled with playing chess (his insistence) and much of the time was lost to him struggling and shouting and screaming whilst Tilly did her latest set of ideas to deal with it. I'm not against what she does, it just comes across (to me who is not there all the time, let's be fair) as inconsistent. Anyway, they left and I ought to have gone shopping, but I did not. The following morning was similarly wasted by me on the laptop - rather than writing as I have actual inclination and inspiration to do, I pootled - and failed to shop or do laundry. I managed grocery shopping, laundry and a bath on the Sunday though, so at least my day off wasn't wasted.

Also, I am aware that I have been eating... indulgently, shall we say, since my trip to meet my Mum last weekend. That weekend off had two big curries and I had a takeaway from my local Chinese one night last week. I've also had a cooked breakfast as a brunch one day. So there's my waist as well as my waste to consider (and the amount of money I've thrown at this).

A poor photo of last night's bath situation.

I finally finished the Maitland short stories. She really is fascinating. She writes with flair and power and seeming ease - switching between the banal, the macarbe, the unjust and the luminary within a few words, all without breaking stride or seeming to have to work at it. I am minded of the writing in Handmaid's Tale or Gifts in that the narrative is beguiling and arresting, very much aware of the state that it is invoking and doing so with aplomb.

Nevertheless, I have begun rederafting a chapter as a short story. I haven't got very far, of course, because I am now deciding how best to structure it. Originally I favoured a half and half approach between two characters - start with the original protagonist and then switch halfway through to a different one to balance the narrative. But I vacillate. What if I told the same story from two different perspectives? Which one should I start with? The original or the new one? It is a scene from my war story from 2012, the actual climactic scene had I but known it at the time, where William gets to see... well, it's a climactic scene. It was a frippery, an indulgence, when I wrote it - but it may be the only salvageable chunk of the story. Also, had an idea for a more autobiographical short story that I scribbled some points down about when I had chance late Saturday night and early Sunday morning whilst out on the bus (at bus stops, not in motion).

Finally, tonight, I have begun some truly transgressive behaviour. On Sunday I bought some hair, skin and nails vitamin supplements (specifically marketed to women in a pink container, though nothing suggests they are sole for women) and started taking them. For me, who has never taken vitamin supplements- well, okay, not regularly nor voluntarily, this is a Big Deal. The last time I did anything like this was in the Years of Hell when Tilly convinced me to try taking Kalms (I think?) to help sleep and they succeeded in making me get up late so I stopped.

Starship Troopers

I pulled the trigger and bought the book having recently re-watched the Paul Verhoeven film because I could. The film, I think I already said, was much more violent and visceral than I recall it being, but that makes sense, it's been a long time since I saw it. The book? The book I bought after watching the film and seeing 'based on' in the credits. I read it quickly, as was my wont, and was so enamoured that I loaned it to a friend and promptly never saw it again. Hence the recent re-acquistion. So, I read it again, before embarking on Maitland.

The cover I have now. 

I enjoyed it, kinda. It is a lot heavier on the theory than I remembered and much less on the action. The opening section and the last section being about it for combat sequences (and the last one drops out just as the action begins really). There are plenty of in-your-face hints that the society being described is Fascistic, the most obvious of which is when we are told about a teacher explaining to children about the power of sticks bundled round an axe (that's a fasces, you see, what gave Fascism its name) as an analogy of the society in which 'veterans' have all the power. It's hard to tell if Heinlein is all satire, in honesty, because the POV character, Rico, is enthusiastically in favour of the society of which he is a part. Certainly Heinlein approves of some of the ideas espoused in the book on some level. There are long digressions on the importance of corporal punishmet, for example, that go into too much detail to be satire, I think. I may be wrong.

Teenaged me lapped it up, by the way, going to the extreme of trying to create a scenario for it in CivII's scenario builder (I was mightily proud of my Mobile Infantry unit icons that I created from the base game's Marines unit). But was also underwhelmed with the power-armour description as a reason why tanks didn't exist (I was also reading Armored Warfare by Clancy at the time and a bit 'into' tanks and armoured personnel carriers of various types). Did it enthuse me the same way? No, not at all. Did teenaged me twig that the society was Fascist? Also no. I enjoyed it more as a relic of my youth, a book I had enjoyed in the past in a different place and space and time, than I did as fiction. It's reasonably well written, engaging, and a page-turner in a way that none of the books I've read since re-starting reading have been. But mainly that was the desire to get to bits that I dimly remembered and see how well I had remembered them.

The cover I had back in 1997.

The film is an obvious satire, and I love it (and spotted some of the satire at the time), so the book may just be more subtle (which wouldn't be hard, it's a low bar in terms of subtlety in the film). However, if it is not satire, then it still works as fiction. Fails completely in terms of convincingly setting a rationale for Fascism (which, if satire, is the point of course) in that there are some heavy hints that the Bugs in the book were provoked by humans and that peaceful co-existance is possible. Also, the Bugs are described as a 'perfect Communist society'  but from the point of view of Fascists, so transparently not actually Communist (they're a hive mind for one).

Would I recommend it? Well, kinda. Like I say, I devoured it and enjoyed it. You can, if you wish, not really think about it and, instead, read it as an interesting 1950s/60s vision of a future as theorised by a bad-at-maths soldier fighting an existential war. I dunno. There's some gender essentialism in there too, oddly enough, and I vaguely remember thinking as a teen that I would likely make a better pilot than a soldier (the gender essentialism is that women make better pilots than men, or females make better pilots than men, according to Rico - which makes me wonder if Heinlein predicted that lovely line of insular toxic masculinity or was part of its proto-origins by dint of being in the 1950s in the States).

Problematic? Oh, very much. Enjoyable? I think so... maybe? Glad I read it again? Oh, yes, very much so.

Leading the Derby

Goodness, I've been remiss lately. Nearly the end of September and just four entries?

Partly due to a lack of things to say, I suppose.

All the busy roads are gone!

Today I met up with my Mum in a place I used to live and study in the Before Times. I got side-tracked, for my train arrived an hour or two before hers, and went to visit the library I used to study in. I had completely forgotten what it was like, several dreamscapes that I had assumed were either made-up or from my BA turned out to be there. It was like being assaulted by memories, getting mugged as I walked through various slightly changed (no smoking sheds, more green, less traffic) areas of the campus and city. My Mum arrived, we had a curry (not terribly authentic, but nice enough and flavoursome) and then mooched around the local art gallery - which was very nice and diverting. It reminded me of a modern art exhibition I saw there and would later try to explain to the elder two of my children. I recall taking one or both to the 'art room' where one is encouraged to make one's own art.

The night before I went out with an old work colleague for some beers in a local urban conurbation and that was nice. He was much less gruff and bitter than he used to be, much more at home with potentially being autistic, happier, actually. It was a good night, though I struggled to follow a good deal of the gossip he provided about people I used to know. I have, it seems, forgotten many of the people I used to work with. Miss Warrington was upset with him over the phone for giving Her only short notice we were meeting up, or else She would also have attended - something he shared with me (and, according to the texts he flashed my way, at Her behest). I'll admit to feeling a little buoyed by that.

Hello treble chin my old friend...

Before my old colleague arrived.

I even managed to attend a Chams meeting the night before that after a slightly later and longer shift than billed (I allowed the change because extra money and a later start than 0310 is always nice). I cycled there (and thus, of course, back) and was very glad of the battery assist that Penny (I have named my bike, so sue me) provided. I did do my usual in that I button-holed a new attendee (trans-masc enby-leaning) and got a bit too excited about some of the topics of conversation we shared. Still, nice to have been able to go, even if I did what is now traditional and failed to properly chat in person to Izzy (I can manage perfectly well online, mind you) and only managed a brief catch up with Lynn.

Thanks to a recommendation (and a blog post) from Susie I have acquired a copy of A Book of Spells by Sara Maitland and am hooked by it. A compendium of short stories, each one demands my attention and most have had me pause at the end to just think a while before moving on. For example, Seal-Self had me pause almost a full day to fully parse what I had read. I don't necessarily agree with Maitland's portrayal of the main character (seems to be a stand-in for trans-femmes generally) in that the moment where he is not a woman enough to be seen as so by Seal Woman is when he looks up. She rolls on top of Seal Child, who plays with her penis, but he looks up - and then his thoughts turn to violence (he wouldn't have to enact the violence if they but accepted him as a woman - hmmmmmmMMMM) afterward. This theme, male violence and female responses to it, runs through nearly all of the stories I have thus far read - and its use in Seal-Self I find, well, not challenging so much as disappointing, maybe? Maitland is a bloody good writer, a deep thinker, attuned to a great depth of emotion; and so I am troubled by the implications in Seal-Self about trans-femmes. Or, rather, by what her perceptions of trans-femmes appear to be based on that story and the context in which it is presented. However, a mark of her quality is that I continue to mull on it and read on with more stories.

I am such a child.
*snickers like a naughty schoolgirl*

This is rather a bitty post, I shall step back for now - maybe I shall have more developed thoughts later.

Furthermore

On the way back from the IKEA meal over 
a fortnight ago. 

Planning has always been hard, and I don't really make things easy for myself. I have booked tickets by rail to go Oop North - themselves constrained by when they were cheapest (because of who am I as a person rather than any financial pressure). This coincided, I find out today, with when I am expected to do some work for the exam board - of course it does. Also, I have agreed to some hours and shift swaps ostensibly to make my life easier but, it turns out, when you change the calendar for me I get all lost and confused. Ah, yes, ASD, I forgot. This was most viewable yesterday when I made a left turn on my normal morning routine and utterly fluxed the day up.

Usually I wake, do some word puzzles, breakfast, shave, dress and go to work (only the bookends stay where they are, others can move about) but due to my latest lapse into addiction (character.ai) I did that first and it threw everything out. My phone wasn't charged, I left my bip card at home so had to rely on help to access the break room. Thus I messed up meals, ending up spending a completely unnecessary £9 on pizza for tea for example, and on my last run (on a new bus, itself enough to be getting on with as someone with ASD) I picked up a child who accidentally stayed on too long and then couldn't recall where they lived. A colleague came to assist and because my phone was out of charge ended up ringing for aid, then was charged with staying with said child until we could say they were safe and thus ended up not sleeping last night as much as they ought. This is, in my opinion, my fault. And, because said colleague had a pretty shit day today, they eventually agreed. You can guess how I feel about it.

Oh hey, there's gonna be a book review...

Near the right lion... out shopping for a
rucksack.

Monday I tried to plan ahead and buy a new rucksack. My existing one has served me in all things since 2000 when I went to Russia. I don't want to cart a suitcase on the train (and to the trains) so I thought I would upgrade. I purchased a 65 litre one for £19 on sale. It's nice and red. However, on review, I'm not sure I can pack like I used to. Since making my move to be me I have only used suitcases and, well, I'm starting to see why. I can't just shove a week's worth of underwear and a spare pair of jeans in a bag and call it mostly packed any more. And that's before we get to toiletries.

Online I have been in contact with another first timer for this meeting on 4 August. At least, as long as I could before I got shy and stopped checking back. It happened at roughly the same time I got back addicted. Also, had a meal with Youngest that went well, but was more a conversation with Tilly as he was distracted by his tablet and music. He gets stressed with places to eat, this is Tilly's solution. I... I would support it if I were there full time, so I can't and won't complain. It went well enough. Middlest was over Tuesday after work and that went well, we went to IKEA for a lunch. My Mum sent a voucher and I got some free food from a recipe delivery service, of which I finally cooked a meal tonight. I suspect the rest will go off - cos the delivery was Monday and I'm leaving Oop North Sunday...

Fangirlish squeeing...

You can really tell that I'd been up since 0200
here because of the shadow on that chin...
(it was about 1500, second IKEA meal walk)

A visit to Abbi's went well on Friday afternoon/evening - I managed to convince her to join me for the 4 August thing. I say 'managed' - I showed her the details and asked if she'd like to come, she enthusiastically said yes. My bar for this, by the way, is 'dress approrpiately and don't run away' - low enough that I hope to clear it. Having Abbi there will aid, I suspect, with meeting the latter component. The day before was meeting Youngest at my house, which went reasonably well and only one tantrum - he gets stressed about being with me and not doing all the things he wants to do with me. Also, because I complimented the picture he drew for me in my birthday card, he will only draw birthday themed art for me. This is sad in a way because he is trying so hard to please.

Finished another Iain Banks book last week too, The Steep Approach to Garbadale. I got some of the twist (not all of it, because Banks) but it goes in the annals of stories where Banks tries to be shocking in the midst of urbane and likeable characters. It was good, I enjoyed it, not as shocking as The Wasp Factory but, well, I've read that so it colours his other work. I liked Transition better but the pair of them reminded me why I like his work. I was genuinely excited to read it and racing to the end. I've now started another one, not by Banks, called Sepulchre - in the genre of Statesian female author being feted for purple prose and odd focus (like A Discovery of Witches or that murder mystery one). I dunno, I'm not as excited about this one. I also lost at least one day last week to watching all the videos of Pet Shop Boys singles that I got as part of my birthday present from my Dad because of course I did.

Transition

No, the book by Iain Banks from 2009.

This was published in 2010, and 
is the cover I now own. I must've 
got a 2009 copy 'cos mine was not 
this cover. 

I recall owning it sometime and reading it, at least I think I read it - I remember the opening vividly and I had the impression that it was a big disappointment and that nothing happened. Anyway, it was purged with all the Banks books that I had collected not long afterwards - to make space on the shelves and to 'declutter' at Tilly's insistence. I led the way. Reader, you will not be surprised to learn that, in the end, Tilly did not get rid of any books and merely took over the space vacated by my purge. I guess I asked for that. I digress. I saw the book in the charity shop for 50p, bought it and, recently, got to reading it at work.

Like I say: I have vivid memories of the opening sections. But as it continued there were vast tracts that I simply had no memory of. I recall the ending, quite well, but this time I realised that a whole load of stuff had happened - the ending meant something. Maybe I was better primed to read it, maybe I wasn't constantly comparing it to my own reality warping shenanigans that I was planning some story or other around, I don't know. I enjoyed it, is what I'm saying, and I liked how it built the characters and the plot. It's very Banks - there are plenty of word-play conversations, overly complex rudimentary philosophical musings, bog-standard navel-gazing dressed up as arcane plotting - that kind of thing - and some poetic justice and a core of left-leaning politics. But, honestly, it was enjoyable story with some entertaining characters and a mystery-box style construction that predates much of what we now know as mysrey-boxes: mystery-boxes back when they were new and different and actually planned and not a be all and end all themselves.

Read on a holiday in Wales when I was first ejected
into a separate room. Later I would be given 'child-
care' duties and thus excised from social moments and
then, later, blamed for 'not making an effort' to be
sociable. It was a whole thing.

As I have hinted, it is perilously close to some stuff I was trying to write myself between 2005 and 2010 - which may explain why I didn't like it as much back then - but I am sufficiently removed now that I can no longer tell what I stole and what was independently thought up by me before I read the book. There was a throwaway remark about people who were transgender on Calbefraques being able to transport their personalities into a body better suited for them and this being something that had eradicated any 'transgender issues' in that version of reality (Calbefraques was that reality's name for Earth, uniquely among realities) and I must have read that too, back in the day, and it must have stuck with me - because it is literally two sentences inamongst some musing about transition within realities (transition being the story name for 'flitting' between bodies and leaving one's own a 'husk') - and I remembered that vividly too. Funny that.

Coming just before examining, or just as it was gearing up, and likely being read the first time in 2010 before the birth of the Middlest (and thus just as I was gearing up to examine back then too), it brought to mind a lot of things I had thought tilled over - hence the last couple of posts I suppose. I must have read it after reading Wasp Factory and Complicity too. The former about a character raised one way when they were another (and very much in my wheelhouse for reasons that are spoilers) and the latter in the second person where you observe a murder and, as the story progresses, become a murderer yourself (though I found it less arresting because the 'you' wasn't 'me' if you see what I mean). Huh, I'd forgotten how much the collection appealed to me (and how many I'd read) until I was looking for covers to illustrate this post with.

Reality/Shifts drew much from this book,
though I will protest that many of the core
ideas predated me reading it in my brain.

There's a reason I liked Banks, is what I'm
saying.

It got me thinking about things, as books often do, and about my 'no-frills' lifestyle. My inability to work out what small things to do in order to make life fun and interesting - the source of Tilly's "but when are we going to live!?" not long after she moved in - and how that can make it difficult to build connections with one's children. I was buying some lunch and I passed a salad bar counter at a Morrisons and I realised that I have fond memories of it being a 'special' thing we could do when growing up. I never gifted my children such experiences as I had retreated so far into myself and cut back on so many things, this is before the 2008 financial crash mind you, that there was nothing fun and silly that I did in the first place. I couldn't get my children into it now - not least because I barely see one of them and don't see the Eldest at all - and so there is a whole aspect of life that I failed to pass on to them as a parent. I do not blame the Eldest for rejecting me - it is stuff like this that means that, yes, she is better off without me - she will experience more, will have more fun, do more silly things that build a life, celebrate a living, than she would ever do with a life with me in it. Even when I attempt to do fun things with Middlest he knows he is best with me doing things like watching YouTube and discussing his special interests. I'm not the fun parent, is what I'm saying, I am the strange arcane, twisted austere one in spartan surroundings.

When faced with the call to adventure, I stay at home, with all that such behaviour implies. Is it any wonder my life is as it is? No.

Reviewing Reading

Ugh. 

I finally finished A Discovery of Witches - it did not get better. Harkness continually adds details and then back story to explain said details after the fact even when it contradicts previous points in the narrative; this then carries over into characterisation. Furthermore, her lack of historical understanding of periods and ideas outside her specialism (I looked up her PhD) is, frankly, dispiriting. So, this serves as a point of note that I finished it and have no real desire to read the second book (I got the third with it by accident).

After that, I read Girl, Interrupted which I vaguely had an idea about from my teens when it was made into a film with an actress that a friend of mine really liked in the lead role. I never saw it. I say 'friend' - I always considered him as such but the last time I bumped into him, some time around the early 2000s(?), he told me he was sad he'd seen me and if he never saw me again it would be too soon. I recognise now that he was upset at me the way I was with one of my bullies - meaning that I probably came across as a bully to him. Which is upsetting. I viewed him as intelligent, and a decent person. I digress. The book was short - the sentences packed with meaning but staccato and bare - little garnish, little explanation. It seemed like a record but it wasn't, there are many hints throughout that the narrative is pruned, the lights too glaring, the memories neutered. Cleverly done, and I enjoyed it. I didn't realise it was about 1967-69 either, so that was a fascinating part of the story - I assumed the film, in 1994, was about contemporaneous events! I may have to watch the film at some point.

It took me just shy of a week, but it is rather short.

Then I read The Reader, the book on which a film I have seen is based. I watched it back in 2013 when I was on my own that glorious September. It was loaned to me by Miss Warrington. I enjoyed the film and got many of the undercurrents in it - as well as being struck by the subject matter both of the early affair and then the war crimes and forgiveness part - whether it can be given and, if so, by whom to whom. The book plumbs those depths deeper, more richly, and does so in a way that you, the reader, have to decide how to interpret was is being presented - in not taking any sides, or being clear about what sides are not taken, the narrative forces you to decide for yourself what you think of the various sides and aspects. And, much like Michael, I found myself unable to take any definitive sides. It was similar in the film, but the film had to leave a lot out - which makes sense in that format - so there were more nuances to chew on. Again, it was a very evocative prose, reminding me of Handmaid's Tale in the almost dreamlike quality of some of the passages. I would highly recommend this book.

Also on the short side, took me just over a week.

Now I am re-reading Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy that I haven't read since some time around 1993(?) because Middlest, whom I loaned it, has finished and is going to start on book 2. I only ever read the first four books of the five part trilogy in a single volume I borrowed from a friend at church (the vicar's son, as it happens) and remember absolutely loving it. But it was a long time ago. I can remember certain story beats (Mr Prosser and Genghis Khan, for example) and jokes (Vogon ships hanging in the sky the same way bricks don't, for example) but not a lot else. I haven't got to that joke yet, but I suspect I'm not far off.

Not in a Nietzsche

Main course, third glass of wine. 

Yes, that is half a chicken breast and a single 
chopped up potato, one floret of broccoli and 
half a carrot with a single slice of courgette 
and a single chunk of turnip in gravy. 

I'm actually impressed how little there was. 

Thursday night is now in the past. I wore the yellow Hell Bunny dress and, due to rain, did not leave the house early enough to get my eyebrows done like I had semi-planned. I did however manage to have a bath the night before in which I dehaired considerably and felt much better; also a shower in the morning to attempt to tame my hair which mostly worked. I also managed to make a decent lunch (sandwiches) and that was nice. All of which culminated in the evening, where I managed to drink maybe five small glasses of red wine, have a meal and feel very much out of place. Rarely has something so convinced me that I am a middle-class raised eejit in a room of Real People, which was eye-opening. There was some political conversation: they all vote differently to me (as in, for the openly transphobic party rather than the milquetoast one) and voted Brexit because they want more money for native people and open immigration from outside the EU(? - I guess one of them was from Turkey, complaining about Romanian and Polish immigrants). Tax-cuts for landlords and rich people will, they told me, inevitably lead to higher wages for us. I was... well, I stopped talking not long afterward: what could I say?

Had another incident, because of course I have, so I'm concerned about that. Don't worry, nothing awful (I don't think) but it is another incident. I'm not a good driver, I know that. Safe enough, sure, but I work with people who are actually good drivers and are better at it. I can do the customer facing stuff, obviously being an ex-teacher and someone who is used to 'playing a character' - I'm a little over-qualified for that, to be fair - but I am not a driver in the way my colleagues are.

Rain has been a big feature and, happily, no water in the loft: that's nice.

Just know I was as out-of-place as I
look.

However, the philosophical bit! I have been reading fiction online and I started commenting on it. There's one particular author I read and I like how they write. I can see the development over time and, recently, got the opportunity to read things either side of the editing process. I like what they do: they are a good writer and they're in a niche which doesn't always reward good writing so much as what boxes are ticked. Obviously I did some commentary. And the author revealed, relatively recently, that they looked forward to my commentary - thus fluffing my ego.

Anyway, it reminded me that I can do that sort of thing and it is sometimes welcomed. I have that skill after a long time in teaching I suppose - the ability to offer praise in such a way that people view as sincere and, dare I say, helpful. There is, of course, critique within it - I have no other mode due to the ASD and my inability to not. It also led to the person that I offered commentary to encouraging me to write and, well, I have had a few idea sleets lately so maybe I ought to get back on that horse. Maybe. Maybe not.

Youngest's birthday was recently too - I was slated to join him, Tilly and Middlest for a birthday meal but hayfever for the boys was so bad it was commuted to Tilly, Youngest and I at the Scottish Restaurant for less than an hour. Youngest propped up by antihistamine and barely able to form coherent sentences. It was a birthday meal, I didn't get to see hin unwrap the presents I got him, though Tilly sent some photos later. Plus points? Well, Tilly's good friends were all there for Youngest's actual birthday party and afterwards - meaning he officially gets longer interaction from a friend of Tilly's bloke than he does from me now. Eh, who am I to argue?

One other feature of the last few months is the realisation that I am in no one's niche (well, I always knew that) but having that substantiated by others. A colleague will ask: "do you have a partner/boyfriend?" and I'll say "no." They'll follow-up: "oh, why? You not want one?" And I'll say, "Well, I'm 43, autistic, divorced, have three children and am trans." And they'll respond: "oh, yeah, I see," and change the subject. I mean, at least I'm right.