This blog going dark

Folks,

I maintain several blogs and have decided I need to reduce the number. So as of today, this blog will no longer be maintained. However, I'll be posting personal stuff on my previously (and still mostly) librarian-focused blog, which will take over the title of The Disobedient Librarian.

Thanks to all who've read my travails over the past years and hope to see you over at my other blog.

Peace out.

Discrimination or Terrible Customer Service?

I've had a bad enough experience with this, that I need to rant about it on this blog:

I've been trying to get an appointment to see my endocrinologist (the only one in the Albany area with expertise in trans hormone issues) since last October! Here is a little chronology on my so far unsuccessful quest:

1. Summer 2009: make next appointment for May 26, 2010 
2. October 2009: call to try and get an earlier appointment to discuss an adjustment to my hormones: am told schedule is completely booked (all days and times) up through June 2010.
3. Early May: get call that my appointment needs to be rescheduled - set it for June 2
4. June 2: arrive in office and am told my appointment was canceled and they were unable to get a hold of me (I did switch phones in mid-May, but they have my office number, which did not change). Attempt to reschedule - women notes that trans people are now restricted to "Transgender Tuesday" (her words, not mine) appointments now. I am tempted to say "how would you feel if your doctor said African-Americans, or women, could only make appointments one day of the week?" But I don't, and make an appointment for June 22nd - she says she has to confirm this and will contact me. I update my phone number with the person.
5. June 9: never heard back from them, so I call to confirm appointment. They say there is nothing in the calendar on it. They say "Mary," the doctor's nurse, will call me back to confirm. I ask about the "Tuesday only" policy and the woman states it's just the policy, she doesn't know why.
6. June 11: never got a call back, so I call again. They say they have to wait until the doctor opens his summer schedule to book my appointment and that "Mary" will call me "within a month." I again ask about the Tuesday policy thing; am told same thing: "I don't know."

So, yeah, a giant WTF here. I'm sort of stuck with this guy (who in the past has been a bit cold, but is generally ok). I really want to march over there and find out what is up with this seemingly discriminatory "Transgender Tuesdays" policy. What could be the reasoning behind it? To keep us away from the "normal" patients? This is bat-shit fucking crazy and, as you can probably tell by this point, I'm a bit miffed about it.

Juggling Foci

My computer crib

 

Yep, still here! I've been thinking a lot lately about addictions. Not in the strictly negative medical or psychological sense, but more in the sense of focus and lack of or need for variety and change. After all, we all have "addictions" of one kind or another, whether it takes the form of eating certain foods, watching television, gossiping, working out or just plain working, clothes shopping (shoes!!!), or even something as innocuous as needing air-conditioning to feel comfortable, or using only a certain brand of toothpaste or shampoo. In some cases this is due to comfort; we know what works or what feels good, so we stick with it. Fear of the unknown obviously plays into this as well.

I have, to a good degree, an addictive personality. At the same time I have always had a strong drive for variety. This plays out, for example, in my video game "focus." I love playing video games, but tend to fairly quickly  get bored with any one game, usually long before beating it.

As a result I often feel torn between these often conflicting personality traits.

This sense is also being played out in my mind with the whole trans thing. Bear with me on this - I am not, nor ever will be going stealth or turning my back on my own community. But on one hand, for the most part recently, I've been pursuing my life as a librarian without much focus on my trans-ness. It's been somewhat comfortable and has been my focus. On the other, I totally miss (and perhaps need?) that close sense of community I feel most acutely when more active in the TG community; when I have regular contact with friends in the community, fractured though that community may be.

Of course, my still lingering social shyness/ineptitude plays into this. As does my inability to juggle/maintain too many social conversations at once. My focus on my career is slowly paying off and my contacts within the wonderful library community are growing and have been very rewarding. I guess I'm saying I want that same sense of belonging and purpose from the equally wonderful TG community. But I know the only way I'll get it is by shifting my focus and going out and seeking and maintaining those connections. I'm going to try, but please don't judge me if I'm slow in doing it. Change comes naturally, but slowly, for me.

Yes, I am still here (sort of). Post break-up, it's been a pretty bleak last few months emotion-wise. So I've abstained from barfing all those ugly emotions on to you, gentle reader. Things have gotten better, although I'm still way lonely and isolated and buying and playing far too many video games. I've been getting out some and am back into a regular exercise regimen, which helps. Now to lose the 12-15 lbs I gained over the last 6 months!!!

Anyways, I may try vlogging later today after I finish installing Windows 7 on this machine. If I do I'll post that vid here too. No idea what I'll say tho. I'll have to give it some thought. If you have ideas, please let me know.

So this post has been exciting, huh? Wow, perhaps I shouldn't try to write 5 minutes after waking up on a Saturday morning...

FYI: if you are using Google Wave, feel free to look me up under: disobedientlibrarian

Amazon Imbroglio

The recent and on-going imbroglio over Amazon's seemingly intentional censorship of LGBT books (despite their claims denying it) got me thinking: what else might the mega-information companies (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, our Government, the telecoms, etc.) that we all now pretty much depend on, be influencing/censoring/favoring based on political/social beliefs, that we don't even know about yet?

Kind of scary, isn't it? On the other hand, the fact that this Amazon thing (which I won't discuss, as far more knowledgeable people than me have done that already here, here) was caught so early and then publicized so widely and loudly by the blogosphere, gives me hope that there is power in the collective intelligence potential of web 2.0 (and beyond) technologies.

Messin' with the body-chem Sasquatch

So I've been on a different hormone regimen for about a month now. I switched from straight estrogen to doing estrotest, which is a mix of estro and testosterone. I've had a low sex-drive ever since my surgery 2 years ago and putting some of the icky male stuff back into my body is an effort to combat that. I can't say it's been a success yet, but I generally do feel it has helped give me some much needed everyday energy (I've gotten back into regular workouts sustained over a period of weeks!) and lifted me a little out of my depression.

I also finally got my new gaming desktop computer to work, and have dipped my toe into the zombie-infested world of Left 4 Dead. What an amazing game! And I haven't even done multiplayer mode yet (I have only played for about an hour total so far). I've also been thinking of either renewing my subscription to City of Heroes, since they've added the option to design and make available your own missions. But I was getting sick of that game when I left and am not sure I want to go back. I could also try WoW again, I'm not sure. Anything else I should look into game-wise?

Cosmetic Shift

I'm sitting here watching "Doomsday" on DVD and I realize, wow, we actually, with today's arrival of my Woot-bought home theater system, have a pretty kick-ass multimedia/entertainment system!

And then, obviously influenced by watching the movie, this question pops into my head, and I realize, while it's a great question, it also might make a cool idea for a book/movie:

What if there were an airborne pandemic; symptoms started out with quick, painful death but mutated, once about 75% of population had been wiped out (virus survival mechanism kicking in?). Switch to only outcome of disease is basically making every human uglier according to dominant species standards (perhaps severe and constant skin rashes and discoloration, and severe acne, or something similar that did not affect physiology or physical abilities in any other way). No cure or inoculation can be found.

A universal cosmetic shift in human appearance, in other words.

How would uninfected humans react to that 2nd stage of the virus? How extreme might the measures still taken to halt the virus, quarantine those infected, go? How many would die, be systematically killed, in the name of stopping an infection that simply changed our appearance? Would it simply be better to let the virus infect all? Could you make such a decision?

Now back to the movie and my beer...