oh god SGDQ 2026 is coming up

So.. there’s a lot of things that kinda suck about the Current Situation right now, but one I didn’t think about until just recently was that we no longer have a built-in cat sitter that we trust (which is, yes, extremely minor compared to everything else, but let me have this for a second). Thankfully through a few postings at the vet we found one. They seem solid and we’re booked with them for the trip. It should be just fine, and the cats seem to like them well enough, but.. :\

I’m really intent on socializing more this SGDQ. There’s so many trans women there, surely I can make a new friend right? The plan is to go to the board game room and actually play some board games with people. And to go to the Frame Fatales meetup and events as well as going to more of the other onsite panels and events. Eventually I should be able to meet a person and talk to a person, right? Hopefully!

This time around we’re going to be there for opening instead of closing. Five nights again, just like last time. It’s going to feel like forever and also be over in a flash. I’m really excited to go again, everything just felt so good last time. I should really finally post my SGDQ2025 post..

Chicago Dyke March

Yesterday we went to the Chicago Dyke March! It was kind of a smaller affair than others like Boston or especially New York or Seattle (judging from photos on social media), but it was really fun and exciting! This is the first one since 2019 or 2020, so it was kind of a big deal and in that light the turnout was really damn good. This was my very second Pride event!, and the first I’ve gone to in Chicago! My first Pride was Syracuse, NY’s Pride in 2019. That’s.. a whole story that I really don’t want to get into right now..

This year’s march was entirely within the Pilsen neighborhood, which was a treat for my wife and me and as we both used to live down there¹. We didn’t stay long at the afterfest, just enough to get some food, water, and rest before we went back home. I’m still super struggling to talk to new people and it’s really overwhelming to do so when everyone’s either there in small groups or somehow there in large groups. But it was a fun time to be part of the march and to see all the locals come out and cheer for us. Tons of women just going about their day seemed absolutely delighted to see the dyke march. That made my day.

Breaths of Fire

This is an actual note I took when playing Breath of Fire 2:

None of my current men are handsome enough

So I’ve been looking for a classic-style RPG to play without spending any extra money and realized we have both Breath of Fire 1 and 2 on Nintendo Switch Online. I put about 10 or 12 hours into 1 and kinda got.. bored of it. I really like a lot of things about it, but it didn’t really keep me hooked. The story was sparse and the motivation was not communicated well.

Meanwhile, 2 has a lot of characterization, well communicated story, humor, and intriguing hooks. I’m really enjoying 2 a lot more, and I’m keen to see what’s going on once the game opens up more.

Olive’s URIs

My sweet baby boy has had four upper respiratory infections in the past eight months or so. This most recent one came back just a single week after the treatment for the last one finished up! We took him to the vet.. again.. and we’re trying a different antibiotic now. The vet wanted to do a PCR test but for as much of a ham as Olive was at the vet, he has SUPER hard boundaries around sticking a swab up his nose or in the back of this throat. She eventually just gave up on it and.. sigh we’re just gonna try to keep reducing his stress (for his feline herpes virus), preventing allergens from entering the house, and hope the new antibiotic works… This is frustrating. I wish we could get some proper testing on him…

moth update…. mothpdate

After we did our first big attack we started seeing massively dwindling numbers over the next few weeks. From five a night in my room alone to one or two a day across the whole house. Then they started slowly ramping back up again… I’ve been tracking the moth traps (though I am very behind on that) and the trend seemed okay. Though I am curious why so many were found in our ex’s closet. We did a deep dive of that closet too and yet they still kept showing up. Turns out they were super nesting in a throw blanket on the basement couch. My wife found it earlier this week and took care of it. After a day or two of scattered moths, their numbers have dropped considerably again. Some days I don’t even see any. Were they really exploring that far from their nest?? What’s super weird is the throw blanket was completely polyester, that is to say: plastic. They can’t eat plastic! What were they doing? Can they survive off of just deposited human skin oils?? Absolutely wild. Horrible little things. I’m glad we’re making a huge dent in them, but it’s definitely gonna be a long fight in this home. I only hope that the ones that followed our ex are easier to deal with since they came in a box.

trying to get to know people

I’ve tried talking to a few women (and fewer men) lately and anytime it gets anywhere beyond, um, entry level?, I get spooked and run away. There was previously this moment:

Recently I tried getting to know a woman my age and when she asked me for a selfie to add to my contact in her phone I physically recoiled.

- Do I need to stop calling myself broken?

But there was another woman recently I actually am kinda interested in, but the moment the idea of meeting up was on the table, I just.. disappeared.. :/

sigh This is gonna be A Process.

upcoming heatwave..

This week is supposed to be HOT hot, heat wave, temps in the mid to high nineties… I’m happy our house has air conditioning (in fact, it’s dual zoned because there’s no way the main floor AC unit could actually heat the upstairs too. and the upstairs is pretty small so a smaller dedicated unit is way more efficient), but I so worry about all the people out there with only window units or no AC at all… I’ve lived mostly with window units in Chicago and the heat waves were absolutely miserable. I had central air in San José as well which helped a ton with those nasty heatwaves (though interestingly, being a desert, the heatwave only lasted during daylight hours.. here in Chicago with our heat dome effect our heatwaves are around the clock), and thankfully I didn’t experience any heatwaves in San Francisco (though being on the west side of Twin Peaks certainly helped) because I can’t actually remember if that apartment even had AC! But anyway, my heart goes out to everyone with window units or no AC right now.. It’s gonna be miserable and people will suffer and die from it.. Chicago has cooling centers to help people cope but frankly they’re not enough.

blue stains in my shower

Last time I was at Wallgreens I couldn’t find the normal “Silver Care” L’Oréal shampoo and conditioner I’ve been using lately, which sucks because I have natural silver and grey hair. Instead though, I found a new product from them: “Purple” Shampoo and Conditioner. Apparently it’s designed to super strongly remove yellowing from all types of hair color, natural and artificial, including and especially silver and grey hair. Where the old Silver Care stuff was a light lavender in color, this new stuff is deep purple and deep blue respectively. So deep that it looks like hair dye. So deep that it cautions against me leaving the product in too long, lest my hair turn blue in shade. So deep that I have blue stains all over my bathtub and shower curtain. I’ve been testing the limits of how long I can leave the products in before I start to see my hair turn blue.

Speaking of hair though, I was looking through some old photos of my hair to show my wife, because she’s only ever known me with mostly grey hair. I have greyed spectacularly since she met me, but I have also been greying a ton for the past 15 years. I pulled up a photo from college 20 years ago², when I was first able to put my hair into a ponytail (no signs), and I forgot how gorgeously deep chestnut brown my hair was. In the sunlight sometimes a bit of red shown through too. Ever since I found that photo a part of me has been pulled to have it dyed a deep chestnut brown. I miss that color. But also my silver/grey is fucking beautiful and I get so many compliments on it.

??

Anyway, so I gotta really work on some things before I head out next Saturday. I’m trying to really be serious about my physical therapy exercises for my bladder issues. I’ve also really gotta shift my sleep schedule.. There’s something goofy with my sleep schedule where I would ideally stay up around 18 hours a day and then sleep 10 hours, with the windows shifting later and later (I believe this is called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder). Right now I’m fighting that as hard as I can and I’m stuck in this phase where I fall asleep between 1 or 2 am, wake up a ton because of my bladder issues (and my cat sometimes still), and then wake up between 11am and 12:30pm, yet only getting about 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Sleep has been my bane for a few years now… :\ I badly need to get this under control. I’m hoping that at least the abject quiet and pitch black dark of the hotel room will help me sleep deeper than I do at home.