more gdq thoughts

There was this cute trans gal we encountered as we came back to the hotel from lunch one day. She was leaving the hotel (probably also for lunch) with a gaggle of other trans gals. Of the four or five of them, she was the only one wearing a mask to protect against airborne illness. We had put our masks on to re-enter the hotel and she looked heavily at both of us and gave us shy side-wave, as my wife described it. I regret not turning around and saying “hi, my name is liz/sugar.” I kept an eye out for her the rest of the time we were there and didn’t see her or her group again. I’m super bummed by this. I wanted to walk out of this SGDQ with a friend. I’m trying to take solace in the fact that I did talk to people I didn’t know though! I socialized a lot more than I did last year :)

Speaking of GDQ though, I’ve started selecting which photos I want to post from 2025 and 2026. I’ll eventually get them sorted and up, but they’re definitely not a priority for me at this time.

minor website update

I made footnotes WAY more visible. ¹

Olive

He’s been having a lot of health issues lately. We haven’t been able to shake his recurring upper respiratory infections. And then after we got back from SGDQ he had pink eye! And then Sunday night randomly started LIMPING! Except, he was also acting perfectly normal, doing everything he normally does and otherwise not in any pain at all.

So for his URI and eye, we’ve got antibiotics again. It was just too soon since the last antibiotics to take a PCR test, so we just opted to give him relief. He’s recovering really quickly this time, so I’m super hoping this might be the round that finally clears him up again. As for the limping, after a really expensive urgent (not emergency, but not our normal one either) vet visit, and $1100 later… we’ve confirmed that it’s just his arthritis progressing. This is the best thing it could have been, and is honestly such a relief. I can’t stop thinking about how alone I’m going to be once he dies. Sabot and I haven’t bonded like Duster and Olive (and even Mitchell if we’re being honest). I just.. I’m not..