17th of Elul

Sunday, I looked for 2 pillboxes similar to my current one on Amazon. For some reason, I didn't see any at Safeway. I've had my current one for roughly 10 years. Probably longer. I think I got it at Rite Aid. I remember my mom got the same kind at the same time. It's a daily circular one with 3 segments on the inside. The design on the outside is a metallic red with a silver starburst at the center and silver spikes coming off of it. The bottom and sides are golden. (Not actual gold.) It has a button like clasp on the edge to open and securely close it. Cool looking and I've loved it. However, I just realized recently that it's probably not sanitary anymore. You can't really clean them, unlike the weekly plastic ones. So, it's probably built up stuff from all the meds I've had since. Even the wax paper glued above the sections has turned yellow and the multivitamin gummies made wet looking imprints. I looked for 2 so that I can switch them after a little while. Probably better for me that way. I actually found some. Ordered one that has a few pink and white flowers, branches, and an open black background, the rest being silver. It looked kind of like a vintage thing. The 2nd one's a giant squid attacking an old boat, the rest of it's also silver. The tentacles are the only things shown of the squid. It looks like something you'd see in an antique shop. It looks like a black and white sketch. Both look cool. I was also thinking about an old compass, old map, a moon, another piece of abstract art, or octopus one. I didn't know there were so many designs. Some looked really expensive, but weren't bad in reality. The 2 I ordered seemed to be cheap, too. It was interesting that shipping for one of them was the same cost as the product itself. 

Someone on AVEN posted a thread about trying to understand what it means to be non-binary or enby for short. They were very ignorant on a number of things. They brought up trans as binary, used mtf (male to female) and ftm (female to male), that to be trans you have to transition, odd ideas about intersex people, and obviously quite a lot of stuff on enby genders and such. It was a lot to unpack. 

All that trans means is someone who's gender doesn't match the one they were assigned at birth. Since enby people don't identify with the one assigned to them, they are under the umbrella. Mtf or ftm are problematic because people have always had their gender, they were just assigned the wrong one. If you've always felt like a woman, you are one. You weren't a man before and suddenly turned into a woman. It doesn't work that way. Same with trans men. Better terms are afab (assigned female at birth) and amab (assigned male at birth). Not all trans people transition for many reasons. Health, can't afford it, don't see the need, etc. 

They thought that intersex people have both sets of sex types. Not necessarily. It can vary a lot, and they could seem 'normal' with one set, but other aspects will be different. Most people don't know their intersex until they're tested and that isn't cheap. They also thought that intersex people are trans. Not necessarily. They could be either cis or trans like everyone else. There are some genders that only intersex people can be, which is pretty cool. 

They thought enby and agender were the same thing. Nope. Enby is when someone isn't entirely a man or a woman all of the time. Genderfluid people that are sometimes a man or a woman are still considered enby, because they aren't always those genders. They also most likely fluctuate between many other genders. There are bigender people that are both a man and woman. Still considered enby, since they aren't just one or the other. They may have many other combos, too. Demigender people are partially a gender. They could be partially others at the same time (many being mostly agender). If part of their gender is in the binary, they're still enby, because they aren't completely a man or a woman. Being agender is under the enby umbrella, since I'm neither a man or a woman. I'm not related to the binary. There are many genders out there that aren't. It means I don't have a gender. 

They also asked how it felt to be enby. For me, there's nothing there. I see it in other people, but internally...nothing. Feminine and masculine seem more like 'styles' to me. I'm neither of those either. I might like aspects of both, but they're like pretty and cool masks or costumes. I don't identify or feel like they're truly me. I just am. Apparently, this confuses people, though. 

I'm glad their response to all this was a like. Despite being so ignorant and rude at times in their main post, they seemed to genuinely want to understand. I was bracing myself for retaliation still. Some people are unpredictable, don't think it's good enough, or want me to defend it somehow. There was one member of that same forum in the past that demanded I tell her what gender is and feels like. Again...you're asking someone who doesn't experience it. It was weird. 

On Sunday, we went to the dump. Got rid of 140 lbs of stuff. Mainly my parent's books. Went to Starbucks afterwards. I tried their pumpkin scone. Liked the scone part a lot. The very thick stiff icing, not as much. It's good, but seemed too thick and added way too much sweetness to it. Also, got an iced pumpkin spice latte. It didn't taste as strong as I remembered. It was ok, but not the best. Maybe the frappuccino version's better? I think they have a couple of other seasonal drinks that are back. Maybe I'll try one of those next time. 

It's gotten cold enough that I had to put the heavy electric blanket on my bed this weekend. It's super cozy when turned on. When off, it's pretty nice too, since it kind of feels like a hug. Rosie absolutely loves it. Even when it's off. She looks so happy when I have my heater going and she's on that blanket. It's cute. She gets so relaxed when the blanket is on and heated up. (Takes time to heat up to the setting you want.)

Went to my primary doc appointment yesterday. I was disappointed with how it turned out. So much so that I'm thinking about switching to a different one again. I might look at the trans-friendly list of primary docs again. She dismissed a lot of things, was 40 minutes late (they only give you 20 minutes. I don't care if it was at the end of the day. It was offered then), she always seems scattered and rushed when late, asked me what she should do, was contradictory, refused to do any imaging or blood tests, etc. There was one thing she did that was good, which was prescribe me a muscle relaxant. I was going to ask her about that. Most of the pain in both arms seems to be muscle related, so that might help for sleep at least. I might get that tomorrow. 

I also had a 101 degree fever. Didn't even realize that during the day. I had felt hot flashes, but didn't think much of it. Her nurse was concerned, but she didn't talk about it herself. I didn't take my temp yet today. I probably should at some point. At least my primary actually said that my rheumatologist will know what to do and get to the bottom of what it is. I'll see him on Friday.

Made another thing from a Pinterest recipe called Cacio e Pepe Ramen for dinner last night. The directions weren't clear. I used half of most of the ingredients, except a 1/4 of the cheese. They used 2 different types of cheese, and I only used parmesan. They didn't really explain what to do with the 'broth' of water, butter (I used margarine), olive oil, pepper, and extra cheese after the noodles were cooked and tossed in it. It seemed like it'd be a waste to toss it out, so I poured it into the bowl along with the noodles. They have you add a little more pepper as a garnish. It was a bit strange. Tasted ok, but was kind of a mess. So, this one wasn't a good recipe, which is the first one so far, of the ones from Pinterest, that's been like that. 

I did my Dutch on Duolingo both yesterday and today. Went through the Shape unit and am halfway through the Media one. I'm 9th in the Ruby League as of right now. I think I ended up being 3rd yesterday. Maybe I can get back up there by the end of the week.

Edited Alliance both days, too. I think today was the most I've edited in a sitting. I finished chapter 6 and went through all of chapter 7. That was 11 pages of the ebook version, and 17 pages of the print version. I didn't spend as much time as my usual, either. I'm happy I got through that much.

I half thought about making author business cards when I published my last book. I didn't know what I'd put on it, especially because I had multiple books out, and put it in the back of my mind. I thought about it today. People are asking more about my books in person now, too. Read an article about what authors tend to put on it, and I think I could do it. I might even be able to make them with my new printer. However, I feel I need to do quite a few things beforehand. First, I need to finish editing what I feel needs it, and republish those books both to Smashwords and Amazon. Some were never on Smashwords before, and I think getting all of them on there would be a good idea. I might need to reformat things, too. Then, I'm thinking of making a new author's page on facebook, edit the Amazon and Smashwords (haven't gone there in a long time) author pages, figure out a separate 'business' email address and phone number (they say it's a bad idea to list both your personal email and number), create an author's page on Instagram and another on Twitter. I have to decide if I want to use the cover art of the books for the design (and how), and what shape it'll be. Some authors make theirs into bookmarks, which makes a lot of sense and fits the 'theme'. It could be fun for promoting it. This way whenever someone asks me face to face, I can just whip out a card. Easier to remember for people if they have something written out, too. 

National Pancake Day!

This one was actually created by IHOP. (I think there are a couple of them.) Pancakes are free there today. People can donate to charities that help children battling illnesses. Haven't been to IHOP in a long time. I should have made pancakes for breakfast...I have that banana caramel pancake mix still. Pancakes can be pretty versatile. They can be sweet and/or savory. My faves are blueberry, chocolate chip with bananas, cinnamon roll, spinach, green onion, and more. I often like them by themselves, but syrup is good too. There's a variety out there for that as well. I currently have maple praline syrup that I've put on it sometimes. I hate globs of butter on it. It doesn't need that sort of thing.

Went to my gastro appointment on Thursday. The Digestive Health Consultants center has an endoscopy and colonoscopy department right there in the same building. I thought that was cool and convenient. Much closer than the last place I went for that. The intake form was interesting. It was on in an iPad. Handy, except for when I had to sign some of it. They should have given me a stylus or something. My signature ended up looking weird. I'm glad they had 'other' as an option for the 'sex' part. 

I think I like her a lot. She has a good sense of humor, yet is serious about what's been going on and my concerns. I've only seen one other actual gastroenterologist with an MD. I've seen a nurse specialist and physician's assistant in between. They weren't very helpful, and even my new gastro was surprised about how they treated me. That first gastro had a very heavy accent, and I felt bad that I had to ask her to repeat things so often. She was good at first, but stopped communication with me at some point. The new gastro doesn't have an accent like that and speaks clearly. Doesn't dumb things down too much, yet asks if I'm not familiar with something. 

She's very concerned about my throat, too. She diagnosed me with dysphagia. That means difficulty swallowing. In my case, it's painful as well. Hard to eat, drink, and speak. I'm surprised by my voice being affected. It's increasingly becoming hoarse. Feels like there's always something in my throat. Dysphagia's not just an annoyance. It can cause a lot of complications, like it's easier to choke, some people need their throat stretched, some have to have a feeding tube, etc. I was told to eat as normally as possible, soft foods are best, take smaller bites, and chew more. 

She didn't tell me this face to face, but in the after visit summary, she gave possibilities on what it could be. It tends to be a symptom of something else. Here are those possibilities: esophageal Crohn's, peptic stricture, eosinophilic esophagitis. We were speculating whether it could be related to Crohn's, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was that type. I don't think it would be a stricture. Looking up the last one's symptoms sounds an awful lot like what I'm experiencing. I remember I had issues with my eosinophil (a type of white blood cell) count when I first started having symptoms of the colitis. So, it's not too far a stretch to think that I might have something related to that. I've read that you could have a normal blood test result for the eosinophil count and still have this. They apparently gather and attack the esophagus, and usually don't show up with that test. 

She also wrote that I still have colitis symptoms despite being on Lialda. She took me seriously with that and even said there's obviously something going on. She said she could tell just by looking at me and doing a short physical exam. I mentioned my stiff painful joints and muscles, and she said that was another sign that the colitis may be active. Especially if it's getting worse. 

She asked me if I've ever been tested for Celiac disease. I haven't. She said we should test it to make sure, since I could have colitis and Celiac at the same time. Some patients are like that. I hope not. I don't want to give up gluten. I love it...

She ordered a bunch of blood tests. About 7 vials of varying size in total. I almost couldn't stand to sit there for so long. Most of it was for Celiac testing. That took longer than the others. I have most of the results back, and they're all normal. A few are much higher or lower than my personal norm, but within the range. Not sure how to take that. For the specific ones they use to detect Celiac, so far, they're within normal range. However, 2 of them are really low. They say for both of those if it's below 20 units, then it's not positive for it. One of those is at 3 the other's at 6. The 3 one especially looks weird. I added that one's result into Patients Like Me's charts, and they flagged it as too low. That concerns me a bit more. I don't want to be deficient in those antibodies. They didn't flag it on the test results themselves. Seems like something to bring up with her. Looking at these results as is, it seems like I don't have Celiac at least. I think there are a couple more tests I'm still waiting on.

She agreed to doing an upper endoscopy along with the colonoscopy. She said at the very least the only way to see what's really going on with my throat is to scope and take biopsies of it. I also read that that's the only way to diagnose eosinophilic esophagitis. There is no reliable blood test for it. She'll take a look at my stomach/duodenum, since last time it indicated something was going on with it. (They said it was a certain gastritis that is common with people who have Crohn's.) She'll look at and take biopsies of part of my small intestines not only to see if there are signs of Crohn's, but to also check for Celiac. I've read that even if blood test results are negative, if it's just starting/mild it'll only show up in biopsies or looking at it with a scope. So, yay! There's still a possibility...I don't want ee, Crohn's/colitis, and Celiac all at once. Makes it even scarier. She'll also check to see how my colon is doing. If it's not flaring right now, the scarring must be worse or something. I'm having awful intestinal cramping often now. A plus for the endo/colonoscopy is that both will be done by her. In the past it was a different gastro that did them. Not my personal one. This way she can have a more in-depth/personal look.

I'm glad she agreed to letting me do the Miralax/Gatorade prep. However, theirs is a bit different than last time. Instead of just 4 pills of dulcolax in addition to that Miralax solution, she wants me to have 2 bottles of magnesium citrate. (1/2 a bottle one day, 1/2 the next, and a full the day after that.) It's a liquid laxative. I've read that it's palatable but not good. Some people have said if you get the lemon it's like concentrated salty lemon juice. Some have said it tastes like a strong version of Sprite without the fizz. They also said it's really powerful stuff. Most only had 1/2 a bottle. I'm a bit scared of it now. Why do I need something so powerful in addition to the Miralax? Seems like overkill. At least they have me on the liquid diet for a shorter time. 1 1/2 days rather than 5 or 6 days. A lot less to prepare for on that front. 5 or 6 days were really difficult after the 2nd day. It'll be the same amount of Miralax (14 days worth) and Gatorade (64oz). That's a lot of fluid. The Miralax part of it gets difficult towards the last couple of glasses. Maybe I didn't mix it enough last time? We'll see. It's nothing like that vile Golytely stuff, though. That was like the worst thing I've ever tried to ingest.

I've been having such a difficult time sleeping with all the pain and other symptoms, which makes me get up later than I'd like. I think I said something similar on here last time, but that seems to be getting worse. Hard to get motivated while feeling like this, too. I'll try going to bed earlier, even if it's painful. I'll take more extra strength Tylenol before going to bed, as well. I have been doing things like studying Korean, editing Shadow's full-body drawing, and a little editing of Alliance. 

Someone on AVEN read my last blog post on here and messaged me. It was an incredibly long message that looked almost like a college research paper. She was in her 60's and I don't think she was used to online forums and how people usually interact on there. She also listed 'alpha female' as her gender. Lots of mentions about being a feminist and a 'retired' minority advocate in her profile. Got the sense she was a terf just from that. I had commented on a post about feeling conflicted about International Women's Day when you're an afab trans person. I agreed to the op's first post. She found me through that comment. She thought I had conflicted feelings towards my body and was 'confused'. Nope. I'm not confused and don't really have conflicting feelings about my body. My body's mine, but there are parts of it that shouldn't be there. I like pretty much everything else about it. It makes me me. It's pretty interesting to learn about the inner workings of it. I even like looking at my blood test results. It was cool to hear and see my heart in an ultrasound. I love that stuff, actually. She said how sorry she felt about my health. (Used odd wording and I don't think she knew what those words meant...) Went on and on about how she knew better about saving her partner than the doctors did. Also, about how awful the UK health care system is. I don't know...I've heard that it's actually better than ours. She offered to help me figure out my nutrition stuff. Yeah, I really need unsolicited advice from a stranger who doesn't really know much about my condition. I told her that I'd rather trust my medical team and maybe (a big maybe, but more likely) people who have IBD as well. She mentioned IBS by the way when talking about IBD, seemingly to think they were the same. They're very different things. I couldn't believe or actually follow half of what she said. I have a feeling she not only wanted to give me poor health advice but to tell me I'm really just a 'confused' woman. She did say she 'battled' with her own gender and realized it was because of child abuse and trauma, and she believes that's also what causes diseases like IBD. Sure...That's not right at all. Abuse and trauma had nothing to do with me being dysphoric and having colitis. They just happened. A good way to tell people it's all 'in our heads' and you must have been damaged in some way before. It's all your own fault for having an autoimmune disease. Not cool, and looking at some of her other posts, that's the message (on both) she keeps trying to push even if it has nothing to do with the topic. I blocked her on there when she practically ignored what I said in my message to her. She replied with more weird stuff. I hope she doesn't hurt others, though. 

World Nutella Day!

I love Nutella! I avoided trying it for a long time. I don't know why I felt uneasy about it at first. It's chocolate and hazelnut. A great combo. It's good on graham crackers, in a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, crepes, brownies, and so much more. It's also the Chinese Lunar New Year. It's the year of the Pig. Next year will be the Rat, which is my zodiac animal. 

This is my wallpaper for February. It's (from left to right) Gray, Erza, Natsu, and Lucy from Fairy Tail. Everything in February seems devoted to Valentine's Day. In other words, amatonormativity is especially shoved in people's faces right now. Amatonormativity is the idea that everyone who's human strives for romantic love/relationships and marriage. Everything else takes a back burner. The idea stresses that there are no other very close relationships, like queerplatonic ones. If you're single and/or don't feel romantic attraction, you're looked down upon, thought of as lonely, or something's wrong with you. Also, a certain kind of romantic love: monogamous, straight, and cis. It's harmful to pretty much everyone. Even those that are cis, straight, and monogamous. It's a term from the aro community, and wasn't meant to relate to sex/sexual attraction. That's different. Even some romantic aces say things like: "At least we can love!" Love, meaning romantic love. That hurts aros and aro aces. There's a lot more to the term, but that's the basics. It can be somewhat tough for an aro this month. We have Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week the week after Valentine's Day. Yay! We have that at least. Anyways, I thought it'd be nice to see some good platonic love this month. They're all good friends, even if Gray and Natsu sometimes butt heads. The atmosphere is nice and warm, too. 

The month-long holidays for February are: Celebration of Chocolate Month, National Canned Food Month, National Cherry Month, National Potato Lovers Month, Barley Month, National African American History Month, National Women Inventors Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. 

For my Jewish calendar, the main pic's of a Torah crown, gilded in silver, made in 1837. It has a lot of bells, and a vine-like design. The other pic's of a wooden tzedakah (basically charity) box, made in 1900. This one has sculpted birds on the sides. 

For my elements calendar, it's bismuth this time. Kind of made me gag that they shaped some of it into a heart for the main pic. It's the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol. Apparently, 57% of it in a bottle is bismuth. Both elements to the left (lead) and right (polonium) of it are toxic. Despite this, bismuth, as far as they know, is nontoxic. It's considered the very last stable element in the periodic table. However, recently it was discovered that bismuth has no stable isotopes, either. They show it forming crystals, 30 lb ingots of pure bismuth which is how they're sold commercially, and a multimetallic chain containing a link cast from 99.99% pure bismuth. 

I'll try to stay more on top of posting than I have been. Apparently, missed a week. I've been feeling really awful off and on, and distracted by things like snow. It snowed Sunday afternoon until the next morning. They said there would be more later on Monday but there wasn't. It was a lot for us. We're not used to that much snow. Certainly not in February. It's also been cold enough that the snow isn't completely melting away. On Monday, the highs were in the mid-20's (F), and felt like 9 degrees. The strong winds made it worse. Again, all this isn't our norm. According to the forecast, there's a lot more snow coming Friday and Saturday. They predict 4" on Friday, and 2" for Sunday. That's a lot more than we got recently. Why can't it be more spaced out? I have my eye appointment on Thursday, so it'll be good before it snows again. 

I made an appointment to see a new gastro. She's an MD, which is already a plus for me. They said I can't make an appointment for a colonoscopy until after I see her. I got a reminder in December (I think?) to get another one soon. The last one was in January of 2017. The one before that, which was my first, was at the end of July 2015. The receptionist said that it was definitely time. IBD patients are encouraged to get one at least every 2 years. So, I'm going to have the 3rd soon. It just might be sometime at the end of March or April. My appointment's in the beginning of March. I don't think I'm in remission anymore, and haven't been at least since this past summer. I hope they let me have the Miralax/Gatorade prep. That worked a lot better than the Golytely stuff. That's the only thing I really hate about it. The prep. It can be difficult to go on a completely liquid diet for a couple of days, too. Maybe she'll have insight on what to do about scarring, at least. I think that's given me the most pain. Although, I don't really know what it's like now. So, there might be something different, and/or if the disease is active, the focus will be different. We'll see. I might need to stop Lialda, because I'm not sure it's doing anything. Haven't been monitoring it, and haven't had any related blood tests in about a year. If I do stop it, it was my last choice before starting a biologic. Biologics are either taken through an infusion or self-administered through shots to the gut. I'm really nervous about those, but especially the shots. 

I realized LingoDeer only let's you have one free 'lesson' for each language in their 'free' app. (Doesn't really seem free to me.) I like that I was able to go into detail with the alphabet and one lesson, but I'm disappointed. I went back to Duolingo's Korean course. It seems better than the last time I tried it. Then again, I had a better intro to the alphabet this time. It seems like a shorter course than the other language courses. I'm doing it a little different this time. After finishing the 1st level of the 1st unit, I did one part of the next, and then started the next level of the 1st, and kept going back and forth for each part of a lesson. Each lesson can have anywhere from 4 to 20 (I think) parts to it. Once I finished the 1st level of the 2nd unit, I did a part of the 1st unit, then a part of the next level of the 2nd, then the first part of the 3rd, and went all the way back to the 1st again. Eventually, I'll level out (there are 5 levels to each unit) of units, so I won't always be going back to them. This way I'll be able to review it and have some new stuff in the mix. It'll take longer, too. I'm almost finished with level 1 of Basics 1, and the 1st unit, which is Alphabet, is up to level 3. There are 3 Alphabet units. It seems to be going faster than I thought. I hope they updated it to have speaking exercises. Haven't encountered them yet, but if they do have them, maybe it's after the first checkpoint? This section is about the very basics. I have been repeating and sometimes saying what the native speaker says at the same time. It helps a little. 

Started drawing Shadow's clothes. I want to add folds and such to make it 'act' like fabric. So far, I'm not happy with the results. I've just starting experimenting with that, though. He's not wearing anything fancy. Just a shirt, jeans, and sneakers. It shouldn't take me long with this part. Eventually, I'll ink over everything, then color it in. 

Managed to practice my clarinet today. Haven't in about a week because of that weird respiratory thing I'm still going through. I'm still coughing stuff up, have a hard time breathing normally let alone controlling it for playing, still sneezing a lot, nose is stuffed up, and more. I shouldn't still feel this way...Anyways, it makes it more difficult to play a woodwind instrument. Played all of my Duke Ellington book, and a little of the Gershwin one. Sounded better than I thought I would, but had to take way to many 'breaks' to catch my breath. It actually hurt. I did it for a short time, too. I might do it for the same amount of time tomorrow, if I can. Edited about a page worth of Alliance.

Recently, someone on AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) posted a thread demanding people 'enlighten' her on the 'issues of gender'. I thought she genuinely wanted to know about what she was asking in the 1st post. She wanted to know what gender identity is, what gender dysphoria is, what does it mean to be trans, how can someone have dysphoria if they're agender, and more. She claimed she was also asking this stuff because she wanted to confront her transphobic brother. Seems like a worthy thing. Especially if a cis person does it. She wouldn't listen to a single person on there about the gender identity part. A lot of them went in a roundabout way, so I thought maybe she needed it to be simpler. I also answered the other things in the 1st post and gave her my experience and perspective. We went back and forth on gender identity for a while. Eventually, she said: "I can't accept something I don't understand!" At this moment, I really felt like she was hung up on terf rhetoric. I couldn't quite tell if she was actually a terf herself, trolling, or just really not wanting to listen to others. I told her it comes off as saying: "I don't want to understand something I didn't accept in the first place!" I also said there are many things in this world that people should/have to accept, even if they don't understand it. She came back with claiming not to know what terf rhetoric was, and she doesn't accept most things in life. That last part seemed especially troll-like. She said she doesn't know modern culture either. That seemed odd...For some reason, especially on an AVEN forum, and in the gender subforum. That's a positive place where many trans people are active. The whole 'discussion' felt nasty afterwards. I let her have the last post, and it proved that she was at least a troll. People agreed with me. I've blocked her now. I think I'll still be able to see if there have been other responses and reactions to my posts in that thread. I looked at all the threads she started, and they seemed to just be there to get a rise out of people. A lot of demanding of things to be explained, too. In one thread she used the awful 'Abrahaimic religions' term that gets pushed around. It lumps 3 very different religions together. Plus, in Judaism, our focus is more on Moses, not Abraham, if we're talking about people. Neither of the other 2 focus on Abraham either. I'm glad someone told her to stop using it and said why. 

Mob Psycho 100 II's most current episode was epic! They know how to do crazy battle scenes. Black Clover probably should be taking notes. The art seems to change a lot normally in MP. However, this seemed to really push things and do it well. For the first time, Mob got in touch with his positive feelings. Before, his negative feelings were feeding his psychic powers. He seems stronger with the positive ones. We don't know what his ??? power is like now. As he feels things his power goes up a certain percentage. (The 100 in the title is for 100%.) ??? is when he's over his supposed limit, extremely powerful, tends to be unaware of his actions, and turns into something that doesn't seem human. We still don't know much about it. This show just keeps getting better.

National Puzzle Day!

I love puzzles! Interesting that there's a day devoted to them. They're fun mental workouts. I like pretty much any type. 

I finally made an appointment to see a gender therapist yesterday. I'm even more nervous and excited about it now. Not exactly sure why I felt so hesitant. The interesting thing is I was told that this therapist, Tom Freeman, is located in Silverdale. He's actually only available at his Poulsbo location right now. Works out for me more this way. The building is really close to home. About a 5-10 minute car ride. It might be a little too convenient, since it's in the same small plaza that has Kachai Thai Kitchen. Tempting to go to the Thai place after therapy...It's a good one. This first appointment isn't until Feb 14th. I wasn't expecting it to be on Valentine's Day. It's not that long of a wait until then. This is with the one that I talked about last time that seemed the most promising. With this appointment, it feels like I'm actually starting to medically transition. Hopefully, he'll work out.

Recently, I came across a thread on AVEN about someone demanding that people enlighten her on 'gender issues'. She had a disclaimer that she may come across as offensive, but she's really trying to learn. (Supposedly...) She also wanted to confront her brother on his transphobia. She had weird ideas of what it means to be trans, gender identity, gender dysphoria, etc. People were responding with really long detailed posts about it. She had even longer posts. That seemed weird. Why not keep things shorter? She had confused gender identity with expression, and later on said she just couldn't grasp the concept of gender itself. Reading the responses on that, made me think she was either very obtuse, moving 'goal posts', or the way others were talking about it went over her head. She seemed to think gender was only cultural, and being non-binary was purposely bucking the system. Being non-binary is not a political or fashion statement. I told her it's not just cultural. There are many sides to it.  

With dysphoria, she had the idea that we're trapped in the wrong body. Many people think this, but that's not exactly it. There are things that either shouldn't be there or you're missing things; to put it more simply. It makes people feel distressed, thus the 'dysphoria' part. We're not 'trapped' in our own bodies. Someone said it's kind of like we have birth defects. She has sensory issues, and said she can understand the idea of being trapped that way. No, it's not the same...She thought in order to be trans, we had to have dysphoria. She couldn't understand why we'd want to change our bodies, especially if gender and sex are different. There was a lot more on this, and seemed like a lot to unpack. Being trans just means you have a different gender than the one that was assigned to you at birth. No mention of dysphoria or transitioning. Not everyone has dysphoria. However, I do think some of the people that say they don't have it, might not realize that's what they're experiencing. Took me a while to realize that. She didn't seem to know about social dysphoria, which is another important aspect that often can be forgotten when speaking about it in general. I told her that I have both physical and social dysphoria. I went into more detail about what it's like for me. I also said while sex and gender are different, we still use gendered labels to refer to sex: male and female. It'd probably be better to say something like uterus owner, prostate owner, etc. They're just asking about our reproductive organs when they ask what our sex is. Probably why it's inappropriate to ask unless it's relevant medically. I also brought up that most people don't know their chromosomes, so using it as 'science' to back up a claim that there are only 2 'sexes' (they often referred to it as gender), is laughable. They exclude intersex people this way, too. While I thought my post was slightly longer than my usual, it was dwarfed by how long the others were. I tried to be to the point, but using myself and my own experiences to explain it to her. No one has replied after my post. One person liked it. She's awfully quiet now. 

I started a new language yesterday: Korean or Hangul. I was thinking about Yiddish, but found out how bad Mango is. (At least, their 'free' version.) I'm using LingoDeer now for Korean. LingoDeer used to just have Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Now, it also has Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. A while back, I tried Duolingo's Korean course. I got about halfway through the first lesson, and realized that I had to have some sort of knowledge already in the language. They hadn't worked out the kinks in that course yet, too. I didn't look more into it and just picked a different language. LingoDeer has been great for an absolute beginner. I still feel like I don't have the alphabet down yet, but I'm slowly getting there. This is only the 2nd day. I tested out of the intro section already. That was on the alphabet. It's not counted as the first 'unit' of the course. It's like a get-your-feet-wet unit. They went into a lot of detail. Their 'letters' are really consonants and vowels put together, and there are 3 different orders those can go in. For the letter han, it's written like h-a and n on the bottom. I don't have the Korean keyboard enabled on here. (I might in the future.) Another one could be a vowel, like i, by itself. It's interesting, but seems like there are a lot of layers. Started the first 'official' unit. I'm actually doing better than I thought. It's on nationality. Hangug salam are Korean people. Migug salam are American people. It was things like that. They show you how to write it, sentence structure, record your voice to compare to the native speaker, match the letter/word with either the meaning or pronunciation, in depth grammar/pronunciation notes, and more. It's also interesting that they actually use spaces between words. That's different compared to Chinese and Japanese. The only issue I have is it doesn't correct you on pronunciation. Sure, you can check your own voice like I mentioned, but it's not the same. So, I've decided at some point, I'll switch to Duo's Korean course and use both that and Lingodeer. Duo's course should be better at this point, and it most likely has speaking exercises now. Since I had a more thorough intro to the alphabet, I'll be able to go through Duo's easier and with more of an understanding. It'll be interesting to go through both, too. I might get even more of an understanding of it than I would if it was just one or the other. It might take me longer with this language. We'll see.

Today, I started reading Mother Keeper. I think I like it so far...The art seems to be in an old style. It ran from 2005 until 2014. (Pretty long.) It's not as old as it seems, but maybe older than a lot of what I've read recently. The concept is interesting. There are 2 types of people in their world: those within Eden and those outside. It's like a domed city. Everything outside is like a wasteland. Eden makes it even worse as its massive exhaust is pumping outside. Only 1/3 of the world's population is allowed to live in Eden. Basically the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, people outside are suffering and dying sooner. Several rebel groups have formed from outside. The main character was apart of one of those. They had planned to destroy Eden's main CPU. If they had, Eden would cease as a 'paradise' to the few. He was killed (this happened early, so it's not really a spoiler), and turned into a cyborg. His appearance changed. The scientist there has complete control of him. They want him to help with the security of Eden. So, he's forced to help the enemy...The CPU is actually a cyborg that looks like a little girl. He had a hard time getting himself to kill her when he was given the option to, since she seemed so innocent. 

Scanned the drawing of Shadow so far. It's just in case to see how it was before I add his clothes. I realized his hands are smaller than they probably should be. Not sure if I'll change that. At least, I practiced drawing them. He does look better than previous full-bodied drawings of characters. Should be interesting to see it when its done. I plan to color him in, too. 

Managed to practice my clarinet today. I don't think I did yesterday or the day before. I've been feeling pretty awful again. Also, coughing up a lot of weird stuff. That's not a good combo for an instrument you blow into. Anyways, I finished playing through the Clarinet Solo book. I'll get to at least Duke Ellington next. 

Edited a couple more pages of Alliance, too. Down to 298 pages in the print version. Meaning, it's 2 pages less. Yay!

National Hot Tea Day!

This holiday's tomorrow, but I won't be posting that day. I love tea! Might have too much of it during the day...Most of the time, the only things I drink are water and tea. So, I'd rather have the 'flavored water' more often than plain. Hot tea is like a hot bath for your insides. So nice. I think it's helped my gut issues a little, too. Plus, there are so many different flavors and types. It's not as limited as some people think. I usually add Splenda to mine. It doesn't add any calories, yet sweetens it nicely. If it's something like chai, I might add a little milk. 

Woke up feeling really weak and sick. Yesterday afternoon, I had really awful intestinal cramping. So bad I felt like I couldn't go on my 2-mile walk. When it's like that it's not just the pain, but I sometimes need to go to the bathroom more often. I didn't want to be stuck out there needing to go, but too far from home to make it in time. It lasted pretty much until I went to sleep. Halfway through the night, I felt like I had a massive deep wound on my side, and like I was bleeding profusely. I obviously didn't have a visible wound, but it made it harder to sleep than usual. I still have that stabbing searing pain. A bit scary. I know I'll likely go out later for groceries, so I'll have that as my 'walk' for the day. There are restrooms at both grocery stores near us, so it's safer for me that way. I don't like these recent symptoms. Reminds me too much of how things were when I was diagnosed. There are some differences, at least.

Managed to get to most things I hadn't gotten to in a very long time. Even longer for doing them on a daily basis. Yay! Makes me feel a bit happier, even if my body's feeling worse...I realized I could be more flexible with the time I spend doing them. They don't have to be set. If I get up late, I can do half or quarter of the time I normally would. I'd still get to them. 

I've also been trying to be healthier with things. Kept up with being more strict with my diet. (I can eat as much as I want starting tonight! Wahoo!) I was pretty bad about brushing my teeth regularly. Now that I have this week, they feel a lot healthier. I'll try to floss more next week. I've stuck to setting my alarm to 8 1/2 or 9 hours from when I get in bed. That's felt a lot better, too. I wake up a lot through out the night, but at least I try to shoot for a longer amount of time sleeping this way. 

It was a bit difficult at first to keep away from social media, but I managed to pull it off this week. It's been nice. I can focus on a lot more things. I know I can catch up on some of it this weekend. People might get flooded with things I share on fb, but it's my page. (They might get a lot of likes, too.) I've also thought about sharing my faves from dA on fb. A lot of the art I've seen lately on fb hasn't been that great. They haven't felt shareable, at least. 

I'll try to be more active on the forums, too. Speaking of which, my response to 2 threads recently on AVEN has gotten more reacts than usual for me. One was asking about what it's like to be a sex-repulsed ace, since their main character in their novel is. I'm a weird mix. Being sex-repulsed, sex-positive, and really curious about it. Only repulsed when it's directed at me or is in very graphic detail. Sex-positive, meaning I'm for sex ed, talking and joking about it (I've been told that I have the 'dirtiest' mind), and having as much or as little sex as people want with consenting adult partners. Curious about the sensation, I guess. (For lack of a better word...) I find sex in media a waste of time often. Like the people who created it lack creativity, and added sex scenes to fill time. I'm ok if it's implied. I don't have to sit through it. I usually look away when they show it. I'm ok with seeing people nude in a non-sexual way in media, too. Got a lot of likes for this one, and some commented that they agreed with me. Often sex-repulsed aces are thought of in a certain way, when we're really all different. We're not innocent and naive little beings, either. (We're infantalized often. More so than other aces.) I hope this helped them with their character. 

Another thread was in the gender section. Someone asked us to describe our gender without just saying what the label is. So, not just saying agender for me. I thought my response might have been too long, and didn't expect any response. I had even more likes for it...Maybe because I went into detail with how I feel? Maybe because I went into what I was thinking when I was trying to figure it out? One question kept coming up for me: What does it feel like to be a woman or a man? I can see it in other people, but nothing's there for me. Not even slightly masculine or feminine. I asked other people about it hoping for insight. The answers were either vague or I couldn't relate. That's just a snippet of what I mentioned. 

Tasha's still been sleeping on my bed during the day. Sometimes at night, too. She's getting used to me slipping into bed next to her at night, in order to watch things on my phone under the nice warm heated blanket. Her fave spot is close to my pillow, which seems a bit odd. She hasn't been throwing up as often as before. In fact, I don't think she has since she's staked out my bed. She actually purred loud enough for me to hear today. Usually it's very softly and I have to put an ear to her side in order to hear. She seems so much happier. Nice to see. A couple of nights ago, I actually had both cats with me on the bed as I watched things. I love seeing 2 happy cats. It was so cute and heartwarming. Haven't had 2 cats with me at the same time while in bed in a very long time. Of course, Tasha didn't stay for long.

Youtube (I might make Friday a YT day, if I've found vids in between):

Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):

Naruto Shippuden:

Fairy Tail:

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:


One Piece:

D.Gray-man:

National Oatmeal Day!

I used to love oatmeal. For a long time, it was my go to for breakfast. Now, it's just ok. I think I got sick of it. It's really healthy, though. I like putting cinnamon, Splenda, syrup, and raisins in it most of the time. I've also occasionally had it plain with just a touch of salt. It's good in cookies, too.

Someone responded to my intro thread on Susan's Place oddly. They said welcome to a new member and fellow human like themselves, who doesn't know of which gender they 'belong' to. Then, talking about how they related more to girls then what they were 'born as'. That I need to save time and decide soon to start my journey, otherwise I'd waste years of my life like they did. There's a lot to this...I know what my gender is. I'm agender. I don't have a gender. I even mentioned this in the my first post. I'm not confused about it. Also, the use of 'belong' is weird in itself. Was she really saying that I should belong to one of the 2 boxes: male or female? If I don't, then I'm confused or I can't make up my mind? That there are only 2 genders? How very binary of you, or exorsexist or enbyphobic. I wasn't born as a female. I was assigned that at birth. I don't think a newborn truly knows what gender they are themselves. Many people realize early in life, but right after birth? It's not like they could tell the doctor, even if they were aware of it at that time. Anyways, I've always been agender. I couldn't relate gender-wise to either girls or boys. Also, telling me to transition quickly is problematic. What if I want to go at a different speed? Why should I rush it? Transition will look different for me, too. She hasn't responded to my reply yet. Not sure if she will. I felt that I had to speak up for myself on there. There are many with binarist views, and when pointed out by the few enbies on there, they seem dismissive. The other forum that I joined recently, TransPulse, is pretty inactive. I just signed up with an enby forum yesterday, but haven't posted anything or really looked at it yet. It should be a lot better for someone like me. It's sad, though.

Finished Satsuriku no Tenshi or Angel of Slaughter (ONA). I liked it a lot. However, they left the ending very open-ended. Some commented that the game did that, too. There are a lot of theories. I have a couple, but won't bring them up because it'll spoil it. The creepiest characters were the therapist and priest. The therapist fell in love with Rachel and wanted her eyes. She's only 13. He has a fake eye that goes out of place sometimes. The blind priest seems to have been behind it all. He had a really twisted view of who he thought were angels and those that were 'fallen' or witches. Even tried burning Rachel up, accusing her of being a witch. He also uses some sort of mist that makes people hallucinate. He questions Rachel's faith in G-d throughout most of it. I wonder how long Zack was there participating in this 'experiment'. He didn't know about any of the other floors, besides the people there. How many people did Rachel kill before she had amnesia? How did she get amnesia? There's a lot more unanswered questions. I like shows that make you think, though.

Tried using Duolingo on my desktop today. It's quite different than the mobile version. There aren't as many chances to get gems, and there isn't a 'health' circle. Health doesn't seem to matter on there. I could probably get most of them wrong without having to refill it with gems. Takes a lot of the 'game' out of it. They have more speaking exercises, but they only give you 1 chance to say it. They don't let you try again if it's wrong. It seems like there are more cons than pros with the desktop. I'll go back to the mobile version tomorrow. I finished the Household unit, and started the Adject. 1 unit in Italian. The Household one was long. One thing I noticed that might trip me up in the future is 'mobile' is pieces of furniture in Italian. Quite a bit different than the meaning of the English 'mobile'. 

I've decided to edit an entire chapter every time I edit Alliance. Some chapters are rather long. I went through 14 pages today. That's also looking at both the ebook and print versions at the same time. So, if I see an error on one, I have to fix it on the other, too. That eats up more time than if I was just looking at one. Plus, I found a lot of errors. A lot more than expected...At least, it'll turn out much better when I submit it again. I still have to go back through it another time to make sure I found everything. I think I'll rephrase a few things at the beginning, too. If I go through a chapter each time, this stuff will seem to go faster. 

Asexual Awareness Week!

AAW started this past Sunday. I'm not sure if I'll do much more for it besides mentioning it in this post. I've already changed my profile frame and cover photo on fb, mentioned it on Instagram, and I normally share ace stuff on fb (not much to change there). Last year, I created ace-related art. It was the flag in the background, heart over that with the aro flag, and the agender symbol on top. I drew it in pencil, inked it with a pen, and colored it all in with both colored pencils and markers. People seemed to like it. I haven't touched that ace media list I was compiling in several months. Maybe I'll look into that again. If I don't want to add to it, maybe I'll just share what I have with everyone. 

I feel a little odd that most ace advocacy stuff (at least that's shared and through memes) is focused on the nasty comments we get. Sure, that needs to be highlighted, but we face a lot more issues. I think we try to tone it down for others, because for so long people have brought up the Oppression Olympics. We're told that we don't face oppression/discrimination, or if we do it's nothing like 'real' members of the LGBTQ+ community. That's really twisted. The funny thing is every letter experiences something different, and yet we all experience similar issues, too. Even the L experiences different issues than the G. Some people from our own community want to kick us out...Mainly because of ignorance. Many have the idea that it just means celibate straight people, or a stepping stone for their romantic orientation. If you're aro ace, they don't know where to put you. 

All asexuality means is you aren't sexually attracted to anyone. The spectrum has varying degrees of sexual attraction. Some are conditional, some people rarely feel it, and others may have sexual attraction until certain conditions are met. This doesn't say anything about how people view sex. That can range, like with any group of people. People can be repulsed by it, love it, favorable, positive, indifferent, etc. Some aces can have lots of sex, while others avoid it like the plague. I'm sex-repulsed, sex-positive, and very curious about it. A weird combo. Sex-positive is when people are for sex ed, talking about it (not necessarily in graphic detail), joking about it, people having as much or as little as they want with consensual partners, etc. My stomach churns when it's directed towards me, yet I'm curious. 

Erasure is a big thing. Many LGBTQ+ groups either leave us out completely, or they have that A for ally. Ally doesn't belong in it. If you're an ally, you're helping that community on the sidelines. It's much needed, and they have an important role to play. However, they are not in the actual community. There's an analogy that has them as soccer moms. Those soccer moms do a lot for the team, but they are not actually playing the game. When the A is used for them, it takes away the chance for players who hardly get called out onto the field from 'playing'. The A is for aros and aces. Some people say it should also be for agender people. As an agender person, I disagree. We're already under the trans umbrella. We're also covered by the non-binary and genderqueer umbrellas, which are under the trans one. We're covered enough. Aromantics are not the same as asexuals, and they've been trying to separate from the ace community for a long time. I'm both, but those are 2 different parts of me. 

Another huge issue is 'corrective' rape. This affects aces of any gender. When some people hear that someone's ace, they view it as a challenge. They think that they can 'fix' them that way. This isn't talked about much, but it needs to be out there. 

There's also a serious issue that ace men specifically deal with. Men are taught that being hypersexual is manly, and if you're not, you're masculinity is questioned. It's not talked about much, because some people are scared to talk about it. When I read an article about it they mentioned that ace men challenge people's assumption of what makes a man. It's kind of sad if that's what people reduce men to. Ace women get flak too, but some think that women aren't supposed to be sexual in the first place. 

Another one is conversion therapy. Pretty much all of the letters in the LGBTQ+ community experience this. Not everyone in those groups goes through it, but many do. Some allos (short for allosexual[s] or people who aren't ace) seem to think it needs to be 'fixed' this way. Especially if an ace has absolutely no interest in sex. It's pretty horrid. Asexuality was regarded as a mental disorder up until very recently. A couple of years ago, I remember hearing people were running test trials on a pill that could 'cure' aces. That company didn't last long, thank goodness. It shows that it's still an issue, though.

Another one was about a study that came out a few years ago. People are the least likely to offer housing to aces. Gay people were turned down housing more so than straight people, but not as much as aces. Like most letters, youth get kicked out of homes because of being ace. It's just too much of an unknown and they're full of ignorance about it. It's more rare, but some aces are killed because of it, too. The reason it might seem rare is it's not reported often that way. So, we don't really know. That's another problem with it, we're so under-reported about this stuff. (Same with many other parts of the LGBTQ+ community.)

We don't have much representation in media. Some people say stories with aces and/or aro aces would be boring. However, not too long ago the creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, said that Luffy is aro ace. He didn't use those words specifically (probably because he didn't know there were labels for it), but he said that Luffy's not sexually/romantically attracted to anyone. One Piece is the most popular manga/anime. In fact, it won a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author. It's the best-selling manga series in history. (Based on copies sold worldwide.) Luffy is the main character. That says something right there. He's anything but boring. This kind of came through during the Amazon Lily arc. Luffy had fallen into Boa Hancock's bath house while she was bathing. She was obviously butt naked. He didn't flinch. Acted like it was normal. Everyone (no matter the gender) seemed attracted to Boa, but he was the only one who didn't have that reaction. When they imprisoned him, naked, and stared at him, he just seemed really irritated. He didn't care much. Most of the Amazonian women had never seen a man before. The creator said the only things Luffy is attracted to are adventure and food. 

He also said that there will never be actual romance in the series. He's really unique about it. So many series have romance as an element, it's crazy! That promotes amatonormativity, which is an issue aros face. Amatonormativity is the idea that everyone needs romance, has romantic attraction, and promotes monogamous relationships. Some people sum it up as a One True Love Complex. It's like what aces face with how people say sex is a need, right up there with food/water, and that everyone is attracted to someone sexually. I think that's called compulsory sexuality. Both are extremely harmful and pushed on us like crazy. Same with heteronormativity. This stuff actually hurts allo/straight people, too. This is another positive and more creative aspect to One Piece. I'm tired of romance being shoved into stories all the time. (Some of it is good and is part of the story, but not much.) It's like filler to me.

Another good thing about this series is that it's rather mature. Some people infantilize aces (another issue) and think what makes a story mature is romance and sex. Glad he didn't do that. Instead it touches on topics of slavery, genocide, grief, assault, arranged marriage, poverty, corruption, racism, abuse, gender inequality, and more. Heavy stuff. Yet, there's a lot of humor. The only thing that might be an issue for people is the way he draws some of the women. However, it's not all women, and he said he was pressured to make some of them like that at one point. I don't think they look bad, though. His style is very unique, and there are a lot of different types of body shapes for both men and women in that world. Even their heights vary wildly. 

There's also Jughead from Archie's Comics who's aro ace. Although, the live-action show, Riverdale, turned him allo. (Straight at that.) Even the actor that portrays him was pushing for him to stay aro ace. Todd from Bojack Horseman is also ace. He actually came out and said it. There was apparently several episodes where he explained it, learned more about himself, and met other ace people. I think he's alloromantic (not aro, or experiences romantic attraction), which is good to have a variety out there. I don't watch the show, but people said that it was one of the best portrayals they've seen in any show. It's rare that the character said it themselves, too. 

It looks like this is my 1000th post on here. Wow! That's a lot! Seems like a milestone.

I joined 2 trans-related forums: Susan's Place and TransPulse. TransPulse is set up similar to AVEN. I didn't get much of a response for my intro thread on Susan's Place, and felt a little down about it. I had quite a few responses to the one I started on TransPulse. I decided to post in more threads to get more of a feel of Susan's Place. Maybe people on there just don't look at the intros. I know a lot of other forums where regular members didn't really care about that section. Found a thread about what 'flavor' of non-binary person we are. Basically, asking what enby gender we are (if we know), how we feel about masculine and feminine, introduce ourselves, when we knew we were 'different', if we have dysphoria, etc. Lots of stuff. Had rather long posts in there. People actually responded to what I wrote pretty quickly. Someone said they felt exactly like me about all this stuff. That was interesting. Other people welcomed me, and said that I came to the right place. In the TransPulse intro thread, some were recommending resources for me, which was nice. I didn't post in other threads on there. 

I decided to make time for the stuff I didn't feel I had time for before, during the weekend. So, learning more science and history stuff on Saturdays. (In addition to more Jewish stuff.) Music and art stuff on Sundays. Reading (an actual book) and forums on both days. As well as, movies on Saturdays and games on Sundays. I split them up mainly because of Shabbat. I'm technically not supposed to 'create' things, thus art and games would be on Sundays. I feel like forums don't really count for this...I don't know. But, learning is a big thing in Judaism, so science and history would be great for it. I managed to touch on everything this past weekend, so it's doable. Might not be as much when I do things like shopping those days. That's ok.

For science, I'm following the list of disciplines I found on wikipedia, and only skipping ones that don't interest me. Those mainly being things like the study of mites. That would just make my skin crawl. There are also some that don't seem to have much to them. I'm starting with acoustics or the science of sound. It's a branch of physics. I have very superficial knowledge of it to begin with. Many musicians learn a little about it, but it's the very basic stuff. So, this one will be very interesting. It's useful for many different things, too. Music, physics, electronics, speech, ultrasound, marine science, aeronautics, etc. I found the Acoustical Society of America's site. They have free articles on there. Their journal, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America or JASA, has an fb page. They post news as well as free copies of the journal. Found a couple of channels on Youtube based on it. Lots of info sources available out there. It doesn't seem like a very popular area of study, though. Seems sad that way. I think I'll focus on it for about a month, then move on to the next thing. That'll be aerobiology or the study of airborne organisms. 

For history, I'm using another alphabetical list. Starting with art history. I took art history in college. It's a very interesting subject, and there's a lot to it. I remember the textbook for it was one of the biggest and most expensive. It's really vast. I found an app on art history. They cover a piece of art every day. They go over the elements of it, the artist, style, time period, and more. They go into a lot of detail, which is cool. I also found a couple of fb pages on it. There's lots of stuff on other sites online, too. There's probably a lot that we didn't cover in that class. Actually, I remember we only used about half that textbook. I'll spend a month on this, too. Next one for this is chronology. Although, I'm not sure if there's much to it. If not, I'll move on to cultural history. Some of these topics in the history list share things from the science one, which is fine. 

I went back to reading Stone Kiss by Faye Kellerman. It had been a couple of years since I stopped reading it. I only finished the first chapter before. Got through a lot of it this weekend. It's a detective series with a Jewish side to it. A really good series. Maybe I can finally finish what I have of it soon.

For music, I tried to look for clarinet-based apps and fb pages. There weren't very many, and none of them were good enough to like or download. I did find some music history-based pages on fb. I plan to go over some music history in the future. I've taken a couple of classes on different periods in college, and it would be interesting to go over that stuff again or learn new stuff about it. Maybe I'll go chronologically through those historical periods. I also want to hear more music from around the world, and download some of it. Maybe look into music theory, too. Or, even look into music specifically from countries that I'm learning the main language of. (Many countries have multiple languages.) Like, Italian music for now. I can go in many directions with this.

For art, I might do things like fill out memes that are made to help improve drawing/character development. I went through my 'collection' on deviantART, and found quite a few blank ones that I downloaded to fill out in the future. There are things that focus on reactions/expressions, drawing the oldest (or first) and newest character, some on the artist themselves (like how would you draw yourself in your style), outfits for characters, drawing in different styles, etc. All good for practice and getting more 'in touch' with my characters. I might go through all of my inbox on there, too. It's really backlogged, because I don't go on there nearly as much as I used to. I have several 'stacks' of deviations (art pieces) in there from artists I follow and groups. Each stack from the groups has around 200 deviations. That's a lot to go through. There a lot of journals and some on faves/llamas. I'm surprised I'm still getting so many faves and llamas. Llamas can be given by other members, and the more you get, the more the llama on your profile changes. I think mine's still an albino llama. At some point, it has sunglasses, a hat, outfits, and more. I might post to my journal on there. It's been a while. I can look at more art on there, fb, Instagram, and other places. Another thing that might be good is drawing buildings and scenery from Alliance, as well. All this will help me improve, and I can be more active on dA which is full of other far better artists to learn from.

I started watching Tensei Shitara Slime Datte Ken, or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. I wasn't sure about this one at first. It's from this current season, and I'm not far behind. It's better than I expected. It's about a 37 year old human, Satoru, who was stabbed to death by a robber. He was reincarnated as a slime named Rimuru, in basically a video-game like fantasy world. I have a feeling he is in a video game somehow. Slimes in video games (particularly rpg's) are often very weak. They're usually the first thing gamers have to attack. Even Fate has them as 'gels' that only inhabit the first couple of levels of the dungeon. However, it seems the opposite with him. He's a very powerful being. He can absorb almost anything. He gains knowledge of whatever he 'eats', can mimic those skills/spells, can make and store an unlimited amount of health potions from eating herbs, and more. He had to 'eat' a bat in order to talk, and eat something in order to see. They really are detailed about it. The animation is top-notch, and changed a few times. There was even a 3D scene. In the opening, it seems he can transform into a humanoid. Does that mean he eats someone? There's a lot of comedy, too.

Started Zombieland Saga. It's also one from this current season, and I'm not far behind. When I first read the description of it, it didn't interest me. Then, Crunchyroll shared a clip on fb of it, and I was intrigued. I thought it was a typical pop idol-type anime. Pop idols in general are not really my thing. It's far from that, though. 7 girls are brought back to life as zombies by a 'mysterious' producer. The lead was killed 10 years ago by a truck just as she walked out the door, starting her walk to high school. She seemed so happy and was going to audition to be in an idol group. This all happened in the first couple of minutes, so it's not like I'm spoiling that. She was the first to 'awaken' as a zombie. The other girls were mindlessly stumbling about and terrified her. They're all different ages and from different time periods. The producer wants to boost tourism for Saga prefecture by creating a zombie idol band. So far, there's only one girl that hasn't woken up yet, and she keeps biting everyone. The producer is a pro at applying makeup that makes them appear 'normal'. Also, it seems like each episode has a music theme. The first one they performed a heavy metal concert. Again, the lead or Number 1 was the only one 'aware'. It was hilarious. The 2nd episode was on hip hop. The rapping was actually pretty good, and they added a little of traditional Japanese music to the background as well as some modern music flare. It's a hilarious series so far. 

Started watching Radiant, too. It's also from this current season. It's an adaptation of a French comic. Apparently, one of the first anime adaptations of a series from France. From what I read, they cut a lot of the distinctly French-type humor for the first few episodes. They also made Seth, the main character, less reckless. Alma, his teacher and guardian, changed a bit, too. Kind of sounds like they watered it down a bit for the beginning. It's a mage/sorcerer based series. People who get near or touch a demonic-like being, called Nemesis, either die or become sorcerers. The sorcerers are looked down upon until regular humans ask for their assistance against the Nemesis. Sorcerers are the only ones who can kill them. Seth is an orphan with horns. I'm assuming that when people come into contact with a Nemesis (and live), they gain something like horns, bat wings, or really big hair. There's a lot of unknowns with this one. It's interesting, but seemed a lot like other series like D.Gray-man, Black Clover, and Fairy Tail. Doesn't seem very 'French' at all yet.

Global Cat Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I love my cats. Rosie is especially attached to me. Cats are a lot more affectionate and loving than many people think. They just may express it differently than dogs. They all have different personalities, too. (Same thing with dogs.) Every time Rosie sees me, she seems so happy and excited. She also treats me like both a parent and kitten. I don't know how that's possible...She encourages me to eat more. Particularly if I haven't eaten much or have forgotten during the day. Today's National Pasta Day. I love pasta. Pretty much any kind.

I got a jewelry cleaning kit this past weekend. It comes with 2 2-sided polishing cloths (one for silver and the other for gold), a small brush, and a tray that you dunk into a tub of cleaning solution. It seems like quite an operation. Depending on the size of jewelry, you put 1 or 2 pieces in the tray. Then, dunk them for 30 seconds, rinse with lukewarm water while brushing them, and finally use one of the cloths. One side helps clean it further (helps with the tough grime), and the other side is to polish it off. I've never cleaned my jewelry before. I started wearing earrings when I was 14. (Clip-ons before that, of which I obviously don't have anymore.) So, it's been a while. Some are really awful looking. I think they were even causing infections near the holes. A few months ago, I stopped wearing them on a regular basis because they were hurting too much. I ended up with weird lumps around the openings. Anyways, I cleaned all my studs first, and they look so much shinier and feel cleaner. I did some of my bigger earrings yesterday, which took a bit more effort. They turned out much better, too. There was only one pair that I couldn't scrub off the green stuff completely. I thought the pair was fake gold, so it seems odd to me that they'd turn green. I know it oxidizes over time, and may have affected it if it were 'real'. Also, even if it were, it seemed excessively green. I hardly wore them. At least, they look better now. I have a lot more earrings to clean. It'll take a while. It's good to do, though. 

I got frustrated so much with Duolingo's Russian course that I dropped it. Even without the glitches, it wasn't structured very well. I started learning Italian Monday. I can tell already that it's set up like their German course, which was great. I'm liking it so far. There have been speaking exercises right away, unlike the Russian course. (That never had them.) I've been spot on with those. It's fun to say. It also seems rather easy right now. I know I just started, but I'm breezing through with only a couple of minor mistakes. A lot of it makes sense. I'm noticing that some Italian words that people say here in the US are mispronounced. That's been interesting. Also, interesting that a cookie is a biscotto, and cookies are biscotti. This goes for any type of cookie. Candy is caramella, which lit. is caramel. So, all candies are referred to that way. Makes sense, but might get a little confusing when specifically talking about caramel. Today, I finished the Plurals, Animals, and part of the Food 2 units. Quite a bit. After the Food 2 one, it'll be Possession. That'll be the end of the 1st section or trek. 

I made a list of possible future languages to study. It's longer than I expected. Here it is so far: Indonesian, Hindi, Korean, Spanish (I know snippets of it already), Romanian, Gaelic (not sure if it'll be Irish or Scottish), Dutch, Norwegian, Vietnamese. Each one will be about 3 months each, like I have been doing. I'll also be learning more about the cultures around them, as well. 

After going through a forum poll on AVEN, I realized I have a lot of interests. That popped up in my mind when I went to an international market downtown, too. (To me, they had so many fascinating different types of food.) I'm curious about pretty much everything, not just the languages and cultures. All different types of sciences, stories, writing, media (includes anime, manga/comics, movies, shows, etc.), food from around the world (includes snacks, cheeses, breads, etc.), math, reading, music (almost every aspect from playing it to listening, history...), history, drawing/photography, my religion, and so much more. It can be overwhelming and sometimes intimidating. I sometimes forget about them. That doesn't mean my interest in them has waned, but that there are just so many of them. I sometimes feel like I don't have the time.

I thought it'd be interesting to focus on science, history, more Judaism, reading, drawing/art (like memes to practice with), music, and more stuff during the weekends. For science, I found a list of disciplines I can go through alphabetically. (Since I wasn't sure where to start.) There are a lot. I thought depending on what it is, I'll focus a month or two on them. I'll skip some of the ones that I have no interest in. Like, the first one on the list is acarology or the study of mites. That would make my skin crawl...I might start with aceology or the study of remedies or therapeutics. Or, acoustics. There are a lot of really interesting sounding ones on the list that I don't have much knowledge of. That would be fun to expand that knowledge. I plan to look into pages on fb related to those fields, possibly find books on it, read articles, maybe see if there are apps devoted to it, and more. I might go through anthropology stuff when I get to it. That's what I was majoring in in college, but I could reacquaint myself with it or see what's new. I could do something similar with history. I want to get through my really old reading list too, and eventually add to it. For music, I could look up music-based fb pages for things like music history, clarinet, musicians, etc. I could discover and download new songs, too. 

With Judaism, I could look into Jewish philosophy (I loved it when I took a course on it) and study more of the Talmud, Mishnah, etc. I could look for more Jewish pages and apps, too. All that in addition to getting back into regular Shabbat stuff again, like going over the weekly parsha (Torah portion) and my own services. My own, since my immune system has weakened quite a bit. Even though I'm currently taking an anti-inflammatory med, lialda, it's heavy duty and still messes with my immune system. Not as much as azathioprine, at least. Anyways, I'd easily catch something if I went to one of the 2 synagogues in the area for it. Also, doesn't help that I have other 'issues' with both. I can still have the 'experience' with live-streaming services. Sometimes, I just go through on my own with an old prayer book. 

Sometime in the near future, I might upload audio vids (with text) to Youtube of playing the clarinet. Audio, because I feel weird with seeing myself on video. Although, my new computer has a webcam...It might be easier, and I might ease myself into it. Either way, hearing myself when I play them back might help me improve. It'd be nice to get some constructive criticism from people. However, I know there are a lot of trolls on there. So, we'll see with that. I don't think I've gone back to playing long enough or on a regular basis to do this yet. 

Also, I've decided to join a few trans specific forums. (Haven't registered with them yet, just found them.) I've never been a member of one. I've joined many other types of forums in the past. This might help me. If anything, I might befriend other trans people, and commiserate with people who 'get it'. AVEN has a gender section, but it's not that big. It's usually full of people questioning what they are, which is a great starter for people. It's just...not in depth or anything. The ones I'm going to join are: Susan's Place, TransPulse, Non-Binary & Genderqueer Support Forum. I think I've heard Susan's Place briefly mentioned in the local trans group. It seems to be one of the oldest. I didn't know there was a specific enby forum. That's pretty nifty. We have some specific issues that we deal with that binary trans people don't. We experience a lot of the same stuff in general, though. It's like another layer/element for us. All 3 forums are huge! The generalized trans forums both actually have a surprisingly large enby section. I found these 3 through a google search. There might be other great ones out there, especially because these were pretty much the first ones that came up. I didn't know there was such a large community online. Gives more choices. If I don't like them, for whatever reason, I can easily find others.

It feels like I've been overwhelmingly sick every few days. I'll get incredibly nauseous and have come close to passing out. Also, my guts are acting up more than usual. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm flaring worse on those days or I really am sick. There are lots of memes shared in the 2 IBD fb groups I'm in about this sort of thing. Speaking of which, I'm getting really tired of seeing extremely graphic images through them. There are a few people who take pics of themselves high, too. That's weird. I know that some people smoke marijuana or use cbd oil to help with it, but I don't need those sort of posts. A lot of them seem very religious. Particularly, Christian. They tend to be much older than me. Yet, most people are diagnosed in their late teens to early 30s. It's odd. Although, I'd say a good chunk of the members are actually parents of IBD patients who don't have it themselves. That's added a bit of drama between them and actual patients of the group. Some people think it should only be for patients, others feel grateful that there are parents/family out there that support us and it makes them feel better, others are grateful but think there should be a separate group just for them. I agree with the latter. Many join to gain knowledge, but maybe there could be a few patients that join that family group to help them instead. They have quite a few anti-vaxxers. That's dangerous for a chronic illness community. Especially, for patients with autoimmune diseases. One of them seemed anti-LGBTQ+. I feel like dropping them both, and looking for others. Maybe there are some for LGBTQ+ IBD patients? Or, Jewish groups with it? Or, even ones for people younger than 50? There's got to be some out there like that.

I finished watching Hinterland on Netflix. Tried to go back to Let's Eat. I had only watched the 1st episode before. This second one was less about food, which is what it's supposed to focus on. It was honestly boring. The hyper-female-centric aspect got to me. (It wasn't just because I'm afab and not a woman.) It had stereotypes, and wasn't like women in real life. Sure, the main character was a tough woman with an attitude, but there was something about her, too. She was better than the others. 

So, I dropped that, and went back to The Method last night. I watched a couple of episodes a long time ago. It's a Russian detective show. There's quite a lot of dark humor, which I like. The main detective goes to extremes to teach people, and seems to go an easy/sly way of catching criminals. It can be intense to watch. Things move quickly. In the episode I watched last night, he caught the criminal by talking through the criminal's reasoning, saying it was valid, serving him cake, casually talking to the girls he kidnapped, and essentially cozying up to him. He went willingly. The detective's partner/assistant, who's learning from him, had the mindset that she had to have a weapon to arrest him. She was ready to hit him with a large rock. She's actually tough and has been the only one to 'survive' longer than a day with him. All his previous partners couldn't stand his 'methods' or accidentally died. In a few of the situations so far, she actually seems stronger and smarter than him, which might be why he pleaded with her to stick with him. I think this is the 1st suspect that didn't end up dying in a brutal way. I remember the one from the 2nd episode well. The detective was trying to talk him into turning himself in. Then, he grabbed his partner and was about to slash her throat. The detective was quick on his toes, and as soon as the knife started to move, he stabbed him in the neck with a pen. It was at such a spot, he couldn't speak as the blood gushed out. Just gargled a lot. This is, of course, on a mostly empty bus. At the next bus stop the detective just tossed the guy out onto the bench as he bled to death. He did it to save his partner, but I don't think he should have gone to such lengths. Parts of the episodes are set in the future with his partner talking to other detectives about whether he's fit to work. They think he's mentally unstable. And, there was some sort of incident that we (the viewers) haven't seen yet. That's what made them start investigating him. Meanwhile, as they're talking, she keeps drinking alcohol from a flask. It looks like the same flask that he uses currently. He drinks a lot, by the way. Currently, this has flabbergasted his partner. She doesn't really drink right now. Something changes her, too. 

I decided to start a birthday fundraiser on fb. (My birthday's on November 7th.) It's the first time I've ran one on there. It was a bit difficult to narrow down. After a while, I decided on the Trevor Project. They're an organization focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth. They have a crisis intervention lifeline (they're most known for), school workshops, educational materials/programs, online resources, advocacy, and help the parents. They recently recognized and trained their staff to help with what aces face. Not sure about aros. They might lump them together, which isn't really cool...Even if I'm both. This gained them even more 'points' with me. They want to help everyone in the community. A very worthy cause. So far, none of my friends have donated. Fb itself donates $5 to it no matter what. At least there will be that. There are 3 weeks left, so maybe that will change. After posting about it a 2nd time, a couple of people reacted. Maybe that means they'll donate later? I guess I'll see.