My birthday was on the 7th. Went to a Thai place for dinner that night. Managed to get the last order of tofu spring rolls. They run out of those really quickly. Often there aren't any left by the time we get there for dinner. Got the most mild chicken pad Thai without the 'garnish'. A lot of the garnish is tough on my gut, especially when it's not cooked. I have issues with nuts, too. They throw quite a bit of peanuts on it usually. Understandable, but not good for me. It was pretty good. Felt like I got the 'meat' of it without the 'fluff' this way. Got their grilled banana rice cake for dessert. It normally comes with coconut ice cream, but they were out. They tried to give me mango sorbet instead. Definitely not the same. They had to take it back. I love the banana thing. They wrap a banana in a rice cake, grill it, and then drizzle coconut syrup on top. Looks nasty (bug-like), but is amazing!
During the day, I had my own laid-back celebration. Played Fate, which is an old rpg. Made it to a level deeper in the dungeon. I think I'm the furthest I've ever been, at level 42 of it. My character level is probably the highest so far, too. My reputation is Famous at the moment. There are apparently more levels to that. I like that they have pets. You can choose either a cat or dog at the beginning. Then, at some point you can find fish that will turn your pet permanently into some sort of monster. Normally, if your pet eats a fish they turn into a monster for a certain amount of time. So, technically, there are more pet options. I still have a cat. Named her Rosie, so it's like the real Rosie is with me. She's really strong now, too. There's the option of male or female characters, however they both wear the same things and there's really no advantage to being either. With all the armor and such on mine, you can't tell what gender they are. I like that aspect.
After that I watched some of my fave youtube vids on the big TV. That was fun. It was nice that AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) made a thread wishing me a happy birthday. Hung around the forums there for a while.
Saturday, I went to the Oak Table for brunch. That's one of the places I really wanted to go to for my birthday. To me, it's a great place to celebrate things like birthdays. Really good food and they have some spectacular signature things. Some of it is really worthy of taking pics of, like their apple pancake. It's like a huge souffle with apples inside and caramel/cinnamon pieces or crust on the outside. There was a long wait. (One of the few things I hate about going there.) I got their smoked salmon eggs Benedict. I can't have regular eggs Benedict, since it usually has ham. This had an English muffin, smoked salmon, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. Came with 4 small pancakes. It was delicious. The eggs Benedict itself was probably the perfect size for a breakfast. Very filling, too.
After that, we went to the Naval Undersea Museum. Hadn't been there since my teens. For planning my birthday, I wanted to visit things like museums that I hadn't been to in a while, and some things I never have. That list ended up much longer than I expected. That's ok. Gives me ideas to go to places in the future. There's a lot of stuff at the NUM. Some of it seemed too cramped with things.
Saw Doctor Sleep at a local movie theater after that. It's a sequel to the Shining. Basically about what happened to Dan after the events that took place there. It was better than expected. Despite her being a villain, I liked Rose the Hat. The actress has an interesting background. I also liked Abra. She seemed stronger than Dan is as an adult (she's a teenager), and sometimes smarter. The actress who plays her was really good. I liked the nods to the Shining movie throughout. For example, the music played when they were heading to the hotel. Ghosts from the previous one. I read even the Overlook Hotel set had to be entirely redone to look like the original, since the original had burned down.
Monday, my parent and I went to the Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center. The aquarium was smaller than I remembered. I think it's been 7 years since I was last there. Didn't have my iphone at the time. (Didn't have a smart phone at all.) They had all gender restrooms. That was cool to see. Had a turkey sandwich with potato chips at their cafe. It had an everything bagel (had seeds, so not the best for me), artichoke aioli, roasted turkey, spinach, tomatoes, and olive tapenade. Really good.
The PSC seemed to have dropped in quality. Hadn't been there in probably a longer time than the NUM. I remember the dinosaur exhibit was in a larger room and had more things. I especially remember that because when my Girl Scout troop (I think it was actually with troops from around the region, there were a lot of us) slept over there, they put us in the dino room. (This was in the 90s.) It was big enough to hold so many people. What I saw on Monday wouldn't have been big enough. That was an amazing trip back then. It was a little scary to sleep next to the animatronic dinos at the time. I'm glad some of them still move. We also went to a laser light show, the planetarium, and watched movies at the theater, as well as had free reign of the rest of it. It was an awesome experience back then. Anyways, the nutrition/health area wasn't the same either. I was disappointed with the naked mole rats' enclosure. I think we saw them the first year they had them. They were in a deep table filled with dirt, and you could look at the sides into their chambers. I think there were things poking out of the dirt on top to get a better look. It was cool and interesting to see. Now, they're in something that looked like it was for hamsters, gerbils, domestic rats, etc. It looked sad. They weren't kicking up and digging in dirt anymore either. It was like pieces of paper. Didn't seem right. The butterfly exhibit was nice. The butterflies kept resting on the path, which made it difficult to walk along. One of them landed on top of my head. My colorfully dyed hair probably made me look like a plant. I would have liked them to land on my hand or something instead. A place I can actually see them. I don't regret going, despite the quality decreasing.
Another thing that was on my list was the MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture), which is right next to the PSC. I remember it as the EMP (Experience Music Project). It's apparently been renamed a few times. I've never been there. My parents did once. Sounds like it has more than just music related exhibits. I read that they have a horror exhibit, a new one on Minecraft, a fantasy/sci-fi one, etc. They still have music ones like one on Kurt Cobain's influence on music, Jimi Hendrix, punk, rock, and more. Sounds like it's really packed in there. Maybe sometime in the distant future I'll go there.
With being in such crowded areas, I seem to have come down with something. It's not like it's really horrible (although worse than yesterday), but I keep sneezing, coughing, have a stuffy nose, sore throat, and am dizzy. That's kind of a risk of doing stuff like that, since my meds work similarly as an immunosepressant would. Adds a bit more stuff to what I'm already dealing with. Feels like a punishment for having fun...
I decided yesterday to try a new 'schedule' with eating. Eat every 1 1/2 hours, splitting my meals in half. So, for instance, having cereal with milk for a 'first' breakfast, then a banana 1 1/2 hours later. Basically the main part, then my usual fruit later. For dinner, the main part, then dessert later. With the 'extra' times, I added having water. I'd end up getting more fluids this way. I've heard it's easier to digest things if they're a little at a time and frequent. Many people with colitis do a similar thing. This way I get the same amount of food, too. I don't really get hungry, either. Half the time, I don't feel hunger (even after not eating most of the day), but this helps even more with those other times. It really is like snacking all day. Getting up late and days where I eat out at restaurants or spend it mostly out somewhere will be different. I'm not sure why I didn't think about it this way when I was first told to eat smaller and more frequent meals. Might help with my dysphagia (trouble/painful swallowing), too. Less food to worry about at a time. This respiratory thing has been messing with my dysphagia. It's hard enough. Having a hard time even taking my pills.
I've decided to rewatch some of my fave anime and give another chance to ones I dropped. I still have some of my usual time 'slots' vacant. For instance, nothing on Mondays, and some days with just one episode of a current anime. I prefer 2 or 3 different anime, one episode each, daily. Most anime is a little under 20 minutes without the openings/endings. Really not much. I decided to go with oldest ones first. According to the date they were put out. Yesterday, I watched an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. That came out in 1998. Really old school, and it apparently has some LGBTQ+ elements. One of the first ones that was open about it. I love CLAMP, even if their style is a little weird. It's an all-female manga creator group. I think this was one of their first projects. The characters in this one appear in other series like Tsubasa Chronicle. In fact, at least that, Cardcaptor Sakura, and xxxHolic are considered to be in the same universe. I only dropped CS before because it seemed too long. The original is 70 episodes long. The sequel was in 2018 and 22 episodes. Must have been an anniversary thing. There are a couple of movies, too. It's not as long as some of the others I've watched.
Watched the first episode of Excel Saga. I absolutely loved it when I watched it back in college. I think that was in 2005. It came out in 1999. I think my ex-boyfriend introduced it to me. It has similar humor as Gintama, or I should say Gintama does. Since it's older. Probably got inspiration from it. It seems to have influenced a lot of other anime, too. Like, there's a common trope where a character dies by being hit by a truck. One of the first times Excel dies is by being hit by a truck. (It's in the first few minutes, so not spoiling it.) I like the Miss Universe character. She has the ability to bring characters back to life. She's constantly busy saving them. I remember the one that died the most often was Hayatt. She's an alien and apparently the atmosphere on Earth makes her sick. She's constantly coughing up blood. I remember the last episode was controversial, because there was a lot more violence, sexual jokes, and all around craziness than usual. It actually never aired on Japanese TV, and was sneaked into the DVD. I saw that and it was really outlandish, but fun in a weird way. The whole series is certainly not appropriate for kids. They parody a lot of things, like Gintama does, too. ES is short compared to CS, with only 26 episodes. Shorter than I remembered.
In addition to CS and ES, I watched the most recent episode of Radiant 2. It's getting intense. I'm wondering about Seth's past or who he really is more now.
I only have about 2 more units left of Duolingo's Dutch course. Not sure which language I'll do next. Cleaned up more of the drawing of Junko in Photoshop. Finished editing chapter 17 of Alliance. Only 3 more chapters. Managed to practice my clarinet yesterday. It's harder with being sick this way. Did advanced solo pieces, and some jazz.
The most recent chapter of Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) was way too short. In fact, it felt like an abrupt ending. There was a big cliffhanger. I like that Meirin's backstory is finally being revealed. The other servants had theirs shown a while ago. So far, it's showing her childhood and eventually will get to how she met Sebastian and Ciel. She's extremely farsighted. Her parents died not long after they immigrated to England (I think they came from Ireland, although they haven't said yet), and she was forced to live on the streets as a little kid. She survived with other homeless kids by shooting pebbles from a slingshot at a long distance, and hitting earrings/jewelry of the rich women just right for them to fall. Her friends would chat up the women and steal the jewelry when it fell, then they'd exchange them for money. They were able to eat because of this. She was treated like one of the boys. Looked pretty masculine, too. I think she was forced into being an assassin, and then Ciel was just one of her targets later. She did mention she was an assassin. She prefers to be a sniper, but she fights in other ways as well. She's a cool character.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Election Day!
I voted through the mail last Wednesday. Some of it was difficult, because I didn't recognize some of the names and they weren't affiliated with certain parties. I tried to make an informed decision on those. 2 of the candidates running for school board, one of them I was familiar with beforehand, would be awful if they won. One that seemed a little too into 'loving kids', and the other is a big transphobe who probably hates anyone else in the greater queer community. I think I also recognized another name that was a member of one of the local synagogues. That'd be cool if she won. Some candidates seemed overqualified, if that were possible. Others essentially said vote for me since I'm running for another term. Nothing on their background or education. One initiative seemed like a no-brainer to be for. Unless you weren't for diversity...Another one was easy to vote against. It was put out by someone who tries to get ridiculous initiatives to pass every year. Usually harmful in some way. I didn't really like that there were so many advisory votes this time. Sure, it's great to get the people's opinion, but you've already voted on them. If there were like 2 or 3, that would have been fine. It seemed like there were around 8 of them.
The month-long holidays for November are: National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pomegranate Month, Banana Pudding Lovers Month, National Memoir Writing Month, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun.
Last Wednesday, we had a local trans meeting. There were only a handful of us. We had moved to a much bigger room. Seemed funny almost with such a small group of us. Most of the people that were there were non-binary, which was great to me. Not the usual. They wanted to have the same type of top surgery I wanted. People get weirded out when I bring up that nipples cause dysphoria for me, too. It's not just my chest. So, I'll need all of it to go. No masculinizing or feminizing. Simply flat. A member tried to talk me out of it a few months ago. That it seemed too out there. Seeing the pics that people share in fb enby groups of their after nippleless top surgery looks amazing to me. Looks more like how I'd want to see myself.
We all went to Shari's afterwards. I got their new simple pretzel cheeseburger. The burger seemed like a veggie one. I expected beef. It looked weird. Got their new graveyard shake for dessert. It's supposed to be a s'mores galore pie shake (they blend an entire slice with ice cream to make it) with added chocolate syrup, Oreo crumbs for the 'dirt' part, and gummy worms. They were out of the 'worms', didn't have much of the 'dirt', added a little piece of chocolate on top, and there didn't seem to be any extra chocolate syrup. There was a huge glob of what I think was a concentrated graham cracker ball. It was disappointing and bizarre.
I felt a little uneasy when one of the new members said that all trans people are autistic. Many trans people are, but many aren't. I think it seems like it's an unusually high percentage because trans people are often tested for it more. Often they, or other people around them, feel like something must be wrong with them for being trans. It's also this way for the rest of the LGBTQ+ community. It's more common in the cis/non-queer population than people think. Many of them go undiagnosed. There's nothing wrong with people who are autistic, but there is something wrong with saying all trans people are. What about cis autistic people? Are they really trans and don't know it? What about trans people who aren't? It might feel invalidating to them to hear that all trans people are. Correlation does not equal causation. I'm not autistic. However, I'm not exactly neurotypical, either. I have a lot of mental health stuff (bipolar 2, anxiety, agoraphobia, PTSD, etc.) and physical chronic illnesses (colitis, possibly another autoimmune disease, Eustachian tube dysfunction, multiple skin issues, etc.). Both have an impact on the way I think that would be different than someone who was healthy mentally and physically. Since I have these things, does it mean all trans people do as well? No. Not at all. I have a different perspective as an aro ace agender person as well. (Compared to allo cis people.) Being trans simply means you have a gender that doesn't match the one you were assigned at birth. That says nothing about mental health, being autistic, or other aspects of who that person is or what they have. Are all cis people the same? No. Thank goodness we're all different. The world would be boring if we were all the same.
We also talked about possibly having a potluck for my birthday at the next meeting tomorrow. Since it's the day before it. We don't celebrate birthdays as a group often. I can only remember 2 times in the past. It might be a fun thing to do in the future for members, though. My parent suggested she'd bring a cake and others could bring snack-like stuff. That sounds good. Not sure if it's actually going to happen. I might forget about it tomorrow until right before the meeting starts.
Someone on fb friended me that same day. I didn't recognize the name, but their profile mentioned they graduated a year ahead of me at the same high school. Although, they graduated from another high school at the same time...That seemed fishy. They had many mutual friends, so I thought maybe I didn't remember them. He seemed really nice on messenger that first night. Although, he insisted he'd find a way to make me feel better. That seemed questionable. On Halloween, he asked what I'll be doing. Seemed innocent enough. I said probably not much other than watch a horror movie and have dinner out. He asked about wearing a costume. I didn't wear one this year, but I did wear skeleton earrings. He said he'd like to see them in person. He said he doesn't get any trick-or-treaters, and his camper is so cold. He'd want someone with him. According to his profile he's either bi or pan, which I thought was cool. Not cool that he seemed like he was trying to flirt with me, get 'romantic', and creepy. Being aro ace, it takes me a while to realize someone is flirting with me, unless I'm hyper-aware. People tend to think I'm flirting when I'm just being nice, friendly, and polite. I don't want another romantic relationship. I had a boyfriend and that part was suffocating for me. He was all over me trying to be as romantic as possible, and often sexual which I wasn't that into either. I put up with it, because I felt I had to. (Silly society...) I was very attached to him emotionally, and strongly attracted platonically (I guess queerplatonically would be a better word). Because of this, it really hurt when we broke up. Anyways, I would love a queerplatonic relationship instead. It's hard to find that, though. This exchange creeped me out. I also wonder how people can flirt with others when they barely know the person. I understand after knowing the basics of who they are. Why not become friends first? I blocked this person, by the way.
Went to Red Lobster on Halloween for dinner. I was surprised to see any kids there. It was a way to get away from trick-or-treaters for a while. We live right in the middle of the neighborhood, right at a 3-way stop. It's a popular spot to go. It was like that even when I was kid. For the last few years we haven't been handing out candy. It's been nice that way. We just turn out the lights and usually go somewhere else for a while. I got steak with mashed potatoes and a caprese salad there. It comes with a choice of soup or salad. I didn't get either. All their soups now have shellfish or pork products, and the salads upset my gut, particularly the greens part. So, I got none of that. The caprese salad is perfect for me. I don't have issues with tomatoes. I don't eat the onions. The mozzarella is good for protein, and basil is healthy too. It's all in balsamic vinegar, which is oddly good for me. I don't normally get steak, but it was done right. It's a perfect form of more protein. All together, it was one of their lower-calorie meals, so I managed to eat most of it. Had their vanilla bean cheesecake for dessert. One of my faves. I'm never able to finish it, since it's so huge.
I don't really have plans for my birthday. Probably would celebrate it more this coming weekend. I do want brunch at the Oak Table. Went there last year, too. I'd like to go somewhere for a dinner, but not sure what really speaks to me for that. Might be at a Japanese steakhouse, but I also like a lot of other restaurants. Last year, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, I think. I went there not that long ago, so I wouldn't want that. Went to a zoo last year and got a mani/pedi. Not really feeling those this time. Maybe some museums? Not sure which ones, though.
I've been in even more pain lately. Especially in the right side of my abdomen and more intense patches in my right arm. I also passed quite a bit of blood recently. No #2, just blood. (Not related to a 'monthly friend' I would have if my IUD wasn't working.) That was fun. Had a slight reaction to that. I think my colitis might be flaring, although I've never had blood come out of me like that. I did have occult blood in a test, but none that was visible. It's common for people with Ulcerative Colitis to bleed a lot. I've had symptoms resembling Crohn's Disease more. Crohn's also can affect the colon. I think the pain on my side might be from my colon. That blood might have been from that area. (It hasn't bled since.) It's a constant cramp-like pain. Lying down makes it feel like it's oozing out and it twitches a lot. Not sure about my arm. There's resistance to both arms when I move them. The right one feels like it's been beaten up, someone's pushing on it in certain areas, and it burns. I have to wait to see what goes on with my insurance before I can do much about this stuff. It's just a pain to deal with. Still haven't gotten those 3 other test results back. I don't know if they take a while to run. It'd be nice to know those results already, though.
Youtube:
One Piece:
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler):
Fairy Tail:
Ao no (Blue) Exorcist:
Boku no (My) Hero Academia:
One Punch Man:
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom):
Black Clover:
Bungou (Literary) Stray Dogs:
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