I canceled on breakfast this morning to sleep in (since I have off work today)… and of course I woke up at 8am, and there was hammering going on at the house across the street.

At 8am.
On July 3.
DOH.

Finally I got up, checked e-mail and some applications on Facebook, got back into bed and rest with music playing, and that was 9am… and the hammering stopped and did not restart.

This guy chose to work on the house from 8-9am. It’s like Christmas, when they must have been behind on the house they were fixing on our right and were running the  power saw and hammers until midnight for a new nights.

So I rested instead in bed, which was nice, with music playing; and a friend was texting me the whole time; and I enjoyed the morning until about 10am.

Then I just soured and had a lot of trouble being motivated.

One issue: I took my hair off to shampoo and condition last night because I knew I had the morning free (I do this every 7-10 days, and the last 2-3x I’ve tried to put my hair back on, I had problems and had to take it all off and retape it and try again, and it lost strands of hair in the process, and I just am stressed now when I go to do it…), and it took me until close to lunch to commit to getting out the tape, setting it all, then trying to get in in place. It’s not seated exactly the way I wanted it… but good enough.

I’ve just had issues with my appearance and voice recently; and seeing me without my hair just bugs me. I wear a bandana instead, to cover my head in case someone would come by the place and notice me through the door at night, but I’ve been bothered the last few times and wasn’t sure I just didn’t like what I looked like. I am having the same issue with my voice over the last week or two, I feel like it sounds like crap when I’ve heard it off a tape or tried to tape it, and it’s somewhat demoralizing. Last night a (non-trans female) friend called, one who knows my past but has only known me as Jen, and we had never talked on the phone before but she was having a pretty rough patch and I wanted to be there for her; and I just kept thinking, “Uggh, I sound so bad, I hope she can overlook how low my voice sounds and it doesn’t bother her.”

I do think my voice has deteriorated some as I have gotten lazy, at least in terms of pitch and resonance (although inflection is just fine)… and I’ve been sick so much in the last 2 months, I almost lost my voice this past Tuesday again and it wore out during this particular conversation; but I’m starting to speculate that something else unexpected is happening.

I think part of it is that I am forgetting what I looked and sounded like, or at least I’m start to replace that old memory with one of a newer me. My old original voice before practice and my old original face without hormones was very different from now; but at this point I can’t remember the original appearance or the original sound, and my “voice on a bad day” and my “face on a bad day or w/o hair” is thus being remember as my original voice and face; and so the difference between that and my good days is just not a lot anymore, so I tend to put down my good days as not far different from my bad ones… hence, I must look and sound bad all the time.

I’m annoyed that I feel hung up on this right now, I don’t really understand it. But anyway, that was bothering me today.

Another issue is just depression. Michelle called to give me a pep talk around lunch, and I told her I just feel like I could sit on the sofa in the dark and stare out the window all day and not do anything or talk to anyone. I was so dragging. As it was, it took me forever to get moving; I made lunch around 2pm, I finally did laundry at 4pm, and now I’m considering going down to the first night of music fest, here around 6pm. I told Michelle I am aimless right now, and this is true — I just don’t have any focus at the moment, I go to work, then I’m tired and I just… don’t have a specific goal. And the things I want seem beyond my reach, in terms of money.

J called before 11am and I didn’t bother to check the messages until 2:30pm, figuring it was something for tonight, and doh — she wanted me to go with two of her friends to the Broad Street market for lunch at noon. Guess that flopped. So I ended up not having plans tonight now after all… and i never got back to my hiker friend (where I had said I could take him to the start point tonight if he needed me — he was supposed to call last night, so I was waiting for that, and then he didn’t). So… 6pm, alone, and I just feel like going to bed honestly. But that could happen all weekend if I’m not careful.

I called the house around 4pm but no one answered. I called again later and then just left a message. I had wanted to catch Far, to see how his trip to Pittsburgh went, plus see about him coming over sometime soon. Oh well, I guess they were out; I hope they were enjoying their day.

I got a response from Diane from the hair place yesterday. I wrote a few days ago, to ask if the unit I had to have them return for fixing (since top density had been too thin) had come back yet. She wrote back and said it did… and it still looked too thin to her, but I would have to come in and see; if I wanted, she would send it back again. Now I’m upset and irked by it. She told me a hair unit lasts 4 months typically, MAYBE 6 months. I ordered my second one well before the first one would have worn out, to plan ahead; but it came in and just was not good quality to me, and the top was far less dense, it wouldn’t have made it four months. So after a week, I had them send it back. Diane told me they could either get a new one or add more hair to this one; the boss decided it was fine and they could just add more hair; I was okay with that (although queasy), but I have been operating without a backup for the last 5 weeks. Now she tells me they still probably screwed it up and might have to get sent back for another five weeks?

The one I am wearing is still remarkably holding up, but it’s been losing more hair, and the lace front is starting to erode and break — the material is drying out and getting brittle. I’m just really annoyed because they can’t get it right, and I did everything right, and I need to have this unit work. The ONLY benefit is that I’m getting a lot of wear out of this one, so I won’t have to order a third one for some months yet.

Finally, I got a notice back from the local tax bureau today. I submitted the return using THEIR online forms, electronic submission, following their instructions… and somehow they decided to adjust what they were giving me back by 5%. It’s sort of annoying, sort of hilarious — how many hours did they waste to save a mere 5% off my refund? It’s only a few dollars, so I don’t even care honestly, I’m happy just to have it be done, but I am thinking they spent more money reviewing and amending my return, in terms of resources and salaries, than they saved by reducing my return. And again, it was their electronic software I used to file, following their directions; there’s no reason why what I sent shouldn’t have been the right number… lol.

Anyway, enough typing for today. I need to go do something else more interesting.

EDIT: Sarah Palin’s resigning? What a madhouse; hey, I don’t understand it, I just live here 0n this crazy planet. Maybe she had been shacking up with the SC governor; that guy really gets around. *headshake*