Hey, look at me all dressed up like a professional in a suit and tie and everything!

Okay, so today I had my interview.  Hence the pic of me in a business suit, looking all professional and cleaned up and stuff.  Hooray! Well, okay, so I have no idea if I got the job or not.  Which is a bummer.  I guess the company has been having difficulty finding people to hire, so their interviewing/hiring process is going fairly slow.  Which I guess means I didn’t totally nail it so wonderfully that they just tossed aside all thoughts of hiring anyone else.  Oh well. So either I got the job, or I didn’t. No biggie. It’d be nice to work with people again.  But I’m not going to cry myself to sleep if I didn’t get it. Anywho, other than that, life is chugging along just peachy.  Not much to tell at the moment.  But I figured I might as well snag a pic to share while I’m all spiffed up.    Have a good day folks!

You know, it’s been a while since I posted a pic.  Partly because I’m still waiting for my everyday wear to get here.  Target, in their infinite wisdom, decided to pretty much not ship anything I ordered for over a month because apparently one single item wasn’t in stock.  Bummer. But today I felt like doing something special, so I got over my misgivings and dove into my wife’s closet for some choice pics in regular wear.  Actually, the top she’d brought out of her “stuff I never wear” collection for me a while back because I’d commented on how I liked the sleeves on a similar top someone was wearing on TV.  And since then it’d just kind of sat there, waiting.  Why?  Because I have no skirt to wear it with. You see, my last pic with a skirt, wasn’t actually a skirt at all.  It was a black cami with the top tucked in. This time, it’s one of my wife’s whole two skirts.  Only the skirt goes all the way down to my ankles, and while sometimes that’s nice, I really wasn’t looking for that.  So I had to roll it up.  Which it was way too long to do that without looking funny.  So I experimented and found something that almost came out right. But hey.  At least it’s a nice little frilly outfit for me to enjoy the day in.  And of course I just had to go with some nice thigh-high black stockings with a lace top to them.  I started out borrowing a pair of my wife’s panties, a nice black satin pair with lace accents.  But they didn’t want to stay put very well and that got kind of annoying.  So I switch over to my own black lace thong.  I guess I’m a size smaller than my wife.  Who knew? And then just some simple black pumps.  I’m doing laundry, going up and down stairs a lot.  I don’t want to take any risks. I really don’t get why women complain about heels though.  I mean I’ve been walking around in heeled pumps and sandals and boots and whatnot and so far it’s been fun.  I haven’t really tripped.  But it’s not like I wear them daily or have lots of practice yet.  It’s just a breeze to me. But now I get why women walk with that sway.  Heels just kind of make you walk sexy.  At least for me it seems like you don’t even have a choice.  It’s walk sexy and smooth or walk with a lot of funny little steps and try not to fall.  So I just strut, and it works.  I dunno.  Maybe I was just born to it. So how are things?  Well, the chicken stock fell flat.  I boiled the bones too much and just didn’t like the consistancy or taste.  Oh well.  You gotta try.  At least the house smelled really good. But so the chicken pot pie casserole that it was meant for turned out just fine anyway.  I nailed it this time.  It was delish!  And full of good veggies like chopped asparagus, chopped snow pea pods, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and of course the obligatory ordinary peas, corn, and potatoes.  Lots of veggies, which is good for you.  But what really made it great was the sauce.  Okay, so I used a whole stick of butter in the end, but I also used like about 8 cups of broth.  Maybe even a cup of heavy cream.  Maybe only half a cup.  I didn’t really measure that, just poured and stirred until it looked right.  And then a bunch of corn starch to thicken it up.  So it worked out like a treat.  It was absolutely wonderful.  It was the epitome of savory and comfort food.  The only thing missing was a little sage.  My wife kept raving.  Life is good. Speaking of life being good, so tomorrow I have a job interview.  Local even.  I hope it goes well.  I hope I like the company.  It’ll be nice to be back on a regular job again instead of being an independent contractor.  I miss just having that office environment with real live people.  I got an inflatable doll a while back and tried to dress her up like a secretary, but instead of her being a friendly face she just kinda got creepy.  Oh well.  You never know until you try.  But so I hope I have real live coworkers again soon.  That’ll be nice.  Wish me luck! I’d love to stay and chat more, but laundry calls.  Four loads today.  Unfortunately the clothes don’t wash themselves.  But have a good day, y’all!  I love you.  Each and every one!

Hey, it is thrills and frills in this fun ensemble!

Life is … strange … lately.

Depressing.  But not.  I try to keep a positive attitude.

Yesterday my wife and I walked through the house with sage and candle, smudging away the bad energies.

Then my wedding ring disappeared.  And I started to lose it, searching the house.  I knew it was in the house somewhere.  But why had it left me?  I looked all over.  Even in the garbage, just in case.

And casually, my wife kept saying, “Let’s flip over the couch.”  I had already looked under there, with a flashlight and everything.  I hadn’t seen it.  But eventually I gave in to her certainty.  And somehow, sure enough, there it was.  The spirits had been telling her, and she had been trying to tell me.  It took me longer than it should have to listen.

The funny thing was, as I found it, and felt relief, she was still wound up herself.  She lets things get to her too.  Not that I blame her.  Her health is becoming a real issue for her, a constant reminder that all is not well.  Her job is no picnic either.  The house has so much that we want to do to it, so many things half-done.  The painting outside, the repair work inside, both held off by rain.  Because obviously you can’t strip and paint wood in the rain.  I need time for it to dry out before I can get back to it.  But also the kitchen repair work I need to do some minor electrical work.  Hopefully minor anyway.  No big deal, except that the clouds keep the room dark, and because of the goofy wiring in the house, I’ll only feel safe cutting the main, which means the only light I’ll have while I work will be the sun.  Hard to do with so many clouds.  So much of our house is half-done.  Because of the weather.  Because my wife’s health keeps her from helping me, or doing what she needs to do.

And still I have no job.  That grates on us both.  Me, because I feel useless.  Her, because we have two mortgages and she worries about the money.  Granted, I do too.  But at least I knew things like this could happen as an independent software contractor, so our bank account was prepared.  We have savings to fall back on.  It’s scary all the same.  But at least we make ends meet.  We just, in this time of uncertainty, don’t do things we otherwise could, like hire someone to fix this or that.

But I try to keep positive.  If not for me, than for my wife.  She has so much weighing her down.  I try to help.

Today is no different.  And yet, it is.

Last night we had a rotisserie chicken for dinner.  We grabbed it on our way out after grocery shopping.  Neither of us was in much mood to cook.  We had made a day of shopping.  Looking at clothes.  Looking at Christmas decorations.  Looking at hair colors.  Looking at video games.  Just looking.  And then looking at food, and somehow, like always, buying a lot more than we intended.  Not that we won’t need it or use it, but somehow a simple list of ten things always turns into a cart filled to the brim.  At least I got some new shoes.  Nothing special.  Just some regular-wear black shoes to replace my worn-out black sneakers.

So we had the chicken for dinner, and that was nice.

And then my wife’s daughter called and had a nice talk with her mom.  It was sweet.  Sometimes my wife hates being “Mom” because kids are kids.  Especially while one is a just-graduated teenager and one is in his early twenties.  Life is so full of drama for them.  Oh to be young again.  With so many things on my wife, sometimes she just doesn’t have the patience of heart to put up with their silly little games.  But that’s what moms are there for.  She doesn’t appreciate it when I remind her of that.

I have to admit a kind of perverse joy in being “Step-Dad”.  Heh heh.  Not that I try had to win over my wife’s kids.  They have their own dad.  They don’t need me to pretend to be something I’m not just because I’m with their mom now.  But all the same, they’re people.  And I treat them as such.  And I think they respect me for that.  I don’t try to win them over.  I don’t patronize them.  I don’t go out of my way to make them my friend like some fake.  I just give them respect, and they seem to give it back.  I think they find it a nice change of pace, to just be treated like adults.  In its own way, it’s fun.

But so in the course of the conversation of daughter and mother, it turns out she’s got a job.  Having just graduated high school, and having had lectures from Dad about how she needs to concentrate on college and only take jobs that will support that, and having had it out with her boyfriend about what jobs she can and can’t take, and so forth, she was happy to just have a job and nuts to everyone’s opinions.  That’s the spirit!  It’s her life.  I’m glad she’s starting to appreciate that.  It was nice to hear.  But she mentioned that she found the job on Craigslist.

Oooh.

That place?

Not that I have anything against it really, but every time I’ve tried to look on there…  Well…  It’s hard to take seriously.  I mean job searching there is bad enough.  It’s like, knowing it’s free, people just don’t even try to fix their grammar or make things even remotely readable.  The place is almost a joke.  And that’s the people trying to take it seriously.  Then there’s the personals…

But I figured, what the hey.  I could add it to my job searching.  So this morning I did.  I hit Career Builder and Monster and Dice and Yahoo and then, I hit Craigslist.

Wouldn’t you know it, but darned if I didn’t find something that was actually inteligbly written and seemed sincere.  So I applied with an email, attaching my resume.  And then damn if not literally minutes later there’s a phone call, from them, to set up an appointment to interview.  Wow!  That was fast!

And it makes me think maybe, just maybe, the universe is trying to get me to listen.

So, today is a good day.

And in the spirit of good days, I took the remains of the chicken carcass and sat down at the TV (watching Monkeybone in high-def on HBO) and started pulling the meat from the bones.

Does anyone even do this anymore?

Normally I separate the white meat from the dark meat when I do that because my wife isn’t so keen on dark meat.  (Me, I love it.  It’s so much more tender!  You just have to scrape off the icky fat.)  She uses the white meat in salads.  I use the dark meat in soup.  I love to make soup and stuff out of the leftovers of chickens or turkeys.

This time though I’m just going to make a big batch of chicken pot pie casserole.  So I just put all of the meat together in a bowl for later instead of baggies.  And this time I felt especially olde tymie, so I also separated the bones and some choice bits of meat that I didn’t want to mess with, and dried skin, and put all that into a pot.  Add the congealed drippings in the bottom.  Fill the pot with water.  And boil, simmer, and reduce to make stock.

I never manage to get much stock out of chicken, not when I save as many bits of meat like I do for actual eating.  Turkey however, like after Thanksgiving, you can get a lot more from.  Especially if you’re smart enough to save the turkey drippings from the pan after roasting your turkey.  Mmmm.  Besides making good gravy (just as some salt and corn starch dissolved in water), those drippings also make good stock for soup.

But still, it’s strangely satisfying.

I don’t know why though.

I can’t recall my mother ever doing this.

I can’t recall my grandparents ever doing this.  Though I’d bet at least my dad’s mom, AKA “Good Grandma” has done it.  (My mom’s mom, AKA “Evil Grandma” is a drama queen, and was never really one to get along with.  She’s almost the opposits of “Good Grandma”, just for a bit of explanation.)  “Good Grandma” is a health food nut (which is a good thing) and one of those people who can’t throw things away.  She’s a product of the Great Depression.  She even saves the water she boils vegetables in because that’s where all the nutrients go.  And she never goes out to dinner without a plastic baggie in her purse, as if we don’t have doggie bags these days.  She used to embarrass Grandpa, but I always thought it was cute.  He probably did too, or he wouldn’t have married her and stayed with her all those years, you know?

So I really don’t know where I learned to do it.  Honestly, I think it’s just past-life memories coming through.

But so, there’s just something about taking that cold picked carcass and turning it into home made soup, or something else that’s just homey-good.  And it fills the house with such wonderful smells.  It’s what makes a home a home.  That and fresh-baked bread, and cookies, and pie.  There are just those old smells, as old as time itself, that fill your heart as well as your stomach.

It seemed like a good way to honor the day.  It’s especially perfect for autumn, with the colored leaves in the trees, on the grass, everywhere.  And that damp earthen smell.  It’s like, at least for this one day, life is perfect, and I can just put everything not-perfect aside for a while and just concentrate on the good for a change.  It’s a little slice of home-made heaven.  It’d god, in a pot, and meant to be shared.

I hope all of you out there in Blog Land are having your own special day today.

Oooh.  So, the job.  Yeah.  The guy that theoretically would be my supervisor (or whatever) calls me for a phone interview.  (Well, the interview was set up by the recruiter, but need I really go into it all?)  And, of course, he begins with the inevitable opener, “So tell me about yourself.“

Heh heh heh.

“Well, you see, I’m a crossdresser.  Okay, well, not actually.  I mean yeah, I crossdress.  But not because I’m just into it as a kink.  I mean if you’re into that, that’s peachy keen in my book.  More power to you.  But I don’t do it because of a sexual thing.  I do it because actually it’s a coping mechanism to help me deal with the sad fact that I’m a woman born in a man’s body…“

No, I did not really say that!  Damn I was tempted to though.  I mean problem of wrecking home solved if I interview badly.  But no, I’m not really that self-destructive.  I figure it’s up to the universe.  If a door opens, I’ll stand in the frame and see if someone invites me in.

So I behaved myself.  I told him about my time in the Air Force and the project I worked on there, my time at my last employer and what I worked on there, and so forth.  Blah blah boring blah.  I mean I know it’s useful to guage social skills if nothing else, but honestly, read my damn resume.  If you want to know if I’m social then why not ask me more about a specific project that I worked on or something to prove that you at least give a damn?

Okay, so sue me.  I’m a little cranky.  I’ve kind of skipped lunch.

Anywho, so the interview goes along pretty typically.  What do I know?  What don’t I know?  Yada yada.

And then, the test.

I’d been expecting some sort of programming language test, what with me being a computer programmer.

What I hadn’t been expecting was a logic test.

I’ve got 9 ball bearings.  They’re all identical in every way, except that one is heavier than the rest.  I’ve got a balance scale.  What can I do to find the heavy one the quickest?

Okay, now here’s quite possibly where I started to derail.  Because it wasn’t in the least number of steps.  He specifically said the quickest.

When you’re a programmer, you know all too well what this difference is.  You can design an algorithm that works.  It might not be the absolute fastest, but it works.  Comparing one to one four times would solve it.  If all four attempts balanced out, the only one that didn’t go on the scale is the heavy one.  It works.  And you’ll more than likely get lucky and get it done in three, two, or even one step.  It won’t always go as far as the fourth iteration.

BUT, dun dun dun, that’s not the “right” answer.  The “right” answer is, hell, I’m not even sure.  I can get it down to three steps.  You could do 4 vs 4.  Assuming the one you left out isn’t the heavy one, break down the side that was heavy to 2 vs 2, then 1 vs 1.  But that solution always takes three steps to solve.  Well, except the rare time you get lucky and the one you didn’t put on the scale is the heavy one.

Of course as Johny On The Spot, I didn’t think of that answer until about ten seconds after I hung up.  Doh!  In an in-person interview I could have just turned around and said tada.  On a phone interview, I didn’t have his number.  I couldn’t call back.  Even if I could, he’d probably just figure I looked it up on the internet or something.  (Huh … I wonder if it is out there on the internet somewhere…)

Anyway, so for this exact problem, I still see my answer as better.  At that exact scale, if you count in probability, and try it a hundred times, my answer is better.

But still, that’s about optimizing the algorithm, making it the most efficient method.  But his wording was not an optimization request, but an implementation request.  What is the quickest way to get it done?

Well, gee, I could sit here for a half hour and think of the solution with the least steps … or I can go with what I know will work pretty quickly and get it done now, in one whole minute.  Maybe two.  That is the quickest way to solve the problem.

So … meh.  I guess I’m miffed at myself.  In his words I gave the best answer, but I doubt he meant it as literally as I took it.  In the actual scale of the problem given, I still gave the best answer.  Only if you increase the scale to something higher (like a hundred ball bearings) or if you ask the question with different wording, (as in the least number of steps, not in the quickest way) does my answer become a wrong one.  And worst of all, I had a better answer, but after I hung up the phone and stopped stressing to find the answer.  (My brain works like that a lot.  You’d have no idea how many times I’d come up with a solution to a bug in the code or a tricky feature implementation on my drive home, after I’d stopped stressing and immediate need to answer.)

So now I probably come off looking like a dunce.  When I not only had a better answer according to the specific wording I was given, but also a less-steps answer, just a minute too late. 

Damn phone interviews!

But oh well.

Either I’ll get the job anyway, so then I can stop beating myself up … or I won’t get the job, and I can stop worrying about being away from my wife for months while I sleep on an air mattress.

Kind of a win-win really.  So I shouldn’t beat myself up.  But oh well.  Such is life.

There’s a growing possibility that one of the jobs I applied for might actually hire me.  Unfortunately, if so, it means moving back to my old unsold house, in as little as a week from when I accept the position.  If I get it.  I’ll only be able to pack what I can fit into my Prius, move back to a house  900 miles away with no furniture at all, and somehow make do.  But that’s not the hard part.

The hard part is leaving my wife.  For months.

We’d already played that game once.  I dropped everything and left my established life so that I could be with her.  Hence why I have an empty house still, what with today’s economy, it just hasn’t sold.

We both know that in the long run it’ll be for the best.  Her present job is killing her.  We both hate where we live right now.

That’s not what makes this place home.  Not job.  Not house.  Not our stuff is here.

What makes it home is us, together.  So leaving to create a new opportunity elsewhere, even though I know she’ll either find a way to get there, or I’ll end up coming back, either way, it means no home, no togetherness, for months.

The idea sucks.

But it’s probably the best suck that we’re going to find.

It’s an opportunity for her to get out of her job.  And the money is an opportunity for her to hire someone to fix up this house to sell.  And, of course, it’s an opportunity for me to have actual co-workers again instead of working independently from home.

It’s just going to really suck being apart.

Sleeping on an air mattress or whatever god awful solution I come up with isn’t going to be much better either.

But I’ll live.

And in theory the future will get brighter.

But once, just once, it’d be awfully nice for things to just be easy for a change.  I know I might not appreciate it as much if everything in life was easy.  But just once would be nice.  I don’t think that’d go to my head too much.  Just once?

Sometimes I think the universe has a maliciously evil streak, hidden behind good intentions.  Or something like that…

So I get a call.  One of the places that I applied to wants to talk a little more about my mad job skillz.  Great.

Only then the conversation turns from the job that I applied for, to a short term contract position with the possibility of extentions or hiring.  Okay…  Actually fairly normal for my profession.  But here’s the kicker, they want the contract filled ASAP.  As in like yesterday.  And the job?  At my old house, 900 miles away.

Hmmm…

I mean I’ve been intentionally applying for jobs back there because the house hasn’t sold and I was happier living there than here.  Here sucks!  But I kind of imagined the also pretty normal thing for my profession, relocation assistance and some modicum of time.

Well, okay.  So do I just up and drop everything, throw my computer and some clothes in the car and drive to a new career with the hopes that the wife catches up eventually?  She and I have done the long distance relationship thing before.  Which was why I moved here and still have a house there.  I finally just up and quit my job and life there so that I could marry her here.

But less than a week to say goodbye, pack everything I can cram into a Prius (which actually holds an awful lot for being a “tiny hybrid”, and gets about 45MPG highway loaded to bear), and buy what I can’t fit in when I get back?

I dunno.

Maybe.

I’m simultaneously both excited and appalled.  Sure, I wanted to move back.  Just under better circumstances and time to organize a moving van so that I at least have a bed.  (Hmm … I wonder if I can cram the spare bed into the Prius…)

It’s scary.  And it’s so incredibly unexpected.  Just as I’m getting depressed about how no one seems to take my job applications seriously and every business has a sucky way to apply these days, bam, something happens.

Talk about weird timing.

Speaking of weird timing, my real estate agent should have my keys in the mail right now.  Hmmm.  I sure hope they get here soon, or I’m going to have to break in to my own house.  That’d be … awkward.  Not outside of the realm of possibility though.

Anywho, it may all amount to nothing.  At best it’d take me around a week to pack what I can, drive 900 miles, and get set up.  For a position that they want filled yesterday, they might not want to wait.  Or they might not even decide to hire me.  I dunno.  I seem to recall there are usually interviews before hiring too.

But hey, if it’s meant to be, things will all work out somehow.  I’m a firm believer that the universe provides.  Sometimes it just has a sick sense of humor about things.

Today I sit here in comfy PJs.  I’ve got on my AC/DC pajama pants, and my positively ancient Zelda t-shirt, dug up from the graveyard that is the bottom of my t-shirt dresser drawer, with a gold and white rendered Link looking all pissed off.  It’s a me day.  I may even paint my toe nails and watch an old movie on DVD.  Or something.

Yesterday was a struggle.  The job search continues.  On website after website.  As technology improves, applying for jobs gets even more annoying.  It used to be you could just mail your resume and a cover letter.  Or even just email them.  But now, nooooooo.  Every fucking place has their own proprietary HR server.  Each and every damn place makes you create an account with their company and fill out stupid online form after form.  What’s the point of even having a resume?  Why bother writing one?  No one wants them!  And the few times that they let you upload your resume, it’s some damn awful basic rich-text script that strips my nice resume of all of its neat features and renders it almost useless.

But what’s even worse than that, are the sheer number of these places that have bugs in their stupid proprietary system.  Most of the time these bugs in some way prevent you from actually completing the application process.  One asks for your state or providence, but then has a drop-down box that’s blank.  You can’t type anything into the box like a good combo box would allow.  And you can’t advance to the next page because the state field is a required field.  It’s stupid bugs like this that drive me crazy.  Do these people not test their own software?  And why would I want to develop software for a company with such low quality ethics?

I shit you not, nearly fifty per cent, nearly one half, all have some kind of typo or bug.  And at least one tenth, if not as much as one quarter, are too buggy to even finish the application process.

It’s driving me nuts.

And then I’m reading a novel.  A novel like nearly every other novel I’ve written lately.  The research is bad.  Hollow-point bullets (bullets intentionally designed to deform on impact for safety so that they don’t go through walls and accidentally kill the neighbor when a cop fires and misses) that go through steel hospital doors to then kill a vampire.  The number of typos are astounding.  There’s got to be an average of about one every three or four pages.  And that is not an exaggeration!  And a singular simple plot that keeps trudging on because it has nothing else to do.

Meanwhile I’m writing books with plots that have twists and side-plots that tie together back into the main plot by the end.  I’m writing books with character development.  I’m writing books that at least try to research the basics.  And before I even consider trying to pimp my manuscript out to a literary agent for representation, I repeatedly proof read my novel and have my wife and/or friends proof read it as well.  I’m not even remotely an English major and I can do so much better than so many of these published turds.

And yet every single query letter comes back rejected.

It gets me down.

So yeah.  Today is a comfort day.  I’m going to dress comfy.  I’m going to snuggle with a blanket.  I’m going to drink tea and/or hot chocolate.  I’m going to revisit Nostalgia Land.  And, basically, I’m going to do my best to keep positive.  Because sooner or later, something has got to give.  Life can’t stay this screamingly maddeningly frustrating forever.

You ever reach that point where you just don’t know what you’re doing?  Where you’re so … blah … that it makes you want to scream, except you just don’t have the energy to?

I dunno.

I’m pretty sure that I’m depressed.

Or something.

It doesn’t help that I’m fighting up the nerve to just even talk to a doctor about beginning my transition.  Or fighting up the nerve to tell my wife that I want to.  To honestly, seriously, start.  I just … I dunno.  So many people I care about, my wife, my sister, my mom, my whole family … even if some of them do accept it, I know I’ll still hurt them.  I think my wife and maybe one cousin will be the only people in my life to even try to accept it from the beginning.  I think a handful more will come around … eventually.  But I really don’t want to hurt people.  And I especially don’t want to lose what I have with my wife.

So which is worse?  Hurting people I love to be me, or hurting me to save the people I love?

And then it gets more complicated because, no doubt, I’m only going to be less and less lovable if I can’t get myself out of my funk.

But is transition really the answer?

I’d like it to be.  But that doesn’t necessarily make it so.  I’m 100% certain that if I make the transition, I’m never ever going to want to go back.  That doesn’t worry me, at all.  But it’s the middle ground, the journey, that scares me.  Because at some point I’d have to “come out”.  To my family.  To my coworkers.  (Which I hope to one day have again.)  Hell, to the DMV and Uncle Sam and Big Brother.  Plus there’s the money, which right now I really don’t have.

That’s another thing that’s got me down.  Right now I’m technically an independent software contractor between contracts.  But I’m not really looking for contracts anymore.  I’m looking to get back into regular employment.  I miss having coworkers.  I miss socializing.  I miss people.

So I’m not just depressed over my qualms about the transition.  I’m also depressed about applying for tons of jobs and being rejected.  (Which I can’t explain, because I’m damn good and been doing it for 13 years.)  And I’m depressed about having no social life whatsoever other than my wife.  Which also brings up another one, that my wife is having health problems.  And that those health problems are really hindering our sex life, which lately seems to be about once a month.

And, of course, I still have that damn monkey on my back as society’s unacceptance of gender bending gives me so much self loathing.  Can’t forget that.  I know that I shouldn’t hate myself for being who I am.  That I should just be able to tell society to go to hell and how to get there because I have every right to be me.  But aparently I can’t.

Which is actually … odd.  I’m not sure how else to express that.  I love me.  I mean I really love me.  Some of the most wonderful things that I love about me come from my femininity.

And yet I hate me for being just another woman trapped in a man’s body.  The world’s tiniest violin, playing just for me.  How sad.

See?

I mean, WTF?!

I really don’t understand.  Why do I hate myself for that?  And how can I hate myself for that, but love myself in everything else?

So I try hard not to escape into video games.  And instead I think I’m escaping into my blog.  Which I don’t know if I should resent or not.  But obviously I’ve got to escape into something because sitting around being depressed constantly doesn’t make for much of an improvement.  I am depressed.  I need to express it, deal with it, and find a way to move on.

But saying and doing are sooooo totally different.

I tried to escape into working on my house today.  It’s a brick house, but some overhangs are wood.  The paint is so incredibly many layers thick, and coming off in chips.  So it all needs to be stripped down to wood and painted anew.  I scraped the hell out of it.  And then I got my paint removing wire brush drill tip going.  And managed to work on that for a couple of hours before the flying paint dust just bugged my eyes too much.  I need goggles.  Or maybe SCUBA gear.  But so I tried to escape into something productive, and I even couldn’t do that right.

I want to say that I’m such a loser.  Only I refuse to say it, because I’m not.  I’m not a loser.  And I’m not going to give in to self-pity like that.  I’m better than that.

But fuck if I don’t want to just curl up into a ball on my bed and just cry my heart out until I collapse to sleep right now.

Why does life have to be so fucking hard some times?  Why can’t something go right for me for a change?  Why does everything have to hit all at once?  One thing, I can take.  Two things, I can take.  Three even I could maybe juggle.  But shit!  Did I mention I also have a house on the market that I just took off the market so that I can say screw it, cut the utilities and winterize it?  I’m pretty much just living on my savings right now, and my wife’s income is paying not just our house, but my old house as well!  I don’t feel as bad as I should about that because contractors intentionally save up for those dry spells between contracts, so I’m still technically paying my half of life.  But I’d feel infinitely better if I just had some real money coming in again instead of chump change from micro-contracts and shit work.

I dunno.  I’m ranting like a loon.  But then, that’s fair, since I am losing it right now.

And you know what’s really got my nerves right now?  Besides all of this shit?  Is that here I have this blog, and there’s like 30 visits a day.  I’m so very thankful for those of you who do visit and leave such nice comments.  You really make my day.

But what bugs me about that, is that days when I go on and on about sex, suddenly I see tons more visits.  I mean why don’t I just turn this blog into tranny porn?  I mean fucking hell!  What kind of sick twisted world is this when sex is so much more important to people than life?

I dunno.

It shouldn’t make me so mad.  That’s just the internet.  Porn, porn, and more porn.  Google search for bunnies, sunshine, and lollipops and you get “See super busty Bunny Girl stick a lollipop up her twat.”  That’s just the internet.

But I so don’t want that to be my blog.  I’m a real person, with a real life.

But damned if I don’t sometimes want that validation.  If I don’t sometimes consider pandering to the public at large by just writing about dicks and clits and nipples and vaginas and labias and vibrators and dildos oh my!

I guess it’s a good thing that I’m an ugly as sin woman.  It at least provides that extra measure of sanity check to keep me from wagging the ol’ willy in front of my camera.

Well, anyway…

Sorry for the basically senseless rant.  Maybe I’ll even delete it.  Or maybe I’ll just keep it for posterity.  I can look back one day when I’m going through changes on my HRT, my wife still loves me, I’ve got a good job, and am down to just one mortgage, and I’ll get to laugh and laugh.

Meanwhile, I think the bed is calling.  Time for that cry.

Okay, so it’s not even really a “wine” cooler.  It’s a Smirnoff Ice – the Triple Black lime flavored one.  And a couple of Babybel little cheese wheels.  So far, that’s my dinner.  I decided to raid the chest freezer in the basement and came up with a 5 1/2 cup container of some of my home-made beef stew.  That’s melting / cooking on the stove.  It’ll be a while.  I was nibbly.  So I grabbed some cheese.

Anyway, I know, utmost excitement there.  Is there a point?  Yeah.  So I get this call.  I’m looking for a job, you see.  Not that I’m “out of work”.  I’m between contracts.  There’s a subtle difference, in that for independent contractors, sometimes you just are between contracts.  Only I’m tired of contract work, so I’m job hunting.  All of the usualls, Monster, Dice, Yahoo, Career Builder.  Blah blah.  So I get a few of these calls.  Usually it’s for some job way out in, well, way further than I’m gonna commute.  And I clearly said in all of my profiles that I’m not relocating.  So most of the phone calls are basically crap.

But this one, oh, this one is special.  A supposed trillion dollar company wants to consider a branch in the area.  They can’t give me any specifics on what the job even is.  No.  For that, I have to show up to their “presentation”.  Which is in the back of a crap-hole of a diner.  Dress code is “business casual”.  Why on earth would even a million dollar company work a “presentation” instead of actual straight job offers?  And why in the back of a diner and not at any normal place of business where you could rent a conference room?

Nuh-uh.  I’m just not feeling the vibe.

Especially after a reverse phone lookup tells me that they’re a financial company that opens up lots of little branches all over.  Why do I get the feeling this is not a job opportunity, but the chance to own my own failing franchise?  How freaking cheezy is that to dishonestly lure people into the back of a crappy diner to sell them a financial franchise while banks are collapsing?

So now I have a dilema.  Do I show up in business casual, just on the off chance that it somehow really is a legit job offer?  (Yeah right!)  Do I just skip it like my common sense tells me to?  Or do I really fuck with them, and show up in a dress?

Decisions decisions…

Okay, so I’m likely just not going to show up.  We all know I’m just not brave enough to go out crossdressed, even just to shock people instead of to be a woman.  And I really really don’t get a vibe here that they’re looking to hire a senior software engineer.  So I’m pretty sure I’m going to just not show up.

But cheezwiz, who’s balls do I have to lick around here to find a damned job?  It’s not like I don’t have thirteen years of software programming experience or anything.  I’m not even asking for $100K.  I just want a halfway decent wage and social interaction.

This place sucks.