something queer going on

1) Health.

My back continues to be more of an issue than I'd like. My healing seems to have plateaued; I'm seldom in a lot of pain, and I can function, but I'm seldom completely pain-free either. Plus I get fun little incidents like the other night, when I felt pretty okay when I went to bed, but woke up at 2 in the morning in more pain than I've had in a while. (Yes, my bed is probably a factor. But I really don't want to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a new one.)

Another delightful plot twist follows,

under the cut because potentially TMI

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Around the beginning of this month I started having UTI symptoms. Very mild at first, and I thought it might resolve on its own. It did not. This left me trying to get medical care during Labor Day weekend (a big holiday in the US). I went to urgent care on Sunday Sept. 3, after work, but the clinic I went to was too busy and I couldn't get in. (I didn't want to try another clinic because this is the urgent care I usually go to, and I didn't have the energy to try a totally unknown one.) On Monday (Labor Day), I thought about going back, but a bit of googling showed that most of my local pharmacies were closed anyway or on such reduced hours that by the time I finished work and went to the clinic it would be too late to get my prescriptions that day.

This whole process confirmed the wisdom of my pill-hoarding tendencies. I had some phenazopyridine left from my last UTI. It doesn't treat the infection, but it reduces the symptoms while you wait to get antibiotics/wait for them to kick in. It was all that made things tolerable.

Anyway, I finally got to the clinic on Tuesday Sept. 5 and got a 10-day megacourse of antibiotics which I'm still taking through tomorrow. And--this is how it's relevant to my back--the nurse agreed that the prednisone I had to take for my back probably contributed to the UTI: prednisone is an anti-inflammatory because it's an immune suppressant.

And here's a fun fact: after googling, I discovered that in people with a vulva, having low estrogen levels (if, say, you're post-menopausal, or a trans masculine person taking testosterone) makes UTIs vastly more likely. Did anyone ever explain this to me? Fuck no.

Another thing I only learned from google: don't buy lube made with glycerin. It's sugar-like enough to feed bad bacteria a lovely meal.

*sigh* I don't like bringing up genital/sexual stuff with medical people. It's uncomfortable, especially now that I'm out as trans. I wish they would bring it up and give me useful health information--in a nice, matter-of-fact professional way, not in the way like my previous pcp who was a little too curious about my sexuality. My current provider is pretty good, but a bit silent on the subject; I wonder if it's too personal for her because her son is a trans man (she mentioned this to me, with his permission).

Anyway, enough of this. Here's hoping I don't get a third UTI this year; that's the point where it's officially considered chronic.

2. After temporarily losing interest in it, I've been watching a lot more Taskmaster. In fact the word "bingeing" might be appropriate. I'm most of the way through S07 now, and feeling twinges of obsession. I blame, at least in part, Greg Davies' decision in the hiatus before S06 to get glasses and grow a beard, and therefore become hot to me as he has never been before. Alex has always been hot to me; skinnyish, socially awkward, clever boys push my buttons, as does the whole stage-gay "Alex is slavishly, erotically devoted to Greg" thing. And beards.

I'm again noticing how much of the show's general enjoyability depends on the vibe of the contestants. The S06 people were mostly uninteresting, except for Liza who was both competent and likeable, and Tim Vine, whose every moment on camera was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then S07 brought in absolute loons like Rhod Gilert and James Acaster, and varied interpersonal dynamics played up to the hilt by the whole batch of drama queens, and it's much more fun to watch. (Apart from having to look away to spare my eyes from Phil Wang's skin-tight yellow bodysuit.)

Mostly the show does not ping my embarrassment squick, thank heavens. (Mostly. I could live without any more impromptu songs, though I would hate to have missed the sheer delight of that moment in S06 when Nish Kumar and Mark Watson's song was actually really good.) I do have to remind myself often that Alex Horne created the show and writes at least some of it, so nothing is happening to him that he hasn't okayed. He consented to sit bare-bottomed on that cake/be cuddled by every contestant/have Rhod Gilbert turn him into a water feature.

And then there's the Greg/Alex stuff.

Under a cut, for sort-of spoilers I guess, as well as being long and containing musing on stage gay, power differentials, etc.

I didn't expect them to actually kiss. Even about a second before they did, I thought it would be a fake-out and Greg would pull away or something. But no, they kissed rather sweetly, to the loud approval of the audience and most of the contestants. (I wish the camera would quit cutting away from the most highly charged Greg/Alex moments to show dubious reactions from the cishet male contestants, though.) The explicit eroticism has mostly been toned down since the kiss, which I guess makes sense since there's not much further they can go with that unless the boys are going to make out on stage, which presumably is further than they and the bloke-centric Dave network want to take it. Though in S07 Alex did make that rather startling reference to Greg's "special spot" and the letter G, fuelling all kinds of potential speculation.

. . . I just really enjoy stage gay. Especially when it's played, er, straight, from the whole chest. (For a while I thought Greg was gay, based on a couple of things he said on the show. But Wikipedia tells me he had a long-term relationship with a woman. So I've decided he's bi until proven otherwise. Alex is married to a woman and has kids. I've decided he's bi too.) To repeat, I know it's stage gay, but I enjoy the game/performance of queer desire (when it's an acknowledged game and not e.g. queerbaiting in fictional media) without the disavowing wink and nod. I like that both Greg and Alex just go with it--the erotic implications are played for comedy, but the joke is not "OMG that's gay!" Usually it's more like "OMG that's fucked up, Greg, stop that and be nice to Alex." I enjoy the very rare moments when Greg genuinely is nice--the bits of background business when the focus is on the contestants and Greg and Alex start holding hands.

And of course I enjoy the whole glorious spectrum of ways Greg finds to bully Alex. It's sometimes a bit of a fine line for me, because humiliation is deeply not my kink, but it's so clearly stage-Alex's that I can enjoy his delighted misery. No usual form of BDSM is really my kink, but I love a power differential and I love devotion. So the idea of Alex worshipping Greg Davies--moderately successful comedian and host of a light entertainment show--like a god on earth, making his bed and sleeping at his feet and surrendering to his every sexual demand, unfazed by any amount of ingratitude, exploitation, and downright cruelty from Greg, kind of does it for me. But I must admit that, as usual with me and power differentials, what I would want from a fic is to see the relationship become more equal. (The big exception to this trend for me is Izzy Hands from Our Flag Means Death; Izzy is such a shithead and a fuckup that to the extent I can imagine a happy ending for him, it looks more like a pornographic fever dream version of Greg/Alex than like Ed/Stede. Izzy should never be allowed to make meaningful decisions about his own life or anyone else's, ever again. Alex, by contrast, should be cherished.)

Once I'm caught up--because I'm so thoroughly spoiler-averse that I don't want to know whether they kiss onstage again, or even whether X contestant does a great/hilarious thing in S11--I intend to read all the fanfic. And probably be disappointed by it. Recs are welcome if you have any; just please let me know where they fall season-wise so I can wait if necessary to avoid spoilers.

3. Yuletide

I think I'm going to participate this year, for the first time since about 2013. I've done two fic exchanges this year, so I feel reasonably confident in my ability to write something and not default.

Our Flag Means Death is of course ineligible. But Taskmater is eligible and I can think of stories I might request. For other fandom requests, I'm thinking about Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness (most of the existing fic is Estraven/Genly Ai, for obvious reasons, but the world itself is fascinating and Le Guin leaves a lot of omissions to explore. (E.g. same-sex sex during kemmer, or some people having a preference for whether they go through kemmer as male or female--are there Gethenians with a stealth gender identity?, or for that matter whether Gethenian societies can possibly be as devoid of popular culture as Le Guin makes them out to be. It can't all be work and sex and religion and politics--I want to know what Gethenians do for fun.) Maybe Moby Dick too. And I'm considering some five-minutes fandoms to fill in the gaps. There are a zillion Mountain Goats songs that could make great fic.

1) Well, my back is still fucked. I am getting better, but very very VERY slowly. I tried to go to work last Friday and only managed an hour, and then I was in such severe and obvious pain that a colleague volunteered to drive me home (because sitting = bad, which makes driving a challenge).

I'm going to try again tomorrow. I'm a bit more functional now and if all goes okay I should be able to make it for a few hours.

Meanwhile, my PTO that I having been saving up since the last time this happened (because when I get top surgery--I was hoping for next year--I'll need to take at least a month off) is pretty much gone. And HR wants me to request FMLA leave but hasn't sent me the damn paperwork. *sigh*


2) I haven't been capable of much reading/viewing etc., because my concentration's gone all to hell. Even though I'm not constantly in pain, it's hard to sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time. So mostly I dazedly scroll Twitter, which these days is bursting with TERFs and fascists, plus a goodly portion of the people who are neither TERFs nor fascists are goddamn irritating. (For example, there's currently a massive kerfuffle because someone said that refusing to engage in very basic formula small talk--such as replying to a "Hi, how are you today?" from a retail worker or restaurant worker--is extremely rude. Predictably, the replies of "OMG I'm actually autistic and why do you want me to die of small talk?" and "OMG if you ask how I'm doing I'm not going to lie, so you better be prepared to hear about how my cat has cancer"* came in like a missile barrage.) Ugh, Twitter is so awful, and yet so perfectly designed to keep you refreshing when you're bored but not capable of anything more demanding.

(*In my experience as a retail worker, this happens pretty often. And it's TERRIBLE. I'm at work, I asked "how are you?" because it's a politeness formula, and I am not equipped, emotionally or in terms of time, to hear about your actual problems. Why are so many people unable/unwilling to distinguish between "meaningless polite noises between strangers" and "question from friend who actually wants to know"?)


3) I did manage to watch Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. It's a perfectly fine undemanding movie, and I didn't know Hugh Grant was in it so that was a pleasant surprise. But I feel like it's suffered from a sort of reputation paradox. When it came out, everybody was expecting an absolute dog. So when they saw that it was an okay fun movie with some nice moments, they all went, "Wow, it's so good!" And that inflated its reputation enough for latecomers like me to be disappointed that it's not really as good as all that. It's fun, it's silly, it's not going to wow anybody.


4) Also I've been catching up on This Podcast Will Kill You, which suits my mental state right now because it's not narrative. I also managed to listen to the second episode of Malevolent, which is narrative and which I'm still not loving, but I'll keep trying because I am assured that it gets better. I'm stalled on Old Gods of Appalachia, but eventually I'll get back to it. Part of the problem (with this and with Malevolent) is that I prefer to listen to horror podcasts while I'm outdoors walking in the nice bright safe sunlight. It gives me a needed bit of distance from the story. But I'm not up to taking walks just yet.

Our weather stayed pleasantly and very unusually cool until about the third week of June, and then summer came in with a vengeance. Today's high was 97 F (just over 36 C), and I don't care for it. The good news is, our altitude and low humidity mean that even quite hot temps are tolerable in the shade--though 97 is about when they cease to be--and things cool off a lot at night. The bad news is, our altitude and latitude mean the sun is STRONG. I feel bad for everyone working outdoors. And sadly, there's no real cooling predicted for the foreseeable. Like most of the rest of the northern hemisphere, we're expecting a hotter than average summer.

It's sapping my will to do things I need to do for my health (exercise every single damn day, and follow certain medically indicated dietary restrictions). All I want to do is lie in front of the fan and eat ice cream and potato chips (not medically indicated). I'll be glad when it's October.


More cheerfully, today at work I managed to score a bunch of free essential oils (old testers being replaced by ones in newer packaging, but still perfectly fine and almost full in 30 ml bottles). So now I can do some scent experiments without it costing $$$$. I got: bergamot, Himalayan cedarwood, cinnamon leaf, clove bud, pink grapefruit, jasmine absolute (7.5% in jojoba oil), Bulgarian lavender, sweet orange, peppermint, sandalwood (10% in jojoba oil), and tangerine. I left some others behind in order not to be greedy, and regret it now--I should definitely have snagged the spearmint and the patchouli. (For those following my patchouli journey, I gave it a sniff and was surprised at how menthol-ish it was in addition to the expected "perfumed dirt" thing.) If there's anything still left tomorrow I'm grabbing it. I got a pretty decent assortment regardless, and I already have a vetiver oil and a lime oil. So I'm contemplating blends.

Now, of course, my lovely free oils will mean buying some little sample-size bottles, and some paper test strips (which I needed anyway), and some pipettes so I can control and measure amounts, and who knows what else. No such thing as a free fragrance, apparently.

I've been thinking for a while about making a separate account to talk about sexual topics, and now I've finally done it: kit_nsfw. Content may include: general discussion of sexual desire, sexual acts, sexual fantasy, testosterone and its joyful but sometimes confusing effects on the sex drive, bodily issues (I'm trans and have some dysphoria), hot porn and what makes it hot, sex toy reviews, etc. etc.

It's set up as a community for administrative simplicity, but I'll be the only person posting there. Feel free to join if you're interested! At the moment there's only a welcome post, but I plan on making another post in a bit with actual content.

Today I saw a shop called "Nothing Bundt Cakes."

This is so much a shop name from somebody's cutesy bakery AU fanfic that I can't entirely believe it's real.

(I didn't go in, as I was running errands. But I'll take a closer look next time I'm in the neighborhood.)


In other news, I'm mostly better from my stupid respiratory crud, but still coughing and congested after almost two weeks. At least my energy's back to normal; feeling exhausted just from showering and dressing (before I even left for work) was not fun.

Also today I finally went in for a blood draw that I was supposed to have done several months ago. And lucky me, I got the trainee phlebotomist! He was very nice, but he jiggled the needle every time he had to change vials (there were 5), and it hurt, and my arm is bruised and sore.

It was a fasting blood test, so afterwards I badly wanted to go and get a greasy breakfast somewhere, with at least two eggs and plentiful coffee. But alas, COVID. (And it's too cold and windy to sit outside.) I really, really miss eating in restaurants.

I am sick, goddammit. I haven't been sick since before COVID. I mask all the time* and I basically don't go anywhere, and I'm sick.

Sore and irritated throat, cough, runny nose, and for some reason my stomach feeling less than entirely happy. I took my temperature a few minutes ago and it was 98.1, which was actually a little high for me (I normally run between about 96.5 and 97.5), but not anything that could be called a fever.

I took a COVID test this morning, but it was negative. I'll try again tomorrow before work.

Hopefully it's just a cold, but I'm still mad about it.


*I admit that in the last couple of weeks I've been slightly less cautious than I used to be. Like, literally just taking a few bites of food in a shared office and then quickly putting the mask back on again. And sometimes having to eat my lunch indoors in the break area when it's too cold to eat outside, but I've been doing that throughout. Also, I had to go to Urgent Care just over a week ago for something unrelated. Everybody was masked because it's still required in clinics in my state, but even so. I sat in that waiting room around sick people for most of an hour.

Love to have a mandatory all-staff meeting at 6:30 am on a cold, windy morning. On the first day of my vacation.

(Yes, the meeting could have been an email. But it's fine, it's over. I just needed a grumble.)

(*Not very cold by the standard of genuinely cold places. But when I left the house at 6:00 the temp was about 20F/-6.5C, with the wind making it worse. The current wind chill, some hours later with the sun up, is 13F/-11C.)


Anyway, now I have a week off. I'm going to try and literally schedule myself to do something fun every day, because otherwise I know I'll just turn into a lump.

It's that 5 questions meme: my questions come to me from oursin. If you'd like 5 questions from me, just say so in a comment.

Questions and answers ( under the cut )

I put up my Christmas tree today.

I mean, it's one of these extremely stylized fake trees that are literally just a spiral cone of lights. But it is nevertheless a Christmas tree.

Daylight Savings time just ended, it's now dark at 5 pm, my apartment's badly lit, and I wanted something a bit cheery. Also, I mostly missed Christmas last year because of my back injury, and I will always resent that fact.

I just hope I'm not tempting fate.

*knocks on every wood or possibly-wood surface in the apartment*

1) I managed to get vaxed yesterday (bivalent COVID booster and flu) after last week's fiasco. The guy who took my information was kind of rude, and I was quietly seething about it while I waited. But then this customer (a man, 60-something, white) starts yelling and swearing at the pharmacist for not being able to fill a prescription for his wife, and I tried to have a little more sympathy for what it must be like working in a retail pharmacy these days.

This being the United States, as Angry Man was stomping out, I heard one of the other customers mutter "I hope he doesn't have a gun." I guess he didn't, as nothing further happened. Those few minutes of helpless fear were great, though!

I was expecting to feel awful today while my immune system threw a party, but I'm surprisingly okay. Tired, both arms sore (the pharmacist insisted on each vax in a different arm, "so that if you have a reaction we know which one it was"), but no noticeable fever or anything, unlike after my last booster.

ETA: I was the only person in the place masking properly. Other people were coming in unmasked for their COVID boosters. The pharmacist and one of the techs had their masks on their chins unless they were directly talking with a customer, and Rude Tech had no mask at all. *sigh*


2) I continue to be only interested in Our Flag Means Death. But also afraid to read most fanfic for it, especially after a chaptered fic I was following with some eagerness failed to stick the landing. I'm avoiding most fannish interaction, in fact, except here, because there has been Discourse. Oh, has there been Discourse. I hear about it third-hand on Twitter, and that's plenty.

But having said that . . .


2a) I'm probably going to participate in Our Flag Means Gifts, a Yuletide-ish fic exchange just for OFMD. I'm a bit nervous about the fact that it's being run out of Tumblr (that is, the info posts are there, but the actual exchange is on AO3), but, well, it seems worth a shot. I want to trying writing to a prompt, now that I'm writing again, and since I'm monofannish at the moment, Yuletide is right out. (Anyway, OFMD probably ceased to be Yuletide-eligible before S1 even ended.) More info about Our Flag Means Gifts here, in case you're interested.


2b) Since I'm finding it easier to try OFMD-adjacent things than actual OFMD fanfic, I read Rose Lerner's m/m romance Sailor's Delight, about a Jewish naval agent and the British officer he hopelessly--he thinks--loves. I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. I never thought I'd say of a romance novel that there wasn't enough romance in it, but that was the case here. The main characters had weirdly little interaction and no chemistry, and the personality of Augustus Brine (for that is the woefully Dickensian name inflicted on the love interest) in particular was sketched-in and undeveloped. The whole book felt like it didn't want to be a romance, it wanted to be the story of an extended Jewish family in Regency England--which would be awesome, I'd read that!--but, because the romance was still technically central and the book was the standard very short length of a self-pub romance, it didn't succeed in doing that either. Alas.


2c) I continue my re-read of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels, which continue to be a joy. I'm just finishing The Far Side of the World, part of the delightful middle stretch of books where O'Brian had settled into his story, no longer felt the need to give us every single detail of real naval actions in each book, and just carried along improvising like Jack and Stephen playing music together.

It's odd . . . the stereotype is that people who like genre fiction like tightly plotted stories, full of action, where every scene moves the adventure along. I adore genre fiction, but often what I want from it is plotless or near-plotless wanders, full of interesting incidents and lovely character exploration that do not Serve The Plot. Refuse to serve the plot, writers! Overthrow the plot! No plots, no masters!