Erin's Blog

Link/Tip of the day:

If you use Mozilla (you should be!) then you will find this link to the "Extension Room" pretty handy.

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More boring stuff about my life....

I've been helping a friend sell stuff on eBay -- she doesn't have a digital camera, so I've been taking all the pics and hosting them for her. Check out her stuff for sale here.

I've been in a pretty good mood the past few days. I have talked a bit online with Mel. I am extremely anxious when we talk to the point of crying sometimes. Bizarrely, I've never felt this anxious before in my life, at any other time. Now I know why people take anti-anxiety medications!

Another good friend of mine who I thought I had lost due to my transition responded to an e-mail I sent about visiting the DC area. I am happy about this -- it is one of the things that has been nagging me in the back of my head ever since I came out. Interestingly, it was nagging me to the point of writing a letter, if not for him to read, at least for therapeutic purposes of my own. I was planning on writing the letter in the time frame I am writing this blog entry, but when I came home from my morning piece, I was surprised to find their response in my inbox. If you're reading this, my friend, thank you!

On the subject of letter writing, I have two more letters to write. Again, even if I don't send them, it will help me get my feelings out. Maybe I will share them with my therapist?

Speaking of which, my therapist gave me some homework at our last session. I have completed some of it, but have a few things left to do.

Part of my homework was to read a book. I went to the library and checked out a copy of True Selves by Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley. This is a VERY good book -- it helps explain transsexualism and provides an insight into the transsexual experience from many perspectives: the transsexual's, the parents', the spouse, therapist's, co-worker's and employer's. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about transsexualism, in addition to my family and friends.

Get the book here:

True Selves : Understanding Transsexualism -- For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals

More of my homework was to make an appointment with a psychiatrist who could prescribe me anti-depressants. Done. I will see him at 9:30am on Thursday.

My last assignment is to write to an inanimate object. Anything I want. For 20 minutes. I need to figure out what to write to! My scotch tape dispenser? The box fan that is in the bedroom? The two bottles of hot sauce sitting on my computer desk?

Work is going well -- things are falling into place schedule-wise, and I have made arrangements to take people's cars to the various relief points, so now I don't have to wait around to ride the bus and light rail to where I need to be to make relief. That means I can have more time in the day to do things I want to. ::yay!::

Oh well, enough writing. Time for a nap.

_erin

More boring stuff about my life....

Today at therapy was rough. I like my therapist a lot -- she understands me, and is making me think in different ways than I've been used to. I've been finding out that I blame myself for a lot of what's happened, and she's showing me that I shouldn't be doing that.

Today when I got home from therapy, this was waiting in my mailbox:



This is another step in the right direction for me.

I am still making plans to see my friends and family in the DC area. I can't wait to see everyone! I e-mailed my mom and my best friend from when I lived on the "other side" -- I don't expect to hear back from them, to be honest, but I figured I'd at least try to see them on my visit.

The past 2 days I had off as my "weekend." I didn't really do anything except stay at home, get on the computer, and go to my therapist's. I seem to have no motivation to do much else. I did try to go to the library to pick up a book I put on hold, but when I got there at 5:25pm, the guard said it was closed. Bleh.

Oh well, I need to get up early and it is late.

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

I went to New Mexico a few weeks ago (I blogged about it, look for it below) and just now got around to posting the pictures. Enjoy.

There is actualy a picture of me I like in there:



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More boring stuff about my life....

Work goes. Life goes.

I talked with my manager about my birthday and my floating holiday. She said that the birthday could be moved to any day within the two week pay period. Unfortunately, my birthday is the last day of the pay period, so I couldn't move it any further past my birthday. Oh well.

I booked plane tickets to visit friends and family in October. I will be flying on my birthday to Philadelphia, where an ex-girlfriend of mine will pick me up. I will spend a the night in Philly, then the next day will go to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. Another of my exes is making me a costume. Sweet!

After the two days in PA, I will travel to VA to hang with my good friends J and V. They are being nice and letting me spend the night there, too!

Then I will have two days to visit friends and family in the DC area. I've already talked to my dad and brother, as well as my good friend from where I used to work. I still have a few people to call to figure out plans.

Oh well, that seems to be the news of the week.

'night!

_erin

More boring stuff about my life....

Wow, it's been almost two weeks.

Things have been going pretty well for me. Job is still going nicely. It is indeed good to have a regular schedule now, no matter how bizarre that regular schedule is.

My apartment is still a mess. I need to unpack things still. I am missing some things, too. :-( Hopefully they will turn up after I'm finished unpacking.

I am planning a trip out to the east coast to visit family and friends. I am using my birthday (a paid day off!) and a foating holiday. I will probably throw in an unpaid day or two, as well. I don't have enough time to visit with everyone!

Some of my friends in Philly want to take me to the Renaissance Festival there. Sounds like fun to me! One of them even offered to make me a costume if I paid for the materials. Sweet!

Unfortunately, my cell phone won't work on the east coast. Bummer.

While I am gone, I am letting a good friend of mine stay in my place. I think it is a bizarre situation as to why she needs to stay at my place, but if you know me, I am always one to help out if I can.

Tomorrow I will be seeing my therapist in a break from our regular routine. After tomorrow, we will see each other every-other Thursday, now that Thursday is one of my days off.

Well, I have to get ready to go back to work.

Later.

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

I found this site by accident, and it is effing cool. There is a small download that is a plug-in for your browser (Mozilla, IE, FireFox and Netscape are supported on Mac, Windows and Linux) but it does not install any type of ad-ware or spyware.

StumbleUpon.

My StumbleUpon page is here.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Been working hard. I looked at my DOT hours for the past 8 days and I am at 61.5 hours. Very close to our 65 hour limit. My next paycheck should be Good.

On August 24th, I "voted" for the work I will be doing for the next four months. I got day reliefs -- where I work a specific run for a day when the regular operator has off. Everybody has different days off. The most senior people likely take Saturday and Sunday. When it was my turn to vote all that was left was either Tuesday/Wednesday or Wednesday/Thursday. My days off for the next four months will be Wednesday and Thursday. On Mondays I will be working 9:36, Tuesdays 9:33, Fridays 9:03, Saturday 9:07 and Sunday 10:54. This works out to be just over 48 hours of time. I can live with that. I also like this because I will know my schedule in advance, whereas in the past (and currently, up until Sept. 5th) I find out what I am working the next day only the night before.

Last night I went with my friend D to play Bingo. In the third game I won $100. Sweet. I don't think I've ever won anything like that before. I gave D $40 of it because it was her idea and she found the place. I figured that was fair. At the end of the game I was falling asleep. I was tired. D kept poking me with the blotter to wake me up! I had red ink all over my left cheek, LOL! I got home and crashed right away. I had to get up at 4:00am today to be at work by 5:30.

Work today is in three pieces -- I was in for a morning run, I go back at 2pm for an afternoon run, then I go back again for an evening rush hour run. What is nice is the runs are short (less than 2 hours each) but I am getting paid 3:15 for each run. 10.63 hours of pay for 6 hours of work. Niiiice.

With my new work schedule, I will need to reschedule my appointments with my therapist. We used to meet on Friday evenings. Oh well, I'll see what I can do.

Now that I know my days off (my "weekend") I am trying to schedule some time to come out to the east coast, where I grew up. I haven't been "home" since October of 2002. I will likely only have 4 or 5 days, but it should be enough to catch up with family and friends.

I went to the DMV a few days ago to change my address. Amazingly, it was free. Then I went to the title/registration office to change my addy there, too, and again, it was free. They printed me a new registration card, but didn't replace my title.

My chatterbox (see chat link at top of the page) was almost deleted because of inactivity. Yikes. I made a post to it to prevent the deletion, but if you are reading this, post something every once in a while! :-)

::hugs::

_erin