Lots of queer softball, job hunting, packing, and gender pronoun mishaps galore. I will be moving this Wednesday into my 3 bedroom duplex pimp pad where I can live out the American dream of having half a backyard to BBQ in.
Queer softball has been difficult. I mentioned that I'd been roped into joining a gaggle o' faggle softball league a few weeks ago in a previous post, where I also stumbled across a predicament in regards to binding that has prevented me from participating in sports ever since being a tweeny bop high schooler.
The whole scenario of running around with breasts that my brain isn't connected to is incredibly awkward, uncomfortable, and upsetting. It's a definite trigger for feeling the umph! of that disconnect (aside from intimate relationships), where the mental/physical mismatch is incredibly difficult to ignore.
I've been to a few practices so far and one glorious game where the final score was 34 to 3 (we got the 3). I tried loosely binding at one practice, but the compression made it difficult to do all the little twisty maneuvers necessary while sweating and ball chasing, PLUS left my back in pain and my chest aching. No good.
So now I wear a sports bra, which brings on the feminine gender pronouns galore (which is bearable) but is just really mentally painful to endure (physiologically). Still, I've been enduring it for years. The difference now being that I'm finally doing something about it. I'm in transition and feeling genuine hope for the first time in the trans department, so I'm finding that I can do this softball thing and ignore the reality of my physical situation. For now, anyway, knowing that it won't be like this forever and a solution is coming.
Speaking of softball, yesterday I experienced the most horrific and dramatic softball moment of all time. Of all my one games thus far!
Since I don't own a mitt and whined about it (which is a very rewarding tactic), Gina let me borrow one. She presented it to me and said, "My grandfather played with this mitt. My father played with this mitt. My brother played with this mitt. And now it's my turn, ... but since I work on Sundays and can't play softball, you may now play with this mitt."
I accepted this great honor bestowed upon me and dawned this mega broken in mitt at yesterday's game.
Low and behold, it was essentially like catching big softballs bare-handed. There's no padding remaining in this mitt!
After a bit of warm up I removed the mitt and noticed that an area on my upper palm was starting to swell and turn purple. Alright, this is bad, but I can hold out just this one game, I thought. So I put the mitt back on, caught big ass soft balls, removed it, and that same gets-hit-every-time area was more swollen and filled with oodles of grumpy blood.
It looked like a gelatinous mound ready to burst on impact.
I underestimated the power of mitt padding, by far.
I forced myself to put that limp mitt back on, stood at third base hoping.hoping.hoping the ball wouldn't come to me. But, of course, not only did it come to me - it came to me after the batter whacked it high up into the sky. I've never seen a ball fly higher (I'm sure the swollen blood blister on my upper palm exacerbated the visual), and it plummeted towards the Earth - straight towards that pocket of blood hiding in my mitt.
I gritted my teeth, contemplated just catching it with my bare right hand or feigning a slip, while images of my blood popping palm flashed through my noggin.
And then the ball hit.
Hard.
Right on to the swollen non-padded blood-filled pocket in my palm.
Even though profanity is against the rules, I couldn't prevent the massive F bomb that came spurting out of my mouth in that moment. The pain instantly shot from that big swollen blister down my forearm and to the tip of my elbow.
And while the F bomb blew and my forearm quivered, I saw that ball roll out of the mitt and into the dirt.
Time to get a new mitt.
Queer softball has been difficult. I mentioned that I'd been roped into joining a gaggle o' faggle softball league a few weeks ago in a previous post, where I also stumbled across a predicament in regards to binding that has prevented me from participating in sports ever since being a tweeny bop high schooler.
The whole scenario of running around with breasts that my brain isn't connected to is incredibly awkward, uncomfortable, and upsetting. It's a definite trigger for feeling the umph! of that disconnect (aside from intimate relationships), where the mental/physical mismatch is incredibly difficult to ignore.
I've been to a few practices so far and one glorious game where the final score was 34 to 3 (we got the 3). I tried loosely binding at one practice, but the compression made it difficult to do all the little twisty maneuvers necessary while sweating and ball chasing, PLUS left my back in pain and my chest aching. No good.
So now I wear a sports bra, which brings on the feminine gender pronouns galore (which is bearable) but is just really mentally painful to endure (physiologically). Still, I've been enduring it for years. The difference now being that I'm finally doing something about it. I'm in transition and feeling genuine hope for the first time in the trans department, so I'm finding that I can do this softball thing and ignore the reality of my physical situation. For now, anyway, knowing that it won't be like this forever and a solution is coming.
Speaking of softball, yesterday I experienced the most horrific and dramatic softball moment of all time. Of all my one games thus far!
Since I don't own a mitt and whined about it (which is a very rewarding tactic), Gina let me borrow one. She presented it to me and said, "My grandfather played with this mitt. My father played with this mitt. My brother played with this mitt. And now it's my turn, ... but since I work on Sundays and can't play softball, you may now play with this mitt."
I accepted this great honor bestowed upon me and dawned this mega broken in mitt at yesterday's game.
Low and behold, it was essentially like catching big softballs bare-handed. There's no padding remaining in this mitt!
After a bit of warm up I removed the mitt and noticed that an area on my upper palm was starting to swell and turn purple. Alright, this is bad, but I can hold out just this one game, I thought. So I put the mitt back on, caught big ass soft balls, removed it, and that same gets-hit-every-time area was more swollen and filled with oodles of grumpy blood.
It looked like a gelatinous mound ready to burst on impact.
I underestimated the power of mitt padding, by far.
I forced myself to put that limp mitt back on, stood at third base hoping.hoping.hoping the ball wouldn't come to me. But, of course, not only did it come to me - it came to me after the batter whacked it high up into the sky. I've never seen a ball fly higher (I'm sure the swollen blood blister on my upper palm exacerbated the visual), and it plummeted towards the Earth - straight towards that pocket of blood hiding in my mitt. I gritted my teeth, contemplated just catching it with my bare right hand or feigning a slip, while images of my blood popping palm flashed through my noggin.
And then the ball hit.
Hard.
Right on to the swollen non-padded blood-filled pocket in my palm.
Even though profanity is against the rules, I couldn't prevent the massive F bomb that came spurting out of my mouth in that moment. The pain instantly shot from that big swollen blister down my forearm and to the tip of my elbow.
And while the F bomb blew and my forearm quivered, I saw that ball roll out of the mitt and into the dirt.
Time to get a new mitt.
Did it burst on the last catch?
ReplyDeleteKammorremae: What the frak! I just posted a response and some kind of error popped up and obliterated it!
ReplyDeleteAhem, moving on. It did NOT burst, surprisingly. I was done, though. And so was the game. After whimpering about it oodles, I put ice on it for the rest of the day.
If it had burst, however, I'd be very grumpy about NOT having my camera battery - because that would, by far, be a kodak moment.
It might be wise to have a teammate help you with your catching skills. Getting a bliser like that from a softball can't be normal.
ReplyDeleteKammorremae: I'm assuming that if we all played without mitts blisters like that would be very, very normal. Hence the reason it occurred to someone once upon a time to invent a mitt. With padding. Mine had NO PADDING. :(
ReplyDeleteHeh, I play catch with hard-balls frequently, sans gloves. I figured that softballs were easier on the hands, guess the name is misleading, :P
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I caught a baseball to the right eye about three weeks ago, good times.
Kammorremae: Wtf were you trying to catch a baseball with your left eye for? And this coming from someone who just told ME I need catching lessons!? ;P
ReplyDelete* er, correction. right eye!
ReplyDeleteIt skipped off my hand into my face. I may or may not have been trying to catch the ball with my eyes closed.
ReplyDeleteso.close.to.sexy.voice!
ReplyDeletewhere do you play softball? or what is your team name? I wonder if I get to see you face off with my sister and Brandon sometime this season :) Get a new mitt though... that whole experience sounds terrible...
ReplyDelete