Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

Whether I have enough whiskage in reality or not just doesn’t matter - when I look at myself in the mirror, my self-image tells me, “Be one with the teenage side burns.” And thus, earlier tonight, for the first time ever, I’ve attempted to “carve” a facial hair style. I shaved my chinny chin and left the fuzzy sides: My fuzz is currently at 2 weeks of growth and I’m going to give it about 6-8 weeks to really gauge my progress. Fun! In other news, starting tomorrow morning I’ll be injecting every week instead of every two weeks. I chose to inject every week because it is supposed to minimise the mood swings associated with the ups and down of having a lot of T in my system right after I inject, then not very much 2 weeks later when it’s time for my next shot. This has become a pretty significant issue lately (school, stress, moods!) - so this should help.

Earlier today I couldn't stand my long hair tickling my neck and conveniently spotted a classic barber pole nearby. I'd never been to a barber shop before, as they have always struck me as really male-dominated venues. According to " The Art of Manliness ", the barber shop is "... a great activity to do with your father or son. Men need traditions that can help bond them together. Visiting the barbershop with your father or son is a great tradition to begin in your family. Many men have been going to the same barber all their life and have introduced their sons to the same chair and the same barber. What a great way to bond with the men in your life!" Uh. I remember going to our neighborhood barber shop with my brother and dad back when I was just a little "girl". But as I got older, the barber shop felt less and less welcoming. The thing is, when did barber shops become so "man-only"? Barbers of former times cut hair and shave...

First it's manscaping. And now it's my first shave. I went through my usual routine: 1. Apply shaving cream 2. Shave (only going over the same spots twice, max!) 3. Rinse 4. Pat dry 5. Apply soothing shave lotion And, this time, an additional component: 6. Notice blood above lip! I was aghast. I got a little piece of toilet paper and stuck it on the bloody spot. I didn't know what else to do and took a tip from the movies. I thought I had this shaving thing down. I've shaved before hormone therapy, but these new facial hair arrivals are something I haven't encountered before. Kids Health relates to their puberty-ridden audience who are coming across these coarse, foreign whiskers for the first time with: You looked different this morning. While brushing your teeth, you gazed into the mirror and there it was — hair sprouting all over your face. It's definitely cool, but you're not quite sure whether you want to grow that big bushy bear...

And so begins the process of manscaping. What all started out as fun and games has now become a rampant mess of body hair whose length and thickness seem to know no bounds. My leg hair, for example, grows so long that it literally starts to curl at the tips, even down by my ankles. Some hairs are longer than others. I could go on with more details, but I'll spare you. Long story short, today I cracked and went out to purchase my first ever manscaping tool kit. I had no idea what I was looking for, exactly, but landed myself in an aisle packed full of various "Body & Back Groomer" products, which were somewhat larger and distinct from facial hair grooming kits. After comparing options and prices, I ultimately decided on the Remington Extendable Body & Back Groomer - extendable for those "hard to reach" places like the butt or upper back. Lovely. I haven't tried it out yet. I'm sure that I'll probably make an embarrassing patchy mess of ...

No More Homeless Pets had their 14th annual Strut Your Mutt fundraiser Saturday. Essentially the event is a pup-oriented festival after a mass horde of proud guardians and their dogs walk around the park together. When I opted to volunteer last year, I got there right at 5am with my friend, Gine. 5 flippin' a.m. We spent the 4 hours until 9 a.m. filling up swimmy tubs and pup waters. It was a lot of water. Once the actual strutting commenced, I was delegated the responsibility to lug numerous jugs of water along the route via a heavy wooden wagon contraption. Mission: Keep dog water bowls along route filled with water. Okay, sounded simple enough. As I'd lug it along, thirsty dogs would descend around the wagon and corral it into a corner where I'd sweat and grumble trying to pull it along. I'd eventually give up as dogs climbed all over the wagon, knocking jugs over and drinking.drinking.drinking. Tails wagging. Slobber and panting galore. The water wagon h...

Gadz, it's been an entire week since my last post. This month has been hectic with all the unemployment/moving shenanigans afoot. Not to mention my Internet access has been unreliable and brief when I have it. I'm also due for another awkward photo documentation, which will have to wait until I find my camera battery and get that sucker recharged. Soon, soon! I have some pretty dapper whisker growth going on that I'm excited to show off in all its action-packed scattered and subtle glory. It's actually visible (gasp)! So visible that I tried.tried.tried to hold on to it for as long as I could muster but HAD to shave when I just couldn't take it anymore. I was a trooper and held out for a bit there so I could photo document - but like I said, I haven't been able to find my camera battery amongst the scatter of cardboard boxes and piles o' crap to put on freecycle/donate/free box. It's really a wonder how much one accumulates living somewhere. I re...

I saw Watchmen last Friday with a valiant nerd posse and I was entirely blown away. I'd read the comic book some time ago and recalled that it was an incredibly raw and realistic alternate United States where deconstructed super heroes emerged around the 1940s. As Hilary Goldstein put it in 2005: "No comic book has been the subject of more essays and serious literary discussion than Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. It has been named one of the 100 greatest novels of the past century by Time Magazine. Released 20 years ago, the 12-issue maxi-series was a groundbreaking achievement for comics. Written "for adults," Watchmen opened the doors for thought-provoking and intelligent comics in the mainstream. Two decades after its arrival, there is still no greater comic book." Being a fan of the comic with the political undertones, heroes, anti-heroes, a giant blue pecker, street-fighting lesbians and pirates... I was anxious about how Hollywood would...

Not too long ago all women were feminine, wanted to wear dresses, cook dinner for their husbands, and have babies. Nowadays, some women like to wear pants, some don't like cooking at all, some have no desire to procreate, some cut their hair short. Women didn't change. Culture did. (Intrinsically, I mean, as diverse individuals with a whole range of interests and modes of expression.) And, when culture allows it, a lot of diversity and variation come peeping through the grimy cracks. If we took women of today and plopped them into the 40s, it would be all kinds of gender horrifying chaos. People would be calling them mentally ill, transsexuals, cross-dressers, gender rebels, on and on. Panic in the disco! It's interesting to me, wondering how it is that I'm identifying as a person who's ' transgender ' or ' genderqueer ' and how these terms are only the most applicable because of the culture we're all living in. A byproduct of the ti...

Gadz. Yesterday was exhausting. It's a highly dramatic analogy, but it felt like we were all skipping aboot on a field of green grass and daises (doesn't everyone feel that way about work?) and then, next thing everyone knew, we're lined up against a wall and higher management takes aim. Bullets are whizzing by, it's a whirlwind, friends are getting hit and collapsing. Tears galore. On one hand it's sad to see them hit and then, on the other, everyone who's still standing is wondering who's going to get shot next. It's like I dodged a bullet and, once the bullets stopped whizzing by, I kind of stumbled off of the bloody field through a haze of smoke shell shocked thinking, " what just happened? " Moral of the highly dramatic not even entirely relevant analogy: I was really tired last night. I usually volunteer until 9pm but left early to go home to get some rest. I actually ended up popping pimples and staying up late watching Prison Break w...

This is embarrassing. My co-worker caught me reading about how to shave. I was taking notes and everything. "apply warm, wet towel to face for 3 min", "apply shave gel", "shave with grain"... no facial hair yet, but, there ain't no thang wrong with being prepared! Hudson's Guide: All About Shaving