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Cora treated me to a Dan Deacon show last night, because we'd made plans to hang out and then she remembered that she and Adam had bought tickets to go, only Adam had to work, so we still hung out and I just went in his place.

And it was lovely, because hanging out with Cora is delightful, and then I slept really well, and my body's still tired in that incredible, I just went dancing way, and coffee feels so good this morning. Mmmm.

Cora said she wasn't sure if she'd ever seen Drinkin' Out Of Cups, which Dan Deacon was involved in, and it's one of my favorite things, so I will post it here for everyone:

Mmm.

I have no idea how behind the times I am on this, but Memory Tapes' Seek Magic is a dreamy, absolutely delightful album.

Also dreamy and delightful: that silly boy cat of mine, getting up on the back of the armchair while I stand near the dresser, hooking his claws into one of the cuffs of my sweater and tugging until I turn around, then launching himself up and wrapping his arms around my neck and nuzzling the top of his head all around my jawline.

I HAVE SPENT SO MUCH OF MY WEEKEND LISTENING TO THESE SONGS: Wretches by Hop Along.

I don't, I don't even know what to say about them, really, except that at parts they're way too loud for headphones and yet all I want to do is curl up and press my hands against my ears until they're all that I hear.

Omg, omg, omg, omg. Somebody else please download them and listen to "Second Name" and "Sally" and then come be tongue-tied and flailing with me so we can shudder and wave arms at each other while we discuss our favorite parts. I CAN'T PICK MINE, AND I NEED YOUR HELP.

ALTERNATIVELY (by which I mean, additionally): Top 5 songs that make you press your hands against your ears in the good way, go! It's been a few years since I asked that, omg.

Friday night I dreamed that you came to visit, and we had dinner with my mom and my sister. My sister was rude to you, and I was embarrassed in the way I used to inevitably get with either one of them in a social setting, but not as irritated as I would have thought I'd be if it involved you.

You mentioned a Nikki, and I immediately took her to be your girlfriend, but my sister told you she didn't have a fucking clue who you were talking about, and you blushed and looked like you'd suddenly realized how awkward it was for you to bring her up in front of my family, of all people. I clarified for you while you said nothing, and you shot me a grateful half-smile, but then looked away again, all of things that made this visit an unquestionably uncomfortable decision sinking in all at once.

Later you got drunk on wine, adorable and flushed the way I'd always thought you would be. We washed the dishes together and couldn't find much to say, but your hair was falling over the same side of your face that I was standing on, and you kept your eyes on the sink the entire time, on the glint of the soapy water as it slid between your fingers. Which is to say, not on me.

But the apples of your cheeks betrayed you, sparkled at me through loose strands of your hair, and I was happy. Despite yourself, I think you were happy too.

I didn't know where you were staying, but after you'd retreated for the night I received a long e-mail that basically said, "She's out of town for the weekend, and I can't stop myself from wondering what it would be like to make love to you." There was more to the letter, rambling about less personal things that still shook me when I read between the lines. In the dream I could hear you reading every word to me, and then the next thing I knew I was sitting on your bed, waiting for you to come in from another room.

You'd left a magazine in the cubby hole of your nightstand, something like Cosmo, folded open to an advice column in which someone had written a letter that said, "My ex-boyfriend and I never sealed the deal, and now I think I have the chance, but I don't know how to tell him that I'm still interested," and there was a low, warm thrum of amusement and affection in my stomach as I skimmed the page, imagined you stumbling across the letter and saving it, hiding it under your pillow at night and letting it give you hope for the two of us.

Maybe it was even what'd inspired you to come here, and after everything that'd always made us so special, the fact that in the end it seemed like something that common, that banal was what had finally made this happen, well, how could I not love you all the more for it?

When I woke up I thought, "How funny, to dream about you for the first time now, when there were so many times before when it would have made more sense."

( And then, almost a full hour later, I realized it hadn't been the first time I dreamed about you at all. )

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I fucking love anagrams, and I've spent at least the last hour and a half entertaining myself by finding some for my own name.

Some of my favorites, best read as hypothetical newspaper headlines for maximum amusement:

1. Fatal krill spur stomach.
2. Hilt of lust: carpal marks.
3. "Fractal lark!" hums Pistol.
4. Pal of shrill tarts amuck.
5. Astral plums to filch ark.
6. Karma shortfall cuts lip.
7. Slapstick: a floral thrum.
8. Armpit, ho! Cat lurks, falls.

Man, those karma shortfalls are a real bitch. And I would kill for one of those astral plums right about now (so talented!), but I guess I've got carpal marks to keep me busy in the meantime. At least I haven't eaten any fatal krill lately...?

Someone should go warn the cat. I'll do that. And while I am, it would pretty much delight me to see what your favorite anagrams of your names are, dear friends and pals. So, you know. Hop on that. *bats eyelashes in a manly fashion*

Jesus Christ. I've watched this video at least a dozen times in the last 16 hours, and it's fucking making me cry.

Please, Mr. Postman by Hop Along, Queen Ansleis from David Senigo on Vimeo.

Fucking hell. I'm so fucking sick of feeling held in by money, anxiety, by fucking PTSD-esque breakdowns (of which I had two this week, two!), and just. Jesus Christ it's going to kill me if I never do anything that makes me feel as alive as that. If I don't do it soon.

( Other shit I want to be a part of. )

...I feel like I should mention somewhere that I uploaded Hop Along (formerly Hop Along, Queen Ansleis)'s first album for julietcetera yesterday and would totally be willing to share the link with any other interested parties. Also, she is really ridiculously gorgeous, holy crap.

Unf, I don't remember as much about it as I usually do with my dreams, but last night I totally dreamed that Emily Prentiss was my sexy mechanic girlfriend, looking pretty much exactly like Neil Patrick Harris in ( this photo. )

...only, you know, even sexier. (Considering how good NPH looks in that photo, that really is saying something.) Unf, Emily Prentiss, why aren't you a real person? And why aren't you actually my sexy mechanic girlfriend?

Man. I wish I remembered that dream half as well as I remember the other dream I had, which involved watching a "horror" film called Pornogeist and telling everyone how much work I was going to have to do to cut out the sex bits if I wanted to show the movie to my baby sister, at which point cora_the_rose explained to me v. v. patiently that it was called Pornogeist for a reason. Ahaha.

I keep looking at these pictures, taken tonight, and wondering if anybody else can fully understand what it feels when I look in the mirror and that beautiful, queer boy is what I see now.

I wish I could explain what it feels like to transition. It feels like a long drive home to me. It's being curled up in the passenger seat while somebody else drives, warmth that starts in my belly and slowly makes its way into my chest, knowing we're almost there and that the person driving's going to make sure I get there safely. It's having been on a good trip, but knowing that my bed's waiting at home, and that it's even warmer than this car, and being perfectly happy where I am for the moment, but being excited about getting to climb into that bed soon.

This is a beautiful precipice. This is my deep breath before I swandive over its edge.

I'm sleepy. I'm making sleepy metaphors. I'm sorry. It's just a nice feeling, that's all. I want to savor these days, make sure I'm properly appreciating my history, properly appreciating these early days of a journey that will never have a firm ending. I feel time slowing down as I approach the end of my estrogen-saturated days, and I can see it speeding up again on the horizon, and I wish I could make it move even slower so I could soak in as many details from as many moments as possible.

One of the things I do sort of regret about being single for most of this time, although I don't regret it in general, is that there hasn't been anyone to savor all of these changes as closely as I have. It would be nice to be able to take someone's hand and say, "Touch me here, do you feel that? That's not how it felt last week, that's not how it felt yesterday." To be able to see all the more clearly, from having not only my own perspective, but somebody else's reflected back at me at such close range. "Stand still. You know other people have always been my favorite kind of mirror." "Close your eyes. I'm going to show you everything."

So, I'm realizing more and more that the friends I spend the most time with and rely on the most emotionally are essentially friends of convenience. Ugh. I think that probably sounds horrible, but I don't mean it as negatively as it sounds. They're good people, but we're friends because we work together, mostly. And because we meet each other's needs best out of everyone else that we could be friends with at work. But the thing I'm realizing is that doesn't necessarily mean we actually do meet each other's needs, and that my needs, specifically, really aren't being met, like even a little right now.

This realization isn't entirely limited to work friends, but it's fairly well centered around them. Possibly because it's easier to spread out the disappointment to a larger circle of people who I like but mostly would not be heartbroken about if we weren't in each other's lives, as opposed to the two or three other friends I've known much longer and been much closer to who are also included in this realization as a result of awkward transition business.

Augh. It's been a bad week for social-emotional stuff. I'm feeling way too paranoid in every social interaction I have, and my disappointment in various things is manifesting itself as irrational anger with a side of uncontrollable crying every now and then. Man, I could use a hug, maybe like a long-lasting horizontal one where I get to be the little spoon or whatever that's called, have you guys heard of that? Oh, and way more of you guys in my life. That would be nice too.

...which reminds me, does anybody else have a list of fantasy friends, kind of like a fantasy baseball team? Because I totally do, and it consists of, like, people I'm friends with online that I wish I lived closer to, and friends of mine who don't know each other but totally should because in my head they get along so well, and people who I know but am not as close to as I would like to be. Sometimes I actually forget that this list is only in my head. So, does anybody else do that? If so, what does your list look like?

Appointment with GP to get referral to the endocrinologist: done.

Last (required) appointment with therapist to get recommendation letter for endocrinologist to prescribe testosterone: tomorrow. Thursday.

Initial appointment with endocrinologist: Friday!? Next Monday (the 16th).

I buzzed my head tonight, and I dreamed about you again this weekend.

Why am I always dreaming about your breasts? When I had that dream two weeks ago, I was dragging my tongue against the underswell - the crook, the heat, the place on your body which I would most like to call home - and you had tangled your fingers behind my head and let your voice ramble gently out into the soft light of the room while my tongue made its travels on your skin.

This time they were the size of miniature cupcakes, and your nipples were a pale orange-peach-tan whose tips delighted my taste buds as if they really were made of frosting. I know that your breasts are larger in real life, and I have no idea what color your nipples actually are, but I can't get the image out of my mind. Your tiny dream nipples, and how I thought I was in heaven when I felt them beading, tightening under my tongue.

Mine. For a few, brief moments I knew that you were mine.

( At first I couldn't tell if I was dreaming of the before or after hand this time. Last time we were curled up on my bed in the yellow bedroom that was my sanctuary in high school, but this time we were somewhere else entirely. Supposedly it was your room. Something tells me it was nothing like your room. )

I love these two things so much:

"She had short hair and never wore anything but Levis, boots, a black or white t-shirt, and a leather jacket. Every time she went out the door, she squared her shoulders, straightened her spine, and put purpose in her walk. When the way you look makes it clear that you are a queer sort of queer, each unmolested step down the street is a victory. Live defensively, she told herself as she strained to extend her peripheral vision to shield her sides and back. Sometimes she concentrated so hard on not smiling, not moving her ass from side to side, not giving any sign of vulnerability, that she stopped thinking for several minutes about nights when cars had screamed to a stop, disgorging gangs that chanted insults as they ran, and stopped scanning litter baskets for bottles she could break, just in case." (from "The Surprise Party")

and

" "I don't have any money," she says, as if she has read my mind and knows that I want her to save me, take me in out of the cold that is deepening as it gets darker. "I lost my job. My collective has put my stuff on the street. I was hoping maybe Lefty would be here. He seemed to be a nice guy. Maybe he would have helped me save some of my belongings. I'm going to have to find a cheap place to stay."

Well. My name is Noh Mann, but I am a nice guy, too, and her assumption that she won't get any help from me stings." (from "The Hustler")

Have I mentioned Patrick Califia's Macho Sluts here already? I haven't finished it yet, but I already know it is the most skillfully written book I've ever read and my new favorite to boot. I am not sure what to say about it that hasn't already been said by better writers than me, but it's probably the most literate book of short stories I've ever read, and I keep thinking that I wish I could go back in time and take this into my high school American Literature class, which is (and would have been) impossible for a variety of reasons, but despite that, if you know anything about that class, you'll know that it's probably the highest honor I could bestow upon any book.

Also, unrelatedly, I'm supposed to go to a party tonight that I'm really not in the mood for, but I feel like later there will be consequences for not going that I'm equally not in the mood for. Stupid social dynamics, I really despise you sometimes.

I AM BACK FROM THE COURTHOUSE.

I AM FEELING APPROXIMATELY ( THIS HAPPY. )

...and, guh, approximately this much like having super hot, super dirty sex to work off the adrenaline. Which is actually more the point of this post than the happiness bit, because on my way home from Greenfield I had this really involved fantasy that I've, uh, had before, but I realized that I've never, ever told anyone ever about this particular ~*~thing~*~ I've got.

So, um. If I were to write some sort of piece about this fantasy, or about other fantasies in the future, would anyone be interested in reading it?

Poll #1478590 just out of, uh, curiosity.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

Would you be interested in reading such things?

I won a free hour off of work this week via a departmental trivia contest, so guess what I am going to do with that?

Go to the courthouse!? Today!?

I've apparently been doing too many of these logic puzzles lately, because this morning I hit snooze way too many times, convinced that which time my alarm went off was part of a puzzle - the solution to which I hadn't yet figured out.

Aw, crap. Well, at least the supervisor-formerly-known-as-bitchy-but-favorite thought it was funny enough not to be mad at me when I was 10 minutes late this morning.

Also? I was up way too late last night. Around midnight I was reading out of Macho Sluts (♥♥♥) when Bat For Lashes' "Sarah" came on, and I thought, "This song is so creepy! I should make my friend Sarah listen to it."

I started to make a playlist, because it's silly to burn someone a CD for just one song, and then by the time I realized how late it was, it was almost two a.m. and the finished playlist didn't even have the original song on it. Ahaha.

So! I feel kind of silly now. But I think I'm going to give her the CD anyway. It's got a pretty awesome track list and I actually think she'll like it a lot. Hmm.

Lora and I went to a friend's sister's "slumber party" last night, which was hilariously awkward for me as we were in a room full of UMass sorority girls talking about sex and about guys and nobody except the small handful of people I already knew recognized that there was, you know, a guy in the room (a.k.a. me) and nobody, even the small handful of people we already knew, recognized how awkward all the compulsive heteronormativity in all the sales pitches were for both me and Lora. (Or at least me, because Lora didn't seem to mind too much. But I imagine it was weird for her too.)

There were a couple of moments where I almost blurted out that I was there. Or almost muttered, "And gentleman..." whenever anyone addressed the room with a blanket 'ladies'. But then I was worried some of the girls might get upset because they were talking about things it didn't sound like they normally talk about in front of guys, and maybe they'd have felt betrayed by my unintentionally covert presence or whatever.

Which is weird on so many levels, but one of the ones I find most baffling: why don't they talk about these things with the guys they date? I don't get it at all. Maybe I am just spoiled by (the seemingly generally followed standard of) open communication in queer relationships.

So I didn't say anything after all. It was so very bizarre of an experience... and it's especially weird because times like this show me just how much weirdness goes unnoticed by even people who are in the know. Like, my friend Sarah is a sweetheart, but even she continues to say 'ladies' all the time in addressing groups that include me, and it'd be one thing if it was something she said regardless of the gender-count of the group or if it were said in some sort of tongue-in-cheek manner or if she (or whoever else) realized the inaccuracy (when taking the word literally) and added something afterward like, "Oh, and Marshall too"... except that's generally not what happens.

Geeky language tangent: I think it'd actually be super awesome if mixed-gender groups were routinely referred to as "ladies" because blah blah blah subverting systematic male privileging. But it's when I know that that's not the case, when I know that somebody wouldn't be saying "ladies" if any guy other than me were standing there, that's when hearing "ladies" makes me sort of uncomfortable.

And when I say sort of uncomfortable, I mostly mean 1) that it makes me realize a) what a huge, huge shift in thinking it is to transition and b) how impossible it is for anyone who hasn't been here to catch every instance of something that's shifted and 2) that it makes me kind of sad that most people are going to stop paying close enough attention to catch more of those instances once I get to a certain point or once they get to a certain point in their understanding. Because, like. Things are so fucking weird. And so much weirdness just kind of slips under the radar, and I love that I'm seeing all of this now. It makes me wish everyone went through something where they paid this much attention to something as "simple" as how the world treats something as common and taken for granted as gender (and how the language we use supports that treatment), and augh. It's such a bizarre and rewarding thing to pay attention to.

( Speaking of bizarre, I had this dream last night that I joined a competitive dance coalition in Northampton. )

Anyway. After the dream I woke up feeling warm and loose in a way I don't feel like I've felt in a while and the feeling's stayed with me so far. Mmm. If that continues, today's going to be a good day.

Also, my birth certificate came today. I would be more excited, but. I've been irritable all day. So. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Also also, an offhanded comment from Annie reminded me of how much the general public thinks certain things I'm into are really kinky. I really don't think they're that kinky. Not superly so, anyway. But man. I wish I had a (gender goes here)friend so we could do those things, regardless of how kinky they may or may not be.

List 10 musical artists you like, in no specific order (do this before reading the questions below). Really, don’t read the questions below until you pick your ten artists!!!

1. Electrelane
2. Joanna Newsom
3. Sleater-Kinney
4. Kaki King
5. Tegan & Sara
6. Florence + The Machine
7. Portishead
8. Julie Doiron
9. Land of Talk
10. Cat Power

( Questions and answers! )

...also, the party was GREAT. But I got like three hours of sleep and then worked for eight hours and now I'm too worn out to update about, like, actual life things, haha. :P

This Halloween party tomorrow night is going to be effing ridic'. Annie's afraid of lobsters (like, legit afraid of them), so as the kind and caring friend that I am, that is exactly what I'm going as.

Laura and I are making a whole bunch of extra claws, too, and we plan on distributing them to the other attendees before Annie shows up.

Oh god, how in the world did I end up with an entire cabal of friends who are just as delightfully absurd as everything I love and adore?

ALSO. Today somebody told me my haircut makes me look like a guy from "some movie like Rebel Without A Cause or something." MY LIFE, IT IS COMPLETE.

Okay, so, the new T&S album: it's SO GOOD.

Buy it if you get the chance, but I'm going to go ahead and upload it anyway. (ninjascrabbit uploaded it for me first, so really I am just passing along the favor.)

Sainthood -- Tegan & Sara

I am pretty sure it's my favorite of their albums. It sounds more cohesive than they usually do. (I wonder if that's because they made a point of writing in the same space this time around.) Anyway, I actually like all of the songs, but so far my favorites are "Don't Rush", "Red Belt", "The Cure", and "The Ocean".

Enjoy!