A guest from the past

A week with a bit less socializing, and more reading. Also more time spent working out, since it was Week 1 of a new 8-week session with my Aussie coach and that's always a comedy show as I figure out how to do things. I'm feeling less verbal than expected, at the moment, with a bit more visual and sensation focus happening. I've started to take pictures of things I see that I might like to draw, and to moonwalk here and there when I'm at home. (It's a nice little foot fidget I learned in 2020 during semi-lockdown and, hey, maybe I'll learn even more foot fidgets if I want to. I have, I realize, a somewhat juvenile fascination with and appreciation for small bits of physical playfulness. And I'm all right with that.)

Continuing to get an education on how well I can sleep. The tiredness now shows up, grabs me very firmly, and takes me under fast as soon as I stop resisting it; waking's a bit more gradual but not dogged by exhaustion either, and then there's coffee and the crossword to look forward to.

A discovery: I really appreciate how possible it is to course-correct the day, when the evening is mostly free. Like the evening I felt like I hadn't created anything all day, and so I sat with my beading stuff and made Perse a pair of earrings (dupes of these, which I'd bought for myself. I really like the design). The time when I was overstimulated in the afternoon from hanging out with a kid, and so I collapsed on the couch reading my book in the evening.

Peri, etc: the first week on HRT didn't seem to do anything, but then this last Friday I think I didn't have any hot flashes. Since then it's been either zero or one gentle one per day. So... it's working?? Is it? I had a bit of a rash on my belly where I took off the first estrogen patch, and it didn't fade instantly and I worried about that, but it seems to be almost faded now. I'm annoyed to note that I have not lost weight since last weighing myself 2 weeks ago, though, and it could be the hormonal fuckery changing things or it could be nearly anything else. Heck, maybe it's all shoulder muscle. That would be nice.

I bought cheap joggers -- or are they harem pants? -- with slits running up each leg from ankle to upper thigh, and they make me almost want a hot flash because they're amazing for thermal regulation. Stand up, total coverage. Sit down and pull my knees up, suddenly I'm not wearing pants at all! Hah. I've seen people take fun pictures of double stag handstand in pants like this, with the pants draping off a leg, and maybe I'll try that someday soon.

I got myself and the bug signed up for COBRA this morning, so there's our health care all set through next October (at a price). It's good to do some paperwork / email / digital whatever in the late morning from my desk, anyway, because that's when I most often see the backyard squirrels and know when I should take walnuts down to Wispy. I did a bunch of math in there one day last week, figuring out our quarterly estimated taxes -- which were zero -- and that was annoying until I realized that the annualized numbers probably won't change between now and the end of the year. So I probably won't really need to do the math again every quarter.

The sidewalk tree I've been watering is now the tallest on the block, and the only one flowering. They're not all the same kind of tree, so for all I know they're all equally healthy, but also maybe I'm a good tree guardian and the water's been good for it.

Random and mildly disruptive: I went back to Zillian as a lunch guest for the first time on Thursday, because the new manager of one of my people thought it would be nice to have me there to tell me she'd been promoted. That was a truly sweet idea. The promoted person, who I've seen all the way through from junior hire to staff software engineer (and now she's going to manage, OMG), was happy to see me and also got choked up. She doesn't know how tired I got, and how impossible her sheer mental energy level seems to me now; she only saw the competence. And I guess that's the way of things. I think the tiredness is more psychological than physical, and I'm trying not to fall into ageism here, but I might understand some of my early-career memories better now that I know how few fucks my supervisors had left to give. Behold the field, indeed.

On a related note, I'm hearing about a retirement/sabbatical rule of thumb I'd never heard before: that you should rest for one month per year of service, as a starting point. Wild, man. How much better life might be if we all took a month off per year during our careers.

(To catch up any readers who aren't seeing access-list only posts, my last day at Zillian was 4/4 and I'm now very much taking a break). This has been a really interesting week of trying to remember how not to be in a hurry, and reaching out to some people I haven't seen in a long while. Zillian now goes on without me, and had a big round of layoffs on Friday without me too.

Crashing out -- after a few nights of continuing to not sleep too well, I started to get through the nights, and now I'm getting properly tired. The eyelid twitches are less present, or less often present. I think I'd be entirely justified if I just turned into a zombie for all of April, and haven't really done that (yet?) but I'm at least resisting any big new commitments while I remember how to not be rushing all the time. It's partly in this vein that I haven't reconfigured things like my workout and chore schedule, yet, even though they should probably change. And I keep telling myself "do it the nice way" -- put the stuff back in the cabinet instead of leaving it on the bathroom counter, clean the litterbox every morning because it's not actually difficult, walk the friend to their subway stop after lunch. The days are not infinite, but I can choose to do fewer things better when I'm not (also) required to do someone else's damn to-do list. Right now that feels like a good start.

Estrogen, peri, etc -- I went to the doctor on Tuesday morning and came away with prescriptions for estrogen and progesterone, as well as information about vaginal moisturizers, which are not the same as lube. ( Read more... ) I got a super uncomfortable hot flash on Thursday that seemed to go on forever, with accompanying queasy feeling, so I'm hoping this stuff works. Mmmmm, and also I weighed in a little heavier than I like at the doctor's office, which might be all part of the same thing or might be all the Pocky I ate in order to get through promo discussions. So I'm gently keeping that in mind also.

Identity updates -- I updated LinkedIn and FB to indicate clearly that I'm an ex-Zillianaire, but haven't found the words to write public posts about the transition yet. I took all related T-shirts out of my closet though (ordered a couple of new ones: behold The Female Gaze). I also cancelled the Thistle meals that we'd been eating on Mondays and Tuesdays -- which resulted in my seeing melebeth IRL, for the first time in ages, when I was looking for a way to return the final bag. Sometimes you try to cancel a subscription and you end up meeting a (big) puppy!

Having Some Damn Fun -- Level99 with motyl and curiouserrandy was really excellent and delightful, and the next day I had lunch/coffee with another recent-ish Zillian escapee who feels like a peer. It was ultra useful to speak with people who are just a smidgen ahead of me on the same exact journey, and two people said it was a relief to talk to me too. Also, Trident still has its breakfast burrito, which I have loved since the mid-90s. In a nod to my recently past self, I have also now done the NYT crossword puzzle Monday through Saturday; Saturday was hard enough to be on the edge of stressful, but it succumbed after 43 minutes. I'm sure I'll get faster... not that I have to, given that it's just for fun, but I think faster will be more fun.

I've been doing a bit more reading, and may yet again be bouncing off Terry Pratchett, the same way I think I did in college. Slowly realizing that I love a snarky main character, but snarky omnicient narrators often come off as unkind to me.

There's so much more -- I came across some great writing prompts! And I'm angry about how they handled the main character's glittery hair in Anora! One of my tenants lost their job, which sucks! And there's a half-baked poem in my head, and quite a lot of et cetera! But now it's time to go shopping for sushi ingredients and get on with handstands, which are their own topic for another day.