If anyone would like a long-distance healing session (or an in-person one if you're physically close enough!), please let me know. I may not be able to take a lot of requests if I get inundated, but I will trust the energy to guide me toward who will be best served by it at this time and guide me back to those who would be better served by it at another time.

I spent a lot of time at the Gathering giving and receiving healing energy healing sessions, and I NEED NEED NEED to do more, especially if I find that the massage program is too much physical body and not enough energy work. I need the grounding in physical bodywork and I need to balance that with metaphysical healing work on other people.

i start massage school tomorrow!

please send good energy. i'm having a lot of fears come up for me about it right now.

I'm home!

I'm exhausted.

The Gathering was AMAZING. I'll post more about it soon, I promise.

I had no internet the whole week. What did I miss?

I am leaving for the Friends General Conference Summer Gathering in Johnstown, PA. I'll be gone for a week with extremely limited internet access. Feel free to call me! Calling me during the day today is highly encouraged, now that I've got a cell phone with a working speakerphone, as I'll be driving all day in a Very Straight Line (I-70 goes all the way from Indianapolis to the PA Turnpike and it is the Straightest Most Boring Highway Ever). Johann (my giant teddy bear) is great company, but he doesn't talk much.

I'm excited and nervous, and looking forward to seeing at least a couple of you there!

I subscribe to a daily Bible study column produced by the Metropolitan Community Church where I attend. It's a very popular column; people all over the world read it, which is one reason I love it...when I read and contemplate it each day, I know that people all over the planet are also reading it, and finding affirmation from a church community with a strong, outspoken commitment to embracing everyone as a Child of God, especially people who have struggled with our sexuality and/or gender identity.

I started writing some thoughts that came up for me as I was considering the passages from today and yesterday's column, and somehow this whole semi-polished piece of writing came out of me. (This is why I don't go to school: I can only produce this kind of work when I'm not doing it "on command", and in fact, I was motivated to write this out of an inexplicable need to procrastinate writing my massage school application essay.)

( read it? i think it's pretty good stuff. )




What do you think about these passages and their messages?
What infinitely abundant resources do you like a lot? Don't worry about condensing them into one-word answers; I just wanted to make the prayer short and sweet because I've already given us a lot to think about here.

Also, if you found it difficult to relate to this post because the Bible doesn't work for you for whatever reason, please let me know. I am interested in finding other ways to communicate about these ideas with you and have no need to push you into being inspired by the Bible just because I happen to like it!

My shrink brought his NEW PUPPY to therapy!!!

It was the best therapy EVER. With a cute little shelter puppy running around and hopping in my lap and barking at the birds out the window, I stayed in a really chill and happy space long enough that we got some REAAAALLY good work done. I told him he has to bring her EVERY TIME now.

aechei and Keenan came to visit me, en route from Northampton to LA. It was AWESOME having them here. I hope they come back sometime.

There's a LOT going on. As usual.

Someday, my body will not be in pain every time I try to do anything useful with it.

AND ON THAT DAY

I WILL HAVE

A CLEAN APARTMENT.

*glares helplessly at the mess*

It's a LITTLE better than it was an hour ago, but there's no such thing as a little better when it comes to tidying my space. Either it's CLEAN or it's NOT, and there's really NOTHING I can do to turn this place around from NOT, since I'm not Harry Potter and I have neither a wand nor a house elf. But at least I was able to get enough things accomplished in here so that my friend can come over and take my laundry, and hopefully clean my kitchen.

I have people I've never met in person before coming over here in two days, and I'm thoroughly embarrassed by what a wreck this place is probably still going to be then, unless something miraculous on the wand/elf spectrum happens between now and then. :-/

Thank you all for the prayers and hugs and good stuff, keep 'em coming. The situation is far from resolved, but I have taken excellent care of myself all day and at least for right now I feel like I can handle whatever comes up. I got plenty of sleep last night and I've been meditating, practicing yoga, singing, visiting my neighbor (I have a friend from church living two doors down from me now!!) and drinking good tea all afternoon.

I'm so fucking excited about this concert tonight. Holy shit. Someone from choir fucking GAVE ME A TUXEDO. Like, "here, I just bought one that fits me better, if you like this one go ahead and keep it"!! It's too big but it looks amazing anyway. I hope someone takes photos. And people I love are actually coming to the show TO SEE ME. Because I gave them tickets. And they're all excited about it. Like, they're not JUST coming because I'm cool, they're choir geeks too. And they're the familyest family I've got right now.

Yoga is amazing. I'm excited that I'm doing it. I've started using hand mudras, which is intense as a meditation practice, and both spiritually and physically great for my hands. And I'm getting stronger and more flexible every day.

Hey Team Awesome,
I don't really want to go into the details here right now, but I'm dealing with some big shit right now and would really appreciate an infusion of prayers, love, positive energy, Reiki, magic mojo, happy thoughts, etc.

Some recent events totally out of my control led to stuff happening yesterday which was bad enough all by itself, but also led to an enormous amount of deep emotional triggers getting set off like the dominoes from hell. I didn't actually even realize how bad it was getting, because I instinctively repress shit so effectively, until I literally almost passed out and had to leave in the middle of dress rehearsal. And I'm someone who's been fighting chronic pain conditions for years, but if I've got choir rehearsal I WILL keep right on singing until it's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE...which is just how bad it got last night, and I've NEVER reached that point before.
So now on top of the shit that's causing me problems in the first place...now the possibility of my passing out onstage tonight has become a very real and legitimate concern.

I made it home okay, and I've been spiralling between spazzing and repressing ever since, with sporadic stretches of "actually managing to deal with this impressively well". Right now I feel like probably I'm gonna be okay, but I've been back and forth from there enough times in the last 12 hours that I don't exactly have much faith in it as an objective reality.

It's okay to ask me about what's going on, but if I can't deal with talking about it when you ask I'll definitely say so.

Today is my first testosteroniversary! God what an amazing year of transformation this has been.

This is what's been going on:

• I had my 3-week post-op check-up with my surgeon today. I am healing GREAT. I don't need to see him again for 6 months.
  
• YES, my arms are getting better!!! Within 3 days of the surgery I could already clench my fists all the way, and within a week I could sit with my hands supporting me from behind without shaking or falling.
  
• Yoga is going great! I loved the class and will continue with it for [all eternity?! :D]
  
• I am starting massage school on July 7. I will have some physical restrictions the first month or so, but overwhelmingly all the physical and financial and logistical miracles have fallen into place just right and I have the definite go-ahead from my doctor to start classes. This will be an excellent way for me to practice using my body PROPERLY, too.
  
• COME HEAR MY CHOIR SING ON SATURDAY!!! We (the Indianapolis Men's Chorus) are doing our "Sounds of Pride" show on Saturday, June 21 at 8pm at Ben Davis High School.
  
• I'll be at the FGC Summer Gathering from June 28-July 5. I AM EXCITED.
  
  I may not have been entirely clear about this, but my extended limited computer use is NOT TEMPORARY. I will NOT be returning to a lifestyle where I hang out on the internet day in and day out. It is not good for me, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, any-at-all-y. you are NOT going to get the same level of connection with me from reading my journal as you've been accustomed to. I would LOVE to stay in touch with you by phone, and if you would also love this, be sure to let me know...I'll call you, you can call me, we can talk on the phone! Also, I have this sweet apartment now and you can totally come visit me at it!
  
  Please be aware that I am LESS likely to post "updates" like this one, and MORE likely to randomly post when I feel like posting...which means you are unlikely to know what's going on in my life if you only read my LJ. NOT THAT THIS HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE...but it's going to become MORE so, not less so, because I'm being intentional about it. Thank you for supporting me in taking care of myself! :)
  
  Also, something seriously unbelievably amazing happened yesterday. Something I've been dreaming of manifesting for a really long time, and I finally got up the balls to take the first step in asking for the help I needed to make it happen. I'm not quite ready to post about it. I'm hardly even ready to believe it myself, either that I actually asked for what I wanted finally or that I got the answer I wanted from the very first person I asked. But it was the best 'versary present I could possibly have given myself.
  
  
  Life is good. :)

I am UNBELIEVABLY resistant to change when it comes to my computer.

This is your opportunity to attempt to convince me that switching to Firefox 3 is a better idea than sticking with the perfectly good Firefox I have right now.

overwhelmed
sore
tired
lonely
sometimes i'm afraid my body is always just going to HURT somehow
feeling like i can't communicate
like i have to be on the computer because that's how to be not alone
which just makes me feel more alone.

I AM LAYING FLAT ON MY FRONT SIDE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!

every front part of me is touching the bed AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!

it's even harder to type like this, though. ;-P

i hardly got any sleep last night and almost convinced myself that i wasn't in good enough shape to go to Pride at all today. ruby_raindrop talked me into going anyway, and i'm SO glad ze did. i ended up walking there...slowly, but not too painfully...and made it just in time for the parade.

it was an awesome festival. i ran into tons of friends, many of whom i haven't seen since before the surgery, and there was lots of great hugging and catching up and telling people all about my new chest. and there was much rejoicing. :D

the men's choir performed at 1:45. i've never sang with a choir that's this much fun to perform with before! we wore our purple choir polos which are the exact same color as my hair! someone joked that they'd picked that color to match my hair on purpose. i said, "honey, i think y'all picked this color before i was BORN." ;-)

then i got a ride home from my friends, and promptly took off my clothes and had the greatest 3 hour nap EVER. :)

well, the good news is, my body is getting WAY more effective at letting me know when it's in pain.

this actually IS, i feel, a very good and healthy sign.

even though it means i'm in a heck of a lot of pain right now. :-/

i'm posting right now from the wii. avoiding the computer is really hard, but my body feels SO much better when i do.

my body and i are struggling through an intense releasing phase. i am finding it very scary and uncomfortable to be experiencing this all alone, and also i am very conscious that god is with me all the time and that maybe having other people around and involved would only impede my process.


how can something so uncomfortable be so comforting?

does anyone get what i mean when i say that?





today my doctor did the most intense bodywork on me that we have ever done in the year we've been doing this.





i have way too much to say for a post from the wii. i guess that's kinda the point of my being in a releasing phase. i'll have to find other ways to get this all out.

whoa.

ok, this is the plan.

i'm going to go put some clothes on
and then i'm going to see if i can drive.
if i can drive, i'm going to drive to...yoga class

i just called them and they definitely have a "yoga therapy" class tonight well-suited for a transgender person recovering from chest surgery and they are looking forward to seeing me in half an hour for the pre-class meditation.

think good thoughts for this body.

still really swollen
especially under my arms
but other than that i'm doing great :D

PLEASE come visit me, i've hardly seen any people since thursday and it's lonely here!

operation shower: resounding success! :D

my bathroom is soaked. this is totally okay.

my hands are getting better REALLY fast. i can already clench my fists again and support my body weight in a sitting-up position with my hands either flat or in fists.

even my doctor, who's had WAY more faith than i have in my body's ability to heal itself this past year, was amazed by how quickly my hands have been coming back. i may be able to start massage school as soon as july.

i'm still taking it really easy. one day at a time. i'm not going to rush anything. i'll wait as long as i have to, to make sure i heal properly.

this body i have right now is an ABSOLUTE FUCKING MIRACLE.

my next projects include:
-learning sign language while i'm resting
-starting a daily practice of EXTREMELY GENTLE yoga, with the goal of working up to being able to do a more physically intense routine as my body heals
-calling some local yoga centers that offer inexpensive yoga classes well-suited for someone recovering for surgery (of which there are actually quite a few in indianapolis, several potentially within walking distance of my apartment!)
-getting my application for massage school in, ASAP, and figuring out how that money thing might work since it costs a good bit of it.


as you can see, typing has become a lot easier! but i'm still not going to be doing a WHOLE lot of it (so PLEASE call me instead of IMing if you can!), so that i continue to get better. :)


also, since some of you are particularly amused by drama, and some of you appreciate when i attempt to respond constructively to people who use the internet to be mean, i bring you this forum thread</i>. context: "Mitch-o-crat" and "Mitch from prison" are the same person; I guess Mitch got banned from the board, though i really don't spend enough time there to know whether it was because of his comments to me, and "banning" isn't really taken too seriously on those forums anyway, which is fine with me, i don't really believe in "banning" people from the internet anyway. ;-) as i mentioned in my response, he is someone i really don't know that well and haven't talked to in almost a year, but we've definitely had a few really good conversations in the past and he seems like a generally intelligent and socially conscious (in the "social justice" sense, not the "socially appropriate" sense) sort of guy.



well, it's definitely taken me about 2 1/2 hours to type this post and my reply to that thread, so i'm definitely through with typing for tonight. much love :)

i am doing amazing
tired, sore, resting, taking enormously good care of myself.
i am MAJORLY avoiding typing (this update is brought to you by wiimote) so please do not expect much typed communication from me until i'm healed. i am happy to get emails and comments, and unlikely to respond. so, PLEASE CALL ME!! or better, come visit if you're close enough! or send me mail! i'm REALLY appreciating the postbox love. :)

it's just as well i'm not really trying to update here. there really just aren't words for how intense this whole I HAVE A TOTALLY NEW BODY NOW thing is.

rough night. woke up in a lot of pain. i'm going to be avoiding typing for awhile. holding arms up causes terrible swelling.

always grateful for phone calls!!

love you all :)

I'M GONNA GET MY ARMS BACK :D
i woke up this morning and could clench my fists.
first time in months i could squeeze that tight.

have miracle-channeled some extra funding for a few months of netflix!
and possible also a MASSAGE TABLE.

saw my doc today. recovering nicely but still worried about blood pressure. i have decided this is my body's message that i have some fear issues to work on.

it's going to be an awkward next few months while my body sorts itself out but i think i will end up in a body i love, once i heal up and get strong again.

i am trying to honor every moment of this process, even the painful and terrifying ones.

my brain keeps spontaneously overloading me with sensations which temporarily render me cognitively nonfunctional
it is impossible to think about practical things when my body suddenly decides that if i move my arms i will stop breathing and die, or insisting that anything even remotely approaching the possibility of someone or something touching my sternum means YOU WILL BE CUT OPEN AND DIE, or that the smell of blood means GOING TO DIE.
as long as i stay relaxed and rest and take enough painkillers i'm still doing great, and mostly ok, but i think this is becoming rough on my caretaker, and i know it's making it very difficult for me to (a) plan ahead for anything further in advance than a couple hours or so, or (b) feel safe being alone.

my body informs me that, anesthesia or no anesthesia, that whole getting pumped full of drugs and letting people chop my chest up on wednesday was some SCARY HARDCORE SHIT, and it KNOWS what happened even if i don't "remember", and HELL if it's gonna let me put it in danger like that again!

as disorienting and scary as it is to discover that i'm basically having ptsd from the surgery, i'm kinda excited and amazed by how totally fucking awesome my body is at keeping me alive.

drain broke
freaked out for 5 seconds
called surgeon
solution: duct tape.

DUCT TAPE IS NOW PART OF MY BODY!!!

also: maxi pads are a good substitute for surgical gauze. they are sticky on one side and more easily obtainable for FREE.

oh MY GOD.

i took the vest off
it looks amazing.

HOLY FUCK.

it's a fucking work of ART. OH MY GOD. and...it's ATTACHED!! to ME!!!

i promise i will post photos as soon as possible


AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!



...the skin is soooooooooo sensitive. WHOA.

nerve responses are SO FUCKING COOL!!!

i have learned more about neurology in the last 48 hours than i could EVER have learned in school

<33333 my body :)


(can't really type easily)

oh my god

you guys?

I CAN BREATHE!!!

it's SO FUCKING COOL.

like...my lungs? i never knew they could expand this much!

I CAN BREATHE!!!

i don't really have words for how awesome this is.

everything went great. i spent the night at the hospital, just got home now. i'm feeling good. i'm hardly even in enough pain to need the pain pills, but i have plenty of them as needed.

it feels so fucking good to breathe. even with the compression vest, i'm breathing better than i was with all that weight on my chest.

i have lots of good stories about it. i'll tell them later.

I really don't think my blood pressure is supposed to be this low.

( my body says, NO. )

A 5-year-old child's teacher had the child's classmates say what they didn't like about the child, and then vote on whether or not he should be allowed to stay in class.

The child probably has Asperger's, and is probably going to be traumatized for life now.

I read the article and I actually started hyperventilating a little, it was that triggering for me. I never got stood up in front of the whole class and voted on like that, but I definitely had teachers encourage other kids to abuse me. I can't imagine how someone could go through that and not internalize the message that, even if it was wrong to do that, even if the abusers get punished, there's something fundamentally wrong with me that caused someone to treat me that way. You can't undo that shit. You can't go back and fix it.

I hope there's a good way to at least deliver the message to the other kids in the class that it was not okay for the teacher to do that, and that they aren't terrible people. I'm afraid for them, I feel like every child in that classroom was victimized in this situation and I'm afraid that as the story gains momentum, those 14 kids who voted against their classmate will be treated like they're "mean kids" and the 2 who didn't will be treated like "heroes".

I'm torn about even posting about this, but I feel like people need to know that it actually is a BIG ISSUE that children are abused in classrooms like this. I feel like people need to know the extent to which the attitude that you have the right to abuse someone whose behavior annoys you is FUCKED UP. I don't really have any rational, calm way to approach this issue...I've been there, and I know most of my AS friends have been there, and this is such a clear-cut fucking example of how institutionalized the acceptability of abusing kids whose behavior doesn't fit the social norms is.

This is not an isolated incident. This is not an example of "one teacher did something wrong in a vacuum". I want to say that it's an extreme example of something that happens every day in classrooms all over the place, but honestly I think it's also likely that the reason this particular extreme example is in the media is because thank God this kid's parents give a shit enough to make a huge deal of it. I know my parents didn't. I bet a lot of parents are part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I'll own that I'm biased against parents because I really only have experience with my own.

Regardless, I find it interesting that one of the commenters brought up the point that the teacher will probably be punished by having to stand in front of a roomful of parents, teachers, and administrators who will tell her all the things they don't like about her and then vote on whether or not she should be allowed to stay in class. This is one aspect of this that I am interested in discussing more.


But, here it is, y'all. Let's talk about it. It's okay if you disagree with me, but be prepared that I'm going to challenge you to think about why.

I'm thinking about a lot of stuff about my sexuality and my body and my gender and my life and I'm having such a hard time putting the right words on it. I'm so good at writing things that make sense that I often do that instead of writing things that are real and don't even realize it. That's why I get scared of people sometimes...because I change who I am to make myself make sense for other people, and don't even realize it. That's how I managed to think I was a girl for so long, because everyone around me projected that onto me.

But I want to talk about this shit with people. I want to talk about how I don't really have a sex drive now, how my transition has made me feel so comfortable in my own self that I don't have that desperate burning need to squoosh my bits, physically or metaphysically, together with someone else's. I want to talk about how scared I still am that I'm going to feel like I can't take up enough space anymore when my chest is flat. I want to talk about the fear that I have that if it took me so many years to know a fundamental truth of myself like "I'm not a girl", what other things do I believe about myself that are not true?

I want to figure out why it is that I want to go to massage school so badly. I mean, I have a long list of reasons why I want to do it, and they're all great reasons, but I feel like there's something driving me there that I don't know about, and I'm a little afraid of what it might be, just because I don't know

( i don't want to talk about... )

( i don't know if i want to talk about... )

I definitely want to talk about how, for the first time in my life, I am so happy and grateful that I am alive that it hurts.

My surgery will happen on Wednesday, May 28th, at 9:30am.

THE ROCKY HORROR MUPPET SHOW
starring Kermit the Frog as Dr. Frank N. Frogger.

:D

AHHHHHH

I WANT TO START MASSAGE SCHOOL NOW

I DO NOT WANT TO WAIT

I DO NOT WANT TO WORRY ABOUT HOW I'M GOING TO PAY FOR IT OR WHEN I'LL BE RECOVERED ENOUGH FROM THE SURGERY AND MY ARMS AND STUFF


I JUST WANT TO START NOWWWWWWWWW.

AHHHHHHH HHH HHH HHHHHHHHH.

i'm so fucking excited that i've decided to do it but OH MY GOD THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY EASIER TO WAIT.

(how the hell am i going to pay for it?!?!?!)

I have the go-ahead to reschedule the surgery.

( blood pressure )

I have until the end of the day tomorrow to decide whether I will reschedule it for 5/28 (next Wednesday) or 6/11 (two Wednesdays after that). I feel that either would be an okay choice and I am confident that I will make the right choice.

It's gonna be okay. I can breathe. It's gonna be okay.

I posted this comment on free_speech_ftm, about my decision to transition and how we communicate about our journeys (transitioning or nontransitioning) without invalidating people who have made different choices about transitioning, and I wanted to share it here. :)

I'm gonna try to edit it into a stand-alone post, but it really is a response to that post I linked to.

( on writing about the trans experience from my own experience )

Thank you so much to everyone who's been just absolutely amazing this weekend. I've been so grateful for the comments and messages and prayers and phone calls and patience and love.

I am doing okay now, I think.
( this is what i did saturday )

Today I got a really good Reiki healing from my own Reiki master. It was hardcore, and amazing...sometimes even though I am a Reiki practitioner and I use it pretty regularly, I still feel weird about it and have trouble believing in it because that's what mainstream culture teaches, that stuff like that is just a bunch of silly hocus-pocus and doesn't really work, so having her work on me and physically experiencing how totally fucking powerful that shit is was really profound and affirmative for me.

Afterwards, we talked about what had come up during the healing. She said to me, "My spirit guides kept calling you Danni. Does that name mean anything to you?"

SHE ONLY KNOWS ME AS OLIVER.

SO THAT WAS PRETTY FUCKING AWESOME.

I had visions of flowers while she was working on me. They were the same shades of purple as the paper chain of spiritual messages that Oscar made me.

( and this evening i went to church )

raininglight7 suggested I apply to be a ChaCha Guide, so I decided to see what it was about and figured, hey, if it sucks, I just won't do it, right? Can't hurt.

Hahahahahahah I just failed their assessment.

They asked me like the easiest questions ever, so I can't really figure how I failed that.

I mean, really. REALLY?! I mean, okay, I may be a college dropout, but I'm not so stupid that I can't pass their dumb assessment, right?

I swear to God I'm not that stupid. What the fuck? I don't even want to know. I'm just gonna, like, eat something and maybe go to this concert that I bought a ticket for before I knew I was supposed to have surgery they day before.

Let me see if I can clarify a little bit. I don't feel that I can share everything about what happened yesterday, both for my safety and also just because I don't want to talk about it anymore, but this is the best I can do right now.

At the hospital, they told me my blood pressure was too high to do the surgery. They scared me half to death telling me how dangerous it was that my blood pressure was so high and that I had to see someone about it immediately. They were going to call in a cardiologist at the hospital right then, but the nurse reached my doctor just in time and I was able to leave to go see him instead.

What should have happened is, they should have either given me medication right away to see if they could bring down my blood pressure, or they should have called my doctor first to check if I had any recent history of high blood pressure, and THEN given me medication to lower it. Either of those options would have made it possible for me to have surgery yesterday. Instead of treating the situation, they rushed me out of there as quickly as possible. I have some speculation as to why, and I am not going into it now.

Again: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BLOOD PRESSURE. There was nothing so severe about my blood pressure yesterday as to warrant canceling my surgery without at least trying to get it under control.

I am honestly horrified at the prospect that I was about to put my life in the hands of these people. This really does not give me that safe warm fuzzy feeling about being chopped up and drugged by them next time around.

Thank you all for the love and prayers and good energy.

Today has been a terribly long and exhausting and disappointing day. I have felt loved and held and well-taken-care of, in great great abundance, all day long.

My blood pressure is fine. My surgery will be rescheduled as soon as possible. My doctor has asked me to take medication as an added precaution for the next couple days and will re-check my pressure on Monday, but he feels I will be just fine if I don't choose to take it. I have chosen to take it anyway, and have tried it out today and found no ill affects from it.

Some things have gone very, very unfortunately today, but I don't really feel that I have the ability or desire to talk about them right now. The important things are:

#1. My blood pressure is fine.
#2. My surgery will be rescheduled.
#3. I am so loved, and so blessed.
#4. I am still angry, upset, and afraid...but mostly, I am hopeful and peaceful.

Surgery has been canceled. My blood pressure is too high.

I don't know why my blood pressure would be high, but I will know more after I see my doctor this afternoon.

I will not be able to reschedule it until my blood pressure goes down.

I don't know when that will be.

Thanks for the prayers. I'm going back to bed until it's time for my appointment.