Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Tacoma Girl came over to the Devil Girl house. Mental note: she likes Friday night KEXP more than Groove Salad on SomaFM; much local hip hop ensued. And unlike the poorer parts of Tacoma in the aughts, I can pick up KEXP over the air at my house just fine.

She actually apologized for drinking all my beer. "Nonsense," I said. "That's why I bought it." Indeed, I get Kolsch if she's coming. It's pretty good, but not my fave, and I'm not supposed to use it for making rarebit.

Did not overindulge, except in cheese popcorn.

Spent yesterday evening nomming teriyaki courtesy of the Wendling, shopping for snacks for future visitors, hoping I had an excuse not to go to Lambert House, and then going to Lambert House. The director had a random query to come up with a list of invitees for a particular activity, and the volunteer coordinator needed me to update income ranges. Yes, we have to collect data on how much youth, if on their own, or their parents earn.

Fun fact: you can do all kinds of gnarly multi-table operations (“joins”) inside one query against a real SQL engine. Microsoft Access’s subset (Ptui!) of SQL is more restrictive, but it appears to support named subqueries, which in many cases will get you where you want to go. I miss real SQL date handling, though.

The director has finally agreed with me that maybe getting off Access 2010 would be a good thing, and not even for the above reasons. It went out of support six years ago*, and the UI library that it comes with has bugs that'll never be fixed. Those bugs are what the director is responding to. I have a long list of my own reasons.

The director drove me home for the second time this week. Much appreciated, because that would have been two chilly waits for a bus otherwise.



*Ten years of support for a particular product isn't bad by industry standards.

I need to:

• Buy my Burning Man ticket tomorrow if at all possible.
• Do two database-related chores for Lambert House, one of which promises to be a pain because they're using Microsoft Access and not real SQL. The other promises to be a pain because Access shuffles the Z positioning of UI elements if you touch anything.
• I need to clean house because both Tacoma Girl and Dancer are coming over this weekend. (Not together.)

I've also committed to showing up for latex dinner; I could back out in the next 30 hours or so, but I don't waaaanna.

Oh: have any of you folks who've ever had highish estrogen levels ever had a day where you seem to... stop retaining water? That is, you pee a whole bunch and then you're suddenly lighter? That happened to me last night. Curious.

Another oh: Lambert House groups seem to be reaching the point where in-person attendees outnumber online attendees. I'm OK with that, honestly. Just three more of these for me until we're back in the house.

I dreamt my checking account was overdrawn because I'd spent too much on latex. I'll have you know, reader, that I haven't bought any since September, nor was I planning to. Sheesh.

Edited to add: I've been sleeping super well lately. Lower hormones or more blankies? Time will tell.

The surgery hits keep on coming. I guess they got tired of all my questions because they sent me the big ol’ packet via Docusign with all the info and lots of blanks to fill in. Highlights:

1. Low sodium, low carbohydrate diet for two weeks prior to surgery to cut down on water retention.
2. Dandruff shampoo (!) for two weeks prior to surgery.
3. No hair coloring for a month before surgery.
4. Pre-op appointment on April 27th. Yeah, I should have seen that coming and not bought my plane ticket for then. Fortunately, I paid extra for an adjustable ticket, so I’m good there. I also extended my hotel stay by a day.
5. Confirmed, no waxing, sugaring, plucking, electrolysis, or laser hair reduction anywhere on my body from one month prior to three months after surgery.

I’m so not looking forward to telling the lady who sugars me that I won’t get to see her for four months. She’s a single mother who’s not exactly rolling in it. When I’m ready to go back in August, I wonder if she’ll have any time for me. Le sigh.

I put Dancer’s name on the form as the person who’s looking after me, with her consent, natch. Likewise I put my son down as the person to call with the news of how the surgery went.

This is a lot even if you put the funk in executive function like me. I shudder to think of what other, less fortunate trans women go through with all this.

In any case, the packet is SINED, SEELED, and DELIVERED. (Brownie points if you get the reference without googling.)

Says the Sculptor in his book, I can't get sugared or pluck anything, not anywhere, a month before to three months (!) after surgery. He recommends a single-bladed razor for (ugh) shaving.

And why? Infection. Apparently it's a problem even if the area you get depilated is nowhere near your face, because bugs can travel through blood. Since his patients are trans women, the usual culprit is electrolysis. I may be done with that, thank Goddess, but he really did say no plucking and no waxing.

Actually, now that I'm typing, he didn't say no sugar, just no wax. Nevertheless, I should ask.

One step back, and hopefully several steps forward.

Nighttime temperatures here in Seattle have dipped below freezing. That's good for the summertime water supply and pest control, but not so comfortable. And yes, I realize that the eastern half of the US has it way worse right now. (Mental note: check on sisters.)

Each of the two mini-splits in my house, by default, run in "auto mode": it decides whether to heat, cool, or neither based on the temperature in the room. All as you'd expect, right? Except that I found this gem in the manual: "Auto Mode is not recommended if this indoor unit is connected to a MXZ type outdoor unit. When several indoor units are operated simultaneously, the unit may not be able to switch operation mode between COOL and HEAT. In this case, the indoor unit becomes standby mode." (Yes, the manufacturer is Japanese, namely Mitsubishi. Clearly they don't pay native speakers to proofread their manual copy.)

Guess which model of heat pump I have? The model number does indeed start with MXZ; I walked outside in the cold to check. Guess who an hour ago walked into a cold living room, kitchen, and loft first thing in the morning? Yeah, this girl.

Things that kill me:

1. I apparently had the sense at some time in the past to take the downstairs mini-split out of auto mode and into heat mode. I don't even remember doing that, but I've been frustrated with the mini-splits' tendency to slip into standby mode since I moved in.
2. Which leads me to this: it took me over two and a half years to figure out why this was happening and what to do about it. The irony of a programmer taking forever to diagnose and work around a hardware or maybe software issue, and doing so by reading the fucking manual, is not lost on me.
3. I could reasonably have predicted that standby mode would happen upstairs because of a) sunshine and effective passive solar heating, and b) baking cornbread yesterday afternoon. I just didn't check before I went downstairs for the night.

Boo: no bike ride yesterday morning due to freezing temperatures with fog.

Yay? I finally learned that lesson after my wipeout not quite a year ago.

Boo: no drinks in latex last night because I have a cold. It's not bad, but it's bad enough that I wouldn't want to be around me if I were the shiny people.

Yay: I got enough sleep last night, albeit in two phases.

Yay: grocery shopping with a pannier bag is way more convenient. I've also verified that my pannier will fit my Camelbak inside, so it'll be good for The Thing In The Desert. Mental notes:

1. put a tissue in a side pocket, because boy howdy, I'll need it on cold days.
2. Remember to take my wallet & keys out before checkout, because I'll need both.
3. Consider bungie-ing my U-lock to the rack, thereby freeing up the inside of my bike frame for a water bottle.

Yays win.

Yesterday I rode across the lake for the second time this weekend, then finished all my house & garden to-dos. So I rewarded myself with KEXP's annual MLK Day party at the Clock-Out Lounge down in Beacon Hill.

First, the venue. The Clock-Out seems a little small for the crowd, but I've discovered that one of the owners used to work for KEXP. Did they get some kind of deal? Maybe. I also note that Beacon Hill is at least historically Blacker than the rest of Seattle*; previous venues include the Columbia City Theater, and the same is true of Columbia City. Not that the Clock-Out is bad! They have good sound, no nonsense, and pizza to assuage the drunchies.

Goths spotted: KC, apparently also stag, and all girled up, which has been unusual in recent years. Ahem.

I got to meat DJ Sharlese, whom I've heard many times on the air. KC told me that she has her own show, Saturdays at 0200, and frequently plays dark stompiness that a certain kind of person in black might like. I'll have to catch it on the KEXP archive.

Got to say hi to Riz & Rob, and also Brit Hansen. Happiness. I caught the tail end of the Sunday Soul show before Expansions started. Both shows were broadcast from the Clock-Out, natch. There was as much booty-shaking as I could manage given a sore knee and many, many people on the dance floor.

Going home was a bit of a bummer: I missed the last train northbound because Sunday, and I really didn't feel like waiting twenty minutes in the cold at midnight down by ID/Chinatown station. Even Tacoma Girl thinks that area's sketchy, so I got a rideshare. The driver & I shared a laugh as the nav system kept telling him to take a less direct route that doesn't make sense late at night.

In summation, happiness.



*Seattle is about 7% Black, says the US Census Bureau, which is roughly half the figure for the country as a whole. THat's (almost?) unheard-of for a city its size.

At the leather dyke munch last night, I spent most of the evening chatting with a cutie who's, well, twenty-six years younger than I am. It was delightful, but not exactly smart in the long term. I didn't stay to get my boots blacked, but that would have meant a wait on the other side of CC's and I was having too good a time.

Where are my freaky dykes in their fifties, and sixties? Forties might even be acceptable, if they're into it. Are they really all taken? Do they just never leave their homes? Do I even want to be in a relationship with someone who never leaves home? Honestly, I think I'd go buggy-eyed from stir craziness. And as ever, it's hard for me to get motivated to use the apps.