Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Went club hopping as a last hurrah before temporary Mormon-like behavior starts on Tuesday for surgery. Pony: good tunes, but no Sharlese when I was there. I wasn’t feeling up to socializing with strangers, so I hit the Mercury, which was happily free of creeps.

Today I dropped off my art for SEAF, having carried it carefully on the bus and through Pioneer Square, which even on Sunday morning is… colorful. The SEAF folks were appreciative. Now I await art sales. Or not.

Also today, my Wi-Fi was beset by channel conflicts. I’ve been without all day. Router reboots don’t help. Sadness. Do I put a Faraday cage in my house or what?

Dinner with the latex gang. It's my next-to-last hurrah before I turn into a temporary teetotaler on Tuesday. (Alliteration and assonance ahoy!) Sugar Hill, down the western slope of Capitol Hill on Pine St., has pretty great Thai eats & cocktails. Must... not... be jealous of how women half my age look in latex. And it occurs to me that my goodness, I know a lot of local sex workers, both cis and trans.

Shallow fashion details: the same little purple skater dress that I wore to KinkFest last weekend. My excuse was that I wanted to show how the yogurt sauce stains had mysteriously disappeared, but really, that dress is the best one I have for warm(er) weather. Accessories: butterfly-themed. Boots: silver cowboy, from Stetson.

Thing #1: I seem to be able to sleep nearly seven hours if I go to bed at 2300 instead of 2200. It's kind of hilarious getting out of bed to pee, thinking it's too early to start the day, and then hearing your alarm go off three seconds later.

Thing #2: I should always ask if Lambert House has their data entry caught up before I run quarterly queries. I may be taking the bus back there in the next few days because they weren't caught up last night. What makes this more complicated is that there are now two data sets entered by two different (groups of? paid?) people: one for Seattle, and one for King County outside Seattle.

Thing #3: I should have made sure Dr. Funnyname sent the results of my labs & exam to the Sculptor, because the latter's office emailed me yesterday to ask where all of that was. Mayunn, I don't need that kind of stress. If all goes according to plan surgery is in three weeks exactly.

Thing #4: If I get an email about the Wendling's electric bill – he has a separate meter down there in his apartment – remind him immediately, because he might space it.

Huh. There seems to be a theme with most of these. Do I enjoy being the executive function for other people? No, but I enjoy it even less when things get dropped on the floor.

But first: the breaker that my stove is plugged into tripped in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in use the other two times it tripped, either. I've called the dealer.

The pre-surgery prep has begun in earnest. I spent yesterday getting a whole bunch of blood drawn and an EKG, and this morning I switched to dandruff shampoo. Yes, really, per the Sculptor's orders. My resting heart rate was even lower than it's been measured before – "half the normal rate", said Dr. Funnyname – but he figures that if I can exercise, which I do, I should be a-OK for getting my face rearranged. Hurrah!

Rather less hurrah is that I can't pluck anything anywhere or get sugared. Shaving only, with a single bladed razor, and not too closely. Haaate. But! See you all August.

I went to the third annual Seattle Fetish Ball last night. I'm awfully grateful to Past Nun for springing for a "VIP" ticket. That meant I got a seat when I needed one, which was much of the time because I was, of course, wearing my Fluevog Grand National boots. Yeah, the ones with the 4" cloven heels. The balls of my feet feel a little bruised, but I don't feel any connective tissue damage.

Most eye-catching outfit: dude made a Vatican Swiss Guard uniform out of latex. You know, the ones that haven't changed since the 16th century. A colorful and complicated piece of work.

Dark Garden Corsets was there. I had to say hi because a) I was wearing their work, and b) they were literally on the way from the bar to my table. Autumn offered to re-lace my corset (!) but then got busy, so one of her employees did it. Let me tell you, I could feel the difference. I could feel as I was doing it earlier that even by my own necessarily low standards, I'd messed up lacing myself in. But the folks at Dark Garden are experts. And believe it or not, getting laced in properly is more about aesthetics and long-term comfort for me than it is about the act of getting laced in. And I note that I didn't need to hold onto anything, even in my murderous heels.

The crowd wasn't as large as last time, but I think the performers were better this time. ( I should probably put this under a cut. ) Ah, the hysteresis of recurring events. It's good to be amongst People Like Me in all our finery.

And speaking of people like me, brunch on the hill at 0900 (ungh – A-the-lady couldn't get a later reservation, try as she might) for the Lambert House trans group facilitators. Yes, there was talk about the horrendous political situation: at least one university in Texas has deputized freelance potty police, and that's just one example. But we like hanging out together so much that we were reluctant to go our separate ways.

Napped for two and a half hours starting at 1100. I think I can function. I need to get some work done because I'll be out most of tomorrow and Friday.

Annoyance #1: I apparently can't run my induction stove and my microwave at the same time without tripping the 20A circuit breaker that they share. What's weird is, I didn't even notice until it came time to nuke my lunch.

Annoyance #2: The manual that came for my stove is for a different model. I did eventually figure out how to set the clock after I reset the breaker. Yes, the clocks on my microwave, stove, and wall opposite them all tell the correct time because I'm so anal-retentive I can turn coal into diamonds with my butt.

Annoyance #3: This one was kind of a doozy. So, you may recall that my Mom's house finally sold late last summer, and we divvied up the cash. What you pay taxes on is sale price minus fair market value at the time of Mom's death – which is pretty much up to the ever-scrupulous Good Sister to decide – and some kinds of expenses incurred getting the house ready for sale.

Well, I never reported that income, or in this case, small loss. You see, I never got a 1099-S from the title company the way Good Sister did. Neither did Evil Sister, so I'm pretty sure I didn't throw it out by mistake. See "anal-retentive" above.

At GS's urging, I called up the title company in my hometown. They have a 1099-S for Evil Sister on file, but not mine. So now I have an electronic copy of ES's 1099-S so I can file an amended return. Mayyybe I could get an additional refund out of this, but the main point of filing more stuff is to keep the IRS off my back.

Speculation: since my 1099-S appears not to exist, the IRS doesn't know about all of this either, which was why they sent my refund so quickly. I'm sorely tempted to blow this off, but GS is firmly against that. Given that she's a CPA, she's probably right.

Sushi in my neighborhood with Red. She's a funky yet low key person, and I do enjoy her company. She'd had an intense afternoon at the (Native) veterans' powwow yesterday afternoon, so she declined my offer of a guided tour of lower Fremont. I haven't taken it personally.

But what I do take personally is all the states that are pulling drivers' licenses and making it effectively illegal to be trans in public, or to be trans and work or rent a home. It's isn't just Kansas anymore; Idaho, Oklahoma, and Ohio are following suit. Not that I was ever planning to go to any of those places, but you all know this is literal Nazi shit, right? This information is all courtesy of M at the Mercury, who also told me, for at least the second time, how much the job market has sucked for her, partly also due to being trans.

I tried to catch the last train northbound, but they were messing with things ahead of the line 2 opening next weekend.

[Does this entry really need a cut? It's not that sexy.]

Some weeks ago, I had an epiphany: neither my dilator* nor my preferred sex toys have any silicone parts**. That means I can use silicone lube without damaging them.

And why would I want to do that? Because silicone lube is super slippery. You need a smaller volume of it that you would non-silicone water-based lube***. And silicone lube is easier to clean off; I use warm water and soap for that****.

Oh, the water-based and silicone lubes that I'm comparing are the same brand: Silk. I got mine at Babeland in Seattle, natch, and I've seen it at other local sex shops.



*A phallic-looking medical device used by trans women who've had sex reassignment surgery like me. Mine is made of polyurethane.
**I have two preferred toys, both designed by yours truly, one made of glass and the other nylon.
***I'm pretty sure silicone lube contains water too, but "water-based" lube doesn't contain silicone.
****Yes, you can put glass toys in the dishwasher if they're borosilicate glass, but I've never bothered because I only run my dishwasher a couple of times a week.

I got it in my head to go to the Mercury in my Lizzie Borden outfit, the 1890's walking suit in blue velvet that I made, with considerable effort, in around 2002. The trouble is, twenty-four years ago was also about ten pounds ago. I couldn't get the skirt to fit through the waist even with my oldest corset laced as tightly as I could, which probably would have been too tight for a full night out anyway. Sadness.

So did I switch outfits and go out anyway? No. As soon as I got out of the corset my body was all, "Stay home and get some sleep, woman." So I did, and now I'm super perky for doing my Sunday chores.

On the upside, I arranged a second date with Red next weekend. Also, Adrian Tchaikovsky doesn't suck; all credit to the Tickler for recommending him.

And by the way, when I first made Lizzie I didn't have boobs, like, at all. Now I have enough.

I've been vacillating about whether to buy an induction stove, and I've been keeping my eye on one particular model from one particular local dealer. Its price has risen nearly 16% in less than two weeks, in two steps.