4. 2026-01-28 / index

Hello!! We are changing our hormone therapy medication regimen. We've done that a bunch of times actually, never in very large changes at once (except maybe the one time - on accident). This time is similar, and also just as experimental as always, like we'll just be seeing how it goes, reporting back, finding out what's right incrementally and non-statically, etc etc. Anyway the change is just that we're dividing our dose of estradiol between morning and evening - the same total dose as usual, just split, taking it twice. We've gotten really good at taking our spiro every morning even though that was a huge struggle when we (re)started IRL work, so there's no worries about missing doses and messing with our overall average level.

Seeee, (gestures at "overall average level") that's a big concern for us, and roots most of the reason we're experimenting again... We're really sensitive to shifts in and effects of - uh, how much estrogen is flowing in our juice. Like, maybe more than normal. (Normal FOR WHO? Transfemmes? Gals? I dunno. Just it feels exceptional.) I think there's probably big effects on what sex feels like, and that matters to me because a) huge bias and b) I do prefer euphoria to dysphoria in THAT PARTICULAR context, thank you very much. But more than that it kind of means we cry more and feelings feel bigger and blah blah. If you've ever PMS'ed then you know what's up. Not gonna claim it's as intense re: feeling bloody suicidal but IDK man maybe we just have coping mechanisms that shield us from the most viscerally, expressively worst of it lol, so maybe it is just about as bad.

Yeah so anyway, excuse me for talking about why fucking with our hormones screws us up and then being all, "oh yeah and also I am changing it here and now on purpose." If it ain't broke - so it is broke, right? But what the heck is broke? Oh my god why are we changing our pills even if the overall dosage is the same because what if taking it at slightly to dramatically different times of day affects how it gets processed and incorporated over the course of being awake and asleep and it rounds out to an effective change in total level because what does that even mean besides how it's observed, symptomatically, a change in the effects, and the whole point is obviously to go for a change in effects, so WHYYYY!? Is why I'm writing, anyway. Any-yay. 'Cuz yeah that's actually a good question, and if you followed along then hopefully you know at least where I'm coming from self-interrogating hahaha

Most of the times we decide to experiment with pills despite knowing full well how rough that can be on us, it's because we're dissatisfied with where the texture of our emotional processing is at. Not necessarily the outcomes, or the circumstances, or any of the context that give processing meaning, but... just the experience of it, you know? That's something really difficult to pin down in writing - it's tough to communicate. Same word as earlier I guess - it's visceral... how do you pass that on?

Well, metaphors and idioms and all that writing gunk, probably. 'Cuz neuralink isn't ready yet, or whatever. And I mean, tricky for ME to touch on anyway - it's Lanolin who made the decision, probably fueled - in the moment - mostly by her own recent experiences, to try something new. (Hi I'm not Lanolin, I'm Lavender.) But I'm gonna try anyway and step on lots of toes because screw me I can do what I want no matter what I think about myself, ok, ok?

I'm also not predicating any of this with "basically". You can infer that I'm cutting myself off a jillion times. Every time I don't say "basically", that's a success story worth celebrating. (Loudly!!)

It's weird as crap being transgender and the direct descendant (lit: child) of two people who, like... both of whom you can recognize in your own face, if you catch yourself in a mirror. (Okay, sorry, crazy interruption. What the hell? You compare your image of yourself to your parents in your MIRROR, where what you're seeing isn't you, but a flipped image of you? Tell me that's not poetic. There's some really dumb poetry going on here.) Also both of whom you have pretty complex, emotionally loaded relation- or anti-relationships with. Really, the experience here is like - ah, facial hair, so I look like him - shave it down, literally no other changes, voila, I look like her. It's nuts. It's also exhausting as heck.

Because like, I think from Lano's perspective, the goal here is basically to feel more ownership and agency over her/our experience of gender, which - between dysphoria/euphoria, personal-social identity, self image, etc - ends up really intrinsically part of "the rest" of each and all of us, too. Taken as entire feeling, acting, being beings. She's BEEN standing up for herself and finding new ways to assert her feelings and beliefs, which run up less against her other deep-down important principles (aka get people she cares about - including herself... - hurt less). Very cool active and opportunistic work there, big applause, it's cool stuff, for real. But I think the impression is that it's also kind of grating - um, in the sense of a cheese grater? Ew that's awful. Grating! And the sex hormones kind of affect everything. So no it's not a "hail mary" because it's not our last resort, we're getting by without, we don't need this to work out... and I think that's the same safety net we've established before, which makes "experimenting" an acceptable and comfortable and secure way to frame it for us. But it would be REALLY COOL if it DID help, so we're giving it a shot. Not gonna find out otherwise.

Anyway. No offense, but she and I are probably equally bored of talking and thinking about her feelings. They're relevant here, so I've put them down on the paper and probably we can just leave 'em there and move on. Obviously I'm out, instead of her, for a reason. (The reason is that we need to be able to give each other proper swathes of... I mean, sweeps of, stretches of time, to just rest. Zone out, kick back, recuperate. That's got to be one of the biggest advantages or impacts of becoming a more discretely-divided system: we feel safe "going away", trusting we're going to come back, and trusting the time away is going to be useful for us. And THAT is probably a reflection on how we just take time to make changes in ourselves at all, and doing it this way makes it... a lot easier to swallow, face, accept, you know. Not feel like we're worse than anyone else, just for moving kinda slow. You get the picture: bye bye Lano, go take a sleep, sleepy sleepy sheep, shuu shuu shuu.)

Changing our experience of hormones is always a funky experience for me because I can't help but feel, like, childishly excited? Over prospects that are totally made up! Deep down there's this simple image in me that if your estrogen level is higher, then your experience is more like a Woman's... and I don't know, I do like that as a fiction. There's really stupid awful stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, just to inject a little bit of fun and flavor into life, and this feels like one of those. I do a little gender essentialism on myself, as a treat. Okay? But that's exactly it, right? IS it okay? I don't know how I feel. Sorry! That's the end of this paragraph!

I'm trying to think what I even... what words I want to say, about Whisper, in any of this. I'm just getting a fuzzy head... there's a part of me which wishes I could look at her and just manifest her beautiful, simple wisdoms, the stuff that makes life make sense, the stuff that makes me think, ahhh, yeah, god, I don't even know if I agree or think like that at all, but I feel safer hearing she thinks this way, and she's at my side... then there's another part of me which is being a whole lot more frank. I see her (I love seeing her) and I don't find an answer. I have no idea what I'm asking, and she doesn't, either. I see her feeling what I'm feeling about all of this and there just... there is no... it's not, it's not "there's no response". 'Cuz there's only no response if "it's just a corpse"! It's no corpse! It's the frickin' opposite! All I feel is response! But it's heart, it's solidarity, it's connection, it... it's raw. Sometimes rawness is frustrating. I mean, you know, damn, gee, come on, GIVE me something here, I'm trying, what the hell. (Sorry, I know I'm just as much Surge as I'm me. That's just... that's given, okay.) But sometimes it's exactly what you need, really need, not the kind of "I get to decide what I need" bullshit. I'm sure I'd get a "real" response if I offered a "real" question. Well, I don't have words. So there you go. It's a raw response for a raw question. Who cares whether that's any more or less "real", eh.

Hahahaha okay I think that's basically all I got, actually. That's the deets! I don't have category links for any of this because we're not doing wordpress, and I tell you my dx'd autism, not dx'd ADHD beain loooooves categorizing things, so MAN that's appealing... which is why I'll leave it to, you know, SOMEONE ELSE (Lano.) to decide if those actually fit this place. SOME OTHER TIME. If you come here from the future with tags somewhere on this page, then hi, pretty cool future you got there, smell you when I get there lol

I'm not doing the "stuff I could have written about" thing because I don't want to box us into following the same improvised structures. That kind of form is clearly a useful ritual for Lanolin, but my gut says if I expected to "wind down" after I did the writing I actually cared about, I would like... get antsy about FINISHING the writing I care about... and drag it out... and make it suuuuck... so you get an entry that ends with no finesse at all. See y'a!