katre @katre@masto.henchmonkey.org

Today I passed the test of the gom jabbar: I didn't bite the dental hygienist's fingers, not even once.

I need coffee before I go deal with my basement.

Mmm, flash flood emergency, which means my basement is now flooding. I just went and moved what I could to high ground, tomorrow will be a lot of cleaning. Again.

I was reminded this morning that self-assessments are due at work today.

So I am now assessing myself.

Which reminds me how little I feel I've accomplished in the last six months.

Which leads me to avoidantly _not_ doing my self-assessment.

Except it's due tonight so I feel worse about not working on it.

So now I am in a negative brain spiral and tooting at y'all to try and get myself back on track.

Good news, I figured how to put most of the work of this release back on the users who are requesting changes, rather than doing everything myself.

My week just got a bit less stressful.

Ugh, everything is happening at once. Work has gone crazy in two different dimensions, kidlet is in summer camp that takes 45 minutes to get to on transit (so that's 1.5 hours morning and again in afternoon each day), and partner is having a virtual conference during her last week at this job so is also completely swamped.

Maybe I can nap next week.

Further calamity! I boiled the tea, _then_ discovered that the ice trays in the freezer haven't actually frozen, so there's no ice to cool off my tea.

Truly I am living in the worst timeline.

Problem: I want iced tea and don't have any.
Solution: I can make iced tea.
Problem: it's too hot and I don't want to turn on the stove.
Solution: turn on the stove to boil water, run away very fast.

Oh yeah, I should tell y'all _what_ book kept me up til 3 am.

I was reading _The Fall of Doc Future_ (https://docfuture.tumblr.com/post/82363551272/fall-of-doc-future-contents), which is pretty great near-future posthuman superhero end-of-the-world stuff.

There's a lot more talking than punching, and the (not graphic, but frequent) sex scenes tell me a *lot* about the author's kinks, but it was great and I am going to try real hard to avoid staying up til 3am again with the sequel (also online).

At the time, finishing that book seemed like the best possible idea.

Now that it's morning and I only had three hours of sleep, I am not so sure I agree.

Also, trans rights are human rights, pass it on.

There it is. I'm the boringest thing in the world: a straight, cis, white man. But at least I'm a straight, cis, white man who has actually considered, and not just accepted the defaults I was given by society.

And I'm also straight. There are men out there that I can recognize as attractive, but it's a purely asthetic thing, and I don't want to smooch them in the way I want to smooch women.

The results are actually totally boring. I'm a man. I like being a man. I am really comfortable in my masculinity (although I try to notice and avoid toxic masculinity, because being a man doesn't mean anyone who isn't is less than me).

So I have spent a lot of time this year really thinking about my gender, and how it feels to me, in a way that I never actually have before. And I'm in my 40s, so that's a while!

But a common theme seems to be "I didn't know I was trans until one day when I just opened my eyes". And I started to wonder, "Do I like this because it's also me?"

So in the last, like, year or so, I've met/followed/read/read about a lot of trans people, authors, and characters. And they are all so awesome and I am so happy for them and their success.

I discovered a new webcomic last night, and immediately binged the whole thing, so if ancient Greece, cute webcomics, or (spoiler?) happy trans characters is also your jam, check out http://pepsiaphobia.com/