Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in just Adrien's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
9:10 am	on "syncretism" (Originally posted on my G+, even though I intend to make LJ my space for "spiritual" concerns) I'm not a syncretist. More and more,syncretism just pisses me off. Not only does it seem incredibly disrepectful to locality, it also seems incredibly presumptuous and lazy. I encounter this most in (largely white, privileged)“alternative spirituality” or “New Age” contexts, which is why I suspect I've had such an approach/retreat history with what's packaged as spirituality. I mean to include monism, “all is one/god/source” attempts to absorb local experience. It's one thing to say, “I see it as all of a piece that manifests differently at different times/places, and for different people” but quite another to say “your experience is subordinate to my ordering of theworld/universe”. To describe the subjective with a definitive is comes across as a form of ideological violence if delivered without qualifications. I experience the world as being full of local presences/personalities and subjective feelings, and I'm very OK with that. In fact, one of the joys of even local travel, or differing time/climate/context, is feeling out the differences in those points of contact. For me, this is a key part of mindfulness and immmediacy (I find this can carry over into many aspects of mylife, and it's refreshing and illuminating, in a Heraclitian way). That's not to say I'm against tracing lineages of spirituality, gods, practices, etc. Hell, tracing lineages (of ideas, music, etc.) is one of my favorite pastimes. It's entirely possible to be aware of movements or migrations and still engage with the local. For example, one can talk all day about the lineage of punk rock and still acknowledge the differences between London, NY and West Coast styles. Why this isn't done in “spiritual”circles, when curmudgeonly music critics and fans can still manage to, only adds to my irritation. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
7:02 am	ITS: again Sunday: Knight of Swords Yesterday: The World, reversed Three of Swords (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 1st, 2012
1:55 pm	that year thing I'm taking this as a call to mindfulness, developing better habits, practice and concentration. The whole injection process seems easier this time around. The Carnival season gets into full swing this weekend and lasts through Mardi Gras next Tuesday night. When faced with stress and worry, particularly regarding another person, I can almost feel myself compress, become streamlined and smooth in my focus to be present and help where I can. I've made it through another year, and would like to mark that even in the company of good people and copious amounts of alcohol. Is it that I really don't know what I want? I've never really paid attention to the idea of totemic animals or anything like that, tending to dismiss them as misappropriated concepts from indigenous cultures, wish fulfillment or the embodiment of longing for greater connection with the natural world, so I'm kind of ill prepared to face the daily interactions and I have with certain animals and the seeming significance of those interactions, namely crows and spiders. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. For most of my life (starting at around the age of seven), I've used the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep as a sort of mental focus/inner work/energy work/meditation time. I think I have a problem with babies and bathwater. More hard work with RHT* on anger, shame and distrust. I think I need to do more magicky type things in the coming year. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
10:37 pm	I am liking myself more. I'm still not happy with who I am. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 28th, 2011
8:42 pm	endocrinology, embedded bias and me I saw my endocrinologist a short while ago, and it was... mixed. When I last saw him in July, it was after six months no hormones, followed by six months at half the prescribed dose. I talked about wanting to get a base line on how I felt at either extreme thus far in my body/identity/hormone regimen, and that prior to going on hormones in the first place how I wasn't sure I was a credible witness to myself in that regard. I'm almost reluctant to discuss part of this. I think it's important to note I'm only talking about my own experience, do not intend to support any totalizing discourses and quite honestly do not have enough data to make anything approaching an objective statement. Basically, when it comes to sex, gender, bodies, hormones and expectations, none of us are disengaged enough to be taken as a general expert, me most definitely included. One thing I'd noticed was that, some months off estradiol, my libido seemed much more spontaneous. It's important for me to note that stopping hormones wasn't the only thing going on in my life; I was also in the midst of a transformative crisis in which many logjammed things were coming loose. I think it's incredibly likely that a large part of the libido thing (really, who's shocked by the covalence of sex/gender identity issues, repression, and sexual issues? If you are, well, you shouldn't be, if I'm any indication).But, a down side was that as I welcomed the libidinal changes, I abhorred other physical changes. The return of traditionally masculine secondary sexual characteristics, and the minimization/disappearance of the traditionally feminine, brought back an immediacy of somatic alienation and disjunction I hadn't directly experience in years. Prior to my appointment in July, I was terribly afraid of running into the either/or sliding scale, which I hate for ideological as well as personal reasons. In July, though, my endo seemed to suddenly get it, at least where I was concerned. With the understanding that I wanted traditionally feminine secondary sexual characteristics, but wanted functional sexuality with the genitals I had, we embarked on a modified course of medications (tadalafil and estradiol) , with a follow up appointment to see how things went. November, I felt like I had some new data. I very much embraced the reemergence of the secondary traits I was looking for, but also noted what appeared to be a subsidence of the spontaneous libido. When I mentioned this to my endo, he said that to some extent that was to be expected, and was "why women have lower sex drives than men." I was almost speechless, but managed to say that it was not my experience that what he said was so (I know enough to recognize physical signs of androgenization, and many of the more libidinous women I've known did not display them), but... wow. I had/have a hard time reconciling that statement with the impression I'd gotten from my endo, one of whose specialties is gender issues (the other is gerontology), and who has been very open to my nonstandard approach. I can't help wondering if this is the face of unacknowledged embedded bias around the so-called sex hormones, gender norms and societal expectation/projection. These biases are so insidious that I worry about reinforcing them myself when trying to examine my experiences, and honestly can't be sure to what degree those biases might be helping to create my situation. Quite obviously, I'm conflicted, and worried. We decided to try a median approach and check back in with more data at a later date; I'm on 3/4 of my usual recommended dose, plus the tadalifil. Come May, we'll reassess and see where to go. Even if I'm only describing my own experience, I'm very anxious about the possibility of zero sum, sliding scale situation in relation to what I want and what I can have. That, for me, things might come down to a brutal and exclusive either/or fills me with existential dread that threatens to be self-erasing. I don't know how to bear credible witness to myself, particularly since I'm running against so much of the taken for granted, given discourses on sex, gender, sexuality and self. I'm not immune to the influence of cultural narratives, either. So, I'm watching, trying to record and monitor, without getting in my own way. I'm not so good with that last bit, at least to date. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
10:39 am	unfiltered reception "It is possible I am simply enough." "I'm tired of being an adolescent." "I don't trust myself to have friends." All three are unfiltered reception of internal messages, in chronological order. I mean to come back to them later. I'm afraid if I don't put them down in words, I might ignore them. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
10:40 am	More hard work with RHT* on anger, shame and distrust. I feel like I'm much more aware of my anger recently, and that much more of it is accessible, but I don't know that it's automatically a bad thing. I feel much less prone to sudden explosions of disproportionate rage than I used to be, and the anger that does come out feels more sanguine-red than the festering, poison-black, so that's something. I doubt that I'll ever be free of anger, and don't know that I'd want to; I think it is a very appropriate response to a great many things, and that life without anger would be artificially flattened and allow too many things to go unchallenged that really, really need to be engaged. Still, I worry about how to integrate this into my life, without anger becoming the dominant emotion or means of contact associated with me. While I'll always have anger, I don't want to always be angry, if that makes sense. Shame is... hard. I don't know that I'm up for talking about specifics, but even generally, I worry so much about being bad (emotional keywords: contagion, polluted, impure, disgusting, unlovable) that I've internalized a deep distrust of myself. Curiously, the idea that others might sit in judgment of me pisses me off preemptively, but I judge myself like Flip Wilson** could only dream about. Of course, this keeps a baseline of potential negative anger and judgment always on tap, which colors my interactive palette in ways I don't like. It's a lot of long, hard work I have ahead of me. I try to see it as encouraging that I can even get to the point of seeing it, but I'm impatient and have a hard time not comparing myself to what it looks like to me about others. I'm not aware of the struggles of others in this regard, I know. It's hard for me not to look at the external markers in others for internal issues with which I struggle and judge myself lacking. I know I shouldn't do this, but honestly, if anyone knows how to actually stop, I'd be thrilled to hear it. *Red Headed Therapist **Here come the judge, indeed (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
8:35 pm	heavy lifting on a good day Talking with red headed therapist (RHT) today was... hard. I've been in a pretty good mood lately, and things seem to be improving, so of course I decide it's time to do some difficult work. RHT's specialty is relationships. I asked if we could try and leverage that to look at my relationship with myself. I don't trust me, don't know that I can be believed a lot of the time, feel like I'm not a credible witness to myself, and feel compelled to argue with, criticize and disassemble most of the pronouncements I make to myself (or think about making to others). Acceptance (often the first step in relationship therapy) of me is difficult for me. The conflict is both internal (aspects of me against other aspects of me) and external (feeling beholden to other people's ideas about me). If one area were to ease up, it would probably influence the other, but as it is, conflict in one area feeds conflict in another, and the edge between the two is always in flames. Attachment, exploration and identity: these are the things RHT thinks might be at issue (Poor thing prefaced her "Do you want to know what I think?" statement with admitting to feeling self conscious "because I know you're smarter than I am". I was overcome with compassion for her, embarrassed, and flattered all at once, but it makes me nervous; previous therapist basically gave up on her ability to help me because she thought I was smarter, and yet I still needed (need) help.) I'm to think on these, and talk to others about it for perspectives outside of myself. The part that stuck for me was her imagining me feeling unseen, not allowed to be myself or find out who I am, but being expected to take the roles assigned to me. From there, I had the option to conform, fight or run away. I hate it, but that rings true. I still feel that too much of the time. I can't conform. I don't know how to explain it, but I just can't. I wouldn't be me in too many important ways if I did. I can't really run away; where would I go? I can fight, and I do, but is that really a good option? I'm so tired of always fighting, most places, every day, a constant, grinding guerilla war most people never see. I don't want to fight any more. I'm just so tired, but I don't feel like I have other options. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
12:03 pm	hallucinogens and horror movies It's October, which means horror movies are in a lot more available programming. Too, living with fairyhead (who loves horror movies), they're never really out of reach. I feel kind of ... guilty? weak, maybe?, but horror movies (particularly supernatural horror movies) freak me right the fuck out. Movies which explore the area between "the world we know" and "the world just out of reach that means you ill" get into my head, and sometimes it takes months or more to get them out. For years I wouldn't talk about this; I had too real memories of being dismissed by adults as a child who was terrified of the dark, of the things past the walls that watched me. "It's just your imagination. It's not real. Nothing is going to hurt you." To me, this wasn't consoling. What it told me was that I was on my own, could not rely on others, that I had to face this overlap with the frightening unknown and the world everyone else pretended or thought was the only "real" on my own. This feeling of the expansive, permeable edge of reality is a relative constant in my life. My grasp on what is "real" often feels tenuous. It's not that I don't recognize objects, people, causality, etc; I do. But that's often not the only things I experience. Since I was about eight or nine, I've had... episodes in which things in my brain feel like they're melting, that everything becomes mixed, indistinct, bordering on synaesthetic; memory and sensory impressions will bleed into my present, I'll "see" (usually in my mind's eye, but not always) and occasionally hear things (words in bird song, images fraught with intensely packed meaning) and lose the ability to speak in a linear, communicable way. I used to hate these episodes (past a point, they were called "migraines", but I think the pain was from me fighting them and freaking out), and would fight them with all I had. There were times it felt like I was clinging to reality by my fingernails, and slowly slipping into a pit. I think at least part of the fear of those experience connected to the fear of alienation in the face of the extra-real, which too many horror movies play upon. When I came to finally try hallucinogens, it was that same dissolving/slipping/clinging by the fingernails experience. I remember thinking, "Oh shit, what if I don't come back?" which is a thought I'd usually have in my more intense episodes, and I couldn't believe that people willingly did it for fun. Things would dissolve and it felt again like I was alone on the edge of new territory in which I didn't know the rules or the inhabitants, afraid they knew and/or would notice me (and it often seemed like they did, and would). When I could find a shred of my own intent, I'd try to link myself to the world I knew through direct sensory experience (natural smells, sounds, the feel of outside air) and hang on for what felt like my life. Much like horror movies, I feel embarrassed, weak, and maybe uncool for reacting like this. Horror movies and hallucinogens brush up against the same sets of experiences for me, often making me feel alienated from my peers even as I'm aware of the irony (I feel alienated in my resistance/fear of things that leave me feeling existentially alone and alienated). I wonder some times if things aren't wired so very differently in me that I'll never have the relative ease, the seeming certainty others have in "real" versus "imaginary" and the presumption of safety that comes from that. I worry that if I were to get that, it would be at the price of losing the root of both my sense of wonder in the world and the root of terror. I tend not to think of fear as fun, or a release; it triggers fight or flight in me, to the point that I police myself (I won't go to haunted houses for fear of freaking out and punching an actor, or running away and being mocked). I don't live in fear, though I used to. I'm still very, very wary about a lot of this (for instance, this piece was triggered by J watching "The Last Excorcism" in the next room; I see potentially too much of myself in possessed/haunted people, and it feels way too real), but I don't fear the dark, the woods, or windows at night (most of the time, anyway). I've come to a degree of terms with my take on the world. I don't believe in a heaven and hell, world in opposites kind of reality*, and even if I sometimes feel powerless in the liminal meta/physical space it often seems like I inhabit, I do feel like I have help and support available if I want or need it. That's gone a long way, but I'm still very wary of triggering my limbic system for entertainment (even though I love a good ghost story). I don't know, maybe this is irresolvable, maybe it doesn't matter. At any rate, that's what's on my mind this morning. *yeah, I quoted a song; it was actually an important developmental seed for me on all of this (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
12:41 am	20-ish years ago, we would have cut a swath through the physical/cultural environment that overlapped enough to allow us to connect (or cancelled each other out through some fucked up form of balance through negation). The collateral damage would have been legendary enough to secure our place in history spoken in hushed tones and marked by caution and a degree of envy and fear. The question is, what do we do with one another now that we seek a positive outside of the exemplarly negative or dangerous? This question is of vital import. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
8:40 pm	Janiene will be days late returning from Burning Man due to mechanical issues (that are, apparently, part of a predictable pattern). I'm almost starting to take it personally, and am frustrated. Patience is a virtue with which I'm currently lacking, damn it. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
9:31 pm	I haven't been writing much here lately. I'll admit it; Google+ has complicated my choice of medium. Trying to decide what I want to write, where, with what target audience is complicated (or I make it complicated). I've also been writing more by hand lately, specifically letters (fairyhead is away at Burning Man, out of electronic contact but within reach by mail), which has been... pleasant, like finding one's old rhythm when picking up running or cycling after a long absence. While I enjoy the physical constraints of writing block print, by hand; it forces me to slow down, which broadens the stream of... thought, intent? I've gotten into the habit of chasing after whatever's in my mental field of vision, even if it changes quickly, often at the expense of looking at what's on the banks (to totally mix metaphors). It's deliberate. I think it might actually be time to carefully reengage with cursive. My previous take on it was all about speed, but it can be pretty, too, I think. So I think I'm going to use this space to talk about things I'm usually a little circumspect about: things having to do with my connection to the world, things that border on mysticism, hallucination, maybe in some people's eyes, schizophrenia; body issues, particularly in relation with what I'm trying to do with making my body more habitable, and the push/pull that so often seems to entail. I'm sure there will be other subjects that come up, but those are where I'm most wary, yet still feel the need to engage. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
10:19 pm	Sometimes when I hear the kick drum kick in on a certain contemporary glam band, I remember how happy a certain long haired drummer was to run into me in a dark corner of a specific club. Absolutely nothing happened, but the glam context invalidated most of my default tools of diminishment. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
6:35 am	Very messed up dream (broken up by waking and slipping back into it repeatedly) about family, guilt, accusations of causing the death of someone's son (vehicular)under circumstances I don't remember, in a place I wasn't near, and being openly manipulated to accept responsibility by the (unknown to me) grieving father. There was also something about being set near a lake that was 30+ feet low, and being furious at the culture and cultural participants who led to that situation and refused to see causes (oh yeah, and going to a steak house with my family for some important "role model" dinner). Not a good night of sleep, despite getting about seven hours. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 5th, 2011
7:33 am	I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
6:38 am	Tuesday night, fading into sleep, there was a bar scene in my head. Suddenly one of the people turned towards me. His face would flicker to a round, white mask with only eye hole and black lines running up from the outer corners to the edge of the mask (for some reason, it made me think of an electrical outlet). There was a weird "chik-chik" noise, and it looked like he was putting something like a weird short blade under his chin while he spoke. "If you're going to do something, do it" he said, as the mask flickered in and out. I woke up suddenly, but that phrase, and the sense of some message from outside, has been with me since. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
11:30 am	Yesterday was my first hour of electrolysis. The interactions were a little awkward; the facility markets itself to the mtf community (as well as the general public), so there were some unspoken assumptions about me, but it wasn't too bad. It was a little more painful than I'd anticipated, like having a needle jabbed into my face over and over. It's a totally different pain that getting a tattoo; I start to get used to that after a while. But the follicle specific shocking is a different thing; each instance is its own separate instance of pain. Afterward, my cheeks were swollen pretty badly. It makes sense; I abused the skin pretty soundly. They're only now starting to get back to their usual contours. I'm aiming for every two weeks, since I'm so fucking tired of shaving my face. I admit to having some anxiety about my upper lip; the electrolyzer (electrolyte?) said that was the most painful place in the body (and considering all the places they work, that's something). (Comment on this)
Friday, July 8th, 2011
9:25 am	question for the mystically inclined I've never really paid attention to the idea of totemic animals or anything like that, tending to dismiss them as misappropriated concepts from indigenous cultures, wish fulfillment or the embodiment of longing for greater connection with the natural world, so I'm kind of ill prepared to face the daily interactions and I have with certain animals and the seeming significance of those interactions, namely crows and spiders. Since I was a child, spiders have freaked me out. Up until the past five years or so, they've also been the only animal that consistently showed up in my dreams, almost always out of context of the rest of the dream. Due to some inspiration from a friend, I'm mostly over my spider issues. I speak to the ones I see (usually small), and feel protective of them most of the time. I don't quite understand what it's about, but I notice them a lot, and seem to have way more contact with them than I recall before, or hear others talk about. Crows sort of thrust themselves into my awareness for the first time about seven years ago, then faded for about four or five years. In the recent past, I can't seem to go outside (at work, at home, in my neighborhood) without hearing their calls, which will often repeat until I locate them, make and hold eye contact for a moment. I'm starting to be able to identify the different sounds, and speak to them, too, when they're around. The connection there feels very different than with spiders; more conscious, more engaged, occasionally playful, almost like an extended social group (they are intelligent, social, tool using animals, so maybe I'm projecting, or responding to what I know of them). I feel like I get the crow connection more than the spider, even though I don't know what to do with either. So I guess my questions start with: does this sound at all familiar to anyone? If so, are there resources any of you might recommend to get more information on this? I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go forward, so any information anyone has to offer would be greatly appreciated. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 26th, 2011
11:32 am	satisfaction, change: notes from the road to somewhere I've changed a lot in the past year or two. Even when I want to minimize that, I can't. It's been hard, painful, at times brutal, and totally necessary. I'm nowhere near done yet, and some of the hardest parts are yet to come. I can say that now, and not run away from it. I'm still terrified, honestly, but I have to do these things or live in the shadow of my own cowardice. I've been having difficulty finding satisfaction in my dealings with people lately. As fairyhead so cleverly pointed out, it could well be because of these changes. Not only might others no longer have a lens or series of expectations and behaviours through which to interact with me, but also that my own interfaces may no longer meet my needs. There's a part of me that want to say it's too much, all of this necessitated learning and retooling at once, but whining won't change things, and there's no one in a position to make it different for me if only I could whisper in the right ear. The fruits of change, at least in the short run, seem to be more work and more change. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
6:27 am	The year is almost half over, Taurus. Shall we sum up the first part of 2011 and speculate about the adventures that may lie ahead of you in the next six months? The way I see it, you've been going through a boisterous process of purification since last January. Some of it has rattled your soul's bones, while some of it has freed you from your mind-forged manacles. In a few short months, you have overseen more climaxes and shed more emotional baggage than you had in the past three years combined. Now you're all clean and clear and fresh, and ready for a less exhausting, more cheerful kind of fun. Oh how I hope Breszny is even remotely close on this one. (5 Comments |Comment on this)