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Good Evening, everyone. I do hope that everyone has had a pleasant day or evening. So far, mine has been rather uneventful and dull, aside from the taunting scent of fresh baked brownies coming from the kitchen. I've been informed that I'm not allowed, sadly. Warren has had us on this new kick of exercise and trying to eat better. I dare say, his sandwich he'd made with turkey, salami, cheese, spinach and red pepper hummus nearly forced me to vomit mid-bite. I do not think I'll be doing that again. On the side, we have been going to the gym whenever we have time and taking some time on the treadmill. 30 minutes so far, an average of 200 calories burned both times. We'd like to go more often, but we only go after-hours where we work (with permission) when no one else is there due to anxiety of working out around other people. Doing such demands we get there at around midnight, unfortunatly. It's been alright, so far. It's good to get out of the house and just get on a treadmill and watch a big screen while we work out. Honestly, my legs dont feel so restless at night now since we've been doing it. It has been surprisingly pleasant. We havent lost much weight yet but it's still very early in the routine so perhaps just to give it more time. We go back to see the surgeon Dr.Feins on the 13th for a revised consultation about the top surgery. Only after we get that done can we go ahead and send the paperwork to the insurance company and pray to all Gods known to man that they'll approve us for assistance. Or at least a loan of some sort. We're all very much counting on some assistance with this. We greatly appreciate everyone who had donated to the cause, and although the site forced us to withdraw the funds thus far, they remain in a box unspent and saved for surgery. Or at least some after-care products after the surgery is done, as it's not even 10% of the cost of the surgery. But it's all appreciated and much better than nothing!! Life has been slightly more quiet with the alters lately. Everyone seems to have settled down slightly and become more cooperative. Milo is surprisingly quiet, mostly entertaining himself with some game with Mathias. At times, Mathias will disappear altogether, most likely to his own headspace. Abby has decided she wants to change her name from Abriella Marilyn Dahlia to Harley Abriella Marilyn. No one has disagreed with this idea so I now have to get used to calling her Harley and not Abby. It's been more difficult that you'd think. Ben is more active lately, taking over while driving or coloring or watching television. Ren has settled a bit, seeming to have a more normal awake schedule and taking over more often, as he should. There's perhaps an inkling of yet another alt but thus far it has been nothing more than a thought. A presence noted, though it could very well just be the manifestation of one of the other alts popping in and out. I've yet to be able to identify solid tell-tale signs of specific alts, aside from scents. Milo tends to have a more childish smell, a bit like that scent you find on a young baby. Mathias tends to smell more like incense or a perfume of some sort, or perhaps a bath oil. Harley tends to smell more flowery, like a deodorant that Ren used to wear. Ben has a different smell, more boyish but not exactly a masculine scent. More like...perhaps popcorn mixed with axe deodorant, if that makes any sense. I cannot smell my own scent, as most people dont identify their own smells. I've been informed that I usually smell like sweat or fire smoke, though I'm not sure that's a good thing. Harley swears that it's a good smell, but that sounds drastically unattractive to me. Lastly, Ren tends to smell like Axe Pheonix and tea. Naturally, of course, considering those are his two most freuquently used items. I'm attempting to study these details more thoroughly in order to gain a sense of awareness to presences in alts. It's more difficult than you'd think. As if trying to memorize the order of a constantly shuffled deck of cards. Not impossible, I imagine, but very difficult. On another topic, we've been rather busy with our artwork. Though I'm disappointed that I can no longer 'draw' as well as I imagined or, frankly, remember being able to; I do find myself a slice of peacefulness by coloring sketches instead. We find pages online and have Justin's mother print them while she's at work, and we've secured them into a 3ring binder in page protectors. Everyone has a few tags with their initials on them, and they can 'claim' specific pages that they like. But only a certain amount of them at a time, only allowed to claim another page after one of their own has been finished. That way no one can claim dozens more than the next person. At present, Milo hasnt done any. They're a bit too 'grown up' for him, being detailed and whatnot, and he has his own cartoon coloring books. Though he's expressed no interest in actually coloring in them. He's been extremely quiet lately and sleeping a great amount. Perhaps when certain alts become more active, other alts become less active. Like a battery switching between certain lines, perhaps. Just an observation, of course. I'm not a scientist, nor a doctor. In terms of Ren and my writings, we've become rather accustomed to taking turns writing paragraphs. Depending on who has the best idea at the moment, we take our turns either when our creativity runs out or the other has a fantastic idea or scene that they'd like to add in. Of course, we take each piece into consideration instead of blotching together a confusing puzzle. But it works out, nonetheless. He's put me in charge of a few of the characters while he's mostly in charge of plotlines and altercations. The main character seems to be mine at the moment, which is nice. We've had a bit of a disagreement in regards to one of the characters, particularly her personality and appearance. He'd like to alter her in regards to copywrite and not wanting to overshadow a good friend's already-created character. I insist that he's being silly and to leave the poor character as she is, that I rather enjoy her with how we'd envisioned her. But he's starting to see the character in a different light than I am, and is threatening to scrap her altogether. I wont allow it, of course. To me, characters are people. They're creations of the mind and I take great care and appreciation into each one. Even the ones intended to be the less good or the evil doers. Any character's death is taken into a huge consideration to me, and I do not take lightly to simply writing out a character once I've envisioned them fully in my mind. Ellenora is a person to me, and not just fiction. She is caring, compassionate, intelligent and has a very large capacity for love and appreciation. She's gentle in the heart and soul, but firm when the time prompts for it. Even her appearance is set in stone to me, though he has agreed to allow me to change a few things. Her hair is a bit of an auburn color, not entirely red but vastly more crimson than chestnut. Her eyes will have a hue of green, though mostly a soft shade of brown. She has pleasantly rounded cheeks and an affectionate smile, causing little wrinkles towards the corners of her eyes when she shows her true happiness in things. This is not just a character to me. She is a dear friend, and a large piece of this puzzling book series. Without her, I fear the book will be lost. The plotline to ruin and the main character to be doomed to wandering without cause. He fails to see the reasoning for my compassion for fictional characters. But as I see it, characters are a piece of the writer. Little pieces that they do not show the world themselves, but through their art. That is what writing is to me. An art form, for it is just as challenging to me at times than it is to the painter before his canvas. I'm painting a picture and I want it to be perfect. I'll not have him switching my paints or smudging my lines. With that subject aside, we come to another event that has prompted my attention. While out to lunch with myself, Ren's brother Kai and his boyfriend Justin, we were enjoying a pleasant meal at a favorite restaurant. I ordered a drink that Ren normally wouldnt, prompting the attention of Kai, who is aware of my existence but understands not to out me. When the waitress were taking our orders, she noted to the fact that Ren was helping Kai order his food. Kai has a bit of a social anxiety as well, so he was helping him decide on what he'd like. The waitress thought this was cute and sweet, and smiled nicely and asked "are you two sister?". Well, to be honest, neither of us liked this at all, and Ren knew that it would bother Kai as well, as he is also transgender. Immediatly, though perhaps a little too sharply, Ren replied "No, we're brothers." The woman seemed a bit perplexed by this for a moment, but Ren stood his ground and Kai agreed. The waitress acknowledged this with confirming that she'd heard him correctly, and she had, and she left to put in our orders. Justin expressed his irritation that Ren had been rude by his tone towards her, so he'd made an effort the rest of the meal to be pleasant and smile to her nicely. Though I'm sure he didnt mean to snap, I'm glad that he didnt submit to her assumed gendering. I really wish that people would take more consideration into their words before letting them slip. To us, this was just another day in the life of a transgender man. To another person, it could have been a catastrophic and devastating blow to the self esteem. It has not been mentioned since by any of us verbally, but by the smile Kai gave Ren, I know that it was not for waste. It made his day, easily. I'm sad to report that Kai goes home on Sunday for a ridiculous and wasteful trip south with his appauling mother and transphobic older sister. But hopefully this has been a good visit for him, as we've done all we can (financially as well) to make this a good visit. We went to the theater (much to Ben's delight, as he finally got to see his idol on the big screen; Deadpool), we went out to dinners on a few occasions, and played endless hours of minecraft. Not to mention the hours that Kai clocked in by spending online on IMVU, despite the slight drop in internet speeds due to such. We've all done our bests to ignore the irritating internet speeds so that he could talk to his friends, since he wont be able to for a few months by the end of this week. I'm not sure if Justin is going with us to bring Kai back, as he hates Ren's mother with a passion so hot that he refuses all holidays with the family. Ren went to Christmas to their house by himself this past year, as Justin was refusing tooth and nail. I would too, if not for the uncontrollable circumstances of sharing a body. She boils my blood like no other woman I know, but I see no sense in dragging on the inevitable with her when I'm more concerned for Kai's safety. She's nothing to me but a roadblock, and every roadblock can be removed, one way...or another. However, it's closing soon to an hour past midnight, and I've been instructed not to stay up late as we have an appointment with the neighbor early tomorrow morning to help clean her house before lunch. I cannot refuse, as the poor woman is suffering enough as it is in a war with her pompous and pathetic waste of oxygen, her ex-husband. That little man is less my height and twice less my dignity. He's so self richious, I want nothing more than to perhaps run him over with a train. And maybe even in a loop to ensure he wont be bothering her again. He'll not stop until she's homeless, I swear, the disgusting cockroach. There's a special place in the depths for people like him, and he'll get his by the Punisher of the Tormentor soon enough. I only wish I could be there to see it. I'll have my own slice at the hellfire one day, I'm sure. But all I can do is pray it wont be today, and take all due punishments with my dignity intact. For now, I'll have to say goodnight and good day. As always, Your devoted Ghost, Alexandru

*hugs* But hey, if you ever do decide to get that train, lemme know. I have a few people to lay out next to that dude...

All the symptoms but the lung congestion have fallen away. If it's not gone by Tuesday, I'm going to back to see Bethany because I've had things like this turn into Pnuemonia before. And the last thing Nikki needs just before he starts seeing the therapist is for me to go from sick to 'into real trouble'. Blargh. I feel like I want to cough out my lungs, windpide, and or esophagus. And I have this irrational fear that I"m ruining the weekends girl time, even though Nikki says he's not feeling great and doesn't feel like screwing around with it. I'm sorta in a perfect internal storm of anxiety triggers. The ongoing struggle with my family, the extra hours at work (my job is awful, and the smoke from teh boss has been driving my congestion and asthma crazy), the paranoia that I'll get my guts twisted up from the severe coughing again (that is how I injured myself into surgery last July), my asthma triggering off the congestion and making it crazy hard to get enough air, and Nikki being really sick and down again are all making me crazy. Doctor said two weeks is the normal clearout, so waiting til Tuesday unless anything goes wrong. I need to find something to do to get my brain outta thinking mode clearly.

Last Thursday I went to Albany, NY for a surgery consultation (Surgeon who does breast augmentation + surgeon who works with transgender patients + takes my insurance = go to Albany). The surgery won't happen until August, I have to be on HRT for a full year before insurance will cover it (they'll cover it if I'm "not comfortable with the growth that occurs after a year on HRT"), so it's tentatively scheduled for August 12. I got the basics down - it's an outpatient procedure that will take about an hour. He took measurements and photos so that we can work on size issues later. But most important! As I waited in the exam room for the surgeon I took a moment for a "gut check" - periodically when something is becoming "more real" I like to stop and reflect on how I feel in that moment. This time, as with every other gut check moment so far, the feedback was "great!" I am still checking around for other surgeons - even if I go with this one I know I should talk to more than 1 (I did like him though) xoxo Chrissy

I hope you have a smooth procedure and a worry-free healing process, and love your new self! *Hugs*

Hiya Chrissy. I Am so glad that thing's are working out for You Young Lady. You deserve to have nice thing's happen for You. Chrissy, since I have known You on here, You have come on Leap's and Bound's, and You Can Be so Very Proud of Yourself. Chrissy, You are such a Patient, Kind-Hearted Young Lady. Chrissy, Good Luck, Good Health, Take Care, And My Very Best Wishes, Love Stephanie. xxxx

Congrats on moving forward with breast augmentation. One thing about HRT, the longer you are on this your breast for most will expand and will allow better fit for the new breast. I was in rest mode for four days afterwards after a three plus hours for surgery. One of the difficult things is restraining from using your arms e.g. can't raise them very high. For three weeks was in a binder and during that time was instructed to apply a special lotion to my breast. Thought for you, rather than going in with a predetermined cup size listen to the surgeon for their opinion. I asked for B but they rationalized a C cup which afterwards I feel was the correct size. Personally I just didn't feel right to have my breast done before GRS but I think I am in a small group as most get them first or at the same time as GRS. Any ways I am happy for you.

Amazing how little time it takes for the procedure, compared with the time one has to wait to become eligible for it, hope you get what you want with the surgeon of your choice. I well remember that elated great feeling (it must be about 4 years ago now?) when I walked away from Worcester Hospital after being diagnosed after a second opinion as having Gynecomastia (male breast growth). I was elated, "wow I'm going to have - no I've got boobs - fantastic". The Pueraria Mirifica (plant estrogen) that I had been taking had worked. It was shortly after that, I told my GP that I wanted to start the gender change pathway on the NHS, the rest is recent history as told in earlier blog entries. Point is I found having boobs to be a real milepost on the pathway to becoming who I wanted to be, I'm sure it must be similar for you too Chrissy, hope you have a celebration...................