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So. It took me 12 years of alarm clocks, schedules, and struggles with insomnia and exhaustion to get my body to a roughly midnight to 8 am sleep schedule. Where I still needed the alarm clock, but most days I woke up without it or just before it went off. But there was that knowledge that it wasn't fully reliable and I had better have that thing set so I didn't get fired. And it's taken roughly...four weeks to end up back on my native 4 am to noon sleep habit. And now I get tired around the same time every night. I am asleep within a half hour generally of hitting the pillow, I still get the occasional insomnia I can't sleep for a few hours, but it's been twice in the last three months, not four times a week like before. I don't need sleeping pills four outta seven nights a week anymore. I sleep solidly around 8 hours. I no longer have this exhausted desperate need for a nap in the middle of the day anymore. I occasionally do enjoy a nap, but it's not the same I need one every day or I fall apart in the evenings. Why am I talking about this? Because many people kept telling me that sleep schedules are easily adjusted, and completely overlook the physical effects side of changing it. Evolution has NOT caught up with our modern lives. We evolved multiple internal sleep clocks as a survival tool, someone in the group was always awake to alert the others to dangers. But a tool that worked for us for thousands of years didn't just vanish. I'm not saying it won't evolve out. Our brains a whole still are, the shapes of cars in the last couple of decades has been added to the 'instant recognition of a basic shape that is not a threat moving around us' reflex. That was a fascinating article, about how we subconsciously identify threat vs. harmless by overall silhouette shape, and what has been introduced to that catalog in our brains. Even for children and people who don't drive, because they are such a common thing in our world now. But people in places where they are not have not added the shape. Sorry, got off on a tangent. Night owls unite. We just are what we are. And if you're like me and just can't adjust to the day shift world, do try to find a night shift somehwere, you're body will be happier for it.

Watching Unusual Suspects while waiting to get sleepy(Deadly Women auto qeued this) and I think the cold medicine is making me wonky, but the murder victim's name is Brianna, and despite it being a pen name, it's really creepy to keep hearing "And he murdered Brianna..." Mr. Plus Turtle says he'll defend me though. I'm not sure I like cold medicine anymore. I couldn't take anything for years, most of it contains pseudoephidrine, and you can't mix that with the daily powdered asthma control inhaler I was on for years, so I just got used to colds and dealing. Aspirin if my throat was really unhappy cuz I'm kinda wimpy. But I don't have to take Advair anymore for like three years now, so I took the NyQuil pills Nikki offered me, and I just feel loopy. I don't think I feel better, I think I just care slightly less that I don't feel good from the medication.

This morning I came across this wonderful post on Joanna Santos' blog: https://joannabefree.blogspot.com/2016/10/my-own-coming-out.html I know we don't typically reference sites off of TGG but I feel this is important. There, she posts a video that really resonated with me, that labels such as gay, male, white, transgender, etc., may set us up for "us vs. them" feelings, thus leading to isolation and our considering ourselves only within that label, which is only a part of our overall self. I've recently been thinking, okay I am transgender but that is not all that I am. But it kind of felt that way. Worse, I fear my wife feels this way, too. It's as if my being trans is the only thing now. And neither of us want that. In the video the person (can't recall his name) makes the point that if we say "I have gender dysphoria" that we can more naturally consider things like:1. How will I accept, manage, and live with my gender dysphoria?2. What does gender dysphoria mean for me in the context of my total life?I think that is healthy to consider. I recently came out to a couple of our friends as transgender. They were okay with it at least to my face but now I think I may return to them and refine myself as "I'm me, with gender dysphoria." I mean, who cares what the label is? I'm simply working on ways to manage my dysphoria (which is undeniable) and be happy as a total person, with my wife, friends, and doing whatever it is that we do.