Starting to feel better after years of being lost in a fog can really make a person feel like a hedonist, can't it? And I don't just mean that in terms of sexuality. I mean, I just ate some hard boiled eggs and it was an *experience.* I wasn't just tasting them and feeling them, I was *tasting* them and *feeling* them. It was like I could taste death and life and all sorts of things in them. I felt... unnamed, wordless things. It was weird. It was powerful. After eating the first one and realizing how strongly I reacted to the mix of flavors and textures, I took a nibble off the second one, and then squeezed my fingers into it, harder and harder, until they pushed into it and split the top off. It felt so visceral! I licked the yolk off the white from the inside. I felt like an animal!

Going out on my walks I've been feeling more, too. The other day I sat in the grass. The grass smelled so big. I was drowning in it. All the scents in it. There was even some dried dog crap nearby and I could smell it, like it was part of the soil, and though it added a little bit of bad smell overall, just being able to smell so much at once was like ecstasy. I stared in a daze at the sky. The blue was so intense. The clouds moving was spectacular. And all of it ensconced in this smell of grass and dirt and life. How has this been around for so long? Why couldn't I feel it for so long? I was missing out on so much!

I won't miss out anymore. I will revel in this animal body and crave all the sights and sounds I can pull into my greedy senses.

It'll be rough, but I'll get there.

Tryin to figure out an irl aesthetic. I'm feeling better an wanting to look more unique. I used to love some fashion, wore a lotta suits and ties with bows and gaiters an fancy dress shoes, etc. I got too tired and in pain for that. But maybe I can return to it a lil. I was thinking "kindly but spooky goth king" might be a nice ideal. Even if I only get one or two things that are slightly in that direction, I think I'd enjoy it. Looking at men's crop tops and beard beads. Wonderin if I can alter a garment I currently have, to make it more stylish or weird. Like giving a hoodie some "floating sleeves," which basically means having a slit cut out at the elbow. But if I'm gonna cut a heavy thing, I think I should crop it at the bottom or cut it up at the bottom or something, since my stomach area is where I get way overheated, and my arms actually stay too cold.

I don't wanna be where I am right now. I told myself, about a week ago, maybe Friday night, that things are gonna be different. And for the most part, they have been. I feel different. I have some energy, a little bit, on a number of days. Both mental and physical. I'm thinking more about hygiene, too. I'm wondering if I can start keeping up with it better. I love how soft my hair is when it's properly washed, straight and silky. I've found that brushing my teeth at night before I sleep is integral to having energy the next day, funny enough. It can be so hard because tooth brushing in itself is a highly energy-draining and painful experience to my whole body, but it's worth it if I can squeeze out enough energy to do it. I can't always. Sometimes I have to pretend I'm a lil kid who doesn't know how to brush their teeth right and just, do a quick awful job of it, which is better than nothing. Sometimes I can't muster that and just have to sleep.

I've lost over 20 lbs since the end of January. I keep slowly but surely losing more. I attribute it to stopping T, but a medication may be having an effect too. I'm so glad I stopped T. It was making my flare-ups literally constant. Things aren't great still, but they're defs better than they were. If I had roughly a half hour of usable time per day before I stopped T, I've got about an hour of usable time now. It's still a tiny amount compared to what most folks have. But it's a sizable improvement for me. It gives me the option to actually get exercise and slightly possibly keep improving my health. On T, I couldn't really exercise. I tried. I failed and failed and failed and failed and failed. I think it was forcing me to have a whole bunch of useless muscle mass. Like little weights were strapped to every part of my body, and they secreted an enzyme that caused pain and exhaustion whenever I tried to use my muscles.

I wanna look good. I wanna... I wanna dance. You know what's really captured my eye? Pole dancing. I cannot stop thinking about it. I want to pole dance. I love dancing. I don't have much energy, but I love dancing, even if just a little. I'm trying to build up my muscles because some day, some day, I want to pole dance. It looks ridiculously fun. I remember climbing a pole holding up the roof at my parents' house when I was a kid, and and my mom told me to stop it. I was having so much fun. I didn't understand why she wanted me to stop. Now I know.

I'm starting to think, in my head, I'm a lil bit of a party boy... if party boys didn't drink and weren't serious abt sex. I want to party with peeps but inebriation is something that's really undesirable to me. And I wanna dance super sexily and be a tease, but I'm not interested in actually getting with someone. I think that's one thing abt pole dancing I like too; you can do it sexily but you're not like, directly with or involved with someone. It's a performance and not a personal invitation.

Anyway, I'm sick and tired of being at home all day. I want to get out. I want to dance. And eat good food. And laugh and talk to people even if I'm awkward. And meet strange folks. I just, I'm so, so, so bored at home. This place is tiny and bland. I may be tiny too, but I don't wanna be bland. At the same time I will admit I have some anxiety abt the idea of dressing in a unique way; the people here aren't very openly imaginative and may not be accepting of anyone who looks out-of-the-ordinary. This is a place where most folks keep their heads down. Only the younger folks seem to foster creativity in what they wear. Mostly only the younger folks, I guess. There have been some adults with interesting fashions but I try not to look too hard at them in case they think I'm judging them or bein a creeper.

Siiigh. What can I do to change things? How can I make it different? Everything is going to be different.

Everything is going to be different.

I am in need of a space to release my emotions when they're raw and half-formed, and I think this may be it. While parts of my brain scream I should think of what other people would want to see if I'm going to be putting my art up here, I know I need a place where I rest that part of my mind and mostly don't curate my self-expression. I've noticed myself putting pressure on my irl friends when my mental health has been bad lately, because I've held so many depressive thoughts back that the dam is cracking open and they're leaking out whether I want it or not.

The thing is, this site is pretty explicit. Because there is so much hardcore stuff on here, I don't feel it's as strange in this place to express oneself in out-of-the-ordinary ways. I feel it's not so bad to be expressive without analyzing every little aspect. Maybe if I can release my stronger feelings here, they won't infect the folks in my close circle at home. I have exhausted myself of being socially careful. But it's that very carefulness that keeps my friendships healthy. So I think... if I can be more open here, I will be less exhausted elsewhere. That's my plan. To be more wild. To be more brazen.

I don't have the artistic community around me that I once had. In school, there were friends who also drew strange or explicit or emotional stuff, and they created a little insulated place where I could make art and feel seen. Well, they're no longer around. And for some years now, I also lost my art. Too much pain and fatigue to create. I've clawed my way out of the deepest pit of illness to a point where I can create a little. And who I am as a person has changed, markedly, even in just this last year. My emotions are wack. They're bubbling up uncontrolled.

I've got to express my feelings, and I don't want to run my mouth at my irl friends. They don't need to see that weird kinda manic way I act when I'm trying and failing to control my feelings of desperation and lost hope. They don't need to hear about my pain over and over. They have their own difficulties to face, and I don't want to be emotionally demanding; this is especially true since I don't think I could handle returning the favor for them, when their own emotions run high. No, I know I'd ghost them. My mind is fragile at this point in my life. I'll be stronger again some day, but denying the fact that I'm weak and shaky right now will do me no good.

And I have lost hope. For thirty years, even in the worst of times, I retained a kernel of optimism, nestled deep in my heart. Through the abuse, the depression, the loneliness, I held hope within myself and trusted that things would improve. That it was the nature of things to improve. That there was a natural progression to life, and it started out hard, but things would gradually get easier. That's not true. In this society, unless you are wealthy, everything you have can disappear immediately. The house will always win, and you are not the house. The evil in this country is not passive, bad situations are not a mistake. We are miserable because misery makes us easy to exploit. The doors to escape poverty have been systematically shut. It's not natural, living in cramped hovels, working all day, stressing every minute. This is not a human, or humane, way of living. The more I look at it, the more ridiculous I find it.

Hope has been replaced with a cold seed of anger. I could count on my optimism, in the past, to carry me through hard times. It has broken. I have found, people wax romantic about the importance of hope, but there are things precious in the losing of hope, too: the recognition that hope is no band-aid for the scraping lifestyle of the oppressed, and the stab of an iron desire to use one's power in the fight against the oppressors. Righteous fury. Regular humans, my people, should not have to live all over this country in a cycle of squalor and desperation. The hammer beats down ceaselessly.

All this has destabilized my emotions. Add a changing body chemistry and surgery and covid fears on top of that, and I am rapidly metamorphosing. I wonder where I'll have brought myself by this time next year. I want to use my power. I want to reclaim my voice, my body, and a space in the environment. I am horrified by this world.