see, it's a catch-22.

to begin with, i'm never sure if they see axl rose or kurt cobain - or if that's even just exposing a generation gap, and they think i'm like ariel pink or something.

regardless, all of these options are terrible. when i identify as female, i actually mean it. and, if you ask around, you'll realize people eventually figure that out the hard way.

so, in trying to express myself as who i feel i am, people end up horribly misinterpreting me as something that i'm not. and, to an extent this ought to be easy to understand - a youngish woman that works in a library perhaps has a similar wardrobe to a male rockstar from the 90s, doesn't she?

- we both wear skate shoes.
- we both wear the same kinds of blue jeans
- we both wear snugly fitting tshirts
- we both have about the same haircut

so, you can take this costume and put it on a guy and get a rockstar, then take it off and put it on a female and get a librarian's assistant. a little bit of make-up just confuses the point further. when explained in this way, the confusion is maybe easier to understand: i'm trying to present myself as a bookish female, but i get badly misinterpreted as some nihilistic sex symbol anachronism, instead.

and, to the extent that i have a guy side? well, we're all bi-gendered in some sense; gender is a spectrum, so your average cis-female ends up something like 20% male. but, to the extent that the guy side exists, it's the exact opposite of that - it's neither kurt cobain nor axl rose but somewhere between michael stipe and ian mackaye, in that i'm not quite straight edge but i'm pretty white bread and overly nerdy. if i were to ever develop an interest in exploring my male side, the first thing i'd do is shave my head.

so, it's like - you can accuse me of false advertising if you really insist, but you're kind of missing the point.

it would just be nice if my day-to-day interactions with women weren't consistently so hyper-sexualized. that's what i'm complaining about. and, to an extent, avoiding that is the whole point of transitioning.

so, i went to see something today.

the girl next door seemed to want me to move in, although i suspect she drastically underestimated my age. i've been female-identifying for fifteen years, and i can't even go grocery shopping without getting fawned over by women that i can't tell are even of age or not. it's distressing.

the place wasn't close to being acceptable, though.

"So, if this president insists on punching you in the nose and eating your lunch, why would you continue to pretend he's still a great neighbor (sic) and go over to his place to spend your time and money?" 

because you're not buying anything from donald trump directly, who is horribly unpopular as it is.

we can't fall into this nonsense - we need to stand in solidarity with each other, not be manipulated into competing with each other.

i have no interest in boycotting american goods, or falling into any kind of jingoist narrative at all.

sorry.

that's a small step backwards for humanity, and a giant step backwards for canada.

"so, i said some things. you said some things, too. but those are just things that we said. we all say things.

you know, i had some objections against nafta, too...."

send chretien!

he's by far the closest analogue; they'll get along fine.

send douggy to the cottage for the summer.

i'm starting to think that the really disastrous handover of power here is in the desmarais bloodline.

whomever is the kingpin behind the scenes right now is making very stupid decisions, one after another. there needs to be a revolt right now at the very top.

can we please keep doug ford as far away from the trade negotiations as is possible?

look how they talked down to chris christie. they're going to treat him like the entitled fat idiot that he is.

he's a walking disaster.

i think they said 10 years last year.

that would be 9 years, now.

but, things may have happened, since, too. rents are back down a little, and i'm interpreting that as the influx of refugees moving further west.

could i stall here long enough to get into subsidized housing?

i doubt it.

but, i should call them in the morning to update the address, as it is. forgot to do that. i wonder if they can tell me what the eta is...

the waiting lists for subsidized housing are upwards of ten years, which is leaving people like myself in the situation of needing to pay market rent on a disability pension - which costs everybody a lot of money in the end.

hopefully, the new units are built to address second-hand smoking, given that it's understood that smoking and mental illness go together, and these buildings will need to accommodate those with mental illnesses as well as those with physical illnesses. it's not like this is an engineering challenge nowadays, it's just that so many of the buildings are so old....

it's going to be a while before this has any effect on me. and, i'm not happy about dilbert being the middleman, at city hall. if there's a body that will squander the funding, it's the windsor city hall.

but, it's long overdue and it's nice to see some action on it.

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2018/06/reaching-home-canadas-homelessness-strategy.html

hey, i don't know exactly where my genes are from, but it's from somewhere warm (southern italy? israel? africa?), and it's not my fault i ended up born here.

finally.

it's been years since we got some gorgeous weather like this.

and, i'm letting it all in the apartment, and not getting up until tuesday.