(I often dream about speculative fiction that has yet to be released.)

Soon enough sisters, the skies are dark and a bunch of nasty vampires are running the show. Living humans are food. They're not the only supernaturals about though.
( Read more... )

I have an appointment to be assessed for sexual reassignment surgery. AKA "the big switch." AKA "genital surgery."

I am glad that I have an appointment, but I'm pissed off that I have to go through with assessment.  Really pissed off. As in having-trouble-sleeping-so-I'm-writing-it-down pissed off.

The present criteria for assessment for genital ( Read more... )

This review of Greg Bear's sci-fi novel Legacy is juxtaposed to the next-to-sci-fi experience that is Transition because it is the neatest metaphor I have found to date.

It contains spoilers and probably errors.

In Legacy...

Most of what remains of humanity lives in Thistledown, a hollowed-out asteroid, where people are immortal, and have assistant ( Read more... )

My face still feels tight. I am pleased with the results. I think.

Hair:
My hair has constricted my face, or advanced itself, depending on how you want to look at it. There is still some recession, but it's smaller and relative to a much more advanced hairline.

There are things that can go wrong still. If the scalp advance doesn't work right, I can ( Read more... )

And I'm back. It's all done. The sutures are out, leaving little blood-dotted tracks across my forehead like a map to I don't know where. Flakes of hair shed around the suture line. Hope that stops soon. A shallow grove runs under my nose. In my mouth, tangles of dissolvable/edible sutures slowly recede across two streak-like lesions.

This knocked ( Read more... )

Progress.

Small children stare at me. Men offer me their seats.

On Saturday I went to see Iron Man with Ruby and Scott. Ruby was nice enough to hold my arm as I held the other out in a gesture that could be read as either "My face is too swollen for me to see you beyond where my hand is" or could also mean "Pardon me. I could lose my balance."

Good ( Read more... )

The swelling is going down now. I can close my lips now, which makes eating not just easier, but possible. Everything looks like it's healing fine. Just under the swelling, there is a visible difference.

The idea that I might come out of this with a regular female-looking face seems too good to be true. Transition is often a matter of trading high ( Read more... )

Rapid-fire collage of sepia-muted images. Insect-like movement. Bees clustered on a honeycomb. Pedestrians in a park viewed from above.

I must be dreaming. I'll wake up now.

I open my eyes and the world comes back on me with a rush. Busy people. Flourescant lights. A gurney's edge.

"Where am I?"

Questions come back at me. Name. Birthdate. Etcetera.

( Read more... )

Swelling has narrowed my vision to a tear-streaked La-Forge-esque strip.

Indeed.It feels like I have taken a small muppet, stretched it and shoved my head up its ass until it fits like a belaclava.

Fortunately, I'm not having trouble sleeping on my back. I am having trouble with stress/narcotic-induced repetitive dreams that gradually turn sour and ( Read more... )

Wow. It feels like I am wearing a mask

Imagine if you took this actor,

...and cast him as Nute Gunray from the Star Wars prequels.

...And added this guy's neck wrap (except mine is filled with ice)

It still wouldn't look like me. But it would be close.