k. here is the way my days work. right now i wake-up at 7:00am. i take a antibiotic and then i go back to sleep where i wake up again at 8:00am and have some breakfast. breakfast, for the last couple of weeks, has been toast, sometimes with and sometimes without jam depending on the whims of the kitchen staff, another antibiotic and some anti-swelling meds. once eaten i dilate for about fourty to fourty-five minutes, start to finish. including clean-up and stent swop over. then i set my alarm for 12:00pm, when i take another antibiotic. and hour later i order more room service if i’m feeling up to it or i have a yogurt and a chocolate bar before taking more anti-swelling meds. the alarm then gets set for 4:00pm, when i have my second dilation. three hours later, at seven, i take my third hour-before-food antibiotic, wait around for a bit, and then order food, usually noodles and chicken, so i can take my other antibiotic and my final antiswelling of the day. at about eleven i do my last dilation. midnight i crash. throughout the day i take tramadol depending on how sore i feel or how worried i am about eventual dilation or how much i just want to zonk out. fun huh? it passes the time, considering i just haven’t been going anywhere at all recently.

the day surgery on wednesday knocked me about something rotten. a large part of my right labia needed removing and a little bit on my left needed taking off as well. smelling my own burning flesh as Dr Chetawutt cauterised the cut was very strange too. all the way through Nut held my hand. sure i was drugged up, but afterwards i cried a little because the staff seem so lovely.

since then i’ve been bed bound by my drains and lack of energy. i slowly sunk into a mini-depression as well. it just sucked all over, only being able to lie on my back, feeling the drains bite every time i moved, not having the energy to wash. it’s been pretty horrid. still, today they came out and i feel a hundred times better already.

i’ve met another couple of transwomen as well. i’ve also felt that i’ve done pretty well, to be honest. in the past i’ve always presumed that when i come up against trite notions of gender from other transwomen that i’d become argumentative and angry with them, but i must admit that i’ve just come across such a transwoman and i didn’t at all. she seemed nice enough, but she kept on talking about how it was so much easier being a woman and that women didn’t have any responsibilities and that all men were horrid and how now she had her SRS and facial surgery and papers sorted she was just a woman and she could get on with being just a woman and, really, get a fucking reality check would you please? still, she was pleasant, and i couldn’t get angry with her no matter how much i though ‘really, please, you’re in for such a shock’. and i couldn’t get angry with her because underneath all the talk of how being a woman was so great and underneath all her confidence was such a wide streak of insecurity. her voice was for her own reassurance and she couldn’t quite argue when, after asking me what i planned now i was finally a woman, i said that, really, i’d gotten over the finally becoming a woman a fair while back. the surgery is just fixing a little matter that needs attending to. the important part of what goes on inside your own head inside your own perception. i could tell she struggled with that a little, but who am i to get angry about that?

the other transwoman, i have to admit, i’ve taken a shine to. a softly spoken french quietly assured, although still a little nervous seeming, frenchwoman. although, the difference with her, was that she didn’t seem nervous due to her transsexuality. she just had that look about her that suggest gentle doeishness, although she’s more than likely nothing of the sort (in fact i’d be willing to bet money on the fact). she is here by herself and i feel for her already. i asked if she knew anybody here at the hotel who might be here when she gets out of hospital. she said she didn’t. i do hope she meets somebody who  could at least keep her sane or visit her maybe at least once a day. we chatted a little, but inbetween the banter from the other and our own collective language barrier it was kinda difficult.

talk of going with a man was cast from our first companion, which is something of a conversation starter for me. this was where i spotted the first chink in her armour, when she said that there were a few men who might be intrested in her but she always got cold feet. she spoke about it like it would be an experiment, something you could write a recipie to. i just told her that make sure you trust them and feel safe. and watch out for stubble and, soemtimes, you do really need that bottle of vodka before you manage anything. the french lady didn’t say much here, maybe she didn’t understand us, but she’d also mentioned to me that she had a girlfriend. plus, she hadn’t opened up her insecurities for my socially starved brain to feed on (okay, i’ve had em, but it hasn’t exactly been a rock club atmosphere in our hotel room. more like three days after the warehouse party has been raided).

i might be a member of it, but this is a weird world.

love

xx