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// June 5 2024, 4 min read, #life #cats #disability #longcovid #olive
I've always hated summer, and it's only getting worse with my disability and climate change.
Aside: it's mind boggling how there has been a noticeable shift in the climate over any period of time in my adult life. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years, etc. each period has seen an undeniable shift for the worst and it's ramping up. And it's not just summer, _every_ season has these observable-by-laypeople changes.
There was a brief year or so after I started HRT and before I became disabled where I could actually tolerate a summer day of 83 degrees fahrenheit. Pre-transition, that was unbearable. Post-disability though now even 76F can become unbearable. But that short window was mind boggling. So that's how people who enjoyed summer lived! I'm not entirely sure if I'm grateful to have experienced that, a brief window into a world where I actually got to enjoy the Chicago summer. Because now the heat absolutely destroys me more than it ever did. I used to be able to recover after some time in a cold space. Now, it sends me into a fatigue crash, and there's minimal chance of escaping that.
Is it truly better to have enjoyed summer and lost than to have never enjoyed summer at all?
Beyond that, summer, much like winter in a very different way, feels like a season of romance. I miss my highschool days of staying out late with my friends, and especially with the girl I had a crush on. Cool summer nights are my favorite, because the sun is gone, i'm not dying from the heat, and it really feels like anything could happen in those hours. But now I mostly enjoy those nights through open windows or from my apartment balcony. I rarely have the physical energy to go out, let alone _meet people_. And I resent that so much.
Is it too much to ask to have the energy to spend a few hours in a park with another beautiful trans woman?
I guess it is.
I have a cute Kirby sweater my most recent ex left behind and didn't want back. I still wear it, but it will always be hers and as such I'll never stop taking care of it the way she asked me to. I wish we had got summer nights.
I have had a lot of clothings left behind by exes. Long ago that was my first foray into trying on proper clothes for me, a woman. The world felt a lot simpler back then.
And then it's Pride month too. It's a bit of a dated post (politically) at this point, but the message is still relevant:
You Are Not An Ally Just Because You Say You Are
But I imagine that if I have any reliable reader base, y'all are trans or queer anyway and already understand this.
I want to be out there meeting people and having tons of queer sex. I want to go on gay dates and celebrate Pride for ONCE! But I don't think I get to.
I can dream. I can talk to people online. But that in person connection seems impossible these days.
I've been in a pretty elongated medium crash for maybe a couple to a few weeks. Nothing like earlier this year[1], which was a heavy crash for over a month. The cause is multifold. I've been sleeping incredibly poorly, the transition to summer has been wrecking my body, and my wife had a pretty scary trip to the ER a few weeks ago. Thankfully it was actually a pretty minor situation, but it was not easy to tell in the moment and it was past closing time for all local urgent care clinics. Bullocks. Those should be open much later than they are.
We were in and out of the ER inside of two hours, which is pretty wild. I've been in ERs a lot over the past ten years. Lots of heart attack symptoms on my part. I wish any doctor of mine would try to look further into why I keep getting heart attack symptoms but no heart attacks. It's always a much longer affair, even when they've decided I'm in good shape and can go home, they just linger and take their time releasing me. But this time she was in and out in no time. The ER was pretty slow and dead too, not like they were super rushing through easy patients to free up staff for more intense scenarios. There just wasn't much going on that night.
Olive is getting old finally. He turned 11 years old this spring and he's starting to slow down. Only physically, he's still just as yelly and cuddly and sharp as ever. He stopped jumping for a few weeks, which was really scary because he's always been a prolific jumper. He got xrays last week and there's very small signs of osteoarthritis. Which is to be expected at his age, but it's not enough to explain why he wasn't jumping I guess. He also got really constipated one day two weeks ago and then let out a turd bigger than my own human turds. It was impressive. And he's been jumping more and better lately now too. He was pooping fine before and after that day, so I'm unconvinced that the constipation caused the jumping problems, but who knows. The vet has us trialing Solensia on him, a once a month shot for arthritis, to see if that helps him feel better anyway. I hope it does.
I regret that I didn't know enough to make Duster's last years easier on him. I won't make that mistake again.
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