Shattered

Woke up at 4am for a 5am start - driving to Sydney for a 0915 appointment with a Facial feminisation surgical specialist from San Francisco who just happens to be in the area. My research shows he's the best in the world, and I couldn't let such an opportunity for a, er, face-to-face consultation go by.

(Note to Americans - Canberra and Sydney may be close together on the map, but Australia is the same size as the USA, and the two cities are actually 300 km apart. About 200 miles in your terms)

Home at 3pm, then a few hours of playing with Andrew, then a bath, then a TS social function that in some ways was a bit of a wake for the 4 TS women who suicided in Melbourne over the last week. I'm the only one who cried though, that's because I'm new to all this. Others were just as upset, just used to this kind of thing. I've read that about 50% of people attempting transition fail in this way, simply because of unbearable social ostracism. Sometimes by their family, sometimes just society at large.

Did I ever mention that transition is hard? I've had it far easier than anyone I know, but it's still the hardest thing I've ever done. OK, also the most fulfilling, and in some ways the most fun. Just Not Easy.

Anyway, too shattered to post very much, off to bed for me, and back with the pithy comments later. And two very good blogs to add to the blogroll... here's a quote from one of them :

Occasionally, something goes right, really right. Then all members of the lab gather round, squish into the viewing angle of someone's screen, and say in unison "Ooh, pretty". But that's not too frequent. More often, it takes weeks of prying and testing for Mother Nature to reveal one of her secrets. Once she does, it is my job to not believe it, until I've tested every possible other option.