Well, I did something that some people might think was silly. I was having a tough day with pain and PTSD, and by lunch time, I was getting to a bad place, so on my break, I went to the toy department, and bought a pink hippo stuffie.

I think it was $10 well spent, even if some others would disagree ..

Will I ever just be me?

okay, I want to talk about dreams for a moment.

I am not sure I understand, much less agree with all dream analysis, but when patterns start get being repeated in dreams, its at least possible your brain is trying to tell you something.

For example, I've had a lot of "searching" dreams - dreams where I was looking for a person, a place, or an object.

The last week of the year is often given over to reflection on the year that is about to pass, so let me add my own take on 2016.

Out in the world, its been a year of tremendous change -not a lot of it positive. Trump, Brexit, the growing power of Russia, terrorism, - its been pretty hard to find a lot of good news.

Plus, this has been the year of the Celebrity Death. I honestly cant think of a year where more famous people have died, and not just b or c listers, but huge names have left us this year.

Well, I had a mostly nice Christmas. My mom was working and brother and my sister-in-law were gone for the weekend, so it was pretty quiet. I did my laundry, took out the garbage, binge-watched "Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency" on Netflix (it was awesome), and then when my mom came home we went to Sharon's and had a supper and gift exchange with her and Samantha. Other than her calling me "Todd", it was a pretty good time, except I had a bit of a panic attack.

I almost wiped out at work today.

My knee buckled while I was working. I managed not to fall, but it took a while before I could get my breathing and heart rate back down to normal.

I know I'm supposed to do more cardio exercises but I'm pretty sure that's not what the doctor meant ...

Back home again after 2572 miles, 6 different countries and 7 different beds. And I have to do all the driving, the SO doesn't!

Not bad for a 2-week trip, huh?

When we set out with a car load of goodies and garden furniture to deliver to friends and relatives in the UK, I never believed that we would return with an even fuller car ...

My granddaughter, young Bonnie, was a bit cranky for the time we were with her, but as she was/is teething and had a cold and a cough, that is hardly surprising. Her sunny smiley self came through a lot though.

Very scary moment for my mom last night.

She was taking the dog for a walk, when she spotted a man on the middle of the street forcing cars to go around him.

When the man heard my dog bark, he saw my mom and started running toward her, and she barely managed to get back inside and close the door behind her before he caught up to her.

Could have been very bad ...

Ever since I joined BC I've had this nagging feeling that I'm just wearing a mask when I'm saying anything on here. I know I'm not but, it feels that way. Sometimes I feel that I'm living a lie even though I'm not. If you know even the slightest about me you'd know I had it rough growing up. What you guys didn't know though is that I didn't really get to fully transition until after High School because nobody in my family supported me besides my grandparents. School for me was Hell!

Just wanted to let my readers (all three of you) know that it might be a while before you get anything new from me.

Depression is kicking my butt at the moment, and between that and the pain/panic dance I am running low on spoons to the point where just making it to work is gonna be a challenge this week.

Sorry, I hope to be back to bubbly soon ...

I wanted to share a story that might encourage anybody who is dealing with a phobia.

For most of my life, I had a serious phobia about bees. I had been stung as a kid, and after that I couldn't stand to be anywhere near a bee.

Then, one day, I found this video put out by (I think) National Geographic called "Why Bumblebees couldn't run an airport".

Someone had slipped a tiny camera inside a hive, and the result was ... life changing for me.

I got a visit from my old friends, Pain and Panic today.

Its funny how often they travel together.

Funny,I keep wondering when I 'll get through this recovery..One of the things that keep me going is being a woman.and that can not change When I figured out transitioning was something I had to do I took the fast track(meaning I did not hold back),no regrets, only joy.
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I wanna share a story that I have told very few people.

When I was 16, I was a mess on the inside. Rape and physical abuse had broken me into pieces, and it was only because I was so good at running on autopilot that nobody really knew how bad it was for me.

In my head, I felt like I had a hundred voices - it was so bad I tried to create a mental "parliament" just so there was some kind of order.

I feel I been for long time, last Sept on the 14th MS downloaded what they called an emergency security update to WIN10; then on Sunday the 15th Dell did download to work with MS download when that finish it lockup the computer forcing a reboot of computer, after about 15 minutes the screen went blank then a note appeared say's 'cannot find HDD, try reseating HDD', I removed back an removed HDD and reinstalled, rebooted system tried this four times same results.

As some of you might know, I vented here a little while ago.

My brother has now fully redeemed the money he 'borrowed without actual permission' and the situation has been normalised.

Already I feel Ms. Muse working her way back to me.

I leave tomorrow morning at stupid o'clock to drive to England, some 650 miles through a total of 6 different countries and intend to spend 7 of the 14 days with my granddaughter.

I hope to meet some of my contacts here during the non-granddaughter days.

My neighbor is an idiot.

Sign on my door about my respiratory health problems and he drops a smoke bomb on the floor right beside my door.
damn near lit the building on fire with it.

I just hope the landlord takes the action that is legally available for endangering the safety of the other tenants and gives him an eviction notice.

Great! I think that I've had about the worst day of my life. Karen, my young sister in law visited this afternoon. I have to tell you that I love this girl to death. But certain situations, cause and effect created a bad afternoon. Let me explain something first. My twin girls are three years old and are in the last stages of potty training. What that means is that we still have more accidents than I like. My youngest is still in diapers. The twins are now wearing pull-ups and on the whole, that sets the scene.

In the last day or so, the clicker thingie clunked over to 11 months so before Christmas I'll be at 10 years here. I remember it quite well. I was still very nutty from the divorce 2 years earlier, and being on huge doses of VA psych medications for PTSD. I'd previously published some stories over on Storysite, when I was approached either by Sephrina or Cathy; can't remember which. I was very messed up and broken at the time and spending time locked up in a secure cell at the VA every few months.

Hi! This is my first post, so I'm a bit nervous. I have trouble putting my emotions into words, whenever I try I end up frustrated. This means I usually just bottle up my emotions, fighting to keep the down, to wear that fake smile that never reaches my eyes. I feel like I'm lying when I talk to others who think they know me, who think they know how I feel and in a way I am. They see my act falter and they wonder what's wrong, but I push them away. Even my family gets pushed away. They ask why I stay in my room all the time, separated from them.

Just wanted to give a big "thank you" to all those who sent me a compliment.

All your positive vibes helped me overcome my negative self talk, so yay for team Dorothy, and huggles for all!

well, I think all the pain I am getting in my hips and knees is spreading to the parts in between.

Last couple of days, I've been at 8/10 for pain in my left thigh, and 5/10 for pain in my right thigh.

this on top of being 9/10 in the hips and knees, and 11/10 in my private bits. (No, I'm not kidding. flashes of pain there so bad I almost passed out.)

Ah, well.

After two (more) heart attacks and several mini-strokes my absence from this site is hopefully over. I have pretty much retired from any form of writing but look forward to catching up with some of my favourite authors and their stories. I've missed doing that! Anne

On Monday, I got to participate in an interesting study on speech.

They put sensors on my body, and recorded me talking about a video, and what they created on the computer looks like a stick figure with my voice.

They plan to show this to people, asking them if they can determine if I am male or female based on my voice and the movements of the stick figure.

When they get their information, they plan to use it to help trans women pass better in terms of their speech and body movements.