Maifesta, “European Nomad Art Biennale” takes places in European non-capital cities every 2 years. The next is in Murcia, Span, 2010
No 7 was in 2008 in italy, in 4 locations.
(This talk is having technical issues and it wounds like somebody is drilling the ceiling.)
The locations are along Hannibal’s route with the elephants. Napoleon went through there? It used to be part of the Austrian empire. The locals were not into Napoleon and launched a resistance against him. The “farmer’s army” defeated the French 3 times.
(I think this presentation might also be an artwork. I don’t understand what is going on.)
Every year, the locals light a fire in the shape of a cross on the mountain, commemorating their victories.
The passages were narrow and steep and the local dropped stones on the army, engaging in “site specific” tactics. One of the narrowest spots was Fortezza, which was also a site for manifesta. There is a fortress there, built afterwards, the blocks the entire passage. There is now a lake beside there, created by Mussolini for hydroelectric power. The fortress takes up 1 square kilometre.
there is a very long subterranean tunnel connecting the 3 parts of the fort.
(He has now switched something off and the noise has greatly decreased)
The fortress was built after the 1809 shock. But nobody has ever attacked it. There was military there until 2002. They used it to hold weapons. The border doesn’t need to be gaurded anymore.
during ww2, it held the gold reserves from the Bank of Rome
The manifesta was the first major civilian use. None of the nearby villages had previously been allowed to access the space.
The other 3 manifesta locations were real cities. Each had their own curatorial team. They collaborated on the fortress
The fortress’ exhibition’s theme was imaginary scenarios, because that’s basically the story of the never-attacked fort.
The fortress has a bunch of rooms around the perimeter, with cannons in them, designed to get the smoke out very quickly.
We live our lives in highly designed spaces, where architects have made up a bunch of scenarios on how the space will be used and then design it to accommodate that purpose.
the exhibition was “immaterial” using recordings, texts, light
There were 10 text contributors. A team did the readings and recordings. Poets, theatre writers, etc.
The sound installations were for active listening, movement, site specific.
He wanted to do small listening stations where a very few people can hear the text clearly, as there are unlikely to be crowds and the space was acoustically weird. The installations needed to have text intelligibility. They needed to be in english, italian and german, thus there were 30 recordings.
The sound artist involved focusses on sound and space. The dramatic team focusses on the user experience design.
(Now he’s showing a video os setting up a megaphone in a cannon window. It is a consonant cannon. Filters the consonants of one of the texts and just plays the clicks. He was playing this behind him during the first part of the talk, which explains some of the strange noises. In one of the rooms, they buried the speakers in the dirt floor/ In another room, they did a tin can telephone sort of thing with transducers attached to string. Another room has the speakers in the chairs. Another had transducers on hanging plexiglass. The last one they had the sound along a corridor, where there was a speaker in every office, so the sound moved from one to the next.
Category: Uncategorised
Ardour: Copying Gain Envelopes
Ok, let’s say you’ve got a project in Ardour and you’ve carefully drawn a bunch of gain changes using the Draw Gain Automation tool – which is one of the buttons on the upper left. You listen to your project and are forced to conclude that one of your tracks needs to be re-recorded or re-rendered. Alas and woe! However, there is a way to get your automation points onto the new track. Alas, it’s a bit tricky.
One of the great advantages of Ardour over other DAWs is that you can actually figure out what’s going on with the data files. If you open up a ProTools project in a text editor, you get gibberish, but if you open up a .ardour file, you get a human-readable XML file. I bring this up because you cannot select your gain change points in the Ardour GUI and move them to a new track. But you can move them if you’re willing to modify your .ardour file. Here’s how:
- Make a backup of the file in case something goes wrong.
- Open the file in the text editor of your choice – ideally one that you might use to write code
- Your tracks have names. Let’s say the track you want to copy is called “SourceTrack.” Search in the .ardour file for “SourceTrack.” You’ll find it many times, but one of those times, will have an XML node called <Envelope> a couple of lines below.
- Copy everything starting at <Envelope> and ending at </Envelope>, including those two lines.
- Ok, let’s say the track you want to copy to is called “DestinationTrack.” Search for that. If you drew some gain automation points on it already, look for the <Envelope> below it. If you have not drawn any gain automation, then look for <Envelope default=”yes”/>
- Blow away the <Envelope default=”yes”/> or the pre-existing envelope with the code you copied.
- The length of the envelope must match the length of the region. You can find the region’s length 2 or 3 lines above the envelope. It will say “length=” and then a number. Get that number and copy it.
- The envelope values are pairs of durations and amplitudes. If the length of DestinationTrack is longer than SoureTrack, then add a point at the end with the length you just copied. If it’s shorter, remove points with durations past the length you just copied. Then add a point with the length you copied.
- Scroll up to the very top of the file. The second line will end with “id-counter=” and then a number. Copy that number.
- Now replace the the number at id-counter with the number you copied +1. If you copied “123,” then replace it with “124.”
- Scroll back down to the envelop your just added to DestinationTrack. It has a property “id=” and then a number. Replace the number there with the one you copied from the top of the file. If the one at the top of the file was “123,” then you should have “id=123” in the Envelope of DestinationTrack and “id-counter=124” at the top of the file.
- Save the file and then open it with Ardour to see if it worked.
Well, it’s easier than re-drawing every point, but it’s still a bit of a pain. If you think you might end up wanting to cut and paste automations, then you can start by using tha gain automation track instead of drawing gain enveloped directly on top of the audio. Click the ‘a’ button to show automation tracks. I prefer to draw directly over the waveform so I can really see what’s going on, but I must admit that transferring the points is a real pain.
Thanks to las, who was in the IRC channel #ardour on freenode and was able to tell me how to do this.
How I would write a London Cycle Hire App
Phase 1: Map
Resizable map with little circles for hire points. The colour varies from yellow to blue. Yellow for many spaces and blue for many bikes. If the hire point is full or empty, the icon changes to an X.
Phase 2: Timing
A timer, that can optionally sound an alarm when you get to 25 minutes. It could be told to find the closest point to your current location. It should also be able to time a five minute break between hiring cycles, if you’re trying to avoid fees and track how much money you’ve spent if you go longer than half an hour.
Phase 3: Route Planning
Pre-compute routes between every possible pair of hire points (store this information on a website someplace and check for an update every few months). When a user asks for a route between two addresses or whatever, figure out the coordinates of where they’re coming from and going, find the closest hire points to those points, download walking instructions from google to connect those points to the actual destinations. It should switch to further away hire points if there’s a problem with available bikes or spaces.
Phase 4: Tracking conditions
If you destination hire point has filled up and you’re pretty close to it, it should re-compute the route from your current position to the hire point with spots available that’s closest to your destination and get new walking instructions from that point. It should also get directions from your original destination hire point to the new one, in case you don’t notice that anything has happened. It should alert you that it’s got a new route for you.
I’m pondering writing an n900 app
But I’m really busy lazy, so if somebody else beats me to it, I’m cool with that. The Maep program is a demonstration of some map apis, so it can be used to provide the map functionality, along with the tfl’s bike API.
I would use Cycle Streets for the route planning. Then you can give users options of whether they want quiet or fast routes. Plus it’s a cool service. The TFL can also provide cycling directions, which are more likely to use posted bike routes.
I’ve been riding the Boris bikes quite frequently, especially for short trips. If it’s 20 minutes to walk or 10 minutes to walk to a hire point, grab a cycle, etc, then I’ll go for the cycle. For those kinds of trips, especially, it would be nice to have a map on my phone, because there’s a risk, if all the hire points are filling up with bikes, that the closest place to park might be the very I would really like it if this could somehow be integrated into Mappero, which is a fantastic map/navigation app, but I suspect it’s beyond me. Unless there’s a plugin api what’s well documented. I’d also think it was cool is Mappero could just download OSM data directly and do it’s own rendering. That would be awesome.
New Passport Due Soon
I have just returned home from the US Embassy in London. In three weeks, a new passport with correct information will arrive by post. Huzzah!
Always be Prepared
This is a culmination of a much longer process. In May, I changed my name via statutory declaration. Then I contacted my phone companies to get them to change their records. I brought a copy of the form to my GP’s surgery. Most Brits change their name via deed poll, as it’s cheaper and easier, so the receptionist had never seen a statutory declaration before and was reluctant to accept it, but eventually did so. Then I went to my bank, who I hate with the fire of 999 suns, and they refused to let me change my name on my account at all, unless I could also provide photo ID in the new name. And finally, I went to my university, who updated my student records and ID card and printed out a letter affirming that I am a student there.
Then, I had to wait for phone bills to arrive in my name and to call BT more than once. And finally, appointment letters from the hospital where I had top surgery provided the final documents. So I then had three types of paperwork with my new name on it.
Shortly after I began compiling paperwork to change my name, the US State Department changed their rules about gender markers on passports. The letter I was planning on asking my surgeon for would no longer count. However, a letter from my GP would suffice. I asked him to write one saying I had completed transition, as then I could get a full term passport instead of a two year one. And, indeed, under the terms of the new regulations, I have completed transition. I find this to be entirely reasonable, as nobody would mistake me for a woman if they saw me or talked to me and the state of the parts of me covered by clothes are nobody’s business but those in who’s company I choose to disrobe.
My GP wrote the letter and charged me £25 for it. When the surgery’s receptionist asked me to pay, I was initially surprised, but then went to a bank and got some cash. GP practices are privately owned and the money they get from the NHS doesn’t cover things like letters to foreign governments. If this had been a problem for me, I think I could have gotten the Charing X psychiatrists to write a letter for me. That would also be acceptable to the embassy, but it’s over a month until I even see them again.
Armed with all of this paperwork, I made an appointment to go to the embassy, as you can’t just turn up. I began to fill out the application forms. They wanted to know if I had ever been married and what was the date of that and what was the date of my divorce. The divorce date, I remember. The date of the marriage? Not so much. I went back reading through old blog posts, seeing if I could figure it out. The ceremony was on day, but a paperwork snafu meant we got the license on the following monday . . . finally, I made a guess. And then I remembered the Defence of Marriage Act.
Every country in the world considers me to be legally divorced, except for my home country, where they hold that I was never married at all. When I was in Holland, I had to get a certificate to say I wasn’t currently married, so I have US Government-issued documentation that says I’m divorced, but they don’t actually back that statement. The state of California, however, also considers me to be divorced, as do five other states. It’s a strange sort of feeling, the one of non-recognition. The marriage may not have felt real, but the divorce certainly did. All those documents and lawyers fees and bitter acrimony never actually happened according to the great country of my birth. Obama said something about overturning that law, the one that says that years of my life weren’t real, but he didn’t actually mean it.
Today
The embassy makes people queue outside, on the pavement. Fortunately, the weather was sunny. I waited for a while with non-US citizens and then got into the correct queue. I knew one of the security guards from when I played in the gay band. She came over to chat and then came back to let me skip ahead of the queue. I appreciated the gesture and it made me a lot less nervous, actually. ID checks and pat downs make me nervous, for obvious reasons. She was cool. I did feel a bit guilty about queue-jumping though. I hadn’t brought my phone, although I could have and they would have held it for me. They took my USB stick and my Boris Bike fob.
The architecture of the US embassy is somewhat reminiscent of the Lincoln Center in New York. It’s sort of brutalist concrete, but with a lot of decorative corrugation. Inside the waiting room, there are gold-coloured metal columns. I wish I’d got a picture of it, but, of course, cameras are not allowed. I also wish I’d gotten a picture of the sign that sad to beware of terrorist bombs. “If you suspect something, call 999.” it said in small print at the bottom. I sat in one of the several rows of chairs and waited to be called.
Over the course of the last week or so, I’ve had an email correspondence with an embassy worker who was not very informed about new State Department rules. She seemed to think a surgery letter was still required. She asked for a “background statement,” something left undefined. When I asked for more information, I was instructed to ask for a particular staff member when I got there. So when I was called to the window, I asked to speak with the staff member with whom I had been having emails. She was a posh woman, apparently the manager. She told me to go to a window in a private chamber – a room with a door, however the walls don’t go up all the way to the ceiling, creating an illusion of privacy where none exists.
She started to ask about my medical history. Had I fully transitioned surgically? It seemed as if she was trying to be delicate while enquiring about the state of my genitals. In fact, the State Department has no right to any information beyond the letter written by my GP. What operations I have or have not had are none of their business. I explained that under the new rules, the letter from my GP should suffice. She said that the letter was only good for a two year passport.
The hassle of a two year passport isn’t just that I would need to return to the embassy every 18 months. The UK will not issue me a visa that extends longer than my passport, so my plans to get a two year work visa after graduating would become much more of a bother. Also, I would have to produce a new GP letter every time and appear in person with it. Otherwise, I would revert back to my initial state.
I argued that this is not what the new rules said and I was certainly not going to disclose information to which she had no right. I had the distinct impression that she just wanted me to declare that I’d had surgery, not actually provide documentation of it. I refused to budge, but the strength of my principles was somewhat undermined by the fact that one of the documents I brought to demonstrate that I’d changed my name specifically mentioned “mastectomy for transgender.” She called me up later to say that document would do nicely, but they were going to have to write to the States for guidance on the new rules. I hope they are provided with ample clarification. Indeed, plastic surgeons are not even on the list of doctors allowed to provide documentation.
The first time I spoke with her, she noted that she had seen a lot of this sort of thing before, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps she was trying to appear professional, but it was more of a knowingness, like she was an anthropologist and I was an exotic subject of study, about which she might one day write a book. So despite, apparently, being entirely successful in my mission to change my name and gender on my passport, I was still fairly wound up when I left. I rode a Boris Bike home, pedalling away my annoyance. Mostly.
Politics and FOSS: Open to who and when?
I was recently doing some reading towards writing a paper that touched on the politics and philosophy of FOSS. That stands for “Free and Open Source Software.” That doesn’t mean free as in “no charge,” although that is often also true. It’s “Free as in Freedom,” according to those that follow Stallman [1]. FOSS software belongs to the community of people that use and write it.
It’s about sharing. You give away what you write and you give away your knowledge of how to use. Communities of users form, giving each other support and helping each other with the software. It’s very easy to see this in idealist terms, and I wanted to write a paper about how progressive we all were. I was reading a paper by Olga Goriunova that analysed FOSS from a Marxist perspective. And then again from a feminist perspective. And then again from a Deluzian point of view. [2] FOSS began to look like a Rorschach blot of politics.
Indeed when some of the major players in the movement, such as Raymond, are right-libertarians [3, 4] and others are anti-captialist, then obviously it resists this kind of simple political reading.This was at the back of my mind this afternoon when, looking for distraction, I logged into the Greater London Linux Users Group channel on Freenode.
Freende is an IRC server, so this was a real-time chat, established so that people in the London area can talk about Linux; maybe network or get some help with a problem. Instead, I wandered in to a conversation where the participants were bemoaning the “wrong” kind of people having babies, by which, they meant poor people. One of the participants was talking about how a particular 14 year old girl, known to him personally, was a “slapper.” (*) The conversation turned to how forced sterilisation of poor people would be a good idea. “[W]e keep coming to this conclusion, birth controll [sic] in the water in all council estates” suggested a user called hali. [5]
Meanwhile, bastubis, a woman from a working class background logged in and became upset about the content of the conversation. Bastubis noted she “lived on a council estate as a child.” A few lines later hali said, “the fact the chavs(**) get pregnant in the first place is usually a misstake [sic].” Bastubis explained that she was “a chav with an education – you’re talking about me.” Another user, dick_turpin, chimed in shortly thereafter with, “Enforced sterilisation I say.” Bastubis quickly became frustrated and left. [5]
Dick_turpin cheered her departure with a “Huzzah!”, while hali celebrated with a “muahaha.” [5]
Their exercise of privilege to create a hostile environment for some users is clearly not accidental. If they were unconsciously expressing privilege, that would not have been followed with a “huzzah.” Given that the conversation started with both gender and class based slurs, it seem likely that their desire to exclude bastubis from the group had roots both in class and gender. As such, their intention was specifically to replicate privilege found offline and institute online to create an homogenous environment.
That privilege is expressed online as much as offline should not be surprising. FOSS communities are diverse and organised around geographical regions and or interests and sometimes identity, such as women or LGBT users. Therefore, some groups will tend to allow unchecked privilege, while others will tend to frown upon it or specifically disallow it. Simon Yuill writes that OpenLab, another London-based community centred on FOSS, specifically grew out out of a progressive squatter-based movement. Hacklabs such as OpenLab, “have provided a clear political and ethical orientation in contrast to the somewhat confused and contradictory political and social perspectives articulated in the other communities and contexts of the wider FOSS world.” [6] When OpenLab’s mailing list recently had a discussion about how to get more women involved, there were certainly moments of frustration, but the apparent intention was inclusion.
How is it that FOSS can create some communities that would seem to be progressive and others that would seem to want to preserve privilege over any other goal? I think my error is looking at it as a political movement. A lot of its spokespeople speak of it in a political manner, but given the widely divergent viewpoints, there is no inherent or unifying left or right ideology of FOSS. It’s infrastructure. It has value to many groups of people because it avoids duplication of effort and grants them access to resources. For some groups, the fact that it also grants resources to other users is a necessary sacrifice – one that can be mitigated through hostility to undesirable participants. For other groups, the sharing is a main focal point. FOSS, itself, is political like music is political, with as many readings and intentions.
*A derogatory slang term used for sexual promiscuous females.
** A derogatory slang term used for poor people
[1] Free as in Freedom
[2] Goriunova, Olga, “Autocreativity: The Operation of Codes of Freedom in Art and Culture”. FLOSS+Art (eBook) Ed. Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk. 2008.
[3] Raymond, Eric S, “I am an active Libertarian” 2003. Assessed 18 August 2010.
[4] Raymond, Eric S, Whatever happened to civil rights? 2003. Assessed 18 August 2010.
[5] #GLLUG ON FREENODE ON THE 18TH OF AUG 2010 IRC log
[6] Yuill, Simon, “All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice”. FLOSS+Art (eBook) Ed. Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk. 2008.
Genitals, Dysphoria and Dating
My experience with the sonogram tech was somewhat troubling, but the sting of it quickly fades. To avoid repeating it, when I’m next in a situation where such a thing might happen, I’m going to start off by saying, “In case the paperwork you got isn’t clear, just so you know, I’m a man. I’m transsexual and I’m having this done because I haven’t had all my surgeries yet.” I think this is probably going to work out alright because it doesn’t place blame anywhere except on vaguely unclear paperwork and starting with that means that it should prevent confusion before I’m confronted with it. The hearer might not entirely agree with my self-assessment, but will at least be polite (and if s/he’s not, I’ve got recourse). Also, I should be spared the growing realisation that something is amiss.
I want to clarify something from my last post, in which I said that a portion of my bits is not functional. While the inside bits are not so great, the rest is awesome. I don’t want to inadvertently start a rumour. Indeed, I’m proud of my junk, in that ridiculous way that men sometimes are. Which is not to say that I don’t still experience dysphoria, alas.
I fear the sort of interaction around disrobing that I had with the sonogram tech, but fortunately, it almost never happens. When I’ve met women socially and had occasion to be pantless in their presence, this has never lead to confusion on their part. Indeed, one time after such an encounter, I said something about having been a Girl Guide (aka Girl Scout) and the woman was completely confused. “What are you talking about?” She had forgotten about my history.
People who have an overwhelming sense of me as a man; as I look, act and smell like a man; do not seem to look at my bits and then change their minds about that. However, I know that it’s all non-standard and I feel insecure about it. I feel like I don’t pass naked, even if, usually, I do. And I think this has less to do, really, with the other person than it does with my own discomfort. So when I disrobe in the presence of others, I’m not just revealing something that might cause them to re-evaluate my gender, I’m exposing something that is complicated for myself.
So, in order to be pantless in the company of another, I have to make a large leap of trust. I have to trust that they will be respectful and that it’s a safe space for me to reveal something about which I have mixed feelings: that makes me happy and uncomfortable at the same time. I need to have faith in her, in myself, and take a plunge. This is profoundly at odds with how casual sex is supposed to work.
So if I sleep with somebody that I hardly know, I’ve already invested a rather large amount of trust in her. This actually requires very little on her part. Since I already will have ascertained that she’s not transphobic, she just needs to be forewarned and interested in continuing the encounter. But, because of dysphoria, it requires quite a lot more on my part. And if I trust her, and it turns out ok, which is usually the case, then it seems like this person who I have trusted must have been worthy of that trust. Ergo she is trustworthy. And I’ve invested way too much emotion into her way too fast.
I think anybody that will sleep with me is awesome. I mean, this has often been the case. But not always. And, again, not so casual. So I try to form a relationship with whoever I’ve just slept with, whether or not this is actually, really a good idea. Because she’s awesome.
This has got to stop.
I think that top surgery will actually help with this, despite being a different site of former dysphoria. I used to keep a shirt or vest (aka undershirt) on all the time, except when showering. I do mean all the time. I remember the first time I changed my shirt in front of my last girlfriend, because it was such a big deal for me, but not for her, of course. This is part of the reason I’m taking photos of my chest as it heals. I’m not just vain (although I certainly am that) but I want to get used to the idea of it being a neutral part of my body, infused with no more baggage than my adam’s apple.
I think the most obvious answer, though, is to try a different model of dating. In the old days, people would go out a lot before they had sex. That way, they actually know if a person is really trustworthy before they have to trust them. This seems like a good model. It’s not much employed by the queer community. I actually don’t know typical heterosexual dating patterns, but I think people still tend to have sex somewhat early on. So I don’t know if I could do this and be on okcupid, for example. (Although with it’s CV-like profiles and dating as interview process, it feels so much like applying for a job anyway that I’m not sure I’m overly into it.) I don’t want to wait for marriage or anything, I just want to actually know the other person first and know that putting a lot of trust in them is actually an appropriate thing to do.
The longer term solution is to reduce the level of dysphoria I have around my bits. I have an appointment in September to go speak with a shrink about bottom surgery. They rescheduled this appointment; it was originally supposed to be for two days after I see my plastic surgeon again and can quit wearing a post-surgical binder. It feels a wee bit rushed, but it’s on their schedule. They asked me about this in May, when I was still waiting to meet the surgeon to do my top surgery. The faster I get this over with, the sooner it’s done.
Commenting
Cis people are allowed to comment on this one, but anything that either references bravery or the myth of the suffering transsexual will be deleted.
This post talks about genitals
I got a letter in the mail telling me to turf out this morning for a “transvaginal ultrasound” at the Royal London Hospital. People who have been on testosterone for more than two years have a slightly increased risk of uterine cancer. The NHS has a strong emphasis on preventative medicine, because it saves money in the long run. So I get all kinds of tests that I wouldn’t get in the States, where no bureaucracy has heard of anything but the next quarter.
I walked over. This is the same hospital I went to A&E at, not long ago. It’s in old brick buildings and has a crumbling, Victorian look about it. It’s definitely an urban hospital, swarmed with people form the tapestry of urban life. The woman at reception didn’t seem to notice my accent, but she must hear as many foreign accents daily as native ones.
The clinic I was looking for turns out to be directly above the A&E, on the next floor. I went to the window at the nurses station and signed in. They directed me to a waiting room. Much to my immense relief, it was co-ed. There were as many unhappy looking men as unhappy looking women. I took a seat on a blue chair and pulled out the book that I had brought. Nobody else was reading. The white, windowless room had no magazines.
Rather quickly, my name was called. I was instructed to go pee and then meet the woman in a back room down a dark hallway. She lead me back to a darkish room. The lighting was indirect and the walls didn’t go up all the way to the ceiling. She instructed me to remove my shorts and pants and then sit on a table. She did not leave the room for this, but just told me to put on a gown first. So I did as instructed.
She told me that my GP had referred me for this “because of the drugs [I’m] on.” I started to say I wasn’t taking post-surgical drugs anymore, but then I realised she meant testosterone. It’s funny how I don’t think of it as a drug, but rather something linked to a state of being. It’s not that I’m on drugs, it’s that I’m transitioning. I’m on T, which is, somehow, not a drug.
She asked questions about menstrual cycles, something that’s long since been chained up and abandoned like an unwanted bike. Then she got a wand thing and said it wouldn’t hurt, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
These bits, I don’t speak of them. I avoid thinking of them. I’m unsure what to call it. But unlike Buck Angel, it’s also non-functional. Testosterone has caused tissue to atrophy, so even it was not mentally troublesome – which it is, it’s physically painful. The cure for this is topical oestrogen cream, which is alarming and for something I don’t want anyway. The other option surgical removal.
So I told her it might hurt and she said that it would be fine. Very old ladies have some of the same physical issues and they’re unhurt. She prodded with the wand and we chatted, as she looked at the screen. I should have taken paracetamol ahead of time. It’s the kind of hurt of getting your teeth scraped by the dentist. Uncomfortable and annoying, but not overwhelming.
She was on the lookout for thickening of the uterine lining. She asked who was going to interpret the results, because it didn’t look thickened, but it looked different than what she had seen before. I said my GP would probably forward it to somebody who was an expert. As it went on, I said something about a hysto and she wondered about osteoporosis risks associated with that. I said T would protect me. “We” women are at risk for that, “but I guess men aren’t.” she said.
She with her invasive, prodding wand, stuck into a site of all sorts of discomfort; a psychic wound; an unwanted opening. Chatting about “we” women. I did not say, “I’m a man,” flying futilely in the face of what must seem like overwhelming evidence. I did not say anything about it at all. I talked about how sex hormones work in men. “Men like me,” I did not say.
She finished and left me alone to get dressed. I thanked her on the way out. I did not do or say anything to challenge the notion that I’m an unusual woman; I just left. Thinking: I will be a subject of medical curiosity and tests and prodding for the rest of my life. It will never be all right. The surgeries I can get will never be perfect. I will never pass when my genitals are examined. When I most need sensitivity, it will never be forthcoming.
I walked out, past the entrance of the A&E, with the feeling of not passing. Outside, there was a man with a broken neck, smoking cigarette. I made eye contact with him and then thought it was rude to stare at the screws holding his head in place, so I looked down. “Nice DMs” he said. I was sure he could tell, sure he was feminising me, complimenting my body in some unwanted way. “What’s a DM?” I asked. He smiled and pointed at my shoes, mistaking them for Doc Martens. “Oh!” I said as the lightbulb went off. It was all blokey and male bonding and fine. I smiled back, “thanks!” I said.
I cannot get a hysto soon enough.
Note
I don’t want cis commenters on this. If you don’t know what cis means, it probably means you.
Week 3
Life
Well, the nurse last week was very cautiously approving of my gig plans, but everybody I know who has actually had top surgery was against it. Meh, what do they know? I made plans to have a first practice with Jet on Saturday. To prepare, I was taking longer and longer walks, with my recently returned dog, to build up my strength, but not playing bass. I was tapering off painkillers. Life was good.
When I actually pulled out my bass, my dexterity was really low in my left hand and my playing kind of sucked. I got gradually better as the practice went on, but it was pretty short because I got tired really fast. Jet, who is lovely btw, went on to her next appointment. Then the pain started.
Oh my gods it hurt. The next day, I thought I might have torn something. I had no more of my more powerful painkiller left. I called NHS Direct to find out if it’s ok to take parecetamol and ibuprofen at the same time. “I just had a mastectomy.” I explained. “A vasectomy?” the woman asked. Um, not exactly. Anyway, mixing them is fine.
By Tuesday, the pain had receded enough that I thought I might manage being social in public, so despite not being able to use my left arm for things like wasing up, I got on a bus with Paula and headed to Vauxhall for Bar Wotever. I turned up earlyish, got a seat in the back and didn’t budge for the evening. Dr. Jane came by. She noted that I’d written that she rushed up to me after my dressings appointment two weeks ago. “You were walking like this,” she imitated an old man shuffle, eirily reminiscent of my grandfather and then described how pale I was. I guess it must have looked pretty alarming. Anyway, the night out was fun. I got pretty tired by the end, but it was ok and I was fine in the morning.
Which was good because I walked over to my GP’s office to learn the results of having my hormone levels tested. Shockingly, they were fine! I’m very pleased as I’ve been feeling fine. In the past, feeling fine has correlated with my levels being too high, followed by my dosage being cut to a level where I don’t feel fine. 2.5 years on Sustanon and I finally know how much to take how often.
Meanwhile, coincidentally, my godmother signed up for facebook. It alerted me, as they seem to have a copy of my addressbook. About a year ago, I had sent her a coming out letter and had heard nothing back. So, I sent her a friend requst and she accepted and then sent me an email. We had an exchange and she asked why my status messages were about being too tired to walk my dog properly. I explained I’d had an operation without further specification. She didn’t ask what my op was, but instead what name I prefer to go by. My heart was greatly warmed.
Third Outpatient Appointment
Yesterday, I headed down to Tooting for my last appointment with the dressings clinic. I walked from my flat to Tower Hill at near normal speed! Just being able to walk quickly again is such a relief. I had the same nurse as last time. I described to her my bass playing woes and showed her my non-painful range of movement. She said there must be scar tissue and that I need to keep moving to keep from stiffening up entirely. She suggested shoulder roles and gently raising my arm as far as it wants to go. I need to work back to being able to reach things. I’m going to procede with caution.
I also asked about getting signed off for medical leave, as I haven’t done any studies for about 3 weeks now. She said the hospital would automatically give me one week and if I want more, I need to talk to my GP. One week?! Good lord. The ideal Briton must heal very quickly indeed.
She looked at my wounds. My right nipple continues to heal as it should. The left nipple has become appropriately dry and therefore no longer needs bandages. The necrotic bits on it will turn to scabs and should come off on their own. She advised against picking at them, something I don’t need to be told twice. Or even once, really. I’m to moisturise both nipples twice a day. This will help the puffy, ruffly bits to flatten out and thus hide my scars.
Because neither side needs dressings anymore, I am not scheduled to return to the dressings clinic. I will see my surgeon again in about 3 weeks. It’s possible to ask her to do the documentation for medical leave, but I’m going to try my GP first because that will take less time and because my surgeon, like all surgeons, thinks people recover from this after 2 weeks. If I can only get a note for 2 weeks, that’s better than none, but since I’ve been useless for 3, that would be better.
I look forward to being able to bicycle again and play bass and take long walks with my dog, holding the leash normally instead of looping it through my belt. And also to write some new music. Being medicalised gets old fast. It’s worth it, but I’d like to go back to normal.
Second Outpatient Appointment
My Week
After my overly-exhausting walk to my GP’s office last week, I took a few days off from wandering around. Even going across the courtyard to my neighbour’s house was leaving me pale for several minutes afterwards. But then, over the weekend, I was feeling better and asked my neighbour if she would go for a walk with me, along the bus route. I asked her to tell me if I started looking pale.
We walked about a kilometre, sat for a long time on a park bench and walked back. It was fine. I was feeling happy to be ok again. I went to the grocery store the next day, with Paula’s help to carry stuff and then hung out the rest of the evening, felling completely normal. A lot of friends were coming around to see me. I wasn’t going out at all, but had enough company to stave off loneliness. Things were pretty good.
On Tuesday, I picked up a novel before bed, intending to read a couple of pages. At 3:30, I realised I had read the whole thing and was up later than I meant to be. I’ve been going to bed around 1, so it wasn’t that much later.
I woke up the next morning feeling like crap and in pain. I could barely stagger around my flat. I took a bunch of pain pills and when they didn’t perk me up adequately, I called the Hospital to delay my appointment. I suddenly felt very fragile. They said I would be mostly recovered by 2 weeks and it was just shy of that and I couldn’t even manage to stay up slightly late.
My friend Jet had asked if I could play some improv bass for her theatre piece on the 25th. Aside from not really being up on generic improv, I suddenly became worried that maybe I wouldn’t physically be able to do it. I started asking around and most guys are saying it’s not actually a good idea, but one shared a story about having a major recording session about 3 weeks after. Meh, I really want to do the gig!
Meanwhile, I was changing my dressings everyday and taking photos of my chest while the bandages were off. My right side is still looking perfect. It has hardly any bruising at all and the wound healed completely within a few days. The adhesive from the bandages began to irritate my skin, but, aside from that, there were no problems.
My left side is probably more typical. It’s bruised and swollen. The haematoma has gradually decreased, but not vanished entirely. The dark band of necrosis on my nipple seemed to be decreasing in size, but the whole lower half of my nipple was oozy and gross and seemed to be slowly dissolving. It was sticking to my bandages. I tried not to pay too much attention to it.
Thursday
So when Thursday came around, I asked the TFL for a route with minimal walking. It sent me on a short walk to a long bus ride east to catch the DLR to Bank. Climbing the stairs to the DLR platform was surprisingly tiring. But the route was ok and had a lot of escalators. When I got to Tooting Broadway, I walked to the hospital rather than riding another bus.
Thursdays, the Dressings Clinic is not in some back corner of the hospital, but mysteriously moves to a ground floor clinic in the same wing as where I had my operation. I saw a different nurse than last time and asked a lot of questions.
People have been urging me to try Arnica, which is a flower that is rumoured to help with bruising. I had been concerned about drug interactions or possible allergies, but then I learned that Austrians make schnapps out of it. Anything that’s made into schnapps has got to be relatively harmless. Still, I asked the nurse and she said that there were no studies that indicated that it had any effect at all. She did say it was harmless, so I bought some gel on the way home.
She said that the rash I was getting from the bandages is probably not an allergy, but from the irritation of pulling off an outer layer of skin every day. She suggested that from now on, I should peel off the bandages while in the shower, as the water would weaken the adhesive and thus spare my skin.
Because my right side has closed all the open wounds, I don’t need to wear a bandage on it at all anymore, but should massage in moisturiser around the edges. She was demonstrating this and I felt a bit of pain where she was poking me, which is actually good, because it means my numb spots on that side are nearly all gone, except for my actual nipple, alas. My skin is really itchy, but this is apparently a sign of it re-awakening to sensation. Also, I’ve been feeling a lot of weird sort of stabbing sensations, like somebody is poking me with something kind of sharp. This feeling is nerves reconnecting and waking up. So despite it’s being somewhat annoying, it’s a good sign. And, I mean, some folks would pay good money to feel like they were being sharply poked repeatedly in the nipples.
My left side is still way more numb than my right side, but in the last couple of days, the sensate portions have dramatically increased. And it’s got the stabby thing going on a lot more than the right, so it’s continuing to heal. Ironically, that nipple is often itchy and has more feeling than the more perfect looking one.
The nurse said that the generally gooey yuck of the left did not mean that it was dying, just that it needed to dry out. She confirmed that the necrotic band had really reduced in size. In order to dry out my left side, she switched the sort of bandages to put on it. Now, I start with an iodine-soaked piece of gauze, which i press into the folds of my wound, as much as I can. Then, I put a regular sheet of gauze over that. And then a non-waterproof adhesive on top. Theoretically, the new bandaging is breathable and the iodine should encourage dryness. It was much less yucky when I changed it this morning, but alas, I pressed in the new sheet perhaps too gingerly.
She gave me all the stuff I’m going to need to bandage myself for the next week, including a disposable pair of scissors. The dressings clinics gets sterile pairs of steel and plastic scissors, uses them once, and then incinerates them. I was flabbergasted last week when I saw the nurse throwing them into a sharps bin. She said they used to autoclave them, but not anymore. I really find it hard to believe that many germs could survive a trip through an autoclave. If it’s good enough for tattooing equipment, which actually touches blood, it’s got to be good enough for scissors that only touch sterile dressings. If this is cheaper, it’s certainly a false economy. Nothing that wasteful can seriously be a good idea.
I talked about how fragile I felt after staying up too late and asked about playing the gig in a little more than a week. She was cautiously encouraging but stopped well short of saying it would be fine. What she said was that the consequences of doing too much would make me feel over-tired and bad, but it does not actually impair the healing of my wounds. So the risk I would be taking by playing the gig was not any further harm than exhaustion. I’m not going to mess up my operation.
She said I should work up to it. I intend to do this by getting gradually more exercise leading up to the gig and also by practicing every day and making sure I have the stamina to play bass for the duration required of me. I’m not going to move any gear and I’m going to play while seated, so there’s very little actual, physical stress. The only concern is exhaustion, which, while uncomfortable and definitely something I want to avoid, has no long-term consequences.
I feel cautiously optimistic. Anyway, taking walks and getting better at bass playing will both be good for me.
Outpatient Appointment
I woke up yesterday morning feeling relatively feisty, so I put all my clothes and stuff into bags, ready to go home to my own flat. Jara helped me carry the heavier bag. It was all good, but by the time I walked down the stairs, across the courtyard and up the stairs to my own flat, I was too tired to do anything. I didn’t leave my flat in the cleanest possible state, and fixing this is very slow going.
In the mid-afternoon, Dr Jane came around in her awesome little sports car to collect me for my first outpatient appointment. I was very grateful for the lift and the company. Given that it was a trek for me to cross my estate, I wasn’t quite ready for the tube and it’s much more pleasant to go with a friend than alone in a cab.
There was a lot of traffic in central london and the outpatient plastic dressings clinic is in a strange back corner of the hospital. I arrived 20 minutes after my appointment time and then probably walked for at least another 10 minutes, around the perimeter of the hospital, until I finally found a dark hallway that seemed to be right. The plastics dressings clinic, where I was headed, was next to Bereavement Services. It’s good that the hospital provides this service. It seemed to be a small, windowless room with 3 or 4 chairs around a low table. Kind of a depressing setup, but I guess that doesn’t actually matter.
I apologised for being late, but they were running behind anyway and so I waited for a bit and then went in to a very warm, windowless room. There was a fan blowing, but the nurse turned it off when it kept blowing the paper off the examining table I was trying to recline on. The walls were lined with little plastic bins that contained different kinds of bandages and things like that.
I took off my shirt and chest binder and the nurse started to peel off my bandages. She did the right side first, first taking off the plaster covering were the drain had been. She said it was dry and didn’t need to be rebandaged. Then she took off the plaster over my nipple. It had a bit of blood on it, but was fairly clean. I looked down at my chest.
I had been warned that it would look weird at first, but man, it is weird. The process the surgeon used was to cut out my nipple, but keep it attached to the blood supply and nerves, and then remove the moob around it. So this left a hole, so she stretched the skin from the outside of the moob towards the middle. To visualise this, think of cutting a circular hole in a sheet. Then you want to close the hole, so you bunch all the fabric from the perimeter of it together and then put a button or something in the middle of that. That’s kind of what my chest looks like.
There’s an expanse of pale skin, that gets kind of wrinkly and ruffly, which surrounds my pink nipple, poking out from the middle. All the stitching and scabs, etc are only surrounding the nipple. The nurse said it looked perfect. Ok!
The she took off the bandages on the left. These were much more dirty and I averted my eyes for the rest of the process because I didn’t want to feel faint. She also, very happily, removed an electrode that was still stuck to my back, that I couldn’t reach. “You haven’t taken a bath for a week?” she asked. Um, no. I started thinking about who it would be least awkward to ask to come over to rub my back with washcloth.
She was concerned about the swelling, so she asked another nurse to come have a look. The other nurse was busy, so we had a longish wait where we made awkward small talk. She put a paper towel sort of thing over my chest, probably because I was obviously freaked out by the scabbiness. I took it off after a bit to get a better look. Meanwhile, I had kept my binder on nearly continuously since my op and the sensation of having it off was also kind of strange. It’s purpose is to reduce swelling, and while it was off, I could feel swelling tugging at my stitches. The nurse told me not to worry about it.
The other nurse finally came in and looked at a lump I have on my left side between my armpit and nipple. It’s somewhat larger than a golfball. She said it was a hematoma, which means a bunch of blood and other goo trapped under my skin. “We could aspirate it with a needle,” she said and then laughed at the look on my face, “but that would increase the risk of infection, so we’ll just see if it goes away on it’s own.” I m deeply in favour of that plan over the popping-like-a-water-balloon plan. She said the (now extensive) bruising was also normal and not to be worried about it.
Then she got out a mirror and showed me my left nipple. “Do see you the shadowed part underneath?” On the bottom of my nipple, below the pokey bit, about 10-20% of my nipple has darkened. She explained that this indicates a blood shortage. The shadowed bit will probably die. It will dry out and then she and the nurses have a way of getting it off. And then, I guess, somebody will tattoo the pale skin around it and the world will be none the wiser.
They told me I could take showers again! Huzzah. I should moisturise the ruffly bits of my chest afterwards and when I change the bandages, which I should do everyday. They gave me some moisturiser to use and meant to give me a week’s worth of bandages, but accidentally only gave me enough for one side. I’m allowed to keep taking the same pain meds, despite the prescription ending. She told me to look out for signs of infection, which I have not absolutely committed to memory, because of my propensity to worry. If it doesn’t seem wrong, it’s not wrong. If does seem wrong, I should just call them. I’m to come back in a week.
I walked around to meet Dr. Jane by the café in front of the hospital. Jane came rushing over to meet me. Later she explained that I was shuffling like an old man and looking very pale. She suggested we sit for a bit and have a bite. “How are you doing?” she asked. “Part of my left nipple is dying, but it’s not a part I was really using.” I said.
We sat nicely for a bit and then went back to mine and hung out for a bit more. I took my last antibiotic, thank gods.
This morning, I had to go get my T levels tested at my GP office, which is a bit further than a kilometre away. I asked the guy drawing my blood if having an operation and the massive stew of drugs I’ve been on since my last T injection would skew the results. He didn’t think so, but wasn’t sure. I guess if it says the levels are too high, I can push for a re-test, since this new 0.8ml / 18 days is the best I’ve ever felt on T and I am not entirely keen to decrease.
On the walk back, I had to stop and sit about after every third of the trip. I was back to my old man shuffle, but trying to stand up as straight as possible. I’m so used to slouching that it’s very awkward looking when I try to stand up straight. But since I’m wrapped in a piece of elastic and recovering from surgery, I’m all awkward anyway, so might as well get used to it now.
When I got back, I was shattered and slept for a couple of hours. I probably should have taken a cab home or waited longer in the waiting room before walking back. Still, stronger ever day.