Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

yeah, that’s exactly it for me, too— do i like being mistaken for someone nearly a decade younger? yes. am i also glad that i feel mentally and physically better than i ever did a decade ago? also yes. i will be doing some sort of movement-based practice until i croak

There seems to be some correlation health and physical activity and getting up super early? All those who are saying 'fresh zen air around my head' get up at dawn, right?
And OTOH all the night owls are like "I smoke a pack of marlboros for breakfast" - did we already talk about this?

I'm in the worst shape of my life but still feel kinda hot? or maybe just "cute"

"jock" poets

yum!

i also really like being noticed. the vanity aspect is a lot of fun. i downplay it but very much relish it haha. it's motivation to keep going. it's become a part of who i am and i'm kind of used to it, i wouldn't say it's gone to my head, but i feel like i have this extra battery pack of confidence i can draw on if i need it or something (and i need it a lot because i'm not naturally a confident person). i was at an indian restaurant with friends a while ago and i ordered chicken tandoori, the waiter said 'ok, chicken for mr. muscles' :). sometimes it's annoying, like this old weird guy at the grocery store who stopped in his tracks the other week and said 'man, you're a BEAST' and i said 'mind your own business' because i'm a grumpy bitch sometimes.

damn!

yesterday at the big gay parking lot party a very inebriated younger homosexual came up to my husband and i and the first words out of his mouth were "older gays! i have so much to learn from you!" (said in apparent sincerity, albeit drunkenly)

after regaining my composure, i responded: "ok, here's the first lesson: don't use that as opening line ever again"

bam! you're welcome

how do we feel about swimming?

and / or! how do we feel about camping? i recently joined the fb group 'gay camping friends' and it's been a treat to see photos of the gays and their camping. my partner is driven crazy by insects and it drives me crazy how much it drives him crazy so we've defaulted to motels. but i still have ambitions to gear up and maybe do some solo camping.

i love camping, so does husband, but we don’t go that often anymore. we are planning a trip for the late summer/early fall with some besties tho

I went Memorial and Labor Day weekends last year to a gay camping site not far from Lake Okeechobee. Too darn hot in the summer. I got my neck bitten by mosquitoes and bears.

yeah, that’s exactly it for me, too— do i like being mistaken for someone nearly a decade younger? yes. am i also glad that i feel mentally and physically better than i ever did a decade ago? also yes. i will be doing some sort of movement-based practice until i croak

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

my boss is on vacation so i actually have energy to do things

i can't emphasize enough how fucking awful my boss is and how impossible she is to deal with

anyway i have a week where i'm actually capable of doing some things

_some_ things

i've decided i'm going to start walking in the morning. not much. i'm actually in pretty bad shape. i had brunch with someone sunday - one of those ambiguous "are we friends or is something going to come of this" lesbian dates. anyway i don't drive so i walked down to the breakfast place, and i was wore the fuck out monday

i had the same experience friday after an ambiguous date with someone else thursday night

so i've gotten to the point where i feel like i just need to walk every morning

mornings are nice weather, really walkable. this also involves setting an alarm and a schedule, because i usually don't wake up until like 7, which is kinda when i need to walk

walking after physical therapy is weird. using my body kind of feels like learning to drive a car. not in a "dissociation" sense, but in a sense that this body is mine and it works in certain ways and i'm curious as to figuring out the most efficient way of using it. which i've never done before. the hypermobility means i can move in ways that most people can't, which also means that i'm not always efficient. plus i got really poor balance.

i'm up at 190 pounds again, which is only 10 pounds up but is the point where a bunch of my favorite clothes stop fitting. i wanna get down to 180 minimum.

i'm also trying to work really hard on balance. pdx is really navigable without a car, but my balance isn't good enough for me to ride a bike, which limits things

that said, property crime is pretty rampant here and i just watched a presentation by the lockpicking lawyer...

the thing is i'm trying to do everything at once, again. i want to learn to ride a bike and i want to learn to apply makeup and i want to get back to start woodshedding my single and double columns and really it's like. one new thing at a time, kate. i'm starting this new cold sore med, which is great because i constantly have cold sores. i kinda hate kissing because of it. i've started psyllium husks as well. it's silly how much i forget. when i was in my 30s i had the same problem i posted about on iltmi, and the only thing i remembered was the pamphlet telling me to quit doing anal. the real takeaway was that i needed to increase my fiber intake. the fiber caplets i took back then, i didn't like the results, so i started eating a lot of raisin bran. then last year i decided i was eating too much raisin bran and quit gluten. i mean kinda obvious in retrospect?

it's just a lot of work, trying to take care of my body. i was already taking 20 pills a day and i keep adding more. i need to find a new HRT provider in-network since my old one retired. i need to find an in-network dentist. i need to actually order the glasses from the prescription i have. i need to find an electrologist to get some hair removed... a little TMI, the nature of my bottom surgery doesn't require hair removal. if you're getting full-depth, you need hair removal, so hair doesn't grow where it otherwise wouldn't. since i got no "inside" for hair to grow, it's not a problem, but hair grows where one wouldn't expect it to on the _outside_. i mean i've just been shaving it for the last three years. theoretically insurance will cover it. electrologists are independent, often trans, and getting in-network with insurance companies is a _huge_ burden and nobody can manage it. so there are lots of electrologists and you gotta pay cash for all of them, because none of them are credentialed. i don't even know what credentialing there _is_ for electrologists. anyway i could pay cash i guess, even though my cashflow isn't positive right now. i could make it work if i made a budget and kept to it. plus when i hit my out-of-pocket max for insurance, i'll stop having that bill. managing my finances is hard and i'm paying more than i should because i don't have the energy to call and sit through the endless fucking phone trees and complain at them until they do what they're supposed to do. bill autopay is a lifesaver. last time i tried to live on my own, i just couldn't manage paying my bills, couldn't manage to stay employed.

that's the thing, taking care of myself is not something i've _ever_ been good at. trying to get by in life without a caretaker is a huge challenge. i'm more competent and skilled than i ever have been, but i've kinda been seriously disabled, in large part i think because of the 'tism, for most of my life. i lived with my mom until i was 33, and then moved in with a partner who basically served as a caretaker. the gender dysphoria was a big part of it, but i genuinely have the sort of 'tism that makes ordinary functioning difficult for me. i'm starting to realize and accept that. having my ex-wife's support really helped me accomplish things i wasn't able to accomplish before.

it's that kind of thing with disability where you get support for a while and then they kinda say "ok, it's all you now". i wasn't really ready for that, but it was what i needed, and i've kinda had to muddle through. i'm getting my shit together but it's been _so hard_. god, no wonder i cry so much. it's been really hard for me to manage on my own.

my physical therapist recommended this great physical therapy modality, the "schroth method", for people with scoliosis. i want to call about that. i'm seeing this woman and i can't come over to her house because of the cats... a couple years ago i was wanting to start allergy shots, but i didn't get around to it. it just seemed like too much of a burden to get there all the time. i've moved since then so it'd be a lot easier now, actually.

the thing with the makeup... it's kind of an autism thing i think. i can't stand how it feels on my skin. i looked at the giuliani mugshot and everyone making fun of it and honestly, i mean... i got liver spots all over my face. when i was younger they were freckles, but now they're liver spots. i'm 48 and i look 60. that's on top of trans people mostly being younger than me. so i gotta go out with my poor fine motor skills and learn how to make my face look presentable, and do it _every time i want to leave the house_. i'm dreading it, but it's something i need to learn. my foundation is the wrong shade. learning stuff with my ex-wife was really hard. she was a perfectionist and a poor teacher and didn't know shit about makeup anyway. i'm better off figuring shit out on my own, but the _spoons_...

it's interesting, i've found that i'm actually a really sociable person and not an introvert at all. i just have a really hard time doing the mundane shit.

anyway that's a long bitch but i needed to bitch, i guess.

yeah i love camping but i can't stand the bugs in the summer, it's defo a transitional weather activity

i'm sure everyone is sick of hearing me talk about swimming :D

there's a sweet spot in the second half of september where you can go swimming and camping at the same time

love is maybe a little strong but i do like camping. i never did it until my husband and i started dating.

we went biking last month on this great trail near arcadia we’d never been on before, and there were lots of ppl hangin out by the river. stoked a burning desire to be waist deep in a freshwater with a can of beer on a warm summer night

I feel weirdly blessed, I am rarely the focus of bugs, and with picaridin, it’s like I don’t exist, whereas others I know can slather deet all over and still get eaten alive

oh swimming at night is amazing! in remote places it's an endless void. you can only hear stars and can only hear yourself splashing around. kinda scary but beautiful, tranquil
not sure what gave me the itch. REM?

i know, some people don't really get bitten much, others get bitten but only feel a little discomfort for like 10 mins. i get huge, swollen welts, it is misery for like a week and taking antihistamines only makes me feel drugged.

* see :)

This is why I like living in places with nice long winters

A couple years ago I was visiting a friend in upstate NYC and I laid my jacket on the grass for a second and she flipped out at me like I was crazy. “Don’t you know about ticks?” I surely do not

all the dykes out here are into hiking and camping and shit and i'm a city girl. a couch lesbian. i mean, shit, why camp when i can _be_ camp?

i just spent so much time in boy scouts camping, and i fuckin' hated it. i don't have as much problem with bugs these days. i don't know if it's just regional or if my changed hormonal balance makes a difference.

the thing is, i really do _like_ the dark, quiet places. i grew up in the suburbs and spent a lot of time looking at the sky. i'd go out camping and all the stars were amazing to see. the thing i like least about being a city girl is that you can't really see shit because of light pollution. last time i remember really seeing the stars was on my honeymoon over a decade ago. sometime i'd like to see the stars again.

Give a man a nut and he’ll eat for a day
Teach a man to nut and he’ll eat for a lifetime

So stoked for my cartoonist buddy, commissioned for some Mississippian billboards:

highway billboards commissioned for the Moonlight adult store, near Jackson, Mississippi ❤️‍🔥💋 pic.twitter.com/mW5iLtPniF

— eric kostink willyums (@kostiukwilliams) June 14, 2024

holy shit that's awesome, i'd much rather see billboards full of lewd furry art than christian-bigot billboards like most of them are

yeah that's hawt. without seeing the full-sized image, the second one... i thought she was holding like a big slice of pizza lol

I sang karaoke last night with a couple friends and my sibling. They skipped my name (which was fine, no rules at karaoke) but it was to sing fucking La Roux “Bulletproof” (which is never fine)

When my time to sing came around I asked, on mic, why this English singer named herself after a soup thickening procedure, and suggested that a French pop artist similarly name themselves “A Potato”

xp a compelling "exit now" message if there ever was one. unfortunately these places are always just big rectangles with fluorescent lighting, speckled ceiling panels and tack-on walls.

there's a "newsstand" in grand junction co with video arcade stalls in the back, i'm pretty sure every one (4? 5?) had a glory hole in the wall. the one time i went there were like three guys hanging out waiting for a turn lol. i kinda hate the rep that this kind of sex gets. i rarely saw anyone who like scared me you know? and guys frequenting glory holes know what they're doing. having someone give you a mind-blowing sexual favor and then never seeing them again, there's something really liberating about it ime.

lol^ i guess i was having my monthly anon sex fantasy on 6/15

we're saying goodbye to our third this week, he's moving across the country :(. we're gonna do long-distance and see how it goes.

Six weeks away from bf and dog and the work is done and I’m happy to be heading home :)

:)

The work was so intense. A good three day stretch of “in bed on laptop, food ordered in, working 8am-2am with no breaks”. I feel like I got laptop poisoning after it was over it was horrible

we're saying goodbye to our third this week, he's moving across the country :(.

aw man :(
is he moving to Philly? iirc? good excuse to visit yr pal table ;)

I went to grab a takeout from a local-ish bar earlier, feeling too lazy to cook. they were having this wild queer speed dating event, looked like fun! idk, speed dating always looks so dreary in movies, but this was really upbeat. everyone had pronouns and the drag queen emcee kept everyone smiling, it was ending just when I got there tho.

yeah.. he'll be in michigan for three weeks then on to philly. the plan is to let him settle into his job for a few months before any extended visits, but maybe we'll come out there on a weekend in august or something. he got really into petroglyphs / pictographs / rock art while we were together and wants to come back to the southwest and do some extended exploration, maybe apply for a grant or stipend, but if that happens it'll probably be next year. idk, lots up in the air, except for a strong desire on everyone's part to keep the fire burning. we just said goodbye to him this evening. not the hardest thing i've done in the romance category but not the easiest either.

the speed dating event sounds fun!

i'm going to be back at the oldest gay bar in slc djing starting this saturday and i'm really looking forward to it.

Philly! Hi!

heyyyyy! if we do make it out there we'd love to meet ya!

likewise!

Would it be tacky to lobby for the reception DJ to play “If Madonna Calls” by Junior Vasquez?

never

just give him a 5 if he can do it

or her or them

I also want him to play “Cunty”

we all do

It was very gratifying to fill out the “list your favorite songs” sheet and have the DJ come back with “omg you have amazing taste”

i bet it's even more gratifying for the dj ;)

I’m trying to reign in some of my impulses but one thing I’m extremely proud of is that the wedding party is going to be introduced to “Give If Up” by The Goodmen

congrats btw!!!

Thanks!

kinda thinking this through

i am, once again, considering just going on grindr and finding some random dude to fuck me

i've never really done that kind of thing before but i figure that's no real reason not to

concerns:
1. there might not be any takers

i've always been told any woman can find someone if she sets her standards low enough but look. i'm clearly, totally, unambiguously a woman, and i don't even have a penis. honestly i might be better off stealthing and picking up some straight dude. i mean if i got clocked he might get violent, but there's an _extremely low_ chance some straight dude would clock me. the bigger concern is...

the question always comes down to "how low do i want to go", how desperate _am_ i. am i so desperate i'd have sex with a _straight guy_?

and the implicit question is _why_ do i want somebody to fuck me? and the answer is "low self-esteem", like, that's it, there's no question there. i have low self esteem and i'm wondering if getting fucked by some rando will help me with my low self-esteem. that's kind of a questionable proposition. it doesn't always work out like that.

particularly since i got some kinda... conflicting feelings about the whole thing. most of the sexual experiences i've had were of me being sexually assaulted. "horny" for me isn't, just, like, kink. it's me actively wanting to be dehumanized and treated like shit. which, like. if my chief issue is low self-esteem, i'm not sure being dehumanized and objectified by a stranger is gonna _help_ with that?

but here's the problem, my brain is telling me that literally nobody would find me attractive and, uh, i don't know how to answer that without finding someone who is sexually attracted to me. and kind of my expectation is that anyone who would be interested in me would treat me like a piece of fuckmeat and probably also sexually assault me. that would be bad. that's what i _want_ but that would be bad.

aaaaagh it's this catch-22, how am i going to find someone who's going to treat me well when i don't _want_ to be treated well, but on the other hand why would i believe people i'm intimate with would treat me well when the people i've been intimate with historically _haven't_ treated me well? fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. oh wait, i know the answer to this one. cry. thanks, estrogen!

someone kissed me last week and then decided she didn’t want to kiss me anymore and unfortunately now i’m addicted to lesbian kissing

Kate I've twice hired sex workers when I've been in the headspace you're in. The first was following a breakup and I hired somebody to come over and spoon me until I fell asleep. The second was also following a breakup and I just wanted somebody to come over and fuck me until I felt dead. Both were expensive (and I tipped well) and both were extremely useful at the time. When it's time for "having questionable sexual activity"-- that is, sex to restore self-esteem, sex to obliterate selfhood, or even (theoretically) good threesomes, I'm an advocate for hiring a sex worker. It feels so much easier to just be frank with somebody you're paying about why they're there and what they can do for you. Much easier than trying to communicate the same to a horny civilian. You might consider trying that once or twice before venturing into the horrible world of hookups? I volunteer this information just because I'm not ashamed of this fact about myself and I don't think anybody else should be, either.

Also @ ivy the "she decided she didn't want to kiss me anymore" is how the lesbian kissers get you hooked

i feel like the medication i'm taking for my mouth sores is effective enough that i might actually enjoy kissing. my mouth's not constantly in pain, at least.

i guess i could try sex workers. it's again, one of those things where i don't know where or how to _find_ a sex worker other than, i mean, a bunch of my friends are sex workers. there's one in particular, i like her a lot, she's fucking brilliant and probably actually less emotionally stable than me. last time we hung out she was too high to talk. the time before that she said being a sex worker was awesome and i should be one. she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself of this than convince me. i don't judge her for it. i've had my own emotional stability issues this past month. plus, this week my therapist is also, i think, less emotionally stable than me. she's not professionally inappropriate about it, but she was pretty open that she wasn't having a good week and yeah it's pretty obvious that she's doing badly.

i talked to my psych today and we're not changing my meds this month. i know this is the gay thread and not the mental health thread but they kinda get mixed up in my mind lately. cuz sometimes the meds that are affecting me aren't MH meds. for instance i ran out of my estradiol cypionate and i've switched to estradiol valerate and i feel a lot less stable. i don't even know where to get more cypionate. the doctor who was prescribing my cypionate retired. well, i got a scrip in with a compounding pharmacy but they're out, as per usual, and god knows when they'll get more. i've been thinking off and on about DIY but the dark web and bitcoin and, i mean, it's less safe than compounded meds. it feels like it would be taking a step and i'm not sure it's a step i want to take. so i'm taking compounded valerate. maybe it's the valerate and maybe it's the weather and maybe it's life being really stressful and maybe it's me running out of my prog and not having the energy to get it refilled. i'm trying to get my hormone levels checked. i sent my endo a mychart and she sent some pdf order and said to print them and bring them into the lab. print them! because my endo isn't in-network, and i don't know where to find an endo who _is_ in-network. so i email my PCP, who is in network, and ask them if they know how to get these lab orders to my in-network lab. and then i gotta take time off from work and schlep myself into the lab and get tested.

she didn't put in an order for my T. i'm pretty sure my T is, like, zero. i've had my balls off _and_ i'm taking two separate anti-androgens. the flomax, improbably enough, i need to be on. i tried going off it and i couldn't pee. fuck knows what's up with that. the finasteride i'm not really sure about. that hair transplant, you know, it cost me a lot of money and i don't want to start losing hair again. it's probably fine, but i haven't, like, asked somebody. you see a doctor and they only want to talk about one thing a visit. i understand, but i kinda have a lot of things i'm worried about. in the meantime, my having a testosterone level of about zero might account for the way i'm constantly exhausted and struggle to function in my daily life. or it might not!

honestly, it's less about the professionalism of whatever sex worker i find and more a matter of... right now what my brain is telling me i want is for cw kind of, uh, self-harm them to come over and call me i'm disgusting and old and ugly and worthless and force me to fellate them and beat me to a bloody pulp and call me pathetic and leave. which is, uh, i think kind of a desire for self-harm. same with the kink. last time i was at a kink convention i picked up a cw extreme kink rattan cane encrusted with seashell fragments all over. haven't used it on myself but i _have_ used another cane i have to cane my inner thighs badly enough that they were severely bruised for weeks afterward. like that was pretty blatantly self-harm. i don't feel _bad_ about it but i kinda try to not do that stuff, but god, there are _so many different ways to self-harm_. and most of the sexual desires i have, well, they're hard to differentiate from self-harm.

idk. the main thing is that when i'm feeling emotionally unstable i've learned to not act on my desires. a lot of my desires are healthy and normal! it's just that my strongest and most intense desires _aren't_ healthy and normal. it's like, you know, the thing where i crave an entire pint of ice cream when i should have, like, a container of probiotic yogurt instead. except a couple orders of magnitude more intense. i got a seriously problematic relationship with food for reasons that are _strongly related_ to childhood abuse, but i haven't, in fact, ever been sexually assaulted by ice cream.

anyway! it's pride this weekend! i will seriously consider your suggestion of a sex worker. i do think it's a basically good and healthy idea, i am very in favor of sex work, and i mean, i got some friends i can ask. i don't know. mainly i want, like, somebody to tell me i'm an worthwhile and desirable person and _not_, like, hideous broken and ugly, and i just, like. if i'm paying someone to tell me that, it's hard for me to trust that they're not just saying that because i'm paying them to say that, you know? also i'm kind of... i know it's not a healthy attitude, but i do kind of have this toxic idea in my head that if i pay someone to tell me i'm worthwhile and desirable, that somehow reflects badly on me as a person. which it doesn't! i don't feel that way about paying someone for sex. why would i feel that way about paying someone to, like. treat me in a loving, compassionate manner?

i guess, like... someone on ilx has expressed anxiety about getting a therapist, about making themselves emotionally vulnerable to a therapist, and i kinda feel that same way about, like, seeing a sex worker. which i guess means i probably should see a sex worker!

anyway maybe that all was overdisclosure, but tl;dr, that's a good suggestion! thank you!