My trans story goes way back. I just turned 36, which makes me feel very old. Not in the sense that 36 is actually old (it is!!!), but in the way, that time appears more relative as you get older, and that relativity translates into it seemingly moving faster. I am old enough to remember what it was like to be “transgender” before the word was codified in its current form; before the debate about and subsequent invention of the trans child (as Jake Halberstam might say); and before transitioning was a viable option for more and more people. Someone…

It’s been five months since I had the surgery. It went well. I recently read that between 80–90 percent of female-identified post-operative transsexuals can achieve orgasm. I wish I had read that before. They always make it seem like there is a high chance it won’t work. Even the recovery was pretty smooth…save for that first day at home when the only mirror I could find to dilate with was a 5x magnification mirror — I cried. My vag even has a secondary clitoris in the canal. A specialty of my surgeon. While it is a little heteronormative, I am…

This year is good — by all accounts. I count years by the academic calendar. I mean, politically it is a nightmare (this is why I avoid the calendar year — I’m always out of sync). And COVID is just the harbinger of how we cannot deal with climate change. But it’s okay, I’ve made my peace with it. No matter what we do, Earth will eventually become part of the Sun’s swollen coronasphere, and we will be ash and memory. So why not now? Why not expedite it? But this year has been a good year gauged by the…

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Recently I’ve been taking a nap around 2 pm most afternoons. In isolation, there isn’t much to do, and I am having bad hayfever. Last week, before one of these naps, I read in the paper that normal hospital operations were resuming in the Netherlands…

*Spoilers for Star Trek Picard and other Trek

I want to avoid the minutiae of the finale episode, so I will avoid the first half; it was fine. It reflects some of the larger plot issues of the series more broadly — though I believe they are mostly mitigated by outstanding performances (and the finale works better when watching part i and ii as a whole). However, the last half of this episode had lots of utopian Trek, which I need in my life right now (don’t we all). So let’s start with space flowers. This was a lot of…

“It’s possible to name everything and to destroy the world.”
― Kathy Acker

*I’m trying out edgier titles. I felt like “The Tyranny of Categories” sounded a little stiff and unwelcoming.

**Also, this is a little delayed, but I’ve been busy and it’s still important.

I have deleted Facebook from my devices, save for my laptop. There is so much shitty stuff that comes up that I just don’t need in my life. Whenever I log on I’m inundated by news of all the horrible things that are happening to our community; it’s overwhelming. I don’t use other social media…

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“I don’t,” said Scrooge.

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

— Charles Dickens

Last Christmas I had a premonition. I was suddenly obsessed with A Christmas Carol, I reread it, I watched two different versions of it. My partner thought I…

“Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”

—Kafka

“The time is out of joint.”

— Hamlet

Last night my partner bought me a gold Casio digital watch for my three-year hormone anniversary. The watch is anachronistic, dischronic, an artifact of 80s nostalgia. Mark Fisher views the prevalence of such nostalgia for the paraphernalia of the past as the cancellation of the future. The present is flooded by the ghosts of yesterday. My future won’t materialize. The time is out of joint.

***

I arrived at Utrecht Central Station to find the direct train to…