These are more intense days yet again. Much is not gender-related except I did it gendered, but I want to express it.

Very time-pressured during this week. One day all spent filming, with two people I have crushed on. I had a lot of fun. I was stressed I would not do it well but it worked. Seeing the movies – in some angles and lighting, it almost appears as though I pass visually. My voice does not, but I actually look pretty good. Sometimes. Photographed by a girl who knows her stuff, in good makeup.

Then the homework. I will provide more material to help make my legal case to the insurance. Then I will perhaps have the choice of Schaaf/Morath or Chettawut. May still be leaning towards the other. It feels like I am longing for surgery now.

I went to a castle (well, resort that was a monastery with horses, swans and weird art) east of Babylon, almost to the Polish border. Place and landscape were beautiful as so many things at once. The meeting took most of two days and I needed to stay focused, could not work much on my manuscripts. I stayed very visible, and kept worrying I was too pushy. I was nervous giving my talk, and as previously, froze some and tried to hide it when I talked about the part where I outline my planned research in trans people. That said, I think they recognize me. I think my strategy from before work. I am sure I do not pass as cis to these people, but they accept me. In particular, the young women smile at me. In line for the toilet stall, someone complimented my boots.

Oh, and I definitely, totally wear a miniskirt and a corset to a meeting for research leaders. No-one has told me not to. Not all is wrong with the world. Over post-dinner drinks, spoke with she who previously misgendered me. I talked about my alignment and surgery and identity, she of her minority religion. We got on well now. I think she knows me now.

Getting tired and drained already, physically, socially, intellectually. Have some hopes of meeting up with someone this weekend, and to do so in a state of such drain (not too severe but somewhat), as I somehow long to go from exhaustion to meaningful communication while extra vulnerable, this being a feature rather than a bug. I am an emotion junkie but what else is new?

Apparently I volunteered to help coordinate efforts to harmonize study protocols and patient data. That will come back to bite me but if I do deliver all of this then maybe I do have a chance at tenure. Mid-day we left to circle Babylon to another castle (this more typical) on the diametrically opposite side. I put white noise in my headphones and semi-slept in the car.

I do need to learn the language. At least clinicians, if not basic scientists, spontaneously shift to Akkadian if all present are natives. I don’t want the vulnerability and feeling of being a liability of being the person who forces that shift.

Still, evening and dinner went fine. I ate much more today than my diet plans for, this is the issue with planned conference schedules. Some good conversations. Maybe one person getting weirdly familiar, or just a mistaken feeling of mine.

After sleeping in the car and feeling relaxed and vulnerable, I find myself thinking even more fondly-but-idly of a certain collaborator. He is old and married and I don’t like men, do I? But he smells always weirdly, oddly sexy, and I know he is smart and kind and pragmatic, and sticks out for me, and cares about me. I feel safe around him. I feel like a high school girl crushing idly on her teacher. I emphatically do not want that to go anywhere whatsoever, but it does fascinate me how I seem to respond.

Tomorrow, end of second meeting. I might get to socialize thereafter. If not, I will probably try to work until I am too tired to get anywhere, then watch sci-fi. Tonight I will have more sleep than yesternight. All in all, I am vulnerable, emotional, real, and entirely satisfied and at peace with where I am and with my own volatility. At least that is part of my truth.