posthuman and strange

At a sci-fi convention in Akkad now. I was here last year, my first. Then the main focus was on Battlestar Galactica, almost the whole cast was present. I had never seen the show, but I realized I had to, and that there was a particular character I had to cosplay the year after, that is, right now. This was in many important ways a transition-related need, for a lot of reasons. Back then I was 3-4 months on HRT and not so confident.

This character, Number Six, is important in many trans-related ways which the creators surely did not intend. She is a (humanoid) Cylon, a robot/AI that branches to multiple individuals who in turn reincarnate in new identical bodies if killed. The Cylons were created artificially by humanity but rebelled, and after a war against them, they are truly hated. When it is discovered there are human-looking Cylon infiltrators (some as sleeper agents), those are seen as subhuman, non-persons, artifical, machines, not real persons, who can be tortured and killed without any moral burden.

The specific character is further extremely femme-coded – bombshell blonde in revealing clothing, seductress infiltrator, with most of her significant screentime as a ghost presence in the head of a male character. She is also very competent, very dangerous, instrumental in destroying human main civilization, and she undergoes a lot of trials and sufferings which are also coded feminine – rape, pregnancy, miscarriage, and her objective of being able to birth or nourish a child that will bear the Cylon people forward is core to her plot.

All of this contributed to why I needed to cosplay this character. A very high bar for attempting performative and symbolic femininity, as a challenge and test of my own capacity. But also the duality of actually being a highly competent and dangerous immortal genocidal machine. And the fundamental struggle, so trans-like, of not being seen as a “real woman” but as somehow fake, artificial.

It is also my first serious cosplay, and first real femme cosplay. And I knew for all the above reasons, it was beyond crucial I would be understood as doing cosplay – a woman portraying a woman character – and not crossplay – a man portraying a woman character as a drag thing. The character has already attributes making this especially challenging – signature red cocktail dress, blonde hair, almost no makeup, no signature gimmicks or accessories. Meaning I’d have to use just simple clothing and my own body to portray a different person (who is a tall cis woman) well enough for recognition but without any hint of irony, faking or artificiality.

Going about this then required some challenges. The most important I did anyway already – another year of hair removal and HRT. I planned to have lost more weight to be slimmer, but did not succeed – will try harder now. As for the dress, I had great help from my partner who sewed it for me, got lots of compliments for it.

The hair was a major issue. Going blonde was costly, though at least I am not worried I am hurting the hair so much – I got complex protective formulations which seem to work. Bleaching eyebrows worked well. But the haircut is shorter, always a major dysphoria risk. Moreover, I recognize this year that keeping my hair out instead of in a bun makes the long shape of my face more apparent, accentuates squareness of hairline, squareness and width of jaw; I feel I look significantly more masculine with my hair loose, so that was already a major fear to have to face.

Similarly, for the character’s look I needed to skip during the cosplay (two more days to go now!) wearing glasses, lipstick, heavy eye makup, nail polish or eyebrow pencil; she has a cold “natural look” but all of these things I have come to rely on significantly to feel my face and form look more feminine. Going without them has been really frightening, at least at first. Would I look like some drag-performing man in a dress, performing this ironically as mere play-acting, not as an identity with respect to the gender dimension?

Add to this the most recent advances in my facial hair removal. Since two months I do only electrolysis, no laser, no shaving. I let the few straws there are grow so the electrologist can catch them next time, but that means having some long hairs here and there, most white and soft but some darker. This also scared me – how close must a person get before they can see them and notice? So facial hair, no makeup to speak of, a non-flattering hairstyle and a non-flattering body, when I need to come across as perfectly authentic for a high performative bar. Plus my voice still being quite deep.

That said… it actually went really well, this time. I feel confident. I feel OK. I don’t know how I am read, but I received smiles and compliments, was not challenged, and I sort of see even now under these circumstances a woman in the mirror, if one not so happy for her facial shape. No-one challenged me in changing room to the sauna (did not let them see my bottom parts while in there). I feel uninhibited in moving around, being real, being present. It’s as though I can recognize the flaws and limitations, but feel that I can ignore them and make others ignore them also.

So… it worked. I did it. And I now feel more confident still in “casual” femme presentation. I am who I am regardless, and I am beginning to expect to be read as a woman without having to jump through quite so many hoops. Maybe I expect too much still, but the fact I expect it is valuable and changes my self. And this marks also how my body has changed. It really has.

slopes.com

Everything happening at once makes processing it a worthy challenge.

I keep exploring surgery stories. It’s clear Suporn method SRS often works perfectly fine and that healing, though cumbersome, works well. But in the restricted channels I have access to, there seems to be at least a percent who has ridiculously difficult recovery. I worry about that. Specifically, I worry about dilations taking 3-4 hours as late as month 6 or 8 post-op, because I do not want to jeopardize building a life and a career if I can avoid it. For young girls with less responsibilities, this may matter less.

But I need surgery, and I don’t want penile inversion. Specifically, I don’t want any method that does not fully make use of the glans material or that does not make labia minora out of foreskin to keep the nerves in place. So the Mesopotamian clinic may be my best bet, as it’s stated to be a hybrid of inversion and the Thai method. In less than a month I consult with them.

The biggest challenge is, what if I am wrong and that is still as hard to recover from? What if it still has a Suporn-style contraction period of the scar rings during which everything becomes very difficult? I’ve searched as much as I can, joined more groups and applied for access to image servers. Asked people. But of course I can’t know if there is some 1-2% of women having it this bad also with that method. It sucks to have to make decisions on imperfect evidence.

The other factors: with Dr Bank, I can have surgery for 15K. Assume 6K for travel and accommodation in Thailand, and perhaps another 3K for same for a later revision surgery. 24K total, possibly tax-deductible. Mesopotamia, would be 20K + 10K for the second step. So all in all more expensive but not that bad. Might still be tax deductible. And there is a change my insurance will cover it, if I can convince them the therapy I did way back then still counts for trans purposes, even if it is unrelated.

There is also a benefit to the clinic being in the same country at least as my beloved home in Babylon. And it’s said that the Suporn clinic are very difficult to deal with if you have complications.

A drawback certainly: It may take up to a year or more longer with Mesopotamia. That means more time to prepare but I… argh.

All in all though, actually making preparations makes me realize that “petty” things – i.e. related to path not end – can matter to me. It matters that the clinic is close and how hard recovery is, whereas perfect aesthetics or being healed by 40 may not as much. And this is the case not with regards to pain, I am more and more sure I can take any amount of pain for a limited period. But rather with respect to fear. I’m afraid of being afraid but more to the point, I am afraid of gambling too much with other parts of my life project. I cannot be off work, or very improductive, for a year.

That’s not to say I can go on without SRS. I will have either of these two forms of SRS as soon as I can.

night errors

I now have access to the accounts of many more SRS patients, including a better view of what can go wrong, and the insight that while complication statistics for the Suporn clinic very likely is still low compared to other surgeons, it is still higher than the numbers most often cited. Reading the stories of struggling girls scares me, it affects me a lot right now.

Part of me wonders if I still should not have aimed for the nearby clinic despite waiting times, just in case revisions are easier, even if that means waiting much longer. And part of me wonders if inversion vaginoplasty might be much easier dilation-wise given fewer stitches inside.

But in the end, I do not want inversion, I need that skin to be on the outside. And I’m sure every high-quality place I’d go to would have its share of issues and difficult stories. I’m queasy but I’m proceeding with my plans.

Given that I need to outline my fears, as now informed by the unhappy accounts I saw.

For a lot of women, it seems their main issue is that dilating to depth is physically difficult, stressful, painful, and that even into their second year post-op they may still have granulation tissue or bleeding, and may need to dilate daily, having to take painkillers to do so. I say a lot, but I don’t think they are a majority, but I don’t feel confident assuming I will not be one. I have to assume that daily dilation may have to be a thing for the next years. It’s somewhat similar in scope to the issues I lived with when I needed hours for angst management, that which I transitioned away from. So this I would not want permanently.

It’s a gamble. Chances are I’ll be OK. If I am not, I’ll try to have revisions. If I fail that, I’ll have to have some revision that has the vagina healing shut, giving me a zero-depth cosmetic outcome. If so I’ll regret not having inversion surgery, but if I have inversion surgery, I will also regret not having the Thai technique. So I am gambling on a no-regret outcome as a non-guaranteed possibility. Losing depth would leave me mourning a missing vagina just as much as I miss a uterus or XX karyotype, but would still mean being less dysphoric, and would still let me have outside sex. I would be in sorrow but I could live with it. And that means there is a worst-case scenario I can accept.

Worst-case in another regard is incontinence, if there is fistula or something wrong with the urethra. I don’t want to have to live with that permanently, having to wear diapers. So I’ll have to make sure I can fix that outcome if it happens. But there at least this is something that women do experience and there are surgeons who have dealt with it. Combined with the above, I feel tentatively OK in that it will be possible to deal with somehow, though I worry that any such additional stresses will be an obstacle for me spending enough effort to succeed in my work. I so wish I was a cis woman and did not have to worry like this. Though it is exactly analogous to the uncertainties of a cis woman having a baby.

Worst-case in regards to orgasmicity and clitoral sensitivity. I don’t think I can affect this save for asking for as much tissue reuse as possible. It’s a neuroanatomical lottery. My chances are probably good. But if I end up without that sensitivity, then my sex will be much like now – something I have for the sake of closeness and touch and pain, not for the sake of orgasm. I’ll mourn what I can still feel grinding against someone (and I’m really scared of this) but I know this is something that will be equally true regardless of choice of surgeon, and that the Suporn method is the one that reuses the most of the sensitive tissue.

Worst-case in regards to pain. Some women have ongoing pain, either too much from dilation, or too much when they get aroused, or from vulvitis-like symptoms, or overall. I might run this risk too. There is a small-ish risk I will have something like chronic pain. I suppose I will take this risk and then all I can do is prepare and be ready. It too should be no different between techniques.

So not all issues have clear solutions yet, though I think all eventually can be solved. There are worst-case fallbacks I would mourn but can live with. Mostly I worry over how much time this will lose me from working. Hopefully all will go well, and I will do anything and everything to improve my chances.

I feel sick from the fear, obsessive over it, but I’ve largely done all I could. I’m second-guessing my decision to have this surgery but I think that is an emotion that was to be expected and that I can keep on observing. I remain on schedule to have it, and I think I will process these fears by seeing things through their lens for a while. I’m really scared for surgery, because of the risk of imperfect outcomes, but I still want it. I must let myself navigate and experience that fear as I prepare myself.

grind

It’s not a great day. I think I stress dangerously clear to burnout. Particularly one task (start/finish recrunch of all consortium data) has been delayed so much it physically has been difficult to start it. I’ve not had that before, something anxiety disturbing executive capacity. I need to finish that, temporarily let go of all other duties, and just restore tonight. Eventually.

Suporn clinic accepts my Chettawut recommendation letters. So I am one step closer still!

Drew blood again today to check if levels are as they should with gel regime + some progesterone. So I got out for that. Decided to not be as afraid of the sting – after all, I’ll have IV needles in me within a year from now, not to mention deeply deeply invasive cuts into muscle and skin and nerves, and so many surfaces being raw and healing all at once. It’s time to kick my phobia of needles. I still looked away but it really was easier.

plaster

So the mental processing continues with regards to SRS.

I think now I’m quite OK with the thought of a relatively low risk of loss of sensation, and a relatively low risk of persistent pain. And I’m OK with the mad spiral of pain and fear and challenge which will be recovery. And I consider risk of death a non-issue.

Remaining then is the fear of being handicapped through fistula, specifically having to have colostomy. Suporn says his frequency has been 0.1% and that they fixed it both times. Swedish study showed 1% risk. Chettawut didn’t say how often it had happened, but guessing it will be intermediate. He did say that risk depended on care taken while dilating and depth, and that they had fixed with with colovaginoplasty when it had happened.

This still is my main fear. I have to face a 0.1%-1% risk of having to have a second severe surgery with even more complicated recovery, or even its failure and having to nurse a very shame-loaded handicap. This feels like the main obstacle still in the way.

Going by projection, I’m going to conclude I’ll go through with this anyway and then I’m going to do it. Just need to digest.

awww yis

So, other progesterone users seem to use the amounts actually indicated by the Powers protocol. I should do this also. Which does mean I should start cycling again, deciding on a starting point. I want to invite women close to me also on gel dosable E2 and P4 to cycle with me. Get in touch if you know how to and we’ll actually seriously do it, period tracker app and all.

Discovering that, as I had somewhat suspected, now that trans alignment and dysphoria is mostly under control given I am quite a way into transition, I’m getting to the point where I can deal with whatever my emotional damages are. I don’t know to what extent they are impacted by the loss of my grandfather. I don’t know to what extent they are impacted by the breakups which made me afraid. I don’t know to what extent the self-alienation of dysphoria intersected with body desirability perception to make it vaster and stronger over the years. I don’t know to what extent there were any hurdles in my attachment (in particular perhaps, my being so early in language and social development might have meant I considered myself personally responsible earlier than is healthy).

Either way, it’s clear over time I have a pathological fear of rejection, that I expect it, that this fear is very easily triggered, and that it drives me to constantly crave relational validation as well as to scrupulously ensure I do all I must to maintain good standing. It emerges, by and large, almost but not exclusively in my romances (whether formal ones or those odd cases where we decide afterwards it really was a romance).

I think this is good. I can do exposure training on the fear, try to remember to be mindful within it – which is almost but not quite so hard as not zoning out when touched – and I can try to use my newfound peace and introspection to define the edges of this phenomenon better.

I’d do well I think to look to my friends with BPD in how they cope with what they experience. I don’t think this is the same – just as I am not autistic – but I can still make use of some of their wisdom.

In other news, I’ll prepare templates for SRS recommendation letters. This feels exactly as when I asked academic collaborators for recommendation letters and they asked me to write a template for them. I made slightly different versions for each so that they would not look identical when I needed to submit both. There is some beautiful cosmic humor in this.

balances

I had some sort of realization. So, for those of you keeping track, I’d say I currently have something like four crushes, friend connections that I’d want to go towards some sort of romance or otherwise semi-persistant links but which as yet have not. One that was there has faded out, another is fading in, taking its place. Two I have had sex with and confessed my love to, of those both are sort of stabilizing into person-appropriate friendships in their respective ways, as I see and accept flaws and incompatibilities once the surge begins to dissipate. One hovers in the background like a fixed star, remote. One is pleasantly uncertain like a cloud and I am fascinated about how many fears blossom delightfully in me on that front. To this we add three committed relationships, all long or very long distance, one having been there with interruptions for almost two decades, with some form of calm ongoing evolution – a source of great safety for me; one since 1-2 years which is finding its own intensity much like that of some rare gas flame, and one which feels like sunlight glinting on the facets of an uncut and rough gold nugget unpredictably moving, which is super hard to assign a time frame to. In fact, since 2006 all my relationships have been long-distance, I have not been seeing anyone living in the same city. This is something I do want to change now that I have a home, I want to know what it is like to casually date someone without the logistics around it. This probably informed the fervor which which I was so eager to girlfriend some of those crushes.

Normalizing things with people. During parties yesternight, realizing that I’m chasing after someone who explicitly lets me chase her, but who is in no shape or form chasing me back. It’s not the first time. I have spoken to others about this who all tell me the same thing, that I should not keep on falling for people who are emotionally unavailable. It’s a fact that I do, and I sort of know why.

One part is I parse it as some sort of outsidership, some indication of having seen through things, some indication of a Special Perspective. This is probably wrong of me, a person being cool and remote does not mean they are woke or that I should expect them to be brilliant and farsighted. It just indicates experiences and coping mechanisms.

Part of me also has her own commitment fears, so that coolness seems like a guarantee that I won’t have to carry the other all the time. I do want to carry my loved ones when they need it (and it’s not an option for me not to, really, I would despise myself if I did not), but I want the need to not be constant but rather only partial, I am drawn to those who steer their own lives mostly (and in some cases, those who do not but who are in other relationships giving them that support). But emotional unavailability is not that either. A person who is in crisis and neither expects nor asks for help is not necessarily someone with their stuff together. Since I will still worry on their behalf, I will still hover near them offering help (which will not be accepted). People not asking for help does not reduce my emotional labour burden. People working to help themselves as much as they can, including by seeking support from me and from others, does. And this type of unavailable person often does not seem to understand this dimension, does not understand why I can’t just stand by and watch them suffer and not care, because by default they assume no-one will help them. Whereas my default is, in any genuine friendship, family bond or romance, the other being sad or upset always should result in at least checking in, to see whether they have it under control or not. This was how I grew up, so I have culture clashes with those who’ve learned differently from their lives.

This is BDSM-y also. I’ve noted I have a fetishy wish to collect strays. On some level which is much more emotional-relational than sexual, but which also has sexual charge, I see myself as that together, unshakeable witch who dwells in her circle, her hut on chicken legs, and who comes across broken, brilliant, untrusting geniuses. I leave the door open, they can come and go and I have no control over them. Except also somehow, they are supposed to slowly, spontaneously open up, learn to trust, come to stay with me, come back again and again to submit to me, so I can heal and advise and mentor them, and also tease and taunt and hurt them a little as I do, all with love, and they will come to trust me and themselves and the world and to grow into their full potential and to surpass me eventually. This sort of stray tamer, stray trainer, is to a large extent who I am as a domme. Obviously the fact I have a mentoring fetish means I need to be very very careful when I actually mentor people (those I advise, or those I lead professionally), so I make strict boundaries not to get involved with those. But in relational contexts, this always draws me. I long somehow for subs to come to me for more, and frame it as me helping them grow through everything I do. Even as I recognize that some domming is problematic for me as it makes me stay dissociated, I think enough of it is there, remains truly there as part of me. But it’s still problematic, because often this complicated fantasy does not match reality, it doesn’t describe the trajectory of those I touch. And especially, emotionally unavailable strays aren’t always just waiting for me to help teach them to trust and be happy. That is a silly romantic pipe dream. I won’t say it is toxic because in the form I have it, I think it is not, but it also isn’t usually very realistic and I must learn not to let it cloud my perception.

Most importantly, though, there is the whole high hopes, low expectations dimension. I really needed to learn that when I did, and it is very valuable, but in my years of coping I took it too far. I know why, because fundamentally I don’t understand myself as lovable. Deep down I am convinced I am hurtful, clumsy, boring, boorish, repetitive, simple, banal. I have impostor syndromes on all levels. I consider everything interesting about me to be faked, less genuine or deep than in others. Like I pretend but from a very shallow basis. And while I’ve come to genuinely be able to see myself as at least a little beautiful (thanks, HRT!), I also am still viscerally used to think that no-one possibly can enjoy seeing or touching me. So I expect that once the limited supply of curio I have with each person is drained, they will lose interest and politely move on.

I expect to be able to ask for and sometimes receive intimacy, but to always have to ask, because no-one will ever take initiatives towards me. Why should they? I am not attractive to them. When they accept, whether it is from kindness or a curious interest in the moment, I expect polite withdrawal at any point. I expect no persistence. I expect nothing to last. I expect for all who interact me to become bored and politely move on. While I have important and precious counterexamples, I also have many examples of people getting close and then that dimension fading out. None of my play partner interactions remained such for more than a brief few times. Every time this happens, I am reinforced in my belief that only fleeting interest can be held in me, that I cannot be foundationally wanted or loved. That I simply am too unskilled, too banal, too ugly, too shallow for anyone to stay around. That belief remains strong despite my partnerships and interactions, because it still was very long since I experienced anyone having sustained passion for me resulting in their approach, not just them letting me interact with them when I ask.

I cried over this on the dancefloor yesternight, and enjoyed that much. I recalled that phrasing, not wanting to be an option but a priority for someone. Except rarely and in the past and remotely in some of my partnerships, I don’t feel familiar with being a priority. I certainly don’t expect it in the slightest. I haven’t ever, I think. And that hurt so much in my early tweens, when I was still idealistically romantic, so when I found a high hopes, low expectations approach, that was the perfect defense from feeling constant pain and sorrow and self-depreciation. Letting love be solely to love others, to never expect love except as grace and blessing that comes solely by the contingent choice of others. A good way to keep from a great fear of rejection and abandonment. And it also certainly plays a role in me seeking out unavailable people. I believe it is all I can hope for to be an option but not a priority, and then somehow that feels safer.

I’ve hurt others too of course. From this baseline, I would feel it was wrong of me to require myself to feel physically drawn to someone if I was to approach them, discriminatory. I should give everyone a chance because no-one chooses their body or person, and it is somehow mean to not give a chance. So there were people I perhaps lead on, or slept with and then were happy when it never happened again, hoped that I could just let the bond cool, let them down gently. This is cruel and must have harmed just as I have been harmed. I must start to restrict myself to just those I really do want also in body, for all our sakes. That is also scary because of course I believe myself to be so unappealing that if I am picky, I will just be alone.

Being alone feels easier now. Not that I will be, for I am anyway multiply loved. This is wisdom, painful growth, painful for myself and others both. Thorny lives. Thorns thrive.

But I should restrict in another way, and this is what I thought of at the parties. If the only one making an effort is me, if all initiatives are taken by me and eventually accepted by the other each time, then what am I? An option, not a priority. I’m fine with being an option sometimes. I don’t want restrictions, or my life to be woven around anyone else – I need my freedom and my truest wife is Science, it is she who rules me (and I can say pretentious shit like that because I’ve actually earned it by this point). I have crucial loves that can never be edged out.

But I need for a proportionally larger part of my week-to-week, month-to-month emotional and sexual and romantic and friendly interactions to be with people who actually want me enough to make an effort. Because I deeply, dearly need to heal that part of me that thinks she isn’t worth anyone’s efforts. It’s not that anything is wrong with the casual connectivities, or the proposals that someone might take me up on once from curiosity. But I must balance that with receiving attention in a manner such that I actually feel _wanted_. Because there is such a great hurt inside me where I believe I cannot be, believe I am unworthy of being wanted.

This is scary in itself. Because if I ration myself – don’t seek out intimacy (broadly described) where you are the driving force to a greater extent than you receive intimacy from the other acting and making an effort, all in all, averaged over all bonds and relationships – then I fully expect to be lonely, to not experience much. Precisely because of that hurt cemented in teenage and tweenage years (and probably dysphoria-compounded) where I fully believe none will want me unless I am the one doing the legwork.

But now I have a self at least. I have achievements. I am fracking proud of myself in so many ways, because I know that I stand out in so many ways. Despite using stress to force myself, I know I am exceptional, that I shine like a star. I know I am beautiful, and that while I am no genius, I have a combination of agency, executive capacity and fluid intelligence that lets me do almost anything I decide to, so long as I pay the price. I know I can pay the price and smile through the tears as I do it, if I have to.

So maybe I can deal with that fear, and start expecting something from others also. And then maybe where I find that I am the only one making the effort in a romance, I can let that reach whatever level of loving friendship can work, and not chase after someone who won’t reciprocate. Strength lets me but the reason I need it is that I have this deep, deep wound that I must heal, and the only way I can heal it is by experiencing intense enough interest, love, lust, desire from others, evidenced by them also making commensurate efforts.

I don’t know where that healing process will go, but I feel somewhat confident on embarking on it. And being here in Babylon as a place of grandeur and adventure, I will be in my temple-grove, and I will go out to touch everything, and dance, and play, and forge bonds, and I will smile and cry always as I will. I am alive.

(EDIT: Also, must clarify: I do know the experience of being priority, not option. Those relationships which became lasting partnerships, and a number of lasting friendships, they did and do give me this, very much. It’s rather that I need to experience it more, in yet other contexts, from yet other people, to be able to heal as I crave.)

raw-war

Not quite sure how it happens, but today I have sensed myself being especially vulnerable, it has been easy to worry but more to the point, some sort of sense of dread in the background. This fascinates me, I am happy to observe, and curious that I cannot find the anchor. Though I believe it has to be, except I don’t feel it, that I was worried about my talk before the faculty.

Said talk went well. The same thing happened again that when I got to the penultimate slide outlining how I want to look at trans cohorts to understand sex-differential disease better, my body but not my mind reacted, I felt at peace internally but my voice got thick and I would have shook had I not prevented it. It slowly dissipated but slowly, and made me less eloquent. Obviously I fear talking about that in front of an audience because it’s a coming out and I feel exposed, it brings all the fears of not seeming serious, of seeming ridiculous, of being too much, probably multiple impostor syndromes simultaneously. It does nexus many of my fears so that does make sense.

But still odd I don’t emotionally sense it, whereas my body reacts whether I want to or not. Is this a sign of emotional repression? I’ve gotten so controlled over the years I can ignore affect and just move past fear without even sensing it, but the body still is deathly afraid and it shows in my body language?

Now a little worried that everyone could sense my voice tone shifting, worrying they look down or me or pity me, that they won’t work with me or give me tenure. But that’s also probably just the irrational fear, the same fears underlying it. I’ll act to ignore them, not feel them, just proceed with my work. But perhaps the ease with which I do that is precisely why it only can come out through my body tensing up?