October 2008 – Alexandra Larsson

A Monday that was both effective and nice

Today I decided to work at home a couple of hours before going to yet another diathermy treatment in the afternoon. These days I can’t wear any makeup so going to work isn’t really an option then. Since I was in Stockholm I had a plan to try to get some of my furniture out of my apartment and Mia said that she gladly could help. Just as she arrived I got a call from the skin therapist saying that she had caught a terrible cold and that all with appointments today could cancel them if they liked. Since I really really need to be at work next week (when the experiment starts) I decided to cancel. Felt a bit sad since I really try to struggle to be able to do these as many Mondays as possible but work has a tendency to get in the way and I guess I am way too loyal.

However that meant that I had the whole day to do all these errands which there is no time for on weekdays. So me and Mia somehow crammed a kitchen table and four chairs into my small Mini and dropped them off at the charity Myrorna. After that I had popped the idea that we should visit the mall Skärholmen (SKHLM) in the area. I had never been there before but it turned out to be a nice decision. Not much people and a really huge place with lots of fun stores and places to eat. Somehow it felt like being at a mall in the US and I have nothing but positive experiences from these so I felt at home 🙂 Did not really plan to buy anything (heard that before?) but ended up in the sports store Stadium and found a wonderful ski parka from Everest. The picture on the web does not make it justice I think because the outside of the jacket look somewhat like it is made of cloth. Since it was way to long since I bought any winter clothes I decided to buy it.

Got back to my living room in becoming and felt great. Mia inspired me to do even more organising and it is really needed. I do have a lot of stuff but it also a lot of cool stuff I think (and so does Mia:)

Cooking, movin’ and organizing with friends

I was sooo tired after this week at work. I was doubling as a training instructor and at the same time testing and guiding consultants to configure our experimentation platform. With that in mind I was a bit surprised that I ended up with plans on this Saturday. I had an offer to take over a TV-bench from A&M and suggested that I could cook them some food at the same time. You see, I think I do a great stew on Elk/Reindeer that I would like them to try. It is very easy to do as well: just fry onions, mushrooms and meat, then add a base for wild meat dishes and finally finish off with some cream. Served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam.

It was a real nice afternoon with dear friends and I think it was the first time I managed to relax and enjoy the situation for a couple of weeks. After having dessert and coffee we decided to get moving a see if the bench would fit in my small car. To our surprise it was no problem at all and M could even sit in the passenger seat 🙂

When we got to my place and got the piece of furniture in place I saw in her eyes that she really longed to move it in place. So we ended up reorganizing the whole room and the result was just great! A completely new look which made me feel just great.

Sunday brunch with A

A has been in southern Sweden for over two months now but this weekend she was back in Stockholm for a couple of days. Even though there are mobile phones, instant messaging, FaceBook and email it is not the same as meeting in person. So I do miss her a lot and it was great to see her over brunch this Sunday morning. Especially since I do feel as I do it was so nice to sit down and just talk about life and things. I also had saved a small bottle of Champagne for her which I got on a flight a couple of months ago. It is great to give away gifts and especially if it is someone you really like. After a couple of hours I walked her to the train station to see her off and I can’t wait for her to move back in January. She is so wonderful and wonderful people are nice to be with!

Body and Soul

Now almost two months have passed since the surgery and it feels great. The feeling of discomfort (rather than pain which I almost did not have) went away when I switched to using a sports bra. The swelling have gone down and I am really pleased with the results, the size seem just right for me. It is great to be able to once again feel so much more comfortable with the image in the mirror. I feel feminine and the other night I actually tried on a black dress that I would never would have wore without a jacket before and it looked great. It also feels great a lot of the time when I look down and see my cute boobs. The only thing that really bothers me now is the remaining hair in my face but the diathermy seem to be working although slowly.

So, I guess everything should be great now. After all I am considered “finished” with my treatment and everything. As I have written before it is only me left now and that does not only means from the “tasks and engagement”-perspective where I now have scaled down my commitments to non-profit-organizations to a minimum. I think it is also relevant from a personal perspective. Even though I experience things related to my transsexual background now and then I feel whole now and I am the woman I have wanted to be for so long. I think I know that there are no excuses anymore – like “I need that surgery before I dare to do that”. Now it is only me and my fear that prevents me to do things. I think it also means that before I was rather occupied with the fact that people should like me almost despite I was a transsexual. Which I guess I sometimes could understand since some people are scared of the unknown. Now people treat me just as any other woman and that means that I can only be scared of people liking me for who I am as person. So when the inbox is empty and the phone isn’t ringing that often it is hard to not feel a little bit sad and lonely. I guess I want to feel that people need me either to do stuff for them (the easy way out) or for the person I am (much harder). So it is a bit hard to have all this spare time at weekends while being pleased with my body (a bit like a butterfly…) and feel that I don’t know how to explore the world which I so long for. I don’t really know if I have gotten too cautious and just need to go out and do it for myself or if I really need some additional external pushing because it is so hard that I actually need it. So while I keep figuring that out I guess I will keep working like crazy. That part of my life is now really fun, challenging and interesting…

Flowers to my amazing neighbors

I do have amazing neighbors in my house. You see back on Thursday I got a phone call telling me that they had found my keys in the door. Apparently I had been confused enough to leave them there when I left home in the morning. Luckily my neighbors not only spotted the keys but locked my apartment and took care of they keys so I could pick them up the next day when I returned from Enköping. This meant a lot to me so I bought some nice orange flowers. They looked really happy but also very surprised about that and said it was no bother for them really. Felt good to make someone else happy…

Interesting post about honesty

The wonderful girl Blomma Bladsdotter had posted a blog post (later deleted) where she discusses the question of honesty for people with a transsexual background. There are two possible strategies. Either be completely honest about everything and gather strength to talk about even difficult and personal stuff. The other strategy is to omit certain details of your life and background in order to be seen as the woman you are. I have chosen complete honesty because of fear of ending up in a closet again but the obvious drawback is that some people unnecessary don’t see me as a “real woman” – whatever that is.

Rallybrudar

Ikväll har jag varit och sett filmen Rallybrudar och det var en trevlig filmupplevelse med både glädje men också en del förfasande över tider som varit. Gillar skarpt Eva Röses karaktär Ulla som en tuff tjej som vågar satsa på sina ambitioner i en ganska inskränkt samhälle där kvinnor helst ska gå husmorsskola och gifta sig. Alla i samhället är emot henne inledningsvis – till och med kvinnorna vilket känns extra hårt tycker jag. Men det tar sig i slutet av filmen och det känns bra. En klart sevärd film med en ganska konkret illustration av hur förtrycket av kvinnor såg (ser) ut.

Transitioning in the IT-business

Today I was pleased to read about Sara who now have started transitioning (male-to-female) at her work at a major IT consultancy firm called KnowIT. However, I must confess that I don’t like headlines like “Daniel becomes Sara” since I think and believe that she was Sara from the beginning. I wish her good luck in her process I hope she can continue to thrive and develop as a competent woman in the IT-business.

A name incident at work

Today at work I had a name incident. This time it was a bit strange. In the middle of a briefing I was giving the person I was briefing got a phone call and told the other person that “Alexander is giving me a briefing about the concept”. I suddenly felt rather cold and I know that my reaction often is quite obvious even though the other person might not be aware of what happened. So the question is whether or not to bring the issue up immediately or ignoring it while possibly take it up afterwards. Dealing with it immediately is something I guess is better for me because I can “get it out” of my system right away and someway get some idea why it happened and even get an apology. However, 95% of the people mean no harm and bringing it up immediately could lead to a rather tense situation where the other person won’t be able to focus on what I am saying afterwards. So I guess I have to decide if it should be uncomfortable for me or for them.

Anyway in this case the person apparently have heard someone else talking about some Alexander. The thing that bothers me is how the person could link a male name with the woman (me) in front of her. Even though I was in civilian clothes (a pink top) I also had my name tag on. So even though I was trying not to bother to much I found myself thinking about this the rest of the day. I could not help thinking about if I “did something wrong”. The way I moved, my voice, my makeup and so on.

A high level Mac switcher

It is with great satisfaction to notice that we now can add the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt to the growing number of switchers. His blog post around the issue have of course got some attention at computer news magazines such as Swedish MacWorld. And yes, in the comments of his blog posts you can read the standard variety of comments where many seem to be filled with old prejudices about the Mac and who should have one. And Bild himselfs says:

Att säga att jag inte ångrar det steget är månadens stora understatement. Min enda kritik av mig själv är varför jag väntade så länge att ta steget