A year in review

I skipped over doing this last year, so sadly there isn't a '2016 year in review).  But this is something I've done for 2013, 2014, and 2015 and will hopefully continue on with in the future.  If for no other reason than it will be fun to look back and see what I was going through at these times.

Anywho, this is an idea I got from Joanna on her Happiness blog.  I hate to say that I haven't visited her blog in a long long time.  It's one of the things that I've just given up on... keeping up with all my blogging friends.  Anyway, on to the year.

Where I look back at most years (since 2013) as good, I can't say the same about 2017.  It started off on the wrong foot.... I was sick.  I mean damn, I was sick from late December 2016 until around March of 2017.  I finally went to the doctor, got some antibiotics and some allergy pills and kicked it but three months of sickness really gets to you.

I traveled.  I visited Detroit for the car show in January.  I drove down to Dallas to visit my friends there.  I flew down to New Orleans in September to hang with my friends.  I made some cool purchases from a new 55 inch OLED television, a new refrigerator, a new grill, a new computer, and a new car.  But that traveling and those purchases put a big stress on my finances.  For the past few years I found it easy to keep around $2000 in my savings.  That was without trying to do so... I'd buy what I want, when I want, and I'd still find myself with an extra two grand to blow on something.  Well... this year I didn't have that.  One of the first decisions I made in 2017 was to go down to Mardi Gras with a friend in 2018.  He booked us a hotel and a train ride down and I owed him $1000.  Oops.  It took me most of the year to pay him off.  Everything else just kept getting in the way.  And now, almost a year later, it looks like I might not have much cash to go down with.

Music Conversion

I've gone and done it... I'm changing the way I listen to music.

This actually started a couple years ago.  In 2015 I wrote about me dipping my toes into the streaming music system.  A quick summary of that post is that I had heard a podcast with some techy guys talking about streaming music services... specifically spotify.  I mused a bit about some of the services I knew and even mentioned the new elephant in the room; Apple Music.

My conclusion was that I couldn't justify the cost.  Most of those services go for $10 a month and I don't spend $10 a month on new music.  Fast forward to about a year go (late 2016) and I bought my Google Pixel XL.  Google in it's infinite AI wisdom included a 3 month subscription to Google Music.  I am quite the sucker for free trials and I signed up for it.  It only took me a few days to realize I don't like it.  For one, on the computer Google Music only plays through a web browser.  I actually like things being more portable like that, but not my music.  I'm so accustomed to having iTunes be my music world that the replacement would have to at least START with a stand alone desktop app.   Plus iTunes integrates well within windows.  I had it set so that whenever I minimized it, it wouldn't go down to the task bar like any other program.  Instead, it would minimize as a toolbar with the play/fast-forward/rewind/ect buttons.

The Best Time Of The Year!

I've had quite a few depressing or at least non-happy posts, so I really just wanted to post something that makes me happy.

Football.

Specifically, College Football.  Between early September and early January my attentions turn distinctly to watching and enjoying college football.  I'm specifically a fan of the University of Michigan, but that's equally paired with a simple love of the game.  Sure, I root against Michigan State and Ohio State when they play the Wolverines, but I root FOR those same teams when they are playing other people.

Let's specify first that I don't like professional football.  I don't watch the NFL, I don't root for the Detroit Lions, and I only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.  I've asked myself on many occasions why that is, and I think I've come down to two specific reasons.  Amateurism, and the temporary nature of any good team in College.  For amateurism, I just love the fact that these guys aren't getting paid millions of dollars to go out and play a game.  If they don't make a particular play, there's no part of me wondering if they pulled back because of the possible loss of money.  Let's face it, if a player gets injured in the pros it might cost him millions of dollars on his next contract negotiation.  At the college level, these guys are putting everything on the line every time the play for the possibility of joining that millionaire's club. If they don't take that risk and make that play, they might not get drafted.  And most of the players at this level know they won't be professional athletes.  They're going to be business men, journalists, car salesmen, doctors.  They're playing more for the love of the game than for even the possibility of money.

Health Update

This is just a short post (I started with the intent of this being short... but I got wordy and it's not short any longer... sorry) to update on some of my ongoing health issues.  My two main problems since I first saw my doc in 2014 has been diabetes and migraines.

At the time I knew I had diabetes.  I had the classic symptoms.  I was thirsty and hungry all the time and I was constantly having to urinate due to me drinking so much (and I was drinking to quench the thirst that couldn't be quenched).  The doc did a blood test and my A1C came back firmly into the uncontrolled diabetes level.  Since then I've been taking daily blood sugars to track my diabetes while he put me on metformin, increased the metformin twice, put me on byetta, and then increased the byetta.

Outside of medication I made some changes to my life.  First and foremost I just simply tried to limit how many carbs I ate.  If there was a choice of bread or meat, I'd take the meat. If it was potatoes or beans, I'd take the beans.  Cookies or fruit?  Go for the fruit.  I didn't fully take the carbs out as I knew that would be near impossible for me.  I just love bread and potatoes and corn.  I was already self limiting sweets, but I never ever fully stopped eating them.  The next step was to pick my battles.  Everybody here should know by now that I live with my mother and am trying to help her out as much as I can.  Well one of her loves is cooking and baking.  I didn't even want to try and take that way from her or change her habits.  So I just ate whatever she put on the table for dinner.  As a wife and mother who came to age in the 70s, her cooking habits are firmly in the 'meat and potatoes' area.  She also had to fight cholesterol for my father in the 80s and 90s and beyond, so she limited the meat and focused on the potatoes and pastas.  So... yeah.  I get quite a bit of carbs from mom.  I still limit it... I eat less or no bread at dinner, I take extra helpings of the meat and less of the potatoes, but the menu is just not diabetes friendly.  So my battle would be where I could make the most impact.

Anticipating

You know... I love looking forward to things.  At this very moment (its about 7 AM, Saturday morning, November 4th) I am looking forward to my brother coming over and watching College Game Day.  I'm looking forward to possibly playing Dungeons and Dragons with my brother, nephews, and a friend this afternoon.  I'm looking forward to watching Michigan crush Minnesota this evening.  I'm looking forward to talking to my brother as we always find something interesting to discuss (a couple weeks ago it was white privilege!).  I'm looking forward to Sunday where I only have to do a bit of shopping and some laundry but is other wise a day off.  I'm looking forward to returning to work on Monday as I battled a migraine most of last week and work was just awful.  I'm looking forward to driving up north for a work meeting on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to a three day weekend next weekend.  I'm looking forward to the Thanksgiving 4 day weekend.  I'm looking forward to Michigan Vs Ohio State.  I'm looking forward to Christmas.  I'm looking forward to Michigan's bowl game (can you tell that it's a football Saturday yet?).  I'm looking forward to the point where I can order my new phone and then receive it (the damned Pixel 2 XL black and white version has been out of stock since it went on pre-order back on October 4th!).  I'm looking forward to my birthday.  I'm looking forward to Mardi Gras.  I'm looking forward to having my credit cards paid down and maybe a Summer vacation.  I'm looking forward to a trip to Grand Rapids, a weekend in Chicago, and a trip up north (three trips in the nebulous planning stage with a friend).  I'm looking forward to Winter.  I'm looking forward to Spring.  I'm looking forward to Summer.  I'm looking forward to (next) Autumn.

This is not good

There are a lot of ways to self assess my situation.  I can look at my money, I can look at my job security, I can look at my leisure time (both how much of it I have and how much of it I use), I can look at my job, my job satisfaction, my dreams, my desires, and so much more.  And by most measures, I'm doing fine.

I mean, I have savings without sacrificing any wants, desires, or needs.  I have a career that lets me work just about anywhere, and am good at my current job.  I have quite a bit of 'time off', and have plans for get togethers with friends and family both big (Mardi Gras) and small (football Saturdays, D&D, setting up my friends cord cutting).

But that's kind of like looking at the graphic I have in the title and thinking that little cartoon dog is fine.  I mean, he's saying "This is Fine", he's smiling, he even has his jaunty little hat on.  Don't mind the obvious signs like the fire raging in the background... he's fine.  But you know he's not fine.  You know he's in trouble and he's putting on a brave face for some reason.  And that's me.  I'm not fine.  There are fires raging both external and internal that are making me not fine.  There's a smile on my face most of the time but it's forced and cracked and temporary at best.  I tell people that I'm fine, but I'm lying to them.  Because I'm not fine and I don't know how to express that to someone without it devolving into whining.

Hodgepodge

A couple things I want to 'muse' on.  President Trump, New Phone, Lack O Cash, Moving, Mom's Health, Weight V Size.  Really just a grab bag of topics, none really worthy of their own individual post.



President Trump

I don't like him.  I don't like him as a person or a politician.  But I don't think I can say I like or dislike his policies because I don't get the feeling that he has any real policies beyond Making America Great Again.  And no... I don't know what he means by that.  Let's cover all of that piece by piece.

Him as a person.  He's a twit.  He has a five year old's mentality.  If you insult him, he'll insult you back.  What ever he does is 'great' and probably the 'greatest' ever.  He cares about reviews.  Now I didn't like George W Bush as a person either.  I felt that he was honestly against intelligent discourse, but even with all the 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' stuff, he still came across as Presidential most of the time.  I don't remember him striking out against the press, individual press outlets, and certainly not against individual journalists.  I imagined him railing against all of these things in private, but he didn't let that seep into his public persona.  President Trump does and it seems to be getting us into trouble.  A perfect example of that is North Korea.  Can anybody honestly say his bombastic attempt at handling North Korea has caused them to step back their efforts at all?  Has it caused them to ratchet up their nuclear and missile tests? In that way, hasn't it also brought us closer to actual war?  I mean, at this point are we more or less likely for one of their tests to go horribly wrong and land a missile on Japan? Are we more or less likely for one of their jets to attack one of our jets?

Mom's Health

So yesterday I got all pissed off and pumped up and just had to write about the protests and patriotism.  I think one of the reasons I was so pissed though was family.  Mom is sick.  More sick than normal.  And I'm just about as worried about her as I've ever been.  Lemme set the stage a bit so you can understand my concern when I get back to the present.

My father died 10 years ago.  It was devastating to our entire family.  Family, to us anyway, is just about everything.  To this day I'm still striving to earn my father's pride.  As hard as it was for me to lose my father, it was ten times as hard for my mother to lose her husband.  They had plans to grow old and travel together.  To enjoy both their retirements and reap all the benefits they'd worked so hard for.  After the initial round of grief, I thought Mom would be okay as she started to travel with my aunt... her sister.  Mom and Aunt S have always been very close, and now that they were both widows, they became even closer.

Mom, at the time, was very healthy.  Sure, she had type 2 diabetes, and smoked, and had several other long standing problems, but she could get up and run with the best of them.  She was about 60 at the time and looking at her and her activity level would put her closer to 50.  Then she started having heart problems.  Over the course of a year she went into the cardiologist and had a bunch of tests and figured out that she needed to have a triple bypass.  Just to rush through this part, she had a bad recovery from the surgery and after another year of tests, they found out that none of the bypasses were viable.  They all failed.  And their best guess was that they failed soon after the surgery... so while mom was trying to recover from open heart surgery, she didn't have the improvement the bypasses were supposed to offer.

Unpatriotic Protest?

I guess it started with Colin Kirkpatrick.  Maybe it started earlier, but this is what brought it to my attention as well as the attention of most people I know.  You see, he wanted to protest.  He wanted to bring attention to something and he knew one of the best ways to get his message out to the most people was to do something shocking.  So he sat down during the national anthem.  After that game he said "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder".

Later he switched from sitting to kneeling during the national anthem.  As he put it, he did this to show respect to show more respect to former and current U.S. military members while still protesting during the anthem.  At the time that this was going on, I couldn't have really cared less.  I caught it on the news, and saw a reaction of protesting his protest, but I figured it would blow over soon enough.  But my God... this has become an epidemic.  People seem to be losing their minds at the mere act of protesting during the national anthem and even more athletes are joining in.  People are crying because he can't seem to get hired on as a quarterback and say it's because of his protest, but it's also spreading to fans and even students in school.

And I'm left over here wondering what all the fuss is over.

She set's me free

So over at D+X I have an ongoing thread that I titled my "Playlist Diary".  I share music there that touches me.  Sometimes it's just how it touches the 'me' that's Caitlyn over there, while other times it's music that touches 'me' as in the person writing those posts out.  And even then, sometimes that author 'me' is male and sometimes it's 'female'.

But the underlying current in that thread is that I"m sharing music.  I'll sometimes write out a scene with me in character, and sometimes explaining how that particular song is affecting me in real life.

So today after I wrote up the previous post about going to New Orleans I wasn't feeling particularly 'Caitlynesque'.  I've been thinking recently that I might be slipping out of her mentality, so I wasn't too surprised.  Instead of moping about it, I just continued to focus on New Orleans.  I went to youtube and watched videos about the plane I'm going to take (MD-88), about checking luggage in at the airport, about both Detroit's and New Orleans's airports, and then on to watching videos about New Orleans itself.  I started watching one that was in a Video Log (Vlog?) format and had a musical montage in the beginning with a song that I hadn't heard before.

At first, it was just one of those songs that I don't particularly like.  It's chill.  Chill music normally doesn't do anything for me.  I think slower songs are fine for that mood, or even more upbeat songs that are kept quiet enough to be background music.  But this one... well, it changed me.  It washed over me in a way that left me feeling very feminine.  I started hearing bits of the lyrics and one in particular caught my ear...

Vacation Time!

So I'm fast approaching my next Vacation.  I'm so thankful that traveling has become a big part of my life.  From quick two day trips around my home state (Detroit, K-Zoo, Grand Rapids...), to weekends in the Windy City, to drives down to Dallas, to big trips down to Mexico.  In fact, it's become such an every day part of my life that I've now started mentally breaking them up.  Only a few years ago I would have looked at three days in Chicago as a full fledged Vacation.  I mean, it involved everything a vacation would have, right?  Travel (car? plane? train?), hotel (downtown?  boutique? cheap?), and things to do (touristy trips to the Sears Tower? revisiting the old neighborhood? going to the Art Institute?).  Heck, Detroit was about the same thing except for the travel as a car was the only obvious choice.

But now?  Honestly, that's a weekend trip.  It's fun and I want to do it as often as possible, but that really doesn't require a lot of planning.  Trips like that could be done at the drop of a hat so long as I have the days off, and really I could get most Friday's and Monday's off around my weekend so it's not even that much trouble there.  It's just a matter of having a friend that wants to do it and the cash in the account.  Dallas is a bit more of a trip as it does require either a plane ride or an extra four days to drive it.  But that's visiting friends.  I get to hang out with their family, maybe go to a school performance, get kicked in the nuts repeatedly by their dog, BBQ, check out my buddy's new guns... it's hanging out on a slightly bigger scale because we live so far apart.  It's not a vacation.

It's a Man's World

This may sound a little funny coming from me, but hear me out.  Why the fuck do I get automatic respect and credibility simply because I'm a man.  This is primarily related to work, but I see it in many aspects of my life.

A big part of my sexual fantasies involve forced feminzation.  Now there is of course a lot of variation in that particular fetish, but for me a big part of it is a power transference.  I'm a 'big powerful man' and I'm reduced to a 'small weak woman'.  The classic 1950s housewife and/or the classic 1960s office secretary.

So on one level, I get it.  But that's at the childish, base, me-tarzan-you-jane, me-hunt-you-gather, type level.  It's the same level that's racist and homophobic and just ridiculous.  For a sexual fantasy, it's fine.  For reality it's just stupid.  How does this apply to work?  Simple.  Nurses with years and years of experience still look to me for help.  They look to me to lead.  They automatically and regularly defer to my 'expertise', which in reality is limited to the fact that I have a penis.

Seriously.

That didn't last long

So I think I've talked a bit about how I wish I could game more.  More often than not I go out and buy a new computer game, play it for a few days (maybe a week or so), and then drop it never to play it again.  I don't even play Team Fortress 2 all that much any more.

But even knowing that, I still go out and look for new games to play.  Sometimes I have a few hours to kill, sometimes I have read about or seen a new games.  Sometimes I just get an itch and get the newest biggest thing to hit the market.

So back in March of this year I bought Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands game.  My brother, my cousin, and I all played through Tom Clancy's the Division for awhile and enjoyed ourselves so this seemed like a no brainer.  I played it on and off for a few months and then maybe around June it started to have a problem.  I would be playing it for awhile (sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours) and it would just lock up.  The screen would go black and the computer would completely lock up.  I could still hear the game through the speakers, but it was just the background sounds.  Even if this happened during a fire fight, I couldn't hear myself or the enemies.  So... an unusual type of crash.

A Friend Knows My Secret

There's no hiding the big reveal until the end in this post.  Last weekend I told a friend that a part of me is Caitlyn.

I didn't spill all the beans, but I told him enough of what's going on inside my head so that he knows I am at least partially female, and that part of me has a name and a personality all her own.

This is my friend A.  Not the A that lives down in Texas, but the A that lives closer to me (I really have to get a better way of shortening and obscuring the names of people I know).  Anyway, A and I went out to a local brew pub, shared some beers (very tasty beers) and some pizza, and then ended back at his place.  This is our normal weekend hanging out together. He generally works on Saturdays so I meet up with him after he's gotten out of work, we go eat and drink and chat, we walk around and chat, then end up back at his place and chat some more.  He drinks more than me, so more often than not he ends up quite inebriated and I end up frustrated as our talks break down after that.

A is one of my friends that I've considered telling about Caitlyn before.  He's a good man.  He's open and honest and open minded.  I had it in my head that I'd tell him this weekend, but I just didn't know how.  I mean, this isn't exactly a subject that you bring up out of nowhere, but at the same time it's not something that you just slide into a normal conversation either.  Talking about it at the brew pub wasn't really an option as I wanted it to be less public than that.

The 'NO' Man

It seems I have a new nickname at work.  A few nurses have been jokingly calling me this for awhile, but I actually heard our physician say this to me just a couple days ago.  I am evidently now known as...

The 'NO' Man.

I know from this and my blog that a 'NO' Man could be quite the funny.  But no, they don't know anything about Caitlyn or my femme proclivities.  No, what they're referring to is my capability to look a patient in the eye and simply tell him No.

Can I have some Tylenol?  No.  Can I have a bottom bunk detail?  No.  Can I have a base unit detail?  No.  Can I get some softer shoes?  No.  Can I see the doctor?  No.  Can I not be charged for this visit?  No.  Can I see a different nurse?  No.

No.

It's really quite simple to say, especially when it's not coming from a point of malice.  And I honestly don't work from a point of malice.  I don't want to hurt anybody or piss anybody off or not provide someone with medical care.  But I saw a facebook meme recently that seems to fit my work persona quite righteously:

I'm so sick of work

I think I might be having trouble at work.  I have a pretty good job with good benefits.  At my current level of experience I get 4.7 hours of annual leave and 4 hours of sick time each and every pay period.  So more or less, each month I get a day off of work if I'm sick or have other health concerns.

I put it that way because I can use 'sick time' for preplanned medical procedures.  I used sick time when I had my wisdom teeth pulled.  I used sick time when my mother had an procedure done at the hospital.  And of course there's the more often used... calling in sick to work (or as I use it, going home early because I'm sick).

Now I know everybody is an individual and comparing something like this to other coworkers isn't exactly a good idea.  But it's about all I have.  My coworkers have a LOT of sick time built up.  Enough so that when we're fully staffed and slow they'll use their sick time to go home early instead of their annual leave.  They do it regularly enough that our supervisor would ask 'OK, who has a headache?' instead of 'OK, who wants to go home?'.

Many of them also have long term disability and that comes in two price points.  You pay full price for it until you have 130 hours of sick time in the bank, then you get a steep discount.  If you never used sick time, that should take you about a year to build up.  Most of my coworkers have that steep discount as they've collected well over 130 hours of sick time.

So... I bought a dildo.

I thought long and hard (go ahead... laugh at the unintended double entendre) about where to post this.  The Masks blog or here.  I mean, is this Caitlyn or Calvin?  And I guess the best answer is that it's both.  And since I'm pulling 'Calvin' out of the 'Caitlyn' blog, I figure it should go over here.

But fair warning;  this is sexual and fetish and fantasy and open and honest.  I'm blushing right here and now just imagining what i'm going to be talking about and I'm only on the second paragraph.  I guess it doesn't help that I've already titled this post and I've already got that image of the woman in pink sunglasses (mask?) drooling on her dildo.  But anyway.... here it goes.

I posted earlier this month about a road trip I was going to take.  I took it, and it was just as fun and as relaxing as I was hoping for.  I didn't realize just how stressed out I was in just about every aspect of my life.   Work, Home, Friends, Family, Fantasy, Calvin, and Caitlyn.  I was stressed out and needed a break.  So the two days driving down was a good partial relaxation.  I felt the stress just melt away the two days I was with A and his family.  That left the two days driving back and that was... well, it was eye opening.

On The Road Again!

So I've found over the last few years that I really REALLY like traveling.  I mean I honest to god LOVE to travel.  Drive or fly, it doesn't really matter as they both have their own level of adventure.  I'm now constantly considering trips to make and/or thinking about my next vacation.

(Quick break here... I swear, the song that just came up on iTunes.... Radar Love by Golden Earring!)

Anywho, I like to travel.  Last year ended with a drive down to Dallas in early December.  This year began with a drive over to Detroit for the car show (North American International Auto Show).  I knew I was going to plan another few trips as well as some smaller side trips, but the long ones take planning.  Planning and Vacation time.  I've found out that it's actually quite rare for us to be fully staffed, so it can be hard to just 'take time off'.  It's not that the supervisor at work is mean and won't give it... but if we don't have another person to just cover my shift and they have to utilize overtime, it's a hard no. Thankfully between the Civil Service Commission and the Union, we have our twice annual vacation book.  In April and October we pass around a book and we get to lay claim to any days off we want.  Well... any days where someone more senior hasn't already laid claim (it goes around in order of seniority), and any days that you'll have enough vacation time for.

Musak Blues

I’ve had trouble as of late getting into new music.  At the very same time, I’m having trouble enjoying my own collection of music.  I WANT new music, but none of it is making me happy.  I’ve been using iTunes for my music since late 2003 and have purchased 875 pieces of music from them.  Here’s how that breaks down by year:

2003 – 8 (My first purchase was November 24^th of that year!), 2004 – 87, 2005 – 125, 2006 – 104, 2007 – 102, 2008 – 65, 2009 – 47, 2010 – 56, 2011 – 42, 2012 – 60, 2013 – 57, 2014 – 36, 2015 – 37, 2016 – 31

2017 – 16

Obviously the first few years I went a little crazy on purchasing music.  And simply by the numbers, this year is on track to be average for the last few years.  But here’s the rub.  This year PI purchased one song in January, one song in February, 11 songs on May 25^th, and 3 songs in the past couple days.  Most years I have a steady stream of new music.  I might go a month or two without something new, but not this long.  And that big burst of new music in May?  8 of them were from artists that I already knew and was simply exploring their back catalog. 

Goodbye Ginger, Hello Isabella

So back in November I posted my thoughts about my next car.  I was hyped about getting a lease and finally getting into smaller payments for a better car.  Well yesterday morning I finally took that leap.  The decision making processes to get here was tough though as I have had two leading drives for my cars;  fun vs goodness.  And I just kept sliding between those two drives.

Up until Fiona I had such a small budget for cars that I really just had to take what was available at that time.  When I got the Black Shadow of Death and Bellulah I wasn't looking for a fun car.  When I got Belinda and Lita I wasn't looking for a good car.  Those were just the best cars available when I was stuck looking for new cars.  But in 2013 when I had the opportunity to get a much newer car with a much bigger budget, I consciously made the decision to get a fun car.  I was considering the Hyundai Veloster, the Chevy Sonic, the Ford Fiesta, and of course what I ended up with, the Ford Focus.

Now, like any spectrum it wasn't JUST about fun.  With that purchase I was looking at two hours of driving a day so gas mileage was really important as was basic creature comforts.  A good stereo, comfortable seat, and techy toys.  But the reason I got Fiona was that gorgeous Yellow Blaze paint job.  For a year and a half I had a mile wide grin every time I walked out to see Fiona there waiting for me.

But after that year and a half I realized I could afford a lot more car.  Reason started to take over and I wanted a more 'mature' car.  Something that would look all adult and proper if I drove up to a job interview or meeting.  As I didn't want to lose out on the gas mileage and most small cars are on the fun size, I went with a Fusion Hybrid.  Ginger.  So long as I was driving that long every day, Ginger made the most sense.  Seriously, there wasn't another car that could do what she did without soaring costs in fuel.  Then the local job came up.

Hi There!

Hello World.  If you're just stepping in here for the first time, let me explain what exactly you're seeing here.

I have a blog called Caitlyn's Masks.  I create and share stories, illustrated stories, and captioned image stories that all relate to TG or transgenderism.  It's... well to be frank... it's graphic.  At it's most polite it can be called erotic fiction.  At it's most overt it can be called porn.

Anyway, I started that blog years ago and have a feminine persona to go along with it.  Caitlyn.  But I'm not Caitlyn... or I guess to put it most clearly, I'm not JUST Caitlyn.  I'm a guy.  When I started the blog I was at a dark time in my life.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I was grasping at straws to find something to like, enjoy, love, and participate in.  I was dirt poor.  I had recently given up a career that with the schooling involved took up over a decade of my life, and was going back to school to start a new career.

When I finally got that job, when I got the chance to start my life again... I lost something.  I lost Caitlyn for awhile.  But I had such good relationships with the people I'd met as her that I wanted to continue to share with them.  I couldn't share the TG side of my life because that all but disappeared... but I could share the rest of my life.  Calvin's side of life.  The only problem is that I was incredibly nervous about someone in my alternate life (other people call it Real Life) would find this more open exploration of 'me' and connect the dots.  I could just picture a family member stumbling upon this new blog, connecting the dots, and realizing that this is in fact me.  And then following those breadcrumbs further back and finding...