Finally???

content/burnout/04.md

@@ -2,3 +2,67 @@
 date: 2019-12-14
 weight: 4
 ---
+
+> The third time was not the charm.
+
+No, it was not. Canonical stopped doing something I believed in, so I switched to a company --- Internet Archive --- that *was* doing something that I believed in, but the process was crap. Now, here I am at a company that's got a great process and is doing something that I really believe in it, and...
+
+> And you hate it.
+
+I hate my career. I don't hate my company. I love them. They're great people doing great things and doing them well. I just can't stand programming anymore.
+
+> I don't believe you.
+
+You don't?
+
+> I don't. You, who have at least two open programming projects you poke at with some regularity.
+
+I suppose I do, yeah.
+
+> So what do you hate, if you don't hate programming?
+
+It's not work. I don't hate working.
+
+It's not programming, you're right there. I still love the idea of making something that does what I tell it.
+
+It's not computers, even if I'm a bit ambivalent on them.
+
+It's...well, I definitely hate devops.
+
+> Why?
+
+It feels...messy. It feels like I'm doing all I can to drag these ephemeral things into line, and none of them want to do it. It feels like all these people have grandiose ideas about what goes into running a system, and none of them agree with each other, and all we can do is to pick the least-bad one.
+
+It destroys this idea that computers are a thing that you can ask to do something, and they can do it. There are more non-deterministic bugs in devops than in any other area of dealing with computers than I've experienced.
+
+It makes me want to take up Haskell.
+
+> All very sensible.
+
+If such a thing can be said of it.
+
+> Is that why you're burnt out, then?
+
+No.
+
+> Then why?
+
+I don't know.
+
+Perhaps I'm only good for seven years at a time, like I said.
+
+> Did you burn out on music?
+
+I would say that I was burnt, but I placed that on the performers at my recital.
+
+> Had your recital gone perfectly, would you still have felt burned out, though?
+
+Perhaps.
+
+> Would you still have gone into computers?
+
+Definitely.
+
+> Would you still be composing?
+
+I don't know.

content/gender/01.md

@@ -19,4 +19,4 @@ Why are you trying to get me to do this?
 
 Then yes. We got here through furry, which opened up the path before us to even begin exploring gender, and then we finally reached this topic through that of self-harm, wherein I came face to face with so many aspects of my body. It's so easy to disappear within one's own head for days, weeks, months at a time, but one eventually comes to terms with the fact that one is stuck with a body, and thus one must deal with it. Live with it and inhabit it.
 
-What better way to experience that sudden, jarring dissonance of body-ownership than to reinhabit it and discover it to be wrong in so many ways?
+What better way to experience that sudden, jarring dissonance of body-ownership than to re-inhabit it and discover it to be wrong in so many ways?

content/gender/04.md

@@ -24,3 +24,23 @@ Still, the least I could do is not hurt, might as well put in the effort to be a
 > Do you think that others see you as a resource?
 
 Perhaps, though that has me worried. That's an awful lot of responsibility.
+
+> Permit me to take a tangent.
+
+Do I have a choice?
+
+> You always have a choice.
+
+If I say no, what will happen?
+
+> Nothing.
+
+You'll let me just carry on with what I was saying?
+
+> Sure.
+
+Do you have the power to stop me?
+
+> No, but do you?
+
+Ah.

content/gender/05.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-19
+weight: 5
+---
+
+> Do you see yourself as a woman?
+
+I see where you're going with this.
+
+> And?
+
+It's a good direction.
+
+> So. Do you see yourself as a woman?
+
+No. I'm a giant lump. I'm a baritone. I barely have breasts. I don't pass.
+
+> Do you want to?
+
+No.
+
+> That was easy.
+
+It's not.
+
+> No, it isn't.

content/gender/06.md

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-19
+weight: 6
+---
+
+> Start at the beginning.
+
+And when I get to the end, stop. Yes.
+
+As soon as I got <a class="pulse" href="/gender/surgery">surgery</a>, literally when I was in the hospital, laying in bed on my five days strict bed-rest, something changed about the ways in which trans women interacted with me. I was, in some indescribable way, no longer trans.
+
+> Or, perhaps, no longer trans enough.
+
+Yes. I became a *persona non grata* in a way that didn't involve actually cutting me out of trans spaces.
+
+> You were done. You were finished. You had beat the game.
+
+I was a woman now. What could I possibly bring to a trans space, now that I was just a woman? I was appropriating their spaces. I was trespassing.
+
+> So. Do you see yourself as a woman?
+
+You just asked me that.
+
+> And I didn't like your answer. Do you see yourself as a woman?
+
+I don't. I see myself as a trans woman.
+
+> Why?
+
+Do you want the scientific answer(s), or the personal?
+
+> ...
+
+Right.
+
+I see myself as a trans woman because that's who I am. That's *what* I am. I can't change that. I can't suddenly become interested in mechanical engineering. I can't suddenly be a dog. I can't even slowly become those things, I can't *learn* to be a mechanical engineer, because I'm not interested in it.
+
+I can't become a woman.
+
+This isn't some essentialist, transphobic bullshit. Trans women are women, period. I'm not denying that.
+
+I'm just not a woman. I'm a trans woman. I'm *specifically* a trans woman. That's who I am. That's *what* I am. I don't want to pass. I don't want to be stealth. I don't want to be a woman, because that's very specifically not what I am.
+
+To have someone say, "I just see you as a woman" is to have a portion of my identity erased. It's reductionist to describe someone as something they aren't. That's one of the lessons we learned from folks coming out, from folks learning about identity.
+
+> You just also learned that other trans women are as apt to do the same.
+
+Yes. I left chats. I stopped talking with some people. I didn't feel welcome, no matter how friendly folks were.
+
+> All because they believed you were something that you weren't.
+
+Yes.
+
+> And did you ask them?
+
+No.
+
+> Why not?
+
+I didn't feel that I needed to. It was one of those types of ostracization where you're part of a circle, and then slowly people stop referring to you, and then maybe someone leans over to nudge the person standing on the other side of you and then doesn't quite lean back all the way, and then somehow you're standing just outside this circle of your very own friends, holding your red solo cup, wondering what it is that you did wrong.
+
+> Did you make your voice heard.
+
+Not for more than a year after.
+
+> Why not?
+
+Because perhaps I was appropriating their space. Perhaps I was taking this venue that was for these pre-op trans women to talk about their struggles and stepping into it unwanted. Perhaps I was stepping out of my lane.
+
+> Were you?
+
+I don't know.

content/gender/07.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-19
+weight: 7
+---
+
+> What did you do?
+
+I think the correct question is "What didn't I do?"
+
+> I'll bite. What didn't you do?
+
+I didn't practice my voice. I didn't give up dyeing my hair. I didn't stop dressing like a mess. I didn't do all of those things that are supposed to help you get by in the world without all that added baggage of being trans.
+
+I didn't try to pass.
+
+I didn't try to be a woman.
+
+I didn't want to. I want to be a trans woman. It's not masochism. It's not appropriation. I don't think so. I think it's living true to myself. I think it's being honest and saying that who I am involves being trans, and that ignoring that would be doing myself a disservice.
+
+> "I was not Madison," you said. "I am not Matthew. I can't deny his existence, though. He was him, and to erase that, to toe the party line and say I've always known that I was Madison, would do a disservice him."
+
+Yes, but it goes beyond that. I'm not saying simply that I was not a woman and then either at some point did become one or that, at some point, *will* become one. I'm saying that I live in that liminal space between. I can't be anything other than what I am. I can't live anywhere else.
+
+> There's a lot of talk in your circles about internalized transphobia. That sense that one should hate this aspect about oneself and try to get away from it. Have you not just internalized some sort of trans euphoria? Have you not simply bought into the sense of being different for being different's sake?
+
+Are you playing at being devil's advocate?
+
+> Yes.
+
+Why?
+
+> I want you to justify yourself.
+
+Why?
+
+> Because it's important that you be able to explain yourself.
+
+Why?
+
+> Because if you can't, how can you say you understand yourself?

content/gender/08.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-19
+weight: 8
+---
+
+You are playing devil's advocate because you are handily ignoring genderqueer people in order to get me to explain my identity.
+
+> I am, yes. So, explain.
+
+We, as gender-nonconforming people, talk often about gender dysphoria. There is a flipside to that. There is gender euphoria. There is that sense of rightness when you glimpse the you who was meant to be in the mirror, rather than the you who you've been trained to be.
+
+I look in the mirror and I see a woman sometimes, and that makes me happy. I look in the mirror and I see a man sometimes, and that makes me unhappy.
+
+> Does that not make you a woman?
+
+...And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see this rockin' queer person, someone who is unabashedly, unashamedly trans, and *that* is when I feel euphoria.
+
+I don't fit in cisgender spaces. I never will. I fit in trans spaces. That's the 'square hole', as it were. that's where I belong.
+
+> Are you not genderqueer, then?
+
+Am I? So be it. That is not mutually exclusive with being a trans woman.
+
+But to have that part of myself be erased by other trans women because I reached some magical stage on the gender escalator and stepped off hurts as much as being misgendered as a man by the worst TERF out there.

content/gender/09.md

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-19
+weight: 9
+---
+
+> I'm happy for you.
+
+What? Why?
+
+> You're proud. For the first time, you're proud of who you are.

content/gender/surgery/02.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
-date: 2019-10-30
-weight: 2
+#date: 2019-10-30
+#weight: 2
 ---
 
 I don't think it hit home that surgery was real until six weeks beforehand. Not that I thought it was not going to happen --- though there was some of that, of course --- but that it was something truly surreal. Some unknown and unknowable procedure would happen, and then I would be on the other side. It was almost eldritch: I would close my eyes to miss the madness and awake changed.
@@ -19,4 +19,4 @@ I wound up getting four additional letters, as there were some questions about t
 
 > So it felt real then?
 
-Yes, coming to terms with the fact that the surgery might have been cancelled is what made it seem as though it was something real and tangible. Real things can be cancelled. Real things can be destroyed.
+Yes, coming to terms with the fact that the surgery might have been canceled is what made it seem as though it was something real and tangible. Real things can be canceled. Real things can be destroyed.

content/gender/surgery/04.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
-date: 2019-11-01
-weight: 4
+#date: 2019-11-01
+#weight: 4
 ---
 
 The surgery

content/gender/surgery/06.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
-date: 2019-11-01
-weight: 6
+#date: 2019-11-01
+#weight: 6
 ---
 
 The hospital and airbnb

content/gender/surgery/08.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
-date: 2019-11-01
-weight: 8
+#date: 2019-11-01
+#weight: 8
 ---
 
 the drive home mixed with retrospection

content/news/2019-12-20-im-upset.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+date: 2019-12-20
+title: "I'm upset"
+---
+
+Are you?
+
+> Yes.
+
+Why?
+
+> You have this project that's deeply interesting to you, deeply personal, and you let the world get in the way of that.
+
+So? Was the stuff I was dealing with not important?
+
+> It was.
+
+So what's the problem?
+
+> The problem is that the stuff that you were dealing with was all about how the stuff that you were dealing with was not interesting, not personal. The stuff that you were dealing with was about your disconnection from yourself.
+
+Should I have done differently?
+
+> No. I'm simply registering the fact that I'm upset.
+
+Fair.
+
+## New content
+
+* [Burnout](/burnout)
+* Okay but actually [gender](/gender) for real

static/map.dot

@@ -118,6 +118,13 @@ digraph Map {
     "Software 1" -> "Software 2" -> "Software 3" -> "Software 4" ->
     "Software 5" -> "Software 6"
 
+    node[group="burnout",style="",fontcolor="#111111"]
+    "Burnout 1" [href="/burnout"]
+    "Burnout 2" [href="/burnout/2"]
+    "Burnout 3" [href="/burnout/3"]
+    "Burnout 4" [href="/burnout/4"]
+    "Burnout 1" -> "Burnout 2" -> "Burnout 3" -> "Burnout 4"
+
     // This is the central axis
     node[group="ally",style="",fontcolor="#111111"] // `core` folder
     "ally 1" [href="/"]
@@ -148,13 +155,14 @@ digraph Map {
     "ally 26" [href="/26"]
     "ally 27" [href="/27"]
     "ally 28" [href="/28"]
+    "ally 29" [href="/29"]
     "To be continued..." [shape="none"]
     "ally 1" -> "ally 2" -> "ally 3" -> "ally 4" -> "ally 5" ->
     "ally 6" -> "ally 7" -> "ally 8" -> "ally 9" -> "ally 10" ->
     "ally 11" -> "ally 12" -> "ally 13" -> "ally 14" -> "ally 15" ->
     "ally 16" -> "ally 17" -> "ally 18" -> "ally 19" -> "ally 20" ->
     "ally 21" -> "ally 22" -> "ally 23" -> "ally 24" -> "ally 25" ->
-    "ally 26" -> "ally 27" -> "ally 28" -> "To be continued..."
+    "ally 26" -> "ally 27" -> "ally 28" -> "ally 29" -> "To be continued..."
 
     node[group="birds",style="",fontcolor="#111111"]
     "Birds 1" [href="/birds"]
@@ -249,7 +257,23 @@ digraph Map {
     "Gender 2" [href="/gender/2"]
     "Gender 3" [href="/gender/3"]
     "Gender 4" [href="/gender/4"]
-    "Gender 1" -> "Gender 2" -> "Gender 3" -> "Gender 4"
+    "Gender 5" [href="/gender/5"]
+    "Gender 6" [href="/gender/6"]
+    "Gender 7" [href="/gender/7"]
+    "Gender 8" [href="/gender/8"]
+    "Gender 9" [href="/gender/9"]
+    "Gender 1" -> "Gender 2" -> "Gender 3" -> "Gender 4" -> "Gender 5" ->
+    "Gender 6" -> "Gender 7" -> "Gender 8" -> "Gender 9"
+
+        node[group="surgery"]
+        "Surgery 1" [href="/gender/surgery"]
+        "Surgery 3" [href="/gender/surgery/2"]
+        "Surgery 5" [href="/gender/surgery/3"]
+        "Surgery 7" [href="/gender/surgery/4"]
+        "Surgery 9" [href="/gender/surgery/5"]
+        "Surgery 1" -> "Surgery 2" -> "Surgery 3" -> "Surgery 4" ->
+        "Surgery 5" -> "Surgery 6" -> "Surgery 7" -> "Surgery 8" ->
+        "Surgery 9"
 
     node[group="sh",style="filled",fillcolor="#222228",fontcolor="#dddddd"]
     "Self-harm 1" [href="/self-harm"]
@@ -276,20 +300,6 @@ digraph Map {
         "Suicide 8" -> "Suicide 9" -> "Suicide 10" -> "Suicide 11" ->
         "Suicide 12" -> "Suicide 13"
 
-        /*node[group="surgery"]
-        "Surgery 1" [href="/gender/surgery"]
-        "Surgery 2" [href="/gender/surgery/2"]
-        "Surgery 3" [href="/gender/surgery/3"]
-        "Surgery 4" [href="/gender/surgery/4"]
-        "Surgery 5" [href="/gender/surgery/5"]
-        "Surgery 6" [href="/gender/surgery/6"]
-        "Surgery 7" [href="/gender/surgery/7"]
-        "Surgery 8" [href="/gender/surgery/8"]
-        "Surgery 9" [href="/gender/surgery/9"]
-        "Surgery 1" -> "Surgery 2" -> "Surgery 3" -> "Surgery 4" ->
-        "Surgery 5" -> "Surgery 6" -> "Surgery 7" -> "Surgery 8" ->
-        "Surgery 9"*/
-
     node[group="writing",style="",fontcolor="#111111"]
     "Writing 1" [href="/writing"]
     "Writing 2" [href="/writing/2"]
@@ -353,6 +363,7 @@ digraph Map {
     "ally 17" -> "Writing 1"
     "ally 18" -> "Software 1"
     "ally 23" -> "Movement 1"
+    "ally 29" -> "Burnout 1"
 
     // Dad
     "Dad 11" -> "ally 16"
@@ -403,7 +414,7 @@ digraph Map {
     "Self-harm 3" -> "Gender 1"
 
     // Gender
-    /*"Gender 1" -> "Surgery 1"*/
+    "Gender 6" -> "Surgery 1"
 
     // Sex
     "Sex 4" -> "Kink 1"