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This post is about bottom growth “What gives?? Why am I having so much trouble getting my little hand pump to form a seal? Why can’t I get it to stick?” /uses my fingers to very roughly measure how wide the genital shaft is, versus how wide the opening of the little hand pump is/ . . . “Oh. It’s not working because I’ve outgrown the width of the pump. . . . . this is awkward.”

But also that means that I can know everything’s worked super well!! I mean I already did, but. The more ‘measurable feedback’ the better!

I can manage to get it to work if I get REALLY LUCKY with my angle and moving obscuring foreskin tissue around . . . but I certainly can’t walk around with it on anymore. I’m having to sit at a really awkward fabricated in-place position because the seal will break if I jostle around much at all.

Nooot really sure how getting a new, bigger one that’s still practical for my body will look like . . . I got a “okay this is the first place I visit” step, but no estimate on success rate or anything.

I haven’t even been using it for that long, either, right ??? /checks dates/ . . . about 2 and a half weeks. Within two and a half weeks I’ve had enough growth to outgrow my equipment. Huh!! No wonder my voice has changed so much recently. I say, not actually knowing quite if it’s related to rso or DHT.

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Oh boy, I don’t think I remember feeling so fundamentally at unease any other time that Dave was walking around the living room with his Bro’s stuff for the first time, and all the butt puppets and such were scattered around & there’s the photos of the other puppets around

I’m pretty sure that I thought it was just funny any other time

Iiiii think it makes sense that it just makes me viscerally anxious _now_, though

annnnyway

it makes me have the thought that “John->Rose->Dave’s guardians have been progressively more and more creepy — just what is Jade’s guardian going to look like!” — as in, if someone who had never seen the comic had that thought But Jade’s guardian is just a dog /giggles/ I’m really looking forward to seeing her colourful garden and everything (and the Pumpkin jokes?! when do those start!!)

ETA oh nooooo the weird camera guy on top of the microwave is one of Calliborn’s ‘eyes’ uuuggghhhh awful

ETA I know he said this kitchen is pretty much useless, but why is this kitchen SO USELESS

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Been thinking about my sister more, since I’ve been processing how Not Great the thing that happened between our father and I was.

I did reach out to her with the tiniest of updates, but . . I feel . . . emotionally stringent about the whole thing?

Like — yes I do want my reaching out to her, to let us have a little conversation. She’s still my sister. I still want to give her updates. I want her to know that I’m doing better than I was, and that I acknowledge how much of a problem our father is**. I want her to know that the whole catalyst for everything that happened is because he jumped at the opportunity of me being probably the most vulnerable in my life, as a chance to groom me into having a specific viewpoint that he wanted me to have, so that he could get me into a relationship with him after having interest in me since he first saw me — and that I *acknowledge* that and think it conceptualizes a lot of early issues I had as “actually really gross” and that I am not just. Going to apologize for his behaviour. **Because being gaslighty and grooming people into doing what he wants is just the WAY HE IS. I don’t think it’s even a malicious, pre-meditated “oh I decided I want to do this purposefully to someone” thing (not that I care if it is or not, literally at all, because he has proven many times he will not ACTUALLY grow and change with feedback) it’s just . . . he is Just Perpetually A Gaslighter. It’s why neither my sister nor his other bio-child nor his ex-wife like him AT ALL.

I know that what happened with our father is a big reason that I was “already on thin ice” about everything. I don’t know if giving my perspective on it now would change her mind — I don’t really care if it does — but it at least gives her the CHOICE and KNOWLEDGE of what to think now. I also feel like — for ???some reason??? — she must think I was Completely Mental Health Okay Enthusiastically Consenting to the whole situation?? Because when I lived with the in-danger-of-relapsing rapist who was the reason that I GOT informally adopted by my sister’s family . . . she thought everything that I did in that survival-trumps-everything situation was “enthusiastically of my whole volition”, too?

I do know it was helpful for my spouse. According to him it “doesn’t change how [he] felt AT THE TIME, but it makes a massive difference to know how it happened, now.”

. . .

I really, REALLY wish that when I was visiting my sister, right before the relationship with my non-bio dad started . . . . that she would have actually been willing to talk to me. I really, REALLY NEEDED to talk to her. I REALLY NEEDED to talk to her about our father. Very badly. She wasn’t willing to. And I don’t blame her for this. I see and respect her mental health about the topic, especially now — but even if I do not blame her, I do feel like she potentially could have prevented this all from happening. I still feel like she let me down.

. . .

But also . . . — and this is backtracking by a few months. I am still not happy about how I was treated during the volatile and vulnerable first year-ish of me being plural. (Knowing that I was, and unsupressing everything). I still am not happy with the fact that . . . During the time I should have MOST been given extra support and leeway — because the first year of someone discovering they are plural is AWFUL. She KNOWS from personal experience how TERRIBLE her first year was, how she lost full days of time to black-outs, how one of her headmates hurt people (her words!!). She knows that her current partner was a nightmare when it was in the midst of processing, too. — during this time I should have MOST been given extra support and leeway, I was not. I was someone who was “newly plural” and I should have been given that nod of ‘[xweetok-starmap] will probably struggle a lot because that is just WHAT HAPPENS when this change is happening to someone, and so will need extra accommodations during this time”. I do not feel like I was given any extra accommodations during this time. Maybe she would argue that I was! I was in crippling anxious mourning ALL THE TIME that it felt like she ostracized me and cared less for me from the very beginning compared to her partners, but that doesn’t mean it was always true. I don’t know if she actually did prioritize me less from the very beginning, or if that only happened later. Because she did literally tell me to my face later that I was ‘less important to her than the other people in her life’. I just don’t know when that started. I do know that this statement of hers was like . . the number one thing that made my electrologist tell me to just drop her.

Still backtracked those few months; I know that her and her circle were not equipped to deal with my problems. Now better than I knew then, because the initial message was “no no this is a REAL grievances channel!” so I had to slowly learn, overtime, what the boundaries were. Their problems were “my mom is actively gaslighting me and extremely transphobic and has shot my self esteem to shattered pieces, and I live with my mom, and I need a touchstone to convince me that my life has value and remind me that my mother is being abusive”. My problems were “I am processing cocsa memories every single day for 2 weeks. I am processing csa memories on-and-off for half a year. I am unsuppressing my entire life and I do not have a single thing in my brain right now, that can be a topic to talk with someone, and it not need heavy trigger warnings — and so I am HEAVILY burdened with being alienated. I know things about myself now that make me feel EXTREMELY SCARED about interacting with the world at large. My spouse is being emotionally abusive and I might get a divorce. My headmates have eating disorders and I haven’t been able to eat food that someone else prepared for over a week. I (do not know yet that I am) schizophrenic and that means that my headmates are SO MUCH MORE CAPABLE of harming my DEEPLY during this time that we are adapting to each other.” These are not the same level of problems. I’m not going to pretend they are. I just wish someone would have actually TOLD ME THIS. That they were, indeed, not equipped to hear about my problems. Instead of me just . . . slowly having to figure out through silence that “oh!! I did not realize that I was different than everyone else here. I was told that I could say anything here, but I actually can’t.”

Wasn’t the only time that silence in that group did the complete opposite of helping me . . . which speaking of . . .

. . . I’m still not thrilled about the whole thing where, she wanted me to stay SO CLOSETED about some self discoveries that I made when unsuppressing everything . . . that she didn’t want me to talk to ANYBODY ABOUT IT. She didn’t even want me looking at anything about it. She didn’t even want me talking to people like me without telling them about me either. She completely refused to listen to me about any of it and hyperfixated on her own problem and paranoia and made me out to be a liability, and for SOME reason thought I was trying to hurt her on purpose?? which speaks very poorly to her opinion about me. Just . . . As I said last time I posted about this same bit, it was like being magically teleported 100 years in the past, how much she didn’t want me to talk about it. Like the level of closeted that transmen would have had to be, to avoid being locked up in insane asylums just for dressing in “men’s clothing” and have a decade+ of their lives rot away. /scoffs, rolls my eyes/ Reminds me of the “protector” headmate role when done really toxically — but she’s not even a member of my sysstem!!

. . . I guess I don’t really know WHY I would bother to reach out to her, given all of this. Just because I can now connect with her about how awful our father is, that doesn’t mean . . . she’s become a better person.

Now that I’ve been using tumblr I can talk to other people who are plural, I can talk to other people who are transgender, transsexual, transage, trans . . . trans ANYTHING. it’s really really nice. A big part of why I so badly wanted to talk to her before, is because her social group was my ONLY group to talk about these sorts of things . . . and I was still in a weird spot. I’m simultaneously the only one who has gotten multiple ongoing years of electrolysis (so can and did give advice about this) and who has gotten multiple affirming surgeries (so can and did give advice about this) AND also started using DHT topical hormone cream (so could give advice about this) . . . . but I was always still the only one who was not “obviously trans” to the naked eye of a stranger. Not even “obviously queer” to the naked eyes of a stranger. —versus the rest of them, they were all obviously trans & queer to the naked eye of a stranger. I always felt like this made them resent me a little bit. I do not know if that’s the reality of the situation.

But she’s my sister and I at least want her to KNOW

I want my sister to KNOW that I’ve had massive dietary changes . . . I want my sister to KNOW that the headmate she talked to on that fateful day of me coming out to her as plural, is dead now, because he killed himself after trying to kill me . . . I want her to KNOW that I’m so severely touch averse now that I can’t hug anyone anymore, that I couldn’t have sex anymore even if I wanted to . . . I want her to KNOW that I discovered that dissociation is, very unfortunately, simply Built In to the experience of partnered sex for me— and that means consenting to sex means consenting to dissociation — which I STRONGLY DISLIKE; therefore I decided to be celibate . . . I want her to KNOW that I am finally not constantly processing all the sexual contents of my past anymore . . . I want her to KNOW that I’ve found out that [not being super cuddly] and [not being open to sex] has actually massively improved my life, because I don’t feel at risk of constantly being swept into relationships I Do Not Want anymore . . . I want her to KNOW that I figured out I’m actually intersex . . . I want her to KNOW that I’m taking something regularly for my mental health now . . . I want her to KNOW that I’m cooking again; that I’m participating in hobbies she’s also interested in again . . . I want her to HEAR what I sound like, now that my voice has changed drastically . . . I want her to KNOW the way in which I . . exist. I want her to know because she’s my sister.

/sighs/ But I don’t even know if that’s really a real or good “reason” at this point.

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I did not realize just how little sugar I’ve been eating . . . apparently . . .

I picked a box of Jolly Llama vegan ice cream cones (3), and I was pretty excited about being able to have ice cream for the first time in a while

It’s not that it didn’t taste good!! But ah . . . well while having it was “nice”, my brain didn’t really register a ‘reward for having eaten it’ or a ‘motivation to eat more of it’

I really did feel like “eh I can take it or leave it” which is. Awkward because there are 2 more in the freezer still

I suppose . . . there being animal products in just about every sweet ever — AND me often being “too tired to bother” picking up the vegan cookies & stuff at the co-op, because I’m already picking up food that I know I’ll eat and feel good about eating otherwise — would . . . indeed result in me eating less sugar so now I care less about it, yeah.

/laughs/ Instead, I was like “alright, that’s nice and all — but what I REALLY want is the chocolate flavoured PROTEIN BAR. And the mushroom protein bar. Just give me all the plant proteins and some actual fruit & greens. I just got back from walking 3 miles in the rain.”

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/giddy thrilled wiggle dancing/ I adore giving folks outfit coordination advice aksndglksdgns

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I wasn’t amab but when I had my hysterectomy a few years ago, the uterus only weighed about 16 grams. They’re supposed to weigh 50~100 grams, apparently??

Nobody told anyone anything other than “everything went fine there were no complications” and the message where someone DID tell me how much it weighed seems to have been scraped from my health portal entirely; because of course it was.

But I think about that whenever I see posts like this — and yeah I expect that I probably would have experienced massive complications if pregnancy ever happened somehow.

Hey! Quick question. Can the intersex people who was amab get pregnant and what are their condition

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/points to a bottle of kombucha with live cultures, and to a bag of dried lion’s mane powder, together on the table/ Anyway yes so I highly recommend combining this sort of stuff if you want to just. Take every highway in your brain and flatten it into a “there are zero walls everything flows everywhere” cloud experience

cause fungi are capable of going through cell barriers they’re just really good at this sort of thing

I also suspect that it can make rso penetrate every-brain-where that it doesn’t normally get ??

thouggghhhh the last time I did this I was a little spacey on-off for like 22 hours lol, and it was by mistake because I was just “I haven’t taken this lion’s mane supplement for a while and want to blend it into a drink and. I don’t drink milk anymore so. what do?”

I kinda got this too if I took D-mannose sugar and lion’s mane within 2-3 hours of each other, too — but there it was just unpleasant, like everything was fast scattered and anxious disorganized and ‘nothing can be done’. Had to start taking those supplements separately . . .

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((post in which I interrupt myself multiple times, this was just supposed to be short but instead of was elucidating)) Saw this post

gender and sexuality are both social constructs that are in many ways intrinsically linked, and as a consequence of this it’s pretty much guaranteed that if you’re aspec it’s gonna fuck with your gender a little bit. this is /pos to be clear i think it’s cool as hell

and I was just here like:

Puzzled with what on earth sexuality was supposed to have anything to do with gender, at least for me

because.  I was like “oh yeah —that makes sense for like.  butch lesbians.  or any queer sexuality experiences where gender itself is actually something to exerperience attraction to. For people who are attracted to other people that they can actually date, and those people have genders that are important.” (I have never once PERSONALLY understood the concept of being attracted to gender, or at least not on-sight like folks often phrase it to be.  Because gender is. Invisible.  That’s what being transgender/transsexual/transvestment (all a little different for me) and expressing that in ways that just so happen to NOT be *understood* as transgender by the normative binary-based social-pattern-recognition of the world around me has taught me, anyway.  Because for the most part, trans folks are ultimately still using that drywall-stiff binary model to determine who is, and who isn’t, trans. They’re not seeing into my brain and seeing: “oh!  this is a neuter gender mage who is transsexual and wants to have no sex traits EXCEPT for identifying with having a penis, both because of the mage’s gender being directly impacted by intersexness growing up AND the headmate in this neuter gender mage’s SYSTEM associated with that genital desire the most IS a boy — and so when this mage is dressing in highly feminine clothing with THAT concept in mind, the mage is actually _crossdressing_ — and that makes extra sense because these clothing choices are typically associated WITH feminine crossdressing boys.”

They’re not seeing into my brain and seeing that; they’re just identifying what they visually think my binary sex is and then identifying what gender is socially associated with my clothing when ON that “visually identified sex” and then going “oh girl dressed up cute feminine nothing queer here”) though actually that’s not true anymore because I am not only COMPLETELY flat chested and it’s visually obvious (like, flatter than any perisex-male cisguy I’ve ever seen) annnnd my voice is very low to where it’s obvious something is going on given my tiny frame.

—but what in the world is that supposed to mean for ME ?? I mean It’s not like plants have gender in order to impact my sexual attraction to them.

“Yeah, but I don’t have a gender, either” oh yeah, that’s true, I’m neuter in the gender department. “neither me nor plants have a gender” oh okay yeah so I guess I can see why those two things would impact each other.

ETA even though I’m adding this ETA mid-composition, because I do not type my posts in any linear fashion while I’m mid-composition: actually you know what. I think it might ACTUALLY BE infinitely more accurate to describe my experience AS intergender. instead of using neutergender because the REASON I chose neutergender is NOT because of being transsexual (not wanting sex traits). The reason I chose neuter gender is because “my sexuality stops working properly when I am not fronting with my headmates -> not fronting WITH my headmates neuters my sexuality” and that seemed to PLAY very nicely off of agender as a concept. But that isn’t really true anymore, like it used to be — I distinctly have my own full sexuality going on (botanophilia) and other orientation experiences of attraction (nondisclosed) that I have. I have OTHER pieces of my sexuality where — without co-fronting with headmates, I don’t get the experience of “attraction” at all, I get the experience of “sexual recognition” AKA “I know that with correct co-fronting circumstances, I would be reacting to this” —but that was always like . . . the only thing that I knew. So I just felt really distressed all the time that “my headmates are the only reason I can have a sexuality at all” — and that’s why the focus on neutergender was there. But I’m a lot more secure about my sexuality now, after both exploring it a lot this past ~10 months AND after removing myself from situations where I was not sexually compatible with them (and this gave me a LOT of grief). Namely . . . sexual situations involving other people, and kink involving other people — basically at all. Because I’m always in-front and those experiences are highly dissociating for me. . . . so now that’s not an issue anymore, and I’m mostly just thinking about me as being agenderspec in an intergender way, I suppose.

“Plants don’t have a lot of things” oh yeah there are a LOT of things that I am aspec for, aren’t there — many many “identities” that folks will describe as “I am ___” (as in they HAVE, they ARE, they are TO BE their [country identity], or [race identity] . . . for me the mere concept of “identifying” with those things seems COMPLETELY alien.   For me it’s just, “uhhh yes I suppose I do just so happen to exist in a manner that might make people use those words??? but I’m never gonna want to use that language for myself, it makes me feel icky.”

. . .

SO ANYWAY, I STARTED BLASTING —

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Okay, yes the Strife Portfolio is a thing!! I don’t remember seeing this referenced in . . . almost any fan character . . . or later on in the game . . . ? But now I’m imagining someone just. Having a strife portfolio full of all ~16 (counting boxes is difficult so only making one attempt) slots, so that they can just spontaneously pull out _anything_ that they want at any time. haha. Since it does not appear that one is prevented from using something from the strife specibus, for something else — like Rose can probably still use her needles for sewing just as well as strifing.

. . . reading about Rose & her mom’s antics are _really funny_ because (her mom is Roxy, and) they are just two shitposters shitposting on each other. . . but I’m imagining that Rose’s mom still has her Void powers, so imagining her using those Void powers to make her shitposts even better AND ALSO being intoxicated the whole time is just. oh it’s so gold. she’s so good.

Been reading the very beginning of Homestuck again and — I definitely appreciate the silly Video Game Mechanic jollies a lot more than I used to

read: at all, I didn’t really “get” it before. Grasping onto the concepts was not something I experienced.

so suddenly a lot more about Homestuck already makes much more sense

. . . I read this entire webcomic without really understanding how a lot of the system worked, previously, somehow so I get the feeling this re-read will be substansially more enjoyable than every _other_ re-read I’ve done

A lot of the jokes are much funnier than they used to be, too; and because I’m so recall-memory familiar with Homestuck, I get to catch all these tiny notes _constantly_ of “oh yeah! that’s referencing something that happens later.”

also I really enjoy how ALMOST all the Strife Specibus Types are like . . . super practical objects that would be used on a daily basis — whether by someone cooking around the house, or by someone doing construction, or by someone with a specific trade they do

I zoomed in on these to take a look — zooming in on these tiny details was really enjoyable and funny, especially since I recognize MANY of them as the Strife Specibus that different characters have set

My personal favourite one that’s practical is: Umbrellakind — my Sun parasol is one of my most notable character traits when I go out and I fully expect parasols to be included in this Type; seriously parsols/umbrellas are great. They protect you from sunrays & rain which is obvious, but they also just add so much to an outfit; they’re like a little buddy you always get to have with you; you can hold them in front of you to deflect insects from getting in your face when walking at night, or to prevent you from walking into spider webs . . .

My personal favourite one that is silly is: Barbedwirekind — it’s barbed wire I would DELIGHT in seeing all the silly barbed wire type Homestuck type drops that would show up, though I don’t think there is a barbed wire type character in the comic Also it’s very . . . trap heavy and offensive but passive protection

trying to remember if different Strife Specibus Types can be combined together (don’t remember the Homestuck word for this but I think there’s one — like that’s what the Jane spork is, right? . . . Jane has a spork, right ??? I really don’t remember) or if two different Types can be set in general a barbed wire parsol would be ridiculous and fun /laughs/

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cue me looking more into “wait, is XYZ plant that I like, that I’ve mostly only seen representation of the flower (which is not how I identify monocot-ness), also a monocot?”

“wait, water lillies and water lotuses are monocots?”

“wait, lilies are monocots?” (it’s obvious in real life but when I just see the flower I kind of forget)

“what???”

“well, at least I know that Hippeastrum(“amaryllis”) are monocots. that’s why I was so severely fond of and attracted to my white amaryllis that I had in . . . /uncertain, trying to remember/ middle school . . . ? dare I even say, late elementary?” yeah it’s been a long time.

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{2/2} 1, 2 Oh you know what I bet it is

I bet it’s that the mental link that’s ‘supposed to’ be inbetween sexual attraction -/>conceptualization of desiring action -> sexual desire

is completely absent/“broken” for me (as in, my individual magey self inside my system, unblent with anyone else)

except for with plants for some reason??

cause it really IS curious that I can be attracted to something, experience a physical arousal response, be AWARE instinctively of “what was it which caused arousal” and literally nothing else happens again, except for with plants for some reason I just . . . appreciate the beauty of the subjective experience of having felt attraction and then move on with my life.

I’m not counting the “spontaneous hit by a truck” intrusive thoughts that sometimes happen [at the step of: oh yeah that’s something I might experience attraction to but I haven’t seen it clearly yet] as conceptualizing of desiring action because I don’t really think that’d be an accurate representation of what my brain feels like what it happens because the only response to that is “WOW!! I didn’t like that at all, that was not nice, I am very uncomfortable now, I am leaving.”

something something something, Orchidsexual is an asexual microterm for this (I’m so glad I didn’t just “stop” being ace that idea has made me sad the past half year); something something, it’s also REALLY FUNNY because I actually do sexually like orchids. /grin snorts/ (because orchids are monocots! This isn’t exhaustive because there are exceptions but generally I like monocots; and ferns**; and some succulents***) **(which . . . apparently are ‘too ancient’ to be divided into monocots or eudicots specifically, but that would inherently MAKE them “more” monocot-y since monocots “came first”.) ***(— which are . . . apparently also monocots . . .? I didn’t know aloe vera was a monocot??) geez, yeah I just like monocots.

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{1/2} 1, 2 —OH @ in reaction to my ace bird post the other day, and how funky it looks right next to the heart stuff my headmate Itov DOES experience the specific attraction-experience of kink.

no WONDER he is so different from me. no WONDER me switching in would always be such a complete “runs into a wall formerly going at 70 miles an hour” stop during any “okay, this is how this situation would go” mind theatres. (also no wonder his memories of the sexual experiences with my non-bio dad are all completely fine, and MY memories of them are like . . . ALL dogtagged with #traumatic, every single one of them sans one basically.)

I asked him “does anyone else in the system experience this???” and he said (paraphrased, little text is context), “not really . . . well, Aurix does . . . Kanekalon, too (this girl always freaked Itov out) . . . maybe Nunu a little bit (only in the context of being blent with Kanekalon). . . yeah, I guess other members do, actually” OH also sometimes Sumatra but only in the context of being blent with Kanekalon, too.

But those are all members of AURIX’ subsystem, within my system. None of those are — well I’ve become so . . my own thing I’m not really part of any particular subsystem anymore. — UH but none of those are part of “my” subsystem, is what I was going to say.

Itov was part of Aurix for a long long time, so it makes sense that even though he was within my sub-system (he was the forking branch for both for a long time) — that he does still experience that.

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About a week ago when my — . . . . actually, you know what. I should *possibly*?? use a different title for my spouse, than my spouse. Because while we ARE legally married and it DOES carry the weight of uh. Acknowledging that I’m a dependent. It also tends to carry partnery/relationship connotations and that’s not what’s going on here?? My spouse and I are roomates & friends. Also, I kind of did the thing that I tend to do by accident a lot of: we tried to date for a REALLY LONG TIME(I mean, we even got married), it didn’t work; now we have a massive tie in to each other’s lives & me into his family that “bypasses all logic since we’re not dating” and uh . . . well, that’s what siblings are. So I guess we’re siblings now?

ANYWAY

Spouse and I went grocery shopping about a week ago; when I was putting the food away, I realized “this isn’t going to work.” and so I walked over to a discount store, picked up a really nice organization piece for the pantry cabinet — and LITERALLY RE-ORGANIZED THE ENTIRE PANTRY CABINET. Like, top-down. Every single shelf. (all of those shelves, by the way, I had to get cut myself and install them using wooden dowels as the hold-up pieces about a year and a half ago . . . because this apartment is awful. they were like “oh it’s a broom closet it isn’t supposed to have shelves” NO IT IS NOT. A BROOM DOES NOT FIT IN HERE. ALSO IT IS IN THE KITCHEN WHERE FOOD GOES.)

/giddy proud wiggles/ And I was baaasically done organizing those shelves again, from scratch, to fit everything that we bought really nicely in there . . . and he came in, and looked at it, and was like: /impressed eyebrow raises/ “You do REALLY good work.”

/happy wiggles/

—but I didn’t finish alllll of it, because I was. Exhausted. But there were only a few items leftover, not very many.

I’m going through those leftover items now, to finish up the shelf organizing . . .

One of those items is a bag full of chocolate labels that I kept for my reference — because they were my favourites and I didn’t want to forget. I’m looking at them now, and I’m like . . . ”This reference bag is now completely useless to me. I’m not eating animal products anymore, and every single one of these chocolates has milk in them. It wouldn’t make sense for me to ‘cheat’ to have this chocolate, either — because I honestly get a real sort of sadistic pleasure out of not eating these types of treat foods due to a dietary restriction. (there’s a distinction to me between ‘disordered issue’ and ‘normal sadistic pleasure’ and this is the normal one.)”

So I’m not . . . reeeaaallly sure what to do with these reference labels???

But now that I think about it, these ARE all from a gourmet chocolate shop. That shop PROBABLY has a vegan chocolate section. Which is an exciting prospect! kinda kills my sinister joy vibe that I just talked about earlier. just a little bit, though, since it’s still extra work.

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But I am gonna revolt instead because my mastectomy incisions are SUPER ITCHY RIGHT NOW — /being silly/

They’re coming along really nicely though; it’s only been 5 months and it takes 12~18 months for the skin to finish all the ‘knitting together into the final scar appearance’ process, which is why I haven’t really. Started calling them scars yet. — but some scattered areas of the incision marks are indiscernible enough from my skin around them that I’ve been _kind_ of tempted to switch vocabulary over already.

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What do you MEAN that not only do I have to unload the clean dishwasher but I ALSO have to LOAD the then empty dishwasher (and then clean the bottom of the sink) in order to take care of my children my sprouts, I’m talking about my sprouts

I’m gonna revolt, I’m gonna — I’m gonna do it because they’re important, lol.

[xweetok-starmap]

Different sleeping times that are the complete opposite experience of yesterday:

“How come I just woke up and there is basically nothing on my dash? This never happens.”

Being awake later than usual on tumblr is strange

like ”why is everyone suddenly awake 2-3 hours after I usually go to bed??”

[xweetok-starmap]

. . . but even though I had a really despondent morning while waking up, I had a really positive experience with cooking a stir fry!! And I’m gonna gush about that really hard now.

It used elements of the stir fries I’ve been doing this past week — but this one was much bigger. A proper “feeds two people” stir fry, a proper “fills up the whole plate instead of just being a tiny amount of food” stir fry.

I also used a new ingredient that I hadn’t used before — pumfu! Pumfu is similar to tofu, but instead of being made with soymilk, water, and a coagulant . . . pumfu is made with pumpkin seeds & water. I’ve had a sealed container of pumfu in my fridge for a while, but I’d never used it. I’m soooo glad that I kept it — I considered tossing it once, but decided against it since I stopped eating animal products. Thus, it became a LOT more important to explore new protein options than it used to be. Pumfu is REALLY good . . . it has a softness that contrasts very nicely with the earthy denseness of tempeh, and of course pumfu tastes like pumpkin seeds!! but like . . . if pumpkin seeds were delicious. (I like pumpkin seeds, but sometimes their funkiness gets to me?? versus the pumfu, everything I liked about pumpkin seeds’ flavour was there and nothing that I disliked was there.) And I generally enjoy seeds on top of my stirfries a LOT, so . . . pumfu was kind of like “if the flavour of seeds in the stir fry was incooperated so much more and so softly (versus crunchily) into each bite!”

Sooooo,

My stir fry was a mix of [red bell pepper, snap peas] [eggplant, mushroom] [tempeh, pumfu] . . . with a sauce based on [light soy sauce, sushi vinegar, rice syrup, picked ginger, olive oil, sesame oil] and, at the end, topped with white sesame seeds! oh right!!! I also added a little bit of sprout water to the sauce, to thin it out slightly and even out the flavour with some LIGHT earthiness. Since previously the sauce only had HEAVY earthiness.

And I am still. SOOOOOO completely enamoured with vegan cooking nullfying any problems of “contamination” that I’d otherwise get from raw egg or raw meat, all. The ENTIRE way that I prepped this meal, I could only do because of not worrying about contamination. Which is really important, because I was feeling HORRIBLE for the first 30 minutes or so of cooking — so if I would have had to deal with raw meat nonsense there is no way I could have cooked this.

Okayokayokay so what I did was:

First I chopped up the red pepper & snappeas, put them in the larger kitchen bowl I’d taken out — then I started chopping the mushrooms & eggplant, and realized “oh! I need to keep these separate, because mushroom & eggplant will need different cooking times than the red pepper and snappeas. I need to throw the eggplant & the mushroom into the pan earlier. The mushroom and eggplant will ALSO need a sauce of less liquid consistency than the [red pepper/snappeas] and [tempeh/pumfu].

So I threw the red pepper & snappeas into a smaller bowl — the same bowl that I will be using while cooking, to ensure everything is added to the pan in the correct sequence.

Now I finish chopping up the mushroom & eggplant, transfer them into a smaller bowl — the same bowl I’ll use for doing sequential stir fry cooking with THOSE, while cooking.

Then I chop up the tempeh & the pumfu — the proteins, where normally chopping proteins up causes a bunch of really annoying cutting board contamination & knife contamination & bowl contamination — and deposit THOSE into their OWN small bowl for cooking, because they will be added last. After the [red pepper/snappeas] which are after the [mushroom/eggplant]. Especially of note here is that, while I’m chopping the tempeh & pumfu — I’m putting it in the BIG bowl first. So that I can see everything easier, and transfer everything into the small cooking bowl easier without spilling food onto the floor. Which. /excited grins/ Ya know. I couldn’t do without having to get a whole other bowl after this, if it was raw meat.

>suddenly remembers that I had edamame in the fridge and I could have also added edamame into this stir fry AAAAAA NNOOOOOOOOO<

So now that I have the [tempeh/pumfu] [red pepper/sneappea] [eggplant/mushroom] all chopped up . . . I can still use the same cutting board; the same knife; the same big bowl. Awesome. So awesome!! And now I make the sauce! I make the sauce in the big bowl — and then I decide “what order do I want to toss everything in the sauce?” AND BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MEAT NONSENSE I can do this sauce tossing in a COMPLETELY different way than I normally would Instead of . . . having my solids in the big bowl, and then pouring the sauce into the big bowl from some other bowl to toss it . . . and hope that I don’t accidentally add too much, because if I do that on the protein step I can’t use the excess sauce pooling on the bottom of the bowl anymore . . . (even if it’s not a contamination problem because everything will be cooked, it still wouldn’t feel very kosher. Like, now the sauce wouldn’t be pareve anymore, I don’t want to worry about that.)(but also it’s still a contamination problem BECAUSE if I have EXTRA sauce at the end, folks that I cook for usually will want to add extra sauce on top of their cooked food. I have a really delicate, easily overwhelmed pallet; so I don’t use a lot of sauce.) I INSTEAD get to decide: what needs to have the most generous sauce toss? what do I need to make sure, the MOST?? has enough sauce. and ya know what that is????? /huge grins/ the protein. and I don’t have to do ANY EXTRA SEPARATION WORK BECAUSE OF THIS

SO!!!! I just. dump the tempeh and the pumfu into the big bowl of sauce, and gently toss it . . then move the tempeh & pumfu back into its smaller “for use while cooking bowl” . . . and just . . . toss the next batch of vegetables into the same sauce bowl to toss thosel!!!! no issue!!!! the next vegetables that I toss are the red peppers and snappeas.

Alright so NOW that I have the last thing to toss — and that last thing is NOT doomed to be the protein, but INSTEAD the actual last thing I want to toss. That’s the eggplant and mushrooms — and the reason I want to toss THESE last, is because in order to cook the best that they can: they need the sauce to have less liquid, more oil, and more salt. So I don’t have thaaat much sauce left, which works GREAT for this. I add extra sesame oil to the sauce leftover in the bowl, some extra salt and ground pepperberries, too . . . and then just toss the mushrooms and eggplant in it!! last!!! after the protein!!! :D

—then I transfer them into their own ‘small cooking bowl’, and then I cook everything — [eggplant/mushroom] first; [red pepper/snappea] second; take the vegetables out of the pan temporarily (into one of the small cooking bowls) in order to add the [pumfu/tempeh] into the pan and stir fry those for a bit, before adding the veggies back in . . .

—and this wasn’t relevant here because I actually served the stir fry on plates, not the cooking bowls, but I was sooooo enamoured with the fact that because NONE OF THESE LITTLE COOKING BOWLS had raw meat or raw egg in them, I could have theoretically just !!!!! put servings of food to serve them to folks, immediately into these little cooking bowls ??!?!?! which is just absolutely phenomenal.

AND AND AND!!!! I could use the silicone spatula to scoop out any pooling, excess sauce off of the sides of these cooking bowls . . . into the pan, to make sure I get to use ALL of my sauce . . . no matter how far into the cooking it was!!!!

I only had to use . . . one knife, one cutting board, one mixing bowl, 3 cooking bowls (which I could have theoretically used for serving), one silicone spatula, one whisk — for THIS WHOLE THING. Also my cooking scale, I wouldn’t make a homemade sauce with ingredients like soy sauce & vinegar without a cooking scale.

I’m just . .. oh it’s sooooo good, it simplifies everything soooo much, it makes cooking so much more accessible and less stressful for folks like me who are more ill, all of the time.

/flops onto bench/ argh I wanna feed someone else who can truly appreciate this vegan cooking so badddddd—

((oh and then afterwards I made a really sweet also vegan desert, with sunflower rye bread + topped with biscoff cookie butter + topped with roughly chopped candied walnuts!! quite delicious :3 annnnnd . . . I used some of my knowledge from swordfighting as a cross-referential for deciding which part of the knife was the best to apply the force of the cut with, AND my knowledge from cooking of “based on the shape of the knife, how does the knife want to be used?” in order to have the best experience while chopping those walnuts. It was . . . it was very funny.))