This Word.

Went to the gym today again, today was arms day but I threw a little in for my back as well. One thing I've noticed is that I have to work on my triceps much more, I mean, for one, triceps are a bigger muscle compared to the bicep, so by building up on it essentially your entire arm will look much bigger in appearance. Not to mention since I'm upping on my chest workouts like bench presses and inclined presses, I need to strengthen my triceps to support these exercises so my form is better as well. I think I've been neglecting my triceps, not thoroughly because I still do triceps workouts but just that I need to target this muscle group more so it can really build up. I must say my stamina's improved quite a bit though. The last time I trained for sprints, it took me a few weeks to up to 16. and even so I tired out pretty fast on the third to fourth set. After some weight training, intervals of 4km and 10km runs, and just one prior sprint set, I already upped to 16. today, without even feeling much of a burn. I'd say if the gym wasn't getting so packed suddenly, I could have gone for a few more sets on that speed. I guess it must either be a better breathing technique to support my body while running, or the distance runs affected my overall stamina, but either way its good. My 4km run though needs to be improved, current timing is 20 minutes, which equals to a 2.4 timing of 12 minutes with a standard pace throughout. My aim right now would be to lower my timing down to 18 minutes, following which my overall target is 16 minutes for 4km. Gonna be tough I'd say, especially since I'm not much of a running person, but I'll work on it. So anyway what I did today was some stationary cycling (yes I have a stationary bike at home), followed by some ab work for about half an hour, that's in the morning. Afterwards I headed to the gym for arm day, and later on at night I shadow boxed for about 1 and a half hours. Trying to master the basic moves first and all the little combos but hell does it break sweat. Man does it feel good learning how to fight. Anyway just now at the gym I did some wrist work as promised yesterday to try and loosen out my wrists a bit. And now it hurts like a bitch to even move my thumb. My left hand is fine, just the right, but I'm pretty sure it'll sort itself out if I give it some time.

I read a blog run by an FTM this morning titled 'How to pass as a hot guy', and to be honest I think its pretty useful. If you look at all those other blogs out there giving tips on how to pass, they'll always give you stuff like wear looser clothes, or wear a shirt under your shirt or go for the standard haircut by going to a barber etc. I mean alright this is gonna get you to look like a guy, but not only that, its gonna make you look like the loser who has no one to sit next to at lunchtime. You know frat kid wearing a shirt with sleeves up to his elbows and pants that's halfway gonna slip off his ass? Yeah that kid. And so the nice thing I found about this blog is that it addresses issues straightforwardly to try and fix the problems rather than hide them too much, where you'll end up overdoing it. For example, he talks about the silhouette of a person when someone first has an impression of them. Its basically your body structure and shape, be it a feminine triangle, a standard guy box shape, or a masculine V shape. It talks about how the main aim should be to decrease hips and increase shoulder, and you find that this is pretty true to transform the stereotypical triangle to a V. I for one am blessed not to be thrown into the triangular extreme of the spectrum so its more of reducing the width of my hips for me, in order to emphasize shoulder breadth. My shoulders are already broader than my hips to begin with, so its just a matter of reducing the ratio between waist and hips (and reduce the waist too, show some ab definition eh?). But here I'd like to give a shoutout to other transguys out there who don't have it so lucky, I know some are born not only with a petite size, but with a notable pear-shaped figure as well, man, its gonna be tough.  Anyway, the link is here in case I wanna revisit the site when he updates it: http://ftmguide.rassaku.net/
Adios.

Eleven Eleven

So after getting two shirts yesterday, I bought three more today. The first one's a black Ramones tee, the sleeves are a bit too long for my liking but once its folded up it looks fine. I didn't wanna get it at first because I have too many black shirts, but the more I looked at it, the nicer it was so..yup. Second one is a print tee of a red double deck London bus, I really like the shirt, it has a nice fit and I never had a shirt of this type before. I'm quite happy that since I've grown, I can fit much better into shirts, especially around the shoulders, and for those tighter cut shirts, the sleeves hold around my arm pretty well, and makes me feel buffer than I actually am, but oh well makes me happy anyway. Third shirt is a university of Hawaii shirt, in green like my university of michigan one (which my stupid aunt threw away, oh well, it had paint on it anyway) but this time. My first one was in size S so I assumed I should be buying the same size since I bought the rest in S as well. But apparently, this shirt all along had a tighter cut, which explains why it already fit me nicely before, and this time I seriously can't fit into an S without looking like a stuffed hotdog. Shoulders were way too high, overall cut was too small, around the arms as well, so I got an M instead. Pretty stoked on that. Oh the difference a size can make. 

On the downside though, my wrist is getting quite bad, today especially, its been throbbing for a while now, but at least its not some piercing pain. Maybe because I did weights today, and upped them too, only had a day break (leg day!) between two gym sessions so my wrist hasn't recovered yet. Or maybe its time to start doing some wristwork. I'll look into that tomorrow, probably start some light workout to train my wrist. 

I've never thought someone would say talking to me feels like an obligation, but I suppose I can see why. Maybe I feel that these past few days, we've fallen into a routine that tends to push and pull each other around. I pull you close to confide in you, you push away without knowing because you have to be busy somewhere else, when you're done and don't come back, I try to pull you a bit to try to confide again, you pull me in to tell me problems you're facing, I feel bad for wanting to confide in you and don't do it in the end, you want to pull me in for a hug, I want to push away because I don't feel good, next day, you're busy but I don't know, I pull you in to tell you things I'm happy about, you push away time and again because you have stuff to do and I wonder where you've gone, a few repetitions, you finally come back, I push you away because I don't want to tell you things anymore, you pull me in to talk about how you've been, I listen, I pull you in and tell you my problems, you pull me in for a hug, I push away because you weren't there when I needed it, you leave for a while, you pull me in close to sleep, I lose any feeling of it, I get tired of pulling in, I push you away, you come back unknowingly, I sit with you, you get up and leave and say you'll be back soon, you're not back yet. 

If we could both pull each other in at the same time instead of dancing in mirrored steps, I'm hoping you and I could collide into rhythm once more.

This is a freezing bubble. Just thought it was beautiful and I wanted to show this to you today if you came online.

Shot to the Head

There have been several happy things lately. First, I hit my target weight of 60 kilos, no one else seems happy about this (maybe cos everyone else seems to want to lose weight, they can't get my joy of gaining weight) so I'll be happy about it myself. Next target, 62 kilos, then 65 before trimming down to 60 again possibly. Some way or another I've been able to gain muscle without much protein (powder form) so that's good, imagine the power more protein can pack on me..man. Alright just to keep track on my strength training so far, I'm curling 22.5 for speed curls and 17.5 for full, compared to my 12.5 and 7.5 for starts. Started front shoulder lifts at 10 and I'm doing 27.5 now. Benched 10 and I'm doing 32 on dumbbells now (can't remember bar). Dead lifting 65, but I haven't really worked on this much so we'll see improvement there. Full body pull ups starting at 0 and doing max rep 8 as of now, same with chin ups. Started lats pull down with 30, doing 100 as of now, I've been slacking on this one, needa bring this up. I think I started single arm rows at 15, doing 22.5 now. Trap shrugs at 25, time to bring that up soon, when my palms don't hurt as much. Son of a bitch.

Secondly, bought 2 new shirts from Fourskin, my all time favourite shop, gonna get most of my shirts from there from now on. Got a washed grey and washed blue one in a pocket shirt and a v-neck respectively, yes, a v-neck finally I've wanted this for a while and it's in a much better quality than the one I saw at UniQlo. What made me really happy is that I did NOT have to get the smallest size available, can you believe it! Because really, the XS was too small on me, not only because it was shorter than I'd like, but the sleeves and shoulders were pretty tight too, once shrunk-washed there's no way to comfortably get into them. The size S has a good length, the shoulders are just nice and the sleeves fit snugly around my arm. Does this brand make small sleeves or what man, but oh well, I'm stoked with my buy, gonna get more shirts from there soon hopefully, i'm starting to outgrow some shirts.

Third, I had a good shave today and for the first time, I cut myself. On the upper lip, the moustache area. Not some huge bleeding gash, just a little cut, but I CUT myself, SHAVING. Wow. I feel great about this hahah, call me crazy but it makes me damn happy that I ran into the tiny little accident while shaving. Anyway I hope it doesn't swell up or anything though, I didn't even use an aftershave or anything cos I couldn't find it, but whatever, it works, right? Right. I saw a little forum thing online about phalloplasty surgery and some of the things there really scared me. Because they take the extra tissue from the arm or leg area (mostly arm), it really leaves massive scarring there. I had no idea to what extent they removed the tissue until I saw the photo and..it was pretty scary, pretty much around the entire forearm so for the lower part of your forearm you're left with little tissue around your bone. And the way it looks it seems pretty raw open, but must've been newly done. Makes me rethink bottom all over again, but then again, what will people think of a man without a dick in his pants? Well they always say it doesn't matter, but women these days seem to be looking for far more physical relationships than I would've wished for. So I suppose I need it.

The Frog, The Turtle, and The Fish

Sometimes being on tumblr makes me happy, its helps me relax and focus on my thoughts more, one at a time really, rather than having them ricochet through the thread tangled masses of my mind. Scrolling down through pictures helps me evaluate them slowly, see what each of them means to me, holding them in my hands, caressing and carefully examining them through ruffled feathers before releasing them back in flight. I see more of my kind there, like refugees. They tell their stories and well, sometimes I am able to relate, other times I can't, because, well, everyone's got their own story to tell. I saw this story back on tumblr:

"Someone asked me why I am so nice to people who treated me bad, and I didn't know the answer. Then during class, I looked around after finishing my test and realized why. I looked at the boy who made fun of my inability to do math, and his head was on the desk and he looked tired. I know he played in the band, so he had to be at school early and I wondered if he had something at home keeping him up or maybe it was the amount of classwork teachers assigned. I looked at the girl who returned my hellos by snapping her gum and twisting her hair. I knew her and her boyfriend broke up, and I wondered how hard it must be to have everyone concerned in your business. He could probably be a jerk, and I knew she only acted dumb in class so people would like her. And I thought about the boy in PE who picked me last for teams, how squinted at his paper and furrowed his eyebrow. It must be a lot of work always practicing, and then also having to get good grades and go to college. And then there was also the girl who everyone thought was a bitch, but little did she know I saw the scars on her wrist, and then there is the girl who is always reading, and I wonder what she got from those books or if she is running from something. And there is the boy who always wears that shirt and I know his shoes have holes in them because when it rains he complains about wet socks, and I wonder if his parents work hard for him or if they drink a lot and I wonder if he feels outcasted because he has so little. And the other boy who just moved here from Mexico, and he doesn't speak a lot of English, and I can only imagine how confused he is. I can't imagine learning this stuff in a new language. And even the teacher, I noticed he wasn't wearing his ring today. Maybe he is giving us more work and more homework because he wants us to do better than he did. The point is, I look at all these people and realize that they have their own troubles and their own demons, and the last thing I want to do is add to them. Its a lot of pressure growing up, and no matter what anyone says none of us have it easy."

Sometimes being on tumblr makes me lose the little faith that I have. I see these pictures of men with hot bodies and loads of comments by girls saying things like "My future husband has to look like this or else" or "Why don't all guys look like this" or "If you're a guy who doesn't look like this, you should be ashamed". And when I read those comments, I can just feel the few drops of fuel I have left in my heart to keep moving, just seep away. Its like a race between a frog, a turtle and a fish as to who can run ashore first. There are some guys like the frog, born with a good physique and face, easily able to reach that objective. There are others who are like the turtle, there's some work to be done, but they will reach their destination in due time. Then there are fish. You can't even reach the shore in the first place, you can swim as hard as your pathetic fins will take you, but you'll never get there. You can be some sort of a man in other people's eyes, or a lesbian or a butch or some retard you know how painful it is to hear that? You will never be the man that a girl will shyly whisper to her friend "I wanna marry him." Because no one can see future with you, so they aren't even willing to try. You fucking called the girl I like 'homophobic' for not wanting to be with me, what the FUCK is that supposed to imply!? You know how I identify, how could you even say that? Handsome. If I could be called that do you know how happy I would be? Do you know why it makes me feel so happy when someone can put their hand on my chest. I can't even get any of those without possibly asking, but you know why it makes me so happy? It means they think of me as a man, even if I have to ask for it, it somewhats eases the wounds of whatever manhood I have that gets stomped on every single day by the judgemental eyes of this society, of my family even. How do you expect me to believe in myself after so long, i'm so tired. 

Sinners

“‘Homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals are doomed to spend eternity in hell. If they wanted to change, they could be healed of their evil ways. If they would turn away from temptation, they could be normal again if only they would try and try harder if it doesn’t work.’ … These are all the things I said to my son Bobby when I found out he was gay. When he told me he was homosexual my world fell apart. I did everything I could to cure him of his sickness. Eight months ago my son jumped off a bridge and killed himself. I deeply regret my lack of knowledge about gay and lesbian people. I see that everything I was taught and told was bigotry and de-humanizing slander. If I had investigated beyond what I was told, if I had just listened to my son when he poured his heart out to me I would not be standing here today with you filled with regret. I believe that God was pleased with Bobby’s kind and loving spirit. In God’s eyes kindness and love are what it’s all about. I didn’t know that each time I echoed eternal damnation for gay people each time I referred to Bobby as ‘sick’ and ‘perverted’ and ‘a danger to our children’. His self esteem and sense of worth were being destroyed. And finally his spirit broke beyond repair. It was not God’s will that Bobby climbed over the side of a freeway overpass and jumped directly into the path of an eighteen-wheel truck which killed him instantly. Bobby’s death was the direct result of his parent’s ignorance and fear of the word ‘gay’. He wanted to be a writer. His hopes and dreams should not have been taken from him but they were. There are children, like Bobby, sitting in your congregations. Unknown to you they will be listening as you echo ‘amen’ and that will soon silence their prayers. Their prayers to God for understanding and acceptance and for your love but your hatred and fear and ignorance of the word ‘gay’, will silence those prayers. So, before you echo ‘amen’ in your home and place of worship. Think. Think and remember a child is listening.” — Mary Griffith

I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.
I hope I don't wake up tomorrow.

Waters Rising

Have you ever loved someone so much, you've given all for her? No not the expression, no, literally given all for her. When they know they're your heart, and you know you are their armour, and you would destroy anyone that would try to harm her. But what happens when karma, turns right around and bites you, and everything you stand for turns on you to spite you. What happens when you become the main source of her pain? God, I couldn't even remember her name.

There's this girl. She's everything I aspire to be, responsible, hardworking, excellent at prioritising, charitable, always willing to give back to society, intelligent, doesn't care much of what people think of her. She's never been in a relationship before. I was troubled. I liked her a lot, but somehow I felt so ashamed, like a rotting carcass washed up ashore amongst reeds and weeds, trying to get back up but falling on my knees. And you just don't court someone when you're unprepared this way, no matter how you feel, right? I care about this girl, and above that, she's a really amazing person, she deserves someone as closely amazing as herself. First relationship. You lose many things then. Your first kiss, first love, first memories of so many different places and things, I don't want her to settle for second best for all these special things, they're gonna be things that she's gonna remember as she grows up, and I think she deserves better. I'm not ready for a relationship and I know that, which is why I'm not going to approach her in any way. Her first relationship, I don't want her to suffer with someone like me, she shouldn't have to face that. After what I've been through, I know better than to let any girl suffer with me. So I'm willing to give you up, just so you'll be happier in the long run. I'm losing my touch in writing, and I feel like I'm losing my faith. I'm going nowhere. There's nowhere to turn, there's lights everywhere but they're not to guide you, no every direction you turn it's like they're out to blind you, and the intensity is growing as all around you is glowing and there's all these steps you are throwing but no way to know where you're going. It's madness, the kind I should keep to only myself.