Category: General

Quick update – my car was apparently “lucky” to get to the garage due to the near complete collapse of the pin that connects the gear lever to the gearbox….(at least that implies that it’s not actually the gearbox which is buggered) – bad news: they don’t have the part and can’t get it until monday morning….Arse!

I’ve finally finished porting the “in my brain” to the new style site – so it should be ready for upload fairly soon…

I’m still shattered, but I think I’m gonna go and get my drugs (using my mum’s car!)….

Byeeeeeeee

Kate….still tired

06 May 2000, 12:37.48.

So….what’s up then?

It must be said that I look like hell today – and infact I feel pretty much like I look…but despite feeling life this I’m still grinning and would be bouncing around (except I’ve hurt my ankles!)…what’s this due to I hear you asking (yes, you, you – my only reader!)….

Well, I went to London to see someone, and for the first time so far I went into london as me, having spent hours on shaving and cleaning myself up – having headed into london, I popped on my heels and trundled across london on the underground….

Having got maybe 800 yards from my destination I was limping rather badly…why? becuase despite the fact I’d worn these heels before I didn’t realise that they weren’t quite broken in yet and thus they were cutting my ankles to ribbons! Now, I had two options – since I was actually scouting out my target as it were – and was intending to have some lunch then turn up (having worked out where it was)….one was to go with plan a, the other was to turn around; limp back across london – to the car where I had a pair of (one-star) trainers, loose the jacket (it’s my posh suit), and pray that I looked okay…

So, having walked about another 3 paces I went with plan B! Having got to the park near my car the shoes had to come off….so I walked across the park in just my tights (getting odd looks – and I’m not surprised!).

Struggled back to the car and swapped the shoes, lost the jacket and apparently looked okay…

Anwyay – I made it back to my destination, and this time only limping slightly disappeared down the stairs….

But where was I going? I was going to se Dr Russell Reid, to make some progress on this wanting my body to match my mind thing! After an hour long interview (which I believe is pretty much the norm) he offered me a prescription for ‘mones (which is exactly what I wanted :-)

Unfortunately my plan (which was to see the doc and work out the prices of NHS as private prescriptions and decide if it was worth doing the conversion, however having done the sums (as best I can) I think it’s probably not worth it, and it’s certainly not worth taking a day off for this one!

However I may change my mind as my car has gone in for a service – however I’m getting ahead of myself here…having had my (rather groovy) appointment, I flew across london (not literally – though I’ve thrown myself at the ground on several occasions I’ve never quite got the hang of the missing the ground bit!).,,,,erm, yes, to meet up with a friend from Uni (Hi Soozy!)…

Whereupon I had a really nice (non alcoholic drink), and then we trundled off to Pizza Hut for a pizza – as she’s ill and hadn’t eaten all day, and I (because of the shoe incident) hadn’t had a chance, altough I actually didn’t feel terribly hungry!).

Anyway…after a very enjoyable evening I started back for home, the journey across london on the tube being fairly uneventful…I reached my car, hopped in and about 20 minutes down the motorway she (the car) attempted to deposit me in the middle lane. This has happened once before, but it wasn’t that long ago and I’m worried it’s going to become habit forming…

Fortunately she was already booked in for a service today, however when I took her in I felt terrible as I listed all the faults….

Reversing lights, Gear Box, Engines’ dieing of fuel starvation on the motorway now and then, windscreen wipers making a metal-against-metal screech, front wheel bearings making an awful noise at low speed (all intermittent faults as well – although the reversing lights only seemed to work for the MOT!)….

So, I’m waiting on the call to say – your car needs about £8000 worth of work….

Meep.

But despite all this I’m still boucing (mentally at least – I didn’t get mych sleep last night, what with excitement, not getting to bed until (very) late and my ankles (sting like buggery & the plaster won’t stick becuase the only plasters I’ve got are about 20 years old (and that is true – literally).

Not only that, but the new version of Geiss for winamp doesn’t switch off the hourglass!

But I’m still mentally bouncing – although I feel like sh*t….

Anyway….I’m off to be knackered.

Lol

Kate….

Well, I appologise for the long gap since my last installment – this is due to a variety of factors – mostly due to free internet access and IRC which allows me to occupy my entire evenings with nothing useful (well, that’s not strictly true, it keeps me sane….).

What have I been up to, well, at first glance some might consider that I had achieved nothing. Hannah and I had aonther falling out, but are back together again; I bought a few DVD’s, and made a doctor’s appointment.

But in this case it is the name of the doctor which is of importance; the doctor in this case is the consultant p/sych Dr Russell Reid. This particular doctor is the person I should have gone to see years ago, and I’m more than a little bit excited (and at the same time nervous)….it should hopefully start me down the road to the transition I want to complete….

Indeed, since making the appointment I’ve been bouncing around a fair bit…..*smiles*.

The DVD drive however has been causeing me stress, however this appears to be due to Paramount DVD’s. All my other DVD’s play fine; however my copy of “The Truman Show” DVD was unplayable, so I swapped it, for another unplayable one – having scoured the web I found other people had problems with Paramount disks….which was very annoying – indeed it was infurating as I spent hours (literally) changing DVD’s for others which were just as unlikely to work; 3 copies of the Truman Show passed through my hands in all, however in the end I exchange them for “Plunkett and Macleane” and “Analyze This”, both of which are cool.

I still want “The Truman Show”, but it’ll have to wait until either they produce a different type of disk which actually works on my player – or pioneer produce a firmware patch which take account of these (aledgedly) odd disks….

Finally, there’s the possibility of me having 2 Elastica Videos, which since I’ve searched for 4 years for the damn things is pretty damn cool, so that’s 2 down in 4 years….

I’ve also got the Dilbert DVD’s which are cool, if completely lacking in features. Either Columbia Tristar are money grabbing, petty minded gits, or else, alternatively they have no imagination whatsoever. Why in god’s name aren’t there some extra-features on there? The “Characterisation” isn’t a feature – showing me a clip of something which is elsewhere on the disk – without any extra information, voiceover, interview or anything is not a feature. It’s pointless.

If I’d have paid full price for these disks I’d have been fuming. They are awful (as interestingly enough is Region 2 edition of The Truman Show).

I don’t mind it when budget disks contain bugger all, althogh they should cost about £5.99, not £9.99 – but I can cope with it…But to charge £19.99 for a disk as valueless as these? It’s disgusting.

Anyway, enough ranting…..

So there you go, that’s my life….not too much exciting this time….

LOL

Kate

Arse. I really should be in bed….this is the third night in a row Windows 95 has kept me from my bed (at least until a ridiculously late hour).

I’ve been intendting to do a new in my brain for a long time, but I’ve simply been flooded with computer issues, and I’ve been dead busy (social life ‘n’ all)….so I best say what I’ve been up to…

Well, there was the almost splitting up with Hannah incident. Some problems which had been quitely festering came to the fore during a preiod of stress and we spent a lot of time dicussing the future, but we’re back together now. Han came down for my Birthday, which I’d been stressing about for a while. However before then came a big day. My sister (and her husband) were informed on Sri Lankan new year about my TS status (why then? becuase my dad’s birthday happens to fall on the same date, and thus we went there for a meal).

Anyway, I wouldn’t say they took it spectacularly well, but not spectacularly badly either – so, she now knows…which is fortunate since about 80% of my cards were to “Kate” *smiles*.

So. anyway, then there was the day Han came down, that was a little tense (shall we say), but we’ve sorted it out – and infact we went in to Reading and had a really nice day shopping, met up with James and Nikki for pizza in the evening (so a big Hi to them), then we trundled to the pub….

Unfortunately I offered James a lift home. Now I say unfortunately because we got back to the car and found that some fool had left the lights on (fx: “hum, hum hum, mmmm…do, do doo..me?? never!”). But fair play to the AA who managed to get someone (Bromley recovery) to us within an hour…and the bloke was dead friendly – didn’t laugh at Nina, and I nearly killed his battery when I tried to start mine (let’s say mine was a weeee bit flat *g*).

So, then we trundled back to James’ flat – and I spent far too much time being techie (because Han litterally was asleep on her feet!).

Anyway, my birthday went really well, I even went for a wander with Hannah (yes, I left my computer behind!)…. Which was cool, my sister came down, which was also nice, and I had a great meal (and more importantly a chocolate cake *vbg*)….

Also my DVD decoder means I can finally watch my DVD’s in non-skipo-vision….and on my TV! Unfortunately it’s shown up that my TV really does need its colour settings adjusted….so if anyone has instructions for setting up a Fergason Colourstar Mark 1 TV I’d be very grateful (I know that it’s best to adjust things in a specific order – I just don’t know which order….! Also I’ll have to fish out the Beeb ‘cos it’s the only thing I know which’ll reliably provide some basic simple colour bars…..

Yes, so next up is that….then of course there’s windows. Well actually there’s my curse – which means that windows is causing grief again…you see I’ve got this new toy, it’s a USB camera, so after much searching I managed to find some USB ports to add to my computer (it had the motherboard connector but no backplane connector) – anyway, I enabled it (the USB) in the Bios and Lo and behold Windows detected it and then Hung. After many repeats of this I’ve managed to get it so that windows detects it, then installs a “driver” which fails to work despite apparently being the best available.

Then theres MS US who seem remarkably helpful, and MS UK who seem to think that money should be involved in the “helping users” situation….

So I’m currently thinking about the W2000 option….which expensive though it (might) be may lead to more of a success on the old USB front. Except that most of my hardware seems to be a little erm, shall we say, different….!

Anyway, that’s enough techiness for one night….

But there’s more stuff, and it’s non-techie! First of all I now truly do believe that herbal hormones do definitely do something for me….I’m not saying they do for everyone but they do for me…

I actually do find it much harder not to clean up – as in leaving dirty mugs/plates/pans – it really bugs me….My rooms still a tip – but that’s due to being fed up with being so cramped. I simply cannot bother to tidy since last time it lasted about 1 day before it become a mess because of needing to move X to get to Y….

So there’s that, and the other thing is I can’t leave the house unshaven….indeed I find it much harder to be slobby outside than I used to. I even crawl out of bed marginally earlier to ensure that I am in a fit state to be seen; this isn’t fair!

The other (and totally unrelated to the above) thing was something which happened onto my way to work. There’s this theory about there being an infinite number of universes with every combination of every decision possible. Thus there are more universes every second…..

Anyway, I was coming towards this junction and I felt the car start to pull out in front of the car in front of me, and I felt it braking and swerving. However neither of these happened. Infact I wanted to brake but somehow I knew it hadn’t actually happened; it was really quite bizarre….

Anyway, I best be off to bed (well actually I’m chatting on mIRC at the mo)….so…night folks

kate (aged 1!).

I’m actually writing this under duress! I don’t feel like it, but I feel I should (see I’m ILL! Sympathy please)…

Anyways, what happened today? Or yesterday? Or whatever?

Well, I’ve got the most awful, nasty, nasty cold….(and now a cough too), so I’ve been off work for two days (back tomorrow tho’). I’ve also finally got my FridgeCode….this for the unitiniated is like those fridge magnets with words on that you make poetry from, or prose, or whatever…only in this case they have loads of techie words as well…which is more my style.

Also, my GeekGirl teeshirt arrived, only today we dicovered that there is a difference between UK X-Large, and US X-Large. UK X-Large is just nicely baggy…US-X-Large is somewhat like a tee-shirt-dress, which is unfortunate, because there’s no way on earth I’m sending it back, only to wait another 2 months for it…so it’s a dress, how bad is that?!

And my major news (well relatively), is that I went to the GP today, and he’s organising a referral to Russell Reid (with luck, love and some hope), and also said that he’ll convert private prescriptions to NHS ones…which has got to be the best news ever…or at least today…

Anyway, back to elastica….”da da da”……

Kate (Smiling for once)

This is the second attempt at writing this. For some unknown reason my mood has been something like a yo-yo this weekend. I’ve been up and down more often than I can count. I’ll be fine for an hour or two, then I’ll plunge into depression, then an hour later I’ll be fine.

There are so many reasons for this that I don’t really know where to begin; I think that the main one is lonelyness though. I really need to get out. I don’t understand how James lives alone anymore, I just can’t hack it – I’ve been alone for 2 days and I’ve just desparately wanted to talk to someone the whole time. I’ve watched 3 films, four if you include friday – just anything to take my mind off the silence. I have a fan on at night just to cover up the silence.

Another issue is that I’m desparate to start hormones, real hormones, not herbal ones. Why? Because I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life getting to this point, that I want to grasp my future with both hands and run towards it. But instead I’m stuck. I’m just watching time pass me by…

I had an odd realisation a few days ago. Now I’ve known this (becuase it’s obvious) for ages – but it suddenly hit me. There are only 52 weekends in a year. This is distinctly scary – because I’m working things get put off until the weekend, and then they get pushed to the next weekend…and suddenly you’re in April and you’ve still done nothing. What bearing does this have on my depressed status? Well. Simply that I’m watching the same thing happen here. Oh: I’ll go and see Russell Reid next week, when my bank account looks healthier. Or the week after, or the week after that. Perhaps the time has come to make an appointment with my destiny and actually do something.

On another topic, my girlfriend asked me what I wanted from life, so here’s my current list of desires in no particular order. No order whatsoever, except that which they came from my head in….approximately.

What do I want from life?

• Someone to love me
• Someone to share my up’s and downs, who doesn’t mind that I can be a bit of a slob (clothes wise), and a lot of a techie.
• A house, preferable like this one.
• Probably a or two children…adopted, but not for a long time…
• To be physcially female and accepted as such
• To run my own company, probably doing web-design
• To go walking in the Lake District and in Scotland
• To do more photography
• To love someone who loves me back
• To be more confident
• To be comfortable in myself
• To meet elastica and say something intelligent this time
• To live in the South
• To have friends nearby]
• To have a social life
• To go to the pub/clubs/cinema/theatre more, and with friends.
• To feel loved
• Alternative to web-design: own a cinema showing classics/art house/sci-fi – preferably one built before the 60’s
• To be me
• To learn to cook well enough that I don’t need a cook book
• To be able to service my car myself
• To repair Rebecca (my Morris Minor)
• To sit on a beach in Sri Lanka as myself (this kills two needs, one is to sit on a beach as myself, the other is to re-visit sri lanka)
• To visit at least: Australia, France, Germany, Ireland (N+S), America and Russia. Preferably a lot more places.
• To learn to speak Russian and German (and French)
• To be better at expressing myself
• To never have to tick the [M] box on another form
• To do a degree I’m proud of.
• To let myself cry at the end of films
• To exercise and be more healthy *and flatten my stomach*
• To learn to program properly
• To get linux onto that bloody 486
• To be somewhere near as attractive as my sister…
• To stop being so stressed, and getting stressed so easily
• To be liked for who I am
• To have a huge F-off bathroom with a sunken bath and about a million candles.
• To go shopping without getting odd looks
• To not have to shave my face
• To go out to dinner in a _really_ posh restaurant – and look sexy and sultry in an evening gown.
• To go on the oblivion at alton towers and not try to scream
• To stop feeling inferior to everyone
• To stop feeling a failure

I should say I don’t always feel quite so bad. In fact sometimes I’m quite cheery. But I’m not right now, and as I say; this is what’s in my brain…

Kate