No more hiding
It feels awesome to be able to dress how I actually want to look in the morning, which comes with not having (or at least very-much-so wanting) to change out of 'guy' clothes after I get home. It feels good :)
And this is a pretty conservative place, so I'm glad none of the upper management kicked up a fuss or whatever. I kept of change of clothes with me for a week, anyway. Y'see, the hardest part of coming out at work was the vague threat that doing as such might threaten my ability to purchase food. And being a peasant, that's just something that's really hard to work around. I'll get to that in a minute, I've got a lotta ranting inside me too.
It feels almost like a dream. A younger me from years ago would have looked at the me of today, and thought that coming out as a woman (never mind the decision to keep my beard) would have seemed utterly unreachable. And here I am today, going to work, lawyer appointments, and more or less everywhere in makeup and a pink collar.
The divorce is just that. Just kinda... waiting for the paperwork to finish up so it can be "official", which takes forever and a day. Some judge needs to physically see some paperwork or something, which seems ludicrous since in all actuality it's all of a handful of keypresses and mouse clicks needed. And of course, coughing up a fortune for all of this arbitrary red tape to unspool.
Doesn't really bother me though, that part. I've found that's the greatest benefit to having painfully dragged my way out of debt. DESPITE being laid off for a year amongst other expenses, I might add (mildly kinda proud of it :) )... receiving a bill no longer phases me. 700 dollars? Oh well. I have no money, but I have no debt, and I know how to climb out of debt. Eat boiled cabbage and purchase only what's required for physical survival. So I lose 700 dollars, I'm still in the process of digging upwards as fast as I can anyway. A little more dirt on top is just another few shovelfulls at this point.
To be honest, I almost need help learning how to spend money again. I've been keeping myself in 'survival mode' for the better part of a year now, and it's kinda hard to pull myself out of it. And y'know, lawyer fees don't exactly help, just slows ya down and makes you angry. And that rage can be funnelled into more useful things as fuel. It's all about association.
And y'know what all that anger associates with? The monetary system, in all its broken, corrupt, mathematically unsustainable glory. All (for the most part, as with everything) currencies on Earth are more or less intrinsically and inescapably tied to the USD, which is unbacked by gold or anything of intrinsic value at this point, and is on a collision course with collapse. Nobody talks about it, but everyone knows it. The housing market? Still a bubble. Energy? Don't get me started on crude oil and gas. The stock market? Oooooh, I'll bet a LOT of people are shitting themselves over the chaos happening in that department after the whole United Kingdom bailing on the EU Brexit thing. Looooootta really big dominoes are falling these days.
Lol, and then there's the laughable state of the US presidential election. People riot at rallies, corruption is rampant, money is being flushed down the toilet as fast as possibly by politics and the military. Politicans are asked scripted questions and give scripted answers, and nobody it seems points to the GIANT MOTHERFUCKING ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, that being economic inequality, at least in an "official" capacity. I don't know how much people realize it, but the *only* thing that those in power care about is that the "officially" documented accounts of events matter, and that the lives of peasants is more or less meaningless to them.
Honestly, how there hasn't been outright rebellion or bank runs is beyond me. Do people LIKE having stagnant wages for decades while paying more and more for food and shelter? Countless thousands starve while begging for paid labour, while others are working overtime with reduced staff during a hiring freeze because the company 'can't take on any new employees right now'.
IT'S BECAUSE OF THE GODAWFUL, BROKEN-ASS ECONOMY, YOU DUMB FUCKS!
The 'dumb fucks' part of course referring to those running the companies that are deciding that profits haven't been *quite* high enough that quarter to warrant a single new employee.
And at the EXACT SAME TIME, they cling to obsolete technology and methods that should have been changed decades ago, for some bizarre reason that I can't even begin to fathom. Like seriously, eliminating physical paperwork and switching to e-ink for document perusal (rather than miles of filing cabinets full of old, musty paper and ink) would save IMMENSE amounts of money, laying off half of the staff doing redundant and pointless jobs (and of course all of the people hired to make sure those particular peasants are doing their redundant, pointless job properly, and the managers for all of these pointless, redundant positions) and hiring programmers to implement scanning systems using standardized forms would cut INSANE amounts of overhead and make the company more profit than it could possibly fathom.
But they don't. Mustn't see profits drop for even a SINGLE quarter if it can be helped in any way, shape, or form. Shut down for a solid year, completely re-build the inner workings from the ground-up, and spend the billions of dollars stored in the worthless and overinflated stock market to upgrade the company into the new era of technology and be a leader in... whatever industry you're in? Pfft, never. Profit before progress is the name of the game for the upper caste.
So yeah, since all economic, mathematical, and historical data point directly at ecomomic collapse, I'm just kinda hunkering down in survival mode until then, and at that point seeing what adventures come my way. And I hope people are ready for it, because there's going to be a whooooooole lot of adventures for a little of everyone down the road.
Interesting time to be alive. Hope you enjoy watching the upcoming epic trainwreck of our times :)
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Hey all! There's been a pretty healthy helping of changes in my life as of late, so figured I'd give a bit of an update. Also, hanging out in green-groundy area for a change, so I can pretend that I have grass in this cavernous, pixellated planet.
The big one is that I came out as transgender at work, and it's all good. I basically just... showed up on Monday in womens clothing, my bra, and light makeup. Aaaand yeah, business as usual, about the best I could have asked for. Nothing!
So I'm just gonna keep going to work fully as Tannis now. Got a post-it note up to let people know the name and pronouns, simple statement or two. This'll also simplify when I legally change my name to Tannis in a bit.
And that's only waiting until the divorce paperwork finishes up, which takes forever. That's all fine and amicable, and I'm poised for an adventure in my life. Now I watch and listen for what adventures come my way.
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Comics, ideas, Kabutroid, and other custom content owned by KatieLynne Jackson. I'm pretty easygoing, and really don't mind all that much if you make content based on my content and stuff. Just don't go impersonating me and we're cool.
