Can I make a little confession here? Yesterday, when I was doing laundry, I put on a skirt so I could wash my pants, and I could feel tension leave my body as I walked around my house in the skirt. I could feel my blood pressure drop, and it felt like a breath I hadnt even realized I was holding in was escaping, taking with it a lot of my stress.

Weird, no?

Ladies, gentlemen, and those who think of themselves as both or neither, I wish to have your attention for a few moments, so that I can publically sing the praises of a talented writer, a tireless champion of both the trans community and of victims of sexual abuse, and a great friend of mine, miss Andrea DiMaggio.

Small baby steps, this is how I'm doing it.

Heyo, your friendly neighborhood Jenn here. I wanted to bend your ear a bit, if i could. I love my readers very much. I love every kudo (I'm addicted to checking) and every comment. I try to pm everyone who comments, if i missed you I'm very sorry. More than a few folks here at BCTS have pointed out I'm kind of a "Debbie downer" when I write. I am working on it, I really am. But on occasion my poison pen manages to produce something not so depressing.

I got a little bit of extra money this month, and I think rather than just blowing it on an extra trip to McDonalds or whatever, I'm going to set it aside and make a "Dorothy fund" account. Then, whenever I can, I'll add to it, and hopefully, when I'm ready to move forward with a name change, I'll have enough put aside to cover the costs.

I find myself being terribly jealous of my friend Katie She's not been out of the closet that long, and already she looks better than I do, and has a boyfriend besides ...

Well, I got good news at work last night. My transfer has been approved, and Feb. 15 is going to be my last day at my current site, and then I will get to move to a site much closer to where I live. My car will thank me, as will my wallet ...

I don’t know why, but sometimes I feel dishonest somehow for posting stories on this site. It’s hard to explain, but here it goes. I’m not transitioning, nor do I have any plans to transition from male to female in the near future, but sometimes I feel that the desire to transition is some kind of unwritten prerequisite for posting on a site that’s a friendly place to read and write TG fiction.

I started writing an unauthorized autobiography.

I had a tough session in group therapy today. One of the women talked about having been given electroshock treatment, and she started crying talking about how it made her lose memory.

Alright like the title says, I've been a bad girl. Before the end of the year, some of you might remember me posting about my walking. I was doing four miles a day and was getting close to a fifteen minute mile. I know, I know some of you more healthy people can run four miles in twenty minutes. But for me this is huge, I had it a stretch goal to be running by March I think.

I started on a new diet today, or at least a new plan for how I will eat.

My daughter has finally had an MRI scan. The good news - she doesn't have MS. The bad news - she has a tumour on the top of her spine which is causing the symptoms of muscle weakness, loss of coordination, tremor etc. She's on the urgent list for surgery at the University of Wales Hospital, Cardiff.

We have heavy snow forecast for tonight & tomorrow, so it looks as if I won't be able to get to see her this weekend.

Life's a bitch...

I used to keep a secret, and yesterday I kept a secret.

They were sort of the same secret - That I'm transgender, but how I feel about it is totally different.

Soooo, I'm sitting here in front of my computer, reading some things, and I read about the struggles of some of the girls here.

I know I'm not the first to think about this, but it's new to me.

Well, I'm going to confess something, and every non-trans woman and transitioned trans woman will have the right to laugh at me for it.

I'm struggling with the hormones.

So the post Christmas/New Year period is over and we all return to normal - um, not quite. My cough remains and my energy levels are still well down on my usual, possibly not helped by working silly hours.

Last week my van broke while I was delivering Sunday's paper. Not a good thing to happen, but what followed was even worse (See JennC I used the right one). Someone from another center came to help me and he added to my frustration by driving extremely slow and talking negative the whole time.

Well, Kylie's friend Jade got a hold of me to yell at me for failing Kylie. Can't say much. She's right. I could have done more. But she's also wrong. In the end, only Kylie could have made the choice to not give up. Nothing we said or did would have made as much of a difference as her having the will to live. Of course knowing that doesnt make me feel any less guilty....

Well, its possible that something good has come out of what I've been posting about my friend Kylie. A friend got a hold of me, and confessed to having struggled with suicidal thoughts over last weekend, and we talked for a long time, and I told her to go to the hospital even if the feeling had passed. She said she would, and thanked me for being there.

Does that balance the scales of my failure with Kylie? No. But if she follows through, I'll feel a little better about it.

Went to my 2nd all day group session at the Grey Nuns Hospital today, and it was really good. One of the more interesting things was an exercise in grounding where we each took a piece fabric and focused on it, looking at the color, any patterns, how it felt to touch it, even what it smelled like.

It was a very interesting exercise, and I might use it in the future when I'm having a flashback....

I do apologize for doing this. I know that a few months ago I changed my nickname from Little Katie to K.T. Leone. I didn't know that my life was going to spiral into control (see what I did there?) and that I would actually transition and be so immersed into being me so quickly. I have decided, that since I am so fully committed to being the real me that it is time to drop the damn initials. At first, K.T. was a clever way to make people say Katie anyway but gave me an out. If I introduced to myself to someone as Katie and they gave me a sideways look I could counter with ...

As if dealing with my friend Kylie's apparent decision to kill herself wasnt enough stress, things are piling up around here.