Sorry, you all should know by now that I can never resist a good bit of linguistic fun. I consider the Japanese phrase that roughly equals the English "Long time no see" much more linguistically pleasing. But I'm strange.

Doing a quick study of the Japanese phraseology reveals some interesting things. First, "desu ne", "desu" is a common sentence ending which is a "to be" copula (for those who don't know linguistics: see Wikipedia's article, and while in English, our copula is also a verb "be", this is not so in Japanese (though it once was...), and in fact, you can directly link either a noun or a verb, conjugated or not, to the Japanese copula! Nifty. There's two other forms of the Japanese "be" copula, one of which can't be linked directly to a verb and is considered rude - "da". "Desu" is the present tense, and "deshita" is the past tense. Further, the Japanese also have an existence verb! "Aru/iru". So really, in my opinion, Japanese can be far far more... refined... in its choice of how to describe existence.

The other part of the ending was "ne". This is a Japanese particle of a very special kind, not found in many western languages. The western solution to the problem addressed by ending particles is punctuation when written, and a change in timbre in speaking, the second of which the Japanese also do. Anyways, you can refer to Wikipedia's article for more on all kinds of Japanese particles, but I'll tell you what "ne" does in this particular phrase. It poses a reflective question of agreement. Like "eh?" for you Canuck's, or "non?" for you Spaniards, or even "no?" for some of the English speakers of the world. Pure poetry. Without even trying.

Now for the primary word itself. "Ohisashiburi". "O-" is a politeness prefix in Japanese. You can refer to Wikipedia's article on such and other fun tidbits about how the Japanese use linguistics to establish pecking order. "Hisashiburi" is the more polite of two words that mean almost the same thing, "shibaraku" being the other. "Hisashiburi" is a "na/no" adjective meaning "it's been a while" or "a long time". "Shibaraku" is an adverb most of time and a "no" adjective some of the time. Adverbs are often considered rude in Japanese, and generally always have a more polite adjective meaning something similar. In this case, "shibaraku" takes the distance out of the phrase and it becomes a more direct "it's been a long time".

So, putting this all together, I really said, in a polite and reflective way, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

I just love that phrase, linguistically.

Anyhoo, now that I've firmly reestablished just how kooky I am, it has, hasn't it? At least, since the last time I wrote in my diary.

Not sure why I haven't been writing, I have millions of excuses I've been telling myself, but none of them are really quite right. I guess I just haven't felt like it. For whatever reason.

So... It's been three weeks. The Saturday immediately following my last diary entry was the first of a two-weekend span of going over my diary thus far with my parents. The reactions were pretty well what I was expecting. Dad "got it", while mom continued to hide behind excuses. At various points in the discussion, something would raise her hackles, and at one particular point, one of my excuses about not writing came up - protecting my mother from things she's not quite ready to handle yet. She took offense to this, despite every evidence for anyone other than herself to see that she is not ready to handle ANY of this right now, let alone some of my deepest thoughts that I've been keeping bottled, or in comments and forum posts sprinkled across the rest of the site, rather than posting all together in my own blog entries.

Dad then said something to the effect of talking about it later - without mom around... Well... dad shoulda oughta have known better. Mom became outright irate over this...

Anyways, I'm really not sure what to do with her, she seems to go in waves, occasionally appearing to be coping and handling things reasonably well, and at other times revealing just how much turmoil she's in. She's still trying to link this to homosexuality. She's been reading books by Chaz Bono back when he was still Chastity and she thought she was a butch lesbian... And trying to link the activities and mindsets of the homosexuals Chaz wrote about with transsexuals in general, and me in particular. Anyone care to suggest me a book or few to get her that might possibly be able to... attenuate the poison she's taking in from her own selection?

I'm going to be looking into seriously starting the electrolysis process soon, the first Saturday I can possibly get a session with Mary Ann - refer to this forum post if you wish to know more on that subject.

When I told mom what I was doing, her first reaction was a negative one, again. "I hope you have enough money," she said nastily, implying that there was absolutely no way I ought to be able to afford to get this done. She further implied that my particular beard is going to be particularly nasty to do. I dunno about that, it's mostly a neck and chin beard. Thin sideburns, sparse cheek beard, almost no mustache either above or below the lip. But boy howdy do I have some serious hair starting right at my chin line and going all the way down my neck. In the back, there's also almost no verge between my scalp line and my back hair, my back hair goes straight up my neck to my scalp. I'm still early on the changed hormone balance stuff, so who knows what that might do over time. I'm going to be concentrating first on my beard. Since I know there's only one way that's going away. Maybe a neck and chin beard is the nastiest to do, I suppose I wouldn't really know.

Work is getting interesting... The guys are OK. My boss seems to actually like me more since I've come out to her. The heavier of the two office ladies is acting pretty much like nothing has changed. Whether she knows or not, I wouldn't know by her behavior, though I highly suspect that my status is the worst kept secret in the history of poorly kept secrets. The thinner of the two though... She's always been of the more dominant personality type, and whenever the boss is away, leaving her in charge, she tends to try to micro-manage everything. She was bad enough before. Now though, every single time she sees me she's acting as though there's no way in hell I should possibly have any idea what I should be doing and that she knows better than me about my job. I'd like to see her do my job even half as well. Should be an interesting bit of comedy routine, I suspect.

The other day it was a particularly windy day. The winds were somewhat variable, but mostly going straight north from the south. Occasional strong gusts in any odd direction. These winds were absolutely PERFECT for piling up leaves in certain areas on property to make them easier to get up later, when it wasn't so windy. They were horrible for what she thought I should be doing - clearing walkways and entries. About 2 hours before my shift is up she asks me how long ago we did the "dog shit cans" (her words). I responded I didn't know, and I'd ask my brother. He told me Monday, so I responded back to him that I'd go around and do a quick run around property for them. That I didn't think they'd need done, but that if it'd make "miss pms" happy... I'm trying to be as civil with her as possible in her presence, but she's really aggravating me on this particular day. I mean, honestly. A PERFECT day for doing a task that's normally frustrating as all get-out, and she makes a point of interrupting this task as often as she possibly can. Anyways, about an hour before my shift should've been up, she comes up to me and is all huffy about how what I'm doing is pointless and on and on and how would I like to go home early, except posed as, not a question, but a very strong suggestion. I said "not really" in as non-committal a manner as possible, trying to avoid the coming conflict that I knew was coming. She huffed "I'm going to call Jackie and ask if you can leave early today." Well, that was that, I knew I wasn't going to be permitted to accomplish anything else that day. I think I may have at that point gotten just a little huffy back... Can you blame me?

The next day I'm told in no uncertain terms that I'd given her lip and that there'd be consequences if it happened again. I hate workplace politics. Why can't people just do their job and let other people just do their job? Is it really so hard to do? I would never ever think to try to tell the office ladies how to sell an apartment. Now, when she's left in charge, I don't mind a little intelligent suggestion on things I might do, or even telling me straight up to do something not actually on my job description... But when you're telling me to do things counter-intuitive and directly related to my job, which, c'mon, it's MY job, I'd think I know what I'm doing here...

I like my boss. She understands my job just as well as she understands her job, and the office ladies jobs, and she knows I know what I'm doing. She tells me what she'd like done, she doesn't necessarily tell me exactly when to do them, which gives me some lee-way on deciding what is likely to actually be able to be reasonably accomplished and doing that task first. She also lets me handle how I do them - as long as I do them. Perfect boss-employee relationship.

There's been some talk that she might permanently leave the property and become purely upper management over all the properties - which she already does, in addition to managing the property I primarily work at... Part of why she's able to ship "her" grounds keepers to the other properties when their own are slacking too much. If this occurs, the thinner of the two office ladies would become property manager... And I'll tender my resignation just as soon as that occurs, whether or not I find another job. I cannot and will not work for an uppity micro-manager who thinks they know best when they don't even know jack.

I try to be nice, I try to avoid conflict, I don't WANT to tell other people that, no, in fact, I DO know better... But when enough is enough... Well, I tend to get snappy under pressure. I'm like a dormant atomic bomb, just waiting for the right button to be pushed...

Our landscaping crew's been slacking off all year. They finally got kicked off property officially on Thursday. Yesterday, the new crew came on property and it was like a breath of fresh air. Their boss is also a great boss. If the complex gets handed off to the thinner office lady... Well, I'm going to begin trying to get in good with this guy so that I can make the job transition easy. Leave the complex, join his crew.

I bought a full suit of womens cut Underarmour recently as well as a new women's cut windbreaker. I'm going to need it. On Thursday I layered the way I normally do for a windy 50 degree high, and nearly froze to death, retreating to my dead zone to stave off the cold. Yesterday, I'd wised up and wore my Underarmour, a uniform t-shirt and women's black Dickie's uniform pants, my new windbreaker, and my crappy old one to protect the new one from the job hazards. And of course, large women's work gloves over the Underarmour gloves to protect those from job hazards. I was comfortable all day.

Well ladies... May we all bid a fond farewell to the one bit of masculinity I will dearly miss?

Thank you for your patience in my rambling, again,

Abigail Drew.