Where did the time go? It seems just yesterday was the middle of summer still. OK... not really.

Though this year does, in turns, feel like it went by awfully fast, but that an awful lot happened.

Well... the situation at home has pretty well stagnated. Every time I try to push any further, my mother about bites my head off and the heads of anyone who she feels is supporting me too much.

I've decided to move out. First, because I want to. Second. Because I want to. Third... ;)

OK, real reason out of the way, some of the rationalizations:

First, where I'm moving to will be a ten minute relaxed walk from where I clock in for work. Five if I power walk. Maybe fifteen if we have a nasty snow the night before and I need to shovel my way to work, well, more like plow. Sit the shovel in front of me and, with both arms locked forward so my legs do all the work, just walk. So I want to be closer to work.

Second, I'm feeling more and more repressed by having to dress and act "somewhere between" at home in order to keep my mother tame. If I have to try to repress myself to be around my mother, then I at least don't want that to be all the time I'm not at work. It's bad enough I'm going to have to keep presenting male at church until I can figure out a way to present fully female and run off north where no one knows the old me well enough to care. Things in the way of that: voice, though I think I'm getting somewhere on that, and hair, both of the facial and the body varieties. So I really want more freedom to be myself.

Third, I want more room. I'm trying to cram all my stuff into a tiny little bedroom, well, ok, so it IS almost master-sized... but I have more stuff than I have wall and floor space to put furniture to organize it all, so I -REALLY- want more room.

So there we go, the three "I want to" in their fully rationalized forms.

The other day when I got home from work she and dad were in the basement and she called up the stairs my male name and "is that you?" Instead of answering immediately, I go down there to talk. She'd texted me just as I was clocking out from work if I wanted a beat up old 20th century relic called an "entertainment center". This is the two thousand teens, jeesh. Only people who use those relics are still using CRT televisions. They take up too much space when a simple table or small shelving unit would suffice for the receivers and stb's and dvd/blu-ray players and game systems. The TV itself you wall mount, and just cover up the holes later.

Anyways, she takes offense to my referring to entertainment centers and CRT TV's as "relics", from which point she goes off to talking about how I'm going to afford everything and stuff to do with my transition. Electrolysis in specific comes up, and she's all I don't know how you're going to afford it, it's expensive, and I'm like, yes, but that's my problem. And dad backs me up on that, and she's then like "and it better be just his problem."

I don't see that it should matter to her if my father decides to help me transition, or help me with my apartment, or anything else with his money. Both my parents work. Both have their own independent incomes. I never hear dad making any stipulations of what mom should do or not do with hers. They both help cover the bills, and, after that, it's their money. Much of dad's does go to helping various of his children, what of it? It's a better use for it than many things he could be spending it on.

Anyways... At work the end of the leaves is finally almost in sight... well, the ones that aren't clinging desperately to their trees despite being long dead and black and shriveled. These desperate nuisances are going to wait till we get our first really heavy snow, so that they can make that first heavy snow really nasty looking.

Once I have the last of the really massive piles out of the way, I'll be spending the days raking out fields one by one. I figure, if uninterrupted, except for the two largest fields which each would take at least two or three days, the rest of them I ought to be able to do a field a day. Plenty to keep me busy until spring when we have several major projects to tackle. When there's too much snow on the ground to do much raking, I'll probably find some broken fenceline to temporarily mend or something. Real fixes will have to wait until summer when the ground thaws out enough to dig new posts, several have rotted out. That, and of course, anything the girls in the office can come up with. They figure on days when it actually snows and puts us all out on snow removal, the maintenance guys will be out on plow trucks all day, so they'll quite likely have me start picking up some of the slack on indoor maintenance duties.

I still haven't really found time to do much writing, my reading is also a little shortened, but we'll see if I can rectify that at all once I have my own place... I'm hoping that I won't be as stressed out.

As for my road to transition... well, with getting an apartment, the money I might've used each month towards transition costs will now be going towards rent and utilities... So, until I can get a second part time job (and really really kill my free time), most of my plans in that regard will have to be put on hold... except for the herbal cocktail of course. I'll squeeze that out of my budget if it kills me.

Of course, no end-of-the year would be complete without a Silly Motorists story! This is, after all, the absolute worst time of the year when it comes to that particular beast.

Interestingly, between thanksgiving till last night, things had actually been fairly tame on the road. Last night though... Attempted vehicular homicide was committed directly against me three times on the way home from work, and against those in my vicinity at least a dozen times.

Each time, there'd be a squealing of brakes, a few screamed epithets, and then the car would accelerate madly to do it all again. I mean, honestly? Do those people really think such behavior is going to do them any good? Hopefully sanity will be returned by Tuesday when I return to work. Or at least what passes for sanity on the road around here.

Abigail Drew.