The gym, zinc oxide, & THE WOLFMAN

My parents are gym-attending rock stars this week. On Monday and Tuesday they went with me at 8am, two mornings in a row. And on Tuesday morning, on our way out of the gym, my mom and dad stopped by the front counter to get a new parking sticker voucher thingamabop for their car window.

Low and behold, the manager had arrived. The poor, notorious manager who, for months now, I've been trying to get up the nerve to explain my situation to him in a nutshell, enough to basically convey the nitty gritty that I'm scaring the shit out of members in the womens locker room, I'm scared in the mens, that other androgynous members are having a very similar problem, and to ask the question, "Do you have an extra bathroom somewhere?".

I'll get there, but in the meantime I've been entering the mens locker room with my pops in the morning - but only have the nerve to travel far enough to get to the sinks and bathroom stalls. The first time I was terrified. My heart raced. The dynamic is a bit different because I've been attending this gym pre-transition, and I felt worried that a regular would recognize me and say something.

The second time? Heart didn't race, but there was a guy standing butt-naked at the sink brushing his teeth. Which, honestly, is the closest I've ever been in my entire life to seeing a butt-naked guy in person. Almost traumatizing.

Then the third time? Complete calm. No problems. And eventually, when I feel ready, I'll delve deeper. Deep enough to stuff my bag into a locker, hang my jacket up and bolt out. And after that? Maybe, just maybe, deep enough to use a little stall to change into my gym outfit. OoOOo!

Ahem, but enough of that projection-of-gym-future side tangent and back to my parents corresponding with the manager Tuesday morning. The manager said to my mom, "I haven't seen you guys in a while!", to which she replied, "I have been sick for a while now," then motioning towards me, "but he has been a pest about getting me to come back."

The manager looked clearly confused, knowing me as "she" for about two years now, but after a brief pause he replied, "Well good! I'm glad to see you guys back here!"

He handled it really well. My mom outed me to him in a way that felt much more comfortable to me - just in passing, no big deal, not an issue.

On the physical front, things are going well! I've been transitioning for 14 months now; since December 12th, 2009. My legs, thighs, and bum are smaller and more muscular than they've ever been. The rest of me is becoming harder and more muscly while my stomach remains a consistent degree of rotund and harrier than it was pre-transition. I'm feeling stable mood-wise and my skin feels significantly rougher than it ever has, especially on my face. I've developed multiple small red bumps on my upper arms, which almost look like rashes of some sort, but may just be normal or acne or, not sure what. They don't itch or bother me, so I'm not worried.

With the hormones raging and my skin texture changing so dramatically, even after using a moisturizer my skin ends up feeling dry and flaky; and I have acne in places I've never experienced it before, in ways that are nasty and brutal and angry (instead of just black heads or white heads, now they're forming into papules and postules). Primarily under my jaw line. Hawt!

So now I'm completely obsessed with figuring out what to do about this unprecedented emergence of wonderous "bacne" and "popules" and "postules" and yada yada, and stumbled across acne.org, which strikes me as probably effective and credible seeing as the feller who runs it says stuff like, "I used to recommend Olay Complete for Sensitive Skin, but Olay switched the active ingredient from zinc oxide to avobenzone in July, 2009." - did he just mention zinc oxide vs. avobenzone?

Seeing as I'm already a huge fan of old school zinc oxide, sold!

I'm going to try out the regime he has on there, see if it works. I don't see why it wouldn't. Looks plausible enough to me. Wee acne! Fun! Oh the perks of transition.

p.s. on a non-trans-related note, The Wolfman comes out this Friday! So excited! If you've ever seen An American Werewolf In London, the makeup artist from that film, Rick Baker, did the makeup for The Wolfman. I'm obsessed with the frickin' werewolves. So obsessed that my favorite blog ever is Werewolf News. Seriously. Adding Rick Baker to the mix just, ... irresistable.