#endee

"The marble index of a mind forever. Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone. Wordsworth."

"What?"

"Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest thing in the solar system. If the human eye could see it, it would appear two and a half times wider in the sky than the sun does."

"I knew that," she said, irrationally annoyed.

"Quotation is. Easy. Speech is. Not."

"Don't speak, then."

"Trying. To communicate!"

She shrugged. "So go ahead—communicate."

Silence. Then, "What does. This. Sound like?"

"What does what sound like?"

"Io is a sulfur-rich, iron-cored moon in a circular orbit around Jupiter. What does this. Sound like? Tidal forces from Jupiter and Ganymede pull and squeeze Io sufficiently to melt Tartarus, its sub-surface sulfur ocean. Tartarus vents its excess energy with sulfur and sulfur dioxide volcanoes. What does. This sound like? Io's metallic core generates a magnetic field which punches a hole in Jupiter's magnetosphere, and also creates a high-energy ion flux tube connecting its own poles with the north and south poles of Jupiter. What. Does this sound like? Io sweeps up and absorbs all the electrons in the million-volt range. Its volcanoes pump out sulfur dioxide; its magnetic field breaks down a percentage of that into sulfur and oxygen ions; and these ions are pumped into the hole punched in the magnetosphere, creating a rotating field commonly called the Io torus. What does this sound like? Torus. Flux tube. Magnetosphere. Volcanoes. Sulfur ions. Molten ocean. Tidal heating. Circular orbit. What does this sound like?"

Against her will, Martha had found herself first listening, then intrigued, and finally involved. It was like a riddle or a word puzzle. There was a right answer to the question. Burton or Hols would have gotten it immediately. Martha had to think it through.

There was a faint hum of the radio's carrier beam. A patient, waiting noise.

At last, she cautiously said, "It sounds like a machine."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Machine. Yes. Am machine. Am machine. Am machine. Yes. Yes. Machine. Yes."

"Wait. You're saying that Io is a machine? That you're a machine? That you're Io?"

"Sulfur is triboelectric. Sledge picks up charges. Burton's brain is intact. Language is data. Radio is medium. Am machine."

"I don't believe you."

the longer i stay on track with my HRT, the more comfortable i've been finding myself in certain aspects of genderfluidity

i have a physical ideal in mind that i'm working toward, but the way that i present my gender to others fluctuates wildly. my gender doesn't fluctuate, but my presentation does, if that makes sense?

i suspect it may be tied into my bipolar-adhd diagnosis, but at the same time, i'm largely at peace with it? i've gone back and forth for twenty years of my life whether my gender identity exhibits enough fluidity to be considered as such, but with time, i've only been feeling more like it's a solid descriptor for me

which, the whole point of this ramble, is that my gender presentation fluctuations in the past year have increasingly included physiological variation. binder, no binder, prosthetic bust... my concept of whether my gender dysphoria and manifestation of gender identity might be disordered isn't that it causes me specific, constant distress. but i also don't know whether it should be considered classically disordered because it is likely to cause significant social disturbances, were i to exhibit this level of "shapeshifting" on a daily basis while employed

basically. i don't know just to what degree i need to commit to bringing only a single "concept" of myself to my psych appointments, or whether to let it all hang out, as it were, and let them make the call. on the one hand, i do need help reconciling with the notion that society probably requires me to pick a single public version of myself in order to let me function within it. but on the other, my case manager and psychiatrist are probably not LGBT-trained and i may get my genderfluidity treated as something that it very much isn't

the average person is probably not psychosocially equipped to encounter an individual who looks like a goth twink one day, then the very next day they are unironically serving a dolly parton grade hourglass figure, all the while not signaling that they wish to be treated or referred to any differently

i know that whole "the version of me you've created in your head isn't my responsibility" thing

American Auto Trail-Ozark Trail/Route 66 (Glenrio to San Jon NM) https://youtu.be/3bEWgVZsRPw This travel route explores the old route of U.S. Highway 66 and the designation’s predecessor, the Ozark Trails auto trail.

me: “oh i’ll just bookmark this window’s set of tabs in a folder. that way i’ll have them when i finally do use what’s open in them”

me: gets new computer, and opts to use firefox exclusively, so my chrome bookmarks don’t translate (i saved them but chrome saved them as HTML and i am not bright)

me: it’s been a month since i got this laptop and i have not once needed any bookmarks i saved