#some good things

HELL! YES! CONGRATS!

Lemme think, lemme think. A common one is to take periodic recordings of your voice; the traditional line is "This is my voice n [days/weeks/months/etc] on T" so you have a chronological progression. But I'm going to be square with you, there won't likely be ay changes until right around the 3-month mark, so if you're going this route I'd recommend sticking to weekly recordings instead of daily, at least until your voice starts cracking.

Another fun thing is to host a little "late gender reveal" party with some close friends and get a cake or cupcakes with blue (or green, or purple, or whatever gender-indicating color of your choice) icing with "It's A Boy!" (or "It's An Enby!" or whatever suits you best) on it/them to share. Even better if you can rope a friend into cohosting.

Another idea, along the lines of the voice recordings, is weekly selfies from roughly the same angle so you can see the changes in your face over time — the way T changes your jawline, brow, and hair growth. Then after, say, a year, you can make a gif of them for yourself! :D

In terms of words of wisdom: if you're like most guys, the change in your body's scent might bother you at first, but this will become much easier to live with over time — it might even become pleasant. >_> But, for that hypothetical time frame, dye-free antiseptic skin cleanser is going to be your best friend. When regular deoderants and body soaps don't cut the smell, that stuff absolutely will. Just give it about 15 seconds of lather before rinsing and that smell will be GONE.

Also, about 3-6 months in you might start to notice whatever room you're in feels real dam hot all of a sudden. This'll be one of three things: the fact that testosterone moves your comfort zone of temperatures down a few (or many, in some cases) degrees, a hot flash due to the HRT suppressing estrogen and simulating perimenopause, or both at the same time. But hey, this means that if you have an office job, you won't be freezing all the time! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

The hot flashes eventually taper off to nothing, but if you get a total hysterectomy at some point (as in, ovaries removed too), they will come back stronger as your E levels bottom out. This may range from "huh. I guess that's happening" to "omfg I need an ice bath" in severity, but if you're on T for a year+ before the spay, chances are good that they won't be too bad. Those eventually go away completely.

Also: if you're going to be taking injections, an emptied & rinsed-out laundry detergent bottle makes a GREAT sharps box. One of the big ones will last you a couple years, and when you're done with it, you just tape it up, write "SHARPS" on each side, and huck it in the trash — PROVIDED that your local laws allow that. Texas is still a legal wilderness, we just kinda do whatever here, but your area might have stricter guidelines on how to dispose of sharps. Check with your HRT provider or local health administration to be sure!

Also: BD Precision Glide Luer-Lok needles are the best I've ever used. Wonderfully sharp (thus easier & less painful to use), secure once twisted on, and a box of 100 will last you almost 2 years if you inject weekly. I'm sure your prescriber has already told you, but you're gonna want to draw with an 18ga or 20ga needle and then switch to like a 25ga to give yourself the injection. Each box should run you about $20 plus shipping from someplace like allegromedical.com. You don't need a prescription to buy them, at least not in the US.

I also really like BD Luer-Lok General Use Disposable Syringes in the 1 mL model; they're slim so it's easy to draw the right amount, and they're very clear so they're easy to read. Don't do what I did back in '22 and accidentally order 10 CC (10 mL) barrels instead.

Petak 21:00 + Detail (Pt2) ✨

kim reassuring me when I puked all over my shoes, twice

I finished the game with something like Communist: 14 and ultraliberal: 13, so at the end of the game Kim was like "he's a TOTAL communist, but he also respects the hustle, no idea how he reconciles that but-"

Kim saying that I should get a hobby in gardening because of my giant yellow gardening gloves C: