Darkoshi

Along with my philtrum looking different than it used to, the dark hairs on my upper lip are more prominent than in the past. Not enough to actually be a mustache, but enough to vaguely look like one. Doesn't bother me, but also doesn't look as good as...

I'm surprised how good the mustaches look on the women in this video. And how well the video imparts the feeling of horror at having one's mustache cut off against one's will.



Video title: LITTLE BIG - MOUSTACHE (feat. NETTA) (Official Music Video)
Posted by: Little Big
Date posted: Aug 6, 2021



This is the first Little Big video I came across; it's quite *something*:
LITTLE BIG - GIVE ME YOUR MONEY (feat. TOMMY CASH)
With the current Russia situation and the war in Ukraine, I'm uncomfortable embedding that video, so only posting the link.

The band, though from Russia, has spoken out against the war and per their Wikipedia page, relocated to the U.S.

“Stop war in Ukraine” — Russia’s Little Big release “Generation Cancellation” and leave the country



Video title: LITTLE BIG – GENERATION CANCELLATION (Official Music Video)
Posted by: Little Big
Date posted: Jun 24, 2022

I got my taxes done.

I made a pie with a chocolate filling. It's somewhat gooey, not what I was expecting from the photo on the box. But it's actually good, even though it also tastes oddly like it contains grape syrup mixed in with the chocolate. Based on the ingredients list, I can't imagine why. It contains alkalized cocoa, and the link I posted before indicates that the non-alkalized sort is the kind that's more likely to taste "fruity".

I also made some Waldmeister Goetterspeise which is a German jello with a unique flavor not found in the U.S. My aunt used to make it for me as a kid (with vanilla sauce on top!), and I still like it. The flavor isn't as intense as I remembered though.

I trimmed my hair a bit. It was tickling the back of my neck too much a few days ago. My torso gets itchy sometimes. When I scratch, the skin gets pinkish red, and small itchy bumps, widely scattered, appear. When I stop scratching, it goes away. I haven't figured out a cause. It's been happening for a few years now. (Of course, having written "torso" there, now a few spots on my arms and legs started itching.)

I'm over my cold, but still have a lot of phlegm. That always used to be the one of the worst parts of a cold, the weeks and weeks of snot that would only slowly diminish back to normal levels. So I did neti today for the first time in possibly 5 years. I stopped using neti around then, after reading warnings against doing neti with unsterile tap water. Well, I used tap water today, like I used to. Anything else is too much trouble. But after reading the warnings again, I may forgo the whole thing for another 5 years.

I used LJSec to delete my old protected posts from LJ, as that was something that had been on my to-do list for a while. There may not be much point in having done it, but at least it is off my list now. First, I did another import of all entries & comments from LJ over to DW, as well as a few backups of both my LJ and DW (with LJArchive), to make sure I wouldn't lose anything. The only problem with LJArchive is that imported comments don't show up with the user's LJ name like it does on the Dreamwidth pages, but rather with a generic ext_#### ID. If I have time someday, I'd like to see if I can update the utility to fix that.

A few weeks ago, I cancelled my Netflix subscription, as I was using it so rarely. Qiao has another Netflix account anyway, which I can use when I want to. He also has an Amazon Prime account for watching videos.

Last week at work, I was able to find the cause of another problem, and fix it. Well, I probably fixed more than one problem, but the last one is the one I remember. It gives me such a rush, a good feeling, being able to discover what obscure thing is making the code not work right and how to fix it, when I still don't even understand what half of the rest of the code is meant to do. I was thinking, I've been working on this same general code base, though it has undergone many transfigurations, for the past 22 years. I could spend my whole *life* working on it, and I still wouldn't understand it all, especially because it is constantly being changed. That made me think for a moment that maybe I should leave this job, just so that *whole life* part wouldn't come true. Eh. But whatever, this code or some other code, what difference. Hmm. Coming up on the end of the quarter. Wonder if they will have layoffs.

I bought some dry shampoo powder to help deal with my hair being extra greasy lately. The ingredients include cocoa powder to make it less visible when used on dark hair. That sounded like a good idea at the time. I suppose it is, if you don't mind smelling cocoa all day long. But in retrospect, I'd prefer having my hair look a tad grayer (from using a light colored powder), to the constant smell of cocoa. Another drawback is the possibility of cocoa stains on my shirt collar or pillowcase.

One reason I bought the dry shampoo is that I thought a scented product would be more pleasant than plain cornstarch. The shampoo is scented nicely with essential oils. But now I'm not sure if that nice scent would distract/bother me too, even without the cocoa.

So now I'm trying plain cornstarch. I didn't have an empty spice bottle to put it in (to make application easier), so I'm instead using one of those small plastic bottles that toothpicks sometimes come in. It too has a perforated lid so that I can shake/sprinkle the powder out.

I've gained a bit of weight this last year. I've noticed a few of my pants having become uncomfortably snug. I don't like tight pants. I'm debating whether to dismiss it and simply not wear those pants anymore, versus trying to lose a few pounds... my fear is that I'll keep gaining more weight if I don't do something now. I'm not sure what, if anything, I've done differently this year than the others, to cause me to gain weight, other than spending more time doing office work and possibly less time exercising. I actually started off the year quite well, doing daily exercises again after a long hiatus, but when I work late, then I don't have time for exercising.

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My hair is too long and girly-looking. I started off the morning just wanting to cut it shorter, but after watching some videos of myself from prior years, now I'm sort of feeling like putting some blue streaks in it again too. But it's such a hassle to do. I'm not sure if my hair-bleach is still good.

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I want to finish taking down the christmas tree. I want to fix the sound problem on Forestfen's computer. I want to finish entering data into my mother-of-godzilla detailed financial spreadsheet, so that I can see the final numbers which will really not be very useful, but at least I'll be able to ponder the mystical numbers and be finished with it, so there, hah!

I want to watch various movies on Netflix which I've put into my instant-viewing queue.

I want to take off my shirt and use my flogger on myself in the yellow room, with the sun shining in, and me singing/humming to myself... I suppose I should do that before getting shredded bits of hair and bleach and blue dye all over myself. Somebody, tell the clouds to move away so that the sunshine comes back!

I dyed my hair with Special Effects deep purple hair color, without bleaching first. I read that this might make the hair look dark/black with purplish highlights. And it did turn out that way! The color is subtle but cool. I'm not sure if a photo would capture the purplishness. Hopefully it will last a while.

I want to cut my hair. The way it is now, it reminds me of how I had it for much of my adolescence, and it seems blah to me. I've been going through photos of me from the last decade to see which hairstyles look best on me.

In all the photos I really like, I had it very short (<1cm) on the sides and back.

The ones where it is that short on top too are good.
The ones where it is a few inches on top are good.
The ones where it was in-between those lengths on top, I don't much like.
The ones where it was long enough to just cover my eyes looked good, but I don't think I could stand that again.

Having the hair longer in a small part on the top-back part of my head, for a pony-tail, are good.

Having it an inch or so all over and bleached is not so great.
Having it like that, with the sides cut very short and dark, is good.

Blue is good. Green is not so good.

Today was the first day since I started growing my bangs out that my hair felt comfortable enough not to have to pin it back out of my face. In other words, it wasn't scratching my eyeballs or tickling my nose.

It sure is nice to be able to pull shirts over my head again, without it messing up the pins in my hair. And it looks much better without the pins.



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I can see the sun as it rises from the yellow room window.

(The sun below the horizon is a window reflection.)
It is surprising how fast the sun rises - on the day I took the above photo, the sun was only halfway over the horizon when I first looked out the window, and that is what I wanted to capture. But in the minute or so that it took me to get my camera from the other room, it had already risen all the way over the horizon, as can be seen in the photo.

I will take a photo every week or so until the solstice, so I can see how the sun moves along the horizon, and what the southernmost sunrise point is... Maybe I'll try to figure out where it should rise on the solstice, based on this data, and then see if I'm right or not.

Another thing I don't like about having long hair, is ending up with strands of hair in the sink, in the tub, on the floor, anytime I wash my hair or comb my hair or run my fingers through my hair...

I left my bathroom scale at FF's house because she uses it, so I haven't weighed myself in the past month. Usually, in the past, I did so every morning. So I wonder if my weight has remained the same, or gone up or down any. My pants still fit well, so I doubt it's gone up much, if any. I guess that means my weight is pretty stable, even without the effect that seeing my weight in the morning may have on me... That's something I've wondered occasionally, because if I notice my weight going up, I tend to get scared and feel like I should eat less. And vice-versa, if I notice my weight going down, I feel like I should eat more.

I was planning on buying myself a new scale, but maybe not having a scale would make it easier for me to gain a few pounds, which I sometimes feel like I should do. If I didn't notice my weight going up, by seeing it on the scale, I'd be less likely to fight it, consciously or not. But if my weight is stable as it is, apparently it's not going to go up on its own.

My back is feeling much better. I went to a chiropractor yesterday, and it did seem to help. My belief in chiropractors has been somewhat restored.

I may be getting my own place soon - if nothing untoward happens in the next few days. I've been trying not to jinx it, by not talking about it much.

My computer's been having start-up issues lately. It often reboots itself while loading Windows. I must research this.

I spoke briefly on the phone with my brother's old friend from high school. He is vegan too. I can't think of anyone else whom I've known in person, who is vegan. Oh. I guess my German aunt's former neighbor is too, based on some of the newsletters he forwards to Forestfen. So that is 2 vegans I know of. Out of all the people I have ever met. Sigh. Or maybe there have been more, and my memory is just bad.

My bangs are long enough that they bother me. I haven't decided whether to grow them out or cut them off... which might result in me cutting the rest of the hair on the top of my head short again, too. For now, I am keeping them out of my face with hairpins. I don't like the look of the hairpins in my hair, though. Perhaps I will find some other style that I like better. But I doubt there are any that are much better. Long hair is feminine-looking enough, and hairpins make it even worse.

So far, my list of BDSM limits has included no shaving of my armpits or legs.

From one perspective, having to shave my legs shouldn't really be such a big deal. I've never done it before, but I suppose I could learn, and it shouldn't really make much difference even though I'd no longer have my cute and precious never-before-shorn little leghairs. And even though I'd probably feel less good-looking with shaved stubble and bald legs.

The same thing could be said about shaving my armpits, although I do have another concern there. My armpit skin is sensitive, and I sometimes get a rash. When that happens, use of deodorant causes burning, itching, and further redness. It is inconvenient not being able to apply deodorant until the rash goes away. My concern is that shaving would cause me to get such rashes more often. But still, having no hairs in my armpits shouldn't be a big deal in general.

From a different perspective however, not shaving is an aspect of my gender identity. It is significant to me. I've never shaved those parts of my body. I am proud of having been able to express my gender identity by not following the female "norm" for this. Women usually shave those parts of their bodies; men usually don't. It never made sense to me as to why females should have to shave those parts, while men didn't. I am glad not to have been brainwashed into thinking that there's something bad about having these cute little hairs on my body.

Since I have a regular female body, when I am naked, this is one of the few things that distinguishes me from most other adult females. (Having unpierced ears is another). If I were to shave my legs and armpits like other women do, I'd look just like them. It would bother me. I'd feel that I had succumbed to the fallacious notion that females need to shave in order to be pretty. Or that I'd been forced into the negative role of playing the part of one of those women, just to please someone else.

Having a Dom want me to shave those parts of my body would also bother me, because it would tend to make me feel that he really did not understand my gender identity, and that he really viewed me as just another woman. I would feel that he were trying to transform me into the stereotypical sexual ideal of how a woman should look, even though I am not a woman but rather an androgyne. I would feel that he did not understand me, or truly respect me, or like me as I am and for who I am.

I do not have the same issues with shaving my pubic hair. That is not currently a limit. I've never done it before, but it is not something that I feel is connected to my gender identity. Shaving that part of my body, while not something I desire to do, would not bother me in the same way. Likewise, having my head shaved would not bother me either.

Another limit of mine is that a Dom will not have control over my hairstyle or hairlength. My hairstyle is also partially an aspect of my gender identity. It is not as significant to me as the shaving of legs and armpits, but having a very short hairstyle is another way of visibly distinguishing myself from most other females. In my first relationship with a Dom, I was not allowed to cut my hair. This ended up being a sore point for me, when the relationship was no longer satisfying me. I was annoyed at not being allowed to cut my hair, when I didn't even seem to be getting anything good out of the relationship. I was also upset by the thought that he preferred me to look like (and by inference, to be like) a typical woman. It wasn't just a temporary annoyance; in hot weather I often feel like cutting my hair short, so it was an ongoing thing, until I eventually rebelled.

In order to avoid another such scenario, I decided to make that a future limit. I didn't want not being allowed to cut my hair to become a sore point between another Dom and me. I am not sure whether this limit is truly reasonable or not. It seems that most Doms want their subs to have long hair. And I certainly do like having long enough hair on my head for a Dom to grab. But I also like having very short hair. Not just because of gender, but because it is comfortable and easy to care for. The past year or two, I've compromised with myself - having long hair in one part for a ponytail, but cutting it short elsewhere.

Clothing is another aspect of my gender identity. When the first Dom I was involved with told me that I'd be required to wear a skirt and/or dress for him, it initially upset me very much. I eventually decided that I would submit to a Dom (or that Dom, anyway) telling me what to wear when I was in his presence, but not otherwise. I likened it to wearing a costume... wearing a costume for someone shouldn't be a problem, if that's what they wanted. However, in general, having a Dom wanting me to dress in a feminine fashion would still bother me, for similar reasons as with them wanting me to shave. With clothing, it is not just an issue of how the Dom views me or how I view myself, but also of how other people view me. If I were out in public wearing feminine clothing, it would bother me that other people would see me as a regular woman, as opposed to my normal androgyne self / my real self.