Hopefully It Will Have Been Worth The Wait.

It's been a while since I last updated, and things have been looking mostly up. Allow me to fill you in.

Firstly, I built up the courage to tell my parents about my gender issues, and to be honest, I think I was highly over reacting. It maybe made it to the top three most emotionally stressful times of my life, but nowhere near close to the most stressful, but that's another story we won't get into ever. At first, it was a tad awkward, but by now it's got to a point where it can be talked about almost comfortably (with Mum at least). I won't lie when I say I'm kinda proud of myself for confessing.

The support Mum has given me is amazing. I'm incredibly thankful to have a mum like her. I know she'll never really be comfortable with the whole thing, but without her I wouldn't be able to get through this. I hate to sound cheesy and mushy and all that, but she really is the best.

I'm coming very close to having a chance of receiving hormones, after booking appointments and getting referrals and all that complicated medical mumbo jumbo. Hopefully with a bit of luck, I'll be on my way to happiness.

With this new found confidence of mine, I managed to pull myself together, truly concentrate and got myself enrolled in a sound production course at Box Hill. This has only been the first week, but I really feel that this is the right course for me. I've always wanted to contribute as much as I can to the world of sound, but I know I can't be a master of all genres, as much I'd like to be, and as much as I try, no one man can have all that power, so learning how to record allows me to still be able to contribute something awesome by helping it get out there.

It makes me feel good that maybe one day I'll have helped someone who had real talent, and helped get their ideas heard. That makes me feel like I've done good.

In other news, that playlist blog idea I mentioned in my previous post is now up and running (or walking hurr hurr hurr), which you can find here under the name of Shuffled. The name's a bit lame but it's better than some lame ass alliteration. Hopefully all of you who are into music can come across something you dig now and then that you haven't heard. That's would make me feel good.

I'm not sure why but I have this strange obsession with spreading music around, I love getting people into something they might never have found themselves, it almost feels like I'm broadening their musical horizons just a little bit. I just love it.

The band is doing great, just yesterday I'd say we'd played one of our greatest shows ever. I missed having a legitimate crowd like Atlantis Is Burning did, but you know what? Am Farrows crowds are ten millions times cooler than AIB crowds because when I told an AIB crowd to move, the just readjusted their crossed arms and bobbed their heads a bit more, but when I signal an AF crowd to move, they fucking move. It's the best feeling. This is why I became a musician.

Also, I lost some weight and bought some androgynous clothes, I feel good about myself, better than I have for a long time. This most likely contributed to this new bout of confidence.

Other than that, things are going smoothly, I'd talk about the whole Brooklyn thing but I promised to be quiet about it on the internet so I'll stick to my word. I suppose if you wanna know my opinion on the whole thing, just ask me in person.

Also, Ash Hull is pretty cool now, I don't blame him anymore.

'til next time,
Mat (Yes, I'm going to stick with this new spelling, It's kinda andro, don't you think?)

Perambulating Playlists

If I may, I'd like to move away from the current topic I've been posting 'tl;dr' blawgs about. Just for a moment, I'd like to include an interest of mine rather than my own issues, here in this site of mine.

Now, this is something I've been trying to get off the ground for a long, long while now, but only now had I thought of a brilliant way to bring it to fruition in the most productive and beneficial way. What I want to try out here is this; walking playlists. Allow me to explain.

Recently, I've been trying to get fit. During my drinking days, I acquired a bit of a cider belly (because I'm not a man that can drink beer), so I've been walking in an attempt to get rid of it. Now, I can see where you may be a little confused at this moment. You ask 'What has this got to do with your blawg?' and here is where I answer that question, please, calm your anticipation.

A fair amount of friends of mine have expressed an interest in my music collection, which I can't say is not a vast library of awesome, but when it come to suggesting music to people, I'm really no good at it. I've always wanted a way to show people all the kinds of crazy music I have obtained over time, not because I think my music taste is better than anyone else's, but more for the fact that I tend to find some interesting albums in the most random of ways, and my collection is so eclectic, really almost anyone could peruse through my library and find at least one album they dig.

So with those two things in mind, I devised a genius plan;
Problems I had:
- Lack of fitness and lack of a flat belly
- Lack of ability to share a cool song with someone who may dig it.

Solution:
I go for an hour (at least) walk every second day or so. During that time, I listen to my iPod on shuffle (as I would have done anyway). No song is to be skipped. At the completion of my walk, I write down all the songs that played during that walk, find an external link in which people can hear that song and submit it into a blawg post.

Genius, no? I get to work out, and you get a new playlist of songs that you could possibly dig. It doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

I fully prepared for all this so I decided to take all the songs from the time I spent walking yesterday, and put them into a playlist. It goes a little something a-like this;

Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green - The Journey*

9mm Parabellum Bullet - (Teenage)Disaster*

Jamie Woon - Waterfront Listen

Codes in the Clouds - You Are Not What You Think You Are (Baked Clouds Remix)*

Ghostlimb - Laughter Listen

Dungeon Elite - GG Listen

Stricken City - Corridors Listen

Impending Doom - He’s Coming Back Listen

Matthew Dear - Innh Dahh*

Despised Icon - Entre Le Bien Et Le Mal Listen

Jesu - Dethroned Listen

Moon Safari - New York City Summergirl Listen

Holy Sons - Look Of Pain! Listen

TLOZ: Link’s Awakening - The Turtle Awakens! Listen

The White Shadow Of Norway - Organized Revolution (ft. LT.Mana, LA Dog & Mister Misfit) Listen

Kode 9 & The Spaceape - Otherman Listen

Sun City Girls - Cruel And Thin Listen

Nurse With Wound & Larsen - Driftin’ By Listen

JFA - You Can’t Surf*

The Dwarves - Working Class Hole Listen

*All the songs with this at the end, I could not find online. Perhaps I could post a song from the same album or something so you can get an idea of what the album is like. It's all fine tuning at the moment really.

As you can see, it's a pretty eclectic mix, it's not the most eclectic, it could definitely be more so, but for an average person who's not too into searching for different kinds of music, it's fairly interesting I would think.

Anyway, hopefully this sparks an interest, and even if it doesn't, I'm gonna do it anyway.

Yay fitness.

'til next time

Matt

(P)Outing

As of recent, I’ve grown far too familiar to the comfort of my mattress. This corner of my room grows ever darker as I sit here, often awake until the small hours of the morning, allowing me to ponder in silence, to think without distraction, and yet, this has become a burden to me.

Over-thinking is a crime I am guilty of many times over. It’s in my nature not to talk aloud but in my head. Surely, you would think, this is certainly something not to complain about, and you would be correct. I’m not upset about who I am, I enjoy being able to sit and think for hours on end without becoming bored, but time after time it reaches a point in which the subject matter is something sensitive to me (eg; a previous relationship), or something stressful and overbearing (eg; explaining to my parents my extreme want for HRT), and it digs itself into my mind. No other thoughts are allowed through, as this thought bears extreme importance apparently, according to my emotional hormonal teenage brain.

Time spent in my bed is no longer just the time when I should be sleeping, but it has become a sanctuary of deep thought and consideration. These annoyingly loud and disruptive thoughts are messing with me, and effectively ruining my bed sheet laden safe haven. These bed springs comfort me, and always have, but I have come to fear the consequences of being  somewhat… I suppose ‘too comfy’ is one way to put it.

The reason I brought this up is because, as I mentioned before, I wish to just come out to my parents about myself. I want to let them know who I am and what I want to be as a person. Sadly, it’s not as easy as sitting both of them down and blurting out everything I want them to know, or at least I don’t think it will be. The reason I’m lead to believe this is that Mum (the one whom I admittedly trust more when talking about personal thing) has and odd opinion when it come to my being bi-sexual. Essentially she believes that bi-sexuality doesn’t exist, you either love one or the other or you’re just being greedy. I’m not sure whether to laugh at her or take offence.

Deep down, it does hurt that she doesn’t believe what I believe I am exists, because in a way, she’s just saying that I’m making things up so I can get what I want, and no matter what kind of persuading I can try, she comes out on top because she’s lived more life and is more learned. She’s never really believed that I know anything important about myself because I’m too young to know anything yet, which is exactly why I hesitated so long to tell her in the first place, but even five years after, I still wasn’t ‘old enough’ to really know anything.

This is why I don’t want to inform her of my bi-genderism, because if I hear her say anything to the likes of ‘You’re not old enough to know those kinds of things’, I will have to restrain myself from slapping her, and even if I were to, I’m sure to her it would seem like a silly child having a tantrum because it doesn’t get it’s way.

As for telling Dad, that territory is a vast landscape of unknown. For all I know it could be a perfectly nice open meadow, completely calm, or it could be a total minefield where taking one step could be the last, a complete mess. I still rely on my dad for a lot of things, mainly money due to my extreme bout of unemployment, and I’m completely aware that when it comes to trying to understand me, he is at a loss. We aren’t two minds that see eye to eye very often.

If he were to know that I were bi-gender, let alone just bi-sexual, I seriously have no idea what would happen, but if I were to word to him that I want to be both genders physically, I feel that he would focus on the word ‘want’ and twist it to make it seem like it’s another one of those things I simply just want. I may be generalising his actions a bit, but that is my fear as of recent. This what has been racking my brain.

In summary, I feel that Mum won’t accept the existence of my mental state and Dad won’t be able to understand it at all, and that scares me a lot. I suppose I’ll never know if that’s true or not until I bring it up.

If you have any questions about anything, please don't hesitate to ask, I’m happy to answer anything, within reason of course.

‘til next time.

Matt

Trans-facts.

Since I was young, I’ve always had an odd perspective on gender. I never felt that it was fair that I didn’t get to choose whether I was a boy or a girl. I used to have seemingly wild wishes of being able to switch back and forth between being a girl and a guy. At around the time I turned ten years old, I accepted my fate as a male and went on living.

At around age fourteen or fifteen (forgive my uncertainty), I slowly began experimenting with short bouts of cross dressing (and mind you, this is something I’ve never told anyone, please refrain from informing my parents this), sometimes finding my sister’s clothes on the floor of the bathroom, I would try them on. Me being the scrawny thing I was they never fit properly at all, and not once did I ever consider this strange until I did it with other people around, although I did manage to sneak one public cross dress in when Sharna had one of her parties in which I got to wear Meg’s cute little pink skirt.

It was at about fifteen I came out as bi-sexual (in which it took me another five years to admit that to one of my parents). I expected waves of insults and a mass drop in friend count, which would have been a bad thing with the small amount I had, but things went much better than expected. I wasn’t ridiculed (except from the people I truly expected it from which was no surprise and it didn’t bother me in the least), I didn’t lose any friends over it, I was highly relieved.

From that point, I thought I had myself figured out, but things changed over time, old habits began to emerge and the cycle began once again. I again had thoughts of my gender, I would ask myself why I was male all the time, of course at this point I was in a hetero relationship and was incredibly insecure. The same thoughts have been emerging in my mind recently, but now I’m smarter, mostly secure, no longer in a physical relationship and much more level headed.

The idea of being bi-gendered was something that had never even occurred to me before, let alone me knowing it ever even existed. The idea of being both genders was a fantasy I’ve had ever since I was able to question my existence as a child. What this post comes down to is that I’ve always wished I could be both genders but I forgot somewhere along the way.

But wait. the rabbit hole goes deeper than this.

For almost a year now, the idea of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) has been something that has become increasingly tempting to me, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. I’d never had much of an urge to become a girl because I loved men and felt like a woman in a man’s form. After some serious revision in my mind, I came to this conclusion; I wish to physically become both genders.

Now it’s not as simple as popping a few oestrogen pills, growing tits and going on my merry way. Yes, I do wish to remain with the junk I’ve got, but having a more feminine form is something I urge quite severely. I’d become what the internet calls a ‘trap’ essentially. People do HRT to essentially become the opposite sex, the gender they wished to be inside, but I don’t wish to be any gender specifically, I wish to be both.

Being bi-gendered seems to be the small grey area of sexuality and gender identity. I’m not sure how to approach my parents about this, nor my friends or any other family. I suppose that’s why I’m typing all this up. I have family and friends that read this, and I know my parents don’t. Perhaps this isn’t the smartest of things, but venting all this does help me deal with all the stress involved with over-thinking about it.

When I have more progress on my thoughts on this, I will most likely post more, depending on the reaction this gets I suppose.

'til next time.

Matt

In Addition.

Continuing on from my last post, I did forget to mention one thing.

Not so recently, my life with through some very drastic and emotional changes. It's taken me a long time to get over, despite it being my own fault, but using my physical appearance to change who I was during the time I thought I was happy to the person I am now really helped.

Like I said, I don't look how I used to, and I never wish to look like that again, because it will remind me of those times, times gone, way in the past. If I'm no longer the me I was, then I'm happy.

If it was the old me she no longer loves, I have no need to remain as that person, physically. I'll always be Matt, or April, with the same mind set and morals, just with a new guise (you might be able to tell I am enjoying that word). Same guts, new skin.

A Sudden Theory On Physical Appearance And Social Definition

Why do I look the way I do? For what reason do I feel that I need to look this way? What compels me to give off this appearance?

These are questions I've thought not too long about, but I may have an answer of sorts.

Not so long ago, I used to look so different. I vaguely looked like the way I was, I was, in a way, true to form so to speak. Slowly, through soul searching and self-psychological analysis, my outward guise began to reflect what was really inside. This, in a way was a safeguard for myself. I could always change and still remain myself, giving me that self satisfaction that I wasn't so easy to figure out just by looking at me.

How it actually reflected me was such; I've never been sure of myself, never had a strong assurance that I am a certain way. My mind was an ever changing battle of subtle attempts to fit in and still remaining that odd one out. Nowadays, I have enough self assurance to know, I'm not entirely the odd one out all the time, but from where I'm from, from what I've seen and grown up with, I've rejected their outlook on appearance and taken definition to a further level for myself.

Ever since I was small, small being the start of high school, maybe even a little while further back from then, I believed I was schizophrenic because from situation to situation, my personality would dramatically change to fit where I was, other people determined how I acted, and I still do that to this day, but more so as a defence mechanism. Eventually I realised that I was trying to hard to fit in with everyone, be everyones friend (which was in my personality). Eventually I gave up on all that.

I took a turn in the opposite direction, turn myself into someone who seemed off, socially secure with not being everyone else. At first I thought this seemed selfish, a way to make friends come to me, which in hindsight was never selfish at all, I was tired of making the wrong friends because I had no defining guise. In a world like today, appearance defines first judgement, which sticks with a lot of people. That's why I try to bring myself from the inside out. 'This is how I want to feel today' it could be, or 'This is what I want you to pick up on' at times.

Which brings me to definition.

I can't deny what I am at the moment, nor at any moment should I ever deny myself. For now, I am a man, a musician, an artist of sorts. I am bisexual (although not a defining part of myself, it helps me feel better about it sometimes to reflect that, not that I feel bad about it, sheltered life has just stopped from having that comfort at home). I'm an oddball stoner with a taste for weird and wacky. A feel for the contemporary. I feel that can reflect these things with the way I decorate my limbs and my self from day to day.

Being a man, I feel that for now it's something I can't get rid of, hence why I keep my moustache, the most visible of body hair excluding the scalp. Inside I don't feel so much a man as I do just a being. I shave my legs, my arms, my armpits I reject body hair in a way, keeping that underneath my clothes, it allows that to become a more personal level of being able to define me. I don;t wish everyone to know me straight away, I just want them to know I could be interesting to them. If I don't interest you in the slightest, I'm not bothered, I can't control your opinion with such simple methods as guises.

As a music artist, I wish to become undefinable throughout my career, not in just musical aspects, but in a way of... well, for lack of better words, being not being able to figure me out so easily, not being able to say 'Oh well he does this and this and that's why he does this', if you understand what I mean.

In summary, I dress the way I do because I want you to know me as someone else, not the same guys you already know. I don't care if you don't want to know me, but if I interest you, then you interest me because I caught your eye. I dress the way I feel and the way I am, I may not pull it off all the time, but at least I'm trying, and I'm not trying to not look like everybody else because it's everybody else, I do it to be that fleeting moment of thought in the back of your mind.

I can only hope that made some amount of sense.