Hitting the one week mark

A single shot lasts two weeks, so I'm halfway through the very first one. It's been a week of moving quickly. Much more quickly than I expected. Note that I'm still in the normal female range for everything, but I'm moving towards the edge of that range, and with alarming speed. In the last week, my face has changed shape, my neck looks different, I've gotten some peach fuzz, my voice has lowered (maybe a fourth), my junk has changed and I've got some mild acne. And my hormones continue to rage.

Again, it's possible that some stuff is imagined or less obvious to others than it is to me. My gf noticed the fuzz. And my friend failed to recognize me on the phone due to the voice thing, so it's not all in my mind. Nobody else, however, has commented on my somewhat squarer face or thicker neck.

[Skip this paragraph if you're a blood relative, have the power to evaluate my academic output or don't want to know about my junk.] Ok, there are parts of the female anatomy that are analogous to the male anatomy. And T causes this part to grow. Normally, to two or three centimeters long, but sometimes twice that much and sometimes less. And while I'm no where near that, I just didn't expect anything to be noticeable after one week. And yet, whoop, there it is.

The prescribing doctor said the standard dose was a little high given my weight. I wonder if perhaps it's too high? I don't know. I can't do anything about it for the time being, but I can ask when I go in next week to learn to self-inject.

I asked a cismale friend about the raging hormones thing and he said it gets worse with lower body exercise like biking. Oh no, my favorite sport! I spent the weekend at Sarah's house and the heater was broken and that was actually helpful for things like getting work done.

On the way home from Sarah's there were a couple of stoned guys in Berkeley standing on the sidewalk along the bike route. "Excuse me, sir" one of them said and I turned around, "Oh, I mean ma'am. Or sir - actually I can't tell."

"Actually, I'm in transition." I replied.

"Good for you! Do you know the way to Sacramento - or, no, Dwight? Do you know the way to Dwight?"

Berkeley is cool.

Anyway, I have more stamina, but that might be from my semi-regular sprinting. Always running late and trying to catch trains has health benefits! I'm less risk adverse, which means I need to use my head more when crossing busy streets. My anxiety is pretty much non-existent, although I've been a bit moody when hungry and sleep-deprived, which is pretty normal. Also - puberty redux.

Humans rely a lot on emotions for the decision making process, so in places where my emotions are changing, I need to tweak my process accordingly, like the crossing the street thing. Note that I don't think that T causes stamina or bravery in general. I think that I feel happier and more sane on it, which causes me to not be depressed and anxious and therefore braver and more energetic. However, I know that hormones raging is caused by the T and so, when I'm being flirty, I need a new metric by which to judge what's appropriate. To confound that further, my social context is changing. An ass-grabbing dyke is different than an ass-grabbing guy. Some of my formerly amusing actions become problematic when gendered male. So at the same time that my emotions are pushing me to be more libertine, my feminist consciousness requires me to be more reserved. All of which is a lot to navigate. I'm relying on my friends and loved ones to be patient, but also to speak up. If they see me being overly friendly or taking a dangerous risk, I hope they would say something and not bite their tongues. I don't want to permanently place myself in a subordinate position, but pubescence does require some guidance - in this case, "watch out!" or "please remove your hand this instant!"