Tina's not-so-secret diary 📓🔓

[13:51] i don't know what I was thinking about, making normal 2 week shopping lists like nothing was wrong. This shutdown has the potential to drone on for months, and food stamps can't get funding until a budget gets passed. What was I doing, chipping away at my money a box of cereal at a time? And here I thought R was overreacting when she said she was stockpiling dry good. I should have been doing the same thing, but I can't see the perfectly obvious even when it's doing jazz hands in my face. I should have been stockpiling food too. Never mind the fact none of the stores in thos city offer stuff in bulk, I should have gone to the next city over. My foodstamps card is still good there too, I should have been doing more to safeguard my own food security. Instead, I wasted $13 on a frozen pizza and a shit tonne of sweets for halloween, and now all I have is $50 until the milquetoast democrats submit to Donald Treason. Don't feel sorry for me, I brought this on myself. If I starve to death, I have no one to blame but me. Well, and Dumps Trumps I guess.

[14:11] i really need to stop making so much noise. especially with my window being open like this, my neighbours are gonna think I'm making porn in here. but i always say that and i dont do anything. this time i think there was even someone walking by on the pavement outside. oh well.

[16:36] OMG SO EXCITED!!! MY BEST FRIEND AND I ARE GONNA ROOM TOGETHER IN A COUPLE YEARS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! ITS SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! BUT IM STILL EXCITED EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[10:43] Just 61 more shopping days 'til Christmas! What, you haven't been accumulating Christmas gifts for every conceivable person in your life since 27th December 2024? How dare you! You fail Capitalism! Die, die, die!

Anyway, I feel like I've been neglecting my website. Not as though it's an organic being that needs constant attention from me in order to survive, and, to be honest, I have been updating it. But I've been sort of not engaging with the community. Something something, social networking, sure. But part of my whole deal on this host is to help other people feel seen and appreciated. I haven't been doing that. I've hardly given any likes, maybe 2 status comments, and no profile comments.

I guess a lot of this has to do with what's happening in my offline life. One of my friends has been having a really hard time since about the beginning of October and I've been trying to be there for her as much as I possibly can. It got really tense 2 days ago and nearly came to a tragic conclusion yesterday. I know I'm being vague, but if you've learnt nothing else about me, you should know I value personal privacy above all else because armchair detectives really do be like that.

I'm not blaming my friend for anything. It is absolutely not her fault that I've been so tired lately. I've always had a tendency to stew over my friends' situations especially when I'm too far away to help. But I calculated it would cost $450 in petrol alone to get all the way out to where she lives, then another $450 to come back here with her. I have $160 of useful money in my bank account and $110 that must not be touched because otherwise the bank will start taking $35 per month in Poor People Fees. It would be cheaper to get her a bus ticket and then drive out to [REDACTED] to pick her up, because [REDACTED] is closer-by, but I can't afford that either. A republican slogan used to be "If you don't like it, then get out." Well, yes, sure, except that the corporate feudal state has made it a personal challenge to trap everyone who has less than $55.000 in disposeable monthly income not only inside the country, but also inside whatever home they currently have. Until I had my new used car, I couldn't even go any further away from my flat than 3 miles in any direction. Do you know how small a space that is? Had it not been for my mum's friend, K, being so generous and giving us her old car in exchange for nothing except a bag of my homemade chocolate chip scones, I would still have trouble even getting to the grocery store. It's pretty clear my friend needs her current surroundings to change immediately as they're damaging to her mental health, but I can't help her, and that has been weighing on me pretty heavily to the point I was crying about it again last night.

Again, this is no one's fault but my own. Other people can compartmentalise their lives with greater efficacy than I can, it's just a quirk of my brain that makes it impossible for me to do the same. By the time I get onto my Neocities news feed, I'm too drained to do much than scroll down the first page, then see if I've gotten any comments on my profile before ducking back out to Tumblr usually.

[17:27] Update on yesterday: I had a big ol' cramp this morning, then I got unbelievably horny, then once I dealt with that, the cramps went away. I feel like I was spared from any prolonged cramping this month by dint of it being the first month it's happened. Having said that, I think I'm gonna be climbing the walls at Hanukkah.

Also, it's interesting for me to flip through the diary archives here because I can detect a noticeable correlation between complaints about feeling empty or alone or whatever and what I now know to be my hormone cycle. I kinda don't want to call it "menstrual cycle" because there's no menses. But like. THat's basically what it is.

[17:33] Incidentally, my frilly black skirt also has pockets!

[21:15] shit just got real, sports fans. i'm cramping.

[07:12] I just had a moment of pure, unrestrained gender euphoria. I put on one of the outfits i got from the thrift shop, being a frilly black skirt and pink v-neck teeshirt; my favourite lipstick, my red infinity scarf, and my purse too just for yuks, and I looked down the hall at myself in the full-length mirror. I saw the happiest, most beautiful girl ever to stand in that spot. I felt all warm and happy all over. That's what it's all about, gamers. No one can take that away from me, no matter how hard they try. They're so mad that I'm so happy, and that's their problem. They're gonna try to make it my problem too, but they'll fail. The boy who hated himself grew up into the girl who loves herself. And who looks so cute in this outfit she just wants to scream it from the mountaintops 🩷🩷🩷

[16:52] I keep putting myself into situations. I pretend like i know what I'm doing, but I don't. I'm just making shit up as I go and hoping I don't make a bigger mess than I try to clean up.

[00:39] I'm not entirely without feeling, I know what I did. I embarrassed you. I sucked you in with a pretense, as though I truly cared about your life, and then I ambushed you. You're such a private, reserved person, and I exposed you, put you on display for all to see. Then, as though that weren't bad enough, I once again pretended to care about you and ambushed you a second time. I don't expect you to understand how ashamed I feel for this, nor do I expect you to accept any apologies. I offered them, you said it was ok, but I know how much I made your heart drop everytime you got a text from me. I know how you were just waiting for me to ambush you again, and I didn't disappoint. But, the thing is, I would do it all over again. You broke my sister's heart and I'm angry with you. My anger will subside, but I fear hers won't. If you separate yourself from her, she will die. With no exaggeration and all the finality associated with that action. She. Will. DIE. Why am I apologising to you? Why don't I believe that you deserve everything I'm doing to you? Because for all my flaws, I'm not a monster. Someday you may think, "Oh, my god, what have I done?", and you'll want desperately to reconnect with her. I'm willing to help, but only if she is willing to accept. I'm not going to apologise for you, but I will make it at least possible for you to present your apologies to her. Ultimately, she's my sister. You and I can only ever be friends, and I'll love you as my friend, but I will never love you the way I love her. At the end of the day, she is more important to me than you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

[22:19] How am I supposed to get this through to you? If you ignore my sister anymore, you're gonna lose her. Like, she's straight up gonna leave you. Is that what you want? If it is, you should tell her that. You owe her that much. I know that college is tiring and work is tiring and all this, but how are you so consistently so tired that you can't even tell her you love her? How hard is that? Just text her, "hey, in case i haven't said it lately, i love you so much", 'cos I know you haven't said that lately. She told me. She doesn't tell me everything but enough to know you're avoiding her for some damn fool reason. If you DON'T love her anymore, then tell her. It'll hurt her to hear that, but she can get over that hurt and start to heal. If you DO still love her, THEN WHY ARE YOU NOT TELLING HER THIS?? Damn! Come on, Spanky, get your head in the game!

🌶️ October 1 2025

[18:21] oh, yep. it's starting again, right on schedule. for the next 2 weeks i'm gonna have to either avoid interacting with men, or i'm gonna have to throw myself at one and stick to him like a lamprey. Plus, #5's daughter-in-law just had another baby and I'm trying so hard to hold the jealousy in. Yeah, i know motherhood isn't for everyone, but you don't understand. It pulls me in five or six different directions. If i'd had the right parts, I would have at least 4 kids by now. Yeah, put that into your pipe and smoke it, transphobic fascists; this trans girl wants to be a mom so hard that she'd rip your guts out to get there.

[18:31] In other news, the progesterone i've been taking is going to, most probably, lessen the severity of the PMS cramps. I'll be lucky to get them at all at this stage.