Today was my follow-up endocrinology appointment. It was kind of awkward. The doctor made me feel awkward.

We were in a different exam room; the lighting seemed brighter. He looked shorter than I remembered and maybe a little slimmer, not that I care. I'd seen him only once before and that was three months ago so it's no surprise that the image I had in my head was off. Well I got a good look at him this time. I had the energy for eye contact today. Glossy black hair, beautiful contrast with his pale skin. Asian pale, not sickly European pale. Kind of a uniquely shaped jawline. I was sitting closer to him this time; that's why I noticed so much more. Not just a mustache but a bit of chin hair too; maybe I just didn't see it last time. Dressed all in black today :)

Like last time, he warned me that his hands were cold, but, also like last time, they weren't. He offered me his hand and I shook it. He had a bruise on one of his knuckles.

After we had been talking for a bit, he asked me whether I was ok and said I seemed upset. Again! I said I was fine, just tired. After I'd left the hospital, it occurred to me that he's just as bad at reading tone of voice as I am. Or maybe facial expressions. I think he said that I sounded upset, can't quite remember though.

I smiled at him at least twice. No response lol. Unreadable expression, seemed like blank face but what do I know. He was saying shit that made it seem like he was trying to build rapport, so I kinda tried to co-build rapport but really I was just responding to his...I don't even know. Whatever it is that I like about him.

He gave me another physical exam, which I wasn't expecting. Unlike last time, he checked my lower legs, for swelling I think he said, and the sides of my neck, for lymph nodes I'm guessing. I guess everything was fine because he didn't comment on it.

I asked him a couple of questions which I felt could have been answered briefly and verbally, but twice he went to the whiteboard and wrote a bunch of shit. Ok. Nerdy. I'm not complaining. He did that last time as well, with a little mini lecture.

I didn't realize that the appointment was over because he didn't give me any of the usual signs that medical providers give. It probably didn't help that I wasn't looking at him. I was putting on my hoodie and suddenly he was trying to shake my hand with one hand and then handing me a laminated paper to take to the reception desk with his other hand immediately after the handshake. That was the most awkward bit.

The public transportation gods hate me, so I'd just missed the bus even though I'd been seen earlier than my appointment time. I didn't want to wait at the bus stop because the street was noisy and the wait would have been long, plus I felt like I needed to walk off some of the weirdness of the appointment, so I started walking.

Such a mix of emotions I felt. I was mildly annoyed that he'd asked about my emotional state again. I felt bad for him because it had seemed that maybe he'd been uncomfortable. I felt guilty as I wondered whether I'd contributed to the awkwardness. At first I felt bad for viewing him as awkward. There was something like lost hope lurking underneath everything else because

1. if I view my fellow autistic people (yes, given his behavior, I was strongly considering that his guy is autistic, which would kind of make sense of why I'm attracted to him) as awkward well then who is left for me to be attracted to? What hope do I have of any relationship?

and 2. If I often look upset when I don't mean to (and this isn't the first time I've been told something to this effect), and even look upset to other autistic people, how the hell can I manage to be attractive to anyone?

3. Is the way he came off to me, the way I seem to other people? Truly there's no hope for me if that's the case. I was uncomfortable with possibly looking into a mirror.

Then I didn't feel so bad for viewing him as awkward because, I thought, maybe it's his unnatural behavior that seems awkward. What at first seemed like him trying to be a caring doctor later seemed like him trying to fake being normal. Like he was following a sort of script, which some autistic people do. This is one of the reasons why I was considering that maybe he is autistic. Lack of reciprocation of my smiles is another. Misreading my mood is another, but maybe I really did look upset, so that's a weak reason. And his friendly overtures were...kind of out of sync with me, but that might just have been me lacking reciprocity. Shit can get complicated when both people are autistic. Or maybe he has anxiety or something else.

Anyways, I kinda felt like shit, then I decided to walk a route different than the one the bus had brought me on and ended up on noisy streets, tried to backtrack and ended up at a dead end road. Ultimately I had to continue on the noisy streets to avoid an excessive amount of walking, which I every much wanted to avoid because the day had heated up and my knee was hurting, had started hurting when I speed-walked for two hours this morning before leaving for the appointment. So I was tired and further fatigued by walking and traffic noise and mildly dehydrated and mentally tired once I figured out that I would just miss the next bus home (as I usually do) on top of feeling the weird emotions.

I was near the dollar store and needed laundry detergent, so I walked there and bought some cleaning supplies. Then I waited forever for a city bus and, when it finally came, ended up packed into it with a bunch of noisy high school students. I got off that bus at the mall and, while I waited for the next bus, watched some guy with pants and underwear falling down sit his bear ass right on the bus stop bench while he ate an ice cream cone. Then he walked off with his shopping bags, his backside still visible. Finally I got onto the inter-city bus and some asshole sat right across from me and started playing a smartphone out loud. As loudly as I could, I told him the shit was annoying as hell and against the rules and asked him to please turn it off. I did it loudly so that I could involve the bus driver in case the guy didn't comply. He did comply, but he wasn't happy about doing so. That shit worsened my mood. I dislike having these kinds of interactions with people. I left just before noon and didn't get home until just after 5 pm. Another long, tiring day on public transportation.

As expected, I didn't get much useful information from the doctor. I did my fasted blood test wrong; I'm supposed to get the blood drawn shortly after I wake up because cortisol from being up and about while fasting can raise the blood sugar. The doctor hadn't told me that when he directed me to get the test. We've got a problem because I wake up at like 6 am and the blood-draw place doesn't open until like 8. I almost don't give a shit anymore. I feel like this medical investigation is going to go nowhere.

Also the doctor seemed annoyed that my most recent blood glucose sensor data was from September rather than something more recent. I told him that his own goddamned staff had called me and said that my insurance would approve only 30 days worth of sensors. No one told me when I should get the data from. He said that he'd ordered refills on the sensor. So I guess the staff meant that my insurance company would approve only 30 days worth of sensors at a time, which I wasn't told.

I also found out that the blood finger poke test whatever it's called is the most accurate. He kept asking me about these tests. I did hardly any of them because I'd had trouble figuring out how to use the stabby tool and because he'd told me to do them when what I felt seemed out of sync with what the sensor in my arm indicated, which wasn't often.

So I'm going to do shit over again. I'll do another fasted blood test plus wear arm sensors for another 90 days or 30 days, whatever my insurance will cover. Kind of annoying. My next endo appointment is three months from now. I'm kind of curious to see what it'll be like.

As for autistic people trying to fake normality: it doesn't work. That is why I don't really do it (besides some intermittent eye contact) and have low expectations with regard to the possibility of having an intimate relationship with a non-autistic person. Passable results are possible up to a point, but neurology cannot be overcome, plus it's inauthentic and exhausting. Everyone is more attractive when being themselves. Whatever is going on with the endo, I hope he doesn't end up burning himself out. Faking neurology is brutal, brutal on one's physical health in particular, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I feel so weird about this because dr is still physically attractive to me yet not as overall attractive as before. It doesn't really matter because I can't date my endo anyhow, not while I'm still his patient at least. I just have no life/other dating prospects to focus on, that's why we're going so in depth here, that plus the remarkable emotions. Hell, that's why I go into depth on most subjects on this blog. It's useful to think deeply about things but I don't need to do it with so many minor subjects.

I wore some old pants today and they're looser than they were the last time I wore them. I looked slimmer dressed than I looked while naked. I'm losing weight, just super slowly and without noticeable changes in my body shape. I really want the fat on the sides of my thighs to go away. Maybe I was right when I said this diet will drag on for another year.

My head has started hurting again so I'm going to lie down for a while.

Since I started criticizing and complaining about womyn on this blog, I've been careful to be fair about it, so it's nice to get external confirmation of the basis of my criticisms; it lets me know that I'm on track.

I was just reading some womon's criticism about science fiction being "emotionless." Why the hell would anyone read science fiction for emotions? Science fiction is about science. There's a HUGE catalog of novels that are chock full of drama.

If men making everything about sex is the yin, womyn making everything about emotions is the yang. They're both exasperating. But I think there's been more social pushback on the former than one the latter. There's at least some awareness that perviness is socially unacceptable, but I don't think womyn have heard enough about the unacceptability of injecting emotional bullshit into everything.

I think both men and womyn take their own sex-specific psychological traits for granted, not realizing or maybe even caring that the way they see things is very biased and doomed to never resonate with most members of the opposite sex. From time to time I see this bias in what feminists write; not just criticism of patriarchy, which is objectively wrong, but criticism of neutral interests and behaviors that are common for males, stuff that these womyn simply do not like. It's a little disappointing.

And really it's another clue that I don't have much chance with womyn, because some of this stuff they are criticizing is stuff that I do, stuff that I like, and the fact that people who can see through the cultural hegemony of patriarchy, the fakeness of femininity, are still stuck on this pink shit suggests that the preoccupation is deeply ingrained. A female thing maybe? Something I cannot easily escape in interaction with womyn, I mean.

I don't want emotional shit in science fiction unless it's fear and awe and other shit that's appropriate to landing on a new planet or seeing an alien for the first time or being confronted with an unstoppable virus, and even then I don't want a lot of it. I want ZERO relationship drama and I don't want a bunch of irrelevant details about the characters' personalities. That's another thing that womyn seem to be super interested in: "character development," and it's genuinely an important part of fiction, except sometimes they want the characters developed beyond what's relevant to the story. Science fiction isn't about personality. Read drama!

I suspect that the preoccupation with character development is a major driver behind the fanfic craze. I mean they are developing the characters beyond what the original author even did. The whole point of fanfic is stealing other people's characters, doing with them what one wills. At least that seems to be the point of fanfic so far as I've noticed.

Today was the last day to vote in the statewide special election on redistricting. I had a tough time deciding how to vote and several times considered just not voting. I don't trust any of these goddamned politicians, including the ones behind this measure. There's no good course of action in this situation: I don't want Trump-supporting Republicans to have more power in Congress, and I don't want our state gerrymandered until 2030.

I felt stupid trying to decide on this particularly because I don't even know whether the new districts actually favor Democrats. The voter handbook that was sent out with our mail-in ballots shows the old and new districts, but I have no way to compare them because I don't know which districts vote which way. I can make an educated guess about the part of the state I'm familiar with, but that's just a small part of the state. There's so much knowledge and/or research required to be a responsible voter, it's impractical. We're forced to trust politicians, some of the most notoriously untrustworthy people on the planet.

I made the mistake of wrapping my feet in a synthetic fabric last night, so I didn't sleep much; I think I didn't sleep at all until I took off that polyester blanket. I must have dozed off this morning because I remember dreaming. So I'm tired. Again. And I have to work up the willpower to work out. Again.

Another pair of earphones died yesterday, the pair I bought just last month. I need to stop buying anything other than Panasonic clip-ons. Everything else in my price range is a gamble at best.

I felt suicidal again this evening while warming up for a workout, but afterwards I went to the laundromat and forgot all about it, was content studying my Mandarin textbook and watching my clothes roll around in the machine.

This shit is such a drag. I get only one life and it's permanently marred. It's great to climb out of the depths quickly and easily, but I always return there again.

Right now, back from the laundromat, I'm in a pretty good mood because my skincare products arrived in the mail today plus I have a delicious smoky brown rice and navy bean dish waiting in my slow cooker.