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And yet other manufacturers make more servicable cars, in general.  Maybe by coincidence.

Edit: My car is Toyota, I helped my housemate with his BMW, I might be a *little* done with company-specific proprietary crap.

Which Japanese engineer thought it would be hilarious to stick an 8mm bolt riiiight up in the corner of the access panel, with less than a quarter-inch of clearance on two sides and less than an inch of vertical space above it? I had to go out and buy the world's smallest crescent wrench made for pixies to get leverage on it because none of my sockets would fit.

Dealing with that little bastard was honestly more annoying than almost electrocuting myself and I'm not sad it went on forever vacation to the bottom of the center console.

You probably know this, but it's something car manufacturers have done for decades in order to drive people to their dealerships or licensed shops for maintenance.

Hah, I'd drive such a machine mad! Long since given up trying to record details of my dreams, e.g. in the Dream thread, despite being convinced that I've probably got the basis of the next hit Netflix[1] screenplay in my rather cinematic nocturnal imaginings.

Yeah I wonder if even *I* could handle mine in totality.  There's so much body horror, but it rarely bothers me in the dreams.  It's just weird.  Then I wake up and begin to realize how weird it is and maybe write it down...  Then I wait an hour or two longer until I fully realize "Oh, no, I absolutely can't share this, no one would understand and it's even bothering me".  Or "Mmm this is mostly tame enough if I leave certain bits out" and I share that.  yeah my Dream Thread posts are the *redacted* versions of the *tame* stuff.

I'm not sure what it'd do to me to view that stuff while fully awake and socialized.  Seems like it'd cause some dissociation or something.  But I try to listen to my subconscious and glean insight from it!  It's my friend!

1279
Rolan love wordy comic.  Very quotable!

Fake-edit: Aw, I kinda want a rear-view camera though?  I've got the parallel parking ability of a woman in a 90's movie.
Cruise control would be nice too...  But in general I love my 2004 Toyota.  Reliable, stick-shift, and familiar.

---

Wasted yesterday and much of today trying make my face presentable for a drivers license photo (most of this time was spent freaking out in various ways and procrastinating, but much of it was solid attempts).  Final result: None of my trans friends commented on it.  Which confirmed what I thought.

But that's okay I went anyway.  I knew the plate office near me wouldn't do licenses, but I stopped by anyway just in case.  Sure enough, no camera booths.  No *signage* explaining the difference between a plate office and a license office, but whatever, adults are meant to just know this stuff.  Google maps was negative help in that regard.

Traffic's a nightmare

Get to the actual license office at 4:33, stop at the door.  "Don't open!  Wait by the traffic cone, someone will assist you!" it reads.  Okay...  I can barely see inside the gloomy building, but I wait for a couple minutes.  A woman walks past me to open the door.  "Oh uh- it says we have to wait out here?" I say.  She looks at me like I'm crazy [or a freak].  "Yeah IDK either... uh..." thankfully someone finally arrives.

"Sorry, we stopped taking people at 4:30"  woo.  understandable, but that sucks.  At least I can-
oh, she's launched directly into her queries.  lovely.  That's fine, she's also renewing a license ("it expires tomorrow!  Can't you help me?") and has mostly the same questions.  Though she needed an explanation and indignant follow-up question about RealID.  But okay, that's fine.  She finishes.

"Good luck!" I offer, smiling behind my mask (I'm the only person wearing one, including the employee, despite the signage).  She just ignore me.  Great.  "Can I help you sir?"
...hh...
*mumbled* "M'am actually.  Uhm, mostly the same questions she had.  But there's a typo..."
"What kind of typo?" Is he... suspicious?  Does he really think I'm trying to-
"Ah just an extra O in my name"
"Ohh okay.  You'll just need one form of ID"
"Great!  I have my birth certificate.  Ah, is just 1 okay? (they need 2 for an expired or lost ID)"
"Yep!"  Okay I'll just hope he's right about that.
I thank him and go.

The traffic is awful, and I can't stop thinking about my face.  Or whatever it is he saw, since my mask was on.  My *neck* is smooth and concealered.  My legs are epilated.  My hair is down to my ass.  Is it the shorts, I guess?  The T-shirt from a nice hiking trip?  My sports bra being too modest?  Maybe it's my forehead.  Yeah.  Yeah, maybe I'll give myself some bangs, that'll show me- show me?

Waves of self-disgust progressed like this for a while.
I stopped at a thrift store and pretended to look at board games for a while until I had space, then found a tank top in a nice dark purple.  Simple, shows off my shoulders and athletic build.  Things I like about me.  Hard to mistake my gender too (at least by accident).  Only $5.  I'm not nervous at all as I check out- buying my first bra and my first concealer got that anxiety out of the way, this is nothing.
This is nice, actually.  So's the cashier

I divert by the grocery store for carrots and dry beans.  The traffic truly is incredible.  I forgot my bag again but I only needed one disposable, barely.  But the cart return is a mess- people have piled 3 carts just outside of it at cross angles.  My OCD or whatever is going off.  It's hot.  I hate myself.  I shove one in.  I shove the other 2 in, hard, loud.  I feel a little better.  I think I hear someone talking about me but I'm probably just paranoid...  I get back to my car and a truck has parked next to me at such an angle that they take up a 2x2 of spaces.  I put my bag down and snap another picture, darkly amused at this cursed day.

As I get in my car the driver of the truck walks up and waits for me to pull out.  Fuck.  He saw me, and he's staring at me with an unreadable expression.  I pull out... then park again, and take off my mask.
"Hey..." I wave.  He's on edge, understandably.  "Sorry about that, I was taking a picture for my friend.  I didn't want to... scare you?" I end awkwardly.  But it works, maybe because he can see the awkwardness is killing me, and he laughs and nods.

So that's good.  I'm glad I didn't leave that like it could have been.

I stop by a pokestop just before home, but I can't get my phone out of my pocket.  My thumbnail keeps snagging.  It's bad- must have happened when I shoved the carts.  I never self-harm on purpose, but I keep doing it "by accident".  plus the drinking, though these days...  I finally fish it out.  "Okay google- please open pokemon GO".  I sit there, parked, looking at the screen.  It's waiting for more words.  "Please" broke it.  Language AI my fantastic ass.  I give the algorithm a couple choice epithets to consider, cancel, and launch manually.

Other than that it went fine... other than having to wait for an ambulance to pass.  I've got carrots, I've got a little comfort ravioli, and I don't have to think about my face until tomorrow morning bright and early.
Maybe tonight I won't stay up until 5AM from vague discomfort (dysphoria).
Maybe someday my dad will stop being such a piece of shit about trans people, to my (hah) face.

Maybe I deserve everything that's happening to me gods dammit NO.  No.
Comfort ravioli and a long-distance hug from my partner will help.  And sleep.  I'm exhausted.

(it's not impossible that my dad sees this, but that's okay.  I'm his daughter, he just pretends otherwise... while going out of his way to misgender people who matter to me.  Typical insecure trolling.)

Most of the developed world at a minimum is a culinary dystopia. As far as I'm aware sodium being in basically literally everything in go-die amounts is a problem more or less everywhere.

... plenty of places are probably less bad, though. It's certainly easier (if generally more expensive) to find alternatives if you're in or near a city of some sort.

Yeah even Skyrim has this problem!

Oh no I'm kinda crossfaded and this rules.

Listening to Anthem For No State while considering my nightly sublinguals and remembering a time when I had tolerated my dad and stepmom for a while and had a long talk with dad about my hormones and then she stopped me on my way out and was asking me to come visit him on a certain date and I was exhausted and, as if I was lighting a cigarette (something I've literally never done), I pulled out my special 3-chambered circular case, looks like a makeup kit, I bought it with her on a day trip to the beach, I flip that open and I take out a tiny teal pill and I "subtly" place it under my tongue behind my hand, she can't see if it's behind my hand, but also I've told her everything anyway.  Did she notice?  I mean, she must have.  But she didn't react.  Good.  Good? Certainly tolerable.

I accessed the Conv buffer and answered the question which I'd had an answer to from her 3rd syllable.  "Yeah sure, I can come by!"

It'd been a long fucking day and I needed to remind me of me.  I didn't want to rub it in her face I just wanted to assert myself [when I didn't feel myself.  being with them makes me feel like nothing.  the way I used to feel]

That's an... an old memory from Halloween [oh, because I brought up some pics lately and I actually liked my ambushed smile. my face].
Don't get crossfaded, or at least don't post this way.
unless it's funny