Wait, you let your cat blow your nose?

Even if he could, I wouldn't let him. Claws, you know.

Ah, see, that must've been what happened with erin & Mal the other day. He was trying to help her blow her nose.

And missed.

Man, I just hate everything. I'm glad, okay, that the weird dealie I have going on with my ladyparts is benign. But part of it is a sore, like if you cheese-grated your finger, or scraped your knee -- just a standard boo-boo. And it will not goddamn heal. It's not exactly an area I can put a band-aid, and it's not exactly an area I can keep dry. Neosporin is NOT helping. And by "NOT," I mean, "I'm afraid it's making it worse." It just HURTS. A lot. And I think it's gotten larger since I started using Neosporin. I had been using Burow's solution (an aluminum acetate solution; made from Domeboro powder; it's your basic astringent, good for inflamed skin) to try to get it to calm down and dry out and heal. Doesn't seem to be helping.

It's been TWO MONTHS. (Well, maybe 7 1/2 weeks.) And it HURTS. A lot.

I can't think of anything else to do to heal it, so I'm going to call the doctor tomorrow and ask her if I need to be taking an oral antibiotic, because Neosporin isn't helping and it hasn't healed for TWO MONTHS and it hurts and god damn it, not having sex is CRAPTASTIC.

Sorry. Rant. (If anyone knows how to heal a wound that should heal but won't, please tell me.)

t edit I don't have diabetes or any other condition that would make wounds heal slowly or not at all. When I get cuts/scrapes/cat scratches, they heal in a normal amount of time (often I don't even do anything to them and they heal). So my immune system isn't broken; my ladyparts are.

I don't know if I have a mute button or where it would be on my phone. And I've been on maybe 3 conference calls in my life. Maybe 5. Point is, not many. I do, however, know better than to use the bathroom while I'm on a conference call, so I think I'll be OK.

Ugh Steph, sorry for the insensitive cross post.

I have no idea what to do, but one thing I might try in your place would be Aquaphor or a similar product to just protect the area a bit.

Shit just keeps happening, you know? I'm really sick of it. And it HURTS.

Soak in salt water, maybe? I mean, that would probably hurt and be awkward, but salt water does help heal wounds.

I have food in my fridge that will go bad if I do not eat it tonight (since I'll be gone tomorrow and Thursday), but I do not want to cook it, and I don't especially want to eat it, either. Hrmph.

I don't think there's a mute on my regular phone (an ancient cordless), but since I work from home I have a office-type phone with a big mute button, and an attached headset that also has a mute button.

You're the people to ask this! The question of drag queens came up between Hubby and I, and we were discussing people we've met who crossed gender in terms of clothing. Hubby said that transvestite is no longer the term of choice, that transgendered was appropriate, whereas I thought transgendered was used when there was an attempt to change the actual physicality. Or is the truth much more nuanced, as usual?

The only suggestion I have, Teppy, is to ask your doc if zinc ointment would be ok to use in that location. When Daniel's leg. Would. Not. Heal. As in, we consulted a wound specialist after a year of trying at home, and it took the guy a few months to get it under control. The thing that finally, finally took care of it was slathering his whole leg from toes to knee in zinc ointment, and covering it in a not-quite cast thingy, and leaving it that way for two weeks. Not that you could manage quite the same there, but perhaps (if zinc and goolies are not unmixy things) applying some a couple times a day would do the job.

Or is the truth much more nuanced, as usual?

More nuanced. There are a lot of different flavors there. Sticking just to men in women's clothes for a second...

There are certainly transvestites who are straight males who crossdress.

And then there are gay men who crossdress but like their bodies just fine as is, thank you very much. That is, they like to wear drag but don't identify as female.

Then there are men who crossdress who don't feel comfortable in their bodies. But their gender identity can be separate from their sexuality, that is they might prefer men or they might prefer women, but the body that feels right to them would be female.

And there are lots of other options in between. Some men want to be feminine, and have breast implants but keep their penis.

Some people just have very fluid sexual identities which could be any combination of those.

But the impulse to crossdress is one thing, the gender identity is another and the attraction to a particular gender is yet another thing.

Transgender is being used more and more as an umbrella term for anyone who presents or lives, even part of the time, as the gender they were not born as. When the person undergoes surgical/medical/hormonal/other physical procedures to effect that change, that's where the term transsexual is more fitting.

"Cross-dresser" is generally used instead of "transvestite," and that tends to be a little narrower of a descriptive term, more about the dressing itself and less about living as the opposite gender. It's gotten a little fuzzy.

In tend to just say "trans" and leave it at the prefix.

NEVER "tranny." That's the eqivalent of gay slurs (and, like some gay slurs, some trans people have reclaimed "tranny," but it's not cool for a cisgender person to do do).

I am sometimes amazed at my life.

And then there's genderqueer, gender fluid, dual gender, third gender -- it can get complicated. But so can gender for some people.