Contents:

I. Homestead Projects: Cisterns, Reservoirs, & Drinking Water

II. New Drum Kit

III. Role Models: Why I'm Not A Good One

IV. Trans Athletes: Astroturfed

V. tldr, music videos

I. Homestead Projects: Cisterns, Reservoirs, & Drinking Water

I've slowed down with posting about the projects my husband and I do around the property. It's a lot of work to document everything we do and I always feel a little weird sharing but I like to convey the idea that my life isn't just about shit posting on Newgrounds. Certain older projects are still ongoing, such as the music studio which we've just been using as storage space. We still need to install a humidifier, cover floors and walls, finish the siding, etcetera. Unrelated to that project we dug out a spot a couple years ago on the property that finally collected snow melt this year:

The reservoir will need some powdered clay added in order to hold water but seeing as we don't have any water rights for it, probably for the best that it's draining really quick. We won't be able to use any of the water this year for agriculture or bath water but Tom is currently riding around on a Kubota, digging a hole for a new cistern that will hold rain water from the roof:

We already harvest rain water but Tom is constantly improving the system so that we can take as many showers as we want while reserving the treated water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. I don't think I ever blogged about the manifold Tom engineered, the pumps we use, the filters (slow sand, UV, Charcoal, and RODI). When you move off grid into the middle of nowhere water becomes more than half the battle. We can pay to have water delivered but companies hate driving out here, the washboard dirt roads can damage their vehicles. We usually just drive a holding tank once a year to the nearest town (Dolores) and pay for treated water, ship it ourselves.

II. New Drum Kit:

I built my first kit when I was 12 from spare parts a friend was throwing away, pots and pans, wooden dowels, and duct tape. I had a bass drum with no pedal, a snare drum on a stand, and a floor tom with no hardware that sat on the floor. I had a collection of broken sticks. I've had many drum kits since that first mess but this little one is the new hotness:

It's built specifically to travel, breaking down and setting up a kit can be a hassle. Though I haven't left the house with it, I love having it in the living room. I've muted the heads so I can play without triggering my husbands ASD, it is a very efficient little rhythm machine. I'd have hated this kit when I was drumming for rock bands back in the day but as an adult that has to share a living space, it's perfect. Everyday I put some time on it and so does the cat. She also likes to stand under the snare drum and pull on the resonator:

III. Role Models: Why I'm Not A Good One

A 17 year old reached out to me recently which wouldn't have been weird like 20 years ago but I just turned 36. This kid briefly said something along the lines of "a lot of people look up to you" and I couldn't stifle a belly laugh. My current role models are porn stars, y'all are doomed if anyone is looking up to me. No one is a perfect role model 100% of the time but I'm definitely not a good one in the context of wholesome family fun. Scrolling through my old posts you may eventually stumble across weird drawings of Tom Fulp tied up in a sex dungeon in which I'm dressed up like Jigsaw while cutting off a continuous stream of vestigial dicks just growing everywhere off of Tom's body. Hell, I once wrote a fan fiction of two Australian Newgrounds music producers where in they meet at a chip tune festival and have sex in an alleyway. I hope I deleted that one, not to try white washing my "image" but rather because I didn't ask how they felt about it until after I posted it. The older I get the more I'm like "yeah, I guess that was weird. Fuck me."

All this to say that this is why I like to include blog posts about my actual life, posts about living off grid, building solar arrays and auxiliary structures on the property, water management, landscaping. I want any young people coming through here to see what a good life looks like and how different it is from my digital persona. My Newgrounds account is a mess of weird shit but my actual life has involved a lot of hard work, learning, and growing. Unfortunately some of that growing was right here on Newgrounds because I was a weird kid, closeted trans with an interest in creative pursuits. I spent too much time on my computer, dreamed of a job in the animation industry (a dream I'm happy to say is long dead), illustrated my own comics, played music in highschool bands, and I watched adult content right here on the world's premier futa porn hentai website.

I was a closeted trans kid as long as I could remember, cursing my situation in life while playing with flash dolls on Newgrounds because I had a insatiable desire to experience any sort of femininity. I learned how to clear the browser history from a very young age while using the family computer to spark a fantasy that was eating me up from the inside. I dealt with suicidal ideation when I was five, kindergarten. At that age I stole clothes, make-up, and even considered stealing Barbie dolls and I had no idea why but I could not control myself. My mom would sometimes dump all the things I stole on the living room table and ambush me with it all when I got home from school. My dad would sit quietly, not saying anything, hands folded probably hoping that if the situation was ignored I'd just grow out of it. My mom travelled all over Long Island going to transgender support groups (without me), sent me to therapists (which I shamefully never uttered a word to), and when the therapists didn't get anything out of me I'd eventually get sent to some weird spiritual massage lady that made her living running a spa out of her garage. My mom drove herself mad trying to understand what I was going through. She commit suicide when I was 25.

I "purged" growing up, once a year tossing anything I stole into the garbage hoping that I'd "get better" just to go out and do it all over again (like I said, no control.) Growing up afforded me the ability to work a job and buy my own stuff online, at which point the stealing stopped but I was still hurting. I waited until I was 23 to transition because I was finally exposed to others that shared my experiences. I finally developed a language to describe what I was experiencing. I was tired of living a lie while feeling shame for urges I had no control over. Transitioning turned my biggest flaw into something good, my 30s have been defined by unrelenting happiness. I find daily gender euphoria in my marriage, satisfaction that I survived all the suicidal thoughts I grew up with. I am now cottage core to the max, cooking and cleaning like some kind of happy trad wife (terribly though, our house is still a mess and I cook like a neophyte. Tom is a much better cook.) All this to lead up to....

IV. Trans Athletes: Astroturfed:

When I spend time on Newgrounds I see all sorts of weird shit and feel at home. I see others that are experiencing life in their own ways, some of their experiences reflect my own. Would love for at least one of those weirdos to see this post and feel inspired to escape their depression. I post about living off grid because leaving society was just another coping mechanism. As the world gets more and more hostile towards trans people, I've tried to leave the world behind. I still have to deal with a constant stream of media designed to misinform people about my lived experiences. My feed is constantly flooded with media about trans athletes, a topic so infuriatingly astroturfed with political misinformation that no one will even listen to me because clearly I'm biased. Here's a video that came out a couple days before my birthday, a video that managed to squeeze one or two tears out of me because I already knew everything here and ultimately it won't change anything:

I'm so glad that people like John Oliver exist to try and unapologetically stymie misinformation but ultimately it won't help. People are addicted to media that confirms their biases, you can even claim the above video is proof that I'm no different. It's weird, feeling like an expert on what I had to live through while simultaneously feeling like I can't even talk about it because someone online feels "uncomfortable." To be totally fair, kids are constantly running through here. Everyday this website manages to involve itself with some of the most depraved fetish cartoons on the planet and I'm just over here, 36 and totally ok with it all because I like to think that despite the sexual content I turned out better than all the fuck-wits that want to spend their online hours bitching about trans kids in hateful comments sections and echo chambers. My life is fucking amazing and whatever sexual content I came into contact with growing up did not ruin it. That debauchery I grew up alongside has informed a lifestyle that gives me the freedom to shit post like nothing matters. I am not a good role model but I'd venture the guess that I'm still a better role model than half of you sad basement dwelling mother fuckers, fight me.

We now approach the final leg of our journey. It's a leg that requires no further explanation because y'all can't read anyways.

V. tldr, music videos: