Transitioning

It should be a relaxing day - drop my gym clothes in the washing machine, get down to reading a book about Hitler in Antartica... but no. My thoughts cycled with all the diseases I surely had, how their presence floats through my blood just dying to be analyzed by some computer. I had taken a blood test the day before and I was anxious to see my results, as I figured I was overdue for something bad to happen.

Why did you have to take a blood test, Mr. Fraud?

Well, I had an idea for a scheme.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine reached out to me and let me know that he has recently added HGH to his ever revolving stock of drugs for sale. I had previously told him about how I had ordered ‘research chemicals’ (RAD-140 and MK-677, to be exact) and they were ‘compromised’ going through customs. 

No trouble, just a nasty letter letting me know my package was seized and no medically assisted gains in my future.Naturally, I was interested. He was a reliable drug dealer, trustworthy. I considered this a sign from God.

I wasn’t expecting black market pharmaceuticals to be cheap - I assumed they must be reasonably priced just due to the amount of trans people I see in my neighborhood - but I was surprised by just how much a cycle was going to cost me. 

Is it because I have a boutique drug dealer, one that specializes in selling to ‘art people’ like me? Am I a rube, oris this just the cost of aesthetic perfection?

Finally, it hit me. A genius idea. Leaping from my desk, I clear my chalkboard with my forearm to compose a plan:

Step 1: Book doctor appointment, complain of fatigue and no sex drive. Request a blood test due to concerns about my testosterone levels. 

Step 2: Soymaxx to tank my test - eat a strict soy/alcohol/junk food diet for a few days to decimate my system.

Step 3: Bloodtest shows I have low testosterone.

Step 4: I get legal drugs at a reasonable price in order to ‘fix my ailment.’

Step 5: Profit (physically).

This sounds like an easy victory for someone as smart as me. I could easily scam a blood test. I am very smart and resourceful, after all.

I read about all the foods that lower testosterone - soy, processed nonsense cooked in vegetable oil, flaxseed - and decide that my main task is to eat like shit.

I had a few days before my blood test, so I bought a bunch of soymilk and drank two liters a day. It made me unbelievably tired and miserable - i’m still so lethargic that 

it’s hard for me to stay up and write these notes to myself. 

I crave McDonald’s, Netflix. I want to sit on the couch and let the beta energy consume me.

The internet says I need to drink beer, eat candy, not exercise. I need mint and licorice root tea. I need tofu burgers fried in vegetable oil - and i’ll do it: a small price to pay to get my insurance to pay for my TRT pills or creams or whatever it is.

I’m bloated, my skin looks awful. Haven’t shaved, showered. I look like the soyboy wojak. Sleeping less than five hours will reduce your test by 15%, I read. No problem. I can drink Mountain Dew while watching Seinfeld at 3am.

Eating garbage and loafing about is an unremarkable task - I don’t even have any witty remarks about the time spent doing this. After two consecutive days of being useless, I wanted to stay this way forever: indoors, cozy on a couch, braindead. It’s a great way to live if you’re programmed this way. Maybe I am, maybe that’s why it feels so natural.

Maybe I betray my instinct to languish and die every time I go to the gym.

The doctor appointment comes quicker than expected. I pass my pallid reflection before taking the routine morning piss when it dawns on me - there’s no boner. No morning wood. I can’t believe it. This is probably the first time in my adult life where I wasn’t struggling to navigate how to piss with a furious post-sleep hard-on. I consider this a success.

I whistle a little song as I chug a liter of soymilk, convinced of the successful execution of my most retarded project yet.

The nurse, featureless behind several layers of covid protection, took my blood without uttering a single word. After bandaging my speck of a wound, she placed a plastic container in my left hand. 

She either says ‘now piss’ or ‘now this;’ it’s impossible to be certain. 

I perform the requested act in the standardized vessel. I return it to the lady who immediately affixes a ‘hazardous’ sticker to the top before leading me to the credit card terminal that declares this visit as officially over.

Stepping outside, I squint into the sun. The soyification has made me photosensitive! I need to have a steak and some oysters or something.

(Some time passes.)

A week or so goes by. Doctor leaves me a voicemail telling me that my bloodwork came back great, nothing to worry about. Great? I don’t know what ‘great’ means in this context. I call back immediately, asking for a more in-depth analysis other than ‘great.’

‘Yeah, your testosterone is great. Nothing low there. Maybe you’re just depressed and that’s killing your sex drive. Congratulations, you’re perfectly healthy.’

‘That’s it? I have no problems?’

‘None that I can fix, at least.”

Hanging up, I check my email to see a PDF detailing my blood and piss contents. Yep, everything is either ‘normal’ or ‘above normal but a good thing.’ Red blood cells, great. Cholesterol, good. 

Then I see it: testosterone - 610 ng/dl. Smaller red text beneath declares that <300 ng/dl is considered ‘low.’ 

That settles it: i’m simply too powerful. All that soy was no match for my unadulterated masculine prowess. I should have known better.

All of those processed veggie burgers and tofu-substitute chicken fingers couldn’t bring me down, offered me nothing but a stomach ache. I did a bad job of being a lazy loser.Soy is a mindset, after all.

I sort-of expected this, so I glance to the envelope labelled ‘plan B’ on my desk.

I consulted with a dietician friend with the best ways to drive my T count through the roof. He gave me a list of the expected foods (eggs, spinach, radish, banana, lamb) and supplements (ashwagandha, tribulus, d-aspartic) which, even though this was not new information, was useful in terms of reaffirming that I can drive my count higher. 

One way or another, I need to have obnoxious amounts of testosterone in my blood. I want to stink of toxic masculinity. I want every woman to succumb to pheromonal submission as they pass me on the street. 

I want to smell like a forest animal in heat. 

It’s not that I want to fuck the staring lady on the subway, I just want her to be aware that I could if I wanted to. 

I can’t help but laugh as I text my dealer to see if he still has any of that Androgel or Testim we talked about last week.

-
Thank you to the guys at the Betaverse for having me on to half-talk about TLZ this past week. I haven’t been talking much in my new isolated life so I ramble on about conceptual poetry to how all representative politics are gay, but maybe that’s your kind-of thing: it’s mine, after all.

The Lifestyle Zoo is now up as a free PDF (alongside every other book) if you don’t wanna spend the eleven bucks to buy a real copy.