Call Me Matti: The Beginning

I was born Veronica Renee Archuleta in Las Cruces, NM. I was named partially for my dad, Ronnie (which is short for Veronica) and Renee, (meaning "reborn" in French) is my mother's favourite name. At birth, I was designated female. For most of my first year of life, I wore the same little pink outfits because my parents were very young, poor, and couldn't afford to buy me many new clothes. When I was a small child, I was not really too aware of the differences between male and female. I wore feminine clothes because that is what my mother bought for me. I remember taking my role of "big sister" very seriously when my siblings were born.
Sometime during elementary school (I do not know exactly when) I started realising I didn't quite fit in with other girls. I hated wearing dresses to church.  I enjoyed rough-housing, reading, and playing football with the boys way more than I enjoyed putting on lip gloss and gossiping with the girls. Around this time, I met a kid in Sunday School named Ashley. Ashley's hair was short and she wore suits to church. The girls would tease her behind her back, and they called her names I didn't quite understand, like lesbian, dyke, and tranny. It was clear that she wanted to be thought of as a boy but our classmates would have none of it. When I tried to defend Ashley, they teased me too. Soon enough the family quit attending our church. I sometimes wondered if I was a person like Ashley. I had no concept of the word "transgender" at this time, and the way that Ashley dressed and acted was very contrary to the way I was taught that girls should dress and act. Since I didn't know how to express myself, and had no one to advise me on the subject, it retreated into a dark corner of my mind.
So life went on. I entered junior high as the same rambunctious tomboy I was in elementary school. I learned that I was very good at making people laugh; I used this to earn friends and weave my way into many different cliques. I didn't quite fit into any of them, but I was popular in my own right. I started experimenting with wearing makeup, and as it turned out, when I fixed myself up just right I was an attractive girl. Boys started noticing me, and I had a string of boyfriends (whom I kept strictly at school since I wasn't allowed to date.) I envied the popular girls and did everything I could to emulate them: I read fashion magazines, I wore the nicest clothes that our tight budget could afford, and I sought their advice on hair and makeup.
  When I was in my late teens, I started experiencing gender dysphoria for the first time. Gender dysphoria means basically feeling distress at being in the wrong body. The wide-eyed, curvy girl in the mirror did not match who was inside. It didn't help that friends always joked that I would have made a better guy.  One of them even said, "V, you just don't know how to 'act pretty.'" I had no idea what she meant by that. Apparently this meant I was too opinionated, brash, forward, sloppy. etc to be a girl. She echoed what my mother had always told me growing up. Mum was constantly on my case for not being ladylike and for choosing t-shirts and jeans over dresses and cardigans. Once again, having no real outlet for my feelings, I chose to bottle them up and continue with life, hoping one day I would be what a girl was supposed to be.
It was not until my mid-twenties that I watched a movie called "Boys Don't Cry" that the question of my gender identity resurfaced. The film focused on the life and death of Brandon Teena, who was a stealth, non-op transman. In 1993, he was murdered after being found out by two acquaintances. As the credits rolled, I remember thinking to myself, "I'm Brandon." I was excited to finally put a name to what I'd been feeling for so long, but also terrified. I'd grown up a lot since I'd first met Ashley, and I knew the world was not kind to transgender people. I was afraid of alienating my family, losing my friends, and my then-fiance. I wanted desperately to start transitioning.
At first, I opted to do it gradually.  I decided that I needed a masculine name. I chose the name Matti because it was a) ambiguous sounding (not many in the US know it's a Finnish boy's name) and b) I thought it suited me more than Veronica ever did. I had my friends, family and coworkers start calling me this. Over the next year or so I started dressing more masculine, though I was still not out of the closet to anyone but my fiance and a few close friends.
My first attempt at transition was a disaster. Once people started getting the hint, I noticed that they started treating me differently--sometimes, in bad ways. I worried that my fiance, who had started dating me as a bisexual woman, would not be attracted to me any more. I broke up with him and entered into a very unstable, unhealthy relationship. I became so depressed and hopeless that I attempted suicide and was hospitalized for five days. When I got home, I knew I wasn't ready yet. Transitioning went on the back burner. I started dressing and presenting as a woman again.
In 2013 I met my husband, and it was with him that I felt like I could truly be myself for the first time in my life. I didn't have to hide or pretend to be someone I wasn't. Part of me was still scared to tell him, and I didn't reveal my trans status until a few months after we were married. He was a little shocked, but he told me that he had seen it coming. With his support, I came out publicly on Facebook and to my siblings. Our families still do not know. We have decided that, for now, it is best for them to keep seeing me as a woman.
At this point, I am not on hormone therapy. That's another obstacle I have to overcome. Trying to find a doctor who will treat a transgender patient is very difficult. Furthermore, as of this writing my medical insurance does not cover transgender services. In the future, I am hoping to get surgery to remove my breasts and get a more masculine contour. Again, this is going to be very expensive, not covered by insurance, and difficult to obtain.
I do not hide my past; I am not ashamed of it. I only wish it hadn't taken me so long to come out. The road ahead is long, but the future is bright. I can't wait until the world sees the man I have always been!

Matt

How to Become A Slave to the System

Work. Buy. Consume. Die. --OTEP, "Smash the Control Machine"

Chances are, you're already on the path to becoming a mindless drone, but by reading this blog, you've become aware that you aren't doing nearly enough. Well, I'm going to show you exactly how you can live a purposeless, meaningless, consumerism-driven life. It's not as hard as you think. Trust me.

Get a job you absolutely hate (but pays really well).

I want you to think really long and hard about what you wanted to be when you were a child. Did you want to be an astronaut? A firefighter? A farmer? A fairy princess? Grand High Pooh-Bah of the Starflowers and Unicorns? Wrong, it was always your dream to become Senior Vice Executive Assistant to the Manager of Finance. It must have been, because that is what you wasted your four years in college (no wait, two in community college to save money) studying to be. You wanted to get a real job because your well-meaning parents told you that your dream of being a music producer was impractical, or your high-school sweetheart said you'd never make it as an artist. Success is measured in the amount of zeroes in your salary. That being said, now that you make a lot of money, it's time to

Spend, spend, spend on stuff you don't need.

So, it's Black Friday-- That wonderful day after Thanksgiving where, after sleeping off your turkey coma, you can go to just about any big-box store and stand in horrendously long lines whilst you wait to get the best deals on useless crap you'll throw out in six months. That huge big-screen TV that says "I'm cool because my TV is as wide as I am tall?" Thanks to the wonders of planned obsolescence, it is flimsy and made to break after a couple of years, thus requiring you to purchase a new one. But who cares? Status is the name of the game. Go to as many tag sales, door-busters, and grand openings as you can. Accumulate stacks of merchandise that will rival any hoarder's. You'll find a use for those twenty cosmetic bags... Eventually. You've spent a lot of money so step two is:

Get yourself in a mountain of debt.

Well, say you don't have enough money for all the stuff you want, thanks to all those student loans from college to get you the education for the job you hate. You've had your eye on that expensive, fancy smartphone from Best Buy for weeks now, but its $250 dollars, not to mention the two-year contract. No problem! That's where credit cards come in. Credit cards make it easier for you to buy now and pay later. Sure, you'll have to pay for it SOMEDAY, but for now, you get the instant gratification of being the envy of your friends. You can do the same thing with that fancy car you want. Lots of car places will give you a loan so you can have it now and pay it off for the next six years. Oh, and that big house you want? Get a mortgage! You'll be paying it for twenty-five or thirty years, but that's okay. At least you have lots of space to put your useless stuff.

Have no idea what's going on in the world.

This is probably the most important rule of becoming a slave to the system. If you know too much of what's going on in the world, you might suddenly start caring and doing things to change them. Corporations are counting on you to keep buying, Hollywood is counting on you to see their latest mind-numbing blockbuster, and television channels would rather you watch their latest Kardashian special rather than the news. If it doesn't affect you, it doesn't matter. Never mind that your trendy Hollister shirt was made by a ten-year-old working in squalid conditions. Never mind that we always seem to be at war with someone. The less you know, the happier you'll be.

Have no idea what's in your food, either.

Eat whatever the fuck you want. Life's short and we're all gonna die anyway, so why not have that Triple Whopper with cheese? And who cares about all the poison that's in processed food. If it tastes good, eat it. With medical technology advancing so much, they can fix just about anything that happens to you with pills or surgery. There's no need to torture yourself by living off bland rabbit food. But what if that excellent job you have doesn't give you health insurance? Well, that's just more debt you can add to your credit cards, car payment, house payment, and costly data plan.

Get married and have kids.

This is what society expects you to do, that way you'll always be slaving. Kids are also mini-consumers and have lots of disposable income (yours). Teach them that they need things to be happy, and shower them with fancy electronics so they can keep themselves out of your way so you can catch up on online shopping or the soap operas you have on the TiVo.

And there you have it folks. Now get crackin'! There's a sale at KMart you're missing.

M.

She's with the Angels (SONG LYRICS)

She puts the makeup on her face
Silently she closes the door
Pulls the dress over her shoulders
She doesn't have to hide anymore
She's always known her body was a mistake
"Cheer up, boy," they say, "One day you'll be a man"
Just looking in the mirror causes so much pain
They want her to be someone she can't
And she's with the angels now
In a far more loving place
She's with the angels now
In a quiet, safer space
But I wish that she could see
The beautiful person she was meant to be
Mom and dad, they don't understand
They think they did all they could, raised her right
Why does she insist on wearing a suit to church?
Why does cry herself to sleep at night?
She closes her eyes
She knows it will be over soon
Stayed up all night writing her last good byes
Didn't sleep till half-past noon
Makes her way onto the street
Why oh why did that guy have to speed?
He couldn't stop in time, but that's just fine
It's over now
It's over now
And she's with the angels
She no longer has anything to fear
But she doesn't belong with them
Because we need her here
Because we need her here

--M. Dos Santos

29 Things I've Realised by (Almost) 29

Earlier this year, I wrote a post called "28 Things I've Realised by (Almost) 28" a week before my 28th birthday.  I didn't expect it to be so well-read and received; as a matter of fact, it is probably my most well-read non-recipe post to date. Now I'm looking 29 (aka practically 30) in the face. I'm still waiting for gravity to make everything sag (inevitable) and for my biological clock to start ticking (never going to happen.) Here are 29 more things I've learned this year.

1) Stop making excuses for why you can't get started on your goal of having your own business, learning a new language, taking over the world, etc. There is no better time than right NOW, right this very second. Quit wishing and daydreaming and get on that shit.

2) Don't worry about what people who don't even like you think about you. Sure, you could change, but they still won't like you... They'll just find something new to dislike about you. Their opinions don't matter. So forget them.

3) It's not about who you spend the most time with, it's about who you have the best time with.

4) A lot of people spend their 20s spouse-hunting rather than building their career and investing in the future. Be patient; love will come to you at the right time. Go back to school, learn a trade, make yourself useful. That way you'll have something to fall back in in case Mr./Ms./Mx. Right doesn't work out.

5) When you wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say to yourself, "I am f***in' awesome." Repeat until you believe it.

6) Be realistic about your goals. You'll probably never be the next American Idol, but you can be the winner of your school's talent show. You might never be president of your country, but you might be able to be PTA president one day.

7) The amount of people you sleep with has no bearing on how good of a person you are.

8) If something seems to good/scary/weird to be true, it probably is. Say it with me: "When in doubt, Snopes that shit!"

9) If you don't forward that email or share that picture on Facebook, a little dead girl is not going to kill you in your sleep. Sorry to disappoint you.

10) Own at least one outfit that makes you feel like a million bucks. (Just make sure it doesn't cost a million bucks.)

11) Rich people (that is, normal rich people,  not celebrities) don't blow their money on frivolous crap like 30 dollar hairspray and 500 dollar handbags. You know who does? Poor people trying to look rich. Companies know this, and that's who they market to. Don't fall for the hype.

12) Being a parent doesn't automatically make you an expert on anything... except maybe your own kids.

13) Make a budget and stick to it. Stop impulsively spending money on stuff you don't need with money you don't have. When you have a million dollar nest egg to retire on, you'll be grateful.

14) Every day, do something that makes the world a little better. Buy a homeless person a meal. Donate to a charity. Say "good morning" to your neighbour you never talk to. Smile at a child.

15) There is ALWAYS room for dessert.

16) Sometimes, you just need to spend the entire day in bed, doing nothing productive. If this becomes a habit, however, you should probably go to the doctor because you might have depression.

17) Got a crush on someone? Ask them out. The worst they can say is "no."

18) You can't fix anyone. Loving someone will not make them a better person. Don't fall into the trap.

19) When you meet someone who laughs at the same stupid crap you do, marry that person. A sense of humour will get you through life much better than a huge bank account or good looks ever will.

20) Break up with the person who makes you feel like crap. Quit your soul-sucking job. Stand up to the person who picks on you.

21) It's a lot harder to fall for the charlatans and snake oil salesmen of the world when you've got a strong set of core beliefs. The old saying "if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything" is truer than you think.

22) There's no shame in being wrong. It's a learning opportunity.

23) There's no shame in crying. Having strong emotions doesn't make you weak, it makes you human.

24) If you're at that point in the night where you're asking if you should stay for another drink or go home, it's time to take your drunk ass home.

25) Don't believe anything you see on Natural News or Fox News.

26) If you can't take care of a pet, you sure as hell can't take care of a kid. Keep this in mind every time you get baby rabies.

27) Stop comparing yourself to Photoshopped models. Stop comparing yourself to other people, period.

28) In college, major in what will get you a good job. Minor in something you love.

29) Humans never outgrow the need to play. It's perfectly okay to let your inner kid out. Swing on the swings at your local park. Play a sport. Get into video or computer games. Don't let anyone tell you that you're immature because of this.

-- M. Dos Santos

Please Don't Say (Poem/Song Lyrics)

Never thought I'd see your face again
Never thought we'd be in this place
Once upon a time, we were in love
Then you disappeared without a trace
We were young and hopeless
Fate was never on our side
And now you want to pick up where we left off
Like we never ever said good-bye
Please don't say we've both changed
And we could make it if we try
Please don't say it's not too late
And it'll be different this time
You left me cold and broken-hearted
But I managed to move on with life
I found myself a soulmate
He's always by my side
I'll be honest, though, it's tempting
To relive those beautiful days
Before you make another promise,
Make sure it's one you won't break
If I let you stay the night
If I let you in my heart
I could throw my whole life away
And make a brand new start
But I'm too old to be chasing ghosts
The fleeting dreams of my youth
I just wish I had an answer
No freedom in the truth

28 Things I've Realised by (Almost) 28

My 28th birthday is this Sunday. I'm getting closer and closer to the Big 3-0. I'm sure life still as many lessons left to teach me, but I've learned quite a bit in my almost 28 years on this planet. I wonder what I'll have to add to this list in 28 more years.

1) A lot of the folks you went to high school with are graduated from college, in the careers of their dreams, in the city they hoped they'd end up in. If you're still working on this, don't worry.  Everyone has their own journey and comparing mine to someone else's will only make you miserable.

2) When you're 21 and barely legal to drink, it's perfectly okay to spend your weekends puking in dirty club bathrooms and doing silly things you won't remember later. When you're 28, it's pathetic and kinda sad.

3) Cartoon character tattoos (like Winnie the Pooh) are never okay at any age.

4) Rebound flings are fine, but make sure they *stay* rebound flings. Making them into a relationship is a terrible idea pretty much all the time.

5) Did you have a shitty childhood? I did, and while it sucks, I made peace with it. There comes a time when you have to stop blaming your parents and realise you're an adult, therefore you're responsible for your choices.

6) If your shitty childhood won't stop bothering you, get therapy.

7) People will say just about ANYTHING to get you to sleep with them.

8) Bring baked goods to the office every now and then (bonus points if they're homemade) and you'll be popular.

9) Quit going out to eat all the damn time. It's expensive and unhealthy. Suck it up and cook your own food. If you don't have time, make time.

10) Spend more time reading and less time watching TV. You'll be much more interesting, your vocabulary will expand and your imagination will grow.

11) Do something out of your comfort zone. It keeps life exciting and will help you overcome your fears. For me, it's really hard to talk to strangers so I make it a goal to say hi to a stranger every day.

12) Don't keep around a toxic friend just because you feel sorry for them, or because you've known them for years and feel like you owe them. Cut them out of your life and you'll be much happier.

13) It's better to have a small group of good friends who will always be there for you rather than lots of acquaintances that you never see.

14) Stop being so self conscious. No one is paying attention anyway. They're too focused on themselves to notice you.

15) Many people never really grow up; they're stuck in junior high/high school popularity contest. I've seen middle aged women act like catty 13-year-olds. I've seen grown men act like bullies on a schoolyard playground.

16) If you haven't already, start taking care of your skin now. This means cleanse, tone, moisturise. Day cream with SPF during the day, night cream before you go to bed. You can't fight wrinkles forever, but you can have healthy, moisturised skin.

17) Don't feel bad if your biological clock hasn't started going haywire yet. (I'm pretty sure mine is broken.)

18) As you get older, losing weight gets harder. There's a good chance that if you're fat now, you may always be fat. Changing this will be a lot of work, but it will pay off in the end.

19) Stop reading beauty magazines. They just make you feel bad about yourself. Start reading magazines like Mental Floss. At least you'll learn something that doesn't involve finding the perfect shade of lipstick or giving your man the perfect blowjob.

20) Oh, and if you've reached the age of 28 without knowing how to give a good blowjob... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

21)It's true that you may never forget your first love, but for heaven's sake, don't waste time chasing those feelings with every person you meet afterward. When you're a teenager everything feels new and exciting. When you get older and you've had a few heartbreaks, love feels a lot different but that doesn't make it any less meaningful or wonderful.

22) No matter how old you get, your parents will always consider you their baby. And your mum will always have the power to make you feel like you're five years old. Don't try to fight it, just accept it.

23) Sometimes people just won't like you. Hell, some people may just hate you on sight. This doesn't necessarily make the other person a bad person, or mean you have some fundamental defect. It just means someone doesn't like you. Move on.

24)  The teenage version of you would cringe at this thought, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with dressing for comfort and not fashion. Jeans, a giant hoodie and comfy sneaks 24/7? Sure, why not? (Bonus points if the comfy sneaks are Keds.)

25) As you get older, hangovers suck more. In your early 20s you could usually fight them with Gatorade and a good breakfast, but now they require spending the whole day in bed.

26) Getting carded at bars and clubs makes you feel awesome.  "I don't look old enough to be here?... You have to card everyone? Dammit, just let me have this!"

27) Your younger friends will sometimes annoy you with their naivete and your older friends will annoy you when they say "Well, when I was your age..."

28) Life is one big, beautiful, chaotic mess. You will rarely get everything you want. The trick is to be happy with everything you have.


---M. Dos Santos

The Time We Had (song lyrics)

Days are long

Nights are longer

Every day I get stronger, though

I still miss you so

Shine a light

Help me, guide me

Another morning

Without you beside me

Oh, why did you have to go?

No fly by night lover can heal this pain

There's no more sunshine, there's only rain

The time we had is gone

The love we shared is gone

I've been replaced

You've found another

Remember when we said

We'd only love each other, well

That's all gone to hell

I'll give away your things

Put your pictures on a shelf

Wish I could solve all my problems

With someone else

But it just feels so wrong

The love we shared is gone

Gonna drown it all in alcohol

Wash everything away

Maybe I'll get some sleep tonight

And face another day

Why can't I just move on?

The time we had is gone

The love we shared is gone

---M.