"What's My Motivation?" photoillustration and nibbles

Almost there ...

diff --git a/content/drafts/whats-my-motivation.md b/content/drafts/whats-my-motivation.md
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-Title: What's My Motivation? Or, Hormones Day 87
-Date: 2020-01-01 
+Title: What's My Motivation? Or, Hormones Day 88
+Date: 2017-07-21
 Category: other
 Tags: HRT diary, not-a-transition
 Status: draft
 
+![spiro and estradiol tablets]({filename}/images/spiro_and_estradiol_tablets.jpg)
+
 Why am I doing this again?
 
 I'm not trans. At any rate, I'm not _transitioning_. It _should_ be a trivial corollary of "Don't take other people's medicines": if you're transitioning to live as a woman, get on HRT. If you're not, _don't_. How could anyone get this wrong? Maybe the nonbinary folks would support me, but it would seem a bit duplicitous to appeal to their authority given my views. A reader of this blog on 8chan says that my hormones expermient is "five steps beyond 'playing with fire' and more like 'directly throwing yourself on a fire.'"
@@ -16,11 +18,11 @@ I think—though introspection is difficult—that there's another motive presen
 
 Sufficiently attentive readers of _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_ may have noticed that the day number in the title of this post isn't congruent with [the date I started spiro](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/hormones-reboot-spironotacular/). That's because I stopped the HRT during a [relapse of unpleasantness](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jun/memoirs-of-my-recent-madness-part-i-the-unanswerable-words/)—not a conscious decision so much as I wasn't competent enough to remember to take pills while everything else fell apart. So my true hormones-reboot-reboot start date, the one that matters, is 25 April.
 
-And really, the results so far are nothing to write home about. (Although they are _apparently_ something to blog about.) My libido is down: I've been masturbating maybe once or twice a week, down from—well, I'm not sure I'm honest and brave enough to accurately estimate my pre-HRT masturbation frequency, even to myself, so let's just say my libido is down. I _think_ I'm starting to get a little bit of breast growth?—it's very subtle.
+And really, the results so far are nothing to write home about. (Although they are _apparently_ something to blog about.) My libido is down: I've been masturbating maybe once or twice a week, down from—well, I'm not sure I'm honest and brave enough to accurately estimate my pre-HRT masturbation frequency, even to myself, so let's just say my libido is down. I _think_ I'm starting to get a little bit of breast growth?—it's subtle. [note about correctness in the mirror]
 
 And ... that's it, as far as I can tell. Not really a big deal, at all. Should I be disappointed, that I hoped to discover some True Secret of Ultimate Gender, only to find that the secret can't be had by taking other people's medicines? Should I be relieved that maybe there's not much of a secret to be discovered in the first place? Or do I just need to continue to be patient?
 
-Although, my 10 July lab results put my estradiol levels well below the expectation for transitioners, so I'll be increasing my dosage. The test result uninformedly just said "<50 pg/mL", with the standard range (for males, presumably) given as <=50 pg/mL; the doctor says it should be over 100. (This result makes my earlier [patch-only-no-spiro phase](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/) of the experiment look even more useless than it seemed at the time, as if the _starter_ in _starter dose_ is code-switching for _placebo_.) I asked for the higher dose in oral form; the transdermal (no pun intended, one assumes) patches _usually_ last the week that they're supposed to, but it's slightly annoying to feel the patch wrinkle when I twist or bend over.
+Although my 10 July lab results put my estradiol levels well below the expectation for transitioners, so I'll be increasing my dosage. The test result uninformedly just said "<50 pg/mL", with the standard range (for males, presumably) given as <=50 pg/mL; the doctor says it should be over 100. This information makes my earlier [patch-only-no-spiro phase](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/) of the experiment look even more useless than I knew at the time. I asked for the higher dose in oral form (well, [sublingual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublingual_administration), anyway); the transdermal (no pun intended, one assumes) patches _usually_ last out the week that they're supposed to, but it's slightly annoying to feel the patch wrinkle when I twist or bend over.
 
 The spiro does seem to be working as intended: the July lab puts my "free" testosterone at 20.8 pg/mL, with the standard range given as 59–166 pg/mL.
 

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