May Newsletter from Michael Z

This is a long one! It's been a busy month and a busy brain

May has been pleasant, though I can’t remember why. Something about the word, and the weather. It’s been a very social and busy month, which is fantastic, because after my last newsletter I promptly got sick and was isolating for two weeks.

I absolutely hate being alone. Not that I fully was—my partner was around of course; but I did not have the brain capacity to even socialize with them very much. It is very weird to miss someone who is there but behind a fog. Regardless, I hate being stuck at home.

This month has had more friend time; this past week very full. I am most energized and excited about life when I have friendship and creative inspiration happening every day. It feels still out of reach to see friends every day. It’s been immensely wonderful to have my partner with me every day. I feel more stable and healthy. We are also both really social—both really fit the bill of an extrovert. So it’s best when we both have a lot of social plans, together and separate, and that was achieved this week so I am happy!

This weekend I went to a show and the beach <3 It was delightful.

I got invited to a child’s 13th birthday party a couple weeks ago, a kid who I co-babysat for a couple years but I thought didn’t really like me. Turns out I am chosen family and he is just an aloof kid?? I gave him a long card and he gave me a big hug. I am emotional.

I am also learning chess, both by my partner teaching me, and by playing a mobile chess game, losing a lot, yelling “I hate chess” and then continuing to do it for an hour a day or so. I am now better at chess. I hate chess less.

Spring

As spring is wrapping up I am having a great time. I now have fewer crows come for peanuts, but one comes every day, and sticks around to look at me. A crow that’s a friend is worth a ton down the street! I am so happy to have made a friend, I’ve even named them.

The little birds and squirrels come to the door (we have a glass/screen door) and ask why the feeder is empty.

I’ve been sitting on the little porch in the sun, stretching out in the grass and on the beach with friends, walking around, using a lot of sunscreen, and sipping coffee while watching the birds.

I read a post awhile back that said “sometime in your thirties you wake up one day and you’ve become a bird watcher.” I laughed, but wait, actually...

This is the most I have ever taken advantage of the deliciousness of springtime. As I move more fully into my body it has become less overwhelming to be outside. I think as I age I’ve also gotten less heat sensitive (and more cold sensitive), which helps.

It feels weird to feel closer to “living my best life” in such a horrible time in our society. But 2020 was also one of the best years of my life in some ways—I felt more healed, confident, made major legal and physical progress in my transition, and the loveliest part, met my spouse. I am grateful for the balancing force of my personal life in rough times.

Things aren’t all good—still in a rough money place, and in a sadness about how far away being able to afford having a kid feels.

I feel both melancoly and hopeful about family. I sort of left my family when I moved across the country, and I have been reconnecting with my cousins this past year. I got to have lunch with one of them who I have barely seen in a decade!! And I let my family know that my spouse and I got legally married, so now I can say it in the newsletter! I have been talking around it for awhile. We hadn’t meant for it to be a social change but it has turned out to feel so different to be married, so we have told most people now. I will write more about marrige some time soon.

I went to an incredible garage sale for “garage sale day” in my neighborhood boasting 600 garage sales on the same day. It had a menu and my spouse and I went straight to one with clothes in exactly our sizes, and walked away with an enhanced wardrobe and a perfect ottoman??

Clothes include this perfect lemon shirt, which I later got yellow makeup to match:

It’s been a strange and lovely season. I have never been an outdoors person because I did not grow up in an outdoors family, and I am so happy to have emerged from winter into happiness.

I have also been working gently on letting go of the tension in my body (more on that later) and enjoying each season. I have learned I am also better at cooking in spring and summer, and so the balance is shifting in my household. I am excited to get my Mediterranean salads going soon! I love chickpeas.

What do you like to eat in the summer? To do in the spring? What has brought you joy lately? Let me know in a comment or email me at michaelzzaki.writes@gmail.com

Reading

This month was another where I sampled a few books before sinking into one, and have a few on the periphery.

I read the first couple short stories in a book called Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism. It’s queer erotica, and the first one, titled the same as the collection, was first a zine.

I don’t know what I think really. I don’t really read werewolf romance/erotica so I forgot what it was probably going to be like, and I didn’t ultimately like the sex pieces that much. But it was good for me as a person to read sex scenes with a trans man character. I get so uncomfortable with that. I really struggle with the reminders about my own body, or sometimes I find the language other people choose for their body parts cringy to me (not as a judgement, just literally cringing because it feels wrong applied to me). I think long term it is good for me to occasionally be exposed to, though.

I feel odd about some of the choices the author made; I feel like they did a bit of unnecessary writing from an experience they don’t have—like being transmasculine or Black. But that did challenge me to think about what makes me uncomfortable, and how much.

I have felt good about writers picking up other perspectives for romance novels, primarily because if they don’t, and the format of a romance novel is often switching perspectives between the love interests, there could never be interracial couples in white writers’ novels or cis-trans couples in cis people’s novels. I don’t want that! So I am curious what process people have around that.

Which brings me to the book I finished.

I read I’ll Have What He’s Having by Adib Khorram in mid-May. 5/5 stars, no notes! (Okay, one note: there were a few off-screen nonbinary characters and it would have been nice to throw them a real line/personality).

This novel was SUCH a good time. I rarely have the experience of a romance novel having the correct amount of conflict—realistic, with long periods of joy in between the obstacles—and this one had that. I really recommend it if you enjoy romance novels. The characters felt very real with very real bodies. Their chemistry was so fun and lovely and felt realistic to me. I enjoyed spending time with all of the characters.

It is a novel about two men, one I described as “the wine guy” (who is Black) and one I describe as “the Iranian guy” (because that identity ties into so much of his narrative) when I’ve talked about the plot out loud. I often don’t enjoy novels about gay men; I think that has never been my culture. This one I’ve been really enjoying, and I think neither of them being white is part of it, honestly. They are also very in their late-thirties; it is mentioned often. I really appreciated that. Often, even if characters aren’t especially young, no one talks about having a body that isn’t young (knees popping, etc.)

Often with gay novels about men, I feel they are connected to a cis gay culture I just don’t relate to. Since I’ve never been a cis gay man, it just feels like an awkward distance from me. I think it is notable that my go-to descriptor of these men is “vocation” and “ethnicity”. The author is Iranian-American and it makes sense that ethnic culture is fleshed out more for that character. It starts out from that character’s (Farzan’s) perspective too, in the way that sets up what in a straight novel would be David (the wine guy) as the male love interest. In queer novels I’ve read there still seems to be a primary protagonist. If anyone knows about any man/woman romance novels with the man as the main protagonist please let me know!

The writing is just very good. I feel like the obstacles that the author places between these men are reasonable and realistic, misunderstandings don’t go on agonizingly long, and each character feels like a person I want to get to know. Read it!! It is very refreshing.

The thoughts section

Status update on chilling the fuck out

My goal for this year (2025) was to chill the fuck out. You’d think the current political horror would feel relevant to that being possible, but it isn’t. This is a longer term issue, one stretching way into my past that I’d like to not stretch any further into my future. I am looking for resiliance for my happiness. That means through bad personal and external times, too.

My goal isn’t about adjusting my life. I want to adjust how I go into each day and how I feel going into sleep. I’m aiming to relax my muscles, to let go of thinking abstract anticipation of suffering will prevent it. I want to feel comfortable being present in pleasant moments, to accept happiness, and to remember things will be okay again when something feels bad.

Mostly I am holding a lot of tension in my body that is not from the real stressors in my life. It’s there no matter what is going on. It’s a habit. I think I’m at a point of healing where I don’t need to think or convince myself of much anymore; I just have to practice, even if it doesn’t work right away.

I have made so much progress! Especially this month, I have been finding it easier to relax my body and breathe. A year ago when I was practicing relaxing my jaw, I told myself to do it every time I thought of it, even if that was just opening my jaw. Now, I can feel the difference; I am actually relaxing rather than shifting the tension somewhere else in my jaw.

One thing that has helped is noticing that sometimes the muscle tension isn’t even external stress or an old habit; I am having trouble with low sensory input and that disorientation is stressful. Knowing that maybe literally nothing is wrong, or I am just tired or hungry (classic) has really helped.

There’s a lot going on in my brain and memory and practice around this, but the long and short of it is that I would say I’m a May-amount of reaching a year’s goal—a goal that is also the culmination of my self-work of the last fifteen years. No matter how far I get, that is reason to celebrate already.

Arts and Crafts

It’s summer market time and I have had a goal two years in a row to sell jewelry. It’s the hobby suited to “monetize” because I cannot own as many earrings as I want to make. But I don’t make them! So I am trying to convince myself to take out the supplies and keep working on it. If you know me please harass me if you want to. It would be a great favor.

This one is barely an art or craft, but I am also obsessed with a fashion mobile game right now. I LOVE women’s clothes but since I’ve been in the men’s section it gives me way more dysphoria than it did in my mid-20s when I was in costume all the time (reflecting on old photos). So it’s been an absolute delight to dress up women in a game!

I also have a big goal to submit to two literary magazines by October.

I was recently talking to a friend who told me her friend who’s published would be happy to talk to me, and I said I always feel unready to talk to people when I’m offered networking. I know people who’ve done everything I want to do, but I am afraid to ask about it—I have this perception that it’s a one-time opportunity per person, and I’d better have good questions and completed work before I talk to them or it’s wasted.

My friend noted that people who grew up with money and expect networking to be abundant if they try at all do not do that. They aren’t worried about it. I think she’s right!! Action is required to move forward. Part of chilling the fuck out is holding myself to a less arbirary and unreasonable standard for my choices. I can make the wrong choice or be imperfect and it is so fine. No one else is judging me!!

How old were you when you stopped listening to your mean parent/s in your head?

So, a sub-goal of chilling the fuck out is to take more action. Wish me the strength.

Rabbit Update

The boys are doing very well! They have been adorably cuddly. I’ve also been awake during their bounce around hour (5-6am) more often, so I’ve had some cuddle time when they are fully awake, which is lovely. They really enjoy it too. I can sit and pet two delightful bunnies and I can barely believe it.

Cuddles:

Thank you so much for reading!!

I wish you all an incredible rest of the spring! I know it’s a really hard time for everyone to varying degrees, so I also wish you rest, energy for whatever form of political resistence, and a lot of connection.

If you have any thoughts you want to share with me about this newsletter, please do!! You can leave a public comment by clicking the button below, or you can email me privately at michaelzzaki.writes@gmail.com

happy almost June!