i finally got some winter boots today for the first time in years. it doesn't seem to snow half as much here as it does in ottawa, so i haven't needed them, really. but we got a good dump a few weeks ago, which reminded me i should have something in case i *do* need them. i've had to trudge through snow drifts in running shoes in the past, and it....it destroys your shoes. you get boots to save your shoes.

but, the reason i'm posting is to update on a running gag i've had in place for years. i got a good deal, yet again, by buying kid's boots on sale. how small are my feet?

a children's size 6 - made for roughly 6 year olds - was actually just a little bit too big. i got them instead of the 5.5's, which were a closer fit, in case i wanted to double or triple up on socks....

if they were shoes, i would have got 5.5's. so, i can for real buy shoes made for 5 or 6 year olds. i just did. and i'm about 5' 9" - relatively tall, actually.

i've continually pointed to a few biological gender markers like this. i don't think gender is genetic, i think it's a social construct. so, i reject the idea that being trans is a genetic condition (which is the actual scientific consensus, outside of religious circles on the left and right). but, if you pay close attention to trans people, you *will* notice these kinds of things that make you wonder if the rejection of a monolithic social construct around gender does *sometimes*, or *often*, have coincidental biological causes. for me, the things i've noticed most prominently are a lack of body hair in certain regions (i've never grown a hair on my chest, ever) and hand and feet sizes that are pretty unambiguously not-male.

hormones don't change your shoe size, of course. but 36 year-old grown ass men don't fit into shoes made for 6 year-olds very often, either. that's an entirely biological observation, and one that almost never applies to men.

i'm not suggesting we should go around measuring kids' feet and assigning them gender roles based on it. i'm just a little hesitant to declare my absurdly small feet to be coincidental to my gender identity and would point geneticists to markers like this if they want to find something. that's more evidence, to me, of a biological cross-wiring than any desire to wear a specific kind of clothing.

i actually hope i never have to wear them. but i'm glad i have the option.

the boots were something that i needed anyways; i also picked myself up a new 2 TB hard drive for the recording machine this afternoon as my christmas/b-day gift to myself, with a combination of money sent to me and money saved from a quiet december.

i bought the recording pc in 2006 with four 250 gb hard drives. three of them are still spinning. the fourth melted into itself in march, 2014 (i couldn't have saved it...rather, i should be happy that it didn't take the whole machine down, or start an apartment fire).

the immediate purpose of the new drive is going to be to store the entire discography, including period discs with vlogs. i'm going to be working on this in the new year, so i did need this, now - i've waited long enough. but, as i work this through, i'm also going to be converting the drives into permanent storage. there's still not any way to get 100 or 200 gb on a disc; these 250 gb drives will ultimately be ideal storage solutions.

so, what that means is that i've now begun what will likely be a lengthy process of swapping out drives. in the end, all four of those 250 gb drives should be replaced by 2 TB drives.

it's a dual core 3.6. yes, it's ten years old. and, i actually *have* had a few reasons to think about upgrading to 64-bit, specifically issues around RAM. but, i still see no reason at all why i'd want a faster processor than that, and don't see why i ever will. i was aware that the technology was hitting a plateau around ten years ago, and that it was going to take fundamental shift to break through it; that machine could very well last another 20 or 30 years, so i'm comfortable in committing to a long term plan around upgrading it.