Goals

I didn't make any new year's resolutions, as that would just be setting myself up for failure. Instead, in addition to the ones I've already mentioned separately in the past few days, I have set myself a few my goals for 2011:

* I intend to continue to come out to the people around me, and aim to raise the profile and improve the public perception of transgender people. I'm still trying to work out whether to say anything to the people who know but want to pretend not to or whether to let things continue as they have so far.

* I know that my work commitments will increase significantly this year compared to last year, and to prevent that from swamping my girl time, I intend to delegate anything that I can. It might sound trivial, but I need to do things like paying someone to mow the grass so that I don't have to do it myself.

* I plan to get out on average more often than once every 5 days for the year, with at least 6 outings, including at least one daytime outing, every month. I don't want to be a long way behind in about October and have to push other things aside to catch up at the end of the year as happened last year.

In the back of my mind there is an even bigger goal of getting out no less than once every 4 days with 8 outings per month including 3 daytime outings but if I aim for that but fall short, I'll be happy as long as I make the easier goal.

* A few times last year, when I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, I wasted an opportunity and didn't crossdress at all. This year, I intend to try doing new things push my comfort zone en femme but I don't intend to place myself in danger.

For example, I will probably travel by train to the Sydney CBD and walk around shopping during the day. I had a very traumatic experience in the Sydney CBD a few years ago, and am not very comfortable being there even in boy mode. I've travelled by train in boy mode plenty of times but never en femme, but know that some of my friends in Sydney do so without any problems.

I'd also like to get back in touch with our belly dance teacher and see if we can arrange classes again. I miss them, and even though I only ever did one en femme, I really enjoyed it and would like to do it again.

* I want to sort out my sleep patterns so that I can get to bed and get up earlier instead of missing out on daytime outings because I'm too late getting up. It's something that I've mentioned several times before and made no real progress with.

One of the things that makes it difficult is that the cafe nights always end late and, with the Central Coast ones that can be almost midnight and I have about an hour drive home afterwards. I'm thinking that I may have to set an alarm for myself for around 10:00 as the time that I leave cafe nights, even if that means missing out on being in the group photos.

* I want to organise myself so that I can reduce the time that it takes for me to transform in both directions, as I have come to realise that the combination of this and getting up too late often prevents me from even starting to change.

* I need to make a decision one way or the other on buying a smaller pair of breast forms. The ones I have now make me a D cup, which is a little large for some outfits. Buying a smaller pair so that I have the option of being a C cup instead would make some of my clothing choices much easier, but for reasons that I'm not going into here, I have been unable to talk to my preferred supplier.

* I intend to wear halterneck tops and dresses for the first time. I bought several last year, but have never actually worn one out. To some extent this relates to problems with body shapers and breast size but hopefully I'll sort those problems out very soon.

* I intend to go out with my own hair instead of a wig. As I mentioned a while ago, my hair is longer than most of my wigs, but my receded widows peaks hairline discourages me from going out without a wig. I've been trying Minoxidil without discernible success, and will continue until I finish what I have. Unless it starts to show results, I'll consider hair transplantation after I finish the Minoxidil. I'm now also considering makeup techniques to make it less obvious without actually doing anything about the hair, or possibly getting an artificial fringe to clip in.

* I intend to organise myself so that I can pack my girl gear when I travel, and do so. I've been thinking about how to convert the cane basket that I bought recently and hope to start on it quite soon. At this stage, I have no suitable trips arranged this year but that's quite likely to change. While I didn't make it to Transformal last year, I might get there this year.

* I want to work on improving my female voice so that it fits my appearance. I have a recorder program on my internet tablet that should be quite suitable for recording and listening back, and will have to make myself spend time practising. I also need to get over the shyness that prevents me from comfortably practising my voice at home when anybody else is there. My wife and son both know about me, so there's no logical reason for the shyness and yet it persists.

* I intend to maintain my nails at an (un)reasonable length and wear nail polish virtually all of the time. I'm comfortable having about 8mm of overhang beyond the nail bed, and want to keep them at about that length. While I'd love to have them longer, I find that when they are longer than that, the rate of breakage and damage goes up noticeably. Even if I often wear a colour that is close to the natural colour of the nail bed to minimise attention, I intend to try to wear polish. Depending how things go through the year, I may wear increasingly obvious colours in boy mode.

I'm sure that there are more but I can't remember any others off hand.