New wig, new dress, out with the girls

A few days ago, I finally got around to trimming the fringes of a couple of the wigs that I bought a few months ago. Since wigs obviously don't grow back if you cut them too short, I prefer to leave it a bit longer than I'm aiming for, and do the final fine trimming after I've taken it off and on a couple of times to make sure that it's sitting right and I don't cut too much off.

Having got this one to what I thought was fairly close, I wore it to our regular Tuesday night cafe night this week, teaming it with one of the dresses that I bought in Cessnock a few weeks ago. Looking at the photo, I think that I'll be taking a little more off the fringe yet. :)

Walking on egg shells

I realised recently that my blog has been gradually getting more and more vague when it comes to some of the people close to me. I'm not a spiteful or vindictive person, and I try to avoid saying things that might upset people around me. The result, unfortunately, is that I feel limited in what I write about, as if I'm walking on egg shells, afraid to put a foot wrong and make a mess.

Something that was said to me in an anonymous comment on one of my blog posts some time ago, which I mistakenly deleted when I intended to prepare a response to it before approving it, was that my blog was insulting to the people that I talk about. I've tried to understand the logic of that for quite a while, but haven't succeeded so far.

If I was naming people and saying negative things about them, I would certainly be insulting them. I don't think that I've ever said anything insulting about anybody in my blog. I've always tried to be objective and to simply describe things as they happen. The only way that someone reading my blog can know who I'm talking about is if the reader knows me and knows the people around me well enough to make the connection. If someone would be insulted by my describing their behaviour, does that mean that they feel guilty about that behaviour?

Perhaps the anonymous comment came from someone who felt guilty about their own attitudes. If someone can explain to me just why they think that I'm insulting people that I've written about in my blog, I'd love to know. I guess I might never know, and I'm not going to lose any more sleep over it.

I have an aunt who has chosen to estrange herself from one of my brothers and his family for over a decade, and seemed to have included me in that estrangement by deciding that I had taken their side. I went out of my way to try to reconcile with her around the time that I was considering getting involved in politics. After I decided that I wasn't going to get involved in politics unless I was open about my crossdressing, I visited her and told her about it. At the time, her response was basically that she didn't want to know, but as long as I didn't discuss it I could still talk to her.

Afterwards, I was very indirectly informed that I was never to visit her again, with a threat of violence if I did. Later still, I was told by my mother that my aunt was of the opinion that I had been lecturing her about accepting crossdressing. I've had no contact since, and it will probably stay that way for the rest of her life. While I'm not saying that I'm happy about that, I'm also not unhappy about it. We were estranged, I made an effort to try to fix it and she made a choice to reject me.

I think that I'm a realist. Not everybody is going to accept me for who I am, but if someone chooses to reject me, I see that as their problem, not mine.

Sliptember and Blerktober

September was a 2-steps forward, one step back sort of month for me, and I expect that October won't be much (if any) better. A couple of weeks ago, I noted that I'd dropped 10kg in the 12 weeks to mid September. Over 2 weeks later, I'm 76kg, the same weight as I was back then, having fluctuated up and down between 76 and 77kg.

Being busy with work meant that frequency of outings also suffered during September. There were 4 Tuesdays in the month, so combined with the one monthly Central Coast cafe night, I had a total of 5 cafe night outings for the month. Sadly, I didn't have any other outings aside from those, which means 5 outings in 30 days, putting me one more outing behind my target for the year. Interestingly, 7th September was the 250th day of the year, so for a target of once every 5 days, I would have needed 50 outings by then but had 48. That's really not far behind.

Right now, I'm about 4 outings short of my target, but have an even more hectic month work wise. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had planned to take a day off in mid September, but work got in the way. I planned another Friday off yesterday, and I did take the day off. Sadly, it was more a case of taking it easy to recover a bit from the exhaustion and sleep deprivation that I was suffering, and getting out en femme didn't come into the equation. Having not got out Friday, I had hoped that I might have got out today, but I got to bed so late that by the time I got up, it was too late.

For those readers not in Australia, the end of October is when tax returns are due. Because I run a business and we own (or at least have a large mortgage on) an investment property, my tax return is rather complicated. The tax software works only on Windows XP or newer, which I don't have, so I may yet have to do it on paper forms, which would make it even harder. Add in a quarterly tax Business Activity Statement that is due on 28th October, lots of work including a 2-day work trip to Mudgee late in the month and a local council Bulk Waste Collection in the final weekend of the month and I can see this month disappearing without me getting all my work done, let alone any extra outings. With only 5 cafe nights in a 31 day month, I'll still be further behind by the end of the month even if I get out one other time.

I've already scheduled one day off later in the month. Time will tell whether it ends up being a day out en femme or a day spent working feverishly on paperwork.

Leaving the girl at home

I previously blogged about wondering about packing my girly stuff to travel, because I was going to Canberra for a few days with family. Sadly, work got very hectic and before I had a chance to even choose outfits for the trip, it was time to go. Consequently, I didn't even end up attempting to pack my girly stuff. When we'd packed the car, there was a little discussion about how empty the back of the car was, and I jokingly remarked that it was because I hadn't packed Alice's stuff.

Our first night in Canberra was Friday. We went out for dinner and to do some grocery shopping in Gungahlin. While we were in the supermarket, a comment was made about the back of our car being fairly empty, and our son took it upon himself to inform my mother in law that it was because we hadn't brought Alice's stuff. She didn't say anything at all in response, and the topic of conversation soon changed to something unrelated.

While in Canberra, I finished up having 2 days where I had most of the day to myself and could have dressed and gone out, if I had had the stuff with me to do so. It wasn't supposed to have happened like that, but our son was sick in the car on the way there, and decided that he didn't want to go in my car for the first couple of days there because the car smelt, so he went with my wife and inlaws instead, leaving me on my own.

I knew where a few of the op shops in Canberra were, thanks to the handy web site opshop.org, which not only provides a list of op shops in Australia, but also provides the locations on a google map. While in Gungahlin on the Friday night, we drove past the local Vinnies op shop, which was where I started on the Saturday morning. After finding nothing of interest on the dress rack, I had a look at tops. An orange top caught my eye, so I tried on and, being happy with the fit, bought it.

I then drove to Belconnen, where I visited a Salvos store and another Vinnies store. While I didn't find anything of interest in either, I was struck by how busy these stores were. Where a typical store around Newcastle might have up to about 10 shoppers at any given time, these had 20 or more people in each!

Because I started my outing rather late, I decided that it was close enough to lunch time, when most op shops generally close on a Saturday, and since there was no usable internet service where we were staying, I decided to instead go and find a shopping centre food court where I could access free wifi. By the time I'd caught up on facebook, blogs and emails, it was too late to go to any other op shops, so I made my way back to our accommodation.

On the Sunday, I did some chores including cleaning the back seat, windows and lights of the car, and doing a little bit of the rather large pile of work that I'd taken with me.

Our final full day in Canberra was a public holiday Monday. I spent the day with my son, visiting a couple of tourist attractions, with a brief stop in between at the food court at Belconnen to again use the free wifi.

By Tuesday morning, I was several hours short on sleep due to the fact that I wasn't sleeping well, and was being woken consistently around 6:30am. The drive home was fairly uneventful, but by the time we'd unpacked the car, I was exhausted. I lay down on the bed intending to get about half an hour of rest before preparing to go out for dinner. Over an hour later, I woke up and thought that there was no way that I was going to go out for dinner. I was simply too late getting started. In spite of that, I started getting myself organised and just kept plodding along. In the end, I arrived at the restaurant right on time. I was really glad that I did go, because not only does it mean that I haven't missed a week this year, but several other people came along including one who I've known on line for a few years but I'd never met in person before.

An odd dream

I had a fairly short dream last night. I don't remember all that much of it, including where it was set, but I guess it's relevant to my upcoming trip to Canberra.

In the dream, I arrived somewhere whilst en femme, knowing that my inlaws, who had never met me en femme, were there. I walked in and my father in law began a conversation with me as if I was un homme (that's what google translate says is the male equivalent of en femme), without even a raised eyebrow about my appearance from anybody present.

I wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something... :)

Long lost photos

Way back in January, I mentioned having been out and the staff at the local Lifeline op shop having taken photos of me. The second photo attached to that blog post was the one taken using my phone. I didn't get copies of the other photos back then.

With the aid of a powered USB hub that I bought from that same op shop last week, I was able to connect the memory card from Bev's camera to my internet tablet and download the photo that she had taken with her camera. It's only a 640x480 image, but after auto-adjusting the colours with GIMP, I think that it's a far better photo than the one taken with my phone.

Sadly, it appears that the photos taken using Brenda's phone have been deleted by someone else while playing with her phone. I'm still happy to have got the above photo.

I find it interesting looking back at that earlier blog post and realising that in less than 10 months, I've gone from referring to the shops and staff very generically to using the names of the shops and the names of the staff that I know. Also, I subsequently found out that one of the ladies in the Samaritans op shop that I went to first did recognise me, but didn't say anything.

Coincidently, a couple of days ago I was looking through work related photos when I stumbled upon a series of photos that I've obviously taken after a cafe night in 2008. I've since moved them into my personal photos. I guess since I counted outings based in photos, I've underestimated how many times I got out in 2008 by one.

I might have to spend some time scanning through my work photos in case there are any more long lost photos in there.

Not that it makes a lot of difference. I still aim to average once every 5 days this year, and right now I'm about 3 or 4 outings short.

I have a waist!

While I've been losing weight, in spite of losing 10kg (22lbs) in 12 weeks, I haven't really seen myself as having changed all that much. I still have a spare tyre fat roll around my waist, so I've still got more weight to lose.

On Tuesday night, however, I wore a skirt that I hadn't been able to fit into for about 18 months. Not only was the waistband actually loose on me rather than just fitting, but when I looked at the group photo from the night and got past the wind having blown most of the fringe of my wig back over my head and actually looked at myself, I was amazed to realise that I'm finally able to see myself as having a waistline.

While most people would probably look at this photo and think that I don't need to lose any more weight, the reality is that I use hip and buttock padding to give the illusion of feminine curves including making my waist look smaller, plus a body shaper to slim my waist even more. While I'm actually fairly happy with how my body looks en femme now, I know that I can do better, and that if I get to where I want to be, I might be able to shed the body shaper in time for summer. For those in the Northern Hemisphere who might not realise it, the seasons are opposite between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, so summer here is December to February. With any luck, I'll be able to wear halter tops and dresses for the first time this summer.

And no, I'm not going to have some chocolate to celebrate. :p

I'm actually curious as to whether my weight loss will slow as the weight comes off. If I don't weigh as much, surely it doesn't take as much energy to walk, run, etc, so I should have to eat even less to keep losing weight at the same rate. I guess I'll find that out over the next few months.

Not so weighty, but oh so sleepy

Back at the beginning of August, I mentioned that I was starting to make an effort to get my weight under control, and that I needed to work on my sleep pattern.

12 weeks after starting a very simple diet of replacing lunch with a skim milk shake and cutting out all food between meals, I've lost 10kg! I get some exercise throughout the day at work, and I knew that I didn't have time to exercise specifically, so I made the conscious decision that I wanted a diet that was the minimum possible change to my routine and didn't rely upon exercise that I inevitably wouldn't get.

There have been a couple of setbacks during that time, and last night when I stepped onto the scales, I really didn't expect to see that I was down to 76kg. My goal is to get rid of the spare tyre fat roll around my waist, or down to about 65kg, whichever occurs first. Starting at 86kg, that means that I might already be past half way, but I won't know that until I get to the weight or shape that I'm after.

I'll have to go through my wardrobe and see what fits again. I'm sure that there are things there that I haven't worn for a few years that will again fit. I'm looking forward to getting to my target weight. :)

Sadly, my sleep pattern hasn't improved much. I made an effort and got to bed before 1am for about a week or so, then there was work waiting and it all gradually went back to how it was before. Sadly, that means that I'm short on sleep again, and less productive at work, which means that I'm staying up late trying to catch up... It's a vicious circle that I'm finding remarkably hard to break. :(

Op shop consolation

As I mentioned on Thursday, I missed out on getting out on Friday due to having to work, and had hoped that a shopping trip on Saturday might still go ahead. Sadly, it wasn't to be. The friend that I had hoped to go out shopping with isn't well, and I was exhausted yet ended up not getting to bed until after 3am. Add in a large work paperwork backlog and I know that I won't be getting out en femme on Sunday either.

After a rather late start, I went out op shopping at local op shops in boy mode, to try on things that I'd seen on Friday but hadn't been in the mood to try. At one shop, the dress that I had spotted was no longer there, so I proceeded to the next shop, where I wanted to try on 3 halter neck tops. When I arrived, the 2 sales assistants were women I'd chatted with and shown photos to several weeks ago.

As soon as I arrived, one of them showed me a dress that she thought that I'd like. I found the 3 tops that I wanted to try, and took them plus the dress to a dressing room. Before I'd even had a chance to try anything on, she'd brought another dress and another top. As I tried things on, she continued to bring more for me to try. I ended up giving her some of the ones that I'd already tried, so that she could return them to the racks and make space on the hooks in the dressing room.

In spite of being an unpaid volunteer, she is enthusiastic about finding clothes that people might want to buy, and it makes shopping a lot more enjoyable. When I said that I was looking for tops, she wanted to know if I also wanted to try some skirts. Without hip and buttock padding, it would really have been pointless so I declined.

I lost count somewhere along the line, but finished up trying on 2 dresses and about 9 tops. I bought 3 tops, including 2 halter necks, one of which was one of the 3 that I went there to try.

I'm thinking that within the next few weeks, I'm really going to have to try to get to that op shop en femme on a Saturday. :)

Packing girly stuff to travel

After my recent blog post about travelling with family, I stopped and thought about the practicality of what I'd like to do and realised that I haven't even considered how I would pack everything that I would need to go out en femme while away from home.

I've done this only once ever before, when I went to the Seahorse Ball back in 2001. On that occasion, both my wife and I wore wigs and I don't remember how we organised them. We probably left them on foam heads and covered them with satin while travelling to avoid messing them up. I'm not sure if that would work amongst all of the other luggage that we'd have in the car, and even though I've looked around for years, I've never found a suitable box to convert into a wig box, like RuPaul's converted drum case.

For now, rather than concentrating on whether I'm going to go out en femme while I'm away, I think I'll start by trying to figure out how to pack all of the things that I would need. Clothing including shoes and undergarments are obviously fairly straight forward (aside from deciding which ones to take!), I have a cosmetics case that should be right for all of my makeup, cleansers, moisturisers, etc. My breast forms and adhesive bra are in packaging that would probably be okay if correctly packed into a suitcase amongst the clothes.

This leaves just 2 things to sort out properly, my wig and hip and buttock padding. Both could be packed into a suitcase, but the wig would need extra effort to prepare before I could wear it and the padding could be damaged, as I have discovered the hard way in the past.

Packing a wig in a bag with some padding inside the cap to prevent it from folding and damaging the skin top, and taking a travel wig stand would certainly be the most space efficient way, but the wig may get creases in the fibres that take time hanging on a stand to disappear, and the travel stand is nowhere nearly as good as a foam head for brushing the wig, which is going to be needed after unpacking and after wearing.

The sponge foam that I use to make hip and buttock padding is the sort of stuff used in furniture such as lounges. It's easy to shape but is also quite easily damaged. Just getting it on and off several dozen times will see some little bits being torn out of the edges, making them wavy. Years ago, when I needed to transport some padding, I rolled it up tightly and rolled a trouser sock over it to keep it rolled up. I only did that a few times, as the tight rolling rubbed and damaged the surfaces inside and out and getting the sock on and off did even more damage. Ruling out rolling up leaves a couple of options. Either way, I'm thinking about putting the padding into some satin pyjama pants first. If a suitcase was big enough, I could put one end of the padding in, pack clothes on top then fold the other end over the pile.

The other option for the padding is to buy or make a round case suitable for fixing a wig head into the middle, then placing the padding around the inside of the perimeter of the box. To fit one of my normal length wigs, the box would need to be about 60cm tall and 30cm diameter. Ideally, it should have the top and sides as one piece that attaches somehow to the base. I guess I'll have to start looking at how I'm going to make it because I don't see myself finding something like that pre-made!

Not so happy Friday, maybe Saturday

I had planned to take this Friday off, like I did 3 weeks ago, to go out and do some op shopping and generally take it easy because I've been pushing myself too hard at work and am having problems with headaches and exhaustion. Spending time en femme helps me to relax, which relieves the headaches.

I put it in my diary just after the last day that I took off, and was really looking forward to it, until I had a call from a customer this afternoon basically demanding that I go to look at something for him on Friday before 1pm. Well, that's the end of the day off. I've done the usual family Thursday night shopping outing, have a migraine and am so tired that I am having trouble concentrating. There's no way that I can get some paperwork done as I had planned tonight, so Friday is now a complete write off.

I have also tentatively organised with one of my friends to go out shopping at Morisset Mega Markets on Saturday. I'm still waiting to see how my family will out manoeuvre me to make that one impossible...

Debuting yet another dress

I wore a new dress for the first time on Tuesday night, and nobody noticed!

I bought it from an op shop several weeks ago, but hadn't worn it because it has short sleeves and the weather is still a little cool (it's early spring here in the Southern Hemisphere).

A few weeks ago, I realised that I had a light wrap jacket that I also hadn't worn before, and I wore it over another dress that I've worn several times. I have worn that combination of dress and jacket a couple of times, as shown in the photo from the Happy Friday shopping trip that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

On Tuesday afternoon, I looked at the new dress and realised that it would go well with the jacket, so that's what I wore. The dress also went well with the brown shoes that I blogged about in September last year. While I was unhappy about the scratches in those shoes when I bought them, they polished up okay (and I've polished them again recently), and they're now the second most worn shoes in my femme wardrobe behind the sandals that I wear when I drive.

The dress that I wore is Tightrope brand, the same as three others that I've had for some time and have worn many times. They are all wrap dresses, and this one is a size 14, which fits better around the bust than the other three, which are all size 12.

When I commented that it was the first time that I'd worn this particular dress, one of the other girls that I was dining with assured me that this one was familiar, and that I had worn it before! Evidently it looks so much like my other dresses that nobody realised that it was a new one. I'm not sure whether that means that I'm getting into a rut or whether it just fits my clothing style so well that it looks right on me.

Travelling with family

In a few weeks, I will be taking my wife and son to Canberra for a few days to allow my wife to compete in sport. While there, we'll meet up with my wife's parents who, as I've noted before, I'm certain know about me but have never said anything. My role is primarily as chauffeur for the trip there and back and child minder for my son for most of the time while my wife and her parents are busy competing. On other occasions when my wife and son have travelled with her parents, I have stayed home and they've kept him occupied without me so realistically, the only part of the trip that I'm really required for is the driving, because my wife will not drive through road debacle that is Sydney. Her parents are going to be there for several days longer than we will, meaning that travelling with them isn't an option.

I'm not aware of there being any specific events that would be suitable opportunities for me to go out en femme, but I'd like to get out while I'm there. I've come to realise that I've been thinking the same thing year after year. We'll go away somewhere so that my wife can compete, and I'll wish that I could go out en femme but not really have any idea about what I'd do or where I'd go while I was there. The result is that all my femme stuff stays home while I spend the entire time away in boy mode. Sadly, at this point I expect that to be the case for this trip, too.

The only time I've ever been even close to crossdressed in Canberra was going to a Seahorse NSW meeting in Sydney years ago, cleaning off most of my makeup and changing before leaving the meeting, stashing my clothes and wig in the car for the duration, and having a shower in Canberra upon arrival (at about 2am) to remove the last traces of perfume and makeup.

I'm still considering my options, but suspect that when the time comes, I'll leave all my femme stuff at home and spend the time twiddling my thumbs in Canberra. Given that we're supposed to be travelling home on a Tuesday, I hope that I'll be home early enough and feeling well enough to make it to the regular Newcastle cafe night.

Attitude adjustment

My work took me to the nearby city of Cessnock today. I didn't have a lot of time to spare, but stopped to look in op shops between jobs. Obviously, that means browsing dress racks in boy mode.

I walked into an op shop and went straight to the dress rack, which happened to be close to the front counter. One of the 2 women at the counter asked "are you going to a fancy dress party?" I smiled and looked at her somewhat quizzically, which confused her a little, and she repeated the question, adding a comment about the fact that I was looking at the dress rack.

I smiled again, and got my internet tablet out of my bag and said "I'll show you something." While I was waiting for it to boot up, the other woman noticed my nails and commented "Look at his nails! They're beautiful." I loaded up the above photo, which was from last week's Central Coast cafe night, and showed it to them. It took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop, but they suddenly realised that the photo was of me, and asked a few of the usual questions like did I do drag shows (no), how did I get that cleavage? (an adhesive bra and mastectomy breast forms), was I homosexual or heterosexual (heterosexual and married). I mentioned that most of the crossdressers that I know are heterosexual and many are married.

There was more conversation along the same lines, during which I showed them a few older photos in which I was wearing auburn wigs. Both women complimented me on my appearance. When I got to a photo in a black wig (the one in my earlier blog post My holy grail of bras), the woman who had started it all asked if the photo was of my wife. "No, that's me." She apologised for her original quip several times during the conversation and made it clear that until then, she had assumed that all crossdressers were gay.

So in the space of a few minutes, I'd not only outed myself to a couple of shop staff but I'd educated them about crossdressers. When a customer brought something to the counter to pay, I alerted the women to her arrival and went to browse the dress rack. As I worked my way along, I found 8 dresses that I wanted to try on. Knowing that the normal rules for this chain of shops was a limit of 3 items in the change room, I told the woman at the counter that I had found 8 dresses that I'd like to try and would it be okay if I took all of them into the dressing room. She again apologised for her earlier comment, and assured me that it would be fine to take the 8 dresses in and try them.

Obviously, it took me a little while to try them all on, and some were good and others no good. By the time I'd finished, I'd decided that I'd like to get 4 dresses including a halter neck evening gown that I have no idea when I'll get an opportunity to wear it. It was tagged $10, while the other 3 were all tagged $7. Without me asking, the now quite chatty and friendly woman put them all through for $5 each.

Having spent so much time in that one shop, I didn't have any time left to look at the other 3 op shops nearby. I returned to my car and continued with my work day. When I got home, I showed the dresses to my wife, who was uncommital about the first 3 that I showed her, and quite interested in the final one. That probably means that she'll be trying it on soon and if it fits her, she'll borrow it from time to time or it will find its way into her wardrobe and I'll have to borrow it back. :)

As a follow-up to my last post (Frankening), I bought a cheap pearl white nail polish tonight, so I'll be doing some more Frankening and re-doing my nails very soon (probably tomorrow night).

Frankening

I learned a new neologism a few days ago. I have been looking for a nail polish that is very close to the natural colour of my nails, but opaque enough that it would reduce the contrast between the tips and the part on the nail bed. Something that I can wear as an everyday polish, in girl mode and in boy mode without being too obvious. Very few people say anything about my long nails, so maybe, like getting my ears pierced, I'll eventually find that people don't care and I'll wear bright colours all of the time but I'm just not ready to try that yet! I want to work my way up to it.

To that end, I bought a cheap light pink nail polish last Thursday night. I tried it on Friday and was disappointed to not only find the polish didn't flow or apply well (poor consistency and a poor quality brush), but that it was too bright and pale to look natural, as can be seen in the above photo.

I then looked at an orange nail polish that I bought some time ago, that is far too orange to look natural, and too transparent. It flowed and applied really well, but gave my nails an orange tinge that reminded me of the stained nails of a smoker. Yuck!

What I really want is a shade between the two, that goes on as well as the orange one but is more opaque. Now, if I was to add some of the pink to the orange...

Since the orange polish had only been used a few times, the bottle was still fairly full. I added pink until the bottle was full to the bottom of the neck, shook it up and found that it was a more apricot shade and looked more opaque in the bottle than it had been, so I tried applying it and found that it's still a bit too orange and a lot too transparent.

Tonight, I topped up the bottle with a little bit more pink and applied it again. It's still too orange and far too transparent, although not as bad as before.

One of my friends on Facebook suggested adding some pearl white polish to the bottle to make it more opaque. Guess what I'll be looking for when I'm out shopping tomorrow night. :)

When I made a comment on the Beauty Heaven forums about having experimented with mixing nail polishes to try to get the result that I am after, one of the other posters responded by pointing out that mixing nail polishes is called frankening. A quick google search indicates that the term is derived from Frankenstein, in reference to putting bits and pieces together to make a monster. :)

Online shopping and chopping

Shopping

Back in January, I commented that I was looking at buying some more wigs. A few weeks ago, I finally did it. I bought 3 wigs from internationalwig.com/. They are all the same style and length, Alicia by New Look, in the standard length the same as the two red ones that I already had. One is actually a replacement for my favourite wig, which is getting old and the net is stretching out of shape. The others are replacements for the black and blonde wigs that I previously mentioned that I wasn't happy with. All three need their fringes trimmed to length, so I haven't worn them yet, but the purchase was quite straight forward and they arrived within about 3 weeks, which was the timeframe predicted on their web site.

Encouraged by the good results of buying wigs on line, I decided that I really wanted to get some lace patterned tights in colours other than black. I've searched locally over and over again without success, but not found what I was looking for. Google, however, turned up a brand called Jonathan Aston, in a style called Sweet Roses.

The first site that I looked at buying these from was a little strange. In spite of them being in the UK and me being in Australia, the site insisted in showing prices in US dollars. They also didn't have what I wanted in stock, and indicated that it would take a couple of weeks to get them in. The colour options shown were black, chocolate (the one I wanted) and ivory.

I subsequently found a different site, uktights.com that not only showed their prices in UK pounds, indicated that they had what I wanted in stock, and had an additional colour, shark grey. While browsing their site, I spotted some cute tattoo print tights, so I ended up ordering 2 pairs of the chocolate brown tights, one pair in shark grey and 2 pairs of the tattoo print, and getting a free pair of (obviously rather cheap) plain pantihose thrown in. The order shipped the same day, but showed as "part shipped". Several days later, I got a refund because apparently they didn't include one of the pairs of chocolate brown tights! I wasn't very happy about that, but the order was shipped within literally a few hours of ordering, and only took about 10 days from the UK to Australia.

Delivery was a problem, though. The sender had marked it as signature required, and instead of trying to deliver it, I watched the postal parcel delivery contractor put a card in the letterbox, which told me that I had to go to the post office to collect it! I rang Australia Post and told them what had happened and that I wasn't happy, and I told the woman at the post office when I went to collect it and she assured me that she'd let the delivery manager know.

I've had a look at the tights and I'm absolutely rapt. They look beautiful, and as soon as I post this, I'm off to get ready to go out. I'll be wearing the chocolate brown tights tonight. :)

Chopping

I've been active on quite a few online sites, and up until recently that included flickr. Not long after I joined flickr, I had a few experiences that made me very dubious about the site. I made comments about it, and other people encouraged me to stay. I did, but to make it more tolerable, I started blocking people whose photos or behaviour was offensive to me. That included people who added me as a contact or favourited my photos, but whose photos showed genitals, profile indicated that they were tranny chasers, etc. The last straw came a couple of weeks ago, when I got an abusive message from a tranny chaser who was livid that I had dared to block him after he favourited a couple of my photos. He apparently had at least 2 accounts, and when I blocked him on one, he used a different account to send the abusive message.

I've now virtually departed from flickr. I haven't deleted my account, but I've deleted many of my photos (mostly close-ups) and those that remain are visible only to my friends. At some point in the future, I may decide to return, or I may decide to delete my account entirely but for now it's effectively inactive. Having made the decision to do that, I've realised that I can feel some relief from stress that I wasn't aware that I was experiencing.

Happy Friday

I did something last Friday that I've never done before. I took a day off work, as flexitime and went out to a few op shops and a couple of shopping centres. Visiting shops where the staff already knew me was fun, including Lifeline Cardiff where one of the staff realised who I was and sent another who didn't to have a look at me. When I turned around, there was a surprised exclamation of Oh, it's you! I was just admiring your hair. :)

I also wandered around the newly reopened (refurbished) bottom floor of Charlestown Square, as it opened on Friday. I remember when I used to be scared of going out, but now I'm finding it easier and easier to just blend into crowds and have virtually nobody take the slightest notice of me. Probably the only place that worries me now is near my home and work, for fear of harm that could occur to my family or to my work if someone particularly negative was to make a fuss.

As I was leaving Charlestown, I remembered that I was getting low on the apple tea that I can only get at Kotara, so I went there too. On the way back to the car, there were a couple of people (a man and a woman) with a little stall in the middle of the shopping centre, trying to sell skincare products or some such, and offering samples. The woman stepped forwards as I approached and I smiled and shook my head, and she stepped back. The man then started to move towards me, but I think that the woman said something to him and he also stopped. As I walked past, he complimented me on my hair. Even if it was just a sales ploy, the seemingly random compliment was quite welcome. :)

As I mentioned in my last blog post, there were 6 cafe nights in August. Adding the outing on Friday means that my average for the month was better than one in 5 days, so my overall average for the year has improved. Of course, with there will only be 5 cafe nights in September, including the Central Coast one that I plan to go to tonight. It's a 30 day month, so one more outing would make for an average of once every 5 days, but my goal is to get to all of the cafe nights and at least 2 other outings, as I'm still behind my target for the year. I'm already planning another day off.

Not quite par, but the tea is nice

As I noted last month, there were only 5 cafe nights in July. I got out only one other day during the month, and that was shopping on Sunday, 18th. So, another month on, I'm slightly further behind my goal, with my average having slipped because I got out only 6 times in 31 days. At least August again has 6 cafe nights, so assuming that I make it to all the cafe nights, one extra outing would improve my average. Sadly, other commitments guarantee no weekend outings for the next couple of weeks, and work makes it virtually impossible on weekdays.

The shopping outing was somewhat odd, as I went to 4 different shopping centres and bought something at each, but none were really girly things. The first was Charlestown Square, where I bought a L'Oreal Lash growth serum to replace the one that I've now finished. Having wandered around a bit, I didn't find anything else that I wanted to buy, and continued on to Westfield Kotara. There, I remembered some comments that my friends Christina and Linda had made about a shop that specialises in tea. Hundreds of varieties of tea from all over the world.

Years ago, I used to go to a Turkish restaurant (which has long since closed) and had found the apple tea there very nice. So, when I saw the tea shop in Kotara, I went in and asked about Turkish apple tea. It turns out that they had it in stock. I've been having some almost every day since, and my wife has been having some too, although I'm not certain how often. The only downside is that when I drink the tea, I keep wanting a pidda (turkish pizza) to go with it. :)

On the way home from Kotara, I decided that I'd drop by the new Woolworths at Cardiff and grab some groceries. I got a few things, but one of the main things that I was after was out of stock. When I got home, I was informed that we needed some more stuff from Woolies, so I went out to Woolies Glendale to do yet more shopping.

I was amazed how busy Glendale was at about 5pm Sunday! Woolies there was far busier than the newer one at Cardiff. I got the handful of items that I was after and headed back home.

I had a very nice op shop find in boy mode on Wednesday, 28th. I bought a 3/4 sleeve wrap dress at the local Samaritans store. It's dark brown with thick squiggly lighter brown writing all over it. It was $7, with the original (new) tag being still on it. I expect to wear it to a cafe night within the next week or two. :)

I had hoped to go out again on Saturday, 31st. I even did my nails in a dark chocolate brown polish on Friday night in preparation. My plan was to go to a few of the better stocked local op shops then to Charlestown Square, but the combination of a few things prevented that.

The main problem is that over the past few years, I have developed a sleep pattern problem. At different times in my life, I've managed to operate everywhere between getting to bed by 10pm and getting up at 6am and, mostly during uni holidays, getting to bed after 4am and getting up at noon. Sadly, my current pattern is closer to the latter than I'd like. If I get to bed before 1am I consider it to be an early night. Between 2 and 3 is more typical. Some weekends that even slips to 4am occasionally. During the week, I have to push myself to get up with sufficient time to prepare for work but at weekends I tend to sleep in well into the morning. Getting up at 10am or later doesn't really work for going out shopping when it takes over 2 hours for breakfast, makeup and getting dressed.

The rest of the problems with getting out on Saturday related to my inability to find an outfit that I was entirely happy with that would be convenient for trying other clothes on at op shops, and normal household things that demanded my time, which I would have ignored if I had been actually preparing to go out.

In late June, I began a diet experiment. Having seen my weight gradually climb from about 74kg when I was dieting and exercising conscientiously a few years ago to 86kg in June, I decided that I'd maintain a normal cereal breakfast and usual dinner, but cut out all snacks between meals and replace lunch with a diet drink powder in skim milk. Drinks between meals are either water, skim milk, carbonated fruit juice or the apple tea that I mentioned above. After 5 weeks, I am down to 81kg, an average loss of 1kg per week. This has been achieved without any extra exercise, because I simply don't have time to fit it in.

So, in addition to my goal of averaging getting out once every 5 days, I'm also working on my weight and thinking about how I'm going to reform my sleep pattern. I really should at least aim to be in bed by about 11:30pm, which could be very difficult on cafe nights!

Just average

June was a disappointing month for me. I worked virtually every day, finishing early only to go out to cafe nights. Because there were 5 Tuesdays, I got out to the local cafe nights 5 times, and once to the Central Coast cafe night.

Sadly, with work being so hectic, I simply didn't get any other opportunities to go out. In a 30 day month, I got out a total of 6 times. That means that I achieved an average of once every 5 days for that month, but I'm still behind for my goal for the year so far.

July is going to be worse. There will only be 5 cafe nights in a 31 day month, so unless I get out at least twice aside from the cafe nights, I'll be further behind by the end of the month. Looking at my work schedule so far, I'll be lucky to get a day off to relax, let alone going out. :(

In Heaven. Beauty Heaven, that is!

I've had a relatively good month this month. I got out a total of 7 times, so the month averaged once every 4.4 days. I had hoped to go out again yesterday, but was too tired and got up too late to be able to.

The highlight of this month was a day in Sydney last Saturday. After spending about 3 hours getting myself ready, I drove to the Balmain offices of the website Beauty Heaven as one of about 18 guests for an open day. The unusual thing was that it was an organised event where I was the only transgender person there. Normally, I'd either go out shopping alone, or I'd go to an event with other TG people.

As far as I know, everybody else present was a cisgender female. I've been active on that site for quite some time, which is how I came to get the invite. I've also been open about myself, so everybody present knew about me. Because of that, I didn't pass, but it didn't matter. Within minutes of meeting, people who I'd talked to online became friends who I felt like I'd known for years.

It started literally from when I parked my car. The woman who had parked next to me only a few seconds earlier was one of the other guests, so we walked from the carpark to the building together. Being the first two to arrive, we were immediately sat down at the manicurists' tables and given manicures using Orly products. The photo above shows the beautiful job that my manicurist did. Almost as soon as I'd finished there, someone dragged me off to do a brief video blog, which I'm praying never sees the light of day!

There were so many brands and so many products, I don't really remember them all. Looking back, I think that the highlight of the day wasn't the pampering or the products given to me during the day, or even the remarkably heavy goodies bag given to me at the end of the day, but getting to sit and chat with a group of girls including members and staff from Beauty Heaven, and the acceptance that was part of that. I was told by one of the staff that I was courageous (which I've never really thought I am), and another appeared genuinely shocked when I mentioned that I am 40. I'm still wondering how old she thought that I was. :)

After the open day, I drove to a friend's place in Hornsby to visit for the first time. After parking in the street around the corner from her apartment building, I realised that I couldn't find the piece of paper that I'd written the instructions on. Fortunately, I'd already used google maps to wok out which building it was, and the only possible problem was whether I remembered the unit number correctly or not. Happily, I did get it right, because I punched the number into the keypad and she buzzed me in without any drama. We sat and chatted for several hours, catching up on many years. I finally left around 10pm, arriving home at 11:30pm, a full 12 hours after I left home.

Obviously, there was no way that I was going to take that beautifully applied nail polish off, so it stayed on Saturday night and most of Sunday. I had an unexpected visitor on Sunday afternoon. My brother, who I mentioned back in February 2008, didn't speak to me for 9 months after he found out that I was a crossdresser. It was somewhat funny making an effort to keep him from seeing my nails, because I have no idea how he would have reacted if he had seen them. If he did see them, he didn't say anything, so the "don't ask, don't tell" status quo was maintained.

Sadly, the impending return to work on Monday meant that the nail polish had to come off Sunday night.

More out than I know?

Woo Hoo. Another blog post less than a day after the last. :)

A couple of interesting things happened last night, which make me wonder about how people perceive me in boy mode.

Yesterday, I had some private messages back and forth with a woman I met last year through work. She informed me that she guessed back then, based upon certain details of my appearance, that I was a crossdresser. She didn't say anything at the time, or indeed since, until I sent her a friend request on Facebook from my femme profile.

The other interesting thing happened when I went to put fuel in the car last night. When I went to pay, the female console operator commented something like "I wish I could grow nails like that. Mine are crap." It wasn't the first time I've had someone comment about my nails when I was in boy mode, but I think that it was the first time I've had a comment from someone who didn't already know me.

It's got me thinking about just how obvious it is to people who see me in boy mode, that I'm a CD. Do I care, and do I want to make changes to make it less obvious? I'm still thinking about that.

Given that my receded hairline means that I always wear a wig when en femme, I'm wondering if I'm being silly letting my hair grow long. After all, the longer my hair, the harder it is to hide under a wig. I'm wondering if I should cut my hair shorter, or make an effort to try one of the topical applications that are supposed to re-grow hair so that I can go without a wig.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm wondering if what I want to do is make changes that might make it more obvious, like going back to having my lashes tinted? :)

Three times in four days

Yes, I've done it again. I've been so busy that I've missed out on blogging things as they happen and now have to go back and try to cover a few weeks in a catch-up post.

I've now worn the black and white long sleeved dress that I mentioned in my last post. It's nice and warm and fits beautifully. Sadly, it didn't fit my wife, so that's one that we won't be sharing.

I finally decided to make an effort to get some weight off. The best way I can find to do that is to walk for about an hour every day. With how much I have to cram into my days, I decided I'd try to do it at night instead. Great theory. I managed to walk a few nights, missing Tuesday nights when I went out for dinner. Work got the better of me, and it all fell apart. I'm going to keep trying, because I know that it's the only way I've ever managed to lose a reasonable amount of weight.

I've managed to pick up another nice wrap dress and a brown cord jacket in the past few weeks. The dress is a Tightrope brand, similar to two other dresses that I have that I really like.

Last Sunday was interesting. My friend Christina suggested a few weeks ago that we might go to the Maitland markets, and last Sunday was the day. I got up at 6:30am, which is very unusual for me, particularly on a Sunday. Up at 6:30, out of the house en femme around 9:15. Christina drove us to Maitland, where we spent a few hours walking around the markets, then drove to Morpeth for morning tea.

Tuesday night, I went to the Newcastle cafe night as usual, and wore the dress that I picked up the week before.

Wednesday night was the first cafe night at Norah Head, on the Central Coast. Christina came to my place and I drove us there and back. It was a great night, and it was hopefully the first of many, as it is planned to be a monthly event.

So, between Sunday and Wednesday, I went out en femme 3 times in 4 days. That's certainly helped my average, but it's still well below my target of once every 5 days.

While out shopping with the family on Thursday night, I decided to put a $20 Tree of Life voucher I'd won towards buying a smaller silver pendant than the rose that I often wear. After looking at a couple, I chose one that was $35. There was a 20% off sale, so it cost me just $8! I plan to wear that sometime very soon. :)

Op-shop shopping

As I mentioned the other day, I finally found a model of bra that fits me and is convertible to halter neck, which I bought in both skintone and black. For now, I've decided that I'll set both up in halter and leave them that way unless I find something that needs a crossover layout instead.

Having decided that, I figured that it was time to go looking around the op shops for halter neck dresses. Yesterday afternoon, I saw one dress at Salvos Glendale but it was labelled as a size XL, which should have been too big for me (I'm a size 14 or L), so I didn't try it on. It was black with pink highlights, and after I got home I realised that the pink on the dress might go with the shoes I bought on Thursday night, so I decided that I'd like to at least try the dress.

Having made the decision to try that dress meant driving back out to Glendale today and trying it in boy mode, using foam travel breast forms that are the same size as my good ones, but less liable to damage from being shoved into a bag. Well, if I'm out driving around, I may as well do a loop and try the stores at Boolaroo, Belmont North and Charlestown. At Glendale, I tried and bought the black and pink dress.

At Boolaroo, while I was working my way along the dress rack, a lady came out of a dressing room with about 4 dresses that she'd tried and decided not to buy. She was about to hang them part way along the rack where I'd already been. She looked at me, smiled, commented that there were a few nice dresses there, and placed them on the rack right where I was up to. One of them was a brown patterned halter neck dress with no size tag. I liked the pattern, which is similar to a wrap dress that I have. I took it off the rack and continued to the end. Having found no others that I wanted to try, I went and tried that dress on. I found that someone had done a bodgy job of stitching the centre of the dress up a bit to reduce the cleavage exposed, which wasn't right for me. Aside from that, the dress looked great so I decided to buy it. When I went to the checkout to pay for it, the woman who had put it back on the rack walked past and happily commented that I had taken one of the ones she had returned.

I was very happy not only with the dress but with that woman's behaviour towards me. There I was, quite clearly a male browsing, trying on and buying a dress and she was friendly and supportive without being condescending. Given the strange sideways glances I get at times, her attitude was a truly uplifting experience. :)

At Belmont North, I worked my way along the dress rack, and spotted a long sleeved black and white long sleeved size 14 wrap dress. Long sleeves don't usually work for me, because I'm tall for my dress size, and my arms are long to match. I also picked up a brown patterned faux wrap size M dress, as I have occasionally found size 12 or M dresses that fitted me okay. I tried both dresses, finding the the brown one was indeed too small, and that the long sleeved dress was in fact a very good fit everywhere including the sleeve length! It was also noticeably warm, even though it was quite light. It should be quite a nice winter dress.

The Charlestown store was a bit of a let down. I didn't find any dresses that I even wanted to try on, so I looked through the tops and found one that I liked, which was labelled size L. I tried it, and it was quite noticeably too small, so I returned it to the rack and went to Charlestown Square for lunch.

After lunch, I went home, put on my good breast forms and hip and buttock padding and tried the dresses with the appropriate bras. The long sleeved dress fitted even better than I had expected, accentuating the waist very nicely. My wife observed that that one will probably fit her quite well too.

I changed bra to the skintone halter one, and, after removing the bodgy stitching, tried the brown halter dress. It looks like it will need a little bit of alteration, with some stitching needed on the middle, but much shorter and in a different position to what I removed. The halter strap is not adjustable, and surprisingly, in spite of my big neck, I'm going to need to shorten it a couple of inches.

I tried the pink and black dress with the black halter bra, and after a bit of fiddling, got the neck straps tied at the right length and the dress sitting pretty much right. The pink on the dress is somewhat lighter than the shoes, but they work okay together. Of course, the dress will also go fine with black shoes.

Something I've thought about before, and was reminded of while trying these dresses today, is that I want a hook for hooking the middle of wrap, mock wrap and other crossover deep V neckline dresses and tops onto the middle of a bra. Something that will allow me to pull the dress in at the middle so that it sits flat against the bra, reducing the tendency for the dress to move and allow the bra to show. Perhaps a small curtain hook attached to a safety pin or sewn directly to the dress...

Oh, and a little something I've noticed when op shopping for V neckline dresses and tops. If you're short on safety pins, when you're op shopping, check the all crossover style V necklines. If people haven't stitched the crossover up to suit themselves, there's a reasonable chance that they will have left a safety pin there instead. :)

My holy grail of bras

I finally got to go out shopping today, for the first time since January.

I've managed to go for dinner out every Tuesday night so far this year, so my average hasn't yet dropped below once every 7 days, but it's not as close to every 5 days as I'd like.

I wandered through a few shops in Charlestown Square, including stopping to chat and getting a photo taken at Tree of Life.

I've previously tried quite hard to find a halterneck bra that met my needs, and had recently looked at modifying a regular bra to convert it to halter, or possibly paying to have a bra made or modified for me. I think that I found my holy grail of bras today. :)

I decided I'd try Bras'n'Things (BnT) first, to see if I could find a full enough coverage bra to cover my breastforms but still show reasonable cleavage, that could be converted to halter. After about 5 bras that just didn't have the coverage, I had just about given up. When I showed the sales assistant the bra that I was wearing, she realised that the middle wasn't as low cut as she was assuming, and came back with another style, Rose by Ultimate Body, which worked! Since it has detachable straps, it can be set up normal, crossover and halter. I'm happy to say that it was only $45, and available in black and skintone, so I bought one of each.

No longer will I have to pass over the halterneck dresses and tops in op shops, as I've done for years. Ditto for narrow backed styles.

I was also looking for the L'Oreal Lash Growth Serum, which I'd been unable to find a few weeks ago. I tried Priceline, no luck. I tried Myer. The woman there said that they didn't have it yet, but try Target. I found the L'Oreal display at Target without any problem. On it, I found a poster advertising the Lash Growth Serum, but an empty shelf alongside it. There was a woman stacking shelves almost right next to me, so I asked her if they had any more. She turned around to a separate stand behind me, about 2 metres from the big L'Oreal display, picked one up and handed it to me. Yay, I finally found it! Since I had to go back past Myer on the way to my car, I stopped to let the woman that I'd spoken to earlier that Target do indeed have it.

Before leaving Myer, I wandered through the shoe section. On a clearance table, I spotted an intensely bright pink suede stiletto in my size. I sat down and tried it, and it fitted quite well. When I asked for the other shoe, the woman went out the back and was gone for several minutes. She eventually came out with some boots that someone else was trying, and told me that she had been searching for the other shoe and couldn't find it. She went out the back again, along with another sales assistant, who came out a few minutes later shaking her head. The first woman came out several minutes later and said that she would have another look later. I thought that she said that she didn't finish until 9pm, but when I went back at about 7pm in boy mode, there was just one man working in the ladies shoe section. He knew about the shoes, which were in a box on a shelf just behind the counter. I checked them for damage, paid and left without the man even raising an eyebrow.

I had another first today. For years, I've always avoided lifts when en femme, I suppose for fear of being stuck briefly with someone who might decide to abuse or attack me. After leaving Charlestown Square, I decided to go to Westfield Kotara to have a look around. Where I parked, I thought I was on the right level to walk straight in the door of the centre but when I walked in the door, I realised that it was another floor up, in an alcove with one lift, which was open. I entered the almost full lift, standing right in the front corner. I held the door open button (backhanded) while a woman wheeled a pram in, then pressed the door close button. The lift went up another level before it went down, and I exited into the centre without incident.

I'd like to say that I took the lift on the way back out, but I didn't. Just outside the door in the carpark, there was a pedestrian ramp, which I chose to use on my way out. I used the lift once, but I'm not going to kick myself for not using it on the way out, because I would probably have done the same in male mode when the lift was that full.

Plodding along

As often happens, I intend to blog more frequently but end up not having time to do so, just as I often don't have time available to spend en femme. The past couple of months have certainly not been an exception.

Back in January, I mentioned that I planned to go out on Tuesday, 12th January. I did so, and have been to the cafe every Tuesday night so far this year. On one night, a GG (genetic girl) friend of over 30 years came along. As well as some occasional visits from girls from the Central Coast and Sydney, we've also had at least 4 new girls that I can think of including a visitor from Chicago, USA. On one occasion, the trannys were outnumbered 3 to 5 by GGs!

I also got out again to do some shopping on 15th January. Sadly, my holidays finished and I returned to work on Monday 18th January. That put paid to having time to go out en femme on other week days, and has so far also meant so much paperwork that I haven't had time at weekends either.

My goal to get out on average at least once every 5 days isn't looking like being met at this point. If I get to every cafe night, that'll guarantee an average of once every 7 days but other outings are looking like being few and far between. Today is the 66th day of the year and I've been out 11 times so far this year, so my average is now down to once every 6 days.

As the weather cools down, I'm hoping to get to a few belly dancing classes en femme. Sadly, I expect that work will get in the way of that plan as did has many times last year.

I'm also interested in going to a weekend event called Transformal, which will be held in Katoomba in May. Interestingly, this seems to be generating a lot of interest from GGs. Our dance teacher is interested, as are Tanya's friends who came along to the cafe a few weeks ago. The things holding me back are the fact that my wife doesn't seem interested and that I have no idea what we'd do with our son if we did go. Since he was born, the longest that my wife and I have had together without him has been one day and night, which has happened twice during school holidays, when my inlaws have had him stay with them overnight and took him sightseeing during the day. Those have both been Tuesday nights, thus allowing my wife to go to cafe with me. I have no idea whether that was done on purpose but my inlaws have never openly discussed my crossdressing and I rather doubt that they'd take our son from Friday afternoon after school until sometime Sunday evening so that we could go to a crossdressing event...

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Ancestors - Geneology

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

International wig purchases

I have a favourite brand and style of wig, which I have in 2 different lengths. The brand is New Look and the styles are Alicia (normal length) and Alicia XXL (almost waist length). Every photo of me in a red wig is one of those wigs. They are fairly cheap Chinese made wigs, but the brand is not sold in Australia and doesn't appear to be available directly from China, so has to be sourced from the USA.

I have black and blonde wigs in a different brand which don't frame my face as well and the blonde is the wrong shade, so I decided that I would buy an Alicia in black and another in the whitest blonde available and, if I was happy with them, I'd order both colours in XXL later. The eBay seller that I previously bought from is gone, so I started googling the brand and style.

The whitest blonde available seems to be colour 60, a silver white from the grey range.

Not happy! After looking around at the various sites, I settled on cosworx, who had the best prices by far. They had the Alicia for US$30 against others around $35 to $40, and the XXL for around $48 against others around $58. I got most of the way through ordering them before discovering that they don't ship outside the USA. I don't think that they even ship to Canada!

Maybe I'll have to try my luck with another eBay seller. Hmmm.

"You're beautiful!"

I had a new experience yesterday. A woman said "You're beautiful!" to me, and meant it. Amazingly, she already knew me as a male, and she said it after she had realised who I was. :)

I had been intending to get out a few times while I was on holidays, but aside from the cafe nights that I go to throughout the year, yesterday was the first time that I got out. On Thursday night, an infrequent crossdresser from the next suburb showed up in a chat room and informed me that their partner was away until Saturday afternoon. We arranged that, when she got home around 10pm, she'd come into the chat room and let me know, and I'd go and visit for a while.

With the late evening visit in mind, I decided that I'd go out shopping during the day and stay dressed until I got back from visiting her. I had a late start and ended up having lunch before I ventured out. I drove to Westfield Kotara, and had just about given up doing laps of the carpark and was on my way to the exit when someone got into their car and left, giving me a space quite close to one of the entrances.

I had 3 things that I was really after. A wide black belt to go with a certain dress, which I'll probably wear to the cafe within the next week or two, a new black bag to replace the too-small backpack style one that I've been using for some time, and wrap dresses. I walked around looking for belts in some of the cheaper shops without success.

While I was walking around, I had a woman from a little stall apparently selling hair straighteners or curlers ask if I'd come over to their stall, obviously intending to try to demonstrate their product on my hair... Since I'm quite attached to this particular synthetic wig and she apparently had no idea that it was a wig, I declined. :)

I worked my way through the more expensive places, and found a nice black leather belt and a bag on sale at Esprit. The belt had a RRP of $69.95 and a discounted tag showing $34.95. The bag had a RRP of $89.95 and was reduced to $33.95. I decided to look around at a few more places including a specialist bag store, but ended up going back to Esprit. When I took the belt and bag to the counter, the belt turned out to be reduced even further, meaning that I paid just $26.95 for it. It wasn't until I was typing this blog post that I looked at the receipt closely enough to realise that the bag is polyurethane and not leather, but with the frequency of use it's likely to have I doubt that will be a problem. It matches the belt and my black leather Tony Bianco stilettos, so it'll do. :)

Having finished at Westfield, I decided to drop into 3 op shops that I often go to, and have bought many clothes from. In two of the three, some of the staff have seen photos of me, but only one had seen me en femme before, and that was some time ago when my makeup wasnt as good as it is now and I was in a brunette wig. The two women I recognised at the first shop didn't show any sign of recognition, the staff of the second didn't even look at me, but I only managed about a minute in the 3rd shop before the first woman realised who I was.Apparently I smiled too much, and my smile is (un)fairly distinctive. A few seconds later, the manager came out of the back room into the shop and looked at me. Her expression was priceless. It went from a normal neutral look of someone who is busy with her work to jaw dropped wide open in about a second. Once she'd picked her jaw up off the floor, she exclaimed "You're beautiful!" She took 2 photos with her phone, the other woman took one photo with her camera and one with my mobile.

I didn't find any wrap dresses, so I'm intending to try to get out again sometime next week to look in a few other places. Maybe I'll scour the local op shops for Tightrope brand dresses in size 14, since that's what my two favourite dresses are.

Sadly, after hanging around in the chat room until 11pm, the girl from the next suburb didn't show up, so I changed, showered and went to bed.

As I mentioned in my last post, I set myself a goal of getting out on average once every 5 days this year, double my average from last year. By the and of the 8th, I'd been out twice, and I anticipate going out again next Tuesday, which is the 12th. Looks like I might be revising my goal to average once every 4 days!

Wrapping up one year to make way for the next

I'm not having fun with blogger so far this year. Yesterday, I typed a blog post, went to add an image and the whole thing vanished. Not fun. I couldn't face starting again, so I left it for a day.

Today, I'm doing a wrap up of last year and looking forwards to what I'm hoping for from the year ahead. In part, that means I'm looking back over my blog posts from last year and following up on things that I think need wrapping up.

I had two friends pass away last year. Pip, who was in a photo I posted back in March, passed away from cancer. She was in her 70s, had lived a very full life and will be remembered by many, many people. The other friend was Patrick, a fairly quiet man who emphatically disliked people in general. Patrick was mentally ill, drank himself to death in his 40s and will sadly be remembered by few people. I mourned for both of them, but was unable to attend either of their funerals.

Back at Easter, I blogged about almost bumping into one of my wife's cousins while out shopping. I saw him at Christmas, and nothing was said. This fits with my plausible deniability post back in May, where I concluded that most of my wife's relatives know but choose to pretend not to. Also back at Easter, I mentioned that my sister-in-law's husband had asked "Who is Alice?" Some time later, my sister-in-law made it clearly obvious in a message to my wife that she didn't approve, but has since behaved towards the male me exactly as she did before. I suppose that's a good compromise position. I have no idea whether any of them would accept me as a female and for now, I'm not going to push the point.

Over the past few months, I've been making a conscious effort to look after my fingernails. I have been constantly reminding myself of a line that I think I read on the Beauty Heaven forums, which said that nails are jewels, not tools. I don't remember who wrote it, but to whoever it was, thank you. Things that I would have done with my nails in the past, I now consciously stop myself and find some other way of doing. As you'll see in the photo, my nails are now of a nice length, and they're not artificial! Most of the time, I simply wear a clear coat on them to protect them but a few times recently I've put some polish on them. I considered painting them in alternating red and green for Christmas, and even went and bought bright green and red nail polishes, but decided against it because I didn't want to push the point with my wife's relatives.

A few months ago, I added another school friend who now knows about me. She commented that I do makeup much better than she does. :)

The neighbours have been quiet recently. The one who I outed myself to online and blogged about last January and April only talks to me intermittently, but that's always been the case. The neighbours on the other side still have me guessing. A few times through the year, I'd come home from dinner out and the light would be on in a room alongside my driveway but by the time I put the car in the garage and walked out, the light would be off. Whether it was coincidence or they were turning the light off so that they could look at me, I don't know. I have no idea if they know or not, but am assuming that they do. We got new neighbours across the street a few months ago, and a few times when I came home the woman would be standing in the dark on their front veranda smoking by the time I put the car into the garage but I haven't seen the little orange glow for some weeks. Like the next door neighbours, I'm assuming that she knows.

I did a quick count of the number of times I went out for dinner with the girls in 2009. It appears that it was 33 times, down from 36 the year before. I only got out a total of 4 other times, including the one belly dance class that I blogged about some time ago. They are fairly disappointing numbers when I look at them. I averaged going out about once every 10 days. I'm not going to call it a new year's resolution but I'm intending to try to raise that average to better than one in 5. The only way I'll achieve that is to get to the cafe a lot more often, do a few more dance classes en femme and get out shopping more often.

Not happy

A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of Tony Bianco Palais shoes in red suede on sale in a small country town for $75. I was quite impressed with the style, and went looking on line to see what other colours they came in. I found that they also came in a nice purple suede that I was really keen on, and a dark chocolate brown kid leather that would work well with some of my Autumn (redheaded colouring) outfits.

After some googling, I discovered that Wanted Shoes (the Australian one, which I think is unrelated to the USA one) had the brown on sale for $80, so I went to their Kotara store on Saturday to ask about them. The shop assistant said that they could order them in for me to look at to see if I liked the colour, and I wouldn't need to leave a deposit. The implication seemed to be that if I didn't like the colour, I wouldn't be obliged to buy them.

I went back to the store on Thursday afternoon to have a look at the shoes. The sales assistant clearly had the attitude that, since I had ordered them, I was there to buy the shoes, not look at them. In fact, the sales assistant lifted the lid off the box only long enough to be able to confirm that they were the right style and colour. She also advised that the price had been further reduced from $80 to $50 but did not indicate why.

When I got home, I took the shoes out of the box and was shocked to discover that the shoes are quite obviously badly shop soiled, having numerous scratches and scuffs, particularly on the right shoe that had obviously been on display and still had a large price label stuck inside.

I am appalled at the behaviour of the sales staff. While the shoes were discounted, at no time was it suggested that the shoes were marked or damaged in any way. As I had purchased the same shoes in red suede for $75 elsewhere a few weeks earlier, I assumed that it was simply a clearance on a slow moving colour.

While my wife is fairly confident that the marks can be polished out using a rejuvenating shoe polish, I am extremely disappointed with the experience of purchasing shoes from Wanted Shoes.

I've sent a message to the customer service link on their web site, and so far I've had an automated response containing what I sent them. I'll be interested to see what their response is.

From boy to belly dancer

I surprised myself today. I wondered how long ago I'd mentioned in my blog that I have been learning belly dancing. The surprise was that I don't appear to have ever mentioned it before!

I started learning belly dancing about 8 years ago, and generally done one class per week, roughly in school terms, when I've been able to. There have been a couple of long gaps where I haven't danced. I think that the first one, about 6 years ago, was about 9 months. The recent one was that I stopped in about June last year and only started again a few weeks ago.

This week, I did something that I've never done before. I took a day off work, dressed in a casual outfit, spent a few hours out shopping then did something that I hadn't seriously considered even a few days earlier. I did a belly dance class en femme. I absolutely loved it. The only negative was that, instead of doing some yoga at the end of the class, we just did the full hour of dance because makeup and a wig aren't very compatible with yoga.

The problem now is that, I'd love to do my dance classes en femme all the time, but that would probably mean no more yoga. I even considered taking a wig stand and makeup so that I could take the wig off before the yoga, then touch up the makeup and put the wig back on at the end but that's a lot of fiddling!

More steamroller days

Back in 2007, I blogged about steamroller days - days where you feel like you've been run over by a steamroller.

Well I've had a lot of them recently. Here's a typical work day from this week just gone:
* up before 8am;
* first customer waiting when I get to the office at 8:45am;
* work the morning, which runs over to about 12:40pm;
* prepare lunch in about 5 minutes, but have to leave it because...
* 1pm customer arrives at 12:45pm;
* eat lunch at 2pm while organising to go out for customers I have to visit;
* drive to 2 customers and the bank then back to office;
* 5pm to 6pm - spend an hour on the phone helping someone with a technical problem;
* get about half an hour of paperwork done before organising my family and travelling to visit relatives for dinner;
* get home around 9pm, go back to the office and work on paperwork until midnight;
* get to bed at 2am.

Yes, I manage to squeeze the occasional few minutes online amongst all of that, but it's why I haven't managed to go out shopping en femme since Easter, and why I don't always manage to get to the weekly cafe nights. Some people even think that I'm snubbing them by not travelling to Sydney (at least 2 hours drive each way) for events!

To top it all off, I've got a persistent sore throat which makes a feminine voice all but impossible and my weight is going up because I don't have time to exercise.

Crossdressing and politics

I've been thinking about this for a few years now.

Is Australia ready for a crossdressing politician? I don't mean someone who is in the closet about their crossdressing. I mean a heterosexual, married man who publicly admits that he is a crossdresser, complete with a sizable collection of publicly accessible photos on flickr in various places online. [edited October 2010 - flickr photos no longer publicly accessible but there are photos online elsewhere.]

A few years ago, I seriously considered being involved in politics but wasn't going to be out about my crossdressing if I did. Not long before my candidacy would have become public, a TS friend made a comment to me in a chat room. Her comment was something like "It's not if you get outed, it's when. If you go into politics, you will be outed." I knew that what she was telling me was true, and that I'd been trying to delude myself into believing otherwise. I had also gained a fairly good insight into how dirty politics really is, so I withdrew and that was that.

After a while, I had a bit of a think about all of that, and decided that if I ever do get into politics, I will have to be completely out about my crossdressing before I even start.The reality is that I've been letting people around me know about it, but telling the world at large is something else entirely. I'm not sure whether I'm ready for it, and I'm not sure that I want to do that to my wife and son.

Then there are the politicial ramifications. If I'm completely open about my crossdressing, will a political party want anything to do with me, and would anyone vote for me? Imagine for a moment that there was an election where the 2 leading candidates were a married crossdresser and a guy who had abandoned his wife and children to shack up with his secretary. Which one would people vote for?

The only political positive would be that there'd be no skeletons in my closet. :)