A weighty conundrum

While getting my nails done yesterday, I was chatting with the nail technician about my Halloween costume ideas, including the fact that I'm not sure that I can make the pregnant idea work unless I lose some weight.

The response to that surprised me. Both of the women in the salon said that they think that I look better at the weight that I am now, because it makes my face fuller and more rounded. They then went on to tell me that, in January when I last got my nails done en femme, after I left they had been talking about how pretty I looked.

Both were quite strongly of the opinion that I shouldn't lose weight as it makes my face look too thin. On the other hand, I know that I am carrying quite a bit of weight around my waist, which is not not healthy and spoils my feminine waistline. Sure, I could add more padding to my hips and go up a skirt size, but I think that I'd rather get at least some weight off.

I guess I'm going to have to consider what weight I want to be, to compromise between face shape and body shape. For health reasons, it really has to be under 80kg, but perhaps I should aim for about 77kg rather than aiming to get rid of the spare tyre.

I'll have to think more on this...

Halloween planning - part 3

When I went back on Thursday to buy the stuffed hippo that I intended to use for the outer cover of the pregnant belly, an op shop that had been closed when I was there late the previous day (the one that sister-in-law's mother volunteers at) was open, so I stopped in there and had a look around.

I saw a navy coloured tutu that looked like it was an adult size, but I was so focussed on what I was doing, and uninterested in something that was not in the range of colours that I'm currently wearing (that go with my natural hair colour) that I didn't even try it on.

Like a lot of crossdressers, I like to experiment with clothing that I've never tried before, so having seen the tutu gnawed at me enough that I went back on Saturday morning to try it. In anticipation of this, I wore a gaff and opaque black tights that look a fair bit like mens socks when worn under mens trousers and shoes.

By the time I got there, it was about 11:45am and the shop was going to close at noon. I walked in to find that the place was packed ~ as in a dozen or so people. Once upon a time, I would have turned tail and fled, abandoning the object of my interest ~ but not any more. :)

One of the two dressing rooms was free, so I made my way straight to the rack where the tutu was, popped it under my arm then made my way to the dressing room. I stripped off my shoes and trousers and slid the tutu up into place, finding it a tiny bit loose but otherwise a fairly good fit, which was good since that meant that it would fit okay with my hip padding.

Within the first few seconds of putting it on, I'd decided that I was definitely buying it!

Having decided that I was buying it, I re-dressed myself, tucked the tutu and the hanger that it had been on under my arm and went out to the counter to pay for it ($5!), and realised that there was a woman standing at the counter fiddling with a pile of knitting needles while glaring intently at me. Where once I would have been intimidated by her behaviour, this time I was amused.

I drove home, tried the tutu on over my hip padding then decided that I'd like to go to another op shop before it closed to see if they had any skirts or dresses that might work over the tutu, and perhaps some male trousers that would fit over the padding to wear on similar future outings. I haven't gone out in boy mode wearing padding before, but since the weather is cold and wet, I wore a shirt, jumper and fairly bulky jacket on top and a pair of track pants on the bottom. I think that the bulkiness of the jacket mostly hid the padding.

I ended up going to 3 op shops (the local Lifeline shop and a couple of Salvos stores) and buying 2 skirts. I experimented a little and found that both looked okay, as did a low-cut LBD that I borrowed from my wife. By putting a contrasting top under it, I thought that the dress looked quite good. To some extent, I think that the way the skirts and dress hang over the tutu is reminiscent of 1950s dresses and skirts over petticoats.

The only drawback is that the dress and both of the skirts, like the tutu, are of colours that don't suit my natural colouring, so I'd have to wear a blonde or brunette wig to really make the colours work.

I've decided that I'd like a tutu in cream or a similar warm colour. Out of curiosity, I googled tutus to see how much they cost, and found a company that makes them in Australia to order. I initially thought that the one I have had been home-made, but looking at that site, I think that it may have been custom made by a place like that. It's clearly hand made, but not poorly made. The price? A new one similar to mine would cost about $135!

I don't know whether I'll use it in an outfit for Halloween or not, but I'm thinking that it's going to be either pregnant bulge or tutu, not both together. :P

Halloween planning - part 2

Part 2, as promised. In the accompanying photos, you can see the progress so far with the mutilation of the doll and beach ball. I stripped the doll, pulled its plastic hands and feet and its wig off, removed the stuffing and cut a hole in the base of the head so that the salt could get in through the body. I then sewed both arms and one leg shut, filled the whole thing through the open leg then stitched it closed. I weighed it and it came in at 3kg, which is in the ballpark for a newborn.

I then stitched the arms together and the legs together to hold it towards the foetal position. Looking at it, I know that I'm going to have to take some fill out and shrink the bottom, as it's disproportionate and the overall length is be a bit too long, but I left it as is for now.

After cutting the stem off the beach ball, I stuffed the doll into it and folded it shut so that I could do a trial fit.The lack of fill around the doll made it quite lumpy, so I added one of the lightweight padding pieces in front of it to smooth it out. The plastic slid around while the other padding stayed put, making the results a bit hard to judge and convincing me that the fabric cover will not only be necessary, but will need to be tightly fitted or perhaps taped or glued to the plastic. 

I am aware that part of a the baby is inside the mother's normal body profile, and hence the doll may have to be trimmed, such as cutting the face off so that the remainder of the head will sit further in against the body, but from reading about pregnancy simulators, they deliberately incorporate a piece that is designed to push into the wearer, squashing the bladder in a manner comparable to a baby during pregnancy. I'm just not sure whether I'll be able to find a suitable body shaper that will apply enough pressure there without squashing the whole thing into me too hard.

The trial fit has convinced me that the concept can work, but the spare tyre of fat that I'm carrying around my waist is proving to be the biggest obstacle. At this stage, I'm putting the pregnancy idea aside for a while and concentrating on trying to get at least a little weight off. I'm still going to look for a suitable costume, and if I succeed in getting the weight off, I'll finish the pregnant belly and use if for Halloween. If not, I'll do something else this year and plan on re-visiting this next year.

While typing this, I realised that I made a silly mistake. When I did the trial fit, I first put on the hip and bum padding and a body shaper to keep that in place, then the pregnant bulge and another couple of shapers over that. The first shaper was probably reducing the amount that the doll pushed into my belly, offsetting the effect of the other shapers. I'll have to try it again without that shaper under the pregnant bulge!

Halloween planning - part 1

I've been looking at costume ideas for Halloween. On the Saturday morning closest to Halloween, my local suburban shopping centre (including the salon where I get my nails done, the Lifeline op shop, Building Society branch and Subway restaurant that I've mentioned before) has a Halloween themed day. I went there in boy mode last year, and saw adults and children dressed up and decided that this year, I really want to go en femme.

But I also want to be in keeping with the Halloween theme. I want to present myself as a woman dressed up for Halloween. I've been working on the idea of going as Tinkerbell (currently my favourite option), a Disney princess or perhaps an angel, but with the twist of doing a pregnant version of whichever I did. I guess that I might be either presenting myself as a pregnant woman dressed up for Halloween, or a woman dressed up as a pregnant character for Halloween. I'm not sure which. :P

I've done a little bit of playing with making a realistic pregnant bulge using padding, foam and body shapers, but even when I made the bulge about full-term size, all of the padding (not counting the body shapers) weighed in at about 250 grams, and I wasn't convinced that it would work with so little weight. I'm not convinced that I'll move right without a reasonable amount of weight there, so I decided to look at how to make a more realistic simulation of a pregnant belly.

How do you make a relatively realistic simulation of a baby belly? I figured that the first thing to do is to get a doll about the size of a newborn that will curl up to the foetal position, and fill it with something dense enough to give it a bit of weight, put it in some sort of bag, then fill the bag around it to add a bit more weight and round out the overall shape.

My first thought was to use wheat, as is used in microwaveable heat packs. The first thing I did was to ask my wife where our heat pack (which hadn't been used in several years) was. When she got it out, I immediately realised that it was mouldy. A quick google, some discussion on Facebook and the wheat pack went in the bin. I discovered that rock salt was the preferred filler for heat packs now. A bit more googling and I discovered that the best way to get rock salt was as swimming pool salt, costing about $8 for a 25kg bag from a hardware store!

The only real problem with using salt is that it not only attracts water, but enough moisture will dissolve some of the salt, giving off a salty smell, so I need the salt to end up inside a waterproof bag, and to damp the sound of salt grains moving against each other and to stop a plastic bag sliding around, I need to put the waterproof bag inside a fabric bag.

My first thought was to find out how much a replacement bladder to go inside a football would cost, but that idea went out the window very quickly once I tried a couple of sports stores and discovered that not only is it impossible to buy a bladder, but all of the modern balls are one-piece plastic things with no replaceable bladder.

And so it was that I went to a hardware store to buy a bag of salt, and to a few op shops looking for a doll about the size of a newborn, some sort of waterproof bag, and some sort of fabric bag.

I ended up finding a child's beach ball at an op shop for the waterproof bag ~ I can cut it open, fill it then tape it shut. After looking at cushion covers for the fabric bag, I ended up finding a stuffed toy hippo (merchandising from the movie Madagascar), the body of which is about the right size and shape for the fabric bag, but it would need the padding, head, arms, legs and tail removed and sewing back up. I didn't buy it at the time, but went back the next day and got it.

At another shop, I found a doll. I was originally intending to get a hollow plastic doll, but had realised that the hollow ones have rigid arms and legs and a body that would not curve into the foetal position. When I found a soft-bodied doll about the right size, at first I wasn't going to get it. I walked out of the store, then changed my mind and went back in and bought it.

In the next instalment, you'll get to see my mutilation of the doll. :P

Au re·voir Su

I had a total of 4 trips to Sydney to meet up with other Beauty Heaven members last year. The first was for Fashion Weekend Sydney, because Su (who is shown in the photo at right watching Stacey assemble her new palette at IMATS) had been given tickets. The second was my first daytime outing wigless, when a few of us met up to go to the Estee Lauder staff shop. The third trip was a casual day with friends, when one of the other members from Queensland had a few hours to kill between booking out of her motel and catching her plane home. The fourth outing was IMATS.

I wasn't the only one who has at all four of those outings. Su was also at all four. She was one of a handful of people who were instrumental in getting me out during the day with beauty obsessed friends who simply treated me as one of the girls. I know that my confidence improved dramatically as a result of those outings, and they were the key to my move from hiding under wigs to going out wigless.

If it hadn't been for those outings in Sydney, I doubt that I would have attended the first Newcastle Beauty Heaven meet-up and I would not have been anywhere nearly as comfortable going out wigless locally as I am now. Before, I was always convinced that most women took pity on me and just pretended to be supportive, and that anybody who looked at me would read me as a crossdresser.

I was sad to learn that Su will be moving to the United Kingdom soon, leaving Australia (possibly forever) at the end of June and visiting relatives in India before moving permanently to the UK. I don't know whether I'll get to Sydney and see her before she leaves or not. I hope I do.

Thanks to Facebook, we will stay in touch, but I'll miss her when I go to meet-ups. Perhaps one day she will return, or I'll travel to the UK and we'll meet again.

Su, thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for being an inspiration. Thank you for being you. I wish you the best for your future in the UK.

More Subway stuff

I went to Subway tonight and was surprised to be served by the woman who had commented about my nails several weeks ago. I was surprised not only because I hadn't seen her there in about 5 weeks, but also because she usually used to be there on week nights.

It was a quiet night there, and in the whole time I was in the shop, I was the only customer. When I arrived, the woman serving me commented that she hadn't seen me for a while, and I responded that I've been there a couple of times a week but she hadn't been there. Apparently she hasn't been working there as often as she had been before.

We chatted as she prepared my order, and she was clearly in a good mood, laughing and smiling as she worked. Just before I left, I commented that I'd been there on a Sunday night a few weeks ago in a dress and the woman who served me didn't seem to realise that it was the same person.

She smiled and said goodbye as I picked up my order and left, as if what I had said was completely and utterly normal. I guess with my long painted nails, the long hair, pierced ears, etc, it wasn't a surprise to her. :)

Nothing said

Three weeks ago I mentioned going to my local Subway en femme. I've been there several times since then, but it appears that they've rearranged their staff considerably in the past few weeks and I was starting to think that the two women who had been there that night were no longer working there.

I was surprised to find the woman who prepared my food that night was working there again tonight. While she didn't serve me tonight, I remarked about their recent staff changes and she smiled in acknowledgement of recognising me, which I would have expected based on my previous visits there as a male. I couldn't tell whether she realised that I was the same person as had been there en femme 3 weeks ago or not.

Sadly, the recent staff changes seem to mean that the other woman who commented about my nails a few weeks ago doesn't appear to be working there any more. Then again, I hadn't seen the woman who was there tonight in 3 weeks, so there's always a chance that the other one will show up again. :)

Evolution of a hairline

Back in January last year, I posted about my first wigless outing. In this post, I've finally set out to describe how I create a hairline that allows me to confidently step out without a wig in spite of my naturally receded hairline.

When I was a child, I had a normal rounded hairline. In my teens, I developed a pair of receded patches above my temples which for years I incorrectly referred to as widows peaks, and for which I've never found a correct name. In the second photo at right, I've roughly scribbled my natural hairline in cyan. Yes, that's me without makeup ~ Urk!

While I was at University, I grew my hair long, but never went out crossdressed, in part because I wasn't able to effectively disguise my hairline.

After getting my hair cut short as part of a partial purge to try to sustain an unworkable relationship with a woman who absolutely rejected my crossdressing (who was also a cougar almost 10 years my senior), I bought a wig and stopped thinking about going out without one.

Wigs, however, created a small problem. The sides of all of the wigs I've ever owned incorporate a curved piece in front of the ear with an edge that goes from there up the side of the forehead. The side of my own hairline is quite different, having a curve around the temple that follows my original childhood hairline towards the middle, then turns back to the bald patch above the temple. When I wore a wig, a patch of my own hair would be visible above each temple.

To avoid having hair showing that contrasted against my wig, I took to shaving up each side of my forehead to remove that hair. As I bought different wigs, the shape of the edge of the wigs varied and I shaved slightly more hair, until I ended up shaving an almost straight line from the top corner of the ear to the outside edge of the bald patch, as shown by the green line on the photo. By taking that hair off, I actually made the hairline less noticeably receded, but still not good enough to go without a wig.

I think that it was in late 2010 that one of my friends from the cafe nights, Jenny, mentioned that she prefers her hairline to be higher in the middle of her forehead than it is naturally, and that she shaves it to raise the line. Like the sides, I had already been taking a little bit off there to suit wigs that didn't come quite far enough forward, but I hadn't considered taking considerably more off until Jenny mentioned doing it on purpose.


There is, of course, a compromise to be made. On one hand, the hair that I remove means less hair in my already sparse fringe, but on the other hand, the raised line (shown in lime green in the photo) means that the hairline looks more rounded and that the thickness of my fringe is more even because I've removed some of the thickness from the middle while not altering the edges.

Having shaven the sides and middle, I was left with a pair of much smaller looking bald patches, which still showed up through my fringe. The final step was to colour them in with makeup. I already used contouring and highlighting to alter the apparent shape of my face as part of my makeup, so this was just another small step, which I did by taking my foundation over the whole area then using an eye shadow that is a close match to my hair (the same one as I use on my brows) to colour in the area above the mustard line on the photo.

The last photo here was taken after this week's cafe night. I simply brushed my hair back to reveal the makeup, while the first photo is how it looked with the fringe brushed over it.

Does that qualify as a comb-over? :P

The first Newcastle Beauty Heaven meet-up

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the first Newcastle meet-up of Beauty Heaven members at Charlestown Square today. There were three of us, plus a son who didn't get involved in the conversation. Caitlin was the first to arrive, and claimed a table for us. Beforehand, she had posted that she'd be wearing red fingerless gloves, which made it very easy to spot her because when I arrived I could see those gloves from half way across the food court. :)

Charlestown Square has free parking for the first 3 hours, so we all decided to leave before we had to pay for parking, That meant that we spent about 2 hours chatting. Part way through, both of the others went and bought some lunch while I minded the table. Since I'd arrived at about 12:55, I had a few minutes to drop into Tree of Life and say hello to the friendly staff there before heading home. While there, the lovely Jordan snapped a couple of photos for me.

This is the same store where the manager, Sharon, took my photo back in April 2010. It wasn't until I was typing this that I realised just how long ago that was. I think that I've come a long way since then. Back then, I'd paint my nails for an outing then thoroughly clean all the polish off for fear that someone would notice. Back then, I'd hide under a wig for fear that someone would recognise me. I guess now I don't really care if they do. :)

After I got home, I realised that I had 2 letters with me that I was supposed to post. That might sound odd, but Australia Post clear post boxes not Friday evening but Sunday evening for Monday morning sorting, so as long as things are posted early enough on Sunday, they will be delivered a day sooner than if they are posted on Monday. So, after sitting down and having a cup of tea, I got back in the car and ducked around to a local post box, posted them and came back home. There were about 3 or 4 people standing in the front yard of a house across the street from the post box smoking and arguing loudly enough that I wondered if they were drunk. I was relieved that they didn't appear to pay me any attention.

I had another outing this evening. Being Sunday night, nobody felt like cooking, so I went to our local Subway to buy dinner. While the two young women behind the counter were not the ones who were there a couple of weeks ago, they have both served me numerous times when I've been there as a male. One was serving someone else when I arrived, so the other began serving me and when the first woman had finished with the previous customer, she stayed at the register and took the money for mine while the other woman finished preparing the food.

The woman who had prepared the food looked at me with just the slightest hint of a puzzled look as she was handing the food to me, but aside from that there was no indication that either of them had recognised me. What sort of conversation might have occurred after I left, I have no idea!

With any luck, now that my routine is settling in, I may soon get back into regularly attending the cafe nights again. After only 5 outings so far this year including today, outing number 6 might be only a couple of days away!

Routine

As I mentioned recently, I was unable to work for about 3 months. Before that, I worked abnormally long (and unsustainable) hours, for several weeks.

Ironically, I'd forgotten that in November last year, I said:

I'm actually at the point of liking the idea of stopping working and living on my savings for a few months.

When I wrote that, I had gone from working about 80 hours per week to 90, and in the weeks between then and stopping work, I peaked at working around 100 hours per week until my work stopped abruptly in December. However, back then I only ever planned to take 4 weeks off over Christmas and into the new year. The unanticipated delays ended up meaning that I did end up stopping working and living on my savings for a few months.

Guess what?

Those months off were a disaster. When I was working, I had a routine. I had to get up at a certain time on work days. I had to schedule my life around my work, including scheduling time for outings en femme, waxing, getting my nails done, etc. When I stopped working, my entire schedule stopped with it and I quietly sank into a bout of deep depression. About the only thing that remained consistent was my nail appointments, because while I'm getting my nails done, I always make the next appointment before I leave the salon.

So ironically, while I was not working, everything else that I should have had more time to do stopped too. I've been out en femme just 4 times so far this year ~ 2 cafe nights and 2 of my 10 nail appointments.

I also haven't chased up the architect who stuffed up our plans for house extensions and renovations last year. I let this slide partly because I had no income at the time and partly because I just don't like confrontation. It's going to have to happen, though. We need the extra space!

My attempts at sorting out my sleep and weight while I was off work were not very successful. Now that I'm back working, the morning treadmill sessions are impossible (due to work during the week, and due to my wife sleeping in at weekends and the treadmill being in the room next to our bedroom), and the attempt to establish a workable sleep schedule has failed dismally. I can't really blame anybody but myself, as it is I who persists in wasting time on Facebook when I should be on the treadmill, having a shower or in bed asleep. I need to make a conscious effort to change that, as part of establishing my new routine.

So now I'm gradually getting back into the swing of work. The new system means that work takes longer to do than it used to, but that's gradually improving. I'm allowing more time per job, so seeing fewer clients than before. I've also made a conscious decision to aim to limit my work to between 40 and 50 hours per week. It's probably around 55 hours per week now but I am close to keeping up with the backlog of paperwork waiting to be finished for jobs I've already done. The backlog of clients waiting is another story, but I'm trying to work on that gradually as I'm not going to let myself end up with an unrealistic and unsustainable workload again.

As I get myself back into routine, I'm hoping that that routine will again be able to include regular outings en femme.

If all goes to plan, my next outing will be tomorrow, when I'll meet some other members from Beauty Heaven who I haven't met before. Unlike the Beauty Heaven open day and the 4 times that I went to Sydney for meet-ups last year (Fashion Weekend Sydney, Estee Lauder staff shop, a day in the city, and IMATS), this will be the first Newcastle meet-up, at Charlestown Square. That means that I don't have to get up at 4am, 6am or even 8am like I did for the trips to Sydney. I still have to do some preparatory work today (as well as paperwork) and I need to get to bed at a reasonable time tonight!

Okay, some do

Yesterday, I said that people notice but don't say anything.

It seems ironic that today's little event happened so soon after my previous comment. Almost like a cosmic raspberry being blown at me. :)

I caught a train into town today to get some waxing done, and the police were doing a drug detection exercise on the trains and stations. I was happy to see this, since I don't use drugs and I don't like having to deal with the anti-social types who use public transport while obviously affected by drugs.

On the train on the way home, the cops were wandering around watching the drug detection dog sniff its way back and forth along the train while making sure that nobody moved around within the train to avoid being checked by the dog.

I guess that the senior cop picked up on nervousness from a guy sitting near me, and asked to see tickets. I reached into my pocket and held up my ticket. The cop looked at my ticket, commented "Those nails are bright", then turned his attention to the other guy, who had no ticket, no money and no ID...

The comment surprised me. It seemed simultaneously accepting and dismissive. I wasn't a person of interest, but it was notable enough that he commented immediately before turning away to ignore me.

It wasn't until I was typing this that it occurred to me that I really wouldn't expect a cop to make a comment like that to a woman with exactly the same nails. Or maybe he would, as nails as long as mine aren't all that common these days...

As an aside, I also got a discount on the waxing and lash tinting for liking the facebook page of the place that I go to. :)

People do notice, they just say nothing

I've been going to a local Subway restaurant in boy mode once or twice a week for several months. There are only a few staff there, so I recognise them when I go there, and some of them recognise me.

Tonight, I arrived to find one other customer at the counter. I immediately recognised Deniese (it is an unusual spelling, but I'm fairly sure that I've got it right) from the side even though she was facing away from me. She used to volunteer at the Lifeline op shop, which is directly across the road from Subway!

It took me a few seconds to remember her name, so once I'd placed my order, I addressed her by name. She turned around, recognised me and said hello. After some very brief conversation, Deniese returned her attention to ordering the salad and condiments for her sub. When she had finished and paid, she turned back to me and commented about my nails, saying that she assumed from the fact that I had them painted that I must have been out over the weekend. I told her that I have them painted like this all of the time and have done since early last year, which surprised her.

I commented to both Deniese and the young woman who was serving me about the fact that I love watching people's reactions, including how some people glance at my nails then conscientiously avoid looking at them again.

After Deniese left, the young woman serving me commented that she always likes it when I come in as she gets to see the different colours that I have on my nails, and asked how I cope with nails this long.

I told her that I am so accustomed to them that I don't even think about it. I considered showing her a photo on my internet tablet, like I did at the Building Society back in February, but I knew that it wasn't turned on and it would have taken too long to turn on, load a photo, etc, and she obviously had work to do so I left it at that for now. :)

I'm still alive

I"m not entirely certain what happened to the past few months. As I mentioned in early February, I've been trying to get my weight down and my sleep pattern under control. So far, I'm failing with both.

As I put an effort into exercising regularly by doing treadmill sessions twice a day, my food intake rose to match. Along the way, I've suffered tendon pain from not warming up slowly enough at the start of each session, then after recovering from that (which meant no sessions at all for several days), I suffered muscle pain and ankle swelling. That meant buying and wearing graduated compression support pantihose (including under my male clothes, which I generally prefer to avoid) whenever the swelling gets bad, making some dietary changes and making an effort to drink more water during and after each session. After more missed and reduced sessions, I temporarily got back on track with the exercise but I still wasn't losing weight.

My sleep patterns are still a disaster, and trying to fix them and get other things done has meant that sometimes I've had to skip morning sessions. On other occasions, I've realised that it's after midnight and I haven't done my evening treadmill session. Given the options of either a 40 odd minute treadmill session, recovery time and a shower before getting to bed, or just cleaning my teeth and going to bed, the latter has won more times that I'm happy about. Sometimes if it's not quite that late, I'll compromise on a shorter treadmill session.

After over 3 months, I'm finally technically able to return to work. There are practicalities that interfere, though, such as the new system that I'm supposed to work under being much more complex that the one that it replaced, meaning that things that took one hour before look like taking around 5 or 6 hours initially, and perhaps reducing to around 3 hours when I get accustomed to it. There is also so much procedural paperwork that I can't get my head around that I don't know when I'll actually be able to start working.

Of course, work also means needing to get my sleep pattern and morning routine sorted out. Instead of getting to bed late and getting up similarly late, having breakfast then spending over an hour on facebook before doing a treadmill session then having a shower, I need to get to bed early enough to do the treadmill session and shower in time for at least a 10am start, if not earlier. I don't know how I'll go with that, or whether I'll simply have to cease the morning sessions.

In amongst all of this, I've been out en femme just twice since my last blog post. Once for a nail appointment and to one cafe night. I've continued to get my waxing done about every 6 weeks, and to get my nails done every fortnight and do other regular grooming required for going out, though. My current nail colour is not as bright as the red that I wore for a couple of days last year, but it's certainly the brightest I've worn for a whole fortnight, and as usual I've noticed very little reaction from anybody when I'm in boy mode. I'm considering my colour options for my next appointment, and that red is certainly a leading contender, possibly with gold French style tips. :)

The people you bump into

My frequency of outings en femme hasn't improved. I realised yesterday morning that my legs were too hairy to disguise with pantihose, and the weather was too hot and muggy for anything thicker so I made an appointment to get waxed from the waist down and to get my lashes tinted. The earliest appointment available was in the afternoon, but allowed me to check out an op shop on the way, which resulted in a purchase of a brand new dress for $10. :)

Sadly, because of the weather, the trip home was abnormally slow and I simply didn't have time to dress and go out to the cafe night.

I had been getting my nails done every 3 weeks, but lately they've been growing so fast that I've had to get them done more often. I would like to get them done about every 2 1/2 weeks, and had made my next appointment for this Friday. Even though I'm still not working at the moment, I need to go to a work related meeting on Friday so I brought my appointment forward to today.

When I got up this morning, I was still hoping to go to my appointment en femme. Then, after I'd had breakfast and done a 40 minute session on the treadmill (now 6km/h up a 3 degree incline), I realised that I really had to wash my hair. By the time I'd showered including washing my hair, then dried and straightened it, I was running too late to dress for my appointment.

So, after my nail appointment in boy mode, I walked to the building society to withdraw some cash. I had to open my wallet carefully and the teller, who I've known for years and almost certainly knows about me, commented about the fact that I was being careful with my nails and I told her that I'd just had them done.

While I was in the branch, a woman walked in and I greeted her. She didn't seem entirely sure who I was until I joked that she didn't recognise me because I wasn't wearing a dress. She laughed, as she suddenly realised where she knew me from. She used to be a regular patron at the same cafe as we go to for our Tuesday cafe nights and I'd bumped into her in Charlestown square a couple of times.

I joked to the teller that I didn't know how they'd react if I came in wearing a dress and she responded that it wouldn't phase them. There was nobody else waiting so I got my internet tablet out, loaded a recent wigless photo and showed it to the teller. Her comment was that I looked so different that she wasn't surprised that the other woman hadn't recognised me. Realising that there was now someone waiting, I left it at that.

I walked up the street and bumped into the same woman again in the first of three op shops that I visited before going home.

I can see myself going to the building society en femme sometime soon. :)

Weight and sleep update

I'm not sure where I'm at right now.

I don't feel depressed, but I feel like I'm exhibiting symptoms, including some comfort eating. I'm just not interested in doing anything except concentrating on getting my sleep pattern and my exercise regime sorted out.

I've been in bed by midnight for the last 12 nights but after the first 4 days it became a struggle and has been consistently within 5 minutes of midnight.

I've done at least 30 minutes on the walking machine twice each day, gradually increasing the speed from time to time. I also set up the walking machine so that I can watch DVDs while I'm working out, and started watching the series NCIS from the beginning. Since the episodes are about 42 minutes, I'm now doing 40 minute sessions and I'm up to 6km/h.

I know that my stamina is improving, I'm building muscle on my calves (not sure if that's a good thing or not) and I'm gradually sleeping better but I still don't seem to be losing any weight. Before I started this I was gaining weight so stabilisation is a start. :)

I also need to get my mornings working better before I return to work. I've been off work since before Christmas, and hope to be back working by next week. In the meantime, I've started my morning exercise sessions. Initially, I was getting up, having breakfast then getting onto the treadmill. Somewhere along the line, I started checking Facebook etc between getting up and having breakfast. I've got to stop that, because I'm not going to be ready for work early enough in the mornings at the current rate. I think that I might have to adjust my goal to be in bed by 11:30 instead of midnight before the end of this week, too.

Sadly, I haven't been out to a cafe night in the past 2 weeks. This week, having been off work for so long, I even lost track of what day it was and didn't realise that it was Tuesday until about 6pm, when I should have been almost ready to walk out the door. Tonight is the first Wednesday of the month, meaning that it is a Central Coast cafe night. If I go, I'd need to leave by about 9pm to have any chance of getting to bed before midnight and even that would be a struggle. Hopefully I'll get home from today's errands early enough!

Family and sleep

I mentioned yesterday that my wife now acknowledges that her sleep patterns need to change. It seems that my making an effort to get to bed before midnight is having an effect on her, as she was also in bed before midnight last night. We both had trouble falling asleep, and lay in bed talking until after midnight.

On the first night that I got to bed before midnight, I was still awake at 2am. I'm hoping that by getting to bed at a reasonable time and getting up around 8 hours later, I'll re-train my body to sleep during that time, but I don't want to be too sleep deprived, so I'm not too worried if I stay in bed for a few minutes extra while I get into the pattern.

We were going to be going to Canberra for a few days with my inlaws to allow my wife and her father to compete in sport, as we have done before, but work related issues mean that I will have to stay home while my wife and son will travel with my inlaws. While they are away, they will likely be getting up between 6 and 7am. They will get home on Sunday night, in time for our son to start the new school year on Monday. That means that they will need to be up by 7:45 on school days. The only way that my wife will get enough sleep will be to follow my lead and get to bed before midnight consistently. I expect that the few days away with her parents will help to reinforce the pattern.

If I can maintain the pattern, hopefully it will help my wife to do likewise, and will ultimately make our house a happier place, as I suspect that we are often both grumpy due to lack of sleep. As a side effect, if she gets up earlier on weekends, it might not be so difficult for me to get out en femme during the day, which will make me a lot happier.

The next challenge will be seeing what time I get home from the cafe night tonight, and hence whether I fit in my walking session and shower and still get to bed before midnight. I really don't want to miss the exercise, or be up after midnight, but I really need to be home by 10pm for that to all to work. I'm not sure that I've even left the restaurant by 10pm on any of the nights that I've been there in the last few years.

Weight and sleep

My weight and sleep problems have been recurring themes in my blog posts. Both affect my crossdressing, albeit in different ways. Both also influence my depression.

My weight affects not only what clothes will fit and how I look, but how I feel about myself. The fact that my fat distribution tends to be a typically male pattern, particularly a spare tyre around the waist, means that the heavier I am, the less feminine I feel and the more likely I am to be depressed.

To really complicate things, I tend to comfort eat when depressed or stressed, leading to weight gain that pushes me into a downward spiral of depression that makes me less inclined to go out en femme because I feel fat. The downward spiral is worsened by the fact that getting out en femme is something that I need to do, and not doing it makes my depression worse. At the end of a depression cycle, I usually find myself heavier than I was before it started, and wondering how I'm going to fix it.

While my weight and depression have been problems that I've been aware of for decades and have mentioned since my early blog posts, it was only around mid 2010 that I acknowledged that I had a sleep problem. It sneaked up on me over a a few years, and the real issue is not the time that I get to bed or the time that I get up, but the time I spend asleep. When I get less than 4 hours sleep, I end up trying to balance it out by getting more than 8 hours on another night by getting up late.

I've been off work since before Christmas and I've been getting more sleep than usual. After getting up around noon for a few days, I realised that I really needed to do something. I was feeling better because of the extra sleep, but was so late getting up that I wasn't getting anything done. I also realised rather suddenly that I wasn't depressed.

So a couple of days ago, I decided to make a major change to try to address both my sleep pattern and weight. I don't know whether I'll be able to keep it going, but I've got to try. To start with, I am aiming to get to bed before midnight consistently, and get up about 8 hours later. I hope to gradually move to getting to bed before 11pm. I'd love to get to bed by 10pm and get up at 6am consistently, but I seriously doubt that that will happen.

To work on my weight, I'm not only trying to remind myself that everything extra that I eat works against my weight loss goal, but I've started walking again. This time, instead of walking an hour circuit each night, I'm using a walking machine that I picked up through freecycle. I can set it up so that I can watch TV or videos on a computer, and for the past few days I've been doing two separate 30-minute sessions, walking fast enough to work up a sweat each time. One in the early afternoon and the other just before having a shower and going to bed. Once I go back to work, the daytime session will either stop, or will have to be in the morning when my wife is presently in bed asleep. Fortunately, she now acknowledges that her sleep patterns also need to change.

Time will tell whether I manage to keep both the sleep cycle adjustment and the exercise going, but I have to try, and the walking machine overcomes the biggest problem that I had before, which was stopping because of the rain and not starting again.

A year in review

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted much recently. I have been feeling rather out of sorts and just not with it.

I decided to look back at the goals that I set myself last year.

* I did continue to come out to people around me, but haven't said anything to people who I am sure know but choose to say nothing.

* My work commitments did indeed increase significantly, but I completely failed to delegate anything to prevent it from swamping my girl time.

* My plan for frequency of outings fell off a cliff. Not only did I fail to achieve an average of getting out once every 5 days, I didn't even come close. In fact, with just 51 outings for the year, I didn't even average one outing per week. :(

* I still had problems with lacking ideas of things to do en femme, but push my comfort zone and do a few new things. I caught a train to the Sydney CBD and back twice, the first time in a blonde wig in May and the second time wigless in August. In between those, my third time out wigless was the first time putting fuel in my car en femme, as I drove to the outskirts of Sydney and took a suburban train into the city and back. My fourth trip to Sydney was in September for IMATS, when I again drove to outskirts and caught a suburban train.

Sadly, I didn't get in touch with our former belly dance teacher, and while I believe that she still lives in the same place, her web site no longer exists and she doesn't show up in any web searches.

* My sleep patterns continued to be a disaster last year, and in the past few days I've started making a real effort to fix that, in spite of my wife making it difficult due to her sleep patterns. I still don't know how it will work with cafe nights, particularly as others make an effort to make the nights run as late as possible.

* I haven't improved my organisation for preparing to go out, and the building work that I was hoping would have helped with that, which should have been well under way by now has not even started, for reasons beyond my control.

There have been a few times both last year and this year that my wife being in bed asleep has prevented me from going out during the day. By the time she gets up, I feel that it's too late to bother. :(

* I keep thinking about trying to go for a smaller breast size, but haven't done anything about it. I think that my present D-cup size fits my frame and downsizing would probably not look right. I think I've decided by default to do nothing and simply continue with what I have.

* I achieved my goal of wearing halterneck tops and dresses. Sort of. I don't think that I mentioned it but, while in Sydney for work in August, I bought 2 new style body shapers that loop over the sides of a bra instead of having shoulder straps, which made halter a much more viable option. I wore a halter dress for the first time in September and my first halter top in October, but with outings coming to a virtual halt, they were the only halter outfits I've worn out. One dress, one top, no plural.

* When I went back to my posts from early last year, I discovered that the 5th of January was an anniversary of more than one thing. Not only was it the first anniversary of having my nails done in acrylic and gel, but it was also the first anniversary of the first time I ever went out en femme without a wig. I think that both are very significant events, and somehow I had forgotten that these events had happened on the same day.

The interesting thing about going wigless was that it became habit forming. It took me until June to go out wigless for the second time, but the third time was just 3 days later, when I went shopping in Sydney with friends. At that stage, I still hadn't been out wigless in Newcastle. It took another 3 weeks before I finally challenged myself to go out wigless locally, and I haven't worn a wig since! That's right, in all of my outings en femme, I haven't worn a wig since 21st June. I'm not saying that I won't wear a wig again, but for now I'm going to enjoy living with my own hair.

* I just started to type that I have not made any progress on packing my girl stuff to travel, then realised that by going out with my own hair, I no longer need to pack a wig. If I decide to wear a wig while away, I'll have to look at the options then. In the meantime, I'm thinking that I should just get a large suitcase or backpack with enough space. Packing my hip and buttock padding without damaging it remains the biggest issue.

I might have a look around the local shops in the next few days. :)

* I've made completely and utterly no progress on my female voice. :(

* As mentioned above, I've maintained my nails long and painted for over a year now, and the colours are nowhere nearly as subtle as at the beginning of the year. Yay. :)

* I ended 2010 at 72.5kg. Sadly, I ended 2011 at 83.5kg, and was 85kg a few days ago. At the same time as realising a few days ago that I really need to make an effort with my sleep patterns, I've also realised that I need to make a serious effort with my weight!

Nail anniversary

Today is an interesting anniversary for me. It was 12 months ago today that I first got all of my nails done in acrylic and gel. Aside from a couple of days in June, I've had colour on my nails for all of that year. I started with neutral colours close to the colour of the skin under my nails and worked my way up to more obvious colours.

Sadly, with ongoing stress, depression and exhaustion problems, I haven't been out en femme since my last blog post, when I had my nails done for Christmas, including missing another 3 cafe nights.

After Christmas, I got busy with several days of gardening that I had been putting off for too long. I broke one nail on the first day, so I went and got it fixed on Friday. The next day, I broke another one. This time, I decided to clean it up, trim the natural nail back and just keep working. By yesterday, I'd not only had enough of gardening for a while but I was getting tired of having a mismatched broken nail so I brought my next appointment forward to today.

I celebrated the anniversary by getting my nails re-done this morning. :)

Christmas holidays

Well, it's official. I'm on holidays.

My work stopped very suddenly due to the long anticipated government rule changes, but hopefully the stoppage will be only temporary. In the new year, I've got to do some paperwork to see if I can resume the type of work that I've been doing almost exclusively for as long as I've been in business.

I managed to get to the Newcastle cafe night this week, and was amused to learn that the conversation that I had with a solicitor at the cafe night in early October had led him to ask where I was when he was there on one of the many Tuesday nights that I missed. Apparently he was of the opinion that if he had me as an expert witness, he could win every case related to my field. I'm not all that keen on expert witness work, but it gives me a fallback option, meaning that the government department need me more than I need them. That puts me in quite a good position. :)

I got out a second time this week. Today, I went and got my nails done, including getting them painted in Christmas colours, then went and wandered around Charlestown Square for a while. Last year, I wore the Christmas colours only from Christmas eve to after boxing day, and was only seen by a limited number of family and friends. This year will be quite different, as I plan on leaving the colours on my nails from now until the next nail appointment. Unless something unexpected happens, that should be the Wednesday just under 3 weeks from now. So I'll be seen in both boy and girl mode for almost 3 weeks with quite distinctive nails.

That's pushing the comfort zone a little bit but after a whole year of wearing colour on my nails, I haven't had a single negative comment so my confidence is far better than it was last year.

Let down

I have posted only once in over a month, and that was just a photograph of my Melbourne Cup outfit. I made a special effort to go out for Melbourne Cup night, and it is the only time that I have been out in the past 6 weeks.

I've been overwhelmed with work, to the extent that I've been working 7 days a week, often getting to bed after 2am then getting up again before 8am. With this ridiculous workload have come migraines and exhaustion. Several times now, I have decided to lie down for a rest on a Tuesday afternoon intending it to be just a few minutes before I prepared to go out, and ended up sleeping too long to go out at all.

I also haven't had any opportunity to catch up with my friend, who was so depressed several weeks ago.

I know that I'm letting people down.

I'm letting down my friends and family. In spite of trying my hardest, I'm also letting down a lot of my work clients. Worst of all, I'm letting myself down.

It can't last. Sooner or later, the uncertainty that has been hanging over my work for over a year has to be resolved. I'm actually at the point of liking the idea of stopping working and living on my savings for a few months. I know that I would be letting down all of my work clients by doing so, but something has got to give. So far it has been me, but that cannot and will not continue. I won't cope much longer unless things change.

Melbourne Cup 2011

I hope to get back to blogging more regularly soon, but in the meantime here's a photo of my Melbourne Cup outfit for this year. :)

A slip of the tongue - followup

I mentioned recently about one of my work clients who obviously knows about me, but says nothing.

I went there for work a couple of days ago, and was there for over 2 hours. S did not come up in conversation, but B did.

The closest that the conversation got to mentioning my crossdressing was general agreement that B has a big mouth. :)

Another halter, another interesting conversation

On Tuesday, I wore a halter top that I've had for at least a year. I think that I bought it just after I got bras that I could wear halter. Like the halter dress I wore a few weeks ago, I found it a little unfamiliar and experienced irritation around the neck strap. I'm hoping that this will all settle down as I wear halter tops more often.

Like last week, Linda somehow managed to convinced another patron to join our table. This time, the conversation ranged from her birth during The Blitz in London to how a technical illustrator has to be able to convert an engineer's sketch on a serviette into something meaningful. As an engineer, I could so relate to that. ;)

Norma came along in girl mode this week, too. :)

Looking for a fascinator

I'm going to be deliberately vague about a few details in this post. I'm planning my outfit for the cafe night on Melbourne Cup day, which is on the first Tuesday in November. Unlike last year, I don't plan on wearing a wig this year, so I'm putting together an outfit that suits my natural colouring. Don't worry though - all will be revealed on the night. :)

Have you ever opened up a store catalogue, looked at a dress and thought "I'm getting that", with absolutely no doubt in your mind? I did that on Thursday, so that night while out shopping with my wife and son, we went to the store, found one in my size and bought it. Knowing the store return policy would make returning it easy if necessary, I didn't feel any need to try it on at the time.

On Saturday, I put on all the undergarments, padding etc necessary to try the dress on properly. Aside from a neckline that moves around a little and needing to push my bra straps out a fraction on my shoulders from their usual spots, it was a great fit, and as I suspected, goes very well with one of my existing pairs of shoes.

Like last year, what remains to be resolved is accessories. In particular, I want to find a fascinator that will go with the dress. With that in mind, I decided yesterday that I wanted to go out today to look for one. My plan yesterday was to go out en femme and look through shops at both Charlestown Square and Westfield Kotara. Then the wheels fell off, as they often do for me. I stayed up far too late and didn't get up until after noon!

With most of the shops shutting at 4pm, I knew that there was no way that I could choose an outfit and get dressed en femme and have any worthwhile time to shop. So instead, I spent a while on line, then went shopping in male mode with the photo of the dress from the catalogue in my pocket.

I spent over an hour at Charlestown Square, going from shop to shop. I tried the various accessory stores, a couple of the department stores and wandered into many of the dress shops to ask if they had fascinators. Very few did, but for those that did, I looked at what they had and explained that I was looking for one that matched the dress in the photo. I found a couple in one of the department stores that were close to the right colour, but were more like a hat than a fascinator, and cost more than I wanted to pay, so I left empty handed.

The interesting thing was that I felt no hesitation walking in and out of accessory and dress shops in male mode, looking for that specific item. It only occurred to me as I was typing this that I have no idea how many of the shop staff realised that I was after it for myself, and I don't honestly care.

Now I've realised that I also need to look for a handbag to suit. I hadn't considered it before, but I don't think that I have one that will suit, and if I can find one that goes with the shoes it will be useful with any other outfits that go with those shoes. Knowing me, it'll have to be something a bit bigger than a clutch, though. :)

Very open conversation

Tuesday night this week, there were a total of 5 people at our table but only 2 of us in the group photo. That might seem odd, but it isn't really. We had one new guest, Norma, who I remembered from when I was active in Seahorse NSW about 8 to 10 years ago. Being unfamiliar with the Newcastle area, she erred on the side of caution and came along in boy mode, and hence didn't join the photos.

Linda, Norma and I were chatting when Linda realised that Ros, another regular guest of the restaurant who had chatted with us in the past, was eating alone at a table nearby and invited her to join us. She did so, and around the time that we ordered dessert and coffee, her husband (whose name I'm embarrassed to admit I've forgotten as usual) came along looking for her and joined us as well.

The conversation covered various aspects of what each of us do for a living, where we lived etc, to the point that by getting a copy of the right government published list would identify me unequivocally. During the conversation, it also came out that the husband is a solicitor who works in the suburb that I live in, at the fringe of the shopping centre, just around the corner from the salon where I get my nails done. I have walked past the place and parked across the street from it in boy mode hundreds of times over the years.

Ironically, if I quit the type of work that I currently do, I could work as an expert witness, working for solicitors firms such as his, so it turned out to be a form of business networking.

Once upon a time, I would have kept quiet about what I do for a living for fear of being outed. Now, about the only thing that I avoid is actually mentioning my male name!

The photo above was taken by our guest photographer for the night, Ros. :)

Op shop experiences

I find that my enthusiasm for op shopping tends to be intermittent. While I enjoy it, I'll often get so busy doing other things that I just don't get the opportunity. While I really enjoy shopping en femme, the reality is that often the opportunities to shop are between jobs on a work day, or are too short for me to have the time to dress, shop and then change back before I have to do something else.

And so it is that most of my op shopping is done in boy mode. When I bought my current breast forms in 2008, the package deal included a pair of moulded foam "sleep/travel" breast forms of approximately the same size as the silicon forms. These now live in a drawstring bag (my primary school library bag) along with a bra. While this combination is not ideal, I generally find that if a top or dress fits properly from the waist up and covers the bra while wearing these, it will fit with the good forms.

As I mentioned back in April, I bought some orangey red shoes. Early last month, I also bought a pair of burnt orange suede Tony Bianco shoes. Since I bought the red shoes, I've become aware that I don't have as much orange and orangey red in my wardrobe as I'd like, so I've concentrated on looking for those colours when op shopping.

On the Saturday afternoon a couple of days after buying the orange shoes, I drove around to three Salvos op shops (Belmont, Belmont North and Charlestown) and picked up a couple of dresses, a skirt and a glass beaded necklace that my wife has since remade as a charm bracelet.

The following Saturday, I picked up an orange top at my local Lifeline shop, and wore it the following to the following Tuesday cafe night with the orange shoes.

Work kept me very busy for a few weeks, but on the way home from a job last Thursday, I dropped in to Salvos at Glendale and picked up a couple of tops for $5 each.

Being enthusiastic after Thursday's success, I managed to get out shopping again on Saturday. This time, I checked out the new Lifeline Hamilton North shop that I hadn't been to before, Salvos stores at Wallsend, Mayfield and Newcastle West and the Lifeline shop at Mayfield. I also had a look at a combined op shop and costume hire shop a couple of doors from the Lifeline Mayfield and another privately operated shop near Salvos Newcastle West. The haul for the day was 4 tops, a necklace and an earring and necklace set, costing a total of $30!

At both of the privately run shops, I chatted with the women running the shops. The conversation at the first one started with me being asked if my nails were real, and went on to discussing crossdressing both in sales and costume hire. In the second private shop, the woman was enthusiastic to tell me about all the other crossdressers who frequent the shop.

I have had many positive experiences this year since I've had my nails long and painted and I'm more comfortable being open about who I am. The number of negative experiences I've ever had is remarkably small, and I'd actually have to read back through my diaries and blog to try to work out when the last one was!

Helping a friend

To most women, whether married or not, spending some time with a girlfriend who is feeling alone and depressed would be a perfectly normal thing to do. Until the past week or so, I'd never considered this in relation to me being the supportive friend.

When I used to get really depressed (sometimes to an almost-suicidal extent), I suffered alone. While I'm not entirely over depression and probably won't ever be, two things helped me. One was coming out as a crossdresser, which took away a lot of pressure to conform to a masculine stereotype and hide my feminine traits. The second was that I discovered that I am chemically sensitive to the artificial sweetener aspartame, which caused or exacerbated a range of problems for me, including skin rashes, heart palpitations and a fog-like blanket of chemically induced depression.

Having lived through such bad depression, I understand it well enough to empathise with other people who are suffering through it, and to want to help where I can. In fact, that's one of the things that drives me to continue attending the cafe nights regularly. I know that closeted crossdressers are prone to depression and I want to help to provide a path for those who want to come out of the closet because I know that it will also help in dealing with depression.

A few years ago when I was still mostly closeted, one of my nieces attempted suicide and ended up in hospital for several months. She was later diagnosed with a mental illness, and for reasons closely related to that, she isolated herself from her mother while she was in hospital. Knowing that she was depressed and feeling alone, I organised around my work, my wife and my son to visit my niece in hospital most days over those months. I mostly went alone but a few times my son went with me. As a close relative, there was never any suggestion of impropriety in my visiting her frequently. We became quite close over those months, and I came out to her while she was in hospital.

I've now found myself in an interesting situation with a female friend who I met online. She is in her 20s and knows about me including my family and my crossdressing. We have met in person a couple of times when I have been out en femme, but she has never met me as a male. While I don't know all of the details, I know that she is quite depressed at the moment and is feeling rather alone. I have offered to spend some time with her because I believe that she needs a sympathetic friend.

I mentioned the situation to one of my crossdressing friends, who thought that it meant that I would be having an affair with this young woman. While I didn't think that anything like that was ever going to happen, I could see that that could easily be the way other people might see it. I discussed it with my wife, and explained the situation as I saw it, and my crossdressing friend's take on it. I think that my wife actually understands me quite well. She had me confirm that I had only ever met my friend "as Alice", and that if I did spend time with my friend, that I would be doing so "as Alice", then confirmed that she didn't see a problem. She understands that, as Alice, I am sexually disinterested. Even as a male, I'm monogamous and committed to our marriage. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered having an affair!

A little while after talking to my wife about it, I realised that I actually see my young friend as being very much like my nieces. She is a similar age, and in a lot of ways I probably consider her to be a foster niece, if that makes sense. In that context, I don't think that there would be any impropriety regardless of whether I was a foster aunt or a foster uncle.

Avoiding the subject

I mentioned early last year that we had new neighbours move in across the street in 2009. They are a couple who I'm guessing are in their 50s or 60s. The woman and I occasionally wave to each other, but we rarely speak. I don't know her name but she has mentioned that her husband's name is George. Ironically, the place where we have spoken several times has been in the local Lifeline shop. I was there in boy mode yesterday and we chatted briefly.

I asked about the strange behaviour of their dog, who barks normally during the day but makes loud snuffley, wheezing noises instead of barking at night. I'm sure that he recognises me when I go to take the garbage bins in and out in boy mode, and when I go to pick the local free papers up off the driveway in girl mode after getting home from cafe nights on Tuesdays. He barks to greet me and tell me that he's there and that he knows I'm there. I was assured that they don't do anything to the dog to cause this strange barking. The woman told me that it was just that the dog is weird, and that he takes after her husband. :)

I noticed that she addressed Bev by name. Bev works in the op shop, knows about me including having taken photos and is one of my friends on facebook. In spite of me having seen the tell-tale glow of a lit cigarette in the dark on the front verandah across the road when I've been picking up newspapers in girl mode, there has so far been no acknowledgement that she knows about me, and nor has she said anything to Bev.

All in good time. :)

A slip of the tongue

One of my friends, who I'll call S, knows me better as Alice than by my male name, also knows some of my work clients, including some who know B, who, as I previously mentioned, has apparently told quite a few people about me.

S was visiting one of his friends who also knows B. They were discussing the changes that might soon see my ceasing to do the work that I presently do.

At some point during their conversation, S accidently referred to me as Alice. His friend didn't miss a beat. Apparently his response was simply depends which web site you got to. I don't know much more than that, but the impression that I got was that that was essentially all there was to it. Acknowledge and move on.

I'm not going to pretend that there aren't people around who have a problem with who (what?) I am, but over the past few years, my perception has changed from believing that virtually everybody would reject me to realising that those with a problem are a remarkably small minority.

There's another (seemingly larger) minority who are happy to acknowledge that they know and are actively supportive. The majority, if they know, will acknowledge that they know if the subject comes up but don't really care. I can live with that.

Next time I see B, I should say thank you. While I originally thought that what he had done was out of line, I've come to realise that it hasn't ultimately been harmful to me. In fact, probably the opposite.