It takes a lot of makeup...

As promised, here's my makeup routine. As mentioned before, preparation includes removing facial hair, shaping and trimming brows, washing, toning and moisturising, getting all the makeup and brushes out and laying them out ready to use. My face is quite oily everywhere except between my mouth and top lip but my neck and chest aren't anywhere nearly as oily, and the makeup process reflects that. My current pattern is to organise the makeup in 3 rows. I work along each row then move to the next.
Row 1, foundation:
* wet a makeup sponge and squeeze so it's just damp;
* apply makeup primer to face using sponge. I'm currently using Clinique pore minimizer instant perfector. I'm not happy with its coverage of large pores and will look for something better when I finish it;
* apply an oil control gel to face using same sponge. The current one is Clinique pore minimizer t-zone shine control. It helps to keep my makeup from going shiny for a bit longer than without it, but probably only about half an hour. Again, I'll look for something better when I finish it;
* apply makeup primer to neck and chest down to top of bra using same sponge. I'm using Inglot Under Makeup Base here purely to use it up because it was useless on my face. It didn't help to hide the pores and it didn't help with shine but it does help to keep the foundation in place;
* apply a green colour corrector cream to a few of the reddest spots using same sponge. The current one is Avon Colour Corrective Cream, and it's going to last for years because I use very little;
* if the sponge is worn out, throw away. Otherwise, wash, rinse, squeeze and leave to air dry;
* apply a Dermablend colourless powder over my face with a puff, then brush off the excess with a big powder brush. This helps to absorb oil and to fill in pores a bit more;
* apply foundation using brush, with the foundation in the palm of my spare hand. I start with my forehead and work down around my eyes, over my nose, around my mouth then from the temples down the sides of my face, alternating from side to side. Once I've covered my face using my Estée Lauder Double Wear foundation (which I love), I add some Revlon Colorstay to the remaining foundation in my hand and mix it in. I'm basically using up the Revlon on my neck and chest because it can't handle the oiliness of my face but it's also a shade lighter than the Estée Lauder and I found that using the same foundation all the way down made the face look paler then the chest, so blending from one shade to the other under the jaw actually looks more natural;
Row 2, highlight, contour and blush:
* apply a highlight powder that is paler than the foundation and a contour powder that is darker than the foundation. This helps to change the apparent shape. I use the highlighting to make some places look shallower or more prominent and contouring to make other places look deeper or less prominent. I actually apply all of the contouring, then all of the highlighting but the following descriptions mix the two to make it easier to understand what they're for:

* I have the masculine “bossing” over the eyebrows, and contouring it helps to make the face shape look more feminine. I only contour a small horizontal stripe from about mid-brow to mid-brow.
* I'll sometimes add a small contour spot in the hollow underneath the cheekbone to help to emphasise the cheekbones and make them look bigger.
* I contour along the edges of the jaw for about the middle third of each side and apply a highlighter in an upward pointing triangle on the tip of the jaw, improving the definition of the tip while shrinking the sides a little to improve the overall appearance of the shape.
* I apply highlighter in a large triangle with its points at the outer end of the eye, the edge of the ear level with the eye and the jaw just below the ear to help widen the top of the face to make my long face look more oval.
* I highlight across the bridge of the nose and a narrow line down the ridge and contour the sides and around the underside of the tip to bring the bridge forward (reduces the appearance of the forehead bossing) and emphasise the narrowness of that line against the contour used along the sides of the nose to make it look shorter and narrower.
* I highlight in the hollow under my bottom lip to flatten out that hollow.
* To emphasise cleavage, I contour between the breasts and take a curved Y shape up around the top of the breasts a little bit to emphasise the boundary between the flat skin of the chest and the rise of the breasts, and highlight on the inside side of each breast to emphasise them and increase the apparent depth of the cleavage. Lately, I've actually been using a white eyeshadow (Max Factor 010 Wild White) to highlight here.

* apply blush, going from under the middle of each eye out and up to in front of each ear and up the temples. Might sound odd but that's what my face shape needs. I use different blush colours, depending on the clothing and wig colour that I'm going to wear;
* apply Estée Lauder Double Wear powder to set the foundation and help blend the contouring and highlighting. I use a medium powder brush to apply and a large one to dust off the excess;
* remove the 2 tissues that were tucked into the top edges of the bra and use them and a brush cleaner to thoroughly clean the foundation brush;
Row 3, eyes and mouth:
* pencil in brows, starting at the inside ends and working out along the brows, alternating side to side to try to keep them even. My brows end about 2/3 of the way across my eyes, so once I get to the outside end of the brows, I draw a new line freehand. I start with a narrow line, and they always end up uneven so I thicken them to even them up. If I'm wearing an auburn wig, I start with an auburn pencil that is too subtle on its own, then use a brush and brown eyeshadow to fill in the brows, leaving a fairly natural brown/auburn brow colour. For other wig colours, I simply use a matching pencil;
* apply a white eyeshadow to the middle of each upper lid to help to make the eyes look more open and a patch under the peak of each brow to help to lift (open up) the brows. I apply all of my eyeshadow using a brush;
* apply dark eyeshadow shade to lids and crease, working around the white section. Like blush, the colour of eyeshadow varies with wig and clothing colour;
* apply lighter eyeshadow to outer 2/3 of areas below brows, from a diagonal line up and out from near the inside corner of the eye to the brow, dipping under but blended into the white under the peak and petering out in a curve between the outside end of each eye and the ends of the brows;
* use heated eyelash curler to curl upper lashes. Because the curler is shorter than my eyes, this usually takes about 4 goes on each side before I'm satisfied;
* apply mascara. I'm currently using Covergirl LashBlast waterproof. I use black/brown with auburn and brown warm season wigs and black with blonde and brunette cool season wigs;
* apply eyeliner. I'm using Inovi LiquidPencil with their Fixit makeup fixative at the moment and aside from how badly it breaks up when sharpening, I'm happy with it but their store closed so I'll have to find something else when I use them up. As with the mascara, I use brown or black depending on the wig colour;
* apply white eyeliner to the lower lids above the lashes, in the so called "waterline" area so that that area looks like part of the white of the eye from a distance, making the eyes look more open;
* apply more white eyeshadow around the inner end of the eyes to tone down the eyeliner a little and brighten the eyes;
* apply lipstick and sealer. I use various shades of Max Factor Lipfinity and CoverGirl OutLast (they're the same stuff from the same factory, just in different shades) and I always have trouble getting the lip line to look right and even. I apply the colour, then the clear sealer/moisturiser, blot then apply the clear again.

Now you can probably see why I separated this from the Boy to Girl list. :)

Plausible deniability

I visited one of my wife's aunts for a while today. She needed a hand with a computer problem and changing a light bulb in her flat.

While I was sorting out her computer problem for her, I told her outright that I am a crossdresser. Not only was she not the slightest bit surprised, but she confirmed my suspicion that most if not all of my wife's relatives know but are choosing to pretend not to know. I believe that the term used in the military is plausible deniability. By not admitting that they know, it remains plausible that they don't know.

That's actually a big relief to me. They know and pretend not to, and that's their choice. The really good thing is that they continue to accept me in my male role. I haven't been rejected outright. I'm still trying to get my head around the larger implications of this, but it's definitely a relief.

Boy to girl

As promised, here's my lists of things that have to do to change from "boy" to "girl", and why it takes at least three hours all up.

First, there's the preparatory things that can be done hours before the actual transformation begins:

*decide on an outfit including wig;
*get out wig cap, clips and pins to match wig, brush, comb and spray;
*get the wig (on foam head) out and put it on the stand, spray and brush all over;
*get the clothing out, hang or lay out on the bed as appropriate;
*get out the underwear, padding, breast forms etc and lay them out on the bed;
*get out the shoes that I'll be wearing when I leave the house, plus heels in their box if I'm going to change shoes after driving. Often, I'll put the heels in the car now or immediately before starting the actual change;
*choose and get out jewellery to match;
*get out makeup, brushes etc and put them on a cloth on the bed ready to take to the bathroom;
*check and trim or shave any body or facial hair that needs doing. This is only a touch-up, as the hair will all have been waxed or epilated if I'm organised;
*get out girl purse and handbag to match outfit. If I don't need to go anywhere in boy mode before I get changed, I'll pack the purse and mostly pack the handbag aside from makeup, keys and phone.

At this point, I can leave it all like this for hours before I start to actually change. Sometimes the above organising will be done through the day between doing other things if I'm going out at night.

Once it's time to actually change, the process is fairly consistently in this order:
*in bedroom, take off boy shoes/boots and socks, shirt and trousers to give the maximum possible time for the clothing pressure marks to go away, remove boy earrings, brush and tie hair off face, put on girl dressing gown. I have 2 separate dressing gowns, a boy one which never comes into contact with makeup or perfume and the girl one that gets perfume and makeup on it all the time;
*in bathroom, wash, tone and moisturise face, neck and decolette;
*in bedroom, apply adhesive bra, checking in mirror to get the 2 pieces symmetrically placed, put on bra, do up clip on adhesive bra then put the breast forms into place. I do the adhesive bra up after putting the normal bra on because reaching around to do the bra up has broken the clips on adhesive bras before;
*apply a quick spray of body spray to belly and back below bra before putting dressing gown back on;
*pick up the cloth with the makeup by the corners in one hand, brush set in the other hand and return to the bathroom;
*lay makeup out on cloth in order of use on one side of bathroom vanity, brushes on the other side;
*get 3 tisues, tuck 2 of them along the cleavage edges of the bra to keep the makeup off, put the other one aside for blotting lipstick;
*do makeup. There'll be a separate post about this, but it currently takes around an hour and 5 to 20 minutes;
*use toilet. Sounds odd to put in this list, but after the next 2 steps, I have to strip to go again;
*take makeup and brushes back to bedroom, finish packing handbag;
*in bedroom, apply talc, go back to bathroom and wash hands (I should take the talc to the bathroom with the makeup but I never thought of it until I was typing this!), put on g-string which holds boy bits tucked into place to give a smooth feminine shape, inner shaper pants to keep padding off skin, outer shaper pants rolled down to crotch. Insert bottom edges of padding into shaper pants, roll shaper pants up over padding, lift bottom edges to flatten padding, move padding and pants as necessary to get in correct position. Once the padding and shaper pants are all in place, put the thigh-to-underbust body shaper on over them, starting by pulling it up the legs with it also rolled down to the crotch. unroll body shaper and hook on removable straps, feed straps up under sides of bra and get them sitting under the bra straps on the top of the shoulders. Lift the legs of the shaper and get all the layers sitting flat;
*Put on tights/pantihose/socks, outer garments, shoes;
*take wig on stand, brush, wig cap, clips, pins etc to bathroom;
*pin hair up using about 10 one touch clips, then clip wig cap on using another 10 clips;
*put wig on, adjust and pin into place, quick brush, put decorative clips into wig, brush again;
*put on earrings, necklace, bracelets, wedding ring;
*apply perfume to wrists;
*check overall look in mirror. Brush wig again if needed.

On Tuesday afternoon this week, the actual change took about two and a half hours, including the makeup taking one hour and five minutes. The organising stuff took at least half an hour.

Fun, fun, fun on facebook

A friend who I've known for over thirty years recently realised who I am and sent me a friend request on facebook. It's funny to realise that I started cross-dressing a few years before I met her, but it wasn't until just a few weeks ago that she found out. She was shocked at first but is quite accepting. I'm genuinely surprised just how happy that has made me.

After all this time of wondering if my wife's family have any idea who I am, I've finally had a hint on facebook that some of them actually know and just won't say anything. :)

Importing stuff to facebook

Well, I've finally decided to import my blog into my Facebook notes. If you're reading this on facebook as a single note, you can click on the Alice's Notes link above the note, next to my photo, to see all of my notes including all the imported blog posts. If you click on the View original post link below the note, it'll take you to the original blog post on blogger. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be possible to also transfer comments left on blogger in response to posts there across to Facebook, so there may end up being 2 separate sets of comments on the same post.

I also discovered that it's very easy to link my photos on flickr to Facebook, so now new image uploads to flickr will also show up on my wall and my friends' home pages.

For anyone wondering, my new profile photo on both blogger and facebook was taken after I got home from dinner with friends on Tuesday night. It's one of those rare occasions where I look at a photo and think that it has turned out just right. :)

I've had several people respond to my second last post about all the things that I do going from "girl to boy", asking for more similar stuff. I promise that I'll soon be doing a similar "boy to girl" list, a "grooming" list and perhaps a post about "why it takes me so long to do makeup". :)

Dinner with the family

In my second last post, I mentioned that I was going out for dinner with my wife's family, and that I was wondering what would happen after one of my wife's cousins saw me on Saturday.

Well, the answer was a big fat nothing!

The guy who saw me was visiting from Sydney, and went home before the dinner because of other commitments. His parents (who he probably stayed with) and brother were all there, and none of them even looked at me sideways let alone saying anything.

Sheesh! it could be xmas before I see him again! I still don't know if he recognised me, but if he did, it doesn't look like he told any of his family.

Why does it take so long to change from girl to boy?

Someone asked me recently on a forum why it takes me over an hour to change from "girl" back to "boy". Since I figured that other people might be interested, here is a summary. I don't always do everything in exactly this order, but this is roughly it:

* unpack and put away handbag;
* put away makeup, etc;
* remove and put away jewellery;
* remove shoes, put back in box & put box away in cupboard unless wet, in which case leave to air. If I've worn flats to drive and heels while out, put away or air both;
* remove wig, put it on foam head, brush then put away;
* remove outer clothes and socks/tights/pantihose. Sort and put out to wash or hang for next time. I use a silk or satin scarf over my head to avoid getting makeup on the top or dress if it comes off over my head;
* remove bra, breast forms, adhesive bra, body shaper, outer shaper pants (holds padding in place), padding, inner shaper pants (keeps padding off skin) and g-string;
* hang bra, shapers and padding to air or put out to wash;
* hand wash breast forms, adhesive bra and g-string. Towel dry non-adhesive sides of forms and bra, put in storage trays to air dry. Hang g-string on shower screen to drip;
* remove wig cap and about 20 one-touch clips;
* remove makeup, which extends all the way to the top edge of the bra;
* shower. This includes washing my face twice with different cleansers to make sure all visible signs of makeup are gone, washing all over thoroughly to remove perfume and washing hair;
* tone, apply eyecream and moisturiser;
* towel dry g-string and hang to air dry;
* put on "boy" clothes;
* put "boy" earrings in;
* brush and tie up hair;
* transfer almost everything from my girl purse to my boy wallet.

Yes, that's at least an hour.

Facebook friend invites - episode 3, plus a day out shopping

Yesterday, for no obvious reason, I decided to send a few more friend invites on Facebook. I haven't sent a 2nd invite to anybody who ignored the first one, I've just sent a few more to various people who know me as a boy.

That included my father-in-law's sister, who, like her brother, accepted the invite soon after I sent it, without comment.

It also included my sister-in-law's husband, who popped up a chat with my wife asking "Who is Alice?" while she was in the middle of preparing dinner. I think that she responded with something along the lines of "Look at her profile and you should be able to work it out. I've got to go back to preparing dinner." It's over a day since then, and nothing more has been said to my wife or to me.

I decided yesterday that I wanted to do some shopping today. I'd broken the clip on my last adhesive bra (you can see that I use them for on wikipedia), and one place has them at 2 for $8, so I went there and bought 4. That was in the Hunter Street Mall, and getting there without paying for parking involved hiking from the top of Newcommen Street down to the mall and back. For those who don't know the area, it's a decent sized hill.

After that, I headed to Westfield Kotara to look for coloured tights, particularly purple ones to go with a body suit that I particularly like. One idea is to layer black lace tights over purple. I bought some patterned purple tights at Target, and while I was there I almost bumped into one of my wife's cousins, who only knows me as a male. He looked at me, then did a double take but didn't say anything. I turned away as calmly as I could manage and simply headed to the checkouts without looking back.

After browsing several other stores and buying a couple of things at DJs, I headed up to Charlestown Square. I hit the jackpot on the tights at Sussan. They not only had purple tights that are an almost perfect match to the body suit, but they also had black lace floral pattern ones like the one pair I've had for a couple of years and couldn't more of. They were on sale at $5 off each, too. I'm considering going back and buying some more while they're still on special!

I realised something sort of funny a while ago, and today reinforced it for me. Even if people read me as a crossdresser, they never confront me about it. It's actually easier to go out shopping as a woman and have few people even look twice than to go into "women's" shops and the "women's" department of shops as a man and have lots of people looking, whispering, etc!

There's a family get-together coming up for my wife's family. I'll be interested to see what is said, if anything.

Random bits 'n' bobs

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been far too long since I last blogged and lots of things have happened that I should have written about. :)

Sadly, my dear friend Pip, who I mentioned in my last post, has passed away. Even though it was expected, it's still taking a while to really get over.

My nephew, who I mentioned in my 2nd last post, still doesn't seem to have worked it out. Last weekend, I forgot that he doesn't know and when I was visiting my brother's place there was a discussion about who was taller. Someone said that my nephew is yet to have his main growth spurt. I responded with "That's okay, I've got 4" heels." Everybody laughed, but he responded with a comment that indicated that he thought that I was joking.

In a surprise move, one of my friends sent me a friend request on Facebook. I'm yet to find out what led her to realise who I am, but it was a real surprise because I sent her a request months ago and she ignored it.

I've finally made the decision to abandon MySpace entirely. I deleted my profile yesterday, so old links to my blog of MySpace won't work any more. That's okay, though, because I copied them all here first.

My neighbour, who I blogged about having outed myself to, seems to be more accepting than before. We've chatted across the fence about my crossdressing, and she tells me that she's seen me a few times and thinks that I look better as a brunette. :)

I've been tagged

It seems that my dear friend GlossQueen as decided to tag me. Ouch. :p What I have to do is post the third photo in the third folder on my computer, and write about it, so here goes...


Early in 2008, I started going out for dinner fairly regularly with a few other transgender girls. This photo is a group photo from the second time I went out. With me were Linda Karen (aka LK), Pip and Amy Hayes.

These weekly restaurant nights have really helped me and many several other girls come out of our shells (and closets) and be more comfortable in public. The idea originally started in Brisbane, and LK and Pip decided to do the same in Newcastle. I'm really proud that I've become a reasonably regular part of this, and also that it allowed me to spend time with Pip, whose health has sadly declined since this photo was taken. I'm also missing Amy, who hasn't made the trip up from Sydney for quite a while now (hint, hint :p).

While tranny chasers are not welcome (I've blogged before about when one turned up), pretty much anybody else who feels like dining with a bunch of trannies is welcome to come along. :)

"Who is Alice?"

I was in boy mode when I took my son to a birthday party for one of my nieces today (the one I've mentioned before, who has met me as Alice).

Last night, my son and I made a birthday card for her. At my son's insistence, the card was from 4 names, my son, my wife, my male name and "Alice".

My 3 nieces all loved it. My 12yo nephew looked a little confused and asked "who is Alice?" I answered, do you remember the photo your sister used to have on her wall before she moved out of home? He still looked a little confused and my niece said "you know, the one you thought was aunty ***."

He knew the photo we were talking about but still didn't get it. "But who is she?" My niece just said "a family friend" and left it at that. I later told her that I describe my alternate identity as my "identical twin" brother or sister, depending on which I am at the time. :)

He was the only one of my immediate relatives who I wasn't sure whether he knew or not. All of the rest do. Now that his 3 sisters know that he doesn't know, I suspect that he'll know fairly soon. :)

Facebook friend invites - episode 2

I finally sent a facebook friend request to my father-in-law. Now that might not sound like a big deal, but when you're a crossdresser and you're not sure if your inlaws know that or not, and you send the request from a female profile on facebook, which has a corresponding crossdressed avatar photo and he accepts the friend request without comment, it makes things interesting. I still don't know if he knows but I suspect that he might. :)

Facebook friend invites

Well, I finally did it.

I sent facebook friend requests to some of my wife's relatives and one of her friends. So far, no reaction. Of the 4 invites I sent, I'm certain that 2 of them have logged into facebook and done other stuff since, but I've had no reaction. Not even a message saying "who are you?"

I guess I'll just have to wait a while and see if anything happens. After being so nervous about sending them, it seems like a bit of an anti-climax getting no response at all!

Maybe I should send a request to my father-in-law too. LOL.

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Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

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The funny things that people say

Two weeks ago, my niece (my brother's daughter who knows me as both her uncle and aunt), my mother-in-law and I (in boy mode) were talking. I don't remember why, but my niece suddenly decided to make a mischievous remark along the lines of

I think that you are far better at applying eye-liner than I am.

I wasn't sure how my mother-in-law would react, and while I was trying to work out what to say next, my mother-in-law responded with

Some of the best makeup artists are men.

To which I responded

That depends on how much makeup they're wearing at the time.

The conversation just stopped right there. I can't imagine how my mother-in-law could fit that in with what she knows about me if she really doesn't know that I'm a cross-dresser.

The following weekend, my wife and son went away with my in-laws for the Australia Day long weekend. They took an extra day at each end of the weekend for travelling, so they left on Friday and returned on Tuesday.

That made the timing of their return interesting, as Tuesday night is the night that I go out for dinner with the girls. In some ways, I hoped that they would arrive just before I left as Alice while in other ways I still wanted to avoid having my in-laws see me that way.

Well, the timing worked out okay for avoidance. I left before they arrived, having put away all my makeup gear from the bathroom and tidied almost everything in our bedroom. Not that my in-laws tend to look in our bedroom. They've seen but never commented about the row of 9 wigs on stands along one wall, and now they seem to avoid even going to our bedroom doorway. :)

After I got home, my wife told me about a little conversation that went on in the car on the way home about picking up takeaway dinner on the way. When asked if they would need to get enough food for me as well, my wife said

No, he usually goes out for dinner on Tuesday nights

onto which my son added

as Alice.

LOL. No response. Nothing.

I'm left trying to decide whether to send friend invites to a few of my wife's relatives on facebook. :)

Total lack of recognition

While helping my father-in-law to create and set up his facebook profile last night, my profile photo came up on the screen in the people you might know section. My mother-in-law was looking over his shoulder and there wasn't the slightest hint of recognition from either of them. I wonder if they'll ever look more closely at the photo. :)

Then again, from experience, I know that I can walk into a store or restaurant in boy mode and girl mode at different times, and even if the staff know that I'm both, they won't recognise me as the same person between the two. For that matter, if I change between being a redhead and brunette girl, a lot of people don't recognise me or have to stop and think about it.

One waitress who knew me as a girl (and lets face it, going out for dinner with a group of crossdressers means that she knew I wasn't a real girl) only realised that I was the same person in boy mode because I addressed her by name as soon as I walked in the door, and ordered the exact same meal. :)

Perhaps one of the most flattering comments that I've ever had was from a woman in a Tree of Life store. I'd been there in boy mode and chatted with her when I bought myself some jewellery. A couple of weeks later, I went in in girl mode and she had her hair done differently. I commented that I almost didn't recognise her because her hair was different. We chatted briefly, but she didn't say anything to indicate that she recognised me. It was a few weeks until I saw her again, and I was again in boy mode. When I walked in, her eyes lit up and she had a huge smile on her face. She said something like

That was you, wasn't it?

I smiled, and she said

You had me completely fooled until you spoke.

and admitted that she hadn't realised who I was until after I walked out of the store.

I guess I need to work on my voice more... :)

Neighbours, friends and family

I promised in my last post that I'd describe my neighbour's reaction when I invited her as a friend on Yahoo 360 last year...

I sent her an invite in late August but she didn't respond until mid September. Because I hardly ever use 360 any more, I probably didn't get the messages for another week or two after that.

It turns out that she was shocked when she realised who I was. She didn't see it coming. She really didn't know, which is sort of funny because I had completely convinced myself that she must have known by then. She only worked it out by reading my blog posts. I don't think that she even recognised me from my photos.

She said no to my friend request, but sent me a message to explain why, and I'm cool with that. We still chat over the fence quite often and as long as I avoid the subject of my crossdressing, we're fine.

That's a lot like my mother. She's known for many years but doesn't want to talk about it.

I guess if my neighbour ever invites me as a friend on facebook, I'll know that she's really accepted me but I'm still content with the knows but doesn't want to know position.

A few months ago, I came out to an older couple who I've been friends with for many years. I had no idea what the reaction was going to be, and was pleasantly surprised when they were quite positive about it. The lady even laughed and said that her uncle had been in Les Girls but got too old and had to retire due to arthritis.

I visited them again on Boxing Day, and chatted about all sorts of things, including my crossdressing. I'm truly amazed and happy that they are so accepting.

I still don't whether my inlaws don't know I'm a crossdresser, or they have figured it out but make an effort to pretend not to know. I had pretty much convinced myself that they do know but are pretending not to, but after re-reading my neighbour's comments from when I invited her as a friend on yahoo, I'm not so sure now. I'm really going to have to drop it into conversation one of these days. :p

Getting up to speed

Well, if you're looking at this you'll probably be noticing that all the posts older than this one are labelled as being imported from yahoo 360 or myspace. Yes, I've hopped from place to place and never really been happy.

360 was buggy and was supposedly closing down, so most people moved elsewhere. I tried multiply and hated it. I tried myspace and started blogging a bit more there before realising that it was as buggy as 360, if not worse. Having the newest version of firefox crash when you try to view someone's profile gets old very quickly!

So I moved on to facebook. I'm fairly happy with facebook and spend a lot of time on there, but it doesn't really support blogging.

After some discussion in the forums at beautyheaven.com.au, I've decided to have another go at blogging. Hopefully since blogger is connected to google it won't fall on its face like 360 and myspace.

A lot of things have happened since I last blogged, and the old posts that I've imported probably leave a lot of questions unanswered. Hopefully over the next few days or weeks I'll try to follow up on some of them, like what happened when I invited my next door neighbour as a friend on 360. :)

Is the world full of creeps?

(imported from myspace)

A few days ago, I found out that, last weekend, a friend of mine was drugged and raped by a guy she knows. I've seen the guy before and I've always agreed that he's creepy.

Imagine, then, going out for dinner with friends on Tuesday night, only to have another creep who was sort-of known to one of the girls (but certainly not liked) show up uninvited and attempt to proposition each girl. YUCK!

He didn't try to proposition me while we were in the restaraunt, and he saw and commented about my wedding ring. When we left, I thought that he had already left and pretty much forgot about him. One of the other girls, Linda, had parked her car on one side of the street and I had parked a little further along the other side. We walked along opposite sides of the street until she got to her car, then I continued to mine.

Just before I reached my car, I realised that a car had started near where Linda was parked and was driving towards me. I thought that it was Linda just making sure that I got to my car okay or coming to say something to me. It wasn't.

The creep drove up and said something about wanting to talk to me. I looked around and realised that he had waited until Linda had done a u-turn and driven away before he had driven towards me. I was alone. Very alone. And scared shitless!

While he was parking his car a few spaces away, I got to my car, unlocked it, fumbled for several terrifying seconds with the frog fastener on my cape, got it off, rolled it up and threw it on the back seat, got in the car and locked the doors. I always wear flat shoes to drive, but was wearing 4" heels, so I quickly changed shoes and got ready to go.

By the time I was ready to start the car, the creep was at my car tapping on the window and saying that he wanted to talk to me. Several times, I said "I've got to go!" but I wasn't going to lower that window, so I just started the car and drove away.

I was shaking all the way home and for at least an hour after I got home.

After a few hours, fear was replaced by anger. How dare this creep scare the shit out of me? I guess from now on I won't leave the can of body spray at home. I might need it to defend myself!

What is with these people? Is the world full of creeps?

Unscientific poll

(imported from myspace)

Okay. I've sort of got a problem. I'm a cross-dresser and I'm going out more often than I have in years. I'd like to be open with my neighbours but I have no idea how they would react. I figure that sooner or later, they're going to see me coming or going and I'd rather tell them than have them find out by accident.

I have profiles on MySpace, Facebook and Yahoo360 and I've discovered that one of my neighbours does too! I have no idea if they know who I am and just don't want to know or they don't want to say anything, or whether they really have no idea!

So the question is, if you found out that your neighbour, a guy who is straight and is married with a child, was a crossdresser, how would you react? Would you hate him for it, even though you got on okay when you didn't know, or would you be okay with it?

I'd really like to get some feedback from people who haven't really had much or anything to do with crossdressers before. If that's you, I'd really love to hear from you and I'd really appreciate if you could ask your friends to give their opinion too.

It’s a small world

(imported from myspace)

I use high quality mastectomy breast forms. They're expensive but I figure I'm worth it. :)

I bought my last pair of breast forms about 6 or 7 years ago and they had started to develop small cracks around the edges in the past few months. A few weeks ago, one of them split and started leaking. Eww.

There was nothing to be done but buy a new pair. There were 2 local suppliers that I knew of, so I had a look at the website for one and found exactly what I was after. With some extras included in a package deal, they were $699. Out of curiosity, I rang the other place and was quoted $431 each. That's $862 without any extras!!!

Obviously, I ordered them from first place! When I got an email last Wednesday to say that they had arrived, I arranged to go and pick them up.

I knew was that the woman there was named Tanya, but when I arrived, I looked at her and thought that she looked familiar from somewhere... She thought that I looked familiar, too.

After a little while, we worked out where we knew each other from. It turns out that we had been in the same group of friends for a few years about 20 years ago! Wow. What was supposed to be a half hour shopping trip turned into a 2 hour visit. :)

Ironically, one of my brothers was interested in Tanya all those years ago, and was just about to ask her out when she met the man she's been married to for the past 17 years. This is the same brother who didn't talk to me for about 9 months after learning about my crossdressing.

Tanya said that she wanted me to get a photo of my brother's reaction when I tell him what she does for a living now.

This Tuesday, Tanya came along to our weekly cafe night. It was great! Towards the end of the night, we got a couple of photos of the pair of us. She wants me to email one of them to my brother. I love the idea, except that I'd miss out on seeing his expression. :)

I think I might print the photo out and take it to my niece's birthday party this weekend in case my brother goes too. :)

My Celebrity Look-alikes

(imported from myspace)

What a fortnight!

(imported from myspace)

I've had a busy fortnight.

Back in October last year, I tried to go out to a cafe with friends. It was a big let down when I got dressed up and drove into town only to find that they had cancelled without telling me even though I'm sure that I'd told them the week before that I intended to be there. I wasn't treated very well by the staff at the cafe, which upset me quite a bit.

There were some unfortunate misunderstandings as a consequence of that, and I pretty much stopped crossdressing for over 3 months. I'd occasionally try something on or buy something in a shop but I didn't do makeup and I didn't even consider going out.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago. Completely by accident, I happened to be in a chatroom late on Friday night when a friend from the next suburb showed up. I hadn't seen her in about 6 months, and I jokingly suggested that I could go and visit her. She said yes, I said "When?" and she said "Now." I changed clothes and went and visited her from about 12:30am until 3:30am, and tentatively organised to visit again the next night.

The next night, I did my makeup, got all ready to go and then went into the chatroom to check that she was home before I went. She wasn't there, and nobody had seen her all night. I hung around for over an hour, then changed, showered and went to bed.

Well, I guess about then my brain shifted gears and said "I wanna go out!"

The next day was Sunday. I dressed again with the intention of going to Charlestown Square. Well, by the time I was ready to leave, about all that was open were the supermarkets, Myer and David Jones at Kotara. Myer would be closed in about half an hour, but David Jones would be open for another hour and a half. That made the choice easy. DJs it was.

Having not been out for so long, just getting the nerve to get out of the car was a real struggle but I did it. I went into DJs, wandered around and browsed, got friendly smiles from the shop assistants and generally had a relaxing and positive experience.

I decided that I'd have another go at going out to a cafe, so that Tuesday night I went out and spent a couple of hours having dinner with friends. It was great being out!

The next Saturday, I decided that it was about time that I got myself a better fitting bra. I knew that the one I had worn the last couple of times I was out didn't fit right, and I wanted to get 2 new ones, one black and one skintone. I went to the shopping centre and spent about 3 hours going around various shops. I tried bras at a few shops but none fitted quite right. I ended up at Myer, where I found a bra that fitted much better but they only had it in skintone. I thought "oh well, I'll drive to DJs and see if they have the same one in black."

I got to DJs and started looking for the same bra. A lady there asked if she could help me. I told her what I was looking for. They didn't have the same one, but they had another similar one in the same brand. Isn't that always the way?

Anyway. I tried that one on and it wasn't right. Just as I was going to give up, the lady came back to check on me. I ended up getting a proper bra fitting done, finding a completely different bra that was a better fit than I'd ever had before and I got 25% off because I bought 2! I was happy. :)

The following Tuesday, I went out to dinner with some of the same friends. Another great night, and I was even less nervous about going out.

Of course, now I was thinking that I'd really like to find a new top or dress to wear next week...

Saturday couldn't come soon enough! As usual, I had a late start and didn't get out anywhere nearly as early as I wanted. It was mid afternoon by the time I dropped into a local op shop to try on a dress I'd seen before. It would have been great if the zip hadn't self destructed! Oh well, I'll just have to go look for something new instead. I drove to Kotara and wandered around for a couple of hours. I tried a couple of tops but didn't end up buying either.

It's a shame I have so much else that needs doing. I could have spent today shopping too. :)

I still don't know if any of my neighbours know about my crossdressing. :))

Feeling sorry for those who reject us

(imported from yahoo 360)

I'm sad.

I'm not so much sad for myself as sad for someone who I recently invited to be my friend. She accepted, then, a few hours later, sent me a message saying that she couldn't be my friend because she couldn't handle my being a crossdresser.

It's exactly the sort of reaction that I wrote about trying to avoid a few weeks ago.

At least she had the honesty to admit that she had a problem with me, so perhaps there is hope that she will be able to change her attitude in the future.

I hope that, if she reads this (which I doubt), she won't be insulted. I bear her no ill will, and I genuinely feel sorry for her.

It reminds me of a line from the book "Illusions" by Richard Bach: "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."

Eek! What do I do?

(imported from yahoo 360)

I hate being negative, but how long can you cling on by your fingertips?

Depression really sucks. If you've never experienced it, you're really lucky.

I've realised that I no longer have any expectation of achieving any goals in life. I no longer have any aspirations. I just try to cope from day to day. I've got more unfinished projects than I even want to think about, and I'm too depressed to even try to do anything.

In the midst of all that doom and gloom, I've discovered that one of my neighbours has a page on 360. I have no idea whether they have any idea that I'm a crossdresser. I have no idea how they would react. I don't even know if they've looked at my profile and recognised me from my photo.

So, do I just wait and see if they say anything, or do I invite them as a friend? :)

A life? I don't have one of those anymore.

(imported from yahoo 360)

Before we had our son, I heard of a woman who wrote a book about how having a child had destroyed her marriage. At the time, I thought that she was completely and utterly nuts.

I was wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I love my son, but he takes up all of our time. I need a break!

Sometimes people ask when we're going to have another child. You're kidding, right? If one is this much of a handful, I'm not having another one!

Before he was born, various family members offered to look after him to give us a break. It didn't happen until earlier this year. Now, if I spend an hour driving him around, I can get my mother to mind him for about 4 hours once every few weeks. That's it. My partner and I haven't had any quality time together without him since he was born!

Some people's idea of helping is worse than nothing. My partner's parents expect us to take him to visit them one night every week. It's not a break for us, because we have to stay there and look after him for the whole time. We've been doing that virtually every week since he was born and I've just about had enough! One of these days, I'll tell them that I'm a crossdresser. I figure that the worst that can happen is that they'll stop expecting me to go there.

The conundrum of letting a word define who you are.

(imported from yahoo 360)

When I created my page here, I started by mentioning one word about me up front in the About Me section.

Perhaps mentioning it there was wrong.

That one word and what it implies is not my whole life. It isn't all that I am. So I've decided that I'll write about it in my blog but not mention it on my front page.

Hopefully people will look at me for who I am.

• A parent.
• A spouse.
• A compassionate person.
• Someone who is always willing to listen and offer advice when asked.
  
• Someone who sufferers from depression but tries not to take it out on others.
• A chocoholic who struggles with their weight. Maybe just one more piece...
• A tea drinker. White with 2, thanks. :)
  
• Someone who doesn't smoke, drink or do any other drugs.
• A quiet person who isn't into pubs, clubs and partying.

I could go on, but if you've read this far you'll get the idea.

I hate the thought that someone who might otherwise be friends with me might never even consider it because they see one word and immediately think "No, I don't want to know them. I'm going to have anything to do with a crossdresser!"

Steamroller day

(imported from yahoo 360)

I'm sure everyone has them. Days where you feel like you've been run over by a steamroller.

I'm sitting here at about midnight thinking "what on earth did I do today?"

• Phone interview for SX News as the unofficial Australian spokesperson for the wikipedia LGBT project? No, that was yesterday. Being hetero and being interviewed by a gay magazine as the representative of a primarily gay group is a bit odd, mind you...
• Work? Well, maybe but it hardly seems like it. I know that I spent several hours working but for the life of me I can't really work out what I achieved doing it.
• Thursday night shopping? Yep, that'll do it. Try looking at the shoes that your partner is trying on while trying to keep a hyperactive 4yo from knocking over the neatly stacked shoe boxes in the shop. Lots of fun. Not.

Something doesn't add up. I can only account for about half the hours since I got up this morning. I seem to have lost half a day somewhere and I can't work out where or how.

My son was actually fairly well behaved today aside from the shoe shop incident. And yet, here I sit, absolutely exhausted and wondering why.

Maybe, just maybe, it's because I haven't had any "me" time for way too long. As strange as it will sound to some people, having some time without interruptions to do my makeup, dress in a nice outfit and go out shopping or to visit a friend for a while is one of the most enjoyable and relaxing things that I can do.

To many women, this would sound perfectly normal. I guess to most guys, this probably sounds like a normal "girl" thing to do. Well, when I'm in that "mode", that's exactly who I am. An ugly girl perhaps, but a girl nonetheless.

So, at the end of a steamroller day, I sit back and imagine a time in the future when I'll be able to dress up nicely and go out as that girl, without trying to avoid being seen by the neighbours or the fear of being abused simply for being a girl. Somehow, knowing that I'm going to do that sometime soon makes getting over being flattened by a steamroller day just that little bit easier to cope with.

Entry for 13 September 2007

(imported from yahoo 360)

Well, I've finally decided to create a profile. As if I didn't already have enough to do.

I've been crossdressing since I was about 5 years old. I used to hide it from everybody but over the past few years I've realised that it's my life and I have every right to live it.

I don't understand people who have a problem with knowing that I'm a crossdresser. Some people have known me almost all my life and yet, as soon as they know that I crossdress, they don't want to know me.

Hey, people. I haven't changed. The only thing that has changed is that you now know something about me that hasn't really changed since I was 5 years old.

I've finally realised that if there's a problem here, it's not my problem, it's theirs. That's one of the most life changing realisations that I've ever had. I no longer feel guilty. I no longer feel like it's my problem.

Over the next few months (years?), I'll be coming out to my friends, my wife's family, neighbours, etc. I have no idea how it's going to go but I'll find out eventually.