Awful apart

I'm sad to say that things have really fallen apart this month. A combination of heat stroke and stress over a government department wanting to do things that could force me to close down the small business that I've run for over a decade translated into a bout of deep depression, the worst migraines I've experienced in years, a small amount of weight gain, almost constant exhaustion and a very disappointing total of one outing for the entire month.

That's right, I made it to just one cafe night. The first time I'd missed one since December 2009 and I managed to miss 3 of the 4 Newcastle nights plus the Central Coast one, all in the space of one month.

The depression is fluctuating wildly from day to day but the bottom of the cycles isn't as deep as it had been. The migraines haven't gone. They're not as bad as they were, but they're persisting, usually setting in around late afternoon, at about the time that I'd normally be preparing to go out to cafe nights.

I've decided to make a conscious effort to put this month behind me and try to get out on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights this coming week, I've also got a nail appointment on Wednesday afternoon, and I'm hoping to go to it en femme, and perhaps do some other shopping.

Recognition? Definitely not!

Back in November, I mentioned that I had been to an op shop where my sister-in-law's mother (I'll again call her E for convenience) volunteers. In December, I visited my brother and my sister-in-law, and no mention was made of E having recognised me.

While I was fairly sure that if E had recognised me, she would have said something to her daughter, I also thought that there might have been a small chance that she might have simply said nothing, so a lack of comment might have been inconclusive.

I visited my brother and his wife last night, and mentioned in conversation that I had seen E in the op shop and didn't think that she had recognised me. My brother jokingly said "you weren't in drag were you?", but I didn't get a chance to respond immediately, as my sister-in-law was telling me that it wasn't a bad thing that E hadn't recognised me, this being with the assumption that I'd been there as a male.

When I finally got a chance to mention that "I was wearing the wig that is closest to my natural hair colour", the conversation became somewhat comical, with everybody making jokes about it. I was not only reminded that St Vincent de Paul is a Catholic Church run organisation, but that E has some rather traditional views, and that if she had recognised me, my brother and his family "would have never heard the end of it." There was also a suggestion that my brother "would have been ex-communicated from the family" ... "with an axe" ... "or a chainsaw if she could work out how to start it."

While some of the comments were obviously a little exaggerated, I think that it's safe to say that if E had recognised me, my sister-in-law would definitely have known about it. Some of the people who know her best are quite confident that she would not have said nothing, so it's fairly safe to assume that she didn't recognise me. :)

Goal failures

Well, I failed in my goal of at least 6 outings in January including one daytime outing, and I'm well on the way to failing that goal for February too.

I took holidays until mid January, and as I mentioned about a fortnight ago, going back to work really put me off balance. My workload has been so bad that I haven't had time to sit down and write blog posts let alone getting out.

Another couple of weeks on and things have been even worse than I anticipated. A planned day off fell apart because a client had a vehicle break down and couldn't get to me until the following day. A paperwork backlog has forced me to spend many hours in the office, usually meaning that I'm so late getting to bed that I struggle to get up at a reasonable time in the morning. That's another goal failure - I've made no progress sorting out my sleep pattern.

Then there was this week. We had a fairly mild first half of summer, but the past few days have been more normal for here. Temperatures have been around 40C (about 105F) since about 26th January. On Tuesday this week, I had to drive to several places around town for work. Each time I parked the car, it got very hot inside. Each time I drove to the next place, there wasn't enough time for the car to cool down, so I got hotter and hotter through the day. By the time I got home, I had heatstroke and had to lie down in a cool room with the curtains closed to try to recover. A friend suggested that I should take a cold bath, but the water coming out of the cold tap was quite warm!

I'm sad to say that I missed my first Tuesday night cafe night in well over a year. Worse, I had to go to Sydney on Wednesday for work, meaning that I also missed the monthly Central Coast cafe night. We went by train there and back and I made the mistake of letting my travelling companion choose where we sat. It was about 2.5 hours each way and on both occasions he put me in a window seat on the sunny side of the train, which added to my feeling unwell.

After struggling though work on Thursday and Friday, I was looking forward to relaxing and recuperating on Saturday and perhaps trying to go out on Sunday. My mother has other plans for me, though. She rang me on Friday evening to tell me that they are doing a big clean-up at their place and that I have to go there over the weekend to sort some possessions of mine that have been at their place since I left home over a decade ago!

The weather won't be cool, and I can neither fit my car in their driveway nor park in front of their house, so I'll have to lug whatever I want to keep up the steep driveway and along the street in the heat to load it into my car. If I do that Saturday, I will probably spend the entire day Sunday trying to recover from heat stroke again. That makes 3 planned outings in a row down the drain. :(

On the upside, I may well soon be unemployed and have much more time to get out. :)

Wigless peers - 2

I'm really starting to feel like the odd one out at cafe nights!

Last night, there were 8 of us, including 3 crossdressers, 2 transsexuals, 2 hairdressers who did one of the CD's hair last week and this week, and one GG partner.

Last week, there were 2 of us wearing wigs. This week, I was the only one in a wig!

It was one of my favourite wigs which is getting a bit old and the net is a bit stretched. I had pinned the sides back off my face before I went out as usual, but when I arrived at the restaurant I found that the clips just weren't keeping it off my face how I wanted, and took about 10 attempts to get one of them to sit okay. For some reason, the wig also irritated my neck all night. I really regretted wearing it.

I had a chat with the hairdressers who came along, and will probably organise to get my hair cut by one of them soon. They assure me that they can come up with a style that will work much better en femme while still looking much the same as it does now in boy mode. I'm probably also going to have to read up on hair straighteners, as that's probably the solution to the way the ends of my hair go fluffy.

Going out en femme wigless to local events might not be as far off as I thought! If it really works out well, daytime outings might not be out of the question either. :)

Wigless peers

I haven't blogged for over a week, and I'm not happy about that. I'm not ill as such, but being back at work has really put me off balance.

At this week's cafe night, we had a total of 7 of us, including 5 crossdressers, one transsexual and one GG partner. Within the group, just 2 of us were wearing wigs. Two of the others who had worn wigs to the Central Coast cafe night when I went wigless were wigless this week, leaving me really wondering what is stopping me from doing likewise.

The restaurant that the Newcastle cafe nights are held at is a lot more public and a lot closer to home for me than where the Central Coast cafe nights are held. I have seen people both in the restaurant and walking past who know me, and I've been very happy hiding behind a wig, but am getting more and more comfortable coming out to people around me. I suspect that going there wigless is going to happen for me fairly soon. I'm not sure whether it'll be weeks or months, but I'm pretty certain that it will be this year.

Back to work blues

I mentioned on Tuesday that I've been feeling a bit flat, in part because of the sense of impending doom that comes from the knowledge that my 4 weeks off will come to an end on Monday, and I'll be flat out at work again. Combine that with the fact that I haven't been out this month aside from the cafe nights, and I look like I might fail to achieve my frequency of outings goal in the first month of the year!

On a brighter note, one of my nieces (the older sister of the one that I've mentioned before) and her partner joined us at the cafe night this week. Unfortunately, her partner developed a bad headache and needed to go home, so I arranged to drive my niece home. Finding that her partner had taken something for his headache and was in much better spirits, I visited them for a while, leaving after 12:30am! My niece is quite accomplished at sewing and has offered to help out with some repairs and alterations that my wife has been promising to do but just hasn't got to. For example, there are a few dresses that I've bought at op shops that I've later realised were a little too long for my liking, which I want taken up so that the hem is a little above the knee instead of below. With my recent weight loss, a few of my dresses also need taking in, particularly at the waist. Hopefully my wardrobe options will improve a little bit, fairly soon. :)

Feeling flat

I've been feeling a bit flat for the past few days. I made a big effort to get out several times in the last week of last year and went out to cafe nights twice last week, which was great but a little tiring due to my badly screwed up sleep patterns.

That is fairly minor compared to the big problem. I took 4 weeks holidays over Christmas and new year, as I have done in previous years. Unfortunately, they're holidays that aren't really relaxing because the emails and phone calls from customers won't stop even though I'm not answering them yet. There's also the stress of knowing that not only do I have to go back to work next week (with a considerable increase in workload compared to last year) but I really should start catching up on work this week because there's so much to be done.

I had hoped to take a trip to Sydney this week to do some shopping but one of the places that I planned to go to is effectively a wholesale outlet. You're expected to know the products that you're after before you go there, so I need to spend some time looking around locally and making myself a wish list. Given that it's already Tuesday, I'm a little doubtful that I'll get out, make my wish list and get to Sydney between now and Friday as well as getting a head start on work.

Rather than push myself and stress even more, I've decided that I'll do the wish list when I can, and plan the Sydney trip for a day off work later in the year. For the sake of my sanity (what little I have left), I am going to have to take days off work on a regular basis. I'm thinking probably one day per fortnight.

First things first, though. I'm off to decide what to wear to the cafe tonight so that I can work out what colour I want to put on my nails. :)

Recognition? Wigless, yes

One of the downsides of going out en femme wigless is that there is considerably less difference in my appearance between male and female, and hence a much increased probability of recognition compared to wearing a wig.

That was quite clearly confirmed yesterday, when I was shopping at Charlestown Square in boy mode. I had met a relative of one of the other crossdressers for the first time at the cafe night on Wednesday. When I saw her in Charlestown, she immediately recognised me, smiled and said hello. We chatted briefly then went our separate ways.

While it might not have been a problem if my sister-in-law's mother had recognised me, I'm not sure how things would have gone if my customer and her daughter had, and it could have been very awkward if my father-in-law had. Then again, perhaps they all did and just pretended not to and it's all irrelevant. I don't know.

I think that I much prefer the greater chance of anonymity that the combination of a wig and makeup provides. Wigs also provide the option of a radical change in hair colour, which I quite like.

Whether wearing a wig that frames my face better than my own hair makes me more passable, or my real hair looks more natural and hence more passable, I'm not sure. One thing that I am sure of is that, for now at least, going out wigless close to home is not likely to happen soon.

I guess I'm just not out enough yet.

Gone wigless - reactions

After I posted yesterday's post about going out without a wig for the first time ever en femme, I realised that I'd been interrupted and had only told half the story.

I think that a couple of the reactions on Wednesday night deserve a special mention.

Sue, the organiser of the Central Coast cafe nights and a regular at the Newcastle cafe nights, who has been wigless the past few times I've seen her, greeted me when I arrived, commented that "Alice has her hair tied back" and started to say that she hadn't seen that wig before, then realised that it wasn't a wig and complimented me on my hair.

The other notable response was from Linda Karen, the organiser of the Newcastle cafe nights. When she arrived, I was seated facing away from the door. With my hair tied up, it was obvious that it wasn't a wig, and she later said that she had no idea who I was from the back. It wasn't until she walked around to the other side of the table to take a seat that she realised it was me, and jokingly came out with "You look great you bitch. I hate you", which is quite a compliment from her. :)

Gone wigless

I have sort-of achieved one of the goals that I wrote about a few days ago. However, it was done with no hair on my widows peaks. Instead, it was done with a combination of makeup, a fringe combed over the bald spots and hair spray to keep it in place. I'm not sure how I feel about the comb-over bit an I'm not sure how things would go if I was out in the wind, but for the indoor venue of the Central Coast cafe night, it worked.

The idea of using makeup to disguise the widows peaks came about because I had noticed some time ago that the eyeshadow that I use to colour my brows when I'm wearing an auburn wig (because I can't find a brow pencil the right colour) is actually quite close to my hair colour. A few nights ago, I experimented by using that eyeshadow to colour in the widows peaks and create a more rounded hairline.

It wasn't great but it worked. I decided that I'd try it for Wednesday night's Central Coast cafe night, which is in a relatively private suburban restaurant. If I wasn't happy with the result, I could always put an auburn wig on instead.

On Tuesday morning, I went and bought a beaded hair comb gadget, which consists of 2 metal combs with bead covered elastic between them. Before I started doing my makeup for last night, I tied the top half of my hair up in a pony tail, then used a plastic gadget to pull the pony tail through underneath the tie that held it and up the back of my head, making it stick out more, then put the comb in to cover that. This is something that you simply can't do with a wig!

Instead of stopping my primer and foundation at about the edge of where a wig would come to, I carried it all the way up to the hairline, including fully covering the widows peaks to give the shadow something to stick to. I coloured in the widows peaks before doing contouring and highlighting, and feathered the edges a little when I powdered my face.

Once I was dressed, I brushed my fringe forward and, with a bit of fiddling, got it sitting just right to cover the widows peaks. I gave the fringe a light spray with hair spray to help keep it in place, added jewellery (including my only pair of real gold expensive earrings) and spent a few minutes looking in the mirror trying to work out if I was happy enough with the result and whether I was ready to do this. The fact that the venue is relatively private made it much easier to say yes.

If it had been somewhere more public or closer to home, I don't think that I would have been able to do it. There's a psychological barrier there that I'm yet to overcome. I'll have to work on that.

Off colour

No, it's not that I'm feeling ill (although the thought of going back to work is having that effect). I wore the beige (Revlon Putty) nail polish that I applied on Wednesday night last week until yesterday morning. While I've experienced a slight yellowing of nails from polish before, I really wasn't prepared for the colour that my natural nails had gone. In spite of having used a base coat, they were a brighter yellow than I was expecting in even my worst nightmare. In contrast, the two nails that were covered with gel were still nice and pale except up towards the cuticles where they'd grown out, and the ones overlaid with acrylic but not gel were a bit patchy.

So it looks like I'm stuck with something of a catch 22 situation. I have to wear nail polish to hide the yellow staining of my nails, but by wearing polish, I'll guarantee that they will continue to be stained, unless I have gel overlays done on my nails. Overlays also reinforce the nails, reducing the risk of breakage.

Add in that I'm still having trouble with the side of one nail cracking, in spite of having had an acrylic overlay over a patched edge, and I decided that it was time to head back to the salon to see about getting gel on all my nails. I dropped in yesterday afternoon and made an appointment for this morning, then went home to put some CoverGirl Fuchsia Girl on for last night's cafe night.

Goals - 2

Last night, I realised that there was a goal that I omitted from yesterday's list.

* I want to try to learn not to eat too much when out at parties or visiting people who habitually put out nibblies, and/or over cater. I need to learn that just because there is food available doesn't mean that I should partake of it in larger than normal quantities.

72.5kg on New Year's Eve, 73kg the next 2 nights, then 75kg after visiting some of my wife's relatives last night to catch up with one from Canberra who didn't make it to Newcastle over Christmas. :(

I'll be going out to cafe nights tonight and tomorrow nights. Hopefully I'll be able to do better with my diet than I did last night!

Goals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shape

I'm very happy to say that I finished 2010 weighing in at 72.5kg. After getting to that weight once a few weeks ago, I went back up, peaking at 75kg as a result of various Christmas parties. Annoyingly, I seemed to get very peckish yesterday afternoon and evening, weighing in at 73kg again last night. I'm starting to think that perhaps there is a correlation between crossdressing and weight loss! The days that I'm crossdressed, I eat less between meals and therefore lose weight. Then again, it might just be the fact that when I'm en femme, I'm usually also away from home and hence away from the temptation to snack.

I have decided that my goal in weight loss is to try to get rid of the (now much smaller) spare tyre around my waist, but not go below 65kg. If I get to 65kg and still have the spare tyre, I'll just have to put up with it. If the spare tyre is gone and I'm still above 65kg, I'll adopt the weight that gets rid of the flab to be my target weight and try to maintain it plus or minus 1kg.

I'd like to say that once I get to my target weight, I'll be able to stop wearing a body shaper, but until I get there, I simply won't know. In the meantime, I will continue using the best flexible, comfortable body shaper that I can find. I will not wear rigid corsets and the like, they just aren't me. If I can't wear it comfortably all day on a hot Australian summer day, it's no good to me.

As part of my time out shopping on Friday I went for a drive and bought the Bella Bodies strapless boxer body shaper that I intended to buy. As it turned out, between when I made the decision to go there and when I actually went, I did some more research online and discovered that the style that I have now is obsolete and that there is a new style with a new sizing scale. The one that I bought on Friday was of the old style, and is quite suitable to wear with anything that covers conventional bra straps adequately. Given that the current recommended price is $65, the normal price from this shop was $70 but, with a 20% off sale it came down to $56, I'm happy to have another old style one, and will buy a new style one when the opportunity arises, probably during a trip to Sydney in the next month or two.

The new style changes 2 things. Instead of having a detachable shoulder strap on each side, they apparently rely upon a pair of straps that loop around the sides of the bra above it, eliminating the need for additional straps and opening up the possibility of fitting with any style of bra including halter, crossover, etc. The other thing that has changed is that with the new sizing scale, I'm now towards the top of the scale for the M size, instead of firmly in the L-XL size in spite of my recent weight loss.

Interestingly, the sizing scale no longer has Large and eXtra Large names in the scale. The scale is now S, M, V and VV. Apparently V is for Voluptuous and VV is for Very Voluptuous. As a marketing strategy emphasising positive body image terminology, I think that the naming is a brilliant idea.

The Bella Bodies strapless boxer isn't the only body shaper that uses straps around the bra. A few months ago, I ordered a similar garment from Spanx in the USA. The Spanx one doesn't just use side straps, though. It uses 4 straps, with two at the middle of the front and back and two at the sides. The strap at the front turned out to be quite noticeable under even a moderately low cut top! On a whim, I also ordered an all-in-one version that has an integral bra. When they finally arrived, weeks after the expected delivery time, they were too big to the extent that they were virtually a perfect fit for my size without compressing anything anywhere. They were also made from very heavy material. I would probably collapse from heat stroke if I wore one of them outside on a hot Australian summer day. The Bella Bodies material is thinner and breathes quite well, making them much cooler to wear. The only advantage that the Spanx have over Bella Bodies is that they are seamless, whereas the Bella Bodies have seams down the front and back.

The bra part of the all-in-one Spanx was not specified as a cup size. There was just a "size large" with rather stretchy cups and underwires suitable for about a C cup. The cups provide vastly inadequate support for D cup breasts and have too high a centre height at the front for my liking. Unfortunately, the cost of posting them back to the USA for a refund would have been throwing good money after bad, so I didn't bother returning them. Hopefully I can find someone a few sizes larger to sell or give them to. Hmm. Perhaps I'll consider a give-away to blog followers. I'll have to think more about that.

Recognition? Probably not - part 3

I intend to do a wrap up of the year and set out my goals for next this year, but it will probably be spread across several posts over the next few days as I think of things that need wrapping up or that I want to mention. I think that there's just too much to fit in one post. First, I want to tie up and/or add to a few loose ends from the last week or so.

Just in case anybody is confused, the inlaws I am talking about most of the time are my wife's family. The sister-in-law whose mother volunteers in an op shop is the wife of one of my brothers.

After spending a few hours out shopping in the makeup-melting heat (which reminded me why I prefer air-conditioned centres with covered carparks over open air shopping centres with exposed carparks, such as Glendale Supercentre aka the smokers' shopping centre), I changed back into a frog and went out for dinner last night with my family, then drove to the inlaws' place. My sister-in-law almost immediately commented about the fact that I was no longer wearing the green and red nail polish that she commented on when I wore them on Christmas day, but didn't comment about the beige that I'm wearing now. Considering her earlier comments (which I mentioned in last year's wrap up post), I'm guessing that perhaps her attitude has softened a little, but I'm still not sure that I want to say anything.

In conversation, I also asked whether they had been at Charlestown Square on Wednesday, because I thought that I had seen my father-in-law there, pushing a pram. The answer was yes. I didn't mention how close to him I was at the time, or what I looked like. There was no indication that they had any idea, and I thought it best that I leave it that way for now.

Yay.

Happy new year. Well, it's almost here. :)

I think that I'm slightly in shock. I didn't expect to achieve my goal, but I did it. I got out shopping today, meaning that I averaged an outing every 5 days for the year 2010.

There's a lot more that I intended to say today, but time is against me, I'm expected elsewhere this evening (by some of my wife's relatives, in boy mode) so I have to go and turn back into a frog now. Hopefully I'll do an introspective year in review and plan for the one ahead tomorrow.

So close

As we get close to the end of the year, a couple of other things have also been close.

Yesterday, I got out for the 72nd time this year and unless I'm mistaken, I think that I came close to bumping into my father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law (and possibly her husband) and nephew while out shopping. I was walking along in Charlestown Square when an older guy pushing a pram looked over his shoulder and looked straight past me. I only glanced at him for the briefest moment, but I'm pretty certain it was my father-in-law. Given the direction that he was looking, it probably means that the rest of them were in a store behind me. I changed direction slightly and continued to a different part of the centre.

Given that they all know about me but don't talk about it, I thought it best to avoid creating a scene. I have no idea how any of them would behave towards me in that situation.

I only need one more to make my target of 73 outings and hence an average of once every 5 days over the whole year. That 73rd outing was going to be today. I asked my wife a few days ago if she had anything planned for this week and she said no, so I planned to change my nail colour from the green and red Christmas colours to something different, then go out to the cafe night Tuesday night, then shopping Wednesday and Thursday.

I had all of my nail polishes out on Monday, trying to find a suitable colour to go with some of my pink outfits. When my wife saw them all out, she got hers out as well, and I found a very suitable slightly purplish pink, which I applied on Tuesday afternoon. Sadly, it didn't harden properly so after getting home on Tuesday night, I re-did my nails with the same colour before going to bed. Again it didn't harden and the nails were a mess. My wife then informed me that she was given that nail polish in about 1988!

While I was out Wednesday, I bought a few new polishes including a similar shade, but I later decided to go with an entirely different colour for a few days, so I'm now sporting a Revlon beige colour called Putty. The 1988 polish will probably go in the bin today whether my wife approves or not!

When I mentioned last night that I intended to go out again today, my wife informed me that she was intending to go to a Zumba class today, meaning that I had to either have our son with me, or stay home with him. Given that I don't want to force him to go out with me, and that I will be expected to go out shopping with the family tonight in boy mode, it left me with too little time between her class and this evening to go out and do the errands that I wanted to do. instead, I took my beige nails out today and did some boy errands, making sure that I was back before my wife left for her class. Nobody appeared to notice the colour of my nails, but that was part of the reason for choosing the colour. It's a bit more subtle than the dark brown that I considered wearing in boy mode recently.

I also made a phone call to confirm that a Bella Bodies body shaper that I want to buy (to replace a worn out one the same) is in stock at a shop about half an hour's drive away. The lady confirmed that they have them, and when I asked about the price she also informed me that they are on special until the end of tomorrow. It looks like I'll be going out en femme tomorrow instead of today, which means I might make my goal after all.

If I was out crossdressed past midnight tomorrow night, would that count as an outing for next year as well? :p

PS don't ask me why I had my hand spread across my belly in the above photo. I don't know, and think that it looks silly but the photo shows a top that I hadn't worn before, which emphasises my relatively slim waist and I didn't get a photo without my hand there so I'm stuck with it.

PPS yes, I'm now making it a habit to watermark photos used on my blog and in forums because some have been used without permission.

A little problem

I have a little problem.

I've now spent 2 days in boy mode with my nails painted alternating bright green and bright red. Very Christmas colours, but on nails that are clearly too long and shaped for a guy. I've only been around people who I know - my wife's relatives one day, friends the other.

The problem? I've had a taste of having brightly coloured nails for a couple of days and don't want to go back to the drab pale pseudo-natural finger nail colour that I usually wear.

Yesterday, I considered that we will again see some of my wife's relatives on Monday night and I wondered about leaving my nails as they are until Tuesday. Then I considered taking the colours off and reversing them to see if anybody commented. :)

Last night, I even started looking at tops or dresses that would go with these nail colours so that I could leave them as they are and go out during the day on Monday and again for the Tuesday evening cafe outing. I found a couple of tops that didn't really match both colours but could work okay during the day. The only evening outfit I found was the one that I wore last Tuesday and a fortnight earlier, which I don't intend to wear again this week!

The most likely outcome is that I'll stay home during the day today, visit relatives tonight, change polish to something chosen to complement whatever I decide to wear tomorrow night, then have to try to convince myself to revert to a drab colour before we go shopping on Thursday night. I can see myself looking for a drab-ish but slightly brighter colour to replace the present drab colour...

Unfortunately, the likelihood of making my target number of outings for the year is looking less and less likely, as I'd have to get out at least 3 times between now and Friday and I'm not sure that I'm really up to that. Tuesday night is virtually a certainty but the rest of the week is quite uncertain. Part of my problem is that I don't actually have any specific places that I want to go to or things that I want to do, except that I want to do it wearing bright nail polish! :)

I like your nails. Very colourful

As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn't sure what sort of reception I'd get with my nails painted red and green. Even yesterday morning after my blog post, I was still considering taking the colour off and going back to neutral because I looked at them in the bathroom mirror and was worried that the colours really draw attention to how long they are.

I wandered around to hand out Christmas cards to my neighbours before driving to the inlaws' place, and the first couple pretended not to notice, the second couple chatted about them because they already knew from facebook, and the third said nothing but already knew because they'd seen them on Christmas eve.

I then drove the family to the inlaws' place, where only one person said anything. Interestingly, it was the person who made a rather strong unapproving remark some time ago. On this occasion, the comment was "I like your nails. Very colourful." I responded with a comment about them being Christmas colours and left it at that. My 2 year old nephew was quite entertained by them, particularly when I waved my fingers around.

In the evening, we went to a larger gathering of my wife's relatives, which included all of those who we had been with at lunch plus several more (including the cousin that I almost bumped into while out shopping at Easter last year), and none of them said anything at all.

Today is boxing day. I haven't taken the nail polish off yet, and am considering visiting a couple of friends today, as I did on boxing day 2008.

Christmas nails

Merry Christmas. :)

I'm planning on doing something today that I wimped out on last year. I've done my nails in alternating green and red, in colours approximating the traditional Holly leaf and berry colours, and I plan on going to my inlaws place for lunch, then to a larger gathering of more inlaws in the evening, in boy mode, with my nails like this.

I have approval from both my wife and son to do this, although my son preferred a lighter shade of green. I applied the red to one middle finger nail and the 2 greens to the nails either side of it and wore them like that for several hours yesterday while trying to choose which green to go with. When I put them against the shirts that I have to choose from, there was no contest as the lighter green simply didn't work with any of them.

If I survive the day, I plan to post a follow up tomorrow. :)

That's me

After Wednesday evening's outing to Charlestown Square, I noticed that I'd torn the edge of one of my nails over the nail bed, up past an acrylic patch that was done last week. When I removed the nail polish that I'd worn since Tuesday afternoon, I realised that I had tears on the edges of 3 nails, not just one. All were on nails that had been patched in the past 2 weeks, and when I went to use my nail glue on them, I discovered that the bottle was stuck shut.

Fortunately, I managed to make it to Thursday morning without making any of them any worse. I realised that my son had received some money with Christmas cards at my family get-together on Sunday, so I took his building society book with me when I went into town. I went to the salon first to see if I could get an appointment later in the day, and one of the women there had time to do full overlays on those 3 nails straight away. While there, I chatted with a couple of older women who were getting their nails and hair done. I got my internet tablet out and loaded the photo from Wednesday ready to show the woman next to me, just as she got up from the nails area and went back to the hairdresser's room.

When they were done, I left the salon feeling quite self conscious of my nails. They were all either bare or clear coated, the 2 extended nails were visibly different to the rest, and the lengths varied from 8mm to 10mm past the nail bed.

I walked into the building society branch, and one of the regular tellers was free. I got out my son's book and decided to add some more cash to the deposit. While I was getting the money out, the teller complimented me on my nails and asked how I managed to keep them looking so good. I replied "I make a lot of effort", then, remembering that I'd left the photo on the screen of my internet tablet, I pulled it out and showed it to her, saying "That's me." She smiled. I scrolled through a few previous photos. I think that she said something like "You'd never guess." We had a brief conversation about it. Some of the usual questions. Yes, I'm married and my wife knows and is fine with it, etc. I also asked something that I've been wondering for years, whether I could get a Visa debit card connected to my existing account, with a different name on it. The answer, sadly, was that years ago, I could have, but the recent APRA (Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority) regulatory changes have probably made it impossible.

Knowing what places like the building society branch are like, I expect that all of the staff will know fairly soon. I might soon be able to start doing my banking while I'm out en femme. :)

Recognition? Probably not - part 2

I went out again yesterday. I had a full loyalty rewards card from Salvos op shops, which would have expired at the end of the year, so my first 2 stops were Salvos stores. After using up the card at the second one, I went to a lingerie shop that used to carry Bella Bodies body shapers because the current one is about due for replacement. They don't carry the brand any more, and only had a few leftovers that didn't include what I was after. :( After that, I dropped into my local Lifeline op shop then did some shopping at the local Woolies.

When I got home, I just couldn't convince myself to change. In the evening, I decided to go out to Charlestown Square to see if I could find a replacement body shaper. I tried all the places that I could think of and drew a blank at all of them, but had a bit of a look at costume jewellery while I was there. While wandering along between stores, I had an almost heart stopping moment when I realised that a work customer and her late teen or early 20s daughter were walking directly towards me, just a few metres away. There was no way that I could turn around without drawing their attention, so I just looked past them and kept waking. Unlike my wife's cousin last year, there was no double take. No hint of recognition. I didn't look back to see if they looked back at me, but from what I saw in my peripheral vision, they didn't pay any attention to me.

The funny part is that I stopped and chatted to this customer for about half an hour in the same shopping centre while in boy mode less than a week ago, and her daughter was present at the time.

It took a little while for the adrenaline rush to wear off. I considered doing a few laps of the centre to see if could find them again, but thought better of it and left. :)

Recognition? Probably not

As I mentioned yesterday, there was a family get together today. This was something that I had been anticipating for a few weeks, as it was the first time that I'd seen my sister-in-law since I went en femme to the op shop that her mother (I'll call her E for convenience) volunteers at.

Given that nothing was said by my sister-in-law about E recognising me at the shop, it's almost certain that E has said nothing to her about it. There's still a remote chance that E recognised me but chose not to say anything, but I don't really think that that is her style.

For now, I'm thinking that it's probably more likely that she didn't recognise me than that she did. A lack of comment doesn't prove anything either way, but certainly shifts the odds towards probably not. :)

Do you think anybody would notice?

Last night, I did my nails in a nice dark brown colour in anticipation of going out en femme today. Then I ended up getting to bed so late that I got up too late for that to happen. There simply wasn't enough time between when I got up and when I'd be expected to go out for dinner with the family in boy mode to dress (including makeup, etc), go out for a while, then change, including removing makeup and showering.

So there I was, in my pyjamas, looking at my nails wishing that I could just leave them as they were and go out in boy mode. Nope, not going to happen with such a strong, obvious colour on such long nails.

I jokingly asked my wife and son if they thought that anybody would notice. Both were quite positive that people would indeed notice, so I reluctantly removed it and re-did my nails in the frankenised neutral colour that I usually use during the day.

With a family get-together tomorrow, that means no en femme outing today or tomorrow. I've also still got a backlog of work related paperwork to be done before I can really start my holidays. I can see myself falling even shorter of my goal than I had previously anticipated. :(

A basket case

Today, I decided to drop into the salon that I went to last week, to see if I could get splitting and cracking on the edges of another 2 nails patched up. This time around, the owner of the salon greeted me by name. She was just finishing with another client and was able do it for me straight away. By getting the edges repaired as soon as possible, I hope to be able to avoid damaging any of my other nails while I grow out the nails that have acrylic and gel on them. Even bare, the ones that have an acrylic repair on an edge are hard to pick from the ones that are completely natural.

Having finished there, I wandered around the nearby op shops. One was having a 50% off sale, and had a cane basket outside the front door for $3. It has a little damage here and there but overall it looks okay. I immediately thought of my need to make or buy a travel case for carrying a wig on a stand, foam padding etc. and decided that for the price, the basket would be worth the gamble on whether I could make it do the job or not.

I had a closer look and I measured the basket after I got home. I found that the basket has a sturdy timber frame with metal hinges on the lid, and that it is 320mm square at the top and 580mm high inside. Considering that I was generously estimating that I needed about 300mm round by 600 high, it's pretty close. I'm not sure when I'll next be travelling that I might need or be able to use this case, as I'm already committed to staying home to work next time my wife and son go away, but I'll be looking at how to modify it to do the job very shortly, so that it is ready when I am. :)

A little down

After noting that I was going to fall short of my target for how often I get out over the year, I realised that I might still be able to make that target if I was able to get out once a week in addition to the planned cafe nights. I got out last Saturday, and even took this photo with the Newcastle landmark Nobbys in the background. It was also the day that I realised that I really need to make an effort to find my female voice again.

Logically, it would follow that I should have gone out again this weekend to have a chance of making my target. Sadly, it was not to be.

I went out to a Christmas party in boy mode last night, and ate too much. Since the one night where I was down to 72.5kg a few weeks ago, my weight has been steadfastly remaining at 73kg. It was the most stable that my weight has been in years. Instead of floating across a range of about 1kg from day to day, it was the the same day after day until last night, when it jumped to 74.5kg. I expect that it will be back down close to 73kg again by tonight, but I'm disappointed that I still don't have the self control to avoid overeating like that.

I also planned to change my nail polish last night before I went to bed so that the polish had time to harden rather than applying it in the morning and having it messed up before I got out the door. After getting home from the party late, I should have had a shower then removed the old polish before I sat down in front of the computer, and applied the new stuff while I was sitting there, but I didn't.

As usual, I lost track of time and didn't get to bed until about 2am and then didn't get up until 10am. I was resigned to leaving my nails in the neutral colour that they are, but planned to dress and go out this afternoon. Then I tried to decide what I would do and where I would go. In spite of having vague ideas about going to Morisset Mega Markets or possibly wandering around some suburban shopping centres, I simply didn't have a definite plan and so many places are closed on a Sunday that I sat down in front of the computer for a while. An hour later, I still didn't have any real idea where I would go and realised that with the time having got away from me, I didn't really feel like pushing myself to go out. It is, after all, supposed to be an enjoyable experience. There's no point in pushing myself to do something that I don't feel like doing.

Around about then, I was playing with the Friend Finder on Facebook and one of my wife's relatives who had been one of my friends came up. In other words, he has made a conscious decision to remove me as a friend. I think that it was inevitable, as he has never commented on anything that I've put on my wall or interacted with me. Removing me as a friend gets all my stuff off his news feed, which fits with knowing about me but choosing to say nothing. I guess he doesn't want my photos and blog posts being stuck under his nose.

On the upside, the decision not to go out today gives me a chance to concentrate on paperwork that has to be done for work. Some really needs to be done today and some needs to be done within the next week to hopefully clear the backlog before I start holidays. If I don't get it done, I'll have it hanging over me while I'm on holidays over Christmas, which will either lead me to doing it during my holidays or leave me stressing about it not being done. I should also try to mow the grass today, as it has been left unmown for too long. I guess today is turning into an opportunity to remove obstacles to getting out later in the month. Making my target looks unlikely but it's not impossible yet.

From bored to happy in seconds

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had repaired a nail by gluing it back together. I'm happy to say that the repair held long enough for the nail to grow so that the tear was past the end of the nail bed before falling apart so badly that I had to trim and file it back. That left me with 8 nails that were fairly long, one with about half the overhang past the nail bed of the others and one that was right back at the end of the nail bed.

Of course, I didn't want to cut any of the long ones back, and the most obvious solution was to get acrylic nails done just on the 2 that were short.

With that in mind, I wandered into a local salon in boy workday mode yesterday afternoon and asked about getting a couple of nails done, and a couple of damaged spots on others fixed. It took a little convincing for the rather bored teenage daughter at the front of the salon to go and check with her mother on whether it would be possible for me to get them done. The mother came out and informed me that she was busy and running a little late but if I wanted to come back at 4:45, she could do them then.

At the appointed time, I walked back into the salon and sat down in the waiting area. The daughter still looked quite bored and entirely disinterested in talking to me. Within a couple of minutes, the woman finished with her previous customer and was ready for me. As I sat down at the table with all of the nail gear on it, she asked me why I wanted my nails done. Was I a musician? I said "No, I'm a crossdresser" then took out my internet tablet and showed her a few recent photos, starting with this photo from the previous night's cafe outing.

It's amazing how positive some people can be towards crossdressers. The daughter's attitude in particular changed very rapidly, from bored to interested and happy. Both were obviously surprised that I was so open about it. A asked the woman if she would have guessed from the pierced ears, long hair etc. and she shook her head and said no, she wouldn't have guessed. The conversation then went onto some of the usual questions like when did I start crossdressing, how did my wife feel about it, and when I mentioned that I have a son, how did he handle it. Part way through, the mother had to go and do a spray tan on someone else, and while she was away, the daughter told me about a couple of her gay friends at school who are struggling with their non-accepting parents.

The conversation covered a remarkable range of topics, from whether I used a different voice when in girl mode (to which I responded that I used to and need to practice, and told the story that I wrote about a few days ago) to whether I had trouble walking in heels (I explained that I often wear 12cm heels and have no trouble walking in them).

While she was doing my nails, the woman asked if I normally wore colour, as the acrylic nails are more white than my natural nails (which are showing some staining from previous nail polish). I haven't been using colour much lately but after I got home, I cleaned off the old clear coat and I've now put a couple of coats of the light opaque nail polish that I mixed up some time ago onto my nails. It's pale, a little bit too pearl and a little bit too reflective, but it's translucent enough to be able to see through the tips of the nails and makes the colour difference between the nails less obvious. It'll just have to do. :)

Voice

I really need to work on my female voice.

Somewhere along the line, I've overcome my phobia of using lifts (elevators) en femme, but using one yesterday led to the realisation that my voice is quite a problem. I use the lifts in the new section of Charlestown Square fairly often and know what the various levels are called. On the way up into the centre from the car-park, a couple of women entered the lift on level 1 on the way up to level 2. They looked at the buttons and looked confused. The levels from bottom to top are P1 (P for parking), P2, P3, 1 and 2. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that there are 3 levels inside the centre, but the bottom one is called G (ground floor) and doesn't extend to where these lifts are. I think that the women were expecting to go from level 2 to level 3.

To help them out, I explained that they had entered on level 1 and were going up to level 2. There was a clear "oh right" reaction, closely followed by a double take at the incongruity between my appearance and my voice. I'm guessing that I had passed on appearance but my voice just didn't fit with my appearance.

I have previously spent time working on my female voice with some success, but tended to find that I was overly self conscious about practising it around the house and would only whisper when anybody else was home, so I've never really been confident in using it in public. I didn't have a convenient way of recording myself before, but have recently discovered a sound recording program for my internet tablet, and it works quite well. While I'll try to start practising this month, I think that it is going to be another goal for next year. I want to develop a voice that is consistent with my female appearance.

Falling short

I could blame my work. I could blame other people around me. I could even blame the phases of the moon but the truth is that there is only one person to blame for the fact that I'm unlikely to make my target of averaging one outing every 5 days over the whole year. Me.

I just keep doing self destructive things all of the time. As I type this, I'm lying in bed with a migraine after midday on a Friday that I took off work because I had planned to go out. The headache started on Wednesday night, on the rather late drive home from the Central Coast cafe night and has steadily worsened as I've continued to do stupid things like sitting in my office until after midnight trying to do paperwork but getting little or nothing done. Of course what I should have done was to was to go to bed early to try to relieve the headache and be more productive later, but I didn't. It seems that my hindsight is far better than my foresight.

I'm still going to try to get out a few times this month. I only got out 7 times in November, and I've been out once so far this month, which means that I need 8 more outings (including 4 planned cafe nights) this month. With the headaches and increasing backlog of work, I'm pretty much resigned to falling short of my target.

I've been considering my target for next year. I'd love to aim for once every 4 days but I doubt that there's any real chance of getting out that often. The reality is that the reason why I'm falling short this year is that I had several months in the middle of the year where I fell short each month, and it's those missed outings that I'm trying to catch up at year's end. My target for next year, then, is to not only average better than once every 5 days, but also to have a minimum of 6 outings including at least one daytime outing every month.

This year, I've prioritised cafe nights over other non-crossdressing events. I may not be able to do that next year. If I have to miss a cafe night, I'm going to aim to make up for it with another outing the same month.

A weight loss milestone

When I stepped onto the scales last night, I was pleased to find that I was down to 72.5kg (my scales work in 0.5kg steps). This is something of a milestone for me.

Last time I made an effort to lose weight was a couple of years ago. I got down to 73kg a few times in 2008 but no lower.

I realise that this is going to sound odd but a few months ago I found an old spreadsheet that I'd started years ago, where I had started to chart my weight from the rare occasions where I had written it in diaries over the years. Over a few weeks, I updated the spreadsheet using newer diaries, giving me a record of my weights all the way from 1990 to now (with some very long gaps). I've varied all the way from a high of 92.5kg in 1994 to a low of 68.5kg in 2006.

Looking at this graph makes me far more aware of my weight variation over the years, and is how I realised that getting below 73kg was a milestone. The last time my weight was below 73kg was in late 2006. The next milestone for me will be getting below 71kg. The last time I was below that was in mid 2006. The really big milestone will be getting below 68.5kg, as that will make me the lightest I've been in my whole adult life.

It's amazing how much a graph on the computer has focussed my attention on my weight. I'd never before realised how much my weight fluctuated, and I'm now far more conscious of it. Hopefully it'll help me to keep focus and get my weight to where I want it, and keep it there!

Affirmation

After the negativity that I experienced on Saturday morning, I was surprised to realise that I was quite happy by the end of the weekend. I received a great deal of support on facebook and on the forums where the negativity occurred, not only from friends but also from some people who I barely know but who look like becoming genuine friends. The number of affirmations of my character, my parenting and my right to be who I am has been overwhelming. To all of those who supported me, whether you commented or not, I sincerely thank you.

I made a comment on Saturday that I've come to realise isn't really true. I said that I wasn't hurt by the comments aimed at me. I think that for more than a day, I was telling myself that I wasn't hurt by it, but I eventually realised that I was. Hurt not so much personally but by the fact that people can be so spiteful, hurtful and negative towards someone that they don't even know, on the basis of a personal or institutional bias.

By the time that I realised that I was hurt by what had been written, I had already been overwhelmed by the positive comments from so many people that I realised that, in the whole situation, I have come out ahead. I have had considerable support from a number of people far outweighs the negativity of one twisted person. I have gained friends for being honest and I have a few more people following my blog including at least one who had never heard about crossdressing from the crossdresser's point of view before. I'm happy to know that I am educating people about transgender issues, and hopefully increasing the level of acceptance within the community.

Dealing with hate

[name], I forgive you for your thoroughly unchristian comments and pity you for the abuse that you have suffered to have had such a hurtful and hateful attitude ingrained into your very being.

I will pray for you, that you might come to know the love and compassion of Jesus Christ our saviour.

It's not the sort of thing that most people would usually expect from me, but it's what I wrote in a forum on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I woke up early and was considering getting dressed en femme and going out shopping. While still lying in bed, I turned on my internet tablet, had a quick look at facebook, then opened blogger. There was a comment awaiting moderation, so I opened and read it.

The comment was posted anonymously in response to my post Out and about with my son, and basically said "Why don't you stop doing that and just be a normal man" (the answer is, of course, that that just isn't who I am. It would be on par with telling a female executive that she should be uneducated, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen), indicated that in the poster's opinion, crossdressing equals homosexual (a change from the assumption that all crossdressers are transsexuals, I suppose, but just as wrong), and that they considered me to be a bad parent because my son is exposed to my crossdressing (a loving parent, in a stable marriage, who works to provide for that family is a bad parent? Compared to what?). In my not-entirely-awake state, I thought churchianity idiot (or similar) and deleted the comment. In hindsight, I wish that I'd kept the comment so that I could have published it, to show just how misguided the author is.

I then went on to have a look at the forums on a web site that I frequent. I was shocked to find a post in there, in a thread about blogs, that was written in a style very similar to the blog comment, saying similar things. In part, the poster said that I was "sick and should be stopped." Except that this time, it wasn't anonymous because the site doesn't allow anonymous posting. I didn't immediately know how to react.

Sadly, combined with my usual lack of sleep, this rudeness threw me off balance enough that I abandoned my plan to dress and go out.

By the time I went back to the forum to post a response, a few other forum members had responded, variously defending me and/or criticising the other poster. I asked myself the question "what would Christ do?", then posted the above comment.

I believe that the best response to bigotry and hatred is forgiveness and pity. Preferably delivered with a smile. It's not worth dragging yourself down to their level, and if nothing else, it'll confuse the hell out of them. :)

Wednesday op shopping

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was tempted to go out shopping on a Wednesday to the op shop where my sister-in-law's mother (I'll call her E for convenience) volunteers. Well, yesterday was the day.

Before I left home, I realised that I was nervous. Really nervous, like I used to get every time I went out. Nervous to the point that I was a little shaky. I was assuming that I was nervous about how she might react to me, but the nerves settled down almost as soon as I turned out of my driveway and drove off down the road. If that sounds odd, it's not, really. I work from home, and often get people showing up without appointments wanting to talk to me. I think that what I was nervous about was probably far more to do with being seen leaving home than what would happen while out shopping.

I drove straight to the suburb in question, parked in a convenient carpark and walked straight into the nearest op shop, where E was behind the counter, which was located about half way back through the shop. She was chatting with another volunteer who was putting clothes onto racks near the counter. I browsed along the dress racks at the front of the shop, finding nothing of interest. I did a couple of laps of the front half of the shop looking for skirts, then realised that they were just past the counter, towards the back of the shop. I found 2 skirts that I was interested in, turned to E and indicated that I wanted to try them on.

Some op shops insist that you show the staff before trying clothes on, so I make a habit of doing it in most of them unless I'm sure that I'm not expected to ask. She pointed me to the dressing room and said something along the lines of "Yes, try them on." Sadly, they were too low waisted for me, so I put them back on the rack and paused to look at something near the counter. The lady putting clothes out made a comment about hating getting old, and I turned around and looked at her, smiled and said "It's better than the alternative." I looked at E and smiled at her as she agreed with what I'd said, then casually wandered out of the shop and down the street to the next op shop.

So the big question I'm asking myself is did she recognise me? There was no indication that she did, and the colour of the wig that I was wearing is the closest that I have to my own hair colour, so probably the most likely to be recognisable. To some extent, her lack of reaction makes me think that she didn't recognise me, but then I think that I look so similar that she must have recognised me but not known how to react. For now, I think that I'll just assume the latter and wait and see if there is any feedback through the family. If she says something to my sister-in-law, I'm pretty certain that I'll know about it fairy quickly, whether it's good or bad!

Repairing torn nails

I had read a thread on Beauty Heaven some months ago on how to repair torn nails. It's something that I've tried before without much success. That was, up until yesterday when I repaired a nail that was torn over half way across.

I have recently had small tears on the sides of 2 nails, and had used nail glue on both of them. The glue would set in the narrow gap of the tear and I'd file the roughness off the top, but the glue wouldn't hold and I redid them over and over for a couple of weeks. The nails each ended up with a groove across the top of the tear and the glue wouldn't dry there. It only seems to dry in between things. The glue also wouldn't go to the very edge of the nail, meaning that there was always a bit sticking out to snag on things. Yesterday afternoon, one of those nails snagged and tore.

After thinking about the suggestions in the Beauty Heaven thread, I applied glue in the tear and over the top of the groove, then put a piece of tissue across the top of the glue and pushed it in with an orange stick. The glue saturated the tissue and then dried and hardened. Yay. :)

I trimmed and buffed the edges of the paper away, then repeated with another piece of paper that I had cut to follow the edge of the nail. With a little bit of experimentation, I've managed to repair the nails right to the edge, so that there is nothing to snag, and filled in the grooves.

Hopefully I'll have some time to shape and paint my nails soon, and I'll see if the repairs are visible. I'll have to wait and see if they tear through the repairs.

In the above photo, the row of pale spots across the nail are the visible remains of the tear after it had been glued and filed. The edge of the nail at the bottom of the photo has been filed a bit too much from trying to remove the snagging edge of the nail before I tried using the tissue.

Going wigless

My own hair is actually longer than most of my wigs. Yes, I have a couple of waistlength wigs that are longer than my own hair, but all the others are shorter. I've been wanting to go out without a wig for a while now, but I have quite pronounced widows peaks, which annoy me because they make it virtually impossible to create a hairstyle that will not only look feminine but will stay that way if the wind blows my hair around.

I decided that I'd try Minoxidil to see if I could get the hair to re-grow. It's a topical application (ie rub it onto the bald spots), which has to be used twice per day, which I'm finding quite frustrating because it not only needs to be done twice a day, but it also isn't supposed to be covered with a hat, wig etc for at least an hour after application. That means that most mornings, I have to go out in the sun without a hat for a while, which I don't like doing because of my fair skin.

I've also come to realise that the solution that the 5% Minoxidil is diluted in are high on the list of the products that should be avoided where possible, namely alcohol and propylene glycol. I now have dandruff around the perimeter of the area that is being treated.

Does it work? Maybe. I have light vellus hairs all the way from the widows peaks to my brows, and struggle to see whether any of the hairs in the treated area are any different to the ones further down my forehead. I've been using it for several months, and I've decided to complete the pack that I bought and make a decision then on whether to continue or stop. I'm about half way through, and I can see a few short stubby hairs here and there that might be non-vellus but they're not long enough or dark enough to be sure.

If, when I get to the end of my supply of Minoxidil, I decide not to continue using it, I'll probably look into hair transplants. The area to be done is not very large and if transplantation means not having to apply harsh chemicals to my scalp twice a day, I'll be much happier.

Either way, I'm setting myself a goal of having enough hair on my widows peaks to get out en femme without a wig before the end of next year.

A little down on weight, a lot down on sleep

Back in September, I mentioned that I'd dropped 10kg in 12 weeks. In the 8 weeks since then, I've dropped another 2 or 3kg. How much I had lost didn't really sink in until I went to wear an outfit on Tuesday night that I hadn't worn since last summer. Back then, I was wearing a belt with a buckle, done up in the second longest hole of 5. Last night, I put the belt on, buckled it to the shortest hole and found that it was too loose. I finished up borrowing a smaller belt from my wife. For comparison, I've put the photo from last night above a photo from January.

In spite of my apparent feminine shape, I still have something of a spare tyre, which I want to lose. It's certainly not as bad as it was, but it's still some there. To prove that, I was going to post a photo but I really don't like the way my belly looks naked! The reason why my waist looks so small and as gives the impression that I don't need to lose any more weight is a combination of a considerable amount of padding on my hips and butt and a body shaper that pulls in the flab.

While I'm starting to get my weight loss back on track, my sleep pattern is still badly screwed up. It's not uncommon for me to get home from a cafe night, upload photos from my camera, crop a few, post them to facebook, email some, then do some other stuff like composing blog posts before heading off to bed after 3am. If I'm lucky, I have a late start and can get up at 9am. The following day, I might have to be up at 6am, and get to bed around midnight. It's not just the lack of sleep but the variation in when I go to sleep and get up that makes it almost like permanent jet lag. :(

At least I got a few compliments on my waistline and blonde wig from others in our group. I also got compliments on my pattered tights from others at the restaurant. They are still the most consistent ice-breaker with other women. :)

Epilation

For over 10 years now, I've used an epilator to remove facial hair fairly regularly. Why do I do it? Simple, really. I don't like facial hair. I don't like the way it feels, and it always makes me itch, as does body hair. I'm not certain but I think that I'm allergic to my body hair. Let it grow and the skin that it rubs against always comes out in a rash. Removing facial hair also means that I don't need to use heavy makeup to hide beard shadow. The lack of beard shadow as a male doesn't really bother me, and nobody has ever commented about it.

Most people have experienced hair being pulled out one way or another, such as by the glue on a band-aid, by waxing or by using an epilator, and assume that removing facial hair that way must be incredibly painful. The first few times, it was quite painful, as is the first time after I've gone a few weeks without doing it. The more often it is done, the fewer hairs there are to remove and the finer the hairs are, making it much less painful.

The big downside is ingrown hairs. If you remove hair without using some sort of ingrown hair treatment, you'll probably end up with ingrown hairs. How many and how bad varies from person to person. I've tried a few different products over the years, and have been using Nad's Ingrow Solution for at least 5 years. If I get slack and don't use it, I get ingrown hairs. If I use it consistently, I don't. These days, I have far more trouble with my legs after waxing than my face after epilation. If you're wondering why I get my legs waxed instead of using the epilator, the main reason is time. Doing such a large area simply takes too long and I don't start because I know how long it will take.

After all this time, I've found out that it is a controversial topic. I've been told quite vehemently by self appointed experts that epilation of the face is something that "nobody should ever do". The main reason given is torsion, where the hair roots get twisted and the hairs no longer grow straight, causing ingrown hairs and making it difficult or impossible to do electrolysis. Another reason occasionally given is that it can cause scarring. I guess that if the hair was strong and heavy, that could be true but I can't say that I can see any skin damage from the epilator since the first few times, when I was pressing it too hard and grazed the skin. At this point I'm not having trouble with ingrown hairs, I'm not seeing twisted hairs, I can't see the value in getting electrolysis done when regular epilation is such a cheap and easy alternative and I don't believe that my skin is being damaged by the process. If I was going to experience these problems, I would have expected to see them by now!

I know some people who don't believe that ther hairs become sparser or thinner with regular epilation, and who always experience ingrown hairs no matter what they do to try to prevent them. Everybody is different, and I'm quite happy to continue doing what works for me.