Thursday, November 22, 2012

"Purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase . . ."




I was supposed to have the weekend and the entire next week at home, and considering that in the last three weeks I’ve only seen my family for a combined total of about ten hours, i was really looking forward to it. That wasn't to be though.
Friday morning I entered my office for the first time in three weeks and stopped at my manager’s office to say hello.
"Good morning Frank, how the hell are you?" I asked him, trying to sound a good deal more cheerful than I really felt. He just looked at me for a moment and shook his head from side to side.
"It's a bad day, to be honest. A very bad day. Why don't you come on in and close the door behind you." He told me.
"Well THAT doesn't sound so good!" I replied, with more than a little bit of nervous in my voice. I'd never seen my manager look this bummed out, and to be honest, it scared the hell outta me because I know full well that my company is in the process of layoffs. His demeanor filled me with the dreadful thought that maybe my number was up, despite his repeated assurances through the years that I would never have to worry about that as long as he was my manager. With my heart feeling like a lead weight at the bottom of my chest, I entered his office, closed the door, and took a seat.
"Okay, so what's up doc?" I asked, still trying to keep the mood lite.
"I don't know how to tell you this, but I need you on an airplane tomorrow morning."
I kid you not, I almost cried with relief right there on the spot. Here I was, afraid that I was about to lose a job that I know I cannot replace, and afraid that I was going to have to face my wife and children and tell them that I had failed in my most sacred responsibility - to provide for them. Instead, it seems that he had only felt horribly guilty about having to ask me to be away from home for another weekend, and possibly for thanksgiving as well. As compared to my fear of losing my job, being told that I was needed was an incredible relief.
"God damn it Frank, don't DO that to me! You scared the shit outta me the way you were acting! You don't EVER need to apologize for sending me on a service call. I don't give a shit what day it is or where the work is to be done, this is my job and I REALLY like my job!" I told him softly, still feeling like I might fall over with relief.
"Well, I know it can't be easy when you have children at home." He said apologetically.
"Yeah, that can be a bit of a problem, but it's not half the problem as telling them that they are gonna be homeless in a month." I replied with a laugh.
Now all I had to do was tell my wife that she was going to have to cancel her plans for a badly needed Saturday away from the children, and explain to my little ones why I could not take them to the movies as I had told them that I was going to.

After having spent over a decade active duty army with me, my wife was quick to understand and support my need to "put the mission first". My daughter on the other hand. .

"But WHY do you have to go? Tomorrow is Saturday!" She wailed, and then let loose with huge sobs. Her tears brought her little brother running to see what was wrong.
"Tomorrow is Saturday and daddy has to go bye bye again!" She wailed at him loudly.
In all my years of traveling, this is the first time that my daughter has ever gotten upset about my leaving, and it really tore me up. Soon all three of us were teary eyed and I was in the unenviable position of trying to explain to two little people why I had no choice in the matter, and that whether I liked it or not, I DID have to get on that plane in the morning if we wanted to have a home, toys to fill it with, and food to eat. With a heavy heart, I headed up stairs to see if I had enough clean clothes for the trip, and to pack them if I did. My three year old son followed me up the stairs, because let's face it, it doesn't matter what daddy is doing, my son wants to be with me. So there I am, putting things in my suitcase and trying to keep a close eye on what the critter was taking out of the suitcase, when it occurred to me how I could make my nine year old daughter smile. I walked out to the stairwell and yelled down to her.

"Hey Audrey?!"
"What?" She yelled back, taking off the headphones that she was using with the IPad.
"I need to put together a couple of outfits and really could use your help." I told her, trying to sound sincere without crossing the line and sounding patronizing. I honestly don't think that I have ever seen my daughter move so fast before, because she dropped the IPad on the couch like it was a hot potato, and then ran so fast up the stairs that she actually beat me into my bedroom a few steps away. You see my daughter considers herself to be quite the little fashion expert, and she has often tried to help me pick out outfits before. You have no idea of the risk that I was taking with this diversion though, because my daughter has a very "unique" sense of fashion. There have been countless times when my wife and I have given each other the "oh my God" look after seeing the outfits that she has come downstairs wearing before, but except for the rare occasion when she has worn something that was too short or not warm enough for a cold day, we let her do her own thing. We both feel that it hurts no one to let her express herself and be her own individual. The problem in this context is that she thinks everyone else should be just as brave and unique as she is, and willing to take the same fashion risks. Alas, I am not. .  .

"Ok!" Said little miss fashion expert. "NOW I'll show you how to dress like a young person!" She said this smugly, sounding as if it were about time that I conceded the fact that I needed her help with fashion. Her comment sent shivers of dread up and down my spine, and if you had seen some of her outfits in the past, you would understand why.
"Now hold on critter! You do understand that some things that look right on a little girl your age are not going to look right on an old person my age right?"
"Sure!" She said so quickly and dismissively that I knew for absolute certain that she believed no such thing.
"All right, so here is my problem" I told her. "I've got this really pretty patchwork peasant skirt with lots of different colors in it, and I just can't decide what top to wear with it. I've picked out some that I think might work, but I just can't decide."
I laid the floaty skirt out on the bed and then showed her the pile of red and purple tops that I had set aside as possibilities. I thought that I might outsmart her by limiting her choices to only those that I already thought might work.
"Ok, so here is our 'maybe' pile, and here is our 'no' pile." She told me, pointing to two different spots on the bed. She came up with that idea so quickly that I suspect that maybe this is something that momma has taught her for choosing her own outfits.
"Sure! That works!" I replied with a laugh, and we started working our way through my pile of options.
"Nope. . . "
"Maybe . . ."
"UGLY!"
"Maybe . . . "
"That looks too much like an old lady . . . "
All of these opinions she offered while setting the tops in the appropriate piles. In the end, we had maybe four purple tops in the "maybe" pile, but none of them made for a really awesome outfit.
"Maybe we should look at some other colors!" Suggested my little fashionista, and then before I could slow her down, she had bounced off of the bed and had buried herself deep inside of my closet.
"Oh hell. . . "I thought to myself, knowing that my plan to limit her choices had just crashed and burned. Now there was no telling what she might come up with.
"What about blue?!" She asked
"Umm, I don't think so." I told her, but still we held a couple of blue tops up to the skirt so that she could satisfy herself that it wasn't gonna work well.
"How 'bout pink?! If you wore pink, you could wear these shoes with it!" She said, pointing at a pair of four and a half inch bright pink stilettos.
"Umm, I don't think so . . . " I repeated again, but yet again we had to hold a few tops up to the skirt just to convince her that it wasn't gonna be an option.
We went through a few more options in this way before she pointed at a black sweater top with silver and gold sparkles in it.
"What do you think about sparkly black?!" She asked, tugging on the top and looking up to see my face. I was reaching the end of my patience and was trying to figure out how in the hell I was gonna find a way out of this without hurting her feelings, but then I paused for a second. I never would have considered pairing the two, but the more that I looked at it, the more that I thought it might well be our best bet yet. I took the skirt and laid it out on the floor, then placed the black sparkly sweater at the top of the skirt to see what they would look like together. Much to my surprise, I thought it looked like a great outfit, and very much like something that I thought that I might look good in. I took out a red belt and laid it across the top, and then set a pair of red shoes at the bottom. My daughter stood there with her hands on her hips, positively beaming with pride in her selection.
"That's the one! That's my favorite!" She loudly announced.
"I think you did it critter! I never would have thought of that one. Thank you SO much for your help!" I told her and then knelt down to hug her. It was right about then that grandpa showed up for our Friday night pizza dinner, so I again thanked her for her help, and reminded her that we probably shouldn't a tell grandpa what she had been helping me with. We held hands on the way downstairs and my little fashion expert was no longer upset and unhappy that I had to go away again. Clearly my plan to distract her had worked spectacularly well, but now I'm prolly gonna have to live with the precedent that I just set. It's gonna be exhausting if she takes it upon herself to "help" me pick outfits every time that I travel!

After dinner was done, and grandpa left for home, I headed back upstairs to pack my male clothes, and then burst out laughing as I was zipping up my suitcase. It had just struck me that I had thought I was done and was zipping up the suitcase, and yet I hadn't packed a single male shirt for work - not ONE! Sure am glad that I realized this BEFORE I found myself at the airport!

That night before I went to sleep, I changed the alarm on my cell phone to 3AM, and then fell off to sleep with my wife laying in bed next to me and watching TV. The next thing I know, my wife is waking me up and it is 3:45 AM - a full 45 minutes after my alarm was supposed to have gone off! It seems that I had once again failed to recall that my daily alarm is set to go off only on week days and so if my wife had not just happened to wake up, I would have missed my flights.

Much to my shock, the lines at the TSA checkpoint in the airport were HUGE! They did the usual zig-zag thing at the checkpoint, but then the line extended half way down the concourse! The only times I had ever seen the lines this long were during the yearly South by Southwest music festival. I knew that there were a lot of people headed in to Austin for the Formula 1 race, but I hadn't thought that any of them would be headed back out already! Fortunately, as a frequent flier, I get to use a special lane that only had three people in it.




"Please state your full name." The female TSA agent told me as I handed her my ID and ticket.
"Matthew Huddle." I offered. To my great amusement, her eyes jerked up to look at me with shock and surprise clearly written in them. She looked back and forth at my ID and my face several times.
"I'm not even gonna ask. . ." She finally said with a mischievous grin.
"Welcome to Austin! I'm just doing my little part to keep it weird!" I replied with a wink.
"Good for you! You have a great day and a nice flight!" She said with a laugh as she handed me back my documents.
As I walked away from her, I realized that on some level I had missed surprising people that way. It is great for my ego when it is so obvious that they had not realized that I was really a male until I had to tell them with my ID. As often as I fly these days, most of the TSA folks in Austin recognize me and of course know what I am, but this woman I had not seen before.
Of course it pretty much goes without saying that the damned body scanner flagged me, because they do more often than not, and so there I was with another TSA inspector in front of me.
"Ok, I'm going to have to pat you down here, here, and here!" She said with a grin as she showed me the spots that she intended to touch. Her grin made it clear that she knew exactly what I am and thought it was amusing. This is fine with me, as I would much rather have people react with a grin and humor, rather than with irritation and suspicion.
"No problem. That damned machine of yours doesn't like me much, so I've done this more than a few times before." I laughed.
"That is such a cute dress!" She told me as she patted me down.
"Thank you! I've been looking for the perfect red dress for a while, and this is as close as I've found yet."
Yeah I know, the photos make it look orange, but trust me – it’s red.



Soon, I found myself sitting in the gate area, and a woman with a small dog sat down next to me. Within seconds of her taking the dog out of its little carrier, she was surrounded with happy and squealing children, all crowding in to get their faces licked and to pet the puppy. It was so adorable that I just had to snap a pic of the happy little puppy party!

On the flight to Philly where I was to catch a connecting flight, I started writing my blog on my IPad. When we landed, I was caught off guard when a young woman walked up alongside of me and spoke.
"So are you writing a book or something? I've never seen someone type so much on an IPad before!"
"No," I told her with a laugh, "I just travel a lot and write a blog about it."
"Oh! I write a blog sometimes too!" She replied.
"It's kind like a diary huh?" I asked her with a smile, and she quickly agreed with a laugh.

I had another gratifying moment at the Avis counter when the clerk looked at my contract, my driver’s license, and then at me.
“I’m sorry, but this reservation is for ‘Matthew’. I will need to see your license please”. He said. I was just opening my mouth to clue him in when the light went off in his head, and with a smile he handed the contract and keys over.

On my two hour drive from Albany to Fishkill, you have to stop at a couple of toll booths – one for the highway, and one for a huge bridge into the Poughkeepsie area. I had to shake my head when I pulled up to the bridge, rolled down the window, and found myself facing the same guy that was rude to me the last time that I had made this trip. The last time, he had stared at me for about 30 seconds before saying something along the lines of “That will be $2.00 just because . . . “
“That will be $2.00” he said as I pulled up to his window.
“OK, and can I please have a receipt?” I replied as I handed him a $5 bill. He handed me back my change but no receipt.
“Excuse me, can I have a receipt please?” I repeated. This time he didn’t say anything, he just stared at me again for about 20 seconds. Finally, I guess he had decided that he had been a prick long enough, and he handed me the receipt without saying anything. Ah, what a joy . . .

Most of the rest of my time there was all based around work, and so not much to write about, but I did get to meet another TG for dinner one night – Marian Johnson. You read about people who “have a laugh in their eyes”, but you rarely actually come across someone like that. Marian is definitely one of those people, and her eyes just glittered and shone when she laughed. We blew about two hours talking about nothing in particular – life, marriage, and this interesting lifestyle that we have.

So when it came time to head for home, I did it with more than a little trepidation. It was the day before thanksgiving – the day widely considered to be one of the very worst times to fly due to the crowds all trying to get somewhere for the holidays. That morning I was listening to the news as they described heavy fog causing problems and delays at multiple major airports across the North East, a pending strike at LAX that was supposed to take place today, and all of this while heavy crowds were all trying to fly the not-so-friendly skies. It looked like it was NOT going to be a good day to travel . . .

I seriously considered flying as Matthew, just in case there were serious delays or in case I got stranded, because I have come to learn over the years that a delay anywhere in the USA can cascade into delays everywhere. The thing is, we had made a big production out of my daughter helping me to pick out my outfit for today, and I just hated the idea of telling her that I had not worn “her” outfit. I decided that I would suck it up and go as Kimberly, and just deal with anything that happened. I had to giggle as I was getting ready, because they had all of these “talking heads” on the news, giving all of their hints and suggestions on how to get through the airport system quickly, and one of them was saying how you should dress simply and not wear shoes and clothes with buckles and straps.
“Yeah, we’re gonna ignore that advice today!” I was thinking.



Going the other way across that assholes bridge, you don’t have to pay any tolls, so I didn’t have to deal with him. The highway however, charged you no matter which way you went. As I stopped there, the lady in the booth handed me a ticket that I would have to present when I exited the toll road, but then she very quickly looked back at me again.
“I LOVE your hair!” she practically gushed at me.
“Awe thanks!” I replied, as I took the proffered ticket and then continued on my way.

In anticipation of heavy traffic and large crowds at the airport, I left quite a bit earlier than I normally would have, and so I arrived at the airport more than three hours before my flight. I grabbed my luggage and things out of the rental car as the Avis rep was checking it in. Given how many things I have forgotten and left behind lately, I found myself chanting over and over in my head “Coat, backpack, purse, suitcase, toolbox, coat, backpack, purse, suitcase, toolbox, coat . . .”
“Excuse me miss, what was the last name on the contract?” The Avis rep interrupted my internal litany of things not to be forgotten.
“Huddle” I replied, peaking around the trunk lid at him.
“OK!” he said with look of relief in his eyes. Clearly the first name of “Matthew” conflicted with my appearance and so he wanted to be certain.
“I just wanted to be sure! You have a great day a happy thanksgiving!” He said with an honestly friendly voice and a genuine smile. I thanked him and wished him the same, and after placing my receipt in my purse, I returned to my internal chant.
“Purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase. . . “

Stepping out into the crosswalk between the parking garage and the airport, a woman tried to kill me. I kid you not, she was doing at least 40 MPH in the 20 MPH area, and blew right through the crosswalk right in front of me, even though I was mid-way through it. I never even had the time to yell, but I did catch a glimpse of the woman’s face through the windshield and she was clearly terrified. How she had failed to see a tall woman wearing a long red skirt, and pulling two huge bags behind her, I will never know, but the look of fright on her face made it clear that she had not noticed me until it was far too late. With my heart pounding so hard that I could swear I felt my wig bobbing up and down with each beat, I stood there in the center of the street for a few seconds in shock. Eventually my survival instinct kicked back in and reminded me to get the hell outta the middle of the street before I was run down.

When I entered the airport, I was surprised to see the crowd that wasn’t there. Despite all the hype on the TV news, the airport had far fewer people than I normally encountered in Albany. The airline check in counter was not crowded, and the TSA inspection point was also virtually empty, and so very quickly I was speaking to a female TSA agent.
“So what happened to the nightmare crowds that were supposed to be here today?” I asked her with a grin.
“I don’t know! I guess they all decided to drive instead!” she said with a laugh as she checked me back my documents. When she waved me in, I found that they had all of the X-ray machines running, despite the fact that there were clearly not enough passengers to really justify it. Once again, I sailed right through, and was collecting all of my things at the outlet of the X-ray machine. At the outlet of the machine was a drop dead gorgeous TSA inspector, and she was watching my things exit the machine.
“Cute shoes!” she said as my red heels came rolling out.
“Thank you! Hard to believe it, but they are considerably more comfortable to wear than you might expect too!” I replied. She was still watching me as I grabbed all of my odds and ends – my shoes, coat, backpack, laptop . . .
“Clearly I travel with too much shit!” I said with a laugh, while looking up at her.
“Hey, it is what it is, and we need it all, so what can you do?” she answered.

I had yet another good laugh when I boarded my connection in Philly. The US Airways rep at the jet bridge scanned my ticket and I got about half way down the jet bridge toward the plane when I hear someone calling out behind me.
“Miss? Miss?!” To be honest, it took me a moment to realize that the “miss” being hollered at was me. Once that clicked, I stopped and turned to see what he wanted.
“I’m sorry, but I think that there has been a mistake with your ticket.” He said, gasping a little because he was a bit short of breath after chasing me down the jet bridge. When he got to me, I handed him my ticket.
“I think that you have the wrong ticket.” He told me apologetically after a moment, and then showed me my own name on the ticket. I started to laugh.
“No sir, that’s me all right!”
He looked confused for just a second, and then his face lit up.
“Oh, I see!” he said with a huge grin, and then reached out and touched my shoulder. “I’m so sorry! You have a wonderful flight!”

When the plane landed, I was repeating my litany of items not to be forgotten as I was gathering my things together.
“Purse, backpack, coat, purse, backpack, coat . . .”
This time, I didn’t forget or leave anything behind, but the universe still got the last laugh: I went to the wrong parking lot with my purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase . . .





23 comments:

  1. Kim -

    It was great seeing you, and hope we can do it again on your next visit....

    More importantly, I'm glad you finally made it home safe - even if you went to the wrong parking lot.

    Have a very Happy Thanksgiving....

    Marian

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  2. As much as it would be a huge hardship if you lost your job (you could always come to Aus) - the company you work for would be in for a very hard time. You are so useful to them that I think you would have to be the last one to ever leave the building if it ever came to it.

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  3. Happy Thanksgiving!

    I always love to read your stories...so inspiring! Thanks for taking the time to prepare them!

    Mandy

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  4. I love your story and especially the way you made your daughter so happy.

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  5. My dear, you would make a good biographer!

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  6. Love the way you look in the red dress and black nylons.

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  7. Great story - as usual. I am SO envious of your family situation, and I know you don't take it for granted. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving reunion with the family.

    Peace

    Julie Michelle

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  8. Oh - LOVE the outfit your daughter selected for you!

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  9. Hot Damn!!! I also love that red dress you're wearing in the first photo!!!! I wish I had your figure!

    Marian

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  10. Hi Kimberley,

    As someone who makes a living from writing, your blog leaves me nearly lost for words! I stumbled across it just a few days ago. I think the reason it makes me so uncomfortable is that your lifestyle makes me profoundly envious. I need to get that bit out first.

    As someone who has been out dressed only a very few times, I am astonished that you would make trips, not just to a mall or a restaurant, but deliberately through airports! Where people will ask to see your ID dozens of times, pat you down, search your belongings, and ask you intrusive questions, as a matter of routine! It seems to be courting disaster; or at the very least, humiliation. I applaud and salute you for doing this once, let alone frequently.

    Secondly, it's clear that you enjoy it (which is great). I think your look is appropriate for what you do. Though I don't speak from experience, I think that successful crossdressing in public requires two things: confidence (which you clearly have in buckets) and camouflage (which you achieve successfully).

    Thirdly, and most interestingly, it seems that most people you encounter are friendly and relaxed about it. This comes as something of a surprise to me. In my country (New Zealand), there seem so few crossdressers that I get the feeling we were once hunted to the brink of extinction. Though we elected the world's first MtF transsexual member of Parliament, transgender tolerance seems pretty low here. I feel sure Texas must be the same!

    I've always felt oddly uncomfortable about the phrase "en-femme" to describe my feminine alter ego, and I love your phrase "flying pretty", and I may find adopt the adjective "pretty" in that way for myself. (Though truthfully, I am not "pretending" to be a woman; I am not pretending to be anything other than a man in women's clothing, and I would be quite happy to use my male name when "pretty". Vivienne isn't a different side of me; she is me. However, she makes a handy soubriquet to hide behind on the Net).

    So many thoughts vying for clarity. That's enough for one post.

    Very best wishes,

    Vivienne.

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    1. Vivienne - your "hunted to the brink . . . " comment almost made me spit my coffee onto my monitor. Thank you for the laugh!
      I honestly cant recall anyplace that I have traveled to in the last ten years treating me poorly. I remember everyone telling me that I was crazy if I went out in Little Rock Arkansas and yet I had a blast there. I thoroughly enjoyed several stays in places like Oklahoma city, Kentucky, North Carolina . . .
      In most larger cities, the majority of people have their own concerns and couldn't care less about me or how I present. On the flip side, in most of the smaller towns that I have been in, people are usually taught to be polite and place a fairly high value on being good hosts and being courteous.
      Many people assume that I am passable based on my photos, but I will be the first to tell you that this is not entirely the case. What I am, is just close enough that people are not SURE if I an a cross dresser or not, and so they are unlikely to risk offending me.

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    2. Many thanks for your reply; I am delighted that you got a good laugh. I think you are right about everything you say: in very large cities (New York, London, Hong Kong), I am certain you could walk along the street dressed as a pink zebra and nobody would bat an eye (I have certainly seen some people who are clearly not trying to be unnoticed!). And in small towns, people are brought up to be polite. Both of these things are no doubt true in NZ too.
      When LGBT is represented as a rainbow, I tend to think that crossdressers represent the ultraviolet part of the spectrum: we can't be seen without special equipment. As a crossdresser myself, my "spider-sense" is on all the time, and yet the number of crossdressers I have seen out and about is extremely few. I genuinely think that's because most of them completely blend in; the ones I/we notice are the ones who stick out because their camouflage fails (the gait, the voice, the unnecessarily high heels or inappropriate feather boa). In most circumstances, most people are not expecting to meet a crossdresser, and therefore they just don't notice someone who mostly blends in.
      I think there is a threshold to be crossed before that blending in occurs. I am pretty sure I am on the wrong side of that threshold, though I am hopeful I will cross it eventually (and I am sure that confidence won't be an issue!).
      It's also plain from reading your posts that you are (forgive me) pretty geeky. I consider myself to have an extremely high coefficient of geek. It's further support to my view that "masculine" and "feminine" tendencies are independent: some people have both, and some neither, while many have predominantly one or other.
      Do please drop by my blog and let me know your thoughts.
      Very best wishes,
      Vivienne.

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    3. vivienne you are quite passable from your photo. the hardest part i found quite awhile ago was just getting out of the car. the biggest thing is to be confident with the outfit you are wearing and that it is appropriate for the time and place you are at. speaking softer in the beginning is also helpful . so what if the person asks you to repeat yourself it will make them listen more closely to your comment. i practice this all the time while waiting on line at the food or department stores. also check out nikki z's blogs as she is from near christ church. good luck

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  11. This was a great blog. I love your writing style. I had the pleasure of meeting Marian about a month ago and I share your assessessment.
    I also agree with your response to Vivienne. I think that people in general have become tolerant and people in professional situations such as airport workers and retail have been trained and advised that there are proper ways to handle customers.
    Sorry about the yahoo in the tollbooth on the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Our NY public employees have tenure that gives them more than enough job security to act like a jerk whenever the spirit moves them.

    Pat

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    1. Kim -

      Yes, but why should anyone have to put up with one of them?

      If your hotel was in Fishkill (near the plant), it might have been easier for you to take route 87 South to route 84, then go East to the route 9 area.... I hate the Mid-Hudson bridge because it is a two lane road (most times) and goes from one high volume street to another, not directly connecting with any highway. If you crossed the river on route 84, it would have been highway driving all the way from Albany to Fishkill.

      BTW - Fishkill translated from the Dutch is "Fish's Creek/River". That family was prominent in the Hudson Valley until sometime in the last 30 years....

      Marian

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  12. Lovely read, you've got a nice balance at home where on one side you're very open with your wife and kids and on the other side protect them by hiding this special ability from other relatives with absolutely no fuzz as it seems, chapeau! Also nice to catch up on how the public reacts, either not handling themselves as that tollbooth guy or the warm feelings of pretty much everyone else :)

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  13. You are an inspiration to everyone who ever dared step outside their comfort zone. I applaud both your life and writing style. For the record, I think you are Very 'pretty' and more than barely passable. Keep on enjoying yout life and hit me up if you are in the Albany area. I would happily buy you a beer.

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  14. kim i loooove the look of the red dress.
    as always thank you for sharing.
    diana

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  15. Yowch! Have you seen this guy? What was he thinking??

    http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2011/06/21/man-flies-us-airways-in-womens-underwear-photo/

    Am I alone in thinking this is offensive and disturbing??

    Vivienne.

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    1. Vivienne -

      This clown's bad taste hurts all of us. What he did may be legal and permissible, but not appropriate.

      When I eventually travel en-femme, I plan to dress as appropriately as Kim does now. (But I won't look as good doing so.) And hopefully, I'll have some interesting experiences to post in my blog....

      Marian

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    2. Yes, I have read about this person a couple of times, and it DOES make me angry. There is no question that the airline should not have allowed him onto their plane this way, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he was wearing female clothing. There is no question in my mind that his attire was totally inappropriate and lewd. Ask yourself this simple question - if a GG (woman) had tried to fly this way, would the airline have allowed it? I don't think so. In this case, I think that they probably went way TOO far in an effort to be politically correct or to avoid controversy. If you wouldn't allow a genetic woman to travel in that outfit, you sure as hell shouldn't have to accept one of us in it, just because you are worried about offending us. . .

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    3. Kim -

      First, I hope you never have to sit near this person.

      Second, are we absolutely sure that they wouldn't allow a GG woman to fly this way?

      Yes, they went way too far. There's no accounting for bad taste. But I'd rather tolerate jerks like this, than to have people challenge any person who is slightly out of the norm. (But I wish this jerk would have driven to where he was going, and left the airlines alone....)

      Marian

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