Shoe Shopping

Today I did something unusual - I went shoe shopping.
Nothing unusual about that, but what did make it unusual was the fact that I was shopping for mens shoes! lol
Anyway, after being repeatedly disappointed by poor quality, I dont shop for womens shoes at Payless anymore, but I'm not so fussy about my guy shoes, and so when I saw Payless right next to the Subway sandwich shop I was getting lunch at, I decided to step in and buy some new guy shoes.
As I was sitting on the bench trying on a pair of running shoes, a woman walked past me. At least I thought it was a woman right up until "she" let loose with a decidedly masculine cough. I glanced up at her and quickly realized that I was looking at another TG, and so I gave her my very best smile, but I didn't say anything as I didn't want to risk shooting down her confidence.
When I took my shoes up to the counter, the manager gave me a smile.
"You know we are having a 'buy one pair, get the other half off' sale?" she asked, and so off I went, looking for another pair of shoes. More specifically, womens shoes. I found a pair of tan pumps that would be only $13 after the half off deal, and so I returned to the counter where I found the TG woman in line in front of me. She took one look at the pumps and got a huge grin on her face.
"Ah!" she said "So are you a drag girl?"
"Pretty much!" I grinned back at her.
"Me too." she told me.
We chatted for a good 5 to 10 minutes about this and that and then went our own ways.
I thought that the most interesting thing about the encounter was the fact that we were standing there in front of everyone and having a casual and candid conversation about who and what we were. Neither of was ashamed and neither of us was shy about it, and not one person standing around us seemed to care in the very least.

Sick of being sick . . .

You know, this trip was so boring that I considered not even writing a blog at all about it, but the whole blog thing has sort of become a habit with me.

First, let’s start with something personal. Twenty years ago I lost touch with two of my half brothers – we had the same Father but different mothers. When my mother and father divorced, they went with our abusive father, and I went with my mother, so we only lived together for a year here and there while we were growing up. As adults, I’m afraid that both of them took after my father when it comes to drinking and being abusive to their wives and children. A little over twenty years ago they did something that I just couldn’t tolerate and I told them to never, EVER contact me again. Well, over the years it has nagged at me that they might have changed, and that today they might be people worth knowing, people that might want to be part of a family. While I was never abusive to people, I did go through a few years where I abused the hell out of alcohol, and I pulled my head out of my backside and hoped and dreamed that they might have too. Anyway, I’ve been looking for them for close to twenty years now and just found one of them last week, or more accurately, I found his wife and children, and they put me in touch with him.
The bad news? He has not changed much and he and his wife separated many years ago.
The good news? I am now in touch with his wife and three beautiful daughters, and all have welcomed me with open arms.
So, I don’t know if he and I will ever have anything approaching a relationship, but at least I can get to know his daughters.

I’ve been too sick for a week or two to travel pretty, and considering how much I now hate to fly as Matt, this has really sucked. I started running a fever and coughing up a lung on the way to Salt Lake City a week or two ago, and haven’t been well since. I did manage to get my install done, but out of desperation to get back to my hotel where I could put my 102 degree behind into bed, I was a bit TOO efficient. The installation was scheduled to last for an entire day, but I got it done in only four hours, and with my customers thanks and good wishes, I headed for my hotel. Despite my customer being thrilled and thanking me when I took my leave of him, a day later my manager called to let me know that they were raising hell that we had charged them so much for only four hours of work. I’m 45 years old, and that is the first time I have ever had my butt chewed out for being TOO efficient.
I was so sick that when it came time to fly home the next morning, I seriously considered changing my flights so that I could spend the day sleeping in the hotel, but I went ahead and loaded up on aspirin and cough syrup, and made the trip home where I spent the entire three day weekend shivering in bed.

The following week, I was still coughing, but at least the fever had let up, and so I made a boring trip to Detroit as Matt, taking nothing feminine with me. It was such an odd feeling to be carrying such a small suitcase instead of the large monster suitcase that I normally have to carry in order to have enough clothes for two people for a week! Finally, when this week rolled around, my coughing had eased off to the point where I decided that I would go ahead and fly to my next service call in Sacramento California pretty.



I really prefer longer and prettier skirts, but these days I have to decide if they are worth the hassle they are going to bring me when going through the TSA inspection process. Their new policy is to “frisk” anyone wearing a long or full skirt. I keep telling myself ‘To hell with ‘em – I’ll wear what I damned well want to wear!’, but in the end I keep choosing shorter skirts to avoid the hassle. It’s not even that I mind the hassle so much myself, it’s just that I hate the thought of what the poor women that have to frisk me are thinking. The last thing in the world that I want is for people to resent Austin’s frequent flying cross dresser. I don’t want them going home grumbling about ‘that damned cross dresser that probably gets his rocks off by being frisked!’ Come on, you know as well as I do that some form of that conversation would be bound to pop up sooner or later. I don’t so much mind the idea of them laughing after I’m gone, and in a perfect, if unlikely world, people would just accept and maybe even respect me for how I travel, but the whole thought of them being angry and resentful about cross dressers because of me goes against everything I have tried to accomplish. Still, I miss my pretty skirts, and may well start wearing them again regardless of how the TSA folks feel about it.

Do you know that the flight to Sacramento was so boring that I have absolutely nothing to share about it? There were no cute or amusing comments or events. About the only thing that amused me about the entire flight there was the huge piles of luggage in the Sacramento airport that they had stacked all of the way to the ceiling. Much as I shake my head at the concept, apparently someone thought that this qualified as “art”. Personally I’m not so sure.



The next morning I made my way to a remote location for the University of California where I quickly performed a warranty repair, and was on my happy way back to the hotel. After a few hours responding to work related emails, I was at last free to get cleaned up and head out to see what the area had to offer. I knew I was in trouble though, when I took a look in the mirror and thought ‘you look like hell’.



I should have just taken a shower and gone back to ugly old Matt, but I pressed on hoping that I would feel better about myself once I got out. My first stop was at a small mall with a JC Penny’s, Burlington Coat Factory, and a Marshals.
When I entered JC Penny’s I had the overwhelming feeling that I was nothing but an old man in a skirt, and everyone knew it. I’m like anyone else I think, and from time to time my confidence does waver, but I don’t often feel it that strongly. Everywhere I looked, I felt like people were looking at me and grinning that ‘isn’t that cute? Look at the cross dressing freak’ grin. Still, I went through JC Penny’s, found nothing I wanted, and so entered the mall area to make my way to the other stores. It only took a second to discover that this mall was apparently on it’s way to being closed, because there were very few open shops in it, and Marshals was already closed and empty. As I walked down the almost deserted hall on the way to the Burlington Coat Factory, with the sound of my heels echoing loudly through the building, I felt like I was the main attraction to those few people in the area. The folks at the two or three up and running kiosks all stopped and watched me as I walked past, none of them saying a word or trying to draw me in. Just watching the cross dresser go by . . .
I took a look through the dresses and tops in Burlington, but didn’t find anything I thought I needed, and so I made my way to the shoe section. I found a pair that I was interested in and so took them to a small bench to try them on. As I was removing my shoes I can see two pretty young girls in their early teens glancing at me, and laughing and talking to each other excitedly. In a moment, they start walking in my direction, and they both come to a stop a foot or so away from me as I am just putting on a red pump..
“Hi!” said the one who was apparently the bravest. Despite myself and my own lack of confidence today, I couldn’t help grinning at the brave young woman.
“Hello.” I replied to her.
“Hi!” said the other young lady, with a shit eating grin that stretched from ear to ear.
“Hello to you too! How are you today?” I asked them with a laugh.
“Fine.” The second girl said with a giggle.
“Excuse us!” the first girl said, and then they boldly walked on past, apparently having proven to each other that they had the courage to go talk to the weirdo trying on shoes.
I decided that the shoes were more orange than red, which accounts for why they were on clearance, and put them back on the shelf.
Then and there my confidence just crashed, and I decided that there was no point to staying out as Kim if I was going to feel miserable and ugly the entire time, and so I resolved to make my way to the car and return to the hotel. My confidence was so shot that I actually considered walking back to my car outside in the rain instead of walking back through the empty echo chamber of a hallway, but I decided that I was not going to sink that far, and so I tried to keep my head held high as the people stared at me walking back through the mall.

Today when I got out of bed to catch my flight home, I was dismayed to find that my fever is back and my cough is worse than ever. I can only hope that yesterdays total lack of confidence on my part was just the first symptom of my returning illness, because if I’m gonna feel that way every time I go out in public, I’m probably gonna have to stop doing it.

I just got the call that I need to be on an Airplane to Manassas VA Sunday. We have a huge customer there and one of their older machines is not working, and it is costing them tens of thousands of dollars each day that it is not running. The bad news is that they have been trying to fix it themselves and have been swapping lots of components, and adjusting and tweaking things. Now that they have spent two weeks to utterly cripple the machine, they are demanding that we get someone there to fix it, and they want it done yesterday, if not sooner. Odds are good that I will spend most of next week trying to indo all of the damage that they have caused in their futile attempts to resolve the issue. This machine is built by our Berlin division and is highly reliable, probably the most reliable thing my company makes that I work on. In this case, that is kind of a bad thing, because being so reliable means that I’ve only had to work on them two or three times in the last half a decade, and that hardly qualifies me as n expert. I feel like the lamb being led off to be slaughtered. I wonder if I will be better by then so that I can fly pretty? I kind of doubt it.
I sure wish that I could have heard the story that the two young ladies from the shoe department shared with their friends later . . .

Rocket Science and Urine

This week I took a journey to work with the folks at NASA in Huntsville Alabama. I was there a few years ago and really thought it was a cool place to visit, and so I was kind of looking forward to the trip. Since my flights left at 630AM, this meant that I had to get up at 2AM in order to get ready and get to the airport at least an hour and a half before my flight left. I seriously considered just flying as Matthew so that I could get one more hour of sleep, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured that it really didn’t make that much difference. By the time you are getting up at either two or three in the morning, your pretty well gonna be miserable in any case, and one more hour of sleep just isn’t gonna make you or break you. Of course I hadn’t counted on my sick one year old son and my one year old grand daughter both crying and yelling all night long and keeping everyone wide awake. When my alarm went off, it took an actual act of willpower to keep from throwing it across the room . . .

I wore a new dress that I just bought last week on clearance at Macy’s and I just love the thing. I love its style and all of the colors are colors that I think look great on me. Considering that it was a $90 dress on sale for only $18, I think it’s nothing short of awesome!

As I approached the Delta kiosks to get my ticket, the male customer service rep grinned at me as always, and we had our obligatory comments about flying Delta versus the competition.

“Flying Delta again so soon huh?” he said with a laugh.

“You betcha! I always fly Delta of I can” I replied as I made my way to the counter to check my bags. My favorite CSR Mona, waved me forward.

“Good morning Mona! How are you doing?” I asked her as I lifted my bags on to the scale.

“I’m well Matthew, how are you?”

“Well, so far I’m doing OK, but my children are all sick so it’s just a question of time before I come down with it!” I laughed.

“Awe, that’s too bad.” she said as she handed me back my tickets and ID. “You know I love your coat! I need to get a new one myself.”

“Thanks, it is kind of cute isn’t it?! I looked for a couple weeks before settling on this one. You should try JC Penny’s – they have cute and affordable coats there.”

“Maybe. The problem is that I live out of town and so have to buy online.”

“That’s no problem – I’ve spent a significant portion of my paycheck with JC Penny’s online.” I told her and we both laughed.

The lady that sat next to me on the flight out of Austin took one look at my shoes and then spoke to me.

“Cute shoes!”

“Thank you! I have kind of a thing for cute Mary Janes!” I replied with a smile.

“That’s OK, I have kind of a thing for shoes period!” she replied with a grin and we both laughed.

Yeah, about those shoes? They have four inch stiletto heels, look awesome, and are as adorable as they come, but they are not comfortable. I’ve worn them before and don’t recall them feeling terribly uncomfortable, but these things were killing me today, and I still had another eight hours of traveling to do in them. When people ask me for advice on how to travel, I always make it a point to advise them to be sure that the shoes that they are going to wear are tolerable and comfortable. I sure wish I had followed my own advice, because by the time I got to my hotel, my toes were hurting so bad I was having trouble walking without a limp.

The following morning I made my way to the Marshall Space Flight Center on the Redstone Arsenal to work with one of the NASA contractors there. Soon after checking in at the gate, I found myself in a huge aircraft hanger full of massive cylinders laying on their sides and supported by steel frames. These cylinders were actual modules that had been intended to be launched into orbit and used as a part of the International Space Station. They were being used here for testing, R & D, and the like. They are using our FTIR (Infrared Mass Spectrometer) to monitor the effectiveness of their air filtering system under assorted loads and conditions.

 

When I was escorted into the area, I was quite frankly filled with awe and envy. After all, how very neat it must be to work here and be intimately involved with mankind’s efforts to leave our planet and make our way into space. I was thinking these weighty and inspiring thoughts as my escort brought me into a lab where the man who owned our instrument was working. They immediately brought my mind crashing back down to Earth though when they started speaking to each other.

“You know, I’m sorry but I just didn’t have to pee bad enough to fill the jug up this morning. Maybe we should have ‘Jill’ top it off for us? With her being pregnant, that might give us some interesting results!” my escort quipped to the man in the lab who was to be my contact for this service call. It was then that I noticed that he was wearing gloves and carrying a box full of quart containers of yellow liquid – presumably urine. He sat the box down and then raised his gloved hands in the air.

“Hello and thanks for coming! I would shake your hand, but . . . “ he grinned as he wiggled his gloved fingers to show that shaking hands might not be in my best interests at the moment.

“Oh no, no, no - that’s quite all right!” I laughed.

“Either they have dramatically increased the sample size needed for drug testing since I last had to do it, or you guys are doing something else with all of that?” I pointed to the box of large containers full of urine.

“We all volunteered to provide samples and are testing the Space Stations Filtration and Recycling system with it.” He said with a grin.

“Now that’s efficient use of our tax dollars!” I replied with a laugh. “So now I know - rocket science isn’t always glamorous . . . “

  


 

 

Shocking, just shocking . . .

Ya know, the more I think about it, the more irritated I get over the Austin airports new policy of frisking anyone wearing a long skirt. I like my long pretty skirts and now if I wear one, I am going to be inconvenienced, some female TSA agent is going to be inconvenienced, and more than likely she is going to start assuming that I am some sort of pervert that wants to be frisked. So now every time I fly, I have to decide between what I want to wear, and the inconvenience that it is going to cause everyone. Grrrrr . . . .

Well, I wanted to wear a long black skirt, but instead chose a different outfit specifically to avoid the hassle at the airport. I thought that it was a reasonably cute outfit but later in the day I realize that it had a flaw. The white built in slip/lining of the skirt was just a touch too long and so I spent the entire day with the slip peeking out.

I had the usual conversation with the male Delta airlines customer service rep while I used the kiosk to get my tickets. Pretty much every time I fly Delta we have the identical conversation where the he tells me that if I stopped flying the other airlines and stuck with Delta, I would be a diamond member with all of the perks that come with it, and I tell him that if I had my way, that’s exactly what I’d do.

Tickets dispensed from the machine and in hand, I moved forward to the counter to drop my bags, and after a very brief pause, someone behind the counter waved me forward. I was on the way to that position when my favorite rep, Mona, looked up and called me over to her position instead.

“Hey Matt, how have you been?” she asked.

“I’ve been fine thank you, how have you been? Have a good weekend?” I asked as I hefted my bag and large tool box up onto her scales.

“My weekend was fine, but way too short. Sure wish we could get a ‘do over’ on it!” she said with a grin as she attached tags to my bags.

“I see you have a new toolbox.” She mentioned as she attached tags to it. “It’s a lot bigger isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I had to get a new one – the old one wore out. The handle was torn off and one of the wheels just disintegrated.” I replied with a laugh. “This one is a lot bigger, but I really hadn’t planned it that way. When I was ordering it online, it didn’t seem like an inch or so longer and taller would be such a big difference, but boy was I wrong!”

“OK, I’ve attached your bag claims to the back of your tickets and your all set. I hope you have a coat in one of those bags, because it’s gonna be cold there?!”

“Oh yeah, I’m all set!” I replied while I lifted and showed her my new blue coat from where I had set it and my backpack on the floor.

Since I was wearing a short skirt, I sailed right through the security check point with no hassle what-so-ever, and in no more than five minutes I was sitting on the other side of the check point putting my shoes, belt, and ear rings back on. I grabbed my backpack and slung it over a shoulder and headed out toward my gate, but I didn’t get more than a dozen steps down the walkway when a guy almost bowled me over and then looked back at me as he walked past.

“Umm hmm, looking good!” he said with a wink. I was flabbergasted as he walked away and I couldn’t decide if it had been a genuine compliment or if he was poking fun at me. Either way, it gave me a smile as I continued toward my gate.

I had an aisle seat on the airplane, and shortly after I stowed my backpack under the seat in front of me, an absolutely stunning woman with long dark hair stopped in the aisle and pointed at the window seat next to me.

“I’m in the seat next to you.” She said with a brilliant smile that highlighted her awesome eyes and perfect white teeth. I smiled back at her and got out of my seat to allow her to get to hers. I spent most of the flight playing with my new IPOD Touch, and she spent most of the flight reviewing a large number of documents, so we didn’t speak much. I suppose that it was probably just as well as pretty women tend to make me nervous to the point of saying stupid things. When the plane landed and people were getting off of it, she said something that has kind of stuck with me though.

“I hope you have a great day and a nice trip.” She said with a kind of compassionate tone of voice and look in her eyes. I wished her the same, but all through the day I kept reviewing the exchange in my mind, trying to figure out what was odd or off about it, until several hours later I finally had it – she had spoken to me with pity in her voice and in her eyes. She had spoken to me the same way that you might speak to a cancer victim or someone that has been grievously wounded. You know, as if there was a unspoken component to her words something along the lines of “I’m so sorry that you’re hurt/dying but I hope that your day is as good as it can be given your condition.” Funny how some things stick with you, but three days later this still bothers me. I’m reasonably happy and pleased with my life and wonder why she thought I was deserving of, or in need of, compassion?

The next day was a fairly long work day and by the time I was free, it was too late to bother getting cleaned up and going out. On the way back to my hotel, I hit up a Goodwill where I was happy to find a dress that I liked and going for very little. I bought that, and then stopped at a Walmart for odds and ends. While I was there I had to step in to the Mens room for a moment, and on my way back out of it I came face to face with a shopping cart being pushed into the bathroom by a woman. I looked at her in surprise, with my first thought being “you’re not supposed to take merchandise into the bathroom”, followed by the thought “she’s going into the wrong bathroom”, and then finally followed with the jolting thought “Oh shit, please tell me that I didn’t just use the wrong bathroom!” A side effect of spending so much time appearing as a woman these days is that I actually have to stop and think to myself “Ok, which bathroom is appropriate?” and I have once or twice caught myself about to enter the wrong one.

“Well,” I said with a laugh while looking at her surprised eyes above her shopping cart. “One of us is in the wrong bathroom and I’m hoping like hell it’s you!”

“I don’t think so!” she said with an indignant tone. Clearly she wasn’t positive though, because she did back her cart back out of the restroom entrance. With a feeling of relief, I pointed to the “MENS” sign above the door and grinned like an idiot while she turned several shades of red and apologized.

 

The following morning I was to catch a flight from Kentucky to Minneapolis and I had originally intended to fly pretty. The thing is, they were having record breaking storms all over the east coast, and while really bad weather wasn’t expected in Kentucky, I know from experience that you also need to consider where your aircraft is supposed to come from that morning. Bad weather at any major airport in the country can cause serious problems for you no matter where you’re flying from, and they were expecting record breaking storms at a LOT of major airports and hubs, and so I chose to fly as Matthew. I figured that the day was probably going to be stressful enough without adding being cross dressed to the list of complications. So there I sat in boy mode at Denny’s that morning, pounding down a T-bone steak and egg breakfast, when in walked an elderly man and his wife. As the hostess escorted them to a table near mine, I couldn’t help but notice that he was wearing a hat that proudly proclaimed that he was a World War II veteran. He and I traded looks as he and his wife were taking their seats and then he spoke to me.

“Good morning. You look awful familiar but I can’t quite place your face.” He said to me.

“Good morning. I seriously doubt that we have met sir – I live in Austin Texas. I was just kind of admiring that fine hat you have there.” I replied while pointing at his veterans cap. He just smiled and gave me a small wave of his hand in acknowledgement of my statement, and then turned his attention to his menu and his wife. As I ate my breakfast, I sat there thinking about how few people probably stopped to consider that we still had WWII Veterans among us. Most Americans will go well out of their way to give a young soldier their thanks for serving, but how many stop to consider the WWII, Korean, and Vietnam veterans these days? These folks are getting older and probably are no longer wearing uniforms, and so no one even knows that these are men and women that have served our country. With that thought in mind, I called my waiter over to me and handed him back the bill that he had already left with me.

“Listen, do me a favor. You see that couple sitting a couple of tables up from me?”

“Sure. . . “ he replied, looking concerned and puzzled.

“Yeah, he’s a WWII vet. I don’t want you to say anything to them because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, but go ahead and put their breakfast on my bill OK?”

The waiter got a real thoughtful look on his face and nodded.

“That’s nice, that’s real nice. Give me a minute and I’ll get it changed.”

“Thank you.”

You know what really makes me feel bad about the whole thing? They were a real cheap date and their breakfast combined was only a little over $5. I find myself hoping that this was all they were eating because they don’t have a great appetite, and that it wasn’t because that was all they could afford. . .

A short time later I was sitting in the gate area waiting for my flight, when a young woman with long bright red hair, thick eyebrows, and a large pink bag sat down across from me. She wasn’t terribly pretty to look at and yet there was something about her that drew my attention and it took me a moment to figure out what it was – she was scared. Her eyes were darting about, constantly looking at her ticket and her surroundings, and her leg was literally shaking. About then, they made an announcement that if you were flying standby, they didn’t have any more seats available, and the young ladies look went from scared to terrified.

“Excuse me, did you understand what he said?” she asked me.

I was honestly taken aback as she started to speak, because she had the heaviest country accent that I have ever heard in my life. I met folks from all over the country during my time in the Army, but I had never heard a southern accent that heavy anywhere outside of the television or a movie. Think “Coal Miners Daughter”, and you will have some idea what this nervous young lady sounded like.

“Sure. They were talking about people that are trying to fly standby.” I told her, but got kind of a blank look in return. “Do you have a ticket with an assigned seat on it?”

She looked at her ticket for a moment and then looked back up at me.

“Yes, seat 19A”

“Then you don’t need to worry about it miss, your just fine and what he said didn’t apply to you. You know, that is one hell of a bag you have there. I’ll bet you don’t have any trouble at all picking that one out of a pile do ya’?” I asked her with a smile as I pointed at the big bright pink plaid bag she was desperately clinging to in her lap. She looked startled for a second and then gave me a half hearted smile.

“Nope!” She replied. She and I smiled at each other for a moment and then she continued talking. “This is my first time flying on an airplane. I’ve been on a helicopter, but never on an airplane.”

 “No kidding? You know I spent over a decade active duty army and never got to ride in a helicopter?!” I told her, trying to make it clear that I envied her the experience.

“That’s why I got to ride on one – my husband’s in the Army. We just got him home from Iraq. It took a lot of doing and a lot of paperwork but he’s home now with the babies.” After a moment, she seemed to almost get embarrassed.

“He served four tours over there so I think he done his part!” she added, I guess to make sure that I didn’t think her husband was getting away with anything or shirking his duty just because she had managed to convince the army to send him home early.

“It sounds like he’s done more than his fair share.” I assured her. “So you have children - how many do you have?”

“We have two babies.” She replied proudly.

“I can’t believe you have children at all - to me, you look like you’re just a baby yourself!” I told her with a grin, trying to make it clear that this was a compliment and not an insult.

“Listen, if you need any help at all, don’t hesitate to ask me because I’d be happy to help, especially the wife of a soldier.”

“Thank you.” She told me, now looking just a little calmer.

Well it turned out that I may as well have flown pretty, because the flights all went with out a hitch, and I soon found myself freezing to death in Minneapolis where it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and negative fifteen with the wind chill factor. Brrrrr. . . .

The next day I was pleasantly surprised to realize that my customer was literally right across the four lane highway from the Holiday Inn I was staying at. I could have just grabbed my tool box and walked the two or three hundred yards, but my tool box is far too big and heavy and it was far too damned cold. By 1PM I had the service call completed and so I headed back across the road to get cleaned up and go take a walk through the Mall of America. I had planned to wear a long and light green peasant skirt and sweater, and so I was trying some new dark green eye shadow that my daughter-in-law had given me. I don’t often take chances with my makeup and usually stick with colors I know how to use well, but she has convinced me that I should mix it up a little. When I was done, I thought it looked OK, but maybe a bit too dark for my preference. I also thought that it was not as complimentary to my intended outfit as I had hoped. Not to worry though, because as I was pulling my outfit out of my bag, I stumbled across the dress I had just bought a few days ago, and it’s colors did work with the eye shadow well. There was no question that the dress was not the current fashion, but I figured I’d give it a whirl anyway. The thing with wearing “retro” outfits is that you take a bit of a risk. You may either be considered a brave trendsetter and cool for wearing a “Retro” outfit or you can be considered hopelessly out of date. The challenge is in knowing which is which - are you going to be cool or a dud? In my opinion I missed the mark with this dress though. The thing is, I bought the damn thing, so I was darn well gonna wear it at least once!

Once I had my act together, I grabbed my camera to take my usual round of “Gee, didn’t I look purty before I left” pictures, but I was in for a surprise. Apparently my camera has taken one too many hits and has decided that it’s had enough of my abuse. When I turned it on, the lens only extended half way, and then the camera shut itself down after making a mournful “bong, bong, bong” sound. I shook it and could hear something loose bouncing around inside it and figured that’s probably not a good sign. I had nothing to lose, so I went ahead and messed with it for a few minutes and finally got it to extend the lens without shutting down, but the lens is clearly out of alignment and the thing wont focus, so these pics are nice and blurry. Just as well as it hides the damned wrinkles on my face . . .

Wrapped up in my pretty blue coat, I headed down stairs to the parking lot, and made my way across the packed snow and ice without getting myself killed or injured. As I took my seat in the car, I realized that the coat was having an interesting affect my retro dress – the combination was apparently working very well as a static generator. The dress and its thin built in slip were clinging to my backside and legs as if they were glued into place. I sat in the car and tried tugging it away from my legs, but it just snapped back into place as if there were magnets attached, so I gave up and left it alone. I reached into my coat pocket for the car keys and got zapped by static electricity as I put the key in the ignition. ‘Well this is going to be interesting!’ I thought to myself as I started making my way across the snow packed parking lot to the highway.

When I got to the Mall of America, I started off at one of my favorite stores – Macy’s. I can’t afford to shop at Macy’s much, at least not for clothes, but I do often find good deals on awesome shoes there. As soon as I got indoors, I stopped to remove my coat and drape it over my left arm, and then I took a whopping two or three steps before I realized I had a bit of a problem – the entire left side of my dress had jumped out to cling to the coat hanging from my arm. When I say entire, I mean entire. It wasn’t just a little bit of the skirt clinging to the coat, it was the entire skirt of the dress.

“Oh goody” I mumbled to myself as I pried the two apart and then held my coat a bit further out. As soon as I got the dress and coat separated, I felt the inside layer of my dress firmly attach its entire length against my legs. I sort of figure this must be what it would feel like to be vacuum packed. The good news was that when I looked in the mirror, I found it was only the inside layer of the dress clinging obscenely to my legs, and the outside of the dress was still falling fairly nicely and looking entirely acceptable so off I went . . .

I took a walk through the shoe section and found nothing that I couldn’t live without there. I found plenty that I would like to have, but nothing I just had to have, and so I headed for the mall proper. On the way out of Macy’s though, I saw a rack with a large “Clearance! 80% off!” sign above it, and figured it was worth a look. To my pleasant surprise, I found a tan, red, and black dress that I thought was awesome, and it was on sale for only $18! I thought it was a killer dress and would have been willing to pay full price for it, so there was very little doubt I was gonna snatch it up if they were gonna just give it away. They had it in size 12 and 14, so I grabbed both and started looking for a dressing room. I must have had that lost look on my face because a sales associate quickly approached me.

“Are you looking for a dressing room?” she asked.

“Exactly! How did you ever guess?!” I replied with a laugh as she led me to one. With snapping and popping sounds of static electricity, I pulled the retro dress off and tried on the size 12 dress. I thought it was just a bit tighter than I liked and so I set it aside and tried the size 14 next. I thought it looked terrific and I seriously considered just wearing it out of the store instead of the static nightmare I had worn in. I thought there was a fair chance that the sales associate would be uncomfortable selling me a dress that I was wearing though, and also thought that maybe that would be just a bit lacking in class, and so I reluctantly took the awesome dress off and put the static filled bit of fluff back on.

“Will this be on your Macy’s card?” The sales associate asked me.

“No thank you – I already have plenty of ways to go into debt.” I told her with a smile and we both laughed.

“What a cute dress!” she exclaimed as she held it up to neatly fold it and put it in the bag.

“Isn’t it though?! And y’all are practically giving it away!”

“Your right, it’s only $18. What a deal.” She replied.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the best deal I’ve ever found at Macy’s, and I’ll tell you what, that dress sure beats the hell outta this little bit of static cling.” I told her as I tugged my dress away from my leg just to watch it snap back into place again. She took a good look at my dress as she handed me the bag.

“I see what you mean. That dress is a little . . . “ and then she hesitated. “Well, nothing against the dress mind you . . . “ and she hesitated again.

“Uh oh . . . “ I laughed, encouraging her to finish her comment.

“Well, it’s a bit retro isn’t it?” she asked, maybe a little worried that she might offend her customer, but I just laughed to ease her mind.

“It guess it is as I just got it at a thrift store a few days ago.”

“Oh, I do a LOT of shopping at thrift stores.” She confided in me. “Well you have a great day!”

Wearing a dress I was now convinced had been a horrible mistake, I headed out to explore the Mall of America. This place is huge, and had for many years been the largest mall on the continent, and I think even in the world, though it lost the bragging rights to that title a while back. Indoors, it has a full sized amusement park complete with Ferris Wheels and roller coasters, so the place is filled with the sounds of machines and the laughter and screams of children. I tried to take a few pics and videos with my blackberry but I’m afraid it was too dark for decent photography. Finding nothing else that I both wanted and could afford, I decided to go see a movie – “The Kings Speech”. I have to tell you that I loved that movie and highly recommend it. It was full of courage and humor, and was one of the most enjoyable movies I’ve seen in quite a while.

You will be happy to know that while it did give me a few more startling zaps, the dress did not manage to electrocute me . . .

Should've Gone Shopping . . .

My company KEEPS trying to educate me! This week they sent me to one of our facilities a half an hour or so north of Boston for training on a product that is related to one I work with a lot. Most often, I work on an Infrared Mass Spectrometer (FTIR) that can be used in countless applications for testing all sorts of gasses, auto, and factory emissions. This new variety they wanted to train me on is smaller and has only one job – to sit in a room and monitor the air looking for nasty things to warn the occupants about.

I was informed that I had to be there first thing on Monday morning so that meant that I had to fly on the weekend. The cool thing is that right after I found out that I would have to travel on that Sunday, I found out that the First Event would be having it’s last night that Saturday before I arrived, and so with very little effort, I managed to get my travel plans set up to fly me in Saturday instead so that I could go socialize at First Event. Nothing like having the company pay to send you to a cross dressing conference / event huh?! I was really torn over the decision of flying pretty or not though. Did it make sense to get up very early to get dressed and pretty for the flight when I knew that I was going to be up late that night? Not only was I gonna be up late that night, but I know from experience that my makeup was going to look like hell by the time I arrived after 12 to 14 hours on the road. Ultimately I decided that it wasn’t worth flying pretty and so made the journey the old fashioned way - as Matthew.

In the last couple of years I’ve grown both spoiled and obsessed, and I’m sure that comes as no surprise to anyone that reads my blog. When I have to fly as Matthew these days, I spend most of the time green with envy over the pretty women wearing great outfits and almost always regret not flying pretty myself, and this trip was no different.

When the plane landed in Detroit where I was to catch a connecting flight, I found myself exiting the aircraft next to a woman my own age who was wearing a fairly plain but long skirt. As we walked, I found myself wondering if the TSA in Austin had frisked her like they do me each time I wear a long skirt and I resolved to ask her.

“You know, I hope you don’t mind, but I have to ask you a question. My wife flew a few weeks ago wearing a long skirt, and the TSA pulled her aside for a pretty intimate exam because of it.” I lied. “Did they do the same the thing to you?”

“They did!” She almost squealed. “She ran her hands all of the way up my legs until she touched me someplace very private!”

“Well, not that I’d wish that on you again, but I’m kind of happy to hear it because I had wondered if they were picking on my wife.” I told her and we both laughed about it. So that’s good to know – the TSA in the Austin Airport is not singling me out just because I’m transgender.

When I left the Austin area, most everyone in my household was sick – both babies had it and my seven year old daughter was coming down with it. As luck would have it, I was apparently coming down with it as well, because my stomach was doing flip flops the whole flight and when we landed in Boston I had to make a bee-line to the men’s room where I promptly got sick. Uggghhh. . . .

On the way to the rental car lot, I could see snow piled high everywhere, but the weather was relatively clear and so I thought nothing of it when Avis gave me a huge four door and rear wheel drive car. Little did I know at that point that they were scheduled to have a huge snow storm the night before my return flight home.

After about thirty minutes of driving, I arrived at my hotel across the highway from the Burlington Mall. This isn’t the most convenient place for me to stay as it is still a good twenty minutes from our office, but I like it because it keeps me out of the hotel where other folks at my company might be staying, and also because I like to shop! I got checked in and got my things unpacked, and then I sat there trying to decide if it was at all feasible to try and make it to the First Event. I wasn’t feeling well, I was tired from a day of traveling, and it was getting fairly late. After giving it much thought, I decided that despite the fact that I had flown on a Saturday just to make it to the last night of First Event, I just wasn’t up to it. I called a couple of friends in the area to let them know I wasn’t going to make it after all, and it turned out that neither were they, so I guess it was all good. Shortly after I told my wife that I wasn’t going to be going, I started getting text messages from my daughter in law, more or less telling me that I needed to get it together and get my ass out there or I would regret it later. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that she was right, and so I started the two hour process of getting ready and then headed out at about 9PM.

When I arrived at the hotel where First Event was taking place, I was dismayed to find that the only open parking spaces were literally just as far as you could get from the door, with a long walk on snow and ice in between. No point in worrying about it though, so I got out of the car and froze my butt off while I slipped and skated my way to the door on four inch stilettos across the ice. As I entered the lobby area I found the typical crowd you will have at any TG conference – dozens or even hundreds of TG’s scattered every where you look. Some crowded around the bar, some die hard smokers outside in the cold, and little cliques here and there. I wandered among them looking for anyone that I knew and was a little surprised to find that I didn’t know a single person I saw. Given all of my travels and the folks that I have met on them, and the fact that I belong to a local TG group called “Sisters of Boston”, I had fully expected to encounter quite a few people that I knew. What I didn’t know at the time, was that the dinner and speechifying was still going on even though it was almost 10PM, and so a huge number of folks were still in the dining area. Feeling just a bit bummed out that I didn’t appear to know anyone there, I headed for the bar where I got a drink. I looked around me and found one person kind of standing by herself, clearly not part of any clique, and so I headed her way and struck up a conversation with her. As we talked, I looked around the room at all of the beautiful people arrayed before me, both admiring the young ones that still don’t know enough to appreciate what they have, and also to continue looking for anyone that I might know. There were literally dozens of drop dead gorgeous girls there and I’d have to admit that I started feeling mighty old and ugly in comparison with them. There were at least half a dozen girls in their twenties that were well over six foot tall, and just stunning to behold. It goes with out saying that at least a couple of them were well aware of their good looks and had little crowds of minions gathered around them.

Suddenly the room started to fill with people as the big event in the dining room came to an end. In the space of two or three minutes it became impossible to move among the crowd without bumping in to someone or something. I told the lady that I was speaking with that I was going to make the rounds and look for folks that I might know, and then I took another walk around the area. Shortly I was stopped by a pretty woman in short hair.

“Hi Kim! Nice to see you! I’m Connie.” she said with a big smile.

“Hi Connie how are you?” I told her while shaking her hands.

“I’m fine thanks. You know I still haven’t tried that wedding gown on!” she told me.

‘Wedding gown?’ I thought to myself. ‘Why is she telling me about a wedding gown?” THEN it struck me! A couple of months ago I had found an awesome deal on a great wedding gown, but it was a little short on me AND my wife hated it, and so I had sold it via email and paypal. I had in fact sold it to the lady now standing in front of me. She must have seen this thought process in my eyes because we both spoke at almost the same time.

“Oh! THAT Connie!” we both laughed and then hugged each other and got down to some serious chatting. I spent a good deal of the evening speaking with her off and on, and also stopping to talk to the many familiar faces that were now in the room. Through the next couple of hours I met a lot of people that commented on my blog and assured me that I had made an impact on their lives. I was deeply flattered as it’s kind of nice to know that maybe you have made a small difference to someone. I thought it was odd that so many of them were a good deal more passable than I was and yet didn’t seem to be aware of it. I am terrible at names but I made a serious effort to keep them all straight, and I even did a fair job of doing that until I got back to my hotel where I wrote them down so that I wouldn’t forget them before it came time to write my blog. Yeah, the bad news is that I forgot that list in my hotel room and so there goes my chance to impress everyone with my ability to recall names. I still wasn’t feeling well and so I only stayed for a couple of hours before returning to my hotel.

Between my being sick, and my schedule with the training class, I had no more time as Kimberly until the Thursday when I made my flight home. The weather report was calling for around a foot of snow the night before my flight home and so it was with more than a little trepidation that I sat my alarm for 330AM to give me plenty of time to get ready, and then make my way to the Boston airport through the snow during the morning rush hour. When the alarm went off, I looked out of my window to find that the estimates had been about right, and there was a heavy layer of snow over everything I could see. I started to think that maybe making that drive through the snow and them flying as Kim wasn’t such a good idea today, but just then a pickup with a snow plow went zooming past my window. I figured that if I could just make it to the highway, they would probably be clear – boy was I wrong. I knew that high heels and a skirt in the snow didn’t really make sense, but I didn’t want to spend the entire day bummed out and depressed, and so I decided to do it anyway. I realized that I had seriously underestimated the situation though, when I exited the hotel to find that the only thing plowed or clear in the parking lot, was one little loop around the parking lot just big enough for a car. I left my bags in the lobby area and made my way to the car, thinking that I would clear it of snow and then drive it closer to the entrance so that I didn’t have to drag my heavy bags through over a foot of snow. You should have seen the look on my face when I got to my car and found snow drifts piled up to almost three feet high surrounding my entire car, and well over a foot of snow covering the entire top of my car. I looked at the deep snow, looked at my high heels, looked at the deep snow . . .

‘Well to hell with it, I went through far worse in the Army’ I told myself, and with that, I stepped into the snow and felt it go almost all of the way to my bare knees. At first I was intrigued to notice that it didn’t really feel all of that cold, but that was just a temporary thing – probably an artifact of the nylons insulating me for a moment, followed by my nerves refusing to admit that they were buried in snow. I got about half of the windshield cleared when the cold registered and my legs started informing me that I was doing something really stupid. Thinking that I was clever, I got into the car to pull it up far enough that I would be able to stand in the parking lot area that the plows had cleared to knock the rest of the snow off of the windows, but the joke was on me. I hadn’t cleared enough snow off to be able to do this safely and so I put the car in park and started wading through the snow to clear the rest of the car. With most of the snow off of the windows I spent five minutes of spinning tires and sliding wheels getting my car out of the mountain of snow and onto the cleared area of the driveway. Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I slowly pulled the car up to the hotel door to get my bags and load them in the car. As I parked the car, there was a young man at the door shoveling a path through the sidewalk and I found myself wishing that I had been just a few minutes later so I could have taken advantage of this. It worked out for the best though as he was kind enough to grab my bags and load them into the car for me.

“So do you know if they have interstate 93 clear or not?” I asked him.

“Are you kidding? Snow like this, nothing is clear. You sure you want to head out into this?
”I don’t have much choice. According to the airline, my flight is still leaving on time.”

“Well, you just take it slow and easy, and get behind a plow if you can!” he told me as he threw my last bag in the back and closed the door.

“Thank you SO much, and I’ll do just that!” I told him.

With my heart in my throat, I put the huge rear wheel drive car into gear, and started off.

My first hurdle was a fairly serious hill that ran right along side the hotel, and so I built up a little speed just before I got there, hoping that my momentum would help get me to the top so that loss of traction would not become an issue. I have driven in worse conditions than this back when my wife and I lived in Bavaria Germany, but that was decades ago, in a small front wheel drive car, and definitely not while cross dressed. With a lot of slipping, sliding, and just a little bit of driving with the car at angle, I managed to make it to the top of the hill where I damn near collided with the snow plow that was just turning down the driveway. Doing my very best to keep the drive wheels from loosing traction, I slowly and carefully made my way the mile or so to Interstate 95 that led to interstate 93 and Boston. There was a policeman parked just short of the onramp, but I still ran the red left turn light because I was certain that if I stopped, the car was going to be stuck. I was very unhappy to discover that contrary to my expectations, the onramp was worse than the roads I had just traveled on, and the freeway itself was no better. With my heart pounding so hard I swear I could feel my head expanding and contracting with each beat, I eased my way into what little traffic there was, and spent the next hour and a half doing thirty miles per hour or less, and repeating “Your stupid, stupid, stupid . . . “ under my breath. At least a dozen times I had convinced myself that I should find a place to pull over, but the conditions of the on and off ramps scared me at least as much as the thought of continuing on to the airport. Much to my surprise, I made it to the rental car facility without putting a single dent on the HMS Titanic, and I’m telling ya straight up, I will NEVER head out in conditions like that again. Next time, this little redneck will just reschedule the flights keep her happy ass at the hotel for another for another day. Besides, I could have spent the free day shopping at the mall. What the HELL was I thinking?!

If you stop breathing . . .

I’ve got this overwhelming feeling lately that I’m getting too old to be happy cross dressing and that my “run” may well be nearing it’s end. I’ve gotta tell you that the very thought depresses the hell outta me. It’s hard to describe the feeling that I’ve always had when I crossdress, and probably close to impossible for anyone that doesn’t share it to understand it. Most of my life I have felt ugly, both inside and outside, but when I crossdress I feel beautiful. My favorite analogy is that I go from looking and feeling like a caterpillar to looking (I hope) and feeling like a butterfly. What’s left when I no longer have that option – when all I see in the mirror looking back at me is someone who is old and ugly all of the time? Anyway, fearing that the end is approaching for my crossdressing adventure, I’ve started to look for new or interesting things to do and wear lately – things that I’ve always wanted to try but never got around to. One of those things is womens suits and so I’ve picked up a couple of them lately when I found really good deals on them.

With the suit I wore this day, I wore a long black blouse that is kind of a contradiction. In most ways it is exceedingly prim and proper with long sleeves, a high neck, and a pleated front. Very modest and lady-like. At least that’s the way it looks at first glance – right up until you notice that the entire breast area is nothing but see-through lace. So – the blouse is a little good girl AND a little bad girl.

This time I was flying US Airways to Greensville NC where a mining company in the area was using several of our Infrared mass spectrometers. When I checked in at the counter, it was a male attendant that took care of me and he made no attempt at all to hide the fact that he flat out didn’t like me. Despite his less than friendly attitude, I thanked him when he handed me my tickets and baggage claim stubs, and he literally just stared at me and said nothing at all. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to push the girl that makes my travel arrangements a little harder to put me on Delta airlines from now on. . .   That’s what I was thinking up until I handed the lady at the gate my ticket to board the plane anyway.

“You ALWAYS wear the cutest shoes!” she said with an honest smile.

“Thank you! I do have kind of a thing for pretty shoes don’t I?” I replied with a grin.

On the flight to Charlotte and then on to Greensville, no one paid the slightest bit of attention to me. At least they paid me no attention until the flight landed in one of the smallest airports I can recall being in. I think they had two gates and only one baggage belt, so there we were in a tiny airport of a small town, and people had nothing better to do but check out the other folks standing around. I caught at least a dozen people staring at me, all of whom quickly looked away when I glanced their direction. I knew then and there that I was not going to fly out of Greensville dressed as even I don’t have the confidence to sit there and be stared at for hours.

When I got to the Avis rental car counter, there was a huge man behind the counter. When I say huge, I don’t mean fat, I mean that this guy was built like a quarterback, with huge arms, a neck wider than my thigh, and close cropped hair. With my confidence kind of low, which seems more and more common these days, I really wasn’t looking forward to interacting with what was obviously a pretty macho guy, especially knowing that I was gonna have to hand him my male drivers license and remove any doubts that he might have about my real gender. Imagine my pleasant surprise when he turned out to be the nicest person that I had spoken to the entire day. Even after reviewing my drivers license the man was honestly friendly and a pleasure to talk to. Just goes to show that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions about someone based on how they look. You know – I should extend the same courtesy to others that I hope to get myself.

Once I arrived at the hotel, I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror and was horrified at what I found there. Despite being synthetic, and supposedly not terribly sensitive to humidity, my hair was flat, drab, and entirely unattractive. I wasted a moment or two trying and failing to fluff it up and make it presentable, and then I made my way to the hotel check-in counter through a light rain.

“Wow! It just started pouring rain about ten minutes ago!” said the lady behind the counter.

“Yeah, that figures! Just in time to get me wet getting in here from the car! You know, when I left Texas this morning I had country girl big hair!” I told her with a wink and was pleased to hear her laugh at my lame joke.

The next day, I was in the hotel eating breakfast before heading out to my customers location, and three guys took the table next to me and started talking about their options for breakfast.

“Well, they have bananas up there if you want one.” One of them said to the other. The guy he was talking to got this embarrassed look on his face.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so. I’m not really a banana kind of guy.” He replied with serious tone of distaste, giving the impression that he thought they were for sissies or for girls. I almost choked when I heard this, and then glanced at the two bananas I had sitting on the table in front of me.

‘Oh my God!’ I thought to myself. ‘All of these years and I never realized that it was the bananas doing it to me!”

When I got to my customers to do my job, they tried to kill me . . .

My first warning should have been when one of our first stops was a little office where they handed me a small canister attached to a plastic bag by a rubber hose.

“All right. Check the condition of the hose and the bag, and check that the gage is in the green. In the event of a leak, turn it on and put the bag over your head. This will keep you alive for about five minutes if you walk. Do NOT run. This will not provide enough oxygen to keep you alive if you run. Do you have any questions?” he asked me with a serious look on his face.

“Nope, I think I’ve got it. Turn it on, bag on head, don’t run or I die. I’ve changed my mind about working here and I’m going home now.” I joked with them. I guess my joke worried them because as we walked from that office to where the work was to be done, one of the two guys working with me gave me a considering look.

“Are you sure your OK with this?” he asked.

“I used to work on a nuclear missile – you guys are gonna have to work a lot harder than that to scare me.” I replied with a grin.

The Mass Spec that I work on will analyze gasses that you put through it and tell you exactly what that gas is composed of and in what quantities. In this case they were putting in a gas called silicone Tetrafloride (STF) and then taking the output to someplace where it could be destroyed safely. The gas is definitely toxic and “not nice”. Having no idea how to operate the complex gas panel that they were using to control this gas and the nitrogen gas that is used to purge and flush our instrument, I had to rely on my customer to make sure that things were safe.

“All right, I’ve got to pull all of your plumbing off to take the instrument apart. Did you guys flush this thing out well with Nitrogen?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s been flushing for a couple of days now and should be fine.” I was told.

“OK, then it’s safe to take the plumbing off? I’d hate to kill someone, especially me ya know.”

“Yep, your good to go!” he told me but then hesitated. “Just in case, do you know what STF smells like?”

“I haven’t a clue” I replied.

“Well it’s kind of acrid and it will burn your throat a bit if you breath it in.”

“Sounds like wonderful stuff” I kidded with him as I opened my tool box, grabbed a wrench, and started removing the plumbing from our instruments outlet. I was moving on to the inlet fitting when I saw both of the guys with me rapidly back up about ten feet towards the door and start waving at me to join them. My brain was still trying to reason out what they were doing that for when my nose started to burn. Needless to say, I decided to join them by the door.

“Well, now you know what STF smells like!” one of them grinned at me as he turned on the fan to the overhead exhaust hood.

“Awesome, just awesome . . .” I answered.

We gave the fan five or ten minutes to remove the gas from the room and then I stepped back up and continued taking the instrument apart. There is an interior component that is supposed to be purged with Nitrogen at all times and is never supposed to be exposed to any gas that you are sampling. It therefore caught me completely by surprise when I opened this component and got another face full of STF for my trouble. Once again we stepped out of the area and while we waited I called one of our Chemistry PHD’s at my company and described what had happened and asked just how worried I should be.

“Well, I had the same thing happen to me when I was in China, and by the time I hit the parking lot I was in full respiratory distress.” She told me.

“Oh that’s just wonderful! So I’m guessing this was not a good thing for someone with Asthma to be breathing?” I joked. “So – any suggestions?”

“Well, all I can tell you is that you should go to the hospital if you stop breathing.” She said. I waited for the punch line but there wasn’t one. She was serious – I was supposed to get myself to the hospital if I stopped breathing. I couldn’t help myself, I laughed so hard at this absurd advice that I almost did stop breathing then and there. . .

P.S. – I’m just fine. No distress, no hospitals, and definitely still breathing.

But will it play in Peoria?

Sunday afternoon I was packing for my trip to Peoria and I hollered down the stairs to my wife who was surfing on the computer.

“Hey! Would you check the weather in Peoria IL for me? I need to know so that I’ll have a clue what to pack!”

“Sure – hold on!” she yelled back up the stairs. A moment after that, all I can hear down stairs is her and my daughter-in-law laughing. I kind of figured that wasn’t a good sign.

“That bad huh?” I yelled down the stairs.

“Yeah, the highs are in the twenties. Your gonna freeze your ass off!” followed by the sound of both of them laughing again. Oh great . . .

So what to wear that’s a happy medium? Warm enough that I wont freeze to death, but not so warm that I’ll roast in the airports. For that matter, if I can avoid the long skirts, the damned TSA wont pat me down.

‘What to wear, what to wear . . . ‘ I was thinking as I rifled through my closet, and then suddenly I had it! Years and years ago, like about ten or fifteen years ago, I bought a cute little red and black suit at Macy’s on sale. I remember thinking at the time that it was awesome when I got it, but my wife popped my balloon when she took one look at it and said that it was way too 1980’s. . .   I HATE it when she does that! Intellectually I know that I’m a big boy and that I should make up my own mind about what I like and don’t like, but every time my wife slams an outfit, it pretty much ruins it for me. The few times that I have gone ahead and wore something she told me that she didn’t like, I’d hear her voice in the back of my head the entire time.

“That doesn’t look right . . . Those look like old Mom Jeans . . . That color wont work for you . . . that looks like you just stepped out of a 70’s disco . . . “

Of course it doesn’t help that she is usually right.

Well, this time I was gonna do it anyway – I liked and bought the damned suit and I was darn well gonna wear it!

 

Once again I was up at 3AM to get ready, make the drive to the airport, and get there early enough to get through security. I wasn’t thrilled to get up that early, but it was either that or spend the day lamenting the lost opportunity to fly pretty and enjoy my day. I arrived at the airport with about an hour and a half until my flight left, and so had assumed that I was in no danger at all of not having enough time – I was wrong. As the escalator brought me from the ground floor up to the second level where the airline counters are, I was shocked to see a huge line of people snaking all of the way down the airport and blocking the doors and ticket counters. I walked along side this line for a few dozen feet looking for a way across it to the ticket counters, but everyone was anxious, in a hurry, and not inclined to leave gaps for people to walk through. Eventually I had to more or less force my way through the line, saying “Excuse me” as I went.

As I approached the “First Class / Elite” line at the Delta counter, one of the male Delta CSR’s waved me forward.

‘Are you first class or Skymiles Elite?” He asked me with a smile, but then he frowned and rolled his eyes.

“Never mind, that was a really stupid question considering how often you fly with us. In fact, I’m kind of surprised that you aren’t Platinum!”

“I know! I missed Platinum by only three thousand points! I would be diamond with you guys if my company didn’t always book me on the other airlines when their flights are cheaper. As it is, I’m Gold with you AND Gold with US Airways too!”

Once I got all checked in with the airline, I grabbed my back pack and headed for the TSA screening line. Given the huge line of people in the “standard” or “non-elite” line (wow that sounds conceited doesn’t it?) I was a pleasantly surprised to find that there was not a single person in the Elite line and so I went right up to the inspector. Looking at the envious stares and glares from the people that had been standing in line for 40 minutes, I couldn’t help thinking that every once in a while, being a frequent flier does have it’s perks!

As I sat my shoes, back pack, and other odds and ends on the X-ray belt, I kept looking at the TSA inspector at the metal detector waiting to see if he was gonna yell “Female Assist!” like they have on my last two flights or not, but this time he didn’t! So apparently a knee length skirt is not enough to set off the TSA hounds! Instead of telling me that I had to stand aside for an inspection, he grinned and pointed at my shoes on the belt.

“And now for the lady with the plaid pumps! Or are they Tartan? I never do get that right!”

“I don’t know myself. All I know is that they are cute and that’s good enough for me!” I replied with a grin. As I made my way through the metal detector, I started looking around for the young lady that had frisked me on my last two trips, because I wanted to be a smart ass and go out of my way to point out that I had worn a shorter skirt just to save her the trouble of frisking me. I had hoped that it might have made her laugh, or it might have just irritated her, but since I didn’t see her there, we will never know. I still think I should have worn a mini skirt just to poke fun at them though.

Oh, as for the suit, I’m gonna have to say that I think this is one of the very few times that my wife was wrong about an outfit, because I thought it looked great!

Just last night I was told that I have to be in the Boston area arriving on January 23 and leaving on January 27. Not ten minutes or so after I found that out, I came across a Facebook post mentioning that the Tiffany Clubs “First Event” takes place the week before that and ends the night I am supposed to arrive. Now I am thinking about arriving a day earlier so that I can go socialize with the hundreds of other TG’s that will be there, but I have a couple of concerns. First, since I had no idea that I was going to be there, obviously I haven’t paid to be part of the event, and given that I will only be arriving late on Saturday night, it wouldn’t makes sense to shell out $100. So would that make me a party crasher if I show up to BS with people? My other concern is that while I have not yet made my flights, I know from experience that I will probably have to get up at 4AM, and wont arrive in the Boston area until 6 or 7PM. That means I will have already had a 12 to 14 hour day and my makeup will look like hell – would I really want to go to an event like this, and meet so many people, being that tired and looking that bad? I dunno – gotta think about it.

Well, that’s where the transgender part of this story ends, and now I’ll move on to something a bit more personal. If you’re not in to that, then here is where you might want to gather your things and leave.

Long long ago, in a desert far far away, I was born in Apple Valley of southern California. About a year after I was born, my mother separated from my father for a whole host of very good reasons including his tendency to drink to oblivion and abuse his wife and children while doing so. Fortunately I went and lived with my mother. Unfortunately, my mother was in very poor health and in and out of hospitals, so at several points in my young life I had to go back and live with my father and his new wife and children. My father had two sons, David and Mark, from a marriage prior to my mother, and his new and current wife came with two girls Pamela and Michelle. Then he and his new wife had another Son “Sonny” and a daughter Tracy together.

My memories of this time in my life are pretty vague, as you would expect considering that I was only five or six at the time, but I do know that I was eventually returned to my mothers care, and my father and his new wife and children went on about their lives without me. Off and on through my young life I would visit with my fathers family and sometimes even live with them, and so I came to know these “half” brothers and sisters, probably a bit more as friends than as family, but there was a bond there. There was the bond of growing up with an abusive alcoholic in the house. There was the bond of having very little in the way of material possessions. There was the bond of counting on each other because you knew that you couldn’t count on anyone else.

In the end, my father proved to be far to dangerous and unreliable for anyone, most definitely including myself, to consider it safe for me to ever visit him again, and so it was only many years later when I was almost an adult, that I learned he had given my little sister away through an informal adoption. He and his new wife had split up for the very same reasons that had split he and my mother apart. His wife managed to take her two oldest daughters with her, and had begged him to let her take the other children as well, but he flat out refused. As far as I know, I am the only child he ever fathered that actually was allowed to leave with the mother when divorce came. Anyway, I don’t know the whole story, but years later he did something that could almost be considered decent – he gave Tracy to a couple that desperately wanted a child. I say decent because once he was single, this removed the only good and decent influence on the children left in his home, leaving them at best unattended, and at worst, flat out abused. I wouldn’t have wanted little Tracy to grow up in that house . . .

What I’ve only recently found out though, is that Tracy’s mother had begged him for years to give Tracy to her and he refused to do it. Once she found out that Tracy had been given away, she begged him to tell her where she had gone, and who she had given to, but he again refused to do the decent thing and tell her. One of the sweetest and most adorable little girls you can imagine was gone from our lives forever. . .

With the advent of the internet I began searching for Tracy but had no idea at all how to start. The adoption was informal, with no court documents or records, so there was no way to find out who he had given her to, what state she had gone to, or what last name she now held. Ultimately I more or less gave up, and left several posts on genealogy web pages hoping that maybe someday she would find me. That was 2001 and I checked back on those posts for many years before finally deciding that it was a lost cause.

A couple of weeks ago, with the marriage of my son, my wife suddenly became interested in genealogy, and in her research stumbled across the posts that I had made years ago. More important, she stumbled across a response by my sister Tracy in 2009! In her response, she gave her email address, and listed the names and ages of her children. I of course started by sending her an email, but apparently she had stopped using that address some time ago because they went no where. I then started searching for the names of her children and found a couple of likely candidates, one was on facebook and the other one on Myspace. With my pulse racing, I sent messages to both, and a day later had a response from her 13 year old daughter. More or less it read:

“ha ha – you done good! Yes, Tracy is my mother, so you are my uncle and I am your niece! We live in WA and her cell phone number is XXXXXX.”

I sat there for about 20 minutes staring at that number. For twenty years I’d looked for her and now that I had a way to contact her, I had absolutely no idea what to say. What do you say to a little sister you don’t know and haven’t seen in almost forty years? What do you say to someone that was given away at the age of eight and who probably had no idea how badly she had been missed, or how many people had devoted so much effort to finding her?
Finally I made the call . . . and got voice mail . . .  Don’t try and tell me that God hasn’t got a sense of humor . . .