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Just 'cos. Joanna looks happy at least

 

I so wish I could be her.

Achievements

Last week was exhausting and, like usual, I didn't realise how exhausting until it was too late. On Saturday the children were over - it was very hot and close, humid, and I took them all out into town to spend pocket money. It went reasonably well, but I didn't realise how exhausted I was. We got home. The yougest slowly begins to wind up, and I didn't realise how exhausted I was. So, you know the story by now, I explode at the youngest. I scare him. It had been he plan that he was to stay over for the first time on Sunday night. But no, I had scared him so much that Tilly rang me that night. Long discussion, she's keen not to attack me or make me feel under attack, but she is concerned. The children are scared of me, the youngest no longer wants to stay over. I have to understand that this is an ongoing problem, the children are not as attached to me as they ought to be, certainly not as much as they are to her.

Tilly is not wrong.

From the very beginning I have found things hard. When Tilly first moved in I tried to confide in her about my stresses and strains and she was repulsed from the beginning - she found my anger scary. Not at her, but because it was there in the first place. She did not want to be the one vented at, which is fair I suppose. No one does.

I pulled out some old letters this morning, having fallen asleep yesterday afternoon, alone and sad. Pulled myself to bed at half nine, alone and sad. There were the letters from my first relationship, all full of hope and happiness until they turn sad and dark and confused about why I seemed to be pulling away. Thing is, in that relationship, I decided to end it in the summer, but didn't actually pull the plug until the December of that year. Terry, for twas she, was needlessly made to feel abandoned, unwanted and, yes, sad. I did not handle it well. I don't think anything remains of the relationship with Toby any more. I used to have a stash of stuff but I threw it all away sometime in 2013 after moving house on the grounds that I wanted to focus on my actual relationship with Tilly.

I found the SMART target paper from my therapy that Tilly found and recoiled from - "If you ever feel like that again, you need to tell me so that I can take the children and leave you, I don't ever want to be around someone feeling like that." It was talking about how I wanted to fade away, how bad I felt about myself and how my proposed solution was to try and fade away from everything, to make as little an impact as possible. Tilly was scared by it and angry that I hadn't told her at the time so she could escape from the depression. Angry that she had been left to suffer my crisis and adamant that she would not make that mistake a second time. I forget exactly when that occurred but it's somewhere on this blog.

And I have no one to talk to, to share with, to discuss. No one I can talk to face to face (or even over the phone) about what happened with the youngest and how to avoid it. No one to have a heart to heart to about recent revelations. I mean, there's here, and I appreciate more than anyone could know every person that reads and comments and reaches out. But it remains intensely private IRL, just like everything else I've ever felt or thought. Every time I've shared who I am, all of it, I have lost friends and relationships. No one wants to hang around someone like me. I don't blame them.

Before Tilly, after Toby (and before Toby, to be fair), this is how I felt too. Hell, a lot of the time with Tilly I felt like this. Lonely and isolated.

The Face in the Mirror

Just a quick visual post. I may have got a bit obsessed with the FaceApp thing. But, and this is crucial, this is the first time I've ever actually looked forward to taking pictures of myself. And, well, sharing them.

In the car, this evening. I mean... wow. That's... that's me.

This morning before work, I'm wearing my bralette.

All human faces are improved by glasses.

The car again. I... I want to go to a place selling glasses and get
these frames. I want to get my eyebrows done. Make-up... the works.

Glasses, need I say more?

I'd have any of these hairstyles.

One day I may wake up and this is reality,
not a clever app.

Missing Visualisations

Whatever happened to Leon Trotski?
Got an ice-pick, that made his ears burn.

In 1917, between revolutions, a popular hero of the 1905 dress-rehearsal for revolution left the dominant faction of the Left, then experiencing sky-rocketing popularity, and joined the apparently defeated and imprisoned minority widely derided for their failure to translate the obvious anger of the working people of Petrograd into any real change. This man was Trotsky and he joined the Bol'sheviks at possibly their lowest ebb since their split with the Men'sheviks in 1903. However, within a month Trotsky would join them in their peaceful response to the Kornilov Affair, followed by a seizure of power and eventually to lead the Reds during the Civil War to victory. Now, okay, a Pyrrhic one in all ways, but that's still something. And you can't doubt his sincerity for the cause given when he chose to join.

It's something that I have been mulling over as the tide of anti-trans rhetoric and laws sweeps both sides of the Pond. I'm no Trotsky, but perhaps my timing suggests sincerity? Or at least my inability to understand myself properly and bloody-mindedness in trying to repress it and be... well, be male. Whilst I have never embraced the term 'man' when describing myself, I have resolutely sought not to be trans beyond some footling with gender, attempting to avoid being... me. And so, I guess I am. Transgender. A trans-woman. I get to say 'us' when talking about trans-women.

That's our flag.
A friend of mine has these (and others) in her classroom
as a sort of silent show of support. Students can take one if
they wish. We don't work as colleagues, alas.

A shop-assistant in the Co-Op near where I work, where I have
bought countless lunches, wore a sweat-band with it on. When
I expressed solidarity she asked "do you even know what it means?"

In neither case did I say what I wanted to.

There's a lot to get through here, and, as usual, I'm brimming with things that I want to record here. So I shall try not to tarry and seek to set things out as quickly as I can, because, as ever, when I plan a post there's a slew of stuff that happens that derails that. Things get lost in the chaos is what I'm saying.

Yesterday I spent most of the evening dressed. I mean, in clothes that fit my actual gender. I wore the pencil skirt (yes, I bought one in October) with tights, my heels and a shirt. I wore my grey bralette - I wanted to wear an actual stuffed bra but I am lazy and just left my top as it was when I was over helping Tilly move a bed for the Boy into his new bedroom. I'm still in chastity. I have been colossally stupid by buying, wearing and experimenting with the Vice Mini V2 but, hey, what am I going to do? I don't hate my penis, but apparently I do want it semi-hidden from view and preferably not dominating my ability to gain self-pleasure. I mean, not that I'm doing anything else, but... I don't know, everything is fluid and up-for-grabs at the moment so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

The Girlie has a crush on a girl at her dance class. She's been werbling about lesbian characters in books she enjoys for ages now, about how it can't just be a character trait and how she hates it when it is and how they are inspiring. So, taking her to dance on Saturday, I talked to her about it, introduced the concept of bisexuality, and listened to her turn that over and over as we travelled. She then revealed that she had a crush on a girl to Tilly and told Tilly to tell me. I am unsurprised Pikachu at the news, like I say, it's been pretty obvious for a while. I would have been more surprised had she not been leaning that direction. On the Saturday I did also point out that she didn't have to commit to any identity just yet and to let her feelings guide her as to where she went if at all. So, I have that conversation to have. Also, and just as an aside, she's taken to telling me all about her periods in great detail because I listen. I am flattered by that and, well, see earlier in this post: I do want to know.

After my shower this morning. The App removed
my shirt for some reason.

Anyway, this morning I downloaded FaceApp. Again. I did this a while back and the results were not terribly inspiring (of course I mean using it to switch 'gender' in an image) and just saved the images to my folder for such things and thoughtr no more of it. On a whim I thought I would try again. I took a selfie. Fiddled. Took another. Fiddled some more. And oh- oh my word. Well. But that's not the biggest thing. I mean, I thought it was when I did it this morning and, originally, that's what I was going to post about: what the App did and how I felt about it. It has it's problematic problems and assumptions but I felt that the images with which I was left were sufficiently 'realistic' that... they kinda took my breath away. To the point where I have retired the cartoon image with which I have identified for... time and replaced it with one I knocked up this morning. I don't wear glasses but I would love to get those frames. Look how happy she looks!

Is that... Is that me?

Anyway, I showed Miss Warrington at work today. Because I was still reeling and I had to tell someone in that way I have. I had also, the day after I spent Wednesday reading Real Life comics and chasing Mae Dean on Social Media, told Her about that experience without specifics. Life intervened, work got busy, I figured it had been lost in the noise. So I showed Her the photo, She laughed, as I encouraged. That was lunchtime. As I was leaving, I said that the FaceApp image had me "shook" (it does, no lie, that's why I was showing it). "Is this connected with what was eating you up and that comic thing?"

Cold sweat. Uh... Yeah?

She asked if it were connected to a time, years ago, when I spoke to Her about maybe switching the honorific from Mr to Mx. With a dry mouth and mounting realisation of what was happening, fighting my instinct to deny everything and run, I confirmed it was. "Or is it more than that," Miss Warrington continued, "not so much Mx as Miss?"

When I got home, in the kitchen. The App
removed my shirt. I aged it a notch.

Do I... Do I pay for more options?

Hearing it, out loud, said by another person... I wasn't prepared. I wasn't ready. No one has ever said that to me. No one. At least, not in a voice in real life that carries through the air and vibrates in my ear: "Miss"

I... Well, I- It was all I could do not to shout "yes". In the end I swallowed and nodded, saying "yes" in the smallest voice I can ever remember me using. But it was not the time to discuss further, Miss Warrington nodded and smiled. Then, in a voice that dripped with sincerity and friendship, said "If you want to talk more about it, you can."

"I'd like that," I nearly whispered, "thank you."

But, like I say, it was not the time. A manager in the room, too many people otherwise, She about to go home, me in a rush to sort out a blunder with my power company. I left it there.

And, so, even the revelation of the FaceApp images all over this post has been gazumped. I want to end with something analytical, something worthwhile but- I can't.

Re-runs

I feel like I am so often the one crying and yet lovely people
do pop by to support.

I'm at that point again where I find that much of what I have been posting recently is me going over old ground that I did better the first time and where some (a lot?) of what I say comes out a bit wrong. Take the recent flurry of posts about goalposts and gatekeepers in which I appear to suggest that some lovely people have served to make me less sure about my place in life - which is patently rubbish and not what I meant at all. I meant that I had been thinking about how much of an imposter I felt when I read the thoughts and journeys of some excellent people who continue to make me feel like I belong in this, frankly, wonderful and supportive community. I still feel awe in the presence of the big guns like the inspirational and kind Leslie and Calvin; the amazing work of perceptive people like Dee and Fredoline; and the totally amazing journeys of lovely souls like Rhi. And, in the presence of such amazing folk, I feel... a bit puny. That you have all stopped by over the years and that I can think of you as people to talk to continues to blow me away. And my fear is that I may embarrass you all by being a bit pants at what I do. Because being pants is what I do very well.

And then I found this old post of mine from 2013 because someone had been reading it recently, Confluences, in which I essentially say that I'm a trans-woman but scared to admit it because I feel like I would have been hiding it from Tilly and myself. In 2013. 8 years ago.

I was most active on the Creative Writing forum, as it happens,
and once posted whilst cross-dressed and drunk. This led to the
thread on No Save Points as I began to realise that the cross-dressing
meant more to me than the clothes alone or the masturbatory fodder.

Back in 2011 I wanted to talk to Tilly about my cross-dressing and I showed her a now defunct thread that I took part in on the Megatokyo forums dating from around 2005-2006. She was disgusted, you may remember the story (dear new readers, you'll get a theme developing pretty quickly). I had resolved that any relationship I had myust be with someone who was aware of my cross-dressing as I knew it was a Big Deal and had enlisted the help of some friends to ensure I didn't inadvertantly keep it secret and screw things up later. But even then I knew that, although there were sexual elements to my cross-dressing, it was more than that. And that thread set out that my desire to cross-dress was more than sexual titillation (though it definitely included that). Along with the poem from 2005, The Salad Ballad, I think it was pretty obvious to an outsider that I was really a trans-woman. Goodness, it still seems wrong to put it like that. Like I haven't really earned the term yet or I'm being hideously immature: "like, you know, I'm trans and all, baby, and, like, that's just so out there?"

Could I?
With masks I can hide my beard, and with longer hair and
maybe pierced ears... plucking the eyebrows would rather
uh... raise them at work...

But yesterday, when I had a free day to myself, I ended up taking a bath to shave my legs. I ended up shaving much of my chest too. But it was taking too long so I forewent underarms (still not too bad) and arm hair lest I miss lunch. I combed back my hair and fixed it with a pair of alice-bands. Then I wore a stuffed bra with my flowery top and a playsuit I bought a while back for the lunch and tidying. I needed to go shopping and was all for going out en femme with my boots (apparently I can walk in them now with ease) but then I came to my senses and realised that in the area I live I was asking to be beaten up and I still have a freaking beard and will not pass even slightly. The Fear basically. So I switched into trousers and a coat but kept the stuffed bra.

Even for a little while, to have that hair...

I went out shopping with boobs is what I'm saying. And I... It felt normal, it felt right, it didn't feel titillating (ha) or sexy or humiliating, it just felt comfortable and like I was me. I wasn't self-conscious at all (the coat meant no one could tell I was stuffing) I was just... me. So, obviously, I have GID.

On returning home I wore my twirly skirt and marked and loved it. But I still have a beard, I still worry because I work as a male at work and, well, I am a bit of a male in presentation most of the time. I have built myself a very male-presenting persona that people now expect of me in real life. To transition even a little bit would be very difficult at best and life-destroying social suicide at worst. Though, today, I did wear a bralette, knickers and tights (pantyhose?) under my work clothes. And I'm back in chastity and rather happy about that. It feels comfortable, it feels right.

In time, as I continue to live alone and generally unloved romantically, maybe I shall have more time to explore who I actually am.

Paying the Piper

I'd pay this one?

Obviously, having spoken glowingly of chastity I have failed again. Out at 0157 hrs last night due to intense pain despite a beer before bed. I know I'm doing something wrong, just don't know what. I shall wait for it to heal (there was chafing) and try again.

Tilly is taking the children to see a friend this Sunday, so I don't get them over Saturday night. The eldest is in the midst of a patch of anxiety attacks so there's no film tonight, she's worried it will trigger an anxiety attack. Also, Tilly wants to take them on a holiday near her parents the week after half term - like before I left but it cuts a little deeper now. I mean, yeah, why not? It's not like I shall be able to take them on a holiday any time soon. Today Tilly took them all round to visit a friend who lives locally and they all had a whale of time, such that they've all been rather too tired to spend time with me this evening.

Tilly's had the decorators in, the house is looking lovely and things are being upgraded. My bathroom ceiling has started to fall down due to damp from the shower. I knew it would need looking at, but a month in seems a bit quick - I still haven't managed to sort the shower (it's now not draining at all) and the flooring. It's carpet, soaks right through for instant leaks in the kitchen. I still don't have curtains in the bedroom or living room. Inertia, marking and lack of funds combine with my lack of DIY skills to ensure much of this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable.

Dessert in a can, so darker and thicker and nicer than this
looks, but the effect is much the same. Drinking alone does
rather reek of alcoholism at this point.

Not helped by the beer I bought. What was I thinking?

Also, there's the standard feeling that I am rather done now. I always said I'd end alone, and here I am. I can't see this changing and it's not even from something out of my control. It was through choice - a choice I put off so long that it's rather inevitable that I shall look back from the grand old age of 56 and still only have had sex last in 2016. Indeed, I can't imagine any other wy it will change. I shall slowly drop into dementia like my grandmother, or Parkinson's like my grandfather; mabye a heart attack or two like my other grandfather, and I shall be alone all that time. When the house enters the market I shall have lost money, the only question is how much (£36k for my first purchase, not counting mortgage payments). Nothing really changes.

Can't even stay in chastity for a week, let alone aiming to beat the record I hit in 2020.

I always pay for feeling happy.

Plot Device

Wish I could have voted like that...

Last Thursday a parcel arrived from the States and I picked it up that evening on my way to pick up my daughter for her Dance - she's enrolled in a pretty influential Dance College. This was a day after my first jab of the vaccine (yes, dear reader, I am that old). Ah, and thereby hangs another tale. Anyway, then took her to Dance, tried to do some shopping at the supermarket there (it did not work, I have abandoned future attempts) and then brought her home. Feeling woozy, I went to carry out my demovratic duty in the local elections, which turned into a nearly hour long trek to the right polling station, before going shopping and making it home for gone 9pm.

Can't tell, but think this may be my set up - without the
anti-pull-out part.

Why tell you this? It took that long to get to the parcel and try out the contents. As intimated on a previous post it was, of course, the Vice Mini V2 that I had ordered. In pink of course. I tied it out that night, but wearing the knock-off Holy Trainer v2 had left some chafing that meant that I wasn't in it for long. My mother was also coming to visit for thr weekend. But I couldn't stay out for long and continued experimenting by Saturday night, into Sunday and Monday. Then I came out last night as the ring was slipping a bit and causing some chafing and the main body seemed to be causing the foreskin to swell a bit.

I mean, I don't look this good, but you get the idea.

Obviously, this is me, I went back in this morning. I have a shower that leaks (think I said) and so rather than chance another morning shower to wash my hair I went in the smaller corner bath - seemingly designed for shaving legs with a seat and enough space to put legs under the water but not much else, along with a shower on top of the taps. I did not shave, despite wishing to, due to being late up, and instead went back into the Vice. This time on the smallest ring, a smaller spacer, but no anti-pull-out bit. It hurt a bit for most of the day but, after taking the eldest out and getting in shopping from the right supermarket, it suddenly (and I do mean suddenly) stopped hurting. It felt, and continues to feel, comfortable and... well, we shall see tonight I suppose.

Part of the reason for taking it off last night was keep reading the caption that I had found Dee had made on her blog. It was made with me as the star and it was far more thoughtful than she let on, because that's how Dee rolls, but it incorporated so much of what I have spoken about here for years with some predictive elements that turned out to be rather spot on. You can find that caption and the original post by clicking on the image below.

It thus allowed me, for the first time in a long while, to start my own creative juices flowing. Much like when I discovered Mae Dean recently I ended up reading and re-reading that caption all day and thinking about it at work. It just touched a nerve, in a good way, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. Getting flustered all day and with the hint of reddening embarrassment around my ears. It also had effects... down there which exacerbated the movement of the base ring and the chafing. Hence coming out last night. Am I too early going back in? I guess I shall find out.

And yes, that caption has me thinking again, along with the discovery of a fragment of TG story dating from around 2002-2003 - hard to place exactly - written not long after a friend from University's 21st and using that as the main event. The fragment doesn't actually get that far, but there's enough there that I recognise it. I hope to actually find time to write something, maybe caption something, based on that inspiration but we shall see.

In the meantime, I might actually be feeling a bit happy.

Close Shave

Just a quick update.

In the end it was mostly dry shaving to be honest.

Last night I dreamt of some Dago... I mean, no, that's a pastische on Madonna. No, actually I decided to try out that corner bath, the seat and some shaving. Then I got annoyed that it was taking so long (has it really been over a month since I shaved my legs? It surely has) and then tried some Nair. It... didn't burn my legs but my goodness me it wasn't as effective as that first time. So I resorted to shaving. But my hair was long. And plentiful. So it took... well, over an hour. But my legs are smooth again, and so is most of my chest and I had a go at the groin area too. And my underarms are nice and smooth too. Hurrah!

And here's what I ordered.
I might be a bit excited.

Obviously I tried chastity, but it felt wrong last night, so I took it off again until this morning. Did I say I'd ordered a Vice device? Well, I have. But the tracking, it left customs on Saturday, tell me that it's been accepted by "the United States" as of Sunday morning so... I don't know. I may have it delivered soon, I may not, at this point I can't tell. It's May Day Bank Holiday here.

Got the middlest over, he's been here since lunch, he seems to have had fun, and we've had a lot of stormy weather.

But, I'm doing it. Shaved body, growing hair, tights today (bloody lovely on shaved legs). Not done any work, mind, and that's a standard concern on this here bloggy-boo so, there's that.

In September 2013 I ended up buying some mascara, which I wore all of once, and now it is hideously out of date. I may put some money aside into make-up and stuff - that is, start saving a pound here and there to invest in the future.

And... I have no deeper thoughts to really share wit- I mean, I have plenty of deeper thoughts, they are whirling constantly, but now is not the time nor the place. Instead, I shall try and keep it light and brief: I am shaved (mostly, still got a beard, for now) and wearing tights just rocks on shaved legs. I guess, if you're reading this, you probably already know that - not just academically, but fundamentally. Well, I'm learning it. I know it from the last time I shaved my legs, but I am learning that it is just... well, it feels right. I'll take that any time.

Who doesn't imagine being a Princess as a guy?

Honestly, the outer walls are pretty similar in
hue here and in reality.

I now own a house again. Well, okay, the bank owns my house, but it's the first property that I have 'owned' and lived in alone since 2007. I've rented alone in a flat since moving out in November but now I have a house. That's good. It comes with all the attendant issues of home-ownership though. Had the children over and the eldest managed to cause a leak in the bathroom; the oven doesn't work and I ordered a new one but it can't be installed ad the previous owner had the existing one wired into the house (big no no) rather than into a junction box (which may also explain why the oven has failed). There are cracks in the walls in places that don't seem to be getting any larger but are otherwise unexplained. The floor in the bathroom, being carpet(!), needs to be replaced soon (to prevent further leaks). The shower drips, inside the unit, which is something in need of attention. And, unlike renting, all of this will cost moeny to put right and can't be done until after the bank holiday weekend.

It's also five crucial minutes (and two miles) further to get to work in the mornings. It's enough to throw out my timings on a morning and increase the need to charge (I mean, it's do-able but it coincides with extra journeys to ferry the eldest to and from dance, so... poop).

At this point you know that Toby called me a 
brunette and, well, she wasn't wrong.
Just the length now.

For all of that, though, it is mine. I have my own space (I said in the previous post) and it is, well, my own. Unlike the flat where I had some space but it was not, strictly speaking, mine. I have bought some hair grips and have tried them today. It's a learning curve. Managed to make it work on my left, but the right side of my hair has proved more troublesome. I shall have to practice a bit more methinks. I intend to use the corner bath to try shaving my legs this evening as well. I have some Nair in, I got some for underarm hair as well, because that is getting out of hand despite maintaining my shaving regimen there - my legs are back to being wild and hairy.

Yeah, we're about here...

At work I actually got complimented by actual females for my hair. A couple of times, actually, and it brought home just how little of that I got/get. I confess that I liked having the compliment - not in a 'you're attractive' kind of way but noticing that my hair was longer and that I was wearing it well - and... I have been a little more... It has been noted by my colleague to whom I silently sub that I am striving to be more 'feminine' in my compliments - less 'male' - and she has returned the compliment (ha) in turn, prompting other females (who have also apparently noted) to do the same. It's... It's nice, I like it.

Also, Dee's comment on my last post here was apposite. I had been meaning to post for a while now about how her comment back in 2012 was incredibly prescient - I read it by accident back in March - and then she goes and posts a comment that shows she remembered it anyway. That was pretty powerful stuff, actually, so thank you again Dee. Coupled with the Real Life Comics return and Mae Dean, along with the hair and the space and the headspace, it makes me wonder a bit. Is this dysphoria and, if so, am I actually transgender properly? You'd think my ASD would make it easier, not harder, to separate out social conditioning from my actual thoughts on the issue but I've been struggling with it for so long (this whole blog stands as testament to that) I'm not sure I can any more.

It's not just the clothes though, is it? It's not even the hair styling or the products or the online persona or the bits and bats from my past. It's not the colour choices, the conscious choices in interactions at work or the underwear. All of these things are affectations, they are spurious, social conditions that I exploit and embrace because there is something underlying it all. Take all of these things away and I still wouldn't fit in the way that male colleagues or friends do.

Wearing a mask I was stopped and asked for ID when I was buying some beer the other day, obviously being 40 I didn't have it, and it wasn't until I removed the mask that the person relented - the beard you see. Apparently the longer hair made me look younger. And I find myself critically analysing my beard: I created the persona I have around my beard - first at University and then in teaching - it was a way of distancing myself from the environment I found myself in, a quick, easy and lazy way to pass off lack of effort on personal presentation as an attempt to create something and a barrier between me and the world. That is what my beard has been and continues to be. I am now seriously considering going clean shaven over the summer. Growing out my hair, keeping the chin smooth, starting a proper leg/body hair control programme... At this point, I now wonder... why?

If Mae Dean's journey has shown me anything it has revealed that some people are lucky enough to have loving partners who recognise that love is love and not dependent on... outward appearances. Along with Leslie's experiences that show that love can be different and used differently and that 'getting along' has its virtues as a form of love, built on love, but also frustrations. Rhiannon showed what courage can bring in spite of fear, and I hope that that journey continues.

Dare I?