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Random thoughts from late Nov & early Dec
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It’s been a while since I posted, but Lois has been a busy girl. No real theme here, just some random thoughts in no particular order.Just when I thought I had accomplished something by being able to hook my bra behind me (rather than in front and turning it around – my lingerie expert tells me it ruins the bra if you keep doing it that way) then I run into jewelry clasps. I can barely work those things if it is in my lap in front of me! If someone could invent a small jewelry clasp that is easy to open and close, yet stays secure in normal usage, he or she would make a fortune.By the way, I learned a trick for making it easier to hook your bra behind you. The first time you try on a bra, find the right hook. Do it whatever way you can manage to put it on, even if it means putting it on backwards and then turning it around after you get it fastened. Now you know the proper hook to use. The next time, you know which hook to go for. But when you hook it behind you, don’t do it around your bust line. Do it around your waist line. Presumably it is narrower than your bust line, which makes it easier to do, and it is also a more comfortable position for those of us t-girls who have less flexible shoulders than gg’s. Try it! (My lingerie expert tells me that it is best to get one where the hook you use is closest to the end. Then as the material stretches – and of course, you will be getting in shape and losing weight, right? – you can start moving it to the inner hooks. But if you start with a bra that fits on one of the inner hooks, you won’t have as much life out of the bra, because you won’t have as far to adjust it.)Gee, all these things my mother never thought she needed to teach me that I need to learn now. Like how can you tell which is the front and which is the back of panty hose? Or the proper way to use a toilet when wearing a skirt or a dress? And now there are some new things that weren’t around in my mother’s time, like those clear plastic loops that seem to be in all the items of women’s clothing that I am buying.Finally had the courage to venture to a store (Burlington Coat Factory) and stroll down the aisles in male mode and buy women’s clothes. No one made any negative comments to me. The loss prevention security guard said hello to me. That may have been for two reasons. First, it’s Christmas time. More men are buying gifts for their wives at this time of year. Second, I had on a sports jacket and tie. Some of the customers must have thought that I worked there as I looked at items and then started carrying some of them with me. One woman even asked me where the coats section was. So my suggestion is to get familiar with the layout of the store first. Then if you are asked a question like that, you can answer it and keep up the pretense that you are an employee.As my body is changing, I am enjoying the sensations that I feel from time to time. However, the rubbing of a car’s shoulder belt is not one of them. And I guess that will only get worse. I am at the point where I am starting to set up meetings with people who only know my male side to reveal Lois to them. Haven’t actually met with any of them yet, but the process is starting. This is the big step. It doesn’t totally burn bridges behind me, but I am telling a huge piece of information to people about myself. Once it is said, I can never unsay it, no matter what the future course of my transition is.I am very confident about my ability to project a female voice in the fairly near future. I have a fairly wide singing range (without having to resort to falsetto) and my normal speaking voice was higher in my early adult years. I think I subconsciously lowered it to command more respect in business. So now, I just need to reverse that and build a new habit of speaking with a higher voice.On the other hand, I am such a klutz when it comes to anything with small motor skills and looking in the mirror to do something on my face. So makeup is going to take a lot of practice. And makeup skills are essential until that nasty facial hair is removed. The wife of one of the members of the CD/TG local group that I am joining is a Mary Kay consultant. I have a feeling she is going to be seeing a lot of me. If I wasn’t so afraid of needles and the risks of tattoos, I might consider permanent makeup.I am seeing some small effects of the regimen that I have been on. But it seems like it is affecting my rear more than my bust so far. That isn’t bad either, as long as it doesn’t get too big. I so don’t want to be one of those women who asks, “Does my butt look big in this?”I listened to the song “The Stranger” by Billy Joel today. The lyrics are very apropos to the relationship I had with my ex-wife. I realized that sometime over the summer, I finally emotionally let go of my ex-wife and also have stopped trying to replace her with another woman. And that was the last stumbling block to going forward with Lois.It is amazing how something can look so large when looking at them from above and relatively flat when looking at them in the mirror. Compared to the flat chest I once had, looking down at protruding breasts is a marvelous sight. But they still are only somewhere between AA and A cup, and the curves are not very pronounced when looking in a mirror, and it doesn’t take much loose clothing to hide the curves. It is like there should be printed on the tops of my breasts: “Warning, these objects are not as big as they appear from this angle.” Still, I can see a little bit of curve, even in the mirror. For six weeks, it is good progress. The only question is how long will progress continue and how large will the end result be. The other factor: will the workouts in the gym pay off and increase the curves by reducing the waist line. It isn’t really fat as much as it is loss of muscle tone.Lois has been a busy girl in cleaning her apartment. The mountain of papers is completely sorted now. There are smaller piles around the apartment, but they are more compartmentalized and more manageable. I can work on those one at a time and clear sections of the apartment. The papers to be shredded still have to be taken someplace. The next task is to start throwing out or recycling objects that I no longer need: old computer monitors, keyboards and towers (except for the hard drives); old worn out clothing that Goodwill or the Salvation Army would not touch; take old books to the library for their used book sales; either find a food bank that will take my mountain of shopping bags or throw those out; dump boxes and cans of food that has expired (even if unopened); dump the files from old projects that will never be completed, and I doubt that I need things like my 1990 Mobil Travel Guides. The “when in doubt, throw it out” philosophy needs to be in full force.My male side has been trying and failing to clean my apartment for about ten years. Lois is finally making it happen.But there are some things I want to keep for sentimental value. I came across my father’s birth certificate the other day. And of course, like most birth certificates, it listed the names of my father’s parents. And looking at it triggered a memory. But first, I need to explain something. I never knew my real grandmother on my father’s side. She died of tuberculosis (called consumption in those days) when my father was a teenager. My grandfather remarried and that was who I knew as Grandma. When my mother had a favorite story, if you heard it once, you heard it a hundred times. However, the story that is related to this memory was one that she didn’t tell often. The story put her father-in-law (my grandpa) in a good light, and she didn’t like him very much, so she didn’t relish telling stories that put him in a good light. When I was born, my grandparents lived close enough that they were able to see me shortly after I was born. By this time, my grandparents had five grandchildren, three boys and two girls. Somehow, I broke the pattern (or so the doctors said) and instead of boy-girl, my parents were told that they had a second son. So a new grandson (and as it would turn out, their final grandchild) was presented to them. My grandfather took one look at me and the first word that came out of his mouth was “Mary”. It was the name of his first wife, my father’s real mother and my real grandmother that I never got to meet. Not exactly the first word you expect a grandfather to say to his new grandson. Some may say that I am grasping at straws, but I take it as one more piece of evidence that Lois was there from the very beginning. It may be just a tiny twig, but put enough tiny twigs together, and you can build quite a bonfire.
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Posted on : Dec 9, 2011
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