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Saturdays are always busy, well actually most days are in our household, but yesterday I had a lot that I wanted to achieve, and I managed most of it.   The Accer has gone to the Doctors at PC World, and now I just have to wait for the bad news, it is out of my hands.   I also could not put off cleaning the van any longer, on Friday afternoon I looked at it and felt quite ashamed, so as soon as I got back from PC World I went at it.

Of course the dirtier a vehicle gets the harder it is to get clean, and my van was dirty so it took me a while to get it clean, after that it didn't feel fare not to clean my wife's car as well.   This took slightly less than a quarter of the time (well it probably has about a quarter of the surface area) and looked much better when finished, this is a job I always find it difficult to start, but when I do I actually quite enjoy, I certainly much prefer to drive a clean vehicle, it is after all part of my presentation of self to the world.   After that I did some practise, at first I was a little frightened by how bad I sounded but after a short time my lip "came in" and a good trombone sound started to show through, I am glad I managed a bit of time on the trombone before this evening's rehearsal, I think I shall have enough to worry about without making sure the instrument works, and I can remember how to play it.

Finally we had a little family outing, we all went to see Life of Pi, I read the book a few years ago and was captivated by it, but couldn't see how they would be able to film it.   Well I had heard so many good reviews that I decided we would go.   We all thoroughly enjoyed it, the 3D actually is an integral part of the film and enhances the spirituality of the story, rather than being an add on gimmick, the images are simply fantastic I strongly recommend this film to anyone who hasn't yet seen it, I would however still recommend the book even more.

By the time we got home from the film it was gone nine and we hadn't eaten so it was too late to go to my support group meeting, while I was sad to miss it  I did remind myself that my priority is my family and I will be out playing tonight anyway so no great loss.   The family was happy, we spent so good time together, and managed to get to bed at a sensible time.  So all in all a another good day.

Done It

Thank you guys, I have now installed Chrome and the problem seems to have been solved. now I just need to be able to get access to my photos! Having run out of expertise myself I have finally resorted to taking my new(ish) Accer to PC World for a fix, I just hope that whatever they have to do won't be too destructive or too expensive.   In the mean time I will carry on with my old Dell.

A good day II

After getting my hair cut I popped home to sort out a few things before going up to town.   I drove to the station and caught the train, not so long ago this would have, indeed did terrify me, now I take it in my stride and just enjoy the ride.   I arrived with plenty of time so first off I visited a bank and paid in some cheques before having lunch.   I enjoyed a nice pasta dish with a glass of wine and followed it up with a coffee, I was very tempted by some rather lovely sounding desserts, but resisted.   As the RA were expecting this to be a busy exhibition it was timed entry, and my time was 2:00 p.m. so I finished my lunch and made my way back down Piccadilly to Burlington House.

I will admit that I was little disappointed in the exhibition itself, for my taste they relied a little too heavily on etchings and did not make their argument about the development of British Landscape Painting very clearly.   On the other hand there were some very fine paintings on display, and everything was from the RA's own collection.   I have been in the habit of going to exhibitions for a few years now, and have built up a special affection for the RA and this is the first exhibition I have been to where I have felt at all disappointed, so overall I don't think I can complain.

After the exhibition I wandered up Regents Street window shopping, but saw nothing that grabbed my attention so I made my way home and got back with plenty of time before my rehearsal.

Meg has been writing recently about the euphoria of dressing and wondering if she will ever lose that.   I have found that the fear has gone, and with that maybe some of the excitement.   Now I find that I am enjoying a comfortable experience, yes there is a certain euphoria, but not over riding, there is still a joy, but what highlights this even more to me is the down when I get changed back into drab, it always makes me sad, I just want the girl time to continue.

Meanwhile in other news

• I have a support group meeting tomorow night that I want to attend, I have had a couple of e-mails from other members and it sounds like there are quite a few decisions that will have to be made.
• I still can't manage to get photos uploaded onto Blogger.
• I have been asked to play in a concert ~ as Paula ~ first rehearsal on Sunday evening.
• I am wearing trousers, leggings and low or flat heels partly so I don't have to shave for a while, and partly to test whether the attraction is the dress or the femininity ~ i.e. do I still enjoy my femininity when I am expressing it with jeans and a sweater or is it that high heels and a short skirt turm me on?.
• I have made a fresh appointment with Relate for us, I hope that things will continue to improve, but worry that I am over commited to too many things outside the family.

A Good Day pt I

Yesterday (Wednesday) was a good day, the visit to my hairdresser was very nice, I like what she has done with my hair it gives me the confidence to go out without wearing a wig, I don't know how long I will be able to  keep doing this as my hairline continues to travel in reverse, so I want to make the most of it while I can.   We also began to get to know each other a little better, finding that we both have teenage daughters and are both musicians.   I also found out that they have at least one other customer like me, presumably a local but not a member of our little group in Croydon.   This reassures me in my assertion that there are a lot more of us around than most people seem to think, I am probably more unusual in I playing the Tuba or that I used to be a front row forward than for being a cross dresser, but I suspect I know which would get more attention in the Pub.

I am often surprised by how readily I am accepted, certainly while I am paying people for their services it is in their interests to accept our money, but I have found the vast majority of people I have come into contact with accepting and understanding, and many sympathetic.   Of course it is rarely commented on, after all we are English and that would not be polite.

Anyway I liked the haircut and had the confidence to go out without a wig, as far as I am concerned this is a big plus on comfort while a relatively small diminishing in any anonymity that a wig may give me.   I suspect I am quite recognisable to anyone who knows me and looks either way.   I had time to pop home and repair my rather poorly done nails before setting off to get the train up to town.

Ludite? Rambling?

In the light of my current computer problems, it is interesting that I started writing this post back before Christmas;~

I live in a state of constant amazement, my wife and daughter have facebook permanently on their phones (I have just found out that mine has a camera!), although I do use a computer other than my blogs they are primarily a business tool that I use for accounts and word processing, I just "Don't Get" Facebook and all that social media stuff.    So it was quite something for me to go on Google plus, I did it almost by accident so I could keep up with my Tasmanian friend.   I found I was soon invited to join a "Trans" group within days of it starting there are now nearly 200 members, I am also a member of one on line discussion group with 1633 members.   I know there are other fora, the Internet seems to be  wonderful place for people to come out, without actually coming out.   They can admit to who and what they are, their inclinations and maybe some of their fantasies without actually revealing their true identity.   In a way we are all like Batman (or if you prefer Wonder Woman) having a colorful exciting side and then the drab alter ego.

I often hear it bandied about that one in a hundred men cross dress to some extent, then there are all these people on line, so maybe that figure is right, but then where are they all hiding?   The other day I was at a band festival, where there must have been around three hundred men, does that mean that there were another couple of blokes wearing panties or tights under their trousers?   Then of course we would never know.

I have also just come across this article on Diana's little Corner of the Nutmeg State, very interesting for those of us of faith who have felt unable to reveal ourselves or unloved by the Church.

By the way two more things I now find I can't upload photos onto blogger and my osteopath has rescheduled for next week.

A busy day ahead

Looking back at what I planned, or maybe aspired to, this year I have got off to something of a running start.   I have not had a proper Paula day since my wife put her foot down.   We have cleared the air a lot since then, she has given a little leeway and I have restricted my "activities".   So tomorrow I will be having quite a busy day, I will be starting out having a hair cut, it has got quite long and a bit "shaggy" but I am now of the opinion that I can get away without a wig.   I find this a lot more comfortable, after all it is much more natural, nearly all the time I am wearing a wig I am self conscious as to how it is sitting, is any of my own hair showing etc. etc. Anyway I will be going back to Nicola, if she carries on as she started I am sure I will be happy and that it will be money well spent.

Anyway I start with a haircut, the hairdresser has only Paula and that will continue, after that I will be going up to town to the landscape exhibition at the Royal Academy.   It feels like quite a while since I went to an exhibition so I am looking forward to this, it is also a nice chance to spend some time out, look at some of the West End shops and have a nice lunch.   After that I will be dashing back for a visit to the osteopath.

I have still to make the decision about what I will be wearing, I have more or less narrowed my choices down to my nice M & S Trouser suit, a grey panel dress or a slightly shorter mauve panel dress. The final decision will be down to what accessories I can wear, at the moment I limited to trousers or opaque tights.   One of the "activities" I have had to curb is shaving, at this time of the year that should not have too big an impact as long as I wear high necks and trousers or thick tights, it will seem a bit strange stripping off for the Osteopath and being hairy again.   I am sure he is far to nice and polite to comment but I am sure it will not go unnoticed, I have decided however that at the moment I have more than enough to worry about and will therefore choose not to worry about this.   Then at the end of the day I have a band rehearsal, the first since Christmas and it coincides with S's birthday.  

All in all I am packing a lot into a single day, but I feel I am better just taking the one day off work and filling it rather than falling into the trap of tacking several bits, and then finding I have missed a lot more productive hours.   With all that going on I doubt I will have much of a chance to post tomorrow.

Progress with the computer ~ limited I may have lost so much data and what I can access is a newer version of Office arghhh it's just all such a pain!

I love Microsoft

Well I thought I had my computer problems cracked, but it was not to be, straight after my last post the computer shut down and simply would not start up again.   I am now told by the manufacturers help line that it will have to go back to them for repairs, but first I need to find the purchase details to show that it is still under guarantee.   I am only back on line now as I have retrieved my previous laptop and am using that until the new one is sorted.

So other than my computer problems I have spent the weekend in Cardiff, as well as some quality time with my Mum I also managed to get a little Paula time on the journeys.   On the way home I had a bit of an odd encounter. I stopped at a services  for a coffee, sat at a table reading I was joined by a very attractive young lady who seemed very interested in having a chat.   From what she told me I understood that she was in the throws of breaking up with the boyfriend, who was with her, from this I suspected that for her I was a bit of protection, and maybe a distraction.   I also got the impression that she was much more interested in herself than others, certainly she was more interested in her questions than my answers, but maybe that was just down to her current situation.

What ever, it was quite pleasant for me to have some (very attractive) company while I drank my latte and the chance to have some conversation, after all lets face it it's not everyday that a young attractive woman comes up to my table and asks if I mind her joining me.

I hope that I will be able to get back to normal soon, but in the mean time I am remembering why I prefer Windows XP to Windows 7, the main trouble I anticipate is that a lot of what I have done recently has been on Office and of course I won't be able to open new office documents on Office 2000...... but then where would we be without the joys of Microsoft?

PANIC

I have been in a blind funk for the last couple of days, my computer died! I have ye to work out the whys and wherefores but the outcome is that the machine would simply not load windows.   In the end apparently the only solution was to revert to factory settings, which of course meant losing all my data, photos, invoices, work the lot!

I have just managed too get windows working and to go on line so more will follow, a few things have been raised which need responding to and I have a few things to share, but first I need to sort out my files reclaim what I can and try to sort things out; so if I am quite for a couple of days, this is one of the reasons, the other I am going down to Cardiff for the weekend tomorrow, and Mum has no Internet.

But as Arnie says "I'll be back!"

Leading the way

In the UK we don't have a tradition of cheer leading in the same way that they have in the USA, on the whole I think that is probably a good thing.   It seems to me to be anther area where gender stereotypes are imposed.   At a time where sports, music, and so many other activities are becoming more and more open to either gender it seems silly to have any bastions of sexism embraced by schools of all institutions.

I found this picture on newmalefashion as far as I ca tell from the photo there are both male and female cheerleaders here, all in the same uniform.   I can imagine that some parents and fellow students might not be overjoyed by this, but I think it looks like they are having fun.

Labels

It is a popular mantra in the "Trans Community" that we reject the labels that society tries to put on us.   I often hear (or more accurately read) rejections of the "gender binary" I have indeed on occasion found myself spouting some of the usual stuff about releasing the inner girl, about how I am more than a cross dresser, that I am both male and female, that I am trying to express my femininity, at the moment my considered, and professional opinion is that all of this is something that when matured would be very good for the roses.

Anyway, what actually prompted this post was looking at the list of "labels" on the side bar of this blog, I have them arranged in order of the most at the top running down the less used, at the top I have "Clothes", "Going Out" and then "Family", these are followed by "Work" "Shopping" and various other things.   This may be a reflection of how the blog started, i.e. specifically about my exploration of my cross dressing, but I also fear that it may be a reflection of the priorities I have had over that same period.   If this is true then the most worrying factor is that "Marriage" comes in 28th position, after such important things as "Bras" "Under Dressing" and "Make Up"   In my defence I have tried to make this blog slightly frivolous and have tended to avoid a lot of the heavy issues in life, but for someone who regularly states that marriage is very important to me it seems that I don't write about it very often.   As Penny says "Marriage maintenance sounds like a very sound thing to invest time in" and as I have said that is something I am determined to do.

You may tell that there has been a fair bit of navel gazing going on at "chez Gee", I am not often given to introspection, maybe because I don't always like what I see.