First things first. I apologize for not posting in about a month, I generally try to post every two weeks or so and I missed it this time around. To be fair things have been pretty busy with work, Halloween and my 90 year old aunt breaking her pelvis. I haven't even had time to visit her more than once in the last month. But enough about my busy life on to the blogging.
Lets talk about Halloween first. I'm sorry to say it was actually a little disappointing. I did get to dress up but I caught a chest cold the Tuesday before Halloween. I managed to get better within a few days, no runny nose or anything like that but my girlfriend got sick that Friday. She missed work and she had it a lot worse than me. She went to work on Friday but was in bed all weekend and Monday she called in sick. That meant we didn't get to go out dressed like I had hoped. She stayed in bed and I went out to a bar for about an hour but it just isn't very fun unless you know people. I got a number of funny looks, had a few drinks and left. I hope the wedding has no sickness within 100 miles of it.
But that being done with I can say I am less than one year from the wedding. At a milestone such as that I will make a quick comment about my weight. With running longer distances and being I actually hit 188 pounds while wearing my running clothes. Thats two pounds below my goal of 190. I decided I needed to eat something because I was losing weight too quickly. So now I settled in at about 196 with clothes on for the past week or so. 190 is easily in my reach, I just need to keep it off after the half marathon and through the initial dress fittings.
My last comment about Halloween is not very many people signed up for the chat. Actually only one but I would like to thank them for a nice chat. I hope their dressing up is as fun as they hope it will be.
Let's discuss progress towards the wedding. This has a Halloween element to it but only because I was testing the process for next year and I did it this year. Face waxing. First off it hurts, but so does body waxing. The bad news is I don't think I had a very experienced person. She started on my face and after a few pulls she wanted to call it quits. There was a little blood and she wanted to make sure I didn't scar or break out. I appreciate the fact she had my best interest at heart but the whole face waxing thing was a fiasco. I didn't get my face waxed, everything was fine the next day and I still don't know if it is a viable option. The little bit that did get waxed looked good and I needed to keep shaving the rest of my face since that part wasn't growing back at the same rate. I am still looking for someone locally to do my test run.
The body waxing and gel nails went off without a hitch and my manicurist brought up an interesting option. She commented she was willing to give me the manicure before the wedding, as in get them done locally, then fly with long pretty nails to Las Vegas. I'm not sure if Kris or I are comfortable with this but it is an option. I really like my manicurist, she does great work.
During my girlfriends illness, I tried to take care of her and since it was my dress up weekend I did most of the cooking and watching TV with her while I was dressed. I noticed what appeared to be a sliding scale of how she felt while I was dressed. This is really only the third time I have dressed up around her. Prior to the dressing weekend I would describe her as embracing the fact that I would dress, that's when she had suggested the wedding in Las Vegas and she has bought me things like makeup brushes and suggested we look for clothes together. I took her up on her offer and the level seemed to fall to just supportive as we bought some makeup and went clothes shopping. When I was actually dressed it bounced between supportive and accepting and when she was in bed for a few days it seemed to drop to just tolerating. I wasn't sure if this was due to her illness or if there was something else. I decided we needed to have a talk about her level of acceptance since I don't want it to be an issue during the wedding.
As we talked it seems there are a couple of things that have surprised her along the way. Number one - the blog. She said he wasn't really aware of it until I mentioned it it passing one day. We discussed this and she has come to terms with the fact that I don't really have anyone to talk to about dressing and this is a way to express my joy and share with other people. She is a very private person and I assured her I don't post our address a or pictures of her. Secondly, she was surprised about the business cards. She really doesn't want a bunch of random people coming up and taking our picture and posting it all over the Internet. I told her I wouldn't try to draw too much attention but the last time I was dressed in Las Vegas I had someone want to take a picture with me in the taxi line. If we start to draw too much attention we will just move on. We will try to monitor this together. None of this really explained the tolerating feel she seemed to have though but she did assure me that we were still on for the wedding, we just needed to communicate more.
Finally she explained the problem she had with my dressing and it has to do with the "sisterhood". Men created nylons and demand women have perfect figures and have to wear towering high heels. No woman in her right mind would want to wear a garter belt, they want to be comfortable. I have to disagree with her here, at least a little. Maybe men are the reason behind the garter belt conspiracy but I find it hard to believe women don't play some role in keeping Victoria's Secret afloat.
She argues that as little girls, girls actually love to wear pink and bows and pretty lace dresses but they have the time to grow out of that phase. Crossdressers never really had the daily chance to wear these things and tire of them. Maybe she has a point here but, to borrow a phrase form Popeye, I am what I am. I like to wear garter belts and stockings and I will be wearing those things under my wedding dress. She agrees it is her issue and not mine, so we'll see what comes of it. All said and done, the wedding is still on. YEAH!!!!!
Normally I'd end here but I feel like I owe you something for no writing recently so I'm going to tell you about a friend of mine. Chrissy, we'll call her to protect the innocent, Chrissy is a devout catholic and the thought of coming out about my crossdressing to her seems like a bad idea. Of all my friends I think she might be the most judgmental about it. Don't get me wrong, she is an awesome friend, I think her background may make her predisposed however. So she doesn't know about my hobby.
Chrissy is from a big city out east and doesn't have a problem expressing her opinions. Because of this I also think she has a latent dominant side and often makes jokes about feminizing. I'm not rally sure how to take this. The first Halloween crossdressing experience of 2006 she was the one who shouted "Yes!" at the suggestion I should go to Halloween dressed as a bride. She has also suggested I dress up as a showgirl for the Las Vegas marathon. We were discussing costumes and she may have thought back to the wedding dress but dressing in drag comes up occasionally. Finally last week we had dinner together, Chrissy, her husband, me and my girlfriend. They are the only couple that know we are getting married in April and we use them as a sounding board for inviting other people out to Vegas for that wedding. She was working really hard on getting my girlfriend to propose to me on New Years Eve. To the point of fixing the White Elephant gift exchange so Kris goes last and can present me with a ring-pop engagement ring. It just seems a little funny is all.
Anyways, I'm done for now and hope to post again just before I head out to Vegas.
At one point in my dating life, I had a girlfriend who knew and accepted my crossdressing. It took her a while to come to terms with that, and what seemed to work best was to stay open to commuication and understand and try to accept their discomfort without getting defensive. As I dressed more and more in her prescence, it became routine and a point of shared experience and intimacy. Everyone's different of course, but don't lose hope.
ReplyDeleteWhat also seemed to help a bit was to seek her opionion and take her advice on fashion choices. It helped when I dressed less fetishy and more in style like a regular women. She appreciated my love of the feminine and the girly so that helped as well. It was easy not to wear PVC, but I was not going to give up lace and ruffles.