Hi,
I’m not quite sure why, but I just feel knackered. I’m not sure if it’s been a case of doing too much, lack of lunch naps, and/or the annoyance of late night ‘busy brain’. The latter being I put my head on the pillow, start to daydream (nightdream?), and my mind floods with thoughts and ideas. No brain, they’re day thoughts, now it’s sleepy time. 😴
Luckily it’s Friday off for me, so a chance to sort the household chores and take it easy before the school run….
…. Ah, and call an emergency plumber ‘cos the upstairs heater has popped its clogs and decided to leak through the kitchen roof. Still, the heater has been in sixteen years, so I think we’ve had our money’s worth! 🙂 On the bright side, it only started playing up after lunch and not on holiday. Crikey, imagine the horror of opening your front door and it’s surf’s up! 🏄♂️
Nerdery
Labelled this so you can skip if geekery is not your bag. 🤓
No news on assisting the trans wizard in Skyrim. I’m still rebuilding my mod list and having hit a brick wall with one modification loader, I’ve jumped ship to the community choice – and open source – Mod Organiser 2. Yes, it was a learning curve, but I think I see why folk say you’ll not want to go back to the other software. One of those funny things where the other software wasn’t bad, it’s just this one has certain features that really help.
Note to me: if you’re starting to need to use ITIL Change Management on your gaming build, A) take it steady, and B) have a word with yourself 😉
I was wondering about getting a Raspberry Pi and setting up a home VPN again. That was useful for keeping an eye on the hounds via IP cameras, and for secure browsing. By luck, I stumbled on a Pi build that runs on PC hardware, so that’s currently installing on a decade old netbook. This will cost nothing to try and unlike the Pi, the old netbook has a screen attached, so easy to check on.
Shopping
Some of you will know that my go to shops are New Look for shoes, and Joe Browns or Roman for clothes. After last month’s tidy up and passing on of items, I had room to take stock and see what I might like for summer.
Roman can be quite persistent with their offer emails, but despite 10% off new stuff, and 15% off the sales; nothing really made me want to buy what was on my wishlist. Then with a 20% off voucher late on Sunday, I bought a turquoise skirt and a blue & white summer dress. Depending on my leg confidence and outcome of The Conversation Yet To Be Had, I may be teaming that with leggings.
The Conversation
Which brings me round to the usual topics of YATGB, mental health and body issues.
Maybe I should get AI to write this? Ah, but then you’d notice by the lack of spelling mistakes and it would probably make more sense 😉
The good news is that my anxiety seems to be on the wain at the mo. The brighter weather and my legs & arms as I would like them, are helping me feel content, if not indeed happy. Well, as much as a tired, tubby 50 year old, balding bloke can be about their body 😉
Thinking back to some well observed wisdom from Andie (thanks Mrs 🩷), it seems there’s a regular pattern to summer for me. I ‘re-Wookie’ from April and by August, the discomfort grows to dislike, dislike to, well – and I feel melodramatic for writing this, but honestly…? despair. If not that, certainly a rather nasty run in with dysphoria. If I look back, that pattern has been running since 2019.
2019? Jeez. That’s a long time and too many repeats of unpleasantness. Particularly as it seems to cast a long shadow into the autumn. Maybe it’s time to put my Big Girl Pants on and be honest about my needs. Gah, I feel awful just writing that.
So, I happened to read an article by a psychologist and they mentioned the idea of the Empty Chair. I’d not heard of this and it seems the idea is, you imagine the person you want to talk to is in the chair, and you speak your thoughts to them.
I think…. and I don’t like either/or binaries… I think the way to approach it is how having my body as it is, how that’s helping, and I want to see how that pans out over summer. Equally, I’m feeling nervous that week other people judge me in bloke mode?
Being trans eh? 🙄😁
Night Out
Shall we have some positive news? 🙂 I made myself go on Thursday, knowing that if I made the effort, it would help push back against the tiredness. Seeing friends at the group raises my spirits. That and if I snub the opportunity to be in Lynn mode, I worry I’ll be chewing the woodwork before the next meeting.
Hang on. Didn’t I say this was supposed to be good news? Whoops! 🙂
So, I was very glad I went. I felt my mood start to shift as Izzy appeared, Pat arrived, and as I finished putting my lippy on. 💋
The evening was very busy. So much so that we had to find extra chairs. Given the number of people there, folk had huddled into smaller pods to talk, which I think is more inclusive. It took me a while to get round with the card machine as well. Still, it all helps keep the group going. Talking of which, we may be getting a visit from our favourite wig experts next time.
We had some new visitors: some from long ago and some completely new. Hello to Kay who made the trip down from the North East. I hope you enjoyed the stop over in Nottingham and the visit to the group as well.
Steph popped in after a gap of many years and seems in a much better place now she’s transitioned. Jo (looking fabulously mustard & coco) had found a gap in her shifts to come along and the usual suspects of Debbie, Val (loved the dress, BTW!), Pat, Diane, Izzy, Anne, et al were holding up the Old Guard representation, and welcoming new folk.
I did managed to try my new skirt, which was both a good colour and fit. Buuuut you won’t see that in the photos. My waxing appointment is not until next week, and I felt a bit yuk at seeing a few dark hairs near my knees. Highly self critical standards? Never heard of them 😉 So, back to emergency outfit: leggings, boots, and my cat tunic.
The evening went well, I thought. We did have a slight issue at the end, where a member’s taxi ride home was cancelled, leaving then stuck in the carpark. One of our number was waiting with them, but I was concerned that if there was no taxi coming, they’d be stuck. Given the dark night, personal safety, and mobility issues, I felt it was the right thing to do, to offer them a lift back. Plus, my car was the only one with space to fit the walker, so that was that.
Sometimes, I think you have to help look after your own, and maybe that offer of help has brightened their day.
L x
The good news is that sometime in your 50s you do start to not Give a F* what other people might think. The better news is that mostly they they don’t either, and then you wonder what you were worried about all that time you were desperately trying to cover up and pretending to be someone you weren’t.
(Of course you can then always beat yourself up about wasted time and opportunities, but that’s probably not a way to go either.)
I take it the Conversation To Be Had involves wookiness, or lack thereof, during the summer. I avoid that by the simple expedient of always wearing long trews in boy mode, mostly on the grounds that nobody needs to see my knees, especially me. (I do get grief about hairs in the bath, though, so need to be more careful about cleaning up after.) I probably asked this before, but if you can get nude tights, can you not also get hairy tights to disguise the denuded pins underneath? And if not, is there a gap in the market for FtM CDers who want want to display a little more lower limb hirsuteness? (Probably a fairy small and limited market though)
The cat top is wonderful. Glad to hear you had a good night.
Thank you, Susie. That’s really helpful advice. Yes, ‘The Conversation’ is about denuded pins. Apologies for the confusion.
I agree I shouldn’t give a stuff to what folk think, if I did that, I guess if not get anything done or go anywhere; and I’m not talking about trans related stuff at this point.
I guess my worry, and to call on your point about hairs in the bath*, is the reflection of skewed looks and whatnot, to when I’m with Mrs J, bless her. Something I think I’ll have to work through.
( No brain, not hares in the bath, we don’t need that distraction right now 🙂 ).
As to tights, yes, there was an article about them. Just for fun, I think I’d want ether a roll on system or application method, where the hairs where in the right direction. Of course, if the glue is water soluble, what happens if you go in the sea or get caught in the rain? 🙂 Maybe I should just draw then back on with a Biro 😁
PS: Thank you for the kind comments about the tunic, and my apologies in that I am behind in replying to your email.
Yay for the Chams visit helping lift moods!
Most people, from my experience back in the day, assume men with hairless pins are merely being cyclists in their spare time. I think it is unique to those under the trans* umbrella to worry about what having hairless (or hairy) pins might mean to observers. As with most things that suggest deviations from gender norms and binaries: the vast majority of observers don’t even notice, much less care, these days. YMMV and I am aware that it was not always so.
Yay, yay, and quite possibly, thrice nay! 😉
A good call on the cycling angle. I mean, I am a gent (outwardly) of middling years, so perhaps a midlife sports themed crisis is, in fact, very good cover 😉
Talking of a midlife crisis, I’m a bit stumped, given I’ve had long hair, earrings, tattoos, and a number of motorbikes in my earlier years. 😉 Maybe I’ll just settle with a nap and reinstalling my Linux VPN 😁 #GeekWins
If causing noticeable health issues I think you should maybe de-wookie over the summer months. Another option could be to use adjustable hair clippers to keep length shortish. A halfway house, it likely keep dysphoria in check for year or 2, possibly. I kept hair like this and got 1 comment “have you been shaving your legs”, I said “yeah and look at my arms, they’re completely bald”, “oh” and the conversation moves on. Had Laser on face, no one cares. Wear overtly female clothes or wear makeup, different story. Takeaway is no one cares that much about hair removal, people process things weirdly, it’s the act of impersonating a woman as they see it that they can’t handle, not transitional acts in themselves. The human brain is complex.
Beard clippers I mean
Thanks Sally. Luckily, my arm hair is next to nothing, so not a big difference when it goes. Things to be grateful for. It shows up because I’m so pale 🙂
I think I’ll need to approach this carefully and see how I go. I don’t fancy a repeat of last August and the one before.
Nice outfit. The long cats, long boots and long legs make you look very slender.
Most men won’t notice whether you’ve got leg hair or not. Men aren’t especially in to noticing stuff like that. As one rugby-playing trans friend of mine found in the rugby club changing rooms, that no-one noticed until she came out later and actually had to alert her gormless audience to the fact that she had been hairless and moisturised for months! My excuse is that too much hair provokes eczema. Given my medical history, that’s not unbelievable. So have a vaguely plausible excuse if ever questioned and, if it’s medical, then that may win you sympathy. But Mrs J is the only person who matters in this equation.
Good luck with the heater and may your worries diminish.
Sue x
That’s very kind of you to say, Sue. The boots were a last minute swap, as I was going to go with some biker style ones. Comfy as they are, the others seemed to go a bit more with the leggings. Perhaps that’s the monoblock effect a la nude tights and a matching heel.
Talking of medical, I hope your eczema is under control at the mo. 🩷 That reminds me, about right years ago, the hair on the outside of my legs disappeared.. This was before any waxing or epilation; it just seemed to stop.
I looked it up online and there’s a thing called Anterolateral Leg Alopecia. When I visited family, someone pointed out “have you been shaving your legs? Hur Hur hur” which, at the time,I hadn’t. I pointed out the alopecia thing and there was an ‘oh, I didn’t know that’ and conversation moved on. I just need that hair loss to spread around my calves and to the end of my ankles 😁
All that aside, you’re right about Mrs J in this balancing act. It’s not about permission, I think, but more… not embarrassing or upsetting her.
The cat tunic is fabulous, it’s nice to have something comfy to fall back to when you need it.
Was great to see so many at the meeting, yourself included, I am not sure I have ever seen so many people in the room, strange how it waxes and wanes so much.
Sorry to hear of the member getting stuck in the car park, hope you didn’t need to take them too far !
I am not one for shorts much, so the leg hair thing never bothered me much. I do get them out for a run when it get’s warmer, but if you don’t stop they won’t notice 🙂
Shame you can’t get waterproof factor 50 sun cream with hairs in it , you could rub it on and kill two birds with one stone. Probably clog your shower getting it off though. Be good for instant beard for FTM too – fancy a go at Dragons Den 🙂
Izzy
Would a light dusting of ground peach kernels, water soluble glue, and biodegradable faux hair, do the trick for fake stubble? Beard or legs: dealer’s choice! 🙂 If we could get sponsorship from a plumbing firm, we could retire! 😁
Thanks for the kind words about the tunic. It’s an old one from Joe Browns and if you look passed there mid calf dresses, there’s a few quirky numbers in their collection.
Yes, it was surprisingly busy, but good to see folk socialising and getting chance to be themselves. Oh, and while the taxi thing was a pain for the attendee, it wasn’t far out of my way, so that’s a positive. Luckily it wasn’t outside the city, otherwise that would have been a lot more difficult. Still, emergency needs eh?
Add me to the list of people loving that cat tunic. I looks good on you!
Energy is a tough one. I tend to find I feel lethargic if I haven’t seen my friends for a while. But then that lethargy and lack of energy makes it harder to organise going otut and seeing them 🙁
Quirky is as quirky does 🙂 and thanks for the kind words. Sometimes you fall on an item that becomes a firm favourite.
Sorry to hear about the energy struggles. I hope you can find the right balance that works for you 🩷