Brick Wall

I have not posted in a while.  There is nothing exactly new in my gender journey as the shelter at home orders have taken my Tanya time down to zero.  I'm not exactly out to my family.  My wife knows about this side of me and our agreement is that I can keep my stash out of site and dress when she and the kids are not around.  So, yeah, they are around 24 x 7.

Now do not get me wrong, I completely love my family and we are having a mostly lovely time just hanging out with the four of us.  Mostly?  I have two kiddos under the age of 10, so yeah "mostly" applies here.  And I would not trade my family's health for anything; yes anything.

Other than the family being home all the time, my life has not really changed.  I worked from home full-time prior to this COVID-19 stuff and I have very few hobbies outside of the home.  So honestly, this mostly not all the different for me.

I am missing three major things during this COVID-19 brick wall: 1) Dressing, 2) Shopping, 3) Exploring public times.

Dressing : This one is pretty obvious, I have had zero time for dressing in the past seven weeks.  I miss it; clearly.  I've known a few soul sisters who will dress late at night when the family is asleep, but I choose not to.  Between little kids and pets, there are too many risks of things going bump in the night to wake someone up, and so I don't want to risk that.  Although my state is looking to loosen things up, I wonder when I'll have the house to myself for a couple of hours at a time.  I look forward to that - A LOT!!!

Shopping : I would often extend a run to the grocery store with a quick trip into Kohl's department store for a pass through the clearance racks.  That's not happening now and who knows when that will be might return.  The other shopping that I love doing is finding deals on Amazon and having them shipped to an Amazon Locker location.  Since I don't have any "free" time to cruise to the lockers, this shopping is shut down.  And to be honest, with the unknown germ factors out in the wild, that feels on the riskier side of life.  Can you imagine having to explain to the Mrs just how I caught this virus - oh I was picking up a package...

Exploring public times : AKA going out into the world DRESSED!  I had been out three times in 2020 already and was building up some confidence and making the baby steps a bit bigger each time.  Again, there is no telling when scheduling will allow me to get back in to this mode.  I am presently up 10 pounds (thank you delicious bagels!) and I need to reverse course on that to make feel better about how I would present anyway.  I had such high hopes for being out in springtime as I could wear chillier weather clothing to cover up a big more for confidence reasons.  Perhaps I'll need to wait until fall as this chick does not have shaved legs to get out and about in shorts.

I remember the first Sunday after the stay at home stuff started and I was attending my church service from my couch.  My mind briefly drifted to wondering how many soul sisters were attending church all dressed up and presenting like they would love to be doing so in person.  I was thinking how lucky they must be!  As an extension of that, if I were single I'd basically be full-time with the shelter at home orders!  I'm sure it's not that simple or enjoyable.  Living alone at such as a time like this must be incredibly lonely.  My heart goes out to the extraverts and single people who are craving connection to friends and family.

One other random thought I've had with regard to going public right now or in the near future is I wonder if a cute face mask would help one pass any better?  If your hair and eyes were spot on, would this be enough to appear more femme than needing the full face exposed?  This is not a well thought out concept, but a thought my brain has returned to a time or two.

I've been keeping myself occupied by posting additional photos on Flickr from previous photoshoots and asking for suggestions from my friends as to what they want to see more of.  This has been fun and given some new life to the photo archives.  The latest thing that I took a stab at is creating my own YouTube channel.  In the past year or so, I took a video or two with each photoshoot to have eyes on how an outfit looks in motion.  It's been eye opening to be honest - I've found more than a couple outfits which I should never wear in public as my gut shows too much.  In a static pose in the just the right position, you can minimize that - but being in motion shows off any flaws.  I'm NOT posting all of the videos I've taken.

Link to my YouTube channel

For a post about nothing much, I see this one has added up.  I hope this post finds you happy, healthy, well supplied and sane!  I pray that you, your friends and loved ones have not gotten sick nor lost their jobs through these times.

A Last Minute Adventure

I've only been out in public a handful of times in feminine mode.  I added to that this week on a whim.  A WHIM!  Long story short, I picked up some items from Amazon Warehouse and hit the drive through at Starbucks.  On the surface, that's small potatoes.  But when you are a cd/tg/ts/gf/etc anytime you step into the world in the role of your other gender it's a party size bag of potato chips!

And now for the longer version...

On Monday I ordered a purse, four pair of shoes and some pantyhose from Amazon.  All but the hose were from Amazon Warehouse.  I knew the stuff would arrive on Wednesday and that I'd run over there Thursday morning when I'd be home alone.  Wednesday afternoon I got the notification that the items had arrived.  At this point, 18 hours before leaving the house, my brain started churning: "Maybe I should go dressed?"

I cycled through a bunch of different options: a) wear women's clothes but present in guy mode (jeans, basic black top, flats) just push the gender line a bit; b) soccer mom wearing yoga pants, pink workout t-shirt and an athletic zipper jacket with keds; or c) just dart over in guymode and make this fast and easy.

I got to thinking about the fact that when I'm out and about in normal guy mode, every so often I get referred to as a female.  It's usually clerks who don't really look up and based on their peripheral vision they assume I'm a woman.  This always makes my heart leap.  But I know, they just didn't actually look at me as once they do they apologize.  But still, if I give off a hint of femininity, that's a step in the right direction.

And then I got to thinking about the positive feedback I get about my appearance on Flickr in pictures where all I do is put on lipstick & women's frame glasses, brush my hair to the side in a feminine way and wear a tasteful outfit.  Sure, I look much much more convincing with my 15-minute makeup hack job, I know that.

With those two thoughts in mind I decided that I have got to do this: go out in full woman mode, don't have ass this.  This is going to be what, 45-minutes round trip?  Do it!

I woke up Thursday morning still convicted to do it.  I brainstormed the outfit to wear and decided to go for my office worker mode.  I showered, shaved, epilated hands (was overdue), got dressed, and did my makeup.  That's the second time this week (and year) for makeup.  COOL.  I only wore makeup 9 times last year.  I want to improve upon that this year.

I reload my starbucks card so I can use the app so that they can just scan my phone.  I didn't want to pay by cash nor give them a card with my guy name on it.  And it's raining out.  I check the radar and it's gonna be coming down harder in a little while.  Nah, that's not going to stop me

I arrive at the Amazon Locker location which is located at a pretty large fuel station (18 pumps?) with big convenience store.  The locker is located outside and on the side of the building.  The parking spots right in front of the locker are full so I have to park one row away - not what I was hoping for.  I am parked with the back of my car toward the building.  Just as I'm opening my door I see that the car between me and the locker has a guy getting out of his car.  I pause and wait for maybe 15 seconds time thinking it will take him that long to walk inside.

And here I go.  As I am walking to the locker I'm thinking two things: 1) I should be done before that guy comes back and 2) I know there are 4 packages, I'll grab two, take them to the car and come back for the other two.  Best laid plans....y'know?

Well, although I have four different locker codes, once I enter one code the Amazon software is nice and helpful and says "oh hey you have 4 packages..." and proceeds to open one locker and when I close it, it opens the next, and so on.  OK, I need to take them all at once.  Fine fine, I'll make that work.  Oh, did I tell you it's raining out?  Not a drizzle, not a downpour.  I'd have liked an umbrella, but for a short burst of time, it won't matter.

Here's the haul of packages!

As I pull out package #2 I realize I just have to stack these on the ground as I cannot pull them out and hold them at the same time.  No worries, pushing forward.  Somewhere about this time I see the black gentle pop out the side door of the convenience store. I just looked back and pushed through my task.  Now that I have all four packages, time to grab the stack and take them to the car.  This is not a small stack of packages, I can manage it, but did I look remotely feminine doing it?  I doubt it.

With the car loaded and I pull away.  As I pull onto the road I think, ok that's enough I don't need to do Starbucks I should get home.  But, nope, I drive right to Starbucks.  Oh I should say, the locker and Starbucks are located 15 minutes from my house.  That is really closer to home that I'd prefer to be out like this, but I just didn't seem to let that stop me.  Next time, I'll go a bit farther away just for a bit more sense of ease.

During my drive I started trying to talk like how I would when I needed to place my order.  I knew I wanted to speak in a higher tone, but I have never practiced that.  Nothing like 10 minutes of a crash course before going live.  I get to the order menu, I place my order.  She asked me like three times if there is anything else that I wanted - No just my Chai Tea Latte.  And then, "And can I get your name for the order?"  I hesitated and finally said Tanya.  She asked me to repeat it.  I said it again and she hesitated and repeated it back to me.  At this point I noticed that above the mic is a camera - I never paid attention to that at drive-thru's before.  Oh well, it's way too late to back out - full ahead.

I pull forward, get my beverage and as I hold my phone out for the gal to scan the code for my starbucks account I notice above the barcode is my guy name.  Ha - that's my husbands name I think in my head.  The girl didn't read it or say anything - just a thanks and have a nice day.  And I'm off.  Well that wasn't a big deal.  Huh, what did I think it would be a big deal?

As I'm waiting at a stoplight I take notice of a woman in a car ahead.  She's checking her makeup in her mirror and fluffing her hair.  Yes!  I've seen that lots.  And without a second thought, I start doing the same.  It was so natural but until that moment, I never felt relaxed enough in my car to just revel in being me.  Normally I'm nervous trying not to look nervous but still looking around to see if anyone is looking my way.  Enough of that kind of thinking - just be me; just be happy; just act like a woman.

The drive home was uneventful as had the entire drive been thus far.  I took a drink of my latte and now the white plastic lid was adorned with my lipstick.  It's these little moments in our feminine life that can bring such joy.  This may have been the best tasting Chai Tea Latte I've ever had.

As I'm nearing home I realize I have one more hurdle.  In order to get packages out of my trunk I need the garage door to up open.  I had planned to put the packages on the passenger seat to avoid this.  But with the gentleman watching I hit the remote trunk release back at the fuel station and chucked the boxes in the trunk.  My neighbors do not know of this side of me.  I try to be careful to not go outside where they can see me.  But it's 10:00am and there is generally not much going on.  Plus it's raining so my walking neighbors should not be out and about.  I have a look down the block as I drive in and see no activity.  So, I unload the car with my feminine self on full display.

Well I did it!  With less than 24 hours I cooked up the idea of going out and I did it!  I push through every obstacle that came my way.  Admittedly, they were small obstacles but I know in the past I'd have let these derail my execution.  I don't know exactly know what made today different.  I do think that the past 6 months of taking pictures outside on the deck has got me past the fear of getting outside the walls of my house.

Modeling new purse and heels

My takeaways from the morning:

• I don't need elaborate planning to get out and about.
• Keep on doing makeup!  It will keep getting better.
• Start practicing my femme voice - pitch and cadence!
• Be ready with my name when asked for take out orders - ha!  And say it with confidence.
• Don't order more than 2 packages from Amazon Warehouse when I'm going to pick up in girl mode!
• Keep paying attention to woman to build my library of mannerisms.
• Get a basic small umbrella for my car.
• Keep practicing using my purse so it becomes more natural.
• Relish every moment I spend out in the world as ME!
• Do this again!!!