All You Can Be, Getting Started

This is the third time I have started to write this post. As you can imagine that means there is some angst on my part in creating it. I originally thought I would tease you for days about things. You know queue up a bunch of posts in a long narrative. Dribble it out over painful days of agony. And then feed you boring detail by detail. Why did I stop? Because of a magazine that appeared in my packet at be all.

Now mind you this magazine, that I think was called the Mirror or something, was focused on crossdressers. Which in my mind is what I do now when in boy mode. So it was not really my cup of tea. And when I saw full page articles about going on a shopping trip or dinner I realized that this is kind of the mundane, day to day stuff that as a woman I should just be used to. And of course due to my present condition, I am not. So I am going to try and only lift highlights of things from my ten days away. I probably will break up the posts into bite size chunks and will hopefully not bore you to death in the process.

Lets start with some background just in case you had not read my previous posts (gee just like the beginning of an episode of your fav TV show). Months ago I decided that I needed full immersion, "soak time", for me. I needed to know if I really preferred to live my life as a woman. Or at a minimum, get a reasonable taste of it so that I might decide to do more. My first toe in the pool was the very safe cocoon of the Keystone Conference. 3+ days as me, morning noon and night. It worked so I upped the ante and signed up for Be-All which would be five days. But that was not going to do, my friend Jody, who is FT, asked me to come visit, and so that added another five days for a total of ten. Ok, you all caught up now? Good.

So I fly in boy mode, no need to tempt the TSA assholes. But the only boy clothes with me are the ones I am wearing, this is on purpose. Oddly enough not to force me to wear the right clothes which is what you might think, it was more over I had no need for them, that is a very subtle point. I did not want to trade the weight and space I needed for the girl clothes for anything boy. Make sense? Anyhow lets talk about packing. As a girl, I am horrific. I really do need to figure out the minimum set of things to bring next time. But on the other hand I was totally ready for any situation and was able to have the right outfit, and shoes for each occasion I was presented with. I am thinking that I did not stress once about having the right thing on. So maybe it was worth it.

Anyhow, blah, blah, blah (my version of yada, yada, yada). Lets talk about the nail salon. My first stop out there in the real world after girling up. Nice place, did my research, nothing fancy, but was suggested by a local as T-friendly. They treated me like a lady, did my pedi, put on a french set of gels and waxed the eyebrows (a first for me). And sent me on my way. So what is the big deal you are asking? Well on my way out of town 10 days later I went back there to get the nails off. In boy mode, as I was on the way to the airport. The girl there is different this time. And she asks me a lot of questions, I tell her the truth. And show her some pix of the real me in my phone. She oohs and ahs and then one of the guys who works there peers over her shoulder. He looks at the phone, and back at me, and then the phone again and his eyes go wide. He says, OMG I remember you! And then it comes, the gem. "We had no idea, we thought you were a woman!". I beam. I passed at the nail salon. I told him, I am, this is just my travel disguise.

Ok that is kind of what I want to touch on on this post. Passing. Now I know that I am imperfect. That there is still some guy left in there. But I have worked on passing. Not because I am obsessed with it, I know some girls are. But because I want the freedom to go where I want, when I want, safely. And I want to be treated as a woman. In my ten days, I know there were people not in "the community" who either knew or suspected by association (I am a transwoman's friend) that I was trans, and every one of them was totally cool with me. I did go on my own to places, and in every case was treated totally as a woman. The nail salon story answers some questions for me. Namely, I can pass, and do so under some close up scrutiny. Not for a moment do I think I always do. I am after all still a 6ft tall 220lb broad. But for the general public, I pass. Cool.

So what of the trip. Well I am going to do a post on my Wisconsin journey. That one is close to done. Maybe I will post that in a few days. But for now, lets talk Be-All. After all it is the real reason you are probably reading this. To get a sense of how things went for me the pictures tell a lot of the story. So feel free to follow by clicking on the photos to the right, they will take you to my Flickr site.

So I arrived enfemme. Having spent the previous five days in Wisconsin. A first for me, I checked into the hotel as a girl. Of course lots of girls were arriving this way so it was not a big deal. One thing I have noticed, Spiro is making me ever so slightly weaker. The suitcases that I seemed to move so effortlessly last year seem a bit heavier. Mind you I have only been on this since Feb, but I can already feel it. And I have a mixed feeling about that. Meaning I am thrilled that it is working, and at the same time I am starting to understand that there will be physical limitations for me in the future. And that at some point I may become more dependent on others to help me do things. This is going to be interesting because I have always been kind of self sufficient on most things. On the other hand I have found that as a woman I am more willing to ask for assistance. Especially if he or she is cute. Oops, I digress.

Anyhow, I go to the hospitality suite. It is a party of sorts. There are of course all sorts of girls present, CD, fetishists, transwomen, natal women (I kind of don't like using the the term GG anymore, even though I still do for short hand, it is understood by all, as opposed to the obscure cisgendered which seems like contrived bullshit). All in various states of acceptable presentation, from outrageous to totally passable. Nobody cares, everybody is there to have fun. And of course, the booze is flowing freely. This is a nice feature, basically it is our own ladies pub. No pressure, and way to meet folks.

I am humored as I take the elevator up to the room, there is a girl waiting there. I say hi, she says where you from, I say Baltimore. She looks me up and down, you look like Baltimore, I have been there. I am wearing this. So apparently this is approval from her. That makes me feel good too.

The next day I pop out in a nice outfit and go and register. I still know nobody here and my friend Jackie will not show until Wednesday evening. Now lets talk about her for a moment. Jackie is somebody that I met online in Second Life, come to think of it I met Jody there too. I have managed to convince her to come to Be All and be herself, and frankly for the first time in a public place. I realize I have just been promoted to Big Sister status but so be it, she needs and wants my encouragement and I care about her so lets bring it on.

So there is not a lot to do on Wednesday so I go shopping. First at the shops in the Atrium that have been set up for the conference and then at a mall. Outside the hotel. I figure what the hell, if I pass it will be a great experience, if I do not then, that will be useful too. In the atrium shops I meet Kathy who is running the Tall Girl shop. She insists I am a size smaller than I really am but gets me to try on some things that are cute, but not quite right for me. Including a copy of the "pretty woman" polka dot dress. I tell her a bit about me which leads her to give me Greer's card and she mentions Erica who is her sidekick. This is fortunate as those two become my party buddies for the duration. I do not buy from Kathy, not because I do not want to but just becuase things do not fit exactly right for me, and I am a fussy broad. So off the the public mall.

So I pick a mall not on the "approved" Be-All list. Not because I want to test something but because I want to hit one that has both Coldwater Creek and Lane Bryant! So I go. I will not belabor you with the details, but lets just say, I am not sure they knew anything about me at either store. I interacted with salespeople and other customers, one customer even zipped me up in the dressing room as a salesclerk was not around. Another one while reaching for the same item as me says, I saw you go for this one and I just had to too. I am pretty sure I was passing again. And the thing I have discovered most about this, is freedom. As a girl I can browse, hold things up, ask others what they think. And there is something else that is amazing...

There is a culture of women. The world is different. They are more social, they talk to each other, they smile a lot (I do now too). They are civil, and friendly. It is like I have joined some magic club. And I am being treated as a peer. And I am loving it. And between the two stores and $800 later I have bags filled with new lovely things.

Of course Jackie shows up at the hotel while I am in the dressing room at the mall so I have to get my stuff rung up and back to the hotel as she needs to be let in, and of course needs a guide, so off to my labor of love. I greet her, we embrace, she is in boy mode, in the parking lot. We meet in person for the first time. I am the soccer mom giving her a hug. I hope she feels I am ok. I am older than her by more than a dozen years. She is shy and cute and has this kind of "aw shucks" almost southern demeanor, and boy is that girl thin.

We get her moved into the room and situated and I tell her we need to again go to the hospitality suite, she gets ready and for the first time in her life, steps out the door. I am so proud of her. She is a real trooper. And hanging with the likes of me, who as recently as January had the very same experience albiet on my own, reminded me of how far I have come in a very short time. The party is on, we nibble on the bits that are there and drink a fair amount, I help her navigate the who's who and we pick at who is TS or not etc etc. I worry about becoming "catty" in this process, it is not a good thing. After all of that we retire to the room and chat at length, we talk about what to wear the rest of the week, I show her my nice new outfits and we plan what seminars we want to go to and so on. It is a good day...

I am thinking this post is starting to get long. So I am going to start breaking the bits up. I might jump back a few days and talk about Wisconsin next. And then I will bring you back for a couple more posts on Be All. In the meantime you can know this. In the last ten days I have never felt more alive in my whole life. I now know for certain this is my path, not that I had a doubt. And if you look at the pix, you will see why. I do not think I have ever been happier or had more fun.

Stay tuned...

In our next episodes, Sharon does the hot tub, plays Bass in a Band, Gets her "girl on" at a club, talks to every presentor with MD or DO in thier title, and glams up for the gala...