About Mascara

Of all the cosmetics I use, I find that mascara is the most problematic. Not so much applying it; most of the time, I get it on without a problem. Rather, I have issues with the product itself.

Mascara is very inconsistent from brand to brand. Some mascaras are too thick, some are too clumpy, and some are just right. And the few that are just right have shelf-life issues, that is, they dry up or go bad (get clumpy) too quickly.

I was glad to see Daily Makeover's recent post "10 Mascaras That Will Not Clump (No Matter What)." Nice thing about the list is that some of the 10 recommendations are not expensive ($10 or less), so a purchase won't put a big dent in your purse.

By the way, I have been an Avon lady for 18 years and have seen a lot of Avon mascara products come and go. I have tried most of them over that time.

Early on in my Avon career, I did not find any Avon mascaras I liked --- I would try them once and swear them off after that initial use.

Things changed for the better and over the last half dozen years or so, I have been very satisfied with Avon mascaras and they are what I use almost all of the time.

But your mileage may vary.

 

 

 

Wearing JustFab.

 

 

 

Rocker Jai Brooks femulates for the Real Girls Eat Cake music video (2014).

Diana Prince Vs. Wonder Woman

I am very tired of maintaining a double identity. Compartmentalizing my life is work; I don't know how many brain cells I use trying to remember who knows what and how much they know. And I feel dishonest about it in a lot of ways. I am out to a lot of people and I have the green flag from my employer to come out at work. But I do not want to upset the applecart at home, so I will soldier on like Clark Kent and Diana Prince.

 

 

 

Marie-Christine Bouvier, a beautiful femulator from Germany.

 

 

 

Wearing Rachel Pally (top), Tibi (skirt),
Loeffler Randall (bag) and Edmundo-Castillo (shoes).

Pinned

I visit Pinterest daily. Its cornucopia of images stimulates my creative side and occasionally it is a source of ideas for this blog. I have my own Boards on Pinterest where I pin images that I find interesting both the images of others and my own images.

Below are some transgender images that caught my eye today.

“ALICE - all boys”

Stilettos

“Boyfriend wearing my dress by theashleymartin on Flickr”

 

 
“Inadvertant Twins by prettysissydani on deviantART”

“My personal trainer, Csilla Javorszki”

 
“Pavel Arambula as a girl”

Working as a Woman

Returning to work on Friday after working as a woman on Thursday was a non-issue.

One co-worker mentioned that there was a woman in my cubicle on Thursday and I retorted that I kicked her out of my cubicle. Ha ha!

Another co-worker commented that I was much taller dressed as a woman. When I explained that I was wearing 4-1/2-inch heels, he said maybe he should start wearing heels, too. (He is by far the shortest male at work.)

Also, I visited the lab technician who did not recognize me on Thursday and she remarked, "Good job."

***

Nice things I noted working as a woman on Thursday:

The ladies' room is much nicer than the men's room. It is cleaner and there is a pleasant air scent in the ladies' room that is lacking in the men's room.

The guys at work treated me as a lady. Do they see a woman and automatically act a certain way? For example, after lunch, I washed my dish and as I was returning to my cubicle, the dish slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor. A young engineer saw me bending down, struggling in my heels trying to pick up the pieces and offered to help me. I gladly accepted his offer. Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt that I would have received the same offer if I was in boy mode.

***

Annoying things I noted working as a woman on Thursday:

Typing at my computer keyboard and using the touch screen of my iPhone with long fingernails takes some getting used to.

Mysteriously, I ran one of my thigh highs. It was no big deal because the run was on the inner side of my leg and did not show, but it was annoying because I have no idea what caused it.

***

Putting in an 8-hour day working as a woman requires maintenance. Before I went out during my lunch hour, I visited the ladies' room to fix my hair and makeup and I did the same later in the afternoon.

Coincidentally, Daily Makeover's post yesterday was "How to Refresh Your Makeup in 3 Minutes or Less." I recommend reading it to all you working girls.

***

Last week, Apple released a new version of the iPhone operating system (iOs 7) and after I installed it, I thought that the quality of the Camera app photos had deteriorated.

I first noticed the problem at One Big Event last Saturday when photo after photo looked dark and a little blurry. I chalked it up to operator error and forgot about it until Thursday at work when my boss used my iPhone to take photos of me and they also came out dark and blurry.

When I returned to my desk, I researched the Internet to find out if this was a known anomaly and if there was a fix for it.

Here is a fix I found that seemed to take care of the problem: Go to Settings > General > Restrictions and make sure Allow: Camera is on.

Your mileage may vary, but that fix worked for me.

West Point cadets femulating on stage 100 years ago.

Wearing Victoria’s Secret.

Black Velvet or Virginia Slims?

On Friday, I asked if anyone was familiar with the urban legend about a male model posing as a female in the Black Velvet whisky print advertisements that began appearing circa 1970.

I received a response from Brenda, who claimed that the male model posing as a female was in a Virginia Slims cigarette advertisement, not a Black Velvet whisky ad. She added that the model in question was a blond wearing a denim shirt.

I searched the Internet and found a lot of Virginia Slims ads, but none featuring a model in a denim shirt.

And so it goes!

 

Louisville (Kentucky) Male High School ballet, 1903.

 

Wearing Nine West.

Failing to Pass

Comments to Wednesday's post included one that suggested that I not go to Hamvention because "you really don't pass as well as you think you do." My retort is, "How do you know? Have you seen me drive?" To tell the truth, I seldom pass and prefer to stay in the right lane on the highway. I only pass when I absolutely have to. So even if the commenter did see me driving, chances are that he did not see me pass because I seldom do.

Actors Gus Schilling and Joe E. Brown femulating with Judy Canova in the 1943 film Chatterbox.

 

Wearing Stretta.

Transphobic Tampon Ad

“A tampon maker has been branded 'outrageously transphobic' over its new advert.

“Critics say the television spot for Libra [brand tampons] implies transgender people 'are not real women because they do not menstruate,’” according to today’s online edition of the Daily Mail, which you can read here.

Internalized Transphobia

“…we have been exploring, among other things, how internalized homophobia and transphobia develops from us internalizing the voices of our bullies and then turning those voices onto ourselves and each other. Our internalized bullies police behavior, appearance and actions, judging each other as harshly as we've learned to judge ourselves. A really good example of this occurred over a year ago, when a trans woman commenting on a piece I had written said that she wished I would stop calling myself a transgender woman. She said that I will never pass as a woman and that she wished I would just go away. When we police each other's abilities to pass, we are expressing our own internalized sense of shame about who we are. This is just one of many ways our internalized transphobia effects the way we treat each other.”

So wrote Laverne Cox in an excellent article, Hung Up on Bullies: Internalized Transphobia, that you can read here on The Huffington Post.

Trans Woman Attacked at Kohls in TN

Trans Woman Attacked at Kohls in TN (Warning: Triggery)

transphobia over the rainbow

Transphobic behavior from the gay community is a sore subject with me. 

Trans advocate Ashley Love’s recent article in The Huffington Post touches upon the subject again. You can read her article here.

crap

Transsexual Files Complaint

September 5, 2008

WINDSOR LOCKS — - A transgender woman who says a local bar refused to allow her to sing on a karaoke night has filed a complaint with the state Liquor Commission.

Michelle Merrill says a manager at the Skyline Restaurant would not let her sing on Aug. 22 because she is a transsexual. The 35-year-old Enfield resident was born a male and began sex-change procedures 10 years ago.

Merrill says the manager told her other patrons complained that she used the women's bathroom and he didn't want people like her in the bar.

You can read the rest of the story here.

Crap like this happens all the time and articles about this kind of crap appears in the newspapers throughout the world regularly. This story is a little more personal because it is closer to home... about 45 minutes up the road at a restaurant right across the street from where I park my car when I travel by air from Bradley International Airport (BDL).

This isn't some hole-in-the-wall biker bar on some back road in Podunk. No, this is a restaurant in the heart of the BDL complex, a locale where you would think people would be more open-minded considering the diversity of people moving in and out of BDL 24/7.

I think this is all a result of the trickle-down philosophy of our current regime, which says that it is OK to crap on the poor, the non-white, the non-Christian, and/or the non-heterosexual in this country.

This country needs a change and I don't mean a name change ("McCain" for "Bush"). I pray to my Goddesss every night that a real change is going to take place real soon now and that the man from Illinois is going to lead us out of the valley of despair.

Goddess Bless America!

cover girl boy

Remember National Lampoon, the humor magazine that was popular during the 1970s and 1980s? I was a regular reader of National Lampoon and recently obtained a DVD containing all its back issues.

Using the DVD to reacquaint myself with the magazine, I began recalling trans-related references and items that occasionally appeared in its pages over the years.

One trans-related item that was not apparent to most readers was the cover of the October 1974 issue. The theme of that issue was "Pubescence" and the cover featured a young teenage girl displaying a cherry that she plucked from the top of an ice cream sundae.

As I recall, the National Lampoon editors were unhappy with the original cover because the model looked too old, so they enlisted a young male model to play the pubescent cover girl and he, crossdressed as a she, graced the magazine cover that month.

out again

I plan to go out en femme Thursday evening. First, I will dine at a local restaurant with my good friend Diana L. Then, I will attend the monthly cocktail party at Real Art Ways in Hartford.

My Favorite Mistake: Michael Musto On How Cross-Dressing Cost Him An Ad Campaign

"Women's clothes are always more fun than men's. And there was a picture in the article of me in this big hoop dress. But not looking female at all, I mean, I wasn't in drag, I was just standing there with my bicycle, in a hoop dress, looking kind of clownish."

Read it all here.