"Too Pooped to Polka"

That’s what I say when I am exhausted!

According to the Health app on my iPhone, I walked 5.1 miles on Wednesday and Thursday, but I got nowhere fast.

Hurricane Isaias blew through here Tuesday and left a big mess here at Femulate Headquarters. No trees came down, but lots of branches did – a few to the tune of more than 20-feet in length.

I am lucky because I can conveniently dispose of the fallen by dragging it across the street into the vast forest that is my neighbor. But it took me a day and half to move it all that 5.1 miles.

We were also lucky in that we only lost power briefly when the power company turned off the juice to  repair a downed line up around the bend.

It all prevented me from answering emails and updating the blog, but with all the trees surrounding HQ, it could have been worse.

Locally, the weather pundits claim that Hurricane Isaias was worse than Hurricane Sandy and I have to agree.

Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast the day before Halloween 2012, which was the first of my five-in-a-row appearances at work en femme, but and it almost did not happen. When we lost power the evening before, I shelved my plans to go to work en femme because of the issues that a lack of electricity can cause. For example, how could I make up my face in the dark?

Needless to say, I was very disappointed, but shortly before bedtime, power was restored and I realized that I could do it after all. And it turned out to be my best Halloween en femme at work experience because no one was expecting it!

Wearing Boston Proper

Covington County (Mississippi) Hospital womanless beauty pageant contestant 

I'm So Tired

Sorry, there were no Sunday Funnies yesterday! The past five days have been very hectic and the blog suffered as a result.

Wednesday evening, I went out for my free dinner and when I returned home, I chronicled the evening for the blog before I went to bed because Thursday was Day One of my daughter's move.

Thursday, we rented a box truck from U-Haul, brought it home and loaded it with my daughter's belongings. I never drove anything bigger than a passenger van before, so I was a little nervous getting behind the wheel of the truck, but I got used to it very quickly. The truck had a rear view camera to facilitate backing up and that was a godsend.

Friday morning, Day Two of the move, we drove the truck to my daughter's apartment in Hartford. The building (formerly a factory) had a loading dock and a freight elevator, so we were able to move everything up to her fourth floor apartment by loading the freight elevator twice. Our cousin showed up to help us move and we managed to get everything into the apartment in two hours. Then, we assembled her bed and quit for the day. My daughter rewarded us with dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

We returned to her apartment Saturday to assemble some other furniture and unpack the essentials. We quit after four hours, went home, ate dinner and crashed.

I spent Sunday morning removing the ice covered snow from the driveway and sidewalks. The snow overnight turned to rain this morning, which froze on contact making power outages a possibility. I am crossing my fingers that that does not happen. So far, so good, but I am trying to finish and post this as soon as possible, just in case.

And I'm so tired!

Wearing Veronica Beard (Source: Veronica Beard)

Oslo Grace, model

Hot As Sun

In honor of the hottest day of the year in Downtown Femulation City, I am passing along some movie trivia from IMDB and elsewhere about the hottest femulation film of its time, Some Like It Hot.

Tony Curtis's voice as Josephine was dubbed by Paul Frees (according to co-writer I.A.L. Diamond). Curtis confirmed it by stating the voice you hear as Josephine is a combination of his voice and Frees'. Curtis says he had trouble maintaining a high-pitched voice for an entire take.

Supposedly when Orry-Kelly was measuring all three stars for dresses, he half-jokingly told Marilyn Monroe, "Tony Curtis has a nicer butt than you," at which point Monroe pulled open her blouse and said, "Yeah, but he doesn't have t*ts like these!"

Upon its original release, Kansas banned the film from being shown in the state, explaining that crossdressing was "too disturbing for Kansans."

A cabaret dancer (a man who played women on stage) tried to teach Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon to walk in heels. After about a week, Lemmon declined his help, saying he didn't want to walk like a woman, but a man trying to walk like a woman.

When Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon first put on the female makeup and costumes, they walked around the Goldwyn Studios lot to see if they could "pass" as women. Then they tried using mirrors in public ladies' rooms to fix their makeup, and when none of the women using it complained, they knew they could be convincing as women. There is a scene on the train recreating this moment.

In 2008, a Californian man who found a little black dress in his closet was stunned when appraisers for U.S. TV series Antiques Roadshow determined it once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. The frock - which Monroe was sewn into for Some Like It Hot, was estimated to be worth $250,000.

One of the few American movies ever given a "Condemned" rating by the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency.

I remember the first time the film appeared on television in the early 1960s. As a budding young femulator, my eyes were glued to the television set while simultaneously trying to feign disinterest so that no one would suspect my affinity for feminine finery.

Jack Lemmon’s son Chris Lemmon appeared in Vegas showgirl drag in an episode of a 1989-1990 television series titled Open House. His femulation was very good, but I have never been able to track down a photo of that femulation.

Be cool, Honey Bunnies!

Wearing Net-A-Porter (Source: The Zoe Report)

Gender swap on Croatian television's Hrvatski's Top Model.

Summertime, and femulatin' is easy

Summer was my favorite season until I began going out en femme in the late 1980s.

Back then, going out en femme meant attending support group meetings. However, there were no meetings during the summer because the meeting hall was not air-conditioned and the fear was that the average femulator in wig, makeup, and foundation garments, would melt away without air-conditioning.

I bought into the summer meltdown theory and did not femulate beyond my air-conditioned abode during the summer. As a result, I could not wait for summer to end so that I could start going out again as a woman in the fall. So I began to hate summers.

In the ensuing years, I had a occasions to go out en femme on hot days and lo and behold, I discovered that I did not melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. I did glisten, but the heat was never a deal-breaker. So my attitude changed and now I no longer shun summer forays en femme.

After all, cisgender women can not pick and choose which days to be women; they are women in all kinds of weather. So, if I am truly the woman, I must be that woman in rain, snow, sleet, hail, and heat, as well as on nice mild sunny days.

Wearing Cinq a Sept dress, Alexandre Birman sandals and Elizabeth Cole earrings (Source: Intermix)

Three cans of Regal and one femulator, San Francisco, circa 1960

Snow, Sleet and Freezing Rain

Thursday evening, I transferred the contents of my boy wallet into my girl wallet and loaded it into my black bag. I also laid out the outfit I planned to wear to work on Friday, the Transgender Day of Visibility.

Friday is casual dress day at work, so instead of a dress or skirt outfit, I decided to wear my skinny jeans, a black top, white blazer, black heels and my unmentionables. A bottle of Veet was in the shower ready to do its job, my makeup mirror was set up ready for action and my crowning glory was all fluffed up.

Would the weather cooperate? The Friday forecast was for snow, sleet and freezing rain. The worst weather would be in the “higher elevations” — exactly where I live. When the weather is of the frozen precipitation variety, I work from home, so I crossed my fingers that the forecast was wrong.

Hungry cat woke me up at 5 AM and the first thing I did was check the weather. I looked outside. It was bad and looked to get worse as the day progressed, so I decided to stay home.

I was disappointed.

I am sure that some of the people at work suspect that I am transgender and I would not be surprised if the handful of people I came out to might have spread the word already. Nevertheless, as my working days wind down, I would have liked to use the day to leave my co-workers with a good impression of a person they knew who happened to be trans.

Wearing Alice + Olivia.

Julia Bravo, Femulate reader

Outfitting Friday

Too chilly for these pants?

Twenty inches of snow piled up in my yard yesterday and it isn’t going anywhere fast as the temperature hovers in the mid-20’s today.

Conditions will not improve much for the next few days according to the National Weather Service and as a result, when I go to UConn on Friday to attend the True Colors Conference, I might be forced to do something I almost never do: wear pants . (The “high” temperature forecasted for Storrs on Friday is 34 degrees!)

I do own dress pants, leggings, jeans and even a pair of skinny jeans. I could pair a pull-over sweater or a long tunic sweater with my pants. Or I might tough it out and wear a green sweater dress in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

Storrs is notoriously windy this time of year, so I definitely will wear my long fake fur coat over whatever outfit I put together.

And so it goes!

Wearing Theory blouse and pants and Zero+Maria Cornejo pumps.

Adam Fidusiewicz femulates Samantha Fox on Polish television's version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.

Reaching Out

I wrote about shopping and slogging through the rain in my previous two posts about my day out on Tuesday. Now I will regale you with part three of the story.

The drive to Southern Connecticut State University was uneventful. If anything, traffic was lighter than usual. I parked in the visitors' parking lot that was closest to the classroom where the outreach would take place and switched to flats for the half mile walk.

Once indoors, I switched to my nude high heel pumps and proceeded to the classroom, where I met up with Professor Schildroth and my outreach teammates, Mary Anne, Michelle and Quinton, who I have done outreach with countless times.

Once the class settled in, we kicked off by telling the class our trans biographies in a nutshell. Then we split up the teams with the post-ops going to another classroom with half the students and the no-ops (Mary Anne and me) handling Q&A with the other half of the students. At the half time, the teams switched off so that all the students had a chance to interrogate the post-ops and no-ops alike.

For the first time, there were religious and political questions. In light of the recent election, the political question did not surprise me, which was how secure we felt as transgender people after the election? (My answer: Very insecure.) The religious question was how religious were we? (My answer: Not very.)

Since we are no-ops, one student asked us if we considered becoming post-ops. My answer was that at my ripe old age, I would not consider it, but if I was young again, I would seriously consider it.

I don't recall the other questions probably because they were the same or similar to questions we have answered in past outreach sessions.

At the end of the class, the students thanked us and we moseyed over to the student center for a late lunch. I had a slice of veggie pizza, which was very tasty, but a few hours later, I experienced some of the worst indigestion I've had in quite awhile. Since I had eaten nothing else that day, I assume that the peppers on the pizza did not agree with me.

Other than that blip on the radar, it was a good day out among the civilians and I hope to do it again real soon now.

Wearing Boston Proper.

Coco Martin femulating in the 2015 Filipino television action drama Ang Probinsyano.

Pain of Rain

In her comments to my Monday post, Pat convinced me to forgo my plans to wear pants and stick to my original plans to wear a dress on my day out on Tuesday. I seriously considered the pants option in light of the weather forecast for rain in Noah's Ark proportions, but I really wanted to wear my new sweater dress and it did not take much arm-twisting to change my mind, which, of course, is a woman's prerogative.

Also, I recalled that I had a mid-calf length trench coat in the back of my closet. Peaches gave me the coat, but I had never worn it because I avoid going out during a deluge. But I was committed to doing outreach, so it saved the day and kept most of me dry while I slogged through the rain across the campus.

My feet were not so lucky. I switched to flats when I did my slogging, but I might have been better off sticking to my pumps, which would have elevated my heels above some of the puddles I could not avoid. Bottom line is that I should have worn boots!

Anyway, I did my face, got dressed and was on the road by 9:30 AM. It was the debut of my new dress, new hairdo and newly-reduced (by 12 pounds) body. I have not weighed this little since I was a sophomore in college, so I was pretty jazzed with the new me!

I made a couple of shopping stops on the way to the site of my outreach, Southern Connecticut State University. First stop was Macy's where I shopped for a hat. I tried on almost every hat that Macy's had in their display and I only liked one, but I did not like it enough to pay $50. I proceeded to Dress Barn, where I found a similarly-styled hat for only $17, which I bought on the spot.

Starting out at 9:30, there was hardly any rain, but as I proceeded to New Haven, the light shower had developed into a heavy rainstorm. When I arrived at the university, I sat in my Subaru for awhile waiting for the rain to let up. But it did not, so girded my loins and prepared to test the rain aversion capabilities of my trench coat and umbrella.

Wearing A.L.C.

A femulating West Point cadet.

Tuesday's Photo Op

I did outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University yesterday. Above is a photo of the class, Professor Schildroth and me after outreach. As you can see, I wore a dress rather than pants despite the miserable weather (thanks to Pat's comments for motivating me to do so). Also, thanks to Mary Anne for taking the photo. I will have more to say about my day out in upcoming posts. 

Wearing StyleWe.

Femulating at a World War I POW camp in the 1937 French film Le Grande Illusion. 

Dress Like A Woman

Tomorrow, I will be doing outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State College. I planned to wear my new Dress Barn acquisition: a white cable knit sweater dress, but the weather forecast says a hard rain’s gonna fall.

Since I will have to slog through the rain for a half mile across the campus from a parking lot to a classroom, I will dress like a woman would for inclement weather: I will wear pants… woman’s pants, of course, but definitely a bifurcated garment.

⇳

Doing outreach is a crapshoot. There are usually four or five of us and we each spend about 5 minutes giving a brief trans bio. And then there is a question and answer session with the students.

About half the time, the students look like deer in the headlights and getting them to ask questions is frustrating. The other half of the time, the students who are ready to hit us with a variety of thoughtful and stimulating questions.

Some of the questions are memorable. I think my favorite was when a female student asked me, “Are you married?”

After I said, “Yes,” her follow-up question was “To a woman?”

Wearing Bloomingdale's.

Hansi Sturm, professional femulator, Berlin circa 1930

Got Coats?

Femulate Contributing Editor Susan King of Transitioning into Tomorrow fame joins us again with her collection of coats.

Fall is here. It's time to pull out the fall and winter clothing. I love this time of year because the clothes cover up more of my male attributes and creates a slimmer silhouette.

A must for this time of years is a set of coats. In 2014/2015, I bought three nice coats and I cannot wait to wear them again.

I am going to look for one or two new coats this season.

Below is an infographic about woman coats and which coat type to wear with your outfit.

Here are my three current coats.

I bought this brown coat with the fur collar while in New Jersey. I forgot to pack one and forget how cold it was in Jersey versus Atlanta. I found this coat at the local goodwill store.

This is my pea coat. I love this coat. It's so cute and works with my leggings. I bought it at Burlington Coat Factory.

I bought this coat while trying to find a pea coat. I liked the style and it's hooded. The light color allows me to wear this coat with different color leggings that I cannot wear with my brown and white/black pea coat.

This season, I am looking for a full-length coat.

Street style, Paris, September 2016

Erik Handoko, womenswear model