I am in a very nice Quality Inn in Southwestern Pennsylvania after traveling 398 miles on the first part of my two part journey. 
I depart for my conference mid-morning tomorrow, stay overnight at approximately the half-way point Wednesday night, then drive the rest of the way on Thursday.
Thursday evening, I will be attending my board of directors meeting, where my fellow board members will be meeting Stana for the first time.
Friday and Saturday, I will be en femme staffing our booth at the conference, visiting the flea market and other booths at the conference, and attending forums of interest.
Friday evening, I will be attending our banquet, which is a business casual affair, and Saturday evening, I will be attending the big banquet of the weekend, which is a dressy affair.
Sunday, I return home.
With that schedule, I will be so busy that my postings here will be hit and miss, but I will try to post something every day. And you can expect a detailed posting (or postings) after the weekend is over.
For my trip to the conference this week, the boy mode portion of the list is much shorter than the girl mode portion because I will be in girl mode most of the time. Yet, the list is still daunting because there is so much more to pack for girl mode.
My schedule includes two days traveling, two days attending the conference, and two nights attending banquets, which adds up to six outfits. I will wear the same outfit during my trip to the conference and my trip home, so that eliminates one outfit. But one of the banquets is a dressy affair, which means an extra set of accessories (dressy accessories to go with a dressy dress).
Not that I'm complaining; I'm just commenting!
Almost six weeks ago, I wrote here about possibly changing my name.
Your comments were positive and encouraging, but before I made a hasty decision that I might regret later, I decided to think about it.
Well, I'm finished thinking about it and I am very happy with my new name.
The timing is also perfect in light of my attendance en femme at my convention next week.
As I wrote six weeks ago, I am out to people who know me only by my male name and I intend to come out to more people who know me only by my male name. Why not make it easier for them by using a female name so similar to my male name? "Stan" and "Stana" are so interchangeable that one does not have to worry about slipping up when speaking my name? No one, certainly not I, will call them out if they say "Stan" when they intended to say "Stana" and vice versa. "Stan" can even be considered short for "Stana."
And I like the name. It rhymes with "Anna," the object of my first puppy love. It is unique (I always like to be unique). And it is a good fit, that is, it simply suits me.
Also, I have a new e-mail account to go with my new name: stana-stana at sbcglobal.net
So, call me "Stana."
“But Lea T – a Brazilian with a bonestructure to die for, formerly known as Leo – isn’t any old transsexual, she’s a long-time friend and personal assistant of the designer and, coincidently, a former fit model for his own line.”
Yesterday I was out the door en femme in time for the doors to open at Westfarms Mall.
I entered through the JCPenney entrance and when I discovered their 40% off dress sale, I never got beyond the JCPenney dress department.
I tried on about ten dresses. There were two to-die-for that were just too small and not available in a larger size. Others fit fine, but did not thrill me even with a 40% discount.
Next, I found some cute two-piece, jacket and skirt outfits. I tried one on and it looked very nice and fit perfectly despite being the same size as the two-to-die-for dresses that did not fit!
Schlepping through the dress racks and to and from the dressing room, my sweater dress let me know that it was too warm to wear a sweater dress. The jacket and skirt outfit was perfect for the hot and humid weather, so I purchased it for $41 (compared to the $70 list price), exited the mall, and drove to Diana's hacienda.
Before we left to go to Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) for outreach, I changed from the sweater dress to the jacket and skirt and immediately felt more comfortable. (I am wearing that outfit in the previous post's photo.)
We arrived at SCSU about 15 minutes before the first class, met up with Professor Schildroth and the other outreachers (six in all), then entered the classroom for the big show. Thirty students, the vast majority female, listened to each of our short biographies, then we divided the class for questions and answers.
In all my years of outreaching, it was the worst question and answer session I have experienced. The questions were good, but there was a lack of them. It was like pulling teeth trying to get questions out of the students. There are always lulls in question and answer sessions, but never such extended lulls as there were yesterday.
The second class we outreached in the late afternoon was not much better.
Viewing the student comments after the sessions, it was clear that a lot of the students were "uncomfortable" with us (one even used the word "scared.") They claimed that their discomfort made it difficult to ask quaestions.
Reading student comments at past outreaches, there are always a few that claim to be uncomfortbale, but yesterday, there seemed to be an epidemic of discomfort.
There were a few students, who made an effort to ask questions, but overall, the question and answer sessions were disappointing.
I did receive a couple of compliments that saved the day. Professor Shildroth took note of my weight loss and one female student complimented me on my proficiency in walking in heels. After her comment, a couple of other female students chimed in to agree with her assessment.
After class, four of us drove to USS Chowder Pot in Hartford for dinner. It was a new dining experience for me and when I visit a seafood restaurant for the first time, I often order the fried seafood platter. In this case, the platter included clams, shrimp, scallops, haddock, and french fries; it was the tastiest seafood platter I have eaten in a long time. Actually, I only ate half and took the rest home for a future meal.
The meal was excellent and our waitress only made it sweeter by constantly addressing us as "ladies."
After dinner, I drove Diana home, then drove myself home. It was a full and in many ways, a fulfilling day, but I could not wait to kick off my heels!
I don’t have time to write about my day out en femme yesterday, so a photo from my day out will have to suffice for now.
In the past, I used an electric razor to shave my underarms. Afterwords, it usually took two or three days for my armpits to recover before I could use a deodorant that did not burn my pits.
Mister Mailman delivered my dress order from Avenue.
Every May and December for the past four years, I have done "outreach" at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven.
The two dresses I ordered from Chadwicks arrived and they are too small.
Gordo High School in Gordo, Alabama recently held a womanless beauty pageant in which girls of the male variety vied for the title of "2010 Miss Priss." There are three videos from the event here and I invite you to watch them.
Some of my blog readers asked me to post the contents of my coming-out letter and as I promised, the letter is below.
"A hobby is an activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure or relaxation, often in one's spare time," according to Wikipedia. 
As I have written here on more than one occasion during the past two weeks, I plan to attend a conference en femme next month and made my intentions known to friends and acquaintances, who will also be attending. 
Do you recall actor Cillian Murphy playing the beautiful Kitten in the 2005 film Breakfast on Pluto? Well, Mr. Murphy plays another trans character in a 2010 film called Peacock (photo right).
Aunty Marlena, always on the lookout for something new on the Internet related to femulating, discovered "dragkeppni," Iceland's version of the womanless beauty pageant.
I am learning that once you begin coming out, there is no end to it!
Wow!
During the lunch hour, I drove to the big box pet store to buy food for the menagerie, but on the way, I took a short detour to my favorite Dress Barn.
Updated Below
Sorry, I have not had much to say lately. "A picture's worth a thousand words," so I have tried to make up for my lack of words with lots of pictures!
I discovered another womanless pageant with photos online documenting the event.
I never got the hang of applying liquid eyeliner; not enough practice, I guess. So usually, I use a pencil or powder eyeliner in a black or dark brown shade, but usually black.Sister blogger, Petra Bellejambes, of Voyages en Rose fame suggested that I mention the petition sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE). It calls for the complete removal of so-called "Transvestic Disorder" (302.3) as a diagnostic category from the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). (The Manual "is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders." )
In their petition, the IFGE delineates the reasons for removing Transvestic Disorder from the DSM. After reading the petition, I am sure you will agree with its logic and I urge you to sign it as I did and tell the APA that crossdressing is not a mental disorder.
So, do not pass go, do not collect $200, instead go here and sign the petition now!
Read the comments to blog postings and you may notice that the snarky, rude, and nasty comments usually come from "anonymous" senders.
After receiving my share of those snarky comments, I considered deleting them because I felt that if a commenter was so gutless that he/she had to resort to an anonymous identity in order to post a snarky comment, then his/her comment did not deserve to see the light of day.
However, I am a strong advocate of free speech and I let everyone have their say no matter how wrong they may be. It is just too bad that some of the commenters are so cowardly that they cannot stand
By the way, the only comments I will delete are those containing foul language, i.e., those containing the seven words the FCC will not allow on television and then some. (You can look them up here.)
Good news!
You may remember my bout with a stomach virus a few weeks ago, which resulted in a large loss of weight. Well, I am fully recovered now and even better, I managed to keep off almost all the weight that I lost.
I guess I should start perusing the apparel catalogs to find a skimpy bikini to purchase real soon now. (I wish!)
The next conference I attend will be en femme and I wanted to alert him beforehand.
In anticipation of coming out, I had composed a 500-word letter of explanation weeks ago. Yesterday at high noon, I copied the words into a blank e-mail, made a few changes, then I stared at the Send button for a few hours.
I did not actually stare at the Send button all that time, but I did consider whether or not to send the e-mail for three hours.
It was a tough decision. In the past, I have come out to friends and acquaintances who have known me for a long or short time, but all of them were women.
I find it very easy to come out to women. I guess because I am telling them that I am on their team.
Men are not so easy. Just encountering men when I am en femme gives me pause; coming out to a man is unthinkable. My friend would be the first male friend or acquaintance I would be coming out to.
I finally realized that I had to tell him, so I hit the Send button and girded myself for his reply.
I was so worried about his response that I did not check my e-mails the rest of the afternoon. Finally, after dinner, I looked for his reply, found it, and opened it.
He wrote, "Thank you for the e-mail. I am sure it was hard to send. But rest assured, you have my respect and support. I think it is best that a person be true to themselves, and you are doing just that. You go girl!"
He floored me with “You go girl!”
Now, that's a real friend!
It is the first time I can recall a manbag being shown by a mainstream retailer. It is another milestone in the feminization of male fashions.
JCPenney is not selling manbags, yet. The store probably assumes that males wanting to buy purses can find them in the women’s department along with other femmed-menswear ("femmenswear") not yet stocked in the men’s department.
In the early 1980s, I discovered the Genderline group on CompuServe. I spent hours reading its contents and eventually, I had a few questions I wanted to ask the group. The problem was that everyone on Genderline used a female name to avoid outing themselves with their male names. So I had to come up with my own female name before I posted my first message.
The easy way out was to use the feminine version of my male name, for example, Dean becomes Deanna, Steven becomes Stephanie, Eric becomes Erica, and Jordan becomes Jordan. I am always in favor of the path of least resistance, so I decided to use the feminine version of Stan.
Coming up with a feminine version of Stan was a bit of a stretch. The convoluted route I followed was Stan to Stanley to Stanislaus to Anastacia to Staci.
Haste makes waste, so they say, and I have regretted my rushed choice of Staci ever since.
--- Most people spell it wrong; Stacy, Stacie, or Stacey, seldom Staci.
--- I wanted a girly name, not an either-or name! When written, Stacy, Stacie, or Stacey can be either a male or female name, whereas "Staci" is strictly female. Since few people get my name right, their error results in giving me a genderless name. When anyone speaks my name, it is always genderless because you can't tell that my name ends with an "i" when spoken.
--- I dunno about you, but I always associate a name with the first person I ever met who had that name. The first and second women I met with the name "Staci" were memorable in very different negative ways.
So, I am not thrilled with my name and have considered changing it.
Awhile back, I kicked around the idea of changing my name to "Lana." I polled my blog readers and 2 out of 3 of you said to stick with Staci. I followed your suggestion, however, I began using Lana as my middle name, but up front, I was still stuck with Staci.
Over a year ago, I discovered a Slavic female name that is a direct feminine derivation of Stan: Stana.
I first became aware of Stana when I acquired a postcard depicting a female impersonator named Stana Behavy. Shortly after, I learned of a 5'9" actress to add to my Famous Females of Height List. Her name was Stana Katic (she now appears in the ABC television series Castle).
I filed the name away for the future.
A few days ago, I e-mailed some recent photos to a co-worker, who knows about my femulating.
She e-mailed back, "You’re so cute Stan…very lovely. Hot dress…love the color too."
Reading that response made me think.
I am out to people who know me only by my male name and I intend to come out to more people who know me only by my male name.
Why not make it easier for them by using a female name so similar to my male name? "Stan" and "Stana" are so interchangeable that one does not have to worry about slipping up when speaking my name? No one, certainly not I, will call them out if they say "Stan" when they intended to say "Stana" and vice versa. "Stan" can even be considered short for "Stana."
And I like the name. It rhymes with "Anna," the object of my first puppy love. It is unique (I always like to be unique). And it is a good fit, that is, it simply suits me.
