Another Reunion

Seven years ago this past Sunday, I attended my law school reunion. So as I anticipate attending my high school class reunion this Saturday, I thought it would be appropriate to look back at what occurred seven years ago when I attended my very first reunion.

Ready to go to the Hall of Fame

My law school reunion experience in 2012 was just fabulous.

For those of you out of the loop, on Saturday evening, I attended my law school reunion at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Getting ready yesterday afternoon, I cut myself badly using a new blade in my razor. It was a deep cut just under my left nostril and it took forever to stop bleeding. As a result, it took me longer to do my makeup, initially working around the cut, then waiting for the bleeding to stop. Luckily, I started doing my makeup early enough so that any technical difficulties would not affect my arrival time at the Hall of Fame.

I was dressed and out the door (after snapping a few photos) at 4:45 PM to make the 50-mile trip by 6 PM when the cocktail hour began. On the way, the traffic message boards on the interstate informed me that the exit I had to take to switch from I-84 to I-91 was closed and it recommended a detour via another highway.

I thought about driving to an exit before the closed exit and trying to work my way to an I-91 entrance, but I was familiar with the recommended detour and figured I would only lose 10 minutes, whereas who knew how much time Plan A would cost me. So I took the detour and lost about 20 minutes instead of 10.

The rest of the trip was smooth-sailing and I arrived at the Hall of Fame at 5:55 PM — perfect timing!

I entered the Hall of Fame complex and quickly found the site of the reunion. I was in error in that I thought that the reunion would be held in the Center Court banquet hall. Instead, it took place in a smaller banquet hall in the complex. It was not as spectacular as I pictured the Center Court, but it was very nice nonetheless.

I checked in and immediately encountered the woman who I had exchanged a few e-mails with concerning the reunion. I introduced myself; she welcomed me and helped me find my name badge.

There were about 20 people already in attendance. I recognized one of my classmates, CR, a woman who I considered an acquaintance, not a long lost friend. I said hello to her and she returned a hello, while looking at my name badge trying to figure out who I was (the badge listed Stana, my real last name, and my class year, 1977).

She was carrying a copy of our class yearbook, so I suggested she look me up in the yearbook to refresh her memory. She did and when she put two-and-two together, she exclaimed, "Oh my god! Stanley, you are beautiful now!"

She gushed over how I had changed and then we chatted a bit trying to catch up on the past 35 years in five minutes. Then she was distracted by another person, who I did not recognize, so I went to the bar and got a glass of white wine.

My classmates and I

I mingled with myself for about five minutes, then CR came around again and pointed me in the direction of a table where other 1977 classmates were gathering, so I headed in that direction. There I found two other female school acquaintances (PM and LF) and one of my best friends (JB) and his wife.

An aside, as it turned out, there were nine people in my class who made it to the reunion. Four women and five men. All the women came solo and all five men came with their wives. I believe that the three other women are unattached.

Both PM and LF welcomed me with open arms as if we were old girlfriends and not just acquaintances (I think CR had informed them of my presence before I found their table, so they were expecting me). I did not recognize JB immediately, but when I realized it was my old friend, I greeted him warmly and gave him a hug. His wife, EB, introduced herself and she was very welcoming, too. We all exchanged our stories about the last 35 years, but the women were more interested in hearing my story rather than telling theirs to me. So as not to disappoint, I obliged and held an impromptu outreach session.

Another friend, MM, showed up and he greeted me like the old friends we were.

The cocktail hour flew by and before I knew it, PM was beckoning me to join her at the 1977 table in the dining room. I sat down next to PM and we chatted forever, mostly about me. She assumed that I was a post-op transsexual and I explained that I was not. Actually, everyone I talked to about being transgender assumed I was post-op and I explained to all of them that I was not.

PM said that I was undoubtedly a woman and that I was more of a woman than she was! She said she never felt like a "woman" and was not sure what it meant to feel like a woman. I basically said we are what we are, but society pigeonholes us as "men" or "women" according to their "standards."

After dinner, which by the way, was excellent, I had a long discussion with EB about being transgender. EB is in the entertainment industry in the City and as a result, she is familiar with  transgenders and knows where I am coming from more or less.

I mentioned to her that her husband, JB, was the person who told me at the law school Halloween party 36 years ago, that he never realized how feminine I was until he saw me in my costume en femme and realized that it was such a good fit for me and my personality, mannerisms, etc.

MM sat down next to me to chat a bit and said that I was very brave to do what I did. And I replied with my standard comeback to the bravery comment, that is, I don't consider it brave to be yourself… to be what who you are. But he said I was too modest and that if he was in the same situation, he doubted if he could do what I did. Maybe, maybe not, but it was very nice of MM to say what he did. In fact, I received nothing but support and positive words from all my classmates.

I did not mix much with the other attendees; there was not much time to do so. But early on, one woman from the class of 2006 introduced herself and we had a short chat about what we had in common, that is, the mispronunciation of our first names. Her name is Zoe and people call her Zo or Zo-ee.  About half the people pronounced my name correctly (rhymes with Donna) and the other half got it wrong, but I don't mind.

The only other non-classmate I recall speaking with was a professor who dined at our table and sat right next to me. He began teaching at the school the year after I graduated, so he did not know me from the school, but I asked him about what happened to some of the people I worked with way back when (I worked in the library while attending law school) and he tried to fill me in on what he remembered (not much as it turned out).

The evening ended much too quickly and I was on my way home at 10:30 PM.

I had a wonderful time to put it mildly!

I hope my high school reunion on Saturday is just as wonderful!

Wearing Saloni Lodha (Source: Moda Operandi)

Pavel Arambula femulates Thalia on Mexican television.

That Old Gang of Mine

I am sure it won't surprise you that I am excited about attending my high school class reunion on Saturday. It will be one of the gutsiest things I have ever done.

When I attended Hamvention for the first time as a woman, I came out to my friends and acquaintances beforehand so as not to surprise anyone. And when I attended my law school reunion as a woman, the organizers posted an online list of the folks attending, so I knew beforehand who would be there and be prepared for any troublemakers (there were none).

So, I am curious who will be attending my high school reunion. How many of my high school friends would I surprise?

There is no online list of attendees. But I did have a list of the 13 women comprising the reunion committee, so I assume they will be attending. I consider 3 of the 13 friendly acquaintances, the rest I hardly knew.

I contacted the only friend who I knew was going and asked if he knew anybody else from our gang who would be attending, but he did not. So all I know for sure is that in addition to me, one member of that old gang of mine will be there.

And so it goes.

Wearing Venus

David Tennant femulates in the Scottish television series Rab C. Nesbitt.

Weekends Were Made for Femulating

Self-Cobbling

I knew I had the perfect pair of high heels to go with the dress I plan to wear to my high school class reunion. Since I had not worn that pair of heels in years, I thought I should check their condition in case they needed to be dusted off or cleaned.

When I inspected them, I noticed that the plastic tip on one high heel was gone exposing the metal dowel that held the tip in place.

I have no recollection of how I lost the tip, but I knew that I had to get it fixed before I could wear the shoe. There is a shoe repair shop about 10 minutes from my home, but I thought I might be able to repair it myself, so I looked online and found iFixit's guide for high heel tip repair.

After reading the guide, the fix seemed easy enough, so I moseyed on over to Amazon to find what I needed for the repair. I ordered a kit for $11.78 that included 30 pairs of replacement tips in five different sizes and a pair of pliers for removing the tip.

The kit arrived yesterday and it took me about 10 minutes to replace the tip. And I now have a lifetime supply of high heel tips!

Which Blog?

In addition to Femulate, I also have a low-traffic blog where I write about my radio adventures.

It is "low-traffic" because I publish a post once or twice a week and it gets about 450 hits per day (as compared to this blog where I post 5 or 6 times per week and average 5,000 hits per day).

And so every year while I am staffing our booth at Hamvention, at least one stranger will approach me and say, "I read your blog."

I always ask, "Which one?" even though I am pretty sure they are referring to Femulate and not my low-traffic radio blog.

When their response is "Huh?"or something similar, I know that they are not a civilian, but rather are one of us.

Wearing Oscar De La Renta (Source: Moda Operandi)

Huntz Hall femulating in the 1943 film 📺 Clancy Street Boys.

A Small-Town Salon for Femulators

Scarlett and Katie

Back in March, Slate published an article that flew under my radar until now. "Finding Femme – The quiet resistance of a small-town stylist for trans women and cross-dressing men" by Lily Moore-Eisenberg tells the story of a woman who is a feminine image consultant working out of the basement of her rural New England home.

I found the article while searching for something else on the Internet and I probably would have passed over it except that I recognized the name of the consultant's business, Scarlett's Makeovers, which is located in northeastern Connecticut

I saw Scarlett perform her magic at Fantasia Fair back in 2012 and later that week, I dined with her at an upscale restaurant in Provincetown. I broke bread with her again along with her femulating husband, Katie, a year later at One Big Event in Hartford.

So I just had to read the article about Scarlett and her thriving business. It was a good read and I am sure you will enjoy reading it, too.

Wearing Joie

Jake Manabat femulating on the California stage in 📺 M.Butterfly

Vintage Drag Strips

Dotty Dripple was a daily comic strip modeled after Blondie. It ran from 1944 to 1974 in newspapers throughout the land and also appeared in comic books of that era. 

The above strip appeared in October 1953 in Horace and Dotty Dripple #32 and in my humble opinion, was the model for That's Our Dad, which appeared in National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody in July 1978.

Wearing New York & Company

Boys will be girls and girls will be boys.

Today is Tuesday

We Will Miss Dress Barn

Heather informed me about this interesting Vox article "When I couldn’t tell the world I wanted to transition, I went to Dressbarn." I'm sure many of you can relate to this piece as did I.

Stairs and High Heels

This how-to from Abby of Vivian Lou Insolia insoles fame is worth reviewing even if you read it before.

While it's quite empowering to dress up and get out and about, I've been reminded (on more than one occasion) to be careful on the stairs!

Let's quickly review the 'how to' of stairs in heels.

Going Up

:: Visualize a straight line going up toward your end point, rather than looking down at your feet as you climb.

:: As you walk up the step, place your body weight on the ball of the foot. This means that the back of the heel will most likely hang off the step.

:: While ascending, place one foot right in front of the other on the next step.

:: Hold on to the railing if necessary.

Going Down

:: Hold the railing for support. Keep your grip strong, but relax the rest of your arm and shoulder. Gently glide your hand down the railing as you descend.

:: At first, you may need to look down at the stairs to determine depth and steepness. After a few steps (if possible), visualize a straight line going toward your end point, rather than looking down at your heels.

:: Place as much of the shoe (heel and front of the shoe) on the step as possible. Depending on the depth of the step, you may want to push your shoe back until it touches the back of the step to make sure as much shoe as possible is making contact.

:: If the stairs are narrow, you may try tilting your body at a 45 degree angle feet and stepping down on an angle. Place one foot in front of the other on the next step down. This method definitely takes practice!

:: Go slow. Take your time heading down stairs in heels. Better to be safe than sorry!

As with most other difficult tasks, the more you walk up and down stairs in heels, the easier it becomes.

Finding the Right Eyebrow Color for Your Hair

Women like us can switch hair color faster than you can say "Henry Margu." When I switched from blonde to the brunette-red mix I wear today, I noticed that my eyebrow color did not look right. Did I need to go lighter or darker?

This article from InStyle would have helped and will help you if you make the switch.

Me on YouTube

I appear at 1:57 in this YouTube video collection of photos from Hamvention.

Wearing Venus

Yours truly wearing Venus

Padding Your Hips and Rear

I recently obtained a Padded Rear and Hips Shaping Girdle (PR&HSG) from Glamour Boutique.

Glamour Boutique claims that their PR&HSG adds four inches to overall hip measurement (one inch to each hip and one inch to each side of the fanny/bottom) to give an instant realistic feminizing shape.

One inch may not sound like much, but the difference with and without a PR&HSG is very noticeable. I could not believe how hippy I became wearing my PR&HSG. Wow — what a difference!

Glamour Boutique also claims that the padding used in the PR&HSG is carefully sculpted to give seamless curves rather than the bumpy effect so often seen on other padded shapewear.

I wholeheartedly agree. After I slipped on my PR&HSG, what I saw below my waist looked authentic. There was nothing to giveaway the fact that my hips and rear were artificially enhanced.

The PR&HSG also features a crotch flap so you can go to the ladies' room without removing the garment and has hidden garter tabs so you can attach stockings to your PR&HSG.

Very important is the fact that the PP&SG is very comfortable to wear and you will not know you are wearing the PR&HSG unless you see your shapely figure in a mirror. You can wear the PR&HSG all day long and not feel any discomfort.

There are no zippers or hooks and eyes to close after you slip into your PR&HSG. Instead, you must pull a rather stiff garment up over your hips (in my case, I had to pull a garment with a 34-inch waist over my 42-inch hips.) It was so difficult when I "slipped" on my PR&HSG for the first time, I thought that it was the wrong size, but after I managed to pull it over my hips, it fit like a glove. I imagine that after a break-in period, the PR&HSG will have more give and be easier to slip on, but that remains to be seen.

Overall, Glamour Boutique's PR&HSG is a quality product that will improve the figure of any femulator whose lower torso is not naturally well-endowed.

Professional femulators Rogers and Starr, circa 1960

Someday Funnies

Wearing Rachel Zoe

Luis Montalbert femulates Gloria Trevi on Costa Rican television's Tu cara me suena.

More Hamvention Shorts

My Hamvention picnic outfit

I have been attending Hamvention most years since 1978. Before 2010, I attended in boy mode. Since 2010, I have attended as a woman.

As a well-known writer in the ham radio world, I made a lot of friends and acquaintances and when I attended Hamvention, I was on a first-name basis with a lot of the people staffing the booths at the show as well as with the makers and shakers in the hobby, many of whom made presentations at Hamvention.

When I began presenting as a woman at Hamvention, the only people who were aware of the change were the folks I came out to. Everyone else had no clue. Either they assumed I was the wife of a male ham attending the show or I was one of those rare female hams.

As a result, I had to reintroduce myself to the makers and shakers and folks who staffed the booths. And to tell you the truth, the first few years I attended as a woman, I was very shy and did not perform a lot of reintroductions because I worried how people would react.

When I realized that most people reacted positively to the change, I became more confident and outgoing and began touring the show with great abandon just as I did when I attended in boy mode.

Now I am again on a first-name basis with the makers and shakers and folks who staff the booths, but now that first name is "Stana" not "Stan."

📻 📻 📻

I lost one earring (a favorite from Napier) and my lip brush at Hamvention. Actually, my lip brush probably never made the trip. Last time I looked, it was in the bag that holds my makeup brushes, but when I did my makeup in Ohio Thursday morning, it was gone.

Back home grocery shopping on Wednesday, I checked the makeup aisle at Stop & Shop. Although they have a large makeup aisle including a big selection of makeup brushes, they did not have a lip brush.

Next I tried Rite Aid which has an even bigger makeup aisle, but still no luck. In case I missed the brush among the huge array of products in the makeup aisle, I asked a sales representative and she said, "I haven't seen a lip brush for sale in years. Does anyone even use them today?"

I replied, "I do."

Since I was in boy mode, she laughed.

I ended up ordering a new lip brush from Amazon. And I found the earring on eBay. Yay!

📻 📻 📻

As a ham radio operator, usually you have no idea about the people you contact over the air.

For years, Bill and I were key operators in a ham radio network spanning Connecticut and we worked together to make the network function efficiently. I never met Bill until I ran into him at Hamvention. (Yes, we traveled over 750 miles to meet each other even though we lived about 40 miles apart.)

After that first encounter, we usually met up at Hamvention each year, until I began showing up as a woman. As I mentioned above, I was shy those first few years attending as a woman, so I did not go out of my way to find Bill. Then about five years ago, I saw Bill sitting in the audience of a forum I was also attending and when the forum was over, I made a beeline to Bill to reintroduce myself.

Bill was surprised, but seemed OK with the revised me and said that I had to be true to myself. Since then, Bill and I usually meet up at Hamvention as if nothing changed.

This year, as I was returning to our booth after making my presentation, I heard someone call out my name and I turned around to find Bill waiting in line to buy lunch from a food truck. He informed me that he retired as a state police officer (I had no idea he was a state cop) and had moved to South Carolina. And then he said he wanted to introduce me to his wife, who was also waiting in line.

It does my heart good when a friend or acquaintance wants to introduce me to their spouse. It is so meaningful to me because they have accepted me as a real person, not a freak, but a woman.

Wearing Veronica Beard

Scott Willis femulating on stage in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Hamvention Shorts

Making a point during my Hamvention presentation

In my previous post, I mentioned there was a scheduling foul-up and my Friday morning presentation was postponed until Saturday morning and I would be presenting to a different group of people – not my usual crowd. My Powerpoint presentation was designed for my usual crowd and I would have liked to have tweaked it for my new audience, but there was no time for that.

As a result, I was very nervous and feel that I did not do a good job. On the other hand, the audience seemed to react positively to what I had to say and a handful of people said I did a good job, so maybe I am being too hard on myself.

Like last year, my presentation was videotaped, so when it gets posted on YouTube, I'll see for myself how I did.

📻 📻 📻

I saw about a half dozen Femulate readers at Hamvention this year (you know who you are). All were disguised as males, but it was great to see them nonetheless and I appreciate that they stopped by our booth to say, "Hello."

I also saw about a half dozen transwomen presenting as women. Some I know are post-op, the others, I dunno, but none stopped by our booth to say "Hello" to me. Although one post-op stopped by to see what our booth was all about. She spoke with me briefly, but there was no recognition on her part, so I assume she doesn't know me from Eve.

📻 📻 📻

As I mentioned before, going to Hamvention, I travel in boy mode in order to get on the road as soon as possible to avoid the commuter traffic in this neck of the woods. And as I did this year, I usually stay overnight in a Best Western on the Ohio border and depart for Dayton in girl mode the next morning. And on the way home in girl mode, I stop at the same hotel for the night and proceed home the next morning.

This year was the first time that the person at the front desk was the same coming and going.

When I showed up in girl mode Sunday evening, the front desk clerk did not seem to recognize me. At this hotel, I always request a room on the north side because the one time I stayed in a room on the south side, I was kept awake all night by tractor trailers downshifting on the exit ramp 200 feet away. So when I repeated the same request I had just made four days earlier, I thought she might recognize me, but she did not.

I asked, "I stayed here Wednesday night. Do you remember me?"

She replied, "No, I don't."

After I handed her my driver's license and she looked at it, she said, "Now I remember you."

And she added, "You look very nice."

📻 📻 📻

I overpacked again. (What else is new!)

I brought two pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, a blazer, a shrug, a hoody, a jumpsuit, two belts and two wigs that I did not wear. I also brought some makeup, nail polish and jewelry that I did not wear.

Overpacking was not a big deal because I drove a car to Hamvention, but I plan to fly next year, so I have to improve my packing skills.

Wearing Boston Proper

Model Veit Alex and his mother.