Mikki commented on Thursday's "Neighbors" post, "You didn't address the 'consequences' of your neighbors seeing Stana. Would there be any at all? Would there be some sort of 'cost' if this happened?
I did not mention any consequences because there are none.
We don't socialize much with our neighbors. A wave hello is about the extent of it. If something is wrong, we know who to call (like when one neighbor was away and his burglar alarm sounded, I called his brother who lives down the road). I assume they would do the same for me.
Hamming It Up Dept.
The video of my presentation at this year's Hamvention is now on YouTube here.
My goal was to lose more weight for my high school class reunion. When I got on the scale yesterday morning, I discovered I had lost another five pounds!
I wondered how the dress I purchased for the reunion would look and fit now that I was five pounds lighter. So I slipped on my shapewear, hosiery, heels and the dress I purchased from New York & Company.
It fit perfectly, but when I looked in the mirror, it did not knock my socks off.
While I was waiting for that dress to go on sale, I had purchased another dress, a Calvin Klein floral scuba shift dress, to wear to the reunion in case the New York & Company dress did not go on sale. The Calvin Klein looked fab when I tried it on at Dress Barn, so I slipped out of the New York & Company dress and slipped into the Calvin Klein.
Right away I noticed that the zipper zipped up without effort as compared to struggling with the zipper when I tried it on at Dress Barn. That was a good sign.
And just like the New York & Company dress, the Calvin Klein dress fit perfectly, but when I looked in the mirror, unlike the New York & Company dress, the Calvin Klein dress knocked my socks off! So much so that I changed my plans and decided to wear the Calvin Klein to the reunion.
All I have to do is figure out which shoes and bag to wear with the dress.
Good news is that my wife does not mind that I go out as a woman. While discussing the matter, though, she has asked, "Aren't you afraid of being seen by the neighbors?"
Not at all. Across the street are hundreds of acres of virgin reservoir property, so my nearest neighbors are the birds, the bees and the bears. And the neighbors in their acre lots east and west of our acre lot would have a difficult time seeing me come and gobecause we are so treed-in.
However, I am fairly certain that on a handful of occasions, neighbors have seen me en femme as our vehicles passed each other on the main road in and out of our neighborhood. Don't know whether they figured out it was me en femme or if they thought that some female was borrowing my car.
I do believe that one female neighbor thought she figured me out. A few weeks after our vehicles passed each other while I was dressed to kill, I encountered her while we were walking our dogs. We stopped and chatted briefly, then out of the blue she said, "I see you're wearing pantyhose."
I can't recall if she said "pantyhose" or "knee-highs" or "nylons" or whatever... in any case, she was intimating that I was wearing women's hosiery even though I was in boy mode.
I looked down at my feet trying to figure out why she said that and I saw my feet in a pair of men's socks that were colored light beige. So I looked at her as if she had lobsters crawling out of her ears and said, "No, I'm wearing beige socks."
I should have asked her why she would think I'd be wearing women's hosiery, but I was so glad to have side-stepped her gotcha that I just went on my merry way.
Eye makeup to die for!
The 1929 installment of the Washington State Kiwanis Follies featured these lovely femulators competing in a beauty pageant.
To play Devil's advocate. From your blog it seems that your H.S classmates were very harsh to you and are not worthy of your time.
Just curious, but what do you hope to achieve by attending your H.S. reunion enfemme? Is it to flaunt your femininity and feminine self to their face and show them you survived? Something else?
Your appearance enfemme might only result in possible embarrassment to your wife, sister and/or daughter, and it might confirm to the bigoted originators of the bullying statements that they were right all along in the comments they made to you in H.S.
Your Law School reunion went very well but college is different than H.S. H.S. students are young and bigoted and may not be forgiving - they were and can still be very cruel. I would not want you or your family to be hurt.
Here is my reply.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
My law school and college days were not much different than my high school days. I was treated poorly by some of my law school and college classmates just like my high school classmates. Luckily, none of my tormentors showed up at my law school reunion.
So what do I hope to achieve by attending my high school reunion en femme?
High school was not all gloom and doom. I had a lot of good friends and I hope that some of them will show up so I can introduce them to the real me. I want to have a good time and I know I will have a good time if my old friends show up and accept me as a woman.
As far as any of my tormentors are concerned, I will flaunt my femininity in their face, but I will not give them the time of day.
And by the way, two of my tormentors will be no-shows because they are dead and buried.
Revisiting "Another Reunion"
Yesterday's post titled "Another Reunion" was about my law school reunion in 2012, not about my high school class reunion that is scheduled for this Saturday, June 8.
I stopped counting the number of people who thought yesterday's post was about my high school class reunion, which hasn't taken place yet!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
