Marian posted her reaction to the announcement that I was ending this blog. In response, I commented why. Since I never went into those details here, I am repeating my comment now.
Thank you for the very kind words, Marian.
You are correct: I spent a lot of time producing each blog post... two hours minimum, but more typically three or four hours! When I was working, I usually put the blog together in the morning before work and put the bow and ribbon on it during lunch. It provided a needed break from writing very technical manuals.
Since I retired, I typically spent the morning putting together each blog post. The three and four hour chunks were more noticeable and it did not provide a needed break from anything... it became a job. And after nearly two years of retirement, I got tired of doing it, so I quit.
I was overwhelmed by the reaction to my quitting. All my regular correspondents had something to say, but what really surprised me were all the strangers who wrote to me saying how important the blog was to them. I had no idea!
So I decided to continue writing the blog on a limited basis. Once or twice a week at the most. And so it goes.
Sitting around at the family Independence Day picnic, my daughter asks, "What's wrong with your eye?"
"Huh?" was my comeback as I had not noticed anything wrong with my eye.
My wife looked at my left eye and proclaimed that I had a sty.
Upon arriving home, I checked out my eye in the mirror and confirmed my wife's diagnosis.
Googling sty, I found that "styes will usually heal on their own over the course of a few days to a couple weeks. The best way to treat a stye is to apply warm compresses (a washcloth soaked in warm water) to the affected eyelid for 10-15 minutes three times a day. This will help the pus trapped in the stye to come to the surface of the skin."
Avoid using makeup was also highly recommended.
I nursed the sty with warm compresses and after a week or so, I noticed some improvement, but I must have irritated the sty a few days ago and I am back where I started from.
I found some home remedies on line and am going the coconut oil route. If things don't improve, I have my annual check-up on Tuesday, so I'll bring it up with my doctor then.
Meanwhile, I am avoiding using makeup, eye cream and moisturizer, which has stymied all femulating!
As a 17-year-old transvestite-in-training, The Queen blew my mind upon its release in 1968.
Here was a film about a womanless beauty pageant at a time when any information about crossdressing was very difficult to find, leaving girls like me who lived out in the boonies to wonder if we were all alone in the world. The Queen indicated otherwise.
Here is the link to Rolling Stone's story about restoration and re-release of this important documentary: The Link.
I thank you for all the emails and comments regarding the end of this blog. They were eye-opening! I had no idea how much this blog meant to so many of you.
So I have decided not to end this blog. Rather, I will write posts on an occasional basis.
With that, I present a lovely poem sent to me by Susan.
Like a welcomed cup of coffee
she started my day
Power on, get on line and see
what Stana has to say
With a passion for fashion
and advice to relate,
she summed it up
with one word she invented: Femulate!
As a blog it was subtle,
no bravado, no alarms
It felt more like a family
We are sisters-in-arms
Now the run is over
All good things must end
Good luck and thank you
I hope I can call you a friend
Wearing New York & Company.
Femulating at Indiana's Tri-State College in 1911. The girl on the left was voted most likely not to be a civilian.
After 12-1/2 years, I have decided to put an end to this blog. I am tired of writing it, have nothing new to say and want to spend the time doing something else.
It has been an interesting trip. I grew a lot writing the blog and I believe I helped some of you readers to grow, too. And I invented a word, femulate.
When I'm feeling down, feeling a little guilty about my trans-ness, or feeling a little depressed, I think about the following words from Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters.
One day, a month ago, I really hit bottom. I just felt that in a godless universe I didn't want to go on living.
I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded and pressed to my forehead.
I thought, "I'm gonna kill myself."
Then I thought, "What if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? Nobody really knows."
Then I thought, "No. Maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing."
I remember clearly, the clock was ticking and I was sitting there frozen debating whether to shoot. All of a sudden, the gun went off. I was so tense I inadvertently squeezed the trigger. But I was perspiring so much the gun slid off my forehead and missed me.
Suddenly, neighbors were pounding on the door and the whole scene was just pandemonium. I ran to the door. I didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed and confused.
My mind was racing a mile a minute. I just knew one thing: I had to get out of that house. I had to get out in the fresh air and clear my head. And I remember, I walked the streets. I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and unreal to me.
I wandered on the Upper West Side. It must have been hours. My feet hurt, my head was pounding. I went into a movie. Didn't know what was playing. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective.
I went up to the balcony and I sat down. The movie* was one I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and I always loved it. I'm watching the screen and I started getting hooked on the film.
And I started to feel: "How can you think of killing yourself? Isn't it stupid? Look at all the people on-screen. They're funny, and what if the worst is true? There's no God, you only go around once, that's it. Don't you want to be part of the experience? It's not all a drag."
And I'm thinking, "I should stop ruining my life searching for answers and just enjoy it while it lasts."
And after, who knows? Maybe there is something.
I know "maybe" is a slim reed to hang your life on, but that's the best we have. And then I started to sit back and I actually began to enjoy myself.
Electric water heater is only 3 years old, so I called the company that sold and installed the unit to report the problem.
Service guy shows up and believes that the bottom heating element in the hot water heater is not working and he will be back later to replace it. He also mentions that water is flowing out of the hot water heater. So?
A different service guy shows up with the replacement heating elements. Since they have to replace the lower element, they might as well replace the upper element while they are at it.
Service guy is unable to proceed because he does not have a socket wrench large enough to remove the heating element and he will be back later with a larger socket wrench. He also mentions that water is flowing out of the hot water heater. So?
A third service guy shows up with the largest socket wrench and replaces the heating elements. One element has some calcium deposits on it, but otherwise the old elements tested out OK with his ohmmeter! He also mentions that water is flowing out of the hot water heater. So?
Still no hot water, so I call again and the head service guy said he would send a service guy out to replace the thermostats in the water heater.
A fourth service guy shows up and immediately notices that water is flowing out of the hot water heater, which indicates there is a leak. The hot water heater is fine, but just can't keep up with the water flowing out and thus, the lack of hot water throughout the house.
As a result, the hot water heater is constantly running, which causes the water pump to constantly run in order to provide cold water to the hot water heater. Which results in an electric bill that is three times the normal monthly electric bill! (I had been going round and round for two months trying to figure out why my electric bill had tripled and now I finally had a solution.)
The service guy determines that the leak is in the hot water line to the kitchen sink. The line runs under the house, which is built on a slab. After 30 years, the house's settling probably broke the pipe. After considering all the options, he plans to run a new hot water line through the ceiling to the kitchen sink.
I await his arrival Monday morning as I type this.
Needless to say, all my femulating the past few days has been in my head.
Janek Traczyk femulates Anna Wyszkoni on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar).
One evening out en femme before I was out at work, I had a close encounter with a co-worker, who I feared might out me at my workplace if she figured out who I was en femme.
Being outed at work is a real peril of going out en femme. It could result in the loss of your job and could negatively effect any future employment. However, there are worse real perils of going out en femme... like the loss of your life.
Years ago, a bunch of girls decided to go to a gay bar after the conclusion of our support group meeting. I had never been, so I agreed to go to see what it was like.
As it turned out, I didn't like it. Smoky, dim-lit bars are not my cup of tea, so I had one drink and hung around just long enough so that my clothes and wig stunk from the cigarette smoke.
The bar was not in the best neighborhood. The streets were not well lit and my car was parked a long block away. As I left the bar, another patron exited after me, followed me and began accosting me. He thought I was one of the girls performing in the bar's drag show and he wanted a "date."
I was very scared. I ignored him and walked to my car as fast as possible. (In retrospect, I should have returned to the bar and asked for an escort to my car.)
He finally gave up pursuit, I assumed because I would pay him no mind. I escaped unharmed, although very unnerved, but others have not been so lucky. There are a lot of girls who have turned up dead after being in similar situations.
Although it is wonderful to go out and be your authentic self, you have to keep your wits about you. Be very alert of your surroundings and of the people surrounding you.
And so go safely into the night.
Wearing Caroline Constas dress and Cesta bag (Source: Intermix)
Mrs. Nash, a transwoman who took three husbands in Montana
"Despite a seeming absence from the historical record, people who did not conform to traditional gender norms were a part of daily life in the Old West, according to Peter Boag, a historian at Washington State University and the author of Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past. While researching a book about the gay history of Portland, Boag stumbled upon hundreds and hundreds of stories concerning people who dressed against their assigned gender, he says. He was shocked at the size of this population, which he’d never before encountered in his time as a queer historian of the American West. Trans people have always existed all over the world. So how had they escaped notice in the annals of the Old West?"
Boag limited his research "to towns west of the Mississippi, and the period of time from the California Gold Rush through statehood for all the Western continental territories. It wasn’t that this time and place was more open or accepting of trans people, but that it was more diffuse and unruly, which may have enabled more people to live according to their true identities..."
Patrick Walshe McBride femulates in a 2018 episode of UK television's Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. After posting another image of this femulation here yesterday, a number of readers wondered if the program was viewable online. Good news is that I found the femulating episode ("The Fairest Show Means Most Deceit") on YouTube and Amazon Prime, while Comments to yesterday's post mention other sources. By the way, Patrick's femulation is excellent. Not only does he look spot on, but his voice and mannerisms are convincing, too.
I watched The Last Seduction last night. It is a 1994 film that reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock films and I love Alfred Hitchcock films.
The Last Seduction stars Linda Fiorentino playing a woman who is not only smart, independent and beautiful, but also a very stylish dresser. That's the good news. The bad news is that she is morally corrupt and uses people to get her way.
I want to be Linda Fiorentino when I grow up... the good news part, not the bad news part.
(By the way, the film has a trans-related sub-plot.)
Karl Davies and Patrick Walshe McBride femulate in a 2018 episode of UK television's Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. (Thank you, Jenny)
