Wednesday (Dayton Day Zero)
Wednesday was a travel day in boy mode because I left home as early as possible to beat the bad weather.
Except for two short downpours in central Pennsylvania, the weather on the first leg of the trip was fine for driving. I drove 7-1/2 hours and stayed at a hotel on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border; when I exited my car at the hotel, I was surprised by the heat and humidity. The temperature was in the high 80's and the humidity was in the same neighborhood.
After I settled into my hotel room, all hell broke loose. The sky turned black and there was a thundershower with pea-sized hail. A cold front blew through and the temperature dropped and stayed low throughout the Hamvention (I woke up to sub-40 degree temps each morning in Dayton). And it rained off and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
I did not expect the low temperatures and all the outfits I packed were sleeveless. Luckily I had brought a trench coat and hoody!
Thursday (Dayton Day One)
Up at 5 AM (as usual), I shaved, showered and did my makeup.
My makeup collection is contained in a big tackle box that I bought years ago. It has everything I need, but do I need everything?
I was determined to make an effort to keep track of exactly what I used throughout the weekend so that in the future, I could travel a little lighter makeup wise.
Thursday, I wore my new black jumpsuit from Fashion to Figure, nude 3-inch high heels from Payless, and accessorized with jewelry and a nude bag from Avon. Also, I wore a new do for the first time (Meredith from Henry Margu). Its color is "Gold Blonde with Glazed Strawberry Blonde Highlights."
I checked myself out in the full-length mirror, thought to myself, "Yes - you are a woman," took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
The hallway was deserted.
I pressed the button for the elevator. When it arrived, a young couple were already on board. Since I was on the top floor of the hotel, I waited for them to exit.
When they realized what I was doing, they motioned for me to get on board. Turned out that they were going down, too, but got on the elevator from the floor below when it was going up to get me. When the elevator went down and stopped at the next floor, I joked, "This is where you get on."
They laughed at my little joke. When we arrived at the lobby, they let the funny old lady (me) get off first.
I went to the dining area and there were two couples seated and eating. A senior gent from one of the couples watched me intently while I selected the items for my breakfast (yogurt, fruit and coffee). I think he wanted a date, but all they had were apples and oranges.
I ate while watching the news on the television. There was a tornado that did some destruction overnight elsewhere in Ohio. I was not surprised considering the kind of weather that I saw in my neck of the woods Wednesday evening.
After breakfast, I returned to my room to freshen up, moved my bags to my car and checked out. This was the potential exciting part because I checked in presenting as a male, but I was checking out presenting as a female.
The potential for excitement would be even higher if the same person who checked me in was working the front desk when I checked out, but she was a no-show. The fellow working the desk was the same fellow who was working the desk when I checked out last year (I have stayed at the same hotel three years in a row). He was polite as could be, used the correct pronouns and gave away no hints that he knew anything was amiss.
There was no excitement until I got back on the Interstate and encountered a deluge just north of Columbus. The rain was falling so heavily for a minute or so that visibility was next to zero, so I slowed down to a crawl until the rain let up a bit.
I arrived at my hotel in Dayton and checked in. Liz, a very young lady was working the front desk and she was as accommodating as could be. She did not bat an eye when I asked her to change the name on my reservation because there was an error (a male first name - how did that happen!) --- I wanted the name on the reservation to match the name (Stana) on my Hilton Honors Awards card.
After checking in, I moved my luggage to the room and relaxed while reading my e-mails. After an hour, I was bored, so I moved to the lobby to people-watch while reading my e-mails. Most of the people I watched were fellow board members of my group who were either staying in the hotel or were showing up early for our 6 PM board meeting.
My iPhone rang and it was another board member who was in charge of paying the bills for the meeting. He called to ask me if I, as the group's secretary, knew if anyone had arranged for food for the board meeting. No one had, so he met me in the lobby to discuss the matter while looking over menus of local food providers. We quickly made an executive decision to order apizza and salad.
After returning to my room to get a cold drink and freshen my makeup, I proceeded to the meeting room for the board meeting. I greeted the two board members, who were already present, then took a seat. One-by-one, the other board members arrived and the meeting got underway after everyone had a chance to get salad and apizza.
I will not go into details about the board meeting except to say that everyone who knew me before femulation treated me as they always have. The only difference was that they now use different pronouns (and they have become very good at doing that).
On the other hand, the two newcomers at the meeting, who did not know the old me, did not have to use new pronouns and they treated me as a woman because that's all they know.
Actor Anthony Berry femulating on British television’s Coronation Street in 2007.
Wearing Lafayette 148 New York.
