Voyages en Rose

Prowling and Pouncing on the New Year

2012-01-01T11:49:00.003-05:00

Putting aside, for just a moment the still real possibility that the Mayans were right all along, and our whole loving world goes kaput some time or other this year, I am quite looking forward to 2012.

Amongst other things, I feel driven to expand my animal style menagerie to include Zebra prints. Yes friends, Leopard has been done to death, and I feel partly responsible. So, yes, the 2012 forecast is all about Zebra. Tiger too. Ocelot also I suppose. And more Snakeskin and other motifs Reptilian, ne c'est pas??

Oh, who am I fooling? There will be Leopard too.

(ed. Leopard, darling, I was only joking. Those other animals, they mean nothing to me. It’s always, only been you.)

As busy as things have been with work, family, holidays and the rest of the year end madness, I am happy to report that Petra has been shown some good loving care of late. There were three life giving outings in December, our darkest, brightest month.

A few weeks back now, dear friend Gabrielle put together a social at Atlanta’s Club Chaparral, and I was delighted to see a beautiful brace of local luminaries and various Gendernauts all dolled up on a school night.

Gabrielle starts off at 6’ tall before the heels go on. And this evening she had the absolute nerve to fix her hair in an up-do. That’s a whole lotta girl. It was good to catch up with her not having chatted since Ramona’s memorial service. Managed as well happily to spend time with the inexhaustible Miss Edie, Phoebe Reece, Debbie Lynn and other friends old and new. Gabrielle plans to make a Thursday evening social a regular feature of life here in Atlanta. Drop me a line here if you are local and looking for more information.

Pastor Paul, leader of the epically open minded, liberal faith community at First Metropolitan Community Church was in attendance too, and tendered an invite to his Christmas service luncheon for the following Sunday. I ran a little late because honestly, I simply don’t know how to do Church appropriate eye make-up.

Loads of families, a wild palette of complexions, young and old and warm welcomes all around. Miss Edie brought along her Gretsch, a stack of amps and her sweet, sweet voice for musical entertainment. Real holiday season stuff. Nice to catch up with Barbara especially. My Lizard pumps were a big hit with the choir girls.

And with the curtain closing on 2011 last night, I slithered into a party frock and shimmied out into the night. CyndiLou and Joanne Purcell managed to organize cocktails, dinner and entertainment for twenty or so local ladies and loving partners. I had a prior obligation and so sadly could not stay for supper or the undoubtedly fun times had by all at Le Buzz. Do you know though, even a short few hours en Femme in great company really goes a long, long way.

Loads of gold(ish) bling, a clingy dress, powdered and perfumed surfaces, a genuine New Years Eve effort. I felt like a million dollars my dears. There is a vast wide river of confidence that flows from having a well put together look. The belief that you are wearing the nicest lingerie in the room doesn't hurt either.

It comes out in the walk, shaking the hair out, throwing the shoulders back and smiling as the doors slide open into the lobby of a nice hotel. Stop a moment, scan the room, meet all the eyes, spot the bar and stride on in, heels on tiles and that slightly breathless feeling that I still get, that feeling that I hope never goes away.

The feeling that I can summon up even the smallest fraction of power that women have. The power to make the world stand still. How dazzled I have always been by that power, and how privileged I feel to touch it as fleetingly as I do.

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I did mention prior obligations though, yes? They necessitated a fast drive home and transformation back into the more broadly known me for a most excellent celebration with Mrs. Bellejambes and the company of a lovely couple to usher 2012 in with.

We spoke briefly, Mrs. B and I about the possibility of ushering in the year in Petra-mode. It was a serious discussion and a real coin toss in my view. Ultimately, my beautiful wife came upon words that made it a no-brainer for me.

“I want to go into the new year as us”.

And so we did. It was good. Great in fact.

I still have a facility for trousers, cuff links and a smart blazer after all. Yet another Leopard that cannot change spots.

Each of us, Mrs. B. and I, are accommodating “Petra” better here now than we did a year ago. I feel as though the year ahead holds even more promise of understanding, discovery and sharing than any year in the past. I most sincerely hope that you are feeling that way about your prospects too.

Happy New Year.

Chemistry

2011-11-19T09:19:00.001-05:00

Excluding SCC, I have been out and about as Petra only thrice this year. Ouch. Well, four times now as of last weekend. I did then rather enjoy things seen through pink lenses, and wrote effusively about the whole pretty pageant here.

Time has been the principal thief of opportunity. Work stuff is planted to rails of my metaphorical farm. The fallow, clovered pastures that Petra did once flourish and frolic in are presently under plough, upturned and nitrogen fixed for commercial purposes.

I have come to think that work, the way I spend my days has a pretty big impact on my “Petra-ness” beyond simply being a time soak. The impact is behavioral too. Like any job with grazzilions of dollars at stake, the day is composed of a fair amount of adversarial posturing, the odd volley of tactical aggression, and an always-present sense of wariness about things in general. You know, the generalized chest-beating, loud tree-top howling and Samsonite-hurling that corporate Great Apes conduct in the service of the business.

Women can and do succeed in my role, in my industry, so the exercise of masculine traits is not a pre-requisite of success. A little more project nurturing here, a dose of quiet collegial grooming there, terrific female Great Ape behaviors, these work too.

And ya know, dear friends, I am not proposing that one behavior or another is the exclusive domain of one gender or another. I am merely suggesting that having spent about 99% of my life expressing male, those are the behaviors I reflexively lay hand to under pressure. I call frequently on those traits in part because there is so much newness in the work that I need to rely on a lot of background processes, reflexive stuff to keep my higher mind available for the work.

And so “Petra” has been a little less available to the whole me just now.

Darling friend Janie, of CD Janie blog-fame touched on a related topic recently in a series of short, revealing posts starting with Inner Voice deliberating on the process of going rapidly from femme-space to drab-world and back again. Go read. Janie is a star. Do come back then, will you?

These posts struck a chord in me. It seems that while there is a certain amount of biology that manifests itself in the life of the gender-curious, there is a pretty big beaker of chemistry in the mix too. My brain chemistry, just now, is wired more for my familiar male life than it is for wonderful explorations of the less familiar, the more feminine.

I will tell you this though:

Getting out for a gorgeous evening really has the effect of shaking that beaker up and generally catalyzing and effervescing things. I have spent this past week more distracted by thoughts of a dreamy nature than I have been in a good long time. I popped into a shop in drab mode and snared another gorgeous new outfit at a shocking price (pictured Harvest Gold Ann Taylor skirt for a dumbfounding $7.00, 8% of original retail and a smart top too). Chatted with the (typically) gorgeous sales assistant at length. She was in a sad state having just found out that she was on duty at Midnight, Thanksgiving Day for the increasingly insane rigors of Black Friday.

I wanted to touch her hand and say it will be ok more than I wanted to throttle the throat of the insensitive, short sighted lemming at HQ who thought that an upmarket woman’s boutique should follow in Wal-Mart’s less than stylish footprints. I drove home closer to the speed limit, leaving more room between me and the next vehicle, weaving less and exercising patience more. I found a tiny tributary of pretty thought to paddle around in and express in a product review for my friends at Guilty Pleasures.

Lovely things, lovely feelings. I hope that as more and more of my work becomes a little more reflexive to me, that I will have more room in my higher mind, room for Petra. It feels good when this part of me has room to stretch out and touch things as surely and gracefully as she can. I suspect that, with time, I will be able to employ my fortunate access to wells of feminine strength and wile more easily, more purposefully in my everyday life. Better living through Chemistry indeed.

A Cross Dresser's Exciting Three Way

2011-11-13T14:10:00.011-05:00

Shameful really, what some bloggers will put in a headline to juice traffic a little. For those of you expecting a salacious tale of bedroom acrobatics, well I am not that kind of girl. Take heart though, the internet was practically invented for you.

For the rest of you, dear friends all, the 3 Way refers to the mirror, or rather I should say The Mirror. A topic worthy of a long post, long even by my lax standards. Perhaps a pee break would be indicated now before you settle in for a read. You see, yesterday, Petra curled her index finger and cast the rest of me a come-hither look that I had not the strength to ignore. So I (we???) went out last night and got in front of a few of them. Mirrors, that is.

I have blathered on here about how much of a high it is for me to be accepted in exclusively female environments – wig salons, shoe sale racks, the aestheticians counter at Macy’s, Nordstrom’s or what have you. Wonderful places where, freed from the presence of guys, women find their natural, unguarded selves, their truest voice. This is the voice I love best.

That voice can be found in the hushed, hopeful hall at the back of the shop, that well-lit warren of far-from-the-Office cubes, the runway of runaway shopping impulses, the Fitting Room area. First stop, Dillard’s at Atlantic Station for a quick run through their BCBG Max Azaria boutique. I have been lusting for some months now after a beguiling skirt of the clingy, flashy variety pictured here. The gorgeous sales assistant pulled the last one from an off the beaten track rack when I described what I hadn’t found.

“Oh yes! The foil skirt … we have one, hang on… yup, your size too!”

And then disappointment as she toddled the trophy back to me …

“O no! there is a tear in the waistband …”

I suggested that I should at least try it on for size, and think then about picking it up online.

“Oh yes, you will love it, cute, cute cute…”

There is an invisible membrane between public shopping spaces and private changing places, a membrane that repels the fellows. I love passing through it.

The door closes, the bag is hung, the jacket draped, something is peeled off and something new is pulled on. And if that something is not a total disaster, the 3 way calls. The Big Mirror down the hall. You see yourself walking towards it, running all the calculus, does it fit, what would I wear with it, is this really my silhouette, don’t I already own this ….?

You will have quietly resolved the thousand questions by the time you step up on the small riser, strike a pose, look left and right, up and down, front and back with the one question left … is this my skirt (dress, blouse, jacket, etc…)?

“Oh my God but you rock that skirt … you like?”

“Like? I love it (hands smoothing skirt, a little shimmy, knees together…), shame about the tear…”

“You know that must have come from some girl who had no chance of getting it past her knees. Honestly you would not believe what gets ruined before it even leaves the store”

“Really? ,,, ouch ( reset the waistband, turn 90°, regard ass over right shoulder) … too too bad”

The second shop assistant walked in ..

“Uh huh, you like? … I thought it was too stiff for me….”

“Yes, o yes … ( hands on hips, standard female comic superhero stance)… Love it.”

More conversation of a similar ilk followed, I continued to flirt with the wounded skirt I knew I would leave behind, stripped down and dressed up again, waving so long. It wouldn’t be fishing if you struck every time you dropped a line I suppose…

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I went to drop a line down the road at Ann Taylor. The Friends and Family 40% off every loving stitch in the place sale was on last night. AT is always a top shopping experience for me. Quality, current, and classic, I believe that AT has the pulse of the maturing contemporary woman better than any other major retailer, at least in this part of the world. You would be mad to not be signed up for the email specials.

Love the shops too, wide open eye-lines, loads of space between the fixtures, none of that awkward butt-brushing, shoulder-to-shoulder rack rifling typical of most shops. Ann Taylor is just a stately place. And the fitting rooms? Bigger than many New York studio apartments. Yummm.

After the usual “Welcome to Ann Taylor” salute from the staff and a slow wander / ponder about, the nice assistant asked if she could set a fitting room for me, relieving me of the rapidly building pile folded over my arm.

“Thanks, of course. Let me see grab a couple of other things … see you there in a tick.”

“Take your time … I’ll just leave the twill slacks on your rooms door, ok?...”

OK, indeed. I grabbed one more pair of slacks, asked for the stacked platform giraffe print bootie and retired to my private space. While changing the tap-tap-tap on the door heralded the arrival of my shoes, but you know it is ok to pull the door open in a half-dressed state here.

“Here are the 8 ½’s, hope you like them!”

Out to the long hall, prowling, dead center the length of the walk up to the riser, pretty much convinced that the pants were not for me and my fellow shopper hailed me with a nice smile …

“Give me a zip up please, would you?”

A dark complexioned woman, nearly dressed, early 30’s with stunning grey/blue eyes, a rare sighting of one of the universes most extravagant displays of beauty, gestured towards her back. The royal blue knit dress with the dropped waist was a little full on her to my eye as I fastened her in, but she was more concerned about the short hem.

“O no, the length is great. Opaque tights and you are fine. And the blue, o my god it makes your eyes just pop! I think it looks great, but you … you not convinced are you?

“I just don’t know. It is my color, but…. I don’t know….”

“I like the cut … it’s not for me though, I like a higher waist line..”

I helped her then with the unzipping, and we each retired to our private reserves. The style chit chat continued over the tall walls, and we both made a few forays back out to the racks trading views all the while. There were a couple of men there, attending their wives, fidgeting uncomfortably, privately wishing the Mayans would move the end of the world up a couple of months and just end it all, now. Not us girls.

I saw the skirt at the cash desk, opined that I liked it, hadn’t seen it in my size and asked did they have one for me? Yes they did, and I settled into the work of imagining a top for it. My new friend pointed at the ruffled cami and said that would work. That was not available in Petra dimension, but I did spot the glitter, metallic thread long sleeve crew neck that I thought might just work.

I was completely on the scent now, arms and legs moving like a veggie dicer, off with old, on with the new, cinch the belt back on, and now triumphantly back to The Mirror. Perfect.

She did not have to say a word, just smiled and nodded. She was in fact trying the same skirt on, truthfully to lesser effect. I felt it was simply too big on her.

“What size is it?” I asked.

“Two”

“Petite right?” (She is about 5’ 2” tops, and the skirt hit at knee where mine was right where I like, about three above the knee.)

“It has a lot of stretch to it dear (hands circling rump) Try the zero, it will work and you will feel soooo good about wearing a zero, admit it…”

“O god, you know me too too well… and that top, I would not have picked that … great outfit”

I was finished by now, and glowing even before I realized the bargains I had won. The $130.00 skirt and the $80 top for a mere $58 after all the markdowns.

I waved goodbye to my stylish sister, and waded back out into the evening air, into the wider unsuspecting and mostly uncaring world. I was armed against worry in part by the bag hanging from my shoulder, striding happily along the busy sidewalks, happy couples and lurking lads, everyone looking everyone else up and down, top to toe. Atlantic Station on a Saturday night is very much a place for people watching, and some did watch me.

I was particularly charmed by the young woman who dropped her boyfriend’s hand for a moment to touch my hot pink flared-waist jacket and tell me she loved it. I told her she was sweet and that I loved her hair. She gave me a quick hug and a wink and carried on down the road with her flummoxed fellow.

A short drive home, a glass of wine, the slow disrobing, the long shower, the many layers of exterior washed off, folded away, leaving the more familiar exterior surfaces of the guy visible. The interior things have a longer, deeper impact though, feeling it very much this morning. I revel in my privileges, and feel tuned up, in touch, at peace.

Simply had to share that with you today. Thanks for staying with me.

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For those of you who are curious to read a little more about what is going in my fashion life, I have been busy as a beaver over at Guilty Pleasures. The audience there is a tad more … mainstream than you dear friends, but we all share an interest in the looks beneath that flatter the rest of the ensemble, and help us all feel as beautiful as we can.

I encourage you to visit often, and especially encourage you to check out the many fine vendors I have been delighted to work with. For the complete body of Petra Guilty Pleasures essays, simply click here. Recent posts include some terrific hosiery finds (including the wonderful Cecilia de Raphael’s, pictured at right), and a wild, happy variety of all the pretty things a woman needs.

Happy shopping friends.

Lasting beauty and beauty for the renting

2011-10-16T11:21:00.005-04:00

Terribly butch couple of weeks here on the domestic front. Mrs. Bellejambes, self and our checkbook are making up for recent years of laxity in matters of home maintenance. We are pretty much recovered from recent rigors of the installation of new flooring, the annual autumn prune-a-thon (including another grizzly battle in our no-end-in-sight War on Wisteria^®), and a fair old whack of exterior and deck painting too. Much of the work that requires actual skill was staffed out, dear friends, but all of it required a certain amount of heaving, grunting and sweating on my part. Not a pretty sight.

And then, late Friday night, close on bed time we heard a sound dreaded by homeowners, the near ballistic explosion and the subsequent demented rattling, sizzling cacophony signally a massive failure of garage door springs. It is an odd thing, I had not actually heard the sound before, but the very instant I did, in my PJ’s and at the other end of our home the following thought coursed through my mind:

“... well, that’ll be the garage and I wager that my Saturday is well and truly fucked.”

And so it was. All is back in working order now, but my hands look a bit of crime scene, knuckles scraped and nicked, and not all of the gunk out from under the nails. Perhaps then, using those same hands to type out a note or two in Petra guise will help put a more feminine finish on things in general.

Back we go, therefore, a few weeks to my last outings.

Much of what one actually pays for at Southern Comfort are the seminars. Measured this way, I did not get great value from my conference fees because of my schedule and my propensity to hang around bars for the chit-chat. I did however ensure that I had a good seat for Monica Prata’s session “Looking Sexy in Age Appropriate Fashions & Successful Shopping on Any Budget!”

I met with Monica briefly last year at SCC, and developed an instant crush. Some women just have the whole woman thing knocked out so perfectly that one wavers between wordless adoration and wistful sorrow at how far away from that elite zip code one lives.

Monica has it. And in a much more substantial way than all the glossy, shapely surfaces and finely tuned sense of style indicate. She is a Vesuvius of enthusiasm, really gorgeously alive, wired, colorful and compelling. And, O yeah, she works with special people, the likes of we. A tip of the pill box cap to the universe for this lovely gift.

In any event, Monica’s seminar was live audience participation “do this, and good god girl, do NOT ever under any circumstances do that" kind of material. A few brave and generous girls had dressed in some of the “don’t” looks to provide the packed room with living, breathing (gasping?) examples of fashion fails and fixes too. We spent time on shoes, and were cautioned against pointy toe pumps. You see, this sort of shoe, beloved of all, does make ones feet look a little larger than they actually are. Not the sort of feature the big boned Cross Dresser really wants emphasize, I think we will agree.

“Any girls in the room wearing pointy shoes?”

Guess whose hand shot proudly up? Come on down Petra! I scrambled up to the podium as Monica introduced me, asking me my shoe size.

“8 ½ darling”

“Well friends, Petra is a lousy example. Once you get above 9 you are into trouble territory and should really consider rounded peep toes or open sandals. Petra can actually wear these … and I love the way she rocks the Ombre skirt….’

My vanity was satisfied by the moment, but I did feel poorly about not providing full reinforcement of Ms. Prata’s curricula. Big hearted woman that she is, we remain friendly. For those of you who want to spend time with someone who will help you make what you have more wonderful than you have ever imagined, you could not do better. Look her up. She is based in San Fran, and has frequent travels to Chicago and New York in the service of making the world more beautiful, one curious person at a time. I can’t wait to see her again.

This is true in part because I do not think I will ever get my eyes looking so right as they did for Saturday nights gala dinner. I had high high hopes (and shoes to match) for the evening stemming in part from my shopping decisions. My own makeup skills were not going to rise to the occasion, and so I organized a little spa time with saintly Monica. Time well spent. Thanks darling, sincerely. I feel as though my peepers popped like never before. Beyond that, it is an entirely gorgeous experience just hanging around with you.

For the big evening, I had picked out a couple of party frocks from Rent the Runway (pictured on self at right, and on more poised models in prior posts here). RTR is a peak shopping experience. Loyal visitors here know that I do like a bit of shopping here and there, and this romp was a true topper.

The sapphire blue Christian Siriano color and feel was gorgeous, but felt to me just too simple a cut and finish for a gala night. I am glad to have slipped into it, and giddy that I peeled it off and tossed it dismissively on the bed, opting instead for the Christian Cota. A stretch silk blend in a shimmering copper tone, gathered and ruched in a thousand places, turning a tent worth of lifeless fiber into a clingy lighting rod of gorgeous sensation. Sweet merciful creation but I did feel a pang of loss when I put her back in the mailbox on Monday. Enjoy your life sweet, sweet dress, and know always that I love you more than all those other women that rent you.

I highly recommend the Rent the Runway experience if you are dressing for a special night out and if your finances are not precarious. The size range tends to stop at 12, so those of you possessed of a fuller figure may find yourselves thwarted at the checkout. With that said though, go ahead and sign up there for the email updates. It is worth it to spend a little time looking at what is current and beautiful. Lovely styles all around, interesting reviews (unflinchingly negative ones too in some cases… RTR really lets the reader participate in the business). Natural born journalist and consumer advocate that I am, of course I left a review. Spot the spelling error friends! I really must take better care. I do get a little gushy and rushed when writing about things I love.

Yes the dress fit like a glove, barely room for an impure thought beneath lustrous surfaces and my own ample padding. She is captured, in her natural environment, at a party in close proximity to a glass of wine and a smiling, happy womanly form. The scarf is a smart finishing touch borrowed from a dinner companion, Beatrice, who upon hearing of my fondness for savage animal prints insisted on an accessory fix and a quick snapshot.

When time allows, I will be back here to leave a note or two on the topic of some of the lovely people one can meet when dressed appropriately. Beyond the seminars, this is where the real value of Southern Comfort is.

Happy dressing and everything else in the meantime!

About Time

2011-10-02T14:14:00.001-04:00

It is no small matter of pride, dear friends that I am able to present as female pretty much as well coming out of the long summer months of hibernation as I did before going in. The fashion flare remains intact, the make-up skills do not rust much and my walk works and struts with the same seismic intensity it had when I parked it way back in springtime of this year. My leg conditioning, however, was miles behind the rest of me. After three high altitude, pinched toe days at SCC my thighs, calves and hooves were in a state of outright mutiny.

Napoleon Bonaparte was reputed to have said that an Army marches with its stomach. Petra is here to tell you that a Tranny marches with her feet. I have a long, happy and cool autumn winter season ahead of me now, and put myself back in stiletto trim. In the meantime, I will find and share this clichéd solace: no pain, no gain.

Enough of the pain then. Let us move on now to gains which net out to this: I got to be Petra … Panavision, Technicolor, Dolby, THX, IMAX, Blu-Ray Petra, my happy 34B self in a fully immersive 3D world for days at a time. I don’t know about you friends, but I really have missed me. It is good to be back. So many good things absent and unnoticed in the general busy-ness of the drab day-to-day.

I won’t dive into specifics here today with you. That will wait for another tide of time. For now, I have a bit of a reverie on time itself for you.

I have missed taking my time, sweet patient time, the time required to unearth Petra from beneath my more broadly known and gruff exterior. So much of what passes for progress in my day to day life is done by brute force, volume over value, donkey-work and doggedness in pursuit of keeping pace with or perhaps even a step ahead of the needs of the now. Petra however cannot be rushed. Petra requires forethought and finesse. Petra gets coaxed into the light. No amount of pushing or shoving helps.

God, but it takes time to become Petra, and the expense of time underlines just how precious time is.

Time is required to conduct the breathtaking archeology of transition, the adding of layers, sediments and shrouds, to reveal the person within.

Time is required to compose the elements of shape, color and scent, to orchestrate a harmonious whole.

Time is required, time to pause, breath and measure, time to not madly dash forward, time to be sure of the next step and the step beyond that one.

Time for the trivia too, are my keys in the purse, is the hair fixed just so, stop now before the lip line and gloss, did I brush my teeth since dawn?... good god I will be speaking with people after all, and look at you not a ring on your fingers, better set that right and slowly too. Be calm, move slowly, stay dry dear. The whole world is out there now, you can lock the door behind you and go out into it now, alert, attenuated and receptive.

No matter that I have been aching to be out, present and presenting as Petra forever now, stillness is required to do this fully and correctly. A stillness that I have not reflexively sought in the rest of my rushed everyday time.

I propose that the qualities of stillness, patience and mindfulness required to be Petra are very much the same qualities required to recall and write about those precious moments, minutes and hours. Or about anything else I suppose.

Since going back into a corporate setting in January of this year, I have missed that stillness. Not much room for considered, conscious receptivity to the moment with all the milestones to meet and millstones to carry. I have known at some level that this change in the nature of my days would be a price of the work I took on. It has, however, taken the time required last week to be immersed in the life of Petra to actually have benchmark against which to measure how far away from stillness I typically live.

It has felt good, great in fact, to be Petra again. It’s about time too in more ways than one. Time to not be rushed, time to coax rather than cudgel, to persuade, to not push and shove.

Wardrobe and words, make-up and metaphor each require time, time I do need to catch up on a little. Looking forward to it. Thanks for spending your time here.

SCC After Words

2011-09-27T21:14:00.003-04:00

The fragrant dust of the 21^st Southern Comfort Conference has been settling a few days now, and I feel a little more certain of being able to start to tell you all about it. I cannot promise a great post here, dear friends. I am as much out of practice at blogging as I have been, until quite recently, at spending long hours in tall pumps. Nothing for it but to start and try, yes? On we go therefore.

Roughly 850 registered attendees (including a surprising 450 first timers) gathered with countless supportive friends and family, and a vibrant number of peripheral participants at Atlanta’s Crowne Plaza’s Perimeter for what I believe to be the largest Transgender conference known to man, woman and everyone somewhere in between last week. I was able to extract myself from work long enough to enjoy a good part of Thursday, much of Friday and practically every loving moment of Saturdays glamorous finale en Femme.

A mad gusher of posts emerged from my first visit to SCC last year, which you may find here, here and ooooh, I can barely reach it .. just over here. The Sophomore visit, with so many elements and sensations so familiar, leaves fewer themes to exploit. Some things need mentioning though, and the important ones have to do with gratitude.

I have spent many years attending conferences of many types over long decades, and must tell you this: SCC runs a tight ship. Not an easy thing to make the trans run on time darlings, and dammit but they do. Hats off to Lexi, her Committee Chairs, and the 100 or so volunteers who just put their backs in to a big piece of work. A special call out is due to Blake Alford whose tribute in words and pictures to Transgendered soldiers, sailors and aviators past and present was without doubt for me the most stirring moments of a great event.

Close in the stirring moments parade came Friday evening at a commitment ceremony for four beautiful couples, amongst them dear friends Cindy and Joanne, both radiant in white. Such a privilege to witness such an open, loving embrace of all the differences an individual can bring to and enlarge a home with. I missed the tossed bouquet by mere inches.

These moments were however eclipsed in the few hours that Mrs. Bellejambes was able to spend with my sisters, brothers and I. Again, I am thankful for much. I hope a fraction of that feeling shows in this picture.

More ponderings to follow as time allows. Let me leave you with a finishing thought:

If, in your journey, you have not enjoyed the luxury of time spent with people with whom you share a difference, you should. Put your spare change in a big jar. Mark your calendars. Visit Atlanta next year for Southern Comfort. You might catch the bouquet yourself.

See you here.

Petra is back. Still working on the front.

2011-09-21T20:29:00.001-04:00

Voyages en Rose has been exhibiting a very faint and irregular heartbeat of late. Seven posts in eight months, a lamentable showing. Circumstances have conspired however to shake me out of the doldrums and provided some newish feminine fodder, Dear Reader, for pondering and prosing on about.

The recent loss of our friend Ramona certainly brought things into focus. Beyond that, well SCC is in full gear by now. Hooray! I am very much looking forward to participating, starting tomorrow evening, to giving long overdue air time to this other, integral part of me. If you are attending, please reach out or drop a note in the comments section here. It is a wonderful thing to meet blog friends in the flesh, yes? That’ll be me perched on a tall stool or teetering on tall heels where the nice people fix cocktails.

There will in short, be much to write about over the next few days, weeks and months.

The wardrobe made the migration from attic to its more airy and organized closets in la Chambre de Petra. I did a rather thorough audit of this and that, and am alarmed to note that a few of my more clingy skirts are rather stressed at the seams. Borderline unseemly in fact. I have, it seems, lost a tooth or two in my metabolic machinery, and put on a little curve. Ravages of time I suppose, and approaching 50 as I am, well it is to be expected. In fairness, this a long time coming. I am suitably warned. It is time for me to be more mindful of lifestyle.

I will be forming a relationship with a consignment shop shortly I fear. In the meantime I will be on the lookout for skinny girls at our conference in the hopes of finding a more suitable hostess for some pretty things that deserve to be worn well.

Life has not been without writing from my adoptive female perspective though. Many of you know that I have been doing the odd product review or fashion editorial for a special friend, Ally, the proprietress of Guilty Pleasures. Ally has been a wonderful source of insight and support. I am quite proud and really quite giddy about the reality that I can and do write with authority about the most intimate fashion category, intimates. Every now and then a smart parcel from a terrific vendor shows up in the mail, and I do my best to find accurate, engaging and honest words about the bras or knickers or tights contained therein. Life is full of surprises. My drawers runneth over. If you haven’t visited, please do. Here is a link to the collected works of your faux fashionista friend.

Also on the fashion front, I splashed out a little on the weekend on a vendor whose business model and fashion sense has had me drooling in recent months. Rent the Runway is thriving online enterprise where a gal on a budget can take temporary possession of a serious party frock for a fractional fee. Tomorrow, a big box of beauty arrives. There is no godly or ungodly way I could ever justify spending $1,000 ++ on a dress. I can justify the $140 rental expense though. More than this, I have decided that I cannot afford to go without the experience of wearing a truly wonderfully made, current piece of serious pret-a-porter at least once in this life. My little heart is going pitter pat in anticipation.

The Christian Cota (top) will be sported at Saturday’s Dinner Gala, and I plan on slithering into the blue Christian Siriano to attend a wonderful Commitment ceremony at SCC. There will be a good number of couples renewing vows, and celebrating enduring love on Friday. I will be especially happy and honored to see Cindy and Joanne P take new vows. Hopefully the mascara will hold. These will be special nights, deserving of a little extra care and preening. I will surely share notes on the experience and other findings from the life en Femme here shortly.

Happy dressing, and happy everything else wished your way.

Passing

2011-09-18T13:31:00.001-04:00

Dear Friends,

First things first. All is well, genuinely so.

The genuinely good things will get only scant mention in this post though. I must share some sad news before all of that. The good things will follow not far behind this entry. All of you with whom I am close, and for those quiet, anonymous and not-known-by-name-to-me visitors may be fully assured that Petra has a bit of happy chatter in reserve. I am anxious in fact to unpack findings from my annual Summer Drabbatical, and sort them out here. I sense that the muse is back upon me. Thank you all for your patience in my absence. And now, as some say, to cases…

The last post on Voyages en Rose in May of this year mentioned a lovely visit with a very important person in my life, Ramona. Ramona passed away on September 1, after a valiant, inspiring and always hopeful battle with a determined foe. Would you mind if I shared a few thoughts with you?

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I found Ramona at the time my life that I decided to unlock and take full possession of the contents of my own Pandora’s Box. I had long decades of closely guarded curiosity and compulsion about gender behind me and a furtive future ahead. I had an awkward assortment of garments to my name, and a handful of public sorties en Femme that were not complete disasters to claim. The taste of honey felt worse than none at all.

And so I called Ramona. And so everything changed.

Ramona had, through a seemingly random series of connected events, caromed into the business of helping people like me become acquainted with their inner woman. And my, but she was good. I spent a lovely evening in her care, and for the first time in my life, stepped convincingly out on the town. I cannot describe adequately the impact this had on me. The impact was visible on my surfaces yes, but the internal impact was the thing, the real thing. Tectonic forces shifted the continental plates of my whole self, fertile new plains of undiscovered land emerged, enlarged, virgin and fertile, ripe for exploration.

That exploration unearthed within me a much happier person, much better prepared for understanding and living within a complex and challenging world.

That exploration helped me develop the character to share with my wife truths that I did not have the character to share 17 years earlier when we first met, courted and agreed to be each others everything.

And not trivially, that exploration provided me with experience that was too big, too rich and too damned vivid to not write about. Much of that experience has been documented here on Voyages en Rose over the last three years in something north of 200,000 words in 227 posts. 340 pages of 10pt thoughts not counting the smoldering 10X heap of deleted detritus and still-borne simile.

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I had long harbored suspicions that I could tell a story but felt as though the risks of working at the craft and failing were higher than the potential payoff of working at it, failing at it, and working again. Becoming “Petra”, I slid into a protective authorial prophylactic that shielded me (the broadly known me that is) from the full weight of those risks. And so I wrote, at a slight remove from responsibility.

The work of writing became a part of my emerging life. It then seeped into the rest of my life. White papers, commercial copywriting here and there, deeper more convincing thinking on the numbers that my clients businesses ran on. Words for money.

By late last year I had leveraged this newly found confidence and attracted an agent. I was offered a good contract to ghost a book for a notable executive on subject matter I had enough familiarity with to ghost well. At this exciting moment, a more sure and certain path opened up; a staff position in a less creative role with my biggest client. I opted for the staff position and returned the book contract. No great or at least permanent loss in my view. The path I am on will allow me to commit to independent creative efforts in a few years. I should have an adequately plump cushion beneath the high wire and my semi-retiring arse by then.

I have Ramona to thank for this entirely unexpected and exciting possibility. I have much else to thank her for, but of all of her gifts and her splendid friendship, this stands out.

And you, Dear Reader, if you feel your times here have been well spent, a quiet salute skyward might be indicated just now.

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In her last year, Ramona found the company of a remarkable partner, Gabrielle. Ramona was giddy, girly, head-over-heels besotted for Gabrielle. What a privilege Ramona enjoyed. Her best times came as her last times.

Gabrielle stands now as the principal keeper of Ramona’s memories. There is a long line of people flanking Gabrielle, all touched and changed in ways great and small by the happy accident of finding Ramona. Finding her, and is so doing, finding themselves.

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Ramona had never been much of church going lady, but this past spring, at Gabrielle’s urging, the two of them popped on smart Easter bonnets, attended a service at Atlanta’s First Metropolitan Community Church and were welcomed with open arms. Gabrielle had been raised, like so many Southerners, in a praise community, and wanted very much to find a place where the best parts of this tradition could be expressed joyfully and freely. More than this, she wanted to share the peace she knew could be found in the best of these places with the most important person in her life.

Ramona surprised herself, and me when she spoke about how much it meant to her to find and be welcomed by this community. When she faltered, they rallied to her side, held vigil and held hands with Gabrielle and others close to Ramona at the end.

Many gathered last Sunday, September 11 for a memorial service at FMCC. The choir sang. The piano rang. Moving tributes were paid. Many of us did our best to present in a way that would have made Ramona proud. She loved animal prints, and so I opted for the leopard sheath that I had worn on one happy day of shopping with her what now seems like forever ago, yesterday or so. I chronicled that day here. Ramona in fact took this picture, and then threatened me with the silent treatment if I did not stop dithering about which perfect skirt I would buy already. We had a busy day ahead after all.

Mrs. Bellejambes attended the service with me. When I told her of the loss and the plans for the memorial, without blinking she asked to attend. She never met Ramona, but recognized that an important person in our shared life had passed, and wanted to mark the moment with me. We will visit FMCC again, together. A final, parting gift into our home from an absolutely gifted woman. A woman I will miss dearly.

See you again here shortly.

Me, Women, and The Other Woman

2011-05-22T14:44:00.002-04:00

The thermometer in Atlanta is cresting 90f (33ish for friends of the Metric persuasion). The population of Casa Bellejambes has swelled to a seasonal high with welcomed overseas visitors. My precious wardrobe has migrated to attic, summering privately away from our hustle and bustle for the dormant months. It is a sad ritual, the careful folding and hanging, the last look over the shoulder and, with a slight push on the door, the official end of the dressing season.

I did manage a last fling en Femme a couple of weeks ago, happy in tan faux-denims, a riotously colored blouse and a light ruffled collar and cuff jacket though, and it did me a small world of good. The same outfit from an earlier amateur solo photo session is pictured here. So nice to be able to take a short visit with a dear friend, enjoy a glass of wine, pound out a few chords on a beautiful piano and just generally occupy a sympathetic social space. I visited with the woman who really catalyzed my journey and was mid-wife at the birth of Petra, the loving and very skilled transformation artist Ramona. If you find yourself anywhere near Atlanta, and feel the urge to dress, I encourage you to reach out to her. I did, back in the day, to great and lasting benefit as earliest posts here and here testify.

Since the recent evening out, I have stormed a shop or two in guy mode and picked up a couple of nice new pieces in anticipation of the cooler days and smoother legs of autumn. The appetite for a good sale remains ravenous even as the thirst for dressing seems more or less quenched.

My apprenticeship at being womanly in the world has radically changed my view of how the world works for women, and works against women. Petra is very present in my day to day things even while her wardrobe is tucked away. Let me tell you here about Petra at the office.

I work very closely with a woman who represents my key vendor. We both have the same broad objective: move large truckloads of product profitably through my network of partners. It is a cooperative, strategic relationship, but there is money at stake for both parties and so the relationship is inherently fraught with tension. Getting along on a personal level helps reduce tension, and makes it easier to represent my narrow business interests.

At least once a week I hear something said in a meeting or on a conference call in the strange, foreign and exclusive language of guys. I can practically see the references flying over or bouncing off her pretty head. In prior times I took little notice at just how desperately the vapid lexicon of commerce leans on sports metaphor. Especially noticeable is the uniquely obtuse and impenetrable claptrap of American football. The campaign failed because we out kicked the coverage. We miss opportunities for market expansion by advancing the ball in i-formation. A strategic prospective client gave the Heisman. This language is now jarring to me. After the meeting, and sometimes employing a white board as a learning aid, I take a moment with her to decipher the code. She eats up this stuff. I am a trusted adviser.

How about travel? We had a three city tour some weeks back with the usual mad dashes between hotels, car rental counters, airport security checks and long walks on unforgiving tiles and moving sidewalks. I entirely understand why her bags are heavier and why luggage gets checked. And shoes? I have done the calculations that go into footwear choices not perfectly suited for the rigors of the day. I used to think of women as being poorly equipped to keep pace with me. I now think of airports as simply being poorly designed.

You see, my calves have felt sore, and my toes have been pinched. I know just how much a skirt can restrict the stride and slow the pace. I have vainly attempted to pull a buzzing cell phone from purse while hauling a bag, fearful of popping a blouse button or two. My pace now changes to accommodate these newly seen realities. I slow down and holster my impatience while in the company of my sisters.

It seems to go both ways. It feels as though I am approached by women a little differently, a little more easily, less guardedly. Quiet, inconsequential confidences are shared. I know more about the personal lives of women I work with just a few months into my newish work than I have known after years together in other settings. I see an ease in the body language and general comfort level of the women around me. When I say “you look great today”, I get a nice smile in return, and sometimes an editorial comment about what a steal the dress was or relief that somebody thinks it is office appropriate. In my more testosterone drenched years such compliments seemed to put people on agenda alert.

I can only conclude that having lived for hours and days at a time as a woman has made me a better man. A man who gets along better with women. Happy to report that, in much of my world, Petra is integrated, welcomed and essential.

And yet, where it counts the most, Petra remains The Other Woman. Here at home. Apologies, dear friends, for the downer note, but it must be said. Mrs. Bellejambes and myself have not made any progress with growing or really sharing the external life of Petra. This is all difficult, and more so for my darling wife than I. Can’t fault her in the slightest. All of my fine print written in invisible ink. She might not have signed the contract otherwise.

While I enjoy the complexity, she wrestles with complication. Where I see reward, she feels risk. And when, on those occasions where I have stood before her in my most womanly form, deep within she must be crying out for a strong hug from her man.

I know quite fully that this leopard will not change its spots (and you know of course how much I adore a nice leopard print), but I do wish for my wife that she had been dealt a simpler hand. I could not wish to be different than I am, there is too much wonder and beauty within to not nurture. Good thing, methinks, that I have learned to slow down and holster my impatience.

Happy times are wished your way.

Now, where was I?

2011-04-09T15:40:00.002-04:00

Enlivened as I have been by a recent flurry of correspondence and some long overdue quality time spent on precious and dearly missed blogs I am newly pondering a couple of questions:

Just what do you make of a Cross Dresser who is neither cross or dressing?

Just what do you make of a Blogger without a post to lean on?

Perhaps an answer will emerge an uncharted paragraph or two south hereof, but the contours our findings are not yet in sharp enough relief to provide any certainty. Certainty is a little dull for my tastes though, and usually illusory too, so join me, my dears, for a random romp through things in general.

Let us start with the whole blogging bit. Many of us, bloggers of allsorts, view this labor as therapeutic. Therapy is intended to attain happy conclusions at some point. If not, perhaps the analysand is working with the wrong analyst. There must come a moment when the patient and physician look at each other a little blankly, declare victory and move a little awkwardly on.

Voyages en Rose managed to keep lively for a little more than two years which, as I look at the ebb and flow of blogs I follow, seems like a median life expectancy. For me, late last year I found neurons not alight and fingers hesitant at the keyboard. Seams of thought formerly rich with gems of observation and sensation yielded poorly, more gravel and less gold. Been there, done that made gains on the delight and delirium of discovery.

What I have written and posted here is a very real treasure for me, and, in its way, a complete one. I am happy to say therefore that I do not feel a duty to add to the blog. Relieved in fact. It has taken quite a while and a lot of distraction to become happily indifferent to my traffic statistics, and accustomed to an absence of life giving comments from dear readers. But I have.

I do miss the achievement of writing though. Much of this I put down to what has been for me a big discovery about the nature of time and task in a corporate setting. My new work requires parallel attention to multiples of concerns where before I was processing things in a more or less serial manner. I find that this fatigues the mind, or at least draws down the reserves of creativity I employed to fuel fits of productivity here.

This is an unexpected thing. Still, I am happy with the trade-off, comforted by the knowledge that I can and will at some point willingly (or otherwise, frog-marched out of the building with a cardboard box in hand) go back to my old lifestyle with the bank account fattened enough for autumns and winters of hoped-for decades of graceful aging and indulgent prosing.

So, happy as opposed to cross. Good outcome.

Now, about the dressing. Nothing conclusive really. It warms up early here in the heart of Dixie. Shorts are a required element of the masculine wardrobe. I am not a competitive Triathlete and therefore have no easy peg to hang clean shaven legs on. To paraphrase Sir Elton, the thatch is back. Bit of a fashion buzz kill I think we can all agree. Yes, I could go with slacks and a blousy top, but the trowelling of concealer shows much like pine pollen on parked cars in the warmth here. Summer’s heat cools my ardor quite typically, and this year is no different. Just a little more pronounced. This absence of urge to dress does not surprise me greatly.

I did work from home one day this week though, and spent a few hours in a favorite dress. This felt wonderful. Nicely natural, all the pleasant, special differences of feel and movement and appearance. Visitors here of the full time female variety know this to be true: It is a treat to wear a pretty dress. To stand a little taller in well made shoes. Everyone else who visits here knows this too I presume. As for people who don’t share our enthusiasms, well, I simply don’t know what they are not thinking.

To each of us our own delights I suppose. Perhaps time away from our delights makes them all the more flavorful when we taste them again. For me, I suspect that I will belly up to the style buffet again at the Southern Comfort Conference in September here in Atlanta. Perhaps we will meet there.

Here, Chez Bellejambes we will be hosting house guests soon. This will necessitate a certain amount of shifting of garments from guest room closets to the dark and lonely confines of the attic. There are hues and silhouettes in my wardrobe from precincts miles away from Mrs. Bellejambes' style sweet spots. Best to get them out of sight, if not entirely out of mind.

Which brings me to matters of the mind, where I will leave off for now. I will want to share with you some observations on just how the periodic transformations of my exteriors have more permanently transformed the workings of my interiors. This is a big topic that I feel deserves its own dedicated and well lit runway. I promise to lean into that post over the next week or two.

I will sign off today with genuine affection for and thanks to you, dear reader for your time here today, and in the past. Today, somewhere, elsewhere, somebody is freshly committed to giving their gender journey a name, a URL, and the sweat of their pretty brow. There is a gifted voice writing fresh and compelling stuff to dazzle and cheer the likes of we. Go find those new gems. Drop me a line when you spot one, would you?

Affectionately and thankfully yours,

Petra

Easy as falling off a blog

2011-02-13T16:49:00.002-05:00

In the last few years, I have embraced two pretty radical changes in lifestyle. The first was yielding to my lifelong desire to fully explore my gender complexion. The second, and rather recent change, involved taking a “job” after an interesting 3 year stint of independent, home office bound, pajama clad freelancery and tomfoolery.

Guess which change has been more disruptive?

Before leaning in close to give you a glimpse of the bosom of my thoughts on the matter, let me share a thought on disruption:

I am all in favor of it.

If my report cards are to believed, disrupting things has long been a core competency. I had teachers who, with a stronger sense of frontier justice, would have stood me up in the classroom corner from September to mid-June, and suffered fewer headaches. Summer vacation differed from the rest of the year only in so far as the disruption happened out of doors, barefoot, and without the hindrances of adult supervision. Even better, it was not subject to term papers and grading.

But, yeah, without a jot of doubt or a flicker of hesitation, the whole getting a job thing has been more disruptive even than the discovery of “Petra”.

Coming out of solo orbit and splashing down in the Corporate Ocean has been a bigger shock to the system than expected. Many muscles and reflexes are out of trim and the gravity of things feels new. I had forgotten how much of the workday gets lost in overhead – the meetings, con-calls, and sweet mother of pearl the fulminating email threads, spinning in ever widening gyres, ensnaring the innocently cc’d in a gooey, Ebola-like contagion of indecision for the lack of somebody, anybody’s willingness to just goddam well do it.

Oddly enough though, it feels good to be home.

After these days in my new corporate home, and the unaccustomed commute back to my home home, there has not been much left of me other than a desire for stillness. I have been finding stillness and resolved harmonies after the discordance of the day at the keyboard of my piano quite reliably lately. Hence my long absence from the keyboard that describes these Voyages en Rose.

I did however, at the end of this past week, satisfy myself that I could hack through the Gordian knot I was hired to unravel. On Friday, I was able to articulate the plan more or less convincingly to the right audience. This attracted positive notice.

I follow in the path of a parade of capable men and women who nimbly (ed. cravenly?) pirouetted around this problem, leaving it in place, fearing the loss of career velocity attendant on high stakes, high visibility failures. Perhaps I am bringing the required admixture of male and female, the correct tincture of masculine and feminine to the whiteboard. Perhaps I have not yet perceived the real contours of the challenge too. Perhaps I am merely perverse enough to try. I don’t know, or mind much today. I slept like a lamb two nights running, and felt today as though I had some reserves I could share here.

Haven’t much felt like dressing though. I have seen 3 of my skirts on new co-workers. A couple of blouses too, and at least one dress. I am happy to report that I am working with a stylish and attractive lot. None of them quite have my ankles, but that’s a long shot in any room. For the most part though, the gender puzzle which has been so much at the forefront of my consciousness in recent years is much deeper in background just now while I figure out all the other newness.

I suspect in time, that things will normalize. For now though, much of my mind and time will be fully stressed and stretched to cover my new responsibilities. In time, imperceptibly, the stress will diminish, the stretch will ease. One day then, with the problem atomized and right sized, there will be enough time and mind to drape the work, amply, elegantly. The cloth left over will be put to other uses. Stylish and flattering uses I hope.

Just now friends, I don't have an earthly when that will be. Nor do I have much of a thought about what I will want to share with you here in the meantime either.

But you do know I will be back of course, yes? And you do know that I will share. Yes. Disruption is temporary. Change is lasting.

I do hope in the meantime that all of your changes are good ones too.

xxoo - Petra

Head over Heels.

2011-01-16T17:44:00.004-05:00

As much as I love a good long day in a pair of smart heels, and friends, I truly do, it is at moments like these that I am thankful that I am not required to type with my feet.

Yes, from thigh-top to toe-tip, the legs are experiencing what Diana Ross might have called sweet love hangover. Noticing these sensations on my first tentative, padded steps out of bed this morning, and being of a curious disposition, I did in fact conduct a little research on leg musculature. It pleased me greatly to learn that the longish muscle that endows the upper regions of the thigh with its superabundance of fleshy, curvy, callipygian appeal is actually known (to people who did not drink themselves rotten in their freshman year and made it into med school) as the Sartorius.

This pleases me in part because knowing a new thing is good, but more because Sartorius is just an errant spellcheck away from sartorial. If I have a sartorial signature, it is brazen display of Sartorius. Irony walks with me.

I have not witnessed many sartorial or Sartorius displays recently. Three inches of snow in Atlanta last Sunday melted well enough on Tuesday that overnight temperatures seriously below freezing turned our roads into treacherous rinks by Wednesday. On these rinks cars more or less behaved like 7 year olds playing hockey, flailing about in blind mass pursuit of a puck, careering here and there, spinning out and taking the innocent down with them in a knotted mass of shrieking earnest futility. I stayed out of the dangerous game entirely.

Chez Bellejambes was well provisioned, lots of food and drink, an ample cache of aloe infused bathroom rolls and plenty to read. We weathered well. Cabin fever had well and truly set in by weeks end though. Yesterday therefore, I was quite delighted to brazenly bestir myself, emerging from the ice cocoon to take pretty wing in Petra mode for the opening planning session of Southern Comfort Conference 2011.

I plan on haranguing you quite regularly here about your schedule and intentions for September. You really ought to start putting a shekel or two aside here and there. Maybe fight the odd shopping impulse too. If you do these things then the expense of coming to Atlanta and spending a few days or more in the company of so much smart, beautiful, liberated diversity will be more manageable. I implore you, if you have not been able to attend a conference that caters to the CD/TG set to do so. It is an expense though, and we do live in challenging times. I get that. If you are thusly challenged, let me encourage you to visit this page and note that there are scholarships available. You may be in a financial position to qualify for support. Don’t be shy. Don’t be proud. Don’t stay locked within yourself. ‘Nuff said on the matter. Head on down to Atlanta.

But back to heels now which is where I started after all. In the evening I happily pried my tootsies into the purple pump referred to in the post directly prior to this one. The morning wardrobe was perched upon newly acquired and long sought black suede (ok suede-ish) booties purloined from Macy’s for a very faint song. Too embarrassed to say the price really. Well that moment passed quickly enough. $24.00. The purchase pathology is kind of interesting to me though, and I want to share it with you out of a sense of care for your financial well being (which ties back neatly to the whole SCC attendance thing … see how I did that?).

This particular look has been in my gun sites for some time now. A versatile autumn / winter style, matches well with the legging / tunic look, skinny jeans, opaque tights / tailored skirt ensembles. In short, while not an absolute need, this is a shoe that has been more than a want. And on a half dozen sorties through a variety of shops, Nordstrom Rack, Ann Taylor, and DSW included I tried on and discarded stacks of paired suitors like a high maintenance Disney princess. This one pinched, that one swam. This one too tall, that one too low. Too round at the toe there, not sure about that platform. Thwarted time and again.

I kept at the objective though and, finally, finding them just before Christmas, was relieved greatly. As is my habit, I updated my purchase tracking spreadsheet and noticed with no small alarm that these were pair #10. I had unknowingly perched myself on an irretrievably steep slope.

A couple of years ago I polled readers to determine just how many pairs of shoes we possessed. The analysis kicked out a behavioral singularity that graphically displayed a gradual erosion of will between pairs # Five and 10. Past the 10 Threshold and basically one is left only with bilateral amputation, bunions, or bankruptcy as a brake against the desire for more and more shoes. There are zombies amongst us. Take a look around you next time you are shoe shopping. They cannot count how many shoes they own. Or rather, how many shoes they are owned by.

What havoc hath I wrought, what a fool am I. Even with the clear foreknowledge, with certain statistical indicators of a ruined future, my guard dropped, and I blithely stepped past the pointed-toe point of no return. I had barely made a mental note of # 9 only a week or so earlier, the lavish lace classic court shoe from Ann Taylor marked down from $180 to a mere $48, so blind to the charms I have become.

Enough heels. It is time for healing now. Time to mind myself and stop with the shoes for a while. You may think this a fools errand, and you might be right. I feel however that no honest exploration of ones fuller gender complexion is complete without battling against the pretty tide of shoe lust. Pictures at 11 of course. And 12. And beyond.

On a more serious note, a couple of words about the SCC planning session and evening social follow. I made some new friends, people with dazzling lives and minds, diverse interests, abundant charm and beauty. There was time as well with friends that I have met now 3, 5, or 8 times here and there. These acquaintances become more easy and meaningful each time too. The slow sedimentary process of trust building takes time, takes patience. Precious things with a commensurate payoff. A payoff available in the living, breathing company of people. People gotta meet.

There was a very pleasant surprise seeing about 60 people showing up at 9:00 am on a weekend to indicate willingness to help execute this big complex undertaking. And it was comforting to see Lexi, Blake, Lida, Christy and the rest of the board and committee chairs leading the charge. I encourage you to save the date: Sept 21 – 25. Start planning would you? And if you have figured out how to save yourself from the syren call of the shoe shop, drop a line would you?

Five for ’10, Part III: The Joy of Shopping

2011-01-06T19:56:00.001-05:00

The full time woman has, it seems to me, a life time to develop a signature look, a style sweet spot. I imagine that this is a gradual and glacial learning process, sedimentary layers of progress, a long slow bake of hits and misses. For women inclined to caring about style, the learning opportunities abound. Shopping in the company of friends, and talking about clothes is so much more a socially acceptable, indeed expectable behavior for the fairer sex than it is for the less fair.

Therefore I submit, dear friends, that those of us who come around to possession of a female wardrobe by, shall we say, less than conventional means, are desperately handicapped in the style sweepstakes. As with many things in life, overcoming a handicap takes thought, patience and determination, trial and error, and above all, practice, practice and more practice.

I practiced like quite the possessed young thing this past year. The practice has paid off in what I have to say is the signature achievement of the year for me. I have become consciously competent at knowing what to wear.

Patience is the primary virtue now, and patience pays off at the sales counter. I was impatient once this year. I responded to a swoon impulse and came home with a tunic I love, but dammit, I paid full retail, I still feel poorly about that. The sting diminishes when I consider the following Top Five steals, staples and statements, my best shopping moments of the year.

Up Top: I have a couple of silk shirts for guy wardrobe, and I have to confess that I always feel just a little suspect when wearing them, as though I am engaged in something unmanly, engaged in something unsavory. I don’t have any hang ups about unmanly, but unsavory catches rather in my throat. Rather a shame really, because I quite like the feel of silk. Here the life of Petra is a real bonus. A silk blouse is cool, it glides, no preening, all polish. Mine, from Ann Taylor at a 78% discount from a $90.00 full retail tag down to $20.00. Well made, it will last years and not date. I already have it down to $6.67 / wear. Couldn’t help going back out the next day to grab the purple one.

Down Below: More purple. Purple is a color that feels the same way in my drab wardrobe as silk does. I have purple, I just don’t feel like I fully own it, it is a color that takes dominion over my personality, and so guy me shies away from it. Again, rather a shame, because it is a gorgeous color and suits my complexion well. And again, Petra to the rescue, loving the whole regal vibe that comes along the color of Queens. I extended my license to wear purple to my feet this year, finding in late spring in the clearance racks at Macy’s a terrific, classic closed toe pump with a 3 1/2” stiletto (just my style) marked down to $20.00 from $70 for a 71% win.

‘Round the Middle. It is tough to pick a single bloom from the crowded garden. I am ashamed to admit that I own 18 skirts and all but two of them delight me. As a garment class, my average skirt retails for $82.00, and was purchased for $19.00. I think in hindsight that my first move away from the severely tailored, classic pencil cut into a more contemporary, clingy, knit style skirt was a big step for me. This was the garment that convinced me that I could and should dress young. This revelation broadened my horizons considerably, So hats off to the I.N.C. grey and black bandage skirt, retail $79.00, discounted 72% to $23.00.

On the Legs. It took me until November of last year to finally get around to trousers. This seems, in an odd way, to be a slightly seditious form of cross Cross Dressing. In any event, I wrote about the whole happy ordeal here if you missed it first time around. Having a couple of pairs of smart strides broadens my potential range considerably. Clearly it is not possible to practically and convincingly inhabit la Monde Féminine in skirts and dresses alone. Finding a pair of classic, low waisted, 5 pocket style stretch denims on my first attempt was a huge win. Finding them at $15.00 down from an original sticker of $69.00 was practically a heart stopper.

On the Town. It is fitting that my last transaction of the old year should be the most triumphant one. The first (real) Little Black Dress. This is a real threshold purchase, right up there with first knickers, first breast forms, first wig, and other big firsts. The LBD is a totemic item, it is bequeathed with social significance. Light as a feather, yet possessed of a power to stop people in their tracks. This frothy number certainly stopped me in my tracks in late December at Ann Taylor. A strapless cascade of tulle ribbons to mid-thigh, a luxurious merengue of femininity, originally listed at $250.00. For reasons that passeth understanding a small clutch of these beauties survived a seemingly endless series of markdowns, all the way to a mere, laughable $30.00. I happened upon my LBD on a +40% off day, and so picked it up for pennies under a practically insulting $18.00. I won’t have much on when I wear this to a gala evening at SCC later this year, but the dress is bound to be the least costly part of the ensemble. I am still shocked, and delighted to have had such good fortune on such a seminal first find. O, it feels like a million bucks, and I must say, looks rather fetching too. On the model too.

I will close with this thought: Shopping is, for most people, in and of itself, a pretty shallow undertaking. I think though, that shopping has the potential to be something of value and meaning to, well, the likes of we if we apply a little care to it. Each of these Five top moments in wardrobe building were executed in drab, but called upon every ounce of feminine intuition and aesthetic potential that I am capable of finding. It is good to be able to touch those parts of the self, and cater to them, on demand, without all the overhead that goes into actually presenting as Petra. Not quite the real thing, but it goes a long way in between full immersions, yes?

I hope you have great luck in the shops this year. Would love to hear of your best wins too. Comments welcomed always.

Five for ’10, Part II: Great Excursions en Femme

2011-01-01T10:42:00.001-05:00

The first post in this series focused on the fluff between my unpierced ears. Today's is a look back at a handful of highlights, memorable moments of the newly old year, enjoyed in the great outdoors in the fully feathered form of Petra.

I write this guardedly, not wanting to gloat. I recognize that I am fortunate in my relative freedom to get out of the house and away from the mirror, without much in the way of fear or complication. I live in a big city, a relatively liberal one. I have a fashionable cloak of anonymity in short, and if worse comes to worse, I can run from trouble really quite quickly even in tallish heels. At home, my habits are not secret, and while not actively encouraged, at least not fought against.

These are luxuries of chance, not of earned virtue. I recognize that many readers and some of my closest online companions do not have these luxuries. With that said, this past year I continued to push out my boundaries, cross new lines, and discover green new fields. The payoff has been huge. Whatever your circumstances, I encourage you to challenge your own boundaries, to find a way to interact with a part of the real world, presenting as best you can. As the great Marvin G. and Tammy T. sang, "… ain’t nothing like the real thing baby…".

Here therefore, I am taking a look back at some very real moments, and the great, unexpected learnings that came with them. Links to the original reportage contained below too.

Way back in January I attended the first of many mid-day, mid-week musical luncheons at The Heretic, a venerable gay bar deep in the heart of Atlanta’s own quaint and grotty tenderloin district. Apart from the great BBQ, the remarkable guitar and vocal stylings of Miss Edie, and all the joy that a warm sunny January day brings out in people, I just had a hoot chatting about fashion, music and advanced techniques for blowing off a work day with Lindley, and her boyfriend Ian. Unbridled fun. This day, in hindsight, was the first time where my presentation kind of fell off into the background of my thoughts. Being Petra seemed as though it could be an unconscious, natural and accepted thing.

By the time winter had sloughed fully off, I was out in brightish spring hues rifling the clearance shoe racks of nice shop at Phipps Plaza. Myself and another shopper navigated around each other in the tall narrow confines until something caught her attention. Bless Leisl’s curiosity and open heart. Perhaps she was in need then of corrective lenses, but it took her a good long while to twig to the truth that I was a shopper with a difference. She tentatively and politely engaged with me, providing an opportunity for a little CD outreach. She asked a couple of questions that I needed to hear, and work out answers for. This beautiful encounter spawned a three part essay, first of which might be found just over here.

My last outing before the long, drab summer slum-fest was less commercial, more cultural. The High Museum is home to a few gems of the visual arts. It also has perfect acoustics for the crisp clack of heel on hard tile. I was surprised, alarmed, delighted and who knows what else when the nice young lady at the Members entrance kiosk recognized the other me beneath the make-up. This day I saw a couple of my favorite pictures through a different set of eyes. It was electrifying. In fact, some thoughts coalesced for me that day that wound up being the core theme of curricula I developed and delivered to an Art History class last summer. I may have missed the newness if I was in flats.

This year was my first (and god willing the creek don’t rise, not my last) Southern Comfort Conference. I spent the better part of a full week en Femme amongst a massive gathering of TG’s of all sorts, their partners and better than expected grub. Here I was able to lay to rest the last of my fears of Cross Dressing. I came away from SCC more certain of who I am than I was when I first suited up. The first post on the event is here, and more followed. If you have not attended a conference accommodative of your place on the gender expression continuum, do so. Get thee to a funnery, and soon. Let me know if I will see you at SCC 2011.

To round out the list, I still get a kick out of the impulse I followed quite without thinking in Macy’s just after wriggling into the embrace of a great new dress. I did not have to go and stand so brazenly in front of the 3 way mirror. I did not have to turn 360, smooth my contours and strike a pose. I did not have to stop and face the husbands and boyfriends sadly deposited in the soft couches just outside the fitting rooms, turn slowly on heel and vanish, but dammit, I did. A hush descended, and for a brief moment I held the magical power that all women possess at some level. Who could not respect, and not want this power?

Feeling that power, in some measure, is the dividend of our transformations and explorations. It is intoxicating. The intoxication is a feeling I seek, and a feeling that frightened once, but frightens no more. To borrow the parlance of the Heroin enthusiast, I chased the Dragon full of the knowledge that the Dragon might swallow me whole. The Dragon did not. We cohabitate. My parts feel integral. I am without doubt as to who I am inside, and more convinced than ever that my biology (for lack of a better word) is sound.

I wondered for years whether, if I had the opportunity to roam freely en Femme, I would realize a need to change the biology. As it happens, the need is not there, my assignment is correct, and adequate to a very happy and full life. A life made more happy and full by the warm embrace extended to, and granted by, Petra.

Next up, in this continuing Five for ’10 series, five memorable shopping moments. Deep discounts and shallow breaths, great fashion fortune without (much) loss of fortune.

O, and while I remember, do have a Happy New Year.

Five for ’10. A Look Back Blogwise

2010-12-30T07:08:00.009-05:00

It is a well accepted convention in the worlds of media, journalism and here too in the treacherous mountain passes of Blogistan to pause for a moment in late December, and look back over the year. I will vary only slightly from the convention in so far as I will pause for a moment, then flick my hair over my shoulder and put one hand on hip, before looking back.

Now, where the hell was I?

Ah, yes, Dear Reader, in the spirit of providing you with a retrospective view of what I feel to be some of the highlights of this years fun and games here at Voyages en Rose, and furthermore with the view of saving me the heavy lifting of actually writing something new of value, I present the following posts for your grazing and mulching pleasure.

I have pulled these stalks from the stubble field of the past year because I quite like the writing and thinking in them. I think they either have a smart observation or two, or are simply well executed works of word-smithing. Perhaps even both.

In The Cross Dresser on the Ramparts of Change I take a big old swing at placing my personal habits in the context of the ongoing sexual/societal revolution that has been a pretty constant feature of my nearly half-century life.

I wrote Things I like. Perhaps you do too for an audience not interested in matters of gender, presentation and the like. I had a guest post up on Miss Neira’s fashion blog that I expected would drive a little traffic here, traffic that was unfamiliar with matters familiar to you and I. This piece was intended to establish some common ground between me and new visitors. I think it did, and happily, I made a couple of new friends in the process.

I built a metaphor for Cross Dressing Character and exposed it to a sustained blast of 12 g-forces that surprisingly did not shatter its constituent letters and splatter the authors face with goo. That the metaphor is stolen from Shakespeare particularly tickles the author. The author will now stop referring to herself in the 3rd person.

Next up, 5 (un) Easy Pieces is a big departure for me, and an attempt at a structured, poetic exploration of my own long, troubled and really, only recently easy life of Cross Dressing. I am happy with the finished piece, but remember the making, editing and polishing process as some of the most involved, demanding, time evaporating and rewarding moments of my life. Very proud of the piece still.

Lastly, may I commend to you a 2 piece suite that goes to the core of “why”, or at least a part, a knowable part of the why I do as I do themed “The Art of Cross Dressing". (Part 1 and Part 2). The Rubik's Cube is not fully solved, but I do have the pink side pretty much fixed up.

All of this stuff is fairly ponderous. It is the stuff that happens in my cerebral precincts. There is more to life though than the life of the mind though. My next Five for ’10 list will feature the most memorable moments, out in the big wide open, en Femme, amongst friends and the unsuspecting both. The visceral stuff. I am going to have a lot of fun rebuilding those moments in my mind, and look forward to sharing them over the next couple of days.

Thanks, and thanks eternally for your many visits here. You make the writing worthwhile. This I value greatly.

Happy New Year.

Crossing T’s

2010-12-27T13:07:00.009-05:00

Here we are at the start of a lower case “t” transitional week, the strange time betwixt holidays high and a new year nigh.

Christmas was lovely and white here in Dixie, a light blanket of snow lays still on the ground. Enough of the stuff to make a displaced northerner feel nostalgia, but not so much as to make travel a travail or render high heels impractical. For those of you presently ploughed under in the North East, or perhaps recently liberated from a miserable airport in Europe, I hope you are warm at home, or wherever you planned on being.

The big day was quiet and enjoyable Chez Bellejambes, although I must confess that I earned a few Cross Dresser Demerit points with the gift giving. The big hamper of things I picked up for Mrs. B certainly had all the color, cache and cut characteristics desired, but I was positively spastic on sizing. I am a little ashamed, really, someone with my eye and experience should do a little better. We will therefore sally back into the mall melee sometime this week to remedy things. It stings a bit, you know.

General busy-ness with the holidays have kept me away from the blog too, and also from activities that would create compelling new stories to share with you. I did keep a little busy following the ongoing series of guest posts at T-Central featuring the perspective of Cross Dressers and their loved ones. Following my own post, old friends and new names Sally, Aeify, Alice, the indispensable Stana, and most recently from The Wife, of The Cross Dressers Wife fame, all published great efforts. I believe there are another couple of essays yet to come in this series, which I look forward to as much as I enjoyed the warm, welcoming, inclusive and positive tone of the earlier posts.

Going by the comments the essays spawned, it would be fair to say that a few T’s were crossed though. My word, but things got a little heated. If you did not follow along, go spend some time while you have it. Passion is something that is not lacking under our big tent. Strongly held opinions neither. I stayed away from the fracas in part because life is short, but also because of other demands on my time.

Par example, my budding fashion journalistic career. There are a few new posts up at my other home, Guilty Pleasures, which is a lingerie blog for the more mainstream (i.e. non-part time) woman. Recent posts include a brassiere review for newish vendor Top Secret Society, some chit chat about luxury French hosiery brand Gerbe and, most recently, a roundup of Leopard print tights featuring purring entries from Hue and Wolford (ed. amateur model and critic pictured left). I can provide assurances here that none of my academic or vocational advisors ever suggested that I give this line of work a serious look. Well, none of them had my figure either, so there. This work, dear friends, is a blast and a privilege. Perhaps as well, a little cheekily, a little seditiously, these posts auger a day in the future where gender norms and standards of presentation are a little more fluid than they are today.

Other busy-ness comes from clearing the mental deck for a really new and challenging year. It is official that I am going back in to a formal workplace setting after a multi-year, pajama clad consultancy / sabbatical phase early in January. No details here other than to say that the work is something I am genuinely interested in and skilled at, that the work is with people I genuinely like, and that the work is something that I am still young and energetic enough to do well. The office is really close to some terrific shops too.

Part of the mental prep for this new undertaking will include taking stock of yet another year of integrating Petra into the whole me, and vice versa. Much of that work is done via this blog, and so figuring out the extent to which I will be able to do both the blogging and integrating in the upcoming year will occupy much of my thinking this week.

I will have fewer luxuries of time and opportunity in 2011 for the exterior life of Petra. And as much as I have had great good fortune in expanding my range in this past year, the best gains have been in the interior. I understand and love myself better here now than a year or so ago. With that said, I am going to have to be circumspect in my behavior in my newish setting. For example, it will be helpful to periodically stifle the urge to say things like “killer bag, where did you get it?” to smartly turned out clients and colleagues. A fine line exists between personality and liability and it must be walked carefully.

But you know, dear reader, that there is no on/off switch for this stuff, is there? And if there was, I am not sure I would want to fiddle with it all that much. I like the colors, textures and sounds too much. They are integral to me. Subtle adjustments to some of dials can be managed though, and I suppose must be. While I figure out how to tune things for new realities, I do hope you will tune in here time to time to see how it is all going.

I will get a Best of Petra / New Years Frockin’ Eve retrospective of the year posted up before we all turn 2011 later this week. In the meantime, thanks for your shocking, flattering and more welcome than words can render visits here to Voyages en Rose.

Meet the Frockers

2010-12-17T11:50:00.011-05:00

Yes friends, here we are deep into the manic month, dreaded and delightful December. The dread has much to do with just how many things need doing, and the generally worsening weather in which they get done.

The delight is abundant though. Contemplative finishing stitches are put on the waning year, loved ones are loved, and one receives a little love in return. Sometimes too in December, we get to witness, or precipitate a random act of kindness, stranger to stranger, the little miracles of humanity that seem most important when the Sun is at it’s furthest remove. Watch for it. Heart warming stuff is nearby, and is a pleasant relief from other year end rituals like spittle flecked, profanity laced shouting matches over possession of the last damned parking spot within marching distance of the mall.

It is a lovely time of year too for people with an eye for style. Women do make an extra effort with themselves even with all the chaos. Whether it’s an office party, a dinner party with friends, or a seething, sullen and uncommunicative custody hearing, you just know that looking a little better, newer, more special is OK, welcomed, even expected. The bigger and later in the day, the bigger the effort, the better the looks.

Most chaps out there look forward to a little harmless ogling. Me? I take notes. There is so much more to pay attention to, to be mesmerized by. The color, shape, glitter and glamour dials get cranked up to 11 (one louder). Nails are brighter, eyes smolder like a tire dump fire, hair is teased out and pumped up, perfume descends like sunset in the desert.

Accessories too, the sparkling little clutch with room enough only for lip gloss, a credit card and a condom is held by a bare arm, draped in a diaphanous tasseled shawl. Rings and bracelets catch light even in dark rooms, subtly and not-so-subtly saying to the world “yes, I am all that, and at least one person agrees with me…”

Comfort falls by the wayside as far as shoes go too. Strappy sandals, beguiling d’Orsays, glittering, beribboned, velvety, metallic, anything but dull, and anything but flat. You see, one wants to drive the height up a bit and really look people in the eye, perhaps from an unexpected angle. Indeed, with the shoes and hair done just so, a 6” change in altitude is not out of the realm of the possible.

This sudden change in presence draws attention to plunging necklines, fabulous necklaces, polished pendants poised just so, nestled warmly upon more brazenly displayed busts, pushed up, powdered, perfumed and proud.

All of this is lovely yes, but for me, the High Holidays are also the time of High Hemlines. And for this, here in the Church of Petra, can we get an Amen? Hell yes.

I was out this past weekend to join friends at the year end Tri-Ess / Sigma Epsilon gathering. I went high of hem, and had a high old time. It was party number 2 of a longish day, requiring a drastic change of appearance during the intermission. I would have like to have taken more time with the maquillage, but December schedules do not always allow the luxury of time.

My party frock for the evening, a foxy little number from Macy’s, picked up for a relative song had been quietly waiting on the sidelines and hoping to be called up to the big leagues since early October. I had such fun with her in the fitting room (story here), I was very much looking forward to her debut evening.

With coat off and over my arm, I followed the wrong party sounds navigating my way through the hotel and wound up in an impromptu chat with a couple of gentleman loitering outside what I took to be a Korean jewelry merchants soiree. My silver accessories attracted positive notice. I did take a look back over my shoulder once they had steered me in the correct direction and can claim a little giddily that the rest of the visible me did too. That’ll straighten your shoulders in a hurry friends.

I soon found the right room. This was only my second social with my local support group, and so most of the faces were new to me, and vice versa. The average attendee, there with a supportive spouse, was an empty nester freed up in later years to better explore themselves without the prying eyes of kids about the house. The ladies of this great generation did go all out for the evening. Lots of glitter in evidence, a very happy celebration.

There were a handful of late Baby Boomers like me in attendance, and a even a young 20 something with a complexion to kill for (I am mad jealous Grace), but I felt as though I was amongst the youngest in the room. It was nice to say hello to a couple of friends I had met at SCC this past autumn too, Phoebe, Heather Anne and Megan amongst them.

Here is a little observation for my fellow denizens of the online world. We (or perhaps, just me) think of the CD/TG world as being a sub set of people who spend countless hours browsing blogs, social networks, chat rooms and the like to learn more about and participate in our gender driven lives. As it happens, there are a lot of nice people out there who managed to get to a comfortable place with themselves (and with their partners too) without much reliance on the Internet. Who knew?

Fellow bloggers will know just how much a nice comment on a post means. Well, to be told in person that ones blog is read and enjoyed goes even further. I was actually recognized as Petra of Voyages en Rose infamy. Some top moments of the evening were provided by people who tottered over to introduce themselves. I enjoyed a good long chat with Milla and Teresa, (killer pant suit Teresa) in from neighboring Alabama who said some wonderful warm things the writing found here. This is a conversation starter absolutely certain to engage my full attention. I was late (and unprepared for) the gift exchange, but new friends are no doubt the better gift.

I was a little surprised, and shouldn’t be in hindsight, that in another conversation, I was asked if I was the person behind “that blog with all the pantyhose posts”. Guilty as charged. You are what you write, I suppose. For the record, this evening I was sporting a lovely pair of Gerbe Sun Satin 8’s, and yes they felt great. I will be doing up a full review of these fine sheers on a more mainstream lingerie/fashion blog in the not too distant future.

It was a lovely evening. Long time readers know that I put pretty good care into wardrobe, and am not shy about clingy, fashion-forward looks. This evening however was really the first time that I dressed for display. One wants to look good always, yes, but typically the Cross Dresser dresses to blend in, to be noticed perhaps, but not to stand out. A holiday party is a nice change from the typical routine. Standing out, standing tall, shining brightly and revelling in the effect is special. I better understand today just how this time of year is celebrated by the beautiful women in my life. Such a feminine privilege, the opportunity to really go all out for a night out.

I do hope that you all get a chance to get dolled up a once or twice over the busy holidays. It is a nice gift to the self, and to all the people around you too, regardless of how you appear every other day of the year. If you have seen and met some nice Holiday Frockers, I would love to hear from you, an consider your comments to be a real gift.

In Praise of Bolder Women

2010-12-08T17:46:00.007-05:00

Admiration of women is, it seems to me, a common thread that ties together the various and diverse patches of our big, fluffy and sometimes frayed T-Quilt. Putting aside, for the moment, screeching cabaret Drag Queens and demented, homicidal Hollywood archetypes (distant cousins, yes, but let us acknowledge their presence) women will typically find amongst the CD/TG set their most sincere admirers.

Never too far from admiration is a desire for acceptance. Whether your embrace of the feminine is periodic or permanent it would be rather a pyrrhic thing to be free to present sometimes or live always as female, and not enjoy a warm welcome from women. I am fortunate. I have been warmly welcomed. Life has been enlivened by many generous and genuine encounters with women while en Femme, vivid moments free of friction. Invariably, these are the best moments of the day.

This admiration of and desire for acceptance from women is heightened at home for those of us in the dedicated, delicate, exclusive and sometimes exasperating relationship of marriage. Clearly, if the admiration was not there in the first place, we would not have popped (or responded positively to) the question, yes?

Fear of spousal withholding of acceptance is a fear that keeps many bottled up, locked in, tamped down. Keeping secrets, as I did for some time within my happy home, is a pretty natural response to that fear that we will not be accepted. Sooner or later, once we remember what exactly made our partner so admirable in the first place, once we reckon on the cost of dishonesty, once we know we will explode if we do not share, we face the fear down, share, and hope for some degree of acceptance.

I have been well accepted at home. Not a bed of roses entirely friends, but not a bed of nails either, and closer, by far, to roses. There remains much to be figured out. If we work hard and carefully for each other for another hundred years or so, I think we can get there fully. Bold as Mrs. Bellejambes is, and as much praise as I could heap on her though, this post is about a few other bold women.

I want today to direct your attention to a handful of Wives and SO’s who not only tender the best level of acceptance they can to their CD/TG partners, but go a little further and share their experiences online. Spouses of CD/TG’s share all of our issues, and more besides. Those who share their learnings online deserve special regard. Here are a few blogs that I hold in high regard, each replete with a mix of triumph, tribulation and trivia, the stuff of a full life:

The Wife behind The Cross Dressers Wife has been airing the pretty and sometimes wrinkled laundry of her complex life here for close to a year now. Always delighted to see a new post show up in my Google Reader.

Lynn D’s Fun Finding Her She Me. Ms. Lynn is not always active with the blogging part of her life. Like all of us, other demands intrude to the exclusion of blogging. When she does blog though, good-spiritedness and a willingness to make things work without an owners manual shines through.

Love is the theme of A Perfect Luv. This is a lasting theme, as I hope Ms. Perfect’s blog to be. This blog is unique in so far as Ms. P seems to have started her voyage with her life partner with a higher degree of interest in and receptivity to Cross Dressing than women typically exhibit.

A very shiny new star glitters in the Blog firmament courtesy of Casey at Yes, She is My Husband. This is a ground floor opportunity to see a skilled writer find a voice in the midst of a whirlwind of change.

No list of this variety would near completion without mention of Helen Boyd’s enGender. Ms. Boyd is a well recognized Founding Mother of the digital gender-afflicted SO world, and the wildly successful author of My Husband Betty.

This list is no doubt incomplete. Bold women abound. If you are such a bold woman, and a partner to a someone who is discovering more about themselves through exploration of gender, your visit today is very welcomed. I hope the time you spend here feels well spent. If you are a partner who blogs about your experience, I want to know you better, and to share your experiences with my wonderful partner. Please reach out, name names, and introduce yourself in the comments section.

Thanks.

Vitamin T

2010-12-07T19:00:00.003-05:00

Most visitors here will be familiar with the indispensable resource that is T-Central. Certainly, people who have found themselves here today after a visit to T-Central already are. If you are here from there, welcome! Make yourselves at home.

For those of you not on intimate terms with T-Central, well, dear friends, I don’t want to sound harsh, but really, I thought I knew you, how could I be so very wrong?

A team of volunteers labor ceaselessly (and largely thanklessly) there. They collect and maintain current feeds from literally hundreds of blogs focused on matters of gender. The assortment is amazing. It can seem like a too big buffet table at first glance, but it is worth a close look. You are sure to find something to your taste there.

One of the site moderators, Calie, lives a full enough life already, maintains a superb personal blog, and just because somebody had to do it, has indexed the worlds most comprehensive list of songs that could be thought of as T-Tunes.

On top of all that, this friendly force of nature is curating a series of essays for T-Central this week authored by self described Cross Dressers. There are bound to be some really heartfelt, educational, and artfully crafted efforts posted up over the next week or so. In the meantime, there is one from me.

Go ahead, visit, visit often, and enjoy the fruits of this good labor.

Give a little. Get a little.

2010-12-05T13:20:00.017-05:00

It is, dear friends, the giving season. Of late, much giving has been required of me and, as a result, certain aspects of my life have been getting a little less attention. It has been over a couple of weeks since I have posted up to Voyages en Rose. This is the longest authorial hiatus since the pronounced quiet of my Summer ‘09 Drabbatical©.

It is never just one thing of course, but work has much to do with it. Coming up on three years of independent, freelance, pajama-clad consultancy, my client dance card is filling out nicely. I am a slow learner but have, it seems, figured out how to make this lifestyle work for me and the bank.

Here is the thing though: The moment that the clay starts to round into shape is precisely the moment that the universe and I conspire to hit the brakes on the potters wheel and start peddling in the opposite direction.

My favorite client and I have decided to deepen our relationship, to go steady. It is a big, interesting job with a big, challenging revenue number and plenty of financial upside. I like the people, there is an enjoyable amount of travel required and nobody gets hurt when we succeed. Ramping up for this effort has eaten into Petra time.

I was anticipating this, and a few weeks ago started to empty my purse. First thing out, Twitter. That saved me a couple of hours weekly of poking about in the global yard sale of random bric-a-brac that this interesting community represents. Next up, Facebook. Here, good number of old friends and I commune, and I do find much to gaze and graze upon there, but as it happens, nothing essential to my survival. Soon, Pink Essence, Chictopia, Stylehive, local Yahoo! groups and the like spilled out too without a drop in quality of life. The endless river of inbound emails from favorite fashion retailers no longer merit reading, and now get the "select all, mark as read" treatment.

Done, thusly, with the metaphorical emptying of the purse, I must share with you a thought I had while emptying the actual contents of my purse a couple of weeks back.

It was a lovely crisp autumn day in Atlanta, Petra was out and about, resplendent in pink, having enjoyed a nice lunch at The Heretic and the gorgeous musical stylings of Miss Edie. I had enough time before a Very Serious Conference Call© to browse a couple of shops. I did, and finding nothing, I strolled along the crowded sidewalks back to my car.

Three minutes and two unhinged fingernails later I was still furiously rooting around in my purse not finding my damn keys. Purse on the hood (bonnet to mes amis de l'Angleterre), hands on hips, windblown hair strands adhered to my glossed lips, in a moment of mounting despair I heard a voice from deep within the recesses of the wig cap:

“What the hell are you doing?”

A part of this inquiry was rooted no doubt in the practical. If indeed my keys were lost, the day would spiral out of control entirely. It was time for a deep breath, and a methodical, bit by bit emptying of my big black shoulder bag. The keys were found, the last thing exhumed of course, from the closed interior pocket I had pointedly used in the first place to avoid such heart flutters. I swear to the heavens, I am a natural with bra clasps, delicate jewelry fasteners and back zips but I turn into Helen Keller with hand prosthesis around a purse.

But the question lingered in the crisp and beautiful air.

What the hell are you doing?

I was, in hindsight, not doing much. Not attracting untoward interest and not feeling in any way self conscious. I was loving the look, the feel of things, and was meeting the worlds eyes with my own squarely, yes. But the phase of the moon or who knows what had turned the voltage of the moment down just a bit, a noticeable bit.

The responsibilities of the day were calling for my attention. At that moment.

In this moment, I can see on one of my monitors a vain collage of snapshots of ... well, of me. Smart skirts, silken blouses, proud postures. It is still a source of amazement that I can look this way. Honestly, startling is the word. My appetite however for the work to achieve this look is lessened just now. And now, my principal resource for this dreamy life, time, is lessened too.

I must say that I feel OK with this. For starters I am man enough (woman enough?) to know that there are tides beyond my contol. Que sera sera and all that jazz. Beyond that, I see two other influencers.

One, methinks, is the impulse I mentioned earlier in this post. I am discomforted by comfort. I welcome “problems”, and love to solve them. The problem of “Petra” has been pretty well knocked down, largely solved over the last couple of years. This part of my life is naturalized to a large enough degree that I callously missed my own 2nd Blogiversary (ed. sorry honey, I will make it up to you on Valentines Day…). For the curious amongst you, or for budding literary agents, click here if you care to read the Overture movement of Voyages en Rose.

The other influencer is that Mrs. Bellejambes and I have not yet figured out precisely what to do with all of this. The life of Petra lurks quietly around us, but this life does not yet pull up a comfy chair at our marital table. Mrs. B has been terrific, but she harbors very sensible concerns about prospective downsides. “What if …” is a good question too, and she has a few questions of that sort. What if we take in a movie together and bump in to friends? I can take my lumps, and be that Cross Dresser, at some cost. In a way, I have spent a lifetime preparing for that moment. Mrs. B however, has not spent a life time preparing to pay the cost of being publicly married to a Cross Dresser though. Different stakes on the table for her, and fewer obvious upsides.

We have not gone out together, other than the brave evenings she took with me in the safe confines of this past Southern Comfort Conference. As such, my orbits have been Mercury solo missions. We are not Gemini, and we might not get there. In fairness to our mutual commitments and to the really enviable possibilities we enjoy, that mission may not be the appropriate one for us, for me. We have not fully mapped it all out, and we will wrestle surely with our limits, but I must know now, for myself at least, that we may simply reach a truce and not reach the stars. This is not a fully shared enterprise, and that likely (unavoidably?) takes a little edge off the appetite.

Surely though, the occasion for all of this exploring and discovery has been in part enabled by the luxuries of time that my lack of formal employment has provided me. I will not cite the Devil, but I must say that through some agency, pretty work has been found for idle hands. With formal employment back in the mix, I have less time on hand now.

I think now that much of the interior that has been enlivened by and matured through this wonderful exploration of the self will emerge in my work and in my interactions with people. Perhaps too in my patience with the patently suicidal drivers I expect to hover near me on my new commute. This splendid and loving relationship with my “Petra-ness” has changed my outlook entirely, regardless of how “out” my look is. I feel ready to apply much of what I have learned to great effect in life.

So, there we are for now. More here when I have more. Thanks for your continued support of my various voyages.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

2010-11-20T08:15:00.006-05:00

I will join late, the long parade of bloggers, journalists and seekers-after-justice in general who have been promoting awareness of and participation in a global day of thought and action about some of the harder truths that many in the TG community face. Today, Saturday November 20, is the 12th annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Many of my online and real world friends are people who work through the ups and downs of their lives on blogs and in support groups. For many, the life of the gender explorer is more thorn than rose. Writing for an unseen audience, or circling the chairs and having a chat with like minded people is good therapy. In these gatherings, the rose comes in to better focus, and the barbed thorns are clipped. We prune and grow, and sometimes flourish.

Continuing sadly on this metaphor though, flowers of all varieties are too often seen at memorial services for T-People cut down too soon in life, in shocking, out of proportion numbers, gravely by their own hands, or brutally at the hands of others.

These people often lack the support, sense of community, and relief that is attended upon those of us who live parts of our lives out loud, or mutedly so here on line. Even with the benefit of such support some will see no better option than the irreversible option of suicide. Even with the benefit of such support, determined and happily liberated innocents will become victims of violence.

I am happy to see a well provisioned umbrella group publicizing events in so many cities and small towns in so many diverse countries around the world. I remain not so surprised to know that a need exists.

Cheerful an outlook as I have, I must say that I expect there will be a 13th, 14th, and years more to come of Transgender Days of Remembrance.

If you have the time to visit an event, show the flag, stand tall and quiet, that would be a nice thing. If not, take a moment to count your own blessings, or to measure your own relative trouble against the more acute sense of pain that somebody, somewhere, just now, this minute, is enduring.

Someday, surely, there will be less to remember, and more to look forward to.

You can find an event near you by visiting http://www.transgenderdor.org/

Thank you.

Transplant

2010-11-18T11:18:00.007-05:00

A mere couple of posts ago I mentioned that the focus of Voyages en Rose would be changing just a tad to better reflect what passes for reality for me. There has been a slightly schizophrenic aspect to content here. I flail wildly between 3 broad themes:

- pensive, sometimes even bordeline trenchant explorations of the inner workings of this Cross Dresser's mind
- reportage on my various Voyages en Femme and general infiltration of a bigger, unsuspecting, sometimes curious and often blithely unaware or unalarmed world, and
- perky, insouciant reviews of lingerie and hosiery that can be found under the tag “Petra’s Pantyhose Parade”.

Three is a crowd as they say. Time for the lingerie to move out of the basement and find a new home.

I started writing about lingerie for a couple of reasons that did not take much thought at the time. Much of it had to do with not really having a clue about what my then recent, open and honest embrace of Cross Dressing would mean to me. I felt that a blog could be a great venue for figuring a lot of things out, but knew that if I did not have an editorial calendar to attend to I might let the effort rust. I knew that I required a structure around which I might better develop a discipline of writing. I therefore committed myself to a weekly product review, and built a complex, multi-variant grading algorithm that would enable me to develop a scientific, stacked ranking of my hosiery stash.

It was a bit of a lark at the time I must confess, but with time it has been a real pleasure, and a minor achievement to develop a body of knowledge and a reasonably well informed voice on these matters. I actually know my stuff, and take pleasure in the connoisseurship.

Today therefore, I am pleased to announce to you, dear friends, that such posts will be found periodically on a much more popular lingerie blog and overall hub for all things under it all, Guilty Pleasures. I have joined a terrific team of lingerie and style enthusiasts as a periodic contributor of views on and reviews of hosiery. My first post there is timed right for the onset of chilly winter temperatures, a comparative review of opaques from Hue and Berkshire.

In my posts for GP I will be assuming the voice of someone who simply knows and loves the subject matter. People visit Guilty Pleasures for lingerie know-how and shopping know-where. Therefore, my gender is a non-factor, and won’t be raised or alluded to there. There is only one Petra Bellejambes though, our internet is rich with bread crumbs, and readers will follow links back here from there, perhaps to be surprised, perhaps not. I hope that my gender will not matter, and the quality of thinking and writing will.

Certainly, it seems that my gender does not matter at all to Ally and Miss Tique at GP with whom I now periodically labor. I take this as a signal of a couple of good things:

First, that the iceberg of hostility that the Trans community needs to navigate around every day is melting, and can only, with time, get smaller, less threatening, drip by sure drip. People with accepting postures and open minds are out there. Clearly, my new friends are such people. Hooray for progress!

Second, this shows that people like me who love to write and are prone to swooning in the face of flattery are easy to motivate. Much in life comes down to time and money. There is no money in this stuff. But if my writing is useful or entertaining to others, I will think it a great use of time.

Team GP is well plugged in to a pretty network of designers, brands and vendors. We get the odd assignment from the network. My first essay for a Guilty Pleasures partner went up last night on Layla L’Obatti’s blog. Layla is a young, talented and determined intimate designer in the early days of the heroic struggle to build a beautiful business, Between the Sheets Lingerie, from scratch. Her stuff is made with love, and made here in America. I would love to see her thrive, and really hope that my Gift Giving Guide there helps shift some gorgeous product.

I’ll keep you all up to date about where and when these posts can be found. I will be back here over the weekend with a signature post on my acute need for a new signature. I found myself cursing my cursive style at a Macy’s counter the other day. This dizzying merry-go-round just never stops it seems.

Before signing off, I want to say a last little something to the amazing women who visit Voyages en Rose. I was not expecting you to gather here in such big, happy and beautiful numbers. Many of you are in the fashion business, or deep in the arts and letters. I would not be striding out in to your world without the superb encouragement you have tendered.

Thank you.

Always happy to see you here, and I hope you will join me in my new venues too.

The Panting Cross Dresser

2010-11-14T14:18:00.020-05:00

A little over a year ago, I promised myself and you, dear reader, that I was on the breathless threshold of a daring new fashion statement.

Pants. Slacks. Trousers. The lovely and troubling staple of the wardrobe that takes so much of the cross out of Cross Dressing.

Sorry to take so long. I have been a little busy.

I had steered away from pants in my wardrobe building exercises principally because I had been wearing them for, well, forever. It took me an awful long time to get to the place where I was able to say yes to the dress. All that struggle and now I was proposing to climb, by choice, back into pants. I am not an entirely normal individual, yes, but this seemed to me to be piling perversity on top of perversity.

There is more, of course. I had very real non-pant gaps in my wardrobe. I have been pretty diligent in filling in those gaps, covering the staples. A year later now, and the closet is fairly brimming over with hems at the knee and north thereof. Nowadays, often in the shops I find myself admiring a skirt on a hanger or a dress on a mannequin and hear an inner voice " … down girl… you already have that one…”

Yes, my dressing is starting to take on the air of a fad diet. All protein, no carbs. Not balanced or indeed practical. There isn’t a stylist on the planet who would willingly let me continue to live a pant-free life. I know this. I know furthermore that life is too short to have nothing to wear on a Saturday afternoon.

Damn daunting thing though. Every women I have even known has a love / hate relationship with pants. Typically they love 2 pairs and hate about 17. I cannot afford to hate that much of my wardrobe.

There are so many more variables to get right relative to the typical skirt fit: leg shape and length, thigh circumference, crotch-to-waist rise height, waist-to-hip aspect ratio and etc. Do the pockets flatter the figure or feature the faults? Too skinny for pleats, too short for flares, too much of this, too little of that. Torture.

Add the Cross Dresser to the mix, and things are ready to completely fall apart. With the exception of a nice bra, there is no garment that so dramatically features the lovely differences in body shape between men and women as a pair of pants. All of this looks to me like a recipe for failure, or on a good day, mediocrity. The odds of finding a truly epic pair of pants? A total cosmic crap-shoot.

Like so much in life, try we must, and try I did. On a recent drab shopping excursion through always reliable Macy’s Lennox Mall, I was both able to keep the First Shopping Commandment (Pay Ye Not Retail Unless Not Buying It Brings You Damnation), and managed to go 2 for 2 on my first two-legged at bats. Not just little singles either. Out of the park and way the hell down the street, grand slams.

First up, a stretchy, fitted black pull-on number from I.N.C. They are quite high waisted, non pocketed and smooth throughout the midriff. They are clingy, true, but they are more substantial than a pair of leggings. There is enough structure and tailoring in them that one does not feel like one is walking around exposed in one's underwear. With the faux-leather panels inside the leg they give off a very Bridle Path / Jodhpur feel, an Urbane Cowgirl vibe. I immediately felt a desire to own a riding quirt and a smart new pair of boots.

The high pink, cropped jacket they are paired with has been unused, looking for an ensemble for the better part of 9 months now. I think they are made for each other. I have been dying to find a way to get a screaming loud color or two into my admittedly dark palette, and I love the way it flares out at the tail. The jacket set me back $23.00 (down from $100.00). The pants, my pants, my first pants ran for a mere $12.70 (down from $50.00) after all the coupons and etc. Tally Ho!

Next up the Alpha Challenge of the Pant Universe, the 5 pocket, low-rise classic denim style, skinny leg. Form fitting and unforgiving, the Halley’s Comet of the fashion world: if you live long enough and look hard enough, you may find the perfect pair once in your life.

I honestly do not mean to gloat, but I got them. On my first attempt. This is not at all fair. I know women who view the perfect fitting classic jean style pant as an imaginary thing, the Unicorn of the closet. Spoken of yes, perhaps even seen by someone in the dark mists of time or in a booze fueled hallucination. But not to be had by mere mortals. If I was not so damn happy, I would feel sad for all the women who still dream of perfect pants.

A lovely versatile Café au Lait shade, cotton/modal and a dash of Lycra, slung gun-belt low on the hip and gorgeously, determinedly clinging to every inch of me all the way down to the nice eye catching exposed zipper at the ankle. The ruffled olive jacket and these pants supreme fell into my clutches for a mere $14.70 each or roughly 80% off retail. At this price, I could afford a failure of fit. This however seems to not be my lot. Perfect fit, throwaway price.

There is more though, something entirely unexpected.

Something captivating in fact.

I was not expecting to feel very immersed in the feminine, but once I buckled the belt and stood tall in my pumps, something happened. Ones walk changes, the stride a little longer, a little more hips out and feet forward. The walk is louder too, more certain on the ground, and it drives back up too, through hips, through back and shoulders. The change is there while standing still too, a different aspect, a different posture, everything different. I felt confident, and I could feel the very direct line between confidence and sexiness.

I honestly do not think that I have ever felt quite so convincingly feminine. I was so entirely not expecting this. For a moment I regretted having put this purchase off for quite so long, but I am rather more inclined to looking forward, and so I am looking forward to pulling more pants on.

And you, my friends? Diverse views on pants most welcomed here.

Reality TV

2010-11-07T12:03:00.014-05:00

A couple of posts back I advised readers that I was planning a nice outing for 9 November. The idea was to share some of my pre-Voyage staging notes on my happy path to being a non-credentialed journalist at a big rally headlined by media curiosity, and arguably the most stylishly turned-out American ex-Governor Sarah Palin.

The only potential run in the fabric of my scheme was stated thusly:

“ …Presuming that my planning comes together and clients do not rain down crises on or about the 9th …”

Well, hells bells, so it has happened. I am pretty well stuck into a big heap of demanding things. Things I caused to happen myself by flapping my gums and making a terrific suggestion. I opened a bit of a Pandora's Box, and for my troubles will be enjoying a Pandora’s Boxed Lunch, and talking about possible futures that include me taking a staff position, yes a day job with my principal client on Tuesday. These are people I genuinely like, the work is challenging, I am capable of doing it well, and pocketing a few more shekels doing it well than I do today. All good things.

This decision is being weighed against pretty late stage negotiations on a book contract. Some of you have said nice things about my writing in the past. There are others who agree with you. Different subject matter than what I dwell upon and within here altogether. Rather butchy business-y stuff in fact, but there are all sorts of settings that I can pass in.

In short, there is much occupying my mind and much threatening to occupy my time too.

It is a shame to not find myself in the same room as Ms. Palin and so many of her ardent and vocal admirers. We, Sarah and I, are members of different "T" parties, but proud sisters of the Size 4 Party. There may be much that Ms. Palin and I do not agree on, but I do believe we could mount a furious shopping expedition together. That is change that both of us I am sure, could believe in.

On a more serious note, there are of course other not-so-good things, different and indifferent things associated with these new possibilities too, and some of these things would trim my ability to explore and tend to my Petra-ness, and to paint the walls of Voyages en Rose as frequently and colorfully as I do today. All happiness at a price, yes? Much to think on. I will keep you posted.

At the very least, I expect that I will be posting here on a slightly slower cadence.

You know, my dear friends, I had been planning on a few tweaks to the blog in any event. Voyages en Rose is approaching 2 years in age, and the word-o-meter is damnably close to clicking past 200,000. A little routine maintenance is in order and some of them are underway as of today.

Those changes are going to be very hosiery-centric.

The very alert amongst you will have noticed a change in the header graphic at the top of the page. Where there was a montage of artful and beautifully lit figures clad in filmy things from Wolford, there is a new montage of, well me, poorly lit, clad in clingy things, some of them from Wolford.

Hosiery was the proto-lure, the enabler, the sizzling flame to my fluttering moth yes, and will always be very near to my heart (and often times near to parts south thereof). I just don’t want to mislead visitors. I love lingerie, and lingerie for the legs especially, but visitors here should know right off the bat that Voyages en Rose is not built to cater to the interests of dedicated hosiery enthusiasts.

Voyages en Rose is rather more about gender generally. It is about sometimes glimpsed, never reached, always receding horizons of understanding or clarity. It is about living with and enjoying fuller dimensions of human experience. A very important part of this journey does have to do with fashion, style and shopping and I will continue to share posts of that variety with you. Just not so much in the way of words or pics of the nylon/lycra variety. If your interests clatter in that direction, check out any of the sites listed in the “Fashion, Foundations and Femininity Links” section in the right sidebar below.

If you think for even a frozen moment that I could simply close the book on the whole hosiery thing and not burst a blood vessel, well you would have been wrong. Petra’s Pantyhose Parade is something I am proud of. I have studiously reviewed and scientifically ranked roughly 40 distinct brands of sheers over the last couple of years. I have, to my surprise and delight, become something of an amusing voice, and perhaps even an authority on leg wear. I will continue to cultivate this work. Just not here.

I have in fact found a new home, and really, a better place for my hosiery related posts. A place with a much larger readership than Voyages en Rose, a largely female readership whose blog-hopping has little or nothing to do with matters of interest to the CD/TG community. It is a matter of real delight to me that my writing and learning has earned me a chance to write for a new audience. My product reviews at my new home are going to be entirely neutral of the things that identify Voyages en Rose as a Cross Dressers blog. In my new home, I will simply be someone who knows hose.

So there.

I will share all the particulars when the inaugural review goes up a little later this month.

I will also share news on how all the business shenanigans impact my realities, TV and otherwise. Wish me luck.

Ruminations on Halloween

2010-10-31T10:53:00.005-04:00

Halloween is many things, including a license to behave differently, to occupy a surprising new shell, and finally, to not be held accountable for all the hijinks.

Always happy to do my bit for a good cause. Therefore, today, on the behavior front, I am likely to take a miss on shaving. For my surprising new shell, I think I will favor comfortable, worn, faded jeans and a non-descript pullover sweater. There won’t be much in the way of hijnks as such to be held unaccountable for, but I do hope to get credit for a certain amount of routine household and yard maintenance.

Always the rebel, that Petra.

Yes, it is a drab Halloween chez Bellejambes.

It is likely not the last one either. As “Petra” has, over time, converged with and enlarged the rest of me, my Cross Dressing has diverged from Halloween. Me, in a dress, is not a costume. Me in a dress is a happy extension of something that is core to me. This is a spectacular thing, to be sure, but it is not a spectacle in the way that Halloween demands. And so this evening, I will answer the doorbell and dole out the bon-bons in drab.

This Halloween though is the 2nd year Anniversary of my first “real” Voyages en Rose, and indeed of my adoption of the name Petra. I had spent the prior 40-something years either fighting or being fast and furtive with my feelings. For whatever reason I decided just before Halloween of ‘08 to stop fighting, to slow down, and not be furtive, at least with myself.

In the days running up to Halloween, I ordered the fabulous 4 pad girdle from Fredericks. Quite remarkably, in hindsight, I hand crafted a silicon based full chest prosthesis complete with an adjustable back closure fashioned from a cheap bra. Terrific shape, but not the pliability I was hoping for.

A wig, a cheap one was acquired, on the 30th of October. The jolly Asian woman behind the counter asked me who it was for. “It’s for Halloween” said I not then willing to put my name to my actions.

“Very pretty. You will be very pretty”.

I did not know then quite how to react.

I did take courage from the encounter though, and visited an off-brand discount shoe store, emboldened enough in a crowded shop to find a nice stiletto heel, to hold it up and to ask the cute young thing if she had it in my size.

“What size are you?”

We sorted out the details, and I quite pointedly tried them on, viewed them in the floor mirror, hazarded a step or two to the delight of my small audience. Here again I did not die of embarrassment, or of fear, or under a hail of stones from and angry mob of shoppers. I was a little shallow of breath, yes, but composed externally and happy for the Halloween cover story.

I rather lacked the perfect dress at the time. Oddly enough, even today with a very full closet, I still feel that way, but that is another story, yes? In any event my Googling for a turtleneck knit mini lead me into the youthful confines of American Apparel. By a factor of 2, I was the senior most person in the room. The cheerful young sales assistant and I agreed quite ambiguously on the correct size and color without any real discussion as to who would be wearing it. I thought then that the general assumption was that I was simply a normal father picking up a vaguely slutty frock for his daughter. Just for kicks I went back to the AA web site, and am happy to see my glowing and frank product review is still live on their site.

It should be noted that this small epistle is the first “published” work of Petra Bellejambes, prior even to the launch of this blog. The curious may see these baby literary steps just over here.

I lastly stashed a pair of black opaque tights into a Target cart filled to toppling with paper towels, tissue rolls, light bulbs and golf balls, and drove home, ignoring speed limits and road safety conventions, heart hammering anxious to, at last, wrap myself in these loose threads, to see if the sum was greater than the parts.

It wasn’t. But I was hopeful, shocked, becalmed, giddy, head-over-heels, terrified, intoxicated, flattered and critical. Thoughts and impulses both ungovernable and crystalline flashed brightly, loudly, clearly. As with Neo, quite suddenly my Matrix was revealed. Whoa.

I cannot remember, but I do suspect that I did not sleep deeply that night. When Mrs. Bellejambes is away, as she was then, I do sleep more lightly, but here I had much in mind for my tomorrow, my Halloween.

Much of that story was recounted in the inaugural Voyages en Rose post. It is easy to forget, once one has become practiced at swanning around in public en Femme just how big a threshold moment those first committed steps are, with or without the cover of Halloween. Looking back from here, I have to say I really braved it out that day, and committed myself to a deeper immersion than was required. The blog post stopped at the Lancôme counter. What happened immediately after that was an early evening, slow stroll the length of a mall. I took a seat on a bench beneath a big clock and aimlessly poked at my cell phone, pretending to tap out a text message. I looked up from time to time, to see if I was attracting any attention, good bad or indifferent. Not much as it happened.

I stepped into a couple of shops, felt the merchandise, and on a couple of occasions was stopped dead in my tracks by a mirror, a shocking image of a complete stranger I had known my whole life. I drove home, slowly, at the speed limit, savoring things, how my dress was the same shade as some of the leaves, how the heels felt on the cars pedals, how my lipstick tasted.

I fed the dogs, and fixed a bite for myself, relaxed, freshened up the makeup and ultimately drove out to a now defunct gay bar not far from home. I wound up in a lovely old chat with a chap who played clarinet for a living. He was a big fan of early polyphonic music, and possessed an encyclopedic wealth of information about late medieval society that made for really neat conversational fodder, even surrounded by a crowded array of butch leathermen and over-the-top drag queen karaoke enthusiasts.

He asked me, at one point in the evening “Why ….” not finishing the sentence but indicating with an up and down hand gesture that he quite clearly meant, “Why are you, seemingly well adjusted and charming person, wearing a dress?”

"I do not know. But it feels good".

So here we are, friends, 2 years to the day later. I have come closer to the always receding horizon of “why”, and have come surprisingly far from fear of what I might find out by honestly asking myself the question. These two things are of enormous value to me. And so even as I wallow in my drabness on this day, I have many happy thoughts about Halloween.

We all need a little help here and there. You may be at a place in your life where the help, the cover, the license that Halloween provides is useful to you. Go ahead and use it. No trick. All treat.

Happy Halloween.