I didn't know what to say today.

 

After a week away from home, I am all tuckered out.  I need a vacation from my vacation!

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No, it's not as bad as my words may make it seem.  Instead, after this vacation, I wouldn't mind some time as Marian that I won't have.  There was little enough opportunity to go out as Marian before my trip, and little enough opportunity to go out as Marian until the next weekend ends.

I'm very glad that RQS is in my life.  Yet, sometimes I wish I had an extra day in the week for myself.  I'll bet that this is a common feeling among many happily married people.  They enjoy being with their spouses.  Yet, they also enjoy being with non-romantic others.  

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On the way home last night, I saw a young couple on the subway.  One was dressed sharply in a men's suit, but not in a way in which he could go to work.  The other was dressed in a blue velvet maxi dress with spaghetti straps - a model of femininity.  Both were seated in a position that would indicate that they shared intimacies with each other.   However, something was a little bit off.  So I got a little closer, as I prepared to leave the train.  The person in the blue dress didn't have much of a chest.  I saw a pronounced brow ridge, more commonly found on a male.  And then I heard this person speak in a lower pitched voice.  Was this person a female or a male?  I'll never know for sure.  But I wish I could have gone out like this when I was that age.....

When we left the train to make our connections, I commented on how nice that person looked in the dress and quickly left.  No need to say much more, as it could be taken the wrong way coming from a person my age and presenting gender....

I find it hard to believe, but I applied for a job

 

The other day, I saw an email from indeed.com suggesting that I apply for a job I have the skills to do.  No, this would not be a technology related position, but that of an office worker.  And I sent in the application for a job which I would go to work in my female presentation.

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Ever since I quit the job at the document imaging firm, I have very little incentive to get up in the morning.  Getting up early in the morning is even harder for me.  I realize that I need a little incentive to get moving, and work can be that incentive. Do I really want to go back to work?  Well, with inflation rearing its ugly head, I could use a few extra dollars coming in.  Now is not the time to start draining the 401k when the market is going South.  Instead, it's the time to add money to the nest egg while I'm healthy enough to be able to do so. 

If I were to go back to work, I wouldn't be able to take vacations where and when I want to do so.  This would cramp my style as I go further into my "golden years".  At least, I'd again be able to present as a female in an office setting, and be able to get more use out of my female business wardrobe.

Traveling to DC

 

This weekend, RQS and I went down to Washington, DC for a little R&R.  We've been looking to get away for a while, and I took the week off without pay in order to do so.  Today's entry is not going to be a full recap of the trip.  Instead, it is more of an overview of what we did during this trip.

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One of the things RQS and I felt that we needed to know was whether we could go away for a mini vacation (with opportunities to escape each other if needed) and find out whether we could get along after several days together.  On that issue, I can say that we have dealt with a couple of mini crises, and we have passed a couple of tests in dealing with unexpected adversity.

We left for DC on a Saturday, and used a Lyft to get to Penn Station (NYP) from RQS's house.  The driver asked if it was OK not to use the most direct route through Manhattan to reach NYP, as there was a parade going on that day (which he was going to attend).  We said OK, and did the loop from the Brooklyn bridge to South Ferry, then back uptown on the West side, where he dropped us off across from the new Moynihan train hall.  This wasn't a problem, as we had time to spare.  But we almost blew it, as RQS misread the departure time.  Luckily, I noticed the error, and we made it across the street with over 30 minutes to spare/

One of the problems that was going to bother me throughout the trip would be my lack of low denomination folding money.  I had several $100 bills on me, but was running out of $20's.  So our lost time in NYC was due to my looking for a Chase branch before getting on the train.  This forced me to do something which became an advantage for me - use a specific credit card for all my purchases on the trip.  This made it much easier to figure out how much I was spending on the trip, and balance things out with RQS at the end of the trip.  But I digress.

RQS and I waited in the train hall for an announcement to tell us that it was time to board our train.  While waiting to get on the elevator, we met another couple traveling to DC and I overheard a comment about New York City rudeness.  I said that in NYC, if a person uses deleted expletives for 5 minutes then says "have a nice day", you know that the person likes you.  Then, I mentioned that the F-Word is not an expletive in NYC, but only a word used for dramatic emphasis.  They laughed at this while we got on the escalator taking us down to the platform.

Boarding the train was not an issue, and we saw a homeless woman riding between the train cars.  The steward chatted with this lady, and then she proceeded to lock herself in the lavatory for most of the ride.  About 2 hours lady, the attendant (and a female assistant) did their best to politely tell the woman that she had to leave the lavatory before the train reached DC.  When she finally vacated the room, she used words to define herself that showed how down and out she was.  As much as I felt sorry for her, I was impressed at how well the two Amtrak employees dealt with an issue which could have escalated into something worse.

As we arrived in DC, we noticed that the temperature was much warmer than it was in New York.  Instead of a long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker, it was time to break out a short sleeve shirt.  Yet, after checking in to our hotel, we stayed in what we were wearing for a nice dinner with RQS's cousin before calling it a night.

It was nice to see a friend today.

 

Today, I met a friend for lunch.  Although we met via OK Cupid, we knew from the beginning that we'd be friends, and not much more.  And this is a good thing.  She would be a little bit out of my league if we had tried to start a relationship.  As friends, we can overlook things that we could not overlook in a romantic partner.

My friend and I have been trying to get together for a while.  Her health and her business has gotten in the way, and I hadn't had the opportunity to get together with her since the beginning of summer.  So we decided to meet somewhere in the middle (we live 90 minutes from each other), in Beacon.  

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No, we didn't go to the restaurant above  If we did, we probably would have gotten very sick. In fact, we may have needed the following maneuver performed on us if we choked on our food:

Instead, we went to a place called Meyer's Olde Dutch for an early lunch.  It WAS FILLING!  My friend, who barely weighs 100 lbs. soaking wet, was filled on her salad.  While I was filled on an oversized, overloaded bacon cheeseburger.  Yum!  I'd go back there again. Over lunch, we talked of many things, such as one Catskills area property not selling.  My friend had sold her place for just under $1 million, and within 18 months, it has recently been flipped for $1.700,000.  Right now, a place either has to have character, enough vacant land to build a place with character, or be cheap enough for someone to tear it down to build a place with character.  The unsold place fits neither of these conditions,  So it remains unsold - for now. For the most part, we talked about her business and her upcoming vacation with her boyfriend.

Next on our list of things to do was picking up some gluten free goodies for her boyfriend and his daughter.  For this, we made the mistake of walking a little over a mile to a store on the other side of Beacon.  And neither of us thought the heat would be getting to us.  To make things worse, I was wearing the wrong shoes for this walk, and my right foot loudly announced that this was a big mistake.  We sat down for a few minutes, then returned to our cars.  Hopefully, she will be able to make her overseas trip soon, as I just learned that her destination country has enacted new quarantine requirements for United States residents.

Once done with my friend, I drove to Poughkeepsie to pick up some stuff at Target.  I've been intrigued by the above dress for a while, and to drop $20 to see how it looks on me.  It looks comfortable, and it is something I can wear on hot summer days.  After I was done with Target, I stopped into Walmart to pick up some food on the way home.  It was strange to see an empty space where the in-store McDonald's used to be. But I guess Mickey D wasn't making enough money in their Walmart outlets, and prefers to make its money off of franchisees by renting out the land their franchised restaurants sit on.

Eventually, I made it home and decided to take a nap.  Even after 2 hours of rest, I didn't feel rested.  I could have easily gone back to sleep.  But I decided to stay awake and call up MWL to chat for a little while.  While on the call, one of my OK Cupid ladies decided to call me (very late), and I wasn't going to break off my call with MWL to speak with someone for the first time.  I was glad when MWL decided to end the call, as both of us were tired after our long days.  Hopefully, I'll have more energy for tomorrow's Brunch Meetup in Peekskill.

Mid January Odds and Ends

 

 

Sometimes, I don't have much to say about any one topic, but I'm trying to keep my readers up to date on things with a post.  This is one of those posts....

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I've been having problems with my health insurance.  My membership number changed, and the paperwork to fix my problem has been taking longer than expected to be processed.  Today, I reached out to the company once more, and someone placed my issue on a high priority queue.  Hopefully, I'll have the bulk of the matter resolved by Monday, and the only thing left to do will be to connect the membership to a new email account AND to get things set up properly for my mail order medications.

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My brother and I are closing out accounts my dad had before he died.  They don't amount to much money, but they will provide us with much needed money for luxuries.  In my case, this money will help pay for a vacation or two.  In my brother's case, it will pay for a delayed trip to see my niece and her (to be) husband in London.  We had a minor problem with one of these accounts, as it got locked when my dad died. But we expect to have the money in our "grubby" little hands soon.

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I finally have my auto registration in hand.  There is only one more thing I need to do with it: replace the old sticker on my windshield with a new one.  Of course, I'll drive down to see my brother to see if he has the scraping tool needed to get the old sticker off the windshield - it's a perfect excuse to see him before driving over to see FH.

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My friend from my Thursday night gaming group has taken the plunge and is setting up her own online game night starting Wednesday evenings.  I think I'll have another something to look forward to while locked down inside, waiting out the pandemic.

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Next week, I'll be getting together with another of my friends who knows me only as Marian. It'll be nice to see her once again. But with the pandemic raging, this might be the last time I meet anyone other than FH, YGD, Vicki #1 , my brother and his wife for a while.  Of the people in my circle, I'm one of the few that is under 65 AND doesn't have a reason to be an early recipient of the coronavirus vaccine.

 

Thinking of a Hawaii Cruise that I may have to postpone until late in the year (at best).

15 days of cruising, with an obligatory stop in Mexico to comply with requirements of the Jones Act.  As of December 2019, this was the cruise on top of my list, and I was about to book it when I started getting employment calls from the US Census Bureau.

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Given that it's not easy for an overskilled/underskilled 62 y/o person to find work, do I really want to drain my savings any more than I have to in semi-retirement?  If I had my cruise scheduled for this month (either December 4th or 19th), I'd likely have no problems with starting late. But with the census ramping up for its 1 busy year out or 10, taking a vacation early in the year doesn't make sense if one wants to stay long enough to prove that one is serious about taking steps down in rank to go back to work.

The Hawaii cruise is one that I could easily take presenting as Marian. All but one stop is at an American port, and I wouldn't need to get off the ship in Mexico.  This cruise is generally offered when the ship is not making Alaska runs from late spring to early autumn.  And this cruise will again be offered at the end of the year, when any census related employment would likely be ending.

I'm likely to take long weekend trips while employed, so that I can get that "vacation feeling" again.  Washington, DC is a place I could always go to without problems.  If I end up going there, I'll have the chance to see Meg and her wife again.  That's always a pleasure!

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Vacations are very important to me, as they allow me a break from the mundane, a change of pace that helps to refresh me.  I admit that each time I go out in the world as Marian, that it becomes a refreshing time to me.  But then, isn't this the case for most of us transgender folk?