What do you do with an old wig when it's worn out?

 

It's too bad I can't do voice impersonations with the written word.  If I could, I'd be channeling Rod Serling's voice and doing a Twilight Zone type of introduction to this entry. Sadly, I can't, and will try to do my best with this limitation.

- - - - - -

Over the years, I have had to replace my wigs on a regular basis.  When I was out and about as Marian once or twice during the week, I replaced my wigs every 6 months or so.  These days, with almost daily use, I tend to replace my wigs every 3-4 months, usually having at least one emergency wig in reserve. Yet, I'm usually left with a wig that's serviceable, but not one that makes me look my best.  So what should I do with it?

Right now, I have a collection of several old wigs that should either be thrown out or restyled for other uses.  They are all in the same style, as there are very few large cap wigs that fit my head and look good on me.  Yet, I can do something with a few of them.  But what?

I expect that I will soon throw away most of the older wigs, keeping one or two for use as backups when I go on cruises.  (Why wear a good wig when going into the hot tub?)  But until then, they will be collecting dust in a dark part of my closet....

I'm already thinking of booking another cruise.

 

I miss the world we were in when this picture was taken.  I had met both a pen pal AND a Vegas performer on this trip, and had a great time sailing alone.  This was a growth experience for me, as I was unable to lean on anyone for emotional support.

- - - - - -

The cruise I'll soon be taking will be fun.  But it will not be much "to write home about".  I was totally bored in one of these ports, and didn't bother to tender to the island in the other.  When a cruise line has to tender its guests to a private island instead of using its own dock, bottlenecks will happen.  And on the one time I was at this line's private island, they had a hard time getting on and off the island due to the weather.

If my cruise wasn't visiting Charleston, SC instead of Nassau, Bahamas, I wouldn't have taken it.  Nassau was only worth the stop if one wanted to waste time shopping for overpriced goods.  Port Canaveral was far from anything interesting or reasonably priced.  But Charleston is a more than adequate place to stop, as it has history worth taking in.  (Fort Sumter is the place where many consider our Civil War to have started.)

Unlike the cruise I took 3 years ago, the pandemic will always seem to be present in the background. When I get to the cruise terminal, I will be Covid tested before I get on the ship. Cruise staff will both be vaccinated and masked.  All passengers will also be vaccinated. Even if masking isn't required of passengers, most will likely be wearing them out of habit. It could be worse.  Could you imagine being on a mixed (vaxxed/unvaxxed) cruise and having to mask up at all times, then worry about which areas one can visit and what areas one must avoid?

Yet, the minor headaches of dealing with the pandemic haven't kept me from considering another cruise. Right now, I'm think of booking some sort of Hawaii trip.  But I could change that to an Alaskan trip at a moment's notice.  Until I am ready to make a commitment, I won't put any money down on a vacation.  Instead, I'll be tracking prices and hoping they go down.

Unfortunately, prices don't always go down.  Although the price of the cruise I'm taking dropped by $250 shortly after I booked the cruise, it is now the same price as when I booked it - under a slightly different pricing structure.  And therein lies the problem.  I'm not sure of how I can best perform price arbitraging on either a Hawaii or Alaska cruise.  But I want to do so to get the best price available over the next year.  And I hope I can do this effectively....   

Another Short Post

 

I don't have much to say today, save that I was fighting to stay awake after my third cup of coffee wore off.  Somehow, it's either my costume jewelry or my outfits that are getting positive comments from women, and I'm glad to receive them.  My sense of style is maturing, and I'm glad to be out there in the world.

With this being said, I decided to go through some storage containers to look for some dresses I received in Universal Standard's yearly Mystery Box sale.  I figure that I'll wear one of them to work in the morning (with a pair of leggings).  But if I don't like what I see, I'll switch to one of the dresses I've already worn with leggings, and enjoy the rest of the day.

Right now, I figure that I can safely wear dresses as over long tunics and fit in.  This is not the kind of place where women wear dresses in the winter - except, maybe, the way I'll be wearing them for a few weeks.  After that, it's back to trouser like garments again, with tunic tops above.

Thankfully, I'll be back in dresses for my next cruise....

Zooming with a friend in Texas

 

There is an indirect link between this character from the movie "Short Circuit" and the friend I was Zooming with today.  But I won't say what that link is....

- - - - - -

As I've said in earlier posts, I used to connect with friends in Texas during the worst of the pandemic. Our Zoom meetings were fun, but they didn't take the place of in-person meetings.  Now that people are getting out and about, there is little need for Zoom, save for people who live across the country from each other.

It's been a while since I've chatted with my friend.  Too bad that we no longer live near each other.  We would have had a lot of fun together.  But Zoom keeps us in contact, and we schedule a meeting every so often to catch up on things.  

- - - - - -

One of these days, I'll have to meet my friend in person again - in a city that the two of us want to visit. We've talked about Chicago, as well as some cities in the West.  Since she's young enough to be my daughter, I can guarantee that nothing would come of this other than a nice friendly get together.  Who knows?  I might just tell her about my transgender nature....

Another short entry

 

There was a presentation on my company's 2022 health care plan today. And I'm not sure if I should sign up for the company plan in next week's open enrollment, or whether I should continue paying my own way for health care.  Going with the company plan may save me $450/month in insurance payments, but might cost me in two ways: (1) Locking me into a job I don't like until Medicare kicks in, and (2) Costing me more in drug prices and medical co-payments. I won't go into details here, but I am leaning towards going with the company plan.  Unfortunately, I don't have much time to make a decision.

My firm was gobbled up by a larger firm at the beginning of the year. The smaller firm did not offer a health care plan I considered worth the money - I decided to continue purchasing my health insurance on the Obamacare exchange in New York.  The larger firm had more negotiating power, and got a better deal for its employees.  So this got me thinking about a simple question:

Why should the quality and amount of healthcare provided to a person be dependent on the employer that s/he works for?

This is something that bothers me, as the system we have here in the USA seems to be designed to have sub-optimal outcomes.  So several more questions come to mind:

Why should an employer be involved in negotiating health insurance coverage?

Why can't an employer subsidize an employee's health care in a way similar to non-taxed reimbursements for employee education at a local college?

Why shouldn't the final consumer of the health insurance product (the employee) be the one exposed to deciding which company's insurance product to buy, when "Apples to Apples"  comparisons can be made on the Obamacare exchanges?

Why can't ALL Obamacare exchange products provide nationwide coverage?

The answer to most of these questions are either political or historical.  We would be better served if corporations would get out of the business of buying healthcare for their employees, and if government would ensure that healthcare firms only sold policies that met minimum requirements.  We were on the way to doing this until Trump screwed things up by allowing "short term" plans to be sold instead of Obamacare exchange policies.  This allowed insurers to provide insurance that wasn't worth much, but gave buyers the illusion of getting value.  Yet, Obamacare has provided a path to a long term solution.

Since it's late at night and I can't do this topic justice, I will elaborate on it in more detail at a later date.

 

It's Raining!

Yesterday, the weather forecast said that we would get a heavy rain starting tonight and running into overmorrow (an unfortunately obsolete English word meaning: the day after tomorrow).  Given that the forecast calls for 6 inches of rain falling between now and then, I do not plan to "dress pretty" when I go to work for the next 2 days.

- - - - - -

I had some errands I wanted to do after work today, and I was unable to do them, as I wanted to be home before the rains started.  Instead of doing these tasks, I decided to catch up with some people with whom I've been out of contact with for months.

Luckily, I saw that the closet rod in the closet holding my female wardrobe still is in place.  But leaving it in place is only a short term way of dealing with a problem - I need a new rod with a center support, so that I can't overload the rod anymore.  Right now, this is my excuse to fill another "Donation Bag."  and I'm preparing to donate clothes which no longer fit my style and taste.

When I extracted clothes for my first 2 donation bags, I found that I had clothes that I had bought almost a decade ago that I haven't worn in years.  Some of these garments are hard to let go of.  For example, I had 2 Lands End skirts that don't fit my needs anymore.  If I knew I'd be wearing them, I'd keep them in my closet.  But out they go!  The same goes for old shoes and other accessories I don't wear.  Now, I wear clothes which minimize my male pattern body, and emphasize the feminine parts that I should show off.  (Ex-GF-M always said that I have a great pair of legs, so I try to wear clothes which show them off.)

By the time I'm done, I may have 4, 5 or 6 donation bags to go to a good cause.  However, I try not to think of how much money I've spent on women's clothes which do not fit me well enough to keep.  At least, spending this money allowed me to learn what works and what doesn't work on my body.  Cisgender women learn this while they are young Transgender women usually learn this when they are older.  Thankfully, these lessons didn't break the bank....

 

Today, I saw a wonderful old film in a theater older than the film.

This is the kind of theater in which classic films are meant to be seen.  And that's what I did today.

- - - - - -

Yesterday, MWL called me to let me know that she was feeling under the weather and wouldn't be able to get together.  Later on, she noted that a local theater was starting to show films again, and had a showing of Frankenstein scheduled for 1 pm.  So, I marked this in my calendar, and made sure that I'd be able to get there on time.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much sleep the night before, and I awakened with a desperate need for coffee to stay awake.  Even though I left the house a little later than expected, stopping at a Mickey D's for lunch, I was able to get to MWL's on time.  So we moseyed over to the theater and I took a few photos of the place.

The Lafayette theater in Suffern is a classic, and I hope its phased in reopening works as planned.  So far, they are showing only old films on weekends, probably making merely enough money to rent the film (there were 40-50 people in the audience) and show it to a paying audience.  ($6/pp doesn't go very far, save when showing OLD films.)  Sooner or later, they will have to bite the bullet and show modern films, or find a sponsor to keep this theater alive. I hope they can do so without ruining the atmosphere of the place.

- - - - - -

There's not much to say about the rest of the day.  More tomorrow....