A quick note on a dinner I had with a friend

 

Thinking doesn't always come easy to me.  But when I think, I think hard.  (Or, am I hardly thinking?)  But to be serious, I met with a friend who wanted to find out what I thought of the situation she was in.

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Over dinner, my friend told me about the issues she was having with a man in her life.  Like her other friends, I told her that she should tell this fellow goodbye, then block his number on her phone.  He seemed to be calling her when he had no one available to see or talk with, and that he was only interested in her for the purposes of having sex.  AARGH.

After hearing her story, (Transgender) Mama Marian got into action (as if she was Cisgender) and told her what to do in no uncertain terms.  And then, like a good Mama, I then gave her ideas of what to do with her life.  As I see it, she needs to learn the skills needed to have a well paying career, find a good man, and then (if she wants) to be ready to have a baby before this option is no longer available to her.  

When I got home, I chatted with RQS.  she got a big laugh when I told her that I performing in the role of a cisgender woman, using language that identified me as a cis-woman, such as "us women", "I was unable to conceive and carry a baby to term", etc.  Although the advice would be just as valuable coming from a male, it would not be received in the same way.  I noted that all hetero men seem to be interested in getting laid.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  Women, having more to risk when having sex, tend to need men who will care for them even when sex can not be offered.  

I figured that RQS would chew me out if I did anything wrong.  However, she seemed to approve of what I did, as it was meant to help this woman friend.  Hopefully, what I said will make a positive difference in my friend's life.

Thoughts on travel as Marian and as Mario

A while back, I bought the above dress at Target. As much as my shoulders appear too broad when my entire figure is considered, I thing that this will be one of the dresses I'll be taking with me when I go to Hawaii.  However, I'm not so sure of the dress below.    

Although both dresses are of similar styles, there is a great difference between the two.  The top dress has just enough "going on" with the fabric to make it look tolerably nice on me.  Unfortunately, the bottom dress is too plain, and I will need to find the right piece of costume jewelry to wear with it because it shows too much of my neck.

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Being transgender with male hormones flowing through my veins for over 50 years, I have the build of a heavy set male.  This forces me to use any and all tricks at my disposal to minimize the broadness of my shoulders and maximize an illusion of having larger hips.

RQS accepts me in both presentations, and may eventually cruise with me in a female gender presentation.  This won't happen for a while.  Until then, I plan to make the most of my trip to Hawaii, as this may be the last chance to take a vacation as Marian for a long while.

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The other day, we found out that NCL would not downgrade our "free drinks" package to a "soda" package.  Although the soda package would cost them less, this was not an option given for the "Free at Sea" package.  There is no way I want to spend $200/pp to get a drink package for the price of its gratuities (20% of $1000 = $200) when the two of us are cruising on a budget.  A soda package would cost us (and NCL) much less (20% of $120 = $24/pp), but we couldn't convince NCL to offer that upgrade. So, we are sending snail mail complaint letters to the CEO of NCL, with a hope that this could be changed before we go on our cruise. (I don't think this will happen, but...)

Contrast this with my future Hawaii trip.  I am not bothering to scrimp on anything, save the transit to and from my home airport.  The Hawaii cruise excursions will cost me roughly $1,000, where the New England / Eastern Canada excursions we have already booked will cost us $75/pp.  Even if we booked an excursion in every port, we'd still spend less as a couple on excursions than I am spending as a single traveler.

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Last night, while trying to reach a state of exhaustion, I started to try to reduce the cost in getting to a Panama Canal cruise and home from that cruise.  Instead of booking airfare on one of the legacy airlines or traveling on Amtrak, I'm now looking at flying Southwest.  Do you have any ideas of what I should watch out for if we choose this option?

 

Getting our nails done

 

Today was reserved for a RQS and I to get a Mani-Pedi together, and then to drive her to her home to Queens.  We didn't get moving until mid day, and this didn't cause us any problems.

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After a filling brunch, we decided to go to the nail salon.  This week, I decided to take RQS to a new salon, where RQS was more than happy with the work they did on her fingers and toes.  When something was slightly off, the nail technician (what do you call these ladies?) noticed it, and fixed it without us having to bring it to her attention.  (She wants to go to this salon again soon.)  As we exited, RQS suggested that we go to Carvel - and I opened up the door to Carvel after walking less than 10 feet from the nail salon.  (She didn't know that there was a Carvel next door to the nail salon, and was pleasantly surprised by this coincidence.)

Once we were done with our ice cream, it was time to pick up her stuff and drive her home.  I told her that this would be my last trip to Long Island for a couple of weeks, as traffic will be screwed up on the roads I use to get to her apartment due to the US Open and a NY Mets home stand.. I warned her that if I couldn't find a spot near to her apartment, I would have to drop her off and see her next weekend.  But we were lucky - I found a spot less than a block away.  So we carried her stuff upstairs then went out for a quick bite to eat.

When we were done with dinner, we went back to RQS's place, where we got to cuddle.  At this point I found out a few good things about how things have been going from her perspective, and that she was  more than comfortable with me in both Mario and Marian presentations.  (She has come to enjoy being with me in Marian mode, as she can share even more things with me than she'd expect from a typical boyfriend.)

All too soon, I had to leave.  But I am feeling very good right now....

Doing almost nothing until....

 

Lately, RQS and I have gotten into a routine.  In the mornings, we tend to stay up late, and then start to get moving in the afternoon.  This week was no different.

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We only had two things to do this Saturday - pick up a couple of books from the local library, and then drop off some donation bags at the local charity receiving center.  So, by 3 pm, we got ourselves moving and took care of these errands.

Once we were done with the mandated tasks, it was time to pick up some storage containers I could use to reorganize the refrigerator. And that meant a trip to Target, and then to Walmart.  If we weren't planning on a trip to Shoprite to pick up some lobsters, we would have driven North on Route 22 and explored Eastern Dutchess county.  But I digress.  

After getting home from Shoprite, I started to put water in the stock pot I use for boiling lobster, and let it get to a nice rolling boil before starting to put lobsters in the pot.  Then, I took care of the pot I used for cooking the corn to go with our lobster dinner.  Once the lobsters were ready, I set the food on the table, and we proceeded to have a tasty dinner for less than we would have spent going to a  restaurant.  Yum!

Next, it was time to reorganize and clean the refrigerator.  And this is where a couple of minor mishaps occurred. First, RQS knocked a glass off the counter, and we had to clean broken glass off the floor.  And then, she broke the crisper at the bottom of the refrigerator.  (I'll replace this with an OEM part when I get around to is.)  I eased her mind a little, then fixed the crisper for use until I can replace it. At this point, it was time to throw out stuff which has already gotten too old for consumption - including 6 bottles of white wine which have sat in the icebox for 10-20 years. In addition, there was 1 bottle that had to be over 25 years old, as I know it was a gift from my late wife's employer.  (As you can guess, I don't drink much wine at home.)

Buying storage containers for use in a refrigerator is a hit or miss thing. (At least, it is for me.)  I can eyeball a space and have a good idea of what fill fit in that space.  Yet, sometimes, I make a mistake and buy things that won't fit.  Today's trip was a little bit of both, as I was left with 2 containers which wouldn't fit into the spaces in which I wanted to use them.  When RQS made her first pass at refrigerator reorganization, she didn't pick up on the nuances I planned to use in reorganization.  So I sat on the floor and started to organize what was on the shelves into storage containers that made things easy to get at.

The two of us are a couple who have been working well together.  Unlike my relationship with XGFJ, I'm finding that we talk to each other more about the important things in the relationship.  Yes, there are elephants in the room, but we seem to be able to talk about the beast and how it has to be handled.  It's a nice feeling.... 

How much is too much?

 

How much is too much?  That is a question I have to ask as I clean up my apartment.  During the pandemic, I had allowed clutter to reach a critical mass.  And, I allowed myself to be entertained by online retail therapy.  In cleaning out the place, I've already donated several bags of clothing to charity, and will likely to donate more in the near future.

One of my weaknesses is to surf the web for dresses that both fit me and will look good on me.  Most cisgender females do not own as many dresses as I own.  But I wasn't able to wear dresses until I reached my 50's.  So, in a way, I'm making up for lost time.  Yet, as I develop my own sense of style, I end up tossing dresses that no longer fit my needs.  In the past, I would stand out because I was wearing dresses when cisgender women would default to wearing trouser like garments.  Now, I have a style which includes these garments when appropriate to wear them.  

If one is a lucky transgender person, one will have the resources to make the mistakes I've made while coming into her own. A word of warning to people newly out - you will stand out like a sore thumb as I did. To some, we may look like drag queens, as we go too far in our attempts to look female. Over time, things will fit into place, and you will blend in if you try to do so.  This might just be a function of finding out how much is too much....

I had to postpone lunch with a friend

 

Recently, I scheduled lunch with a friend from where I used to work.  Sadly, she is recovering from Covid, and I felt safer postponing our lunch until she has had more time to recover.

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My friend is one of two people I want to keep in touch with at the old job.  Although she knows I'm trans, she treats me as if I were a cisgender female.  Unfortunately, our schedules are hard to get into sync, as she is busy every morning, and has family responsibilities which I won't go into here.  As a result, the only time we can meet is on Fridays for lunch.

There are certain people in my life who are hard to schedule things with.  One of which is the former student clinician with whom I helped develop my feminine voice.  She's a person who I will likely need to find a way to squeeze her into my schedule when she is free.  And then, there are the people who live far enough away that we can't schedule a last minute get together.  

We all have friends like those I mention.  But these friendships seem harder to establish and maintain when one is transgender.  There are people who look at us in a strange way and fear us.  There are others who dislike us and consider us as untouchables for being transgender.  But there are the remaining people who accept us as people, no matter how far from the statistical norm we are. So, I cherish those friendships I make as Marian, and work hard to have them become stronger over time.

Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain these friendships as my relationship with RQS grows.  Keep your fingers crossed....

Cleaning up a mess

 

The above is not the mess in my house.  It is a picture of the mess from Ex-GF-M's place AFTER she emptied out a den where she tossed many things after her husband died.  Like me, in grief, she couldn't deal with the effort it takes to keep a place neat and tidy, and let things go to pot.  Even when the big mess is cleaned out, there are smaller messes still left to be taken care of - a process that has to be repeated until a place can be considered neat and tidy.

Lately, RQS has been helping me straighten out my place.  It's been a slow slog for me, as we seem to be taking two steps forward and one step back each weekend.  On my own, I've been trying to take care of things as well.  Today, it was another day where I find myself cleaning up the space around my computer desk.

RQS has described me as a person who can be very organized, but gets overwhelmed by the process of organizing things.  In many ways, I think she's right. Julia Child had a better way of organizing her kitchen than I do for my desk.  On one of her kitchen walls, she had a diagram for each of her kitchen tools.  If she saw the outline, she knew that the tool was either in use, or needing to be cleaned.  I wish I could be that good in organizing things.  

A perfect example of my lack of personal organization is my freezer.  I love to buy certain foodstuffs on sale.  But I never seem to plan far enough in advance to thaw out tasty food - such as strip steaks I buy on sale at Stew Leonard's.  So, by the time I think of having a steak, there is no good way to thaw it out quick enough for me to enjoy it for dinner.  Often, I end up throwing out (formerly) good food, simply because it sat in the freezer too long.  AARGH!

I find it interesting that I can clean up other people's messes, but have a hard time cleaning up my own.  I guess it is how I am wired - if I get too close to things, my ability to make sense of those things is negatively affected.  Instead, I must be disinterested in some way to work effectively.  In the case of my desk, I may be interested too much to do much of anything.  And I may not be interested enough to care much.

Who knows?  I may get this desk straightened out yet.