Attack Of The Hormones?

When I started HRT in December of 2012, I really didn't notice many changes (if any), to my emotions.  I see a lot of people that maintain they do and perhaps that's the case; although sometimes I wonder if at least part of that is the placebo effect.  As my dosages increased last year though I did start to see a little change.  I've always been a "closet crier" with things, but it was easy to keep under wraps; but by later in the year last year it was becoming more pronounced.  J and M both picked up on it as well, in fact sort of like the breast growth they noticed that well before I saw it myself.

In some ways those things were frustrating because I felt like I had somehow "lost control" of my emotions and while I won't sit here and say I was Yoda and had absolute control of my emotions, I do feel that I could handle them pretty well.  J, and M to an extent have tried to make me feel better - "it's part of being a girl" and "we deal with this every month", and such; and I guess maybe it is, but it's a part that has been harder to handle than perhaps I thought.

Now fast forward to today; It's been nearly two weeks since my orchiectomy (actually about 6:30am tomorrow would be two weeks from the time I walked out of the office sans the parts).  Without my testosterone producing buddies anymore and the fact that I'm still on the Spiro to suppress any that the rest of the body was producing (and I'm assuming that may change in May when I go to Columbia for my next visit with Dr. Swenson); I would assume that the Estradiol now has an easier time of things.  I haven't seen any sudden breast growth; although I'm not sure that I'd notice it if I had - when you look at something constantly - and not that I stare, but they were right in front of me - you don't tend to perceive change as well.  However, what I have seen, especially the last few days is a marked increase in emotional swings.  The littlest things have brought me to tears the last three days or so and it's been more than a bit disconcerting.  In the last three nights I've managed to fight with M and J as I've noted in earlier blog entries, as well as keep J up for a good extra hour last night because I was bawling over the fact that I had fought with her earlier.

I've always had what I'd generously refer to as "tender feelings" and as I've told J, they probably get hurt 10-20 times per day.  They still do, but now when they do I do find myself much more upset and much more likely to shed tears.  Now perhaps this is the placebo effect as I speculated above, but it's harder to make that call when it's happening to you and it is.  So I guess for now I will take J and M's advice and chalk it up to "being a girl" and it being "my time of the month" so to speak - albeit without the little "present" they each get. :)

- M

Playing To Win At Any Cost, Is It Really Worth It?

For all the good qualities I may or may not possess, and for all of the nice things I try to do, I have one major defect that stands above all others.  I play to win.  It doesn't matter if it's a game, if it's a debate about anything - important or trivial, be it work, or be it in a relationship.  I'm not really sure why I am that way; I'd imagine that if Kelly (my therapist for those that haven't followed the blog) and I were to start talking about it, we'd span multiple sessions and a great many reasons would come to light.  Off of the top of my head, perhaps it was how I grew up.  I did start school young - as a frame of reference when my senior year started I was still only 16 years old.  I was the oldest of my siblings and perhaps I felt the need to "stand out".  Maybe I was seeking acceptance from parents, grandparents, school peers, etc.  Maybe it's just who I am, but that really doesn't matter.

While professional athletes are celebrated for this "ability", and I guess I understand that with all the money and power that comes with it; it's not such a good thing in day to day life.  I've seen friendships strained and/or lost over it; it's hurtful to those you love; and these don't just apply to me - I've seen others do it to, and it's often easier to back seat drive how/what they do than when it's yourself.  This isn't some recent revelation for me or anything, I've known it was an issue for a long time, but I tried to justify it to myself under various guises such as being the faster cashier in the store, or the best support person, and so on.  Despite my "justifications" though, it's never helped with the toll it's taken on those around me.  I'm sure I've lost friendships and alienated family over it; I've hurt feelings over it; and so on.

The absolute worst of it all has always been during arguments specifically with M and J.  I seem to have a knack for being able to be able to slice somebody to nothing with just a few words and it seems that I always have those words right on the tip of my tongue.  These are people I love (J), people I have loved (M), people I care about (both of them among others); and yet I can stand there and be so utterly hateful and hurtful.  It's not that I want to do it, I hurt for long periods after it happens, but I still do it anyway.  I just can't seem to save myself from myself.  I've managed to learn to not yell anymore; but I think in some ways it's worse when I'm speaking in normal tones and it comes across as my true feelings when in fact it's not.  I'm simply saying whatever it takes to win, usually at the expense of someone else's feelings.  I want to stop, and I'm trying to stop, but it just keeps happening.  Truthfully I'm shocked that M is still a friend and I'm shocked that J still loves me after some of the things that I've said.  They things that get said in the heat of anger always seem to be the things that will hurt them the most and I hate myself for it.

This is the root of the majority of my self-loathing and it's gotten to the point that I'm not even sure that if I were to be able to finally put a stop to it if I will ever get over all of the things I've said.  No matter how nice I try to be, those words once spoken never truly get forgotten - and even if they did forget them I don't/won't.  Is there EVER an argument about ANYTHING that is so important to "win" that it needs to come to this?  That's a rhetorical question at least for me as the answer is NO - a thousand times over; yet I continue to do it.  At this point I'm at a loss as I can't seem to fix the problem and I'm so tired of being hurtful to them.  And even if I can fix the problem, I'm not sure I can undo all the damage that's been done over the years which just makes me fell all that much worse.  Not that I don't deserve to feel that way - I do.

I guess I should wrap this up now - this marks 30 posts this month (not bad for 27 days) and 60 total which means I've done as many this month as I did in October, November, December, and January combined.  Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I need something positive to think about at the moment so I'll go with that.  Thanks.

- M

Transition And Depression

I'll be honest, despite how I may feel right now or even the last week or two; basically my transition has been a very smooth ride.  My wife J, my daughter, and my roommate M were supportive; I found a great therapist; I have a wonderful GP supervising my HRT; my regular GP is awesome about things including working with my HRT doctor; my name/gender change went smoothly; my experiences in public go well almost 100% of the time, even my orchiectomy seems to have went well.  Now, there have been bumps, work is an issue that I don't think will end up with a happy ending for me; I had a post a few days ago regarding family and friends and the feelings I expressed there weren't exactly rainbows and unicorns either.  But the good so far outweighs the bad that I would stand by any statement(s) I've ever made about my transition being smooth - it has.  So I have trouble relating to those, and it seems to be a significant portion, people transitioning that are having such a rough time.  I feel for them, I really do, but I just don't truly understand what they are going through as I haven't really lived that.

As I've said in other entries, this has led to a lot of guilt on my part; I'm not sure that's fair to me as I have worked very hard to be in the position I have.  That's not to say many/most others haven't also worked hard, but there is an element that seems to think that they are owed a smooth ride when they don't want to do anything to get that smooth ride.  Others, well there are a multitude of reasons why their circumstances are what they are.  Perhaps it's simply nothing they could have helped - this is the group I have the most empathy for and have the most guilt about.  Not to get too corny, etc., but their "American Dream" is to transition and it's being trampled upon for whatever reason.  Some, it's simply a lack of preparation.  I can relate to that somewhat, when I made the decision to transition I was nearing 42 and I wanted to "dive right in" too as I felt I was 40 years behind the curve.  However, I took the time to do it right which often (and definitely in my case) means taking it slowly and carefully.  So while I have empathy here, it's not as much as for some other "groups" as in most cases this is something that could have been avoided.  I could keep on going and classifying people; but that's not why I'm here in general and definitely not why I'm here now.

As usual, here were are at my third paragraph and I'm just getting around to the reason why I am here and that's depression and transition.  When doing my research beforehand, I read all the statistics I could find that related to transition and they simply do not paint a good picture.  I was determined to beat those statistics and so far I believe I have - mainly because of how loving and supporting J is.  But the reality is that there are a lot of people who end up giving up their transition for various reasons, or even giving up their life and that troubles me greatly.  I know it's hard, even though I've (hopefully) done well so far, it by no means it's been easy - it hasn't.  I've chronicled certain things that have stood in my way; but I've carefully avoided one, and it's a big one.

Depression.  I've always been a firm believer that while depression may or may not be something you can "cure/fix/whatever", that you can at least mitigate it - some more than others.  I would not say I'm ever really depressed, but I also go out of my way to keep myself from that - and that means before, during, and now post-transition (see my prior post for my thoughts on being done with transition).  Some things are silly such as watching a lot of comedy - be it stand-up, television, or movies.  That's one small example, others are things such as trying not to be around people who will bring me down for example.  Because of this, as I said I've never really felt like I was depressed and as such I've had a hard time relating to some of the things I've read online.  That's mostly what drove me from Susan's Place as sometimes it got so depressing it just wasn't worth me being there as it would start to drag me down.

Now all of that being said lately I seem to have lost some of my edge on depression.  I still wouldn't say I'm depressed as I don't feel I am; but things such as my issues/concerns with people I thought were "friends" have gotten to me a bit.  The fact that none of my immediate birth family really wants anything to do with me.  Even though my uncle/aunt have been very nice and my cousin's wife has simply went out of her way to be wonderful; nobody else has which has got to me a bit.  Even J - she's been at her current job for 6 months and still hasn't taken me to visit her store.  I joke about it, but that's simply one of what I guess would be labelled as a "coping mechanism".  I'm sure she's not doing it on purpose, but at some point it does start to hurt as that bit of wonder does creep into my mind.  Maybe, as usual, I'm just thinking too much, but I can't help it.  Her parents are another example, the right things seem to be said, but for example last night she went over there.  Originally I was supposed to go - in fact I had suggested it since I've only been over there a couple of times and only twice as Madison (Thanksgiving and Christmas).  Some things came up so J discouraged me from going.  That hurt a lot - I understand if it was going to be "one of those nights" that perhaps it wasn't the best night to go over; but if she wasn't comfortable with me being there then why did she still go?  It's not that I begrudge that she did, and I appreciate the fact that she was looking out for my best interests; but it makes me wonder about things since if she was willing to go how bad could it have been, unless perhaps they aren't quite as accepting about things as she says.

Even M.  We've got 20+ years of history from when we met, to when she got pregnant and we were married, through our divorce, and our reconciliation as friends.  On some levels I feel so sorry for her as she ended marrying somebody (we're skipping over husband #2 who was a loser and lasted only a few months) who has so many of the poor qualities that I used to have.  I was a huge a**hole a lot of the time, and truthfully he is.  I spent a ton of time in front of a computer, his vice is video games - actually I think obsession is a better word.  I could go on and on, but there's no point - the real point is that sometimes I start feeling sorry for her because I'm not sure she's very happy and I want to see her happy.  To that point, I try and do things with her when I can and go out of my way to include her when J and I are doing things - sometimes I think to the chagrin of J which I feel bad about, but I do feel a responsibility to look out for M as well.

The plan for tonight was for the three of us to run to Ulta for a little sale they were having, then on to get our eyebrows done, grab some dinner, and then J would go to her parents since it would be on the way home and M and I would come home - ideally stopping at a grocery store to grab a few things.  Since J was going to her parents we'd need two cars so that's what we did.  Ulta went fine, the eyebrow threading was great, and then we went to dinner.  We visited a place called St. Louis Wing Co.  They have a lot of neat wing flavors and run a dine-in special with all you can eat (boneless) wings, an order of fries, and a drink for $11.99.  The initial order is 10 boneless wings in 1 or 2 flavors - your choice, and then subsequent orders of 5.  Now I don't think we ever really get our $11.99 worth - $12.99 tonight since we each added cheese to our fries; but it's one place we ALL THREE like and it was on our way home (or to J's parents for her) so we choose there.

Now the highlight of my night if I had one was as we were ordering (J then myself, then M) - after I had ordered and the young lady confirmed it was "together" the next words out of her mouth were "so is it girls night out".  Now to a cis-woman that likely doesn't merit a second thought, but for a trans-woman who's out with two cis-woman it's one of the most wonderful things in the world to hear as at that point I can only assume I'm passing well since it was NOT said with the sarcastic tone that I would've expected had if I had been "read".  Now of course this means that the night has to go down hill from there and it did.  The place was fairly busy and I wasn't very comfortable as it was a mostly younger and male crowd which is something I normally try to avoid, but it was what it was.  We all three went to get our drinks and the fiasco started.  M managed to get hers first, but obviously didn't want to pick a table so she stood in the way.  She was getting some ketchup, but that obviously could have waited - J may or may not have picked up on it, but I've know M long enough to know what she was doing.  Then of course J went to get hers and now she's in the way a bit since M is still in the way.  I see another lady coming to get hers so I wiggled in and filled mine; but I can't get to the lids since J is blocking them so I'm getting frustrated a bit.

Well we all sit down and were discussing the morning - two of the cats (4 and 5) need to get a hair cut.  I screwed this up as I had them done in October which is a month or so early for us and now it's only February and they are beyond needing another - I should have waited to have the last one done; but neither here nor there.  Additionally, the Salvation Army is coming to pick up some donations (including a computer desk which is why we're not simply dropping them off).  As it is, J is off tomorrow as is M.  And M is suppose to handle meals - the agreement when we bought the house was dinner every day which has morphed into breakfast since M, my daughter, and M's husband work nights and often J isn't home regardless.  Now the past several months M has gotten almost a total pass on this as I like to cook and I have been doing most of the cooking.  With everything going on, plus me in the last day of a training class in the morning, I offered to make some Jalapeno Cheddar Puffs (recipe is in an earlier blog post from this month).  Now I would've made something with them as while they can be a meal, we don't treat them that way.

As usual I was trying to be nice, and is so often the case M managed to blow the night up.  She could have responded a lot of ways and it would've been fine and without getting into more specifics than I already have (yeah I know, too late) she picked the absolute wrong one.  I got upset, now this was about as minor of an upset as I can possibly get, but I made no bones about it, she was acting like a c*nt and I didn't appreciate it.  I did tell her that once again I went out of my way to include her when I didn't have to - I was already in for $13 plus tax for dinner for her, $15 for eyebrows and tip, $12 from Ulta as I really didn't get anything - just a single eye shadow, instead I bought M and J each two jars of a scrub (B2G2 Free), so at this point it's in excess of $40 just to include her basically because I felt sorry for her and here she was once again being a c*nt and hurting my feelings.  J as I've asked her to do, interceded to defuse things, but by then my night was ruined.  As much as it pained me to do, I cried off and on as we ate - at one point it was so bad I literally couldn't see my food; but I was trying to not make it obvious to either the other customers or M.  I know she could tell, but I really was trying to avoid showing the emotion anymore than I had to.  At one point J told me to apologize to her and I guess I should have - no I know I should have as J told me to, but I stood my ground and refused as I had NOT called her a c*nt, I said she was acting like one and here 8+ hours later I stand by that.

Well it was a quiet drive home since J went to her parents.  I was polite to the point of responding to anything M said, but made no conversation of my own.  Once we got home I came to my room and got undressed.  I was going to get some work done, but my heart wasn't in it so I elected to go to bed.  M came in with a drink and my medicine which I did thank her for as well as made sure she got her scrubs from me, but I then went to bed until J got home from her parents.

Now that I've probably wasted several minutes of your time reading all of that, the moral of tonight was that no matter how much I do care about M and her well being, she is simply a person who I guess you can't care because she doesn't return it.  I never expect anything tangible from anybody; but for those I care about I need and expect it to be reciprocal and with M - well I know it is sometimes, but it has to be all of the time.  As I've said elsewhere, J and I are more or less stuck in this house mess; but I'm really starting to question if I should continue to try and include M on any excursion with J and I - I mean the two of us had a wonderful few days on our Detroit trip.  For that matter I'm pondering if I should even bother cooking other than for J herself as apparently even that isn't appreciated.  Maybe it's finally time to cut bait on M as somebody I call my friend and most of the time my "sister" and consider her simply a roommate.  I hate to let it come to that as I do care; but I cannot continue to care at my or J's expense and that's what it is far too often.  Maybe I'll feel differently after I get some more sleep.

So what does that all have to do with the topic - well if I were ever to be depressed - and I'm not saying I am as I don't believe it's to that point - but right now would have to be about the lowest I've felt during my 20 months or so since I chose to transition.  I'm sure about anybody who reads this would say "really" and roll their eyes at that, and I can't say I'd blame them.  But quite often things are relative and while these things all probably seem trivial to most people, considering how well things have went for me, they represent the worst I've felt during/post transition.  I realize they pale in comparison to what a great many have (or currently) dealt with and I'm by no means trying to compare this to those things.  Rather I'm simply saying that I do have a better understanding of HOW someone who was transitioning could end up depressed and that has let to some understanding at my part.

If you've managed to get this far, you are probably a better person than I am and for that I thank you.  I needed to vent somewhere, I promise I'll get back to better topics with the next post.

- M

Transition - When Does It End?

J and I were talking this morning about something else - and that will likely be a topic for a future entry as it was an interesting discussion.  As an off-shoot of what we talked about the topic of this post came up.  I had been giving it some thought lately anyway based on some Reddit discussions, so it was timely that we started talking about it.

I chose to transition probably 20 months or so, give or take - I'd have to check my emails and such to be certain, but that should be about right.  As I said I've given this a lot of thought and despite the fact that I have NOT had GRS and do not intent to have BA or FFS, I think I consider my transition complete.  While I didn't really give that thought prior to my Orchiectomy, I don't feel that had anything to do with it, I just happened to have some time to ponder things while we were on the trip as towards the end I was trying to let J get some sleep since she hadn't gotten much early on while being my "nurse".

Looking back I feel that my transition ended October 4th, 2013.  Why that date?  That's the date I went to court to get my name and gender legally changed.  As I've discussed previously when I left court that morning my name legally became Madison.  Now my gender change was "under consideration" for 30 days and didn't become final until November 6th, 2013; but that was basically a formality - it was informally granted on October 4th.  It didn't sink in right away on the October 4th as I had (apparently incorrectly) assumed that the name change was not going to be effective for several weeks while it was published for three weeks as per the state statutes.  However, when I went to sign some things for my lawyer before leaving court I started to sign my old name and she immediately corrected me and explained that once the judge signed the order it was effective immediately and once I finished signing the paperwork I'd get certified copies of the court order to change my license, birth certificate, and whatever else I needed/wanted to change.  Even as the three of us - Susan my lawyer, J, and myself walked out I still don't think it had sunk in; but as the day progressed it did and I was as happy as I'd been in a very long time.  Sort of silly to be so happy over changing a name, but I was - I was finally Madison and that did make me so very happy.

Even though I was so happy, I didn't really give any thought to my transition - I still used the term that I was transitioning as that's how I felt.  I guess I had never really given any thought as to when my transition would be over - I guess I sort of assumed it would be the day I did have GRS.  But looking back these last several days my outlook has changed.  It doesn't matter that I haven't had GRS yet, or even if I ever do have it.  I'm living as a woman, the state considers me a woman, the people that are important to me such as J, my daughter, and so on, consider me a woman.  So not only do I feel my transition is over, looking back the date that it was over for me will always been October 4th, 2013.  While I continue to try and be active in various communities such as Reddit and such I don't think I'll ever identify myself as a trans-woman any more - as far as I'm concerned I'm simply "a woman".  Now if somebody wants to discuss cis-women (I still hate that term) versus trans-women - then fine I have no problem with being a trans-woman, but outside of that context - well I no longer see a use to differentiate myself from any other woman be it J, M, D, etc.

And hey, a post where I got to the subject before the third paragraph - if I had a baby book (yes J - I'm not letting that go - LOL) I'd put this moment in it.  :)

- M

Therapy And Me - Part 2

Well this training class is beyond boring at this point, so I couldn't help myself.  Without further ado I give you "Therapy And Me - Part 2". :)

Picking up where I left off, J, D, and myself were heading into St. Louis to see my therapist for the first time.  I've mentioned her name elsewhere, but for those that haven't read earlier entries her name is Kelly S. Storck and I can't recommend her strongly enough.  But we can talk about that later, let's get back to the "story" so to speak.  I'm going to insert a picture here of how I looked at that first visit.  Looking back I guess it wasn't all that bad for being my only my third time out as "Madison", but I definitely think things have improved in the time since then.

Probably a little too "pink happy", and overall probably better suited for someone a good 10 years younger than I am, but again all things considered I thought it was pretty good at the time.

So we got there and after some words of encouragement from J and D, I headed in.  I waited in the waiting area for a couple of minutes, nervously at that, until Kelly came out and introduced herself.  She was what I expected since I had seen a few photos of her so no surprise there.  She gave me some forms to fill out and let me be.  She returned a few minutes later and collected the forms and me and took me back to her office.  She's located in a small home in Webster Groves that has been turned into several offices including hers, it's a nice and cozy environment - I was much more at ease there than I would've been in some medical type office - not that my opinion may matter, but I think she made a good choice as to where she's at.

I was nervous so I joked if I was supposed to lie down on the couch, obviously she's probably heard that a million times before, but she took it in stride and told me to do whatever made me most comfortable so I elected to simply sit in the middle of the couch. :)  We had a brief introduction to each other; truthfully I had done my research on her and knew most of what she shared.  I then gave her a short overview - almost an outline or even almost a resume of my life.  We then touched on what my goal(s) were and why I was there.  At one point she was incredibly blunt with me and flat out asked if I was only there to obtain a letter for HRT.  I was a bit shocked that she was so blunt about it, but I was honest and the answer was no.  Yes I did want that at some point, but I was there to get an unbiased opinion if I was a good candidate to transition.  By that I mean prepared mentally and emotionally and I was afraid I wouldn't get that at home as J is so supportive she'd back me no matter what I did.

Once we got past that we did start going into my life in more detail.  It took the balance of this session and the second session to get through it.  Now since this isn't meant to be an exclusive diary of that first session, but rather in general I'll jump to that second session now.  Towards the end of that session she told me in her opinion I was prepared to transition and she'd start working on my letter at the next session and it would likely take 2-3 sessions to get through it and asked if I was okay with that.  I was happy with that as I expected 2-3 months to get a letter - and that would've been with weekly sessions and I was going every other week.

So by now you're probably wondering what the purpose of this two part post was/is.  Well I'm starting too as well - no seriously I'm not.  There were a couple of things I wanted to convey.  First is that I know back when I was doing my research I wondered about what therapy would be like and I thought giving a glimpse into my first session might be helpful.  For that matter if anybody does read this and has more specific questions on what it was like feel free to leave comment(s) or contact me via Google+/Facebook/etc and I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you.  The other reason I wanted to get into this is that a friend of mine who is working as a therapist posted something to Facebook yesterday that I thought was very relevant and had some things in it that I wish I had thought/known back when I was considering therapy.  The link is below:

10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Therapy

It's fairly short, but again I think it's good reading.  Not necessarily ground breaking stuff there, but if nothing else a few good reminders and maybe more.

As always thanks for reading.

- M

Therapy And Me - Part 1

I've probably touched on the subject of therapy off an on throughout this blog, but I'm not sure how much I've ever really gotten into it and I thought now was a good time.

I've never been a big fan of therapy, a large portion of my formative years were spent with my grandparents for various reasons and as such a lot of my values either came directly from them or were strongly influenced by them.  If they were still alive today they'd be in their 90's so doing the math backwards they were born and raised in/around the depression era which was a significantly different time.  I was raised that you handled your own issues and privately at that.  If you misbehaved there was no compunction with a good spanking - not that I got many - it sure wasn't like it is here and now.  And there was definitely no belief in going and talking about your "problems/etc" with a stranger.  Now perhaps I'm over-generalizing that generation, but even if I am I think it's a fair assessment of them.  Don't get me wrong - I loved them very much or I wouldn't have spent so much time with them, I'm just trying to give some context on how I grew up.

Well 20 months or so when I strongly was considering transitioning, before I even broached it with my wife I spent a great many hours and days not only thinking about my life and other things such as the pros/cons of transitioning, but also doing LOTS of research into the process.  I looked at every step of things including both success AND failure stories of many who had went before me.  I wanted to not only be sure that it was the right course of action for ME, but for my wonderful wife J, my daughter, and even M since she's still such a large part of my life.  I wanted to be able to answer as many questions as I could about the process and be as informed as possible.

Obviously WPATH SOC came up.  For those that aren't familiar with those terms, WPATH stands for World Professional Association for Transgender Health and SOC stands for Standards Of Care.  I'm going to oversimplify for brevity's sake, obviously you can research this further - and if you are considering transition I think it's crucial that you do.  But to simplify, WPATH is basically a trade association consisting of mental health professionals who deal with Transgender health.  The Standards Of Care are intended to provide guidance for addressing the gender issues of transgender individuals.  As I said this is an overly simple explanation of each, but even at that it's taken me a paragraph to cover.  Please visit the WPATH website - HERE - for more information and better definitions of each.

Part of the WPATH SOC is that there are "requirements" - and technically that may not be the most correct term, but I think the consensus of the community is that it is basically "requirements" for transitioning.  This applies to things such as Hormone Therapy (HRT), as well as surgical procedures such as GRS.  Now I'm discussing this from a Male-To-Female transgender perspective, but they also apply for Female-To-Male as well.

Once I decided I wanted to transition I knew I would want to get on HRT and eventually have GRS - other surgeries as breast augmentation (BA) or Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS) didn't hold as much appeal to me for multiple reasons including my age.  In order to pursue those things I found that I would need authorizations, for HRT a letter from a therapist is sufficient; for more involved processes such as GRS, it takes two including one from someone with a PhD.  Now again I'm keeping this reasonably simpler for brevity; but for more specific information, again the WPATH site above is a good place to start.

Now this was still prior to speaking with J - she was on a trip to Alaska - fishing with her parents - so I had a *LOT* of free time at night to be doing this.  I started searching for therapists in my area.  Even though we're a bit of a drive from St. Louis itself there were a huge number of therapists, but finding ones that specialized in gender issues - well that was harder.  I realize it's more of a niche than general therapy, but it was harder than I thought it would be.  I ended up finding several; and started filtering the list down.  One "requirement" for me was a female therapist so that narrowed the list.  I wanted one who I could confirm had been doing therapy for a while, this narrowed the list a bit more.  I had other things that further narrowed the list, but they were minor - such as the area they were located.  Things like that weren't so much deal breakers like the first two were, but were more used as a "ranking".  I narrowed my list to three - two of which actually shared office space at the same location.  It was almost a flip of the coin as to who I chose, but I chose one and emailed her.

All things being (even close to) equal I prefer to communicate via email than over phone if possible.  It was especially relevant in this case as I was more than a bit nervous as I felt I was starting to climb out on the proverbial limb here.  We exchanged emails and while she was willing to see me, she thought I might be a better fit for a colleague and offered to speak to her.  I was fine with that, and the colleague happened to be my "second choice" from above - Kelly.  It took a few days to hear from her since Kelly was vacation, but we traded emails.  Among the topics was that even though I knew most patients would see her weekly, that would be hard for me with the drive (45 minutes or so each way) since that would turn the session into nearly 2.5 hours and with work I didn't think I could handle that each week.  I also was unsure about how to present.  I'd been out in public dressed as a female a few times in the past, but those were always on Halloween with one exception.  I had already decided that my preference was to present female and was glad that she said it was whatever made me comfortable.  My thought was that if I couldn't present female and be comfortable in that environment then perhaps I wasn't ready to transition.  So I decided I thought she might be a good fit and that it was worth seeing her and made a tentative appointment, pending me speaking with J who was still out of town.

It was at this point that I knew I needed to speak with J, and I wanted to talk to M as well, but J first.  I could (and probably will at some point) write entire blog entries on how those discussions went; so lets move forward to my first appointment.  J managed to arrange her schedule to go with me, and my friend D also offered to ride along which I was grateful for.  I mean I wanted to go, but I was nervous, maybe even a little scared about how this would work.  I mean I'm a private person (or at least used to be <G>) and I wasn't sure how I could talk about things like this.

My "lunch break" is over - I'm doing some online training course (which has been a complete waste of time so far) - and it's started back up so I'm going to break this into two parts and post the second part hopefully later on today or tomorrow.  Actually that part will contain what encouraged me to write on this topic, but even without that I hope that there might be some thing(s) in here that somebody might find useful, especially somebody who is still at the stage of considering transition.

Thanks.

- M

The Total Woman

Just before our little trip to Michigan, J ordered me a couple of things and while she told me she had, she intentionally neglected to tell me what she had ordered.  "Mistress privilege" I suppose. :)

Well both packages showed up just before she left.  The one she kept as a "surprise" until we got up there and I'll cover that in a subsequent post at some point.  The other she did "share" with me.  It's the book "The Total Woman" by Marabel Morgan.  She told me she was going to read through it prior to giving it to me and highlight some things for me to pay special attention to.  I wasn't quite sure what to think, so I let it be.

Well during our little trip I obviously did a lot more sleeping than she did - at least after the surgery - and oftentimes I would doze off for a hour or two here and there and the doting wife that she is I'd wake up to either her napping next to me, or lying awake next to me reading the book and "petting" me for lack of a better term.  True to her word if she was reading the book she usually had a highlighter in hand.

Fast forward to yesterday, her first day back at work.  One of the items on my "To Do List" was to spend at least 30 minutes reading the book and to send her an email about what I had read.  I've been in a bit more discomfort the last couple of days than earlier in the week so I napped quite a bit, but later in the day yesterday I decided to lie down - right now lying down is pretty comfortable, sitting is okay, and standing/walking hurts pretty good.  I grabbed the book, as I thought I could both pass some time and check an item off of my list since I wasn't making good progress due to my naps.

Let me first say that I immerse myself in whatever I'm reading and I read exceptionally fast, I always have.  Literally I get so involved that I'll completely miss things such as pictures in a book (not that this one has any), and I've found that similar to a movie where if you watch it a few more times you'll see things you missed in earlier viewings, well oftentimes I miss specific points/concepts when I read, so I tend to read books twice (sometimes more if it's one I really like), so these impressions/opinions are based off of what I'd call a cursory reading at this point.

Well I spent maybe 45 minutes and got about 60% of the way through the book last night.  My first thought was that this book is a modern feminists nightmare.  At it's core it seems to encourage women to become "June Cleaver" for lack of a better example.  Now I suppose that should not surprise me based upon it's publication date, but I question if the book would even get published in today's society much less be a best seller.  I'm sure a Google search of the book will turn up reviews far better than what I could do justice to so I won't try, but I will say it definitely slants towards what I'd call being a submissive wife.

At first I sort of laughed at that as I almost took it as a joke due to J and I's "arrangement"; but the longer I read the more I realized that it was not a joke and she meant it as a serious exercise for me.  Obviously it was not written with D/S in mind, but as I said above it is really easy to see it in that context.  Certain things she had highlighted surprised me, an example of that would be various pieces about how to greet your "husband" when he came home at night.

Now that may sound a bit weird, but let me give it some context.  She's a cis-woman (I still have trouble buying into the term "cis", as per my earlier blog post, but whatever) and I'm a trans-woman and we are married and live as such.  So in reality I suppose that makes us Lesbians and while there is not truly a "husband" anymore per se, J does handle more of what I'd say are traditional male/husband things and I tend to gravitate more towards the girly/wife things.  Not that she can't cook, etc., but I like to believe I'm better at it, just like I'm sure I could cut the lawn - in fact I have - but she tends to take care of those things.

The one biggest thing I've struggled with since my transition started - no that's not right, since well before my transition started - is my presentation.  I've preferred to present female for a LONG time, well before I actually pursued transitioning.  I've had a decent sized feminine wardrobe for 20+ years; but it never went much further than that.  I don't have enough of my own hair to grow out and a balding look is not conducive to looking attractive as a female.  Now that statement would be easy to take the wrong way; but as I would hope many trans-women could relate to, things like that make it hard to look in the mirror and see a "woman".  So add that to the fact that I have a large amount of facial and body hair (ironically cruel considering my balding head) and it was hard for me to present in front of people - be it J or even M back in the day, so it was mostly when I was alone.  Maybe some lingerie under my clothes at times, but that would be about it.  It wasn't that I didn't want to present as female in front them, especially J since she was so supportive, but I always felt I looked like a bad cross-dresser and not a woman.

Since my actual transition started, I have learned a lot about makeup - I had played with it before, partially on my own and partially with M's help *AFTER* we had divorced and had reconciled as best friends.  But it was usually simple things such as lipstick, eye shadow, and mascara.  I dabbled with eye liner and was actually pretty good with it at one point - I prefer liquid for the look, but it's harder (at least for me) to deal with and my hands aren't the steadiest so it was an ongoing challenge.  But I had never gotten into things such as foundation, concealer, etc., and without those it wasn't a lot of help as there was the beard shadow and such to deal with.  Since the transition I have learned a lot about those things, the majority from M, but also from J, and even from my makeover and subsequent visits to Sephora and watching Youtube for that matter.  As a side note, M watches a lot of Youtube and passes things along.  Oftentimes they're more advanced or simply styles that I don't feel are becoming on someone my age, but there are ones that I've found helpful.  Some of the best ones are the drag queen videos as they have similar concerns as me when it comes to beard shadow and the like.

As I said, I've learned more about makeup and can now do my own - and in fact often to my own - at least around the house.  Now if I'm going out somewhere nice such as to J's parents over the holidays I like help - at least either J or M to "supervise" and/or "look me over" so to speak; but otherwise I'm fine on my own.  In fact I think my biggest obstacle with it is a lack of confidence that I've done a nice job.  I know I can and I'd venture to say there have been times when it was likely better than some of the times that M or J have done it, but I tend to be more confident when one of them has done it or at least "supervised" me doing it.  My hair, it's the same thing, I'm not overly confident with doing it myself, but I can.  The point here is that I'm fully capable of being dressed and "done up" for when J gets home.  Well when I read that section of the book, she had highlighted parts of that, so when she got home I asked her about it.  She confirmed that she would like to see me at the door (which other than the last few days post-surgery) I always am and that it would nice to see me looking nice.  I sort of giggled internally as I thought "well I'll show her" and do something obnoxious, but the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps I *should* be meeting her at the door.  I should be making that sort of effort for her.

Suffice it to say once I'm feeling a little better - and today IS NOT that day - I plan on trying this a few times and seeing how it goes.  She deserves the effort and truthfully I think I'd feel good giving that effort.  I love her, I should do those little things to show it.  In fact I can't really wait to finish that book up now and see what else in there and what else she's highlighted.  Sorry to all the Feminists - but I have a wife/husband to take care of and I'm going to do just that, whatever it takes.

- M

Why Transition? And Why HRT Is Not Magic.

For me it was never because I was miserable with who I was.  As I've commented in various threads at Susan's Place, Reddit, etc., I've always maintained it was as simple as I felt I was female and that I'd be happier living that way and I stand behind that even now 19 months into the process.  Perhaps I shouldn't even use the phrase "into the process" as truthfully back in October when I went to court to get my name and gender changed (although the gender change wasn't finalized until early November); I truly felt I had completed my transition.  Am I still working on my facial hair (and eventually my body hair)?  Yes I am.  Do I still want surgery?  Well even though I've had the Orchiectomy, I still want GRS and possibly BA, so yes.  Am I still learning on how to better present female, be it hair, makeup, mannerisms, and the like?  Yes, of course I am - those things are ongoing for cis-women, so why shouldn't they be for me too?

But I was never miserable with myself or my life.  As I've mentioned elsewhere, we're by no means well off.  We live what I'd call a middle class lifestyle.  We have our fair share of tangible things, but there are things we'd still like.  But even if I had none of those things, I'd be happy because I have a wonderfully caring wife in J; a daughter, who while she frustrates me at times, is loving and caring and who I wouldn't trade for anything.  Even my ex-wife M, my friend D, and others help make my life something that I'm happy and content with.

So as usual here we are at paragraph three and I'm just now hitting my point.  And that point is that I see so many people - often younger people - who make statements along the lines of if they can't transition they're going to end their life and/or things like that.  Maybe my perspective is different because of my age, I'm not sure; but I just don't understand that mentality.  They're so miserable that they're willing to do something like take their own life, but yet they feel they can dive right into transition and it's going to just make everything better?  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm naive, but transition is hard at best.  Yes, some make it look easy, but even for them it's not.  People want to use terms like "Gatekeepers" and such and yes I'm sure there is some of that going on; but just because there is an established process in place that may not go as fast as you'd like, well that doesn't make it wrong.

I'm not going to sit here and say I agree with 100% of the WPATH guidelines as I don't.  That being said, I've made every effort to follow them including getting authorization for my Orchiectomy even though Dr. Arnkoff doesn't require it.  I do believe that the WPATH process is a good thing in general.  Are there things I think could/should be different?  Of course I do.  Do I think there are cases where it does more harm than good?  Again I do.  But do I think that the majority of the time that there is benefit to it?  Most definitely.

I've never been a big fan of therapy, I won't lie about that.  I can't say if it was the times I was raised in (born in 1970), or if it was simply how I was raised - I did spend a lot of time with my grandparents when I was young; but I was brought up to believe that you handled your own problems and that therapy was more or less an excuse to not do so.  That being said, because of WPATH, I sought out therapy when I started the process and even though perhaps a year ago I got the impression that my therapist felt I didn't necessarily need to continue to see her; I do continue.  Granted, it's far less often than it was before, but I think checking in every so often is still a good thing.

That brings me to HRT.  Am I glad I'm on it?  By all means.  Have I seen the progress that some have?  Not even close.  Yes I've seen some progress, I have some breast growth, my skin is softer, and so on; but it hasn't done for me what it does for some.  However, even if it had - it's not some magic thing that will suddenly make you feel better.  HRT can make all the changes in the world, but if you don't work on your appearance, your voice, your mannerisms, etc., you still won't pass any better than you did pre-HRT.  And from a mental perspective you may feel better in that you're actually pursuing transition which may make you feel better mentally and possibly emotionally I suppose.  But again if you are making statements to the effect that if I can't get on HRT NOW I might end my life - well then I question if you really belong on HRT in the first place.  If you're in that kind of mental state, I just don't know that bringing hormones to the party is the right thing to do.  It especially bothers me when very young people make those kinds of statements - yes I understand that the younger you start the more changes you MAY see.  But I've seen plenty of older people who have done just fine.  I like to think my transition is going well and I'm in my 40's.  The one lady I mention a lot - Serena - she's about 30 and her changes are breathtaking.  If you doubt either of those feel free to check out the comparison of me at the start of my transition to now or go look at Serena's youtube channel - specifically her videos showing her progress at say 12 months or 18 months.  I've included links below as well as one to a more full timeline - it shows more gradual changes to me:

Comparison:  Comparison At 16 Months

Full Timeline:  Full Timeline

Serena Lynn:  15 Months Of Transition

(Note:  Apparently at some point, Serena Lynn has taken her videos private.  I'm sure she has her reasons and hopefully it was simply a personal choice and not because of any harassment or anything.  Regardless of that I am leaving the link for now, perhaps one day she'll make it public again - it was a great video for anyone who is transitioning and looking for some inspiration of what is possible).

I don't look anywhere as nice as she does; but yet I'm still happy - and I really think almost anyone transitioning MtF would be happy to look as nice or be as happy as Serena is.

Maybe I'm overly simplifying things, or maybe I'm just not getting something.  I just think that too many people, especially young people, think that transitioning is going to suddenly make them happy and/or be the answer/solution to all their questions/problems; and I think that's probably not the case for most, if not all of us.  There's a lot of work involved.  Oftentimes a trail of lost relationships and friendships come with it.  There can be hardships with employment and being accepted in public.  Basically lots and lots of things that can and often (usually?) do make transition hard - sometimes harder than possibly not transitioning.

Am I saying people shouldn't do it?  NO, I am not.  I am simply saying that I wish more people pursued it with their eye's wide open and educated themselves as best they could rather than seeing it as a "grass is always greener" thing like it appears many do.  If you are going to pursue it, set yourself up for success as best you can and try and be sure you are strong enough to handle what comes with it.  Otherwise as unhappy as you might think you are, or might even be; it may well pale in comparison to how unhappy you might become.

If anyone finds this offensive, I'd be more than happy do discuss it in the comments or even privately via email, etc., but it's definitely how I feel about it.

- M

Post Orchiectomy Update

Well, it's been one week almost to the minute since I left Dr. Arnkoff's office after my surgery.  Well that's not true, he's in the Eastern time zone, so it's been one week plus one hour, but who's counting.

I think I'm doing reasonably well.  I definitely have hurt more the last couple of days than I did earlier in the week - Monday was pretty good and Tuesday I felt great - at least until I got home and climbed the stairs - that did hurt.  Since then the pain has come and gone - never horribly bad, but enough that I know it's there.  I've probably been averaging two pain pills a day which is two more than I'd like to take but considering they are for use every 4-6 hours I'm taking 1/3 to 1/2 of the dosage I could be taking so I can live with that.

The funny thing about the hurt is that it's not always the incision area that hurts; at least half the time and probably more it's the area up the sides of where the surgery was or the area above the penis and below the stomach.  The sides - well it's a simple guess on my part - but I'm assuming it's the cords?  Either way it's made for some interesting feelings.  The last two days I have felt swollen down there.  J says it's not really any different that it has been all week, so perhaps I'm just more in tune with it than I was then.  If I continue to feel as I have the last day or two I'll send a picture to Dr. Arnkoff on Monday - before then if need be - but I'd prefer to wait as if he needs/wants me to have it looked at I'd rather my regular GP do it as I'm comfortable with her versus an urgent care or ER visit.  Now obviously if I were to be having issues then that would NOT be a concern and I'd just go, but if it's more of a "check-up" type of visit - well then I want to see my GP.

A few other notes from the trip that I left out, and the week since.

• A pair of sweat pants is highly recommended.  Truthfully I would've preferred Yoga pants, but I had some old sweat pants that I no longer wear and didn't worry about ruining them.  But comfort is important especially during the travel home.
  
• A cheap pillow is also highly recommended.  Post surgery, Dr. Arnkoff tells you to sleep with your feet elevated.  Well HI Express has very nice pillows but they are huge and it wasn't comfortable for me.  So we ran to Wal-Mart and got a cheap regular pillow that worked much better.  And it was helpful on the trip home as well.  Money well spent.
  
• Constipation.  Dr. Arnkoff explains that the pain medicine can cause that.  Well it's always an ongoing battle with me between the hormones and the blood pressure medicine I struggle to get enough liquid in my system.  This did make it way worse - to the point that I had some lower back pain off and on this week.  What I found helps - besides getting more liquid (especially water) into my system - is a shake, or a blizzard for you DQ fans.  It's basically liquid and getting so much of it into me in a short time really helped relive things.  A bottle of Magnesium Citrate helped as well, but even the cherry flavor of it is kind of nasty, so.....
  
• Stairs.  As I've mentioned, stairs have been hard for me.  All of our bedrooms are upstairs, including the master one which is ours.  We have our own private bathroom, so I've managed to not leave the room very much, but I have to every so often or I get cabin fever.  Slow and steady on the stairs, and at least for me I've found that it hurts less if I lead with my right foot for every step - my left side is sorer.
  
• Food.  I haven't had much of an appetite since we got back, but one thing that helps is to try and have some things that you really like.  I'm not advocating gorging, but not eating isn't usually very helpful, so having some things you like/enjoy can improve things significantly.
  
• Somebody To Take Care Of You.  I am blessed to have such a wonderful wife/partner as J.  She's taken such good care of me, but she had to return to work today.  I'm sad to see her have to go back, but I'm glad in a way as now I'll have to be a little more self-sufficient again.  However, it would have been beyond tough to have survived this by myself.  I strongly recommend taking somebody along for this procedure - the increased costs are well worth it.

I'm a little tired - I didn't sleep all that well so I'm going to take a nap now.  As always thanks for reading.

- M

The Guilt Factor

I've always been a fairly private person, it's how I was raised I suppose.  A conversation with a friendly co-worker years ago summed it up best for me.  We worked together at a Jack-In-The-Box and were both shift managers.  Somehow the two of us and a crew person friend of hers ended up closing one early week night.  As we were prone to do, we fried up some "finger foods" and were going to spend a few minutes eating and shooting the breeze.  Somehow my family life came up - I suppose they were talking about theirs for whatever reason - but I don't recall.

Well when the conversation moved to me I described how "home" life was - now I was probably 19 at the time for reference.  The looks of surprise on their faces is one I'll never forget.  After I had finished the one who was sort of a friend said - "we always thought your home life was like the Cleavers from Leave It To Beaver" (dated reference I know).  My response was that it was more like the Addams from Addams Family.  I just never felt the need to share those things - perhaps to my detriment - but I didn't need/want pity or anything else; it just was how it was.

Once again, here we are at paragraph three and I'm just getting to the point behind this, I need to work on that I guess.  Now nearly 25 years later this has sort of resurfaced for me; not my family life growing up; but whether or not to be private about things specifically my transition and related feelings and such.  I found Susan's Place (and other sites such as Laura's Playground) early on and after a bit of "hiding in the background" I started to share things myself.  It was uncomfortable early on , even hard to a point as I have always been so private.  But even so I felt I had been benefiting from what others were sharing and I wanted to try and do the same for others.  I shared my (limited) experience with things so far, such as how my wife and the few others I had told about things had handled it; some retail experiences, generally leaning towards things such as buying makeup and how I was treated at those stores; and so on.  Eventually I even got brave enough to post a picture of me on the "Could I Pass One Day" thread.

Over time I got a little more involved, and stayed involved on the site until late last year - around October - just after I went to court.  I then up and left there cold turkey and started this blog and lately I've been semi-active on Reddit, specifically the AskTransgender subreddit, but also others.  I've touched on why I've left, it was more than one reason; but there was one that stood out more than others.  For those of you that have read earlier entries this may be a bit of a rehash, but bear with me I'm going somewhere with the recap.

So why did I leave Susan's Place (and Laura's Playground too, even though I was never very active there)?

1. To a small degree once I got my name and gender changed I felt my transition was more or less complete.  Yes I'm still having hair removal done, yes I still want surgery - I've since had the Orchiectomy, but I still want SRS; though no desire for FFS, and BA is a question mark at the moment.  But I felt my mental and emotional transition was done and as I've heard from many others who felt they've reached that point sites such as Susan's don't hold as much of an attraction.  Now you could argue that people that have reached that stage are just as important as those still on the journey and I would not debate that point; however, experiences become dated, feelings and emotions aren't as fresh in your mind, processes like legal proceedings and hair removal and even surgery tend to evolve so there is a point where the wisdom isn't as helpful as that from people more currently transitioning.
   
2. To a larger degree and this is mostly confined to Susan's - there was a lot of chaff to wade through to get to the wheat sometimes.  By that I mean a lot of just banter back and forth that really didn't relate to transitioning, etc.  That's all fine and good, but it did make finding things more difficult and while I would agree some of that is helpful, there was so much *I* felt it was becoming a nuisance personally.  Additionally, and this is a problem at most sites, but it seemed like nobody could take a moment to search for something before posting.  By that I mean simple things such as will laser hair removal work on light colored hair; all the way up to more complex things such as legal issues revolving around changing names or genders.  I realize that people were going there for support and such, including me, but before I would post I would've done my research both on the Internet in general, but also on the forums at Susan's first as more often than not my question would either have been flat out answered (often more than once), or at least I was prepared enough to ask the question with all the pertinent information.  I probably sound like I'm being a c*nt about this, and I don't mean to be, but goodness at some point a little effort on your own is nice before expecting to be spoon fed answers.
   
3. But the biggest issue of all and the whole point of this post - and a new record for time taken to get to it - is guilt.  So many people have such a hard time with their transition, be it issues with family, work, financial, and so on - well it got to be depressing in a lot of ways and I started feeling guilty.  Why did I feel guilty?  Simply put, because mine was going pretty well.  I mean work aside, I can't imagine my transition going any better unless I hit the lottery and could afford to immediately get my surgery done and such.  I mean I have a supportive wife - beyond supportive really, I can say the same about M as well.  My daughter has been great about things.  I have a friend who was already doing it and provided some good advice - thanks D.  We're by no means wealthy - but we live a nice middle class life and we do have insurance which covers my prescriptions and Doctor visits - though I pay my therapist out of pocket.  We can afford my therapist, we've been able to afford to replace my clothing with things I like - granted mostly on sale/clearance, even sometimes visiting thrift stores (an under-rated thing to do especially early on when you're not sure of sizes).  I've had virtually nothing but positive experiences in public.  I have a wonderful Doctor supervising my HRT who works with my regular GP who I just love.  I was able to get my name and more important to me, my gender changed legally pre-surgery.  Even though my biological family and I are estranged, my uncle and aunt have been wonderful.  My friends post the other day aside; at the time I even felt like that was going well.  It became hard for me to reconcile how well my transition - and life for that matter - was/is when constantly reading about so many who weren't having it go as well, or even flat out bad.  I tried to be supportive, and hopefully for some I was; but what I found is that many people really didn't want the support they wanted a pity party and as much I personally don't believe it that for myself - well I would feel bad and take part. 

The guilt started to consume me and depress me, I actually started to question why I had things going well and why others didn't.  I hate to see anybody suffer, but it really hits close to home when it comes to transitioning since I am too.  Yes I've worked hard to be in a position to transition in the manner that I have and such; but I realize that sometimes working hard isn't enough and for those I feel so bad that they struggle and have a hard time.  Now obviously there are exceptions to this - I do constantly see those that seem to think things should just be handed to them and that they shouldn't expect to have to work hard at transitioning and to those - well good luck with that; but I just don't have the same empathy or guilt when it doesn't go as well for them.  Not that I want them to fail; but I just can't feel the same way for those that could make effort and won't - that's no different than anything in life as far as I'm concerned.  

But I'm getting off topic, the topic here isn't that small subset of people, but rather the larger group that tries as best they can and things just don't go their way.  How do you handle that?  Do you try and keep them positive via comments and/or anecdotes?  Or do you just leave them be?  I want to do the former, but anymore I find myself doing the latter more often and it pains me to say that, but in some cases I really just don't know what to say to try and be helpful - especially when at times it seems like they've mentally/emotionally given up on things such as their SO's, etc.  I guess in part those are really rhetorical questions and I hope I haven't hit a nerve with anybody, but I needed to talk about this for my own benefit and writing these blog entries always helps.  I promise the next one will be more upbeat. :)

- M

Friends. Family, And Coming Out - A Look Back - Part 2, Extended Family And Friends

I covered my immediate family in the first part of this entry and I think I've covered what I consider my actual family (J and my daughter and even M to an extent) pretty well previously.  The real reason for these entries was to cover extended family a bit, but really "friends".

I'll make the extended family brief - and this time I mean it.  Really it's my one Uncle/Aunt, and one of their daughter in laws.  Other uncles, aunts, cousins, etc., pretty much pretend I don't exist and that's fine.  The uncle and aunt that do were my favorites and their one daughter in law is an absolute sweetheart of a woman.  Not at the J level or anything, but she's up there.  The rest, well they are what they are and while it bothers me that one aunt in particular hasn't been more receptive, well so be it, I'm happy with what I do have.

Now that I've went through a lengthy post and the start of a second one it's time to get to the real reason I started on this topic and that's "friends".  To be blunt I never really had a lot of friends even as a child.  There were a couple of kids I grew up around (both a grade younger than I), one of whom I've reconnected with on Facebook now, but I really didn't have "friends" in my own grade.  Part of that was that I was younger than almost everyone else.  As a frame of reference to that, I was 16 years old until a month into my senior year of high school.  As I grew older, I would be friendly with people I worked with and would on occasion do things with them as friends might, but it wasn't that we were what I'd really consider friends.  Over the years I've retained a couple of them, C and R - both females - and while we'll comment on each other's Facebook entries and send an occasional message, it's not anymore than that.  We're not friends in the way that we'd go have lunch or something.  There's a woman M.N. that J and I have only met on Facebook that was the first person other than J, M, and D that I was going to transition and she's been a nice sounding board over the years.  But she lives halfway across the country and even if she didn't I think we'd still only be friends through Facebook.  Then I have the three ladies I worked with a few years ago.  I've actually been invited out (and accepted) for dinner several times.  I guess these three would be the closest people to being what I'd consider "friends" in the traditional definition.

What does all of that have to do with anything?  Well for example M.N. has become distant the last couple of months - almost to the point that I wonder if I did something.  The three ladies I used to work with that I referenced above - well the invitations to meet for dinner have simply quit coming.  Other people who know about things who may be Facebook friends for example, again they may comment on a post or something, but beyond that nothing.  It makes me wonder if I've done something(s) to drive these people away from me or not.  I'm not an "in your face" kind of person about things - I'll share my experiences here in case somebody can garner something useful from them and I'm always willing to answer questions, etc., from anybody but I don't just ramble on and/or turn a dinner into a crusade for this or that either.  I will admit that I'm very reserved in situations like that, but I was never the "life of the party" anyway so that should come as no surprise to any of them.  So if I haven't done something then what is it?

I obviously don't know, but I've started to wonder if it wasn't so much them being friendly, but more me being a "novelty" to them.  It sounds horrible and the reality that it may be the case makes me feel horrible.  I just want to be a normal female, as happy as I can be.  I don't want to be somebody's idea of cheap entertainment.  I deserve better than that, I firmly believe that even if my self-esteem isn't great, I have enough to believe that.  Maybe there is another explanation, or maybe I have done something, but maybe it is as simple as the fact that I provide amusement for them.  If so, then well that's sad and hateful.  But I'll move on and be better for it, it just really hurts in the short term as I was apparently naive, but I honestly believed I'd be able to have some actual friends and do the things that girl-friends do.  Apparently I was wrong, shame on me for not seeing it coming.  But I'll get over it and regardless I have J, M, and even D, not to mention my daughter who aren't that way.  Thanks ladies, you four are shining stars through a dark and dreary night and I'm grateful for each and every one of you.

- M

Friends. Family, And Coming Out - A Look Back - Part 1, Immediate Family

For my 50th blog entry - and truth be told I wasn't sure I'd get to 50 when I started this - I thought I'd revisit a topic that I touched on in a three part post way back when I started this blog.  That topic is friends and family in relation to coming out.

I'm going to more or less assume that anybody reading this has *NOT* read those earlier posts; so for those few that might have there will be some extra explanations here - I do NOT intend on rehashing those old posts, rather I'll just be filling in enough to enable this to be a stand-alone post.  If anybody wants something more thorough they're welcome to review those older entries.

Let's start with family.  I've been more or less estranged from my immediate family for some time.  As I said above I won't get into a lot of detail here; but for my father it's probably been a good 15 years and for my mother / sister / brother a good 5 years.  To the best of  my knowledge my Mother is still living with my sister and they are still "attached at the hip".  My brother had a falling out with my Mother a bit before I did - maybe 6 years back - truthfully I don't even recall over what it's been long enough.  As far as each of them in relation to my father, I'm not certain but I believe my brother and his family have had at least some contact with him but my Mother/Sister had not in a significant amount of time.

Starting with my father, as I said it's been a long time and for a lot of reasons.  He's tried to rewrite history a bit which hasn't helped things.  His view is that he put work in front of family to try and "take care of us".  Yes I would concur he made work a priority which I do understand.  However, to ignore the fact that he found time to bowl in leagues consistently, spend copious amounts of time at the bar, cheat on my mother, and for that matter be physically violent with my mother; that's leaving an awfully large part of the story out because it better fits his own narrative.  There was time he could have given, but beer was a bigger priority than his children and that's his choice, but don't try and rewrite how things happened now that you're older and feeling your mortality a bit.  If I - or even my brother -  was playing football, he found time to show up at the games and live vicariously through me or my brother.  When I bowled on the school team, he found time to do the same for that.  But otherwise, the only "time" he seemed to find was to have one of us fetch him a beer on those rare occasions that he came home anything short of pass out drunk.  I know I said I wasn't going to get into a lot of detail, but at least for him I'm not sure that I ever have so....  Since my transition there have been two family outings on "his side" that we were invited too and I agreed to attend (and did attend) and he conveniently bailed on the second one *after* finding out we were coming; the first one - well I *thought* I saw him there and I know he was committed to attend; so either he managed to avoid us which wouldn't have been hard or he didn't show up which is what he pulled for the second event.  Considering his own brother, my favorite uncle, was the one hosting the events and is the one responsible for getting us there it amazes me that estranged or not that he wouldn't have at least been curious enough or whatever to have at least come up and said hello and met my wife.  That was enough to reaffirm my decision to not associate with him going forward.

Moving on to my brother and his family - well this one hurts, a lot.  I haven't really been close to him - perhaps ever - but at least the last 20+ years; however, his older daughter (middle of three children) was always special to me.  Even though we fell out of touch for a while she tracked me down via Facebook a few years ago when they moved back to the area and we kept in touch - that is until I transitioned and I didn't feel comfortable about explaining that to someone's children much less my brothers.  She was probably 14 then and perhaps I shouldn't have worried but I did.  Well fast forward to about 9 months ago (so about 9-10 months into my transition).  J and I were at a Wal-Mart, not the one we normally go to but still a close one and my brothers two oldest children, his son and the niece in question, recognized us.  Soon my brother and his wife joined in - the third child was spending the night with a friend I think.  Well we talked (and blocked an aisle) for about 30-40 minutes and it was really nice.  Since the cat was out of the bag I accepted the friend invitations from my sister-in-law and my two nieces - they had sent them weeks earlier I guess based upon a Facebook suggestion.  We kept in contact off and on for about two months and then suddenly nothing.  We're still Facebook friends, but no messages back and forth, no real acknowledgement to any comments made on posts, nothing.  At about the same time they all become suddenly friendly with our mother/sister again.  I have to guess one had something to do with the other, which is frustrating as I can only speculate as to what it was.  As I said above this one hurt.  My niece finally messaged me the other day after a good 9 months and while I responded to her politely I really did nothing to continue on the conversation, etc.  At this point I've moved on and really don't think I want to go down that road again which probably reflects poorly on me, but it's how I feel.

My Mother and Sister.  Well I don't have much to say about them.  They've been attached at the hip since my sister was born (she's a bit over 7 years younger than myself).  To the point at times it was like my Mother had one child.  I know many older siblings feel that way, but it was excessive even now looking back.  In fact I sometimes wonder if it was because she was the "baby" or if it was that she was the "girl".  I lean towards the latter as for a good 5 years my brother was the baby and he wasn't treated as she was.  Neither here nor there; I will always "love" my sister as that's what you do - but she always was pretty much a spoiled, stuck-up little b*tch growing up and my Mother encouraged it.  There's a long story to how we fell out; but that's better done elsewhere.  Suffice it to say to the best of my knowledge they still live together in my sister's house.  I've heard from my sister once in the last 4-5 years and that was when she wanted to borrow money.  I offered her a portion of what she asked for and was declined and haven't heard from her again.  I haven't heard from my Mother in the same amount of time.  What gets me here is not so much my sister; but rather my Mother.  Despite the reason(s) for the estrangement, she does know about my transition.  It just amazes me that she doesn't want to reach out, if for no other reason to find out why she now has two daughters and one son.

Now that I've covered the "immediate family" I'll wrap this up.  I'll have up Part 2 in the next few hours covering extended family and friends - the latter being the real point behind this two part entry.

- M
 

To "Cis" or not to "Cis" that is the question

I've recently - the last month of so - been spending a lot of time on Reddit.  M initially turned me onto the site over something innocuous, I can't even recall what.  But I quickly became addicted to it, more than Facebook, Pinterest, etc,. combined.  I have several "Subreddits" that I really like, especially ones such as "funny", "talesfromretail", and so on; but the one I spend the most time on is "AskTransgender".

I really haven't had an outlet - well other than this blog which has a small amount of activity at best - to share information, experiences, etc., since I closed my account down at Susan's Place which I've documented in earlier post(s) here.  The AskTransgender subreddit has given me a new outlet and it's far more active and objective than Susan's Place ever was so it's a good fit for me.  I tend to read a lot, give my thoughts and/or opinions a little, and simply enjoy the site.

Last night a woman who was NOT transgender asked a few questions and I happened to be the first one to comment on her post with my answers.  What's relevant here is that one of her questions revolved around using the term "cis".  As I told her I've never been a fan of that term and the reason being that before my transition I had never heard it used and I can virtually guarantee that few if any of my friends and/or family would know what it means.  That being said I tended to use the term "genetic female".  I was corrected in a follow-up comment that technically "cis female" and "genetic female" weren't necessarily 100% interchangeable for reasons more detailed than I want to go into here as it's not the point of this post.

What is the point of this post?  Well as usual it's taken me several paragraphs to get to it, but I have a few questions for those of you reading this to ponder:

1. Did you know what the term "cis" was before reading this?  And if so did you know what the term was before transitioning if you have/are doing so or done so?
2. Assuming for a moment (as I did) that the terms "cis woman" and "genetic woman" were the same as in say "water" versus "H two O" are, which term would you use in say a group of your family and/or close (Non transgender) friends?
3. Someone else expressed the term "non trans" for those that may not know/understand what "cis" means.  Do you think that's a reasonable alternative?

Let me give my answers to those questions:

1. Yes I did.  No I did not know prior to starting my transition.
2. Since I did think they were interchangeable terms I always used "genetic woman" - in fact I probably have in this blog itself.  I took an informal survey of a few friends and family tonight - small sample size of 8; but 7 out of 8 had no idea what "cis" was.  The exception was my wife J and that's only because she's seen the term in various places since I started transitioning.  By her own admission she didn't know what it meant 18 months ago prior to my transition starting.
3. Even though the subset of people who are "genetic women" versus "cis women" is not 100% the same, the difference from my understanding is microscopic when it comes down to it.  Personally if I'm in the company of friends/family and need to use a term such as one of those it's going to continue to be "genetic woman" as they will in general know exactly what I mean.  I feel that "cis women" or even "non trans" woman will either be terms they may not understand or leave things more open to interpretation than I'd like.  Now if I'm in an online community for example I will start using "cis women" simply because it is more correct for what I mean from what I now understand and my target audience should not have the trouble understanding what I mean.

Enough of this stuff, it's late (or maybe early depending upon your schedule) - so I'm going to wrap this up.

- M

Transgender Makeup - Part 5 - Random Thoughts

More parts, but at least no more parts of parts. :)

This is part 5 of my Transgender Makeup series.  As I've said in the earlier parts, I'm by no means here to teach anyone how to use makeup as there are LOTS of people far better at it than I am and that's really better meant for Youtube as you can see what they are doing.  Rather I'm simply providing my thoughts on shopping for makeup and what has worked FOR ME, obviously your mileage can/will vary.

This post is some random thoughts and such that have come up recently.  First off, everything I've already said in the first four of these entries stands.  The shopping stuff in part 1 I hope is something that people will find helpful as it seems to be a common issue especially around those early in their transition.  The other stuff is mostly comments on things that have worked *for me* as I said.  While I have some more thoughts on that, I also want to touch on a realization/revelation that I had recently.

Truth be told I know I'll never be as beautiful as a lot of people who transition.  Part of it is how late I started, part of it is as simple as lacking my own natural head of hair, part of it is genetics, and so on.  I'm okay - no I'm more than okay with that.  I can be pretty enough to be happy and passable and I like to think that's improved over time.  Actually I know it has - and the reason I do is that I've kept sort of a photo diary over the last 18-19 months of my transition.  Recently I put a selection of those photos up on Imgur.com and organized them by date and labelled with the activity I was heading out for when I could remember.  I know it agitates some of my friends that my pictures are all pretty much the same pose and in the same backdrop - either my front porch, inside my front door, or by the staircase going upstairs.  That is by design so I have a baseline to compare so to speak.  If the pictures aren't more or less apples to apples the comparisons become difficult at best and that's the whole reason I've kept the photo diary.  I recently posted an entry that had two links - one for the full timeline and one with a before/after picture and that's really what I want to focus on - I've included the links below for reference:

Comparison:  Comparison At 16 Months

Full Timeline:  Full Timeline

As I said I wanted to focus on the comparison and the reason I did is that instead of choosing a "current" photo (ie at 19 months) I chose one from three months back - hence the 16 month comparison.  Why did I do that?  Well it's one of my favorite photos of myself - even though it was November it was still warm enough to get the picture outside; but it was more than that.  While I have had days/photos since then that I liked, none of them the last three months have I liked as much as that.  Normally most people might say "so what" that happens and I suppose it does.  However, it was more than that, not only did I not like any recent photos as much, after looking at them in a more or less slideshow fashion I determined why I didn't like them as much.

Now before I discuss that let me first say that there are flaws in each of those photos the last three months; but there are flaws in every photo I have and with almost every photo everyone takes - I understand that.  But this issue permeates virtually all of them and it's my makeup.  Specifically the lipstick and blush that I love so much and talked about in my earlier entries.  I've always loved heavy blush on a woman and I like to wear it.  I suppose there's no reason I can't; but I've come to the realization that it can't be the NYX one that I love so much.  It does something to my face that I just don't like.  The second and bigger issue though is the lips.  That Milani Lovely Rouge #106 that I raved about - as I said then it looks more purplish in the tube than red, but on me it's bright - too bright.  Some women can pull off pale with bright lips - Taylor Swift has done it just about perfectly and she's not the only one - but I simply cannot.  The worst part of it is that I always upload the individual photos to my Facebook account and as such they end up in my feed.  One dear friend - an online friend that I've never met in person - has consistently pointed that out.  She's wonderful in that she can be critical in the way that *I* need someone to be critical.  She's the first to tell me I look nice when I do and when I don't - well she doesn't say that I look bad, she tells me what she thinks I could change to look better.  Friends like that are worth their weight in gold, love you M.N.....

So as much as it pains me, that lipstick and blush is being retired from my collection which is a shame since I have about 10-15 tubes of the lipstick since it was a discontinued line, but hopefully I can now go back to being happy with my photos again.

The second topic here is makeup brushes.  If I've covered this before I apologize, but the Dermablend that I use sometimes is virtually impossible to get completely out of my foundation brush.  I finally bought a duplicate brush just for that, but then M showed me how to fix that.  She gave the brush a quick rinse in water and then filled a small container with some olive oil.  She then twirled the brush in it until everything was coated well.  She then dumped that out and added a bit of water and some regular dish soap and used the brush to mix it together and again twirled the brush for a minute.  Finally she gave the brush a good rinsing and we left it to dry.  Later on that evening when I went back to it, it looked and felt brand new.  It hasn't been that clean since the day I brought it home.  Thanks so much M - all that Youtube watching you do really helped me.

This makes three entries today and I normally confine myself to one, so I do apologize for that.  Gotta run.

- M

Food And Cooking

I thought it might be nice to talk about something other than my recent surgery for a change; so moving on to one of my favorite subjects - lets talk about food. :)

Over the years we've eaten out a lot; when I was young and my mother was a stay at home mom she cooked all the time and I never really appreciate that fact.  As I got older and she started working we started eating out more.  In my teenage years she had a job where she pulled long hours (first a trainer then later a branch manager for a finance company) and she traveled a lot especially later on.  As such we ate out probably more than half the time.  As many children do - we liked that a lot.  As I got older the trend continued in my 20's and even 30's; but as I've gotten older I've again developed an appreciation for home cooked food.  Generally it's better for me, it often tastes better as it's cooked to my desires and not to a generic specification, and so on.  Couple that with the fact that while I've always been interested in cooking, and since my transition I've found that I greatly enjoy the whole process.  From planning meals, to shopping, to preparation, and even cleaning up to an extent.

I've found Pinterest to be a great resource for recipes and ideas and I have a nice sized set of boards for foods to try, foods that worked, some that didn't, ones specific to slow cookers, and even a "copy cat" section.  I work my way through them as I have time and while most aren't always great as-is they are generally good enough to get a repeat attempt.  Now there are those few that just "work" and that's a great feeling - some are simple such as "three packet roast" (albeit we've tweaked ours a bit), or as silly as it sounds, "bubble pizza".  I've also found some great ones in Reddit - our favorite being Jalapeno Cheddar puffs - I can't say enough about how good those are.

That all being said we do eat out on occasions, but it's less fast food and more of a go out type of experience.  Part of that is me (and my wife too) being tired of fast food, but a bigger part is that early on in my transition these were what I like to call "safe outings".  We picked restaurants in nice areas, generally table service, where I would feel comfortable even if I wasn't passing as well as I'd like.  In that environment generally you're going to be treated nicely regardless of the server and staff's personal feelings since such a large portion of their income is tips.  Now don't get me wrong, I've had one or two poor experiences which I've documented in this blog; but otherwise it's in general been good and we've had a lot of new food that we've liked - and some that we didn't, but even more important was the time we've spent together and for me the experience I've garnered being out and about.

I thought I'd mention a few recent restaurant trips; not so much for the experiences as they were good, but more for the food since it was notable for various reasons.  Many of these occurred on our recent trip to Detroit, but a couple were in the week or two prior.  Some of these are regional chains, some national chains, and others local restaurants - so they may or may not be known to anyone reading this; so if anybody has questions about any of them feel free to ask away. :)

The first one I'd like to mention is St. Louis Wing Co.  They have a single location off of Manchester road here in St. Louis and as the name implies chicken wings are their thing.  They have a nice selection of flavors for both traditional and boneless wings.  We've been there a couple of times, including last week after my therapist visit.  When we go, we tend to do the all you can eat boneless for $11.99 (I think).  It includes fries and a drink and two flavors to start with (5 or 6 pieces each I forget).  I wasn't feeling great that day so I went with honey bbq (their least spicy flavor) and parmesan marinara (second least spicy) and both were very good.  I had not had the honey bbq prior to that and I was surprised at just how good they were.  Once you finish they will bring you more - one set at a time (again 5 or 6).  I had two more of the honey bbq and they were just as good as the first.  It's in a little strip mall across from a McDonald's a few miles from where Manchester hits I-270 (going East from I-270) and I'd strongly recommend them.

Next up is Tucano's Brazilian Grille.  This is a regional chain with stores scattered in various states and locations.  I believe without looking that they are based in Colorado.  It's a churrasco (forgive my spelling) so there is what they call their "salad festival" with various salads, salad bar, soups, and appetizer type of things.  But the real treat is the churrasco.  Servers come around with large skewers of various dishes and carve off (or in the case of some things, slide them off) onto a small serving plate.  The options are more plentiful during dinner, but even during lunch there are usually at least a dozen including their awesome pineapple.  My wife and I visited on 2/13 for their Valentine's special - it was a little more than normal (I believe about $20 each instead of the $14 each) - it's a bit much for lunch, but this was a special occasion and since we were leaving for Detroit in the wee hours of the 14th, this was our celebration.  The additional fee added a few selections to the churrasco, included a rose (which I gave to her although they offered to bring me one too <G>), and a couple of truffles.  I'm not sure it was worth an extra $12 total, as we only really liked two of the extra selections - the shrimp and some sort of meat, I forget what - and those only came around twice.  Now to be fair after the first cycle they do ask if you want anything in particular so we could've aske for more of those, but pretty much everything was good so we just let them bring whatever.  The will continue to visit as long as your "cue" is set to green, if you want a break or are finished you can flip it to red and they will let you be which we like.  All told, we really like it, but it's definitely more of a treat than a regular destination.

Moving on Denny's.  I'm sure we all know about Denny's by now.  We haven't been in a good while as the one nearest us has been closed for a couple of months for a remodel.  However, we were in Novi on the 14th and with it being both a Friday and Valentine's day and the fact that I had surgery early the next morning we just wanted to eat and get back to the hotel and they weren't busy.  Suffice it to say I was NOT impressed.  Look, Denny's is what it is; and the service was just fine, but the food - well not much.  They've redone the menu so that it's more a'la carte and if I'm paying $8-12 for my entree and then another $2+ for what they call a salad - well I might as well go to Applebee's or Chili's unless it's 2am and it wasn't.  The food itself was bland, seemingly more bland than normal which agitated me as well.  We may try the one near us when it reopens, but if things are similar here then we won't visit beyond that as even at 2am there's always an Ihop or something else open somewhere.

From bad to a great experience.  Famous Dave's BBQ.  From what I can gather it's a regional chain, just not here in St. Louis.  There are a few scattered about Missouri, but they seemed more popular in Michigan (where we were at), Indiana, etc., than here.  It was Saturday the 15th and I was about 10-12 hours post surgery and not feeling great so we didn't want to go out.  Their menu looking appealing and my wife went to get carryout.  Now we did NOT call it in and we paid the price for that as they were busy despite it being prior to 5pm so there was a wait to get our food; but it was everything I could have hoped for.  Instead of trying to recreate the wheel here, I'll simply include a link to the Yelp review I did - I think that says it all.  HIGHLY recommended.  My Yelp review here:  Famous Dave's BBQ Yelp Review

Well our next restaurant is Applebee's - again I'm guessing most everybody knows about them.  My wife got us carryout on Sunday 2/16 from there in Greenfield Indiana.  We got an order of their pretzels (appetizer - 4pc), a triple play with pretzels (2pc), boneless wings (maybe 6?), and quesadilla towers (1pc cut in half), and a steak dinner with shrimp and something.  The dinner was my wife's, and the quesadilla towers and 2pc pretzels were her's as well.  I got the 4pc pretzels and the boneless wings as I wasn't very hungry.  All the food was good - not as good as when eaten there, but isn't that almost always the case?  The cost is what the cost is, a little higher than I'd have liked, but such is life.  It was about as consistently average to above average as it is when we do carry out at home.  Mildly recommended for carry out.

Lastly, Bandana's BBQ.  I guess they're regional now to an extent, but it's really a St. Louis based chain.  Typical fast casual BBQ type of restaurant.  Lots of sauces (on the side), various meats and sides, and so on.  We got BBQ Chicken nachos as an appetizer which aren't really my thing, but my wife liked them.  I had some buffalo chicken strips with cole slaw and fried okra - which I gave to my wife, although I had a piece and it was good, along with the garlic toast.  She got a combo platter with turkey and sausage along with cole slaw, potato salad, and garlic toast.  Our first agitation was that literally 2 minutes before our food hit the table the server came back and said they had a large order go out and were short on the sausage.  I understand the large order and all, but they didn't know they had an issue until they were plating her food?  Seriously?  So she got some chicken to go with it.  Now at that point they made the best of the situation as she basically got upgraded to a three meat platter (an extra $2) for free, not a huge deal.  The next agitation came when the food arrived.  Now they are NOT busy - it was around 2pm, maybe 3 tables counting us and one server.  She asked if I wanted sauce for my chicken and I asked for ranch.  She proceeded to forget completely about that until she touched our table 5-10 minutes later and we asked for it again.  My chicken strips were fine, a little spicier than I'd probably have liked, but so be it - that varies everywhere.  There were six, but small ones and I ate three of them before giving up even with the ranch.  The cole slaw was fine - I'm picky about that and while you may laugh I prefer KFC's over anyone's and this while being pretty good wasn't on that level.  The garlic toast was great as always and truthfully was the highlight of my meal.  The piece of fried okra I had was also very hot and very good.  My wife thought her turkey was great and her sausage as well.  She felt the chicken was overly dry even after using sauce on it.  I had a couple of small bites of the skin of the chicken and felt it was overly smoky - perhaps some/most/all like it that way, I simply don't which is why I ordered the buffalo strips.  I'm not a huge BBQ fan, I like ribs on occasion, but otherwise my idea of BBQ is a hamburger on the grill.  Her cole slaw and potato salad were decent enough from what I gathered and she ate her garlic toast (to my chagrin because I was drooling over it) but it seemed like she could take it or leave it.  All told for the $30-$40 plus tip we spent I would've rather have went elsewhere which is a shame.  Even though they are a regional chain, I still consider them a "hometown restaurant" and I like to support those as much as I can, I just was not impressed - especially after having had Famous Dave's a few nights prior.  I guess I'd give them a mild recommendation with the caveat that only if you like BBQ and heavily smoked BBQ.  Now perhaps I'm a bit overzealous with that, I don't eat a lot of BBQ admittedly, but that's how I feel and I would think that most people who aren't huge BBQ fans would likely agree.

With that I think I'll wrap this up, I have some work to get done (ie lunch is over) and I'm starting to hurt so I'm going to have to take a pain pill when my work is done and perhaps a nap.  As always thanks for reading.

- M