Dear Mom,

There was a day, maybe twentyish years ago, it was afternoon, we were standing in the living room of our house. Your sister

and her daughters had been over. All four of us, her daughters and my sister, ended up finding a cache of your old dresses

and playing dress-up. Once they had left, you asked me if I ever felt like I wanted to be a girl. There are times I wish you

hadn’t taken me at my word when I said, “no.”

Hindsight being 20/20, and thinking about other incidents that happened over the course of my adolescence, I realize that my

elementary-school-aged brain had no idea what it told you in response to that question. I can see you overlooking the dress-

up incident, but Mom, that night you came downstairs while I was watching ER and asked if I had been wearing your panties and

nylons, and I flat out told you I had no idea what you were talking about, or the morning you ccame downstairs to wake me up

and give me medication before leaving for work and you found that i’d fallen asleep in a dress, and you believed I said I had

no idea how it got there, or the time you found panties in my suitcase mixed in with my own underwear, I think either you

never connected or you didn’t want to. Not that I blame you. I’m pretty good at hiding things and lying to cover myself.

I’m betting you never knew that I had a fairly substantial stash of girl’s clothing until I moved away to college and had

nowhere to keep it. But, I suppose the fact that I was going to school away from home (a decision that was entirely of my own

urging) made it much easier to hide. You also probably never knew of the times I “dressed” for Halloween parties and stayed

that way long after because it felt natural.

Had any of those conversations gone differently; had I told you the truth, that I wasn’t sure how I felt, but I knew that

mostly it was far easier for me to connect with girls, and that I often didn’t like, because I just never related to, the

boys I had to deal with, and that wearing those close made me feel good, who knows what might have happened. Especially

considering how, once The Pastor entered your life, you began reacting to the homosexual members of our family (I can only

imagine what you would have said had I confessed that I was transgendered, and oh, by the way a lesbian), but some tiny part

of me wishes I had found out. Even now, I’m not totally sure where I fit on the spectrum of transgenderedness (I still like

using my man parts and am not convinced I want to give them up), but I occasionally find myself imagineing myself as a woman

and wondering how things would have turned out.

I realize that some of this may stem from the semi-idealized depictions of acceptance and transitioning I’ve read in

“Becoming Robin”, and that reality would have been far different and likely full of struggles. I also don’t blame you for any

of it. I certainly did my share of not dealing with the issue. Even to this day, my wife really doesn’t know the extent of my

feelings. Believe me, I’ve tried to bring it up, but her reaction made it clear that she didn’t get it and she wasn’t likely

to be open to even occasional crossdressing. Honestly, I don’t get it either. I can’t explain why things make me feel the way

they do. I didn’t write the manual to my brain, I’m just stuck trying to find the Rosetta Stone.

I’m sure there was a point to this, somewhere, but I’ve lost it since I’ve started and stopped this a couple of times. I

guess I’m just trying to make a start at figuring out my own feelings. Thankfully, the Internet is cheap therapy, and since

you’ll likely never even find this blog I once again don’t have to tell you the truth. I do know this, no matter how I feel,

I’m thankful every day that I have never come close to becoming one of the fifty percent of this community that attempts (or

succeeds at) suicide. I thank God that I’ve never even contemplated it.

That’s really all. Just kinda wanted to get some stuff off my chest.

Love, Me

The building I work in takes up an entire city block and with the edition of a new section now includes a two level parking garage. The garage was built around the loading dock of the original building such that if you pull in the old dock entrance and keep going, you will encounter the passenger vehicle entrance. However, before you do, there is a drop-off of approximately three to four feet. This drop-off includes two hydraulic lifts for elevating cargo onto the dock.

I had two people coming in for a meeting this morning. As person one and I are standing in the lobby, waiting for person two, the radio at the desk goes off at the same time person one’s mobile rings:

Radio: Base, Facilities 4.
Operator: Base
F4: Notify Facilities 1, Building Operations, and the In-Charge Executive, we’ve got a vehicle accident at the loading dock.
O: Copy. Advise status. Do you need an ambulance?
F4: Negative. She’s out, but her car is half off the dock, half on the end of the ramp.

[simultaniusly]
P1: You did what? … You’re where? … Are you okay? … Hold on [hands me the phone]
Me: Hello?
P2: I couldn’t find your garage so I came around to the side, I saw cars, so I kept going…I fell off the ramp.
Me: Don’t move. We’re coming to find you.

As it turns out, she managed to squeeze her car between the two buildings and drop the front end off the lift’s ramp (which was raised at the time).

Fortunately she was okay and AAA lifted her car back up. I’ve gotta admit, my dark sense of humor was finding it hard to not laugh about it in front of her, because we can’t think of any instance where this has ever happened before here.

ETA: I originally said 12-18 inches, but I have since been corrected. I have no ability to estimate sizes of anything.

or “I can haz nap now?”

For some time I had been scheduled to attend a major trade show in Las Vegas, not the Adult Entertainment Expo, the other one, from Jan 5-9 then fly to San Francisco to give a presentation at a meeting. Unfortunately, just before I left, the feecies hit the oscilating air mover and things got crazy.

Normally, my team consists of myself and three others, a team-lead, an admin+ assistant¹, and another Geek. In December my counterpart decided to leave us for a position with a company out west. At the time I didn’t know whether to be happy for him, kill him, or chain him to his desk and deny him all outside contact until we found his replacement².

The Monday before I left for vegas, my team lead finds out her father is having major medical problems and she will have to return home, out of the country, for an undetermined amount of time to help out. Now, I don’t begrudge her this. I’d do the same thing, but from a strictly business/getting the work done perspective, oy! So, I’m making preparations to leave, she’s giving me instructions on what needs to be done while she’s gone, and then, “oh, by the way, you’ve got to give a presentation at a conference [two days after you get back, and I haven't done any prep work yet].” Head, meet Desk.

Vegas? Simply awesome. The show was great and I was in total nerdgasmic heaven. Used most of my “down” time keeping up with work back home, which was honestly fine. I’m not much of a gambler, partier, or drinker anyway. I did get to attend an Earth, Wind, and Fire concert, which completely rocked, despite the fact that I actually didn’t really know who they were before that night.

Unfortunately, due to someone not doing their job, San Francisco was mostly a waste of my time. We didn’t get signed up to speak at the meeting and none of the walk-in slots were available. However, the trip wasn’t a complete loss.

I was able to connect with Chris and Serenity from the Kinky Firehouse and have a thoroughly enjoyable dinner the night before “the Day of Waste”. I will admit I was slightly nervous, since it was the first time I had met anyone else where our original connection was spanking and kink. Plus, I had been reading their blogs for several years, and I pretty much feel like I’m just a groupie most of the time. However, it turns out I had nothing to fear. They were both charming, welcoming, and lots of fun. I think I managed to keep my awkward turtle, shy personality under control for the most part too. Hopefully. Thanks again guys for the great time.

The flight home was plagued, in Chicago, by enough sitting around in the terminal and on the runway to make me arive four hours late. If only they still served meals at 30,000 feet.

The rest of this week was prep for the presentation and catching up on e-mail, voicemail, and oh yeah, that little mail server migration that resulted in, as the result of stumping our Internal Technology team, their outside consultant, and Microsoft, me getting promised a brand new computer.

Now, its Sunday, my first actual day of nothing” and I’m planning to take advantage of it. I’ve got plenty of Star Trek: TNG, the Simpsons, That ’70s Show, and Big Bang Theory on the DVR to keep me planted on the couch. And, if she’s feeling better, a wife whom I can keep thoroughly planted in bed, or over my lap if I’m realllllllly lucky.

I love my job. I actually love the crazy times, as down time/writing reports can get tedius, but I need today, and plan to love it too.