Duality 12-31-2010

Hello again blogosphere.  Recently I have not been posting very often.  This is mainly due to the duality that is my life.  I mentioned a while back in another entry that being as I like to do both male and female things, there are often times when my male side can more easily complete activities.

For example I am currently building my wife and myself a cherry wood bedroom set.  I could work in my shop as a woman, as my wife does when she helps me out, but it is so much easier to do those activities without having to worry about my hair/wig getting full of sawdust or worse tangled in my tablesaw, or to constantly having to readjust my bra straps because yet again they fell off my shoulders.

As a sided note, isn't it difficult to have a bra stay in the correct position when you don't actually have boobs?  Well I suppose you would only know that if you were a woman without much chest, or be like me, a man who likes to wear women's clothes.  Hmm... interesting.

So being as I have been busily working on my nightstands, at the end of the day, I have generally been flopping on the couch, exhausted.  I think about my blog, and then veg out in front of the TV.  So if you have been curious, that is what is going on with me.

Generally this is the time of the year when I like to build things.  During the winter, my shop/garage. is often icy cold, but it is better than the summer when it is often boiling hot.  I'd rather try to put on more clothes to stay warm then work in my shop buck naked and still having sweat roll down from every single pore I possess.

Oh yea, Happy New Year!  Woo-Hoo, made it through another one!  Yea!  On to the next!

Makeup

When I do my makeup I look absolutely nothing like the woman in the picture above. (Edit - actually it is my picture, I have gone back and changed my posts to only include my own pictures, or pictures which I have permission to use them, just FYI.)  Though at times in my life that is what I thought it should look like when you apply mkeup.  I'm not really sure why I thought that.  I suppose it is what crossdressers often think about when they try to emulate women.  They often do not try and look like women really do, they end up looking like a massive exaggeration of what a women looks like.  This often just ends up making crossdressers look like skanks instead of actual women.


When I do my makeup I try to make it look as natural as possible.  I don't like the look of extra thick foundation, garish lipstick, overdone eyes, and cherry red cheeks.  Part of my goal in the clothes I choose to wear and the way I choose to do my makeup is to blend in.  I don't want to stick out anymore than I already do.  I'm a guy in a dress, I don't need to give people other reasons to stare at me.

So here is my routine:
1 - I apply a light foundation.  The lighter it is the better it looks.  Most guys want the foundation to help cover things up, like a beard maybe?  The best way I have found to hide my beard is a really close shave.  I tend to shave regularly, then shave against the grain, then I touch things up with an electric shaver.
2 - I use a very light dusting of powder, just to set the foundation.  The lighter you do steps 1 and 2, the less your wrinkles will show up!
3 - I put on a very light, very light, extremely light dusting of blush on my cheeks.
4 - I use a light colored eye foundation just on my lids.
5 - If I am going out during the day on my eyes I use a four color combo on my upper eyelids.  Clinique just came out with a new shadow campact that shows you where to put each color.
6 - If I am going out at night I will use a light line of eyeliner, normally on just y upper lids, but occasionally the lower one also,
7 - Now I will put mascara on my upper lashes, and normally my lowers ones, but not always.
8 - Lastly I like to use clinique lipstick.

My last piece of advice within this entry is to say, practice, practice, practice!  Oh, I almost forgot, at the end of the day, I like to use a couple of makeup removers, also from Clinique.

Enjoy!  What is your routine?  Do you have one yet?  Have you ever had your makeup done at a counter?

Outfit for 12/20/2010

Shoes - A.N.A - Forget

Skirt - Guess

Blouse - I removed the tag but I think it is Liz Claiborne

Necklace - I forget

Wow I really don't remember where I got most of this outfit from, but I certainly remember the skirt.  I know for darn sure that I got the skirt from guess.  It is possibly my favorite skirt out of all that I have.  It is might favorite because of the cut of the skirt.

I love how it cuts in right above my knees.  The cut of the skirt itself helps give the illusion of curves.  I am pretty sure that I am wearing small padded hips with this skirt, but it is mostly the cut of the skirt itself that really helps accentuate the hips.  I own possibly one other skirt that makes it look as though I actually have hips and that would be a stretchy tight black skirt that has a very similar cut where it squeezes in right above my knees.But this skirt has that cute little flair right at my knees that adds a dimension of curves.

Nails

If you have never gone to a nail shop and had your nails done, you are really missing out.  It took me until about a year and a half ago to work up the courage and go get a pedicure and manicure.  But I will tell you that once I did it, I was hooked.  I generally now like to go get my nails, at least my toe nails, done at least once a month.  I determined, once I had actually gotten them done once, that I was no longer going to take care of my own toe nails.

One of the things that I wanted to make sure that any guys out there understand is that most stores are out to make money.  And you have that money to give them.  Don't worry about what others are going to think of you, just get dressed up as a normal girl, its best to wear shorts, wear a pair of flip flop sandles, find a nail shop, walk in and tell them that you want a pedicure.

Trust me, you will love the experience.  I always do.  That will be a lifelong affair for me.

The one thing I ask, is don't be a freak-a-do.  I once heard of a guy that would dress as a lady and go get a manicure with a skirt on, but would not wear underwear.  Come on now people.  Don't be going out there and giving all of us a bad name by being a freak-a-do!

Outfit for 12/10/2010

Blouse - Mossimo - Target

Shorts - Mossimo - Target

Black Under Shorts - Maidenform

Shoes - Converse - Name Brand Shoes

These shorts that I am wearing I originally purchased just for me to wear around the house because I thought that they were too short.  And I thought that they were too tight to be able for me to hide Mr. Happy.  I haven't talked about Mr. Happy yet and the dressing concerns that are brought about by wearing women's clothes and having Mr. Happy.  I hope you know what I am talking about in referencing Mr. Happy, if not, then what is something that guys have that women don't?

Okay, so now that we are hopefully clear about the topic, we can discuss a little how I handle him in terms of clothes.  First off, I generally don't ever tuck.  Tucking gives a great look and yet it is often too uncomfortable to have him tucked for an entire day of walking and sitting and living.  The main thing I do with him, is nothing.  I really just like to wear clothes that help me to hide him.  For example the shirt I have on above hangs a little low and works very well to hide the bulge in my shorts.  That is my very favorite thing to do with him.  Leave him alone and wear a top that is long enough to cover him.  I don't like to have him on display as I do not think it is a very feminine look.

The other thing I am doing in the picture above is to wear a pair of under shorts that are tighter than normal and they help to compress things down.  Also they are a little longer than those very short shorts and prevents it from looking as though I am wearing a pair of daisy dukes!

I really like the outfit above and was very comfortable for a day walking around a museum and hanging out on a warm summer day.

Shaving

I have tried many different things to remove my body hair but by far the easiest, the quickest, the most reliable is the old fashioned method of shaving.  Many people hate shaving but there are also many benefits of it when compared to the other options available.  Like waxing for example.  Waxing has great results but it is so painful.  I know, I know, it gets less painful the more that you do it, but waxing my chest is so painful that it brings tears to my eyes.  It hurts so bad that I just can't keep up with it.  I also hate that it is not perfect.  I expect that if I am going to go through that much pain to get rid of my hair, I want it to be perfect.  I want the results to be ultra smooth, soft, silky, skin.  But alas when I wax it pulls out most of the hair, but breaks off many others and the very next day I have stubble, especially on my chest.  So due to the imperfect results, I choose to wax only occasionally.

Next would be depilatories.  I have tried many of these different products but the time between removing the hair and burning my skin seems to be about a nanosecond apart.  I've tried using them, but generally I do not like the results.

So shaving is my go to choice.  Initially I would only shave about once a month, whenever I decided to dress as a woman.  This created many problems for me.  The number one problem is that my legs and my armpits were so sensitive that shaving irritated my skin almost as much as depilatories.  It also would take me about one to two hours to shave my entire body, which took way too long.

The trick to shaving is to keep up with it.  If you are going to want your hair to be gone, you need to commit to it.  I now shave something just about every single day.  I try to shave each of my body parts about twice per week.  A few years ago I would have never thought about shaving my armpits more than once a month, but now I shave them about two to three times per week and it is probably the only way I would have it.  Because I shave all of my body parts so frequently, my skin has become much more accustomed to it and generally is not irritated at all.  The other great thing about shaving so often is that I am very quick and good at it.  I can now shave everything by myself with very good results, and very few nicks.

I suppose that I am a lucky crossdresser in that I do not need to shave my back.  Woo-hoo, yeah for the little things.

image courtesy of http://www.girlznight.co.uk/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/shaving-legs1.jpg

Outfit for 12/6/10

Blouse - Liz Claibourne

Skirt - Mossimo - Target

Shoes - Nine West

I was thinking the other day about this blog and my purpose for writing it.  I realized that my goal in doing this is to try and help other crossdressers to see that they do not have to dress like trashy women.  Not that all crossdressers do, but many do dress that way.  And then they wonder why people stare at them when they go out in public, or they wonder why they feel uncomfortable going out in public dressed in women's clothes.

What I would really like for other men to see is that you can dress as a normal woman, and when you do dress as a normal woman, you will be accepted as a woman.  When you go out dressed as a trashy woman, then men will stare at you, because they are checking you out, and then get pissed because generally they will eventually always be able to tell that you are a man, and women will stare at you and be pissed because you are representing them poorly.  It's fine for a real woman to dress trashy, because there are trashy women.  They do exist and for some reason that seems to be okay.  Guys often like looking at them, because trashy women often show way too much cleavage, and guys like boobs.  Girls will still often look down upon trashy women because of how they represent their own gender.

The thing is that many crossdressers have a goal of passing, but they do not dress appropriately for the situation.  The outfit I am wearing in the picture is a good outfit for going out to dinner.  It is not the best outfit for going to the beach, or for mowing the lawn.  You really need to know where to wear the clothes you want to wear.  There is a time and place for many clothing items.  Many of the clothes I own I will never wear outside.  Besides the fact that some things I like are not appropriate for my almost 40 year old age, they are just not right to wear out in public, if you do not want people staring at you.

Think about what you wear, and wear things appropriately.  That is one of my main goals in sharing my life with you all.  Hopefully I can help educate crossdresser and straight people alike.

Shoes

I once read that the shoes a crossdresser owns would make a street walker blush.  I have also read about how crossdressers will wear shoes that are completely inappropriate for the situation.  I must confess that I have been guilty of the later, but not so much the former.  My shoe collection is about normal for a woman.  Well for a woman that likes to wear heels, as many of my shoes have heels.

The highest pair of heels that I have is a two and half inch, or maybe a 3 inch pair of heels.  They are very pretty but i don't wear them out of the house.  The main reason I don't wear them anywhere is because they are too big for me to walk comfortably in.  And that is one of my most important things, to be comfortable.  I will wear heels, and most of my heels are actually comfortable to wear.  Unless of course I am going to be in them for more than about 8 hours or I will be walking a lot.  But my tallest heels, I can only wear them for a little bit, like about an hour.  After that my feet just can't take it.

The most comfortable heels I own are 2 inch heels.  In a two inch heel, I can wear them for just about as long as I would like to wear them.  Now would two inch heels make a street walker blush, I don't think so!

Ok, but have a worn inappropriate shoes for the situation?  Maybe, well probably.  I have probably done that on more than one occasion.  I do it less and less often though, due to wanting to blend in with the average woman.  I will say though that it is hard to nor wear heels just about everywhere.  If I am going to a museum, or if I am going to be walking around a lot, then I will wear flats, or sneakers even.  But if not, then I will probably wear a heel.  I just love the way my legs look when I am in a heel.

To other crossdressers out there, I would have to say think about the shoes you are wearing, will they make you stick out of the crowd and are they really appropriate for the situation?

Outfit for 11/30

Shoes - Nine West

Tights - Target

Mini Skirt - Levis

Top - Mossimo - Target

So what do you think about short skirts.  I once heard that if you are older than 30 you should not wear a skirt that is more than a couple of inches higher than your knees.  I own a couple of short skirts and I generally wear this one more than the other one.  Though I have not ever worn either one of them outside of the house.  I would be way to paranoid to wear such a short skirt out of the house.  Also, my philosophy is to wear clothes that are appropriate for the time and place and I just have never found an appropriate time and place for an almost forty year old woman to be wearing such a short skirt.

Though I do like to wear it for fun while I am at home.

Thoughts from you?

Dual dressing

Its obvious that I like crossdressing but another thing I like to do that is not so obvious is to dual dress.  I'm not really sure if that is what you would call it or not, but that is what I have decided to call it.

So what is dual dressing?  It is dressing as both sexes at the same time.  See regular dressing would be dressing as your regular gender, cross dressing would dressing as the opposite sex as what your body says that your gender is while dual dressing would be wearing elements of both genders.

For example this weekend I went out to breakfast at Denny's with my wife.  We live in a relatively small town where I do not feel comfortable going out in public dressed as a woman.  But what I did feel comfortable with was that my finger nails were painted a deep dark red.  Also I wore a pair of women's blue jeans.  They were not overtly feminine, but they were obviously female jeans if you looked close enough at them.  I also had on a females long sleeve shirt with a male fleece top over that.  I also did not have a wig on and no makeup at all.  So I was kind of dressed as both genders at the same time.

And really that is one of my favorite things to do.

Outfit 11/28

Boots - Steve Madden - Factory Brand Shoes

Jeans - LEI - Walmart

Black shirt - Tissue Tee - Mossimo - Target

Dress - Moreno - Target

So this was my thanksgiving outfit.  I picked up the dress at Target the week before thanksgiving and thought it would look cute on me while I cooked the dinner.  I really liked all the colors in the dress, which you can't really see in this picture.  Originally when I put on the dress that morning I tried it on with some black leggings.  I like the leggings I have, but something just did not look right about that combo so I tried it on with the jeans and it looked worlds better.  Some times you just need to try things on to see how they will really look.  Often my wife will show me some clothing item and ask me what I think of it and I will tell her that I have no idea until I see it on her.  Then she will put it on and and ask me again.  Often again I will tell her I don't know because how she is wearing it or what she is wearing it with doesn't work so then I will have her go change her other clothes so I can really see how it all works together and give her my honest opinion about whether she should keep what she has purchased.

Trying clothes on can be a real PITA, but if you don't want to waste your money and you want your clothes to look good, then you really should go through the hassle of all of this yourself.  One of the best ways to tell how something looks while you are wearing it, try taking pictures of yourself while wearing it and then take a look at the pictures.  Pictures don't lie.

Makeup

I remember growing up and watching my sister put on makeup.  I was fascinated by the process.  I thought it would be such fun to be able to put makeup all over your face and change your appearance.  I remember wanting the smooth looking skin, the color around the eyes, and the warm red lips.

Makeup was one of those things that I never experimented with when I was younger.  The only time I ever had makeup on my face was a Halloween party I went as a woman and my then girlfriend, now my wife, went as a boy.  I do remember when we did that I really enjoyed the entire makeup process.  But it wasn't until about 15 years later that I finally wore makeup again.

I was talking to my wife about maybe getting a wig, as I did not have one of those at the time.  If my memory serves my wife said, well if you are going to get a wig then you should try out some makeup.  I thought about it for a nanosecond and agreed.

Since I was just going to be trying it out, I went to Target or Walmart or Rite-Aide, or some such local store and I got some foundation, eyeshadow, and lipstick.  Then my wife and I attempted to put it on.  It was fun, but it certainly did not look the best that it could.  I continued using this makeup for quite awhile.  Months, years even maybe, but I never was very happy with the results.

At one point in my wife's various jobs she had worked for clinique.  I suggested to her that I thought I should try some of that makeup, that maybe I would have better results from that.  So she and I went together and bought some of that makeup.  I enjoyed using those products on my skin much more than the less expensive stuff, but I still was not very happy with it.

The thing was, what I really wanted to do was to go to a makeup counter and have the specialists do a make over on me, but I was too frightened.  I had hundreds of different reasons as to why I could not do that.  And then, one day, I woke up and said I am going to go have my makeup done by someone other than me or my wife.

I found a Macy's and, while dressed as a woman, with no makeup on at all, I walked into the store, up to the Clinique counter and politely asked the lady behind the counter if she had the time to be able to do a makeover on me.  She said yes she had the time, had me sit down in a chair, and began the process.

image courtesy of:
http://www.thesecretofbeauty.co.uk

Outfit for 11/24

Ankle Boots - Nine West

Pants - LEI from Walmart

Sweater - Mossimo - Target

Recently my wife and I were talking about blue jeans and I mentioned to her about how many pairs of jeans walmart actually has.  I know, I know, walmart.  How exactly is walmart fashionable?  It isn't exactly fashionable but then again maybe it is.  I have found that it is not were you buy your clothes, but rahter how you wear your clothes.  Also, as a male I am not trying to say that I know everything there is to know about women's fashion.  But what I do now about is how to dress like a woman and not a streetwalker.  

I think that many men that dress as women don't wear regular clothes.  They wear clothes that are over the top feminine, and generally completely inappropriate for the situation.  And then many of them wonder why people stare at them as they walk down the street or try to do normal things and go to normal places. 

Many men that dress as women have as their ultimate goal to pass as a woman.  If you can't figure out what this means; it means they don't want anyone to notice that they are a man dressed in women's clothes.  Personally I have never really had this as my ultimate goal, as I don't really think that is actually possible.  But I do think it is possible to pass as a woman. 

Wait a minute, that sounds pretty contradictory.  Well here is what I mean. 

I think that if people really look at me for a while, and definitely when they talk to me, they will know I am a man.  I do a relatively good job as dressing as a woman, but the bottom line is I am a man and I will never look like a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader!  So then how could I pass as a woman?  By acting like a woman, thinking of myself as a woman, dressing as a normal woman, and blending into the crowd.  The thing about people is that most people don't really look at others.  We look at people, but when we are all out doing our own thing most of us are too involved in our own lives to really pay much attention to anyone around us, unless of course they are doing something completely inappropriate for the situation, like say wearing a miniskirt and stilettos when you're going out for breakfast.

So yes I shop at walmart and buy normal clothes and go do normal things wearing clothes appropriate for the situation and I have never once had a crowd of people circling around me, pointing, laughing, and ridiculing me for being a man dressed as a woman.

Divergent Agendas

Here is an example of the duality of my life and the beautiful blend that is also my life.

The other day I decided to get rid of the dresser that held my girl clothes.  The dresser at one point was owned by my mother in law.  My wife and I were offered the dresser and I agreed to accept it because I thought it would be good to keep my girl clothes in.  It has done that job very well since the time that I got it but I needed to get it out of our bedroom because of the connection it had to my wife's mom.  My wife has recently been trying to work through how her parents raised her and it has been very upsetting for her, me, and our marriage.

Due to this, the other day I took all of my girl clothes out of my dresser and, having no place else to put them, I put them on the couch in my bedroom.  I took the dresser out and then realized that our nightstands were also gifts from my wife's mom.  It was then and there that I decided I needed to get my wife's family furniture out of my bedroom.  I then took the nightstands out of our bedroom.

Now in my bedroom, my girl clothes have been stuffed into my other dresser, and our bedside clocks are sitting on buckets next to our bed.  It was about then that I realized I needed to get moving on the rest of my many projects.  For a while now I have been very slowly working on building a cherry wood bedroom set for my wife and I.  So far I have built a dresser for myself and my wife.  They are beautiful.  I love them both.  And now I have begun building nightstands.

And when those are done, I need to begin on the second dresser for myself; for all of my girl clothes.  I find this to be rather odd and yet wonderful.

I need a dresser for my girl clothes, so I can house all of my clothes that I like to wear while dressed as a girl, so one of the things I love to do while dressed as a guy is to build furniture, so I am going to build a dresser for myself.

I find this to be a crazy dualism and yet a lovely thing about being a crossdresser.

Outfit for 11/19

Dress - off the street in San Francisco, Ca

This picture was taken about two years ago and is one of the first pictures of me dressed as a woman.  Before this I was much more ashamed of dressing in women's clothes.  But during this particular day I wanted pictures.  It took me about another year or two to start taking pictures of myself regularly.

My wife actually bought this dress for me on one of her trips.  I was very amazed that it actually fit me.  The thing that I really like about it is that I do not have anything extra on in terms of padding.  I do not have a bra on and I have no hip padding and yet it appears as though I actually have hips and breasts.  I think that is a testament to how the cut of a dress can really make a difference in your appearance.  Never underestimate what a well cut dress can do for your body.

Breast Size

When I first started crossdressing I am pretty sure that breasts were the first or second thing that I started with.  Initially I thought that my crossdressing was just a sexual fetish, which I am sure that many of you will think that it is also.  So when I first began crossdressing it was in relation to it being very sexualized.  I was interested in women's lingerie.  All sorts of lingerie, underwear, stockings, garters, bras, corsets, anything that was silky, smooth, and what I considered to be femininely sexual.  And having breasts was a huge part of that.

And speaking of huge, the breasts I designed for myself were huge!  Yes, designed.  Initially I stuffed my bra with a variety of things.  Wait, I am getting a little ahead of myself.  The bra was a huge part of this all.  My first bra came from my wife.  I do not exactly remember as it was quite some time ago by now, but I think that I asked for one of hers or she offered me one of hers.  Either way, I know that it came from her. 

I put it on and immediately noticed that it was rather deflated.  I think the first things that I used were pantyhose or maybe some socks.  Those worked to fill up the cups somewhat, but they certainly looked pretty darn lumpy.  And they didn’t feel anything like breasts to me.  They didn’t feel that way while sitting on my chest nor did they feel that way when I felt them over the bra.  I think the next thing that I tried was to fill a condom with some rice.  I didn’t really like the way that this felt and I gave it up after only a few times. 

The next big thing I tried was to fill plastic bags with water.  I really liked the way that this felt and moved under the bra.  The only thing that was kind of scary about it was the occasional time or two that they sprung a leak.  It was probably a really good thing that I never actually wore them outside.  At some point I found out about a product that is like a rice pellet that absorbs water and turns into a gel like substance.  When I started playing around with mixing this product up I really liked it.   It was much better than just plain water.  It felt very nice, had great weight, warmed up against my chest, and felt very good in every way, except for it was still in a plastic bag.

It was around this time that I experienced a purge.  This was my first and last purge.  If you don’t know what a crossdresser purge is, basically I threw away everything girly that I owned.  In hindsight, it now makes me very sad.  I still miss one of the items I threw out.  Oh well.

When I once again allowed myself to wear female clothes I again tried mixing water and gel pellets.  This process was grating on me though and I decided that I would try something else and I purchased my first pair of false breasts.  I forget how exactly I picked the size of the breasts to buy but I did.  I also forget which style of falsies they were; like the shape of them.  They were probably a triangle.  I really liked them.  But I had to buy all new bras for them to fit into, because the one thing I do remember is that they were big!  I don’t own them anymore, and all I remember about them is that they were huge!  They were so big that when I think about them now I think about them as being comical I remember them to be so big! 

Since that time I have purchased about four or five more falsies.  Each and every time I have purchased a new pair of falsies, I bought a smaller size.  So over time my breasts have grown smaller and smaller and I have enjoyed them more and more.

Now actually I generally just wear what most women call cutlets.  These are small silicone bra inserts that feel like I am wearing next to nothing at all.  The other thing I have changed is the bra size I am wearing.  I used to wear a 38C, but now I wear a 36A, with fairly thickly padded cups.

So at this time in my breast journey the advice I could give to you is to go small.  Go smaller than you think would work because most likely you will enjoy them more in the long run.

Outfit for 11/17

Boots - Steve Madden - Factory Brand Shoes

Skinny Jeans - Mossimo - Target

Sweater - Guess

Necklace - Target

So here I am on vacation again so I am standing in a hotel room yet again.  Apparently many of my outfit photos are taken while I am in a hotel room.  I think this was when I went to go get my taxes done.

Anyhow this sweater is one of my absolute all time favorites.  I think that I like it so much because it is from Guess.  There is something ultimately feminine about Guess clothes.  I don't like all of them, but many of them are quite cute, and most of them exude girlishness.

Funny story - I took a blouse into the fitting room at a Guess store and tried it on and I almost got stuck in it.  I panicked for a moment and thought I was going to have to rip it off of me to get it off.  That would have been horrible!  Having to buy an item because I ruined it by not being able to take it off.  I suppose it was a good lesson in what types of clothes to try on.

Sizes

As a male I have often felt small, but once I investigated I found out that I am actually average.  I am about 5'9", I normally weigh between 150 - 170 lbs and I wear a men's size 9 shoe.  I have always felt confident in choosing my sizes in my male clothes, but I haven't always been right about them.  Initially I would generally choose large size clothes because I thought I was large.  One day while watching some show on TV I heard the hosts mention that people should wear the right size clothes and I started paying attention to how my clothes fit me and not just what I thought would fit me.  Low and behold I found out most of my clothes did not fit me.  I was wearing large size dress shirts to work and actually I should be wearing smalls.  But sometimes I should be wearing mediums and only occasionally for only certain shirts should I be wearing larges; say for like an oversize sweatshirt.

What did all of that teach me about clothes?  The size is irrelevant; what is important is the fit.  And this is even more important when it comes to women's clothes.  I have tried on so many different sizes of women's clothes and I have begun to completely ignore the tag sizes.  In tops I own mostly mediums, a few larges, and maybe a couple of smalls.  But when it comes to bottoms, it is even more confusing.  For pants and shorts, I have fit into 6's, 7's, and 8's.  But in skirts the sizes are more like 10, 12, or 14's.

What I have learned is that the tag sizes are just a guide, a general guide.  What you really need to do is grab a bunch of different sizes and go try them on.  Don't just grab one size and then say that it looks bad when it doesn't fit; try on a different size.  What you need to learn is regardless of the size, when clothes fit they look good.  Nobody can read the tag when you are wearing it.  Nobody knows the size when it is on you.  But it is obvious when clothes do not fit well.  And that is one of the biggest mistakes that men make when wearing women's clothes; the clothes do not actually fit them.  I think that many guys, just like many women, think that they will look smaller if the clothes they wear are smaller.  Not so!  Clothes will look better when they fit.

But I suppose this also gets into the fact that most guys that wear women's clothes do not want to try them on at the store.  Well at times I have been there also.  For example, I hate trying on clothes at Walmart.  I really do not like going into a Walmart as it is.  So generally I will buy two or three pairs of pants, in different sizes, go home, try them on, and return the ones that do not fit.  Don't worry about what people will think.  Don't worry about buying women's clothes, there are lots of reasons why a guy might buy women's clothes.  The other thing that I have done is have been dressed as a guy, and taken women's clothes into a male's dressing room and tried them on.  As a person paying for the clothes you are buying you have the right to be able to buy whatever clothes you would like to buy.  You are the consumer.  You need to exercise your rights as such!  Okay so the last thing I have done, and this is by far my favorite, I will go shopping while dressed as a woman.  Then I take as many clothes as I want into the dressing room.  When they don't fit I go get another item in a different size.  Then I only buy what I want to buy and I go home with clothes that I like.

Outfit for 11/15

Shoes - Converse - Factory Brand Shoes

Jeans - Jordache - Walmart

Sweater - Merona - Target

Top - Charlotte Russe - Thrifted

Necklace and Earrings - Target

This is an outfit that I put on to accomplish two things - One, to be warm.  We were in Monterey and were going to go to the aquarium and I wanted to be warm while we walked up to the place.  The other thing is that the shoes are good walking shoes, and the jeans were also very comfortable for just walking around a museum.

I read once that a difference between a transvestite and a transsexual was whether or not you wore pants.  A transsexual would wear pants while a transvestite wouldn't.  The reasoning behind it is that real female clothing is the skirt and not the pants.  I thought that was weird, what do you think?

Crossdesser or Transexual?

While sitting in a pedicure chair today getting my nails done I was killing time on my blackberry.  I happened to look up a site I had bookmarked some time ago www.crossdresserheaven.com Now maybe I am just being picky about what I consider to be a particular definition but I think Vanessa Law is misrepresenting crossdressers.  I consider a crossdresser to be someone who is male and dresses as a female or a female who dresses as a male, hence the term cross-dresser.  The post I read today is about how Vanessa has made the choice to live full time as a woman.  I think this is absolutely wonderful for Vanessa and I say more power to her and I am impressed with her decision to go for something that has got to be terribly difficult.  Good for her.  My only concern is that I think of Vanessa as a her, and thus if she is dressing as a she, there is no crossdressing going on.  Thus from the beginning, Vanessa was probably not a crossdresser but rather an unrealized transexual.  What I consider to be a transexual is someone who changes the gender they are and lives as the other gender full time.  Someone who lives and dresses exclusively as a single gender is not a crossdresser.  They are not cross-dressing they are dressing as a single gender, not two.  

This is only a concern for myself as I have tried to explain to my wife why I do not think she needs to worry about me changing genders and becoming a woman full time.  So I have gotten books like My Husband Betty (www.myhusbandbetty.com ), uhh,.... not a good idea considering that crossdresser eventually went woman full time and that Vanessa Law has a website called crosssdresser heaven and has now decided to live as a woman full time.  Okay now people, these are not crossdressers.  In the book about Betty, Helen Boyd says that she did not know that her husband was going to live full time as a woman, but to me it was clear that was his desire, even though the book is her words not his, I knew he wanted to be a woman full time because she made it obvious that there wasn't really anything about being a man that Betty enjoyed.  Betty got her enjoyment from life as a woman.  Now maybe this is how Helen made it sound and she misrepresented Betty, but I do believe she tried to give an honest, up front, straight up representation of the crossdresser in her life. Or more correctly the person who called themselves a crossdresser because they were too afraid, embarrassed, confused, unsure, in denial about, etc to admit what they have probably known for most of their lives - they are a transexual.

Look, women, here is a good hint for you all, your man is a crossdresser if he enjoys dressing as both genders and enjoys things about experiencing life as being either gender.  If he seems as though he is only happy dressing as a woman; if he appears to only be happy pretending to be a woman; if he spends all of his extra time dressed as a woman; if there is nothing he likes about being a man, then I will unfortunately need to be the one to tell you, most likely he wants to be a woman full time.  It may be he may never go through with it or it may be that he may tell you this tonight when you come home.

I will say again, I am a crossdresser because I enjoy being able to present myself as either gender.  I kind of look at it as I often get bored with presenting myself as a man full time.  But I also get bored with presenting myself as a woman full time.  There are many things I enjoy about being dressed as a woman.  But there are also many things I enjoy about being dressed as a man.  I enjoy BOTH as well as disliking BOTH at times.  I personally consider this type of person to be called a crossdresser or a transvestite.  

You know the one thing I definitely do not have is a woman trapped inside me.  That has always been a very funny thought to me.  Like I have a little woman jumping up and down inside of me screaming "Ahhhh.... let me out of here!!!!"  Okay maybe some guys feel that way, but I personally always find that image to be amusing.

Outfit

Boots - Steve Madden - Factory Brand Shoes

Skinny Jeans - Mossimo - Target 

Blouse -Liz Claiborne

I have worn the jean and boot combo before, and I am sure that I will wear those two items over and over and over again some more.  I really like the combo of those two items.  But in this photo I also really like the look of this top.  The white section circling my waist  really emphasizes it and makes me look extra hippy.  I like this shirt on me, but the way it emphasizes the hips is something that surprises me in women's wear as I don't generally know a lot of women that like having their hips appear even larger.  It is great for those of us that aren't very hippy and actually want our hips to look larger.  My hand on my hip also emphasizes having hips and I also have a small amount of padding under the jeans.  But in this photo I think the skinny jeans with the combo of that particular coloring of the top really makes the hips pop!

Being Married

I have known for as long as I can remember, that I have enjoyed wearing women's clothes.  As a young child my sister and I would play dress up for fun.  As I got older I thought it was just a quirk; an odd thing that intrigued me.  I only acted upon it one time as I got older.  It was once while I was a teenager.  It was a couple of years after I met my later to be wife.  She and I decided to have a Halloween party and I suggested that we dress up as each other.  She agreed and we went through with it.

Upon reflection, it was then that I should have realized what was to come in the future.  I enjoyed dressing up that way a little too much for it to just be a Halloween thing.  I wish I could have known.  I wish I could tell then that this was going to be a life long thing.  Because then I would have been able to let my future wife know what she would be getting herself into.  I could have let her know and let her make an informed decision if that was who she wanted to live with.

I wish I could have told her but as it was I didn't even know.  Oh there were signs.  Plenty of signs.  In retrospect signs so huge they were twenty feet tall, flashing in red neon.  Anyone looking for the signs would have seen them.  But nobody was looking.  I don't think I wanted to see.  I knew what I was, what I wanted, what I liked, but I was ashamed and afraid and young, oh so young.

So as it was I didn't know that I was actually a transvestite until I was in my thirties.  I knew before then that I liked wearing women's clothes and that I liked doing female things.  But it wasn't until sometime in my thirties that I realized I wanted to dress up as a woman and go out into public dressed as a woman.  And I think it was the public part that caught both myself and my wife off guard.

This is not something that can be explained in a single blog entry.  So for now I will let you know that we are still together and that we both support each other with both of our little quirks.

Outfit - Cute Shoes

Ankle Boots - Nine West

Pants - LEI from Walmart

Tank - Guess

Sweater - Guess

Necklace - Target

This picture was taken while on vacation, hence the hotel room furniture in the background.  Earlier in the day we had been sightseeing at a museum and I had been wearing the Converse you see on the ground next to me.  Aren't they cute!  But I had to take them off and change my whole outfit actually just so I could put on the new shoes I had purchased from Nine West earlier that day.  Here is a closer picture of them:

Now talk about cute shoes!  I absolutely adore these shoes!  It's always the shoes with me.

Why Do I Crossdress?

Isn't that a great question?  I've often wondered the same thing myself.  I think that anyone that does anything out of the norm questions why they do what they do.  It would be so much easier to just be normal.  It would be so much easier if I was just like every other guy and just did normal guy things.

Dressing up as a woman is obviously just a choice.  It is obviously something that I could choose to do or not do.  These things are obvious aren't they?  I always thought they were.  I always thought these things were just a choice, something I could turn on or off.  But the older I get, the more I am unsure of how much of a choice I do have in this.  Obviously, I do think I have the choice to dress as a woman or not.  But what I see is that if I choose to not dress as a woman then I am denying myself something that makes me happy.

That is the best answer that I have come up with for why I do what I do; it makes me happy.  I think it is as simple as that.  But it is so far from simple.  It has taken me many years to come to this conclusion and many more years to be okay with it and when I really press myself it is something I still constantly work on being okay with. 

One of the things I struggled with was thinking that I am making it up.  That dressing as a woman doesn't really make me happy, there is no real reason why I am doing it other than maybe some sort of bizarre sexual fetish.  But one day while I was in a shoe store, dressed as a man, and I tried on a pair of women's shoes and I realized how happy it made me feel inside.  That it just felt right.  That is really how I started pickng out many of my clothes, when I put it on did it make me happy.  Did it make me feel good?  Did it make me smile?  If so, then the price tag was essentially irrelevant.

This practice helped me get over the fear of myself, and get quite a few pieces of clothes, but it certainly did not help me to get any style.  I ended up with many items of clothing, but not many outfits.  And I also did not have clothes that worked very well for my body shape.  Over time I have worked to increase my ability to dress with style while flattering my figure and also making myself happy.

One of the big things I have learned through all of this is that you need to listen to yourself.  You need to allow yourself to give yourself the gift of happiness even if it risks everything you have ever known or been told is what is right.

Why I am here

Well hello to you.  I'd like to let you know why I am here and what I hope to accomplish by writing this blog.  First of all I know that there will be some of you who do not agree with what I am doing, if this is you then please just pass this blog by.  There is enough hate in this world.

I decided to start this blog as a way to express myself and help other like minded people to know that they are not alone.  There is a lot of misinformation about people like me and I thought it would be good to throw my two cents into the mix.  I do not claim to represent all men who dress as women, that would be silly.  All I can do is try and explain what my thoughts are on the subject.

I also started this blog as I have tried searching for blogs like it and have as of yet been unable to find any like it.  I really like reading other fashion blogs and have learned much about fashion and style from other people and thought it would be good to pass along my information to others.

The other reason I wanted to do this blog is because of the other transvestites blogs I have seen.  In general I have been very disgusted by what I have seen that other people are choosing to portray transvestites as.  Not all of them, but many of them have shown men dressed in lingerie, obviously very sexualized, obviously looking for something that I am not looking for.

The last reason I chose to write this blog is that I truly consider myself as a transvestite or crossdresser, not a transsexual.  I do not consider myself as a woman trapped inside of a man's body.  I consider myself to be a man who likes to occasionally dress as a woman.  Many other transvestites out there apparently hate being a male and do not go do male things.  Just for your information, some of my favorite things to do while not dressed as a woman is to go duck hunting, cut and split firewood, and do construction around my house, from remodeling, to yard work, to furniture building.  I like being a guy, I just also like dressing as a woman.

The last thing I would like to let you know is that do not know how often I will be uploading new pictures. I will post new outfit pictures up when I can, but please do not expect it to be daily and then be upset when I do not live up to your expectations.

Ok that is all for now!  Thanks for reading!

Outfit - First Post

Boots - Steve Madden - Factory Brand Shoes

Skinny Jeans - Mossimo - Target 

Blouse - Mossimo - Target

Black leather jacket - Pelle Studio - Wilson's Suede and Leather

I absolutely love this leather jacket.  In this picture you can just barely see the red lining showing.  I remember when I was trying it on at Wilson's.  A mother was trying to help her daughter find a jacket when I put on this coat and she turned to me and said "That coat looks good on her."  It was one of the first unsolicited comments I've gotten on something I have been wearing.

Really I like everything I have on in this picture.  I love the skinny jeans and the calf high boots!