New cup size, a bit about really needing SRS, and actually being thankful to be trans.

Well I had to buy new bras.

Over the last month or so all my bras straps have been snapping. I mean I go to pull my breasts into the cups and pop there goes another strap. Well the last one finally gave way late Monday night when I took it off. Actually it had broken like a week earlier but I sewed it back together.

I'll go without a bra sometimes when I go out. I mean my girls are pretty amazing looking. I have like the breasts of a teenager and I can legally drink :)

But I always wear a bra to work. For one thing I have to wear these baggy unisex (which means guy) kitchen shirts at work and I want my girls to have the lift to be visible under the shirt especially when I get stuck in a shirt a size to big. Also, I have a very physically demanding job and well there is a big difference between having my tits bounce around when I'm drinking at a bar and having them bounce around at work.

So yeah, I had to go bra shopping yesterday. Fun.

Anyway I just went to Ross. I was fitted last year and I think I made a pretty good assumption that I had just gone up a cup size. So I went to the bras and picked out some D cups and then went to try them on.

Guess what. They fit! Yay D cups.

Actually weirdly, or not, I was pretty happy with C's. I'm starting to wonder when they're going to stop growing.

Oh and guess what. Still no cleavage. I mean the breasts touching and a nice beautiful sexy line forming.Yeah I don't get that. I have push up bras and everything.

But I guess I am a D cup now. The bras definitely fit.

I mean I don't have the "ploop" sound when I take it off at the end of the night. You know the sound of a breast being shoved into a cup too small and sweating, and then when you take it out at the end of the night it's almost stuck for a little while?

I'm exaggerating a bit here for effect.

That only happened a couple of times, when it was hot outside.

...and in other news it's looking like I'm not getting the Jim Collins grant this year. Maybe I'll publish my essay. It's a lot more personal than it was last year.

The thing about surgery for me is...I've so transitioned. I mean in every aspect of my life I am a woman. Except that one little thing.

It's hard to explain without making it sound like a sex thing. Yes I would really love to be able to take a partner home and not have to stop at heavy petting. Or even just having the confidence in myself that I don't have to hold back until I really trust that whoever I'm dating or might be dating respects that I have a part of my body that I don't like, that I really don't like.

I mean even without sex I definitely am stand-offish when it comes to a close relationship. I mean I can't be fully myself when there is a part of me that isn't really a part of me.

It's just so many assumptions people have about people because of what they have between their legs.

It's "Oh well you're still part guy right?"

Or "You must really like it up the ass."

I'm not a gay dude and never have been. I don't know it's this pressure to play a role that isn't who I am or a role I'm comfortable playing that really gets to me.

Then there's the changing my sex with social security, and not having doctors and dentists insist on calling me by pronouns that aren't appropriate. Or co-workers (actually only one in particular who I never should have let know that I'm trans) have the most difficult time believing that I am who I say I am.

FYI. Your sex is in your head not in between your legs.

I was thinking about it this morning lying in bed. I really want someone who'll spoon behind me, pressing her breasts into my shoulders with her arm around me and her hand on my breasts. I don't know where I was going with this...

Anyway, I'm really ready for this transition thing to be over, to move on with my life. To only be reminded that I'm trans when I take my medicine.

I don't know. It's hard not to be envious of cis-sexual people who are able to take their gender for granted. I mean when I was told as a small child that I had a penis because I was a little boy it didn't make sense to me. It wasn't "Oh of course! That seems right!" It was "Oh?!"

You know though. Even though I was born trans I am still really glad to be girl. I think the only thing worse for me than having been born trans-female would be had I actually been male.

Ewwwwww!

Bad grammar/spelling is not attractive, and other rants and raves

Well that guy I wrote about last time...I had to text him that I didn't think I was interested.

On Tuesday last week when we met I was going to give him a chance with a date. He actually seemed to be interested in me as a person not just a "chick with a dick." I mean, so many people, cis-gendered guys in particular don't really see me as a real person just an exotic sex object. having someone attracted to me as a woman and not as a trans-woman is really attractive.

On the other hand...

Don't leave out apostrophes it really is not attractive, nor is spelling "you're" as "your," and "when" as "ween." Also drop the "e" before adding "ing." Reading shit like "I like it ween we talked. I hop your haveing a good day" is really, really, really unattractive.

Also if we only met one time and had a rather awkward conversation and I decide to give you a chance. It doesn't mean that I want to go out the very next day, or that I want to have long conversations with you via badly spelled/punctuated/grammatically incorrect texts.

And if we'd been dating for a while asking me how my day is going would be sweet, if we've just met it's just a little too much.

Finally, although I am making an effort not to hold someone's sex against them as a criteria for dating them, if you are male you really need to proceed slowly. Although I don't like/believe in sexual categories, and you could call me "bisexual," I am now and always have been slightly more attracted to female bodied people than I am to male bodied people. Keep that in mind and don't try to move things too quickly.

I wanted to write an update to my last entry. I don't know why I care that people know who and what type of people I am attracted to sexually. It doesn't really matter.

Then again, if I try to rationalize why I need people to see me as female, there isn't really a rational reason for it.

Gender identity and sexuality has to be biological just for that reason.

In other news I contacted  a professor in VCU counseling psychology. I'm looking into being a therapist/researcher for trans people. I briefly outline some of my viewpoints on the whole gender spectrum thing and asked for advice as to what I should do to get into the program.

She hasn't responded back. Perhaps I shouldn't have written so much about what I think. I'm not sure. It wasn't a long email but perhaps I should have just been more to the point and just asked what I wanted to know, not explain where I'm coming from.

Also, I have written 142 pages of my rough draft for my first novel which is basically a memoir. Writing a book is a lot harder and more time consuming than I thought.

When I was in college I took a class in stone carving. The first day we chipped away at our granite rocks with chisels the way that Michelangelo would have. The second day we were able to use the modern pneumatic chisels. I decided that were I to carve David it wouldn't be worth chipping away at stone by hand for as long as it would take.

Writing this book is kind of reminding me of that.

142 pages in I'm really beginning to see the finished book, but it is a long way away, and I'm going to have to reorganize and rewrite so much of what I've written.

Of course, I'm at the point where I have to finish this book, and I have to get it published, and it has to be fucking phenomenal because I've put to much work into it already not to finish it.

And I really hope it makes money.

Also, I am going to figure out a way to go back to school.
I am so burnt out on cooking as a profession that I just want to escape.
Give me an office and decent income. I'm so sick of being broke.

And I haven't heard back from the Jim Collins Foundation yet. In all seriousness I don't know how much longer I can go without my operation. I'm actually really starting to get depressed about it.

About gender performance and dating.

I'm going to have to retire one of my favorite blouses soon. The reason it is one of my faves is because it is really flattering, makes me look really curvy and really shows off my boobs. When I bought it I had B cups and it was a little snug buttoning the top button. Now I have really full c cups (actually I'm wondering if I won't have to go up a cup size soon) and can't even wear it while wearing a bra. So I wore it Sunday night with every intention of going to a drag show before going to sing Karaoke. I don't really even like drag, and I got distracted on my way to the show, and ended up eating dinner at a friends.

Anyway, it's been a month or two since I've worn that top and my tits were on the verge of popping out all night. A good thing I guess, but I actually don't want to accidentally flash anyone. It's funny though, as an observation, when I had much smaller breasts it seemed ridiculous to be shy about them. Of course, when I had smaller breasts they didn't seem all that much like breasts to me either, but I'm getting off topic.

So I went to karaoke, with my tits as exposed as I would ever feel comfortable in a public place, (The top is ruffled also so I can show a whole lot without it seeming obscene.) and this girl came up to me. "I went to one of your recent shows." She said.

"Huh?" 

"The country Western show a few Sundays ago."

"Oh I don't work at Babe's"

"But don't you do shows?"

It started to dawn on me that she thought I was a performer. (I'd also been a little heavier on the eyeliner than I usually am. I saw a picture of a model with cat eyes in Glamour and thought I'd give it a try). "I don't perform."

"Oh, you should, you'd be really good!"

"I'm not a drag queen." She paused. It was actually hard to tell what she was thinking. "For one thing," I said, "These are real." I pointed to my halfway exposed right breast. "And this gender is my real gender."

Things started to get really awkward and I realized she'd been trying to give me a compliment/flirt with me, and didn't realize that she was being more insulting than anything else, or rather it had just dawned on her and was now a little embarrassed.

The other thing is...I almost never pick up on a feminine person hitting on me. I mean, I can tell when a butch is hitting on me but almost never when a femme is. Perhaps, (personal body issues aside) this has something to do with the fact that I practically never dated before I transitioned.

Speaking of which, I think I have another date, with a guy,(different guy) and I'm a little apprehensive about it. I met him in Babe's, and he's kinda short (though really built) and I read him as a trans guy, or as a possibly trans guy. I probably wouldn't have been so open to conversation with him if I hadn't.

So I gave him my number, and he texted me, a lot, yesterday. He's really into me. 

Here's the thing. I have never dated a guy before. I made out with one guy once shortly after I started living full time. (I don't remember if I was on hormones yet or not) and I didn't really feel any chemistry... then of course I slept with my date when I was a bridesmaid, but he was someone I've known for a while and trust.

It's a bit of a leap for me to go on an actually date with a guy, and I hope he has the sense to realize that. Dating guys isn't something I'm exactly comfortable with. And honestly, I'm not sure that there is any potential with any of them, cisgendered anyway.

Of course, they're a hell of a lot easier to pick up. I mean, I can be really picky when it comes to guys, they seem to make offers constantly.

Then of course the final thing to say, and I'm about out of time, is that well that guy I wrote about last entry, at first was really condescendingly dismissive of me "thanks for writing about me," he said, "You're a great writer." and now I think he took my last entry to mean that I didn't want to be friends with him.

Which isn't what I said. I don't think.