Barbara's plans to dress in imaginary femme clothes didnt last.

Plans to dress in imaginary femme clothes didnt last.

I was feeling close to my feelings and wanted to see if the different personality could be maintained with only a little polish on fingers and toes to act as a little reminder.

It kinda worked, but I kept thinking of excuses to dress. We were talking about how on a 40 mile hike at the age of 12 or so with a back-pack that was probably close to 1/2 my weight, I had an odd gait that was remarked upon. When I mimed what it looked like, Dee said it was kind of a show girl walk. I have also tried slowing my stride and walking more with each step a little closer to an imaginary center line than I would en homme. Not trying to wiggle or really walk like a girl so much as try to recapture my younger walk that got me teased a but, to see what it was.

I decided to dig out the dusty treadmill we got from Dee's aunt. Naturally my periwinkle Keds seemed the logical choice. Dressing 'relapse' one. I was wearing boxers and a mans shirt. As I picked up the pace I ditched the shirt, My 8 year old son came in and said ooo manly with your shirt off! made me laugh.

I ended up burning off my whole breakfast (Strawberry Awake, Walmarts version of Special K with Strawberries) I walked and ran 1.5 miles in 30 mins, no record, but a lot more exercise than I usually get. Then I mowed the yard. Dee said "How butch of you!"

Showered put on a pair of jeans and a mans shirt. I was getting irritable and grumpy. Dee loaned m her turquoise polo to replace my long sleeved turquoise shirt just saying sweetly, "Put this on instead you look uncomfortable" I was trying to drift off for a nap...I slipped off the jeans, and boxers and on a pair of champagne Hanes Her Way high cut briefs. ahh that felt better. Left the shirt and panties on, pulled on mens cargo knee shorts and no-show womans socks and my Keds and went to the store.

Bought Dee a blue with polka dots skirt (unfortunately she has lost more weight lately and I was about a size behind, but she seemed to appreciate the gesture.)

Tonight she found a pair of lace banded pink panties in size 8 that had never fit her so she donated them to the cause. little bow and flower just below where I, well depending on mood shall we say,peek out over. She said it was really arousing to see them on..very validating...sings "I feel pretty....

Hi, I'm Johnny Cash....

When I was pre-pubescent I often (nearly always) was mistaken for my mother when I answered the phone..I hated that it felt like it was proving write all those who called me names about not being masculine enough.

When I got older, I made the mistake (twice) of working for my Dad. people couldn't tell us apart on the phone.

I am a natural mimic. I moved around the county a lot and pick up regional affectations nearly immediately. When I run into to people in the large metro where I live that are from other places I have to watch it that I don't step into their cadences, lest they think I am mocking them. ~sings to the baby sitting next to me trying to grab the laptop...I'm gonna buy you a mockingbird...

Anyway from watching SNL I used to amuse people by doing impressions of impressionists. A really good ear can tell the difference between someone imitating Fernando Lamas and Someone imitating Billy Crystal as Lamas. I was so good it sounded pretty much like Billy Crystal imitating say, 'Nando's cousin.

One impression I do, is dependent on being sick. When I have a sore throat (like today) I can do The Man in Black. SO I'm sitting here in male boxers, an aqua mans long sleave shirt with the sleaves pushed up and painted fingers and toes saying, Hi I'm Johnny Cash. These days I get my high by readin the Bible..~sings I Walk the line....

Maybe I should work on my Harvey Firestein?

Photo regression

I have mentioned previously Dee's mad skills with Adobe Photoshop. We were messing around looking at picture of cute lesbians. One picture caught our eyes and we had a brief cat fight about whose face would be 'shopped onto which girl. (I wanted to be the Brunette. I just don't think I can pull off blond yet!)

She was searching pics of me. I was SO camera shy when I was young that from age 16-24 there probably are only a handful of pictures at all. I should have embarked on a career in robbery or confidence games at that point but among other repressions by my evil parents the instilled a morality that denied me free expression of my brilliant criminal mind. She found a picture of me at 14. This was the very age when I was guiltily becoming aroused wearing my big sisters hose that were hung in the bathroom to dry.

The finished picture just spoke to me. I didn't want to show the titillating aspect of the photo with the two girls because at that time I was naive and innocent and curious.

I wanted acceptance from girls and had fantasies about being included in pajama parties or being able to shower with them in the girls locker room. I hated the parade of boys in the male locker room. I didn't feel inadequate there as far as being embarrassed about my genitals, its just that boys walking naked with no support with things flopping around looks a little silly. Body hair (of which on my lower half I was fairly 'manly' early) looked less clean to me. I always had plenty of testosterone, but I just didn't seem to be able to process calories into the bulk in the right places for those secondary male characteristics. Ironically I probably looked better naked then than clothed because of muscle definition, I worked out like a fiend to try to gain bulk, and all it did was pop veins on my forearms, and lean me out.

I am going to attach the picture as it shows my self image better than the mirror did at the time. About that, you cant tell but one of the pictures on my blog here is actually flipped, Dee and I discovered that because I was photo-shy for so long that pictures look less like me to me than a mirror does. Everyone has slight left/right variations on the faces and the imprinting on me from mirror time has regestered my right on the left and left on the right.

As I type this, Dee found this on CNN just now. It warmed my heart that these parent wanted the child's happiness first. A must see: A brave girl

Thoughts while bathing...

Our Master (Master, Misses and Miss?) Bathroom is horrible. You have to lean back a little over the commode to shut the door in the 5 x 6 area that contains the shower and the commode. Outside of that area is a single sink against the wall that should have let in the north facing light. A large arch allows no privacy, or sound control or light control from the Bedroom.

Anyway the 'kids' bath has a cheap (and filthy) fiberglass shower/tub combo. If the door had been placed 2 feet to the left and the commode also The would be room for a Seeping tub or even a whirlpool.

This tub is so narrow that my relatively bony butt barely fits! I resolved to try. I had this image of warm water, lather, shapely calves, a gently gliding razor...~shiver~ Dee was exhausted from our hours of really good exploration of history and feelings for my male side's issues. Barbara seems to have a lot of opinions about who and why she is, and she is an inexhaustible chatterbox. She was drifting, her eyelids were getting heavy...oh wait that's Dani's ~giggle~.

She suggested a little Barbara Time. I thought of the bath.

I was wearing these soft girly white running shorts with aqua stripes on the side (commando). I slipped off my t-shirt, nervously adjusted the blinds to let in some natural light and began scrubbing down the shower. Got it clean enough maybe for a backdrop, and to not offend Barbara's tender sensibilities.

Once the shower was clean I ran a bath. FORGOT Mr. (miss?) Bubble. Used 1/2 bottle of fragrant pink shampoo. (later chided by my SO how I hate it when our lotion/soap/really anything liquid junior fetishist does just that. I explained Barbara is much more understanding or a girls needs.)

The bath went swimmingly.

A nice time was had by all.

Who invented women's sizes?

Wanted to express the thought here but to much work to retype and reformat the whole thought So I added a bit more rant and plopped it here, If you have an interest in things CD beyond just gazing with admiration at my lovely legs, I highly recommend a visit there.

"Ive got a shopping problem..


I barely posted here about my online purchase when I was off to Walmart for a small item and came home with lipstick, lip liner. cheap 80's body spray that hit me nostalgically, a $2 anklet and a two pack of satin panties that are high cut on the leg.

Came home, got further instruction from GG on the idiocy (male side speaking here) of womans sizes. I am a 14 starving down to a 12 I had a size 6 VS pair on today that was snug, my size 8 I bought by eyeball before I even knew anything about sizes seemed close but since they were nylon I thought maybe I should go up in size. GG had explained that odd sizes are juniors and usually hipper styles and cuts. These pantie packs seemed to also have helpfully provided waist sizes. I am a 33 but soon maybe 32 so I saw 13 with 30-32 and figured perfect! its in between my skirt sizes and maybe a little snug in the waist..


BIG GG laughs as she explained that a size 13 probably could be shared by us both, AT THE SAME TIME! It didn't help that these were prepackaged in a box with a window. I get that now. A larger gal probably doesn't want her drawers waved about like a flag at the register. PS, the lovely gal on the cover is a bit closer to a 4 than a 13.

Women are the consumers of womens clothes primarily..DO they LIKE this nonsense?? Tape measures were invented to tell you how big something is, it was not invented so you could gather random raw data, then whip out a fashion decoder slide rule and triangulate the hypotenuse of the left integral to determine whether your a small gal, a medium sized gal or a larger gal.. SO's Dreaded Sweats are making a hell of a lot of sense to me now. ~irritated~

NO wonder the cashier didn't seem to wonder about a dude in 2 days beard and a bald head was buying panties. I'm guessing she could tell at a glance they 'twernt for the pirate. On the other hand she didn't seem to pass judgment on the roll of hot pink duct tape either, ~shrug~

I propose the following sizing guide as it will work in the US, the UK, Japan and Greenland. Measure yourself. If your hips are thus and your waist is such, you are a blue. If instead your hips are yay wide and your waist a little less, you are a giraffe. If your hips are yay wide and your hips a little more you can see you would be considered quartz plus."

Cooking as Barbara Billingsley.

My SO and I were talking about our eating plans and our progress. (She is down 12 lbs to Barbara's loss of 11 so she no longer glares at Barbara on the scale thinking "You skinny BITCH!")

Barry has always enjoyed cooking and does a fair amount of the food prep and cooking. We always eat pretty well when he is feeling creative. Probably something phallic but he loves to toss large knifes around and slice and dice, the faster the better.

Last few nights he has prepared a couple of different versions of a stir fry, and the third night freshened up the previous two versions with some fresh wok'ed cabbage and a smidge of a sweet Thai chili garlic sauce.

As I cooked I wish I had the privacy to dress. I pictured myself in a sleeveless suit that we had seen in clearance at Coldwater Creek. I imagined pearls around my neck and wearing fairly low (by Barry's standards) kitten heels. A short little frilly apron completed the tableau. What I actually wore was manly biker short cotton underwear under camouflage patterned flannel jammies pants with a white polo shirt.

The only nod to my feminine side was the pink pearl toenail polish and Barbara's too strong cat-eye reading glasses when I needed to do some fine chopping. With Barry's surgeon-like hands,(oh, now denuded of hair) and Barbara's patience, I sliced very even shoe string potatoes, tossed them in olive oil and then made two batches of baked fries. One with cilantro and paprika, One with rosemary and sea salt. I grilled some bone in skinless chicken breasts that I marinated in olive oil and rosemary, and added a salad of Romaine cucumber, celery and tomato with Newman's Raspberry and Walnut Vinaigrette. Barbara walked it upstairs to Dee and was rewarded with enthusiastic accolades.


Today we (Dee and Barbara) were lounging in bed with our laptops. Exchanging girl talk, sharing feelings, that kind of crap. (As Barry would see it) It felt nice to be browsing together , no secrets, reading posts on crossdressers.com and looking at clothes and legs together. Dee has mad skills in photo-manipulation (see also the post below!!) She downloaded a trial version of a make-over program (The Mirror of Beauty)that had a feminize option as well. Her eyes lit up as she found options like bee-sting for lips and Botox injections. We tried all sorts of options, and at some point got a face that we agreed was feminine and pretty. We found a cute sporty short 'do that Barbara felt sexy in and would be perfect for her to run in wearing her new hot pink sports bra. Does nothing for Barry since his bias is the longer the hair the better.

Messing with hair color, and styles we hit upon one that left Dee stunned. She reported that the picture alone cause an unexpected and very sudden rush of physical attraction. It brought a flutter to my heart to achieve the best possible result within a week of the big talk about my CD urges.

I was grateful when she showed acceptance. Thrilled to have her at least enjoy with me the shopping and the "playing Barbie with Barbara". Finally, I was overcome to see the same look of desire in her eyes that she has for Barry when she is really "in the mood."

Some Pictures of Barbara

These are some pictures that I took with my SO to document my progress so far:

Here is my head shot. We are learning to apply my makeup in a way that best suits and flatters me, as well as helping me to feel pretty. We decided to go with a black & white picture until we have makeup that is better suited to covering my 5 o'clock shadow.


These pictures are re-creations of the outfit that I reluctantly tried on because pants seemed to be too unisex. However, it was in this outfit, that my SO first confronted with the fact that I looked like a woman rather than the spouse she had been married to for many years. She was a little disconcerted at the time, which I found incredibly flattering and validating. At the time, I hadn't taken the opportunity to shave my legs. Now that they are smooth, I can get that reaction from her in hosiery and a cute pair of heels.




And finally, this is a picture of me, wearing and outfit from our first shopping trip together. Underneath, I am wearing a waist cinching girdle and a bra. I didn't think the bra would work at first, but was delighted to find that it did in fact give me the shape that I am working toward. Foundation garments have always intrigued me. As a child, my first "porn" was found in the Women's Undergarment section of the Sears catalog.

Near the begining.

This Blog is an attempt to balance my need to try to explore the long repressed feminine side of me in a semi-public space with a modicum of privacy with the need to be open and transparent with my GG significant other.

A little recent history:

Browsing about an adult site I came across a post about Cross-Dressing Males and their possible appeal to Women with a Bi-Sexual Orientation. I still haven't seen a lot of evidence that this idea is anything more than a fanciful idea, but It appealed to me.

I have felt urges to wear pretty things, and couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was I liked about it. I was teased about looking feminine as a youth so I was uncomfortable pursuing any dress-up play that might validate those that I viewed as my detractors. I wearied of defending my slender frame, and my orientation.

As late as my middle 20's working in a corporate environment I was distressed to learn that straight men and women were both speculating on my orientation, and yet at the same time the members of the fairly open gay community there were certain (without anyone asking) that I was in fact certainly straight. Wasn't sure how to take that.

I was a cross-dresser of opportunity only. If the rare occasion presented itself that I had complete privacy (really needed to be no one else in the same building!) and access to something pretty with sensuous feeling fabric in something closely approximating my size.

As I was fortunate to marry a girl with a very open-minded and sensual attitude, A little exploration was not something that I feared, as far as any shame or revulsion. A couple of times in the bedroom during some gender-bending role play, I did cross-dress. I wonder now how much I steered it that way, but at the time, It felt like a natural occurred.

In drag, I felt I looked silly ( a little hairy for the bustier and garter straps) but was very excited and enthused to try. I was a little embarrassed to communicate how intriguing it felt.

Back to the recent re-framing I was doing when I realized that like the old cliche, I wanted to escape my shell and spent some time in the skin of a hot lesbian. That seemed less "Gay" (not that there is anything wrong with that ~Seinfeld) I think that was my male side, specifically the voyeur in me. I took a few tentative steps tottering on a ridiculous pair of clear-heeled 6" Stripper shoes in size 10 I found at a thrift store. I met some GG friends that were supportive and gave tips on what might be flattering. I took a couple of furtive steps towards the CD/TG community and ran scared due to my early fears of being identified in just the way that I was now finding to be interesting and oddly, fulfilling.

As I developed this fantasy world in my head where if I got that last problem area waxed, got a cuter pair of shoes and learned to apply some subtle make-up that my SO would melt with desire for me as a girl, thereby closing some kind of hole in my schizophrenic circle. In my girlish enthusiasm, I felt dropping a few hints (that my fantasy world thought all hit their mark and were received with a coy smile not puzzled tolerance) and getting Barbara comfortable in her clothes would be all that would be needed to win my SO over into a wild three-way with all my personalities. What I really did was lead a trail of breadcrumbs in diverse and scary directions.

After a few tense starts and a lot of love and understanding, I feel heard, accepted, loved and most of all pretty.