Pantyhose sure are warm....

Today at the barracks was linen service. I sort of forgot it was Wednesday. I left in a hurry and left my bottom drawer hanging open. I keep my short sleeve shirts there and all of the small electronics, camera, charges and so on. Staff here seems pretty upstanding, but never-the-less, no need to tempt anyone. So I was quickly looking over them to make sure all was in place. Yep, all there...

...including the pair of pantyhose I had balled up and set on top.

I got a virtual laugh online out of Dee when I related this. She pointed out that a lot of guys up here wear them for warmth against the extreme cold. Even her dad. Hmmm, he might be wearing them for warmth. Don't they say that a girl tends to marry her father?

Little White Dress.

I made the four hour dash home after getting a couple of days leave. I lied to Dee and told her I was going to sleep and then come the next morning. Towards the end of my 4 hours of excuses about where I was in camp and what I was doing, I couldn't reach her. I was a little worried I had pushed it too far and she was miffed at me putting off our nightly phone call so long.

All was forgiven including the foolhardy run home after 12 hours in the rumbly seat before I even left. I arrived weary, but pleased to be home. The kids were up and cheerfully enthusiastic about not alerting mom to my presence. I had a fantasy about getting a bath and a quality triple blade to touch up the hack job I did to my skin. None of that was to be, though.

We planned to have some "Barbara time" when the kids were bundled off to school. We had grand ideas of costumery and pictures, but the errands to get me ready and financed for the trip back out took up most of the time.

We did manage to get past Goodwill and spend about $9. I got a Glen Quagmire approved pilot's jacket with wrist stripes. (Giggedy!) Dee got herself a leather look jacked and a pink one. She got a couple of items for the kids. I found a slip with lace work at the décolletage in ivory and pink. Yes, I liked it for me too but pink is her color. My favorite purchase though was a lined, white lace, clingy, sleeveless dress I found with the wedding gowns. I had time to try it on before I left and was satisfied with the look even still wearing my briefs and crew socks.

The beard would probably need to go if I hope not to be read.

Sisters and clothes.

No I don't mean borrowing from my sister. Other than the odd pair of pantyhose and the initial full dress-up at age three and a half, I haven't borrowed clothes from her for at least 30 years.

I started amassing a femme-drobe after I had come out to my wife. In assembling an actual outfit with her help, from time to time at first I had to borrow a shell or a top or jacket. As my wardrobe expanded to take over 2/3 of the closet, I was able to return the favor. She has borrowed my Liz Claiborn sweater top a time or two and depending on the shoe we can sometimes share. As I dieted out of things, she dieted into them, chasing me down the scale. Always though we have been careful to segregate the 'Hers' from the 'Hurs'. Dee explained that having seen arguments between sisters or roommates, she didn't want any misunderstandings. She always asks if she wants to borrow something. I am flattered that she wants to and get a a little private thrill out of seeing my clothes walking around in public.

Her weight loss has been at a faster rate than mine, and if I had managed to stop at my goal she would have already been been at her goal of weighing less than me. I am away from home eating really good institutional food. (No, I haven't been arrested....again) Its incredibly calorie laden food designed to sustain rough necks working 12 hour shifts. She has continued to lose meanwhile and there is a good chance that when I see her next we will be at the same weight. I a little taller, her a bit curvier.

When we got married we were about the same proportions and although she didn't know it of course at the time occasionally I did borrow, obviously without asking.

Today she was practicing her photography and post production skills and borrowed one of my thrift store ball gowns. The results really showed how beautiful she is and how confident she is feeling in her skin and my dress these days.

Bored, yet smooth.

So I am stuck in this camp, training by day, ineffectively perving online by night as most adult sites are blocked. I understood that I would have a small private room and communal bathroom, that remains mine for the duration of the assignment there. I still thought it prudent to get the lay of the land, in this land of roughnecks prior to breaking out the ball gowns.

The only femme thing I brought was the very first pair of panties I actually bought and admitted to myself they were for me. The are plain, white and nylon. At a glance they could be men's bikini style briefs. I actually wore them one day, and it was comforting, but not femme. I was expecting to go home Friday afternoon. There is a lot of pent up urges for both of us. Dee has taken some really beautiful, tasteful, sexy self portraits and we had talked a bit about taking some of Barbara. (that is after my male side's more primal needs are met!)

This morning I woke up an hour early and am afraid to go back to sleep, any tardiness can result in termination. high risk job with no margin for someone not being there when something gets dangerous. So I headed to the communal bathroom to shave my head and face. Can of cheap foamy shaving cream, bar of Irish spring, one single edged disposable razor.

The eight stalls are not very private. Cheap three by three vinyl u-shaped showers with plain vinyl curtains. Two rows of four across from each other. I had woken up an hour early and had the showers to myself. I started with my head and was going to just hit a few of the easy to reach spots. As I cleared a section of brush, it only made the next thicket look all the more furry. I ended up taking it all of as best I could in odd contortions in that little shower. I ended up bloody but smooth. The water up here apparently is incredibly hard..I seemed to have lime scale on my hands and feet after an hour in the shower. The cuts seem a little slow healing. Next time I think I'll wait till I can get home.

Back to my old driver's license weight.

I figure the steel-toe work boots required on my new job and the heavy wool coat to keep out the chill has to be making up the 10 lb deficit.

Having plummeted through the basement, I catch glimpses of myself looking gaunt in reflective surfaces. I am eating with abandon. Between last night and this morning I polished off the extra deliciously greasy cheeseburger Dee packed for me when she kindly packed me up for the trip. I also finished the whole bag of gooey chocolate chip cookies the 12 year old resident baker made for me. I'm waiting for the cafeteria at the residence campus I am staying in to open to take on another load of calories and decided to update the blog for a reasonably productive use of time.

I was more reticent to leave home for a week than I thought I would be. Dee and I haven't been away from each-other much over the years, and now it's going to be an every other week thing. In my silly obsessive need to tank up on sensory overload before I left, I neglected the opportunity to spend some quality time with her and the kids and I regret that, as she knew I would.

My room is comfortable, spartan and lonely. I have no computer access from my room thanks to HP.*

*I dragged up here with me my HP desktop. It is cobbled together with duct-tape. I mean that literally I have bright pink duct tape holding a donor power supply to the outside of the poorly designed practically not maintainable case. The HP monitor didn't survive the journey. It won't turn on at all. I think the once clever HP engineers now spend all their time finding ways to make the power supplies in all their products fail on a schedule so they can sell you a new one. Like I would ever by HP again. Ive said it before, I own nothing but HP. I have two dead laptops, just jury-rigged the desktop, and now a monitor. Four out of four of my most recent HP purchases all developing similar issues is pretty telling. Before he messed up the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara developed a pretty similar program for General motors of planned obsolescence. The American car industry is still mistrusted by anyone with any engineering sense to this day. So long HP, I hope you enjoy spending the last of your ill gotten gains on all that expensive advertising in advance of your eventual collapse and restructuring.

Frottage

In my early sexual experience which of course for me was entirely male mode and hetero, I really enjoyed grinding against an eager girl's zipper. I had heard this called zipper grinding, or rubbing off at the time. Later I heard the term dry-humping which seemed an oxymoron. Plenty of humping, not so much dry.

In our explorations online, Dee and I have met some interesting people. One in particular is a friend of Dee's who is a lesbian and speaks in the vernacular of the culture. I have never really seen myself as a lesbian in a man's body as they say because there are cultural issues I don't share. I am gynophilic in much the same way, but biology, experiences and perspective is not the same. One of the terms Dee picked up was tribadism. Sometimes tongue in cheek miss-spelled in their community as tribalism which is what spell check wants me to change that to. Essentially it is a form of frottage, as in external touching or grinding. Against another's hand, their leg or in the case of two woman with some gymnastic effort, more intimate contact on contact.

We saw an interesting video of such and we both found ti well motivating to say the least. I donned a pair of cheap pantyhose...(we call these floss)...and a sports bra just to give Dee something for leverage and well, tucked we went at it...quite interesting. They ended up later with a rather large hole strategically torn in them with her teeth, hence the term floss.

I am a bit unsure about what to do with these sort of experiences blog wise. Barbara herself is absent a lot lately from my life and out bedroom so there is a relevancy issue at times. In addition Barbara seems to be a time-warped me from an earlier time, and not that sexual usually, so to sexualize her here seems odd to me. The blog itself although it was meant mostly for me as a place to sort out my feelings, has become apparently a bit more than that with both regular visitors and the curious who want to know a bit more about what life is like for a straight married crossdresser. Although some of them come here hoping for "Hot SHe-male Pics!" and leave dissapointed, my sense is that plenty might be loved ones of a crossdresser or maybe a crossdresser who like I was less than a year ago confused as to what his dressing means to him and is seeking answers.

On the other hand, Dee and I have been highly sexual with each other and quite open about it in another aspect of our online life. We have become together sex-bloggers and although I mention in passing that I am also a crossdresser, since I am usually not dressed (or in femme mode mentally) during our adventures, the CD issues are only a footnote there.

I am only sure I am not starting a 4th "Hot Tranny Sex Blog" so perhaps I will just relate the relevant adventures here as they occur. It is weird though to fracture my writer's psyche to adjust the tone and timber of the writing to the euphemisms I employ on this blog, when I write raw, gritty filth on the other. Maybe that is appropriate though as the two sides of me are a bit different in the sensibilities.

Sometimes it is nice to slip into my femme mode as a respite from my too-urgent, too-driven, too-obsessive sexual urges as my male side experiences. I feel a little guilty though not letting Barbara be more free with her desires what ever they might be. She seems remarkably neutral on the subject.

Finally Starting My Manly Job!

Going to be a heavy equipment operator. I realize that there are even petite women employed in similar jobs, but it tickles my funny bone a bit to imagine up in that cab with my current gender awareness, and my return to my slender frame.

Along those lines, I have decided the only reason I gained weight over the years was a side effect of Prozac. I stopped taking it after years on it at about the same time I started consciously eating healthier and avoiding snacks. I slid right through the ground floor of my diet of 135 in to the basement of where I was when I got married 15 years ago. I was 124 yesterday. I have been eating larger meals, I am out of the habit of snacking/grazing between meals, but I may have to start. Hard to believe that a few months ago I was bulging out the sides of a size 14 skirt.

I have added real butter back into my diet, am drinking 2% milk, where I had even given up skim before, I eat red meat, pasta, bread. Its like old times when I couldn't gain weight. Seems odd now, because I thought the days when my metabolism would let me eat whatever I want were long gone.

I wonder if its all the sex?

Another Prom Dress, Another Dollar

The other day I "pre-ran" a thrift store. Blue tags were 50% off. That usually means that on Monday, blue tags are $1.

I didnt see much that interested me except for a Nehru jacket that I don't actually know if it was cut for a man or a woman. Obviously, I don't care; it fit well.

I lost my wallet the other day, so no ID, no debit card and no access to the $2 or so in it. I was out near the thrift store on Monday which is also near a bank that knows me by sight. I went in and they did remember me, and were willing to help me check my balance and get some cash. After checking the balance, I really didn't want to admit to them that I did want the $3.28 in there to go buy a new wardrobe, so I just left.

Combing through the car I found two quarters. four dimes, one nickel and a dozen pennies! I went to the thrift store and to my dismay it was green tags for a dollar. Trying to make the best of it I confirmed the Nehru was still there but at $14.99 that was a little out of my budget. I cruised the "better quality" racks looking for green. Very little there that wasn't obvious why someone would have passed on it. Then, The DRESS...

Size eight, strapless so my big bony shoulders don;t have to fight the dress size. Black, satin, cute buttons on the back and a white inset in a back pleat that Pepe le Pew would love.

I brought it home, took off my t-shirt and left my jeans and cowboy boots on under as I cooked lunch for Dee. She came home to a gender-fucked husband and a nice vegetable sautée with roast beef.

In a Barbara State of Mind.

The other day, I was sitting in an nice custom tailored suite made from Saville row wool. I had my legs crossed subconsciously in Barbara mode. Dee and I were having a nice, easy conversation about things that in the past could have been tense. They weren't we even smiled about past behaviors and new openness.

Suddenly Dee said, "You are in Barbara mode!" I looked down at my legs and said, "Because of this?"

"No, but being in Barbara mode may have those sort of effects, I meant how open and approachable you are."

We talked at length about this, and why it is that Dee was so accepting of Barbara from the very first time we met. It is because Barbara shares with my male side the very best parts of me, the open quality that I use gruffness to hide and protect myself when in male mode.

Beginning the New Year at Peace.

This time last year I didn't know the word transgendered, and probably hadn't put on anything feminine for months. If I had, I would have felt guilty and confused and not at all wanted to know, "what it means."

A year later, I don't "know what it means," but if I feel the urge I dress up, giggle a little and feel just fine about myself. New Year's Eve I was in my closet, Literally but not figuratively. There is a whole rod of really nice quality menswear, all purchased for $1 apiece now that I am an avid shopper of thrift stores. None of that was there a year ago. I didn't own a suit that fit. This is just a byproduct of my femme shopping. I had 3 ball gowns and a few cocktail dresses to choose from, and no place to go.

I wanted to try some on so I did. Some were purchased in the middle of my weight loss, so they are now a little too big. good news if that Dee has dieted down in to them.

I was probably 175 lbs this time last year, I am now adding fat to my diet to try to get back UP to 135 from a nadir of 124. I can do so many things better at this weight than I could carrying around the extra bulk. I used to think I was more masculine when I developed a little fat reserve added to my former runner's 4% (or less) body fat frame. Now as I see the real differences in my frame from even a woman of my same dress size, I feel very masculine, which distresses me not at all. I feel fortunate to be able to embrace my feminine side without denigrating my male side.

I look forward to what this year brings in self discovery.