Barbara has been visiting.

This week I have been working beyond the point of exhaustion. I worked 33 hours out of a 40 hour period. The work itself in theory is dangerous because of the scale of the equipment. You are never moving very fast, but given the tonnage involved, you have a lot of momentum. As a result, complete lapses of attention are pretty rare. This heighten alertness made the long shifts possible, and sleep came easy, if not for long enough.

I found that often Barbara was riding along with me on my travels keeping me company. The phrase that came to me is "In vino, veritas." which if I have the phrase at all right and its meaning is in wine there is truth meaning that get a person a little drunk and the truth tends to come out. In this case, it was the exhaustion of work that let her peek out of the closet again. I had thought since she seemed absent so often since I started this regular get paid for what I do as I do it kind of job that my male side was just feeling better about himself and didn't need to retreat into Barbara to escape. Today I decided that its possible that the opposite is true.

At the end of the first one, I looked forward to a long, hot shower and a soft bed. I trudged down the hall in my bathrobe with a small sample size dove bath gel, a toothbrush and a razor. I had decided that the "manly" scent of my originally packed soap lingered to long in my cramped dorm room as the wash cloth dries. I have adopted a habit borrowed from those in the military of shaving in the shower to save time and for expediency in the field and long ago adopted the habit when I don't wear a beard. The hair on my head at an 1/8 inch is too long to shave easily, so I only shaved my face. I didn't want to waste the razor that was still pretty sharp so I decided I would shave a little of my legs, knowing in the poor light and tiny shower stall I would miss a lot. I figured that A few swipes a night and I'd get them smooth. It felt so good gliding the razor over my calves that I ended up doing a pretty good job on my whole legs and then moved on to my arms and my chest. I always love the way my skin feels shaved and was not disappointed. Dee laughs a little after I wax my legs that I can't seem to keep my hands off myself.

The next night went about the same with catching some strays here and there, and over all I was at least able to squint my eyes a little and see a woman's legs which, after all is the point of the exercise for me. The third night I declined the extra 4 hours and instead was planning on going home to sleep. I was out of laundry though and tried to squeeze that chore in by starting it before I went to the evening meal and finishing it after. A very long shower with careful attention to areas best shaved in better light left me a bit aroused.

I am not sure what I have said here about that sort of thing. Barbara's blog has always been relatively safe for work. Partly because my fem persona is a little youthful and in some ways dates from a pre-pubescent time, and isn't really about sex.

We have another blog for my male side and his wife and it gets extremely graphic, so it seems silly to use the euphemisms I do here, but somehow it would offend that side of me not to.

In my (rare) teen days of crossdressing (all though I had no name for it) I experienced some confusing sexual arousal about the dressing and in a difficult to explain way, experienced a sexual, voyeuristic thrill seeing and touching myself.

The resurgence of the urge to dress that from my reading seems to be common in "ex"crossdressers approaching or in middle age. I, like others have reported, tend not to get that sexual charge out of it as I did although there is an aspect of that that underlies it. I don;t consciously repress the sexual aspect to it and have worked through a lot of the shame I used to attach to it, so there isn't any reason it can't be, it just often isn't.

The third night, I fond my self lavishing my legs with soap and really enjoying every curve. The supple feeling smoothness contrasted with the firm strong calves of an ex-long distance runner. I found myself well, er, 'taking advantage" of myself. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Barbara in a sexual way and at the time was pretty shame-free.

The morning after I felt a little silly. That old wall of shame threatened, but I held it at bay.

This morning, after a couple of "normal" days of "only" 12-13 hours and my first full nights sleep, I realized with delight that I was Barbara at the time. I rode along in fem mode, fully garbed as a man if you don't count my size 7 Calvin Klein button-fly jeans. I resisted the urge to avoid fem gestures, or how I sat, or how I danced in my seat to the radio. I had a good time.

I need to explain a little here about my job, without leading to a Google hit that outs me. I operate a very large piece of equipment with all sorts of modern electronics, that really don't change the function of the equipment from when my grandpa operated a similar one on a much smaller scale. I can monitor exhaust temps, turbo pressure, suspension variance from side to side, brake temp on each wheel, weight and on and on and on. There is a completely separate system that among other things assigns me tasks and lets me report where I am with them and so forth. There were problems with both systems. The equipment ran fine, I used the old fashioned analog gauges to insure that the other ones were wrong and that in fact the leviathan was running as well as my ear and my gut told me it was.

About three hours into the shift I was interacting with another operator. His equipment serves to me. In the process of doing so I had no way of knowing when it was that he was done with his part and I was to take of to do mine. One system told me nothing the other told me he had released me. The third method was he honks. I can not hear that frequency over the squawk of two way radios, brake squeal and the like. I paused, waited to see what he would do, and when his equipment turned away it seemed to me that despite the fact that it just didn't seem that his part should be over, it apparently was, so off I went, only to be recalled when he indignantly protested that I had taken off early. It really was a no harm done, turn around and finish what we started sort of thing. I suddenly felt defensive though. I went back completed the task this time from a much harder angle because the delay had changed the nature of the task, but I did it just right and had every reason to feel I had done well with what I was given to work with. Never-the-less, I wanted to explain. I fought (successfully) the urge to try to battle through incessant radio traffic to explain why it was that I had no way to have known and that it "wasn't my fault". Silly since everyone had long moved on to the next thing and protesting would gain nothing and only fix the incident in peoples minds.

A little later I had a chance to call Dee from one of my "offices" as I like to call the port-a-johns. We chatted briefly and I got back on the big noisy monster. Only after I got off the phone did I realise that Barbara was not with "me". Puzzled, I retraced my steps to see where I had left her. I had an epiphany when I realized at the moment of defensiveness she had fled. I have suspected that Barbara irrespective of gender issues is a repository for the tender feelings of an verbally and physically abused child. I think that she has been the caretaker of that side of me and has brought, intact those qualities that might have been lost under layers of thick-skinned emotional armor.

As I thought of this, I decided there was no reason I should allow her to be run off at the first sign of trouble, so I consciously worked on channeling her. (I don't actually use the word channel to describe finding myself in that character, but it seemed the closest I could think of.)

I had no clothes with me at all, but I thought about what I would wear if I could reach into McGee's knapsack and out with it. I thought a pair of 4" heels would be nice and at minimum some knee-highs. I could see easily managing that below the sill height of the cab.

I needed to make a bathroom break and on a whim grabbed a small role of duct-tape. Now I don;t feel up to giving a description of "tucking" to those that don't know the process, so Google that if you must. I DON'T recommend duct-tape, but with a smooth shave, It was a reasonable field expedient. It worked and the overly efficient A/C system helped. I actually enjoyed the effort, if not the comfort level of bouncing around like that. After 2-3 hours like that I decided I could end up with some chafing and no one needs that, so I hopped down to my office and, er, well, let it all hang out again.

The effort didn't lure Barbara back completely but with some concerted effort on my part to sit up in a ladylike fashion and a little dancing around in my seat and I at least gave a nod to the fem side of me and felt good about that.

I am writing this in computer cafe attached to the residence dorms with a bunch of manly men all around and really don't care who reads over my shoulder although no one has tried. (Of course I would actually care if they did, but it was more important to get this out and on paper.) Dictated, but not read...

-Barbara