Sunday, 19th June, 2005

Rose

Wow!

what the hell are we all going to do on a saturday evening now?

More to the point, what the hell am I going to blog about now?...

Tranny and Suzannah

Ah yes Clothes...

What the hell am I going to wear next weekend?! I'm torn, really I'm torn — on the one hand, I want to be Slightly Defiant Trannie™ and not submitting to any stereotypes, but on the other, I want to be Outrageously In Yer Face Trannie™

For most of the morning, at least, I know exactly what I'm going to be wearing — drab. I've never been particularly comfortable with the whole Trannie-in-daylight routine Because I have very thick, black facial hair, I'm always very conscious that the amount of slap I have to plaster across my face to cover it up looks terrible in broad daylight.

To quote several people, I'm a creature of the night

And besides, I've got a fair bit of running around to do that morning — hanging pictures, fashion show, that kinda stuff — and I don't really want to be doing all that in heels.

During the afternoon, of course, I've got my outfit(s) all sorted (thanks to the skillz of Rache and Bex), but I still have no idea what to wear on the night itself.

Ack, I'll think of something, I'm sure

And the last time you blogged about that was...?

The other day right, I was skimming through some sites and I noticed that in a couple of the Google Ads there was an ad that read "Need blog content? Post technology information. It's free!" (or something like that), and it made me wonder just who the hell feels the need to populate their blog with stuff just to have something there?

See, personally, I find memes a bit tedious. When I was doing all the legwork when I forked tranniefesto off from siobhansplace — trying to build up a bit of a readership — I gave a thing called Blog Explosion a bit of a test. It was OKish, but what struck me more than anything was the similarity of content in all the blogs I was coming across.

It's like every single day, all of the content was just some variation on a "What Thundercat are you?" meme.

What I find curious though, is the relationship that everyone has with their blogs — how they represent us, how we relate to their voice, how much we identify with the person that lives in them.

What should be quite evident, incidently, is that I don't plan what I'm going to write — which is why I often lose the plot a little... It's just occured to me, for example, that the relation that I have with this thing is suddenly quite familiar. It's a relationship that last night's epic has brought slightly further to the front of my head.

I sit here, typing away, while all the time in the background there is this thing — my tranniefesto — that's constant, helping me do things, taking me places that I wouldn't be able to go without.

In a very un-thought-through analogy, tranniefesto is my TARDIS

a little bit of a let down

Dear God woman! What planet are you living on?! I don't get what you mean by the credits though — did they misspell his name or something?

The Wicked Lies And All The Shite You Say

I'm not exactly reknowned for having the greatest taste in music Mike, of Troubled-Diva, told me once that I could no longer be his friend when he discovered I was listening to Clannad one day.

But anyway...

I don't really listen to much music — which is why, incidently, I have no intention whatsoever of buying an iPod — apart from the odd CD in the car, or my nightly routine of getting drunk, sticking my headphones on, and dancing round the studio to pumping trance. (No really. That's exactly what I was doing at 1am this morning)

Anyway, when I do listen to music, I'm afraid I'm one of those people that try and fit the lyrics around their lives. Which is why, I'd like to define myself, musically, as Never Loved Elvis by The Wonder Stuff

I only downloaded it yesterday. I had it on tape years ago (which I'll come to in a minute), and I've probably still got it on vinyl somewhere, but I wanted it on my Mac. I did (she confessed) try and find a bitorrent for it (justifying to myself on the basis that I already bought it twice), but I got bored with the crappy download speeds and went to the iTunes Music Store

Have I mentioned that I love Apple?

Anyway, I know it's a cheesey album (almost completely on the basis of "Size of a Cow"), but it has memories attached to it for me. Running around carefree in my student days at Lancaster Uni, driving up and down the M6 at five in the morning with a car-full of friends, long hot summer days...

And if you want a line from a song that fits into your life perfectly, then I heartily reccomend, from Welcome to the Cheap Seats: "In another world, he can wear a dress"

PS. Don't tell anyone, but I used to fancy Miles Hunt. Especially in the Size of a Cow video when he's wearing a polka-dot dress

Getting Dressed

Here's something I've never done before — posted a series of pictures of me getting myself all made up It's been quite a while since I actually did this, but I figured what with Sparkle coming up, I should get a bit of practice in...

BTW — I just flooded my Flickr Photostream with all these, and surprise surprise, all the ones of me in my underwear got instant views. Poor buggers

I'm not usually all that successful when I do my foundation. Like I said earlier today, I have really dark, thick facial hair, and it's a bugger to cover up. I've tried lots of things over the years — currently I'm using some concealer and foundation from M.A.C. — but I still always seem to get a dirty shadow, especially above my upper lip.

I'm dead funny about my eyes. I can't imagine how I'd cope if I ever had to wear contact lenses or anything like that. I hate the thought of things touching them ... which is why I'm quite surprised I can actually bring myself to waving a pointy-pencil quite so close to them. I guess you just get used to it. I never used to do the insides of my eyelids like this (and I believe a lot of people insist that it's bad for you), but I think it's worth it

So, what I was trying to do today is get away from my usual colours and stuff, and experiment a bit more with my eyes. I'm trying to get a smudgy, smokey kinda thing going on — and I'm not sure how well I managed to achieve it. But, in my defence, I don't have very many exciting colours. I've got to get myself some bronzes and greens for next week — to go with the dresses...

The nasty discolouration underneath my eye, incidently, is a poor attempt to cover up a bit of a fuck-up. I always seem to spill black eyeshadow on my cheekbone when I'm doing my face.

Well, the day's called Sparkle isn't it? I put waaaaay too much of that stuff on today BTW, it's currently flowing down my eyelid in a gloopy mess.

Must refine eyes...

So, nearly there. Some things still missing though — I always use a light eyeshadow on my cheekbones to make them more prominent, I've got no lippy on, and I know I never look good when I don't smile

Amazing what difference a few things make isn't it?

It's not perfect, obviously — there's that shadow under my nose, and my face is rather lop-sided, but whatever

All that's left to do is let my hair down My red stripes are a little orange these days. I don't know if I've got time this week to get them done again, and maybe get my hair cut a bit. If I can, I will, but I doubt they'll be able to squeeze me in.

So there you go — that's my attempt at a boy-to-girl set of photos. It's not the greatest in the world, but I'm better at it than I used to be.

Crap! Must remember to shave my pits before next weeked

So, having spent most of the afternoon slapping make-up all over my face, I did the next logical step: Taking Gratuitous Pictures Of Myself in Pyjamas

And then, obviously, in my underwear...

Right, I'd better get all this shit off my face so I can go outside and enjoy the sunshine

Ohhh, you're gorgeous!

Yes please — more comments like that thank you

You're all very kind

Can I just mention something about the last two photographs BTW? You see in the last one, in my (my) right hand you can see the remote to the camera. But you can't see it in the penultimate one can you?

That's because, in that one, I'm taking the photograph with my feet.

God, I love my laptop

It helps if you get the right number Gillian It's the user id rather than the gallery number — you're 5107, not 400

Thanks for the blusher tip BTW