Monday, 13th March, 2006

I'm Blogging This

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Right. That's my outfit for Sparkle sorted...

Smalls

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There will be a short story accompanying this in a bit...

In some cases, that might be an unexpected bonus

Unmentionables

honesty tranniefesto self

Just out of interest, what was I doing this time three years ago...

I've been running round all over the place trying to find the best way to have prints made of my images Ñ and I've eventually found it

Cool

I like being able to do that — flick back through pages and see what was going on way-back when. (Last year, incidentally, I was on tenterhooks wondering if I was about to win a Bloggie, and wishing I could blog from my phone ... go me!)

There's no real reason to mention all that BTW, it's just that I was sat in the launderette a few minutes ago, reading Wil Wheaton's book Just a Geek, and got thinking about the early days of my weblog.

I also got thinking — in a round-about way — about honesty and openess in blogging. But I'll come back to that in a second.

(Can we all go visit Wil please? I want to make a dent in his stats )

Sorry, "honesty"...

Some days, to be honest, I sit here wondering what the hell I'm going to write about. I know everyone else seems to follow the "Blog Only When You Have Something To Say" rule, but for whatever reason, I kinda feel incomplete if I don't write something.

Sometimes I end up with pieces of shit, sometimes I end up with nuggets of gold. Mostly I just end up with banality.

(I have a little analogy in my head, involving Miss K and a comparison of the two of us's blogging techniques as examples of the two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. K is like a sniper, in a tower somewhere, picking off people very carefuly and with pin-point accuracy with a rifle. I, on the other hand, am a maniac in the High Street with an uzi)

Sometimes, I have to confess, I deliberately go out and do things, just to have something to write about.

The thing is though, I've become increasingly aware that I've been getting less and less open about myself over the past few months. I've not been giving too many things away, falling into a safe routine of a cariacature of myself — The Drunk Trannie Who Gets Herself Into Scrapes And Mischief™ — rather than actually mentioning how I feel.

This is, in part I guess, because of an increasing sense of 'audience' — the realisation that things ain't like they used to be. I used to have an acute sense of my audience — knowing that they were made up in the main by other trannies that I already knew online.

As such, I could be as open and honest about myself as I liked — without much fallout.

In recent months though, the number of people I know in Real Life that read this has started to make me cautious about writing things. Knowing, for example, that colleagues and friends read this, I'm less inclined to mention stuff that I would rather they didn't know.

(God, that sounds awful doesn't it? I guess what I mean is that when the (slight) anonymity of blogging is removed, and you're confronted by people who read you, and know you, then you start to think "Maybe I shouldn't reveal too many things here...")

Having said all that, that little excursion into my past has reminded me just how much I used to love writing in a very 'unedited' way — not stopping every five minutes to think "Hold on, do I really want MA students reading that about me?".

And, having got through the first couple of chapters of Just a Geek, I'm left thinking that I really admire the way Wil put a gag on his "Prove To Everyone That Quitting Star Trek Wasn't A Mistake" persona and started writing 'from the heart' (as it were). And I'm also think that I really miss the sense of freedom that I had when I first started writing...

...see, sometimes these days, it doesn't feel like freedom at all. Sometimes it feels like I'm some kind of performing monkey — starting each day unsure or not whether whatever I write will win enough public approval to get over five comments and make me feel smug and chuffed.

Don't get me wrong — I'm not narked or anything. Not with anyone other than myself. I'm pissed off with myself for thinking about things too much, worrying too much, and generaly being crap too much.

A few weeks ago (well, actually about a month ago), it occured to me that part of the reason I felt that the quality of my writing was slipping so far down the shit-chute was because I really wasn't getting out enough. This was just before my Exciting Trip Around The Country™ and I was convinced I'd come away from that with a few good stories to tell.

As it happens, I did But I've reached a point where my head is shoved so far up my paranoid arse, that I didn't mention half of it because I was too worried of what other people would think of me.

(I left out the following: (1) I had sex, wearing a black condom. Not done that before to be honest; (2) I turned into my own worst nightmare and became a predatory tranny, drunkenly slobbering all over Nina whilst overly-stroking her boots; (3) I was probably not in a fit state to drive each morning as I hauled myself to a new city; (4) I met Jon Hicks )

(I might not have left (4) out actually, but I just like saying it )

So yeah, um, one of the things I used to love about myself was my ability to Not Give A Toss™ about what other people thought of me. And as an attempt to regain some semblence of that character-trait, I'd like to share with you the hideousness of my current laundry situation...

...

I don't, as I presume most people know — what with me going on about getting an electrician in to fit a power point in the outside loo recently — have a washing machine.

I used to have one, but I left it in the yard for too long exposed to the elements, and I didn't make space for one in the kitchen when I got it redone.

(Yeah, I know — numpty)

Not being excessively skint at the moment, occasionally I've been going out and buying big packs of socks when I've run out of clean ones. Also, I've been hand-washing a few socks and boxer shorts each week so I've got something to wear in Leeds.

(In all honesty and truthfulness, when I'm not in Leeds, I don't actually wear clean pants every day. I'm single FFS, and quite frankly, I don't give a shit whether my pants (or panties) are spankingly-fresh, because no-one ever goes down there these days)

Also, while I'm in a confessional mood, I've not really got anywhere in my bedroom (or house for that matter) to store clothes. I've got a rail next to the bed, but that's jam-packed with shirts and skirts and wedding dresses (no, really) and you can't really hang socks up on hangers can you?

So, as a result, my bedroom floor has been doubling up as a sock-drawer for the past God-knows-how-long.

When your floor is your place to keep socks though, it also (through sheer laziness) becomes your place to keep pants. And panties. And stockings. And skirts. And shirts. And t-shirts. And unmentionable sex-aids. And jumpers. And wedding dresses.

My house is a tip

At least it was a tip, until earlier on today when I went out and bought myself a chest of drawers:

Neat huh?

I went up to the Antiques Centre today — the one with the bull (I still hate that). Normally when I go up there, I get depressed with the lack of stuff that suits what I'm after. And today, initially, was no exception.

There were plenty of hideously fancy wardrobes, tables and chests. But nothing that was just right for me. I was wandering around, with a pretty clear sense in my head of what I was after:

"Not fussy, looking a little worse-for-wear. Like something that had once been loved, but had been through a pile of shit in its life, and is now slightly battered — just waiting for a loving owner like me to come along and rescue it."

(I have a chair that meets this criteria perfectly — it was right at the back of the warehouse, hung up on a hook out of reach. It cost me £3 and I love it)

The same thing had happened a while back when I was trying to find a table. In that instance, I'd found the perfect table hiding behind a bunch of nastiness — and so it was today.

At the back of a stall, nestled between two ostentatious (?) pieces of furniture, was this plain, simple, unasuming chest of drawers.

...

I've been tidying my bedroom as a result Everything is either hanging up, folded away, or waiting to go in a bin-liner and join the other fashion mistakes in the loft.

I'm now feeling rather good about things in general

A Casual Thought

random tranny

It's quarter to midnight. I'm lying here on my sofa, in a big flowing black skirt, and an off-the-shoulder black gypsy top.

It's not an unusual thing for me to be wearing at this time of night — and that's exactly my point.

This is my norm. This is what I fucking wear.

All the times that I go to work, or go to the shops, or just generally leave the house looking like a guy (in as much as I can with this hair-do) — that's me in dragb.

Not a startling revelation, granted. Just an observation I guess:

I get dressed up to be normal.