Saturday, 10th March, 2007

The inevitability of mornings

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I feel like shit

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The Shakes

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Yum

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So What Have We Learnt?

out drunk embarassing pinkpunters

One, a round trip from Lacaster to Hitchin to Milton Keynes to Hitchin to Nottingham to Lancaster, including a tiny little panicky "OMG. Where the fuck am I going?" in Nottingham, is just over five hundred and fifty miles.

Two, if you want to impress a lot of people that you haven't met before, don't get blindingly drunk and fall off your chair in a huge ballgown that makes you look like "a large red bell".

Three, blogmeets are cool. I should go to more

Four, I am a bloody lightweight.

...

There's an episode of the Simpsons I always seem to find myself quoting — the one where Homer gets drunk at a party, and oggles Maude Flanders's boobs. It's the flashback/memory bit that always seems to ring true, where he's picturing himself as the debonair wit rather than the drunken letch he was.

But I realised earlier on, that my experiences of nights out are somewhat different. I don't have a self-deluded imaginary construct of myself as the life and soul of the party afterwards — I'm always far too paranoid and embarassed by the actual truth of how I behaved.

It's before the event that I have the flashback.

Every time I go out to a tranny event, I have it all perfectly mapped out in my head as to how it's going to go. Firstly, I promise myself that I won't get too drunk too soon. Secondly, I picture myself walking into a venue triggering a couple of heads to turn, and the occasional whisper of "I say, isn't that that Siobhan Curran who has a blog?" between friends.

I imagine that as the course of the night progresses, I'll talk to loads of different people — perhaps launching into an agreed-by-all-present rant about something or other, following up with a slightly more blurried-self getting hit on, waking up next to some guy called "Clive" in the morning, and a few "knowing glances" from other tables over breakfast.

The reality is always far from that little fantasy — as last night's exploits serve to illustrate...

...

I have, you might have noticed recently, been dabbling in the world of TV dating — chucking a (badly written) profile onto a contacts-site, and seeing what happens.

("What happens" = "lots of one-line come-on emails from faceless men, and a few funs nights in/out with a few girls")

Linked to the site, is a monthly do at Pink Punters, and seeing as I've finally got my arse back into the tranny scene a little ("arse" perhaps not being the best choice of phrase there), and seeing as I realised that practically all of my crossdressing adventures seem to have something to do with the UK Angels (Angelic, even Sparkle I guess), I figured maybe it was time for a bit of a change.

So, on Friday, I went to this

It's a very complicated story this, so I'll try to simplify it in short, stacatto sentences ... I'd blagged a room of someone I'd not met before, but who was leaving at midnight so I had it to myself. I'd offered to give Caity and Franny a lift, even though they were out of my way. They had to get there before 4pm to get their room. The person I was sharing with wasn't getting there until 8pm.

Four hours to sit in the bar and wait (apart from having a quick shower and doing my hair) ... the inevitable happened.

Actually, I think it happened within minutes of getting there. Despite promising myself I'd go easy on the booze, I was sat at the Campanille with a bottle of cider in my hand, and finding it impossible to say "no ta" when others were offered to me.

I guess I'm just very predictable, perhaps. Either that or I have no self-control whatsoever. And therefore, while the others were gettign changed, I was sat in their room swigging red wine from a bottle, taking hilarious pictures of it sticking out of my back pocket

By the time my 'roomie' arrived, I was already half-cut, and my intentions to do a really good job of my make-up seeing as this was the first time I would meet all these people (and I have a reputation to uphold) had given way to a slurred bodging, and a "Ack, that'll do" attitude with eyeliner.

But hey, that didn't really matter, because seeing as it was a ballgown theme, I had brought along that dress, and my make-up would kind be overshadowed by what I was wearing

Here's where it gets fuzzy — so I'll try and list the things I remember, followed by the things I've been told I did...

I remember talking to a couple of people — the two Rachels (Greene and Boomboom) to name two. I remember the server room — a strange brightly lit room shielded by glass with a rack in it that seemed to confuse everyone. I remember having my photo taken — and vaguely (and unsuccessfully) trying to vet the photograph.

I remember Franny telling me off for letting my dress fall down, and exposing my nips. I remember going back to the room and getting changed. I remember dancing around mesmorised by how my white-stockinged legs were glowing like beacons in the UV light. I remember a drag queen with HUGE hair.

I remember Franny sitting on my head. I remember standing outside my rom for ages trying to get the key to work, until a large man came along and helped me. I also remember him handing me a lighter because I thought I'd lost mine, and then saying "but I think that's a non-smoking room".

I don't remember slurring to Caity that I was intent on pulling Boomboom. Nor do I remember saying "You mean you don't know? I'm Siobhan Fucking Curran" to Jen when she asked me who I was. I don't remember bump-n-griding with the large-haired drag queen (probably because — I'm told — someone made it up )

I don't remember falling off my chair — apart from a vague recollection of being swamped in red fabric.

And I really dont have a clue who the fuck I talked to, or what I might have said.

In fact, just thinking about it, you'd be well-forgiven for coming to the conclusion that it was me who'd registered http://www.siobhancurran.com, and stuck the word "Sorry" on it — because I probably need to apologise to pretty-much everyone I came into contact with last night

But hey.

...

Something else occurred to me — another "things we've learnt" thing. It used to be (and I'm citing a couple of my trips to the US here in my head as confirmation) that I was one of the "young cute ones" — you know, the ones that swan naively around tranny-dos turning others' heads, oblivious to the letchy intentions of their peers.

But I'm not one of the young cute ones any more — I'm one of the slightly older ones that sit in the bar the next morning talking about which of the young cute ones I'd have liked to have snogged the night before

Hangover Cure

mike troubled-diva nottingham blogmeet

I am, of course, right this very moment half-way down a bottle of Hair Of The Dog, but it wasn't until I got my chops around a bacon and chicken sandwich in the Broadway Cinema café in Nottingham this afternoon that I started to feel less hungover than I had done this morning.

I do very much love Mike et al. At one point in my house-hunting escapades I momentarily considered moving to Nottingham (under the misguided belief that is was closer to Leeds than it is) just so I'd be more able to go out with them more often.

Speaking of Mike

troubled-diva charity blogs

He's had a rather brilliant idea — "a paperback anthology of blog writing" for Comic Relief

I've submitted (natch) my Eddie Izzard Story™

He tells me that Becky 's submitted too...

"Yeah, something from a 'beckys web' or whatnot. Ring any bells?"¹

"Ack, probably just another of those copycat tranny blogs, I bet"²

¹ He didn't actually say that.

² Nor did I.

Oh, you'll find out in about a year or so's time...

/me whistles innocently

In Two Minds

tranniefesto domain quandary

I have a confession to make. I'm not altogether happy with my domain name.

Sure, it's a little bit funny — in that it's a play on words of manifesto, but I've felt for quite a while that it doesn't really fit with what this is.

I mean, this isn't one of those "Oh, I hardly ever write about trannie things these days" posts, which I'm prone to. In fact, recently I've been writing a lot about trannying — not perhaps up to my usual rantage-standard, admittedly.

Nor is it one of those "I write about crossdressing and Second Life" posts — because I don't. I write about everything — interesting or not.

I have the notion in my head that publishing (?) all this gumpf in this form — all clumped under an obviously TV title — serves a nice purpose, in that it waves a Big Happy Banner™ about who I am, and how I'm completely unashamed to be a guy who wears frocks.

So you get (sometimes) the rather weird thing of Large Reputable Sites And People™ linking to some of the more 'tutorial-based' things I've written, with the first (I'm betting) occurance of the word "trannie" in their blog.

I dunno — it's just feels like it does a bit of 'good', perhaps

But at the same time, I can't help but feel like a bit of a "one trick pony". And that the emphasis on the trannieing aspect of things — the lean towards it, and the almost blatant subterfuge, is really outdated.

Kind of a bit "in your face", so to speak.

I mean, everyone knows I'm a transvestite. It's No Big Thing™. Siobhan obviously is. Within a few minutes of meeting me, pretty-much everyone knows that Kisa is. And an awful lot of people are starting to find out that Graham is.

I'm just starting to feel that I don't need to wave that fact around in my URL or <title> tag

I dunno. What do yous think? What if this wasnt tranniefesto.co.uk? What if it was something else (.org)?

(@April — keep your gob shut )

Could it be because I suspect you've already made your mind up??

Well, you see, I haven't at all — hence the "two minds" thing. Sometimes I think things along the lines of "Right Curran, time to nudge this up a level", but other I think "No, it's already perfect, and if you change it you'll completely destroy what you've already worked so hard at".

It's a question of 'direction' perhaps — you know, "what the hell am I actually trying to do here?" or something. And it kinda relates to my overall situation in life, perhaps — and a conversation I had with someone at work recently in regards to my 'role-change'...

"Well, you could just see it as a continuation of what you're already doing. Or you could take it as an opportunity to really engage with things, and be a lot more focused about your role within the academic context" (she said, paraphrasing)

I dunno — I guess I feel a little bit like I'm treading water, in a sense. I put an awful lot of time and effort into 'maintaining' things, when perhaps I should be pushing them forward.

So that some hypothetical non-tranny website wouldn't be embarrassed to link to you?

Ah, now thats the bit that worries me Or rather, whether or not it's not the other website that's embarrassed — it's me. I'll be perfectly honest with yous, there's been a couple of inbound links in the past week or so that have made me feel 'uncomfortable'. Not, I hasten to point out, because I'm sat thinking "OMG, all those people are going to find out I like wearing dresses!", but because I think sometimes there's a time for "flag-waving", and a time to just be "me".

In some ways, I guess, it feels like people are linking to the issue, rather than me. And I kinda feel like I'm the online blog-equivalent of that "Nobody knows I'm a lesbian" t-shirt

...

...

Ack, I don't know

Expect a lot more of this overly-navel-gazing bollocks about what's essentially just one word in the future...

(BTW, it's not just the 'tranniefesto' bit — I really don't like the '.co.uk' either. I'm not a company, after all )

@maidjoanna — I take it that was a dig? To be honest, there's possibly some track in arguing that considering the current concerns about female drinking habits in this country, I was the epitomy of 'ladylike' ... but you're right, and I'm annoyed with myself that I lost all semblance of dignity on Friday night, and probably lost a fair few people's respect in the process.