Wilmington NC

Spent this week in Wilmington North Carolina. My company had already sent one of my peers TWICE to get a system up and running, and he had failed both times, so now they were throwing ME at it. I wont bore you with all the tech details, but it was a unique system and not our standard product, and so I was more than a little nervous heading out. It�s a unique system I�ve never seen or been trained on and one of my peers had already failed twice � not a good situation to walk into. The good news? I did all of my reading in the nights before I went and so I had it up and running in less than an hour. J
Not much to write about as far as TG time as very little happened of interest. This might be a great place to hang out most of the time, but just doesn�t appear to me to be a great place for cross dressing. Both nights I went out, my confidence was shot all to hell. The first night I was there I did nothing and just went to bed early. I�ve been sick for a couple of weeks now and it�s starting to take its toll on me.
The next night, I tried on a couple of dresses I took with me just for the purpose of pretty pics. Sorry for the blurry images � my new camera has a problem when used with the timer. (Please don�t flood me with recommendations for things to try � I�ve tried them all and nothing helps).
The first dress is all sequins and it feels absolutely decadant the way it hugs you and fits like a glove. I bought this dress about 7 years ago and at the time could not fit into it. At that time, I started to diet and exorcise and lost 40 lbs just to wear this dress. (I�ve since gained half that back and am working to drop it again)

The next is a dress that I almost threw out for being �too small�. Silly me, this dress was MEANT to be tight. Pretty sure the concept was that a woman with a figure would be wearing it and she would want to show that figure off. Well, my figure isn�t all that but hey . . .

In the end, this is the outfit I wore out:

I went to the only gay bar I found out about: Ibiza. Supposedly they do Karaoki tonight (Thursday).
So I parked the car and was walking on the side walk to the club when a guy in his 20�s walked by me. He took a look at me, looked away, then looked back again. As we cross each other he looks straight in my eyes and more or less yells �Hah!� very loudly. POOF � there went my confidence, thank you SO much.
Entered the bar at about 930 to find it absolutely empty. I am literally the only customer there. I got a drink and chatted with the bartender a bit. He tells me there are Drag shows that start at 1230 and the place will probably be full then. Maybe I�m old, or a whimp, but there is no way in hell I am going to just start my night out at 1230 when I have to work the next day.
Turns out they do NOT do karaoke so I asked him if he knew of a place that does. He turned me on to Valino's Restaurant & Martha's Karaoke Lounge and told me it was �more or less a Lesbian� place.
That�s fine with me as I am usually a good deal more comfortable around Lesbians than at your typical gay bar anyway. I went and checked the place out and discovered it was attached to a family restaurant. Hmmm . . . . doesn�t look like the sort of place you would expect to be �friendly� and so I didn�t bother to go in.
Returned to the hotel and went to the lounge where I chatted with the bartender there. He had just got out of the Army and seemed very friendly so we chatted for about an hour. I got in the elevator to get to my room and there were two gentlemen and a little girl (6ish) in it already. As it got to my floor (and theirs apparently), one of the men looks at me and with out any hint of sarcasm waves toward the door �Please, ladies first�. I turned a bright shade of red and told him �Thank you!� So, one guy laughs at me, and another treats me like a lady. I�m confused � am I passing or not?
The next night I found a Goodwill, and so got dressed and went shopping!

I�d been there maybe 5 minutes when I walked by a young lady I�d guess was around 15 or 16. As I walked by her, she looked me up and down and gave me the meanest, most unambiguous, �you disgust me� look I have ever had pointed in my direction. POOF � there went my confidence again. Confidence gone, I finished shopping the store, went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and went drab. Now in boy mode, I headed back to Valino's Restaurant & Martha's Karaoke Lounge where I ate dinner and then did the karaoke thing. The restaurant made no effort at pretension. It�s d�cor was very 1950/1960 and I didn�t care in the least. The service was great, the food was outstanding, and it didn�t cost me an arm and a leg. I WILL eat there the next time I�m in town.
Karaoke got started at about 10:45 - a lot latter than I liked considering I had a 7AM flight in the morning to get home, but I did have fun for an hour or so. Still haven�t decided if I would go there dressed or not next time. (I probably will)

I met Victoria Williams in Detroit

So on my recent trip to the Detroit area I was miserable. I�d been sick as a dog for a week and was pretty much at my worst. I�d go to my customers during the afternoon and was in bed every night by 7PM shivering with a fever.
Victoria Williams and I had been chatting for days about possibly meeting while I was there, but given the way I felt it looked like it just wasn�t gonna happen. Well, one afternoon I get a call from her wondering if we might get together. I started to beg off and tell her I just wasn�t gonna be up for it, and besides �You would do well to stay just as far from me as you can get �cause you don�t want what I�ve got.�
She laughed and told me something along the lines of �Don�t worry about that, I�ve been sick myself and oh, by the way, I�m in the parking lot of your hotel.�
�Well hell, I�ll be right out to let you in then!�
So she and I chatted for an hour or so. I like her quite a bit � good looking woman, a great attitude, and a good sense of humor. I�ll bet she is a lot of fun to hang out with. No pics of me as I was drab but here are a couple of Victoria I took for my blog and posts:
With any luck, I�ll be over this stuff and back out and about the next time I�m here!

Kim Racks up a few more Airline Miles

As y�all probably know by now, I do a LOT of flying for my job. The good news is that if you manage to do a lot of this flying with the same airline, you collect �frequent flyer miles�. So - what good is that? Glad you asked! These miles can be used for a few things:
- Free flights where ever you wanna go when you collect enough points.
- Free upgrades to first class. The more points you have, the better your odds of getting that free upgrade.
Well, the moon and stars aligned and I got upgrades to first class on all of my flights to Indianapolis today. I figured what the heck, let�s fly dressed again.
(Note � if you think it was quite THAT casual a decision you are vastly over rating my confidence. There was a good deal of indecision making the choice).
I still have the large ugly bruises on my legs that I�ve told y�all about before, but I decided I was gonna go with a short skirt anyway. What the hell, I�m already a male in a skirt, why worry too much about having ugly legs?
I wore a combination I think I look good in so that my confidence would be high as possible.
Since I have only flown dressed once before, I didn�t want to assume that I would get away with it again. Just in case, I brought a change of clothes, soap, and water in the car so I could wash and change if I had to. No worries though, nothing was said and no one messed with me.
Once again, I was a nervous wreck. I was so anxious that my hands were shaking.
I did get sort of a giggle going through the Austin Airports security though. As you approach the x-ray machine, they check your ticket against your ID. Well, as I approached the TSA official, I saw the same guy that was nice to me on my last trip just about break his neck to get to where he could check my ID again. This is the guy I sort of thought might be flirting with me on my last flight. I�m still kind of confused as to why he would go through the effort this time. He smiled and was very nice, but went out of his way to call me �Matthew� again as he had the last time. So he seemed to be very kind, but emphasized the fact that he knew I was male. I don�t get it . . .
The lady that sat next to me on the flight from Austin fell asleep most of the way. At the end, she woke up and apologized for being so unsociable. I assured her it wasn�t a problem and that I had slept a good part of the way myself. She was covered in a blanket and said something along the lines of �I thought to myself wow I�m cold - she must be freezing!� - referring to me in the shorter skirt. Little did she know I had the opposite problem and was far too hot in the wig and makeup. Loved the �She� part though!
I had about a three hour layover in Atlanta and spent it watching videos on my IPOD, looking around every once in a while to see if anyone was paying a great deal of attention to me. Nope � far as I could tell no one knew I existed . . . until . . .
An older couple and a 5 to 6 year old girl came and sat next to me. Being a typical young one, she was all over the place. After a while, the woman told the girl to sit down and received the typical 6 year old argument.
�Why?� says the little one.
�Because,� says the older woman (Mother/Grandmother?) � There are freaks and perverts around.�
I was shocked. I know I shouldn�t be surprised, but I was. I�ve been married over 20 years and have two beautiful children that are the light of my life, and here I sat wondering of the woman was referring to me. I looked up at her and she never once looked my way. I was torn. Maybe she was talking about me, maybe she wasn�t. Maybe she had no idea I was male and was making a general comment about a crowd of people. Maybe I could take the chance to have a word with her to let her know that most cross dressers are not freaks and certainly not pedophiles. Maybe this would be accepted in the spirit it was offered or maybe I�d end up with her husband in my face. In the end I decided it wasn�t worth the risk ad kept quiet.
It was almost time to board and so I went and stood by the boarding gate. A young lady I�d guess in her mid 30�s went out of her way to strike up a conversation with me saying she thought my shoes were cute. After the �freaks and perverts� comment, I was very grateful for the gesture and the conversation and so chatted with her a moment.
Landed in Indy, got my bags, and boarded the rental car shuttle. The driver asks that you give your name if you are �preferred� so I gave it to him. Everyone else he reads off like �Mr Jones, your car is space A2. Mrs Smith your car is b13.� When he came to my name, he just said the last name with out adding �Mr� or �Mrs� � a small kindness showing that he was making an effort.
I got to Indy around 230PM and so went shopping straight from the airport.
Hit up two Goodwill�s, a Berlington Coat factory, DSW Shoes Warehouse, and Subway where I bought breakfast/lunch/dinner. Food in hand, I checked into the hotel and was treated with the same warm and friendly welcome I have always received at the Holiday Inn Express there.
It�s funny � I have days where I head out thinking I look my best and yet I don�t appear to pass so well. Today, on the other hand, I headed out feeling mediocre and was called �miss� and �ma�am� by every one I talked to, and believe it or not, I had gentlemen open and hold the door for me three times today! J
Flying dressed is such a mass of conflicting feelings. On the one hand, it takes a boring travel day and makes it somewhat exciting. On the other hand, it makes me very nervous. When my stress meter gets pegged there is no �out� � your stuck in the airline system until you reach your destination. Add to that the fact that it takes me two hours to get ready, and this means that to travel dressed I had to get up at 230AM for a 7AM flight.
I think I will not make a habit out of flying dressed � just to much hassle and to nerve wracking.

Alpha NJ, Allentown PA, Missy Anne and her GG

My latest trip was to Alpha NJ where my company threw me to the wolves. They needed someone to try and rework a piece of test equipment in a unique fashion. So with no training or experience yours truly headed out to do the job.
The first day I got there, I had most of the afternoon to myself, so I called Missy Anne and Missy Anne�s GG who live a couple of hours away.
These are two of the nicest folks you will ever meet. Like myself, they have been married for a long time, are happy, and seem to be very comfortable with themselves and where they are at in their lives. If you ever get the chance to meet them I say go for it!
We met mid way for dinner at The Inn at Moselem . This was a really nice place and no one batted an eye at me. It has a very old fashioned feel to it and definitely meets my definition of a �Nice� restaurant. I�m positive that our waitress pegged me immediately because the girl had the biggest smile you have ever seen every time she came to our table. My partners in crime insisted that I was just being paranoid, but I�m purty sure. At one point I jokingly threatened to prove I was right by asking her but I just couldn�t get the guts up to do it and I wasn�t gonna lose any sleep over it one way or the other anyway! Lol
Had a fine dinner, talked about 4 hours, and then I suckered them into picking up the tab! Nah I didn�t, they insisted (and thank you very much!). After dinner we stepped outside and took a few pictures for memories and for my posts. Due to their schedule, Missy Anne did not come dressed, so you are probably not gonna see their pictures here, but here is yours truly:
Got back to the hotel and pulled a huge pink gown out of the closet that I had brought expressly for the purpose of taking pretty pics in. I�ve owned this dress for years but this is the first time I�ve hauled it somewhere to take pics in it. As you can imagine by looking at it, this thing is huge and takes up a significant portion of my luggage space, so you don�t haul it around lightly. Well, apparently I�ve gotten larger than I was when I bought this beautiful thing because it required a tight corset to get my fat butt into it. So, corset so tight I can�t breath, just short of passing out from lack of air, I tried to take a few pics in it. I�ve always wanted to try the Princess thing � what do ya think? J

I don't know about y'all, but I sure wish I were a princess! :-) Sigh . . .

Weird!

I�ve been bad lately � eating more and exorcising less than I should be, and my weight is climbing. As I crossed the 158 pound mark heading for 160, I�ve panicked and started to jog at lunch. For you to understand how desperate I must be to resort to this, you have to grasp the fact that Austin Texas is now at almost 100 degrees F (38C). When you work indoors with air conditioning and then head out into those temperatures to job, you have to want it bad!
So anyway, I head out jogging to be almost immediately over heated, so I pulled my shirt off. As soon as my shirt came off I had this over whelming feeling that I had just done something horribly unacceptable. You know, that same feeling you get when you dream you have gone to work or school with out pants on? I held my shirt and arms up over my chest for three or four seconds before my brain finally over rode my instinctive reactions and reminded me:
�You are an idiot! You are NOT a woman, you only pretend to be, and it�s perfectly acceptable for a man to exercise with out a shirt!�
Freaky! Once again I have to wonder if I�m finally loosing it . . .

Alpha NJ??
I just got notice that I have to fly to Alpha NJ tomorrow - anyone know anything about the place or anything interesting to do there?

Screwing up my Cross Dressing Time!

I usually get a lot of time to cross dress because I travel for a living as a Field Service Engineer. When my company sells some of the larger and more complicated systems, I go set them up and train the customer, and when our stuff breaks, I go fix it. Well, my company is in the process of hiring someone in the Detroit area to start "taking some of the load off" of me, and reduce our travel expenses. When they get him on board (like days from now), I'm supposed to take him everywhere I go and give him on the job training.
This is gonna be awful. The only redeeming point in having a job that keeps me away from my family so much was that I DID get to be me so much. So the next few months are out while I train him. After he's trained, I will presumably travel a lot less too, so I guess I better get used to being a guy! lol
At first glance, it would seem like the upside of that might be that I will be home with my family more often, but now I'm scared because just why would they keep me around if they have someone to do all the work I've been doing? I had considered doing a poor job training him, but that's just not something I could tolerate in myself. Right, wrong, good or bad, I'm always going to do the best I can.
Sigh . . .