For a given value of Jenny

Busy weekend.
    A perfect start to Saturday, taking my parents dog for a walk through the fields on a beautiful spring morning. The only movement being a startled muntjac deer. Sometimes you need a bit of mild exercise as a relaxation aid and before a long drive that completely hit the spot. Then hit the road north to Leicestershire, beautiful driving weather, yellow oilseed rape(canola) fields against blue skies, roadside trees with shiny new leaves. That motorway is marked off for me by previous automotive dramas, there's the spot the Allegro overheated, the Mini wiper needed fixing, the Panda suffered a blowout, it's as if every gap between a junction saw me on the shoulder at some time during my days of running old wrecks.
    Lisa's general area was easy to find, but Lisa's house might have been created by J.K Rowling, such was it hidden between the houses that surround it. Once you sit down and start talking it's as though time passes unnoticed, a morning coffee turned into a three hour chat. Sorry Lisa! It was good to meet her wife and family, I wish my wife wasn't visiting her mother this week. Being fully settled in the bloke role complete with a couple of days stubble to rest my poor abused face it felt slightly incongruous to be introduced as Jenny, hence the title of this post. It was very good to sit down and talk to a couple in a similar position to us and I am very grateful for the opportunity to drop by. We didn't just talk trans matters, our conversation ranged widely onto other experiences, and the family dog joined in, subjecting me as an interloper to some hefty barking. Oh, and I managed to lock myself in the loo. Yeah, I make the perfect guest, me.
     Back on the road north, I was heading for Yorkshire, to see the same friends whose party I attended back in February. Last time I was on these Yorkshire roads they were under a thick blanket of snow and the car struggled with some of the hills, today they were clogged with weekend drivers and unexpectedly a convoy of Ford Anglias. J.K. Rowling, you can't escape her!
    S and R are a couple I've known since the mid 1990s. S was a colleague at one of my more anarchic former employers in an insanely fun but mentally demanding field of the tech industry. Now he's boss of a small company and father to a young son, but refreshingly neither he nor R have succumbed to the blight of premature middle aged parenthood. My mission for the evening was to come out to them as some of my longer-term and more valued friends.
    Unexpectedly we were invited to a barbecue at R's mother's house. I like R's family, they are no-nonsense Yorkshire women, and great company for a stealth t-girl. R's mother had prepared enough to feed the five thousand, and thus sated and well lubricated by bottled beer we spent a relaxed evening sitting round the barbecue. It's a British thing, it's a fine evening and we've got a barbecue, so we're damn well going to spend the evening outside, damn it! We must have looked very odd, swathed as we were in blankets.
     Back at S and R's house, time for the Long Chat. Not a problem, just as I expected. A bit of a double-take, some slight confusion form S with respect to gender versus sexuality, then a long chat about it all. It turns out that R has a friend with a trans child who's boy at school and girl at home, and who will no doubt transition as a teenager. Lucky kid to have an environment in which she's understood. One can't help being a bit envious, wondering how ones own life might have turned out in that situation. Anyway, now I've got another set of friends I don't have to pretend in front of.
    Having consumed several bottles of beer I was in no condition to take a sleeping pill, so I found myself lying in bed at 2AM texting my wife. It gets a little rough, when she's away the general level of gender dysphoria increases and life becomes a little difficult. As you can imagine, waking up at about half past seven on Sunday wasn't the best thing to do so I felt as rough as a badger's arse on Sunday morning. Time for some serious caffeine abuse.
     On the road again, this time to York. Find the car park, meet Cathy. Annoying ticket machine that didn't like 50p pieces. Wander round the city centre, thronged with tourists. Sit in the park and chat. People watch. Trans-spotting. Only succeed in spotting a Scotsman. Find a pub by the river, discover it doesn't take cards. Damn. I thus owe Cathy somewhere seriously nice for lunch next time I'm in these parts, this having been my turn to cater. Why is there never a damn cash machine handy when you need one? Life obviously wasn't on my side, because then a bird pooped on me. Well, at least it's socially acceptable for a slightly scruffy bloke to look a bit grubby.
     Leaving York, down the A1, head for the Fens. Beautiful Fenland weather for the endless drive past the Wash. Empty roads, wide skies, this is long distance motoring as it should be with no stress. You know you're in the Fens when houses start having tractors parked outside. At this time of year the fields are sporting freshly ploughed laser-GPS guided furrows, it pains me slightly to say this but there is beauty to be found in industrial agriculture. A fitting place for a country and western fan, for an afternoon, at least.
    And so I end up at C's house, under an impressive Fenland cloudscape. Cameras rarely do such skies justice. I'm knackered, girl-fogged and I miss my wife. I try to explain this to C. He suggests curry as an antidote. Like an idiot I forget my sleeping pill.
    So I'm writing this with a Fenland dawn as a backdrop and feeling far too blokey for my liking. Can't do much about that here, so you, dear reader, have become my outlet. Last week's outing in Swindon seems awfully far away.

Connectivity

    A day or two ago I was looking at a new mobile phone. I made my choice, the Motorola DEXT, ordered it, and received it yesterday afternoon. This isn't a phone review site so beyond saying it's the closest I've yet been to having a useful computer in the palm of my hand and so far I'm very pleased with it I'm not going to list its features in tedious detail.
    Being at home today, I took the opportunity to go for Chinese food with a friend this lunchtime. On my way back I used my new toy to check my email. One of those "Because I could" things. Now my constant connectivity extends its reach to almost anywhere within the radius of a cell tower. I realised I'd walked over half the way home with only the barest glance at my surroundings which was a crying shame because it''s been a beautiful day. By way of atonement I stopped by the river for a few minutes and took a picture of a pair of hopeful ducks in the shade. No food for them, they soon lost interest in me.
    A few things recently have made me realise how much what we do has been changed by requiring a constant connection to the rest of the world. First, my office being disconnected from the world. Bang! four days of work made very difficult. At least we can do something at home, another company in the building has a phone-based business model and has had to shut up shop for the duration. It's not impossible that our inept JCB operator could have cost a few people their jobs by the time all this is over.
     Then there's the TV. My wife is away for a few days so I have to tell our PVR what to record in her absence. When I turned it on, nothing save a "No signal" message. A quick status check on the BBC Engineering web site finds our transmitter is undergoing maintenance today. A service one takes for granted having disappeared, several hundred pounds worth of TV and video kit suddenly stands completely useless.
      Working in a tech based industry I guess I'm slightly ahead of the curve on some technologies. I've been an enthusiastic adopter of the cloud, I have a very quick PC yet nearly all of the services I use it for are online, hosted somewhere in California rather than on my hard disk. These aren't just entertainment or social networking services, I think it's safe to say that my ability to earn a living depends on cloud-hosted services, not least our company email server. Being abruptly disconnected from them is a reminder of the fragility of the personal infrastructure with which we've surrounded ourselves and I have to admit it's left me sitting a little less easily as I continue working.
    Somehow I can't imagine the three inch screen of the DEXT will be quite enough for me to do my job.

JCB

    JCB. For us Brits, it's not a brand name but a word. "JCB" means "digger". If you want a glimpse into the place they hold in the mind of the British Bloke, take a listen to the annoyingly catchy JCB song from a few years ago. They make all sorts of other really cool machinery besides diggers, but their diggers define them. If you are ever given the keys to a JCB then make sure you give it a try as the sheer destructive force you wield at the controls of such a machine can I'm slightly ashamed to say, be a bit of a rush.
    I'm sitting at home on my sofa today because of a JCB. Same as yesterday. Someone's used one a little too enthusiastically and dug up the cable that keeps the office I work in connected to the world, so deprived of Internet and phones my colleagues and I are left at home.
    I should be really pleased about this, but I'm not. I can dress as I like, keep the hours I choose and work as I want. And there's the problem. I've always disliked working from home because I find it much more difficult to stay on-message and get stuff done. The resulting guilt even when I have managed to achieve something, coupled with the lack of contact with other people, affects my mood and threatens to let in the girl fog.
    Suddenly, I wish my job involved destroying something with a JCB. Digging holes. Or driving a JCB Fastrac like the one that dumped a great heap of manure in the field next to the office a week ago. Anything to get outdoors and away from a PC for a while!
    And here we are. It's ten to nine, I'd better watch out or this will be distracting me from work.

Posting from up a tree somewhere

   A week or so ago I read a post from Emma, as someone about to go full time she was looking for a slightly more feminine mobile phone. It left me wondering, just what makes a phone feminine? Leaving aside the pink Barbie-themed models you see teenaged girls using (I wonder, do they have "OMG" and "LOL" shortcut keys?), are they targeted that much on a gender basis? My wife has a very similar phone to mine, so I have no obvious comparison in front of me. What would a masculine phone look like anyway? Either way I wish Emma good luck in her quest.
    Fortunately I have few such concerns. My phone is several years old now, it's a great phone and a much better camera than I expected it to be, but I've come to the conclusion that it's time to replace it because its internet functionality isn't very useful. As the title of this post suggests, I'd like to be able to post to this blog from up a tree somewhere.
    I'm a cheapscate. Seriously. Well, I don't need to shell out for phone bling, I have no desire for an iPhone and it doesn't bother me if I don't have the latest model. All I want is a reasonable sized screen for using a decent web browser, useable QWERTY text entry and a semidecent camera. Oh, and a phone. And I don't want it to be too big. So it's off to my network provider to see what they've got for me for free based on my contract.
    Surprisingly, I find I've got a choice on my hands. A range of second-string feature phones that either had a pop at the iPhone last year and failed to be a contender, or have been superceded by more recent models. And some of them are still rather good. The trouble is though while all the things I want are represented, they're not represented in the same models. The Nokia X6, for example has lovely hardware and the camera I want, but comes with the rather aged Symbian operating system which lacks the useability of its more modern competitors. I'd much prefer Android which I can have from the Motorola DEXT and the HTC Hero, but the Moto has a relatively tiny screen and the HTC has a not-spectacular camera. The Moto does have a neat little physical QWERTY keyboard though.
    From the choice above I'm veering towards the Moto. Surprisingly I find that even if I was prepared to pay a bit for the phone, my choices aren't much better. The newer HTC and a Sony phone join the fray, but the former is a bit large and the later suffers from the same problems as the Nokia.
    Whatever choice I make it'll be one I have to make the best of as I'll be stuck with it for a couple of years. You'll know when I've made my decision, I'll make a post from up a tree somewhere, then another despairing post asking for help, having snapped the crucial branch that would have enabled me to climb down.

Débutante

    Sadly there was no white ballgown for me to wear and I didn't meet the Queen.

   Yesterday evening, I made my debut in the real world presenting as female. There was very little of the worry I expected, it all felt completely natural and I had a great time.

    First up was my normal support group meeting with its usual attendees. A convoluted plan involving changing at a friends house having worked to perfection and the drive having passed uneventfully, I was outside the hall and ready to go. A quick makeup and hair check in the rear-view mirror and off I went. Remember the posture, lose the bloke walk. Blimey, that was easy!

   A grand entrance is ruined slightly when you have to duck for the damn door frame.

   After the meeting a load of us went for our usual meal at a very nice Italian restaurant. A very friendly place with excellent food, though a slight challenge for me because it is situated in a  rather busy town centre, and this being Saturday night you get all sorts out on the street. Including us. :)

    Hell, just go for it.

    I doubt I was fooling anyone, but I couldn't care less. Being large and loud and with an ability to be somewhat in-your-face I was just stealing a hefty slice of bloke self-confidence and seizing the role. And having a lot of fun in the process.

    So, I've done it. And come away grinning ear-to-ear. I'd say that's a result.

The joy of blogging

    My good friend Emma Newman* refers to the joy of blogging from time to time as she describes the support she derived from her blog as a struggling unpublished writer suffering from post-natal depression. Not only did she use the blog as a personal sounding-board through which to develop her query letter and attract a publisher, she also found herself connecting with a lively and supportive group of other bloggers in a similar situation. Her experience inspired me to start this blog in January when insomnia finally forced me out of the closet, and like her I have found through blogging both a tool to enunciate and organise my thoughts and experiences, and a way into a wider community of like-minded souls. Thanks Emma!
    Like Emma I've reached a milestone in blogging terms, this post will be my hundredth. For Emma the milestone was tainted by the death of a close friend, for me it comes at a much more positive point as I make my first tentative steps out into the world presenting as female. I find that in blogging I've discovered a medium I like, so much so in fact that my century has arrived in under five months. Back in January as I sat on my sofa in the dark of snowbound early mornings I never expected this to happen, but just as once you've unleashed your inner girl you can't put her back again, once you've got on a roll with your writing it's difficult to stop.
    Thank you all for reading and following this blog, for your support and comments. I've come a long way so far this year with my first hundred posts and I hope you'll stay with me for my next hundred and more.

*Incidentally, while I have your attention, sign up for Emma's short story mailing list and read her Friday Flash fiction!

It's official

    This afternoon, I left work early and made the journey to my local teaching hospital to see the shrink who deals with transgendered people. I was accompanied to the waiting room by my local support group friend Dawn, with whom I spent the rest of the afternoon, and to whom I am very thankful for providing some moral support.
     His normal job involves certifying that a patient is really trans and not a nutcase, before referring them on to the next step in the path to transition. I sat down in his office and told my story the way it is, and he indicated he'd be happy to send me forward, but for my stated desire to avoid it at all costs. Too big, too married. So I came away with the diagnosis I wanted which gives me some protection, but not much else beyond "Come back when you've gone potty".
     There wasn't much else to be expected, but it would have been nice to find something more on offer that I didn't know about. As it is, it's difficult not to have pessimistic moments about the downhill slide.

Knock me down with a feather

   This evening was spent in the pub. With a group of blokes. From a circle of friends who share a rather geeky and mostly blokeish activity. Drinking beer and doing what blokes do in the pub.
   So as the evening dwindled, people slipped away and finally there were only two of us. Me, and A. A and I have a lot in common, we work in similar industries, we're into similar hobbies and we both have a history of dealing with depression. So we ended up talking about depression and its causes. Very weird conversation in which it slowly became obvious we were both circling round the same unsaid point.
    A? Alice, that is. We have more in common than we realised. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Vote early...

    I've just exercised my democratic right and scribbled a cross on a bit of paper before placing it in a box. That's all I've done, I haven't sent a message to the Bums In Power, I haven't changed anything, made a difference or even saved the world. In fact, since I drove to the polling station through a beautifully misty rural dawn, I've probably done my little bit to destroy the world.
    My time this morning was wasted because I voted in a safe seat. The MP I voted against is a London barrister parachuted in by his party in the 1980s who though he's a nice enough chap if you meet him is not a man of his constituency and does little to represent all bar a relatively small and wealthy clique of his constituents. More people could vote against him than for him, but our first past the post electoral system means he's got a job for life. At least now he can't use his expenses to buy a second home.
    Yet I made the effort, voted anyway. At least this way I can legitimately complain about him.

Tiny feet

    About a month ago, the day after I came out to my friend C, we were both sitting in his kitchen with big cups of coffee talking about random stuff as we have for the last twenty years. In the middle of discussing building projects, cars and digital TV compression algorithms he stopped and asked me "Is the transgender thing why you're so anxious to have kids?".
    One of those show-stopper moments. I had to answer yes. Probably. Defying all logic and surprising me with its intensity, the yearning to be a parent has been with me for years and if C has noticed it then it must be obvious to everyone else too. It hasn't been satisfied for economic reasons, in our part of the world the chances of our affording somewhere to live that has more than one room are roughly equal to our chances of defying gravity by thought alone, a situation I don't see changing any time soon. C by comparison doesn't seem to have caught the same intensity of desire for a family, he's content to take his nephew to see the motor racing and leave it at that.
    In another era or another place, I would be watching my kids become adults by now. In my late thirties I should be sitting outside a nice little house having a Bank Holiday barbecue and arguing with my teenaged daughter about unsuitable boyfriends or something. Just like my motorcycling friend L is no doubt doing right now. But L's brain came from the parts bin marked "Bloke" (unless there's something he's not told me), so I have to ask whether by dodging parenthood my wife and I haven't done ourselves and our yet-to-be-born children a huge favour by not adding the extra worry of youngsters into the mix.
    One could argue that knowing about the transgender from the start should make starting a family a bit easier. For reasons I've already gone in to I'm sticking with the male impersonator role, so why should it be a problem? The fact is, having escaped the closet I can't see myself going back into it easily. I wouldn't blame my wife for not wanting anything too girly of mine to be within sight of the kids and I don't think they'd benefit in the school playground from anyone knowing about me because other kids can be nasty little things, so I can't see a way forward into parenting that doesn't afford me a whole lot less girl time. And that isn't going to do me any favours in the GD department. Since keeping sane is a prerequisite to maintaining the bloke act, I'd thus risk endangering the whole edifice with the added complication of a youngster. You can't win, can you.
    I suppose I should make a joke out of it. Write a paragraph about how fortunate we are to have avoided our next couple of decades conforming to the school year,  the nappies we miss out on dealing with, the tantrums we never see, the cheap holidays we get to take. And most of all, the petty tyranny of the toddler group one-upmanship. All that's true, but it doesn't address the feeling of futility engendered by having one of those things you'd always seen as an important milestone hanging there in your future start to evaporate, completely beyond your control. My mother doesn't help, either. The question hovers in the air around her, the "G" word. Thanks mother, pile on the guilt, why don't you.
    Back in C's kitchen, we made another coffee. The conversation moved on to Filipino restaurants.