Every Door Should Have One!

Breakfast Fun

Breakfast with the Grand-kids and my daughter as well as her extended in law family went very well as did our dinner last night. Eleven of us were there.

As I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo many times, I am very fortunate to have a family who accepts me for whom I am.  To them, I am not transgender, I am just me. So breakfast was very entertaining after I was able to drink enough coffee to wake up. When I did wake up, I finally noticed my sleeveless top was actually gray with a green pattern, not black. Ironically, it matched my purse perfectly.

Last night, we ended up eating with just two other people. One, a very accomplished full time cross dresser. I say it because that is the way she describes herself. Interestingly, she even works as a volunteer (as a woman) for the Cincinnati Reds baseball women's auxiliary. The other cross dresser who I have written about extensively here showed up as his guy self.  Actually, he is a better person as a guy. Less obnoxious.

To make a long story short, both last night and today turned out to be very interesting and entertaining

Busy Weekend

The Memorial Day Weekend is turning out to be busier than I expected. First of all, since I am a transgender veteran, I am very cognizant of the fact the weekend is much more than a three day holiday. I will have more on that in my Cyrsti's Condo Memorial day post.

In the meantime, Liz and I are joining friends tonight at the usual Italian restaurant we go to on a regular basis. Then, Sunday morning, we are joining my daughter's family for breakfast. It turns out my oldest Grandson is heading out to North Dakota to be a Boy Scout lifeguard for the summer.  So it will be the last time we will see him for awhile.

He seems to break the mold of the usual teen aged boy who only wants to set around and play games.

The weather has all of the sudden caught up to the fact it is almost June and we are experiencing temperatures near 90 degrees (F). The weather will give me an excuse to wear my other sleeveless tank top. The ombre' top I wore to graduation can't be worn again in front of the same people, so I may wear it tonight with a pair of leggings. For a whole different group of people.  Then I could wear the other top Sunday, which is a gray color with an geometric black pattern.

Monday we are saving to cookout here at the home front...just ourselves. 

Mirror, Mirror

Just something to think about! I found this and decided to share it with all of you here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Graduation

Graduation evening this week went very well.

The family started out with a BBQ tailgate in her honor in the parking lot outside Wright State's arena. Wright State is a medium sized state university in the suburban Dayton, Ohio area which has a pretty good sized arena. Much too big I thought for one high school's graduation. I was wrong though, because surprisingly, it was almost filled to capacity.

As I sat down to my BBQ, I felt overdressed in my long skirt and sleeveless "Ombre" top  The top on the model to your right approximates the style, not the color.

I didn't have time to think much about it though because about the time we sat down to eat, a light rain began to fall. We were forced to head on into the arena to get our seats. The good news was we got good seats, the bad news was we had to sit in them for three hours.

To my surprise, my Grand-daughter immediately appeared on the "Jumbo Tron" big screen in the arena and presented a topic with another girl on how the graduates were like all the flavors of ice cream in the world. Of course i wondered to my self how many of the grads were LGBTQ!

All too soon though, the graduation was over and we made our way back out to see the new graduate and head home. There are some pictures floating around and if any of them find their way to Facebook, I will share them with you.

Throughout the evening I didn't notice any stares or glances, so that was good and my Grand-daughter seemed to really appreciate me being there. What really surprised me though was the lack of tears on my part.

For another completely different graduation experience, let's check in with Connie:

"When my grandson graduated a couple years ago, I would have cried, except he was such as goofball about it, going for the big laugh on stage. I do get a bit sentimental when I look at the picture of the two of us afterward, though. It was the first time, after a few years of him getting used to the "new me," that we hugged and he put his arm around me for the pic. It's a reminder that our own transitions are so dependent on the transitions of those close to us."

Well put!

Transgender Veteran!

Avalisa Gallo served four years in the Air Force before leaving the military to complete her MtF gender transition.

Now, she is the first transgender Nebraskan to compete for a national pageant crown. The pageant she is competing in is called the  All-American Goddess. It's the  first pageant system to allow all types of transgender men and women to compete nationally. 

"People don't see me as a woman, that's the issue," said Gallo. "In Omaha, there's not a lot of trans women of color that are out and being visible and that's because its not safe."

She's since been advocating for transgender rights. She reads to children in the community focusing on the book, 'I am Jazz,' a story about a transgender girl. She also has a video blog where she opens up about her journey.

Good luck Avalisa!

In Between Post

As I wrote about previously here in Cyrsti's Condo, I am right in the middle of a very busy week. Yesterday, I had a therapist appointment, one Doctor's appointment and a support group meeting.

All went well and I even was able to negotiate the eighty mile return rush hour trip through two cities which included being stopped for at least ten miles in more stop than go traffic.

Other than that, the only perceived problem I had was my hair. I washed it the day before and didn't bother to brush it out enough before I left. Then, I forgot my brush and had no way to get my waves back under control. Needless to say, I survived.

My therapist appointment went as predicted. We always end up talking more about other things than about me. Which, I guess is a good thing. Fortunately, right now, my demons aren't chasing me as much as they did in the past. The Doctor's appointment had as much to do with it as anything. She prescribes the meds I take to control my bi-polar disorder.

The LGBT support group meeting was interesting as always. A very unique small group of people attended. Including a transgender woman formerly from Alabama who served on a submarine. One trans person of color, a retired ally cis man and a couple gender fluid folks. Really different than the cross dresser - transgender support group meetings I attend here in Cincinnati.

The in between part of this post comes with the fact I am attending my Grand-daughters graduation tonight again up in the Dayton, Ohio area. In order to pull this off with only one car, we had to rent one (car) for the trip.

I think I have a pretty nice outfit picked out with my long black embroidered skirt paired with an embroidered boho style sleeveless top and my fancy black flats. Due to a total lack of decision making with the family groups involved, we are all supposed to meet a couple hours early for tailgate eats before the actual graduation.

Due to my excessive HRT hormones, I probably will do my share of crying :).

A Busy Week

This week is turning out to be a busy one.

Today (Monday) has turned out to be a rush day in order for Liz to get into one of her Doctor's early this afternoon. We will no more than turn around from her trip this morning into her office for her evaluation, then we will have to go back in the same area for her appointment. It was a rush job because she has been trying to get into her Doc for two weeks now. They just happened to have an opening this afternoon.

Tuesday is going to be very busy, I have three appointments at the Dayton, Ohio VA Medical Center. Which includes a support group meeting. I haven't been to this group for awhile due to having to drive back in extreme rush hour traffic. At least this time, I have been able to schedule all the appointments the same day. The other two appointments are with my therapist and the Doctor who prescribes my Bi-Polar meds.

While we are on the subject of meds, I finally did get a call from my endocrinologist nurse saying my Potassium level was back tn normal and she asked the strength of estradiol patches I was on. So maybe I am still in the running to have my dosage increased slightly.

Moving on to Wednesday, I have figured out what I am going to wear to my Grand-daughter's high school graduation. Because we still haven't purchased another car yet, I am going to rent on for the eighty mile trip (one way) to meet the rest of my daughter's family. Being the efficient person I am not, I still have to pick up a graduation card and a gift.

Once I get past the graduation, the rest of the week seems to be very mellow. Although, what we are doing Saturday is still undetermined.

My Transgender Reality

First of all, I would like to thank Charlotte for her comment to a Cyrsti's Condo post from last May. The comment was why don't I just kill myself. The quick answer is I tried that once and happily I failed.

My reality these days revolves basically around my family. And, to a lesser extent the public's perception of me  Examples include a forthcoming trip Wednesday to my grand-daughter's graduation.  Then yesterday we went to a new deli we haven't been to before. Not much happened except one of the younger guys couldn't quite seemed to keep his eyes off of me. I can never tell if he was fascinated by me, or managed to figure out I was transgender.

As I have been told a couple times in my life, it isn't all about me. So, I try to keep that in mind too.

It's interesting too, since Liz has lost nearly 120 pounds, her reality has changed also. She has explained to me she still is a heavy over weight person in her mind and it is hard to shake.  I am sure in the dark recesses of my mind, I will always be fearful of presenting as a guy in a dress.

Digging deeper, my latest paranoia revolves around an unanswered phone call I received from my endocrinologist. Now I am worried she is going to want to play around with my estradiol (estrogen)dosage.  My reality is I have grown so used to the changes in my body, I don't want to go back. She, My Doc, has already decreased my "Spriro"  which was prescribed to decrease my testosterone. She cut my dosage due to my potassium being too high.

One way or another, I will follow her advice.

Regardless of Charlotte's advice, I don't want to kill myself.

It's my reality!