Dispatches from Drabistan

There we go, yet another newly minted word. Drabistan. Seems to be where I am living these days, happily slouching around in full man-mode, and not much pushed to don the daintier elements of the wardrobe. I spoke at length about that phenomenon in an earlier post and won’t rehash it here. Just wanted to say hi.

In all honesty I really just spent the day farting around on-line. Found myself offering comments on a couple of blogs, followed a link here and there and am comforted to find some new (or new to me) sites offering up terrific quality thinking for those of us who dress. So if you are thirsty for the sort of story telling I more typically serve up, I am happy to introduce you to a site or 2 that may catch and earn your attention while my feminine muse remains dormant.

Gabrielle Hermosa lives (quite prettily I might add) over at MyCDLife.com. She has a really witty and very positive take on the cross dressers experiences. If we ever get a seat at the UN, I want her as Ambassador. There is irreverence and intelligence to spare here. And a terrific recurring feature that dispels commonly held myths about cross dressers. Worth a visit. Dress smartly.

Jessica De Leon Hannah operates a newish entry called Jessica Who?. Her blog is a nice blend of advice about just how to enjoy our experiences more fully, and a near real time diary. She seems to be staging for some pretty big steps forward and outward. We have all of us taken steps small and large. Watching someone else walk the walk and share the feelings is exciting. Bring your popcorn and pom-poms, and cheer her on.

I have edited my Essential Reading links below to reflect these 2 great new adds. I have missed many no doubt, but time is short today. I’d love to hear from you visitors about the sites that you enjoy and that help you enjoy your gifts more fully. Drop a line anytime.

Lastly, I would be surprised if any of you had not spent time on Staci Lana’s Femulate site. Always funny and just flat out admirable, she is pressing some new boundaries on the whole issue of “passing”. Great new territory we should all be so lucky to discover some happy day. Can’t wait to hear about the New York trip.

Happy dressing, and happy everything else - Petra

Notes on a Drabbatical

There, I coined what I believe to be new word. Drabbatical. Lets formalize it here:

Drabbatical [druh-bat-i-kuhl}
-noun

1. a period of time spent exclusively wearing clothing traditionally associated with ones dominant gender identification.
2. a phase of dormancy in the life of some MTF cross dressers.

Origin: A trite flourish of wordsmithing one morning from Petra Bellejambes, but really, lets not dwell on the odd workings of my brain.

In any event, a very good morning or evening to you dear friends. Its been close to a couple of months now since I last shared thoughts with you, and just as long since a dearly loved part of my whole self, Petra, has sought attention, nourishment and daylight. Yes, Petra is on Drabbatical. I have received some very nice notes and blog comments in that time, and found this morning the time and inclination to reflect.

First, the dull stuff. All is well.

Not shaving is a real treat. Work continues to trickle in adequate to my material requirements (with a quick shout-out to Mrs. Bellejambes who contributes more than her fair share of household lucre). Health is good, my golf game is at a life time peak, and I am spending more time at the piano bench recently. In short, life in drab is fine.

The fab / femme stuff is stored nicely away. The attic is in easy reach, but for reasons that elude exact diagnosis, I just haven’t felt the pull. In a note earlier today to the editrix of the always entertaining Cross Dressers Girlfriend I suggested a few theories. They go like this….

1. Seasonal. It gets warm here in Dixie. I need sheers over opaques to cover leg hair. Long sleeves and high necks are a practical necessity as well. This CD simply does not do the spring/summer season well.
2. I filled my cup. My 6 month immersion in and service of Petra's desires may have (temporarily) satisfied her. Perhaps my batteries are charged fully.
3. Short attention span. Where was I? O yes, I am prone to bingeing. Very satisfying for a while, but it leads to loss of appetite. For example, I will run into a writer I like, and in a gulp will devour his whole life’s work. About 20 years ago I read so much Gabriel Garcia Marquez that he began to read like an IKEA assembly instruction set. I think I binged out on Petra a little.
4. Guilt. That my complete life is not completely shared with my wonderful wife of nearly 14 years is a problem. Continued service of Petra comes at the expense of something that is ultimately more important to me, as long as I am not open about it all. That feeling has a suppressive aspect to it I am sure.

Then I think of all the over-analyzing that goes into other parts of my life and wonder whether the effort at finding causality is worth it. Ultimately, its not. Things are just things.

So I have not dressed, over or under, private or public in a couple of months now. I do check emails daily, keep up with favorite blogs, and continue to make mental notes of the many expressly feminine displays of beauty I see in my day to day life. This alone seems to quench my low lying, dormant femme persona’s needs. For now.

Tides are inevitable though, if not predictable, and pink tides too I am sure. Some happy day in the future I will be wrestling with a back zip and an ankle strap. Who knows when. In the meantime, tides cannot be forced, and when they are upon us, are not to be fought off.

You continue to visit Voyages en Rose in flattering and persistent numbers. I am grateful, and hope that some of my musings are entertaining, or informative. I have taken much comfort from realizing just how strong our numbers are.

Your ongoing explorations and discoveries of your full selves continue to delight and inspire me. I truly hope that you are in a happy, peaceful place on your own voyage.

If you have any thoughts about Drabbaticals in general and how life is for you, I would be happy to hear about them here. Please leave a comment.

Friends in the academic world tell me that when they come back from their (much envied) sabbaticals they are refreshed and renewed and that they see things through new lenses, at new angles and in subtly new lighting.

I look forward to finding all that out and feeling from Petra’s perspective again. In the fullness of time as they say.

Happy dressing - Petra

A Cross Dresser's Hiatus, or A Lipstick Sunset

To describe my relationship with cross dressing I have employed oceanic metaphor. Terms like tides, currents, surges and waves are peppered throughout these Voyages en Rose. One of the first things I wrote back in Nov 08 was that I was going to yield to the current, anxious as I was to find out where I washed up.

Great and lasting metaphorical platform in hindsight. Tides and currents reverse. Surges recede and waves calm. And so it is now with me. I am washing ashore in a quiet place. I always suspected that there were cycles associated with my dressing, but never really examined the issue too closely.

First indicators of the receding Pink tide appeared about 1 month ago when I started finding writing more difficult. I did not have easy access to the sort of brio and wit I am usually able to bring to work I am enjoying. More recently I have felt my desires to dress start to drop in frequency and intensity, gradually and surely. This last week I have not dressed at all in fact. Additionally, my ponderings on the topic are a little demurred, a little less demanding of my attention.

Now that having been said, I have been working on losing a cold for the last couple of weeks. I have been a little busy with and perhaps stressed by work. I have felt increasingly unhappy as well about not having found the nerve or the occasion to share this all with my wife of 13+ years. I think these things are contributors too, but I suspect that at best they have only accelerated a natural rhythm.

As evidenced by my blog activity, I have been living through a high and rich tide in recent months. In October of last year, I retrieved my stash of pretty things from the attic where they had been 2 years alone in the dark. I took some bolder steps out, made my surfaces a little more pretty and polished, and became much more comfortable with the feminine voice within my whole self. I have, in doing all of this, experienced deeply satisfying feelings of connection with the Petra parts.

Additionally I have made some wonderful new friends in worlds real and virtual, en femme and in drab. CD’s, TG’s, GG’s and a small handful of hetero and gay men who simply wanted to talk, and didn’t mind sharing time with a guy in dress. Not once have I felt threatened or unwelcomed anywhere I have gone.

I have come around to understanding that Petra represents much that is good and likeable about me. I think that she amplifies attributes and attitudes that I naturally possess but that do not display well or have perfect pitch in guy mode. I am convinced that I can and should let more of Petra show up in my everyday connections with people, regardless of how I am dressed or how interested in dressing I am. I think that I will be, in aggregate, a nicer, smarter, more sensitive person if I do not suppress Petra’s perspectives and experiences.

My current malaise may vanish overnight, but I do not suspect so. I hope, actively hope, that if the tide is on the way out, that it will not go too far out, for too long. I want to be swept up in it again, more comfortable with its power, more curious about where it will take me, and more honest about what it means to me to people who should know.

To you, dear visitor, may I say thank you. I expect Voyages en Rose will be a little less interesting, or at least a less frequently updated site than you deserve. Go, find and favor bloggers who write about things that are important to you. Many of them are linked and updated in my blogroll on the right. Believe me, people who write really want their work to be read.

No drama or big findings here my friends. Just a natural course of things. I will be sure to post up here when something of quality comes to mind. In the meantime, happy dressing and happy everything else to you.

Petra’s Pantyhose Parade - Victoria's Secret

If it's Thursday, it must be Pantyhose. I have been busy these last few months scouring the racks of shops fine and less so to greedily purchase, carefully handle, brazenly wear and then haughtily pass judgement on the silky things we sometimes pull up our long legs.

This cross dresser has a thing for hosiery that goes back a long, long way. I distinctly remember a young temptress in my 7th grade class, expertly prowling, preying and feasting on the attention of the opposite and entirely unprepared sex. Advanced of intellect and of physique she weaponized her natural assets one day, donning grown-up sheers when the rest of the girls still sported little-girl leotards. She knew exactly the effect she had on everyone. The girls were mad jealous, the boys were transfixed, and the teacher himself was a little lost, distracted and weakened. Such power in the gossamer yarn.

And as to temptress, I can only imagine the emotional wreckage left in her feminine wake over the decades.

Now, back to my own legs which are presently moored within a pair of Victoria’s Secret Flatter Me Control Tops. Vicky is ubiquitous. Like her or not, you cannot ignore her. Let me describe my relationship with this temptress:

She is flame. I am moth.

Her carefully nurtured brand image is analogous to really good makeup. It has the effect of making everything underneath or within it seem a little more beautiful and valuable than close inspection might reveal.

For this perception, we consumers happily part with a couple of dollars here and there that we might not if we were perfectly rational consumers. Rationality however is not a noted trait of our sorority. With that said, I know that I am far from perfect, but will try to be close to rational.

Taking it from top to toe here is what the legs are telling me. The panty portion is a very high Lycra content shaper whose very functional design still favors fashion and femininity. Fashion, by sitting very surely at or just below the waistline, thereby not running the risk of peeking above skirt top. Femininity, by fusing panty to leg with a fine floral flourish. Entirely unnecessary, and entirely appreciated. Bonus points too, from the very subtle built-in butt lifter. Truly a fine crossdresssers garment in so far as it really smooths out whatever padding you supply to compensate for what nature missed.

Proceeding in a southerly direction to the legs. Just nice. A very sure, tight and yet cool feel on the leg. A sophisticated and dressy matte finish that I find very flattering. I would want just a little lower a Lycra content in the leg (I am only guessing, but it feels like 15% --- sorry --- the packaging went out with the recycling yesterday). The feel therefore lacks a little of the electric X factor that I favor in my hose. Clearly, there are more sheer leggings in the price range. Surely, there are more silky feeling nylons in this price range. I suspect however that Victoria (O I do want to believe that there is a Victoria) made a very rational decision in putting these together and on the shelves. She wanted enough durability in the leg to keep up with and last as long as the sexy Kevlar fortified portion up top. I think she got it, and I don’t mind giving up a little feel for that.

Having now been flattered by the Flatter Me’s, I will return the favor. Without doubt, these are the best fitting pantyhose I have ever worn. A rare 9.5 in this category. Strong Random Merit Points for the panty detail and booty lifting engineering.

At a retail price of $12.50, they earn a laudable 162.1 Petra’s Pantyhose Points to just miss the winners podium. 4th place out of 13 tested models, and a vast prairie of nylon yet to cross. Hanes, Calvin Klein, and Donna Karan remain poised, glimmering and ready to fight off next weeks pretender.

I can’t wait to find out who she is….

Shouldering the burden. Cross Dressing and the Bra.

Here at Voyages en Rose, I periodically poll the proud, the few and the fabulous otherwise known as, well, you. On most occasions I find myself unsurprised by poll outcomes, and mostly in the majority view.

One recent poll surprised me more than a little, and found me in a distinct (if not elegant) minority. This poll had to do with favorite garments. To refresh your memories, or introduce you anew, here are numbers and my high barstool analysis.

Private, unseen and only barely at suggested garments ran away with it. Underthings, not visible to outsiders are the favorites. Panties barely eclipsed the brassiere, by a single breathtaking vote.

Gorgeous, finished exterior things, feminine in full, the dress, hosiery and heels were left in the dust. The garments we show the world if and when we present female in public hold a less precious place in our wardrobe and hearts.

This set me to thinking. I have of late been taking a bigger interest in the bra. I recently acquired a fine new pair of silicon breast forms. They behave differently then my own very inventive home-made full torso prosthesis. They have rendered my current bras just wrong in fit and feel and appearance. They have exactly the size and feel that I have wanted forever though, and so providing them with the perfect foundation garment has become increasingly important.

All of this helped me do a little pondering on the bra, its’ place in our psyche and its place around our chests. Tendered lovingly here.

The bra is a great garment. As a teenager, there were few feelings better than executing the thumb and forefinger flick expertly beneath the girlfriends sweater … the elastic snap, the sudden yielding of fabric and flesh and the frenzied explorations that followed. I was jealous of the girlfriends wardrobe and in love with the sight and the touch of everything that was poured into it.

As a cross dresser the feelings are less exciting but perhaps just as intoxicating. Just fastening a garment behind ones own back sharpens the senses. You know without doubt that you are crossing a line, unmistakably cross dressing. There are no drab garments that we fasten from behind. It is deliberate, it takes concentration. Hooks and eyes meet, mate and seal surely. And then, even the most comfortable bra reminds you with your every move that it is there. Breathing is a touch more constrained. The gentle tug of strap that never fully lets up on the shoulders. The underwire that settles in place and fixes your forms in place.

The bra is a private refuge of lace, or floral patterns, of fabrics smooth to the touch – all characteristics that drab wardrobes simply do not display. The bra creates an opportunity for pure self indulgence. Function is often sacrificed for purely hedonistic ends.

The bra demands attention and care from its possessor. It domesticates its owner in very subtle ways. When hand washed, when shaped and dried patiently, when carefully folded, it responds lovingly with longer life and better performance of its unrelenting work.

The bra merchandises a part of the anatomy that I believe has deeply held aesthetic appeal to all of humanity, straight and not, male and female and everyone in between. We all are mammals after all, and so its only natural that we get a little hung up on the mams that we conceal and emphasize and support and pay tribute to with the mighty bra.

And so back to my newish pair of breast forms. They need a better embrace. I am ready to put myself, quite literally, in the hands of a professional. There are a couple of local shops that are reputed to take the brassiere seriously. I have heard some chatter that I can expect to be treated well when I stroll in en femme. I plan on phoning in advance to find the warmest embrace, and visiting for a fitting sometime in March. You can expect a happy rhapsody on the experience here in the not too distant future.

If you do live or shop here in Atlanta, and can recommend a lingerie shop for the likes of we, please leave a comment here.