Seeing as you asked Lynn m'dear ...

I have a great fondness for Lynn Jones, the proprietress of Yet Another T-Girl Blog. YATGB is the supremely well considered and seven years sustained weekly diary of a lovely life. If you do not already know her, well I just don't know you as well as I thought. Go read, then bounce back here would you?

Lynn has a questionnaire on her site. She asked for responses that she might pull together into a big colorful tapestry that might help all of us understand all of us just a little better. I cannot remember that last time I said no a pretty English woman, and I confess to a sad propensity to prattle on about myself. So you just know how my morning went today.

I share the Q&A with you here below the line.

For readers who do a little blogging themselves on related matters, I encourage you to do the same exercise. Good therapy, happy memories and provocations about the future too. Get to work!

Lynn, darling, you are a marvel. Drop me a line would you so we can figure out what to do with all of this.

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AWARENESS: When did you first feel trans? How did it make you feel? Did you embrace or run from it?

Before the age of reason. Before the onset of puberty for certain. Long before I could knit the concepts of gender, femininity and sexuality together, and much longer before I could tease them apart. I would pick age 8. The Sears catalog, all the pages of long-line girdles and thigh-high stockings seemed to be a gateway drug for the imagination. Did it feel trans? It felt transgressive. I knew that I was curious about things that were not staples of polite conversation. I embraced it all, but stuffed it pretty deep in my pocket.

ADOLESCENT COPING: How did you cope with growing up? What about puberty? How was school, or teenage life?

Adolescence is a gale force multivariate storm in any event. In the middle of that funnel cloud of hormones and insecurities, my curiosities did not stand out then as defining elements of my life. Measured against people who were bullied by peers, ignored by teachers, left alone by parents, my adolescence was trauma free and really quite a doddle. Smart enough in class, tough enough outdoors, cool enough to hang out with the cool kids, youth was easy.

I was a champion wanker. There. I said it. It was hereabouts that concepts of gender, femininity and sexuality together got co-mingled.

EARLY LIFE/ UNIVERSITY / COLLEGE: Having grown up - at least physically, how was life? Did you fit in or fall out? Did you stay home, work away or go to University, college or work?

All of the above. College disappointed me in part because of misshapen expectations. All the dull minded louts I was in high school with wound up at Uni. I looked around for the Elysian lounges of like-minded aesthetes arguing JP Sartre and JD Salinger over brandy and bongs, shagging each other senseless in the flickering minutes before we were plunged into a long nuclear darkness. Couldn’t quite find that society but did make some lovely friends.

There, in the intimate company of women, I felt as though the universe was endowing me with an extravagant gift. I could never get enough. It was, early 80’s darlings, a kinkier time. Frankfurter was in fishnets. David Sylvain wore eye makeup. Why not me? With a little bravado and a gentle hint here and there, one might find oneself in tights getting a makeover from the girlfriend.

There was furtive under-dressing here and there, and the odd visit to a dressing service. It was all very much on the surface and fetishy. Gender and femininity went into the service of sexuality, rather concretely by this point. I felt, still, as though I was in the grip of a phase and that naturally, these things would go away, quietly, when bidden.

CAREER: What you do and how you think it has shaped you (for better or worse). Is there something you long to do?

Career(s) have shaped so much. I am on my 6^th now I think. Likely to have a couple left. Changing things radically the moment I get comfy with what I am doing is the general recipe. A desire to get out to and beyond my comfort frontiers is key to career happiness, and a key element of my gender discoveries.

Something I long to do? Bubble bath and fourteen dresses tossed on the bed before finding the right one. Then lunch. Get bombed with Sylvia Path or Dorothy Parker, go shopping with Audrey or Jackie and keep a diary. Nap. Rinse and repeat.

All that being quite unlikely, I suppose writing a line or two now and then, playing my piano and travel will do. I would not mind getting to understand food better. I so like to eat, I suspect that cooking would please me.

RELATIONSHIPS: Single, married, long term relationship, divorced, happy to be single? How is family life?

Seventeen enormously privileged years married. No kids. Issues of gender do not dominate things here, they seem to be a sub-plot in our lives. Mrs. B cheerfully, but insistently said a funny thing not long after I shared my Petra-ness with her:

“you realize of course that I have no lesbian tendencies … right?”

Petra is therefore held at arm’s length. We all three of us (or 2 ½ ??) are patient souls though.

COMING OUT: Have you? Would you? If so, how was it? If not, why not?

Outside of Mrs. B, there are only of couple of people who know both halves of me. At least, that I know of. I suppose that being relatively out there, there is always the risk of being “outed”, and I maintain a dignified “I don’t care” attitude on the matter. Thing is though, I do care.

I have managed over the years to tease apart the threads of gender, femininity and sexuality, weave them back together evenly, and normalize the joy I find in the discovery of the whole me. Exposing these facets of myself is so wildly life giving, so educational, so wonderful, and as great a gift I have found in life outside of the love that a few remarkable people shower on me.

But these discoveries, and the process of exposing them is a private, guarded thing.

My non-Petra life is good and full, and easy for the world around me to digest and respond to. A more broadly known Petra would add layers of complexity that I do not have the appetite to manage. I will not be broadly “out", by my own hand in any case.

THE WAY FORWARD: What’s next for you? What are your hopes - trans, or otherwise?

No real plans. I have a generalized hope that myself and Mrs. B can find a place where Petra is a little less vexatious a presence.

WORDS OF WISDOM: Anything you’d like to share to a younger you or to other trans people?

Be honest. Trust the people that love you. Breaking that trust is a far greater foul than any propensity you have for self-discovery. If you are in a relationship that means something to you, find a way to share your feelings.

Know that you are not alone. You already know somebody who feels the same way as you. There is another boy in your class, or another man at work who revels in the same delights, and wrestles with the same compulsions and confusions as you do. You just do not know who that boy or man is, and they do not suspect much of you either.

Get a grip. This is not a fever that will pass. It will return. Sorry to break the news, but you have a gift that you cannot return. If you do not care for it, unhappiness will be your inheritance.

Find a place to safely be you and share your differences. Like it or not, if you are under 30, yours is the vanguard generation. You are at the cutting edge of change, the continuance of an age old civil rights battle. You will face lower barriers to change than all of us a little older and grayer met. Your individual voice has a larger chorus to join. You know how to Google up your scene. Do it, and for goodness sake, graduate from virtual experience, get a little real life experience with other complex and beautiful people in while your complexion is still that good.

Dress appropriately. Divide your age by 2 and add 7 years when dressing.  This formula will get you to age appropriate. Dress for your setting. Fishnets, short skirts and strappy sandals are not commonly sited Saturday afternoon at the mall. Be spectacular, do not be a spectacle.

Passes

Last weekend, darlings, it was outdoorsy. I spent time astride the gables, peaks and shingled ridge lines of our sprawling bungalow, manfully, futilely blowing leaves, pine straw and cones out of eave troughs and downspouts. There was pruning out some excess tree limbs and the dismantling of a long since decommissioned satellite dish too.

This weekend it is indoorsy. The water closet in our en suite has become truculent. Handle jiggling no longer drives the desired silent outcome rapidly or reliably enough. The Throne has been in service at least 11 years, predating our purchase of Chateau Bellejambes and is therefore the only seating in our home that the prior residents ever sat on. Time for change.

And beneath the kitchen sink too, a little low grade Plumbing CSI is on tap for me. The In-Sink-Erato hit a couple of pitchy notes during the supper tidy up on Election Night, and then, poof, expired in a sad acrid puff of smoke which I will remember as only fractionally as offensive as the cloud of profanity that will doubtless hover over my prone and pinched body as I wrangle the new unit in later today.

There I will be, ratty jeans, scuffed steel shank boots, tools scattered here and there and the right one not ever easily in reach, grimed up with a couple of days of stubble on in a pretty compelling impression of a man who owns and cares about the half acre of heaven that Mrs. Bellejambes and myself call home.

This is not my natural setting. I am not a habitual do-it-yerselfer. But in point of fact, when I put my back into it, I am pretty handy.

I pass.

And then there is Petra.

Not much passing going on there of late.

Friends and people I admire are pressing boundaries here there and everywhere. Janie wrestles with nails and males here. Meg figures out how a girl furnishes her first apartment and splits the rent with a roomie there. Famous Stana continues to evangelize and bravely share her fuller self where her only her partial self was known and accepted before. Chrissie gets to put a few bob in the bank in support of her next threshold of change. Halle pokes, prods, and ponders causality and consequence in a way I have not had the energy for in eons. And Lynn, bless her stalwart generous heart, skis nimbly between the pylons of family and fabulous with a perfectly English pluck that I marvel at.

I salute you all. What excitement there is at the frontiers. I remember fondly so many of my own advances, the completely enlivening, crystalline and suddenly normal, perfect, special places one occupies when pressing ahead, having an appetite, and draining that loving cup of new dew.

I am, just now, in a nether world, a neutral place, not moving and shaking much in the way of anything up, sipping now and then but not gobbling big drafts of change with any regularity.

Petra has a very real presence in our home. A full bedroom is dedicated to me. Drawers of knickers, bras, slips and such. Racks of shoes and a tumble of bags. A largish armoire and full closet, neatly hung frocks and tops and coats. A Smithsonian-worthy archive of hosiery. Wigs, make-up, jewelry, the whole She-bang. Largely unused.

I do dress. I skip the commute and work from home a couple of days each week, and on those days when Mrs. Bellejambes is busy on the road with her case load and client visits, I take the time to dress. Not head-to-toe, most often toe-to-shoulder, minus the hair and maquillage. I take on my business activities with the same gusto and macho aplomb as any other day, conference calls, vendor wrangling and tweaking my ever evolving market maturity and penetration models.

I just do all of that with my knees pressed a little closer together by a fitted skirt. Sometimes the knees brush the underside of my desk as a result of a few extra inches of heel beneath sheer clad ankles. My shoulders are held back more, my elbows hew closer to my sides, the surface elements changing all motion, more sway, more grace, more attention to, well everything.

The work, for what it is worth, gets done with as much good, bad or indifferent effect as it does in any setting.

And then, mindful of Mrs. Bellejambes schedule, after a few hours I will change surfaces, hang and fold things away and get back to what … passes …. as …. well, normal.

It is all a little furtive, acknowledged but not spoken much of. Petra is not a confrontational or indeed a needy, greedy presence. Mrs. B has a whole and entirely creditable host of concerns, feelings of unease, and generalized agita around the whole Petra issue. I get it. I really do. I am, above all, a good and loving husband and partner in our shared enterprise. Petra pads about on tip toe, no lightning strikes of stiletto heard here.

Organizing a “hall pass” for Petra remains therefore a touchy thing. We discussed an outing in fact earlier this week. I had a Friday invite for cocktails and a dinner with a dear friend. Much to catch up on, the sort of easy chit-chat that a girl looks forward to. Mrs. B did not want to say, "...please no...", and she did not need to. She hesitated. Her eyes said everything perfectly, and beautifully even when sadness and worry dust her gorgeous, soft and warm face.

I did not get the pass. I took a pass. And I did not, therefore, get out and try to pass.

I stowed my hope much in the same way that I stow my wardrobe, after it flickers and dances for a while. All quiet orderly and free of fuss. No drama. No confrontation. A nice, adult accommodation, the imperfect balancing acts that we, all of us more or less grown-up types make a dozen times a day.

It is all a little unsettling. I would say that I am in a waiting room of sorts, except that I do not have a destination. I would enjoy more access to the rest of me, and more opportunities to dart across the lines of engagement in the gentle gender wars that we are all partisans in. Good things happen out there. When I return from those too infrequent Voyages en Rose, I have had my loving cup.

Honestly, I cannot see my appetites getting much more ravenous. Pierce the ears? Nah. Paint the nails? Maybe for a night. Change any element of my masculine inheritance in a permanent way? No such urges. What I shave or pluck grows back. I will groom with a blade, but nothing, and I mean nothing, is going under the knife.

Yeah, not a waiting room. A different place. Somewhere between the sovereign lands of contentment and contention, embraced and embargoed. No bucket list and nowhere near kicking the bucket. Don't quite know what to call it my dears. Must do a little something to moves things along though. Life is short and ought to be sweet, yes?

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Update: Got all the handy stuff done, and more in fact, than initially planned. Pleasant as that outcome is, all the chores were done without a single outbreak of profanity. People who do not know me could be forgiven for believing that I have a persistent and ungovernable form of Tourette's. Seems to be better managed these days.

I am more likely, of late, to deploy profanity as a spice, a piquant grace note that complements the flavors of a story. In times gone by it fanned out indiscriminately behind me as though from a crop duster or, on a bad day, Agent Orange from a Fairchild C-123 leaving nothing but scorched earth and tears in my wake.

Certainly, the passing of years has a little something to do with the changes, the mellowing. Experience and all that good stuff, natch.

Chemistry too m'dears. T-levels drop for even the most chest-thumping primate with enough turns of the odometer.

But even without an ounce of empirical support, I have to give credit to the influence of Petra. Seems that my more masculine self smartens up and flies right in the presence of a lady.

SC Part 3: Belle Curves, Outer Space and Inner Peace

Here we are friends with the weekend running away from me at the speed of light, can’t keep up with it all even in flats. Go, go, toujours go, now, now, and encore de now, Still mentally unpacking from SCC. The clothes and surface things are hung, slung and bunged into various chests, closets and tranny crannies Chez Bellejambes. And so with the surface things out of the way, time for a deeper dive within.

It is just so damned nice to hang out with great numbers of guys and dolls of a similar or sympathetic disposition for a few days. You can feel it just a couple of hours into the proceedings. Our non-normative narratives join a swelling chorus. Our deviations from the mean become the standard, our out-of-tolerance behaviors are not just tolerated, they are dominant. We statistical outliers move to the center of a societal bell curve.

Conference attendees constitute the majority population for a few short days. The hotel staff gets past our differences pretty quickly. The accidental tourists and stowaways from Drabistan camping out at the hotel kind of cling to the walls and shadows. Whatever they have in their wallet is not coin of the realm here this week, and we special people wear the crown.

And this feels good, dear friends, truly good.

I am not generally much of a "joiner", quite cautious and guarded about the company of Earthlings really. I get mellower with time, but still draw on pretty deep wells of what many regard as cynicism or snobbery. I am just a little awkward around “us”, not ever entirely certain about how we are supposed to behave, or fully proud of how we do, you know?

Against all logic, I still remain hopeful of a rescue mission from my distant home planet, The Council of Elders will of course shake their outsized, fragile, translucent heads in disbelief while reading my report. Said report will have much to do with just how replete with shit the proverbial fan gets when we Earthlings gather in great numbers around practically any theme.

One of your great thinkers, Kurt Vonnegut opined smartly on these matters, referring to groups of people affiliated through a shared identity or purpose as members of a Granfalloon.

Good old Kurt.

And for all that I enjoy practically every waking and dreaming moment of SCC, I feel within me cautions against uncritical Granfalloonery. I am a better loner than a team player, and always have been.

I tell you this now because while I am breathless in anticipation at for the start of SCC, it is not all a fairy tale fantasy for me. I see thorns amongst the roses. Back now to the roses.

I stand (with slightly pinched toes) in complete and utter shoulder-back, jaw-slack awe at the countless tall and short, thick and thin, dark and pale, blonde and brunette, demure and daring, alto and baritone, big city hicks and county crossroads aesthetes, gun nuts and peaceniks, drop-outs and post-Docs and everyone else who each uniquely found a path to SCC this year.

To each of you who paused for a few minutes on your path, and shared it with me, I am terribly grateful that you did. I may have said something nice about your outfit or your beautiful smile. Perhaps we got to talking about our home towns or sporting heroes long forgotten. We may have spoken a bit about the whole ball of gender wax that we got rolled up in years ago, or just how the pleasant the shade and birdsong in the back courtyard of the Crowne Plaza is.

Whatever we spoke about, it all seems now, and seemed then, pretty much normal. Normal with the highs a little higher, and the lows about the same. I very much enjoyed your company and hope I left a little something of value with you too.

Some weeks later, looking back, taking a few years of SCC experience in at a safe remove, I think the value of coming to such a conference is now clear. We get to be a majority for a few precious days. Being a priestess in this church makes it a little easier to be a heretic everywhere else. This company of friends and perfect strangers with a sympathetic perspective on the world fortifies me the rest of my Voyages en Rose, out in the bigger wider world, uncertain of the reception, hopeful of a smile here and there.

So, come to SCC next year would you? Or Keystone. Or Esprit. Or Be-All. Or Fantasia Fair. Or wherever. Whether you are completely private and closeted or loud and proud, newly on your way or long decades past trying, you owe yourself a few days in the majority, a few days of glittering normality. Does a guy or a gal good.

SCC Part 2: Girl (Politely) Interrupted

My minutely considered editorial calendar, beautiful friends, was torn entirely asunder upon receipt of a loving and welcomed comment just this morning. You know who you are, my Dear Anonymous pen pal. You moved me greatly today. Thank you.

I do not know the why behind Petra. I have looked long and have not cornered the prey. This Golden Fleece is on the protected species list, never to be pursued with vigor, and left to roam peaceful, unperturbed by my clumsy footfalls.

I do know precisely why I write though. Much of that why comes down to the periodic payoff of a nice word from a reader. Terribly shallow of me I know. The work itself should be sufficient dividend, yes? Hmmm. Well theoretically, yes. But while I have over the decades attained a few precious and sometimes pharmaceutically aided moments of clarity, I simply do not live on a very high plateau of self-actualization. Periodic roses tossed in the path go an awful long way with me.

And so, thanks again, Anon the Third. Especially for the pleasant reminder of my encounter with Leisl in the Belk bargain shoe racks way back in springtime ’09. A very special day for me. I had a happy return to this same sort of unexpected intimacy while out in the Vanilla world all Tuti Fruti’d up a couple of Fridays ago. I’ll tell the tale here today and come back to bigger picture observations about the Southern Comfort Conference the next time that time allows. 

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It was a sunny Friday, my Day 2 of SCC, after a perfect makeup session with Monica Prata of Nouveau She, and a smart luncheon of grilled chicken salad. Ashley and others of the pretty Minnesota cohort jumped a ride with me to Perimeter Mall for a little shopping therapy. I got a too hung up in Ann Taylor for my friends, and so we parted ways in part so that I could continue to rifle racks and fondle frocks.

I recognized the woman who was helping me. I had a particular thing in mind, and asked her where I might find it.

“Where o where … forgive me, I am just here today from my home store at Northpoint, not sure I know where things are quite yet…”

“No worries, take your time”, says I, “ you have helped me out on a couple of occasions there and I love your style”.

This earned me a double take as she tried to match the present woman with the past man. We found a couple of items together, she prepared a fitting room in that courtly AT manner, and then more or less vanished to help a few other shoppers out.

I have written before how the private sanctuary and world of wonderful mirrors is a place of near religious revelation for me. Honest, open, and intimate moments happen here amongst the girls. Moments that chaps cannot buy for money. Very enlivening moments on a good day. Did I mention I was having a great day?

Bag dumped on the booth bench, booties kicked off, side-zip slacks peeled down, the flowing lace overlay skirt pulled up, zipped up, and door swung open for the short toddle over to the fiercely opinionated 3 way. An interrupted toddle as it happened.

“What do you think? ...” the stranger posed of me, indicating the plum pencil skirt she had shimmied on.

“I like it. I do. What’s the occasion, Oooh, and turn for me would you?”

Her skirt hit a couple of inches north of beautiful, dark complexioned knee, The blouse threw off complementary floral sparks of pink. Fit and curved, lovely altogether from bare foot to popping smile, bright eyes and swept hair.

She pirouetted and seemed not to mind my rather baritone register.

“First date. And he is younger, only by a few years, but you know how men are, I just don’t want to be … too old. I just don’t know if this does it…”

“You’ll be fine. For starters you are beautiful, honestly, and if he doesn’t get that, he shouldn’t get past a first date. Show again? How did you meet him?”

“Oh, friends hooked us up, they always worry about me, I have been out of the dating game so long and you know I don’t mind really, but it all tugs at me you know?”

Honestly darlings, I do not know. I perceive that dating is mostly pure and utter awkwardness, dashed hopes, dropped standards and disappointments, and I thank the cosmos daily that I have been sidelined for 17 years. But that leap into the unknown, the need for optimism, the hope for Prince or Princess Charming, I can still summon up electric memories and a bellyful of butterflies at the thought.

“OK. Listen up: forget your age, you are a stunner. What about the guy? What do you know about him? Will he want to talk football?”

“Golf. I think. Yeah, he is supposed to be a golfer.”

“OK, quick primer. The Tour Championship is in town this weekend over at Eastlake. It is a cliffhanger. Tiger Woods has a shot at the win, but he is in tough against Brant Snedeker and Rory Mcilroy. Eastlake is where Bobby Jones learned to play, legendary place. Ask him if he is watching the tournament and that should wind him up for at least a few minutes.”

The saleslady came back with another armload of gear for her, and I padded off with my too big skirt into the shop to find the skinnier version, and O, while I am at it, that blue half-sleeved just-above-the knee shift dress in pretty jewel blue looks tasty...

Chit chat continued in open volleys over the walls of our adjoining confession booths on this that and the other thing. The lady who was helping her out was not really hitting the fashion mark. Wrong sizes and colors and out of the who-knows-where suggestions where being pried in the door and I could just feel the tension building. We stepped out to the mirror together again with the area to ourselves.

“She just doesn’t get it. Honestly is she listening ?... "she said helping me up with my zip “ Oh but I like that. You like?”

I only nearly liked the dress, just a little drapey for me. I am slender at the waist and hate to give up this pleasant inheritance simply for the sake of an of-the-moment silhouette (ed. Vanity, thy name is Petra…).

And so it continued. We talked. Zipped. Unzipped. She talked me out of the strappy sandals, and she was right. Too high a tone and too low a heel for my liking but tempting still. It is lovely and necessary sometimes to have a suspicion confirmed by a woman with an admitted shoe addiction. She got the skirt. I talked her down a size, a size she didn’t believe in, but one that worked a charm on her.

She was bright, alert, and absolutely paying attention. It was plain to see, and plainer to hear, that I was equipped with a non-standard solitary X chromosome, not a fully pledged member of the Sorority, plain as day that I am not, in the broadly accepted way, a woman.

And it just did not matter, did it?

Maybe my difference did matter to her. Perhaps she was spinning the karmic wheel, whispering goodness to the universe and paying forward a small measure of acceptance. A measure of acceptance that I am sure she has been denied by people with a pale complexion as she stood hopefully at one crossroads or another needing only a smile and an encouraging word.

Maybe my difference didn’t matter. Perhaps the fitting room warren is very much like a train minus the jostling and unsettling aromas, with a destination and separate paths bought and paid for and soon, complete with virtual bungee cords that save us all the effort and hurt of the endured commitment to kindness.

And maybe goodness and openness is just good and open. Free and priceless when a moment presents and the spirits conspire.

We parted with a hug. I did not ask her name, and I did not volunteer mine. She won’t read this blog post. And we are likely not to see or recognize each other again. But I am hopeful of a couple of things:

I hope her date did not talk golf. I hope he asked her about a favorite meal, the best smell ever, or a sunset that she would not trade for gold. I hope he told her about a terribly embarrassing moment in his life, one where he prayed the ground would swallow him whole but that he can laugh about now. I hope he held the door. I hope he lost track of time. I hope he wanted the privilege of more of her company, and asked for it like he meant it.

I hope she said no when he pressed for yes. I hope she did not need to look over her shoulder when her key hit the door to know that he was watching every gorgeous, womanly step she took walking away from him, desirable as all hell get out as she no doubt looked.

Yes, I do know how men are. 

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Postscript. An open letter to Anonymous 3.

I did intend to write today. At the start of the day I had not picked the lock on a theme or approach to the labor. Your comment cleared a path and cheered me up.

I did not intend to dress today. This is an anniversary weekend for Mrs. Bellejambes and I. On such a weekend, well, we really don’t want Petra stepping out of the Sleek Chorus singing unsettling verse. As is happens though, Mrs. B had a few beautiful hours scheduled with friends this afternoon, and so prior to writing I did dress, for just a couple of loving hours. Favorite shades, purples and pinks like my friend. Minus the makeup, nails and fragrance, but nearly fully the Petra I so love to become from time to time.

I have thought of you today, and projected myself into your life a little. Five years, cold turkey as you say, is a daunting thing. I reckon though that there will be such a time for me. A time when the clothes do not fit, where the outer surfaces do not meet the inner dreams sufficiently, a time when this appetite diminishes as many other appetites have in my life.

I do not know you from Eve. But I believe that you have access to a beautiful measure of your inner Eve. I want to live my whole life hanging on to mine for dear life. She makes the outer Adam much more agreeable whatever he is wearing, doesn’t she?

Sincere thanks for your visit.

Much love to you all.

Getting back to Petra. SCC Part 1

The Southern Comfort Conference finished up, dear friends, just last weekend, and your fickle Pen Pal was en scene, embedded, engaged, bedecked, bejeweled and altogether beguiled for two glorious days of full Petra immersion. This was my third visit, and SCC, is now pretty well established as where and how I wriggle out of the summer cocoon and spin myself up in slinky silky stuff for a new life, a new season.

Still shocking too how natural and easy the chrysalis is. Lasting too. Par example, I was in a drab social setting later that weekend, after my SCC time was over. There I was, unshaven, butch wallet, no spritz of perfume behind the knee, and I still had to absolutely bite my tongue when introducing myself to strangers. Having spent the prior couple of days with “Hi! My name is Petra …”, I was still quite in the habit. It took the full evening to comfortably find my way back home to my more commonly known given name, with some damn near misses along the way. I had to smile.

I had much to smile about.

This year, I chose to stay at the host property, the Perimeter Crowne Plaza. Mrs. Bellejambes, you see is quite concerned about Petra getting clocked making daylight dashes through our close knit neighborhood. I take her point quite well. Yes, there does lurk a silly adrenaline junky within who rather enjoys the thrill, the sound of the drum pounding away inside my amply padded chest cavity. That cheap thrill doesn’t tip the scale when measured against the value of my wife’s peace of mind though. And on the upside, a second or perhaps a third glass of wine would not be out of order if I was only a short elevator ride from my crib rather than even a shortish drive home. Virtue and necessity do accessorize perfectly from time to time.

And so I rose early Thursday morning, burned through the final thousand requirements of the work week, set auto-reply and phone messages for the long weekend, and stepped off the grid. I then took a deep breath, the first in a series as it happens.

After that moment of calm collection, I proceeded to pack like a refugee.

Ginger Grant wheeled 3 full seasons of glittering evening gowns aboard the S.S. Minnow for a 3 Hour Tour. Ginger Grant ain't got nothing (but looks) on me. I had been too damn busy to really have anything more than a sketch of a wardrobe plan, and this absence of forethought showed in the Sherpa-sized bail of gear that I schlepped across town. What really stands out though are the things forgotten. A decent facial soap for instance, or hey girl, would it kill you to bring a camera maybe?

No time for regrets on these matters though. It was time to change time, to slow time down, to anticipate the change and savor it. First things first, the room, Petra’s room. Not a place for either a chap or a chaperone. Petra’s room. Unpack first, populate the drawers, drape the closets and cover the counter tops with an orderly display of feminine occupation. The last vestiges of drab me folded away, given the dignity of a plastic bag burial and slid beneath the pillow array on the spare bed. 

Time for another deep breath.

Now for the body. Not the pressed and practical prep of the man day. The patient, purposeful pamper, the care of the skin that soaks in so much more than skin deep. The first autumn shave, all the shearing and plucking and gumming the plumbing required to achieve my undoubtedly preferred surface characteristic. Buffed, moisturized, painted and powdered, the body feels new and young again. 

Time then for the face. On with the wig cap and off with the glasses, the eyes another year worse for the wear, the hands and fingers months out of practice, but surely and slowly connecting with habits long gone but not forgotten. An afternoon palette for the eyes, nothing too dramatic, thin as they are, my own lashes with a few coats of lacquer will do. I am glad I cleaned my brushes before putting them to rest in the spring. A couple of false moves and uncertain strokes, nothing Q-Tips and Kleenex can’t obscure.

The foundation and powder shine up and smooth out things well enough, some cheek color and lip contour. I finish by reminding myself and a gentle reminder that I am a 50-something now, and didn’t have soft facial contours and bee sting lips for starters. I feel proud in a different way, a way unique to Petra-time.

Nails on now, and finally, the crescendo moment of the coronation, the hair. It never fails to feel awesome. I can believe myself fully now.

I know now that I am really only short minutes away from the world. Just the breath-catching moment as the dress hugs me in snugly. The shoes then, the jewelery, lovely big chunky things, the mist of fragrance, a check of the contents of clutch, a last look in the mirror, and the last deep breath of the day.

The one just before the door opens, and closes, clack, locked behind you.

More later on so many lovely people and moments.. Nice to be back.