Ruminations on Halloween

Halloween is many things, including a license to behave differently, to occupy a surprising new shell, and finally, to not be held accountable for all the hijinks.

Always happy to do my bit for a good cause. Therefore, today, on the behavior front, I am likely to take a miss on shaving. For my surprising new shell, I think I will favor comfortable, worn, faded jeans and a non-descript pullover sweater. There won’t be much in the way of hijnks as such to be held unaccountable for, but I do hope to get credit for a certain amount of routine household and yard maintenance.

Always the rebel, that Petra.

Yes, it is a drab Halloween chez Bellejambes.

It is likely not the last one either. As “Petra” has, over time, converged with and enlarged the rest of me, my Cross Dressing has diverged from Halloween. Me, in a dress, is not a costume. Me in a dress is a happy extension of something that is core to me. This is a spectacular thing, to be sure, but it is not a spectacle in the way that Halloween demands. And so this evening, I will answer the doorbell and dole out the bon-bons in drab.

This Halloween though is the 2nd year Anniversary of my first “real” Voyages en Rose, and indeed of my adoption of the name Petra. I had spent the prior 40-something years either fighting or being fast and furtive with my feelings. For whatever reason I decided just before Halloween of ‘08 to stop fighting, to slow down, and not be furtive, at least with myself.

In the days running up to Halloween, I ordered the fabulous 4 pad girdle from Fredericks. Quite remarkably, in hindsight, I hand crafted a silicon based full chest prosthesis complete with an adjustable back closure fashioned from a cheap bra. Terrific shape, but not the pliability I was hoping for.

A wig, a cheap one was acquired, on the 30th of October. The jolly Asian woman behind the counter asked me who it was for. “It’s for Halloween” said I not then willing to put my name to my actions.

“Very pretty. You will be very pretty”.

I did not know then quite how to react.

I did take courage from the encounter though, and visited an off-brand discount shoe store, emboldened enough in a crowded shop to find a nice stiletto heel, to hold it up and to ask the cute young thing if she had it in my size.

“What size are you?”

We sorted out the details, and I quite pointedly tried them on, viewed them in the floor mirror, hazarded a step or two to the delight of my small audience. Here again I did not die of embarrassment, or of fear, or under a hail of stones from and angry mob of shoppers. I was a little shallow of breath, yes, but composed externally and happy for the Halloween cover story.

I rather lacked the perfect dress at the time. Oddly enough, even today with a very full closet, I still feel that way, but that is another story, yes? In any event my Googling for a turtleneck knit mini lead me into the youthful confines of American Apparel. By a factor of 2, I was the senior most person in the room. The cheerful young sales assistant and I agreed quite ambiguously on the correct size and color without any real discussion as to who would be wearing it. I thought then that the general assumption was that I was simply a normal father picking up a vaguely slutty frock for his daughter. Just for kicks I went back to the AA web site, and am happy to see my glowing and frank product review is still live on their site.

It should be noted that this small epistle is the first “published” work of Petra Bellejambes, prior even to the launch of this blog. The curious may see these baby literary steps just over here.

I lastly stashed a pair of black opaque tights into a Target cart filled to toppling with paper towels, tissue rolls, light bulbs and golf balls, and drove home, ignoring speed limits and road safety conventions, heart hammering anxious to, at last, wrap myself in these loose threads, to see if the sum was greater than the parts.

It wasn’t. But I was hopeful, shocked, becalmed, giddy, head-over-heels, terrified, intoxicated, flattered and critical. Thoughts and impulses both ungovernable and crystalline flashed brightly, loudly, clearly. As with Neo, quite suddenly my Matrix was revealed. Whoa.

I cannot remember, but I do suspect that I did not sleep deeply that night. When Mrs. Bellejambes is away, as she was then, I do sleep more lightly, but here I had much in mind for my tomorrow, my Halloween.

Much of that story was recounted in the inaugural Voyages en Rose post. It is easy to forget, once one has become practiced at swanning around in public en Femme just how big a threshold moment those first committed steps are, with or without the cover of Halloween. Looking back from here, I have to say I really braved it out that day, and committed myself to a deeper immersion than was required. The blog post stopped at the Lancôme counter. What happened immediately after that was an early evening, slow stroll the length of a mall. I took a seat on a bench beneath a big clock and aimlessly poked at my cell phone, pretending to tap out a text message. I looked up from time to time, to see if I was attracting any attention, good bad or indifferent. Not much as it happened.

I stepped into a couple of shops, felt the merchandise, and on a couple of occasions was stopped dead in my tracks by a mirror, a shocking image of a complete stranger I had known my whole life. I drove home, slowly, at the speed limit, savoring things, how my dress was the same shade as some of the leaves, how the heels felt on the cars pedals, how my lipstick tasted.

I fed the dogs, and fixed a bite for myself, relaxed, freshened up the makeup and ultimately drove out to a now defunct gay bar not far from home. I wound up in a lovely old chat with a chap who played clarinet for a living. He was a big fan of early polyphonic music, and possessed an encyclopedic wealth of information about late medieval society that made for really neat conversational fodder, even surrounded by a crowded array of butch leathermen and over-the-top drag queen karaoke enthusiasts.

He asked me, at one point in the evening “Why ….” not finishing the sentence but indicating with an up and down hand gesture that he quite clearly meant, “Why are you, seemingly well adjusted and charming person, wearing a dress?”

"I do not know. But it feels good".

So here we are, friends, 2 years to the day later. I have come closer to the always receding horizon of “why”, and have come surprisingly far from fear of what I might find out by honestly asking myself the question. These two things are of enormous value to me. And so even as I wallow in my drabness on this day, I have many happy thoughts about Halloween.

We all need a little help here and there. You may be at a place in your life where the help, the cover, the license that Halloween provides is useful to you. Go ahead and use it. No trick. All treat.

Happy Halloween.

She’s the Day

I do a good bit of anticipating and planning for days out en Femme. My predisposition for probity serves me well in much of my personal and business lives, as well as in my Voyages en Rose too. Forethought eliminates risk, and with risk eliminated, one can put more of ones mind “into the moment” and really take value from those moments. This helps me process things in the aftermath of a nice day en Femme, and I think that shows in blog posts that come up after the make up comes off.

Typically, I plan quite privately, and don’t provide kind readers with much of a glimpse of thigh as to what is in the works, but today, I am going to give you a flirty peek at a planning process that has just started up.

First off, a little credit and some background on the precipitators of the now scheduled outing. Meg Winters, created her blog, Call Me Meg earlier this year to chronicle the planning and execution of an ambitious project, flying en Femme. Her plan was to create the document, and then leave off the blogging when done. Happily, blogging is just as habit forming as Cross Dressing, and so Meg has continued to share her exploits. If you have not followed her, please do. If you want to see first rate project management skills at work, she is a wonder.

Presently, Meg is putting the final touches on her project to appear in The National Mall on Saturday as Senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell at the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity / March to Keep Fear Alive events this weekend. Nice. Touché, quelle finesse! Mrs. Bellejambes and myself contemplated going to DC for the weekend, but ya know, things just got in the way. So we will catch it all on the tube. I will certainly keep an eye out for beautiful standard bearers of the (other) T-Party. Go Meg.

To make up for my absence from this event, I have decided to attend a rally with a slightly different take on Sanity and Fear on 9 November called “Seize the Day”. Within the cavernous Phillips Arena in Atlanta a star studded roster of motivational speakers will assemble to deliver some good old timey words of inspiration to, well, to people who go in for that sort of thing.

Bill O’Reilly, Ben Stein and Terry Bradshaw are amongst the media celebrity crowd. There are a good number of personal, financial, and spiritual mavens too, A-List no doubt in their worlds but unknown to mine. I do have something greatly prized in common with the headline speaker though:

Sarah Palin and I both wear a size 4.

So, yes, there crowd will number in the 1000’s, and editorially, the content will generally lean to positivity, hope, thrift, hard work, belief in the self, love for neighbor and devotion to family, things I value. Really, I do. I suspect furthermore that there will be periodic mentions of Divine Will and commentary on precisely what The Creator wants of us. Living in a glass house as I do, I can let that stuff go without much fuss.

I don't know for certain, and it is not my way to pre-judge things, but given the relatively small and uniform social spectra represented by the speakers (including former American First Lady, Laura Bush) it is quite likely that there will be a few spoonfuls of "Red State Red Meat" social messaging served up that does not agree well with my political palate or settle very happily in my belly. I share this information with you very guardedly dear friends. Voyages en Rose is not about politics.

Presuming that the planning comes together and that my clients do not rain down crises on or about the 9th, I suspect that my journalistic observations will, however, reveal a good amount of my own sympathies, and perhaps some antipathies for views that are very near and dear to some of you. This may offend or upset. No apologies before or after if that is the case. Our freedom to hold divergent views is foundational to our ability to wear, well divergent foundation garments too. Behold: I celebrate diversity.

And really, at this point in the planning, I am hoping that most of what I write about will be fashion oriented. My iPad and I will be tapping out notes, as long as my feet hold out, on the general appearance of the maddened and gladdened crowds. I expect as well that I will totter in to a handful of interesting interactions with rally attendees. I am especially looking forward to chatting up strangers with great taste in accessories. Pashmina scarves and really high end bags will be my beacons. Believe me when I tell you that I am expecting to meet some really nice people. In truth too, I am expecting to freak out a couple of them.

Making an omlette here people. Gonna break some eggs.

And so the planning begins. There is a coupon code in fine print on the publicity billboards that drives the price of admission down to $20.00 from $100.00. Must make note of that code this afternoon.

I believe it will be entirely fitting for the event if I secure some new hair that I can pile up high, and find a pair of smart-girl glasses too.

I will then, swing open the closet doors and Seize the Skirt most likely to help me Seize the Day, and hopefully in higher style than all the other ladies in the room, Ms. Sarah included.

I will keep you posted.

I blame Yvonne Elliman.

Many Voyages en Rose readers are lovers of music. I know this from reading your blogs, and from the odd bit of private correspondence with you. Me too. This lifelong love transcends format (45’s, LP’s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CD’s, MP3’s etc) and genre. From Albinoni to Zevon, preference and predispositions do not readily emerge, and a quick flip through my stacks reveals either refined broad-mindedness or borderline schizophrenia depending on your own muscial points of view.

On the whole though, songs with lyrical content are the songs I go back to. I do like stories after all.

The musical stories that drive most expertly, persistently and deeply into my thinking and feeling are the ones that women sing, expressing their experience, from their perspective, and typically in response to some generalized shortcoming or specific fuck-up doled out by a guy.

And yeah, this goes back to Yvonne Elliman. I first heard her perform on the 1970 pre-Broadway opening recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. For the sonority and range of her voice of course, such a gorgeous instrument she possessed then, and probably still today. This 8 year old didn’t have the language to describe the music, but I had all the instincts I needed to be moved by it, to be riveted in place by it

Her voice, paired with with Tim Rice’s lyrics in “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” carried a depth of feeling, an honestly, a fully expressed emotion, that was startling to me. Freely admitted confusion, an understanding of her own weaknesses and worst potentials, complexity, hope, despair, the whole shootin’ works in a 3 minute masterpiece portrait of the full spectrum of human emotion, from high to low.

This stood in marked contrast from such then popular male vocal efforts as Tony Orlando’s “Knock Three Times” and the Archies truly lamentable multi-platinum tribute to all that is transparent, shallow and water soluble, “Sugar, Sugar”.

It was a golden musical era. Female songwriters were getting a shot at telling their own stories on their own terms. Janis Joplin hurled pieces of her heart at us. Carole King made the earth move beneath our feet. Carly Simon called out our vanity for what it was and told the world. Yes, of course, there were many gifted male songwriters doing deeply revealing, sensitive personal stuff (all due praise to Jackson Browne, Van Morrison, and Neil Diamond), and countless songs by chaps that remain potent today.

With that said though, I felt then, and still today, that much of the masculine emotion revealed in song was expressed, at least in part, in the service of getting laid. Soon. Now preferably. And would it kill you, O mighty Creator, to serve me up twins? Do this righteous dude a solid would you?

The female lyrics however seemed enlisted in the service of something of more lasting value. They seemed as to tap in to the wellspring of endurance and patience that women possess as a matter of survival, and nurtured in beautiful contrast to common masculine survival virtues.

I listened so closely to those songs as well because, dammit the women just sounded flat out disappointed by some guy, and by logical extension, me. I felt in some way responsible for the hurt, confusion, despair and weariness expressed in song. Perhaps, if just given a chance, I could make it all right.

O, there was so much to make right too. Guys were clearly capable of and perhaps mission driven to discover new frontiers of insensitivity. The hits just kept coming, the weariness started showing in more unpolished voices, and blown over gaping acoustical apertures, exposed nerves, cracking and creaking, with raw broken china scratchiness, Marianne Faithful, Stevie Nicks, Linda Thompson and Patty Smith.

My 80’s begin with Rickie Lee Jones, end with Sinead O’Cononor, and were punctuated along the way by Kate Bush and k.d. lang, each capable of stamping a nearly toxic dose of honesty, hope and hurt into a 3 minute tune, each terrific long form story tellers too, and each in their way a trailbreaking affront to rock-chick beauty standards.

Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Bjork, Natalie Merchant, Liz Phair, Aimee Mann and too many to name made the relative absence of male singer/songwriters the musical non-event of the 90’s. In hindsight, the guys contribution was simply not required. Beautiful, attractive performers, feminine, unashamed of their sexuality, self aware, easy on the eyes, easier on the ears, and happy to challenge your thinking about exactly what women were thinking.

Musically, the ‘Aughts and our current decade are, for me, mirroring and perhaps anticipating a broader change in society. Our beauty definitions have changed, Cougars prowl with quiet certainty in the beauty of experience. Musically too, the kids have left the nest and the mother is still possessed of a confident come-hither look. Lucinda and Emmylou, Patty Griffin, and yes, god bless her hopeful heart the still radiant Mavis Staples hits the studio and jumps on a tour bus in her 70’s.

These lives and stories, expressed in song have for me always revealed a different view of life. They possess a luring complexity, intricacy, deeper and different learnings taken from the seen and felt world, and have been just as potent a lure to my own curiosity about a woman’s experience as her clothing and appearance.

And so, yes I blame Yvonne Elliman. I thank her too. Whose praises do you sing?

Cross Dressing Senses: Sound Edition

Sight and Touch are two of the five Senses easily alighted when you dress well for a special occasion. Fashion-hungry female readers of Voyages en Rose know this as well as (or better than) periodic Cross Dressers. We, all of us though, have other Senses, hungry ones too who get a little less attention from wardrobe elements. Today’s essay has to do with one of the Senses less obviously catered to, the Sense of Sound, and is written for anyone with the precious and all too fleeting gift of hearing.

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The other day, a new threshold of experience was attained, just then, fully dressed in the quiet moments before taking the air en Femme.

The skirt I had selected for the day was typical in terms of shape: a black, slim and fitted pencil cut, back-zipped and slit, seated quite high on the waist, and cut a couple of inches above the knee. This skirt, in black leather, is an assertive, highly visible fashion statement that never fails to seize my attention when I see a woman so outfitted. This is a look certain to rivet the attention of the female set too. Watch for it the next time you see a leather skirt, pay mind to the reactions of other women in the room. The leather skirt gets seen. Reactions on the faces and given voice to ranging from “you bitch, you look great” to pensive admiration, to puritanical disdain at such a daring outfit.

Again, driven in part by envy as I am, I have long wanted to stand in the eye of this little storm system. I did, just last week, find a day-appropriate leather (ok, synthetic pleather) skirt at Macy’s. With a couple of coupons and great luck in the clearance rack I managed the heist for a mere $21.00 down from $80.00. I need yet another shortish black skirt like I need toilet tissue on my heel, but leather was, I felt, underrepresented in my wardrobe. So there.

She fits perfectly and has the impact on posture, movement and stride that one expects from a well fitted skirt, but it came with an added, unexpected, and delightful bonus. Like any tailored skirt, it has a slick lining (acetate in this case) that facilitates comfort, a smooth exterior finish and relative ease of motion.

The lining being moored to a completely inelastic skirt exterior though, taken with the real restriction on stride length inherent in the figure hugging cut created a Sound, a gorgeous, upper case "S", Sound that provided me with one of the most rewarding sensory pay-offs from these years of self examination and wardrobe exploration: The soft, subtle and unmistakable swish of sleek lining across nyloned thigh. An absolute Choir of Hushed Angels between my knees.

Swish.

The skirt guards against lengthening of step, or hurrying from Point A to Point B. In fact, making any distance with a modicum of grace necessitates much more swiveling of hip, shifting of rump, and tightly circling thigh than any other garment I possess. One is encouraged to adopt the exaggerated prowlish motion of the catwalk. This walk, dear friends, is not an affectation: it is a practical imperative. And it amplifies the Sound.

Swish, swish.

These soft woodwind notes join the percussive meter of the stiletto heel on hardwoods, tiles and pavements in a satisfying swell of music. Dramatic punctuations from the brass section herald such movements as the ascent up and on to the leather upholstered car seat, derriere first, with knee-locked legs swinging in behind. The sizzling crescendo when sinking deeply on to a couch, or attendant upon straightening the skirt and tucking the blouse, all of it very evident in ones quiet and newly self aware aural center. While others paid some attention to my appearance, I was drenched in this music, a private channel delivered with terrific reception even in a room crowded and buzzing with ambient sound tracks.

Swish, swish, swish.

And to close this small symphony, the dénouement notes, the diminuendo, muffled snare of the zip, sadly undone at the end of the day, heralding the long sibilant slide of skirt from high on hip to pooled at feet. A deflated, briefly sustained and mournful cello grace note from the now formless, collapsed and accordioned skirt signaling the end of a magical, musical performance.

Encore. Bravo. Encore.

If you like music, and you like the look of a nice leather(ish) skirt, I encourage you treat yourself to a little shopping, and to treat your ears to a little night music. There is a positively operatic selection of them online and in stores at Macy's.

And if this fun is not on your program today, I would be so happy if you might share your favorites Sounds of dressing here today in the form of a comment. I’m all ears.

Not your Mother’s Tuesday Lunch Bunch

I promised on Facebook the other day that future posts here on Voyages en Rose would take on a lighter aspect. The last couple of servings have been pretty heavy and I fear that I am liable to crease my poor forehead with thought. Happy therefore, delighted in fact, to have a frothy and tasty day to report on. Long time readers may remember a couple of mid-week, mid-day musical frolics at The Heretic here in Atlanta that I chronicled here and here early Spring of this year.

Well, Tuesday Lunch with Miss Edie and the unstoppable Sue Nami have remained a recurring feature of high society calendars, and I found time to trowel on the maquillage, preen my way into a skirt and totter out on the town yesterday to catch up with all the fun. This event was super special and not to be missed in so far as it was dear Miss Edie’s birthday. Miss Edie is unknown to you? Let me make a short, glowing introduction that cannot even begin to shine light on a fraction of the dazzling facets she shows the world:

Miss Edie King is a mathematician and physicist by academic training, an engineer going by resume and job descriptions, a singer/songwriter, guitar picken' entertainer by vocational calling, and an inveterate tinkerer/inventor by forces of nature that cannot be contained within her youthfully slender figure and equally young outlook. In her spare time she is on staff at The Heretic, and does the odd bit of outreach to sociology departments looking for domain experts on matters of gender.

A really laudable life. I will not tell you how old she turned yesterday. She ridicules time just living as fully as she does. Apart from celebrating her birthday by serenading us yesterday, she was getting ready for an afternoon of final QA runs on a Tesla Device she had crafted from baling wire and willpower over the last 15 months. Reliable, zero-carbon footprint power generation is the big idea. Go ahead, get busy, and top that. With or without the thigh high 4” stiletto boots. I double dog dare ya.

Did I mention she sings with a sweetness that would knock Willie Nelson off the bus?

Sue Nami, resplendent in Red Chiffon, with boobs sometimes in a different zip code than her butt, and a pink bouffant beehive hair-DO threatening the very existence of ceiling fans wherever she gracefully glides her 6’6” of towering Technicolor gorgeousness sat in and backed up the effort on keyboards. My iPhone snaps just do not do Sue justice. You will simply have to see for yourselves.

Very much possessed of a classic Southern church musical upbringing, Sue happily shamed sinners and heaped musical praises on all God’s Children, hallejulah and glory be. She furthermore engendered a general swell of the tip jar/collection basket, baritone booming in a beautiful duet of Amazing Grace performed with a middle aged tenor from the audience whose adoring wife looked on with pride, quiet loving pride.

It was all so moving that I simply had to take the air. I moved outside to bathe in the patio sunlight and to bathe as well in the company of and complements of Mary Kay Beaver, a charming, touring burlesque performer who was taking a lunch break from her gig across the road at The Dollhouse. While I was marveling at her complexion and being introduced to her multi-talented professional entertainer friends, she was tapping me for hosiery tips. I had to agree that the Wolford Leos I had on were a look she could pull off, or at the very least encourage other people to pull off for themselves, in exchange for high denomination gratuities. We agreed that the Stay Ups would suit her aesthetic sense, choreographic potentials and the expectations of her adoring audience better than the Tights I was styling, in my more modest way. Validation, dear friends, when a working dancer comes to you for wardrobe advice. I am still blushing.

Yes, my newish Wolfords (reviewed here) were very well received, and with the cooler weather now upon us, I must say that of my prior concerns about their relative warmth were overstated. They looked great, and I felt great wearing them. I suspect that the Wolford shop up at Phipps Plaza had a little clatter of traffic later in the day that was perhaps more colorful (and bosomy too) than their typical clientele.

The rest of the ensemble, a new leather skirt, a simple silk blouse and the usual tonnage of stylish bling borrowed from the always tasteful Mrs. Bellejambes cache of Weapons of Mass Adormnent. Thanks hon! Your are the very best. Forgive the blurry snaps. I am unable to find the good camera and am using the back-up device, a 1.2 megapixel behemoth that was state of the art early in President Clintons second term of office. Bill and myself have aged better than the camera methinks.

Old friends Ramona and Gabrielle kept an eye on my matching leather jacket and purse while I surfed a few tables, had my palm read by an eerily prescient seer and had a lengthy chat with Irene, proud author of a recently published novel foretelling the end of the American Empire. While I do not share her enthusiastic, heartfelt belief that the gradual erosion of 2nd amendment rights is either happening or likely to contribute to our eventual enslavement, I am always deeply admiring of people who labor at writing. Hats off to you Irene, and no, the ivory cable knit, cowl neck tunic is never, ever wrong, and don’t let them tell you otherwise. Just be sure to lay it flat after a gentle hand washing. If you do forget and throw it into the dryer, let me know. I may be able to slither in to it.

Miss Edie, Sue Nami and friends will be back at The Heretic Nov 16. This event is absolutely unique on the planet. No cover charge, free BBQ, wear what you like. Nobody will glare at you unless they are mad jealous about your outfit. My kind of place, my kind of peeps in short. If you are in Atlanta do what you can to be there too, en Femme, drab, guy, gal, straight, gay, tall, short, black, white and everything in between. If you live elsewhere, but have a friend here in town, tell them to come for you. I’ll be there for shootin’ sure, praises be.

Now, what to wear, what to wear…..