I Am Feathered By The Moonlight Falling Down On Me

"All your life is such a shame, shame, shame. All your love is just a dream, dream, dream." - Counting Crows, "Murder Of One"

"Side by side in silence, without a single word... It's the loudest sound I've ever heard." - The Cure, "The Loudest Sound"

"Following the silent hedges, needing some other kind of madness." - Bauhaus, "Silent Hedges"

"Self confidence leaks from a thousand wounds." - Bauhaus, "Silent Hedges"

"Nothing or no one will ever make me let you down." - Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Kiss Them For Me"

"My mind is filled with many things resembling a thought." - Teenage Fanclub, "December"

"Every time I see your face, you know I softly die." - "Softly" by Soup Dragons

"The way you drop is like a stone. Making out you're flying, but you've just been thrown." - Jesus and Mary Chain, "Drop"

"Suicide isn't painless. It hurts like hell. It's set aside for the famous - a little suicide sells. Nothing lasts forever. But, then, nothing ever did. It's big, but it's not clever. And it's really not that big. So no more tears, you're a big boy now. We'll have a few more beers, we'll sort it out somehow" - Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, "Suicide Isn't Painless"

"I'll pick some daisies from the flowerbed of the Galaxy Theater while you clear your head. I thought some daisies might cheer you up." - Eels, "Daisies Of the Galaxy"

"Where you should be there's no one around." - Counting Crows, "Raining In Baltimore"

"You people are mistaken if you think that I'm awake and celebrating anything that I've become." - AWOLNATION, "Run"

"In the dark of night those faces they haunt me but I wish you were so close to me. Yes I wish you were by my side." - INXS, "By My Side"

"If I could be who you wanted. If I could be who you wanted all the time." - Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees"

"Watch out. You might get what you're after." - Talking Heads, "Burning Down The House"

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known. Can't wait for tomorrow, tomorrow's much to long. I'll tear my heart out before I get out." - Smashing Pumpkins, "Today"

"I just remembered that I'm through with people today." - Parastatic, "Through With People"

"There are things I want to say but I don't know if they will be to you." - Teenage Fanclub, "Alcoholiday"

"Why try when everything I do seems half right?" - Toad the Wet Sprocket, "High On a Riverbed"

"In the dark of night, those small hours, uncertain and anxious, I need to call you." - INXS, "By My Side"

"There's a perfect kiss somewhere out in the dark, but a kiss ain't enough." - Psychedelic Furs, "Heartbreak Beat"

"And you know I'm fine, but I hear those voices at night sometimes." - Killers, "Spaceman"

"I feel nothing. I feel nothing at all." - James, "Lullaby"

"I wish it would rain. It blends in with the hurt and pain." - Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, "My Defeatist Attitude"

"I've got no far horizons. I don't wish upon a star." - Phil Collins, "Take Me Home"

Thanksgiving Thanks Given

Thank you for being my friend for over twenty years.
Thank you for making me get help.
Thank you for being there when I need to vent.
Thank you for not judging me.
Thank you for giving me the strength and confidence to buy my first dress, even if it didn't fit.
Thank you for being the two best managers I've ever worked for.
Thank you for introducing me to mandalas.
Thank you for not making me feel small for telling you I had a crush on you.
Thank you for not hating me for telling you I'm in love with you, and will be until the end of the world.
Thank you for the conversation debating what constitutes reaching "second base" and what constitutes reaching "third base."
Thank you for pushing me so hard to want to be a better person.
Thank you for not treating me differently when I admitted to being the one who said you had nice breasts.
Thank you for the happy hour conversations, and offering to go to the cross dresser support group meeting with me.
Thank you for inviting me to see your play a couple years ago, and for the hug that I still feel from when we first saw each other that night.
Thank you for sitting with me in your office and taking the time to actually listen to me when I first told you about being a cross dresser, and talking to me about the Katelyn Jenner interview, and actually asking me questions about how I have felt going through different stages of this self exploration.
Thank you for calling me out on my bullshit.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for hugs.
Thank you for letting me cry when I need to, whether it's in your office, on the phone, in person, or just during a random Instagram or WhatsApp chat.
Thank you for making me get help.

Thank you all for being so immensely supportive as I explore who I am.

I hope my upcoming hospital stay will give me the knowledge I need to better be the person you see in me, but that I still can't see in myself. I'm trying, I promise.

Fuck You, November

I have really come to despise the month of November. Ever since I met my wife November has sucked. The only good (ish) one was the first one, ten years ago, when I proposed. It's all been fucking downhill since then. Her birthday is in November, as is our wedding anniversary. Beginning the year were got married, we've been fighting on one or both of those dates, beginning with her birthday 15 days after we married. I don't remember the details of that fight, but I do remember we almost went and got our marriage dissolved because of it. I sometimes wish we had. We got married in 2006, so this makes the ninth fucking terrible November. This is the first one we aren't fighting at least. This time all the bad shit is my own fault. I've gone completely mad, for one thing. I should take my friend Tracy's advice and go to an inpatient psych program. I've lost my shit at work, although in this case I feel absolutely justified - tell me which of you wouldn't feel insulted being told you're over paid. Then today happened. I completely fucked up one of the greatest friendships I've ever had. All because I had to tell her I'm in love with her. Fucking idiot. Next year I'm skipping straight from Halloween to December 1st.

Fuck November.

It Feels Like Love, And It's All That We've Got

My heart is a mess right now. I'm so madly in love, but it's not at the right time. It's definitely the right woman, just the wrong time. Of course... There's nothing saying that she would ever feel the same.

I know my heart is all over the place. It's something I've always had to deal with. I've always gotten crushes on women very easily. But this one is different. This one is full on undeniable caps lock bold italics underscore LOVE, which has only happened once before, and neither time was with my wife. Yes, I love her, but I don't LOVE her the way I should.

I've spent almost two hours crying and cannot stop. I've been shaking uncontrollably. I don't know what I expected in return by telling her how I feel. It's not like I was expecting her to say, "I feel the same! Leave your wife and move to ________ and we'll be together forever!" It would've been asinine to think that. I honestly wasn't even expecting the "I feel the same" part. So why am I so god damned crushed that it didn't happen?

I hate that I'm so unstable right now that I've put myself in this position. I hate having a heart. I hate that the only two women I've ever truly loved are my two best friends and that I'll never be lucky enough to be with either. Even if I were to divorce, one is married, and the other is on the verge of beginning a new relationship after having her heart broken. And who's to say either of them would want to be in a relationship with my ass while I'm dealing with all.... this. This mess of a person that I am.

I'm just so grateful that she dealt with my absurdity kindly and graciously. I'll never stop loving her, but that's my burden to bear, not hers.

Title: Psychedelic Furs, "Heartbreak Beat"

Writing Prompt #2

I'm having a nice bout of writer's block again, so here's another entry based on a writing prompt.

My first kiss is one that I actually remember quite well. It was in 1989, the summer between eighth grade and high school. The girl's name was Mandy, a classmate who I dated for about a month. She was a redhead, a little on the chubby side, and had a billion or so freckles.

We lived out in the country, so even though she lived about seven miles away, she was closer in proximity than the vast majority of my friends - which, admittedly, I didn't have many of at this particular point in time. While we had lived in the general area for a little over two years, we had only lived in our house for about six months at that time, and even then my friend-making skills were less than stellar.

Around mid-June, Mandy invited me to a party at her house to celebrate finishing middle school. It was the first time I'd been invited to any sort of social gathering since moving from Cleveland so naturally I jumped at the opportunity. The party was decent, but most of the time I spent alone sitting on a tree stump watching everyone swimming and having fun. Toward the end of the party Mandy and I sat at the picnic table and decided we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Ahh, young love.

The next time I saw her was the Fourth of July, when she invited me over for a picnic. When my mom dropped me off, I realized I was the only person there. It turned out just being Mandy her parents and I - my first "real" girlfriend, and I already had to go through the parent test!

We walked to a park down the road that her dad took care of, as part of the township's tiny parks and rec department. He was dragging the baseball field, which for those not into baseball is when you drag a rake, chain link fence, or other such device around the infield to smooth the dirt.

Anyway.

When he finished we rode back to their house with him to eat. After dinner her parents left, so it was just the two of us at the house. We sat at the picnic table, and she told me I needed to kiss her.

The thing that has stuck with me the most over the years was the taste. I don't remember how soft her lips may or may not have been, or how exactly the tongue play went, or any of the other million tiny details that come with kissing. But I clearly remember that her mouth tasted like mustard from the burgers we had eaten.

We made out for close to half an hour before my mom pulled in to pick me up. I gave her my Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat (horrible move!!) we parted ways, and that was the end of our relationship. We didn't talk the rest of the summer, and when we started school in the fall she was dating someone else.

So, there's my first kiss.

The Drugs Don't Work They Just Make You Worse

I'm so tired of feeling like I'm crazy. I hate that my meds are affecting my memory, which is normally really damn good. I hate that I can't control my temper or moods, that from minute to minute I have no clue how I'm going to feel. I'm sick of feeling suicidal, which has been happening much more frequently the past few months. I'm tired of feeling like a bystander, an outside observer, in my own life. I hate not knowing what's going to happen with the fucking tuberculosis. I'm exhausted with having to put this god damned façade forth, pretending I'm happy to be me. Or that I'm happy to be alive.

But most of all it's the feeling like I'm crazy that I can't take anymore. It's really pushing me to the point that I might have to call a damn suicide hotline. Or admit myself to a treatment center or something. Because I'm afraid that I'm going to hurt myself. Or my wife or kids. Or my stupid fucking dog.

I was on vacation the last, like, 9 or 10 days. Whatever it was. At least once each of those days I sat alone in my house bawling, for absolutely no reason. Or for a million reasons. Who knows anymore. Today I put insulation in the attic, and had a nice brand new razor to cut it with.

I came so close. So close.

Title: "The Drugs Don't Work" by The Verve.

What Do You Want From Me?

I've been on vacation for a week now and haven't written a single thing. That's really disappointing, but the truth is, I really don't have anything to say right now that isn't rehashing the same stuff I've been talking about since I started this blog in the first place. Maybe I should just shut this thing down, keep my pissy little complaints to myself. I feel like all I'm doing is whining and bitching about things that, in the end, aren't important. So my wife won't let me dress as a woman. Big fucking deal. It's not like she has let me control a single part of my own life for a decade now, so why should this be any different? What the actual fuck did I expect? And now that I've got this shitty illness to deal with, she's acting like I'm one of our kids, treating me like I'm a fucking idiot and incapable of taking care of myself. Good times.

So, dear readers, what do you want from me? I wish I had some options for you to choose from, but fuck... I don't even know what I want from myself anymore.

Title is from "Keep Talking" by Pink Floyd.

So Much For That.

November Somethingth 2015 2:07 AM.

I can't sleep. Probably better that way.

All the happiness I was feeling is gone. Well... Maybe not all but the vast majority. Nah. All of it.

My wife and I were making progress. We have been talking all week about everything, and for the most part it seemed to be going well. The immediate talk on the way home from the party didn't go so well but all the talks since seemed to be making progress toward some sort of amicable agreement regarding me dressing as Emily. Regarding me being myself.

I told her at least five times this week how Saturday night made me feel. How I felt happy being me for the first time in decades. How the feel of my own skin, for once, didn't make me uncomfortable. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

I'm destined to be miserable and hiding in shadows forever.

I Came To This Strange World Hoping

It was Halloween, but it definitely wasn't a costume.

Sure, we went to two different costume parties, and sure, to make dealing with it easier, my wife dressed as a guy. But it definitely wasn't a costume.

We go to two Halloween parties every year. One is thrown by our youngest son's babysitter, and is usually pretty tame. The other is hosted by a close friend and is usually very sexually charged, both in costumes and behaviors. They usually don't happen on the same night but since Halloween was actually a Saturday, they both wanted it that night.

I couldn't think of a costume this year to save my life. I would have been fine doing something Stat Wars related, naturally, but didn't have the time to go shopping. Then, a couple weeks ago, my wife texted me one sentence that I never thought I'd hear from her: "Well, here's your chance to dress as a woman."

I had to explain to her that even though it was for Halloween, and even though it would seem like some kind of joke costume to a lot of people, I was going to take it very seriously. No fake exaggerated tits, for starters. Just my little tiny A cup boobs. Also, I wanted a dress that wouldn't look like a joke, wouldn't be ill fitting, wouldn't be worn once and thrown away. That was probably the hardest part for her to accept, that I wanted to keep the dress so I could wear it again. A few days before Halloween, before I'd even bought a dress, she was still making comments suggesting she was hoping I'd throw the dress away after that night.

I went to a thrift store, and Shannon had to help me calm down, talk me into focusing on the positive, help ease my anxiety so I could actually look at the dresses without running from the store in shame. Not an easy task to accomplish from several states away. I was able to buy a dress. My first dress.

Unfortunately, it didn't fit. Major setback. That meant I would have to go through all the anxiety again, trying to find another dress that actually fit.

That night after dinner my wife actually accompanied me to another thrift store to look at dresses. She was very helpful and suggested different styles that might work with my body. It was very unexpected, but very welcome. We found a long black gown, and I did something else I never expected I'd ever do. I took it into the fitting room, so there wouldn't be a repeat of buying a dress that didn't fit. The fitting room attendant gave me an odd little smile when she checked what I was taking in, but she didn't say anything. I guess being two days before Halloween, she'd seen plenty of guys trying dresses on for costumes.

This dress fit much better. The only issues were that it had a seam right under the boob area that was really tight and uncomfortable, and that it was just an extremely plain, dull dress. I didn't buy it, but kept it in mind as a last resort if I didn't find anything else.

The next night we went to the store to buy the kids new winter coats, and I decided fuck it, I'm going to look at new dresses. I still don't know what urged me to do it. I found a dress, and again took it to the fitting room. This time, though, I wasn't feeling quite as brave and hid the dress between several pairs of jeans. (This ended up being unnecessary, as there wasn't a fitting room attendant at this store.)

The dress could not have fit more perfectly.

I had my first dress (version 2.0) and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. The feeling was one of pride, of joy.

I was so ecstatic that I sent Shannon and Tracy a picture of me in the dress while still in the fitting room. I had intended on waiting until I was fully dressed for the party, but I couldn't wait. It was impossible.

Saturday afternoon I still had to figure out what to wear on my legs, and what accessories I'd wear. I have a pair of maroon over the knee socks that would look very good with my dress, but I also thought some tights with bats, spider webs, or other Halloween theme might look good as well. I couldn't find any Halloween tights, and the knee socks just kept rolling down being annoying, so I settled for some black tights. Nothing flashy, just straight black.

There was one more thing I wanted to talk to my wife about before I started getting ready. My legs. Ever since she suggested I dress as a woman for Halloween, I had a desire to go as far as she would let me. But I had one major goal of shaving my legs. When I asked her if she would be OK with it, her initial reaction wasn't great. But she told me to do it if that was what I wanted.

I never realized just how much hair was on my legs. I'm certainly not as hairy as most males, and it's actually something I've always been a bit self conscious about. (Stupid thing to be self conscious about, I know.) I used electric clippers to take most of the hair off, but it still took three razors to get my legs smooth.

I haven't been able to stop rubbing my legs. It feels so amazing! I know I can't keep them shaved permanently, but I'm definitely going to do it for a week or two, pretend it's just taking a long time for it to grow back, or something.

My only other accessories were one of my wife's necklaces, and some pink lipstick. I would have preferred burgundy or a dark red, which I feel would have gone much better with my dress, but that's the only color my wife had. So pink it was.

Even when I was getting dressed, I wasn't sure if I would be able to leave the house in my dress. I'd never done it before. The anxiety level was off the chart.

But I did it.

When we got to the party at the babysitter's house, the women in the living room actually all complimented my dress. They still laughed, thinking my outfit was a joke costume, but they complimented the dress nonetheless. Then the sitter's husband came in from the kitchen... I know my gut is kind of large. It's because I drink way too much soda. I can eat healthy, do yoga, go for walks, all that jazz, but can't get rid of the belly because I can't lay off pop.

He thought I had something under my dress and that I was pretending to be pregnant. It was embarrassing as fuck.

I sat very quietly for the hour or so we stayed at that party. I think I said three or four sentences the whole time.

The other party was a different story altogether. There are five of us at this party every year - the host and her boyfriend, my wife and I, and one other guy. The other dozen or so people each year are a rotating cast that are never repeat attendees. Usually I sit in a corner and barely talk to anyone but the other four "regulars." This year, I was super confident. I was happy. I didn't sit in the corner for a second.

It was amazing.

It's been a couple days, and I'm still smiling. My wife is fine with me keeping the dress, but still doesn't want to see me in it again, so I'll still only be able to wear it when I'm alone, but I get to keep it. Small steps.

Before I wrap up, I want to do one more thing I didn't know if I would ever be comfortable doing. Here's to pushing boundaries.

It was Halloween, but it definitely wasn't a costume.

Title today is from "New Soul" by Yael Naim. It's not an overly appropriate song lyrically, it's just a song that always makes me happy when I hear it, due to the music and tone.