Ghost Girl (In the Machine)

Pinch yourself... it's not a dream! Look, real proof that I'm still alive!

I offer no apologies for my month-and-a-half-long absence, and yet that's exactly what brings me back to cobble together another soliloquy.  I'm beginning to see a sociological niche that's ripe for observation, you see, namely the online habits of the modern transgender soul-searcher.  For example, just recently I was granted the epiphany that I'm not the only one who pulls disappearing acts on the internet.

Look for yourself.  There are oodles of personal blogs out there that haven't received updates in months - years, even - which lately has made me curious to know why.  I could make a dozen guesses.  I could put together what I know about myself, and about people in general, and come up with the same thing that anyone else would:

• We're not all natural-born writers. In fact, coming up with something new to say on a frequently regular basis can become quite a chore, a mentally exhausting feat that we weren't actually prepared to embrace.

• The work we put into our blogs exceeds the reward.  None of us get paid to ramble on about our thoughts on gender, and even if we did we would certainly feel discouraged if people rarely or never responded.  Few people can literally inspire themselves to create.  Personally, what drives me to launch these missives into the webiverse is the hope of stirring up interactivity.  Without feedback, why bother?

• Eventually the thrill of baring our soul to the universe dwindles.  When you've sat on a mountain of repressed desires and stoppered a sea of bottles full of confusing, conflicting emotions, there's nothing like letting it all out.  The internet allows us to share our most secret selves in a [relatively] safe and [mostly] anonymous social environment.  But after the fourth reiteration concerning the reasons you started dressing as a child, or another pro/con argument listing the ways you'd come out to your family if you could just build up the nerve, the experience just tastes stale.  And, if we're honest, we miss the rush of probing the uncertain waters of ultimate freedom with our freshly-painted toes.  At this point, talk ≠ walk.

• The online transgender experience just isn't enough.  Face it, there's no substitute for getting out and about in a new dress, new heels, and a new hairstyle.  It's a straight-up fact that most of us are here because we have nowhere else to go.  Still, even fans of the Travel Channel get fed up with watching other people living their dream of seeing London, Paris or Australia, enough to get their asses off the couch and onto a plane.  After staring at hundreds of photos of other people having a good time, can you blame them?

What'd I miss?  I guess there's always plain boredom.  We as a species easily grow out of our new toys.  Speaking of human fallibility, laziness could also factor in.

Oh, and that most cunning demon that plagues the textual communicators of the world: writer's block!  Right now, some poor T-girl has rings under her eyes, trying to summon just the right words to express her limitless admiration for 50s style halter dresses.

It's so hard to write when "Lollipop" won't stop playing in your head.

As I mentioned, mere conjecture is the name of my game today.  I've seen plenty of abandoned blog sites and message board identities this past year, but when they're as scarce as they come I really don't have any way to ask them, "So where have you been?"

All that said... What's my excuse?

Summer vacation, darlings.  I've been off since early June.  And I don't go back to work until mid-August.  What with all the back-and-forth goings on that summer demands - beach, movies, friends, house cleaning, etc. - my time anywhere near a computer has been limited.  Also, the other lady of the house (snicker) also has time off, so I haven't been quite as "in touch" with my feminine identity as I'd like.  Anyway... hey! Now that I mention it, I've overlooked a really great reason people abandon the internet:

• They have a life.  Hey, it's been known to happen.

~HCP

The Miss and her Mistress, pt. 1

"You need a haircut."

My wife isn't the most able communicator, but she has mastered the art of saying the same thing in a variety of ways.

"You really need a haircut."

"You'd look so much better with shorter hair."

"When are you planning on getting a haircut?"

The answer has usually been the same - "I'm not ready to." - but it's not a sufficient reply.  Therefore, I hear it a lot.

Occasionally she injects a key pronoun, which drags her point a little closer to the light:

"I need you to get a haircut!"  Every now and then, a clarifier: "Your hair is extremely unattractive."

On this sliver of dialogue alone, one may glean the entirety of Erica's feelings for my cross-gendered nature.

There's much more to it than that, of course, like any emotionally charged opinion.  She's my wife.  She didn't marry a woman.  She feels an attraction for my masculine side.  My masculine and feminine sides are bonded, which may result in the spark of certain other emotions she senses but also resents.  You see?  It gets so much more complicated.

Our relationship began in ignorance, as so many often do.  This is so much more convenient where attraction is involved because you don't have to question it.  You just know it.  Feel it.  With the benefit of hindsight, I can guarantee it wasn't my masculine presence that drew Erica to me.  If anything like that at all, it was my boyish frivolity that kept her interested.  I made her laugh.  I still do.  She says it's one of the main reasons she married me.

But also evident was my tendency to rely on the submissive, feminine side to communicate with women.  I'm not saying Erica was into the softer, girlish traits which I revealed carefully so as not to out myself prematurely, but I'm not saying she wasn't, either.  This was me all along, after all.  She had no reason to dissect my personality and label its separate components.  She just loved me for everything she knew me to be.

The same can be said about me, of her.  Except that I'm fully aware of my attraction to this darling, barely-restrained valkyrie.  I see Erica's feminine body, her frailties and emotional insecurities, and I long to care for them.  And then I observe how they merely lend beauty to the dynamic, authoritative core of her being.  She is woman, but she wields a power I cannot resist, nor abandon.  Yes, much of her personality is decidedly masculine.  She knows this for a fact, and hates it.

I once gave Erica a present, a half of a whole for both of us to share.  They were equal pieces of a yin yang, and I told her that this is what we are together.  One leaving off where the other began.  Two vital pieces, without one of which neither would be complete.

The gesture meant everything to her.

Unfortunately, symbolism is still a difficult thing for Erica to identify without assistance, especially since her impressing of where our traits begin and end isn't exactly what she believed, or hoped, they would be.

I believe we were meant to be.  There is harmony in our love-making.  A sense of calm when we are near one another (unless we remain together for too long, but that's another blog under a different heading).  Even our clashing ideologies forge faster bonds.  Yea, our tempers are legendary, and all the more so when we turn fury fully upon one another.  (It is odd, one who longs to be submissive as I do putting up such great struggles against the one I wish would subjugate me.  Perhaps I just want her to want it badly enough?)  When the furnace cools, our friendship always remains intact.  This is why we'll always be together.

And that is why, for the most part, I've been one miserable little cross-dresser.

Next:  History... no, her story... wait, how about THEIR story?