Tuesday, July 17, 2012

if it's july it's back to the pool! july 17, 2012

Diana at the pool
with the scorching heat wave we are still having in nj. i decided it's time to go back to the neighboring towns' public swimming pool.
i know these photos are from the past yet since most times i am by my self i don't always have someone  to take photos of me. and setting the timer sometimes brings on unwanted attention. but at least everyone gets to see some of the suits i am describing.
this year we had about 4-5 weeks of drizzle in june and now we have had about 2-3 weeks of 95  degrees with very high humidity. in fact the one day the air was so moist it felt like very fine mist in the steamy heat. but other days it feelt as if one needed to sort of cut their way through the air just to get from the house to the car..
now in nj we are used to hot humid days in july and aug. every so often for a day or so. but this year it has been about 10 degrees above normal for a longer period of time! also in the last 2 years we have had at least one or 2 days above 100 degrees which is verrrry strange for nj.
even though i am only about 10 miles from the bay over in linden and elizabeth and we see sea gulls from time to time. yet i am not close enough to get any of the cooling advantage from it. although i do believe in that in the winter it has helped us avoid some of the winter storms that have affected other places.

i remember from the past that as a young adult when my family stayed in ocean grove nj (which is about 50 miles from me) for long weekends that since the house we stayed at was in the first block near the ocean we would get the wind shift in the afternoon and  that would made it feel like air conditioned air. in fact it would get soooo cool at night in july that i would need to wear pants and a jacket if i walked out on the board walk. yet if i walked in land 1-1/2 blocks i felt as if i had walked into a oven and if i took just one step back i was back in the cooling breeze. in fact one day i stopped so that i could have one foot in the warm and one in the cool!

but i have digressed.
after i came out of the pool i decided to run some errends like the food store for an item or 2 , a shoe store to return the sneakers that were a bit to tight and  a local Italian restaurant to get take out.
after my one piece bathing suit dried a bit i switched suit cover ups to my new shirt-dress cover up. in gray and white stripe and recieved several complements.

then i headed home with dinner with my dad. which although i removed the wig i stayed dressed as diana in the one piece swim wuit and shirt dress cover up.

after dinner i commented to my dad about some of my other bathing suits for diana and offered to model for  him some of them. they included my gold lamy .bikini that i have only worn once to a daisy dukes party at a
locale transgendered group. a 2 piece black suit, a 2 piece floral suitDiana in the 2 piece bathing suit,

me diana on the ocean grove beach
a black one piece suit with a fine mesh at the neck line and
another black one piece with a gold stripe at the neck line. as well as the black one piece with rainbow stripes on the top i had just worn to the pool.
so tonight over dinner (dressed as my male self dave) my dad says sow who is our tenant doing?
i said huh? who are you talking about? and he says you know the gal who showed me her bathing suit collection last night. then i realized what he was joking about . LOL

my dad has been verrrry good about my being transgendered!
i have been verrrry lucky to have a loving dad as i don't know of to many dads who would put up with their only child , a son appearing at the dinner table crossed dressed. or even cross dressed with a wig and full makeup and play along as if my dave self were out for the evening!
i told him he deserved to have dinner with someone prettier than dave once in a while. LOL
he tells me what a wonderfull son i am and i jokingly comment "even if i do dress like a girl LOL"
i fully understand what my mom saw in my dad when they married!

hugs
Diana

Saturday, July 14, 2012

diana at the hardware store july 13 2012

in the last couple of days, since i am self employed i have managed to get up , eat breakfast in my night gown (actually due to the heat wave it has been in my teddy  and satin robe) and get dressed as diana.
today:  in a pink cami along with a white jeans skirt and brown strappy sandals (after mid june i dispense with the panty hose). i chose the pink cami for 2 reasons one because it is still to hot in the mid 90's here in nj to wear a T or tank top. and also i had just bought a multi set of  fish hook earings and needed something that would go with the lavender set i wanted to wear.
anyway as i stopped on my errends a tthe local lowes store i was once again amused to note that upon asking 2 guys where an item was that both of them escorted me to the item on the shelf.
and valently looked for the item that they aperently didn't stock.
i couldn't help think and wonder ... if i was in the store as my male self ... would they give me the same individual attention...LOL
ether way it's certainly fun to be the recipient of such attention!
hugs
Diana

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

shoe shopping and explaining about being transgendered july 9th 2012

i have got to share someting that happened yesterday as i was shopping for new sneakers in DSW.
it was near closing as i went to pay for a pair of mens slip-on sneakers.
now remember i was dressed in fem. wearing a summery blue and white stripe tank top, a white  above the knee jeans skirt and bass sandels with a heal strap.
i had brought white socks to try on sneakers which didn't seem to phase any one. in fact a  lady  was trying to convince her teen daughter to do likewise.
at any rate when i went to pay with my credit card (  shocked that i was actually paying more than my ol' kmart price of $10.00 LOL) which has my male name on it the cashier to her credit actually asked for some ID! at which point i said in a softer voice "that actually is me as i am transgendered but not transitioning" the lady with out batting an eye said " oh ok" and almost looked a bit embarrassed!
i did show her my photo id drivers license and after i paid i noticed out of the corner i my eye as i left that she was commenting something to her fellow woman cashier.

all i can say is wow i must be more passable than i thought!

the intersting thing is that 2 times in the last month the credit card co. actually blocked  my purchases not because of lack of payment but ,again to their credit, to be sure it was me doing the purchase. in both cases it was as my male self. but while i had the special customer service person on the phone i did mention that i use the card as diana. even that rep did not "bat an eye" about my fem name.
unfortunately these days in nj one can not get a card with out a social security number like in the old days when one could get the card issued using just ones' first initial. and remember the stories in the old days of people getting offers for credit cards in their pets' name.
these days even over the phone they have asked if " my husband " could please come on the phone to ok the use of "his" card.
i guess since 9/11 we who are transgendered but not transitioning are lucky to be as accepted as we are ( at least living in this part of the world) and in many cases due to the work of the GLBT Gay lobby efforts .
hopefully we will continue to be accepted in the years to come. but it worries me since 9/11 that to "protect" the many, that our rights of being "who we are", especially if one is not transitioning, could become eroded.

awhile ago a asked at the motor vehicle agency about an additional non drivers license photo id for my fem self as some other states have  and was told " the only way i could get a fem id photo was to change the photo on the existing drivers license but  i would not be able to get 2 photo id's in nj and that if a person has a non driver photo id that means they don't have a drivers license" she also said " basicly if i were to get a non driver photo id i could only do it by surrendering a drivers license"
this kind of places those of us that are cd's in a further kind of "purgatory" in this world in that those who are transitioning have only their new name and image to need a photo proof of who they are but... as a non transitioning cd we only have our male id photo.
at any rate it does open up some new challenges for the law makers within the photo id of the cd...
aggghhh this just creates way to much thinking for this blonds' brain.
i think i'll stick with thinking about that next outfit i want to look for....
thank goodness there was a GLBT to work on the laws of anti discrimination as some of us would have only met with law makers if they came to the thrift stores and malls. LOL  

when i look at how far i have come sometimes i can't believe it. 10 years ago it took everything i had to share being transgendered with my girlfriend at the time. now i openly discuss it with almost anyone i come in contact with.
hugs
Diana