Back again...

It's been a long time since I've posted as it's been an odd couple of months. I really feel like I need to start typing again, if only for my own piece of mind.

I've thankfully left my terrible job as a debt collector and now gladly do technical support, though it was not all fun and games. This was my first interviews I've had to go through since starting my transition and it adds a whole new level of stress to the process. As my name is not legally changed yet my appearance does not really match my resume and tends to catch people off guard. And the entire interview feels like a Mexican Standoff; both sides doing their best to ignore the obvious questions even though they both want to say something. Thankfully it seems no one really cared and the company is more than supportive in accomodatting me and trying to help me fit in.

Anime con season has started again which is always encouraging. As I've mentioned before it's the one place where anyone can feel normal. This time took me to Minneapolis, which despite being rather cold is a rather nice place. I got to play lots of music games, drank copious amounts and met someone fantastic new friends. Now it's time to prepare for Anime Central in Chicago which I highly recommend anyone who likes anime, games, or anything nerdy should attend.

I'll work on some more substantial thoughts for later, just thought I'd get myself back into the mood for typing. Also as always feel free to post any questions at all in the comments and I'd be glad to answer. A regular Q&A is something I'd love to do.

Discovering...

A lot of people ask me how I knew I was transgender. It's kind of like explaining why you like a certain food; you just do. It was an undeniable impulse that took every ounce of effort to suppress in my early life. But at the very least I can isolate the moment when I decided that it was absolutely something I had to act on. The story takes us back to Anime Central again but this time I was a scant 18 year olds. I was excited for my first anime convention, but I had no idea how many firsts would occur that weekend...

My best friend Steve(same from previous story) and I flew out to ACen on a Friday morning in May of 2003. We were both fresh out of high school and had loads of cash to burn having graduated literally days ago. So we check in and immediately hit the con. We buy tons of stuff in the dealer's room, play some DDR and Initial D in the game room, watch some anime, typical nerd stuff. We were young and didn't really know anyone so we didn't really do any drinking or partying. At one point when Steve was off somewhere and I was in the dealer's room just browsing I see some Japanese school girl uniforms. I stop and stare for a moment thinking they're kinda cute. Then I realize I think I would be cute in one, so I buy it and make a beeline back to the hotel room.

Once there I hastily changed into it. Thanks to being young I had virtually no body or facial hair, and I'd allowed my hair to grow past my shoulders. It was the first time I had ever crossdressed and when I looked at myself in the mirror I literally gasped. I was shocked at how much I looked like a girl without any real changes except cloths. A wave of emotions swept over me all at once ranging from arousal to relief to confusion. I just sat there for I don't know how long staring at myself. Eventually Steve came back and when I stepped out he just stared and said "ok..." He was used to me being quirky so I think he just wrote it off as that. We went back to the con and resumed our activities, but now people payed attention to me. They asked to take my picture and talked to me more. Call it shallow but I was really enjoying my new found attention.

Near Midnight on Saturday Steve decides that he's tired from the days events and decided to go to bed. I'm still wired from more caffeine than I've ever had so I had back into the con. Eventually I come to the rave. I'd never been to one but it was exactly what I expected; loud techno, lots of lights and really warm. So I muster my courage and head in, knowing that I've never danced at all and don't really know what I'm going to do. After a few minutes I take a seat near the side to just enjoy the atmosphere and watch people dance. About 10 minutes later one of the guys dancing comes over and asks me to. I respond that I don't know how and he says that's fine he'll help me. At the time I was being totally honest but in retrospect I can see how coy I was acting and probably baited him in.

So he takes me out to the floor and we start dancing next to each other. Then he grabs me around the waist and we start dancing closer, which then became dancing really close. This continues to escalate until we are practically dry humping out on the floor. I'm super nervous because not only have I never been this close with a guy, I realize that due to the atmosphere he probably doesn't know I am a guy. He then pulls me over to the side where we sit and he gets us some water to drink. I contemplate running away but something compelled me to stay and see where this went. So he comes back and hands me the water and kisses me, all in one motion. My first kiss with a man.

I return it in kind but let him take the lead. We continue kissing and he pulls me on to his lap. I'm in pure bliss, until he touches my thigh and then I come back to reality and panic. As he continues his way up I think he probably doesn't know and I have no idea how he's going to react. I try to stop his hand but he's much stronger and eventually finds his target and grabs a hold of it. I pull back a little and just stare at him with a look of terror on my face. We stare at each other for what felt like an eternity. I'm moments away from bursting into tears when he grabs my face with his other hand and kisses me deeper than ever before. There are no words to describe how I felt right then. But it was cut short as Security said we should take our business else where, so we walk out hand in hand.

Once out there are so many things I want to ask him but I can't find the words for any of them. He finds the words I really wanted and asks if I have a hotel room. I frantically try to call Steve but he isn't answering, meaning he is fast asleep. He says he has no room since he lives sorta close and drove and slept in his car. I start to tear up when he grabs me and tells me not to worry. He leads me to the lower floor off to a little used hallway. It's dimly lit, out of the way, and has a couch for people to rest on. I'll not go into much detail on what happened next. Suffice to say that when I submitted and he took me completely as a girl I knew I could never go back to being a guy. After we kiss goodbye and I stagger back to my room.

The next morning Steve and I go out to breakfast and I tell him that I want to become a girl. I don't think he fully understood what I meant but he laughed and just accepted it. I wore the school girl uniform all the way home even through the airports. I actually dreaded taking it off and going back to the way I was. After that I threw myself into acquiring girl clothes secretly and looking into tips for how to look more like a girl. I now for the first time in my life had a real goal. I've yet to fully accomplish it but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I never saw that man again. I've been back to ACen every year since and a part of me always hopes to see him again. I just want to thank him for being the catalyst that spurred me into action on my true path in life. So ACen will always have a special place in my heart. It was my first anime con, my first time crossdressing, my first time with a man and the first time I realized I needed to be a girl. So I still can't explain why I feel this way but at least I know the moment was I was sure about it.

Con drama

The last post got me to reminiscing about cons. And I always come back to one story which is at the same time more annoying and more funny than almost any of them. Names changes cause internet and all that. Kind of a long story but still my favorite.

This took place at Anime Central about 3 years ago. For anyone who has been they should be familiasc with the IRT and their bullshit. For those who don't know they are the Incident Response Team, glorified con security. These guys realistically have no more power to tell people what to do than I do, but they were all given matching tactical vests and headsets now they all think they're a damn Swat team. They spend their time yelling at people for talking to loud(in a crowd of 4000 people?) standing too near or to far away from something important or anything else they could think of. If I wasn't drunk most of the time they would bother me.

So I'm up there with about 5 friends, all staying in my hotel room. We're having a good time and before you know it Saturday night rolls around. Saturday night is party central. 75% of the people are drunk/on drugs, everyone is just mingling everywhere, theres a rave going on. It's freaking sweet. So at one point during the night my friend Joe is outside smoking. There is so many people out front that the sidewalk area is literally full. So he stands about 2 feet from the curb in the street area smoking. So some bull dyke of an IRT shows up and starts yelling at him to get on the curb. And by yelling I mean literally screaming. Now Joe is a cool guy albeit slightly anti-authority. So just replies "Dude, I'm 2 feet from the curb. Chill". So she does the reasonable thing and calls in 4 more IRT. At this point they surround him and start demanding all this stuff like his ID and badge and everything. Naturally he refuses because he doesn't have to. They try to take him to security but he knows they can't so they argue and eventually agree for him to be escorted back to his room. So he tells them the room number and they start over there. 

Halfway there in the middle of the lobby he stops and says to the two IRT "What would you guys do if I just took off?". They stand there confused for a moment until he laughs, then they do to. Then he says "But seriously, what would you do?" Before they can even respond he just bolts. This guy is 6 even 130 pounds and ran track, not your typical nerd. So he's gone into the con of 20,000 people before they even know what to think. So of course they continue to be reasonable and call the cops because he was "disturbing the peace and probably on drugs". Neither of which was true at the time. So the cops start looking for him and tell the hotel security head what room he is staying in. My room.

At the same time. I'm just doing my thing around the con dressed as Suiseseki from Rozen Maiden(or That Desu Girl for you 4chan types). At this point I have no idea about anything that happened. I'm chilling with my friend Steve over by the executive tower where my room is. First we see 3 or 4 security go by, then more. Then 2 cops go by. Steve turns to me and laughs "It'd be funny if they were looking for Joe". So we start walking back to the main lobby when we pass 2 more cops going toward the tower. As we pass I hear one of the cops say into his shoulder mic"Yeah the name on the room is Vickie ******". And all I can think is "What the hell did I do?"

So I run into a few more friends as I walk around and eventually I learn that IRT, the cops, and the head of hotel security are looking for me because my name is on the room he was in. I try to go back to my hotel room and find that they've cancelled all of my room keys. So I suck it up and head to the front desk. Standing there talking are 4-5 IRT, a cop, and the Hotel Security Head. I tell them who I am and they just stare for a moment(Still had my male name, so they didn't expect a short girl in a formal dress). hotel security tells me "I've been looking for you". I tell them what I know about Joe and the fact that I haven't seen him in hours(truth). I call him while standing there with him but all he will say is he is in "a safe place". So hotel security and the cops give me an ultimatum; I can have one room key(there is 6 people in my room). If they come check later and find that I'm harboring him in there they will arrest us both. I doubted the charges would stick but I'm out of town, on vacation, and drunk. So I get my key all tell Joe that he needs to find somewhere else to sleep. The rest of the night went pretty much without incident.

I don't see him until noon the next day. It turns out he ended up in some Jewish families hotel room who weren't even there for the con. He slept there and had kosher hot dogs. It was like the story of Anne Frank except funnier. That day he just changed his shirt and put contacts in and IRT and security never even noticed him. I'm assuming they long since gave up. So we all escape without anyone going to jail. I write a huge rant on the ACen forums and eventually a whole bunch of the IRT get fired.

So that's one of my funnier/more stressful shenanigans from cons. I'll try and keep my stories shorter next time, but I've never been known for brevity.

SAIKYO!!

I can't wait for anime con season to start again. If you've never been it's the one place where anyone can fit in and virtually anything is considered socially acceptable, for better or worse. Anyone who complains about being a virgin has never been to a con, because I have seen even the most socially awkward people get laid. But it's not just about sex. No where else have I played Settlers of Catan for 10 hours in a row, or walked into random hotel rooms and been challenged to a drinking contest just for being there. They really do develop a society of their own for the weekend they exist. Call me a nerd but there is something universally appealing about being around 25,000 people that you know right way you have something in common with.

And by the end of the weekend, I think this picture sums it up best.

My kitty

Her name is Chairman Meow Tse Tung.

Dating...

A hot topic that always seems to come up is dating and how to approach it. I'd kind of like your guys feedback as well. And I'm not talking about "traps" here, I'm talking about a transgender person who will be a girl someday. If you were at a bar and were having fun with some girl you're really attracted to and she is transgender(you don't know this yet), how soon do you think that she should mention it to you? Some people say that it is her obligation to mention it to you almost right away and that waiting till later is tantamount to lying. I personally believe that it's something that shouldn't be mentioned until later. My thinking is that I want you to get to know me for who I am. My looks, my personality, my laugh. The things that actually define who I am. I've been through it where I've mentioned it to people really early and that suddenly becomes the only deciding factor for them and they ignore almost everything else. But when I don't mention it a first, when they do find out it's typically positive along the lines of "I like you despite being transgender".

So I guess my question to my readers is how would you feel in a situation like this? And if you do think that transgenders should make it know early about they're problem, what should you be required to reveal upfront? STD? Divorce? Being bi? How do we rank the importance of such things? At least in my case my issue is temporary; eventually I will be the girl you would want. All I would be asking for would be patience while I work through it.

Work...

Something that people don't often know about people in my situation is that the changes aren't just physical. Just as as athlete on testosterone becomes more aggressive, so do I go the opposite. Due to my issues and being embarrassed about it I tended to keep to myself a lot, so I developed a good emotional barrier. Eventually nothing bothered me. I went through a parent's divorce, deaths in the family and untold relationship problems and I could take it all in stride, never shed a tear. And it feels strange that I can't do that now. I was just reading through a thread on sad stories last night and after reading two about cats dying I actually had to stop because I was crying thinking about my cat and how she will die some day. Where I used to be able to break up with someone and laugh while doing it I'm know reduced to uncontrollable sobbing when my boyfriend is mad at me.

So here I am getting ready to work on a Saturday I should have off, and I can't help but think how I'm not cut out for it anymore. I work as a debt collector, which is obviously a job that requires some thick skin. I'm not bad at it, but it's getting tougher for me. All day I listen to people's stories of the woe and tragedy they've gone through. Job losses, divorces, death's in the family. I had a 75 year old man cry on the phone because he was so far in debt and was a burden on his family when he was always the provider. And I just want to tell these people that they don't have to pay, that I can make it all better. But I can't, and instead am forced to demand money from them. And when they do pay it feels like I've stolen from them, that I've kicked them while they're down. And when I get my check at the end of the month based on what I collect I just look at it and think "That man could have taken care of his family with this".

It's just a strange feeling knowing how strong you've been and not being able to be that way again. But it's not all grim, because in turn I've become a better person. Now that I actually feel I've managed to have a long term relationship. I've reconnected with my father who I've distanced for so long for petty reasons. I'm an overall nicer and more caring person, so I don't regret this one bit. So all I can say for anyone else out there that prides themselves on how callous they are and how nothing bothers them, I can only suggest that you don't know what you are missing in life. It took me lots of therapy and medication to learn this and I hope you don't have to do the same.