It is disheartening at times (lately it's almost all the time), to be reading tales of woe and hardship, of depression and sadness, here in my favorite site. I suppose our community has more than its share of hardship stories. More than other equivalent communities, I'm sure. I can understand that. I've been there, too, after all. But, even so, I wish there were more positive posts. Goodness knows I try to be positive in my blogs as often as I can, if just to provide a contrast to what is apparently the norm now here in the Blogs section of BCTS.
Oftentimes I find myself jealous of others, for a myriad of things. I suppose girls with similar... "problems" as mine do, too. When life has given you lemons, and you don't know about lemonade... I am a regular Jealous Girl. At least some of the time.
I had a... drama-filled discussion with a BCTS friend about twelve hours ago via Yahoo Messenger. Seems those are the only kinds of discussions we've had lately. Anyway, she has finally given me a date for when she will be taking the first concrete step towards arresting the "steady decline" (her words) in her life.
I read a blog here in BC posted just little while ago, and it caught my eye. I mean, how can it not, with a title like, "Women Better Without Bras." Right? And you don't have to be a boy for a blog like this to pique your interest. Prurient male curiosity aside, women would be interested in the blog, too. (See the post http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/43836/french-study-women-..., by MITTFH)
Ma said during our last skype call a few days ago that it's forty-five degrees back home. Living in Manila for a while now, I am now more used to using Centigrade when measuring temperature, as opposed to Fahrenheit, and using kilometers instead of miles when measuring distance. So when she said forty-five degrees, I used my iPad and came up with 7.2 Centigrade. I told her it was 95 degrees here (which is 35 in centigrade-speak). It's so friggin' hot here! What I wouldn't give for a forty-five degree day.
We are up to our ears with cooking at the moment. We're expecting about a dozen friends and coworkers, plus my brother-in-law Toshio, over for Easter Sunday lunch, but I just wanted to send off a quick little greeting for today.
Hello, everyone. I have been having problems with Yahoo Messenger, and I gather that a lot of the people I keep in touch with with via YM are having the same problems as well.
So, to supplement YM, and hopefully reduce the comm problems, I just got a prepaid, pay-as-you-go cellular plan here in Manila specifically for my friends here, so, if you want, you guys can contact me via SMS later, starting 8PM Eastern (which is 8AM Manila time).
There was a blog-question relating to makeup recently, and I wanted to respond, but as I was writing it, I noticed how long my comment was turning out to be, and how involved I got, so I decided to write a new blog altogether.
Do you remember me? I sat upon your knee. I wrote to you with childhood fantasies.
Well, I'm all grown-up now. Can you still help somehow? I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream.
So here's my lifelong wish - my grown-up christmas list: not for myself but for a world in need.
No more lives torn apart, and wars would never start, and time would heal all hearts, and everyone would have a friend, and right would always win, and love would never end.
This is my grown-up christmas list. This is my only lifelong wish. This is my grown-up christmas list.
- "My Grown-Up Christmas List," as performed by Michael Buble'
I am from DC, as many know, and I cannot help but be worried about the superstorm coming to hit the east coast. My ma and dad have buttoned down their house and are ready to ride out the hurricane. Dad also secured my house in Maryland, so it's as safe as it can be. I hope all of you have prepared in like manner.
Moe and I are safe all the way here in Manila, but the reason I am posting this blog is so that we can wish all of our friends there in the east coast to be safe, and to weather the hurricane (pun intended) and come out on the other side safe n sound. Good luck, be safe, follow the warnings, and don't do anything stupid.
Been getting some Messenger List requests on my Yahoo Messenger (for chatting, et cetera) but the addresses look suspiciously like bot addresses. Can I make a request? If you wanna chat, please send a personal message here at BCTS, so I know your YM request is legit?
So if I should deny your Add Request, please don't take offense - it's because I don't recognize the address.
I knew someone - someone from work who I thought of as a friend, but she probably didn't. She was a pretty brunette, very popular, super smart, outgoing, lots of friends and very ambitious (but in the good sense of the word). I didn't know her too well, really, and despite having met her face-to-face just a few times, I liked her a lot, and I thought of her as a friend, like I said. I just hope that she remembered me in the same way, although I think that was a futile hope, given how many people she knew.
Hi, everyone, it's Bobbie C, just saying a quick hi-n-hello! Hope everyone's having a good time and being nice to each other. And hi to all my friends in BCTS - won't mention names, but you all know who you are :)
And I also just wanted to say I and my family are doing super-fine as well, so don't any of you worry about me.
See you all later!
p.s. I am cookin up something pretty big for BCTS, hopefully in time for Christmas. Wish me luck!
Some folks here know that it's my birthday today (or rather, tomorrow if you're back home since Manila is like twelve hours ahead). Yep, thirty-one years on the planet. Happy-sad actually, coz I currently have some problems, but that is something I have to work out for myself, and I won't lay my troubles on you, dear blog-reader. I think I'll stick to the happy part of the happy-sad equation.
I spent Friday evening and the whole day Saturday in the hospital for a checkup. Just a checkup, no big deal. My therapist thought it a good idea for me to have the checkup, and I did. And since the set of tests to be done was just a hop, skip and a jump from those required for a full-blown complete physical, I agreed to the extra tests, x-rays and whatnot and made it a full physical - at least the kind of tests that my company's insurance carrier requires for a "full physical." That means I doan pay nuthin'! :-) It's all on the company's bill, and it satisfies the yearly checkup requirement.
The results came Monday (the hospital apparently doesn't process test results on weekends), and then the squad of doctors that my therapist required did their thing and interpreted the results and typed up their findings, and we got everything Tuesday, which we brought to my therapist for her further perusal.
Anyways, my less-than-perfect bod was mostly okay.
Moe and I are back home and found our house to have been meticulously cleaned as only my ma is capable of. Kitchen, living room, bathrooms all spic n span, and bed clothes nice n crisp n clean (I know ma did the wash coz the sheets smell faintly of Huggies), front n back yards clean and well raked (probably Dad) and a note on the living room table saying that two of the microwavable "Friends" mugs got broken (Aha! That's my sister!).
Anyway, the at-home feeling came back slowly and we settled in. But what didn't come back was how the weather felt. Egads, it's cold!!
So Moe n I broke out a couple of our long-unused sweaters, and made plans to pick a nice n wooly sweater ensemble for work the following day. But why was it so friggin cold all of a sudden? I checked the thermometer. It was a nice eighty degrees. Eh?
To anyone who's read my random conglomerations of words here before, they probably know I've been shuttling back and forth on planes between work assignments for some time now. Used to be there was novelty in flying. Now, its pretty much like going on a long trip in a bus. And the airport inspections in DC? Grrr...
Anyway, Moe n I are flying home tomorrow morning for our scheduled two weeks. It'll be good to go home of course, but I all I can think about right now is the hassle of it all. I've done this so often now, I sometimes think I can do this without the airplane anymore...
We had a late business lunch with this movie/TV personality & print model yesterday, at a very, very upscale (not to mention expensive) out-of-the-way little restaurant in one of the five-star hotels in the main business district. She was a very sweet and friendly girl, and had a big fund of funny stories to tell and had most of us giggling and laughing, much to the consternation of her personal assistant, since we were starting to bother the nearby tables.
But what really got us to pay attention was that she was drop-dead gorgeous. As in REALLY drop-dead gorgeous.
I am a second-generation Italian (well, one-half of me is), and I am sure that those of you who have Italian roots and celebrate Easter in the traditional way, you'll know that the big deal thing is (aside from the morning High Mass) is lunch. Lasagna, hard-boiled eggs and green salad with asparagus (or salads with tuna), and then roast beef and lamb and roast potatoes, and for dessert - sweet Easter bread and chocolate eggs, and then ending with an espresso or a nice cappucino.
But, of course, none of that for me this time as I'm not at home. Darn...
The stereotypical image we have of summer (and it's most definitely summer here - ninety degrees, can you believe it?) is a sumer spent mostly at the beach. But some girls - girls like me - don't look at time at the beach as a stereotypical summer - lying in the sun, lounging around and working on their tans. But, being "a stranger in a strange land," I felt anonymous enough that I thought I could do some of that without any of the consequences. We planned on going to the beach this afternoon.
Wednesday was a regular workday here in Manila, but it was the day before the start of a four-day weekend. Most everyone wanted to go home to their hometowns, so there's usually a massive exodus of people from Metro Manila going towards various other places in the country.
I am a post-op TG girl, as many know, and I have had to make adjustments over the years - from the simpler, visible side of things, like the way I dress and act and sound (and even smell heehee), to more complicated things like learning new ways to live, to relate to others, and to be happy. No choice, really, especially after I had changed what my therapist calls my "basic physical parameters," which is 21st century doctor-speak for HRT, SRS and the other plastic surgeries.
It's real difficult adjusting to a feminine life. That's not to say it's unwanted - after all, these are the things I needed to do to accomplish the magical transition that I had desperately wanted, and eventually have the life I have dreamed about - to have my imitation regular life.
There are so many things that have happened to me these past seven or so years, though I know that all I have gone through don't even compare to one-tenth many of those here in BC have gone through. But these changes of fortune and ups and downs in life are mine own, and they have helped to shape what I am now, whatever that is, which includes my attitudes, my beliefs, my points of view on life, and so many other things.
Being in a foreign land makes one look at one's life from a fresh perspective. I suppose because the people around you look at you differently, forcing you to re-assess who and what you really are - to see yourself from a different perspective.
