Part 5 of 29

Saturday, June 22
If I thought yesterday was weird, today about doubles the weirdness. We finished breakfast (sinfully late - 10AM!) and were relaxing over coffee. Grandpa went out to tell some lies with his cronies or something - he wasn't all that clear where he was going - and we were relaxing over coffee when Eve finally asked me about the crossdressing. As I fell asleep last night my mind cleared and I knew I wanted to take the next step.

 

Part 3 of 29

Sunday, June 16
What a day! Mary Ann is showering and I have a few minutes by myself to write. I feel like Alice after she fell through the looking glass, things are getting curiouser and curiouser indeed!

 

Part 1 of 29

Author's Note
An earlier version of this story was posted in 2009. A while back my Muse decided I needed to let Angel finish telling her story. After listening to her I have revised and substantially added to her story. As a valued member of the Liar's Club, she is pretty good at telling a tale.

 
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Making Beautiful Music

 
Introduction

It's about the oldest continuous memory I've got. Sure, I can remember flashes of stuff like a toy or an animal at the zoo, but this memory is like a movie. I'm standing with my sister in the wings of a stage in a theatre, watching the empty stage as the audience waits for the performance to begin. A spotlight comes on and my parents walk on stage. Dad is in a tux, as an adult I would say he was resplendent in a tux but I was only about six at the time and such words were not in my vocabulary. He was just my father and he was smiling, doing what he loved to do most - make music with my mother.

She sat alone at a small table in the back of an urban coffeehouse. Jammed up in a corner in front of the bay window sat a pimply youth clutching a mandolin, looking like he would bolt out the door if a mouse squeaked. The place was almost deserted. The three people near the sad excuse for a stage were obviously friends, the one girl probably the girlfriend of the performer.

 

Part 10 of 11

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

I think I may have shocked Emma with all the changes in my life. She even went to far as to remark about the mature way I've handled the stress. Most of it has been good stress, but stress nevertheless. Not once have I had even a fleeting thought that I have made a mistake in coming out and living life as who I really am.

 

Part 8 of 11

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

"Somebody didn't get her beauty sleep last night, did they?"

"Shut up, Darcy."

I was not in the best of moods.

 

Part 6 of 11

Monday, November 30, 2015

If you're in retail, Black Friday marks the start of the Christmas Rush. For a photographer, the following Monday seems to be the start of the Christmas Rush. People are too busy standing in front of some store at five in the morning waiting for a bargain to sit down for their Christmas Card Photo.

 

Part 4 of 11

Friday, October 23, 2015

I was really noticing my bra feeling a bit tight. I wanted to believe it's because my breasts are getting bigger, but after only two weeks on the new hormone regimen I have to wonder if it isn't wishful thinking. Still, when I'm in my Robot Mother Breast Pumping Bra it seemed to be a bit tighter too. Nothing going into the bottles, but still…

 

Part 2 of 11

Thursday, September 24, 2015 - 4:00 AM
How is it that the very same behavior that is so fetchingly cute at 4 PM is downright annoying at 4 AM. Changing a baby at 4 AM is a monumental challenge when you are sleep deprived because you were up to all hours on the net trying to find out how to be a good mother.

 

Part 1

Prologue - Saturday, November 15, 2014

Lillian Terrell was one pissed off teenager. Saturday night and she was grounded! Her parents were so unfair. They got to go to a party and she had to sit around the house and do nothing!

 

Chapter 38 - Love the Second Time Around

We had hardly had time to do more than exchange a chorus of 'what are you doing here' before a small whirlwind came clomping over with her braids a-flying. She enveloped her father in a enthusiastic hug, and to my surprise I found myself in her embrace a moment later.

"Daddy! I jumped and didn't fall down!"

 

Chapter 36 - We've Got To Talk

There's not really much to say about our time in grad school except it was all-consuming. What did touch far more on our lives was Sandra's increasing frustration with the male-oriented bullshit of the company she worked for. From her point-of-view, as well as our growing understanding of the business world, the company was missing obvious opportunities and playing turtle while technology and marketing opportunities passed them by. This culminated around our spring break in 1973, when Sandra and Doug uttered that immortal line: "We've got to talk."

 

Chapter 34 - Alice's Restaurant Revisited

Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant was a major hit on a campus full of guys who were only one deferment away from having to schlep halfway around the world to try and kill people they didn't even know while those people were trying to kill them. Even though the Vietnamese weed was reported to be killer stuff, nobody wanted to be a killer to get it. Well, maybe some of the ROTC guys did, but they didn't like me and I didn't like them.

 

Chapter 30 - The Operation

On the personal front, things were moving along, too. Doug and Sandra returned looking tanned and relaxed. Doug was a chemist who Sandra had met at a professional conference. He had done some of the work on the materials they used in the medical business, and things had just clicked. He worked for one of the big names in that business (no, I won't name names!) and after almost twenty years without a partner Sandra had fallen - big time. For that matter, so had Doug.

 

Chapter 27 - The Wedding

When you are young, it seems that there is always some lesson to be learned. When you are old, you can look back and laugh at how many times you had to learn those lessons, because the young always think they have learned everything they need to know and don't need further schooling.

 

Chapter 25 - Summer of Changes

Exams ended, we all were able to store much of our stuff in the garage of our new apartment. I left all of Conrad's clothes behind, leaving the only vestige of him on my body, to be removed a soon as we reached home. Indeed, Julie's home would be my home, Connie's home, our home. This time the bus ride was without incident, and Sandra was there waiting for us.

 

Chapter 22 - The Other 90%

This might be a good place to stop and talk about the 90% of my life that isn't directly connected with being transgendered. Of course, since this in a memoir of my life as a transgendered woman, it isn't surprising that that's what I've been writing about.

 

Chapter 20 - Ask Connie

In my depression after returning from that glorious week of letting Connie be free in the world, I neglected to notice that I couldn't be bothered to be sure her voice and movements stayed firmly behind the screen of Conrad. People began to notice but, like sometimes happens, just shook their heads and whispered among themselves.

 

Chapter 18 - Perky Tits

Over the years I have developed a philosophy that has held me in good stead. Any time you interact with the medical establishment, the government or any form of bureaucracy, bring a book. Technology had forced an amendment recently - a cell phone or an e-book will work just as well as long as the battery is fully charged when you arrive.

 

Chapter 16 - The Bus Ride

Well-worn patterns of behaviour carried me out of Julie's room, down the stairs and out the door of the dorm, I had done it dozens, no, hundreds of times before. Down the short flight of steps at the entrance and on to the sidewalk. By the time I reached the old oak near the corner of the road I suddenly realized I was walking across the familiar campus in my skirt! Connie was free and out in the world.