This is G rated, or should we say TG rated? :-)

This is my first blog post, just to say hi to the community and that I hope to be a good neighbor.

Here's some self description, because often people are curious.

I have lurked off and on at BigCloset for almost as long as it's been around. I also have lurked off and on at FictionMania and at "the archive". Once upon a time, before and also during the time AOL became known to anyone, I was mildly active in chat rooms and message boards there, under a different name.

In those days, I was just plain too busy working to have time to write or post fiction. I did just barely manage (by missing sleep) to read every piece of TG fiction posted on AOL. I remember FM's launch, and I am still a little surprised that it grew to be such a big thing.

Too busy yielded to being too sick. Over ten years ago, I developed a chronic illness that robs me of my ability to concentrate and makes me constantly exhausted. Now, disabled and nearly shut in at home, I have lots of time to write but very little physical or mental energy and such terrible concentration. Nevertheless, I have thought of myself as a writer almost all my life, and if I don't write then I'm not much of a writer, so I plan to write and to post my TG writings here at BigCloset, where the audience seems to be literate, articulate, and supportive.

I am working on two different magical transformation stories, both of which could easily be new series if things work out that way. The Summer Romance contest prompted me to attempt a more or less classic beach/romance novel, with a TV protagonist. It may turn out to be too big to complete in time for the contest: I hope not. I also have dozens of little one-line and one-paragraph story ideas that have bubbling out of me and into the computer lately, and more seem to keep coming.

The hardest part is going to be holding my concentration together enough to write good story flow or at least to actually finish each story. It's very hard.

For some reason, I'm also interested in trying to do some copy editing, and maybe a little editing besides, for other writers here in the BigCloset. It's that much more demand on my physical and mental energy, but something tells me it won't be too hard to do and it will be good mental exercise. I briefly earned my bread as a copy editor before, and even though illness has perceptibly impacted those abilities, I can still make a good difference. I just need to keep the workload very, very small. Anyone interested can PM me. Right now, I'm in a period where there's energy to check PMs every day, but there are also long stretches where that's just too physically demanding.

The idea of such an inconsequential thing being too demanding always makes me laugh, or at least smile. Sometimes a rueful laugh, but it is always amusing. Absurd, ridiculous, funny.

I hope you will find me to be compassionate and supportive. I want to also say helpful, but illness is extremely limiting. I also hope to share thoughts, ideas, insights, and perhaps help each other to be a little better as writers and maybe even as people, if we're lucky. You might think I sound serious all the time, perhaps humorless. I promise you, I am capable of being both serious and very...humorful, at the same time. Ironies usually give me both things at the same time, for instance. I love word play, as long as it remains whimsical and isn't some kind of exercise in parsing and reiterative application of the same idea.

Away from the keyboard, I am a (mostly) closeted hetero TV, married very happily. Very happily, indeed, since my spouse is much too understanding and generous a spirit to be in the least bothered back when I confessed this lifelong compulsion to her. She still isn't bothered. Alas, the whole time I've known her I've been too sick to find the energy to transform myself so she can see what I look like dressed. Back in the early 1990s, I was pretty danged good at it, if you don't mind me being the one saying so. Rarely, I could pass under close inspection. In most public situations, I could pass. Those days are gone, probably gone even if I get healthy again. What a shame, the lost opportunity. My spouse had even said she would be perfectly supportive if I wanted to get various surgeries and start hormones. To some degree, that's just her proving what a good martyr she can be, but also that's just her being a wonderful person.

I had a couple of tiny adventures xdressed in public as a teen, then it went deep in the closet for awhile, especially during my military service and first marriage.

It took some years, but eventually I worked out exactly who I am in the context of being TG. And I am very happy now that I grok it. With understanding comes increased acceptance and happiness. I worked through confusions about whether I was maybe TS or maybe gay or bi or what, among various other identity issues. The answers are: definitely not TS but it's a lovely fantasy; definitely not gay, and; I think we are all bi to some degree and in my case I am probably farther towards the hetero end of the spectrum than the middle, bi portion, of the spectrum...however one of the things xdressing does for me is provide a way to feel and express the more queer desires that I normally don't even feel. All in my head, though. Physically doing such things would get too tangled up in the mechanics and quickly lose any allure, I am pretty certain. We'll never know since I will always remain 100% faithful to my spouse. That's very important.

Back in the day, I was involved with support groups and also regularly went to a drag bar. So I'm acquainted with personal examples of almost every stripe of TG person there is. I've always been surprised and saddened at how many TG people seem to go their entire lives trapped in suspicion, anger, fear, and paranoia. Especially anger. But many of the brightest, sweetest, most joyful lives I've seen are TG persons, so we have all kinds. Now, I rarely can leave the house, and doing it xdressed is even more difficult. (It used to take me at least four hours at the start of the weekend to go through everything necessary, and that so not possible now.)

If and when I start posting stories, the first ones will seem mostly G rated in terms of what they depict, but some of the themes are not only for adults only, but are pretty damned kinky. I am very aware of the difference between a fun fantasy and actual desires, and these are merely fantasies. Some of them are cathartic and/or therapeutic to write about. Writing can be therapy. Who knows where this journey will take us?

Seriously, someone please tell me where this journey will take us? Bueller? Bueller?

Bye for now neighbors, see you around town. :-)

Annie aka Annemarie