When Dorothy wrote about a recently-resurfaced memory of hers, in which she shows off a dress to her mother, I assumed I had nothing that was even remotely comparable from my own childhood. Now I'm not so sure.

Before I say (write?) anything else, I'd like to extend my thanks publicly to Jaci and Dorothy for allowing me to be part of their crazy little gathering. Yes, folks, I actually survived an online conversation with those two. Though I have to say my participation was mainly limited to laughing hysterically at their antics--more, in fact, than I believe I've done in a long time.

Some people have been wondering where I've been. So it seems only fair I should tell them.

Just to ease everyone's mind, I hadn't been sucked into the Bermuda Triangle, nor had I been abducted by aliens who force-fed me Cheez-Its while making me watch episodes of "Real Housewives of New Jersey." And, as should be obvious by the presence of this blog entry, I certainly haven't died. Though if I had, and I still managed to produce a blog entry, that would give a whole new meaning to the term "ghost writer." (Slight pause while everyone groans.)

Good afternoon (at least in my time zone) and Happy Holidays.

I probably just did the bravest thing I've done in years, just by clicking on the "submit story" button. There were times in the writing of this I was literally trembling in fear. One's first story is probably the hardest, as no one knows you, or what to expect. And you, the author, have no way of knowing what the reaction is going to be.

I promised myself--and all of you--that I wouldn't talk about my story or the contest again here, but as with most of my promises, it was a far easier thing to make than to keep.

But I do have a good reason for breaking my promise. I've been spending the last few days--in between medical appointments, Christmas parties, and personal responsibilities--trying to pull together some 17,000 words of story fragments into something coherent. I have enough material in a decent-enough state of completion for the first two installments. From the looks of things, my little story is going to be a novella before I'm through, if not a full-fledged novel.

Though it might have been wiser to heighten the suspense and wait, I could not resist the temptation to post some of what I'd written so far for the upcoming One Winter's Eve contest. I think, however, that some explanation is necessary.

It may well be the magic of the Christmas season, or it may be that my depression has, for the moment, gone into remission. But the story I'm working on for the current contest promises to be not only the most ambitious and complex story I've ever done, but the most ambitious and complex story that stands a chance of being completed. (I even have a tentative title: The Christmas Ivy Bloomed--a title with a double meaning in this story).

In all my years of living full-time in my chosen gender, the biggest frustration was probably my voice. While not exactly basso profundo, it still gave off a definite "male" signal to others in the earliest years. Yet, paradoxically, I can remember being called "ma'am" on the phone on many occasions pre-transition. (The answer, I realized many years later, was that my telephone voice had a certain lilt that read as female to those on the other end, but I didn't know about modulation at the time. So it was a complete mystery to me).

A very curious thing happened this morning, which kind of has me in a panic. I looked at my breasts in the mirror, and for a moment, found myself hating them.

That very well could be a danger sign, a sign that deep down, I want to de-transition, which understandably has not had a very good effect on my mood. De-transitioning is the last thing in the world I want, especially after fourteen years of living as female. And the feeling is not constant, just on certain days. So what's going on?

My online name, Ragtime Rachel, is perhaps a bit grandiose considering I play the piano rather poorly, but there is one piece I play rather well, and that's Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag." It was the song I heard Eubie Blake playing one day when I was twelve--he did it, as I recall, as part of a PBS special--and from then on, I was hooked, hopelessly, on ragtime. I had never heard anything quite like it, and endeavored to learn to play, simply to play that kind of music.

The venerable American comic strip doesn't seem as popular, or as influential, as it had been when people hung on every word of Dick Tracy, L'il Abner, and Pogo. This led some to make gloomy pronouncements about the end of that art form. Is the real problem, though, not that the medium itself is dated, but that its policies regarding appropriate content are stuck in 1953?

I'm inclined toward the latter view.

Well dear readers, this ragtime gal goofed...I tried to post this earlier, but a glitch caused my entry to post twice (those troublesome Babbage engines will do that if not properly oiled....) In my attempt to delete one of the copies, I deleted both, so I had to repost. If you had commented before my abrupt deletion, I apologize...Rachel

Not long ago, while re-reading my introductory blog post about the need for more disabled TG characters, I was reminded of a book I read which was as far removed from the subject of TG fiction as one could be. Nonetheless, it provided what I consider to be a most intriguing idea.

The book was a series of profiles of influential disabled people--one of whom, a cerebral-palsied individual named Bernard Carabello, had spent his childhood in Willowbrook, a notorious institution for the developmentally disabled in upstate New York. His account of his years there was more chilling than the darkest Gothic horror--untended children sitting in their own filth; children restrained for torturously long periods; children poorly and hastily fed by an overworked staff, as well as poorly clothed. These unspeakably awful conditions were first brought to the public's attention in the early '70s by a young investigative reporter named Geraldo Rivera. His findings led to the eventual closing of said institution in 1973. (This turned out to be wrong. Incredibly, it stayed open until 1987.)

One particular passage of the chapter on Carabello and Willowbrook caught my attention immediately, and set the idea machinery in motion. The Willowbrook staff, it seemed, had an unusual method for distributing the clothing donated by charities to the institution--they would throw it into a pile, and the kids who could dress themselves would grab what items they could. Whatever they got they were stuck with, whether it fit or not, whether it was appropriate for the time of year or not.

You can, no doubt, already sense where this is going--it doesn't take much of a leap of the imagination to picture one child who happens to be fascinated with a pretty dress at the top of that pile. The child grabs it, puts it on, and proudly displays it to the staff.

The problem is, the child is a boy.

Edited slightly, to eliminate some rather embarrassing errors your gentle writer has found...

Well, it does seem that I made my debut here with a bang, did I not? The massive response to my debut blog entry, on the supposed dearth of disabled protagonists in TG fiction, was completely unexpected. I thank those of you who responded, and especially those inspired to write (such as Bailey Summers and Raff01). This tells me I've chosen the right corner of the Internet in which to kick back and relax.

Some of you have no doubt wondered why I don't attempt such a story myself.