I just posted a long blog about the uncanny parrallels between Steph's (Cyclist) story called Sweat and tears and the many abuses I suffered in care from aged six to fourteen.
The blog disappeared into the ether when I pressed submit so it's lost forever.

I'll try again.

In 1975 just after I got married, my wife, (to whom I'm still married)persuaded me to write a faction about my early life.

I scratched away for several months with pencil and several thick notebooks and then the story sat around in my attic for nearly 30 years.

My dad who will be 84 on March 25 underwent surgery Monday to have his right knee replaced. If all goes well he gets the other done this summer.

Between the bridgework -- courtesy of a rollover accident before I was conceived -- two artifical eye lenses and a cow valve in his heart there isn't alot left of the *original equipment*.

-- snicker --

Visited him last night with sis, The Evil BlondeTM, and he's doing well.

Not a real religious type but your prayers are welcome.

John in Wauwatosa

Well, my muse has made her call, and my "wild card" story drew the short straw, and i have begun the writing for it. To (hopefully) whet the appetite of my five fans (I am kidding, there might be ten of you), i will give you a quick little link to some info on the series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Cards

My story takes place in 1989, just after George H.W. Bush is elected president in the U.S.

In the 1969 the United States Congress enacted legisdlation making it legal for 18 year olds to buy, possess, and drink alcohol. This legislation would be in effect until the Reagan Administration's The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed. for more information about what the Alcohol laws were before 1969, please go to a university law library and look at those statutes or if you live in a state capitol, go to the capitol law library. Even Wikipedia says that in the Reagan administration the law was passed declaring 21 to be the minimum drinking age.

Did anyone watch the Today Show this morning? They ran a segment on a 5 year old boy who likes to wear sparkly pink dresses and do other "girl" things. He started this when he was about 2. His mother said that she was uncomfortable with this at first and tried to distract him with saying "Why don't you play with this truck?" or other "boy" toys. After a while his older brother asked "Why can't you just let him be happy?" (Out of the mouths of babes!!) The mother then realised that this was HER problem and not his, and now supports him.

Now that Best Served Cold is winding down toward the end, I've started developing two new stories. The first will be a follow up Center story, that actually takes place at the same time as Best Served Cold, starring Mattie. The story will fill in some of the blanks of this story.

The second story is How To Be a Hero, a sequel to my Green Arrow story. The story will be told in a similar fashion like the first one, with a combination of present day events and flashbacks.

My question is which one do I do first?

Well, welcome to a new year, and a new decade. I havent done a lot of writing since finishing part 3 of "the lucky one". but i am less panicked about that than i would have been before. i have my "wild card" story to work on, a couple of ret-con ideas, sequels to a couple of my earlier stories, and my first and probably only attempt at a SRU story, and that's not counting having to try to write my way out of the box i put myself in for the conclusion of "The lucky one".

There was a commercial New Year's Eve party/event in Brooklyn last night, a big one. Two guys who are event organizers have been having these for several years. Three thousand people in a vacant 45,000 square foot industrial loft, themed as an airline terminal, with lots of people in costume. Airline stewardess seemed to be a popular one.

To all my dear friends here. Happy New Year.

Here's a lovely song that I absolutely fell in love with and I hope you enjoy as well.

The song is "Nella Fantasia" ("In My Fantasy") and is sung by Katherine Jenkins.

Much Love and all my best wishes to everyone here for the New Year.

Connie

Translation Below:

Italian:

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo giusto,
Lᬠtutti vivono in pace e in onestá .
Io sogno d'anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,

This year has been amazing! I have finally made several moves to revealing the real me to my friends and some of my family. Some of them were very surprised, but they've generally accepted me for the girl that I am inside.
I've been able to tell some of my stories, and it feels so good that they've been fairly well accepted. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the friends I've made, and how much enjoyment I've had in enjoying your wonderful stories! Erin and Company, you do so much for all of us! I'm with Zoe Taylor, this is almost therapy for me! Thank you all, so much!

So as the first complete calendar year of my presence here draws to an end (I signed up sometime in 2009), I thought I'd kick off the greetings. And what better way to do that than via this message which is currently going viral in Facebook statuses...

Well, i was looking at my account the other day, and noticed I had passed the 1 year anniversary of being a member here. However, at the end of January, it will be one year since i published "The saga of E-Girl". A lot has changed for me since then, much of it for the good. I have (hopefully) improved as a writer, I have made some wonderful friends, Wand I have made serious progress in dealing with my rape, as well as my gender status. Who knows what the next year will bring? Not me, that's for sure. I would never have predicted what has happened this one. Happy new year, everybody.

Well, it looks like things at work are headed for the crapper in a hurry. As of next week, I will be lucky to get one day a week. I am feeling a little hurt by this, as you can imagine. Thanks to my commitments to my daughter, i may have great trouble finding another job, and without my income, and especially since my mom's job is also insecure, we may end up having to make some hard choices about where we live, and what we can do without. The worst part is, i felt like i had finally found a job i could maybe transition at, only to have it pulled out from under me. Sigh.

Okay I'm putting up the recipes by PM request for some of Chuck's recipes in this last chapter.

1. Chickengasmic Fried Chicken.

Take a whole cut up chicken this recipe does one lot of this size at a time.

Step 1 Marinating your chicken: In a large bowl put your chicken in buttermilk and black pepper and the zest and juice of one lemon. Cover and let this sit as long as you can. Overnight is best.

Step 2 First dredging: Take the chicken out and now roll in in cornstarch and shake it clean. This will help the batter to stick to the chicken.

A few minutes ago, Cuddles killed her toy Skunkie that I got her for Christmas. Skunkie had been on life support since Cuddles bit the squeaker out of the tail on Sunday. Now, both of the squeakers are broken and pulled out of the plush. It's the nature of dogs to kill the toys they love the best fastest. She's never killed a toy quite so quickly before, just 6 days; it usually takes more like four to six months. But she had never loved a toy quite as much as she loved Skunkie.

Skunkie is dead. Long live Wheelie, the toy that squeaks AND rolls like a wheel!

Today I went shopping at Target (one of the chain stores in Australia). The thing is that I only recently gave myself the go ahead to crossdress. Even if it has mostly been at home (I live on my own). The only time I went into the city with womens clothes was on halloween, and even then some guy on the train did a double take when seeing me - this sort of freaked me out - I'm really worried about being seen in public.

There is fine story by Danielle J titled Duty,Honor, Country, Family that isn't getting any comments. I can tell from the votes that people are reading it. I know it's complex and difficult to comment on, but is it that hard to just leave an "I like it." for Danielle on this one?

The story is well worth the time to read.

Maggie

I've noticed that different stories appear differently on my cellphone. Just for the record: I have an LG Quantum (just released with Windows Mobile 7). I'll use two examples that are currently on the BC front page: "A Fortuitous Adventure: or, how I got my first job" by Louise Anne and "The Experiment: Part 10" by Donjo. Please note, I'm not singling out these two stories for any reason other than I looked at them on my smartphone.

well, last night my computer crashed, and i have now lost everything i have ever written. for the stories that are here, that is at least recoverable, but i will have to start over all the ones i was working on, as i had no back up. It hurts like crazy, but its just one more bump along the road, right?

I'm posting the last (maybe?) chapter of Unexpected Attractions, as I have to go to my Aunt's funeral in the morning. Should I continue this? I'm kind of planning on it, but I would welcome some input!
I've also posted my first story on Fictioneer. "Dena" is a future fantasy that we wrote several years ago. I hope people like it!

Wren

Mon Dieu!

Christmas was very confusing for me. My Dad's oldest sister, the one who held everyone together, passed away after a long illness. In reality, I guess she had been gone for some time, but her actual death was Christmas morning. Was it a good or a bad thing? I'm really not sure, but I'll miss her.
The rest of Christmas went well, I spent the day with the part of my family that doesn't know about Wren, and still sees me as Bear. I'd like to tell them about my writing, but they don't know I do this at all, and I don't know how to tell them. Once again, very confusing.

Wren

Today I went to see my dad for our annual Christmas get together. He told me when I first started transition, that he loved me no matter what. I just wish he could get it through his head that my name is Jennifer now. He sent me a card for my birthday last month addressed to my old male name. I just pitched it in the garbage can. He did the same thing with the Christmas card he sent me this year too. I did the same thing to that one too. I opened my gift he gave me today and the outside of money card envelop said the same thing.

I just watched 'It's a Boy|Girl Thing' and really loved it. The film is a typical body switch story that we have all read at least one. They hate each other, walk a mile in the other's skin and then fall in love with each other. Kind of typical but the acting is superb. I mean both of the main characters were able to convey the gender switch well, with good body language use. They completely sell the story and that made it a lot of fun to watch.

I am just hoping that I am not using too much hyperboly on this.

The Guardian has a lovely article (and links) on Winter biking in the snow:

Guardian Article on Winter Biking

to all of my readers and best wishes for the next year. Hopefully i will have more for your reading delight in 2011!

Mads

The Bonz sends his Yuletide greetings to all the cats out there who read his ramblings and Izzy is busy (Yes, I know Bizzy Izzy) sorting the menu for today.

So when I saw Wren Phoenix asking for "More, More" in response to Chapter 19 of 300 Rains I realized that it is Christmas. And since it is Christmas I decided that I should give you guys a gift. Since I am writing Chapter 32 now I figured that letting you have Chapter 20 a week ahead of time would be a nice gift.

True, the writing has slowed down, due to life and such but I am trucking along and have more then enough to keep up with the weekly releases. So enjoy the extra chapter and have a great Holiday!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

I decided to post the story early as tomorrow seems like it will be busy for me. I hope you enjoy the pain and suffering poor Melanie goes through in this chapter. Nothing like suffering for the holidays. :)

Take care everyone and type at you later.

I'm not sure how many of you read Arecee's blog when he posted Assassin part 6, but I'm the editor who was under the weather and delayed the posting by about 3 weeks.

it seems that I have had Hepatitis, luckily, not the contagious types, for several months. I've been trying to take off 2-3 pounds a month and had gotten down to 210 from 250 Nov 1.
Then, without trying to, I lost 10 pounds by US Thanksgiving Day, Nov 23.

That is when I really began feeling bad. My Thanksgiving meals consisted of a bowl of soup and 2 peanut butter sandwiches.

To all of BC's Christian readers and writers. May you have a blessed day.

Let me the first this year to reprise that awful pun:

"Don we now our gay apparel."

I first saw it used in a trans reference in Playboy over forty years ago.

Jill

Just a quickie to let you know I'll be offline for a few days - so you'll have to cope without your daily dose of random weirdness in the comments section of your stories :) No doubt you'll also spot plenty of catching up comments when I return mid-week :)

Anyway, on with the main point of this post: wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Or, for the benefit of some readers, Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Well, I would like to take a break from my regularly scheduled whining and remember all the gifts i have been given this Christmas. These are in no particular order, but here goes:

1: my home. In a time when far too many have none, i have a safe, warm bed, a fridge full of food, lights, TV, internet, and i can dress how i please in it

2: My mom. Her acceptance of me as Dorothy has simply amazed me, and gives me such comfort when i am struggling.

3: My daughter. I love that bundle of energy more than i thought i could love anyone, and i know she feels the same about me.

Ever had the one niggling little thought, you know what I mean. It's always something that makes you cringe because it's not something you would ever act on and you really wish it would just go away and leave you alone.

Mine is a real party animal and is constantly inviting all it's little friends over for a beer bust. Damn I wish they would all find someone else to torment.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/22/skype/

and it's not just me. Some friends on another channel, MST3K on justintv to be precise, are also talking about it. CRAP!!!

A pissed off Cathy.

So, on the otherwise pleasantly uneventful trip to Iowa, I dropped my phone into coffee. It was really awful as a dipper. So, Cathy I am Ok but out of touch until I get home, inshallah, on the 29th. Beth, I did so want to read your story and will, I promise. Any one else, I did hope to get ch 3 of Lt Katia up but now it will wait. Sorry.

I cannot sort the phone out until after the 11th.

Merry Christmas to all. Ma Salaama to you also.

Khadijah

I got the idea for this while hanging around waiting for my partner to wake up from her heart op, so a good while ago. At that time I had stopped writing, knowing that I simply wouldn't have time to do any. I was also in the middle of Tropical Twist and I knew I had to finish that first.

Hi Everyone,

I'm just really concerned about Zoe. I know She was having doubts about who She was and where She was headed. There are so many of us that have similar concerns.

I've thought of Her as a dear friend for quite some time. I know that many of You have too. If anybody has heard from Her, or has any contact info; I'd appreciate it greatly if You could pass it along in a PM. (I'm talking to you Tychonaut!)

If You feel the need to pass it by Her first; feel free. I'm pretty sure She'll be amenable.

Love And Hugs,
Jonelle-Elise(Always Bailey's Cuter Half!) ;)

I just wanted to share ...

... how blessed I am. About 3 weeks ago I met the most amazing person and he has accepted me with loving arms and a warm, spiritual, and special home for me. He has two dogs and a cat (who is more affectionate than any cat I have ever met) and has made his home open to me. He is wonderful!! Okay I know, anyone in love feels that way, and I am able to say ... I am in love with him. We complement each other and he lets me cuddle and more with him. It feels so special.

Some of you who have read A Lesson Learned want me to continue the story. I am sorry but this is a stand alone story about what lessons are learned when a parent doesn't listen or see the obvous sign in front of him or her. There will be no more chapters for this story.

Love & hugs,
Barbara

Well, today was one of those "mixed bag" days. First, the bad. I tore my pants to pieces working in the back, no fun. The good: my supervisor actually bought me a new pair, so that was nice. the frightening? Well, while trying to describe how i managed to destroy my pants, I found i could not come up with the words "screwdriver" and "furniture" for several minutes. For a person who depends on words as much as I do, that is very scary.