Well, there I am after a week's shifts, and listening to music...and what comes onto my stereo is Loreena Mckennitt's adaptation of Tennyson's Lady of Shalott. Now... a better analogy, I can't imagine.

Today everyone was the 4 month anniversary of me and Jonelle formally letting you all know that we're together. I'm not sure when you actually should start counting these things I think 6 months is an important one too...anyways, seeing as it falls so nicely between X-mas and New years I'm sharing this with all of you and saying it to her.

I blithely expected my kids to be accepting when I told them I was transgendered; after all, I'd modeled acceptance to them all their lives. So telling them would be a piece of cake! Right??

Wrong

My oldest told my wife the only reason he didn't yell at me when I told him was because we were traveling down the freeway at 75 MPH in a driving rain and I was practically comatose huddled against the door.

My middle son said nothing. Of course that means little since he normally says almost nothing.

Apologies for the late posting of episode 6. Christmas got in the way somewhat and now I'm down with a virus which is, amongst less pleasant things, affecting my creative flow. The next chapter will be posted as soon as I'm happy with the writing.

My nephews and niece showed promptly at our agreed time, saw me for the first time as Cathy... and embraced me and told me they love me and accept me!

We went out and ate, re-hashed old times, insulted one another.. good naturedly of course, and just had a wonderful time. They all knew about my transition before this, but had never actually seen Cathy. Now they have, and I have regained some of my family. I had the chance to explain why I am changing, in a way they understood and accepted. THIS is the best Christmas present I could EVER have gotten, and I am so thankful.

A spammer promoting tours of West Bengal in Afrikaans? WTF?

One more spammer down, 367,955,403 to go.

Hugs,
Erin

I know this has nothing to do with tg topics, but I wanted to share this any way.

Last Wed night, my parents, my wife, my son and I went to see the new production of Les Miserables, it is currently at the Papermill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ thru this next week, and then continuing on tour thru the US. I believe the next stop is in Philadelphia.

My son had come to enjoy the music from the 10th anniversary concert, but had never had the opportunity to see the show, he was enthralled, it was great to share this with him.

Well, Christmas turned out ok. My daughter and i made a gingerbread train, she opened every present in the world, and generally turned my house upside down (but in a good way), and then the ex came over and we had a civilized Christmas dinner. All in all, a good Christmas. I hope all of you had good ones as well.

I just hung up my phone after making lunch plans with two of my nephews and one niece for tomorrow! None of them have seen me since I began my RLT more than two years ago, and I'm, I think justifiably, nervous. Long tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, anyone?

This might be the beginning of a reconciliation with my family, from whom I have been estranged since I began my RLT. I'm so excited right now I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight!

Wish me well?

Cathy

What is going on? I look at the numbers on the chapters of 300 Rains and it seems like 200+ hits on Chap 20 missed chap 19. Are people missing the story?

We've got rain here. After two days of sunshine it's back to rain again. It's getting downright soggy. I don't live in any of the mudslide-threatened areas but there have been evacuations and road closings. Even one of the freeways was closed because of boulders loosened by the rain rolling down the mountainsides and into traffic.

Okay, this is a bit crazy even for me. Chapter 19 of 300 Rains got posted, then a quick posting of Chapter 20. So two new chapters of that story and then this morning I had an urge to finish up the next chapter of my Ranma fic. Crazy man. So three stories in under 24 hours. Merry fricking Christmas indeed.

So, one more present for you all and things will hopefully return to normal next week for chapter 21 of 300 Rains.

I wanted to add another chapter of Assassin, but I'm not finished with it yet, so I'm leaving nothing but a lump of coal. Actually, the reason for this blog is to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and if you're not Christian what ever holiday you celebrate. This is the time of year to love anyone you sometimes want to hate. Peace, Arecee

It appears that in making my first post on behave of SaraUK's story I've left a html tag off the end and messed up the front page.

Many many apologies for doing this, I would fix it myself but I can't find a way to edit my post.

Xmas Hugs

Sammi

If you need to know where Santa is, go here:

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

You can also visit google earth:

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/track3d.html for more detailed information on his whereabouts.

Remember to leave out some mince pies,carrots for the reindeer and a glass of sherry to keep Santa warm.

Happy Christmas

Love

Sue

XXXX

.
.
Ho, ho, ho!

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings! So Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Good Yule, Happy Soltice, Happy Festivus... whatever you do or don't celebrate. Please know that my thoughts and prayers are with you for a safe and glorious season! If you drink, have one for me, but please be safe doing so!

To Everybody;

In the spirit of the season, and recognizing the multi-cultural nature of our group, I want to wish all of you a Happy Holiday season!

Wren (Ho Ho Ho!)

I know writers love to have their stories noticed and a comment is perhaps the most appreciated. This isn't a plea for more comments rather a plea for those so carefully written missives to find their way onto the list.

Just recently I've made some erudite(?) comment and found, to my surprise, it wasn't where I expected to find it. At first I thought I'd made some dreadful mistake and Erin had deleted it. Then I realised I'd fallen foul of the double layer posting regimen and clicked off the story without confirming the comment preview.

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.

Hi folks,

well, today is a very happy day for me, so I thought I might share some news with you. First for the fans of the Gabyzone IRC channel on Cyberbrats Network - Fiona and me will moving the European hub to a less expensive and more powerful server. We're taking every precaution possible to avoid any service disruptions but... we can't guarantee for anything, so there might be short disruptions in service.

The other even better news is: The court in Potsdam decided about my name change application and from today on my name is official :) One of the best xmas gifts I ever had.

well, the latest piece i produced was by far both the easiest and the hardest. The hardest, because it is NASTY. Despite having no sex, no violence, and no swear words, it is a very, very, hard read. I was a wreck this morning, cried until i could produce no more tears, and then went to work feeling like i was on the brink. Halfway though my shift, this piece started coming, and when i got home, i just had to write it out and exorcise my demons that way. And that's why it was also the easiest to write, it just flowed so fast, i had it done in under 2 hours.

I find it odd that an Ice cold bitch who doesn't love anyone except herself like my mother can be considered a woman when a person like me can not.

I have never wanted to hurt anyone and am quite willing to leave the place I am if I feel I am making someone uncomfortable with my presence, yet I'm the one considered the less than human freak?

Could someone please explain this to me?

The blog this morning about dropping your phone in coffee made me stop and think.

I’m a living, breathing anachronism.

The only phones I have couldn’t be dropped in coffee . . . unless you had a massive urn.

Over the last week or so, i have been struggling in various degrees with bouts of anger. It feels like when i havent wanted to curl up and cry i have wanted to shout or even hit something. A friend of mine has suggested that this might mean things are coming to a head inside me, and i will have to make a choice of letting Dorothy out, or losing it. And since the barriers to doing the former remain, I feel like i have been backed into a corner with no way out. The only place i feel human is online where i can just be me without those costs. Real life sucks.

If you haven't seen it, The Digital Story of the Nativity is worth a look.

Prophetic Sometimes

"Depression is such a cruel punishment. There are no fevers, no rashes, no blood tests to send people scurrying in concern. Just the slow erosion of self, as insidious as any cancer. And like cancer, it is essentially a solitary experience. A room in hell with only your name on the door."

I was hoping someone at BC could answer a question or two about the section known as 'The Rocks' and whereever Sydney's main business district is.( Where the big banks are. Is it the Rocks or another part of Sydney close to The Rocks. ). If someone can help me out, I'd appreciate it. Please PM me or leave a comment here.

Thank you.

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.

I hope this one will be okay. I may have been too subtle, but I choose to believe you will all get my little solution. If not, say so! This is another one of those stories that hit me in a dream, and I pretty much just wrote it as it came to me, no fancy titles, just straight story. I hope y'all like it!

Wren

I'm still going to try to get into the clinic today, or wangle an emergency appointment with an eye doctor, through the V.A. I want to thank everyone who expressed concern and gave advice over the weekend. It wasn't pleasant to not be able to read or drive, I can tell you that.

I'm still just a bit blurry, but not NEARLY so much as Saturday or yesterday when all I could see out of my left eye was an image that reminded me of a badly out of focus picture or an extremely "soft focus" scene in a movie.

A Wise Woman knows when to speak and when to keep her mouth shut.

*sighs*
Too bad I'm not a wise woman.

Sorry for the delay in posting this part of the story. My editor has been VERY ill and has had more on her mind than editing a story. As far as the rest is concerned, I didn't look at the content after I posted it and apparently I did something wrong which Puddintane repaired, thank you. The only reason I stated the length as being novel length is because the total story is very long and I've posted over one hundred thousand words to date. Arecee

Merry Christmas to all of you, and please accept my well wishes for any other holiday you prefer.

I was raised to honor Christmas, and I still do it, though I do know there are other holidays and beliefs that are important at this time of year.

May all of you, have the best holiday possible and maybe some will get a miracle. You don't know how much I wish everyone could have one. But please, be well, share the holiday with someone, and let all the other problems go for at least a day.

All my best to all of you.

My love.

Maggie

One small step, but a step in the right direction anyway.

New chapter for everybody to enjoy. This one was just over 4k words and thus one of the longer chapters in the story, but since it involved Thanksgiving it made sense to make it longer than normal.

This one goes to several interesting places. One of my more favorite was the information about Sarah Lawrence. The term is real. I had a student there tell me the term when I was presenting at a Conference there, talking about Transgender Autobiography. That has apparently been a thing at the school for quite a while, apparently before the late 60's when all the cool kids were doing it.

You know the saying "When it rains, it pours? That sums up my week . First, the battery died in my car on Tuesday, then today, my AC adapter goes shot on my computer and then if that wasn't enough, my dog went to the vet with a yeast infection in his ears. It seems like things always happen like this at this time of the year. My sister paid the vet bill, but the car battery and AC adapter are not in my budget at all for the moment. I wish I had a fairy Godmother with a used Toshiba adaptor and a car battery laying around somewhere.( Fat chance of that one!

It took me nearly two hours to get home tonight (8 miles) due to the snow. It looks like the ridgeway hill between Weymouth and Dorchester is blocked, so I had to do a detour on ungritted roads - not nice, nearly ran into a ditch at one point. I also seem to have done something to my ABS and have a warning light staying on, although the brakes still work, not that I use them much in snow if I can help it.

Well, I managed to frighten myself at work yesterday. For those of you who are squeamish, you might consider not reading the rest of this entry

Part 19, A New Boyfriend?

Pansy finds she needs a male in her life--but will accept only an upper-class man who can help her climb from her low status. But can a dark-skinned peasant girl form a stable relationship with such a man?
 
 
February 8

To all of my readers,
It's come to my attention that the story of Seeking the truth is under the incorrect section and will therefore from now on in be placed under fanfiction.

Cliff

Well, as of yesterday, "Santa School" has become my most successful piece to date in terms of comments left, surpassing even "The Dead Kid". Fifteen people have taken the time and effort to say something publicly about it, and that is wonderful, and I wish to thank them, as well as everyone who left a kudo. Regardless of how it does in terms of the Christmas contest, it has been an uplifting experience for me. There is only one fly in the ointment so to speak, however. I showed it to my mom, and she said she found it sad.

We've only had SEVENTEEN stories posted today. What's the matter with you people? :)

For the past month, from November 16 to December 15, we've AVERAGED over 19.5 stories a day.

For the past week, we've averaged almost 17000 visitors a day! For the busiest five hours of the day, we're averaging about 1000 visitors an hour. Sometimes, there are as many as 390 people all visiting a page within the same five minute window!

No wonder the searches were bringing us down!

Is it me, but when I read a story in the present tense, it kind of puts me off.

The stories. I am sure are fine and well crafted, but I am much more comfortable with past tense.

Am I being a silly girl and should I get a life?

Hugs

Worried Sue from the UK.

I would like to issue a public apology to Angel. I sent a personal message to another person here that was inadvertently forwarded to her. It was a criticism that was based on nothing but innuendo and was mean spirited and erroneous to boot. That it was sent by accident doesn't change the fact that it was hypocritical of me. I have preached on numerous occasions to be kind and to build each other up. Because of my words, two people have been hurt. The third party deserves an apology as well, but I won't name her here.