A few other family members were there too, all of which I hadn’t seen since I started my transition, including my grandmother. Not much was said about it, but I didn’t expect that anyway. They’re not really that kind of people.

One of my aunts showed me pictures of the kids and their kids. It’s odd. I don’t really see this part of the family much so there are huge lapses in age and lives. Makes me feel kinda old too.

And yes, those are the same pants I just bought too.

They’re just how I like ‘m. Tight and low. ^.~

There were still a few sand sculptures there, Disney themed, but I think they had been there for a while. They didn’t look so pretty in some places.
 

So it was gonna be this huge social event with tons of people and I admit I was quite nervous about that. There’d be a whole lot of people who had never seen me after I started my transition so I had no idea what to expect.

Well, when the day came near I of course had to figure out what I was gonna wear. Luckily a few days earlier when I was out with my mom and my aunt, who just flew in from Ireland to attend this family event, I found and bought some neat clothes. One piece I was pretty sure I was gonna wear. I bought two hooded long sleeve sweaters. They’re short and cute. I got one in pink and another one in black.

At home I still had a cute tight pink top that I thought would look great with it and together with my black pants and bright pink studded belt I thought it would make an awesome look, which it did. My mom had some nice jewelry to go with it so I was wearing none in the pictures I took.

The party itself was great fun. Though a bit awkward too. One of the things I found out the past few months is that it is far easier to be myself among people who don’t know me from before my transition. I guess with people who do, namely family, I’m a bit too aware of the “but wait… he… I mean she.. was never like that!” thoughts they will have. I know I shouldn’t care about that but it’s still tough. It is easier with certain people than with others because I know they won’t judge me as quickly.

The place was decorated in a French bistro type setting and there was even an accordionist playing in the first hour while most guests were still arriving. Nice, and he was good, but we were glad he wasn’t gonna play for the entire night! There were spots to get food, even hot food, but I didn’t eat much really.

Later on the DJ started to do his thing and played lots of music to cater the crowd. Most of that wasn’t really my thing though. While not necessarily bad music it wasn’t the type I generally listen to. No Britney, no Gaga, no Avril, so not really my thing, lol. I did attempt to dance somewhat later in the evening but truthfully, I sucked at it. Feeling socially awkward didn’t help matters of course.

I made one big mistake near the end of the evening. While I had been drinking whine throughout the evening later on I was offered a drink by one of my cousins and dumb me asked for a cola-vieux. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was earlier but it was near the end, and when everyone was getting ready to leave I slammed the remaining part of my drink. It didn’t ‘hit’ until after we all left but long story short: I fell asleep on my mom’s couch and woke up a few hours later and walked home.

Of course I am not there yet. First step is the diagnostic stage which normally takes about 6 sessions, all about a month apart. So yeah, add another half year of waiting before I will even be considered for hormone replacement therapy. So we’re looking at February at the earliest here for them to tell me what I have already known for all this time and label me with gender dysphoria. Bummer.

While I really do understand the need for the entire lengthy process as this is not something someone should go into lightly and it most certainly has a major impact on every aspect of your life and the people around you, I already made my choice last year. I am Julie. Period. There is no confusion, no wishing to ‘go back’ or thinking that I made a mistake. There is no doubt. None.

So to me, the waiting is sometimes grueling. I know I’ll get there, I know I should not even worry about that fact. Even my therapist reminds of that. I already transitioned. Most people who apply and get to this stage have never been out in public or even told anyone outside their immediate circle yet. Those are the things that they will work on with the people that reach this stage. The coming out part to family and work and such.

I did all that already. Everybody knows. I am living full time as me, Julie, and I even got rid of my ‘just in case’ bag of guy clothes months ago. Hell, its even hard to think of a time before my transition. It’s not just like that was a different person, it really was a different person; and I’m still changing more and more. When I first announced I was going to transition I said I would still be the same person. Oh how wrong I was. They say I can expect more changes once hormones start kicking into a full gear.

Anyway… To get back on track here. I met my assigned psychologist. She explained the procedure which I of course already knew so nothing new there. Other than that we just covered some basic stuff, did a quick rundown of my life and some of the things that were written down from my earlier visit way back in March. She’s really nice and easy to talk to.

You have probably noticed by now that each time I write about my visits to my therapist and such I don’t go very in depth about what was talked about. This is not because I don’t want to, it is because I was advised not to. Sadly, that is all I can say about it at this point in time. I will of course always speak my mind about the things that I can talk about.

After the talk was over I made three new follow up appointments, for October, November, and December, and also another one in November for a psychological test type thing. Having been nervous as all flipping hell over this thing I was glad it was over and also relieved that it went well.

While clearly a staged shot, I do play. Just not as often as I used to.

Years ago I actually had private lessons and was actively playing classical guitar with the plan to try and go to the conservatory and keep doing classical studies. I had the talent but sadly I never followed through on that because of many stupid reasons and practically quit playing for a very long time.

Nowadays I pick it up every now and then and just shred out some metal riffs. It is good for anger management sometimes too.

It is a Samick 24 fret featuring a genuine Floyd Rose tremolo bar with double locking system and gold plated parts. It is many, many years old and damn near destroyed the thing by messing with it so much. Later on I even lowered the attack to practice double tapping techniques which I was heavily into for a while. If I were to truly play it again on a regular basis it would need a complete rewiring though, not sure it is worth the trouble.

Pictured on the top left is lipgloss and lipsticks, random brands, with the liquid sticks laying down. I use those the most, especially the Manhattan Lips2Last and the Maybelline SuperStay line. Next to those are my mascaras, I still very much love the Maybelline Define-A-Lash line, waterproof of course, but I also use others if I want a more dramatic effect. In front of those are my liquid eyeliners.

Then in the middle is my eyeshadow, I like having all kinds of colors to choose from and experiment with combining them. I still am very fond of pinks though. I use all brands but prefer Manhattan.

On the top right is my deo and fragrance of choice, BlackXS. Next to those are my various nail polish colors. A lot of shades of pink. My favorite brands are Maybelline Express Finish and Manhattan Quick Dry, but I also buy a lot of cheap brands for testing out funky colors like aquamarine.

In front of those is my blush and again I’m a Maybelline fan, and my liquid foundation that I currently swear by. Maybelline Superstay Silky that will last for up to 16 hours. It is the best that I found for covering up what I don’t want people to notice! It’s tough being a T-girl with pale skin and dark hair. I really need to get lasering done.

Anyway, that was a quick rundown of my most used stash. As you can tell I’m a huge fan of Maybelline and Manhattan. They’re far from the cheapest but for me it beats having to reapply my make up all the time.

I am the technical admin of Halforums and it was sort of spontaneously decided to have a zombify your avatar week. A lot of crazy spontaneous stuff happens there so this certainly wasn’t out of the norm.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with the result of my zombified avatar and was wanting to show it to my friends in the TG chatroom. So I uploaded it as one of the three pictures you can have on your profile and it didn’t take long for the owner/admin to private message me.

He asked me what was up with the picture and as I was typing my response he already sent me a few more lines which read: “why would you put something as ‘disturbing’ up?” and “if you want people to take you seriously, I wouldn’t put something like that up”. I was aghast.

I tried to respond and question how a simple funny picture I wanted to show people would stop them from taking me seriously but it seemed his mind was already made up. I deleted the picture, clearly displeased at the lack of sense of humor and he replied with a “I have a better idea, I’m tired of asking you to be mature how about a 2 day ban. and when you come back if you still have an attitude we’ll make it longer.”.

Well that ban turned into a week long ban apparently because when I tried to log back in later I was shown the new date it would be lifted. Fucking asshole. For a damn picture! I guess I should not expect much from the genetic MALE that runs the place. I’m sure some people would’ve liked seeing the ‘disgusting’ picture, in fact, I know they would, but oh well. The stick in the mud had to be all Mr Buzz Killington and be an asshole.

As far as me not being mature, well duh! I’m sure you were a boring fuck at my age but I certainly have no plans of being like you. I am me, my own goddamn person and if you cannot accept that then I don’t even want to BE in your fucking chatroom.

Thanks for cutting me off from MY people, from other transsexuals I could actually TALK to. Thanks for being an asshole and destroying what little contact I had with other girls in similar situations. Thanks for being so close minded in what should be a very open minded place, where people accept each other differences and uniqueness. Thanks for being a fucking hypocrite! Asshole!

FUCK! YOU!

Addition: This was a chatroom which consisted mostly of about 10 regular users, and if at any time more than 3 were online, it was a lot. I was in there all by myself a lot. Very low traffic. New people were rare and not seen much.

I had been to this chatroom for months and everyone knew me. If those people would suddenly stop ‘taking me serious’ for posting a single photoshopped picture of myself I would have been very surprised.

There was another event coming up, Mystic Fair 2009 in Rotterdam, which wasn’t far from where he lived, so we figured we’d meet up there. Now after I looked up on how to get there I got terribly confused so I suggested to meet him near his stop and travel the last bit together. I haven’t used the underground in decades and with this new chip card system in place I wasn’t even sure if I was gonna get it right!

Now, as this was a gothic / fantasy / renaissance fair I dressed up to fit the occasion. This time in full goth mode. Black, dark, and dreary; makeup and all. Yes, another date in goth, I swear it was a coincidence! ^.^

As there was some road maintenance going on I texted him a few times to let him know when to expect me. There wasn’t that much of a delay though so I got there relatively early. Once I got off and walked toward the exist I saw him standing. First impression: “Oh shit, he’s like 4 times as big as me!”. I know I’m short, but damn! We kinda helped each other figure out the damn new chip card system and after we got that sorted we were on our way to the fair.

This was advertised as the biggest Dutch indoor festival so I had high expectations. Imagine our surprise that when we got in sight of the Ahoy building that we saw absolutely no one. Not a single soul. We were wondering if we misread the date but saw some people in costume opening doors so maybe it was just early.

He got into costume that he brought along (old renaissance garb) and we entered the building. We were met with somewhat mischievous imps but they did show us where the actual fair was supposed to be. I wasn’t prepared. It was dead. Your average neighborhood flea market would be considered crowded compared to this turnout. Ah well, maybe it’ll get better later in the day.

We picked a direction and started checking out all the neat stuff but it didn’t take long for us both to realize this place really was more of a high priced flea market with stores trying to pawn off their items to the people passing by. Some booths were nice but most of them was just sad, really. I did find a cool looking Victoria Francés bag that I later went back for and bought. Though I was really hoping to find one of those bat backpacks or one with spikes. Maybe next time.

We stopped to eat and drink some, which was also an opportunity to talk some more. I asked him about his crazy love for old melee weapons which he apparently has been into for many years. I saw him testing out a few big ass swords during the day, it is quite impressive. I picked up a tiny dagger and said that was more my style.

It was really nice to see how laid back and easygoing he was, even before we met while texting and such. He’s a very relaxed guy who doesn’t doesn’t stress out over trivial things that many do, including myself at times. It was very pleasant.

There was a second hall that was part of the fair though there were less booths in there. It did have the music stage though, and that would also be the spot where we would spend quite a few hours. Apart from a few cheesy bands that kind of sucked there were two that really stood out.

The first being the industrial metal band DEADCELL, and yes that is written in all caps. I had never seen this type of music before, or at least not as well done as them. Emphasis on the word seen as they use visual imagery as part of their act. The entire band consisted of only 4 people. With the guy singing in a voice that was perfectly haunting. A female lead guitarist clothed in a seemingly PVC outfit beating out riffs like a machine.. literally!

Then there was the DJ who ran a digital drum track and played sound bites, and I believe also controlled the video projection. Quite an odd band makeup I thought. And then, during another song, a girl walked on stage and also clothed in semi-fetish getup, who started miming! She would take part in several other songs as well in different outfits. It was awesome! It has to be seen to be believed. Their songs are very volatile and anti establishment, but not angry. Meant to be mind opening, not cause aggression. We were definitely going to look them up when we got home.

The second band that we really enjoyed was the metal band The Dreamside. Again I had never heard of them before but their music was very good and had a female lead singer who would also occasionally don a mask. They even incorporated a fire act in there near the end. Loved it!

Also saw part of A New Dawn, which was a gothic metal band akin to Evanescence, Epica and the likes but failed horribly. Their band had too many redundant members and while two female vocalists can be quite a nice thing with one of them I had the feeling she’d rather be somewhere else. (Edit: Apparently I was right because last I heard she quit the band.)

I got my picture taken a few times, no idea if they are on a website somewhere, but some of them were taken by professional photographers so who knows! One person asked who I was supposed to represent. Uhm, myself? My date goes to these things a lot and apparently knew some of the press photographers there as well, so I met some and got to talk to them a bit, especially one who was very nice.

So in the end the fair itself turned out to be sucking but at least the music was good, had good view of the stage as the place was nearly deserted, so we we still spent many hours there and didn’t spend a lot of money. Good times after all.

The best part was yet to come though, as we left the building and proceeded to the subway we talked some more and he was willing to escort me to my train so I wouldn’t get lost. It had just left so had to wait a bit which he also volunteered to do with me. It was an odd experience to meet someone so relaxed because I’m more used to the “Ok, see ya!” kinda people.

Once the train arrived I grabbed my stuff and as I started to get on and was going to say goodbye to him he leaned forward and kissed me, on the cheek! It took me a second or two to regain my composure, I am sure I was blushing because it was very tender and dear. I loved it! So cute! It was also the very first time a guy kissed me that wasn’t family or something. I got on the train and waved as the train departed and I admit I couldn’t stop thinking about all day.

All the photos I took can be seen at my Picasa as always. ^.^