A Place to Feel Safe

At Forest Perk

I returned to Forest Perk Coffee a couple of days before Thanksgiving, two weeks after my near disaster with the keys.  As as I ordered my coffee and scone, the barista grinned at me and said "Don't lose your keys this time," and I got a warm and fuzzy feeling, thinking "he remembered me!"  Then I thought, well wouldn't anybody remember an largish t-girl who'd had him on the floor moving furniture last time she was in?  We are, if nothing else, memorable.

I smiled back and accepted my change, and I was totally disarmed, totally relaxed.  He'd made me feel at ease, but more than that: I was beginning to make acquaintances as Liz.  He did not know me as my other half.  As I noted before, he surely knew I was trans, my voice was all over the place (how much harder it is to control in random conversation!) and it didn't matter.

Elizabeth's Excellent Adventures -- Coffee Time, Part II

Ok.  When we last saw our intrepid explorer, her worst fear had apparently come true:  she had lost her keys somewhere.  And in my mind, I already was having to call a locksmith and one of two things would happen:

1. I would remain Liz, and endure ridicule and possible bodily harm when Bubba showed up to spring the car door, or
2. I'd call Bubba, then repair into the coffee-house bathroom, change into my drab other half, and wait for him to show up.  In front of the customers and baristas, who would know who I am in both incarnations, and I'd never be able to go back there again.

Before settling on door number 2, I decided to go into the coffee house and look around the comfy leather chair in which I'd been sitting, on the off-chance that the keys were there.  So I did: I walked over to the chair (thank goodness another customer hadn't since occupied it) and began to look around it on the floor, run my hands around the cushion edges, and etc.  One of the baristas -- the cute bald one with the neat goate -- asked what I'd lost, and I said, my keys, and he began to help me look.  Finally, I dropped down on my knees to look under the chair, and he proceeded to say: "Here, let me move it for you."

Elizabeth's Excellent Adventures -- Coffee Time

I'm not much into the club scene -- and have nobody to go with if I were -- and the quiet atmosphere of a good coffeehouse and a book relaxes me and allows me to decompress as few experiences can.  So simply sitting as myself, as Liz, in a coffeehouse and chilling had become something of a lodestone in my journey of, well, out-and-about-ness.  I was determined to do it on one of my weekly trips to my Birmingham therapist.  As I said in a previous post, I found what I thought was the perfect place: Forest Perk Coffee in the South Side area of Birmingham, and so last Tuesday, I was determined to go for it.

Once again, I was able to get ready at home, though I was determined not to take as long as last time.  In this I succeeded:  beginning at about 8:15 am, I applied my makeup (Maybelline mineral foundation, a sweep of blush, and a couple of coats of lippy) and my new auburn wig.  I chose -- after much less hesitation than last week -- a nice blue top over a white lace-trimmed cami, denim capris, and 10-dollar black flats from J.C. Penney.  Finally, I threw on a cardigan -- its finally gotten cooler here in Alabam -- and some jewelry, and I was out the door shortly before nine.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Elizabeth's Excellent Adventures -- 11/2/2011

One of the many joys of regular therapy -- how many t-blog posts begin like that? -- is that it takes me to the Big City on a regular basis.  Well, it takes me to Birmingham, Alabama on a regular basis, and that's a reasonable facsimile thereof.

And when I go, I always try to get out and about some, either before or after the appointment.  I don't go to the session in female mode because even though that's what the counseling is largely about, as well as coping with my adult ADHD (yes, I am a basket-case), I don't want to stampede the, er, patients in the waiting room before hand.

Interaction, the Sequel

As I headed back last month to Somewhere in West Alabama, down through Atlanta and Oxford and Talledega, I wanted more . . . I'd begun to scurry to those way-points along my journey and gobble them up.  Out in broad daylight:  check.  Interaction with another human being: check.  It had been a great couple of days but I, typically, wanted more.

So I get out my little camera, and my mini-tripod, and stop at the Welcome Center on I-20, just  inside the border of Alabama (motto: what we don't understand we beat the crap out of), and snap a couple of pics.  Well, more than a couple, actually ... but I don't go into the women's room, and I have to go, you understand, but see the motto above.

But I want more, more you understand, so -- and this is going to sound really silly for those of you for whom it's old hat -- I decide another drive-by interaction is in order, this time (gasp!) in broad daylight.  So I pull into a Burger King parking lot.  And dither.  And slather on a more makeup, trying in vain to hide the pores on my chin.  And then I dither some more.

Shoving Myself Out the Door: The Evil Beard

We all take them, don't we?  We all inch toward being "out" -- whatever that means to us -- step by step, a little at a time.  For me, it was my beard ... it used to be dark and intractable.  As I talked about here, over the years I tried most of the tricks ... Dermablend, the red-lipstick trick, to no avail.  The shadow still showed through.

Not my beard

So, at last, as I became determined to finally express who I am -- whatever that is -- for good, and to be who I am -- whoever that is -- out and about in the world, I naturally started there.  (Ok, ok ... I'll stop with the whatevers, already.) Besides gradually, painfully acquiring a wardrobe, I began with the foundation, attacking that shadow.  The thing is, it's mostly not there anymore:  it's almost all on my upper lip, and a little on my chin.

Still, I worried at the problem, attacking it and fulminating about it with all the analytical glee that this (former) research scientist could muster, but the problem hadn't gotten any easier. I tried the red lipstick thing.  Again.  I tried a thick, creamy foundation.  Again.  Still, no joy.  The rest of my beard may be white, with a few dark hairs scattered around for measure, but that upper lip still gave me away.  The blue-black shadow ruled, at least in the area above my lips.