Elizabeth's Excellent Adventures -- The Search for Coffee

I love coffee houses. I do. There is nothing more relaxing than to sit in a comfortable chair, reading and sipping a good cup of coffee. After my last, abbreviated foray into Birmingham, I checked out a couple of likely places in drab -- places that seemed like they'd be at least a little more welcoming to a t-person than the local neighborhood Starbucks.

The first was a bookstore/coffee shop named "Books, Beans and Candles," which bills itself as "Alabama’s largest Metaphysical Coffee shoppe."  I'm not certain there are any other metaphysical coffee shoppes -- or shops, for that matter -- in Alabama, given that the state is not known for its embracing of neo-pagan ideals.  Nevertheless, I found out about this place through safe2pee.org, which maintains an ever-growing database of unisex and family restrooms.  And along the way, in the notes section, it has at times
interesting and useful tid-bits.

New Hair! Yay!

Don't you just love new hair?  The eagerness, the anticipation, the hope that this wig will be the one to transform me from barely passable -- if you squint and hold your head just right -- to Heidi Klum, or at least her older sister Gerte.

But then reality hits -- it doesn't do that.  Oh, it may better fit the shape of my face, be a better shade for my coloration, or cover more stuff up (!), but I am almost invariably disappointed.  Rather than going from Harold to Heidi, I go from George to Getrude Stein, if that.

Why are our expectations often so out of line with reality?  How can we get so out of touch with reality?  Do we all have an image in our head of how we picture ourselves, an image that if disappointed, can send us into the black pit of despair?

How should I know?  What do I look like, a shrink? (More photos after the jump)

Gun-Club Chic

When I was a little, uh ... girl, my dad took me hunting. We were never very good, we used to say we gave the deer their exercise, running them around the woods, about a mile ahead of us.  Since then, I've come to be not a fan of the sport, but I remember fondly the Cabela's catalog, which sold manly, woodsy things -- from fishing poles to waders to reloadng equipment -- with a kind of a breathlessly loopy enthusiasm.  Think P.T. Barnum meets Randolph Hearst.

Then, the other day, I received a catalog called "Cabela's Women's" which is all about women's clothes ... and they're still manly and woodsy.  Well, not quite, but definitely not my cup of chai, but then I saw this little number and at first glance, I thought: hmmm.  That's kind of cute, until I noticed that its made from Realtree, a species of camouflage.  Of course, pink isn't your grandfather's camo, or even your grandmother's, but hey: deer are color-blind, right?

What I Didn't Do on Halloween

I didn't go out, that's what I didn't do.  My small-ish town and my position in it kept me from doing it.  I cannot even think of doing a poor job, and too many people would say the proverbial "Hmm.  He sure is good at it maybe that explains the long(ish) fingernails ..."  It is my firm conviction that people don't normally think "transgender" or "crossdresser" when they see single things like cleaned-up eyebrows or pierced ears singly, but when they see more than one, they can begin to put it together.  But maybe I'm wrong.

Given my circumstances, I don't know if I'll ever be all the way to "I don't care" as Meg puts it over on her blog.  I have to make a living, after all.  So for the moment, when it comes to Halloween, at least, I'll just have to go on living vicariously through others.

Sigh.

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.

Thank Goddess for Target

At least the one I've taken to shopping at outside of Birmingham.  They not only have a family rest room, but family fitting rooms, which means that in a state notoriously fussy about mixing genders, I don't have to try on clothes in a single-gendered women's fitting room.  I say this because although it is not illegal to crossdress in Alabama, I'm not so sure about using restrooms of the opposite biological sex.  And finding out whether or not it is against the law is not as easy as it sounds: the statutes in every state vary from city to city, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and county to county.

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.

Interaction

Creature of the night?

One of the things I've never done a lot of -- make that any of, really -- is interact with folks as Lizzy. And that is what I crave: to be able to go out casually, in broad daylight and be ... me.  But as we all know, that is easier said than done.  When I get near others, my heart freezes and I fight a (usually losing) battle to (a) turn my head (b) turn around or (c) all of the above.   So, on my recent cross country trip from Somewhere In Western Alabama to Somewhere in Northern Georgia and back (detailed beginning here) I was determined to interact while I looked like how I feel inside.

It began, as do so many of our adventures, in the dark ... after indulging in the t-girl ritual of Photos at the Hotel (see some of them here), I got in the car to fill up its tank.  Of course, this was in Somewhere in Northern Georgia, in the roots of the Southern Appalachians, so it was cold, and I didn't have sweater one, so I stood shivering in my capris and tee, filling the gas tank, hoping that some roving gang of teen-aged hoodlums didn't read and/or harass me.

Travels With Lizzy: The Road Home I

The things we do to express who we really are.  On my recent cross-country trip -- well, my recent cross-two-state trip -- I was determined to return to Somewhere In Western Alabama the way I had come: expressing my better side.  Problem was, the check-out time at the motel was 11:00, but I had interviews until 12:30 or so.  Where was I going to change?