A guy in a dress

[Cissy Suzie]

Wow what an odd, offbeat week I had last week.

I found out Wednesday that an uncle had passed away. He wasn't terribly old, but he had emphysema, and simply refused to stop smoking. He would take off his oxygen apparatus and walk outside on the porch and have a smoke. So, he reaped what he sowed. No big suprise there.

The funeral was Saturday in Tennessee, a few hours drive from Atlanta. I saw cousins, and other family I hadn't seen in years. It was fairly depressing, a funeral, and seeing people who, if I wanted to associate with, I would, but I don't.

It was like taking a trip back into my childhood. I was always "different", always keeping a secret, and usually terrified. Not that I was an unhappy kid, but I was a crossdresser and was a victim of molestation, which I never told anyone about.

So, I spent a day back in the bosom of my family, and looking around myself I saw several cousins who had various addictions, some have been in prison, and others who have had horrible lives, including one little girl who was beaten so badly when she was a baby that she became severely retarded.

All I could think of during the day was getting back to the city, back home, and back to my version of sanity. I wanted Sunday to come, the day when Suzie Rules! I got home late Saturday nite and got absolutely sloshed on vodka shots from the freezer.

Sunday finally came and I drug out all Suzie's makeup and picked out a nice pink skirt suit. I spent time making up and thought I looked pretty nice. I got dressed and took a couple of pix.

I looked like a guy in a dress.

I know this happens sometimes. Does this happen to others? Is it a mood thing or what?

Anyone who has looked at other pix I have posted knows that I can look much better. Anyway it was a disappointing end to a crappy week.

I hope you all don't mind me venting a bit here. Seems some of you might understand.

http://www.geocities.com/cissysuzie/pinksuit.jpg

[Richelle]

Dear Cissy Suzie,

I think we all have had those days, where we feel like a “guy in a dress”. In know for sure that I have. I do believe that part of it mood. When we are felling down, it shows on how we apply our make-up, stand and everything else that we work so hard on, that comes much more natural to a GG.

Just remember that the mood will pass and that all of us girls are here for you.

Richelle

[Ava Mouse]

If it's any consolation, I honestly think that picture looks great! I don't recall seeing your other pics, but I'm going to check them out if you think this is your worst, then wow.

Nice, candid pose, good color & quality, & nice dress.

Still, yeah, I have those 'guy in a dress' days... It can affect your confidence, or your confidence can affect your mood, too. I guess even colorful CD's have grey days... ;-)

[Holly]

Suzie,

I think just about everone, GG's included, have those days when nothing seems to work. Don't let one bad day spoil your entire outlook. Given what you had just been through, how you were feeling was quite understandable. Concentrate instead on how Suzie brings out the better parts of you. Cherish those times. Look beyond the dress and the makeup... you'll like what you see there far better.

[Cissy Suzie]

If it's any consolation, I honestly think that picture looks great! I don't recall seeing your other pics, but I'm going to check them out if you think this is your worst, then wow.

Nice, candid pose, good color & quality, & nice dress.

Still, yeah, I have those 'guy in a dress' days... It can affect your confidence, or your confidence can affect your mood, too. I guess even colorful CD's have grey days... ;-)

I must say, Thank you Thank you Thank you!!

You may be the most passable "Grrl" I have ever seen so a compliment from you is much appreciated! I guess I just wasn't feeling particularly pretty so I see what I felt maybe? Who knows? But thank you.

[Sharon]

Vent away Suzie! Some of us have been doing more than our share of that lately.
I also know what it is like to feel like an outsider with extended families -- I suppose it is pretty common as we grow older and see cousins only at funerals and weddings.
Your photo looks wonderful and you look very comfortable with yourself and very natural.

[Tamara Croft]

I have to agree with the girlz here, I certainly have bad days.... nothing goes right, you snap at everyone.... (PMS is the main thing for me) but the week leading up to it, I can be an absolute nightmare.... I have the most aweful mood swings...... nasty is an understatement....

Put the week you have had into perspective... funeral, bad memories, family that you probably didn't want to see. Add all this up...... it's very negative.... so your probably on a bit of a downer and tried to cheer yourself up, only to make yourself more down because in your eyes you think you look like a man in a dress!!!! This isn't the case... you look great and you vent away all you like..... we are all here to listen to you.

Tamara x

[Deborah757]

I know the feeling well but I looked at your pic and I think you are being too hard on yourself. It doesn't look bad at all. It may be little consolation but it looks better than what I think I look like most of the time. The depression from funerals and the like usually take me a few days to get over, so I'm sure you will be feeling better soon.

[Kate_Uhler]

I'm with Ava, you really do look good. A bit sad, which is understandable at the end of your week.. but still I wouldn't be that hard on yourself..

That said, I ALSO realllllly do understand when the girl 'spell' just won't hold and you turn in to that drab pumpkin in party dress. Hardly the fairy tale we're looking for. Sometimes I don't dress when my heads not there regardless of what my body is asking for. I suspect there are days GG's look in the mirror and well they don't have the great excuse, like we do. *smile*

ExTra-Hugs and Kisses cause after that week I know you can use it...
kate

[StephanieCD]

I'm going to take the mirror I just bought at K-Mart back... all it shows me is a guy in a dress

That's what I get for buying a cheap mirror.

I know how you feel, hun.

[Fallen Angel]

honey, ive been there too!! its not easy when you have to work twice as hard,look at your self and say UHG! i just think you were around to many negative things and dressing up wasnt helping to lift your spirits ive found out that the magic is in our own mirrors no body elses. and where are such mirrors here!! our beauty come from those inside this mirror our friends. xxxx

[Marianne]

Suzie,

very nice pic. Still too much sadness in your eyes tho. Remember, they are your family, you can't choose them or change them (you don't have to associate with them, but you can't change them).

All of us ( me included), sometimes feel that way. We slap on makeup and our best outfit, and then we look in the mirror. We see only the surface, not the underneath. We see ourselves as we imagine others to see us, yet at the same time we place a filter on that image knowing how we were born, knowing how we are, knowing how we dread others seeign us. We don't pause to look properly, nor do we pause to imagine, to dream, or to ask ourselves if what we see is perhaps filtered by the media.

Every day, I see billboards, television, magazine covers. I see newspapers with photos from the Oscars, from shows, from Hollywood. I loko at them, and I dream, I imagine, I yearn. If only I could look like that.

If only I were 30 years (well, ok, 40 years, shaddap Nina!), younger, a hundred pounds lighter, with unlimited funds, no responsibilities, a good dentist, a great makeup artist, and another lifetime to spend making myself into an image. An image of what?

Not for me, I am who I am, I am what I am. I'll never be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, nor will I ever be a Playboy centerfold. I *could*, perhaps, end up in the back pages of 'Home and garden', (if I had a garden!).

I can't change it, I can only make the most of who and what I am. I am an almost-50 year old guy who likes to dress up and attempt to look pretty. I can spend an entire weekend attempting to do so, and end up taking hundreds of photos before perhaps finding one that I feel looks good.

But you know what? I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of what I am. I *do* get pissed off and depressed when the 'mask' doesn't work for me. I *do* get upset when that new outfit arrives in the mail and the goddam camera just doesn't give me the image I *think* I look like.

And I don't care. My camera doesn't lie (well, actually, it does, a bit!).

Chin up Sis. Stand tall (especially tall in the heels), you are facing your nightmares and dealing with them. You are recognizing who and what you are. You are sharing your innermost thoughts, your innermost feelings, and your innermost self with us. Us. We , the people (yada yada), who can actually begin to understand what drives you, we who can begin to understand you.

All those fears you have? We have them too.

All your nightmares? Us too.

You are NOT alone.

You will *never* be alone, not as long as you have this one safe little place here to vent, a place where we understand.

(that goes for the rest of y'all too)

[Tristen Cox]

I think it's a mood thing, the picture doesn't look like a guy in a dress at all. But I have done this myself and it was only the frame of mind at the time. Sometimes I'll take what I 'think' is a lousy picture and later go "wow I looked great wtf is wrong with me?" Happens on and off. You had some things on your mind and you may have been just reflecting them after you looked at yourself. Take another view when you have a few days to forget it. Bet you'll like who you see

Love
T

[stevie h]

hi cissy

nice photo, looking good.

and i,m not just saying that.

You look cool.



sevie

xx

[windycissy]

We all have our bad days, but in all honesty, I tought the picture of you in the pink suit was perfectly passable. Attitude is everything. After the day you went through, it's understandable that your usual sparkle as Suzie didn't come through. As they say, a smile is your best camouflage. There have been times when I've gotten all dressed up, but the "look" just wasn't right, so I stayed home. And you should see some of the out-takes on my digital camera! Ask Windy

[Cissy Suzie]

I appreciate all your kind remarks and encouragement. I am a bit overwhelmed at the responses. I guess my mood affected what I saw in the pic I posted. It is, as everyone seems to say, not all that bad. I must have just been a bit down and like Grace Slick said, "You're only pretty as you feel"

Thank you all for the mood elevation

Oh and by the way, Tristen, you are right. There is a problem with the forum's server or the host for the site. It sometimes lags as long as 3 miutes to get a page loaded, and sometimes I get messages about problems with the data base.

Thanks again everyone!

[Midnight_Minx]

It's not often that this type of mood strikes, but I have come to the thought process that it's much in the same vein as when GG's just don't feel they look attractive.

Give it some thought. You know your own self. You know your flaws, you know your strengths, and you know your appearance, CD'd or not. If you're mind is troubled, you will be drawn into the pessimistic side, focusing on your flaws, or on what your mind pulls out to you, to say "you don't look female".

Either way though, we always have the happy reality that this is not how others see us. They don't know our flaws, they don't know you, aside from what they see. A great help sometimes.

We are all like a piece of music. If the player of the music makes a mistake, the audience will not notice if they continue on with the score.

~Viv~

[donnie123abc1]

That was a heartfelt story, Suzzy. Family is important to me too. Just as it was with my father. We all continue to grow everyday......to become the person that we were destined to be. Not just male or just a female but a whole person. Complete in every way. Thats all anybody can ever expect of us is for you to be YOU and me to be ME.


Dawn Marrie (Thats Who I Be !)

[Sweet Susan]

If the picture you tacked on is an example, I don't think you look bad at all. Anyway, I once had a day such as what you described, and when I took a look at my pictures, I didn't dress for four months. It can be depressing, that is for sure.

[Polly]

Hi Suzie,
I'm a straight CD & you look quite stunning to me.
I'm sure you'll have a better week, this week.
Best wishes,
Polly

[Mikey]

Hon, Its a mood. I think that you look great. I love the suit it's color is definately you. I hope that you feel better. I get those moods quite often myself. I don't know why but I get fed up with something small and I think about just tossing my fem clothes because I don't feel pretty. I then take a nice bubble bath and get over it.

Hugs

Mikey

[Peggy Sue]

You look great in that pic you show. I wish I could look so good. Just remember how great you feel when you have on all your satiny, lacy undies with your makeup on. Look at your femme image in a mirror from a distance and I bet you'll get a better feeling. Stay with it and know all your sisters here go through similar feelings from time to time.

[Cathe TV]

Marianne is so right! You look wonderful in that pic, hon, but the sadness shows through. I think this is all too common in the CD community, especially for those who are not lucky enough to have - if not helping and encouraging spouses - accepting ones. Being a CD is unfortunately a lonely existance for most of us, I think. Are there not many of us who in the loneliness of night sit alone, thinking about our lives, and shedding tears about what might have been - or could be still if we had support? I certainly have, and except for a brief period during which I had the love and help of a very understanding mother in law might not be here today. It's difficult to live an existance where people either don't understand or think you're some kind of freak of nature... and all because of a completely harmless hobby, so to speak. GG's who routinely complain that men are common visigoths with no sense of gentleness or nurturing, then complain that we're not "masculine" enough for them. They want us to be able to express a tender, caring and emotional side, "cry if you feel like it - it's okay for men to cry!" - then look down at us when we do and say it's "unmanly"

Personally, I have always been more emotional than my wife (and maybe many women), but since my heart surgery in 1996 have been unable to control my emotions. Many time I have sat watching something on TV that left me hopelessly weeping, tears running down my face. My wife is uncomfortable when this happens and refuses to look at me - so I sit in the dark and cry alone. This from a women who years back would complain that I was cold and uncaring because of my occupation (figure it out). I honestly believe I feel/felt so comfortable as Cathe was that as a woman I was free to show a side of me that I could not as a male. It is and was so "freeing".

You girls who have accepting and supportive wives have no idea how lucky you are, and those wives or SO's are to be commended and loved with all of your being. You are angels. I only wish I could have found a spouse like you.

[Keri_T]

Cissy Suzie, you look great! I've seen a few of your other pictures...the only real difference I can see is your body language. It says a lot, and reflects a lot of sadness, so maybe that's why you feel down about your picture.

Also, I'm sorry to hear about your Uncle. I do hope you feel better.

(Um...I feel I should say more...but...Oooo nvm I feel stupid now...)

[connie rotten]

oh well girlfriend . the illusion with me is always within . my girl in the full length mirror comes out she isn't put on. the key word to me in your thread was drug. darling the whole thing is about drag giggle