A Dahl’s House

Zappos has a huge number of shoes in a wide range of sizes, useful user reviews about sizing and free shipping/returns. What’s not to like?
Also check out:

• Avenue, which carries both plus-sized clothing and shoes. I’ve found their Cloudwalkers to be quite comfortable.


• Designershoes.com


• Lane Bryant Catalog—I’m not a fan of their clothing, which is dowdy compared to the Lane Bryant retail stores (which are a separate company), but they’ve got a lot of large-sized shows.


• Pierre Silber has a good range, but leans more toward club/fetish shoes.


• Womenshoesplus.com

Payless Shoes and Nordstorms carry large sizes and Nordstrom’s Rack (their discount outlet) in particular often has large sizes at good prices.

OK, it’s months late, but here’s one of my favorite summer outfits.

Update: When I recently showed my photos to my nail techs they were sort of amazed at the cleavage in this photo. I did use a bit of make-up (shadow and highlighter) but I think it was mostly fortunate lighting. It’s funny which photos people seem to like. This was the favorite of one of the tech, but I’ve never really liked my expression in it. Go figure…

In a discussion about fucking it was interesting to see how all the references were to “penetration” (even by the women). So why do we always seem to think of it as “penetration”? I suspect if men magically had their genitalia switched with women, it wouldn’t be long before we would start bragging about “enveloping” women (...and of course who’s tampon was bigger. ). Not sure if women ever think of it that way…

I’ve been re-reading “My Husband Betty” and it struck the well-known T* fondness for giving-head sexual fantasies, may in part have a simpler explanation that the reasons Helen cites (not that I think her reasons are wrong): it’s that while giving a blowjob a symbol of manhood is quite literally under your nose. I suppose if we want to be scientific, we could call it the “phallic proximity” theory.

I know women who love giving head in part for precisely that reason. This was regardless of whether they had bottom or top overtones to blowjobs, i.e. submitting to have his penis in their mouth or enjoying the control they had over his response. And since most of us males are such visual critters, it’s probably got even more of an appeal for us. After all, being penetrated isn’t something straight guys normally do either, but without mirrors on the ceiling it’s a lot tougher to actually watch yourself being taken that way.

An aquaintance of mine just shared a story that provides me with another example that people are often more accepting than we give them credit for.

She’s an intersexed transsexual who’s into bicycle racing. Some troll on a local cycling forum she belongs to somehow got info about her gender status and plastered it all over the forum. The post was deleted by the other mod and troll banned, but the rumors were swirling, so she had the courage to set the record straight.

The result was wonderfully accepting. She received more than 200 private messages of support as well as more from the vast majority of the 150 posts (and counting) in the thread. Plus when the troll reappeared under a new name to give her more grief, the other members slapped him down. Oh, and my aquaintance  discovered one of the prominent members of the forum was a post-op MTF.

Guys who are interested in crossdressers and transwoman are well-known to us folks on the transgendered spectrum and believe me we’ve got an ambivalent attitude toward them. In a discussion about this on the “My Husband Betty” forum, Helen came up with a good yardstick for distinguishing among them:

my standard for an admirer to be part of the community is whether or not he is willing to introduce his trans girlfriend to his friends & family. or even A friend.

again, i’d say one of the important things is that someone is willing to say ‘i’m in.’

There’s a helluva lot of frogs out there (I’ve developed a quite a sympathy for the jerks that women put up with), but there are a few princes who seemingly are interested in us for similar reasons that those rare female “admirers” are.

Ran across a great book, “Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me,” which essentially a Consumer Reports-guide to skin-care and cosmetic products. Definitely can save you money—there’s a lot of hype and over-priced products.
The bad news—I discovered the Aveda rosemary mint products that smell really nice also contain lots of stuff that irritate the skin, which may be why I’ve been having some break-out problems.

The good news—the author, Paula Begoun, generally likes MAC products, although she thinks many of the Full Coverage shades don’t match well (I’ve noticed mine seems a little peachy) and are a bit heavy. She really like the Illuminare foundation that some others have mentioned. No word on ColorTration unfortunately.

The even better news—many of the product reviews are available for free on her website, which also offers a line of skin and cosmetics that Begoun create herself out of frustration with existing products. (Yes, there is a bit of conflict of interest to her reviews, which Begoun is upfront about and in her book she doesn’t rate her own products for that reason.) Haven’t tried any of the Paula’s Choice stuff yet, but some of her skin care product look interesting.

It’s funny, since I’ve been fully accepting my CDing in the past year—and also moving from “pretty in the fantasy mirror,” to “passable” to “passable and actually pretty”—I’ve been feeling able to be more masculine en homme.

Which is a little strange, because I was always a believer in integrating the best of both “feminine” and “masculine” aspects of myself. But maybe it has to do with feeling more self-confident. Going out in public took balls I wasn’t sure I had, and the sense of mastery of craft that I got when I blended in was thrilling. Probably not unlike what Betty felt after a great performance. And showing my “Halloween” photo (my avatar) around in the last week or so and having people say “OMG, you were really pretty” has done wonders for making me feel I can be attractive, including en homme.
Maybe that I’m now less concerned about hiding the feminine side of me means I’m more relaxed en homme. I’m not about to crush beercans on my forehead any time soon, but after realizing it is all a bit of a performance I can butch up when needed. (I think of it as Marlena doing FTM crossdressing.) Maybe it’s simply just being more confident. My new look convinced me a I can be attractive—although I still feel more attractive en femme due to all the aids (make-up etc.) one can employ.

Someone else coin a way of looking at that I thought was worth remember. Marlena is trying to be the woman of [my male name]’s dreams. [My male name] is trying to be the man of Marlena’s dreams.

A tongue-in-cheek look at the latest supposed trend proposed by the same folks who help popularized the term “metrosexual.”

From the book’s description: ubersexuals are “men who ‘do exactly what it takes to get what they want, when they want it’ ... an extension of the metrosexual, minus the sexual ambiguity.”

Guess those of us who were integrating our “feminine” desire to look good into our masculine presentation better butch up.

Restrooms are a problematic issue, but the concensus among various crossdresser forums is that women’s rooms are far safer. Better to get slapped than punched out.

For what’s worth, a female friend of mine tell me women are generally so preoccupied with finding a stall, or talking with someone, or checking their make-up that they’re not usually paying much attention to what’s going on around them, so it you’re quick and confident about it, you probably won’t have problems.
Generally, it’s best to go in, do your business—making sure the feet are pointed the right way, wash up (women don’t skip this step) and get out. Don’t adjust your make-up, strike up conversation, etc. And be sure to clean up the seat if you miss—it’s just good manners regardless of how you’re dress.

If someone is confrontational, just let them know you don’t mean to intrude but you really need to pee and it’s not safe for you to use the men’s room. If they’re still confrontational, then discretion is the better part of valor—so just go ahead and leave. It’s not necessarily illegal, but you can get charged with “disturbing the peace” or whatever other charge that might come to mind of a cop—and you’re the one who’ll have to disprove it.

If there’s a single-stall restroom, then using the women’s isn’t really an issue. In the States, there’s an increasing number of “family restrooms” that are also single-stalls (also with baby-changing tables) and single-stall restrooms for the disabled that are the best choice for the crossdressers out on the town.

I’ve seen a number older crossdressers who dress like teenage girls. And believe, it looks just as ridiculous as when women “of a certain age” also dress that way. But you don’t have to go frumpy after 40, there’s a lot of good tips on how to be stylish yet age-appropriate in this forum discussion at Dress Me Now, a fashion tip site for women.