Summer Fun!

Good morning campers……………Rise and shine! It’s a beautiful summer day and summer activities abound. In addition to summer pastimes like sports I discussed last week there is much to do as the days are longer and the weather warm and hot and for us girls this is a great time of year because we get to wear shorts, bare legs and sandals or flip flops and casual tops and I particularly enjoy this comfortable attire a great deal. Even those of us with exceptionally fair skin can pull this off with the use of tanners, spray on tans and such. Just make sure you keep your body well moisturized and use sun block on your skin. Even at night casual tops go well with shorts, casual skirts and Capri pants. The warm summer evenings are perfect for strolls and walks in parks or to see a new summer release movie. Enjoy outdoor dinning and a stroll afterward with someone you care about and love.
Summertime is a great time to get outside and do all sorts of summer activities. Some girls like to camp although I have never been much for tent camping as its too primitive for this girl and way to many issues like bugs, lack of showers and other such ooogy things! I do enjoy a stay in a cabin as I did this past weekend with friends. This place is so remote and it takes what seems like forever to get to it off the main road in West Virginia I always kid people about the scary toothless fiddle players along the road playing that delightful dueling banjo tune from “Deliverance”. Despite the very remote location the cabins are not primitive at all and provide such luxuries as stove, microwave, shower, hot tubs and a dishwasher. However, they also provide beautiful peaceful scene of the mountains, a the sounds of a flowing mountain stream which provides a wondrous sound at night as you sleep with the windows open and feel the mountain breezes.
I love to hike and bike in the summer and the longer days permit us to do that in the weekday evenings even if you have to work during the day. Take plenty of water with you when you do. Picnics are exceedingly nice in the summer especially before the hot muggy days set in. This past weekend also the annual picnic for PE WV and we had a lovely turnout for an even lovelier day. Eighty degrees and sunshine and a slight breeze in a picnic pavilion by a lake now that is a beautiful place for a picnic with sisters and friends. Nothing beats the taste of a delicious hotdog, brat, or grilled hamburger with cheese hot off a grill and smothered with your fixins of choice. Delicious….. girls!!! They go particularly well with a cold beverage such as beer, chilled white wine, long island ice teas,lemonade, ice tea or a root beer! Other groups are having picnics this summer as well or you can gather a few friends and find a quaint picnic table in a park somewhere.
Other wonderful summer things include sightseeing outdoor sites, outdoor theater productions, especially those that let you picnic beforehand! Another fun activity of summer is going to pool parties and don’t worry about suit thing. Go in a one piece and be with friends especially ones who have pools. If you have a great body and if you do we all hate you (only teasing) wear your bikini. If you got it…flaunt it! Have a pool party at night on a warm evening and throw something on the grill and get the beverages flowing.
Summer also provides time to get to the beach for all you sun worshippers and beach lovers where you can swim, surf or in some places, snorkel or scuba. Not up for all that, plan an outing to an amusement park and ride the rides, especially screaming wooden rolling coasters that take your breath away (and hopefully not your hair for those who use wigs).
Get out there and enjoy summer my sisters and friends and let the world see you for who you are doing what you enjoy doing and having some fun. Life is too short and so is summer. Soon the days will grow short and fall breezes and cool evenings will fade away to cold grey dreary days of winter where you have so many layers on you melt inside and still freeze outside and your activities are limited- unless you like, of course, flying down hill of ice and packed snow on two pieces of fiberglass boards! Not my cup of tea as they say so I prefer late spring, summer and fall. Get out there girls and enjoy all the pleasures of summer and have some fun! See you at the next picnic, on the lake, at the cabin, by the pool or in the park! Ahhhhhhh…summer days and nights!

Roughing Out Melissa (Fall 07)

Oh my, I have finally discovered a transgendered girl’s version of hell- being forced by circumstances to spend three days in the wilderness in rustic cabins as a “male” with five other males for card playing, beer drinking, “smelly odors”, fishing and so called “male bonding” activities. Now I love my college friends dearly and they have been wonderful friends to each other over the years. Our lives together began at a time when we were young and believed we would live forever unless the alcohol we consumed in mass quantities killed us but we always felt it would “preserve us” for prosperity. When we finished school and each embarked upon our respective careers we started a tradition which has continued for twenty-five years of returning to my campus for a long weekend of drinking, card playing, tailgating, football watching, fishing or golfing, dinners and camaraderie and for twenty-five consecutive years we have done so. Although we have gotten older and our bodies ability to absorb alcohol has greatly diminished over time we persevere.

For me however, recent years have presented many challenges as my true being has continued emerging from the shell that confined her for so many years. Yes I knew I was different even back when this tradition began but as I have said many times repression and denials are wonderful tools but they only work for a brief while. By immersing myself in this male bonding ritual I was able to fool myself and keep Melissa “in check”. The last few years it has become so much harder to do so. Melissa is a soft, sweet, feminine girl who loves shopping and beauty products and pampering and who adores pink! The idea of “roughing it” as they say is not something Melissa really considers as real viable option.

The long weekend started rough as I spent most of the evening driving and hauling in luggage, fishing gear, boxes of supplies and large bags of ice upon which I tore one of my beautiful nails I have been working on for months. The cabins provide little in the way of counter space I adore and one barely had room to attend to one’s needs by the sink or in the shower which was the size of a short phone booth! Pampering my body with lotions and creams was going to be extremely difficult. Additionally, only one of the other five friends knows of Melissa and one glance of my body or toes would have raised more questions than a Watergate inquiry to all but one of them. My friend David knows about me being transgendered because he is a part of the LGBT community himself. About thirteen years ago, he confided in me as a friend that he was gay and I felt that he deserved to know about me so I said to him” speaking of true confessions, by the way I am transgendered” I think our friendship has grown stronger because we share a secret. I know its hard on him to do all this outdoor stuff as he would rather spend his time at a museum or the opera than the great outdoors but he suffers through it.

Friday was miserable as we spent eight hours fishing on a boat in and out of periodic rain showers which left us soaked and cold. I have never been a fan of dealing with the messy worms and God knows I never touch the fish I catch as they are slimy and my idea of fish is grilled and served on my dinner platter. I tried to avoid using the worms but after the minnows ran out I was forced to. My fingers took another beating and I spent most of Friday evening trying to clean up my nails which were such disasters by now I could send a nail tech’s child to college for what it is going to cost me to pamper them back into girl shape. I did manage to catch two small mouth bass which my friends remove from the hook for me. After a hot shower which is not a daily occurrence on this frontier weekend, I felt a little better in a fresh pair of panties and some body wash on my body. I do much of the cooking over the trip as I am a very good cook and I cooked breakfast before we left and dinner Friday night which was raved about over cards before the conversation turned to the size of one‘s bowel movements and the “tits” on the girl at the boat dock as well as many other crude and lewd comments made by men while drinking beer. If only the rest of them knew I which I was that girl at the boat dock and why can’t we talk about how nice her eyes looked with her makeup or how she styled her hair!

I realized I am not cut out for “roughing it” as I clearly prefer a day at a beauty spa than a day in the wilderness fishing and getting all wet and dirty and listening to typical male comments. My idea of roughing it is to go without satin sheets. I was clearly roughed out again by this experience and I guess the only way its going to change is for me to come clear and let the other four know what David knows and accepts. Hmmmm…...I wonder if that will change the sleeping arrangements and cabin assignments on these long yearly reunion weekend trips .All I know is can someone pass me some sweet smelling body lotion and my perfume? I think I still need to remove this fishy and wilderness smell from poor Melissa‘s body!