Monday night zoom call with friends

It is the first Monday of November and I get to spend some time on a video call with my friends tonight which is always fun as I get to see some of my friends who don’t live close enough to Portland to go out. I got home from work and started getting ready as this is the night I have plenty of time to enjoy getting ready, now I am not saying I don’t enjoy or take my time on other days but those days I am always going someplace so there is a little need to go a little faster where tonight I started getting ready at 5pm and I just need to be done by 7pm when the meeting starts. I really do enjoy doing my makeup and seeing the different looks I can create. I was all ready by 6:20pm so I got a few pictures and settled down to watch a little TV till it was time to start the meeting.

I started the meeting just before 7pm and Katy was waiting, she is one of our new members but I met her at Diva Las Vegas this year and she is awesome so we got to talk for a few minutes before other girls started to sign on. By a little after 7 we had 7 of us, Katy, Nicole, Danielle, Trish, Michelle, me of course and another girl that I can’t remember her name. It was great to catch up with everyone. Now normally on the first Monday of the month we have the wives & significant others on and if they want we break them out into their own room so they can talk freely but tonight we didn’t have any online although I think Katy was going to have her wife sign on so she could talk with the other wives.

We all were interested in how Trish’s wife liked the last Wednesday night dinner. Trish came out to her wife several years back and she has seen pictures of Trish but last Wednesday nights dinner was the first time she has met Trish in person and they actually came separate so Trish was at the table with the rest of us when her wife came in so she actually met Trish and the group in person at the same time. Now as I said her wife was really nice and I enjoyed talking with her but we wanted to know what she thought afterwards. Well it turns out she was fine with it and is still supportive of Trish. It is an interesting topic as we are all a little different in our female lives, I myself am way more social and outgoing as Susan. I am the same person and yes both my male and female sides blend together to make me the person I am. We talked a little longer and of course without Jennifer tonight we didn’t have her question but Trish did have one and it was what was an interaction good or bad that you have had as Susan and for the most part everyone’s was positive. Now I have been going out now for almost 15 years and yes there have been a few bad experiences, ne that comes to mind were a couple drunk guys at the next table at Diva Las Vegas a few years back but I really don’t like to think about the bad ones but rather focus on the positive ones.

I have had many good experiences or interactions over the years but one that really sticks out to me was a few years back at Diva Las Vegas. Early one day I went down to play blackjack and I found a table with 4 women at it, 3 were in there 50’s and the other was 80. Yes it was 3 sister’s who brought their mother to Las Vegas for her birthday. Well I sat down at the end of the table and we played for about 10 minutes or so when the older lady looked at me and asked, “are you a man or a woman”, well the 3 other ladies told her she couldn’t ask that and apologized and I just smiled and said it was okay and proceed to answer the question. I told her I was a man who liked or needed to spend part of my life expressing my female side and I was down here for Diva Las Vegas at which point she just smiled and said, “good for you”. She really didn’t care one way or another just wanted to know. Now what was good about this is it actually broke the ice and we started chatting and it turns out 2 of the women were school teachers and each had 1 transgendered student in their class. Well I explained I was not transitioning but I did my best to answer questions they had and tell them more about the transgender community. I bet we sat there for 36 hours playing blackjack and talking and they were actually very grateful that I was willing to talk to them and had their mom not spoke up we may not have had that kind of a conversation. I say it all the time that I really think people want to talk to us and find out more about us to help them understand but are to afraid they might offend us. I have always told people if they are really interested in this part of my life they can ask me anything and I will not be offended, there may be something I won’t tell them if I just met them but as long as they are respectful and want to know about this they should ask. It is the only way we can educate people. I look back when I first started I didn’t understand this part of my life and it has been a long journey t get to where I am and if it took me that long to understand it when it was about my life I can only imagine how hard it is for others to understand it when it is about someone else.

Well we talked a little longer and it was just before 9pm when we all started signing off for the night. it was a good night and a great conversation.

Thanks for reading my blog and sharing this part of my life with me.