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Karen's thoughts

A blog by KarenPayne in General

  • Entries

    261

  • Comments

    690

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    129,786

About this blog

This blog is dedicated to telling those who read the entries about my journey in hopes that something can be learned. 

Entries in this blog

Road trip

My daugher is going to move from the Philadelphia Pennsylvania  to Portland Oregon (20 minutes from my place) this coming Spring. I told her it would not be cost efficient to have her car taken on a train and a bad idea to sell it as the car is fairly new. In my late thirties I made the trip in four days across country (three times in three years in my forties) but thirty years later will more likely than not need one or two more days. So in total I am going to take two weeks off from work for t

Haunting thoughts

This is going to sound strange and perhaps obscured too many yet I have to question the validity of the real world and what is beyond or parallel to the known world. Although I infrequently visited my sister while alive when we did there was this connection between us, same when we talked on the phone coast to coast. When I had not seen her because we lived on different coast I did not think about her but when I visited her and her husband in 2004 not seeing her for ten years it was fantastic

Can I help

Over the years I (and you most likely have too) have read countless stories of people transitioning with little or no support which is sad. With that said I would like to extend to those here if there is anything I can do shout out. If by chance you are having surgery with Marci Bowers in California with no support let me know, I will fly down for the day of surgery and the day after at the very least to provide support. I don’t want to see anyone take this path alone which is why I will do thi

Coming to an end

Well 2015 is coming to a close, have squeezed a lot into this year in regards to surgeries, lots of paperwork and a brand new car and very satisfied with the results. Four years ago this was entirely a dream, seemingly out of reach because I could not give up what I had in regards to teaching self-defense but then realized that I had crammed many years into teaching and as much as I enjoyed teaching I could finally kiss it goodbye to make myself happy overall. My guess is that many wrestle with

Going to be interviewed

From yesterday until Thursday I am in Seattle Washington at Microsoft offices part of recognizing MVP (Microsoft Valued Professionals). This morning I "liked" one of the tweets and the woman must have looked at my Twitter profile and asked if she could interview me where the interview would be posted on one of Microsoft web sites. Of course I accepted and once the interview has been uploaded I will provide a link here but be forewarned it's geek topic    On the ways back to my hotel I was added

Coming of age

For so many years I would dress in the morning in tactical clothing which includes a firearm inside my trousers and a revolver at the ankle and would stay that way until bed time. Slowly this became coming home at immediately disrobing into female jeans or leggings and a female top with flats. Those days are completely gone now hurray for that other than use to taking 15 minutes in the morning to 30 to 40 minutes in the morning where the majority of this time is "what will I wear today" which tu

Feminine Movement

Today I was thinking about the real life experience (12 months test) that a person is required by the WPATH guidelines and how I seemingly did extremely well over 12+ months and believe this is partly from having studying female mannerisms, realizing  from many observations how female and male anatomies are different yet with the right preparation from watching cisgender females a cisgender male can compensate for what surgery can't give you which is the natural movements of a cisgender female a

Getting noticed

I find it interesting that my new car seems to draw a good deal of attention to me. Friday I decided to wash the car out in front of my house on the street simply because car washing places are not good for convertibles. Any ways a middle age man walks down the street and says hello, I say hello back, he keeps walking. Then about five minutes later he walks back up the street and says "you are breaking my heart, you look fine today girl". I immediately can tell no matter what I say he is going t

Microsoft interview II

Last year was my first interview, today was my second.  Last year they did the interview in Microsoft Studio were nobody sees this until pushed to the web. Big difference this year, they brought all their equipment to the main Microsoft building where there are thousands of people walking by and the camera is hotter without the AC of the studio. During the prior video you heard a question being asked then I would answer. This year they ask a question which is masked out, I repeat the question co

Teaching today

I was asked by a group of six to teach a empty hand defensive class today. My only limitation was to not go to the ground as I am still healing. Many of my techniques end up with me locking up an attacker in a manner that I can call the police and keep them at bay with just my legs and be on top of them. Generally speaking for these types of classes I have one concept to teach and also allow the students to agree say on one common attack and work that into the concepts I teach. Lastly, I demo

Ladies restrooms

I have been using them for the past year. mostly public restrooms such as malls, restaurants and the likes. What is was surprised about was hearing women siting in the stall next too me and would say that 95% of them use the paper on the toilet to protect themselves while on contrast I would say it's almost the reverse for the men's restroom. Not that I am sitting there listening for that but for whatever reason this is the case. Anyways I always when available use the paper cover as one neve

Regular HRT checkup and more

Every twelve months I am required to check in to my doctor for blood work in regards to me continuing on estradiol and spironolactone (anti-androgen). She indicated that there is no need to continue taking spironolactone since this is for blocking testosterone which I don’t have anymore. Had a discussion on dilation, she transitioned 20 years ago so once a day for her. She sits in a warm bath tub and uses baby shampoo for liberation, think I will need to try this for the middle dilation of t

Acquaintance GRS update

Several entries back I wrote about helping a male to female, surgery went wrong and ended up being hospitalized for many weeks because of rectovaginal fistula. Last week I saw her, she had a colostomy bag and indicated they would revisit what can be done in February. This week she said there is a possibility of using a colostomy bag either internal or external for the rest of her life. I can't even begin to imagine having the wear a colostomy bag forever because of a botched surgery. My advice f

Interview at Microsoft

Several weeks ago I attended a week long summit at Microsoft for MVP recipients of just under 3,000 people and out of the 3,000 less than five percent were female. The woman on the far right is a Microsoft employee that has a section on what is called Channel 9 (part of Microsoft) that is devoted to to females as developers and innovators in the field. We met in passing at the beginning of the week then the next day she asked me to participate in a interview. She actually got the majority of fem

Keeping the vagina as it should be

I have written multiple times about dilation in regards to lots of lube and yes, pain. Recently, five months after reassignment surgery I am down to a drop of lube the size of a quarter and finding intimate encounters are much better than dilation. When one has intercourse for at least 15 minutes this counts to one session of dilation. I am 90 percent into females and the remainder into couples. I became friends with a couple that had nothing to do with sex but after time did and do enjoy a thre

Emotional

Yesterday I went to visit my best female friend who unfortunately lives forty minutes north of me and does not drive. During non-peak hours it's a 20 minute drive. Any ways we were planned on going to the Portland Saturday market but I for some reason went to bed at 6:30PM Friday night and she was up dealing with an inebriated husband till 3AM in the morning. Beings I was up at mid-night and ended up texting with her the end result was no Saturday market as we both needed to take naps and ended

Good bye for a while

Over the past year I have been sharing my journey which hopefully was of some use but now I am need of concentrating on another aspect of my life with requires a good deal of attention so during the next few weeks will be limiting my time here and will stop visiting here shortly. Hopefully I can make it back here in the future. For those interested I will be keeping up from time to time on my WordPress blog. Lastly, it has been wonderful getting to know people here. Best wishes for those on t

Conversation at work today

To start off I take a break every hour at work, walk down three stories, head outside for a few minutes then back to work. Although we have three elevators many uses the stairs and with that I pass several people that I don't know (we have over 1,000 employees). This one lady stopped me several weeks ago whom I have never spoken to before were the conversation was everyday stuff. This morning she stopped me again and at one point said she never said anything before to me when I was male was beca

Mornings

For 99% of the days since surgery I have bad mornings. Most of them I wake up way too early. Many of them I feel nausea to some extent and just down right crappy. Usually take a two hour nap within two hours of waking up. I have noticed the past few days that I am starting to feel better. What really makes me feel normal is right after morning dilation and a nice hot shower. Anyways thought others going down this path might be alerted to you too may experience this too.

New territories

Last week I received a friend request on Facebook from a man I don't know. Usually I only allow either people I know or people that are connected to my current friends. Well not sure if this one was a mistake or not as of today. It started off immediately, each morning he would message me asking how I was doing and would respond in a way that nothing could be construed in any way that I was interested more than being friends. This morning it became apparent he wants to date me. There are several

Went to friends family reunion...

; Went to my best female friends family reunion and was a blast. Although I have known her for close to nine years have never met all the people who were there today, a rough guess of 30 family members and I left early, more were coming. I was seen (note I did not say treated) no different than any other cisgender female at the gathering. During the four hours I was there joined in to several conversations which was great as I much rather chit chat then simply sitting there only knowing her imme

Slimming down

Happy to report that I am having excellent results losing weight. Over the past two months have lost all the weight I put on since gender reassignment surgery which was 20 pounds. I do believe my eating habits were good most of the time but think that hormones played a factor here coupled with a pre-existing thyroid issue. To get where I am, greatly increased water consumption, run one hour four nights a week, no fast food were contributing factors.   My weight history, was 130LB in 2000, thyroi

Deep waters

Many times in my past life it was difficult or nearly impossible to find common ground to convey concepts and feelings to others without a conundrum in and of itself. Things change but the world in all its vastness stays small and elusive to these matters. This is where those who are members here can find common ground and try or do make sense of the issues, emotions and trials we endure. We touch each other sometime out in the open while other times silently and deep. In my own way try and invo

Oh what fun

So I arrive in San Francisco, love the hotel room, went out food shopping then downed to twos of A1 coffee (I tend to only drink water and coffee) and then thought, how will I get to the pre-surgery appointment tomorrow morning? Open the phone book to Taxi cab companies, there are about 20 WHAT. I call one and they said, how can I help you ma'am? I told them what I needed in the morning but got a bad feeling so I thought why not ask the front desk to see which cab company they recommended.

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