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Karen's thoughts

A blog by KarenPayne in General

  • Entries

    261

  • Comments

    690

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    132,274

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

Spent the day with an old friend

Performed my first dilation of the day, zero issues. I did learn that the mirror used to see my vagina could be used for keeping the tool from sliding so I tried this out and worked like a charm. Spent the day with an old female friend whom I have not seen in 30 years. We did a whole lot of exploring and lost track where we went to but some were not tourist attractions as she has been living out here for 25 years. She was very surprised at how I looked and said I looked great and complimented

Some habits come back to haunt

Many years ago prior to my real life test I would go out dressed with no fear except when leaving and returning home. If I was wearing any type of heels that made noise as most do I would avoid landing on the heel and tippy toe inside my house. Have not done that for many years. So today I wear a nice pair of business style pumps and while walking along a hallway found myself tippy toe for a few steps. I thought to myself, WTF then had one of those moments "yes this was from back in the day when

Some considerations on cost after GRS

Something's that you may not consider when having gender reassignment surgery is the after cost. Personally I can afford (others may not) the various types of feminine pads, ultra-light thin Always, Always dailies and let’s not forget Tampax. Other items such as douche (limited usage but good to have and have only used it two times since surgery) and vaginal moisturizer. Then let’s not forget about lubrication for dilation. Right after surgery I was going through two four oz. of KY then tampe

Socializing

I have meet our moderator here (the week after GRS where she took me out for a great dinner in California), only member that I have meet in person but had the pleasure to chat with several members here in the past where one member setup a conference call each Saturday. Although the conference calls did not last long I think they were an excellent idea as vocalizing verses writing is vastly different. I am hoping to meet two members here in person (and would like to meet more), one in the US and

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

Sleepless in Salem Oregon

When I hit the age of 30 years old I went from a night person who was totally into playing in a rock band playing in clubs or jamming with various musicians and getting up late to going to bed early and getting up when others were falling asleep.  I then get up and be on the computer figuring out complex problems or putting on headphones  creating music. The family sleeping soundly and me doing this dressed gave me the little peace of mind I needed to keep sanity in the male body. I was afforded

Sleepless in California

I have not been keeping count on visits from nurses but enough that is not conducive too sleeping. Just a little bit ago my pads/packing was changed then a follow up to make sure there was no leakage. I have to say the nurses here are top notch, well versed with taking care of me after GRS. All in all I am feeling great except for sleep which I am sure will get caught up on.

Simply horrible

While performing some research I came across a memorializing for 2015 for trans-people who were murdered because they were different and society perpetuates the core problem which truly needs to change in the home before we see a drop in murders. Some of the deaths were horrendous, being run over by a vehicle multiple times, being stoned to death, burned to death, strangulation.  I was not surprised which countries the murders happened and kind of numb in regards to how these murders were done w

Sick

Went to bed not feeling well, all points to bowel. Got four hours sleep, woke up, empty pee bag then back in bed but felt wet on the backside. Yeah know in this case I was right to wear black undies. Washed the soiled undies, took a decent poop. Still not feeling good at all and stepped outside for a minute, came back inside, made coffee and while waiting drank OJ (this is at 1 AM mind you), popped on the tele, watched the beginning o the late show and started feeling much better. The feeling

Shared a brief story with the New York Times

One of my friends on Facebook shared a link where transgender people are sharing their stories. So I decided too and found it difficult to confined the story to 400 words but finally did. Once approved I will post a link back here. Anyways I am committed to this and spreading the word especially to those over 50, and older that it's possible to do this. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/storywall/transgender-today  

Shadows of my former self

Usually when I write an entry here it's done with some clarity but shoot from the hip meaning, sit down and write. Today the following sounded like something that needed to get out but when starting to type was very unsure how to express what I wanted to get out. So with that said it may read a bit disjointed but I will leave that to whomever decides to read on. Today is rather interesting in how the day has gone mostly in ways I am attributing to my hormone regiment. Just now sitting on the

Setting my new goal, breast augmentation

I have been research who to select for doing my breast augmentation in the latter part of this year. I would really like to do this here in Oregon but not sure who to trust as I have heard some not so pleasant stories. For instance one of the woman who cuts my hair told me her left breast was royally messed up and been battling with the surgeon for months now. I am not taking this lightly by any means. Very shortly hope to have my new countdown and be done with this before the end of this year.

Self-defense topic

Had one of those elevator discussions today, was waiting for the elevator and two female co-workers asked me what I thought about C Jenner, got that over with and then spilled over to “it’s a man’s world” which slid into my story of how after over ten years teaching firearm, impact and edge weapon self-defense that the main source of teaching dried up because of my transitioning. I also told them that perhaps in the back of my mind (and they agreed) I needed to teach and continually train becaus

Self Analysing

In a recent post I place the image below into it which was taken by my friend who said she wanted a picture of me for memories of that day. I was thinking about female Mannerisms and Body Language but not at that moment looking at the picture below. Note this is three days after breast augmentation and not thinking about my body language what-so-ever. Several things became apparent that I would like to point out, men generally sit forward while females sit back on a chair, men typically have the

Second letter done

Received my second letter for surgery requirements and a letter to assist with changing my gender on my driver licence. The letter for my driver licence is critical in tangent with my legal name change documents so I can book flights to and from California so I can purchase tickets shortly that match my name change and soon to be new gender. After this I visited with a close friend who gave me an early Christmas present of 5 tube and two large bottles of KY Jelly for dilation after surgery. W

Saturday drive

Yesterday met up with the local Miata club, normally there are about five or six cars but yesterday there were 15 cars. With that there were many new people I got to meet and not one of them as with the members I met already had anything to say about me other than what someone would say to a cisgender female. We start off with a sit down in a restaurant for about 10 to 30 minutes chit chatting then hit the road normally for one to four hour drive through the countryside. Each time  so far it's a

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

Ripples have consequences

Directly after my surgery I had a mandatory visit with my doctor who takes care of my current female needs which includes administering my hormones which I wrote about in an earlier entry. Well she changed my dosage and also changed my prescription from every thirty days to every ninety days with an expiration after six months for now as she wants to see how I am doing since surgery which may at that time lower or up the dosage. Why bring this up, only because it seems the doctors want to kee

Revealed Karen to my daughter

I told my daughter I would call her next week but she thought it was going to be this week eek. So I came out in a well thought out manner, in short she was fine with it then proceeded to chatter away on normal stuff for over an hour. Yeah see we are close knit but I delayed telling her for several good reasons. Phone call ended quickly because my bowel was a moving :-) and wanted to say good bye to my poop. Oh, she is moving from the East Coast to Oregon in the fall and will be living

Remembering my sister

Unfortunately at the time of my transition was when my sister developed a fatal cancer and could not bring myself to fly east to see her one last time. My impression was we have a decent brother sister relationship but after her passing my mother told me I was more to her than what I had imagined. I so regret not being stronger and just gone to see her. Please don't let something like this ever happen to you. Since then I have been thinking of getting a tattoo of an owl which was something she w

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

Received an excellent comment today

While waiting for my friend (female) to get ready to leave for the movies her daughter came home, said Hello Karen, I heard your name change has been completed. I said the big thing for me was more of having a bank card with Karen Payne. She did not know I was changing my last name. I pulled out my new and former driver license, she compared pictures and said "I remember you then but you have changed drastically since then". She held both licenses for a minute shaking her head and then said, it'

Really???

Those who are cross-dressers that become transgender who are on a journey to gender reassignment surgery most likely have gone through the following. You felt compelled to dress in the opposite gender, may have been your mother's or sister's garments or you have been resourceful in some other way to obtain the opposite gender clothing. It begins early in life, many just over five years old and as age is accumulated going to stores and clothing outlets in secret (for most) is how clothing is obta

Q&A: MVP Karen Payne Talks With Us About Being A Transgender Woman In Tech

Several years ago I was asked to speak at Microsoft on "Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace". They wanted my perspective as a Microsoft MVP (Most Valued Professional) being transgender in the tech field. Only a handful at Microsoft knew I was transgender when I would meet with them but my lead at Microsoft asked me to participate and I said yet. From that I did the Diversion and Inclusion speech with a panel which then moved to me being interviewed (which was the second time, first time was

Pulling stitches

This morning I had a very difficult/painful dilation session. It was painful enough to contact Marci which resulted in sending her a snapshot. I noticed a blood blister, she asked me to pop it. So I serialized a needle and popped it, no pain, fair amount of blood. She then said, I see you still have some stitches, please pull them out. I had tried several days ago but did not put much effort into it. Today I did and got them (four) out. The hard part is working tweezers with a flashlight and mir

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