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Have you heard of Cheryl Strayed, who has a column called "Dear Sugar?" If not, I suggest you find out about her. Check out her book "Tiny Beautiful Things." In hindsight I wish I'd included it in my Suggested Reading post. Below is a letter to her and her response. (I didn't really send it, but it's in tune with others in her book.) I'll also add that I wrote this about a year ago. I'm posting it now to reinforce my positive feelings in myself and, I hope it might help others. Dear Sugar, My wife (I'll call her Mary) and I have been meeting with a therapist for over a year. It started out with only me seeing him, because although Mary and I have a great relationship and love each other very much, I'd lost interest in sex, was depressed, and Mary encouraged me to try - yet again - to get to the bottom of it. The main issue it seems is that I've been fascinated and ashamed of my fascination with girls and girly things since I was very small, which led to sexual fantasies and fixations that I've not been able to shake off. I told Mary about it a couple of times in the past and it pretty much shocked and disheartened her, so I rapidly withdrew into my shell. Now, though, we're talking about it more openly in our therapy meetings. I'm still quite sensitive about it (notice I'm calling it "it"), and pulling details out of me is tough. Despite Mary's recent assurances of her love and acceptance I get worried. I suppose I don't really trust her acceptance. I wouldn't blame her at all if, even hidden deep down, she wonders about how strange this all is. Might lead to all kinds of awkward and embarrassing moments for her. And, even if her acceptance is sincere, my shame makes it hard for me to accept her acceptance. You see, Sugar, I know I would appear pretty silly in female clothing without a lot of help and preparation. And even if I looked acceptable, where is all this going to lead? What do I really want? At the extreme let's say that I dress up and through practice and experience, learn to blend into society as a woman. I can go out and about, shop, doing whatever I want in public. Is that the goal? I don't think so since at the end I'm still me, unhappy in my own skin - or at least not loved by me. Do I want to be female? No, but there are times I wish I'd been born one. Perhaps then I could be me, happy? But I know that the grass isn't so much greener over there. Most would say my grass is already lush, green and well trimmed now. I really hate and am impatient with myself at times like this, and try to push feelings away. I don't know what to do to get better, and on top of my shame of myself in general I'm also ashamed that I even need to go see a therapist. I'm so sensitive, scared, and tired of living like this. I know you're going to say that I need to love the one I'm with (me). Maybe so but I've not figured out how. Screwed Up in the Bay Area Dear Screwed Up, Let's say you're playing poker and you were dealt two pairs, and a pretty good hand at that: kings and tens. Your other card is a queen. And not just any queen, it's the queen of hearts, the girliest card in the deck. What do you do? Throw in the queen hoping for a full house? Probably, since I'll bet you know how to play poker. But what if you then pulled the queen of diamonds? How might your hand have played out differently if you'd held that queen of hearts and played your hand another way? Answer: nothing, zilch, nada. Like it or not, you'd still be you. Look, honeypie, I can tell you've been around the block on this quite a few times. But mostly it's all been running around in your head, keeping you small and in hiding. Keep talking and opening up to Mary and your therapist. And I can also tell that you put your marriage with yourself on hold many moons ago, too. As if you're sleeping in separate bedrooms, sniping at each other, or not talking at all. Self-divorce isn't an option. You need to patch up your relationship with yourself. Get to know each other. Take yourself out on date nights. Become as fascinated with yourself as you are with things girly. Sugar loves you, and I'm sure Mary and your therapist and many others do too. You do need to learn to love the one you're with. It starts there. Sugar Photo: Another pair of pretty birds in that park in South Africa.

My agony and enduring bull**** continues. I had to park almost a mile away from work again today, because there were no parking spaces. Then listened to a fifteen minute speech from a manager about how I have no excuse, there is "always parking spaces". Get into work on time, thankfully. And slam my hand into a door. Yay... Move my rearend to the front line and start doing my job, and I accidentally drop a 50 pound box of canned goodes right on my foot. THANKS A LOT. Limping around, I get the usual "are you okay baby girl?" "what happened to your foot, girl?" "Darling, what'd you do?" or my favorite (sarcasm) "Woman, you gotta stop hurting yourself." GIRL. BABY GIRL. WOMAN. DONT ANY OF YOU SEE THAT YOU'RE KILLING ME!? It was so hard not to punch someone right square in the jaw and scream in their faces before cackling like a maniac and running away. Oh how I envisioned this.... So after I faked my smiles and did my chores, I went on to do the rest of my job. But I noticed that everyone's looking at me funny. Everyone's whispering when I'm "not looking". What is this? What's the big secret that no one is sharing? I ignored it. For now. But it was becoming maddening. Lunch hour. FINALLY. I made myself a wrap and threw random things in it, trying to stick to my diet and ignore all the other yummy looking food on the line. Get down to the table, and someone SOMEWHERE (i dont know where) snickers "Whats up, queer?" That's it. I'd had it. I'd finally broke. I turned right around, and walked out, and ate in the rain. Well, TRIED to eat. The wrap I'd grabbed, the ONLY food I'd grabbed, tasted like crap. By the time I hauled myself back inside, all the other food had already been cleaned up off the front line. No lunch for me I guess... I'm at that "I really dont f***ing care anymore" mode. Go back to work...my phone's dead. Great. Continue to work, ignore the snickering and whispering around me, buzzing like wasps in my brain. Pants keep falling down which is pissing me off. Shoelaces wont stay out of the way, boxers wont stay down below my f***ing belly.....it is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT my day. I'm sore as hell from working out too much, I can barely lift a damn box, and I've got a constant headache for the past three weeks that now has decided to show its ugly face again. Went to make some tea and dumped the lava hot water on my hand. Went to grab a bite of something to eat so I dont throw up, and some ***hole took it before I could grab it. Munching on crackers and I nearly choke on one. Go to take a drink of water and I accidentally swallow a piece of ice that nearly slit my throat all the way down. FINALLY as the work day ended, I'm listening to my music in my headphones as I cleaned, thankfully I MIGHT leave actually on time today, when I get a message on my ipod. (I roleplay online through my messenger with a friend sometimes to help with stress and give me something to do, usually medieval based) Go to click to open it....nothing. Click it again.....nothing. Tear my whole freaking protective case off (because I JUST BOUGHT THIS ONE refurbished to replace my broken one) and guess what? Break? Catch a break? HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! right. My home button is broken for absolutely no f***ing reason at all, rending the WHOLE thing...absolutely freaking useless. THANK YOU UNIVERSE, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER? Universe: You have a flat tire by the way. THANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Now if I could just get rid of this damn headache, I can maybe pass out. But NOOOOOOO. We're out of tylenol. Warren of War