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I am still on sick leave but went into work yesterday to try out my new username for signing into the local network. Talked to my boss, told him that I most likely would not be back next week as Marci's office has not given me a letter to return to work yet. He was fine with that. He then said, could you please write something up for your business partners whom do not know about your transition. I told him that I already did this. He then asked if I would write something up for our IT division, I replied, no problem if you would send the message out which he agreed too and did before leaving, asked him to review it, he said it would work. I did include a paragraph on the topic of me using the female restrooms in that I symphonize with those who might have issues or concerns and that I did get approval from human resources to use any restroom I felt comfortable with. I could actually still use the male restrooms but not going there and sticking to female restrooms only While there I talked to a few people that knew of my transition but had not talked with them yet and they treated me no different than before transitioning. One thing I am having troubles with is that some call me ma'am which to me feels old so my thing will be to ask them to simply call me Karen. There is one employee whom I have been working with for 20 years and saw him yesterday talking to other people, waved at him but he did not wave back and I thought he was not okay with my transition but about ten minutes later he came over, shook my hand and said "Hi Karen", when you have time I want to talk to you about a guitar I am buying and said yes. I spent about one hour talking with my team members (three of them) about things being worked on and that they ran into an interesting problem that they could not find a solution for then remembered I gave a code sample two months ago, from the code example they easily figured out how to remedy the issue at hand which made me feel good. Joked around a bit also which showed me they really have no problems with my transition. Looking forward to when I can get back to work.

I have been working on a good method to work on dilation with the largest dilator which I was having not so great luck with. As mention before I need to dilate three times a day for 15 minutes. Small and medium dilator were fine but the larger one I only could manage a few times with then tried 15 minutes with the medium then gave up after five minutes with the larger size dilator. Last night I believe I have found a simple method to start with five minutes with the medium dilator then 15 minutes with the larger dilator. So I am going to work on this for today and tomorrow, if nothing changes I will post what I found to work. Also, I purchased a dildo that I could fit the entire six inches in where the width is about the normal width of an average penis. My conclusion is that to have penetration with a somewhat wider width penis it is indeed best to use the larger dilator so that entry is not painful. At this point in time I am confident to be penetrated by an average size penis but as we all know fate will be when I do try this I will end up with a larger size penis and will not be pleasant so persistence is needed to keep going with the larger dilator. I surely hope by next Saturday I am hope to use the larger dilator w/o first using the medium size one. Crossing my fingers. UPDATE: I am sure now that by placing the largest size dilator inside my vagina very slowly then for the first three to five minutes rotate the dilator side to side that the pain is reduced by 90 percent. If I do not rotate the pain is unbearable after five minutes. Without rotating I can force myself to go 15 minutes but that is really pushing it. Marci said I may have started the larger one prematurely but it's now under control. I did tell Marci what I did and she was fine with it.

I have always had horrible ugly bags underneath my eyes since my early twenties, with the passage of time (lots!) my upper eye lids have also become hooded......Aaaarrrrrrggh! it makes eye shadow pure guess work! I wanted to have cosmetic surgery, and thought that that was the only option. Last week when I got my nails gelled, and eyebrows threaded, the salon technician said that she'd had her face lifted at the neighbouring complexion salon, so I enquired and was told what was entailed (Mesotherapy) and it would cost £150.....compared to £5-7K for surgery it was worth a try. So I had this Mesotherapy treatment on my face, it didn't hurt, i was told to expect results to start in 3 days time and to be completed within 3 weeks. I have noticed a slight difference already 24 hours later. I'll keep you all informed as time passes................... I was told that much of what was applied was made in the USA, so I wonder how much similar treatment costs over there? Please let me know, and of course any personal experiences good or bad. Eve Salon link; http://www.naturalco...ns.co.uk/clinic

Dear Eve, Please explain "mesotherapy," as I have never heard of it. Thank you. Yours truly, Monica

Hello, Sorry I haven't written in a awhile. I've been working a ton, sick some, and trying to enjoy myself as well. I had a situation at work that made me realize that I may not be able to transition at the current job that I have. My manager left the company and there is a little bit of a battle between her and the company which could get a little ugly. Anyways, I ended up being one of the pawns in the fight. Yet at the end of it, I was able to out-fox and out-manuever everyone much more senior than me (without getting into any details). Needless to say, I started to realize that, if I had already transitioned, I don't think I would have been able to do what I did. There are certain privileges that men enjoy. Women who excel, typically have to be so much better than their male counterparts, particularly in a technical environment. So, I will need to put myself in a position that I can do that. Also, I will need to "up-my-game" quite a bit. I am really good at what I do. But I will need to be better, almost perfect. I hate to put that kind of pressure on myself, but I seem to have really good survival instincts. And have a good sixth sense about where I am at. My therapy session last week was good. So much has happened in the last week is a blur that I've forgotten a lot of what we discussed. But, I'm doing better. Not in a rush to transition, but will make a decision soon. I have been giving it a lot of thought what I will need to do. Me being male is an act. Well so will being female. The voice, mannerisms, how I carry myself, etc. Society is so gender binary it drives me nuts. Well everyone have a good week! Hopefully this snow will break at some point. Love, --Lisa

So true in regards to how things happen in the technical field. I think that there are many aspects that can sway things your way. I had a boss for about five years who pulled me aside one day and said "we need to document how important you are here". The reasoning was there was a huge layoff, 200 out of 1000 and much of what I do is sight unseen but critical to daily operations. He wrote up a new job description that I could backup and that also nobody within reason could match the description in a 60 day trial period. We have a process called Bumping where someone being laid off could challenge someone else for their job (yes you can bet it gets ugly). Anyways my point is I worked even harder so that I was visible and known for my work which I believe truly helped with me transitioning. So I agree with many things you mention and by all means read into your post a very intelligent person.

Please allow me to explain what a body map is. Many are familiar with the concept of an amputee having the feeling of where the toes or fingers of their missing limb are, and feeling as if the missing limb is present. When some FTMs stand before the mirror and as they relax, they can see the outline of their male body, such as how tall they are, the thickness of their arms and legs, how broad their chest is, the features of their face and the shape of their privates. They can also tell how muscular they are. Likewise, some MTFs can stand before the mirror, they can sense how tall their female self is, the bone structure of their face, the size of their breasts, etc. In my opinion, this is not the product of fantasy, but the observation of their true gender, just as a person who has lost a limb can not only sense the limb that is not there, but the location and what the limb looks like. Feel strongly this exercise before the full-length mirror, if at all possible, but the bathroom mirror will do; and making every effort to replicate what is seen as the true gender, will create the best closure.

I see myself slightly shorter in height in the past but then not so much. I did some image blending to see myself and think the image below matched my image of myself when done about 7 years ago

Monica, I will give this a good try, at least a few times, and see how I feel and what I can report. Thank you for this idea. I don't really look at myself in the mirror. It's not out of disgust or anything, I guess I'm just not interested. So I'm looking forward to this experiment! Emma

Dear Lisa, Welcome back! We've missed you. I like what you wrote here but I am always on edge when someone says they need to be "perfect." I can tell from how you write that you know this but please be careful... Perfect is aiming for something that is not only unattainable it's also undefined, and leads to list of stress and worry and fretting. Just be careful, be Lisa (at least inside) and I'm confident you'll be fine. Better than fine, in fact. Hugs, Emma