Well, i was looking at my account the other day, and noticed I had passed the 1 year anniversary of being a member here. However, at the end of January, it will be one year since i published "The saga of E-Girl". A lot has changed for me since then, much of it for the good. I have (hopefully) improved as a writer, I have made some wonderful friends, Wand I have made serious progress in dealing with my rape, as well as my gender status. Who knows what the next year will bring? Not me, that's for sure. I would never have predicted what has happened this one. Happy new year, everybody.

She is the first transgender person known to have been elected as a trial judge and one of very few elected to any office.

Read the article here, before it is archived in a few days.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_16966747?nclick_check=1

I followed this election, though I live in the next county.

There was some opposition by some people/groups, but her opponent did not seem to use her gender/gender change as much of an issue.

I got the following email from my Son when I got back to Ohio, and had Computer access again:

Dad,

I think I have hit that place where you were when you decided that Christianity or the Christian's definition of God was not for you. When I was having a child out of wedlock and Christy was accusing mom of cheating on you, only to find out that Christy was doing bad things herself. What awful days those must have been.

Well, it looks like things at work are headed for the crapper in a hurry. As of next week, I will be lucky to get one day a week. I am feeling a little hurt by this, as you can imagine. Thanks to my commitments to my daughter, i may have great trouble finding another job, and without my income, and especially since my mom's job is also insecure, we may end up having to make some hard choices about where we live, and what we can do without. The worst part is, i felt like i had finally found a job i could maybe transition at, only to have it pulled out from under me. Sigh.

Okay I'm putting up the recipes by PM request for some of Chuck's recipes in this last chapter.

1. Chickengasmic Fried Chicken.

Take a whole cut up chicken this recipe does one lot of this size at a time.

Step 1 Marinating your chicken: In a large bowl put your chicken in buttermilk and black pepper and the zest and juice of one lemon. Cover and let this sit as long as you can. Overnight is best.

Step 2 First dredging: Take the chicken out and now roll in in cornstarch and shake it clean. This will help the batter to stick to the chicken.

A few minutes ago, Cuddles killed her toy Skunkie that I got her for Christmas. Skunkie had been on life support since Cuddles bit the squeaker out of the tail on Sunday. Now, both of the squeakers are broken and pulled out of the plush. It's the nature of dogs to kill the toys they love the best fastest. She's never killed a toy quite so quickly before, just 6 days; it usually takes more like four to six months. But she had never loved a toy quite as much as she loved Skunkie.

Skunkie is dead. Long live Wheelie, the toy that squeaks AND rolls like a wheel!

Today I went shopping at Target (one of the chain stores in Australia). The thing is that I only recently gave myself the go ahead to crossdress. Even if it has mostly been at home (I live on my own). The only time I went into the city with womens clothes was on halloween, and even then some guy on the train did a double take when seeing me - this sort of freaked me out - I'm really worried about being seen in public.

There is fine story by Danielle J titled Duty,Honor, Country, Family that isn't getting any comments. I can tell from the votes that people are reading it. I know it's complex and difficult to comment on, but is it that hard to just leave an "I like it." for Danielle on this one?

The story is well worth the time to read.

Maggie

I've noticed that different stories appear differently on my cellphone. Just for the record: I have an LG Quantum (just released with Windows Mobile 7). I'll use two examples that are currently on the BC front page: "A Fortuitous Adventure: or, how I got my first job" by Louise Anne and "The Experiment: Part 10" by Donjo. Please note, I'm not singling out these two stories for any reason other than I looked at them on my smartphone.

Today everyone was the 4 month anniversary of me and Jonelle formally letting you all know that we're together. I'm not sure when you actually should start counting these things I think 6 months is an important one too...anyways, seeing as it falls so nicely between X-mas and New years I'm sharing this with all of you and saying it to her.

I blithely expected my kids to be accepting when I told them I was transgendered; after all, I'd modeled acceptance to them all their lives. So telling them would be a piece of cake! Right??

Wrong

My oldest told my wife the only reason he didn't yell at me when I told him was because we were traveling down the freeway at 75 MPH in a driving rain and I was practically comatose huddled against the door.

My middle son said nothing. Of course that means little since he normally says almost nothing.

A spammer promoting tours of West Bengal in Afrikaans? WTF?

One more spammer down, 367,955,403 to go.

Hugs,
Erin

I know this has nothing to do with tg topics, but I wanted to share this any way.

Last Wed night, my parents, my wife, my son and I went to see the new production of Les Miserables, it is currently at the Papermill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ thru this next week, and then continuing on tour thru the US. I believe the next stop is in Philadelphia.

My son had come to enjoy the music from the 10th anniversary concert, but had never had the opportunity to see the show, he was enthralled, it was great to share this with him.

Well, Christmas turned out ok. My daughter and i made a gingerbread train, she opened every present in the world, and generally turned my house upside down (but in a good way), and then the ex came over and we had a civilized Christmas dinner. All in all, a good Christmas. I hope all of you had good ones as well.