You jump out of bed like a cute little Pop-Tart

 Say what? Lady, I've never jumped out of bed in my life!

This description of how a TGirl's day starts was a well-intentioned attempt at trans-positive meditation by a vlogger. I have some alternative trans Pop-Tart positives below, but here's how my day starts... 

My day begins by finally realising, after much meditation, that I really cannot justify lying in bed any longer, oozing myself out from the sheets, attempting to sit and put on my slippers which the mischievous monster under my bed has invariably swapped about in the night so they're on the wrong feet. I then try to put on my dressing gown that the sniggering elves have bunched up so my arms won't go in the sleeves. I blink bleary-eyed out of the window at the unpromising dawn and stumble to the bathroom where I gasp at my unmade-up face in the mirror and sidle away like Dracula would from his reflection. The bathroom is a den of lurid potions and ablutions, the laboratory of Doctor Frankenstein preparing body parts for coherence. My roughly-assembled frame then clumps stiffly to the kitchen to boil a kettle to make tea, the first stage in the revivifying process. It will be many hours before full consciousness is achieved. Whilst awaiting active life status, I surf social media till a sense of futility overcomes interest. Pop•Tarts™ have never attained existence in my kitchen cupboards; the place where they might have stood stands empty, accusing, mocking, making me aware of my lack of full connectedness with the modern world; I am an underachiever in consumer desire. From here on, there can be only more such inadequacy and loss, accumulating till the grave. I realise have become the subject of my own Werner Herzog documentary. The horror of that thought awakens me ...to begin an extended meditation on whether I can justify lying in bed any longer or whether I must ooze myself out from the sheets ...

Look, if you can jump out of bed voluntarily like a cute little Pop-Tart, be my pretty little guest! Either that, or your electric blanket has just short-circuited and the shock has hurled you out of bed like the said tart from a toaster. ...Actually, maybe that's what the vlogger meant all along!

The point is, your experience may differ. As may your electricity bill.

Today I thought I'd talk of a few other slightly random things that might interest readers that have been suggested to me by comments here or that I have found via other blogs or vlogs like the above or that are left over from earlier posts. Dysphoria warning, mind: these trans/CD items are very cute.

I did do some more photos as a silver witch at Hallowe'en after I had posted here. I had tried various combinations of hair, footwear and hosiery. My final change after blogging that day was to wear straightforward sheer grey tights.

Cute enough, but not so inspiring. These tights were matt when gloss would have worked better. By now I was too sleepy to continue so I called it a day. Still, it was a very fun day and I must do some more cosplay soon. Mother Christmas, maybe, if I can find a suitable dress and hat. No, I won't be dressing as an elf!

Just to note that the dress and hat were €20. One of those cheap costume combos. The hat was quite good quality but I can't see the dress outlasting a party.

 

I don't see any reason why the dress shouldn't do double service as a silver fairy. They're much more associated with cobwebs than witches (who have quite wrongly been said to live in dirt and squalor when actually, I am told, cleanliness is essential to a witch's healing craft, hence the traditional broom. My sardonic take on the local witch trials of the past and their similarity to present-day transphobia is here.)

The silver wig was €9 from the supermarket and you wouldn't believe how many nylon fibres it shed, singly and in clumps! But it remained intact and was worth it for the fun. The webs with three plastic spiders were €3, again from the supermarket.

Continuing the cosplay theme, thanks to Susie for alerting me to the Alice Cos Group from Shanghai, China ... all boys who are a crossdressing dance group. I don't know enough about serious cosplay or far eastern cutesy culture to comment adequately, just that I wish I was able in some way to wear lovely little costumes and dance for a living. Try this video which shows several different outfits all at once: 

My friend Helena is an amazing cosplayer. Check out her Flickr images here. This is what we aspire to, but she sets the bar very high.

(c) Helena Love

And continuing the idea of random stuff online, here's a new feature on Sue's News and Views that might become regular:

 

Learn languages with Sue

Here are three expressions I've come across recently online that I had to look up and I share them with you to improve communication in English, or what passes for English:

 

- Schrodinger's douchebag: 

According to Urban Dictionary, this is defined as "someone who is a jerk and decides whether they were joking or not depending on how people reacted." 

Thanks to Hannah McKnight for that one.

 

- Brolita: 

A boy who dresses in lolita fashion. Gothic Strawberry explains.

Thanks again to Susie for using this term.

 

- NED or just ned: 

A Scottish term signifying "Non-Educated Delinquent". Rather like the gopniks of the former Soviet republics, these differ in that the gopniks gorge on sunflower seeds and favour full tracksuits, whereas their ned cousins guzzle Buckfast Tonic Wine with less co-ordinated sports gear on. I mention this subculture because of the Buckfast wine. 

Buckfast Abbey is in beautiful Devon in South-West England and I have visited it many times. Indeed, a friend of mine became a monk there in preference to being an accountant. Presumably accountancy was a little too fast-paced for him! The monks sell various home-made products, such as honey from their specially bred bees. The real moneyspinner, though, became the tonic wine after endowments, investment income, charitable gifts and school fees were insufficient to maintain the establishment. If you have never had the 'pleasure' of drinking Buckfast Tonic Wine, I have so you don't have to. It's made of cheap French red to which 'secret' ingredients have been added, so secret that the holy brewer whispers the secret to his saintly apprentice only on his deathbed. And also to the labelmakers since listing ingredients is the law. Blessed are the labelmakers, for they shall be informed. But it tastes like cheap red plonk with flat cola added. In other words, pretty awful. I have no idea why it's been so successful but it has brought the monks closer to mammon than ever and has earned the community the new name of Fastbuck Abbey! 

Buckfast Tonic Wine has the unique and very strange property, but one well-attested by others in addition to myself, of rendering you harder of hearing the more you drink, so that Buckfast Wine parties get louder and louder they longer they go on. Scotland, therefore, must be bedlam! 

Thanks to Ruth Aisling and her interesting Scottish travel vlog for that one.

Welcome to the world of subcultures.

Next on Sue's News and Views

It's blowing a gale out there tonight, as it was two nights ago when a lot of damage occurred. This time I have tried to protect my garden furniture from blowing away. I couldn't get to sleep the other night with all the howling and banging going on, like Dracula was trying to get out of his coffin. Finally, at 3 am I'd had enough and went out to close the door to the communal back stairs that was banging in the wind, praying that nobody else would do the same and see me in my pink nightie. I didn't forget my house keys. Getting locked out in that attire would have been awful - I'd have been like some mad pink bat flapping about disconsolately in the breezy dark!

I kept this post lighthearted as it is sandwiched between Transgender Day of Remembrance yesterday and my next post which I plan to be about my trip this week to the Italian-French border with it's dramatic landscape and its human tragedy. The former was awe-inspiring, the latter upsetting.

Have a good weekend.

Sue x