I was at the young TS support group meeting this past Tuesday. Nobody new, but we talked a little about the exciting times in our lives. One is headed to SRS next month, the other was just putting together the letter to her parents, and I’m headed to FFS next month, along with going full time, and returning to work as Kara the following month. All three are painful events, but worth it in the long run.
Mom was due in this past Thursday night to visit me this weekend. I picked up my apartment Wednesday night and Thursday evening before she arrived. I’ve also been moving some of the male clothes out of my closet to open up a little space. I basically pulled out all of my pull over collared shirts along with some of my long sleeve shirts. I’m going to keep a few items like some flannel shirts for warmth and stuff like my letter jackets and my NFL football jerseys (chicks look cute in jerseys!!!). I picked up Mom at the airport around 10:30 then drove her back to my place, with a stop off at the grocery store to pick up a few items.
I went to work Friday, but told Mom we’d eat lunch out. I kept her busy with some cookie dough I hadn’t turned into cookies yet. She was pulling the last batch out of the oven when I came home to pick her up. Wow...those cookies rocked, and here I was still on my diet...sorta. Anyway, we had a nice little lunch, spotting a few coworkers out as well...even Robi. Later she asked why my mom was in town, and I told her a little about the Cotillion. I was kinda hoping to keep it fairly quite around work, but I figure Robi won’t spread it too much.
Right after work, I was off to the dress rehearsal for the Cotillion. The room was set up quite nice, but they gave us way too much room backstage and not enough room for the audience. I think we could have squeezed more seats into the audience if they would have lined things up better. Anyway, I took the cookies for everyone else while we waited for the stage to be set up. I also chatted with Siobhan and her wife, along with their friend Sarah West, who is known for her incidence on a United Airlines flight. It’s wild running into the people you hear about in the news. The TS community really is that small. I swear, we are all linked by less than three degrees of separation. I also chatted a little with V who was a friend of Chrysanthemum’s. She’s only 19 and already working on her GID stuff.
So, although asked to show up at 6pm, I don’t think we were able to start practicing until about 10pm.
T a l k a b o u t a l o n g d a y....uuugggghhhh.
We ran through some of the basics with the emcees, walked through the stage runs for the casual wear and formal wear, then I was able to practice my dance routine on the actual stage. The practice run went well, as the stage was just big enough for my little back and forth's. After practicing all week long, I finally felt comfortable about being able to perform it without messing up too bad.
Saturday morning I went for a run after sleeping in. I haven’t slept in many Saturday mornings in quite a while. After a shower, Mom and I went for lunch, then went over to my hair appointment. My stylist was able to straighten my hair last year, so I knew she would be able to do it again this year. An hour later, my hair was as straight as it has ever been. She even trimmed it up so that it looked totally awesome. I am so jealous of all the girls out there with straight hair. I wanted to have this done for the show, and also to see how it would sit on my face. I loved it so bad.
Initially, I was supposed to pick up Claire and Amy in the city, but they called to say they were going to rent a car to drive down. It turned out for the best. I headed over to the hotel about 4:30 to get ready, but left my clothes at home. So, I called Mom, only to find she’d gotten herself lost. Aaaawwwwwhhhhh!!!! She said she’d finally found the highway and was headed back up to pick up the clothes for me. I called again later to find that she was at the apartment, Claire and Amy had made it, and that she was on her way. Fifteen minutes went past and nothing. I called her again, and finally found she was headed the wrong way again. Aaaawwwwhhhh!!!! I’m going to have to talk to Dad sometime about her sense of direction. :P So, I finally got her turned around and headed towards me with enough time to run upstairs, change, and put my stage makeup on after she arrived with my clothes. Since I kept most of my outfits pretty basic, I was ready with no problem at all...plus, the show started nearly 30 minutes late. Claire, Amy, and my mom, however, barely made it in time.
For the Cotillion, we had 6 girls and 2 guys competing for the titles of Mr. and Miss Transgender San Francisco. Damon and Bobby were both vying for the guys, while Silia, Chrysanthemum, Anne Louise, Siobhan, Marla, and I were vying for the girls. All of the pictures here are courtesy of Jamie Fenton.
We competed first in Casual Wear. I wore gray pants from Express, black boots from Easy Spirit (a shoe store with shoes that had both style and comfort), a white ruffly top from Bloomingdales, and a leather jacket I found at Nordstrom Rack. All of it is stuff I already owned, or recently purchased in my journey to full time. The commentary for the Casual Wear section was pretty long, so you really had to keep the movement going and continue to pose at different spots, but not make it look like you were stalling. I had a lot of fun on that part while really flirting with the crowd. Later I found out that I was the highest scorer for that section of the competition.
Next up was the Talent section. Damon sang “I Got You Babe” with a hot MTF TS, while both were dressed in the opposite role. Siobhan had a comedy dialogue dealing with her life. Silia lip synched to two different songs with a variety of friends as her “back-up” singers with one of them falling off the back of the stage. Doh! Marla actually blew a pretty good horn, while Bobby wrestled with a crocodile. Anne Louise and Chrysanthemum both sang songs on their own. I then came out and performed a dance routine to the song “Oh Nelly,” which I learned in jazz dance class. It went pretty good as the crowd seemed to be into it and I didn’t have any major mess ups.We then had intermission, and since I didn’t want any funky lines on my back for the formal wear, I decided to ditch all bras for a while. So, I put on this little red top and the rest of my casual wear outfit, and went out to mingle with the crowd. I caught up with Claire, Amy, my Mom, my roomie, Kathy, her friend Rachel, Diana, Chris from TLC, Mikayla, Marina, and a variety of other people.
I then ran back to get prepared for the Formal Wear section. I wore a red Jessica McClintock gown I found at Macy’s with Kathy a few weeks ago. I kept the rest of the outfit simple with red shoes, a red wrap, a bracelet, and a necklace my cousin Emily gave me for Christmas. It was hard to move around in the gown, so I wasn’t able to walk so fast in it, and almost tripped a few times.
We all came back up for the final question, and since I was the last competitor with the last question, I just stayed in the same outfit. My question: What makes you the ideal candidate? I hate having to sell myself, especially when I have to basically brag. I tried to keep it simple again, by saying I had a bit of wit, humor, etc. This morning, as I was driving back from dropping my mom off at the airport, I realized that I could have slam dunked that question had I prepped for it. I realize that almost all of the questions can be answered with two easy themes: being true to yourself and giving back to a community that has given so much to me. Had I said, “An ideal person is different for anyone judging them. It’s all relative. But as long as a person is true to themself and confident in who they are, that’s all you can ask in the ideal person, no matter what their skills may be”....or something like that.During the whole event, though, there was a time when Lenny, one of the emcees, asked if there were any family members in the audience. My mom and a few others raised their hands. Lenny gave them all a round of applause, and came out to my mom to give her a big hug. I watched from behind the curtain, and almost started crying.
During the whole affair, both the rehearsal and the actual event, I had a chance to talk with both FTM’s, Bobby and Damon. They are both great guys, and I had no clear idea who was going to win. It’s too bad they both ran in the same year, as I think both of them would make great Mr. Transgender San Francisco's. Bobby was a bit of a player, and when I asked him if the girl in the crowd was his girlfriend, he played it up by saying she was one of them. Damon was a cool cat. He was laid back, but still an entertainer. He’s an EMT and used to serve in the military. They both do so well as men, and it’s hard to believe they were ever women. It’s just so incredible how damaging testosterone can be. I think I really connected with both of them.
The slow part of the show came when all the awards were given out. There were a few people that enjoy hearing themselves talk, and talk they did. They also enjoy patting one another on the back. Hey, whatever. Anne Louise and I did arrange for awards to be given to Susan and Roxy, though, but these were two people that really needed to be honored during the Cotillion since they were the people that put all of it together. The rest basically could have just not been awarded as far as I am concerned.
OK, OK...you’re probably wondering who won. Well, I thought for sure that Siobhan and I were the front runners since we are both pretty out going, carried ourselves very well, had some decent talent, and we’re both active in the community. When they announced that Siobhan was the second runner up, I figured that Silia had sneaked into the top two. Next, they announced my name as the first runner up. I really thought with Siobhan already announced, that I had a clear shot for the title. I guess I was just a bit arrogant. Anne Louise took the title. I was really amazed. The judges awarded the title to a total underdog. At least there were a lot of roses for First Runner Up as well, so I didn’t feel too bad. Plus, I knew that win or lose, I was going to have a good time.
Siobhan and I shared one another’s scores, and as I thought, we were neck and neck. The only event I really caught her on was the Casual Wear, but otherwise we were within a point of one another throughout the other sections. Siobhan’s strong points are her public speaking as she does a fair share of it compared to me. I do a few presentations here and there, but not like her. This showed in her points during the interview and the final question where she picked up almost a point on each section. I picked up two points on the Casual Wear, and almost one point on the talent, but we were basically even on the Formal Wear. I only beat her by one point, and with different judges, I’m sure we would have been back and forth on who beat who. I have no idea what Anne Louise's points were, but if I caught Siobhan by 2 points on Casual Wear, I had to have had her by at least 3 points. She must have killed on the interview and the final question. Anyway, it will probably drive me bananas until I see her scores.Afterward, we hung around on stage while people came up to take pictures. My mom gave me some roses, and Claire and Amy gave me a beautiful arrangement of flowers. They all looked great with the pink roses from winning. Since I’ve never really received any flowers outside of the play from last year, they really made this ol’ girl feel pretty warm.
Since I’d been on a diet for the past two and a half weeks, going from about 143 down to 136, I was ready for some food. Mom, Claire, Amy, Brooke, Rachel (Miss TGSF 2003), V, and I all decided to order a little late night food. We ordered a pizza around 12:30 and chowed down on a large pepperoni and a large artichoke hearts and garlic around 1am. Yum! Yep, I was the one who ordered. We finished every last piece, especially with Brooke and Claire there. :)
I was still picking on Claire a little. On Friday night, we found out that the USC basketball team was staying in the same hotel, and playing Stanford Saturday night. Claire loves tall guys, so she was in a dreamy state of mind every time I mentioned that they were there. I asked the front desk if they had come back from the game, and they said that they came back earlier in the evening. Darn...I was hoping to have Claire entertain us with her attempt to get a date.
The hardest part of the entire night, though, was having a number of people come up and tell me that I should have won. I mean, I can understand someone coming up and saying, “Hey, we were hoping you would win” or “We thought you would win,” but I had people telling me outright that I should have won. I would just smile and say that I had a good time, and that it was enjoyable competing and being on stage. What else can you say? One of the judges and a few other people associated with the production came up to tell me the same thing. I’m sure Siobhan probably got her share of the same comments as well. Anyway, yes, I would like to have won, but I didn’t. I can live with that. I think this was my only shot at running, as I will probably have other items keeping me busy next year at this time, as well as a few projects that might prevent me from competing altogether. What’s really bad, is that Anne Louise took home Miss Congeniality as well. I voted for her because she’s been really friendly and helpful, and I didn’t think she had a shot in hell of winning. Looks like I wasn’t the only one.
After indulging in the pizza, Claire, Amy, Mom, and myself went back to my apartment to finally get some sleep. I think we crashed at 2:30 when I could not even keep my eyes open to talk with Claire and Amy as we slept on the living room floor. I asked before going to bed if anyone snored, and Amy raised her hand while laughing. Yep, she does snore, although not too loud. I woke up around 7am and just kinda laid there until Amy woke up. We chatted for a while, and were amazed that Claire never woke up. Amy said Claire was a heavy sleeper. I suggested we write something on her forehead since she probably wouldn’t be able to feel it anyway. Anyway, 8:30 rolled around and I threw my makeup on. I had to drop Mom off at the airport, then run over for brunch at the hotel. Amy and Claire went along for brunch, as we all pigged out.
Afterward, we chilled at my apartment for a while as Claire showed us her basketball spinning skills. Yep, I think those basketball players were still on her mind. In fact, she told us that she had a dream about them. Uh huh...I think I know what to get her for her birthday. :)
I suggested we get some ice cream, so we drove over and hung out in the downtown section. Claire, Amy, and I sat there eating ice cream as two pigeons kept walking about around us, especially one in particular. One of them wondered how pigeons were able to get around while moving their head so fast back and forth. Claire had us laughing up a storm with her “donk, donk, donk” sound effects as the pigeon wandered around us in a pattern only it’s feeble mind could create. Sometimes I feel as if our life is one big pigeon walk....sometimes we move so fast that we really can’t see where we’re going.
1 comment:
nice post love it
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