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| Your Innvestment | |
Vol. 8, No. 1 |
September 1999 |
The summer ended on Cape Cod with it's annual Labor Day traffic exodus. But except for two weekends, the summer was hot but uneventful. Two Innvestments activities took place this past summer, the Pool Party at Randolph Country Club in July and the picnic at Nickerson State Park in August.
The Annual Pool Party again took place in July off Cape at the Randolph Country Club. Participation this year was not as large as in previous years. Again we had invited the Tiffany Club of New England to participate with us. A small group gathered and enjoyed a good afternoon with swimming and a barbecue.
Our hostess this year was once again Catherine who performed in her usual efficient way.
We did have a problem in that we first advertised the party as being held the week before but due to the Randolph Country Club not being able to handle the group on that date, we had to switch it to the next weekend. It was overcast and some rain was expected but it did hold off for the day.
The Innvestments Annual Picnic took place at Nickerson State Park in Brewster in August. The Master Chef and Chief preparer was again Markie Robin who did an outstanding job.
One of the few weekends that it rained, of course, was the picnic weekend. That Saturday morning Julie arrived at the site bright and early and set up a special shelter tent so that folks would not get wet if it really poured, which it did. Later Brenda arrived and brought two other shelters, a tent and a canopy, which were also used. These three structures worked just fine.
We had a good gathering of folks including several wives, which was refreshing to see. We know that some of the wives were planning to get together at some other date.
This was a good family event and Innvestments wants to thank all of those involved who made it such a success.
YOUR INNVESTMENT is a publication of Innvestments, P.O.
Box 2194, Orleans, MA.02653-2194 / P.O. Box 354, Sagamore, MA
02561-0354. Innvestments is a non-sexual service organization
founded to support and to provide a socially acceptable outlet
for the crossdressing, transvestite, transsexual, transgendered
community located primarily in Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape
Cod and the Islands. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint
any article in Your Innvestment is hereby granted to non-profit
similar organizations provided that publication and authorship
credit be given. Any commercial use of Your Innvestment material
is hereby prohibited. Some material may have previously appeared
in print. Publication and authorship rights of material reprinted
from other sources remain with its originator. The editor/s of
Your Innvestment are not under any obligation to accept
information and advertisements. Information and advertisements
may be published in any form deemed acceptable. Any information
about services, products or sympathetic locations published in
Your Innvestment is not considered an endorsement of such
by the staff of Your Innvestment or the Board of Directors
of Innvestments. Innvestments is also know in open source
publications on Cape Cod and the Islands as Cape Cod Cross
Dressers (Triple C-D).
Liz W..................................President
Julie W...........................Vice President
Brenda L...............................Treasurer - E-Mail Brrendaa@aol.com
Candy Scott........... .....................Board
- E-Mail Candyscott@capecod.net
Judy Thompson...............................Board
Membership (including newsletter) is $30.00 per-year (pro-rated
after Jan.) with a $15.00 meeting fee. Meeting fees payable only
for those attended. Subscription only rates are $10.00 per-year.
What in the world was I doing waiting in line for an identification card at the Texas Department of Public Safety - in a skirt? The cue was about 20 people long, and the wait looked to be at least half an hour, during which time everyone would have more than enough time to read this rather tall girl with large hands and feet. Of course I had done what I could to avoid that embarrassment. I wore a conservative calf length skirt in a subdued violet, blue and fuchsia print with matching fuchsia top. My stockings were blue with blue flats to mitigate my height. A tailored blue jacket completed the outfit with sleeves long enough to partially hide the hands. The makeup was as little as I could get away with, which still meant beard cover, foundation, powder, blush, mascara and lipstick; but all in light shades that complemented my outfit. After all my mug-shot was for an ID, not Vogue magazine. A pretty blond wig in a current but appropriate (for my age) style topped the look. In addition to ear rings, bracelet, lapel pin and watch, I wore a diamond ring on the appropriate finger to discourage any guy who might want to be chatty. Since nervousness is usually half the give away, I brought along a copy of Cosmo to occupy myself.
Of course I had also checked out the office to be sure it serviced a crowd in which I could blend. This lesson was learned from an earlier near disaster. My friend Jennifer and I had tried the week before to go to another location that was open in the evenings. We didn't stop to consider that it was in an ethnic neighborhood, and that two blond ladies would attract more attention than they wanted. Luckily the blinders were on as we approached the desk for a line number, although later I wish I could have seen the expressions on the faces of the one hundred or so people in that crowded room. Learning that the wait was more than an hour we wisely decided to cut the performance short. This false start also served to remind me that the chances of being read increases exponentially with the number of us present. The fact that Jennifer likes to wear red jackets, much as a matador sports a red cape, may have convinced me as well to go alone the second time.
The line was now down to 10 people, my deodorant was still working, and I hadn't been carted off to a back room for questioning. So far so good. But to respond to the question I was asking myself earlier: "What was I doing Here?". The answer lay on a number of different levels. The practical explanation was that I wanted an official ID with a picture of myself en femme. It would still have my male name and sex, but that didn't matter as long as it could be used as identification should I be stopped by police, or if carded for entrance into a club (some wishful thinking on my part). This venture was also a test of my ability to function in the "real" world. Up to this point most of my forays had been to gender friendly clubs, restaurants and stores. What if I went into a place where I was not a paying customer? Perhaps the most important reason, however, was the affirmation of myself. Here I was making an irrevocable, official and public statement of who I am. In after thought, it made all my earlier attempts to keep incriminating phone numbers and purchases off my billing records seem rather ridiculous. But on the pragmatic side certain jobs were no longer available to me such as school teacher, FBI agent and President of the United States (at least for now).
The lady behind the counter asked for identification, completed application form, and ten dollars. After a couple of looks at my license and me, she said without malice: "I don't think we're allowed to issue IDs to people like you, but I'll call my supervisor". A young sergeant in uniform appeared, looked at the license and then at me, "yup, that's him". With that I felt like a hundred pairs of eyes were piercing my back. I explained that I wanted an ID with a picture that represented how I appeared in public much of the time. "I'll have to make a phone call first", the sergeant replied. The next five minutes seemed eternal, as I imagined at any moment a SWAT team bursting into the room. When the sergeant returned he asked if all the information was correct. Then after ascertaining that my hair was a wig, he gently inquired twice if I would remove it for the picture. And I informed him twice that I would be extremely humiliated. "OK, go stand for the picture". The clerk interjected "But they told us just last week...". "Never mind" replied the sergeant, "issue 'her' an ID, I will take full responsibility". Five minutes later I was out the door with a new identification, and another milestone behind me.
Recently Noelle Rose had some photographs taken in Boston. We asked her to please let us know what started the quest and how it worked out. This is her story.
This interested me since I had only a couple of pictures of myself dressed and I wanted to be able to scan some to put up on a website of my own.
I looked at Brad's website and found nothing objectionable so I e-mailed him saying that his message had been forwarded to me. His studio is in his home in West Roxbury and we set up an appointment to meet there at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. He said that our session could possibly extend until 2 PM.
When the day rolled around I started to get ready about 7 AM. I wanted to leave the house by 8:30 in order to get there by 10:00 AM, but that was not to happen. Figuring that Brad would take a couple of pictures per outfit, I selected about 20 to bring along. That took a while. Then I needed to decide on shoes for each outfit. Then I decided that I needed a brighter shade of red for my toenails to better match the red high heels I'd finally received from Frederick's of Hollywood more than two months after I ordered them, so I removed the old polish and put on some new. Then I got dressed in a white sleeveless dress and started on my makeup. I was still working on it at 8:30 but figured I'd better start getting the car loaded. That took a while, and I also needed to bring along my makeup kit to finish up. It was 9 o'clock before I finally pulled out of the driveway. I messed up following his directions and had to ask at a gas station, so it was past 10:30 when I got there. I finished my makeup and we got started.
Since it was a nice day, Brad asked if I minded shooting outdoors rather than inside. He choose settings in his yard, on the street and at a nearby train station for my various outfits. He shot a full roll of film for each outfit, so I was longer between changes than I had expected. After 8 outfits he suggested that it was nearly time to quit. I was pretty wrung out from the heat by then, so I was ready to quit after one final outfit, some black lounging pajamas with Malibu slippers.
I packed up my stuff and made one final costume change for the trip home (a long wrap-around sleeveless dress), sorry no picture. On the way home I stopped at a yard sale, the Hanover Mall and the Cape Cod Factory Outlet Mall.
Brad was a perfect gentleman. We chatted during costume changes and he helped with my zippers. I received a set of pictures by the end of the week and he put a dozen up on a website that weekend. You can see them by following the links from his website (its URL is listed above). I have bought a scanner and will be putting some more on a website of my own (coming soon!).
Brad asked me to say that his rates are negotiable and he "might" be willing to do the same deal (i.e., free) for someone with the "right look" for his website.
P.S. I didn't see his dungeon backdrop.
Hugs,
Noelle