Dots and stripes.

• Button down: Maurices (previously)
• Cami: Maurices (buy)
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Sandals: Lela Rose for Payless

This post is part of Megan's challenge to show off your stripes. Okay, this is going to have to be super quick: I got slammed a little yesterday and today, and have a lot of non-blog things to do (trust me, I would rather be blogging! :) ). And for all my blogging buddies further to the north... our weather is supposed to get unpleasant later in the week, so please don't hate on the bare legs! And of course, the pictures today were taken by my awesome wife.

Shopping.

• Cardigan: Old Navy (previously)
• Cami: Maurices (previously)
• Belt: Maurices (from a dress)
• Skirt: Old Navy (previously)
• Pumps: Nine West (previously)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart

I previously wrote about finding some shoes for sale in my size on Craigslist. During the visit, the lady selling the shoes mentioned that she was also doing some end of year cleaning out of clothes that no longer fit her, and many of them were in sizes near my own. I told her to let me know if she ended up with some clothes in my size. Luckily for me, she did, and sent me an email this past weekend, so we scheduled a meeting time on Sunday for me to visit and "shop".

This was my shopping outfit for the day. My wonderful wife did my hair and makeup, but she ended up having pre-existing plans for the afternoon and didn't accompany me on the visit. I ended up getting a lot of wonderful pieces for a great price, and I will be incorporating them in future posts. It was a fun day, and this was an interesting first for me: making a solo visit to a stranger, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get out and about. Of course, I was careful. This trip was also a good confidence builder for this weekend, but that will have to wait for another post.

I also want to take a second to thank Melanie, of Dressed to IL for mentioning me in her post on authenticity.

I also need to thank LaToya of A Chameleon's Closet for giving me the Versatile Blogger Award in her post Leopard and Purple. So here are seven more things about me as part of the award.

1. Since I mentioned music in my previous post, I figured I would share some more. I like a lot of music, so this is just another sample of the randomness that is my playlist. Here are some bands that showed up on my playlist in the past few minutes: Cage the Elephant, Gogol Bordello, Beck, Muse, Hybrid, Rage Against the Machine, The White Stripes, The Killers, and Movits!.
2. Last time, I also mentioned that I liked bad movies. Well, I also frequently like cult classic movies, and as an example I have to mention one of my all time favorites. Krull. Which has an epic soundtrack by James Horner, and a young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane in early minor roles. Its not a movie for everyone, but its one of my favorites.
3. I have no siblings.
4. I am scared of have serious reservations about flying. Every movie I've watched where things go wrong with airplanes makes it worse. My wife finds it seriously unpleasant to fly with me.
5. I don't drink, this makes the previous fact even more difficult to cope with. I once had a fellow passenger (whom I did not know) offer me some of her drink, in fact, I was so visibly nervous.
6. I also don't smoke.
7. I dislike raw tomatoes, but I enjoy Ketchup and nearly every other tomato based product you can imagine.

Things have been incredibly busy lately, and I look forward to being to get caught up soon, I haven't forgotten about everyone, but this month hit the ground running, and hasn't let up at all. Thanks so much for bearing with me. And of course, my amazing wife took the pictures for this post.

Its too cold for this outfit.

• Cami: Cato (previously)
• Cardigan: Old Navy (previously)
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Shoes: Gabriella Rocha via Zappos (buy)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart

A while back, I saw Ashley of Ashley Getting Dressed post a really cute outfit. It didn't take me long to realize that one of my favorite skirts was really similar to hers, and that I could recreate a very similar outfit for myself. As an added bonus, I realized it would make a great outfit for the blog debut of these camel colored T-strap pumps. And those white blurs in the last two pictures are not a camera malfunction, they're snow! I hope everyone had a great weekend, and of course today's pictures were taken by my beautiful wife.

Orange and purple.

• Top: Cato
• Cami: Cato
• Vest: Maurices (buy it)
• Skirt: Isaac Mizrahi for Target
• Purple Tights: JC Penney (previously)
• Boots: Target
• Bracelet: Torrid (previously)

I frequently associate orange and purple with Halloween, but when I put this outfit together, I was thinking they really work great for fall in general. I was also trying to break my neutral heavy rut. Of course, its cold like winter here, so maybe its not really time for a "fall" outfit anymore, and this was all just wishful thinking on my part. I know the short sleeves were wishful thinking, but I was indoors the whole time I wore this outfit, with no intent to go outside.

I have another question to answer today. This one is from the fabulous Pamela of Call Me Ishmael: Where do you most want to go dressed as a woman? For what occasion? I think you mentioned something about a wedding or ball before. Anything else?

What I really want is to get dressed in the morning without having to consider the gender of my clothes, and just go about my day normally. As it stands, I'm pretty sure that's not realistic most days, but I do feel like I'm close to a place where I can go out and about some of the time. It just takes some advance planning and preparation. However, there are some situations where I frequently find myself wishing I could wear an outfit I would post here. And since that's what Pamela asked, here is a list of those places in no particular order.

• I mentioned this one previously. I would like to wear a nice formal dress to a formal event. Maybe its because I remember all the formals, proms, and dances I went to while I was in school where I was often jealous of all the pretty dresses. One day, I would really like to get dressed to the nines in formal wear and go to really swank event or dance.
• This one is related to the previous one, but since I joked about it in the other post, I thought I would expand on it. I have always enjoyed weddings, and while I had a close male friend ask me to be a groomsman once, I have sometimes thought it would be really special if one of my close female friends ever asked me to be a bridesmaid. (And then my next thought is usually to ask myself what would a male bridesmaid be called?). Of course, this would probably be a horrible idea, and weddings should be all about the couple, but I like the idea of being there for my friends on their special day. Also, I have a long and highly qualified resume documenting my skills at extreme car decoration during the reception. Okay, maybe that last one isn't helping my argument! :) (Hehe, it also doesn't help that the idea of male bridesmaids shows up in pop culture occasionally, like here and here!)
• I also like the idea of going dressed up to informal parties and other social events with friends. This is actually something that I am getting the opportunity to do now, since I have a circle of friends who are accepting of how I like to dress. Its not like there are opportunities on an extremely regular basis, and most of our friends live one city over from us, but next year is looking up on this count.
• I'm sure to no one's great surprise, shopping is high on the list too. Especially the idea of making a real day of it with some friends, and going to a city with lots of great shopping options (and preferably reasonably far away from home for anonymity reasons...). Of course, this one is as much limited by budget as other concerns, so I guess I need to start saving up for it. :)
• A "(Mostly) Girls Night Out". The idea of getting dressed up and going out with small group of close friends to a nice restaurant, followed by a movie, play, or some other fun and/or cultural event or even a nice club. I'm not sure if this counts as irony, but I wouldn't actually want to exclude any gender from this sort of event. Earlier this year, some friends had a tea party and hosted a Mary Kay consultant during the tea. Afterward we all went to a restaurant and then to play pool. The evening was actually completely mixed gender. Okay, well, I was the only guy who elected to go to the Mary Kay part (the other guys watched a movie in a different part of the house), and I ended up changing before we went out for the rest of the evening. So I'm including this one because doing more things like this appeals to me, especially the part where I don't change clothes halfway through.
• I really enjoy office styles a lot, and so the opportunity to conduct business dressed up really appeals to me as well.
• When I was in college, a friend of mine showed up to class one day in a 3 piece suit. We asked him what the occasion was, to which he deftly responded, "Laundry Day." And so the last "place" it something I have probably mentioned before as well. Some days, I just want to get up and dress up for what many would say is "no reason at all". I do think there is a reason though. I want to dress up for myself, and when someone asks why, I don't want to feel embarrassed that I just wanted to look fabulous, and hide behind being out of "regular" clothes. (In all fairness to my friend, he was, in fact, completely out of other clean clothes. I guess doing your own laundry is a life skill too frequently learned in college.)

And of course more questions are always welcome, so definitely feel free to post more. I will always try my best to answer them. This week has been mildly crazy as well, so I must apologize for the lack of posts and being behind in general. And of course today's pictures were taken by my lovely wife.

Timing is everything.

• Sweater: Maurices
• Cami: Maurices
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Boots: Indigo by Clarks via Amazon
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart
• Coat: Kohl's
• Scarf: Kohl's (came with the coat)

This is one of my favorite outfits. Its one of the first outfits we bought at Maurices after I got "okay" with my interest in fashion. I saw it on one of the store displays and bought it "as is" off the mannequin. The boots weren't with it, of course, I bought those later. They are actually one of my favorite pairs of boots too. I really like their dark brown color, and while they aren't leather, I found them on Amazon and watched them until they went on clearance for $25 (they were originally around $125). I really love how they look and they are extremely comfortable to boot! I have been waiting for the "right" occasion to wear this outfit since I started the blog. Unfortunately, I have had several opportunities lately to go out dressed and socialize, but various things interrupted those opportunities at the last minute. So this past weekend, we finally got dressed up to go out, even though we had no real plan.

Now, while we had no plan for the day, it still worked out that almost nothing went according to our un-plan. How that works, I'm not sure, but that's what happened. We started off by getting a late start. We had tried contacting a friend or two, but it was a holiday weekend, so everyone was either busy or didn't get the message until too late. And why I thought one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year would be a great time to discreetly sneak out... I'm still not really sure what I was thinking actually. The evolving un-plan for the day ended up being: take some outdoor pictures and go to an uncrowded restaurant with a couple of friends and eat a quiet meal while dressed up. Or something like that.

In addition to all the shopping traffic, on the way to the nearby larger city we discovered a sporting event was letting out. We discovered this because interstate traffic slowed to less than ten miles an hour for... most of the evening actually. In addition, due to our late start, we were rapidly running out of daylight (made worse by the traffic delays). At least the outdoor shots that turned out much better than I feared they would.

The shopping traffic plus the event traffic also meant every restaurant was packed, even the typically quiet restaurants we had picked out had lines. Ultimately I decided to put on the change of clothes I brought and wash off my makeup and so we wouldn't have to worry about the crowds.

On the whole, I'm not that disappointed. I think I would have gone in to a restaurant if pretty much any of the stuff that went awry had gone a little different, and the pictures did turn out nicely.

And of course, somehow, I had this idea I would get caught up over the holiday weekend here, and it turns out, I'm more behind than ever. I have not given up yet, and we'll see what this week brings. I hope this week brings me time take some outfit pictures, do some more posts, and read everyone's awesome blogs I have been missing. And of course I must add that my patient and wonderful wife took today's pictures (and she did my hair and makeup too).

BBCA 7: Retail therapy.

• Top: Torrid (previously)
• Cami: Maurices
• Vest: Maurices (previously)
• Skirt: Target
• Pumps: Payless

This outfit is part of Melissa's Blogging for Breast Cancer aWEARness challenge. I know I only said I would do it for a week, but I had a little more pink than I thought, so I figured I would just keep on going a bit longer. This outfit is actually from a couple of weeks ago, but I never posted it. And yes, its with the same vest and button down as another recent post. I told everyone they would be seeing it again soon. :)

Last week Lori from the awesome blog lorispeak made a comment that inspired this post: wow. I was wondering if you remixed at all! I'm amazed at how many clothes (and especially awesome shoes) you have! I do have to say, it's really fun to remix and see who you can make items take on a totally different feel. I like that you remixed these shoes into this outfit. It'd be a pity not to show them more than once! :)

Walmart is open 24 hours a day. I know this because for many years I experienced intense shame over my interest, and it was the only place I felt I could shop. I would wait until the quiet hours of the night and go out and "browse" the sections next to the women's clothing until I could work up the courage to go look at clothes. If no one was around, all the better. I did not know my size and I was way too timid to ask to try anything on. I would repeat the waiting near the cash registers until lines were short or empty, and while the cashier ringed me up, I couldn't look anyone in the eyes, and I just hoped I no one would get in line behind me. One of the last times I ever did this, a man started following me around, so I left the store, only to get confronted in the parking lot. The man was a plain clothes store security person who was convinced I was shoplifting. I managed to convince him I hadn't taken anything, but it was a seriously unnerving experience.

Of course, in that period of my life, even when I bought things, I would only keep them a few days. During this period, the shame and guilt would pile on, and I would reach the breaking point, and too ashamed to dare make a return, I would throw away my purchases. Luckily, many of them were from Walmart, and at least they were cheap. Later on, I would discover this is a pretty common problem among people who crossdress.

Thankfully, I'm past a lot of that shame. I now have a closet overflowing with shoes and clothes, and I haven't thrown anything away in 3-4 years, and I have no plans to do that again. But during this period, I kept asking myself the question, "Why do I have these clothes?" I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, but these are not my "work" clothes, and these aren't my "going out with friends" clothes. Most of the time I spend wearing clothes, I'm wearing them for other people. I finally realized that these clothes are for when I dress for myself. Unfortunately, getting dressed to the nines to watch TV with my wife is not the height of fulfillment. Even worse, now that its "okay" for me to shop, I've started shopping a lot more. I have joked at times that I'm "making up for lost time". And there is possibly some truth to that, I didn't really get to enjoy shopping or dressing for myself until 4 years ago. I had never owned a dress until 4 years, I had never even owned a pair of heels that actually fit.

This post is about shopping, but its impossible for me to talk about shopping without talking about my background. I was shopping too much, but that was really a minor problem. I dress for myself, but I didn't have many people to share that passion with or opportunities to use my clothes, and so I guess I found myself "doubling down" on shopping for more cute stuff. So while I have not gone on a shopping ban, one reason I started this blog was so that I could share the clothes and shoes I already have. Here, while I'm not exactly dressing for other people, I am sharing a creative outlet in clothing with other people. But this blog has actually helped me shop less. Instead of retail therapy, I guess I have blog therapy now. Unfortunately, it did take a while for me to learn my size and how to dress, and what I actually liked and how to talk about it. I'm still learning. So while I love the idea of remixing, one goal I decided early on was that I would force myself to go through all of my shoes and all the clothes in my closet before letting myself do a lot more shopping. In the process, I thought I might be able ask any readers for their thoughts if I was thinking about getting rid of something.

Unfortunately, this is one part philosophizing and one part consumerism, but I certainly don't want to the promote the idea that anyone needs to shop or not, and where to shop, or not. My wife and I are lucky in that we can afford this indulgence on my part, and one of the things I love most about sharing with other bloggers is the diverse backgrounds they come from, and their unique experience and the context in which they live.

So when it comes to actually shopping in stores, I'm doing better. I no longer hide from the clerks, although I am always with my wife. I think a couple of the clerks think I am the most understanding husband ever. Although they occasionally express surprise at the sizes we buy. Unfortunately, since a few stores only cater to women, I don't always get to try stuff on in the store. Although I did have a wonderful experience at a Nine West store once. The clerk was not only extremely helpful, but explained that she has helped plenty of male customers shopping for themselves (I guess Eddie Izzard was right, "there are more of us than you know"). At the end of the day though, most of my shopping is done online.

I hope this was interesting! And I will be remixing for Meli's Wardrobe capsule challenge next week, and I will be doing some remixing off and on, because I always want to make a great outfit! And I will still be shopping, but I also want to eventually put all my clothes on this blog too! Dressing for yourself gets lonely too, and this is something I used to be ashamed of, but now I enjoy and I enjoy sharing it. And I guess one big part of this blog really is about self acceptance. I had a reader suggest that, and I have realized how true that is. Thanks for reading!

I really enjoy writing "question and answer" posts, so always feel free to ask questions in the comments! I also have to thank my wife and another good friend for the feedback and proofreading on today's post. And of course, today's pictures were taken by my amazing wife!

BBCA 2: Highlights on Black.

• Sweater: Target
• Yellow Cami: Maurices (previously)
• Skirt: Walmart
• Belt: Torrid (previously)
• Leggings: Maurices
• Boots: Payless

This outfit is part of Melissa's Blogging for Breast Cancer aWEARness challenge. It's also a little different from my norm, but it was a cool day and I was in a mood to be cozy, so my thoughts went to leggings and sweaters. I have also had mixed feelings about this skirt, which is today's pink, but its one of my few pieces with pink in it. I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask what everyone else thought about the skirt. Also, we tried some changes with how the pictures were taken today by following some advice from this post Six steps to take your fashion photos to the next level at Two Eyes in the Mirror.

I really enjoy writing posts to answer questions from the comments (or you can ask me in an email if you prefer), so feel free to ask away! And of course, today's pictures were taken by my fabulous wife!

Pattern mixing party.

• Cami: Maurices
• Shirt: Maurices
• Pinstripe Skirt: Maurices
• Belt: Torrid
• Shoes: ? via Amazon

Okay, so Sunday ended up being a crazy day, and yesterday I went on a road trip with a friend to a book signing, and now I'm playing catch up today (including comments on other blogs!). Unfortunately, now I'm a little wiped out, and so it would just be for the best if everyone pretends this entry was far more clever and entertaining than it is. Although I have to add, and I know this might be getting old, I'm amazed at how awesome and friendly style bloggers are. There's a lot of personal reasons I decided to do this blog, but it has ended up being about the people. Which surprised me. But it shouldn't, because one of the few things I know is that the best things in life are ALWAYS about the people: making connections, making new friends, finding out how truly special and creative other people are. So having said all that, I still really love questions in the comments, it makes these entries a lot easier for me to write!

The incredibly sweet Jasmine of Tragic Fairy Tales recently gave me The Sunshine Award. I really appreciate this, thank you Jasmine! But now I'm supposed to pass it on to 12 other bloggers. There are so many other great bloggers and other bloggers who already have it, that I would hate to pick favorites or leave someone out, and so I think I will have to pass on that part of the award. Again, thank you Jasmine!

And I would be remiss if I did not mention that my beautiful wife took these pictures (er, except for the picture for the award! ;) ).

Under My Umbrella-ella-ella.

• Cami: Maurices (here)
• Hoodie: Maurices
• Skirt: Old Navy
• Rain boots: Payless (here)
• Bag: Target
• Umbrella: Crabtree & Evelyn
• Ribbon: from a spool of ribbon bought at Walmart

I don't always follow trends, but I do get inspired by them because cute trendy stuff shows up in stores. Well, okay, style blogging is changing that for me a little bit, but that's not my point. Some trends, like rain boots, end up making me want them all the more because I can't find something that works for me (well, in this case, by "work", I mean "fit"). So finally, I found this pair in my size, and *cough* 4 *cough* pairs of shoes later, my rain boots were safely in the mail. And the next day, I see this post by Kendi, and well, I thought "That's a pretty cute outfit and my boots will be here soon, I should try something like that!", but ultimately, the real credit for this outfit is a friend of mine who posted a complaint on Facebook a few days later. She was musing about the trend of all the people wearing rain boots with shorts and skirts, and pointing out that the water will just trickle down your legs into your boots. And I thought, "Hey, I was just thinking about wearing a something like that myself!" So for my friend, who I know is reading this post, I just want you to know, it was raining pretty hard, and I didn't get a single drop of water in my boots!

And yes, I'm outside!!! I do go out sometimes, this is actually my second trip outside since I started this blog (other trip is here even though I ended up not getting pictures outside). This is from yesterday: my wife had a surprise day off work, so we decided to do some shopping and meet up with some friends. I noted, to my surprising and unusual delight, that the weather report called for rain, so I was all about doing a quick change to get these pictures. And if nothing else, I promise I'll try to go outside again on Groundhog day to see if I see my shadow.

Okay, so yesterday Meli22 who is super cool and runs the totally rocking blog The Daily Insanity of a Fashion Addict asked some questions. And I have answers!

Is that your real hair, a wig, etc? How do you wear your hair when dressed this way vs. how do you wear your hair daily? Yes, this is my real hair you're seeing. I grew it out several years ago for many reasons, and one of them did include my interest in fashion. I didn't really accept this part of myself at the time, but hey, I was making progress. I almost always wear my hair up in a ponytail when I'm not dressed like this (also, I usually go without the ribbon too). In fact, this is one of the few times I've had my hair up for an outfit like this. A few months ago, in the search for a new hairdresser, I finally worked up the courage to ask for a slightly more interesting hair cut and got some layering put in, but alas, our most excellent hairdresser has found another job and left no forwarding address, so now I have to be courageous again. For special occasions, my wife helps me style my hair with a curling iron and other magical hair products (I'm still learning when it comes to hair and makeup!)

Okay, wow, if you're still here, I really appreciate it! Long post. Now no one will ask any more questions! Ack. Well, for the brave, ask away, I will still try to answer them! Okay, its also Friday (yay!), so I hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful weekend, and no rain (unless you want rain! I got my rain boots picture, so now its okay to be sunny with a slight chill so I can break out my other boots, tights I bought yesterday and everything else!). I'll be back with another post on Tuesday! And of course, my lovely (and patiently getting rained on) wife took the pictures (Hey, she got a box of chocolates too!).