(Note: Recovered/Remastered post, salvaged from local WordPress mobile apps cache and/or Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Edited for relevance.)
(Originally Published: August 12, 2010)
A new day, a new entry, and a new category. ^_^; (So nice, yet so important, that I’ve made it a Sticky post for a while.)
Today: Struggling with internal and external conflicts, in regards to my online manifestation of myself.
(Bear with me, this is a draft-in-progress, and may be tweaked or edited in the final version. Don’t worry, the link will stay the same, I’m sure.)
This is more or less, as the title states, an exercise in becoming more familiar with my content management solution of choice (Yay, WordPress!), as well as being “comfortable in my clothes,” so to speak, at least in my online presentation of myself. Since actual days where I break out the makeup, wig, clothes and shoes are whenever I can arrange them (Sometimes on very short notice!), I primarily express and further explore my femme side online, either via Flickr, Facebook, or here.
Flickr was where I first came out as Julie Anne, and it is the most active area of my life, since I have friends there who know me in both genders. I’ve had a LiveJournal set up for quite some time, which I need to get back to, and bring some of the more significant entries public. Facebook and Twitter came later, and I’m not completely out in the open there, though I have added one friend recently, mainly because I goofed, and replied to one of her posts linked off my male Facebook as Julie Anne. (Oops! ~_~; It was okay, though, since she heard about me through one of my friends I came out to – I just wish he would have asked me first before he told her.)
In a way, I’m following in the footsteps of other CD/TG folks who have established themselves online, so it’s kind of a logical progression. (Though you won’t catch me sporting pointed Vulcan ears and crossplaying as Lt. Saavik any time soon (Don’t even think about calling me “sir” when I’m dolled up! ^_^;) — Not even the Kirstie Alley (RIP) version, though she was somewhat thin at that time, and was replaced by Robin Curtis. Wait! That does sound interesting, quite possibly crossplaying as Valeris from Star Trek VI. Hey, I’m a sucker for pageboy hairstyles. I need a new pageboy wig, though I have a semi-serviceable one. (and I have my nice-new “normal” wig, but I’m getting off topic!) Some lay all the cards out on the table, and go into the backstory about themselves, and how they got here, while others primarily establish themselves in their female identity, online and in public, with very few clues to themselves out of makeup and outfits. I’m hoping to establish some kind of balance, or a “Golden Mean” in that portion of the spectrum.
Anyway, getting back to internal and external conflicts with myself, I received the following in my Flickr mailbox from a new friend of mine, Tom, who is a writer, and a fan of things transgendered. I thank him for taking the time to view my photos on Flickr, and for winning my trust and friendship, though he’s clear on the other coast. He wrote, after seeing most of my entries over the last four or so months:
I enjoy the double personality conflict you play on these pages. I find it pretty funny. You are aware you are doing this, I hope?
— Tom
Yes, I am quite aware I am doing this, most likely in a noble-yet-somewhat misguided notion that I’ll be able to keep my boy-mode self and Julie Anne as two separate entities. I’ve seen people refer back to their boy-mode photo galleries on Flickr (at least one case), I’ve seen people just play up their femme selves, with very little (if any) reference to themselves in boy-mode, and then, there’s me, the girl sitting on the fence, not quite sure which way to go. There are elements of my boy-mode self that are important to the foundations of myself as Julie Anne, and as the days, weeks, and months go by since I “officially” came out on Flickr in late April 2010, there are elements of Julie Anne that are becoming a part of me in boy-mode. (I notice it every day, even earlier today, when I was with another friend of mine (who knows about Julie Anne, but we never bring it up much) at Best Buy, and I mentally observed my behavior and reactions to some items on the shelves that made me laugh, groan, and think – The items in question were Carmen Electra‘s “Aerobic Striptease” video set (sigh…), and a couple of home weather stations, featuring a picture of retired NBC “Today” show weatherman Willard Scott, in which he looks like he’s got awfully rosy cheeks and vibrant lips. I think someone went overboard on the makeup for the photo. ^_^; But then, wait — He did do a weather forecast in drag as Carmen Miranda in the early 1980s, and I believe he did a weather forecast as Boy George one time. ^_-;) Oh, man… I’m getting off-topic again. I’m sorry!)
(Ahem!) Anyway — It’s not like I’m Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, or David Naughton from An American Werewolf in London (if I were, oh, my God, I’d gladly endure the pain to physically transform into Julie Anne, just as long as I don’t have to wait for a full moon do to so. ^_^;), or even John/Emma Skillpa from Peacock. (Ah, Cillian Murphy…. *sigh* I’m terribly jealous that he makes a better looking girl than I do — currently. ^_-;) I am quite aware that I’m orchestrating this little dance of both sides of me commenting on each others’ Flickr pages, or Facebook from time to time. It’s funny, though – At times I do refer to my boy-mode self (even here) as another person, while most of the time I acknowledge my male alter-ego and myself as the same person.
There’s not really a script to all of this – Everything you see here, on Flickr, on Facebook, and even my day-to-day existence is based upon what’s going through my head, and what’s been put down in words and pictures. For the time being, I’m more outgoing as Julie Anne in the online world, but I keep pushing the boundaries to eventually free myself from the closet I inhabit in real life. There’s several different directions the path I’ve set upon can take me. Hopefully I’ll make the best of it as I go along.
So, I guess, in a long, roundabout way, I may very well have answered my own question. I am Julie Anne, and Julie Anne is me, but nonetheless, an important part of me, someone who will always be with me, even when I don’t present myself as Julie Anne. However, I’m quite sure there will eventually be a time when she will have her day in the sun, so to speak, be it part-time, or for longer. Nothing is set in stone, even the path my life will take. In the meantime, just bear with me if I seem to be two halves of the whole from time to time. That’s also who I am.
Hugs and kisses, as always,
— Julie Anne. ^_-;
