Merry Christmas to all of you, and please accept my well wishes for any other holiday you prefer.

I was raised to honor Christmas, and I still do it, though I do know there are other holidays and beliefs that are important at this time of year.

May all of you, have the best holiday possible and maybe some will get a miracle. You don't know how much I wish everyone could have one. But please, be well, share the holiday with someone, and let all the other problems go for at least a day.

All my best to all of you.

My love.

Maggie

One small step, but a step in the right direction anyway.

New chapter for everybody to enjoy. This one was just over 4k words and thus one of the longer chapters in the story, but since it involved Thanksgiving it made sense to make it longer than normal.

This one goes to several interesting places. One of my more favorite was the information about Sarah Lawrence. The term is real. I had a student there tell me the term when I was presenting at a Conference there, talking about Transgender Autobiography. That has apparently been a thing at the school for quite a while, apparently before the late 60's when all the cool kids were doing it.

You know the saying "When it rains, it pours? That sums up my week . First, the battery died in my car on Tuesday, then today, my AC adapter goes shot on my computer and then if that wasn't enough, my dog went to the vet with a yeast infection in his ears. It seems like things always happen like this at this time of the year. My sister paid the vet bill, but the car battery and AC adapter are not in my budget at all for the moment. I wish I had a fairy Godmother with a used Toshiba adaptor and a car battery laying around somewhere.( Fat chance of that one!

It took me nearly two hours to get home tonight (8 miles) due to the snow. It looks like the ridgeway hill between Weymouth and Dorchester is blocked, so I had to do a detour on ungritted roads - not nice, nearly ran into a ditch at one point. I also seem to have done something to my ABS and have a warning light staying on, although the brakes still work, not that I use them much in snow if I can help it.

Well, I managed to frighten myself at work yesterday. For those of you who are squeamish, you might consider not reading the rest of this entry

Part 19, A New Boyfriend?

Pansy finds she needs a male in her life--but will accept only an upper-class man who can help her climb from her low status. But can a dark-skinned peasant girl form a stable relationship with such a man?
 
 
February 8

To all of my readers,
It's come to my attention that the story of Seeking the truth is under the incorrect section and will therefore from now on in be placed under fanfiction.

Cliff

Well, as of yesterday, "Santa School" has become my most successful piece to date in terms of comments left, surpassing even "The Dead Kid". Fifteen people have taken the time and effort to say something publicly about it, and that is wonderful, and I wish to thank them, as well as everyone who left a kudo. Regardless of how it does in terms of the Christmas contest, it has been an uplifting experience for me. There is only one fly in the ointment so to speak, however. I showed it to my mom, and she said she found it sad.

We've only had SEVENTEEN stories posted today. What's the matter with you people? :)

For the past month, from November 16 to December 15, we've AVERAGED over 19.5 stories a day.

For the past week, we've averaged almost 17000 visitors a day! For the busiest five hours of the day, we're averaging about 1000 visitors an hour. Sometimes, there are as many as 390 people all visiting a page within the same five minute window!

No wonder the searches were bringing us down!

Is it me, but when I read a story in the present tense, it kind of puts me off.

The stories. I am sure are fine and well crafted, but I am much more comfortable with past tense.

Am I being a silly girl and should I get a life?

Hugs

Worried Sue from the UK.

I would like to issue a public apology to Angel. I sent a personal message to another person here that was inadvertently forwarded to her. It was a criticism that was based on nothing but innuendo and was mean spirited and erroneous to boot. That it was sent by accident doesn't change the fact that it was hypocritical of me. I have preached on numerous occasions to be kind and to build each other up. Because of my words, two people have been hurt. The third party deserves an apology as well, but I won't name her here.

I think that now makes me an old git. if not an old git, then a grumpy old bastard :)

I never thought I'd get this far and if I hadn't stopped riding bikes and driving cars like a complete maniac, I probably wouldn't have.

That means that by rights, I should now live forever...

God help you all.

Nick

The second Tuesday of every month is update day for those whose PCs have windows operating systems. My laptop is one, it has vista. It downloaded the updates yesterday and before I went to bed, I shut the computer off so to install them. Guess what, my laptop won't boot this morning.

Is Story Site missing or gone away. I know that it was reported that the site was undergoing a reformat, but long gave up hope that it would revive. Now it seems to have disappeared. Anybody know anything?

In commenting about the characters in a popular serial on this site, I made some rather unflattering, but honestly felt comments about several of the characters in the story. I felt, and I expressed it before, that they were seriously flawed and should not be held in very high esteem. Well, I received a comment to my comment saying that my outlook was far too dark, and that I didn’t understand the characters at all, that my life experience was such that I had no business making the comments I did make.

I am fighting a serious temptation right now. To put it in simple terms, I want to give up, to surrender. I am not talking about killing myself, but just shut down again, like i did as a kid. I have even considered finding a dom/domme and just be a slave, so I dont have to think or feel anything again. I will resist it, but i could use help, and prayers

My dog has food allergies. Poor Cuddles when she gets exposed to corn, soy or wheat breaks out in a rash and runs a fever. I had a solution to this problem in that for six months I fed her nothing but homemade dogfood, guaranteed not to contain any of her allergens.

At the end of that time, I started adding back in small amounts of commercial dogfood touted as not containing any of those ingredients. Slowly her allergies returned. Yesterday, I made the decision to go back to homemade dogfood, at least for another four or six months to clean her system.

I have been expecting to see research like this, and in time, perhaps not so much we will know why we are the way we are.

http:/ /timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Gene-alteration-turns-male-embryos-into-female-shows-study/articleshow/7059503.cms

Much peace

Khadijah

I have been married to a wonderful women for 20.5 years. She and I have always had a very deep connection. Today we finally really talked about divorce.
She has grown so much in the last few yaers, she is ready for her new life now, I will always be there for her when or if she needs it.
We will divorce when our 20 year old son is stabe in his life and our financial selves are seperated.

I must say that looking at my new future it seems frightning yet freeing. I can live as I wish yet who will that be?

As I get older (each week in fact)my mind remember less and less of the things I knew even a month before.

I can remember reading a story by an author whose name I can't remember about a man who is falsely arrested and tossed into a woman's prison. He slowly becomes a woman to fit in better and ends up being exonerated.

Then he becomes a counselor at the center and falls in love with one of the guards.

I don't remember if that story was ever actually finished and if not whether the author ever plans to do so.

I would like to talk about my last two pieces together, because the one led to the other. I started working on "tears of the phoenix" because I was struggling with flashes of attraction toward men, and it was scaring me. As I had jean say, I felt like i was losing the last part of my male self, and i didnt want to. This struggle formed the first half of the story. At the same time, I was struggling with grief over Misty's "Out of the Ashes". I really hurt when Dolores died, and i wanted to say something about how her death affected me.

Well, I'm close to 3000 words into my new story. That's between 2 chapters unfortuantely.

I'm 2 scenes away from closing out Chapter One, and have a good start on Chapter two. The 2 scenes I need for Chapter One are probably 2 of the more important ones for that chapter. The ending scene is already written but those two scenes just don't want to come out, even tho I seem to know in my head what will happen.

Thanks again for all those who welcomed me here and those who have PM'ed me feel really welcome. I've been trying to post where I could, however I lost a lot of my links when my laptop hard drive, just 2 days after my first post. I'm still trying to find all the stories I had linked and say thank you to all the wonderful authors for sharing their stories with us. I will get to you all (I hope) and thank you all.

Also I've been asked I if write ... I have a short story about 500 words that if anyone is willing to proof let me know.

Bailey Summers' story 'Bridges' is one i have been following and enjoying, and the PTSD stuff has hit a few targets in me. I posted about Jefferson Airplane's track 'Triad', and as one must, I dug out 'Crown of Creation', then 'After Bathing...' and then 'Surrealistic Pillow'
So, here I am, a geriatric tart in a Wales rugby shirt, headphones on as I listen to the music of the childhood I wish I hadn't had, a glass of wine and its friends beside me.

I can't decide if this is good or bad. I'll put some 'Country Joe' on next and drift away....sod it, I think I need to get drunk.

I stold this phrase from AE Brain, LOL But reading about it, I wonder if at least some Transgenderisim is simply a variation of protandrous dichogamous pseudohermaphroditism. I hope that none of you missed the clip on CNN where a Doctor said that for example, a Mtf Brain is more like that of a woman, and visa versa.

Hmmmmm.

Dragging the world, kicking and screaming out of the dark ages.

Khadijah

For those of you who unaware of my short story, Easy As Falling Off a Bike, according to my archivist (sounds posh dunnit) the figure above is the number of words my ramblings under one title have produced.

I think some thanks are in order (of seniority) to Erin, for allowing me to fill up her servers with my nonsense, and for providing this unique resource to the community.

To my archivists and summarisers; Holly, Ben and PS with thanks to Erin for her assistance in setting it up.

On this story... I started it weeks ago and got stalled for awhile. Thanks to Lillith's help I got past that and now the chapters just seem to tell me what is happening. I know it's kind of tedious just now, by the way, but Dylan/Dahlia has to get used to being what she is. These first chapters are about her learning that.

I promise that once that is done things are really going to be fun.

I went to see my doctor today and I took the diabetes test. My fasting glucose level was 154, so she put me on Metaformin and set new guidelines for my diet. I definitely have to lose weight too. The good news is that if we keep it under control, I can still have my SRS in the future. I am going to do everything possible to follow her instructions. I am grateful that we caught this early on before it turned into something more serious.

Hugs,

Jen

Well this is a fine thing.

I can't find my muse anywhere. I must have left it here as this is the last place I saw it, I'm sure. They say it's always in the last place you look and I've looked around plenty, but just can't seem to find it.

So far I have Sunday Girl (tg), A Halloween To Remember (tg), The Return of the Raven (vampire non tg) and Yesterday Once More (tg) that have all ground to a halt, the second after over twenty thousand words.

They all seemed to be going so well and then... Phut!!

I'm completely sunk.

HELP!!!

The idea of coming out at work is one that fills me with much trepidation.

I have something that I would like to be able to share, but I am leery of actually sharing it since it might pain some others here. Basically, I had a flashback last night, and instead of being just a victim, i thought about writing it down. The result is a nearly full description of one of the last times i was assaulted. Trouble is, too many people here have had rapes happen to them, and i have no desire to bring those memories back for them unless they can handle them. Any ideas?

There hasn't been much around my way, but I couldn't resist pointing out some of the dafter stories to emerge from the UK's recent snow.

-oOo-

In case it hasn't been reported in your neck of the woods yet: A woman dialled 999 (UK Emergency Services number) to report a theft.

So what?

The item in question was a snowman, with pound coins for eyes.

Understandably, the force has branded her "Completely irresponsible".

Source: BBC News

-oOo-

What a Day!

Well, apparently, my last piece was a dud. As the saying goes, even Babe Ruth struck out more times than he hit home runs, and i am most definitely NOT the Babe Ruth of writing. But the experiance has taught me a lesson. I am a pretty needy girl when it comes to my work. I thrive on praise, and wither without it. But i think i need to change that if i am going to keep writing. Still, I hope at least some of the time i hit a "home run"....

What an amazing woman she is. I haven't heard of her before, but I think I'd like to check out her books.

Has anyone heard of her or read her books?

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Some of the comments are from your typical knuckle dragger's but some are rather nice.

Hugs,

Connie

You know what? i've come to the realization that this really is a caring and wonderful place !

I've been reading some of these stories for years and never posted a thing but with what I've been going though recently with my mother and family this place makes more and more sense to me.

**some history**

Just read an article by Tom Blackwell, (National Post  · Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010) about new guidelines for dealing with transsexual military personnel. Good article, and the closing comment by Cpl. Murray is perfect. "There shouldn't be any issue at all. We're just regular people doing a regular job, the same job as everybody else."

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Dress+rules+establi...

LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvvyqgK26EI&feature=channel

If you don't see me for a few days, it's because we will have sustained an interruption of internet service (bill past due). Mrs. D is having arthroscopic surgery on her left knee tomorrow and I still am falling down...I'll try to get to the library to keep you posted. Please pray if you will...Thanks! Andrea

Here's a link to a CNN story about a couple of studies of LGBT youths. As is to be expected the major focus is on gay students.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/06/lgbt.teens.punishment.p...

My emotions seem to follow an irregular cycle. Sometimes the ups aren't all that high, and the downs are pretty darn low. I had a moment around the beginning of this year, on the drive home from work, when the idea popped into my head that all I had to do was put my foot down on the gas and let the car drift over into the trees lining the road and I wouldn't have to feel that bad ever again. I had to fight to keep from doing it, too. Scared the #*!@ out of me, as you can imagine.

Well after far longer than I might have hoped for, Part Two of my The Center story has been posted. Titled Crossroads, it deals with the life of a very ordinary extraordinary boy whose life suddenly gets very VERY interesting.

You know... in the Chinese Curse sense of the word.

All told there will be six parts to the first "book" and I am about a sixth done with book two. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

~Matt

I have been treated to the tender care of Southern Rail. A lunch time meeting with a girlfriend and home for seven has turned into getting into my place at ten at night. So, unless I write like a demon tonight....sorry.