Daniella's Ramblings

Wow! So this is a little embarrassing. I last posted in February. That is SEVEN whole months ago. SEVEN MONTHS! Sorry peeps! Life got interesting… In a good way.

So, as you may know, in October last year I left my job. As a result of starting my own business things were busy-ish at the end of last year, but not too bad and I was able to write a little between October and February but then things really kicked off this year. So while the business is doing nicely, I have not had much time to devote to writing… Hence the seven month hiatus. So apologies to everyone who has missed me. Yes, that is you in the back. But only you. Yes I know, I know.

Anyhoo… So I am now ‘the boss lady’ and that means I get to do things the way I want. This is good. I now work from home and only see my employees (who are geographically distributed and who also all work from home) on a ‘must see’ basis. That means I get to dress anyway I like for work (meeting days aside). Guess what that means? I have set my schedule up so that generally I am able to present female for two to three days of the work week which is fantastic. I also get to run a few errands en femme from time to time so life is all good on that front.

The flexibility of being my own boss means that whilst writing has taken something of a backseat to ‘real’ work, the last seven months have seen quite a few ‘firsts’ for me. I have been getting my eyebrows waxed and tinted for a few months now and about two months ago I was able to go en femme to my beautician to get them waxed and tinted. Now obviously the experience was broadly speaking the same, but it felt different going en femme. I felt much more ‘complete’ throughout the process and I felt much better about the whole process being en femme.

As an added (if bittersweet) bonus I am currently home alone. My spouse and children are visiting family at the coast and I am at home working. This has meant that I have had a lot more time to be me and I have not had to pack away my true self every afternoon. I am however missing my family, but I am making the most of the time too.

Another first that I experienced was getting my ears pierced! Taking advantage of my family leaving for the coast I spent last Saturday having ‘me time’. My friend Anna and I had our nails done. I had a pedicure and she had a manicure (more about that later) and I then went  and had a complete stranger stick a needle into my earlobes. I am now the proud owner of a pair of surgical steel ear studs. If anyone is thinking of doing this, I would say stop putting it off. Just get it done! It was not at all sore. I have had more painful blood tests in my time. Also, I went to see my parents a few nights ago and they didn’t comment. Either they did not notice them (they are very discrete surgical steal studs) or they chose not to comment. Either way it is cool. I went to From the Ashes and I would heartily recommend that you use a professional piercer rather than having it done with a piercing gun at a jewellery store. Instead of using a ‘gun’ with the jewel attached to pierce the skin he used a very sharp needle and then inserted the jewel into the piercing. This considerably reduces pain and tissue damage making for a much more pleasant experience and better healing. I am now nearly ten days into the piercing and they are healing very nicely.

The whole process of getting the ears pierced was very professional and I always felt at ease but being a transgender person ALWAYS throws up some complications. When making the appointment I mentioned that I was transgender and not living full time so I needed ‘discrete’ jewellery for the piercing. I am not sure if the guy who did the piercing remembered that I was trans or not but he was totally cool when I cam in. It certainly helped that my Facebook friend Lisa works at the studio… We had never before met in person and it was cool to meet a 3D version of a hitherto 2D person. It also helped because I had not anticipated that they would need all my ‘real’ details (I have not done any of that pesky name change, gender mark change, new ID photographs etc as I am not full time)… This meant filling in an official form, signing that all information is correct and handing over my driver’s licence as official ID. Lisa was AWESOME. She swooped in grabbed the form and the driver’s license and dis all the admin around that thus saving me a great deal of potential embarrassment. Not that I think it would have been ‘an issue’ but it was still appreciated.

I was then shown to a ‘treatment table’ type affair which I tried to hop onto without exposing my ‘bits’ to the world (I was wearing a skirt).

Another dude was having a tattoo done and he was looking right at me. I was kind of hoping that they would draw the curtains but they did not. Maybe I should have asked but I did not want to come across as too much of a nerd. My guy then started to get to business. He asked if I had an elastic to tie my hair up. Daft me! I hadn’t even thought of this. No I did not. What to do? A simple solution would have been to simply yank off the wig. And maybe  would have done that if the curtains were drawn, but exposing myself in that way to at very least 5 strangers and also any ‘walk ins’ was just too much. Especially with the dude busy getting his tattoo done. Can you imagine if he or the artist were exposed to the horror of an unwigged me? The tattoo would be ruined. So I tried holding my hair back… Fail. Again Lisa came to the fore! She found an elastic band (as opposed to a proper hair elastic) and we used this to pull the hair away from my ears. Success.

The piercing proceeded smoothly from there on on and as I said it was virtually pain free. The most pain was when he was pulling my earlobe into position.

Another first was after getting the piercing done I had to fill the car up with petrol (that is gas for all the Americans out there). A fairly simple and innocuous task but nonetheless one that I have never performed en femme. However as the car was showing empty and the warning light had been on for at least the last 20 km I thought filling the tank was preferable to walking. I pulled into the BP service station and gulped as I asked him to fill up for me (note to all non Saffers out there, ALL service stations in South Africa are attended. We do not do self service fill ups here and to do so is a little infradique. Please bear this in ind if you ever see a South African sitting forlornly in their car in your home country, they are probably waiting for someone to come and put some petrol in their car for them). The attendant was respectful and referred to me by the correct honorifics which was cool.

This post is already over 1 400 words long and I will now pause for breath… You can expect more details in a few more posts coming soon.

In the meantime I would like to remind you all that Annaleen of Perfect Touch Beauty Salon is highly qualified, experienced and skilled. She is also very accepting of transgender people and would love to assist you with all your beauty needs. Give her a call today!