skirts – Beeshive

A few days ago I was riding down in the elevator in my apartment building with my Segway scooter.

About 1/2 down another tenant got into the elevator with me. He had his scooter too.

He’s a guy that I’ve seen before. He has a Segway Ninebot. I have the Segway GT.

“Wow man, that’s an awesome scooter!”

Yeah, seems okay so far.

“Dude, that’s not just a scooter, it’s a GT”

Yeah?

“I bet it goes fast?”

I’ve still got the speed restrictor engaged, won’t go over 32 km/h

He has a puzzled look.

I bought this one because it’s heavy, so it eats up the bumps in the road and doesn’t bounce all over the place. I also went with this one as it has a large battery pack, can go long distances, and it can haul my fat arse up the hill without dying halfway up.

And I could see the familiar look coming over his face that said “why the fuck did I even try to make small talk”

I can’t make small talk. I never have. As a kid I was always told to shut my fucking mouth and mind my own fucking business.

I learnt as a kid to not brag, as things that I bragged about were usually the first thing that Richard would destroy when he had a meltdown.

And that’s the thing with me. I don’t get any enjoyment out of things. And even if I do, it’s not long before the self hatred and the self doubt kick in.

It first happened with the motorcycles that I’ve owned over the years. I get a motorcycle, ride it for a season or two, and then lose all interest in it.

I started figure skating back in December of 2006. Hadn’t ice skated since the spring of 1980 on CFB Namao. Won’t get into the story of how I ended up at the West End Community Centre with a pair of rental skates on my feet, but within weeks I was into figure skating.

I had completely forgotten how much I used to love skating. And at first I was trying super hard. Learnt forward and backward 3-turns, brackets, and counter-turns. Crossed Step forward and backward. Mohawks. Scratch spins. I could do a nice Arabesque. And I could do toe-pick work.

What I couldn’t do was anything that involved jumping.

And if there’s anything that figure skating instructors hate, it’s people who are afraid. It slows the class down.

I figures skated with regularity from January 2007 until I had my heart issue in August of 2012. After my angiogram said that my heart arteries were open and unobstructed I was given the okay to resume regular physical activity.

I started skating again, but no where near as frequently as I had done prior to my heart issue.

I stopped skating somewhere around 2017.

I liked skating, but the one thing I really hated was when people would complement me. I know it sounds weird, but it always sounded like the complement was done out of sympathy or was out of sarcasm.

When it became clear that jumping was never going to be something that I was ever going to be able to do I went more towards the dancing side. It’s often said that those who can’t figure skate ice dance instead.

I dancing was enjoyable as long as no one else was around or at least no one who was a figure skater or professional ice dancer. I always thought that these people were looking down on me, so it made it very uncomfortable for me on the ice.

I’d often pick some music that had a nice rhythm and use the rhythm to dictate when I would change a move.

At first learning to respect the toe-picks and the tails and how to skate and make moves without catching either was challenging, but it became much easier with time. I got to the point that if I did inadvertently catch a toe-pick or a tail I could catch it and convert into another skating position.

My fear of the opinions of others , my very negative self image, and my inability to enjoy life has affected almost every point of my life.

I do not enjoy electronics

I do not enjoy computers

I do not enjoy mechanics

I play dumb. I play dumb a lot. Playing dumb means that I don’t have to be put into any embarrassing situations.

So, I’ll spend a little time talking about my preference for dresses.

I started “playing around” with dresses at a very young age.

When I lived on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater as a child, I do remember on more than one occasion going out to play with my friends, whom were always more than likely girls than they were boys, and I would come home wearing one of their dresses.

I don’t ever remember my father catching me in a dress, as he was almost always off on exercises. My mother on the other hand was never really upset, but she made it known to me that boys don’t wear girls clothes.

As a child, I could never understand why boys weren’t allowed to wear dresses. As far as I was concerned, they were far more comfortable and functional than pants, or even shorts. And besides, girls were allowed to wear pants, so why shouldn’t boys be allowed to wear dresses.

My family left CFB Shearwater around the the spring of 1977. I didn’t get to wear a dress again until somewhere around the summer of 1981 when I was just shy of my 10th birthday.

There was a girl named Megan who went to Major General Griesbach School on CFB Griesbach. On more than one occasion we swapped clothes and went to the local malls off base.

This was during the time when the fallout from CFB Namao was fresh and I was getting counselling from the military social worker to help deal with my apparent “homosexual tendencies”. The counselling only served to make my dress escapades that much more delicious and dangerous.

Even though my father was at home more often, he never once caught me wearing dresses. He came very close once though. Megan and I had swapped clothing and went over to Lake Beaumaris mall which was just north west of the base. We were walking around on the second level of the mall when I saw my father, my stepmother, and my younger brother heading towards us. Megan and I ducked downstairs to the washroom to change back.

There was a time around the summer of 1982 when Sue, my stepmother, had threatened me that if I didn’t stop crying that she was going to take me to Sears and buy me a dress. I really wanted that dress. Imagine, my own dress. But I also realized that she wasn’t buying me a dress as a gift. She was threatening to dehumanize me and humiliate me by making me wear a dress.

It was then that I realized that there was something really fucked up with who was allowed to wear what clothing.

I was given an IQ test as a child when I was around 9 years of age and I scored 136 +/- 6, which wasn’t too shabby. Maybe, just maybe, this IQ allowed me to see that there was absolutely no logical reason that I shouldn’t have been allowed to wear dresses.

Wearing dresses didn’t make me want to become a girl. It was just comfortable clothing that I loved better than pants. I’ve always despised pants. I don’t like the way they touch me, or bunch up behind my knees, or crush my crotch, or squeeze around my hips. Dresses just hang nicely from my shoulders. They don’t really touch me. They don’t bunch up behind my knees. They cover my body without causing any discomfort.

I never wore dresses again until I was into my 20s.

As much as I loved dresses, and still wanted to wear them, I mostly had precarious employment through my early 20s. I sure as hell didn’t have a family that I could fall back on if I found myself between jobs due to my preference for clothing. I couldn’t risk my employers discovering that I liked to wear skirts and dresses. And let’s be honest, the ’90s were nowhere near as liberal and open as the ’00s.

Still wearing dresses was kinda like a “dirty secret” that I kept behind closed doors.

It wasn’t until in the late ’90s when I gained more secure employment that I would start wearing “woman’s clothing” in public. It would start off as skirts on the odd occasion. Then I worked up to dresses.

By the time I started working for my current employer in 2005 I was wearing dresses or skirts, even kilts, almost exclusively.

I wear pants at work (yech), but the work I do would chew up a dress. I do wear dresses to and from work, so it’s not like anyone at work doesn’t know that I wear dresses and skirts.

I’ve never felt at risk or in danger in the Metro Vancouver area.

What type of dresses do I like?

Nothing fancy, just plain Jane work dresses. A-line and fit-and-flare dresses are my favourite dresses to wear.

Nothing too “femme”. Being a guy who wears dresses has introduced me to women who absolutely hate dresses, and women who wear dresses, but absolutely detest “femme” dresses with buttons and bows and frills.

One thing that I have discovered is that a sizeable portion of women will never wear a dress as an adult as they despise them because they were forced to wear them as children.

I don’t have the lumps, and bumps, and curves that dresses are usually designed to accentuate, so I’m more happy with a loose fit. And as I said, I strive for more of a fit that doesn’t touch me on constrict me.