Ok so in this one I'm going to attempt to round up the last year and try to make up for 6 months of not posting anything.
- Earlier in the year I moved house and it took me a while to get used to it. In some ways I've still got a bit more tidying and decoration to do. It also didn't help that my parents decided to dump even more old stuff from my teenage bedroom on me without warning so now I have a spare room full of stuff that needs sorting out, nowhere to put it and no time to do it in.
- Due to this I also had to have some furniture moved over (because I couldn't bear trashing something I've had for nearly 40 years) so a chest of drawers full of my femme clothes had to be moved out of the way. Now of course this means that the moment you moved it the bottoms fell out of the drawers meaning all my clothes fell out in front of everyone. I had to scramble to try and pick everything up and getting increasingly more angry about it all. No-one mentioned it so I don't really know what to make of that.
- I finished my cap debt list over at Rachel's Haven this year but I'm still doing the odd one or two. For the meantime though I like the immediacy of using Twitter even though it's not quite the site it used to be for obvious reasons.
- At the end of the year I was mostly preoccupied by a couple of weddings. The first was more of a reception I was invited to and I had decided to dress for it. It was in Manchester so I had to travel a bit for it and even then the venue was a way out of town so I had to make a decision about whether to go by public transport or by taxi. I don't take a lot of taxis so it put me on edge a little bit but needless to say it turned out ok in the end and I quite like the outfit I chose however I did have some issue with some pink flats I chose that were too big for me. I should have tried them on in the shop but this was one of those times when my nerve went. On the day of the wedding I had to quickly dash up to the shop I bought them in to replace them. Everyone was so nice about it in the shop that I wonder why I didn't do this before and waste time trying to find ways to adapt the original shoes.
- The other wedding I attended this year I didn't dress femme for because I had a specific role - I was the Best Man so not only did I have a speech to write but the arrangements were on and off for a while and I didn't really know what was happening. Despite the nerves I now look back on it fondly.
- Due to moving house earlier in the year and the train station being closer I haven't been getting quite as much exercise as I have before and unexpectedly I managed to put on 3 stone in weight which I have been trying to lose for the last few months. This means that there are some clothes that no longer fit which I'm quite down about. I'm hoping I can get the weight off at some point next year.
- I haven't really done much cosplay this year apart from when I went to a convention earlier in the year. I would still like to continue though and there are still a lot of costumes I would like to try. I miss the days of the big conventions I used to attend with my friends. I'm not sure I have the stomach to go alone anymore unless it's just to look round the merch stalls. I haven't collected autographs for about 20 years and that was mainly Buffy the Vampire Slayer which I'm coincidentally rewatching.
- I haven't bought many new clothes this year, a couple of dresses and skirts though and a top I think. One of the dresses came without a button at the back so again I'm resolving to learn to sew again so I can do these small jobs for myself. In fact this dress is a bit of a departure for me as it's a black and white leopard print. It's not normally a pattern I go for as it's a touch chavvy (which is no bad thing and I would love to go full chav one day just for the sake of dress up but not for my personal style) I do like this one though as it's in my usual Clara style with a small black collar.
- Towards the end of the year I was able to go to a few events dressed which was quite cool. I was also told by one bloke at a party I was making him feel underdressed and this was only in one of my normal dresses and some tights I bought from Snag.
- This year I also read Grayson Perry's memoir Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl which had some interesting things to say about his transvestitism.
At least I know I'm going into 2024 with less chaos and change ahead of me than there was in 2023 so at least that's something hopeful.
