The Vitals
Birthday: December 6, 1975.
Hair: Black.
Eyes: Brown.
Height: 5 feet, 9 inches, without heels.
Weight: You don't have the clearance for that, citizen.

My Herstory (from "Miss Vera's Finishing School for Boys Who Want To Be Girls"):
What is your age? 36, and don't remind me.
How do you support yourself? I'm an IT consultant.
How do you spend most of your time? Hobbies? Work? Mostly hobbies. I enjoy gaming and painting, and a bit of html. I also have taken up costuming as another chance to be en femme.
What are your favorite colors? Black first and foremost. I also like blue, red, and silver.
Which fashion designers are your favorite? I can't really answer that. Like my maleself, I don't believe in fashion, and I find a lot of today's fashions to be ugly or distasteful.
Which is your favorite perfume? I don't know perfumes by name. But I found a bottle of Beautiful lost under the couch at the GLCC one time and swiped it. I'm rather fond of it.
Do you have any galpals? What are they like? If you mean by that friends who are female, then yes. They're all very nice people I like to be around.
Do you date? Men? Women? Women.
Are you a virgin? No.
Is there someone special in your life? No, we broke over this.
What kinds of music do you prefer? I like ska, swing, and jazz. As well as bits of rock, classical, and Japanese pop.
What sort of entertainment do you like? I like sports and movies. I especially like Japanese animation.
Do you read? What? I read primarily news and comics online. And porn.
Which season of the year is your favorite and why? Winter, naturally; I've even named myself after this season! I don't know why, but I just like the cold weather. And the snow. I love snow.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose? I like it here in Pittsburgh, and I have many friends in Seattle. So it would be a tossup between those two.
If you could live during any period in history, which would it be? Modern day. Can't beat the technological luxuries. Although there is something beautiful and romantic about the Victorian era. I don't know why, but I find corseted waists and long and proper skirts to be extremely sexy.
Do you participate in sports? Which ones? Volleyball, and if it counts, Dance Dance Revolution.
What is your favorite style of home decoration? I don't really know. My current furnishings suggest "corporate."
Do you live alone? Yes.
Do you have a car? Yes.
What do you like to eat? I like crunchy stuff for some reason.
Do you cook? Yes. Oh yes.
Are there other skills often associated with females that you would want to nourish in your femmeself? Of the ones listed, I like sexiness....
Which female movie stars most appeal to you and why? I don't follow actresses much, sadly.
Who are your favorite famous male hunks? Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
Who are your female role models? Which other, well-known or known only to you, women, living or dead, do you admire, and why? I don't know.... I admire my fellow TG females for their strength and courage.

The early years
When did I start crossdressing? It was very young. When I was 6 or so, I would put on my mother's high heeled shoes when I went to bed. Late at night, I'd lie in bed and fantasize that the shoes had magical powers that would secrete an aura of femininity that would creep up my body and transform it inch by inch into that of a woman's. One time, my mother got a pair of boots with two inch heels and a wide buckle across the throat. I'd sneak those boots in to bed with me and pretend to be a witch who turned boys in to girls.

I also had a cousin who was two years older than I. She and I would play together sometimes, including putting on my aunt's pumps and then trying to do cartwheels. My mother found out about this early foot fetish and disciplined me, and I was embarassed in to repressing this side of me.

Middle formation
Later, when I was around 9 or 10, my mother had grown her wardrobe so much, she had to stash some of it in my closet. This was a godsend. At night, I'd take off my pajamas and slip in to a blouse and business suit. Sadly, I left sweat marks on her stuff, or wrinkles, and she caught on immediately. She removed her clothes from my closet and moved it into my little brother's closet where I couldn't get at it. However, it was around this time that she would make periodic visits to the Philippines, or business trips down to Tennessee. While she was gone, I'd borrow some of her clothes and hide them in my room, putting them on at night.

Starting around high school, when all the girls started going through puberty, I went through another phase of my transvestism. All my female classmates started wearing miniskirts and pumps, and makeup. My mother worked for Fabergé at the time, so I could get my hands on some cosmetics. However, I had to work to earn money for the skirts and heels to emulate my female peers.

But I quickly learned that my money was being monitored by my parents, so I couldn't actually spend it on the feminine clothes I desired. So I turned to stealing them from the large department stores, like Bradlee's. But something was not quite right. Not yet.

One day, I found a pair of discarded high heels in the band room. They were grey leather with one inch heels. Taking a chance, I squirreled them away in my backpack and took them home. That night, when I slipped them on, it was like I was transported back to those early years, and I felt my femininity was complete. I started looking into catalogs to get higher heels, but to no avail. Eventually, in addition to spandex skirts and silky tights, I started stealing the patent leather two inch pumps from the department stores as well.

Prom time came, and the gowns that the girls wore absolutely dazzled me. I had to have one. I stole a hand sewing machine from Bradlee's (the kind used to make quick repairs on curtains and such) and a bunch of fabric from my grandmother's basement (she was in to arts and crafts and things like that.) I paid the $6 for a pattern from a local fabric shop and sewed together my first evening gown. I also bought from a mall's accessory store a pair of opera gloves. That night, I put together my outfit, and it was pure magic. I looked at myself in my bedroom mirror and never had I felt quite that feminine.

Into the wild
College brought about the wonders of the internet. Late nights spent in front of my computer searching newsgroups and the then-infant web for information. It was then I learned that I was not alone, that there were others like me. I read about my condition and found myself to be a "fetishistic transvestite."

Also, now that I was away from home, I could order from those catalogs my mother kept intercepting in the mail. Since I was poor, I could only buy a few things, but what I bought I cherished: A waist cincher, a set of petticoats, and a pair of five-inch heels.

However, with the presence of roommates, I couldn't fully appreciate the freedom to femininity that being in a dorm almost brought. In my senior year, I found an apartment on campus that had single rooms with locking doors. I sprang for them immediately, and then began crossdressing in earnest. I finally had a place to store my female things, and the privacy to enjoy them. I was a short jaunt to the laundry room, so I took up petty theivery to add a skirt or a blouse here or there to my wardrobe. Periodic trips to the local Goodwill store also yielded clothing for my femmeself. Life was good.

After college
Like all good things, it had to come to an end. I graduated in the spring of '98, and moved out of the dorm. I moved in with a [female] friend who was going to put me up for a little while I looked for a job in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, I just couldn't find anything until September, when she asked me to move out. I owe her so much.

Some other friends gave me a place to stay while I found the staff job that I held for a few years. We lived in a nice little house in a quiet neighborhood. However, the house was not conducive to my transgendered activities. My room was a tiny guest room right next to the main bathroom, so my privacy was at a premium. I couldn't crossdress for the 10 months that I lived there, and it was pretty frustrating.

When the house broke up in August of '99, I decided I had enough of roommates (two of them in the house were real slobs) and decided to fly solo. I found an apartment along the main drag of this neighborhood and moved in by myself. With no roommates to intrude, I was free to explore Fuyuko once again, and I do so these days whenever I feel like it.