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This has to have been my worst day so far, in fact I’d even suggest that it was my worst day in ten years.

The day started as sullen as I had a slight headache (read: hangover) and I was still feeling upset over the conversation in the bar the previous night, and the fact the receptionist had referred to me not as Michelle, but “Mr” etc.

The conference itself was good and up to the usual standard, but later in the day my plans went awry.

The beer drenched slacks were stained and smelled so I washed them, and of course they did not dry. The blouse I had bought was a very small 16 and therefore the wrong size leaving only the top of the previous night to wear. I decided to do some more shopping and to see if I could get the next size up in shirt. Unfortunately that didn’t happen as it was 17:00 before I even got near the car. The shops were closed and as the evening party was due to start at 18:00 I knew there was no way that I would be able to go as Michelle.

I found the whole idea of not being Michelle very upsetting.

During the evening I was approached and asked that I remove all reference to two people from this blog as neither wanted to appear in it. Tanya commented afterwards that the person couldn’t have been more blunt if they had tried, personally as I am also very blunt I didn’t find that a problem at all.

What I will say here though, is if there is anyone that doesn’t want their name to appear, now or in the future, please email me, leave comments, come and tell me or phone me, I don’t care which and I will respect your choice, but please don’t get or let someone else express your feelings to me as that is what hurts more than anything. I will never publicize someone’s full name, only their first name and where possible I won’t even allow a reference to be inferred to the place of work, except by those whom also work in the same place or who have known me personally enough to know where I have worked.

At the end of the evening I had spoke to Jackie, who gave me some honest, and truthful advice, but not some that I wanted to hear. The basics was that I should have come to the conference as either Matthew or Michelle, not both as it is confusing for some and is likely to cause problems. Of course in my usual form I disagreed as I feel that the conference, whilst might not be the best of venues, is a good the friendly and social place to introduce the new me, to my peers and colleagues.

As I will not be Michelle full time until after Ally has said that she wants to see Michelle, there is no way I can be Michelle for the conference as this would be more confusing for people. Being Michelle part-time has resulted in those who met Michelle for the first time, going away with the confidence that in the short term Matthew will be helping them with their problems, not Michelle.

The result of the conversation left me feeling sad and down.

To top it all off I sat in the bar and I seemed to end up one of the last there, and was chatting about life to another delegate and he asked about the new me, life, triggers etc. This put me in a silly mood and I don’t know whether it was the hormones, the wine, the conversation, missing Ally, or what, but I was brought to tears thinking about Dad and what his reaction would have been, and the silliest part of all, how Ally and I took Cookie our pet rat to the vets to put her down after a progressively worsening brain tumor took over. I couldn’t even go into the vets as it felt like I was murdering an innocent life, and I bawled my eyes out. When I recalled the event in the bar, I did exactly the same thing again. How silly is that?

Today was the first day of AusCERT 2008, and as usual brought plenty of surprises for many.

The conference welcome drinks started at 6pm, I arrived fashionably late (as usual) and there began the surprises, both for me and for others. It was nice that Claire had advised the conference organisers that I would be attending as both Matthew and Michelle, so when I arrived I got two name badges. This also meant that meeting Michelle was surprising but not shocking for those who I had not had time to warn and inform.

The nature/profession of some of the AusCERT conference attendees has left the photos of me and the event in a protected place, so I won’t talk about the conference much. I will say though that a few of my colleagues were attending as well as a couple of customers that I deal with directly.

Unfortunately I was not able to warn some and as such poor Jeff got the fright of his life as he was completely unprepared. I’m glad to report though that he got over the initial shock quickly and we spent some time talking, not about me, but about work as if there was nothing unusual about the circumstances. That is true professionalism if ever I saw it.

The other unfortunate occurrence was bumping into Trevor, who was pleased, surprised and completely supportive. I didn’t think to pull him to one side and ask that he didn’t say anything back at the office, hindsight suggests I should have.

The evening was eventful, in surprised looks and comments, but otherwise pleasant and quiet, at least until late.

First thing to go wrong was the realisation I had left my mobile phone in the golf cart during the afternoon. I went to the hotel reception, as Michelle, and asked if a phone had been found. The receptionist dealing then talked loudly to a colleague referring to “him”, “his phone” and finally finished it off by referring to “Mr Sullivan”. I found this very upsetting as I was clearly Michelle for the evening and whilst I might not be a convincing woman yet, I was clearly dressed as one, and had a name badge indicating I was “Michelle”.

The second problem was after I went to the bar to join some of the other delegates, I sat chatting and drinking. The one accidental slip by a delegate and a bottle of beer got spilled down me.  This event in itself did not upset me as it was accidental and I was happy in myself, the upsetting part was the result which occurred on another day.

Today was a beautiful day for diving, and I had lots of fun with the Nautilus SCUBA Centre diving on Flinders Reef at the North of Moreton Island. Diving started early in the morning with a 6am start for a 6:45am departure from the Nautilus SCUBA Centre shop. The diving was pretty uneventful, however a rather nice lady by the name of <to be inserted> noticed the blue nail polish on my toes and made comment. Of course me being me, said I hadn’t bothered with my fingers as the salt water gets under the polish and it all falls off.  She said that it was a little unusual to find someone (male) on a dive boat wearing blue nail polish, to which I replied that I wasn’t the usual sort of person.

A short conversation later revealed my “secret”, which she thought was wonderful and we continued to talk, chat and have fun all the way back from the reef.

In the early evening I decided to go out for a drink and for “Michelle” to say hello to a long time friends, Randy and Dave at the Jaz Wine Bar. The results were predictable with the exception that no-one had told poor Mel behind the bar who did a triple-take before recognising me and exclaiming something unprintable here.

Is not shopping the favourite hobby and pass time of any girl?

Brisbane can be fun to explore, but so can running around your old stomping ground visiting the shops you know are there, and to that end it wasn’t long before I had a complete new outfit and some extras from the Mount Ommaney . The problem came when trying to find shoes. I had been told by Ally that there was a shop “near a train station with steps and escalators” that specialised in selling oversize/large size shoes.

A few hours running around Central Station provided no answers or leads, so I decided to go to Garden City at Upper Mount Gravatt, there I got a tip from Payless Shoes that the train station was actually Roma Street Station. An hour of traffic and an $18 parking permit (for 15 minutes) later and a local cobbler told me the shop I was looking for closed around 3 years previous and that there were two shops I should try, one in Nundah called Graham’s Shoes and the other he couldn’t recall the name.

Another hour in traffic and a little frustration with bad (usual) Brisbane signage and I spoke to a lovely lady who was most helpful, and indicated that she could not help me, but could recommend Gilmour’s Comfort Shoes of Mount Gravatt as they would be sure to have the right sizes.

An hour traveling back to Mount Gravatt was not pleasant, but necessary, and the shop was located opposite where I was earlier… at Garden City! Well what a surprise I got there, and a pleasant one at that. I asked the lady if they sold large sized shoes and asked if they would have something nice for going out in. She replied, “of course, come this way, we’ll get you measured up first and then have a look at some styles.” As I was standing in the ladies section already I replied with, “I think I’d be better looking at the styles at this end if you don’t mind?” She replied with, “of course sweetie, I had no idea, and I’m sure we can help you.” The amusing thought I had was that the tone in her voice and her attitude changed completely when I indicated I was there to buy some ladies shoes for myself.

To cut a long story short I tried on a lovely pair of Italian made shoes that were absolutely perfect and a very comfortable fit. Unfortunately at $199 they were out of my price range for the day, but I have asked them to keep a note of the type/model because I definitely want a pair at a later date. I ended up purchasing a nice low heal set of shoes for a more modest sum and went away very happy.

The events of the day, particularly the chasing around for shoes had eaten into my “get ready” time and so Kylii her friend and I decided rather than head to The Beat as previously planned, we would test the new make up I bought, and have a look at the different outfits.

Today was an interesting day, a trip to Brisbane city returned dividends in the way of a SCSI card for one of my machines, this time I was a little more careful and so took the train, which was a lot cheaper as an option.

The afternoon brought a broken nail when installing it, I’m going to have to watch that, was not a good thing, it really made a mess of the nail.

Another friend who is a lovely girl, had a lot of questions. We had a great chat, and I was surprised at how much interest she took. She was certainly surprised, but in no way phased by the prospect of someone she knows changing sex. I won’t go into the details, because as before, there were many questions some which were the same as before some not, and I don’t have the room to put a two and a half hour conversation any way.

Comment of the day has to be Wilber, who said in passing in the corridor, “I agree with Ally, I didn’t like your hair either.” I’d only published yesterdays post a few hours before, so it seems some people are following my exploits with great interest.

Last person to tell for the day was Kayne, what fun that was, he was on the train going home, and as luck would have it went through a “dead spot” a second after I told him I was on the path to becoming a woman. I redialed and gave him the URL of this blog. A while later I received the following email:

Subject: Michelle
From: Kayne
To: Matthew

It's not what I expected you to tell me when you said you'd
be causing a stir, I was expecting it to be a joke and for
you to tell me you're actually the head of the Yambo syndicate
or something spam related.

Had a look over the page, it's all sort of what I'd assumed
I guess but an FAQ would be a lot easier to answer all of
my immediate questions quickly. I do have to say, I have no
problem with you becoming a woman but I'm pretty concerned
about you put black writing over a lilac background image!  :) 

I'm glad Ally is coping with it, it was something I didn't
really want to ask you over the phone in case it'd gone
poorly. Good on you for finally going though with the
transformation, I can only begin to imagine how scary it
must be.

About bringing out Michelle at AusCERT - I'd advise to go
for something low key if you decide to. Miniskirt and
fishnets would be a bit too confronting methinks (not
sure you can carry it off with those legs just yet :)).

Let me know if I can be of any help.

Much amusement was had, he has never seen my legs, and why on earth anyone would expect me to put on a miniskirt and fishnets for a professional conference I’ll never know (well there have been some wild parties, so that could be it 🙂). I should really ask Kayne, what sort of help he wants to give, and whether his fiancee would be happy with the idea of him helping another girl…?

Personally I was thinking something like slacks and a blouse, some flats and a small amount of necessary makeup. I’ll leave the miniskirt and the 5″ heels for one of the wilder after parties.

This evening was lots of fun, went to see an old friend, the owner of the Jaz restaurant and wine bar and of course I choose one of his days off. I’ll be going back tomorrow evening no doubt as I’m sure he’s going to be around, and I’m sure he’s going to get a little surprise.

Played with makeup again tonight, didn’t get very far as really tired, but am a little more prepared for tomorrow evening which will be me (as Michelle) going with a group of girlfriends heading to The Beat. If anyone wants to join us, they are welcome.