“Today I had some dental surgery” has got to be one of my least favorite sentences in the English language. It was pretty minor and something I’d been putting off, just a graft on a small spot on my lower gums, but, man, are my teeth sore! Looks like there’ll be no ball gags tonight in the bondage bungalow.

With my friend K. gone and back at home, I’ve been feeling a bit sad lately and tormenting myself with nostalgia. Before I moved to L.A. we used to live so close to each other that we were practically like a couple. I lived next door to her in her duplex in Colorado and saw her almost every day. When we first became friends, way back in the early 80s (I’m dating myself here), I had such a crush on her. But with my sexuality the way it is, and both of us having difficulties with intimacy, there was no way it was going to work. We can really drive each other crazy, the way old friends who are so comfortable with each other often do, but I would do practically anything for her.

Wow, it’s been a whole week since the last entry. I’ve actually been out of town for a couple days, spending some time with a friend in the Monterey Bay area. One evening we were out having dinner at a seafood place. I was in boy mode and the guy bringing us water came up to us and said, “Hello, Ladies.” At first I had a split second of embarrassment and then I felt really pleased and thought, “Oh, cool!” That doesn’t happen to me too often but I love when it does. I could tell the guy recognized his mistake once he set down the water, but it happened so fast and he was probably embarrassed himself and didn’t say anything else.

My friend K. is someone I’ve known for years and years from when I lived in Colorado. She’s a genetic girl and knows all about my dressing and website, but she herself has no kinky side. I’ve often thought that if I ever married a woman, it would have been her. But it just wasn’t in the cards. Almost two decades ago we tried to have a “relationship,” but it was a disaster. We do so much better as friends.

Wow, I feel great this morning! Relaxed and happy and only a little bit sore. Sometimes self bondage can just be tedious and boring but when it really works for me, like it did last night, it just rocks my world!

I had a great time on the self-bondage webcam tonight, using rope, leather straps, handcuffs and a duct tape gag. I ended up using ten ice cubes, putting them in a pantyhose with the handcuff key on a ring ready to fall once the ice melted. I was really surprised that ten ice cubes took about the same amount of time to melt as six of them had, about three hours.

I started chatting at 4:00 PM, had myself tied up and gagged and closed the handcuffs at 5:00 and struggled out of them around 8:00 PM, much earlier than I anticipated. There was a nice turn-out of friends watching the cam and afterwards we all hung out in the chatroom for another hour or so. It was a really sexy self-bondage session for me and here’s a few pictures from it. Looks like next time I’ll have to try 20 ice cubes. My dream is still to enlist a couple friends to help me do a 24 hour bondage session on the webcam. I’ve got to try that. It would be amazing.

I’ve really gotten a craving for some self-bondage lately and it turns out I have time to indulge tomorrow and go online with my webcams (both my paysite and free cam) – Wednesday, February 15, starting around 4:00 PM Pacific time. The last time I did it, I used six ice cubes for the ice cube and key trick (suspending the hand cuff key just out of reach attached to a pantyhose filled with ice cubes, so that when the ice melts, the key drops). I’m going to try to beat that, using anywhere from six to ten ice cubes, depending on the flip of a coin. So stop by if you get a chance. I’ll also post a notice in my Yahoo Group.

http://www.tranniesintrouble.com/main.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TranniesInTrouble/

Oh my god, I got totally overwhelmed by Yahoo 360, so I’ve decided to put my Yahoo 360 page on the back burner (at least as much as Yahoo will let me, that is) and just go back to my regular profile. I don’t mean to be rude, I was just getting so many messages and invites from it – 30 to 50 a day – and couldn’t keep up, and I don’t want people to think I was just ignoring them. The best way to contact me is still through my email on my website (again, I apologize if I’m slow at getting back) or through my Yahoo Group, and you can always leave comments on my blog here too.

Ever since I’ve been online I’ve had a really hard time trying to select a last name for my Sandra identity. I’ve played around with several different ones but have never really felt happy with any of them. So for the longest time I’ve been Sandra T. (as in TG or tranny), but I’m kind of tired of just having an initial.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about just using my real last name, the one I was born with, which is Gibbons. I actually feel pretty comfortable being Sandra Gibbons. When I ask myself, “What would my last name be if I had been born female?” Well, obviously it would be my family name. I can also imagine it being the name of a librarian or school teacher, which totally fits into my fascination with the good girl in bondage fantasy. (The funny thing is when you do a Google search there actually are several Sandra Gibbons’s out there who work in Academia.)

One of my major goals in life is to be completely open and honest about my identity. Using my real name seems consistent with that goal, but I wonder, am I being crazy? Would this somehow come back to haunt me or cause problems? It’s not like I’m actually legally changing my name to Sandra Gibbons (though that idea does really turn me on – even the more androgynous Sandy (or “Sandi”) would be really cool.) The thing is, I find when I don’t hide myself, I’m always happier.

I’ve had this crazy idea for a while that it would be really neat to walk from the middle of L.A., where I live, all the way to the beach. I had today off, so I started out this morning just outside the Los Feliz area and headed down Santa Monica Boulevard about 13 miles until I found myself on the Santa Monica Pier looking down at the water. My toes were so damn sore by the time I got there. Let’s just say I didn’t wear any heels on this outing (Yeah, bummer, I was in boy mode – Hey, maybe next time).

I was struck by all the homeless people I met along the way, some scary, some nice. I get the feeling this world of ours isn’t sustainable the way we’re going. Our social problems are so shocking but no one has any idea what to do about them.

Lately I’ve been on a roll of remembering embarrassing things from the past. I’m a huge believer in exposing one’s shames and humiliations as a way of neutralizing them. The past has such a hold on us all.

1. I was at church when I was maybe six years old and had a killer rash on my balls from using too much Mr. Bubble in my bath. My Mom tried in vain to keep me quiet while I sat there squirming and itching, waiting for the priest to hurry and finish up.

2. I was in an acting class in the early 90s. We were doing a marriage scene and I said “Man and Wife” instead of “Husband and Wife,” and everyone groaned as though I’d just said the most politically incorrect thing in the world. I felt like sliding under the floor.

3. When I was in my early teens, my Mom told me she found “white stains” on my sheets when she was doing the laundry. I had no idea what to say and my face turned beet red. Later I had numerous revenge fantasies.

4. When I was nine, there was a kid up the street known as the “Little Banker.” He had a cigar box full of money – tens and twenties – and he would loan it out at eight percent interest. I didn’t get the concept: I thought you just had to pay the interest and nothing else. It was like, “Hey, he’s giving away free money!” Once I learned how it really worked it somehow seemed less appealing.

5. I grew a sad spindly little pot plant in my bedroom when I was sixteen and my Dad found it and said, “Look, I don’t care if you do that stuff, just don’t bring it in the house.”

6. When I was a kid I loved to dance. I was over at a friends house and some music was on and I said, “Hey, let’s dance!” The other kid’s Mom was there and she gave me a big smile, which I thought meant that I was a source of amusement to her. Suddenly I felt so embarrassed and completely shut down. Needless to say – no dancing. In retrospect, I think I totally mis-read her smile and in that moment grew more inhibited. She was probably just being warm and supportive.

Someone said, “Adults are just big kids who forgot how to play.”

A nice guy wrote me and had this picture on his profile. I just had to steal it and re-post it (thanks so much, LDS!)

When I was a teenager I worked in a Chinese restaurant washing dishes. One night I was walking home in a terrible downpour. A car pulled up and a guy in it said, “Do you want a ride?” I was so soaked and miserable that without hesitation I said, “Sure,” and got in the car. We drove in silence for a while towards my neighborhood and I slowly started to get worried about being alone with this stranger. I was thinking that I didn’t want him to know where I lived. We were still several blocks away from my parent’s house and finally I said, “Well, you can just let me out here.” But the guy just sat there continuing to drive and then let out a little laugh. I felt the sickening release of adrenaline into my bloodstream and I thought, “Oh shit, what is going on?” Then in another block we came to a 7-11 store, he pulled into the lot and stopped the car with the motor still running. I got out, said “thanks for the ride,” and quickly walked away.

Later that night, still feeling excited, I had a sexual fantasy. I imagined what if instead of letting me go, he’d taken me back to his house. We would pull into his garage and the garage door would close behind us. Then he would turn to me and calmly explain that he was going to take me down to a special basement bedroom that he had just prepared where he was going to dress me up as a girl, and of course he’d have to keep me bound and gagged once he had me all dressed and made up. He would say, “You know, I’m sorry I have to do this, but I’ve been looking for just the right girlfriend for a long time and when I saw you, I knew you’d be the one. Now you can either go with me easily or you can make it hard on yourself.” I would then get out of the car and walk before him into the house and slowly down the stairs, knowing that with each step I took I was moving farther away from my old life and entering a new one that I had no power to stop. It would be a life in which the people from my past might never see or hear from me again.

This is still one of my favorite fantasies, of being kidnapped and forced to be some guy’s “girlfriend,” bound and gagged in his basement. The funny thing though is that it can never really be acted out. If it really happened, it would be a nightmare, and role-playing is fun but can never live up to the charge of the non-consensual fantasy. Still, it fueled a lot of masturbating for the next few years.

It was a nice weekend. Friday night I met a friend named Master S. up at Threshold for the monthly TG party. We’d been talking all week about doing a scene with saran wrap. I’m a freak for mummification so I’d been looking forward to it all day. Altogether I was wrapped up from head to toe, wearing only my underwear, for about two and a half hours. I kept trying to escape, wriggling and poking a finger through the plastic, but Master S. would just add more. He wanted me to either escape or beg to be released. Finally I knew I wasn’t going to get out on my own and I had to plead with him through my gag to release me. He let me out and I lay back exhausted with an arm around his waist. It was fabulous.

Then Saturday night I was down in Orange County at Mistress Jordan’s Dragons Gate party and wouldn’t you know? More saran wrap! I met my friends Mistress A. and her sissy Victoria (and also finally got to meet R., a nice online friend whom I’ve been talking with for a while). Mistress A. and Vickie tied me up, spanked me with a hair brush and then finally wrapped me again in saran wrap. They had their hands all over me as I drifted in sealed up helplessness. And finally after being cut out, I lay there on the floor gently touching and being touched. I was in heaven. Two very nice parties in one weekend.

Ideally, I would like to be completely transparent about my life, so that anyone seeing me on the street would immediately see that I’m a TV and that I could tell anyone about my bondage website if the conversation went there. Keeping secrets just contributes to my anxiety level, and hell, I’ve got enough anxiety to begin with.

Embarrassment
It’s funny that when I look at the most embarrassing things I’ve ever done, they’re really kind of tame. I tried to make a list and I look at it and think, “Well, okay, maybe some of them are a little embarrassing, but is that it?” I’ll have to update it when I think of more. There must be something really shameful and humiliating to share that I’m blocking out. Of all of them, (they’re in no particular order) the one that still makes me wince the most is the first item:

1. Plagiarizing the first paragraph in a Sertoma writing contest when I was eleven and then winning and getting a hundred dollar savings bond.

2. Shoplifting a Fat Albert action figure from Walgreens when I was ten years old.

3. Masturbating a lot while looking at bondage pictures. Masturbating while crossdressing. Masturbating in general.

4. Trying not to masturbate when I was sixteen years old, lasting eight weeks, and then letting loose looking at lingerie ads in Playboy magazine.

5. Dropping acid at a midnight screening of some Pink Floyd concert movie when I was seventeen, getting very high from it, then later being told by my friend that he fooled me – it wasn’t acid at all, just a blank piece of paper.

6. Walking in on my parents having sex.

7. Not actually having sexual intercourse with a woman till I was twenty-seven years old.

8. Making a joke about “Homo” milk when I was eight and watching my father’s face turn pale.

9. When I was fifteen, being in an art class and for some reason the word “Finland” came up, which I then rhymed with the word “Fag.” Strangely enough, a girl in the class was from Finland and was so offended that she picked up a chair and held it over my head at my desk and then just stood there and wouldn’t stop. I sat there blushing and feeling utterly bewildered like, “Wha’d I do?”

10. When I was in my early teens, hanging out with a couple girls from my church group and some lady came by and mistook me for a girl.

Ironically enough, variations on the “being mistaken for a girl” story happened probably ten times when I was a child or early teen. At the time I was so humiliated but now that I’m grown it’s something that I would love to have happen again. Funny how that works.

Here are a few more pictures from my visit with Kim, another one from my flight out, and a couple before we went out for New Year’s Eve. Later on that night Kim unexpectantly brought out the scarves and tape and went crazy with it, taping up my mouth, then my eyes, then nearly my whole face, and torturing me with a little breath play, which I so enjoy.

I spent New Years in San Francisco visiting my good friend Kim. New Year’s Eve we ended up at a tranny bar called Diva’s, had some champagne and danced a bit, and watched some really hot Latinas shake their booties. I also finally had the chance to meet my friend Krystal, whom I’d been chatting with for a long time. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to play but I look forward to getting her all strapped up one of these days (he he he…)

Traveling while dressed
I’ve wanted to fly while dressed for a long time and on this trip finally had my chance. I flew out of the Burbank airport, which is small and close to home. I went low-key: girl’s jeans and top, shoes, make-up, jewelry, a coat and a purse. I was a little nervous but tried to act like I belonged there and like it was no big deal. The guy checking IDs at security looked at my passport (which obviously has a male picture on it), then without moving his head his eyes went up to my face, he paused for a moment, his eyes went back down, and he handed me back my ID without saying a word.

I usually feel like I don’t pass very well because I’m so tall. But I started to notice that most people either didn’t notice me at all or if they did, I was probably just another person in the crowd. Of course there were many times when I felt I was being checked out or seemed to notice a look of recognition on someone’s face.

One time I noticed an older woman looking at me several times and then it looked like she was giving me a dirty look as she passed by. But who knows? Maybe she looks that way all the time? That’s the weird thing about “passing.” You just never really know what’s going through someone’s mind unless they say something to you. I think it’s best not to worry about whether or not you’re passing, but it’s hard not to. I accept that crossdressing will always be controversial and that there are going to be some people who won’t like me for doing it. But all I have control over is my reaction to the outer environment.

Hash Brownies
So I was doing such a good job of playing it cool and then everything fell apart. It was later that evening at Kim’s place. I was having a great time just hanging out and decided to sample a couple bites of her special brownies. An hour or so passed and I felt nothing, so we both took another little bite. Then another hour or so passed and it hit me hard. I had such a bad trip! I only occasionally smoke pot, maybe once or twice a year, because I’m especially sensitive to it and never know how I’ll react. Well, for over two hours I was freaking out. I got the shakes really bad and felt totally out of touch with reality and wasn’t sure I was ever going to get back to it. In the back of my mind I realized that it was just the drug and that this too will pass, and then I’d get swept up in it again, like in waves. Kim was very helpful guiding me back and holding my hand. And then finally after a couple hours it began to wind down. The next morning I was back to my senses and I had one of those feelings of clear insight, as though the patterns of my life up to now all made sense and I could see where I was going, and it was good – I was on the right path. Who knows? Maybe it was all just an after-effect, but I sure felt good. In retrospect it was an intriguing experience, though scary as hell at the time.

A few days ago I had a great time on the webcam with Binder G. After tying me to my chair he began to wrap scarves around my face, adding layers and layers of gags and blindfolds, and finally wrapping plastic wrap over everything, leaving just my nose sticking out. He did a great mind-fuck on me, threatening to suffocate me with plastic wrap or with his hands over my nose. I had to really concentrate on relaxing to not get freaked out and into a panic.

Last night I was here working on the computer and I heard these loud “pop, pop, pop” sounds. I was thinking, those crazy kids and their fireworks! Then I heard all this loud aggressive shouting and after a few minutes saw the colored lights from the black and whites reflected on my curtains. The cops put up their caution tape all down the block and were out there looking for shells till two in the morning. I don’t know if anyone got hurt but apparently someone was pissed. I love this city but it can really be messed up sometimes.

I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, because I love the attention, but I can’t keep up with Yahoo 360! I’m happy to talk to everyone but I know that I neglect a lot of the messages and friend requests because there are so many of them. I’m sure I’m also neglecting my regular email too. So if I’m forgetting anyone, please forgive me, it’s really not personal. It’s just that my inbox runneth over…

It’s weird how TG admirers – guys who like t-girls – get such a bad rap. I sort of understand why – I’ve been to clubs where some guy who’s been drinking too much paws me and breathes in my face and generally acts unpleasant. But I often see postings online that seem to have a real disdain for admirers and I don’t really know why. I sometimes wonder, is there some residual self-hatred that we t-girls project onto these guys? I don’t know, but the attitude I sometimes see reminds me of that Groucho Marx line about not wanting to belong to a club that would have me as a member. Actually most of the time I enjoy the attention I get from guys when I’m out at the clubs, unless it’s especially gross or pushy. And I find that being with a guy romantically makes me feel so femme, which I just love. He’s the man and I get to be the object of desire. It’s not PC to say so but I love that feeling of being held, possessed, used and under his control.