Sleep, Cross Dressing, Marcia Cross and Turn Signals

(Bet you never thought you'd see those four things together)

For many years, I have slept an average of seven hours each night and that has always been sufficient, although I've been known to nap once or twice per week. Last night, I slept eight hours, was up for two hours and then took a two hour nap! I don't know if my sleep needs are changing or if spring fever has something to do with it. Allergens could be the culprit, I suppose. But I hope that the meds I started this week to counteract them will prove the panacea for all that allergies bring, including the need for more sleep. I'm too busy to sleep ten hours a day!

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Raleigh is growing rapidly and has become a much more cosmopolitan city in the forty-one years since we moved here, but last week I saw a first. We were having dinner with friends at Winston's; seated close to the entrance aisle. We were eating and conversing and I looked up to see someone teetering on four inch heels, and walking very slowly from the bar towards the restrooms. I had only to glance at that person for a second to realize it was a man dressed as a woman. I doubt that was the first time a cross-dresser has been seen in Raleigh, but it was the first time for me.

He/she had on a flared mini-skirt, a peasant blouse, a wig with a black headband and a wide black belt. You have to give him/her an 'A' for effort. I know that people who wish to become transsexuals have to live for a year as a woman before doctors will consider the surgery, and it must be a very difficult thing to do, especially in the early stages. The high heels would be enough to give me pause if I were a male cross-dresser. I quit wearing them about ten years ago and they are agony for the feet, no matter who wears them. This person had on only a little make-up, unlike the last cross-dresser I saw in Pentagon City (a large mall in Arlington, VA), who had (his own) long blond hair, a dress and heels, but still retained five o'clock shadow under the pancake make-up he had applied, and a physique that could never be mistaken for a woman. People who have this situation (transvestism) in their lives are deserving of our understanding; they are born with these urges and cannot help acting on them. But I will go to my grave thanking my Maker that I was not born with the urge to be anything other than I am.

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As I am typing this, I am watching an old Cheers program. I saw a face I recognized, and it is the woman who now plays on Desperate Housewives as the caterer.....Marcia Cross. In this episode, she is Rebecca Howe's sister, an actress from whom Rebecca has been estranged since they were in school. I don't know how old that show would be, but it was fun to see Marcia as a very young woman - with medium brown hair - instead of fire-engine red. Now another episode is on and Lisa Kudrow (with jet black hair) is opposite Woody in a play. She calls it method acting and he calls it teasing.....LOL. She sure does look different with that hair color! I love old TV shows.

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Automobile Turn Signals: USE THEM!!

More and more often while driving, people in front of me (or worse yet, coming toward me) fail to use their turn signals. That's what they are there for, people, and it's the law! How infuriating is it to wait to make a turn when another car is coming because they don't have their turn-signal on and you can't be certain which way they will go?! I waste a lot of time that way.