Edited, click here to view!

For a long time I think that part of my family thought I was gay, not that it was ever openly mentioned but it was just a feeling that it was simply assumed because I didn’t have any relationship at all beyond the one single friend I had at the time. Then a few years ago I suddenly announced I was getting married, and yes it was a girl.. really! Of course the catch was that she happened to be 6000 miles away but I was dead serious and pursued it despite the immense adversities my now wife and I sometimes faced.

About a year ago she came here to stay and was accepted as one of the family pretty quick, the doubts of my relatives faded as they got to know her, as well as the new me. They had to revise their opinion of me as I think it was generally assumed I was just the slacking trouble-making black sheep of the family and I would be lucky to be alive at the age of 30. Now I am probably exaggerating these things a bit, but this is how it felt to me, despite being born into this family I never felt included and I never felt accepted. Some did try though, and I really did appreciate that but I myself was also to blame for this skewed perception of me, as I too shied away from any social contact beyond the absolutely necessary.

Now, they may need to revise their opinion of me again, for again I did something that was completely unexpected and probably not something they ever thought of anyone in their social circle doing, let alone a family member.

I could have tried to keep this secret, I could have just moved to another town and try to start over there, but I really wanted to see how I would fare here, to see if I would find general acceptance or if the ignorance and ridicule would be too much and force me to leave anyway. Luckily I found understanding with the ones I did tell early on and even gained support from most of them. I am very grateful for that and I hope I’ll continue to have this much luck in the future.

You see, this is something so big that in almost all cases it causes a severe and irreversible rift between friends and family, this is something so big that it causes marriages to end and for people to never see their children ever again. Luckily I have a very understanding wife and I happen to be the odd one out. Thank God for that. Even my parents seem to be willing to deal with this, which is more than I could have asked for.

I am sure that by now you are wondering what is so big that it could make me lose my wife, my kid, my family, and what little friends I have. Is this where I tell everyone I am a serial killer? A reformed terrorist? Starting my own suicide cult? No, nothing of the sorts. In fact, in my opinion this is something wonderful and beautiful, though I realize that sadly some people may view me as an abomination of nature. Regardless of what information I provide there is still a very hard set stereotype and stigma attached to it and that is precisely what makes it so difficult to tell people this.

Yet, here I go and tell the world that I am a woman.

No, I didn’t typo or misspoke, I truly meant to say that I am a woman, a transsexual, and always have been. I am sure that right now you are buzzing with questions and I will try to do my best to handle some of the issues you may have to hopefully clear up some misconceptions about me, transsexuality, and transgenders in general.

In more medical terms it is called Gender Identity Disorder (GID) which in simple terms means that my gender does not match my sex. Gender being the internal sex I associate with (in my case female) and sex being the physical body I am in (male). Or to put it pop-culture bluntly: I was born in the wrong body.

For almost as long as I can remember I have been suffering from depression, angst, social anxiety, high emotional responses, trying to ‘fit in’ and a whole host of other problems. I have honestly tried to be a man, for years I used to hang with them, but I was often bored stupid. I dislike sports, I don’t know anything about cars and don’t care either, and whenever my friends were doing ‘guy-things’ like howling, being drunk and loud or whatever I was embarrassed. Eventually I even started copying male mannerisms and behaviors. I deliberately taught myself to talk different (monotonously), walk different (still fail horribly), use different gestures, sit different, and yet I still failed to master any of those things. Now I have to unlearn all those things again.

I still got confused with being a girl, even with people staring me dead in the face at point blank range asking me if this was the “men’s room” while I clearly had a mustache and goatee at the time. This specific incident repeated itself twice in a row by the same guy in fact. That was not an uncommon thing either, I got confused a lot by my voice (when not paying attention and it slides up again) on the phone, or by my looks, almost every day it happened that someone honestly (and not jokingly) thought I was a girl.

Have I always known I was a girl? Yes and no. I was in complete and utter denial for a large part of my life and even when the signs did appear very clearly I just brushed them off and simply tried harder to be a guy.

So how did I finally have this ‘epiphany’ and admit I was a transsexual? For a long time I have been making statements like “I wish I was a girl” in reference to things only girls can do, sometimes silly things, sometimes not. Like wearing pretty clothes, guys just got jeans, t-shirt, and maybe a tux for a formal occasion, that’s it. Girls got all the cool stuff, the pretty stuff, I envied them. I also related more to the social activities of women, such as (window)shopping, or just blabbing about random stuff.

By the above you may be wondering if this isn’t just some women’s clothing fetish but I assure you it is not. I do not get an erection by wearing female clothes, it was merely an example of something I wanted desperately and could never have. Please do not confuse me with a drag-queen either. Let me stress this out a bit more:

I AM NOT A DRAG-QUEEN!

When you try to picture me, don’t try to picture some male construction worker with a mustache and a five o’clock shadow on his face, cigar in mouth, wearing a pink glittery flower pattern dress with a sparkling boa around the neck while sporting a platinum blond curly wig on his head. This is exactly what I am NOT!

Instead, please just try to think of a woman of my age and build in normal street-wear. That is what I am, that is how I look. There, that wasn’t so hard was it? I realize it may be hard for some people to view me as a woman instead of “the girl that used to be a guy” or “that transsexual” but I hope they realize it is degrading and demeaning. I’m sure you wouldn’t like being referred to your opposite gender either in every other conversation.

To continue, it was through the off-comment of my wife that it finally started to click. When I again told her one day that “I think I would honestly be happier as a girl” she told me that there are ways to make that happen now. At that specific time I was dead tired and fell asleep but when I woke up a few hours later my wife was behind the PC looking things up regarding this very subject. She started to show me people who have gone through this or are going through it.

I was stunned. It was at that very moment that my mental barrier broke down and saw the reality that was me. A transsexual. I never considered it a true possibility until that very moment. Suddenly my entire life made sense, everything fell into place, it all made perfect sense now.

We started doing a lot of research over the course of the next few days as well as talk to other people who were going through this. It became clear very soon that this would be a very intense and long-term transition. There is no short-cut or easy way to do this. In general it takes about 4 years from seeing a therapist until the final operation.

Of course that is only talking about the physical aspect of it. The mental part no surgeon can fix. I will have to see a therapist for a large part of my life to evaluate my progress as living as a woman. It takes time to essentially rewire your brain to (re)adjust the mental image you have of yourself, especially after trying so hard to be a man for three decades. From how you see yourself when dreaming to your reflex responses.

You may also be wondering what will happen to my marriage. Well let me tell you that when my wife first met me (online) she initially thought I was a girl. It is how I am and act, and without a face to go with my words and actions people tend to naturally assume I am a girl and I never really felt the need to correct them. It was the one world I could be myself in without fear of persecution. When I told her I was actually a guy she thought I was gay. I corrected her and assured her I was a straight male, but added “I’m a total girl” which has always kind of been my catch-phrase on the internet. She figured, “oh well, maybe he’s transsexual” though I was still very much in denial at the time.

Part of what attracted her in me was my very obvious feminine side, I was unlike any other guy she knew. I didn’t brag about how many beers I drank the night before or cursed like a sailor every time my favorite sports team lost a game. Not that I have a favorite sports team to begin with. My time was usually spent simply socializing and being way too emotional for a guy.

So yes, we will be staying together as she kinda always knew anyway, and even our kid is perfectly fine with it all. She even gave me clothes to wear! Again, I am very lucky to have found the one person, across the ocean no less, that would accept this of me. I am very grateful.

Does this mean I’ll be a girl from now on? That’s an odd question because I have always been a girl. See, I won’t be a guy pretending to be a girl, I’ll just be a girl. Additionally, I haven’t gone ‘full-time’ yet, so I’ll still be switching back ‘n forth between girl-mode and guy-mode. Guy-mode sucks though and I’m trying to be more and more in girl mode each day. At home I’m pretty much always in girl-mode. I still have much to learn (and unlearn) before I can go full-time so I’m taking this period to practice things like make-up and whatnot.

It’ll also be a lot easier once I start on hormones as my physique will change a bit, eventually I’ll be looking more like an actual girl as my face, hips and butt will gain some fat (fat is redistributed), as well as the obvious addition of breasts. (woot!)

You may have noticed I changed my online nickname on the website. In fact, I changed it all over the internet because as far as I am concerned DMET-XIX is dead. I considered changing it to DMET-XX (the pun being it would go from 19 to 20 and double X chromosomes) but it still felt way too male and I needed a complete change, not just a simple shift of letters. I picked Amorous Eyes after some thought and I really like it. People call me Ame for short.

Yes, my real name changed too. While currently I still switch back ‘n forth between guy-mode and girl-mode I had to create a new identity for my female self. I could have simply feminized my old name but again I wanted a complete change. It had to be something that fit me. I didn’t want to go too extravagant and sounding like a porn star like some people do, I wanted a normal name that could blend in relatively well in every day socializing.

My name is Julie. Julie Ann Lansdell. Pleased to meet you.

EDIT: All transition blogs and similar things will be posted over on the brand new site > Amorous Eyes < from now on!

So, here I am to finally speak of my 3 days at Wizard World Chicago, although it is a little later than I was hoping. Damn that chronic case of laziness.

Overall, this years convention was kind of a letdown. They did some stuff quite stupidly, and the convention very much paid for it. First off was moving it forward almost 2 months. This move placed it right smack between two other conventions, and many creators decided to skip Chicago for the other ones. Also, placing it before San Diego caused us to get some pretty crap exclusives. The one really nice thing was not nearly as big a crowd showed up. I was actually able to walk pretty quickly on Saturday! The downside of this was waaaaaaaay fewer costumes to look at.

Shopping wasn’t nearly as nice this year, because there weren’t nearly as many dollar bins, or super great deals as there was last year. I still managed to get a huge chunk of Savage Dragon related comics, and am now damn close to finishing my collection. Also got snazzy Mr. Glum statue that was an exclusive for the NY Comic Con, I believe. Once again, I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to buy all sorts of random books in artist’s alley. This is the second year in a row I ran into that problem.

I was able to get most of the stuff I took signed though, and was able to meet several cool folks. Patrick Gleason, Will Pfeiffer, Tony Daniel, Ethan Van Sciver, Jim Valentino, Erik Larsen, David Petersen, Don Kramer, Ande Parks, Phil Hester(who was nice enough to sign my stuff while eating ice cream), Andy Parks, Chuck Dixon(totally wussed out when asking him about the DC situation), Freddie Williams III, and I know I’m forgetting a couple folks. I’m also happy to report that all the artists and writers I was able to meet were very nice folks. A few guys who were incredibly nice and really kind of stood out were Franchesco!, Chris Mitten, and Jason Latour. All three were just really outgoing, but outgoing without being forceful, which is something that most people have trouble doing. The only bad person experience happened to a friend of mine. After being told by a certain artist that he wasn’t going to sign anything at that moment, because he was signing at another booth soon(which was understandable), said artist signed stuff for several other people, at the same booth, not 30 seconds later. So, yeah, that was a pretty shitty thing.

This year I also went to my first panel! The Max Brooks Ultimate Zombie Survival Guide panel, which was incredibly awesome, but unfortunately only an hour long. I like to compare it to a Kevin Smith Q&A, but about zombies. Funny story about the line though. His panel was beginning at the same time as the DC Universe panel, so there was a maaaaassive line for the DC panel, and a couple of smaller lines for the Max Brooks panel. Then when the panel started letting people in… it appeared that about half the people in line for the DC one jumped ship into our line, and the room was fucking packed. I’m thinking they had to turn some people away. This wasn’t the only funny Max Brooks line either. When I stopped by his booth on Friday, for his first signing, I looked back and his line was actually longer than the Warren Ellis line on the other side of the Avatar booth. So all-in-all, Max Brooks pwn’d that convention.

Overall, I actually found myself getting kinda bored. I left early both Friday and Saturday, and was really just sort of following my friend for most of Sunday. The retailer section was also larger than last year… which is why it was incredibly annoying that we couldn’t find many great deals. It must have been a “We’re gonna bend you over,” theme for the retailers this year.

And in closing, Chicago style stuffed pizza rocks. Very much.

Annnnnd here are more pictures from Wizard World Chicago! These are of various booths and other random stuff, so it’s basically the crap most people don’t give a shit about. Convention report coming this weekend, along with a few pics of the shit I bought! …and I just now realized I didn’t take a single picture of the DC booth. Lol @ me! Also didn’t get a good picture of the Image booth, because I wanted Erik Larsen in it… but I didn’t catch him while I was taking pictures. Here are whats I got!

The skyline!	Big fucking Hulk	Ronin Studios!
The always fantastic, Franchesco!	A King Zombie head at Gary Reed’s booth	Chris Mitten! Artist of Wasteland!
The Frazetta Comics booth!	David Petersen!	Andy Kuhn, Phil Hester, and Ande Parks’ little slice of the center!
Bryan J.L. Glass’ table!	The awesome Kris Simon and Jim Valentino!	The also awesome Jason Latour pimpin’ his shit!
Neverending Avatar booth…	More of the Avatar booth.	Top Cow booth!
Dark Horse!	Aspen!	Super awesome Max Brooks
Picture from Max Brooks’ panel	Friday morning…	9:30AM, before the general public…
In the afternoon…	Also in the afternoon

**Note: If any of the thumbnails don’t appear, just refresh after a couple minutes and they should pop up.**

Sometimes things just don’t make sense and no matter how hard you try, it doesn’t work. Since I have made my decision to move here to Holland to be with my husband and his family I have made many sacrifices and lost quite a bit. All things I have accepted in order to make this happen and so we can be together and happy.

The last loss I have suffered was not at my hands however, I have tried for many months now to see whats going wrong and trying to fix it. However, somethings can only be fixed with the co-operation of all involved, such is the case now.

I have a friend or rather had a friend. She was my best friend, closer to me then even my family was. We have been there for each other through everything, divorces, kids, deaths.. even the funeral for her bird. Almost 25 years we have been friends. We spent at least 10 hours a day on the phone and when we lived closer were together constantly.

When I met my husband she was happy for me but worried cause it was over the internet and we had just gone through some scary stuff because of her internet relationship. They talked and over time became kinda friends, she is a little overwhelming sometimes. When he came to visit me in the states she was very happy for me and glad he finally made it here and of course we talked a lot on the phone about all that was going on. We got married while he was visiting me and she got, what seemed like, scared. When we started making plans for my husband to move to the states she was happy and wanted to see if we would move there by her so we can all be together. Then the unthinkable happened and my husband was denied entry into the US. OK, time to change plans.. If he can’t come here, I’ll go there. Here is where everything changed.

She started asking me if I was really ready to “throw my life away” for “some guy” and how do I know what he really wants from me. “Do you really trust him, a strange guy, around your daughter?” Questions that blew my mind and hurt me terribly. As we got closer to making the move a reality she started saying things like, “it’ll never work”, “I can’t believe you’re abandoning me for some guy”. Her statements got worse over time and the day we were to fly out of the country she actually accused my husband of doing this deliberately to take me away from her. Needless to say this was all a shock to me, I hung up got on my plane and didn’t call her again for a few months. When i finally did email her I let her know the things she did to hurt me and that was the reason why I hadn’t contacted, probably don’t need to mention here that in those months she never emailed me either. She emailed me back a few days later with a reply that said, I had hurt HER and I should have realized how much MY leaving would hurt those around me, and that she couldn’t believe that my husband had put me in a position to give up everything I had for him, which consisted of an ex hunting me down, dead end job, 15,000$ in debt, and facing loosing my house. And she is very busy now with school and working (at home) to be able to talk much anymore, I’m not sure how that works since I have a job, school (medical school in a foreign language) and 2 family nights a week, still play a decent amount of WoW and manage to chat all night and have time for other ppl. True to those words she has logged on MSN only a few times and only responded to my messages 2 times. I have sent a few emails that have gone unanswered and the last time she logged on MSN I messaged her to say hi, and she changed her to message to *DAVE message me- not answering IM’s*. I have not heard from her since.

So I guess the time comes for me to say goodbye to a 25 year friendship and my last emotional tie to the US. At least I can honestly say I tried. This is probably the most painful thing she could have ever done to me. Somehow I’m sure it’s all my fault to her.

Oh well, Game Over.

Based on the movies of the same name, The Bourne Conspiracy is basically you replaying the first Bourne movie with more flashbacks and less Matt Damon. So better. And it is quite good. The story is standard, with some decent cutscenes, and they move the game along at a steady, gripping pace.

Gameplay has three main parts, hand to hand combat, Gun Combat, and Driving. The game is 45-45-10 split between the three respectively. The most inventive and fun aspect of the game is the hand to hand combat, involving three buttons used in combos of three, with the ability for punches, kicks and blocks. Successful combos result in an Adrenaline meter filling, allowing you to perform takedowns in the environment. Pulling off the right combos is addictive, and you find yourself getting into fistfights just to see what you can do take downs with. Literally everything in the environment has an attached takedown, and they are both brutal and satisfying. The games combat also makes VERY liberal use of Quicktime events, sued to prevent an enemy from performing takedowns on you, or to take down multiple enemies.

Gunplay in Bourne is handled decently, feeling a little floaty, and a bit too much like Gears of War-lite. The gun combat employs a cover system with good controls and a large number of REALLY destructible environments, as well as the ability to run up to someone and engage them in hand to hand at any time. The presentation of the gun combat is brilliant, with great sound effects(glass shatters, wood splinters, and headshots thud with aplomb), great environments, and great guns, but the core gameplay behind it leaves something to be desired. Gun takedowns are also a disappointment, as gunplay barely fills your adrenaline meter, and the gun takedown animations are simply bourne shooting someone, without making use of the well built environment.

The sole driving section is a complete disappointment, with a car that has no handling, and is indestructible. The chase is a looping one around paris, made very easy with bourne instinct and also made mercifully short.

Graphically, Bourne is very good, although not perfect. Environments are super destructible and textures are well done. The characters look a little like plastic and the pre rendered cutscenes leave something to be desired. Sound is a whole other matter, made almost flawless, with perfect sounds for everything in the environment. The games presentation goes a long way as to making you feel like you’re jason bourne, and in the end, that’s what makes this game awesome. The package of brilliant hand to hand, fairly good gunplay, mixed in with high production values, elevate this game to a level above most movie tie ins, and a level above most standard shooters.

8/10

Here are the first of my pics, with another batch and a report of the convention coming soon! I’ve also got a few pics I need to get from a friend, so those will be put up later in a “misc. pictures” post.

First up… The costumes!

Pretty gals from the Zenescope booth!	Mojo!	Mojo with Zenescope gals!
Mojo, Spiral, and Dazzler!	Hulk Heroclix!	R2 Unit and it’s overlord!
A lightsaber wielding sith.	Malcolm Reynolds!	Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes
Leelo Dallas!	Jawa, Imperial Guard, and Tie Pilot	Batman!
Optimus Prime	Nancy from Sin City! …movie version	Harley Quinn and the Joker!
Predator with some random person!	Leon, Ada, and Umbrella Merc!	Umbrella Merc alone

**Note: If any of the thumbnails don’t appear, just refresh after a couple minutes and they should pop up.**