My Life As a Woman

So I thought I’d try it. I don’t tell my wife. From what I’ve seen on TV, not telling your spouse about your gender until it’s too late to avoid major drama is an important step in the transgender journey.

I look in the mirror. I suppose androgynous middle-age flab is a start. I could probably fit into a bra size 46A. Five days of stubble isn’t helping. But I have it on good authority that where I live, in New Hampshire, many women give up shaving over the winter when nobody ever gets out of their Under Armour anyway. Besides, what’s the most significant difference between men and women, now that age has somewhat banked the fires of passion and the baby-having is done? Women smell good!

I eschew the bar of Lava soap I normally use to shower and shampoo. Surveying my wife’s bath products, I choose the pineapple bath gel, the jasmine bubble bath, the four kinds of citrus-scented shampoos and three kinds of berry-scented conditioners, the coconut exfoliant, the mango body scrub, the tea tree body wash, the vanilla body moisturizer, and the almond body butter.

I still don’t smell as good as my wife. Maybe it has something to do with my cigar. Women smoke cigars. I’ve seen it in Cigar Aficionado. But perhaps not a 52-ring-gauge Montecristo Torpedo first thing in the morning. I’ll buy a pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights.

Cross-dressing is a snap. It’s New Hampshire in March. Everybody wears long johns, ugly big sweaters, fleece-lined L. L. Bean pants, down jackets, muck boots, and ridiculous snowflake pattern knit ski hats with dangling earflaps.

Do these fleece-lined L. L. Bean pants make my butt look big? Or is that a good thing? I need jewelry. Since my wife doesn’t know I’m secretly cross-dressing I can’t borrow hers. I look in my cufflink drawer. I don’t own earrings, bracelets, or necklaces .  .  .

Aha! My lovely golden medallion from The Loyal Order of the Sons of Erin Marching and Chowder Society on a pretty green ribbon. I put this on under my sweater. As many transgender people say, I feel more relaxed, more like the real me, once I’m dressed as a woman (and have had a shot of Bushmills).

Now, to really live my life as a woman, I take the children to school. “GET THE @#$% OUT OF BED!” I shout (tenderly) from the foot of the stairs.

They require a wholesome breakfast. Fruit is wholesome. Cereal is wholesome. O.J. is wholesome. Damn it, we’re out of milk.

Like any mom, I “multitask”—filling their bowls of Fruit Loops with orange juice while at the same time packing them a healthy lunch. Liverwurst and onion with brown mustard on pumpernickel rye is healthy. (It was my Uncle Louie’s favorite. He lived to 93.) And something for a treat. Where’s that jar of pig’s feet I bought last time I did the grocery shopping .  .  .

“HUH? HOW IN THE HELL WOULD I KNOW WHERE YOUR MATH HOMEWORK IS?”

Oops.

“What I meant to say, dear, is that homework is an important responsibility and responsibilities are something we all need to learn to share so, here, let me help you.”

Fifth grade son Buster: “Do you know the multiplication tables?”

Me: “Yes.”

Buster: “What’s seven times seven?”

Me: “Forty-nine.”

Buster: “No. In Base 8.”

“GET IN THE @#$%*@# CAR!”

The music these kids listen to, it’s  .  .  . Now, now .  .  . Women are more open to expansion of their cultural horizons, more sympathetic to artistic expression. Except I can’t understand a damn word of this rap junk.

Eighth grade daughter Poppet: “What does ‘I want you to Monica on my Lewinsky’ mean?”

I drop them at school. This is the moment when moms roll down the window and give kids last-minute reminders and advice. “DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MEDS!”

What next? I’m not “out in my community.” Nix on the beauty parlor.

I come home and look at the bills to pay, bank statements to reconcile, checkbooks to balance, and letters from the IRS. And I feel all fluttered and silly.

My wife does the bill-paying, banking, and taxes. So—I’m tellin’ ya, Mac—I feel @#$%*@# fluttered and @#$%*@# silly.

There’s bonbons and movie magazines. What is a bonbon? Maybe French for beer? I guess People qualifies as a movie magazine. Who are these “people”?

I do the, as my new gender always does—no matter how much “Women’s Liberation” there’s been—housework. Know a great trick? Spray Endust on the cat. It’ll run around the house like a maniac doing all your sweeping and dusting. And it’s cheaper than a Roomba.

I tackle the pots and pans, the plates and cups, and the laundry. It turns out you can’t use Dawn liquid dish soap in either the washing machine or the dishwasher. And you can’t mix the pots, pans, plates, cups, and laundry together inside any household appliance. Especially not the dryer.

What’s for dinner? Well, the liverwurst and the onion and the brown mustard and the pumpernickel rye sitting on the kitchen counter are still looking good. And for dessert? Where’s that jar of .  .  .

It’s things like the preparation of meals for your family that make being a woman so fulfilling. There are, nonetheless, certain aspects of womanhood that I’m not yet completely comfortable with. Some of the body language and feminine gestures, for example. I tried a frustrated throwing of my hands in the air and knocked my beer can collection off the mantel.

And turning up the thermostat. What with the Under Armour and the fleece-lined pants I’m sweating like a pig.

And worrying. My wife and my mother-in-law do a lot of worrying. But I can’t seem to get the knack. Maybe it’s because I’m no longer using power tools, pushing snowblowers, wielding chainsaws, or climbing ladders to clean the roof gutters. Without me being the man of the house, there isn’t much to worry about.

Oh-oh, I’m two hours late picking up the kids from school. And they left their coats in the car. They walk home. Fortunately the school is only 12 miles away, and I made sure this morning that they were wearing their warmest shorts and T-shirts.

A cup of hot cocoa makes everything all right—if I put a shot of Bushmills in it.

Buster goes right to sleep.

It’s time for the most womanly part of being a woman, the heart-to-heart chats with my eighth grader Poppet and my high school junior Muffin about all the wonderful feminine emotional feelings that they are beginning to wonderfully femininely emotionally feel. Mostly about boys. No, all about boys. It used to be that when they started yakking about boys I’d just grimly shake my head and keep cleaning my double-barrel 12-gauge. But now that I, too, am a woman, we can talk.

I talk about just how many pellets there are in a 12-gauge shotgun shell and how, if either of my daughters ever gets herself into a situation where I have to reload, all the pellets from the next two shells are going into their smartphones, credit cards, and car keys.

And so to bed. Any sexual advances might upset the delicate balance of my newfound gender identity, which I suppose I’ll get used to, except it entails drinking white wine. I really do have a headache.

Life as a woman is not all bliss. White wine is horrible stuff, and a six-pack of it comes in much larger bottles than Budweiser.

P. J. O’Rourke is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.