I’ve been a bit reticent to mention my recent trip to Hawaii in light of the global economic meltdown. No one wants to hear about frolicking in the tropical Pacific when the chips are down.

But it’s true–I just got back from Hawaii, where my family spent two weeks celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary. It was booked before financial markets went tits-up, and I suspect it will be the last such family vacation extravaganza.

It was an awesome trip. Hawaii itself is beautiful and very interesting. My family was supportive of my transition to the point where they corrected each other on pronoun slips. I passed, again and again, for sustained periods of time. It felt a bit unreal, since I’m so used to being clocked regularly, but it was good!

It became apparent that I was passing easily when I managed to get through a surfing lesson without being clocked. I am not undetectable; had he been looking for it, our instructor would have noticed, but he didn’t, even while teaching me how to surf for two hours! True, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’ll take what I can get.

I wore my new bathing suit–my one workable suit, the fruit of four hours of horrified glimpses of my body variously skimpily clad–and I was issued a skin-tight rash-guard shirt to wear over the top. Since we were heading into the water, I wore no makeup–no subterfuge apart from some breast-lifting inserts, one of which disconcertingly scooched its way up to my right shoulder at one point. While paddling my surf board through small waves, surrounded by other first-time-surfing morons, I had to surreptitiously reach up and use my hand to squeegee my boob lifter down into the appropriate location.

There was one other compromising moment when one of my testicles escaped the side of my cute little board shorts while I was practicing technique on land. I was standing on the beach, on a surfboard, a woman, and I looked down and spied the awol ball trying to catch some rays. Thankfully, surfer-instrutor-dude’s keen gaze was locked on someone else, and I was able to tuck it away before anyone else noticed. Yick!

We hopped around a little bit on the vacation, visiting three different islands. Although my parents would have preferred something more intrepid, or off the beaten track at least–and we were there to celebrate their love–we spent the final week on Maui, since it was the only place we could rent a house that was big enough to hold all ten of us.

The place was close to the shore, and when the weather and timing were favourable, I had one of the best yoga spots I suspect I will ever find. The photo doesn’t do it justice.

my yoga spot on Maui