My weekly cello lessons are always an interesting way to pass an hour. Of the millieu of unpredictable activities that occupy this wonderful little moratorium that my life has become for the summer -- very light school load, no work -- this and is the one thing that has been on a constant schedule for the summer. (Except for my tendancy to wake up around 10:30 and lie in bed until 11 every morning. That's pretty predictable, too.)
My youthful teacher, Annie, has a fabulous enthusiasm to her: She's encouraging, knows how to correct without making you feel like you've been reprimanded (which is crucial with music, because you get corrected all the time) and knows how to speak to an adult learner while still keeping things curiously clear and simple.
So even when I went in feeling nauseated this morning, I passed the hour without noticing my continuing discomfort (props to S2's husband for sharing his cooties: that's who I'm blaming it on anyway).
I've talked a little about my cello playing, but mainly as it relates to how weird it is for me to be practicing and instrument I'm just learning and knowing that it's sometimes like I'm playing in public, but behind a curtain. Also, performing in front of friends seems like I'm putting on silly middle-school recitals (especially with the laughter!).
But I haven't examined, for myself even, the real progress I'm making on my path from musical illiterate to ... what shall I be? ... would-be virtuoso. Excuse me: wanna-be virtuoso.
Thus, a description of today's lesson:
After tuning, I tell Annie that I'm really struggling with finding the top finger placement. I know when I'm out of pitch, but the movement up or down the fingerboard can be so fine in getting it *just right* that it's frustrating me and cutting into my practice time.
When I first started playing, there were three pieces of fingertape on the board to show me the correct finger placement for the pitch. Two weeks ago, Annie removed them. This happened the day before my loft party. (It was a good thing only three people were subjected to my off-pitch renditions of a couple songs. Even intoxicated, I would've played considerably better if the tape were there. I'm not looking at the tape or my fingers much while playing, but I need the tape to show me where to place them initially.)
So today, I told Annie I think I needed the tape back -- but only one piece of it, not three. If I can find the top fingerplacement, I can find all the other notes myself. So she put one tiny piece of tape on my fingerboard.
"Don't worry," she said. "I had a piece of tape on my cello for two years." (Supposedly that's not because she was like, THREE, when she started playing.)
Then, she said to me (much to my inner lesbian's dismay): "You know, you might want to trim your nails, too. They're really too long for you to get solid contact with the string."
My inner lesbian looked at my fingernails and thought: That is just what I was talking about! Godammit! My outer cellist said: I haven't trimmed them in a week. They grow fast. I'll have to clip them when I get home.
She started digging around in her bag, looking for her clippers. Fortunately, she couldn't find them. I was relieved about that. (I still haven't clipped them, but I will before my next practice session.)
We started the lesson with scales, and I found that with one piece of tape back, I was playing quite beautifully. I'm starting to get a lot more "crunch" in my bow stroke, which means the cello is putting out a rich volume. Also, I'm regularly clearly the other strings and not skating so much on the ones I am playing. This is necessary for nice, clean sound.
The positioning of the bow and the way the wrist and elbow move while the upper arm and shoulder remain relaxed ... that posture stuff is *hard* because there is *so much* to pay attention to, while you're also reading music, keeping tempo and changing strings. I had no idea how much was involved. Holding the bow in a relaxed manner is the most difficult thing for me. I'm supposed to be letting gravity do its work, but I'm fighting it.
After we did some scaling, we hopped into a fiddling tune, "Cincinnati Hornpipe."
A couple weeks ago, Annie said at a lesson's end: "You've run right through the beginner's book. Time for a new one so you can be challenged. What kind of cello do you want to play? Classical or something else?"
Naturally, I replied: Oh, I want to learn to play Tango.
Annie's eyes widened. "That's pretty cool music, but it's also hard, and the pieces are going to be heard best as part of an orchestra. Many students go a classical route, but it seems you like more lively music. What do you think about fiddling?" Then she played me a few quick bars to let me hear what cello fiddling sounded like.
That's *totally* what you're teaching me next, I told her.
So I've been picking at this piece for the past week, mainly learning how to play eighths and make quick string changes. That's pretty cool. Unfortunately, real progress on the piece had been thwarted by the difficulty I was having finding my initial fingerboard placement. So with a little piece of tape returned, we worked on it in class.
I was very pleased. When I left the studio, Annie told me, with sweetly goofy enthusiasm, "You're ROCKIN now! You're going to have fun practicing this week!"
After leaving the studio, I was driving up the Interstate with my windows rolled down and my radio turned off. Despite all the freeway noise, I realized that I could hear, inside my own head, the "Hornpipe" song -- in perfect pitch.
I get songs stuck in my head all the time, but usually it's the singer's voice and the words, not the music itself. So I listened to it for a while, and I was rather amazed by it. I remember thinking: Boy, that's good! It's probably Annie's playing that I'm hearing, but ... whatever. I suspect that being able to hear the music so clearly, in perfect pitch, in one's imagination is probably essential in developing an *actual* ear for the pitch.
If so, I seem to be doing that. The next time anyone hears me play, I'm going to have a little something fun in my repetoire, too.
Perhaps it bored the shit out of the rest of you, but writing this little piece has helped me see the progress I'm making. It reminds me that I need to tape record my playing now, so in a couple of months, I'll be able to *hear* the progress I'm making, too.
Just gotta clip these nails and get on with it....
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
About that interpretive dance
Do you remember the part where I said I was going to have to work on keeping a straight face while doing an interpretive dance about the letter 'C"? (See "Big Fucking Waste of Time" for the reference.)
Two things:
For starters, neither I nor the four other lovely women doing the interpretive dance with me managed to keep a straight face during this little episode of our lives. Juliana started giggling. Aliso, who was my dance partner, passed me several times with the most outrageous smirk on her face. Bubba, dear Bubba, just made the grin part of her act.
At one point, we were a tangled mess -- the part of the dance we called "oozing and knotting, knotting and oozing" -- and I actually had to say to at least one my fellow dancers, Let's hold it together. This will be over. Of course, then I added, Not soon enough and she broke out in giggles.
UCM interrupts herself: Here I must take a minute to note that I was momentarily drawn away from my keyboard by the sounds of creole-like percussion out on the street, drawing closer and closer. Brogan and I went to the window to see what was the matter. Let me ask you: What's better than seeing Santa and his reindeer on the lawn when you hear such a clatter? I'm sure you all have lots of answers, but I'll tell you: Five brown-skinned women with fabulous bodies, walking down the middle of the street in high heels and very scanty bikinis, wearing large Carnival headdresses and being trailed by a rag-tag bunch of percussionists. That's what. I love living on this street. Because even if I stay single for quite some time, there's always SOMETHING to look at out my window. And *this* was hummanah-hummanah!
Now we return to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.
What was I talking about? ... Oh. So, the SECOND thing that was notable about our interpretive dance of the letter 'C' was ... it wasn't even the fucking LETTER 'C'! What we *thought* was a 'C' turned out to be a bit of scrolling in a considerably more ornate 'F' or something. Seeing as how a significant part of the dance was aimed at making a 'C' on the floor, this was a little appalling to learn. Coming after the fact, like it did.
So, you might wonder -- or you might really hope that I won't go into the detail -- of just what this interpretive dance looked like. Briefly: Five women twisting their bodies together closely (the "oozing" part) and intertwining our hands in the air (the "knotting" part). From that spinning mass of feminine yumminess (*my* story here!), two would break out, bow aristocratically at each other and begin a sensual courting dance that lead them in opposite directions in a nearly closed circle (the infamous 'C') . (This was my contribution to the choreography.) When they came face to face again, they would bow again and head off in the reverse direction, spinning and twirling and looking all giddy-in-love-school-girl like until they completed the 'C' a second time and returned to the oozing and knotting feminine yumminess. While the two women were doing this, the other three broke free from their intwinement and danced in a circle within the circle, acting out some kind of "village labor," such as sweeping or hoeing or washing or sewing.
This business continued for three minutes, fifty seconds. It was one of the silliest things I've done in sometime. I'm not sure what to make of our classmate's comments, which were highly complimentary. They called our dance "fluid" and "graceful."
I've got to say, this is the SECOND TIME in one week that someone has called my dancing -- or dancing that I've been involved with -- "graceful." In my estimation, I've never had a single ounce of physical grace. I feel lumbering and goofy, and I don't have good shoes for dancing. But I'm thinking: If I've heard it twice, does that mean there's something to it? If I hear it again, perhaps that will constitute some nascent form of "evidence."
However, our classmates also talked about the "symbolism" and the "meaning" in our dance. This is amusing because everyone in my group kept shrugging and saying, "Shit, this sucks" and "We have no fucking clue what we're doing, do we?" and "This is sooooo meaningless." One of the women in the group said during the class discussion later, "I got *nothing* out of this. It meant nothing to me. There was no character to connect with, nothing to embody."
I told the teacher, Perhaps one of the reasons we found this so void of meaning, personally, is that your framing this as a 'letter' in the first place narrowed our sense of what we could make from it. I had to just tell myself, 'I'm the letter 'C' and this is some funky kind of Sesame Street.' (That's when we found out it wasn't the letter 'C' after all.
Anyway, I was being nice, right? Because what I didn't add was, And also, your choice of music sucked. There was no beat to it, man. We all were thinking there in the warm-ups, *WHY* didn't someone bring a bong to class today? Because getting loaded is really the only way we are going to tap into *anything* here. Of course, if we *had* gotten loaded, we might have all started enjoying that "oozing and knotting" a little too much and fell into a little reverie of sorts right there on the floor.
(Like I said, it's *my* story. I can tell it the way I want.)
Everything written herein is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and abilities. I do believe, however, that it will quickly become a repressed memory. So if you happen to see me and ask me to show you my part of the dance and I don't seem to know what you're talking about, please let sleeping dogs lie.
Two things:
For starters, neither I nor the four other lovely women doing the interpretive dance with me managed to keep a straight face during this little episode of our lives. Juliana started giggling. Aliso, who was my dance partner, passed me several times with the most outrageous smirk on her face. Bubba, dear Bubba, just made the grin part of her act.
At one point, we were a tangled mess -- the part of the dance we called "oozing and knotting, knotting and oozing" -- and I actually had to say to at least one my fellow dancers, Let's hold it together. This will be over. Of course, then I added, Not soon enough and she broke out in giggles.
UCM interrupts herself: Here I must take a minute to note that I was momentarily drawn away from my keyboard by the sounds of creole-like percussion out on the street, drawing closer and closer. Brogan and I went to the window to see what was the matter. Let me ask you: What's better than seeing Santa and his reindeer on the lawn when you hear such a clatter? I'm sure you all have lots of answers, but I'll tell you: Five brown-skinned women with fabulous bodies, walking down the middle of the street in high heels and very scanty bikinis, wearing large Carnival headdresses and being trailed by a rag-tag bunch of percussionists. That's what. I love living on this street. Because even if I stay single for quite some time, there's always SOMETHING to look at out my window. And *this* was hummanah-hummanah!
Now we return to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.
What was I talking about? ... Oh. So, the SECOND thing that was notable about our interpretive dance of the letter 'C' was ... it wasn't even the fucking LETTER 'C'! What we *thought* was a 'C' turned out to be a bit of scrolling in a considerably more ornate 'F' or something. Seeing as how a significant part of the dance was aimed at making a 'C' on the floor, this was a little appalling to learn. Coming after the fact, like it did.
So, you might wonder -- or you might really hope that I won't go into the detail -- of just what this interpretive dance looked like. Briefly: Five women twisting their bodies together closely (the "oozing" part) and intertwining our hands in the air (the "knotting" part). From that spinning mass of feminine yumminess (*my* story here!), two would break out, bow aristocratically at each other and begin a sensual courting dance that lead them in opposite directions in a nearly closed circle (the infamous 'C') . (This was my contribution to the choreography.) When they came face to face again, they would bow again and head off in the reverse direction, spinning and twirling and looking all giddy-in-love-school-girl like until they completed the 'C' a second time and returned to the oozing and knotting feminine yumminess. While the two women were doing this, the other three broke free from their intwinement and danced in a circle within the circle, acting out some kind of "village labor," such as sweeping or hoeing or washing or sewing.
This business continued for three minutes, fifty seconds. It was one of the silliest things I've done in sometime. I'm not sure what to make of our classmate's comments, which were highly complimentary. They called our dance "fluid" and "graceful."
I've got to say, this is the SECOND TIME in one week that someone has called my dancing -- or dancing that I've been involved with -- "graceful." In my estimation, I've never had a single ounce of physical grace. I feel lumbering and goofy, and I don't have good shoes for dancing. But I'm thinking: If I've heard it twice, does that mean there's something to it? If I hear it again, perhaps that will constitute some nascent form of "evidence."
However, our classmates also talked about the "symbolism" and the "meaning" in our dance. This is amusing because everyone in my group kept shrugging and saying, "Shit, this sucks" and "We have no fucking clue what we're doing, do we?" and "This is sooooo meaningless." One of the women in the group said during the class discussion later, "I got *nothing* out of this. It meant nothing to me. There was no character to connect with, nothing to embody."
I told the teacher, Perhaps one of the reasons we found this so void of meaning, personally, is that your framing this as a 'letter' in the first place narrowed our sense of what we could make from it. I had to just tell myself, 'I'm the letter 'C' and this is some funky kind of Sesame Street.' (That's when we found out it wasn't the letter 'C' after all.
Anyway, I was being nice, right? Because what I didn't add was, And also, your choice of music sucked. There was no beat to it, man. We all were thinking there in the warm-ups, *WHY* didn't someone bring a bong to class today? Because getting loaded is really the only way we are going to tap into *anything* here. Of course, if we *had* gotten loaded, we might have all started enjoying that "oozing and knotting" a little too much and fell into a little reverie of sorts right there on the floor.
(Like I said, it's *my* story. I can tell it the way I want.)
Everything written herein is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and abilities. I do believe, however, that it will quickly become a repressed memory. So if you happen to see me and ask me to show you my part of the dance and I don't seem to know what you're talking about, please let sleeping dogs lie.
An Insufferable Argument. And fun with Nellie Oleson.
I'm watching more of that CRACK that Dr. M is spreading on the Internet -- the '80s music videos -- and I'm having what might be considered a PTSD flashback in some circles.
I'm watching Journey's "Separate Ways" video, and I'm tortured -- really fucking tortured -- by a memory. Several memories, actually. All of them involve an ongoing argument about Steve Perry.
The fundamentals: Two women I had the misfortune of knowing for a period of several years both attended high school in Hanford, California. Steve Perry is from Hanford. EVERY fucking time these two women got together -- in my presence, at least -- they got drunk and started arguing about which one of them actually dated Steve Perry in high school.
Clearly, both of them had gone on at least one date with him. But there was a continual bit of one-upsmanship going on in which no one in earshot could escape hearing who he had kissed where and when and how long, etc. One of them kissed him on a ferris wheel.
That I can recall. But the rest of it is blur because I would work very hard to make myself drunk as quickly as possible -- or I would just leave -- once this argument got going.
I don't know about the rest of you, but things that happened while I was in high school are just too fucking stupid to think about any more. Let alone argue about. I graduated 20 years ago. (Kinda makes me sick to realize this.) And the *only* thing I really want to know about high school is when JellyGirl gives me an update about one of the class sluts who does porno.
But when it comes to Steve Perry -- who didn't go to my high school -- I could give a shit. I looked at the Journey video to see, after all these years, just what these women were so vehemently arguing over.
So he's not bad looking, but he isn't good looking, either. And as I understand things, his voice is shot to hell from singing out of his range for so many years.
It was much more entertaining, I thought, to play volleyball several years ago with Nellie Oleson from "Little House on the Prairie." It was a hot day, she was wearing a nice white-trash halter top, and the two of us had a little fun in the parking lot.
Seriously.
I'm watching Journey's "Separate Ways" video, and I'm tortured -- really fucking tortured -- by a memory. Several memories, actually. All of them involve an ongoing argument about Steve Perry.
The fundamentals: Two women I had the misfortune of knowing for a period of several years both attended high school in Hanford, California. Steve Perry is from Hanford. EVERY fucking time these two women got together -- in my presence, at least -- they got drunk and started arguing about which one of them actually dated Steve Perry in high school.
Clearly, both of them had gone on at least one date with him. But there was a continual bit of one-upsmanship going on in which no one in earshot could escape hearing who he had kissed where and when and how long, etc. One of them kissed him on a ferris wheel.
That I can recall. But the rest of it is blur because I would work very hard to make myself drunk as quickly as possible -- or I would just leave -- once this argument got going.
I don't know about the rest of you, but things that happened while I was in high school are just too fucking stupid to think about any more. Let alone argue about. I graduated 20 years ago. (Kinda makes me sick to realize this.) And the *only* thing I really want to know about high school is when JellyGirl gives me an update about one of the class sluts who does porno.
But when it comes to Steve Perry -- who didn't go to my high school -- I could give a shit. I looked at the Journey video to see, after all these years, just what these women were so vehemently arguing over.
So he's not bad looking, but he isn't good looking, either. And as I understand things, his voice is shot to hell from singing out of his range for so many years.
It was much more entertaining, I thought, to play volleyball several years ago with Nellie Oleson from "Little House on the Prairie." It was a hot day, she was wearing a nice white-trash halter top, and the two of us had a little fun in the parking lot.
Seriously.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Something that's *not* about UCM
It's about Warren Buffet instead.
UCM does *not* watch the news, she does *not* read the paper, she does *not* subscribe to news magazines and she does *not* click on certain links, even though her home page is Slate (which she does *not* read). What UCM does, though, is watch Letterman.
(Crap, this is turning into something about UCM after all. Let's get back to the point!)
Which is Warren Buffet.
WHAT THE FUCK, dude? From one middle-class, unemployed graduate student to one billion-fuckin-aire, I've got to ask: Why'd you give all that money to Bill Gates? I wonder both why you didn't spread a LITTLE of it *my* way (and I can guess the answer to that) but mainly: WHY NOT START YOUR OWN FOUNDATION?
Considering that the $30 BILLION you gave old senior Gates is more than he -- world's richest man, like you're *not* -- put into the foundation himself, I'm wondering: Is this a hostile takeover? Are you going to insist the name be changed to the Bill & Melinda Gates Hold the Money for Warren Buffet foundation? Or will you just be changing the name of Microsoft to Geico?
Because, C'MON! If you're going to BE a philanthopist, Warren, you've got to THINK like a philanthropist. Rockefeller? Got his own foundation? DuPont? Got his own foundation? Vanderbilt? Duh! For the love of god, even Teresa Heinz Kerry's got her own foundation.
Who the hell is going to be the money manager for the Gates Foundation? Do you really trust that guy, Warren? The guy who RIPPED OFF APPLE? The dude who hasn't had AN ORIGINAL IDEA yet? Bill Fuckin Gates?
Warren! As Cher would say to Nick Cage: SNAP OUTTA IT! I could slap you right now.
UCM does *not* watch the news, she does *not* read the paper, she does *not* subscribe to news magazines and she does *not* click on certain links, even though her home page is Slate (which she does *not* read). What UCM does, though, is watch Letterman.
(Crap, this is turning into something about UCM after all. Let's get back to the point!)
Which is Warren Buffet.
WHAT THE FUCK, dude? From one middle-class, unemployed graduate student to one billion-fuckin-aire, I've got to ask: Why'd you give all that money to Bill Gates? I wonder both why you didn't spread a LITTLE of it *my* way (and I can guess the answer to that) but mainly: WHY NOT START YOUR OWN FOUNDATION?
Considering that the $30 BILLION you gave old senior Gates is more than he -- world's richest man, like you're *not* -- put into the foundation himself, I'm wondering: Is this a hostile takeover? Are you going to insist the name be changed to the Bill & Melinda Gates Hold the Money for Warren Buffet foundation? Or will you just be changing the name of Microsoft to Geico?
Because, C'MON! If you're going to BE a philanthopist, Warren, you've got to THINK like a philanthropist. Rockefeller? Got his own foundation? DuPont? Got his own foundation? Vanderbilt? Duh! For the love of god, even Teresa Heinz Kerry's got her own foundation.
Who the hell is going to be the money manager for the Gates Foundation? Do you really trust that guy, Warren? The guy who RIPPED OFF APPLE? The dude who hasn't had AN ORIGINAL IDEA yet? Bill Fuckin Gates?
Warren! As Cher would say to Nick Cage: SNAP OUTTA IT! I could slap you right now.
"Lesbian Hands"
I'm not a Very Good Gay. Not only do I bitch and whine about the dearth of good-looking lesbians (at Pride -- or for that matter, anywhere), but I've apparently not been checking out women in the right way.
All along, I've been looking for a lovely smile, something captivating in their eyes, shapely legs and a nicely endowed busom. Of course -- and I say this with sincerity -- the first requirements are intellect and humor. But if there's something I learned from XGF, while those two factors are essential, I've got to have the attraction. Thus, all those other aforementioned features, and my willingness to ogle women shamelessly.
But I've recently learned that I've been looking at the wrong body parts. Or so one of my friends would have me believe. (To protect the innocent, I'm not even using the fake name I give this woman because ... well, I'm SKEPTICAL.)
According to said Anonymous Friend, lesbians are supposed to be more concerned with hands than with breasts or smiles or legs or eyes.
Like I said, I'm skeptical. Because breasts....
Anyway, Anonymous Friend tells me that the size of a woman's hands -- more specifically, the length and width of her fingers -- is supposed to be an indicator equivalent to penis size. AF tells me that "all lesbians look at hands" for that reason.
I cannot recall doing such a thing in my life. It's not that I don't look at a woman's hands, but I have never looked at them for that reason. I look at them to see if she bites her nails, if she practices good hygiene, if she works with her hands a lot or if she pampers them. I think the way you care for your hands says a lot about the way you care for yourself.
But does size really matter? Is finger length some kind of be-all, end-all in lesbian sex?
I just can't imagine it's so.
In fact, what comes to mind is an old magician's saying: It's not the size of the wand that counts, it's the magic in it.
And I don't say this to you as someone whose hands or fingers have ever come into question. (If anything, I'd say my tied tongue might raise some eyebrows. But even that has never stood in the way of pleasure for my partners.) In fact, Anonymouos Friend checked out my hands over dinner and told me they seemed quite sufficient -- but maybe I ought to trim the nails.
Now *there* is a reason to check out a lesbian's hands. The longer her nails, the more likely it is she's not getting any. Or at least not putting any out.
Anyway, I have never heard of this hand-checking stuff before, but Anonymous Friend tells me it's all the rage among the lesbians she knows.
Whatever. I think I'll stick with the things that matter: brains and beauty.
And breasts, of course.
All along, I've been looking for a lovely smile, something captivating in their eyes, shapely legs and a nicely endowed busom. Of course -- and I say this with sincerity -- the first requirements are intellect and humor. But if there's something I learned from XGF, while those two factors are essential, I've got to have the attraction. Thus, all those other aforementioned features, and my willingness to ogle women shamelessly.
But I've recently learned that I've been looking at the wrong body parts. Or so one of my friends would have me believe. (To protect the innocent, I'm not even using the fake name I give this woman because ... well, I'm SKEPTICAL.)
According to said Anonymous Friend, lesbians are supposed to be more concerned with hands than with breasts or smiles or legs or eyes.
Like I said, I'm skeptical. Because breasts....
Anyway, Anonymous Friend tells me that the size of a woman's hands -- more specifically, the length and width of her fingers -- is supposed to be an indicator equivalent to penis size. AF tells me that "all lesbians look at hands" for that reason.
I cannot recall doing such a thing in my life. It's not that I don't look at a woman's hands, but I have never looked at them for that reason. I look at them to see if she bites her nails, if she practices good hygiene, if she works with her hands a lot or if she pampers them. I think the way you care for your hands says a lot about the way you care for yourself.
But does size really matter? Is finger length some kind of be-all, end-all in lesbian sex?
I just can't imagine it's so.
In fact, what comes to mind is an old magician's saying: It's not the size of the wand that counts, it's the magic in it.
And I don't say this to you as someone whose hands or fingers have ever come into question. (If anything, I'd say my tied tongue might raise some eyebrows. But even that has never stood in the way of pleasure for my partners.) In fact, Anonymouos Friend checked out my hands over dinner and told me they seemed quite sufficient -- but maybe I ought to trim the nails.
Now *there* is a reason to check out a lesbian's hands. The longer her nails, the more likely it is she's not getting any. Or at least not putting any out.
Anyway, I have never heard of this hand-checking stuff before, but Anonymous Friend tells me it's all the rage among the lesbians she knows.
Whatever. I think I'll stick with the things that matter: brains and beauty.
And breasts, of course.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Big fucking waste of time
Drama class.
Why am I working on an interpretive dance to represent the letter 'C' as depicted in a rather ornate motif that somehow manages to combine oriental and celtic designs? And the music is something that sounds like orchestral religious shit, so it doesn't even have a good beat to it.
How is *that* going to help me with counseling?
And I will add this: If I am asked/forced to sit on the floor in a circle and have an illustrated child's book read to me ONE MORE TIME, I'm gonna throw a temper tantrum. Right there on the stage.
Many, many years ago, the little bro was sitting in just such a circle one day and he got ticked off. He raised his fist and started waving it angrily at the teacher. Later, I asked him what the problem was, and he replied, "The story was just so STUPID, and I'm TIRED of stupid stories!"
He was generally smarter than everyone else. I usually am, too. So being forced to listen to children's stories -- when there are NO CHILDREN present -- is just ... OK, it's fucking beneath me, alright?
The only rational I can think of to justify my continued suffering in this matter -- aside from that it's too late to drop out and get a refund -- is to learn the art of apparent patience in the face of frustration and suffering.
I told S2 this morning that I feel enough guilt over a certain recent incident in my life that I'm thinking the only way to assuage it is to expose myself to the wellspring of said guilt, feel guilty as all shit about it and then maybe some of it will be released.
"You are SO Catholic," she told me. She has the most menacing laugh sometimes, and she employed it in this situation.
My roots may be Catholic, but here in this drama class, I'm working on the Buddhist shit: Life is suffering, and we simply must accept that fact. ... Every day in this fucking time-wasting BOMB of a class, I get a little closer to enlightenment.
That's the story I'm telling myself anyway. Because I need an anchor. I've got to have *some* explanation for the children's stories and find some way of resisting the urge to wave my fist angrily at the teacher.
Not to mention, I have to keep a straight face during my interpretive dance for the letter 'C'.
Why am I working on an interpretive dance to represent the letter 'C' as depicted in a rather ornate motif that somehow manages to combine oriental and celtic designs? And the music is something that sounds like orchestral religious shit, so it doesn't even have a good beat to it.
How is *that* going to help me with counseling?
And I will add this: If I am asked/forced to sit on the floor in a circle and have an illustrated child's book read to me ONE MORE TIME, I'm gonna throw a temper tantrum. Right there on the stage.
Many, many years ago, the little bro was sitting in just such a circle one day and he got ticked off. He raised his fist and started waving it angrily at the teacher. Later, I asked him what the problem was, and he replied, "The story was just so STUPID, and I'm TIRED of stupid stories!"
He was generally smarter than everyone else. I usually am, too. So being forced to listen to children's stories -- when there are NO CHILDREN present -- is just ... OK, it's fucking beneath me, alright?
The only rational I can think of to justify my continued suffering in this matter -- aside from that it's too late to drop out and get a refund -- is to learn the art of apparent patience in the face of frustration and suffering.
I told S2 this morning that I feel enough guilt over a certain recent incident in my life that I'm thinking the only way to assuage it is to expose myself to the wellspring of said guilt, feel guilty as all shit about it and then maybe some of it will be released.
"You are SO Catholic," she told me. She has the most menacing laugh sometimes, and she employed it in this situation.
My roots may be Catholic, but here in this drama class, I'm working on the Buddhist shit: Life is suffering, and we simply must accept that fact. ... Every day in this fucking time-wasting BOMB of a class, I get a little closer to enlightenment.
That's the story I'm telling myself anyway. Because I need an anchor. I've got to have *some* explanation for the children's stories and find some way of resisting the urge to wave my fist angrily at the teacher.
Not to mention, I have to keep a straight face during my interpretive dance for the letter 'C'.
Monday, June 26, 2006
A small question
Can someone please provide me with a possible, factual -- scientific even! -- reason *why* wine makes me so much more intoxicated than hard liquor or beer?
I can drink margarita upon margarita, gin & tonic upon gin & tonic (mixed at my own home where no one is stiffing me on the liquor) and not even get half as fucked up as three glasses of wine will do to me.
The other week, I went out with a friend and drank a fair bit of wine. Probably six glasses. I was toasted off my ASS, and based on the fact that I never had any hangover symptoms whatsoever until two days later, I think I remained intoxicated on that wine for nearly 24 hours.
Yet when I drank at least six margaritas and gin & tonics one night recently, I was essentially sober within a few hours.
Do we synthesize different types of alcohol in different ways? I know the amount of water we consume along with the alcohol we drink can seriously affect our ability to avoid hangovers. I know that the more we've eaten, the more diluted the alcohol in our blood.
But I find that, even when I appear to have controlled for several variables, wine goes to my head much more quickly and powerfully -- and sticks around a lot longer -- than does hard liquor.
S'up wit dat, homies?
I can drink margarita upon margarita, gin & tonic upon gin & tonic (mixed at my own home where no one is stiffing me on the liquor) and not even get half as fucked up as three glasses of wine will do to me.
The other week, I went out with a friend and drank a fair bit of wine. Probably six glasses. I was toasted off my ASS, and based on the fact that I never had any hangover symptoms whatsoever until two days later, I think I remained intoxicated on that wine for nearly 24 hours.
Yet when I drank at least six margaritas and gin & tonics one night recently, I was essentially sober within a few hours.
Do we synthesize different types of alcohol in different ways? I know the amount of water we consume along with the alcohol we drink can seriously affect our ability to avoid hangovers. I know that the more we've eaten, the more diluted the alcohol in our blood.
But I find that, even when I appear to have controlled for several variables, wine goes to my head much more quickly and powerfully -- and sticks around a lot longer -- than does hard liquor.
S'up wit dat, homies?
Life without TiVo
When I moved out from XGF, one of the things I relinquished was the VCR. With that VCR, I maintained a good reason to avoid TiVo. I could tape whatever I wanted. Who needed all that technology, that subscription, that, that, that... stuff that causes my inner Luddite to revolt?
But tonight, I finally ran into the barrier that TiVo would solve for me (if only I could get over my Luddite tendencies -- which is highly unlikely): I was trapped in purgatory, caught between "Hell's Kitchen" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine." (I have only the most basic of cable, so there's not a lot out there competing for my attention.)
"Hell's Kitchen" -- aside from describing the actual physical environment of my kitchen today here in Portland with temps over 100 and not an air-conditioner in sight -- is the kind of game show I like to sink my teeth into. Part of it is because I know from XGF's experience just what a miserable place a professional kitchen is for a woman. But also, I just like that total *asshole* of a chef, Chef Ramsey. I wish Fox didn't bother to mask his mouth when he curses. Free television is so puritanical....
But I am torn, because on the *other* channel is none other than Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She's not just hot, she's FUNNY. "The New Adventures of Old Christine" is one of the funniest shows I've seen since "Seinfeld." She plays a character who has very little luck in love -- and no shame. Last week, she referred to her full Brazilian wax as "a hair arrow pointing at my C-section." I about split my side laughing.
This evening, as I toggled back and forth between "Hell's Kitchen" and "TNAOOC," I was torn.
I finally realized, This is why people have TiVo.
But I'm not going there. I'll channel surf. In the end, my time will be spent with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because she is light years funnier than watching a bunch of snotty children destroying a restaurant with silly string during a lunch service. She is so much more entertaining than wondering if the risotto is going to "relax" on the plate sufficiently for that ego-brusier, Chef Ramsey.
Life is full of choices. I've got to make mine. Thank god for the remote control and a schedule of commercials that allows me to watch *all* of Julia Louis-Dreyfus (because a girl must have her eye candy and her humor) and still catch enough of "Hell's KItchen" to know who's who, what's going on and why it's sheer hell there.
This concludes the most meaningless blog entry ever. (Unless, of course, you are, like me, willing to admit that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is still a looker.)
But tonight, I finally ran into the barrier that TiVo would solve for me (if only I could get over my Luddite tendencies -- which is highly unlikely): I was trapped in purgatory, caught between "Hell's Kitchen" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine." (I have only the most basic of cable, so there's not a lot out there competing for my attention.)
"Hell's Kitchen" -- aside from describing the actual physical environment of my kitchen today here in Portland with temps over 100 and not an air-conditioner in sight -- is the kind of game show I like to sink my teeth into. Part of it is because I know from XGF's experience just what a miserable place a professional kitchen is for a woman. But also, I just like that total *asshole* of a chef, Chef Ramsey. I wish Fox didn't bother to mask his mouth when he curses. Free television is so puritanical....
But I am torn, because on the *other* channel is none other than Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She's not just hot, she's FUNNY. "The New Adventures of Old Christine" is one of the funniest shows I've seen since "Seinfeld." She plays a character who has very little luck in love -- and no shame. Last week, she referred to her full Brazilian wax as "a hair arrow pointing at my C-section." I about split my side laughing.
This evening, as I toggled back and forth between "Hell's Kitchen" and "TNAOOC," I was torn.
I finally realized, This is why people have TiVo.
But I'm not going there. I'll channel surf. In the end, my time will be spent with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because she is light years funnier than watching a bunch of snotty children destroying a restaurant with silly string during a lunch service. She is so much more entertaining than wondering if the risotto is going to "relax" on the plate sufficiently for that ego-brusier, Chef Ramsey.
Life is full of choices. I've got to make mine. Thank god for the remote control and a schedule of commercials that allows me to watch *all* of Julia Louis-Dreyfus (because a girl must have her eye candy and her humor) and still catch enough of "Hell's KItchen" to know who's who, what's going on and why it's sheer hell there.
This concludes the most meaningless blog entry ever. (Unless, of course, you are, like me, willing to admit that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is still a looker.)
Saturday, June 24, 2006
A dip into bliss; a gentle drift into mental illness
I don't know how I could've ended up with a better day. (OK, that's a lie at the outset: I could end it with some steamy sex. So, to rewrite: Considering I'm single not sexually active (with others) at present, it would be hard to beat this day. Except for the overshare, that's better.)
So, what's the big deal?
Let's start with the cello. I was complaining on Thursday night that I feared I was tone deaf. Well, guess what? I'm NOT.
It turns out, I'm just a PERFECTIONIST. I already knew this about myself, but I had no idea it was applicable to my experience with music.
I thought I was not hitting my notes. My teacher, however, says that I am. The pitch, she says, is fine. The F-sharp is an F-sharp; the D is a D.
Then why does it sound like shit? I asked.
"You seem to have an ear for tone," she said. "You're complaining about the tone, which you want to perfect. But you're not good enough for that yet. That will take a while."
I am a musical neophyte, so I asked, If the tone sucks so bad, how can you say I'm hitting the notes?
She explained, "There's a difference between pitch and tone. You are hitting the notes. The pitch is correct. Your ear just wants something better, something more lustruous. That's good, but until you master the bow hold or learn vibrato, you're not going to be able to do that, and it takes a lot of time. But you *do* obviously have an ear for it."
So that made me happy and made me frustrated all at the same time. Such is the experience with learning an instrument, I guess.
After my cello lesson, I came home to work on a written assignment for my Diversity class, but I got sidetracked by some kind of Internet crack over on Dr. M's blog: video hits from the '80s.
I *loved* Erasure SO MUCH. "Ooooooh, sometimes, it's the broken heart that decides..." I'm so in need of an Erasure CD. Jesus, it's playing in the background right now. I can't stop it!
After being waylayed by the '80s videos, I went over to The Good Witch's house to prepare for a quick trip to swim in a lake that is one of the Northwest's hidden little gems. It was warm and sunny and I was sitting on a patio up on a bluff with an excellent view of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, and there I had a most pleasant phone conversation with a friend while waiting for TGW to do some dishes.
Yeah, the B-52's "Own Private Idaho" is a total flashback in progress. Just perfect.
Then, out we went to the hidden gem, the name of which I shall not reveal publically, given the fact that we learned today there is no longer a day-use fee for this particular Washington state park. The last thing I want is to encourage more use.
But here's a description: It's an extinct caldera -- in truth, I'm *assuming* it's extinct, because there are still geothermal hotspots in the water, so something is boiling down under the surface. It's surrounded by a forest of doug firs. There's a nice little beach where you can walk into the water on a sandy bottom. There being no motor boats allowed -- maybe a little putt-putt motor? -- it's nice and quiet and safe for a swim. I can swim all the way across, but it's big enough to make it a little bit of exercise to do so. Good clean water; no silty mess because it's spring fed. No river in, and I don't know that there's a river out. Just BEAUTIFUL.
So we swam for 40 minutes or so. Then we headed back to town.
Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy." I was soooo in love with Stevie Nicks at this point. Check out that HUGE hair! But I *still* love her singing in the rain. *sigh*
I had just enough time after getting home to finish my Diversity assignment and post it online for everyone else in the class to read. (Temporarily, this class is meeting online. Next week, we meet face to face.)
And at this point, I'll be thrilled if I can sit in class for three hours without having Def Leppard's "Photograph" stuck in my head. Jesus save me, I wore out the Pyromania album.
I took the pup for a walk and then headed off to get a massage. Except the painful part of being poked in my armpit -- trying to work out a problem with my "mouse muscle" -- I enjoyed a pleasurable and effective massage.
sonofabitch! The Human League's "Don't You Want Me, Baby"! crackcrackcrack. i'm addicted. someone help me.
The Clairvoyant is my massage therapist. She is also one of my sushi pals. Everyone needs sushi pals.
Especially those who can forgive you for breaking out in Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days" with a piece of nigiri in your mouth. It takes someone who remembers life *before* MTV and understands what a fucking massive revolution it was when that premiered.
So TC and I went and got some sushi. muther-fuckin' yummy, it was.
As a teen-ager in Houston, I lived down the street from Frank Beard, the drummer for ZZ Top. He had a big exotic bird that escaped one day and took up residence on the golf course for a while. ... Fuck, ZZ Top could JAM.
Van Halen: Jump. Are you kidding me? David Lee Roth still hasn't stopped preening, has he? I vote for him as the next spokesman for Viagra: "I get up, and nothing gets me down!"
But, then, I wanted to be the dummer in Yes -- "Owner of a Lonely Heart" just ROCKED. But what the fuck was up with that snake in the car seat. Creaped me out the, creaps me out now. ... Don't deceive your free will at all!
I saw recently saw a t-shirt online that I *really* wanted to buy, but I'm concerned about just how pink the pink is or whether the red is really my color. In any case, it says: WWJJD? What Would Joan Jett Do?" That is such a good question right about now.
I think *I* will try going to bed. As if I can sleep with The English Beat's "Mirror in the Bathroom" running through my head. Perhaps I'll just drift gently into mental illness.
Someone call 911. I love The Talking Heads....
So, what's the big deal?
Let's start with the cello. I was complaining on Thursday night that I feared I was tone deaf. Well, guess what? I'm NOT.
It turns out, I'm just a PERFECTIONIST. I already knew this about myself, but I had no idea it was applicable to my experience with music.
I thought I was not hitting my notes. My teacher, however, says that I am. The pitch, she says, is fine. The F-sharp is an F-sharp; the D is a D.
Then why does it sound like shit? I asked.
"You seem to have an ear for tone," she said. "You're complaining about the tone, which you want to perfect. But you're not good enough for that yet. That will take a while."
I am a musical neophyte, so I asked, If the tone sucks so bad, how can you say I'm hitting the notes?
She explained, "There's a difference between pitch and tone. You are hitting the notes. The pitch is correct. Your ear just wants something better, something more lustruous. That's good, but until you master the bow hold or learn vibrato, you're not going to be able to do that, and it takes a lot of time. But you *do* obviously have an ear for it."
So that made me happy and made me frustrated all at the same time. Such is the experience with learning an instrument, I guess.
After my cello lesson, I came home to work on a written assignment for my Diversity class, but I got sidetracked by some kind of Internet crack over on Dr. M's blog: video hits from the '80s.
I *loved* Erasure SO MUCH. "Ooooooh, sometimes, it's the broken heart that decides..." I'm so in need of an Erasure CD. Jesus, it's playing in the background right now. I can't stop it!
After being waylayed by the '80s videos, I went over to The Good Witch's house to prepare for a quick trip to swim in a lake that is one of the Northwest's hidden little gems. It was warm and sunny and I was sitting on a patio up on a bluff with an excellent view of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, and there I had a most pleasant phone conversation with a friend while waiting for TGW to do some dishes.
Yeah, the B-52's "Own Private Idaho" is a total flashback in progress. Just perfect.
Then, out we went to the hidden gem, the name of which I shall not reveal publically, given the fact that we learned today there is no longer a day-use fee for this particular Washington state park. The last thing I want is to encourage more use.
But here's a description: It's an extinct caldera -- in truth, I'm *assuming* it's extinct, because there are still geothermal hotspots in the water, so something is boiling down under the surface. It's surrounded by a forest of doug firs. There's a nice little beach where you can walk into the water on a sandy bottom. There being no motor boats allowed -- maybe a little putt-putt motor? -- it's nice and quiet and safe for a swim. I can swim all the way across, but it's big enough to make it a little bit of exercise to do so. Good clean water; no silty mess because it's spring fed. No river in, and I don't know that there's a river out. Just BEAUTIFUL.
So we swam for 40 minutes or so. Then we headed back to town.
Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy." I was soooo in love with Stevie Nicks at this point. Check out that HUGE hair! But I *still* love her singing in the rain. *sigh*
I had just enough time after getting home to finish my Diversity assignment and post it online for everyone else in the class to read. (Temporarily, this class is meeting online. Next week, we meet face to face.)
And at this point, I'll be thrilled if I can sit in class for three hours without having Def Leppard's "Photograph" stuck in my head. Jesus save me, I wore out the Pyromania album.
I took the pup for a walk and then headed off to get a massage. Except the painful part of being poked in my armpit -- trying to work out a problem with my "mouse muscle" -- I enjoyed a pleasurable and effective massage.
sonofabitch! The Human League's "Don't You Want Me, Baby"! crackcrackcrack. i'm addicted. someone help me.
The Clairvoyant is my massage therapist. She is also one of my sushi pals. Everyone needs sushi pals.
Especially those who can forgive you for breaking out in Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days" with a piece of nigiri in your mouth. It takes someone who remembers life *before* MTV and understands what a fucking massive revolution it was when that premiered.
So TC and I went and got some sushi. muther-fuckin' yummy, it was.
As a teen-ager in Houston, I lived down the street from Frank Beard, the drummer for ZZ Top. He had a big exotic bird that escaped one day and took up residence on the golf course for a while. ... Fuck, ZZ Top could JAM.
Van Halen: Jump. Are you kidding me? David Lee Roth still hasn't stopped preening, has he? I vote for him as the next spokesman for Viagra: "I get up, and nothing gets me down!"
But, then, I wanted to be the dummer in Yes -- "Owner of a Lonely Heart" just ROCKED. But what the fuck was up with that snake in the car seat. Creaped me out the, creaps me out now. ... Don't deceive your free will at all!
I saw recently saw a t-shirt online that I *really* wanted to buy, but I'm concerned about just how pink the pink is or whether the red is really my color. In any case, it says: WWJJD? What Would Joan Jett Do?" That is such a good question right about now.
I think *I* will try going to bed. As if I can sleep with The English Beat's "Mirror in the Bathroom" running through my head. Perhaps I'll just drift gently into mental illness.
Someone call 911. I love The Talking Heads....
Friday, June 23, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Cellos, wine, beef & Catholics: It's what's for dinner
First, I'm worried that I'm tone deaf. Last week, my cello instructor removed the tape on my fingerboard that indicated the sweet spots to hit the right notes. I was having some nice playing there for a while, but ever since she took off that tape, I have sounded like the hounds of hell.
I'm sliding my fingers all up and down the fingerboard, and I just can't seem to find the notes. I don't know if that's because I'm moving my fingers too much or because my ear is just not sensitive enough to the notes to hit something in tune.
At this point, I would not blame the diners at the Thai place below me for complaining about my "musical" efforts.
Now, on to more interesting things:
So I've gotten some interesting feedback about one of my previous posts: "Grief, beef, wine and news that REALLY sucks." Some of these are posted on the blog; others came in e-mail. Thank you all for your comments, but I would like to clarify one or two points:
Regarding the wine: Believe me, there is not one ounce of guilt about how much wine I have and how much wine I consume. I was simply remarking that I have a LOT of it, and that *some* of it I don't necessarily want to drink. This is a matter of *quality,* not *quantity.*
I have imposed a two-drink minimum on all visitors, and thus far, I have managed to polish off a bottle and a half of rose that way. ... I am, as I write, finishing off some French white. I will never cease to collect and consume wine -- god willing and the creek don't rise, as we say in the South.
In fact, once upon a time, I dreamed (and, frankly, I still do) of a career as a sommalier. I love wine; it is a passion that has been percolating with me for many years, but I've never gotten serious about it. One of the reasons was that, with my smoking, I knew I couldn't quite get my nose up to snuff to actually discern the necessary scents. It has been several weeks since I smoked, however, and I notice that my sniffer -- which has been exceptionally sensitive in my non-smoking periods -- is coming back into form.
So maybe someday, I'll get around to learning how to tell wines apart with my eyes closed -- and my mouth dry. We shall see. But, just to clarify, I have NO GUILT about wine. It is a staple in my diet. It shall stay so.
I do have some feelings of guilt, however, about the beef consumption. I'm going to have to get over that, obviously, because I've been feeling lately such strong cravings for bloody red meat that, if penniless, I would probably whore myself out to get some.
But I do hear what you all are saying about getting it from good sources. There is NO QUESTION about that. ... One of the things that prompted me to give up beef many, many years ago (aside from watching a friend's aunt die of Mad Cow disease) was the drive past Harris Ranch down there on I-5 between L.A. & S.F. I call that place "Cowschwitz," even though that's probably really insensitive to the what happened in the Nazi concentration camps. (The way I see it, however, the Nazis were treating the Jews, Catholics and my gay breathern no better than cattle, so there is some parallel between seeing all those thousands of cows awaiting slaughter and the genocide carried out in Europe.)
But I digress.
I get my beef from a good source. I hope there are no funky prions waiting to turn my brain into mush, but if there are, I'm quite certain it came from the brain tacos I used to eat down in SoCal and *not* from the high-quality, free-range, no-antibiotic, grain-fed beef I'm eating for $13 a pound.
And, now, on the matter of guilt in general.
Ctrl-freak asked if I was a Catholic. He said my "guilt is so familiar." Man, you *do* know your Catholics. You need to turn yourself into a witching rod and flush out all the current, wayward and former Catholics around you and start a support group for Survivors of Catholic Guilt.
I am not a Catholic any longer. I'm an atheist and have been for a LONG time. But the guilty attitude that was culturally engrained in me as the descendant of generations of Catholics (with a lot of priests and nuns in the family, mind you), as well as eight years of nun-infested Catholic school in my formative years has left me utterly scarred.
As a gay boy, C-F, I think you probably know the doubly damnable business of even conceptualizing of any sexuality whatsoever, much less queer sexuality. Getting the Catholic church off my back was Step One in a long road to living freely and openly as a lesbian.
The funny thing is: The gobbledy-gook of Christianity never really took hold with me. I *never* believed all the silly stories about God, Mary and Jesus. It always seemed ... ludicrous. I had no problem declaring I didn't believe in god and whatnot.
However, I was nevertheless really spooked by the concept that all my dead relatives could see everything I was doing -- and that they would be compelled to pray and pray and pray and pray for me to compensate for each "sin" I committed. I was raised to believe in ghosts (and to some degree, I still do), so it made sense to me that dead people could see me doing ... EVERYTHING.
For years, when having sex or masturbating or eating cake or littering, I was not so concerned about god's wrath as I was the thought that my dead uncle Jean, a priest, might be watching me and consequently wasting a whole bunch of his time in eternity (as if he had anything better to do!) praying for me so that I would not be in purgatory for too long.
Purgatory was some kind of weird thing to me. Like an eternal waiting room from which only a certain number of prayers could release you. I knew that, according to the Catholic church, I was sinning right and left: Everything from talking in church to picking my nose to fighting with my sister was a sin of one form or another. I was really into the venial stuff, right? But then, with sex, I moved into the motal sin category, and that was really problematic.
This was mainly because I thought it would require soooo many goddamned paryers to get me out of purgatory that all my dead relatives -- this is who my grandmother told me I needed to rely upon to do all the work -- would be praying and praying and praying and praying and praying to get me cleared of all this stuff. I felt REALLY BAD about that. Because, like, that's demanding someone's time.
And I knew that those dead relatives -- such as my dad's mom -- who might do some of the most ardent work WEREN'T EVEN CATHOLIC. So that presented its own set of problems. Because, I guess, they weren't going to be doing the work necessary, on accounts they didn't share those beliefs.
That apparently didn't stop them from watching me from beyond the grave, however. Especially when having sex.
Jesus. Is that the most fucked up thing ever, C-F? In my book, it's ridiculously, absurdly, Catholically FUCKED UP.
Suffice it to say, I don't have these issues now. I no longer think about my dead relatives watching me have sex. And if they *are* watching, I no longer feel concerned about it. If they feel the need to pray excessively upon seeing me engaging in oral sex with a woman, that's *their* problem. I figure: Well, what's a little praying when you've got eternity. To my dead relatives, I would say: If you get tired of that shit, try reincarnation. Or go hook up with Timothy Leary and Jerry Garcia and find something a little more *interesting* to do with your Dead Time, alright?
But that Catholic guilt? It remains. It is as much a part of me as my bones or my eyelashes. How very strange. How very permanent. It's like white on rice. You just can't get that shit off of you.
So nice of you, however, to notice.
I'm sliding my fingers all up and down the fingerboard, and I just can't seem to find the notes. I don't know if that's because I'm moving my fingers too much or because my ear is just not sensitive enough to the notes to hit something in tune.
At this point, I would not blame the diners at the Thai place below me for complaining about my "musical" efforts.
Now, on to more interesting things:
So I've gotten some interesting feedback about one of my previous posts: "Grief, beef, wine and news that REALLY sucks." Some of these are posted on the blog; others came in e-mail. Thank you all for your comments, but I would like to clarify one or two points:
Regarding the wine: Believe me, there is not one ounce of guilt about how much wine I have and how much wine I consume. I was simply remarking that I have a LOT of it, and that *some* of it I don't necessarily want to drink. This is a matter of *quality,* not *quantity.*
I have imposed a two-drink minimum on all visitors, and thus far, I have managed to polish off a bottle and a half of rose that way. ... I am, as I write, finishing off some French white. I will never cease to collect and consume wine -- god willing and the creek don't rise, as we say in the South.
In fact, once upon a time, I dreamed (and, frankly, I still do) of a career as a sommalier. I love wine; it is a passion that has been percolating with me for many years, but I've never gotten serious about it. One of the reasons was that, with my smoking, I knew I couldn't quite get my nose up to snuff to actually discern the necessary scents. It has been several weeks since I smoked, however, and I notice that my sniffer -- which has been exceptionally sensitive in my non-smoking periods -- is coming back into form.
So maybe someday, I'll get around to learning how to tell wines apart with my eyes closed -- and my mouth dry. We shall see. But, just to clarify, I have NO GUILT about wine. It is a staple in my diet. It shall stay so.
I do have some feelings of guilt, however, about the beef consumption. I'm going to have to get over that, obviously, because I've been feeling lately such strong cravings for bloody red meat that, if penniless, I would probably whore myself out to get some.
But I do hear what you all are saying about getting it from good sources. There is NO QUESTION about that. ... One of the things that prompted me to give up beef many, many years ago (aside from watching a friend's aunt die of Mad Cow disease) was the drive past Harris Ranch down there on I-5 between L.A. & S.F. I call that place "Cowschwitz," even though that's probably really insensitive to the what happened in the Nazi concentration camps. (The way I see it, however, the Nazis were treating the Jews, Catholics and my gay breathern no better than cattle, so there is some parallel between seeing all those thousands of cows awaiting slaughter and the genocide carried out in Europe.)
But I digress.
I get my beef from a good source. I hope there are no funky prions waiting to turn my brain into mush, but if there are, I'm quite certain it came from the brain tacos I used to eat down in SoCal and *not* from the high-quality, free-range, no-antibiotic, grain-fed beef I'm eating for $13 a pound.
And, now, on the matter of guilt in general.
Ctrl-freak asked if I was a Catholic. He said my "guilt is so familiar." Man, you *do* know your Catholics. You need to turn yourself into a witching rod and flush out all the current, wayward and former Catholics around you and start a support group for Survivors of Catholic Guilt.
I am not a Catholic any longer. I'm an atheist and have been for a LONG time. But the guilty attitude that was culturally engrained in me as the descendant of generations of Catholics (with a lot of priests and nuns in the family, mind you), as well as eight years of nun-infested Catholic school in my formative years has left me utterly scarred.
As a gay boy, C-F, I think you probably know the doubly damnable business of even conceptualizing of any sexuality whatsoever, much less queer sexuality. Getting the Catholic church off my back was Step One in a long road to living freely and openly as a lesbian.
The funny thing is: The gobbledy-gook of Christianity never really took hold with me. I *never* believed all the silly stories about God, Mary and Jesus. It always seemed ... ludicrous. I had no problem declaring I didn't believe in god and whatnot.
However, I was nevertheless really spooked by the concept that all my dead relatives could see everything I was doing -- and that they would be compelled to pray and pray and pray and pray for me to compensate for each "sin" I committed. I was raised to believe in ghosts (and to some degree, I still do), so it made sense to me that dead people could see me doing ... EVERYTHING.
For years, when having sex or masturbating or eating cake or littering, I was not so concerned about god's wrath as I was the thought that my dead uncle Jean, a priest, might be watching me and consequently wasting a whole bunch of his time in eternity (as if he had anything better to do!) praying for me so that I would not be in purgatory for too long.
Purgatory was some kind of weird thing to me. Like an eternal waiting room from which only a certain number of prayers could release you. I knew that, according to the Catholic church, I was sinning right and left: Everything from talking in church to picking my nose to fighting with my sister was a sin of one form or another. I was really into the venial stuff, right? But then, with sex, I moved into the motal sin category, and that was really problematic.
This was mainly because I thought it would require soooo many goddamned paryers to get me out of purgatory that all my dead relatives -- this is who my grandmother told me I needed to rely upon to do all the work -- would be praying and praying and praying and praying and praying to get me cleared of all this stuff. I felt REALLY BAD about that. Because, like, that's demanding someone's time.
And I knew that those dead relatives -- such as my dad's mom -- who might do some of the most ardent work WEREN'T EVEN CATHOLIC. So that presented its own set of problems. Because, I guess, they weren't going to be doing the work necessary, on accounts they didn't share those beliefs.
That apparently didn't stop them from watching me from beyond the grave, however. Especially when having sex.
Jesus. Is that the most fucked up thing ever, C-F? In my book, it's ridiculously, absurdly, Catholically FUCKED UP.
Suffice it to say, I don't have these issues now. I no longer think about my dead relatives watching me have sex. And if they *are* watching, I no longer feel concerned about it. If they feel the need to pray excessively upon seeing me engaging in oral sex with a woman, that's *their* problem. I figure: Well, what's a little praying when you've got eternity. To my dead relatives, I would say: If you get tired of that shit, try reincarnation. Or go hook up with Timothy Leary and Jerry Garcia and find something a little more *interesting* to do with your Dead Time, alright?
But that Catholic guilt? It remains. It is as much a part of me as my bones or my eyelashes. How very strange. How very permanent. It's like white on rice. You just can't get that shit off of you.
So nice of you, however, to notice.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Jen, save yourself. Look elsewhere.
I know I'm not supposed to be reading it -- cause it only makes me depressed and all, about the lesbionic options out there in the world -- but I was looking at craigslist anyway. And *this* was posted on the WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN page, thus making it the worst ad ever:
looking for my soulmate.. christian guy. - 26
Hello, I am Jen.
nice to meet you (: I am looking for my soul mate. You first off gotta like kids, cause I am a single mom, and my son is 3 yrs old. I am looking for a sweet christian guy, btwn age 26-34
Someone who is also looking for their soulmate too... I am a fun girl, love the outdoors, love the ocean, boating, cuddleing by the fire why watching a movie, hiking, water skiing, the beach, ect... I am funny, confident, with a good head on my shoulders (: I also love sports.. I look foward to hearing from you, (: plus im a big romantic at heart.. looking for a romantic guy as well... THANKS...
*sigh*
Jen, dear, you are SO not going to find what you're looking for here. Even if you had better grammar and and knew how to use emoticons properly, you would still be hard pressed to find good "Christian guy" on a LESBIAN billboard. All you're gonna find here, honey, is a bunch of bi-curious housewives who want "someone to be tender" with them in their first experience with a woman.
And let me tell you, I know of what I speak. As a lesbian who has been reading these ads for a couple months, I have seen the future, and it is not all that amusing.
In fact, Jen, one of my friends has suggested I start ringing up all those bi-curious women (as well as those looking for romantic, christian guys -- and, lady, what the fuck do you want a christian for anyway?) and that I start giving them a taste of girl action. Depending on how many I can convert from bi-curious to big-time-bi or even lesbionic, I might qualify for that toaster I've been coveting ever since Gus Van Sant and I had dinner a while back and BRO gave *him* an engraved, queer toaster.
But I digress.
Said friend suggests that, rather than being concerned about the toaster, I should simply assemble myself a posse. A posse of all the women I've converted from bi-curious to ... well, fans of posse. If you know what I mean. Say it aloud, Jen, if you can't figure it out.
So I'm not a romantic christian guy, but I am woman with a powerful tongue, very soft fingers and a libido that's a bit out of control these days. I'm experiencing some kind of weird second adolescence, but this time around, I know how to make a woman orgasm. And orgasm in a way that makes her feel like her mind and body are coming apart and being put back together in the most exquisite way possible. Which is more than I can say for christian guys, Jen. (And, OK, yeah, I'm totally full of myself....)
But I'm thinking that's a good bit more than you wanted to know, Jen. And probably a good bit more than you wanted, just in general. If that is, indeed, the case, then perhaps you should pay a little closer attention to where you post your personal ads, baby. WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN is not the place to find a romantic christian guy.
But then, considering how many romantic christian guys are reading the lesbian personals and getting their rocks off, maybe you've stumbled on to something. Maybe you've found the best marketing strategy ever.
But, also, maybe you've just found the likes of me.
looking for my soulmate.. christian guy. - 26
Hello, I am Jen.
nice to meet you (: I am looking for my soul mate. You first off gotta like kids, cause I am a single mom, and my son is 3 yrs old. I am looking for a sweet christian guy, btwn age 26-34
Someone who is also looking for their soulmate too... I am a fun girl, love the outdoors, love the ocean, boating, cuddleing by the fire why watching a movie, hiking, water skiing, the beach, ect... I am funny, confident, with a good head on my shoulders (: I also love sports.. I look foward to hearing from you, (: plus im a big romantic at heart.. looking for a romantic guy as well... THANKS...
*sigh*
Jen, dear, you are SO not going to find what you're looking for here. Even if you had better grammar and and knew how to use emoticons properly, you would still be hard pressed to find good "Christian guy" on a LESBIAN billboard. All you're gonna find here, honey, is a bunch of bi-curious housewives who want "someone to be tender" with them in their first experience with a woman.
And let me tell you, I know of what I speak. As a lesbian who has been reading these ads for a couple months, I have seen the future, and it is not all that amusing.
In fact, Jen, one of my friends has suggested I start ringing up all those bi-curious women (as well as those looking for romantic, christian guys -- and, lady, what the fuck do you want a christian for anyway?) and that I start giving them a taste of girl action. Depending on how many I can convert from bi-curious to big-time-bi or even lesbionic, I might qualify for that toaster I've been coveting ever since Gus Van Sant and I had dinner a while back and BRO gave *him* an engraved, queer toaster.
But I digress.
Said friend suggests that, rather than being concerned about the toaster, I should simply assemble myself a posse. A posse of all the women I've converted from bi-curious to ... well, fans of posse. If you know what I mean. Say it aloud, Jen, if you can't figure it out.
So I'm not a romantic christian guy, but I am woman with a powerful tongue, very soft fingers and a libido that's a bit out of control these days. I'm experiencing some kind of weird second adolescence, but this time around, I know how to make a woman orgasm. And orgasm in a way that makes her feel like her mind and body are coming apart and being put back together in the most exquisite way possible. Which is more than I can say for christian guys, Jen. (And, OK, yeah, I'm totally full of myself....)
But I'm thinking that's a good bit more than you wanted to know, Jen. And probably a good bit more than you wanted, just in general. If that is, indeed, the case, then perhaps you should pay a little closer attention to where you post your personal ads, baby. WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN is not the place to find a romantic christian guy.
But then, considering how many romantic christian guys are reading the lesbian personals and getting their rocks off, maybe you've stumbled on to something. Maybe you've found the best marketing strategy ever.
But, also, maybe you've just found the likes of me.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Grief, beef, wine and news that REALLY sucks
First, the grief. I have the biggest meglo-ball of grief sitting on me right now. It's a combination of the approaching five-year anniversary of my little brother's death (the realization of which kinda snuck up on me the other night) and just the malingering malaise left in the wake of my decision to end the gig with XGF. (Even though I needed to do it, that doesn't make it easier to deal with the absence of ... just about everything from someone to share meals with to lackluster sex.)
I'm sure this partly explains the unrefined, unedited venting about my lesbian sistahs in the preceeding blog entries. (But, still, I mean that shit. Just normally I keep it to myself.) Going to that Pride event yesterday and seeing hundreds of carbon copies of that *hideous* blind date I had a few weeks ago was more than my aching heart can take.
I'm very good in a relationship (until I check out), and I can stomach being single pretty well, but when I think of *dating,* I get turned inside out. I'm much more shy in this arena than it might appear. But whatever. I'm not going to do that for a while, so I'll deal with it later.
Second, the beef. I need to fess up to something Dr. M has called a "blinder behavior." This is something you do that you claim not to do and don't want to admit to others *or* to yourself that you do. Something to which you steadfastly maintain the blinders. After a while of living with such a behavior -- and not being all that great at hiding things from myself -- I've just got to come out and say it:
I'm eating beef. In fact, I just went to the store and bought a nice fat boneless ribeye, and I'm gonna cook it all good and juicy rare and eat that sucker for dinner tonight. I have also been eating ground beef, which is a hideous thing, given my experience watching someone die from that Mad Cow disease. I should know better; I shouldn't be eating that shit. But I am. I'm no stranger to a pepper bacon Tillamook cheeseburger. ... And here's the other thing: If I thought for a moment that it was safe, I'd eat the ground beef totally raw. I have a taste for really bloody meat.
This is a blinder behavior because I stopped eating beef more than 10 years ago, for all sorts of moral, ethical and health reasons. The consumption of it today remains at odds with those reasons, which are still quite important to me. But I just find I've been craving the stuff. And I've been eating it on the sly, when no one is looking.
Third, the wine. I have an absurd amount of wine in my home. Never fear, it'll get consumed. But it might take a while because I don't actually want to drink some of it. (Sadly, Dr. M, someone served you a glass of really cheap cooking wine at my party -- it wasn't me -- when there was better stuff you could've been drinking. Apparently not the rose, though.) Perhaps I should just have a come-drink-my-alcohol event. Or simply impose a two-drink minimum on *all* visitors. Even recovering alcoholics.
Even with all this wine, however, I went off and bought *another* bottle of it. I am clearly a sucker for marketing strategies. I was in the line at the grocery, waiting patiently to buy my big fat ribeye, when I saw this white wine from Umbria there on the end-cap. The little note said, "If you like unusual, unoaky whites, you've got to try this one." ... Well, OK then. So I bought it. It will now join the fray in my fridge.
Lastly, and this *really* sucks: I got *declined* for health insurance coverage today. Turns out my blood pressure -- for the love of god, it's not THAT high -- and my weight aren't good enough for the cherry-pickers. I'm not sure, but I think this is like being declined for a credit card: Once it starts happening to you, you're FUCKED.
Now, I have to wait until school starts in September to get on the group plan through the college, assuming there are no criteria requiring me to be ... healthy.
Right now, I feel like drinking, smoking and eating too much. Thank heavens there's a ribeye on the stove and an already-opened bottle of zinfandel that someone brought to the party. Now, all I need is a cig and a cupcake.
I'm sure this partly explains the unrefined, unedited venting about my lesbian sistahs in the preceeding blog entries. (But, still, I mean that shit. Just normally I keep it to myself.) Going to that Pride event yesterday and seeing hundreds of carbon copies of that *hideous* blind date I had a few weeks ago was more than my aching heart can take.
I'm very good in a relationship (until I check out), and I can stomach being single pretty well, but when I think of *dating,* I get turned inside out. I'm much more shy in this arena than it might appear. But whatever. I'm not going to do that for a while, so I'll deal with it later.
Second, the beef. I need to fess up to something Dr. M has called a "blinder behavior." This is something you do that you claim not to do and don't want to admit to others *or* to yourself that you do. Something to which you steadfastly maintain the blinders. After a while of living with such a behavior -- and not being all that great at hiding things from myself -- I've just got to come out and say it:
I'm eating beef. In fact, I just went to the store and bought a nice fat boneless ribeye, and I'm gonna cook it all good and juicy rare and eat that sucker for dinner tonight. I have also been eating ground beef, which is a hideous thing, given my experience watching someone die from that Mad Cow disease. I should know better; I shouldn't be eating that shit. But I am. I'm no stranger to a pepper bacon Tillamook cheeseburger. ... And here's the other thing: If I thought for a moment that it was safe, I'd eat the ground beef totally raw. I have a taste for really bloody meat.
This is a blinder behavior because I stopped eating beef more than 10 years ago, for all sorts of moral, ethical and health reasons. The consumption of it today remains at odds with those reasons, which are still quite important to me. But I just find I've been craving the stuff. And I've been eating it on the sly, when no one is looking.
Third, the wine. I have an absurd amount of wine in my home. Never fear, it'll get consumed. But it might take a while because I don't actually want to drink some of it. (Sadly, Dr. M, someone served you a glass of really cheap cooking wine at my party -- it wasn't me -- when there was better stuff you could've been drinking. Apparently not the rose, though.) Perhaps I should just have a come-drink-my-alcohol event. Or simply impose a two-drink minimum on *all* visitors. Even recovering alcoholics.
Even with all this wine, however, I went off and bought *another* bottle of it. I am clearly a sucker for marketing strategies. I was in the line at the grocery, waiting patiently to buy my big fat ribeye, when I saw this white wine from Umbria there on the end-cap. The little note said, "If you like unusual, unoaky whites, you've got to try this one." ... Well, OK then. So I bought it. It will now join the fray in my fridge.
Lastly, and this *really* sucks: I got *declined* for health insurance coverage today. Turns out my blood pressure -- for the love of god, it's not THAT high -- and my weight aren't good enough for the cherry-pickers. I'm not sure, but I think this is like being declined for a credit card: Once it starts happening to you, you're FUCKED.
Now, I have to wait until school starts in September to get on the group plan through the college, assuming there are no criteria requiring me to be ... healthy.
Right now, I feel like drinking, smoking and eating too much. Thank heavens there's a ribeye on the stove and an already-opened bottle of zinfandel that someone brought to the party. Now, all I need is a cig and a cupcake.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
The Lesbian Reformation
S2's husband says that men know they've done a good job dressing themselves if they show up somewhere and look *just like* all the other men. For your average woman, this would be traumatizing. It's wearing the same dress to the prom as your most feared or hated rival.
But, as I complained about in my previous post, this doesn't seem to be the case with lesbians out here in the Pacific Northwest. S2 suggests that lesbians, perhaps, have "evolved" into men, in the sense that they seem to have uniforms.
Some call this fair city of Portland a "Lesbian Mecca." And, truth be told, it is very much that. If what you're looking for is a good old-fashioned dyke (you know, the kind that sets off *everyone's* gaydar: see previous post for more details) or what Bubba calls a "blunt-haired hipster lesbian' (aka, 26 or younger, all with the aformentioned blunt hair style, trying to be androgynous and edgy all at once in a funky wardrobe assembled at Value Village, smoking cigs out in front of the coffee houses and listening to bands with names like "Split Wet Beaver in the Ice House." Apologies to Ani DiFranco...).
So there are these two uniforms. And there's that gender-bending "boi" business, in which one dresses in men's clothing, slicks back her hair and generally looks like a pubescent teen-age boy.
None of this is working for me. And I was *bitching* about that when S2 called me this evening. I mean, just BITCHING. (The previous blaaahg entry apparently didn't get it out of my system.)
S2 commented: "I've never understood the whole bit where a lesbian wants a woman who looks like a man. I hadn't given it much thought until you started talking about it a while back, but it does seem sensible that a lesbian would want to be with women who actually look like women. You make sense to me. You're a women who *loves women.*"
Hello!
So I said as how I was feeling like getting a bullhorn in the middle of the Pride festival and going off about how it's not a crime to look like a woman. (Again, see previous entry.) And how I feel like I'm not being true to my feminist beliefs that, among other things, women shouldn't *have* to look like anything particular. But at the same time, I've been culturally conditioned to shave my legs and pits, and whenever I get an eyeful of super-hairy chick pit, it kills any sexual energy I might have been developing there. (Like, I'm soooooo shallow! The feminist in me hates this.)
S2 says (cause she likes to imagine ants moving mountains), "Well, you could start a movement. You could try to bring lesbians and feminists toward embracing the feminine." (If nothing else, point out that the embrace of the masculine is hardly feminist in and of itself.)
There have been other reformation movements. Why not for my queer sisters? The Lesbian Reformation.... I'm just not sure what it would look like, because pantyhose and make up are out of the question. But here's what I might go tack up on the door at the E-Room and any other lesbian cathedral in town:
Let's start with more attractive sandals. Birks are so utilitarian. Keene makes some styles that are considerably cuter than what's adorning many feet these days. But no one is stopping you from buying some of the styling, comfy straight-girl sandals for sale at REI. (Even though I can't wear them myself on accounts of an orthopedic insert.)
Let's all ditch the fucking cargo shorts and wear something cute. (That would necessitate clothing designers making cute things in larger sizes while all of us got around to taking care of our bodies, losing weight and generally giving a shit about our appearance. To, as Dr. M might note, the cargo shorts wouldn't be necessary if we'd carry *purses* -- it's a novel idea, ladies!)
On the topic of purses, just say no to fanny packs. That shit ain't right. Save it for the hiking trail or nowhere at all.
And how about getting rid of those fucking mullets, ladies? Cut it short and cute or let it grow out on the top and the sides. There's no excuse for mullets. Not even that you don't want your hair to get stuck in the radiator when you've got your head jammed down in an engine block. Just wear a bandana to keep it out of the way while you do your dirty work, huh?
Get a stylist. As Bubba notes, there are a lot of beautiful faces obscured by really bad hair. It's OK to be pretty, ladies.
... Well, it's a beginning. Unfortunately, it's an uphill battle. And I sound like an anti-feminist, homophobic bitch. I want every woman to be considered beautiful for who she is, not for what she looks like.
But my motives here are simple and pure: I just want to increase the pool of women I'd feel inclined to fuck. That's not a crime, is it?
But, as I complained about in my previous post, this doesn't seem to be the case with lesbians out here in the Pacific Northwest. S2 suggests that lesbians, perhaps, have "evolved" into men, in the sense that they seem to have uniforms.
Some call this fair city of Portland a "Lesbian Mecca." And, truth be told, it is very much that. If what you're looking for is a good old-fashioned dyke (you know, the kind that sets off *everyone's* gaydar: see previous post for more details) or what Bubba calls a "blunt-haired hipster lesbian' (aka, 26 or younger, all with the aformentioned blunt hair style, trying to be androgynous and edgy all at once in a funky wardrobe assembled at Value Village, smoking cigs out in front of the coffee houses and listening to bands with names like "Split Wet Beaver in the Ice House." Apologies to Ani DiFranco...).
So there are these two uniforms. And there's that gender-bending "boi" business, in which one dresses in men's clothing, slicks back her hair and generally looks like a pubescent teen-age boy.
None of this is working for me. And I was *bitching* about that when S2 called me this evening. I mean, just BITCHING. (The previous blaaahg entry apparently didn't get it out of my system.)
S2 commented: "I've never understood the whole bit where a lesbian wants a woman who looks like a man. I hadn't given it much thought until you started talking about it a while back, but it does seem sensible that a lesbian would want to be with women who actually look like women. You make sense to me. You're a women who *loves women.*"
Hello!
So I said as how I was feeling like getting a bullhorn in the middle of the Pride festival and going off about how it's not a crime to look like a woman. (Again, see previous entry.) And how I feel like I'm not being true to my feminist beliefs that, among other things, women shouldn't *have* to look like anything particular. But at the same time, I've been culturally conditioned to shave my legs and pits, and whenever I get an eyeful of super-hairy chick pit, it kills any sexual energy I might have been developing there. (Like, I'm soooooo shallow! The feminist in me hates this.)
S2 says (cause she likes to imagine ants moving mountains), "Well, you could start a movement. You could try to bring lesbians and feminists toward embracing the feminine." (If nothing else, point out that the embrace of the masculine is hardly feminist in and of itself.)
There have been other reformation movements. Why not for my queer sisters? The Lesbian Reformation.... I'm just not sure what it would look like, because pantyhose and make up are out of the question. But here's what I might go tack up on the door at the E-Room and any other lesbian cathedral in town:
Let's start with more attractive sandals. Birks are so utilitarian. Keene makes some styles that are considerably cuter than what's adorning many feet these days. But no one is stopping you from buying some of the styling, comfy straight-girl sandals for sale at REI. (Even though I can't wear them myself on accounts of an orthopedic insert.)
Let's all ditch the fucking cargo shorts and wear something cute. (That would necessitate clothing designers making cute things in larger sizes while all of us got around to taking care of our bodies, losing weight and generally giving a shit about our appearance. To, as Dr. M might note, the cargo shorts wouldn't be necessary if we'd carry *purses* -- it's a novel idea, ladies!)
On the topic of purses, just say no to fanny packs. That shit ain't right. Save it for the hiking trail or nowhere at all.
And how about getting rid of those fucking mullets, ladies? Cut it short and cute or let it grow out on the top and the sides. There's no excuse for mullets. Not even that you don't want your hair to get stuck in the radiator when you've got your head jammed down in an engine block. Just wear a bandana to keep it out of the way while you do your dirty work, huh?
Get a stylist. As Bubba notes, there are a lot of beautiful faces obscured by really bad hair. It's OK to be pretty, ladies.
... Well, it's a beginning. Unfortunately, it's an uphill battle. And I sound like an anti-feminist, homophobic bitch. I want every woman to be considered beautiful for who she is, not for what she looks like.
But my motives here are simple and pure: I just want to increase the pool of women I'd feel inclined to fuck. That's not a crime, is it?
Of Pride and Prejudice
I am such a fucking stuck up, snobby, butch-loathing lesbian.
Unfortunately, I think all this says about me is that I hate ... myself.
Bubba and I are down on the waterfront at Portland's queer Pride festival this afternoon, and both of us are a bit dismayed with the women.
Walking around, we bump into a male classmate we are surprised to see at the festival. We had no clue he was family. (And, yes, we know that mere attendance at such events is not an indicator of being queer. But knowing our shared secret language is.) I text-message Dr. M to tell her who I spotted. She rings back immediately with an, "Are you serious?"
There is a brief discussion before she asks a devastating question. "Are there any attractive women there?"
What do you think? I respond, humorlessly.
All around me is a sea of overweight butch lesbians in Birkenstocks, cargo shorts and t-shirts reading things like, "Lesbos: A man's fantasy island." There are mullets EVERYWHERE. Periodically, a "boi" will pop up in the crowd, getting Bubba's attention. But those good old femmes? In the literally THOUSANDS of people packing the festival grounds, there are but a tiny handful. None of them look available.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? Because I'm not on the prowl, I'm on the lam. I'm RUNNING from the stereotype as fast as I can, right? Not fast enough, though, because there I am in the middle of this: an overweight lesbian in cargo shorts. I don't think I'm especially "butch," but the truth is that if they weren't giving me blisters, I'd have been wearing my Keene's, cousins of the Birkenstock.
I don't have a mullet -- thank the heavens -- but if I ever accidentally grow one, I expect one of my friends to kill me and use the "Death with Dignity" act as a justification. I can't even begin to express how much I *hate* mullets. Especially on women.
Actually, what I hate is that there is such a stereotypical look in the lesbian community. And I hate that I somehow manage to share it. There's so little DIVERSITY. Every once in a while, to Bubba's great relief, there is a black woman. She found an especially pretty one in the crowd today. It was an, "Oh look! There's one..." moment.
Otherwise, I find myself wondering, What the fuck is it with this scene? Why are the men typically so beautiful and the women generally such ... I hate to say it, but ... such dogs?
Now mind you, I've got no evidence of my special-ness, no empirical validation that I'm even "cute" -- so who the fuck am I, right? -- but I am *not* a butched-out, mullet-sporting dog. Like many other people, I'd like to have a mate who's actually better looking than me.
I'm thinking this is where Dr. M cuts in with her typical advice: Lower your standards. (She also recently told me that if my shorts were too loose, I should "Stop hiking so much and eat more." So let's just say her advice is suspect.)
See, the thing is: I can't lower my standards. I happen to like what I like and want what I want. As with pornography, I can't define it very well, but I know it when I see it.
And, as your not-so-humble, uber-snotty, anti-mullet, find-the-butch-blase lesbian, I saw nothing even remotely pornographic. Just a bunch of boring old dykes in bad clothes and comfortable shoes.
I felt like getting a bullhorn and shouting, Would it *kill us* to get a little style, ladies? Would it be *such a fucking crime* to look like women? And why do I have to hate myself -- to seem to be denying my very proud inner feminist -- for wanting that? That and some shaved legs, some shaved pits, some attractive hair. (And I'll make myself laugh (ruefully) here by adding that some sexy little sling-backs would be a nice alternative to the old Birks.)
And then there's the part where I want the woman to be intelligent and witty, too.
Anyone got a cyanide pill or two? I mean ... really.
Unfortunately, I think all this says about me is that I hate ... myself.
Bubba and I are down on the waterfront at Portland's queer Pride festival this afternoon, and both of us are a bit dismayed with the women.
Walking around, we bump into a male classmate we are surprised to see at the festival. We had no clue he was family. (And, yes, we know that mere attendance at such events is not an indicator of being queer. But knowing our shared secret language is.) I text-message Dr. M to tell her who I spotted. She rings back immediately with an, "Are you serious?"
There is a brief discussion before she asks a devastating question. "Are there any attractive women there?"
What do you think? I respond, humorlessly.
All around me is a sea of overweight butch lesbians in Birkenstocks, cargo shorts and t-shirts reading things like, "Lesbos: A man's fantasy island." There are mullets EVERYWHERE. Periodically, a "boi" will pop up in the crowd, getting Bubba's attention. But those good old femmes? In the literally THOUSANDS of people packing the festival grounds, there are but a tiny handful. None of them look available.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? Because I'm not on the prowl, I'm on the lam. I'm RUNNING from the stereotype as fast as I can, right? Not fast enough, though, because there I am in the middle of this: an overweight lesbian in cargo shorts. I don't think I'm especially "butch," but the truth is that if they weren't giving me blisters, I'd have been wearing my Keene's, cousins of the Birkenstock.
I don't have a mullet -- thank the heavens -- but if I ever accidentally grow one, I expect one of my friends to kill me and use the "Death with Dignity" act as a justification. I can't even begin to express how much I *hate* mullets. Especially on women.
Actually, what I hate is that there is such a stereotypical look in the lesbian community. And I hate that I somehow manage to share it. There's so little DIVERSITY. Every once in a while, to Bubba's great relief, there is a black woman. She found an especially pretty one in the crowd today. It was an, "Oh look! There's one..." moment.
Otherwise, I find myself wondering, What the fuck is it with this scene? Why are the men typically so beautiful and the women generally such ... I hate to say it, but ... such dogs?
Now mind you, I've got no evidence of my special-ness, no empirical validation that I'm even "cute" -- so who the fuck am I, right? -- but I am *not* a butched-out, mullet-sporting dog. Like many other people, I'd like to have a mate who's actually better looking than me.
I'm thinking this is where Dr. M cuts in with her typical advice: Lower your standards. (She also recently told me that if my shorts were too loose, I should "Stop hiking so much and eat more." So let's just say her advice is suspect.)
See, the thing is: I can't lower my standards. I happen to like what I like and want what I want. As with pornography, I can't define it very well, but I know it when I see it.
And, as your not-so-humble, uber-snotty, anti-mullet, find-the-butch-blase lesbian, I saw nothing even remotely pornographic. Just a bunch of boring old dykes in bad clothes and comfortable shoes.
I felt like getting a bullhorn and shouting, Would it *kill us* to get a little style, ladies? Would it be *such a fucking crime* to look like women? And why do I have to hate myself -- to seem to be denying my very proud inner feminist -- for wanting that? That and some shaved legs, some shaved pits, some attractive hair. (And I'll make myself laugh (ruefully) here by adding that some sexy little sling-backs would be a nice alternative to the old Birks.)
And then there's the part where I want the woman to be intelligent and witty, too.
Anyone got a cyanide pill or two? I mean ... really.
A story about "premeditated love"
I was wearing a really interesting necklace at the loft party tonight. It's long and was mostly hidden by my shirt, but I was keenly aware of wearing it.
I have been given necklaces before. In fact, of the dozen I own, I've only bought two. All the others were gifts. From XGF. From my cousin. From The Redhead. Etc.
The one I wore on Saturday night was also a gift, but it is an extra-special one. I can look at the string of fresh-water pearls XGF brought me back from Hong Kong last year and think, How nice. XGF brought me back so much stuff from that trip, but these little pearls are the sweetest of all. When I wear the Nevada-shaped pendant my glass-artist cousin gave me last year, I get a lot of compliments. When people remark on some tortoise-shell beads, I say, I bought this at a street fair to replace the sentimental necklace I brought back from the Amazon but lost when it broke and fell of my neck.
But this necklace I was wearing on Saturday night? It is one of the most touching gifts I have ever received. After the party died down to just four of us, one friend asked about it. I explained its origin thusly:
Last week, S2 came over for a little socializing. While looking through a jewelry box for some old political buttons -- and rockstar memorabilia -- I stumbled upon three stones. I think they're amethysts.
My youngest brother, Jason, learned to tumble stones from my grandfather. When he was about 12 years old, he polished these three amethysts and gave them to me as a gift. I think the pendant was on a chain at one point, but the small rocks that might have otherwise been earings weren't attached to anything. They've been in my jewlery box for nearly 20 years.
I didn't remember they were in there, so when I pulled them out in the process of looking for something else, I was surprised. I showed them to S2, and I recall her saying, "You should wear these."
I told her, I don't know what I would do with them.
On Friday night, she came over to bring me some serving platters for the party. She asked whether I would like my housewarming gift then or on Saturday night, and I told her it didn't matter. "Well," she replied, "I'm in a bit of a spot because I think it *might* matter. I stole something from you, and I need to return it, and I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it."
You *stole* something from me? I asked. I was confused, a bit aghast and intrigued all at once.
She reached into her purse, pulled out a small box with a purple bow and slid it across the table to me. Her brows were knit with apprehension.
I opened the box and found myself staring at a necklace made of many different stones and glass beads. Immediately, the amethysts popped out at me. The pendant was the centerpiece, the earings set off to its side a few beads away.
I lost all my words and simply stared at it.
See, here's the thing. Jason died five years ago this month. I wish my heart was bigger than it is; I wish that I would've had a loving bond with someone else in my life where this wouldn't be the case, but the truth is *still* that there has never been anyone in my life I've loved more than my youngest brother. I was 7 years old when he was born, and the day he came home from the hospital, I pretty much decided he was mine.
It also turns out that my mother was utterly negligent. I think she was suffering from postpartum depression or something, because she did not always provide the care he needed, and that task was left to me and my sister, who is 14 months older than me. I learned at 7 to change his diapers, to feed him, to rock him to sleep. He had clubbed feet when he was born, requiring surgery and casts. I pushed him around in his stroller all the time and felt a deep pity for his casted feet.
Growing up in my family was a matter of learning how to fight -- physically, verbally and strategically. It was, in many respects, like pages out of "Lord of the Flies." My sister and I fought like wet cats in a sack. My oldest brother seemed hell-bent on getting me in as much trouble as he could manage to lie about, and I hated him for it.
But Jason: There was none of that with Jason. Perhaps it was his position as the baby of the family that gave him some kind of special status. Or it was the tremendous sense of responsbility my sister and I felt for him. But he never got involved in the madness. He learned "tuck, duck and cover" pretty early on and seemed to use that, and a bit of comical genius, to survive in our insane environment. (Nature via Nurture, indeed!)
Amidst all the insanity of my youth, Jason was the one ally upon whom I could rely. He and I were cut from the same stone, if you will. There has never been anyone else so much like me. In watching him die -- slowly, over four years, suffering from a Terri Schiavo-like brain injury -- I felt keenly my own mortality.
I was the only one of my siblings who could look him in the face as he withered up there in the nursing home. The only one in the family who knew the music he liked (The Eagles, The Grateful Dead, Pink Flloyd) and played it for him. The only one among us who was willing to whisper into his ear, It's OK to go. You don't need to stay here like this. As if he could understand....
He couldn't. He was a vegetable. The outrageous, highly intelligent comedian who personified for me joie de vivre spent the last years of his life in the most miserable of human existences.
There are a lot of complicating family factors to this situation. I can't even begin to get into them. But it boils down to this: I have perhaps five pictures of him, the oldest of which he's in sixth grade. I have videotape of him in the nursing home. I have the teddy bear I sent to him when he was in the ICU, before he suffered the brain injury. I have little more than a tablespoon of his ashes.
And I have four polished rocks.
S2 took three of them and strung them on a beautiful necklace of her own creation. This is what I saw in the box she gave me on Friday night.
When I finally regained my words, I said, This is weird. Then, growing a bit more articulate, I said, This is *really* weird.
S2 continued to look apprehensive. "I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds. I hope I haven't offended you. If you don't like what I've done, you don't have to wear it. I can take them off. I can make you a different necklace. Whatever you want."
Finally, I added, It's as if *three* people are brought together here. There's Jason. There's my grandfather, who was very important to me. And there's you, S2.
I guess that it's really FOUR people, because when I put on the necklace, I have all three of them with me.
I told an abbreviated form of this story (minus the family drama and the context) to the stragglers at my party, the three people who stuck around to drink a little more wine, have a shot of port and hear me play the cello. (S2 and her lovely hubby had taken off a while before to relieve the babysitter.) One of the women who heard this story clutched her hand to her chest and said, "You do know that woman *really* loves you, don't you? That decision to 'steal' the rocks was ... well, that was something in the moment, but it was also premeditated love. That is the purest form of love." (I dig foreigners. They are often so much more poetic with their English than the rest of us are.)
Bubba said, simply, "That is so touching, it makes me want to cry. And when I think of what a *crappy* day you were having yesterday, I can't imagine a better way for your evening to end. That is just so *perfect*."
Really.
S2, I still look at that necklace and find myself incapable of saying Thank you in any way that feels adequate. What can I say? It's beautiful. And the thought behind it is ... well, I'm speechless.
I have been given necklaces before. In fact, of the dozen I own, I've only bought two. All the others were gifts. From XGF. From my cousin. From The Redhead. Etc.
The one I wore on Saturday night was also a gift, but it is an extra-special one. I can look at the string of fresh-water pearls XGF brought me back from Hong Kong last year and think, How nice. XGF brought me back so much stuff from that trip, but these little pearls are the sweetest of all. When I wear the Nevada-shaped pendant my glass-artist cousin gave me last year, I get a lot of compliments. When people remark on some tortoise-shell beads, I say, I bought this at a street fair to replace the sentimental necklace I brought back from the Amazon but lost when it broke and fell of my neck.
But this necklace I was wearing on Saturday night? It is one of the most touching gifts I have ever received. After the party died down to just four of us, one friend asked about it. I explained its origin thusly:
Last week, S2 came over for a little socializing. While looking through a jewelry box for some old political buttons -- and rockstar memorabilia -- I stumbled upon three stones. I think they're amethysts.
My youngest brother, Jason, learned to tumble stones from my grandfather. When he was about 12 years old, he polished these three amethysts and gave them to me as a gift. I think the pendant was on a chain at one point, but the small rocks that might have otherwise been earings weren't attached to anything. They've been in my jewlery box for nearly 20 years.
I didn't remember they were in there, so when I pulled them out in the process of looking for something else, I was surprised. I showed them to S2, and I recall her saying, "You should wear these."
I told her, I don't know what I would do with them.
On Friday night, she came over to bring me some serving platters for the party. She asked whether I would like my housewarming gift then or on Saturday night, and I told her it didn't matter. "Well," she replied, "I'm in a bit of a spot because I think it *might* matter. I stole something from you, and I need to return it, and I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it."
You *stole* something from me? I asked. I was confused, a bit aghast and intrigued all at once.
She reached into her purse, pulled out a small box with a purple bow and slid it across the table to me. Her brows were knit with apprehension.
I opened the box and found myself staring at a necklace made of many different stones and glass beads. Immediately, the amethysts popped out at me. The pendant was the centerpiece, the earings set off to its side a few beads away.
I lost all my words and simply stared at it.
See, here's the thing. Jason died five years ago this month. I wish my heart was bigger than it is; I wish that I would've had a loving bond with someone else in my life where this wouldn't be the case, but the truth is *still* that there has never been anyone in my life I've loved more than my youngest brother. I was 7 years old when he was born, and the day he came home from the hospital, I pretty much decided he was mine.
It also turns out that my mother was utterly negligent. I think she was suffering from postpartum depression or something, because she did not always provide the care he needed, and that task was left to me and my sister, who is 14 months older than me. I learned at 7 to change his diapers, to feed him, to rock him to sleep. He had clubbed feet when he was born, requiring surgery and casts. I pushed him around in his stroller all the time and felt a deep pity for his casted feet.
Growing up in my family was a matter of learning how to fight -- physically, verbally and strategically. It was, in many respects, like pages out of "Lord of the Flies." My sister and I fought like wet cats in a sack. My oldest brother seemed hell-bent on getting me in as much trouble as he could manage to lie about, and I hated him for it.
But Jason: There was none of that with Jason. Perhaps it was his position as the baby of the family that gave him some kind of special status. Or it was the tremendous sense of responsbility my sister and I felt for him. But he never got involved in the madness. He learned "tuck, duck and cover" pretty early on and seemed to use that, and a bit of comical genius, to survive in our insane environment. (Nature via Nurture, indeed!)
Amidst all the insanity of my youth, Jason was the one ally upon whom I could rely. He and I were cut from the same stone, if you will. There has never been anyone else so much like me. In watching him die -- slowly, over four years, suffering from a Terri Schiavo-like brain injury -- I felt keenly my own mortality.
I was the only one of my siblings who could look him in the face as he withered up there in the nursing home. The only one in the family who knew the music he liked (The Eagles, The Grateful Dead, Pink Flloyd) and played it for him. The only one among us who was willing to whisper into his ear, It's OK to go. You don't need to stay here like this. As if he could understand....
He couldn't. He was a vegetable. The outrageous, highly intelligent comedian who personified for me joie de vivre spent the last years of his life in the most miserable of human existences.
There are a lot of complicating family factors to this situation. I can't even begin to get into them. But it boils down to this: I have perhaps five pictures of him, the oldest of which he's in sixth grade. I have videotape of him in the nursing home. I have the teddy bear I sent to him when he was in the ICU, before he suffered the brain injury. I have little more than a tablespoon of his ashes.
And I have four polished rocks.
S2 took three of them and strung them on a beautiful necklace of her own creation. This is what I saw in the box she gave me on Friday night.
When I finally regained my words, I said, This is weird. Then, growing a bit more articulate, I said, This is *really* weird.
S2 continued to look apprehensive. "I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds. I hope I haven't offended you. If you don't like what I've done, you don't have to wear it. I can take them off. I can make you a different necklace. Whatever you want."
Finally, I added, It's as if *three* people are brought together here. There's Jason. There's my grandfather, who was very important to me. And there's you, S2.
I guess that it's really FOUR people, because when I put on the necklace, I have all three of them with me.
I told an abbreviated form of this story (minus the family drama and the context) to the stragglers at my party, the three people who stuck around to drink a little more wine, have a shot of port and hear me play the cello. (S2 and her lovely hubby had taken off a while before to relieve the babysitter.) One of the women who heard this story clutched her hand to her chest and said, "You do know that woman *really* loves you, don't you? That decision to 'steal' the rocks was ... well, that was something in the moment, but it was also premeditated love. That is the purest form of love." (I dig foreigners. They are often so much more poetic with their English than the rest of us are.)
Bubba said, simply, "That is so touching, it makes me want to cry. And when I think of what a *crappy* day you were having yesterday, I can't imagine a better way for your evening to end. That is just so *perfect*."
Really.
S2, I still look at that necklace and find myself incapable of saying Thank you in any way that feels adequate. What can I say? It's beautiful. And the thought behind it is ... well, I'm speechless.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
A year of living fabulously
Friday marked my one-year anniversary of being unemployed, disenfranchised and a general ne'er-do-well. In other words, life is sweet.
Such milestones don't come around very often, so I'll take this chance to recap some of the highlights from the past year. To wit:
June 15, 2005: I had my last day of work, having been summarily rejected by Corporate America. They told me my department was being reorganized, and they did actually do that. But I like to think that the rejection was also personal. I simply did not fit in, and that was always abundantly clear. ... Several months after they let me go, they realized *someone* needed to be doing the stuff I was doing, and they hired a low-level writer to replace me.
June 16: I celebrate my first day of freedom by going up to Battleground Lake for a swim. The water is a little chilly, being too early in the summer. But I have this great moment where, walking down to the beach there, I see dozens of people basking in the sun, and I say to The Good Witch, There sure are a lot of people here in the middle of the week. She turns to me, smiles, waves her hand outward in introductio and says, "Welcome to the leisure class."
June and July: I spend the next six weeks having coffee out on the patio in the mornings, fiddling around with the landscaping, going to the lake, refinishing the outdoor furniture, going to the lake, shopping for furniture for the home office, walking the dogs a LOT and making arrangements for a trip to Peru.
August: XGF and I go to Peru for three weeks. My whole world view gets a serious re-orientation, as it does every time I travel. I believed the moment of my death was at hand at one point, which reinforces a precious notion of mine about living live as if it's an active verb. I catch and eat my own pirhana in the Amazon basin. I swim in the Amazon River itself, which is absolutely thrilling for all its mythic proportions. I decide to let my hair grow out.
September: I start graduate school in counseling psychology. It feel positively blissful to be back in school again. But I am also thrilled beyond belief to be meeting people who were just so NOT like the people I'd been dealing with in the corporate world. It speaks volumes, perhaps, that among the people I've met in school who I like the most, a few are corporate escapees like myself. S2 and I worked in the same field. Dr. M was doing something that sounds totally mismatched to her intellect and potential. Another woman I know is still in the biz (very similar to what S2 and I did), but she's got that attitude that, like mine was, is so disdainful of the incredibly fucked up ways people try to make their little corporate gerbil exercise wheels look more impressive than everyone else's gerbil wheels. She'll be getting out of it soon. But ... oh, I'm so glad not to be in the trenches.
October: I consider briefly whether it's possible for me to be in love with my Lifespan Development teacher. Considering he's a man and all, I decide: No, this is purely platonic admiration. But he *is* cute. I complain in a paper about the feedback I got in a sharing group, and said teacher writes in the margin, "Have you considered that you're just a better writer than everyone else?" This tickles me.
I get a new computer for my birthday. And, unexpectedly, Mahjong software.
November: S2 and I, forced to spend periodic Saturdays as a captive audience to a highly energetic, ADD-riddled psych professor, start to click with each other, and I think: This may be the beginning of something cool. At the same time, we also are forced to spend a periodic Saturday or two with a soft-spoken liberal do-gooder psych professor who bores the living shit out of us, especially with the annoying, pedantic purple book he assigns us to read. These are the kind of things that you bond over when you're, like, not in the Army.
On the homefront, sometime in November, I start wondering if XGf is having an online affair or something. She becomes withdrawn, closes herself up in the home office -- door shut -- for hours on end in the evenings after work. When I stick my head in to talk to her, she's be playing Mahjong, buying music online or ... something.
December: My final exam in Theory & Philosophy of Counseling takes me nearly two hours to complete. Granted, the first 20 minutes or so, I simply sat and *thought* about the questions. Then, I got to writing. By the end, my little Blue Book is trashed and my hand is cramping. I am the second-to-last person to finish, and I think, Uh-oh. In the end, it turns out I'm just more "thorough" than my classmates. So the professor notes, anyway. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or a nice way of calling me "excessive."
XGF's family Christmas party is at our house. Turns out to be the one day it snowed that month. Lots of people are delayed; they finally all arrive and the gift-opening commences in the most absurd fashion. I LOVE gifts -- giving and getting -- but these people give to each other in abundance and the unspoken rules are that even cousins must exchange gifts. As the snow started to accumulate outside, the anxiety level inside rose because no one wants to drive home in the snow. This family also likes to open *one gift at a time,* a process that normally takes a few hours. But they decide to rush it this year. Soon enough, everyone leaves in a huff and a flurry, and XGF and I are stuck with a gigantic ham.
At lunch on Christmas Eve, I see my mother for what has so far proven to be the last time. We are in a McMenamin's down in Oregon City. She looks at me with a sneer and says, not kindly, "What? Are you letting your hair grow out or something?" As a gift, she gives XGF and I two coffee mugs and a bowl "made of horsehair." Later, XGF will get to keep them -- along with every other Christmas gift but the ones she gave me.
January: New Year's Eve is spent at a Pink Martini concert, where XGF and I are some of the youngest in the audience. Of course, I don't look so old in that audience, and XGF is again mistaken for my *daughter*. I decide to color my hair. Suddenly, I look 15 or 20 years younger. (S2 told me the other day that I can, at times, pass for 25. I think she was being a little glib, but let's just say that's true. Back before I colored my hair, there were times I was passing for 50. So I guess from one extreme to the other, I can look as much as 25 years younger. How sweet is that?)
Not only do I look younger, but I notice that people start treating me differently. I get a lot more smiles. Even some of my classmates seem to warm up to me. This could be just from seeing me around again, but I think *some* of it has to do with the fact that they now perceive me to be closer to them in age, rather than someone's strange granny.
January also markes the endurance trial of Mr. Garrison's Group Therapy class. Awful experiences tend to bring people together. For S2 and I, it cements something between us. It also introduces me to Dr. M, who was in my Lifespan class but had remained enigmatic therein. (Truth is, she's *still* somewhat enigmatic, but what I know of her is likeable.)
And it was during January that The Debutante, with whom I also shared Lifespan and the hideous Group Therapy courses, starts coming to my house for little coffee visits. Turns out she lives just down the street, and I didn't know it. So we sit and talk and drink coffee and watch her child try to get my dogs to do tricks.
One day in late January, I have a rather startling realization about what's missing from my relationship with XGF. I sit on this information for some time, trying to decide what to do about it. The result is the beginning of the worst insomnia of my life.
February: The month starts out with me entering a second week of insomnia. Then, on February 9, I start writing my blog. Technically, you could go back in the archives and pretty much read everything that's happened since, and you would know the rest of the story. But the following summary is shorter.
By February 21, I realize the stuff missing from my relationship with XGF -- sexual chemistry and authentic communication, mainly, as well as her desire to move to the East Coast and my desire to stay put -- are not all that fixable. The slow demise begins.
Two days after we decide to break up, we throw a big old Mardi Gras party. This has its upside (I really needed to expend some energy, which I do by dancing) and its downside (XGF barely holds it together and drops the bomb on a couple of our friends at the party).
March: I begin the hunt for a new home. Briefly, I consider living with Bubba, but she and I can't agree easily on a place to live. One day, I walk into a loft and I know it's where I'm going to live. It just feels right. ... After spending a few days of Spring Break up at Lake Quinault with Bubba and Dr. M, I come back to town and commence moving. My new life begins.
There is a conversation with my mother that busts all previous molds for conversations between us. She does not like this and hangs up the phone on me. It's a beautiful thing, and I am proud of how I handled it. (We haven't spoken since.) My hair, by the way, is looking really sweet in March. Some of the curls are quite nice.
April: The pup Brogan and I settle in to a new home. Everything is new and disorienting to me. My insomnia is banished. It disappeared at the lake. But in my new place, I wake up in the night sometimes and don't know where I am.
I spend the month squirming under the weight of a broken heart. Even though I know I made the right choice for myself, it is a very painful one, and I struggle. S2 and Dr. M end up hearing the brunt of it because most of my friends were mutually shared with XGF and the situation is very sticky.
The semester at school comes to an end, and I find myself wondering how it's possible that, suffering from insomnia that at times left me feeling half-baked and neglecting my studies while focusing on the process of the breakup, ... how it's possible that I came out with all As. Uh-oh, I think, I've gone off and gotten myself into a school that's *too easy,* damnit!
In the midst of all of this, I find myself with a strange and rocky "friendship" at school. As I'm given to rumination, I spend too much time trying to figure out what's going on and why communication that seemed so open is actually so cryptic. My gut tells me to proceed with caution, but I don't do a good job of listening to that, and it all comes back around to bite me in the ass. This is not the kind of crap you need when you're trying to get your shit together after a breakup.
I make the mistake of reading women-seeking-women ads on Craigslist, and I realize that as a 37-year-old woman, it's going to be hell on earth finding a contemporary. I'm going to say the snobbiest thing here: It's also going to be hell on earth trying to find a woman who is smart enough for me, witty enough for me and SANE enough for me. The fact that I'd really like her to be a femme does not bode well. Nevertheless, I decide to ignore Dr. M's repeated suggestion that I "lower my standards." ... Please! Lowering my standards means expecting and wanting less for myself, and that is precisely why I left XGF in the first place. I was in danger of settling.
May: A two-week break between classes gives me time to face some of the pain in my breakup. But, really, I'm only scratching the surface. ... I decide, however, that I'm going to be single instead of settling, no matter how lonely that feels at times. ... In fact, I don't tell anyone this -- this would be the first time I've said it out loud -- but I decide that I'm *intentionally* going to stay single for a while because I need some time to think and to be with myself again. Jane Fonda turns out to be my inspiration for this decision. (And not just because her performance in "Barbarella" proves you don't need someone else to get your sexual needs met. It's because she told Ted Turner to call her back in six months.)
I buy a new hairbrush. I start learning to cook in earnest. I make soup and give it to my friends, feeling very proud of myself. In short, I start to get my shit together in the self-care department.
I cry. A lot.
June: Here I am! Things still feel unsettled at times. I am beset by grief unexpectedly (as that's the nature of grief). I've finished a course on Counseling Women at Midlife, and it's the first time in a few months that I actually kept up with my reading. I picked berries with S2 and her kids the other day. I'm having a party on Saturday night. I'm learning to play the cello. I feel fucked up in ways that are both devastating and glorious. It feels terribly disorienting at times.
But I know -- of all the wonderful things! -- that the lake is close to being warm enough for a swim. For the rest of the summer, I will remain a member of the leisure class. Then maybe in September, I'll get to work on something.
Such milestones don't come around very often, so I'll take this chance to recap some of the highlights from the past year. To wit:
June 15, 2005: I had my last day of work, having been summarily rejected by Corporate America. They told me my department was being reorganized, and they did actually do that. But I like to think that the rejection was also personal. I simply did not fit in, and that was always abundantly clear. ... Several months after they let me go, they realized *someone* needed to be doing the stuff I was doing, and they hired a low-level writer to replace me.
June 16: I celebrate my first day of freedom by going up to Battleground Lake for a swim. The water is a little chilly, being too early in the summer. But I have this great moment where, walking down to the beach there, I see dozens of people basking in the sun, and I say to The Good Witch, There sure are a lot of people here in the middle of the week. She turns to me, smiles, waves her hand outward in introductio and says, "Welcome to the leisure class."
June and July: I spend the next six weeks having coffee out on the patio in the mornings, fiddling around with the landscaping, going to the lake, refinishing the outdoor furniture, going to the lake, shopping for furniture for the home office, walking the dogs a LOT and making arrangements for a trip to Peru.
August: XGF and I go to Peru for three weeks. My whole world view gets a serious re-orientation, as it does every time I travel. I believed the moment of my death was at hand at one point, which reinforces a precious notion of mine about living live as if it's an active verb. I catch and eat my own pirhana in the Amazon basin. I swim in the Amazon River itself, which is absolutely thrilling for all its mythic proportions. I decide to let my hair grow out.
September: I start graduate school in counseling psychology. It feel positively blissful to be back in school again. But I am also thrilled beyond belief to be meeting people who were just so NOT like the people I'd been dealing with in the corporate world. It speaks volumes, perhaps, that among the people I've met in school who I like the most, a few are corporate escapees like myself. S2 and I worked in the same field. Dr. M was doing something that sounds totally mismatched to her intellect and potential. Another woman I know is still in the biz (very similar to what S2 and I did), but she's got that attitude that, like mine was, is so disdainful of the incredibly fucked up ways people try to make their little corporate gerbil exercise wheels look more impressive than everyone else's gerbil wheels. She'll be getting out of it soon. But ... oh, I'm so glad not to be in the trenches.
October: I consider briefly whether it's possible for me to be in love with my Lifespan Development teacher. Considering he's a man and all, I decide: No, this is purely platonic admiration. But he *is* cute. I complain in a paper about the feedback I got in a sharing group, and said teacher writes in the margin, "Have you considered that you're just a better writer than everyone else?" This tickles me.
I get a new computer for my birthday. And, unexpectedly, Mahjong software.
November: S2 and I, forced to spend periodic Saturdays as a captive audience to a highly energetic, ADD-riddled psych professor, start to click with each other, and I think: This may be the beginning of something cool. At the same time, we also are forced to spend a periodic Saturday or two with a soft-spoken liberal do-gooder psych professor who bores the living shit out of us, especially with the annoying, pedantic purple book he assigns us to read. These are the kind of things that you bond over when you're, like, not in the Army.
On the homefront, sometime in November, I start wondering if XGf is having an online affair or something. She becomes withdrawn, closes herself up in the home office -- door shut -- for hours on end in the evenings after work. When I stick my head in to talk to her, she's be playing Mahjong, buying music online or ... something.
December: My final exam in Theory & Philosophy of Counseling takes me nearly two hours to complete. Granted, the first 20 minutes or so, I simply sat and *thought* about the questions. Then, I got to writing. By the end, my little Blue Book is trashed and my hand is cramping. I am the second-to-last person to finish, and I think, Uh-oh. In the end, it turns out I'm just more "thorough" than my classmates. So the professor notes, anyway. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or a nice way of calling me "excessive."
XGF's family Christmas party is at our house. Turns out to be the one day it snowed that month. Lots of people are delayed; they finally all arrive and the gift-opening commences in the most absurd fashion. I LOVE gifts -- giving and getting -- but these people give to each other in abundance and the unspoken rules are that even cousins must exchange gifts. As the snow started to accumulate outside, the anxiety level inside rose because no one wants to drive home in the snow. This family also likes to open *one gift at a time,* a process that normally takes a few hours. But they decide to rush it this year. Soon enough, everyone leaves in a huff and a flurry, and XGF and I are stuck with a gigantic ham.
At lunch on Christmas Eve, I see my mother for what has so far proven to be the last time. We are in a McMenamin's down in Oregon City. She looks at me with a sneer and says, not kindly, "What? Are you letting your hair grow out or something?" As a gift, she gives XGF and I two coffee mugs and a bowl "made of horsehair." Later, XGF will get to keep them -- along with every other Christmas gift but the ones she gave me.
January: New Year's Eve is spent at a Pink Martini concert, where XGF and I are some of the youngest in the audience. Of course, I don't look so old in that audience, and XGF is again mistaken for my *daughter*. I decide to color my hair. Suddenly, I look 15 or 20 years younger. (S2 told me the other day that I can, at times, pass for 25. I think she was being a little glib, but let's just say that's true. Back before I colored my hair, there were times I was passing for 50. So I guess from one extreme to the other, I can look as much as 25 years younger. How sweet is that?)
Not only do I look younger, but I notice that people start treating me differently. I get a lot more smiles. Even some of my classmates seem to warm up to me. This could be just from seeing me around again, but I think *some* of it has to do with the fact that they now perceive me to be closer to them in age, rather than someone's strange granny.
January also markes the endurance trial of Mr. Garrison's Group Therapy class. Awful experiences tend to bring people together. For S2 and I, it cements something between us. It also introduces me to Dr. M, who was in my Lifespan class but had remained enigmatic therein. (Truth is, she's *still* somewhat enigmatic, but what I know of her is likeable.)
And it was during January that The Debutante, with whom I also shared Lifespan and the hideous Group Therapy courses, starts coming to my house for little coffee visits. Turns out she lives just down the street, and I didn't know it. So we sit and talk and drink coffee and watch her child try to get my dogs to do tricks.
One day in late January, I have a rather startling realization about what's missing from my relationship with XGF. I sit on this information for some time, trying to decide what to do about it. The result is the beginning of the worst insomnia of my life.
February: The month starts out with me entering a second week of insomnia. Then, on February 9, I start writing my blog. Technically, you could go back in the archives and pretty much read everything that's happened since, and you would know the rest of the story. But the following summary is shorter.
By February 21, I realize the stuff missing from my relationship with XGF -- sexual chemistry and authentic communication, mainly, as well as her desire to move to the East Coast and my desire to stay put -- are not all that fixable. The slow demise begins.
Two days after we decide to break up, we throw a big old Mardi Gras party. This has its upside (I really needed to expend some energy, which I do by dancing) and its downside (XGF barely holds it together and drops the bomb on a couple of our friends at the party).
March: I begin the hunt for a new home. Briefly, I consider living with Bubba, but she and I can't agree easily on a place to live. One day, I walk into a loft and I know it's where I'm going to live. It just feels right. ... After spending a few days of Spring Break up at Lake Quinault with Bubba and Dr. M, I come back to town and commence moving. My new life begins.
There is a conversation with my mother that busts all previous molds for conversations between us. She does not like this and hangs up the phone on me. It's a beautiful thing, and I am proud of how I handled it. (We haven't spoken since.) My hair, by the way, is looking really sweet in March. Some of the curls are quite nice.
April: The pup Brogan and I settle in to a new home. Everything is new and disorienting to me. My insomnia is banished. It disappeared at the lake. But in my new place, I wake up in the night sometimes and don't know where I am.
I spend the month squirming under the weight of a broken heart. Even though I know I made the right choice for myself, it is a very painful one, and I struggle. S2 and Dr. M end up hearing the brunt of it because most of my friends were mutually shared with XGF and the situation is very sticky.
The semester at school comes to an end, and I find myself wondering how it's possible that, suffering from insomnia that at times left me feeling half-baked and neglecting my studies while focusing on the process of the breakup, ... how it's possible that I came out with all As. Uh-oh, I think, I've gone off and gotten myself into a school that's *too easy,* damnit!
In the midst of all of this, I find myself with a strange and rocky "friendship" at school. As I'm given to rumination, I spend too much time trying to figure out what's going on and why communication that seemed so open is actually so cryptic. My gut tells me to proceed with caution, but I don't do a good job of listening to that, and it all comes back around to bite me in the ass. This is not the kind of crap you need when you're trying to get your shit together after a breakup.
I make the mistake of reading women-seeking-women ads on Craigslist, and I realize that as a 37-year-old woman, it's going to be hell on earth finding a contemporary. I'm going to say the snobbiest thing here: It's also going to be hell on earth trying to find a woman who is smart enough for me, witty enough for me and SANE enough for me. The fact that I'd really like her to be a femme does not bode well. Nevertheless, I decide to ignore Dr. M's repeated suggestion that I "lower my standards." ... Please! Lowering my standards means expecting and wanting less for myself, and that is precisely why I left XGF in the first place. I was in danger of settling.
May: A two-week break between classes gives me time to face some of the pain in my breakup. But, really, I'm only scratching the surface. ... I decide, however, that I'm going to be single instead of settling, no matter how lonely that feels at times. ... In fact, I don't tell anyone this -- this would be the first time I've said it out loud -- but I decide that I'm *intentionally* going to stay single for a while because I need some time to think and to be with myself again. Jane Fonda turns out to be my inspiration for this decision. (And not just because her performance in "Barbarella" proves you don't need someone else to get your sexual needs met. It's because she told Ted Turner to call her back in six months.)
I buy a new hairbrush. I start learning to cook in earnest. I make soup and give it to my friends, feeling very proud of myself. In short, I start to get my shit together in the self-care department.
I cry. A lot.
June: Here I am! Things still feel unsettled at times. I am beset by grief unexpectedly (as that's the nature of grief). I've finished a course on Counseling Women at Midlife, and it's the first time in a few months that I actually kept up with my reading. I picked berries with S2 and her kids the other day. I'm having a party on Saturday night. I'm learning to play the cello. I feel fucked up in ways that are both devastating and glorious. It feels terribly disorienting at times.
But I know -- of all the wonderful things! -- that the lake is close to being warm enough for a swim. For the rest of the summer, I will remain a member of the leisure class. Then maybe in September, I'll get to work on something.
Friday, June 16, 2006
DART: Hits and misses
So, here's the Divorce Action Response Team (DART) progress report.
(To recap: Dr. M gets me drunk; Bubba is supposed to get me laid; S2 and The Debutante are supposed to listen and say all the right things.)
Monday morning: Bubba and I have breakfast. In addition to her explaning that her apparent hopelessness at the prospect of getting me laid is because she has a hard enough time getting any action herself (even though she's cute and women just *love* her), we make plans to attend the Pride parade on Sunday. This might be the only venue I come across in some time where I will be surrounded by lesbians. (And as I told S2 today, the fact is that one will have to fall out of the sky and land on me to get my attention and actually provoke any kind of response from me these days.)
My new, solid mahogany sleigh bed is due to arrive in less than two weeks, so that's pretty much Bubba's deadline. After that, I think she'll be off the hook. Because there is no way in hell I'm gonna break in my bed with meaningless sexual activity. That's bad juju for the bed.
Monday night: I'm walking down the street, taking the pup on his evening stroll, and The Debutante and I run into each other. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence, mainly linked to her preference for a video store at one end of my street and a coffeehouse just a few blocks from my loft. We took an absurdly circuitous walk through the neighborhood, weaving back and forth -- half way to her house, half way back to mine, neither of us quite getting there. All the way, we were talking. Some of it was about my divorce, which gives The Deb credit for doing her duties as assigned by Dr. M.
Tuesday: S2 gives me a little talking to on the topic of "How to Celebrate Birthdays." Anyone who has known me for a good long while knows what a sticky fucking topic this is for me, but S2 pretty much stumbled into it based on a couple of stories. Our exchange was emotionally charged for me. (I started crying when I was riding my bike home.) But she made her point simply: She'll make sure I have some kind of birthday something or other this year, given the absence of a GF or any family who would do such a thing for me.
Wednesday night: Dr. M plays her role in spades, in a near-Bacchanalian wine feast that included a bottle of Tyrus Evan 2003 Syrah, which Dr. M note is "exactly what wine is supposed to be like." There was also a pleasant port. And more than twice, I think, I told Dr. M that I had just that afternoon purchased a bunch of shot-sized drinking cups made Belgian chocolate, from which we shall sip port on Saturday night. ... Suffice it to say, she gets credit for her DART duties.
Thursday afternoon: S2, her children and I go out into the countryside to pick strawberries and raspberries for a few hours. This was the first time I'd ever been in a strawberry field, and I had the Beatles running through my wine-fogged brain for a while there.
While out in the fields, S2 and I talk about a little bit of everything, including the strange waiter at the wine bar on Wednesday night who kept asking me to say, "lesbian" to him. (Why I kept obliging him, even as Dr. M appeared on the verge of puking from disgust, is anyone's guess. Truth is: I don't harbor the same disdain for men under 6-feet that Dr. M does. Height means something to her. Men mean something to her. But *I* will say "lesbian" to a man who's 5-5. He told me it was making him "tingle" when I did it, so ... how often do I bother doing that for a guy? Call me absurd; call me magnanimous: It's your choice.)
I think I'll keep most of the berry-picking conversation private. But let's just say that I'm neither unable to get a man, nor a man-hater. I'm just a woman-lover who will probably be woman-less for some time, even if Bubba is successful at her task. (Not looking likely....) S2, as always, gets credit for doing what she's been "assigned," but she was already doing that all along. And that is just one of the many reasons for which I love her. And, note: I do not use the term "love" lightly here. (She also makes a pretty good tequila sunrise, god bless her.)
Friday's coming, and I have laundry to do, errands to run, a cello lesson to take. So aside from *someone* telling me not to be uptight about the prep work for the party I'll be throwing on Saturday, it should be a DART-free day.
But then, come Saturday, all these fine women should be over here having some fun and helping me celebrate a new phase of my life, and that is probably the best DART duty of all.
Bubba should know, however, that Dr. M expects her to bring a me a harem of single, attractive lesbians as a loft-warming gift. "Bubba," she said, "knows *all* the lesbians, so she'll bring them with her." ... We'll see about that. My bet is Bubba shows up with apples, cheese and a Cotes du Rhone and then asks *me* where all the lesbians are. Anyone care to wager on it?
(To recap: Dr. M gets me drunk; Bubba is supposed to get me laid; S2 and The Debutante are supposed to listen and say all the right things.)
Monday morning: Bubba and I have breakfast. In addition to her explaning that her apparent hopelessness at the prospect of getting me laid is because she has a hard enough time getting any action herself (even though she's cute and women just *love* her), we make plans to attend the Pride parade on Sunday. This might be the only venue I come across in some time where I will be surrounded by lesbians. (And as I told S2 today, the fact is that one will have to fall out of the sky and land on me to get my attention and actually provoke any kind of response from me these days.)
My new, solid mahogany sleigh bed is due to arrive in less than two weeks, so that's pretty much Bubba's deadline. After that, I think she'll be off the hook. Because there is no way in hell I'm gonna break in my bed with meaningless sexual activity. That's bad juju for the bed.
Monday night: I'm walking down the street, taking the pup on his evening stroll, and The Debutante and I run into each other. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence, mainly linked to her preference for a video store at one end of my street and a coffeehouse just a few blocks from my loft. We took an absurdly circuitous walk through the neighborhood, weaving back and forth -- half way to her house, half way back to mine, neither of us quite getting there. All the way, we were talking. Some of it was about my divorce, which gives The Deb credit for doing her duties as assigned by Dr. M.
Tuesday: S2 gives me a little talking to on the topic of "How to Celebrate Birthdays." Anyone who has known me for a good long while knows what a sticky fucking topic this is for me, but S2 pretty much stumbled into it based on a couple of stories. Our exchange was emotionally charged for me. (I started crying when I was riding my bike home.) But she made her point simply: She'll make sure I have some kind of birthday something or other this year, given the absence of a GF or any family who would do such a thing for me.
Wednesday night: Dr. M plays her role in spades, in a near-Bacchanalian wine feast that included a bottle of Tyrus Evan 2003 Syrah, which Dr. M note is "exactly what wine is supposed to be like." There was also a pleasant port. And more than twice, I think, I told Dr. M that I had just that afternoon purchased a bunch of shot-sized drinking cups made Belgian chocolate, from which we shall sip port on Saturday night. ... Suffice it to say, she gets credit for her DART duties.
Thursday afternoon: S2, her children and I go out into the countryside to pick strawberries and raspberries for a few hours. This was the first time I'd ever been in a strawberry field, and I had the Beatles running through my wine-fogged brain for a while there.
While out in the fields, S2 and I talk about a little bit of everything, including the strange waiter at the wine bar on Wednesday night who kept asking me to say, "lesbian" to him. (Why I kept obliging him, even as Dr. M appeared on the verge of puking from disgust, is anyone's guess. Truth is: I don't harbor the same disdain for men under 6-feet that Dr. M does. Height means something to her. Men mean something to her. But *I* will say "lesbian" to a man who's 5-5. He told me it was making him "tingle" when I did it, so ... how often do I bother doing that for a guy? Call me absurd; call me magnanimous: It's your choice.)
I think I'll keep most of the berry-picking conversation private. But let's just say that I'm neither unable to get a man, nor a man-hater. I'm just a woman-lover who will probably be woman-less for some time, even if Bubba is successful at her task. (Not looking likely....) S2, as always, gets credit for doing what she's been "assigned," but she was already doing that all along. And that is just one of the many reasons for which I love her. And, note: I do not use the term "love" lightly here. (She also makes a pretty good tequila sunrise, god bless her.)
Friday's coming, and I have laundry to do, errands to run, a cello lesson to take. So aside from *someone* telling me not to be uptight about the prep work for the party I'll be throwing on Saturday, it should be a DART-free day.
But then, come Saturday, all these fine women should be over here having some fun and helping me celebrate a new phase of my life, and that is probably the best DART duty of all.
Bubba should know, however, that Dr. M expects her to bring a me a harem of single, attractive lesbians as a loft-warming gift. "Bubba," she said, "knows *all* the lesbians, so she'll bring them with her." ... We'll see about that. My bet is Bubba shows up with apples, cheese and a Cotes du Rhone and then asks *me* where all the lesbians are. Anyone care to wager on it?
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Pass the cheese and a birth mother, please
It was the winter of 1996, and The Mountain Girl and I were snowshoeing through Tokopah Valley, a stunning glacially carved gem at about 8,000 feet up in the Sierra Nevada of Sequoia National Park.
The only people we came across that day were a couple of Germans hiking in the waist-deep snow in jeans and hiking boots. (Truly a stupid idea.) So we had this pristine, snowy wilderness to ourselves. Which is probably a good thing, because along the way, we were making ourselves look stupid, ungracefully climbing over logs, falling down in little dips in the trail and generally laughing at ourselves so much that our echoes might have started an avalanche.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped to eat. This was the first time I'd been out on a trail with The Mountain Girl, and I'll never forget when she opened her knapsack and started pulling out the food. She handed me a bottle of wine and asked me to open it. Then out came a nice fat wedge of brie, a crisp apple, some hearty crackers. Heaven help me, I think there might have even been an olive tapenade.
I had never seen trail food like it, and I said as much.
"I've never understood," TMG replied, "why people bring crap out onto the trail. Why would you bring the stuff you wouldn't otherwise eat? And when you're in a place like this," (here, she gestured up at the granite cliffs towering over us, the green boughs of the cedars and ponderosa pines jutting out of the snowy landscape, the dry snowflakes drifting down upon us), "why on earth would you want to eat anything but *good* food?"
I hadn't known TMG all that long. Perhaps two years before, I'd interviewed her for a newspaper story, but it wasn't until we met at a mutual friend's New Year's Eve party that we'd started to socialize. Mainly at a coffeehouse. Mainly early in the morning with other mutual friends, mainly Shall Be Revered, connecting us.
Until this moment in Tokopah Valley, I had thought TMG perfectly nice but rather aloof, almost masculine in the devil-may-care, detached way that she conducted her relationships. I knew her to be a woman who could carry on rather unconventional relationships with men, the kind of now-and-again things that lots of men dream about having but that many women disdain or don't have the emotional fortitude to maintain.
But here she was, cutting up an apple with her camping knife, smearing the wedge with stinky cheese and waxing rhapsodic about the intersection of nature and food. The romantic in her was starting to show itself. After a couple cups of wine in that air -- the same air John Muir once said "the angels breathe" -- The Mountain Girl softened up considerably, started to get philosophical on more than just politics, told me all sorts of interesting things about her life and her many loves.
I never did become one of the *legion* of lesbians hopelessly in love with this rugged straight girl, but seeing her in a different light that day was the start of my coming to love her. And it sparked a curiosity within me: Just why didn't she get attached? Why didn't she fall in love? Why keep everyone at arm's length? (My parting words to her when I moved up to Portland were, Fall in love some time. She replied, smiling, "I fall in love all the time." I politely bit my tongue and did not dispute that.)
It may be a massive projection on my part, a grotesque misdiagnosis, a shallow interpretation of the situation, but I did wonder for many years if it was because she was adopted. I have witnessed a similar -- albeit exceptionally fucked up -- lack of attachment within my mother, who is also adopted, so this is probably why I connected the dots in that fashion.
During the time I lived down in California, TMG spoke to me several times about her adoption and a curiosity about her birth parents. Somewhere along the way, a sympathetic clerk in the Hall of Records in the town where TMG was born slipped her the undoctored version of her birth certificate. This is where she gleaned her mother's name. But TMG never did anything with it, never tried to find the woman. Not even after both of her adoptive parents died.
Then, a couple months ago, SBR and TMG were sitting in the coffeehouse -- more a rare occurence these days than back when all of us were seeing each other there daily -- and SBR asked, "Did you ever look up your birth mother?" TMG said no, and SBR wanted to know why not. She got a shrug in reply and some words to the effect that TMG didn't know what to do with the information.
SBR has always been a take-action kind of woman. And she also seems quite happy in the role of caretaker for her family and friends. (She used to iron my clothes at times....) So when SBR reported to me what she did here, I was not surprised. Very simply: She told TMG to give her whatever information she had about her birth parents. Then off she went, and presently returned with some news. TMG's birth mother was dead, but SBR had found the birth father.
TMG felt awkward about calling him or taking any other action. So SBR continued to step in, making contact with Birth Father, who is 72 or 73 and was unaware he'd ever fathered a child. Even though, as it turns out, he had been married to Birth Mother for several years. Not surprisingly, Birth Father was skeptical. He and Birth Mother had been together prior to TMG's birth, but had broken up for a year or so and weren't married until a year after TMG was born 45 years ago.
Faced with some facts, however, Birth Father was curious enough about the situation to agree to a DNA test. But he didn't want to take it until after he met TMG. Both of them were nervous about it, so SBR continued to facilitate the process, agreeing to go to lunch with them when Birth Father was in town last week for a business meeting. SBR says she had no problem recognizing Birth Father in the restaurant. And Birth Father had no difficulty recognizing TMG. "You look just like your mother," he said upon seeing her.
Sitting there at the table, he pulled out an old wedding photo and gave it to TMG. SBR reported, "As soon as she saw that photo, TMG started to cry. If it had been a movie, you couldn't have cued the waterworks any more perfectly."
I was astounded when I heard this. Not by the fact that someone would cry upon meeting Birth Father and seeing a photo of Birth Mother, who has been dead nearly 10 years. Of course, someone would cry. But TMG? I'm having trouble picturing it. I learned a long time ago that she has emotions, but still... I can't quite imagine it. It would have, no doubt, been a powerful thing to witness.
I talked to TMG the other night about all of this, and she was characteristically reserved. "I think it's cool; I've been curious about this for a long time," she said. "But as I told Birth Father, I've got no agenda here. I don't have some kind of deep wound I need healed. I don't need any money. I don't have any desire for a big relationship. I'm just curious. If SBR hadn't been pursuing this, I would never have met him. I guess we'll just see what happens." All the way up here in Portland, I could see the shrug.
I am, however, happy to report that TMG is not so distant in her love relationships as she used to be. Here at 45, she is in love for the first time in her life. This relationship has been going on for perhaps two years, and TMG is serious about it. The only catch: The guy lives in Australia.
Distance comes in many forms. But on this one, she's thinking about closing the gap.
The only people we came across that day were a couple of Germans hiking in the waist-deep snow in jeans and hiking boots. (Truly a stupid idea.) So we had this pristine, snowy wilderness to ourselves. Which is probably a good thing, because along the way, we were making ourselves look stupid, ungracefully climbing over logs, falling down in little dips in the trail and generally laughing at ourselves so much that our echoes might have started an avalanche.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped to eat. This was the first time I'd been out on a trail with The Mountain Girl, and I'll never forget when she opened her knapsack and started pulling out the food. She handed me a bottle of wine and asked me to open it. Then out came a nice fat wedge of brie, a crisp apple, some hearty crackers. Heaven help me, I think there might have even been an olive tapenade.
I had never seen trail food like it, and I said as much.
"I've never understood," TMG replied, "why people bring crap out onto the trail. Why would you bring the stuff you wouldn't otherwise eat? And when you're in a place like this," (here, she gestured up at the granite cliffs towering over us, the green boughs of the cedars and ponderosa pines jutting out of the snowy landscape, the dry snowflakes drifting down upon us), "why on earth would you want to eat anything but *good* food?"
I hadn't known TMG all that long. Perhaps two years before, I'd interviewed her for a newspaper story, but it wasn't until we met at a mutual friend's New Year's Eve party that we'd started to socialize. Mainly at a coffeehouse. Mainly early in the morning with other mutual friends, mainly Shall Be Revered, connecting us.
Until this moment in Tokopah Valley, I had thought TMG perfectly nice but rather aloof, almost masculine in the devil-may-care, detached way that she conducted her relationships. I knew her to be a woman who could carry on rather unconventional relationships with men, the kind of now-and-again things that lots of men dream about having but that many women disdain or don't have the emotional fortitude to maintain.
But here she was, cutting up an apple with her camping knife, smearing the wedge with stinky cheese and waxing rhapsodic about the intersection of nature and food. The romantic in her was starting to show itself. After a couple cups of wine in that air -- the same air John Muir once said "the angels breathe" -- The Mountain Girl softened up considerably, started to get philosophical on more than just politics, told me all sorts of interesting things about her life and her many loves.
I never did become one of the *legion* of lesbians hopelessly in love with this rugged straight girl, but seeing her in a different light that day was the start of my coming to love her. And it sparked a curiosity within me: Just why didn't she get attached? Why didn't she fall in love? Why keep everyone at arm's length? (My parting words to her when I moved up to Portland were, Fall in love some time. She replied, smiling, "I fall in love all the time." I politely bit my tongue and did not dispute that.)
It may be a massive projection on my part, a grotesque misdiagnosis, a shallow interpretation of the situation, but I did wonder for many years if it was because she was adopted. I have witnessed a similar -- albeit exceptionally fucked up -- lack of attachment within my mother, who is also adopted, so this is probably why I connected the dots in that fashion.
During the time I lived down in California, TMG spoke to me several times about her adoption and a curiosity about her birth parents. Somewhere along the way, a sympathetic clerk in the Hall of Records in the town where TMG was born slipped her the undoctored version of her birth certificate. This is where she gleaned her mother's name. But TMG never did anything with it, never tried to find the woman. Not even after both of her adoptive parents died.
Then, a couple months ago, SBR and TMG were sitting in the coffeehouse -- more a rare occurence these days than back when all of us were seeing each other there daily -- and SBR asked, "Did you ever look up your birth mother?" TMG said no, and SBR wanted to know why not. She got a shrug in reply and some words to the effect that TMG didn't know what to do with the information.
SBR has always been a take-action kind of woman. And she also seems quite happy in the role of caretaker for her family and friends. (She used to iron my clothes at times....) So when SBR reported to me what she did here, I was not surprised. Very simply: She told TMG to give her whatever information she had about her birth parents. Then off she went, and presently returned with some news. TMG's birth mother was dead, but SBR had found the birth father.
TMG felt awkward about calling him or taking any other action. So SBR continued to step in, making contact with Birth Father, who is 72 or 73 and was unaware he'd ever fathered a child. Even though, as it turns out, he had been married to Birth Mother for several years. Not surprisingly, Birth Father was skeptical. He and Birth Mother had been together prior to TMG's birth, but had broken up for a year or so and weren't married until a year after TMG was born 45 years ago.
Faced with some facts, however, Birth Father was curious enough about the situation to agree to a DNA test. But he didn't want to take it until after he met TMG. Both of them were nervous about it, so SBR continued to facilitate the process, agreeing to go to lunch with them when Birth Father was in town last week for a business meeting. SBR says she had no problem recognizing Birth Father in the restaurant. And Birth Father had no difficulty recognizing TMG. "You look just like your mother," he said upon seeing her.
Sitting there at the table, he pulled out an old wedding photo and gave it to TMG. SBR reported, "As soon as she saw that photo, TMG started to cry. If it had been a movie, you couldn't have cued the waterworks any more perfectly."
I was astounded when I heard this. Not by the fact that someone would cry upon meeting Birth Father and seeing a photo of Birth Mother, who has been dead nearly 10 years. Of course, someone would cry. But TMG? I'm having trouble picturing it. I learned a long time ago that she has emotions, but still... I can't quite imagine it. It would have, no doubt, been a powerful thing to witness.
I talked to TMG the other night about all of this, and she was characteristically reserved. "I think it's cool; I've been curious about this for a long time," she said. "But as I told Birth Father, I've got no agenda here. I don't have some kind of deep wound I need healed. I don't need any money. I don't have any desire for a big relationship. I'm just curious. If SBR hadn't been pursuing this, I would never have met him. I guess we'll just see what happens." All the way up here in Portland, I could see the shrug.
I am, however, happy to report that TMG is not so distant in her love relationships as she used to be. Here at 45, she is in love for the first time in her life. This relationship has been going on for perhaps two years, and TMG is serious about it. The only catch: The guy lives in Australia.
Distance comes in many forms. But on this one, she's thinking about closing the gap.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Ask not for whom my foodie heart beats...
So in love with good food am I that, like Rome just before its fall, I am a walking definition of decadent. I have been reading the most outrageous book about food, which includes chapters on "The Human Harvest," (just what, of ourselves, can we actually eat) and how to stage a Bacchanalian Orgy for a dinner party (which, truth be told, it is one of my life's dreams to attend such an affair).
The book is "Gastronaut: Adventures in food for the romantic, the foolhardy and the brave," by Stefan Gates. He's British. A reviewer called his book, "Brilliant. Deranged, but brilliant." As S2 notes, that's a *very high compliment* in her mind. As it is in mine. So I'm hoping Stefan will forgive me for violating his copyright, as I am most especially in love with the first two resolutions in the following:
"The Gastronaut's Creed
"Food will consume 16 percent of my life. That life is too precious to waste; therefore:
-- "I resolve, whenever possible, to transform food from fuel into love, power, adventure, poetry, sex, or drama.
-- "I will never turn down the opportunity to taste or cook something new.
-- "I will never forget: canapes are evil.
-- "I will remember that culinary disaster does not necessarily equal failure.
-- "I will always keep a jar of pesto on hand in case of the latter."
Seriously, I love to eat food under the most oppulent and excessive circumstances possible. His suggestions for dinner parties -- as examples, The Last Supper and, most especially, the Bacchanalian Orgy -- speak deeply to my love of excessiveness. Bacchus, Bacchus ... if there is reincarnation, I surely once worshipped at the altar of Bacchus with olives, grapes, lamb, honey, plentiful wine and lots of succulent women.
If I had stumbled upon his book a little earlier, I might have decided to theme my little Loft Party as a Bacchanalian Orgy. But then, maybe I'll save that for next year's Mardi Gras. ... Down in New Orleans, my favorite Mardi Gras parade was always Bacchus. More shit was flying off those floats than you can imagine if you've never seen it in person.
OK. I'm falling into a reverie. I need to sign off and go swoon properly. I have something to do that's utterly Bacchanalian....
The book is "Gastronaut: Adventures in food for the romantic, the foolhardy and the brave," by Stefan Gates. He's British. A reviewer called his book, "Brilliant. Deranged, but brilliant." As S2 notes, that's a *very high compliment* in her mind. As it is in mine. So I'm hoping Stefan will forgive me for violating his copyright, as I am most especially in love with the first two resolutions in the following:
"The Gastronaut's Creed
"Food will consume 16 percent of my life. That life is too precious to waste; therefore:
-- "I resolve, whenever possible, to transform food from fuel into love, power, adventure, poetry, sex, or drama.
-- "I will never turn down the opportunity to taste or cook something new.
-- "I will never forget: canapes are evil.
-- "I will remember that culinary disaster does not necessarily equal failure.
-- "I will always keep a jar of pesto on hand in case of the latter."
Seriously, I love to eat food under the most oppulent and excessive circumstances possible. His suggestions for dinner parties -- as examples, The Last Supper and, most especially, the Bacchanalian Orgy -- speak deeply to my love of excessiveness. Bacchus, Bacchus ... if there is reincarnation, I surely once worshipped at the altar of Bacchus with olives, grapes, lamb, honey, plentiful wine and lots of succulent women.
If I had stumbled upon his book a little earlier, I might have decided to theme my little Loft Party as a Bacchanalian Orgy. But then, maybe I'll save that for next year's Mardi Gras. ... Down in New Orleans, my favorite Mardi Gras parade was always Bacchus. More shit was flying off those floats than you can imagine if you've never seen it in person.
OK. I'm falling into a reverie. I need to sign off and go swoon properly. I have something to do that's utterly Bacchanalian....
Saturday, June 10, 2006
A conversation I (probably) wasn't meant to hear
It's Friday night, between 7 and 9 p.m. -- and there is actually live music playing downstairs -- while I am up in my loft, working up a callous (or perhaps just increasing nerve damage, can't tell yet) on my left index finger by practicing my cello.
My routine is the same every time I practice. Open strings for four counts, then two counts, to warm up and try to get my bow position right. Then move on to a little fingering (how I love the double-entendres and pithy comments that could be made about some of this stuff). Mainly I do this by practicing my scales -- D Major, G Major and D Major Broken Thirds. Then, I move on to practicing actual songs.
Now, Friday night was a little special, because in the afternoon, I got an e-mail from a friend who asked if I would be giving a cello recital at a little party I'm throwing next Saturday. I replied, There may be two competing factors at play here: First, to persuade me to play in front of a large group of people at this point, I might need to be intoxicated; to play decently, I can't be intoxicated. So chances are, if I play, it won't be as good as I'm actually able. ... But then, maybe I should spend several evenings in the coming week getting a little intoxicated and then practicing my cello, and see what happens.
Denise suggested that I keep in mind the likelihood that my audience will also be intoxicated and therefore a little easier to please. (Apparently, she's never seen ugly drunks booing their entertainment, an experience with which I am rather familiar, having spent many many nights in the French Quarter, some of them in the company of male female impersonators, which is *not* the same thing as a drag queen, mind you.)
But I digress.
So Friday night, I ordered some Thai food from the place downstairs -- partly to check on the musical competition (ha!) and partly because the owner, a guy named Chin, keeps asking me when I will try something from his place (something *other than* the Pad Thai, which was not good). I ate my Thai food -- the fish special with curry and chili, which was excellent and had just the right amount of heat -- and consumed a few glasses of wine and then I set about seeing if I can, in fact, play while a bit intoxicated.
It was actually a decent practice session, but I did experience a few technical difficulties transitioning from a quarter note of B on the A string to a quarter note of G on the D string, with a half note of open A in between. Man, for little novice me, that's rough shit right there. Even when I'm sober.
But then, that transition was part of a rather complicated "concert song" that has a lovely little melody. And my "Ode to Joy" ain't bad these days, even if I do hit a screecher on the open A every once in a while. So to this point, my playing was varied and, well, it's the cello. If it's not making an ugly sound, it's a pretty one, and I was hitting a lot of pretty notes, although no one is going to mistake me for a pro.
(Funny aside: My neighbor caught me coming home yesterday from my lesson, and he asked, "Do you play in the symphony?" To which I replied, These units *are* well-insulated, aren't they?)
Anyway, I was practicing right along when I took a break to check the tune of my strings, and I overheard the following (and I'm *not* making this up):
Man (who is sitting at an outdoor dining table): You mean that's an *adult* playing that?
Chin: Yeah, lady live upstairs there.
Man: A *woman* is playing that?
Chin: Yeah, she live alone. Have only little dog and nobody else. Play dat every day. She say it cello.
Man: You think she could practice some other time than when people are eating.
Chin: Well, she live here. And people eating here all day. What can you do? She learn someting new. She get better. You want sit inside?
Man: No, that's OK. It's fine.
I had several thoughts go through my head. I'll let you imagine all of them. Why should I take away the joy of your projections?
I resumed my practicing. And for that man's listening pleasure, I practiced "When the Saints Go Marching In" about 10 times, having only learned it that morning and finding it a bit difficult to hold those long 5-count notes. Then, for variety's sake, I gave him a few rounds of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" before putting my cello away for the evening.
Hhmmph.
Some day, I'm going to overhear a *completely different* conversation about my cello playing. I just know it. Some day, I'm gonna hear, "Bravo! Bravo!"
And then I'll return to Tara! I'll find a way....
My routine is the same every time I practice. Open strings for four counts, then two counts, to warm up and try to get my bow position right. Then move on to a little fingering (how I love the double-entendres and pithy comments that could be made about some of this stuff). Mainly I do this by practicing my scales -- D Major, G Major and D Major Broken Thirds. Then, I move on to practicing actual songs.
Now, Friday night was a little special, because in the afternoon, I got an e-mail from a friend who asked if I would be giving a cello recital at a little party I'm throwing next Saturday. I replied, There may be two competing factors at play here: First, to persuade me to play in front of a large group of people at this point, I might need to be intoxicated; to play decently, I can't be intoxicated. So chances are, if I play, it won't be as good as I'm actually able. ... But then, maybe I should spend several evenings in the coming week getting a little intoxicated and then practicing my cello, and see what happens.
Denise suggested that I keep in mind the likelihood that my audience will also be intoxicated and therefore a little easier to please. (Apparently, she's never seen ugly drunks booing their entertainment, an experience with which I am rather familiar, having spent many many nights in the French Quarter, some of them in the company of male female impersonators, which is *not* the same thing as a drag queen, mind you.)
But I digress.
So Friday night, I ordered some Thai food from the place downstairs -- partly to check on the musical competition (ha!) and partly because the owner, a guy named Chin, keeps asking me when I will try something from his place (something *other than* the Pad Thai, which was not good). I ate my Thai food -- the fish special with curry and chili, which was excellent and had just the right amount of heat -- and consumed a few glasses of wine and then I set about seeing if I can, in fact, play while a bit intoxicated.
It was actually a decent practice session, but I did experience a few technical difficulties transitioning from a quarter note of B on the A string to a quarter note of G on the D string, with a half note of open A in between. Man, for little novice me, that's rough shit right there. Even when I'm sober.
But then, that transition was part of a rather complicated "concert song" that has a lovely little melody. And my "Ode to Joy" ain't bad these days, even if I do hit a screecher on the open A every once in a while. So to this point, my playing was varied and, well, it's the cello. If it's not making an ugly sound, it's a pretty one, and I was hitting a lot of pretty notes, although no one is going to mistake me for a pro.
(Funny aside: My neighbor caught me coming home yesterday from my lesson, and he asked, "Do you play in the symphony?" To which I replied, These units *are* well-insulated, aren't they?)
Anyway, I was practicing right along when I took a break to check the tune of my strings, and I overheard the following (and I'm *not* making this up):
Man (who is sitting at an outdoor dining table): You mean that's an *adult* playing that?
Chin: Yeah, lady live upstairs there.
Man: A *woman* is playing that?
Chin: Yeah, she live alone. Have only little dog and nobody else. Play dat every day. She say it cello.
Man: You think she could practice some other time than when people are eating.
Chin: Well, she live here. And people eating here all day. What can you do? She learn someting new. She get better. You want sit inside?
Man: No, that's OK. It's fine.
I had several thoughts go through my head. I'll let you imagine all of them. Why should I take away the joy of your projections?
I resumed my practicing. And for that man's listening pleasure, I practiced "When the Saints Go Marching In" about 10 times, having only learned it that morning and finding it a bit difficult to hold those long 5-count notes. Then, for variety's sake, I gave him a few rounds of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" before putting my cello away for the evening.
Hhmmph.
Some day, I'm going to overhear a *completely different* conversation about my cello playing. I just know it. Some day, I'm gonna hear, "Bravo! Bravo!"
And then I'll return to Tara! I'll find a way....
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
All about breasts (mine included)
Heh.
I don't *really* want to discuss this -- and you don't really want to read about it -- but let's have a train wreck anyway, shall we?
I've lost a cup size.
For some women, this is a tragedy. But I am *not* one of those women. In fact, I'm pleased, because this here rack has got more than its fair share of the world's tender flesh.
Now, here's one of those little secrets that haunt the booboisie† (terrible pun that it is): *Most* women wear bras at least one cup size too small. There are many reasons for this, I'm sure. I can hazzard to guess a few of them, although I lay no claim to having my ideas empirically validated. (As one of my classmates recently said, "Why do you need psychological research when their findings just make you say, 'Duh! I already knew *that*'?") Much of my anecdotal research on this topic was conducted at specialty bra shops, talking to the women who do the fittings. Thusly:
-- There's something really horrifying about being anything larger than a C cup. In fact, when I recently walked into the lingerie store -- and I *do* go to a specialty shop, if for no other reason than because some lovely woman will measure me, go through that hideously large selection of styles and colors, bring me several variations on the right-sized bra, slip it over my shoulders for me and latch it -- ... when I walked into the store, I heard the owner say, "You can see that this F cup..." to a slender woman who immediately put both hands on her face in shock and interrupted, "You mean they come *that big*?" She was horrified.
-- Anything bigger than a C is what Dolly Parton calls "an over-the-shoulder boulder holder." God bless her for being so poetic.
-- Sizes larger than a C or D can be hard to find in regular stores. And, if you do actually need some *support,* as opposed to a little bit of nylon and a little bit of elastic, you're gonna run into trouble.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but I think these generally cover the explanations I've heard from my large-breasted friends over the years.
So, you might wonder: Exactly how does a woman manage to wear a bra that's at least one cup size too small? I'm glad you asked, because there are two common methods a woman might employ, according to the bra fitters and my own personal observations:
-- First and rather tragically, as we've all seen, there's the "Thy Cup Overfloweth" method. The cup bites into the under-secured breast, creating the impression of a curious bulge where one's contour ought to be smooth. If you're going to carry this off, you must dress provocatively and wear all your shirt lines at this point -- like a renaissance wench -- so it appears you're just showing off the goods. Otherwise ... oh, honey....
-- Second, and most commonly, women simply expand the fit around their rib cage, so if they are really a 38 D, they become a 40 or 42 C. This extra space is used to house their extra flesh, frequently pushing it into their armpits. This is much more easily accomplished when you've got "National Geographic" breasts, versus being really firmly stacked.
God bless the women who are really firmly stacked. I love those kinds of breasts. But, as I've noticed, most of us don't have them. And the older we get, the more gravity starts taking its toll. Some of us, like JellyGirl, decide to remedy this situation surgically. Others of us -- myself included -- just say: Well, the person who wants to be with me is just gonna have to take these knockers the way they are. And that's worked pretty well for me (so far, anyway).
But breasts are such a source of pride or pain for many women. Guys whine -- when they dare reveal themselves -- about how freaky it was to be showering in the school lockers during middle school and high school. And no doubt, that was a hideous thing.
But I am thinking back to something I witnessed in middle school -- it was probably 7th or 8th grade -- and wondering about the long-term effects of this kind of cruelty. We were getting our spines checked for signs of scoliosis, and we were all requested to line up without our shirts on so some woman could check our spines for curves.
Most of the girls had bras already. They were generally "training" bras -- whatever the hell we were training for, I couldn't tell you. But this one girl didn't. She hadn't started to grow much in the way of breasts yet. One of the P.E. teachers asked her, "Would you like some band-aids to cover your nipples?"
Most of the girls in line started snickering and laughing. I felt sorry for her. For the rest of the school year -- and the next after that -- she was constantly asked by other girls in the locker room before P.E., "Did you forget your band-aids today?" Things like that. the ridicule was vicious.
Then, in high school, those of us who were blossoming into substantial bosoms -- myself included -- were targeted by the smaller-breasted girls for ridicule at the opposite end of the spectrum. I heard countless jokes about why one of my mates on the swimteam was a back-stroker (only stroke where her breasts didn't get in the way, and where her mams could act like flotation aids). And I was constantly chided for being a breast-stroker. (And now look at me! That is *still* one of my favorite things, even when there's not a body of water in sight!)
No doubt, this kind of shit has something to do with why many women hate admitting to anything larger than a C cup -- and many don't like admitting to anything smaller. Basically, you're damned if you got mams and damned if you don't. Unless you're that perfect, firm and perky 36 C.
In my case, I've got mams in excess. I could stand to have breast reduction surgery, in my opinion. But I'm trying generic weight loss first. So far, I've ditched a whole cup size. But then, I went up TWO cup sizes when I finally got a professional bra fitting some time ago, so I'm having to do a lot of backtracking.
In the meantime, though, there's no saying I can't dress 'em sexy. Fortunately, there's plenty out there that both *fits right* and gives the lucky girl or guy removing your shirt a little something about which to say, "hummana, hummana."
Trust me on this, ladies, because when it comes to breasts and the lingerie that embraces them, I am a connoisseur.
†Booboisie, one of my favorite words (along with titilation), is actually a real word, in case you didn't know. It's a class of extraordinarily stupid people. Of which that fucking vile cow-shit-eating, vaginal blood fart Ann Coulter is a member.
I don't *really* want to discuss this -- and you don't really want to read about it -- but let's have a train wreck anyway, shall we?
I've lost a cup size.
For some women, this is a tragedy. But I am *not* one of those women. In fact, I'm pleased, because this here rack has got more than its fair share of the world's tender flesh.
Now, here's one of those little secrets that haunt the booboisie† (terrible pun that it is): *Most* women wear bras at least one cup size too small. There are many reasons for this, I'm sure. I can hazzard to guess a few of them, although I lay no claim to having my ideas empirically validated. (As one of my classmates recently said, "Why do you need psychological research when their findings just make you say, 'Duh! I already knew *that*'?") Much of my anecdotal research on this topic was conducted at specialty bra shops, talking to the women who do the fittings. Thusly:
-- There's something really horrifying about being anything larger than a C cup. In fact, when I recently walked into the lingerie store -- and I *do* go to a specialty shop, if for no other reason than because some lovely woman will measure me, go through that hideously large selection of styles and colors, bring me several variations on the right-sized bra, slip it over my shoulders for me and latch it -- ... when I walked into the store, I heard the owner say, "You can see that this F cup..." to a slender woman who immediately put both hands on her face in shock and interrupted, "You mean they come *that big*?" She was horrified.
-- Anything bigger than a C is what Dolly Parton calls "an over-the-shoulder boulder holder." God bless her for being so poetic.
-- Sizes larger than a C or D can be hard to find in regular stores. And, if you do actually need some *support,* as opposed to a little bit of nylon and a little bit of elastic, you're gonna run into trouble.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but I think these generally cover the explanations I've heard from my large-breasted friends over the years.
So, you might wonder: Exactly how does a woman manage to wear a bra that's at least one cup size too small? I'm glad you asked, because there are two common methods a woman might employ, according to the bra fitters and my own personal observations:
-- First and rather tragically, as we've all seen, there's the "Thy Cup Overfloweth" method. The cup bites into the under-secured breast, creating the impression of a curious bulge where one's contour ought to be smooth. If you're going to carry this off, you must dress provocatively and wear all your shirt lines at this point -- like a renaissance wench -- so it appears you're just showing off the goods. Otherwise ... oh, honey....
-- Second, and most commonly, women simply expand the fit around their rib cage, so if they are really a 38 D, they become a 40 or 42 C. This extra space is used to house their extra flesh, frequently pushing it into their armpits. This is much more easily accomplished when you've got "National Geographic" breasts, versus being really firmly stacked.
God bless the women who are really firmly stacked. I love those kinds of breasts. But, as I've noticed, most of us don't have them. And the older we get, the more gravity starts taking its toll. Some of us, like JellyGirl, decide to remedy this situation surgically. Others of us -- myself included -- just say: Well, the person who wants to be with me is just gonna have to take these knockers the way they are. And that's worked pretty well for me (so far, anyway).
But breasts are such a source of pride or pain for many women. Guys whine -- when they dare reveal themselves -- about how freaky it was to be showering in the school lockers during middle school and high school. And no doubt, that was a hideous thing.
But I am thinking back to something I witnessed in middle school -- it was probably 7th or 8th grade -- and wondering about the long-term effects of this kind of cruelty. We were getting our spines checked for signs of scoliosis, and we were all requested to line up without our shirts on so some woman could check our spines for curves.
Most of the girls had bras already. They were generally "training" bras -- whatever the hell we were training for, I couldn't tell you. But this one girl didn't. She hadn't started to grow much in the way of breasts yet. One of the P.E. teachers asked her, "Would you like some band-aids to cover your nipples?"
Most of the girls in line started snickering and laughing. I felt sorry for her. For the rest of the school year -- and the next after that -- she was constantly asked by other girls in the locker room before P.E., "Did you forget your band-aids today?" Things like that. the ridicule was vicious.
Then, in high school, those of us who were blossoming into substantial bosoms -- myself included -- were targeted by the smaller-breasted girls for ridicule at the opposite end of the spectrum. I heard countless jokes about why one of my mates on the swimteam was a back-stroker (only stroke where her breasts didn't get in the way, and where her mams could act like flotation aids). And I was constantly chided for being a breast-stroker. (And now look at me! That is *still* one of my favorite things, even when there's not a body of water in sight!)
No doubt, this kind of shit has something to do with why many women hate admitting to anything larger than a C cup -- and many don't like admitting to anything smaller. Basically, you're damned if you got mams and damned if you don't. Unless you're that perfect, firm and perky 36 C.
In my case, I've got mams in excess. I could stand to have breast reduction surgery, in my opinion. But I'm trying generic weight loss first. So far, I've ditched a whole cup size. But then, I went up TWO cup sizes when I finally got a professional bra fitting some time ago, so I'm having to do a lot of backtracking.
In the meantime, though, there's no saying I can't dress 'em sexy. Fortunately, there's plenty out there that both *fits right* and gives the lucky girl or guy removing your shirt a little something about which to say, "hummana, hummana."
Trust me on this, ladies, because when it comes to breasts and the lingerie that embraces them, I am a connoisseur.
†Booboisie, one of my favorite words (along with titilation), is actually a real word, in case you didn't know. It's a class of extraordinarily stupid people. Of which that fucking vile cow-shit-eating, vaginal blood fart Ann Coulter is a member.
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