What: Femme2008 Conference: The Architecture of Femme!
Who: Femme Collective, along with speakers Dorothy Allison, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Julia Serano
When: August 15-17, 2008
Where: Chicago Wyndham O'Hare
How: Register online! Registration is still open, and is $95. You can get all the conference details at www.femmecollective.org.
Guest post by Charlotte Albrecht, Femme Mafia Twin Cities
For months now, I have been looking forward to attending Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme this August in Chicago. It has been just a few years since I started to claim a femme identity and only in the last year that I began to find community and connect with other femme-identified and femme-supportive people. As a mixed race light-skinned femme who grew up steeped in middle class white American culture, my models for femininity were clear and, like many other girls, I learned to examine all the ways that I deviated from this norm. When I started to acknowledge my desire for female-bodied people to myself and to those around me, I found myself wanting to be visible to those I desired. This desire coupled with my longstanding understanding of myself as "not feminine enough" added up to a gender presentation that was not true to myself. It wasn't until a few years later when I met femmes of my age who encouraged me to embrace whatever feminine parts of me there were, that I ceased apologizing for dressing up and accessorizing, and, more importantly, started to think critically about the relationship between my own femininity and my sexual desire.
I see the Femme Conference as a unique opportunity to push myself further to think about the numerous forms 'femme' can take - shaped endlessly by each of our cultural and social locations, sexual desires, gendered selves, and outward appearances - and how I can support other people in their own journeys. I am particularly looking forward to meeting others from across the country who are organizing for femme visibility in their communities and actively connecting this work to radical liberatory politics.
You might be asking, but what is femme? Femme can mean many things, and if you ask a hundred femmes what it means to be a femme, chances are, you'll hear a hundred different responses. Since femme is a complex, varied identity, it is frequently misunderstood. However, we can say that femme is based in a queer subculture of radical femininity. It can be both a sexual and gender identity. Femme is a queered, transgressive, stand-alone version of femininity that can be constructed independent of and/or intimately connected to biological sex.
Femmes have been both underrepresented and misunderstood within and outside of queer communities. The Femme Conference is an important and exciting time for femmes and allies of all walks of life to increase visibility and create radical queer femme community. It will be full of amazing performances and workshops, as well as a powerhouse keynote lineup: Dorothy Allison, Julia Serano, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Veronica Combs a.k.a. Vixen Noir.
So join me, and let's create some radically affirming community together. It'll be fierce
--Charlotte Albrecht, Femme Mafia Twin Cities
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Radical Queer Femmes Gather at the Femme2008 Conference
Here's a guest post from my fellow Femme Mafia Twin Cities member (and bff!) spreading the word about the femme conference! We can use all the publicity around this that we can get, so if you're able to do so, please re-post this guest entry on your own blog and leave a comment here so that we can thank you from the bottom of our hearts. xoxo - hussy red
Friday, July 25, 2008
misplaced(?)
this afternoon, my mother called me from the hospital in nj. my dad has been admitted for vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath. he's undergoing some tests, specifically an m.r.i. of his head to see if there is anything to be suspicious of there. my dad's had cancer for the past several years. it started with his kidney, which was removed and he enjoyed about a year and a half of remission before it crept back up again in his spleen and liver. through chemotherapy, those tumors wound up shrinking significantly, but it's always been made very clear that there's no more opportunity for him to "beat" cancer. it's more just a waiting game of where it will pop up next and with what kind of vengeance. earlier in the year, it was discovered he had a spot on his spine. it wasn't particularly large or intrusive, but once cancer hits bone, especially spine and its column of connecting fluid, it's not the best of signs. needless to say, it seems the dr. is going straight for scans of his head to see if there is any brain tumor or lesion to be found there.
i've always feared this moment and i've been pretty realistic in knowing it would probably come soon, at some point. spine and brain are so connected and usually once one has had a taste of the cancer stuff, the other is next to follow. all the reading i've done has told me that brain cancer is a quick and slippery slope with fatal results. it's strange to write these words. my father's and my relationship has been so strained my whole life. there have often been times since his diagnosis several years ago, not to mention times before that when he was still a healthy man, that i've thought of how it would be easier, especially on my mother, if he passed away. and now, with that reality staring me in the face, part of me regrets ever thinking it and the other tells me not to forget the long history of emotional violence that stems from him.
but what really gets me every time i worry about him or start to contemplate his death and what that will be like for me, i almost always lose sight of the reality, the right now. i eventually, without fail, always wind up overlooking him and land up at the fact that i will take care of and console my mother, what's needed anyway, but who will take care of and console me? every time i think of his illness and his passing, i come back to this right here...and i miss you terribly; in ways that make me clutch my gut with the pain of your absence. because despite everything we went through and regardless of how you never knew what to say when i was upset over his illness, you were and still are what i think of when i think of comfort. when i consider all that i might need when his final decline begins, it's only you that comes to mind. you, the person who struggled most with knowing what to say to me in times of sadness. you, who thought i needed more than just your silence and support or the physical strength and safety of your arms and shoulders. i have every reason in the world not to trust you and this won't change that; this won't find me dialing you aimlessly at 2am needing to hear your voice. yet still, it's your absence i'll cry for right now and not the eventuality of my father's.
you were my safety net despite all of your fears that you were never strong enough for me. did you ever really know that?
i've always feared this moment and i've been pretty realistic in knowing it would probably come soon, at some point. spine and brain are so connected and usually once one has had a taste of the cancer stuff, the other is next to follow. all the reading i've done has told me that brain cancer is a quick and slippery slope with fatal results. it's strange to write these words. my father's and my relationship has been so strained my whole life. there have often been times since his diagnosis several years ago, not to mention times before that when he was still a healthy man, that i've thought of how it would be easier, especially on my mother, if he passed away. and now, with that reality staring me in the face, part of me regrets ever thinking it and the other tells me not to forget the long history of emotional violence that stems from him.
but what really gets me every time i worry about him or start to contemplate his death and what that will be like for me, i almost always lose sight of the reality, the right now. i eventually, without fail, always wind up overlooking him and land up at the fact that i will take care of and console my mother, what's needed anyway, but who will take care of and console me? every time i think of his illness and his passing, i come back to this right here...and i miss you terribly; in ways that make me clutch my gut with the pain of your absence. because despite everything we went through and regardless of how you never knew what to say when i was upset over his illness, you were and still are what i think of when i think of comfort. when i consider all that i might need when his final decline begins, it's only you that comes to mind. you, the person who struggled most with knowing what to say to me in times of sadness. you, who thought i needed more than just your silence and support or the physical strength and safety of your arms and shoulders. i have every reason in the world not to trust you and this won't change that; this won't find me dialing you aimlessly at 2am needing to hear your voice. yet still, it's your absence i'll cry for right now and not the eventuality of my father's.
you were my safety net despite all of your fears that you were never strong enough for me. did you ever really know that?
Monday, July 21, 2008
butch vs. femme, or why it's not ok to play "i have it harder than you."
after a fairly successful weekend of fun, i was visiting my usual online haunts before getting ready for bed and came across the most recent vlog by resident youtube butch, AJ on her sister channel, the Beaver Bunch. i don't know how popular AJ, of Ask AJ Anything fame, is amongst us tech savvy queers out there, but basically she gives advice and makes a lot of "top 10" lists. i've never found her much to write home about, but that's just my opinion.
anyway, this week's vlog was about sharing coming out stories, which was all well and good until about 4minutes and 45seconds in when AJ starts talking about being visibly queer and how she can never not be "out" because of her appearance. shortly after this, she relays the following message that has had me fuming for the past hour. basically, this: femmes have it easy. maybe my anger is misdirected. AJ is only one of many butches i've heard voice these sentiments in the past few years and i'm officially over it. so, to AJ, and all those who might agree with her, here's my rant:
so, check it. unfortunately, most of us who are queer have had homophobic speech slung at us at least once in our lives. whether it was directed to us individually, as part of a couple, or with a group, the impact is still the same. for me personally, this usually isn't what i get called out on the street for when i'm on my own or with a group a friends. if i'm going to be heckled in broad daylight in the middle of downtown, it's going to be because i'm fat or, the way i like to think of it, because i'm a hot fat girl who defies every convention of what it is i'm supposed to do - cover up every inch of skin, wear dark colors, talk quietly. basically, do everything i can to keep attention away from me, to fade into the woodwork. though truth be told, assholes on the street would find me there too.
when i've been the target of queer bashing though, it's always been in the company of others. a big group of my homo friends at a non-queer bar or arm-in-arm with someone i'm dating who, because i always date on the more masculine end of the gender spectrum, tends to be more visibly queer than myself, thus drawing attention to us. those times have mostly been scary, some downright terrifying and, later, when safety is certain and blood pressures have resumed a normal range, angering for everyone involved. never, though, have i sat down afterward with my significant other or with my friends and deliberated which one of us motivated the attack, who's most queer in appearance, or who has it easiest/hardest...and i, frankly, can't understand anyone who would!
i know all about the differences of visibility and invisibility when it comes to butch and femme (or anyone queer who doesn't pass as straight and anyone queer who does - the labels don't matter here); i deal with what it means to be invisible to a straight world, and even a queer world sometimes, on a regular basis. for example, there are few things more infuriating to me than my lack of recognizability as queer and the swiftness with which that changes based on who my partner is. far too often, my entire gender and sexuality become about the gender identity of the person i'm dating rather than anything about me. all this being said though, i also know that i'm privileged in passing because my queerness is rarely a visible target of staring, behind-the-back whispers, or violence, and that those are things butches and other masculine-identified, female-bodied folks are forced to deal with constantly. i don't deny AJ, or any other person who exhibits female masculinity of any kind, the fact that their visibility is always more dangerous. the ways in which they bravely navigate that on a daily basis will always have my utmost respect and appreciation.
my frustration instead is about the need to make this comparison, to attempt to outdo eachothers' experiences of oppression. i would never say to a butch, a trans guy, someone genderqueer, that i experience discrimination worse than they do because of x, y, or z. i realize, in the case of visibility, their identity puts them in a different place, a more volatile place even, than myself, but i'm not going to tolerate them or anyone else telling me that i have it easy. this is not to say that differences in experience don't need to be acknowledged. of course they do! and in the particular case of discrimination as a result of visibility, i know who has a roughter time. but what's the point of sitting around contrasting whether the attack on your queerness is greater than mine? what gets accomplished in that? and more so, what significant information gets erased in this attempt? what about the particulars of space and time? or the specifics of the person and the variety of other intersecting identities like race and class and size, amongst others, that operate simultaneously with queerness and how we experience discrimination? are we really going to spend time figuring out whose feelings were hurt more or who was treated more unjustly when a stranger called you a "dyke" and me a "fat bitch"? or are we going to acknowledge the fact that it sucked in a bunch of different ways for both of us, but we learned a bit from each others' experiences as a result?
if we're queers and know what that means to us and understand the politics and investments of using that word beyond an identity of being G, L, B, or T, we need to learn what it means to be allies to one another; to be supportive, caring, respectful, self-reflexive, and to know that finger pointing and pitting ourselves against each other is futile. acknowledging the different ways we experience our lives and our identities is invaluable, but the pissing contest of who has it easiest and who has it worst seems to be a game with no actual winner.
anyway, this week's vlog was about sharing coming out stories, which was all well and good until about 4minutes and 45seconds in when AJ starts talking about being visibly queer and how she can never not be "out" because of her appearance. shortly after this, she relays the following message that has had me fuming for the past hour. basically, this: femmes have it easy. maybe my anger is misdirected. AJ is only one of many butches i've heard voice these sentiments in the past few years and i'm officially over it. so, to AJ, and all those who might agree with her, here's my rant:
so, check it. unfortunately, most of us who are queer have had homophobic speech slung at us at least once in our lives. whether it was directed to us individually, as part of a couple, or with a group, the impact is still the same. for me personally, this usually isn't what i get called out on the street for when i'm on my own or with a group a friends. if i'm going to be heckled in broad daylight in the middle of downtown, it's going to be because i'm fat or, the way i like to think of it, because i'm a hot fat girl who defies every convention of what it is i'm supposed to do - cover up every inch of skin, wear dark colors, talk quietly. basically, do everything i can to keep attention away from me, to fade into the woodwork. though truth be told, assholes on the street would find me there too.
when i've been the target of queer bashing though, it's always been in the company of others. a big group of my homo friends at a non-queer bar or arm-in-arm with someone i'm dating who, because i always date on the more masculine end of the gender spectrum, tends to be more visibly queer than myself, thus drawing attention to us. those times have mostly been scary, some downright terrifying and, later, when safety is certain and blood pressures have resumed a normal range, angering for everyone involved. never, though, have i sat down afterward with my significant other or with my friends and deliberated which one of us motivated the attack, who's most queer in appearance, or who has it easiest/hardest...and i, frankly, can't understand anyone who would!
i know all about the differences of visibility and invisibility when it comes to butch and femme (or anyone queer who doesn't pass as straight and anyone queer who does - the labels don't matter here); i deal with what it means to be invisible to a straight world, and even a queer world sometimes, on a regular basis. for example, there are few things more infuriating to me than my lack of recognizability as queer and the swiftness with which that changes based on who my partner is. far too often, my entire gender and sexuality become about the gender identity of the person i'm dating rather than anything about me. all this being said though, i also know that i'm privileged in passing because my queerness is rarely a visible target of staring, behind-the-back whispers, or violence, and that those are things butches and other masculine-identified, female-bodied folks are forced to deal with constantly. i don't deny AJ, or any other person who exhibits female masculinity of any kind, the fact that their visibility is always more dangerous. the ways in which they bravely navigate that on a daily basis will always have my utmost respect and appreciation.
my frustration instead is about the need to make this comparison, to attempt to outdo eachothers' experiences of oppression. i would never say to a butch, a trans guy, someone genderqueer, that i experience discrimination worse than they do because of x, y, or z. i realize, in the case of visibility, their identity puts them in a different place, a more volatile place even, than myself, but i'm not going to tolerate them or anyone else telling me that i have it easy. this is not to say that differences in experience don't need to be acknowledged. of course they do! and in the particular case of discrimination as a result of visibility, i know who has a roughter time. but what's the point of sitting around contrasting whether the attack on your queerness is greater than mine? what gets accomplished in that? and more so, what significant information gets erased in this attempt? what about the particulars of space and time? or the specifics of the person and the variety of other intersecting identities like race and class and size, amongst others, that operate simultaneously with queerness and how we experience discrimination? are we really going to spend time figuring out whose feelings were hurt more or who was treated more unjustly when a stranger called you a "dyke" and me a "fat bitch"? or are we going to acknowledge the fact that it sucked in a bunch of different ways for both of us, but we learned a bit from each others' experiences as a result?
if we're queers and know what that means to us and understand the politics and investments of using that word beyond an identity of being G, L, B, or T, we need to learn what it means to be allies to one another; to be supportive, caring, respectful, self-reflexive, and to know that finger pointing and pitting ourselves against each other is futile. acknowledging the different ways we experience our lives and our identities is invaluable, but the pissing contest of who has it easiest and who has it worst seems to be a game with no actual winner.
Friday, July 11, 2008
fail: katy perry
i've been trying to write a post about katy perry's new song "i kissed a girl" for about two weeks now and every time i try to sit down and do it, i go off on these crazy tirades that take me far away from where i began. as destiny would have it though, my friend gave me the heads up on some reporter at the chicago sun times writing an article about how katy's song is the new summer anthem and asking for readers' opinions. i wasn't going to respond, but then my friend made me feel it was my queer duty. did i want some college co-ed responding instead about the merits of kissing random girls for free beer at frat parties? not really. so here's what i wrote up and sent to the reporter:
Before even getting into the specifics as to why "I Kissed a Girl" is so problematic, it seems necessary to note that the other song responsible for making Katy Perry popular is her "Ur So Gay," which details her woes of having an "emo" or "indie rock" boyfriend whose masculinity, and later sexuality, falls into question because of both his clothing style and taste in music. As a celebrity who has not gone on record as being anything but straight, we should question Perry's obsession with queer culture and her unapologetic capitalization of it through her music. Straight performers getting rich off of the experiences of queer folks should be as inflammatory as any other kind of exploitation. As far as "I Kissed a Girl" goes, the song is blatantly ignorant in its trivialization of sexual experimentation and of the lives and practices of queer women. This isn't to say that girls kissing girls, regardless of their sexuality, needs to be considered Earth-shattering events, but more so that reducing it to a naughty "game" aimed at getting a boyfriend's attention - a game that, mind you, isn't even worth Perry obtaining her girl crush's name - is just belittling for the many queer women who find significance in kissing other women! The video for the song makes any possibility of its subversion completely impossible by its rendering of girl-on-girl action down to the tired scenario of outrageously feminine women clad in lingerie and fishnets, applying each others' make-up amidst their flirty gyrations. While this demographic of high femmes, or queer women who express their femininity overtly, exists within queer communities and should be rightfully celebrated, it leads me to question whether or not mainstream music and media produced by straight people, Katy Perry now included, will ever actually attempt to represent the breadth of sexual and gender identities within queer women and lesbian communities. I'm not optimistic.
i know there's a ton more to say, but i was trying to keep my comments succinct and comprehensible to mainstream audiences. if she gets back to me and wants to use any of it, i'll press the problem of "trying on" another girl and/or queerness for a night and the ease and privilege straight girls have in giving it a go. also, props to my bestie charlotte for actually growling over that line when i sang it to her on the phone.
for reference:
"i kissed a girl" - video
"i kissed a girl" - lyrics
"ur so gay" - video
"ur so gay" - lyrics
Before even getting into the specifics as to why "I Kissed a Girl" is so problematic, it seems necessary to note that the other song responsible for making Katy Perry popular is her "Ur So Gay," which details her woes of having an "emo" or "indie rock" boyfriend whose masculinity, and later sexuality, falls into question because of both his clothing style and taste in music. As a celebrity who has not gone on record as being anything but straight, we should question Perry's obsession with queer culture and her unapologetic capitalization of it through her music. Straight performers getting rich off of the experiences of queer folks should be as inflammatory as any other kind of exploitation. As far as "I Kissed a Girl" goes, the song is blatantly ignorant in its trivialization of sexual experimentation and of the lives and practices of queer women. This isn't to say that girls kissing girls, regardless of their sexuality, needs to be considered Earth-shattering events, but more so that reducing it to a naughty "game" aimed at getting a boyfriend's attention - a game that, mind you, isn't even worth Perry obtaining her girl crush's name - is just belittling for the many queer women who find significance in kissing other women! The video for the song makes any possibility of its subversion completely impossible by its rendering of girl-on-girl action down to the tired scenario of outrageously feminine women clad in lingerie and fishnets, applying each others' make-up amidst their flirty gyrations. While this demographic of high femmes, or queer women who express their femininity overtly, exists within queer communities and should be rightfully celebrated, it leads me to question whether or not mainstream music and media produced by straight people, Katy Perry now included, will ever actually attempt to represent the breadth of sexual and gender identities within queer women and lesbian communities. I'm not optimistic.
i know there's a ton more to say, but i was trying to keep my comments succinct and comprehensible to mainstream audiences. if she gets back to me and wants to use any of it, i'll press the problem of "trying on" another girl and/or queerness for a night and the ease and privilege straight girls have in giving it a go. also, props to my bestie charlotte for actually growling over that line when i sang it to her on the phone.
for reference:
"i kissed a girl" - video
"i kissed a girl" - lyrics
"ur so gay" - video
"ur so gay" - lyrics
Sunday, June 29, 2008
femme conference!
pride. le sigh.
i feel like a bad queer today. pride has come and gone and i did *nothing* to celebrate. in fact, i spent my saturday night with my queer-friendly straight friends playing rock band until the wee hours of the morning. i finally got to screech celebrity skin into a microphone with my friends on various back-up instruments. it was super sweet.
i don't know why i can't get behind pride anymore. i could say it's the commercialization of it, which it is somewhat. being in minneapolis during pride, the city that houses the headquarters of target, it's a little bit vomitous to see homos walking around with temporary rainbow tattoos with big target emblems in the middle. but that's not it entirely. my friends all went out last night, had a big gay time, and i'm sure i would've had a blast if i was with them. i just couldn't bring myself to do it though.
maybe it's the way that pride turns into a binge drinking fest, which i have no issue with necessarily except for when it's binge drinking done by a bunch of frat boy dykes with visors that make me want diiiiiieeee. popped collars, polo sport, and the who-has-a-better-6-pack contest amongst them is just so not appealing.
maybe i'm too old for this. but i'm only 26. should i really be this over it? i blame college. four years at a women's college where all we did was drink and buy into this gross fetishistic culture of talking about tits and bacardi 151. i wasn't even butch then or sporty or whatever...i was femme, but not out as femme because there wasn't any kind of space for that there. four years worth of all that grimey, sweaty, woo-hoo "pride" shit that has made me feel sour about it since.
but don't get me wrong either. i've been to prides all over the place, in various cities, since college and have enjoyed myself. nyc pride is fantastic and there's no way to not have fun there, whereas d.c. was just plain ol' underwhelming. i don't know what it is, but even my fonder memories of summers spent partying in the streets with a bunch of queers, covered in rainbows, and drinking margaritas smuggled in in nalgene bottles can't get me amped about it now.
i guess what makes me feel guilty, when i really think about it, is that as a femme, i recognize that i get away with a lot. i walk down the street and what i get noticed for or heckled for is almost never my gender or perceived sexuality. i'm read as a straight girl unless i'm arm-in-arm with some handsome boi type. and so i know that, in the spirit of pride which, lest we forget with all that beer and all of those tits, that what we're celebrating when we do pride is that queers exist and that we can organize and form mass and can be political and powerful. this is, after all, our remembering of stonewall, right? so i feel this obligation as someone who passes as straight 99% of the time to stand-up and state my queerness and my desire and to challenge people's assumptions that yes, queer can come in a body that wears red lipstick and dresses. here i am, come and count me. but even with all that on my mind, i couldn't get myself to the parade, to the various marches (including the trans march, which is way smaller, not commercialized, and struggles with visibility every year), or even to the afterparty at our local queer watering hole.
i want to be excited about pride again or maybe not even "pride" but just queerness in general. i want to take it back from its sponsors and i want it to feel inclusive and fun and political. i want margaritas and middle-of-the-street dance parties, and making out at random, but i want powerful protest signs and memory behind that too. acknowledgment of a history of queers that kind of gets lost somehwere for me in all that is "pride" currently.
i don't know why i can't get behind pride anymore. i could say it's the commercialization of it, which it is somewhat. being in minneapolis during pride, the city that houses the headquarters of target, it's a little bit vomitous to see homos walking around with temporary rainbow tattoos with big target emblems in the middle. but that's not it entirely. my friends all went out last night, had a big gay time, and i'm sure i would've had a blast if i was with them. i just couldn't bring myself to do it though.
maybe it's the way that pride turns into a binge drinking fest, which i have no issue with necessarily except for when it's binge drinking done by a bunch of frat boy dykes with visors that make me want diiiiiieeee. popped collars, polo sport, and the who-has-a-better-6-pack contest amongst them is just so not appealing.
maybe i'm too old for this. but i'm only 26. should i really be this over it? i blame college. four years at a women's college where all we did was drink and buy into this gross fetishistic culture of talking about tits and bacardi 151. i wasn't even butch then or sporty or whatever...i was femme, but not out as femme because there wasn't any kind of space for that there. four years worth of all that grimey, sweaty, woo-hoo "pride" shit that has made me feel sour about it since.
but don't get me wrong either. i've been to prides all over the place, in various cities, since college and have enjoyed myself. nyc pride is fantastic and there's no way to not have fun there, whereas d.c. was just plain ol' underwhelming. i don't know what it is, but even my fonder memories of summers spent partying in the streets with a bunch of queers, covered in rainbows, and drinking margaritas smuggled in in nalgene bottles can't get me amped about it now.
i guess what makes me feel guilty, when i really think about it, is that as a femme, i recognize that i get away with a lot. i walk down the street and what i get noticed for or heckled for is almost never my gender or perceived sexuality. i'm read as a straight girl unless i'm arm-in-arm with some handsome boi type. and so i know that, in the spirit of pride which, lest we forget with all that beer and all of those tits, that what we're celebrating when we do pride is that queers exist and that we can organize and form mass and can be political and powerful. this is, after all, our remembering of stonewall, right? so i feel this obligation as someone who passes as straight 99% of the time to stand-up and state my queerness and my desire and to challenge people's assumptions that yes, queer can come in a body that wears red lipstick and dresses. here i am, come and count me. but even with all that on my mind, i couldn't get myself to the parade, to the various marches (including the trans march, which is way smaller, not commercialized, and struggles with visibility every year), or even to the afterparty at our local queer watering hole.
i want to be excited about pride again or maybe not even "pride" but just queerness in general. i want to take it back from its sponsors and i want it to feel inclusive and fun and political. i want margaritas and middle-of-the-street dance parties, and making out at random, but i want powerful protest signs and memory behind that too. acknowledgment of a history of queers that kind of gets lost somehwere for me in all that is "pride" currently.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
did she really do that?
i've been busy spending my days since getting back from vacation endlessly visiting the apple website as i make and remake my new dream computer, as well as working on a conference paper for this big schmoozy national meow meow academic conference i'm leaving for tomorrow. at least they're showing the film "female to femme" by kami chisolm, which i'm totally amped about seeing. i've heard a lot of praise and a few seemingly viable criticisms, so i'll report back more on that later and let you know where i throw my hat on that debate.
in the meantime, i just wanted to post quickly about the absolute hilarity that is life sometimes. my most recent, serious ex (i.e. love-of-my-life, broke-my-hearts-to-bits ex) has resurfaced over the past several weeks. we stopped talking in november and i instituted one of those "don't contact me again, you ruined my life" policies. she didn't really abide by it. tried to contact me in february with no response from me and then sprung up again right before i left on my trip. it's a bad idea for us to talk. ever. i resent her for 100 reasons, she's perpetually unsatisfied with life and whoever she's dating, i'm over feeling like someone who just fills time for her, etc.
anyway, it was a struggle the past few weeks deciding what i wanted to do. had i moved on enough emotionally to let her in a bit or see what she had to say? should i just stay the course and run away faster than i ever had before? i was undecided. somehow, i managed to do both with the end result being a reinstitution of a new and improved "don't contact me again, you ruined my life, you arrogant butch fuck" policy. hopefully she'll stick to it this time, though who can say?
...and then today, because the internet is amazing and because sometimes after a bunch of lemons life actually just hands you lemonade in a tall, chilled glass... [insert dramatic pause]... i found out she got a cat and named him after me.
ok, so not exactly after me. i mean, we don't share the same first and/or last name, but she named him the stupid, cute nickname we used to call one another when we'd get grossed out over how "made for each other" we were. is that fucking precious or what? if this was 6 months ago, 4 months even, i'd feel sad or sentimental or some other nonsense, but at this point, it's just comical. and incredibly just and vindicating. mostly, though, just hilarious. i mean, can you think of a better, more ridiculous foray into an anecdote about dyke drama only to say, "...so she named her cat after me..."?! i challenge you all to post any stories of the like. come on, i need something to keep me laughing while i'm being all studious in a terribly unappealing, midwestern* city!
* this is not to hate on the midwest generally. after all, i do live in the midwest. just the particular city i'm going to is hardly somewhere to be stoked over. so yeah, tell me funny things, no? xo!
in the meantime, i just wanted to post quickly about the absolute hilarity that is life sometimes. my most recent, serious ex (i.e. love-of-my-life, broke-my-hearts-to-bits ex) has resurfaced over the past several weeks. we stopped talking in november and i instituted one of those "don't contact me again, you ruined my life" policies. she didn't really abide by it. tried to contact me in february with no response from me and then sprung up again right before i left on my trip. it's a bad idea for us to talk. ever. i resent her for 100 reasons, she's perpetually unsatisfied with life and whoever she's dating, i'm over feeling like someone who just fills time for her, etc.
anyway, it was a struggle the past few weeks deciding what i wanted to do. had i moved on enough emotionally to let her in a bit or see what she had to say? should i just stay the course and run away faster than i ever had before? i was undecided. somehow, i managed to do both with the end result being a reinstitution of a new and improved "don't contact me again, you ruined my life, you arrogant butch fuck" policy. hopefully she'll stick to it this time, though who can say?
...and then today, because the internet is amazing and because sometimes after a bunch of lemons life actually just hands you lemonade in a tall, chilled glass... [insert dramatic pause]... i found out she got a cat and named him after me.
ok, so not exactly after me. i mean, we don't share the same first and/or last name, but she named him the stupid, cute nickname we used to call one another when we'd get grossed out over how "made for each other" we were. is that fucking precious or what? if this was 6 months ago, 4 months even, i'd feel sad or sentimental or some other nonsense, but at this point, it's just comical. and incredibly just and vindicating. mostly, though, just hilarious. i mean, can you think of a better, more ridiculous foray into an anecdote about dyke drama only to say, "...so she named her cat after me..."?! i challenge you all to post any stories of the like. come on, i need something to keep me laughing while i'm being all studious in a terribly unappealing, midwestern* city!
* this is not to hate on the midwest generally. after all, i do live in the midwest. just the particular city i'm going to is hardly somewhere to be stoked over. so yeah, tell me funny things, no? xo!
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