Lawn Bowling Anyone?

Laying in bed this morning, this was my thought process: I have the day off and I kinda wanna get out and see people.  But I also really don’t wanna get into an overwhelming social situation full of well-meaning extroverts that will leave me drained and vaguely irritated.  What I’d really like is to host a read-in and serve ice cream to a select few of my lovely friends. 

Then the mail came and there was my AARP card, again.  I’ve been getting AARP cards in the mail since high school despite being about 30 years too young and living in half a dozen different places since then.  As I tossed the red and white envelope into the trash I finally realized what the universe has been trying to tell me for the last decade.  I'm not young at heart, I'm old at heart!  And that is the perfect introvert-friendly party theme.  

Ideas for your next "Old at Heart" party:

Invite a few close friends, read large print mystery novels, do crossword puzzles, listen to opera, knit, wear comfortable shoes, write letters to your elected officials and overshare about your bodies.  (queers do the last two on their own anyway)  Serve soft foods, an assortment of teas as well as stevia-sweetened biscuits for the diabetic party-goers.  The party should start at 7 am, or 3 pm if you're up for making it a  dinner party, in which case you may need one of these:

You could even provide optional earplugs for guests seeking a more authentic experience.  Yes.  If people my age behaved more like the elderly I’d be a much more social human.   

So, where can I get a croquette set?  And if I make jello in a bundt cake pan do I hafta grease it first?  That sounds nasty but how else do you get it to come out so perfectly?  I clearly have a lot to learn about elderlydom before I can do this party theme justice.  I think I’ll start by repairing that old quilt my dog chewed up while listening to Betty Whites audiobooks.

*image 1 from futureofthecookbook.com (did anyone catch the "jello relish"?)

*image 2 from thekitschbitsch.blogspot.com

*image 3 from inmagine.com

From the Archives: A Letter to the Gorilla

I haven’t liked anything I’ve written lately (some of you readerfolk may have noticed that I've posted a couple times and then immediately taken the posts down)  But I want to post something so I unearthed a letter from the archives.  In the summer of 2010, after about 6 months of on again off again dating Inmate 12004 and I had stopped talking for about a month.  In that time he decided he was going to move back home to the East Coast.  We reconciled before he left and I wrote him this letter shortly after he moved:

                                                                                   

August 19^th 2010

Dear Gorilla,

             It was very nice to chat with you today.  I’m glad things are looking up and that NY feels right.  I have to say though that the idea of you living there worries me.  When I asked about your moat [the Gorilla says he likes to have some kind of buffer to help him stay away from alcohol and partying] you said you don’t know anyone but I suspect that you will meet people.  There are lots of people to meet in that gigantic city.  So, I’ve been giving this some thought and I think I may have come up with a solution. 

            There is a lake in Central Park.  Go there in the dark, or ‘under the cover of night’ if you’re feeling poetic.  This way everyone will be sleeping except maybe the meth people and boy people having sex in the bushes.  But they probably won’t care what you’re doing.  They probably won’t even introduce themselves.

            So, you bring your friends and their dumptrucks.  Boypeople have friends with dumptrucks, yes?  K.  The dumptrucks should be full of sand, gravel, jellybeans, or whatever you have lying around.  I’ll leave that bit to you, you know much more about these things than I do. 

            Then you dump the sand/gravel/jellybeans in the middle of the lake to make a small island.  I’m not sure how big this lake is so you might need a giant crane or two to lift the dumptrucks so they can reach the center of the lake to dump their loads.  Again, these details are your responsibility.

            Next step, build stuff on the pile of sand/gravel/jellybeans.  And Voie La!  You have a cozy home with a moat.  You’re welcome.  Oh, you should probably bring a very large sheet (parachute?) to drape over the giant brass toadstool Alice in Wonderland statue.  That shits creepy.  I know I couldn’t sleep with that little lady staring at me.

            Then in the morning when you emerge from your new home there will be lots of people around but they will be happy because they are in a park and not a skyscraper.  So you will be centrally located (I’m assuming, since its called Central Park) but you will have a nice buffer of water and happy park goers between you and the big scary city.  Otherwise, there are lakes and dumptrucks in Oregon as well.  Just sayin. 

Oh!  And I’ve finally found a ridiculously hardcore nailpolish that I suspect could hold up to that irritating thing you like to do to my nails.  So if you come back, I’m ready.

In other news, Bootface [a lady the Gorilla was seeing briefly] and I are Facebook friends.  She’s a strange bird.  She sat down inches from me on a crowded couch at Penguin’s party and didn’t acknowledge me at all so I asked her how she was healing from her bike accident and then over the course of the afternoon we would drift into other conversations and other rooms and then she would silently appear beside me again and I would feel awkward for a second and then try to talk to her again.  This happened several times.  She never actually engaged me directly but she Facebook friended me the next day so I guess it’s official.  And we never talked about you.  I’m not sure if that raises or lowers the weirdness quotient.  

The other night Cosette, my Co-Puppy*, Co-Puppy’s Boyfriend and I went out to the Boyfriend’s family’s amazing home out in the middle of nowhere.  It’s so far out the mosquitoes haven’t even found it yet.  We sang, drank rye whiskey and fell asleep in the woods under the stars.  It was very nice.  But the best part really (aside from the stars and tent-less-ness) was the 2 wonderful dogs.  You would have loved them.  The first was a small brindle boxer with a grumpy old-manish underbite and jowls named Willie.  And the other was a caramel colored dog named Janey who looks like a pitbull/lab mix.  I remembered their names by calling them Janey sadface and Willie madface.  Janey sadface was very sweet and mellow and cuddly.  She was my favorite and should make babies with Rusty.  Says I.  Then in the morning I went to work and altered a suit

v---e---r---y------s---l---o---w---l---y. 

On NPR the other day there was a story called “From Grunting to Gabbing: Why Humans Can Talk” on All Things Considered.  It focused on the physical reasons humans can talk and other primates can’t.  They said that being able to control the air pressure in you lungs as you speak or sing is uniquely human and that if we didn’t have this ability we would explode our vocal chords.  That’s why chimps can only take shallow breaths and can’t make sustained sounds.  And that same change in the shape and length of our airway which allows us to speak and sing also makes it easier for us to choke to death.  I just had to share that because I think it’s cool that (in this case at least) it seems that we adapted to create art and communicate rather than survive.  Woah.  Though I suppose communication is related to survival.  Anyway, it’s an interesting factoid. 

That’s all the news from my side of the country!  I hope you’re safe and well.

Love,

Bunny

*Co-Puppy (noun): A close friend you love and respect and can be brutally honest with.  You both sometimes do dumb shit and you trust them to let you know when you've mucked up and to help you fix it and vice versa.  This very special person is called a co-puppy because two friends navigating their 20's together is like the blind leading the blind or two puppies trying to raise each other.   

Parental Prejudices (and puppies!)

I haven’t told my parents that I’ve started stripping but I have hinted. Heavily. So I figure they’ll figure it out when their brains let them piece it together.  This is what our conversations sound like now:

Mom: So what are you up to this weekend?
Me: I'm doing my first intermediate pole class Friday, Saturday I go on a date with a lovely lady and Sunday I’m getting my bikini line lasered.
Mom: Oh, how did you two meet?
Me: At a strip club.
Mom: Oh Ladyface.
Me: Mom there’s nothing wrong with dancing.
Mom: But it’s so gross, all those dirty old men.
Me: When was the last time you went to a strip club?
Mom: Never!
Me: Well I’ve been to about 20 and there are some I’d never go back to but there are several in town that are actually pretty great. Safe, fun, sex positive.
Mom: Eww. Just promise me you’ll never take your clothes off.
Me: [silence]
Mom: Ladyface! You’d never do that. Right?!
Me: I’m still gonna shower.
Mom: [laughing] Oh my god, you scared me.

Maybe she never has to know. But she’s already pestering me about finding a job in SF. And she’s concerned that I can’t afford to move. Really, I could move today if I wanted to but I’m committed to my day job through May. Ironically the club I work at is a hell of a lot safer than the dive bar I bartended at and she was thrilled when I started there.

So…I dunno. Is coming out necessary? Who does it serve? Is it selfish to come out if the alternative is just enduring a bit more well-meaning nagging than usual? My mum is a CPA and does my taxes so I suppose she’ll find out next year when I’ll have tax documents from the club I’m working at and clips4sale.  Unless I can come up with a good excuse to take care of that stuff myself.

On a lighter note, we talked about the Favorite Child: 

Mom: The Doodle doesn’t like other dogs very much. He’s more of a people person.
Me: Mom, your dog isn’t a person.
Mom: Oh, yes. Well, you know what I mean. 

Later in the same call:

Me: Dad, I’m hungry, what should I eat?
Dad: Peanut butter! Doodle and I really like peanut butter.
Me: I was thinking more like a meal.
Dad: ...peanut butter and jelly?

Oh parents. I love how much you love that pretty pup.  =3 

And if there were a backwards three on the keyboard that would look more like a dog bone.

*image from labradoodleoftheday.com

Oblivi-cis

In my limited time at the strip club I’ve been amazed at how many men inform me that I look like a 50’s pin-up and expect this to be new information, as if my very carefully designed and executed hair, makeup and outfit are all just a happy coincidence.

I don’t just wake up like this boys. No, it takes a whole team of singing birds and field mice an hour and a half to create this look. Okay, maybe not. But it really does take about an hour and a half to get ready before each shift (since there isn’t a femmification iPhone app yet.)  Come on apple, get on it! I would buy that app in a heartbeat. Or a robot. Yes, a robot would be very nice. But it has to have joint-free hands or fancy silky gloves so our pretty femmey hairs won’t get tangled while they style our elegant updos. Thanks. But back to Ava, I suppose I might get sick of the commitment and simplify my look to reduce that time but for now the slow, deliberate self care feels pretty great.

If you follow me on twitter (@1ladyface) you may have seen my tweet about my new favorite book:

It is pretty amazing. There’s even a handy quiz to determine your “true” hair color which apparently is directly linked to personality traits and has nothing to do with the actual color of your roots. I had no idea. Apparently I'm really a "brownette" not to be confused with "brunettes" who are more sexually aggressive and wear heavier eyeliner. Clearly. But back to the topic at hand, I can’t imagine trying to write a whole book based on cisdudes’ understandings of femininity as Ms. Dahl claims to have done.

My recent strip club experiences have only reinforced my view that men, with the exception of some transguys and foot fetishists who know beautiful words like D’Orsay and Cole Haan, are opinionated but lack the vocabulary to communicate their testosterone muddled thoughts. Though most men do at least have a yes grunt and a no grunt, except for married ones who have a yes grunt and an uncomfortable “meh” sound.

“Always Ask a Man…” must have taken ages to write! I’m imagining a Diving Bell and the Butterfly type scenario.

Cheers to Arlene, wherever you are! You are clearly the most patient woman in the world.

p.s. I am aware that some cisdudes are awesome, well-spoken, self aware and appreciative of high femmeness but in my experience they are in the minority. Sorry boys. Also, I respect my clients and I realize that they don’t need to know what goes into the Ava look anymore than I need to know about their pipe welding or data entry or bull fighting. Though if I met a bullfighter I would have a bajillion questions for them, like wtf? And why?

Then I’d ask to borrow their cute little embroidered jacket.

Puppy Pies

Today I woke up, wrote three letters and took the pup on a walk to the post office and the library.

On the way to the post office I had to stop to pick up the pups poop and as I stood up I realized that a bus had stopped for me.  Oops.  So I smiled at the driver and flashed him the international signal for “Nope, don’t need a ride.  Just picking up dog shit.  Have a nice day!”  Darnit pup.

Then she decided she needed to go again as we were walking by the bank.  As soon as she squatted two raggedy men at the ATM started screaming at each other and within seconds five cop cars squealed into the parking lot.  Five.  It was weird.  They must have been waiting.  Maybe it was a sting.  Or a music video.  But the puppy watched unconcerned while I pulled her down the street to the post office. 

My pup is a ridgeback mix so it’s really easy to tell if she’s upset.  When her hackles are up she gets a supercool insta-faux-hawk. I’m consistently surprised what upsets her and what doesn’t phase her a bit.  Mom steps into the post office for a minute and she wears her concerned face the whole time (the post office has big windows so she’s never out of my sight) but an altercation involving five cop cars, neat!  Come on mom, let’s just hang out a bit to see where this goes.

Dear Pup,

Mom really does know best.  You’re gonna have to trust me on that.  I promise I will never forget you at the post office.  And speaking of mail, the mailman isn’t out to get you so you can stop jumping up on the coffee table and growling at him every time he approaches the house.  It’s rude and it’s not working.  You’ll never be a guard dog.  Sorry baby.  Even when you’re growling you look like a pudgy harmless snuggle pup.  That’s why he laughs and smiles and waves instead of cowering.  But you’re cute as a button and excellent at cuddles!    

Love always,

Mom

p.s. Please pick better poop times.

*image from icanhascheezburger

Introducing Ava

I wrote this on Saturday January 28th and I finally got around to editing and uploading it.  Sorry for the delay.  I think it's still worth sharing...

I’m a STRIPPER!

My audition was tonight.

             I went with a close friend who was also auditioning.  We talked to the DJ first and he pointed out the owner who was sitting at a table near the bar.  He looked like he had costumed himself to audition for the part of strip club owner in a Quentin Tarantino movie.  

             He had greasy gray hair past his shoulders, a chain necklace, facial hair shaved into thin angular lines and a shirt he had clearly borrowed from Charlie Sheen.  But even Charlie Sheen wouldn’t have so many buttons unbuttoned.  The DJ signaled to him.  He approached confidently and studied me intently.  Then he looked at my face. 

              And surprise!  There was an interview.  Didn’t see that one coming.  He shot off a couple rounds of rapid fire questions: Where have you worked?  Have you been here before?  Why do you want to work here?  Etc.  He actually answered the last one for me and then I corrected him.  We had gone back and forth my friend and I each answering his questions in turn then he asked her why do you want to work here?  She answered and he looked back at me and said “And you’re here for the money.”  I jumped in and said actually, I love that this space is so sex positive and the girls are so friendly.  He was surprised and amused.  Then he said alright, go get changed, you’re going to do two songs and then a lapdance. 

Shit.

I had exactly one song worth of material.  So we changed and my friend went up first.  While she danced I spoke with the DJ.  It went something like this: 

Me: “I’m nervous and I don’t have many moves.  Can you play something slowish and short?” 

DJ: “Sure what do you want?” 

Me: “Do you have Little Drop of Poison?” 

DJ: “Yup.  And you want something similar for the second song?” 

Me: “Yes please.” 

DJ: “Got it.  You’re up next.”

               And then, demonstrating impressive psychic ability, he said “It doesn’t matter if you do exactly the same thing twice, just dance for yourself and have fun up there.”  And I wanted to give him a big boobiful hug.  But that seemed unprofessional.  I resisted.

              Then I danced.  And danced again.  And during the second song as I was writhing around on the floor I thought: “I’m so naked I’m not even wearing HAIR.”  And at that point I relaxed and melted into my new identity and had a hell of a lot of fun.

              Then between the pole work and the lap dance there was a brief break when the owner ran off to do something terribly important.  The DJ pulled my friend and I aside and gave us a few tips:

            “Full contact, full nudity but don’t touch his hair, his nipples or his belt.  Smile, don’t unbutton his shirt.”  etc.  So...we’d be trying to turn him on while navigating a minefield of boundaries.  Thank goodness I’ve spent the last decade sleeping with stone butches!

            When we got in the lapdance room he sat down and asked if I had ever given a lap dance before.  I confessed I hadn’t.  (I decided not to mention the informal training I’d had with my stone lovers)  He told me to straddle him and press into him.  This was not nearly as awkward as it sounds.  Then I pulled away and he proceeded to tell me the rules of the club as I remained naked and straddling him unsure of whether I should be moving or not.  I made the occasional half-assed hip sway motion but other than that it was a very business-like and un-dancey lap dance.  I think he just wants to know that the dancers are willing and able to do full nudity and full contact. 

             Then we went in the back and I filled out my availability.

          A few things I love about the club: it used to be a pirate themed family restaurant. (really) And the décor hasn’t changed much. The lap dance room maintains an especially pirate-y feel. But MOST importantly: it’s sex positive and the girls get along. In my experience that’s a rare find.
           An online review of this place says “while some folks say that strip clubs are degrading to women; this one is degrading to you. The girls call the shots and they are not afraid to embarrass you in front of your friends.” So true.

I visited several times before deciding to audition and each time there was at least one instance of some dude acting cocky and talking big and then getting schooled by one of the dancers.  As in, she jumps off stage, goes further than he expects and calls his bluff or he does a douchey move and puts a dollar on top of his head or sticking out of his collar for her to fetch and she makes a big show of flirting with him while dancing and then plops down in his lap in the least sexy way imaginable.  That one was my favorite.  It had the whole room laughing, including the dollar-collar douche.  

I’ve been to maybe 20 strip clubs in my life and this is the only one I’ve ever been tempted to work at.  The atmosphere is light and silly and fun and the dancers wear whatever they want.  One woman wears a scarf as a top, another is a hippie burner chick with giant fuzzy boots, there’s a cowgirl, a girl with the purple hair, a dommey lady in pleather thigh-high boots, a couple schoolgirl sorts, and now Ava, a lacier, vintage-ier version of me!  

*image from: T magazine blog @ nytimes.com

V-Day

Happy Belated Vday readerfolk!  I wrote this on the bus yesterday and then didn’t have a chance to upload it:

I’m stripping tonight and I’m very excited because I got a big red sequin heart hair clip like this:

But mine is not mounted on a headband so I can wear it at a saucy angle.  Ooo la la!

I am grateful that I’ll be working today.  Home makes my heart hurt this time of year.  Inmate 12004 and I met the end of January 2010.  We met on Craigslist.  He had just moved to town and posted an ad looking for queer bandmates.  He was damn cute so I messaged him and just said “Hey, I don’t play anything but let me know if you’d be up for coffee with an artsy queer femme lady.”  We started exchanging texts late that night when I was out bowling and eating tacos with friends.  We talked when I got home.  I was in the bathroom of my teeny studio changing into my penguin pajamas (which he would later make fun of before pointing out that they're actually owls, not penguins).  And dammit, he was right.   I still wear my owl pajamas but now when I wear them I accessorize with glasses and a book.

But back to the bathroom, he was trying to convince me that we should meet up that night rather than waiting till the weekend.  I paused, partially-pajamaed and precariously perched (on the metaphorical fence).  He definitely had the transguy timbre so I knew he wasn't a cisdude, but I didn't know whether he was a safe, sane person.  So I asked him to tell me a story.  He told me about working on a maple syrup farm in Vermont with a bunch of lesbian ladies.  He was clever and funny and charming.  And then we discovered that he was two blocks away.  He offered to come over and I said hell no even though I was wearing my favorite pajamas and had a round bed that was AWESOME for wrestling.  You know, stranger danger.  So I put my dress back on and drove the two blocks to his house.   Again, stranger danger. 

About half an hour into our first night together I remember thinking "Oh my goodness, I'm naked already?!"  (I have limited experience with one night stands)  But then I remembered that it was three am and we both knew what we were there for; so really it would have been strange if I wasn't naked by that point.  

           The next morning I was very quietly getting dressed so as not to disturb him.  He awoke.  This was our exchange:

 Him: Are you a stripper?

Me: No, why?

Him: Because you put on your heels before your clothes.

Me: You’re laying on my dress.

Then we looked at each other with mutual vaguely annoyed befuddlement.  This set the tone for the next year and a half.

We went our first real date that weekend:

Him: I’ve only dated straight girls.

Me: Well, I’m not straight and I don’t do monogamy. 

Him: I’m married.*

(mutual vaguely annoyed befuddlement)

One year later we moved in together.

We fell further and further and our chemistry only got more intense as time passed.  We may be perfect opposites.  If I feel strongly about something it's safe to assume he is certain that we should do the exact opposite.  Of course we continued to annoy and befuddle each other.  

One day he walked in on me shaving my legs in the bathroom sink.  I was perched on the edge of the sink with feet in the warm, shallow water.  This was our exchange:

Him: What are you doing?

Me: Shaving my legs.

Him: Why don’t you do that in the shower?

Me: Because I don’t want to mess up my hair and this sink looks like a birdbath.

Him: What does that have to do with anything?

Me: Everything.  What kind of femme would I be if I didn’t aspire to birdliness?

Him: I need to poop.

(mutual vaguely annoyed befuddlement)

Him: You eat a lot.

Me: You drink a lot.

(mutual vaguely annoyed befuddlement)

A dream I had once upon a time:

Inmate 12004 and I were in bed but he seemed distracted and I didn’t know why.  When I pulled back the covers I discovered what was going on.  This was our exchange:

Me: What are you doing?

Him: Peeling potatoes.

Me: But your hands will be all starchy.

(mutual vaguely annoyed befuddlement)

On Valentines Day last year we were both underemployed and broke.  We had moved our stuff into the two bedroom house we were to share but were living like squatters, sleeping on my old futon in the living room so as not to have to heat the whole house.  Valentines Day 2011:

A very romantic laundry day.

Dinner with jellied cranberry sauce cut into hearts. 

Then we built a fire, dragged the futon in front of the fireplace and had a magical evening.  It was the best Valentines Day ever. 

This year he is in jail.  I know he has to sort his shit out and we both need to have healthy boundaries.  But I will be thinking of him as I fall asleep in a twin bed with a sweet snuggle pup at my feet.  And despite the chaos of the last two years I still want to smell him and touch him and love him.  


If he were sober and I were ready I'd like to think we'd be curled up together with our dogs eating spaghetti and watching Lady and the Tramp.  But since that's not possible** I may as well glitter up and dance the night away.


*That whole marriage thing has since been taken care of and they were already separated when we met.  Home-wrecking isn't really my style.
**this is not possible not just because he's in jail and I'm having healthy boundaries (weird, right?) but also because he's much too much of a tough guy to watch cheesy romantic stuff.  Really, we'd probably end up watching Death Proof or Let the Right One In.  But only if he agrees to cover my eyes or let me burrow into his shoulder/neck/chest at the scary parts.