Fodder for thinking about lesbian gender

This list has got me thinking about butch a lot the past day or two, in a back-of-my-head way, and I want to see what happens if I bring it forward. I think it will be kind of rambly around here while I do, so forgive me. Please click through, so you can see what I'm talking about--the pictures are awesome, and it's a visual record I'm reacting to here.

I tend to think of myself as product of the crunchy/hippie lesbianism of the 80's--I hung out in dyke bars, but I came out in the peace movement, surrounded by activists and artists. The butch-femme tradition is something I tend to regard from a remove--I admire the guts and the sexual in-your-faceness of it, but I'm not really within it. Contrasts in masculine and feminine energy don't work for me that way.

My hair has been long for all but a few years in my middle twenties, when I cut it boy-short in an attempt to be read more easily as a lesbian. It did work: I got a lot less attention from men and I read more easily to other women, but there's identity as how you're read by others and identity as how you read yourself. My missing hair haunted my dreams for years until I grew it out, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I had to go through that experiment before I really figured out how to bring myself to a relationship.

But hair aside (and it was usually braided), I used to be a pretty straight-up flannel dyke: jeans, Birks or Docs, a baggy unisex t-shirt, an Aran sweater or a tartan shirt from Bean, and that was me dressed. And I still dress that way on winter days when I'm feeling the weather, or I want to feel armored and secure. The body-altering imperatives of femininity are a toxic mess and I have never wanted them anywhere near me, and the baggage that comes along with "pretty" often does my head in. But if I want to look good, I want to look beautiful rather than handsome. Wardrobe: I have shopped from the boy side of the store but not when I'm looking for something to make me feel sexy. It's never been the unisex tees but the femme outliers in my closet that I've reached for when I wanted to feel hot on a date or when I was heading out dancing. I feel as much in drag in a jacket and tie as in a dress: if I find the extremes of femininity asphyxiating, I find the extremes of masculinity alien rather than empowering. Butch clothing is protective, but it's dyke I'm aiming for rather than butch: a woman outside heterofeminine strictures, rather than a masculine woman.

In recent years as I've worked through some of my issues with moving through the world in my particular body, I've chosen my everyday clothes to acknowledge my curves instead of hide them, and I wear my hair loose much of the time. My sexuality and gender have a lot more to do with being a mother and a massage therapist than with playing with the erotics of the gender spectrum--and it's something that I love about women-only spaces, whether they are lesbian or not, that once men are out of the defining-yourself-against-them equation, the possibilities of female identity explode outside the two dimensions of a spectrum.

Scrolling through these pictures of butch women and transmen, I didn't feel like men were out of the equation in the way that makes gender interesting to me--it's not a women-only space, this list, and it shouldn't be when the story Sinclair Sexsmith is telling by compiling it is about a particularly blurry edge of the spectrum where "masculine woman" is not very far from "transitioning man," and that's a story that needs telling. It both isn't and is about me. What I wound up feeling about where I am is that any part of the spectrum is blurry, including my place near the middle. And even in a story about masculinity and female-born bodies, a hell of a lot of other--and to me, more compelling--axes of female identity are popping out of those pictures. I felt like these are my people, this is a tribe I belong to, and the self-portrait of Catherine Opie (#91) nursing her child gave me a shock of recognition. Motherhood is what crashed me hard into femininity, and I have found a power there I needed to own: it crashed me into femininity from a complicated place. How much more complicated for a butch woman or a transman?

ETA: Sexsmith has edited the list to remove transmen unless they give permission to be included--read her explanation for this change here.

Headcold

I spent all of last week with the kind of cold that makes you keep wondering if it's flu. It started with a fever, it left me too weak to support Z.'s weight when she bumped into me, and when I dragged myself next door, I had no more than an hour of coherent work in me.

And I couldn't sleep. I piled up the pillows, I took medicine, and it helped not one whit. I spent my nights tossing in semi-consciousness, a hostage to phlegm management. I hate broken, fitful sleep more than just about anything--I far prefer fewer hours of full oblivion.

So I stayed up late, being sure I was really wiped out when I lay down. And my bedtime slipped later, and then A. went out of town for the weekend and all hell broke loose.

Time to reset my bioclock.

Magic Fingers

When I had the house renovated, ten years ago, one of the things I did was move the washer and dryer out of the little room tacked onto the back of the first floor (which became our dining room) and up to the too-small-for-a-bedroom, too-big-for-a-closet room on the second floor.

It's great. The laundry is on the same floor as the hampers and the dressers.

But. When the spin cycle goes, the entire house vibrates.

Special features

This evening, Z. and I varied our ritual watching of the Wizard of Oz by starting with the Angela-Lansbury-narrated animated storybook, which is far too abridged, but otherwise a really wonderful use of the original illustrations.

Then we moved on to the (also Lansbury-narrated) actor bios, and can I just say that I completely understand why Ray Bolger is my father-in-law's hero? What an amazing dancer. I can't say Wow! loudly enough.

Strangely, Judy Garland was omitted from the bio line-up. Do you suppose there was nothing they could find for a family-friendly DVD?

Missed opportunity

Tossed over the phone line that stretches across the last block I drive before I park for therapy: womens' knee-high, white, vinyl, platform, lace-up boots.

Gone now.

Earworms, almost

This was in my head all weekend. Only the CAKE version, but this is the classic.




Now this is in my head.



(Sorry, couldn't find M. Ward.)

Just call me Henry Higgins

The linguistic map still says differently, but in our house there's evidence that The Northern Cities Shift has arrived in Philadelphia.

Actually, I don't know whether the entire shift has arrived, since I'm not listening to all of Z.'s vowels that closely but the final feature of the shift is that a word like "pants" is pronounced "pee-ants," because all the other vowels have shifted over and therefore to stay differentiated from whatever vowel sound has bumped it out of its old place in the world of differentiated vowel sounds, that "a" in pants gets diphthongized. And that is just how Z. is saying "piants."

In the past week or so, I've started actively combating it, and it's starting to take. Today I heard her say, spontaneously and uncorrected, "hahnds."

I don't care. I'd rather wash her "hahnds" than her "hiands."

Blue, Green, Red, Yellow

Caring Honesty Respect Responsibility--quick, which one goes with which color?

Back home

Hey all, we're back in Philly and wiped out. Trying to unpack while already launched into another short week at day care, and, you know, carrying on.

It was a lovely weekend in New England. Better weather than we could have hoped for, and Z. had a marvelous time playing with all the kids. She thinks we should drive to Massachusetts daily.

Today I received a piece of snail mail from a blogger (thanks, Magpie!), and that snail mail included a link, so I'm completing the circle here. Click through to the various projects listed to see them. Very cool stuff if you like numbers and yarn. (But--alas!--not the best pictures in the world.)

Sunday musings

Today, the Rhyming Family recreated itself into the Sukkah Crew. A. was on the power drill. I was hand-starting the screws. Z. was doling the screws out, in between dropping them all over the patio and calling a halt to the whole proceedings to gather them up again, with maternal help.

Only right now, Z. is napping (at last!) and A. is finishing up outside, and I am eating something before going to the pool, and rehydrating, and trying not to let another week-long gap emerge over here, blogside. I shudder to think of the state of my feed reader, though--I promise, I promise, I will catch up with everyone when things settle down!

This morning I went to the vet, and ran into a woman who I met at a two-year-old's birthday party at the beginning of the summer. She's another lesbian mom, and her kids are very distinctive looking and also not of her racial background, nor her partners. I was chatting about them, as one does, and when I asked what if they came to her as babies, she said that was private, which is fine, but she went on to say something about everyone wants to know, and it's enough that they are their kids and I thought, hunh, I wonder if she's reading me as straight? My hair is long, after all, and to most people, the wedding ring on my left hand implies a husband. My legs are hairier than is generally considered acceptable in a straight woman, it's true, but she didn't initially notice the dog who was with me, so she probably didn't take in that particular indicator.

I made sure to insert "My spouse, she..." into the conversation, but I'm just wondering, alla y'all out there who pass for something you're not, at least by accident, from time to time, how do you handle it?

One more random fact

I had a great-aunt Hermione. Really.

Watch this space...

Phantom and Jo(e), I'm still working on the yaks.

This one's going out for Co

Doesn't it suck how dehydrated you get when you can't breathe through your nose?

Braless

Attention to the men among my readers: this may get into the realm of oversharing across the gender lines. You're probably used to that, but I thought you might like some warning.

Edited: If you are reaching this post from the Going Braless site you will find this is not exactly what you thought you were getting. The link was put up on that forum by someone who apparently didn't read the piece very carefully, and who certainly did not consult me.

When I was in college and a women's studies major and very steeped in feminism all the, all the, all the time, I went without a bra for awhile. (I admit that the politics behind this were a little vague.) The thing is that I have fibrocystic condition--my breasts are lumpy and can be painful, varying with my cycle. When I got premenstrual, I'd put the bra back on, then a few days later relegate it to the back of the drawer. I'd have to readjust to not wearing one every month. It got to a point where I realized I was uncomfortable a good portion of the time, and I abandoned the project.

I was what--19? And several clothing sizes smaller, a 36B who hadn't seen much gravity, let alone pregnancy or nursing.

But the boobs, they have attained boobaliciousness, at least when properly supported. When I got pregnant I went from a 38B/C to a full C cup before I saw the second line on the peestick. By the end of pregnancy, when Z. was pushing all my innards upwards, I was a 40D. By the time my milk supply was established, I was a 38F or 40DD, more or less, depending on the make and model. That is where I've stayed, even though Z. is down to one nana session a day. If I thought fibrocystic condition was uncomfortable, nursing just blew that right out of the water. And then there was the leaking. Moms who've nursed, you know what I'm talking about. Bras are just not optional, not at all.

Last week, though, my dermatologist looked at a mole on my back, said "biopsy," injected lidocaine, and scraped. Because of the location of the mole in question (it was benign, just so you know), I walked out of there with a band-aid under my bra-band. It didn't heal right. It got itchy. It kept oozing. I'm not normally allergic to latex, but if my skin is already irritated I develop what look like mild burns in the vicinity. These appeared under the band-aid. A. started treating me twice a day with warm washcloths and neosporin ointment. After a few days of this I decided get rid of the band-aid, and then the bra for the duration.

I sure ain't 19 any more. I'm walking around the neighborhood in 80-degree weather with layers of tank tops on to control wobble, rather than bounce. It's not terrible, but I'll be glad when the mole-spot finishes itching. I find that I'm paying attention to other women's breasts, especially large-breasted women, out of something like professional interest. (Yeah, right, you say. It's true! Not that I'm blind most of the time, but I am 1) happily married to a lovely woman and 2) pretty low in the libido in my current hormonal situation.)

My bra drawer is rather lacking in civvy (non-nursing) bras, and I will need to restock over the next little while. Going bare (funny how under all the extra layers I feel naked) is making me feel like I'm approaching this question from outside of the bra-wearing population. What I find myself wondering during these braless days is what kind of engineering is happening in the lingerie? Or elsewhere: I passed a woman quite a bit larger than me at the bus stop and it looked like the engineering was all via spandex in the outerwear, with no room for nothin' underneath.

I feel that I ought to end with some kind of audience-participation question, but I can't really think of an apt, clever, or elegant one. So I simply turn the floor over to you. Bra experiences, anyone?

Home again--and where is home?

Oh, there's much to say, I think--reuniting with an old friend, experimental theater, visiting with in-laws, seders we have known--but it's too late to start on all that now.

Instead I have a question for you all--do you have a favorite city that you don't live in? I ask because I think that in our culture, at least on the East Coast, New York is supposed to fill that role, so much so that people are always moving there from elsewhere, but I think there may be more varied answers than that.

So, if you have such a city, what is it, why do you love it, and why don't you live there?

For me it's DC, the city where I grew up, and I don't live there because my neighborhood is here, in Philly. If I could still live in my woodsy, crunchy, integrated, intensely Jewish, lesbian-friendly, co-op-centered, progressive neighborhood and also live in DC, where much of my family still lives, where the houses are prettier, the gardens abundant, the parks are distributed at regular intervals, where the museums are free (and even the zoo!), where spring comes earlier and I know the street plan like the veins in my body, well, if I could take here and transplant it there (maybe in a corner of Rock Creek Park somewhere around Mount Pleasant), I would move back in a heartbeat, and disenfranchisement be damned.

You do not want by the way will meet me?

The cafe at the store received the following email this morning:

Hello, cafe.

Hi

Forgive that so long did not write to you.
There was a lot of work. Here at last that
I was released from work and from the former friend.
You do not want by the way will meet me? :)
Wwould descend at cinema... Would talk.

There can be you have forgotten as I look?
I send you the new favourite photo
if there is a desire you can see :)

Only I ask you to remove it or do not show its friends!
I Look forward to hearing

Dood bye. kiss)

--
Best regards,

Daylight savings

First, daylight can't be saved.

There is a set amount of daylight in any given day, and all we do when we mess with the clock is we shift the workday earlier in that time period. That makes the evening longer, sure, but you can look at that as squandering daylight just as easily as you can look at it as saving it. If you have lots and lots of daylight--if, for instance, you have more daylight than darkness in your 24 hours, then you could say that this trick is saving an hour you didn't really need in the morning and attaching it to the evening is pure lagniappe, letting us enjoy lazy barbecues without turning on an incandescent bulb anywhere.

But wherever you put that hour, it's gone by sundown. You can't hoard them and give yourself an extra day down the shore on Memorial Day weekend. It just doesn't work that way.

If you have less daylight than darkness in your day, and you are already desperate for time at the beginning of your day to get everything done, and your spouse and (barking, disruptive) dogs wake at 5:30, which has just been moved closer to the middle of the night, and your toddler wakes at daybreak, no sooner, and the days had just become long enough to get her to school on time without misery, then a valuable, greatly appreciated morning hour has been tossed down the garbage disposal of the evening. Worse still, it has been used to encourage the return of later bedtimes. It is all-around a lousy idea. Let's go back to the April date. Write you Congressfolk, willya, people? Even you Washingtonians have a sort-of vote, now!