dreadgeekgrrl

2006-07-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

Dallas Adventure 2
Class is a bit more interesting and I'm realizing what an amazing odd-ball I am. I'm just not like other people. During lunch, I was engaged in a conversation with a woman who was lamenting the fact that she had to work. Not that she hated her current job (which she does) but that she had to work period. That is a sentiment I simply fail to understand.

I don't particularly like my current job but I love working. Herein lies one of the differences between lesbians and straight women. We know that there's no man to take care of us.

2006-07-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

Dallas Diary

Technically this is day two in Dallas. I'm here for a five day professional development course. I'm missing Jaime tonight. Wishing she were here. In the meantime I'm sitting in one of those corporate suites, a sort of traveler's studio apartment. I've stocked up on frozen pizza and Haagen-Dazs for the next few days. It is blazingly hot here which makes me pretty unenthusiastic about doing anything after work/class.

In the meanwhile, things with Jaime proceed better than I could have previously imagined. She and I are a great match and I am so glad to have met her. It is amazing getting to know a woman who has so many gifts and talents that she brings to the table. Things are moving quickly and, for once, it really doesn't feel all that scary.

2006-07-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

Romantasy—A butch-femme fantasy across time

Somewhere in the 90’s, Sometime in the Bay Area;

Billie Holiday sings ‘As Time Goes By’ and I think about Her. She’s a butch-love I haven’t yet met. Candlelight casts long shadows of my desk with pictures of my kids—one from a now lost butch-love. I’m not in the mood to go out, the outfit I was going to wear—black skirt, ribbed black tee-shirt that I’ve become fearless enough to wear bra-less, and black leather jacket hang on the door. I look around the room at my ‘femme-bear’, Ginger, given to me by that same lost butch-love, my rhino, Ripley, at the knickknacks and chatkes that decorate my space. I wonder about another time, another femme, and how she listened to this recording of Billie and I feel a connection reaching out across time. Did she long for her butch the way I long to find mine?

A candlelit room in Oakland, circa 195-. A young femme looks out her window and sighs. She’s missing her butch woman, gone back to Michigan to say good-bye to her father. Tough, like the steel that they use out at the Kaiser shipyards, yet soft and tender—like the feathers the seagulls leave behind when they are startled out at the beach. The beach, where they’d met while she was out for a party with friends. This woman she thought was a man in dungarees and white tee shirt. The hair combed over like that James Dean actor in the movies. She knows it’s wrong, forbidden, inconceivable that she, a black woman, could even dream to be possessed by this white woman walking her black dog. The butch slows and passes the group of brown skinned women sitting and laughing looking at the raw, feminine power of the Pacific. She spots the femme, smiles and drops the leash and the dog takes off—right toward her. The dog runs up and licks the face of the femme, she laughs. The butch smiles and then starts to walk over…

It’s been two months since she last held me. Will I ever be held like that again? Ripley stares at me mutely. Her namesake could hold me and tell me that I would once again lie in the crook between powerful shoulders and soft breasts. But her namesake is just a character from a movie. My Ripley is just a stuffed rhino and she stares mutely. But something in her black-button eyes reaches out and speaks of hope. I look in the mirror at my lean brown body, going slightly soft, as I haven’t been to the dojo in months. Maybe, one day, another butch will squeeze my leg under the table of a bar where we listen to Dire Straits and Indigo Girls and Gladys Night over my beer and her Tequila. The CD ends and the next one in the carriage starts. I’m musically maudlin tonight and so I’m playing Dire Straits—long wailing phrases from Knopfler’s Strat floating across the room. I think about the way it was that last night. As I held her knowing I’d never wake to her arms again. How many times did I wake that night, listening to her breath like I did when my son, William, was just an infant? How many times did I stroke her short brown hair, gaze at the winter-pale skin on her back and at the nape of her neck? How many times did I stop myself from waking her to say, “I didn’t mean it. I don’t ever want to be apart from you”?

…she lights a cigarette, a Marlboro, with a silver Zippo. She puts the lighter in the front pocket of her jacket. It’s a black motorcycle jacket like James Dean and Marlon Brando wore.

She looks up and says ‘That’s my dog. His name is Butch. You can see he’s friendly.’ The butch looks over at the other black women who are staring at her in open hostility.

The femme looks up. “He’s very cute.” She says. She doesn’t add “and so are you.”

She can’t. It would be insane to. There’s no way this shorthaired woman could even pretend to want to give her the time of day.

“Come here my little ebony-love.” The butch speaks to the dog, looking directly at the femme.

Her heart leaps. She smiles. Her friends mention that maybe it’s time to go. She looks away from the butch. Towards her friends. They are all ‘funny’ like her. She wonders if they know.
“Do you have an extra smoke?” The decision is made. She’ll do the dance with this woman. Forbidden or not, she’ll dance.

The butch blushes. “Yeah…keep the pack.” She pulls the smokes out of the inner pocket. “I have another.” She finishes, then brandishes the Zippo with a flourish, flipping the cap up and lighting the cigarette.

“I better get going.” She picks up the leash. “Catch ya later.” She winks. She and butch walk off down the beach.

The femme stares at the pack of cigarettes. On the inner cover is a phone number.

I put on the outfit I was going to wear the night before. I check myself in the mirror one last time before picking up my PowerBook, purse and briefcase and turning off NPR. I’m going to the bar tonight. Not to scam, just so I don’t come right home again. That’s too depressing. It’s all too clear when I park my car that I’m only coming home to my cat, Karma, and the stuffed butch-femme couple on my bed. Not that I don’t love them. But, need I say that it’s not enough? No, no need to rehash how insufficient warm fur and stuffing is compared to the warmth, roundness and muscle, flesh and bone of a butch woman. I get off work and toss everything into the back of the car. I walk in, carrying the laptop over one shoulder, purse on the other. I find a place, next to the fireplace, back to the TV and nearest the jukebox. I pay for my beer, take a seat, lay out the laptop and my research book and boot the computer. I pull out a cigarette and curse myself for leaving my lighter and matches on the passenger seat. Now I’ll have to put the laptop behind the bar and go back across Telegraph to where I parked the car. I close the lid of the laptop and grab my purse…

“Girl!” Shouts one of her friends, the thick Louisiana accent sharp like the razor that landed her last butch in a women’s prison. “Have you gone completely out your mind? Or you simply had too much to drink?”

She looks at her friend. She knew this was coming. They all share the forbidden desire but of them, only she wants that which is forbidden even among those who’s romantic transgressions have doomed them all to exile—here and in the afterlife.

“Look, I petted her dog. Got a cigarette and that was all! Not like I said I wanted to be her wife.” She ended weakly, knowing that it wouldn’t save her the attention but hoping it might turn lecture into teasing.

Teasing she could deal with. Having to defend her desire she wasn’t up for.

“Girl, that white woman’ll take your heart out of your chest, treat you real nice until some blonde come ‘round then she just throw it away like it was a rotting fish.”

Another spoke up. “Listen to Mabel, girl. White girls nothing but trouble. Anyway, they don’t want us. What you gonna do, make your hair blonde and bleach yo’ eye so they blue too?”

She wants to cry but she gives no one that satisfaction, just her butch. “No…” her voice trails off while she fights back the tears in her eyes and voice.

They’re right. She doesn’t stand a chance. She’s too brown, too Negro, it just can’t ever happen. There’s barely anyplace they can even go together.

“Look, hand me some more of that pop would you? And put a little more of the juice in it?” She looks down the beach…the butch is gone.

…a deep, smooth voice, rougher than my own , asks, “Need a light?” There’s the flick of a lighter and a pale, rough hand appears with a flame hovering above it.

I hold the cigarette to my lips and take a couple of long puffs.

“Thanks.”
“Welcome.” I look up.

The voice belongs to a butch in her mid-thirties. She’s wearing green men’s Dockers, a polo shirt and low-top Nikes.
“Nice little laptop. That a Mac?” She stands there, holding a pint of dark brown beer.

“Yeah. A 180. I hate Macs, really, but I could afford this and…” I take a drag. “why don’t you have a seat.”

She smiles and picks up a chair, turns it around and sits down.

“So, what you studying?” She sips her beer.

I notice the way her arms fill the sleeves of her shirt. “I’m not. I’m working on a piece for a feminist magazine.”

“You a reporter?”

“No. I used to be. Now I’m professional computer geek with writing as a sideline. What about you?”

“I’m a security guard manager. Today’s my day off.”

“Julia.” I extend a hand.

“Max.”

“Max." I whispered. I smile. She smiles back. Then we both blush and it begins again...

She stands at a pay phone on the corner of Telegraph and 17th Street. She circles the booth. Once. Twice. The third time she gets as far as actually entering the booth. She picks up the handset. Places it back in the cradle. An older man waits for her to finish outside the booth.

She exits "Go ahead." Her throat is parched from nervousness.

He makes his call. He exits the booth. "Are you okay, honey?" He is black coffee, like her father.
Her father, the Baptist deacon. Her father, the one who caught her messing with Linda Jackson when she was seventeen. Her father who beat her after catching her then kicked her out of his house until she 'found Jesus'.

"Honey, you okay?" He asks again. He places a hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine I just..." She tries to come up with a reason she can't pick up the phone. A reason that has nothing to do with women. A plausible excuse that doesn't mention butches, or short James Dear haircuts or...

"It's a sweetie, ain't it?" He asks dredging her secret out of her soul. "Look, it may not look like it but I used to be sweet with the ladies in my day. You pick up that phone. He'll be happy to hear from you. If you don't call, you ain't never gonna know that 'cept I just told you." He tips his hat and leaves her there.
"No white woman wants no black woman." "If you don't call, you ain't never gonna know..." The two voices reverberate around her brain.

She returns to the phone booth. Dries her hands on her dress, picks up the phone, drops in a nickel and dials for the operator 'Oakland 2567'. The operator asks her to hold. The phone buzzes in her ear. She holds her breath...

I'm at the bar late. Too late. I get back in the car. I sing loud and off-key to Paul Simon 'I fall to my knees, I grow weak, I grow slack, like she captured the breath of my voice from my body and I can't catch it back'. I sing it loud. I feel the line. She has my breath. We sat there for five hours. My cat will be angry with me when I get home. I jump on I-80. I'm afraid to hope. But I do. Because I'm a romantic femme and we are a special breed. One butch woman and she's always around that next corner. Although I'm jaded at thirty, had my heart broken even when I wasn't deeply in love I keep coming back to the well to drink the intoxicating water. She talked of being a workaholic, of how she ate nothing but spaghetti from a can. I talk about my cat, the flower garden I want to plant if I ever get motivated, my writing. She works up the courage to touch my hand and when we've connected, when I'm hanging on each word as if it were the very essence of Truth, she walks me to my car. We've exchanged phone numbers, promised calls, smiled and hugged good-bye. At the end of the hug her hand slides down and brushes my ass. I get in the car. It was a slick move. If I haven't heard from her by Thursday, I'll call her. It's Tuesday night. I don't want to go through the weekend wondering if I'll hear from her. I almost get pulled over for speeding. I slow down. The cop blows past me and turns on his lights. He keeps going. I start breathing again. I'll get five hours sleep tonight. That'll be enough. Adrenaline and fear will keep me awake--along with a couple of cups from my famous coffee.

"Hello?" Her voice is rough, cautious.

"Hi, umm, my name is Pamela. We met the other day..."

"In San Francisco. Butch liked you. He thought you were cute. By the way, I’m Jo." The butch finishes for her.

"Yeah...umm, thanks for the cigarettes." Her momentary courage falters.

"You're welcome. So, I didn't think you'd call."

"When did you put that phone number in the lid?" She asks.

The butch comes back with. "I do it when I buy them....just in case."

"That's pretty cocky." She is shocked by this woman’s brazenness, drawn to her confidence.

"Yeah, I'm a cocky stud..." The butch pauses. "you know what a stud is?"

Pamela smiles. "Yes, I know what one is."

"Where are you? I'll meet you someplace. We can talk."

"Umm, corner of 17th and Telegraph." She replies.

"Okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. There's a little donut shop on 17th and Broadway. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee."

She nods. "Okay, sure." She notices she's breathing again which reminds her that she wasn't for a while.

"See you in a few minutes then.”

Bye beautiful." "Bye." She puts the handset back on the cradle. She walks up 17th street. It's a beautiful day suddenly--despite the low hanging clouds.

"You're a fool girl. It can only lead to pain." Blackie's words echo in her brain. She's beyond caring.

“…so if you’re not busy Friday night, I thought we could drive into the City, get some sushi in Japantown…” Her voice is smooth but I hear the fear behind it. “you ever been to Isobune?” She butchers the Japanese, pronouncing it eye-so-boon. “They have these little boats the Sushi goes round on. Then we could walk up to the Galaxy and catch a movie.” All this on my voicemail. “Anyway, call me and, umm, well just let me know if you’re into it. Bye.” She hangs up.

My heart leaps into my throat. I pick up the phone and dial her number.

She answers. “’lo.” I catch my breath.

“Max? It’s Julia…” I lick my lips again. “Yeah, sushi and a movie sound great.”

“Cool beans.” She says, I hear the excitement in her voice.

I remind myself that she really didn’t think I’d call. It always baffles me when I remember that she’s as afraid of me as I am of her.

“So, I’ll pick you up?” She asks.

“Okay. What time?” And we go back and forth and settle on seven o’ clock. It’s going to be a long anticipatory week for me.

Friday comes and I pick out my favorite black wool dress. I pull out the red velvet garter and bra set that my last butch gave to me and make myself pretty. I go to my roommate to ask her how I look. She whistles appreciatively. I smile. She smiles back. I look good. I pace back and forth, checking my e-mail because it’s a great distraction so I’m not noticing if she’s late or not. I don’t want to look anything other than utterly cool, collected, thoroughly empowered femme when she rings the bell. Bzzzt! It’s her. I go to the door. My roommate dawdles in the kitchen grating carrots for her iguana. I answer. She’s standing there in black jeans, Tony Lama’s, a blue denim shirt, and a cream-colored duster. She hands me two roses—one red, one peach.
“You were wearing peach flavored perfume the night we met and when I saw these I thought of you.” I invite her in.

She and my roommate butch-bond, kicking tires over the dog and I grab my purse and leather jacket.

“You two have a good time!” My roommate shouts after us.

“I’ll do my best to see that she does.” Max shoots back.

We go to her car. “Here, let me get the door for you.”

She reaches in her purse to pay for her second cup of coffee.

“Put your money away, I’ve got it.” Behind her a strong, low voice speaks up.

The woman behind the counter stares at the two women, her eyes speaking volumes of confusion. The femme turns and looks at the butch. She’s wearing blue jeans, a khaki button down shirt, workman’s boots on her feet. Her hair is slicked back.

“Hi.” The femme says softly.

“Want to get that to go? We can walk, talk and you can drink.” She gets her cup of coffee, pours creamer and sugar into it and stirs it slowly.

They walk out of the donut shop and turn towards downtown.

“Where you from? I mean, did you grow up here?” And they begin.

Pamela talks about her father, the Boeing factory during the War, lying so that she’d be old enough to work there, the first butch she’d met, their nights dancing in a juke-joint, how she’d been beaten when her love got too drunk. Jo tells of her time as an Army nurse, the insults from G.I’s, European and North African women, the rapes, the brawls, stealing away looks and kisses in the triage, the broken bodies of young boys torn up by the madness of institutionalized carnage. They go to the park. People stare as they sit and talk. It starts to sprinkle and it turns to rain.

“Let’s grab a cab. I know a place…” The butch begins.

They can’t get a cab. No one will pick her up. They get on a bus. The femme heads for the back. The butch looks at her.

The femme turns “Where are you getting off? I’ll get off there. It’s easier.” And it begins…

Max and I miss the movie. We end up at a bar, overlooking downtown San Francisco, playing pool, and dancing into the night. We walk out holding hands. I’m glowing. “Should I take you home?” She asks? “Yours or mine?” I reply. “I suppose that’s up to you, now, isn’t it?” “Wherever you’re going to wake up at, that’s where I want to go.” “Let’s go back to your place. You have a cat.” She opens the door for me. And we begin…

*

They come out of the theatre. Jo puts one hand in the pockets of her jeans and Pamela slips her hand through the crook of her love’s arm. Jo is passing tonight so they might only have one worry instead of two.
A young tough calls out to his friends. ‘Looka dat! Queers!’

Pamela feels Jo’s muscles tighten. “And a nigger loving queer at that!”

Jo begins to turn and Pamela pulls her back. “No, love. No. Not this. Not now.” She whispers.

The toughs follow and Jo breaks out of Pamela’s protective grasp. “We’re not about to have a problem are we?”

One of the boys brandishes a knife. Pamela says “Jo, let’s get out of here.”

Jo, not turning, just says. “Run.”

And her fists fly up and there is the sound of fist against flesh. They put fifteen stitches in Jo that night. It was always the same. Pamela escaped with nothing but a black eye, given before an off-duty police officer interrupted the fight, brandishing his black revolver. Jo cried that night, fists white-knuckled with her rage.

“You defended me, Jo. What more could you do?” She held her head to her breast, carefully avoiding the bruised cheek, the black eye, the swollen lips.

“And they hurt you despite all I could do—which was nothing.” Jo fights the tears in her voice, pushing them down with the same force that she was pushed.

“It’ll get better, one day.” Pamela whispered softly, kissing the top of her head. “We shall overcome…” She sang Jo to sleep that night. It won’t be the last time she sings her wounded warrior to sleep that way.

“Hey gurl! What has you smiling so?” Halle winks at me, her arms around her lover, Kris’, waist. I’ve met them at the park for lunch.

Kris looks up from unwrapping her sandwich. “Yeah, sistagurl, give it up! What’s her name?”

“Max.” I sigh her name happily. “It’s nothing yet…” I pause.

“How long you been seeing her?” Halle asks before taking a bite from Kris’ sandwich.

“A couple of weeks. We’ve seen one another a lot.”

“Oooooh. Here that, Halle? Sounds like little Julia here has herself a sweetie. Now maybe she’ll stop pining over that cop.”

“So, why haven’t we met this Wonder Woman, yet?” I don’t know what to say. How do I tell them that it’s another white girl? Everytime I’ve dated a white woman and it hasn’t worked out they’ve just been unsympathetic.

Halle asks what I know is coming next. “So, she white or have you learned your lesson yet?”

Ouch. I sigh. They look at one another.

“Julia, child, why you go after those white butches? They just break your heart all over the place.” Kris swallows her sandwich. “You know Halle and I got nothing but love for you, my sista and it breaks both our hearts to see you with a white girl. You would make some black butch a fine wife. Look, I ain’t saying that I haven’t had a touch of the jungle fever myself but that’s all it ever is and all it ever can be. You ever want to settle down, you ever want what she and I have, you gotta get over the fever and get with your own kind.” Halle nods.

I fight back tears. They ask why I haven’t brought Max around and then turn around and provide the answer to their own question. How could I bring this woman I’m falling for around them? Would they celebrate our happiness with us?

They walk into the tiny club in North Beach. Jo opens the door for Pamela and she walks through, her smile bright as the ruby-red dress she wears. Jo follows closing the door carefully behind her. They walk over to where a group of butches sit clustered around the jukebox.

“Hey Jo!” One of them wearing a black suit and fedora shouts out.

Pamela stands behind looking at the other femme’s looking at her.

“Pam, come here, I want you to meet Stacey.” She steps up close to Jo, slipping one hand into her pocket.

“How you do?” She says softly.

Stacey looks her up and down. Looks over at Jo, then back to Pamela. “Jo, can I see you in my office for a moment?”

Pamela turns and walks over to the bar. Jo follows Stacey to the women’s room. After what seemed like hours but was really only minutes according to the Coca-Cola clock above the door there is the sound of shouting and the clamor of a body hitting wood.

“She’s my woman! You don’t haveta like it. You don’t have to like ME! But don’t you ever use that word to or about her!” It is Jo’s voice.

Pamela starts toward the bathroom. An older, blonde femme who has the shadow of beauty, now faded with age, on her face stops her. “Honey. You don’t wanna go in there. You may love her. She probably loves you back. But there’s nothing you can do about this so you best either stay out here or leave if you can’t take it.”

Pamela stares back at the woman. “I’m staying with Jo. I’ll leave when she does.”

The older woman nods slowly. It’s the right answer. “Why don’t you come and have a seat so I can see what it is she sees in you.”

Jo comes crashing through the door of the women’s room, her lip split, her right eye already starting to swell shut. Stacey follows, looking worse than Jo. She’s holding her wrist.

“Stacey.” The older femme begins. “Can’t you see these two lovebirds just want to have a dance, a drink, some good times with friends?” Her voice is quiet, soft, reaching out to soothe the raging storm.

Pamela wonders if they were once lovers.

“There are places for her to go in Oakland.” Stacey thunders. “And folks should stay with their own…”
Jo’s fists tighten, her knuckles turning white. “She is with her own kind. Right here. Where we gonna go, Stacey? Tell me where we’re gonna go. This place, this bar, you folks that woman…” She points at Pamela. “That’s all I got in this world. So tell me where I’m gonna go.”

Pamela stands and runs toward the door. Stacey begins to laugh. As she opens the door, she hears the sound of Jo’s fists slamming into Stacey again.

Max is buying cigarettes and I wait outside the store, wondering if there was ever in time a night as magical as this.

A young Nation of Islam brother strolls up to me, his steps weary, a few papers in his hands. “My sister! Good evening. Care to buy…”

Max walks out and puts her arms around me.

“No, thanks.” I reply.

“Black woman! How can you let this devil-woman tempt you! You need a black man!” He’s young. He hasn’t learned, yet, that he can’t do this and be an effective minister.

I start walking, hoping that Max will follow. Max stands her ground. “She may not need me, but she has me. You I know she doesn’t need. Now piss off.”

I turn. My heart sounds like a drum. I wonder if they can hear it.

“Max…” I begin.

“Baby, he can’t talk to you that way.”

I want to protect her. I just want her to calm down and come back to me. She stares at him. She takes one step back, placing her right foot behind and perpendicular to her left. I know the stance. She’ll fight him if he doesn’t back off—I don’t know if she’ll swing first. He notices as well. He turns around and walks away from us.

“C’mon.”

The next day I tell my homegirl, Betty, about the incident over the phone.

“Babygurl, what did you expect, exactly?” She says at the end of my story.

“What?” I reply. “Gurl, you dating a white woman? What, exactly, did you expect? That people would be happy about it? See, I don’t know what you see in them white women no how. It ain’t like there aren’t some foine lookin’ sista-butches who really know what you need and how to give it to you.” I stay silent and she continues. She tells me of this white girl who asked her out. How they met at the bar. How she stayed for a while and then blew her off. There’s no guilt that she wasted this woman’s time because she was, after all, just a white girl. Like my girl—just a white girl. I keep silent.

Jo stands beneath the window of Pamela’s apartment and throws quarters up until she opens the window.

“We have to talk, gorgeous.” Jo shouts up.

“This is a mistake! Go away!” Pamela shouts back through her tears.

“No. I’ll stand here until you let me up or they can bury me right here under your window. But I’m not leaving, not ‘cuz of Stacey and not ‘cuz you’re trying to send me away just to make it easy on me.”

She closes the window. She runs down the stairs and sees Jo standing there. In her bare feet she stands on the porch.

“Okay, come on up….” She falters. “but just for a little while.”

Jo smiles, she’s lost a tooth, her lips are swollen. “I don’t need long to tell you that I love you.”

Halle and Kris’ house smells of baked chicken and greens. We walk in, Max carrying the bottle of wine we picked up on the way. They hug me in their turn and Kris shakes hands with Max. The two butches stare into one another’s eyes until their dogs, Zami and Shaka, run into the hallway and jump on us. I kneel down to give the dogs my love in their turn. Max looks down at me and I see the fear in her eyes. I silently mouth, ‘I love you’, to her. She smiles.

She turns to Kris and says “She really loves the dogs—like they were her own kids.” Kris stands silently for a moment then replies.

“Yeah. Why don’t we put that in the fridge and let me get you a drink. What you like?”

“Beer, if you have it.” Max looks up at me again.

“Only the best for someone my Julia’s sweet on.” They go into the kitchen where Halle has returned to fussing over dinner. I’m afraid to hope they’ll bond.

Gay Pride 199?

It’s the first time she’s gone to one of these since her butch has been gone, now ten years. Breast cancer did what race and homophobia (before it had a name) and drinking and recovery and fear and loathing could not—separate her from her butch.

She remembers her loves last words “No one believed. Not our friends, maybe even not me. But you kept the faith. You believed in me. In us. We did it, heart of my heart. You and me together…always.” And it was finished.

They’d never again walk as close to Bridal Falls in Yosemite, letting the spray mist their faces. There’d be no more bandages, no more sprains, no ice packs or aspirin in the morning. She’s long since given away the clothes, save the black leather jacket and the robe that she still wraps herself in some nights when it’s too lonely and cold to just be alone. She hasn’t taken another lover since she tried five years after Jo had gone and she couldn’t stop calling out her name in the middle of the night. She still sits in the chair at the formica table over her morning coffee like she did when Jo occupied the place across from her. She hasn’t stopped putting chicory into the coffee, the way Jo liked it. But it’s a rote now, something to keep the ember glowing. Her friends have stopped telling her to move on, to get over it, to heal. They know that she’s as healed as she’ll ever be in this life. But she keeps on keeping on and she continues her volunteer work because, as Jo kept telling her, she really wanted to save the world from itself.

She gets on the BART and spies a couple—butch and femme, black and white, just as she had been with her love forty years before. She looks the butch up and down, the way her arm protectively cradles her femme’s waist, the defiant stance. This is a butch of the old school, a breed she thinks may soon be gone, except that it stands in front of her so maybe there is hope. She looks at the femme, her hair in dreadlocks cascading down her back and they lock eyes. A moment of communication and she says with her eyes, her lips sealed “love that butch with everything you have to give, sister. There is no love more pure than what you experience now. You two have it so much easier than we did, don’t take it for granted because when it is gone, it’s really never coming back”. The train pulls out of the station, packed with revelers destined to pour out into the streets of San Francisco and for a brief moment forty years of history collapses into the looks of these two femmes, separated in time but joined by their persistent desire.

For all the butches I have known, and the femme-sisters that take care of them.

Adrienne J. Davis
Richmond, CA 1997

2006-07-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

The online graphic novel ''Shooting War' just keeps getting better and better with each week. In this issue, a group of US soldiers are ambushed after being setup by insurgents who appear to be Iranian intelligence agents. What impresses me about this comic is that it is so real and gritty. If one is paying attention at all to events in Iraq, one can see that the folks behind this graphic novel are doing their homework. I get the feeling that they are regular readers of Juan Cole's blog. If you aren't reading it, it is definitely worth the time. It's an excellent insight into day-to-day life on the ground in Iraq as well as penetrating analysis of the effects the Second Gulf War is having on Middle Eastern politics and culture.

Beautiful bellydancer

2006-07-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

This beautiful woman is the woman I have started dating. She is amazing and I cannot wait to drum for her!

To Have and to Hold Wrongly

2006-07-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

To Have and to Hold Wrongly

Richard Cohen wrote the above in the Washington Post this morning. This was a wonderful piece about gay marriage and the specious arguments made by the NY Supreme Court against it. He argues, correctly in my mind, that this is something that should be decided by the legislature taking as an example the abortion decision as the right legal decision made in the wrong social context.

Pre Village Building convergence

2006-07-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

My household was a Village Building Convergence site in may and it was a great experience. Even though I was caught up in a romance I participated some. This is a picture of me moving dirt around in advance of building the cob structure.

For 10 days we had people living in our house, coming over to work on the structure. It is this kind of thing that makes me love Portland. It was like a hippie barn raising with mud!

2006-07-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! I spent the weekend with Jaime, who I have recently started dating. We had the most amazing time and I found myself very comfortable from our first moments together.

I have also discovered that I think my desire for monogamy is diminishing. And that is the real purpose of this post. I see no reason to limit myself to just one romantic relationship. This is a different state of affairs for me because my relationship history has been one of studious monogamy (although not, as one might expect, serial monogamy). I am going to spend much of the rest of this year exploring this idea that polyamory is a good fit for my own tastes and predilections.

2006-07-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is what I found out about myself from the Enneagram test.

Main type	Variant

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Enneagram Test Results

Type 1	Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Type 2	Helpfulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	73%
Type 3	Image Awareness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Type 4	Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Type 5	Detachment	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Type 6	Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Type 7	Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Type 8	Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Type 9	Calmness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%

Your main type is 5
Your variant is self pres

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

2006-07-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

I took the Meyers-Briggs and Enneagram test this morning. This is what I found out about myself:

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

2006-06-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

I'm up here with the jazz player, Jim Anton, in South Lake Tahoe. He played at the Apollo back in the 1950's. He played with Billie Holiday and Theloneous Monk. Listening to a man go ahead and talk about the world. This is such a privilege. Looking at a picture of him drawn in a bar by a woman artist. Here is a man who has played with some of the biggest names around.

Listening to stories about Ray Brown, Fathead Newman, Billie Holiday, all the greats of jazz.

He's put together a 5 piece combo in his living room and I've got a front row seat! Amazing.

2006-06-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

SF Pride 2006
Created Sunday 25/06/2006 19:37

Today is Gay Pride 2006. I have had a wonderful Gay Pride! I spent good quality time with Kim and her wife, Heather. I also met a woman named Del with whom I had a very charming and enchanting time. That makes me feel good. It felt even better to be in San Francisco. I am decided. I am returning home to California in the next twelve months. It will take focus and discipline to do this but people here believe in me and I believe in myself. This weekend I saw myself drum and drum well!! I did a great job drumming at the Transmarch and I did even better today with Loco Blanco! I even made it, briefly, onto the TV.

Even more importantly, I reconnected with Kim and connected with Heather in a really wonderful way. When Del fell down, I was able to help her out and do good by her. That felt good. Connecting with Del also felt good. Even if nothing at all comes, and it probably won't, it was nice having someone flirt and want me to flirt with me. Even after six years away I still afterfeel as if my home is here in the Bay Area. This afternoon at the Oakland airport, I ran into Linda, my older dyke friend from when I worked at Telamon. It was great seeing her.

On another note, Kim expressed--understandable--concern about me dating Del. I can certainly see that and perhaps I might want to reconsider her as a dating option. Which, I think, would be unfortunate but probably necessary. Me dating the best friend of my ex-girlfriend's wife (only amongst lesbians) could be really uncomfortable. On the other hand, perhaps it won't be that much of an issue.

Shooting War--The Online Comic

2006-06-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

I have discovered this great online comic strip called Shooting War.
It covers the story of Jimmy, a twenty-something video blogger, who ends up being the media flavor of the month and winds up covering the disintegration of the Iraq War in 2011. It is amazing stuff! It hits hard, reads true, has depth and immediately sucks you in. I highly recommend this.

Amarok: Best media player period!

2006-06-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

Okay reason number 5 for using Linux. If you love music and have a lot of it on your computer, as I do, you need a good media player. I've used a lot of them--XMMS and Winamp, Beep Media Player, iTunes and Windows Media Player but of all of them the best, hands-down, has been Amarok. Here's just some of the features in the 1.4 release:

MySQL database support for media library (makes exporting your media library as easy as a SQL query)
iPod/iRiver support
Automatic download of lyrics from Wikilyric (or other services)
Automatic download of artist information from Wikipedia
Download of album art from Amazon.com
Easy organization of media files from tag information
LastFM support
Support for mp3, AAC, FLAC, ogg and WMA files

So what's the big deal with those? As I said at the start of the post, I have a lot of music. On my laptop, I have close to a thousand songs. My desktop machine I have some 30 gigs of music on two Linux partitions. I have about that same amount sitting on an NTFS partition that is mostly WMA files. Now, I have one media player for all of my music. But it gets better than that.

I converted a fair number of the WMA files to ogg or mp3 format about three months ago. Since this ran as a batch job, it just threw all of the output files onto the Linux partition higgely-piggely. Well, that didn't matter all that much to me at the time because Amarok organizes the files in the media player itself but not on the file system. Everything was fine until I did something silly and broke Amarok and then tried to use XMMS. Suddenly, there's two-thousand media files sitting on the root of my /music partition. Not good, unhappy, bad juju. Well, when I upgraded to Amarok 1.4 I discovered that I could, with a couple of mouse clicks, have all of my media files organized for me! I almost wept with happiness. Now all of my Grateful Dead is in one place!. Try THAT in WMP!

Because Amarok uses a database as the backend for everything, when I download lyrics they get written to the database meaning I don't have to download them every single time. I also like being able to simply click on a tab and automagically have a Wikipedia article pop up about the author. Again, I know of no such features in any other media player at least not without installing add-on components. Everything I have mentioned in Amarok so far is the normal install.

Also, Amarok includes Audioscrobber/LastFM support natively. Check out the little "this is what I'm listening to box" just to the left of this post. That is updated weekly based upon what Amarok sends to my LastFM account.

Lastly, I just got an iRiver T30 a month ago. At the time, it seemed like I was going to have a problem because in the States, iRiver is programmed to behave like a MTP device. However, that is not the case in Europe or Asia. I found this site that allowed me to upgrade the firmware and now my iRiver looks to be just an ordinary UMS device (think thumb drive). I can sync anything I want to my iRiver with a couple of clicks. iTunes didn't know how to talk to my iRiver, Windows Media player would sync mp3 and wma files but not ogg, and Yahoo music was the only thing that would really do the trick with it this also meant having to either reboot at home (yuck!) or sync from my work computer.

Impressed yet? Drooling? I can understand. That said, here's the bad news. You have to be using Linux. There is, at present, no port to Windows or OSX although it would be great if there were.

Amarok is everything I could've ever wanted in a media player. Get it, get it now, you can thank me later.

Cheers
The Dreadlocked Geekgrrl

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

2006-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

CNN Reports that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed by an airstrike. Of course, the Bushies are doing the happy dance, but will this change much of anything? No. For while Al-Zarqawi could rile people, the civil war in Iraq (is there anyone who doesn't live in West Wing-land who doesn't believe it's a civil war?) has its own momentum now. This thing will continue to perpetuate itself on its own.

2006-05-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

And things in the Iraq and Afghanistan are just continuing to fall apart. The decline speeds up.

In Afghanistan there are riots and Kabul is under martial law after a second day of rioting.
In Iraq, there's yet more chaos and the civil war proceeds apace.
One is left to wonder how long the administration will continue to pretend that everything is going just hunky-dory.

On another note, today is the 25th anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV/AIDS. A quarter century we have lived with this disease. Tonight Frontline is doing a special on the epidemic which will air tomorrow. Turn off whatever is on commercial television tonight, leave the Netflix movies for another time and watch this. If you are too young to remember what we've been dealing with for 25 years, then this is history you need. If you had your head in the sand, you need to understand what you missed. If you buried friends, protested for treatment, covered the epidemic or just watched then you already know the history but watch anyway. Frontline, by the way, is on your local PBS station and is some of the best documentary filmmaking available.

On a personal note, things with my new girlfriend have hit a snag. Not a big one. Not a deal breaker, I don't believe but one of those inevitable complications that arise when you take two powerful, intelligent and competent women, toss them together and stir well. We'll work it out, we love one another too much not too.

That's all for today.

Good night and good luck.

The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering. (Michael Shermer)

2006-05-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

I am involved in the FOSS/Linux movement in Portland. Primarily my involvement is with Freegeek although I am also looking at creating a program to teach local teachers the basics of using Linux so that they can use it in the classroom. Tomorrow, (Memorial Day 2006) I will be interviewed on local community radio station KBOO about Linux and the Free/Open Source Software movement. I will confess to a small bit of nervousness. I've been on radio talk shows before as a caller but never as the guest. I don't know exactly why I am nervous about this but there it is. It's not as if I am a somebody in the movement. I'm a teacher at a non-profit where I give students an introduction into Linux after they have volunteered their time at Freegeek and earned what we call Freekboxes. These machines run Debian although I have used SuSE Linux for years now. I've been using Ubuntu for a few weeks now (the new version code-named Dapper Drake) and am most impressed with it. I now use Linux on my laptop as well as on my desktop machine now. I am on the verge of moving my laptop entirely to Linux although I still maintain a small Windows partition.

2006-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

And the saga continues...

So in the continuing saga of the 'Evil Elitist Scientist' versus the innocent, forever humble New Agey theists on Butch-Femme.com there is a new chapter. So having apparently taken precisely the wrong lesson away from having it demonstrated that Einstein was no more a theist than Jerry Falwell is a member of the ACLU, one of posters decided that the way to prove her point was to post yet *more* quotes from Einstein, taken out of context. It is amazing how people can take a sentence and decide that the words, removed from anything that remotely resemble context, bolster their position. If I thought it would do a damn bit of good, I would post the sentences *in* context, but that would probably be considered elitist because I believe that things have context. Short quotations as signature lines are one thing, I love clever ones and I enjoy them quite a bit. This is something that will drive me nuts because the people who do this invariably--and I do mean without exception and with no hyperbole meant--no nothing of Einstein other than e=mc2.

This brings me to the crux of todays' rant. Why is it acceptable to be utterly ignorant of science? People who are spewing foolishness, I mean rants of such simplicity that a developmentally delayed chimpanzee can see through the problems, are doing so on computers and they see no inherent contradiction in their daily utilization of applied science and denial that science says anything about the world. Yet, given half a chance they will rope in some scientist if that person mentions god. I would love to see the entire scientific community eschew using the word 'god' in their writings. We'd need to come up with some other verbiage to communicate 'overarching Universal Glue' but for the love of Pete please, not the word God. Not Goddess either because there are a bunch of monotheists walking around in Wiccan ceremonial robes. I'm not making this up. Talk to some of your more Dianic Wiccan friends. It won't take long to start hearing the same kind of superstitious silliness that one hears out of more patriarchial monotheists. 'The Goddess' is just Jehovah in drag with a slightly longer fuse but to some folks out there, God(dess) is still a person, this person really has a gender--for reasons that are never adequately explored--and this person really has likes and dislikes. So if we who are rationalists want to keep our blood pressure down and keep our partners, lovers or housemates from murdering us in our sleep, we need to avoid anything that smacks of theistic language. Which is a bit of a shame but it would seem that those who behave as if the human brain were there for not much more useful than providing body-direction and keeping the ears from collapsing in on one another have completely got the market-lock on spiritual language until those of us who are open-minded but prefer keeping our brains from leaking out our noses can find some other verbiage to use.

2006-05-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what one can get away with if one wraps oneself up in populist/egalitarian rhetoric and pretends toward spirituality. On one of the online forums I participate in, someone started a thread asking whether people believed that God created the Universe or was Big Bang cosmology correct. I immediately responded to the poll and entered into the discussion knowing that, chances were, there would be the kind of typical responses and lo and behold, I was not disappointed. While the overall responses to the poll largely broke half believing in some version of Genesis and the other half saying that we accept the findings of physics, those numbers only tell half the story. Most of the posters--with a few exceptions--went off on a typical theistic bent. "God created the Universe", "I believe in God", etc. All fine and good as far as it goes but then they went further and started trying to wrap their theistic fantasmagoria in science and this, of course, is where the trouble always starts.

The problem with trying to make your belief in Gods, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, or Invisible Pink Unicorns into a scientific statement is that inevitably, you will run up against someone who actually knows something about the scientific method and find yourself having to answer a lot of very good questions which you aren't going to have answers to. Religious belief simply does not hold up well under scientific scrutiny. This, of course, tends to make people very uncomfortable and they will go to heroic lengths to explain to the non-believing scientist just *why* their belief, unlike all those other clearly non-sensical ideas such as, oh, Persephone spending part of her time in the Underworld with Hades just to take an example, is scientifically valid. At some point the believer in mythology, superstition or other species of hokum will then invoke Einstein because Einstein was a really smart guy who said a lot of things, some of which get quoted. On the forum, someone brought up Einstein's statement about quantum indeterminancy 'God doesn't throw dice' as if this were in support of her belief that god could be studied scientifically and mathematically. In case you are unfamiliar with the quote, it doesn't. Einstein was making clear that he just could not countenance that the sub-atomic world doesn't behave in a deterministic fashion. The fact of the matter is, the sub-atomic world is not deterministic and all manner of really interesting strangeness happens once you start talking about the constituent parts of matter.

If you are a budding scientist or an amateur one, take my advice. When someone invokes Einstein, if you cannot resist the temptation to correct the person for misquoting the man, be prepared for what is coming next because it isn't going to be pleasant. You can state that you think that stock market crashes are caused by astrological fluctuations of baristas on Wall Street and people will more or less let you alone, state that Einstein didn't say what someone thinks he did or that it didn't mean what they believe and you will be faced with a faux populism. The person in question started talking about how she liked to hear the opinions of 'all people'. No she didn't! She wants to hear the opinions of people who have no more thought through some weighty issues as my cats have! But it's all okay because she's speaking out of her 'heart'. You can be mightily wrong, state something that is riseably inaccurate and that's okay as long as you pretend to some kind of 'deep' spirituality, invoke the Buddha and Einstein to show that you are ecumenical (who would've thought that a Hindu prince would be talking about the Christian god long before Christianity was even founded) and know about science (because as everyone knows, Einstein was THE scientist so whatever he said must be true). You needn't worry about knowing what you're talking about, you're 'spiritual' and it's 'what you believe'. On the other hand, if you are at all rationalist and you are talking about science from a scientific viewpoint (as opposed to a pseudo-scientific one) then you are going to be castigated as an elitist.

End rant for now.

Lovely days of falling in love

2006-05-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is going to very quickly descend into gushing so if you read-on you were forewarned!

I am falling in love. Really and truly having the experience of my socks being knocked off and turned into ballistic objects! I'm not going to get into any major details of her that will point to her but I have to say something about this.

Firstly, it has been a decade since I have opened up like this. I've been in love since my partner died in 1997, but I have not let go and let the experience fully wash over me! I have kept my distance, stayed safe, played it cool and reserved and in doing so have caused unnecessary pain to two women who deserved better than I was able to give them at the time. I learned, they learned, we all move on. The irony of this experience happening now is that not two months before I met A I was talking with my therapist and told her that I realized I'd stayed closed off behind walls for nine years. The ex of mine who still lives in town pointed that out to me. I realized that I had caused B pain because I took my eye off the ball and because I wouldn't be present with her on a day-to-day basis and told myself that, sometime before the Sun went nova, I would probably be in another relationship and when that happened I was bound and determined to do it differently. To be more human with my beloved and to allow her to be beloved to me. For to be beloved is more than just being loved or being a lover. It is being enveloped in the warmth of a comforter of love.

A could very well be my beloved. It is funny as we both attempt to keep our wits about us while at the same time, we luxuriate in this growing bond. I have hopes and visions of a future that I cannot speak to her yet. It's been two weeks and already I find myself thinking "I wonder what she'll look like when she gets her first grey hair" or imagining us having a weekly dinner with friends, or younger lesbians who we take in and mentor. Did I mention that it's been twelve-days?! I even--gasp!--think about the idea that maybe I could have a child with her although I am still in a place where I don't want any more kids right now.

It's almost a shame that this phase of love-induced insanity diminishes over time but it is a necessary happening because it does take a lot of energy and as I approach forty my sleep becomes more and more important. But tonight is not the night to think of sleep. I'm leaving the office and A will be coming over soon to join my housemates and I in a potluck.

More tomorrow.

Yahoo! 360° - My Page - Lady Fractal's Profile

2006-04-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

There are some changes to my main profile at Yahoo. You can find out a great deal more about me there.

Yahoo! 360° - My Page - Lady Fractal's Profile

Our right-wing theocrats come home to roost

2006-03-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

Juan Cole has a wonderful editorial here
Informed Comment

Now, I don't necessarily agree with Professor Cole entirely but only because I think that it lets monotheism--and I want to be clear, I do not mean Islam I mean exactly that monotheism--off the hook far too easily and far too early. To the degree that the three monotheistic religions continue to give a sly wink to the crazies within their midst while saying that they are religions of peace, they are complicit in the violence of their extremists. That said, Professor Cole is absolutely spot on in saying that right-wing, theocratic Christians in this nation are whipping up a frenzy of anti-Muslim sentiment.

When an Army general claims that we battle against Satan while showing images out of Iraq and Somalia, when Franklin Graham claims that Islam is an evil religion, when the President constantly speaks of the 'evil doers' and Americans, uninformed as we are, hear names of places like Karbala, or names like al-Zawari it is not all that much of a leap of imagination that Muslim = Bad, Arab = Bad, Middle Eastern = evil.

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Who's to Blame for Iraq's Civil War?

2006-02-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

Could it be the Bush Administration? Nawww, just isn't possible--or is it?
AlterNet: War on Iraq: Who's to Blame for Iraq's Civil War?