Dear Trumpish Guy at the Decemberists Show

I was superexcited to see The Decemberists Friday before last, but I almost didn’t get to enjoy it. While the crowd waited between bands, the venue (presumably at The Decemberists’ behest) played an old-timey country album that reminded me of every won’t-somebody-please-worry-about-poor-white-racists post I’ve scrolled past since the election. I’m sure it was a perfectly respectable album, but it made me feel so creepy and rotten and is-indie-rock-unintentionally-white-supremacist (probably) that I almost left.

But then the band came on and for a little while, the rotten feeling went way. I remembered how good (if Bush-era bleak) the band is and settled into the very enjoyable task of looking at Colin Meloy’s lovely face. We were only a few songs into their tenth-anniversary rendition of The Crane Wife (Which, okay, is not the most soothing album.) when I saw a scuffle starting up a few people away, right in the middle of the crowded general admission floor. A short, mean-faced blond guy with the demeanor of all the social nightmares was yelling at a woman, calling her an asshole for asking him not to dance into her.

I offered to switch places with the woman and did my best to be big and silent and ignore the guy, but he just transferred his yelling onto me.

“Thanks, FEMINIST,” he hissed. “What are you, gonna wear your PUSSY HAT?”

            While I was trying to keep my space on the floor next to this jerk, the woman he’d originally been yelling at told me that The Decemberists had been her band with her late husband, and she’d asked the man to stop dancing into her so she could enjoy the experience. Seems pretty fucking reasonable to me.

“Just so you know, I’m gonna stand here.” Said the guy, and pushed his shoulder into mine.

“You can step away from me,” I said, but he pushed back harder onto my shoulder.

“Okay, I’m going to get security, I told him, and struggled my way out of the crowd. I told security that there was a guy at the center of the crowd harassing women, and I never saw whether it got taken care of or not. I felt guilty for leaving the woman in there with him, but I didn’t have it in me to persevere back to my spot. I stood on the margin of the crowd and tried to get back into the music, but it was hard. There was another argument going on nearby, so it was hard to un-jangle. I felt an emotion I’ve felt on and off since the election, the feeling that all of us, the grieving woman, the shoving guy, the backup singers, everybody, are adrift in this soup of fear, loss, and anger, with no way out.

And then they played their new song. Introduced as “This is kind of a state of the union…” the song went:

“Everything,

Everything,

Everything,

Everything,

Everything is AWFUL…”

            The crowd went bonkers, and I went bonkers with joy. I felt my jangledness and trauma move and shift out of my body as I jumped around, bobbed my head, squealed, smiled, sang along, and clapped in true fangirl fashion. You could feel the audience breathe a sigh of relief, let go of a little of the weight of this moment in history.

            In that spirit, I have some things to say to the reason I ended up on the margin of the crowd.

Dear Trumpish Guy in the Middle of the Decemberists Crowd,

I guess you’re what they mean when they say that misogynists and bigots are emboldened by the Trump regime, though hate has always seemed pretty shameless to me. Either way, what I see in you is the opposite of boldness. I see a deep, broken, desperate cowardice, a poisonous avarice that makes you feel entitled to more space than you have earned, a greedy urge to shore up your own lack of self-worth by colonizing everyone and everything. It must be exhausting.

And you know what? Women are not going to let our bodies be claimed. The pussy hat may have been put away with the winter clothes, but this is our time, and you are a tarnished shard of a gender structure that is already broken, that has already abandoned you.  We’re not yours. This isn’t your world anymore. Give up and get on board or be washed away in the tide of your own hateful limits.

Best,

Jane

For All the Triggered Ladies (And the Men Who Love Us)

Though Hillary’s debate triumph last Wednesday filled me with bratty, exuberant defiance, the fact still remains that we all sat through ninety minutes of misogyny, gaslighting, and rape culture. It was a night of calling Secretary Clinton (and by extension us) stupid, incompetent, a liar. Trump actually came out and said that if she didn’t want him to do bad things, she should have stopped him. We’ve been through the “debunking,” dismissing, and discrediting of rape victims by both parties. Though it was a wild relief to hear Hillary speak up so unequivocally for our right to physical autonomy, it feels unfair that we should still have to be fighting so hard for it. A lot has been written about how this is a different election for women than for men, about the way Trump’s debasement of women has gotten into our bodies. I hate the way it separates women from the men in our lives and bonds us in a state of Get the fuck off us, already.

Going into work after the “grab them by the pussy” weekend (which, by the way, made the Internet what I’ve always wanted it to be, a barrage of incensed women vowing snarlingly to reclaim our space.) I sat down next to a female coworker I don’t know that well and told her that I was feeling jangled. She knew exactly what I meant and expressed her own wish for a blanket fort until the election is over. We had trouble settling in, we were vigilant, both hyperpresent and not there at all. That’s what Trump’s abuse and violation of women reminds us of: The times our bodies were not our own, the vague threat that if we’re okay right now, it’s only because they’re letting us be.

When I went to my tutoring job the same day, the dad had the news on and Trump was dismissing his most recent accusers. Though I shuddered at the situation and the sound of Trump’s voice, I tried to be jokey about it while making it clear that I wanted the news to go away so I could work.

Nice Tutoring Dad said this:

“I don’t know why they’re talking about this. It doesn’t even have to do with policy.”

I was done being jokey. My expression darkened and my voice dropped all the way down.

“Yes. It. Does.”

(I didn’t say: Trump’s WHOLE policy is rape, dehumanization, coercion, entitlement. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” his slogan should be “Let Straight White Men Define, Harm, and Exploit Everything and Everyone.” From stop and frisk to forced pregnancy to anti-gay conversion camps to fetishizing the Second Amendment, Trump’s campaign is aimed at using force to shore up the power of a majority that will soon no longer exist, using fear to fuel oppression of people who are no longer willing to be oppressed.)

Nice Tutoring Dad did turn off the news and I got my work done without a panic attack, but as I was leaving, he put the news back on and when Trump inevitably appeared on the screen, he said “There’s your friend.” Haha yes, my friend, the pussy grabber, the stop-and-frisker, the child-rapist. His jokey comment took me out of any sense of equality and put me solidly on guard, that awful closed-up feeling of suspecting my safety is provisional. I didn’t know how I would go back to work at that house.

I needed to find a way to bridge the distance between my experience of the election and his and so, emboldened by the thousands of women around the world who were stepping up to tell their stories, I just came out and told him. I texted and told him that I’m an “assault survivor” (both “rape” and “sexual” seemed like words I didn’t want to text to an employer, even an informal one) and that the news made me panicky and made it hard to concentrate on my student. He took it very well and there has been no news on and no more insensitive comments. Sending that text was a powerful moment for me, a genuine flawed human connection in the midst of a professional relationship, one of those magically humane moments that always manage to sneak in. But at the same time, why did I have to tell him that I had been raped in order for him to be respectful about it—why isn’t it enough that ANYONE had been?

This week I took to heart the fact that while I have the courage/privilege/years of therapy to stand up for myself, to come out and tell my story, there are so many women who don’t have the words. For every generous soul who shares her story at #notokay, there are countless others who blame themselves instead, who turn themselves inside out to excuse and identify with their attackers, who lose the power of speech entirely just when they need it most. I want to recommit to speaking up for and with them.

In large ways and small, the times our bodies are not our own changes us, changes our course like creepy rocks in an otherwise lovely stream. For me, it’s the constant battle between liberation and safety, between my openhearted adult self and my inner teenager who is livid and snarling because she couldn’t fight off her attackers. No matter how full my life is of flowers, cake, and kid-art, the past is still in me: The drugged, helpless feeling, the favorite shirt covered with blood, the parts left out of the deposition, the loss of connection, the struggle for hope.

With so much grace and work, I’ve transformed my past traumas into superpowers. My pesky vigilance gives me a knack for creating an atmosphere of acceptance and safety. My sensitivity to persecution gives me a chance to be a voice for anyone who might need an advocate. Knowing the true meaning of helplessness gives me the drive to always believe I can make things better, to hang in there for the little changes that add up to big ones.

Still, I’d love to go back in time and lead my childhood self briskly and decisively away from every abuser, every “you’re too sensitive,” every questionable babysitter, every non-consensual bruise. I’d love to intercept myself on the way to one particular party, wrap up my teenage self in blankets, and tell her she is so, so loved. And I can, I do.

Every uncomfortable text, every campaign call, every door-knock, every march and rally has been for that little self, to show her she’s not trapped, to show her the love she deserves and make the world a little safer for other little girls, for everyone.

I hate the things that divide us, especially the disconnect I’ve always felt from men. The times that I manage to bridge the gap are too precious and lovely to contain. In the last few weeks, sprouting like a morning glory on a trellis of triggers, I’ve felt something else: A reconnection to the part of myself that’s open, yielding, willing to let my imagination run away with me in the best ways. In the safety and strength of a sea of riled-up women (and a few adorably ally-ish men) I’ve felt something strangely and miraculously like health, the knowledge that our bodies are have infinitely more love and magic than oppression could ever really take away, that the angry cries of Trump supporters are those of a dying way of life. They’re trolling us because they are at the end of their relevance, because their time is up. Part of me, most of me, is glowing pink for whatever life comes next.

“She’s Not Doing Enough” and Other Things to Not Say to Me

On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I work three jobs. All three of them are superpleasant and I even enjoy my commute, but by the eleventh hour of the day, I’m tired. During that time, there’s this man. He’s on our side and has been friendly and supportive all throughout the election season, until recently. Now, as I head out the door, he always makes the same assertion: that Hillary didn’t do enough over the summer, that she was “Just chilling and letting Trump do his thing.”

We’ve had a great time chitchatting about the election, so much so that I even brought him a poster from the convention and thanked him for all of his support, but I can see how a summer of the misogynist, Trump-drunk news has skewed his view of the proceedings. He keeps saying she never talks about her platform, though many of us can recite it by heart by now. She’s been telling you, I keep wanting to say, but you’re not listening.

As far as I know, this friendly critic isn’t putting in any volunteer hours for the campaign, he’s just sitting back and second-guessing a woman who LITERALLY worked herself sick. I get through these moments with as much grace as possible, but I drive home FUMING over both the personal and political implications. I’m deeply frightened by the way that the news turned him against his own candidate, and VASTLY irritated that I have to hear this feedback in the midst of a long workday.

What makes me the maddest is that he and so many others have been so utterly poisoned by gender restrictions that they can’t see or hear her, no matter how hard she works, no matter what she says or does. Part of our disagreement might be media-choice based, because I get my information from social media, from the campaigns themselves, and from direct experience and he only gets it from the news, but there’s a deeper problem here—it feels like they can’t see or hear her/us no matter what we do because for millennia we’ve been taken for granted, our work has been invisible.

My sister, a full-time mother of five and one of the hardest working people I know, told me this story—she was at a kids’ birthday party and something got spilled, prompting a friend of hers to remark, “Oh, I heard you’re really good at laundry.” Kate was justifiably annoyed—she would probably rather be known for her photography skills or for her Harry Potter Trivia prowess, but it really gave me a chance to appreciate the undervalued work that has been going on behind the scenes throughout all of human civilization. Where would any of us be without people who are good at laundry?

In the public sphere, women run the risk of being just as overlooked. Recently we all learned that the women of President Obama’s administration had to invent a special strategy in order to be heard:

“Female staffers adopted a meeting strategy they called “amplification”: When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own.” –“Obama’s Female Staffers Came Up With a Genius Strategy to Make Sure Their Voices Were Heard”  By Claire Landsbaum

Which is cool that they banded together and shine-theoried it up, but WHY ON EARTH should they have had to come up with a scheme to get our arguably-first-feminist-president to call on them? Men, why can’t you just hear us? (The most recent episode of Call Your Girlfriend makes this point so much better: http://www.callyourgirlfriend.com/episode-63-everything-we-disdain/)

One of the things that the “she doesn’t do enough” man in my workday doesn’t see is campaign headquarters, where the volunteers are almost exclusively women. We work our multiple jobs, some of us take care of families, and then we head back out to do the political laundry in hopes of getting rid of the smelliest sweatsock of them all, Trump. We’re not paid to do it, and though phone banking and canvassing is sometimes fun, it is work, and we’re doing it for free, to keep things afloat the way women always have. So don’t ever tell me that Hillary isn’t doing enough, or that any woman isn’t. There are only fifty days left until the election and it’s past time for men to get up off their asses and help us with the chores.

Being a Woman in the Time of Hillary-Haters

I’ve never been as involved in politics as I am this year, so I was unaware and unprepared for the pain that would come my way. I had a vague sense that Republicans hated Hillary Rodham Clinton, but I had no idea that so many of my supposedly left-leaning friends did.

I feel nostalgic for the assumption that Hillary’s successful campaign would lead to a mood of celebration. I remember the first time that I was put in my place about my support. I was having the best Women’s History Month ever. I’d helped the librarians at work in their effort to diversify the children’s biography section. I’d read Spinster and All the Single Ladies and gained a whole new appreciation for the contributions of non-traditional womanhood to civic life. I was newly embracing my own womanhood and delighted that we had made so much progress, hopeful that so much more could be made. I posted an exuberant status about the possibility of my nieces coming of age under a female presidency and my hope that I’d get to be there for inauguration.

I’m embarrassed to say how jarred I was by the “angry face” reaction I received from a friend. Having vowed to eliminate as much passive-aggressiveness from my life as possible, I wrote to the sender of the angry face, a lovely woman who used to be my yoga instructor, and asked her in the gentlest and kindest possible way what was the matter. The kindness was not reciprocated, and, as happened over and over in the coming months, I unfriended her for being sexist and mean.

It took no effort to learn the things about Hillary Rodham Clinton that made people mad. They were served up to me on a near-constant basis. And there are plenty of valid reasons, but to me those reasons felt drowned out in a sea of vague “distrust” and straight up misogyny. Typing that word even feels like a cliché at this point, but I’ll stop typing it when it stops happening.

In a time that should have felt at least partly celebratory, my friend feed felt like an assault, a constant, vicious reminder that most people I know, whether they realized it or not, would prefer that women stay in their place. My Hillary-supporting friends reported that they felt bullied and afraid to speak out about their choice. I was talked down to, called a vagina voter, told that “everything I say is a lie.” I felt guilty every time I brought up politics, because I was making things “not nice.” I apologized to Bernie supporters, I’m not sure why, except that one of the prevailing emotions of joining this fight has been shame. That’s fucked up.

Even as pitching in on the PA primary campaign buoyed my spirits, I got angrier and more scared. I hate knowing that people out there are so disturbed by the thought of a woman with power that they would call me names, bully my friends, scream at disabled people, tear up a little girl’s sign.

Even if she is a poetic invention of Twitter, I think a lot about that little girl whose sign got destroyed by anti-Hillary protestors in Los Angeles. I think a lot about what really got taken away from her that day. The message she was given was one we all get, all the time, one so ingrained in our culture that it is invisible to many and also beloved by traditionalists: If we have any power at all, if we are safe right here in this moment, it’s only because they are letting us. The message is that we will only be rewarded by society if we fit the male ideal of what we should be: quiet, timid, meek, servile. Engagement, ambition, experience, tenacity, all of these things in a woman are angering to a certain segment of the population, and that certain segment has been in charge for, well, ever, which is far too long.

Once primaries have run their course, we’ll turn to face the real enemies: Trump and his army of bigots. Three days a week when I do my tutoring, the family has the news on, and every single time, it is Trump Theater. I hear the newspeople slavering for Trump’s approval even as he fear-mongers against Muslims and Mexicans, even as his people threaten the president’s life, and even as he mounts the most disgusting and aggressive war against women. (Trump is, in fact, an accused rapist. Google it.) He screams to rabidly angry crowds of white men that they should no longer be afraid of women and the implication is, I think, that they will take us by force. When I hear these things, I am at work, in a house full of man who are on my side, so I feel safe, but it’s honestly hard to keep walking around in the world. It’s as if the dark lens I have as a sexual assault survivor has come to life and there’s nowhere to escape.

As it became apparent who the nominees would likely be, I saw a new kind of meme, one that made me even more helpless with rage than the “vague distrust” themed ones: people I know and liked were saying they were “Straight Outta Options” because they saw Donald Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the same. A woman whose decades of real and thorough public service includes some drastic missteps was being equated with someone who ACCEPTED THE ENDORSEMENT OF THE KKK. This is how little some of my now-former friends think of my gender and in many cases, their own. It’s unforgivable.

It’s physically exhausting to be this angry all the time, this on alert. It feels like not only are my values under attack, but my body is too. It hurts very much to know how many people want to stuff us back in time, and it hurts even more to know that people I once liked won’t stand up for any of the groups Trump is targeting because they think they are somehow above the political process.

I know we’ll win. I know I’ll be at that inauguration next year sobbing my face off with my best friend. I know I’ll call and knock on doors and that I’ll be a better, healthier, safer woman for it. But I just wanted to take a moment to say this is scary, it hurts, and I want my body back.

Happy Friday! Here's a Handsome Man.

Just happy to be living in the same world with this guy!

Thoughts After a Romance (Heart Inventory Continued)

When I wrote my birthday heart inventory, I happened to be in the early part of a relationship, the part where one is expected to be reticent, lighthearted, tentative, (none of those my strong suit even a little) as though one were trying to convince a woodland creature to eat from one’s hand. (Some comedian said that, it isn’t mine but it’s apt.)

So I left some things out.

I’m so glad I decided to let him in, to let myself hope. It was wonderful to think that we might actually be going someplace together. He was supposed to stay over on Saturday and then go to church with me on Sunday. I haven’t attended church with a boyfriend since the summer before eleventh grade, when I knelt beside my unbelievably sweet first boyfriend in the front pew of my Aunt Connie’s church. The idea of sharing a faith with a partner, of harboring a spiritual connection, made me so joyful that I thought I might explode. Sunday was the Water Ceremony at my church, where we were supposed to bring water from our summer and join it with everyone else’s water. I’d asked him if he would want to contribute some water from his pool, where we’d shared some perfect moments, and to my great delight, he said yes.

I keep a one-sentence journal, and Saturday’s entry reads: “I think he really likes me—our date is at 3pm and at 10 am, he’s already put the water in his car to remember to bring it for church.” This news was accompanied by a photo of his morning glories, which are purple like most of mine. Maybe he did really like me.

That morning, I felt so open and festive, like the best possible version of myself. It was, he was, a special occasion. I walked over to the co-op to get flowers to put by the door, and of course they were a rainbow. I felt playful, and loving, and generous, and there were definitely special underpants.

And it was a magical afternoon and evening, full of laughter and what I would’ve called closeness. It doesn’t matter what went wrong in the night, but I will say this: Usually I can sift though any bad match and find what I did wrong, but in this case I am wholeheartedly sure that that guy had won the person lottery, and he severely mishandled his luck.

I still went to church, cried the whole way there and was glad I remembered where they keep the stash of wedding/funeral tissues. One of my favorite friends joined me in the pew and we laughed about the patheticness of my I-had-to-spill-the-special-pool-water-down-the-sink story. She’d forgotten her water so I lent her my drinking bottle while I spilled in some ocean water from the family beach. It was an absolutely meant-to-be breakthrough morning with my friend, who also happens to be a creative coachee.

But home alone, sobbing in front of “Up in the Air,” I had to admit to such loss, such longing. Before I met him, it was mostly possible to ignore a big part of what’s missing in my life, or I’d just been enjoying a nice break from worrying about it: Though my day- to-day life is pleasant and good, I want to fall in love and have a family more deeply than it feels safe to say.

A few months ago, one of my favorite friends in the world had a baby after a long, hard struggle. I was so relieved and happy for her and saw it as proof that even the most enormous and terrifying-to-want dreams can come true. But also I was inconsolable. I cried so hard that I thought my heart would fall out. I felt so much envy and pain and grief and loneliness with each successively more adorable picture: I eventually had to just unsubscribe.

Normally one would just take that to mean, duh, I want a baby, but that honestly seems supercrazy for me to want—I’m sensitive, anxious, single, and (though I know I have  fertile genes) likely too old to try.

And yet.

The wide, vast, chasm of pain that opened up from my friends facebook and from the loss of a guy who just wasn’t right means that I do very dearly, in the most raggedly vulnerable way, want to have my own family.

The guy, while he has qualities of his own, also has two adorable sons. He once texted me a picture of them on a picnic by a pond. And I let myself imagine it—how I might someday meet them, how I might someday heap them all in love. Even without having (thank goodness) met the kids, I knew that the three of them needed me, needed the ocean of love that’s in me, and I let myself hope I could someday give it to them.

So now I’m in a position of being no longer able to ignore a thing I can’t really do anything about. I’m afraid I’ve lost my chance, not with him (he was not the chance) but with my someday family, like we’ve all missed our connection somehow. The idea that it might be to late is a heavy thing to carry around, knowing I may eventually have to just grieve the lost chance.

But the thing is, I let myself believe in the possibility of love, of letting someone in. I let myself go as far as the current of romance could take me, and that was a good and brave choice. And although it is famously lightning-strike foolish, I have to believe that my guy and my family are still out there waiting for me, or maybe the impossible will happen before it’s too late. I have so much love, so much everything to give a family. However they come, whoever they are, let them get here. I miss them so much.

Talking With My Childhood Self About Bill Cosby

Photo by my Uncle Steve

Before I get to the soul searching, I want to say that I think Hannibal Buress is a hero for bringing the reality Bill Cosby’s victims into the public consciousness, but I really wish that women were taken as seriously on the same set of topics—Jen Kirkman has been censored and Julie Klausner vilified for pointing out similar allegations  and hypocrisies, (about Louis C. K. and R. Kelly respectively) and I would very much like to live in a world that isn’t trained to dismiss women’s point of view, especially on this particular matter.

For a lot of my adult life, I’ve been a trusting, open, jump-in-with-both-feet kind of person. I made friends and became devoted to them instantly (okay, I still do that) got crushes on poets and wrote reams about them, greeted nearly every person and new situation wholeheartedly.  I’ve never been afraid to walk alone at night and I’m still not, but in the past few years, I’ve ended up seeing the world through rape-colored glasses, seeing facets of coercion and exploitation everywhere. The problem with this lens is not that it isn’t true, but that it isn’t helpful; it’s not taking me where I want to go.

I want to slay those dragons and really start to live knowing I have agency and hope. The personal reasons that I tend to see the world this way are well-documented; they’re private and complex, but the psychological impact, the pulling-the-rug out-from-under-me that Cosby-as-rapist has wrought matters.

Like probably so many little girls, I LOVED Bill Cosby. This is not an overstatement like “Oh, I love Netflix,” but real, abject human love of a child for an adult man who seemed more than deserving of that love. My dad had all of his records and my brother and sister and I listened to them so much that it was almost like we were the siblings in those stories.

But The Cosby Show. It was one of the few shows we were allowed to watch—somehow that Thursday night block was highbrow enough for my dad (who before long would give into the slippery slope of Growing Pains and Perfect Strangers) (Mike Seaver didn’t do much in the not-letting-me-down department either, did he?) so we watched it as a family every Thursday night, like everyone.

Was there ever a more appealing paragon of manhood than Cliff Huxtable? He danced with his wife. He goofed around with the kids. He lovingly and hilariously laid down the law when necessary. And sometimes, as I think was pointed out once on Community, an entire episode could be about making a sandwich with his daughter. He was a perfect picture of what it means to be a man in a family, exactly the beautiful grownup my ten-year-old self needed.

There are a lot of factors that combine to make me generally skittish, but the shift from what I felt about Cosby then to what I know now exacerbates the feeling I have sometimes that if I relax for one second, if I trust for one second, the world will turn upside down and I will be completely fucked. But I certainly don’t want to approach the world that way.

So.

Dear Little Self,

What you loved was a story, and that story is still true. Everywhere there are families with singing and laughing—you’ve lived in one for a long time. Everywhere there are men, dads and brothers and friends and strangers who wish you and everyone nothing but love, safety and happiness.

You can grieve for Cliff Huxtable and be mad that Kurt Cobain was such a creep to that girl in high school and still be pretty peeved about that one episode of Buffy. I will always be mad with you and on your behalf. I will always be on your side.

But let’s look for other, better examples, and allow them to be true. I’ll do my best to keep you safe, if you’ll do your best to let it go. Take all the time you need.

Love,

Grownup You

New Adult-Content Blog

For the sake of continuity and so that I can speak more freely, I've decided to move my body-adventures story to an undisclosed location. If you decide that you want to read it, let me know. I'll swear you to secrecy and send you the link! I'm so excited for this new project!

Good Queer Fun For Good Causes

Hey dears! The Serotonin Factory is all about transformation, self-determination, music,and drunken tomfoolery, so if you're in the Philly area there are some great chances this week to have fun and support worthy causes:

Thursday, Jan 26, at 9pm,  in honor of my friend Rae's birthday, during their always-delightful karaoke night,  Tabu is ever so graciously donating 15% of the money made at the bar + money made from jello shots to his chest surgery fundraising project, The 7000 People Project! http://7000peopleproject.org/

And Friday, Jan 27, at Tritone Come out and join Gender Reel's Organizers as they host our next MixTape Event!

MixTape is a quarterly surgery fundraising showcase for gender non-conforming and transgender people. This months MixTape is raising money for Sam Richman, and features the amazing Jack Cooper as our MC, and our always wonderful regular DJ, and Gender Reel Organizer, Evil v.

Performances by:

Alien Beauty
Chaos and Lace (from NYC)
Dynasty
Wordz
Messy
J Mase III
Screwsmart
Ethan B.

Performances from 10-12 am, DJ, dancing and mix and mingle to follow.

MixTape brings diverse communities together one party at a time, for a good cause.

Cover $5

This is a 21+ and you must show ID to enter.

Triads and Quadrangles: On Being Not-Skinny and Pajama-Envy

It was a good date. We went to The Academy of Natural Science for Mega-Bad Movie Night. I forgot how much I loved watching a bad movie while a panel makes snide comments about it, MST3K-style. Also we got to visit the butterfly garden.

He was cute, tall, and had a million pictures of his little son in his phone. I just go bonkers for dads, in case you didn’t know.

Anyway, we’d just had some post-movie pie in a cute little diner and he was walking me back to my 11^th and Walnut bus stop. He’s a shy guy, so he surprised me by talking about a clothing-optional beach he likes to go to. That’s when this conversation happened:

She: “Oh, I would be much too shy for that!”

He: “Well, you’d be surprised, there are more not-skinny women there than skinny women. I know I don’t have the best body-image either.”

She: “………………Um, I have a good body image……………”

I’m sure I said wrong things too, but sheesh, that’s hard to come back from.

I admit that I am heavier than I want to be and that a scale has once again joined the household. Being unconditionally loved and kind of a sensualist, I do tend to gain weight if I am not paying attention. And I’m sure my size is part of the reason guys generally just want to be friends, BUT.

I do love my body. If I can look at it objectively, I can see how someone, even a male someone, might think it’s beautiful. And I always want to be on my body’s side. I don’t want anyone to settle for it, or tolerate it. I just want someone to love it.

At the moment he made that assumption, I felt how cold out it was. I’d had fun but I’d also missed Thursday shows AND the Project Runway finale. I called Amy and she told me she was in her monkey pajamas and very fuzzy socks. I just missed the warmth of my home. I texted her when the bus was ten minutes from home and she had tea waiting for me. I snuggled with her and the cats and felt like the luckiest person in the universe. Who could measure up to that? I feel for the gentlemen, I really do. I wish that everyone could always feel as cozy and loved as I did last night when I got home.

Songs of the Week Part 1: Joan Jett's Androgynous

A very nice cover of a Factory favorite. It's everything good in this world.

Motivation Mondays: Painting Party! And Gender Reel Was Awesome!

Hi pals! This weekend I got to volunteer at the Gender Reel Festival. Here's how the website describes the festival: "Gender Reel is an annual event dedicated to enhancing the visibility of gender non-conforming, gender variant/queer and transgender identities. As a festival, our goal is to empower artists, filmmakers, and photographers to continue creating works that is reflective of gender non- conforming experiences and identities. To do this, we provide an accessible and embracing multi-media platform where this work can be displayed." 


You know I get really happy whenever I'm surrounded by fellow gender-enjoyers. It was a wonderful day full of edifying films, good art, and favorite friends. I'm so glad I volunteered because it forced me to come out of my shell a little bit and talk to people I didn't already know. 


(I you're in Philly and looking for fun LGBTQ things to do, the Philly Trans March is coming up October 8th, and they have a fundraiser coming up this Friday! With pancakes!)


My favorite part of Gender Reel was getting to participate in my pal Sam's painting workshop. Not only did I get to support him for his first teaching endeavor and find out that he is a natural teacher, I got to sit around and make art with cute people, which is the best thing ever. It inspired me to re-take-up watercolors, and to think about planning a painting party myself.

Yay Femmes!

Today is International Femme Appreciation Day. Yes, it does seem like that's every day, but instead of doing my homework, I'm Googling tiaras and posting this cuuuuuuute video. And then I'll go hang out the laundry in my nightgown.

Triads and Quadrangles: Sigh, New Order

1. I hereby pledge to stop using Don Draper photos whenever I'm talking about gender.

2. File under lessons learned: "I do admit to myself that if I hurt someone else, then I'll never see just what we're meant to be."

3. Deep sorries and prayers for all who got hurt in my learning curve. I feel like I'm getting somewhere, but not without missteps. I hope hope hope it can all heal.


New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle by

Motivation Mondays: Being Queer is Awesome!

Art in the service of gender-innovating is one of the most happy-making elements in my life right now. Here are some great ways you can contribute art, time, poetry, etc:

Gender Edge Collective http://genderedge.blogspot.com/ has wonderful events (see above!) and is always taking art and poetry for their beautiful zine! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gender-Edge-Collective/111183248966393

RAGE throws really great parties (and other actions) towards the cause of getting the Philly transportation system to stop using gender stickers on their bus/trolley passes: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119024039464&ref=ts

Gender Reel is taking all kinds of art in celebration of gender variance: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gender-Reel/129639227100001?ref=ts&sk=wall

And the Philly Trans Health Conference is coming up—I’ll bet they still need volunteers! http://www.trans-health.org/

Last Saturday night, Amy and I attended a screening of The Gender Sticker Film Project. They have another event coming up this Friday. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=212567582102307 You should totally go!

There was a dance party planned to follow the screening, so how could we not go? Walking into a room with that many cute strangers made me nervous at first, but by the time I sat down on the floor with my wife, my married friend’s boyfriend, and his boyfriend, to hear an adorable singer cover Kids! by MGMT! On! The! Ukelele! (Also! Violet! By! Hole!) a lovely grace settled over me. Surrounded by duos and triads and clumps of gorgeous people of all genders in cute outfits and special haircuts, I felt the you’re too much/not enough that follows me around in my head go quiet. I felt at home, which you know is my big quest, because last time I made a mix CD, it had four songs called Home on it.

Anyway, after the singer finished her set, they started the movie preview. The film is a work in progress being created by Wren Warner, and it chronicles the ways that gender stickers force tranfolks into all kinds of annoying conversations, puts them in danger of harassment, and costs them extra money whenever a bus driver happens to disagree with them about what their gender is. A few years ago, a lady sued over it, and the city was ordered to change the system, but they haven’t yet.

Like I said at the top of this post, there’s nothing as soul-soothing as revolutionary art. It gave me some much-needed perspective on my own worries and made me feel so, so lucky that I sometimes get to make that kind of art. Being in that room also made me thankful as heck for the couple of transguy crushes that put me on the path to being there. (Note to self: love as research is good for you.)

The dance floor was an absolute miracle. I lost self-consciousness in favor of joy to the point where it totally could’ve counted as church. Everyone was smiling and smiling and smiling at each other. Shaking my ass to My Chick Bad, I felt so grateful to be among people who are brilliantly redefining love and identity, who are doing their gorgeous best to influence the rest of us beyond our stupid, repressive inner voices, beyond limits, beyond fear. It’s so nice of them. Of us.

(It looked sooooooo much better than this video does.)

Dear Phantom Straight Family

About six years ago, when I first started having dreams about kissing guys, I got a crush on the textbook manager at Amy’s bookstore back in Syracuse. I used to work there in the summer, shelving books and talking to Jason about music and such. He was, and is, one of the most married people I know—he never wanted to go out to poetry or anything; he just wanted to be at home with his wife and daughter. I admired and envied the weight of his affection for them, and every time I saw him with his daughter, my heart would just get pangs for the husband-and-father character I’d never have. After that crush helped me realize that being married didn’t make me not bi, it simmered down to family friends and fruitful mix exchangers, but there’s always been such a twinge in me for that missing husband character.

On a few unintentional occasions in the past, I’ve ended up as a family man’s side project. I’ve never worn the scarlet letter intentionally (mostly) or for very long, and I’ve always politely stayed out of the way of his family. I’ve never even Googled a wife or girlfriend, and here’s why: I’ve always assumed she must be beautiful and perfect and have some sort of magic quality that I didn’t know how to have, if she knew how to keep a man’s attention enough for him to want to live in a house with her. I see the flaws in that logic, but it’s the assumption I’ve always made—that I’m missing some quality that is essential for that kind of a relationship.

Lately, the pangs have been louder. I’ve tried to dismiss it as hormones, especially since I’m still pretty sure I don’t want to have kids. (See: space isssues) Amy, who has no biological clock to speak of, struggles to understand why this all seems so urgent, why 36 sometimes feels too close to death. It isn’t, of course it isn’t, but life is finite, and if there’s something missing (And what in the world would this blog be about if there weren’t something missing?) then something’s got to change.

Whether I decide to be open to the possibility of that husband character or decide to mourn the missing part of my family and move on, I don’t want to just assume it’s something only other women were made for. I want to believe that I deserve it as much as those magical wives do.

Hey, do you think this guy’s still single?

May 24: Gender Edge with Special Guests at Giovanni's Room!

Friday Love Poem: Amy David!

I fell in love with this poem when I heard it on IndieFeed Performance Poetry. Thanks, Amy!


Said the Skirt to the Bulge Beneath It:

You never felt uglier than in corduroy,
the twisting fibers, the olive green,
the heavyweight denial of your shape.
The first time you felt it screeching
below your fingers you vowed never
to let it come between your knees.
You sacrificed their angles to a mosaic
of scabs as you learned how the blades
don’t bend. Your mother offered no advice
and no clean tissues. Nobody told you
about the communion of static or how to find
the front of a thong.  You learned on your
own the secret of black patent leather heels:
not that they reflect up, as Sister Mary
warned, but the way they can be coupled
with anything. The corner boutique divides
its array by color, by size, by curvature
and Christian names. You are not wrong
to resist this sweaty cluster of labels.
The skirt is an awkward ally, blotting your envy
of what is created exactly to pattern.
You are not a hasty alteration. Every boy
you see in the club contains a wrinkled
novel, a bottomless opera, a long-expired
feast. One of them loves the taste
of mascara. Another will only undress
beneath a sticky lightbulb.  You watch
them at closing, buying and selling
their jars of footnotes and wishing you could
hang yours on the clothesline to kick
out the stool from below. But nothing calls
you like a zipper or holds you like a hem.
Nothing cuts you like an ironed pleat.
What you would not give to be a window.
You will rupture with fashion, you will linger
in the slip. You will let nothing deny
the intimacy of your thighs. Let their crossing
be a true horizon, every lover willing
to sail on, every lover trusting
last of all his eyes.

Amy David is a poet, performer, and Ph.D student from Evanston, IL.  She has competed at the National Poetry Slam three times as a member of the Chicago - Green Mill team and was an instigator of the first-ever disqualification from group piece finals.  Her work has appeared most recently in WordRiot, Shit Creek Review, The November 3rd Club, APICS Magazine, and the Chicago Redeye’s 5 on 5.

Fun Gig on April 12 w/ Gender EDGE Collective.