Frieda Whales says, "Give Peas a Chance and Share the Rainbows"

I spent the last two weeks of September preparing for PRIDE. (And, I spent  the past two recovering from it!)  In Austin, they have the parade in late Sept because it will finally be only 95 degrees hot.  Someone got smart and changed the rules.

“These summer parades are ridiculous.”

And, everyone said “Amen, you can't take off enough clothes!”

So, I was scrambling for SWAG.  (It’s that stuff people put their logo on and drop in a bag at a festival, conference, etc).  I’ve only been in Sales for a few months—, all of this is new.  When I realized I had a week to get my name on something, I knew I was in trouble. 

“I need rainbows!”

But, the gays stole the rainbow. 95% of Americans stopped buying them; China stopped making them; now, it’s hard to find them. I thought that maybe I would go to the east side of Austin that has a big Hispanic population.

“Mexico still makes rainbows,” I thought. “I could buy 500 pieces of something and print my logo on it.”

And, so I drove to the east side around noon and realized it was hot. I forgot about rainbows and started looking for aqua fresca stands, and then I thought that I might need to eat some lunch and popped into Joe’s Mexican bakery because it’s one of the last establishments that’s still in place or hasn’t changed names since the condos and new fancy buildings have begun to encroach. 

I used to live on the East side.  It was after college and before the area became trendy.  A friend who inherited a house that his dad built in the '40s let me live there for $100/month.  I used to walk across the field and I’d pass Joe’s.  I included it in my favorite poem, A Walking.  It’s 4 pages long but here’s a bit of it:

                                                                . . .

i hope,

a foot for each rail,

i want…

   I want

both feet on a rail,

   but my Body can’t balance—

i hop off.

   when forward takes my Soles

my weight falls

outside of those tracks;

   when me jars my Mind,

   my Crossroad dilemma dissipates,

i look up

over the ditch and through the marsh

and to the snot-green house,

   I am on my Way;

but i can’t take my body

and legs won’t go

   to that Apparition;

ugly before and uglier now—

    I feel ugly near its Frame.

will my head move

   from this Apparatus—

with its termite-eaten, swollen boards above

its warped, termite boards below;

   will my mind tend to my Mission

and buy my times?

                                                                                            

i should get some news and sit on the lumber;

     should I get some and not sit?

When will i know

   when I am There—

if i am before

   that Mound to climb?

six hundred feet far,

ahead of my head is joe’s mexican bakery,

      and with my Body balancing on

my legs

i am walking

    thinking of yellow molettos y pumpkin empanadas,

para mi angelo, la marana, mi amor.

      WHO remembers:

   to find enough Change

   to buy some News

   to go to the Pile;

to pass freddy’s house

faster than anywhere else,

because he pelts me with peaches;

when they are green—

   whip by Unseen,

   ‘cause We know

they’re not summer soft ones.

i ‘member

how to dart between his pellets—

   fasten my Worries

   lighten my Limbs

   glance beyond his Hailstorm,

moving quick as a speeding bullet.

i cross tracks and run on a road,

into some mud and find

      Silence.

   I stand forward

   stare Up,

into a chasm of sun’s flowers.

                                 

i see

black-brown buttons holding

green stems

holding blonde hairs,

   above My head;

   I know

      THEY

   give Life

to gold-white rays.

   I am full-length stretching

my arms

   touching Highest tips,

   Now.

i feel

   Their Fibers

   welcome Peace

   to Our body.

. . .

All of these memories and that yummy food made me forget about rainbows.  I dashed off to my next appointment with homemade tortillas in my belly.

Before the week was over, an artist made me my very own rainbow and we had them printed on car coasters.  It was fun to ask straight people.  All seemed eager to help me celebrate my people’s festival.  

As the week progressed and more of the city put out their flags, I saw lots of rainbows.  There were celebrations at many businesses throughout the week, and I attended as many as possible in hopes that I could share mine.  

“Would you like a coaster?  It has a rainbow to make you happy on your way to and from work.” 

I assured the festival goers with each of the 150 that I handed out.  (Don’t do the math.  There’s a lot I’m not telling you about my distribution methods).

Since the theme of this year’s PRIDE festival was Oz-tin, every kind of rainbow added to the colors of the parade.  (Apple employees brought 3,500 people wearing one on each tee shirt!)  I loved being amidst so many of these symbols that used to tap open the hope button in my mind.  But, that was the ’70s and ’80s and before the gays stole it. 

“Can’t we share the rainbow?”

This concept reminds me of when my goddaughter was 3. She would sleep over once in a while.  My second girlfriend set up a toddler-sized lady bug dome tent and added a few layers of padding on the hardwoods.  She, me & #2 weren’t ready for her to sleep all the way down the hall, alone. 

In the morning, I’d fill her belly with syrup and bacon, and we’d drive her home.  On one particular morning, #2 found a bag of pretzels under the seat or in the door or somewhere.  She had a few, and I had a few.  From the back seat, we hear a peep.

“Share.” 

15 years later, I still hear her voice in my head. I say it to myself—with her innocence—when I’m offering or wanting something.  

So, this idea that gays stole the rainbow and hid it in clear sight makes me sad.  I don’t want the straights to be without this symbol of hope, but I can't force them to share.

P.S.

Here's a video of the crew I was with: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128255673@N06/15210261329/?fb_action_ids=1509145139324014&fb_action_types=flickr_photos%3Ashare&fb_ref=w

Love's Gay Impressions

4:44 am – My bones are excited that they’re going to Texas.  I get up, get coffee and work for a few hours.

1:21 pm – the chick-a-sticks, pretzels, and pear did me in. I am full.

1:22 pm – current buzzards-in-the-sky count = 11

1:23 pm – got out of car and dragged a rusty bumper off the bridge and roadway

6:03 pm – Park behind the bars off Cedar Springs.  I find Sue Ellen’s when I turn the corner.  I’m a bit overwhelmed.  It’s a really nice bar; it’s a good sized bar and feels empty with only a few women.  After exchanges, the bartender makes the connections for us.

Somehow the conversation gets personal really fast.  I hear the older lady say that she had been married. “I lost my husband and baby.  They were in a car wreck.”  She started a new life after.

The bar tender talks about her pre-teen son. She raises him with her ex-partner and the stepmother.  They are a family who share everything from holidays to rising costs.  She beams because she knows how important it is to do your best with a tender little soul. 

“It must impress the other parents,” I am thinking while she tells that she eats lunch in the school cafeteria with the little guys who make up her basketball team.  They call her “coach.”  I proselytize to her passion and devotion to them. I think of how she's teaching them to love a lesbian before the boys become men.

8:25 pm - The bartender and the barback have both been named Sarah by the patrons.  I begin to wonder if this is a generic name for lesbians like Mary is for gay men.   The other two ladies left and the third bought me a second Shiner, but I have to shoot down Cedar Springs to Dallas Love Field.  My mom is flying in from Birmingham.

10:01 pm – We arrive at Auntie’s house. I go in and hug her and her partner, Murph. Susie is there too.  She’s been my aunt’s friend for as long as I can remember.  Memories of them together at different stages of my life create gravity for my fatigue-filled mind.

After a few exchanges, Auntie says, “I want you to know, today is our 35^th anniversary.”

We congratulate her without champagne, a ballroom dance, or a proper celebration.  Still, we’re all just grateful to be together.

7:35 am - I get up early to talk to my aunt. 

8:35 am – A neighbor comes over and brings frozen trail mix varieties that are the leftovers from a bulk purchase.  After a few exchanges, the neighbor asks about the doctor’s prognosis.

“What’s the good news?” I asked him. Auntie shares the exchange.

“There’s not any good news,” the doctor said soberly.

“He hugged me.  I got a hug out of him. That’s the good news,” Auntie said.

 

9:01 am – An old friend called. That call was followed by a series of calls from all over the US.  Later, a lady from San Antonio called.

“Is that the woman who was a nurse?” my mom, the nurse, asked.

“Yes. The other one died,” Auntie angled the phone away. 

I had met this pair of lesbians in the late ‘80s.  I think they took me on a road trip during the second year that I was “out.”

11:24 am – I am ready to drive Murph to the beauty parlor.  It’s one of the businesses on this retirement campus.  It’s next to the “protestant” and catholic churches, a laundry room, and a consignment store. 

 “You guys have more activity in one morning than I have the entire week,” I’m smiling and pulling on my socks.

“Just wait until you’re dying,” Auntie says.

“I hope I’m as lucky.”

11:30 am- I’m putting on my shoes.

“Where’s Murph?”

“She went to the beauty parlor,” my mom said.

“Did she push her walker there?”

“No, she drove,” mom said.

“The golf cart?”
“No, the Toyota,” Auntie said.

“Should she be driving?” I ask.

When we go in, Murph’s hair is already in curlers.  She’s under the dryer.  The beautician takes my aunt to the back to wash her hair. I hear them talking.

“She’s a lesbian,” my aunt says out loud because her ears are underwater or because my aunt is an external thinker.

I’m sitting next to Murph who is an observer like me.  I believe this is why we’ve always had a secret alliance.   Also, she would pull beers out of the garage fridge and toss them to me.  Before they moved to the retirement campus, they had property and a kennel service.  We would walk over and look at the day’s variety of dogs.   But today, we’ve gotten into a bucket of left-over Halloween candy, choosing a variety of pieces and pretending that we’re not high from too much coffee and sugar.

2:10 pm – Lunch with Martha who is a friend of my aunt’s from Corpus.  That means they’ve been friends for more than 35 years.  And, that means that she and my aunt were young(er) lesbians together, running the streets and going to bars. 

4:00 pm – The others take naps. I go to Trader Joe's for a trunk full of carbohydrates

7:00 pm – Murph and I chill a bottle of wine

8:00 pm - My aunt takes me to her room and asks me to help her create a letter.  We talk about everything except the letter.  Just when we get a sentence typed, my mom comes in.

“It’s Buddy,” she says.  “He wants to talk to you.”

I look over at the top of the dresser where there’s a picture of Buddy when he was young and in Dorothy's Wizard of Oz dress.  He’s been in Auntie’s stories since I was a kid in Corpus.  I think he talked—counseled seems to be too strong a word—to my brother when he came out of the closet.  (See "Fleas on a Hot Tar Roof."). Not that it was a secret.

When my brother was 11, he put on my mom’s dress, wig, and high heels, and then he walked the neighborhood sidewalks. He came out when the neighbors told my mom what she already knew.  It was good that my aunt had a lot of gay male friends who looked out for my brother during his young adult years. I'm sure Buddy was one of them.

“Hi Puss.”

PAUSE.

“Lisa is here.  You remember Lisa?” 

PAUSE.

“Did you happen to touch her like you did her brother?

“You two are not right!” I yell toward the phone.  I imagine that this is an inside joke that they've shared for three or four decades.

Auntie chuckles, and then they talk, swapping more inside jokes that are funny and bad too.  Before Auntie hangs up, she says, “You’re going to get a letter from me.”

PAUSE.

“Bye-bye, honey.”

During the conversation, she mentioned another friend Clifford.  I was at his house, in Corpus, that night my aunt talked about my being gay.  It had been a short conversation.  She remembers that I shouted, “I’m gay,” from Clifford’s balcony.  I remember that she said very soberly, “So, you’re mom tells me you’ve kissed a girl.”  We’ve always observed the world from different angles and haven’t done so well as a result.  This weekend is the first I’ve spent with her in 15 years.  Still, she gave me great advice that night and on many weekends while I was in college.   

Now, I’m sitting on her bed and about to write the letter. I feel honored.

“Do you remember Clifford’s boyfriend?” she asks.

“Yeah, he was younger, right?”

“I ran into him in an airport. I couldn’t believe it was him. I hadn’t seen any of those guys in so long.  He was a real sweet guy,” She pauses to reflect.  “He’s in Houston.  Buddy saw him.” 

I start to remember the late-80s.  When I would come home for holidays or summer break, I would hear from my brother about the men in that circle who were dying.  It was overwhelming.  Somehow Clifford, Wes, Buddy, and my brother survived Reagan’s plague.

9:45 pm – We finish the letter.  “I’ve had a good life; I’ve had a fun life,” she says while I type.  I think about how my aunt is always looking for a reason to smile a mischievous smile.  Aside from making her family crazy, she fills so many lives with light and support.  I will be blessed if I have half the friends.

11:59 pm – Auntie, Murph and mom are awake. I am in bed with ear plugs and the fan is on high to create white noise.  “I can’t wait to go home so that I can sleep without these party animals,” I pop an over-the-counter blue pill and roll over.

8:00 am – Auntie is up.  I get up. 

10:35 am – The reverend is making announcements.  Martha slides between me and Murph.  The room is full, and it’s wonderful to see so many different LGBTs filling the pews, wrapping their arms around each other, and singing with reverence to God while people all over the nation are singing too. 

“This is the life I thought I would live,” I remember the world that my lesbian aunts built.  When I would come for the weekends, their lives were balanced and full with good friends that made everything seem normal, perfect.  

“I want to acknowledge Auntie and Murph’s thirty-fifth anniversary,” the reverend says.

1:00 pm – At lunch we talked about the church and the day’s service.  During the program, they acknowledged new members, announcing a total of 560 with the recent ones.  There was a straight couple on the stage, holding hands.

“They had a gay son,” my aunt explained about them. “When they moved here, they tried a lot of churches.  So many preach against homosexuals.  Finally, they looked and found our church.”

“Wow,” I thought. “It’s an evolution.”

2:10 pm - There’s a storm coming and I have an 8 hour drive. I hug and don’t linger.  There’s too much to sort out and there hasn’t been time to talk.  I’ll have to get back before too long. We have to figure out how to take care of Murph.

9:37 pm – At the base of the Mississippi River bridge, I pull a warm beer from the Trader Joe’s bag that’s behind the driver’s seat.  I put it in the ice chest because I’m 15 minutes from home. I can’t wait to hear my dogs go nuts.

“It’s nice to love and to be loved.”

In the course of a few days, I was introduced to so many different approaches to gay life.  It was serendipitous to hear the ladies at Sue Ellen’s and sit with the congregation at Celebration Community Church.  I wanted to share.  Also, I hope this story about my aunts’ long relationship gives you stamina someday.  It’s possible to find love late in life and love that will happily follow you to a retirement campus.  I think the secret to Auntie and Murph’s relationship is so very simple.

“You just don’t leave,” Murph said.

Know the (X-Chromosome) Code

After my two years in Southern California, fish tacos are my default (fastfood) desire.  The entire region between California and Florida (except in Austin) doesn’t have a Wahoo’s, so I go get a burrito.  I grab a spot on the covered patio and begin to deconstruct the five pound beast because—in the beginning—I never intend to eat the whole thing.

I like to play in it.  This finger-in-the-food thing goes back to the summers that Velma and I cooked and cleaned for campers in a 150 degree kitchen in West Texas.  Did I tell you the stories about 300 pieces of chicken-fried steak or 15 trays of lasagna?  Maybe it will come up if Velma or Victwa chime in.

I can’t help but to hear the one-way conversation at the next table.

“He worked part-time jobs in East Texas,” the lady explains.

PAUSE.

“Nothing really.  He never really made any money.”

PAUSE.

“It’s that ‘Y’ chromosome.”

Huh? The Y chromosome = X chromosome money (x) 25%+.

“Foul!"

How often does the average heterosexual female use the Y trump card?  We don’t have one.  Y not?

We can't bow out and say women! and then disappear with a buddy for a weekend of “hunting” or go to a strip club and look at women to get women off our minds.  For us, they are everywhere.  And if I'm lucky, one will always be somewhere near to irritate me really deep inside the niche where only she can burrow.

When you reach a difference with your favorite one, you might throw a dart and put her in a category. Maybe, then, you'll use a non-gender trump card like clueless, insensitive. or jerk.  Still, you can't write off half of the other side of the world.  You belong to it. 

With that said—maybe that’s bad.  Maybe this ability, to pull out the chalk and draw a line—across the kitchen tile, living room hardwoods, or wherever you like to fight on floors—leads to a healthy lack-of empathy.  (Say it with me, "Empathy enables."  That inner strength triggers my southern female indoctrinated co-dependencies before the logical sector of my mind gets a vote.)  Jiro would say, “Suck it up.” Then, he would hang out with young apprentices, making sushi while his wife found a means to strengthen her female deficiencies.  When faced with a difference, heterosexuals get to lift an eye brow and quietly shout, “I can’t figure out that gender.” 

The bond of the heterosexual variety is an unlearned one.  Men who marry women who marry men have boundaries that are perpetuated by nature as well as nurture.  At first, each side faces a Berlin wall with colorful graffiti that warns of the enemy on the other side.  Slowly, self-awakening events force out their similarities.  Brick-by-brick each one decides when and Y to pull the edifice down. For, the first time I think that gender differences that are perpetuated by nurture are a good thing. Maybe there's more than madness to these human methods?

Lesbians can't build a nature wall.  But, they can build a nurture one—, goodness! I can launch a war with a mouthful of pseudo-psych evaluations that sound authentic but spew like process cheese with a broken lever.  My female partner can't say "woman, what's gotten into you?"  If she was in touch with me, she would know that not-knowing is more unacceptable than whatever injustice she committed.

"Helllllrrrrr!"

Being in the same nature pack doesn't help when you're suppose to be looking out for each other as females and as minorities and, not to mention, lovers.

We need to purposefully create a false boundary so that empathy doesn’t condone every-single-thing. We need a non-genderized code word.  Heterosexual females get to escape with “It's girl’s night out.” Well, that one can’t possibly work because you and your girl share the same friends.  Suggestions?  Anyone have a code that works?  

With two females, there has to be a distinction so that one can say, “Enough.  You’re sooooo not wearing what I’m wearing” and “you’re not going out with me on girls’ night.” 

“Shut your mouth,” I heard the ghosts of previous girlfriends protest. 

“Yep.  I’m going it alone into the cold dark night." And, "Where did I put my keys?" And then, "Please warm my side of the bed.” 

Freedom and Its Eject Button

Freedom is the primordial nature, 

but Freedom 

has no direction.

Direction comes from vision

and vision 

comes with compassion, “the light.”

Compassion with skill unite time 

and space, 

frees primordial nature.

- The Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche’s

   (deconstructed, paraphrased and poetricized)

Because I live in this big house alone, I have at least twelve hours of weekend chores.  Because most of the weekend is spent on the yard or prepping the house for buyers, I have a lot of time to think.  I have thought a lot during these 10 months.

But, I have always been a thinker.  When I was in college, I had a friend who said that she didn’t want to party with me anymore.

"You leave. You check out."  

Still, she is my longest friend of all friends and I’ve drank more pints with her than anyone else.  And this weekend, around 1 am, someone said, “Do you observe everything?” Apparently, new beer and new friends don’t stop the thinking about thoughts thing. 

Probably the most often visited topic (when I’m alone) is the realization that I’m happier, though lonely, without a partner.  Of course I have Cally-Surfer-Girl and Sweet-Georgia-Brown and Puff-the-Magic-Dragonslayer, but—in their own way—they’re snoring bed hogs.  Also, they don’t give constructive feedback.  I need a mammal that can introduce qualitatively different what-if scenarios.

“Maybe I will be a better partner.”

“Maybe I wasn’t a good partner to Ex#3. But, we wanted different things.”

“Maybe I could have been a better partner. But I was stupid.”
“Maybe with Ex#1… We were young.”

YAAWWN.  This is the reoccurring summarization explanation that pushes its way out of my mind’s cotton candy machine with centrifugal force.  I’m tired of wondering.  I want the voices to stop feeding my head with pink and blue food dyes that spin irrelevant scenarios.  When will I have a purple treat? 

Maybe I’m happier all alone because I can’t keep my personal space when I’m with another.  I think I might need to create a niche for freedom before I meet her.  I'm sure I had a good reason for not creating it before now.  Remember, One’s primordial nature is directionless freedom.  I will add this note and pin it in my cubicle.

The problem is that I’m a creature of habit.  I like routine.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a moth to spontaneity’s flame.  But, I like to have things in place so that when a new opportunity introduces itself, my boss won’t ask about the bags under my eyes. 

The Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche says that freedom has no direction until its human has vision.  Also, its vision needs compassion. I think it’s safe to say that non-monks can insert any ol’ emotion here and find a reason to move about.  My monkey mind can formulate a plan in microseconds. 

Warning:  Any ol’ emotion doesn’t guarantee the production of a Buddhist monk’s vision.

Love Heroine’s formula is this simple:

   observation of an event with a woman in the center, to the right/left, off-stage

+ an emotional uprising

    (imaginations of) sex

Dun. It’s that simple for him.

My formula is:

                   observation of an injustice

+ emotional uprising

                   why?-declaration (with soliloquy to follow)

I get in trouble because I ask, “Why?” too much.  But, why do people hinder my freedom with their lack of vision?  Please—for your sake—, don’t follow me down this path.

Warning:  Observing everything has side effects.  It may feel like freedom, but you're stuck in someone else's illusion, asking questions you're not allowed to answer.

I think I’ll take my version of The Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche’s quote to work with me.  I’ll print it and put it on the break room fridge and make a screen saver for the conference room 60” tv/monitor.  But, dropping off a paraphrased declaration like this is not very compassionate if your unsuspecting audience doesn't want a vision.  It might even be a social injustice that Love Heroine will have to observe. 

I need skill(s).  I am here to unite my primordial space with the now.  But, the things that keep me from being in the moment are emotions that are more like goooey-processed-cheese-in-a-squeeze-can-with-a-broken-pressed-down-lever than compassion.  If I get angry, I have to time-out until the relentless spewing of goo subsides.  But these days, I’m pretty numb.  I worry more about the seductive frenzy of happy.  Who’d uh thunk?  It’s been a tough year, and I worry that I’ll go funny-farm loco if I’m introduced to the power of love.  When I get a whiff of it, I’ll want more.

Surprisingly, this leads me back to freedom.  Because I’ve been alone for a year—cleaning my mental rooms and making spaces for someone new—will I be so delighted that I freely surrender freedom?  If so, how will I be free to receive my vision which leads to my primordial path?  Seriously.  I’ve tried another’s primordial path and my feet never planted well there. 

You might think I wrote this entry to make you think that I’m a wise sage—distracting and seducing you will sillies—so that I can implant my philosophy and make you ponder.  I didn’t.  I’m being completely selfish.  So, here’s my question, “How do I be a full-time me while I’m being a part-time we?”

It would be great if you could, please, provide a list of potential irresponsible deviations that would ensure that I’m unpredictable enough, always holding a finger above my eject-the-seat-button. Or, if you have a flow chart laying around with directional arrows at each “yes” and “no” milestone of things I should do to ensure I’m free to be me, please provide.  Either of these tools would be great—so that I can reference them when I’m hiding in the public stall of the restaurant on my first next date. 

Zoinks, Scoob! It's a Lesbian Evolution!

I pull up to the counter, dragging my life-on-wheels and ask for a different room.

“I know I booked a king but I need two beds."
“Yes, Ms. Michel.”

Before I became a gold member at Hilton, I was just “ma’am.”  Now, all over Louisiana, clerks that I’ve never met call me by my name.   I wonder if there’s a database with my photo.  In cities where I’ve dropped off TwoGirls cards, I wonder if they’ve copy and pasted my profile picture in their database.  (Have these counter operators read my entries and wonder if I’m travelling with Love Heroine; do they agree that the world can’t live without lesbians; is the cute one 1 punch away from receiving a free toaster oven (Huh?-Hint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKfEdjlRxSk)).  If they didn’t get the photo from my TwoGirls profile, they got it after first coffee and a shower because I look like a teenage bat boy before 7 a.m.

When I ask for a second bed, I feel embarrassment rising. (Velma—from “When I Had My First Hysterectomy”—is driving over the state line and meeting me in Louisiana.)  Let me ask you two questions:

Does it embarrass you to check into a hotel with a woman?

Even if the woman is a relative or friend and obviously not a sex partner, have you ever caught the clerk imagining contortions he’d like to see you and your “friend” do naked?  

I look for signs—the wrinkled forehead, the rolled back eyes, the open mouth.

I wasn’t ever embarrassed when I had a girlfriend.  I loved her, so I couldn’t be embarrassed about being with her.  But single—that’s different; I’m one lesbian standing alone with an empty excuse on my arm.  And, I feel like I’m apologizing to Gopher.  (Is this Love Boat comparison making any sense?  Who is this generation’s Tattoo?)  Let’s face it—people who work in hotels don’t care about what goes on behind closed doors as long as it can be cleaned before 3 pm.  And lucky for them, Velma and I won’t be doing any of what Gopher’s imagining.

When Velma arrives, we go out for boiled shrimp and spicy crabs.  After we’ve rinsed the red-pepper fire from our mouths, are bloated in misery with Cajun salts, and wishing I hadn’t ordered the beans&rice, we google the local gay bar. I want to drop a TwoGirls card in the tip jar or tape it to the bathroom mirror.  The parking attendant at the restaurant wants us to pull out, so he gladly gives us directions.  Then, he offers an odd expression and bids us luck. It’s been more than 6.1 seconds so he’s got a good idea that I’m gay, but Velma—no; no way.  I imagine he’s trying to figure out what we’re up to.

Lining the wall near the door is a fifteen foot strip of gold streamers on the outside wall. 

“There’s the glitter,” Velma giggles. 

She works in the art world, so she’s been (dragged) to her fair share of gay bars.  (She said she would comment on my recent blog about the injustices against and exclusions of gays in the art world because it took her two decades to find a straight man in the pack.  I truly hope she will pontificate because she taught me everything I know about writing zany stories.)  I knew she was the one for this particular adventure, so I saved it for us to share. 

Just because a gay bar looks closed doesn’t mean that it is.  We tug on the handle.  Just because it’s the only gay bar in town, or it’s the middle of the week, or it’s only 6:35 pm, doesn’t mean it’s open.

“I can’t imagine that they’re closed for cleaning.”

I worried to know how I’ll share the TwoGirls portal.

“They’ll never know about our world.”

“What now?” Velma asks.

At the race track we make dollar bets on horses we like because they wear pink, have the biggest horse to smallest jockey ratio, or remind us of Ex lovers.  Even though we watched the betting machine tutorial on the “Espanol” screen, and I accidentally bet $9 on the first race, we only lost $10 each after a few hours.  

While we're waiting on the last race that we accidentally bet on during the first race, Velma says, "I was with my friend who used to be a lesbian."  

“Huh?” she catches me by surprise.  “How’s that?”

“She had a partner, and they had a baby.”

“Did you like the partner?”

“She was nice—way better than the guy.”

“What happened?”

“Used-2-B flew to California to have sex with a man.”

“Why? Texas has a lot of men who will have sex for less money than the cost of air fare."

“I know.  Worse, the guy’s a dud.”

It turns out that Velma’s friend, Used-2-B, had the baby.  Next, she wanted a man.  Somewhere, the sum of these equals a family.

Dud leaves northern California and moves to east Texas.  Having lived in both areas, I know this guy does not make good decisions.  Velma confirms my assumptions with a story about all he left behind.

“We were invited to their beach house.  Used-2-B’s parents were there,” Velma says.  “He was sitting about ten feet in front of everyone.”  Velma adds, “It turns out, he started the day by saying something mindless to the mother. After that, he was alone in his beach chair.” 

“Wow.  I wonder if Used-2-B’s parents were longing for yesteryear—when their daughter was a practicing lesbian with a nice girlfriend?” 

“Like, zoinks!” 

“That’s right, Velma.  What’s a family to do without a lesbian or two?”  

Bonjour!

I knew it was going to be a good day when I woke up and the callous on the inside of my left foot was rubbing the itch on the underbelly of my right foot.  Cooperation, ").  Someone who was into folklore said that whenever you have itchy feet, you're about to travel.  

My brother and I talked a bit yesterday about his annual New Year's Eve trip to Paris.  See "Fleas on a Hot Tar Roof." (He's doing well after a new procedure).

"Maybe that's it?" I thought.  Sweet-Georgia-Brown and Cally-Surfer-Girl were nosing me to get out of bed. We did the downward dog together, and then I got on the road for business travel.  

After I passed over one of the fourteen mile bridge, I remembered that I hadn't checked to see if Germany or Russia joined us while I slept, so I logged on. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that 48 French lesbians/women/gay-friendlies have found us.  Bear informed me that each view counts.  So, I'm ok if only one Frenchwoman found us and read 48 posts or 6 of them read 8 posts or some multiplication thereof.  Bonjour!  We've been waiting for you!

Pageviews by Countries

Entry	Pageviews
France	48
United States	29

Riddle Me #2-How Much Can a Free Token Cost You?

Alone for two weeks, you’re wanting to find gay bars when the hands point to happy hour.  The hotel lounge has some lovers on a short couch tucked in the corner, and you think about how nice it would be if the guy would get a round of drinks or just get lost so that you could slip into his cozy position.  To your surprise, she gets up, walks toward the bar, staring at you while you’re staring at her.  You hold your firm position in anticipation.

“I can’t believe this is soooo going to happen.”

She stops in front of you and smiles. Then, she smirks. 

“It will never work,” your mind and hers seem to meld at this same breaking-off point.

To top off the insult, she gives you a once over, stopping at your shoes that scream and remind her shoes of comfort and make them jealous.  She cocks her head back and disappears around the corner.  You raise your glass to the chump who’s in your cozy position, saluting him with as much respect as you can muster before you slap a ten on the bar for the overpriced lounge liquor.  “I’ve got to find the lesbians and long necks.”

Following your GPS tool, you are downtown and the skyscrapers are blocking the afternoon sun.  It’s tough to see the signs so you decide to get out and walk.  Luckily, you’re wearing comfortable shoes.

“Good thing I didn’t bring her along,” you think of the sassy sexy in high heels.

You stop at the convenience store to get BBQ flavored Fritos and a Dr. Pepper because you want to mix it up with salty and sweet before you throw yourself into the mosh pit of women that are waiting for your loving.  Of course, you toss in five bucks for quick picks because you’re hoping to wake up with double-the-luck by morning, sweep new girl off her feet with a spontaneous flight to the south of France, and then make your way to Monte Carlo where you’ll quadruple your luck at the craps table.

You arrive at what looks like the bar, but it has changed names.  Charlie’s shows in some places but Charlene’s hangs on a crisp new banner above the door.  You look about and count the number of rainbow stickers, “1, 2, 3, 4, and ½.”  Somehow someone tore off more than a third of one of the mandatory 5 rainbows that must be posted on the window of every urban inner-city gay bar.  You step from the musty light that has escaped the looming towers and into the dark cave of a place that has five decades of cigarette resin on the walls.  The six foot five bar tender—Charlene—offers a friendly greeting and a light beer because she knows that will get you started while you look around and figure out what you really want.  Also, she slides a token across the bar and says, “Why don’t you pick a song.” She gestures toward the juke box. 

Your eyes are adjusting to the deeper part of the cave where five entities of unknown origin or gender are watching you approach.  You can feel their eyes—but you can’t use your own—and feel like an unrehearsed stripper on the other side of a one-way mirror.  You want to hide behind the juke box but these new ones are streamlined and mounted to the wall because they don’t need the space for real records like the cool ones your dad hid behind when he courted your mom with cheesy pick up lines.  To add to the juke box betrayal, it beams the only light in the room, and it’s blinding your eyes that have almost adjusted to the dark.

“Hey—play some Straight,” one of them hollers out.

“Oh, it’s lesbians,” you think and are grateful that they weren’t gargoyles, or bats, or aliens with wings that might swoop down and carry you away.  You turn toward the voice that bellows from the dark but can’t communicate in any way other than a “huh?” unless you choose to move toward the unknown chasm.

“I like ‘Ocean Front Property.’”

“Ok,” you mumble.

You push Charlene’s token in the slot and assume that you can or should join the veteran viewers.  Still, you can’t see them because your eyes have readjusted to the beam of the juke box.

“Wanna go to the beach?” a different voice offers from the middle of the booth. 

She has short blonde hair that looks like the boys who threw newspapers during the Depression.  Two of the women get up.  The first one is the thickest and seems to be the blonde’s bouncer who has been released of the duties of collecting cover charge for a non-existent band.  You assume they are standing to let you sit next to this woman who’s picked you out of the non-existent crowd.  But, they are getting up to leave and the blonde one is scooting across the knife-ripped plastic seat covering.

Now, your eyes are adjusting and you can see that the blonde has small shoulders but wide hips.  The idea of a bowling pin comes to mind, but you like bowling because it reminds you of your uncle who wrote letters to you from prison and taught you how to hustle for money with a fast and hard hook shot.

“He was nice,” you say to yourself while you reach for the blonde lady’s hand who has offered to lead you out of the darkness.

There’s just the three of them and you.  The first two drove up in an 80s Bronco.  By default, they have commandeered the front seat.  You climb into the backseat behind the woman who has wavy brown hair like your aunt who always slept in big plastic curlers until your uncle went to prison.  (Now, she owns a curling iron but only does her hair on Saturday nights when she’s headed to the VFW.)  You’ve already noticed that she has tiny hips that support the forty pounds around her belly.  You wondered if all the lesbians in this town are unnaturally proportioned but your mind starts to make everything fit.  The blonde’s bowling pin build fits the brunette’s belly like complimentary pieces of a torn apart valentine heart.

The co-pilot pushes a cassette and Garth Brooks is in the middle of belting out if tomorrow never comes.

“No,” you hear the driver answer a question that you forgot you asked. “They were together before we were.” 

You put together the pieces and realize that everyone in this car has dated the other and this makes you think of cousins who shouldn’t procreate, but that can’t really matter, not really, with lesbians. The blonde throws her arm around your shoulder and pulls you in close.  She whispers something that you can’t understand in a language that sounds like French and Australian and you nod in a way that says, “No.”  She pulls four beers from the cooler in the back and the co-pilot reaches for two of them.

“It gets dark early,” you offer something to say because you want to contribute to the social dynamics.  And, you’re away from the city under the open sky.  The scenery has changed, and you’re far from anything that has ever looked familiar.   Everything suddenly looks flat and deserted.  You wonder if you should say something else, or stop talking, or if they like the ‘80s stereo to blast while they drive to somewhere you don’t know.  You think of that movie you watched with your cousins, Lost Boys, and decide that you’re never watching anymore vampire movies ever again. 

You sink back in your new surroundings and are grateful for new friends.   There’s a cooler in the back, so you help yourself to a second cold beer that will go down slower than the first.

“I wonder what else we’ll do while I’m in town.  Maybe they’ll take me to other gay bars?” 

You remember there was only the one in Google and hope you’ve met the girls who play poker during the week or have bonfires on the weekends.  You try to remember what they were wearing and wonder if you brought the right clothes. 

By the time you make it to the beach and the Bronco rolls up to the public bathrooms, you have a couple of ideas about how to move to this city, buy a house with a short commute, and make a life with the nice blonde who might be a good bowler with some lessons in fast hook shots.  When the brunette with tiny hips gets out to smoke, you smile and she nods.  The phone slid out of your pocket but that's ok because you don't want to drop it in the toilet like you did in St. Louis or the sink like you did in Dallas.

The three of you are like blind mice, falling into the stalls because everyone is toting at least two beers in the lower extremities.  You wash your hands and check your look, wishing you had a baseball cap like the driver—though yours would be pink or some pastel with a flower embroidery and not have diesel oil on the lip.  “I wonder if they have wood for a bonfire,” you wonder while you’re moving past the concrete walls that have four decades of paint peeling from under the current coat.  You take a breath of beach air, but it seems to suffocate you with sand remnants.

You hear a horn and walk toward it, but two teens are waving to a guy behind you.  You hear another horn to the right, but there’s a creepy man slouched in his seat.  It’s dark and you’ve lost your bearings.  You walk passed the first row of cars, tracing your steps. You walk passed the second row of cars and face the open landscape that buffers the public area from the beach.  You:

1. Think about how lucky you are to have found the beach on the first night
2. Roll the dice with the creepy guy and ask for a ride back to town
3. Look down at your comfortable shoes and calculate the miles back
4. Are grateful that Trick-or-Treat only comes once a year— Happy Halloween!

The Vision of the Blind

“Who is your favorite author?”

The first person who comes to mind isn’t my favorite but was the most influential.  I learned a lot from him during undergraduate school.  After college, I had a new favorite author.  He was a great poet who spoke the speak for early Americans.  Finally, I found Toni Morrison.  But, she didn’t write any more about my world than the two hes before her.  And, none of them were out.  (People say the poet was gay, but his writings weren’t, and won’t ever be, sequestered to the “Queer” section of the canon.)  Thinking of these three, I can’t identify a common trait in their style or content that unifies them—except that all three spoke, at some point, to me.

So, who came to mind for you?  Chances are high that both male and female readers thought of a male.  Maybe it’s a guy from antiquity, the Renaissance, or a modern writer whose book just made it onto the shelf known as “keepers.”  Still, despite cultural changes, male authors record our history and create our stories.

The odds are against women authors, but we’re used to that in almost all playing fields.  Guys sometimes dominate industries that should belong to us—like women’s fashion, doctoring female parts, and delivering babies.  We should be the experts. But, I heard my older dentist complain that women are dominating dentistry.  In all honesty, that might be good.  His fingers are clumsy in my mouth.

Some female authors figure out how to tell a uniquely feminine tale or one that is universal to both genders.  “Their stories involve patriarchal males who are toppled by feminine wisdom.  By default they get to involve all readers,” I might say with spite whenever I struggle to develop a male character.  But, I can’t know.  I don’t read enough fiction literature.  Shame on me—the wannabe author.

Let’s agree to disagree that today’s female authors, or actors, or professionals, or etc. have a fairer—a fair enough—shot at manifesting their creative aspirations.  Women aren’t allowed to whine anymore, ever again, unless we bring cheese and a picnic basket.  Forcing the position—that we should be self-reliant—into submission, we can peel the first layer of the onion.

Here, there is a different barrier for lesbians as well as gay, bi, and trans wannabe authors, or actors, or professionals, or etc.  We are sequestered to niches because the way we manifest our common drives is uncommon.  We find means that aren’t a perfect fit, and we don’t have the buying power—which leads to upfront investment—to be competitive.  We settle for less in a world that expects more; therefore, we are appealing to the masses most often as bohemians or eccentric superstars like Andy Warhol and ???.  It's difficult to live in either extreme—even for love.

By having a unique story that happens to be a girl-with-girl story, my bar is higher.  Mediocre mainstream stories have a better chance of making it from the shelf to the cash register than a great lesbian drama.  For this reason—based off of a historical marketing trends—there are fewer stories by gay (not to mention lesbian) dramatists and comedians about gay life styles or comedy.  (Sure, you can say, "What about Will and Grace? What about Magic Moutain...I mean Brokeback?"  But, these tales were directed or acted by straight men.)  There's something about the double-whammy of gay on gay about gay that can't be marketed to the masses.  And, lesbians have fewer examples.

The formula for entering the market is a catch-22. As long as no one is telling the story from our perspective, the majority can’t have a chance to decide whether or not they want to hear a non-formulaic tale.  We remain obscure, unique and oblique.  So—in this lesbian guise—can the conservative heterosexual male identify with my words so much that for a short moment he becomes one with my humanness?  Maybe.  I’ll have to wake up one day and find the muse who can make me a brilliant writer.  This is the coveted magic of all recognized authors.  Still, I'll need a way to tell publishers that my muse is brilliant; therefore, I should be read, appreciated, and published.  That might be more difficult than the writing part, unless my muse knows his muse.

Adding to the odds against lesbian influences in literature, acting, and education, there are fewer (physical) gay bodies. That reality makes things difficult.  Many things happen for people because someone with voting rights recognizes a similar strength or desire.

LGBTs often lose their community.  With it goes much of the personal heritage.  Slowly, community support that is uniquely woven with heterosexual friends, neighbors, clergy, teachers, and family seems foreign to us and we seem foreign to it.  We push our loved ones—protecting them from being uncomfortable with our “choice”—as much as they push from us.  Without the diverse influences of other’s lives as well as support, it’s easy to see why we get lost on our solo-pilot flights into life’s variety of clouds. 

And finally, the LGBT minority splinters further with our innate differences: lesbians are women who seek and live predominantly with women, gays are men, bisexuals live in more than one kind of community, and I only know one transgender.  He moved to Australia to start his new life without her history.  Also, he moved there because Australia is more accepting of our commonalities instead of our differences.

Don’t tune out on what looks like a depressive post.  It’s about to get awe inspiring or more to the point about something better.

I was watching “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.”  It’s a documentary about an 85-year old man who was born outside of Tokyo.  At age 9, he is forced into the world and to care for himself, only knowing that he didn’t want to be a beggar.  So, he goes to work.  He works even when the bosses beat him.  He says, parents tell their children that if it doesn’t work out—come home.  And then, when the child is a failure, they don’t understand why.  Jiro wouldn't have listened to my list of reasons why women, lesbians, gays, bi, and transgenders can't succeed in pursuit of their creative aspirations.  

Jiro dishes out tough love.  Coming from a guy who has less than a dozen stools in his restaurant but won three stars from the Michelin committee, I guess he gets to say, “Suck it up.”  And, it’s clear from the story that his sons have grown to appreciate discipline and minimalism.  Maybe he knows something that I have forgotten.

Near the end of the story, Jiro confesses.  He talks about the people who seek him—a child who was orphaned by his parents.  Now, strangers follow his teachings.  He praises them for their contributions, starting with the kitchen help, including the apprentices, and then thanking his sons for owning, in their own way, his dream.  “By the time the sushi gets into my hands, it’s 95% done.”  He admits.  Jiro benefits from them, and they benefit from his tutelage and undying devotion to this art form.

Jiro was one man, without a community, who built a world-renown team.  He created a reciprocating system that benefits all for different reasons.  It takes a team.  But, there's more to the feat than this simple phrase explains. Mates must share a vision while blind to differences.

So, ponder this today and maybe for a bit later in life, “What person, or collective, will provide the unifying vision that is blind to our differences?"  If you know, share with me, share with us.  Send examples of famous, infamous and never-before-known examples of gays and gay-friendlies who made you go “hmmm.”  The answer to this question is the answer to the other conundrum—LGBT unity.  And, it can be found in Jiro's example who seems to have nothing to do with James, Whitman or Morrison. 

The Magical Lesbian Bus has Departed

I did it.  Finally.  Shrinkables, who you've not met yet, (but is a really good writer who promised to tell us a story before and then, again, after she met a new girl but has not yet put pen to paper) told me about a particular on-line dating service that she uses.  I've given it some thought, back and forth, for nine months.  This inorganic measure isn't my thing even more than talking to someone in a bar isn't my thing.

In fact, I was at the bar tonight—Free Willy and MacTiger were there.  We had a few drinks while my green chili chicken chili didn't win the contest.  I didn't know that there would be a contest but that doesn't matter because I couldn't have created anymore magic in the 12 ingredient soup that brewed  while I was mowing the backyard.

"No one has signed up for the chili cook-off.  It's charity for the Food Bank,"  MacTiger said with a certain sadness during the middle of this past week.

I thought about my vegan chili, drew a lopsided smirk with my lips, and then said, "I can make a pot of white chicken chili." But I thought about all the stuff I have to do this weekend to get ready for our second open house (because the original buyer balked) and wondered why I said that I'd do anything that didn't have to do with mowing, weeding, or painting.

I said that I would do it because me and MacTiger have more than a few things in common.  We were born almost on the same day, neither of us are from Louisiana, and we like to help people.  He had a panic; therefore, I needed to make chili, and so I did.

At 4:30, I roll up in my toaster-on-wheels Honda.  MacTiger is outside of the bar, helping a damsel in distress with her chili gear.  He takes half of my chili gear, too.  When I arrive with my crockpot someone says, "That'll be $10 for your entry." I'm thinking, "It cost me $20 to make this chili.  I'll get that MacTiger." But, to my surprise, I handed over a crisp bill because I was staring at 5 brand new lesbians.  Needless to say, I was breathless.  "Where did they come from?" I wondered. "Did someone go out of town and drag them here, promising free beer and lesbian chili?"

While paying my 2-beer tab at 7:15 pm, I noticed that the 5 unidentifiable lesbians had multiplied and now were 7.  Where are they coming from? Are they here to torture me or do they actually live here, and then I can not talk to them in the future?  I reached for my tab and then noticed that a set of nice eyes was looking my way.

"Maybe she's just glancing around?"
"But, she's pretty."
"It's probably just a coincidence," I assured myself just long enough to get half-way home.

"Why didn't I stare back?"  I wondered the second half of the way home, and while I was duct taping my socks to Sweet Georgia Brown's feet (because her pads are hot red from grass allergies because she's locked outside while the house is on the market); and I asked myself while caulking the baseboard to the master bed room wall (because I need to do the smart stuff before the Open House tomorrow); and I asked myself while taking the rest of the chicken chili next door to Mic-Monk's (because her house is still under construction from when the tree fell through her roof and she can't cook for her starving teenagers).

"That's it. We've given you enough time," Self rolled up its sleeves and showed its muscle while it spoke sternly to my scared'y-cat self.  "You're not going to do anything to help, and we're lonely."
"You're right," I conceded when I thought about how nice the lady might have been if I'd just stared for long enough to know if it was a coincidence.

I'm home now and she's already boarding the bus to return to whatever magical lesbian land she came from.  After a quick viewing of offerings from the on-line dating service for the age 40 to 50 bracket, I have a few questions:

1. Should anyone who looks like a sibling or cousin be eliminated from consideration or automatically accepted?
2. Should women in the lesbian category be clicking "never married"?
     2b. Should women in the lesbian category be clicking "divorced?" At this point, isn't the heterosexual 'til death we do part' null and void?  These girls get a clean slate.
3. If there are a series of women who start with, "Hey guys..." should I wonder if the online dating service has put me in the right category?
4.  If a series of women clicked "seeking marriage," should I assume these lesbians want to move to: Connecticut  Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont, or should I pick a new online dating service?
5. Is it wrong to flirt with women only in cities where I've always wanted to live?
6. If they say in the introductory clause "sometimes I can be a little too complicated" are they being too self-conscious, or should I ask them to use "too complicated" in a past scenario example?
7. Is there a way to get references from 3 previous girlfriends?
8. If she is fifty years old and says she's planning to get her first tattoo—is it assumptive to submit my name for consideration in the first email exchange?
9. Is a picture worth a thousand words?
10. Should I click on "send email" even after my mind says "she looks crazy" because that's a hell of a lot better situation than sitting home alone on a Saturday night!

If you have a successful (or better an unsuccessful) on-line dating short or long story, share with us!