I Can't Bear It

So I broke down and went to the coin wash to do my laundry today, and it was like time-traveling back to the 70's- big washers, dryers with names on 'em, a soda machine from before I was born... It was actually a nice little place, except for one thing.

On the corkboard that all these place seem to have on a wall somewhere ( you know, with business cards and ads selling stuff with the phone numbers on rip-off slips at the bottom), there was a picture of a big black bear sitting at a picnic table.

Cute, yeah? Not so much.

The text underneath read: 

"This bear captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect wildlife in the US.

Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now showing signs of belonging to the Democrat Party... as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance. The locals in [Some Midwest Park] named this one 'Bear-ack Obama'!

Get it? Get it????  It's not just funny cause the bear is black! Its funny cause Democrats just wanna hand things out to all the lazy people and/or have things handed them, and now, animals will do it too! LOLZ, amirite???

I mean, it makes sense. I know I've never heard of a Republican who get his job/money/life handed to him by a rich, powerful father. No no, all those Repubs did it themselves!

[Insert sound of crickets chirping]

Yeah, I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I typed that.
What I really wanted to do was write underneath: "If this same bear had gone on a rampage and gotten several people killed, he'd have been nicknamed 'John McCain'.

Instead I folded my shirts and put my business card up on the corkboard. Sigh.
I comfort myself by vowing that if I get any Obama-hatin' racist misogynist homophobe potential clients, I'll tell them I'm a big ol' liberal dyke. Oh, and that I'd rather see my tax money go to helping people- whether they've "earned" it or not- than go to more war, more CEO's private jets and more campaign funds.

Fucking Conservatives.

Listening to Fear

So I was discussing things with my Ferret yesterday. Mainly guy culture, and why I get so sick of it. Most of dude culture annoys me- things like (1)the glorification of bodily functions- except when women's bodies are involved; (2) the ritual of "bullshitting"- i.e., lying for the the hell of it/to make yourself sound 'cooler'; and (3) the building of trust not by talking or sharing or anything that makes sense, but by doing (1) and (2) while hanging out with each other forever until somehow you just know your compatriot's an "ok guy". The thing I really hate though, is (4) "bros before hos"- that huge part of dude culture dedicated to "keeping the wimminz in their place". You've heard it- make me a sammich, give me a blowjob, iron my shirt, don't talk, hur hur threesomes, blah blah blah I'm an asshole.

And even the guys that aren't, individually, so bad, become like this when a bunch of them get together. It's like the small amount of entitlement that lurks in the hearts of otherwise decent dudes grows in direct proportion to how many (hetero, generally) men you get in one place.

Ferret, of course, takes my tirade rather personally and jumps to the defense of her dudely brethren, which is totally depressing. "Sure, there are some assholes out there. But how many girls only want a guy for his money... blah backstabbing catty wenches, blah blah psycho chicks, blah blah, upshot: women are just as bad as men."

I disagree. Not that I am excusing the members of my sex/gender from being assholes- anybody can be an asshole. But I point out to Ferret that, while it can happen, I am wildly less likely to be physically or sexually assaulted (axe-murdered, raped, jumped on the street, et cetera) by someone with lady-parts. In other words, I am not afraid of women. Freaked out by, confused by, amazed by, afraid for, and often proud of, yeah. But I'm not afraid of women. Men, on the other hand? Allow me at this juncture to chuckle and look away uneasily.

There are reasons. It's my personal life experiences, it's the statistics and stories in the news. It's the things we are shown in the media. We are called hysterical, bitches, and dysfunctional for saying it, but it's true. Women are still the sex class, second-class, not considered "real people", still oppressed. And the pervading feeling of the underclass is always fear. Fear when I walk to my car alone at night, when I'm around a strange group of men, when I'm alone anywhere. It's not a huge! obtrusive! fear!, but a low-level wariness in my brain, and it's always there. And I don't think I'm the only woman who lives her life like this.

And...I hate this. I try never to admit it. I don't want to be that woman. I don't want the fear to run me. I don't want that to be the reason for my feminism, and I don't think it is- otherwise my blog would probably resemble IBTP a lot more. (I mean in a separatist sense- I'm not implying Twisty fears the dudez.)

But here's the thing: we have a group of teenage boys in our house on a regular basis (please don't ask me how that happened). They're good kids, they really are. But I tend to be a bit of a control freak when they're there, because I'm used to being ignored/talked over/dismissed by guys, and I'm not letting it happen this time. I'm the boss, dammit! Me! And I'm worried about getting the respect I think I deserve- keeping in mind that respect for teenagers is relative. I worry about control. Also, what I always think about with dudes is: how do they talk about women when women aren't around?.

And Ferret asked me: "Do you really think any of those boys are abusive rapist bastards? Really, Lemur?"

"No! But I'm afraid one day they might be, and it freaks me out, and I don't know how to fix it." 

I don't know how to fix them, or me, or whether any of us actually need fixing at all.

And I get so damn angry when I think about the fear.

Schizo-femme-ia

So I got to thinking the other day. I was walking through Wal-Mart (I hate that place with a fucking fiery passion), and I saw a butch. An older lady, with her partner, which was a really nice thing to see. Yes. Butch sighting in the WalMart! Now those make my day any time, but more so here in this town where apparently you keep your 'mo on the down-low. So as she was walking by, I thought: I love when I recognize a member of the Family. But... how would they recognize me? If she heard me say "Day-um!" under my breath (I did, too), would she take it as a compliment or think I was just another uppity breeder? 

I have issues about my personal visibility because there are so many factors. (I have so many issues, I should just buy the subscriptions, but anyway.)

For one, I don't want to brodcast my identity to everyone because, well, I'm still not comfy being gay in this town. I still worry, and it makes me mad that I have to worry about losing clients or assholes accosting me, but there it is. Hell, it was a major personal triumph when I put a small rainbow decal on my car! 

Then, too, I'm sort of... in the middle when it comes to gender expression. I'm certainly not high femme, like the lovely SublimeFemme. But I'm also not butch, like the studly Sinclair. I'm a- Ellen said it perfectly: "I'm not really a lipstick lesbian. I'm more of a... Chapstick lesbian." Sometimes I feel like I'm not recognizable as much of anything. Someone tell me, is it just me? Do any other queer girls wish for a box, a label, a knowable and noticeable archetype, or even a stereotype? Anybody else wonder sometimes whether things would be different-- easier-- if you were a different flavor? Something simple like say, mint chocolate, instead of cherry-banana-vanilla-mocha-walnut? 

What the hell is a Practical Femme to do? 

So that's my issue for the week, kittens. I worry about not looking femme enough. I worry about looking too butch. I worry about being too visible as gay, and not visible enough.

And then my partner asks me why it is I get so stressed. 

Is it just me?

Sparkly Beef Humor

So last night I took some meat out of the freezer to defrost (and yes, this Wiccan does eat meat. More on that some other time), and Ferret saw it in the fridge and said "Hey hon? Where'd we get this?" 

"The freezer, dear; I just took it out" said I.

"Really?"

"Uh-huh."

"You're sure?"

I sigh in exasperation.

"No. I lied. The Magical Meat Fairy dropped it off. She magically left us some magical sparkly twinkly beef in the freezer."

My Ferret muttered something snarky and wandered away, but "sparkly twinkly meat" became my catchphrase for the rest of the night. Including at the top of my lungs in the store parking lot, much to her chagrin.

*snerk* Twinkly beef!