You Could Run a Red Light

My lips are buzzing with the friction of pressing against hers. I wish I hadn't stayed so late. I feel the pull, the need to write. But it's freezing. I hate the cold. I hate the idea of going home without her. I hate the idea of waking up without her.

The lights on front porches wiz by as I drive down Carrollton toward my drafty house. 

************

I feel her hand slide around my waist, and I catch myself as I trip on the brick sidewalk. The cymbals crash only a foot or two away. We slide quietly behind the crowds lining the street for the parade. In the dark glow sticks light the street in random places, interspersed with porch lights. She leans toward me as we stumble awkwardly as one. "I'm not used to asking for what I want."

"What do you mean?" Something about the inflection in her voice tells me that this conversation isn't an easy one. She's been toying with this thought, trying to decide how to say this out loud.

"Like, sexually. I'm not used to voicing the things I... that I want. What I think about." 

I want to coax this conversation in the right direction, but I'm not really sure how. "I get that. Did you have something specific in mind?"

"Yes." I have no idea what thoughts this nerd-themed Mardi Gras parade could have possibly brought up. Ha. We have just seen every Star Wars character, along with characters from Dr. Who, Star Trek, a pile of horror films, some fantasy films, eh... Alien, Men in Black, you name it. So whatever she has in mind, it's probably interesting. 

But as I often tell her, I have no doubt that anyone who reads as voraciously as she does has an (over)active imagination. I just have to find the key to verbally unlock her fantasies. 

*************

"I left that relationship, and I had an identity crisis. Everything I loved, everything I poured my heart into, had gotten wrapped up in the toxicity of us. I heard over and over again that the things I most cared about were the things about me that repulsed her. And we did so much damage to each other. There's a million things I never should have said, never should have done, and so much trauma that she inflicted, too. Our sex life became a fucking mess. At the time it didn't feel so bad, but looking back, it definitely was. I still feel like a lot of things about me are broken, and I hate that. It's not your job to fix it, but I can't help that you will run right into it sometimes."

She stands up, shifting off the couch to open the door and light another cigarette. "I know, baby. We all have our baggage. And when my ex and I split, I was the least sexually confident I had ever been in my whole life." 

"I just... I don't want to make the same mistakes again. I think I have hesitated with you in so many ways. I liked you too much." I look up from my dead focal point on the wall, right into her eyes. "I still like you too much. And I've come to fear my own sex drive, the damage I can inflict. I've come to fear how strong and brazen I crave to be. I never wanted to overwhelm you." 

She blows the last of the smoke away into the cloudless sky. I pull the blanket tighter around me, hiding from the cold, hiding from myself. She pushes the door shut and sits next to me, and I cradle my head into her lap. 

"Talking is hard." I'm trying so hard not to cry.

She laughs, and I look up to find her smile. "I know." She takes a piece of my hair and twirls it through her fingers, making a single curl. Her voice is gentle. "And I've definitely found some of your triggers."

I'm genuinely curious. "Like what?"

"Well, sometimes you apologize profusely for coming everywhere." I flash back to the first time I did this with her, and the pain is fresh again. I hate myself for criticizing my ex for doing the same, and I get that my response furthered her trauma instead of healing it. The mistakes I made at eighteen are painfully the ones I am destined to repeat at twenty-five, except this time, I'm on the other side of the fence. Christ. I have a feeling I know how the conversation would go if I called her up out of the blue and told her this. But I have enough self-loathing for the both of us. As my girlfriend is quick to remind me, most of the pain we inflict on others is not intentional, but it is pain nonetheless. It is too late to change my mistakes. I can only heal myself, and that starts with learning to communicate.

"That wasn't her fault. That's mine." I don't know why I'm defending someone who isn't even there to hear it. 

She twirls the hair the other direction. "I figured it was just a part of being self-conscious."

"It is. There are certain positions that will always trigger me. I don't do them well because I will always be too self-conscious." 

"Like what?"

"Like sitting on someone's face. For some reason, I find that intensely vulnerable  and I hate it. I may want it, but I lose the desire quickly because my self-consciousness will win out over my desire."

I can see her filing away this information, silently but carefully.

"You know, I didn't realize how much I was holding back until Max came into town. We were talking about relationships and sex and dating, and it just hit me. It felt really overwhelming. But it was there, in black-and-white, and I think having to really admit that out loud was the first step to figuring it out."

It's funny, this may be the absolute sexiest conversation I've had with her in eight months. And yet, we are fully clothed. I remember something I read recently about sex in long-term relationships, how it is a balancing act between the need to feel secure with a partner and the need to be surprised and stimulated by the same partner. I need to go back and read that. I think it's also a process of balancing your fears and inhibitions with the desire to explore and experiment.

I realize that every serious conversation I have with her, I start with my heart so intensely sitting in my throat. It feels like I am choking on the words, coughing up nonsense and fear. But instead of falling, instead of flailing my arms as the abyss rises around me, she pulls me in to catch me. 

I hope I do the same for her, but the truth is, I'm not sure I'll ever know. 

I do know that this is the right door to walk through. Confessing my fears to her has never left me regretful -- only relieved. It takes a lot of fighting through the haze of fear. But I'm getting it. I will get better at this. It will get easier. Maybe I will make fewer mistakes this time, or at least, I will make different ones. That's probably the best I can hope for. I'm not under the illusion that fairy tales exist or that love cures. But I have to believe I am capable of learning and change.

Oh, Please, Mister Father Tree

I wrote this story years ago, maybe when I was in high school, maybe when I was in college. It's hard to tell, because I write stories and leave them in poorly marked, unspecified files for myself to try to find years later. (Don't ask me how my photos are stored, ugh). But this story has to be at least six or seven years old. Some things have changed since then, some haven't. The sentiment of the holidays both as an intensely painful time and as a time of joy sticks with me to this day. 

I leave you with this story, but I hope that if it rings too close to home and too true, that you find something about the holidays that you love, and keep it close by for comfort. We all get to write the stories of our lives, for better or worse, and I hope to keep writing better futures. 

---------------------------------------------------

         I believed in Santa Claus until I was thirteen. That was the year my father left, and winter came colder than I ever remembered. I don’t know if I hugged him goodbye. Years later that night is all a blur. He had a late flight, and my last vague memory was him standing in our dimly-lit kitchen with his suitcase. He probably tried to force me to hug him. I don’t know when he decided to leave, just that one day he was there and the next day he wasn’t. My mom didn’t drive him to the airport – he called a taxi, probably the only one in our little Mississippi town.

          When he left, there were no eggshells or rooms to avoid. We could be too quiet or too loud, we could play on the computer late, we didn’t worry about food disappearing from the fridge.

          But there was no one lying next to my mom in the big king size bed. The dog took to sleeping there, and now, years later, no one can say it isn’t her spot. I remember being small, teacake-size, and snuggling in between my parents in the morning before school. The alarm would go off a few times then they would shove me out, toward my room to get dressed.

          The psychiatrist asked me once if Christmas made me miss him. I don’t remember much of my father around Christmas, except maybe once or twice he lifted me on his shoulders to put the angel on top of the tree. But we always decorated with my mom and shopped with her. I don’t remember that much of him during the rest of the year; I don’t know why she would think Christmas was so special.

          The year he left was different, because I decided if I was old enough to manage without a father then I was old enough to not believe in Santa Claus. It wasn’t really a rite of passage – not like my first kiss, or my first period, or the first time I stayed home alone in the dark. Those had already passed. Funny how they meant so little.

          Now I lie in bed, wishing I could sleep as soundly as my girlfriend next to me. The lights go out, and she’s down faster than a kid on a snowboard. It’s Christmas Eve, and we’ll spend tomorrow with our separate families and hopefully shove an hour together near the end. They’ve never met, which is ok, because I doubt I could handle them all together. Christmas, and all the alcohol that comes with it, would make it even more interesting.

          We’ll go through the day tomorrow, thinking of each other every moment, but in reality forgetting she exists. It’s the game we play with our families, because they would so much rather believe we were single and straight. Or married and straight. Just straight. It’s Christmas so they won’t hassle us, unlike normal days. We’ll all gather around the tree and exchange presents and drink until we’re smashed; the lesbian thing will disappear faster than the turkey burns in the oven. Everyone will be nice, super nice, asking how work is and telling me all the uber-exciting things they have done lately. I’ll talk about how the pipe in the bathroom under the sink leaks sometimes and how boring the Christmas party at work was. I won’t mention how we had great sex last night or how she woke me up with mistletoe and hot chocolate. I’ll forget how she lit all the candles in the house to remind me of Christmas Eve church services when I was a kid.

          I wonder what my father would do if he met her. What would he think of the whole lesbian thing? (as if it were a phase, a sidebar from life) When I was younger, and angrier, it would stir in me to call him and yell: “Guess what? I’m gay.” It’s just too hypocritical though. I swore it wasn’t about him, my life didn’t wrap around his goings and comings – or lack of them. My sexuality wouldn’t depend on it either.

          Even at Christmas I can’t forgive him. I’m not sure it’s about forgiveness anymore. Is that Easter or Christmas? Christian holidays, dear me, I can’t seem to keep track. All these people running around, saying, “Think of the Baaabbby Jessssus,” as if he would open his eyes in some stroller and ask, “So how are you really doing?”

          No, Christmas is about little boys who count if they have more presents than their sisters. It’s emptying your bank account for people you haven’t seen in years. It’s cards from relatives you thought were dead, roasted turkeys and hams and every animal possible, the Rockefeller tree with some Rockettes in mini skirts doing high kicks.

          This year the big thing is the debate between “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” because the latter is more politically correct. The truth is, no saying will make up the injustice of all the non-Christians who are bombarded by gospel music on the radio, the television, in stores, and seeping out of the very air. We haven’t named Hanukkah as a national holiday (nor any other Jewish religious holiday), but for some reason we recognize Valentine’s Day. Schools, workplaces, and décor are not based on some sort of “Holiday Season” but rather Christmas – Santa Claus, Jesus, and red and green stuff. I even know Jewish and Islamic people who give presents on Christmas. Not that I think any day is a bad day for presents – if we gave more, maybe we would need to take less. Or hate less. But it seems so… dominate-culture-ish.

          My girlfriend hates Christmas, mostly because of the hype. And she hates wrapping presents. Hates it more than getting out of bed at 4 a.m. or doing the dishes. Then there’s the money thing, how even when we pull the rent out a month early, we get dangerously close to the hole come January. We’re barely out in time to pay taxes in April. I miss being young – kids usually get back more than they spend on others. Adults… not so much.

          I’m going to try to go to sleep now. I won’t think of tomorrow (and our silences) or my father or Santa Claus. I’ll dream of sugar fairies and plums, or was it the other way around? It will all be over by tomorrow night, when we’ll be back in bed – money spent and gifts unwrapped and tummy full. I’ll let her lay her head on my chest, while I wrap my arms around her. We’ll give each other the crummy things we need (and maybe a few we don’t). But it will be just us. And life will begin again, for another 364 days at least, the way it is every day – work, rent, friends, food, illnesses, birthdays, the rest. My father and Santa Claus will go back to the places they belong – the history of a child’s memory.

          At the end it is not the imaginary, a fat man with a sleigh, some reindeer, and the world full of children to deliver presents to, that carries us along through the Season and the year. It is the problems of our society, the delights and downfalls of family, and the banality of everyday life.

          But in the morning, I will awake and whisper, “Merry Christmas, beautiful, I love you.” I will push myself to be positive, to remember why it is worth waking up. The forced silence and the pain of remembering will go to the bottom of the closet for a little while. And she will be there. She’ll be there, and we will both be ok.

The River is Wide

In class tonight, my group did a presentation on the organization I work for. It's an awesome place; we provide federal/state-funded services for people with disabilities. After the presentation, my professor walked down to the front of the class. Now, mind you, I revile him a bit -- he's incredibly sexist, homophobic, and racist, an older guy who loves to say tremendously offensive things to get a rise out of students. But tonight, he told us a story he's never shared with a class. His first daughter, born in 1953 when he was only twenty years old, was deprived of oxygen during a traumatic labor and assumed to be, as he stated, mentally retarded. (Which is, by the way, a word I hate). As he told the story, the doctors decided when she was seven or eight months that she would be intellectually disabled for the rest of her life -- not "normal." So, because they had connections and money as he said, they sent her to a private institution in central Louisiana.

Couched in the language of a man whose understanding of disability is little changed from the 1950s and 1960s, I heard a young father describe the pain of letting go of a child. I teared up, thinking about his young daughter not knowing a life outside of the walls and grounds of an institution. I can't imagine. I hear that same pain in parents who have lost a child, in mothers who gave up their children for adoption, in parents who have made unimaginable -- but still incredibly strong and powerful -- choices that affected the rest of their lives.

I work with infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities. My kids come from every walk of life. Their needs and concerns range from minor concerns, speech delays they will outgrow with a bit of therapy, to neurodegenerative diseases and feeding tubes and breathing machines. I can't imagine if my kids were institutionalized. I can't imagine the pain that would cause for them, for their families -- the loneliness and isolation, the opportunities and lives they would miss out on. I know that in the 1950's, institutionalization was considered humane, even kind. I know that we have made leaps and bounds in society toward decreasing the stigma against people with disabilities, and I know this fight was led by the parents of children, by people with disabilities, by anyone and everyone who realized institutionalization is not humane.

But I still hear this stigma every day. I hear it when my mother tells me approvingly of her friend, who institutionalized her young daughter with Down syndrome in the 1990's. I hear it when someone says, "That's retarded." I hear it when people say things like, "I couldn't do what you do. How do you do it?" What do you mean, I want to ask. My children and their parents aren't pity cases. I don't catalogue the things they can't do, the milestones they haven't reached yet, the ways they are "disabled." We celebrate their strengths. We set goals for them. We work with them, not for them, not at them. With them. We cry with them when they hurt. We offer what we can, and we urge them to go farther and do more and dream bigger than they are told that they can. We give them the resources and the knowledge to advocate for themselves. We listen, We agree, when a grandmother tells me that a doctor said her three-month-old grandchild will never walk... and she tells me that she will never, ever stop believing that he can.

My kids, my parents, are amazing. I have so much respect for them. They have taught me strength in ways I can't even explain. They have more abilities than most anyone I know. They may have specific needs, but who doesn't? They may need help, but so do we all. I don't do my job based on pity. I don't do my job with the idea that I'm offering a service to be passively received, even if that is the way the system is set up. My parents, my kids, are active participants -- they work harder than I do. They have the dreams and goals, and we just help meet them. That's how I do my job.

I cut my teeth on queer advocacy. I became an advocate because I saw a need -- because I couldn't keep my mouth shut when someone discriminated against those I cared about. It's not about identifying as an advocate or an activist for me, and it never will be. It's about seeing injustice and disparity and the pain borne of discrimination, harassment, and violence and not being able to stand by quietly. It's about recognizing that I can use my privilege, my knowledge, my strength, to stand with the people around me who need an ally. It's about holding up a microphone when someone else needs to share their struggle.

Anyway.

I don't claim to know everything -- or anything -- about what it means to be differently abled in our society. I don't know what is best for a community I don't belong to. But I do know that I would fight to the death for my kids to have the same opportunities, to be treated with respect, not pity, to have their needs acknowledged and met, not ignored. Even if advocacy wasn't part of my job description, I will always do it. Social justice and equality isn't just about queers. It's about racism. It's about sexism. It's about poverty and disparities and violence, it's about my kids, it's about adults with disabilities, it's about creating a society where needs and differences can be respected and recognized without being unequal. It's about creating a world where families can raise children with the support they need from the community, instead of institutionalizing them.

Oh, my kids. They are a part of my family, a part of my heart, a part of my pain, a part of my dreams. I worry about them, sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night. I wonder who they will become, what lives they will lead years from now. I wonder what their parents would think of me, of my blog and my queerness. I struggle to balance my own life with the drive to want to put all my needs to the side, just to focus on theirs. I closed the case files of three children this week, and I opened two more, and I found that 'hello' and 'goodbye' are equally fraught with complexity. I hear stories, like my professor's, and I am reminded again and again that children and adults with special needs and disabilites are everywhere -- but we don't tell these stories enough, we don't talk about (or against) stigma enough. So I'm making a commitment to do so -- to speak up every time someone expresses pity, every time someone says "retarded" or "crippled" or something equally offensive. I'm making a commitment to remember that social justice isn't just about my community, but about every member of every community.

August

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea.

T. S. Eliot still charms me, years after our introduction, and I find that as I grow older my love for this poem morphs without diminishing. I remember distinctly that my favorite teacher in high school, my junior year English teacher, was a sucker for any poem about mutability. This one comes to mind first for me at the thought of that word. If it wasn't so very long, I'd tattoo the whole thing onto my body. Every time I read it I find myself falling for a different passage.

My birthday is in exactly 11 days, and I've been talking about it almost non-stop. It's not that this birthday is special -- it's not. I adore August; I wait for it, patiently but with one eye to the calendar, all year long. Even the 112 heat index can't sway me, and I find that it is one of the few buoys for me lately amid family drama and the chaos of navigating the healthcare system. August coincides with the beginning of school (which I've never been a huge fan of) and the end of summer, which is always bittersweet. But everyone around me is ready for the end of the dog days, ready for the temperature to drop to (at least!) 80 degrees, ready for the holidays and long pants and the end of summer electricity bills.

Secretly, I love the summer -- kids voices echoing as they play in the streets, long sunlit evenings melting into twilight, beers on the porch, swimming in backyards, nights that call me out till 3am. August is my last hurrah. It's also the month that everything big usually happens. It's when my best friend died -- seven years ago this year. It's a big travel month for me, which is a part of the soul searching my birthday always brings out. It's the two year anniversary of my move to NOLA.

It's also a really beautiful word. August. I'd name a child this in a heartbeat. I love how androgynous it is, and yet, there are these curves to the word, to the letters, than enthrall me.

My birthday is more charming and reflective than New Years for me; it's a time for reflection, a time to gather up all the chaos of the last year and sort through the changes, a time to start looking at the future. I crave the company of friends and queer family most at this time. I find myself going out almost every night this week and probably next. I don't care much for sweets or acknowledgement or big to-do's, but at the point when I'm checking in, feeling vulnerable about what is to come, I love to be surrounded by the people who make me happy. I don't find myself expecting or wanting gifts -- but the opposite -- I find that I want to give more, to mother, to provide for those around me.

I've enjoyed the hell out of being 23. It's been a very good year for me, overall. It's definitely had it's moments -- kicking out  my ex was pretty miserable and the hospital visit in March was something I'd prefer not to live through again. The very recent death of my dog, though I've expected it, feels very much like I lost a close friend and ended an era in my life. It's been hard to let go. But this year I've met and become close to a group of really amazing people. I have a job I adore. My cats are happy and healthy, school is going, my family is still nuts, though I'm learning to create relationships with my generation.

My young cousin was in town this weekend, and talking to her was a really bizarre reality check in my life. I'll have to write more about it another time, when I'm not running late to dinner. But a part of that was a reminder of how blessed I am. I wouldn't relive being 18 for the world. If I could go back to a point in my life, I wouldn't. I'd stay right where I am. If I could call up my 18-year-old self and tell her what I know now, tell her what I have and where I live and let her meet the people who surround me on a daily basis, I would. I'd tell her that it turns out very, very differently than you dreamed and better than you thought. I'd tell her a lot of things, but primarily, that it's all going to be ok -- so don't take anything too seriously and embrace your mistakes.

If anything, that's the same thing I'd tell myself now -- it's all going to be ok, so just fucking enjoy it. And if you're not, then make the changes you need to in order to get there.

I'm looking forward to 24. It's a number that means nothing to me and nothing to society, but I could care less. I'm finally settling into the reality that I'm one of the youngest in almost every setting in my life -- work, friends, school, etc. -- though I suppose that will change as younger people come along behind me. But for much of my life I've been in a hurry to grow up, to be taken seriously as an adult, to have the number to match the feeling. Somewhere in the last year or two I left that feeling behind, and I traded it for the realization that I have time. There's nowhere I need to rush to, nothing I need to prove. I like not knowing what the future will bring. I like that where I am now will be nothing compared to where I'll be next year, in ten years.

I'm not afraid of 30, of 40, or even of 50 and beyond. I fear what declining health will mean, yes. But I've met so many people who take age with a grace that I desire and respect. I can't change that most of life is a march toward death, through mutability, and I wouldn't if I could. I'd much rather embrace it.

Oh, When the Saints

In August 2009, after months  years of planning to move, I left north Louisiana. I quit a job I loved (even if my boss was fucking insane, I really loved my job), I packed up our huge apartment, I kissed my last salary check goodbye, and I got in a car and moved everything I owned to New Orleans.

I wasn't really sure I wanted to live here; I wanted to move to San Francisco, and New Orleans was a second-best, much more affordable, option. I had deep-seated regrets about leaving my job; I knew I'd miss my clients. The possibility of evacuating scared me shitless. I feared what leaving a great job only seven months in would do; would I find another job I actually liked again, much less one that paid me well? I had never lived anywhere else as an adult. Hell, I'd been in the same town in north Louisiana for eight years. I wasn't sure if I knew how to adjust to a new culture, make new friends, and create new life. I thought I'd lost all my marbles, but damn it, I was dead set on moving.

It took me two months to find a job. I went back into the restaurant industry, which I always knew was a possibility, but without knowing anyone here, I couldn't find work in a higher-end restaurant. (It truly is all about making connections in this town.) I took a massive pay cut -- around 50% -- and my rent and utilities almost doubled over night. I made enough to pay rent and utilities and to buy food and gas, but only barely. I ate through a lot of what I had saved at my last job, just trying to survive. Tensions ran very high in my house, and the severe lack of income was a huge part of it.

I went back to asking my mother for help, which did much more than dent my pride -- it put me in a personal debt to her which made me feel disparagingly guilty. My family, myself included, has plenty of issues about control and money. It's enough to send me over the edge on any good day. I jumped around jobs, grabbing at anything on the side that would make me some extra money to travel, to go out, to have a life beyond my house. I applied for everything under the sun, hoping someday I would pull the right straw. I took contract work that paid well, but left me back at the same questions every few months -- what now? where will my next pay check come from?

And the whole time, the same nagging possibility sat at the back of my brain -- here I am creating a life in NOLA, a life I'm really enjoying, new friends and new connections and a history and a future here, but what if  I'm forced to choose between finding a job I actually enjoy and that can sustain me and staying in New Orleans? Do I love this city enough to put aside the work I've done in school, my interests, and work in the restaurant industry for the rest of my life? Do I love this city enough to give up other jobs, better possibilities in other cities, to stay here?

I kept coming back to a resounding, "no." Why? Well, life is about compromises, yes. But I'm super, insanely, driven. So much so. And I've put aside a lot of dreams, a lot of possibilities, for relationships, for women, for family, for fear. I've been reserved. I haven't chased what I really wanted -- the only huge risk I've taken was to move here. So I didn't want to follow that path again. I knew I would come back. Hell, I knew I never wanted to leave in the first place. But if it came down to it, I would do it.

Anyway. That was all crazy back story.

You know that job I left in north Louisiana, the one I loved? Yeah, that one. Well, out of the blue, the same position opened up in New Orleans about two weeks ago. And at the urging of a close friend, I applied. I really, really feared what it would feel like not to get it -- to face that rejection again. But I applied anyway.

And wow. I got it.

While money isn't everything, it's necessary for my peace of mind -- it's necessary for my sustainability, to stay here, to thrive here.

While loving a job isn't necessary, and neither is school, it's why I went to school -- to be able to qualify for a job I actually enjoyed.

And while having benefits isn't a requirement of life, I must say, not having to face the prospect and fear of ending up in the hospital on a fluke ever again without health insurance... yeah, that sounds fantastic.

All of these are blessings. I wish everyone had them, and God knows, if I had the ability, I'd provide that for everyone. (I believe in a society that does support and assist in providing those opportunities for everyone.) I am insanely blessed to live in a city I love, to have stumbled (fallen?) into this job, to not have to worry if my salary will sustain me.

Point is, I can stay in NOLA.

I can create a career here, and I truly hope that I end up in this job for at least the next 5-6 years, if not more.

I don't have to fear leaving anymore.

I don't have to half-ass my existence here out of that fear.

I feel like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders.

So, New Orleans, if you'll have me, I'd really like to stay. Please. I'd like to create some roots, because this feels like home.

Pretty Is as Pretty Does

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend, Jamie, at a birthday party. (I have to set the stage a bit for this story to make sense.) The party was a mix of people -- around 10 queer women and the birthday girl's family, including her sister, cousins, parents, nieces and nephews, and others. Jamie and I were sitting on a swing in the back yard, overseeing a game of beer pong and shooting the shit over some beers. Jamie is thin, about 5'4, and more androgynous than me. I don't know if she identifies as butch, but she'd definitely be masculine-of-center. That day she had on jeans and a t-shirt, nothing fancy. I was dressed up for the St. Patrick's parade that morning, wearing a low-cut pastel green cotton dress and green eyeshadow, and I had beads from the parade around my neck and a green silk flower in my hair.

We were talking about having children and our own families when a young girl, around six-years-old or so, walked up to us. She had a t-shirt and shorts on, and her long hair pulled into a side pony tail. She sat down between us, looked at Jamie, then looked at me. She turned back to Jamie and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

Jamie didn't hesitate. She replied quickly, "I'm a girl."

"But you look like a boy," the child insisted.

I don't remember Jamie's response, but I don't think she had one. The child got up, ran off, and found someone else more interesting to play with. Jamie turned back to me and began to talk about how much she hated when children asked her that question. "Can't they see that I have breasts?" she asked me, and then she got up to find another beer.

A minute or two later, the child returned. I invited her to sit down next to me on the swing, which she did. I gifted her some of the beads I wore from the parade, and she reached out to touch the flower in my hair.

"You're really pretty," she said.

I found myself choking. I wanted to say a thousand things. I wanted to rewind her gender education. I wanted to offer her an answer that didn't replicate the binary she had so succinctly recognized between her interactions with Jamie and I. I wanted to show her that I appreciated the compliment, but at the same time, offer her a space that didn't equate beauty with femininity. I wanted her to know that "pretty" isn't what she should aspire to, and that worshiping femininity as an ideal for beauty is dangerous and masochistic. I wanted her to know that my gender expression isn't the only valid one.

By then, she had run off. I wondered... who am I to decide what this child should believe about gender? Should I try to influence the way she looks at gender, when she's not my child? I tossed this question around for a few days in my head until I found an answer I was satisfied with.

Yes, we are influenced and educated by our parents. But we're also socialized by friends and family, by strangers, by teachers, by social structures and pervasive beliefs held by the dominant majority. We're educated by TV and the internet, books, movies, music. My thoughts would probably be but a drop in the bucket compared to how much media influences her ideas on beauty and gender. This child could one day be my neighbor, my child's friend, my co-worker... who knows. She'll be a voting citizen who decides if those who don't conform to the gender binary deserve rights and respect. She'll possibly be a parent, a teacher, an influence on another child. She's not yet old enough to truly decide if my opinion -- or anyone's -- is valid. But she's making these decisions every day, accepting and rejecting and buying in to beliefs and opinions. She's affected by those beliefs every day. Any and all influence matters. Her beliefs affect mine, my recognition in this society. So yes, it's a careful and thin road to walk, but I do think I should talk with her.


*******

I remember, as a child, feeling fat. I was five, maybe six, years old, and I would sit on the toilet or in the bathtub, staring at my stomach, and hating it.

I remember my neighbor, Miss Susan, telling my mother that if her daughter, Jessica, didn't fit in a size four dress for homecoming, then she would make her lose weight or she couldn't go to the dance.

I remember the girls at summer camp making fun of me for not plucking my eyebrows when I was in 6th grade.

I remember my high school teacher, Mrs. W, catching me in the hallway and telling me that ladies don't wear clothes that show their shoulders. Instead, she said, I should learn to dress like a lady.

I remember dance class, as a child, when the leotards didn't fit me right and I couldn't move my feet and arms gracefully like the other girls. I was distinctly aware of how everything I did was ungraceful. I remember taking another dance class, at 15, at it was like those years of controlled movement suddenly sunk in all at once -- my body could do things it couldn't, years before. But in my mind, I still didn't have the talent, and sometimes, I still hear my teacher telling me that I'll never be any good at ballet, tap, or jazz.

I didn't do femininity right.

There are a thousand moments in my life that are and have been a lesson in gender. For me, for many women, most of those are negative. Girls shouldn't go barefoot or yell too loudly or wear pants with holes. Girls shouldn't have sex, because that's what sluts do. Girls shouldn't wear low-cut clothing or date boys with piercings or smoke cigarettes. Women shouldn't be single. Women shouldn't be childless. Women shouldn't hold the door for men. Women shouldn't walk alone at night.

That's not to say that men don't get lessons in gender -- of course they do! -- or that lessons for men aren't negative -- some definitely are.

The ideals for girls are extremes of femininity. Models. Princesses. Beauty queens. It's how companies sell make up and clothing, cars, beer, and just about every product on earth -- put a "sexy" woman on an ad, and you'll sell it. Women want to be her, men want to be with her. But what does she want? Does anyone care?

I'm reminded, every day, that I carry a certain privilege due to my gender expression. No matter how carefully I walk that line, no matter what my words and actions and beliefs are, my body is marked by gender cues and clothing, and those cues are read and responded to by people who believe strongly in a gender binary. I'm reminded that I face different risks, but more often than not, my gender identity is unquestioned and therefore, less marked and less risky. I'm reminded that the terms we use as compliments -- pretty, beautiful, charming, handsome, gorgeous, cute -- are gendered in a ways that make me profoundly uncomfortable. (I'm still learning how to create my own language out of what is available and to reject using these terms). I'm reminded constantly of my gender expression in queer bars that question my sexuality, and in heterocentric spaces where I pass but still get sexually harassed or feel extremely tokenized and isolated.

At the base of all of this, my experiences and those of many others I've talked to, I find that there's a very harmful ideal of who/what is feminine and who/what is masculine. No one -- trans or cis, male or female, queer or straight, genderqueer or androgynous -- can live up to a binary system of ideals. No woman will ever be "pretty" enough. Yet so many will do anything to achieve that. No queer community which defines its members as only gender normative (like some of Los Angeles bars) or gender non-normative (like places here where I get static) will provide a safe space for all those who are queer. Yet we define and identify those in our community by using gender cues.

If I have a child, I couldn't shield hir from media and strangers, from family members, from all the influences that teach us what gender is and isn't, what's acceptable for hir gender, and how to "properly" express gender. But I know that there are studies showing that adults respond differently to infants depending on their perceived gender. Our ideas of gender start at -- if not before -- birth, and those influences are so very persuasive and strong on young children who can't evaluate and reject opinions and ideas the same way adults can. If I have a child, I would want hir to understand and respect gender expressions of all types. I would want hir to embrace any -- or reject any -- aspect of gender ze wished. I would try my best to make sure ze doesn't feel crushed by a beauty norm ze can't live up to. I would want to offer more than two options, but instead, endless possibilities.

I would want my child to keep having conversations, keep questioning those ideas that we are told to assume.

What I know about gender, my own expression and gender as a social norm, comes from years of experiences and much unlearning. It is an ongoing process. I hope my understand of gender continues to evolve and change as I age, and yet, I hope having these kinds of interactions someday becomes less taxing.

I can imagine a world that doesn't operate within a gender binary. I can. I want to live to see it.

Georgia On My Mind

Been a bit absent around here lately. Post-Mardi Gras I've been trying to catch up with school and work, which has kept me ridiculously busy. My mom, brother, and uncle came in this weekend to visit for a friend's wedding, but unfortunately, I had a bizarre unexpected medical nightmare and ended up in the ER/hospital for the weekend. Eh. There's been a whole lot of miserableness and negativity born from this weekend. I need a break from it. I left the hospital yesterday, after getting in a glorious fight with my mother (ugh), a very long night of my screaming in pain in the ER on Friday, and more tests than I can imagine. I took home very high blood pressure, a lot of fear, plans for follow up visits (mostly to rule out the possibilities of a long-term issue), antibiotics, and the reality that now I have to catch back up with my life and prep for what will probably be a nasty fight with my insurance company.

I'm having trouble staying completely lucid lately. The headaches from the blood pressure leave me in a fog, and as I told someone today, I'm only firing on half my cylinders. Unfortunately, until my blood pressure meters out some, I don't know how much writing I'll be doing. But they're saying it should be back to normal in 2-3 weeks.

Anyway. All that aside. I need to focus on some of the positives coming out of all of this, so that the stress doesn't consume me.

So here's a list of all the awesome things about being in the hospital and being really sick:

1) Permission and encouragement to consume as much ginger ale as I wish. (Though this will end, soon, because apparently ginger ale is both high in carbs and high in sodium. Yikes.)

2) An excuse to be more healthy. Any motivation to drink less, smoke less, exercise more, and eat healthier is a push in the right direction. Plus, sex is exercise. Ergo, this is an excuse to have more sex. (Anyone else follow my logic here?)

3) A reason for falling asleep in someone else's arms.

4) Super awesome friends who took me to the hospital, checked on me, hung out with me, listened to me bitch and whine, took my blood pressure, called for second opinions, and generally did super awesome things.

5) A perfectly acceptable time and place to cry. It's so very hard for me to cry, unless I'm extremely emotionally and physically weak. But sometimes, it's a great release.

6) Hours of listening to Josh Radin and Micheal Buble and Disney songs, all of which soothe my headaches.

7) A lot of rest time.

8) Gorgeous purple flowers.

9) A reason to read through everything my insurance covers and my school clinic provides... and the realization that the school clinic offers free STD testing, gyno services, and discounted birth control. So, while I would prefer Planned Parenthood, any free health services are a blessing right now.

10) Recognition of what high blood pressure feels like. I worried I wouldn't recognize it, because often there are no symptoms. Knowing about the problem means I can respond accordingly, and not worry that I'm putting stress on my heart and kidneys when I'm unaware.


11) Gratefulness to be off a liquid diet. Still not sure what that unlabeled red stuff in a styrofoam cup was?

12) The blessing of feeling so much better, and the reminder that I am not invincible. Both are incredibly important.

Ok. Enough of this personal stuffs. I'm ready to be well and get back to writing about what this blog was designed for. :)

Made a Wrong Turn Once or Twice

"Someone once wrote, 'If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.' Yes – & I’d add that if something is worth doing, it is also worth doing halfway & then quitting. It’s also worth brooding over, and making lots of plans, & then going off & doing something else. Having many little interests, amateur enthusiasms, & failed ambitions creates a rich stew out of which you can boil fresh ideas." -- James Kennedy

I’m feeling mired right now, and I know it’s because I need to face this decision in the face.

For years, I’ve felt that if I went back and did things differently, I would have gone to nursing school. Last semester, facing mountains of uncertainty, I began to seriously consider the idea. My school was (is) losing funding at a mind-numbing rate. I’ve been there a year, and I think we’ve lost at least 6 million from the annual budget – and this is a school still in recovery, still facing serious repercussions from Katrina damage. Even when programs, professors, and staff aren’t being cut, the professors are often smart enough to leave before they’re left with no job and no notice. My undergrad faces the same issue – even though it’s a private college – and the thought of putting in so much time and effort into two degrees from institutions that probably won’t exist in five to ten years was a bit overwhelming. Hell, for awhile (and even now, though I try not to think about it), I wasn’t sure I would make it out of the University of New Orleans in time to graduate before my department ceased to exist. Unhappy with my job prospects in the last year and feeling already emotionally overwhelmed, school became a nightmare I couldn’t face. So I checked out for most of last semester, committing only minimal time and energy, and started considering  my options.

Transferring is a last resort, at this point. I’d be able to take 12 credits; I have 21 plus 6 more from this semester. I don’t have the energy or drive to start over again from that point, and I would be forced to move. The only other program in state is Baton Rouge, and hell no, I would rather cut off a limb than move there. Commuting is out; the program isn’t even nationally accredited and my tuition would double, plus I couldn’t work and commute. Fuck that.

So I chose to stay put. I also didn’t want to leave New Orleans. I’d been here a year, was on shaky emotional ground, and wasn’t ready to give up on this city or the possibilities here.

Instead, I considered investing in a different career. Nursing would be something I’m interested in. I’d never have to worry about not finding a job – there’s a worldwide shortage of nurses. I’d have an income I could depend on, instead of working in social services, which is infinitely unpredictable (see: federal/state budget shortfalls, dependency on donations, and political chaos), underpaid, and emotionally taxing. So I looked at my options, and talked to several people. I still had two biology and microbiology courses I would have to take as pre-reqs to apply, so I figured these would be a test – to see if I wanted this, if I had the drive to do this. If I was crazy enough to get another fucking degree.

Fast forward.

So. I’m doing ok in biology class – I have a 86 in lab and a 89 in class, which I could bring up to an A. But the experience is really showing me that maybe this isn’t the right path. A part of me feels guilty for jumping into this, for looking for other ways to bail ship because I’m scared of all the chaos. Both my bio classes are sucking the life out of me. I’m still taking a full masters’ course load, and working two part-time jobs – and yet, because my bio classes require so much work, they’re getting put first. But I enjoy them the least. I really don’t have the interest or passion in science that I do for sociology and public health. It’s brutally clear to me what a difference I experience when I go to a bio class and when I go to soc class. There’s a part of me that wants to prove to myself that I can do this, if I want it badly enough. But I fear that’s the part driven by guilt, driven by the fear that – what if I’m not good at this? – and I want to bite back and say – I don’t have to be good at everything.

And good God, the thought of three more years of school sounds so brutally intense that I can’t imagine. I got my undergrad in 3.5 years, and I had a 3.9 GPA. I’m going to graduate with a Master’s by the time I’m 24, and right now I have a 4.0. I’m not sure what I’m trying to prove, or who I want to prove it to. 

But there’s a limit to how hard I can push myself, and I’m staring into that mirror right now.

I realized last week that everything I was doing was really half-assed: work, homework, studying, friendships, sex, all of it. I hated it. I constantly feel like I’m doing damage control lately, paying attention only to what is immediate and necessary, what is going to explode first. 

I want to write grants to fund a more permanent place for me in the work I'm doing now. I want to fund my own research. I want to plan more events for the trans community. I want to have a few nights where I can just get a fucking beer without feeling like I need to be studying for eight hours a day. I want to be able to go on a date, without having to go home after dinner and study. I want what I love, what I’m good at, to be good enough – and if it isn’t, I don’t want to spend now worrying that the only way I’ll be able to support myself is to keep working service industry for the rest of my life. If I keep sinking so much time into pursuing so many different plans, everything I do will always be half-assed.

(I can hear my advisor giving me two pieces of advice, yet again: a) slow down and b) focus – don’t think so broad)

A lot of this is tied up with guilt about failing. A lot of it is tied up with guilt and anxiety and fear about money.

So I’m writing this to let that guilt go.

So far, every decision I have made this semester I’ve been immensely pleased with. Truly, there aren’t a lot of decisions in my life I regret – and being a sociology major, conducting research, and working in the non-profit sector, have been some of the most fulfilling and amazing opportunities that I have had. So I’m looking for peace in this decision – I’m looking for peace in letting go, recognizing that I gave myself the chance to pursue this dream, but it turns out that it’s just not right. 

My dream is to work in a sex-positive context for the rest of my life – to work with sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention, to empower people to connect with and embrace their sexuality, to address sexual health issues, to work against the social constraints which limit gender and sexuality expression in our society. If I went into nursing, I knew that I’d either work with mothers or with HIV/AIDS prevention. There are a lot of paths to get to where I want, but I’ve just got to accept that I can’t take them all.

Instead, I’ve got to start prioritizing and discriminating. I’ve got to let go of my guilt. And, as I keep hearing over and over and over in the last few months, I’ve got to be physically, emotionally, and psychologically present. I want to be here, now, not tied up in anxiety about where I want to go next, what I haven’t finished yet, or who and what I’m putting off.

So, starting Wednesday -- Lent, for those of you who aren't paying attention -- I'm giving up feeling guilty. And hopefully, before then, I'm going to drop both classes, and I'm going to start investing my time in what I already have on my plate -- and not try to find a quick-fix for all the questions I haven't even been asked yet. 

She's an 8 Ball

As she walks up the steps, I pull open the front door, revealing my dining room cloaked in darkness. She leans down to kiss me, and I shift up on my toes, pulling her face down to mine. Connecting in. I like starting in a comfortable place, a calm place. She drops her backpack at my feet, and I let her grasp me around the waste, her lips still reaching for mine.

I pull away from her with a left ball change, and my body stiffens. She reaches for me again, leans toward me, but this time I rock back again slowly, cautiously. It's subtle, but she doesn't miss it. She stops, midway. Reaches for me with her hand, questioningly, but my body fluidly moves backward out of her reach.

"May I?" her voice is strong, not demanding, but confident.

I lean in to kiss her, but stop an inch from her lips. She comes back quickly, but I retract. She bites her bottom lip, cocks her head to the side, stares hungrily. I love the power in her stare. I love pushing her down, holding her there, watching her eyes as she gives way into yearning. The power is still there when she begs me. But there's something else, too -- a touch of fear mingled with the raw need for submission.

I move toward her once more, stop before she can reach for me to kiss me. She can't have me. She can't touch me, she can't kiss me. I lean it, catch her bottom lip, and bite it softly. She hesitates before kissing me back. She hesitates again, leans in to touch me. I pull away, ending the kiss.

"May I touch you?"

"No." Low and soft, I find my voice. It has the feeling of a familiar weapon, the handle of a old knife I haven't palmed in a long time. "I don't think so."

I can feel a shift in her. My voice takes her aback. I'm not sure when, but I know it has hit her that the room is dark. All the lights are off, which is unusual -- I always leave one or two on, click them off in a row on my way up to bed.

"Follow me." I take her arm, lead her though the dark rooms, into the stairwell. She doesn't know what to expect, and I'm going to thoroughly enjoy toying with her.

I stop in front of the stairs, midway into the house. "Kiss me," I order her. We dance for a minute, again, as I pull back from her kisses and she reaches in for more. I find pleasure in training her to follow my movements. She's intelligent, catches on fast. It's a mind game at this point, a psychological power play.

I find her hands in the darkness, put them on the waist of my jeans. "Take my pants off."

She giggles nervously. "But you'll be cold..." It's half question, half statement.

"Did I ask for your opinion?" I pause and lean in, my lips right next to her ear. "I told you to take my pants off."

"Yes, ma'm," she whispers.

"I'm glad you're listening." I don't have time for bullshit.

She undoes the button on my jeans carefully, slowly pulling the legs of my jeans down my thighs. I have the feeling she wants to touch me, but I haven't given her permission to. She knows better.

She stands back up and waits for my next command, nervously.

"What can I do for you?" she asks. It's one of her favorite questions. She's pulling what she knows, trying to apply it to the situation to make it more familiar, more comfortable.

"Whatever I tell you."

She giggles again, and a part of me wants to reach out to her as she navigates this space outside her comfort zone. But I haven't pushed her into anything she can't handle.

"Take off my panties."

"Here?"

"Don't question me." She moves slowly, carefully, working down my body. Her face is inches from my cunt.

"Stand up."

I can feel the cold air hitting my body. I guide her hand to the desk next to me, where my robe sits. She picks it up. "Put the robe on me."

"Yes, ma'm." She gingerly sets it on me. I lean in and bite her neck, bit her lip. Run my hands across her chest. She's bound, tight, but I find her nipples anyway. I want to pinch them, but that's not possible. She groans softly when I touch her.

"May I touch you?" I let this question sink in.

"What do you want?" My response is low, cold.

"May I touch you, please?" God, how I love to hear her beg.

"No."

She is accustomed to my consent. "Please?" But my body is stiff and cold as my voice.

"No. Follow me."

I lead her through the curtain, into the kitchen. The only light is a street lamp glinting through the window over the sink. In the middle of the kitchen I pull her into me roughly, nails digging into her neck, and kiss her. Her uncertainty is almost tangible.

I snatch her shirt in my fist, back up into the counter top, and pull her into me. Her hands rest on the counter.

"Do you know what I want?"

She shakes her head.

"Answer me."

"No." Her voice is so small, awkward.

"Do you feel this countertop?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what." It's not a question.

"Yes, ma'm."

"Lift me onto it." She cups her hands under my ass, and I pull my body up as she lifts me. I lock my thighs around her waist, bend over her, and kiss her. Her hand touches my thigh, cautiously. I pull away sharply from her lips.

"Did I say you could touch me?"

She hangs her head. "No."

"No, what?"

"No, ma'm."

"Then why are you touching me?"

"I..." She's stuttering. "I wanted to feel you."

"Don't touch me unless I tell you to. Do you understand me?"

"Yes... ma'm."

"Good. I made that pretty fucking clear."

I wrap my hands around her cheeks, pull her in close to me. I can't see her eyes in the dark, though I want to.

I shift my legs open, spread wide across the kitchen counter. "Do you know what I want?"

She shifts nervously but doesn't answer.

"I'm going to tell you what you're going to do. You're going to lick me until I come all over your tongue. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'm."

I push her head down roughly between my thighs, lean back, and let her cup her hands under my ass and lift me to her face.

Musical Love

A friend I met at Easton Mountain posted this on Facebook, and I think it's really beautiful in its own quirky way.



Also: This. Lyrics aside, the video and uplifting tone of this song make me so happy.



And finally, because I love trios, this.



Fabulous song. Fabulous movie. Oh, how I need to watch this again soon.

The Rooster's Crow

Had a beer with a friend tonight, and our conversation is haunting me in many ways. I realize how drastically my coping mechanisms have changed in the last year, which I suppose is a form of self-preservation -- when one response doesn't work in reaction to trauma, develop a new response. At least, that's what I've found myself doing, whether I was conscious of it or not.

Two weeks ago, as I started conducting interviews and needs assessments for the transgender health project I'm working on, I realized I was internalizing a lot of my frustration and the pain felt by those I was interviewing. The more I asked questions, the more I realized how truly fucked up the system is. I knew that the healthcare system is fucked, and I knew that trans people face a wall of stigma, discrimination, ignorance, and abuse. But I started to grasp that every.one.has.a.horror.story and that the LGBT organizations which claim to help trans people are often the source of the worst damage. Bad information from good sources is detrimental -- it causes breeches of trust, puts trans people in compromising and unsafe situations where they expected to find knowledge and safety, and it further alienates them from finding good resources. Exclusion and discrimination by those who supposedly "belong in community with them" leaves them feeling further disconnected and unable to find support.

Sometimes I feel like I'm watching everyone in this community play politics and fight for funding, recognition, and personal prestige as those already on the fringes lose the most. It's so frustrating. It makes me angry and angry and angry and angry. I hate that I can't reform from within the community, and yet, I can't always reform from outside, either. It's an uphill battle, and I have such a love/hate relationship with the leaders, organizations, and donors in the NOLA LGBT/queer community -- and, for that matter, in the national gay rights movement.

And yet, I keep coming back. I come back because I feel drawn in, because there's a need, because I have experience and passion. I come back because it's personal. I come back because it's a paycheck, a thesis, a project. I come back because the people affected are those I love. I come back because I'm a masochist. Ugh.

As I try to decide what my next move in life is -- and whether to go to nursing school -- I worry about whether I have the strength to keep doing this kind of work. I worry that I will burn out, because the pressure, the politics, and the day-to-day frustration of working in non-profit, in low-income services, in direct services, is intense as hell. But on the other hand, I can't see myself doing anything else. I honestly cannot visualize myself as "happy" (or semi-content) and working in a job that doesn't involve working against social  norms, against discrimination and stigma, against the system, all with the goal of lending a hand to those who need help the most. I can't quit caring. I can't walk away. Every time I do, I come back. I worry that nursing will be opening the door to another life-long commitment of caring, of investing in people, of giving too much of myself. I worry that what I will see will hurt, because it will sometimes.

But I don't think I could fulfill my life with anything else, either, because there will always be a part of me that cares too fucking much to walk away.

I think sometimes that the nice part of taking breaks to work in the service industry is that I don't take my work home at night -- I leave it at work. I don't stress out every day or feel overwhelmingly frustrated by categorical grants, clients who can't put food on the table, clients who neglect their children, or clients who have to fight their OB/GYN to get him to respect their birthing choices. I just put pizza on the table, and I'm done. But really, I'm bored as hell if I'm not involved, so that's not a long term solution, either.

But my coping strategy to the overwhelming, crushing frustration of seeing how fucked up a system is and how many people are being hurt, over and over, by the system was.... to go get drunk. Yep. At 1pm in the afternoon. Massive fail.

That's (recent) coping failure #1.

I wonder if it's the system that needs to change, or if it's me. Probably both. My reaction definitely needs some tweaking if I want to stay in this field -- somehow I've got to learn to survive without internalizing, because that simply makes me anxious and angry. But I do know that part of the cure for this is to make positive inroads -- because the discrimination and stigma can be eliminated, which leads to less frustration and personal craziness.

(Recent) coping failure #2 is totally different. A friend, someone who I count as relatively close, though we've only known each other a few months, asked me whether I slept with someone. I denied it twice, then finally admitted to it, and she told me she was really hurt that I felt like I had to lie to her.

I don't think I really processed what it meant to lie to her either time I did it. Hell, I'm not sure I put any thought into it. Immediately after, I wanted to get defensive -- I wanted to tell her it wasn't really any of her business, which is what I should have said instead of lying. But I lied, and there's no justification.

After months of my ex accusing me of lying, over and over and over again until it became easier to just deny everything and tell her whatever the hell she wanted to hear than to keep crying myself stupid, I find that my relationship with lying has changed. Drastically. I always used lying as a method of self-protection, especially with family members. But now I am so quick to deny or lie about anything and everything that even remotely makes me feel uncomfortable, that I don't even know what the hell I'm lying about anymore. Usually, it's anything emotionally painful -- such as my amazing ability to sugarcoat the hell out of everything shitty that happened in 2010.  I don't even look at it as lying, really, but just self-protection. I don't talk to anyone about everything; I spread things around between a handful of close friends who each get parts and pieces of what's really going on. I don't talk about how hurt I am or how angry I am or how painful healing has been.

Massive (recent) coping failure #2 -- communication.

Oh lordy, I don't even know where to start on that one. I know roughly two people who communicate relatively well, and by that, I mean comparatively better than everyone else I know. I know this is one of those life-long growing pains. But damn, lying isn't a solution to discomfort, fear, or uncertainty. And really, the specific situation was pretty low-key, and the question didn't even bring up any emotional response -- simply me, wiggling out of the fact that I don't like direct questions about my interpersonal actions. But my problem is, when shit gets intense, I shut off or internalize it and keep moving until I don't feel the pain anymore. See also: not the most effective coping method. Ugh.

I am glad she called me on my shit. I do sincerely apologize to her for lying and for hurting her. No "buts." I really need to work on this stuff, and not in a cursory way. I need to make some serious changes, and I need to remember that when I face discomfort, running the other way isn't a valid response. If anything, writing about it helps, because it forces me to be introspective and get really personal. But it's also intense to put things like this out into the stratosphere and hope that the response is grounding, not terrifying.

Dear New Orleans

"I feel like in a lot of ways I haven't invested in this city the way I want to. and I miss my sexuality. That's a part of my life I really haven't connected with in a long time...Which is a fun and dangerous and creative and interesting process." I swirled the Jack and coke in my hand. The clinking of ice against a rocks glass is the sound of family, of my childhood, and now... of my life in the Big Easy.

"You and New Orleans need to start over." She looked up at me from her beer, cigarette still danging in hand over the ash tray. The last of the light caught on the glass, reflecting down the table. My eyes still had not adjusted in the darkness of the bar. My city. I can't help but fall in love with dark neighborhood watering holes, bars sandwiched between the rows of Creole shotgun homes.

"How does that conversation go? It wasn't you. It was me." I giggle. "That's a conversation neither of us have had before..." Her eyes shone in the darkness. She smiled at my sarcasm. Cat-like.

"She's like a book you never read, because you bought it at a time when you had way too much to read."

I like a woman who can speak poetry. I smile. I don't have a choice -- she's right.

"Or a chapter that I haven't begun yet. We have some beautiful history. But I think there is more to come."

"Definitely." So much more, I hope.

Love.

"No matter how much New York and I fight, don’t get me wrong—I do like big, swirling cities; I do like lovers who push me with more than I can handle, all the while saying, “I know you can handle this. Be bigger than yourself, be more, explode, be bold.” I do like to be shaken out of my comfort zone and pushed into being somewhere, someone new. I do like to be held by the constant creation of chaos and art and activism around me, ever-present and always growing, moving, changing. It feels like a living, breathing entity. But as such, sometimes we disagree. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes I sleep on the couch for a week." -- Sinclair Sexsmith, Sugarbutch Chronicles

In the beginning.

I can feel my spine starting to arch. Her body is tucked safely under mine, my thighs wrapped around her hip bones, making it so easy to squeeze. There is a power in climbing on top, wrapping my thighs around, pushing her down squarely by the shoulders, and holding her there… It is a delicate movement, sliding over her, but when she tries to buck against me, I throw the weight of my hips down. I pull away from a kiss, and her eyes become fierce. I know this stubborn woman isn’t going to let me take her down so easily. But in her own bed, squarely in her own comfort zone, I am tempted to push her limits.

“So,” she whispers into my ear when I bite her neck. “What is it that you like?”
I seek to quell the question with a kiss. Her lips are much softer than I would have expected.

But I can’t cop out on this one.

I pull away and bite my lip. It’s my standard thinking response. Oh, fuck. It’s been years since someone directly asked me what I like, what I want. What do I like?

She takes advantage of my temporary dissonance. Gently she flips me, and I find myself laid out flat, sinking into a mess of down and cotton. Such a clean, white bed for this woman who plays with pinwheels and knives.

She has spread my thighs apart, my long dress now swirling around my hips. If she was packing right now, she would be in the perfect position to fuck me so hard my head would go through her wall. But instead, she is pinning me on a question.

“Tell me, Elle, what do you like?”




I like long cotton dresses. I like piercings. I like my hair long enough to graze my shoulders.

I like foreplay. Foreplay in the form of dark humor and sarcasm, teasing, and intellectual banter. Foreplay in the form of wet kisses. Grazing my teeth across her bottom lip. Smooth hands sliding across my thighs, nails dragging down my back.

I like my clit licked softly so that I can feel every rough patch of her tongue.

I like to be fucked from behind with a big strap on. I like to top on kitchen tables. I like to masturbate on my couch.

Strappy sandals. Especially the four-inch, black satin kind. Garter belts, though you’d never catch me in stockings unless I knew someone would be taking them off. Corsets – the real ones, not see-through-cheap ones, but the kind that bind my waist. Heavy necklaces. I have a thick black cross, hung on a black ribbon, that is just enough symbolism to get me wet. I like the sacred, the profane, the grotesque. I like the way my moans would echo in a church.

I like challenges. A lot.

Women with curves. The sparkle in the eye of a flirty girl. History – social history, personal history, sexual history, memory. I like beginnings, and sometimes endings.
I like to pound a woman with her arms and thighs wrapped so tightly around me that I start to lose circulation.

Penetration. Heat and cold. A cold Maraschino cherry on the tip of her tongue as she licks my clit.

I like seduction. But I like seduction as a slow process, an intellectual and sensual and sexual process, a teasing dance that mirrors burlesque. I fucking love burlesque.

I am a dancer at heart. I like to watch the movement of steps – slow, quick quick, slow. Spin. Stop. Dip. Slow, quick quick… pin her against a wall.

I like dripping wet and messy. I like feminist sex shops and playing with new toys.

Watching her masturbate. Pulling her into my lap, sitting up against the wall, touching her as she gets herself off. I like to feel her buck against me as she rides her vibrator, and when she comes, I can feel her whole body shudder.

Feathers.

I like to be restrained, tied down, held back, pushed and pulled. Handcuffs. I like resistance, but I am not a passive participant. I am strong and stubborn and, at times, controlling. I like to play with those power dynamics sexually, just as I love to play with gender.

I like pressure bordering on pain. It’s a fine line, but a fucking fantastic one.

I like experimenting. I’ll try most anything once. There are a few exceptions – turn offs that will never become turn ons, if you will.

Queer theory. Feminist theory. Destroying sex roles. Fucking with gender roles and expectations.

Music. Dancing – take your pick. Swing dancing, two step, line dancing, swaying. Though I have to say grinding on the dance floor can be one of the best forms of foreplay.

I know these things. I love these things. I know what makes my heart race, my mind focus, my toes curl. But I have become rusty in my expression. I have not forgotten what gets me off…just how to explain what I want. What I like.




I don’t cop out.

“Tell me… what is it that you like?” I gently close my thighs around her waist and swing her down. She complies, and slides down to lay on the bed next to me, propping up on her side.

I’m not shifting the conversation away from me. Well… that’s an added bonus. I’m genuinely interested in her. We’ve talked toys and general thoughts about sexuality, but never specifics.

“I’m easy. I like everything.”

Now there’s a cop out.

She leans in to kiss me, but I pull away and sit up, barely out of her reach.

“No, seriously. What do you like?” I’m challenging her, gently. I stop myself from physically restraining her, too. I don’t want to push too hard. I want to pull.

“I’m malleable.” Her eyes turn soft steel. “It changes with each person. I like to play with whatever gets them off.”

Even the most “malleable” have desires. The wheels are spinning in my head. I’m often attracted to strong women who like to keep other people happy. I respect that pleasuring someone else – whether sexual or otherwise – can be a genuine desire. But
I don’t want the surface, the easy answers. I don’t want you to get me off. I want you to get me off while I get you off. I like to give and to take and to give and to take and to… I get off on making someone else happy, too.

I’m not content with her answer, and she knows it. “I won’t be that easy.”

At least, not in the beginning.