date!

hey femme-y girls! how do you get ready for a date? at risk of my date for tomorrow night reading this, i’m going to post my pre-planning. which is probably sharing too much.

i’m going to shave my legs. and stuff. in the morning, not the night before – won’t be fresh enough cuz i’m a hairy beast. today i took a hot bath with coconut oil. cuz organic coconut oil makes my skin so soft (and my hair too!) and it makes me smell good. and i’m tooooo-ooooold it makes me taste good too. yeah. sshhh. i know i’m oversharing. i do some plucking. eyebrows. and such. no binding clothes tomorrow that might make lines on me – no socks with tight elastics. no undies that leave marks. (being a photographer has taught me this trick – i advise clients to do this prior to any nudie shoots. heh.) i do my hair. i’m femme but i’m still a dyke so this is not a huge effort, but i may use a straightener and a little gel so smooth out my frizzies. i’ll put on a little make up over my red blotchy-ness. eye liner. my nails are already done thanks to my pal who does nails. then comes the impossible part. picking out clothes. what to wear!!?? jeans? skirt? black? colour? how cold is it out? how much cleavage should i show (i lean towards a lot…). impossible decisions. brush my teeth. earrings. necklace – depending on the cleavage i chose today.

and then off i go! inevitably wishing i’d remembered to buy lipstick, look at my toes before i threw on sandals, and get a purse that is not a backpack. damn. i really need to practice at this whole femme thing more.

Add a comment May 30, 2010

butch in uniform

a few years ago i got in a car crash. it was a mess. i was a mess. i didn’t have my insurance with me. the registration had expired. the car was still under my ex-wife’s name. it was a bad crash, one i never saw coming – it just hit me from the side and my first clue was my head hitting the window.

i couldn’t stop crying. i was in trouble and i knew it. the cops were coming. the fire department was already there. my cousin agreed to come pick me up but wasn’t there yet. i was verging on hysterical.

then this cop. this sweet, oh-so-butch girl cop, arrived. she was nice to me. she didn’t give me a ticket for not having my insurance and registration. she smiled a butch smile with a tiny glint in her eye at me. my little broken femme perked up and realized what was happening. this butch girl was giving me a break cuz i was a femme.

thanks butch girl. i heart you, whoever you were.

Add a comment May 27, 2010

feminine

synonyms suggested for the word feminine include soft, weak, faint, frail, powerless. why is that? to be feminine is to be so many things, but weak and frail and powerless, those just piss me off. those are the things they want us to believe.

is to be femme feminine? is it intrinsic to femme? i don’t know. maybe. but weak. faint. frail. are not. i sit centred and feel the power my womanhood, my femininity, my femme-ness gives me. i’m not talking about feminine wiles either. that’s another load of crap. women, feminine people, femmes. we are powerful because we are. we stand up for what is right. we protect. we tend. we nurture. we provide for. we fight. we will go mama bear on your ass if necessary. today is a big day in the life of this femme. and today has nothing to do with frailty or powerlessness. yes. i may feel fear. but i go on anyway. yes. i feel threatened. but i persevere. yes, my hands may shake. but they act anyway. today i stand up.

today i stood up for me and my daughter. it was not an easy choice. but part of being who i am means i will not allow myself to be taken advantage of, i will not allow myself to lie down and take it. for her sake and for mine, i will go after what is right, what is ours, what is terrifying, but necessary.

2 comments May 26, 2010

femme fatale

when i was young, i dated men. i was a little bit out of control with men. i figured out later (thanks therapy) that because i didn’t have real, deep, true feelings for these guys (because i’m a lesbian, claro que si), i never suspected they had any for me either, so i didn’t treat them very well. it never occurred to me that i could hurt them. but i do remember feeling bad about myself, singing velvet underground to myself… here she comes, you’d better watch your step, she’s going to break your heart in two, it’s true-ue-ue… the archetype haunted me.

now i’d like a new context for femme fatale. cuz femme i am. and fatale, well. it’s been a long while since i felt like a femme fatale. but recently i was motivated to buy a hot dress and go out and look hot. i felt hot. ah yes i know it’s shallow external validation. but it felt good. and it triggered something in me. being my girly-girl self in a low-cut dress out with a very cute butch in a shirt and tie, it stirred something deep inside me. my femme fatale. she’s not succubus, twisted, manipulative. she’s … seductive, powerful, beautiful. i can go with that.

Add a comment May 19, 2010

thanks

thank you butch girls, young and old. every last one of you. thanks for making me blush and squirm and go shopping for dresses and get my nails done and buy make up and a thousand other things i never really do without YOU… motivating me. every time you call me girly girl, fix something for me, get my oil changed, puff up your chest when another girl checks me out, every time you say “it’s all about the femme” every time you smile your cocky smile. every time you put your arm around me. every… little… thing you do, inspires me to do a million femme-y things and your reaction to them makes me feel like i’m walking on air. thank you.

Add a comment May 13, 2010

coming out

thanks to ivan e. coyote – who provides inspiration often, and for many reasons – i’m thinking about coming out as a femme. like, first i came out as a lesbian, and now here i am coming out as a femme. i don’t know if my identity as a femme has anything to do with plucking my eyebrows, wearing pink, having long hair, or being clueless about how to fix … welll, anything, —all of which i do/am—but here i am. i think it has more to do with how much i need/love/desire/am attracted to butches! hi butch girls! *waving* i love you. where have you been all my life.

there was one girl. oh man. i met her in grad school. i had le crush on her. it didn’t help when she showed me pics of her doubles as shot by pierre dalpé. *fanning myself thinking of it.* she was taken, but we worked together at school a lot and i flirted my ass off. but alas… i think i was invisible to her. oh well. then there was this string of lesbians i met as i was coming out. they weren’t stone butches, bois, or transmen, just lesbians on the butch side of things. watching them lean over the engine of my car. watching them climb a ladder and replace a light fixture in a tool belt. watching them gave me shivers. in the Good way.

then i found out there was more. transmen… stone butches… women who feel like they are boys. a woman who was, as my daughter described one to the babysitter, “Mama’s new fwiend, ___, is a boygirl.” when the babysitter asked me about it, i had to answer that yeah. my at that time 4 year old was right. she’s a boygirl. and i LIKED it.

Add a comment May 6, 2010

journey to femme-bot

by way of introduction, i’ll say a few things. i am a woman. a lesbian. a femme. that third one there? is new to me in terms of identity. back when i still thought i was straight or bi or whatever? i would not have been considered a girly-girl. i don’t wear make up and i usually wear jeans. sensible shoes. when i came out, came into my identity as a lesbian, those things fit. those things didn’t make me butch or femme. they just worked for a lesbian. as i was starting to figure myself out as a lesbian, i was attracted to butch girls. women. but not long after i came out, i got married to a woman. a pretty femme woman. it didn’t occur to me to make a distinction. to draw a line between butch and femme. i didn’t think it mattered.

that marriage didn’t work out. i took a long time to grieve and heal. and then i met a girl. a woman. a butch. a boi. she rocked my socks. when she did chivalrous things, they didn’t seem like a joke to me like they had when men had done those things for me in the past. like guiding me into a room with her hand in the small of my back. like taking charge in tiny ways like reserving a table in a restaurant. letting me sit back. taking care of me in little, seemingly inconsequential ways.

during our time together, i didn’t think much about being a femme. i didn’t call myself a femme. occasionally i called myself a girly girl. and she often referred to herself as a boy/boi, allowing me to be “the” girl without having to stake it. but being with her crystallized something in me. what i need and want as me. a woman. a lesbian. a femme.

i like butch girls. i think they are sexy as hell. now that i’m single again, dating, i’m trying to navigate this. i like butch girls. and i like when they think i’m femme. there’s some pressure. because the butch girls i’ve encountered so far seem to like uberfemme. skirts. heels. makeup. jewelry. and it’s not like i NEVER wear those things. but i don’t wear skirts much. i almost never wear heels. i infrequently wear makeup. i seldom wear jewelry. does this make me less femme? i feel pressure sometimes. wear a skirt to impress her. am i putting on an act? am i not being myself? i don’t know. i feel like wearing a t-shirt and jeans and sensible shoes with my hair in a ponytail and no makeup at all… that’s me. that’s me and i’m femme.

so what the fuck does femme mean? that i’m a bottom? that i want to receive but not give – you KNOW what i mean.

is it because i want to be a stay at home mom with the kids and welcome my butch home from work with loving arms and run her a bath after her hard day? does that make me femme?

is it that i have long hair and pass for straight in the day-to-day world? does that make me femme?

i don’t know the answer. dating. figuring out. trying to figure out what and who i am. such a slow learner, me.

4 comments May 3, 2010