Heartland Femme hits the road

So, I’ve been doing some traveling lately.  I wanted to share some of my most recent exploits with you.

• 1. Jehovah’s Sandwich

 I was getting ready to run some errands right before I went to the airport the other week. As I was locking the door, I saw two women approach from my left.  They were white and full of smiles, so I was immediately on guard. As I walked to my car, one of them moved towards my front door, and the other one flanked me at the car.  I was trapped.  Then I heard, “Can we talk to you for a moment about your plans?”  My plans for what?  Did they really need to know that I was going to Target for some tampons?  Cause those were the plans I had. Then, I saw The Watchtower peeking out of their purses. It was a Jehovah’s Witness Sandwich, and I was the militant meat in the middle. (that sounds awful, and far more sexual than the event actually was)

 One of the dumb things about me is, if you catch me on the right moment, I pretty much agree to anything. They caught me, unknowingly, at such a moment. So we chatted.  I talked to them about me learning Haitian in the Fall, we talked about Bible Study, they invited me to a thing, they gave me their phone numbers, we talked about their shoes. Hell, I even offered them some water. I did not ask if their religion hates the Blacks, or the gays, or the Black gays. I was super well behaved. Then they left.

 I went to buy my tampons, and B.L came home. As I was making us lunch, she heard a knock at the door. She went to open it, and I heard the voice of one of the witnesses. I heard her ask, “Oh, are you Heartland’s roommate?” B.L was like “Nope. I’m her partner. Her lesbian partner. Who has sex with her. Lesbian.”

 So, not getting any good person points for that interaction.

 2. The Sandwich, Part II

 As I got on the plane, I had an aisle seat. In the window seat, was a Catholic Priest. In the seat on the other side, was a Baptist minster who was reading a book, “How to Keep Them”. It was some book teaching them how to keep their students from “straying” when they go to college and get all book smart and shit. The priest wanted to be all chatty, as he saw me cross myself and pray before the plane took off. (Hey, better safe than sorry). I told him I wasn’t Catholic, but went to Catholic school as a kid, and some things kinda stuck. (Shock and awe: apparently I was a little hellion in Catholic School.) Then the Baptist jumped in and asked if I got to church. When I told him that me and Jesus were cool, but I can’t stand His fan club. And then the flood gates of dueling Bibles began. So I just tried to be cool, and read my Curve mag in piece. Seriously. What is with the extra helpings of self righteousness?

3. The Puffer Fish

 This is on the flight home to see my family. I once again have an aisle seat, because fuck being pressed between some dude’s sharp ass elbows and outer thigh meat and a greasy window. As I’m sitting, waiting for the take off, this swole ass dude comes and stands in front of me. He looks at me, looks at the window seat, which is obviously his, and asks, “Aren’t you going to scoot over?”

 Hell. No.

 I look up at him, implying he needs to take his seat in more ways than one. Apparently he doesn’t understand side eye, and is like, “Aren’t you going to let me have the window?”

 ….

 So I look up at him, with my best, “shut the fuck up asshole” face and told him “No. Not just no, but hell no. If your little ticket says window, which it clearly does, you might just want to squeeze by me and take a seat. If we need to press the little stewardess button to make that happen, by all means, press away.” The nerve of these people. Just because he has 100 pounds on me, no neck, and a penis does not mean God has ordained him to have whatever seat he feels like. Especially when I paid my nonexistent graduate school dollars for an aisle.

 So he screws his face up all mean and squeezes in. Cause its not like I’m getting up to let him in. Then this asshat puffs up like he’s some sort of deep sea pufferfish and tries to take up both arm rests and my feet room.

So I repeate, “Do we need to press this little button? Do we? We can press the fuck out of this button right now.”

 The guy behind me thinks this is hilarious, and offers to trade the guy seats. So everyone wins. I sit next to this funny, queer student from D.C.  The puffer fish gets to do whatever the hell it is he had to do.

4. A Little Lady Like Me

 Last plane related story, I promise. So on the way back to Kansas, I sit next to this athlete. He does the sport B.L studies so I gave him a business card, and told him to contact me for my “friend” who does research on the sport. He was more interested in looking at my left hand. After a few minutes of small talk, he said: “So, you aren’t married?”

 “Nooooope.”

 “Recently divorced?”

 “Um, not really. No. Never married.”

 He was shocked. Shocked I say. And then said, “You must not live in Texas. A little lady like you would not be single for long. Surprised you haven’t been snapped up by now.”

 A little lady like me.

 He then proceeded to tell me how fast he was in his race, and how strong he was, and how mighty his sperm was, (not really, but hell, that’s what he was going for) and blah blah blah.

 I wanted to be like LESBIAN! But I didn’t, for the sake of B.L’s research.

 He has contacted me to see if I want to go for drinks while he’s in Kansas City. A little lady like me says no. My heart says no.

 

 

Also, BL met my parents, but that is another blog post for another day. Heartland Out!

Jellyfish Dressing and other horrible decisions

So, as evident by my last post, my working/decision making/blogging skills have not been up to par as of late.  This weekend, I made yet another series of unfortunate mistakes, and I figured, what is the point of being a walking cautionary tale if I don’t share my stories?  So here we go, in no particular order.

1. The beige Jellyfish

We had date night this weekend.  B.L had recently purchased a bow-tie, which was an utter cluster of ridiculousness trying to get tied, and wanted to go somewhere fancy. (Side note/side eye: I’m gonna need some folk to learn how to tie some ties.  This is Heartland Femme, not Heartland Femme who ties neckwear.  I swear, from now on, for every tie I do, I’m going to hum the chorus of “Old Man River”.)  So, I needed a new dress for dinner date night and went out shopping. 

Shopping is weird now.  Because I’ve been running, I kinda have a new body.  It’s smaller, and more fit, and wears smaller clothes.  While going through the racks, I saw this beige lace dress that looked like it had potential.  It only looked this way because it was mushed between like 9000 other pieces of clothing, and I could only see the top part.  Once I wrestled it out of the rack, and saw the bottom part of it, the little warning bells in my head told me no.  Not just no, but sweet baby T-rex, put that abomination to God and man back, and go wash your hands.  But against better judgment, I took it to the dressing room anyways.  And tried it on.  On the plus side, I’m down 2 dress sizes and it totally fit.  On the realistic side, I looked like a beige, pregnant jellyfish.  Somehow, I didn’t notice the bottom had fringe till I tried to pull it over my head, and it got caught in my bra strap, and I kinda fell against the door and yelped a little for help. I managed to get it off okay, but seriously.  What the hell is wrong with me?  *scroll down for a picture of the horrible dress.  seriously, what is wrong with me

1. The why didn’t I stop myself at that last piece of sushi

So flash forward to date night.  I managed to find a black and white dress that looked super cute and not like a fatty sea creature, so that’s a win. We went out to our date night place, which for some reason was filled with Bro-hemians and Frat Daddies. Because it was super crowded, our sushi came after our main course. By the time my delicious veggie tempura rolls made their way to the table, I’d gone through a White Chocolate/Sake martini and a small chicken katzu don.  But screw that, I ordered sushi, and it was the principle of the thing. So B.L and I kept eating. By the time we waddled our way out of the restaurant, I was so full I seriously considered taking a nap in the waiting area. I knew it was a poor choice, but it was a decision I made and I stand by it.

1. Let’s do girly things!

Every now and then I think I’m gonna try to be cute and paint my nails. I have never, ever, ever, for all of my femme cred, gotten this right. I usually end up looking like I had a second grader do it. And somehow, no matter, how still I sit, I end up smudging them, or getting cat hair on them, or touching them on something, and have at least 3 really effed up finger nails.  (In case you are wondering, I’m typing this blog post while they are still slightly damp, because I’m a champ at this sort of thing.)  I really don’t know why I bother, but I do. So tonight, in an attempt to look respectable for tomorrow, (I’m going to be a professional homosexual on an AMS panel tomorrow and talk about intersectional queer bodies- yay me) I figured I’d paint them.  Then I asked B.L to paint my toes…..  When I was a little girl, and my mom asked me to wash dishes, I would always half ass it and maybe break a few plates so I wouldn’t have to do it again.  B.L swears that isn’t what she did, but seriously.  My toes…..But I’m not really sure I could have done better at this point in time. 

Back to procrastinating. I’ll try to get this blog thing back running again. 

The Land of Nod

Just so you know, I’m trying to type this post while B.L is all in my neck space, singing Christian music from the late 90’s.  Needless to say, I’m a bit distracted.

 So today, I did a panel for my friend’s WGSS class.  It was basically the big Homogay day, where we all sit in a room and tell our coming out stories, and be all homogays.  We do these panels all the time, and they are pretty fantastic.  But in one of the classes, we talked about the queer “nod” that some people get/don’t get.  It got me thinking about all the nods I do and don’t get these days.  Let’s discuss.

• The, “Hey, you’re Black” nod

There are about 19.8 Black people that live in Lawrence.  Most times, this town is a Whites Only Water fountain, as the first post points out. So when I see other Black people, we usually give the nod.  We recognize our mutual Blackness in this bleak and “post-racial” landscape.  Except for when I’m with B.L.  She seriously fucks up the rotation. Whenever I am walking with her, I no longer get the head nod, because a:) she is the whitest of white girls  b: I’m with a white woman  c: sometimes people are confused if B.L is dudely or not.  I get the nod all the time when she’s not around, but the second she’s holding my tiny hand, all racialized nods are off. 

• The, “Hey, you’re Gay” nod

I only get this one when I’m with B.L.  But that’s a whole ‘nother slew of problems.  First of all, I’m pretty sure that the nod is for her. It’s usually by queer men in skinny jeans that nod at us, but since I’m a Q.PoC, I’m pretty much invisible.  If I’m by myself, I NEVER EVER EVER get this nod.  I am not as fortunate as B.L to be the butchest butch to ever butch, nor have a Home-Depot level haircut to get recognized as the L and Q part of LGBTQ.  So, I never get this nod.  I’m pretty sure its for B.L all the time anyways. 

•  The “I think you are Straight and I want to claim Real-Estate in your Pants- Hipster version” nod

This is the nod I get ALL THE FREAKING TIME. I get hit on an inordinate amount by skinny hipsters and they all give me that nod. Occasionally there is a wink thrown in there just to make me wanta throw up in my mouth a little more. Because I have a habit of making eye contact, the hipster boys usually think this is an invite to come up to me and ask me what I’m writing in my leather bound journal, or ask if I would like one of their shitty hand rolled American Spirits. I try to remedy this by gnashing my teeth at them and making my eyes look simultaneously militant and dead inside.

• The “I think you are Straight and I want to claim Real-Estate in your Pants- Athlete Version” nod

I had a run in with an athlete here. I’m not gonna name names, but I was outside on the porch at my favourite bar (this is the trendy hipster bar.  I should have known better) and this guy walks by, looks me up and down, and says, “Let’s go”.  I rightfully look at him like he has lost his ever loving mind.  Did he not get even the slightest bit of home-training at some point? Said athlete was very irritated that I did not IMMEDIATELY leave my panties on the barstool and follow him to wherever he wanted to lead me.  I didn’t even know who he was.  When I asked his name, he responded with the ever humble, “Don’t you know who I am?”   Clearly, no.  I do not know who you are. I do not keep track of every dude over 6 feet tall that may possibly handle some balls in some capacity.  Not into it. He eventually stormed off in a huff.  Seriously people, do better.

•  The “This is some Tomfoolery and Shenanigans” nod

I get this one from people I really love and respect. A few people, mainly B.L, my friend I’m going to call Walcott, my friend we’re going to name Adonis, (because he is FLAWLESS) and The Dandy have all given me this nod recently.  It indicates that whatever I am saying/doing/about to do/thinking about is some nonsense, but they recognize that I am an unstoppable force of nature that they can not subdue!!!!  (too much?  Let’s scale that back) 

• The “Interracial Relationship”  nod

I obviously get this one when I’m with B.L out and about. When we see interracial couples, a couple of things happen.  If the bodies fall along the male/female binary spectrum, the dude will nod at B.L, then look at me, and then nod to her again.  If it is a queer couple, I usually get winks, B.L gets the nods.  If it is a couple that is over 40, they just look at us confused, as they are probably trying to peg B.L’s gender, or wonder why I’m just so fierce. To be fair, that is a valid line of inquiry.  I am far to fierce for this landscape.  Step up your game, Kansas.

The Trials of Hercules, Heartland edition

For some reason, everything has been so freaking hard for me lately. It’s been impossible to force myself to sit down and work on my dissertation. It’s been hard getting my crap together for teaching on the regular. Thank God I have my outfit calendar, or I would probably end up going to school in my feety pajamas and a frown. It’s hard in them streets. So, instead of working on diss stuff, I figured I’d type of some of the things that have been effing up the rotation lately.  It’s like the labours of Hercules here, just less lion taming, and more eye shadow.  Probably an equal amount of loincloths.

Labour One: Putting on Skinny Jeans While My Legs Are Still Kinda Wet

            I’ve been swimming a lot lately as part of my workout/fatkini goals.  So I go to the pool in sweats and leave wearing normal clothes so I can go about my day.  Lately, I’ve been in a pants kick, but I want to have pants that I have to wear boots with. Hence, skinny jeans.  No matter how hard I try, I can never get my legs dry enough to get those things on. Every. Single. Time. I’m. Strugglin.  I basically need a pulley system, a few pro-wrestlers, and a trampoline to get into these jeans after my post swim shower. And I’m trying to do this while keeping my feet on my shower shoes so I don’t have to touch the floor with my bare feet.  Not a good look.

 

Labour Two: Keeping Slightly Loose Tights Up While Walking Uphill

            So, the work out thing has been going good.  Too good.  The other day, I put on a dress, (super cute dress with owls.  You have no idea how cute I am) and my black fleece lined tights to go teach.  As I’m walking up the bullshit hill on campus, I realize I’m feeling a bit drafty. My tights have fallen down to the undercheek portion of my butt.  Not cute. I realized that I have dropped a few pounds, and some clothes would be looser, but I didn’t think about the tights.  They are called tights, not fall-to-your-undercheeks.  So, I had to walk up this hill holding my breakfast, and purse, with no gloves on, trying to hold my tights up through my jacket pocket with one hand.  Ugh.

 

Labour Three: Picking a Paint Colour For the House

            I hate the colour of my walls.  I have a system of hating them every few months and repainting.  B.L, is 1. Probably slightly colour blind, and 2. Not helpful in the least when it comes to picking colours. It’s usually me talking out loud to myself and the paint-lesbian that works in Homo Depot to try to talk myself through colour selections. That I will change in a few months again.

 

Labour Four: Putting on Eyeliner

            Why can’t I get this together? Why can’t I have nice things? Instead of having a cute cat-eye line, I end up looking like Kesha did my make-up when I inevitably touch my face 29.2 seconds after I put my makeup on.  I can’t even seem to let it dry. 

 

Labour Five: Keeping Up With Laundry

            Because B.L is a triathlete (Hey! What do you call a dinosaur that runs, bikes, and swims?  A TRI-ceratops!) (Yes, I know, that was not funny. Not even a little bit.) she makes a metric shitton of laundry. She makes so much, that I had to go the hippy route and make my own laundry detergent out soap, borax, oxyclean, and hard feelings because its way cheaper than buying it in bulk. Every time I do a load of laundry, she walks in with like 93 new, sweaty sports bras for me to take care of. I am Our Lady of Perpetual Clothes Washing.

 

Labour Six: Writing the Dissertation

Seriously.  Write yourself, dissertation. Why can’t I have a TA? And a scribe? And a herald?

 

Labour Seven: Not Getting Attached to My Skyrim Family

            I adopted kids on the video game I play. Worst idea ever. They should not let you adopt children in a game where you kill dragons and are the leader of the assassins and thieves guild. Instead of going on a dragon killing quest like I’m supposed to be doing, I’m going from town to town looking for children’s toys to bring back to the kids. I also worry about what town I should live in. I have 5 houses in 5 different towns.  One town is the site of a civil war, (can’t raise an imaginary family there), one is where the thieves guild is, and my house is right next to a whore house, and the canals in the city are filthy (that’s where I’m currently raising my kids), one house is at the top of stone stairs, where people are being stabbed in the streets and exploited by being forced to work in silver mines (nope), one house is in a town that is constantly under attack by vampires (fuck that) and one house is in the middle of nowhere that gets attacked by bandits and giant spiders.  I figured, the best thing to do for my imaginary family is arm the kids with daggers, and let them hang around the thieves guild. At least they’ll learn some skills.

 

Labour Eight- Getting the Cat in Her Carrier to Go to the Vet

            B.L and I have a cat.  We’ll call her Ms. Pants.  Cause that’s actually kinda her name.  We’ve had to take her to the vet a lot lately, for shots, for allergies, for scratches, etc. Once, we had to put drops in her ears, which was awful. But putting her in her carrier is the worst. She hides, she cries, she cries the entire car ride there, and then, when I’m about 6 minutes from the vet, she will poop in the carrier, and then cry more about it. I have to walk into the vet with a carrier full of poop and cat rage. And then I have to do it again on the ride back home.

 

Labour Nine-Coming Up With More Things For This List

 I’m tapped out. If I think of more, I’ll let you all know.

Real Talk

So I saw some nonsense today, and of course, now all of you are going to have to hear about it. I’ve been going to the gym and running lately. Well, not really running. I have long legs, short arms, and I’m super top heavy. I pretty much look like a t-rex with a sweatband on my head out there.  So I lumber.  I’m not really fast, and I definitely look like I hate every second of what is going on. The only reason it is even anything close to remotely bearable is because I have this app called Zombies, Run! (by Six to Start. I will totally plug these guys for frees because the app is fan-freaking tastic).  Anyways. So I’m at the gym today to go lumbering on the track and I see a few things that catch my attention.

The first is when I went to the locker room to put on my running shoes. Everything around here is under 200 feet of snow, so I of course have to have my boots on. So I get down there and there are these two girls blow-drying their hair, adjusting the shoulders on their cut off sorority t-shirts, putting on foundation, eyeliner, blush, eye shadow, lipstick, and something called eye shadow base. I figured they were done and getting ready to go brave the wild. So I leave and go up to start my lumbering, and here they come, to walk on the indoor track.  They put all of that crap on to go work out. Drag queens put on less make-up and in less time than those two girls put on to come walk the track and take up my running space.  So, who does that? I mean, call me old fashioned, but I don’t get it. My personal amount of fashion prep to go work out includes trying to figure out the appropriate number of sports bras I’ll have to put on to strap my tits down (answer: 3). Seriously, who does that? Whyyyyyyyy?

 Second thing that happened whilst (is that a word that people use these days?  Whilst?  While at?  What is whilst a word-combo for anyways?) at the gym. While I was lumbering, I saw this guy who has asked me out on several occasions, and doesn’t quite seem to understand the terms, no, hell no, awhellnawl, and lesbian. I was on the last 5 minutes of my 50 minute run, and just wanted to do it in peace. For some reason, he thought it would be cute to try to run next to me and chat. First of all, if you can’t keep up with my lumbering pace and talk at the same time, I need you to take a seat. Second, it is even less cute to walk to an open spot and wait till I loop back around so we can chat some more.  That is that shit I don’t like. Thirdly, it is so much less cute than that to try to talk to me while I do my tricep dips. If you can’t hang with me whist (See what I did there) I run, you most def can’t hang with the tricep dips. I did my 6 sets of 10. He did 2 sets of 1.  I need him to talk all kinds of a seat.

 I’m really not a fan of college gyms. It’s full of girls with ponytails who walk 4 across on the track, and muscleheads who make way too much noise when you are lifting. Seriously, guy in the black TAPOUT tshirt with the sleeves cut out and the sides cut open to see your “Tribe of Chad” tattoo: there is no need to make that much noise when you lift. You are lifting 80 pounds. You don’t need to sound like you are birthing a baby dino. No, Sir. 

Ugh. Working out. Ugh. I work out because B.L told me that “I can be fat, but not lazy” a few weeks ago. Which is good.  I’m pretty sure my skeleton is like a size 8 anyways.

My bad. It’s been a while.

So. Yeah. I’ve been sick/busy/defending my prospectus/playing skyrim and haven’t blogged in a while. But now, I’m on it. Promise. For real this time. 

 

I’ve got a few gems ready for you. To start off with, I swear this is not going to be a blog about getting terrifyingly hit on by frat boys, but I had another incident that I need to share. There are two coffee shops/bars in town I frequent. One is super hipstery, and the other one is more hipster than having a PBR holder you bought from Etsy on your fixie bike.  The other day I was just in the really hipster one trying to get some work done after being so horribly sick. (When I get sick, it’s terrible. Like, “bring out your dead”/plague doctor creepy bird mask sick. B.L is not a fan, as I am pretty much useless and a grumpy asshole during that time.) Anyways, I was working in this coffee shop and oddly wearing pants for maybe the third time this year. As I was sitting, minding my own damn business, these two frat daddies sat next to me and had this conversation.

“Nah dude, you can keep those skinny girls.  Thicker girls make way better lovers. More to grab on to and spank.”  (Overt wink in my direction.) 

Oh. Hell. Nawl.

 

Since I was not even pretending to give this kid half a second of my day, I just kept on reading my book and minding my business.  So he said it again, put his hand on my table like he was gonna get it back, and said, “Am I right, girl?”

 

I cannot with these people. I don’t know what kind of kool-aid they put in the water here in Brownbackistan, but I’m not feelin it. Say it with me now people, “I do not have access or rights to the bodies of others.  I will keep my hands, frat daddy comments, and eyes to myself.”  Ugh. Take a seat.

 

Now let’s get to some good ol’ fashioned blog content. 

I hate wearing pants. Hate them.  This is only partially because of my femme identification.  My body is a bit oddly shaped, and its hard to find pants that don’t look either like overt apple bottoms, or a whole lot of bad decisions. My legs are super long, but they don’t really make long pants for people who are 5’2.  Also, I need them to make jeans for asses that cost in a range that grad students can afford. The other day, I was feeling eccentric and bought a pair of pink, corduroy, skinny pants.  I’m oh so mad at B.L for not putting her feet down on this one.  Don’t get me wrong, they look cute….but when I take a step, my thighs make that awful zipper sound where the fabric rubs together.  Let’s not even pretend like my thighs don’t touch. Even if I stood in full ballerina second position, I probably still wouldn’t have a thigh gap. So yeah. I don’t wear pants. Ever. Cause I always wear out the fabric where my thighs rub, and they are always too long, or too short, or have really shallow pockets that I can’t put things in, and I get made fun of if I wear jeggings as pants. So it’s skirts and dresses forever.

 

Let’s see.  What else has been going on?

B.L and I aren’t doing crap tomorrow for V-day. I think I’m going to make dinner, and then we are going to watch some Game of Thrones. Magical.

 

I’m planning on wearing a grey dress, black cardigan, black patent heels, and my pink “My Girlfriend is a feminist” button tomorrow. Let’s see if they notice, esp. since they’ve decided I have a boyfriend already.

 

Ugh, it’s tired, and I’m still a bit sick, and I’ve got nothing left. Soon I promise a real post. It’s been way to long, and I can’t have an unupdated blog sitting about. It’s unseemly. I’ll be back soon with something worthwhile.

 

I bid you all good day.

Stealth Femme

So, I looked super cute today. I wore a navy blue houndstooth dress, with yellow tights, navy fishnets over that, and my brown boots. Super, super, cute. Ya’ll weren’t ready. But this cuteness came at a bit of a price.

First of all, with no glasses, my eyeballs feel filthy. Absolutely filthy. All the stuff that was on my glasses is now making my vision cloudy. I still think that it is shenanigans that I don’t need glasses but I’m trying to work with this for now. Mostly because I don’t feel like paying for another eye exam so soon, but that is neither here nor there.  (people should use the word “nor” more often. It’s a good, solid word.

 

I also got disgustingly hit on today by some undergrad. As I was leaving my first class, he walked by me in the hall way and said, “Hey cutie. What class are you in?”    Are we for serious on that one?  “Hey, cutie.”  Is this junior high?  Were you stunned by my apparent Lisa Frank trapper keeper?  Take a row full of seats on that one. After rolling my eyes so hard it hurt my face, I fixed up my finest side eye and told him, “I just got done teaching this one. Respect your elders that are WAY out of your league.”  Seriously undergrads. First of all, recognize that I’m a grown up and an instructor. Then, if you are gonna try to pretend like you are in the big leagues, at the very least step up your game. “Hey, cutie.”  That is almost as bad as the basketball player incident of 2010. (That is a whole ‘nother help line and blog post somewhere down the line)

To top all of this off, in my second class, I was asked, “does my boyfriend like the way I dress, and is he okay with me wearing fishnets all the time?” We were talking about gender inequality, and apparently my tights have been a topic of conversation. From this line of inquiry, I had oh so many questions.

 I first asked them what made them think I had a boyfriend. Apparently, someone saw me with a dapper young man with a mohawk, (B.L)  and assumed he was my boyfriend. Also, women my age are either married or dating boys with the intent to marry them, so I was told. I’m very glad they cleared all of that up for me.

 I let the assumed gender slip to move on to the question of someone “letting” me wear something. The last time I checked, I was the only person that needed to co-sign on my own fierceness and what-not. It’s so messed up that that apparently someone has to let me do stuff. News to me.

 If ya’ll are wondering why I handed them all sorts of ass for assuming that someone “let” me wear anything, and let them reading B.L as dudely slide is because I’m running in stealth mode. At the beginning of the semester, I told them not to assume they know anything about another person’s subject position, but you know, who listens to me. So later in the semester when I get to have the LGBTQ panel, I get to introduce B.L and watch the jaws drop. Every-single-time it has been priceless. Sometimes, I get “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!”. Sometimes I get students who look like I just told them there is both inequality and no Santa Claus. So I’m gonna fly this stealth: show my students some femme fierceness. My outfit calendar is nothing but flawless for the rest of the semester.

 

2 piece and a my naked face

There’s been some changes.

 

First of all, I apparently don’t need glasses. After 2 weeks of being afraid that I had eye lupus and that my left eye ball was going to fall out of my face, I finally got it together and got my vision checked. The excessive comps reading and all of the other things would have logically taken a toll on my vision and what not.  But apparently, nope!  Somehow my vision magically got better, and the reason I couldn’t see for crap was my glasses were making my vision worse.

 

I’m gonna go ahead and call shenanigans. First of all, eyes don’t “magically” get better, especially after comps and the unfortunate eye patch incident of 2012. For those of you just now joining in, over the summer, I was reading and something got lodged in my eye from out of nowhere. I spent the next twenty minutes screaming and trying to wash out my eye first with water, then with some hippy- witch hazel-organic eye dropper- eye drops that B.L bought when she had allergies, then finally with contact solution. When that didn’t work, between lamentations and wailing, I asked B.L to take me to the emergency room. Half an hour later, we went.

 

 I’m not going to lay any blame, but B.L didn’t believe me when I said something was wrong with my eye and I ended up in an eye patch for 2 days.  Months before this happened, I kept asking her if she would still love me if I had to have an eye patch.  Thank God I got that down official, because I had to wear an eye patch for 2 days because SOMEONE (B.L) had to make a snack before taking me to the emergency room to get a shard of something sharp out of my eyeball. In her defense, she was apparently so, so hungry. Her organs were not going to make the drive until she had a pita and some hummus.  (She is making me type that she had just gotten done running 10 miles and that her organs were hungry.  Too hungry to acknowledge my eye, which was in a state of ruin the likes which you have never seen. Tales are told of its suffering.) (B.L is reminding me that she thought I would “get the thing” out of my eye, it’s not that she was making light of my immense suffering and unknowable pain.) (She says, “I BELIEVED YOU. YOU MAKE ME SOUND AWFUL!)

 

But apparently, the eye doctor told me that my vision is fine, and I’m only the tiniest bit of near-sighted and I don’t really need glasses for it. My feelings are mixed. On one hand, my face feels naked, and I’m a bit terrified now that all the stuff that made my glasses filthy is now moving directly on to my eyeball. And that’s a problem.  On the other hand, I now can wear fake, drag queen worthy eyelashes pretty much every day of my life from now on. I have some ready to go for my prospectus defense this week. So that is exciting. I also get to up my eye shadow game something fierce. (Luckily, I learned how to glue down my eyebrows and paint over them. I’m gonna give my students some arched eyebrow realness tomorrow. They are not even close to ready.)

 

So yeah, no glasses.

 

Also, I bought a two-piece swimsuit for the second time in my life. The first time I wore a two-piece was circa 1986. There is a picture of me and my sister in the front yard of our old house. I’m wearing the cutest little swimsuit with ruffles on the bottom; I’m also wearing a swimcap that makes my head look like an alien. I miss the good old days where my mom would deep condition my hair, put a plastic bag over that, and then put the swim cap over that. Inevitably, the swim cap would pull up a little, giving my 3 year old face a face-lift and giving me alien head.  But the suit was cute. That is all that matters.

 

I own one now for two reasons: The first is, B.L has been trying to get me to pose for the fatikini tumblr for quite some time. At first, when she was like, “Hey baby, I need you to put on a bikini so I can take a picture of you and sent it to the fatkini website” she was about to get cursed out smooth and slow. I mean, I’m know I’m juicy and all (B.L’s new favourite term from watching this season of drag race) and I happen to like the fact that I can see my butt from my peripheral vision. But the way she said FATkini, was about to get her a one way trip ticket to the couch by the drafty window. But then I looked at the tumblr, and saw how awesome it was, and am considering putting a picture up.  So there’s that.

 

And then, modcloth had a sale on a bikini I had my eye on. And I got some good old fashioned fat-shaming from some people I know. Nothing gets me motivated to do some   

-ish like someone telling me I can’t. And telling me I’m too big to put myself in a two-piece? I will shove, slide, and push every ounce of my body into whatever I damn well please. I test drive my fatkini around my house on the regular.

 

When I first opened the box, there was a bit of my own fear and trembling. After a few minutes of pep talks by B.L, I put it on and wore it around the house as a practice run. Now, I wear it sometimes around with red, almond toe heels, cat-eye sunglasses, and my black beach hat. Say something about it. Ya’ll cannot wait till swimsuit season to see all of the fatkini goodness. 

 

Without my glasses.

I knew what this was.

Early and often in my relationship with B.L, I have had to say the title phrase a lot. All the time.  I love her, oh so much, but there are certain things I should expect from her. Let’s take her dancing. She often tells me that she is one of the “whitest of white girls” and that it was forbidden in the college she went to for undergrad to “move your hips” while dancing. Clearly, the only clapping she does is with her hands.  But I knew that coming in.  I also knew she would have “Black People” questions. Early in our relationship, she quietly asked to touch my hair and reached for it.  Now, my standard response to this is to throw a quick side eye and say, “I’m not your Negro Petting Zoo.”  Apparently I had a bit too much bass in my voice when I said it to her the first time and things got a bit scary for a second.  (She’s pretty much over that now. I think. Probably.) 

 

We have a lot of hair related issues in this house. The first time she saw me grease my scalp was met with wonder, fear, and trembling.  When I told her what I was doing, the conversation went a bit like this:

B.L- What are you greasing your head with?  Like grease?  Like bacon fat?

Me- Why you gotta bring it to pork when you are talking to about black hair?  Why you gotta bring race into this?

B.L- I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I…wait….I didn’t….. 

 

She still walks into lines like that.  It’s pretty cute.   Until its not.

 

A few months into us dating, she reached into my afro an pulled a tangle of hair out.  Apparently she did this in order to prove she was no longer afraid of, I dunno, blackness, or my afro, or something.  As she pulled the tangle, I yelled, “I need that one!  Put it back!” I have seen less panic and scrambling on Black Friday mornings.  (B.L asked if I said Black Friday because I’m talking about blackness.  Bless her heart.)  She quickly tried to put the tangle back into my afro, moved it around several times, all the while yelling, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!  I didn’t know!”  We went back to “asking to touch my hair” for a while after that. 

 

Another time she tried to help me twist my hair into two strand twists… It took 30 minutes to get that knot out.  A few weeks later she tried to help me take the twists out, but her arms got tired after one plat.  She is obviously not allowed to help anymore. Ever.

Our most recent, “I knew what this was” moment is something I consider unpardonable and unforgivable.  I was listening to Al Green, and she walked in and said, “Is that Luther Franklin?” When I asked her to clarify, she said, “Aretha Franklin?  Is this Aretha Franklin?”  Now, B.L swears up and down that she never said Luther Franklin, but I think that is beside the point.  I pretty much need her to know that we all don’t sound alike. Most of this I chalk up to her being raised in a pop-culture vacuum; apparently her brother is just as bad.  But come on, Al Green does not equal Aretha Franklin. 

 

As Black History Month is now nigh (no one uses the word “nigh” near enough.  I think I’m gonna throw it around for a while), and my partner is generally clueless regarding well, pop culture, I told her I’m going to provide her with a month of wonder and education. Over the next 28 days, she will watch/listen to/enjoy the following things:

 

-All 3 seasons of the Boondocks

-Do The Right Thing

-School Daze

-Bamboozled

-Roots

-The Color Purple

-Amistad

– Al Green’s Greatest Hits (at least twice)

-Purple Rain

-The Point of it All and Back to Love

-The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

-Beautifully Human-Words and Sounds 2

– The Entire Eyes on the Prize Series

-Good Hair

-X

and

-The Preacher’s Wife  (I miss you Whitney).

 

I told her when she completes all of these things, I will stop making her feel bad every time she asks me to clean the kitchen.  We’ll see how this goes. 

Heartland Femme’s Guide to Horrible Dates

Howdy and we’re back!

Let’s talk dating, shall we?  In the past, I loved first dates.  There is a lot of excitement built into the process: the outfit selection, the list of questions in my head in case I run out of things to talk about, the list of deal breakers to watch for….

(Am I the only one who has a book list for people I date?  In the old days, people I dated had to have read a certain number of books on a list I had of must-reads.  I know this is super elitist, but whatever, I’m a grad student.  I essentialize for fun.  Even though I’m off the market pretty much forever, the booklist was as follows:

1. James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room
2. Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves
3. Neil Gaimen’s American Gods
4. Nalo Hopkinson’s Mojo: Conjure Stories
5. Yusef Komunyakaa’s Talkin’ Dirty to the Gods
6. Tim Lucas’ Throat Sprockets
7. Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
8. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
9. Zora Neale Hurston’s The Sanctified Church
10. Octavia Butler’s Fledgling

I don’t think that reading a few of these 10 books is too much to ask.  Seriously people, read an effing book.  But this isn’t the list you wanted.  So I’ve been on a bunch of first dates, and some pretty bad ones.  But a few years ago, in College Station, Texas, I went on the worst first date humanly possible.  Not only was the date absolutely awful, but I got an email afterwards with tips on how to be “femme-ier” and a better date.  I present to you, without further comment, the list of suggestions I got 45 minutes after my date was over. 45 minutes.  Seriously.  I had hardly gotten home.  It’s like she emailed me from her car.

 

1. You make eye contact like a man. Look away more. Be more demure

2. Open up about your childhood more. (This was our first date)

3. Your dress makes one boob look bigger than the other. Lean to the left when you talk to people more

4. You should laugh less, giggle more. Giggling is more demure

5. You seem to have aggression issues, perhaps you should lean forward less, and look me in the eye less

6. You should let me order for you. I’m not sure you know what you want, but I know the restaurants I pick better

7. Talk less about things you are interested in. talk more about things I’m interested in.

8. Wait until I call you. It’s more lady like. I will call you tomorrow at 7.

 

I’m oh so happy that I’m off the dating market.

As a hint for next post, I’m probably gonna blog about the Black girlfriend starter packet that I have for B.L.