R.I.P. Del Martin, One Bad-Ass Wife

Del Martin, lesbian activist, co-founder of Lyon Martin Clinic and the Daughters of Bilitis, first out lesbian elected to office in the National Organization of Women, and wife to Phyllis Lyon, died this past Wednesday.

She was partners with Phyllis for 55 years, and they got married during the first wave of Newsomized gay marriages a few years again, and then were the first couple to (re-) wed once same-sex marriages got the green light in the state of California this year.

Del sounds like not only a totally amazing person, who personally did a lot for the openness and acceptance of queers in this country (including me being able to conduct my wife hunt out here on the internets, for all to see), but also a wonderful and committed wife.

May we all, those of us who want partners anyway, be so lucky.

Rest in Peace, Del Martin. You kicked a ton of ass, and we are incredibly grateful for it.

Lactose, Legal and 'Lyst Free

Well good ol' snake-loving redheaded ice cream scooper never wrote back.

Neither did the hot cop (!?) who elicited dazed tingles from the top of my pigtailed head up and down my peace loving, hippie skirt clad body to the rings on my toes in the produce section of Trader Joe's. I know... a cop!? Who knew? But it's cool; she's exempt because:
A. She is the Capulet to my anti-authoritarian Montague, cop love would be so star-crossed for me I'd need the Enterprise to get me to a date.
B. Well, we just looked at each other. She never actually got any information with which to write me in the first place.


Nor did the gorgeous queer writer from LA, who though male-bodied could totally pull-off some sick bastardization of wifehood. Which would be great by me. I think we'd make a gorgeous Todd Haynes flick. (And now that gays can get married in CA, he and I could even make it legal!) But he's famous and lives in L.A. so he's also exempt. Plus he *did* give me a free copy of his book and a spontaneous hug upon first meeting, so I feel pretty special about all that already.


Anyhoo, the good news is, I'm actually kind of trying. I took a little winter slug break from ye olde wifey chase, but now; well I may not be back in the saddle exactly, but I'm at least in the stable and giving some of the horses the eye.

Yee-haw.

8:34 p.m.

Tonight, at about 8:34 pm, my biological clock went off.

I felt it ring like an alarm in my body. I've wanted a baby for years, it's been one of the most stable aspects of "the plan", in fact I used to want seventeen, but as I've gotten closer to a time that such an undertaking would be a good idea I've lowered the number to one or maybe two. I've also started wondering "oh yeah, when is *that* going to happen?" as I've gotten out of 'too-young' and into 'exceptionally reasonable' child-bearing age. This is true for a number of my bigger life goals; I sat in 'too young' long enough to totally miss the beginning of 'auspicious time'.

I kept meaning to address this issue, the baby thing, here, but I wanted to write some big fancy essay about the history of my desire for motherhood, the implications of overpopulation and my goals as a parent and yadda yadda yadda, but instead, I'm ovulating and in the middle of my first Mindfulness class I had a visceral feeling of a baby alarm. I laughed out loud when it happened. As usual my elaborate and procrastinated intentions get severed and overthrown by immediate reality. I want a baby. Growing, inside me. I want to be pregnant and I want to raise a child and I'm scared shitless of it but I want it anyway.

It's not surprising that this happened now. I just got the news this week that my two best friends from high-school, one of whom was my first love, are both pregnant. I've known of their marriages for some time, but the fact of their simultaneous pregnancies felt like a big bowl of cold spaghetti falling in my lap. (This image possibly courtesy of The Sopranos.)

Feelings ranged from the classic: "Holy Shit!?!?!"
to the skeptical: "Really? Both? Married? And pregnant?... Holy Shit!"
to the childishly jealous: "I want a spouse and a baby!...and *I* wanted to knock her up!!!!"

On further investigation of my high school coterie, it seems that most of them are married, and many be-childed. While this may seem like a big ol' duh of normal life, I live in queer San Francisco and I, for one, was shocked. I really haven't heard of so many people I know being straight, married, or breeding....ever. It puts a new perspective on my search for a wife, like, gender aside, actually it's not such a weird thing to want...or to get! Everybody else seems to get them, and some of them used to be the people who projected their wedding fantasies with me. Not just that, but people I fucked! Quite a few people I have fucked are now married. I know, its normal, no one else is impressed, but my mind, she is blown. How this whole marriage thing happens (and so regularly!) amongst 20-somethings remains a mystery to me; most of the people I know in the day to day who are married got married in their 40's or so or did it for health insurance. The decisions, the process, the family dinners...all foreign and intriguing to my little colonialist anthropologist mind.

So now I'm out, not that I was ever trying to be in, but yes; I want a hot, sexy, healthy loving commitment, and make that with a side of progeny. No, it doesn't have to be immediate, but no, it can't be ignored.

Mommy once told me when I was very young and I asked her why it took her three years of marriage to get pregnant with me, "It's fun to be married for a little while before you have a baby." I'll buy that, though if I was her, I'd already be married for two years by now....

"The Mushroom"

I have seen the future of American bad-queer hair, and I dub it "the mushroom".

In Berlin I've noticed quite a few queers with this new, just as hard to take, anti-mullet. It consists of a severly lined bowl cut about a third to half way down the head (above ears) with the sides and back shaved to skin. While it does look better on some than others, mostly it looks like Moe of the three stooges with good politics and a pocket full of latex gloves. I predict that Valencia St. will be popping up with mushrooms within six months.

Goddess help us.


P.S.
Two days after I originally posted about the Mushroom I saw this picture hanging in the window of a hair salon, which I first mistook for a theater or bar, in Berlin. Mushrooms for the whole family! Just please, please, spare me.

Kisses from Berlin

I have been neglecting the wife-search in the interest of getting the hell out of dodge. Now I'm writing from a grey-green velvet settee from a lovely little apartment in Berlin. My snowglobe needed some shaking, for sure, and luckily for me I had resources enough to skeedaddle for a month.

This is my first trip to Germany and is mostly the responsibility of my dear friend Tara who is Dominating and loving her way around Europe. I'm taking advantage of her trend-setting and hoping to find some queers to love on and some men to beat on. Or vice versa, if it comes to that :)

Also, I am excited to be meeting a prospective wife on this trip; as fas as I know this woman is the only person interested from outside of the U.S. Long distance love seems to be all the rage in my friend circle these days, but I doubt I have the stomach for it. I like to be all up in love's grill. Regardless I am thrilled that a Swede is curious enough about me to make a trip to Germany to meet, and she sounds like a wonderful person. Plus, I saw a picture of her in a sailor suit. Hello, sailor!

So far I have remembered why everyone seems so crazy about packing light (a skill I have yet to grasp) and why traveling alone can be a drag. I also met some sweet and generous, legally married fags on the plane who helped me get started on the bus and U-bahn. So while I already know I couldn't hack the weather/sunlight ratio/land-lockedness of Berlin, it's great to know that if I do happen to meet my wife here I could get my romance with a side of health care benefits.

On the trip into the city from the airport I felt a lot like I remember feeling on my way into Amsterdam, years ago, the air has a similar quality, a potent greyness.

Here are some of the first things I noticed about Berlin:

-White birch trees

-A restaurant called: Piraten Restauranten, all done up in Arrrrghhh!

-Dark, cold canals

-Beautiful brickwork, hyper modern glass building in a row of ancient brick row houses

-Giant cheesey-looking sex stores: I passed at least four on the bus, the first one with a giant neon sign reading "LSD"- Love Sex Dreams

-Quite a few Thai massage parlors

-An old man with his hound on the bus

-The U-bahn is cute an cozy, almost kitschy. Everyone sits on a long bench, no seat segregation, which is covered with patterned vinyl that reminds me of a granmother's shelf lining

-In Kreuzberg there is graffitti *everywhere*. I love it!

-A four story brick building with a giant astronaut stencil on it

-Few non-white people

-Punk buying a beer at 11am outisde the U-Bahn station

-Tiny washing machine aptly called: Privileg

-Many of the younger people in Kreuzberg have dreads

-There doesn't seem to be many German restaurants around here, mostly Turkish, Middle Eastern, Asian, Mexican-influenced cafe food

-A small Kurdish demonstration was flanked by about 30 Polizei in drab green uniforms with lopsided little black berets. Just standing around looking fierce and unnecessary.

-Not many people where bright colors, mostly black and dark brown, red, blue and grey

-Something about the bricks and the climate and the vibe makes me guess that heroin is a popular drug here

-Most people speak some English

-Hipster stores are easily identifiable regardless of language or cultural differences

-I always feel unsure of my queerdar in other countries

-Long chartreuse budding willow whips streaming over the canal

-Lots of creaky bikes, bike lanes on everywhere on the sidewalk, demarked by a different texture and pattern of cobblestone

-Lots of vegetarian options (even some vegan!)

-Lots of piegeon and dog shit

-Milk coffee with Malt!

One of the German fags on the plane told me that Germans never smile at each other and everything is very constrained. I've been smiling extra hard. Whenever I'm in an atmosphere of constraint I get intense urges to act out and be extra crazy. Kreuzberg doesn't feel very tight, but we'll just see if it gets to me running amok.
I hope to go to Prague for a day or two as well, I've never been and feel like it would be a shame to miss it since I'm so close. If you have any must-experience ideas for me in Berlin or Paris, please email me. Generally for a long trip I do a couple of months of research and planning, whereas this time I bought my ticket a week ago and feel like I am flying by my seat-less pants!

As always, my main interests are: art (especially weird/underground), sex culture, queer culture, food, nature, and maybe some "lefty" (as Tara's German friend calls it), politics.

Enjoy yourself, no matter where in the world you are.

And many many thanks to those who helped me errand and pack, it made all the difference.

Something's Brewing...

That's what I generally say when a whole bunch of strange, surprising, intense and generally weird things happen in a short period of time. This was one of those weekends, I had a strong feeling about it from the get go, actually starting early in the week, and it did deliver, though as usual, not quite how I expected. I had another one of those "my worst fear" feelings about this weekend, which I have learned to really listen to, because in the last 5 months or so they have almost always been true. I did a lot to prepare myself, much of which worked wonders. Turns out my worst fear came true, or almost true, but I only had to deal with it remotely. Both damned and spared in the midst of a lot of unrelated astonishment and delight.

I was truly happy pretty much all Saturday, which was great and I had one of those days with which the summer was lousy, where multiple costume changes and destinations and purposes all kind of ran in a flurry together, always a little late, but with excellent results none the less. I don't really give a shit about Saturdays anymore, but this was a real, old-fashioned, early (for me) morning to late night party Saturday, full of fun, wherein I yelled at pro-Lifers while dressed in tampons, performed a stage-warming ritual in fancy lingerie and a transparent dress, celebrated Dolly Parton's birthday with a bunch of queers, and then went to a house party to give an ex a late solstice present. I had great, beautiful company all day, got exercise, looked consistently but variably weird and generally had a ball.

Today was a lovely affectionate late rise, long volunteer training, and the Sex Workers Art Show. Someone I once pegged as my possible wife was one of the performers.

Amongst all this a slew of unexpected communiques and correspondences from hazy distances, both physical and especially emotional, made their way to me. As well as a solid handful of strange coincidences. And more than one conversation initiated by another about this blog. I am left kind of reeling, over-stimulated and confused and feeling 50 flavors at once. I have an image of an off-kilter, beautiful but exaggerated carousel in my head. These times always feel significant but in a trapped-in-the-honeycomb sort of way, I can never really tell what shape the hive is or will be taking seen from the outside or from above.

Maybe my new theory about these things are that the compression points, those days that are so full of events and symbols and strangeness and joy and hurt and action that they leak into a brain flood and leave me scrambling for a dinghy of comprehension, and oar of direction, these times are the bits where the material bunches because the seam is about to change its course.
Like bones which have outgrown their muscles, maybe the life path pushes against its new growth, new turns, old territories sometimes, and the feeling of it is intense and confusing.
That was just so many very different metaphors right plop on top of each other. Obviously another sign. No, but seriously, this shit is BIZARRO all up over the place, every which way but loose, including loose, tasty, and gut-churning.

Maybe I just need to get out of the Mission.
Maybe things haven't been quite lively enough lately, so its all coming at once.
Maybe I just really need to go to sleep.

W4W and Me: You Defy Description

This past year, after each of two tough, but very different break-ups, I found myself turning to Craigs List as daily habit in my life. The first time, last March-June, I scanned the local Missed Connections forum daily, enjoying the distraction and entertainment, hoping to see myself reflected through another's desire (it's been a fantasy since I was 17 or so), finding solace in the hordes of other people lonely and hurting and strange and spewing. I don't own a TV, don't really consume any media except books and the two free weeklies (I am a bit embarrassed by being so poorly informed about current events and the like, but have yet to find a regular relevant source of clear, unspun news), wasn't watching movies, and no longer drink or smoke pot, so Missed Connections became my little escapism fix.

I almost never look at Missed Connections anymore. This time, it's the W4W section, which I've mentioned before. My roommate got me started on it and now I check it, generally several times daily, as a fascinating microcosm of the local gay/queer/lesbian/bi/trans communities. I examine the writing styles, and have learned general trends about what kinds of people write what kinds of ads, who is most likely a man trolling for sex pictures (a hot though amateur pic of a young, very femme girl in lingerie looking to hook up and exchange pics....NO MEN!-generally a dude), how more than any other category W4W is used as an online community/info center beyond just personals, and marvel at how much queers love passing judgement, policing each other and giving each other shit. Irene calls DVDs of HBO shows her "stories" like a grandma at home with Days of Our Lives, and W4W has become my stories. Oh right, and as of 2007, I occasionally get dates from there, though often when I'm not really trying.

When I was actually actively dating the last ex, I rarely perused W4W, and if I did I was usually looking for ladies who fit one or another of our fantasies, in the hopes we could find someone to fill out a particular role or gang up on. But despite, or perhaps because of all the trivial petty shit, name-calling and sizism and trans- and bi-phobic attitudes, beyond all of the ways it's so much like everywhere else in all the most mundane and embarrassing ways, it perfectly feeds my brain's craving for bite-sized pieces of fluffy, arousing, informative and occasionally soulful information.

And, I realize while writing this, although I often mourn the lessening of quality connections with empathy, compassion and sensory satisfaction between people that this world of cell phones and instant messenger and MySpace and blogs is weaning us from, I guess that the W4W forum also gives me the sense of belonging to an ersatz community, without facing the scorn of the Lex or running into my ex's or feeling invisible because of my generally femmey, weirdo presentation and male-oriented history and expansive desires. Being actually invisible can give you the freedom to be exactly who you are with confidence. It can also dehumanize people, inspire new heights of deception, and without accountability, bring out the worst.
Funny, that.

So this evening during my casual scroll, I came across a thread about a well-written ad. I love following the threads especially, they are a bit like anonymous exquisite corpses. So I went back and found the "OP" which is original posting in CL speak, and discovered it to be not only well written, but really resonant with many of my own feelings. So I emailed the poster and asked if I could re-print the ad here. She gave me her blessing so here it is for your reading pleasure. She is quite a bit older than me, and felt the age gap too significant to date, which was fine by me. But I feel the ad to be very apropos to what I am looking for.

My notes would be these:
1. I may put more importance on looks and interests than the author, though I have a very wide spectrum of what I find appealing in both those arenas.

2. I consider work to be anything on which you spend time, energy and hopefully some passion. In my (very privileged and also creative) world, work and finances are not necessarily corollary, though hopefully there is some of each.

3.Although I have practiced polyamory (much more difficult than the piano, which I gave up years ago) for about eight years, I am imagining my wife to be probably single. While I envision a poly marriage, with perhaps some periods of monogamy to help through rough patches, I want to get involved with someone who has the room not only in their hearts, but also in their bits and schedules to really fall deeply in love and intimacy, sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. To me this indicates someone who has had good practice with poly life, but happens to not have any super significant (in terms of romance and time commitment) partners at the moment. Perhaps some very casual, or occasional out-of-town lovers, but no relationships that would make her feel not single.

And here it is:

You Defy Description

Your looks and interests don't preoccupy me. What matters to me are your experiences, perceptions, and states of mind.

You know idiocy. What it is for you to completely screw up. Lose a chance. Miss a deadline. Blow a fuse. Lose your mind. Slip on a peel for real. Wound a lover. Lose your star. Sign a contract you know you’ll pay in blood.

You know many kinds of love. Romantic and silly. Unyielding and loyal. Coarse and exquisite, jealous and forgiving. Stirring-the-oatmeal love. Ancient, deep, recognition-love. Unrequited and tearing.

You know loss. Lover, family, goddamn body part stopped working, whatever it was. Crying in the shower. Getting through the days. Wincing away from the photographs, years later.

You know bliss. Music finding the heart of your ears. Touch. Image, sculpture, and narrative in visual motion. A glance, a smile, the simple phrases that wing the heart and make it sing. The body pushing against gravity to a great pleasure, to a finish line, beyond pain to submission, through silence to a timeless space of luminous ground.

You know surrender. To accept, in the big ways, that you’re not who you thought you were, or wanted to be, or thought you would become.

You know work. A steady hum. Combat and loyalties, crisis and crap, and even so, getting things done.

You know nature. Not just the elemental joy in rivers and mountains, kinship with that doe in the woods. Now, Being unconceals itself everywhere, you feel rapture in the concrete at Bush and Van Ness, a lost button, the rusty car hood.

You know connection. So you find it odd and hard to feel so much a-part-of-things -- not important, not unimportant, just a infinitesimal part of a whole -- in a culture peopled with many (not all) peripatetic, disconnected individuals, subjects who feel like objects, many of them scared and unhappy with who they are and what they’ve (not) got. You know you can’t hug total strangers, but sometimes you want to.

You have a job, a life, a family you talk to, friends. You have problems, you’re not perfect. You’re single. You’re thinking about “dating” and maybe in some moods you’re reluctant, in other moods optimistic. You’re more cautious than you used to be. You think if you meet the right person, something will click, there will be an opening of a sort. This frightens you a little but you’re willing to be open to it.

Me too.

If this post describes you, I have lots to learn from you. And maybe I have something to offer you. Though who knows? We'll never know unless we meet. -A.J Waterborne

My First Partial Offer

Well this weekend marked a milestone for SLWaW and a number of them for me, personally, but the most relevant of them was that I got a partial, mostly joking, potential offer for a maybe wife.

Someday.

She is gorgeous, over 20 years my senior, the girlfriend of dear friends of mine, and lives out of town. So there are some potential drawbacks (mostly the out of town part) and also a great deal more of getting-to-know in ways other than biblical. The road to wifey is neither short nor easy, well, at least it hasn't been for me. But I feel much encouraged by even casual interest in my proposition. It's exciting!

It reminds me of the rule I learned in my Arts Administration for the Independent Artist class (thank you Krista DeNio!): the guideline for promotion is a 10-1 ratio. If you flyer for an event, about 1 out of every 10 people who pick up a flyer will show up. Now I know that marriage is a little more specialized of an event than a Hanukkah-themed burlesque circus, or a plague of masturbating Pee-wees, at least in this town, but I figure after several hundred, or no more than a few thousand drunken offers of"oh, I'll be your wife!", something has got to pan out.
(The lovely lady in question was not drunk by the way, that's just how I envision future encounters or offers emerging: them drunk and clinging to their seething date, me Charlie Chaplining it out of there.)

Wow, I was just about to get so 90's lesbo. Well, I've been accused of being a 90's lesbo before, so I might as well go for it. What I was going to say was: as the fine film 'Go Fish'* taught us, "The Girl Is Out There."

So, one down, countless more to go. Hooray for the first, not-totally-single, step.







*As a 16 year old living in Baltimore, I went to the local small art theater no less than 3 times when Go Fish was in the theater. I clearly remember one time arranging for a mixed group of boy-girl couples and friends to go with me so I wouldn't seem so damn gay, though I'm unclear about to whom. (Same thing with 'The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls In Love'. As far as media went, if there were ladies who liked ladies, I ate it up, though I remember being a little confused at the time by the boxing butch.) Even at 16, I identified most with the butchy lethario, Daria. After at least one of my gleeful viewings I went, by myself, to the cute dyke cafe, the now defunct 'Cafe Diana'. My head swimming with Guinevere Turner's comely image, I got myself tea and cake and sat there amongst the lavender walls, glowing with feelings of satisfied lesbianism, about to burst with my own queerness, dying for someone to talk to me. Of course, no one ever talked to me, I must have looked like some very strange kid who (as Irene and I say about dudes in suits at the Lex, the local dyke bar) 'didn't know where I was'.
It turns out that I never really got the hang of 'lesbianism', per se, sexually I'm too curious and flexible, though I may be one in spirit. But it was the 90's, in Baltimore, and I still refused to say 'fag' out of respect and hadn't ever met a transperson yet and was desperately in love with my best friend and didn't even know I was goth. So lesbians, wherever I could get them, see them, be around them trying silently to make them love me, were it for me. No wonder I'm a 90's lesbian, I never really got to be one when that was all the queer I knew. Well, another psychological mystery solved. Ima go listen to some Ani.

How it Came To Be (and an apology to vegans and a note on Rev. Dr. Splashy Pants)

Ha, ha, folks and future wives of the world, pay no attention to that Reverend Dr. Splashy Pants. That's certainly the last time I leave my blog signed in. However, there's a point to be made here, which is that anyone who might deign to marry me will have to acclimate to my roommate and long-time companion, Reverend Dr. Splashy Pants. If you care to read more about him, skip to the end of this post.


Anyway, back to the creation myth of this blog. First, let me just state that it is hilarious to me to have a blog, not even taking into account the predictably absurd subject of said phenomenon. As a semi-luddistic, quit-all-online-social-network-sites-to-spare-my-own-sanity, regular ranter on the 2nd rate brand of connection technology has been weaning us on, this shit cracks me up. Perhaps now, I will re-exist as a valid human in the eyes of the middle-class, North American wold. Imagine that. Heh.

But it wasn't my idea! The coward's defense. Not my fault, I weakly protest. I just carried and birthed the chimera, near simultaneous brainchild of two esteemed inseminators. It's true, the inspiration was not my own, but in my to-be-expected wintry (who let it be December, already!?) hibernatory state, I did the unlikely act of following through with one of legion hare-brained schemes. If we look at it as a shiny new procrastination device away from the last dragging dregs of my undergraduate requirements, it makes a lot more sense. Partners to be, be forewarned! Procrastination is a vice I've yet to quit.

So what happened was something like this: I find myself in the all-too-familiar state of Heartbreak, U.S.A. Pop: me, and what looks like a bar-full of ladies bemoaning their single status on Craig's List. I have mostly accepted the realization (and accompanying sinking feeling) that I want a wife. The lovely and amazing lady frothing the foam on the brim of my heart has declined the position. Or more accurately, declined the position which leads to the potential of the position of wifehood. I am bummed.

I try to enlist several friends, most notably my youthful cohort "Irene" into writing me a personal ad. I tend to be overly wordy (ahem) which is boring to *me* on good ol' W4W, so why would anyone else want to read it? Plus its hard to decide for yourself what to put in and what by all that is holy must be left out, and I feel just about capable enough to slide another DVD into its fuzzy slit without grave incident. Irene and I joke a lot about the dangers of being too forthright about my wife-lust, especially on a personals site or say at a party, if we were to ever go to a party. Queer San Francisco in the aughts is not the Victorian aristocracy, where one's open coveting of a spouse was seen as a prudent and desirable social move. Irene agrees to write me an ad, but soon regrets her decision. And then, on the faded red couch by the window, her face alights; "We should make you a website, with pictures and a bunch of stuff about what you want in a wife and then you could update it and people could respond to you there!" Brilliant and daunting. Ridiculous and expository. My cup of tea.

Approximately 24 hours later, I'm spilling my soggy beans all over Dr. Carol Queen and her partner, Robert Lawrence, at a fantastically decadent belated birthday dinner for me. We've been sadly out of touch due to the San Franciscan one-two punch of prohibitive busy-ness and anti-social depression (it seems it's always either "can't squeeze you in the book", or "can't leave the house", around here). They give me good news, I simper over lost love, we feed each other sushi. I reveal my wife-lust revelation, saying something along the lines of: "I just want a wife. A wife I can cover with tentacles and Ikura and take pictures and dine off of." Robert offers to be the napkin. Carol perks, not up, as she is naturally ebullient, but again, and offers this thought: "What you need to do is take a picture of you with your trophy from the Good Vibes Film Fest, and put up a website saying 'I want a wife who I can cover with tentacles', cuz it wouldn't be any good if you got a vegan, no-flesh kind of wife if the tentacle thing is important to you. Might as well be up front about it."
Amazing!
Two of the most influential women of my life suggesting the same basic concept within a day or so of each other?

And some beautiful girl may be besotted by the incandescent glow and scrambled pixels of my bizarre efforts?

And it means I can spend valuable time writing on the computer, and *still* not get my school work done?

Ok, I'll do it!



An apology to the vegans:

It occurs to me that all of you lovely vegans may feel unduly maligned by my blog, yet in its infancy. I have loved, and hope to get the opportunity to continue to love my share of vegans, not that you all need my love to validate your choices. But as a "mermaid" in spirit and pescatarian eating habits, to whom good food is overwhelmingly important, it may be hard for me to partner with a vegan. And yes, I do have sploshy fantasies involving ex/rotic animal-based foodstuffs, and continue to be mesmerized by the magic of honey, and occasionally wear vintage furs, and often new leather. But I definitely admire the lessened footprint of waste and destruction left by a vegan lifestyle and enjoy cooking and eating vegan food, although the esteemed astrologist recently recommended I bulk up on comestible flesh. So I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you. Future wife, if you are vegan, I will love you just the same, and make you delicious garlic mashed potatoes and other delicacies sans animal oppression. I will still, however, be entranced by tentacles and ingest raw salmon with brain-soothing gusto and entertain my fantasy of someday keeping a milk spouting she-goat and a hive of honey-spouting bees.
I'm sure amongst all of the serious problems in the wide, wide world we can work it out.





A note on my friend and cohabitant, Rev Dr. Splashy Pants:

Kind of like Kombucha without any of the restorative properties, he is a beloved friend whose presence may seem hard to understand and nonsensical at first, acrid and brash and slightly less than palatable, but to whom, over prolonged exposure, it is hard not to become addicted. He has a very special way of appearing out of nowhere during intimate conversations, hovering in the doorway in his boxers or a towel with a cup of mind numbingly strong coffee in hand, and making just the right snarky non-sequitor to instill both deep love and provoke a disinterest in speaking him for the remainder of the day. He is one of my most loyal friends, and has aided my life path in many big and small ways, as well as impelling me to fall down on the ground wracked with laughter on a fairly regular basis. So basically, Rev Dr. Splashy Pants is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Plus he has "surprisingly impeccable dyke credentials", he assures me.

'Tis True, 'Tis True

It's kind of embarrassing. After spending about a decade pretty convinced that "marriage" or "spousedom" or "the big patriarchal celebration of misogynist ownership" was only a peripheral, take-it-or-leave-it, not-that-important-to-me grade interest, a shrug-worthy possibility at best, I realized about two months ago that I really... truly... Goddess-help-me... want a wife.
I figured out three primary reasons it took me until my latest of 20's to reach this conclusion.
And here they are:

1. Marriage had generally seemed to be about me and a boy.

This idea is outdated now, but has always kind of given me the heebie-jeebies. Make no mistake, I have had deep love, good love, even, with male-bodied partners in the past, but there is something about the het set-up of "man and wife" that turns pretty quickly to "neglect, abuse, deceit, divorce and potential uxoricide (thank *you*, wikipedia.com)" in my mind. I know that all of these phenomena are not exclusive to the straight world, but this is one of my visceral reactions (along with a nostalgic "aww...." for all of my beloved, former-potential husbands-to-be) to the idea of marrying a guy, and especially, a bio-guy. I know that happy, loving, lasting, straight (or so) married couples still exist and that there are wonderful husbands inhabiting the world. But I've long felt like those odds were definitely against me.

2. No one would ever want to marry me.

Now what kind of reason is that!? I'm just over my own self-loathing, OVER IT. It's true though, like the odd vegan masking an eating disorder (please excuse the metaphor, all of you healthy, lovely vegans!) this gripping belief in my own unlovableness, or uncommittable-to-ness, was often the gnarled face beneath the mask of reason #3. Well, fuck that shit. All sorts of people are attractive and irresistible to others for a host of obvious, mundane and unlikely reasons. I'm a person, and a generally pretty good one at that; why wouldn't someone, someone great, in fact, want to marry me?

3. Politics.

As a queer, and a feminist and a someone self-associated with a bunch of other identity-politicky labels, I'm aware of much of the problematic history and symbolism behind the institution of marriage, its ties to capitalism and its misogynistic roots.
As a sex worker and someone with an embryonic but earnest interest in radical politics, I feel even less inclined to get the state involved in my romantic life. All of these arguments seem to kind of fall apart for me when I think about the type of marriage I would want to be a part of.

* Would it be legal? - Who knows. Since I'm really interested in commitment with a lady, our options for legal marriage would be few, anyway, unless my bride-to-be is a transwoman and we fell under one of those strange birth certificate gender loop-holes. I love to travel, and don't know enough about the legal benefits and repercussions, if any, for a foreign state-sanctioned union. It's the kind of decision I would want to collaborate on.

* Would it be monogamous? -I doubt it. While I have certainly had my fair share of trouble navigating the vast open waters of polyamory, I also feel that with my ideals, values, and self-knowledge about loving and sexuality, non-monogamy still makes the most sense for me. I also feel like I've reached the point in my emotional maturity where I can handle non-monogamy in an intentional way, with respect and integrity informed by a deeper knowledge of my own needs and limits.

*Would I feel free to take the conventions that ring really deeply true with me, and make up or fuck the rest? -Hellz yeah!
My primary interest is in commitment, collaboration, a partner in the beautiful crime of building a life full of wild wise dreams. Plus, I'm a ritualist, love costumes and parties, so a wedding of sorts seems fitting. As a person who deeply believes in reclaiming: words; like "queer" and "dyke" and "whore", concepts; like the sexuality that feels intense, dirty and hot, not the one that Dworkin says is right, I think that taking another traditional tool of oppression and subverting it for my own kinky, queer, whole-hearted, fierce-loving means is right up my alley.

In the end, it all comes down to feeling free; allowing myself to recognize what I really want and letting myself want it, not because of cultural expectations or a need to please my family or hegemonic pressure, but because it fits with my personality, my values, and my dreams for my life. If I let my early concepts of feminism or my latter fears of radical queer judgment curb my true desires, then what the fuck's the point in believing in freedom of expression or social equality? A simplistic, and unoriginal argument, I know, but dammit, I just want a wife. I just do. And as far as I'm concerned, the sooner I am un-conflicted with my own personal desires, the faster and better able I'll be to relax my own biases and address bigger problems.

I am reminded of Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Steven's recent show, "Exposed!" in which I got to play a small role. Before they explained their 7 year project of a wedding every year for seven years corresponding to each chakra point (http://www.loveartlab.org/) they opened the floor to the audience and asked for everyone's input on reasons not to get married, particularly as queer women. After hearing the audience's grievances regarding marriage, their anger at the commercialization of love and the LGBT's community perceived sell-out in the hopes of hetero-esque privilege and normalcy, Annie and Beth end the segment by saying, "yes, well we thought of all of that, and totally agree with it, too, but in the end....we decided....we just really want to get married!"

So here I go. Giving myself permission. Not just permission, but online exposition. It's a common, if not always conscious, tactic of mine, to burst open areas of shame and embarrassment by immediate and severe exhibitionism. There will be more, later, about what I want, my little fantasies, perhaps my progress, and not all of it will be tedious blah blah blah, some will most likely be absurd or toothsome or sexy blah blah blah.

But for now, let it be know, int0r-wide-webland: SADIE LUNE WANTS A WIFE!