Monthly Archives: June 2005

In Search of Femmes

Sometimes straight people are exceedingly stupid.

My last girlfriend and I were making out in front of a Scotiabank security camera, my eyes were peeking at what we looked like, tongues slipping and sliding inside girl mouths, when I heard a surprised man’s voice say “Thirza?”

It was some guy from school.

“She’s not gay,” he said of my sweetie, the woman I had just been macking on, the lady with dildos and harnesses and whips and lesbian porn in her bedroom.

“Well, no, she’s bisexual,” I said.

“No, she’s straight.” He was convinced. No way a girl could be that feminine and enjoy the company of other women, much less a rather masculine woman.

Some would argue that queer people are just as stupid. I think I have mentioned before the prevalance of dykes who shun uber-femme women in the community. I can’t tell you how many of my lovers told me their pissed off stories about being given dirty looks or ignored outright by card carrying homos.

It does make for some awkward moments, being a butch who likes femmes, who especially likes bisexuals, to carefully choose who is safe to make the moves on. And it’s true, in my life there have been many gorgeous femmes who turned out to be straight girls. But that doesn’t mean every well coiffed lady is straight as an arrow.

My left Foot

My left foot is in a terrible state of affairs. First I got three itchy red bumps on my sole, then I smashed my second to baby toe into a wheely chair and badly sprained and bruised it. It hurts to walk, which I do anyway, because it’s one of those pains in life that is bearable.

But highly annoying.

Neurogastroenterology

It is the study of neurons in your gut. We each have two brains, the big one in our head that gets all the attention, and the little one in your guts. Yes, there are seratonin receptors in the gut, along with numerous other neurotransmitters.

I have often wondered about the effects of bipolar on my body. I know how it affects my thinking and mood, but what about other things? Like when I was a kid, I used to get awful stomach pains before gym class, my all time most hated class. Later on someone told me that stomach pain in children is sometimes a type of migraine, which I ended up getting throughout most of my adolescence. Which I later found out is part of being bipolar.

There are other funny things about neurogastroenterology. Like this thing I have discovered recently where I feel physically ill around women I find attractive. I live in sheer terror of the day I meet someone so cute I puke all over them.

Born Nerdly. Since 1978.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I was a bit shy of technology. I was so anxious, I was sure if I touched it I would break it.

But geekness overcomes all.

I’m pretty comfortable learning tech stuff now, which is maybe why I had so much fun learning PowerPoint for the last three hours. I haven’t learned a new program in such a long time. I love learning them, it’s like doing a puzzle. It uses my brain in this completely fulfilling way. Anyway, I still have to learn Excel, which won’t be as much fun I’m sure. I mean, slotting things in boxes, eh. At least PowerPoint is kind of a narrative medium.

I learned it by going back and forth between my PowerPoint program and an online text tutorial. I’ve never done online tutorials before, except for website programming. Damn, I should do some refresher courses in websites, I haven’t made one in ages.

I’ve heard a rumour in the arts community that Arts Councils are going to start asking artists to submit their grant applications in an electronic form, ie PowerPoint. Soooo, anyone writing grants may as well learn the silly program now. It’s really simple, and you can do some pretty funny things with it.

Excel. Le sigh. I wish I was learning something more fun. Oh well, it’s an employable skill to have, may as well learn it too.

Wrecked @ Wreck Beach

In order to get this temping job, I have to do some online evaluations of my skills of an office worker. There’s about eight tests in all, including tests on Excell and Powerpoint, which I have never used although I’m sure I can learn quick. So I was going to drink some coffee and spend some time doing the tutorials for these programs, then taking the test and voila, ultimate temp.

It was Saturday night and I figured I would probably just learn it Sunday afternoon and do the online tests that evening. So when my friends invited me to hang out with them, of course I said yes.

We went to Wreck Beach, but it was the evening so people were clothed. There were herons and two seals. The herons had a nest way up in a tree above our section of the beach. The seals would swim up to us, looking at us, and then went away. They hung around for a very long time. They would swim by and stare at us, and they chased away the seagulls. I’d never seen seals in Vancouver before.

I have seen the killer whales though, on the ferry to Victoria, a number of times. I have dreams of killer whales. They’re huge.

It was really late when we were finally talked out and shivery and tired. We climbed back up the stairs. There are 390 stairs going from the road to the beach, really windy stairs. We took three breaks on our journey upwards. Huffing and puffing, I wondered what I would be like if I was still a smoker. Ugh.

We reach the top and the car is gone. Then we see the tow truck driving away with my friend’s car. Goodbye car.

My friend sits down and puts his head in his hands.

We walked and walked and walked and found an isolated deserted bus loop at two in the morning and caught the second last bus of the night. By the time we got home it was three in the morning.

I feel wrecked, but I still have to learn Powerpoint and Excell, take my evaluations, and go to my screening, all in the next twelve hours.

Crumbs.

Law Office Drag Donations, Anyone?

Well, the job hunt continues. I did get a call from an employment agency looking to place someone as an office services clerk in a law office. It’s work I’ve done before, way, way, in the past, so I’m up to the job. However I don’t really have a wardrobe than lends itself well to a law office. It’s perfectly fine for a call centre, but eee, I don’t think jeans and a t-shirt will go over well in a law office, even though I have gotten away with it before.

Aside from that, I’m just surfing jobs sites and then taking breaks to look up mini dachshunds, like this little fellow down in Washington, or his even more handsome brother. Just coveting puppies. I think either or them would be perfect for me, and oh so cute.

People have been acting pretty funny about my wanting a dog at the end of the summer. Some people are really happy about it, and then others get all grumbly and parental about the whole thing in this really ageist way that flies up my nose.

27 and I’m still dealing with ageism. I guess ageism is always there, it just changes. Whatever. Fuck you ageism!

Stef if you are reading this and it’s still Wednesday night, call me.

Tomorrow night Fit of Pique: The Zine will be showing at the Helen Pitt, along with many other zines made by emily carr students and others! It’s at 102-148 Alexander, 7:30 pm. Do come and flirt with me. And buy my zine.

My one regret about quitting smoking is I never did learn how to blow a smoke ring.

Thirteen days smoke free, and I am very very proud of myself.

Freak.

Today I had a massive nicotine crave and went for a walk to chill out. As I was walking along I came to a part of the sidewalk that had bushes on one side of it and a fence on the other. And there was one of THOSE sprinklers. You surely know the kind I mean, lean jets of water shooting out in a staccato like an AK-47 gone awry. It was “Shook! Shook! Shook!” coming at me, and there was nothing I could do but run as if my very soul depended on it. So I RAN! And then I stopped just as abruptly, because of course a sprinkler doesn’t travel that far.

So I continued on my walk and saw this lanky figure coming towards me with a big bag of laundry on her back, sunglasses, and a straw cowboy hat. Her hair was coming out every which way, and I thought “What a freak.”

I get closer and it’s my ex girlfriend.

“Were you running from that sprinkler?” she asks me, sort of laughing at me.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see it until now, I thought you were just another freak in the neighborhood.”

Another task accomplished

I’ve finally submitted my final write up of the videos I’ve curated for this year’s Out On Screen. It’s the Aboriginal Queer program, a really difficult theme to program because there really are so few aboriginals making openly queer work. It means you have to be a little more lenient about content, because not everyone’s making videos that scream “I’m a big queer native pervert.” Except for me. Ha ha, no, there are queer aboriginal filmmakers, it’s just we’re in such short supply.

Either way, it looks like it’s going to be a really great program. It’s got a nice even mix of men and women, although there’s no trans voice in the mix, which sort of sucks. I guess I’m trans, but I’m not super ultra trans. I’m just transgender butch. Whatever.

But at last I no longer have to worry about what’s going into this year’s program. Now I can just concentrate on looking for a job. Yay. Much fun.

I’m totally wired and twitchy from too much coffee. I drank two cups and a can of coke and it’s only 1:43. When my friend Lynn gets off work we are headed to the beach. It’s perfect beach weather.

Sick

The other day I was hanging around with some folks when the most disturbing thing happened. I was talking with a friend about getting a dog, and how sometimes it takes a while to housebreak a puppy. I mean, I have raised two puppies in my life, I remember cleaning up poop. Anyway, this other guy just says “No no no. You can housebreak a puppy in three weeks, you just have to rub it’s nose in it’s shit.” And my friend is nodding, and they’re all being very “We’re older than you and know best.”

Ugh, I have never hated a fellow human so much. I did serious heavy duty research in how to raise and own a dog over years of my life, reading all the books, going to obedience class. And if there’s one thing I know is that it’s cruelty to animals to rub a puppy’s nose in shit. What you’re supposed to do is keep your eye on it and scoot it outside when it looks like it’s going to pee or poop. And be ridiculously vocal and happy when they do it outside. I mean, would you rub a babies face in it’s own shit to potty train it? No, and a baby doesn’t even have the same highly developed sense of smell that a puppy has.

So I was really mad last night. I really hope they don’t expect me to be like that when my new best friend comes home, whenever that is.

The endless saga of my Cell phone

The other day the antennae on my cell snapped right off in my hand.

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”

‘What? Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here, I’m here!”

“I can’t hear you at all.”

“Arg!”

I am phoneless. Again. I went to the store today to get a new phone, but the one I wanted was too expensive UNLESS Customer Service mailed it to me in 2 to 3 business days, in which case I could save 50 bucks. Why? Why why why? Does that make any kind of sense to you? I mean, there it was, right in the store, I could have just gotten it then. Instead they have to put it in a wrapper and put postage on it and mail it out to SAVE MONEY. Weird.

Besides that, my phone had gotten a bad habit of turning itself off at random moments.

My new phone is really cute, it’s a flippy one too, I like those better than non flippies.

Oh yeah, so I get home and call the toll free number to order it AND THEIR OFFICES ARE CLOSED! Yet their store downtown was open? Ugh, I hate Fido sometimes.

So basically, if you call me before wednesday, I will be able to hear you perfectly, but you will only hear fragments of me. It is sad.