Pumpkin

It’s been a long hard night. One of many these days, with more to come. Will he live through them? I don’t know, being paralyzed is hard enough on a cat, but being diabetic and having bouts of pancreatitis? When is it all too much for either Pumpkin…or myself?

Pumpkin was a kitten once, raised with love and kindness- of that I am certain. When he was 4 or 5 though, something went wrong and he was left to fend for himself. He can not tell me if he simply went outside for the first time and got lost, or if his family had to move away and left him behind, or some other of the many tragedies that befall cats and dogs.

Without people, Pumpkin wandered and found the front porch of a kind man who fed him, took him in and let Pumpkin live with his other cats. It was a quiet residential street, with new homes and friendly people. Pumpkin lived inside, allowed out only to play in the grass, and to perch on the fence. Pumpkin, being a large docile orange cat, often lay in the sun on his backyard fence, always in view, just watching life.

He had a good life. An owner who loves him, friends to play with, a big house, and a quiet yard.


Dad went away to vacation with his fiancé, leaving his cats in care of a kind neighbor. All was well, Pumpkin doing his daily routine of waking up, stretching, eating, laying in the sun, eating some more and going back to sleep, as most cats enjoy.

The neighbor heard voices. She heard a gunshot. Just one- in a neighbor hood where gunshots are non-existent.

She went into the backyard to check on her kids and see if she could tell where the gunshot came from, and saw Pumpkin laying at the edge of her pool, which was odd as he never hopped the fence. Calling his name she went up to him.

Pumpkin was lying in a pool of blood, gasping in pain and shock. More blood trailed down the fence and across the dirt where he had rolled, coming to rest inches from the edge of the pool. 4 more inches and Pumpkin would have drowned, struggling to swim with a body that was…paralyzed.

Of course the next hours became a blur. The kind neighbor immediately took Pumpkin to veterinary emergency, all the while on her cell phone talking to his dad in Mexico. His dad got an emergency flight back to the states, and Pumpkin went into surgery with a top neurosurgeon to remove the pellets and bone fragments imbedded in his spine.

I have photos of Pumpkin laying on the surgery table. I did not know Pumpkin yet, nor his dad. The grief and horror in his peoples eyes comes from the photos like a down pour.


Pumpkin woke up, unable to walk, unable to urinate on his own, unable to do anything other than to lie and lap baby food from his dad’s fingers. Pumpkin woke up broken. The vet gave him a small chance of recovering the ability to sit up, walk and have a comfortable life. Euthanasia was recommended as a kind alternative for both Pumpkin’s family, and Pumpkin.

But Pumpkin’s dad didn’t want to give up on Pumpkin. Love is a powerful thing. Pumpkin came home to a padded crib, pain meds, diapers, walking slings, urinary catheters and a dad who researched any possible way to help Pumpkin do the impossible, to lead a normal comfortable cat life.

Pumpkin’s dad found the story of Boogar, my cat who was paralyzed at 4 weeks old and has lived his entire adult life thinking he is a perfectly normal cat, and living as if he is. Boogar does not walk, his hind legs are moistly useless. He can not urinate on his own…but he is happy, healthy and strong.

Through Boogar’s story, through the trials of attempting to track down someone like myself- living small and quiet- Pumpkin’s dad found me.

I worked with the top veterinary neuro surgeon in California. I’ve spent 30 years working specialty veterinary and emergency work.

So, time progressed and Pumpkin visited me every night for bladder care and other mobility needs. Dad has big huge strong hands, but he can’t feel everything with them, so he was not able to learn to express Pumpkin’s bladder. But he faithfully sling walked him, bathed him, took care of him, and drove him 20 miles every night to see me, for more than a year.

Pumpkin played with Boogar, sometimes spending the night. Pumpkin learned to stand, to walk. It took 3 years, but Pumpkin walks now, beyond all expectation.

Eventually, Pumpkin began to stay with me for several days at a time- allowing his dad to work long shifts and keep up on medical bills.

The economy took a header….

And Pumpkin’s dad was out of work. We worked out a trade- Pumpkin lives with me and I provide his medical care. Pumpkin’s dad helps me with things I can not do…

But…

This year Pumpkin came up diabetic. And sadly, we are unable to control his diabetes. I test his blood, his urine, monitor him closely at home, and at work…but sometimes he is low and sometimes he is high, and we worry that I’ll fail and fall asleep one night when he needs help…and he’ll die. He’s that kind of unstable.

Pumpkin has chronic pancreatitis, which also affects his insulin requirements. It is also brutally painful when he gets a bout of it, and the liquid diarrhea is horrible. I am grateful I work at a vet hospital. Pumpkin and Boogar come to work with me every day, and have the care of the staff.

I am grateful I am still working. I love Pumpkin’s dad, he’s become my adopted big brother. I care for Pumpkin, and Boogar loves him. But I can not provide what Pumpkin needs.


last month the outgoing vet bills for Pumpkin equaled my incoming paycheck.
Food, insulin, test strips, medications, and it is all I can do to keep him comfortable clean, and safe while he goes through this temporary bad time. Pancreatitis is treatable. Diabetes is treatable- although for 6 months we have not found true ‘control’ for Pumpkin.

Pumpkin needs a continuous blood glucose monitoring system. This is one where his blood sugar is sent to a scanner or computer every 5 to 10 minutes, so that I can track his ups and downs close enough to adjust his insulin like a person can. Blood tests every few hours on Pumpkin are not possible on a daily basis. His body is too small and he can not bear the constant needle stick in his veins & ears.

What he needs is a Guardian RT blood glucose monitoring system and supplies. I can get one… but I can not.
The unit is my monthly paycheck. The supplies are my monthly food bill. Insurance pays for this unit and supplies for human diabetics… but Pumpkin is a cat. A sweet, orange paralyzed cat….. who has learned to walk, to cope, to play again. Who is loved, well cared for…and enjoys his life.

A Guardian RT & supplies means I can control his blood sugar like a humans, with a long acting insulin at a low dose, and short acting insulin to knock down his blood sugar when it needs it.

So what is a Guardian RT? It’s a unit about the size of an egg that would ride on Pumpkin’s back or side, where he can not feel it. It has an implant into the skin. It samples blood sugar from body fluids- not blood- and sends a signal to a nearby computer every 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how you program it. It also sends alert signals- too low or too high.

Links

http://www.minimed.com/products/guardian/benefits.html

http://www.minimed.com/products/guardian/index.html

here’s the model he needs…Model number CSS72KNSM, which we can script out for him…if I can raise the finances for him.

http://www.minimed.com/products/guardian/pediatric.html



This is used by human kids and athletes for tight blood sugar control.
It could grant Pumpkin healing.
Some cats, well controlled revert to non-diabetic states. Well controlled, we might be able to control his pancreatitis…so it’s healed and done.

Is there anyone out there who can help?

Kadeth

words....

Once upon a time in the ancient lands of butch femme bullshit (where one of my aunts lived) there was a work that was used with disdain to describe those that could not would not choose one role or the other. They were called 'kiki'.

In some cultures there are words to describe someone who is neither male nor female, and depending on the culture that is either negative or positive.... perhaps plenty are neutral too.

Yet in this culture the words used to describe where ones head is at in regards to their body, and their sexuality are black and white, forceful, cut and dried.

Male. Female. FTM. MTF. Gay. Lesbian. Straight. Poly. Bi. Kinky...and so on.

It becomes a pissing contest, who's world do you fit into, what word to you claim- and identity is fragile.... we may have a core self, but our belief in our core is easily damaged, and we are lead to painful paths to un-selves that we wear and keep- sometimes for years.

Would that we could wear our true faces in public with acceptance and joy all around.

lol, damn optimistic idealistic dark angel....

Tales from Gender Zero...part 2

Tales from gender zero part 2

Whatever was I talking about? Oh yes, predetermined roles within the lesbian and greater community as defined by biological gender- or worse, the perceived gender cast upon you from the eyes of the many….

Not to say I do not enjoy role play, or try on new identity styles to see what projects the part I am OK sharing with you. But I am who I am….
Not to say I do not have baggage, I do. Some I keep carefully put away to examine and every so often say ‘yep, that’s mine!’ like a dog who will come back to a place she has buried a bone and check on it.
Some of it has passed into peaceful reminders of hard work over the years. I have spent long nights examining and evaluating, in my search for personal growth.
But no one is wound or baggage free…

Identity.
I keep asking myself how we decide who we are. I’ve noticed that aspects of my identity change over time, according to the friends I have. My core self is still the same, but my surface self is mutable, much the way style, fashion and hair are mutable.
I keep noticing that women I meet do a fair amount of posturing, display of a synthesized self that is some sort of display of their ‘wares’ those things we are taught defines us as good people and valuable potential partners. Their income, lifestyle, their look. Women are taught to market themselves to potential partners, to emphasize some things and downplay others. I’ve never lived as a man, not really so I don’t know- do men do that too? Sell their wares to a person who is looking to buy…as a partner.

What about those secret traits we hide that don’t fit what the rules say? The butch woman who is petrified of spiders, loves to bake cookies, and wants to bear children. The femme who wears a strap on and dominates her lover. More so, those secrets that mean we are not ‘ideal’ as ‘perfect partners’.

How many of us who wear our less than ideal truths where others can see simply get overlooked in the pursuit of perfection and that everlasting perfect partner fit?

Life leaves patterns of scars imbedded into the flesh and mind. But the spirit rises free above all trappings.

Who do we decide to become?

When I entered the gender reassignment program so long ago, and jumped through all the hoops I came across a snag in the process. The program at that time demanded a good fit into the traditional male role…and I was not traditional.
Punk rock beauty girl with the andro eyes and black smiths arms, my long hair and pretty face was held in question as the seriousness of my male identity.
Wasn’t I ‘just a butch dyke?’ Huh?
Wait a minute….then why do my butch friend insist I’m femme?

This pick one or the other, the be butch or be femme thing follows me everywhere and makes me just a little confused and crazy.
Like I said, my butch friends insisted I was femme. The transgender program asked me if I simply was a butch lesbian. Dualities. One or the other.
Do I have to pick one or the other? Male or Female? Butch or Femme?
Why?
I’m not that simple.

Pause. The hum of the needle, ink scripted into flesh, tribal fusion designs in my skin. Metal, ink, and transformation. Growth and the journey marked in pain, pride and decorations.
Now I am not so “femme” or at least not so stereotypical anything but punk hippy goth rocker alternative with the voice of an angel.

I was puzzled enough to ask them why they decided I was femme…and fresh meat for the group as well..
“You are pretty” they said. “If you are butch you need to cut that hair off. Get the Kohl out of your eyes, and wear baggy clothes.” “Well, your forward enough and you have the walk down, but no one will buy it…you are too pretty.” “Wear men’s clothes.” (I am) “No, wear real men’s cloths, you know, more…regular.” (you mean more boring? like business casual for men…please I have better taste than that)
“Look its simple,. You are just a femme. Butch women want you, you look like arm candy, you’d make a great wife. Man I would love to see you spread out on my pillow! I bet you taste pretty good…and Christ, you can cook anything! Quit fighting it and you’ll be happy.”

“If you are so butch, why do you have tattoo’s with flowers in them?” (if I am so femme, why do I have ink of dragons and tribal and since when do flowers or dragons in your ink define your sexuality, your gender identity{s}, or anything besides how you want to decorate yourself) “You are what you look like. Wanna go grab coffee?”

“I’ll make you happy baby. You won’t need to work, we can have a big house, you can have pets, and we’ll go out on the town. I bet you wash up real fine….”

“It is what it is. You don’t fit. You are not butch. You’re just a rough femme, kind of a street femme or a biker femme. Be happy butch women like you.”

One butch kindly let me know that sitting and looking pretty would be appropriate for me at a women’s event where we were all pitching in setting up event gear. She meant well….

So, what exactly is defined by the labels butch/femme? What does it mean to be femme? Butch? Is it just an identity assigned by visual assessment? Is it all and only about how you look? Isn’t it just an extension of the gender we are assigned by the look of our external genitalia? It’s about looking like something, isn’t it?

I don’t think so. Not entirely- just like gender is not entirely about what parts you have. Isn’t your choice to self identify as butch ore femme the mirror you choose to project that part of yourself you are safe showing? So, if it is an identity far beyond the surface, why then is the surface even considered?

Is there any inside self who wants a dashing odd lover with complexity, intelligence, a little kink and allot of self? … nail polish is still a disaster, and yes I have heels…on my feet, towards the back where my ankles end.

But the butch women who look at me like I’m some new dish just waiting to be served up for the taste and compare show…. And the femmes who tell me “Wow, you’re a hot dancer but I like short hair.” In a lover, do you just look for the right look? I know about preference and the chemistry connection that the eyes bring… but when chemistry fades what sustains your relationship.

What…you just break up and try again?

OK. I like some of them too, butch women…we make great pals. I like some femmes too. I can even shop with them, I have an eye for what looks good on anyone but me when I’m dragged to the mall. I also like gay men, straight women, rebels, dogs, cats, sushi, birds, watching paramecium’s, beaches, Zen koans, the moon, movies and really good coffee. But what I miss is a woman who is herself, above and beyond all other things. A woman who can go without roles and rules other than those she crafts for herself. Balance, depth, complexity with the awareness and openness to choose to see both herself and those others she wishes to care about as who they are.
Not as who they look to be.

Damn, maybe I do have it all wrong. Maybe I’m a looking for a man. A gay man. That’s it, I’m an alien gay leather boy in a female body! Great- that makes life complex.

About that time I stopped admitting I could cook anything I could taste. It helped a little. I also didn’t admit often that I loved flowers, planting them, smelling them, getting them as well as giving them. Once I hiked out in the hills to get the seeds of a particular tiny wild flower and bring them back to my yard. Now my femme friends thought this was interesting and possibly romantic (if the flowers bloomed) but far too sweaty and dirty to get involved with. My butch friends thought it was weird.
The ones who were just themselves?
Well a hike in the hills was good no matter what your gender, orientation or role affiliation was…..

I love hikes in the hills. I love them best with intelligent and complex conversation. I do like to talk, and I admit, I like to be listened to and respected (not patronized). I like to teach sometimes but more than that I like to discuss.

More than what your favorite show on TV is.

Or than listing what you ate and the calorie counts and oh how you wish you could just take a pill to loose weight. Lots of us want a magic pill that fixes weight, cures depression, balances our checkbook, gives us our dreams.

Traveling through this world, a beautiful long haired butch with an angel’s voice, I have met many people, loved a few of them. For some time the roles of butch and femme seemed to change, to diminish- it was no longer so important to self define and restrict yourself to these roles. I could be the magical prince with femme long hair and butch hands. And then time changes and the world moves on, and the roles evolve and come round in another variation. Just as styles of clothes recycle themselves, the styles of identity seem to as well.

Adventuring forth in search for a place where I could be the long haired leather girl prince alien with the butch hands and the angel’s voice, I found entrance into the dark worlds, the worlds of kink and passion, of roles and play laid out only for a night a scene or an agreement.
Heaven felt like home felt like forever in the arms of the night in the dark of the dungeon. There, my strong arms and intensity did not conflict with my looks. I was the pretty, long haired butch Dom gender queer. I was welcomed in the dark embrace of the forever night of S&M/B&D.
I miss that.
The playgrounds are far away, and I crave the company of someone who cares for me as well as the company of friends who accept me.

Did you know whippoorwills migrate through my area? As a child I read about some of the American mythology surrounding them. They say, when you hear a whippoorwill call, they are calling for a soul. They sing for the soul of someone who will die soon, or who has just died. They bear that soul away to where it needs to go.

For several nights, a flock of night birds have come over my house an hour or so after full dark. The sweetly call ‘whip-poor-WILL, whip-poor-WILL”… peeping sweet cries for almost an hour above my house.

Do I have no soul for them to bear away to sacred ground? Or does part of me die tonight? Perhaps it is the part that cares about dualities of perspective. Perhaps I become a modern day Berdache tonight.

And I am alone. Alone and not too lonely, but still looking and wondering who what where when how if will I may I mother night please grant me…
Love…..
Acceptance….
And the story……continues

I am not complaining about being alone. I am not. I have… a partner. I am complaining about being lonely in my solitude, and disconnected self from the self of the couple, or the society.

I was with a young lover for a brief time. A sweet little pillow princess with big eyes and a big heart. We had good times at first, she was at first comfortable with my self identity. But as commitment progressed I noticed a sad and terrible thing. As commitment progressed, the value of my self decreased. I saw the ugly head rearing of the social roles we are trained with…again.

She grew up watching her mother and father sort out very restrictive roles, and came out as a lesbian in a backwoods, throwback to the dark ages sort of town where women divided up who they were in patterns similar to the Christian marriages of the Bible belt. Drinking, monster truck bashes, beaten’ on your woman, and ten kids per family. High school education was maybe equal to a third grade education out here.

Are we what we learn to be? Or do we have the power, choice and strength to choose to become far beyond…

Commitment opened up an ugly can of worms. Where once I was that dashing and magical lover, I now became a possession to display for friends. Commitment equaled ownership, and cheating equaled…looking, a hug, a private conversation.
Power.
It was all about power.
The power to have control over life choices, over money, over your lover. The power to prevent your lover from leaving, or from looking, or from anything that could shake your foundation.
My young lover put away her skirts, and put on a scowl. She bought men’s business casuals and told me “I can support us both, you won’t need to work.” My raised eyebrow did not help the situation, so she frowned and said, “Your work interferes with our time together. So does your school. I make more money than you do. Quit it.” (quit what? I asked) “School and work! You have no time for us. This house is a mess, and I’d like to come home from work, sit down and have a nice meal with you sometime. I work all day so I deserve my rewards when I get home.” Deserve, what an interesting word, with it’s implication that I owe her this comfort, that I deny her this comfort by not providing my end of the unsaid gender based deal- the quiet house, cigar, slippers, home cooked meal, sex and all the rest, like her mom did for her dad. (I work all day too…) “Yah, but your work is different. We don’t need that.”
On and on. Power, dominion. Stepping into a role that connected back to butch femme dichotomies of 30 years ago, back to when we were all trying on the hats and costumes of man and wife to fit into a society that wasn’t really happy with us.

I did love her. I didn’t love her enough to quit work, or rather I wasn’t foolish enough to quit work, isolate, obey and permit the abuse of power to continue.

I left because once again, the pressure to conform to roles that mimics Midwestern, ‘leave it to beaver’ gender divisions reared it head. My young lover talked about how femme she was, and yes, in bed she was a pillow princess. But socialized in this world she was taught to value traits that are harshly stereotypically male. To control the choices in a relationship, to make the bulk of the big decisions. To make the income, and with that income to have power. To have the right to expect devoted, undying rapt attention to her every word, every need. It is wonderful to possess someone so completely that their every breath is tuned to your needs. A ‘wife’ is a delightful possession to have.

Think of it, someone who devoutly listens to your bad day at work, cooks you breakfast lunch and dinner, hands you coffee as you go out the door, always lets you decide where to go on weekends, couldn’t bother her pretty little head with the hard stuff like deciding what restaurant to eat at. Always ready to jump into bed, complementing you endlessly on your lovemaking abilities…

Yes, that was what my little pillow princess wanted. I understand. It’s hard to be a working, struggling lesbian. It’s nice to have the rapt devotion a mother will give her new born, to have your needs completely attended to.

This last weekend she called to chat. I don’t mind friendships with exes. It’s a good way to create community ties. Much of what draws us together is friendship, which is left after the heat of passion flares and burns out.

She called to tell me that she was willing to ‘take me back’, to tell me she loved me, wanted to marry me, wanted me to be her wife. She called to tell me that my job and career interfered with our relationship, and if I gave them up she would support me. We could try it again, if I gave up my job, my personal goals and focused instead on working on a relationship and keeping a comfortable home.

She told me she realized, after talking to other women that she was butch, and that I needed to accept that I was femme. That ‘it’ would have worked out between us, if only I had been willing to put in the work, and accept my place in the order of relationships.

I am so tired.
The whippoorwills are calling.

You know, after all these years I am beginning to wonder if I need to cast off my butch self and embrace being a femme.

After all, I am pretty, edging on beautiful. I have long sleek hair, the voice of an angel and the eyes of a lioness. My career which pays for my life alone, my entertainment, my cars and my house is obviously just a hobby, and my strap on packing nasty Dom self who can make you come until you pass out is obviously some sort of cover for a soft, gentle femme who wants to lay back and be done…

The crazy thing is, I am none of those things and all of those things. Male and female. Gentle, harsh. Dom, kinky and sweet. Pretty and hideous. Wise, and stupid. Dark….and light.

I keep wondering. With all the bad boys in the movies with long hair and an evil smile, why can’t I embrace my masculinity, my androgyny and keep my hair, keep my normal weight, and dress in my bad boy leather Dom clothes and be taken for what I feel I am? Can I be seen with depth?

I wish oh I wish for a lovely woman, a little alternative girl to accept me for what I am, love me for who I am, and not expect me to be anyone else would want to date me, fall in love with me, and spend her life with me.

Will the story continue? I do not know. I have been partnered yet single and solitary within for along time. Do I love? I don’t know. Can I be loved? I don’t know. Do I stay or must I go- or rather, do I stay and do I grow?
I am….
Many people. I am you, and me, mother and father, sister and brother.
I live everywhere. I am everyone…
Sometimes……..

We belong- we belong as a collective of 'tribes of one' who recognise each other and guard each others hearts and backs...

The truth of suffering We suffer. Life is neither all good or all bad. We Suffer. The truth of the cause of suffering We suffer because we are attached to how life exists, we are attached to life coming out a particular way, to suit us. When we don’t get that, we suffer. The truth of the end of suffering In order to reduce our suffering, we must reduce our attachment to outcomes, to patterns, to expectations. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering How we live creates a path to less suffering. A compassionate life, mindful thinking, perceptions that are congruent with current moment reality, these ideas help create a path to peaceful life. I don't know. I have a deep sense in inner peace and the ability to create peaceful life, but then I come to the path that leads me to hunger for tension, passion and the expression of inner pain. The Zen of Angst. The Tao of Despair. The sacred path of the artist, who can have peace yet is not peace. I crave company and intelligent conversation- and I am delighted to be making a conversation friend with Dagon, who's thoughts and mind I am getting quite attached to. The beauty of ideas- in a world where human adults choose complaciency to create comfort, when is a mockery of peace. Welcome to the dead zone of 'growing up'. I suspect I will never 'grow up', and will always appear as the immature 'didn't you get out of high school like 30 years ago?' artist, rock musician and general pied piper/ beast prince creature unable to settle for settling down. So for your entertainment and enjoyment, a little Zen of Angst and Tao of Despair...



and sometimes y'just have to get a little stupid for the day lol

One Day Off...

When all chance of hope has gone beyond reach and all chance for valor is lost- when hours of midnight turn round and round the pulse of wounds long healed- what then? When idle comes the day, and yet your spirit never rests, through thought, or pain, or hardship, through times of sleep and the false distance played of living out time in a mortal world- When there is nothing left of strength to keep going- What then?
Not to fall back into a comfortable cage, where the weary rest and feed while interested visitors observe and comment in simian tongue. Not to bow head and beg, nor whisper twisted prayers of appeasement and apology.
Not even to show a flicker of pain on the skin- no- never.
What then?
In the last minutes, when ever they come, how ever many times they come, whatever dance of repetition and dominion they cast over shuttered eyes- When staggered is what was once the steady beat of strength-
There is laughter. What lies before, behind, above and beneath becomes nothing, an ant, a gnat.
"Small chance of success, almost certain death- what are we waiting for?"
And here is where lies the difference between those we walk with and those we walk among.
We walk among those who shutter their hearts and hustle through, into a world of their own making, into comfort, into a dance of days without the beat of the aerie. We walk with those who always hear with their hearts the other beats- the beat of the war drums, the last thunder of the hearts of the dead, the space between the seconds- where all things truly lay....
All beginnings are endings, all endings beginnings, and everything that lies between is an illusion.
When idle thought stills the heart, and no more do the trees and sky sing the heralds- then, do we lay still? Fail? Fall?
How many times must we fall and rise, on bloody hands to stand straight- to look the enemy in the eye and smile, teeth shuttered in red, eyes shuttered in steel…
What then?
What then!
Let the hour of midnight come round once more, it is our time. Let us stand before the dawn hours among out own kind. In this place of no honor let us scream our names out for lord and land, for kin and tribe, for blood and honor, for one last time let us raise our blades above our heads and scream!
And then?
What then?
When the dust clears, and the smell of blood settles. When the song of steel lays quiet ion the air and tree song, bird song, breath song returns, we look around at each other and see who stands.
And again, even though we have laughed and expected death, have laughed at our chances, even then- we count ourselves still living, still standing, still having shield and sword.
In our hearts we know as long as we breath, there will be valor, there will be honor, there will still be a world just our of sight and reach of this one where we are welcomed home- where we will go in the some days of our endings on this world.
Across the void brothers and sisters I call to you to answer- to lord and land, come.
To lord and tribe! Come! To stand beside the valorous, to stand beside the last hero, the last king, the last warlord…. To each of these and thou, to be called to come and stand.
Come and stand!
In our voices raise, let there be thunder, let there be glory, let there be valor. Let our throats scream blood raw with joy and rage, with pain and ecstasy, and let we raise our fists sheltering steel to a sky we will never understand…
And then, only then….



I do not know if I can describe the world I live in- but it is not yours. I know, when I see you, I think of what I need to do to make you see me as one of your own, so that you will pass me by. Then, if I am lucky, I will be able to remain hidden, and return to my own place, my own world. When I see you, I watch you, to see if you are watching me close enough to catch the thought behind the face. The nice smile, does it disarm you? Make you think I am engaged with you? Maybe I am and maybe I am not- it all depends on how I assess your threat level, your social position, the power place you see yourself in. I have learned to mimic your gestures of affection, of submission, of surprise, pleasure, sorrow, pain. I have learned to mimic you as well as something can that is not you. In my world, we rub our heads against each other, press our faces against hair, to signal affection. We smell the air, to tell if we are safe. In my world, to hug, is to capture. To kiss, is to come too close to the face, threatening to bite. In my world, to meet someone’s eyes when you are speaking to them, and insist that they meet your is to demand they freeze in fight/flight/freezing panic, helpless to react by leaving, backing away or otherwise maintaining the right distance. From my world, standing in your world, to be touched by one of you is to instill instant confusion. In my world no one touches or is touched without invitation and permission. When you touch me I freeze, knowing that if I react as my nature tells me- to jerk away, to snarl and return the threat- I will be punished in some form, either by social ostracism, or verbal reprimand. So I submit to the torture of your hand, freezing, knowing I must neither run nor fight back, but paralyzed to do anything except hope you pull your hand away before I break.
I do not know if I can describe the world I live in, but it is not yours. In my world, one never touches another, unless the hand is seen, unless the touch is offered and accepted first. “May I touch you?” your kind never asks. My kind would rarely need to, my kind would know- you do not touch us, not unless you are our most trusted lover, or closest friend who knows the hidden language of our flesh. Our flesh speak is not your flesh speak. To be polite, as well as safe, we will never look at you when you are gripped by emotions that confuse your responses and thoughts. We will let you be. But you will not let us be. You demand we smile and speak and move our eyes the right way, greet those who are hostile to us, demure to those who have the power to harm us. You demand we stay where we are not safe, where we are watched, where we know we are in the hunters scope, surrounded by peasants with torches. You demand we stay!
Would you demand a tiger stay? Would you demand it pull it’s own teeth, it’s own claws, erase it’s stripes and learn to squint it’s eyes and smile while it wagged it’s tail, exactly like a domestic dog.
That is exactly what you ask of me when you demand I talk in your language. The language of your face, your body, your gossip, your small talk, your ‘social niceties’.
Is it no wonder that we flee from you, and you seek to punish us by ostracism, entrapment, and eviction from our safe places.
I can describe the world you demand I live in. It is a fake world. One of gossip, bickering, deceit, harm, hatefulness, lies and manipulation. Sometimes there are brief moment of cross over, where one of you looks at one of us and sees the wild one, with the blazing heart and mind. We always are looking at you. To look is to learn, to learn is to learn how to act, to act is to pass. To pass? Then you miss us.
We have many names. Weird. Eccentric. Unbalanced. Anti-social. Offensive. Rude. Other....
Many more names. I have many names, many identities. Mythic names....
You have names to us too. Cruel. Hateful. Mean. Herd animals. Talking monkeys.
And yet, it is demanded of us, we who know we are not of the same language as you, that we adapt and become like you, so as not to bother you. We are medicated, trained, harassed into changing who we are, so as not to bother you.
We do not bother you. We simply are not you, and you have chosen a society in which all who are not like you, are not different, no, they are against you.
How hateful.
Is it any wonder we would rather run with the animals? Is it any wonder the cats I live with speak my speak, the dogs I know speak my speak, the birds, the fish, the trees the lizards- they all speak my speak?
Did you forget you came from the ape and monkey tribes? Did you forget the mountain gorilla, mandrills, the greater and lesser apes? And before them, did you forget the bears? The mammals, the reptiles, the fish the protozoa?
All of them talk in scent, in gesture, in my language.
I can not describe my world but I can tell you, it is not yours. I can not find my way into your world, but I can tell you, I do not want it. I can not take you to my world, but I can tell you, I am not alone in it.
There are many of us. In alley ways, on street corners, in small, inoffensive jobs, hiding from your fists of medication and ‘communication skills training’, and lists of other such words that mean one thing- we are a threat to you. Our world is a threat to the structure of your own.
We know we are no threat. We want to be left to live in peace, to find each other, at most, to be permitted to walk freely in your world. We were born into it exactly the same as you. We are as smart, as capable. We can do many things, be many things. All we want is to be allowed to live out our lives as who we are, without your condemnation, your medication and your judgments.
Somewhere there is a field, lit with sun. The air is fresh. The trees are green, and the shadows deep. There is spring water, stone, caves, fruit, food. The people of my tribe gather there, to live out their days in peace and harmony, rubbing faces with loved ones, tasting the skins of friends, smelling the imprints of self. We run in the hills, sleep under the stars, and look to your cities with puzzled eyes, our mouths red with blood we innocently take. As you look towards our tribes with your puzzled eyes.



I am “weird”.

I live in my own world. I do not know if I can describe the world I live in, but it is not yours. Neither can I tell you of my language, except that it is not yours.

I do speak English, and was born and raised in California, in an English speaking home, so I can not say that English is my second language.

Human is.

I don’t speak human at all.

Which leads me to other questions that I asked people. “When you talk to others, are you acting? Do you really care? Are you genuinely interested in small talk?”

I don’t care much about other people. I’ll qualify that. I care about my own. I learn to care about my own, more or less.

I don’t think I care as much as others do. I don’t think I feel as much towards humans in general as others do. I can have a sense of tragedy, and with it, compassion, but there’s a huge part of me that is watching, thinking.



As a kid, I liked to play by myself. I was a dragon, a fish, a snake, a wolf, a vampire, a horse, a bug, a virus…. Not a princess, or mom, or nurse. And I will clarify, I didn’t pretend to be a dragon, I was one. I became one, I felt scales, claws, I thought in dragon speak, I saw others as ‘not dragon’.
Kids did not like to play with me much, which was pretty much fine. I liked to play what I liked, they played other stuff. House, bad guy good guy, stuff like that. I wasn’t ‘stuck up’ I just liked to play alone. I liked to talk to grown ups because I thought they were really interested in what I wanted to talk about. I thought their attention was genuine, when I wanted to talk about c-sections (I’d watched an early morning educational program that detailed surgeries), blood components, the life cycle of butterflies, Luna moths, planets, and so on. Whatever I was currently absorbed in. I realize now most of them probably thought I was entertaining with my being a little ‘know it all’ who couldn’t pronounce the big words right, but I really did know my subject. Anything that captivated me I would read to death, and think to death then think on it some more. “Pagurus”, Hermit Crabs. I learned the life cycle and Latin names, and checked the book on them out of the library so many times my name filled up the whole library card taped inside it.
While all of this was going on, my neighborhood kids/friends were riding biked, playing house and generally doing things that bored me to distraction.

In school I either held onto the yard duty and hid behind her, or got lost in the field catching grasshoppers and picking up rocks. I found fossils. I learned about fossils, and sedimentary rocks. I could tell you every type of grasshopper in that school field, each wing color variant, as well as they life cycle and what marked the change from nymph to adult. I could tell male and female grasshoppers as well, and was able to tell the difference between the locust types and grasshopper types, as well as crickets and katydids. I mimicked their sound when they flew, and spent hours lost watching and stalking them.
While everyone else played on the monkey bars and with big rubber balls. While the talking monkeys played, the strange one hid.

I didn’t meant to seem ‘stuck up’. I didn’t mean to speak in big words and talk forever on a subject. I didn’t know I was being teased when someone wanted me to ‘perform’. I didn't know that beings like me are a 'joke'.

I was graceful, fast and sleek. I sought the shadows even s a child, and lived for moonrise. I learned deadly grace later in life. It was intentionally ‘deadly’. I learned to fence. I learned to know when it was time to stand, and time to flee...and I learned most of all...

how to hide.

So here I am, out of the closet as a 'lesbian' or if you know me well enough to see through that shit- a ‘gender queer/gender variant’, as a member of the s-m/leather community (although I am not very active these days) as a 'Goth', as 'other'.... and yet beneath these skins there is the real savage other, who longs for companions who speak the same language, and hunt in the night........

For honor, and the steel of swords... and the steel of electric guitar strings taunt in the night

tales from gender zero... part one

Tales from gender zero

I was born pretty.
It wouldn’t have mattered what gender I was granted at birth, either way someone looking at me would have said “ Damn! That’s a pretty woman.” Or “ Damn! That’s a pretty man.” Either way, pretty edging into beautiful when the stars lined up right.

With beauty comes a price. You are what you look like.
I so understand those dykes who gain weight to hide beneath, those who create abrupt and unfathomable personal styles to push away the unwanted attention. Sometimes it is just easier to be ‘regular’ or what my mother called ‘plain’. The girl next door looks just fine dressed in sunshine a smile and her jeans…

I remember sitting with my lover with a group of other dykes. We were all just hanging out together for the comfort of being able to be openly out with our girlfriends and not catch any crap without having to go hide in a bar or club somewhere- event though this is the land of the free and the home of the brave there are plenty of places where being a lesbian couple in a public park is asking for unwanted attentions.
Se we all were sitting on the grass, hanging when this butch dyke came up to us and started talking with us all. I remember, she was older than all of us, and we thought she was so cool. She started talking about what makes a real butch and how all her wives had been named ‘Candy’, which I thought was strange as I didn’t know any woman named Candy, and having 3 wives with the same name seemed kind of weird. Imagine, all of us, just into our first year at college, away from home, in dorms or little one room apartments, sneaking to see our lovers or living openly with them. So proud to be lesbians, so out. We were so young and innocent.
So here we are and this woman is telling us how real lesbians divide up into ‘butch and femme’, and we are all just eating up her words. She’d been out when we were in grade school. She came over to where my partner and I were sitting and said to my partner and said “Damn that’s a foxy femme you have there.” , looking over me with that ‘I want to grab you by the hair and drag you off somewhere’ look. I learned later that she was looking for a new wife, a new Candy… My partner and I were puzzled, my partner considered herself femme, although she was taller than I, and I considered myself butch.
Puzzling over this at home, we shrugged it off.
However, the butch femme craze swept through our group of friends and suddenly, everyone was either butch or femme. There were no longer hippy women, rocker chicks, college book dorks and nerds, all women and all lesbian, free to be who they were and love another woman. Suddenly, we were all either butch or femme.
It was looks, just looks, and with looks came a list of expectations, social codes and rules, as well as a dress code.

It was baffling.

While we were all fascinated with this concept of social roles and gender based rituals, listing to N.R. (the older butch woman), we also began to seek approval; from her, and then transferred that onto each other. With the adopting of butch femme roles, we also adopted a mad rush to ‘get married’.

This was long before domestic partnership agreements, long before the words ‘marriage rights’ even applied to gay and lesbian couples. But there was a minister who would ‘marry’ you at the Unitarian church, and many of us scrambled over each other to pair up in ‘husband wife’ complements, and get married and go on to a mimicry of married bliss based roughly of the Cleaver family from ‘Leave it to Beaver’.

I remember one girl talking about making ‘texas toast’ for her lover for breakfast every morning, so she’d ask her to marry her. Friends raced to the woman pastor who did non denominational gay/lesbian weddings. Tuxes and wedding dresses, rented. Fast bachelor parties and bridal showers for young lesbian couples. Gifts to set up playing house with. Lover wouldn’t ask you, or wouldn’t marry you then you were nothing. There was no polyamory, was no ‘living together’. No, if you were a real lesbian, you were either butch or femme, and if you were a real couple you got married.
It was interesting, the most real lesbian was a butch woman. Now If I remember right a butch woman was everything a man could be but without the penis. More man then a man…but without the testicles. Femmes were lesbians too, because they were with butches, but interestingly, femmes were supposed to be easy to steal away, by a butcher woman….or a man.
So the validity of our choice to love women became dependant upon this social construct, this social role. Women who a month ago had been hiking with me in jeans and boots now refusing to go because it might mess up their nails and hair, and hitting the mall instead. Women who were hated sports suddenly going out ‘with the men( which mean the girls who were now butch)’ for pizza and beer on foot ball night. New fashions, new hair cuts, partners breaking up and reforming all lined up butch femme, butch femme. And my girlfriend being coached to rise to her butch self, and enforce certain relationship standards upon me. No more of this gender queer, amorphous androgyny, hippy girl who liked this punk rock androgyny… no…I was pretty, so I was the femme, the wife, the sub, and I needed to get my ass in the kitchen, be on my back in bed and make my woman feel like a man.
Ouch. Such painful days struggling to figure out why the women we hung with, and those new ones we met were so insistent upon these rules, wondering if these rules were right and correct…and if we would be happier obeying them.

My girlfriend put up her skirts, put away her jewelry and began wearing men’s clothes, and ties. My leathers hung in the closet, my beautiful punk rock gender queer clothes were met with frowns when we went out.
I learned to put on nail polish- a disaster which lasted two weeks, and instead of jeans and tee shirts, to wear little tube tops and camisoles. I tried heels I really did. I so missed my boots. I missed my leather. I missed being able to walk with my head up, with a swagger. Instead, I was to walk quietly and pretend to be interested in cooking, home making, makeup, parties and being….cute and stupid. In this group, at this moment femmes stayed home, did not work, were sexually available and submissive. Flirting was something femmes did at their own risk, a femme could get yelled at or beaten for leading a butch on. After all, a butch had a sex drive like a man, and if you ‘asked for it’ you got it.

That was what a femme was, in our world, in that moment.
I remember the little sweet girl who made ‘texas toast’ for her lover got married, and then stopped working. Then, she had black eyes. We all knew she was being beaten, but no one knew what to do. No domestic violence agencies worked with lesbian women then. Her girlfriend got slapped on the back and congratulated for keeping her girlfriend in line. After all, when they went out she had smiled at another woman…

Domestic violence ran rampant through my friends and it became a fad and fashion to hit your femme girlfriend, or yell and berate her loudly. After all, that was what real men did.

My partner got tons of positive feedback for her ascension into butchdom, and tons of good attention. It almost worked for her. Praise goes along way, but more so, the butch role had so many positive traits for her. The butch who was going somewhere in life, a career of importance, butches worked, went and got degrees, had a social life, could cruise other women. They were strong and powerful, respected and real. She made a great butch in public. I no longer went out with her, with these friends. After all, I was in denial of my femme self, exploring a transgender program, insisting that I had enough masculinity to at least be considered androgynous- even if I wouldn’t cut my hair. At home, I could be who I was, and she could shed her butch costume and climb into bed and be the woman she remembered.

Time passed. The roles hurt. We left this social group. We moved away. Butch femme roles were everywhere, so we lived in the country. Many of our friends moved away, embarrassed that they’d forced themselves, or each other into the tight roles we once swore were patriarchal trappings created to control reproductive rights and the balance of power by gender affiliations.

NR, the butch woman married one of us, beat her to a pulp, and went to jail threatening to get out and kill her errant wife (who’d escaped) or to kill herself.
When she got out she remarried within a month.

She is gone now, my beloved. There are many things that steal away a partner. Life, death, fear, loss… illness. We all come to the clearing at the end of the path sometime, we all reach the final stand.

Fast forward many years.

I am still beautiful. I am still butch. I still have long hair like a rock star and the voice of an angel.


By now you have formed an image in you imagination that describes to you what I look like. For some I will be tall, some small. My hair will come in different colors. I will be handsome, or pretty, dashing or alluring as your mental movie chooses to describe me.
Of course, you will not quite be right. When we hear a voice we imagine a person, and always, we are off.
That’s OK, what you imagine is just as real as anything else, for this moment, right now.

Real. I kept coming across women who define ‘real’ lesbian by narrow and limiting ideas. The older women who get together to watch “L word “ reruns, they talk about their butch identity defining ‘real lesbian’. In this group, a true lesbian is a butch lesbian, and femmes? Well you still need to keep your eye on them because they are like to run off with a man. Especially those who like penetration and strap on sex.
Hmm. So if a woman likes her g-spot massaged she might run off with a man?
I never knew or noticed that. Wow, where was I? I so thought a woman who wanted another woman to massage her g-spot might be…a lesbian? Which meant (I thought- struggle with me here brain cells) she liked….women.

They remind me so of that first butch woman, who told us all how to behave so that the world could identify who we were….

The young artist girl I talked to told me a real lesbian was woman identified, and rejected all masculinity, as a woman who was too butch, too ‘masculine’ was rejecting her natural state. Nature made her a woman, and a woman was a celebration…for all, no matter what they felt inside. Natural state…..

I was born pretty, born into a family with clear white middle class American gender roles played out before me, yet even there I watched ‘roles’ between my mother and father evolve as years went by and society changed. My mom, who once was a stay home mom, went to school worked. My dad, who once did ‘the commute’, was barely home except on Sunday in time to bring home the money, wash the car, mow the grass (until we learned we could get money to do it for him) and watch sports, became a man who loved to cook, loved his dogs (and his family) and found his creative side. My parents became who they were inside, together and side by side, sharing the work of life without regard to who was the ‘man’ and who was….not.

From this family I grew up with enough male inside to want to transition, loving women, and very …queer.

Another woman told me real lesbians are the ones who don’t use toys. She was quite angry and positive about this. If you liked toys, or needed lube, you were really straight and needed to get with a man. OK…. We didn’t date long.

One said you were only ‘real’ if you’d never slept with a man. Those women who once were with men could never be ‘real’ lesbians. Bisexual women, they were a class unto themselves. Curious, she seemed to have a passion for little straight girls who wanted to play gay… and was quite proud at the number of ‘straight’ girls she’d had and ‘turned’, described much like how a werewolf or vampire turns someone they bite.
I didn’t know if you made love to a straight girl she ‘turned’. I thought milk left too long in the refrigerator turned and you threw it out.

Real. I am not sure the word means what we hope it does. It becomes the definition of our limits of self, of the outside face we show, when we are so much much more….

I am a woman, I am a man, I am sacred, I am profane. I am beautiful I am horrible. I am dark….and I am light.
I am myself. Everything and nothing and all spaces between.
I am real.
I am also many other things as well…

I've come home....

Tentatively begin to renew creative process. I have gotten lost in the day to day, the mundane worlds opened with the rising of the sun and the call to work. For me, I cease to exist under the gaze of others, powerful demands that I shape shift into whatever they require for the moment. Old writing found and gone over, the pattern calls again- self be minimised, seek no comfort, bear witness and burden to the endless march of days without glory, steel and self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcPZM8fq_kE