The butch had a birthday

I’m another year older and another year wiser.

I enjoyed a low-key birthday celebration with my beautiful wife, who agreed to see a movie about the world of professional wrestling with me. Now that’s what I call true love.

We capped our night out with dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

W was up last night with heartburn, and I suffered the consequences of eating leftover Mexican food for breakfast. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m questioning whether I really am any wiser than I was last year.

W got me some thoughtful gifts:

A little red flask.

An RBG jersey:

Plus, tickets for a concert featuring rock goddess Joan Jett.

Looks like this butch made out like a bandit because all I really wanted was to spend the day with my wife.

Mood: content.

 

 

 

 

Thanks

Your favorite butch blogger is thankful for many things.

Xena, Melissa, sneakers …

You know the list.

Heat, however, is not one of those things.

At the end of October, we discovered that our oil furnace was broken. We got a new furnace installed the day before Thanksgiving but are still waiting for the utility company to run a gas line to our house.

Our cats lined up for precious heat.

So, we’re living on space heaters. And flannel. I have never been more grateful for flannel.

We still had Thanksgiving at our house and hosted a party of 16. On that day, we were thankful for many things, including all of that body heat.

W’s birthday was on Saturday and we celebrated in true W fashion, wringing every possible ounce of joy out of the day. We started with an early breakfast and then walked around the Philadelphia zoo. We did a bit of shopping before catching Bohemian Rhapsody, which was better than I had anticipated. We capped off the day with dinner at an Italian restaurant, cake and presents.

I got W a bunch of things, including this sign that I had made.

W always thanks me for finding her. We met through Match.com, and I was the one who first reached out.

“I found you,” I always say. “I was driving along and there you were on the side of the road.” Or something silly like that.

What I never tell her is thank you for waiting for me.

* * *

Hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving! What are you feeling thankful for these days?

 

March madness

March was a crazy month.

I turned 50. Which means I’m vintage.

I got my AARP card, which I thought would make me super-sexy in W’s eyes. “She’ll have the Grand Slam,” I imagined me ordering for her at Denny’s and scoring points, as well as a sweet 15 percent discount. She just looked at me weird when I flashed the shiny red card at her.

I had a fun party that W put together with all of my friends and a top-of-the-line party bus that only played 80s music (including that Georgia Satellites song I love) and made stops at a local concert AND Victory Brewing.

No real flannel shirts were harmed in the making of this cake.

W had a custom cake made for me in the shape of a flannel shirt.

I got tons of loot. Notebooks and pens and wine and beer and gift cards for books. All of my favorite things.

I wore my new sneakers. Puma classics, black suede. So sweeeeet.

There’s more. On the night of my birthday, W gave me a bunch of little presents. We aren’t big gift givers, and I knew she was throwing me a birthday bash, so I wasn’t expecting much. Maybe a new necktie, a book, something emblazoned with the Wonder Woman logo.

I misspelled Seattle during the recreation.

She had created a handmade Scrabble board. Each box contained a set of Scrabble tiles. The tiles spelled out: TICKETS, SEATTLE, ALASKA, OLIVIA.

I don’t have a big bucket list. Just a few things I want to do, a few places I want to see. I’ve always wanted to spend a few days in Seattle. Take a cruise to Alaska. And go on an Olivia Cruise.

W had started planning all of this last summer without me suspecting a thing.

At the end of June, we are flying to Seattle for a few days. We’ll be there for Seattle Pride, and we already have reservations for brunch in the Space Needle. In Seattle, we’ll be boarding an Olivia cruise ship and setting sail for Alaska.

“It’s too much,” I said for much of March with a giant grin on my face.

There’s a part of me that still thinks it’s too much. Too expensive. Too extravagant. And that I’m not worthy.

I’ve been trying to silence those voices and be grateful. Grateful for being able to cross things off my bucket list. Grateful for an adventure, something to look forward to. Grateful for a cruise on a luxury liner filled with lesbians.

But mostly grateful for a wife who so carefully planned a special birthday and a trip of a lifetime for me.

It’s hard to be on this side of love. The receiving side.

But I’m trying.

So far, 50 is like a new pair of sneakers. Pretty sweet.

Good things come in twos

It was good to be this butch today.

First, I got a belated birthday gift.  When I wasn’t even expecting one.  And it is awesome.

Shows my love for baseball and beer.

It’s called the Clink-n-Drink.  It’s a bottle opener with a bunch of high powered magnets on the back.  So, you can stick it on any magnetic surface like a refrigerator or even a car for tailgating.  I told you it was awesome.  Butchtastic.

We also went out for burgers tonight for an event we dubbed “Celeburgerbration.”  Lots to celebrate, including my book deal and birthday.  Oh, and we have a local restaurant — a fancy Creole place — that has $6 burgers and fries on Thursday night.  I went for the Breakfast Burger, which is topped with a fried egg, bacon, Velveeta and onion straws.

Breakfast? Lunch? Who cares. Dig in!

They also have a donut burger (with bacon, of course) if you really like to get crazy with your sweet and savory.  You can check out the menu here if you’re into that sort of thing.

Mmmmm.  Donuts.

I tried a Starr Hill Pale Ale on draft, which was a winner.

Lots of great pairings tonight.  Burgers and beer.  Birthdays and beer.  Burgers and bacon.  Bacon and eggs.  Beer with everything!  I’ll have another BEER.

Here are a few more of my all-time favorite “couples”:

• Xena and Gabrielle.
• Birthday cake and ice cream.
• Butches and femmes.
• Dress shirt and tie.
• A good book and a cup of tea (Earl Gray).
• Liver and onions.

* * *

How about you?  What “twosomes” turn you on?

Giving and receiving

W and I wrapped up anniversary number one today.

We had a low-key afternoon yesterday.  We started out with a parent-teacher conference for one of the kids and then enjoyed a nice, quiet lunch.

After lunch, we stopped by a furniture store and ended up buying a new couch and love seat.  This is how you spend anniversaries when you are in your forties and have kids.

We did allot for some “grownup” time while the kids were still at school.  It was nice to be able to make love with the door open and without Animal Planet on in the background drowning out any sex noises.  Although sometimes it does add to the mood.

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, which is one of W’s favorites.  We exchanged cards and had a slice of cake.  She made a list of some of the things that she loves about me, which was really cute.  Especially because she included some of the things that I always assume drive her crazy.  Like the haphazard way that I make a bed.  Note: Never make a bed with a nurse.  They have received special training and schooling in bed making.

I had a dozen pink roses sent to W’s office today.  Sweet, I know.

The truth is that I wish I had the means to spoil her more.

It’s not that she’s a material girl.  Far from it.

She always tells me not to get her anything, but I always do.  And then she feels guilty.

So, what I’m really giving is a big ol’ box o guilt.  Which really isn’t all that generous or romantic after all.

I think the gift giving fills some void in me, though.

I’ve always been more of a giver than a receiver.  In more ways than one.

I’m definitely more comfortable in that role.

For one thing, I never know what to do with a gift or how to react upon opening one.  How surprised or happy am I supposed to be?  I wish each gift came with its own emotion card to cue me in on the proper reaction.  “Overjoyed.”  “Smugly Content.”  “Curiousity Piqued.”

I always do this weird thing where I vigorously shake every package like it could contain a ticking bomb and then guess its contents.  It’s my way of buying time before the big reveal.

“A book,” I’ll say.

“Another book?”

“Hey, a book.”

I tend to get a lot of books.

When I started thinking about my gift-receiving phobia, I immediately lasered in on my birthday party when I was in fourth grade.

My friends and I had bowled and eaten hot dogs, small bags of chips and cake, and now it was time to open my birthday presents.

Tricia Screpsi handed over a brightly wrapped box and made sure to let me know that her mother had picked it out and that I would absolutely hate it.

Everyone else silently nodded their heads in agreement, as the contents of the mystery package had been readily discussed in my absence.

With my friends gathered around, I ripped off the wrapping paper and slowly opened the box, bracing myself for something horrible.  A dissectible calf eye perhaps.  Or, a tiny Smurf village filled with Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

What I saw was so much worse.

It was a macramé purse.  Tricia Screpsi’s mother had bought me a macramé purse for my birthday.

Oh, the horror!

I’m not sure who was more embarrassed.  Me or Tricia Screpsi.

Mind you now, these were the 70s and macramé was huge.

But at the tender age of 10 I knew that a purse was not an accessory that I would ever want to carry.  In fact, the thought that someone, anyone, even Tricia Screpsi’s mother, who obviously knew nothing about me, would think that a purse, macramé or not, was a suitable gift for this 10-year-old girl was just plain humiliating.

I think I turned 50 shades of red that day.  Apparently, the memory has stuck with me.  As it is 2012.

So, my gift-receiving hang-up?  Tricia Screpsi’s mom got me much more than a macramé purse on that fated March day in 1976.

Thanks.  A lot.  Mrs. Screpsi.

Of course, there could be some other causes.  Like not feeling worthy of receiving a gift.  But it’s much easier to take it out on Tricia Screpsi’s mother.

See, I’m mean and spiteful like that.  So, not really deserving of that nice set of fruit jellies in the collectible jars after all.

Now, before you feel too bad for me, I did get a Charlie’s Angels board game from another friend that same birthday.  And that gift that totally rocked.

This is what a prepubescent butch lesbian wants for a birthday gift