A birthday, bread pudding and Sheila E.

Your favorite butch had a birthday on Monday. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t you have one of those last year? And why is this blog always about you?

Anyway, I’m getting over a cold, so it was a quiet celebration. W took me out to dinner at a local pub, and we brought home a chocolate bread pudding that we shared in bed while watching The Office. I highly recommend this activity.

Shelia E. is in the house.

The day before my birthday, I had purchased tickets to see Sheila E. at City Winery in Philadelphia and then tweeted about it. On my birthday, Sheila E. responded with an enthusiastic “See you there!” followed by the prayer hands emoji and a dancing woman emoji. Which pretty much means that Sheila E. is my new girlfriend. I feel like this is a butch-femme coupling that people can really get behind. Also, this is me living the glamorous life in 2020 y’all.

But really, the best part of my birthday was being around W and other people who love me. One of the kids took me out to my favorite diner for breakfast and another gave me a Wonder Woman journal. And my family and friends called or texted to say Happy Birthday. I’d say that’s a birthday celebration fit for any butch lesbian king/queen. Like Sheila E says, “without love, it ain’t much, it ain’t much.”

* * *

W turns the big 5-0 this year, and we’re planning a vacation in the Caribbean. Looking for recommendations for an LGBTQ friendly resort.   

 

 

Living the life

Last night, I attended a wine tasting and poetry reading hosted by my book group at a local independent bookstore.

We sipped wine and ate chocolate and gabbed. I shared a poem called “Boomerang Valentine” by spoken word poet Andrea Gibson and a poem I wrote that was just published in a collection of gender-neutral love poems.

In between wines, I boasted about some pieces I’ve written that will be published later this year.

“I’m living the life,” I joked.

And then I wondered, what if I am living the life? What if this is it?

My stomach did a little flip like Charlotte Flair performing a moonsault. Woo!

I looked around at our group of 20 women who had come out to drink wine and listen to readings about love on a freezing February night.

Wine. Women. Words.

Living the life.

If you haven’t picked up Andrea Gibson’s new book, Lord of the Butterflies, I urge you to do so. Gift it to yourself or a loved one. Gibson is a spoken word poet who writes about gender, love and growing up liking only the boys they wanted to be. Their words will break your heart and repair it so it beats truer than it did before.

If you want more poetry, try Put Into Words, My Love by Pomme Journal. This petite book, which is about the size of a brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart, contains 57 gender-neutral musings on love, including my poem, “things that glow.” The accompanying line illustrations will make you smile. It’s the perfect I Love You gift for everyone on your list.

Who are your favorite poets? What are you reading these days? It’s been awhile. Let’s catch up.

 

 

 

I Want to Be with You Everywhere

Yes, I was wearing a flannel shirt.

W and I were in Atlantic City for the weekend.

We spent about five minutes in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino before we were overwhelmed by the grandness of it all. The lights, the bling, the music, the noise. We stood there in the lobby like a pair of lesbian Country Mice lost in the big city. 

After checking in, we retired to our fancy room, splurged on room service and then headed out to a Fleetwood Mac concert. That’s why we were in town. Fleetwood Mac was the last band on my concert bucket list.

The OG (Original Gypsy).

At 70, Stevie Nicks still has it. She was decked out in a raven black dress and black fringed shaw, clutched a tambourine in one hand and even executed her trademark triple twirl at the end of “Gypsy.”

The band was in fine form and played all its hits.

Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Neil Finn from Crowded House stood in for Lindsey Buckingham, who is not touring with the rest of the band. Fleetwood Mac celebrated Tom Petty in one of its encore songs by playing “Freefall” while a montage of Petty photographs, many of which showed him playing alongside Nicks, played on the big screen.

After the concert, W and I went out for a nice pasta dinner. We ended the night by grabbing some gelato and heading back up to our hotel room. A.C. was just starting to heat up, but what can I say? It was past our bedtime.

The next morning, W found a nice spot for breakfast, and we ate eggs by the bay before heading home.

It was a short getaway, but I feel rested and rejuvenated and in love with my wife.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

What’s new?

So, W got me these these for Valentine’s Day yesterday.

That’s my cat Magic on a pair of slippers. Isn’t she something?

Here’s Magic after she won the Women’s Smackdown championship.

In other news, I wrote a piece of flash fiction for the From LGBTQ+ With Love: The Fight Back Flash Competition sponsored by Writers’ HQ. My piece, “Girls,” made the shortlist. You can check it out here, along with the other submissions.

I also did an interview over at The Debutante Ball. Read to the end and find out how you can win a copy of my new book. Hurry, time’s running out.

One last thing. I’m obsessed with this promo from the upcoming Wonder Woman movie that combines two of my favorite things–Wonder Woman and the 80s. 1984 can’t get here fast enough, if you ask me.

That’s what’s new with me.

I’ve missed you.

What’s new with you? Please share one new thing in the comments section, below.

 

 

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?

 

Love and salad

W and I celebrate our wedding anniversary today.

We agreed not to get each other anything.

I plan to pick up a small cake and Olive Garden takeout as a surprise. W loves Olive Garden.

We’ll probably watch something on TV. Maybe the next episode of Wynonna Earp.

Nothing fancy. Just comfortable.

We’ll eat our dinner and watch a show.

W will let me raid her salad for all of the toppings she doesn’t like–onions, black olives and pepperoncini–and place them on my own. Hey, I’m Italian.

I’ll think about how lucky I am. All of those extra salad goodies every single time.

And how I’ve found my perfect match.

* * *

Why are you and your partner a perfect match?

 

 

Happy #ButchAppreciationDay

I hope you have someone in your life who:

Likes to run her hands over your slick-as-velvet head after you get your hair cut real short.

Calls you “baby.”

Tells you she gets turned on when you wear that ball cap backward. You know the one.

Likes when your necktie matches her dress.

Rubs your back when you’ve pulled a muscle.

Thinks every flannel shirt you own makes your eyes shine.

Is okay with you wearing your “dressy” T-shirt to that event you’re going to.

Tells you you’re cute and you believe it, even though you’ve never felt cute a day in your life.

Is the yin to your yang.

Asks you what you’d like her to wear when you’re going out on a date.

Still flirts with you regardless of the fact that you’ve been together for more than a decade.

Traces your scars (the ones you can see and the ones you can’t) with her fingertips when you’re lying in bed at night.

Makes you feel like a rockstar, even though you don’t play any instruments.

Tells you your tattoos are sexy.

Appreciates the hell out of you. Not despite those things that make you you but because of them.

* * *

I posted this a year ago. It still holds true.

A big silent head nod to all of my fellow butches on our special day. I’m going to have a drink and toast to you all tonight. Cheers!

Love birds

On my way home from my writers group, I saw two black crows by the side of the road. Giant crows with blue-black feathers and full, rounded breasts.

As they walked around inspecting the ground, each held a mouthful of dried straw, wild and tangled like a pile of fried noodles. No doubt, they were building a nest.

I smiled thinking about how nice it is to have a partner in life. Someone to share a cold gray March day. Someone to help build a cozy nest.

Today’s feelings: happy, grateful

* * *

What makes you happy these days? What are you grateful for? 

How I decided to not be a Grinch this year

“Let’s not get a Christmas tree this year,” I say to W. “We’re too busy to get one and set it up. The kids won’t enjoy it, because they never come out of their rooms. Plus, we can save the $100.”

“Oh,” she says in a quiet voice. “This might be the last Christmas we have in our house with the kids.”

But her voice is soft so I know I’ve won. No traveling to the Christmas tree farm, overpaying for a tree, lugging it home and into the house. No making sure it’s perfectly straight, stringing the lights, placing the ornaments just so and yelling at the cats to get the hell out of the goddamn tree. No boxing up the decorations and dragging the tree to the curb some weekend in January when the branches have started to droop and vacuuming pine needles for weeks and weeks and weeks, even though the tree has been long gone and is now barely a memory of Christmas past.

I rub my hands together and smile a big smile.

I feel a little bit bad. But I’m busy. So busy. With work. And other things. My manuscript is due in January and I’m freaking out. I haven’t written a blog post in for-ev-er.

Three days before Christmas, I start feeling a tad more bad.

Because W deserves better. She deserves a Christmas tree.

So when she is out for the evening, my son and I drive to a nursery and get a tree like we used to do in the old days, pre-W.

All of the trees are $45. My son wants a Charlie Brown tree, but I’m paying so I pick out a not too big, not too small tree with a straight spine.

She’s tall and slim with excellent posture like Hela in Thor: Ragnarok.

“It’s not going to fit in our car,” my son says.

“It’ll fit in the trunk,” I say. “Don’t you remember how we used to carry our trees in the trunk of our car.”

He says he doesn’t. He always says he doesn’t remember.

The kid at the nursery binds the tree and starts jamming it in the trunk of my Nissan Altima. He looks a little like the Grinch shoving Cindy Lou Who’s tree up the chimney for repair.

Hela barely fits in the trunk of my car. My son and I smile big goofy smiles at each other as the kid struggles with the tree. His smile saying see I told you. My smile saying see I told you, too.

On the way home, my son says we should have saved the $45.

“It’s a waste of time and money,” he says. “It’s going to take you two or three hours to get it set up.”

“One or one and a half,” I correct him. “But that’s not the point. It will make W happy,” I say.

I don’t tell him my secret wish for him. That I hope someday he has someone in his life who is worth such expense and bother.

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Plus, I got to pick out a tree with you,” I add.

At home, he helps me put the tree in the stand.

He doesn’t want to cut the plastic netting and watch the tree spread its arms or help string the lights or put on the star like he used to. He’s 18 not 8, and I ache for those 10 years.

I take my time and wind three strands of lights around Hela. When I’m done, I pull the lights to the front of the branches, the way W likes them.

Next, I put on the string of purple beads that W always had on her tiny tree in her Philadelphia apartment. Back then, I thought it was a strange—purple beads on a Christmas tree. Now, our tree doesn’t seem complete without them.

I place the silver star on the highest branch. A gold star below it.

The silver star was the one W always placed on her tree. The gold star was the one my son and used to decorate our tree.

When the kids were young, they would fight over which star we should use. We always used both to keep the peace. Now, it’s tradition.

I wait up for W, admiring my handiwork: a skinny tree with lights and purple beads and a silver star and a gold star.

“Oh,” she says when she comes home.

“I was going to ask you if we could get a tree,” she says.

“I’m sorry I’m such a Grinch,” I say. “I don’t mean to be.”

I kiss her.

“I know,” she says. “But you usually come around.”

She cries a tiny bit.

And I feel good. Like my heart has grown three sizes today.

* * *

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

(Especially you Grinches out there! You know who you are!)