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? 

A condiment conundrum

W and I have been fighting. Over condiments.

I spell the red stuff you dip your fries into this way:

c-a-t-s-u-p

and write it like that on the grocery list posted on the fridge.

“Who spells catsup that way?” W asks.

She says it with distaste. Like she has swallowed a pint of sour milk.

“What do you know?” I reply. ” You don’t even like catsup.”

“It’s just weird,” she says.

“I’ll tell you what’s weird,” I say. “Someone who dips their fries in mayo. You can’t trust someone who doesn’t believe in fries and catsup.”

“I think you can’t trust someone who spells ketchup c-at-s-u-p,” she says.

* * *

So, what is it folks? Catsup or ketchup? What do you dip your french fried potatoes in?  

 

 

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.

 

Grumpy butch

A text message from yesterday:

W: Do you want to go to Rocky Horror on 11/18?

W: Talking to J about getting tickets.

Me: I feel like I will be grumpy and annoyed, but I will go if you really want me to go.

W: Well that sounds like fun.

Me: You are a lucky woman, W.

W: Oh so lucky.

long pause

Me: I’m sorry

W: No worries. I got a ticket for you. J told me to.

Me: That’s my grumpy face.

W: That’s my happy kiss face.

* * *

The moral of the story? Find a partner who is adept at handling your bullshit with a smile and a kiss.

First date anniversary

Last night, W tells me it’s the ten-year anniversary of our first date.

I tell her how surreal it all seems.

When I look ahead to the next ten years, I picture my life with W by my side.

But when I go back in time to when we were first dating, it’s weird to think we ended up together.

When we talk about that first date, we always say we didn’t have any expectations, that we weren’t looking for anything serious.

That’s a lie. Everyone is always hoping for the best. For a love connection. For something as serious as a heart attack, but maybe not so life threatening. Serious like a foreign film or that season of the L Word when Dana gets cancer and dies.

Plus, we’re lesbians, which means, technically, we were only two dates removed from renting a U-Haul and moving in together. Talk about serious.

When I look back on that first date, I remember:

W insisting we split the bill at the pizza place where we ordered a couple of cheesesteaks, even though I would have been a chivalrous butch and picked up the tab.

W wearing jeans and a white ribbed tank underneath a black sweater. Her curves like a right hook.

After dinner, we walked to a pub and had beers.

Then we walked back toward the pizzeria and found a bench off the main street.

We talked for a while.

When it started to get late, W told me she didn’t want the night to end.

She hugged me long and hard as if she was trying to hold on to the night like that.

After a decade, parts of that September evening are fading from my memory.

I don’t remember what I wore or the words printed on W’s ribbed tank.

But I still remember the way her patchouli perfume smelled sweet and spicy.

The scratch of her sweater on the side of my cheek that reminded me I was alive.

The way her hair shined under the street lights.

How she felt solid in my arms.

I didn’t want the night to end either.

I didn’t tell her that.

I was too busy trying to remember all of the little things about her because I wasn’t sure how long it would be until our next date.

* * *

What do you remember about your first date?

This is love

Yesterday, I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee.

As I was getting out of bed, I saw W had the same idea.

Great minds bladders and all.

I really had to go.

“Can I go before you?” I asked. “I have to go like a 12.”

“I only have to go a 7,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“I love growing old with you,” I said.

Perfect

This is Sammy Long Legs.

We have weird cats. Sammy has long legs like a professional basketball player. He lays on his back with his body curved like a question mark. His head is at a constant tilt as if he is forever wondering what was that? what was that? He likes to have the top of his head scratched. If you do it right–hard with the tips of your nails–his lip will flip up like he’s Elvis and he’ll show a single tooth.

Last night, Sammy was laying stretched out on my lap, and I was telling him about the book of essays by Ann Patchett that I’m reading. And about how he is such a good, good, handsome boy. W reached over to pet him and tell him what a good, good, handsome boy he is, and he did that Elvis thing and showed his one tooth.

“How come I can love him just as he is but I can’t love myself like that?” she asked.

I didn’t have an answer.

“You can,” I said in a way that annoyed even me.

We are all perfect, but we don’t live that way. We’re always striving for something else, something better, something different, something more or maybe something less.

We’re too hard on ourselves. We expect too much. We’re all broken from childhood, broken from life and we’re doing the best we can with our shattered selves.

Maybe that’s why we search for love. For someone who will love us in all the ways we can’t love ourselves. Someone who sees our beauty when we can’t. Someone who holds us when we feel like we don’t deserve to be held and tells us all of our good points until we finally start believing them. Like they are truths that were there all along.

More cats.

Here’s the thing about me and W. We’re opposites.

She’s flip flops and tank tops and let’s sing all the words to Les Miserables at the top of our lungs. She’s car window open, hair blowing, naked toes pressed against the inside of my windshield. She’s lick the side of my face when I’m grumpy just to get me to smile.

I’m bright white T-shirts and cargo shorts and NPR. I’m crew socks, new sneakers, hair short and tight. I’m Windex and right angles and notebooks with lines. Always lines.

I could have chosen a thousand girls. But I chose W.

Sometimes she has to remind me that I like her wild ways.

“C’mon, you like it when I leave little toe prints on your windshield,” she says.

“No. I don’t,” I say. I roll my eyes and make that face.

But she knows it’s not true. I know it’s not true.

I like her quirks and oddities. Those things that make her unique. Those things that make her W.

Those things that make her perfect.

* * *

What makes your significant other perfect?