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?

Middleage Butch screams like a little girl

The 20th Annual HRC Greater Philadelphia Gala is being held on Saturday.

A friend is a table captain and invited W and I to sit with her.

We aren’t familiar with this event, so W googled it while we were laying in bed last weekend.

W: It’s at the Marriott. Tickets are $200 each.

Me: I don’t know. That’s a lot of money.

W: It is, but it’s in the budget. We can afford it.

Me: I’d go if Ellen Page was going to be there. Or maybe Jodie Foster.

W (still reading): It’s black tie optional.

Me: Or Shane. I’d go if Shane was going to be there.

W: You need to be there. You wrote a book.

Me: Book. Schmook.

W: Chad Griffin is going to be there.

Me: That’s not doing anything for me.

W: Kate Moennig is going to be there!

Me: eeeeeeeeeee!

Me: Do you think I can touch Shane?

W: No. I don’t think that would be appropriate. You can shake her hand though.

Me: Do you think I can rub Shane, like for good luck?

W: No. Absolutely not. That’s creepy.

* * *

We declined my friend’s invitation. “I’ll kiss Shane for you,” she said. “I don’t want to kiss Shane. I want to be Shane,” I replied. W and I say we will go next year when we are power lesbians.

* * *

Who would you pay $200 to see at an event? Who makes you scream like a schoolgirl?

All caught up in The L Word

W and I are just emerging from a fugue-like state brought on by binge watching six seasons of The L Word.  That’s 78 episodes if you’re counting along at home.

W had been scanning through the offerings on Netflix and stumbled upon the series.  And there we were watching Jenny Schecter being accosted by Marina Ferrer in a bathroom somewhere in California.

One word.  Shane.

There was no stopping us once we got started.  We couldn’t get enough Bette, Tina, Alice and of course, Shane.  Swoon.

Now, I have to get back to my real life and stop pretending I’m a famous writer who hangs out in Los Angeles’ coolest coffee shop by day and attends only the hippest and hottest Girl/Grrrl parties by night.  (Please tell me all nine seasons of The Facts of Life are NOT on Netflix.  Just the thought is so tempting.)

We had watched The L Word when it first ran on Showtime.  Flash forward ten years, and here’s what stuck out this time around:

* Wow, what a groundbreaking show.  The L Word certainly was ahead of its time.  It paved the way for Girls and Orange Is the New Black.

* Are there no butch women in L.A.?  I used to think Shane was kinda butch.  She’s not.  Like Papi says upon meeting the legendary Shane: “You’re just a skinny white girl.”  So true.

* I always wanted to be Shane.  Or maybe Shane’s wingwoman.  You know, me and Shane hanging out, picking up the ladies.  This time around, I realized Shane is kinda a jerk.

* And what’s up with Shane’s hairstyling skills?  It’s tousling of hair.  That’s what it is.  Tousling.  Of hair.

Ivan, you rock.

* Ivan Aycock.  I want to be Ivan Aycock.

* Can you spell infidelity?  So much cheating.  Keep it in your pants, ladies.

* Jenny Schecter is actually interesting and likable in the first few seasons.  Whether you like her or hate her, there is no The L Word without her.

Max, you deserved better.

* Really, couldn’t you have been a little more sensitive toward the transitioning Max?  Max, I’ll be your friend.  We’ll go to a sports bar, drink some beer and eat some wings.  Forget those high femmes.  Call me.  And really Part 2: Did you have to make Max pregnant?  Really?

* What a total waste of Xena: Warrior Princess.  Um, you couldn’t find a better role for Lucy Lawless than some hack detective?  Other ideas: L.L. has an affair with Bette.  Or Xena herself chops off Jenny’s head with her sword, places it on a stake in front of The Planet and runs off with Alice.  No one saw that coming.  Discuss.

* * *

Ok, y’all remember The L Word. Why don’t we play Marry, Kill, Screw.  I’ll go first ’cause it’s my blog.

Marry — Tina because she seems the most normal.  Ands she’s cute.  Except when she’s with Henry.  She’s hideous then. (W votes for Tasha because she’s into all that officer/gentleman stuff.)

Kill — Everyone is going to say Jenny.  And, in a twist of irony, Jenny dies in the series finale. So, I’ll go with someone else.  I’ll go with Dylan because she is uber-annoying.  And she doesn’t deserve Helena, the British bombshell.  (W goes with Jenny.  She is wearing her “Kill Jenny Schecter” T-shirt as I type.)

Screw — Helena.  (W says Latino hottie Carmen.  She loves Carmen.  You have no idea.)

 

Lady luck and shooting stars

It’s December, but I see them everywhere.

I spot the first one on a windowsill in the upstairs bathroom.  A lonely lady bug walking along the painted white ledge while the outside cold seeps in through the gaps and cracks of the old window.

I offer my hand and she crawls onto it.  Her hard shell belies her delicate nature.  I admire her armor, which protects her sensitive parts from the world.  We are alike in that way.

As the month of December passes, I find more.  One on my bedside table.  Another on my bedroom windowsill.  Several end up on the bed, pacing back and forth on the striped flannel sheets.  I find one under my pillow as I’m positioning it for the night.  It’s as if someone else placed a wish there for me.  The universe, perhaps.  If you believe in those sorts of things.

I believe in those sorts of things.  Omens.  Signs.  Signs from God.  Signs from the universe.

I pay attention when a bevy of ladybugs takes up residence in my house in the middle of December.  And I seem to be the only one to spot them.

I know it is my animal totem.  At least one of them.  The one that matters at this moment.

But I don’t look it up.  I don’t want to know what it means.

Good luck, I imagine.  They are lucky ladybugs after all.

I don’t want to know any more.

December is my month to hibernate, to rest up for 2015.  I deserve it.  The nothingness.  I’ve earned it.  At least that’s what I tell myself.

On New Year’s Day, I look up ladybug as an animal totem.  It means “wish fulfilled.”  The appearance of a lady bug heralds a time of luck and protection in which wishes begin to be fulfilled.

I know that for my wishes to come true, I have to write.

I wonder why I resist so much.  Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing to do in the world is to pick up a pen and scratch out a few sentences.  Good sentences or bad sentences, it doesn’t matter.  Starting is always hard.

Even on the first day of the new year I don’t want to write.

No shame.

W shuts off the L Word reruns we are watching on Netflix.  Like she is my mother and knows what’s best for me.

She says she is helping me.

I just want to watch The L Word.

I figure I could be known for that.  Watching The L Word over and over and over again.  It was a groundbreaking drama.  Ten years ago.  But still.  Groundbreaking.  Where’s the shame in that?

Or online Scrabble.  I could just play Scrabble on my iPad on the intermediate setting.  How could there be any shame in Scrabble, America’s favorite word game?

But what I really want to be known as is a writer, which means I must write.

About ladybugs or The L Word or Scrabble.  It doesn’t really matter.  I just need to write.

* * *

Driving home on New Year’s Eve, we see a shooting star.

It’s a dot of white light that seems to fall from the sky.  A singular blip like the electronic “ball” in the game Pong.  It’s there and then it isn’t.

“Did you see that?” W asks.

“I did.”

It seems almost too perfect.  A shooting star to start off the new year.

I freeze inside.  Hold my breath.  I am too afraid to ask for anything, to make a wish.

Now, I am wondering if it is too late.  What’s the expiration date on a shooting star?

But maybe the wish part is optional.

Maybe it was the universe winking its eye.  Saying I’ve got this, I’ve got you.  No worries.  2015 is going to be epic.  Just you wait and see.