On flannel and gratitude and Annie Oakley

Our youngest has a role in this year’s high school musical. They are performing “Annie Get Your Gun” this spring.

Yesterday afternoon, I took him to a couple of local thrift stores to look for a pair of cowboy boots. We found a pair that fit on sale for $14. Yeehaw!

I am letting him borrow a western-styled flannel shirt to wear in the play.

“Do you have a shirt my friend Sandy can borrow?” he asks.

As I am sorting through a pile of flannel looking for a shirt for his friend, I am struck by the volume of my collection.

Sometimes we take for granted all that we have. The roof over our heads, our overstocked pantry and freezer. The ability to buy a new shirt whenever and just because and flannel!

Even though we ended up going the thrift store route for the cowboy boots, we have the means to buy our kids new boots for a play, a suit jacket for chorus, tools for vo-tech.

Not everyone is so lucky.

“If any other kids need flannel shirts, let me know,” I tell him.

“Ok, I’ll tell the play director to let everyone know,” he says.

When W comes home that night we laugh.

We can’t wait to hear what he told the director of the play.

“My butch mother has flannel shirts for everyone!”

So stereotypical but so true.

Flannel, it’s for butches. It’s for young thespians and gunslingers and lumberjacks. Everyone, really.

So, yeah, it’s good to be butch. It’s good to share. And it’s good to remember to be grateful for all that we have.

* * *

What are you grateful for today?

What Fun Home taught me about being gay

When I was coming out 10 plus years ago, I was pretty sure I was doing it all wrong. Not so much the coming out part, but the being gay part.

Looking for guidance, I sent letters and e-mails to a variety of “accessible” celebrity lesbians. And Barney Frank. By “accessible,” I mean the rung below the power lesbians. The writers and activists who I thought might actually write me back. I asked everyone to identify the single most important thing that a gay person can do to further empower the community.

Alison Bechdel

I wrote to cartoonist Alison Bechdel, among other mildly famous lesbians. Back then, she was best known for her Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip. The magic that is Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home wouldn’t happen until 2006.

I can’t find Bechdel’s response, but I remember her sending one.

Everyone pretty much gave the same answer. Be yourself. Be out. It wasn’t the sexy revelation that I was looking for.

W and I often talk about how her experience as a gay person is different than mine. When I walk down the street with my short hair and cargo pants and baseball cap, it’s a political act. I’m out for the world to see in all of my boy/girl glory. Not so much for W. Unless I’m with her.

Flip to last Saturday and W and I are in New York City watching Fun Home the musical on Broadway.

Ring of Keys

I’ve heard the butch anthem “Ring of Keys” perhaps a hundred times.

But sitting there in the theater when the luncheonette doorbell rings and Sydney Lucas belts out “Ring of Keys,” I had an epiphany. I had been doing it right all along. With my short hair, dungarees and my lace-up boots.

Because that’s the best thing any of us can do. Be yourself. Be out.

It takes courage. And practice.

But if I can do it, anyone can.

I’ll blog some more on Fun Home, but wanted to get these thoughts down before they left me.