Right now I am exploring gender and gender theory, trying to find the terms to explain how I see myself and how others see me. I am a woman through and through, but there is a good part of my personality that is masculine. Especially in the way I treat women. A friend and I once came to the decision that it was a type of modern chivalry. On a day to day basis I don't really get to play with my appearance and my enjoyment in blurring the lines between my physical appearance and my personal preferences.
The clothes that I wear the most often are my work scrubs. Scrubs, in general, are very androgynous, a male the same size could borrow just about any one of my uniforms and no one would know. For the time that is my own, I tend to wear jeans and whichever t-shirt or henley catches my eye first.
What I would really like to do is to play more with expressing that little bit of masculinity that is in my personality. Yes, I could cut my hair slightly differently, and, minus the huge boobs, I could be mistaken for a man. But that is not who I am right now. I say "right now" because I could be changing my mind about that down the road. I don't see that happening but whatever, moving on.
Regulars in my wardrobe include the dark wash jeans that I love so much I avoid washing them more than once a week unless I have to. I have my favorite pair of converse, with one of the "ALL STAR" tags sewn onto the tongue upside-down. There is also my beat up Adidas samba's that I wear to work. A belt is a must, usually black, with some sort of studs.
My hair is short, stopping just at the bottom of my ears, but with the top layers long rather than short in a pixie or boy cut. I have light blue eyes and wear nondescript black wire framed glasses. I have freckles, lots of freckles.
I am not skinny, nor obese, but somewhere in the middle. I switch between sizes 12-16 depending on how often I remember to eat, or how much stress I'm under. At just over 6ft tall, I have almost no curves aside from my breasts. And as so many men and a few woman have told me, they are quite a pair. At 38DDD, in a minimizer bra, I have a hard time even fitting into some of my scrub tops after they have gone through the wash.
Don't get me wrong here. I love my body. Yes I would love to take a bit off the middle and put it on my rear end but I'm ok with it. I just have a hard time finding clothes that both accentuate my body and don't show too much in all the wrong places. Most tops and shirts made for women are no where near long enough to cover enough cleavage to make me comfortable and keep my middle out of sight. And simply put, I can't afford to put a whole lot of money into my wardrobe right now.
There is one outfit that I like to wear out to the bar to make the night feel a little bit special. A sheer gray lace camisole over a black tank, topped by a mens vest from a three piece suit. It covers everything that I want to cover, and overlays feminine with the masculinity of the vest. In this outfit I can do just about anything. I have played pool and shuffleboard, gambled, flirted, talked, argued, cried, and celebrated. And never once did I feel like anything but me.
In this vest I can graciously accept a drink from a man, and then gracefully explain that I am to be considered a friend and not a quest for sex. In this vest I have competed for the attentions of a woman, and remained humble when I received more attention than the guys. In this vest I have listened to a man try to convince me that he can pleasure me as well as a woman can, and remained calm. And in this vest, I had to confidence to reply that I wasn't a lesbian because of what a woman can do to me but what I can do to a woman.
In this vest I have had deep and meaningful conversations. In this vest I have sought out the comfort of a good friend. In this vest I have sat in peace in a dark corner. In this vest I have found myself enjoying being the center of attention. In this vest I have drunk away my sorrows, and vented my frustrations. In this vest I have cried over the loss of my patients. In this vest I have celebrated the lives of those moved on.
In this vest I have found a part of myself I didn't know I had.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Change, Change, Change...
Originally, I had something else entirely in mind to write about today, but as I was leaving work my last words to Shay were "Apparently I'm pretty personable, and I didn't used to be."
Growing up as a military brat, naturally I moved around a lot. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere longer than four years in my entire life actually. Practically every other year I changed schools because we either got reassigned to another base, we moved to a different house across town, or moving up through the levels. One good thing that came about this was I generally found someone to be friends with fairly quickly each year, and, assuming I stayed in the same school I even kept a few. But constantly being the "new kid" had a lasting effect on me as well.
Throughout all my years in standard education, all of my peer relationships remained very shallow. The majority of the people I called my friends were on the outskirts of the social cliques at school. They (and myself) were considered the weird kids, set apart from the others for some reason or another. I remember some of them as being very bookish, or nerdy, and others as coming from less well-off families than most in the upper middle-class school districts. I remember Cody, the boy who sounded like he was gay. And Anna who always brought her various foster siblings to eat with us at the lunch table during their first few weeks at a new school. During my freshman year of high school I sat with my teammate Diana and her circle of friends, all of whom were Mexican and Latin American immigrants, so english was hardly ever spoken at that table. Pretty much only Diana and Mariana ever made an effort to include me in conversations, unless someone had a question about their schoolwork. Looking back, I sat with them just so that I wasn't sitting alone like the outcast I felt I was.
By the time I got to high school I had started doing my homework during my lunch hour, often skipping lunch entirely to study in the refuge of the special ed classroom (yes I was in special ed) or an empty hallway that was technically off limits because class was in session in that wing. During my junior year I joined the drill team, got a job at a fast food joint, and volunteered at the hospital before school. I kept my self going constantly, the concentration needed to keep my teenage ADHD mind on whatever task I was supposed to be doing pushing all other thoughts out of my mind, therefore sparing me the need to face the darker parts of my life since I had no time to think about them.
The people whom I called my friends when I spoke about them were merely acquaintances. I only speak to one person from my adolescence with any regularity, and she is also the only one I have sought out willingly. I was such a weird kid.
I know that the year I spent working alongside my sister did a lot to help me learn about who I really was. When you spend eight hours in a small room with only one or two other people and a number of infants, you talk about anything and everything. Over the course of a year, my sister and I discussed many different aspects of life, and for the first time in my life my opinions were voiced, heard, and respected. I started to let go of the dark and twisty teenager I had been.
But I think the biggest impact on my personal growth was done unintentionally by my boss, Scott, and my manager, Bonnie. Both of them are some of the nicest people I know, and they are the best people to work for. Scott himself is gay, and has been with his partner for nearly twenty years. He is very open about it with his employees, really only hiding his queer identity when it comes to our clients and their families. But if they ask him directly he is honest, and doesn't apologize for being himself. Bonnie is really open to ideas about anything and everything. You could broach the most off the wall idea and she will give it serious thought before criticizing it. She's from New York, so she was raised accepting people for who they are. With the atmosphere the two of them created at work, and having the comfort of knowing that there was no way I would be pushed out of my job because someone didn't like the fact that I was gay gave me the security I needed to come out at work.
The funniest part about me coming out to my various coworkers was my apprehension about Mama, the oldest employee at the company who considers all of us as her children. I will admit that because of her age, 64 years old, I stereotyped her as the person most likely to dislike me being so open about my sexuality. And in her true motherly fashion, Mama not only accepts it, but is the most curious about how I came to realize that I was gay and how it affects the rest of my life. Mama also had a big impact on my personal growth since coming out for the first time.
So I have moved from the girl who sat, invisible, on the fringes of society listening silently to everyone else. Today, I don't hide as much, have actually made the effort to interact with others outside of places where my presence is required. I now join in on other peoples conversations, voicing my opinions without (much) fear of rejection or opposition. My circle of people who I trust with my life hasn't gotten any bigger, but my network of friends and other people that I know has grown tenfold.
And more change is yet to come.....
Growing up as a military brat, naturally I moved around a lot. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere longer than four years in my entire life actually. Practically every other year I changed schools because we either got reassigned to another base, we moved to a different house across town, or moving up through the levels. One good thing that came about this was I generally found someone to be friends with fairly quickly each year, and, assuming I stayed in the same school I even kept a few. But constantly being the "new kid" had a lasting effect on me as well.
Throughout all my years in standard education, all of my peer relationships remained very shallow. The majority of the people I called my friends were on the outskirts of the social cliques at school. They (and myself) were considered the weird kids, set apart from the others for some reason or another. I remember some of them as being very bookish, or nerdy, and others as coming from less well-off families than most in the upper middle-class school districts. I remember Cody, the boy who sounded like he was gay. And Anna who always brought her various foster siblings to eat with us at the lunch table during their first few weeks at a new school. During my freshman year of high school I sat with my teammate Diana and her circle of friends, all of whom were Mexican and Latin American immigrants, so english was hardly ever spoken at that table. Pretty much only Diana and Mariana ever made an effort to include me in conversations, unless someone had a question about their schoolwork. Looking back, I sat with them just so that I wasn't sitting alone like the outcast I felt I was.
By the time I got to high school I had started doing my homework during my lunch hour, often skipping lunch entirely to study in the refuge of the special ed classroom (yes I was in special ed) or an empty hallway that was technically off limits because class was in session in that wing. During my junior year I joined the drill team, got a job at a fast food joint, and volunteered at the hospital before school. I kept my self going constantly, the concentration needed to keep my teenage ADHD mind on whatever task I was supposed to be doing pushing all other thoughts out of my mind, therefore sparing me the need to face the darker parts of my life since I had no time to think about them.
The people whom I called my friends when I spoke about them were merely acquaintances. I only speak to one person from my adolescence with any regularity, and she is also the only one I have sought out willingly. I was such a weird kid.
I know that the year I spent working alongside my sister did a lot to help me learn about who I really was. When you spend eight hours in a small room with only one or two other people and a number of infants, you talk about anything and everything. Over the course of a year, my sister and I discussed many different aspects of life, and for the first time in my life my opinions were voiced, heard, and respected. I started to let go of the dark and twisty teenager I had been.
But I think the biggest impact on my personal growth was done unintentionally by my boss, Scott, and my manager, Bonnie. Both of them are some of the nicest people I know, and they are the best people to work for. Scott himself is gay, and has been with his partner for nearly twenty years. He is very open about it with his employees, really only hiding his queer identity when it comes to our clients and their families. But if they ask him directly he is honest, and doesn't apologize for being himself. Bonnie is really open to ideas about anything and everything. You could broach the most off the wall idea and she will give it serious thought before criticizing it. She's from New York, so she was raised accepting people for who they are. With the atmosphere the two of them created at work, and having the comfort of knowing that there was no way I would be pushed out of my job because someone didn't like the fact that I was gay gave me the security I needed to come out at work.
The funniest part about me coming out to my various coworkers was my apprehension about Mama, the oldest employee at the company who considers all of us as her children. I will admit that because of her age, 64 years old, I stereotyped her as the person most likely to dislike me being so open about my sexuality. And in her true motherly fashion, Mama not only accepts it, but is the most curious about how I came to realize that I was gay and how it affects the rest of my life. Mama also had a big impact on my personal growth since coming out for the first time.
So I have moved from the girl who sat, invisible, on the fringes of society listening silently to everyone else. Today, I don't hide as much, have actually made the effort to interact with others outside of places where my presence is required. I now join in on other peoples conversations, voicing my opinions without (much) fear of rejection or opposition. My circle of people who I trust with my life hasn't gotten any bigger, but my network of friends and other people that I know has grown tenfold.
And more change is yet to come.....
About a Girl
For several months now I have had a crush on my favorite bartender. She's adorable, little, nice, funny, and in general one of my favorite people. Her style is just the right mix of princess and bad girl, but without the attitude that so many women of either type tend to have. She's hot as hell, and she knows it, but she takes compliments very well and flirts back to everyone.
She's a dream girl for me.
I'm not exactly sure when she and I actually met for the first time. I had gone to a bar with friends one night to celebrate someone's birthday, and I had really liked the place, and it was so close to both where I lived and worked. Soon I was going there once in a while, and several of the bartenders knew me and what I drank. One Friday after a particularly rough night at work I went down to the bar to drink off the bad shift. I bought my first drink and went out to the patio for a smoke since the bartenders were too busy to chit chat. After stewing over the mistakes I'd made at work and emptying my glass of everything but the ice I wandered back inside and discovered that there was a back bar, and there were stools available.
I sat down and waited for the bartender to ask what I was drinking. When she did, and found out that I drank Jack and Coke she screamed in excitement. Apparently she and I are just about the only women there who will drink whiskey. After introducing herself, Mara and I chit chatted between her various customers. And I liked her. She was so personable, the type of person who made friends everywhere she went.
Soon I became a regular at the back bar on Friday nights, and Mara would ask me if I was planning on coming in when she worked next. We have talked a lot about my job, my boss, my roommate, and I flirted with her every time I had a good line or sly comment for her. The deliberate sexy moves and sultry looks she gives me in response make my night every time.
Part of my fascination with Mara is how much she reminds me of my sister while being so different at the same time. Somewhere along the way I told her "I love you", I think it was when she told me to sit with her friend Bob when too many men were hitting on me and many of them weren't taking "I'm gay" as an answer.
Don't freak out about me telling Mara that I love her. Both she and I are the type of people who, when it comes to the people in our lives who matter to us, we make a point of reminding them that we love them on a regular basis. So I did not say it in a romantic sense, but rather out of affection.
Now, the whole point of me writing this post is actually to vent some frustration about my situation with Mara. If you're still reading this at this point, you may have guessed that the reason I haven't asked Mara out is that she is straight. And she is. So, totally, straight. *sigh*
Add this into the equation: Mara's day job, and my new second job are in different areas of the same company, her position in marketing and mine in patient care. She also has an office next to the administrators, and is technically management level. And I am a drone. Yet another barrier to me being anything other than friends with her. Oh, and she's asked that I don't let on to how much of a freak she really is. She has everyone there thinking she is an angel. And for the most part she is, but she has a wild streak a mile wide. She just hides it very, very well. And I can't even really talk about her at either job now. But more about that in a post about work later.
And again, something else, she's in a relationship with a guy, and it appears to have been building for some time. I am very familiar with the tendency of bartenders, especially young females (such as Mara, and several years ago my sister Des) to hide a relationship that they might be in because of the difference in the tips they get. What I don't get is how I have watched these two work together at the bar every Friday night for months and not realized that there was more going on. I was so blinded by my thoughts about Mara.
So, add it all together, and I am working on moving Mara from the column to the Potential Love Interest column to the Might as well be Family column. I made the decision to change how I see Mara on Wednesday after I realized that she actually was his girlfriend. Its really hard to tell how serious they are, but after some careful observation I can tell he cares for her, and she for him.
And I take great comfort in knowing that if he ever hurts Mara, there will be so many people after his ass that I won't have to hurt him myself. It will already be done before I have a chance to get there.
She's a dream girl for me.
I'm not exactly sure when she and I actually met for the first time. I had gone to a bar with friends one night to celebrate someone's birthday, and I had really liked the place, and it was so close to both where I lived and worked. Soon I was going there once in a while, and several of the bartenders knew me and what I drank. One Friday after a particularly rough night at work I went down to the bar to drink off the bad shift. I bought my first drink and went out to the patio for a smoke since the bartenders were too busy to chit chat. After stewing over the mistakes I'd made at work and emptying my glass of everything but the ice I wandered back inside and discovered that there was a back bar, and there were stools available.
I sat down and waited for the bartender to ask what I was drinking. When she did, and found out that I drank Jack and Coke she screamed in excitement. Apparently she and I are just about the only women there who will drink whiskey. After introducing herself, Mara and I chit chatted between her various customers. And I liked her. She was so personable, the type of person who made friends everywhere she went.
Soon I became a regular at the back bar on Friday nights, and Mara would ask me if I was planning on coming in when she worked next. We have talked a lot about my job, my boss, my roommate, and I flirted with her every time I had a good line or sly comment for her. The deliberate sexy moves and sultry looks she gives me in response make my night every time.
Part of my fascination with Mara is how much she reminds me of my sister while being so different at the same time. Somewhere along the way I told her "I love you", I think it was when she told me to sit with her friend Bob when too many men were hitting on me and many of them weren't taking "I'm gay" as an answer.
Don't freak out about me telling Mara that I love her. Both she and I are the type of people who, when it comes to the people in our lives who matter to us, we make a point of reminding them that we love them on a regular basis. So I did not say it in a romantic sense, but rather out of affection.
Now, the whole point of me writing this post is actually to vent some frustration about my situation with Mara. If you're still reading this at this point, you may have guessed that the reason I haven't asked Mara out is that she is straight. And she is. So, totally, straight. *sigh*
Add this into the equation: Mara's day job, and my new second job are in different areas of the same company, her position in marketing and mine in patient care. She also has an office next to the administrators, and is technically management level. And I am a drone. Yet another barrier to me being anything other than friends with her. Oh, and she's asked that I don't let on to how much of a freak she really is. She has everyone there thinking she is an angel. And for the most part she is, but she has a wild streak a mile wide. She just hides it very, very well. And I can't even really talk about her at either job now. But more about that in a post about work later.
And again, something else, she's in a relationship with a guy, and it appears to have been building for some time. I am very familiar with the tendency of bartenders, especially young females (such as Mara, and several years ago my sister Des) to hide a relationship that they might be in because of the difference in the tips they get. What I don't get is how I have watched these two work together at the bar every Friday night for months and not realized that there was more going on. I was so blinded by my thoughts about Mara.
So, add it all together, and I am working on moving Mara from the column to the Potential Love Interest column to the Might as well be Family column. I made the decision to change how I see Mara on Wednesday after I realized that she actually was his girlfriend. Its really hard to tell how serious they are, but after some careful observation I can tell he cares for her, and she for him.
And I take great comfort in knowing that if he ever hurts Mara, there will be so many people after his ass that I won't have to hurt him myself. It will already be done before I have a chance to get there.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Today I started a blog...
My friend Kist told me that I live a weird life. And she is so right about that.
Life changes so quickly on us, and recently mine has given me a wild ride. Throughout most of my life I have expressed myself through writing, and have shared my journals, thoughts, and ideas, with various family members. But there is so much going on in my life that I either can't talk to my family about, or choose not to. Many of the things running around in my head these days revolve around my identity as a lesbian, a tomboy, and a femme- all of which are topics I can't bring up with my family since I have yet to come out to them.
Well, that's not exactly accurate, my sisters both know that I am gay, and accept it. When I finally decided that I was gay, and not just bisexual, I had to talk to my sister Des about it. In all honesty, I was apprehensive about what her reaction. Des is the most important person in my life, and has been for years. She is the one I run to for everything, and I trust her above all else. I knew that she would eventually accept me for who I am simply because of how much we love each other. Over the years we have discussed just about everything, from having kids to dying, but I had studiously avoided talking about my interest in women. Even now I'm not exactly sure why. Best I can come up with is that I still thought it was just a phase, or that I so wanted Des's approval that I didn't want to chance anything changing her opinion of me.
The funny thing is, Des already knew that I was gay. She was actually surprised that I was afraid to come out to her in the first place. I hadn't realized that a large number of the people in her life are queer in one way or another. She was so excited for me, to have me come to the realization/decision that I was a lesbian, for me to be in my first lesbian relationship, as well as my first real relationship out of high school, for all the things that were going right in my life. And it was such a relief for me that have my interest in women out in the open with her.
The story of how I came to tell my little sister, Linny, is kinda interesting in itself, but it's also tied into why I haven't come out to my parents yet, so I will start with that.
My dad is in the military, and he, my mom, and my little sister have been stationed in Europe since my sophomore year of high school (and yes I of course lived there too, until I moved back to the states to go to college). When I was younger I remember my parents, mostly my mother, as being pretty homophobic. Even when I was a senior, there was a young man, Robbie, from my circle of queer friends who worked with my mom on a regular basis. I can't recall how the conversation came to this point, but I remember asking my mom if she knew that Robbie was gay. She said "Yes, I know. But I prefer not to think about that part of his life."
That was the end of that conversation.
My dad did not voice his opinion on gays nearly as often or quite as loudly as my mother did. So I am not sure what his personal ideas may be. In his medical practice though, he sticks to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". I have no clue as to whether he is just playing the company line on that one or if he is really as uncomfortable with it as it seems. Pair that with a history of some arguments becoming fights, and I refuse to tell my parents that I am gay until after my little sister has moved out of their house, lest she get in the way of a physical altercation. Also, there is my determination that I tell my parents face to face, yet I can only see them once a year without having to pay a few thousand dollars for plane tickets to Europe.
Last year my parents and sister actually came home for Christmas for the first time since we moved to Europe more than 5 years ago. The horrible snow storms we had the week leading up to and of Christmas prevented me from actually getting to spend any time with my parents, but my sister stayed with me on two separate occasions before the worst of the snow came. During those two days Linny and I got along better than we have since she learned to talk :).
At the end of the second day my parents came to pick up Linny, bringing a trunk full of groceries that filled the pantry of the house my roommate had bought, and we decided to exchange gifts then since it seemed unlikely that I would be driving an hour through the snow for the Christmas celebrations. In my little sisters gift was several designer Duckys, one of which she called the "Gay Pride Duck".
For the next two months the "Gay Pride Duck" and the idea that Linny knew I was gay popped up again and again. Finally, over Facebook chat, I asked her if there was a reason she had given me that particular duck. When she said no, I let it sit for a few minutes, then practically blurted it out. From how the rest of our conversation went it seemed that she didn't really care either way. When I saw her again, she was supportive of it, actually going as far as to ask about my love life. I don't know what words to use to describe how I felt knowing that both Des and Linny loved their lesbian sister.
Life changes so quickly on us, and recently mine has given me a wild ride. Throughout most of my life I have expressed myself through writing, and have shared my journals, thoughts, and ideas, with various family members. But there is so much going on in my life that I either can't talk to my family about, or choose not to. Many of the things running around in my head these days revolve around my identity as a lesbian, a tomboy, and a femme- all of which are topics I can't bring up with my family since I have yet to come out to them.
Well, that's not exactly accurate, my sisters both know that I am gay, and accept it. When I finally decided that I was gay, and not just bisexual, I had to talk to my sister Des about it. In all honesty, I was apprehensive about what her reaction. Des is the most important person in my life, and has been for years. She is the one I run to for everything, and I trust her above all else. I knew that she would eventually accept me for who I am simply because of how much we love each other. Over the years we have discussed just about everything, from having kids to dying, but I had studiously avoided talking about my interest in women. Even now I'm not exactly sure why. Best I can come up with is that I still thought it was just a phase, or that I so wanted Des's approval that I didn't want to chance anything changing her opinion of me.
The funny thing is, Des already knew that I was gay. She was actually surprised that I was afraid to come out to her in the first place. I hadn't realized that a large number of the people in her life are queer in one way or another. She was so excited for me, to have me come to the realization/decision that I was a lesbian, for me to be in my first lesbian relationship, as well as my first real relationship out of high school, for all the things that were going right in my life. And it was such a relief for me that have my interest in women out in the open with her.
The story of how I came to tell my little sister, Linny, is kinda interesting in itself, but it's also tied into why I haven't come out to my parents yet, so I will start with that.
My dad is in the military, and he, my mom, and my little sister have been stationed in Europe since my sophomore year of high school (and yes I of course lived there too, until I moved back to the states to go to college). When I was younger I remember my parents, mostly my mother, as being pretty homophobic. Even when I was a senior, there was a young man, Robbie, from my circle of queer friends who worked with my mom on a regular basis. I can't recall how the conversation came to this point, but I remember asking my mom if she knew that Robbie was gay. She said "Yes, I know. But I prefer not to think about that part of his life."
That was the end of that conversation.
My dad did not voice his opinion on gays nearly as often or quite as loudly as my mother did. So I am not sure what his personal ideas may be. In his medical practice though, he sticks to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". I have no clue as to whether he is just playing the company line on that one or if he is really as uncomfortable with it as it seems. Pair that with a history of some arguments becoming fights, and I refuse to tell my parents that I am gay until after my little sister has moved out of their house, lest she get in the way of a physical altercation. Also, there is my determination that I tell my parents face to face, yet I can only see them once a year without having to pay a few thousand dollars for plane tickets to Europe.
Last year my parents and sister actually came home for Christmas for the first time since we moved to Europe more than 5 years ago. The horrible snow storms we had the week leading up to and of Christmas prevented me from actually getting to spend any time with my parents, but my sister stayed with me on two separate occasions before the worst of the snow came. During those two days Linny and I got along better than we have since she learned to talk :).
At the end of the second day my parents came to pick up Linny, bringing a trunk full of groceries that filled the pantry of the house my roommate had bought, and we decided to exchange gifts then since it seemed unlikely that I would be driving an hour through the snow for the Christmas celebrations. In my little sisters gift was several designer Duckys, one of which she called the "Gay Pride Duck".
For the next two months the "Gay Pride Duck" and the idea that Linny knew I was gay popped up again and again. Finally, over Facebook chat, I asked her if there was a reason she had given me that particular duck. When she said no, I let it sit for a few minutes, then practically blurted it out. From how the rest of our conversation went it seemed that she didn't really care either way. When I saw her again, she was supportive of it, actually going as far as to ask about my love life. I don't know what words to use to describe how I felt knowing that both Des and Linny loved their lesbian sister.
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