Anybody Know How to Get Glue Off Fingernails?

After a ridiculous swing-shift nap that got out of control last night into early this morning, I’m trying to recover some thoughts (feelings, even) about my very first non-fiction turn in front of a camera. It either was ok or amazing. I can’t tell.

I’m leaning toward the former, because stuff came out of my mouth. The only difference wast that I was doing it with one person operating a camera, one a boom mic held a foot above my face and one asking questions from a notebook. At the end, Kerry said she’d be able to use some of it, but that some of it would be hard to edit in.

The reason, she said, was that for the layman simply learning “how to come out,” my ideas might seem hard to grasp. During the interview, she asked about race and gender. And I just told some stories. After the first break, which came about ten minutes in as a result of some exterior noise, I was able to relax the tension I noticed had developed in me. And I asked how it was going.

Kelly, the interviewer, said I was a good storyteller. Cool. And Ronny, the 19-year-old kid holding the boom who was also there as a photographer, agreed. Cooler. Some problem spots I had came in trying to define butch-femme and how I fit into it. I think that was the question.

Well it turns out I actually have no idea. How do you answer that? I gave the obvious stuff. But then at some point I also said I don’t dress like this (whatever that even means, for fuck’s sake) because I’m “butch.” And I’m not “butch” because I dress like this. I got more confused as I went on, but I explored it through the words I was saying. I also observed to Kerry after it was all over that few of my answers were definitive. For instance, if I could take a pie chart, Kelly asked, and divide my identities up, how would it look.

You can’t do that. And I tried to explain the best I could that it depends on where I am, what mood I am in, and, frankly, which way the wind is blowing. I can’t talk about this stuff, or won’t, rather, without telling stories. And I had at least one for every question. Perhaps that’s why I am trying to write my book. Because I have stories and I want to tell them. But I like this setting, this format of documentary, because it’s not about just telling one story after another. It’s about developing a theme, my theme, and bringing everything together, all my identities, into one piece.

Another problem spot came when Kelly asked about my dating life. I had a bit of a laugh at first, and then tried to describe it. Laughable? Abysmal? My friends consider it entertaining. I realized I couldn’t really say good things about it. But I took full responsibility for my lack of success, and proceeded to talk about expressing need and communicating. I’m getting a little better at it, but am still choosing girls who don’t have the energy. But that turned into an interesting discussion about the “butch” dynamic. Again, though, I’m not “like this” (the care-taker at risk of my own feelings, the non-emotive one) because I’m “butch.” I’m not that bad to date, I finally said with a smirk. Or am I? Now I’ve made it public. To a gay public.

After that was over, Kelly had to leave. Ronny was shooting some still photographs, camera up in my face. Me talking. Me smoking. During this break, Kerry followed me outside and shot me leaning up against a wall. It’s frightening that I forgot the camera was there. I’m used to being watched. It was then time to play around. Kerry had the idea to have me put some press-on nails and lipstick on. She considered stepping out to get me me some mascara (please no), but Ronny told her I looked so different without my glasses that that would be enough. All along I thought it could be fun. After all, gender is play.

So I sat at the table and Ronny did his thing. During it, Kerry started packing up. But as I struggled to open the glue, having to do so with a pocket knife, as well as how to put this shit on, she grabbed her camera. My face perplexed while reading the directions, Ronny’s camera snapped picture after picture and Kerry walked around me going from my hands to my face. I was first disturbed after discovering I needed acetone to remove them. There was no way in hell I was leaving the house with red fingernails that extended half an inch over each finger. Kerry said she’d go get me some. “Yes you will, sister.”

The first nail I put on was my left thumb. I looked at it in horror. This shit is ugly. And I proceeded to apply the rest. But not without some struggle. I got some glue on my fingers, so when I tried to press them on, I pulled it right off with the glue. Ugh. I finally got the left hand done. And I stared at it. Ronny snapped my frustration from all angles with glee. “You’re enjoying this too much,” I told him. He shot my disgusted face through my outstretched hand. And then I had to do the other hand. Which meant I had to glue my clean hand with my fake-nail hand. What I now know is that stupid fake nails force your fingers into stupid, exaggerated forms. Marks of femininity that are lost on me.

I finally made it through, but not before losing one of them. The first one I applied. And not before screwing one up, which cut my circulation off of one finger. It was digging into my skin, but it was pretty much stuck there and so I tried to ignore it. Then it came time for the lipstick. Beaming Berry or Ruby Desire. *SIGH* “Don’t chicks use mirrors for this,” I asked. But the lighting was good where I was, so using the bathroom wasn’t an option. “I have an idea.” I went and got the biggest steak knife we have and used that to apply it.

Both of the visual artists seemed to delight at that choice and scrambled for position as I applied Ruby Desire. For fuck’s sake this sucks. And then Kerry wanted me to get my tattoo taken, because, she said, it was sort of masculine. So I had to take my shirt off. (I had a t-shirt on underneath, thank you.) But I had to unbutton it. Ugh. Five minutes later, after suffering through each button with the stupid nails on, it came off. And there I posed, white t-shirt, jeans, fake fingernails and lipstick.

Ronny asked me to take my glasses off and called me Clark Kent, shocked still apparently at how different I look with them off. “Maybe that’s why my dating career sucks; I look like two different people.” I took them off and Ronny shot some pictures and hummed the theme to Superman. I thought it was all over, and Kerry said she was gonna go get some more exterior shots. Ronny and I talked. And the entire afternoon’s subject seemed moot as I listened to Ronny’s story about growing up in Ecuador after his parents left him there when they moved here.

He just joined them three years ago. Growing up without his parents like that when he had a U.S. citizen brother sitting pretty in a nuclear family. He talked of the numerous times he tried to come up, both legally and not. And he talked of his passion for visual arts. It’s clear he loves it after discovering photography just three years ago. He’ll be taking classes at the International Center of Photography, and he already has photos in the Queens Museum of Art.

My story all of a sudden became unimportant. Or, perhaps, just different. And then Kerry busted in and told me to grab a clove and my shirt. Fuck. I went across the street to hear what her idea was. “That means I have to put this on. With fingernails.” She buttoned it for me. “Do you want me to tuck it in?” She tucked it in for me. Standing on the corner of President and 6th, Kerry stuffed the front of my shirt down the front of my pants. I tried to ignore the curious passersby, hoping the camera sitting on the tripod was enough to justify the strange activity. I went back to the front of my place and leaned against the wall, smoking with my red fingernails clutching my brown clove. Then it was finally all over. And I wasn’t waiting for acetone. I just pulled them off.

Anybody know how to get glue off fingernails?

Cross-Cultural Gender

My former roommate, Cornelia, is about to head back to Germany for the summer. So last night she had a going-away situation to officially mark her departure.

The dinner party was a quaint affair in a loft about ten minutes from where I live. I didn’t do the dinner-party aspect of it, though, because I got home when it started and I felt I needed some unwinding time. So I took it. When I got there, the people had just finished rifling through whatever it was they had eaten, the remnants of which were some blue chips in a big bowl. And a tasty tasty pitcher of mojitos (a dangerous summer-type drink, to be sure).

Sitting around the table were mostly Cornelia’s co-workers from ABC Carpet. All were older than I, some of them by much, and they weren’t American. Turkey and Russia were represented as far as I could tell, and there were a couple of others who kept their conversations confined to the space between them. All of the conversations were like that, in fact, so I decided to enter the one between Debbie, one of the few in attendance I knew, and Irena, one of the Russians.

I approached them by greeting Debbie who will soon be studying philosophy at Northwestern and who I hadn’t seen in a while. After the cheek kisses, she began to introduce me to Irena, but she had redirected her attention across the table. At this point I took a mojito sip to wait for her attention to return. And then…. “Hey,” she said to the man with the G-Shock watch sitting across the table, “do you know who he looks like.”

She was pointing at me. Now, I’m pretty sure I would have ignored it in other situations, amused at the 1,543rd gender mis-identification I had been the subject of. Maybe it was the shot of tequila I had when I got home or it could have been the mood I was in — the one being where I am not totally concerned with protecting anything on the inside, therefore not caring much about what people will think of me.

“She,” I corrected her matter-of-factly, void, however, of any offended tone.

“What’s that,” she asked, hoping she had not made the mistake she now knew she had.

“She.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. It happens all the time. I wrote my thesis about it.”

“Your what?”

“My thesis.” She was about to say “what” again, as she leaned in a bit toward me, but changed her mind and decided to look to Debbie for some help.

“Her what?”

“[Debbie's Russian translation of 'thesis,' which sounded much more like a description of a dissertation, but I let it go.]“

There was some recognition from Irena, but I wasn’t convinced.

“It’s just a big paper. It happens all the time. People think I’m a guy.”

“You know why they do, don’t you,” Irena said, as if she had the grand answer and was about to fix all of the problems that she perceived I had.

“Because I look like a guy?”

“Well, yes,” she said, but there was more.

And she ran her hand up and down through the space between us as though she were describing my outfit. I knew what was coming. “And because you try to–”

“I don’t try.” Stopped her short. “I just do. If I dressed like her,” I said, pointing to Debbie who was wearing a white skirt that rested just below her knee and a black tank top, “I would look like a drag queen.” She laughed.

“And your voice. Your voice–”

“Yeah. Deep. Freak of nature, I guess. And check out the size of my feet.” She laughed. I smiled. And so it began. Soon after, I was sitting down next to Debbie and talking to Irena about gender and sexuality. How it’s taboo in Russia. How, men especially, are ridiculed and can be arrested. “It’s not like that here.”

“Yes it is,” I said. “It’s easier now, though. I’ll give you that.”

By this time, she had engaged her Russian compatriot, Nutella (swear to god) who wore too much make-up but who I liked, to help her explain the state of gay Russia. “Yeah, I heard about this,” I said. “My therapist is over there now talking about me to a bunch of Russian therapists about how to deal with Russian gays coming out.” (Ok, she’s not talking just about me, but it sounded better at the time.)

“You have therapist? Why you have therapist?”

“Are you crazy? Everybody needs therapy. Especially if the therapist looks like mine.”

“No, no, no. Do you know, the therapists I sell the rugs to are crazy. One said she couldn’t buy this rug because it had boxes on it. And she said she would end up counting the boxes over and over again. See? Crazy. You don’t need therapist, you talk to family and friends.”

This went on for a little while, but by now, the entire table was listening. “The gay people think will sleep with just anybody, this guy this guy this guy,” she said.

“What about the straight people who ho?” I was feeling on a roll, cuz I was about to have her tell me the difference. But she looked confused, so Debbie had to translate. And then came ‘adomineva.’ “It’s about adomineva.”

I nodded. “Ok.” I waited to hear more about dominance in patriarchal Russia, which contributed to the bigotry we were talking about.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Yeah,” emphatically. “Adomineva.” Then a pause and more confusion from Irena. “Adomineva?”

“No! No! Adomineva, adomineva,” she said, slapping my forearm. Hard. Now I was baffled, lost in a translated mess far from anything resembling a point. I looked at Debbie for a line.

“Adam and Eve, Eva,” Debbie came back with under her breath. Ah. Got it.

“Katya [she called me], listen to me. Domineva — you know how everything begin with Adam, and then he took from his hip–”

“His rib,” Debbie and I corrected her in unison.

“Yes, yes, rib.” I wanted to tell her I learned about this when I was four but didn’t stop her. She continued, going to the men who go to work and the women who stay home. Ok, why are we talking about this again? I let her go on. Ten minutes later, after trying to interrupt a few times by assuring her Russia didn’t corner the patriarchy market, I realized she was lost in her own translation. Apparently Debbie’s Russian is worse than Irena’s English. With the conversation exhausted, my point lost, and my mojito tapped, I sat back in my chair.

Irena then started reading palms, or, rather, the fatty outside of the hand that forms with a firm fist. Apparently everyone’s having babies. “Read mine,” I said, shoving my fist at her, “but don’t you tell me I’m havin’ kids, cuz that’s not gonna happen.”

“How you know it doesn’t happen?”

“I do. Just look at my hand.”

“I see you will have kid, one, but it won’t be yours from the beginning.” Well isn’t that convenient?

“Irena, what about wealth and girls. What do I have to look forward by way of love and money?” She looked for a second or two and then someone butted in from four feet away –

“Can you tell if it will be a girl or boy?” For fuck’s sake. Give me my fist back. Irena would later tell me that I would be very happy and I asked her where she saw that. She said she didn’t see it on my hand but could just tell. All right, sister. So that was last night. Tonight was a much more interesting party situation in Williamsburg after hitting Gingers’ Brooklyn pride festivities.

I was there for about twenty-three minutes then Paige, Sonia and Sara and I took off. And I have to say, no matter how drunk I am, which I wasn’t very, I will always take pleasure in a detailed conversation about grammar and punctuation. I guess it gets bad when you end up diagramming a sentence on the back of a Heinekin label to help somebody identify the subject of a sentence. It was quite pleasurable, fielding questions that have stumped people for years about commas, semicolons and possession. Big dork, I am.

Singin’ at Rubyfruit

I just got back from Rubyfruit. The bar attracts quite an interesting mix of women of all ages and hairstyles. When you first get there, you have to just look around in awe. There was one particular woman who seemed to make it a point to talk to everyone in the place. A Brooklyn native wearing a black t-shirt advertising a New Jersey auto shop, she had a forceful voice and had no problem fondling the bare chests of women standing before her. One of the unfortunate women was Erin’s girlfriend, Megan. The poor girl was wearing a rather tight tanktop, which revealed her cleavage and Brooklyn couldn’t bare to leave her chest unattended. I could only raise my eyebrows in response to her audacity. And then she got a little too close to me. Sitting on a stool, sipping my fifth of six beers of the evening, I was comfortable, legs spread comfortably, but not necessarily inviting. And the next thing I know, while Brooklyn was commenting on Erin’s and Megan’s affection for one another, she was planted firmly in front of me, between my legs. Yo, step off there, sister. It was more funny than anything, and having already exchanged commentary on some of the women in the joint, I felt it was more like a ‘we’re cool’ kind of a thing than anything else. And she managed to confirm something I already knew. Megan and I were talking and because of the noise level, she had to lean in. Brooklyn, outta nowhere, comes up and says, “Butch and femme.” All right. Whatever. To pass the time, I decided to sing, at the behest of Erin and Megan. Twice. “Jack and Dianne” and “Tainted Love” were the songs of choice. I really wanted to do “Try a Little Tenderness” but feared the range was too high. I wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass myself. So I made it through both songs ok, according to Erin. And that was that. Rubyfruit redeemed itself in my eyes, and we left just before a crowd of straight folks slammed the place. I don’t get that, but what are you gonna do? I guess they wanted to get a gander of the dykes.

It’s Apparently in the Writing, But Not Really

I discovered an interesting test on Language Log tonight called Gender Genie. It is an algorithm that allows you to paste some text you’ve written and then it will identify your gender based on the writing.

Well, I jumped at the opportunity, of course, and found out that, based on my Jan. 11 post, I am male. Then female from another post by a close margin. Then male again. (I think the key may be not to do it more than once.)

I specified that these were blog entries. Then I decided to do a different kind of entry. So I took the conclusion of my Passing paper and it overwhelmingly declared me female. Then I took the conclusion from my black militancy paper. Based on this, I was overwhelmingly male again. Whatever. It’s fun if nothing else.

I think I mildly sprained my thumb. I’m not sure whether I did it grabbing a stack of files or putting my laundry in a bag this morning (which is still sitting on the floor unclean). It started hurting when I grabbed the clothes and now it hurts more. I can’t extend it all the way without feeling a twinge. Hope it goes away.

I cooked salmon tonight. I didn’t eat it, though, because Cornelia ordered Bene and I can’t turn down their pasta. But I had to cook the fish because it had been sitting out. It was the first time I cooked salmon, not really being a big fan of it. It actually tastes pretty good. It won’t tomorrow, I’m sure, when I eat it cold.

Cornelia told me she was appalled at my lack of knowledge about fish. I kept questioning her about the white stuff in the middle. Big deal. So I’ve never been a big fish eater…. As long as she was the one tasting it to make sure it was done and not me.

And I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to let go of “The L Word.” I would if not for stupid shit like this I found in a CNN article:  Viewers looking for the stereotypical lesbian will be disappointed: There’s not an unfashionably dressed, bulky or macho woman in “The L Word” bunch. “I don’t mean to disparage anyone,” writer-executive producer Chaiken said. “But I think there’s one image of lesbians that’s been put out to the world at large, and it’s nice to be able to get a chance to take it on.”

Um. I don’t even know where to begin. One of the things I’ve always been interested in was stereotypes. Why do they exist? What do they mean? How do they influence the production of meanings of specific identities? I immediately sent a quick e-mail to a friend of mine expressing my frustration at such sentiments.

Her response directed me to other stereotypes that exist in popular media — the television shows on or even the very existence of UPN — as well as historical uses of stereotypes — the minstrel show. I saw her point and it is valid.

I am just unwilling to accept the complete, intentional erasure of real individuals because they’re “stereotypes.” I can’t say a whole lot because I haven’t seen the show. Erin’s girlfriend will record it every week, so I will see episodes eventually.

I did see an ad for it tonight on television. I heard a sound bite referring to the straight girls who want to, but yet may be afraid to, dabble in a little girl-on-girl action: “Sexuality is fluid; just go with it.” Now, I’m all for that. So that will be a good topic, I suppose.

Maybe they’ll all come out of the wood work and we can do away with labels once and for all. Ok, so that won’t happen. And if anything, this show won’t make it happen. But my friend said that this show is a start. And she is right. Hopefully it will spark some dialog. But I also hope that this “one image” that people know will become something that the writers won’t feel they have to “take on.”

The tone of that is offensive and it is divisive. There is already a rift in the dyke community between the “straight appearing” ones and the intelligible, easily recognizable ones. This won’t help. It will only perpetuate further erasure.

The reason this “stereotype” (which I fit) exists in part because of the visibility of those who wear its markers. It’s not the work of the stereotyped individual. It is the reluctance of people to look beyond what they see to accept that, yes, Nicole Kidman could very well be a lesbian. She’s not. But you get my point. I can dream.

Let me flip-side this for a bit. One thing that will come out of this obviously is the presentation of women who don’t fit a stereotype. This is important and can definitely be a way to raise awareness that, to put it simply, one can never tell just by looking. Nevertheless my concern remains that an entire population of dykes is being punished, interestingly being made invisible, for something over which they have little influence. Wouldn’t a true exploration of all dyke types serve to question the reason the stereotype exists and then even give the L-word invisible ones a chance to represent fully rather than be relegated to the “unfashionably dressed, bulky or macho woman”? In a way, this is almost frightening because it rejects the notion of female masculinity, gender fluidity. If they can be open to fluid sexuality in the show, then why close the door on gender? Fuckers. I’m pissed now. I’m gonna go read Freud.

The Week in Review

Rather than delve into the details of the previous week (of which I have not necessarily accurately recorded in my brain anyways), I decided to do a quick re-cap and then move on from here.

On Monday, Gucci the Roofer caged us in with an 8×8 wooden, well, cage-looking type situation that really isn’t that bad. We’re gonna dress it up a bit, which led me to consider the impact that defined space has on people. Before, we just had a roof. It wasn’t particularly attractive with random tar lines from the previous “deck” and a decent amount of square footage to which we had done nothing.

But now that we have this cage, we’ve come up with all sorts of things that could possibly add a little flava’: white string lights; plants (probably won’t happen); another bench or two; etc. Yes. Redefining defined space.

I don’t remember Tuesday, actually.  I hit the butch-femme meeting Wednesday night after which I went to dinner with members of the group. A friend of mine then went with me to this place called Brewsky’s in the East Village for a friend’s birthday bash. There were probably about 10 people total in the bar and they were all there for my friend. At one point, more than half of us were outside smoking in order to adhere to the not-so-new smoking ban.

Isn’t This the First Day of Summer?

It’s pouring. This is beyond ridiculous. I hope it doesn’t rain next weekend. I think it’s rained every single weekend for the last two months.

Next weekend is gay pride and I haven’t participated in it for years because I overdid it by going three years in a row. Saturday is the dyke march and Sunday is the parade. The butch-femme group marches in the parade, which is something I’ve never done. “Step-off” is at 11. When she was talking like that, I told her it reminded me of being in the band in high school. That nice thick wool uniform and hat with a blue plume. Marching for three miles in Calgary’s heat at the Calgary Stampede, trying with all my might to play band tunes. I can’t believe I was in the band. I do miss playign the baritone, though. Or any instrument for that matter. I’m getting a mini drum lesson from Alia’s boyfriend when I go to California. He’s the drummer in The Knockoffs.

Mired

I told myself, and you all I believe, that I would write more often. That’s not what I’ve been doing. Two of the days weren’t my fault, however, because the Internet at my place was down. It’s really scary how dependent I am on it. So it’s a good thing it’s back up.

Last week was full of all kinds of interesting goings-on and I just knew I would remember everything. I’m certain I have forgotten some of the gems, but I will try to recall what I can. The farthest back I can think of is Tuesday when I turned in my gender paper for the much-anticipated feedback from my favorite teacher in whole wide world. Her comments came back to me within a day and I wasn’t that pleased but I did manage to fix most of it I think and it’s now two pages longer than it was, bringing the total to 18.

But I’ve already gotten ahead of myself. That day, we discussed Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality.”

Butch-Femme NYC

What kind of a mood am I in this morning? A shitty one. It seems to be my default state of mind these days. Whatever. So I went to the Butch-Femme Society meeting last night. Yes, there’s a society. In attendance were approximately 11 women, nine of whom were self-identified butches, which didn’t help me a whole lot.

Now, before I go on with this story, I have to say that I noticed some reservations I had about attending the meeting. My interest in identity issues has me questioning such stringent declarations of one identity or another. The butch-femme binary within the lesbian community represents a clear distinction in modes of behavior and other such things that comprise identity that I can’t go into now because it’s late and my head kinda hurts.

Having addressed this, I realized that if I ever wanted to date again (read: get laid — sorry, mom, and those others of you who may have recoiled at that comment), the process would go much faster if I dove into NYC’s community of gays. So onto butch-femme night I went (because I didn’t think the gay polyamorous group was for me, what with my jealousy issues and such, nor did the Zappalorti Society interest me — this is for psychiatric survivors. I don’t know what it means to survive psychiatry.).  It began innocently enough. We sat in a circle and discussed homophobia within the lesbian community, romantic gift giving, and the difference between butches and femmes. The meeting was actually much better than I expected it would be. Despite the therapy we handed out to a postal worker, it was fun. There was this woman, 27, who seems nice. Her name is Katherine. There was this other woman, Rian, with whom I hit it off almost immediately. She’s younger than me, a student at a visual arts school in the city and she sports multiple facial piercings. She invited me to a Melissa Ferrick concert next month with her friends. That should be fun. Hopefully we’ll hang out.

After the meeting, some of us went to a diner. After we ate, the group fragmented even more and the remaining few went to Crazy Nanny’s. It was karaoke night. I didn’t sing. Even after four beers. My voice was going out (still is, I think, which could be to my benefit because I sound even sexier than I know myself to sound normally…ok, let me stop. I’m totally frontin’). We just hung out and I found myself in various conversations about nothing in particular. Another woman who was at the meeting said to me after her third (way too many if you ask me) glass of wine — with her hands placed firmly on my shoulders and breath in my ear — “if I were 20 years younger, I’d go for you.” She wasn’t scary. In fact, she is pretty cool. And that was nice of her to say. She wants to come to the conference I’m presenting at. She teaches creative writing sometimes. She just didn’t do much for me. Well, for me ego, yes, but nothing much more. But who knows, maybe I should go for someone 15 years my senior. I’m probably less likely to get hurt that way. I’m gonna go read an essay now.