Saturday…More of DC…

It’s Saturday, a beautiful Spring like day too.  Unusual weather for the end of February. It’s been a mild winter this year, thank the powers that be. I opened the door in my office that goes outside/out back and let the fresh air pour in today.  It was glorious. Sunshine and sweet cool air.  It felt good in my lungs and on my skin.  The dogs were loving it too.  Lulu took to running giant circles in the yard and into and out of the house, over and over.  Nola basked in the warm sunshine on the porch, watching the world.  Yes, it’s a very nice day.

I’m going to jump ahead in the DC story to when I lived on 14th and T Street in DC itself.

I moved into a group house on the corner of 14th and T Street in NW DC.  It was an area heavy in prostitution and street crime, but the house was a gorgeous 4 story row house of brick and mortar. I loved the place. The owners had completely gutted the place and redone it, so it was very nice.  Five bedrooms, a bathroom on every floor and a great open space living room and kitchen with a bar that separated the two.  Sweet digs.

I moved in with my lover, Jaye.  She and I were on the top floor where there were two bedrooms and a shared bathroom.  We had a guy from Italy living there on the top floor, who was one who exuded hair in the shower, it was always a beef of mine that he didn’t clean out the shower drain when he was done.  Italian dudes are hairy.  And Matteo was no different.

I was the only one that worked in the house.  The rest of the residents, all of 5 others, were students at American.  Including my girl.  The house was full of very good, studious kids who were working hard to make it through school and into real life.  I was a blue collar worker who busted my ass to make enough money to live.  I should have stayed in the Army, I recall thinking that a million times over the years.  By the time I moved into this place I had gotten a job back in the pool and spa industry, a more up my alley line of work and something I had experience in and loved to do.  I was working in Gaithersburg for a regional supplier of hot tubs, spas, steam rooms and saunas.  It was hard work, but I loved it.

Living in the prostitution district gave me a lot of new things to learn.  Like lock the back of my truck up or they would use it to turn tricks.  Also, everytime I parked it on the street I would be approached by two or three girls before I got to my door step who wanted to know if I needed a “date”…this was always amusing to me.  I used to play it up with them and teasingly ask ” why?  you offering me something?”  or “no, I have plenty of girls in the house here….do YOU need a date?”  Over time I came to know some of the regulars and they recognized me and realized I lived on the street. It was a very African American neighborhood, so seeing a dumb white dyke from Maine wandering around was bound to get looks.

One time I had a friend of our living in our room for a short time, she’d been kicked out of her rich parents’ home in DC. She also attended American and was into theater quite heavily – she was also a stripper in a swanky Georgetown men’s club.  Grace was quite the character.  Loud in voice and appearance, her bleach blonde hair and very provocative manner of dress got her recognized as a handful.  She was funny, fun to hang out with and fun to party with, but she was trouble too.

Grace, when she’d been evicted from home, stole one of her parent’s Mercedes cars.  It was silver and a damned gorgeous automobile.  She let me drive it a few times, and it was awesome.  She was always hiding the car because she didn’t want them to find it and take it back.  They of course, never called the cops about it, so I never understood why she was worried.

She would come in at all hours of the morning loud and drunk or high.  She had a girlfriend who was sometimes with her.  Both were pretty much strung out most of the time.

One night around Christmas time when there was snow on the walkways and it was freezing cold Grace and I decided to play with the hookers for fun.  I was a wise ass, and pretty rough around the edges.  The hookers knew me, but their pimps didn’t as they weren’t usually around.  Grace and I got this idea, from her theater teachings, and so we staged a show for them.

Grace drove up to the house and parked out front in the Mercedes, I opened the door and yelled at her “GET YER HO ASS UP HERE!” from the front porch.  She made a big scene coming toward me and the working girls on the corner started to watch us.  As she got closer I was yelling at her about “Where you been?!” and “Where’s my money?!” kinds of stuff. When she reached the steps I hauled off and smacked her upside the face (not really, just a theatrical slap, we had planned this) and she stumbled backwards and fell in the snow.  The girls on the corner were getting visibly upset at my actions, I could see them talking and gesturing as I was continuing to put a theatrical beating on Grace.  Suddenly, unexpectedly, a black sedan pulled up next to the Mercedes.  Uh oh.  A guy in the sedan started trying to talk to Grace. He was obviously a pimp, and this was his street.  I thought I would now be killed.

“You don’t need her beating on you, come with me.” he said to Gracie.

We were in a heap of trouble I thought, but Gracie knew these guys and their kind better than me and my back-woods upbringing.  She’s grown up in DC and knew the street wise ways better than I did.  Somehow she got out of talking to him, he drove off and we retreated inside the row house to safety!  Jesus.  It was something I never tried again.

After that incident the street girls treated me a bit different. They were convinced that I was running girls for hire out of the row house, which I thought was very funny.  They gave me a wider berth when I drove up to park, they were nicer to me and even would try to engage me in conversation on occasion.

We had some good times in that row house.  Christmas came and all the kids in the house went home for the holidays, I had to stay and work.  No “school vacation” for this working stiff.

On Christmas Eve I was on the phone with my mom in Maine. I was lonely and alone for the holidays in DC.  It was a particularly ruckus night outside, I could hear the banter on the street and hear the cars squealing tires etc.  I had walked over to the corner store and gotten cigarrettes and called home when I returned. As I was on the phone with Mom I was sitting at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, sort of facing the stone wall in the corner.  Suddenly there was a crack and a bullet lodged itself in the stone work just past my head, little stone chips flew.  I immediately dropped the phone and dropped to the floor.  My Army training kicked in.  I picked up the phone, tried to sound like nothing happened as I sat on the floor, below window level and finished my call.  When I was done I went over and found the bullet hole in the window.  I was lucky.

It was soon after this that we moved over to 5th and H in NE DC….where the riots had devastated the city  years earlier after the MLK killing.

No where in DC is completely safe…and you would think that being the capital of our country it would be the safest place to be…not so, not so at all.

Thoes of Thursday…

Called out of work sick today. I woke up with a headache and just couldn’t take the light in my eyes.  I suffer with migraines, I have for years.  They are not as frequent or as bad as they used to be (before menopause) but they still happen occasionally.  When I get them I have to basically halt all activity and lay still, eyes covered and silence.  I take prescription migraine meds, but I find that the OTC Excedrin Migraine works just as good if not better sometimes. Today it was one Excedrin and some down time and I was okay. But it wasn’t until about 9:30am that I could really function again.

It was the first time I have called out sick from work.  I felt bad, but I just couldn’t go in like that.  Hopefully they had enough people to cover.  I notice that some people call out quite frequently..I am not like that.  If I call out it will always be that I am legitimately ill or something  really serious came up and I had to call out.  I hate when I’m on shift and someone I depend upon calls out and I know it’s just because they wanted a day off.

I went to the barber shop this afternoon and got my hair cut and edged.  It feels so good to have a spiffy new fresh haircut.  I always enjoy the feeling it gives me.   Plus as you all know I love my visits to the Loaded Dice Boston Barbers immensely.  I wrote a description of the place out to someone today, and realized again how fucking cool that place IS.  Although I still miss Johnny, my old regular barber who isn’t there anymore for some really fucked up reasons.  I hope he’s doing okay wherever he is.

So tomorrow is Friday.  I have no plans except for dinner with my parents (steak!) and am just going to chill for the weekend.  I hope maybe a trip to the beach will be in store if the weather is good enough.  Today it was 63 degrees F when I went by the big digital sign on the way to Rochester.  Yup, 1:32pm and 63’…you can’t beat that for February 25th of any year!  I hear from the news guys on TV that it was a record setter for most of New England.

I plan to do some writing this weekend.  I will give you another chapter of the DC story.  I’m keeping the story concise and a little bit in brevity as I plan to write out the longer more detailed version later.  But still the story is fun and the best part is it really happened!  I’m still working on digging up some of the photographs from DC.

More to come….

Peace & Love

~MB

 

Short break from the story…

Let’s take a little hiatus from my Washington Story for a day or two.  I need to put some things together to properly tell the rest of that story, and I also need to get permission from some people who were involved to tell some of it.  I am changing names to protect people’s identities already, but I realized I may be treading in some places where I need to be a little careful.

I would also like to dig up some of the photographs of that time.  There are some good ones of me and of places in the story.  Once those are scanned into my PC and edited I can add them to the story for some visual appeal.  I know you’ll enjoy seeing them.

I saw a photograph of a can of Milwaukee’s Best beer today, which I took as a sign that writing this story out is the right thing to do right now. That cheap skunk ass beer is what we used to buy to drink during those very lean money times.  I could get a 6 pack of “The Beast” as we called Milwaukee’s Best, and a pack of smokes for about 3 bucks.  Yes, it was the 80’s and still the era of the cheap buzz.

I was also reminded that there were lots of drugs involved in things during this time.  I’m not talking about some weed here and there, I’m talking about PCP, Cocaine, heroin and speed.  I had been into drugs since I was about 17 pretty heavily.  I don’t talk about this aspect of things in detail in the story, but I was high most of the time during that period of time.  Not a good or proud thing, but very true.

So tonight I am taking a little break from the Washington DC story, but I will definitely be finishing it for you all to read if you are interested.  I thank all who have sent me emails and texts saying they are having fun reading of my shenanigans.  I love getting those responses and messages from you all.

 

Washington DC Days…Chapters 2 and 3

Chapter 2

So, where was I now..oh trying to survive the streets of DC,young, dumb and full of cum.  Exactly.

I needed a place to live now, I had a job and I had money coming in.  But to find someone who had a room to rent to a homeless 26 yr old from Maine would be another story.

Seems this is where God decided to intercede.  I had a ferret, remember me mentioning him previously? Spike. Spike was a good little fella, furry and gray and looking like a long sort of rat with a bushy tail.  Maybe even akin to a squirrel.  Spike was living in the back of the truck and I took him out and let him run the lawns of the fancy upscale colleges and churches in DC everyday after work.  I managed to keep him fed and happy.  But he was an escape artist and would run off on me sometimes.

Suddenly Spike was missing.  It was the day after we had gone down to the ice cream placed that sold the blizzards (before Dairy Queen discovered them) in Georgetown section of DC. I was heartbroken, but figured he got loose in Georgetown and that I would never find him again.  Although I did search relentlessly, asking every one on the streets “you seen a small animal, looks like a big rat?”  People thought I was on drugs I think.

Which I probaby was at the time anyways, but that’s besides the point.

I went back to Jaye’s dorm and showered that evening. I got in and got my shower, stole a bananna out of the rec room fridge and went out to my truck to smoke.  The truck was parked over at Wesley Theological Seminary in the parking lot.  It was not yet dark, probably around 7pm, and just getting that hazy end of the day look to the skies.  I was sad about Spike, I missed him alot.  I had had him for a few years and we’d bonded well.

The maintenance man for Wesley was raking leaves, so I walked over to speak to him.  Maybe he had seen Spike.  Naw, I know I lost him in Georgetown.  That’s the last time I saw him, as he was filling his little ferret face with a Girl Scout Cookie blizzard.  As i approached he seemed cautious. I know he had seen me around the place and knew my truck by now.  It was a white SR5 with blue pin striping and a camper cap on the back.  You couldn’t miss it.  The Maine plates gave her away too.

I asked if he had seen Spike, I explained that he looked a lot like these gray squirrels he had running hither and nither around the place.  His eyes got wide as plates.  “YES!”  He got all excited as he tried to tell me, in broken English ( realized later he was not American born, but can’t recall where he was from now) that some ladies had taken Spike home with them.  They left a phone number.  He ran inside the building to get the number and the information he had on the people who had my ferret.  I was elated.

Now this was pre-cell phone era, mind you.  I had to find a pay phone and call these “ladies” that had Spike. All of these questions were running through my mind. Who was I about to interact with? Would they be nice and give him back to me?  Could I find them?

I dialed the number nervously from the pay phone in front of Dupont Circle.  I had gone downt here to meet Jaye for a drink before her night class.  When she heard the news she decided to skip the class in hopes that we could go retrieve our wayward buddy and so I would be relieved to have him back.  A woman answered the phone.  Her name was Nancy and yes, she had Spike in with her other 2 ferrets!  She was a ferret person too!  She invited me over to get him, gave me the address in DC and off we went to get the rascally ferret.

Chapter 3

Meeting Nancy was what God had meant to happen I am sure of it to this day.  He sent my crazy little ferret to a House of God so that I would meet this woman named Nancy.  She would turn out to be my saving grace the rest of my time in Washington DC.

It seems that Spike got hungry after running willy nilly around the grounds of the seminary for a few hours.  And he heard people inside.  Somehow he got inside and entered the board room where there was a big meeting taking place at a long table with lots of people around it.  Spike jumped right up on the table and ran smack dab down the center of it scattering people to and fro.  He petrified every one in there. Luckily Nancy was at this meeting and recognized the animal to be a ferret. And somehow she realized he was friendly because he went right to her and let her pick him up.

I’m not sure how the rest of that meeting went, but Nancy took Spike home with her to her partner, Sara and their other 2 ferrets.  She didn’t put them in the cage together because my Spike was a big boy and he may hurt her guys if she did.

When my straggly ass got to Nancy’s house with my much younger girlfriend in tow I am sure we were a sight to be seen.  Immediately they recognized me as a baby dyke but seemed a little confused about Jaye, who looked very straight.  I could see that they too were lovers and this was a lesbian household.  Wow.. What luck!   Now I knew no one else except a few people at work at this point.  I was still sleeping in my truck and showering in the dorms.  I was about to get my first good sized check soon and was looking to rent a room somewhere.

Nancy and Sara were really cool. They were much older than me.  I would say they were in their early 50’s at that time.  After some conversation about ferrets and my story of how I lost him from the back of my truck, yes that is where he lives.  Yes I feed him. And more questions about his care they turned their attention to me and my situation. What was I looking to do in DC? Where would I keep Spike?  I can’t keep him in the back of a truck forever.  And during the heat of the day it got pretty hot in there, I knew that.  But what else could I do?  I was young and probably a little stupid about this.

I had an idea.  I asked them if they would like to keep Spike for me until I found a place to live.  I could see that they were quite smitten with him already, and he was such a ham for attention.  They immediately said yes, they would love to keep him and take care of him for me. Now this was actually a really good thing for both the ferret and I. I wasn’t really in an position to have a pet and be homeless at the same time.  It would be a huge relief not to worry about him in the back of the truck days while I was working at the nursery.  I know that I was hot out in that sun days, so he must have been pretty uncomfortable too. Plus it would free me up to find a place faster.  And they invited me to stop over and visit him any time soon.  Hell, now at least one of us had a home and food!  Only ferret I knew who could fall into a pile of shit and come out smelling like roses!

Over the next week or so I became fast friends with Nancy and Sara.  Nancy was studying to be a minister and Sara was a lawyer.  They were really good people with very kind hearts.  They got to know me a little, could see I was in a bit of a quandry with trying to find a place to go.  One night they had a friend over when I got there for my visitation with Spike.  Her name was  Pam, that they wanted me to meet her because it seems Pam had a room in her house that she would like to rent out – to ME!  Pam was a painter, she painted homes, interior and exterior in the greater DC metropolitan area.  She lived out in Bethesda and had a really nice house.  Newly divorced she lived alone.  She was a quiet, left over 60’s type and seemed pretty cool.

I was psyched!  God led Spike to Church, where he found  Nancy and then Nancy lead me to Pam and then I had a place to safely sleep and shower and live.  Now I was officially “living’ in the metropolitan DC suburbs.    No more sleeping in the damned truck and living off of Big Gulp sodas and steamed hot dogs at 7-11.  No more raiding dormatory fridges or scaring the young girls in the showers.  Although that part was kinda fun!  I finally had a place to lay my head after a long day of watering plants and hauling saplings for replanting.  Things were looking up!

So for tonight that’s all.  I have more to this story, including time living with the strippers and arguing with street pimps over who’s girl was who’s !  Stay tuned!

Peace & Love

~MB

 

 

 

 

Writer’s Block & Publishing a Book

I have just discovered that there is an app for Writer’s Block.  Yes, it’s true.  Someone had the where with all to figure out that us writers are occasionally mentally constipated and need a brain laxative of sorts to get things flowing once again.   The app is aptly called Writer’s Blocks, see what I did there?! ehehe   I even made that a nice hot link so you don’t get lost trying to find what I am speaking about here.  I’m a smart ass I know.  It becomes me sometimes.  Sometimes it just makes me look like a jack ass.  Who cares.

I often suffer from not knowing what to write about. Lately I ‘ve been focusing more on a book that I would like to compile and publish, a book of short stories of incidents and situations I’ve encountered in my very bizarre life.  I’ve lead a very interesting life and had some pretty wild, and some mild, experiences.  I’ve met some great people and I’ve met some looney tunes…and I want to write a book and introduce my readers to them all. Won’t that be fun?  eheh…I think it will be for sure.  Good thing I have a very good memory, plus I have oodles of journals that I can reference if I forget the details.

I’ve been toying around a bit with Writer’s Block the app and I think I am going to like it – a LOT.  Which means I have to throw up $119 to buy the actual program once my free trials is expired in 14 days.  But if it works as well as I am hoping it does – and so far so good – it will b well worth it to organize myself for some better, more professional and better writing.  Especially if I am really going to put my ass in gear here and do this book I keep talking about.

I’ve talked about writing a book for years. I was personally life-partnered with a publisher for 14 years and she always encouraged me to do it, but I just never felt good enough.  So why am I thinking that I am good enough now?  Well, for one I have read some books that were published that I thought were terrible and couldn’t believe that a publisher actually picked up the book and did it.  I know I can and will write better than some of what I have seen get published.  Secondly I just feel like it’s time for me to get off my ass and do it.  It’s in me, I can feel it and I know I can do it.  I’ve just been a lazy and fraidy cat fuck. It’s a very vulnerable thing to put yourself and your work out there for the public to read.  I do it every day with my blogs, so why not with a hard copy book?

I have great inspiration in my writing.  I am a big fan of Ivan E. Coyote and S. Bear Bergman for two. They both write in much the same style that I intend to write in – short stories.  They compile books based on true short stories of incidents and the goings on in their lives.  These two write a lot of about being Butch and now about being Trans also.  I shall write about those things too, just from my own perspective and angle.  There are not enough Butch writers out here doing this, we need more anyways.  (I have hot linked both Ivan and Bear’s names above to their web sites. I encourage all to visit and check them out. They are two of the best LGBT writers alive today. And I guarantee you will love their work.  Ivan even has several Youtube videos if you like to hear examples of their work).

I get contacted quite frequently by young Butch girls who are trying to figure out how to be in life. Mostly teenagers and some younger 20 something Butches too.  One question came up the other day that intrigued me coming form a 17 yr old.  She asked me “If I am Butch does that mean that I have to grow up to be Trans and be a man?”    She says her friends say that she is supposed to want to be a man, and that being Butch is only a half way point between the two.  I wished like hell I could have sat these girls down and had a really serious conversation with them and learn where they are getting these kinds of thoughts.  Today’s world is so confusing for these kids.  I can just imagine what it would be like to be growing up Butch in 2016….much different than when I grew up in the 60/70’s and we just didn’t talk about things like this.  It’s good that it’s so open now, but is there such a thing as too open?  Are there really any boundaries anymore?   It seems all so technical now, and there are soooo many words and definitions (remember my recent blog on definitions?) that it confuses even the best of scholars I am sure.  So here are these two kids trying to figure out if Butch means you have to choose to be a man when you grow up….without adult guidance; the guidance of someone who is knowledgeable and keen on the subject even, they are destined to flouder until they find the right answers.  I am go glad that there are GSAs in most schools now.  I should probably be volunteering to help out with the GSA at the local high school here too.  Because this stuff frightens me and these kids need mentors and people to look up to who have been where they currently are now.

So, tonight I will work on Chapter 2 of the Washington DC story…I’m sure you’ll see it by week’s end.  I’m also certain that it will be more than 2 chapters, so it may take me a bit here.  I am going to use Writer’s Blocks to produce the next segment of the story, so I will let you all know how that goes as well.

Peace & Love

~MB

 

 

Washington DC: Chapter 1

Washington DC: Chapter 1

During the mid 80’s I lived in Washington DC.  I’ve recently been reminded of this and would like to recount my time there for your entertainment.  I had a blast while I lived there and I also gained some serious insight into street life and earned some hard learned lessons while there.  Let me just say that my time in DC culminated with my ending up in DC jail as one dumb country bumpkin, one of the two only white girls on the block of 440 women.  I told them that I had killed my whole family and hung the dog…it kept them thinking I was outright fucking crazy and kept people away from me.  True story.

I was involved with a young woman 5 years my junior when I went from Maine to DC at 26. She was in college at the very prestigious American University there in the city.  When I got to DC I had just the clothes on my back, my Toyota SR5 pick up truck and $50 in my pocket.  It was a spur of the moment thing.  My girl and I had spent all that summer doing stupid things like a ton of cocaine and partying our asses off spending most of what we earned at our jobs.  So when it came time for her to return to college I decided to go along with her.  I thought I was in love, hell I was at the time. I was exactly where I wanted to be and with who I wanted to be with then.  She was a hot young blonde woman and a lot of fun.  We had met through a mutual friend here in Maine.  The mutual friend, Nano, also was going to college in College Park MD, just outside of DC so she also made the trip down to DC with us that fated August in the pick up truck, along with my ferret, Spike.  Yes, a ferret.

The truck had a bed in the back and a cap on it.  It was all set up for me to sleep in when I had to do so.  And going to DC on a whim I knew I would be sleeping in there more than one or two nights!  When I got there on my $50 I realized I had forgotten a few things, mostly like what I was going to eat and where I would put the truck that was safe for me to sleep.  It turned out that I was a pretty hungry young Butch for a couple of weeks.  I did the normal shit like sold my blood at the blood bank for $30 a pint (I have a rare blood type and back then they wanted it).  My girl Jaye, went to school days and I went out job hunting in the metropolitan DC area.

After a week of sleeping in my truck, or in her dorm room – which totally freaked out her roommate and caused her to move out.  Turned out that she was a very homophobic young Jewish girl from New Jersey.  Our mere presence in the dorm made her very uncomfortable especially when Jaye hung a rainbow sticker on the dorm room door!  Anyway, I finally landed a job at a plant nursery in Gaithersburg, just outside of College Park Maryland.   It would be two weeks before my first check came in, but at least I had a job, had the promise of money to come and now I just needed to wait it out, survive the streets until I got paid and could find a place to live.  It was grueling work for the most part.  Hot and sweaty, in the direct sun and in September in DC land.  Still a very warm time of year there.

I was still stealing food from college dorm kitchen to survive the hunger.  I all but gave up smoking because I obviously couldn’t afford cigarettes and I was showering in the dorms when no one was around, like late at night when I would sneak in with Jaye.  Things were pretty tough, but I was a tough nut to crack and I was making it – just barely.  It didn’t occur to my young brain exactly how much danger I was in on a daily basis living on the street of DC and the surrounding suburbs.  I was too young to understand the depth of it all, but I was also too in love with the girl and too into just flying by the seat of my pants to care.

After the job got going and I roughed it out for two weeks I finally got paid.  It’s the most memorable pay day in my life – still.  I took that check, took the girl and my bestie and went to a Greek steak house on Dupont Circle and ate until I couldn’t move.  I shall never ever forget that meal.  And how damned fucking hard I had worked to get to that dinner plate.

The next thing on the list was housing .  I was about burned out with all the sneaking around college dorms, churches and public buildings to use their facilities, shower, raid refrigerators and find safe places to sleep.  With the type of work that I was doing I was pretty dirty and sweaty at the end of my 8-9 hour day in the nursery gardens.  The place was on 880 acres of land.  We had every plant you could think of growing on the east coast.  So after work I would generally go to AU and find Jaye and figure out who was around so I could sneak down the dorm hall to the gang shower room.  Thank God this was decades before 9/11 and security in those places was quite liberal.  Jaye would wash my clothes with hers in the laundry room and so for the most part I figured out how to survive while I was waiting for money to start coming my way.  Sure I felt a little bad about how I had to go about doing some things – like raiding refrigerators when no one was around or jumping in and out of dorm room windows to escape the dread of trying to get past the “guard” at the front desk where the normal people entered and exited the building.

I usually slept in the back of my truck, good thing I had put that cap on it.  and I would park in places like the Wesley Theological Seminary parking lot.  I figured who would bother some truck parked in a church school lot?  No one if they believed in God!  Hehe Except the cops one fated night…but I did manage to talk my way out of it.  I left the lot and he left.  After an hour or so he was gone and I re-parked my truck and went back to sleep. It was the safest place in NW DC for me to be sleeping at the time.

Looking back I can see how crazy this all was and how I’m lucky I made it out alive and in one piece.  I don’t talk much about my drug addiction, but believe me it played a huge part in all of this as well.  Just understand I was probably high most of the time so I was more prone to taking chances and risking my life and limb.  I am never sure of how to incorporate the fact that I was a drug addict for many years.   I was a fully functioning one, I never let it get in the way of my working or doing what needed to be done to survive and thrive.

There are many many stories of times in DC. I am going to write about a couple of them for your reading entertainment.  This piece you just read is just the preface, so that you have an idea of how I got to DC and why I lived there.  I will make an effort to dig up some of the photo graphs of my time in DC for you to see….and what a wild time it was!

 

Vulnerability…and a story

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

I feel often like I just don’t have the right words for various situations.  I can’t say anything right, as much as I put myself out there. I open myself up thus I am almost always in a vulnerable stance just trying to be brave and walk through.  In listening to Brene’s talks (various ones) on the subject of vulnerability and shame I realize that without vulnerability things just don’t happen; people lose their courage.  And being vulnerable is having that courage to keep going; to do what it is that we need to do or that we feel compelled to do.

There are times when I feel more vulnerable lately, that I can put my finger right on the feeling like:

1. when I take medications to stay alive 3 times a day, the reminder that I am vulnerable to health related stuff is very prominent.
2. I feel vulnerable when I am around my aging parents and I think that I may not have too much longer to enjoy them, then I question whether I am valuing them enough, even when I am damned sure trying my hardest to be the best I can be by them.
3. When I am trying to talk to a woman I am interested in, my fear of rejection makes me very vulnerable, but I try to have the courage and just do it.

Story time….

I know I haven’t always been a walk in the park for them.  I gave them some serious trouble and a run for their money.  I was a tough kid, a confused kid and certainly caused my share of trouble.  I think the first time I got caught doing something wrong other than not putting my toys away right, was when I got caught with a porn magazine in my garage rafter fort.

This was probably the most memorable and earliest time I can think of that I felt shame and vulnerability in my young life.  I had built a platform high up in the rafters of the old tin garage we had.  The structure itself was pretty rickety from decades of being subjected to the harsh climate of southern coastal Maine.  It had been patched up, altered, added on to, subtracted from and abused in just about any way that was suitable for whatever it’s current use was supposed to be. At one time it served as a barn for a couple of old cows, I remember those being there, and a couple of pigs living in an adjacent shed that is now gone.  That was before we lived in the house, my cousins were renting it then and had farm animals.  When we bought the house the evidence of the farm animals residing there in the old tin shed was quite obvious.

We used the old shed for a bazillion things, everything from actually storing a car, which barely fit, and you couldn’t open the doors very far so ya had to be skinny as fuck to get in and drive it out of there.  It was my uncles’s old wood side panel station wagon, affectionately called the “Woodie”My Uncle, Dad’s half brother lived with us for a short time in the 70’s…it was short too, Dad booted his ass for continually coming home drunk.Dad was strict about that shit, he didn’t want any of his kids to be around alcohol in any way. I never saw the guy drink more than 2 beers on a Sunday while watching the ball game and I certainly never saw him drunk.

I think my Uncle was drunk most of the time, he was loads of fun!  I do remember that and he used to bring home some awesome things and once he brought home a used, beatu up but functional Honda 50 mini bike….for me!  And then he fixed it up and did a bunch of modifications to it and made it into a little mini-chopper! I had the only Honda 50 chopper tin town,  It was a bitch to drive in the woods and trails I do recall. I wish I could find a photo of that mini bike now.  I did love that thing, and it was my first introduction to feeling really masculine doing something. heres’ a picture of one, not mine but similar.Sooo….where the fuck was I going with all of this?   Ah!  My rafter fort. And the porno book.  I only got caught with it because someone told on me!   She was a good girl and knew that I wasn’t supposed to have the explicitly detailed book that I had found on the side of the road up near the bar on the main road.  it must have fallen out of someone’s car or been thrown out.  Either way, it was just laying there saying “pick me up”  And I did.  She asked her mother if it was alright for me to have it, and of course her mother marched right up the road to see my mother immediately and the two of them confiscated the book.

I had a couple of old tires up in the rafter fort, I would hide things like cigarrettes and matches in an old snuff tin that I had gotten from my grandfather.  I would keep my pen and notbook up there so I could write when I wanted to, and I kept some of the books I was reading up there.  I would get out of school days and retreat to that little secluded fort and would be happy as hell reading, writing and trying to learn how to smoke cigarettes.

Now getting caught with it was very embarrassing.  Plus it resulted in foreclosure on my fort.  Down the fort came, and Dad wasted no time taking it down board by board.   I think the embarrassment was sufficient enough, I was pretty damned ashamed of myself for displeasing my father (who I have tried to please all of my life, but that’s another story).  The book was a novel type and didn’t have many pictures except in the middle of the book where they tipped in a set of erotic shots.  No big deal but not suitable reading for a 6th grader.

I then had to start at ground zero on the fort front and find a new location and set up.  The next fort would be further from the house…an ground level stone fort.  Yup, I was a fort builder from way back.  *smirk*

I felt vulnerable in the case with the book for several reasons.  First, I didn’t hide the book well enough, I wasn’t a good enough hider!  Secondly I trusted the wrong person to know that I had the book, I was a bad judge of character.  Third, shame, I shouldn’t have had the book to begin with and was ashamed of myself.  Forth I was vulnerable through embarrassment of everyone of my siblings knowing that I had been caught with a “grown up sex book” as it got called.  The word pornography was far too large for a kids vocabulary at that time.

Anyone curious of the name of the book?  Linda Lovelace- Deep Throat.  NOT 6th grade reading!  LMFSAO

Getting caught with the book was the very beginning of my teenage troubles….it all just kind of snowballed from there, and not in a very good kind of fluffy snowball way.  But every experience leads us to who we are today, so I suppose I had to go through stuff to get right where I am in life and through having each and every experience I have had I have grown and learned…never stop growing and learning, and never be afraid to be courageous!

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
― Brené Brown,

 

Ugly Women and TED Talks

Whoa, I slept all of Saturday away!  I must have needed it, or my body wouldn’t have wanted all that sleep!  Seriously, I never woke up til 11:30, and then I laid back down and woke up again at 2:30pm this afternoon.  I stayed up only because I had to go out and get smokes. I am trying a new brand, American Spirit greens.  They’re organic cigarettes…doesn’t that sound a little fucked up?  “Organic” cigarettes?  Like they are supposed to be good for you if they are organic?  LMFAO….yeah, right. I had a coupon that the American Spirit representative that stopped in to our store last week had given me for 2 packs for 2 bucks…almost free ciggs, so I couldn’t pass it up.  Anyways, grabbed 2 packs today of the green menthols.  I normally smoke Newport Smooths, in the black pack, and I like them – a lot.  These were supposed to be similar, but I think the dark greens are probably closer to what I am looking for in strength and taste.  Oh well, try them next time.   In the meantime I will keep these I got today and use them for back up for when I run out of my regular smokes. I know I should quit…don’t even go there telling me so please. It’s my last bastion of rebellion…my smokes.

I’ve always said – usually kiddingly, but there is some sincerity in it – that I don’t date ugly women.  I just don’t do it.  I think that all women have beauty, whether it’s in their exterior looks or in their interior beautiful hearts.  There is no such thing as an ugly woman…unless you go to Walmart on a Saturday morning and see the fools in their yoga pants and tent style t-shirts with camel toe or ass crack showing.  Even they are not “ugly” just really really really stupid.  And obviously they don’t have any friends who are willing to tell them how outrageously stupid they look in that garb – in a public place!  Hell I wouldn’t even understand it in a private setting!  But hey, we’ve all seen the outrageous People of Walmart web pages and it’s true, people will go out looking quite foolish and not seem bothered by it one bit.

Me? I have to look normal when I leave my house.  I will NOT wear pajamas out of the house.  I know some people will go to the store wearing their pajama bottoms and slippers but i just can’t do it. If I have to go up to the store and I am sitting around in my leisure clothes I will get up and get fully dressed in jeans and boots before I go out that door.  I’m not looking like a fool and making the People of Walmart page!  HAHAHAHA   The house would have to be on fire for me to leave it in my pajamas.

I’ve dated some knock out gorgeous babes in my day.  I’ve been extremely fortunate in that respect.  I’ve also dated some seriously smart women – those are my favorites!  A woman who can carry on an intelligent conversation will win me over every time.  It’s like I am attracted to the nerds mostly.  The librarian types are right up my alley. Yes, I just love the smart ones!

I had a young woman write to me today about Brene’ Brown’s TED Talk on Vulnerability. I’ve spoken about that talk before in past blogs. I just love it. I’ll add a link at the end of this blog for those wanting to check it out.  It is an outstanding piece.  Anyways this young woman said:

“I just had to watch this TED talks video by Bene Brown on Vulnerability for one of my grad school classes and it made me think of you! Like you are a perfect embodiment of that entire discussion. I know you’ve seen it cause I remember you mentioning it. I loved how she talked about vulnerability not a weakness, but actually being our most accurate measurement of courage. I instantly thought about you and your blog and videos and how you have the courage to put yourself out in the world and to allow yourself to be so vulnerable. I also liked how she defined courage as telling the story of who you are with your whole heart. That’s exactly what you do. You might be one of the most courageous people I know.
Whenever you’re feeling down and think you don’t matter to the world, I want you to know that you do. You are making a difference in the lives of many people you don’t even know about. All just by being you.
You inspire me. And you inspire the world.”

I was quite honored by her words.  It amazes me when I get emails like this that tell me that I am inspiring someone or that my blogs or videos are helping some young LGBT person, or hell some old one too!  I just write from my heart. Sometimes I address topics that are on my mind, sometimes it’s just me rambling.  I truly believe that we change the world one person at a time.

Here is the TED Talk by Brene’  The Power of Vulnerability 

Peace & Love

~MB

 

Friday night rambles…

It’s Friday and the week is over!  My weekend has just begun.  I got off work today a couple of hours later than usual because the place was short handed due to people calling out so they needed me to stay a couple extra hours. I didn’t mind at all. I like my job, I like the people and don’t mind helping out extra when needed.  It actually feels good to be needed! Even if it is only by work!

Had dinner with my parents tonight. That is always interesting. I never know what kind of mood my Dad will be in, good or bad.  Tonight he was in a pretty good mood, thankfully. Because when he’s in a bad mood I hate being around him and I never stay that long if he’s ugly for any reason.  That’s what we call it when you are in a bad mood, you are being ugly.  Maybe it’s just a Maine saying, I’m not sure, its one of those word mysteries.

My parents are growing older.  Dad just turned 75. He’s in great shape and works still, hasn’t seemed to have slowed down much at all.  They are both very active.  Mom especially so, she’s a sharp as a whip and is always on the go.  I continue to live here in Maine partly because I thought that as they got older that they would need me around to help out more.  Turns out that I need them more than they need me!  They are just amazing and still happily married after almost 55 years – it will be 55 years this coming June.  It’s cool to have meals with them and to talk about everything.  They are still the center of the family; we all still gravitate toward them and their house for family gatherings and get togethers.

They just bought this new home that they are in back in August and it’s got a great in-ground pool.  We’ve always had inground pools in the family as my family’s business is building and servicing swimming pools – the family owns a pool company with multiple locations in New Hampshire that serve southern Maine and coastal New Hampshire.  It’s a great business and I worked in the industry alongside my father and brother for 22 years myself.  When I was with my long term ex I even built her an in-ground pool one year at our farm.  So it’s great that Mom and Dad have this new place with a pool that I will be welcome to hang out around this coming summer!  I’m looking forward to it very much.  I can just picture getting off of work days, coming home and getting the dogs and going over to Mom’s to chill around the pool and bask in the sunshine.  It will be heavenly I am sure.  That’s how I plan to spend this coming summer anyways!!!

Work was good this week.  I really kinda like this job.  It’s relaxed enough and yet fast paced enough to keep me busy and I am always happiest when I am busy doing something.  I’ve been running into a lot of old friends from around town in there.  They stop for morning coffee and pastries, or to fill up on gasoline.  I have also made some new friends of my co-workers and of some of the customers.  They’re all pretty nice people I am finding.  Some come to work crabby and I try to cheer them up…which works on occasion, but I find that if someone is coming to work with an attitude that they are just setting themselves up to have a bad day.  And I can see how one would be miserable at this job if they don’t like it much.  So I am glad that I like it as I do.  hell, I have even met a couple of my Facebook friends in there and also someone who reads my blogs!

On another kind of note.  I’ve had to weed out some people from my life again lately. It seems that I don’t learn or I trust too much to begin with.  Like, I had one “friend” who decided to un-friend me this last week because I wouldn’t email her every damned day. I am too fucking busy and occupied with my life to be emailing a friend every day — and hell about what?  I can only figure that she is really lonely and needed more attention than I could give her as a friend.  Am I wrong?  Does being a friend in today’s world of technology mean that you have to be in constant contact?  I’ve never been in constant contact with anyone unless I was more than a “friend” with the person, in which case I can see more contact and would expect it in return.  And hell, my best friend and I live across the country from one another.  We talk on the phone about 3 times a year, we email maybe 3 more times and text a hand full of times…we don’t need daily contact to be secure in the fact that we are great friends to one another and we are both there for each other if a crisis arises and we are needed.  Ya see, we also both lead very different lives in very different places, all of which factors into how much we are in touch with one another.  I just don’t have time to be spieling off emails every day.

Either you are secure in my friendship or you are not.  If you are not then just don’t bother me.  If you are then great, I’m sure we’ll touch base when we can and when we want to or need to do so.  And it’s not a failure if a friendship doesn’t work out, not all of them will and that’s to be expected. I’ve had many friends over the decades of my life that I don’t hear from nowadays.  Life moves on and sometimes we go out in our own directions.  If our paths cross again then great!

 

 

 

 

 

Those Darned Definitions…

Man!  Has language changed some radically since I’ve been walking this green earth.  Daily I am surprised by the “new” use of “old” words; the newer definitions and meanings of some.  Start with the word we all know and use in a zillion different ways:  Queer.  Now we know the dictionary meaning to be “odd or unusual” to be short.  But then we all know the meaning when it’s used to describe someone’s sexual preference for the same sex…i.e. “He/she is queer as a three dollar bill.”  meaning that he/she is gay…another word…Gay….now that is supposed to mean “happy and joyful” by the dictionary, but when used to describe me it means I like pussy, and I’m a bit queer.

Today’s LGBT world (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, for those who may not really know what the letters represent, seriously.)  Yes, where was I …in today’s world we are constantly changing up language.  It’s a far cry from what it was like in the 70’s when I was growing up.  Or the 80’s when I was just coming out and defying the world with my gayness.

There are so many words now to describe or to define who one is in the world.  I could not possibly do justice to all of them here, but I will take a stab at a few of the more common ones just for fun.

There’s the all famous Butch.  The definition of Butch varies so widely now that I am not sure if I am even still Butch!  Hell, it seemed easy when I finally did define myself as such, it felt wholesome and right.  I was a masculine presenting woman.  Butch.  It is my identity, my definition of me.  But what it means to me and what it means to other people can really be confusingly different.  I define Butch for myself as a masculine woman.  A woman who is more comfortable walking the masculine side of the binary, but who is not a man and does not necessarily want to be a man.  (Some people are convinced that all Butch women secretly just want to be men – both straight people and other LGBT people have been known to say this more than once).  I want to wear my jeans and workboots; flannel shirts are a must to my Butch wardrobe.  I don’t walk like a girl, or talk like one.  My voice is very deep, raspy and quite often mistaken for a male voice on the phone.  Plain and simple for me, it’s just how I was constructed by life.   I am a masculine woman, a Butch to the core.  Of course, this is just my definition and will certainly vary from yours or someone elses.

Femme is another widely varying word.  It’s gained some serious notoriety and popularity in the last 10 years I believe.  We have had the word Butch for so long and it’s been more popular for the last 100 years than I think Femme has been.  In my experience I didn’t really have a word for the type of women that I found super attractive until I discovered the word “Femme”.  To me Femme means a very feminine presenting woman.  A woman who revels in the glories of being very feminine appearing, acting and who is often attracted to her polar opposite – the Butch.  (I know this is not always the case, I am aware that Butch/Femme is only one dynamic, and that there are others, please don’t shoot me).

Now there are all these fun descriptive words that you can throw together with Butch and Femme.  There’s about 100 ways to be Butch or to dilute it, which ever you think is happening. Personally, I think the dilution factor is more of what is taking place.  Historically we know that the Butch-femme dynamic kind of started as a cover so that women could see one another  and appear to be a hetero couple…they were hiding from the law and society basically. There’s a LOT more to the history than this, I am seriously over simplifying here for brevity.

Today we have baby Butches, Tomboi Butches, Soft Butches, Hard Butches, Stone Butches, Daddi Butches, etc. etc.  I am sure I have missed a dozen or so other types here…but you should get the gist of where I am going with this. It’s a hard thing to just say Butch is Butch nowadays, because there are so many layers and depths to each “type”.  If you look in Wikipedia or do a Google search for any one of the types you are bound to come up with more reading than you probably need to get to the point.  You can be whatever you choose, and you can define it in any way you want along the squiggly line of the binary.

Same with the femmes, you have the high femmes, diva femmes, lipstick lesbians, queer femmes, and that list goes on and on as well.  I am not as familiar with it as I am with the Butch side of things, obviously and for obvious reasons.  All I know is that I really love femme women.  And the way they embody their femininity is up to each one of them, they can put on a baseball cap and pull the pony tail through the back and still be a diva femme.  It’s all in the attitude I have come to realize with femmes.  They have this great attitude about femininity and they revel in it.

Today’s younger crowd has a ton of other new words too that I just don’t understand.  I’ve come to the realization that I am too old for some of this new wording. But I want to learn!

Personally, I used to identify as a Stone Butch.  I am not so sure about seriously identifying with the “stone” part any longer.  I’m just not sure exactly what stone means to me now.  I know that I am not a “touch me not” Butch, as the word “stone” is supposed to imply in some circles.  I don’t care for some things; for some forms of touch, but I do like to be loved on quite a lot!  I enjoy sex, and sometimes I think the the inference to “stone” is that he/she is not someone who likes to be touched or who enjoys any kind of sexual touch.  I have to say I enjoy both.  While I have my limitations, and my boundaries that doesn’t negate the fact that I am human and need human interaction and touch.  Hell, I love sex.

Stone is a word that gets thrown around a lot more as I’ve noticed lately. I even see it in reference to “stone femmes” now, which I never encountered before say the last year or so.  I’m not sure of how that definition would read or what it would be.  Perhaps one of you readers have more information on this one, or some anecdotes to share on it.  I see it on Fetlife quite often and wonder about it.

So, these are my more random thoughts for today’s blog.  I was just pondering word-smithing and how radically language in the gay community has changed over the decades. Words seem to come into fashion and fade just as quickly sometimes.  It’s interesting as fuck.  You may see me write a bit more about this, perhaps from a more serious angle next time, tonight I am in a fun mood and wanted to keep it fairly light.

Rock on.

~MB