I’m on the media committee for this year’s Femme Conference (save the date! August 20-22, 20FEMME, Oakland, CA) and that means I’m updating the Femme Collective Twitter! You know it’s going to be magic up in there! I’m starting the Tweet Down today!
Follow us: http://www.twitter.com/femmecollective
| Having trouble viewing this email? |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
→ No CommentsTags: Events and Announcements · femme conference
We came up with the idea of having a Femme Heartshare Brunch for Femme Family last summer, and finally had our first one in early January. It was electrifying, emotional and left me with a ton to think about. Our topic that time was Femme Competition/Femme Mutual Aid and was facilitated by me and Damien as Co-Head Madams with assistance from Sophie, Madam of Strategy.
The format we took was to have a pot luck brunch, a no latecomers policy, and opened it to Self-identified Femmes and Femme Questioning folks. I highly recommend doing this in your town! We got some new people who hadn’t been to a Femme Family event before and it was really a heartwarming and great way to meet people and learn about ourselves and our identities.
Last weekend I had the good fortune to return to Minneapolis for the first time in a few years. My Brooklynite friend Lissa lives there now for an internship (she’s going to be a queer femme pastor!) and plotted to gather some of the rad Twin Cities Femmes together for a brunch at her place.
I am working on an episode of FemmeCast about Femmes and Body Hair so I suggested a roundtable discussion.
What resulted was this amazing spread of food and some of the greatest conversation and heartsharing I’ve had in awhile.
Lissa, my hostess!
As Jna walked in she said “Don’t judge me for the size of this bottle.” From a size queen, the only judgment about this bottle can be a good judgment.
Femmes don’t fuck around about brunch!!
Femmes also don’t fuck around about shoes.
I had such a blast! After our discussion and food and copious coffee, I felt energized, enlightened, and had a deeper understanding of myself. Femme Heartshare brunches are my favorite way to do Femme community building.
Thanks Twin Cities Femme Mafia for your amazing hospitality, magic and warmth!!
At some point soon I’ll post links to the questions I used for Body Hair, and I know I have the outline for the Femme Competition/Femme Mutual Aid brunch in the bottom of an old purse but I can’t find it. I’ll share it on the Femme Family website when it surfaces!
→ 2 CommentsTags: Events and Announcements · Fat Femme Foodie · Queer Fat Femme and the City
I was pondering the last couple of single Valentine’s Days I’ve spent. Both were pretty miserable, but I realize in hindsight it was because I had some sweetheart that was dicking me around.* It’s amazing how much peace you can get in your life when you recognize bullshit when it comes your way and give it a sweet, polite “No thank you.”
That attitude certainly doesn’t eradicate bullshit or drama but it helps give you permission to trust your instincts around it and walk away when you notice it.
This year is different. Sure, I’m noticing how couple-oriented the mainstream is (Thanks you tube! Thanks significant other week on FaceBooK!) but at the same time, I don’t really care. I’m also noticing a lot of magical self-love celebratory moments.
The Adipositivity Project capped off their couple stream with a photo celebrating self-love. My friend Lissa (a pastor) is preaching today about self-love. I’m seeing a lot of love in the world.
I feel really happy about the life I’m leading. I get the sweetest notes from people who have significant to my writing, performance, podcast, videocast and blog posts. Taking some really fun and gorgeous photos. Having a lot of fun with my friends. Making time to make a lot more art. Carving out a business that will make it possible to see my goal of having an art career and talk show. Working at a store that is aligned with my core values and lets me play as much Dolly Parton and Pointer Sisters as I can stand. And the stuff I don’t like about my life I am working hard to change.
This is how the shop girls (Taueret, Erin and myself) and Jesse celebrated Validation Day this morning.
It is a radical act to love yourself in a society that says you shouldn’t because of any number of your inalienable characteristics. It is a radical act to create a career that is different than the typical 9 to 5. It is a radical act to send your friends cards with compliments on them (which is what I did for Validation Day, but now I think the blizzard from last week delayed their arrival).
So if you’re having trouble escaping the cult of couplehood this Validation Day, stop and figure out how you can put a little more love in the world. Instead of dwelling on your couch, take a cruise through your phone and send people compliments via text message. As FemmeCast Sexpert and my BFF Rachael says about flirting, it is never a bad time to make someone feel good.**
Photo by Shameless Photography–I did a pin-up photo shoot and had so much fun composing this photo with Sophie for my Validation cards.
Happy Validation Day everyone!!
*Jay-Z said it best when he said “I got 99 problems…”
**Whitney Houston said it best when she said “Ain’t it shocking what love can do?”
→ 2 CommentsTags: Queer Oprah
Yesterday my Femme friend Rachel posted to FaceBook that she doesn’t understand how to dress for snow and solicited tips. Femme Family Madam of Beauty, Bryn, responded “Snow = Femmephobic”. An FF Butch ally complained about snow being butchphobic because of the giant duck-like snow boots she is forced to wear.
Let’s be real–winter is just plain stylephobic. It’s a lot harder to be cute in the cold, what with all of the layering and the arduous task of putting on coats, gloves, hats, and special shoes just to leave your house. I grew up in California and didn’t experience my first real winter until I was 21. A decade later I’m still not over the novelty and annoyance.
I have come up with some ideas as to how to inject style and sass into your winter blah blah blahs for not a lot of money.
1. Get an accessory that can transition the everyday into glamour.
Your coat and accouterments are the first thing everyone sees on you. It’s also the one outfit you’ll wear every single day. Making it a good one is important.
This year I found a great way to transition 3 late fall weight coats (or California winter coats) to be really stellar and glamorous outerwear: a $10 Old Navy khaki trench, a getting sort of crappy houndstooth coat I was thinking of giving away and a mid-range mod print black and white coat. I bought a vintage fur stole* for $20. It wasn’t in fabulous condition, so I felt totally fine stitching it up, closing it with a pin and throwing it over any one of those coats. Instaglamour!
I wish I had a better shot of the coat but I think the Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha cameo totally makes up for it.
I also bought a really gorgeous pair of teal leather gloves for $10. They were GAP in origin (but I got them from Re/Dress). They really pop against any kind of neutral coat, they’re water proof, and they actually work to open Macy’s poop bags, which is not true of most gloves. I believe in good leather or leather-like gloves only if they are cheap because expensive gloves get lost.
I feel complicated about hats so I try to have a coat with a hood in late winter. I’ve been seeing girls wear really floppy beret style hats this winter, with their bangs able to show and still function as a hat. I like having big hair so it makes it hard to deal. I have earmuffs that wrap around the back of my bouffant.
I shop like a magpie so pretty much anything sparkly gets my attention. A sparkly scarf is my day to day in the deep winter. Glenn Marla here models a glittery ascot. I’ve seen many of my hippest queer friends layering their scarves this year–so even if it is a thin glittery overlay you can put more layers under them. One girl showed up to a gallery opening with I think at least 5 scarves around her neck.
Nothing says “I’m bringing a little winter cheer to this bitch” like wearing bright accessories in the depths of February.
2. Become a Maple Chaser.
When you’re confused about what to wear in the winter, look to our Canadian cousins. If anyone knows how to dress for insanely cold weather, it’s people who live it 5 months of the year. I like to cruise my Facebook friends to see what the Canadian fatties are wearing and then pester them with questions about where stuff comes from.
A visiting Canadian walked into Re/Dress this winter wearing the most gorgeous full-length fuchsia down coat. She also had fuchsia hair. I see a lot of well-dressed folks at the store and it takes an especially foxy outfit to stick in my memory like that.
It was likely this coat from Lands’ End. It’s still not on sale, but it might be by the end of winter.
3. Get some bangin’ outerwear.
I scour all year long for good outerwear (this is how you can get stuff for cheap). I found my calf-length down coat at a Marshall’s last January on sale for $40 when I was in there looking for some impulsive-make-me-feel-better-cheap-lingerie to buy. A plus size new with tags calf-length down coat is hard enough to find, let alone for $40. It is always worth it to rifle through the coat section of those places.
Sometimes it is a good idea to splurge when the time is right. My friend Miasia bought this coat from an online Parisian retailer. It’s INSANELY gorgeous, warm, and she got it on sale. I forget where it’s from or how much she spent but I say worth it. It’s form fitting, flattering, unusual and wool.
Even Macy gets some amazing outerwear for the coldest months. This waterproof for the snow pink lame’ and silver coat was $2, new with tags at the goodwill (originally from Target).
4. These boots were made for walkin’ not fallin’.
I am a faller. I hate falling. I don’t understand people who don’t wear snow boots. They have treads and are waterproof and keep your feet warm. I think snow boots get a bad rap as being big crazy duck shoes. They don’t have to be sporty like that! Online footwear shopping is your friend for snow boots.
My first winter as a working girl, I had to travel to do closings, so I needed a pair of boots I could tromp around Manhattan in that went seamlessly with my work wardrobe. I found a pair of Lands’ End fleece boots that are completely black, inconspicuous and have lasted for 7 years. The lovely part I’ve found is that, since they are black, they work equally well with tights, leggings or work pants.
Right now I am in love with these stylish Fitzwell Lesley’s. They’re spendy, though.
On the other end of the spectrum, Deb, the owner of Re/Dress, introduced me to these totally cute boots.
I believe these are Tretorn Women’s Glad Rubber Boots
Your boots do not have to sacrifice fashion for function!
5. Make the big reveal a good one!
As for the stuff underneath all of those layers, I like to wear polyester vintage dresses in the winter. They are extremely warm (nothing like a fabric that doesn’t breathe). I also tend to layer tights under leggings and wear wool socks. Because when wool gets wet, wool stays warm. (I learned the tights instead of long johns trick and wool socks bit from my winter camping training in Girl Scouts.) When you wear tights under your clothes it also doesn’t matter as much if they have runs or holes in them because they’re hidden.
When you dig your car out from 4 feet of snowdrift wearing tights and you fall in a snowbank, you dry off really quickly, where jeans will retain the freeze far longer. I’ve found this year’s crop of tights from Target and Avenue to have a good longevity.
I also like to put my scarf on right after I put on my perfume (just one neck spritz)** because when it comes off it retains a subtle whif of fragrance which is a really good olfactory seduction.
And no time is more of a special time for cleavage as the winter. Frankly, there’s just not as much and I like to do my best to defeat that.
I end this post with one of my favorite songs of the now (even though it’s a little old). It IS hard to be a girl in all seasons!!
*It was sold to Re/Dress by World Famous *BOB*, I bought it with store credit I got for trading in my white fur collar/muff/hat set that I never wore because it was too pristine. In turn, Australian burlesque performer Lillian Starr bought my set from Re/Dress. The beauty of resale!
**Always being mindful of people with scent sensitivities–that’s no joke! If you know someone who has one NEVER wear perfume around them. My mom is scent sensitive and perfume is like migraine-inducing kryptonite.
→ 4 CommentsTags: Fatshion · girl you look expensive
What Would My Dreamy Boyfriend or Girlfriend Do? As a single girl, I like to ask myself this when I am feeling lonely or tender and really want someone to take care of me. This idea, of the mythical dreamy boyfriend or dreamy girlfriend (depending on your orientation/their preference), is totally ridiculous but ultimately a fun way to look at self-care.
Basically in an ideal world, what would a partner do to soothe you? My dreamy boyfriend would totally take care of getting my car cleaned–inside and out. Really, it’s just taking it to the vacuum and wash place or whatever, but it’s a nice thing. So sometimes I go to the car place and do all the work that I hate to do ever so much and attribute it to my dreamy boyfriend. Makes it less of a chore.
My dreamy girlfriend has been paying attention to my twitter feed for the last six weeks and knows that I have been obsessed with getting a pink snuggie, so she totally bought it for me at Rite Aid. I’m going to bling it out with cupcake embellishments to make it extra perfect for me. (This justified the spending of $14.99 when trying to save up for a couple of impending trips.)
The next time you feel distraught, think “What Would My Dreamy Boyfriend/Girlfriend Do?” And those of you with actual real life Dreamy Boyfriends or Girlfriends? Treat them to Steak and Blowjob day.
Grapefruit-o-clock: My friends Ally, Damien Luxe and I had brunch the other day and Damien brought a whole pile of grapefruits. She disclosed that since she quit smoking she looks forward to her grapefruit every day (there is a ritual aspect to it that nicely distracts from the non-smoking). She supremes the grapefruit by hand–peeling it, removing all of the pith and just eats the tasty pulp.
Since that day I have enjoyed grapefruit-o-clock almost every day. Eating it like that is a total adventure, it’s very tasty and brings joy to an otherwise bleak winter day.
Cheesy 20Femme moment with Damien. If you can’t don ridiculous glasses with your friends while wearing giant hairbling and corsets, who can you do those things with?
The Lesbian Plunge: Basically, this is a phrase similar to “Uhaul Dyke” and other monikers that poke fun at the lesbian tendency to partner up right after the first date. It’s often a slippery slope to disaster, but can sometimes be to great effect–I did it twice and stayed with the person for 2-3 years. You can do a lot of things to mitigate your tendencies towards the Lesbian Plunge. Paying attention to your red flags is one. Having good boundaries (and enforcing them and sticking to them) is another. I mean, I’ve listened to enough cheesy R & B love songs to know there’s no stopping the train, but you can mitigate the impending disaster at least a little.
Dates Not Dating: You can read the whole description here, by the ever eloquent Bee Listy. The gist is, hey, what about just going on dates with someone without worrying about “where is this going” and “what do we mean” or anything like that? No expectations beyond the date itself (showing up on time, generalized good respect for one another).
I’ve found the idea of it to be pretty liberating. When a girl is totally not relationship material but treats you well, you can still go on dates with her (and vice-versa, especially when one is fresh from a break-up or going through other life stuff that makes you/they feel like dating is not a good idea). It’s pretty much the opposite of the Lesbian Plunge.
I just love this picture of Bryn. She cut my hair two months ago and it’s grown in really well.
Younicorn: So few things bring me the kind of joy that being made into a unicorn does. Brian, my Gay Boy BFF and I had this interaction about the new iphone application Younicorn.
TO: Brian
FROM: Bevin
Subject: Younicorn
Brian this iphone app called Younicorn allows you to make anyone a unicorn. You should get it immediately.
TO: Bevin
FROM: Brian
Subject: Younicorn
Bevin, I feel like this app is worth having, providing that it costs $0.99 or less. I don’t feel like the ability to make anyone a unicorn is worth a full dollar to me. This is an arbitrary sum, to be sure, but a whole number threshold seems to be reasonable given the expected payoff in terms of joy brought to my life in this instance.
Thoughts?
TO: Brian
FROM: Bevin
Subject: Younicorn
Brian, I would like to confirm that this app costs, in fact, 99 cents exactly. I can tell you that it has brought more than a dollar’s worth of joy into my life already and I do not even own an iphone. My friends Glenn Marla and Jessie Dress have both made a younicorn out of my image and both times I have squealed. Squealed, Brian. I have spent $1.50 on a fresca and never squealed. I think that if you bought the younicorn app you could make your fiance Jose look like a unicorn from another planet and it would bring you at least the retail value of a bag of cheetos worth of joy. Also, when you save a younicorn, it makes a tinka tinka noise like the noise a unicorn would make while flying through the air.
Brian I hope you take this into consideration.
And you, magical readers, I hope you take THIS into consideration.
His response to me was a photo of me from a wedding we went to together, eating an oyster, as a younicorn. I rest my case.
→ 1 CommentTags: queer lexicography
I am immersed in a cloud of glitter putting the final touches on an evening of spectacular performance celebrating the radical act of self-love. I went to Collect Pond tonight for a dinner party and Julie Blair promises the same exact (free) spread as last time–gorgeous cupcakes, eclairs and mini cheesecakes. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” she said.
Slideshow from the last Cupcake Cabaret by the talented Syd London.
Sunday, February 7, 20FEMME
BEVIN BRANLANDINGHAM PRESENTS!
Cupcake Cabaret NYC: Celebrating the Radical Act of Self-Love
doors at 8p, show at 8:30p, $10-$15 sliding scale (proceeds go to performers)
Collect Pond: 45 Berry st (corner of N 11th) L to Bedford or G to Nassau
Bevin Branlandingham femmecees and performs funny spoken word don’t miss an evening of celebrating our esteem through our differences!
This edition:
Vagina Jenkins: Queer Fat Femme Southern Burlesque [http://www.vaginajenkins.com], from Atlanta, GA!
Glenn Marla: Fat Tranny Superstar [http://www.glennmarla.com]
Lorelei Lee: Queer Femme Porn Princess Storyteller
Sequinette: Queer Femme Drag Dolly Parton
Bevin Branlandingham: Queer Fat Femme Cupcake Femmecee [http://www.queerfatfemme.com]
Cupcake Cabaret is a performance celebrating the strength we get from what marks us different in this world. Size, gender, sexuality, class, race, dis/ability, age, religion and all numbers of identities bring the artists in the series a sense of power and esteem.
An ongoing series curated by Bevin Branlandingham, Cupcake Cabaret features comedy, drag, burlesque, spoken word, film, performance art and all manner of genres celebrating the radical act of self-love.
Want to bring Cupcake Cabaret to your town? Email me! queerfatfemme at gmail dot com!
→ No CommentsTags: Events and Announcements
I wrote this piece a couple of weeks ago.* It has been really difficult to wrap my head around this experience and how it has affected my personal life, my activism and my art. I am working this text into the one-woman show I am writing about my experience growing up Fat and Queer.
I Try To Love Myself As Much As She Loved Me
by Bevin Branlandingham
I met Liz when I was 11 years old, when she decided to marry my absentee father.
Dad and Liz got engaged 9 days after they met as adults. They both grew up in the same mid-size city in California’s Central Valley and were high school classmates. An accident at the factory Dad worked at brought him to the emergency room where Liz was an intake clerk.
Once they were engaged, Dad called me to tell me about it. I remember speaking to Liz on the phone, she was so excited to finally “have a daughter”. She said it over and over again, that she’d always wanted a daughter.
Liz had two sons, 19 year old Richard Luke was living in Germany with the army. (I could never wrap my head around why that kid had two first names.) The youngest, Shawn, was almost 14 still lived at home. My Dad moved in with them right away.
At this point in my life my dad was intermittently in the picture. My parents separated by the time I was 15 months old and my mom worked really hard to make sure he had a presence in my upbringing, even though we lived two hours away in the Bay Area. My mom ran out of steam covering for my dad’s lazy parenting by the time I was 6 or so, and I hadn’t really seen him more than a couple times a year. The logistics of getting a kid for a weekend when you live two hours away is a little complicated for someone who doesn’t make a lot of money and barely pays his child support as it is.
By the time I was 11 I was horribly shy. I was always a fat kid and being a fat kid turns from cute to, well, graceless around the Tween years. Of course they didn’t have that cutesy word in the 80s, back then it was just fat and awkward.
I was well-aware of my fat by then, everyone in my life teachers, peers, relatives and my beloved television wanted to remind me of the fact that I was fat. I was a total bookworm. In books I didn’t have to see the differences so starkly between me and the main characters. I could easily blend into the Baby Sitters Club. I always identified with cosmopolitan native New Yorker Stacy. She had fluffy blond hair and good fashion sense.
In real life I had fluffy golden brown hair with streaks I got in the summertime at camp. I longed to be normal and thin.
Liz was fat, too. Not just sort of in between fat, either, like my mom and other female relatives were at the time (though now, of course, most of them are around my size). She was short and round, with a round face, black curly hair and a mouth that was always smiling. She was half Italian half Mexican and very girly.
The first time we met, Liz was ready to be a huge part of my life. I was mistrustful and didn’t understand why she loved me so much already. I was used to adults liking me, since as an only child I learned to socialize well with grown-ups and I was very bright. But the way she just immediately loved me, in that I-loved-you-before-I-knew-you way that parents talk about felt so weird. As I continued into adolescence and hated myself more and more, the more suspicious I was of her unconditional love.
My mom wasn’t what I would call emotionally nurturing. She was a stressed out single mom putting herself through undergrad. There was always a contingency and a reward to meet. Usually it was “get good grades and you’ll get this” and “lose weight and you’ll get that”. I was exceptionally good at the former. The fact that Liz was so proud of me regardless of my latest accomplishment felt bizarre. My weight was never an issue.
She had lived in the same town almost all of her 40 years. Everywhere we went when I visited she either already knew someone or got to know someone new. She would always introduce me as her daughter. I would blush when she said this because I thought it wasn’t true and it never made sense to me. I also felt a little weird because she was so open and friendly with strangers. She had a huge heart and was extremely welcoming to strangers. She was proud of being friends with all sort of people, including a big biker crowd from her younger days. I was jealous of her self-confidence.
I didn’t get to go to Dad and Liz’s wedding because of some last minute drama having to do with some friend of the family who was supposed to be my chaperone on greyhound that didn’t work out. I went for Thanksgiving a few weeks later and watched the wedding video so many times over the next few years each frame feels like my own memory.
Her family was huge. Five girls, all fat, most of them had five kids of their own. Everyone would gather at Liz’s mom’s house the day after Thanksgiving to make tamales. It was a huge ordeal, making hundreds of them, with many different stations going at once and different groups responsible for different parts of the assembly.
The house was cozy and humid, smelled sweet with a tang of chili and meat and filled with talking and laughing. I was placed in the masa station, spreading a white dough made from cornmeal dough, lard and salt on the insides of damp corn husks. Liz and one of her sisters or her mom would put meat and an olive inside each one. One of the kids would fold them into little pockets. They would then go into a steamer for awhile and then placed into freezer bags by the dozen.
I remember my step brother Shawn complaining that the other kids in the family had to be teenagers before they got to spread the masa, but somehow I was the exception. Liz ignored his complaint, and I kept assembling tamales.
They treated me like one of their own, and I came back year after year with Liz to spread the masa.
My visits to my Dad increased exponentially once Liz was there to motivate them.
Liz loved to go garage saling, where she taught me to haggle and bought me lots of stuffed animals I didn’t need but I certainly wanted. We would pile into her car with her friend Terry, who was a little fatter than Liz. I remember one time Terry pulled out a seat belt extender so that she could use the seatbelt in the car, they were both very excited that their older cars with seat belts made for very small people were just a little bit safer for them.
We spent a lot of time crafting. She would set me up with a cross stitch or a beading project and we would sit at TV trays side by side watching TV and laughing. When I let my guard down around Liz I felt very comfortable. She talked about what it would be like when I had babies and how she couldn’t wait for me to have a daughter. I was just being adolescent and contrary when I claimed I would refuse to let her put my babies in ruffle butt tights.
She loved clothes. I remember when she got approved for a Lane Bryant credit card she was ecstatic and immediately maxed it out on new things from the catalog.
She loved the color pink. She collected elephant everything. Whenever I was at a loss for what to get her for christmas I would get her a blinged out elephant knick knack and she would love it.
Richard Luke got married in Germany. Liz was devastated that she couldn’t go to the wedding, but a transcontinental trip was entirely out of the question financially. I promised she would have a lot of fun at my wedding and was already working out in my head how I would handle the mom/step-mom dynamics.
Liz told me about her ex husband a few times. Richard Luke was born out of wedlock and later she married Shawn’s dad. He was abusive. Her struggle to leave him was epic and she had to work her way off welfare.
Liz and Dad loved each other a lot, that was clear. My dad hit my mom, which was why she left. I am unsure whether or not Dad was ever violent with Liz, though I remember a screaming fight I witnessed when I was 16 or so that drove Shawn out of the house with me in hot pursuit. From what I could tell they mostly fought about money and Dad’s drinking. They also expressed their love pretty regularly, too. She saved one dried flower from every bouquet Dad ever gave her in a jar under the TV.
While Liz was outgoing and confident, and dressed as well as she could manage with not a lot of money or access to cute plus size clothes, she did talk about losing weight. Not as regularly as my mom, but of course I didn’t live with her so I’ll never know for sure. She had a lot of chronic health problems that her doctors always blamed on weight. She was regularly dealing with asthma, bronchitis, diabetes, among other things. She also complained of aches and pains and trouble walking.
Being fat was hard for her, too. She didn’t always fit in seats. Had she ever made that transcontinental flight she would have been in a lot of pain from the armrests.
I remember one time we were in our pajamas and I saw her belly peak out from under her loungerie. It had a dimple in it, below the belly button. I thought it was so odd and was slightly horrified. I developed the same dimple myself by the time I was 20. I hadn’t been exposed to naked fat women before, I didn’t know what that kind of flesh was supposed to look like.
She dealt with being fat very differently from my mother. Mom switched us to nonfat milk really early in my childhood, I don’t remember ever having butter instead of margarine. We stocked our pantry with diet food. Things could have tasted so much better if we focused on moderation, vegetables and using real ingredients.
Liz would cook full force with fat. One time when I saw the giant bucket of lard from the tamales I was shocked. But she never really stopped, and her cooking was incredible. I think she would occasionally diet.
Around 1996 the drug Fen-Phen started making its rounds. It was a weight-loss drug made from fenfluramine and phentermine. It was heavily marketed and people were seeing pretty immediate results. I was about to graduate from high school and my mom suggested I start taking it. I blew her off, as I often did, especially about weight loss stuff.
A year or so later Liz told me over the phone that she had been taking Fen-Phen to help with her medical issues and was losing weight pretty quickly. She was excited about that.
In early 1997 valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension started showing up, mostly in women who took the drug. It was taken off the market in September of that year. While I was in college I saw Liz and Dad less because I was busy with school and my social life. She stopped taking Fen-Phen and I never did notice any difference in her weight.
In mid-1998, toward the end of my Sophomore year of college, I went to visit Dad and Liz for Dad’s graduation from Community College and his 50th birthday. It was really important to Liz that I be there. We did all of our regular stuff, crafting, hanging out. She told me that weekend she was trying to get in touch with the child my Dad fathered in high school but was put up for adoption, and that Dad was putting up resistance.
Just three months later I was coordinating move-in at my dorm. That morning I had been getting ready and looked outside my window at the sky and felt really peaceful and happy, which was unusual for me at the time—I was starting to come out of a several year long depression and was taking steps to stop hating myself. I got a message from my mom to call home right away. When I talked to my mom that night she told me that Liz had died.
Liz woke up, kissed Dad and went out to the living room. About and hour later he got up to join her. She was on the couch, dead from a heart attack. She was 48 years old. That week she had been complaining that her asthma was acting up. Her heart was weakened. Probably from the Fen-Phen.
I was devastated and in shock. Mom offered to come with me to the funeral but I said no. I didn’t want to add to the confusion and weirdness with the ex-wife dynamic. The weekend was bizarre and hard. I had never been to a funeral before. My dad was drinking again. He had me sleep on Liz’s side of the bed, and I didn’t know how to say no, that that was weird and bad boundaries and I didn’t want to sleep on my dead step-mom’s side of the bed.
We’re all Catholic, at least mostly. The Rosary was the night before the funeral and it was open casket. I walked up the aisle and burst into hysterics that I didn’t want to see her like that. My Dad’s mom, who had been really cruel to me as a child, was the nicest and most nurturing I’d ever known her to be that night. She brought me into the pew and told me I didn’t have to see her like that if I didn’t want to.
The mass was big and weird and there were hundreds of people there. I felt this obligation to stay with my dad, even though I probably should have just gone with my grandparents. His house became this huge party with all of this drinking and pot smoking and at 19 years old I was still pretty square and still wasn’t drinking a lot in college. I felt uncomfortable, unsafe, and scared. I didn’t know how to articulate what I needed because I didn’t know how to advocate for myself.
I went back to school. I tried not to deal with it. I did pretty well.
I am angry that I only knew Liz when I was an adolescent and didn’t appreciate her the way I wish I had. I am angry that her physical heart was affected because her doctors treated her weight and not her symptoms. I am angry that Liz never got to go to any of her children’s weddings. I am angry that Dad never joined the class action suits against the makers of Fen-Phen. They paid out over $14 billion in settlements. But at the same time I certainly didn’t want to have to think about it or interact with him that much to do the work of making it happen.
Over the years little things occur to me. The way Liz always wanted to make people feel special and at ease, the way she was welcoming. I get that from her. I loved that about her. Her huge metaphorical heart cannot be weakened by a pharmaceutical company’s greed and exploitation.
I think about the plus size resale store I work in now and how much she would have loved it. I work hard at body liberation activism because I want to make it easier for people to live in this world and I don’t want Fen-Phen to ever happen again. I think about Liz every time I see an elephant tchotchke. I can’t wait to have a daughter.
*I feel compelled to share this story now, as an initial draft, as a way of honoring Liz and bringing her into my adult life. Especially in light of the perpetual crop of weight-loss drugs on the market, the fact that I keep hearing ads for them on the radio and in side-bars on websites, and the fact that on Friday the LA Times and New York Times reported that the FDA in America chose to recommend “stronger warnings” on the sides of Meridia bottles while the European Union recommended a ban of the product. I guess posting this story is my way of turning my rage over that news into productivity.
→ 13 CommentsTags: Queer Oprah · queer lexicography
During the Femme Family Heart Share Brunch on Femme Competition and Femme Mutual Aid, we were talking about the ways in which Femmes sometimes compete for affection from butches.
I declared to the room of ten, “I believe in Butch* abundance!”
I went on to explain that living in a scarcity mentality is damaging to community and collaboration. There is enough love to go around. There is enough sex to go around. There is enough.
I totally know what you are saying. “Oh Bevin! There’s no one in this town to date! I know them all! Wah wah wah!” Or “Oh Bevin! There are no butches for me to be friends with! Who will watch football/craft/do other butch bonding activities with me?”
I think that there are tons of butches. Openly relying on anecdata, I meet a new butch-identified person every single week. This is specifically butch, not also including the many myriad masculine-of-center folk also orbiting the queer community and are new-to-me all the time. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I am attracted to them–quite the contrary, generally I am not. I think oftentimes people who are complaining of butch scarcity are specifically referring to a lack of people who they are attracted to and are sexually available to them.
The fact that my single Femme friends are still finding new butches* we don’t know through OK Cupid, Craig’s List and other online dating sites further reinforces my anecdata.
I keep telling the story of a fat femme friend of mine who found a really fabulous artsy late twenties butch none of us had ever met before on OK Cupid as though it is an urban legend. Because those dating sites can often seem so dried up, it still feels like an urban legend to me, even though I’ve actually met the butch and she’s foxy, smart, funny and exists in real life.
This is my friend Kieran, with our mutual niece Etta Pearl (we are heart family). She’s single, butch and totally awesome. She also does sweet things for me like bought me flowers for my birthday and brought me cupcakes to the middle of nowhere when I was camping.
Further, I think there is a lot of butch abundance evident in the burgeoning Butchosphere. Check out the Sartorial Butch, putting a face and words to the fashionable faggy butches I often call friends. Also, check out this amazing post by amazing subversive stitcher BeeListy in response to gender policing in the Butchosphere.
Not to mention a whole conference of butches, studs and aggressives! When cruising the conference facebook photos** I didn’t recognize at least half or more of the attendees.
People also like to argue that the “next generation” is not producing any butches. I say not so! I have a lot of fresh out of college friends who are 23 and totally rocking the Butch label proudly and who want more butch friends. Shout out to SirMaamSir, Alex, who taught me Garage Band and is helping with FemmeCast.
I think propagating the notion that butches are diminishing is dangerous.
When you get into the mindset that there are only so many butches around, it enables the excusing of bad behavior.
In the past, I have clung romantically to people who were super shitty to me because I didn’t believe that there were other cute butches out there who would treat me well. Cutting ties and sending the badly behaved back out into the water enables me to have a heart free and wide for those who are ethical.
My friend Grover told me that morning she was “packing the jam”.
Further, believing in a scarcity of butches propagates competition and bad behavior on the part of hoarding or horse-thieving queers. Going after a butch who is dating your friend***? Not cool at all. I have had some significant emotional violence wrought unto me by two different close Femme friends because of a sense of butch scarcity. I don’t wish that on anyone.
Okay, you know your community better than I do. But, in this day and age of people traveling all over (four of my favorite people are going on tour next month, maybe through your town–including SIlas who totally still identifies as Butch) and people moving to far flung god-knows-where, I feel that there is enough deck shuffling that there will always be someone new. You just have to be open to it.
I’ve also taken to widening my online dating search to no location parameters–I like to see who else is out there, plus I love to travel. I am not closed to the idea of a long distance romance, I love a good laycation.
So, gentle readers, when you begin the familiar butch scarcity rant, stop and challenge yourself into a different way of thinking. What if you believed in Butch* Abundance, like I do? What doors would that open up in the realm of romantic and friend possibilities?
*And queers of a more masculine gender persuasion, including but not limited to butches, genderqueers, transfabulous people, studs, AGs, and other non gender identifying foxy folks.
**Act like you didn’t do that yourself.
***Unless they are poly/non-monogs AND you’ve had those important, possibly hard/awkward conversations.
→ 9 CommentsTags: Queer Oprah
I have switching the FemmeCast Video Podcast hosting to Blip.tv because you tube no longer allows videos longer than 10 minutes.
I really hope you’ll pull up a cupcake and cozy in for 13 minutes. Heather’s piece is very accessible, chronicles the history of the Fat Bottom Revue (the fat burlesque troupe she founded) and also speaks to the need to use the body in order to work against fat oppression.
“We will never have our freedom if we only live from the neck up, yet that is the way that many fat people live, even, or especially, the fat activists and academics among us… The oppression of anti-fat hatred is sited on the body, and it is in the body that these wounds can be healed.” –Heather MacAllister
On the video the piece is read by Kelli Dunham, butch comedien correspondent for FemmeCast.
You can read the piece in its entirety, as well as 50 other pieces in the Fat Studies Reader. You should try to get it at your local indie bookstore (and make sure they order an extra copy for their shelf). If you buy anything from Amazon through my links my website gets a small referral fee, which basically gets me more books and music. (I got a free copy of the next Femme Book Club book, Leather Daddy and the Femme
Heather continues to be a huge inspiration for me. I am working on an oral history project collecting people’s stories about Heather.*
I am also collecting a slide show of photos of her for the Heather MacAllister Memorial Community Lounge at Re/Dress NYC–please send any digital photos you have.
We will be having a naming ceremony for the lounge on Friday, February 12 at 9PM as part of the Glutton For Fatshion Zine** Release Party at Re/Dress NYC. It’s a free event!
*If you knew her, would you please get in touch with me?
**The Glutton For Fatshion Zine call for submissions is going on through January 22. Read it at the link and submit!
→ No CommentsTags: FemmeCast · Video
I have alluded subtly before that I suffer from the Seasonal Affective Disorder. It fucking sucks. I am a very logical person* and there are so many real things in life that bum me out, so it is made ever so worse to feel so very all alone, anxious and sad just because of my body’s reaction to the time of year.
Never one to suffer in silence or suffer without trying to do something about it, I have sought out a few remedies, both from my vast experience dealing with significantly terrible life altering changes and from my friends. Below I share them with you, cherished reader.
Most of these tips are good to use whenever life is getting you down, for many other reasons than just lack of light. They are also super low cost/free.
Tip One: When you feel like things are out of control, figure out what you can control and control the hell out of it.
A friend of mine told me this about two years ago and it works wonders when I am feeling anxious or worried, both of my own creation and because of external madness. Small ways I take control are to stop what I am doing and think about micro steps where I can get something small done immediately. “What do I have control over right this second? What can I do to exercise control?” Seeing progress, even a little bit, is really helpful.
Another way to establish control is on my environment. I am not a born-organized person. In fact, I am a bit of a “clean slob” (things are always clean, but I tend toward clutter strewn about). I am an avid follower of FLYLady, who teaches you how to get organized in baby steps–for free**. In just three days, 15 minutes at a time, I transformed my really messy and cluttered desk into a clean workspace.
I then proceeded to write a really amazing piece of art I had been procrastinating writing down for almost a decade.
When I am feeling ever so sad and I can’t motivate myself, I think in terms of just a few minutes, just fifteen minutes, whatever I can do to get something done. It really does make me feel better.
Tip Two: Live your life according to the quotes on your tea bags.
I got this tip from World Famous *BOB*. She was having a tough time and decided to do this for one week. Such small but magical quotes as:
“On with the dance, let joy be unconfined” -Mark Twain
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Cesare Pavese
And “A romance without friendship is like a mansion built upon the sand.” *BOB* credits this for asking out her current beau again. I’m happy to say they are still going strong.
*BOB* enjoys a cupcake on the chaise at Re/Dress NYC.
There’s something to the generally benevolent and uplifting sentiments on the sides of those tea boxes and the little tags hanging out of coffee cups. They are meant to help you feel better about the world, and help you connect a little bit more with the world around you.
In my entire Lesbian Tea Basket I couldn’t find a single quote on a tea bag. I should stop buying my tea from Trader Joe’s.
Tip Three: Come up with a cutesy way to describe how you’re feeling.
Previously in this blog I presented Glenn Marla’s definition of Tragic versus Depressed. I have decided to call my Seasonal Depression the Winter Blah Blah Blahs. It’s just far more adorable and easier to combat when the scary monster is something you can change your relationship to by renaming it.
Me and Glenn Marla at his performance series Heavy on Thursday night. He is wearing a glittery ascot. I am wearing a Looks Good From the Front hairpiece.
Tip Four: Get light anywhere you can.
What I did was to amp up the volume on my nail color. My day to day color is Fuschia. I think I made a big leap the time I decided to go for fuschia at the nail salon about two and a half years ago. I kept noticing that every time I looked at my nails I smiled. So I committed to it. I like the Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear-fuchsia Power
It really doesn’t matter if your manicure is perfect or messy, the joy is all yours. That’s my niece Etta Pearl grabbing my finger when she was 30 days old. She’s almost one now!
Given my Winter Blah Blah Blahs, I decided to amp it up a little bit. I went to the nail salon for my $7 manicure and got day glo pink. It is insanely bright, and definitely doing its part to impart a little more light on the world.
Get creative and find something that you can make a little bit brighter!
Tip Five: Asking for help.
Asking for help is a skill. Vulnerability is a sign of strength. I’ve talked about this before. I asked for help and got a lot of really useful tips from my friends. A reminder from Golda at Body Love Wellness to take a walk everyday when the sun is at its highest. I try to walk 30 minutes a day, and instead of doing it at night with Macy I am doing my best to get out there at noon. It has made a huge difference. So has taking more Vitamin D and an emergen-c in the morning. My butch ironworker roommate is loaning me a UV lamp to bask under for additional help.
Its been about two weeks since I started getting really bluesy and I am feeling much much better. It takes a lot of diligence on my part, which sort of sucks, but anything worth doing is worth working for.
Happiness is always worth working for.
*And a Capricorn with a Virgo Rising, if that kind of thing matters to you, which it does to me.
**I know a lot of queers who follow FLYLady and it really applies to all lifestyles, though at first glance it seems just for ladies with kids.
→ 5 CommentsTags: Queer Oprah
Self Advocacy Coaching by Bevin!
Personal Shopping! by Bevin!
by Zoe Whittall.
Previous book: Leather Daddy and the Femme
(If you click through to Amazon using this link and buy anything, a tiny referral goes to help maintain this website.)
