Ah, the result of eating turkey meatloaf is that I’ve lost 11 lbs. since I started this plan on 3/19/06, and taken off a total of 4.7″.
I admire any of you who have had to lose 25 lbs or more ever, in your life. I’ve never had this much to lose before, and I am really really sick of this sterile way of eating – measuring everything & all. I’m about a third of the way through my weight loss, so if I keep losing it at about the same rate, I’ll reach my goal weight in about four months – or by our 5th wedding anniversary.
It’s kind of nice to look forward to, but in the meantime – ugh to green beans already!
Speaking of Eating…
Because of this whole plan to lose weight and work out more, I’ve had to teach myself how to cook. The other night I made my first meatloaf, and I’ve otherwise roasted a chicken, made my own chicken stock, then soup, and made meatballs. My father would be quite surprised.
Scene from Helen’s early teenage years: Dad sitting at head of table finishing dinner. Grandma and mom cleaning up. Helen putting away dried silverware.
Dad: “Isn’t it time she learned how to cook?”
Silence. Shocked faces on mom, grandma, and Helen. Dad still chewing.
Helen: “I’ll learn how to cook when YOU do.”
Which explains why I don’t know how to cook – because my father certainly never did. I did at least know where the spoons went, though, which is more than I could say for him. Anyway, I find it entertaining, but only when I can’t write anymore, because otherwise, I’m the type to put an egg onto boil and forget about them until they explode and hit the ceiling. I’m not kidding; I’ve done it lots of times, and I’m usually writing or reading when I hear the *pop* in the kitchen.
My meatloaf isn’t bad, either.
It's Official
I think I’ve officially made the category of crazy cat lady. Every birthday card I received had a picture of a cat on it.
This situation has been in the making since I was 11, when my 6th grade teacher gave me a beautiful coffee table book of cat photos which I still have. The weirder thing is that I grew up with a blue and an orange tabby, and now we have two blues and an orange tabby. I’m not sure if that means we have to get another blue next, or another tabby.
First we’d have to get a bigger place, either way.
Thanks, everyone, for the cards.
Happy Birthday Dad.
In honor of my dad, who is the Holder of All Records Involving Eating, a photo of big Endymion, walking away full, while Aeneas continues to chow down & Aurora eyes him suspiciously.
Happy 78th, Pops.
No "Them" Or "Us"
STRAIGHT RIGHTS UPDATE: I’ve been running around with my hair on fire trying to convince my straight readers that religious conservatives don’t just hate homos. Their attacks on gay people, relationships, parents, and sex get all the press, but the American Taliban has an anti-straight-rights agenda too. As I wrote on March 23: “The GOP’s message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no lifesaving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You’re going to have those babies, ladies, and you’re going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that’s too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.â€
After raising the alarm for months back here in the sex ads section, I was intensely gratified to read Russell Shorto’s brilliant cover story, “The War on Contraception,†in the New York Times Magazine last weekend. To readers who think I’m being hysterical: So you don’t think the religious right would seriously go after birth control? Fine, don’t believe me. But maybe you’ll believe Shorto when he lays out the American Taliban’s plan to deny access to birth control—any and all types, folks, not just emergency contraception.
“In particular, and not to put too fine a point on it, they want to change the way Americans have sex,†Shorto writes. “Contraception, by [their] logic,†Shorto continues, “encourages sexual promiscuity, sexual deviance (like homosexuality), and a preoccupation with sex that is unhealthful even within marriage.†Shorto quotes Judie Brown, president of the American Life League: “We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion. The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set. So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception.†And there’s this from R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: “I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill… Prior to it, every time a couple had sex, there was a good chance of pregnancy. Once that is removed, the entire horizon of the sexual act changes. I think there could be no question that the pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation.â€
I’ll say it again, breeders: The American Taliban is not just opposed to straight premarital sex, with their abstinence education and hilariously ineffective virginity pledges, or gay sex, with their “ex-gay†campaigns and their anti-gay-marriage amendments. The American Taliban doesn’t think married heterosexual couples should be able to use birth control. If you care about your own freedom—not just your right to have premarital sex, but your right to decide whether, when, and how many children you’re going to have—you need to read “The War on Contraception.†And don’t comfort yourself with the notion that these are just some antisex religious wackos: The Bush administration not only listens to these wackos, it appoints them to important positions all over the federal government—and let’s not even think about the members of the American Taliban that Bush has already appointed to lifetime positions in the federal judiciary.
This is some serious shit, breeders. You’re being attacked. It’s time to fight back.
Copyright Dan Savage. Thanks to JoanieC for calling it to my attention.
We Were Smarter Back Then
From a January 1916 article in The Atlantic called “Further Notes on the Intelligence of Woman“:
“I think she will succeed, for I doubt whether any mental power is inherent in sex. There are differences of degree, differences of quality; but I suspect that they are mainly due to sexual heredity, to environment, to suggestion, and that indeed if I may trench upon biology, human creatures are never entirely male or entirely female; there are no men, there are no women, but only sexual majorities.” (Italics mine.)
Call for Submissions
It’s not often that I put a call for submissions up here, but this one is from Morty Diamond – and he wants to put together a book by trans folks, about dating, love, sex and relationships.
Great idea, so get to writing, and click here for all the details.
Stand & Deliver!
YouTube is evil, evil, evil.
But this time you can blame it on Diana Lynn, who posted a link to a Pink performance, and got me wondering if there was any cool Ants stuff online.
And – through the wonders of modern technology I found the video for the song “Stand & Deliver!” that way back when turned on my hormones. Really, I watched it again, & again, & again.
If only everyone dressed like this all the time. Really, do watch it, even if it’s just for a “how retro” kind of moment.
Dyke TV ED – and other remarkable women
Tonight Betty & I went to a party for a friend of ours who recently became ED for Dyke-TV, which is a non-profit media outlet. As she pointed out, it’s one of a dying breed.
Cynthia is the one who threw the successful fundraiser for SRLP last summer. She’s a smart, funny person who has always welcomed us as the odd queer couple we are.
Tonight, she threw a fundraiser for Dyke TV instead of just having a birthday party for herself. She got local stores to throw in raffle prizes, asked for checks, & a cover charge – and all in all, I bet she made a nice sum for her org.
What struck me – and pardon me after three glasses of wine – was how freaking cool people can be. We met interesting people, said hello to others we already know – like Red & her girlfriend – and while I was talking to a Drag King who was telling me about some women in her beauty school classes, I sat there & wondered: why is it I’m queer? It’s not because I fell in love with Betty; I was queer long before then. I wonder sometimes, if I were growing up now, what I would be like, if I would be any different than I am, but sometimes, just sometimes, I find it unfortunate that I always liked having sex with guys.
And yes, I still do. Makes me feel like a traitor in such lovely lesbian/queer spaces. And yet, more & more, I’m aware that I fit there, despite my sexual orientation; I fit there even without Betty on my arm. (& Any of you have met Betty know she isn’t on my arm for long at a party; sometimes I have a hard time finding her, she’s flirting with so many people at once.)
But: yes. I guess I just wanted to let someone know that Cynthia is one damned cool woman who threw a great party she could have thrown for herself – but didn’t.
From the Catalog
We’ve written a description of She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband for Seal‘s catalog, and since everyone has asked what exactly this next book is about, I thought I’d share it.
Not that it will answer all your questions; only the book will do that, ultimately.
She’s Not the Man I Married was inspired by the crisis in one couple’s marriage: Helen Boyd’s husband, who had long been open about being transgender, was considering living as a woman fulltime. Boyd was confronted with what it would mean if her husband actually were to become a woman socially, legally, and medically, and whether or not her love and desire for her partner would remain the same if he became ‘she’.
Boyd’s first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of crossdressing men and their partners. She’s Not the Man I Married is in some ways both a sequel and a more serious and expansive examination of gender in relationships, for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and who fall anywhere along the gender continuum.
Boyd’s marriage serves as a platform for exploring the problems with gender in relationships. She struggles to understand the nature of commitment, love, and desire. Boyd’s strength is in her ability to share her doubts, confusion, and anger, offering anyone who’s in a relationship a lens through which to make sense of their own loves and losses, desires and disappointments. She’s Not the Man I Married is a fascinating consideration of the ways in which relationships are gendered, how gender limits us in the ways we love, and how we cope – or don’t – with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.