Los Angeles with Beth

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Beth and I drove to Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 6th because her film (co-written with Frazer Bradshaw) Sinking State was playing at the Beverly Hills Film Festival. I am not linking to the festival because I am not so cruel as to waste your time with things that can be accomplished just as easily by wrapping your lips around the spout of a helium tank. Beware, brain: my favorite way to have you is the feel of defeating you and rendering you useless through the use of a simple gas. Naturally the drive down was splendid in that it’s impossible to do much but hang out and listen to podcasts. Long drives are the only time the voice in my head saying, “WHY AREN’T YOU TRAINING HARDER?” stops for the duration.

What you should know about Beth is that she is the best driver on the road today. She has a Marine’s respect for order and efficiency when at the wheel, only using the left lane for passing and traveling at a rapid clip. Sadly this commitment to excellence invariably means wincing at the glare of imperfect minivan drivers everywhere. We repeatedly and relentlessly encountered slow-moving vehicles trundling along in the left lane as though it were a place to contemplate your Funyuns and remind your oafish passenger to rent Meet the Fockers. We found the lack of commitment to superior highway traffic flow appalling, and if you know me at all, you know my enthusiasm for feeling disgusted is unparalleled, except maybe by my love for romance or joy. But the opportunities to be disgusted were many and sizable and we availed ourselves each time of the chance to feel shock, anger and disdain.

We arrived in Los Angeles. First stop, as always, was BabyCakes gluten-free bakery. I am not a woman who can buy only one or two cupcakes. I need closer to six. When Beth suggested I share a box with her I was genuinely confused, trying to sort out in my mind how the sheer volume of cupcakes I needed could fit with someone else’s, and why would anyone get so few that they could share a box? This is the same mentality behind how I used to buy twenty big bars of dark chocolate at a time, and whenever I went on a trip I would bring bars for my companions. They did not want them. I was giving them what I wanted. I remember repeatedly saying, “I brought you one too” and having whomever, usually Beth or Michelle, say, “Oh that’s okay.” And I felt dirty like I was trying to hassle a sober person into just a few bumps with me just this once.

After BabyCakes we stopped by Beth’s friend’s house where we were staying and changed clothes for the festival. Beth put on a nice dress. I put on jeans. We drove to the weird office building where the screening was happening, which felt more like a holding tank for people’s bad idea businesses that hadn’t gone under yet, like a poster framing business or a gadget-development lab or a special kind of golf club.

We parked underground and walked into the reception area. I immediately felt like a man because of my pants even though they were lady jeans and my shirt was flouncy and flower-y. But the broads in this joint were at a fever pitch of femalia that makes people like Beth and I either true women or not women at all. It makes the category of “woman” seem entirely arbitrary if you can do that many things with it. It erases the idea of gender as much as any queer thing I’ve been part of or seen. It appeared that no one’s face had ever gone rosy with a breeze. The ladies’ faces were doing things it takes trees hundreds of years to accomplish. I can understand if there are some women like this but generally there is also a rainbow of possibilities besides the paved-over immobile faces and distorted lip lines, stupid cheeks and hair that always looked like a wig from a store catering to humans (like Beth and I) with modest wig budgets. Do I need to describe the dresses? Do you have a Foxy Lady in your town or a casino/strip club with a novelty store behind it that sells poppers and clothes? They were just a boring collection of black tiny dresses with rhinestones and five-inch heels. Except one lady who was in banana yellow. It would have been more cool if she drove up in a banana yellow Corvette. But the lady in the short banana yellow dress had the weird thing of the dress also has a long train which looked exactly like a slip-n-slide so she had a friend to carry it for her. Oh to be the friend. To be the one accepting her station in life that night.

We had a drink then went in to watch the movie. Sinking State is excellent and it got good laughs. I saw the bartender guy from Shameless, the pregnant lady from United States of Tara, the lead from Office Space, and some other folks. The film that played after Sinking State did not please me. It was all about couples having babies. There was one lesbian couple out of nine couples and they were the only ones who didn’t hardcore screw in the whole film. The fake dagger with long hair, eyeliner and a leather vest gave her frumpy girlfriend a foot massage. I recognize these as viable life choices, but I dispute their overall quality. Beth and I got up to go to the bathroom and entered a single stall right outside the theater. When we locked the door we noticed two purses sitting on the counter next to the sink, plus a curling and flattening iron plugged into the wall. I looked into a big brown leather purse with gold studs and saw rhinestone-encrusted flats, a giant bottle of perfume and a pack of Marlboro lights. The smaller, red purse had a ton of make-up and hair stuff in it. We walked out and were physically blocked into the hall by a security guard who said we couldn’t leave until the woman who left her purses in the can checked to be sure we didn’t steal anything. We were merely dressed in our film finery, so we couldn’t have been holding anything, but facts don’t matter in a humiliation ritual. We waited and the lady, who had most surely been pushed through a Russian-izing machine, came out and told the security dude through immobile lips slathered in silver-y purple lipstick that it was okay to let us go. We returned to the film and gladly, unbelievably the fire alarm went off. We assumed the lady set her hair on fire but we don’t know. We walked out into the atrium where people were having their photos taken. Gary Busey and Jon Voight were being interviewed by press and the women looked all busted up in fake high glamour. We chose not to get our picture taken to avoid seeing the press people realize we weren’t celebrities and choose not to take our picture. And for a few billion other reasons around the whole ritual. We had another drink and went to dinner. At some point though I think the next day we realized that we had both been aware of having the smallest boobs in the room.

I’m too tired to finish this, more later! Also more no-sex narratives coming down the pike…

Beth in the car on our way home.

Cooper Lee and Sara Seinberg

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Two people with lives who choose not to take our relationship to another level.

COOPER LEE

T: Good afternoon, Cooper Lee. Well let’s start this off on the right foot and come out of the gates asking why aren’t we sleeping together?

C: Tara I don’t know, why haven’t we slept together? I wonder, I don’t know, I think it would be more like a Boston marriage like when we lived together (ten years ago) I felt like we were heterosexual life partners. We were great around making a home, cooking meals together, we were like domestic partners. The sex part we just forgot about.

T: We did have a very functional home.

C: I felt like we were like chosen family making a home, it was nice, it was a lovely home and relationship.

T: With whom are you currently making a home?

C: I’m living alone with my dog friend Roscoe and I haven’t lived alone in many years. I lived alone one summer in Provincetown. It’s interesting because I love making my Taurus space very homey as I want it to be, it’s surprising how I miss roommates after years and years of roommates, there are things that are wonderful (about living alone) but there is that thing of eating a meal together that I love. My space is very tiny so it’s strange to have people over for a meal because you’re like a foot from the bed. I’m not talking about sex right now, sorry.

T: Totally okay, things get to go where they go.

C: Why do you think we’re not sleeping together?

T: I do think it’s that family thing like Michelle was talking about, I think we’re like deep in family living you know, like you’re my brother.

C: That would be kind of gross. I’m not trying to pooh on anyone’s choices but that would be kind of weird. Just a few years before we became friends I had an affair with a Scorpio and it was like WHOA and there was magic but the Taurus/Scorpio combination can be too fire-y like passion, everything in its wake is burned to the ground. The older you get it’s harder to live that way.

T Yeah god. How do you experience passion now in more functional relationships?

C: I think it’s more like being a marathon runner than a sprinter, you have to figure out how to make it last, you can’t just go until you run out of gas, you want to burn time like a wood stove and have it last for a longer period of time. I think keeping things fresh and passionate is work. When you’re young and high off the experience of how amazing people can be, that can sort of be enough but when you’re down for the long haul with somebody you have to work to keep passion alive. I think a lot of it is not becoming co-dependent and spending time being excited about your own lives as individuals so when you come together you have this energy to bring of your own personal passion being fulfilled. Having the space to be a whole person and do what you love. When you come together you’re already a complete person doing what you love and when you come together you’re like “you’re the frosting on the cake of the life that I love.” That was a lot you don’t have to write all that down.

T: Are there specific tricks of the passion trade that you like to employ?

C: I think in long-term situations I’ve been in the key is to make intentional time, especially if you’re co-habitating. You don’t want to be the person who is just scratching their ass and leaving dirty socks on the ground, you want to have specific time to have a Hot Date.

T: That seems right on. My typing is a mess right now. My cat wishes I was being a passionate life partner to him right now rather than typing. How do you keep long distance love alive?

C: My relationship is new, it’s been seven months. We try to visit back and forth fairly frequently. This last period of time apart was 2.5 months which we agreed was too long. We think 1.5 months is best but it’s hard with school and finances. We talk on the phone and we have you know daily hello how are you stuff and we recently started to Skype, that’s a new thing. We were really shy on Skype, we were giggling the entire time. We were like teens or something. We write letters and send each other packages as well. I really enjoy sending little packages in the mail.

T: That is amazing, that is so thoughtful.

C: It’s kind of funny, we have the newest technology of Skype and the oldest with letters and I actually need to sit down and write a letter in the next couple days. I like to write a letter once a week if I’m not too swamped. You think about what you have to say in a different way. Oh my god there is a squirrel that is vandalizing our garden! It’s digging in the dirt we just put in yesterday. It’s all fat and shiny and healthy. I think writing letters you go to a different thought process than when you email or text.

T: There’s just a different connection to your heart and brain.

C: I like to find random…like that Lionel Richie flyer. Just random shit, I’ll find a flyer and write a letter on it then there’s a connection to things happening here that might make her laugh.

T: That’s sweet. Would you like to offer any advice to those in love? Or out of love, for that matter. Either one.

C: Let me see, let me think about that for a second. Well I mean I’m kind of like a sappy romantic person at heart even if I seem cynical in my old age I very much believe in love and the power of love, not just sexual but the love of family and friends and the kindness of strangers. I think that there really is something to that idea that the more you give away the more you get. The more you put out there the more there is, the more that comes back. There’s never a shortage of it, it’s more whether we’re tuning into it. And sometimes it’s important to think about self-love, I think that’s the piece that gets overlooked, we get focused on putting love out but it needs to come inward too so we can be friends with ourselves. I think there’s a period on that, that thought is done.

T: I like it. Thank you very much.

C: Thank you, I appreciate it!

SARA SEINBERG

T: So Sara, throw back the veil, why aren’t we sleeping together?

S: You know Tara I’ve had some time to think about this and I think there are many reasons. The first is that generally I am attracted to a more masculine presentation which is not to underline any of your fabulous masculine qualities. I do not have a ton of experience with the femme gender other than Shoshana as noted in previous installments of this project, which was fabulous. Shortly thereafter when I was going to explore that I happened to fall in love and really I wasn’t that excited about having sex with people I’m not in love with anymore and once I’m in love it doesn’t leave room to fall in love with someone else, I’m just not wired that way.

T: Do you refer to your current relationship?

S: I do refer to my current relationship.

T: So your trajectory with Shosh was truncated by Ginger.

S: No by (Shoshana’s now-Life Partner) Laurel after we had a hot make-out session, at that point Ginger and I were just friends and I was telling her about it and she wanted to keep hearing about it, you have to keep me posted so I told Shoshana I wanted to dip into the honey pot again as it were and Shoshana said she started seeing someone and Laurel didn’t like it so Shosh said let’s not do it anymore. And she and Laurel seem to have done just fine. I think for a moment there was time where maybe Ginger and me…Ginger said don’t bring me into this so I’m gonna stop that sentence.

T: Is there a way to do this without using Ginger’s name?

S: She said “You can talk about me and you but don’t bring me into the honeypot.” There was a night we thought we should shop for a third for the evening. Now she’s saying that’s what she meant when she said don’t bring me into this. Then we never found anyone because everyone was crazy.

T: Can I ask you more about that or is Ginger banning it as a topic?

S: You can ask me and I will just answer for myself and keep Ginger out of it.

T: So did you actively interview people and they were crazy?

S: I didn’t actively interview them and there was one person who was interested but it seemed to me she was basically interested in having sex with Ginger and I was something to be tolerated as part of the package deal and I’m a Leo so that’s not sexy. That ceased to be a sexy possibility.

T: That sounds awful. Have you ever shopped again?

S: No.

T: It was a whim.

S: Yeah ugh it just felt like if something is that much trouble it’s not worth it, we just shop for houses now.

T: How long have you guys been together?

S: Almost 4.5 years.

T: What do you do to be a passionate couple?

S: Well I’ll answer what I do. I um I like to try and be a good listener, um, I like to get out and go on vacation, get out of the house. I like holding hands. You’re asking me about passion and I’m answering for romance.

T: Either is great.

S: I like to get a special outfit, not like $400 in lingerie but like we’re going out to dinner I’ll put something nice on. Though if anyone has $400 they want to use to buy me lingerie with I wouldn’t be mad about it.

T: What kind of lingerie do you like?

S: Something classy but not fussy, not too busy, good fit I think is important. Yeah also I’m done with this juniors thing I’m 40 years old, I’m a woman, I don’t want to pretend I’m not. It was hard to get here, I’m happy to be here, it’s awesome.

T: Juniors thing?

S: You know sometimes there’s a tendency for women of a certain age to emulate youth culture? To retain a sexiness of the younger years? It doesn’t work for me. But anything that makes a lady feel sexy, go for it. It just doesn’t make me feel sexy. I don’t think it helps Ginger in any way.

T: I truly don’t understand the thing for youth culture. It feels so good to be older.

S: The whole time I was in my twenties and I would see older lesbians and they didn’t go out anymore and they seemed to be in longer relationships that looked boring to me but really they mellowed out and they were peaceful and they were happy to have a house with a garden and window pot and as I got older not only did different things become fun to me but different things became sexy and denoted love to me. Those things keep growing and changing. My sexuality is not static and my ideas about love keep on growing and changing and that is sexy to me. But, this is probably happening to you too, but it’s possible that at some point we could have sex together.

T: In light of how things keep changing we have to accept that it’s possible.

S: Nothing is really off the table but you have to keep checking if there is a table. What about you, Tara? How have your ideas about what you find sexy changed or how have your ideas about the ways in which you want to have love in your life changed?

T: Well, I don’t feel that the yearning for the free-falling alcoholic is indigenous to my being anymore. There was a point I knew I was dating addicts and I truly didn’t know how to stop, how to want something healthier in a way that felt good and exciting. A few years ago I finally understood that on a functional level, on a structural level it (a relationship with an addict) could not function for what I truly want in my heart. That alcoholism and addiction in their nature hinge on denial and an active practice of self-deception. I am obsessed with truth and clarity and I find it THRILLING to conceive of being with someone who has clarity and self-love. That is my goal. I feel capable of a profound and joyful partnership and at this point I would rather be single and just skate a lot rather than dick around trying to force a connection where it doesn’t exist. I also feel like I have gotten way better at prioritizing, knowing what shit is important in a relationship and what is petty crap that will change or just isn’t worth worrying about. Sometimes I will get preoccupied with something stupid and gladly I have Beth and Michelle to just say NOT IMPORTANT. And I know they’re right. And I can’t be afraid of losing something that is easy to lose. True love is not fickle, and it can survive all manner of mishap, including breaking up for the wrong reasons.

S: You have an alter-ego named Mitzi Fitzsimmons who you don’t just play but embody and I’ve been acquainted with her for many years. She has a lot of sex and makes her choices in a way that is different than yours. I wonder how you connect to that? Maybe some of your fans don’t know Mitzi as well, but she’s kind of a slut.

T: She and Carole are unhinged, sexually. Carole and Mitzi are entirely non-judgmental in their approach to the world. They just don’t have the mental structures in place to excessively criticize. They know if something hurts them personally and that’s it. Other than that they are only interested in their own lives, which are perhaps lived at a startlingly low level. They have lots of nights in which they drink some disgusting alcohol then have sex with one or more people, and occasionally each other, though never on purpose. But they like their lives and they’re living exactly as they mean to. They like having sex and they’ll take it however it comes. IF YOU WILL.

S: So blatant. They’re so not attached to the cultural tropes of sexuality at all. Do you think they’re happy?

T: They’re so happy.

S: Carole and Mitzi: everyone’s role models.

T: Absolutely.

S: I wonder what their house smells like.

T: Ew…probably a little sour.

S: Dirty granny panties.

T: There’s the thing where they spilled all that creamed corn on the couch which never got properly cleaned up. They just used a bunch of dry paper towels from work and dabbed at it.

S: Ginger said: That’s horrible.

T: They’ll only really do something about it if they get ants. In which case they’ll go totally overboard and dump bleach all over everything, discoloring and ruining it. They have no grey areas, just extremes.

And then Sara had to run off into the day, driving up the 580 back to San Francisco with her butch, Ginger.

More People I Will Never Be With

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MICHELLE TEA

I interviewed Michelle at 10:00 a.m. while she was in the van driving to San Francisco from Portland, Oregon. We were both under-caffeinated.

T: Good morning, Chelle, I have a question for you. Why aren’t we having sex?

M: God we’ve been friends for so long it would be really awkward! If I’m friends with someone in general the mystery is gone and I need a sense of mystery, there’s too much familiarity. I can’t romanticize the situation the way I need to. There’s also the fact that even though you are a total man you are really a lady, and I really like people who are entirely mannish. I don’t want to emasculate you. I feel like we like the same kind of people so we would turn to each other out of desperation and optimism. Plus I like to have that wild sex in which I like to get thrown around and you would laugh at me.

T: That is simply not true!! Why do you think I would find the throwing humorous?

M: Because you have gotten a lot of mileage out of the kooky dramatic violent sex that people like to perform and wear on their sleeves and I get a lot out of that even though I don’t wear a lot of latex or strap a flogger to my belt.

T: It is the performativity I find funny. The sex part feels totally separate to me. I kind of assume everyone is a wild weird tiger in the boudoir and then we go outside and have to act normal.

M: It is separate from the completely disgusting lifestyle it refers to. Amos Mac can’t stop saying “heepsy” all day long. And today Amos stole a bunch of fruit from the breakfast buffet and Ali called him cheapsy.

T: Will you explain heepsy to the audience?

M: Heepsy is short for histrionic personality disorder in which the afflicted over-sexualize every situation. They’re really showy about their sexuality or they want you to see them as a sexual person all the time through costume or behavior.

T: Or dog collar

M: Do you want me to ask Beth what the five characteristics you have to have to be heepsy are? There are actually something like nine but if you have five of the nine you are heepsy.

T: Yes! I’m sorry I’m so fried in the brain right now I’m not being a good interviewer.

M: Oh wait she’s on the phone. It would also feel incestuous in a bad way it would feel like if I was having a weird dream that you wake up from feeling really creepy and like I’m a monster.

T: Like whoops I just had sex with my mom on top of a float in a homecoming parade. My mom loves you.

M: Oh god I love your mom

T: It does make us even more like sisters

M: Totally totally.

T: Was there ever a time when you had sex with your friends? Remember when people were doing that a lot in the late 90s early 2000s?

M: I remember I shot this art-y soft porn film or something and it was four people and two of my friends were in it. One was a trans guy and one was a femme girl like me and we all stayed in the bad afterwards and the guy and the filmmaker started doing it after because they did stuff like that and the lady started kissing me and saying “You’ve been bad” and it was so weird and felt so awkward and silly. I had this one friend and she was hypo-manic and she would be dressed in a prom dress at a bar in the 90s and it was so weird so I humored her because she was my friend. I can be casual in that there’s not strings attached afterwards and if I’m having sex I like to be intense and I can’t do it with someone I know is a goon, you just end up cracking up. I think it’s just not the way I’m wired.

T: It’s an energetic thing, I feel like as things stand right now in my life I can’t possibly have sex with someone unless I’m really into them. Otherwise it feels like overload to have someone’s energy in my space who I don’t really want there, you know, in my heart.

M: I guess I feel like at this point in my life I’m just not interested in casual sex.

T: Also you’re in love.

M: I’m in love so that makes a really big difference. And that’s my preferred state.

T: I like that! Me too. Are there things you’ve learned about love that you’d like to share?

M: I don’t know, for me, I can be a really defensive person and if I get triggered or scared I get really defensive really fast and depending on the dynamic I’m working in I can get snappy or clammed up and I think it’s important to know that I’m not…I’m being so dumb because not enough coffee…that I can relax. That I can relax in a relationship. That tendency or impulse is useless, just constantly reminding myself that I can relax and be myself in the relationship and that my actions aren’t going to make or break the relationship, and there’s nothing I can do to secure everlasting happiness. Of course if you’re a crazy asshole you can destroy a relationship. I just recently realized that relationships make me really anxious and I forgot to take my meds recently for one day and started to feel so much anxiety and I was like whoa, that’s what I was dealing with in the past. It’s what you learn about yourself if you pay attention to how you act. I’m in a million 12-step programs that talk about a higher power and you can think of the relationship as having a higher power that is taking care of things and it’s out of your control.

T: I like that so much. Constant surrender.

ALI LIEBEGOTT AND BETH PICKENS

Now I interview Ali and Beth through Michelle, who reports their answers. I think Ali is driving?

T: Okay this is my first couple so my curiosity is at a fever pitch. Is there anything stopping you two from jumping into bed with me?

A: I’m a humorless individual.

B: I think for us to have a third, the third has to have feathers or wool that they naturally sprout from their body. Am I wrong?

A: I don’t know, maybe you’re wrong, but…that’s nice.

T: Have either of you seen me naked?

B: Yes. Onstage many times.

A: Yes. Probably onstage and on Sister Spit.

T: Okay I can’t pull off any ruse that I’m feathered.

B: The main reason we’re not jumping in bed with you is that we’re too medicated.

A: I don’t know if I’ve ever had sex with a blonde. I think the first person I had sex with was dirty blonde.

B: I can’t remember everyone I’ve had sex with. I don’t think anyone’s been blonde though. I’m not opposed to it.

T: I do use sex to showcase my hair.

B: Maybe when we take a vacation from our collective SSRI’s and SNRI’s we could re-consider it.

A: I will never have sex with you Tara Jepsen.

B: What about with me AND Tara Jepsen?

A: I know. It’s not proper.

T: I like how decisive this is.

A: She’s practically my cousin.

T: That’s true.

B: But you almost had sex with your cousin and that’s a fact

A: I was drinking moonshine in Pennsylvania

B: I historically only have sex with people who are strangers or people I hate. So Ali is a departure as it is.

A: I did not have sex with my cousin or almost have sex with my cousin.

B: She told me she considered having sex with her cousin.

A: Off the record.

B: OFF THE RECORD? I almost gave my dog a blow job when I was eleven, I didn’t do it, but we have these thoughts.

A: Not all of us have these thoughts.

BLAKE NELSON: I’ve never had these thoughts.

A: Thank you Blake, that’s why we’re the same.

KIRK READ: I lost my virginity to my dog Thatcher.

B: I’ve had a three-way, they never end well.

A: HEEPSY!

Blake: That is a very distinguished name, Thatcher. It must be a high-class dog.

Kirk: All our dogs were named after royalty or English dignitaries.

A: It’s not like Lassie or Blackie or Brownie or Whitey

Blake: Or Spot

B: In every movie or documentary ever made about a three-way it never works out.

T: What documentary?

B: I saw a doc at the True Falls film fest about five years ago and it was about a gay couple and they have a baby with a woman and they become a three-way relationship and one of the guys freaks out and jumps ship. And they were all there for the viewing and it was really uncomfortable. And this was at the tail-end of my three-way relationship.

A: I’m going to have a panic attack if I have to keep hearing everything said twice (Because Michelle is reporting over the phone)

T: COME ON.

A: Lovingly.

Kirk: If we did have sex with Tara Jepsen it would be entirely nurturing mother fantasies.

T: Why is that?

Kirk: I don’t know why I said that.

Michelle: He can’t back up what he’s saying. We’re all brain-dead. Not enough coffee.

T: Was it a karaoke night?

M: It wasn’t but it could have been.

THE PHONE WENT DEAD!! That is one of my favorite endings in the world.

Another Day

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Herein continues my exploration of why my friends aren’t sleeping with me.

SHOSHANA VON BLANCKENSEE

Shoshana is my excellent friend and occasional road trip companion. We met in 1998 and have been friends ever since. I talked to her while she was pushing her baby around in a stroller on Bernal Hill.

T: Shosh, I spend my days wondering why you and I aren’t sleeping together.

S: On my way to the gynecologist I was thinking about that and I am clear to sleep with you now because I found out my vagina is in good shape…wait I’m stuck on a rock…come on!! So I’m in good working order if we want to start sleeping together. I don’t really know why, Tara. I mean here are some ideas of why we should: cuz I’m blonde and you’re brown hair and when you’re two white people that’s a good way to go so people don’t just say you’re trying to sleep with yourself like they did when I was sleeping with Chloe. Our body types are different but not so crazily different that we would look weird. Like we’re in the same genre. Minus your small calves and my large ones.

T: That will be nice for contrast.

S I was also thinking if we were going to sleep together you should privately tape it so we have a scandalous video that could get leaked to the public. We would probably have to pay people to care. I don’t know. There aren’t enough me’s and you’s of the world sleeping together at least in SF. It’s probably different in other places. I don’t have a reason, Tara, you’re sexy, I like your hair.

T: Good starting points, the visual cues.

S: Why do you think we’re not sleeping together? Don’t break my heart here.

T: I imagined it had something to do with your marriage and child?

S: Really? There’s nothing on your end stopping it? Because I knew you before the marriage and child. Don’t put it all on me. All I have now is naps which are 15 minutes and we would probably need more than that to sort it out.

T: Would it be well within your marriage for this to go forward?

S: I don’t know I would have to ask, she seems less resistant than me at this point. I dreamt last night that she had sex with someone at her gym so I think that means I could sleep with you.

T: Have you guys had that conversation recently?

S: Well we did because when we woke up I got mad at her for being such a jerk for sleeping with the lady at the gym. When I told her about (the dream) she asked, “Would you really dump me over that? We have a marriage and a kid. There are two options, lie about it or be honest about it. So whatever happens we should just be honest about it.” But really I mean I think she’d be fine if you and I slept together, I mean I made out with Seinberg when we were together and she was fine with that. If you wore pants and a tie, then all bets are off, it’s not okay then. Hang on a second I have to give this baby something to hold on to.

T: Are there any sweeping statements you can make about love?

S: Nothing is permanent. Any drama you have at one time is going to be totally different in a year. Like when Ada was born I was freaking out and thinking she was slacking and that I was doing all the caregiving and stuff and now that’s not an issue at all, we might just argue about who does the dishes. Thinking that any of that is permanent is a dark road to go down full of break-ups and big major fights. You’ll always have times, like it’s a cyclical thing where we’re so in love and our lives are so great and then a couple months later we just want to kill each other and can’t believe we went this far together. And if we ever think, “this is it, this is the way it is” then that’s what gets us in trouble. In either way, you can’t think it’s always great or always bad. This is the first time I’ve been in it for the long haul, hopefully the last time. Oh man I have a crier on my hands, I have to go and get her calm. But I didn’t really get you enough.

T: Are you kidding, there’s so much good stuff here.

S: Just the stuff about your hair and your body.

T: That’s all I’m going to publish, thank you so much!

NICOLE GEORGES

My lovely friend Nicole lives in Portland and creates graphic novels.

N: It should be noted that I’m picking up dog poop with a piece of the newspaper I picked up. At the very least I’m smooshing it into the grass because it’s kind of like diarrhea.

T: You are very responsible, the kind of person you do not verbally assault.

N: If you verbally assault me I’ll throw a handful of poop at you.

T: Good point, no one should verbally assault a woman with a handful of poop.

T: Nicole, why on earth aren’t we sleeping together?

N: Well I thought about this for a very long time because I knew it was coming and it has something to do with the fact that we have the same gender and I’m in a relationship..It would be like two barbies rubbing up against each other. Who would wear the dress? I think we would make better Amazing Race partners than sex magic partners.

T: This is most likely true. Do you tend to be with other-gendered people?

N: My preference is to be with people who are a different gender than me. Let’s say a soft butch. The femmest on the spectrum would be a dandy but that’s not my preference.

T: What makes you choose SOFT butch?

N: I don’t know! Maybe I’m too bossy for a stone butch. Stone butches are not very much fun in my experience. A high butch is not known in my limited experience for their remarkable sense of humor. So I seek lower on the butch order. I like when people open doors for me but I don’t want to be completely emasculated. I don’t want to date my dad.

T: That’s weird.

N: I’m not completely closed to the high butch but it’s not my long-term relationship preference.

T: Have you been with a high butch?

N: I can’t tell. I think that I have definitely…is this a sex interview?

T: It can be!

N: I have dated someone who is more butch than the people I usually date and it did feel like dating my dad sometimes. And once I was briefly dating someone who was kind of stone and that was such a drag.

T: What part specifically was a drag?

N: It got monotonous because there was only one way that we…did…things. You know? I like to do it in all the ways. So that is why it was boring to me. No offense to the you know. The stony among us.

T: When you start dating someone do you know you’re sexually compatible?

N: I think that usually before I’ll sign the contract, the monogamy contract, it has to be there. So things die or sometimes you find out things later. Sometimes someone seems less stony at first. I usually suss them out as much as I can before signing any kind of exclusivity contract. It’s very important to me to have somebody with a good sense of humor because if they don’t they just think I’m a mean person. And that would carry through into our whole emotional life. When I say “Fuck you” and the person knows I’m kidding it goes way better than if I say “fuck you” and they don’t know I’m kidding.

T: Lloyd seems like a resilient person.

N: She just gets me, which is really important to me. There are a lot of bugs out today. There are a thousand flying bugs who haven’t had anywhere to go (because it’s been raining) until today. I think Lloyd is…no surprises. I don’t think she’s that different than when I first started dating her. Except maybe she’s better. She’s happier than when I first met her.

T: That’s excellent news. God I love that. How long have you and Lloyd been together now?

N: Almost two-and-a-half years.

T: Do you have any big things you would say about being in a relationship or being in love?

N: I got a Dr. Laura relationship book on tape when I first started dating Katy. The only piece of advice that was worthwhile was, “Choose wisely, treat kindly” which I really appreciated even though it came from Dr. Laura. Other good advice I got from a book written in the 80’s that Dr. Drew recommended. The gist is that everybody falls into the category where they either have an emotional sexual personality or a physical sexual personality, which means they’re either more introverted or extroverted, and everyone is both but most people are more one than the other. But we’re drawn to people who are the opposite. I’m attracted to people who are opposite of me. I’m extroverted. And the thing that attracts you to someone is inevitably the thing that really bugs you. So when something is bugging me I ask myself if it’s the thing that first attracted me to them. So Dr. Laura and Dr. Drew. If Rush Limbaugh had good advice I would say that too but he doesn’t. Take oxycontin. I love giving advice.

T: Do you often give people advice in the realm of love?

N: I do, I have an advice column. I do also give friends advice but often they don’t listen to me. I have friends to whom I gave advice early on like “oh don’t date that person” and now they’ve been together for eight years. So it’s not always right. But I will always share what I think. I have strong opinions.

More People More Reasons

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Herein I continue my project of interviewing my friends about why we are not sleeping together.

DAVE END

A thoughtful woman at dinner

T: Okay, Davendra, start out telling me why we’re not sleeping together.

D: Why we’re not sleeping together or why we’re not SLEEPING TOGETHER? Because you never come over for sleepovers anymore.

T: The latter.

D: Because it’s hard to have dinner out and because it’s not acceptable to do that at restaurants.

T: YOU THINK WE’D DO IT IN PUBLIC?

D: PART OF THE reason is that we don’t spend a lot of time in each others’ rooms. (NOTE: I had caps lock on by accident.)

T: So if we were in each others’ rooms we would not be able to avoid tumbling into each others’ sexual milieu?

D: For one, stop putting words in my mouth and for two, I’m sure I have no idea. Maybe this interview is the ice-breaker we need.

T: Like we haven’t really known how to communicate in the past.

D: Perhaps. And most people don’t make it into my bedroom without an interview first. It’s important to screen.

T: What are the interviews usually like?

D: First is just the impression a person makes. What they’re wearing, what kind of gifts they’re holding. The second half of the interview is character questions like what kind of dessert would you be. That’s not rhetorical, WHAT KIND OF DESSERT WOULD YOU BE?

T: I think I would be banana lumpia.

D That was successful because it brought up bananas and I would say you win. Let’s do this thing.

T: Is it because bananas are wang-like?

D: It’s because bananas have an outfit on and so little fruit knows how to turn it out and I feel like you’d be willing to take a lot of clothes off of me which is necessary because I wear a lot of clothes.

T: You are a person of layers.

D: I’m like an onion in that I will make you cry if you cut me.

T: Are there any other character questions you like to ask?

D: I like to get a sense of what kinds of collections people have. Little hint: if it’s troll dolls, you’re in. I would say 65 percent of the people I’ve slept with collect trolls. Treasure trolls.

T: Treasure trolls.

D: Treasure trolls.

T: Do you have any other hard criteria I should know about? Are there any acts you require in the boudoir?

D: I require activities afterwards like when I’m first meeting a new lover I like to bake a cake or go to the park and throw something around. I like to see how the dynamic changes, translate ourselves into the world and throw balls around.

T: What kind of balls?

D: Squeaky ones. Squeaky toys.

T: Like you would use with a dog.

D: Yeah I…por ejemplo. Are there any criteria you have that I should know?

T: I must answer earnestly: come with kindness and self-love. Sorry.

BEN MC COY

T: Haaayy! Let’s start by my asking why we’re not sleeping together.

B: I would say that I don’t know if you’re attracted to me and also if you were into me it would be maybe unfortunate in the sense that I’m not…I’ve never had any physical full circle closure pleasure experiences with ladies. I’ve been pursued a handful of times by a couple ladies of various varieties, all shapes of butch and femme…which by the way I hate those words but I’m just describing. If that was to happen you’d have to be really aggressive, and patient…maybe manipulative, like bait, you might be super-disappointed to find that my assumption that I’m not into ladies might be true, like in a Kinsey…I’m like that varsity asshole girl.

T: Have you been pursued by ladies in San Francisco? Because when you were saying that I was thinking you meant Boston.

B: Once in New York, I can honestly say as long as anything has ever happened that’s been mutual-ish, I did hang out with a girl once of my own volition and the funny thing was that neither of us knew that the other was a trans girl. She was trans and I was trans. She is really into ladies pretty much primarily. I was in Vegas so that’s why I did it. See I told you I’m an asshole. I hung out with her because I was in Vegas.

T: Different rules for Vegas!!

B: We were on a platform thing…it was on Sister Spit, we were dancing at this choady straight club and you know when you’re dancing on a platform above all these people and you feel like hot shit so I was making out with this girl up there and all these frat dudes were watching and a security guard came to kick us out until Michelle started yelling WE’RE VIP, WE’RE VIP so they had to leave us alone. Also I was wearing lingerie. I feel like that’s the…other times I’ve been kissed by a girl it’s like they’re coming at my face so I turn and they hit my cheek and it’s really embarrassing and I’m like, “I could turn on some Sarah McLachlan…” which is probably what got me in trouble in the first place.

Am I allowed to ask you a question?

T: Sure! Some people have some haven’t.

B: So what is this series about?

T: I was texting Michelle last week and I told her I’m actively not sleeping with several people right now. Trying really hard not to sleep with the wrong people who are just going to ultimately feel terrible. So Michelle said that would be a funny zine to do and the more I thought about it it did seem really fun. And I knew it would be entertaining and make me laugh. Guaranteed relentless rejection.

CHELSEA STARR

T: Chels, why aren’t we sleeping together?

C: Well right now I’m in my bed in Portland and you’re somewhere in San Francisco. But I am coming there tomorrow but some things could change. I have often wondered why we’re not sleeping together but I think you prefer the more masculine-presenting than I.

T: You know what’s funny is that Dave End asks me constantly if we’re doing it. Usually adding her fingers scissoring around.

C Wait why don’t you say, “Not YET??” There was a two-day window when we were on tour (in 2007) when I thought what a great idea it would be and I kept looking at your blonde hair in the front seat and I would think of your hair splayed out on the pillow.

T: And then the feeling just drifted away?

C: it came and then it went. It came on really strongly and it made me crazy and I realized it was real and then it just left as mysteriously as it had come. I wasn’t grossed out by the idea after that but it just wasn’t an immediate thing anymore. Just when I was thinking I should make my wishes known they evaporated.

T: Maybe the excitement was having secret passions.

C Or I just wanted it to happen at some point. I still can’t believe I came in last in the points game (terrible game on tour in which people earned points for achieving sexual acts ranging from kissing to screwing).

T: No way I came in last! There’s no way I came in before you.

C: Wait no I had 2 points! Wait I had 3! I’m painting myself in a corner, I don’t remember.

T: Remember I was with my sad little alcoholic.

C: Yech. I didn’t like her. But then she earned points with me after she took care of you after you puked out of her van. She was too little.

T: She was so many terrible things before being little.

C: I want some chocolate so badly but I don’t want to go anywhere.

T: I feel like I face that conundrum all the time.

C: A showdown that keeps on happening every goddamn month. I’m sick of it.

T: Is it hormone-related?

C: I get the PMS and it takes FOREVER. Want to hear something disgusting? I was looking for a couch on craigslist and I found an ad with the heading “period couch” and I clicked on it because it seemed so gross but it meant like Victorian. That is just the wrong label, it’s like “period underwear.”

T: Are there any thoughts you want to share in the realm of love? Philosophies you have or things you’ve learned?

C: Gosh it’s hard to think of things to say without thinking of exes seeing it and feeling mad or bad. I don’t know much about love. I’m not a good girlfriend but I’m trying to improve. I don’t really know.

T: What’s something that you want to improve?

C: Communication. Like I hate processing but I think that you kind of have to. I’m just not that good at it, I’d just rather throw in the towel than talk things out. I’m becoming more respectful about talking about the feelings of people I date.

T: I think of you as being so articulate.

C: Really?

T: You seem so precise to me when you speak!

C: I feel like I am until I talk to a girlfriend about anything important and then I weirdly shut down, it’s really hard for me to access my…I don’t know. This is too much therapeutic territory, I’m going to shut up. I don’t know, I really don’t have much insight. Tell me something that you’ve learned about love.

T: I really, deeply believe that self-love is crucial for being a good partner.

C: Totally true.

Where We’re At

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I am continuing the project of interviewing my friends about why we’re not sleeping together. I talked to Sarah Adams on the phone, she lives in Olympia. I first met her as our roadie on the 2007 Sister Spit tour and I love her so much. I talked to Marcus on the instant messenger machine, which is why we went on so long. This is about half of our interview.

SARAH ADAMS

T: Sarah Adams, why aren’t we sleeping together?

S: I asked my guy to marry me this week, so my answer is that I am engaged.

T: No way that is so crazy!! I am so happy for you!

S: I made him orange juice and carrot soup for dinner and the soup was really terrible and I was just looking at him and I felt like I couldn’t wait another second so I asked and he teared up and said are you serious and he said yes and it was so cute and it basically means we’re going to have a ceremony by ourselves out in the woods. I feel like I have to stress that it’s not legal but of course I don’t, I don’t have to justify myself. We’re in love and we’re really happy and we’re going to get married. So that’s my answer. I think that having sex with you would really complicate my life. I have thought about having sex with you and I factored all the pros and cons and it’s a risk I almost took…my mouse was hovering over the send button when I was buying a ticket to go to San Francisco but I decided I was going to get married instead.

T: Well we must just each have fates that are not us sleeping together. So Sadams, as you look forward to marriage, do you have any magnificent thoughts on love you would like to share?

S: Well I just keep thinking about how easy it is to love my love, sex is easy, the fighting is easy, it all feels right and I just know that he is the one because I can’t imagine having that kind of relationship with anyone and my message to lovers is that love should feel easy and even the hard stuff should feel easy and you have to be each other’s best friend. So I don’t know.

T: I think that might extend to life, the easy thing. Less resistance, more flow. STOP CREATING PROBLEMS (I put that in later as I was correcting my frantic typing.).

S: I can hear the argument that there’s no challenge but of course there is, but you just hold hands and get through it together. Love is a game you play together and you have the same goals and I just feel supported. The story carries me and I don’t feel like I’m fighting for anything. And lord knows I’ve fought for some love.

T: Ugh.

S: Well I love you, Jepsen.

T: I love you too, Sadams. Thanks for talking to me from the warm embrace of your bath.

MARCUS EWERT

M: Go ahead, shoot some verbal ropes.

T: So Mary, why aren’t we sleeping together?

M: It’s such a good question! A good question because you have always turned me on, and I love smut talking with you. I love referencing my penis or your ladyparts as often as possible.

T: It’s true, there is never a time it’s not funny. The fact that you are such a feminist makes it all work.

M: I know! But to me, this is rare instance of funny not killing sexy.

T: yeah it really rides the line just right

M: Like, it’s still sexy grrrrowl even when we’re totally joshing

T: how did you become such a feminist?

M: I love my mom so much. And I saw early on what was bad for her was bad for me, and bad for the world. Because she’s just so loving. So anything that would squash that? Has gotta be baaaad.

T: Did you see things being bad for her ever?

M: Yeah. My dad was a dick to her while I was growing up. And not in a traditional straight guy way- but in a very catty bitchy gay guy way, though he’s not gay. But it was still fucked up male power. Hypnotizing, opaque, obfuscating…

T: God that sounds really hard to watch

M: Yeah it was really gross.

T: like you would just want to be the softest person in reaction

M: Kinda, yeah. I remember once there was this girl that I used to make out with. It was totally fun and hot making out with her but then once when we were getting it on- she reached down for my zipper- like she was gonna perform oralisms on me – and i was like “What are you doing? That’s so degrading TO YOU!!!”

T: This is awkward because I didn’t know you had any women before me.

M: you are my lady alpha and omega

T: ORALISMS

M: time’s in a mobius strip where we’re concerned! There’s no ‘before’ during’ nor after. Now- why aren’t you sleeping with me? Good feminists share the space of discourse.

T: Hmmmmmmmm. This is a very good question.

M: I can take it! Pound me.

T: I think I only know how to answer this honestly and thusly go deep into my actual love life so I’m going to skip it for now.

M: Let’s talk more about the sex life we would have if we could have.

T: Yes!! LOTS OF CANDLES.

M: I see myself as being very much like the tall male main character in the movie AWAY WE GO, in relation to your setting the gameplan Maya Rudolph. I picture me very supportively helping you go for hot guys like Amos and holding your breasts out of the way for you while you and our third person get it on kind of like a Lamaze daddy. I would be a great help in reminding you to breathe good.

T: JUST as much of a coach as a partner, a total fan.

M: shining the flashlight wherever you need me to, mopping your heaving bosom and forehead

T: helping me stay hydrated, freshening up my mouth guard.

M: very much so. Keeping the thermostat in the room just right. “Hey, are the fans blowing on you guys TOO MUCH?” I’d ask, rubbing balm around your wrist restraints, preventing chafing, DOULA TO YOUR PLEASURE.

T: I need the dagger version of you

M: Icecube to the lips. Girl, that’s who you’re screwing while I’m doing all this!

Personal Research

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There are a lot of people I’m not sleeping with, and I’ve decided to start getting some answers.

KIRK

A grateful man.

T: Kirkland why aren’t we sleeping together?

Kirk: Oh you don’t remember that night? I don’t want to damage our friendship by shitting where I eat.

Tara: Would we do something scat-related?

K: It was a metaphor but I think you should examine your associations (Amos: your projections). I’m open to phone sex with you but I think we should keep it at that. For now. One thing I’d like to say, I’ve never had sex with a woman, and I’m afraid you would bite my head off at the end.

T: Do you see yourself ever having sex with a woman?

K: Yes!! That’s something I aspire to.

Amos: What about transmen?

Kirk: YES! I plan to on this tour. This is going to blow open the French doors of my erotic life and I am going to step boldly onto the veranda.

T: I like every word you just said.

MYRIAM

Beautiful lady

T: Myriam why aren’t you sleeping with me?

M: Oh Jesus. I’m not sleeping with you right now because I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for a dozen years and you’re not butch enough.

T: What would it take for me to be butch enough?

M: Well you do do manual labor and TJ doesn’t, but TJ is kind of a faggot. But I love it.

K: I was trying to coach her through a kitchen remodel but she couldn’t handle it.

T: Wait Myriam what happened with you and Kirk last night? He was afraid you were going to bite his head off and you haven’t even screwed.

M: (We were sleeping in the same bed and) In the middle of the night I just rolled over and put my arm around him and started to spoon into him. Because I think his body read like TJ’s to me, masculine. I think I started to go towards his neck instinctively then some sort of pheromone tipped me off. Then I remembered where I was and I was really glad I was wearing pants.

T: What would have happened if you hadn’t had pants on?

M: I usually sleep in my underwear but I felt like because I was in bed with someone else I should wear pajama pants. I’m a really active sleeper, I act out stuff in my sleep. Do you guys do that?

T: I don’t think so, I haven’t gotten that feedback. When we were on tour in 2007 I tried to sleep in the porky pig as often as possible because that’s my habit. I feel better that way. I mostly slept with Michelle who didn’t care at all and of course Sarah Adams was not only on-board but she was also piggin’. Chelsea, however, thought I was disgusting and reacted very strongly to my naked lower half. Do you guys think that’s weird that I would deign to climb into bed with a friend pantsless? Is that just too psychologically disturbing?

Amos: No.

Myriam: I think it could be psychologically hard. It’s just mental.

AMOS

amosqueenmary

T: Amos why aren’t we sleeping together?

A: Well you know I prefer women who have penises and flat chests. Plus we’re friends that would be weird.

T: Do all the ladies have flat chests?

A: Well like 12-year-old breasts. Mosquito bite nipples. Breasts just beginning to form.

T: Would you be upset if someone had a crazy huge rack like me? Would you hook up with someone who had a terrific load of boobs?

A: Yeah I would date someone like that.

T: So can you pinpoint in any way what makes you attracted to someone? Because I am going to make myself exactly that and come after you.

A: No. My types shift. And now it’s pre-operative transsexual women. But tomorrow you know it could be…who knows. Insert something crazy here. I’ve been with all kinds.

T: So do you imagine the nature of your attractions will continue to change?

A: They’ve changed so much already, I don’t know how much they could really change.

T: So do you feel like you’ve arrived at something or do you feel like you will continue to shapeshift?

A: I feel like I’ve arrived at an understanding of who I am and of who I connect with emotionally and physically.

BETH LISICK

T: Why aren’t we sleeping together?

B: My theory is that we are already aware that we would be the exact same person in the sack, aka TOO DEMANDING, so we know not to bother.

Weekend of March 12th & 13th

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Good Evening, People. I am here to report from the bowels of my life as it has passed since exactly one week ago.

I did go to the doctor, and boy was she pissed! Just kidding. That was supposed to sound like “God is coming, and boy is she pissed!” the feminist bumper sticker you could get back when feminist bookstores could keep their doors open, and their menu of sandwiches named after goddesses available. Back when a woman-as-tree painting done by someone who couldn’t paint was acceptable as wall decoration and greeting card. According to any feminist bookstore in the world, the ways feminists made themselves visible is by the bumper stickers on their cars, the magnets on their refrigerators, their books, and the patches on their sleeveless jean jackets and satchels. The patches often ventured from feminism into full lesbianism. It appeared that feminists bought a lot of locally-made greeting cards festooned with photographs or artists’ renderings of women living full lives, often in the nude. Often the two women living said lives were engaged amorously or in a way that blatantly exposed the interior details of their genitals. Naturally there were MANY photos of dogs and cats. The feminist bookstore: filling the hole in your heart since you can remember having one. But also, lest I leave the topic being a total dick, I should mention that these stores were an excellent place to hang fliers. And form drum circles. And find a new home with uptight hippies whose pantries contained an embarrassment of dried legumes and unlabeled herbs which probably at one point were meant to address menstrual cramps or fibromyalgia.

So anyway. I saw the nurse for the issue with my brain. My actual doctor is a gay man, and by my estimation, he is working with a gay lady nurse. Aces. She had me go through all sorts of machinations like that Tracy Ullman skit in which she is pulled over by a cop for drunk driving and has to perform many feats of physical excellence to prove she is not drunk. I had to walk forward heel-toe-heel-toe, then backward, then touch my nose with my forefinger from its greatest distance, then let her get intimately close to my face to check my eyes and ears. Then she took her little rubber hammer and banged around my joints to test my reflexes. If my brain had not felt so cloudy I would have laughed out loud but instead, like the other mask on your wall, I cried because I was so tired and generally emotional and mourning the potential loss of one of my basic assets, my brain. At the end she assessed that I had a minor concussion and advised that I take a little tylenol if I had headaches.

That was Monday.

I skated Potrero a couple times last week. Me in the bowl filmed by Bob Lake. The video looks like olden times, like my donkey is tied nearby and my musket is resting against the fence. Some people were there from the Exploratorium shooting footage for their upcoming Science of Skateboarding exhibit. It looks awesome and they were super nice. Again, I am racking up the adjectives of a literary great.

Saturday I drove down to Cunningham with a few friends and a couple of the early-teens who come with us. Per the usual routine, by the time we reached San Jose, Dean and Steve the Teens were slapping and harassing each other mercilessly in the back seat. Dean wanted Steve to choose their dates for Element camp (a skate camp in Southern California), Steve said he “doesn’t make the decisions around here” and had to wait on another teen for the final dates. More frustration and more hitting. A few trips ago one of the kids slapped the other and he had blood running down his face between his eyes because he got hit in the zit. The hitter said, “THAT’S why you’re supposed to pop your zits, dude.” and the victim said, “NO YOU’RE NOT, have you ever heard of scarring? GOD.” Today there was no blood, just emotional damage. They each repeatedly cried out in a sort of half-assed way that they were being hurt. We pulled into the parking lot at Cunningham and saw our friends Roger and Marty unloading their car. I walked up to the park with Dean and Steve just ahead of me on the short climb up to the office.

Dean: Steve has an anger problem.

Steve: Yeah I do. I’m angry because you’re being annoying.

Dean: I’m just sitting here, cool as a cucumber, and you’re freaking out.

Steve: You don’t even know what a cucumber is.

Dean: Yeah I do, it’s green and it’s shaped like a penis.

My friends Sophia and Lauren were already in the park, shredding the mini bowls. We skated for about four hours then went out to lunch at a place with VietNamese/Chinese/Thai food. We all sat around a large, round table, barely able to hold up our heads from the fatigue of much skating. I ordered a massive bowl of porridge and burned my mouth a thousand times trying to get it in my stomach. Then we went next door for dessert.

So many options

Then we went home. Sunday when I woke up I couldn’t figure out the time thing, and am still surprised I saw nothing about daylight savings anywhere previously. I called Sophia to confirm that daylight savings was real and happening. We all met back up at Pacifica skatepark and rolled for a few hours. It was a good weekend, but by Sunday night I was wasted and slept for ten hours.

Thanks for reading.

More Living

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God I really lost steam with that rote recitation of my skateboard history timeline. When I feel bored writing, I can never figure out if it’s because I’m not being patient enough or if I should trust my instinct that it’s fucking boring. Well anyway.

Highlights of this past week spent with my skateboard include!! I skated the bowl at Potrero for the first time! That was awesome. My excellent friend Bob Lake talked me into it. Bob in the Travelodge at Cunningham He is up first in the yellow helmet, then you see the also deeply great Roger.

My notable adjectives so far: awesome, excellent, great. WOW.

I have stayed away from skating Potrero because the bowl always seemed too deep and too impacted by drunk 10-year-olds who suffocated their younger siblings then came to skate. I realized that those li’l drunkards are actually busy rolling the flow bowl and stuffing their friends in garbage cans to bother with the bowl, and it’s easy to get plenty of runs even in the middle of the day. I think I went three times last week and hit the bowl with Bob. The tight pockets and pool coping are especially fun. I stuck my first backside grinds. Now I can think of little else except maybe food and love. Everyone I’ve run into at Potrero is sweet and chatty, especially the older (OLDER. Probably about my age.) dudes who ride by on their bicycles which invariably have fifty mirrors and reflectors attached, and their outfits are black and tight and resist moisture. Their helmets have rearview mirrors. They stop by the fence around the bowl and always they were skaters in the eighties who want to get back into it but don’t know how and fear the pain. They SHOULD fear the pain for it is REAL. The mix of totally hardened teens dressed in black plus nerdball mountain bike men in neoprene is a blessing and a pleasure. Mike Giant walked in as we were leaving one of the days last week. He had an old school Dogtown board that was so flat and wide it looked like a freaking boogie board. Wheel wells and everything. I love this town.

On Saturday a bunch of friends and I went up to skate the Dish in Bayview. Possibly one of the oldest skateparks in the USA?? Owing to a very hard slam I took on Friday at Pacifica I didn’t skate much. I hit my head (but was wearing a helmet) and have felt tired and headache-y since. I’m going to the doctor today. Pray I am not going dumb. When I woke up this morning I thought, “God I should pull all my non-fiction off the shelf and start reading so I form new brain synapses and stay reasonably intelligent even if I have brain damage. Maybe I can just make a different part of my brain really strong so it won’t matter that I have one intellectual flat tire.” Then I started tripping out on people who don’t get new experiences every day or get out in the world and mingle, and how your life can become safe and boring and you lose your resilience and can’t cope with normal daily stresses. Which is why I think everyone who works in isolation should get a volunteer gig.

Do you admire my great ideas!!!

Thank you for reading.

This Is It

2 Replies

I am a 38-year-old woman in skateboarding. I just passed my 2-year bowl-iversary on February 20th, 2011. I first stepped on a skateboard in December of 2008 when I was 36. A nurse friend of mine had been pushing around with another nurse in the parking lot of Kaiser in Oakland, California. That alone sounded amazing. Imagine rolling up for your ultrasound and seeing two nurses in scrubs on their breaks riding skateboards. California living! So my nurse friend, Shoshana, called me up (and she didn’t really call that often) and told me she had started skating, and that she thought I would really like it.

I met Shosh on the top of Bernal Heights, on a relatively flat street. She showed me how to step on the board and we rolled up and down the sidewalk, me on the board and she on foot. My hands dented her arms with an iron grip. I liked how it felt and decided I needed my own board to follow her and a few other women down the wide sidewalks of the Embarcadero in San Francisco. We drove to FTC in the Haight and Andy helped me pick out a board with a drawing of one of San Francisco’s old trolleys on the bottom. He gripped it. I picked out some Indy trucks and red soft wheels. I had four friends with me and I felt more supported than I have in very difficult times of my life.

After two months of pushing around my friend Holly was coming to visit from Seattle. She offered to meet about ten of us at the Novato skatepark and teach us about tranny. Novato was her home park growing up. She invited her friend Kenna Gallagher, a ripper from Santa Cruz, to teach us as well. They got in the bowl, told people to clear out for twenty minutes while she taught and surprisingly, everyone was cool about it. We rolled around, tried turning and carving, did a little falling. I felt obsessed.

I ended up dating a guy I met that day for a year. We skated as often as possible, and he pushed me to learn more, try new things, and he constantly told me I was good at it. He teased me when I looked like a dork, which was nearly always. I really appreciated that. Style is as much a part of the game as technicality. Almost. Totally?

I also started skating with an all-girl skate organization. I thought that was going to be a lot more awesome than it was. I met a bunch of women who were good skaters, and I met a bunch who were awesome. Van Nguyen was super sweet. Elyssa Steamer introduced herself to me at Novato one time and she was LOVELY. But most women I met in skating were not interested in talking to me about how to step up my game. There is no way I am going to be popular for saying that, but it’s true. I don’t know if it’s me, if it’s because women can be so competitive with each other, or if it was because I was 36 when I started. I strongly felt that the organization I was skating with only cared about young girls getting into skating, and that they were trying to be a family-friendly, very accessible entity (JUST MY OPINION, HOLD YOUR ANGRY LETTERS). I have no desire for skating to wander away from being the freak culture that I know and love. I think more young girls could stand to get bruised and cut and live with it. I think more parents would do well to detach and teach their daughters to be robust humans, even if they want to festoon themselves in pink from head to toe. I have been talking with my writing partner Beth about how we notice all these (usually wealthy) women who are so groomed, so ready to smile and have their picture taken (chin down, don’t smile too big, turn to one side, all the shit that makes you look like a very beautiful model woman in pictures), ready to speak articulately about everything. How the fabrics they wear drape nicely and flatteringly. I want the inclusion of more ill-prepared, awkward voices. I don’t think we should be able to rely on any human to say the right thing all the time. Up with intuition, down with symbols. I listened to Marc Maron’s interview with Greg Fitzsimmons (Maron’s WTF podcast is the best, and entirely supports the idea that un-groomed speech is so much more nuanced, meaningful and specific than scripted stuff) in which Fitzsimmons says he thinks people should punch each other more. It’s a sentiment entirely captured by Fight Club. Part of the beauty of skateboarding, to me, is the extremity of every part of it. Flying, bruising, yelling, exhaustion.

I started skating with a bunch of people I met at the Pacifica skatepark, mostly men, and got a ton of help and guidance that I wanted and asked for. I hear about girls and women having a hard time with male skaters but that has never been an issue for me. My skating started improving dramatically when I met these guys (and two women) and they have been my crew ever since.

TO BE CONTINUED.