By Butch Jaxon of Butch on Tap

I was playing Monopoly on my smart phone and it got me thinking… What if there was a butch-themed Monopoly game?  What would the game look like?

Traditionally, Monopoly has 8 sets of colored properties, 2 utilities, and 4 railroads to buy. Hazards include 2 kinds of taxes and, of course, jail. The pieces a player gets to choose from are: battleship, cannon, dog, iron, race car, shoe, thimble, top hat, and wheelbarrow. If I were to butch up Monopoly, it might look something like this:

The properties would be 8 different breweries, with my 3 favorite beers from each. The utilities would be Home Depot and Target (a butch can get everything she needs for daily living at these two stores, minus clothes and food).  The tax squares would be classic butch problem situations resulting in the payment of a Femme Tax.  One would be: “You’ve been caught staring at another woman; buy your femme flowers to try to fix it.” The second:  “You have no idea what your femme is trying to tell you so you have to hire a translator to save your dumb ass.”

Community Chest becomes Femme Chests and includes cards explaining a variety of things you do that are “Butch Fails” and will send you directly Butch Jail – do not pass go, do not collect $200.  But, it’s all right because Butch Jail is staffed by sexy femme prison guards.  Meow.

The pieces would be transformed like this:
Battleship = Polar Bear, because they are big and powerful like a battleship, but not charged with that militaristic, gas-guzzling, establishment, gay-hating aura that the armed forces have.
Dog = Shark.  Remember, sharks are hella butch.
Iron = Toolbox. Obviously.
Race car = This is my favorite piece, so it would stay. Model it after a Shelby Cobra, though.
Shoe = Engineer boot. Very butch.
Top hat = Bow tie. ’nuff said.
Wheelbarrow = Big beer bottle.
Thimble = BBQ grill.

Now, who wants to play?

You can read more from BW guest author Butch Jaxon at butchontap.com.

At the end of each month, I kind of look forward to checking out the list of odd search terms that brought people to BW.  Among my favorites for April:

• "why does everyone want to be with a butch woman" (Because we're all super hot.)
• "are chukka boots gay" (Only the ones that pair up with other chukka boots.)
  
• "calvin klein" "they have the" "the tie"  ("That is a" "good point."  "Indeed, they probably" "have several" "ties.")
• "what happens at the end of the pet milk story by stuart dybek" (The story is literally three pages long.  Read it yourself.)
• "do butches ever put dresses on"  (Yeah.  Wanna see?)
• "butch females & fems having sex videos" (Videos of butches and femmes having sex?  Or butches and femmes who own sex videos?  So confusing.)
• "what do butch lesbians wear to the beach" (This stuff.)
• "san francisco lesbians tube" (More on these mysterious lesbian tubes... Will this ever stop?)
• "sanfrancisco lesbians tube" (I mean, seriously, people!)
• "s.f. dyketube" (Sigh.)
• "my girlfriend says shes at a friends" (Liar!)
• "lesbian tubes" (Aaack!)
• "why does rachel maddow dress like a man" (Can somebody else please field this one?  Just looking at it makes me tired.)
• "butch females are annoying"  (But not as annoying as ignorance.)
• "how to encourage a gay hitting on a straight guy" (I'd try something like, "Yo, stop it.  That dude's straight.")
• "val" "long distance relationship" (If your significant other's name is "Val," I'd say your search may be a little too specific.)
• "my girlfriend wants an open faced panini sex style
  (Um.  What?)
• "men wearing timberlad boot sock fetish" (What's a weirder fetish, Timberland socks or open-faced paninis?  I say it's a toss-up)
• "men hugging each other" (The world's mildest fetish)
• "how to get a butchs attention" (Throw a chukka boot at her.)
• "best way to be butc" (First step: master the spellchec functio.)
• "girls tie guys up and put makeup on them" (Well, yes.  But only for Cinco de Mayo.)
• "gay man in Splint"  (An unlikely scenario.  Gay people's bones are made of titanium and are exceedingly durable.)
• "does forest green shirt and blue undershirt match?" (No.)
• "can you wear dress vest unbuttoned" (Yes, unless it's a formal setting and you're wearing a jacket.)
• "can you wear cufflinks without a suit" (Yes.)
• "can you wear a black shirt under a white button up" (Yes, but you definitely shouldn't.)
• "butch women turn me on" (Well, as we established above, they are super hot, so that's to be expected.)
• "why are lesbians crazy" (Because people keep hiding our lesbian tubes.)
• "what does it mean when man embraces women" (It means he wants an open faced panini sex style.)

Stay tuned for the next thrilling entry.  What'll it be?  Lesbians in Alaska?  A tale of underground dyke communities in far-flung regions of the world?  A list of ways butches screw up relationships?  These are just a few of the great guest post ideas that your fellow readers are cooking up.  I have a feeling you're going to like this feature...

That's a wrap for today.  Be well, butches!

I found this tie fabric at an Asian market a few towns away.  I loved it, but it was $20, so I decided to settle for a picture.  But I still want it.

Awesome, right?  I'm not even sure what I'd do with it, but I'm sure I'd come up with something. 

Next, here's a piece of graffiti I found on a table at a local university:

(In case you can't read it, it says, "f--k physics.")  To me, there's something kind of darling about it.  The neat, measured writing.  The undergraduate angst trapped in the angles of the letters.  I just wanted to give this person a big hug and tell him or her that it would all be okay.  That this midterm, too, shall pass.  That Friday nights in college are better spent almost anywhere but the library (a lesson that I, myself, learned disappointingly late).

Next, a graffiti FAIL on a shed in a small town where I went hiking the other day: 

This is even harder to read.  The top word says "hell," although the "h" is wearing away.  And the bottom word says, simply, "PENUS." 

I imagine some kid in this town sneaking out with a can of spray paint from his parents' garage or a pastel palmed from his middle school art class, and writing the WORST WORDS HE COULD THINK OF.  And spelling one of them incorrectly. 

Mini-entry time!  I just found a site (via Lifehacker) called Simple Desktops that boasts tons of minimalist computer desktops (free!).  A few struck me as especially butch-appropriate, and I thought I'd share them with you.  After all, why shouldn't your desktop look as effortlessly stylish as you do?  Celebrate the start of the week with a new desktop look.  Why not?  Here's a boxer shorts desktop:

This is probably my favorite one: glasses and a tie pretty much sum up my signature dressy look.

Anyway, hope y'all had a swell weekend.  My DGF and I got to spend much of the weekend with our buddies C and D (a butch-femme couple, though not strictly so), and it was way fun!  We BBQ'd tri-tip, went on a three-mile hike, and drank a bunch of coffee while our dogs played in the sun.  I don't think I realized how much I needed a break.  Now I'm actually rested(!) and looking forward to the week(!!).  I forgot how nice that feels.

I've decided to try out a chat forum, just as an experiment for a few weeks, to give BW readers a chance to chat with each other about various topics.  I may pop in occasionally, too.  Check it out using the new "forum" link above. 

Secondly...  betcha thought I was going to forget about March's "weird-ass search terms that got people to my blog" list, didn't you?  No way--I saved the list, just hadn't gotten around to posting it.  So, for your enjoyment:

• "black button up shirt for 12 month olds" (How did this person get to my site with this search?  And doesn't that seem a touch formal for a 12-month-old?)
• "is ellen degeneres a butch lesbian?"  (As far as the media is concerned, yes.  As far as I'm concerned, she makes the Field Guide, but only barely.)
• "big bad lesbian butch tubes"  (What!?!)
• "san francisco dyke tubes" (Seriously, will somebody please tell me what the deal is with lesbian "tubes?"  This shows up in my search list at least a few times every month, and it's just weird.)
  
• "lesbians hate penis invalidates my identity as a woman"  (Lesbians usually hate neither penises nor men; we just prefer to have neither in our beds.  And even if a lesbian did hate penises, how would that invalidate your identity as a woman??)
  
• "is it uncommon for butches to be attracted to butches?"  (Not as uncommon as you might think!)
• "what two butches do in bed"  (We exchange big bad lesbian butch tubes.)
  
• "can you be female identified and want to bind your chest" (Yes.  To my knowledge, the Community has not yet issued any Official Restrictions on female identification and chest-binding.)
  
• "straight girl attracted to butch girls"  (Um, maybe straight girl not so straight?)
• "straight women attracted to butch women" (See above.)
• "straight women attracted to butch" (Seriously.  Are you SURE you're straight?)
• "straight woman attracted to androgynous women" (Dude.  You are at least a little bit queer.  Explore that side of you, pronto.  Then please give my information to the Community so that I can get another toaster for my collection.)
  
• "mesh liner in swim shorts cause injury" (I've been trying to figure out what injury this could be.  A number of possibilities come to mind, mostly involving tangled male genitalia.  Ouch!)
• "not all butch women are transgender" (Excellent point.)
• "howdy partner in a sentence"  (This is going to blow your mind: "howdy partner" itself is already a sentence.  Whoa.)
• "how butch women match boxers and bras"  (Okay, this is awesome.  For one, it assumes facts not in evidence.  I can only speak from personal experience on this one, but I'm guessing that even metrosexual butches like yours truly make very little effort in this regard.  We avoid overt clashing, but most of our bras are black or white sports bras, so this presents little challenge.) 
• "we need to balance taboos"  (Agreed.  Let's also juggle cliches, mismanage memes, and mitigate misnomers while we're at it.)
  
• "gay male moccasins sex" (Say what?)
• "what do you mean always"  (I mean all the damn time, bucko!)
• "exwifebestfriendisabutchdidshecrossover?"  (crossovertobeingalesbianjustbecauseherfriendisbutch?     YeahdefinitelyandwhileI'matitremindmenottobefriendanymenorI'll becomeoneandnottotalktoanyeightyyearoldsbecauseI'llsuddenly agefiftyyearsjustfromproximity.)
  
• "butch dog clothes" (See, this is why ambiguous modifiers are such a blight on society.  Are we talking about butch clothing for dogs [like my buddy C might look for to butch up her swishy mutt]?  Or clothing for butch dogs [e.g., clothing for mutt like mine, who is already butch]?  So confusing.)
• "AA AFuneral Benefit"  (Eh??  How did you get to BW from that?)
• "why is it most studs and butches are small breasted"  (We're not, but we often wear sports bras, and some of us even bind, so it looks like we have little boobies.  LITTLE BOOBIES!)
• "what to do when kissing a butch" (Cross your eyes, grit your teeth, and poke us hard in the ear with your index finger.  That turns us on, baby!)
• "what it says about you to tuck in shirt with no belt"  (It says: I forgot my belt!  Or: I have no fashion sense!  Or: My pants don't have belt loops, and are probably girl pants!   Or: I'm wearing suspenders!)
• "where does rachel maddow get her clothes" (I was trying to come up with a pun about how rachel maddow getting out of clothes is the more interesting question, but then I got too distracted by the idea of R.M. undressing and temporarily lost my ability to form coherent thoughts.)
• "why do gay men hug each other" (Because that is how rainbows are made.)
  

Did you miss me?  Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? 

While I was not blogging this past week, I was spending time on one of my multiple otakus*: art!  I have an art installation (my first) going up next week (just in a local cafe--don't get too excited), and spent every possible moment finishing a piece (even missing out on Easter with my parents, which sucked because in addition to loving my parents, I really enjoy dyeing eggs**).  My art stuff also necessitated a three-hour trip to Home Depot and various other hardware stores to find mounting*** materials that would comply with the cafe's idiosyncratic rules. 

At Home Depot, I learned three important things:

1. My Home Depot suffers from an unfortunate dearth of butch lesbians. 
2. The lumber section of Home Depot smells awesome.  Just one whiff made me start fantasizing about home improvement projects--particularly noteworthy considering that I do not own a home and have neither the ability nor the inclination to engage in projects involving nails, saws, screws,**** and the like.  (Such things are why this metrosexual butch has a non-metrosexual butch DGF, after all.)
   
3. While Home Depot employees seem skilled in the art of cutting wood, the art of measuring is an altogether different story.
   

Anyway, I am now back to life at its usual frenetic-but-bearable pace, so brace yourself for my usual frenetic-but-bearable frequency of posts.

Much love,
BW

P.S. Another thing I learned this week: the amount of Robin's Eggs I can consume is limited only by the number I can purchase.


* Is that how you pluralize "otaku," or is it already plural?  Also, despite the term's frequent association with anime and manga, I am a fan of neither.  I learned the term from Seth Godin. 
** Holidays are awesome excuses for doing weird shit.  Think about it: what other time of year could you color eggs or haul a tree inside, decorate it, and prop it up in your living room without having people think you were nuts?
***  Heh heh.  She said "mounting."
****  Heh heh.  She said "screws."