Guess Who's Back?

11/16/2013

Well, folks, it's been nearly FIVE months since I talked to any of you. But lest you thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth, I'm popping my butch little head up to say hello. It's not that work has abated--goodness knows THAT hasn't happened--nor that I think I can write every day, or even every week. Rather, I sort of thought I'd know when it was time for me to come back, even occasionally, and it's time.

In the spirit of re-acquainting ourselves, I'm going to list some things that have happened to me in the last five months. Then YOU list a couple of things that have happened to YOU in the last five months. Deal?

Okay, here's mine:

I travel to Boston. I am there for less than 48 hours, and am addressed as "sir" three times.
My dog is diagnosed with a rare condition called "idiopathic abdominal effusion," which--from what I can tell--means, "Your dog swells up and we don't know why." Expensive surgery and much ultrasounding ensues. Prognosis remains unclear.
I get sick. I recover fairly quickly. I get sick. I recover again.
I wear a pearl necklace. Voluntarily. In front of people. Three different times.
I buy three suits. Two are identical. The third is identical to the first two, except it is grey instead of black.
My girlfriend (yep, my awesome DGF!) is awesome and supportive and rock-solid. And a terrific cook.
In my current workplace, I am called "sir" twice when people just get a quick glimpse of me. One of these people has known me for over a decade. For reasons not entirely clear to me, I feel chagrined.
I spend one very long plane ride watching seven hours straight of Lifetime, wherein I am introduced to "Million Dollar Shoppers" (awful; I watched three episodes) and "Wife Swap" (omg).
I order room service for the first time ever, and am instantly convinced that it's the world's greatest invention. The same trip contains my second and third room service experiences. Two of said room service experiences involve corned beef hash.
I attend my ex-husband's wedding.
I decide that the best possible way to prepare for an interview is to do an interpretive dance to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" without a shirt on.
I am deeply disappointed by a friend.
I am deeply touched by the thoughtfulness and compassion of two other friends.
I read several excellent books, my favorites among which are Ali Liebegott's The IHOP Papers, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. Admittedly, I also read the third book in the "Divergent" series, and all three Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books. Don't judge.
A chimney sweep and I have a 20-minute phone conversation about sexual orientation.

So that's me in a nutshell. I have lots, lots, lots more to say. I'm officially back, although "back" may mean a once-a-month posting. I don't know yet. But I do know that I missed you. I probably won't be back to answering emails or Facebook posts for a while, but I'll try to be in touch whenever I can! :)

Your turn! What's new with you guys?

24 Comments

Shelley

11/16/2013 11:23:24 am

Thanks for the giggles
I'm in Saskatchewan, Canada
I went from working my 'ass' off as a carpenter for ...a long time to driving semi and charter bus and being a ski & sno board instructor 😲 How cool is life !! Build ¥#%> 4 fun
Thanks

chris wiley

11/16/2013 11:29:35 am

Hey, glad your back. I've missed your posts.
I moved to champaign, il from miami, fl.
I started a new job.
I visited atlanta, ga
I visited west lafayette, indiana.
My wife had back surgery.
My wife recovered well.
I took a class.

Kat link

11/16/2013 12:56:47 pm

Yay! You're back! I was so disappointed when you stopped posting just as I had discovered your blog. So here's some things that happened in my life whilst you were gone (not that you know me from Adam) (who happens to be one of my cousins) (like you needed to know that).

I became progressively more masculine.
I went to a ren faire for the first time.
With a girl.
Got sick.
Got the girl sick.
Started dating the girl.
Was exquisitely happy.
Figured out I was trans*.
Was broken up with by lesbian girlfriend.
Saw Butch Wonders was back.
Cheered!
Posted a comment.

:)

CSI Shadow

11/16/2013 02:11:24 pm

Sadly... not a blasted thing...

Rauko

11/16/2013 04:40:59 pm

Hi BW, i found your blog like 4 months ago while looking for women suits designs and i love it, i read everything avaliable on the index section, your writing is really enjoyable.
I'm from Chiapas, México (so i apologize if my ortography or grammar is a bit odd), i'm 26, sculptress, visualy impaired (need a cane to move) and recently out butch. Here people still are really conservative (conservative being the euphemism for bigoty jerks that hunt down and atack the LGBT comunity openly), i've been confused with a gay man and beat for that, they even stole my frickin cane!, but you know, reading some of your blogs about identity, and other sources, i became aware that since i came out with my father, brother and friends (they are cool with that, i really love them) and stop pretending being who i'm not, i recovered the confidence on myself, afther a whole year of hide away all depressed on my house, now i'm learning braille, skechting to work with a marble and wood sculpture, looking for a new job,i'm even training for the next paraolimpics (i train Judo). And part of that confidence was built while reading your awesome posts (now i just need a GF:P), so thank you and good luck! \m/-___-

11/16/2013 04:45:35 pm

myte

11/16/2013 11:40:26 pm

1, broke up with my butch
.2 moved to a new town.
3. Adjusting to a whole bunch of new things

roses

11/17/2013 01:35:22 am

A summer fling, with intense amounts of sex, followed by questionable emotional connection, followed by her leaving for her next gig and going back to the school teaching thing. And being single in a small town in the middle of nowhere, where most of the single gay ladies on OKC are 3 hours away. But too busy to date anyway.

Being on the job market for the umpteenth time and hoping, upon hope, that this time I'll land a tenure track gig. Being interviewed this week at the current institution and not knowing how to be a good inside candidate.

Confronting racist comment upon racist comment by my students, who don't realize the stereotypes that go in to what they claim b/c of how much the society encourages them to think this way. Feeling like my efforts are a tiny slosh in the bucket.

So very much to do today and it's Sunday, so I slept in. But I must grade like the wind and prep for classes and prep for my interview.

mayte

11/18/2013 12:32:04 am

I hear you as much as I wish to have someone to snugle with k,eeping myself busy to date other women is whats kerping me away
iam happy alone not lonely
greetings from Long Beach CA

devyn

11/17/2013 01:35:36 am

I'm so glad you are back! since I first came out about a year ago I have been a faithful follower.

11/17/2013 01:37:10 am

Oh, and you asked on FB what you should write about. Have you ever written about the butch swagger? It kills me every time. I find it so incredibly sexy.

I was trying to explain this to a newly out friend, and she claimed that femmes could also swagger. I just don't see it. To my mind, the butch swagger is one of the essential elements to a butch identity (and one of the things that most turns me on).

Thoughts?

Lyndsay

11/17/2013 01:46:49 am

Glad to see you've resurfaced!! I thought about you during pride week here in New York City.

em-power-me link

11/17/2013 02:22:26 am

Welcome back, ButchWonders!

Let's see....

- Cut my hair shorter than ever, and love it more than ever

- Saw (and swam in) the ocean for the first time as an adult

- Graduated with a useless degree, and went back to work doing what I've always done & always loved doing

- Moved in with my wonderful partner; our house feels like a home

- Almost got dis-inherited by my parents over my sexuality, and then mended fences

Okay, that's it for now!

Jesse K.

11/17/2013 02:26:17 am

Good to see you back!!!!! :) Hopefully on a fairly regular basis. Things that have happened to me in the last five months:

1. I get a random email from the editor of one of the books I reviewed for my department's newsletter. He says nice things. I freeze in some sort of fan-girl panic and never write back. (this is also why I haven't sent you my reading list from last semester's intro to women's and gender studies class) I make sincere vows to get better about keeping up with stuff like that.

2. I schedule a few extra days off near midterms into my syllabus . . . then get horribly ill during the second week of classes instead, and end up canceling a few more. My students don't seem to mind. My students also get sick, but are too buttheadedly stubborn to go to the doctor. I toss cough drops to them during lectures. I have such good aim that if I'm throwing to the students in the back row, the ones in the other rows don't even duck.

3. I spend nearly an entire paycheck on organic beef and veggies from our favorite farm. I regret nothing.

4. I learn that visible tattoos may prevent me from being allowed to enter most bath-houses if I ever travel to Japan. I change my planned WV-themed half sleeve to a WV-themed wide bicep-band. I decide that to justify that decision, I now have to be sure to travel to Japan at some point. I'm okay with that.

5. I find out I'll be teaching intro to creative writing in the spring. I come up with approximately 500 texts that I would love to assign, but have to pick three. I end up going with Wells Towers's short story collection Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, a book about poetry called The Triggering Town, and Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. I immediately regret not requiring anything by Haruki Murakami, Ivan Coyote, and about a zillion others, but I stand by my choices.

Five things seems like a good number for five months. This should be filed under "questions you should never ask of somebody in creative writing program unless you want a short novel in response." :)

Melanie

11/17/2013 03:07:27 am

nice to see you again just how you handle disappointed by a friend , because i had these friends for ages and every time you split up with your g/f , I seem to loose friends I guess its not a bad thing as you learn , who is real and who's not , but why do women think they need to choose side because if you care you stay but one so call friend plays side , so I was harsh and decided to let her go because she only comes back when she needs some thing , and her kids wondering whats going on so I think I did the right thing for me but she keeps turning up like a bad penny how can you tell some one you have no place in my life with out being harsh

11/17/2013 03:09:06 am

Welcome Back!

+ called sir at the grocery store
+ enrolled in classes at age 52
+ called sir by a customer at work
(I'm not even trying to pass and don't think I do)
+ looked at the butch & pets calendar on my wall and wondered how you were doing

Tiana

11/17/2013 03:33:04 am

I am fangirling a lot right now! Just a day or two ago I had commented on your last post saying I missed you and now you're back! :)

Aggie

11/17/2013 04:42:48 am

Lovely to have your blog back, even if it's once a month. Warmest welcome back :))

JJJ

11/17/2013 05:54:12 am

I have never posted , but read postings. glad you are back...
I get called Sir once or twice a months as wear men's cloths most the time.. at a glance I look fairly male,, but do not pass ad don't try if one looks for any amount of time.

I do like it when I get called sir, I know I confused them and that is a good mind mess...

any way welcome back and back when you are back again

Bluediamondldy

11/17/2013 09:10:06 am

Got married in Delaware-already had a civil union
Got a military deprndent's card making history
Adopted the traditional lesbian baby-a dog
Went to two lesbian weddings one in Delaware and one in TN. Well, the one in TN was actually the reception. Joined the American Military Partners Association for LGBT military spouses and their significant others. Became part of the "Rainbow Railroad" and we are expecting our first riders in December.
Was called "sir" twice this fall while umpiring. Once at Gkassboro St. By the other coach and another at a U-18 showcase tournament in Quakertown, Pa.

Dee2

11/17/2013 11:32:25 am

* dealt with sick friends
*decided I need a few changes in my life (not sure what)
*switched to mostly all organic
*still trying to figure out about the whole butch dynamic, it is the only thing I am really attracted too, but is it real? or like play acting?

GrimUrsa

11/18/2013 07:56:29 am

Welcome back!

I'm dating a non-butch woman for the first time in my life. She can't be described as a femme either, but it's the first time I'm asked by my partner about matching earrings to a top (really?). And the first time that I go out with someone who's wearing makeup. In all of my 37 years of life, 19 years dating women. I must be the weirdest lesbian in the world, because it shocks me.

I've confirmed that I am a butch-on-butch type. But I've fallen in love with her anyway. Because she's a wonderful woman and a wonderful person. And because it's only flesh and soul when we are naked.

Martha

11/21/2013 03:04:57 am

Yay, you're back!!

What have I been up to in the last five months...
*relationship ended but we are still friends
*realised I am way too busy with things that need to be done but maybe not by me
*realised I don't keep in as close touch with my family as I would like
*the church I serve moved to a new, wonderful space, where I have my own office for the first time in ten years!
*have become involved with a local Two-Spirit group
*started a "boot camp" fitness program, hit a few bumps and had to take a couple weeks off, but am getting back into it
*changed the way I eat (to a modified paleo)
*went to a Heart concert
*spent an amazing week in Chicago at a conference--love that city!

Glad you are back and I can't wait to read whatever you can write whenever you can write it! :)

Kyle link

12/18/2013 09:29:33 am

Well, I wrote another 54k words for my novel during NaNoWriMo... I have a couple of new girlfriends, one of whom lives close enough to date (3 dates and counting)... my eldest is about to turn 14... I went to therapy and got help getting up out of a depression that was almost a year in the making... I have a story on a short list for an anthology... 2014 is shaping up to be an exciting year. Life is good. Welcome back.

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