Hot! Hot! Hot!

I just dread triple digit (100+ degrees) heat waves. It wouldn't be so bad if it was the dry heat of the West Coast. But no, it's that wet, stuffy and humid kind of heat. It often feels like you're walking in a pool, several feet underneath the surface, and it's close, hot and really wet. Definitely not my idea of a good time. But oh well, it's part of the package out here where things happen.

These heat waves have an interesting impact on relationships too. Even for those of us blessed to have air-conditioning, we know what's coming: confinement and general irritability that lasts for days. We both bank a lot of "I love yous" and "Thank you, Sweetie" in advance of the "duration." Basically we know we'll be going through something together, and we want to start off from a positive emotional high.

Even if the worst comes and we lose power, we've survived even that. Because of our health issues, we got ourselves an air-conditioned hotel room. It was a small room, and the confinement was even harder on us, but we managed. We just hauled our laptops to a restaurant with wifi. We ate well, and Kathleen worked, and I facebooked and wrote. We got by.

All I can say is be a survivor. You can cope with this heat. Just keep drinking water, and, most importantly, have a Plan A and a Plan B if you lose power. Good luck!!!

Butch-Femme Thing (Or things every lesbian needs to know)

You know, gender identity is a tricky thing. I've been around 30 years as a lesbian, on both coasts and in large towns and small. I've seen changes. When I was coming out everyone was a gender-bender and androgynous. I wore men's clothes and thought I was really pushing it. Well times have changed, and some of us have even grown out our lesbian hair cuts.  However, out of that period we did develop a lesbian look, which identified us to each other and sometimes to the informed straight society.

Well, now I'm older and not so concerned with what's hot and what's not. But I have noticed that there seems to be a resurgence of butch-femme. From my experience, who is butch and who is femme goes much beyond appearances because appearances are often deceptive. Personality, not dress, tells you about a person and their style. So get beyond that haircut or combat boots...there's more to having a relationhip than make-up and dress codes. Dare I say that there are two people involved.