Hot Mess/Comfortable

It's weird, going back so far in time and maturity to write my first:girl series. It's hard to get back into that head space where I was so young, awkward, naive, unsure, uneducated. It's hard not to cringe at the moments when I didn't know what it meant to be "butch" or what the Stonewall Riots were. I've had to delve into old journals to remember what I was thinking during that time, even though some exchanges are burned so clearly into my memory. Proof reading my first:girl series was like watching a video tape of someone else drowning. I want to swim out and help me, but I know I can't. I'm not there anymore. I had to learn to sink or swim on my own.

Even looking back on my first posts here, not nearly as far back as my love story, I was all over the place. I was a big, hot, lesbian mess, trying to fit myself into any box I could find. I'm so glad I found these beautiful safe spaces which helped me grow. Places like Sugarbutch, CCL, Dorothy Surrenders, and Alphafemme, with real authors, honest people who shared their experiences and their lives with me so that I might grow and learn. I can't thank them enough, especially Sinclair over at Sugarbutch, for the impact they've had on making me feel safe and like I wasn't alone on this journey.

But I have become someone extraordinarily different from who I was back then. I am confident, self-assured. I know what I need from a relationship and how to get it. I know how to give love, how to accept it, and how to walk away when I'm not going to get it. I am a sane, competent individual who understands different types of relationships, differing needs and wants and paradigms. I am someone who can stand my ground and hold my own beliefs without needing to blind myself to the opinions of those around me. I am no longer spectrum banging, but comfortable in the person I've settled into. That's not to say I don't shake things up occasionally, but everything is essentially me. I can also still be a hot mess when I'm running late for work and haven't done laundry or gone to the market and forget to comb my hair when I get out of the shower and look like Jane Porter (this is a chance for you to show me that you read).

I hope that you, wherever you are on your journey, in the closet or out for years, can come upon this feeling. That someday, you can stop chasing down and looking for who you really are, because you are comfortable in yourself. All that running is exhausting, and knowing the basics of who you are and what you want is really enjoyable.

Underthings

When I first started this blog, it was a little bit racy, a little bit sexy, a little bit about discovering and being discovered. If you've been with me for a while, you'll remember when I used to give myself "body homework" learning to get comfortable with myself and my body (and trying to get over past insecurities). That was put on pause for a long time as I got comfortable with my mental self, with my identity, my sexuality, my gender, my emotions. Everything stabilized, and I'm very grateful for that.

Today I didn't have any underwear. Literally, none. I practically have no clean clothes left. My laundry pile is three feet high and I have no time to do it. I suppose I did this morning, but I quickly hemmed up a sweater dress instead and then realized later that my undergarment drawer was empty. Oops. So I hopped out of the shower and decided "screw it, who needs panties everyday? People do it all the time!"

Note: I cannot text people when I'm in the bath for fear that they will somehow realize that I'm naked while I'm texting them. Okay? You get this? So I left the house and bumped into my neighbor; super nice, 50s, working class. She starts talking to me about this and that and her daughter and all I can think about is how awkward it is that I'm NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR and SOMEHOW SHE MUST KNOW. Except she couldn't, because normal people don't have x-ray vision, but still. It was so awkward and I couldn't follow the conversation at all.

Then, I was at work with this pretty girl named Cindy; she's around my age, really nice and her fiance is pretty awesome. She leaned in to brush a stray eyelash from under my eye behind my glasses, and she was so slow and gentle. I closed my eyes so she didn't poke me in the eyeball, and there it was, that strange, nagging feeling and an oncoming blush because all I could think about was that I wasn't wearing any underthings.

Maybe I could get used to it, in time. Maybe people do it all the time because they like this constant reminder, this heightened feeling. Maybe they like the idea that people might find out. I don't know. The heightened feeling wasn't all bad. It's just...it was the everyday situations with everyday people that made it so awkward. If I were on a date it might've been different, but I was at work.

If I were to try it again, It probably wouldn't be with a sweater dress, and it definitely won't be tomorrow. Here's to clean laundry!

Note: Still updating the first:girl series over at tabbyqt.wordpress.com Check it out to see how I fell in love for the first time and stumbled out of the closet.

Tuesday Tunes

So, I was hemming my sweater this morning (I know, you guys) and of course needed some music to sew by. So here are some Tuesday Tunes maybe you haven't been introduced to but should be.

No Doubt's new CD "Push and Shove"
This is classic, feel good No Doubt, sounding very much like Tragic Kingdom, so I was super excited. And um, Gwen, the baby thing done you good.


 Mumford and Sons- I Will Wait
I have to sing this song every time it comes on in the car. I haven't sat down and picked apart the lyrics but it sounds sweet, and I want to learn the banjo so I can play stuff like this.


And, of course, Rise Against, who I've talked about before and are one of my favorite bands. I love the anti-bullying message they were going for. If you watch it all the way through it doesn't end on a downer note.


Just to fill you with happiness, who remembers this gem from Team Gina?

Sundays

Sometimes I wish I had a cat, just because I think I would feel guiltier if it stared at me while I ate my piece of leftover pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Because I don't have any pets, I was left to eat my pie in peace. Curse you non-existent cat!

Tomorrow begins the cycle of the two jobs again, and it's going to be crazier than ever. The holiday season is beefing up my hours (and my paycheck) but the juggling I'm required to do to get it all done is going to turn me into an acrobat. Maybe I can audition for Cirque du Soleil in January and quit this whole two jobs thing. I'm kidding.

Favorite part about Sundays: Donuts!! Fresh donuts! Secret tip: If you're going to buy donuts, always buy them on a Sunday, because unless you have really bad taste in donuts, they always run out on Saturday which means you a guaranteed not to get a day-old donut on Sunday. You're welcome.

Other favorite part about Sundays: Really gay movies on Netflix. Occasionally I'll get a few hours on a weekend and I like to gay it up, whether I'm fixated on Once Upon a Time, reading a new book, knocking down my Netflix instant queue, or swooning over hot ladies gracing the television screen.

Speaking of gay, but also not, I want to see the new Les Mis movie so badly! Every time I see/hear/read more about it my musical theater degree wrapped heart thumps louder and I feel so ashamed I was not a part of it. I mean, a piano in my ear as I sing on camera? Who came up with that and why didn't we do it ten years ago so we could've avoided the disaster that was Mamma Mia? Love you guys, really. Who else wants to see Les Mis?

Carding

I love seeing the fam and old friends from high school and college years, going out for drinks, gambling, pool, bowling, and all that fun stuff. What's not fun, and I'm not sure if I've talked about this here before or not, is how short and sweet I am. I have a seriously sweet face, and it gets me carded all the time. I went out a few weeks ago with friends and the bar came up to my collar bone. I felt like a six year old. When I requested a Shirley Temple because I had to drive a long, curvy, country road home, the bartender actually said "Thank God."

I get carded when I want to buy lottery tickets, I've been pulled off casino floors and gotten my hand stamped to enter (did you even know they did that at casinos because they do), I've had to pull out credit cards to prove my ID isn't fake. I'd like to say it's flattering. What girl in her mid-twenties wants people to think she's forty? But seriously, yo, stop thinking I'm under 18. It's not cool.

I've learned certain things over the years: when I wear my hair in a braid, it takes off 2 years, add glasses and it knocks off another 2 or 3, pair it with skinny jeans and some converse and I'm a high school kid. But even busting out the boobs and throwing on high heels doesn't seem to help with the carding dilemma. What else can I do? Paint my face in clown makeup?

Tonight was fun, nonetheless. I had a good time catching up with people I've missed. It's always a little awkward around high school friends because they knew me as a completely different person. They knew "pre-gay, baby wanting, Mormon marrying, Tabby" and don't know what to do with the "out, single, comfortable, happy with her life and her sexuality so I don't-need-to-discuss-it-every-second Tabby."

Whenever my sexuality comes up in conversation, people think it's okay to ask for details about my sex life. "Do you do this? Is scissoring a real thing? I've always wanted to have sex with another girl but I don't want to taste it." I don't find out somebody's straight and say "Hey, do you like the taste of his sperm and let him do crazy shit like sign you up for gangbangs?" No, I don't, because I have manners. I'm going off on a tangent. I promise I'll do a whole other post on that topic. For now I'm just trying to deal with the carding sitch.

Also, I've been updating the first:girl series, so if you haven't signed up, email me or leave me a comment with your email and I'll send you the password.

Morning After

Leftover yams: breakfast of champions

After the extended family left the parental house last night, the thing attacked. The thing that my head does when it thinks I'm hitting the bottom of the pool again. I took my medication right away, plus a painkiller, but it didn't seem to have any effect. So, I added to that an Advil pm and knocked myself out for a while. Good news, my head stopped hurting while I was effectively passed out.

Bad news: I woke up at 11 this morning with someone shrilly screeching my name. I ran out of my room, groggy and confused. It was my grandmother, never known for her subtlety. My mom was running around the house like a crazy person, trying to get something to the post office before it closed at noon.

"Do you want to go to lunch with us?" she asked, referring to herself and my aunt standing beside her. I stood numbly, not understanding the situation. Hadn't they all just left?

"You just woke her up and she just went throught that thing last night where I end up having to take her to the hospital," my mom explained.

"Oh, well did you go to the hospital?" she asked.

"No, she took her seizure/migraine meds and painkillers." My aunt has serious epilepsy and as soon as seizure meds were mentioned she was all up on my side. My grandmother, however, was a little slower.

"Well, she can get dressed quickly," she said, eying my pajama clad state.

"Sometimes those meds make you feel sick, mom, she probably doesn't want to eat," my aunt jumped in.

"I don't, I really don't," my head still hurt a bit and I wasn't feeling well, but I had just been very rudely awoken so it was to be expected.

They hung around the house for an hour, bothering my mother and trying unsuccessfully to be helpful when really my mom just wanted them to go away so she could mail her package and I just wanted piece and quiet. Finally I took two advil and braced myself to go down and face them, when they left. So instead, I grabbed some leftover yams with marshmallows and am enjoying a nice, quiet, leftover lunch :)

Happy Thanksgiving

We're all lounging in the unique jelly-legged afterglow of the Thanksgiving feast. As I type this, I'm lounging on the couch with two nieces who are falling into a food coma and a brother-in-law with whom I'm discussing the game, another niece eagerly running into the wilderness, three boys cleaning up the table, one playing video games and another gnawing on leftover sweet potatoes.

Redskins vs Cowboys is on the television and the women are talking in the kitchen. The lights are low and the keyboard of my laptop glows. It's my favorite moment of Thanksgiving. The moment when the dinner conversation has faded and everyone is drifting into their own little niches. It's comfortable, warm, friendly. Well, when you ignore all the ObamaCare hatred going on in the kitchen.

I'm so grateful to spend this time with my family. So grateful for all the food that filled our table, for the smiles on everyone's faces and for the dog licking up everything the kids dropped under their feet. I'm grateful that we all disagree on everything but still manage to get along. We're all family and we enjoy each other. I'm grateful for the homemade cider that smells like our childhoods and old memories of my grandparent's flower shop. I'm grateful for the three tables we strung together in the garage so that no one would be separated from the main conversation.

I'm grateful for the phone call from Ladybug because I miss him terribly and am glad to know that he's safe and sound. And most importantly, I'm grateful for the pumpkin chiffon pie that my sister's children made because it was absolutely delicious. And soon I will be grateful for the nap I'm going to take :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Day 30 Mirrors

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Not a happy one. Sorry.

Babe,

What the hell are you doing? You're spilling out you're whole life into a computer screen and hoping to find what from it? Redemption? Realization? Friends? Love? Community? You have two jobs. You spend all your time taking care of other people, making sure others are safe, comforted, pushed to succeed. What the hell are you doing about yourself?

When was the last time you went on a date? When was the last time you stopped dreaming about great girls and went out to find one you connect with? You're lonely, idiot. You're throwing words into a fiber optic stream to connect with people you share some common ground with, but it doesn't make up for the fact that you're best friend moved away and the redhead is no longer in the picture.

How often do you look at me and tell me that we're not going to do this anymore? That we're going to live the life we want? That we're going to move away and spend our nights in bars with live bands and learn new music and new instruments and go to art galleries and lounge in the grass and fallen leaves listening to the rain with a cup of hot chocolate and maybe perform again? That we're going to work one job with actual hours where you punch a time clock and know your schedule weeks in advance? How often have we said we're going to get the hell out of California?

And we're talking about this again, now, knowing that it's not going to happen soon. This pep talk is doing nothing. Tomorrow you'll see the family and take care of everyone and everything and hear your sister talk about her due date and of course you'll need to be there to help with the other kids and there are so many things which need your attention so you'll stay here, trapped, for who knows how long.

You rescue everyone but yourself. I know you won't do it, but I wish you would.

-30 Day Challenge Complete-

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving for me and you! As a special Thanksgiving thing-a-ma-bob I'm going to take off the passwords for my first:girl series- falling in love and coming out- over on wordpress.com starting at noon pst today until noon Thanksgiving Day. I think. If I don't chicken out. Probably best to read it sooner than later. 
Update 11/22/2012 12:00pm: Posts 2-5 are now password protected. DM, leave a comment or email me at tabbyqt@hotmail.com to sign up for the password. 
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

I haven't had much time to think about Thanksgiving, but I've got lots of family coming together and it should be a good time all around. We all have our assigned parts: Grandma is cooking the turkey, my sister's brood of children love making the pumpkin chiffon pie, so there will be tons of those, as well as a veggie tray, which leaves me to cook....just about everything else. My mom is no help since she's busy and not really a great cook, and my aunt is driving quite a ways to be with us all, so no help there.

Thanksgiving checklist for tomorrow:

Buy autumn themed tablecloths for outside tables.

Pick up "1st Birthday" baby cake for my nephew and cupcakes for the other kids. Wrap birthday present.

Set up at the parental house. Seating in the garage and buffet table in the house. Also, clean out the sink trap upstairs that Mom has been complaining about for weeks. Hook up TV in garage for football game.

Cook yams and hot dip first, start homemade apple cider in crock pot. Then green beans and bacon, and finish with the other side dishes.

Finish table set up, breathe.

Change into something Thanksgiving appropriate. 

Have fun with the family :)

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Day 29 Love/Fear

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but are too afraid to

First post from the new computer! Can I get a cheer?

Love and fear coincide more often than you might think. I'm afraid to disappoint my friends, my colleagues, my boss, my family, my girlfriends. I like when people like me, so much that you might call it a fatal flaw. So, when people set me on a pedestal, I try very hard to stay up there instead of letting myself tumble down.

 I have so many sides to my personality, like everyone does, but most only see two or three. I suppose that by reading my blog you see more of me. You see when I get pissed and want to fight, the moments where I break down and want to cry, my huge ego and my complete insecurities, my gangster moments, and my need to fix the world. You see how I want to believe there is good in everyone, how little I guard myself against people, and yet how I constantly guard myself by not letting anyone in.

I suppose I tell everything to you, like I would a diary, considering you're almost as quiet. I don't mind the lurking readers - I know what it's like to read and connect and feel like you're not alone and someone else is going through all this crap. It's why I started a blog in the first place. It's just interesting that you all across the interwebs, who have never met me, probably know me better than my best friends. In a way, that's horribly sad, but in another way, I guess it's to be expected.