The Total Femme

The longer I have this crappy disease, the more I experience and the more shit I dig up about how people with diabetes are treated by the U.S. “health” industry. This is a social justice issue about which I knew nothing before I was diagnosed with LADA in January (that’s latent, auto-immune, diabetes, in adults, or close enough).

            “This is NOT YOUR FAULT!” said the lovely hospital chaplain, grabbing my hands as I sobbed, but I tell you what, she’s just about the only person in the medical system to show me any grace or understanding. (Ok, there have been a few others, including the ICU nurses and techs, but it’s few and far apart.)

            As a result, people with diabetes are doing it for themselves and each other. Thank fucking goodness!

            Susan, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for your generosity in sharing your hard-earned knowledge about how to care for ourselves all the while that the MANMACHINE kicks us when we’re down, over and over. Your blog is a love letter to people with diabetes!

https://cruisingwithdiabeticsusan.com/

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online. Is there someplace online that you particularly adore? Send it my way and I’ll slap it into the Pingy-Dingy lineup! thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Yesterday I visited my mom in her memory care unit. I’ve been worried about her as she hasn’t been eating all that well, has lost weight and seems weaker. I was glad to find her looking a bit better and walking more strongly. She’s 92 with advanced dementia, and it’s just every day one day every day these days.

As I was rushing down the hall to to grab her Pride beads from her bedside table (she loves her Pride beads), I passed a woman coming out of a room with a big WELCOME CLAIRE! sign on the door. We said hi, and later, she and my mom were sitting next to each other as the activities director got ready for the next jolly thing she was going to do with them.

We greeted each other again, and I asked her how she was liking things.

“Oh, I’m just visiting my sister,” she said. “I don’t live here.”

She’s not the first resident to tell me they’re just visiting, will be going home any moment, aren’t staying. As my mother dozed off, Claire and I chatted about books and libraries and past careers. Anything to not delve deeper into the reasons we were both sitting in a locked unit about to watch videos of cats or babies or somebody’s got talent.

Well, they were. I got to leave.

That night was going to be a full moon, something my mother used to keep close tabs on. Tex and I walked to dog over to the park, ran into some queer friends, and sat a while together, looking at the view. It was still light and the sky was filled with glorious clouds, something my dad always loved. “Oh, look at the clouds! Marvelous!” he would have said.

People were gathering with humongous cameras, getting ready to make moon portraits. Other people were just hanging out. Other people were sitting together near signs that said, “Meditation. All are welcome.” Our little dog was going from one of us to the other, getting a lot of love. There was a nice breeze.

Oh bodacious ones, beauticious, balancing, breaching and breathing oh my bonny queer femme sisters, where do you live? Are you settled, curious, accepting, aware and allowing yourself to linger on whatever wonder and spark there is around you? And are you tortured by the what-ifs and the inevitable shitty shit that there’s no escaping, no getting away from? Where do you put your energy and how do you manage your discontent?

As for me, I’ve been extremely critical of where I live, for years, for damn good reasons, full of regrets, angry, sad. Blinders up, middle finger up.

Last night, I let myself breathe and what a relief.

We yet live, we yet are free from the locked unit, we yet are able to decide.

And the moon rose.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Art will save our lives (thank you Beth Pickens!) and art is all around we queer femmes, we partake, we make, we make and we partake. Do you write perhaps? Are you struggling to find writerly community, kind and wise and understanding writerly companionship? Are you queer, neurodivergant, isolated, any of the above and perhaps more? Writing is hard and being together with other writers has been lifesaving for me. Not only that, getting help navigating ADHD whilst being a writer has been a long time coming and a great deal needed. I am so grateful to the darlings at The StoryWilds for so many reasons!

The StoryWilds, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for your patience, your love, your non-judgemental hearts and minds, your brilliance, your bravery! So grateful to be part of your beautiful, wild family!

https://www.thestorywilds.com/

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online. Is there someplace online that you particularly adore? Send it my way and I’ll slap it into the Pingy-Dingy lineup! thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Our 20-year old niece is visiting us from North Carolina, came over on the ferry while we were down in Provincetown, went to a lesbian wedding with us, got fawned over by our dear queenie neighbors at the campsite where we’re staying (“Yes, I am wearing my pearls with my t-shirt, I mean, it’s after 5pm!”), heard me read at the Feminist Stoop Reading at Womencrafts (one of the last feminist bookstores standing) and just generally had a gay old time.

            As her doting lesbian aunties, we filled her ears with stories about our history, talked about the Lesbian Avengers, the queer history of Ptown, Urvashi Vaid, Kate Clinton, on and on. We kept asking her what she’d read, assuming she needs to and should be educated in the lesbian canon that raised us, oh dearest Audre Lourde, Mary Oliver, Pat Parker, Cambahee River Collective, so many, many more. Nope, nary a one. Despite her being at an all-women’s college and despite her identifying as queer and having tons of queer friends.

            Ah, times have changed! She is surrounded by queerness in the now and doesn’t have to look for it as hard as we had to. It’s both a beautiful thing and a worrisome thing in that she takes a lot for granted and doesn’t always know the role history played in getting us where we are now. (Wherever that is!!)

            At any rate, something about me is that I LOVE finding books for people. It’s just part – a big part – of who I am. Books are so incredibly important to me that I want to share the love. If I gave our niece all the books I think she should read immediately, she wouldn’t be able to move for the piles. And there wouldn’t be room for her to find books, for books to come to her, at just the right time, in just the right way, where they will make the biggest impact, be the most comforting, and continue to build her wisdom in just the way that she needs.

            Like the impetus behind this blog, I give books to people because I am desperate for community. I want to know there are others out there pondering and curious about the same things I am, things that make life interesting and full of import – that make life worth living! Up to a certain point, there’s nothing at all wrong with that, but for me, it can tip over into something tinged with desperation, tainted with the extreme isolation of being a queer femme in a brutally heterosexist and misogynistic culture. I want community so fucking badly that I can get way too pushy about it, to where it stops being about me listening to what a person likes to read and seeing if I can make a good match, and starts being just about me listening to my own wounds and sadnesses. Then the connection fizzles and my good will and the person’s willingness to connect can get all twisted. My wisdom gets hidden by my need.

            As hard as this lesson is for me, sometimes I have to let people pick their own book.

            My goldfish, my honey-roasted pretzels, my potato chip chocolate chip chipping sparrow chips of gold and granite and quartz, does this happen to you sometimes, too? In your eagerness to connect across the generations, across cultures, across class and race and background and across the universe, do you lose your heart and give over unto your desperate loneliness? Ah, well. We all do here and again!

            Today, give yourself compassion, give yourself the gift of curiosity and non-judgement and acceptence of your glorious queer femme humanity that sparkles and explodes and sometimes fizzles because did you hear the part about humanity? and just let it flow, let it flow. You are marvelous, you are wise, you are full of everything you’ve lived through and you are walking miracles, darlings, beloveds.

            Keep connecting however you are able, keep building community, keep coming back to youth, to neighbors flying Bad Flags, to other queers who think queer femme is a quaint remenant of the checkered past, keep coming back to yourself, you know, I know, you are golden, you are lightning, you are wisewsewise!

            Keep going. I need you, we need you.

            And…what are you reading??

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

The other night I had an anxiety dream, a real classic. I was in a musical, it was dress rehearsal, and I had completely neglected to learn my lines, my songs, my blocking, the whole nine yards. When it came time for me to sing my song, I looked at the director and said, “I didn’t quite get to it yet,” and she sighed and moved on. The best thing about this dream was that the director was Tex’s boss, who is no fucking joke and for sure would have blown my hair completely off it this had happened in real life.

Here’s to the folks who bust their asses learning their lines and songs and blocking so that we in the audience can sit back and enjoy. Here’s to the directors who bring it all together and keep it going. Here’s to the people back stage who also bring it all together and keep it going, lighting, sound, props, all of you. Here’s to the people back and front of the house, the board members, the volunteers. You make it roll and we are so grateful!

And here’s to Hilltown Theater Anonymous, deets below and on their website, for keeping all of the above and more alive in Western Mass! HTA, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for your hard work, your creativity, and your love of being on the boards – beautiful, surprising, delightful!

Hilltown Theatre Anonymous: A Journey of Magic, Community, and Theatre

A Night of Surprise

Hilltown Theatre Anonymous is an annual theatre event in Western Massachusetts. Each year, we come together to tell/re-tell/un-tell one of Shakespeare’s stories through the prism of our Hilltown community.

Our shows are cast and rehearsed in secret, which means that each actor meets one-on-one with their director. 

On the night of the performance, everyone sits in the audience. The actors speak their first lines from their seat in the audience, and then make their way onstage.

https://www.ericaterpeningromeo.com/hilltown-theatre-anonymous

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online. Is there someplace online that you particularly adore? Send it my way and I’ll slap it into the Pingy-Dingy lineup! thetotalfemme@gmail.com

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life and pandemic prevent posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

This January, when I was first diagnosed with LADA (latent, auto-immune, diabetes, adult-onset) and had just gotten out of the ICU, I mean hours earlier, I was sent to an endocrinologist’s office to get educated in this new hell. In the midst of slapping a continuous glucose monitor on my arm and watching me do a practice shot of insulin and generally introducing me to this new horrific chapter of my life, the endocrinologist muttered, “Of course, the weight will come back.”

            Excuse me? The who, the what?

It’s true that I’d lost weight in the illness that led up to me being admitted to the ICU, but so what if it came back? Wouldn’t that mean I was maybe starting to be healthy again? Later, this endocrinologist stopped working with people with diabetes to focus entirely on working with people around weight loss, so I guess her comment made sense. At least, to her and her line of work.

            To me, it was another blow in a series of blows hard enough to blow this femme way the fuck off course and about drown her in seas where there be many, many monsters. Why did we have to dredge up old struggles around weight and all that entails when I had just been diagnosed with a horrible, life-changing disease? Did that endo really fucking need to go there right then? And yet she did, and people do – make these off-the-cuff remarks that end up burrowing under your skin and nestling right up against your poor, struggling heart.

            Yours may not be a conflicted past relationship with food and body, but don’t we all have wounds from the past that rear up to confront us when we’re just going about our lives, minding our own business? Always such a shock, always so sad and difficult to be catapulted back to something so painful and fucked up. Depending on the depth of the wound, it takes a while to claw yourself back up out of that hole, that deep, haunted place.

            Speaking of haunting, that phrase haunts me, “The weight will come back.” It’s not because I’m worried about gaining a few pounds, it’s more the doctor’s pronouncement on me – me, who she was meeting for the first time smack dab in the middle of extreme crisis. Crisis for me. For her, just another day at the office. But because of the power imbalance, her words – her prophecy – hit me hard. She’s not seeing me, she’s not curious about my unique strengths and weaknesses, what I might accomplish as myself, she’s just seeing a conglomeration of patients past and pronouncing judgement.

            It’s an invisibility, a lack of attention, a brush off. As a queer femme, I already know way too much about those.

            Another time and post for how diabetes is a new kind of closet (it is, and I want to write about it eventually – I fucking hate a damn closet!), now let’s think about the weight of other peoples’ casual assumptions and judgements of us. Haven’t we had to field so many of those, my charmers, my darlings, my delights, my sparkling sprites? They echo, they come up in the middle of the night with our other cackling demons, they sap the strength right out of our spines.

            FUCK THEM!!!

Today, beloveds, turn and give them the finger, give them the boot, give them the ol’ heave ho. You are allowed to have weaknesses, you are allowed to make mistakes, you are allowed to fail and fumble and be frail and foolish. You are also allowed to go about healing in your own particular ways. When those judgements or assumptions surprise and side-swipe you, have compassion for yourself and let them carry themselves on through with the volition of their own shittyness. They can go to hell! Try not to capture them, let them pop like bubbles. Easier said than done, I know, especially in the middle of a hard night.

You’re not alone. You’re not broken. We’re here together, pushing back together, shouting, “Fuck you!” together.

Our own effulgent queer femme power shining through.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Getting dressed the other day, I looked in the bedroom mirror at my been-through-the-wringer-62-year-old body and for the first time in my life, pretty sure, the word that came into my mind was, “Sturdy.”

            I was surprised.

            I’ve said so so so many other, unloving words to and about my body over the years. Over and over. Even after a lot of hard work addressing body image and fatphobia and misogyny and so much all the rest of it, I would still come up with those angry, ugly words at my sweet self in the mirror.

            Sturdy is so beautiful, though. Sturdy is strong and solid and satisfying. Sturdy is brave and beautiful and bodacious. Sturdy is I own it and I am all that and I will prevail. Sturdy is queer and keepin’ on and cute as hell. Sturdy is sexy and super sweet and sinister.

Sturdy is still here.

My brave, my prevailing, my sweet super sweet sexy sinister queer femme sisters, how much have you done, how hard have you worked, how many difficulties and disappointments and down-hearted slopes have you navigatedgottenthroughmanagedfiguredout to get to this very frabjous day?

Sosososososo many, I know.

Oh, look in the mirror.

See what I see.

Tell yourself that different story, the elusive one, the one The Man hates, the one that’s been kept from you and denied you and held out of reach.

Today, it is right here for the enjoying.

Tomorrow, too.

For the rest of your life.

Sturdy.

So sturdy.

We are.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

I remember my university professor father railing about some popular language tic of the 80s, can’t quite remember what it was. Maybe the comment, “Really?” – for some reason that comes to mind. As in,

A:        “I can’t remember where we parked the car.”

B:        “Really?”

My father, may he rest in power and philosophy, would mimic the tone with great disdain, “Really? Really? Can’t they say anything more specific?”

Who knows if it was really “really” he was annoyed with; I really can’t remember. The bottom line was that he was annoyed with some bit of now-speak that, to his way of thinking, undermined people’s ability to exchange ideas clearly and with integrity to each other, took us away from to further communication and understanding.

Does that make sense?

Ok, that’s the one I’m currently thinking about. Why does it annoy me so much? Because there I am, listening to what the person’s saying about whatever it is we’re talking about, thinking about it, letting it settle in, anticipating an exchange of ideas about this particular topic, when, boom: Does that make sense?

Shit, I don’t know! Does it? You just said it! Am I supposed to pass judgement on it and reassure you that you haven’t suddenly started spouting nonsense? I mean, weren’t we talking about something of interest to us both, on more or less the same level, and now you’ve completely changed the subject to yourself and we’re talking about your ability to make sense?

Somewhere, my father is sitting around with every cat and dog he ever owned, laughing his ass off at me.

            Really.

            Bluebells, bumblebees, bonny bouncing queer femme sisters o’ mine, there is so much change so quickly. Perhaps like me, you are of an age and humor that the current pop culture references and language fly past you with no glimmer of recognition, perhaps you are all over the latest everything, but wherever you are in the current zeitgeist, isn’t it still worthwhile to set your worries about how you lookactsoundmakesenseofthingsthinkmove aside, give yourself a break and just try to connect with especially other queers so that we see each other and have sympathy for each other’s complications and joys? I’m not saying don’t talk however the fuck you want, because please: talk however the fuck you want! But as someone who thinks about language, I think about how we’re so deeply enmeshed in just being ME, in the individual, which might be reflected in our language and might steer us in ways that don’t serve family, Family, community, good sweet life for us all.

            Today, siblings sisters dear ones all, hearts open, spirits free.

            Whatever, whoever, you inherently do, you are, we are all together now all together.

            Yes, that makes sense.  

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Nothing cooler than What If? in the nitty gritty back ally next to the train tracks warehouse urban wasteland that’s actually full of life and love and art! This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, check out what is sure to be a rompous devious delightful queerbo production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” for maximum jolliness and beautiful rainbow rambuctiousness!

What If? and “Earnest,” you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for holding queer artistic space in the most generous, creative, and magical fashion!

https://www.whatifbos.com/

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/what-if-queer-creator-collaborative-81467094523

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life and pandemic prevent posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

We’ve been looking at a lot of campers lately and also a lot of videos from camper experts like Josh the RV Nerd out in Michigan. Not only does Josh have a beautiful Michigan accent, he’s quite a cut up and can really make us laugh with his wacky ol’ self. For example, he calls the insufficient fans many RV makers install in their rigs’ bathrooms “four-inch fart fans.” You know, they just don’t stir up enough breeze to make much of a difference.

Not only is “four-inch fart fan” an excellent alternative to “poop head” as an insult, it got me thinking about the importance of ventilation in all aspects of life. Sometimes, the air can get very close and stale, my utter and sparkle devoted queer femme sisters. As much as we do, as much as we try, as much as we carry the fuck on, we struggle for breath and our lungs begin to ache. Whether it’s our health, our responsibilites, our work, our family, our location, our worry for small and large, even sometimes our art, our delight, our clutch at joy – the atmosphere can thicken and swirl in on us. It happens when we’re doing what we do best when we’re busy, when we’re doing everything we can, when we’re managing engaging improvising making it work by the skin of our teeth and then and then.

Today my beauties, my breathing, living, gasping marvels, can you identify where you need to let in some air? Where the ventilation has failed and needs a much, maybe a much MUCH, bigger fan? Turn that shit on! Let it breeze and breathe and whirl the magic and energy and unpredictable wonder back into your hearts and spirits.

Turn your beautiful glad faces towards that healing wind, my seeking my finding my so brave so bold beautiful queer crafters supporters guiding wonders. Give yourself what you need to suck in the bountiful air and feel it lift you, fill you, find you.

Breathe with me!

Ahhhhhh!

(And please be reassured that the rig we’ve finally decided to buy has big, strong fans* in the bathroom and the kitchen, so we will have plenty of ventilation.)

*if you want to know what Josh calls those, you’ll have to go watch his videos….

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com