| now is | once was | came from | heard tell |

11:29 p.m. - 2004-05-30

scouting

We had a night out. It was good fun, I suppose, but I feel like my fun needs a little more variety these days. Only certain sorts of good times can be had in dark little underground clubs, no matter how good the music is and how fabulous I look. I'm gravitating away from the dance floor recently, getting restless. I was ready to leave by 4:30 am, which is unheard of for me. Somewhere earlier in the night though, it was very cool, my little sister met up with me for a drink. She's just turned 18. I smuggled her into the club for free and introduced her very fleetingly to all my friends. I taught her what a butch was, and a femme, and what a dominatrix looked like, and told her that she'd met an FTM but I wouldn't tell her who it was. I was impressed with how well she carried herself. I'm so proud of her. And she seemed proud of me too, proud to see what it is that I revel in, where my life lies- my family don't ever really see that. It's not something you can explain except to show it so someone who will appreciate it. She also loved the music, so I think I'm going to take her out more places, more often.

Bar butch. Little flashes of her, at least. She came around in the freezing early morning after work, I was still awake, still wearing my outfit of the night before. Writing and re-writing letters to Daddy. She stayed for a little while then went home to sleep. Came over that night on her way to work again. I was wearing pink flanalette pajamas with cows on them. She sat on my bed and I lay with my head in her lap and she stroked my hair. It is so strange, this tenderness without sex. I am so used to interactions dictated by sex- it's so strange and lovely knowing that we probably will, but delaying it. We have in the past, perhaps that's why we're so calm about this. We dated ever so briefly, long before I ever met Daddy. She was my first butch, the first person to really adore me for things I thought were silly and incidental, liabilities perhaps: the pink velvet dress I was wearing, the clips in my hair, the way I flirt. And things never turned bad between us. She ended it for reasons I understand, in a sensible, considerate way that I respect. We have never gone for more than a few months without catching up or hanging out, since then. And the sexual tension has never gone away.

I'm cautious about the possibility of just leaping into another relationship. Especially another relationship where I am the active, vibrant, dynamic agent and my partner is the audience. But I sense that the bartender might have a little more to offer me than that (although teasing it out of her is hard; she is gradual). This may be wishful thinking, but she has pushed me to spend a night at home writing rather than going out with her- admitted she would love to see me, but would more love to read what I'd come up with. And I think some magic lies there. She draws, wants me to push her into doing more of it. Frustrated artists aren't that hard to come by (despite the huge volume I write, I would never call myself a writer. We are a dime a dozen and the label is not interesting) but perhaps that tendency in both of us would be enough. To be something different and growing and new.

Anyway. Things move so beautifully and so slowly, even if no great thing ever eventuates, this process is lovely. It's good for me to feel passion without imperative. I think it's something she taught me back when I was younger and she seemed so much older than she does now. That everything you want doesn't have to happen right now. I throw this lesson back at her a little, make her wait for things she'd rather not. But she likes it as well.

It's a strange process, considering revisiting a lover who had been in the past. We shall see what comes of it.

- |+

[Phone Home] - 2005-02-22

[She hurts, even from here, she hurts.] - 2005-02-11

[Two weeks and counting] - 2005-01-31

[Dirty] - 2005-01-20

[Here Now] - 2005-01-18