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BENT
There is only one LGBT themed bookstore in NYC now. It's called Bent Pages and it's um, on Staten Island. We went to visit today. They have both new and used books and have a lot of older books from Naiad and Bella Books that I haven't seen around much lately. They aren't far from the ferry. Go check 'em out! You can find them on facebook as well.
STEAMED
During renovations on the apartment this summer, the super apparently disconnected the radiator pipe from the radiator. I hadn't noticed this and last night I turned on the heat in my room when the heat in the building wasn't on. In the middle of the night, the GF and I woke up to a completely steam filled room, I mean you couldn't even see a foot in front of you. And there was, of course, a horrible horrible hissing noise. Luckily we are both pretty good in a hot moment, so we opened up the windows and I figured out what was going on and we grabbed a towel and were able to turn it off. I got a second degree burn on a tiny bit of my finger and the walls were dripping wet, but everything else was okay. I was, of course, worried about Heather's ashes but they were across the room from the pipe spewing the steam. Cheryl's been a superchamp about my situation but I thought "honey can you help me dry out these ashes" would have been a hard thing to ask, glad it didn't come to that. She is such a damn champ.
AMUSED
Speaking of my gfriend is a champ, I met her mom for thanksgiving! I chose my outfit carefully so that her mom would be meeting me, not just my sexual orientation. So when I showed up at Port Authority for the bus to New Jersey, Cheryl looked at my pink sweater and said "wow I've never seen that particular item of clothing before" and I said "I was trying to look..." and Cheryl said "really really gay?" We laughed for about 15 minutes.
AMUSED PART 2
Went to visit an older acquaintance today who needed some company and cheering up. We were talking about the possibility of afterlife but both agreed the idea didn't particularly thrill us. I said "ceasing to exist sounds so...restful" He patted my knee and said "yes yes yes!" Huh. Now this discussion was in the context of a death that comes naturally at the end of a long life which is a very specific context. But I think I'm an almost weirdly optimistic person, yet in this case, my feelings mimicked those of a clinically depressed, very lonely 80 year old! Interesting!
DELIGHTED
By the sun today!
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Because I never blog about any specifics or incorporate it into comedy. you may or may not know I do a nursing job per diem, usually between 35-40 hours a month. It's the same job I did before I left Philly, visiting first time new moms, mostly teenagers. I do it because it's good to always have a base of cash flow during the months when gigs and freelance aren't as financially rewarding and because I seriously love love love this job. Sometimes my clients will say "she/he doesn't know me like that" usually about someone at the WIC or foodstamp office or medical clinic who decides they more about the client’s capabilities than the client does. I had a “you don’t know me like that” moment the other day. I was attending the public health nursing luncheon at the APHA (American Public Health Association) annual meeting and my co-workers were talking about cradle cap at lunch (c’now you know how nurses are) and a nurse sitting across me, who had never met me before said “well you don’t know have any kids, right? I know it really changed my practice, made it so much richer, when I had children. I made different decisions.” The implication was that my clinical opinion about treatment for cradle cap was somehow suspect because I had not actually produced a child from my vagina.
So the fact that this woman decided I didn't have children by looking at me was annoying enough. That she decided that my practice was lacking because I didn’t have kids was really pretty insulting. When I first started this job I was really worried that my clients wouldn't trust me because I don't have kids. Meanwhile, eight years and hundreds of clients later, I realized never once have I had a client directly ask me if I have children. Not once. And this is a long term program: a client who completes the whole thing works with the same nurse for almost 2 1/2 years. And it's not like my clients don't ask questions: I've been interupted from going over breastfeeding information by a client who asked "so...how do you know if you've come?"
Perhaps clients don't ask me the "do you have kids question" question because I am an obvious dyke and many obvious dykes don't have kids. Perhaps it's because---race dynamics being what they are in this country and my clients mostly being Women of Color-- whiteness just trumps everything, ie if they needed a reason not to trust me, the fact that I am white is plenty enough. Or maybe they don't give a shit. Maybe just showing up, treating them with respect and trying to help them get through a big huge life changing experience is enough. It might be a combination of all three.
The interaction at APHA just reinforced for me how amazing these teenagers are that I work with. I'm sure I am not a subjective observer after so much time spent with each of them, but they are often amazing amazing parents despite (or perhaps in some cases, because of) all kinds of shit they've been through in their lives. They could indeed peek out from behind their curtains when I come for my first visit and seeing a white woman who looks like either a Catholic school boy (I wear dark pants and a light colored polo when I am out visiting) or a big huge supa- gay lesbian just say "hmmm, yeah not what I was expecting" and let the curtain fall closed and ignore the knock. Instead---unlike this academic, PhD trained nurse from University of Kentucky who decided I was lacking because I didn't have kids--they open the door and let me in. I hope that no matter how long I do this job, I'll always remember what an act of trust and generosity that is.
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...or was apparently written in 1953. Last time I posted my resume on monster, I somehow opted in to their Excelle Newsletter which is a career zine for women (get it, "excel + le" to feminize it, since excelling isn't naturally a feminine quality) and it's a real sexist piece of crap. Their most recent feature was " 10 Wardrobe Items Every Woman Should Have" which is, of course, just an excuse for links to retailers where you can buy those oh so essential items. Just the same, is this really necessary:  Item # 5A closet staple, the “little black dress” should be made of a sturdy but lightweight fabric like a cotton/rayon blend. Avoid heavy wool fabrics that counteract the slimming effects of the color and limit wear during the warmer seasons.
Because
1. Women look like this when they are walking across the desert
2. Women are too stupid to know, without coaching, that wool will be too hot to wear during the summer (perhaps this is what motivated the desert illustration?)
3. The whole purpose of the little black dress = slimming.
4. And that's really the most important thing for all women.
They also suggest women own one pair of sneakers for working out and also casual activities like shopping.
Direct damn quote.
Because that's the only activity women really like. Don't get me wrong, I know lots of women who love a black dress and can totally rock some shopping. But not a single one of them would list "shopping" first on their "casual activity" lists.
I would understand this from Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Tighter Vaginas or whatever. But a career website? Really?
And the article had more than 37,000 views so far. I feel like I want to sue Monster for career guidance malpractice. Although I guess technically, promoting stupidity probably isn't against any actual laws except for the ones I've written in my head.
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#1. My new web site is officially done and officially up (100% green hosted too, thanks Taproot!), I've added a ton more booking information, I even have a unique FAQ targeting many of the potential comedy hiring folks: prides, women's fests, colleges, faith communities, health care providers, corporate diversity folks etc. I'm also running a photo captioning contest of some of the wacky type photos that I probably shouldn't put on my website but will anyway. It's worth a look just for fun and the cheeto and cleavage shots, even if you're not feeling a deep desire to enter the contest. #2 Because of working on the new site I've been sorting through the photo files that I had on the old hosting site's servers but I'd never put up. I came across this photo, which shows a really lovely Portland scene, and is one the few pictures Heather took of me while I was awake (after she died, I discovered her cell phone was full of pictures of me sleeping. Yeah. No idea) so that makes it even more sentimental. What makes it a very typical Heather/Kelli moment is the amount of stuff I am carrying. Not my stuff, of course. Hers.  3. Because of aforementioned sorting of photos and working on the site, I've been watching or, kind of watching, a number of DVDs lately to keep me mildly entertained while doing tedious tasks. I've recently discovered that the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch has an almost limitless supply of DVDs Only Kelli Could Love. Lots of church history, geography, old old old National Geographic specials, movies that were in the theaters for seven days, self help and inspirational DVDs and OH OH OH the documentaries. This is especially helpful because I've watched almost every documentary Netflix offers on demand. Netflix has run out of suggestions and have started telling me I might like the DVDs in the category of "intense indie movies" which are kind of what documentaries mostly are anyway. Some random observations: A. Are all older movies homoerotic or just the ones I pick out? I watched Jesus Christ Superstar right after A Chorus Line and I really do think that the former was even gayer than the latter. Which is no small feat considering even the women in A Chorus Line look like gay men. B. Yes, I know I'm five years behind, but I hadn't seen any of Trans-Generation and was glad the BPL had the series on their shelves. It's definitely firmly seated in the Well, That Could Have Been Much Worse category. You know what was intensely weird about that series? How much they showed all the subjects brushing their teeth. I mean, why all the B reel of oral hygiene? That Lucas kid especially, every single time they had a voiceover there he was, toothbrush in hand. Okay LOGO/Sundance, we get it: Transfolk have minty clean breath. There are worse stereotypes, I suppose. 4. A few weeks ago, my girlfriend took me on a tour of Places She Used to Go Before She Got Sober. One of these places was a Williamsburg bar which was formerly an after hours cocaine bar (called...wait for it...Cokie's) and is now called, I dunno probably "Skinny Jean Haven" or something. She actually did a poetry set there back in the day. At any rate, they had bowls of cheeto balls sitting out that everyone was eating out of and although I didn't feel like that was a sanitary way to consume cheeto balls, I have been thinking of cheeto balls ever since. Alas, they are not that easy to find, so I had basically gven up and said "oh who wants stupid cheeto balls anyway." Then I went to Rite Aid this afternoon, and there right beside the half priced Halloween Candy was a cornocopia of Cheeto Balls. Mmmm. Tasty. Sometimes I think The Secret is totally bullshit, Or maybe just where Cheeto Balls are concerned.
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