A Mixed Up Life but Whose?

As some of my friends on WordPress and MyFace know, my husband and I recently offered our home to a 42-year-old friend whom I met through a blog about a year ago and her 11-year-old son.  For purposes of this post, I will call them Vickie and John.

Vickie has had a life full of challenges.  She comes from a dysfunctional family where there was a history of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse.  Her father abused both her and her younger sister.  The younger sister, Vickie’s only sibling,  died some years back of cancer at the age of 32.  Vickie no longer has any contact with her parents.  The dynamics were just too dysfunctional to deal with and she did not want to expose her son to those dynamics.

As is often and sadly the case, Vickie married a man who was abusive.  She was married to him for 14 years.  The final straw was when he started to beat up on their young son.  At that point, Vickie loaded up everything she could into a rundown Toyota Corolla and set off on her own from Fort Worth, eventually settling in San Antonio, Texas.

During the time preceeding her divorce, she met a man through an Internet group who lived in the U.K.  A longterm relationship ensued, with Mike making many short visits here to the U.S. and Vickie and John spending six months at one stretch in England with him.  However, Vickie and John couldn’t stay in England as much as they wanted to because of custody issues concerning John, a minor, even though his father really had no role in taking care of John.  He’s a gameplayer and a manipulator and just wants to make sure that no one else gets what they want.  Vickie and John returned to the U.S., leaving Mike in England. 

Vickie and Mike married when he was in Texas for a visit a year ago.  He’s been back for one visit since then.  The plan was to begin the legal immigration process in earnest after the first of this year when Vickie got her income tax refund and could afford to hire an immigration lawyer to help them move this process along with as few glitches as possible.  They were trying to get Mike here on a spousal visa, requiring that the U.S. spouse be gainfully employed.

Vickie lost her job the end of January when her company eliminated 300 jobs nationwide due to the severe recession that is going on in our country.  She was living paycheck to paycheck with no substantial savings to speak of.  She received a month’s severance pay from her employer.  That and a tax refund she had yet to receive was what she had to fall back on short-term.

She wanted to leave Texas and put some miles between her and her ex-spouse who is psychopathic and skilled at playing tormenting mind-games, leaving her constantly on edge and vigilant about her and John’s safety and wellbeing.  The bottom line is that Dave and I offered her and John our home until she could get on her feet again.  Dave flew to San Antonio on February 23, rented a U-Haul truck, and drove Vickie, John and their possessions to Minnesota.

They have been here two weeks now.  All is going well.  John started school on Monday this week and loves his new school and his classes.  Vickie is applying for jobs.  We have shopped for interview clothes for her.  There have been a steady supply of hugs and “love you’s” in our home.   We’re all working together as a family, as a team.  For the first time in Vickie and John’s lives, they feel like they have a family, a support system.  It’s been an awesome feeling to watch them take all this in, to realize that they’re not alone in the world to struggle with their issues, that there are others right there for them, ready to lend a hand.

The response from family (mostly Dave’s) and friends has been overwhelmingly supportive and positive. However, yesterday I received this email from my 73-year-old cousin in Ohio:

Protected: Fiction: Breaking the Rules, con’t

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Fiction: Breaking the Rules

On the surface she led a quiet and conventional life, at least conventional for a woman in the 1980s.  Adding that qualifier meant that her mother disapproved, and that qualifier had been added to more than a few things in her life!

She was divorced, had just turned thirty-six, and shared her suburban townhouse with two cats, Cassidy (frequently called “Mama Cass”) and Jasper, an undemanding, affectionate gray tom.  A sedate dark green Honda Accord sat in the two-stall garage, recently paid off after three years of payments.  Her closet was full of conservative sweaters, blouses, and skirts, emphasizing her role as a serious-minded, gainfully-employed professional.  She was still a practicing Catholic – earning her mother’s approval for at least one thing! – and attended mass on most Sundays.  Her freezer contained a carton of single-serving  cheese pizzas for a quick-to-grab lunch or supper for those remaining Fridays during the current Lenten season.  Until a couple of months ago, she had been a member of a Catholic Singles group which met on Wednesday evenings.  The topic of annulment came up frequently at these functions, the only way a divorced Catholic could marry again and remain in good standing with the Church.  Unless, of course, the ex-spouse had died.  Hers hadn’t, the last she had heard.  But, then again, she hadn’t spoken to the man in better than five years.

Peggy eased herself from underneath the covers and padded softly to the bathroom.  She could sleep in a little this morning since she was not required to be at the clinic until 11:00.  Unfortunately, her bladder didn’t like to sleep in much past 6:00!  Jasper silently jumped off the bed and trotted behind her into the bathroom, knowing that enough weaving between her feet and meowing would probably secure his breakfast before his human companion returned to bed.

This had been part of her unchanging routine for a number of years.  She facilitated a group therapy session every Tuesday evening and had for most of her years as a nurse-psychotherapist at Franklin Behavioral Health Center.  She was almost never home before 10:00 on those evenings, and a later start on Wednesday was compensation for the late night before.

She made a quick trip to the kitchen to pour a cupful of kibble into Jasper’s empty bowl (the one with Psycho Kitty printed on the side, although it had been purchased with “Mama Cass” in mind) and then returned to the bedroom.

 ”‘Morning, love,” Randy murmured, reaching out to her as she slid in beside him.

 It was still dark, wouldn’t be full light outside for almost another two hours, and the house was cool.  The bed was comforting with the warmth of his body next to hers.  She molded herself against him as he drew her close, pressing her buttocks into that perfect “chair” made by his hips and slightly-flexed thighs as they spooned on their sides.  He tightened his embrace as she settled in, and she felt him begin to swell and lengthen, the growing firmness nuzzling her backside.  She knew that this Wednesday morning would begin as so many had in the past: drowsy cuddling and whispers, warm fondling and caresses, his expert knowledge of her body bringing her to several effortless climaxes before he finally allowed his own.

All so conventional.  All so routine.

But just on the surface.

 

 

Her mother didn’t know about Randy in spite of their longstanding relationship, and perhaps never would.  Her pastor had been introduced to him as a “friend” after an Ash Wednesday mass several years earlier, a morning service that they had attended together before departing in separate cars to drive to the same office building to begin their workday.  Randy, in fact, had co-facilitated that Tuesday evening therapy group with her for quite some time, and they functioned well as a team, consulting on cases with each other and acting as co-therapists in family counseling sessions.  Their mutual coworkers realized that they shared a warm friendship, but given the nature of their jobs, that was hardly a surprise.  It was not fodder for clinic gossip, and they were not considered a couple in the personal sense, just a well-tuned and sensitive professional team.

Mainly because Randy was gay.  Openly gay.  Out and proud!  as the saying went.

She had encouraged his honesty when he came to work for the clinic as a young man with the ink still wet on his Master’s thesis.  She respected him for his courage, his intelligence, his insight.  Everyone there had accepted and liked him.

Likewise, he had supported her when she made the decision at about that same time to end her nine-year marriage.  That had been a very tough time, and he had been there for her, with a joke, a funny card tucked in her desk drawer, pieces of her favorite candy planted in her coat pockets.  Sometimes it was just his caring silence and the warmth of his hand in hers that comforted her.  Unlike so many of her friends, he wasn’t afraid to just shut up and be with her!

He was different from the other guys she knew.  He was different from the other friends she had.  A part of her had attributed this difference, this breath of fresh air, to his gayness.  She had never felt so open, so honest, so completely herself as she did when they were debating an issue,  winding down after a late Tuesday night group over a chili-burger and a beer at Hinkel’s Grill, or improvising an upbeat piano duet at a coworker’s holiday party.

A gay man had become her closest friend.  It was as simple as that.

Or was it?

(Continued here but password-protected to prevent sensitive individuals from unwanted exposure to adult situations, nudity, and frank descriptions of sexuality.)

Tucson on My Mind

Tucson Sunset 2-11-09

Skyhigh Saguaro

Created by Disney?

Unique Saguaro

On May 9, 2008, a reader of this blog introduced herself.  I began to read her blog and she remained a consistent reader of mine.  We became friends since miles do not matter when one is using the internet to communicate.  She asked if I’d want to consider getting away from a cold, Minnesota winter and come to visit her in Tucson sometime.  Well, I decided that sooner was better than later and took her up on her offer this winter.  I flew out to Tucson on the morning of February 11 and returned on Monday of this week.  (A day later… but that’s another story!)

The Tucson Symphony Friday evening was delightful.  Watching the sunset from “A Mountain” overlooking Tucson was inspiring.  Magpie’s Gourmet Pizza was just about the best pizza I’ve ever had and deserves “The Best Pizza in Tucson” award it has gotten for 19 years in a row.  I enjoyed authentic Mexican food, my friend’s cats, and eating chocolate cake while watching riftgirl videos on YouTube.    I met new friends, gazed at a starlit Sonoran sky, and received a personal guided tour of both the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Amity Circle Tree Ranch by friends employed by each of these organizations.

But what I enjoyed most was the uninhibited joy of being accepted and loved for the unconventional, liberal woman I am.  Those four days were the boost my soul needed. 

In my day to day life here in the BiCities, I’m… well, my real name isn’t Kinsey.  I’m in my early 50s, married for 35 years and happily so, and am professionally employed in a scientific, intellectually challenging field.  I work with a bunch of other married ladies in a field comprised of at least 75% women, and they all know me as that coworker who has been married since forever, and they don’t know anything else about my personal life.

I leave it at that because bisexuality and polyfidelity are too complicated for most people to understand.  In day to day interaction with people I work with, I don’t say, “Yes, I’m married, but I’ve also had female lovers throughout the years of my marriage, and I’d really, really like to have a long-term, intimate relationship with a woman.”   No, no, I don’t go there, understandably!  I’m out to two gay coworkers who know I’m far from straight and narrow, and that’s as far as that sharing of my personal life goes.

Other than those two gay coworkers, though, I’m just a conventional married woman to everyone else.

That IS part of me.   The married part, the part that finds men attractive (well, okay, an occasional one now and then!),  the part of me who has been in a long-term heterosexual relationship for most of my life now is a valid and recognized component of who I am.  I’m not playing a role.  I’m not cleverly disguised as someone I’m not.   I’ve found fulfillment and pleasure in my marriage and I will continue to do so.

However, I am so very attracted to women as well.  I love my friendships with them.  I derive energy and emotional fulfillment from their laughter, their beauty, their gentleness and wise insights into the world, their valuing of relationships.  I take strength from their resiliency.    Physical intimacy with a woman takes me to places of exquisite joy.  All of this is an important and vital part of me, intricately linked within the tapestry of who I am.

Can I bring this out for the world to see in the course of my daily life?  Not too often!  Perhaps if I’m out for an evening on the town with a LGBT friend.  Then, certainly.  If I’m at a meeting or a conference pertaining to a GLBT topic, then of course.  If I’m at our Pride event in June, I’m OUT.    Day to day, though, with people I work with, with straight friends who know only what I’ve told them, with family… no, not OUT so much.    I’m that married woman, presumably straight.

But then there are these interludes: Pride, the BECAUSE Conference, a vacation away with GLBT friends and their allies; hell, a trip away to stay  with my lesbian cousin in Pennsylvania!  All these things bring out a sense of well-being, if not downright euphoria, because it’s acknowledging and embracing the part of me that doesn’t get much recognition and acceptance.  It’s a bringing together of the pieces, a unifying of the whole.  Exilarating?

Ya, you betcha.

Much love to my Tucson friends.  Don’t forget about me now, you hear?

Cherry Hill Park

I had my first sexual relationship with a girl who was my high school best friend. We were best friends during 9th grade and until the very end of 10th grade. In May at the end of that sophomore year in high school, we made love for the first time, nervous about what it potentially labeled us but reveling in the pleasure nonetheless.

Early in our senior year of high school, after I had been engaged for several months, she wrote me a letter, written on stationery that I had given her as a gift. (Yes, it was somewhat of a gag gift. She had constipation problems, and I found this stationery at Spencer Gifts with a box of Ex-Lax printed on the header.) I remember that it began, “I love you. It is as simple and as complicated as that.” It went on to say, “I know that my life is meant to be with you, but if I can’t be with you, then I will marry Steve…”

The truth? Steve aside and Dave aside, we could not have made it together as a couple. We were both from heavily dysfunctional families. I was trying to keep my head above water and later earned myself the title “survivor.” She was going under for the third time, very depressed, periodically suicidal, turning to marijuana, alcohol and street drugs as self-medication, and refusing any encouragement to seek professional counseling. I would not have lasted long in such an intimate relationship. That’s the bottom line and the truth when people ask, “What happened to that high school girlfriend you speak of?”

I still do think of her from time to time, even though 35 years has passed since the last I saw her. Every now and then, something will trigger a memory. For me, it often is music. I was playing some CDs this evening after Dave went to bed, the headphones clamped on and the volume up. I selected some compilations that had hits from the 60s and 70s on them. One of Jayne’s favorite songs was “Cherry Hill Park” by Billy Joe Royal, and I remember being up in her bedroom one evening, pleasuring each other, while the phonograph played this 45 over and over again.

“Oh, Mary Hill sure was fun down in Cherry Hill Park.
Playing games with everyone ’til way after dark…”

I hope you’re okay, babe, and I really do wish that things could have been different.

Impressions of Women Circa 1960s

I wrote this little piece about ten years ago. I have taken it from my “archives” and reprinted it here because it addresses another facet of my personality and development as a woman who was born in 1955. It is as follows:

I have been a writer since early adolescence. That was when I began to express my fears, anxieties, and frustrations about my chaotic homelife, and just the generally chaotic business of growing up, by way of short-story fiction. I needed a strong, guiding figure in my life so I created my own “parent” in the fictional guise of Michael James Peters, a pediatrician who was at that time in his early 40s with a wife and six kids. I started out writing about his interactions with his adolescent patients, adolescent medicine being his specialty area, and left no area off-limits. (I seemed to be particularly fascinated with 16-year-olds contracting STDs. Considering that this was 1969, I was a little before my time!) I delved into a highly sensitive area when I created one of Mike Peters’ patients, a 13-year-old boy by the name of Randy Kelly who was in an abusive home and took Mike into his confidence. When Randy was assaulted by his stepfather and required hospitalization, it was Mike and his wife, Gloria, who stepped up to the plate to take Randy in as a foster son. (Can you imagine my mother’s horror when she discovered this story, penciled in a school notebook by her eighth grade daughter? The original draft somehow just *vanished!*)

I made many discoveries about myself through this writing over the years and let my therapist read some of those stories some years back. Since my own self-esteem issues were part of the therapeutic discussions, he asked me, “Why did you make Gloria this nonexistent character? What’s up with that?” This is what I wrote in response to that question:

In the original “Behind Door #3″ story, Gloria is a nonexistent character. All the interaction takes place between Mike (her husband) and Randy while Gloria typically sleeps through these major episodes. Bruce [my therapist] was the one who pointed this out to me. He observed that Mike is this strong, sensitive, professional, intelligent (and good-looking) man, and he’s married to this woman who apparently has no personality and no major contributions to make. Bruce asked me if I really thought that a man such as Mike Peters would be married to such a nondescript woman. He further pressed me to think about why I had developed her that way to begin with.

I thought long and hard about it and realized that I did not have a very positive impression of womanhood. I really didn’t have positive female role models in my personal life when I was growing up. I wanted to be exactly the opposite of my mother, as a matter of fact! My father was my supportive parent, the one I turned to for understanding, comfort and strength.

The social climate at the time I was growing up further reinforced my impression of women as ornamental rather than functional, as weak rather than competent. Of course, a lot of it was gleaned from television: the early sit-coms of “The Donna Reed Show,” “Leave It To Beaver,” “Ozzie & Harriet,” “Father Knows Best.” The husband and father was always going off to work at the office to accomplish great things and provide for his family, while his wife just stayed at home in her dress, high heels, and pearls and put wonderful meals on the table for her family to enjoy when they came home. If anything serious happened on the show, “Dad/Dear” had to be called in to the rescue to deal with the crisis.

The commercials, however, were the worst of all. Women fretted about such important things in life as “ring around the collar” and “ugly wax build-up” on their kitchen floors. They were devastated if their husbands complained about stale sandwiches in their lunchboxes because she didn’t use the right plastic wrap or their glassware came out of the dishwasher with water spots. My personal feeling was, “If this is what women do with their lives, just take me out and shoot me now!”

Likewise, my upbringing and my Catholic schooling reinforced this message that women were weak and dependent. Even though I was a straight-A student and began talking about being a doctor when I was about twelve, my mother would look at me like I had my head up my butt and advise, “You’d better take typing and shorthand, anyway….just in case your husband is ever out of work. Then you’ll have something to fall back on.”

Of course, the nuns thought it great when a Catholic girl had the noble aspirations to be a good wife and mother. Academic performance didn’t really count for much. The straight-A college preppies got no more encouragement towards career goals and personal achievements than their average counterparts in Home Ec and Secretarial Skills 101.

I realize that I did not like the messages I was getting about women’s roles in our culture. Unconsciously, I aligned myself with the male world where I felt more emotionally comfortable, where individuals were encouraged to achieve and succeed, where it was expected that one would show strength and competency.

It took me quite awhile to realize that women are strong, competent, intelligent people, too. That was when I consciously began to work on developing the character of Gloria Peters, trying to turn her into a woman I could be proud of. Of course, in the process, I was trying to change my own attitudes about myself and my perception of the female role…

Body Image

First of all, I would like to publically (at least “publically” within the limited scope of this readership) acknowledge that I am following the blogs of some very incredible, courageous, and insightful women. Most of these blogs chronicle their journeys of living in the male role to transitioning to living as the women they have always felt they were. Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a complex and multi-layered entity, and I won’t even attempt to discuss any of its facets with my limited background and education in the matter. I just know that these are people who have been given a complicated set of circumstances to deal with to the best of their abilities. I have appreciated the depth of these challenges and the painful decisions that have often been required for these individuals to move forward with their lives and nurture their sense of selves.

In reading some entries in these chapters of life, I have compared and contrasted some of my own experiences with my physical development as a woman and my psychological and emotional composition as a woman. My mind wandered down an interesting path the other evening as I read about one trans woman experiencing the changes in her body after she had begun estrogen therapy: the breast development, the redistribution of body fat, the softening of the skin, and the diminishing of body hair. I found myself envying that last change brought about by estrogen’s magic!

You see, I am a genetic woman, a cis woman, a person with XX chromosomes. I saw an endocrinologist when I was 14-years-old to evaluate my uneven breast development. I certainly didn’t need an endocrinologist to evaluate the problem of one young boob being bigger than the other. The fact that they started developing when I was 10-years-old and I got my first period a year later was evidence enough that my basic female hormones were present and doing what they were suppose to do. What this endocrinologist did note when examining me was the male distribution of hair on my lower abdomen. He seemed to think that that indicated a need to evaluate some hormone levels, including adrenal function. All that came back normal, and I never visited an endocrinologist again.

My attention at that point in my life was drawn to my excess of body hair, however. There was no question about it. I was a very hairy woman! I had all that dark, coarse hair on my lower abdomen where most women were smooth and hairless with perhaps just a bit of pale “peach fuzz” at best. The bush that grew beneath this “male hair distribution pattern” was also thick and unruly. My arms were hairy. My legs had a covering of dark, coarse hair from my thighs to my ankles. If allowed to grow, I had as much armpit hair as my boyfriend. Another fact that only I and those most intimate with me have ever known is that my clitoris is also on the “well hung” side, not this tiny nubbin that most women have. I mean, you positively can’t miss mine! In my early 20s, I had some hormone levels drawn to evaluate some menstrual irregularities and I really wasn’t at all surprised to find out that my testosterone level was right there at the top of the normal range for an adult woman. 80 was the cut-off. I was at 78. Still, everything else checked out satisfactorily and I was never diagnosed with any metabolic or hormone problems.

I’m a genetic woman but I don’t feel like a soft, smooth woman, either physically or psychologically. My preparations for becoming “soft and smooth” take me quite a bit of time. I pluck a lot of coarse hairs out of my chin, jawline, and upper lip every two or three days. My tweezers and I are intimate friends. I’m still shying away from facial electrolysis because I’m a sissy at heart. (I’d do it in a heartbeat if it didn’t hurt!) I shave the area around each areola because that area, too, sprouts a lot of dark hair. (Fortunately, I only have a couple of wispy stray hairs on my chest that don’t pose a problem.) I shave my lower arms. I don’t think my pits have ever really appeared silky and bare because I have such a heavy growth of dark hair that I have 5:00 shadow just some hours out of the shower. I shave my abdomen. I shave my legs from groin to ankle, a smooth condition that lasts me only until the next day when I’d have to do it all over again if my propensity to folliculitis didn’t discourage shaving that frequently.

I would give anything to have my own female hormones make me smooth, soft, and hairless but that has never happened for me. In my late teens and early 20s, my gynecologist prescribed a high estrogen birth control pill for me in hopes of “toning down” the body hair, but it didn’t really do all that much towards that objective. And then those pills were taken off the market due to health risks. Higher levels of estrogen cause a woman’s blood to clot more easily, putting her at higher risk for heart attacks, strokes, and deep vein thrombosis. Due to that risk and the increased risk of breast cancer, I can barely get a doctor to write out a prescription for estrogen to control my menopausal symptoms now. I’m taking a measley 0.3 mg every other day which is enough to control my hot flashes, and my doctor would like to see me off of that soon.

So, women come in all flavors, don’t they? We’re not all soft, smooth, and silky! There have been a lot of times when I have felt like a hybrid, an androgenous blend of male and female, outwardly female but aware of my coarser edges. It was the way I was made by whatever mix of genes controls these things.

Kinsey’s Adventures

Well, I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek because there really hasn’t been all that much going on for awhile, as evidenced by the rare entries for some time now. My last enjoyable evening out in a queer environment was the last Dildo Bingo held at Pi Bar and Restaurant in mid-November.

Since that time, I have joined an Internet group called Community of Married Women who Love Women (CMWLW). I have corresponded with a couple of women from the group, one not too far away in northern Iowa and the other in Winnipeg. However, I sort of got derailed with regular correspondence over the holidays and the stress of a toothache, root canal work, and some family hassles. I haven’t gotten back into the swing of that in this new year of 2009 yet.

However! Kinsey is going on a little adventure next month! Oh, yes, she is!!

I made a friend through this blog, and she has extended the invitation to visit her in her warm, sunny southwestern state. I actually would go even if she lived in Vermont, but the thought of some warmer temps right now doesn’t do my mood any harm!

Through her, I have also become acquainted with a couple of other women who are good friends of hers, and I would imagine that all of us will meet while I am there in mid-February for roughly five days (arriving at noon on Wednesday and returning to the frozen tundra Sunday afternoon.)

I think that the most noteworthy thing about this trip is that I have never done anything quite like this before. With the exception of having flown to both Pennsylvania and Ohio to visit family without my husband, I have never taken a trip of this distance without him. Recreational trips have always been with him, and considering I met him when I was 15 and married him at 17, there haven’t been opportunities in my adult life to do things without him. I have never just decided to purchased a plane ticket and go see some friends for a few days.

Well, I’m going. Dave is staying home while I’m gone. He’s not even away on business while I’m gone because I didn’t want him to be. I asked him to be home and he said he’d schedule around it. I want him home to feed the cats, bring in the mail and newspaper, scoop out the litterboxes every other day or so, and check to see if the plants need to be watered. For once — just for once! — I want to be the one throwing some things in a suitcase, getting a ride to the airport, and not worrying about a thing at home because someone is home taking care of all those things. I get to leave without having to find a housesitter and/or a cat nanny and trying to think of everything that needs to be taken care of before we leave on a trip together.

I am really looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to some “me” time. I’m looking forward to some “us” time with some wonderful women. I looking forward to enriching my friendship with these women. I’m just looking forward to having some fun and basking in the delight of female energy.

Thank you, my friend, for inviting me. I’m counting down the days!

The Next Backdrop

In my post last month, Queer Friendly Spaces, I mentioned that our favorite queer-women’s bar, Pi, was in danger of closing its doors due to financial problems.  I donated $100 towards the fundraising effort to try to keep the establishment open.  Alas, this week I had my check returned from Pi’s owner, Tara Yule.  She said in the enclosed letter:

It has been several weeks since the doors were closed for the last time at Pi. Though I have had long days remembering inspired moments and missing friends, I have been comforted by the collection of many touching stories and cards. I have received and been truly awed by the generosity that manifested itself in Pi’s final weeks. As can safely be assumed by now, Pi will not be rising from the ashes, at not those left in its former location. I can only hope that the spirit of kinship that was exposed in the last days of Pi can be maintained long enough to find its next backdrop. Not many people can say that their dreams have come true. I feel truly privileged to have seen it.

This is letter is to thank you for your individual contributions to Pi’s dream and to inform you that the fundraising has been officially cancelled.

Thank you for being a part of what happened.

Sincerely and gratefully yours,

Tara K. Yule

The queer women’s community here in the BiCities sorely misses Pi. There seems to be no place to go that has the same comfort and essence that Pi had. I hope that there will soon be a next “backdrop” for the LBT women’s community where they can feel at ease, have fun, share a spirit of comraderie in a way that only women know how to do. I’ll be on board with whatever efforts arise towards this goal.

Flavorful Rainbow

Just because it makes me smile….

more animals