Day 02 - Your first love, in great detail

We were teenagers. J. and I had developed a deep and deeply romantic friendship and it was completely platonic. [Except for that dream I had about marrying her. And the dream she had about me joining her in the bathtub. (I think Tom Petty was there, as well.) And that time we went camping with her mom and stepdad, and I was giving her a back rub on our sleeping bags in the back of the truck, and it was freezing, and it was the middle of the night, and I straddled her, laying my hands on her warm back, and she said,

“Mold me like clay,”

and I was so sexually aroused and so scared that I jumped off of her and had to wait til my heartbeat regained its normal tempo.]

J. was the first friend I came out to. Our heart-and-mind connection was beautiful and hilarious and mutually doting, and she was one of the first people in my life I had those epic conversations with about the nature of the universe and the nature of tiny, seemingly inconsequential things that were actually totally profound. We had been close friends for several years before I woke to the reality that I was utterly in love with her. I existed til then in that liminal passageway between the conscious and unconscious knowledge of my desire for other girls; our friendship and the erotic energy between us lingered in that blurry borderland between fantasy and reality, mutuality and unrequition.

I finally gathered the nerve to write her The Letter in 1991. We were both 19. She was in a relationship with a significant boyfriend, and had a good deal more sexual experience than I had at the time. In fact, my own exploration with boys to that point had been marked by a couple darkened living room gropes and botched attempts at fellatio. J. actually knew what being in a relationship meant, what love meant. Here I was, a 19 year-old who'd never even gone on a proper date, declaring my intense love and desire for J. in a letter laden with angst and written with such urgency and self-absorption that I almost forgot she had a serious boyfriend (a guy I really dug, by the way, and had no intention of hurting). There was urgency on her part, too, because when she received the letter, she immediately called me and we made plans to rendezvous at Denny's in Fremont (a reasonable half-way point between her house in the East Bay and mine in the South) to discuss these Weighty Issues.

I don't remember the finer details of our conversation that night, or if we ordered chicken strips or “Moons Over My Hammy,” but the gist of it was this: she had a boyfriend, and being with girls wasn't what she could do. But oh-my-god-if-she-didn't-have-a-boyfriend...could she maybe, possibly, fall in love with me too?

J. turned out not to be my first girl kiss, to my displeasure, though I was so looking forward to holding her and pressing her lips to mine in the vinyl booth of that most romantic of generic American diner settings. We shortly drifted apart into the adventures of our own early-20s lives and touched base now and again. I'm so happy to say that we reconnected over the years, and that we still totally adore and admire each other. Things turned out exactly the way they should have for us both.

But damn, that would've been something good.

Day 01 - Introduce Yourself

Hi. I'm Bree. Only, I'm not actually Bree; Bree is a pseudonym I've been using since I started blogging about eight years ago. Actually, it's a pseudonym I created around 2000ish when I had a brief and fairly dull foray into cyber chatting in those lonely little virtual chat rooms when people were still on IRC channels or some such shit that I didn't understand then and don't understand now. So I've gone by Bree in some circles for 'bout a decade, plus/minus.

I grew up in San Jose and Los Gatos, California, suburban sprawl about fifty miles south of San Francisco. Most of you reading this blog probably already know that. Maybe I should introduce myself in a more enticing way. Let's see now...well, I'm pushing 40, I'm a big ol' dyke (who makes infrequent exceptions for an occasional boy as long as he's fey, geeky, and submissive enough), I took the Meyers-Briggs personality type test when I was 17 at Jewish youth group camp, and was revealed to be an ENFP, and I think it's still pretty accurate.

What else? I wear two career hats, well, really one job hat and one career hat: my money-earning work is bookkeeping, basically paying other peoples' bills and balancing their checkbooks (something I've pretty much never managed to do for myself) and my career path work, which hasn't quite made me money yet, is as a psychotherapist. I'm an intern working in private practice in Berkeley, and I mainly work with queer and trans folks, and individuals and relationship partners who are in polyamorous relationships or who are identified with alternative sexualities in some form.

I think a lot about death and grief and loss.

I really enjoy the minutia of consciousness and perception and exploring the endless mental and emotional crevices of experience and memory and fantasy and nostalgia and here-and-nowness.

I enjoy documenting things. One day a year, I try to document every single thing I do from waking until slumber on my Facebook page. Hundreds of Facebook friends seem to be fascinated by this myopic, indulgent navel-gazing exercise, or at least are polite enough to make comments every now and then. For seven years running, I blogged about every movie I viewed, every book I read, and every noteworthy experience I had in a series of annual year-end wraps. You can read the last one right here.

I have several friends in the world who I cherish and who I feel deeply emotionally tied to. I really adore my family. My nieces and nephews are some of the smartest, kindest people I know. I live with my girlfriend Astrid and our dog Dorrie, a pit bull-border collie mutt, who I'm totally in love with. Astrid and I have had a really tough year together, and I've scarcely blogged about it. Maybe I'll share more of this process later. Maybe I won't.

My mom died about a year ago, of lung cancer. She was 73. My dad died 37 years ago of a heart attack, when he was just 43. I'm an orphan, I guess. I miss my mom, and I also feel just a shred of a bit more freedom to move about the world as myself since she's been gone. I feel lighter, but also somewhat guilty about this. I can't imagine my life without my sisters.

I'm slutty. Usually more in my imagination than in actuality, but I do get around some. I really enjoy riding my bicycle. I eat a lot of meat. I listen to quirky emotional indie rock. I like excruciatingly cheesy pop culture. I can talk a blue streak, and I often get bored of the stories I tell over and over, but also I often remain freshly amused by myself.

That's some of me.

Stranded at the Drive-In

Well, actually stranded at Oakland International Airport. Our flight to Southern California is delayed by an hour and change, and Astrid and I are biding time by keeping the economy going with unnecessary purchases of $3.00 soft pretzels and $2.00 bottles of water. They've got free wifi here, clearly, since I'm blogging, but in order to use it, I had to click my agreement in the form of viewing a 30-second commercial for little Ronnie Howard's new movie. I would have linked Frost/Nixon for you here, but the annoying condition of using Oakland Airport's wifi seems to extend to disallowing one to capture the URL of sites visited. Surf without the turf, I guess.

Astrid is currently sitting by my side, reading the new "episode" (as she endearingly calls each issue) of Bitch Magazine which I also would have linked for you here [[wrings hands at Oakland Airport]]. She just drew the mag closer to her widened eyes as she read news that Abercrombie & Fitch evidently has been making thongs (the undergarment, not the plastic sandal) for the 8 to 10 year old set. We shared a moment of appropriate shock before each of us sank back into our jaded time-killing slumber.

I'm looking forward to spending xmas with Astrid's family again. I have to say, even though I'm not into that Jesus guy, well at least not into the institutionalized religion claiming him as the son of god, I really do enjoy celebrating the holiday. The smell of pine needles, buttery sugar cookies, hot toddies, family, cheer, whatnot. For the first time in maybe ever, I've missed my family's Chanukah party, which happened this evening in San Jose. I'm a little sad about it, and I miss them, but I'll be able to see them at our annual retreat and hootenanny (which I most certainly would have linked for you here) down in Pacific Grove next weekend. Preparations on the family songbook are going very well, and my fingers are becoming properly conditioned (read: calloused).

Well, it seems like the plane is finally starting to board, so I'll bid you all a merry xmas/chanukah/kwanzaa and to all a good night.

xo

Vintage Bree: Where were you during the Loma Prieta earthquake?

October 17, 1989, San Jose, California, early evening. I am sitting at the desk in my bedroom, my senior year of high school, and my mom is in the room next to mine, playing Boggle on our now ancient Mac. I am working on a homework assignment (I don't quite recall which) when the house begins to shake, and shake. My mom and I both yell, "Oh Shit!" in unison, and then I scream, "Get into the doorway!" and we stand there, in the doorways of the rooms side by side, waiting for it to be over. The quake kills 63 people, injures more than 3,000 and leaves even more homeless. The Bay Bridge and the Cypress structure collapse.

Ten years later. I work at a natural foods deli in Santa Cruz, and I'm fetching some items from the case for a customer who looks familiar to me, a friendly middle aged woman, all smiles and silky grey hair. I figure she's a regular. My co-worker and I are having a conversation on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Loma Prieta temblor. "Where were you during the quake?" I ask from behind the counter, including the shopper in on our chat. The customer thinks on it, and then offers in good cheer, "I was giving a pelvic exam at the Women's Health Center!" We all laugh, and then she and I beam at each other in embarrassed recognition.

Mawwage, Part Two

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin became the first legally married lesbian couple in San Francisco just about an hour ago. Huzzah! Not only have they been some of the most important activists for LGBT rights in history, these broads have been together for 56 years! Can you imagine being a lesbian in the '50s, with that most complete cultural denial and repression aiming to destroy you and deny your existence, and at the same time, sustaining a relationship for over fifty years? Unbelievable.

Mazel tov to Del and Phyllis!

This is also good: the first gay couple to legally marry in Santa Clara County was
David and Rich Speakman of San Jose.

"The couple is using President Bush's economic stimulus check to pay for their wedding."

"'It paid for everything,' David Speakman said, 'so we should probably send him a thank you note.'"

(quoted from the Merc.)

LMAO!

Now I *am* talkin' 'bout movin' in (or out, as the case may be)

Jeezus. Astrid and I have to move out of our place in the next couple months. The landlords are putting in a new foundation and politely, more or less, asking us to leave. We've been looking at Craigslist for the last few days, and basically everything in our price range is either like a tenth of the size of our current apartment or in exactly not the neighborhoods we want to live. Here are the listings - all four of 'em (at time of writing) - in San Francisco that are comparable in size and rent to our current digs. Note that the location "Inner Sunset" in these listings actually means "Outer Sunset" (bastards!) So anyway, if we wanna stay in San Francisco, we've gotta go with a one-bedroom or even (gak!) a studio. There are 300 square foot studios in this town going for $1300! We are considering hopping the pond, as it were, and looking in Oakland/Berkeley. Getting a decently sized place there for as much or less than what we're paying now is at least a possibility; however, apartments in our price range are often in dodgy neighborhoods, as we found out from doing a couple reconnaissance trips to Oakland this weekend.

Once more with feeling: I hate money.

"I'm not talkin' 'bout movin' in..."

I was at a taqueria in the Mission the other day, and as the lady behind the counter was making my burrito, the song "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" was floating through the sound system. The mellowly upbeat tune by '70s pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley, unlike the very mediocre carne asada, truly hit the spot for me. I whistled the tune to myself as I walked back down 16th Street, and made a mental note to look the song up online when I got a moment. As with most of my "mental notes" this one faded into the mélange of momentary stimulations, distractions, and preoccupations, and when I tried to recall the song later (hmm...it wasn't Jackson Browne...was it Seals and Crofts?...) it had completely vanished from consciousness.

Then, by some amazing stroke of luck or fate or perhaps just the consistent marketing trends on lite rock stations throughout the Bay Area, I just heard the song again in a cafe in Berkeley! Oh happy day! I present to you "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" by England Dan and John Ford Coley, complete with a psychedelic butterfly-chick fade-in!