The extraordinary Lovejoy has been reticent about posting and instead emailed me this to “do with as I will”. So I am posting it instead. Maybe seeing people respond will get her to write more since her writing is fantastic

What does feminine mean to you?

Girly Girl.
Feminine.
Frilly.
Pump Squad.
Femme.
Womanly.
All of the above

feminine- changeable, child-bearing, delicate, effeminate, effete, fair, feminine, fertile, gentle, girlish, girly, graceful, ladylike, maidenly, matronly, modest, muliebral, oviparous, petticoat, pistil-bearing, pistillate, pure, refined, reproductive, sensitive, she-stuff, shy, soft, tender, twisty, virgin, vixenish, weak, womanish, womanlike.
-Dictionary.com

I fell in love with shoes at a young age. Unfortunately, I had extremely narrow feet. My mother and I used to spend all day at Nordstrom or Buster Brown trying on shoe after shoe. I would lust after the red ones or the shiny black ones with ties. I wanted to be one of those cherubic girls with my solid legs stuffed into white lace tights and pearly white shoes. This same cherub wore a short woolly soft dress and her glossy red raincoat matched her luminescent bubble umbrella. She was cute and rosey-cheeked. The moral of this story is that I left the store with plain brown or navy blue lace-up shoes that went up to my ankle where they showcased my legs that were the size of toothpicks. I was 8 years old and was so light the wind could pluck me up off the street. I guess substantial shoes were my only defense. Every shopping trip was an exercise in disillusionment.

As I grew up I shed the feminine, I gave it up as something unattainable and an expression of those girls who lacked intellect and savvy. I walked around with my inner-boy alive and well. Inner Boy protected my heart and preserved such childish proclivities as playing out in the streets with kids on dirt bikes and playing dress up with my younger cousin when I was in high school. But it didn’t protect me from broken hearts or secret yearnings for my girlfriend’s hand on my waiting breasts, or my confusion as to why sloppy kisses from boys didn’t turn me on and why oh why I kept falling in love with them anyway.

I was a trooper in the face of a jumble of information that I was trying to understand. I went to school everyday aspiring to be a hybrid of Annie Lennox, David Bowie, and David Byrne. I cut off all my hair like Annie Lennox. I looked and looked for a light grey suit just like the one David Byrne wore in Stop Making Sense. I tried to affect the delicious androgyny of Bowie. Did I forget that I was a girl? I look back and see that at times I did forget. I would have the sudden realization in public : I am not a boy, but I feel like one sometimes; a rakish, dashing, bawdy, yet sophisticated young man with a maudlin soul. I bought a fedora hat and several ties to complete my look. I got a rush from a newfound sense of power.
But I was fickle, at times showing up at school in a 50’s prom dress and Converse tennis shoes. My father would point out girls on the street in tight jeans with heels, asking me why couldn’t I be like them??? “Now that’s a good outfit”. I didn’t see myself in them. I saw something that I could never be. I saw a different sense of empowerment that could be used for good or for evil and the force was not with me on this one. The truth as I understand it today is that I was a little frightened of my sexuality. It was an unknown in a sea of unknowns. I was making out with boys all the time, but I didn’t feel anything. I kept searching for one who would change that. When I did find that one boy, another me emerged as a teenage girl who wore her heart on her sleeve. Inner Boy receded into other parts of my personality. He lurked around in my sense of humor and forthrightness. But the suit, hat, and tie got stuffed into the inner sanctum of my closet, both literally and figuratively. Those clothes did not attract most boys. Alas, that rogue boy went the way of Peter Pan; to a place where grown-ups can’t conceive, where all Lost Boys go, to Neverland. Let me sincerely apologize for the sappy lit reference.
I grew up. But I can’t figure out what happened. I can’t quite figure out how I became so girly. I got married. I had children. In that time I have acquired dozens and dozens of shoes and purses. I wore perfume and horrors upon horrors- makeup! Of course I was well-supported and appreciated in these endeavors. Additionally, having children somehow brought out the glam in me. I never went out the door in the ubiquitous Mommy Look, a la white t-shirt and sweats. I loathed tennis shoes. I loved my nursing breasts at their most buoyant. I felt quite womanly and sexy, thank you very much. I even switched over to thong underwear after years of resistance and by golly I never want to see an errant panty line ever again!
I divorced and discovered sex with women and men. High heels. Lingerie. More perfume. And Breasts. I decided to get my very own pair made expressly for me. I will not defend myself to the union of women who are against my decision, who say plastic surgery is evil, because girls, I am having the best sex I ever had in all my life. I feel fabulous. It changed my life in an amazing way. I did it for me, a gal with a breast fetish. I don’t care what anyone thinks. And I’m still a feminist. Yesterday I bought a pink wallet.
How far can I be from that wonderful masculine self? How far? A little closer than you think.
All boy-ness was erased, but not forgotten. You see, the boy in me shows up every time I hold a beautiful woman. Every time I kiss a woman or put my arms around her waist. Every time I make her come. I feel wickedly confident. So in one form or another that daring boy stays with me in spirit. However, I am here to tell you that I am still pistil-bearing, pistillate, pure as any ethical slut, refined, reproductive, sensitive to touch, she-stuff, secretly shy, soft, tender to my core, twisty like the wind, not much of a virgin, definitely vixenish, never weak, mostly womanish, and uncommonly womanlike with an awesome set of tools.

I think I have finally figured out why it is that those scary right wingers don’t want women having sex for anything but baby-making. They think orgasms are a myth! No really they do- at least girl orgasms anyway.

If you click the text link scroll way down to the middle for the post

The Left continues to tout the existence of the elusive female orgasm, despite all biological evidence to the contrary. As I have often said, if The Lord intended for us to have such things, He would have given us penises. But regardless of what the facts and common sense say, liberals continue to pursue their great white whale — and I don’t mean Michael Moore (Ha! That joke never gets old!). I’ve often wondered what motivates them to pursue this specious black-is-white reasoning. For the longest time, I assumed that it was merely another entitlement program created to pander to one of their key constituencies. Today I have my answer: Pure, unalloyed hatred of America. Evidently ladyquakes are the carrots moonbats are using to lead the women of Our Christian Nation over a moral cliff.

One of our more Enlightened states has enacted legislation keeping Satan’s prosthetic digits out of our ladyparts, and I am delighted to read that Our President is taking steps to secure Our Nation’s Virtue. Praise Him!

So the forced-pregnancy wingnuts are 1) women who have never had an orgasm and 2) men who can’t find a clit or a g-spot to save their own life. I say get them all to Babeland stat for a hitachi magic wand!

I also think there are a couple of you boys here who can vouch for my having had an actual ladyquake (or 12). I wonder if by Satan’s prosthetic digits she knows about Mephistopheles’ non-prosthetic skills. If she did then she wouldn’t think ladyquakes (just the word makes me giggle) are such a myth.

A certain someone has argued with me in the past that liberals are always screaming insults and conservatives are the ones who behave themselves rationally in arguements.

I have never heard of or heard a liberal threaten to rape, beat or murder someone, let alone a 15 year old girl, for having a different opinion. (I have suggested that blue states should dump the red states- but that doesn’t involve killing anyone).

Then I read this: Animation Producer Gets Ugly Slurs

Ava Lowery is a fifteen-year-old who lives in Alabama. She calls herself a peace
activist, and for the past year, she’s been producing her own short animations
on her website, peacetakescourage.com. All in all, she’s made about seventy of
them, she says, and most of them oppose Bush and his Iraq War.

So of course the wignuts come after her with comments like this. (Remember- she is a 15 year old girl and the bolds are mine)

“It’s people like you who need to fucking die and get raped while your
corpse rots in the sun,” said one e-mail Lowery shared with me.
“Fuck you, I would jack off on your parents if I could. If
you don’t like the team, get out of the park. That means take ur small dick
and get the fuck off of my homeland you faggot chocolate gulper.”

“You are a TRAITOR to your country and should be executed for
treason,” another one said. “All you do is bitch about the US. If
you hate it so much, why don’t you GET THE FUCK OUT.”

I watched the WWJD video and got seriously teary-eyed. There is nothing treasonous about it. These same people who are threatening to rape a 15 year old girl seem to have missed the idea that democracy means getting to have a different opinion from the one propagated by your government. So for the certain someone who keeps claiming that conservatives are the rational, practical ones- maybe you should read more and spout less. There is nothing rational or practical about rape and violence.

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Echidne of the Snakes about defining masculinity and femininity. She suggests idea that femininity is the default setting and masculinity is something that needs to be aspired to, which is why people are always going on about the emasculation of men in society.

I have been called (in just the last year) uber-girly, super feminine and conversely I have been told I am a gay man in a straight girl’s body or that I fuck like a man. I don’t really know what to make of these remarks. I consider myself a girly-girl- and by that it means that I like pretty dresses and have a bathroom full of yummy smelling products. I have never thought that being girly automatically implied weakness. To the contrary, actually. Being a girl automatically means that you either develop a certain toughness and ability to protect yourself or you become a perpetual victim. I don’t see anything weak or un-womanly about that. And I don’t see how perpetual victimhood makes girls more girly. I don’t think that by being capable I am sacrificing any of my girly-cred. But because I don’t act weak- I am told that I am more masculine. Huh? I have also been told by boys who were put off by my toughness that I just needed to “see what a real man is like”. Double huh? Like the insertion of a super-macho cock is going to suddenly make me unable to kill my own spiders or walk to the store by myself at night?

So peeps, boys and girls, what’s your take on the whole macho/girly argument? Have you been accused of acting the wrong gender?

One of the mantras of (post)modern times has been “progress”. We might totally wipe out entire species, but nothing should stand in the way of the machine of change.

Without revealing my closet geek status as a total Frank Hebert fan- I can’t help but think we are all bound for still-suits and recycled pee drinking in the near future after reading this interview at Salon.

Did you know it takes 650 gallons of water to make a pound of cheddar cheese? Or that enough water evaporates from Lake Nasser every year to hydrate the entire UK?

So enviro-geeks, what’s your take?

So the powers that B currently argue about replacing the highway equivalent to the Kingdome: the Alask Way Viaduct. The state says: we’ll give you money, but only if you promise to replace it with a road of the same or greater capacity. But is this wise? Should we encourage more traffic or less? Should we construct another $millions/mile stretch of road that promotes air and water pollution (through ever-increasing toxic storm water runoff)? One that would further block views of the water?

Shouldn’t we have enough knowledge and courage to determine that building more roads does not solve the problem of demand? Is rebuilding the viaduct, even one that is a tunnel, just more of the same? Or will we suffer without one?

Your thoughts?

From Zbigniew Brzezinski

Why we whould not attack Iran:

But there are four compelling reasons against a preventive air attack on
Iranian nuclear facilities:

1. In the absence of an imminent threat (with the Iranians at least several
years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral
act of war.If undertaken without formal Congressional declaration, it would
be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the President. Similarly,
if undertaken without the sanction of the UN Security Council either alone
by the United States or in complicity with Israel, it would stamp the
perpetrator(s) as an international outlaw(s).

2. Likely Iranian reactions would significantly compound ongoing U.S.
difficulties in Iraq and in Afghanistan, perhaps precipitate new violence by
Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in all probability cause the United States to
becomebogged down in regional violence for a decade or more to come. Iran
is a country of some 70 million people and a conflict with it would make the
misadventure in Iraq look trivial.

3. Oil prices would climb steeply, especially if the Iranians cut their
production and seek to disrupt the flow of oil from the nearby Saudi oil
fields. The world economy would be severely impacted, with America blamed
for it. Note that oil prices have already shot above $70 per barrel, in part
because of fears of a U.S./Iran clash.

4. America would become an even more likely target of terrorism, with much
of the world concluding that America’s support for Israel is itself a major
cause of the rise in terrorism. America would become more isolated and thus
more vulnerable while prospects for an eventual regional accommodation
between Israel and its neighbors would be ever more remote.

And what we should do instead:

The United States should become a direct participant in the negotiations,
joining the three European negotiating states, as well as perhaps Russia and
China (both veto-casting UN Security Council members), in direct negotiations
with Iran, on the model of the concurrent multilateral talks with North Korea;As
in the case of North Korea, the United States should also simultaneously engage
in bilateral talks with Iran regarding mutually contentious security and
financial issues;

The United States should be a signatory party to any quid-pro-quo
arrangements in the event of a satisfactory resolution of the Iranian nuclear
program and of regional security issues.At some point in the future, the above
could perhaps lead to a regional agreement for a nuclear weapons-free zone in
the Middle East, especially after the conclusion of an Israeli-Palestinian peace
agreement, endorsed also by all the Arab states of the region. At this stage,
however, it would be premature to inject that complicated issue into the
negotiating process with Iran.

The choice is either to be stampeded into a reckless adventure profoundly
damaging to long-term U.S. national interests or to become serious about giving
negotiations with Iran a genuine chance to be productive. The mullahs were on
the skids several years ago but were given a new burst of life by the
intensifying confrontation with the United States.

The U.S. strategic goal, pursued by real negotiations and not by posturing,
should be to separate Iranian nationalism from religious fundamentalism.
Treating Iran with respect and within a historical perspective would help to
advance that objective.

There is hope after all! Those 51% of red-staters that we have been mocking for the last few years may have finally seen the error of their ways.

Maybe if we promised to forgive them for being idiots and stopped teasing them for being dumber than a sack o’hair the trend will keep up until midterm elections. Or maybe it’s the mocking that is doing the trick.

In the last year I have taken up the oh-so bourgie sport of tennis. Not just taken up- but become addicted to the thwack of my racquet on a little green ball (no snickering allowed from the peanut gallery about my love of smacking around balls-really.)

Mephistopheles (the brave boy that he is) and I are taking lessons together from a little French guy who likes to address my breasts. Last Saturday most of the class ditched, so there were only 4 of us and the devil was the only boy. Tennis is great because it is one of the few sports where women can compete with men (remember Billy Jean King anyone?) and it is the women who are the current superstars- though I salivate over James Blake.

Then I read this:

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) Wimbledon remains the only Grand Slam tournament that pays the men’s champion more than the women’s winner.
The All England Club announced Tuesday that the men’s winner this year will receive $1.170 million and the women’s champion $1.117 million, a difference of $53,000. It’s a four percent increase in British currency. The French Open announced earlier this month that it would pay the men’s and women’s champions the same amount for the first time, although the overall prize fund is bigger for the men. The two other Grand Slam tournaments,the Australian and U.S. Opens, have paid equal prize money for years.

So why is it that Wimbledon is one of the last tennis events to pay men and women so unevenly? To read their convoluted reasoning and a damn fine analysis go check out Zuzu’s post at Feministe.