That’s what they always said on Pride day in my hometown, San Francisco. Summer weather in San Francisco is awful, but the last Sunday in June is always glorious.
My girlfriend and everyone I know is in New York today, marching down 5th avenue with a couple thousand other lesbians. I’m at home in Philly working on the book. It’s 88 degrees in our apartment, the a/c has been tripping the breaker so I’ve foregone it in favor of the fan. I’m wearing my working-at-home attire, a thrifted black slip and stringy hair, the attire of work-at-home femmes everywhere.
The maintenance guy came by to see if he could figure out the circuit issue. He was gracious, hardly commenting on the small research library on female orgasm that’s spread across our living room floor. He brought his daughter–she was maybe 10 or 12, sporting a cast on her arm, presumably a sports injury? She had an air of masculinity that said budding lesbian. Oh I know, I know! I shouldn’t speculate about the sexuality of adolescents! Her voice, though, it was deeper than his. What else is it though, that makes a twelve-year-old girl sports curious? Her walk, the way she carried herself, a little budding butch. At twelve I carried a purse, wore eyeshadow, wielded a curling iron. Where the hell does gender come from, anyway?
It has taken a few weeks to get back into a rhythm but today I finished a 6,000 word treatise on genitalia. Em is sending me pics from the dyke march. My favorite so far, a woman I don’t know holding a sign in memory of Cheryl Burke-a poet, a badass, a femme dyke–who we lost a week ago to complications from her cancer treatment. I love Cheryl very, very much. We all do. I miss her. I love her. I wish she was still here. I love the sign, like she’s a fallen sister who marches on.
