A Demon Inside, by Rick R. Reed

There’s something terribly wrong at Beaumont House, but Hunter Beaumont doesn’t see it. Although he promises his grandmother on her deathbed to burn it to the ground, he views the estate as a refuge in his time of need.

A Demon Inside has the male equivalent of a damsel in distress; a suspicious death; an isolated manor house; a wraith with evil intentions; a possession; a hero; and gratuitous sex. All the makings for the classic Gothic Thriller; set in a little village near Madison, Wisconsin.

Rick Reed has taken these elements and woven them into a gripping story that draws you in before you realize it’s happening. The almost comical interlude when the presence in Beaumont House unpacks all Hunter’s furnishings did nothing to diminish the chills that ran up my spine when the wraith calls Hunter’s name for the first time, leading me to turn on another lamp.

Hunter doesn’t necessarily bowl you over with his personality. As protagonists go, he has more than any one person’s share of foibles, but the author makes this work as well. Just when you’re thinking that Hunter deserves whatever he gets, you find yourself rooting for him to pull through.

Rick R Reed is an amazingly versatile writer. Deeply intense with his psychological thriller, Obsessed; Lighter fare like Blue Moon Café; and the horror genre with A Demon Inside make me anxiously anticipate his next offering.

~ Thomas A. Belkowski

Tom Belkowski was born and lived most of his life in Woodbridge, New Jersey. He retired at the young age of 52 from his career as a project director in finance and materiel management with a leading medical university and now splits his time between Woodbridge and New Port Richey, Florida. He loves reading, dining out and travel with his partner of 25 years, but it’s always great to come home. You can track his activities on Trip Advisor as his alter-ego, TomInNPR.

Toss and Whirl and Pass, by Shawn Stewart Ruff’ (Release:  Oct 10, 2010)

Lambda Literary Award winner, Shawn Stewart Ruff’s, second novel, Toss and Whirl and Pass, follows poet, Yale Battle, as he the navigates the devastation of the September 11^th attacks, as well as his grief over the loss of his long time partner to AIDS. Can he find something to live for after losing both the man and the city he loves?

In a narrative that weaves seamlessly between past and present, we find Yale spiraling toward rock bottom in a haze of drugs and irresponsible sexual behavior, even while trying to find the will to go on. Throughout his journey, he relives his fight for the love he so very much desires with a famed dancer/choreographer, as well as his place in the city he wants to call home.

Toss and Whirl and Pass is, at times, reminiscent of iconic gay author, Andrew Holleran, in both language and tone. He captures New York City in much the same way Holleran has. His language is, in turn, beautiful and raw, even though the subject matter is often harrowing. For example, when discussing his crystal meth addiction, Yale says. “The supernatural hardon and hemorrhoid-free pucker from fucking make ‘Tina the perfect storm for a tricked out fag.”

In Yale Battle, Ruff has created a character you root for to survive, even at his lowest points. Once a man filled with dreams and passion, he now cares only about his dying cat and where he is going to get his fix, now that his dealer is going legit. However, as he leaves Riker’s Island with his “partner-in-crime” after an unfortunate run-in with the cops while having sex in the park, we get a sense of hope.

Can a chance encounter, even under the most shameful circumstances, be the silver lining in the clouds that have recently surrounded his life?

~ Gary W. Gregory, OBG Staff Writer

From the Closet to the Courtoom:  Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation, by Carlos A. Ball

Carlos Ball is a professor of law at Rutgers University School of Law and has written extensively on LGBT issues over the past several years.  This year his book From the Closet to the Courtoom:  Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation was published by Beacon Press.

Ball gives human interest to what might have been a dry tome on case law and its implications nationally by telling the story of the individuals involved in the case.  Those in our community, the lawyers representing them, and the “other side.”

Throughout, Ball makes the case law accessible by providing a backdrop of context which the layman can understand and synthesize to realize the importance of the events, the era, and the decisions made at key junctures that allowed each advance, and in some cases, the causes and attitudes behind the backlash that may have ensued.

It also helps us see that these major advances, while important, are hard-fought one-by-one and eloquently pleas for across-the-board equality.  It makes clear to the reader that even little things that straight people have taken for granted were, and in many cases continue to be, denied to those in our community.  It goes beyond marriage equality, it’s a matter of quality of life, and most importantly, justice.

Ball discusses five pivotal cases that have advanced LGBT rights, including:

• Braschi v Stahl Associates ,which redefined “family” and involved a gay surviving partner who was threatened with eviction when his partner died of AIDS;
• Nabozny v Podlesny, which for the first time held a public school liable for not stopping anti-gay behaviors;
• Romer v Evans, in which Florida’s Proposition 2 was declared unconstitutional.  Prop 2 disallowed passage of legislation policy adoption that prohibited discrimination against lesbians, gay men or bisexuals based on their sexual orientation.
• Baehr v.Miik, regarding the landmark ruling in Hawaii in 1993 that said barring same-sex marriage was discrimination.  It further discusses the incredible backlash caused throughout the country by the ruling.
• Lawrence v Texas, where the “Homosexual Conduct Law,” or sodomy law still on the books in Texas was finally struck down.

~Our Big Gayborhood

It would have been wild and crazy even without my assorted misadventures. Two years ago this month our brother was electrocuted in a workplace accident, and we didn’t know if he would live, or if the brother we’d always known and loved would ever be the same again. He made a full and miraculous recovery. Two years ago this coming November, my oldest daughter was hit by a cell-phone using driver while trying to cross a marked intersection on a green light. Her injuries weren’t critical, but we all know the pain she endured, and what effort it took for her to fully recover.

So, maybe that wasn’t the best time to tell you.

Accidents and losses tend to put things into perspective. You really begin to understand what’s important to you. Twice, within three months, almost to the day, I was forcefully reminded that there is nothing more important in my life than family. But, still I hesitated.

What if? What if I told you and you were shocked, horrified, and afraid? You see, I had listened to some of the family conversations before now, and seen your reactions to learning that a male friend I’d brought to visit years ago was, in fact, gay.  I know what your church and religion teaches.

Yes, I did talk to a few people. My daughters. Our parents. Our sister. Friends that I trusted that would be able to support me through my struggles, and the changes that I was making in my life.  My now-ex partner, who understood, but was still shocked by the implications and fallout of my announcement, my decision to finally live a full and authentic life. It was easy for me to attribute our separation to the differences in attitude and lifestyle that were apparent to everyone.

I did you a disservice. I know that now.

See, what I didn’t tell you was so huge, and would have been completely unexpected for you. After all, you probably wouldn’t remember the girl I had a crush on during summer camp in high school. You wouldn’t understand the dreams I had that were waking me up in the middle of the night, shaking with desire and dread at the same time. You didn’t know that I had never really felt longing, until I started to accept myself for who I really was.

The problem wasn’t you at all. It was me, and my fear of losing the family I loved. It was my own internalized homophobia that led me to believe that you would never accept me, let alone acknowledge any partner that I might bring into my life. Fear has driven too many of my decisions; fear has paralyzed me into believing that I must be a certain person, even to my family, in order to be accepted. I’ve had enough of fear, and I don’t want it to rule my life anymore.

I should have been more forthright. Instead I let you find out second hand, and subversively. I posted things on Facebook, and dropped really broad hints. But I never really said the words. I guess I should tell you.

I’m a lesbian.

In the 1960s, Europe was still a very foreign place: few people spoke English, the food was strange, the clothing was different, and you couldn’t even telephone the USA directly. I’d lived with a German family but then, to immerse myself in German culture, I moved to a room in Frankfurt and audited classes at the university. It was like learning to swim by leaping into deep water. In the Arctic.

Studies kept me busy, and I had a few acquaintances, but there was that continuous hunger which I’m sure you all remember. Not for sex, or even romance, but for someone who lived in the same emotional world that I did.

A school friend, a very effeminate boy who I was certain was gay, was studying in Bordeaux, France, and at some point, when I couldn’t bear the loneliness, I decided to visit him. I thought we could commiserate and I would know that at least I had an ally some place.  Being poor, I hitchhiked. Alas, my feeble attempt to reach out was wrong, reckless, and unrequited. In a word, folly.

The hitchhiking to Bordeaux went smoothly, but the friend was way too deep in his own closet to deal with me. He insisted he had a girlfriend at home, and was going to marry her. He was still a flaming queer, only a frightened one. After a desultory few days, I headed back to Germany.

I must have started too late, and got too few rides, because night fell and I was on the roadside and still in France.  Finally a car stopped, and I climbed in gratefully. But the moment the car door closed and we took off, I sensed I had made a mistake.

The driver kept asking in French if I was a ‘good girl,” but I feigned ignorance, and kept saying “Allemagne, s’il vous plait,”  and “je ne comprends pas.”  Just how much trouble I was in became clear when we passed a highway sign that said “Allemagne” and he turned instead in the opposite direction, back into France, while I sat cowering and clutching my knapsack. Finally he turned off the highway and onto a dirt road into the woods. Woods. That was it. That was the place were I was going to be raped.  I wondered if he would kill me too.

What kept it from happening immediately was his bladder. He must have known that I would run the moment he stepped away from the car, because he came around to the passenger side and leaned against the door, imprisoning me, while he relieved himself. Then he zipped up and got back into the driver’s seat and laid his hand on my knee. At that moment I threw myself out of the car and ran full bore into the woods. I don’t know when he stopped chasing me, or if he chased me at all. In any case, there I was, in the woods. Somewhere in France. In the dead of night.

I stumbled through the woods for hours before finding a road into a tiny village. No one in sight, of course. I began knocking on doors, trying to find someone to talk to. After several cold receptions, a woman opened who spoke German and I told my story. She said she could not invite me in, but she’d seen the town mayor in his barn and maybe he could help me. The mayor fortunately also spoke German so I asked if I could sleep in the barn. I must have looked a wreck, for he took pity and said yes, then left. Five minutes later he returned and said he wife insisted on inviting me in. Their son was in the army and his room was free. Groveling with gratitude, I went with him, and was promptly put to rest in the son’s room.

I spent a restful night, in the house of complete strangers, putting the lie to the idea that there is a French national character, of rudeness or aloofness. The next morning, the family gave me breakfast, packed me a lunch, and brought me to the highway to Germany, where I resumed my trip. I arrived in Frankfurt that afternoon, wiser, soberer, and still gay. I had not found any comfort from my closeted friend, but a renewed appreciation of human unpredictability.

This is a commiseration story, for those who are still struggling, with no particular moral to it except that, if you are lonely, you probably should not hitchhike to France.

Megan McCormick Debuts

That’s what I get for being jaded.  Megan McCormick not only writes, plays, and sings, she does it well and with heart and a lot of soul, which is just what I like. Don’t expect her to get all Janis Joplin on you when she hits it big, she’s far too grounded and thoughtful for that to happen.  Her first record, Honest Words, was recently released and she was kind enough to sit down for a few minutes with me.

Hahn: Welcome Megan! I have to say, I am not a big fan of the usual Nashville sound, but was really thrilled with the sound of your first record.  Tell me a little bit about how you got started.  You had a childhood band?

McCormick: I guess I started playing when I was 9 or 10.  I had a band with my two cousins and my best friend.  I started playing locally in bars when I was about 12.

Hahn: So you never had the teenage experience of working at McDonald’s!  You went right into music, how fortunate!

McCormick: Yes, I was.

Hahn: What role did music play when you were growing up?

McCormick: It was a very, very big part of my family and extended family’s lives.  My grandparents are in the Western Swing Hall of Fame and all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins played.  And, I don’t mean just plunking around, they are pretty advanced.  I had a lot of influences growing up.

Hahn: I hear all sort of influences throughout the record.  In “Things Change,” you sounded like a contemporary and charming Steely Dan.

McCormick: I just had that from somebody, and I said, “Oh, now I get the Steely Dan influence, the happy song with the dark lyrics!”

Hahn: And then in “Lonely Night” I thought there was an incredible, Anita Baker-type soul influence.

McCormick: Yea, I really love Anita Baker.  I had an Anita Baker tape my grandpa had made for me and I listened to it over and over.  My mom tells this story that the tape player had eaten the tape and I was just bawling.  She told me that my grandpa could make another tape and I told her I was going to need it because this music had to be saved to listen to even after she dies!  That was my 10-year-old self.

Hahn: I don’t see you fitting neatly into any niche.  How has your style evolved?

Copyright Karen Simpson

McCormick: I think I’ve been in so many different styles and genres.  As a writer, player, and singer you listen to what you like.  I’ve had a broad range of what I like to listen to.  As I’ve developed as a guitar player, like as a lead guitar player, you pick up a lick or two here and there from the things you like to hear and by people you like to hear playing.   After compiling all of that over the years I’ve developed my own style and that goes along with my writing or singing.  I never thought any of that should be mutually exclusive.  I love a lot of different things and wanted to put it out there.

Hahn: Sparkling moments.  What are  your career highlights so far?

McCormick: I guess one of them would be signing a publishing deal a couple of years ago and started working with a guy named David Conrad, who is sort of a legend in the publishing world.  In fact, he’d retired.  He headed up a company in Nashville called Almo/Irving Music in Nashville (ed note: and was also at Mercury MCA/A&R and is a past president of the Country Music Association).  He’s been known to work with some of the greatest writers and a lot of the people who’ve influenced me or people I’ve looked up to like Emmy Lou Harris, Patty Griffin, and Gillian Welch who always stay true to good songs.   Having the opportunity to work with David, who is such a strong mentor and who has been involved in such great things, was such a complete blessing.

Signing with Rykodisc was such an exciting thing for me.  I mean, you can look at it like I’ve been working on my first record for 12 years!  You know writing and playing and now we’re at this point.  I think a lot of artists looking for their debut start getting stars in their eyes:  “Oh, I want a big advance, I want this or that.”  We had other options label-wise, but having such a prestigious label which has been such an awesome presence and face in the business for so long was amazing.  I related to their boutique artist-oriented style.

Hahn: Has being a lesbian been any hindrance?

McCormick: I don’t think so, but I think being a female has had more of an effect.  There’s still a bit of the good-old-boys mindset in Nashville.  I never put it in my mind be a “Nashville” success or to be perceived “Nashville” artist.  I think people are pretty open-minded in the music business, so it’s not been a hindrance.

Hahn: I did read that you are a reformed serial monogamist.

McCormick: I’m sure I’m speaking too soon!

Hahn: You are 23 or 24?  What created the change in your attitude?  You described “really long relationships” as two or three years, which at twice your age, I found adorable in that “I remember when I was your age kind of way,” but I’m sure that seems really long at 23. It sounds like you’re taking it easy now to focus on your music.

McCormick: The relationships I have had have been instrumental in my writing as my muse or inspiration. At this point it’s most important to stay focused where I am and be open to growing.  It’s a monumental time for me and I would be cheating myself out of a lot of opportunities for growth personally and the opportunity to be there for myself and play the lead role in my life at this point in my career.

Hahn: I suppose it would take a special kind of person who can be there for someone who is really focused on career.  That’s not going to come along every day.

McCormick: Yeah, I would never be stubborn and pass up an opportunity for a phenomenal partner, but I do think it would take someone special.  I’m pretty particular in general, but I think it’s pretty important for me here on out that in any relationship that it’s not a problem to have two extremely independent people.  That will be a good healthy relationship. Maybe someone will run a parallel line with me somewhere along the way.

Hahn: I really enjoyed your album.  As someone closer to your mother’s age, it’s great to meet a young artist that reaches across the generations like you have.  Says a lot about your talent.  Good luck with your first release, Megan.

McCormick: Thank you!

Listen to some of Megan’s music on her MySpace page.  Her record was released last month and can be purchased at your local music merchant or at Amazon.com.  She’s touring right now with Toad the Wet Sprocket.

I’m sweating through my mustard yellow dress shirt and, every so often, I use the baby blue tie hanging from my neck to wipe my forehead dry. I’m sweating like a beastly buffoon even with my car’s air conditioner set on super-duper-turbo jet-speed.

Not necessarily my idyllic image of attending my ten-year high school reunion. Of course it’s mid-July in West Texas; ten miles east of Lubbock and somewhere south of hell.

My high school reunion fantasies most often included money, lots of money. A nice fancy car… Oh, and, Saved by the Bell’s Mario Lopez. Of course, I started thinking about my ten-year high school reunion early in life – 1996 – eighth grade year.

Back then – I didn’t sweat nothin’!

Wearing my baggy jeans, cut-off grungy plaid shirt and Air Jordans, there’s nothing to sweat. I’m the coolest kid I know.

I’m student council president, class favorite, jr. high homecoming king nominee, top student in both English and Social Studies, plus, most importantly, on top of my Catechism studies. I know everything about popularity, style, hip-hopsity, trend setting, and all that is bomb diggity – no doubt.

Plus, only a year away from Confirmation, Jesus is on my side. I have the t-shirt, water bottle, head gear, socks, necklaces, and now, my neon green WWJD Bracelet to prove it.

My new best friend, Gabe, needn’t worry – got him a matching one.

“Thanks,” he says, inspecting the tweed texture with his thumb and forefinger, “Noticed everyone around here wearing these.” He brushes his shaggy black hair away from his face and sits on the desk behind him.

“Thought I’d welcome you,” I say, trying my hardest not to smile. Smiling isn’t cool. I can’t help it, though – cheesy grin finds its way to my face.

“Is it cool if I wear it on my ankle,” he asks, raising one foot on top of the desk. I notice his Keds and silently make plans in my head to pick some up this weekend. I also know that I must wear my bracelet on my ankle now. I’ll wait until next period, Pre-Algebra, to make the switch, seeing that now Mr. Smith is walking into the room and we’ll soon be conjugating nouns.

Gabe is the new kid in school. He has the darkest blackest hair I’ve seen in my life, but it is offset by his emerald green eyes. He moved to this small town from the city, so adjusting hasn’t been easy for him. He insists on wearing khaki pants and button up shirts even in the last remaining days of the sweltering hot summer sun. Strangely, he never sweats. His cool confidence is made even cooler by the smell of his cologne, an expensive kind with a name I can’t pronounce. Even if I could, though, it would sound stupid coming out of my mouth. However, coming out of his, it sounds so natural, probably because he’s from Dallas.

It’s early September and only two weeks into school, so I still haven’t adjusted to my class schedule, but I have my seating arrangements down. I walk into my second period classroom mere moments before the bell finishes ringing. Mrs. Goldwater gives me a look that tells me this is the last time she’ll deal with my tardiness. I give her an earnest look in return. Really, didn’t mean to be late, just when you have the kind of life I have the public expects a certain amount of socializing during that crucial five minute passing period. Don’t blame me; blame the Texas Board of Education.

I make way to my seat next to Crystal, who was my best friend two years ago. Not really too sure why our friendship diminished. Probably the cold harsh injustice that is homeroom assignment. This year, seeing that we have the hardest class in the eighth-grade together, we’re both hoping to rekindle our friendship; at least for the sake of having a like-minded study partner. From what I hear, eighth grade can be hell, and Mrs. Goldwater is a balls-to-the-wall, take no prisoners type of teacher. Pre-Algebra is her life, and watching thirteen-year-olds tear up over exponents is oxygen to the old bag. Flunking pre-teens is her nourishment; keeps her saggy old bones strong.

We know not to mess with Goldwater.

I focus on what she’s trying to teach me. It’s a foreign language to me. A piece of crumbled paper lands on my desk when Goldwater’s back is turned. I’m afraid to move. Afraid Goldwater may have eyes on the back of her big ole head. However, she stays turned away long enough for me to grab the piece of paper and open it in my lap.

There, in letters so big I’m afraid everyone in the classroom can read it, written out are the words, “I’m pregnant.”

Crystal looks at me. My jaw is on the floor.

“James,” Goldwater says. Her voice doesn’t sound so scary anymore. “Am I boring you?”

“Sorry,” I squawk out and have no control over my shrill voice – great timing, puberty, freakin’ fantastic timing – everyone laughs as the bell rings.

“So is it yours?” Gabe asks after school. He runs his hand through his hair and stares at me the way my dog does when I don’t give her a treat fast enough.

“No,” I say, as a trickle of sweat marches down my forehead.

“Then why you sweatin’ this shit?” Gabe has a way of doing that. Cussing and making it sound so natural, so grown up. I sound like an infant when I cuss, it’s awkward and you know it’s wrong, but somehow it’s still a little funny. Of course, I want to be taken seriously, damn it.

“It’s just, well, it’s just that everyone’s, you know, done it. Crystal didn’t even tell me she was doing it, and now she’s pregnant?” I say, and I mean it. I do feel left out. Here I am – leader of the cool – and yet I’ve never even touched a boob. Of course, never really had the urge. To me, a boob is a boob is a boob. A bit inordinate if you ask me.

Gabe skips across a crack in the concrete as we make way across the town square where antique shops, restaurants, pharmacies, and a bakery are located. You can pass the town off as any other boring community. Of course, we tend to stay away from the new development on the other end of town and off the major highway that goes to Dallas and find ourselves exploring the run-down old part of town.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but the girls here are major prudes. I need to get laid soon or I’m gonna burst,” Gabe says.

Not him too?

In an instant, I long for the days of hanging out at the burger stand sipping on fast melting snow cones, not this alternate teen drama I’ve found myself in. “I better get home,” I say, walking away without saying bye.

Not having the guile to look back, I know that Gabe is like the rest of the boys at my junior high and I know soon he will be swept up into a world of boys that even I know I do not belong to. I know that, from here on out, I’m going at it alone. Everyone around me, it seems, has left and where they’re headed, I have no urge to go.

Like a movie stuck on fast-forward, the memory of that day flashes through my mind as quickly as the vehicles that rush past my car windows as I zoom along the highway. Ten years, it’s been ten years since I last saw these people, but I can still think back to that day when slowly and surely, all around me, childhood expired, and adulthood fumbly and awkwardly took its place.

I park my car.

I walk into the restaurant, and the air conditioning is a welcome relief from the harsh heat that dominates outside. I see familiar faces that seem distant by age and time. I see the same people I once thought would be a major part of my life, my world, but now they all belong to some other time and place.

All married and settled. All with children and husbands.

All headed in a direction I have no urge to go.

The vast majority of reality television shows, however, are geared for straight folks, and most recruit hetero hard-bodies to participate. That is why I am proposing a new genre of reality television for this fall, one to which lesbians everywhere can relate.  Here, in no particular order, is what I would like to see:

Survivor Ptown: Twenty-four ladies are divided into two flag football teams and left stranded on Provincetown’s Herring Cove Beach with nothing but a case of Miller Light each and one pool table. Contestants  must build shelter, find food, and fashion pool cues out of driftwood. Object is to out shoot, out smart, and out lay your opponents.

The Butchelorette: A spin-off of the wildly popular heterosexual version, this show would have 14 beautiful fems vie for a successful, handsome butch. Instead of handing out roses at the end of each round, the Butchelorette would give a softball to each contestant that makes the cut. On the season finale, the Butcherlorette chooses one lucky lady and presents her with a prepaid U-Haul rental agreement and a kitten.

Mel’s Kitchen: Take 18 vegans aspiring to be the country’s next culinary sensation, add in one hostile lesbian chef who hasn’t had sex since the 2002 Dinah Shore weekend, and you’ve got the makings of a super hot dish. Watch the tempers, tofu, and tempei fly as the ladies show off their cooking skills and their ability to turn flour, water, and a garden burger into vegetarian chateaubriand with portobello-bacon sauce.

Dancing at the Bar: This show would air the first Sunday of every month from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. It’s lesbo-a-go-go as the ladies are judged on their ability to execute all our favorite lesbian dances, including the Grind from Behind, the My Feet Are Planted in Cement But My Arms Work, and the Ten Shots of Tequila In and I Love You Soooooo Much Tango. Double points are awarded to those with non-repaired ACL tears who make it through an entire song without their knee popping out.

Dyke Swap: The premise is simple: couples with opposite interests and outlooks swap partners and hairstyles for seven days and must each take turns running the household.  Start with a power suit–wearing, Ketel One martini–drinking, BMW-driving couple and have them swap partners with, oh, I don’t know, let’s say me and my partner (indulge me here, it’s all part of my ongoing L Word fantasy, which does not have to stop just because the show ended). Would I be able to abide by Bette’s the household rules for an entire week? And, more important, how would I look with her hair?

The Amazon Race: Women jump in their RVs and race from campground to campground across North America in this somewhat fast-paced competition. That’s it. Not too much happens. They take some photos, read, and wash their clothes in a lake. Hey, it’s camping, it’s supposed to be boring.

I know what you’re thinking: “But what will the guys watch?” Don’t worry, I have a few ideas for them as well.  How about Super Fanny, America’s Next Top, and So You Think You Can Prance?

Ok, I’m done now. If I’m ever invited back, I’ll share my ideas for lesbian theme parks.

CJ lives in western Massachusetts with her partner and two Yorkshire Terriers.  She spends her weekdays working as an application programmer/analyst and her free time blogging, hanging with family and friends, and enjoying life in New England.  She writes at Martini Cartwheels.

Somehow my spouse had been recruited to save four cats and a dog from death row at our local shelter by transporting them to an animal rescue volunteer, who would then place them in loving homes.

Ah, animal rescue. I may have sold my pick-up, but I can keep my lesbian club card current with animal rescue credits.

“Well, where are we taking them?” I asked, realizing my question implied consent.

“Up near the Delaware Memorial Bridge,” she said. The word “near” might have been a red flag.

Like lion tamers, we stuffed four squirming, snarling, hissing felines into two small cat carriers and put them into our Subaru Outback (animal rescue + owning a Subaru = extra Lezzie club points).

Whitey, the blind terrier, was placed in a slightly larger cage. I met Whitey when Bonnie lifted him out of his crate so I could line it with one of our large beach towels. He emitted a bloodcurdling scream along with a stream of poop pellets he’d doubtless been saving up since Thanksgiving. As I leapt back to avoid the flying BMs I got a good look at the dog – at least I think it was a dog. Is there a muskrat terrier? They must have unplugged his tail from an electric socket to bring him to us. Every shaggy hair on his body stood at attention.

Once we hosed the driveway and got ugly Whitey back in his crate, we headed out. From the cargo hold came a series of low, rumbling growls, then random spitting, which led to a hiss, then another, followed by a scream, reaching a crescendo with an ear-splitting screech fest. I haven’t heard such a good cat fight since Crystal and Alexis slugged it out on Dynasty. Finally, it got so bad that I let out an Alfred Hitchcock scream myself just to startle them all and regain some control. Luckily, Bonnie didn’t drive off into a ditch.

So the meow mix tried another tactic. On a feline count of ten they sent bodily fluids out of every orifice they owned. My god, they were peeing and coughing up hairballs in unison back there. Just to breathe, I wound up hanging my head out the window like a cocker spaniel.

With our ears turning to icicles, our traveling menagerie was still just twenty minutes up the road. I asked Bonnie exactly where in Wilmington we were going and it turned out we were going to New Jersey. A lot closer to Manhattan than Rehoboth. Aside from the time involved in transporting these orphans across state lines, I calculated the cost in gas and tolls and wanted to spit up a hairball myself.

Then the cell phone rang. It was rescue lady reporting she’d be two hours late to the rendezvous site.

“It’s okay,” says Bonnie. “We can have dinner.”

Like I had an appetite.

So we headed off road for food and fresh air. By this time I was getting used to the low level growling and occasional spitting from the rear of the car and was thankful there’d been a cease fire in the alimentary canal warfare.  Then my own cat allergies kicked in and I started making ugly guttural noises myself.

We choked down some fast food and proceeded to the appointed rest stop – arriving at least an hour and a half before the cat and dog deal was scheduled to come down. Have you ever loitered at a rest stop? Of course not. Normal people just rush in on their way somewhere else for a quick pee and a chili dog. So there we were, leisurely checking out the lovely gift shop. My god, they actually manufacture Jersey Turnpike souvenirs. We dropped $31 for commemorative mugs, magazines (“The truth! Who’s gay in Hollywood!!!”) and a bag of Twizzlers.

Back at the car, the cargo bed was eerily quiet. Were Hogan’s Heroes plotting? Actually the troops were all asleep.  So Bonnie and I sat, reading by dome light, about Hollywood lezzies. Then the dome light flickered.

“You don’t have the lights on, do you?” I asked Bonnie, just as the car’s battery wheezed its last and plunged us into darkness. Great. I wandered off toward the service area to find a jump start.

Finally the tardy animal rescue lady showed up. Retrieving the wild kingdom from our car and passing it off to hers involved a lot of scratching and screaming. And that was just me. To be consistent, when Whitey was sprung for transfer, he once again propelled himself by poop stream. But it was Jersey girl’s problem now.

And so we bid a fond farewell to our furry charges and headed for home – keeping ourselves awake humming “Born Free.”

For the record, there aren’t enough little scented evergreen trees to hang from my car’s rear view mirror to mask the souvenir smells. But I look at it this way.

Tolls: $7.00

Dinner and souvenirs: $37.00

Jump Start: $17.00

Saving Whitey’s life: priceless.

Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Frying – Rehoboth Beach Memoir and Fried & True – Tales from Rehoboth Beach. Check them out at www.fayjacobs.com

“I love you, Daddy,” she said.

Now, that might not sound so strange, but when you consider that I’m a male-to-female transsexual who transitioned almost ten years ago, the word daddy can stick out like a thistle with the ability to scratch, irritate, fester and wound.

My children watched me transition at fairly young ages. My son was ten and my daughter three years old when I began my real life test. Of course, we talked about what they would call me, and we decided on the name Sophie since my new middle name was going to be Sophia. I assured them they’d be the only ones to call me Sophie since they’d been the only ones who’d called me Dad. Over time, though, my children abandoned the Sophie tag. They reverted back to calling me Dad, and I didn’t discourage it, mostly because I didn’t want them to feel like they’d lost their father because of my transition.

My children’s need to call me Dad wasn’t based on denial. They accepted my newly manifested gender expression very well. My son told me he liked me better as Paula since I wasn’t a “drill sergeant” anymore, and my daughter treated me like a mother in most ways, consistently using the she and her pronouns. So, I accepted my role as a woman called Dad, embraced it. The only remnant of Sophie is a nickname my daughter affectionately bestowed upon me, Sofa, because I’m as big and comfy as the living room couch.

Being a woman called Dad has opened my mind to the fluidity of gender, the artificiality of roles and expectations based upon gender, and the way gender oppression limits our lives.

For example, before I transitioned I was an avid motorcycle rider. I loved riding down Western Oklahoma highways during the wheat harvest, watching the golden waves of grain, feeling the warm sun on my face, listening to the wind. I felt connected to the world in a special way when I rode my bike, racing trains, stopping under interstate bridges when it rained where I smelled the ozone of a nearby lightning strike and listened to the rumble of thunder echoing among the steel beams and concrete. But, I gave it up when I became Paula because I’d convinced myself that riding a motorcycle was too macho.

It wasn’t just the masculine stereotype; it was the clothes. I can’t wear petite leather vests and cute halters. I can’t find fringy jackets in my size, nor can I wear high-heeled boots. I was afraid if I wore what fit and what was comfortable on a motorcycle, I’d look like a guy. But after a few years of lusting after motorcycles flying by me on the interstate, envying their freedom, and after I met a number of lesbians who rode motorcycles, I decided to get a bike. So what if I have to wear men’s jackets, vests and boots – things made more for safety than fashion.

Now, my spouse Pam and I ride all the time. We go to poker runs and biker bars just being ourselves. Some of the other bikers nod at me, smile and say, “You rebel your way, and I’ll rebel mine.” I like that. It’s a wonderful affirmation, the recognition as a fellow rebel.

My children taught me how to think beyond the male-female binary, taught me that a woman can be a dad, that more important than being a man or a woman is being an authentic person. They’ve taught me the words mom and dad are not pronouns but relationships, that I don’t have to abandon the masculinity that still works for me, nor do I have to suppress my femininity. Because of their influence, I’m as close to being a whole person as I’ve ever been, and I’m free from the rigid role expectations that oppressed me before and even after my transition.

Recently, I climbed on my motorcycle and rode on down the highway with my daughter sitting behind me singing into my ear. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, wrapping her arms tight around my waist.

“I love you, too.”

Then I rolled on the power, feeling the wind, hearing the whine of the engine, happy to be alive, moving on in life, balanced on two wheels.

Yeah, finally… balanced.

But I have this one real pragmatic friend (hi, Lori Hahn) who advised us to email HuffPo and notify them of our intention before we invested money in the domain name. Less than an hour after hitting send on that message, I received the reply. It seems that, yes, they would strongly object to our obtaining that domain and yes, they would vigorously pursue legal action to prevent us from running a Web site by that name.

So much for vision, change and idealism. A corporate entity is a corporate entity is a cookie-cutter image of every other corporate entity.

Size really does matter. Much like allometric scaling, which governs how an animal’s size affects its physiology, human society seems to have a universal scaling law, too. The corporate version concentrates on profits and takes care of things like seeing to it that livestock farms can’t get beyond a certain size without acquiring a proportional amount of cruelty. It’s also in charge of making sure that as urban sprawl advances, shopping malls thrive, while independent small stores die.

There’s a social version of this scaling law, only it trades in acceptance and security, not necessarily money or corporate power.

Take hippies. Who, in the seventies, would have envisioned the legions of old hippies who now sit in front of their TV sets glued to Fox News, unable or unwilling to remember the words to a single Dylan song, let alone his magically confusing Subterranean Homesick Blues? A lot of flower children grew up and got jobs that paid them enough to create the illusion they had something to protect. And the need to protect can send you running toward the safety to be found in numbers, where you become invested in the status quo, and before you know it, you’re convinced pot should be illegal, and you wouldn’t be caught dead in tie-dyed clothes.

Which brings me to us queers. Right now, we’re gaining visibility, legal recognition and acceptance at a very fast rate (whether or not it always seems fast at the individual level). It sure would be a shame if swimming in the mainstream turned us all pruny and normal. And if you think that’s not a possibility, take a good hard look at GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans.

I just hope that as we become less of a novelty, we don’t also become less queer, and as we gain greater acceptance, we don’t start looking around for some other group to exclude. I also hope our native queer language doesn’t die off in the assimilation process. I mean, we OWN the words drag, queen, femme, and fabulous.

And speaking of the concept of owning words, I can’t help but think it might be fun to talk somebody into naming a racehorse Lady Hoofington.

We have lots of animals, and have had goats most of the time we’ve been together.  Right now we have all pygmy goats, but we have had a few dairy goats from time to time.  When the goats, the dairy goats in particular, have their babies, even though the kids nurse at every opportunity, the Momma goats often have so much milk they can get into trouble with a milk engorged udder.   I am a very environmentally conscious and Earth connected person. I don’t like to waste anything.  l prefer to make natural products  and medications as opposed to buying such things.  I decided I wanted to try to make goat’s milk soap and lotion.  I had used commercial ones and loved them, so figured what the heck.  Well to do that I needed goat’s milk, no problem says I, there’s a bunch of that around here just needing to be used!

We had one goat in particular, Cocoa, who ended up needing to be milked down every single day. She gave birth to twins and lost one of them right away.  Goat kids are funny. They take preference to a certain side and will ignore the other side no matter how much milk it has to offer. We had been milking Cocoa down every night and just giving the milk to the horde of barn cats.  The cats had been getting increasingly insistent on getting their nightly goat milk.  So much so that they would walk up to Cocoa and hiss at her as if to say “give it UP!”  More often than not, Jen would do the milking, she was raised on the farm, and I’m relatively new to the endeavor.  I was born in Chicago, and always felt like I was born in the wrong place and just took a while to find my way “home.”  Anyhow, when we were just milking for the cats, we’d just let it pool on the floor and then move the goat a few times while the cats were cleaning up.

Well my first attempt at milking to KEEP the milk was quite an adventure. I headed to the barn.

Jen calls “you want some help?” 

“No, I got it” I reply.  I go out all ready, bucket in hand, and tie up the goat.  She was getting rather sore down there by this point and not a big fan of this whole process.  I always wore bibs to the barn in those days – you know the kind, with a million pockets and such, and handy dandy hammer-hanging strap. 

I got the cantankerous goat tied up (a half-assed tie job at best), pushed her against the side of the pen, kind of pinning her in place like I’d seen Jen do flawlessly countless times.  This was so the goat couldn’t get away from me (rriiiggghhhttt). I positioned the bucket where it needed to be and got started. 

As SOON as the cats heard the milk hit the bucket they descended upon me!  Remember the movie Willard when the rats swarm all over the guy? Envision that, but with cats!  I had cats trying to get into the bucket, up ON my back (cause I’m bent over… right?), under the goat, around my legs. Then the big tomcat who NEEDED his milk RIGHT NOW, figured out that it is the goat that gives the milk, so he pounced on her back, and dug in his claws (or so I presume, it all happened so fast!) Cocoa reared up and kicked the milk bucket over, spilling what milk I had managed to collect onto the floor making a very attractive pool of milk to which every cat in the universe made a beeline.  As Cocoa reared up one of her horns caught the hammer strap on the leg of my bibs and I was suddenly on one leg!  For a brief moment, I stood en pointe… as a ballerina poised for the Milkmaids Ballet.  The foot that by some miracle had remained on the ground, slipped in the milk and I executed moves never before seen or performed by humankind! The soundtrack to this whole routine consisted of the terrified cries of Cocoa the goat, and the hissing and screeching of a dozen or so cats that STILL wanted their damned milk!  I landed on my ass in the milk puddle with one leg up over the goat screaming “son of a BITCH” as the cats scattered.

Cocoa’s horn was still tangled in the hammer strap.  Cocoa was scared to death! I have no idea why, she about got her head twisted off by my entanglement and subsequent fall, she got cat scratched, screamed at and run over by a hoard of milk crazed cats.  What’s the problem Cocoa, a little jumpy?

I counted to ten, slowly.  I gently disentangled myself from the poor goat, talking soothingly to her for fear she would get all freaked out again and take me with her on her next hell-bent tour of the barn (since my half-assed tie job didn’t hold worth a damn).  I took her back to her kids and hobbled to the house.  When I finally got there, Jen looked up at me and asked “where’s the milk?” 

My reply, “don’t ask!”