photo snagged from Erin's site www.faerygrrrl.com

Secret time! Ok so it’s not that much of a secret for anyone who has known me for a few years but I used to be a *major * zinester. I ran a successful and vibrant distro that lived for years, wrote countless zines, taught workshops at the PDX zine symposium and overall was just an active participant in that world. In 2005 at the Portland Zine Symposium Kestryl and I had our distro (Assimilate This) set up when I happened to meet Miss Erin Fae, a femme zinester who had traveled up from San Francisco to attend the event and sell her wares.  She and I immediately bonded over our love of quirky fashion, of zines, and of pigtails (I was just starting to grow my hair at that time, so she kindly spent some time throwing her hair over my face to help me remember that someday I would have long hair).

I had a few of her zines but alas as those things sometimes go we failed to keep in touch with one another----that is until two years ago when as fate would have it we both ended up living in New York City and working for the same national gay4pay organization! Since then we’ve become dear friends, and yesterday while Kestryl and I met up with her at the Brooklyn Flea I was finally able to get my hands on her newest zine “imaginary windows issue no. 4”

It’s a really lovely little 40 page ¼ size zine that talks all about gender, her bike Petal  (who goes on a very mysterious adventure sans miss fae which you will have to buy the zine to read about), explorations of her deep love of Brooklyn (which as a recent transplant from Manhattan to Brooklyn I can now completely appreciate) and lots of interesting thoughts about gender and femmeness. One of the things I most appreciated about her writing in this zine was how she spoke about how in order to become a serious cyclist she had to change her perception of what she could do in the femme clothes she prefers (she is a vintage fiend, and only wears dresses, skirts, bloomers, and petticoats) as well as what she was capable of doing as a very small femme on her very big heavy vintage schwinn.

“It had to go from ‘I don’t wear the right clothes, I don’t have the right bike,’ to ‘ok, I do wear the right clothes, I do have the right bike. I had to have the right perception. It required me to further play with my gender, to ask what it means to me to be femme. That is, I had to let my own preconception and understanding of myself shift along with the way that I move and exist. It had to be intentional.” -Erin Fae

The zine is a lovely read, and well worth the $2 she charges for it.  To learn more about Erin Fae’s art, and to purchase the zine visit  www.faerygrrrl.com

Also, if you’re a femme author or zinester I’d love to review your work for the site! If you’re interested, please shoot me an email at Sassafras@PoMoFreakshow.com

I read Leslea Newman's 'The Femme Mystique'  for the first time many years ago.  Reading it came at a pivotal point for me.  I'd just begun exploring femininity and what it meant to me, if it meant anything to me. I remember checking it out of my university’s library reading it half heartedly and on the whole not being very impressed. I didn’t identify with most of what I was reading. The passages didn’t fit my conception of femme and I struggled to see myself within it’s pages.

Last week I purchased my own copy of the book. Lingering in the back of my mind was the memory that it hadn’t spoken to me, and yet I found a cheap used copy online, and decided that regardless of how much I did or didn’t love the book – it was one that I should own.

Since it’s arrived I haven’t been able to put it down. I feel hailed by this book in ways that I previously didn’t, and reading it has been like discovering a new friend who you spend hours talking with shocked you haven't been friends before now. Maybe it’s age, or time, or  just that I’m in the right place to hear it now but I’m really glad I’m reading this book again. I love the sensuality of it, the talk of passing, of being the partner of a butch, of what it means to pass together, to love, to fuck, to build a life and a family. Bellow is one of my favorite passages:

“My desire, my passion comes from being femme to your butch, comes from knowing my power over you and yours over me. it comes from looking at your handsome beauty, at the width of your shoulders and the cut of your hair. It comes from feeling your hands on my neck, on my mouth, on my arms, ever insistent. It comes from feeling that my curves- my lips, my breasts, my hips, my ass--- are there to meet your hardness, there to make you wild in your need for me. it comes from knowing the constant craving I feel, the boldness with which I make my needs known. It keeps me excited, wet, on the edge, waiting to be pushed or to throw myself over.”

- Debra Bercuvitz ‘ Stand by Your Man’

how about all of you- do you have femme books for whom your perspective of has changed over time?

Several apologies are in order - the first being that I do not post here even half as much as I should. Second being that I have mostly posted recipes. Thirdly that I rarely include photos in my posts. Sorry!

Now folks, I realize that femmes aren't the only people who cook. For me, however, cooking is one of my life's most basic joys. If I can't cook, and I can't eat, then what the hell am I living for?

Apologies aside, I have to share with you a food that I have been eating for family holidays my entire life, and that has please my girlfriend's tummy on many glorious occasions. It first made it for Dana about a year ago and her joyous moans signaled to me that I should make it a recurring theme in our meal planning, not just for the holidays. The ingredients are so simple and there is only one instruction: to mix. It's vegetarian but also pretty high in fat... oh well! Northerners beware, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is Southern food. Without further adieu. I give you this family tradition. You'll never look at a can of creamed corn the same, I swear!

Corn Pudding
1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin mix
1 (8 oz) container of Sour Cream
1 can Creamed Corn
1 can Kernel Corn, drained
1 cup of grated cheddar cheese (slightly more or less if you like...)
3 eggs

Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes. (Good cooks will set a timer check it at about 35 mins to see how close to done it is.)

The order makes no difference. But if you want instructions, you got it.

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Grease a large casserole dish (I usually skip the grease, you can experiment with the size of the dish, too.... I think mine's about 11" square?)
3. Whisk eggs just a few strokes just until beaten in a large-ish bowl, then add the corn muffin mix.
4. Add the creamed corn, drain the kernel corn and add that too.
5. Finally add the sour cream and then mix in the cheese. (For all this mixing, I just use a spatula. You can also use a fork. No stand mixer needed!)
6. Pour into the baking dish and bake in the oven until you stick a knife in it and it comes out clean and the top is a very light golden brown. Do not overcook.

This tasty treat goes great with poultry (or substitute thereof) and a green vegetable. Go back for as many seconds as you want. Don't be intimidated by the large dish - it's so freaking YUMMY! I can't even show you a picture of the one we had the other day because there's only one serving left. Also, don't be scared by the name "pudding" - it is more like a bread pudding or a soufflé. Only tangentially related to corn casserole, as I understand it. I've never had corn casserole.

Feel free to share your thoughts, recipes, or memories of foods you love!

Technorati Tags: family, food

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Over the past few months I’ve noticed a lot of conversations happening about stoneness. What it means to be stone, and what it means to partner with someone who identifies as stone. Specifically in femme community I’ve seen a lot of debate over the term “stone femme” mostly in terms of how it’s defined.   I pretty much see it defined two ways 1. As a femme who partners with stone butches or 2. As a femme who personally identifies as stone. One of the main critiques/concerns I’ve seen from folks about using ‘stone femme’ to describe people like me is that it makes our sexuality tied exclusively to that of our butch partners, while I know others who use ‘stone femme to reflect their attraction to stone butches feel very hailed by the way in which it gives voice to their sexual experience.

Kathleen Delaney who I had the pleasure of meeting in person last week when I performed as the special guest of the Femme Porn Tour, provided me with what she likes to call her loose definition of stone femme “Stone Femme, lover of Stone Butches, offerer of a devoted touch that masculinizes, worships, adores.”

My good friend, writer and all around incredible femme Leslie Freeman says the following about her experience of stone femme:

“My femme stone is hard and sharp and jagged, hot on the outside but icy within. Stone femme may be touched, even penetrated. This stone femme may fuck and be fucked; I may offer myself for fucking. But my face, my hands, anywhere I carry tenderness-- No. How my body recognizes and registers and calibrates sex, sexuality, sensuality-- there's both a disconnect and an exquisite tension. This stone femme makes you hard, takes you hard-- but maybe can't cry, maybe has to be fierce.”

Stone femme identity and terminology is contentious, complicated, and beautiful all at the same time. I identify myself as ‘stonesexual’ in that I am attracted to, and partner with stone butches, though I’ve never considered myself a stone femme, probably/possibly because in the femme community I came out into stone femme meant a femme who was personally stone which is sort of the exact opposite of me. I’ve taken a lot of heat for my love of stoneness latterly getting into a yelling match in a lecture halls with anti-stone folks who tried to argue my love of stoneness is oppressive, controlling, and manipulative. On the same spectrum, there are few things I find more offensive than the argument that stone butches are to be melted (but that’s a whole different blog posting for another day).

How about all of you, do you identify as a stone femme? If yes, how do you define it?

I've got some longer blog posts in the works but I've been fighting off a cold this week so I haven' had much time to write.  I did however want to share with all of you the fantastic experience I had on Monday night being the special nyc guest of the 2009 East Coast Femme Porn Tour!

I was a little nervous about it the gig for some reason, mostly I think because I was worried that it would be all femme/femme loving which is great, but not something that works for me.  But I was nervous for nothing, it was a pretty good mix of orientation and I was certainly not alone in my butch loving

speaking of butch loving- here's a pic my partner and i snapped in a park a few blocks from bluestockings while we were killing some time

my nerves about if my sort of femme sexuality would fit in were definately alleviated somewhat by the opportunity to debut my new vintage hat scored on Saturday at a thrift shop nearby!  it also didnt hurt that my partner scored a fantastic bowtie @ the brooklyn flea last weekend and was of course my chaparone for the evening.

There's a lot more I'd love to say about the show, the readings that touched me, and just how lovely it was but I think a hot bath is calling my name- i've got to feel better to get myself to work tomorrow, so I'll just leave the post wiht some smooches of thanks to Kathleen and all the other femme superstars on the tour who invited me to be part of the NYC show, and that all of you who are in the DC area should check out their last show tomorrow night!

If you're in DC you should head out to support them!

Sept. 3rd - LAST SHOW!!!!!
Phase 1 @ 7pm
www.phase1dc.com
525 8th St SE
Washington, DC 20003-2835
(202) 544-6831