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Phone & Fax: 80 ~786~’.~325‘l ; Free initial consultations saato34.@,xoL.coM 8 Cathedral Church of St. Paul . 2 Cherry Street, Burlington .- 802.864.0471 www.stpaulscathedralvt.org Sunday Service: GI.B'l‘ Group 8:00 Holy Eucharist & sermon Monthly gatherings combine potluch 9:15 Holy Eucharist 8: semaon supper, fellowship, program, and with children's choir informal worship opportunities. 10:15 Education for All Ages All are welcome, 11:15 Holy Eucharist 8: semion January gathering: Friday, with full choir lanuary 16, 6:30 to 9:00 pm. The Episcopal Church Welcomes You - 8 Clifford D. Troll, Jr., Ph.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist — Doctorate l68 Battery Street Burlington, Vermont 05401 802.862.0836 ctrott@together.net °(I'~’>°4'°<1<>°<§>°<%>°<§¢°(:‘¢>°<§>° C. .~>‘- ‘\ ‘~ 4.’ I y friends and I kid around a lot about butch and femme. To‘us, it’s not ' about role-playing, it’s who we are. None "of us wears motorcycle boots or lipstick, but we know where we fit with one another. There are unspoken customs and unwritten behaviors that are not even second nature — they’re built-in. Most ‘of all, . acknowledging our butch and femme sides is a lot of fun. I A few weeks ago a femme friend and her partner were telling a story about a couple that had disap- peared from their lives. This was near the holidays and our hosts had decorated their new home with lights inside and out. The house felt warm and snug despite the gale force ’ winds buffetingtheir windows. The femme of the house said, “Bertha.thought she was losing control over Smithy because Smithy was getting tight with us.” Her part- ner nodded. The rest of us had watched this happen and agreed. “The last straw came when Smithy started going grocery shopping with me — grocery shopping!” We all laughed at the absurdity of getting jealous over grocery shopping. _ _ “When butches go bad — they go grocery shopping with another femme!” cried someone, cracking us up again. Immediately came a string of comiciexamples of . butches going bad. “When you turn them loose in a hardware store!” struck us as particularly funny, though my partner salivates even more than I do in the hardware aisles. “When you turn them loose anywhere with another butch!” I was reminded of the time our butch host and I had gone shopping for their anniversary. She found an irre- sistible anniversary gift in every store we entered and I egged her on to keep splurging. it’s what happens on these butch adventures, as the femmes obviously knew. Through laughter, a femme offered, “Don’t forget the B&D butches!” , That stopped me short until someone else reminded me, “Black and Decker butches.” “Of course,” I said and immediately pictured a slew of us marching in formation, power drills held high, at a gay pride march. I reminded them of what had transpired just a few moments before — I’d gotten up to retrieve another slice of pizza and was back at the table and well into my first bite when, to my horror, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my femme host a slice. She got it herself with an affronted dignity, but I will never live down the teasing, which was more about my remorse at failing _ my self-imposed butchly duty than about her expectations. When I referred to her out loud as a host, she teased back that she was a hostess. Did that make two hostesses, or is the butch a host? There was no preponder- ance of opinion, only prefer- ences. It -seems that modern usage would make everyone a host, but some femmes reclaim the feminine forms of words — perhaps to p assert their fem- inine identities in a world that would lump them all into the diesel dyke cat- egory. Or per- haps because they really enjoy their womanliness. I sure do. Someone got up to clear the table and said, “A butch goes bad when she brings home the 10th cat.” Hilarity_shook everyone. It was all too true. The next example, “Or when she puts the house up for sale without telling the femme,” brought on a quick awkward silence. “Did you really do that?” one butch asked the accused. She’s currently adding a room to her part- ner’s home so they can live together and was obviously incredulous. Butches don’t do these things. “But femmes do,”. some- one said. That brought up the ques- tion, “Why do butches let femmes get away with so much?” ' “’Cause we’re easy!” All the butches agreed with that, smiling and not meetinganyone’s eyes. “A butch goes bad when she gets too close to her cat!” some- _ one volunteered, cradling one of the _ house cats in her arms. A groan went up, like everyone was familiar with that one. “Or dog,” someone else offered. lt’s evenings like this that ' remind me how very much I love us, the inhabitants of lesbian nation. I think we’re the wittiest, warmest, most loveable creatures on earth. Except when we’re not. ‘ “Hey!” someone said, “When does a femme go bad?” The group didn’t want to go there at all. lthought of my partner, who was in a distant city that night, and how in our early days together, we got so shy about who would push the grocery cart. Was that a butch thing or a femme’s job? Now we - sometimes push it together, and _ pl think we’re the wittiest, warmest, most loveable creatures on earth. Except whens? we're not. laugh at our funny selves. I guess grocery shopping can be romantic after all. “A butch goes bad when she votes wrong,” said the femme. hostess. _ It turned out that all the butches relied on this politically savvy femme for voting information. She delivers a not insignificant block of votes to our common causes. “What would we do without you?” we all walled. She allowed herselfa satisfiedlook. After all, she knew she’d never have to get up for that next slice of pizza again. These butches weren’t about to go bad. V Copyright Lee Lynch 2003. Lee Lynch is the author of eleven books including The Swashbuckler and the Morton River Valley Trilogy. She lives on the Oregon Coast.