from the recipe file…

I haven’t posted any recipes before, but as I’m back into the thick of homework and I need more time to blog in any substantive manner, I give you:

INDIAN PUDDING

2/3 c. yellow corn meal (preferably whole grain, finely ground)

4 1/2 c. milk (I use whole milk but any is fine; not sure about soymilk)

1/4 c. butter (you can use less if you want)

1 t. salt (I don’t use that much)

1/4 c. sugar (you can leave this out and use all molasses, or use brown sugar)

1/2 c. molasses

1 t. cinnamon (I usually forget this, but I think it would be tasty. Frankly, I don’t think they had cinnamon back in the Puritan days in these parts, but if you’re an Early Americanist PhD or something feel free to correct me.  They for sure had dried blueberries, so I suppose you could throw some in if you’re feeling fancy.  Or like a Puritan.  I’m going to shut up now)

***

Scald 3 1/2 c. of the milk in top part of a double boiler (I just put it on the stovetop). Mix corn meal with 1 c. cold milk, stirring to eradicate lumps.  Add to scalding milk, stirring constantly (this prevents lumps, though some are inevitable, and I like them ’cause they’re chewy).  Cook until thickened, 10-20 minutes, stirring all the time (they say 20, I say 10; all it really needs to do is boil).  [If you leave it alone while on the burner, it will definitely stick to the bottom of the pan.]  Then take it off the stove and mix in the other ingredients.

Pour into a baking dish and bake in the oven at 325-350 for a long time, maybe 1 hour or a bit more, until brown and bubbly and semi-set.  Serve with cream or ice cream.  It separates a little, and this version is always soft, so don’t worry.  It’s pretty much ugly to look at, but it tastes good, so enjoy!

meeting the friends, part II

I would like to clarify a point that came up in the comments, which has to do with how people relate to me vs. M.  The specific phenomenon of people changing how they act towards me after they’ve met the butch gf is tied to how they meet me in the first place.

As a femme in situations without M., straight women are frequently surprised to find that I’m queer, because I look enough like them to ‘pass’.  In fact there are several straight women in my class who look more classically ‘lesbian’ than I do.  So when I’m in class, or at a new social gathering, straight feminine women relate to me as ‘one of the girls’.  When I come out to them, which is usually instantaneous when meeting new people, they think it’s cool — I’m just adding to their fun little group’s diversity.  

Then, they meet M.  And all of a sudden, they feel uncomfortable.  They look at me with new eyes, because they weren’t expecting to be confronted with a transmasculine person at my side.  Like Jul mentioned, the automatic assumption is that we’ll be with someone ‘just like us’.  

On the flip side, if someone meets M. without me, they have to get over all the insecurity, prejudice, and homophobia that might be triggered by her transgressive appearance right away.  They can’t form an image of her that’s femme and girly and unthreatening (please, this is from their point of view!  I don’t endorse these adjectives!), because there she is in her men’s clothes and short hair (and sexy butch attitude).  Lots of people have issues with this, but they show up right away, before any bonding or friendship occurs.  

What I’m talking about is the retraction of previously extended community and friendship.  How it often plays out is that when M. is not around, people are genuinely relaxed and at ease, and very welcoming of me.  There is no differentiation between me and the other women in the group.  But adding M. into a social setting where there are spouses and other outsiders, there is a whole new layer of awkwardness.  Sometimes we just end up in a corner, watching everyone else interact with each other.

So it’s not surprising that the transmasculine among my commenters feel like they don’t see this — because by definition, there’s no way for you to know what it’s like when you’re not around.  For me, at least, it feels like a pretty big difference.  And I’m in a good position to know, because there was a time when M. was less overtly masculine, and this problem came up much less often, though there were other problems.  (But that’s a post for another day…)

the truth, at last

(because M. stood over my shoulder to keep me from lying…)

Your result for The Personality Defect Test…

Robot

You are 57% Rational, 29% Extroverted, 43% Brutal, and 29% Arrogant.

You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very humble and don’t bother thinking of your own interests, you are very gentle and lack emotion, and you are also very introverted and introspective. You may have noticed that these traits are just as applicable to your laptop as they are to a human being. You are not like the robots they show in the movies. Movie robots are make-believe, because they always get all personable and likeable after being struck by lightning, or they are cold, cruel killing machines. In all reality, though, you are much more boring than all that. Real robots just sit there, doing their stupid jobs, and doing little else. If you get struck by lightning, you won’t develop a winning personality and heart of gold. (Robots don’t have hearts, silly, and if they did, they would probably be made of steel, not gold.) You also won’t be likely to terrorize humanity by becoming an ultra-violent killing machine sent into the past to kill the mother of a child who will lead a rebellion against machines, because that movie was dumb as hell, and because real robots don’t kill–they horribly maim at best, and they don’t even do that on purpose. Real robots are boringly kind and all too rarely try to kill people. In all my years, my laptop has only attacked me once, and that was only because my brother threw it at me. In short, your personality defect is that you don’t really HAVE a personality. You are one of those annoying, super-logical people that never gets upset or flustered. Unless, of course, you short circuit. Or if someone throws a pie at you. Pies sure are delicious. 

 

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Class Clown.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Emo Kid, and the Haughty Intellectual.

meeting the friends

A femme I know categorizes people in her professional life as ‘ok’ or not depending on whether they’ve met her butch gf.  I’ve realized that it matters to me too.  People who are really friendly to me and who connect with me on all sorts of levels will completely transform after they meet M.  Some people do their best to pretend she doesn’t exist.  Some people go so far out of their way to be ‘tolerant and accepting’ that they reveal their bigotry inadvertently.  Some people won’t look at her at all when we’re having a conversation.  M. pointed out in regards to our new b/f friends when I was complaining that maybe they liked her better than me that I might be experiencing equality as loss — I am so used to getting 90% of the attention in group settings, maybe I was missing it.  I have to check my privilege sometimes.

Speaking of whether or not people have met the butch gf, we went to a gathering of my classmates recently.  I was disproportionately nervous because we were going together, and I was going to introduce M. as her nickname and not with her real name, which I have previously used to refer to her.  The shift in a room’s energy when you walk in on a butch’s arm is amazing.  It’s hard to describe but a very real feeling — I definitely sensed a higher level of awkwardness than usually exists between me and my classmates in conversation.  There’s also just the feeling of being noticed.

I realize that it’s not really their fault.  They haven’t met a lot of people like us.  They haven’t had much of an opportunity to think about transgender issues, or to grapple with real oppressed people who talk about it openly in front of them.  But sometimes I don’t want my life to be one big consciousness-raising initiative.  Sometimes I want social occasions to be a moment to kick back and drink beer and laugh at stupid jokes, and I can see that swirling all around me, as though I were an island of calm wariness in the middle of it all.  I’m not making it up — people change when I bring M.  I see them every day in a different context, and I see them in social contexts without her, and it’s different when she’s there.  

I don’t want socializing to be a constant worry of ‘is my butch gf making my acquaintances so uncomfortable that it would be better to leave, or god forbid, for her to leave me here and go home’.  Just not okay, in the end.  As nice as they are, and they really, really are nice people.  But it’s still not enough somehow.  Because as much as I recognize that they have no experience with it, and they’re genuinely doing their best, watching them change around her makes my feelings about them change too.  It’s so much harder to open up to them once I’ve seen the look of vague suspicion in their eyes.  I used to think it was all me, but I’ve now seen it happen toward other transmasculine folk as well.  It makes me wonder — does this happen to other femmes?  Has there been a moment when you realize that introducing your butch gf has changed things in a social situation, bringing in an atmosphere of awkwardness and discomfort?

meme the second

Who else could get me to do this but her?  I’ve been smacked tagged.  So here goes:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

*****

Fact #1:  I was once in 7 singing things at once, my junior year in high school.  I was in church choir, christmas concert choir, school chorus, district chorus, a youth choir, a grown-up choir, and I had a solo in the school play.  

Fact #2:  I learned to read at age three.

Fact #3:  I absolutely adore pomegranates, and can dismantle and consume one in record time with a minimum of mess.  I was accused once of going through a recurrent pomegranate phase; my accuser was apparently unaware that they have a season.

Fact #4:  I worked on Idina Menzel’s costumes for Wicked’s opening performances in San Francisco and New York. (Apparently people think this is a big deal.  So yes, you may touch me.)

Fact #5:  I was raised in a house without a TV or a furnace — we heated entirely with a woodstove.  With wood my sisters and I carried in through the back door.  Oh yeah, and my mom made her own soymilk.  Major hippies.

Fact #6:  I have an almost unlimited capacity for eating cherries (the fruit! the fruit! what is the matter with you people???).  This was an uncomplicatedly happy thing in my life until I saw a portrait of a beautiful woman in  London’s National Portrait Gallery who reportedly died of a surfeit of cherries.  Now I’m running scared…

Fact #7:  If Rachel Maddow shows up at my door on a motorcycle, I am totally getting on it.  Just sayin’!

*****

Consider yourself smacked tagged if you so desire — I think there’s no one left for me

funny search

I got a hit on my blog from a search for ‘manhating women’.  

Dude!  You found one!

work to do…in the refrigerator…mmm apples

Well it’s midterms time in the old grad school, and that’s why I haven’t written anything in over a week.  Aside from the requisite meltdowns and panic attacks (I wish I were kidding), things are actually going well.  But you won’t be hearing much from me here for a while.  And people who work and go to school at the same time?  You have my awe and full-on hero worship.  You know who you are!

*****

It just so happens that it’s so cold in our apartment that butter remains hard when left out of the fridge indefinitely.  We DESPERATELY need a space heater!  If anyone has recommendations for a good one, let me know.  Otherwise you can find me under the down comforters (thank goodness for affluent childhoods) with the cats.

*****

The weather was gorgeous today.  In spite of the cold, the sky was a brilliant brilliant blue, and the turning leaves glowed like jewels against it.  I love the fall, I love the north east, I love october, I love apples and apple cider and squashes and pumpkins and late season tomatoes…I love it all.  So as I bury my head back into my books, I am so happy for this amazing season.  I really missed it living in the UK last year!