Ambivalent Post-Saturn Queers Seek Derridean Surf Instructor

Boots and Addy compose fan mail to their favorite postmodern astrologer and discuss the meaning of woo in our times.

How would you describe who our pomo astrologer is and and what she does?

Boots: A lesbian witch who wears a pirate jacket.

Addy: Yes, all of that and also the person who talked to us about how the Gemini twins are bowlegged and sassy booted, and that this is a critical refounding of butch/femme, and that actually, one of the belly buttons of the universe is where the gemini twin’s sassy boot sits in the sky.

[Our astrologer] is here to help us figure out how to be around for the turning of the ages in the right kind of way. I also think I’ve maybe described her as post-structuralist. The way she talked about the 'dude standardization project' and the foundation of the zodiac as a very relevant way of understanding the lives of people living in a world that would divide up the sky in such a way...It’s not only weird pomo times, it is the speech of someone who is invested in the political.

Boots: That is what was so fun about it, though, is that she was so clearly invested in the political and speaking on all of these different registers about astronomy and astrology and these different ways of seeing the sky, and that she seemed invested in all of them, and also the project of the universe beyond the sky. It was all about not needing those to fit together in any tidy kind of way.

Addy: Defying disciplinarity. It was as though until I heard her speak I had never thought of the zodiac as a structuralist framework. Of course, duh, but we don’t have to just choose between woo and air sign, academic woo. No, we can be discerning, critical with our woo. I felt like she was really speaking to this crew of wayward, thirty-something slash Saturn returns-ish ambivalent post-punk queers.

Boots: She really had her finger on the pulse. Is that what is happening in [the northern coastal counties]? Who else is employing her services.

Addy: Maybe we should open the post-university [up north].

Boots: Her number of registers of politicization of the zodiac and where we are traveling in life and where all of the planets have been situated in different historical eras. The ways we can politicize the looking of the sky.

Addy: It’s the idea of historicizing, but on a totally different register of time. It was this woo materialist, or woo historical materialist, understanding that is so how we need to talk about it right now. Women, the original Marxists. Witches, the original Foucauldians. There was also a real commitment to the terrestrial.

Boots: There is something key about that teaching us how to be in time, and teaching us to engage multiple planes of existence and attention. There is something about the way that I’ve engaged with metaphysics that feels like a bracketing, we are either uncritical or critical in a way that is flip. I detach from the level of criticism I use in the way I engage the rest of the world. I don’t engage with it as something to be interrogated, which would allow it to show itself in more interesting and generative ways.

Addy: Like a conservative interpretation of lesbian feminism's 'nationalist' impulses, the ways that woo is engaged with non-critically, that we treat it too tenderly. We are scared. We were closed off from it or it still marks a loss. But that is the kind of conservative 'decolonial' imaginary. To not engage with a critical refounding of what woo is and what we need woo to do. What is woo in our times, really? I think [our astrologer] opened up that it is possible to have a different relationship to time and magic and material and being than the one we usually get to engage with that still draws on skills we’ve been honing by being in the fucked up world that we are being in. Why are we tentative with woo?

Boots: It’s not that I’m tentative with the critique. It’s more about this feeling that I’m slightly uncommitted to the nationalism. Interested in the potential of such, but skeptical about the border-making practices, or the aesthetics or the way it’s configured etc. but I’m interested in the effects such nationalism might have the resources I or others might draw from it, such that I am side-stepping into the practices that I find intriguing, without being able to commit to the full-on political project. I am dabbling. I don’t feel the need to critique because I don’t take it seriously as something to critique, even though I do take it seriously.

Addy: We want a post-nationalist feminist world-making project that we are not just 'dabbling' in. What would it look like to embrace? Braid it into the strands we are pulling on to make meaning in the world. What would a relationship to woo that wasn’t handling it--relating to it with some kind of generational deference or over-carefulness? How could we wield it more meaningfully?

Boots: I think it’s about looking at what resonated for us listening to [our astrologer]. These ways of approaching woo in non-fundamentalist ways--in ways where there are multiple registers, not simply bracketed lines. I’ve been thinking a lot about irony and the general disappointment/dissatisfaction with hipster irony in the world. I read this thing that was a challenge to take irony seriously, at this level of reading things multiply, rather than that creating distance necessarily, to think about things as being more than what they say they are. That there is a relationship with meaning and intention and multiplicity that allows us to access ironic readings not as distance-making or emotionally distanced. I’m interested in a multiplicity of readings for woo that don’t demand distance, such that one can encounter the project not as nationalist nor anti-nationalist. Because I think that’s the thing about dabbling. You are allowed to read things multiply such that 'this is how I’m reading it, this is how it really is.' 'This is what I’m going to say I think about it, but this is what I really think about it.' All those different ways of reading and narration.

What I got out of [our astrologer's] talk was this ability to not create distance in multiple readings, but to take all of those readings seriously. When she was describing how the zodiac was more of a spiral..these suggestions of other ways to imagine beyond the terrain that we are given. We can reimagine borders and still take seriously the work that they do. Take seriously the terrain they set out and how they demarcate themselves, how they are in relation with other models and structures. What they give to us, and what they don’t give to us. All these ways of taking things at their word, even though it’s not the final word. What would that model of relating to woo be? Rather than, ‘I’ll take it, but I’m going to be skeptical about x, y, and z.’ Or to be really devoted to x, y, and z but to say I’m really skeptical about it because I’m afraid of how it might come across. But that involves not taking it seriously or not responding to the demands that it makes.

Addy: I think about camp as this way of really loving things and putting yourselves in them and also totally not taking them seriously, so I think gay people are good at this. Being back in school and witnessing some of the cultural break downs between the gays and the people who don’t have much context for the gays has made me appreciate that difference. It’s one of the things I think is sad about taking everything so seriously. I wonder what it’s like to make stake in the world and also re-think stake. To be open to a constant and incoming remaking of the idea of self-interest and what it is. I think gays are good at that, as a world-making practice, and I don’t know what that means in relation to the woo, but as people trying to embrace a piece or idea of our own 'history' in that, there is something a little bit more tender about how people handle that than just through irony. There is something very bittersweet about it.

Boots: I’m with you, I think that gets at something with the lesbian nationalism. The woo provides a reimagining of worlds while still acknowledging its roots in, and it’s being a product of, the world in ways that are similar to gay camp. The sort of unicorn-ing of the world.

Addy: You just turned 'unicorn' into a verb.

Boots: That particular tenor of camp...its the tendency of kinds of humor and marginalization to come together in ways that are bittersweet, and hilarious and tragic and that reimagining worlds becomes possible through an against a hopelessness of the constrained world. And that the structures or the ways things are held in and confined, precluded, becomes visible because of that..and the magic is created in response to that.

Addy: That is some thin air shit! People just folded meaning back in on itself a couple times and then invented a world.

Boots: Absolutely. I mean, they did. And that’s not always obvious. It makes it extra fascinating and extra hard, because we see how tenuous and accidental and specific those sorts of makings were and how solid they are in their remakings of themselves and how hard it is to create resistances to those..whatever they are, I’m not quite ready to call them ‘accidents,’ but that set of possibilities that then became solidified. So other world-making practices are both tragic and hopeful in that way which I think is part of what’s going on in irony and gay camp--and I hope part of what’s going on in the woo. 

Addy: I feel like I’m seeing a shape right now but I don’t know what it is. I feel like its made out of soap.

Boots: When you said that, I immediately imagine that Dial cheese soap. Because the moon is made of cheese.

Addy: That’s what I’m saying man, just bringing it back around.

Boots: Are you imagining a giant moon made of dial?

Addy: It was a little more umbilical than that.

Boots: Umbilical dial. Or cheese.

Addy: Something about umbilical and cheese go badly together.

Boots: A lot about umbilical and cheese go badly together.

What are [our astrologer's] three best qualities?

Addy: Pomo-wisdom and Hilarious re-naming of things. Her aesthetic. She's got swag.

Boots: Her coat is amazing. And she has an amazing demeanor! She talked for 2.5 hours straight with utter charisma. She was so chill and so on. A hard note to hit.

Addy: Yes. Discerning and also chill-axed. We are all striving.

Boots: But I want to back to re-naming, because it’s actually super important to these questions around what is woo in our time? (Talks about collective tarot making process) That question of categories--that questions need to be asked of categories, and some need to be hung onto, or at least we can hang our hat on them. And that’s what [our astrologer] got into. She offered another way to think about the universe, another way to think about the constellations.

I always had a hard time remembering constellations, but now, all of the sudden, I remember the sassy booted twin. And the whole thing of making the body into that shape, so it’s not only a renaming and reimagining of the things we are seeing, but a demand to collapse the space between them, to rethink constellations as bodily, which was a connection to the historical stargazers she conjured up at the beginning. Making it a non-intellectual exercise to look and create a relationship to the cosmos.

Addy: And the way she described looking as a way of making stories about their lives. Could we just do that too?

Boots: I think we are!

What do we need that [our astrologer] might be able to support us with?

Boots: This is [back to] the relevance question.

Addy: I need other ideas of time, or of ‘victory’ to sustain work for justice. Kind of like we were talking about earlier [in a previous conversation]. Not what is right or legitimate in this exchange, but what are responses that open up the conversation, that open space to imagine other ways of responding to one another? I think those are questions I have in relation to our movements. What are ways of noticing space for intervention on speech or discourse? How do we recognize the openings when our concepts of justice and the future are not fixed? What are the tools we use to frame and reframe and negotiate with one another our shared values with respect for difference, and--I hate the word ‘innovation’ because we live in the Bay Area--but on some level, innovation? And I just don’t feel like we have that.

I think the spaces where people often went to think about those things, as imperfect and often disappointing as they were, are increasingly diminishing. So far we mostly have reactive responses to that. What is a response to neoliberalism and to everything we need to be learning right now in terms of the spaces we used to labor and make meaning in our lives that are no longer open or available--what are the openings within that? What is a response to that that is not about being like, ‘look I told you so?’ but a response that fundamentally continues to open up more spaces for being with one another in ways that are just and possible?

I don’t know. I mean, I feel bitter. I really do. I don’t want to lose the powers of discernment. I don’t want to be just a surfer, but that’s why I’m learning to surf because discernment comes easier for me. It’s so easy, living in places that make themselves over so quickly and that are so expensive, to just roll around and think ‘it’s not like it used to be.’ It’s kind of like our earlier conversation about radical queer politics which is running on 70% nostalgia for a time that a politics of transgression was more meaningful and this idea of a perfect queer left that never ever existed and so now people are just busy being bitter, and talking shit, and that’s kind of what it is, you know? What’s on the other side of that?

Boots: I’m curious though, what do you think is under the bitter, if anything?

Addy: It’s that these fuckers don’t even enjoy themselves. They have miserable lives. It is like getting a big fucking tick. What do you think?

Boots: My question to myself when I’m feeling bitter is: 'Is that a feeling of loss? mourning? disappointment? disconnection?' I think that there is, more often than not--it’s a feeling of subsumed rage. Just really tired rage. I need to have a bit more energy if I’m going to stick with this game of living and resisting. I guess that’s why I ask myself, where is the bitterness coming from? What is that? I’m clear that it doesn’t serve me or anyone else or building another world. I want to understand it’s origins better and it’s trajectory better to figure out other ways to be in relationship with it. Maybe that is too therapeutic sounding.

Addy: Well, I don’t think it’s only therapeutic because it doesn’t sound like you are just trying to fix it, but to ask what it should do. I think, for me, it is mourning more than anything. And moving through a world in which so many people refuse to mourn. Where the spaces we built to figure out how to do that together are being systematically destroyed. Spaces of being where we could imagine responses together no longer exist and we are supposed to file out into the world as individuals who are all self-calculating, like, ‘What do I need to do?’ And that’s supposed to be progress! It just feels like there is a fundamental social contract that has been violated. The idea of what surplus and progress are supposed to be and be used for. It just really gets to me.

Boots: So what we need [our astrologer] to do is provide us with a restored social contract! Or space for restoration beyond the bitter, or at least a space for mourning...

Addy: mourning the displacements of neoliberalism. Okay, well, concisely, leftists need a critical astrologer.

Boots: I think a critical astrologer who has a warm relationship with the cosmos and its cruelties.

Addy: A Nietzchean astrologer?

Boots: Not quite that bad. I don’t think [our astrologer] did it in a way that was so direct, now listening and talking to you after and our conversations about our need for spaciousness. There’s a way that how she frames the cosmos was a metaphor for that. And that didn’t involve some fictional perfectionism of the universe. Not this sort of importing of the other-worldly as a pinnacle of us. It wasn’t an idealization of the universe. Nor was it an idea that we can in some fundamental way universally represent the universe, but this idea that in this grappling with the grandness and potentially deadliness and the weight of the temporality that it presents in this very hopeful and very disappointing way, that that is part of what gives us the space. To use that understanding as a resource to imagine specificity and generality at once. History and future at once. Or historic and present-future at once. As a tool, as a metaphor, as a muse in a way--being able to engage in the sky or the cosmos gives us a kind of concrete and abstract metaphor for space. For an opening that we are asking for.

Addy: So, maybe more like a Derridean-surf-instructor-astrologer for leftists?
...

The Community That Grinds Together, Stands Together: Notes on Zumba and Grindr as Organizing Tools in a U.S. Military Town

While consuming four varieties of Girlscout cookies, Ry and Addy roundtable about the use of cruising apps and aerobics classes as strategies for overcoming army-town alienation. Both are queers from the Bay Area organizing around GI resistance and servicemember rights in a U.S. base town where Ry is stationed as an active duty soldier.

A: I feel like Zumba is one of the only places I go engage with norm-times women, and I feel sort of undercover. I’m pretty pumped about it, you know? And I had this fantasy that if I spent a long time in [this town] it would be a way I could have lots of conversations with army spouses.


And I was really excited that some ladies from Zumba came [to the outreach center], ‘cause, its like, what’s the ask of people [in our movements]? What are we offering in terms of community and community building? Does it speak to the things we actually come together for in an alienated world?

R: That’s one of the activities that people pursue when they have time and are looking for community. But you tell me, do people just show up and do their thing, or are they there to, you know, meet people?

A: Well, when I took my dad [to Zumba], I realized there was this whole community around there it I wasn’t accessing ‘cause I was showing up being too disciplined about it. Obviously, I want to be doing it with other people or I would be doing it in my living room, but I really get in a zone about it. When I took my dad, I was a little jealous because he’s not that good but everyone wanted to talk to him and hang out with him. I realized I should be talking to people more. When I came to Zumba [in this base town], it was like: ‘Oh, let’s explain why we are here.’

As a space, I feel like people are coming together ‘cause they wanna use their bodies--together in community, which I feel is inherently a space that makes us want more from the world and is about political possibility.

R: Oh sweetheart, you may be analyzing this too much.

A: But look at all the 80’s fight-the-man fight-the-power dance movies.

R: Yeah, okay. I see a relationship.

A: So the connection I see between Zumba and Grindr...

R: Yeah, oh god, okay...

A: Its a way people actually come to be together in an alienated world, to figure out how to be bodies in the world together. We don’t really get that in the privacy of our own homes, and I think that is partly what our politics need to respond to. What we want from one another: to be bodies in the world together and then bodies that also stand up for each other, maybe.

R: Yeah, I mean, Grindr was created because it was supposed to be more of a social network, like a Facebook for gays. An app. It was the first of its kind. And I guess need dictated utility. It just became something else. I don’t know, because of the nature of gay men looking to find each other with GPS (laughs). But other forms of Grindr have grown from that, like Jacked and Scruff. Half a dozen that are pretty popular. It’s funny, I didn’t even realize ‘cause I thought they were all, like, equally slutty, but I was dating a boy for a while, and he was all: ‘What the fuck are you doing on Grindr?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. It’s a habit. I wanna talk to people.’ And he was like, ‘Thats what Jacked is for, not Grindr.’ And you can really tell the difference.

So I see it being a thing for people who are struggling with identity and how to connect with people in the world. There’s a feeling of connection because there is someone behind [the app]. There is that relationship, a sense of belonging. I have a feeling that people use Grindr that way too. They use it in a number of ways.

I talk to guys in my [army] unit who are like, ‘I don’t know how you have so many people to hang out with.’ I mean, every weekend, before we deployed, I’d be hanging out with AA people or the gays. This was even before I knew the [regional gay group] existed. But when I was on guard duty, I realized that was the biggest thing these guys envied. They were like, ‘How do you do that?’

A: Do you think that’s the root of some homophobia, straight people are jealous that gay people have so many friends?

R: Possibly. It’s like the party is in the other room. Something is going on and they aren’t invited. I have the benefit of not having to conform to anybody’s perspective. If I wanna fucking wear a dress and walk down the street, I’ll feel fine. I can do whatever the fuck I want, but they are subjected to the standards of their gender roles. And that’s confining and I’m sure it can be frustrating at times. Its like, homeboy wants to get a pedicure--they wanna do that too! Or get a manicure, and they feel like they can’t do that! Towards the end of Iraq, they started coming to me and being like, ‘When we get back to the states...’ And that’s all you talk about the last three months, anyway. We decided we were going to go to a spa together.

A: I’m just thinking about [this town]. Its really hard to meet people here. There are really low home prices. There are these big houses. There’s this total premium on private life, plus people being confined to what kinds of relationships are appropriate and mature to have, where you are allowed to get your needs met, like you were talking about. There really aren’t spaces designed around people meeting each other, building friendships, being in public together. With these cruising apps, do you see that people are at home or do you encounter them and cruise in public?

R: More the prior. You cruise online when you are out and about. Almost never are you already on the road and you meet someone and hook up. Maybe at a club or a bar. But not in [this town].

A: Do you think there would be more public cruising spots if not for these apps?

R: Oh yeah, there used to be more truck stops and back trails and bushes and I think that’s a part of the GLBT community that’s tragically being forgotten. I’m not sexually attracted to that, but there’s something to be said about meeting someone in person and deciding to have sex with them versus doing this whole cruising online process. I’ve walked these soldiers through the same thing. I taught all these soldiers how to cruise online.

A: You did a tutorial?

R: I was like: ‘Hey, you have to get some pics going.’ It was pretty interesting. But it is an isolation thing. Especially with the internalized and the general homophobia around here. A lot of people will stay home and lay in bed and cruise Grindr and just go through different apps and different people, and then choose to meet up in the privacy of darkness and someone’s home.

A: How did you decide what to put on your Grindr profile?

R: So, Grindr only lets you put your basic stats. You know, height, weight, age, and then what you are looking for: dating, relationship, one on one sex, group sex. And then it has room for a bio, that is like, a twitter-size paragraph. I put on mine “community organizing, GI resistance, activism, and SEX.” That’s what it says: GI resistance comma space, community organizing comma space, activism comma space, and I’m always down to fuck. Or something like that. It’s like very clear, you know?

So why did I do that? I guess just to have a presence. To say, ‘This shit exists here.’ Its an exposure in case anyone gets interested or wants to get involved or has a spark--that would fuel it. Its also a filter process. Who am I going to be seeing? Just like the TV. Have I told you why I put that there?

(The only television in Ry’s apartment is a broken vintage model with a quote from Orwell’s 1984 that says something like, “bend lower, that’s right, comrade” painted in white across the screen).

A: To see if someone recognizes that 1984 quote.

R: Then they are more than just a fuck. Or its, like, an emotional fuck, more than just getting off.

A: That’s a really interesting bar.

R: A lot of people are like, ‘I don’t get it.’ And then I’m like, ‘1984.’ And they are like, ‘What’s that?’

A: So that’s how you weed out people who make jokes in their ‘books’ section on Grindr? So, have you ever gotten cruised for politics?

R: Yes, well, on [gay military list]. Today, I posted “if anyone wants to get involved...” I asked if anyone was interested in working to better servicemembers lives. LGBT BAH [basic allowance for housing], so I kind of described some of the things that would relate to [that group]. So I had two people contact me through email about this, and if you’ll notice, this person [offered a place to crash]. (laughs) At the same time, somebody else said let me come up there, and that all his friends live in the dorms. So he was suggesting, ‘I kind of need a place to stay.’ And I was like, ‘yeah sure.’ And those are two people who even if they didn’t pass the TV test, they would probably have the intellectual curiosity to figure out what its about.

A: Yeah, its interesting how on this kind of social media, you have exchanges organized more around shared interests and politics. Sex would be secondary. And at the same time, on Grindr you are repping this other [political] stuff. But there, sex would come first and maybe somebody would recognize the 1984 quote when they came in.

The first time I met you a few months ago, we talked about how its possible to feel agency in those moments, in [casual sex]. How sex can be a space of freedom, where we get to use our bodies differently or cast off ideas of how they are supposed to be used and what they are supposed to be used for. And then, thinking on that after talking to you recently about the importance of tattoos or piercings when you can’t switch up hair or wardrobe because of [army regs].

It’s cool to think about how you can rep on your Grindr profile the idea that coming together to fuck would be a a political moment and that politics belong there. Broaden the idea of what conversations belong there. I feel like those spots are few and far between. The parts where we actually do what we want to do with one another.

R: I really do think there is something magical about Grindr. I-- (both laugh). But there really is. And I’m addicted to it. I’m not addicted to, like, the application or the sex, but these interactions with people. And getting this context. Being raised west coast and being out here now. So there are things that are amazing about it. Not everyone on Grindr is in the military, which means there are locals. Or if they are in the military, it probably means they came from somewhere else. So we have this total cross section of people from all over the country, especially people of color and people from poverty--who enlist more.

Living in the bubble of the west coast, Portland and San Francisco, then being exposed out here, I just love to go in somebody’s house. I like to go in and look at someone’s library and maybe I might completely judge the shit out of them, but try to get a more clear sense of that person, how do they, like, organize their shoes? Where do they get their artwork? Is this all IKEA shit, or what? In a shallow capacity, but also on a deeper level.

I love to pick people’s brains. I’m serious! I wish the experiences I’ve had, walking into a stranger’s house and getting to know them on some level, I wish I could share that with the world in some way. ‘Cause I have the liberty of asking almost any question and they’d answer it, pretty honestly. I think its just like the nature of where we met, the assumption that we are going to have sex is already made. You’ve already gotten pretty far, so there’s no need to impress somebody. The walls that people build up around themselves on a regular basis, to protect themselves and whatnot are just different in that situation. The situation where you are like, ‘We are here to have anonymous sex.’

And I get to see a part of people’s lives. I get to see through those walls for just a moment, and that is what I am addicted to, getting to see a glimpse of somebody’s heart, a glimpse of whatever essence. Just, try to analyze that a little bit. And I get to do that with people from all over the country. Its an opportunity I never would have had if I had stayed out there, on the west coast, without getting some exposure to what this country is.

A: Do you feel like Grindr, and just pickup culture in a place like SF is more uniform? Who you are gonna come across and who you are going to find, versus who all is having gay sex in a military town?

R: Well, its very clear if you are cruising on Grindr in a big city like that, you are just cruising for sex. Sex, yes, no? But in a place like this, there develops a small town atmosphere. Even if its just extremely shallow, just getting off, there is that thing. Like, ‘Maybe this could be something.’ Because you know homeboy is probably not going anywhere for awhile, And you are probably not going anywhere for awhile. There is that transient atmosphere. In and out of the military. In and out of post. Then deployments and moving to different installations. But there is a little more invested into it than in big cities.

A: Like a hope of camraderie?

R: Yeah, exactly. Like, you have a little more interest in somebody.

Should we talk about how to utilize that for a [political] outreach tool?

A: I mean, you already have used it for an outreach tool, it seems.


R: Yeah (laughs), I know.

A: It seems like a lot of the successful political outreach here is secondary outreach [not the formal outreach]. To some extent, a lot of that is happening through these gay social networks and apps, which is important to notice. It makes sense. Who are the people who are not only marginalized in the military, but are also into hanging out with one another outside of that space? Like you described, people in your unit who wanted that, but there wasn’t a model. There’s not a model for how to find and form and maintain meaningful relationships outside of certain structures.

R: But that’s Zumba, right? That is the formula I tell these kids [in my unit]. I’d be like, ‘Well, what are you interested in?’ And a lot of times, they’d be like, ‘I don’t know.’ Which is depressing. But I would challenge them to find out whatever they were interested in...and find a community around it. Do you like guns? Do you like shooting? Do you like, fucking, rock climbing? Go find it. Even these kids [I just got done eating pancakes with at IHOP] tonight. They were talking about all this anime stuff that was way over my head. Then they started talking about Magic the Gathering. I was like, ‘Hell yeah, that’s my shit.’ That’s what I’m talking about, right?

A: But how do you take it a step further? Maybe we should have a Zumba-thon fundraiser for our work.

R: You are so into it. I can’t judge. I’ve never done it.

A: Well, its weird. Its this culturally appropriative dance aerobics form that you would think is, like, ‘oh great, we are incorporating every dance on the planet and turning it into this patented way to make ladies skinny.’ But what I realize when I go, is that its pretty different than the rest of the gym or even group aerobics classes. There’s so much camraderie. Its mostly women of color in the classes, in California and [here]. I do feel, and I don’t mean to be a fundamentalist, but there is something to having spaces that are about being free to move it in different ways, experimenting, and doing that in a non-judgmental atmosphere. I hear people talk about weight and fitness way less in Zumba than any other fitness thing I’ve done. It feels like its more about going and being in presence, in body with others, and I feel like that is a special thing for a bunch of women to come together on that basis. It’s of benefit to most sentient beings, but also, just, sisterhood is powerful. (laughs)

R: Do you think a lot of those parallels are there with yoga? Because that [has worked for the outreach here].

A: Yeah, that makes sense. All sports have their own culture to them. What is the idea of what we are trying to achieve? With Zumba, the vibe of what people are trying to achieve is not just ease and presence but fun and joy and play. People are nice to each other. Here, Everyone rolls their strollers in and there are eight year old and four year old girls doing Zumba on the sidelines.

Also, I have my own feelings around, like, never having become a dance protege. Not that I could be, but why didn’t I take more dance classes as a younger person before I busted myself up? It’s expensive and hard to break into as an older person, but you can just go to Zumba all the time. It might be mediocre, but we can be mediocre together.

R: You sold me, I’m sold.

A: And it did work for outreach. If [this town] has hipsters, its those ladies. Well, not the young hipsters. You were hanging out with them tonight [at IHOP]: the army brat, magic card-playing bey-bey queers. The Zumba ladies are women of color in their early 30‘s to late 50‘s. Excited about poetry slams and writing and are, like, all up in the library happenings here. The instructor really seems to be the nexus of this lady social scene.

R: Alright.

A: We’ve really done some social mapping of this town.

R: Well, its, like, marginalized communities, those groups: gays, people of color, immigrants, typically come together more. People unify with one another under oppression. So, how can we help that process and also make it more about ending that oppression, rather than dealing with symptoms?

A: That’s why I was excited those kids [the IHOP queer youth] showed the other night and I hope they come to poetry. I was like, you all are working it out in the world. I want you to have space to do that and I want there to be spaces that connect that process of looking for community to politics.

But also, alliance between communities. When we started talking to [the Zumba ladies] about our work, the thing they brought up was concern for LGBT soldiers. Well, first of all, they thought I was an army wife. I was told later. Talk about my self-image-concept being off--and this is to say nothing bad about army wives--just that I have, like, knuckle tattoos, you know? But even in talking to me and thinking that, it got brought up multiple times that they were invested in the existence of queer people. Zumba ladies.

R: I think that’s rare. You may have found an anomaly.

A: It’s possible, That’s what I’m saying. Its all coming together at the off-post Zumba class. I also went to a free yoga class there, and it was kind of amazing because the teacher was post-army and had this super-official, dead-pan way of saying things like, ‘I’m sending rays of light and love to you right now.’ There were, like, moms and adult daughters doing yoga on sleeping bags while disaffected teen daughters texted in the back. Just zany lady times with endless partner poses and giggling. At one point, we did this move where we all held each other’s legs in a line and the teen got called from the back of the room to hold the leg of the lady at the end of the line. So she was there, holding her leg and texting. And that’s what it was: like, we are all in this together and it is weird.

(We transition to updating the online member profiles of left organizations we belong to be more explicitly queer, while eating so many Thin Mints and Trefoils).

Smorgasbord Strategy: Expert Tips and Tactical Maneuvers for Ensuring a Rewarding Buffet Experience

This is my friend Nicoletta. She has a lot of good ideas about how to be fancy while staying on the cheap. Recently when her hours were cut at work, she told me that instead of switching away from using Bumble & Bumble products, she was just cutting her hair so she’d use less conditioner. Genius.


I recently had to consult Nicoletta because I was on my way to Vegas for my mother’s fiftieth birthday and I planned to hit up a very special buffet. I usually don’t go to buffets without Nicoletta, and wasn’t sure what I would do without her live buffet-coaching. In fact, I wasn’t really sure what I would do in Vegas at all without Nicoletta, but I did my best (future post).

Nicoletta came naturally to her obsession with Vegas. Her grandfather is a professional gambler in Oakland and when I met her as a teenager she was working as a waitress in a bingo hall in Oregon. None of us were surprised when Nicoletta fell hard for Vegas at age twenty, the same year she got “glamour for rent” tattooed on left ass cheek. She later got a job as a sex toy buyer which allowed her to make frequent trips to Las Vegas. Between her love of the mystical mermaid penny slots, food, and a good bargain, Nicoletta was able to develop the most comprehensive buffet strategy known to man. Below, Nicoletta shares her thoughts on buffet etiquette, pre-game high-fiber diets, and buffet-performance enhancing drugs.

Addy: So, often, eating at buffets mean we are skimping on quality. Is there some sort of buffet alogorithim of how low you can go on quality and still get good value? If I’m choosing a buffet, what do I keep in mind? How do I stay out of trouble?

Nicoletta: Do your research. There are some bad buffets. Survey the décor. If they haven’t updated the dining room, they might not have updated the menu. Also, yelp and citysearch can be good.

Addy: But everyone on yelp are these weird haters who can’t enjoy anything about their lives because they are too busy being fake food critics for free. What is it that you look for in a buffet?

Nicoletta: Well, Breakfast buffets are always a favorite. I love breakfast food. It’s hard to make breakfast food disgusting. It’s just harder to mess up. Except for that time you and I went to the Flamingo (makes gagging noise), but usually—usually it’s harder to mess up!

Plus, the breakfast buffets are the cheapest. Brunch is another story. The great thing about going for breakfast—okay, I like to get there about like, 40 minutes before lunch time. So you pay the breakfast price, you get to try the breakfast food, but THEN the lunch stuff comes out. So you take a break, you chill out. and then you get lunch at the breakfast price. Lunch stuff is usually worth more money. And I really like to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth at a buffet.

Addy: Yeah, so these are tough times. Are buffets an unnecessary indulgence or a wise bargain?

Nicoletta: Well, they are a little bit of both. You get to treat yourself, but if you find a good deal—if you go at the switchover times—it can be a bargain. Also—well don’t try this in Vegas because they are really intense there and have cameras everywhere—but most places you can take some to go. I mean, you aren’t supposed to, but just line your purse with some tin foil or ziplock bags and. you know…I went to this amazing fried chicken buffet in SF and I mean, I don’t even usually like fried chicken but it was amazing. We got a whole bag to go without being harassed.

Addy: A fried chicken purse! But not in Vegas?

Nicoletta: No way. I have a friend who tried to put a roll in her napkin there and they sent someone to ask her where she was going with it.

Addy: What! Did they want it back?! Brunch big brother is watching you.

Nicoletta: I know right! Seriously! Cameras everywhere. Most places that don’t have buffets all the time aren’t as strict.

Addy: Their buffet surveillance technology is a little less evolved.

Nicoletta: Exactly. And anyway, you don’t always want to-go. Sometimes you don’t want to look at food after a buffet. When I went to Vegas, I just got up every day, did the breakfast-lunch crossover, and then swam the rest of the day. That was it.


Las Vegas' Wynn Buffet

Addy: So, what’s your take on buffet performance enhancing drugs? Are they cheating?

Nicoletta: I think they are great, I’ve really been enjoying them before going to my new favorite buffet, Salty’s on the Columbia. But that’s not always the experience you want. But I have a new buffet. The spirit mountain casino in grand ron Oregon. They have a Wednesday night sea food buffet. And it’s ah-mazing. The desserts were in-sane. And the crab legs. I drank a lot of orange juice.

Addy: Okay, about orange juice. Beverages—a necessary component of the buffet experience, or a waste of precious stomach space?

Nicoletta: You know, it really depends. I usually would say waste of stomach space, but I always feel like I should order things at buffets. One thing I like to do—and I’m not usually a juice fan—is order some apple juice. It helps to settle my stomach throughout the buffet. The pectin is really good for holding your poop together.

Addy: Okay, it’s the night before a buffet. How are we getting ready?

Nicoletta: Well don’t make the mistake of not eating or eating too little because your stomach is going to shrink before he buffet. You know, eat your normal amount, maybe a little more. Things that move through you fast. You know, fruits, vegetables. Don’t overdo it, but keep eating. Then stuff will move through you quicker later at the buffet because you’ll have something in there, I think.

Addy: Were going for high volume, high fiber. Next item. Talk to me about attire. What are we wearing to the buffet? I understand expandability is a primary concern. There are basics. No button flies. And we may need to look respectable enough to fly below the radar if we are packing a fried chicken purse. What else?

Nicoletta: Yeah, totally totally. Well, luckily these days there is a lot of jersey cotton in the world and I’m a big fan. I like to dress up, you know to go to a nice buffet. Recently I did make the mistake of wearing tight jeans. I felt so full and so sick I didn’t even come close to eating in buffet quantities.

Addy: That’s pretty much my general experience of wearing pants in the world. I feel really held back. I mean, what if you want to dance—or eat a buffet? You never know when you might need an elastic waistband.

Drop crotch pants may be a fashionable and sensible buffet choice for maximum expandability and extra space for smuggling your fried chicken purse.

Addy: Now, a question that may concern many of us when we cross through the turnstiles. Is there such a thing as buffet etiquette?

Nicoletta: There is. There is buffet etiquette. You know, don’t cut in line. I mean, it’s okay to go around someone if they are stuck on one thing, but you don’t want to reach over people. It’s hard. You see something good, or you are on a final round and you know what you want and you just want to make a beeline. One thing that is always good to remember at a buffet, though, is that it’s not a race. It’s just not a race. You can relax. You can take breathers. Maybe go poop if you need to.

Addy: Okay, and about poop. We touched on fiber before, but…Laxitives? Coffee?

Nicoletta: Well, I wouldn’t recommend laxatives. That’s just me.

Addy: Well, I’ve been wearing heels, training for Vegas, and I’ve been noticing something. See, this yoga teacher I used to know had a poop stool in her bathroom, you know, to rest your feet on to emulate a squatting position. It’s way better pooping ergonomics. And high heels, they really jack up your knees and put you in that classic squatting position that is conducive to bm’s. They are like poop stools that are actually attached to your feet. They can really help things. Maybe a good choice for buffets?

Nicoletta: And people who don’t wear heels, they can think about propping their feet up on something. Tampon disposal boxes.

My Las Vegas poop stools plus KFC's witch flats

Addy: Okay, let’s get back to the good stuff. Stomach space. You are approaching the buffet. What do you start with?

Nicoletta: I think it’s good to start with ruffage. Some salad. A lot of people think you can make salad at home and it’s a waste, but I think it’s a good start. Whatever you do, you want to never ever start with carbs. It’s the most common mistake. Round two I go for proteins. After that you are free to roam and finish yourself off in whatever way you like.


Addy: And what about if you get something and you don’t like it?

Nicoletta: Well, take small portions. You can always go back. You are at a buffet. Also, start with small bites. I personally like it when buffets have paper napkins and I can discretely spit the things out that I don’t want to designate stomach space for. It helps if you have a bowl to put them in, and if the people you are going with aren’t grossed out by this. You know, the great thing about going to buffets with crab legs is that they have buckets you can put the legs in. I just put all kinds of things in there. I think more buffets should have disposal buckets.

Addy: Maybe they should have compost motes that flow behind the tables for people to just throw stuff into. But we’d have to be careful that everyone tottering around in their poop-stool high heels wouldn’t fall in. That could be dangerous.

Nicoletta: And smell bad. I think the buckets are better. Just remember, small bites.

Addy: And I have to ask about the old salty panty trick.

Nicoletta: Ah, well one thing you can do at a fancy buffet is plant a pair of dirty underwear under the table when you arrive and then when you are done with the buffet you can “find” them under the table and try to find out what’s going on. This happened to my friend’s family at Salty’s on the Columbia, but it was all accidental. They didn’t know where the panties came from until later, but they got half off their buffet anyway.


Addy: So, it works better if the people who find the panties didn’t plant them there so they can actually complain in earnest?

Nicoletta: Yes, and it helps if you have a kid to find them under the table (laughing).

Addy: So talk to me about this: how do you know when it’s time to stop? Just stop eating?

Nicoletta: Just listen to your body. I think when I first started going, I overdid it. It’s exciting. It’s hard. You just want to keep going. But it’s really not a race. It’s not worth it. When you are done, just be done. It’s okay. There will be more buffets in the future. There will always be more buffets.

Fibs, Fables, and Fifty: An Interview With My Mom As She Preps For Her Next Half Century

This is Kathy Failes Carpenter. She is my mom. She is also one of the coolest, wisest, and weirdest people I know. In a lot of ways, she is sort of what this blog is about. When Mira and I first talked about a weird girl blog, we mostly wanted to do a lot of mom-interviews, but then missed the mother’s day release date. Luckily, KFC turns 50 on June 5th, so we are just in time.

Now, KFC isn’t an eccentric lefty or an ex-hippie. She’s a Catholic lady from Minnesota who through the here-and-there of a career Air Force marriage now lives in the suburbs of Washington state.

There’s a lot to say about KFC. She is super smart. She figures stuff out faster than anyone I know, is really good at teaching herself things, and pretty much isn’t scared to say anything to anyone, ever. She has this way of moving through the world as though she doesn’t have enough information to know she might fail, or isn’t paying attention to it if she does. As a result, she gets mad shit done.

Somehow, she manages not to trip over herself with self doubt or neurotic self evaluation (which I am still trying to learn from her). I think this has a lot to do with having had to figure a lot of stuff out on her own. KFC married my Dad at 20, followed him overseas (he was in the Air Force) where she had a baby (me) and realized she couldn’t relate to other military wives (duh) and so hung out with neighbors twenty years older (and taught herself German).

Other things about Kathy: She knows more people and has an easier time getting phone numbers than any queer hipster I know. She enjoys doing karaoke alone in her living room or sometimes out with her hairdresser. She enjoys pickles dipped in chocolate malts. And, she just knows stuff. Like, how she gave me kombucha and the new sandpaper hair removal system in my Easter basket. She isn’t missing a beat. She takes information from anywhere and everywhere.

KFC is working with this form of deep mom-wisdom. And she knows it. What’s unique, though, is that she has this almost unshakeable faith in her own weird wisdom, especially since Mira and I started a campaign to convince her she’s a witch. Now I receive all sorts of mixed medium text messages from her involving strange pictures and abbreviated poetics. Important clues in the mystery, all of them. KFC even bought a pair of witch shoes last year that she wears on days she really needs luck on her side.

KFC turns fifty this week. Each year, she becomes more brazen and less apologetic for her ways, and she’s here as living proof that where weird girl wisdom is concerned, it’s good to get started early.

I’m about to leave for Las Vegas, where I’ll be celebrating KFC's 50th by taking in Bette Midler on the full moon (yes). I’m excited about honoring fifty years of her on this planet, and excited to have already gotten to be around for 27 of them. Below is KFC’s first interview for the weird girl blog where she talks to us about fibs vs. lies, the art of toilet-papering houses, and the benefits of graying hair...

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Addy: So, I’ve never interviewed you before! How are you feeling about turning 50?
KFC: So for some reason there’s all these things that go with turning 50 that mean you are older and I’m not sure if that’s working. Working on the garage floor with your dad has reminded me I’m not 30. I’ve had to go to the chiropractor twice already. Though your Dad and I went to the chiropractor for our 30th anniversary, so I guess it’s a favorite outing in this family. Oops.

Addy: You’re entering the second half of a century, how you are you feeling about the first half?

KFC: Well, people know I’m here (laughs).

Addy: So, you know this is for the weird girl blog, right?


KFC: Oh, yeah. Sure. I think it was in third grade, or oops, maybe it was fourth, I spelled 'weird' wrong and they made me write it on the board a hundred times. It didn’t help.

Addy: So, a lot of the blog is about information people are working with in the world. What do you know a lot about?

KFC: Um, flying by the seat of my pants. Backing up ten and punt. Because everything is a crap shoot and oops, maybe it’s a carp shoot. and you have to do what you have to do cause anything could change and you can’t be stuck so you have to kind of go with the flow. And my motto for my 50th birthday is WYSIWYG.

Addy: What does WYSIWYG mean?

KFC: It’s been on my refrigerator for 15 years now, and it means what you see is what you get. It’s an old computer term, but it sort of personifies me in six letters or less.

Addy: So, how do you think you learned to do that? The WYSIWYG flying by the seat of your pants stuff?

KFC: It’s about paying attention. Also, my environment. The dynamics of my family with disabilities and other things that created a situation where I had to walk through and make sure people didn’t get stuck on my watch.

Addy: So you had to be thinking ahead.

KFC: Always always. Staying a step ahead of it, and then when it changes, back up ten and punt again.

Addy: What are some other things you know a lot about?

KFC: Being loud. Making sure everyone else is having fun. Flying by the seat of my pants. Computers. Flying. I know a lot about helping people who are visually impaired. I know a lot about tools in a funny way. I had to because i was Opa’s eyes. I know how to make a party happen in a moment’s notice.

Addy: Well I know at the last two parties of mine you came to you threw down. One you came to dressed as a kangaroo, bearing toilet paper and scared away some uptight crust punks I didn’t even want there and then at my bike accident anniversary brunch you made all the Mission hipster queers write their names with their butts.

KFC: You know that’s on the agenda for Vegas. It’s a prerequisite to getting your WYSIWYG temporary tattoo, Write your name with your butt.

Addy: Dot the i’s and cross the t’s? Too bad this isn’t a video blog.

KFC: Ah--yeah, jump. Good. (laughs). Don’t wanna go there right now.


Addy: So, we know what you are good at, what do you like?

KFC: You mean when I'm not stuck working in front of the computer? Oops. I like to fart around in the garden. Riding my bike. Big big hobby. You come by that naturally. Pretty sure i did that while pregnant with you and then with you on the back and Meghan on the front. I was kind of like a one man band rolling through our neighborhood in North Carolina. It kind of worried people, but i was careful. Rode my bike everyday this week.

Let’s see, what else? Internet searching. I’m the internet search queen. If you need something. you tell me a few words and you’ve got ten links.

Addy: You are the internet. I also ask you if i need to know if I can accomplish something. Like, if i needed to know if i could borrow a wheelchair from Ohare airport. I would call you.

KFC: And the answer to that would be go for it, and if they say no, stop. Two words: Just ask. Or not (laughs).

Addy: Or not, how about not.

KFC: Ignorance is 99 percent of the truth. I think there’s a really good pic of you in fake fur coat in that wheelchair.

Addy: Yeah we took my busted ass out to brunch in that. Chicago’s big, I would have never have made it around just with crutches. Good thing we had it. Well yeah, you are kind of my go-to man on a lot of things. Not just mom things. Those too, but if I needed to tell a lie to some sort of authority, and I wanted to know if I could get away with it, I would call you.

KFC: Well, the other day, I knew this person was from Minnesota because they said “it’s a fib.” And this is the key. A fib. It’s not a lie. And a fib is something that isn’t toally the truth but isn’t going to hurt. It might help.

Addy: Healthy embellishment? Story truth?

KFC: I actually need to look up what it means cause i really want to know now, hold on. I always used to do that before the internet. We’d make a list of stuff to look up when you were kids and we went to the library most weeks. (looking up) Okay, 'fib' is related to 'fable.' And fables pretty much have a moral to the story, so oops, I don’t know, maybe fibbing is telling the truth in a way. Fibbing fables in a way.

Addy: Okay, so some other questions. How do you stay willing to learn?

KFC: Paying attention. You need to be open and willing to just work with what’s happening. because if you get too stuck on what you think it should be like, well, number one: You aren’t going to have any fun. Number two: You are going to piss somebody off. And number three: the opportunity won’t present itself again so you might as well not be that guy and have some more options next time.

Addy: Do you think it’s hard for people to keep up with you with that attitude?

KFC: No, they are kind of all to the point now where they can at least go, ‘Oh, that’s Kathy.' On the other hand, I don’t know there’s gonna be times I’m not as good at something as they are and then I acknowledge and embrace their talents and so I back off. I’m learning to delegate.

Addy: What’s the greatest thing about getting older?

KFC: Oh! Being able to get away with stuff! Nobody looks at you cross-eyed. It’s like, ever since I stopped dying my hair, nobody tries to stop me anymore.

Addy: So then, what’s in store with the clever middle aged lady disguise?

KFC: Toilet papering.

Addy: Who is your next target and why do they deserve it?

KFC: The you-know-who’s [sexist male neighbor and his friend who is on the SWAT Team].

Well, they have a horse-sized dog with horse-sized shit that makes me about pass out every time I’m on that side of the house. Plus, they think they can solve all the worlds problems with a cigar and a folding chair in their driveway and I’m always the butt of their jokes. Like when I’m on my bike. They are always asking me where my broom is. And where my little dog is.

Addy: They are still at it then? Feminist toilet papering revenge, then?

KFC: It’s not revenge, It’s just a message. It’s art. It will be beautiful.

Addy: I hope so cause it’s next to your house, you’ll have to look at it.

KFC: It will be beautiful. Maybe we’ll do our house too and then they’ll just be really confused about what hit them. [Some other neighbors] are staying here while work is done at their house and I’m going to teach them to do it.

Addy: Passing the torch? So, will you save the toilet paper?

KFC: Well, you don’t live here anymore, so that doesn’t seem like a good idea. Like the last time I brought you that big black bag of toilet paper you kept in your tub at your house in Portland cause you were mad we were wasting the paper.

Addy: Well, I came politically of age during late nineties forest activism in Oregon, what was I supposed to do?

KFC: You crack me up. You are really interviewing your mother.

Addy: You should write for us.

KFC: Send me some topics, then.

Addy: Okay, I love you mom. Goodnight.

KFC: Thank you it was lovely (laughs). And in the scheme of things, I’m just gonna say that the related forms of 'fib' are 'fibber' and 'fibbster.' KFC changed from Kentucky Fried Chicken to Kentucky Grilled Chicken, so I need a new claim to fame. Now the 'F' isn’t for fried. It’s for fibbster. It’s a new half a century for me. Hey, how come you are so cute?

Addy: Cause my parents are cute.

KFC: Oops, just checking.

Post interview text messages sent by KFC:

Two minutes later: “synonym for fibber is fabulist speaks for itself in one way but means a composer of fables hmmm.”

Four minutes later: “fable meaning a short tale to teach a lesson. when you tell your story, you set someone free. amen and good night.”