Out of Time-Capsule

So here is the deal, I went to sleep some time in the early 2000’s, distanced myself from everyone I knew in the gay scene – from my male gay friends, and our nights split between lesbian bars and gay clubs with unlikely and descriptive names (careful not to out myself here!), from my girlfriends, and my soft butch look. I grew my hair out, I stopped the intense partying and drugs, I stopped drinking so much, and turned myself into a much milder, grown up, straighter version of me. The longer my hair got, the more I distanced myself from who I actually was. I put on girly dresses and wide legged pant suits, I painted my nails and did my make up beyond the slash of eyeliner and black-red lipstick that I usually rocked. I went to teach English in Japan and I met my husband. I wanted that white picket fence, 2.4 children and a dog. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be someone who could visit an aged aunt and not scare the living daylights out of them. I wanted approval. I wanted safety. I wanted not to be stared at in the street, or men cat calling for me and my girlfriend to kiss again this time for their entertainment, not the affection between the two of us. Yee Fucking Haaa. Whoo fucking Hooo. I wanted to go drink in straight places, and not be hit on and asked “you a fucking dyke or something?” Yes. Yes I am, and no, no I don’t want a drink. Not with you. I missed sitting in some downtown sleazy place with my best friend, a bisexual cross dressing guy, with gorgeous long hair, and the best endless legs you could ever wish to own, turn round, after some lout tapped him on the shoulder, asking him to drink or dance, only to be confronted with the deep “dark brown voice” of Lola made real, and a rather impressive beard. He never got hit. I’ve no idea how, but thought it quite magnificent.

I went to sleep and had babies. I lost my leanness, my meanness. I became the most feminine thing you can imagine – a mother. Mumsy. Ok, so mumsy with a guitar and who played Syd Barrett’s Baby Lemonade to get them to sleep, but you get the idea. I stopped being quite so me. My days were spent trying to avoid sleeping with my abusive husband, and wondering about how to get milk-stains out of the cat’s fur. Wild.

So I wake up, a good twenty years or so later, and what do I find? It’s all changed. I no longer understand the scene or how it works, indeed the lesbian scene is decimated. No lesbian bars, no lesbian spaces, I sit here wondering what on earth trans-masculine is compared to transman. Or why my butch sisters are binding. I’ve been told my genital preferences are transphobic, and warned that lesbianism, my lesbianism is offensive. I’ve been asked if I’m non binary, and looked puzzled back declaring that I have not the faintest clue what they are talking about. Upon being educated, I decided to perhaps put on a little eyeliner before some cute Theybe claims me for their tribe. I dunno. I just like boobs, ya know…

Well shit! I left it too late! There was I thinking about romantic dates with the middle aged grrrrl of my dreams, and I’m told the dream isn’t allowed.

I’m out of date. I’m that lone sandwich left on the shelf in some strange flavor involving alfalfa and apricots, that was best before the week before last. The Stones come on the playlist, mocking me with Out of Time. Ouch. “You are out of touch my baby, my poor discarded baby. Baby baby baby you’re out of time.” And they don’t mean Stipes’s gorgeous homage to Americana album. Jagger is right of course. I’ve had my day. It’s no good denying it, or fighting it. I am those early sixties girls hanging onto their eyelashes and primped look, I’m the Chrissie fucking Shrimpton of the queer world! The world moved on, passed me by and I am never ever going to get laid again.

I don’t speak the lingo, I “don’t know what’s going on. I’ve been away for much too long. I cant come back and think that I’m still cool. I hate Jagger. I love Jagger. He is just being truthful. I’m outmoded, and so is my lesbianism. It’s passé. It’s over. The world of butches and soft butches, of lipstick lesbians and tops has all melted away and I’m left googling “pillow princess” like the Shrimp holding onto her cow-like lashes and pale lipliner, while the rest of the world put on their hippy fringed dresses. Heck we haven’t even stopped there, the hippies have ditched the beads and are wearing drainpipes and pogoing while Patti pisses in a river. I’m truly out of time!