Back to Butterfly.

In less than two weeks, I'll be performing in Butterfly in New York City.  Off-Broadway.

My head is spinning.

I'm trying not to think about what I'm thinking about.  All of it needs to sink into black oblivion and I just need to focus on the moment.

It's not as easy as it should be.

I'll be shaving my head again next Tuesday.  It will be back to the world of "sir" and "oh, I thought you were a boy".

I don't know how I feel about it.

It was liberating.  It was an awesome journey...  but that journey is over and I'm new and different on the other side.

But on we press.  And I'm a pretty masochistic actor.

The show is new and different.  The director/writer has a vision of continuity and art and beauty and surprise that will absolutely take the audience for a ride.

I'm focusing on the project.  It's a job.  I'm trying not to let the nervousness of the people around me rub off on me.  I turn within myself.  I remain aloof.

I think about the afterward and the food and the drinks and the companionship with other witty, talented, creative, intelligent women who I admire and love.

I think about driving into the city.

I think about walking down the street in the haze of New York heat and getting the feeling for the first time of being a working New York actor.

It's funny.

I have several friends and acquaintances from college and high school who are equity actors.  Several who are "making it".  Several who have appeared in movies and commercials and on and off Broadway in numerous capacities.

I have students who are working actors in the Big Apple.

My life didn't go that way.

I got married.  I had children.  I chose to teach.

I wrapped myself in the safety of my degree and the expectations of my friends and family and my lack of self-confidence and the theory that someday things would be different.

Life throws you boomerangs and bowling balls and Frisbees and arrows and you do your best to catch and dodge and toss them back. 

I throw around my artistic interests and have serious difficulty just choosing one.  Focusing.  I lose interest.  I get interrupted.  I get lost in reading instead of writing.  I think about my family and then I think about what certain things would do to them.

I look at my art studio and feel pangs of guilt.

I look at this trip to New York and feel pangs of guilt.

I wallow in it sometimes.

I swim and dive and wrap myself in guilt like I wrapped myself in fear before.

I realize this now.

On Tuesday...as my hair falls pell mell into the bathtub I will imagine the guilt there with it.  Sitting and waiting for me to wash it down the drain.  And I will do it.  And I will climb into the van to New York City with a coat that is just me.

The Gender Spectrum.

With the recent news rolling around in my mind that Butterfly will be Off-Broadway in just a few short months, I have come back around to thinking on "the gender spectrum".

I read an article today about a couple who is raising their third child (they already have two boys) genderless.  What this means is that, while the family knows the gender of the child, they are refusing to tell anyone outside the family (barring the midwives that helped to deliver the child).  They say that when s/he is old enough, s/he can make his/her own decision as far as telling people about his/her gender.  They are already raising their two older boys with complete gender freedom - they can wear dresses, paint their nails, grow their hair long - if that's their choice.  Of course they can also play with trucks or wear blue or join the baseball team, if that's their prerogative. 

The comments at the end of the article were scathing. 

People ripped into the parents without remorse - saying that what they were doing was "abusive" and "horrifying".  They felt that the kids were being treated about as horribly as you could treat a kid.

For me, this was sort of shocking.  Really?  It bothers people THAT much that these parents won't tell them if their kid is a boy or girl?

For my part, I totally get it.

When you tell people you're having a girl - you get a bunch of pink stuff, dolls, floral prints, books about princesses, Tinkerbell movies, and Barbie references.  When you tell people you're having a boy, you get blue clothing, trucks, sports stuff, balls, and rough and tumble stuffed animals.  What a cool thing for people not to know - to know barrage you with this stuff - to get you stuff that ANY baby might appreciate, and then to let their child choose for him or herself favorite colors, style of dress, and more!

It's not that they aren't telling their child if he/she is a boy or girl - they just aren't allowing societal stereotyping to decide for him/her what he/she prefers.  I find it a breath of fresh air.

I wonder if the comments are more based on people's own fears and annoyance at not knowing than they are on actual fear for the "safety" of this child.

I suppose for me, having been addressed as the wrong gender before because my hair didn't fit the stereotypical female idea of hair, it makes a lot of sense.  I think that the world would be a whole lot better off if we just let people be who they were, rather than who we want them to be.  We try to fit everyone into a neat little box because it's easier for us.  We care more about categorizing a person than about who that person IS.  To me, THIS is where the abuse lies.

The dad who told his son "only fags are actors" and thus his son, who wished to be an actor, decided he must also be gay, whether he was attracted to men or not - this seems to me a millions times more hurtful than allowing that same son to wear his mom's high heels around the house with a feather boa while playing dress up with the neighbor kids.  (Yes, true story.)

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, there are many horrible things happening to kids out there today.  Child trafficking, starvation, abandonment, infanticide, parents who tell their kids they're "worthless" or "stupid", parents who beat their kids to death...

Maybe these "hippies" who aren't telling if their kid is a boy or girl is something that makes others uncomfortable.  Maybe it makes them annoyed.  Maybe they think that letting a little boy paint his fingernails will make him "gay".  But if those same parents are loving that same kid unconditionally - if they are hugs to come back to after a hard day, a shoulder to cry on, an emotional support structure, a safe haven - then I say good for them.  And I applaud it.

Stereotypes that are true?

I am tired.

I am so tired, that my eyes have started having minds of their own.

When I'm trying to focus on something, like, say, the computer screen right now, every so often one of them will sort of float or veer off to the side because it gets tired.

Perhaps this means it's time for a new prescription...

Or perhaps it means that I am sorely indebted when it comes to sleep.

I'm going to go with the sleep debt because I can't afford new glasses right now and just leave well enough alone. I don't feel I'm dangerous as a driver at present - I mean, I can read all the road signs in a timely fashion and haven't had any near accidents that were really my fault in the last few months...

ANYWAY...

Today I started my period.

For many of you this is probably completely TMI. For those of you not well versed in internet speak, TMI: too much information. Perhaps this is so, but this is a feminist blog, after all, in it's way, and I think that if feminist artists in the seventies could lock themselves in glass boxes in all white clothing while "on the rag" sans sanitary napkins, then I can write about it in my blog and not feel too weird.

The fact is, I'm not really sure why we find it so weird or gross or whatever. It happens to every woman in the world - I mean, as far as I know - at some point, unless something is wrong mechanically or parts are missing or whatever. Sometimes it's erratic, and sometimes it's right on time, and sometimes it's inopportune and sometimes it's opportunistic, but it happens to all of us, great and small - from the mega pop superstar to the milk maid. This is something that we should probably be able to talk about.

And yet it IS taboo, isn't it? Maybe this is because of the whole Old Testament Biblical deal where it talks about how women are "unclean" while they're on the rag. You know, that is cool with me. If I'm unclean, that means I get to hang out in my room all day curled up in a little ball dealing with my cramping all by myself without embarrassment. I get to sleep all day and no one can tell me to get my butt up and throw in a load of laundry because I am unclean and you know unclean people doing laundry would just be seriously wrong. I think that God made this law for these reasons. He knew that periods would suck. I mean, it's written there in Eve's curse. I gotta believe that the whole "pain in childbirth" thing has got something to do with periods too - that's how we know we're capable of having kids, right? So that's when it all begins. So since God knew all about that junky part, he said - you know what? Women need this break once a month. They need an excuse, because people are going to be treating them crappy - like possessions and whatnot, so this is a good time, a good excuse, and NO ONE is going to ask questions, because men won't want to know anything about what is going on - blood and "down there" is going to be enough for them. So unclean works out for the woman.

I am not speaking as a scholar here. Maybe the unclean chick had to do all the stuff that she did before, cleaning and cooking and all that other stuff, just not have sex - that's what's REALLY spelled out - no sex on the rag. Messy business. But somehow I feel like women on the rag were sort of like lepers. I say, ROCK ON.

Today I wanted to take a bath. And sleep. And eat Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and a King Sized Snickers Bar and listen to mellow music and drink tea. I really wanted a full body massage and to hang around the house all day wrapped in a fleece blanket in a ball on the couch wearing sweat pants and a hoodie with a bottle of Advil in one hand and my warm mug of tea in the other and I wanted the kids to be quiet and my husband to rub my feet.

I have heard people talk about the stereotypes of women on their periods. The chocolate eating. I am here to confirm this. I have researched, first of all, that our bodies actually NEED more chocolate stuffs during this time of the month, so I say, indulge! We also need more salt, due to the blood loss deal. Hence the chips.

Yesterday, my daugther was eating pretzel sticks and dipping them into Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. My husband commented that she was "such a girl". Normally I might be offended at such a statement. But in this case, no way.

I must say, the rumors are true. The way to a girl's heart is through chocolate, my friends. Chocolate and potato chips. Oh, and it doesn't just have to be one time a month for 2 - 8 days. I'll take a gift of chocolate and salty snacks pretty much any time.

progress.

We spent a lot of time this weekend with my husband's parents. They are super good people and I enjoy them very much - however differently Michael and I were raised, we agree that both sets of parents are good people.

I told my mother-in-law about my blogs and she was especially interested in this one, wondering what it was about. I explained that it sort of started as a commentary on my haircut and how that was affecting my life - aside from the fact that I felt I had a lot to share on the subject of femininity and adolescent development etc etc. She was really curious as to how it might be affecting me.

When I explained the people treated me differently since the hair cut she was sort of confused. Why in the world would anyone treat me differently?

I didn't get to talk to her much about it, but I did want to say a few things I've noticed in the past few months.

People here, in my area, don't treat me as differently anymore.

I think that, at least in the places I frequent, most people have seen me around, and it's not so surprising. I thought for awhile that I was just more used to people staring blatantly, but I've realized that that's not really the case, since when we went on vacation to Niagara Falls I had several people staring (not in Canada, mind you, but in Northern PA and upstate New York). I even had a girl stare at me for the entire duration of our trip to McDonalds in New York City - and you'd think that would be a place where people had seen everything...

Apparently this is just that strange.

What's really weird is that it's sort of trendy in Hollywood, or at least it's had stints of trendiness in the recent past. Heck, even Britney shaved her head - granted people all decided that she was a complete nut job at that point... so maybe that says something about our American culture...

Either way, the point is, there has been some progress.

There are still stares in one key place: the pediatrician's office.

I think that parents are so afraid that their children will grow up to be weird, or gay, or trans, or anything out of the ordinary - they absolutely don't want them to be exposed to this out of the ordinary person in a place that ought to be "safe" from such people.

That place aside, there has been actual progress. People don't stare anymore. People don't giggle behind my back. People don't make comments. The clerks don't avoid eye contact at the store. It's really... nice.

Maybe there is hope for humanity. Maybe people can actually change, accept something new, add it to their paradigm or shift their paradigm and learn. I hope that's the case and I'm not just oblivious.

And I hope that eventually, if I can be strong enough and keep this thing up, maybe the parents at the doctor's office will embrace the whole thing. Hey, my kid can be different and that's OKAY. I can still love them if they shave their head or get a tattoo or decide to be an actor... That whole unconditional thing? Yeah, this would be where it applies.

Ironically Female.

Several things have happened to me in the past three days that I am not sure how to address. I've been depressed, angry, sad, and embittered, and felt a bit trapped all at once. Mostly, I just want to curl up in bed and stay there for a very long time.

Let me first be clear. I like my hair. I think it's pretty. I think it looks graceful and wise, and ultimately, I think it looks like me. I like that I don't have to take care of it much. I like that it brings out my eyes. I like that it brings out my cheekbones. I like it. Period. I think that, contrary to instinct, it is very feminine looking.

Saturday I went shopping at Walmart.

I'm working on getting rid of my baby pudge through running, and it's going relatively well, so I grabbed two bikinis off the rack to check out. I've never worn bikinis much, but I figured, hey, what the hell, right?

I also grabbed a cute blue sundress. I own zero dresses, so I figured I should get one.

I went to the changing rooms. I was wearing a relatively tight fitting black t-shirt with Irish writers on it, and my ever faithful grey yoga pants. The woman glanced up. I told her I had four items. There were a few people sitting in chairs waiting for fitting rooms to open. The woman gave me the number four, and I looked around, figuring maybe I had been mistaken, and there were open rooms, these people were just waiting for friends. I went over to the women's side and noted that all of the rooms were full. I turned back to find a seat to wait. The woman who had given me the ticket said "You can just go over here if you want." It was the men's side. I wasn't sure what to do. I had never been faced with a situation like that before. I had always been told that the women's rooms were full and I would have to wait. Now, looking back, I should have said I would be more comfortable waiting for a changing room on the woman's side, but instead, I swallowed the lump in my throat and went over to the men's side.

Maybe the woman thought I was a lesbian. Which is fine with me. If people want to think that then they can think it. If they bother to get to know me then they'll find out I'm married to a wonderful man and have two children with him and am not interested in women in a sexual way. Whatever. But even if I wasn't straight, what the heck? How dare she assume something like that? And please, I'm obvious not male. I have boobs. I'm carrying a sundress and two bikinis. Give me a break.

I went over to the men's side and changed. I'm still not ready for a bikini. I bought the dress.

Today I took my son to the doctor. We've been having a run on visiting the physician here at our house between my son and daughter. It was a really tough visit. Maeryn is getting better, and so back to her VERY active mischievous self, and Jonah is puking and pooping and lying around whining most of the day. I didn't sit down in the waiting room because that would've been impossible. I chased Maeryn and tried my best to check in with my sick little boy as much as possible.

In the waiting room, there was a mother and her son. The son looked to be about twelve years old. After they had been there about five minutes the boy looked over at his mother and said, "Mom, that lady is ugly. She looks like a boy." The mother looked up at me from her magazine, scanned me, and looked back to the magazine. She didn't say anything more to the boy. Didn't correct him, nothing.

It hurt.

No one has called me ugly since second grade. And then it was a girl. It felt the same. It hurt as much. It's a cutting thing to say to someone.

It's honestly possible I've been called ugly other times but don't remember. The time in second grade was the first time in my life. This time was the first time in years.

It was not a good appointment. Jonah ended up with all sorts of physical ailments and I needed to drop by CVS to get his prescription filled.

I pulled up to the drive-thru pharmacy because there was NO WAY I was taking screaming Maeryn who didn't want to be put down or held in my arms and whining, sick, barely able to walk on his own drama king Jonah inside the store.

I pulled up, grabbed the prescription, rolled down my window, and pressed the button for service.

Much more quickly than usual, a young, African American woman came to the window. She smied pleasantly at me and I smiled at her.

"How may I help you, sir?"

I fumbled all over for words. I wasn't sure how to respond.

When I cut my hair, I expected people would stare. I expected people might think I was gay, or had cancer or something like that.... but to be actually mistaken for a man? To be called...sir, by a well meaning pharmacist? I just...there are no words.

"Uh, I'm just dropping off for my son." I said.

She looked at me again, and then flushed with embarassment, "Oh, MA'AM, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said, "I have really short hair."

When I got home I just felt tired and devastated and generally wiped out. I put Maeryn to bed, which is what she wanted the whole time anyway, and set Jonah up with a day of television and resting on the couch under the Steelers blanket. I tried to call Michael. I want someone to tell me I wasn't ugly. I needed affirmation that I was still feminine, still beautiful, still desired.

There was no answer.

I tried my friend, Summer. I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to talk to someone who knew I was a girl. Knew for sure. Treated me like one.

No answer there, either.

I went into the bathroom to pee.

Lo and behold, my period had started.

It seemed some sort of cruel irony.

I burst into tears and threw the phone across the bathroom.

"WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!" I screamed to the heavens, "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Today, I will be consuming copious amounts of Dove chocolate.