Hey! I'm Gwen. I'm 30 years old, a dyke and not hot.

But that's okay.

Fortunately, I'm part of a community that honors my beauty from within. Pretty, awesome womyn -- EEU (for Estrogen EnUnity.) I'll tell you more about EEU later.

First, a little about myself. Yeah, so I'm not at all hot. I was always a chubby kid, then I went through this phase of, like, not eating, but not because of body issues at all. Food just fucking freaked me out. I took a class in bio-chem which really disturbed me -- coupled with spiking Mom's Xanax.

So, I did this vodka-xanax, coffee, Camels diet for about a year. I got super skinny, but I had this jaundiced complexion. Sadly, I still wasn't hot. See, I'm not the prettiest face in the bunch. You ever see a girl with an awesome body and the face of a Cabbage Patch doll? Hello, that was me!

Soon I realized that even an all-skeletal physique will not get you kissed. And I wanted girls to kiss me! Butchy punk-rock girls with raspy voices and
snarled expressions. Boo fuckin' hoo. Invariably, I'd get the "Let's be friends" bullshit or "I can't handle a relationship right now."

Which really means you can't handle a relationship with me because I'm a bowser! How often did that happen and then blam --I'd see the bitch the next
week making out with some betty.

Whatever. Finally I said fuck that and decided to be a betty myself. A player, a pimp, a mack-mama. Bad move. Being on pussy patrol never got me love. What it got me was crabs. Done.

Eventually I started eating again like a normally dysfunctional freak craving affection. In college, I majored in Womyn's Studies and decided to model myself after Gertrude Stein cum Annie Lennox.

During this searching-for-self phase, I hooked up with Mullet Madge. She was kinda like Patti Smith with really fucked-up hair and rosacea on her face. I
begged her to cut it, shave it (and get a serious facial treatment), but she thought it was so cool and so butch. She said it was her thing and as her girl I should accept her. I totally did accept her -- just not the goddamn mullet.

Eventually La Mullet drove a wedge between us. We couldn't go to Lilith Fair without giggles and chuckles behind our backs. Cabbage Patch and Mullet Madge. Like Ren & Stimpy, we only had each other.

There were times in my secret place I wished I was a guy so I could be a drag queen.

Eventually, Madge decided to join the forestry service and para-jump into wildfires. Right. We went our separate ways. I wonder if that mullet flap ever got caught in her helmet?

Okay, so I get the BA and dabble in grad school, drop out and eventually find myself at a nonprofit clinic, The Womyn's Healing Center. I started as an intern, then ended up with a paid position after about two years. I learned all kinds of cool stuff -- yoga, masturbatory skills and the art of self-loving, meditation, and making tampons from recycled material. I qualified for a grant and got a class established: "Vagination." I had to the fight the board for that name. Some thought it was too militant, others that it was too clinical. Pussies!

Then I met Kate. A black butch-daddy with long dreads. She was totally into my class and asked questions at length about Audrey Lorde and M''shell
N'degeonchello. I always felt that our black sisters in the community were grossly underrepresented. I learned a lot through Kate. She took me to black
clubs like CocoLoco and Queen B (the B is for black.) She invited to me to poetry readings -- what's da 411 in da ghetto? And Black Roots: A Nappy
Anthology.

Kate can be a bit of a top, which is cool. But, she acts like... well, how I can I say it? Like a pimp-daddy, I guess. It kinda creeps me out being on
all fours while she's ramming me with a dildo, wholloping my ass and screaming, "How ya like that, bitch?" in her man voice.

What the fuck? We had a talk about it. She said something to effect of "...that's how I'm feeling you, baby."

I told her we should go to a new class at the WHC: "Achieving Intimacy and Tenderness With Your Partner." We actually achieved separation. Kate was on some pimp-daddy trip that I felt was dehumanizing and in truth, simply mimicking the straight black-male stereotype.

Kate wrote a poem about me: "Fuck U Ugly Ass Ho."

The fortunate thing is, I met my love (or so I thought) in the class: Mohito. Mohito was involved with Jen, a white woman whom she called "The
Suit From Hell."

"Jen was so hung up on money and stuff," Mohito told me. "At first it was cool, being able to do my art full time. If she had her way, she would've loved to have me bouncing around the house, dressed like those twins in Goldmember, serving sushi all night to the money-obsessed, soulless-yuppie, fuck-ass friends she entertained."

Out with Jen, in with Gwen! Mohito is an amazing artist. She does abstract expressionistic work she likes to call Neo-Nippism. She has a passionate vision as an Asian woman in America. Sometimes she'll mix Kanji characters in her paintings. One piece had a desert landscape with a long black barbed-wire fence, drenched in blood tears, silhouettes of barracks in the background. She did these really cool Kanji characters on the top of the canvas scrolling across the sky. I asked her what they meant.

"White people are the scourge of the earth," Mohito answered, kissing my cheek. "But not you, sweetie!"

As I've gotten older, I've realized that I feel a deeper connection to women of color. That I am a true lover of women of color because they teach me so much about myself, my issues, my whiteness. It's hard to deal with sometimes -- being ugly, being... white. It can be painful.

Sometimes, in my secret place, I wish I were a black man so I could be a Harlem drag queen. Paris is burnin', chile!

Yeah, well... love stinks like shit. Hito and I joined EEU together. We were experiencing new levels of passion in our relationship. "Fuck Tia Carare, fuck Lucy Liu, fuck Lisa Ling -- Margaret Cho for Mistress of the Universe!!" And she'd come.

Mohito was asked to contribute to an exhibit in New York. I went with her for opening week. There were lots of hipster types wearing shades that made them look like Mothra. They were all so cool and witty and chic. I tried to engage a few people but within about two minutes came the glazed look and then "Oh sorry, I see someone I know."

Poof.

I lost track of Hito during the opening reception in some trendy gallery in Soho. After looking around for about an hour, I decided to head back to the hotel. A woman asked for another glass of Kristal.

"I'm not a waitress," I snapped.

"Oh gee, honey... I mean, I thought, y'know, you're... uh..."

"Ugly?"

"Sweety, no! Unattractive is so much more pleasant." She whipped out a business card. "Take this. He does excellent work. Transformation, honey! Look at me!"

"Huh?"

"Darling, my name was Bob."

Right. I thanked Bob, but I have no inclination to butcher myself. Self-acceptance. Empowerment. Edensoy. For life.

Anyway, so Hito, like, disappeared. Her things were gone from the hotel, but she left a note... an epic note with a caricature of herself crying.

Gwen,

You're so sweet and needy and loving, but I have to be honest... I'm on E right now and I feel so vivid and powerful. I realized tonight that I can't be with a white woman any more. It's just hurts too much. I need to be with a sister... a wasabi soul sister. So... I'm just going to gooooooo....

Whoa. Please don't be angry, but if you're hurt then be hurt. It's ok to hurt. It's human, not that most white people are human, but I know that deep inside, you really are human and you have a soul and it's really pretty colors. And the whole not-cute thing? I didn't really care so much.

I think my relationship with white women has been a form of self-abuse. During this journey I've had an epiphany: White bitches are out. This paper is so cool! I've hooked up with a girl from Cibo Matto. She so fucking rocks!! You'd like her."

Love,
Mohito

What the fuck? I went back to EEU in tears. I was devastated. I thought I'd found my soul mate in Mohito! She taught me about nori, zori, tofu tonkatsu!

My sisters at EEU were very loving and supportive through this dark time. I did some intensive yogurt-pilates for about three months and with my friend Olga built a sweat hut her backyard. Olga was like a non-medicated mom to me. She had three kids, all by donors and all mixed races. She didn't want to be in realtionship, but she knew it was her calling to be a mother.

"The Spirit Mother told me to be a nurturer, not an enabler." she said.

For sex, Olga scanned personal ads on sites like Cyberdyke and LabiaLinx. It was through Olga that, after months of post-Mohito depression, I took the step and posted an ad.

And then Delilah came into my life.

Read the last part here

-- Badass Blue Moon Mamma,
August 28, 2003