Beard Club

Watch out, 2007: my friend Laura is making the hit of the year. And I said that even before we filmed at my apartment yesterday!

I love no genre more than documentaries, and love no content more than camp. It's what we want, it's what we need, it's a documentary about beards and mustaches!

A primarily self-taught filmmaker, Laura J. Lukitsch has poured herself into nearly three years of filming international facial hair contests, interviewing men on the street, and conducting revealing and funny tete-a-tetes with those who grow where it shows. As a woman with both a mustache collection and a penchant for drag, I strapped it on to be a part of this insightful and festive movie-to-be.

You can watch a trailer at Beard Club, as well as read about the picture and donate to this future Sundance winner.

That's Not A Man Pose

Tonight in yoga class I felt truly masterful. Which is rare, because I often feel sorely inadequate. Able to move with the best of them, my poses were felt downright cozy.

Then the instructor shouted to the dude next to me, "What, are your legs tight or something? It's OK. It's just not a man pose."

So much for possibility.

That comment didn't make me feel that I would be supported, as the guy clearly wasn't getting help from this shrieking teacher. I didn't roll back on my spine and think, "Ah, yes...this is effortless, as it is a woman's pose." It was as if a wall went up then and there in class: girls on one side, boys on the other. Back to square one.

I wouldn't be the first person to point out that it's often in these places of supposed spiritual exaltment that this kind of neanderthal behavior takes place. I mean, there we all are, taking a really freaking long time out of our day to do something that usually makes you feel pushed to your limit. It was the man's third class, and Fixed-Firm pose is challenging, and no one needs to be harped on.

It's not on the regular that I take time out to lend my support to the male gender, as they've got advantages in spades which I am painfully aware of. But as a woman who loves men and particularly men who take the risks a practice such as yoga requires of you, I wondered if the male-centered yoga of India had been reversed in California by a mass-market "feminism" that doesn't seek equality and respect but rather role reversal.

It's not about girl power, or pleasure parties, or saying we're smarter. It's not my pose, or his pose. For better or worse, it's ours. And I would hate it if anyone got to sit out while I bent backwards into Camel.

Queercents

Great news: I am the latest edition to a small GLBT website called Queercents! It's a personal finance world of wonder where queer writers with advice on money dole it out. Advice, not money, unfortunately.

I'm currently at work on some ideas for a column or two on the site, and welcome any suggestions of what you'd like to see. I'm interested in representing a range of our community, so I'm thinking articles on how to make your own mustache as well as sewing a shift dress that would make Lady Bunny proud. My focus will be cramming all the fabulousness you can into your dollar.

I may also add on something I've been wanting to do for awhile: a weekly astrology column. It's been years that I've looked to Jonathan Cainer and Susan Miller and Rob Brezsny and wished I had their jobs. And charting the stars in the name of the most practical thing there is? Perfect!

Queercents can be found at Queercents, or you can just click the link to the right of this blog. My work should be up and running within the next week. I'm officially making your pay plenty gay!

How to Drastically Lower Your Food Bill

A List of Obvious but Necessary Tradeoffs

As any financial advisor worth her salt will tell you, saving money is a habit that most Americans don't cultivate enough. Instead of self-tithing, we get further and further into debt. Scraping by in your twenties while you get your career game going is one thing, but doing so while dropping down coin for $10 martinis, quite another. Here's a simplified guide on how to maneuver when your spending habits have gone way over.

Face the Music and Dance

You pay through the teeth for packaging. That includes rice in a box, or even a pre-made meal that seems like a steal. Any time that a food substance has been altered, interacted with, shrink wrapped, and had its label designed, you are as much as quadrupling your food bill. Getting rice, beans, vegetables, and fruits as-is will not only provide for your nutritional needs, it'll save you a bundle.

Location, location, location. Finding foodstuffs that haven't had to travel far to get to you: also key in saving money. If you can buy directly from a farmer, such as at an outdoor market, all the better. And then, for those of you lucky enough to have gardens, getting your goods from your backyard is not only nearly free, there's no fuel cost to factor into mealtime.

The food chain. Eat lower on it. Not only will you be able to eat for less, there's all those lovely health benefits that go with cutting back on meat and dairy.

Minimize eating out. How on earth can you keep up your social world if you're not frequenting restaurants and bars? Simple: have your friends over. Cook together. Go out on picnics. Order in. And when you do hit the bar scene, stick to house wine or beer on tap.

Joneses: 1, You: 0

Yes, it's true. Cutting back is simply not glamorous. It means that you will have to hold off on some of those Thai cravings. It means that preparing dinner is going to take a little bit longer. And that you'll have to practice telling your friends that you've decided putting away money in your savings and/or getting out of debt is much more important than a $24 piece of grilled fish eaten in public. It doesn't mean you have to become monastic and don a wimple: just that you're actively considering the true cost of purchases that in the past you didn't question. One $50 night out actually costs much more, if put on credit--as opposed to the much more it could be earning you in a Roth IRA or savings account. And what do you walk with for your cash? A few extra pounds and a drunk dial to apologize for?

Sweet Victory

Thankfully, habits eventually become less and less effortful. I'm in month five of making these changes: and believe me, the reward of cutting back my food bill by about $300 a month is more than worth it. I (almost!) fit back into my skinny jeans, my social network has grown richer as I spend more time with friends and less money doing so, and I get immense pleasure fixing fabulous meals out of simple and cheap ingredients that give me the energy I need to Bikram yoga my heart out.

Yes, I miss ordering everything on the menu, and going back to the store if I don't feel like eating what's in my fridge, as well as picking out things unnecessary for my survival and health. But like all true medicine, it stings going down, and ends up making you feel a whole lot better. In the end, there's so much we just don't need.

Your Employees Are Too Helpful

Today, I went to a local grocery store to pick up a few things. Now, this particular store is part of a national chain that I normally don't frequent. Perhaps I have missed the revolution amongst management, but last time I checked, wandering into a Safeway didn't amount to being in a family reunion where everyone wants to help you find produce.

Within the space of five minutes, not one but seven employees had accosted me with their plasticky greetings. I was preyed upon manhandling a peach, gazing at chicken wings, and peering down an aisle. I was looking at a label, considering a magazine, avoiding the liquor section. I was walking somewhere.

Wanting desperately to hunt down the leader of this Stepford salesclerkism, I pictured standing by the popsicles, and intoning in all seriousness, "Sir: your employees are too helpful!" I'd drive home the point: "If your employees keep talking to me this frequently, I am going to have to stop shopping here!" But would he understand?

After all, this is the kind of press that I imagine is the ultimate goal: that luxury and satisfaction are married in the long walk to the checkout aisle. As someone that prizes anonymity and feels more than capable--even desireous--of the hunt that is part of buying food, the thought that I'd want someone less versed in my particular foodisms picking out my dinner with me makes me cringe. I may not hunt wild boar or pluck blackberries from their earthen nest, but I am capable of filling a sack or two. Isn't that what having freedom of choice is about: I worked for the money that I then choose to use on what I will?

But these pizza-peddling Pollyannas are trained to comment even as I fork over a twenty. One gropes my Ben & Jerry's; another makes the "Mm-m-mm" noise as she piles my wings into a bag. Like a coyote, I want to find kill and eat in silence and without help. I claw home, gnaw off the lid and let my wolfen tongue pile on the mintyness. Give me what little dignity, in this world, I have left.

Balancing Stick, You Bastard

I keep falling out. Jesus, it's a ten second posture! Something always comes into my mind to distract me.

For instance, Tammy. Tammy used to be a yoga teacher at a studio where I used to practice. She was created by God to be a dominatrix, but instead was teaching yoga. Whether or not this actually happened, I picture her screaming at me that I am not doing a good enough job. I don't yet look like a sideways letter "T"!

Well, I probably didn't, but all jesting aside, fuck, this pose is hard. I can hang out with the best of them for the minute-long poses. I can bend myself into a pretzel and stand on one finger while reciting the Marx-Engels Reader. But that thing where I do the hard thing for the short time! S.O.S.!

I need the determination of 1,000 steers, or a recent college graduate ordering margaritas at a New York bar. My friend and yoga teacher Sarah is going to pinch me if necessary to keep me on pointe, literally, if I don't ship-shape. I have the muscles of a fighter. It's my mind of a mosquito I've got to work on. Concentrate!

What?

Battling Workhorse

It's one AM and I forgot to move my car, and already, my friends, working my way through a bottle of two-dollar Charley. Dang! No maid, no butler, no live-in boyfriend. And no play that can write itself for me while I sleep.

I've been fighting Workhorse every step of the way. Usually the pattern is: I make myself miserable, then I hide, then I make a fool out of myself, then I write like a fiend, and pull it together in the end. Oh, but can't I skip all the suffering and cut straight to the script?

In past sections of the piece I've had the luxury of time and distance in relation to the material; this time around, it's hitting too close to home. Writing about having 37 cents in your pocket is not the stuff of glamour, nor is it easy to find humor in it. When I delve into the political reasons that an empty coin purse is actually not tragic, then I sound preachy. Sometimes I want to hire someone else to write a funny and political autobiographical piece about me. Perhaps the same cleaning lady that doesn't do my dishes.

My car sits out front like a patient little marshmallow. How could I callously forget the street-cleaning schedules? How could I get drunk on two fingers of cheap wine? And how could there be such a crucial difference between being loved and being spooned?

Oh, but the play. The play's the thing! Writer, write on! Let's just say I'm considering becoming a plumber. When you've gotten the shit out of the way, you can go home and watch the game.

On Loyalty

Look, Marc, I don't talk smack when you roll out a year of questionable garments, OK? Mum's the word, and if anyone asks what I think of my beloved Mr. Jacobs' latest collection, I assure them that your creative freedom is far more important than something I'd shell out money I don't have for. As a performer, I'd love to work with a Coppola or two, but ultimately, it'd just be to know you. I'd sit by your side, dear MJ, and feed you grapes if you wanted, or at least tell you jokes and point out cute substitutes for that hot tool you just axed from boyfriendhood. I'd go in drag in your ads by Jurgen Teller, and then I'd go in girl drag. I'd show up for you when you needed reminding of your fabulousness. Marc, I would have your baby.

So, my lovely idol, when back in February I sat back at my corporate job, ignored the yahoos, and watched your fall show, I was reminded for the second year in a row that you just aren't ready to give me what I need again. And that's okay. What are friends for? You're saving me hundreds, thousands, ultimately. I don't feel like wearing kickbacks to your '94 collection with a twist of Russian peasant and Igor: that's cool. I totally support your innovativeness. And as an added bonus, I do look forward to those osteoperosis-bound socialites hobbling around New York in your muff-bound oversized woolens.

I ask only one thing of you. Let me prop up my iBook this August and see something that takes my breath away: the most beautiful, eccentric, magical, sweet dresses, sweaters, and boots a girl like me could dream of. You've got it in you--you've done it before, oh so many times. Make the goods just weird enough that the press still doesn't get you. I'm on a no-spending plan, also known as a I want to do something more satisfying with my life plan. Yet, I see what you do as true art: and for that, maybe come November I can splurge on a kitten heel, a cowl-neck sweater, or a pair of newsboy pants. You're a genius. I wait with baited breath.

(So...I wouldn't mind having the above outfit in a size 10. Send to my house?)

A Brief Review of My Illustrious Career To Date

+ A naive and bigoted Russian who gets thrown the slammer and dies of gonorrhea

+ An evil and disembodied psychiatrist programming a child full of culture's lies

+ A secretary that is the human version of Betty Boop

+ A war protester with breasts the size of small children

+ A transgendered person trying to take a leak

+ A cute girl on a bad date

+ An administrator of McCarthy-era blacklisting

+ A murderess who happily cuckolds her husband

+ A loyal sidekick and, disturbingly, a blonde ghost

+ A whore from Long Island with a sidekick

+ A mistress to her best friend's hubby

+ A dumpy, broke mama with a wheedly voice

+ A power-hungry daddy destroyer

+ A peasant who loves waltzing

+ A preadolescent leg model

+ A Holocaust escapee

and

+ A preacher with a set of Jesus handpuppets

Now: how should I market myself to agents?...

Sir, Don't Buy That Small Dog

Dear Sir,

I appreciate that you would like a canine companion to call your very own, and possibly call over a girlfriend from the pack of bitches on the other side of the dog park. Your taste in clothing, while impeccable, does seem to find exceptional talent in the choosing of both doggie wardrobe and carrier platoon. It would be distasteful of me also to skip entirely mention of the blase you so naturally bring to a scenario involving a Muttley the III.

But Sir, I do beg you to reconsider. Buy a rat, or a hamster. Buy a Dobermann, a stallion, an ostrich. Buy a photograph of a hound, an Hermes leash, an idea.

Do not buy that small dog.

Yours Truly,
The Voice of Wisdom

Dundee is a Marmalade and a Place in the UK

My great aunt's first name was Dundee, hence my middle name. It's probably from Scotland, whereas my last name, Hannah, is probably from Ireland. (My first name, clearly English.) Because my father doesn't seem to know when my family on that side came over from across the seas, and I don't have talent for geneological trees, I figure that the important thing to know is not the time frame but simply that my blood was forged in the UK not too many generations back. And this does make perfect sense.

While listening to a rotating constant of U2, The Cranberries, and Sinead O'Connor, teenage me knew that the Irish soul was far superior to any other. As I penned volumes of poetry, I looked to Galway Kinnell and W.B. Yeats and Samuel Beckett. In college I lay awake at night in my freshman dormroom bed with a brochure in my hand for a small art school in County Clare, fantasizing about the smell of the salty air and the swell and quiet of the ocean lapping the unelaborated shore. I literally ached to be there. Later I devoted a semester to my Northern Irish accent for a part in a Martin McDonough play, and fell in love with the most magnificent of all the magnificently handsome Irish men there are.

After trying so valiantly, despite all personal shortcomings and external disappointments to make work work out, I've come to the conclusion that I might be happiest in a barn, mucking out stalls and milking cows. In worn overalls and bottle-green wellies, with a twig for a hairpiece if need be. Oh, the green rolling hills that I miss though I've never met. Hopefully, as I've forgiven myself for being sorely out of place in my country, the UK can forgive me for one indiscretion: I can't drink beer. Oh, but I love it. I love it.

Ask the Obstinate Tortilla

I'M RIGHT!!!
Put cheese in me.

Okay, what are your questions? Ask them of me! I don't have all day to sit around and entertain this sort of nuisanceful of peoples!

Fine, don't ask. I'll guess and tell you the answers.

#1, You will get married and effect the fate of 1,000 lives. Watch out for a landmine filled with exploding babies!!

#2, The second answer, which is, that sounds like no kind of deal to me.

#3, And three, OK, I might just be a tortilla but I like your style. Later, but in the back of the house.

Top Ten Things NOT to Say to Your Massage Therapist

Yours truly has been working as a certified and licensed massage therapist for the past six years, over the course of which I have had the great priviledge of hearing several recurring, highly irritating comments and questions. I recognize, dear reader, that not everyone is familiar with the proper etiquette for the office and in the presence of a professional who falls somewhere between your doctor and your aesthetician. You can talk about your cooch with your waxer, or defer to dear doc's framed Ph.D., whereas you may consider the possibility that your masseuse engages in illegal trade. I recognize the grey area, and thus am hereby providing you with a straight-forward instructional on what NOT to ever, EVER say to myself or one of my colleagues.

1) "Wow, what a RELAXING job!"

It's funny you should say that. I mean, when I talk to other professionals who deal with their clients' deepest emotional stresses and physically work hard to unweave their clients' physical conundrums, "relaxing" is the first descriptor that comes to mind. Really, tanning on the beach and giving another person 100% of what you've got: kind of the same level of output. I'm practically ASLEEP when I work; I mean: that relaxing. Sometimes? I just curl up on top of my client for a long, sweet nap. They hardly know the difference! Really!

2) "Do you LOVE IT?!?"

Answer possibility #1: Yes! It is the greatest job in the whole world! In fact, don't even pay me! Do you want me to just move in and massage you all day long?

Answer possibility #2: As much as you love YOUR job!

Answer possibility #3: You don't really want me to use up your session explaining the fine points--i.e. the ACTUAL answer, full of complexities, to your question.

3) "So, are you getting lots of clients?"

Maybe I am. In which case, if I say so, you may either worry I won't have space in my schedule for you, ramble on about how my job is relaxing, or tell me I'm making a killing.

Maybe I'm not. In which case, you've just put me in the awkward position of simultaneously wanting to be honest, and also wanting to project this confident image of prosperity.

How are YOU going to feel if I answer either way? You are asking me to take on making sure YOU feel comfortable with the answer to a question which, if I understand you correctly, is just a casual inquiring on how I'M doing.

4) "How much do you charge?"

This question almost never comes from someone who is about to book an appointment. Those about to book an appointment either have already booked it, and then are asking, or I've already told them. The people who ask me the most are those eager to do mental calculations on my relationship to the GNP. They either want to tell me I'm making a killing (whether or not they realize if I actually am) or that I charge too much, or that I charge less than so-and-so. They're making the assumption that I haven't done the research to know market rates, or that I want their opinion on the worth of my service (which they've never experienced firsthand). Note: this conversation NEVER includes them offering up how much THEY make. I'll add that I'm never asked this question by women. It's a fact. 99% of the administrators of this question are middle-aged men who clearly make more money than I do and want to solidify this fact.

5) "Doesn't this hurt your body?"

Ok, you need reassurance? I'll reassure you. I am not breaking myself in half in order to help heal you. I know how to walk, stand, move, what pressure to use so that I'll come out whole at the end of the session.

That said, of course it's hard on my body. I've had repetitive stress injuries, and I've also done a lot of things to keep myself in shape. I get regular massage myself, and I do yoga, and I rest, and I don't make it a practice to sit around with clients and talk about what's hard on me and what isn't. I want to know: do people ask this question of their doctor? Their CPA? Their nail tech?

6) "You can go as deep as you want."

THANK YOU. It is my fantasy to risk a likely injury in order to push on your unyielding muscle (which would benefit more from lighter, slower touch anyway). I've been standing here fantasizing about going deeper--in fact, even doing deep tissue, which I am not trained in--and feel you have given me this great gift! Likewise, I hope you tell your lawyer that he can "sue as much as he wants," and that your grocer can give you "as much food as he wants."

7) "Do you also give erotic massage?"

If you're not a client, it's WAY not cute that you asked this. If you are a client, don't expect me to finish the session (or finish you off, as the case may be). You have the right to ask such a question, but I also hold the right to bar you from my office. No truly legitimate massage therapist with a degree from a therapeutic school, an office in a family neighborhood, and who discusses your medical history with you also does erotic massage. You wouldn't ask for Craniosacral therapy in a red-light district, would you?

8) "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Often coupled with the erotic massage question. Do I give erotic massage to my boyfriend? Why exactly would I be inclined to discuss my sex life with you? Sex aside, what about simply my love life? Is your question an invitation? Are you just curious? What makes you assume I'm straight? What makes you assume that my boyfriend wants to be talked about? (And no: I don't want to discuss how much money he makes, either.)

9) "Do I have to tip you?"

Standard practice in the massage industry, as opposed to that with chiropractors or medical doctors, is to tip 15-20% on top of the charge for the service rendered. That's what I will tell you if you ask, and what I do when I see another massage practicioner. That said, please understand that my saying so does not make me "greedy" or "sneaky." Just because I have my own office rather than working for a spa does not mean that I make so much more money: because I have to pay rent now. Someone once asked why I didn't just tack a tip onto my base fee. Why? Because then those conscientious receivers of massage would feel obligated to tip me on top of my extended fee. If you don't tip me, it doesn't mean that you are blacklisted or that I will have a little less shine to the mansion you think I own, lined with gold. It means that I'll be a little more strapped, and I'll assume that you didn't tip me because either you are strapped, or because you feel I did not give you excellent service. And while we're on the same page, if I gave a "friend rate" I wouldn't be able to pay the rent. Do you give your employer, who you get along well with, a "friend rate"?

10) "Are you for sale?"

Ha ha!! What a cute comment!!!

No. Are you? I've got five dollars in quarters.

Fascination with Better

For my one-woman show, "Workhorse," I have spent an inordinate amount of time this last year studying, talking, and thinking about work. A lot of what I come up with doesn't make it into the show, either because it somehow doesn't fit or because my brain can't quite make a vehicle for it. Any piece of inspirational literature or corporate harpy would point me towards self-improvement: I'm not sure what to do with an idea? Figure it out! Get better at working with it!

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche refers to the concept of self-improvement as a bourgeois concept which has no spiritual worth.

On the other hand, every job ad in Craigslist that I read wants to hire someone that "Is constantly working on getting better and LOVES constant feedback on how they can be the BEST!!!"

As for me, I veer towards the concept of perfection already achieved.

Lest I sound entirely averse to either labor or ladder-climbing, let me clarify that perfection doesn't necessary involve a certain status or accomplishment. It does not come with a raise, and it doesn't mean you can pay your rent. It just means that as a creature on this planet, you are already whole, complete.

I'm with Nietzsche, but let me add this clause: true transformation, which ultimately would be the goal of an improvement plan worth following, comes from actually being present as the Buddhists and yogis suggest. That's where vision enters in; where there is little to nothing that you feel you need.

Self-improvement, dished out by managers and HR personnel everywhere, is based on the concept of getting better along the same lines you've been walking. 80% rather than 75% of goal. Reaching 12 clients rather than 8. Taking what they hired you for, who they perceived you to be, and adding on more of that hireable you.

But what about outside of the middle-class stairway to heaven? What about if the you you wish to become--and the things you wish to do--require you to step onto a different platform; utilize a different you? What if, fundamentally, getting "better" requires you to make choices that others perceive as doing "worse"?

My life currently doesn't involve eating out at restaurants or driving much or going to entertainment venues or shopping. These are all stand-ins for happiness; cues to an outcome. While I miss these things--Thai food, the movies, trips to H&M--I am much happier now than when I did have these things in my life. There are plenty of people that don't understand this--I am choosing a path which involves this hardship when instead I could use my college degree and get myself a 9 to 5 and order $10 cocktails again. It can get exhausting explaining all of this--and often involves the other person either not believing that I'm currently so bare-bones with money or feeling sorry for me or seeing me as the opposite of that deluxe person who is trucking away at getting better, better, best.

This is one of the current challenges of anyone who does fall in the space between dirt-poor and loaded: either going with or against mass culture. Making individual choices that you can get behind: I know this has spiritual worth (but not in a I'm-getting-better sort of way, of course!). I hope someday corporate culture understands this and fully embraces being good--and continuing on as such. I won't hold my breath on this, of course. I'm getting better at knowing what to count on.

Grandmationary II

Yes, folks n' spuds, it's Wednesday Grandma Word Day!!

Today's featured ancient phrase we'll dust off for the use of this blog is dilly-dally.

Dilly-Dally. What you're busy doing when you're not doing what you're supposed to. You just take your time whenever you feel like it, don't you? You let the begonias go thirsty in favor of humming to some song in your head that the rest of us just don't have the priviledge of hearing. It's fine; you sleep in. The rest of us will be out getting all the errands run and cows milked. You'd be here too, but you GOT DISTRACTED. That's cool! Dilly-dally all you want, little sloppy Sally!

Workhorse T-Shirt for Sale

Lovely American Apparel t-shirt with a design yours truly made to reference my one-woman show in progress. Pale blue women's long sleeve shown; can also be ordered for men. Women's M, L, XL (order a size up; i.e. an XL if you usually take an L) and Men's M, L, XL. $28. Also you are entered into a drawing to win a pony, or possibly a drawing of a pony.