i'm big in the uae ...

... and in russia, australia, italy, new zealand, germany, china and saudi arabia. okay, so really it's only new zealand where one person visited flipflopfed and stayed on for more than SIX minutes!

i know this because kristin was kind enough to install google analytics on my blog. it's an amazing tool! it tells me the general area from which my readers come (big ups to those of you in the district who visit, visit, and visit!), the average amount of time readers spend with the flipflopfed and a bunch of other things that i haven't quite figured out.

my favorite part is looking at the words people used in their search and how those words led them to the flipflopfed. for example, someone googling "lesbian with flip flop" and "crystal chappell" ended up learning that, just as i had suspected back in the '90s, carly is a lesbian. other people who googled "tinkle trousers" were able to share in my ongoing fight against cat pee (which, by the way, has nearly stopped with only the mere threat of tinkle trousers). and one of these people spent more than TWO minutes on the flipflopfed!

now don't you worry, the system is not sophisticated enough to tell me who's on and who's reading what content. so continue to enjoy your anonymity and i will continue to bask in the fact that there's one person in china that has the flipflopfed bug.

watching milk

watching milk right now. it truly drives home the point that i have it so much easier than those who came before me and that i owe the freedom and privledge to be who i am to those who fought so hard. most importantly, the story is challenging me to think about what i plan to do to smooth the path for those that follow.

never heard it expressed that way before

i had a follow-up doctor's appointment this morning and wasn't looking forward to it at all because: (1) while the doctor is a professional rock star, he has the personality of a rock - a rock being hurled at your head while you're looking the other way, that is; and (2) he caused me GREAT pain during my last visit with his stupid cortisone shot (although it did end up "fixing" my elbow).

anyway, he left open my chart when he stepped out to get my brace and that's when i read - "patient presents as a well developed, well nourished woman." isn't that such a nice way to say "fat!" i love this doctor!!

st. elizabeth's

i've been meaning to post about our trip to st. elizabeth's for quite some time. a few months back we took a tour of the the west campus which housed one of the first psychiatric facilities in the us. it was absolutely fascinating! the facility dates back to the civil war and, while half of it is mothballed and awaiting it's transformation into the new headquarters of the department of homeland security, the other half serves as the district psychiatric facility as well as a federal psychiatric detention facility (john hinckley lives there). it's also where they've filmed some movies, including "a few good men."

googling "st. elizabeth's west campus gsa" will give you some great links that tell the story of the hospital and you can check out all of our pictures here.

will the real barack obama please stand up

i am not ashamed to admit that i love having barack obama as my president. he’s proven himself to be leader that is at the same time articulate and colloquial, politic and humble. he’s even got a sense of humor. and i’ve always been drawn to that humor – until last night.

as you’ve probably heard, obama spent last evening talking policy and yuking it up with jay leno. topics ranged from the economy to the presidential dog – all pretty innocuous. then they started talking about sports and that’s when the president likened his bowling score to that of a person who participates in the special olympics. this exchanged turned out to be such a big deal that it has dominated the coverage of his appearance.

i find this to be REALLY troubling. just so there’s no confusion – the “this” is obama’s instantaneous response to make fun of people with disabilities. it’s so not a joke and it’s so not cool. i think that you can tell a lot about a person based on their gut reactions to a situation. it’s an uncensored, unprepared, and “unspun” response – it’s what’s going through their head and not what someone else has told them to say or what they think someone wants to hear.

now, i’m real clear that obama is just a man and bound to make mistakes (i say things that i regret on a daily basis), but i want consistency. if we truly are living in a post-racial, post-gender, post-sexual orientation … society then that society needs to include people with disabilities and the understanding that, as a valued member of your society, they can no longer be the punch line.

and, it’s not just obama. it’s leno and the audience that laughed, and the media, and even the special olympics, that have seemingly given him a pass. but i guess it’s not all that surprising – the media are still in their honeymoon phase and the kennedy’s run the special olympics.

some of the pundits said that the tonight show appearance will be the first and last for a sitting president because there are just too many opportunities for gaffes like the special olympics quip. that’s too bad. we need to see the relaxed, spontaneous, and, dare i say, real side of our leaders.

**the poster above is from a special olympics-headed new campaign to stop the use of the r-word. it's called "spread the word to stop the word." the effort is targeted towards teens (but don't we all know more than a few adults that would benefit) and launches on march 31. check it out at - www.r-word.org

who's next? henry book for librarian of congress?

barack obama has chosen peggy hamburg to head the food and drug administration. let the jokes begin!

she does have a point

out of the mouths of babes - a recent conversation between my cousin and her 7 year old daughter ...

7 year old: are becca and kristin married?

mom: not yet, but hopefully they'll invite us to their wedding.

7 year old: there's one thing that confuses me about that.

mom: what's that?

7 year old: who's the husband and who's the wife?

mom: maybe they're both wives.

7 year old: maybe they're both husbands.

mom: i guess, but i don't really see them as husbands.

7 year old: well, cousin becca DOES like to watch sports.

sucked in and coming out

one of the things that i absolutely love about kristin is her commitment to lesbian entertainment - no matter how bad the film, television show, story line. she keeps reminding me that it's important to support the genre because visibility matters. it matters that young gay kids see themselves reflected in the media - particularly those that feel completely isolated and unsupported. i smile, nod, and sleep through whatever it is she's making me watch. that was until guiding light illuminated my path. okay, so maybe i don't have a lot in common with a woman who's been married six times, has had a heart transplant and two pacemakers, has a daughter that's aged overnight, bribed government officials, been arrested for illegal stock transactions, hired a hit man to kill my daughter, or held a man hostage in my basement ... but i do know what it's like to feel the amazing awakening of being true to yourself. damn - i've been sucked by bad lesbian entertainment!!!!!

while i was thinking about how silly this all is, i remembered that another television storyline about a woman coming to terms with her feelings for another woman played a pretty significant role in the timing of my coming out. and that got me thinking about coming out and how really crazy the whole thing was. and that got me thinking that i've never written down my coming out story. and that got me thinking that memorializing that story is something i'd really like to do. and that got me thinking that a very public forum like the flipflop fed is the perfect place for such a personal story.

i think that i'm like a lot of gay people - i've known forever. and like a lot of gay people - it's something that i tried to hide from, run away from, ignore ... i did it for different reasons, but the main two were god and family. i was raised in an assemblies of god church and gay was the ultimate sin. i'm an only child and was convinced that my parents would disown me. in the end, i wasted many years worrying about those two things and in the end both god and my parents continue to love me. now that we've got the "deep" part of the story out of the way it's time to move on to the crazy, sitcom part of the story.

the times i wanted to come out, but, for whatever reason, didn't ...

#1: 11th grade - i was living in germany at the time and was having all of these crazy feelings. i don't think that i ever really made it to the brink of coming out, but it was a significant year and it started my pattern of running away whenever things got too close.

#2: senior year of college - i was living in dc and having all of these crazy feelings. the night before graduation, my aunt - while sitting on the steps of my home-away-from-home, the red lion, and seemingly out of the blue - said "you know if you're gay it's okay." i FLIPPED out. i remember stopping and looking down at myself wondering what about me at that moment made her say such a crazy thing! was it the way i was sitting? the way i was dressed? the way that EVERYTHING about me since the time i was little screamed L E S B I A N? i denied it to the end and soon ran away to ... san francisco.

#3: 1996 - i was living in oakland, ca in rockridge (to lesbians what the castro is to gay men) in a perfect lesbian life. the only problem was that i wasn't gay. now don't be confused. i was definitely gay, but was never willing to admit it (in fact, until i came out 5 years later i never even uttered the word "gay" in relation to me because i knew that once i said it out loud it would be true.). so one day in 1996 i decided that it was time to stop living a lie. for reasons that i won't write about here, it turned out that it just wasn't the time. i denied it, even though it was consuming me, and soon ran away ... down the street and around the bend. (okay, so it was fewer than 2 miles, but it was a VERY straight neighborhood!)

#4: 1998-1999 - i was living by myself and, again, had encircled myself with an incredible group of lesbians. in late 1998, i was up in tahoe with a friend for the weekend and i decided that THIS would be the weekend that i would act. there was a clear tension between us and (this part makes me seem like a complete cad) i decided that she would be perfect for a one shot deal. at breakfast on the morning that i was going to make my move, she leaned across the breakfast table and said ... "i can't be the person that you come out with." WTF!!!!! (see #1) i denied it to the end, immediately applied for grad school across the country and soon ran away to ... boston.

this brings us to november 9, 2001. i had been living in boston since 1999 and had created a nice little life for myself. of course, a strong group of lesbians played a huge role. everything was coming together. i began to realize that god didn't hate me and that, no matter how hard i prayed, these feelings were just not going away. that got me to thinking that i was probably praying for the wrong thing. it was also around that time that the kerry weaver story line was playing out on "er." and it was also around that time that i was going to turn 30 and i did not want to start another decade of my life living a lie. i decided that i needed to tell someone i was gay.

my plan was this -
1) before christmas - find a therapist and go for at least one session so that i could tell someone
2) have the perfect christmas with my family (never mind that my still-married and cohabitating parents hadn't spoken a word to each other since mid-1982)
3) tell my parents after the new year as not to ruin the holidays

what happened was -
1) November 8 - found a therapist and made an appointment

2) November 9 - made plans to go to the movies with my best friend. as i was headed to her house after work, and stuck in traffic, i decided to call my therapist mom and tell her that i had finally decided to go to therapy. so picture this - i'm stuck in traffic, top down, talking on the phone while driving and smoking a cigarette and my mom decides to press me on why i've finally decided to go to therapy. i explained to her that i already told her - void in my life, lots of loss, want to work through some things - to which she replied "you haven't told me a thing." to which i sarcastically replied "then why don't you tell me why i'm going to therapy." to which she matter-of-factly replied "you're going to therapy because you're gay." to which i hysterically replied "you're right." and then i lost the cell phone signal.

i made it to my friends house completely spent and bawling. she opened the door and asked with concern "what's wrong?" i FINALLY said "i'm gay." and she calmly said "i know."

the rest is a blur -i talked to my mom and dad (dad said it never occurred to him?!), told everyone i wanted to tell, skipped the movie and went to dinner. the funny thing about the november 9 date is that that's the day that, back in 1874, a group of women at colby college in waterville, me founded sigma kappa - the sorority to which i belonged in college. something tells me this is not the kind of "finding" that they had in mind!

3) november 10 - i had long standing plans to meet my dad in western mass for the day. we kept the plans and i was petrified! i stopped no fewer than 5 times on the way out there to throw up. i got myself together a few miles out, but then completely lost it when i saw my dad. it was clear that we weren't going to be able to follow through with our original plans and my dad suggested that we head to the local museum. (and this next part is such a trip that i couldn't have made it up if i tried.) it was the normal rockwell museum! no shit! the newly minted lesbo and her recovering alcoholic father who maintained a completely dysfunctional relationship with his wife for more than 30 years spent the day looking at pictures of archetypal american families!

we followed the museum with a great dinner; although i cried through the entire meal. finally it was time to leave. we were standing by the car and i was doing everything i could to avert my father's eyes. i kept crying and apologizing, apologizing and crying. during a pause, my dad put his finger under my chin and told me "hold your head up rebecca." we didn't say anything else before we left.

so there it is - after 29 years 11 months and 5 days of avoidance and unnecessary stress, it was over in two days ... and i wouldn't change one thing.

a night with nannaboo

nannaboo stopped by this evening for a visit and we learned the following things -

1) it's spelled N A N N A B O O

2) she's called nannaboo because her grandmother (nanna) always used to call her "boo" and when her grandmother died she combined the two and took it as her name

3) she's never seen a picture of herself as a girl and got really emotional when we were looking through the pictures. she kept saying "i'm really beautiful." it was very touching. (aside - we ordered some of the pictures and in the larger-than-life-style that is all her own, she ordered a 20x30 of her face!)

4) she wants to order all new boots for work for the summer. she's going to stop back later this week to pick her selections from here. it makes sense really - i mean where else could you order electric blue patent micro stilettos in size 14?

5) she locked herself out again this week. this time she told the fireman that her baby was sleeping in the apartment. of course, she doesn't have any children, but she keeps a life-sized doll tucked in her bed precisely for moments like these - no joke!

i knew it! carly's a lesbian

i'm going to have to take you back in time a little for this one. from 1990 to 1994 the flipflop fed graced the hallowed halls of george washington university. to be more accurate, the flipflop fed SHOULD have been gracing the hallowed halls of george washington university, but was instead happily lounging in her lazyboy taking in all of the classic moments of days of our lives. classic moments like this ...



i had such a crush on carly! couldn't get enough really. (now this crush was not public knowledge because those were the days of my life where the thought of admitting that i liked girls scared the shit out of me! those were the days of my life where my favorite way to pass a sunday afternoon was to sit in the student center playing that often forgotten, yet oh-so-beloved-closet case-internal homophobic game - queer not a queer. you know the one - you name a person and then the participants (who are just as much in the closet as you and who will all also eventually come out) try to determine if that person named is "queer" or "not a queer." oh the shear joy of it all!) so imagine my delight when, in a soap opera digest cover story on crystal chappell (the actress who played carly), i learned that she was from silver spring, md!

i loaded up my equally-addicted friends and we headed off to silver spring - never mind that the actress lived in los angeles at the time. we ended up at the silver spring fresh fields asking every middle aged woman we saw if she was the mother of crystal chappell. true story! (thank god that didn't ask how i used to spend my weekends in 1991-1992 during my security clearance!)

anyway ... today i was reading about the finale of the l word on after ellen when i came across a bit on the latest lesbian romance on day time. guiding light is currently exploring the pairing of olivia, the former home-wrecking, recent heart transplant recipient (who, interestingly does not have a scar. they must have put it in from the back), and natalia, the devout catholic mother of a young man in prison and a dead husband who donated his heart to olivia - the same man that olivia tried to steal away before his death (natalia locked her in the closet - how ironic - so she wouldn't interrupt the wedding).

i clicked on the youtube video and saw ...



damn! 17 years and one bad lip job too late!

(here's a nice summary of the story so far in case you want to know about the pacemaker, the two mommies class presentation, the bad hedge fund investments, the visions of the dead heart donor that turn out to be caused by a brain clot ...)

kristin is up for cat adoption

faithful readers of the flipflop fed are well aware of my war against cat pee - special litter, twin cat trees, extra litter boxes. some time last week it all started to gel and we had three full days with no inappropriate urination. but on the fourth day ... PEE!

i thought and thought trying to determine what had changed - still using the special litter, twin cat trees being fully utilized, and the extra litter boxes filled on a rotational basis as always. what was it, what was it? and then just like an annoying diner jumping the line at food-by-the-pound, it flashed in front of me ...

KRISTIN

kristin not home=no pee

kristin home=pee, pee, and more pee

therefore, kristin will be up for adoption this sunday at chateau animaux on 8th street se. she doesn't shed and will come with all of her shots and toys.

taking on the wanna be gangsta

this weekend was amazing - 70 degree days, low humidity, a little bit of sun, and neighbors out and about! we took advantage of the conditions and headed out in the yard for all of saturday. between cutting back savannah grass and washing the porch, a little neighbor boy stopped in front of our house to inform me that his "brother" called me humpty dumpty and a fat bitch. (of course, he took great joy in conveying this message and repeated it about 10 times.)

this "family" has a lot of challenges - about 7 unrelated adults and six children living together in a dilapidated house. first the adults - the "father" graces the pages of the district sex offender registry, the "mother" is a paranoid schizophrenic alcoholic, the three older "brothers" are all products of the dcps special education system and two of them think they're bad boys, and the older "sister," (who is currently dating TWO of the older brothers - one of whom may have fathered her most recently born baby) also a product of dcps special education and the mother of 4 children under the age of six. now the kids (all known to child and family services) - a thirteen year old girl who recently set her head on fire while trying to scorch the end of her braids and who may or may not be "talking to" one of the older "brothers," the 11 year old boy on the autism spectrum (and the conveyor of the message), a 8 year old girl who rarely bathes and just wants to be loved, and three baby boys (4, 3, and new born) who are NEVER supervised.

writing all of this just made me very depressed and now makes the end of the story not so important, and not at all funny. the short story is i went to talk to the wanna be gangsta and informed him that i am not-in-fact an egg and, while i'm definitely fat, he's not allowed to call me a bitch until he gets to know me.

the end

my favorite picture

evidence of the good

in my previous post i talked about the dangers of irresponsible reporting. reading the article on which my post was based motivated me to search for all that is good in southeast/northeast east of the anacostia river. in doing so, i came across some blogs that celebrate and promote all that is right with our neighborhoods -

river east idealist
congress heights on the rise
and now, anacostia

(truth is - i've been a fan of and now, anacostia since back in april 2008 when i was linked in their blog!)

i guess my point to all of this is - don't take the news as gospel and don't judge until your do your research. better yet, go and experience [insert event, area, activity] for yourself.

the nameless, the faceless

today's papers dedicated A LOT of print to this season's first real snow storm - 4-12 inches that delayed the feds and closed the schools; all but the district of columbia public schools, that is. parent's were pissed and the pundits speculated as to the extent of the obama factor on the mayor's and chancellor's decision to keep open the district's schools.

i guess this was news worthy, but my eyes were drawn to this article in the post. the article focuses on the increased murder rate in certain neighborhoods in ward 8 and the 7th police district. the interesting part of this news article was that there was really no news. it was more like a quasi-journalistic litany of dangerous stereotypes - southeast, east of the anacostia river, open air drug markets, murder, overworked, under-prepared police, poorest neighborhoods in the city, blah, blah, blah, blah ... not one victim's name, not one specific location, no real attempt to provide information regarding any of the 11 murders - all the stuff to keep you scared, and keep you away.

the stories that need to be reported are that:

1) these 11 victims are human beings with families and friends and are just as valuable as those victims who die on the other side of the river - the side where your name ends up in the paper and your story is told ... the side of the river where people read stories in the paper about 11 murders in fewer than 60 days and then hold protests and insist on increased patrols, intervention and protection; and

2) the communities of northeast and southeast dc east of the anacostia river are strong, vibrant, and established communities with people from all walks of life - including those who, just like their counterparts in all other wards and quadrants of the city, make choices that are not the best for them or for their communities.

no lesbians in lucketts

told you! the washington times played it straight.