Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I had drinks with college chum H last night and told her pretty much everything I could remember about my life since I'd seen her last, which was right after surgery three-and-a-third years ago. And you know what? I didn't realize just how awesome that time has been. I mean, I knew good things had happened, but telling all those stories brought it home to me how good it is to feel young when you're not young. I guess dating and work shenanigans had been bringing me down enough lately to need that uplift. Resolved: make the next three-and-a-third years worthy of more stories for H.

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Oh yeah: I'm back home from the conference. Did I learn anything? Yes. Was it worth StartupCo's money or my time? Not in my estimation. I've gained a new appreciation for E, the woman who does my employer's analogous conference and does a much better job of vetting the content.

E, by the way, is another queer woman, as were a surprisingly high proportion of the women at this week's conference. Yes, we all know women are underrepresented in the tech industry, but are relatively many of those few women dykes? And if so, why? The tech industry has at least historically been more tolerant of queers than most, though brogrammers may be changing that. Or is it that queer women are more likely to say a mental "fuck you" to the meme that tech is for boys because they say that to all memes that X is for boys for some X? If it's the latter, I pity straight women, and not for the first time.

Since this weekend was a kid weekend, complete with Red Mill and Cosmos, I could only go to the Seattle Erotic Art Festival while he was at work on Saturday afternoon. Getting from Kirkland to the Seattle Center & back was hellacious due to the 520 bridge closure and construction on Queen Anne Ave., but our heroine prevailed.

My attachment to my favorite pieces wasn't as strong this year as in previous years, but I did have a couple:

David Steinberg - Dammit, I didn't write down the title and I only remember it as X and Y where X and Y are a man's and a woman's names. It's black & white photo where a nude man is doing something to a nude woman's navel - you can't see what because his hand's in the way - and she's laughing with her mouth wide open. It's a wonderfully immediate portrait, and it could only happen in a photograph.

Héctor Pineda - The Exorcism of the Heart [rest of crazy long title omitted]. This is a digital montage of a woman suspended from a burning branch in the twilight, meter-long flexible thingies protruding from between her breasts, what looks like a fire kettle in the distance, heavenly bodies, and geometrical diagrams against the stars. It reminded me of Mexican religious art, if Mexican religious art were made by a kinkster with a computer. This was the one I came back to the most.

Honorable mention: Bronwyn Dexter is a friend of Foxy, former mayor of Camp Beaverton. After pestering the docents a couple of times I found her work, and it did have a nice visual pun: a print of a woman masturbating with enough fingers to send me to the hospital (no vaginal muscles here), printed on a sewing pattern piece for a sleeve. Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

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This weekend I've been wearing my hankerchief-hemmed dress, which sheistheweather helped me find at a thrift store years ago, with some new sandals. They're part sandal, part boot, all black and all me. I've gotten quite a reaction from them. While I was waiting to walk across Aurora, some dude in a pickup threw me the horns. I'd... never received the horns before. Then as I was walking into zappy, conversing with Ms. Zappy, two guys in a red, pimped-out SUV take a detour through the near-empty parking lot to talk at me. I didn't catch much of what they were saying - speed, distance, distraction - but apparently they seemed to think I owed them some attention. They didn't get it from me, mainly because I was already occupied. I don't know where they came from, and I didn't bother to watch which way they went. I was mighty glad when Ms. Zappy escorted my to the Sanctimobile after we were done.

Especially in light of recent events, this attention from men was... not enjoyable. I'm 46, I don't exactly have a figure to die for, and I'm not about to put myself in the middle of a het meat market. But a short skirt (or at least a skirt that looks short on a tall woman like me) and tall sandals worn in public are guaranteed get you the job of gratifying men's egos. I don't want that job, and I won't accept it.

I didn't mind when the queerish-looking woman in the Green Lake PCC complimented me on my outfit because - wait for it - she didn't radiate a creepy sense of entitlement. In fact, my first thought was, 'Oh no! My skirt's caught in my underwear again!' My son had already saved me from that once this weekend.

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Speaking of zappy, I have been declared as clear as I can be for now. I can still see a handful of hairs, but they're not long for this world. On to my chest! Wait. That doesn't quite sound right.