I’m not sure why, but lately I have been obsessing over finding a snappy label for the particular subculture of dykes that I joined when I came out. If I’d been born in another era, I could have been a monocle-wearing mannish lesbian in 1920s Paris, or a high femme with a hard-living butch lover in 1950s America. Or even a radical lesbian separatist clearing land for a commune in the 1970s. But instead, I came out in 1993 in Vancouver. Nothing against the time or the place or the people–it’s just that I find it hard to describe my particular scene in a few potent words.
News
Finding Comfort in the Sun, Xtra West #356, April 11, 2007
Last December my generous, queer-positive Dad offered to take my girlfriend and me on a tropical holiday for spring break. Of course we said yes–we’d had a crappy, rainy fall and we couldn’t afford to pay for a trip like that ourselves. More…
Maui Sketchbook Part III
We drove up to the top of Haleakala, a volcano, where the tourists were odd. Mr Black Socks at the bottom was at the lookout over Hookipa.
On our last day we went to ritzy Kaanapali.
Maui Sketchbook Part II
There were a lot of bikers around Kihei, where we stayed. They mingled peacefully with the old people and babies on the beach.
Maui Sketchbook Part I
These are super rough sketches I did on the beach in Maui in March.
This is me in my snorkel gear.
This is my dad, who treated us to the trip. He is wearing zinc cream on his nose. This is called “gooky” in our family–all sunscreen or suntan lotion (in the old days of ozone) is called gooky.
At our favourite beach, Ulua, we saw a little girl who wanted to go back to New York and an old lady who was having the time of her life.
The Vulva Rant, Xtra West #354, March 15, 2007
I’ve always suspected that the Vagina Monologues would piss me off. But when a local women’s centre put on the Monologues as a fundraiser, I decided I should go and see if my suspicions were justified. Sure enough, supporting a good cause turned out to be pretty much the only enjoyable aspect of my theatre experience…. Vulva refers to the external genitalia-the labia, the clitoris, the vaginal introitus, and to things like the fourchette, fossa and frenulum, which I confess I didn’t even know about before researching this column. So you’d think Ensler might have used that v-word instead. More…
Waiting for a Cab
I had so much time to draw this morning! Thank you, Yellow Cab.
Creature with a Long Nose
This morning while I waited for a taxi I started drawing this elephanty creature…
This is how it looked when it was young (sorry about the cut up scrap paper):
Sick Sense of Humour: Review of Jokes and the Unconscious, Xtra West #353, March 1, 2007
Jokes and the Unconscious dazzled me from the very first page. This brilliant graphic novel by performance poet Daphne Gottlieb and artist Diane DiMassa blazes through death and sex with compassion, honesty and a perfectly sick sense of humour. Oh, and did I mention it’s hot, too?More…
Small Dog Haiku in the Spring Issue of Modern Dog!
Pick up the Spring issue of Modern Dog Magazine to see three of my small dog haiku comics. See all six of them here.
