January 2009

Our email was ghosted awhile back and now we're getting fifty emails a day from South America and the Caribbean trying to sell us Viagra. Apparently, there's no way to stop the perpetrators short of blowing up their data base, as if we knew how, and that's illegal, for those who do. It's not illegal, however to junk our email and continue to send us a mind numbing list of bad subject heads.

This week's roster of emails began benignly enough with sentences like: "Hey, lost your number." Or "Your order is in" and quickly progressed to "Make her the happiest girl in the world" and "Always wanted to go in deeper?" Yesterday it escalated to "She likes it hard from behind" and "She wants your 10 inch dick."

Okay, we've now reached TMPI...Too Much Penal Information. TMPI is popping up everywhere.

By now you've read that the automotive bail-out includes seventeen million dollars a year for Viagra prescriptions for GM workers. Is that a medical problem or a perk? And is this penal dysfunction a problem for other automotive companies or just GM? What in the world could cause it? Didn't they stop making the Oldsmobile?

Today, I told Austin I was going to locate some tack for my new horse, specifically a new dressage girth. I Googled "16 inch dressage girths" and guess what "came up." Down in the body of the search, penal girth. "What is the girth of your penis?" the paragraph inquired of me. Along with that rather personal question a suggestion on how to measure  penal girth. The writer suggested taking an empty toilet paper roll and putting it on your penis. If it wouldn't fit, then you were a six inch girth. Really?  And if it does fit, you're a five inch girth but you have the added excitement of being able to walk around the house with the favorite part of your anatomy stuck in a cardboard tube. "Hi honey, want a roll in the hay?"

One study claims the average penis when tucked away for the day is about 3.5 inches and when looking for action about five. When men aren't talking about their penises, or measuring them, they're deciding if they should go for surgical enhancement. (OUCH, that's gotta hurt.)

Researchers claim the length of a woman's fingers and the ratio of certain of her fingers to one another can predict whether she'll be good at sports or gay. (Same thing, we're thinking.) Despite this information, we don't see a lot of women running around measuring their finger length or buying extra long gloves and stuffing them with cotton.

So what's up with all this focus on penises?? Let's put it in perspective. The blue whale has an eight foot penis and he can bend it! There's a crustacean (crablike guy) whose penis is forty times longer than its body so it can interfecundate. (Who wouldn't want to do that?)

So five inches? In women's gloves...it's a large.

Federalized Females. Washington Women.

October 9th, 2008

We missed our September posting due to mulling over the election. We now have the solution. The 2008 ticket should be Clinton Palin.

Clinton beat Obama and, like a lot of women, got cheated out of what was rightfully hers. Obama could have kissed her, but he dissed her. Because when it comes right down to it, boys like hanging with boys. In addition, black is in and white is out, but not nearly as far out as women of any color: red, yellow, black, white.

People smile and nod and say that a woman will be in the White House in 2012. After all, it took us about 144 years to get the vote and before we got it, women were beaten, murdered and jailed for their efforts, so hey, if a black man is president, we women must be next, right?

We would like to believe that, but we're fully aware the odds are against women in 2012 due to the possibility of alien visits from Mars. Men (and yes, some women) will vote a Martian into office, over any woman on earth, provided they can verify that the Martian is male...or seen as male on his planet...or simply has something analogous to a penis. Come on, Men are from Mars. 

Meanwhile here in 08, Palin is getting better press than McCain and she's wearing her soccer-mom-self out being the battery for his campaign pace-maker. We merely suggest if Palin's going to have to throw off that much heat why not do it under Hillary. What a wonderful opportunity to have Palin's perky edges filed off and put a big grin on Hillary's face. We see their eight year run as the wild and crazy Lez-government years.

August 31st, 2008 From the Writers

Don't phone information. They're no longer giving any. Information is now comprised of people living thousands of miles away from us...in India. There's absolutely nothing wrong with India or the folks living there. In fact we love India's food and clothing and their people's sweet personalities. But this isn't the Olympics or the United Nations; it's our town and we just don't want to talk to people from India when we need the number of our local pizza parlor.

When I dial 411, a nice young woman from Delhi answers and tells me her name is Heather, when we both know it's not. (Her employer bought her identity and sent her to school like Liza Doolittle to teach her to ask me with only a hint of an accent if she can help me.)

Would Mrs. Bijapurkar in Mumbai want help from us, Andrews & Austin, in Oklahoma when she's looking for her local market? We can assure you she wouldn’t. And what if I, Andrews, told her my name is Khushboo? Do you think she'd buy that for one minute? And yet, I'm supposed to be okay with Heather.

When I ask "Heather" for the phone number of the First National Bank of Oklahoma, things go pretty well. Disassembled, the words “First,” “National,” and “Bank” all make sense to her. But try asking her for the number of the Pooch Masseuse and India-information will dry up faster than a martini in the Mojave.

The word “pooch” is a non-starter. "Heather" will inevitably ask that the word be repeated a couple of times. Finally, like someone having trouble with the crossword puzzle, she skips the word and moves on to the next: “masseuse.” That of course leads her back to “pooch” and she can't connect the two. The combination is unheard of in India. Why would you massage a dog? Then a really weird thing happens: Heather starts over. She asks what state and city I live in, as if that will shed light on the strange word combo. This is the point where I usually mutter obscenities and Austin tells me to shut up and hang up. 

Customer Service people in India are trained to believe that Americans under pressure behave like teenagers. We shout and curse and disobey authority figures, so in India phone answerers are trained to counter our insane behavior by becoming calm and parental. Heather says something like, "Ma'am, I am only trying to help you." That of course makes me madder because God knows she can't help me because she can't speak in the common vernacular of my home state. I am held captive, outsourcied by a corporate giant whose gnat-brained CFO thought parceling out my local pooch-parlor number to Pakistan was a great idea.

"What city are you in?" Heather asks calmly. I pull out my iphone and, despite the waning battery, begin surfing the Internet for the phone number as I tell Heather I live in Tahlequah-—a city in Oklahoma that an American Indian would know in a drumbeat. Heather asks me to spell that and I hang up. Austin shakes her head and inquires about my sanity in continuing to call information for information. Information by phone is dead, she tells me. The information highway has taken a detour through India and ended up in the land of Google. We are all Googling phone numbers to avoid talking to Heather. And the sooner I get that, the sooner I will stop annoying poor Heather and seek information in less combative ways, which will leave me more time to talk to Kevin of Kanpur about fixing my computer. 

July 19th, 2008   From the Writers

We’ve had it with every male butt-crack in the county. “Full moon,” Austin says, explaining how we ended up in repair hell. In a twenty-four-hour period our aerobic system gave out, so toilets and showers backed up; the new Kubota lawn tractor overheated and operated like a tiller chipping up the front lawn and destroying the sod; and the living-room ceiling caved in—drywall cracking, nails bulging, possibly beams twisting.

In every instance the company involved assigned a man to fix the problem. But men don’t like to fix things. To facilitate that abhorrence, they don’t return calls. Or they do call and, without looking at the problem, assure you there’s nothing wrong. Or they show up to acknowledge the possibility of a problem but say, “It’s minor.” Minor includes toilets that barely flush, acres of destroyed sod, and collapsing ceilings. “Just needs a little adjustment,” they say, casually scratching various parts of their anatomy. Problems obviously make them itch.

It’s ironic that 90% of what needs repairing in the world is built by men, and even more surprising that men are sent to repair it. (If they built it wrong in the first place, why would we ever want them touching it after that?) Besides, men aren’t builders. They’re genetically predisposed to be destroyers—conquer, kill, command. Fix the ice maker—not so much. Ask any guy you know if he’d rather work on a construction crew to carefully build a lovely home or ride a wrecking ball and smash an existing home to the ground. Bring on the ball, beer, and broads. (Okay, maybe we’re jealous).

Most items, if a woman designed them, wouldn’t exist in their current form. What woman would say, “I have an idea, let’s build a tank, dump human poop into it, have a little mechanism in there that purifies the poop, and then let’s spray the resulting liquid all over the ground every night while people are asleep.” Spray purified shit around on the lawn while people are sleeping? We don’t know a woman who would spend one minute contemplating that idea, much less suggest it out loud.

Then there’s the big orange Kubota lawn tractor turned tiller-the-Hun, with blades the size of a prop plane, that chops up the front lawn like a tossed salad, leaving dead brown patches where green grass used to grow. The tractor’s brand-new mower blades are set wrong, the wheels are off balance, and the vehicle overheats. The vehicle turns so swiftly and suddenly that it requires a seatbelt to help you avoid being spun down and ejected like DNA in a centrifuge. No woman would design a lawnmower that overheats after only two weeks, takes corners like a NASCAR, and throws you off unless you’re wearing a body harness! Lawnmower, not a rocket launcher, guys.

As far as the ceilings caving in, I can only say that the men who did the original drywall construction had meth teeth and were a day late because it was “possum-hunting season.” I don’t know a woman who possum hunts or is ever late for work due to it. 

When the construction-crew boss came out to survey the cracking, sagging ceiling, he said he’d never seen anything like it, but he was sure it wouldn’t get any worse. When I asked what caused it, he said he didn’t know.

“Then how do you know it won’t get worse?” Austin snapped.

“It just won’t,” he replied.

And that’s another difference between men and women. Men will adamantly state completely unfounded and totally ridiculous remarks without ever doubting their own sanity.

We’re meeting a factory rep for the tractor, a structural engineer for the ceiling, and an aerator expert for the aerobic system—the men who not only don’t want to fix things, but don’t want their companies to pay to fix things. We’ve also called our insurance company and they’ve assigned an adjustor named Bob…who told us over the phone he was sure the repairs will be...minor.

May 4, 2008 from the Writers

One of the most challenging aspects of writing is the quest to develop a distinctive style.   For years we’ve asked ourselves how we could ever learn to write in a way that was recognizable by readers and reviewers as uniquely us.  It’s a goal we have yet to attain but one with which we dance to near to exhaustion.

Just as bejeweled tuxedos evoke Liberace and a painting of a man with a phone coming out of his head is embraced as quintessential Picasso, excerpts from legendary authors’ novels contain phrasing, humor, or insight that is unquestionably theirs. If read aloud, the passage would be recognizable as that author’s work apart from any knowledge of the book title or the author’s name. Sort of the literary version of a blind taste test and you could pick Coke over Pepsi by just sipping it—no labels allowed.

In those moments, when we personally allow ourselves to dream, we envision a posh gathering of great-looking, erudite women discussing lesbian fiction over fine wine. An attractive dyke quotes a line from a book and says, “Isn’t that great?” And her svelte friend stops laughing long enough to say, “Has to be Andrews & Austin. I read everything they write.” OKAY, OKAY, we said it was a dream. But it’s what keeps us on-quest. 

Why do we think style is so important? Maybe because at any given moment, more than a million books are in print. The reader has endless choices that go beyond the printed word and none of us has unlimited marketing dollars to direct them to us. We depend on our readers getting hooked on our stories or perhaps even on our personal lives. But if the reader loves our style, she’ll take a chance on us if we switch genres or begin a new series or maybe even if we haven’t yet appeared for a book signing at her local Borders. Style is comforting to the reader—it says she’s in familiar hands that have always pleased her. And how delightful is that?

I remember as a young reader seeking out Armistead Maupin and Joan Didion because their writing style stood out for me as smart and clever. I craved more of it. Clearly I knew no lesbian authors. Austin sites a childhood of Edgar Allen Poe, screwing up her face as she does so, saying his stories and particularly his style haunted her.
 
So how do we find our own style? For us, it begins with fearlessness.  We strive to develop the courage to stop using our intellect to suppress our inner voice.  We used to edit ourselves before anyone else got the chance because it would be less embarrassing or uncomfortable that way.  Relegating ourselves to writing what we knew was acceptable.  We force ourselves to focus attention and discipline on how we express what the inner voice wants to communicate—cherishing the art of language and the craft of phrasing.  Sometimes we’re good at it and sometimes we fall short.
 
Pursuit of a personal writing style is an unfinished journey. And perhaps an unnecessary trip, some authors might say—style taking a back seat to merely telling a great story. In fact, there are days we would happily settle for a captivating tale. 
 
But what fuels our quest for a distinctive style is the thought that authors who write with one seem to outlast those who merely write. Style is an elevating grace. While we should celebrate all lesbian story telling, each of us working toward a distinct lesbian voice may encourage straight and lesbian women to get excited about lesbian clit-erature and perhaps, even better, be transformed by lesbian literature.

May 31, 2008 from the Writers

I never used to think about Viagra. Now I think about it all the time, because Austin and I get more e-mail from Viagra than we do from friends, fans, and family. Viagra even managed to “ghost” our e-mail address, so we’re unintentionally sending Viagra e-mails to ourselves—the ultimate “low blow.” 

As far as we can tell, all the people who need Viagra know about it by now. They also know that Viagra makes you see blue and your dipstick could remain erect for four hours. (Longer than four hours and you should see a doctor…and perhaps wear a lampshade to the appointment so you don’t startle the receptionist.)

Clicking the “unsubscribe” button on the Viagra e-mails (as if we subscribed in the first place) takes us to a page that says something is wrong with our Internet connection. True. It’s flooded with flipping Viagra ads! The little blue pill apparently can’t be deleted, along with the erection it produces. When we finally did get the “unsubscribe” button to take us to a location, it was an online pharmacy offering more Viagra. Our Internet connection is apparently just an Internet erection.

A marketer as sophisticated as Viagra must know they’re sending their Viagra e-mails to us women. Viagra for women does exist but we’re getting the Viagra-for-men ads. And since we get a dozen e-mails a day from Viagra we’re forced to ask: How much Viagra does a guy need? And if he needs it that often, shouldn’t he search for another solution? A monastery, perhaps. Can a man’s liver tolerate a daily dose of male-dysfunction pills? Isn’t it risky allowing a pill to launch one’s gonads at high noon, hoping the joystick doesn’t get stuck and land a guy in the call-if-the-erection-lasts-more-than-four-hours (or your coworkers complain) category? And further, do we really want to remember Bob Dole like that?

In today’s Viagra e-mails, Austin received an 8 a.m. offer of 73% off Viagra and then an 11 a.m. offer of 86% off Viagra. She thinks it should be the other way around. Eight a.m. is too early to be thinking about Viagra, so if she were a guy, she’d pass on the 73% discount. But for a nooner, she’d be willing to pay more, and therefore she thinks offering an 86% markdown is leaving money on the table. And by nightfall, she’d pay full price. Supply and demand, she says with a smirk. 

She also thinks it’s kind of odd that the “86%-off Viagra” e-mail also offered to sell her some great-looking Gucci stiletto heels. I’m unclear on that Viagra cross-promotion. Would a hetero woman wearing Gucci heels help the Viagra work faster? What if the guy started thinking about the woman in Gucci spikes walking up and down his back and didn’t even need the Viagra? A Viagra marketer’s nightmare.

The most annoying part of this entire advertising experience is that the advertising cycle can never be completed. You know the five steps. First, consumers must be aware your product exists, then comprehend what it offers, what benefit it would be to them, develop a desire for it, and finally they must purchase it. Awareness, comprehension, benefit, desire, purchase. We’re lesbians, Viagra. You can’t get us beyond comprehension to the Viagra benefit no matter how many times you e-mail us. The benefit is being a lesbian. For years, lesbians have been using what God gave them to great satisfaction. But pills—not so much.

We do think the pill-thing is fitting for men, however. Because for years, guys had all the fun while it was up to the straight gals to suffer water retention, mood swings, health risks, and take the pill before they partied. Now guys have to take the pill or the party’s cancelled. 

Meanwhile for us lesbians, party on! And if you know how to stop Viagra e-mails, let us know. Otherwise Viagra will just…keep it up.

May 12, 2008 from the Writers

Not to sound like Andy Rooney, but we don’t like an election year. Aside from the annoying ads and right-wing press coverage, it distances us from our friends.

It happened to us when Bush ran for President. We couldn’t understand why perfectly sensible, educated people couldn’t “see through the bushes” and into the future, which would obviously culminate in five-dollar-a-gallon gas and a middle-class mortgage meltdown.

Eight years ago, we were cc:ed on emails from friends touting Republican superiority and the stupidity of Democrats. We were drawn into what we thought was an intellectual debate. We could have said simply we didn’t think Bush had the charisma of Reagan or the foreign policy savvy of Nixon, or even the intelligence of Al Gore, but instead we said things like, “Dubya doesn’t have two synapses to rub together.”  “The Dixie chicks are political psychics.” That’s when we lost all our Republican friends. They attacked us as if we were Baghdad. We got a call from the son-in-law of one friend telling us to stop arguing with his mother-in-law. Since they hated each other, we considered ourselves a familial uniting factor.

Eight years later, these same friends have begun emailing us again, telling us they’re disgusted with Bush. Railing on about how they’ve been bushwhacked—behaving as if someone else elected him—aliens, foreigners, perhaps, people they’ve never met. We refrain from shouting, “He’s no different today than when you elected him. The only difference is you woke up, Trip Van Wrinkle!” Clearly election years thin our friends.

So now here we are again. Obama-Clinton-McCain. Already half our friends aren’t speaking to us. We could make polite statements, obtuse comments, politically correct conversation about the election, but for the moment, it’s still a free country, so here’s our take on the situation.

Check out the “before” picture of any healthy, handsome president on Inauguration Day. Then compare it to the way he looks eight years later. Generally his hair in the “after” pictures will look like he rode through a blizzard and the wrinkles on his face like the treasure map in Indiana Jones. It’s a job that sucks the youth right out of you. Beware, McCain. He served our country honorably and suffered unspeakable indignities. We just wonder if he’s physically up to the task.

Obama could use a little gray and some wrinkles to give us comfort that he’s wise enough to know how to translate idealism into intelligent, practical action. We also suffer from that little parental voice in our heads that says you’re judged by the company you keep. We confess we’re among those people who don’t like his friends and don’t want him mentored by America- bashing reverends with Middle-Eastern leanings.

That leaves Hillary. (Doesn’t everyone leave Hillary, from Bill to the Super delegates?) Hillary simply was born with the wrong anatomy to win an election handily.

A male friend of mine said only last week, “Hillary Clinton is the lowest life form on the planet.”  When I asked him to elaborate, he said she’d had a man killed while she was First Lady. (He was unclear on exactly who or how.) When I shrugged and said perhaps his accusations were possible, his eyes bugged out.

“Lyndon Johnson was rumored to have killed Kennedy.  Kennedy was rumored to have killed Marilyn Monroe. I guess the fact that Hillary is rumored to have killed someone simply proves she’s on par with the men as Democratic presidential material.” I grinned mischievously but my friend never cracked a smile.  As we continued to debate, it was clear he was searching for any reason in the world to avoid voting for a woman. As the country singer opined, “Don’t taaake the girl.”

While on the surface this election is about the war, the economy, gas prices, subprime crashes and all the rest, underneath it’s still about black versus white and male versus female. This is mainly because, as it relates to the issues, most of us over forty don’t believe any of the candidates (regardless of race, creed, color, or gender) is really going to fix everything that needs fixing so we start asking ourselves whose face we like better. He’s cuter, she’s smarter, he’s a POW.  

Things were simpler thirty years ago. Our dads, like every man alive back then, loved John Wayne. A man’s man. A hero. A guy men applauded when he said, “Now you listen here, Little Lady.” If a John Wayne look-alike had run for president, the only platform he’d have needed was the one on his shoes. Every guy in America would have voted for him. Ronald Reagan got elected because he was the next best thing. He epitomized the hero in a Hollywood western and he looked good on a horse.

So how did Bush get elected—a lesser cowboy from Crawford? America liked him. He convinced people he was a great fellow, a regular guy. He admitted he screwed up a lot, couldn’t get words right, forgot the names of world leaders, and laughed at himself…just like us.

People forgot that leaders shouldn’t be just like the people they lead; otherwise we’re being led by one of the followers. When we elected Bush, we agreed to be led by a follower—a guy who’s followed his daddy’s friends.

So here we sit unable to sort out the election but only learn from it. For us, the whole crazy process is just a heads up for lesbians. When groups fight among themselves, they help the opposition. (We lesbians ought to say that out loud three times.) That’s why we believe all lesbians should be in favor of every gay and lesbian event that remotely promotes us in a way that makes us proud.

If you doubt that, look at the presidential primary vote. Ninety-two percent of African American voters in North Carolina cast their ballot in solidarity for Obama. Oprah Winfrey stood tall for black over female despite knowing she would suffer in the ratings from her female audience. If we lesbians were as united as proud African Americans or even gender-terrorized white males, we would be a political force. That’s what this election teaches the two of us.

And also that, fortunately, our friends have short memories and it’s likely they’ll talk to us again around 2010. 
     

May 4, 2008 from the Writers

Yesterday, Eight Belles ran the Kentucky Derby and came in second, outrunning a field of eighteen stallions, only to break her front legs and have to be euthanized on the track. 
 
For horse lovers and someone born in the Blue Grass State, Saturday was a dark day for me. I was characteristically pissed off at the men who ran her against a field of bigger male horses. And that as she lay dying, fat sweaty guys were slapping each other’s backs and popping champagne corks without so much as a moment of silence for the little filly that ran her heart out. I hated it that she gave her all, won and then had to die without enjoying her victory. The symbolism was overpowering for me. 
 
I told Austin the only saving grace was that she wouldn’t be injected with hormones every year to enable her to breed constantly and throw colts and fillies they could sell for half a million apiece. 
 
To be a winning mare is different than being a winning stallion—the latter are bred about 150 times in a season and get to walk away exhausted but happy not having to be pregnant their entire lives.  Needless to say, my outlook was dark and bleak and there was no consoling me.
 
Austin was equally upset but took a much different view. “Eight is other people’s money and the house of death so I wouldn’t have named her Eight Belles.”
 
“So she would be Nine Belles in your book?”  
 
“Nine is a celestial number.  Spiritual, higher learning, other-worldly. She’s Nine Belles now.”