Gay rodeo! And navel gazing!

Last weekend I went with Q to the gay rodeo!

I totally hotlinked this image, but if you click the image and scroll down you can BUY THIS SHIRT.

It was truly awesome. I was the camera bitch, and Q and her two friends, J and J (not that this is going to get confusing) rode bulls. Actually, J rode one bull but cracked her skull on the ground (poor J!) and J did shoot dogging with steers. I took pictures of all three of them, and video, too, and made friends with all the other gays there AND EVERYONE ASSUMED I WAS GAY. I didn’t have to come out once! Woo hoo! It’s a nice break. 😀 Also, I took my dogs and they were THE BEST DOGS EVER. I love my dogs.

Aren’t they cute? (See photo. Somehow, I can’t get the two to be side by side. :()  I gave them bully sticks to chew on. Made out of bull tendon. I thought it was appropriate. People ride bulls – bulls win – dogs ultimately win by EATING BULLS. (Every time I take my dogs somewhere like this, I have to laugh. I have a pit bull and a 116 pound shepherd. Even my dogs are butch. *amused* At least until people get to know them…)

I also was able to talk to a lot of the other people watching, and that was fun. 😀 Now I get to navigate trying to make friends without giving a too-interested impression. Hmm.

Anyway, did I mention Q rode a bull? Three of them, in fact! But concussion-J got the video of the two last rides, so I only got the first one, which she didn’t yet have practice at. 😦 Still, how many people can say they got on a bull in the first place, right? RIGHT! Check it out! 😀

I cut off too quick (my camera is a little twitchy) but you get the idea. (Her grin as she turned around was probably the best part, though! Of course, then I wouldn’t have been able to show you guys, ’cause she’d be identifiable, but still!) THEM’S BUTCH POINTS, RIGHT THERE.

Later Q was OMG sore, and I nearly killed myself laughing at all the bruises, road rash (bull rash?), whimpering noises, and limping around. I’m sweet like that. I come by it honestly: any time I came off a horse, it was met with laughter by the woman who taught me to ride. 😉 (But I also gave Q back and leg rubs and tiger balm and anything else I thought might help, so I win back some femme points. ;-D)

(Also, the road rash? FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS. Not because it was road rash, per se, but because she was so flabbergasted by it. Mwahahaha.)

I met a lot of cute butches and some fun femmes, and I found no one I was attracted to other than Q. It’s kinda sad, really. There’s one butch, S, who asked me if we were going to a local bar with them and who later (via facebook) invited me two stepping this week, and this is where I need to tread carefully. I’m not as good yet at reading flirt signals from other gays, and that’s a terrifying statement since I suck at reading them from straights, too.  In the few minutes I had a chance to talk to her, she seemed like a lot of fun. I wasn’t remotely romantically interested in her, but I could see hanging out and being buddies. I could use some more friends around here. (I have… two. Not counting Q, who is more-than-a-friend.)

New ground to tread on. I would say it’s annoying, having to re-learn all this stuff, but I never learned it very well in the first place, so… *shrugs*

Anyway, being surrounded by all these people (mostly butches, the occasional gay  man, and I think two femmes — though  one might have been straight, actually) NONE of whom I was attracted to made me think again about what I AM attracted to. I often say I feel like I steamroll people, and that’s sort of true. Except, really, if I see that I’m likely to steamroll someone I either stop hanging out with them or just don’t do it, depending on how much I like them. And most of the time, I tend to hang back and follow other peoples’ lead anyway. But… Well, take J, for example. J is butch, really adorable-rapidly-becoming-handsome, shy, intelligent. I like J. I’ve enjoyed hanging out with J. I kind of want to throw my arm over J’s shoulders and tell the world to back off, this is my buddy (or would be if I knew him better). I would never ever ever date J, because I would steamroll him. I don’t steamroll him, because I like him and I’m not a bitch, but if J and I were ever to hang out together, I have a hunch I’d end up taking the lead fairly consistently — something I’m fine with in a friendship, but not something I enjoy doing with someone I’m dating, and yet I’m more likely to do with someone I’m dating than with a friend.

But it’s more than that, too. I look at S, for instance, and I think — would I steamroll her? I don’t know. I don’t know her that well, I don’t get the impression she’s a pushover, but my gut reaction is “steamroll,” even though when I stop and think about it I’m not sure that’s true. There’s a type of person, a very laid-back type, that I can’t necessarily steamroll but that still falls into that category for me. I’m not sure I can explain it except by analogy. So, here we go!

When I think of myself, I think of birds and kites. Racing with the wind, swooping and diving here and there, rarely still, full of highs and lows, zipping from one interest to the next. Now, if I’m going to tie myself to someone — that is such a perfect phrase — that someone had better be able to (you ready for this?) keep me there. No, not keep up. Don’t get me wrong: I want someone who will go out and do things, who can keep up on a fitness level. But on energy levels, if you tie two birds (or two kites) together, they end up yanking each other all over. Neither ever gets a rest because the other is goading them on. They aren’t likely to fly together; more likely they’ll fly apart and get yanked back together, crashing hard. They might have a lot of fun twirling around, but they’re going to burn out.

Okay. So I don’t want another bird. But most people, I find, are a bit like flowers. Or bushes (thorny ones, if you’re butch and you prefer that. *grins*). If you tie a kite to a flower or a bush, that kite could very well get swept up in a strong, exciting wind and yank that poor little plant right out of the ground, dragging it along and bruising it in the process. You have to be very careful what you tie a kite to, and the bigger the kite gets the stronger the pull.

DK was like a tree. I could yank and yank and it didn’t pull her out of alignment. I could get swept up in the exciting windy things and I didn’t fly away. I might flutter around like a mad thing going, “Look at this! And this! And this! AND OMG THIS!” but I didn’t drag her over, and I always stayed nearby. I could bash into her and tangle in the branches and she didn’t bruise, didn’t fall over, just put me back out and away I went again.

S felt like a tree, too, but more like a newly rooted sapling. Maybe someday she’ll be an oak, or maybe she’ll always be a slender willowy tree, able to bend with the wind and not break, changing as she needs to — but still something I could yank out of the ground if I got too caught up.

I have never dated anyone who wasn’t some form of energetic tree or rock, and a solid one at that. Q is new for me: occasionally I tell people she’s a lot like me, and it’s a little weird. It is a little weird, because she doesn’t have that tree/rock quality. She’s higher energy. I don’t feel like two birds tied together — unless it’s more like tying up a sparrow and a hawk (and hoping one doesn’t eat the other. Oh wait, we’re gay! Just pretend like it’s a pun, then. :D). She feels more solid than I do to myself, less with the fluttering and dashing and more with the single-direction-moving. Racing leaps and stops, and while she stops I go back to fluttering around. And yet, there’s that same quality — that I can flutter and race and dash, and I’m not going to knock her over nor am I going to drag her along unless she chooses to be dragged. Hmm. It’s just, she moves, too. Odd. I don’t know what to make of it.

Anyway, back to people. So I was leaning against the car with S on Sunday, and it wasn’t so much that I thought I would steamroll her — she doesn’t seem steamrollable, exactly — but rather that I thought she was a sapling. I’d end up ripping her up by the roots and dragging her about. I’d be exhausted from the weight I was hauling, and she’d be bruised and sore from getting hauled. Fun for no one.

Another thing I find myself measuring people on is life experience. I’m starting to think I have a lot of life experience. I’ve done a fair amount of looking at myself and straightening my head out, experimenting to figure out what works and what doesn’t, I have a lot of responsibility, and I’ve done things where I had to make it or — well, really, or go home. But that was never a good option. I was not a homebody, much as I love my family. 😉

I look at someone like S, and I suspect that she’s still young. This is hilarious, because I’m sure DK is younger age-wise, but if I’m looking at life experience, well… I think of S as a baby butch, though I’m also sure she’s been butch-identified longer than DK, and I don’t think of DK as a baby butch. It’s not fair to think of them as a baby-butch, either, because really I’m just thinking of them as young, and it has nothing to do with butch. I think that phrase just sort of stuck in my head. *wry smile* Anyway, this inexperience is another thing I lump under ‘steamrolling,’ and one that just won’t work. (I’m not comfortable with ‘inexperience’ because I’ve met people who have LOTS of life experience, and still seem… young. Untried. Maybe it has more to do with sorting your head out? I don’t know.)

I know myself well enough to know that these things really aren’t negotiable. I can’t say, “Well, this person is great except I can steamroll them. I’ll try it; maybe I’ll be wrong this time!” or “this person is perfect except they’re young experience-wise. Maybe it’ll work!” It won’t work. They’ll get bruised, I’ll be exhausted. No fun.

So, hm. Interesting stuff. Mostly it’s exasperating, knowing the field of people I’m interested in is so narrow. At least I won’t waste my time with people who won’t work?

Also, why are you reading this? My wordcount says it’s almost 2000 words, which is nearly ten pages. You weirdo. 😉

J