good sports and a new name

Sometime past midnight I went to say thanks and goodnight to one of my friends hosting the 'renovated kitchen party' and ended up capitulating to staying a bit longer because a tiny fierce woman I didn't know insisted I owed it to her.  Her name is Foxy, and when I say fierce I don't just mean that she crackles with energy like lightning in a jar, but she does, I also mean fierce in the ring.  Foxy is her boxing name and she is one of the many amazing women currently jumping and jabbing at the Newsgirls Boxing Club in Toronto.  http://www.torontonewsgirls.com/tng_main/index.php 

Savoy Howe founded the Newsgirls in 1996, starting with one night a week in a boys club and claiming a permanent fulltime home of their own in 2006.  Her infectious passion, dedication and positivity have made her a real hero to just about everyone who has come in contact with the club.  The mission of the Newsgirls is to provide a safe and positive space for women and trans people to explore the sport of boxing, and perhaps the most amazing part of the gym is the Shape Your Life program.

"Shape Your Life (SYL) provides women and trans survivors of violence with an opportunity to participate in a recreational boxing program. Physical exercise, reducing social isolation, exploring healthy aggression and expressing anger in a safe place can help survivors heal from violence and regain control over their lives. Shape Your Life aims to empower survivors by building self esteem and community through the sport of boxing." http://shapeyourlifeboxing.com/

Now I don't box, I'm not even a real fan of watching boxing, but I do love and admire the spirit of Savoy and my friends and the other women and trans boxers at the Newsgirls.  They are nothing short of amazing, and pretty fun to party with truth be told.  So back to Foxy.  "What's your boxing name?" she asks me.  "Oh, I don't box."  I reply.  "That's ok, what's your name?" she settles for and so I tell her it's Robin.  She tilts her head, thinks for a half second and says triumphantly "Hood! Your name is Hood!"  I laugh and say again "but I don't box."  Undeterred she beams and tells me "that doesn't matter, your name is Hood."  And so maybe it is.  I like it.

discarded passions

A few months ago I was dealing with an unwanted and painful Valentine's day (that unavoidable orgy of pop celebration and commodification of romance) sure to remind me and my marshmallow heart of love recently lost and the lonely road of heart-break healing, so I set myself an art project (fancybutch coping strategy number two).  Armed with a new passion for my simple point and shoot camera I set out to create a scene that told a visual wistful story of butch/femme desire through iconic items. 

One trip to Value Village later I had a pink underwire bra (oddly missing from my own closet) and paired it with a suitably coordinated tie (which I have quite a selection of ).  I drove all over town searching for the perfect sordid/sexy location before finding it in the overgrown sliver of space behind my house.  I imagined a couple pushing against each other in a sudden moment of passion, abandoning caution in favour of lust.

These are the three photos that resulted, each photoshopped to take them a step out of documentaion and towards memory and imagination.  Hope you like them, I was quite happy with the result.

six sexy women spending time in my box

I love femmes! (no surprise) I love strong women who grab their femininity by the balls, so to speak, and squeeze it for dear life into something unique and sexy and fierce and sometimes girlish and playful and unbearably smooth. As we all know, these kinds of women are too rare in popular culture but they exist and they deserve to be celebrated at every opportunity (I’d send them flowers but that’s expensive and stalkerish with strangers). Here, then, is tribute to my six favourite women currently visiting me through the flickering lights of tv-land (on this Emmy day as tv folks celebrate themselves).


Note: of course I love queer femmes best (I have never been one to recruit from or pine after our sisters on the hetero team), and these women and/or their characters are predominantly straight identified (three big butch cheers for Anna Paquin coming out as bi recently); still they are amazing and each has that femme zing in a way that makes me a bit weak in the knees.

Joan Harris on Mad Men played by Christina Hendricks – quite possibly the sexiest actress and character ever to grace the small screen, curves to make me weep, tight sweaters and pencil skirts inspiring a new wave of vintage style, she is smart as a fox, tough as steel-toed stilettos, with a voice like warm chocolate pudding.

Sookie Stackhouse on True Blood played by Anna Paquin – can I just say thank you to whoever convinced her to do this show, I love her and love it (the gayboy part of my brain is totally yum for Eric). Sookie is a young southern peach able to rock a waitress uniform, and her good girl sugar is balanced with an appetite for getting freaky with the undead. She can read my mind and hit me with that light thingy anytime.

Gloria Pritchett on Modern Family played by Sofia Vergara – this Colombian actress is even hotter than her character, sweet and sharp at the same time, this modern bombshell is oh so deliberately working it to great effect. Gloria seems the slap the family into shape and her accent, hair and hips are all over the top sexy.

Laura Calder cooking it on French Food at Home –girlish charm with a touch of sillyness, spring dresses, fresh flowers and a lightness that radiates while she describes how simple it is to make Pot Au Chocolat with Fleur de Sel. Makes me smile and want her to make breakfast.

Jackie Peyton on Nurse Jackie played by Edie Falco – sexy tough and a little frightening, for someone who seriously doesn’t have a nurse thing I am still mesmerized by her in this role. She is small, wiry and wound tight in a way that is utterly unique, vulnerable, kickass, and hot.

Christiane Amanpour wrangles the news currently on This Week – if you ever had a crush on a university prof (yay for academic femmes) you will appreciate how I feel about this brilliant Iranian-American tv reporter with a laser sharp way of asking questions, and an accent so hot it would shut even me up.



Who would be on your list?

butch crafts - silkscreen printing on ties

I made a silk screen of the word CHIVALRY, one of my favourite words, and another of  +< geek >+ for some proud geek army friends; found a great vintage clothing store with a lot of great ties and picked up a few, from plain black to dark plaid; printed directly onto the ties, iron, and wear!