i went to the library again today. i had more time but was still too intimidated to just laze around through the books. i had what i needed and curved down the rows to the escalators. this short woman with a heavy chinese accent stopped me. she started to talk about a bible study group and i listened, knowing i looked like i probably needed to be saved: greasy hair, black silk shirt flashing all my flesh below the last rib, chipped nails and violent boots. i had howard zinn’s people’s history and a book on sadeian women in my arms. too; i shifted them more comfortably to listen to her. her group, she said, was about understanding god the mother. she was rehearsed and waited for pauses or contradictions that weren’t there, so she was quick to let me know she didn’t mean mary. she told me that frogs and dogs and people all had a father and a mother, so why — she asked rhetorically, i believe — wouldn’t the human spirit? she got tentative with me but she didn’t need to; i was so interested, my goodness so interested. i wanted to go to this study group. i love how people play the bible to fit these different needs. there was a book by some guy who hollowed out tvs to make planters, and joined a tent city, and i don’t remember what else, in the name of his christianity. carol queen makes art where she puts photos of vulvas over la virgen de guadalupe’s folded robes. chris ofili made his religion take on the politics of censorship, racism. the goddess figure is beautiful and powerful and i don’t need a religion to be seduced by it, i don’t think. i tried to give her my email to let me know about future meetings but she wanted to rescue me right then; she said she could meet me at work, closer to home, anything. i was done then, and handed her my number looking rushed.
right above the red line subway another woman stopped me and started to tell me the same thing. i figured that it was an outreach day, but then her friend — the woman who had spoken to me earlier — ran up and grabbed her friend’s hand and said, she was in the library with us, i thought she should come too.
these two women both thought i needed the same thing, i guess. it made me feel a little prickly. on the way home i talked to elyse about dick-sucking and intense, scary men. i flipped through my books.
this morning i found out a lovely couple i met at a wedding in new hampshire split up. one woman was a gorgeous redhead with a rocky horror tattoo and the most precocious ginger baby. the other was distinctly butch in a very classic way. after the wedding they invited sas and i — the only other lesbians in new hampshire, probably — over to smoke and talk about how similar we were. i guess the redhead slept around, a lot according to the other’s posts about it on facebook. they were married several times over and i’m sad for them, but they’re both going to find the right person for them, or not as they require, and be happy. i know they will.
sleeping around seems like the strangest reason to leave someone. i suppose if you know it’s a deal-breaker, it’s a cheap but enjoyable way out of a situation that’s no longer suiting you. i don’t think people who aren’t supposed to cheat do so on accident, anyways. it’s always been very intentional for me.
