The Hissing Booth

Decentering Romance and Centering Friendship. ❤️

I hate Valentine’s Day. I go to any grocery store, and they are hyping up all of the shit you are supposed to buy for your love. The price of the flowers that I usually buy for myself is jacked up, and there are cheap chocolates everywhere. This year, I see a very old man shakily carrying a potted flower with a plastic heart on a stick pushed into the dirt. He’s doing the “right” thing for his wife. I sure hope he does more than buy her a flower one day a year. What a bunch of capitalist bullshit. Fuck Valentine’s. Hisssssss.

As a society, I think we’ve put way too much importance on the “romantic” relationship.

Any one of my close female friends has shown up better for me than any boyfriend ever did. They check in on me, bring me gifts for no reason, and they know and ask about events in my life that are important to me. They are attuned to me and my wellness throughout the ages. We’ve supported each other through health crises, the death of parents and loved ones, and children being born and growing up. We are here, before the romantic relationships, through them, and after they are over. I feel incredibly grateful to have a good two handfuls of sister-pals that I can call on any time of night or day. Friendships take time; stick with it.

With friends like these, who needs a mediocre man to offer his measly breadcrumbs for connection? Just so that I can touch his dick? I don’t have time to teach some dude how to be empathetic and emotionally mature. I don’t have it in me anymore to teach someone how to communicate what’s going on for them.

I grew up with emotionally unavailable caregivers, so it makes sense that this is what I am historically used to in terms of romantic relationships. As they say, the nervous system will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.

So, yes, perhaps I AM traumatized, for I’ve been abused by men, and you know what? I recognize this, acknowledge it and am working to metabolize this rage. Sure. Not all men. And yes, perhaps I could be compassionately working towards healing the gender divide, sure. But can the men do it? I’m tired of doing unpaid, unrecognized emotional labour.

As a young human socialized as femme, I learned hypervigilance right quick. How to stay safe by reading a man’s body language or tone of voice. This trauma response has become a superpower in empathy, and I bet a lot of women can relate. We learned how to read the room in order to survive.

I am a single woman, a sovereign woman in her Queenage years, and I will no longer settle for the bare minimum. I live a meaningful life, rich in experience and relationships. I laugh so fucking hard with my pals.

I have a cat to snuggle with. I get regular massages. I make art and have creative visions and travel plans. I can give myself an orgasm faster than any man ever has. They’ve been lying to us the whole time! They didn’t want us to know that being a single middle-aged woman with a cat is fucking awesome! A couple of hundred years ago, I’m sure I would have been burned at the stake.

It must be true that being gay is not a choice; I think a lot of women would choose to be gay. I don’t hate men. I LOVE healthy masculinity! It’s so hot to see an emotionally mature man secure in being as soft and receptive as he is action-oriented and protective. Come care for me, Papi!

On this Pal-entine’s Day, I went out with the pal of pal’s herself, Caroline Ballhorn, to the cutest little Country-Fair themed party.

We get there early for the square dancing, and we hear that the caller is MIA, so we sit down with a glass of wine. Before long, a young cowboy with a big moustache comes over and asks us if we want a carousel ride. He says that a ride usually costs one ticket, but he is offering us a free ride until the party picks up. “Where’s the carousel?” I ask, looking over at the cute little one-person covered wagon with wheels. He points to a metal bar resting on two tripods. He goes on to explain that I’m to grab the bar with my hands and swing my legs up onto it. Then, he and his cowboy cohort will lift the bar on either side and take me for a ride around the room.

“Let me get this straight,” I say, “you want me to hang upside down like a roped-up hog, and then you will parade me around the party?” “Yes!” He says enthusiastically, “But we won’t actually tie you up or anything.”

Well, now, I ponder, I usually get paid for stunts like this. I look over to Caroline with raised eyebrows, and for a moment, I imagine her swinging from the bar by her hands and feet being promenaded around the room. I laugh in my head, for I know Caroline, and I know this is a HELL NO.

Thank you I say to the gentleman. Perhaps after a couple more glasses of wine.

The event is at the Russian Hall in East Vancouver. We used to throw big parties here with the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, like 15 years ago. We are delighted by the cuteness of it all. Caroline joyfully asks me in wonder, “Who are these people?” “I think they are our friends’ kids,” I say. When did this happen? I am amused and tickled by this next generation of clowniness and character play.

Ursula joins us, and it doesn’t take much to convince her to try to climb the greased pole to ring the bell. This costs two tickets. She puts on a hazmat suit and gloves. It’s impossible, and even with her superwoman running legs, she can’t get ANY traction whatsoever.

Caroline pays a ticket to stick her hand in the mystery box and gropes around in the slimy boba-like bubbles for a while before finally pulling up a plastic ball. WINNER, it reads. The carnival barker hands over a paper bag. She wins a gun. Well. That’s neat. Caroline becomes drunk on power and uses her gun to get us all sorts of perks, like a light for a spliff and access to the front of the line for another drink.

I pay a ticket to find some needles in a haystack and win a Pabst Beer 45” record. I watch some folks reach into their paper bag prizes to find that they’ve won a couple of cigarettes. There is a ring toss game over whiskey bottles, throw the toilet paper into the toilet bowl and toss a bean-bag dick onto a man form. Extra points if you can get it into the tiny heart hole. There is a jail, and a handsome Sheriff who seems to be having a great time tossing the consenting young women, who also seem to be having a great time, into the cell.

The sound in the hall is terrible, but it’s still nice to hear Joe Abbot sing. His band, the Flying J’s, sounds so tight. Jodi Ponto is a killer drummer, so relaxed-looking on stage, with her beats masterfully disappearing into the wholeness of the music. Caroline doesn’t know Joe, and she gleefully exclaims, “What a crooner!” I tell her that she needs to hear him play the clarinet. “You know my friend Andrea,” I add, “well, she used to babysit him.” We laugh, amused, looking at Joe onstage, a thirty-something man with a moustache. I am at that age, as they say, where I could date the dad, the son or the grandfather. If I weren’t so single and unavailable, that is.

I take Caroline for a little twirl on the dancefloor, but sadly, not many people know how to partner dance or two-step at these events. It seems I have to be the lead if I want to partner dance. I miss New Orleans and other American dances where I’d close my eyes and be lifted and twirled around the room, making many different dance-floor connections throughout a night.

Not a bad way to spend a stupid capitalist holiday. I love my pals, and every day is Pal-entines day as far as I am concerned.

I’m not saying I’ll never be in another romantic relationship, and honestly, I’d love to be. How about a mature, meet in the middle, friendship, and romance, where we imagine big things that grow and change as we do?

I’m not counting on it, so until then, I’ll be enjoying a margarita in Mexico or Italy, cackling with a great pal, and dreaming and scheming up my next creative development.