A Trip to the Lesbian Dentist

By "The Hostess"


With the new year comes my annual promise to get check ups. That
includes a trip to the dentist . It sucks, but it's what you're
supposed to do.

Along with mammograms and pap smears, these checkups are evil, but a
necessary one. As tantalizing as having a total stranger arrange my
boob on a slab and squish it, I only get that done once a year. A
intrigued as I am reading "How to please my man"-Cosmo mag. Aug 1997,
while freezing in a napkin size gown and socks, I only see my happy go
lucky gynecologist once a year. So when the dentist reminds me to come
in every 6 months for a "good cleaning" that time frame becomes very
fluid.

Let's be honest here…unless the woman is wearing leather or vinyl, I'm
just not that into being poked or prodded.

So I made the appointment with the idea that "I'd rather have a root
canal" might not be a good line of thought.

For me a trip to the dentist is a trip back to childhood…but not in a
good way. I sit in the waiting room, trying to drown out that
mosquito-pitched drill noise and practicing my calm face for when the
hygienist gets overzealous. She's this big black woman; she's good and
she's thorough. She has gigantic breasts and as she grips my head to
her bosom I fall into the childhood dream of being held fast by
motherly arms-that is, until I feel that incredibly sharp pointy tool
wedged between my teeth and gums.

Most of the time I try to keep my eyes closed. I have my calm face on,
trying desperately to stay in the happy place…which is not, by the
way, the fake painting of wildflowers in a meadow on the far wall. My
eyes do open though…usually when the hygienist reaches the point where
my toothbrush has obviously failed. She's half-Nelsoned my head so
that when my eyes shoot open I'm gazing at the ceiling. Again
childhood flashes. They've put a mobile up there…little toothbrushes,
teeth and toothpaste dance above my head, like pixies before a roaring
fire which is my third molar.

Soon it's over, and unlike me, my hygienist doesn't seem that
concerned about the incredible amount of blood I'm spitting into a
small metal sink. The hard part is over and here comes my report card.
I am 10 yrs. old and being scolded for not flossing like I should. My
dentist strolls in and looks at xrays. She too picks up a sharp
instrument. Why must everyone be reaching into my mouth with sharp
objects? I try to answer many questions with both her hands and the
sharp instrument in my mouth…this cannot end soon enough.

So how do you like living in Narberth?

"fing" is the best I can do.

Is the water fluoridated there?

"ow da uck ud i no" comes out before I can stop it.

She pulls out both her hands and looks at me. "Sorry, I didn't get
that last anwser."

"I'm not sure…but I like living there very much." I flash my newly
cleaned teeth.

AND THEN IT HAPPENS

"Yes", she says. "I took my girlfriend to a great restaurant there for
her birthday." She smiles back.

I'm speechless. I've been going to this dentist for three years. She's
adorable, bubbly….and did she just tell me she's a lesbian? I start
looking for clues. No wedding ring. Check. Sensible shoes. Check. But
there's a couple of problems:

1. Straight women always call their friends their girlfriends…like
they have boy-friends that aren't boyfriends. There should be laws
against that.

2. She's Asian. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time telling
whether women of color are gay. Call me stupid…

3. I'm just not Miss Confidence when it comes to schmoozing it up with
women…they make me nervous (in a good way) but usually I turn beet red
and mumble something about my left shoe…

Which is just what I did. I sat there and got a clean bill of health
from my dentist and walked out of there not knowing what she meant.
Whether she was being friendly, or whether I had just missed some sort
of secret handshake for the club.

Sh*t. You know what this means, don't you?

It's gonna kill me to do this, but…I can hardly say it…I just might
have to start going to the dentist more often. Oh, the humanity…

New Year's Resolutions for 2009

By the LNews Editor

"And the Top 10 Lesbian Resolutions for 2009 (from some other lame-ass lesbian site) are...." (drum roll, please)

10) Exercise, Eat Healthy and Lose Weight
9) Save Money
8) Pursue a Passion
7) Set Positive Goals
6) Volunteer
5) Nurture Relationships with Friends and Lovers
4) Join the Fight for Lesbian/Women's Rights
3) Meet Someone/Find a Girlfriend
2) Come Out Already
1) Stop Smoking

TADA!!

Enough with the sound effects. And this list. It's all just too much self-improvement. Going for all 10 at once? That's just too much drain on the personal fortitude. Besides, if I actually accomplished all of those, my friends wouldn't recognize me and would probably try to have me committed to the nearest Rubber Ramada.

To achieve success, you need goals that you can actually accomplish. You know how you are, and grand plans go awry so quickly! Here are a few suggestions for your New Year's resolutions:

1) Invest in a pack of Nicorette and see if it actually has an impact on your regular intake of cigarettes. If so, proceed to taper off.

2) Put a rainbow sticker on your car if you don't already have one. Live in a non-gay-friendly zone? Donate a few bucks to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and they'll send you that blue sticker with the yellow "equals" sign on it, aka the "Stealth Pride" sticker.

3) Instead of stalking chicks through the Craigslist personals, become a chick magnet yourself by being yourself fully and completely. Stop trying so hard and you'll lose that stench of desperation. Seriously, have you ever been tempted to answer an ad that read "Depressed and Lonely"? No, you haven't. Be your own self-sufficient and friendly loveable self -- and love will find you.

4) Invest in your rights by throwing a few bucks at an organization that's fighting for your cause. Rallies and protests may be cathartic, but it takes lawyers and judges to overturn old laws and give you the rights you deserve. Even if you can only spare $5, it's worth it.

5) Start giving other people compliments more often. Every now and then, tell your friends, lovers and co-workers something you really like about them. Examples: "Damn, you've got great hair!" or "That idea of yours was just awesome!" or "Honey, when you walk, it's like watching two love-crazed weasels fighting in a gunny sack, and it makes me tingle in my swimsuit parts."

6) Help somebody who's too proud to ask for help. Don't make a big show of it, either. Just be humbly useful. You never know when helping out a swamped co-worker might gain you a skill that makes you promotable later.

7) Once a week or once a month, do something you've never done before. Sign up for some workshop or training session at the local college, Parks and Recreation or Home Depot. Eat a weird tropical fruit you've always passed by on your trips to the grocery store. Get an old Girl Scouts manual and try to earn a merit badge.

8) Improve your living space. Weed out the superfluous from the essential. Keep the sentimental value stuff, and donate everything that's not really necessary to Goodwill. Hit the dollar store and buy frames for those really great photos you've taken. And be sure to put dates and notes on the backs of those pix for later.

8b) Improve your emotional space. Make a memory box, and separate it by exes. List what was good about the relationship, what positive things you got from it and why you're glad it's over now. Then bury that box deep in your closet.

9) Get serious about your money issues and start throwing wads of cash at your debts. If you only pay the minimum, you're actually paying interest plus $5 toward the actual dept. If the amount you owe is $500, and you only pay the minimum, you'll be paying for... decades. Literally. Paying off a credit card makes Visa/Mastercard, etc. your bitch -- instead of it being vice versa. Every dollar you throw into that IRA is one less package of Ramen you have to eat when you're 80.

10) Get in touch with your inner Amazon. If the first thing people notice about you is the size of your body (as opposed to your great hair, dazzling smile or sparkling wit), yeah, it is time to tone up your bod. Strive to be strong and healthy. Make BBW stand for "big BEAUTIFUL woman" instead of just "slang term for enormously fat woman."

11) -- Know you are appreciated, just because you're here reading this. YOU are what makes keeping LNews going worth the effort!

We Will Not Go Quietly

[Editor's Note: Found this floating around the internet and thought it was worth sharing with you. The author is unknown, but the sentiment's not.]

She is a lover. She is a butch or femme loving Lesbo. She loves breasts, and enjoys cunnilingus, one of the many forbidden ways Lesbian women love each other.

She is your next door neighbor, and the running joke at your work place. She is a Dateline Special you forbid your children to watch.

When you see her and her girlfriend in public, you stare long and hard, exemplifying a demoralizing snare that could ward away the devil.

You are a wimp, a futile, close-minded discriminating person. The sad part is, you bring this garbage to church with you, asking God to diminish her corrupt ways, in order for the world to be "normal." Do not allow yourself to be fooled by your own ignorance and stupidity; things are not always as they may seem.

You poke fun at things you do not understand. You are like a five-year-old child who grosses out at the sight of two heterosexual adults kissing in public. You push her far, and when she is down, you do not look back.

Perhaps you are the only faggot here. You are just a product of society's dictation. You are an annoying gnat to the queer community, trying to dictate the moral rules and regulations concerning love and relationships. You try to tell people who they should be attracted to, how many partners one can or can not have, or what a real woman and man is.

You represent the same puke that mainstream society has been trying to shove down our throats for decades, and now we have a new crop of pompous, self-righteous baboons within our own communities pontificating the same drivel.

Does she scare you? Does she make you nervous? Does your body itch and shiver in passing? Do you break out in a rash? Oh that must be terrible for you.

Perhaps you are so frustrated because she is happy and well adjusted. You are so uncomfortable with her sexual orientation that you cannot possibly imagine why she would not share the same pessimistic appraisal.

She will no longer run and find a corner to tuck away in, trying to avoid you in public.

Spare her the preaching and the manipulation. She is a part of your world, whether you like it or not. The more you condemn her, the more you try to make her feel uncomfortable for breathing the same air as you, the more enthusiastically she will seek out people who are made to feel as uncomfortable as she is.

That is just the first step. She will unite with them, making your personal hate-struggles more difficult, without imposing of course.

The little oppressors walk among us blatantly. But there is a problem, unlike years past, she is no longer afraid. She will fight, scratch and claw for what's hers. You can bet her politics will be in your face. It's not the way she wants it, but it seems as though that is the only way you will have it.

Yes there is a problem, and the problem is yours. She's not going away.