journal entries

Announcing, at last, that it is fall

Oh, femmes.

Damn you and your hotness, and the ways it undoes me to see you retire your flirty ballet flats for tall boots, to watch the scarves and pashminas and oranges and browns be pulled from closets, announcing, at last, that it is fall.

Fall is my favorite season. Partially this is because summer is my least favorite: I don’t do well in heat, and my best wardrobe is not shorts and A-shirts (or “consentual partner beaters” as Rose has dubbed them) but rather blazers, boots, vests, jeans. And all those burnt, dying, brilliant fall colors are my signatures – reds, blacks, browns. Classic, simple.

Fall seems to be the season I most stop and remember the wheel of the year. It is the pagan new year, the time when the dark stops creeping in slowly and is solidly here. Where the veil becomes thin.

I like this. I’d even say it is one of my defining characteristics: I like the dark stuff, I like the shadow. I like going into all that messy-ness and attempting to turn on the light, look around, sort through things, make sense of it all. The darkest stuff is often the richest – dense, telling, deep, intense, formative. Perhaps it is part of why I like the nitty-gritty of relationships so much: I am eager for those small moments of revelation about myself or another that can happen when sorting through the dark.

Fall also means the nearing of the end of the yearly calendar, so this is the time when next year’s calendars start to come out. There’s the Brooklyn Girls calendar, which, I admit, the first time I looked at the 2007 calendar when it was released in late 2006, I thought, “these girls can’t all be femmes. Really? They are? Clearly I live in the right city …” This year, I’m wondering where they all are. Reflecting recently on the smallness of the queer communities and cirlces I’m involved in has been making me wonder where the OTHER queer circles are in New York – there must be some.

Also, I’m a pinup in the New York City Sexbloggers 2009 Calendar – but you already know that probably. Looks like the launch party will be in November, but there’s no firm date yet. I’m also one of the designers for that calendar (thank the gods Jack is co-designing) and I am up to my chest in calendar days and pinup photos.

Hey, there are worse jobs, I know!

It’s been a big couple weeks, too, with a lecture in Conneticuit on Tuesday, my mom visiting town, Muse’s birthday, dates with Rose – no shortage of events in this crazy Gotham city.

I seriously need some R&R (and maybe a bj or two or five). To quote Pearl, “I need to get my drink on.”

Published by Sinclair Sexsmith

Sinclair Sexsmith (they/them) is "the best-known butch erotica writer whose kinky, groundbreaking stories have turned on countless queers" (AfterEllen), who "is in all the books, wins all the awards, speaks at all the panels and readings, knows all the stuff, and writes for all the places" (Autostraddle). ​Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they are the current editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. They identify as a white non-binary butch dominant, a survivor, and an introvert, and they live outside Seattle as an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, & unceded Snoqualmie land.

8 thoughts on “Announcing, at last, that it is fall”

  1. Kyle says:

    Well, I’m more of a springtime person, but I’m fine in shorts, etc. Plus, the girls start showing more, and that is a very nice change after the dark and covered months of winter.

    I don’t dislike fall, not at all. I like it when the girls want to get closer, ‘for warmth’, of course. And there are all the opportunities to offer my coat, sweater, lap as a way to get warm.

    I love the last line… I’d also like to request more bjs and R&R. I’ll take my place in line…

  2. muse says:

    BJs and grey suede boots for the win!

    omg, that Pearl video was hilarious. nice month, Sin. hope this one has more R&R. and that other thing.

  3. Lena says:

    Come for the smut…stay for the allusions to the pagan Wheel of the Year! YES!

  4. I actually –start– wearing skirts down her in Florida once it hits “fall” (a term used loosely) because it’s finally cool enough to wear a skirt and not have any issues with inner thigh chafing. Not to be gross or anything, but you just can’t wear a skirt here in “spring” (right … it’s equivalent to summer) without dealing with that important issue! So. Fall in Florida means more legs!

  5. Oh I LOVE FALL in New York. I grew up there and was always happiest in fall (except when I was a little kid and associated it with the unwelcome start of school). This will be my first fall in a part of the world where we don’t really have fall (San Francisco). The rest of the time (at least, winter & summer) I will be happy to be here but… right now I can’t help but wish I could at least visit for what I think is the most beautiful time of year anywhere! Sigh.

  6. joe says:

    Ha ha it’s spring, going into summer here and there is a LOT of skin around – suits me fine..

  7. nyc says:

    “This year, I’m wondering where they all are. Reflecting recently on the smallness of the queer communities and cirlces I’m involved in has been making me wonder where the OTHER queer circles are in New York – there must be some.”

    What circle(s) are you hanging out in? Are they racially/culturally/economically homogeneous? I’ve noticed that pattern a lot in New York. There are tons of adorable femmes, but they might not all be part of the most obvious “queer” groups, so you have to look around a little more. ;-)

    [Yeah, that’s probably some of it, the homogeneity of the circles I am involved in. I’ll have to think about some ways to branch out, I’m so sick of seeing the same people at the same places when I live in this giant city. – ss]

  8. saintchick says:

    Pearl is my role model ;)

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