Category: comings & goings

when we’re up to.

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Update: Life in WI

Before I came to Wisconsin, the most common use of the word “packer” in my life was for these little dudes. Not so much anymore. Even the local gay bar is showing the game tonight. I find myself more cautious around the subject of football than of Christianity.

I have not seen any live music that wasn’t jazz, classical, or world music. No punk, no alt, & definitely no pscyhobilly.

I find myself talking about the envelope of warm air I can create around my head & face with the clever use of a large hat & my coat’s hood. I have actually thought, “Oh, 15’s not so bad” when getting dressed to walk to my office.

For the first time in my life, when people find out my name is Kramer, they assume I’m German — not that I’m Jewish. Similarly, this is the first year I was not wished a Happy Chanukah.

After speaking with a woman from Chicago visiting this past week I realized I have not had a conversation with a woman in dreds and/or mudcloth since I moved here.

I have considered invitations to go snowshoeing (but haven’t yet).

I found out that ducks eat fish. Who knew? I thought they ate bread/grasses & assumed they were vegetarians.

I’m sure there will be more, but it really is a pleasure to discover that life really isn’t the same elsewhere, despite mass commercialism, cable, & the internet.

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Winter Term

Today is the first day of Lawrence’s winter term, and I’m pretty pleased to be back to teaching: this term, Freshman Studies 101 and Feminist Theory 200. I look forward to meeting new students, seeing old ones, and getting back into the thick of things.

In the meantime, it’s snowing and the river is frozen again.

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Today: Dan Savage

I’m going to be on the Dan Savage LoveCast tomorrow at 2PM PST, talking about crossdressing & crossdressers. (Hint: that’s 4PM Appleton time & 5PM NYC time.)

Update, 2:44 PM PST: I recorded the call with Dan a few minutes ago, & from what I can tell, this podcast will go up this Tuesday, 12/21.

Correction, 3:09 PST: It’ll go up on the Savage Love website on 1/4.

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For the Record

I don’t do this often, but I wanted to be sure people know that I only use the terms “wife” and “partner” for the person you all know as Betty these days. “Husband” was from back in the day when her primary identity was still male, and for when we were trying to figure out a “middle path,” dually gendered, genderqueer sort of thing, which has long since been abandoned.

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Derelict

Sorry I’ve been so unusually absent from posting here; I can’t really explain it except to say that my mind has been on other things – what things, I don’t really know. The sad fact of it is that I’m having a lot of trouble adjusting to living here; Betty & I both feel like odd ducks, not just in Wisconsin but in academia, too.

So bear with me. I’ve become a little bit of an iceberg, most of me submerged.

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Welcome to the Midwest?

I went to Appleton’s Oktoberfest today & tried a deep fried Snickers – disgusting, but still Snickers. What a country: you take a candy bar that’s already a day’s worth of calories and add more fat. Unbelievable.

Still, Oktoberfest was otherwise fun and I got to see a great little ska band from Milwaukee called Something To Do. They were.

Overheard:

Wait, you can go into the bars too?

and (FTW):

Guy #1: I think I got something from that girl.
Guy #2: Are you on antibiotics?
Guy #1: No, I don’t have health insurance.

Betty horrified a couple who were looking at some bottles that had been flattened. I think they were supposed to be kitchen art, the kind of thing you hang up somewhere. Loudly, she exclaims, “Oh, they’re NOT paddles?! Damn, & I thought Oktoberfest finally got an S&M booth!” They skittered away (but there’s a little part of me that hopes they got home & had an interesting evening discovering new things to do with wooden spoons.)

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Moved In.

I’m one of those, the types who can’t stop moving / thinking / reorganizing until I’m entirely moved in. I might stop to make a list or two, but otherwise I want it to be done so I can get back to my life. We are far more moved in than I expected at this point, and wow do we love this apartment. Next up: getting the management company in to put bolts in the walls for art, because wow do we have a lot of it, & we finally have the space to put it up.

More photos as we manage it.

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The Trouble with Travel

We are back in our lovely Park Slope neighborhood & apt, briefly: my brother gets married on LI on Sunday, & otherwise I will spend the week packing up a bunch of our stuff in order to move it into our new apartment.

But wow is it nice to be back: to be a minority as a white person again, to spend $12 on a pack of cigarettes. Some things I don’t miss, but some I do. I would like to bring Park Slope back to Appleton with me & show folks what diversity looks like, and goddamn, how to make decent Italian food, and if I can convince one of my salon ladies to return with me, maybe she can teach someone in Appleton how a proper waxing is done.

Still, I miss Wisconsin: the quiet, my friends, bunnies. That’s always the trouble with travel: no matter where you are, & no matter how happy you are, you always miss somewhere else you like.

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On the Rails

Just wanted people to know I’ll be taking a short break from blogging as I travel from Appleton to Brooklyn to pack up our Brooklyn apartment (okay, most of it) & arrange to move it all back to Appleton, where we’ll put it in our new & fabulous place. & Yes, I’m going by train (20 hours, pretty much), & returning in the shotgun seat of the U-Haul driven by an old friend (who grew up in Milwaukee, you betcha).