Can you smell something?

Someone ended up at my website today after doing a keyword search for "lesbian and sniffing". I couldn't recall writing much of interest about having a bad cold, because I'm sure that's the only kind of sniffing being referred to. Poor little lesbian, stuck at home with only a runny nose for company, turns to the web to seek out other sinus-blocked dykes for afternoon sniffs and sympathy. Or something like that.

"Lesbian and sniffing". Hmmm - it's not the best personal ad I've ever seen.

So I had to go and remind myself what my website has to do with sniffing. Fortunately, I found this pretty innocuous passage:

Specimens of lesbian writing are sometimes still disguised specimens. I play detective, then, sniffing out the codes which may eventually spell from apparently nothing L-E-S-B-I-A-N: it's the businesss of creating language from silence.

That's alright, then. It's only me playing bloodhound - sniffing out the lesbian on the page. If she's there I'll find her.

All this has got me thinking, though. Do lesbians sniff more than other women? Is there a specifically lesbian style of sniffing? Is all this sniffing an elaborate performance to attract a mate, waiting for the gallant dyke to pull out that display handkerchief from her top pocket and save the day? ...

Ok, so maybe I've ventured too far into fantasy fashions. Exactly which handkerchief and whose top pocket am I referring to? I'm not really sure, but there's probably velvet sewn up in there somewhere. At least there's not a monocle in sight. For that we'd need a whole new chapter, right? "Lesbian and squinting"!!

Fantasy Fortunes

I downloaded my WeeMee from Friends Reunited to my mobile phone recently. So I've decided my
alter-ego deserves to have a few adventures - to get out there and see some of the world, some of the places I've seen and possibly others I haven't. The Grand Canyon is top of the list of places already visited.

It's lucky I'd thought ahead and provided a feline companion to ensure my WeeMee traveller isn't too lonely out there. It's also a form of dedication to Bradley, a lovely grey cat who adopted this house as his home and decided to share the best years of his life with us. He sadly departed this world in January 2004.

Actually, the cat friends on Friends Reunited only come in grey. The owners (soon to be ITV, as announced just last week, I'm so up on my dot com current affairs!) might want to consider a new feature - "Select and colour a pet". But at least I'm happy with this one colour choice. Bradley will never let my WeeMee down.

Where shall I send WeeMee next? It could be like the National Lottery Jet Set. Keep living the luxury lifestyle for as long as you can in a new location each week. Without Eamonn Holmes, of course - which is maybe not a bad thing. Living a life of fantasy, on the other hand, can be a good thing. Especially when you feel you've been chained to a desk for the past few months and know you're not going to travel anywhere too soon.

My head is freshly shaved today. It's the least I could do knowing that Curtis Bickham over at Head-Liner.com has just this week reproduced my essay - A Woman Shaved: a sign of what? - in his latest online volume of head-shaving stories. It's a volume all about women, too.

A Cut Above

I've been having more hair-inspired conversations than usual this week. Perhaps it's because I actually discovered what it's like to have head hair of measurable proportions on Friday. I think a bright pink bob suits me pretty well, but I wasn't keen on the need to keep brushing hairs out of my eyes. How does anyone live with a floppy fringe?

Can a year really have passed since I last donned the pink for Wear it Pink day? Loved the suit. The perfect poser's attire. So I struck that pink pose and you see me here as a piece of street art - the kind that doesn't want to blend too easily into the background.

I won't be growing my hair. The act and art of head shaving is far too special. Elsewhere this week, I've been forming head shaving connections through hair-inspired confessions at The Book of Kellies and an invitation to visit Head-Liner.com, which pleased me with this objective: to "uphold the image of the bald head through experiences, research and community outreach". That's all fine by me. I think of myself as shaved rather than bald, but I'm all for experiences, research and community outreach. Sounds strangely like my life. Yes, I've done a bit of each of those things.

If you haven't seen it yet, go out and get a copy of the new Diva magazine (December 2005 edition). It arrived in the mail today. Proudly sport your shaved head and your unshaved armpits. (The weather is unseasonably mild for November so it's still distinctly possible to display both this time of year.) Heads don't need to be hairy in my world, but armpits do. It's about time a lesbian magazine displayed the truth on its front cover. Ok, I'm sure there's a website out there upholding the image of the bald armpit but it's not for me and I'm not going there. Not even to look a little more pink!