The Crone Wears a Tux by Mercy

"You don't have to wear a dress, but you will wear a tux, OK?" were the words that greeted me in a phone call last fall. My cybertwin had asked me to be best womon at her committment ceremony, and the planning had begun.

"Sure!" I replied and thus began another adventure. Nothing is ever simple in my life.

You don't just go get a tux...you get *measured*. So, as the time became closer and the admonitions from Twin became stronger, I trudged off to the big city for these interesting measurements. I was really hoping for an inseam measurement to add a little eroticism to the trip, but the measurer must have been wise to me because that wasn't included. Oh well! And armed with this little card with all my secret numbers on it, I thought from here on out it would be simple. Wrong! as usual.

Time gets closer and Twin tells me, "All you have to bring is your good black shoes... everything else will be provided by the tux place. You DO have good black shoes, right?"

Well sure... that was an unwritten law handed down by my mom... you had to have good black shoes! Only problem is... my Good Black Shoes hurt my feet bad! They are reserved for things like funerals that I don't feel particularly sad about, because after wearing them for awhile I look properly unhappy. Now any other human could just toss them in the trash, but not me. With visions of my mother rising from the grave and saying "You can't get rid of them, there is still a lot of good wear in them" I just try to figure out reasons that I will wear my good brown shoes! Then, in a rather deceitful mode I came upon a solution... I *accidentally* got hamburger grease on one of them, and then I *accidentally* left it in the yard where the dog could find it and make it unwearable. So, with that taken care of, off I go to buy NEW GOOD BLACK SHOES.

Oh dear, another crisis. In the footwear section of the local merchandise super store, I discover that the black footwear for women bears no resemblance to anything I want to wear. Being not the most graceful Crone on the block, I really don't like to elevate my feet all that high. And my toes tend to be happiest all flat and non-crunched. Then, as I desolately leave, I discover the Young Men's Shoes. Hey, they look like ME. Sensible soles... no pointing fronts... and they have some SHINY ones! And I just love shiny things! So, now I am all set... I can pack my GBSs and head north.

I arrive, and after a few tears and hugs and hand squeezing and giggles, Twin and I head off to the Tux Store. For, you see, this is the day for *final fittings*. After today, we are, I guess, stuck with whatever. So I go into this dressing room with tux, shirt, strange button things and prepare to morph into coolness itself.

Only one problem, this shirt, which has a standup collar, won't button... and the sleeves are only about 2 inches too short. I emerge from the booth in jeans and tux shirt saying "Um, I hate to say this, but Twin... I can't wear this shirt". "What??? Of course you will wear it!" she says in her sweetest no-nonsense-you-will-do-as-I-say-voice.

The clerk hastens to my side assuring me that a button extender will fix everything. I wasn't really aware that they had button extenders that could reach from almost side to side, and apparently he didn't have any either. So, now Twin switches her attention to this clerk and says in her sweetest no-nonsense you-will-do-as-I-say-voice, "You WILL find another shirt just like this one that will fit, won't you?" And of course he replies, "Yes ma'am, we can have that Fed-X'd in."

The tux itself needed some attention, too. The sleeves covered my fingers (probably so nobody would notice that my shirt sleeves didn't cover even my wrists), but the pants... oh my! What a wonderful invention those pants were. They actually fit in length, they fit everywhere just fine...and in case I suddenly either ate too much and got fatter, or got really nervous and as a result I lost weight, they had these clever little straps at the waist that would expand or contract... without gathers. I am still trying to figure that out.

I watched in amazement as they put glue on the sleeves, and pressed them to be the right length, and with assurances that we would have the shirt the next day we left to prepare for... rehearsal.

It was a very informal rehearsal with everyone in shorts and t-shirts and such, and a good thing, too. Although the temperatures were much cooler than my Oklahoma home, the humidity was horrendous! It didnt' matter how early I washed my hair, it never really seemed to be dry. So rather wilted, I prepare to learn my role in this adventure. And then I met, Ms. Cool!

The best womon of Twin's partner, this womon totally unnerved me. She arrived in white shorts, reddish shirt and a heavy woven VEST. Her blond hair was perfect... and she didn't SWEAT. Not a drop. She, at all times, looked like it was 68 degrees and dry outside. Oh dear... we are going to be quite the contrast.

The rehearsal went well and quickly. The music was going to work. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do and when. And after a night of swimming, and eating, and drinking everything from beer to soda and lots and lots of talking and laughing the big day arrived.

We split up with Twin and her mom and a friend and me at one place, and her partner and crew at another place so we could hopefully all be ready at the sametime. I got to be the last one in the shower since I had to wear more layers of clothing than Twin, and hopefully, I wouldn't expire from the heat before we got there. Which also meant I got to sneak in a nap on the floor in front of the fan with her DOG! But, I digress...

We're all ready; we arrive at the wedding site which is outdoors, and we are told a big storm is coming. But it is decided that we will not move the setting (thank goodness, because we would have NO idea where we were supposed to stand, etc) Ms. Cool mentions that the way we are supposed to wear these jackets is to have the top button buttoned and the rest of the jacket held back by our arms with our hands in our pockets. That's the way the mannequin did it. So that's the way she is going to do it. And, of course, wanting to be *stylin'* too, that's the way I will do it! Until Twin's Partner says, after Ms. Cool walks down the aisle, "Mercy, take your hands out of your pockets" Well darn, OK.

But I am told that once in place, I was a mirror image of Ms. Cool. If she put her hands in her pockets, so did I. If she shifted weight from one foot to another, so did I. I wasn't copying, honest! I just wanted symmetry. Uh huh, indeed!

The ceremony progressed without the threatened storm, and beautiful it was. Pictures were taken. I shed my jacket so I could take my hands out of my pockets. And somewhere along the line I became sort of outside of myself. For in those well-fitting tux pants, and my now well fitting shirt and my white vest, I became a Ms. Cool too. Or so I thought. I could dance, and I could engage in conversation with strangers, and I became part of a new group.

And somehow, on the dance floor in a tux (or at least part of it) *We Are Family*, *I Am Who I Am,* and *YMCA* become even a little elegant. But the feeling that comes when you are with your *family* transcends glitter and once again, enters your soul.

Would I wear a tux again. Well, perhaps not for awhile. But, wearing it, and being a part of something so much fun and more importantly so filled with love and beautiful is something that I will forever treasure.

So, thank you Twin, and Twin Partner, and Ms. Cool and all the others who I met and enjoyed so much! It was a blessed time for me!

Story by Junobe

On a hill outside Birmingham, Alabama, two womyn stand barefoot in the grass facing each other silhouetted against the light of the full moon waiting until it is time. They know each other well, but they do not see much of each other during their more waking reality. Their past experiences and present actions bring them together in a more ethereal way -- in their day dreams and in their sleep dreams.

Their voices are even-tempered, quiet. One sells things; the other types. Both are in their late forties and both are menopausal. Both stand on the threshold of becoming part of that group of older and wise womyn. They both live as feminist lesbians.

One is short and fat; the other taller and thin. One has experienced the birth of two children and one abortion. The other prides herself on not ever having been a breeder. One joined the military in order to get away from home. The other married a man in the military in order to get away from home. They have experienced violence from the micro to the macro, from family life to war between nations.

One of the womyn knows first-hand what it is like to work under that great patriarchal-occupied mountain just outside Washington D.C. that housed the push-button power of the cold war. The other laboured and delivered her children on and under the rule of the military bases of the Strategic Air Command in the midst of returning wounded soldiers during the Viet Nam War.

The womyn have lived different experiences but the same lives. From the beginning, they knew that they would do what it took to survive the patriarchal violence of their family and the patriarchal violence of the military. And they did.

Now, they both would like to rest but they have learned that their rage when released can help transform and salvage themselves, other womyn and the earth. They have learned that the patriarchal violence waged against all womyn parallels the violence waged against the earth. They have learned that wise womyn all over know these truths and are standing and waiting as well underneath the bright and shining full moon.

The two are almost shy with each other; but with a quiet, great certainty of purpose, they face each other and look into each other's eyes and know the waiting is over. They join hands and lift their faces upward. Slowly and surely, the womyn open their mouths and start to softly moan their pain. Slowly, surely and softly again, they feel other womyn joining them. Soon their voices become loud, then louder. They feel the vibrations as the power of the earth opens and spirals upward -- upward through their bare feet, upward through their bodies, upward and outward through their mouths. Their anger and rage resounds around the earth and they become loud, howling women. They are one with the other womyn, one with the earth and moon, one with each other. Their power surpasses all the wrongs, all the pain, all the anger. The power of their voices surpasses the noise of all the under-the-mountain buttons pushed to release all the above-the-ground machines of patriarchal destruction. The voices of the screaming, wild womyn peak and they experience the release of their rage at the wrongs done. They know that members of the patriarchy -- the ones that can still feel -- sense an unexplainable uneasiness, a sense of longing for something that has been taken away from them, a longing for something so lost that even the words for it cannot be remembered. But the womyn remember and the womyn know. They know that they have transformed fear and hatred into love and peace for a while.

Then, being in themselves again with the echoes of transformation still ringing in their ears, the womyn find it easier to live and to love. While the moon lights their tired faces, the women kiss each other in celebration. They set out wine and food; they toast each other and the work they have done that night. They eat and they drink and they laugh -- replenishing energy they have used and storing energy for days to come.

After a while, the two womyn prepare to descend back into their separate lives. The motion of their descent keeps theharmony intact a while longer -- the harmony of the earth andthe moon, the sun and the stars; the harmony of fear andviolence transformed into love and peace. At the bottom ofthe hill, the womyn acknowledge with a nod and a smile theircommitment to meet again here -- here in this powerful timeand place of transformation.

Story by Weavre