Babes Spill The Beans...Kayla

Babes Spill The Beans...Kayla

Dear Mom,

A very hot Thursday, my eyeballs feel sweaty. One of the things that I love best about my job is that I get to come to work in my underwear. Well, a camisol and boxer shorts, anyway. It’s been a hectic week: I chipped my front tooth, my fridge died completely, & I just found out a friend of mine is hiv+. AIDS is a trippy thing, because after all, anyone could die in a car accident at any given moment, but to move from the expectancy of living 50-70 years (i.e forever if you’re young) to ten or fifteen, is heart wrenching. Now, I love my friend and want to continue to foster our friendship, but in full knowledge that I will watch this person get sick & die. I’m trying to learn to not fear death, endings, changes…I try to enjoy life and embrace the moment, and allow myself to care. It’s a lesson I’ve learned from the cats, who also have a shorter life span than I, and whom I will nurse in old age and into death.

Speaking of change, Sue is in transition to becoming Stu. S/he is transgendered, which means that while he has a female body, he expresses/sees himself as male. He’s taking steps to be transexual, to change sex both physically and legally. This includes taking testosterone, which will deepen his voice, add muscle bulk, change his hairline & general hair growth i.e moustache, beard, chest hair, etc. In the long run he’ll have chest surgery, which costs about $7,000. Stu is just coming out to his parents and friends, and its a big process for many people.

Including me. It’s strange to be intimate with someone who is disconnected/discontent with their body. It’s great to be with someone searching to be their authenic self. It’s scary to keep an open heart when I know everything is going to be different. It’s wonderful to be with someone who is intelligent, handsome, playful, and adores me (and is monogamous). It’s amazing to feel love & being in love again. It’s hard to trust that feeling sometimes.

It’s difficult to let go of my identity as a lesbian. My new word for myself is a tranny-lesbian, a Tresbian. Get it? Trés Bien, Tresbian, ha, ha. There is division in the queer community on whether trannies belong or are “taking the easy way” and are now straight .Whatever. Certainly my views on friends, family, community and who are my allies has changed the last few years, and my world keeps expanding while getting smaller all the time. I guess its called being a grown up.

Anyway, all this was on my mind when I called yesterday, but somehow didn’t come out my mouth, so here it is on paper. I look forward to your visit and hope all is spicy good in the meantime.
All my love,
Kayla.

Babes Spill The Beans...Rina Bee

Babes Spill The Beans...Rina Bee

Most of what I remember of Herland are the times we were naughty ...three-way massages in the interims of book café emptiness, sexy couple gossip in the early mornings, tantalizing flirtations with the customers and delivery folks... I think I’ll save those memories for myself. What I do want to share is my appreciation for being able to completely be myself in a place of business and ocCupation. I think most of you know what I mean. Herland has been one of the most nurturing sources of support in my life for the one year that I have worked here. There is nothing I could wear, say, or do that would be considered crossing some boundary of right and wrong. My spirit has flourished from working in this environment. I thank my stars that my karma brought me in unification with Herland! Viva la Babe-a-liciousness!

*Saya Cinta Kamu*

Babes Spill The Beans...Jeanette (aka tommy)

Babes Spill The Beans...Jeanette (aka tommy)

My most memorable memories of Herland... Well, first of all, Herland has been the best job I've ever had - working with total fucking babes, always supportive, open, and there for each other. Herland was also the home of open mics renamed “Open Michelle”, where i was able to perform, do spoken word, and express myself about my identity as a mestiza Chicana dyke queer girl/tranny fag boy. I was exposed to many things at Herland, and, well, here’s a story about just that. . .
I had been recently hired, and was working with a hot young thing named “J5” in the café one day. We had been flirting all day, and when we finally closed, i said, “Hey, do you want to come check out the bathroom with me? I think the sink’s leaking...” (or some lie like that). She knew what was on my mind as she followed me into the employee bathroom. As soon as she closed the door I had her up against the wall... Hands were everywhere, under shirts, on belts, on backs... She took a seat on the toilet, and here i am on my knees in front of her, my fingers working their way inside her... next thing i know I'm fisting her, my hand deep inside of her dripping wet cunt. Now, I'd never fisted anyone before, in a bathroom no less, so you can see how this would be very - um, interesting. Anyway, she came and we had a good laugh over our little rendezvous in the bathroom of our workplace. “Don’t tell Kayla!!”, i said to J5. “She’ll probably be into it, don’t worry about it!” What can i say, i got the best boss in the world (besides yer mom, of course).

Babes Spill The Beans...Kate

Babes Spill The Beans...Kate

My experiences at Herland have been broad: spiritual, awakening, stoney, raging, emotional, hilarious, and just plain odd! Here’s one that falls under the last two categories, I think.

It was a Saturday, and I was working in the bookstore as one of the weekend babes. I love Herland because while everything is sacred, nothing is taboo and when I run into other people who have no qualms about expressing who they are it makes my day! So, while I think there’s no need to be embarrassed about asking or saying anything, I must say, some people can still surprise even me, who works at Herland where everything is out of the closet and up for grabs!

So, I’m chillin (whatever you’re doing-- you’re always chillin’ when you’re at Herland.) Anyway, the telephone rings. Let me stop there for a second so that you know: when you pick up the telephone here or someone walks in the door, you never know what strange or obvious or non-café or bookstore-related thing someone is going to bring up. That’s why it’s always fun here, because nothing about us or our patrons is boring! We’re all about variety!

I answer the phone “Herland, this is Kate.” “Hi,” says a voice, later revealed to be Robin Lovedog (a tattoo babe). “Uh, yeh, I have an Annie Sprinkle movie here and I wanna know if you have the one where she SQUIRTS really big.

Kayla knows that’s the one that I like and she gave me the wrong one. I don’t know what it’s called but she’s getting fucked by like three people and she’s SQUIRTING all over the place! Do you know what I’m talking about?”

I have to say, I was pretty surprised/impressed with myself, because I knew exactly which one she was talking about. I had viewed Annie Sprinkle’s “Sluts and Goddesses” in a Performance Art History class a couple of years ago and loved it. So, I checked if we had it and put it aside. Robin sent one of the piercers from Lovedog’s down to pick it up. Apparently, she wanted him to see the scene she was such a fan of. Another day at Herland, and happy to help someone find what they needed!

*K8*

Babes Spill The Beans...Lisa

Babes Spill The Beans...Lisa

My first mission to Herland was to buy text books for a class I was taking with Angela Davis @ UCSC. Walking across the threshold for the first time was like coming home. Everything was new and fantastic, yet entirely familiar. I remember peering inside the jewelry case and small fairy gasps escaped my mouth- oooh!
oooh! oooh! Shortly after I discovered the café, the killer vegetarian menu, the awesome staff, the goddess.
About three or four months later in December 1996 I noticed a sign taped to cooler of the café that said something like- “Affirmative Action is Alive and Well at Herland. Looking for woman of color for café position. No experience necessary.” Being mixed heritage (My mother is from the Philippines and my biological dad is white) combined with growing up in my queer, urban, multiculti, hometown safe haven of San Francisco created a strange state of race understanding. Until I moved to Santa Cruz, where I noticed people made my color a difference, where I took Angela Davis’s Culture and Ideology class and went onto have some painful and very revealing racist experiences with a new political awareness, race for me was an elusive and very abstract concept. It had been a recent personal revelation that I was a woman of color. So when I read that sign, immediately I believed “Oh, they must mean me!” then I had second thoughts, “Nah, I don’t need the job.” But I did, so I dropped off my resume. Then I had an interview and went through the training period and was hired a month later. Thank Goddess.

Babes Spill The Beans...Rae

Babes Spill The Beans...Rae

i was 18 when i moved to santa cruz. immediately i found myself intrigued by a women’s bookstore that my roommate talked about: Herland. she said you could rent dyke flicks there! since i, myself, was just a lil’ queerling, i didn’t know of any lesbian films except for Go Fish (i had read about it in a magazine that a lesbo friend of mine had in high school). so i took a deep breath one day and called Herland. in a nervous voice i asked how late they were open. “until 6 o’clock,” the womon replied. shit, it was quarter ‘til. “thanks,” click. soon after, i mosied my way down to Herland. when i stepped inside, i felt like i had walked into another world. i was surrounded by feminist books, women’s music, lesbian erotica (blush), and a babe at the counter. i think i managed to mutter a “hello” as she greeted me. i rented Go Fish and watched it with giddiness and wide open eyes (lesbian sex scenes!) shortly after i became a regular- renting films, buyin’ books, frequenting the café.
i basically became a groupie until i was hired. when i think about the amount of growth i experienced as an immediate result of the womon-positive, queer-safe space that is Herland, i thank Goddess that it exists and that i could somehow be a part of it.

Blessed Be.

Babes Spill The Beans...Dolores

Babes Spill The Beans...Dolores

Herland was celebrating Her Grand Opening when I saw Her for the first time. I was driving by and stopped to snap pictures of the festive purple balloons. I was collecting photos for a tiny book I was assembling, Purple Things in Santa Cruz. Said book remains a work in progress.

That Spring I was enrolled, along with twelve others, in a most enlightening class called, “The Religion of the Goddess”. Each meeting we brought some revered small amulet for our altar. One of our members was a young man and he brought something new and different every time. When asked where he had found his treasure, he either responded with, “Herland”, or “Everything’s a Dollar”. So my first trip into Herland Book café was to see the Goddess jewelry. What I always purchased when I visited the shop were buttons and bumper stickers. I bought lots of “ Commit Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty” stickers, a red and white “Blessed Be” bumper sticker for my white Valiant with red interior, and for very ill friends and their loved ones, “Magic Happens” buttons. I always find something .

My work at Herland began in the café. It was not the first time in my career that I made my living cooking and serving food. I love tips. We food service workers depend on them. Someone once told me about the Great Tip Jar of Life. If you don’t put something into it, you can’t get anything out. What doesn’t go around isn’t going to come around.

It was in the Herland café that the notion occurred to me that the patrons who didn’t tip us, ever, no matter how extensive the service had been, were doomed. These folks will, in the next life, find themselves in The Cosmic Lifeboat along with others who should have tipped the Herland Babes, but did not. These souls’ rescue would begin only when they could identify what it was that each had in common: not tipping at the now legendary Herland Café.

The next vision was, of course, of The Cosmic Ocean Liner with our lovely and generous customers aboard, relaxing and enjoying themselves, just basically having the time of their next-lives. And, no, I have not seen that third and most recent Titanic film. I knew how it was going to end. The nautical reference floated up by itself.

I would like to thank each of our fine customers by name, but fear that I’d omit a valuable one. Thank you again and again for all your business and best wishes to each of you. Blesséd Be!

Herland Crone Babe
Dolores