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KEEP REFRIGERATED
DEAR NADISA,
Star Gays
by Martia Probia
Outlooks for March 1-15
If you've been wondering why schedules
and communications have been a mess and
you tend to trip over everything in your
various paths, it's only Mercury who has
been retrograde from the 2nd of February
until the 23rd. Now that the fleet-footed
messenger of the gods is back on the tracks,
we can all get on with Spring.
PISCES Look for trouble and
adventures with friends,
especially on the Full Moon of
the 3rd. This is your month to be
a Sun-fish. Shine on.
lay low.
ARIES Love should be in
focus for you 'til the 7th; make
hay while Venus shines. The
12th and 13 th are heavy duty days;
TAURUS Grab the bull by
the horns after the 9th. You
can do no wrong except that
your sexual energies may be a
little backward on the 7th and 8th.
GEMINI Career interests are
highlighted. Full Moon on the
3rd may make joint funds or
the like a touchy issue.
CANCER The 6th is the
day to turn friends into
lovers. Bring them to your
happy home on the 7th and
they may not leave.
LEO You may fall in love
with your work after the 8th
and out of love with your
lover on the 9th. Chuck it all for
an exercise program on the 15th.
VIRGO Full Moon in your
sign on the 3rd could bring
you a proposal, either for a
relationship commitment or a
business relationship.
LIBRA Indecision is once
again your fate on the 5th and
6th. Don't mix love and
money.
SCORPIO Pluto is
retrograde in your first
house. Your whole life may
be running backwards for the
next 5 months; however, you'll
be so busy expressing yourself you won't
notice.
your family.
SAGITTARIUS The
Archer aims for financial
success, especially on the
12th. Pay more attention to
CAPRICORN Ever
ambitious, you have 4
planets in your first house.
If ever you wanted to lead,
now is the time.
AQUARIUS Mercury in
your sign makes it more
difficult than usual for you
to make up your mind.
Forgetting the
present
Memory Board
Naid Press, Tallahassee, FL, 1987
$8.95,322 pp.
Jane Rule's new novel Memory Board
won't hypnoytize you with the sheer beauty of
its words; what it will do is make you think
about your attitude toward aging,
Alzeheimer's disease, and family (with the
specific cruelties therein). But this is not a
depressing book, rather it is joyful in its
message and very lighthearted at times. In an
abstract sense it is about the fragility and the
power of memory. As the title signals, it is
also about the constant process of creating
memory.
The memory board is a tablet to help
Constance know what she's already done in a
day-and what comes next. Without it she
doesn't know whether she's had her breakfast
or if it's time to go to bed. She is sixty-seven,
a former landscape gardener, and lives with
her sixty-five year old lover, Diana. Since
retirement from OB-GYN practice, Diana has
been more and more singularly involved with
Continued on page 15
Dear Nadisa
"DEAR NADISA" arrived on the 2:40 pm
southbound train yesterday in search of the
Lesbian community. Is there something on
your mind? Send her your questions in
care of this newsletter (confidentiality
assured) and look for your answer each
month right here.
DEAR NADISA,
I am a Lesbian Feminist who is in love
with a bisexual woman. We want to have
a committed relationship; however, my
friends tell me to stay away from her since
she may be unfaithful based on her history.
What do I do?
Sign me Confused
Dear Confused:
You're asking whether or not you should
make a commitment might be an indication
that you need to take more time to know
this woman. Bisexuality is not
PROMISCUITY under a different heading.
A bisexual woman can be as loyal as any
Lesbian lover. But be honest with yourself
when you examine your own feelings over
her present or potential intimacy with
males. If both of you really care about one
another, taking more time to do some
honest talking and discovering more of one
another's splendor without a "commitment"
should not pose a problem.
New Men
Continued from page 11
reprimanded for his clothes, the chief villains
being a stud earring and baggy seersucker
trousers. His immediate supervisor, "an
avowed racist and sexist", also had problems
with the pitch of his telephone voice. "You
gotta sound more butch," he was advised.
A co-worker's sister, an attorney for the
Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, urged Harris
to file for unemployment insurance on grounds
of "constructive discharge" (forced by
harrassment to quit one's job) and contact
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The resolution was ideal. Harris filed a
complaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunities Commission, charging race and
sex discrimination (his firm, located in New
York, had no contracts with the City, and
therefore was exempt from Mayor Koch's
Executive Order 50, prohibiting discrimination
on the basis of "sexual orientation or affectional
preference", the bill so bitterly opposed by,
This problem may seem silly, but I am
being driven CRAZY. My lover whistles
constantly. She whistles in the mornings
during her bath, over breakfast, at the
supermarket, in the movie lobby, while
driving, during TV commercials, after SEX.
None of this would seem so terrible if she
would whistle SOFTLY and ON-KEY.
When I ask her to stop, she does with a
smile, but starts again a few minutes later. I
love everything else about this woman, but
I am about to resort to drastic means. Is
there anything in Feminist theory to cover
this one?
On Edge
Dear On Edge:
Yes, there is a massive Lesbian Feminist
treatise on just this situation. It states:
"Whistling is a radical strategy that
originated in the forests of Madagascar
among the carnivorous tree women who
discovered in 1310 that whistling caused
the meeker members of the clan to develop
more assertive tendencies that enhanced
chances for overall survival." In other
words, when she whistles,’you am to open
your mouth and "LA-LA-LA" through a
different song (preferably one she despises)
and in a different key until she realizes that
what you are doing to her is what she does
to you. If this does not open
communication after a few times, suggest
she audition for the next whistler's spot on a
TV game show...in Greenland.
among others, Cardinal John J. O'Connor).
In six months, Harris reached a favorable
out-of-court settlement, and went on to become
a member of Lambda's Public Education
Committee. He planned a conference to
address the problems of third world gays and
lesbians, leading to Lambda program
alterations based on some of the special needs
gleaned from the meeting.
Again and again, New Men, New Minds
reminds us that we must stand and intervene on
our own behalf, not just intellectually and
emotionally, but legally as well. Too often,
complacency amounts to nothing more than
intimidated acceptance, and the right to justice
is not a white heterosexual preserve. Beyond
that, these essays vindicate our own instincts
that relations between fathers and sons need not
be characterized by the fractious air that still
hangs over so many families even today. The
future lies with other sorts of minds, the book
seems to say, and we must be careful not to
incline to the wills of those who would leave us
unfulfilled.
-Terry Francis
bit ter Si»eEt
by Charles Haver