TESBARU..... lol!! Brilliant. My first car was a Lesbaru. I named her Butchie. She's apparently still roaming wild out in the mountains somewhere, last I heard.
I liked it the first few times I stepped into a Subaru dealership—all of a sudden salespeople dropped everything for me—saying with their eyes, “Welcome, lesbian.”
(I got several names Red Sonja, The Huntress, and Ginger to name a few :))
Butchie was a amazing car. We replaced her head gaskets a few times (notorious problem in that model), but she was my coconspirator for many an adventure in my youth. We even raised our first kid in that car for a few years before we sent her out to pasture. Those are some fab memories.
Ginger is a great name for a car. So is Marianne. Or The Professor. Choose your gayest icon!
utterly living for this thread. alas, i own a faithful Hyundai named Sebastian, but he is VERY gay, very tender, and when his time comes, i can’t wait to be welcomed into my Subaru fam.
I really felt this one. HATE the dmv…and I have a hard time expressing why.
These feelings come up most intensely for me going through airport security. I’m always secretly convinced I’m going to be pulled out of line with a sinister “Where do you think YOU’RE going?”
It hasn’t happened yet, but in today’s america, it doesn’t seem like such an irrational fear anymore. 🙁
not an irrational fear in the least! i absolutely empathize. in any “official” setting where our bodies are visible - and scrutinized - i think our centuries-old terror of being publicly called out and/or caused harm comes straight to the fore. it’s a primal and ancestral response that, unfortunately, we LGBTQIA2S+ folx know all too well. it’s also so mortifying to be pulled aside / patted down, or to have the contents of your suitcase exposed. i hope we can get to a place in our world where people don’t have to feel afraid and violated - in any setting.
Well said. And you’re absolutely right. I have these feelings in any kind of way “official” setting and I’ve had people all my life brush it off like “Why are you freaking out? It’s no big deal.”
Or
“Everyone hates the dmv, or court or airport security…” whatever. And it’s hard to express…I know that, but it’s different for me.
exactly! i've also met the same resistance, and i even admit i've absorbed the language myself, such that when i do feel panic in these "official" settings, i end up telling myself "oh, this is just how it is." that's how insidious this dialogue is.
but it IS a big deal. and it's not just because everyone hates these places. these places aren't set up to make us feel safe and respected. period. and by us, i mean anyone who isn't a white cishet male.
any time you have to navigate an official setting in the future, feel free to DM me. i'll be there to tell you everything you're feeling is justified. and to be a virtual body guard. :)
Oh Kate. I've missed you and your stories and your art and your nonbinary eyeballs. This visual essay gave me so many feels... I'm so happy Asheville didn't break up with you. Quite the opposite. So much love ❤️🩹
quite the opposite indeed! 🥹thank you, my sweet, sweet friend. i love sharing my non-binary eyeballs with you. seeing your name here fills my heart. always. 🩵
There was foreshadowing, yes, but I got chills when burly guy stepped up to help with the cash-only requirement. What a moment, the kind it is so easy to think really don't exist anymore. I'm glad that your love of place remains intact, even after the DMV.
right?? there are so many systems in our world that desperately need changing. i can’t wait for someone to make the DMV a place that isn’t pure tedium and time-losing 😂
You're in Asheville!! We love Asheville! We just moved back to my hometown of Greensboro, a few hours from you! I also went to the DMV this was and it was so gee-dee queer that I wanted to cry! The check in person was wearing a button down covered in rainbow hearts and a rainbow lanyard; he told me they don't do REAL IDs, they do fake IDs but they'll get you in the club 😂 Then the person who did all the testing stuff got on a roll about her girlfriend the second I hit her station. I wanted to hug them all ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
this is AMAZING!!! shout out to Greensboro for doing the DMV right! this made my day. thrilled that you had this experience. and even more thrilled that we live so close to each other, relatively speaking! i need to plan a road trip! 💕🌈
I’m over here in Durham having recently been through the DMV lines again. Hi! 👋 Loved this piece and the guy coming to your rescue. What a sweetheart. Glad Asheville has claimed you.
Yes! My neighborhood is a hub for goodness, and honestly there is opportunity everywhere here. I feel safe in it, which is something I haven’t felt before as a brown, queer femme.
Oh nice! I have some friends there as well. Tattoo artists actually. Mansha in Greensboro and Bean in Asheville. :) Both are amazing. I also have a writer and artist friend in Greensboro that I’m hoping will hop on this platform bc their work would translate beautifully.
welcome to the other side of the DMV lines, Shawna! i love that we share the same state! i haven’t been to Durham yet, but i’m so so glad that you’ve found safety, goodness, and possibility there. that makes my heart happy 🩵and thank you for your kind words here. feeling happy and grateful and in awe of being joyfully claimed by these mountains.
if you are ever over here, let me know, and i’ll do the same 🫂
Oh I love this story so much. It's how I felt and still feel about where I live, and yoy are so right about the yes energy we have to bring to the equation. Was rooting hard for burly man to step up. So glad we got the happy ending!!!
i’m so delighted you feel this way about where you live, Mary Beth! i wish everyone could experience it. thrilled i could offer a happy ending story this week 💕
I LOVE this! Thank you for sharing it. ❤️✌️👊
ah, thanks for reading, Frankie!
Haha—Desperation of Motor Vehicles was the bright spot.
Was so happy to come across a post from you! What you do on a daily basis is a wonder.
♥️
I just got new personalized plates for my Lesbaru—I got a ‘25 Subaru Crosstrek and well, only TESBARU was available so I took it.
My sister prodded me away from getting HUNTRSS …don’t know why she thinks “H” can be read as a “C” and yet, very deep. Figuratively & literally!
TESBARU..... lol!! Brilliant. My first car was a Lesbaru. I named her Butchie. She's apparently still roaming wild out in the mountains somewhere, last I heard.
Ooohh—so mysterious to have a wandering Subaru!
I liked it the first few times I stepped into a Subaru dealership—all of a sudden salespeople dropped everything for me—saying with their eyes, “Welcome, lesbian.”
(I got several names Red Sonja, The Huntress, and Ginger to name a few :))
Butchie was a amazing car. We replaced her head gaskets a few times (notorious problem in that model), but she was my coconspirator for many an adventure in my youth. We even raised our first kid in that car for a few years before we sent her out to pasture. Those are some fab memories.
Ginger is a great name for a car. So is Marianne. Or The Professor. Choose your gayest icon!
Haha…now I got the Gillian Island theme song in my head! :)
utterly living for this thread. alas, i own a faithful Hyundai named Sebastian, but he is VERY gay, very tender, and when his time comes, i can’t wait to be welcomed into my Subaru fam.
here’s to Butchie and Ginger. forever. 🥂
Hayley Faulkner—a lesbian comedian on Instagram—has a Hyundai 💜
TESBARU has made my day, my week, and likely my year. (dare we say your car is Tesbaru’s Lesbaru?)
funny things with Hs. they can so easily become Cs, and the world is better off for it!
🩵
You know, on the rare occasion I’ve pissed a fella off or if someone calls me a C-U-Next-Tuesday, I affirm and say,
“That’s right, doll. I’ve got warmth and depth.”
(People don’t know what to do with my comebacks)
i LOVE this. you are extraordinary. i think i'm going to practice this in my life - the power of truthful disarming comebacks.
…sometimes!
:)
And it’s always to discharge the energy.
I love your posts too.
thank you, Kara!
"For now, I've recognized that half of being here is saying "yes" to myself."
Thank you for your brilliance, once again, Kate. I hope you don't get tired of me telling you how much your visual essays mean to me.
i will never tire of it! knowing that my words are making good waves in people’s hearts is the primary reason i share them. it’s my honor.
thank you, my friend 🩵
Pearls were clutched. Here’s to human kindness in unexpected places.
indeed! i look forward to the day where we don’t need pearls to clutch - because kindness will be that common. but for now, i’ll take it.
Bless burley bearded man! Thank you for a lovely read.
bless him indeed! thank you for reading, Gillian ✨
I really felt this one. HATE the dmv…and I have a hard time expressing why.
These feelings come up most intensely for me going through airport security. I’m always secretly convinced I’m going to be pulled out of line with a sinister “Where do you think YOU’RE going?”
It hasn’t happened yet, but in today’s america, it doesn’t seem like such an irrational fear anymore. 🙁
Love your work!
not an irrational fear in the least! i absolutely empathize. in any “official” setting where our bodies are visible - and scrutinized - i think our centuries-old terror of being publicly called out and/or caused harm comes straight to the fore. it’s a primal and ancestral response that, unfortunately, we LGBTQIA2S+ folx know all too well. it’s also so mortifying to be pulled aside / patted down, or to have the contents of your suitcase exposed. i hope we can get to a place in our world where people don’t have to feel afraid and violated - in any setting.
hugs to you 🩵
Well said. And you’re absolutely right. I have these feelings in any kind of way “official” setting and I’ve had people all my life brush it off like “Why are you freaking out? It’s no big deal.”
Or
“Everyone hates the dmv, or court or airport security…” whatever. And it’s hard to express…I know that, but it’s different for me.
Thanks for putting words to it.
exactly! i've also met the same resistance, and i even admit i've absorbed the language myself, such that when i do feel panic in these "official" settings, i end up telling myself "oh, this is just how it is." that's how insidious this dialogue is.
but it IS a big deal. and it's not just because everyone hates these places. these places aren't set up to make us feel safe and respected. period. and by us, i mean anyone who isn't a white cishet male.
any time you have to navigate an official setting in the future, feel free to DM me. i'll be there to tell you everything you're feeling is justified. and to be a virtual body guard. :)
Wow, thank you so much. That is such a kind offer.
I would be happy to reciprocate. 🙏
yay! lovely 🩵
Oh Kate. I've missed you and your stories and your art and your nonbinary eyeballs. This visual essay gave me so many feels... I'm so happy Asheville didn't break up with you. Quite the opposite. So much love ❤️🩹
quite the opposite indeed! 🥹thank you, my sweet, sweet friend. i love sharing my non-binary eyeballs with you. seeing your name here fills my heart. always. 🩵
Yours fills my heart, too, sweet friend 🥹
✨🩵✨
There was foreshadowing, yes, but I got chills when burly guy stepped up to help with the cash-only requirement. What a moment, the kind it is so easy to think really don't exist anymore. I'm glad that your love of place remains intact, even after the DMV.
such a moment! i got chills all over again writing it and sharing it.
and thank you! it feels so good to have such an unshakeable love amidst the inanity of bureaucracy.
Oh the joys of the DMV….I think we all have stories…and I haven’t been able to get anything done without going back the last so times!
right?? there are so many systems in our world that desperately need changing. i can’t wait for someone to make the DMV a place that isn’t pure tedium and time-losing 😂
You're in Asheville!! We love Asheville! We just moved back to my hometown of Greensboro, a few hours from you! I also went to the DMV this was and it was so gee-dee queer that I wanted to cry! The check in person was wearing a button down covered in rainbow hearts and a rainbow lanyard; he told me they don't do REAL IDs, they do fake IDs but they'll get you in the club 😂 Then the person who did all the testing stuff got on a roll about her girlfriend the second I hit her station. I wanted to hug them all ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
this is AMAZING!!! shout out to Greensboro for doing the DMV right! this made my day. thrilled that you had this experience. and even more thrilled that we live so close to each other, relatively speaking! i need to plan a road trip! 💕🌈
Absolutely!! And same - we haven't been there in far too long! 🥰
eeeee! we can have a substack IRL friend meetup! ✨🙌😻
Yes yes yes!!! 😍
I’m over here in Durham having recently been through the DMV lines again. Hi! 👋 Loved this piece and the guy coming to your rescue. What a sweetheart. Glad Asheville has claimed you.
Do you love Durham? So much good activism happening there!
Yes! My neighborhood is a hub for goodness, and honestly there is opportunity everywhere here. I feel safe in it, which is something I haven’t felt before as a brown, queer femme.
I'm so glad you feel safe! 🥰
Are you in the area as well?
Greensboro- just down the road!
Oh nice! I have some friends there as well. Tattoo artists actually. Mansha in Greensboro and Bean in Asheville. :) Both are amazing. I also have a writer and artist friend in Greensboro that I’m hoping will hop on this platform bc their work would translate beautifully.
welcome to the other side of the DMV lines, Shawna! i love that we share the same state! i haven’t been to Durham yet, but i’m so so glad that you’ve found safety, goodness, and possibility there. that makes my heart happy 🩵and thank you for your kind words here. feeling happy and grateful and in awe of being joyfully claimed by these mountains.
if you are ever over here, let me know, and i’ll do the same 🫂
Oh I love this story so much. It's how I felt and still feel about where I live, and yoy are so right about the yes energy we have to bring to the equation. Was rooting hard for burly man to step up. So glad we got the happy ending!!!
i’m so delighted you feel this way about where you live, Mary Beth! i wish everyone could experience it. thrilled i could offer a happy ending story this week 💕
Your non-binary eyeballs! Thank you for this wonderfully artistic work 💜
ah, thank you for reading, Jae!!