I just cannot resist telling you about my evening at UCLA. The freeway was shut due to a mudslide and the Bruins were winning a basketball game home court - enough said about my commute. I was invited to speak at the annual Daisy Day celebration for Women's History Month. I was scheduled between Japanese Drumming and a women's chorus. This was not my finest hour. As Nellie Mckay says, "feminists have a tumor on their funny bone" and I was not able to translate my fire and brimstone delivery about women's lib in that particular moment. I knew I was out of sync ~ to put it mildly.
But following all of that was Candis Cayne of ABC's Dirty Sexy Money. She was spectacular. In the course of her humor, glamor and ease, she spoke about what baggage came along with beginning to live in a female body as an adult. The story she shared was the thrill of her first cat-calling whistle some strange guy sent her way. She was happy and it seemed to be fun. He continued, "hey baby, look over here." She continued on her path without turning around. He escalated into aggression and anger - "How about I put my *&^%%$ in your $%^&#!!" Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, Candi found out what those of us lucky enough to be born with both a female soul and female body knew very early on ~ all that kind of attention ain't any fun.
When I spoke with her after, I held her hand, wanting to say how sorry I am that she ever had to know (as I would tell her 6 year old niece who just got the news) but all I could say was how proud I am of her and that the transition must have been a lot more difficult than she had let on during her happy and bright presentation.
Candis will be speaking at the CA NOW State Conference. I hope you can make it. And Helen Reddy! It is going to be a great day - Saturday, April 19 - more on that later.
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