chicks and tubas

Excellent Simpsons this evening. I love the combination of social commentary and spoofs on well-known movies, and there was plenty of both tonight. And I'm a sucker for the details--like when Homer started four different grease fires and Marge extinguished the ones on the wall and the stove, and then the one on Homer's head. Maybe I read too much into this stuff.

The X-Files...a bit of gratuitous snuggling at the end, there. Gratuitous, but still yummy. Duchovny applied the sap in this episode with an industrial sprayer.

"What?" you say. "After all that gushing yesterday over the incredible hotness of Matt Keeslar, and you missed Durango for the X-Files?"

Of-freaking-course I did. My mom taped Durango, so if I'd watched the movie, I'd have missed the X-Files altogether. Come on, you think I'd turn my back on the X-Files (and Gillian...oh, Gillian) for a movie starring a guy who wouldn't recognize me if I showed up at his door? Okay, well, Gillian wouldn't recognize me, either. But really. The only reason I'd watch the damn Hallmark movie is because of Matt, and I'll be forced to see it at my parents' whether I saw it on my own or not, so I decided to save it. I caught glimpses of Matt during the X-Files commercials. (He's so hot.)

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It bothers me when guys think of me as a chick.

At last week's rehearsals for Eric's trombone piece, I was referred to as "the girl".

Now, never mind that I hate the term "girl". I hate that. (I especially hate it when women call one another girls.) Never mind that.

I hang with tuba players most of the time. For this piece, I was working with trombonists. Trombonists are much less accepting of women in their midst. More ingrained sexism. Tuba players tell some foul jokes, but they pretty much figure that any women there must know what they're getting into. Trombonists are so sexist that they try to hold it in when women are around. Very tough for me to take.

At more than one time during our rehearsals, someone would make a sick joke, then apologize. One guy, Mike, made a nipple joke and then told me he was sorry. I said, "No way, dude, that's cool." Then, to make it easier for him, "I hang out with tuba players."

He said, "No...you're still a girl."

What????

What????

This happened a few times. Finally I shut up and let them be careful around me.

At the end of one rehearsal I was leaving the room, sort of squeezing past one guy who was bending over his trombone case. I turned sideways and slithered through the space he'd left, inadvertently brushing my ass against his in the process. "Excuse me," I whispered, on my way out the door.

"Oh my, god, I'm sorry!" he blurted.

I turned, just in the doorway, with a glint in my eye, and said, "It's okay...it was fun...," and I walked out. Peals of shocked testosterone laughter followed me into the hallway.

I guess I'm just used to being treated like one of the guys. My tuba-friends here have accepted me as such, especially after the trip to Washington last winter. This was me, one other woman, and a couple dozen guys traveling across the country in vans. Liz chose to hang out in our hotel room (can't blame her--one of the guys was her older brother, and she couldn't really do anything incriminating,) and I chose to play Nintendo, mix drinks in the name of "just orange juice, Professor Sinder...," and cheer Flounder on to his late-night rendition of "I'm a Little Teapot." Now that's a good time.

Truly. Trombonists not only exclude women from these sorts of gatherings, but they don't really have them, anyway. Trombonists get drunk and rag on one another. Trumpetists are even worse; there was a "party tape" at the U of M that entertained dozens of drunken trumpet players. This tape was of a particularly horrible wedding service, where the trumpet player of a brass quintet cacked and farted around on his trumpet shamelessly. Trumpetists thrive on humiliating their own kind. Trombonists thrive on humiliating anyone who's not a trombonist, though this stereotype is not as foolproof. Many trombone players are tubists in disguise. Tuba/euphonium players--ahh. Just pass the pitcher around one more time, and it's all good.