Dopp Juice Archive

Dear Friends,

There’s a lot that’s missing from this blog. I rarely reference my art, my social network, my adventures, or my grapplings with identity politics. And that’s unfortunate, because these are significant and interesting parts of my life, and I’d like you to know about them. I’ve been keeping them off the radar because it’s been easier to let people make assumptions about my personal life than it has been to try to explain it to them. The downside of this is having to face some really wrong assumptions, all the while knowing that I haven’t done anything to prevent or correct them.

For reasons that continually boggle my mind, a lot of this seems to hinge around my sexual orientation. So let me take a stab at creating some common ground by offering up the label that makes the most sense to me: I’m queer.

This word seems to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, so here’s how it works in my life. First of all, I’m not straight (most people seem to figure this one out). Second, I’m not a lesbian (and I’m pretty damned sure about that, so please don’t challenge it). Third, I’m somewhat androgynous (which, incidentally, is not the same as being butch). I live in the middle ground. I have a high tolerance for ambiguity. I’m queer.

“Queer” is a word with positive connotations in my circles. Unless you’re saying it with a glare and a snarl, it is not an insult. You can use it to describe me.

Another word you can use is “bisexual.” I don’t mind this term (and it’s a lot more appropriate than “straight” or “gay”), but you should know that I rarely use it to describe myself. To me, the term “bisexual” suggests that there are only two genders in the world, and I disagree with that philosophy. We can get into that debate another time. For now, I’d just like you to understand that gender is rarely an important factor when I’m deciding who to date.

I find that many people tend to assume I’m a lesbian, so I don’t think of this post as “coming out of a closet” so much as “submitting a clarification.” If we can get onto the same page about my identity, I think we’ll find we have a lot more to talk about. I hope you’re game.

Love,
Sarah

My family sells bridges. Real ones. The kind you drive your car over. This is where I come from.

My dad was an engineer. When he and my mother first got married, he was working at a company that manufactured bridge parts. Several issues with authority later, he struck out to start his own small bridge sales firm (“small” meaning the kind that goes over the sort of river you would swim in). When a town’s bridge needed replacement, my dad showed up to evaluate the situation, give them a quote, oversee the transaction, and take a commission. The company was called Dopp & Dopp Associates.

Meanwhile, my mother started a sister company called Bridge Pro, where she sold parts to large bridges (“large” meaning the kind that goes over the sort of river you would drown in). She was, of course, the only woman in the industry. Combined, my parents dominated the entire east coast in bridge sales.

Major perks: Both of my parents worked from home while I was growing up, and they let me play on their 40 MB hard drive Macintosh Classics. I was installing software when I was three.

Major downsides: Every time we drove by a bridge we had to stop and look at it. Vacations and business trips had little division between them.

Time went on and my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He passed his business to his brother before he died, and Dopp & Dopp is alive and well today. My mother remarried to the man who builds the bridges, so this means my step-father is the owner of a bridge construction company. Having exhausted her interest in bridge work, my mother finally traded in her galvanized steel sampler packs to become a minister.

I was told all my life that I was going to become an engineer and take over the family business. When I refused, they compromised, and said I would go into marketing and take over the family business. I refused this notion, too.

Recently, it dawned on me that I did go into marketing. And some of the work I do is considered engineering. And all of my vacations are business trips.

But the icing on the cake? I was hanging out with Deb Schultz recently — a fellow social media consultant — and she brilliantly summed exactly what we do:

“We’re connectors. We seek out people who are different from us. We’re bridge people.”

I get this question a lot. It’s the “hipper” way of asking, “Why do you have your hair like that?” (which I also get a lot), and the masked way of saying, “Your hair confuses me and makes me uncomfortable. Explain yourself.”

I don’t mind talking about my hair. I do mind having to respond to spoken judgment from strangers. Preferred variations of this conversations starter include, “That haircut looks easy to take care of,” “I bet your head is cold,” or (my personal favorite), “I love your hair!”

The other really common one I get is, “You have a really nicely shaped head. I could never have that haircut because my head is too lumpy and dented.” Don’t laugh–this is serious! I get this more often than any other comment, hands down, even from strangers passing me on the street. Sometimes it’s sounds generous and sometimes it sounds like they’re uncomfortably grasping for something to say. Completely depends on the tone of voice.

But back to “So… what’s up with the haircut?” I’ve accumulated quite a few answers to this question over my last two years of relative baldness, and I’d like to share a few of them with you. Most of these are true:

“It’s a great conversation piece.”

“I don’t like hair.”

“I was really angry one day while giving myself a haircut, and I accidentally cut too close to the scalp — so the only way to even it out was to shave it. I wasn’t working in an office at the time, so I figured it didn’t matter much. But then I got so many compliments on it that I just had to keep it.” [note: this is actually how it all started.]

“The shorter my hair is, the more free I feel.”

[dumb look] “What do you mean?”

“It helps people remember me.”

“I like to spend my time and money on things that matter more to me than my hair.”

“Rubbing it brings me good luck.”

“I look terrible with hair.”

“I got tired of people hitting on me.” [note: the haircut does not actually fix this problem]

“It’s a social experiment. I like to see which kinds of people feel the need to comment on it.”

“Ooh, I love this game! I’m a militant nazi skinhead man-hating lesbian buddhist monk with cancer! Now you tell me about your haircut!”

“It shows people I have nothing to hide.”

“Oh I’m from San Francisco.”

“It changes the assumptions people make about me as a consultant in the tech industry. I’m more likely to be seen as brazen and cutting-edge and less likely to be talked down to as a young woman.”

“Oh, thank you for noticing! I paid $300 to have this done by a famous hairdresser in LA. Do you like it?”

“It’s a great haircut. I’d been listening to men brag about it for years. They were absolutely right.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Wigs are a hassle.”

“It’s part of my personal brand.”

“I like it.”

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