UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1000
LENZKE, LINDA

Lenzke, Linda (1950-)
Occupation: Not applicable
At UW: Not applicable, in Madison from 1974 to present

Interviewed: 	2009 (2 sessions) 
Interviewer: 	Leanne Gray
Index by: 	Kelly Rupp
Length: 	1 hour 28 minutes, and 52 minutes
Series: 	Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s to present
00:00:00 	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction
LG:	 All right. Today is May 9, 2009. I am Leanne Gray and I'm here interviewing Linda Lenzke. So first, Linda, could you share with me a little bit about your background and your family of origin? 
00:00:15 
LL:	 Sure. I was born in Racine, Wisconsin. I'm the eldest of six children. my parents are still alive. They were very young when they got married. I come from a working class background. My parents are going to be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this year and they're still together. And I'm 59. I was one of the reasons why they got married, but they had five more children. So I'm the eldest. And my youngest sister is 18 years younger than I am. Her name is Tammy, and she lives in Madison, as well. And the rest of my siblings Roz , Cindy, Rick, and Kelly all live in Racine, where my parents do. I was a pretty good student growing up. I was the family star, I think, being the eldest. My parents invested a lot of energy in me being successful in school. My dad worked for the schools, so he was very much a part of my early years, because he worked at some of the schools that I went to. He was a custodian and he trained other custodians. And made friends with all my teachers and would always go check up on me to see how I was doing with my teachers. So he always knew my grades before I did. I, in high school, became very active. I was the editor of the school paper, I was very active in a lot of other volunteer organizations. I was pretty much on track to be the successful middle class, high school, college prep student. What I found early on, and we'll be talking about this more later, was that like a lot of kids, I felt very different. Even though I was successful-- I was in a lot of school organizations, I was relatively popular-- but I was never popular with the best looking kids in the school. The ones who were on student council or the homecoming king and queen. I was more, I guess, what would've been the equivalent of the geeky kids, then, and the theatrical kids. I had a lot of friends who were interested in theater and who worked with me on the school paper and some of my volunteer activities. 
00:02:47
LL:	 I went off to college and, through a series of mishaps-- I was accepted in the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but some of my scholarship and financial aid things fell through due to some bureaucratic problems and I ended up going to school at the campus of the University of Wisconsin near my hometown, which was Parkside. And that's where I met the person that I would end up marrying, Frank. Who was my husband and my first love. And we met there. And then after we were married, we ended up moving to Kenosha because we couldn't find work in Racine. Worked in an Kenosha for awhile. And then I decided to go back to school. And that's how I ended up getting to Madison. But my college years were very stormy. I got very active in politics, in the anti-war movement. I was in college beginning in 1968, and so the combination of the anti-war movement, the whole hippie, flower child love, marijuana-- all the culture that went along with that. I was very much a part of that. And got very distracted. Was not very self-disciplined when it came to getting to classes. I was more apt to show up at a rally or hang out with my friends and listen to music and drink Ripple Wine and smoke pot then I was to show up at class. But I did spend a lot of time in the student union discussing all of the hot political issues of the time. And that really set the tone for my relationship with Frank, who I ended up marrying. Politically, we were very much of like minds. He was an outsider, and that appealed to me. And I felt very much like an outsider. Even though we are outsiders, we were the central focus of our group of people. So we were the insiders of the outsider group, would be the best way to describe it. I was really happy to move to Madison. When I was young, when I was 17, I spent a summer here for a journalism workshop. And the first time I landed in Madison I had one of those moments where I knew if I was going to thrive anywhere in the world, it would be in a community like Madison, not like my hometown Racine. So that's how I got here. And that was about 1974 when I moved to Madison to go back to school. 
00:05:22 
LG:	 So you came out in 1979 in Madison? How was that, coming out in Madison? 
LL:	 Well, my coming out experience really spanned a number of years. In fact, I have to actually back it up a little bit to before I moved to Madison, when I was still living in Kenosha in about 1973. I was working for Jockey Menswear. And I met a woman-- all our stories start that way-- I met a woman. And she walked into my workplace and started her job. And her name was Gloria. And Gloria and I became quick friends. And we would have a standing date once a week where we would get together, listen to music, and talk into the late, wee hours of the morning. I very quickly got infatuated with Gloria. And she with me. In fact, one weekend when Frank, my husband, was traveling for a bridge tournament, I had told them that I was inviting Gloria for the weekend to hang out with me. And he thought that was a good idea. He didn't know what my hidden agenda was. And my hidden agenda at that time was if something happened between Gloria and I, I was going to let it happen. But because I didn't consider myself a lesbian, even though Gloria was out to me as a lesbian, I thought, well, she's the lesbian, so she'll have to initiate. Well, I remember the weekend that she was coming that I was full of excitement about what could happen and anticipation. And fear. So there's something about walking that edge of fear and excitement that's really exciting. And I didn't know this, but Gloria's thought process was, I think Linda's attracted to me, but she's married. So she's going to have to make the first move. So we spent the weekend together. We never made it to bed to sleep because, obviously, that was a danger zone for both of us and neither one of us was willing to take the risk. So we ended up spending the weekend sitting on the floor and falling asleep talking into the wee hours of the morning. And then at the end of the weekend realizing that neither one of us was ready to cross that threshold. For her, having an affair with a married woman. And for me, having an affair with another woman. My first love. So that was when it was first in my mindset of, what's that about? 
00:08:08 
LL:	So I moved to Madison shortly after that to go back to school. And I think part of that decision was to move away from a situation that had me conflicted. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I think it was a geographic escape. Like, let's go to Madison, let's go back to school. Let's see if I can get my life locked down in a different place. But as soon as I moved to Madison, I was still filled with thoughts of Gloria. And that really confused me. But I made a commitment to going back to school, I made a commitment to stay in my marriage, and I set some of those thoughts aside. Which worked for awhile. But then I went back to school. Couldn't get fully engaged again in school. I would take classes and I'd get six or 12 weeks into the class and then I'd drop out. Did that for two or three semesters and I thought, I think I need to go back to work. So I went back to work and still had a lot of energy to contribute in areas other than the work. And at that time, I was working as a silk screen printer. And I enjoyed that a lot. It was a craft that I could get involved with. I felt like I had some artistic leanings, but I didn't consider myself an artist at the time. And so I considered learning some technical skills. And that was a very enjoyable job. But I had lots of energy to put other places. And I attended a feminist consciousness raising event. And it was talking about feminist consciousness raising sponsored by NOW. And I was very interested in signing up for a group. And the reason why I mentioned this was, this was very integral to my coming out. Suddenly, I was meeting once a week for 10 weeks with 10 women. We had the meetings in my home and I really had more of an awakening of how important women were in my life. And at that time, I was thinking that maybe what I need to do is just expand the number of women who were friends and who I had contact with, and who I spent time with. And that could balance my marriage. And I just needed to have women in my life. But halfway through the CR experience, we spent some time talking about lesbian relationships. And being that it was the mid 70's, the whole women's movement was just beginning to get its second generation out in the streets. And women were exploring relationships where they weren't necessarily defining themselves as lesbians. But they were involved in relationships with men, they're involved with relationships with women-- they weren't even calling themselves bi at the time. It was more, let's explore ourselves and we can be open. This is all pre-AIDs, so it was really part that sexual revolution. And open marriage was very much a part of that time. 
00:11:25
LL:	I then got very involved in the National Organization for Women and in feminist consciousness raising. And in that involvement, I became trained to become a leader for a group. And during my first training retreat weekend, I met a woman named Megan . So once again, it's a story. I met a woman. And I fell very much in love with Megan. And yet didn't act on it. I would describe my relationship with Megan as a romantic friendship, which was not uncommon for many years, for many centuries, with women. They would develop these romantic friendships. And so for the next two or three years, I had a romantic friendship with Megan. And it was mutual. We would write each other love notes, we would spend a lot of time together. We were very physically affectionate, but we weren't lovers. But we would go out on dates and we would do things, and so I, in some ways, felt like I had the perfect life. I had a husband who I loved, a marriage that worked for the most part. We had very independent and separate lives, but we did collaborate in areas that were important. And then I had Megan, who fed a lot of the heart needs that I had, and a lot of my opening up to women in my life. I think if the opportunity had ever arisen, Megan and I would have been lovers. Megan was a photographer and she was one of those people, as an artist, who would find people in her life who could support her art. And so she frequently would be involved with people who could help underwrite her art. So I sometimes would make a judgment about that. But for Megan that's what worked. So she was able to commit herself almost full-time to her photography. She had a little part-time job driving school bus, but her real passion and application was her photography. Then, to come to the point that really describes my coming out, is I continued to be involved for a number of years in the National Organization for Women at a time when there was a lot of controversy between the lesbian women who were, really, in the leadership roles of NOW and an effort to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. And people, really, in NOW, wanted the lesbians to go back in the closet. And even though I hadn't defined myself as a lesbian, I was really aligning myself with the lesbians in the National Organization for Women. I had come to get to know many more women in the leadership roles. As my roles with the consciousness raising program grew, I became a regional and national trainer and ended up on the national committee. And was going to be appointed to the chair of the national committee. But right as I was coming out, I was blackballed because I was a lesbian. 
00:14:51 
LL:	During my time when I was still involved in NOW, I was still married, my romantic friendship with Megan had cooled a little bit. I was at a women in law conference at the University of Wisconsin. And in the table next to me-- I was there representing the consciousness raising program for NOW-- and at the table next to me was a woman named Catherine Rouse, who was promoting the restaurant and cooperative that she was starting called Lysistrata. And Catherine was flirting with me the whole day. Catherine, in many ways, reminded me of Gloria. She had long, dark hair at the time and had a swagger and confidence about her that was very reminiscent of my attraction to Gloria. And the whole day Catherine and I spent at the women in law conference at our booth, just kind of flirting with each other. At the end of the day, we took our booths down and Catherine said, do you have any plans this evening? And I said no. She said, well there's a party going on. We were next to the Edgewater Hotel nearby there for the conference. And she said, I have some friends who are having a party at the Edgewater. Do you want to join me? And I said, well, sure. And she squired me the whole evening like I was her date. And I was really enjoying it and was very enthralled with her. Because I loved he whole concept for Lysistrata. She was passionate talking about her dream. And she was doing all the foundation work, with investments from people like Ruth Blyer and some of her other financial partners and founders of Lysistrata, who were just two steps away from finding a location and opening the restaurant. That evening, after we left the party at the Edgewater, she said, do you need a ride home? And I said sure. So we got in her little, white alpha male convertible, which I've always liked cars, and that just even impressed me more. And she drove me home. And as I was getting out of the car, she asked me if I wanted to spend the night with her. And I said well, I really don't think I can. And she asked why. She asked if I wasn't attracted to her or something. I said, no, that's not the issue. But I'm married. She got really pissed off. That was not the right answer. So she almost kicked me out of the car and said, well, when you're not married anymore, give me a call. Which, at first I thought was a pretty mean spirited goodbye. But for whatever reason, I continued to replay it in my mind, thinking there was something about that that attracted me to her even more. And long story short, I made a phone call one day and said, I'm still married, but I'd still like to see you. And Catherine was my first woman lover. And we had a stormy month or six week relationship as she was beginning to just about to open Lysistrata. And she asked me to leave my husband and I wasn't ready to do that. And so we split up very abruptly. And had kind of a stormy relationship and friendship the rest of our life. As most people know, Catherine is dead. She committed suicide after murdering her partner in a very publicized story. And I'm sure other people will talk about that more. And I can, as well. So that ended pretty quickly. But that was my coming out. And long story short, when the moment arose and my husband asked me if something was going on, I had to tell him, yes, I just had an affair, but it's over. I was not the kind of person who could sneak around too much, so I felt some relief when I was able to tell him. We talked about it. And what was interesting was it was at a time when some men were not threatened by women having relationships with other women. And he basically said to me at the time, if you love me, and I love you, and you want to stay with me, and I'm the only man in your life, if you need to have a relationship with a woman that's OK with me. So I thought, that's a pretty good deal for me. And so even though I didn't act on it right away, that was sort of the arrangement that I made. I didn't consider myself a lesbian at that time, I didn't consider myself hetero at that time, and I didn't consider myself bi at that time. I considered myself a woman who is married to a man who she loved who had attractions and commitments to women in her life. But that was about as far as I took it. And for a while, that's as far as it went. 
00:20:10 
LG:	 Well, now you've got curious. So how did you go from staying married to Frank and having this happen both ways to ending your marriage and coming out as an actually lesbian? 
LL:	 Well, it was an interesting period of time for me. And a challenging period of time. And a very dynamic and troubling period of time for me, all wrapped up in one experience. I continued to stay active in my feminist commitment to NOW until that didn't work out anymore. Where the climate with the lesbian verses straight women around the Equal Rights Amendment divided NOW as a group for awhile. I had been involved in a training weekend. I was schedule for a training weekend for CR. And I was training some women in Milwaukee and one of the people who was at that training weekend was an acquaintance of mine-- somebody that I knew from the Madison community, who was actually this very cute, butch woman who worked at a gas station where I took my car. And this was the days when they still had full service. And Mary certainly gave me full service every time I pulled into the gas station. And that particular weekend at the at the CR training, Mary made a very bold pass at me. And I succumbed. And I found Mary attractive. And in my head I was thinking, if I'm going to have a relationship, if I'm going to explore my lesbian nature-- which is where I was starting to believe that I had an inclination or preference for women-- that, in my mind, having a relationship with a butch woman would be the way to do it, because she could teach me a lot. And I would be a good student. And Mary was a very soft-hearted, very sweet person on the inside. But on the outside she had lived her whole life as a lesbian and had a strong, physical presence in the world that she used, I think, to protect herself. And so that created a very attractive combination for me. So Mary and I became lovers. And she was bold. She would show up the house to pick me up for a date. Frank would answer the door, she'd have flowers, and she'd say, this is for your wife. And she'd stroll in with a with a saunter and Frank would always give her look like, well then, OK. And Mary and I would go out on a date. And that worked for a while until Frank and I were having some marital issues. And that had to do with a combination of things. My part of it was, as I was trying to figure out what was happening in my life, I was drinking more. And I have a family history of alcoholism on both my mother and father's side of the family. And I only say that as I think I had a predisposition. But I had a problem on my own, which I earned by all the drinking that I did. And so I was having some issues with doing a lot of drinking and not really facing, in conscious ways, some of the issues that were going on in my life. Frank had an issue of gambling. He was an excellent tournament bridge player. But his downside was gambling on the horses, and poker, and other things. So he would spend a lot of money-- more than he had to. I always handed over my check to him. He was a bookkeeper and an accountant, so I let him manage all the money for our household. And I trusted him. And yet he was using a lot of the money to gamble, and he gambled it away. So we were dealing with those two issues. We were dealing with my drinking problem, which was growing, and we were dealing with the financial problems, which were growing. Because of that, Frank said, I don't think that I can be OK managing and accepting other relationships in your life. I think I need you to focus on us right now. And I wasn't sure I was able to do that at that point. I was enjoying my time with Mary, and I wasn't courageous, or brave, or honest enough to say that to him. So I continued to see her until he challenged me during, ironically, a wedding anniversary date out. And he said, are you still with Mary? And I said, yes. He said, well, I think we need to separate until you can decide what you want to do. And I always give him credit for taking that risk with me. And I have to admit I wasn't courageous enough at that moment to say, I already know what I want to do. But in my mind, in my heart, I already knew that that was my exit out of the relationship. And that probably, that was an acceptance on my part that I did prefer relationships with women. And so I separated from Frank and got my own place. And Mary didn't move in with me, but she was there all the time. And then after a few months, Mary and I did get a place together. But when I was with Mary, and I'm not proud of this, either, this was one of those other kinds of ways where I wasn't living as consciously as I wanted to, I also knew that I couldn't commit to Mary in the way that she wanted me to. And I told her that. I was able to say, I just got out of a marriage. I'm not ready to make a commitment to you. I care about you, I enjoy being with you, I like living with you, but I don't think I can commit to having this move forward as a long, lifetime partnership. And in some ways we weren't suited for each other. And so that created problems in our relationship. But then I was finally able to tell Frank that I was going to get a divorce. And inevitably, Mary and I also separated, and then I was on my own. And ironically, I was on my own, I was happy about that, but because of my growing problem with drinking, I had a sloppy lesbian adolescence at the age of 29 and 30. 
00:27:23
LG:	 And what about your family of origin. Were they aware of what was going on or not? 
LL:	 Well, that was an interesting part, because I was always the family star and family hero. And my parents and the rest of my family loved Frank and were very close to Frank. Particularly my youngest sisters, who were just little kids. And they knew Frank as much as they knew me. They didn't know us as separate people. They knew us as a couple. And the hardest thing I had to do was-- I separated from Frank in, I think, June. In July, we had plans with my parents to take a vacation together. So I had to tell my parents that Frank and I wouldn't be together with them on this vacation-- that we'd have to cancel the vacation. And then I wanted to tell them the Frank and I were separating. And then I wanted to tell them that I thought I was a lesbian, Well, I was able to tell them the first two, and I didn't get to the third one right away. And they talked about why didn't the marriage work out, and I was able to talk about Frank's gambling, I was able to talk a little bit about my drinking, but because my parents were in the middle of their own alcoholic challenges, it wasn't a subject that they were going to-- they minimized my problem with drinking. So it was more like, well, we understand when you have financial problems and when you're married to a gambler. And so it got focused on that. Although they kept saying, we love Frank. And we still want him to be part of our life. And so that step was fairly easy, even though it was a loss for them, as well. And then I finally decided that I needed to come out to them. And so it took me a couple of years to fully come out. And I wrote them a letter, because I didn't have the courage to do it in person. I was afraid that if I looked them in the eyes and they rejected me, then it would just be too hurtful. Even though I was fairly confident that my relationship with them was strong enough that they would continue to support me. I just didn't have the courage. I was not a courageous person in that degree. And I wrote the letter. I haven't found a letter, my parents have the letter. I don't know where I filed it. But basically, in the letter, I told them this is how I hope you react. And I laid out what I needed from them and how I hoped that they would react. And that was exactly what they did. They supported me. They told me they loved me. And my mom, consistently from that day till now, has supported me in a way where she says the important thing is that you have people in your life you love you. 
LG:	 Wow. And your siblings? 
LL:	 My siblings, I think for the most part, we're surprised, but not too surprised. Because they had seen me become politically active. And it was at a time when it wasn't a leap to go from feminism to lesbianism. And because I was the eldest, I don't think that there was anyone who was really prepared to challenge me because of the way our relationship was. I always took care and looked out for them, so I think it would have been risky for them to reject me at that point. They would have lost that relationship-- or possibly lost that relationship with me. So for the most part, they were pretty accepting. I feel very fortunate that both my parents and my siblings have been as supportive as they have. The only real challenge that came up was with my youngest sister, who was about 11 years old when I came out. And she was doing some, I guess, acting out, in that she was trying to figure out what do you do with the sister who's a lesbian? Well, you get romantic with her, is what she started doing. She started kissing me and hugging me in ways that made me feel uncomfortable. And so at that point, she didn't know I was a lesbian. But she was figuring it out, because my parents had asked me, because of her age, not to say anything directly to her. But she was figuring it out and she was doing this acting out and exploring that made me so uncomfortable that I told my parents that I needed to talk with her. And I didn't want them to talk with her, because I didn't trust my father, in particular, and how he would characterize it. And so when I describe some of the reasons why I felt I needed to talk to Tammy, they said OK. Why don't you do that? There used to be a TV series called Courtship of Eddie's Father. And they's go down to the lake and they'd throw rocks and have conversations. And so Tammy and I had a Courtship of Eddie's Father moment where we went down to Lake Michigan in Racine and skipped rocks on the lake and talked about it. And to this day, Tammy is, out of all my siblings, my best friend. 
00:33:12 
LG:	 OK. Well, let's change topics a little bit. Once you came out as a lesbian, socially, I know you mentioned Lysistrata. Was that a place that you felt comfortable hanging out, given your relationship with the owner? 
LG:	 Well, absolutely. In fact, Catherine was a good business woman. And even though she had stormy relationships with some people, when it came to Lysistrata, she wanted to make sure that people felt welcome there. So she extended invitations early on to me to come see her new business, to become part of it, and I became very active at the Lysistrata. In fact, when I separated from Frank I sublet an apartment a half a block away from Lysistrata. So it was just a short little walk from my house down to Lysistrata. And it became a regular-- Thursday night was women's night at Lysistrata. And then frequently, that was a definite night that I'd go dancing every Thursday. And often on the weekends. Lysistrata, at that time, was positioned as a feminist restaurant and bar collective and appealed to a wider community of men and women, mostly liberal leaning. And had a very thriving restaurant business at the beginning. Over the years it was open, there were lots of changes in the restaurant. And business started failing a little bit in the food part of the business, and became a little bit more focused on the women's center for people to go and hang out and have meetings, go dancing. And so it had an identity crisis where it went from being a feminist restaurant and bar collective to a women's bar. And that was part of its demise, unfortunately. Because women didn't support it financially in the same way that a larger community was able to. But I hung out there a lot. And it was a wonderful environment. It was beautiful. Light wood, lots of windows. It was at a time where the police and fire departments were recruiting women. A lot of the women who hung out at Lysistrata where the first recruiting classes for police cadets and the fire department. And a lot of different women's organizations had their meetings at Lysistrata. So it was really a place to go to meet the community of women in Madison. And it had, definitely, more of a political bent to it. There were other women's bars and gay bars in Madison at the time, but Lysistrata was really more-- it still maintained its feminist definition. 
00:36:16
LG:	 Did that play in at all to your issues with alcohol? 
LL:	 Oh, absolutely. From the late 70's to the early 80's my drinking, as is often the case with someone who develops the disease of alcoholism, I started drinking more. I would start drinking before I'd go out. I would drink after I went out. I found that drinking was really a crutch for me. It it helped me, to some degree, come out. But at the same time, it hindered me in that my dependence on alcohol was interfering with my relationships. I was not able to have the kinds of healthy relationships with women that I wanted. And so that ultimately led to me getting sober. Because the first committed relationship I had with the woman was where we were sharing parenting of her son. My drinking really had become a serious problem and was risking the future of my relationship. And so I decided that I needed to get help. And I feel very fortunate, much like a lot of my life. I entered the women's movement at a perfect time, I came out at what I consider to be a very perfect time, a very accepting time, and I got sober at a very perfect time, which was the early 80's, where that was probably the height. Betty Ford, her treatment center was in the news. Hazelden and many other treatment centers were gaining notoriety. And the public was becoming more aware of alcoholism from the disease approach rather than a character problem or issue. And so I started going to a series of informational meetings about adult children of alcoholics, which was a less threatening thing for me to focus on at first. But when I went to get an assessment, pretty much they said, before we can deal with those issues, you need to get sober. And so I went into an outpatient treatment program to get sober. And ironically, the relationship I was in, which I thought was going to be helped by that, as is often the case, my partner wasn't willing to stick around to do the hard work. It usually takes a long time for somebody who's in recovery to get their life back together. And so our relationship ended. 
00:38:56 
LG:	 Could you describe your first long-term relationship post recovery? 
LL:	 Yeah. I had had a series of relationships when I was drinking that were very short-term. Laurie-- the first Laurie I was involved with-- was the relationship I was in that ended when I got sober. And my sponsor in the program, in AA and in Al-Anon, basically said, as is often the case in recoveries, don't get involved in any relationships for a year. Focus on yourself. I had a number of friends that I made who were lesbians who were in recovery. Some were in AA and some or were in Al-Anon. So I had a large circle of new friends who were all in recovery. And so I got a lot of my social needs in the lesbian AA and Al-Anon community. And so I, for about a year and a half, wasn't involved in any serious relationships-- anything sexual, at least. I started after about a year starting to want to date again. And having a hard time knowing how to do that sober. Because it was easier to get those inhibitions released when you're drinking and to get involved with people-- sometimes maybe not the right people-- but get involved with people on a physically intimate level when there was alcohol involved. And it was a little harder sober. But I met a woman who was also in recovery. And it was another Laurie. And so Laurie number two and I started seeing each other. And then after a few months of dating, moved in together. And it was probably my first sober relationship. The thing that I remember most about it, in terms of how it compared to other relationships, is I learned a lot about my own sexuality as a sober person. And was with a partner who was very tuned in to her body and very kinesthetic and very fun to play with in that way. And I was able to relax and enjoy my life. We did a lot of outdoor activities. we meshed pretty well in terms of sharing a home. She had a daughter who I adored and we were co-parenting her daughter. And for a while, for the first two or three years we were together, we had a really good relationship. 
00:42:02 
LG:	 All right. Changing the conversation a little bit, again. You've been involved in-- I don't know if the word is entertainment-- but you've been involved actively in the Madison community in the lesbian comedy show, I guess what it was called? 
LL:	 Variety show. 
LG:	 The variety show. How did that come about? 
LL:	 Well, one of the things that getting sober helped me with was face some of my performance fears. I had done a lot of acting when I was in high school and in college, and I had an interest in doing stand-up comedy. But I had no courage to get up there. And I knew that when I was drinking that it would not work. A drunk comedian is not laughable. So I decided that I was going to start writing comedy. And so I did. I started writing comedy. I think my first performance was at Lysistrata and was very scary. It was an absolutely frightening, out of body experience. So that kind of scared me for a while. And I had to start learning how to incorporate performing and staying in my body. So I needed some practice doing that. One of the things that helped me with that is, I took some acting classes at Apple Island, which after Lysistrata ended and a few years had passed, there was a desire in the community to create another women's space that could be used for multi-use. Everything from classes, to dancing, to meetings, to recovery meetings, to whatever women in the community, people in the community, wanted to use it for. And a good friend of mine, Lois Stover , and a very committed group of women worked very hard to rehab a space and make it into Apple Island. And one of the first things that I did when I started going to Apple Island was take an acting class there. And that was a lot of fun. And I worked with a lot of other people. We were doing a lot of improve. And improve requires you to be in your body and to be paying attention to the people you're sharing improv with. And so out of that experience, I started gaining some confidence and learning some things about how to perform. And did some collective work with people at Apple Island. And one of the things I did at Apple Island was created a group called Acting Out. And we did a number of original productions of improvs, where we would sketch out a theme for the show, and then each individual contributor would either do a monologue, or a piece, or some stand-up, and then we did some improv stuff together as a group. And that was really great. It helped me learn some skills at producing comedy and producing performance and spoken word performance. And I got more confident in being able to do my own comedy. And then it was another point where Lois Stover wanted to do some fundraising. Our rent was going up, our expenses were going up at Apple Island, and so I volunteered to help produce a couple of comedy jams. And so I put together some performers, which were other stand up comics, myself, and some improv groups to do some fundraisers for Apple Island. And then from there, I auditioned to perform at the lesbian variety show, which had a rich history in Madison of being the true essence of variety performance. Everything from dance groups, to comedy, to singers, to women who preformed on the trapeze-- a real diverse group of people. And it became a large weekend where it was the big event at the Barrymore and then there were poetry readings and it was breakfast, and there were art shows, and it was a very successful production for a number of years. And I did some improv first, with some of the women from my Acting Out group. And then I started doing some stand-up comedy. And that was the largest audience I performed in because, the capacity in the Barrymore is about 800 people. And the first time I did comedy in front of 800 people was pretty scary. But it was a real high. 
LG:	 I'm sure quite a difference from your initial experience with Lysistrata. 
LL:	 Absolutely. 
00:47:13 
LG:	 So what gave you the confidence to go out and continue to put yourself out there so much in the community in Madison? 
LL:	 Well, in terms of the comedy and the performance, I always considered myself a pretty social person. And I enjoyed interacting with people on that level and had a lot of fun. And so it was a great way to collaborate. It reminded me a lot of my early experiences in high school and college in the theater, in that you all start out together with this script and an empty stage and you put on a show. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Let's put on the show. So I think there's something about that experience that just is a fun collaboration. But I also find myself needing to get involved in community activities. Organizations that fed other parts of my spirit. And one of those at that time was making the commitment to WISH House. My recovery had been strong. It had been a few years. And there were a group of us who wanted to create our own space for 12 step meetings. And so we rented a house next to Ace Hardware on Williamson Street and wrote some bylaws, got a group of volunteers, went in and fixed up the house a little bit, and it became WISH House Women in Support and Healing. And for a few years, we had a series of meetings there. But, unfortunately, like a lot of things in the women's community in Madison, we weren't able to consistently raise enough donations from the meetings or from the fundraisers that we had to support paying the rent on the house for a protracted period of time. So we had to make a tough decision at one point to give up the house. But WISH continued as an organization, but would just rent meeting space at the Atwood Community Center and places like that. But I was the first president of the board of directors of WISH House and managed that for a few years. And it was real integral. It was one of those commitments that I made that I benefited personally as much as I contributed to the community. It really helped my own recovery. 
00:49:47 
LG: 	So all this time when you're out and you're participating in all these activities as an out lesbian, did you ever experience discrimination in the workplace in Madison while you were being so visible in the lesbian community? 
LL:	 That's a good question, because I've always been one of those people. I've never really gone into the closet, but I've never been a in your face out person. So in the workplace, I would come out in gradual ways, in natural ways. If people started asking me questions about my personal life, I would talk about my partner, and then would introduce my partner, and people would ask questions, sometimes, depending on how comfortable they were. The first job that I held was at the silk screen printing company. And I had actually worked there for almost 20 years. And so it was when I first moved to Madison and after I left college. I started out as a printer, and then I went into sales, and so they watched me go from this young college student who was the same age as the three brothers who owned the business. And they watched me go through my marriage, start dating women, not naming it when I was going through it, but knowing that I was the feminist. So I was the feminist before I was a lesbian. And then I became the feminist lesbian. But it was a gradual coming out with the people that I worked with at that job. And they just accepted it. When I got sober, I went to them and said, I'm having some problems with alcohol. I drank with all of them, at some point. And they were like, you have a problem with alcohol? Like they were totally shocked. But I did a pretty good job, as a lot of alcoholics do, of trying to not let that spill into my work life. But they supported me when I got sober. So in that particular environment, I had a very supportive group of people who had seen me through a lot of changes. And because we had shared, over the course of 20 years, that time together, it was gradual and more natural. And they were very accepting. I'd take my partners with me and people I dated to company events and that. Later, after I left that job, it was always a challenge. It was like, OK. Now I have to come out again. How my going to do that? And I've always tried to let it unfold in a natural way. And I've never shown up on work the first and said, I'm a lesbian. But when the paperwork gets put down and the emergency contact gets written, and that relationship, what is that relationship? It's always been significant other or whatever the appropriate word was at the time. And I left it up to people to ask me about it. And most people don't. But gradually, I would start talking, sharing stories on a Monday morning of what my partner and I did over the weekend. And gradually, would start bringing that person with me to company, business related social events. And so I would come out that way. And I've never felt discriminated against in that regard. I always have those moments, though, where I have a little fear in, how is this going to affect my job? How's it going to affect my ability to get promotions? And I've never really been clear on whether it's helped or hindered me in that regard. In my current job, I work for Zimbrick. It's a family-owned business and it's got very strong values in terms of family and community. My current manager, my boss, is someone who has a very strong, personal belief in his Christian church. And it's a very integral part of his life. And I was a little worried, because last year, after I was working for Zimbrick for about six or nine months, I was asked to be the speaker, the MC, at the Pride march. And I'd done Pride marches in the past, but this was the first time I was doing it while I was employed in this new job. And so I had that moment of like, OK, well, I might be on the news. I haven't come out to everybody at work. People are going to ask. So I just trust that I do my job as the MC. I did get covered by the news, I was interviewed for a newspaper article and provided a lot of background to the event last year. Clips of me introducing Tammy Baldwin were on television and people at work saw it. And some people talked about it, and some people didn't. So my coming out was, once again, a natural way of-- there were people I work with who were very comfortable to say, hey. I saw you on TV. That was a pretty good march, wasn't it? And they're real natural about it. And then I have other people who don't say anything, but I don't feel that they're treating me in any kind of negative way because of it. 
00:55:31
LG:	 So you mentioned religion and your boss, but you haven't really spoken about religion, I think, in your background or in your current-- does religion play a part in your life? 
LL:	 Spirituality does. I consider myself an agnostic and a lapsed Catholic. I was raised Catholic. And the church was really important to me when I was young. There was a lot about the church and the rituals that I enjoyed and spoke to me. And I had my period in my pre-adolescence that I think a lot of young Catholic children did, where I thought I'd grow up and be a saint or a martyr or something. Maybe even a nun. But that quickly passed. And yet in my young adulthood, I started seeing some of the, for myself, inconsistencies and hypocrisy in the church. And my grandmother, my father's mother, was a very devout Catholic. And a little bent branch in my family tree is my grandfather, my father's father, was a bigamist. And he was married to my grandmother first, started raising a family, had three kids with my grandmother, and then broke the law and married another woman at the same time as my grandmother. And had a third woman he was having an affair with, who was a minor. And he had all three women pregnant at the same time. And that blew up. The reason why I mention that is that my grandmother tried to get a dispensation from the church when she got divorced. But the Catholic church is pretty inflexible with some things. And one of those things is divorce. And so she couldn't receive communion after her divorce. And she worked very hard to appeal that, to talk with priests, bishops, to all the people that she would have to report to. And I think that experience really jaded me about the church. So I think in my young adulthood, I started divorcing myself from the church. And in college, I spent a lot of time taking a lot of philosophy courses. And there were bits and pieces of different philosophies that spoke to me. And I spent a lot of time studying Taoism and existentialism, and found bits and pieces of those philosophical beliefs that made sense to me. And then when I got sober, one of the very first things that I was confronted with was trying to define a higher power, which is very much a part of recovery, and is very much a part of AA's philosophy. And so I spent a lot of time struggling with, what is my higher power? And so I found myself figuring out a spiritual construct that worked for me. And it really had a lot to do with a combination of higher self and shared spirituality of what humanity brings to life and how we can all act from our higher selves and create peace and do things in our lives that benefit a greater good. 
LG:	 So your spirituality is something that's more internal, as compared to going outside and finding some sort of a church-type organization that you belong to. 
LL:	 Right. I've done some worship where I think there is some benefit to sharing spirituality or that experience with other people. So over the years I've been in churches where I've checked out Unitarian churches. The only good thing that I think President Bush ever did was after 9/11, he said everybody should go to church today. On Friday, after 9/11, and let's make this a day of worship. And so I did like many others. I ended up going to a Unitarian church at University Bay Drive. And it was a great service. And the church was full of people needing to be together and sharing readings. And it really touched me. 
01:00:25
LG:	 Well, let's change topic again here. You need a little bit of a break. We've talked a little bit about Apple Island, we've talked a little bit about Lysistrata. You also have been involved in the sports area within the Madison lesbian community? You want to talk about a little bit? 
LL:	 I spent a lot of time being on the lower leagues of the fast pitch softball leagues. I was never a great athlete, but I was an enthusiastic one. And I played on a number of softball leagues over the years-- and softball teams. And it was another entree into the community. Women's sports were really growing at that time in the late 70's, early 80's and the Madison rec leagues had just a real strong growth spurt in women's softball. And I played on fast pitch leagues. And what I recall was the fast pitch leagues had names based on the alphabet. So if you were in Arizona or Alabama, you were on a really good league. I was always in Kentucky. One of the lower leagues. So that said something about my skill level. But I had a lot of fun. And over the years I was on, after Lysistrata burned down, we formed a team. And we were trying to do some fundraising, hoping that maybe we could start another business similar to Lysistrata, which we failed to do. But we are on the team called the Lysistrata Fireballs, so we had a sense of humor, at least. I was on a couple of other women's teams and became a big fan and supporter of Room of One's Own team. I didn't play on Room of One's Own, but I was one of the regular fans in that group. An ambulance driver. I had a couple of occasions where I had to drive people to the hospital for softball related injuries. 
01:02:34 
LG:	 OK. You mentioned Lysistrata again. Would you mind sharing your recollections of how that ended? 
LL:	 Sure. Sure. Lysistrata was-- 
LG:	 Do you have date, about? 
LL:	 Yeah. Approximately. I think it started in about 1976 or 1977-- probably 1977. And then by 1982 Lysistrata was struggling financially. And part of it was an identity crisis. I think I mentioned earlier that part of it had to do with, originally, it was a feminist restaurant and bar collective. But the audience changed and it went from being a wider community audience to being more of a women's bar. And there were problems with some of the management of the restaurant. Some of that was related to Catherine Rouse. She left at one point. I don't know all the details, but there were some controversies about her leaving. There were some problems with one of the chefs, some incidents between Catherine and one of the chefs. Lysistrata, because it was a cooperative, was run by a board of directors. And so decisions were made periodically. And then the real downfall was there was a tax issue that came up, where Lysistrata was in arrears in its unemployment tax. And once the IRS came in there and started slapping on penalties and fines and all of that, it became a huge financial burden. And the board worked really hard to address those financial issues and try to dig ourselves out of it. But it was happening at a time when there was actually a slight recession going on again. And people weren't spending as much money, the restaurant business was really not doing very well, it was becoming more of a bar environment, and yet women don't spend as much money, typically, when they go out. So women would buy one or two drinks sometimes, and that would be all that they would spend for the night. So even when we started instituting cover charges, we just weren't making enough money to pay our bills. Particularly, the new commitments that we had to paying off the IRS debt. There was a lot of changes in the board of directors, and we were trying to do some new things to keep programs going on. Gradually, we couldn't pay staff, and so volunteers started doing some things. We didn't have a regular restaurant business anymore, and so we started doing these TGIF Fridays, where they were, Thank Goddess It's Friday. And events where people would volunteer to cook spaghetti dinners and things like that, and have fundraising events. And so it was being run by volunteers, for the most part, and board of directors. And we just weren't succeeding at paying off our debt and getting back on our feet quick enough. There were some other businesses within the building. There was a space called The Living Room, which was an after hours location with a nefarious reputation. There was a period of time where there was a lot of coke going on. The space was owned by someone who had a record store, and there was a part of the community that was rumored-- I never got up to that location-- but the rumor was that there was a lot of coke being used up there. A lot of after hours drinking. And there was a fire in that location, which ended up burning the building down. 
LG:	 In the upstairs. 
LL:	 In the upstairs. Unfortunately, when they investigated the fire, they couldn't prove who started the fire, even though there was accelerant found in the location upstairs in the floor. And it was rumored that it started in the business that was called The Living Room. Because Lysistrata had been in the news because of its trouble with the IRS, it was rumored that we may have caused the fire. And it was investigated. I was on the board of directors at the time and we were all called into the police arson investigation office and interviewed. Because of that, our insurance company decided that they weren't going to honor the part of our insurance policy, which is called business interruption. Most businesses that have to have a building have business interruption insurance, so that if they suffer catastrophe like a fire, they have money to help them rebuild and keep their business going until they can restart in a new location. Hence the name business interruption. Well, our insurance company decided that they weren't going to pay that policy because there was suspicion that we had caused the fire. And so they said that our claim was fraudulent-- asking to receive our insurance coverage for the business interruption. So there was a court case and some members of the board testified. We had a really good attorney. The attorney that Lysistrata had hired recommended that we go with a different law firm for the court case, and we went with the best law firm in town who tires those kind of cases. And yet we lost the business interruption portion of the claim. So the money that we did receive-- that was for the business loss but not the business interruption-- paid off any debts we had, including the IRS. I mean, all that money basically went to the IRS and a few vendors that we owed money to. And then, because we didn't have any money from the business interruption insurance, we weren't able to restart the business. 
01:09:15
LG:	 And did you feel like any part of that had to do with the fact that it was, I'm assuming, mostly, if not all, lesbians on the board of directors? 
LL:	 Absolutely. In fact, during the trial, the attorneys representing the insurance company really portrayed it like, these are just a bunch of quote, women, who weren't really running a business. You don't run a business by having volunteers cook spaghetti dinners. You don't really have a business when you're not serving food and you don't have paid staff. And they didn't really understand, or chose not to understand, that women's businesses and cooperatives are very different than a traditional for-profit business. And our attorneys didn't do, in my view, a good enough job describing that difference. So I think in some ways, they didn't outrightly discriminate against us because we were lesbians. But I think there was the inference that because we were women, we weren't really running a business. So yeah, I think there was some discrimination on that. 
LG:	 And what year would this have taken place in this court battle? 
LL:	 That was 1982. 
LG:	 1982. OK, so-- 
LL:	 Or '83. One of those two. Something like that. 
LG:	 So, really, before there was any sexual harassment type rules. So women, definitely, were looked upon as the lesser of the sexes. 
LL:	 Yeah. That was still at a time when women had to fight harder to get equal treatment. I mean, there had been some cases. But it was still at a time when you could get a good attorney to argue a case that these were women who weren't really running a business, but they were just having this little hobby. So they could play on the jury's biases about that. 
LG:	 And this took places in Madison? The jury-- 
LL:	 Yes.
LG:	--the court? 
LL:	 Yep. 
LG:	 The case? So were you surprised by the outcome? did you feel, up to that point, that Madison was a fairly supportive community for a lesbian environment? 
LL:	 I did. In fact, a lot of our customers at Lysistrata in the early years were people who were very active in the political movement, who were very feminist leaning men and women. And I think the whole community was surprised by the outcome. One of the things that I don't have available today, but I will make available for the archives are some of the newspaper articles that covered the Lysistrata trial. 
LG:	 And afterwards, you and the other board members from Lysistrata, did you pretty much just disband after the court case and you realized there was no money? Or did you folks stay together as a group and try to start anything else? 

LL:	 We stayed together long enough to work with our attorney to make sure that our creditors and the IRS were paid. We stayed together long enough-- and this decision, I think as I recall, was made pretty quickly-- to find out if we could restart. And there was not the energy, the people power, the investment, or the funds to restart, particularly since we lost the case. And many of the people who were part the original board of directors had either moved on to other commitments, had passed away, had gotten in other involvements. So it was really, unfortunately, a time when the original commitment that we had to start Lysistrata was no longer-- we didn't have the depth of community support to continue it. 
LG:	 So this must have taken up a lot of your time during this whole process. Because I'm assuming it was between the fire, and dealing with the insurance company, and dealing with the court case. After this was all over, you being a very active individual, what you did to fill your time then? 
LL:	 That was pretty much about the time I got sober. So it really went from putting a lot of energy out into the community and involvements into my social life-- I mean, Lysistrata was the hub of my social life at the time-- to getting involved in a committed relationship, really wanting that committed relationship to work, and then realizing that my problems with alcohol were affecting the success of that relationship. So next few years, from about 1985 to 1990, were really in getting sober, making the commitment to WISH House, and channeling some of that energy that had been into that social, recreational area, which included softball teams and all of that, went into recovery. First on a very personal level, and then sharing it with a larger community. I became very active in WISH House and then, because I had some sobriety, I was sponsoring in AA. People who've been in the program awhile will sponsor newcomers into the program. And so I was doing a lot of sponsoring, and peer counseling, and supporting other people who are in recovery. 
01:15:10
LG:	 One thing I'd like to talk to you about-- and I can't find the sheet at the moment. You have written a lot of poetry, and, specifically, I believe it's a collection of poems. Maybe an actual published book, called Valentine's? 
LL:	 Yeah. The Valentine Poems. 
LG:	 The Valentine Poems. And that was a group of poems you wrote based on, I believe, your longest long-term relationship? 
LL:	 Yeah. I've been writing poetry for the last 29, 30 years. But my writing was periodic. I mean, I'd write some when I was still using. And when I look back at some of that poetry, it's like, oh, man. I was either high or something else when I was writing. And then I started getting more serious with my writing when I got sober. And then, in early 1993, I had spent a couple of years-- after my relationship ended with my first partner when I was sober-- I spent a fair amount of work in therapy working on OK, now that I'm sober, I want to have healthy relationships. And I spent a lot of time in therapy working on that. I also was trying to work on the issues with my family of origin, as many of us do. Because my parents alcoholism had flared out of control. And one of the things I learned in AA and Al-Anon was that I couldn't make that happen. I had to just wait until the time was right. And there came a time when my family members, my siblings, reached out to me and said, you know a little bit about this subject, but we're concerned about dad. And can we do an intervention? I'm only providing that as a backdrop because I started working on these family of origin issues. We did an intervention with my father, but my mom went into treatment. My family started doing a lot of healing. During that time, I was also working on trying to be in a healthy relationship. And that's when I met Cindy. And we actually-- she doesn't like it when I tell this story, because she's a private person-- but we met in a lesbian therapy group. And one of the ground rules in the therapy group is that you couldn't be involved with somebody in the group. So we weren't. We just showed up for therapy. And it was a lesbian relationships group. And the idea was that all of us, the ground rules, we weren't in relationships and we couldn't be involved with each other. And we talked about what and how to get into [UNINTELLIGIBLE] what a healthy, lesbian relationship would look like. So after the group ended, Cindy and I started dating. And very quickly got involved. And every year for Valentine's Day, I would right her a poem. And we had a 15 year relationship, which ended last year. And in part of my healing and letting go process, I tried to figure out how to do that. And one of the things that helped me was I was working on a chap book called Scenes of Everyday Life. And The Valentine Poems were a section of that larger collection. And I'm working on publishing the chap book called Scenes of Everyday Life, but in the interim, I decided that I would work on putting together The Valentine Poems. And I'm debating about whether I want to do a performance piece around it, but I'm not sure I can do it because I'm too emotionally involved. But I might write some material to connect the poems and create a monologue performance talking about lesbian relationships. And part of The Valentine Poems is that one would think, or assume, that each one would be this terrific poem about what a wonderful life a lesbian relationship is. And it really captured mundane moments in our relationship, years that we're struggles, and then a couple of years after the relationship ended. So I'm still trying to figure out what form the chap book's going to take as a performance piece, but that's the next step that I'm working on. 
01:20:06 
LG:	 So is that how you're working through your feelings of gone this breakup, or having had this long-term relationship? Is by putting it out there in either the written form or this performance? 
LL:	 Yeah. It feels like, because I've done a lot of my stand-up comedy-- and I laugh about this. I'm semi-retired from stand-up comedy. I haven't done a lot of it in the last few years. My last official performance was in the year 2000 at the Pink Party, which was at the Civic Center before it became the Overture Center. And the night that I did stand-up comedy was New Year's Eve. And because that was the year of Y2K, it was like everyone had attention deficit disorder that night. And it was a horrible night to do performance. And I had, once again, an out of body experience, because it was just a horrible, horrible experience performing that night. The other thing that happened was, the years that I was Cindy, for the most part, we had a really good relationship. And most of my comedy in the past had been about dysfunctional relationships. It had been about my family's dysfunctional relationships, it has been about some of the wacky, crazy things that lesbians do when they're dating. It did a lot of personal information. I was able to externalize a lot that was going on internally for me and make self-deprecating humor about my life that the audience could certainly relate to. Well, as I've gotten healthier and as my family's gotten healthier, and my relationship with Cindy, for the most part, was pretty healthy, I didn't have as much material. So I'm trying to figure out, how can I channel my life today in some kind of performance where I can integrating and combine those things that get some joy out of? How can I talk about recovery? How can I talk about lesbian relationships? How can I talk about my experience? I'm getting older, so part of it is the getting of wisdom. How can I talk about what I've learned over the years about life in a format that make sense? And I think the poems are good way to do that, because they represent little snapshots of 15 years. But the real material yet is unwritten. It's the bridge between each of those poems that I need to write. And that's what I'm working on now. It's been kind of fun to think about it as a performance piece or a play in that, one of the thoughts that I've had is to have 15 different women represent each year and read part of it. And have a narrator tell the story in between. So I'm tossing around a lot of different creative ideas of how I could write that. So I'm working on that. Plus the chap book. Getting that published. 
01:23:12 
LG:	 Are you still friends with Cindy? 
LL:	 Yeah. We're working on it. 
LG:	 Slow process? 
LL:	 Well, it's one of those things where-- speaking for myself, at least-- part of an ending a relationship is figuring out what the new relationship is going to be. And we are ending the form of our old relationship, and yet there's a lot about that I want to keep. But I need to do that in between step first, which is letting go of the part that we no longer share, working on the part of what was my responsibility on why it failed to continue. What was her stuff that I need to forgive her for? So that's where I'm at right now. I'm working through that stuff. But we've made lots of progress. She was the one who ended it, so there's, I think, a little bit more time required for the person who's left then there is for the leaver. Because they start thinking about it earlier than the person who's left. 
LG:	 So did you see it coming? Or was it-- 
LL:	 Yeah. In some ways. We were both unhappy. Part of the challenge for us is we started having a commuter relationship. Her job, she's a person who works for state and local government. And she worked for 14 under Tommy Thompson at the state. And when Doyle got elected, she lost her job. And so she worked for a while in Brown county and now works in Milwaukee County. And so when she moved to take those jobs, we had a commuter relationship. And I think that was a real challenge for our relationship. And how to have a relationship when we're geographically separated except for weekends. 
LG:	 And in the Madison community right now, are you pursuing new relationships? 
LL:	 Well I'm pursuing social activities that include women. So I guess that's like putting your foot in the water. In fact, one of the groups that I've been involved with lately is, there's a group through Outreach called Women for Women. And I'm one of the facilitators of that group. And we meet twice a month-- the second and fourth Saturday of the month. And it alternates between having a discussion topic week to doing a social activity. So I'm starting to do that and I'm working on this project, that these interviews are part of. So I will be starting to do some interviews for the oral history project, which I'm very interested in. And Crystal [? Hislap ?], one of my friends who's also somebody that I've known for a long time in the community, we're very interested in also working on doing some fundraising and other related activities for this. So I'm finding a new place to channel some of that energy. I'm ready to date if that occasion arises. I see myself as a person who likes being in a relationship, but I also am a person that-- it's kind of ironic. When I'm not in a committed relationship, I put a lot of energy out into the community. When I'm in a committed relationship, I tend to function at a high level in the relationship and have less to contribute to the larger community. So I'd like to find some balance in that. Of being able to have a partnership with the person, and maybe share some of that commitment to the community. 
LG: 	You just mentioned that Women for Women. How did you become a facilitator with that? 
LL: 	Well, I'm one of those personality types that I tend to-- I'm not a control freak, but I don't like chaos. And I think it's part of that being the eldest child, where if I walk into a room and there's a certain level of disorganization or chaos and nobody steps up to put some order in place, I tend to be that kind of person who will volunteer to help out. And typically in the women's community and a lot of organizations, if you raise your hand to help out, you're in charge. So one of the founders of the group accepted a job in Ohio. And as she was leaving, she was asking for people who were interested in filling in some of the gaps that she would be creating by her leaving. I volunteered to be one of, at that time, what I thought was going to be five or six facilitators. But all of a sudden, it was one of the other founders and I that were left with the responsibility. And I'm really happy about it. I've been enjoying the input that I've been able to give to the group.