Fighting Fire: A Personal Story.By Caroline Paul Caroline Paul (born July 29, 1963 in New York City) is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction. Trained as a journalist and documentary filmmaker at Stanford University, she instead pursued a career as a firefighter, as one of the first women hired by the San Francisco Fire (St. Martin's, $23.95) Caroline Paul remembers her first cock ring. The San Francisco firefighter had just begun working on the rescue squad. Summoned to a Bay Area hospital to remove the stubborn accessory from a certain swollen appendage appendage /ap·pen·dage/ (ah-pen´dij) a subordinate portion of a structure, or an outgrowth, such as a tail. epiploic appendages see under appendix . , Paul took a deep breath, leaned in, and lopped off the cock ring with a pneumatic saw. "That's how you get broken in on the squad," Paul tells The Advocate in an exclusive interview with the gay press. "You take off a cock ring. Our responsibilities beyond firefighting are infinite. We're expected to be janitors, plumbers, nurses,psychiatrists--and we take off cock rings too." Such acts of bravery are recounted in all their searing sear 1 v. seared, sear·ing, sears v.tr. 1. To char, scorch, or burn the surface of with or as if with a hot instrument. See Synonyms at burn1. 2. drama in Paul's new book, Fighting Fire: A Personal Story. A member of the department for nine years, the 34-year-old Paul chronicles her incendiary INCENDIARY, crim. law. One who maliciously and willfully sets another person's house on fire; one guilty of the crime of arson. 2. This offence is punished by the statute laws of the different states according to their several provisions. battles in and out of the field as one of San Francisco's first female (and lesbian) fire-fighters. Despite its movie-of-the-week-style dust jacket, Paul's memoir is a gripping and unpredictable page-turner, casting a humane light on a decidedly macho subject. "I'm definitely not a hero," Paul explains. "And I don't try to say that in the book. I just happen to write about what most of us experience." Perhaps. But the gorgeous twin sister of Alexandra Paul (of Baywatch fame) is hardly the typical firefighter. The daughter of a Harvard-educated businessman, Paul studied journalism at Stanford University. Doing the white-collar thing after graduating, Paul led a secret dare-devil life, luging Noun 1. luging - riding a light one-man toboggan tobogganing - riding on a long light sled with low handrails through Europe and white-water-rafting in the tropics tropics, also called tropical zone or torrid zone, all the land and water of the earth situated between the Tropic of Cancer at lat. 23 1-2°N and the Tropic of Capricorn at lat. 23 1-2°S. . It wasn't until she entered the fire department as an undercover journalist that she found her true vocation. "I love what I do," she says. "I get very centered when I'm that close to such a powerful element. It puts things in perspective." Although Paul is openly gay in the department--her partner of five years is a firefighter too--the hook concentrates on her struggles as a woman in a man's world, not as a lesbian in a straight one. "I can't really speak to the homophobia, unfortunately," she explains. "The guys I work with are great. I march in the gay parade, and the department is very supportive. They even supply an engine and truck." With unconditional encouragement from her sister, parents, and peers, Paul is embarking on an all-out publicity blitz, including a cover story for the May issue of the newly revamped Reader's Digest--although without the lesbianism lesbianism: see homosexuality. lesbianism also called sapphism or female homosexuality, the quality or state of intense emotional and usually erotic attraction of a woman to another woman. . "They knew," she says emphatically. "They just didn't put it in." No stranger to conservative establishments, Paul takes that in stride. "Hey, I'm part of their new look," she says, laughing heartily. "We're infiltrating everywhere." David Bahr writes for The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times, Time Out New York, and New York, and New York magazine. |
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