So much to say

Hi folks.

I know it's been awhile.  There's just....been...so...much.  A lot of it really good. Elle and I are going strong.  But she started a new job, and I started trying to actually finish my dissertation,and there's been drama and stress and heartache in both of lives and we are both, to put it simply...

SO FUCKING TIRED.

But there's a lot I want to write about, like the shock and pain and sadness of realizing what it's really like to be both out of and in the closet, how interesting it is for me to notice how very different (hopefully in a good way) I am in a relationship now, at 30, then I was in my twenties, and what it's like, and how hard it is-- for me at least-- to really let someone love me.  Apparently that's a hard one for me, folks, though I do feel lucky that that's my issue. In that I now have someone in my life who is challenging me to actually do that, to actually LET LOVE IN.

So, hopefully I'll get some of that written soon.  But I am here, and I'll be back.

In the meantime, I've been curious for awhile now to know who you, my lovely readers, are.  A few of you have commented already (hi Harper, Megan, MakingSpace!), but I know there are more of you out there, quietly reading (which I get, that tends to be my blog presence too).  I'd love to know who more of you are, and what led you to my little corner of the gay blogosphere. Say hi, won't you?

<3

A month of texts with my mother

The following is approximately a months worth of texts from my mother. I'm clearing out my phone and need to get rid of this loooooooong conversation chain, but as I went to delete them, I couldn't bear to not record the absurdity of the way we communicate for posterity. [Feel free to skip this one, dear readers!]

On Cynthia Nixon's "choice to be gay"

This post is a few weeks late, but oh well. Let's just go with it.

On January 19, the Times posted a profile of Cynthia Nixon.  Here's an excerpt from the article:

“I totally reject [the idea that her change in sexual orientation is somehow a lie],” she said heatedly. “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

A few weeks later, a friend of mine directed my attention to Nixon's comments, and I said to her, "Wow, I've actually said that exact thing before. 'Gay is better.' It really is! I totally understand where she's coming from."

Then, not a day later, another friend directed me to an article by Lindsay Miller, written in response to all of the criticism Nixon received after the Times piece ran.  I literally got chills reading her words.  So much of what she wrote has either literally passed through my lips in this past year as I have worked to explain my change in sexuality to my friends, old and new, or so closely parallels my own thoughts about sexuality and where I fit in to it all that I was...stunned. And moved.  I really understand where Lindsay Miller is coming from.  To wit:

So what difference does it make whether or not I call myself bisexual? My story and my life are too complicated to be summed up and dismissed in that one little word. What is crucial to me is that I chose the relationship I’m in today, and I chose to align myself, personally and politically, with the lesbian community. If I’m a bisexual, I’m a bisexual who is only interested in dating or sleeping with women. I’m a bisexual who thinks John Barrowman is insanely beautiful, but has zero interest in putting any part of my body on any part of his body. I’m a bisexual who would rather lick a clitoris than literally any other activity in the world. I’m a bisexual who is practically indistinguishable from a great big lesbian. 

I’m not saying that homosexuality is a choice for everyone. Obviously, it isn’t. But for those of us whose sexual attraction is fluid, or shifting, or somewhere in the middle, or directed towards people who are not unambiguously men or women, devoting ourselves exclusively to same-sex partners can be a choice—a choice many of us make joyfully and with our eyes wide open. What’s so scary and infuriating about that?

Preach, Lindsay. Preach.

Here's a link to the article again: My Love, My Choice: On Cynthia Nixon and Why Gay is (Sometimes) Better. That's how much I really hope you read it. It's long. And it's really good. And it's kind of....well... me.

Pink is for girls.

In the early 1900s, pink was considered a color for boys.  Wikipedia quotes an article from a 1918 trade publication as saying; “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink.

This is the first paragraph of a really great post on a really great blog I've discovered, Undercover in the Suburbs.

I added the bold lettering myself, just to further highlight the absurdity of the way our society constructs and makes shit up, specifically around gender identity and roles. Pink was seen as a stronger, "more decided" color than blue, and was therefore assigned to boys, since, of course, they were assumed to be stronger than girls. (Of course we call bullshit there.) But, the thing that really gets my goat is that, somewhere along the line, however things got flipped around--making pink the "girly" color--with the switch, the perception of pink being "stronger" vanished, likely because it was now associated with being a girl, and therefore, by definition, signified inferiority and daintiness.

True story: when I was younger, I actively rejected my affinity for pink because of its association in our society with "girliness" which I, as a teenager, equated with being overlooked and invalidated.  I often felt invalidated and overlooked due to my gender as it was, and didn't want to make it even harder to be taken seriously by having PINK STUFF--oh, the horror.  Sad, right? Yeah.  A part of me still feels that way, and now, at 30, I carefully choose how much pink to allow myself. Le sigh.

I'll stop here, and direct you to go read the original post, both because it is well written, and because my brain is still fuzzy from flu-ness.

Go forth and be feminists, my friends.

June 2011--Baby's first Pride

NYC Pride.

I personally think of Pride as an opportunity for all queer people, regardless of how they identify, to take to the streets of NYC, or whatever city they're in, and declare their pride at being whoever they fucking are, regardless of who they prefer to fuck. It's a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful weekend.

I was fortunate enough, at the end of June 2011, to participate in my first Pride, just as I began to fully come into my own as a queer person, and just as NY State passed marriage equality for all people, regardless of sexual orientation, on June 24, 2011.  It was an exciting, thrilling time.

I celebrated at and around The Stonewall Inn on the night of June 24, feeling overjoyed that the state that I newly called home had finally done the right thing.  I saw so many beautiful, shining, happy faces that night on the streets of New York City, and it was surprisingly very affirming for me (though I didn't know I was missing, and needing, the affirmation) to know that, in this new chapter of my life that I was just beginning, I would still have the option to marry another person--a woman--if I choose to, sometime down the line.

That night is one of my favorite memories, and probably always will be.

I was also lucky enough to have found, by the time Pride rolled around, some amazing queer friends to experience the weekend with.  I participated in the Dyke March, I (almost) made it to the Pride March (there was too much margarita drinking to be done that day), and experienced the Stiletto Pride Party as a VIP pass holder.

I cannot overstate what a good decision it is, my lovelies, to purchase a VIP pass to the Stiletto Pride Party.

Purchase a VIP pass to the Stiletto Pride Party.

That party was off. the. fucking. hook.

Now, Maggie C's Stiletto party in general really deserves a post of its own, but for now I'll just say that the most gorgeous lesbians you will see in NYC are usually at Stiletto, even on a slow night, so just imagine, if you will, the kinds of women that were found in the VIP room of the Stiletto Pride Party.

Omg. O.M.G.

It was amazing. It was perfect. It was an open bar.

Of course, seeing as this party was THE place to BE SEEN, 10.0 was there, along with her cadre of beautiful power lesbians.  Meh. This part was not so fun.

But once she left? Good times.

Near the end of Stiletto Pride, I met one of the sexiest women I have ever met.  We'll call her "Hot Cop" because, well...she's super hot. And she's a cop. (My creative juices are really flowing today. Be jealous.)

We actually started talking because I was trying to find someone for my friend, but then I realized that, well, she was amazingly hot and I wanted a piece of that, please and thank you. Besides, my friend wasn't interested so.....

Cut to: HC and I dancing and making out furiously for at least an hour. I get her number, tell her I will be calling her, and she leaves because she has to go do her super bad-ass cop job the next morning. I left that party with swollen lips and in complete awe.

It was a great first Pride.

February 19, 2011--Exuent.

Well, fuck.

I write from my new apartment, which I only arrived at at 7:30 am, after sleeping off my drunkenness from last night in my car from 4-7 am. I know... What the fuck. I'm a mess.

Last night, I ended up meeting up with 10 and her friends. She was beautiful, my boobs were out, I saw her looking, but she was a bit aloof with me. It turns out that this is because she’s in love with her straight friend J-e, who seems to be a bit in love with her too, from the looks of it, as she was draping herself all over 10 while her boyfriend looked on. All night. Huh.

So I basically observed 10.0 in the midst of the same horrible, heart-wrenching process that I am in with her. Cruel, cruel world.

At one very memorable moment in the night, the “straight” friend j was grinding on me face to face, with 10 grinding on her from behind, and j was very interested in learning all about me, possibly as a distraction from how much she was enjoying feeling 10 behind her. 10 and I made a lot of eye contact while this was going on…it was hot, but weird, since I still don’t know where I stand with her. What am I to her?? I really don’t know.

There was also a point where she dragged me up on the stage at the bar to dance, and that was nice, just to get to be so close to her.

At the end of the night, though, she said as she was putting me in a cab, “I might go to the upper west…” which is where ss lives. (oh, impt to note that earlier in the night 10 was again lamenting her relationship with ss, and how fucked up it is, how she doesn’t want to be in it but can’t leave her, etc.) I ask her why, why god why!? Her answer “b/c I want to have sex.” Yeah, don’t we all.

At some point I remember she also told me that she doesn’t want to have sex with straight girls. "With gay girls is better," she said.

Huh.

What if I’ve done all the reading??

February 12, 2011--bad bad bad

Note from the future: Oh, this one's sad...

i think that this marriage has been the worst experience of my life.

many things big and small have led to that being true, and it really feels too daunting to even spell out everything that's happened today. it's really hard to put into words the feelings of horrible sadness and badness that i feel in this relationship.

one thing that happened is that i told him that i need my car tomorrow. (i did not tell him that i need it because i'm hoping that i can go look at apartments tomorrow. i kind of wish i had told him that.) he's planning to go skiing tomorrow, and would of course have just taken my car, while his car remains blocked into the driveway by weeks worth of snow and ice. i asked him to help me dig his car out. he said i should have to do it by myself because he had shoveled my car out by himself several weeks ago. that's true, he did, but that's because i couldn't shovel because we'd gotten rear-ended the day before and i was in pain and on muscle relaxers. i told him that we both should have, by now, gone out and shovelled his car out together, and the fact that there was now rock hard ice surrounding his car was due to both of our negligence. he looked at me and said "i think you should have to do it." i looked at him and thought "strike 5,063".

so I go outside, start chipping away at the ice, and it's hard and hurting my back, and i'm barely making a dent in the ice, and i cry. eventually, i think i've evened the snow out enough that i can just drive the car over the ice and get it out of the driveway, so i try that, and it works. thank god.

i came back inside and have been sitting at my desk working. he comes in and says "thanks for getting my car out, that wasn't so hard was it?" i say "yes, it was hard." he says "you were only out there for like 10 minutes." i say, "it was hard for me." he says "for 10 minutes, it was hard? ok." (this is said with dripping sarcasm). i look up at him, feeling defeated, and say "ok, you win," and turn back to my work. he then gets flustered and annoyed and explains to me that when he was shoveling a few weeks ago, he was out there for 45 minutes, but me out there for 10 minutes was hard? he asks, "what exactly did you have to do?" i say "i'm not doing this with you. i don't need you to tell me if it was hard for me to dig your car out. if you need to think it wasn't hard for me, that's fine." he continues to sputter and spit and be annoyed that i will not allow him to tell me how i can and should quantify my experience. i doubt that he understands what was wrong with the way he was communicating with me. and i don't even really care at this point.

this is one of the many reasons why i do not want to be with him.