natalie fails at being gay again

Not really. But I missed Pride again this year. I was going to try and go with Andrea after the wedding reception, but I was too tired and drunk to go. Mom said there were fireworks. She and Laura wore their matching Pride t-shirts, I don't know if you've seen the logo, but it's fucking awesome. I'm going to make them wear them again so I can get the picture I wanted to get yesterday afternoon but did not. They were so cute.

See how awesome the logo is? Genius, even. I love it.

I haven't been to Pride since I was in high school. Mom said this time there weren't even any protesters, which is awesome. Although I've always harbored fantasies of throwing down (means fighting) with those bastards, or at least throwing water balloons at them. But it's great that they were absent, even though it was always hilarious to see them corralled in their little far-away corner, where they can't bother anyone, and they have to stand there in the heat and watch all the fags frolicking about and queering it up.

And I don't really fail at being gay. I'm a good gay. I care about gay things, and support gay causes, and try to be as gay as possible at all times to, you know, balance out all the hetero-ness in this world.

So to make up for missing Pride I want to have a party on the 28th (or the 27th, which is a Saturday) to celebrate Stonewall. And by party I mean I want to get drunk with people I like, and have a gay old time. Maybe I can have it at Andrea's and we can invite all the queers from Whole Foods. There are a lot of them. Don't worry, they're cool. Plus, you know I have a strict anti-crazy policy.

Oh, how fun. I'll talk to my sister about it today. Yay!

the sexual deviate

Krystal has this book. It was published in 1963. It's pretty hilarious. And fucked. But we are safely in 2009, so it is ok to laugh about it.

One passage that was particularly enlightening: ''Thus a lesbian does not seek out women as lovers because of some inner craving for homosexual relations but because of some basic psychic imbalance.... Whatever the cause, we may be fairly secure in assuming her lesbianism is, at root, a manifestation of some inner emotional problem.''

Great, right? I'm glad someone finally figured it out. Thanks, 1963. You're awesome.

Fucking yikes, though. Seriously.

p.s. What really cheeses me off about the book is that fags don't even have their own section in it. Like we're not even good enough or important enough to get a chapter in the pervert book. It's the visibility thing. Le argh. Fuckers.

do you carry the words around like a key or change?

I am preparing myself mentally for the last episode of the L Word and the blog that will follow. I know I've talked to some of you about how I feel about the L Word, but I really cannot stress enough how important it has been in my life over the past 5 years. It's more than just tv. For me it fully transcends it. Because it's not just a tv show, it's fucking groundbreaking, and for that reason it has a place on the Gay History timeline.

For me, it is the first time, ever, that something in the media was talking to me, Natalie, the young lesbian searching for her reflection. And there it was. I saw pieces of myself, and not just as a device to inspire erections in young men, like in other television programs briefly flirting with lesbian characters. These women were real, they were legitimate, they were well-developed and outspoken and fucked-up like real people. And they loved women. Truly. And some of the women who played them were lesbians themselves. And I fell in love with all of them the way you fall in love with art that moves your soul.

It has been five years. The L Word was with me in Kansas City, when I was confused and stupid and young and I thought I knew what love was. I was not fully developed in my lesbian identity. Frankly, I was still trying to be straight in a very strange way that I now realize was harmful not only to me but to my compatriot in attempted heteronormativity. The things I have learned in five years. Even in the past year. Big change. Radical.

And all the while there has been this television show, bringing up real issues. Heart-issues, for me. Gender and sexuality and Deaf and things I care about. The L Word told me with every breath it was ok to be myself and love who I love and I should not be ashamed and never let anyone make me feel I am less-than. Less than good. Less than whole. Less than beautiful. Less than a perfect creation of the universe. Less than everything I feel I am and want to be.

It's about possibility. The world can seem so closed-off and unreachable, sometimes, when you are a minority. It's like you speak only French and everyone else is speaking Japanese, and sometimes they are talking at you or about you, but never to you. And then, all of the sudden, you find someone who speaks your language and acknowledges you and looks you in the eye like you matter. When you are acknowledged instead of being ignored (or openly hated) the world opens up a bit. You become visible. Visibility is the number one most important step in the fight for equality. The cure for fear and ignorance, which are the seeds of hatred, is education. The more people are exposed to gayness, the less mysterious and scary it becomes. When it begins to be viewed as "normal" it is harder to villainize.

I don't think you even know, you guys. I cannot impart it to you properly. I don't have the words to make you understand my feelings in this particular situation. But maybe you almost feel it, just a little. That's all I can hope for, a modicum of comprehension on your part. Then I won't have failed completely to explain the importance of a silly tv show to you, noble readers (all three of you).

milk won two oscars

And the acceptance speeches were both really good. They replayed part of Dustin Lance Black's (the screenwriter) speech on Ellen yesterday and I popped out two fat, hot tears about it (which is the most I have cried in a long time, so I consider it a triumph of my emotions). It was so beautiful. It is the kind of visibility that the Gay Community so desperately needs these days. Sean Penn gave a good speech, too. I haven't watched it yet, but I read the transcript. He shamed everyone who voted for the gay marriage ban, which was appropriate and awesome.

Here's the bit of the speech that made me cry:

"But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours. Thank you, thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk."

Can you see why I cried? He couldn't have said anything better. It touched my heart. Gives me hope. Things are changing. They are changing and those old-guard Republican homophobes can't stop them. They're ridiculous old dinosaurs and the only thing they can do now is get older and more decrepit and then die. Good riddance. The world will be a better place without them.

my new gay friend

I have a gay friend! Her name is Pam. She is in my ASL 2 class. She has a wife and a six year old son. Her wife is kind of adorably country. They are all adorable, really. I went over to her house for study group yesterday but no one else showed up (which was actually what we were both secretly wishing would happen).

But it was great. We just chatted for like four hours and I love gay people who aren't crazy fucked-up. It was so awesome!

I'm taking my portfolio to school so I can show her because she said she wanted to see some of my work. And Tuesday after I get off work we are going to watch one of the lab videos together.

I'm so excited!

you were smoking me weren't you, between your yellow fingers

Today is Valentine's Day. I will say that right now, at this point in my life, I hate Valentine's Day. I will not go so far as to say I hate Valentine's Day so much that I would use it as an opportunity to sabotage any relationship I am in. That is the difference between me and fucked-up people. My feelings are temporary due to a raw little heart, which will hopefully heal up just fine with time.

Speaking of hearts, mine got nicked a bit last night in a weird way, which I hate, of course. I think I was just tired and drained from two nights in a row of interacting with people I don't know, which I also hate. Because I still, even now, feel my chest clench in panic when I'm on my way to Deaf events. The old me would just not have gone. Cried about it. New me goes but still freezes up. I can't be hard on myself about it, even if I fail Deaf Culture for it. I am only me. I can't be more or less. Plus it will will will get easier. I will be able to engage fully instead of sitting on the fringes, at some point. Part of it was there were less people that I know there than usual.

The lesbian from my class came, and that was cool. She went to Deaf, Deaf World last semester, the early one. I told her I went to the later one and so did my ex and it was terribly awkward. I asked her if that's where I remembered her from and then she informed me that actually I helped her with her laptop once (which I have zero recollection of at all). She also said she went home and told her girlfriend "I think a gay girl helped me today." Which was affirmed when she saw the button on my bag the first day of class.

Then there was this girl who came who I ended up talking to for more than an hour. She was totally straight though (I think). She read straight, especially because I was attracted to her. Because I am attracted to straight girls. Cute girls. Girls. God. There are just so goddamned many of them it's hard not to like some of them. Anyway. We were talking and she told me my name was beautiful and "rare nowadays" and touched my arm repeatedly and I think it's bullshit because if she were a lesbian those would totally be come-ons. But she's just a cute straight girl from what I could read of her. I was attempting to feel her out, "Did you move here by yourself?" and so on, but the conversation never quite got there. But I hate that shit. I can't just hit on someone. I do not chase straight girls. I don't hit on them. I'm paranoid about it. Probably because I don't want to be the creepy predatory dyke who goes after all the innocent vulnerable girls. (Wow. I have self-image issues, don't I? This is why I think I need to be in therapy.)

And girls are socialized to be flirtatious, anyway. Straight girls, if they know I'm a lesbian, flirt with me more than they would if they thought I was straight. For them I am probably a safe person with whom they can act out their latent homosexual feelings a bit. (Seriously.) They immediately categorize me as "harmless" because I'm shyish, nice, and a little awkward. Whatever. But. I'm still calling bullshit on it.

Fucking context, though, right? Christ. If you don't know the context then you're pretty much fucked.

Blerg.

your gayness does not define you, it's your mexicanity

Sometimes I hate straight people. Sometimes I wish they would all just go away, and then gay people would be left to take over everything. Maybe this is what those stupid Christians mean by the Rapture. If that is the case, then bring it on. Maybe they should make a gay version of the Left Behind books where all the gross straight people go to "heaven," and then life is awesome for gays everywhere and we all live in peace and harmony forever.

It makes me think that Deaf people must hate hearing people sometimes because we have it so easy. And we don't even think about it. We don't have to. We move through life effortlessly with easy access to everything and basic stuff, like going to the doctor or going to a movie, isn't ever a battle. (Except I fucking hate doctors so I have to battle with myself to actually go. But making the appointment is usually hassle-free.)

I don't think anyone has it easy, really. America is not an easy place. Maybe for rich white men it is. Not for anyone else. Like Tom Petty says, "everybody's had to fight to be free." This is not a "Who's Been More Oppressed" contest. That's pointless and counterproductive. (And besides, the Gay Black Transgender Deaf Quadriplegic Jews win that one every time.)

Anyway. Some days I hate straight people. Those are usually the days when it sucks to be gay. Like around Obama's election I hated straight people for making it bittersweet. And I lumped them all together, even the ones who didn't vote for bigotry, because I fucking felt like it. Sometimes it seems like stereotypes and inaccurate generalizations are all we have left over straight people. They hold all the power. What do we have? We can call them names. Make fun of them for their penchant for sex resulting in pregnancy. Turn the tables and say they are fags because maybe that is the most insulting thing they can be called (because they are secretly gay inside and don't like to be reminded of it, *ahem* Rick Warren). And then maybe the word "fag" has less power because it stops making sense if straight people are fags, too.

Like I said, though. I don't feel like that every day. Just some days. Sometimes I like straight people because I know a lot of them, and some of them are good and nice. Like Dave and my sister, except I don't count them as straight because Andrea is my sister (which makes her half gay, genetically speaking) and Dave has a ton of lesbian friends. So that's gay by association. Adam, I think, is the straightest person I know, and I like him all the time, even on straight-hating days. And even he only partly counts because he's marrying into gayness.

And maybe you are thinking "labels, schmabels, get over yourself," but it's not about labels, it's about identity. Identity is important. Americans are very into searching out their own personal identities. And I am very much an American.

My interpreting class (still full of ridiculous idiots who don't understand what a paragraph is) has me thinking about culture a lot. Thinking too, about my own personal cultural identity. Also thinking about the similarities between Gay Culture and Deaf Culture. I should write a paper about it. At least it's interesting. I could be in a Traditional Grammar and Usage class that makes me want to stab forks in my eyes, repeatedly.

p.s. Please don't ask me how someone can be Gay and Transgender at the same time. They are two different things.

slow down, you crazy child

I had a dream about neglecting animals last night. And by that I mean I had a dream about all the ways in which I neglect myself, and about that overwhelming feeling you have when the Jenga game of your life becomes ridiculously precarious. The dream is about the fact that I have been procrastinating buying new clothes for months. It is also about the three classes I am enrolled in for next semester. It is about the fucking stupid holidays and my guilt about being too broke to buy presents. It is about the interview I have at Borders today. (I fucking hate interviews.) It is about letting those damned students walk all over me at work.

I can't please everyone. I can't fix everything. So maybe I should just focus on pleasing and fixing myself and everyone else can just fuck off.

Non sequitir: They are painting the closest bathroom at work so I have to use the "crying bathroom" (the onsie bathroom I would always go cry about Liz in). So that's fun. Fond memories.

Anyway. I had a proud moment this morning because I was telling my sister about my weird dream and she said, "Animals represent primal emotions, and everyone in your dream is just different aspects of yourself." She is so smart. I love her more than anything, ever.

Andrea is the only person who truly understands how awful my dad is. And how completely clueless he is. He doesn't know or understand either of us at all, and he never will. And that sucks, but oh, well. I don't need him. I have plenty of love and support without him. My cup runneth over with love and support, which is an amazing thing.

So, chin up, buttercup, fight that seasonal depression, and no crying at work.