Selfish post

There are a number of internet t-shirts I want, like, right now. But I cannot buy them.

from Threadless
from Glarkware
Anyone rich? I take guys size large.

I've been updating

Only I've been doing it here.

I think blogspot and I are breaking up.

And the navel-gazing continues

While I'm somewhat loath to apparently be turning this blog into a dream diary, I keep having the most troubling dreams that I need to exorcise, so feel free to skip this one.

Anyway, last night I had a dream that my parents got back together (somewhat reluctantly? No one was particularly happy about it, and in fact my dad was not present in the dream at all) and bought a gigantic old house that was allegedly in New York City, even though, uh, New York City is not known for its gigantic old houses. But, you know, that was obviously not the weirdest part of the dream. So we all moved to this house, and I was lodged in the attic, and Tommy was lodged on the first floor, and Jeff was somewhere in between, I guess, and I remember very clearly what the downstairs of this ancient mansion looked like, but I'll be damned if I could actually describe it.

So we're living in this house, and my parents are still working at their New England jobs, and this all seems so very real, and I begin to panic, because how am I supposed to get to my job? Did I quit my job? Should I be looking for a new job? Then I remember that I moved out with Mike, and I have a place in Nashua, and apparently I'm just here in New York to see the new family pad. Then my mom comes home and pulls out this day-glo bottle that looks like Gatorade or something but turns out to be rodent poison gel, because apparently the house had a rat problem? The rats weren't in my dream, thank god, but now I am recalling the giant rats we saw outside the dining hall senior year. Ugh. So I express my concern for the animals that aren't rats in the house, namely Charles Wallace and for some reason, my dad's dumb dog, and my mom gives me this look, so I amended it to "animal," because we clearly both hate the dog, which is fucked up, but it isn't so much about the dog as, you know, my dad's wife. Which is the only tangible thing that ocurred in this dream that I can point to as evidence that my parents weren't, like, enjoying being back together. Because my parents are not supposed to be back together, ever.

So I was so nervous during the dream, and it all seemed so real, like I could touch the floorboards of the attic, and I was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on, and I couldn't until I remembered about my new house. I didn't wake up from that dream--it went away, and I woke up at 5:00 when Mike's stupid alarm went off, and but I still felt so much better to be awake, in my apartment, with parents who don't have any intention of reconciling for any reason ever.

Ugh. My dreams suck these days.

I don't go to sleep to dream. Dammit.

Oh my GOD, I had the worst dream ever this morning. I was back in college, and for some reason, I'd skipped, like, two weeks of class just before midterms, and I might have missed the midterms, but I was too freaked out to check my syllabuses to see if I had indeed missed midterms or handing in papers or something, so I was just gonna wait until I had class again to find out what I had missed, and then in the middle of this, I just started fuh-reaking out, and I knew, in the dream, that there was some reason this would be all right, that this hadn't actually happened or something, but I couldn't calm myself down.

Then my cat knocked over everything on my bedside bookshelf, and I woke up. And I was like, "Oh yeah. You know why it's gonna be all right? Cuz I graduated. Three years ago, suckas!" God, that was such sweet, sweet relief.

All of that happened in the middle of a larger, even more bizarre dream about my having to destroy rings with gemstones that contained evil spirits, but I don't remember enough of that mess to tell you a coherent story about it. Plus, the midterms thing was way scarier. God! Skipping two whole weeks of class and not even keeping up with the syllabus! Who DOES that???

25 things about me that I will not post to Facebook

I actually started this list of random things about me to add to, like, my blogger profile or the sidebar or something in November, but then that stupid Facebook meme started going around, so I figured I'd add to this until I got 25, post it, and be done with it once and for all.

1. I cannot stand to have fabric covering my wrists for any significant length of time. When I wear long-sleeve shirts, I am constantly pushing up the sleeves. When I'm not pushing my glasses back up my nose, that is.

2. I like milk. A lot. In fact, if you won't drink a glass of milk straight, we're not actually friends. If you'll only drink milk straight with cookies, I'll think about letting you be my friend.

3. Witnessing the misuse of quotation marks and apostrophes will be what brings about my demise.

4. I consider myself to be a good sport most of the time, but I simply cannot handle being teased about making a punctuation error. Those jokes eat at my soul.

5. This is how I justify how horribly I make fun of people I don't even know. I allow myself to be made fun of, because, really, unless it's about a punctuation error I made, it's funny. Like one time, my brothers and I were stuck in Utica for two days with our family (eep), so we escaped and went to see a movie, and I was driving Tommy's car, which is wider or longer or something than my car, and I smacked into a curb in the parking lot, and for the rest of the weekend, my brothers would both shout out "curb whamp!" whenever the mood struck them, and instead of getting mad for being teased at my horrible driving skills, I laughed. Mostly because "whamp" is a funny word. Jeff and I did that once to Tommy--he was trying to make fun of the way Jeff was talking, and he said, "Do you speak Englis?" You know, mispronouncing English, and Jeff and I jumped all over that one, and we called him Englis for the rest of the year. At least I did. Jeff lost interest. And oh, he did not take that well at all. However, that might have also been because he was, like, ten, and ten-year-olds tend to have undeveloped senses of humor about themselves.

6. I like television shows that take place at least 1,000 years in the future, largely in outer space.

7. If there is anything I hate more than misplaced apostrophes, it may just be the phrase "feel badly."

8. I only ever do laundry when I run out of underwear.

9. One time, I gave up smoking for Lent even though I don't believe in Lent, just to prove to my roommate that I was not addicted.

10. I quit smoking once and for all when I got mono.

11. If I've been paying attention the whole time, the part when the audience joins in for "Edelweiss" toward the end of The Sound of Music makes me cry.

12. My mom has this new, totally awesome practice of saying things like, "You need a car? You can have mine--I'll get a new one" or "You need a couch for your new swingin' bachelor pad? You can have mine, and I'll throw in this love seat. I'll get new ones."

13. One time I wrote a note to this girl I was fond of, and I signed it "Sincerely cordially affectionately," and then, like, months later I discovered she'd never actually seen The Sound of Music, and I was so sad.

14. I really like Julie Andrews in general and The Sound of Music in particular, which I just thought I would make abundantly clear for you people.

15. When I found out Madeleine L'Engle had died, I actually got weepy. She's the first person whose death has upset me. I'm lucky that no one I actually know has died.

16. I named my cat Charles Wallace in honor of her. Originally, his name was going to be Mercutio. And, really, if I think people make fun of me for Charles Wallace, how bad would they make fun of me for naming a cat Mercutio?

17. I chipped one of my front teeth trying to grab an Allen wrench with them while my hands were holding pieces of my bed together--now I can't stop running my tongue along my teeth, like when I had braces, but even odder.

18. Katherine Heigl made me realize I was gay, but Jewel Staite is the one who actually turned me, when I was eleven, and she was on Space Cases in a rainbow wig. Also, I always forget that the geek set knows who she is now cuz she was on Firefly and shit. It's so weird when people aren't like, "Who the hell is that?" when I bring her up as my first-ever girl crush. Thanks, Joss!

19. I hate, hate, hate when people tell me what I'm like or what I clearly must be thinking. The two worst perpetrators of this are my mother and Ryan. The latter was never accurate; the former only accurate when telling me what I'm like--she knows, you know, having raised me herself and all. My whole life, there's only been one person who's ever been accurate about both things, and this is a recent and somewhat unnerving development I've not been handling with my usual grace.

20. I wish I had more time to read.

21. I may be twenty-four years old, but sometimes I find fart jokes to be the pinnacle of humor.

22. I hate going to the doctor/dentist/anything that requires making an appointment, but what I hate most about that whole process is calling to make the appointment. Talking to some unknown on the phone gives me anxiety like crazy.

23. I wish I had realized I was gay a lot, lot sooner. Back before I was a fully-fledged giant dyke and just going to gay places with Ryan and Mike, my mom used to worry about things like what if people there thought I was gay, which made me mental. I never cared what people thought about me--if they wanted to think I was gay, I wasn't going to dissuade them, and this was before I was just like, "I AM SO GAY." Ryan also used to get so mad if, like, the gays he knew asked him if I was gay, which I believe is a fair question if you're showing up to gay things a lot, but he seemed to think it was insulting, even though he knew I was beginning to realize I liked girls. I can't think of anything less insulting, myself. Perhaps if someone asked if brown is my natural hair color--that might be less insulting than someone asking if I'm gay.

24. I drank my first beer in Fennel Hall, one of the freshman boys' dorms, a few weeks into my freshman year of college, when I was trying to be social with my roommates and some dweeb guys they knew. It was a warm-ish can of Budweiser, and somehow it didn't turn me off beer--or socializing--forever.

25. Sometimes I actually miss working at Bath & Body Works.

I think I forgot how to write a blog post

Hello, internet, how are you? I haven't felt much like blogging lately. I've been very busy lately outgaying myself by watching all seven trillion episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, and gosh, Lucy Lawless is hot. And gosh, that show is gayer than I'd ever imagined. It was good times. But now that's done, and so what do I do with myself?

Well, internet, I am moving. My best boy Mike and I finally got our act together and leased an apartment. We move in on Saturday. I cannot effing wait. As nice as it is to live rent-free in my mother's basement, I am so sick of living with my brothers. They are giant pains. Also, I am sick of living in my mother's basement, just on principle. I'm twenty-four, and I'm employed. Time to bail. Apartments aren't cheap in this stupid area, but Mike and I found a good one we can afford. It's huge, too, and I have my own half of a bathroom! So sensitive Mike won't have to deal with the horrors of feminine hygiene.

Also, I bought a Wii as a housewarming gift to us, and soon we will purchase the Rock Band version of Guitar Hero. (World Tour or something? Whatever.) And then there will be a lot of bad fake instrument playing and off-key wailing in our house. The cats! They will love it! And the neighbors as well, I'm sure. Our next purchase, hopefully, will be a new widescreen tv, and then I will finally realize my dream of owning an Apple TV. Oh, joys. Then I won't need my DVDs at all! Anyone wanna buy some DVDs?

Several of our friends have already informed us that they will be hanging out at our swinging new bachelor pad all the time, and I, though I quite enjoy my privacy, am thrilled. I love having the hangout house. I did junior year of college, when four of us lived in a giant six-person suite, and now it will be happening again. We have a lot of second-hand furniture from our families, so there will be couches to sleep on and everything! So come on over, internet. Mike and I know how to party.

My brother is a turd

The other night my brother and I went to get Wendy's, and while we were driving, "Creep" came on the radio in his car, and because I am an asshole, and he hates it when I sing, I started singing along. Instead of telling me to shut up, he said, "Who sings this song?" like he was testing me, not like he didn't know.

So I, taking it literally, said, "Thom Yorke," because Radiohead does not sing.

And instead of even rolling his eyes he just said, "Let's keep it that way."

Schooled by a seventeen-year-old!

More for me than anyone who might accidentally find this blog

So on Tuesday, I started watching the election results at my dad's house, and for a while the only states CNN would call were Kentucky and Vermont, which meant the electoral tally was eight to three in McCain's favor, and my dad kept saying things like, "If this were a baseball game, we'd have to be worried," and "it's only the first inning," and, during commercials, "what're they doing? must be a pitching change."

I dunno, maybe you had to be there, and maybe you even have to be my father's child, but that crap kept me laughing every time, even as I freaked the hell out that we might elect another pair of maroons into office.

Nits, picked

Oh, boogers. The recapper at Television Without Pity makes a good point: How on earth could Hahn fail to pick up on Callie's utter terrifiedness about getting serious? Heart surgeons are supposed to be smart! And I know she made that confession about being socially awkward and weird (which made me fall in love with her), but unless she has, like, Asperger's she should be able to see that Callie has some extreme reservations about getting intimate with a lady. Even though Callie's the one who made the move in the first place...

Though that happens on tv all the time, doesn't it? A character has hesitations, and it's made obvious to the audience, but whoever the character's interacting with is totally oblivious.

Oh well. All this unlikeliness made the restaurant scene possible, so I will overlook it. But, you know, still complain about it.

Because if I can't pick apart the things I like, then why bother liking them? I have a terrible habit of, like, looking for things to criticize, even in things I love. Like Grey's. Or musical retellings of novels. Or, you know, Brandi Carlile's dubious intelligence. The only thing I've never done this with is, uh, 30 Rock.

I LOVE YOU TINA FEY.

I really don't like to talk about feet, I swear

Once upon a time, when I was still underage, in a far away land some called Roe Dyeland, I got drunk (I know!) and went to a gay bar (I know!). At that gay bar, there were pole-dancing stages dispersed throughout the dance floor, and because I was drunk, and because peer pressure works much better on me when I'm drunk, I got up on one of these stages with my friends and acted a fool.

Naturally, when I had had enough acting a fool, I jumped off the stage, which was an idiotic idea, because I was drunk. So of course I landed badly and totally and utterly fucked up my left ankle. It was probably pretty badly sprained, but did I go to the health center on Monday? No. I bought a brace and CVS and sucked it up, and after a while it stopped hurting, but I really don't think my foot has been the same since then. Whenever I wear shoes, it just doesn't feel right when I walk, and whenever I walk for long periods of time, even in flip-flops, it gets all...hurty while my right foot remains stalwart and true.

It was especially painful that time I spent an entire weekend wandering around New York City and also the time I spent, like, four days wandering around Toronto. Both times, my right foot was fine.

I need a new left foot.

Irrational fears and board games

Do you know what makes me super uncomfortable? Playing a game you don't know how to play with a bunch of people who have been playing this game, like, their entire lives. Seriously, just thinking about it makes me break out in hives, because I have a deathly fear of making a mistake in front of people. And when you're playing a game that for everyone else around you is second nature, it's easy to make a mistake and get PUBLICLY RIDICULED for it, because to them it seems so easy. But to you, you're all confused. And I fear nothing more than looking dumb in front of people. So much so that I'd rather just lose than risk making an incorrect play. Let me learn the game first! Then I will kick your ass.

This is not to say that I do not do the EXACT SAME THING to people who are trying to learn a game I can play in my sleep. I never pretended I wasn't a hypocrite.

In other news, since summer is almost over, I'm trying to compile a playlist of summer tunes. What're your faves for summer? Um, if anyone is still reading this anyway. Maybe if I really want input, I should find more direct ways of contacting people...

If anyone says "I Kissed a Girl," she dies.

Self-censorship

Sometimes there are things I need to say, because saying them or writing them--getting them out of my own head somehow--makes them real, makes me feel like they're not just my imagination or that I won't choke on them any longer. Sometimes these things are best not shared with the entire internet. What do I do with them then?

Start a diary? What am I, eight?

Twitter-style thoughts that won't actually fit in Twitter

I should work where Kat works. Apparently, she can access facebook at her office. I used to be able to, but then some IS nerd cottoned on. I bet she can get youtube there too…

On Saturday, I will finally hand in my passport application. I just have to take some snazzy photographs—snazzy enough to be able to book a modeling job with them. Can’t say Tyra Banks never taught me anything.

Next time I mail something to Canada, I think I will supply my own box. That will cut down on time spent in the post office trying to wrangle their roll of packaging tape. In fact, it will probably eliminate that facet of my trip to the post office altogether.

I still have entries on imaginary girlfriends numbers one and two to write, but since I’m the only one who cares about that bananas, I shouldn’t let it keep me awake at night any longer.

I made a totally boss digital mix tape at muxtape.com. It’s just a mix of twelve songs that I consistently groove on, nothing new or earth-shattering, but if you’re interested in seeing a teeny slice of my iTunes library you can check it out here: electricjellybean61284.muxtape.com. (Click on the song to play it.)

Don't tell anyone, but...I miss her.

Things I need to do

• Get my eyebrow pierced again
• Get a tattoo--I, however, need a new idea, since I recently found pictures on flickr of someone who had the EXACT SAME idea I had. Boo!
• Quit Bath & Body Works
• Go bracelet shopping
• Invent teleportation and/or learn to apparate
• Buy cat food
• Get a haircut

Oh my, I am sorry I am so boring. There are some things on my mind, and Best Buy still has my iMac. I am never buying a computer from you again, Best Buy! However, do you have any linksys routers? I need a new one before my brother throws a fit.

Emo all over the fucking place

My iMac's dead, and I never got around to setting up Time Machine, so I'm pretty much fucked forever. I took all of my files off of this laptop, so my brother could use it, and then he couldn't even get it to work at school, so I HATE TECHNOLOGY.

The blog's going on hiatus until I figure out what's wrong with my iMac and if the hard drive can at least be saved. If it can't, well, then. I quit.

I know, bitchbitchbitchbitchbitch. Whatever. I had a lot of shit on that thing. The media's all on my iPod, so that's not the problem. It's everything I've ever written in my entire life. Gone. I've always had most of this shit backed up, but I got a fancy new desktop, and I got complacent.

Fuckin' fuck.

On the back of a cartoon coaster

So. On Wednesday I went to Canada for the first time ever. It involved a lot of driving. Luckily I had a navigator.
Yes, this trip involved so much driving, in fact, that I showed up on Allison’s doorstep with a sunburned left arm. Um, if you’re not following me, I always drive with my left arm hanging out the window if it’s not freezing or pouring, and I was wearing a t-shirt, so… Eleven hours of one arm being exposed to the sun means hideous, lopsided sunburn.

Then I proceeded to spill burrito juice all over my t-shirt once we’d procured me some nourishment after my fatiguing drive.

Fortunately, things only got better from there. Having one brown arm and one white arm is still weird, though.

Thursday started out AWESOME, as immediately upon walking into a sushi place, I saw motherfucking Adamo Ruggiero, right there, waiting for his take-out order. Tiny gay Marco from Degrassi, people, standing right in front of my face. And then apparently, Lauren Collins walked in to meet him, but I DIDN’T SEE HER, and it was the heartbreak of my life. When they left, the waitress was in my way, and I could have cried. Lauren Collins is so awesome as Paige Michalchuk. So. Awesome. But I saw tiny gay Marco in the flesh! And that was certainly cool enough.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around Toronto and staring at it from high in the air, in the CN Tower, which looks like the Canadian version of the Space Needle. And made me want to actually get off my ass and work out when we’re going to Seattle this summer. Anyway. I took some pictures up there, and it was fun. I love being high above the earth.
After I had had my fill of staring at the ground from 1400 feet in the air, we made fun of various Canada-branded things in the gift shop, and I bought a $4 lemonade that was just delicious, and a squirrel walked over my hand! And got it all dirty! I thought squirrels were afraid of people. Stupid Canadian squirrels, getting my hand all dirty. And me without my anti-bacterial hand-sanitizer.

And then we found this thing:
And spent some time taking stupid pictures in front of it.
On Friday we went to Centre Island and read books out in nature for a few hours. I read pretty much the entirety of the fourth Traveling Pants book, and Allison read, like, twelve pages of The Neverending Story. Then it was time for dinner from a hot dog cart and Prince Caspian, which I kind of loved despite the fact that it changed pretty much every single thing from the book, but I’ll get into that later. You know I will.

There was also a lot of drinking taking place that I have glossed over. And a very serious drunk conversation about why I can’t write and why the Iraq War is fucked. I mean, what else would you talk about while you’re blasted?

Saturday was recovery day, for we’d both become gimped after all the walking we’d been doing, so we just lay around and watched internet things until we got hungry. I kept falling asleep on the couch and generally being a very bad houseguest, but all those nights of drinking had taken their toll on me.

Sunday was another eleven hours in the car, and it rained the whole goddamn time—until I returned to New England, which makes it clear that New England is the only place to live. As much as I admire Canada for things like gay marriage and free healthcare, and as much as I rage and storm and bitch about this country, the United States is my home, and even if John McCain becomes our next President, I’m not leaving.
Although, on the serious, please don’t let John McCain become our next President.

And now it’s time for a postcript!

Oh my god, I have to tell this story, even though I am pretty sure it’s only amusing for me. But! I shall plow on. Somewhere on the way to Toronto—either at the beginning of the New York Thruway or the end of the Mass Pike—I got cut off by this bulldozer of a woman in a silver Subaru* with New Hampshire plates and a rainbow cat sticker on the back bumper underneath an overpass for Dyke Road. Just as I was going, “What the fuck, dyke-o?” I looked up and saw the sign and just laughed and laughed and laughed. Dyke Road! That that exists at all is fun enough for me. I wish I could have taken a picture.

*I actually have no idea what kind of car she was driving, but I thought I’d just make it as gay as possible.

PPS:
Arguably, the greatest thing about Canada is its overwhelmingly awesome selection of junk food not available in the United States. Mostly, I am speaking of their chip selection, and specifically I wish to talk about these beauties:
Yes. Jalapeno and cheddar Doritos. One of the greatest ideas for a Doritos flavor if you ask me. And I checked on Frito-Lay’s website, just to be sure, and these bastards are not available within a 50 mile radius of Nashua, New Hampshire. Heartbreak! I know they’ve been putting out all these fancy new flavors of Doritos even over here lately, but they all suck—except for Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ, but I can no longer find those anywhere. Why don’t we have better junk food than Canada, America? This is the land of fat people! Make it happen.

When Canada is dead and gone, there'll be no more Celine Dion!

Nah, Canada was okay. When I got home last night after nearly twelve hours on the road, my furry little monster was waiting for me in the kitchen doorway, my mom was boiling edamame, and my brother was grilling kosher hot dogs for me. God bless America! Er, and my family.

I had a lot of fun, for real, but I'll talk about it later. I also have to talk about the latest lesbian development on Grey's, obviously, and Prince Caspian, so... The blog will be back in full force, it seems.

But now, sleep!

Vacation!

I'm off to Canada, my lovelies, so you'll have to look to the whole wide rest of the internet for entertainment. I'll be back on Monday. Maybe.

Some stupid thoughts I had at work

In one of the back from commercial stills, Tina is dressed like a lesbian! Tie and Taylors and all! Damn you, Tina Fey.

For some reason, I really liked how when Tina was like, “Yeah, Hillary’s a bitch, and so am I,” she pointed her pencil at Amy and said, “So is this one.” I dunno, for some reason, referring to someone as “this one” connotes great affection for me. I like it. I do it sometimes, when I think of it. In other news, how am I going to make it until Baby Mama is released in theaters?

So last night, we moved the entire fucking store around, and I spent most of that horribleness with the girl I have a stupid crush on. She doesn’t talk much, like me, but when I did say something, she would usually snicker. Or ignore me entirely, which was just so odd—I guess because I’m used to people at that place jumping on every word I utter, usually to make fun of me or pick a fight with me. Oh, wait, maybe that’s just Kaeli. Well, anyway, then I shattered another glass bottle of aromatherapy lotion, this one black currant vanilla, which is allegedly good for…setting the mood. I was, like, oh god, I smell like sex lotion now. While I stand close to the girl I have a useless crush on, because not only is she straight, she’s marrying some dude some time soon. And then she said something like, “This sensuality stuff isn’t doin’ anything for me,” and I was like, “Eep.” But I said, “Well, good. That might be a little distracting.” Or something. The whole aromatherapy area reeked of that shit, and the floor was slippery, and I cut my finger on the broken glass, and I STILL SMELL LIKE IT. I took a shower this morning! And! It didn’t even work. Black currant vanilla and jasmine vanilla are the aromatherapy scents that are supposed to make you feel all sexy and shit, and it had no affect on the girl I have a stupid crush on. It also had no affect on me. Maybe because we were all sweaty and cranky and disgusting, because that store gets so gross. Heh, also we had to put up new shelf-edgers that, like, tell what the products are, and my cabinet was “Sensuality,” so on the shelf with the massage oil (oh yes), the shelf read “Sensual Massage,” which I kept saying over and over in an Austin Powers voice, but only in my head for fear that no one would get it and then think I’m even more of a weirdo than I really am. Or than they already think I am.

Sigh. But the girl—she wears these glasses, and she laughs at me sometimes, and I can’t help myself. I mean, sometimes when Kaeli wears glasses she doesn’t repulse me as much as usual. Glasses have a powerful effect on me. (Kaeli’s not really repulsive—we just have one of those third grade relationships, where we say horrible things to each other because we like each other. As friends, god. I don’t have a crush on every straight girl I work with.)

I don’t care if Amber Lee was just her best friend, and she ran away and got married, and blah blah. Brandi was totally in love with her.

My legs are sore from all the squatting and kneeling I had to do to put away lotion. Fuckin’ fuck.

I am not a writer, but someone who knows how to use the English language to express herself. Mostly. The thing preventing me from being a writer is that I cannot do this on command, and I cannot do it so that I can have a reason for someone to read something I wrote. I write stories all the time, but they never have a point or an ending or even a somewhat not muddled theme. This is just stuff I do to amuse myself that wouldn’t captivate anyone else.

Tell it to the turtle

I'm not even gonna talk about the game. I can't rehash it; it just depresses me. Instead, I'm going to try to talk about something even more awkward: why it took me so long to come to terms with--and embrace--my sexuality.

See? Awkward.

All right, let's hit it. I did not realize that I had weird feelings toward girls until I was sixteen--but as I've said before I had had crushes, on Jewel Staite and this girl in my Girl Scout troop when we were in sixth grade. (Shh, I don't think I've ever told anyone that.) Anyway, when I was sixteen--that was when Ryan told me he was gay, so I was like, "Uh, sometimes I think girls are pretty," but that's as far as I could go. And then I started doing, like, gay-related things with Ryan, and everyone would always ask him, "Is your friend gay?" and that pissed him off for some reason--I don't know--but it didn't really bother me. I was like, "Sometimes I like girls," but I have an abiding loathing for the term bisexual, because (this is all my own opinion, people) it just seems like what you call yourself when you're too afraid to admit to being gay. That's most likely mostly untrue--but that's what I get from it, and that's why I was never like, "Oh, I'm bi." (That just makes me crazy, "bi.") Labels are retarded most of the time, anyway, and I was like, "Whatever, who cares."

But before I even got to this point, I was always like, "I'm not gay. Girls can be tomboys without being gay," and it, like, prevented me from enjoying things that belonged in the stereotypical domain of lesbians. Because I also have a deep, abiding loathing for sexual/racial/gender stereotypes, which is part of the reason that I got so mad when Shannon told me her boyfriend has a swastika tattooed on his chest. But anyway, the one thing that I never really let myself admit to enjoying, because it was too gay, was... Well, the Indigo Girls. And this was stupid, but I was convinced that I had to be not gay, because if I were gay, I'd just be another dyke stereotype, dressing like a boy, playing sports, building Legos and shunning dolls, and I didn't want that.

Now, the thing here is this: I love the Indigo Girls. "Closer to Fine" is a song that I feel like I have always known the words to, and any time I hear it, I just feel instantly comforted. It makes me think of the best parts of my childhood, when my family was happy together, and my brothers and I would make up ridiculous games in the basement while we listened to our parents' CDs. I don't know when, really, I became aware of the whole lesbian issue, but it quickly put a damper on my ardor, because I also became aware that lesbians were often girls like me. I went through a teeny-bopper phase, which I think is required of nearly every American teenage girl, and then I started listening to, like, the Dave Matthews Band and Weezer and all that straight boy rock. (Don't get me wrong--I love Weezer, and I do still enjoy the Dave Matthews Band, sometimes.) But I forced myself to shut the door on the lesbian folk rock. Just because I didn't like to wear dresses, and I wanted to play football instead of talking about which boys were cute did not mean I did not think boys were cute. I should have applied that to my music collection--just because I listen to dykes does not make me a dyke!--but for some reason, that logic didn't follow. So I went through high school talking about boys with my straight girl friends and talking about girls with Ryan, who loved to hear it just as much as I loved to hear him talk about boys, I expect.

Then several things happened. Almost by accident, I caught the totally charming episode of Once & Again wherein little Jessie Sammler (Evan Rachel Wood) realizes she has romantic feelings for new bff Katie Singer (Mischa Barton (!)). It was so sweet, the way it played out, that I experienced that heart-hurting thing, and I was kind of like, "Huh. I got really invested in that, didn't I," and it kind of set me thinking further. Then I went to college, where I didn't really have to worry about how people perceived me, because we were all brand new to each other. And also, Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol. No, really. I developed such a massive crush on her that I started wondering, not only if I was really interested in girls, like really, but also if I was really just pretending to be interested in boys. As it turns out, I was. And when I made friends at college, they knew pretty much right away that I dug girls, because it wasn't something new I had to find some way to bring up--it was just how I was when they first met me.

Still! I resisted, like, declaring myself gay until I was twenty-one. I was still not ready for that. Then I really can't say what happened, but I stopped caring. I was like, "Fuck it, I am gay. I am so gay, and people might as well know that about me, if they care." Because, seriously, I am so gay. If you've been reading this blog for any period of time, you know what I mean. And if you know me in real life, then you extra know what I mean.

So, iTunes keeps playing the Indigo Girls, perhaps in an effort to cruelly taunt me with reminders that I'm not going to get to see them and Brandi live for a very long time, but it got me thinking about all this nonsense. It wasn't until junior year that I even got back into them, because Carlos and I had a radio show during which we only played female artists, and our friend Jen requested "Shame on You," and I was like, "Whoa. The Indigo Girls. How have I been neglecting them for so long?" And so I've been thinking about this for years, how I tried to shove away certain things that were just too gay so that I would not become a stereotype. But stereotypes have a basis in reality, and I mean, you can't say all lesbians are the same, of course, but it's fun to embrace the stereotypes, to make fun of yourself, to try to take the power to hurt that homophobes have.

Also, I was not ever afraid of the reaction of others if I decided to declare myself gay. I don't really care what other people think of me, but at the same time, I have always been rather private. That's why I didn't tell anyone when my parents split up--it was just none of their business. And so I believed it was none of anybody's business if I wanted to kiss girls. I was only afraid of admitting it to myself. Once I did that, I was like, "I'm gay, motherfuckers! Suck on that!" It's not something I go about broadcasting anywhere other than this blog, but if anyone asks, I tell them.

I tried to write this entry after I saw Brandi and the Indigo Girls in August, because that's when all of these feelings really coalesced into a thinkable thought--into something I could maybe articulate, but I couldn't. I still feel like I haven't explained myself clearly at all, but the important things are this: the Indigo Girls' first album is strongly associated with the happier memories of my childhood, and the fact that I pushed them out of my life is something that really bothers me about myself.

The other important thing is this question: Amy or Emily? And can you guess my answer?