When I was growing up, I was kindof obsessed with the movie Candleshoe. I seriously wanted to be Jodie Foster's character in that movie. What a tomboy badass.
Super crushing on her. She looked like this in 1977, in case you were wondering.
My friend said she looks like a 12 year-old-boy there.
I said, "Duh. I'm queer. Not a lesbian."
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
This Is Pointedly Directed At You
I am not being subtle. I am being glaringly obvious.
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that "Winehouse" (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric" I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his "speedboat" there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was "a character" but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work and this not being the 1950's I wondered how a "jazz singer" had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a f**king genius.
Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call."
I don't always know how to say how I feel or what I mean.
Sometimes I don't want to. I have such a big wall around me that I've spent years building up. I love my wall. I don't know how to be without it. I change the paint on it every so often, but it's always there. Layers and layers and layers thick. Miles high. Of course there's a gate, but it's a very small gate and doesn't open very often. I like this.
What I do not like is being metaphorically naked. Physically, yes, certainly. But I can't stand to have anyone see ME. Just look at my painted walls, instead. My carefully constructed citadel. It looks enough like me that when most people just glance, they're fooled and think I don't have walls. That I'm just an open meadow. But if you look close enough, the walls are always there and the gate is often shut. I don't open it for just anyone.
I do not like being naked. I do not like hooks being thrust into my chest, ripping away my skin and baring my heart for what it is. I know what it is. I know if it really is overly large and throbbing with blood and oversensitive nerves; or if it is black, shrivelled, cold, and dead. That I know is all that really matters to me. No one else needs to know. No one else needs to see me that naked. So I have my prettily painted walls. And I hide.
This isn't a hiding time, though. I just happened to go off on a slightly unrelated tangent. This is one of those times where I don't know how to say what I feel. So I'm going to let Russell Brand say it for me, instead. Straight from his blog. Unchanged. I mean every word as much as he did.
"For Amy
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that "Winehouse" (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric" I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his "speedboat" there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was "a character" but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work and this not being the 1950's I wondered how a "jazz singer" had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a f**king genius.
Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call."
So there. That's that part that's directed straight at you. And now you know it. Because you already knew all about my walls. After all, you were the one who told me I had them.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Dead People
So I guess Amy Winehouse just died and people are flipping their shit about it.
What about the Norwegians who got massacred today? Come on people. You need to sort out your priorities.
Anyway. Half the shit I see is "BLESS HER SHE WAS WONDERFUL" and the other half is kindof jokesy or like "She was a drug addict what about Norway?" And there's also people who are like, SHE WAS WONDERFUL DON'T SAY SHE WAS A DRUG ADDICT BLAH BLAH.
But like. She was a drug addict.
Not that that's a bad thing or whatever. Far be it from me to judge anyone on decisions they make which do not directly affect me. She could have been a junkie or straight edge and neither would really have made any difference to me.
So since she WAS a drug addict, why is it so bad now that she's dead to mention this?
My mother was annoying as all hell sometimes. She drove me insane and I wanted to kill either her or myself. Not always. But sometimes. When she was annoying me, that's totally how I felt. And I don't think it's wrong to say these things just because she's dead. I certainly said them when she was alive.
Teenagers are supposed to kindof hate their parents... right? Too bad she didn't last until I wasn't a teenager anymore. Oh well.
Anyway. The reason I can say these things and not feel bad is because even though she was annoying sometimes and drove me mental and I did just want her to go away, I can also recognise that I miss her driving me fucking insane. I'd give almost anything to have her back and being annoying as all shit. I miss wishing she'd go away and leave me alone.
If you can be alright with yourself saying something when someone is alive, you should sure as hell feel alright with yourself saying it when they're dead. If neither, just don't say it.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Sharks
I love sharks.
I think they're SO fucking cool. They're really primitive and I love the way they look and they've been around forever. Hence my description of them as primitive.
I love Jaws. Although I think that actually has more to do with Richard Dryfuss and Steven Spielberg than it does with actual sharks.
Because come on, Richard was a fuckin' babe in that movie for sure.
And at the same time. They're absolutely fucking terrifying.
They're fish. That can smell blood. And eat people. And move fast as fuck through water.
People are designed to run away from land predators... water ones? Not so much. Which means that when a shark wants to eat you, you have very little chance of pulling off getting the fuck away from them. Which is scary as hell.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
My Boyfriend Wouldn't Like It
I always thought this was the most bullshit excuse to not do anything.
I can kind of understand:
I can kind of understand:
- it's illegal.
- my parents would kick me out.
- I don't want to.
- it would probably kill us.
The only reason things are illegal is because a. they're too much fun to do b. they'll probably kill you. Which makes them even more fun and exciting. Adrenaline junkie much? Perhaps.
Anyway. One excuse I could never and will never understand is "my boyfriend wouldn't like it". How bullshit and cowardly is that?
Then again. I never really understood the point of having a boyfriend, either. But that's beside the point.
I can kind-of understand not doing something because of one's parents. But I always did things anyway because I don't care who you are: I don't care what you think. For example, here is a list of things I did that my parents disapproved of:
- Getting my tongue pierced when I was 17. (I didn't bother asking because they always told me I wasn't allowed to have it done if I lived with them.)
- Getting my nipples pierced a week later.
- Getting my ears pierced multiple times after asking and having them say no. (That time was funny. I was 16, which is legal in Ontario to get pierced. So I asked if I could get my second holes done... and they said no. So I did it anyway because I was legally allowed to. I didn't even bother asking before getting my 3rd holes done.)
- Getting tattoos. (I got all but one after I turned 18, so they really couldn't do anything but shake their heads anyway. What did they expect? I was always going to have tattoos.)
- Dyeing my hair black. (This is dumb. For years my mother wouldn't let my dye my hair black because she thought it would look "witchy". I am partially Spanish and Native American, why on Earth would black hair look anything but natural on someone with my complexion? I did it anyway and it looked fine. Just like I always thought it would.)
- Dyeing my hair weird colours. (I just kind of stopped asking after a while and did whatever I wanted.)
- Wearing makeup.
- Wearing short shorts and skirts.
I have always thought that appearance is one of the biggest forms of self-expression and to repress someone by telling them how to look is just fucking terrible. I don't care if my son wants to dye his hair pink and wear skirts or if my daughter wants 6 holes in her lips and a tattoo on her face. It's not my body and therefore none of my business. I have never, ever thought that the appearance of a child would ever have any sort of reflection on a parent... which is what I have always thought was my parents' reason for not letting me get bits of metal put into my body a whole lot sooner than I did.
When I was 18, I had a zebra stripe mohawk, 4 lip piercings, and 2 tongue piercings. My bratty cousin came up to me at the Christmas party and said, "You look weird." My reply was "I am weird." At the most recent Christmas party, I looked less like a rebellious 18-year-old and more like a punk rock 20-year-old. By that, I mean, facially more normal but with a shit load more tattoos. And my cousin looks like Justin Bieber. I win.
Anyway, back to my point, which is that looking anyway to please anyone but yourself is bullshit. The one and only time I had a boyfriend who said anything about my appearance was when I was 17 and had to dye my hair back to brown for the school play. It had been bright orange. He didn't really want me to. I said "Oh well. Too bad. It's not up to you what I do with my hair." And that was it. No big deal.
Also. Definitely always listen to Chelsea Smile. I detested this song when I was 18 and now I fucking love it. Bring Me The Horizon isn't so bad. And Oli Sykes is hot.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Shane, etc.
This one time I got an all-access media pass to SCENE fest in saint catharines the day before my 21st birthday. i took this picture of my buddy Shane. I like it.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Harry
This is going to start off structured... and then just kind of fall apart as I remember things.
I was 8 the first time I heard of Harry Potter. It wasn't really a "thing" yet. I was in second grade and I was reading an article in one of those flimsy little monthly magazines that everyone used to get. I was reading an interview with Jake Lloyd, the kid who played young Anakin in the Phantom Menace? Yeah, anyway. He said his favourite book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'd never heard of it and I didn't go rushing out to buy it.
The next year, when I was 9 and in 3rd grade, my mum worked at the school book fair. Which, being the little book worm I always have been, was one of my favourite events of the year. Anyway, I think I was either "helping" or just being super nosey. I remember Harry Potter being sold out. I thought it was lame because everyone seemed to like it, so I refused to read it. How very rebellious of me. Anyway, I remember coming home one day to it sitting on the kitchen table for me. I probably rolled my eyes, but it was a book and I couldn't resist. I recall being immediately entranced by it.
I definitely had a crush on Severus Snape, just throwing that out there. And I've been obsessed with Lucius Malfoy since the second movie came out when I was 12. We have a deep love that you just wouldn't understand. I named our Thanksgiving turkey after him that year and I made everyone address it as such. "This is Lucius. You'll be eating him tonight. Say hello." Super fucked. Oh well. I'm lucky my parents indulged me.
I've been to all of the midnight premiers. Both movies and book releases. I've never dressed up per-say... but I dont usually wear entirely normal clothes, either. In line for the 4th book, I bought a stuffed moose. I named him Melville. I don't know where he went, which is sad because he was lovely.
I was 13 and on an aeroplane to Florida for my birthday when I read the bit in the 5th book where Sirius died. The summer I was 15, I was at theatre day-camp when the 6th book came out. It was 2 weeks long and the book came out on the weekend in between. On friday, I discovered I had been cast as the lead in the final play and that I was expected to memorise all of my lines by Monday. With Harry Potter coming out in between the two! So I read it in less than a day, then memorised my lines with the rest of the weekend.
When the seventh book came out, I spent a day and a half on the loveseat in the livingroom. I think it was one of the few times my mother just let me sleep in the livingroom. She always hated when I did that, but it was Harry Potter! The last one! So she let me. Thanks for that, since I know you read this. I think I read until just after Hedwig and Moody died and then I passed out. But I definitely cried when they died.
I've been to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. I've been on a train across that bridge the Ford Anglia flies over in the 2nd movie. Chocolate Frogs are one of my favourite types of candy, but I have a special place in my stomach for Ice Mice. I have 2 of the unforgivables tattooed on my wrists. My friend said I'd regret them. I told her she didn't understand.
I was, and remain, disgustingly good at Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup for GameCube. Unless it's on the easy setting. Because then I suck since it's easy. That's always the worst. I put it on that for when I play people and they always beat me super easy. But then I put it on hard without telling them what I did so all of a sudden I'm sitting on them and smooshing their face into the mud of the Australia National Quidditch Stadium and they're wondering what the fuck happened because they had just beaten me. It's because playing on hard actually takes skills. I once played so much that my thumbs hurt for a week. I promise I'm sort of cool and social....
Anyway. I'm saying all of this because on Friday, the final movie comes out. Which is... y'know. Really sad. Since going to Harry Potter midnight premiers has been something I've loved doing forever. And this is the last one. :/
I was 8 the first time I heard of Harry Potter. It wasn't really a "thing" yet. I was in second grade and I was reading an article in one of those flimsy little monthly magazines that everyone used to get. I was reading an interview with Jake Lloyd, the kid who played young Anakin in the Phantom Menace? Yeah, anyway. He said his favourite book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'd never heard of it and I didn't go rushing out to buy it.
The next year, when I was 9 and in 3rd grade, my mum worked at the school book fair. Which, being the little book worm I always have been, was one of my favourite events of the year. Anyway, I think I was either "helping" or just being super nosey. I remember Harry Potter being sold out. I thought it was lame because everyone seemed to like it, so I refused to read it. How very rebellious of me. Anyway, I remember coming home one day to it sitting on the kitchen table for me. I probably rolled my eyes, but it was a book and I couldn't resist. I recall being immediately entranced by it.
I definitely had a crush on Severus Snape, just throwing that out there. And I've been obsessed with Lucius Malfoy since the second movie came out when I was 12. We have a deep love that you just wouldn't understand. I named our Thanksgiving turkey after him that year and I made everyone address it as such. "This is Lucius. You'll be eating him tonight. Say hello." Super fucked. Oh well. I'm lucky my parents indulged me.
I've been to all of the midnight premiers. Both movies and book releases. I've never dressed up per-say... but I dont usually wear entirely normal clothes, either. In line for the 4th book, I bought a stuffed moose. I named him Melville. I don't know where he went, which is sad because he was lovely.
I was 13 and on an aeroplane to Florida for my birthday when I read the bit in the 5th book where Sirius died. The summer I was 15, I was at theatre day-camp when the 6th book came out. It was 2 weeks long and the book came out on the weekend in between. On friday, I discovered I had been cast as the lead in the final play and that I was expected to memorise all of my lines by Monday. With Harry Potter coming out in between the two! So I read it in less than a day, then memorised my lines with the rest of the weekend.
When the seventh book came out, I spent a day and a half on the loveseat in the livingroom. I think it was one of the few times my mother just let me sleep in the livingroom. She always hated when I did that, but it was Harry Potter! The last one! So she let me. Thanks for that, since I know you read this. I think I read until just after Hedwig and Moody died and then I passed out. But I definitely cried when they died.
I've been to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. I've been on a train across that bridge the Ford Anglia flies over in the 2nd movie. Chocolate Frogs are one of my favourite types of candy, but I have a special place in my stomach for Ice Mice. I have 2 of the unforgivables tattooed on my wrists. My friend said I'd regret them. I told her she didn't understand.
I was, and remain, disgustingly good at Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup for GameCube. Unless it's on the easy setting. Because then I suck since it's easy. That's always the worst. I put it on that for when I play people and they always beat me super easy. But then I put it on hard without telling them what I did so all of a sudden I'm sitting on them and smooshing their face into the mud of the Australia National Quidditch Stadium and they're wondering what the fuck happened because they had just beaten me. It's because playing on hard actually takes skills. I once played so much that my thumbs hurt for a week. I promise I'm sort of cool and social....
Anyway. I'm saying all of this because on Friday, the final movie comes out. Which is... y'know. Really sad. Since going to Harry Potter midnight premiers has been something I've loved doing forever. And this is the last one. :/
Friday, July 8, 2011
Little Booger
When I was little, the highlight of my week was sneaking downstairs after my parents put me to bed and sitting in the living room while my parents watched ER and watching it from behind their backs. I thought I was so clever.
I don't even know why I liked it so much. Probably because I thought Carter was beautiful.
I remember the smallpox episode with the two kids. I think one died. I remember Dr. Green telling some dude he had some form of easily curable cancer and the guy freaking out and being like, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL!!! and Dr. Green being all, I HAVE BRAIN CANCER. I WIN. I remember when there was a girl with a splinter or something and she was talking about constellations while Dr. Green took it out and she didn't even notice what he'd done.
I remember other things, but those stand out the most.
I don't even know why I liked it so much. Probably because I thought Carter was beautiful.
I remember the smallpox episode with the two kids. I think one died. I remember Dr. Green telling some dude he had some form of easily curable cancer and the guy freaking out and being like, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL!!! and Dr. Green being all, I HAVE BRAIN CANCER. I WIN. I remember when there was a girl with a splinter or something and she was talking about constellations while Dr. Green took it out and she didn't even notice what he'd done.
I remember other things, but those stand out the most.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Queer
It's strange being "queer". Which I am. By the way. In case I hadn't mentioned.
I don't think I have. But I am.
I don't fit into the LGBT community since they mostly insist upon keeping it "LGBT" and I suppose I wouldn't really feel like I fit even if it was LGBTQQ. Mostly since I pretty much pass as a straight girl. There's this whole sort of "GAY AND PROUD!" or "I know exactly where on the Kinsey Scale I fit into" thing going on with the LGBT community. There's this whole "you're either gay, straight, or bi" thing that goes on in most people's minds. I don't really fit. Not with the gays, and not with the straights. I don't even fit with males and females. I don't have a number on the Kinsey Scale that describes me.
Am I even making sense? I'm polysexual, panromantic, and genderqueer. If that makes more sense. Polysexual and panromantic imply that although I'm pretty much gender-blind when it comes to attraction and dating, I am not sexually attracted to all genders. However, since I am polysexual, it means I am sexually attracted to more than just one gender. And by that, what I mean is that I basically just like people with dicks. I don't care if it was there when they were born and I don't care if they have boobs along with it. I just like penis. Also, as for the genderqueer part, I don't identify as either gender all the time. I'm gender fluid, but I also sometimes identify as neither. I can't be a straight girl if sometimes I feel like a gay boy.
This past week was Pride week here in Toronto. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not gay, or if it's because I've never been made fun of for being queer, or what. But I don't really "get" pride. I guess it's a fun time, but aside from that I just don't really understand. Perhaps it is the total exclusion from any sort of group sexuality identification that I feel. Perhaps it is because no one with female genitalia has ever been persecuted for being attracted to people with male genitalia and so I don't really have the whole, "I want my rights!" thing going on. I could never be fired from a job for my sexual orientation. I can get married in every country of the world. I don't feel a particular sense of pride about my queerness. I don't want to tell everyone. I'm not ashamed or anything. To me it would be like running around telling people that I have an olive complexion. It's how I was born and is slightly obvious upon association with me but nothing Earth-shattering. It's probably also that I just don't identify with the gay community in any other sense than that I was raised by lesbians.
I don't think I have. But I am.
I don't fit into the LGBT community since they mostly insist upon keeping it "LGBT" and I suppose I wouldn't really feel like I fit even if it was LGBTQQ. Mostly since I pretty much pass as a straight girl. There's this whole sort of "GAY AND PROUD!" or "I know exactly where on the Kinsey Scale I fit into" thing going on with the LGBT community. There's this whole "you're either gay, straight, or bi" thing that goes on in most people's minds. I don't really fit. Not with the gays, and not with the straights. I don't even fit with males and females. I don't have a number on the Kinsey Scale that describes me.
Am I even making sense? I'm polysexual, panromantic, and genderqueer. If that makes more sense. Polysexual and panromantic imply that although I'm pretty much gender-blind when it comes to attraction and dating, I am not sexually attracted to all genders. However, since I am polysexual, it means I am sexually attracted to more than just one gender. And by that, what I mean is that I basically just like people with dicks. I don't care if it was there when they were born and I don't care if they have boobs along with it. I just like penis. Also, as for the genderqueer part, I don't identify as either gender all the time. I'm gender fluid, but I also sometimes identify as neither. I can't be a straight girl if sometimes I feel like a gay boy.
This past week was Pride week here in Toronto. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not gay, or if it's because I've never been made fun of for being queer, or what. But I don't really "get" pride. I guess it's a fun time, but aside from that I just don't really understand. Perhaps it is the total exclusion from any sort of group sexuality identification that I feel. Perhaps it is because no one with female genitalia has ever been persecuted for being attracted to people with male genitalia and so I don't really have the whole, "I want my rights!" thing going on. I could never be fired from a job for my sexual orientation. I can get married in every country of the world. I don't feel a particular sense of pride about my queerness. I don't want to tell everyone. I'm not ashamed or anything. To me it would be like running around telling people that I have an olive complexion. It's how I was born and is slightly obvious upon association with me but nothing Earth-shattering. It's probably also that I just don't identify with the gay community in any other sense than that I was raised by lesbians.
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