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| [thanks Naimah M.] |
Ciao, dew-lappers!!
Hmph.
Just look at you.
Sitting there, snug in your chair, one hand on a delicious beverage and the other scrolling down this mess.
 |
| [thanks Celeste] |
A minute ago, you gleefully clicked through your facebook and email and animalstalkinginallcaps and checked Rick Santorum's highly amusing twitter feed.
You think I don't know? I know.
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| [honey badger video] |
Happy.
Blissful in the knowledge that you're up to speed on everything the internet has to offer.
No news headline has gotten past you. No hilarious Rick Perry ad parody has been missed. No movie trailer has gone by unwatched.
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| [thanks Jessica Z.] |
Well, I hope you're mighty pleased with yourself, because:
Almost two years after it came out, I just heard about and watched all three of the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies in the space of one amazing day and freaked the fuck out over how unbelievably fantastic they are.
Seriously, y'allfags??? Seriously?
YOU KNEW THESE MOVIES EXISTED AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME??
Look at her.
What kind of a friend are you??
I'll tell you: you're not.
A real friend would have alerted me to the presence of dykeish spectacularity the instant you knew it was happening.
Gah.
Gaaaaah.
How could you do this to me.
My darling Noomi. I love her.
And it's too late! It's two years too late!
I have no one to gush to about these Swedish movies because everyone's already gushed, and the American version is coming out this next week, and everyone will forget about Noomi Rapace and I'll never love this new Rooney Mara faker more than my sweet Swedish cherub never.
Ahhh god why.
In other news: My grandpa died.
I've been in Arizona, where my parents live these days, for a good long while, having an early Christmas with my tiny and now-dwindling family - just me and my sister and my parents.
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| [thanks bee] |
And if you're ever in the Phoenix area, and you're clutching at your hoodie sleeves in agony, going, "Is there anything to do here that does not involve driving? Why do people move here for the weather and then never go outside? Why the fuck are there lawns here at all, and why does Scottsdale water them to keep them green and put up fountains everywhere when this is a desert and every body of water here is artificial - every wasted drop of water a glinting diamond in a future death-necklace for this city?"...
just take a deep breath, and go here:
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| [I took dis] |
This is why you move to the Phoenix area.
This bar.
Cash Inn Country.
Ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
S'gotta rank up there in my list of top 5 gay bars anywhere.
All I want now is a road trip across America, where we stop in every gay bar we can find. Who's in?
 |
| [thanks Deena] |
It was Saturday night.
My sister, Shelley, and I drove to Tempe, where a dark, brooding stucco building waited silently in the chill night air.
The street was lined with cars.
We nervously adjusted our outfits, wondering, like one always does when walking into an unknown gay bar in a new town, what the mo dress code was like 'round these parts.
Well, inside, it. was. packed.
A western-themed, dyke-leaning two-steppin' queer bar!
Hole-eeee-sheee-it.
Hot barbacks running around mopping up spilled drinks! Gay boys in cowboy hats! Old dykes with silver belt buckles dancing complicated westerny-dance steps next to 21-year-olds with stretched earlobes and black skinny jeans and Cons!
Everyone knew all the dances.
The walls were wooden and lined with mirrors and tiny twinkle lights, and the bartender was a tough older butch who called me "sweetheart."
All around the dance floor, there was a wooden rail, so you could lean with studied casualness and examine everybody without appearing creepy. Thoughtful!
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| [thanks! pillowtalkmpls] |
After three days being out of contact with all things gay, I was speechlessly grateful to be suddenly surrounded by queers.
Just - so grateful.
It was like a fountain of glitter shooting up in the middle of a gay desert.
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| [thanks Sarah] |
I smiled giddily at every person I saw at the bar - even the two girls having a barf-inducing "serious talk" pressed up against the wall behind me.
They were stroking each others' hair and looking deep into each others' eyes and nodding solemnly and doing that long-lesbian-hug thing - you know the one?
Where a hug turns into something linger-y and one woman(the one who feels it more deeply) closes her eyes and sniffs the other woman's hair in a public place?
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| [via vild] |
I even loved them.
I was just so excited to be with teh gheys.
Two gin and tonics in, as I beamed stupidly at everyone, Shelley observed that I "looked like a shepherd fondly watching over my flock," which I thought was pretty funny, as I had actually been thinking, right that second:
"Aw, look at all these mos. Look at 'em dancing! How do they all know how to dance like this? Where did they learn the steps? Everyone's so friendly. I've never been in such a friendly bar. God I wish I knew every single one of 'em."
Faggettes, there is really nothing I like to see more than queers having a good time.
(I mean, other than boobs. Obvs.)
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| [via tabbysaurus] |
Seeing homos having fun fills me up in the way I think church must fill up other people.
I'm filled with the queerit!
Yes!
Because:
Gathered together in every gay bar is a roomful - an entire roomful - of people who are told daily, in hundreds of spoken and unspoken and written and body langugaey ways, that they are not ok.
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| [Mars viaswitchteams] |
Here's a throbbing, overflowing club full of people that the current government would rather pretend does not exist; a gathering of fags and dykes and transpeople and queers who have been told, since they came out and possibly long before they came out, that it is not ok to love who they love.
 |
| [thanks Lindsay P.] |
Everyone's together.
They've come together in this bar because:
a) they're queer or queer allies
b) they need other queers to affirm they're not alone
c) almost everyone likes beer
and
d) they have superior taste in pop music.
Ohhh shit, I thought this was gonna be a simple post about the holidays and my 2012 wish list, but...
y'know, it always amazes and surprises me that lots of people think that we queers have no right to our own emotions and feelings and lives.
 |
| [thanks Erin and Elizabeth] |
It takes away our autonomy to allow courts to decide whether gays and lesbians and trans-identified folks can marry and have kids and partner benefits and not get the living shit kicked out of them in high school while teachers turn a blind eye.
 |
| [front.moveon.org] |
Like women in the 19th century.
Or toddlers.
We can't make decisions! We can't possibly decide to give our consent to be married, right?
WE'RE GAY.
Duh.
Our moral compasses are clearly all fucked up.
Better let some men in subdued necktie shades sort things out for us.
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| [Oh look, it's Mitt Romney. Hey girl hey] |
Love is a basic human emotion, and by denying someone's most basic emotion - love - we take away someone's humanity.
And yet here, at the gay bar, were all the humans, anyway.
 |
| [thanks Cate U.] |
Tearing up the dance floor, laughing, lining up for the bathroom, texting and kissing and doing duckface for profile pictures.
Baby dykes. Moms. Studs in spotless white shoes. Androgynous kids. Queens.
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| [Susan, by Meichelle at outofeve] |
So clearly intelligent beings, so clearly worthy of love and able to love and deserving of better laws and better leaders.
I used to think that if everyone in America simply knew - simply had regular contact with - just one out gay person in their everyday lives, then "gay rights" would become a laughable concept - quickly filed under "everybody rights."
Everyone would see that gays are just like everyone else (except with better party theme ideas), and we could all shut up and go home and poster-paint companies would go out of business.
But I know now it's not that simple.
Earlier that day, before the gay bar, someone I love had told me (again) that being a lesbian was my choice, and the wrong one.
I felt my heart huddle miserably into a corner.
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| [via paintedrain] |
Seven years, I've been out.
How could you look at someone you've known your whole life, know she was a good person, meet and like her partner, see the relationship functioning well for years and still think her love not valid?
How can churches that preach about unconditional love simultaneously teach people to close themselves off from it?
Bah.
 |
| [Thanks Noor] |
How many times can you get beat up emotionally before you lose your ability to forgive someone?
Because I'm getting there.
How many times do you get back up on your feet and try again to help someone understand before saying, "You know what? Fuck it."
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| [thanks Naimah M.] |
You know what I love about queers?
This is maybe cheesy, but it's happening.
I love that we keep getting up again.
And then we go muthafuckin' dancin'.
We try again with people.
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| [Thanks NatFranzia] |
We figure: This time around, we have science on our side.
Everyone will listen.
We have better articles this time; better books, more friends, more allies, more openly queer people than ever in the history of the world ever.
Better, bigger celebrities with each passing year.
*And, btw, how do you love Ellen and watch her religiously and then neatly categorize her rights as a person away in a compartment labeled "This doesn't directly affect me" ? Hmmm women of America? Hmmm?*
Gayelles, it's of course the holiday season.
Some homos have cheerfully accepting families, but lots don't.
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| [via awkwardfamilyphotos] |
What do we do, we queers with tricky family situations, over the holidays?
We have families. We want to keep ties with our families. Because...they're our families.
If they were our friends, we wouldn't put up with this shit.
But they're our families, so we stay and we try and we stay.
But now I need to know: do y'allgays have some secret coping strategies for this time of year?
Snappy comebacks for screwed up seasonal situations?
'Cause I need them.
I really do.
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