Pay It Homoward

[thanks Vanessa F.]

Hiya minge-munchers!!  


It's a new year!  We made it!  

[Brian J. Clark of The Virginian-Pilot]

The last year of life on Earth, according to the Mayans and shitty Hollywood summer movies!

Here we are, eleven days into 2012, and I must say that, so far, my New Year's resolutions are going swimmingly.

[thanks Louise M]

Now, c'mon.  'Fess up.  


What were yours?

I always have a bazillion (be less selfish, write a journal, volunteer, exercise, learn to cook tasty greens, get over the fact that everyone likes eggs but me and will eat them in front of me), but here are three resolutions I'm taking seriously this year: 


Resolution #1:  Do. more. gay. shit.

[thanks Rebekah M.]

Because there's always room for more, right?


From now on, it's happening: at least one supergay thing each week.


(And that doesn't count hanging out at a gayelle's house, going to the gay bar, or going dancing. That's cheating.)
  
I'm talking a gay event.  
I'm talking queer poetry readings.  Women's music nights.  Good drag shows.  Lezzer book clubs, queer theater, dykey movie nights, gay homo gay gay.  


--------------------------------------------


Resolution #2: No more thrifting until I stop wearing the same four outfits over and over. 

[thanks Jennifer F.]

Y'allfags.  I watched an episode of Hoarders over Christmas break that scared the shit out of me. 


No one has more odd 80's dresses than me.  
My closet is packed.  There's no more room. 


(Current Rule #1 of Thrifting:  If it has shoulder pads and would not look out of place on the Golden Girls, throw it in the cart.) 

[gimme that sweater, Blanche]

But: do I wear them?  
When it's raining on a Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. and I'm staring dead-eyed at my closet, do I reach for cute dresses with giant gold buttons and tight skirts?  


No.
No, instead I reach for a strange, depressing grey hoodie bag/dress that CJ refers to as my "chastity dress." 

Rude.


--------------------------------------------


Resolution #3: Lastly and most importantly:  Think very hard before using a non-makeup item as makeup.

Now, we've been through this.  


But I cannot learn.


I need to stop thinking of Michael's craft stores as a poor man's Sephora. 

*Backstory!*


A few days before New Year's, I was wandering through an art supply store in downtown Chicago, thinking, as I always privately  (and incorrectly) do:  "Well. I could totally be an artist too if I just had the right supplies", when my eye landed on a shelf displaying these: 

Pigment powder.  
For scrapbookers and people who want to emboss shit. 


There were about 40 colors.
Hey neat - each vial was big and only cost $5!


So shiny! So many colors!
They looked great! They looked glittery!

They looked...an awful lot like these:

MAC pigment eyeshadow powders.  
Which are really tiny and cost $20 a pop.


Hmm.  Hmm.  
I could feel it: I was on the verge of something big.


I got excited.  
Why had no one ever thought of this before??? 


Soon I would have cheap, amazingly elegant iridescent eyeshadow powder in every color on the planet and exotic, mysterious eyes and everyone would want to know my secret and I would never tell them, never. 

But!
Safety first, I thought.


I snagged a passing, bearded salesguy.

Me: 'Scuse me.  You know these powders?  Are they...non-toxic?


Salesguy: Nope.  


Me: Oh. But do you think you could put them on your skin?


Salesguy: Oh, they won't hurt you if you get some on your fingers, it washes right off.  Gets everywhere, though.  Big mess.


Me: Right...could you have it on your skin for a long time?


Salesguy: I dunno about that.  (Pause)  Why?


Me: Like, say...could you put it on your eyelids?


Salesguy: Oh, wow. Wow. No. That is a really bad idea.

[thanks Celeste]

So I bought four colors.  
Clearly he wasn't interested in pushing the boundaries of eyeshadow sophistication.
There was a beautiful rosy pearly shade; I wanted to wear it for New Year's.  

I brought my new 'makeup' home.


I got out my brushes.  Opened the pigment powder on the bathroom counter.
Ooh it was so pretty.  

Gently, gently, like the sigh of a baby dove dipping its beak into a font of holy water, I dipped my pinkie finger into the powder and streaked it across the back of my hand.

Pure, shimmering color.  
A rose-tinged kiss from a cherub's pouty lips.  All for me.  

Those overly-made up, aproned fuckers at MAC could lick my box.


I dipped the brush in.  Shut my left eye.  Stroked the brush across my eyelid.

Opened my eye.  
It. was. beautiful.  

I was a genius. 


I did my other eye, then sailed triumphantly into the kitchen, where I made some toast and promptly forgot all about it. 

Fast-forward 30 minutes.  
I rubbed my eye.


And then basically went blind.

[thanks Beth W.]

Gayelles, make me a promise.  Right here, right now. 


Swear to me that you will not try to substitute embossing pigment powder for makeup-grade pigment powder.  
Mmkay?  


Especially do not do this with contacts in. 


Anyway!  The glorious thing about being human is learning from our mistakes.  

[thanks Tessa]

Don't you think?


We never know until we try. 

I mean, just think of how we all collectively seem to know that rhubarb leaves and holly berries are poisonous.

  
Our mothers told us these plants were poisonous. 


Our mothers learned it from their mothers. 


Their mothers learned it from their mothers, and on and on through the ages until you get to the very first person who ever looked at bright holly berries peeping forth from beneath shiny dark leaves and said, "Say, I wonder if these taste nice."

We are all alive today because someone tested life for us first.


All of our human existence, up until this exact moment, is based on trial and error.  


We help the universe - add to its collective knowledge base - when we fuck up.

[thanks Andrea B.]

Isn't that a cheering thought?


That being said, today I'd like to do some learnin'. 


2011 was quite a year, and I was thinking what a shame it is to enter a new year without reaping the benefits of some collective lesbiqueer knowledge gained last year.

'Cause, y'know, all of us have made big lezzie mistakes.

[thanks Elka M.]

  
Lots of us gays have had that moment where we say the worst possible, most mood-killing thing in bed; the moment where we realize that a lie we told to a girlfriend is about to blow up in our faces. 


Was 2011 the year when you made the most grievous gaydar mistake ever?  


Was this the year you finally learned a damn lesson?

[thanks Anna B.]

Now, because I like stories with morals and dislike intense social embarrassment, I wanted to benefit from newly-acquired lesbian knowledge without having to do the dirty work.


So I sent out a Facebook message asking a buncha queer girls and bois to send me some of their 2011 Dyke Lessons Learned.


And boy, just reading through 'em, I learned so much.


I also learned something really important:  My friends are sluts.

[via splicepicturesx]

Here's just a very small sampling of what the queer fishing net brought up:


*In 2011, I learned that - even though he said "girls don't count" -  sleeping with your boyfriend's little sister does, indeed, count.

[thanks Beth W.]

*This year, I trusted a well-known player when she told me she was finally single. I tied her to her bed, naked, and got walked in on by her very current girlfriend as I myself was getting naked. 

Learn to make knots that are super easy to untie, is what I'm saying.  Also, double-check your sources, I guess.

[viastillaf22]

*Drunk, I leaned down on a chair at my friend Mia’s house party. Mia's mom came and put her hand on my back. She helped me stand up, and I looked at her and was like, "Can I kiss you?"  

And she said, "Sure." We made out in front of everyone at the party. Afterwards, she turned to this guy standing next to her and was like,  "Am I a bad mother?"

I had no idea that that happened, and two days later, I went out to lunch with Mia and the first thing she said to me was, “My mom wants to know why you didn’t send her flowers.” I went, "What?"  And she was like “My MOM, Lisa. YOU MADE OUT WITH MY MOM.”

This was the year I learned that I should drink a glass of water between each beer.

[thanks Bonbonbear]

*In 2011, I learned that I could end all of it - the drama and the fighting - by just not texting back. 
Your life is yours.  2012 is my year. 


*Never bring a cute, bi-curious girl on a two-week RV trip with you and your current girlfriend. 
Unless you want to end up in a polyamorous triangle where you spend Sunday nights on the phone navigating "boundaries."

[thanks! pillowtalkmpls]

*The one that sticks out the most is... having a one night stand and - as the girl was passed out in my bed - I drunk messaged the woman I actually liked, telling her what I'd just done. 

Admit what you actually feel about someone instead of drunk f*cking someone else to deal with it.


*Alas, this year I learned that a fauxhawk does not actually look good on every dyke :(

[Thanks Elle W.]

*Don't make presents - especially a body pillow with Kaylee from Firefly silkscreened on the cover - for your ex-girlfriend's new 'best friend' in an attempt to get back into the friend circle. 
Because they're actually probably dating. And this will look really bad for you. 


*In 2011, I was kicking it with so many girls behind my girlfriend's back that I called her from the other room, but accidentally slipped and called her another girl's name - TWICE. 
As in, two times in a row before I got the right name.


From then on, whenever I was about to say my girlfriend's name out loud, I would stop and say it in my head three times first. 

[thanks Theresa E.]

*Hi Krista! Here's my lesson from 2011: Don't buy a house with your girlfriend of one year. Maybe rent first. 




Wow.
These were very, um, specific.

[thanks sugki]

Ahh well. 


But aren't you so totally grateful that we now don't have to go through any of these personally?  

Because our collective lesbian knowledge has been shared?

Thanks, Gay Universe!  

[Thanks Guen M. CJ sez hi.]

And you knew I was gonna ask, so:

What was your lesson from 2011?  


Care to add it to the collective queer knowledge pot??