Dykes Come Out #2

Bonjour, fags!

I've been doing some deep shut up deep for me thinking lately about all sorts of crap, so I was working on a blog post about it.

It was getting a little long.

I read the whole post over just now and realized:  it's boring.

And fuck boring!  Fuck introspective thinking! 

Birds are chirping.
Foals are trying out their wobbly new knees.
Baby lambies are being born.

It is Spring and I want to be happy.

I bet you do, too.

So, in the spirit of delighting ourselves, let's look at something we've never seen before.

Something really amazing:

A happy Coming Out story.

*WOW!*

It's sunny out! It's warm!

We have to have a happy coming out story!

Who's ready for Dykes Come Out #2???

This story comes from D., a clever girl who has the story I know you wish you had.

(As usual, it's edited, with permission, for space/grammar/pictures/and whatever else I felt like doing to it.)

Thanks for Coming Out, D.!

#2

D. says.....

It was 2002, and I was at the tender age of 14.

My crush was a freckly tomboy. 

She played soccer and let me cut her hair into that little pre-dyke chin-length haircut we all had (you know the one) with the scissors from her pocket knife.

She played trumpet and rubbed my shoulders and I thought I would DIE just laying next to her at sleepovers.

We came out to each other as 'bisexual', and eventually admitted that we were into each other.

via hipsterdykes

She hemmed and hawed about dating me because we were, um, in 8th grade and lived in Texas.

To make her jealous I said I was going to date another boy, who I had no interest in, but even at that age I knew it would work.

The next day, in front of our friends, she got on one knee with a fucking pink plastic rose she stole from her mom's fake flower garden and asked me if I would 'go out with her.'

I squealed, we hugged, and by the end of the day, everyone knew.
No one cared, and when my parents figured it out, they were happy for me.

The epilogue is that, as my first girlfriend, we had a lovely time necking in treehouses and shit and are still great friends to this day.

THE END.

Jesus god, I can't believe this story. 

They should make D.'s Coming Out story into a children's book. 

We'll call it Rainbows and Kitties and Bluebirds:  It's Ok To Be Gay. 

We'll get Madonna to ghost-write it. 
Moms will go crazy trying to get signed copies.

What a perfect story, D.! 
Ask your parents if I can come over for dinner, mmkay?

He Is Risen and I Can't Get Up

Ciao, you filthy perverts. 

Remember how, in the last post, I told you about being a little bit, um, accident-prone?

I have outdone myself.

I officially cannot be left alone for even a few hours.

Here's what happened on Easter Sunday:

I was staying for 24 hours at my sister's house in Minneapolis.  But Shelley was in Phoenix, so I was hanging out with Wes, her fiance. 
Real quick - I am so fucking delighted that these two are getting married. 
Because
1) I've known Wes for years and he makes my sister happy
2) I've always wanted a brother
3) Maybe they'll have a baby and then I can buy little useless Puma sneakers for it; and
4) Marriage is great because it increases the pool of people in my life that can't say no to me because I'm family.

Wes made me a delicious steak for dinner. 
Once I got to to the middle of it, though, I saw blood, and that's where I usually draw the line for my steaks.

"Don't be offended here, Westopher, but I'm going to go microwave my steak a little bit,"  I said.  "It's kinda raw in the middle."

"Bah.  Don't microwave it.  Go throw it on the grill again.  It's still going,"  Wes said.

I turned slowly around and gave Wes a withering stare.

"Wes.  I don't have insurance."

He laughed, but I was serious.  You have to learn to make choices when you're poor.

Ruin the char-grilled flavor of your steak OR wind up in the ER with 3rd-degree burns all over your arms and spend the rest of your life paying the bill.

I choose safety.  Every time.

Now, keeping my safety-conscious choice with the grill in mind, fast-forward a few hours. 

Wes had left, and I was doing my laundry. 
Everything in my suitcase was dirty, so I rummaged through my sister's drawers and found (among other things I'm not going to think about) a cute white t-shirt and some shorty-shorts.  

Upon trying on the shirt, I discovered it was see-through.

Who cares?  I thought.  Who's gonna see me? 

I tramped downstairs and pulled out my clean wet clothes. 
Then, outside, to hang my dripping sweaters on the big lilac tree.

As I strained, on tiptoes, to reach an empty branch, there was a soft *click*.

The back door.  The back door that locks automatically.

I was locked out.  Locked out in a completely see-through shirt and ass shorts. 

No key.  No shoes.  No phone.
 
And Wes had already said he wouldn't be back 'till late.

What would you have done? 

I couldn't sit on the front stoop.  I was basically naked.

It was Easter Sunday, and the neighborhood was full of kids hunting for eggs in frilly dresses. 

I couldn't hang out in the backyard.  The neighbors were grilling.
 
I didn't have any money.  I couldn't walk to a coffeeshop and use the phone. 
And also, thanks to technology, I don't know anyone's phone number, anyway. 

Helpless.
It was like being 5. 
Like being a 5-year-old dressed like a slut.

Furious with myself, I sat down where the neighbors couldn't see me and had a good cry. 
How could I have done this?? I had been looking forward to spending the whole day in bed!

But crying doesn't do any good.  Eventually, you have to take action.

I began casing the joint.

How could I get in? 
I circled and circled.  Inspected all the windows. 
Tried to get Artemis, the cat, to use his paw to open the lock on the door. 

That useless bastard.

The neighbors all saw me rattling the doors and trying to push the windows up from the outside.

Obviously, we don't call the police if a white girl is trying to break in.  What harm could a Caucasian female do?

And then!  I saw it.  A window was open.  There was just a screen.  And the screen had already come off a little bit.  I could peel back the screen and get in without even ruining the window! 
Genius. 
Problem-solver.

I grabbed a lawn chair and peeled back the screen. 
Then I pushed the window up a liiittle bit more, eyeballed how much I'd have to jump, and leaped!!!

As the glass shattered around me, I realized I'd done some poor math. 


I broke the window with my great head.
I was halfway into the house, my booty-shorts still out, and I was covered in glass. 


My first instinct was to pull my head out immediately, but it was like I suddenly heard a voice inside my head:  DON'T MOVE.


Gingerly, I shook my head.  Glass shards flew out of my hair.
I realized my hands hurt and turned the palms over.
Bleeding copiously.
Like, stigmata-style.

I reached cautiously around to feel my neck, which also hurt. 
My hands came back wet.  Ohhhh shit.


Slowly, slowly, I pulled my head out of the windowsill and eased back down onto the lawn chair.


I had seriously miscalculated how high I needed to leap to get into the window.

Wes and Shelley were going to be so mad.


But I still needed to get into the house. 
And I'd already ruined the window.
So I wrapped my hand in an old rag from the backyard, tapped out the rest of the glass shards in the window, and threw them into the house. 


I brushed all the glass dust off the sill, dragged over 4 more lawn chairs, steeled myself for more carnage, and leaped through the window again.

This time, I managed to slice up my ass, shoulder, and lower back.


I was like a little pink Easter ham.  A little hammy, all carved up.

The most difficult thing about being awesome is not having a body double.

Btw, do you know how hard it is to get glass dust off yourself?  Lemme tell you, a hot shower does nothing.

After I had cleaned up everything, bandaged myself, and thought up a story to tell Wes about how the cat did it, I took a nap. 

And woke up in the middle of it because my head itched. 

When I scratched my head, sluts, do you know what happened?

I pulled a shard of glass about 1/4 of an inch long out of my scalp. 
No lie.

I spent the rest of my afternoon on the bathroom floor, running my fingers over my scalp and placing the little bloody bits on a paper towel.

Today's topic:  I could have full health care coverage if CJ and I were allowed to get married.

That is all. 
Fuck you, America.

The Sixth Sense is Gaydar

Hi homos!

Today I'm in Rhode Island, and the waters are rising.  They've closed off the roads.  We're trapped.

But no matter.  The hotel wi-fi still works and I seem to have stumbled upon a basement vending machine that's been lost in time. 
Do they even make Crystal Pepsi anymore?

Anyway!

As we get older, we learn common sense.

Don't run with scissors.
Don't eat crunchy pears.
Don't say "Why can't we talk about bombs?" loudly at the airport.

You know.

There's a whole bunch of rules that everybody seems to know.
But I'd like to make an addendum to the list of Common Sense Don'ts:

If you happen to knock over your prize Echinocereus reichenbachii cactus while tying back your curtains in the morning, DON'T scream, "My baby!" and dive to catch it with your bare hands.

Really don't.

CJ: (from the kitchen) What was that?

Me:  Can you just get the tweezers?

As CJ lovingly tugged each cactus spine out of my poor pink palms, she began to snicker.

Me: It is not funny.

CJ: Would we call this...a caccident?
  
Me: Shut up. 

CJ: Get it?  A cactus/accident? A caccident?

Me: I am dying. Ow. Ow. You missed one.
 
CJ: A caccident! Ha!

Me: OW! Jesus!

CJ: You know, we're going to have to add the cactus to the list.

Ha very ha.  
In our house, because CJ thinks she's so effing hilarious, there is a posted list on the fridge entitled "List of Things Krista Is Not Allowed to Touch".

This list includes, but is not limited to:

1.  Knives
2.  The knife drawer
3.  CJ when she's using a knife
4.  Light fixtures
5.  The stove when dinner is happening
6.  Any electrical socket that "doesn't work"
7.  Any tool, of any kind, that has a plug/cord/whirly-part
8.  Any tool found in CJ's studio
9.  Especially any tool found in CJ's studio that's shaped like a knife

The list is way longer than that but I shan't go on. 

Common sense, people.
I'm finally learning:  me + sharp things = oddly disfigured fingers.

We should all use more common sense. 
In all areas of our lives. 
Especially in regards to gaydar.

Today's topic is simple:  Trust your gut.

If you're dying to ask a girl out, and you just. don't. know. if she's gay, trust your gut.  What was your first impression? 

Did you think she was queer?

I'm not saying your first impression is always going to be correct.  Good god, no. 
Appearances can be deceiving.  Don't judge a book by its cover and whatnot.

But women often give off a shit-ton of vibes about themselves just by the way they move, the way they carry themselves, and the way they look at you when they talk to you. 
Hooray for vibes!

Of course, there's no single way to tell if a woman is a lesbian. 
There's no single way to tell if a woman is straight, or bi, or anything else.  Women don't just walk around with signs, letting you know what they're into.

But what does your gut tell you?

If, upon shaking hands with a woman, you think, "Now there's a gay lady," you're going to be right, a lot of the time.

And you're going to be wrong, lots of times. 

I'm wrong about first impressions all the time.  But I carry on.
And then sometimes, 10 years later, I find out I was right.
If you want to have good lesbian gaydar, you need to practice!

Labelling is fun and it pisses people off.  Enjoy yourself.

Sit your ass down at the mall and watch people.  Bring a friend! 

Learn to listen to that hissing slutty whisper of intuition.

Our intuition is a wonderful tool!  It knows!

When we become intuitive beings, we know before anyone else when we have a gay celebrity in our midst. 
*Ahem*

I called this shit in 1999.

Your intuition is the driving force behind that little nagging suspicion that Oprah is a clam-licker.

Your gut knows without having it spelled out that Pink is one of us.

Your third eye zeroed in on Missy Elliot like a laser beam.

And your 6th sense knew that nobody could be that good at "pretending" to be gay.  Jack, we've known since the beginning.

 

Q:  But I don't have good intuition.  That's why I have shitty gaydar, you idiot.  What can I do?

A:  I'm so glad you asked!
I read this amazing book by Gavin de Becker called The Gift of Fear.  He explains intuition.

Everybody has intuition.  Everybody.  I mean, how did you get to work today? 
If you drove, then you were making hundreds of split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences.  Everyone around you was, too. 

If you've been driving safely for years, that means you can accurately read non-verbal signals other people are sending going 70 miles an hour across vast distances.

You're still alive, even after driving through Chicago during rush hour.  You knew that lady was going to cut you off.


You have intuition.

That feeling you get when you slow down, 'cause you know the guy in the minivan is going to run the red light? 
Intuition.


Walking around a crowded bar and finding the right girls to hit on?
You can handle that.  You're not even moving fast.

We all have intuition.  Use it for the greater good, sluts.
Use it to get laid.