An open letter to Kathryn Lehman

Dear Ms. Lehman,

Shut up.

Your story is neither brave nor cute. You are, frankly, dangerous — I hope less so now that you're lobbying on the side of angels, but frankly, I am uncertain of it. And your worldview is wrong, no matter how much you believe in it.

Specifically:

• I was an out queer in 1996. There were plenty of "regular" LGBTQ folks around (as evidenced, probably, by the reception you got from your Republican friends). 
• Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris were not the image of Our People in 1996, but you know who was? Billy Jean King. Martina Navratilova. Barney Frank. Are you suggesting that you needed more comedians, specifically, to make it worthwhile to not legislate depriving people of their civil rights?
• Just because you have all kinds of internalized homophobia doesn't mean it's OK to externalize that homophobia. The rest of us homos don't like it.
• HRC definitely meets with Republicans and conservatives — historically panders to them, some would say.
• As my friend pointed out when he shared this story, all chaps are assless; otherwise, they're leather pants.
• Also, nobody gets married in them. Anymore. What is this, 1954?

Yours in sisterhood,

bzzzzgrrrl

P.S. Shut the hell up.
P.P.S. No, wait. Apologize. Then shut up.


[In case you don't know what I'm talking about, and missed that link up top, I'll give it to you again. This sentence is a link.]

Things I actually had to say to my seatmate on my flight from Chicago to Manchester Sunday

• "I'm on page 70."
• "I'm on page 82."
• "I'm on page 96."
• "If I'm going to be your PR person, the first thing I'm going to do is tell you to stop asking women if they're pregnant."
• "You'll understand if I disagree with you about Title IX."
• "I'm sorry you had a son. No, not really. I don't really care, and you seem fine with it."
• "No, you probably shouldn't ask. It seems presumptuous, doesn't it?"
• "No, thanks, you don't need to buy me a drink."
• "It'll be OK."

Dream weirder

I feel like there's a lot of weird in the air these days. Is that happening to you, too? I am told that Mercury is retrograde, so that could be it, but then I feel like someone is always saying that Mercury is retrograde, so whatever.

But:

• I am going to visit a friend in Chicago. I have only one other friend in Chicago, who I wanted to introduce the first friend to. Turns out, they not only already know each other, but teach together, are mentor and mentee to each other, and coached soccer together in the fall.
• I found Davey and Goliath on TV. How long has it been since you saw that show, amiright?*
• Someone was cooking soup in my kitchen, and as I stirred the pot, I discovered a whole blueberry muffin, still in its wrapper, in the soup, apparently accidentally. How did that even get in there?*
• A then-girl, now-woman I had a crush on in high school friended my ex on Facebook. They have never met, do not know each other, have no mutual friends but me.

Weird, right? 

*OK, technically, those two things happened in a dream, but they were so funny and weird to me in the dream that I woke up to quick post here or on Facebook, except that by the time I was awake enough to actually do that, I was aware that both Davey and Goliath and the blueberry muffin were a dream. My sister the clinical social worker assures me that the significance of said dream was just that I am too into Facebook; if you discover any deeper or more embarrassing meaning, you'll tell me, right?

Family: Large

Happy election day for many people!

Here in my lovely burg, we will be voting for school board and also on a couple of school-related proposals.

As a local paper should, our local paper profiled the candidates for school board:

• Cyr and Droppa
• Freeman and Hay
• Panza

If you are deeply interested in the local school-related politics of my region, you should read them all.

If you are instead merely curious about why I am so ridiculously, rabidly anti-Free-Stater* — or looking to have your jaw drop in astonishment and amusement — you should just read Ian Freeman's** profile. The comments are excellent, too.

As one friend said, "dude really hates Monopoly."

(Oh, hey. If you live in Keene, please vote today.)



*Sadly, the fact that I have now met a total of one Free Stater who I don't loathe has not turned me around on this.

**Not his legal name, but nonetheless the name he is running with.

PSA

Just because it appears there are people who don't know this, and because it is important for people to know this:
All people who take birth control pills properly take the same amount of birth control pills.

So:

• If you take birth control pills because you have sex within a heterosexual marriage twice a week, or
• If you take birth control pills because you have sex with lots of men every day, or
• If you take birth control pills because you haven't had sex with a man yet but think you might sometime, or
• If you take "birth control pills" because you are using them for some other kind of hormonal therapy that has nothing to do with preventing pregnancy...

...you take one pill per day, which is usually a birth control pill but is sometimes a placebo so that you menstruate.

That is all. Questions?

Hush

Tonight, I went to a fantastic show on campus, before which I had a session with my trainer. She and I take turns talking; I exercise, she watches me, and whoever's not talking counts.

I was all excited to tell her about this thing I was going to, and now I'm excited to tell you:
The Devil Music Ensemble, which includes a guy I used to work with at summer camp, composes and performs original scores for silent films. The one they brought to campus tonight is a silent kung-fu movie from 1929 called Red Heroine, and both the film and the performance were awesome. The band is actually touring to China with it in March; if that sounds like the kind of artistic endeavor you'd like to support, you can do that at Kickstarter.

So I set out to tell my trainer about it.

"You count," I said. "I'm going to this thing tonight; my friend's in a band that does original scores for silent movies, and —"

"Wait," she said. "What's a silent movie?"

I literally did not know there were people that young.