The Town

This is my first video post. It is a marionette tragedy in two acts. Although I have used some clips of copyrighted materials - notably "Mad World" by Gary Jules (cover of the original by Tears for Fears). If a significant amount of people watch this I guess I'll have to deal with that issue. However, I don't think it'll make any real impact. It's really just for fun. Enjoy!

Love Is an Open Wound

My family just told me this past weekend that one of my favorite beings - our cat, Sidney - has been missing for two weeks. She is either dead, foraging to survive or thriving in someone else's care. She is a gorgeous cat - a ten-year-old himalayan with long, white fur and grey tips - and she's incredibly friendly and sweet! It's highly possible that someone picked her up and took her home. Hopefully she is ok.

However, it is also possible that Sidney has passed. This possibility is, of course, the hardest to swallow. I bawled and cried and paced and panicked and had trouble breathing and cried and cried over this possibility. Then, after a few days of thinking on it, I realized that it is more likely that she is ok since my brothers have been searching all over for her and no one has found any evidence of her demise. She was too young and healthy to just die for no reason so there would be evidence if she was killed by some animal or some thing - a body, fur, blood, etc. After coming to that conclusion, I have been feeling somewhat more optimistic about her prospects. As soon as I get up to Portland, OR, where my family lives (they actually live about 20 miles southeast of Portland in a town called West Linn), I plan on implementing a huge search and rescue effort. I will not leave there after 5 days without putting in the best effort that I can possibly put in to find her. Because I love her.

I love Sidney, or Sidnerelli as I like to call her. Her disappearance and possible demise hurts so much - makes it hard to breath at times, even - because I love her so much. I was thinking about this fact about love - that when someone you love dies it hurts so much that it feels unbearable and I was feeling like I just can't do it anymore - deal with the pain of losing someone I love. I looked at my cats, Molly and Bates, who live with me and my little dog, Letia, and I couldn't even imagine what I'd be like if one of them had died or was even missing for as long as Sidney. It's not that I love them more than I love Sidney, but our lives are definitely more intertwined since I live with them.

In any case, I realized that despite the pact that I've made with my pets, it's highly likely that they will die before I do and thus, I will have to endure their deaths. That realization made me feel - for a moment at least - like I might have made a mistake falling in love with these beings, that I am now doomed to that pain whereas if I hadn't taken them into my life (or even allowed them to be born, as the case was for Molly and Sidney), I wouldn't be doomed to such pain. Then I reminded myself that of course I didn't make a mistake bringing these beings into my life, that they have brought me so much joy and love - how could I even consider not having them?

This brings me to the thesis of my post: love is an open wound. When you love someone, you are opening your heart to them and exposing yourself to certain grief. Of course, that's not all that love is - it is a wonderful joyous feeling and everlasting comfort and more than anything anyone can ever completely describe. But it is guaranteed to give pain because of its loss - either due to the love ending or due to the object of love leaving or dying. Unless you die first. But then your death will hurt the ones that love you. So there's no getting around it - the suffering will be there with or without you.

I also considered what I had thought previously - what if you never let yourself love anyone? Could you really avoid the pain and suffering associated with love in that case? I thought about this and came to the conclusion that no, there's no way around it - either you love and lose or you just lose and lose. There's no joy in never loving anyone or being loved by no one! I'm not even sure that's possible, but if it were I cannot imagine that it would be a pain,-suffering-and-grief-free existence. Therefore, it is preferable to endure love and loss, and, since love is an open wound, make sure to tend to it so it doesn't become infected.

Lesbians are gay too!

I realize that the majority of homophobia is from the male perspective - the fear of gay men and probably anal sex - although I'm honestly not 100% sure of the underlying issues. However, I am so tired - so sick of - being ignored as a gay woman! If we're not discriminated against, we're the subjects of male fantasies - although not really women like me, the more masculine type of lesbian. I don't know which is worse - the discriminiation or straight male fantasies!

I'm writing this blog post because of, yet another, homophobic line of reasoning put forth in a question to Ted Olson, one of the Plaintiff Attorneys for the Federal Unconstitutionality of California's Prop 8 case, by the anti-marriage equality group ironically called the National Organization for Marriage (NOM):

"Do you really believe that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and that gender is irrelevant to parenting? If gender is really irrelevant, why do self-described “gays” insist on having a male sex partner? Why isn’t a really masculine woman just as acceptable as a male sex partner?"

Well, actually, some gay men do like masculine women - I've been hit on by more gay men at clubs than gay women! (I hope that's because women just don't hit on anyone as much as men do!) Not all gays "insist" on having a male sex partner! I insist on having a female sex partner - but more than just a sex partner - a loving partner!

Strangely, I find it offensive that all over the media the most common homophobic remarks and blatant fears are regarding gay men and not gay women/lesbians. Obviously, the homophobic remarks are offensive all in and of themselves - but I guess my point is about how everything's from the male perspective. I also think that if straight men can understand how women can be gay (maybe because they are less afraid of women or threatened by their sex), maybe they could then also understand gay men in the same way that they understand gay women and realize it's not about sex - it's about a loving relationship that does not threaten them, their masculinity or their sexuality! If anything, straight men should be thankful for the existence of gay men - it reduces the size of the male pool of heterosexuals without reducing the female pool! Straight men should feel more threatened by lesbians cause we do deplete the female pool for heterosexual men! But really, neither of us do because the pool size of heterosexuals is always the same since if we're hooking up with them then they aren't heterosexuals!!