It seems we’re moving forward on DADT.

Captain Awesome texted me today with some welcome news: she’s going to get training tomorrow about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Her unit got handouts about it today.

I am very glad about this. For one, it means the new law is probably going to go into effect soon. And for two, she’ll finally get trained on how to deal with all those GAY PEOPLE. I mean gay people are dangerous. They mess you up in foxholes. They get at you when you’re in the shower. Hide your husband too. I’ve been really worried that she might get attacked by a gay.

I sure wish I could be a fly on the wall during the training. (Captain Awesome is good at remembering facts and numerals, but she never tells me all the details I want to know about social interactions.) They must have worked for a long time to figure out how to talk about queer people without saying anything discriminatory. And I bet a lot of the straight commanders are uncomfortable with the topic.

I’m glad I don’t have to worry about The Gays attacking Captain Awesome anymore, but I do wonder when she’s going to get training on how to deal with straight people. ‘Cause I’ve been worried about THEM pulling some shit too.

Updates to come — and also look out for updates concerning my move to Militaryville NEXT WEEK. Shit’s about to get real.

Spring is here!

I’m feeling good today for three reasons:

1. I’m done working in an office! It’s great how much easier it is to face the world when you have things like freedom and autonomy. (Of course, I’m also unemployed now.)

2. I have a new computer! Actually it’s not new — it was new in 2005. I got it for either Christmas or my eighteenth birthday — can’t remember which, because the two are so close — and it crapped out on me two years ago. I faithfully hauled the thing around, and now when I actually need a computer again, I was able to get it fixed instead of shelling out twice as much for a new one. Go me! The dude at the computer store said it would only last a year or so, but we’ll see. He also said they were only built to last three years, and this one lasted more than four before it crapped out the first time. And overall, it’s six years old. It’s a trooper. I give it two years, if I don’t screw things up for it by spilling juice on it. I’m trying to treat it like the octogenarian it is in computer years.

3. It’s spring! You can’t help but feel good when it’s spring.

The clock is ticking.

In case the lack of posts didn’t clue you in, I’ve been ridiculously stressed out lately.  I’m moving to Militaryville in two weeks, and it’s ridiculous. I’m trying to make sure all my affairs are in order at my job, which is hard because I stopped giving a shit about three months ago.

I have to pack my things. I have to finish everything at work, including coming up with a piece out of my ass before tomorrow. I have to arrange to ship my piano.

Captain Awesome and I are feeling the strain of being apart and are snapping at each other all the time, forgetting how nice it really is to be together. I’m not unduly worried about this because every relationship has times of strain, but it’s still stressful. It’s stressful for me and Captain Awesome to be on unstable ground because we usually fall back on each other for support in times like this. Not only does she have her own tension involving me moving and other stuff that has nothing to do with me, but our relationship has become PART of the tension. And of course we picked this time to talk about having kids, which we have different feelings about (mine: no.  Hers: It could make life meaningful), so that’s stressful too.

My first instinct is to go and talk to her in person because 96% of our arguments wouldn’t happened if we were near each other, but of course I can’t do that for two more weeks.

Everyone around me has been wanting to hang out because they know I’m leaving soon, but I’ve been blowing them off totally because I’ve been in a pissy mood for two weeks straight.

But mainly, I’m excited! I like the stress that goes with moving. I think if I ever stay in one place for too long I’ll die from straight-up boredom. And Middle America….wow, I’ve never really been there.  I mean I’ve been through Montana and Dakota on the train, but I’ve never spent significant time in this interesting geographical and political landscape.

Most of my stress comes down to one thing: I want to GO already!

I Can Now Die Happy.

I have three women in my life today, in this particular order:

1. Captain Awesome. Always awesome, always number one. Soon to be my live-in partner.

2. A woman that I just went out on a breakfast date with. She’s got a Shane thing going on.  By which I mean she’s ridiculously hot and averse to commitment. Those are both things I’m looking for in a secondary partner.

3. Jennifer Beals. Oh my freaking GOD, Jennifer Beals. I was already a massive Bette Porter devotee (that’s her character on The L Word, for those of you who grew up in holes). As in, when I got hired at my fancy downtown media job, I took specific trips to the store to purchase clothing that would make me look more like Bette Porter on the job.  Has anybody seen her new show? L Word fans, prepare to fall to the ground in a quivering, screaming mass of devotion.

Jennifer Beals is in a new show called The Chicago Code – where she plays not just a cop, but THE HEAD OF EVERY COP IN CHICAGO.

I can’t believe this is happening in real life. This is one of those things that I never thought would occur during my lifetime.   This is one of those things that, when it happens, you remember exactly what you’re wearing and exactly who you were with.

I Can. Not. Handle.This. This is like every lesbian’s wet dream, ON SCREEN! Look at this. Just LOOK at this.

I can’t talk about the show without talking about the multiple massive major RACEFAILS that seem to inundate any show on network television. By racefail, I mean they did something racist. A few of the racefails that I picked up:

1. First scene with the main white guy (who seems to get more screen time than Beals) opens with him chasing a Latino criminal and saying, “Don’t do this, amigo!”  He’s not your amigo. And I’m not excited about your character.

2. The only character that’s treated as Black (Beals is getting a colorblind treatment so far) also happens to be the main bad guy. It’s nice that he’s a successful Black guy, but since he apparently got there through corruption, that doesn’t do it for me. Although I must say I really enjoy the guy’s acting.

3. Multiple passing stereotypes: frightened Asian convenience store man,  loyal person of color who dies saving the main character, “gangstas” who talk about “baby mamas” – all the supporting  characters of color are one-dimensional as hell, except for this one Black cop who seems to have some promise.

All in all, it’s a show by white people, for white people. I could even say something about the supporting female character – there’s only one so far, and she definitely gets overpowered by a perp and has to be rescued by her male partner in the second episode. But I don’t mind that so much, because every time something lame happens with her, it usually switches pretty quickly back to JENNIFER BEALS. Who is not stereotyped. Who does not take crap. Who walks around in a police uniform telling people what to do.

Oh, my beating HEART!

I’ll leave you with this video.

Happy Anniversary to me.

Sunday was me and Captain Awesome’s anniversary. I know we’re meant for each other because we both forgot about it.  And in general, we feel like corporations can shove their cutesy cards and candlelit dinners up their butts while we keep our money for ourselves.

This was our second anniversary ever. Two years seems like two hundred years to me – not because the relationship has been that crappy, but because my previous dating record was eight weeks. And really, it was more like six because the chick stopped calling me then. It was only my second relationship, so it took me two weeks to realize that 1. She was giving me a hint, and 2. I didn’t really want to call her either.

So I had no real desire to have a girlfriend when I met Captain Awesome. We met through our best friends:  my best friend in the music department of our university was seeing HER best friend at the dental school for dental work. So the four of us happened to end up together at the dental school one day, where Captain Awesome’s best friend asked me if my best friend was my boyfriend.

“Please,” I said. “I date the ladies.”

“You’re GAY?”

“No.”

“Because I have a gay friend right here! This is [Captain Awesome]!”

I got really pissed then. I mean I had never met this person. And first of all, I had just SAID I wasn’t gay (I prefer the term “pansexual playboy with a concentration in women”), and second of all, that was an ignorant-ass thing to say.

“So what,” I said, “You think we’re automatically gonna have everything in common just because we’re gay? Please!”  I gave her a withering glare and pulled my friend into the nearest elevator, then smacked the button for the ground floor.

Then I realized that I might be ruining my chance with a hot chick, so I hurriedly said, “Hey!” to Captain Awesome as the elevator door closed. She had a shocked (and maybe amused) look on her face from what I’d said to her friend, but she recovered enough to raise her hand in greeting.

Three months passed, and we both thought about each other a little. I mean I wasn’t planning to get in touch with her — I had just thought she was hot. But once she finished studying for her written board exams, Captain Awesome asked her best friend to ask MY best friend for my number. And two years ago Sunday we went out on our first date. We enjoyed it immensely, and I ditched the other chick I had been putting the moves on and spent several evenings a week with Captain Awesome.

I knew she was leaving for the Army, so I didn’t even think about it becoming a long-term thing, but about five weeks in we realized it had accidentally become a long-term thing. We have a dreadful aversion to anything U-Haul, so we were pretty embarrassed about this, and didn’t mention it for a long time. But finally we talked haltingly about being exclusive (which doesn’t mean monogamous), and we’ve been shacking up since then (albeit in different states).

That’s all I wanted to say, I guess.  Now we live happily ever after in two different states with the military’s draconian anti-gay laws still hanging over our heads.

But hopefully all of that will be different by the end of this year.

General Amos Sucks It

What you’re about to see cracked me UP.  I seriously thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit when I first clicked on it.

But it’s real. It’s a video of General Amos (who was strongly opposed to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps  sucking it up and telling Marines to get on board with repeal.

And it cracked me UP! It starts out with this awful “patriotic” music, with flags waving and everything. Then it cuts to Amos and the SMMC, who totally look like parodies of themselves. Like seriously, they don’t move anything except their mouths. And they speak in really strong versions of what I call a “military accent” — which sounds like a subset of the American Southern accent, except with the words more clipped. My favorite part is where the SMMC says,  “Marines have always been professional, carryin’ on our warrior ETHOS  and maintainin’ our core values. “

This is interspersed with random pictures of Marines doing patriotic stuff like holding guns, awarding each other medals, walking into the sunset, and looking behind them ponderously while the words of the Constitution float in front of their heads, while the brass tells them to suck up the fact that they’ll be living with gays and be professional.

I literally thought this was Saturday Night Live.

Now I know I shouldn’t think this is funny. I know I should be genuinely happy that Amos has decided to get on board.  I know these are top military officials and I’m supposed to respect them. But goddammit, that shit was funny.  Lighten UP, U.S. military! I know you have to foster nationalism. I know you think you’re on some kind of grand video game mission. But seriously — it’s not that hard-core. The eagles are a little much, IMHO.

Sometimes I get so involved in my radical world that I forget that most Americans would think this is a totally serious, normal video to make.

Confirmed Bachelor, over and out.

Moving To Middle America: Reactions

Whenever I mention at a party or gathering that I’m moving to [a majority Republican state in middle America], I always get the same reactions from the white radicals who generally attend gatherings at my white radical house. “Why?”  “God, how awful for you!” “What on earth are you going to do THERE?” “I would never be able to move there. There are just so many rednecks.” “It’s so white there!”

Dear Radicals:

Yes, I know that you are radical. I know that you voted for Obama only because he was the lesser of two evils. I know that you are an anti-racist, so you have no desire to hang around other white people (except for this party, apparently).  I can see that you are ridiculously enlightened, because nobody in their right (or should I say left?) mind would voluntarily move to [a majority Republican state in middle America].

I understand that you have been to Europe. I understand that you stayed in hostels in London, Paris, and Amsterdam (and yes, I understand that they’re so enlightened there that you were able to buy weed in a café). I understand that you have even ventured to dangerous non-white countries in Africa and Latin America, always travelling off the beaten path.

I understand that you are far too worldly and well-travelled for [a majority Republican state in middle America].

But with all due respect, shut the hell up.

For one, you’re acting like I don’t know what I’m getting into. And it’s a little bit rude to immediately scorn a decision that I spent a lot of time weighing and calculating. But you know what,  I don’t mind that. That’s why I’m moving there and you’re not.

But secondly, in your attempt to sound worldly and cultured, you actually just end up sounding like a dumb-ass. When you think about it, middle America is just as foreign for folks like me and you as Antarctica. And majority Republican states in middle America deserve the same culturally relative approach that you supposedly took with you to Mexico and South Africa and wherever else you went backpacking recently.

Your immediate dismissal of the place just shows that you are prejudiced against something you haven’t even seen, and you have no intention of ever finding out whether your prejudice is warranted.  I freely admit that I have my own preconceptions. But I don’t go spouting them off at parties –  ’cause I haven’t BEEN there.

I wasn’t born yesterday. I can read statistics. I realize that I’m going to a place where very few people identify as I do. But you didn’t care about that when you went to OTHER racist, anti-gay countries  where people thought differently. In fact, you came back having actually LEARNED something from the ass-backwards racism in London and Paris. So why is middle America different?

Thirdly, you wonder why right-wingers say the left is vitriolic and hateful – it’s because we are. No, I don’t think it’s ever okay to form militias to drive brown people into Mexico. But you can be critical of policies and doctrines without being a douchebag. Like it or not, we are going to have to integrate middle-America Republicans into our brave new America when the revolution comes. They’re not going to just disappear because you think they’re stupid. We need dialogue, not dismissal.

I’m not excited about leaving a hotbed of political activism, but I don’t think I have nothing to learn from where I’m going.

Employment Status

My main worry in moving to Militaryville is finding a job. Militaryville is north of Texas, south of Canada, east of Oregon, and west of Wisconsin. That translates to the MIDDLE OF FREAKING NOWHERE, as far as my world-travelling self is concerned.

I am reasonably confident that between teaching piano and freelancing for different publications, I will eke out an income. But I may, especially in the beginning, have to work part time at what I call a Shit Job to make ends meet. This could include bartending, administrative work, or anything else.

On the one hand I’m a radical who thinks job culture is bullshit and only wants to do the minimum required to not starve, while focusing on meaningful things like exploring and reading and learning. But on the other hand, I enjoy telling people that I’m a producer/blogger at a national news organization. That makes people look at me. That makes people want to know my name. That makes people ask my opinion about things.

So career-wise, this move is a major step down for me, at least initially. And it’s a bit of a blow to my pride.

Captain Awesome’s been unintentionally rubbing me the wrong way about it. She’s super concerned about my move to Militaryville, and really wants me to feel good there – part of which obviously includes supporting myself.  The problem is, there isn’t a shit-ton of jobs out there. I mean, the Craigslist page for this region only adds an average of four new jobs a DAY. (In DC, one of my housemates got a job by sitting in front of Craigslist and refreshing it every ten minutes. )

So Captain Awesome keeps sending me all these suggestions and links like, “Why don’t you become a notary?” “You could be a dental assistant and we could work together.”  ”My friend said the Shopette is always hiring.” “Have you thought about becoming a real estate agent?”  “Why don’t you enroll in this career certificate course?”

Hold the phone. Not to sound like an elitist snob, but I have a DEGREE. I am a PRODUCER.  My next step is gonna be LAW SCHOOL.

What on godsgreenearth do I need a “career certificate” for?!?

I hate that my career goals (such as they are) are being thrown by the wayside while Captain Awesome gets to be a dentist. I know this was my choice, and is not her fault. But all these suggestions just rub it in for me.  I mean, I can totally live with a shit job. I’m not too good for any work. I know I may have to end up DOING a shit job. But to hear Captain Awesome talking about it like it’s already a given does NOT get me psyched about moving to Militaryville. Everything she mentions makes me think of the stereotypical military spouse without options who’s trying to make a little money on the side. I mean, I’m a classical PIANIST. I’ve had my work featured in ART SHOWS.  My articles are viewed by thousands of PEOPLE.

What am I gonna work at the Shopette for?

Got Headphones On.

I’m listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s song “America”.  Though I despise tobacco smoking with an unholy passion, I still think the saddest line in the world is  “Toss me a cigarette; I think there’s one in my raincoat…./We smoked the last one an hour ago.”

I mean, they’re already disillusioned about the American dream, they’ve lost their innocence — and they don’t even have SMOKES. I mean dang. That’s gotta be the nadir of your life. And then the A minor chord on it… You can’t really go wrong with A minor.

It makes me think of how I’ll be off to discover America, too. Where Captain Awesome lives, there’s nothing but plains and Regular Americans. There used to be Native Americans, but now it’s Real Americans. Who knew. I’ll be taking the train across the prairie, looking at new sights and seeing new people and never really fitting in — just the way I like it.

Captain Awesome just texted me and said she’s number 27 on her region’s deploying list. Who knows what that means. But it reminds me that even when we live together, there’ll be no guarantee that we can actually live together.

The Dark Of The Year

It’s my least favorite time of year, and it’s a crappy time for queer issues, too. January and February have absolutely nothing going for them unless you count my birthday. It’s kind of a no-man’s-land as far as the year goes: it’s after the holidays, but before summer starts inching back into the northern lands. All there is to do is go to work and hide out in the house, crocheting and playing languid songs on the guitar. It gets so lame that sometimes I’d rather work late than go home.

Military queers are kind of in a no-man’s land too. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed, but there’s no sign of implementation coming anytime soon. When they first counted up the votes there in the Senate gallery, I was ecstatic because I thought that DADT would be lifted at the same exact time that I moved to live with Captain Awesome. But even without the 60-day waiting period, that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen soon. And support is trickling away as the issue falls out of the public eye – most people think that we’re “done”, even though it’s still technically illegal to be out and transgender issues STILL don’t have a place in any of this debate.

Captain Awesome is kind of down in the dumps, too. She doesn’t have the effervescent company of five gorgeous women in her house like I do, so all she does besides dental work is play with her dog and watch movies while cuddling with her dog.  The worst thing is that the anniversary of her father’s death is approaching, and I know I’m not going to be able to be with her on it. It makes ME want to cry thinking about it, so I can’t imagine how she must feel.

I want to fast forward through January and February and arrive at March. I mean, yeah – I’ll be moving to a place that has 84 percent white people and about the same amount of conservatives. But at least the daffodils will be blooming (if daffodils even bloom in Militaryville).