paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- teenish memories and thoughts To not think about Satan and about politics in Paradise Lost for an entire day. It is interesting to me how compelled people are to characterize Milton�s Satan. To say � he is like an over-zealous minister, a politician, a used-car salesman, a CEO�. Even scholars characterize Milton�s Satan. When I read Milton I feel as though I have nothing original to say. I ponder the 350 years of ink and paper, all of the breath, the debate, �. Continues. Today the Esquire made fun of gays in staff meeting and said some hurtful things. Embroiled in a story about two separate men that she was equally afraid were gay. One because he was sort of prissy. Then he married my former boss. The other because she saw him at the opera with another man on more than one occasion. Then, it turns out, he has a long-distance romance going. She could not say in quantifiable terms why she thought they were gay, but, to quote her almost directly �the important thing, the good thing, is that they are not gay. I mean, it is great news that neither one of them are gay.� We are all incredibly silent because I believe that the other two people on our little staff were as stunned as me. And the Esquire did what all people do in the face of silence � she filled the void with the kind of talk that reveals exactly what she thinks. And here, I am paraphrasing. �I mean, there are enough gays. Especially gay men. No one wants anyone to be gay, heaven forbid, but I guess it happens. Oh well, you know what I mean. Hooray. Now where was I. Oh yes, I was promised talking points from XX. That little twit. He said he sent them but I have not seen them. I think he is so snarky. And he is gay for real. You see what I mean about gays?� I could taste the taste of socks in my mouth. Dirty socks. I did not know what to say or do. I just kept staring at her, trying to determine whether she is real or just some idiot, cruel amalgam put here to torture us all. To look at her, it is difficult to notice anything that would confirm that she is human. Perfectly thin. Perfectly tall, but not too tall. Possibly a nose job in her past. Perfect teeth (braces as an adult). Perfectly tan, but not too tan. Perfect makeup. Perfect and expensive St. John knit suit. Perfect nails. Perfect feet. No hint of even a callous on her heel. But, the more one looks, the more evident it becomes. As she squirms. Her head on a gyroscope. She keeps sticking the bones out in her bony neck. She bugs out her eyes, for emphasis. The way she contorts is definitely not attractive. It makes me wonder why she does it. Everything else about her is so calculated for polish and contrived for neatness. But I did not say anything for a long time. I sat there, feeling bad for being gay. And then the more I thought about it, the more I knew that I had to say something. Because Stella and the jointly-appointed professor have a clue about me. And what do I say about how I feel about who I am if I say nothing. �I need to jump in here and say something. I do not think being gay and job performance are necessarily linked. Additionally, I am wondering what all of this talk about who is gay has to do with the agenda of our staff meeting. I would like to request that we return to our agenda.� At least, I think that is what I said. I may have had an umm in there. Or I may have said it really fast. Today is the first day taking the synthetic thyroid stuff and I must admit that I felt a bit altered at work. In a way, I felt a bit like I remember I used to feel. Before everything ground to a tired halt these past three or so years, incrementally. But at the same time, I felt kind of jittery and the world seemed different to me. Like anything, it will take some adjustment, and then my sense of normal will shift. When I worked at Crabtree and Evelyn in college, I had no sense of smell. People always told me how wonderful I smelled, how wonderful my apartment smelled, my clothes. But because I spent eight hours a day in a highly perfumed place, I could not tell. True, it was a point of attraction � hey, get a crush on Piper, she always smells really good. I miss all of those bath products. I love bath products, but with the dribbler that we have there is no taking a bath or much of a shower. It takes an hour to fill the tub. And our showers are stretching out to 30 minutes. But rest assured, there is no waste of water in those thirty minutes. If I closed the drain, it would only collect to my lower calves, I am certain. If we ever are able to get the dribbler re-plumbed, I am going to celebrate with a nice bar of lavender-scented soap. I love the scent of lavender, and always have. Now that it is trendy as a relaxing scent, I am a bit in heaven. But it is difficult to get products that really smell like lavender and not like an old lady. When I was 15 I went to France and stayed with a family for the summer. I extended my stay to stay on a lavender �farm� of a friend that I met there. And it was so beautiful to look out over fields of lavender. Her family harvested it for the perfume industry, I think. And they also made cheese and were socialists. I felt so at home on their farm with the lavender that I wanted to stay for the rest of year. The farm family lived just outside of a small hamlet and I had a lot of fun riding a bicycle into town for bread each day. Once, a group of tourists stopped me and asked for directions and it was so fun to pretend that I spoke very little English. Every once in a while, the French word for something will come to me before the English word. I cherish that. I was never fluent, but I was proficient and could talk about the cinema, art, philosophy, literature and politics in French � what else is there? How I ramble this evening. I�ll blame it on the synthetic thyroid drugs. That was the summer that I realized I was attracted to females. A girlfriend from school invited me over when I returned to spend the night at her house. Her parents were away. And we watched �that� scene from The Hunger about 30 times, each of us making up excuses to rewind it. And later in the evening, laying there so innocently in bed, I reached over and took her hand and she did not take it away. I went through a phase in college where I dated guys. I even married one. But I have always been most attracted to women. Maybe on some level I did not want to deal with what it meant to be lesbian/gay in our culture, when I was younger. But I reached a point where I honestly felt that it was better to be honest with myself when it comes to love and attraction. For me it is no longer something that is up for grabs and it is not something for which I feel shame. But I get a bit sad when people, and this happens quite a bit because I do not fit the �type,� make derogatory statements or tell jokes about lesbians/gays to me. Because I know that if they knew, they would not have the gall to say the types of stupid remarks that they do say in front of me. Sometimes I am reminded of exactly what part of the country this is � the bible belt. Actually, I would say that in the state where I live, we are conflicted: are we southern or not? Are we in the bible belt or not? Regardless, we have a large contingency of the religious right. And I wanted to write about a brief intersection that I had with them. Quinn and I were walking to the library on Sunday. My inter-library loan books arrived, almost too late to do any good, and I thought that it would be good to get some exercise and run an errand. If not good, then chic. And really, in my world, good and chic are inter-related. There is a creek that runs from the bottom of the hill where we live to the library, so it is a nice garden walk under the busy streets and traffic congestion. There are only a few places to ascend to the busy city, which I have never minded because my scope of possibility was not tracking the possibility of becoming subsumed by a neo-Christian march to save the world and end hunger. I was nervous when I heard a big blasting prayer over a loudspeaker at the natural amphitheater where there are usually free concerts. �God loves you. You are awesome.� And then Chariots of Fire started up. This song always makes me grin because I think of 8th grade graduation when Sister Winnie played it on the pump organ while we walked through the Grand Salle and up to the stage. So many memories from those days make me grin. At the same time, I was attending to the voice �We�ll see you when you come home.� I knew immediately what that meant and began to get nervous. Before we knew it, we were dispatched with all of the little chariots of fire, making our peaceful way down the walk. I could hear the righteous talk of the women around me. �Where�s your son?� �Believe me, he would be here today, but a sophomore family was having a bonfire. They are a good, upstanding family so I let him go.� How is it that Christian kids always get to have bonfires and stay all night in mixed company? I wished for a hat and dark glasses, because it occurred to me, that someone could see us�. Feeling like a teen again�. 10:29 p.m. - 2002-10-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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