A Metaphorical Conversation in Two Parts

or, A Broken Promise to Never Write Pointless Posts

I.
The Supermarket, Sunday morning after church
Age 16
Status: Closeted

Mom: Do you want some apples for this week?
Me: Yeah that'd be great.
Mom: What kind do you want?
Me: I like green apples.
Mom: Ew, you don't want those! I hate green apples!
Me: Yeah, but...I like green apples, and you asked me what I wanted.
Mom: How could you possibly eat those, I just really don't like them!
Me: You asked me what I wanted, and I told you. You don't have to like what I like or understand why I like it, I just want them!
*storms off with a bag of green apples*

II.
The Dining Room, aka my dad's office, where my mom is proofreading something
Age 19
Status: Out, but we don't like to talk about those kinds of things

Mom: If you have a list of things, do you put a comma before the "and" before the last one?
Me: You could. It's called an Oxford comma (sidenote: I'm not sure why I always insist on being a pretentious grammar fuck), some people use it, but you don't have to.
Mom: Hm. Well I really don't like using it. It doesn't really look right. It looks kind of funny.
Me: Well I know you don't personally like it that way, but I always like to do it like that. I know you don't, and you don't have to, but I do.
Mom: Eh, I still think it looks weird.

LOL. Substitute in whatever words you'd like for "apples" or "commas." It's like inappropriate Mad Libs. This conversation is also best imagined if you picture my mom as a small Asian lady with a thick Chinese accent. I mean, she's not and she doesn't have one, but, I'm just saying. It's best imagined as such.

But really. Some things never change. Just in case anyone is wondering about the tone of this, it's really not a hey-my-parents-don't-accept-me-so-feel-bad post. It's more like, lol how could I possibly lead two such contrasting lives, being loud and out and badass in one, and arguing over produce and punctuation in another?

Though, transcribing these has made me realize that it really should come as absolutely no surprise to me that my mother couldn't possibly wrap her head around tolerating or understanding, let alone accept my, ahem, homosexuality. I mean, it's difficult enough for her to understand why I like green apples or my preference for the Oxford comma.

But, I'm a college girl (grrrl) now, and I buy (read: steal from Whole Foods) my own green apples and proofread my own papers. Oh, and I like girls.

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And now, for a little vocabulary...
gaytience - (n) 1. the good-natured state of endurance that one enters when that straight girl who keeps flirting with you at parties insists upon said straightness and acts totally normal about everything in the daytime. She is said to be "testing your gaytience."

2. the frustrating state of endurance that one tolerates while looking forward to an event but currently leading a life free of queerness. This may happen, say, when one is home from school and looking forward to Pride Weekend in a different town, or even just when one sifts through the dense plot a totally straight show/movie just for the gay undertones that may or may not arise.

That being said, I'm going to DC on Wednesday after a very, very special event that will totallly make my life on Tuesday night. My gaytience is running thin.

This Business of Business

This entry is coming at you live from Global Corporate Citizenship.

Yes, it is as horrible as it sounds, and yes, I am here because of my greatest kept secret: I am a business major.

Not so well-kept secret: I hate being a business major.

The classes are tedious and uninteresting, and I'd swear that there's nothing in the content that you couldn't figure out yourself. Even the professors tell us time and time again that success in business is dependent largely on personality, not whether or not you can list the differences between sole proprietorships and corporations.

I wouldn't necessarily mind pursuing a career in business once I graduate (though my degrees, if successful, will end up being conducive to a career in music journalism), but as far as education goes, quite frankly, this shit is a waste of time.

Business education benefits the pocket, not the mind, and if you cannot expand your mind, then why bother with a college education?

I miss my history courses, my literature analysis, and the intricacies of DNA. There are no questions in business, nothing to explore. Only facts and statistics and fifty-dollar ghetto public speaking pamphlets (not how to public speak in a ghetto manner, rather an expensive poorly-assembled packet).

And yet, I. am still. here.

I cannot leave, despite my overwhelming passion and desire for other subject matter.

And last night I finally figured out why.

How my life was to proceed, according to my parents:

1. Birth

2. Elementary eduction

3. Prestigious Jesuit university

4. Church on Sunday

5. Graduate with a business degree

6. Pursue a career conducive to earning lots of dolla dolla billz

7. Marry a nice man (Filipinos appreciated, but not required, score!)

8. Pop out children

9. Die

My life plan:

1. Check

2. Check

3. Find my inner radical queer at American University

4. Hungover on Sunday (getting better at this. In addition, that's not the only reason I don't go to church. Reference my first entry for vague thoughts on religion)

5. Fail my business classes, pursue Women's and Gender Studies, Anthropology, Biology, Journalism (anything that will earn me no money in the future)

6a. Live in a box

6b. Not mind living in a box, because all my friends from AU live in boxes anyway, and we're in love with our lives so whatever

7. Gay. (not the only reason I don't see myself getting married, but that's an entirely different post)

8. Gay AND irresponsible (and kind of selfish and totally disapproving of the way that childhood is rapidly disappearing for newer generations, also another entry)

9. We'll see.

If I could, I would make a bitchin' venn diagram of this, and it would become even more apparent that I've ballsed (yes, balls as a verb) it all up already. I'm not sure how to reconcile this, because here, away from home, I'm finally able to pursue what I truly want, free from direct restriction from my parents and able to get all my quality out-of-classroom-learnin'. But. My weekly phone conversations with my family serve as a constant reminder that I'm nothing that they expected. Worst of all, is that I've got the feeling that even if I didn't decide to earn a Catholicalicious education and ironically pursue a soulless business degree, all would be well if I'd just settle down and get married.

None of this is happening, and as far as I know, my life is better for it.

But business, right now, it's all I've got.

I Can Stand Up Straight

I'm currently having a bit of trouble trying to condense the ridiculous ups and downs of my weekend into a single entry.

Short version:
1. I think I'm going to get ink poisoning from having my hands marked every time I go out. I got made fun of by a bouncer at Town. That's how you know.
2. Home isn't over for me yet.
3. The Ting Tings/HotTub will change your life.
4. D.C. is fantastic. Thank God for marches on the Pentagon and Guernica signs and shouting at buildings and making up for missed opportunities.
4. Time slows down on a sun high.
4a. The steps of Katzen Arts Center, and now subsequently my body, are covered in some sort of weird chalky substance. Do not fall asleep there.

#3 will probably be expanded upon in a later post, because they really were phenomenal. Seeing both bands reminded me of how I felt when I saw Tilly and the Wall right before leaving for school, and that was pretty significant. So...that will be given attention at some point.

The indirect re-introduction of some characters into my life this weekend brought me to some really unsettling conclusions about the way all my problems from home are very strongly connected.

The main point is that you should not be a janky homophobe.

It's not just your overt disposition toward the LGBTQ community. It's not always violence (both physical and systematic) and offensive language and the like. It's the subtle things that pervade our lives. It's indirect exclusion and slowly losing everyone in your life, and feeling unwelcome in their houses once you get them back. It's gossip and sneers and seeing the disdain of other people's parents reflected in the reaction of my parents when I finally came out. It's the I-don't-mind-gay-people-but-thank-God-that's-not-my-child. Because you know what? If you wouldn't accept your child as queer, then you do not accept queer people. And you need to accept that.

In short, home is hitting too close to home, and somewhere along the line the only rational and mature decision I could manage to make became promising to completley cut people out of my life, and that is a damn shame.

It's not all bad though, because home-induced blues come and go and can always be ameliorated by a weekend on the DC gay club circuit. Welcome back to my life, Apex. I missed your lasers and sticky floors and shirtless men dancing with themselves in the mirror.

Wait, did I? (Yes, kind of, actually).

A day spent lounging on the steps of Katzen didn't hurt either.
Just when I was about to be freaked out by the perpetual motion of the earth and that whole recurring panic about everything moving too fast, time slowed. And it didn't just slow, it swayed and lingered and wrapped me up in a dreamy sun-induced daze.

Also all that chalky shit that's on me now.