I'm here, I'm queer, I'm a celebrity

Now that Clay Aiken has officially come out in a big way...

and same with Lindsay Lohan, perhaps they will both be able to find some centeredness and happiness within the insanity of celebrity culture.

At the very least, all this coming-out of celebrities is great for queer kids and societal progression.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Paula Gunn Allen

"I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history. " - Paula Gunn Allen.

Paula Gunn Allen, the revolutionary lesbian Native American and Lebanese writer, teacher and cultural historian passed away of lung cancer on May 29.

More information on Paula Gunn Allen here and here.

Two poems by Paula Gunn Allen:

Some Like Indians Endure

dykes remind me of indians
like indians dykes
are supposed to die out
or forget
or drink all the time
or shatter
go away
to nowhere
to remember what will happen
if they dont

they dont
anyway
even though it
happens
and they remember
they dont

because the moon remembers
because so does the sun
because so do the stars
remember
and the persistent stubborn
grass
of the earth

*

Weed

She stood, a weed tall in the sun.
She grew like that and went
over it again and again trying to be tall
trying not to die in the drying sun
the seeming turbulence of waiting
the sun so yellow
so still

There was nothing else to do. It was like that
in her day, and the sun who rose so bright
so full of fire reminded her of that.
It was the sun that did it; it was the rain.
She stood it all, and more:
the water pounding from the high rock face
of the mesas that made her yard
she knew where she was growing. Didn't
she know what sun will do, what happens to weeds
when their growing time's done? Didn't she care?
She got the sun into her, though.
The fire. She drank the rain for fuel.
She stood there in the day, growing,
trying to stand tall like a right weed would.

The drying was part of it.
The dying. Come from heat, the transformation
of fire. The rain helped because it understood
why she just stood there, growing,
tall in the heat and bright.

Sex and the lezzie

Annie and I have always enjoyed watching Sex and the City episodes on DVD, and we're looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend with my mom.

Our lives couldn't be any more different from the lives of the characters in the show. We don't care about shoes or clothes. We don't even like to shop (although Annie likes it more than I do). We could care less about trendy things. I hate martinis. And parties.

We love Manhattan, but just to visit. And when we're there we go to the museums and walk for miles through Central Park and along the city streets in our sensible shoes--not to clubs or trendy places.

Those trappings of the show, while fun, aren't what make it so great. What makes Sex and the City good is this: great writing, rich characters, and humor that bumps up against poignancy. (One reviewer called the movie "existential haute couture.")

There are a lot of lesbians out there who love this show that features four very heterosexual women. Oh, wait a minute--there's the episode where Samantha boinks a woman, but she doesn't like it a whole lot. And there are several gay male characters. Still, the focus of a lot of the show is the woman/man mating dance, normally not a big feature of most of what I'm drawn to view or read. But Sex and the City has four funny, complex female central characters who are irresistible.

And now there's another way I connect with the show, albeit at a slant: Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda, has a woman partner, Christine Marinoni. Cynthia was married to a man and then one day it became clear she was with Christine. I love that Christine isn't in the biz. Sure, Ellen and Portia de Rossi are pretty to look at, but Christine looks more like the women I know. Meaning, women who haven't been gussied up by Hollywood.

Cynthia had basically been under the radar until her relationship with Christine was reported in the media. In one article, Cynthia says this:

I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn’t a struggle, there wasn’t an attempt to suppress. I met this woman, I fell in love with her, and I’m a public figure.

I like she doesn't insist that she was "born that way." Instead she acknowledges sexuality as fluid. There's nothing wrong with being a lesbian or a bisexual woman (or a straight chick who loves girls!)--so there's nothing wrong with choosing to love who you love.

Late to the Toulouse-Lautrec Party

Wow, I love these. Never saw them before today.

(Read about them here.)

News Flash! Lesbian Gangs Infiltrate U.S.!

If you haven't yet seen the video, it's a don't-miss!




Now read Violet Blue's brilliant commentary: Lesbian Gangs: A National Threat?/Bill O'Reilly's homoerotic fantasies go nuclear.

Happy Pride Month

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

--Walt Whitman

Lesbian Spawn

Fortunately, the new baby born to Mary Cheney and her partner Heather Poe doesn't look like grandpa.

Legacy of Hate and Intolerance

Jerry Falwell died today.

In articles about him, I'm already finding such quotes as:

"Dr. Falwell was a giant of faith and a visionary leader. He has always been a man of great optimism and great faith." - Ron Godwin

"Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country." - John McCain

I think it's crucial we not forget that he spouted hate and intolerance. Below are some of his infamous statements. (Maybe he'll be reincarnated as a man who gets gay-bashed.)

"AIDS is God's punishment to gays."

"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

"Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."

"There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters."

"Textbooks are Soviet propaganda."

"The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability."

"(9/11 is the result of) throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."


(Thanks Joe. My. God.)

Bisexual Lesbian

My story "Art Making" will be published in the forthcoming Best Bi Short Stories, and the editor asked me to write a little blurb about myself and my story. Here 'tis:

When I'm in the mood to use a label, I identify as a "bisexual lesbian." I've been mongamously partnered with my soulmate, Annie, for 14 years and hope to remain that way for years to come. However, before I met Annie, I had been only in relationships with men (including a five-year marriage). I don't want to deny that those relationships are part of who I am, and yet I feel very woman-focused. That's why "bisexual lesbian" works for me.

My story "Art Making" emerged around the time Annie and I decided not to have children. It was a decision we were happy with, although it signaled a life shift because we'd both tried in the past to get pregnant. This decision got me thinking about the drive to have children, as well as the intriguing tensions between suburban and bohemian life--particularly the ways in which these lifestyles affect and are affected by child-rearing and art-making.

In the story, I was also playing around with the instability of desire and identity. Michelle is seen in the world as a lesbian, but she lives out desire bisexually. I think that is true for most people: that our labels do not match the complexities of our identities and desires. As Foucault says, we are freer than we think.