Nothing much going on

Not much lesbian news in my life at the moment. I'm listening obsessively to Tegan and Sara's new album, "The Con" (so good!) and watching South of Nowhere online (also so good!) and that's pretty much it. It may have something to do with my social life being limited to work and my dog right now, due to circumstances out of my control, that all things gay are coming to me only through music and television rather than through real life experiences...

However, there's always one thing or another to tell. Such as the slight mental breakdown I had this weekend after spending an entire day with older relatives. Basically, I attended a luncheon to celebrate my grandfather's 85th birthday and almost suffocated on the celebration of heterosexuality that was going on. Everyone was so incredibly narrowminded and heteronormative and I think it reacted with my PMS in an unfortunate way because I cried my way home in the backseat of my parents' car.

Exaggerated reaction? Possibly.

I'm just so incredibly used to being open with my sexuality in all settings but with my grandfather, I've never really gotten the chance to come out. I don't see him all that often and I guess I just don't know how to tell him. So basically every time I see him or other old old relatives, there come the questions: "So, do you have a boyfriend yet?" To which I reply honestly that "No, that's not really my thing". The only problem is: They don't get it.

I was trying to explain to my parents why this is so upsetting to me. That I have never ever had issues with my sexuality (coming out was relatively painless for me, even though my mother took it horribly) but that the generational gap somehow makes it so very hard for me and that I feel made to be ashamed by those relatives that go on and on about their grandchildren that are getting married to such nice young men, blablabla. Well, my parents were so comforting and sweet about it, telling me that it's just another generation and they don't understand it.

Thing is though: I know my parents would never walk in a Pride parade, under the PFLAG banner. I know that regardless of how much they love me and are proud of me in other aspects of my life, they'll never be particularly proud of the fact that I am openly gay. And that hurts, because to me that means that they don't love ALL of me, and they're not proud of ALL of me. They speak so proudly and easily of my sister and her boyfriend, something they would never do of me and a girlfriend. I know it and they know it, even though they might not admit it.

"If I gave you my number..."

I have a confession to make: I'm in love with Tegan Quin. Yes, her sister is cute too. But Tegan... mmm, Tegan.

Yes, I realize that I'm creepy. But I saw Tegan and Sara perform on Wednesday and I was completely and totally mesmerized. The hotness! The talent! The cuteness! The funny! The tattoos! Oh goddess, the tattoos... I could dedicate a full blog entry to the beauty that is inked body art. Basically: Tegan Quin is awesome, her sister is fabulous, and together they form the awesome-fabulous-fantastic Tegan and Sara.

As the fan(atic) I am, I dragged The Ex and Good Guy along with me to sit and wait by the stage for an hour and a half before the show started. Unfortunately there were already tons of people, more fanatic than us, in the best spots, so we ended up being a little bit off to the side and in the second row pretty much. I swear 99% of the people standing in the very front were baby dykes. And they were incredibly cute and all, kissing each other and holding hands, but not so cute when they were elbowing me and having their friends push us out of the way to join them in the front. We elbow back goddamn it!

One of the cutest moments of the show must have been when Sara talked about what an attractive city Malmö is. Paraphrased:

"You are a very attractive city. Like, were we come from, in Canada, there are attractive people. But, there's like no ugly people in your city. It's sort of really unsettling, and um... we also felt really short. Because we're... [Tegan chimes in: "Short."] Yeah, we're short. And everyone here is like a hundred feet taller than us. Its... You're creepy sort of. But awesome! Totally awesome. Okay, so umm... Yeah."

And then they played a song and after that Sara appologized for calling us creepy, but of course everyone was just thrilled to be called anything by Sara so she mostly got applause all the way through. Woohoo, Sara thinks I'm hot. And Tegan agrees, she was nodding. Yup, the world revolves around me and I took it as a personal compliment.

"You give gay people a bad name"

My past few days have been spent at Malmöfestivalen, a week-long, free festival arranged by the city of Malmö. Yesterday I saw one of my new favorite singer-song writers, Asha Ali, perform her beautiful music. I highly recommend you check her out!

Tonight was a gayer, as a I saw a one-woman show called "You give gay people a bad name", by and with Helena Sandström. It was a fabulous hour long comedic monolog, with a few interruptions by her male heterosexual sidekick. I watched, I laughed, I identified. The show was all about psychotic lesbians, trying to pick up chicks, and crying yourself to sleep because you still haven't gotten laid. And there was singing and dancing as well. So basically, it summed up my life nicely. I involuntarily ended up in the show when Helena was going to demonstrate how good she is at picking up women on a member of the audience. Of course it worked (even though her pick-up technique only consisted of walking by and ignoring me), I would have totally gone home with her.

Unfortunately she had a show to finish. Before picking me out of the crowd she had just finished telling a story about boiling an ex-girlfriend's hamster and calling her every night for three weeks to prove her love. So clearly, she was playing somebody psychotic and we all know how the psychos are attracted to me. All in all, it was very "Killing me softly" moment. (You know: "Strumming my pain with his fingers, Singing my life with his words..." and so on.)

I loved the part where she explained to the straight people in the audience that there isn't one who is "the man" and one who is "the woman" in a lesbian relationship - there's one who's tall and one who's short. And that is how you divide the housework: The tall one changes the light bulbs, the short one fixes the car (since they can fit under the hood). And the garbage? You take turns, as long as both are tall enough to reach the trash can. Hah.

Think I’m gonna cry, I don’t know why…

Post-Pride depression has now hit me full force, and it’s brought its friends, Post-Vacation depression and Summer-Is-Ending depression. I’m going back to work on Monday and right now I’m not loving my job. I know that it’s only that I’ve been away from it for a couple of weeks that’s causing this feeling of impending doom since I normally love my job and feel fortunate to be working with something I feel passionately about, but… right now I just want to cry whenever I think of the misery that is 10 months until next summer. It’s getting darker, the days are shorter, I’ll be working non-stop and my personal life will be boring and more or less non-existent as it normally is.

Oh, I’m such a pessimist.

Regardless: I promised a run down of the high- and lowlights of Pride, and here they are:

The Parties: Wednesday was a slow night, we just hung out in Pride Park and had a few beers (we did watch Betty though and regardless of what you might think of the L Word theme song, they were good fun to see live, those crazy women). Thursday night was the big annual women’s party, 1500 girls on five dance floors. It was a fabulous time as always though the amount of incredibly beautiful women made all of our heads spin until we couldn’t focus on any one in particular. Friday night we went to a women’s dominated gay bar and danced ourselves sweaty. And Saturday night every one was exhausted and only two of us made it out to the queer party we’d already bought tickets for. The two of us had a great time though, dancing the night away, running into friends and acquaintances (among others The Acquaintance and “Straight” Girl) and enjoying our last night of Pride.

The Friends: Seeing old ones, making new ones, and establishing deeper connections with those you previously knew only superficially is always fantastic. And it happens a lot, and very intensely, at Pride for me. And introducing Pride to newbies is always an amazing experience, and this year we had lots of newbies along for the ride, among others The Ex.

The Speeches and Seminars: One speech in particular comes to mind for me. Tiina Rosenberg, a queer feminist icon in my eyes, rousing up the crowd in the book tent in Pride Park, reaching an almost religious feeling as she cursed the patriarchy and encouraged all dykes to be ugly, fat, and aggressive. And to continue drinking our herbal tea. She was funny and energetic and amazing. Also, the panel discussion in Pride House on morals as a social construction was interesting and set off discussions within my group of friends.

The Shopping: LGBT literature, I love it. And I can’t find it as easily accessible anywhere but in Pride Park. I must’ve bought five books and less than a week later all but one have been read. And then there’s all the cute little stuff, the magnets and post cards and t-shirts and pins that you just can’t not buy. You gotta have those Pride souvenirs I suppose, at least one or two.

The Parade: We had a theme and it was kind of sexy. I had on a pretty slutty outfit to start out. Then I got warm (and a little drunk) and decided to take off the more covering parts of the outfit. So basically I marched through all of Stockholm, proudly waving to the half a million people that were watching the parade, in high heels and underwear. Let’s leave it at that.

I won't bore you with pictures of me in my undies, but here is a wonderful fellow parader who pointed out that we were wearing the same shoes.

Making Out and Flirting: There was mucho flirting. There was mucho making out (particularly in the parade, I left a lot of smudged lipstick on a lot of girls). I must say, I was pretty forward all of Pride. Perhaps not so much with the initiating of make out sessions, but at least with starting up conversations with pretty strangers. Go me!

Not Getting Laid, Not Even A Little: Clearly a lowlight as it means I will go into absolute celibacy and never get laid again. I’m seriously giving up. Or as Pink would say: It’s just me and my hand tonight (and for every night from now on). Pessimist, me? What? I will however not be turning down pretty ladies that want to get in my pants (wherever those women are hiding), I’m just not going to be chasing after them. I am so done with the chasing.

And there it is: My Pride 2007, summed up as neatly as I could.

Pride has come and gone...

... and I am left with a gaping hole in my heart.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating just a little bit. But the truth is I always enter some sort of depressive phase when I return from the colorful beauty of pride to the dreary and rainbowless hetero-world I am forced to live in the rest of the year. Sigh. At least the sun is shining and the sky is blu, or I might not leave bed for the next week.

ride was beautiful and amazing as usual. I'll have to return later, when I'm a bit more caught up on sleep, and give a full run-down off highlights and lowlights.

Until then: Happy pride to everyone! Let's try and live our everyday lives just a little bit more proudly.