While I am rested at last (after a bizarre six-hour nap that seized me Saturday afternoon), I could still use a bit more weekend. There are still about 17 things on my To-Do list, which means that I got a little ambitious.
Ambition, that's something I try to avoid--it's the path to heartache and frustration, this I know.
Watched the GLAAD awards on the GLBT Logo channel with some friends last night , and I'm afraid we're all past the "We Are Family" stage of existence. We had little patience for the endless speeches about our rights and how normal we are and how our day will come and all that assorted happy horse hockey. (Although I could watch Charlize Theron talk about us for the rest of my natural life. Sorry.)
Of course, I still believe these basic truths ("The Earth only spins forward" and so on), don't get me wrong, but these bon mots have been in circulation a while now, and they just don't stir me as they used to--oh dear, You're not getting older, you're getting bitter.
Of course, if I were not a former drag queen aficionado (am looking for substitutes for the dreaded "Fag Hag," excuse me) I would not know this phrase, so membership in the GLBT club has its perks, certainly. Many, many perks.
However, there is a downside or two. Lesbian film, for one. We bought a DVD with a collection of 10 short lesbian films, and all but two raised the question, "And your point is, exactly?" Most of the screenwriters appeared to suffer from what I am calling the "Claire of the Moon" syndrome; i.e., if it happened to me, it's fascinating.
It's a problem I suffered with when trying to become a fiction writer, so I am not without sympathy for anyone struggling under the weight of their own dramatic (to me/myself/I) past. And some people can write of the specifics of their lives in a way that touches the universal, making their stories resonate in a way that makes the specific, even if it bares no resemblance to one's own life, touching in its familiarity. Eudora Welty springs to mind; there are many, many others.
However, sometimes the specific is specific in such a way it just makes one go "Huh? What was that about?" It doesn't make that crucial connection to the shared consciousness.
That's was the problem with "Claire of the Moon," and is the problem with "The L Word" Jenny storyline, and also is the problem with 8 of the 10 short films in the collection we bought.
The second downside to being a member of the GLBT club? Lesbian music. Now, I like Sleater Kinney and other lesbian-heavy rock bands just fine, but I'm talking about the earnest, heartfelt acoustic guitar hooey that just makes a gay gal want to run screaming from the building. Even though the band is led by a gay man, Erasure did a pretty good imitation of this sort of lesbian music during the awards ceremony last night, and we were all cringing.
But compared to the pain and humiliation I endured attempting to be a straight girl, these are minor quibbles indeed. I'm with Melissa Etheridge on this one: I'm grateful I get to live this life as a lesbian (and just hope it doesn't mean I have to come back as a Koran- or Bible-thumping someone or another).
Here's hoping....
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