Letters To Australia

So, Obama is the President. WOOHOO.

I watched as much of the inauguration ceremony as I could sit through (that thing was loooong) because the whole thing makes me feel just a little bit better about the world. I even sat through that asshole Rick Warren, keeping myself calm by helping him out with his speech:

The Scripture tells us, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one.” And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made….

‘Except gays.’

We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where a son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven…

‘Where there aren’t any gays.’

Give to our new president, Barack Obama,

the wisdom to lead us with humility,

the courage to lead us with integrity,

the compassion to lead us with generosity…

‘But the common sense not to give those God-hating queers civil rights.’

Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans–united not by race or religion or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all…

‘Except the homos.’

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all…

‘But also to destroy the ga-’

…

You get the point.

Anyway, in celebration of the government of the United States not sucking anymore, the clan went out to dinner at a chinese restaurant (don’t go looking for relevence there) and I, of course, documented it.

Sunset behind winter trees on the way.

US 63, the road to Kirksville

The midwest is closer than it appears

Juno was unimpressed with our choice of venue, because she was not allowed in. Here she is sulking.

Also, she’s posessed by satan. We try to accept her and love her the way she is.

Don’t let the photo fool you, it was not sunny and warm, it was dusk and well below zero. I’m wearing roughly about a million layers of clothing and sitting like that because my face is frozen to the window.

Fagbug?

The sign. You can kind of guess the quality of the food from it.

Just because it happens to be accross the street, La Pachanga: the restaurant where I had my first date with Lindsey, way back when.

Ace’s ‘Bush’s Last Day’ shirt that I bought for him. I thought perhaps it would become irrelevant, but I like it even more now.  Like my Hillary 09 badge, only less depressing.

Cute pic of Kensleigh doing who knows what.

I showed Joslyn how to use my camera, but apparently not very well.

And, last but not least, the pièce de résistance, a Surprise Documentary:

It’s 3am, but I feel like dancing

Perhaps this post will seem irrelevant to this blog, to my travels and the to people who read about them, but I’ve been feeling very angry, empowered and political about queer issues since… well since I was about fourteen actually, but particularly since I saw Milk.

(Case in point – I walked straight out of the cinema in Columbia and into a hippie shop, feeling all empowered, and bought a ‘Gay rights are civil rights’ badge. Woohoo, damn right they are.)

In keeping with my newly refueled desire to change the world (and also because I’m feeling a little lethargic and under the weather this particular sunday), I spent the day watching youtube videos about queer issues and damn if I didn’t fall even more in love with Rachel Maddow. I thought I’d blog and share the love around a bit. Spread the word.

Let’s review the facts. Not only is she a female anchor on a major network, she has her very own, very popular prime time news program, she’s the smartest person on tv, and she’s a lesbian.

Whoa.

In addition to those facts she’s an incredible debater, and inspiring to watch. During my youtube marathon she managed to put the smackdown on the likes of [click for videos] Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, John Mcain (‘he’s asserting the radical [...] notion that gay people should be allowed to hire lawyers to compensate for the fact that they’re discriminated against in the law… AWESOME.’) and Prop 8 – to name a just a few – without ever breaking a sweat or losing her cool.

My favourite part? Not only is she queer, she’s openly and obviously queer. She’s not worried that by tackling queer issues she might become known primarily for being gay, not for being a political analyst, she doesn’t shy away – as some people do – from uttering words like ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, and she doesn’t femme herself up for TV. There she is, Monday to Friday, telling it like it is in all her unapologetic, soft-butch glory.

I know that being queer and female doesn’t mean you have to be masculine, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with going the other way and being feminine – anywhere you fit (or don’t) along the gender spectrum is totally valid – but it is definitely refreshing, not to mention empowering and validating, to see someone who doesn’t fit into traditional standards of femininity – doesn’t even try – succeeding on TV.

(And yes, I know Ellen Degeneres has being doing that forever, but while I understand that her ‘Gay next door’ kind of thing has helped her talk show become one of the highest rated on the air, and that her lack of politicism allows her (mostly straight) viewers to feel comfortable with her homosexuality thus rendering the whole concept less ‘other’ and more familiar… while I understand all this, respect it and am grateful to her for what she’s accomplished for homos,  Rachel Maddow ripping into conservatives while wearing a suit, sensible shoes and an air of confidence just really makes me feel good about the world.)

Here are some pictures because I like them and this is my blog.

Interesting tidbit – she met her partner because she hired Maddow, way back when, to do yardwork. Swoon.

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While I’m being dykey I’d like to mention the following things:

a)  The ten year old tomboy in the supermarket today who stared at me and followed me a little every time I walked past her.  She made me think of my younger, totally oblivious self, back when I used to stare at every queer who walked past me, without knowing why exactly they attracted my attention, back when I watched hours and hours of Xena: Warrior Princess thinking ‘Aries is so annoying and should just go away, aren’t Xena and Gabrielle wonderful?’

b) Amanda Palmer and Margaret Cho violating Katy Perry [click for video]

Definitely NOT work or child safe. I love how pleased Amanda looks with herself at the end, and I love Cho as the priest, but my absolute favourite part is the cheer from the crowd when the banner goes up.

If youtube wants you to log in to see the video, you can watch it here with an added intro by Amanda Palmer, but the first one is better.

Thanks to Carmel (really really) for showing me this, it made my week.

[click for sites:]

c)  Genderfork – beauty in ambiguity, a project I’ve just discovered. The description from the site reads ‘Genderfork.com explores androgyny and gender variance through artistic photography and other neat stuff.’

The site is basically a series of photographs of people, and things written by them about being gender variant. It’s very interesting.

d) Queer Eye Candy, a site dedicated to photos of queers – whatever that word means -  with the tagline ‘This is what we look like.’

(Yes that links to a photo of Rachel Maddow, because I thought it was fitting, but most of the content is regular, non-famous people.)

e) Poignant, straightforward, true: We are not the enemy. Photos of couples with that caption… it seems silly to me that the world doesn’t understand.

For dinner I considered making myself brussel sprouts and pancakes – two of my favourite things, separately – and it has since occurred to me that perhaps I am not ready to live on my own.

But I’ll do it anyway.

I have renamed Ace’s dog ’snuggles’ because it makes me laugh.
She’s beginning to respond to it.

A friend of mine posted a picture of her friend in a bikini. Her friend is lean with straight, chin length hair and I though ‘She’s hot…’ before I realised her friend was a male of the species. Still.

I think I will grow my hair out a bit and get some nice White Girl Dreads at fest in August.
(Woohoo, fest!)

I’ll be back in the motherland by the first few days of February.