So I read this article in the New York Times Magazine about this club at Harvord of people who've taken vows of chastity. The woman who started it considered herself a feminest because she was trying to give women the strength to refuse to have sex with men. So...if abstinence is really about saying no to men, then lesbianism is the way to go. How can men take advantage of you while fucking you if you're fucking women? YIPEE!!!

But seriously, if we (women) want equality/respect from men, shouldn't we ask for it everywhere, including (perhaps especialy) in the bedroom, instead of avoiding the places where we're disrespected.

Regardless, it was an interesting viewpiont, even if I disagree with it.

I went to this gay community center sort of thing today called smyal and it was lots of fun. At first it was really awkward because I'm already shy enough as is and all the people there when I got there were efeminate senior boys in highschool and they were practicing their runway walk to pop music. I'm a fairly masculine 9th girl who plays the harp and hates pop music; so I felt pretty out of place. I started talking to one of the people who works there and started to stop feeling quite so awkward. Then we played jepordy. My team creamed the other two teams and I answered most of the questions for my team. Doing that helped me get more involved in the group dynamics and by the end of the game I was laughing and goofing off along with everyone else. It turned out to be a lot of fun once I got used to the idea of being there at all.

If anyone lives in the DC metropoliten area, you should definatly come, pm me if you need directions

The school musical kinda consumed my life. I was the only person doing props, and I was either playing in the orchestra or singing/acting in just about all the songs in the 2 hr show except for a few songs where I did both. Yeah, I've been busy. The show was Ragtime by the way. It came together really late but when it finaly did it was one of the best musicals my school has ever done. It was kinda frustrating tho, cuz I probably worked just as hard as the leads, maybe even harder, but I got virtualy no audience recognition for that and I was so consumed by the work that I didn't have much fun and didn't really feel like a part of the cast cuz I could never hang out with them cuz I was ALWAYS working. O well, at least it's done and I'm not gonna be in the cast next year, I'll just do props and orchestra which I enjoyed more anyways.

Now that the play is over, I've started softball!!!!!!! :) Yes, I'm that gay, lol. I havn't gotten any exercise because of the play so I was really out of shape and had to start about 2 weeks into practice. The first day I was at practice was Wednesday when we had conditioning so I went from getting no exercise to running a mile, and then doing core and agility training stuff. I'm still sore. But yesterday's practice was a lot of fun, it seems like the teem sorta becomes a family which will be really nice, so even though I can't go down stairs without cringing, I'm looking foward to this season. Hopefully once I get back into shape it won't be so bad.

Other things that have been going on: I've been trying to get used to being out. I came out to about half the grade on Febuary 1st but not that much has changed. I'm getting better at being open (making gay jokes etc in public).

Also, I'm still half-questioning my sexuality for practicly no reason. Every month around my period I get hormonal and girl-crazy (I think that pretty much every girl I see under the age of 40 is hot and I fantisize about girls constantly) But then for the rest of the month I'm almost asexual and then I start wondering if I'm bi. Even when I am hormonal and thinking about girls I start questioning my sexuality, which REALLY doesn't make sense, and then I try to imagine myself with boys, I get grossed out or bored. Despite all this I still wonder if I'm bi. I'm wierd. O well

In my last journal entry I said that I was starting a club for gay students and I was going to make an announcment to the whole school about it; well, that didn't happen. They ran out of time at the assembly which is fine with me because I also had to sing at that same assembly and if i'd had to come out to the whole school and sing in front of the whole school, I would have been a nervous wreck. Instead of making an announcement at assembly, the teacher(s) working on this with me (I'm not sure how many there are now) are going to have the GSA brainstorm ideas about how to get a club exclusivly for queer students started. Much less preasure/responsibility for me which is a VERY good thing as I already have way too much stuff going on right now.

Anyways, I spent most of today with my harp teacher looking at different harps to see which model I want to get. I'm really excited about getting a new harp because this might be the last harp I'll ever get so therefore it'll be the most important and special harp I'll ever get. It's going to be a concert grand so it'll be as big as harps can be so I probably won't need another, unless i decide for some reason that i want another somewhere down the road. Regardless, I'll probably have this harp for the rest of my life. Also with a bigger harp I'll be able to play a lot of stuff that I can't now because my current harp doesn't have enough strings because it's smaller. I've been waiting to be able to reach the pedals on a full size harp for a LOOOOOOOONG time. I tried out a bunch of harps today and here is the link to a picture of the one I think I'll end up getting.

http://www.lyonhealy.com/pedal-style-30.htm

I wanted to get a salzedo harp but it felt bulky and uncomfortable to play so i decided to go with the style 30

I'm trying to start a club for gay kids at my school. Tommorrow I'm going to make an announcment at the school assembly about it with a teacher, Pam. Pam's gonna be doing all the talking and I'm just gonna stand there next to her. She said that having a student being this involved this publicly would be the only thing that would get it started cuz my school is so small that there just can't be many gay kids. Right now I'm kinda nervous but not really. Tomorrow I'll be a nervous reck though, I have to be in a scene from my school's musical at the same assembly and come out to 300ish people and then I'll still be shaking 20 minutes latter when I have to take a history test. Did I mention I get really bad stage fright even when I'm just playing something on the harp. Yeah, tommorrow will be kinda crazy.

Also, I don't like the idea of making it such a big deal because I'm not 100% sure that I'm lesbian, I have no real reasons to believe otherwise but I don't know, I'm just skeptical, it's wierd. Whatever, I'll just have to see what happens. I'll try to tell you guys how it goes asap but i have lots of work this week so I don't know how soon I'll get another chance to be on here.

Today I got back from this leadership retreat that they took all the ninth graders on at my school. They split the grade in half and one half went to one camp and the other half went to another camp. We talked about a lot of stuff pertaining mostly to who we are as individuals and as a class and where we would like to be as individuals and as a class by the time we graduate. For one activity we split up by gender and discused issues pertaining to that gender, then we got back together with the boys and the boys got to ask the girls a question and watch us discuss it and we got to ask the boys a question and watch them discuss it. The question the boys asked the girls was, "what's your ideal guy?" A few girls commented and then there was this big awkward silence so i jumped in and said, "Sometimes guys are disrespectful of girls when they're not falling all over them madly in love. My ideal guy is someone who doesn't expect or want me to be sexual with them because...*long awkward pause where it felt like there was sand in my throat, you all know that feeling...I'm gay so I don't want guys like that...I know that's not what you meant by ideal guy, but..." I was studering and shaking and I'm not entirly sure what i said but I asked a friend about it and she said that it made sense. I wasn't really planing on doing it then so I wasn't nervous before hand but afterwards i was really shaken and couldn't focus. i just sat there drinking a bottle of water and picking at the skin around my nails till it bled and i really needed to pee.

All my friends were really helpful, they knew that I had been trying to do that for a long time and they were all so proud of me and encouraging. I got an opportunity to come out to about five people earlier in the day and they were proud of me for that and then really proud when I came out to half the grade, everyone was hugging me and congradulating me. My gym teacher/health teacher/softball coach supposedly teared up. I didn't see it, I was kinda mumbling in the direction of my feet when I did it. The school's librarian, Amanda, was also there and she was really nice. I didn't know her very well but she was talking to me about her daughter who thought she was straight then fell in love with a girl who she dated for a year and is now seriously questioning. I told Amanda to tell her about oasis. Amanda has been becoming more and more involved in the diversity club at my school and she said that she was thinking about starting a club just for queer kids at the school so I might end up helping her to start that. I don't remember much of what she said, my mind was spinning from just coming out, but I'll talk to her about it on Tuesday.

So, yeah, I came out, everyone was fine with it, and I'm really happy. Also, someone who uses things like "thats so gay" or calls random thing or people fags, a lot, I saw him nearly say something like that latter that night but then he saw me and kept his mouth shut, yay!

Today in health class we talked about transgenderism, I was the only one who seemed to have a clear understanding of what it was, lol. Anyways, it got into a discussion about homosexuality. I've been planing on coming out in health class in our upcoming unit on homosexuality and i nearly came out today except i wasn't called on. I was really nervous and shaking and freezing the whole time. The room was pretty cold but I don't think that was what really caused it because right after class I went outside with no coat on and stoped shivering. I was just really shaken by being so close to coming out. After health class I took a walk around the block during lunch, talked with a friend, and then had history class, all of which made me feel much better.

After history I had my meeting with my advisor. My advisor, David, is really nice, really crazy, head of school, gay and out, so I decided to talk to him about coming out. He was really helpful. He told me that he had found it helpful to plan exactly how to come out when he was strugling with coming out. He suggested that I talk to my health teacher and coming up with a signal so that if I ever felt it was a good time in a discussion about homosexuality to come out I'd give her this signal and she'd make sure that I'd get a chance to speak. So I havn't talked to her yet but I will soon. In the meantime I have someone to help me through this whole thing, which is really nice.

David isn't really really really gay, but he's fairly effeminite, also he's always been out and very open about his sexuality so I was really surprised when he told me he had been married to a woman. We were talking about coming out and he said that he found it really difficult to come out to his son. I had assumed that he and his current partner had adopted him and his son had grown up knowing that David was gay. But apparently he had married then a few years into the marriage, after having a kid, started getting homoerotic thought, separated from his wife and had to come out to his kid. I don't know, I just thought it was wierd to think of him ever being married because he had always seemed so comfortable and sure of himself, it was odd to think of an adult going through that same sort of confusion and questioning and craziness that i went through with accepting and discovering my sexuality.

"the definition of "homophobia" is the irrational fear that 3 fags will break into you home and redecorate"
~tom ammiano

"Grace, who's five, has a friend over and I hear her say to her friend, "let's pretend we're gay" The friend goes, "What's gay?" And grace says, "Gay is when 2 girls get together, dance, and have fun."
~Kate Clinton

"The my Aunt Lorraine said, "Bob, You're gay? Are you seeing a psychiatrist?" I said, "No, I'm seeing a lieutenant in the navy."
~Bob Smith

Those just made me laugh. They all come from this book I read for the first time about a year and a half ago and recently bought a copy of. It also said that Tchaikovsky and Cole Porter were both gay. I thought that was really cool, I had never heard of a really great lgbt composer, especialy not a classical composser. Tchaikovsky wrote a bunch of really good stuff for the harp and it shows that you can be respected by classical musicians even if you don't fit into their perfect sociatal view (most of the classical musicians i've encountered have been really strict about that sort of stuff so i've been worried about being accepted in that community.) Yeah, this stuff just made me happy.

i really want to be out, it's starting to drive me insane, no not really, but it's annoying. I keep telling myself that this week i'll start, i'll just stop trying to hide it and i'll be out, but thus far (in the months i've been doing this) i've actualy told 3 people who i wouldn't have otherwise told. Hopefully i'll get up the courage to come out in health class during our unit on sexual orientation which will start in a few weeks. For now it's just frustrating that i can't bring myself to come out in even the most supportive of environments.

For the entire school year I've had a small crush on a friend of mine. She says she's striaght and seems to believe it but she reminds me so much of myself before i realised I was gay. She told me she doesn't have crushes on guys but thinks anime guys are cute and that is her only reason to believe she's striaght. I don't want to ask her outright because i hate it when people do that to me.

I don't know what to do, either about how to actualy come out or what to do with this crush. Any suggestions?

i found this website that has lots of gay pride jewlery. I'm going to get a double venus dogtag. It'll be the first pride thing that i've ever owned so i'm excited. I was going to buy it using a american express gift certificate but it turned that the site didn't accept american express so a friend of mine who's gay who i had told about this decided to get it for me for chanuka using another credit card gift certificate. She's gonna have it shiped to her house and give it to me the next time we see eachother. This is really good because it means that my dad won't see me getting a package and wonder what's in it and when he finds out throw a fit. (I was planing on wearing it at school or camp or putting it on my keyring or something so that my dad wouldn't see. I know the whole hiding it from my dad thing kinda defeats the purpose of pride, but i'm only hiding it from one person.) Anyways, I'm really excited.

also, I got the last movement of the first sonata i've ever played up to speed in 5 days which is really fast for me; especialy considering how hard and how fast it goes (it's in six eight and goes at 116 to the dotted quarter and it's really note heavy). So yeah, i'm happy and had a great day: chinese food and a movie with jewish friends. merry christmas everyone! :)

this is the site i'm getting the double venus dogtag from, it has lots of cool stuff: www.purplemoon.com/jewelry/rainbow-jewelry.html

I havn't been on here in several months, i didn't really feel the need to write anything after coming out at camp, anyways, latly I've had this strange urge to come back to oasis, so here I am. Anyways, lots has happened
~I met another lesbian while at camp. We're just friends and will probably always just be friends because she lives so far away and she's not "my type" anyways, still, it's nice to have a gay friend.
~I finaly figured out how to put feeling into the harp so it's a lot more fun. Unfortunatly, when i have feeling I tend to sway and I don't follow the dynamics which pisses off my harp teacher. I don't like fighting with her cuz i love her so much, but i love playing the harp like this too. meh, o well.
~While at camp I got over the last bit of internalized homophobia that was still sitting around in the very back of my mind. yay for me!
~I went to a PFLAG picnic which was kinda fun, it was cool to see so many queer people in one place. It was the first time I had ever gone to something like that.
~I was in my school's production of peter pan. I was michael. It was sooooooooo much fun. I got to fly (one of the funest and most painful things I've ever done) and i got to keep the footy-pajamas which were my costum. They're the coolest things EVER; they're dark blue, have polar bears and snowflakes on them and say "arctic life". I'm kinda obsessed with them. The role was a lot of fun because i kinda act like a 4-yr-old anyways so all i had to do was walk on stage, be myself, fly, and then not get called imature but rather a good actor. lol, it was fun.
~yesterday was a big day; I finaly started coming out at school, something i've been meaning to do since about october or so. I came out to jesse, this person who asked people if i was gay behind my back which i was worried would make people think that i might actualy be gay. (this was the begining of last year) I got friends who I had already come out to, to convince everyone that i was really offened by what jesse had said. Anyways, I figured that if i told jesse this year that i was gay and wanted to be out, it'd be around the grade pretty quickly, so that's what i did. Also, if that doesn't work, we'll be having a unit on sexuality in health class so i'll definatly say something then.
~Also, yesterday, I got over stage fright. I had never really had stage fright till the end of last year when all of a sudden i got it real bad and screwed up performance after performance. (I only get it for solo stuff so the performance of peter pan was fine) Anyways, i worked really hard on it, I played in front of people almost everyday for the past 2 weeks or so, and it helped a lot. I also performed in my footy-pajamas from peter pan which made me feel like all i was supposed to be doing was having fun with the song instead of freaking out because I was in front of people. The result was the most fun I've ever had performing, and i did it in footy-pajamas!!!!!!!!!!!
~Currently I'm kinda pissed at my dad cuz he's still really insensitive about my sexuality. At dinner tonight he said that all gay men are really self-consious about their appearance. I can't mention my sexuality without him at least grimicing, it kinda sucks. But this time I wasn't so upset over it cuz I approve of myself and my sexuality enough now that i don't need other people's approval that badly.

So, yeah, that's my life in the past couple of months. Things have generaly been getting better. Did anyone actualy read this whole thing?

I got the first season of buffy the vampire slayer on DVD and I love it. It's so funny. I've watched five episodes today with my dad who also loves it. A book was made out of it which was also really good but in a VERY different way. School starts on Tuesday (actualy it starts on Wednesday but we have orientation from 9:30-1:00 on Tuesday :( ick) so I don't know when I'll get to see the other seasons because I'll be really busy once school starts.

On another, less wonderful note, harp has been kinda frustrating. I've been working on this variations on a theme by mozart for the past 8 days. It reminds me of a math problem I had in 2nd grade about a frog trying to get out of a well. Every day the frog would climb 3 inches then at night when he fell asleep he would slide back down 2 and a half inches or something like that. With this song I'll work on it really hard one night, make it really nice and smooth, then I come back the next night and it's only a tiny bit better than it was at the begining of last night's practice. arg. o well, after practicing I watched 2 more episodes of buffy so that put me in a better mood.

This is going to be yet another of my extreemly long journal entries that covers a million topics. Each topic will get its own paragraph so feel free to skip around and not read the whole thing.

A few days ago I watched Loving Annabelle. It was amazing. The person who played Annabelle is sooooo hot. I felt like I had to hide the fact that I was watching a lesbian movie from my parents. I don't know why I find it so difficult to be open with them, I came out to them 10ish months ago. I know why I feel uncomfortable talking about it with my dad (he tenses up whenever I do and he's generaly insensitive about it) but my mom has always been fine about it; so why do I still feel like I have to hide it from her?

We took my brother to college on Thursday. My parents are kinda freaked out. I'm fairly close to my brother but he hasn't been around much latly, he was usualy sleeping or out with his friends, so it doesn't feel very different for me now that he's living 90 minutes away.

I've been thinking about coming out at school. Yesterday I went to this party that was supposed to be so that we could meet all of the new 9th graders (at my school the grade doubles in size in 9th grade). Since I was out at camp I had almost forgotten how much it feels like you're hiding when people don't know about your sexuality. My school is EXTREEMLY accepting, there are already some people who are out as bi. Nobody treated them differently after they came out. I'm just not sure I'm ready to come out at school. I'm not sure I want to live as a homosexual. That would mean admiting to myself that I really am gay and that's something part of me is still kinda uncomfortable doing. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, I hope it does. This wasn't a problem at camp because I'm only at camp for 1 month every year so I can just walk away from the gay identity and stay away from it for 11 months. But my entire life centers around school. All of the friends I see on a regular basis are from school and I do so much extra-curricular stuff that I spend almost all of my time at school. So coming out at school means being completly open with myself all of the time.

I was IMing a friend today and I told her that I was thinking about coming out at school. She said that most of the people who were at the school for middle school probably already had a hunch. She said that some boys in our grade were talking about how I wasn't intrested in boys. I REALLY DON'T WANT TO BE OUTED. If I come out I want to do it on my own terms, when/where/how I want to. It really freaked me out. Maybe I'll tell people that I had a boyfriend at camp. That would very quickly put an end to the speculations and make it harder to come out if/when I wanted to. I've always just pretended that "I'm not intrested in boys yet" but I guess by highschool people assume that if you're not intrested in the opposite sex then you probably aren't straight. My friend said she heard people talking in the middle of last year so hopfuly people will have forgotten and this won't be a problem next year. Still I think if people were getting clued in last year it's even more likly to happen next year. The fact that some of my friends who already know keep sliping and mentioning it in public can't help much either. It's only happened twice but I'll have to remind them to not let it happen again.

that's all for now.

I came back from camp yesterday. I was there for 4 weeks. It went REALLY well!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I left for camp on a Tuesday. As planed (I decided to come out months before camp started) on the first friday right before dinner I decided to stop trying to cover it up. It didn't come up for the first time until latter that night. It was around midnight and I was sitting in an ohel (it's a zionist youth movment camp so all of the words that refer to things we do at the camp are in hebrew, ohel=tent) with Ilana and Emily. I don't remember how it came up, it just did. Emily was the person who didn't have a great reaction last year when she kinda found out. It turned out that she's fine with it, she just wasn't sure how to act and I was so insecure about my sexuality that I freaked out at the slightest bad reaction. That was the friday that the harry potter book came out so I guess harry potter and I came out at the same time lol.

As I mentioned it's a Jewish camp so fridays and saturdays are special because of Shabbat. On Saturday mornings we have Shabbat chugim which are usualy fairly serious discusions about social issues. I went to one on homophobia. We talked about homophobia in general and the mild homophobia that exsists at our camp. Then we watched a movie called the Laramie Project. It was about the murder of a kid in Laramie Ohio because he was gay. I knew that that stuff happened but seeing it in a movie when I had just started coming out was REALLY scary. I started crying on the way to lunch which was right after Shabbat Chugim. A madrach (councler) named Ari and a madatz (CIT) named Amit pulled e aside and calmed me down. They were really nice. Ari told me about someone who used to go to the camp who came out and how everyone was fine with it. Knowing that someone had come out and lived to tell the tale helped a lot.

I don't remember if it was that day or the next day but SR came up to me and asked me why I was crying. In the process of explaining I told him that I was gay. Imediatly after I came out to him he asked if he could talk to me latter. I knew right then that he must be gay, he came out to me at lunch the next day. We talked about it a little. I was the second person he told and the first person who he really felt comfortable talking to about it. That's why I'm using his initials, he has an unusual first name and I don't want anyone who knows him to read this and know who he is. Anyways, it was nice talking to him. It was a chance for me to talk about my sexuality and I liked knowing that I was helping him. I also told him that he should get an account on oasis.

Since I figured he'd be on oasis soon I might as well tell him about my gender. He was the first person I've ever told about it. He was fine with it but I don't think he understood. He kept asking me if I thought I was a boy. Also, he didn't seem to grasp why this mattered. Even if he didn't get it, it was still nice to talk to someone about it.

Over the 4 weeks I just let it dribble out. If I wanted to say something, I said it. If someone was using homosexuality as a putdown, I told them to stop. I only had to do this twice. Still it was nice to finaly be able to speak up about that sort of stuff. No one ever had a bad reaction when I came out. The closest thing to a bad reaction was "OMG you're a lesbian! oh, ok" It was so much fun to live openly. It was like a breath of fresh air.

The last week was one of the best weeks of my life. Our chutzah bonded a lot and felt like a whole. A chutzah is sort of like your graduating class in school, except that it's for camp. It's the people your age. Its English translation is family. In the last week of camp our chutzah felt more like a whole, like a family. I belonged there. Ever since I came out to myself and learned more about my gender I havn't been sure where I belong. I've felt like it's me vs the whole world. I've felt so alienated and lonely because I don't know anyone who's transgender or gay and my age. I know a few people my age who are bi but we aren't a community, it's a bunch of separate friendships. For the first time since I came out to myself about a year and a half ago I feel completely happy and fulfilled because I belong somewhere.

I'm leaving for camp tomorrow. I'll be there for 4 weeks. I'm going to come out at camp. There will probably be some people who won't like me because of that but I'm sick and tired of living a lie. I know that sounds overdramatic, but everyone at my camp is so open that if you hide one little thing from anyone it ruins the summer. You have to go to the camp to expirience it. It's hard to explain.

I'm so excited and equaly nervous. I'll tell all of you how it goes when I get back. I'm not going to come out about my gender, this year anyways. Ok, so I won't be COMPLETLY open, but at least it's a start, it's better than nothing. I'm not out to anyone about that yet and I'm not sure if I understand it well enough to answer the questions people will probably have.

On a completly different note, I found a gay television station!!!!!!!! I had no idea that something like that even exsisted. Today I was fliping through channels, trying to find a movie to watch and I found this movie called "longtime companion" or something like that. The description said it was about the impact of AIDS in new york on gay men. I started watching it and realized from the comercials that it must be a gay TV station called logo. I went on their website and they seem to have a bunch of really good series and documentries. It's probably been posted here about a million times but I've always missed it. They have videos and such posted on their website but I couldn't watch them cuz my computer is being evil. The series that looks best is already on air in England. It's called Bad Girls, the description said it was about women in prison. Has anyone heard of it? I'll have to watch it when I get back. I have to go pack now. Good bye, I'll talk to you in a month.