I came out to my 15 yr old sister several hours ago. She'd been telling me some things, and she had used the phrase "dirty little secrets" earlier, and so when we started to walk home I said "speaking of dirty little secrets" and she made some comment, then I said "do you know I'm a lesbian?" and she said "HAH! I KNEW IT! That is so cool!" Or something along those lines. And then we talked about it.

I came out to a good friend last night. Someone I should have come out to a long time ago, but hey, I should have come out to a lot of people a long time ago.

I tried a new technique, thought you might be interested:

thus far I've been discrete with people "I'm gay" "I'm a lesbian" or something to that effect, however, I had the feeling last night that if I wanted to be discrete it would be led up to by a good 10 to 20 to 30 minutes of me freaking out internally and leading my friend on, making for a strange scene. I've done this before, that's why I thought it would happen - b/c this was a similar [kind of] situation to the last time I did that.

So today was not the best day to wake up and read the newspaper: an article that the Focus on the Family group made their June 18 deadline of getting 40,000 signatures w/ 10% of the voters in 25 of Montana's counties, or something like that. The article went on about how Focus on the Family in fact got 70,000 signatures for the petition, which broke the record for number of signatures. It also said they had 10% of the registered voters in 51 out of 56 counties.

Evidently I have finally crossed the line of rainbow accessaries where they go from just being random accessaries to pointing me out as gay. It took a second rainbow necklace (this one more brightly colored), and a [and I think it's mainly this] rainbow flag patch on my jeans. Well, hell yeah. Hell yeah to that. I'm feeling newly bold. Reasons for which I will expound on later, but I have to work in several hours so I best get sleep while I can.

I know it could be much worse, but seriously, sometimes my dad just drives me insane. It was my mom who reacted negatively when I came out, but that doesn't change the fact that my dad is the conservative one. And that's fine with me, he can be conservative. But it really bothers me that he subscribes to all sorts of newspapers that have a constant flow of articles and editorials condemning, belittleing, and mocking gay marriage. And the ever present phrases containing "homosexual this" and "homosexual that" impersonalizing everything so that it is a distant issue to condemn or perhaps laugh at a type of sub-human.

Well, I got work off for the Friday of PRIDE weekend. That's the first step in actually going. Next will be: 1. getting work off Saturday if I can, and 2. actually going.

I think I'll be more sane once I'm talking queer issues with more people around here. My friend who I always talked with has been unreachable for the last 5 weeks, so I am losing it. I was losing it before then, because she's straight and already that wasn't enough, but seriously, I am REALLY LOSING IT NOW. I am only out to straight people here. You know, that'd actually make sense if I didn't know any queer people, HOWEVER, I know LOTS of queer people, and I hand out with quite a few of them, and so it is RIDICULOUS for me to be as isolated as I've somehow made myself. Whatever. So now it's time for me to get my ass in line and do something about it.

Yes, I am totally a fool. This is my preferred lable of choice lately. Something to do with being in my hometown again so soon after leaving, struggling to get out again with not much likelyhood in the nearfuture, feeling totally romantically isolated, and depressed way too often. Something about all that makes me feel like a fool sitting at the bar with my younger sister ordering dinner. What can I say. I'm the fool. I probably sound like I'm doing drugs, but I don't know, that's my self-description for now.

I like this editorial,

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15403

I need to come out to these people... any ideas how?

For the progress reports: I now have a rainbow-esque sticker on my nalgene bottle. Go Julie!

"Julie had so much going for her, it's too bad she rejected all that's good and delved into a life of sin"

I went out to breakfast with my family and extended family this morning (an unusual occurance for us) and I ended up walking back alone with my mom the seven blocks or whatever - we didn't talk at all. I wonder how long it's going to take before we can connect at all.

Less [or more] awkwardly, I had a big conversation with my good friend [who has quite the conservative background] not directly about gayness, but the subject did come up several times, and although I tried to get her to say more about her feelings, I didn't get too much out of her. I did finally break it to her that religiously we don't believe the same things, which went well I think... we had a pretty cool conversation.

They chose my play to be one of the readings. I am ecstatic, but in a way I am scared as hell - I don't know who will be at the reading. The good thing is it is after school is out, the bad thing is I work with some girls from school, and I'll be working all summer. I'm thrilled though, ENTIRELY THRILLED!

so I've been waiting literally years and now that it comes down to it I don't have any time

vel

I am so obvious... Sometimes I realize this, but most of the time I don't.

OK, so I've been wearing one rainbow bracelet for about 4 weeks now, and the other rainbow bracelet and a rainbow necklace for maybe 2 weeks, and a rainbow ring for 4 days... I mean, maybe if I were only wearing one rainbow item I could pass as someone who likes rainbows, or someone who is open to diversity... but FOUR? I mean, I feel like I have crossed the line between rainbow fashion and rainbow pride.