Vogue

Ladies with an attitude.

Fellas that are in the mood.

Well, we made it to Wednesday. I slept really deeply and well last night–didn’t want to get up this morning out of the warm and comfortable cocoon that is also my bed–but here I am, bleary-eyed and trying to wake up, because we have site visits from funders at the day job today. Huzzah! (Yes, that was sarcasm.) But for now, I am waking up with my coffee and thinking it will be a great day. I was exhausted when I got home last night–to the point where I even considered the possibility that I will just feel tired for the rest of my life–but did get some things done around here and did get some work done on the revision. It was just a drib, but it was the first step on a long journey, and it’s way past time that I took that first step. Now I have to step up my game so I can get the damned thing finished. I’ll have quite a bit to do tonight as well when I get home–dishes, mostly, and of course the damned book–but I am really looking forward to this week’s Ted Lasso. Paul got home too late to watch last night, but I did look at spoilers on Twitter this morning, and the spoilers just made me want to see it all the more.

I may just go ahead and watch it when I get home tonight. I don’t mind rewatching with Paul, and I’ve kind of have already done this a couple of times this season already (shhh, don’t tell.)

I feel good this morning, the best I’ve felt all week. I don’t know how long this is going to last–probably until the caffeine rush wears off around two this afternoon, most likely–but I am hoping this is going to be a good and highly productive day; if not, I hope it’s one filled with joy and laughter. I don’t feel as though we laugh as often and as regularly as we as a society used to, if that makes any sense? I was reading an article about how the 2016 election and the four hellish years that followed actually changed the country–and it’s true. People always want to go back to “normal” when there’s been some kind of seismic paradigm shift (Hurricane Katrina, the pandemic, the 2016 election) but the truth is we can’t ever go back. Things change. People change. Society changes. There was no way in 1946 that the world was going to just back to the way things were before September 1939; likewise, the 2016 election was another one of those massive paradigm shifts. I think a lot of white people lost the blinders they’d been wearing most of their lives about this country and its reality–or at least started to notice what they’d overlooked or been too blind to see before. I’m frequently surprised or startled to find out people I knew and liked are actually terrible people or at least are nice people who have some terrible beliefs and values (there’s a difference; the latter can change, the former not so much); I’ve found myself blocking and cutting people off more since that election. I don’t get upset any more when I find out someone I know has reprehensible beliefs or values; sadly, it’s not really a surprise. I also don’t subscribe to the notion that it’s my job to talk to people I used to care about to try to convince them to change their abhorrent values or beliefs. Life is short, and I’ve already spent enough of my life trying to educate people about queer equality, and I’m tired. Especially when it comes from people who should know better.

Especially.

It’s tough when people think they don’t need to change, or refuse to even take a moment and reflect to see where they might do better. Not being a racist is more than not saying the n-word. Being a queer ally doesn’t mean you support part of the community and can hate the rest. The fundamentalists who are trying to wipe us off the face of the earth–and make no mistake, that is their end game–aren’t worth engaging with because they aren’t coming from a place where they are open to anything other than their goal. To them, we are all the same–gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transfolk, aces and aros and queers and everything else that fits under our rainbow flag; the fundies do not differentiate. We are all the enemy equally and all need to be destroyed. You cannot claim to be an ally while trying to deny the existence of trans people. Period. It’s terribly sad to realize that someone’s ally-ship is actually just a “gay men love me!’ because you like going to gay bars where gay men will share their drugs with you and buy you drinks and fuss over you, and that’s as far as it actually goes, and you’re out there retweeting fundies and haters because they agree with you about transpeople. FUCK YOU, fuck your fake ally-ship, and you’d better not be using me as “your gay friend” which proves you aren’t homophobic. Get thee behind me, Satan, and I am sorry I ever knew you and truly regret being fooled into thinking you were a decent human being, which you clearly are not.

That’s why, I think, I’ve really been enjoying things like Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso–shows that make you feel better about people, and seeing that positive growth and change is possible if you’re willing to do the work and think about being a better person. I try all the time to be a better person, and I often fail. I have always been deeply pessimistic about human beings and prone to think and expect the worst; years of retail and working for an airline will do that to you. I will never understand why people find it easier to be cruel and hateful than empathetic and kind; which really should be our default when dealing with other people. I will be the first to admit I don’t always automatically default to that myself–don’t come for me or people I care about–but at least I am trying to do better. Granted, I am going to be sixty-two this year, but I also don’t think you are ever too old to stop growing and changing and evolving as a person. I’ve always feared calcifying; I recognize the comfort of tradition but also do not believe things should continue to be done a certain way “because that’s how we’ve always done it.”

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and we’ll touch base again tomorrow, okay?