applying for jobs seems to mostly consist of lying and submitting to indignities, which is whatever. but it is very difficult for me to override my innate instinct that anyone demanding i write a cover letter has insulted me so greatly that the only way to retain my honor is violence
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Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?
Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.
All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)
But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.
But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.
I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?
It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.
Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.
Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)
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“Hey, why doesn’t Nico act normal-“
Nico has more problems to worry about than some little mean girls rip off. Nico has grades to worry about. Nico has to tell if one of his friends is lying to him or not, every day, every story. Nico has to worry if he has problems with sadism. Nico has to worry about possible problems with alcoholism in the future. Nico has to worry about his little siblings. Nico has problems like disassociation. Nico had depression. Nico has autism. Nico has friends moving, and after he only has two left near him.
Tell Nico, who has more problems then what’s listed, he has enough time to worry about his reputation. Go on, tell Nico his biggest problem is reputation.
Is that really what you want to tell him?
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She probably helped that girl solve her teen sexuality dilemma anyway, because if that were me and I asked an adult for advice only to find out the adult’s not only worse off than me but also the dumbest person alive, I’d accept the lesbianism just to get out of the awkward situation...
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