Screwed at a Festival

This post is part of my 2019 Pride Month series “Proudly Reaffirming Identity, Diversity, and Equity,” exploring present-day issues facing the LGBTQ+ and allied communities.

I wrote about sex, but I didn’t write about what I wanted to write about: I got distracted by a different conversation–still a conversation that needed to be had, but not the conversation I had intended. The topic evolved naturally, and I knew despite its conclusion, I wasn’t finished yet. Once wasn’t enough. We’d need a second encounter.

Maybe you noticed it, too? I (hopefully) hooked readers by quoting people who think Pride parades and whatnot have become too sexual–but then I didn’t speak about Pride any further. And since last weekend was Pridefest in Milwaukee (and it was a busy weekend), I feel more compelled than ever to talk about it.

Because, well, let’s say I got screwed at the festival. Just not like you think.

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Sex Sex Sex Yeah

This post is part of my 2019 Pride Month series “Proudly Reaffirming Identity, Diversity, and Equity,” exploring present-day issues facing the LGBTQ+ and allied communities.

“Pride is too sexual,” I hear them whispering. “I’d never take my kids to that.”

Or maybe the age-old classic: “Not in front of the children!”

So queerness–at least being gay or bi or lesbian–is reduced to being purely about love, and sex is a side subject that everyone skirts around because, well, children. But let’s all remember one critical fact: those children? Made by sex.

So let’s talk about sex.

A Rose by Any Other Name

This post kicks off my 2019 Pride Month series “Proudly Reaffirming Identity, Diversity, and Equity,” exploring present-day issues facing the LGBTQ+ and allied communities.

We all know Shakespeare. We all know Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps not the first illicit love, but surely the most notorious. MacBeth gave us witches, and Hamlet gave us unanswerable questions, “To be or not to be?” and Romeo and Juliet gave us words.

Words, however, should not be underestimated.

Edging

Sharp lines define: the corners of a square, the borders of a tattoo, the ends of a smile. Sharp lines form an edge, and I’ve sharpened some edges like hunters sharpen knives.

There’s a fine line between light and darkness: where the shadows blur and intermingle, the edge of twilight simultaneous beckons us forward and pushes us back.

Treading upon this edge has been my journey of late, and every misstep brings me closer to the blades upon which I try to balance.

Meet the Beast

I am a Gemini. I have always known my soul is faceted, my spirit fragmented in many parts. I am the twins. I am the wise child and the simple son. I am the one who succumbs and the one who resists. I am also a product of a childhood built upon Disney and Tolkien: there is good and there is evil, and they are disjoint and easily distinguished.

And yet, as an adult, I now wonder: how different are they? And am I not both?

Enter the Matrix (or something like it)

I’m sitting at my computer, staring at a blank screen. There are lessons to plan. And yet I can’t move a muscle. I can’t bring my eyes to look at the textbook I need to reference. I can’t open the templates I’ve made to give myself a starting point. I’m paralyzed.

So I close my computer and go home.

Then, on a whim, I decide to take a bath and read. I’ve been promising myself I’d do this for weeks, looking longingly at the tub and thinking, “I would enjoy that so much,” and yet never doing it. So finally I just did it. And the book I brought was Daring Greatly.

And, oh, does she know my struggles.

Identity Politics

This last week in class we covered sequences and series. This is a strange unit: It looks little like anything else students have seen, yet mathematically it resonates not only with many things we’ve learned, but with many things we could only dream of ever teaching in a high school class bounded by deadlines and curricular standards.

If you’ve ever counted or made a to-do list or put things in order, you know innately what a sequence is: it is merely a list of numbers, with a specific order: 1 2 3 is a different sequence than 1 3 2. Some sequences seem patternless (sunshine Monday, snowstorm Wednesday, downpours Thursday, a blizzard today) while others are so set in stone we hardly take notice: Sunday always precedes Monday, and April follows March.

Now suppose you look at that to-do list you made and count all the things you’ve got to do (that infinite list that seems to always grow two more items when you knock off the first–how hydraen life tends to be!) then you know, too, how a series differs from a sequence: simply take all the things and add them together. No more complex than that.

But what does any of this have to do with identity or politics?

This is Not a Drill

The sirens wail. The wind whips into the windows and they shudder, shaking with the force of falling trees. Desks scrape against the floor as students shove themselves from their seats in unison; feet pound like pelting raindrops on the floor.

On the stairs.

As we make our way to the basement. They scurry to find a place beside the walls; they crouch and duck and cover. The lights flicker off. We’re buried in darkness.

Burnout

Sometimes it’s like building a bonfire and throwing in all the things you own to fuel the flames. You’re waiting for the fire to burn bright. To burn bright enough to illuminate something just out of sight. You know what you hope to see, but you can’t know for sure.

Yet it doesn’t matter.

Now, tell me why?

On the Organization of Things

Being the official unofficial librarian has its perks. Last semester, I got to help decide which books to purchase with the $8000 or so allocated to new book purchases each year. And it was exhilarating. I also got to propose a new literary initiative to promote students’ love of reading–complete with school-provided incentives!

But being the official unofficial librarian also has its downsides. Like extra hours after school that are essentially unpaid. And also organizing our bookshelves.