Gayer than Pride

Good Morning!

I'm going to start by acknowledging the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision. I have many many thoughts and many many feelings that I'll get to later in this post.

But first, a personal story. Because when on this blog do I shirk enormous political events to talk about myself? All day, every day. Responsibility. But my personal story is enormously relevant to the pride events this weekend both in Chicago and across the nation and I will address it, I promise. So I'm not being incredibly self involved, I'm being relatable. Anyway, we go.

As frustrated red line users and queers across Chicago know, this Sunday we celebrated gay pride with a parade, public intoxication, and shinaniganery. This year I did not take part, but did the only thing gayer than Chicago pride, which is going to suburban Virginia to meet my partner's family!

Wednesday morning Mags and I got up early, boarded a plane, and headed east. Mags had never brought anyone home to Virginia and, having never been in a relationship before, I've been flying by the seat of my pants since January. There was so much new territory to be covered and we were both pretty psyched. I was also crawling out of a weird Nyquil induced slumber because neither of us have great timing with getting sick and meeting parents. It's just a thing with us.

Mags' dad picked us up from the airport and drove us to their house in the burbs. Within 5 minutes I learned where my partner gets their incredible calmness and total lack of what might be considered road rage from. We got home much faster than expected. Upon arrival, Mags' mom hugged Mags, burst into tears, and within five seconds inquired about their mohawk and nose ring. At dinner Mags' dad told us his college tomfoolery and I got to hear about nine embarrassing stories from Mags' childhood. Mag's parents are delightful humans and I really enjoyed meeting and spending time with them. By the end of the night I felt like the meeting of the parents/partner had gone really well. We slept like rocks.

Then we woke up and went to Dinosaur Land.

Easily the pride of Virginia. In middle of nowhere rural Virginia some dude bought like 40 dinosaur replicas and set up what is best called a "theme-yard" to display them. For a mere $6, you can see 1970's replicas of dinosaurs as well as King Kong and A SHARK. Wow. I'm sold. Mags shares my love of reptiles and campy weirdness so this was a win-win. We were definitely the oldest people there and I think its safe to say we had the most fun.

Also, their gift shop was suuuuuper racist. You could get a confederate flag on anything! They sold "figurines" and "black figurines." Ignorant Yankee that I am, I assumed we were done with the Civil War centuries ago. Not the case. For real Virginia, how are you not uncomfortable with that? I mean, the store was staffed exclusively by white people, and only white people were shopping there, so maybe no one thought about how incredibly disrespectful, racist, and backwards the gift shop was? I doubt that. Get your shit together Dinosaur Land gift shop. Stop being a racist bigot.  

On a lighter note, we had pie twice that day. Mags probably loves pie more than they love me, and on principle I don't turn down dessert ever, so it's worth noting a two pie day.

That night we looked at old photo albums. I saw Mags' crazy curly hair, cute phases, awkward phases, triplet siblings, etc. It was the most adorable hour of my life and I'm so happy it happened.

The next morning I woke up and Mags was like, "Hey baby, the Supreme Court just passed the marriage equality bill" and I was like "WHAT? I'm so happy and how did I not know they were ruling on this now?" I'm a terrible homo. Anyway. We were super excited and then we drove to Richmond!

After Mags waited out 2 hours of stop and go traffic with the calmness of a yogi, we drove an hour to Richmond to hang out with their lovely friend Dustin. Dustin met us at the parking garage and showed us around Richmond. If you've never been, it's absolutely beautiful.

That night we went to an event celebrating marriage equality at an old theatre called The Byrd. It was a quick, powerful little shindig both celebrating the achievements our community has made in achieving marriage equality, and acknowledging how much work needs to be done particularly in protecting the rights and lives of trans people and people of color within the queer community (more on this later). Then I got basil ice cream and the world was perfect.

From there we got a fancy dinner at an old hotel that was covered in alligators (statues, we were bummed too) that I don't remember the name of. Mags had a hole in the butt of their jeans and I was in short shorts, but luckily for us, Dustin knows what he's doing and steered us in the right direction. Mostly. There was a little bit of wine glass confusion, napkin misplacement, squash blossoms, and a general lack of understanding of anything on the menu, but our waiter was a champ and didn't make fun of us to our faces. Everything tasted like it fell out of heaven.

Then we hit up the gay bars. Richmond has a more hoppin' gay scene than I expected. Chicago's scene is primarily young gay white boys, but Richmond proved more diverse all around. And cheaper. And less rave-y. Go you Richmond. Also, go you jello shots. I had a great time.

The next morning we had brunch at a diner with Dustin and his friend who just happens to be a gay ex-monk. As if Dustin wasn't cool enough to begin with, he's friends with an ex-monk. What a gem of a human.

When we got back to Mags' parent's house we watched their old recital videos. Every requirement of our dance recital drinking game was fulfilled, air bites and all.

Potentially the weirdest part of our trip to northern Virginia was the Franciscan picnic we attended the morning we left for Chicago. Mags' parents warned us ahead of time that the group was conservative and might not be so open to a queer couple, but we thought it would be fun to see what happened so we went anyway.

When we walked up to the pavilion, Mag's dad introduced his kids. Mags' sister Jess found herself in a "go in for a handshake, but receive a hug from an elderly Franciscan" situation. When Mags was introduced, the Franciscan stared at them, gave a quick handshake, and walked off. I got introduced somewhere in there as something other than an offspring.

That was weird so we hung out by the drinks (so much diet soda) and a woman struck up a conversation with us. Mags introduced themself as Vladamir's (code name used for the purpose of this blog) spawn and I introduced myself as Mags' partner. I like the term partner because it doesn't imply a gender role, but signifies that we're together. Sometimes people think that we're married, which is not the case, but once you explain it to people, they get it. Within seconds of introducing myself as Mags' partner, this woman asked if I was their friend. I corrected her, "no, we're dating, I'm their partner." Never mind that we'd been kissing and holding hands in front of everyone for a good half hour. Despite multiple corrections from Mags and me, she continued to refer to me as a friend and it was real weird. Throughout the picnic every time we looked up we were getting stared at and it was super uncomfortable. Mags got really uncomfortable and made a terrorism joke, which went over far better than I could have imagined. But still, we'd reached our conservative Catholic limit, so we spent most of the picnic away from the group.

To be fair, we did talk to some really nice people. A few old guys sat with us and made conversation. That lady who refused to acknowledge our relationship was not outright aggressive. It went better than it could of. Some of these people had apparently never seen a queer before. And now they were seeing two of them kissing each other. So maybe they had some questions. But just a suggestion: if someone makes you uncomfortable, maybe don't stare at them. No one likes being stared at. It's super weird. And if you have a question, asking it in a way that respects that person's privacy and with the knowledge that they can chose to not be a teachable moment, is better than avoiding them.

Exhausted, we said goodbye to Mags' parents and headed to the airport.

It felt so good to be back in Chicago. When we got off the train in Wicker Park, we were in the middle of the pride festivities. Rainbows were everywhere, drunk queers were everywhere. We were exhausted. On our way into an incredibly well stocked Walgreens to grab some snacks this guy gave us some sort of congratulatory nod. Like, "way to go queers, ya'll can get married now! Thanks for representing yo!" All we wanted to do was eat nachos, drink beer, and hole up with the new season of Orange is the New Black like the good, hermity queers that we are.

And that's exactly what we did. And it was so good.

I'm obviously thrilled to pieces that any of my friends who want to get married can get married, regardless of their sexual preferences. What a bullshit prejudice anyway. We're still going to love each other, it's about time we received the same validity as heterosexual couplings. So thank you very much SCOTUS for bringing a basic human right to everyone. You made a lot of people feel acknowledged and loved and a little safer.

However, there is still work to be done. At the celebration in Richmond, Rev. Lacette Cross and Rev. Carolyn J. Mobely read some beautiful vows to rededicate the community to continuing to make the world a better, safer place for LGBTQ people. Their video is worth watching, and only three minutes long, so take a look.

Yeah, I'm done here. They said it beautifuly.

Enjoy your post pride hangovers, congrats America, and have a good week everyone.

Kaitlyn

People my Partner wants to Punch in the Face. *A Fluff Piece.

On the whole, I like to think that people are pretty good. But sometimes the week of May 16th, 2015 happens, and you find yourself in close proximity with many many assholes. 

Persons 1 and 2: Edmund and Griselda. *probably not their real names

Last Sunday, my partner, Mags, and I went to see Book Of Mormon (hysterical and highly recommended by the way). I literally ran from my coffee shop to meet them outside the theatre and we found our seats. As these things never start on time, we had a good 15 minutes to chat and check out the programs. We were trying to figure out exactly how "limited" our "limited view" seats were when we overheard a strange conversation of flamboyant and theatrical tone behind us. It went something like this: 

Edmund: Darling, did you bring the chiffon? One simply MUST have chiffon when attending the theatre

Griselda: Oh my love, I left it at home, I thought YOU brought the chiffon, YOU were in charge of bringing the chiffon to the theatre

Ed: No no my love it was YOU with the chiffon, I was to arrange for the buttered chicken 

Griz: Ugh you've ruined everything now we have two buttered chickens and no chiffon! All is lost!

They had variations of this conversation starting from the beginning, changing a few words around, embellishing as they found appropriate. Mags and I leaned in to try to figure out what was happening. The couple was conversing at full volume, so it was easy to overhear. I whispered, "they  have to be rehearsing a scene." Because who the hell has this same meaningless conversation over and over with gratuitous inflection unless they are frantically trying to get their act together for a rehearsal later that evening. Mags, being a dancer, says, "That is completely and utterly ridiculous, who would do that?"

I can't tell you how many times I have recited entire monologues on a bus headed to an audition. This seemed perfectly plausible to me. 

Then it took a turn. Ed turned to Griz and said: "You know, lesbians really should control their acne." 

I know very few 20 somethings who actually got rid of their acne in their late teens. Mags got wide eyed and I quickly surveyed the scene looking for two acne ridden lesbians, perhaps outside of earshot of this weirdo couple behind us. Then I remembered that we were at a musical and therefore definitely the only two queers in attendance. They continued: 

Griz: You're absolutely right dahling, it is quite a problem

Ed: Do you think we ought to suggest treatment? 

Griz: That sounds like a splendid idea my love, what would you suggest?

Ed: Well, as we know, salicylic acid did wonders for my complexion, I wonder if they haven't tried that yet.

Again, they would start this conversation over and over, sometimes incorporating the chicken and chiffon bit. Having survived late elementary and middle school covered in zits, I was more enraptured in what was happening than I was offended their opinions of my personal hygiene. It was hands down the weirdest thing I've experienced in the theatre, and I've been to a whole lot of festivals so this is really saying something

Mags however, does not take shit from anyone. Including shit coming from the mouths of certifiable psychopaths. They turn to me and say, "What the fuck is happening, I'm going to say something!" I was like, "Whooooh babe hold on." Partially because this little part of me wanted to see how far they would take it. Also, you never know when Book of Mormon will be back in Chicago (said no one ever) and we would have to deal with confronting the assholes behind us.

After listening for another minute, Mags turns to me and says, "I want to punch him in the face, I'm going to say something." Fine, you gutsy amazing person, fine.

So Mags turns to the couple and is says, "I couldn't help but overhear you, do you just deliberately fuck with people?" 

They reply, "Oh no, this is just us. This is just how we are. We're going to have a wonderful buttered chicken dinner after this, you simply must try it." 

Literally where do you go from there? Pretty much nowhere. They continued rattling off acne treatments and we continued to gawk at how unbelievably awful they were being.

Persons Infinity and Beyond: Perpetrators of Jazz Hands Worldwide. 

This is not aimed at anyone in particular. Mags went to Art school. Mags does not like jazz hands. Mags does not like jazz hands regardless of their girlfriend's unadulterated love of Bob Fosse. Girlfriend loves them anyway.  

Persons 3-10 roughly: The Old Gents of Panera 

No less than a week after the whole sapphic acne debacle, Mags and I took a quick jaunt to the burbs. It was nearly 10 and neither of us had eaten so we stopped in a Panera to grab breakfast and coffee. Upon entering, an entire table of old men turned and stared at us. Not just a quick glance, they literally stopped mid meal, turned and gawked. I did the whole "I see you staring" thing and they just kept right on looking. 

I mean, I know. Mags is sexy as hell, but come on guys. Clearly out of your league. 

And rocking the flannel MUCH harder than you. 

Anyway,

The employee who took our orders kept sighing and was real short with us. In his defense, he was on register at a Panera full of assholes, I would hate my life too. But still good sir. We had a very simple order and I would have appreciated getting my black coffee and bagel without a side of side eye thank you very much. 

 

It was inescapable! Midway thorough my bagel a guy glanced at us, kept walking, stopped walking, and stared. WHO DOES DOUBLE TAKES ANYMORE? I just do not understand. 

Sure. The two of us together code as anything but heteronormative. I get that we look different. We don't fulfill the traditional expectations of "masculine" or "feminine" or "young couple." In Morton Grove IL, we look different. And I get that we were potentially the only queers who dared venture out of their car and into your Panera, but that doesn't mean it's okay to stare. Not everyone who lives in the burbs is exposed to diversity. But to the best of my knowledge, everyone is taught manners. We all know it's impolite to stare.

Sometimes I get caught up in the liberal bubble of the neighborhoods I choose to spend time in. I forget that when you leave for the more conservative places of the world if you are not white, middle class, passing for one of two binary genders, hetero and able-bodied, you get looks. I wont delve into the social issues beneath this blog post, but I feel the need to remind people to be polite. If you see someone who looks new and different, just don't be an asshole. If someone makes you uncomfortable because you don't understand their gender or sexuality or race or ability, don't stare. Their life is none of your business. 

And guys, we live in a world where google exists. If you don't understand something, use the googlemachine for something other than funny cat videos and your local news online. I'm not expecting much here. We all live here, lets not make each other feel uncomfortable when all we want to do is eat a damn bagel. 

Clearly I cannot write fluff. I hope this was entertaining, but mostly I hope you google the terms "genderqueer," "gender neutral pronouns" and "heteronormative" if you don't know what they mean. While your at it, search "white privilege." I'm white, Mags is white, this blog was not even kind of about race, but social justice is intersectional. So go learn stuff. 

Okay, we strayed from the path there, found a few similar paths, realized the paths were all connected in the first place, drew out an unnecessary metaphor. Anyway. I want you to google those terms please. And be nice to each other. And have a good day off tomorrow. 

Kaitlyn. 

     

Nick and Kait: A Hair Comparison.

Ayeoo Internet. 

This Tuesday is my dead brother's 21st birthday. If any of this is news to you I've written many many blogs to answer all of your questions. You can find them under the tag "Brother." 

In celebration of what I'm sure would have been a humiliating vomit fest for all persons involved, I have assembled an equally humiliating collection of photographs. The following documents our coincidentally similar hairstyles. Let us begin. 

1) Growing up, our mom cut everyone's hair. This resulted in deep rooted skepticism of anyone holding scissors within a foot of my head, and multiple Spock-esc bang lines. Mine of course, I did by accident all by myself, but let's not dwell. 

You're welcome baby brother. You are welcome. 

2) It is early 2005 and every single Dessoffy is tap dancing. Nick's hair looks like Paul McCartney and (for varying reasons) everyone is embarrassed. This is also forever the photo I submit in the "most awkward adolescent" category. Junior year of college my hair looked like Paul McCartney because haircuts cost money and I hadn't yet purchased a buzzer. 

3) Jump ahead 5 years and Nick has decided that he is too cool for school and haircuts. This is the result. Baby Kaitlyn didn't like change and had this exact haircut until age 15. And then again until age 19.

4) Nick never washed his hair and was occasionally forced to look presentable. Enter, the ponytail. Even pre-actualized babygay Kaitlyn valued the functionality of wearing her hair in a pulled back literally at all times. 

5) Next this happened. I called him Fabio, and only Fabio, until he changed it. I never actually had long blonde hair, but I got to wear this long blond wig once. So that counts right?

6) When in doubt or emotional turmoil, shave half your head. This stands for both of us. 

7) I'm 80% sure the short blond came next. And by blond I mean brassy yellow cause both of us did it ourselves and have limited knowledge of how to safely bleach the pigment out of your hair. Waddup toner. 

7.5) Then there was this. I was never ballsy enough to pull it off so I don't have a companion picture. It's a reference to some band I'm not cool enough to know, but too good to pass up. Also, this outfit.

8) It's summer time and students no longer need to be in uniform. The picture is dark, but you have to believe me, kid's hair is electric blue. In my case, I finally was wigged for a show and got to fulfill a childhood dream of putting blue in my hairs. Not all my hairs, but some of them. 

 9) Sometimes you have to take it back to square one and just buzz it all off. Sometimes you get too excited about your new buzzer and look like a potato for 2 months. 

*Kudos to Gabster for wearing the nose play-dough better than me. 

I think that about wraps it up. I'm going to post one more picture because it's my favorite picture of us, and the closest we ever came to having the same hair (and face) at the same time.  

With that embarrassing stumble down memory lane forever emblazoned on the internet, I'm going to leave this be. I hope you enjoyed this little piece of weirdness. Have a good rest of your week. 

Kait 

How to Abort Your Diet.

*Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist. I have a body and a historically messy view of food. This is by no means the only way to be healthy. But hopefully it's the wittiest. 

A Step by Step Guide to hopping off the diet treadmill without it throwing you into a wall, thus humiliating you in front of all those ambitious 6am gym people.

Step 1: Admitting you have a problem. In the past 2 weeks have you:

• Weighed yourself more than 28 times
• Googled the caloric content of communion wafers, human sexual fluids, or chapstick
• Considered Diet Coke to be the healthiest beverage choice
• Ate only carrots during the day because you were going drinking with your friends that night
• Punched someone because they tried to share your carefully portioned mid-day nut meal 
• Woke up, ate breakfast, realized you have to run a marathon to break even in terms of calories
• Become paranoid that there was a labeling error and you are actually purchasing 2% milk
• Defeated your natural hunger response and live in a constant state of "is this an ulcer, or should I be eating?" 
• Defeated your Deity-given metabolism and managed to gain weight despite eating under 1000 calories per day
• Defeated your gag reflex and, well, ya know. 

If you answered "yes" to enough of the above questions to make you feel a little crazy, a lot hungry, and mostly terrified that your body will just spiral out of control if you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the nutritional value of your foods, take a few deep breaths, and continue to step 2. 

Step 2: Look yourself in the eye (using a mirror probably) and say, "It will be worth it in the long term to stop dieting now. Bodies are malleable and if you gain or lose weight, it can be changed in a healthy manner" 

This might take convincing. Here are some fun activities you can look forward to after you quit dieting: 

• Going out to eat and ordering something other than the lowest calorie item 
• Going out to eat. Period. 
• Eating when your hungry 
• Thinking about more effective ways to built a lean-to rather than what your next meal will be
• In an unexpected turn of events, feel like you have control over your body, not your diet
• Not having the metabolic rate of a 200 year old sloth 

Step 3: Get rid of all that shit they gave you at the start up meeting

Don't fool yourself. Never again will you need that specialized calculator that converts carbs, protein, fiber, and fats into point values. Just chuck it now. Besides, you know you've got all that memorized anyway. Hide your scale, measuring tape, whatever crazy fat calibrators you have. Put them somewhere incredibly difficult to reach. Like duct taped to the inside of your chimney or under your territorial cat's favorite pillow. 

Step 4: Put your skinny jeans in the way back of your closet

Dieting freaks out your metabolism. When you stop, your metabolism will re-calibrate and you might gain or lose some weight. Get ready, it's gonna be okay. This is 500 times harder when you're shaming yourself because your clothes are fitting differently. Accept these changes (as all weight fluctuations are) as temporary. 

Step 4 and 1/2 (the most important step, despite not getting its own number): Accept that the size you want to be and the size you are most healthy at, might not be the same. If you've been dieting hard, you might have pushed your body below where it should go. If you stop dieting and eat healthy, your body will probably go back to it's baseline. That might be a few pounds more or less than you would prefer. You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

I repeat: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

One more time: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

Time hop is a thing? Uninstall that shit: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

Got it? Good. Moving on.

Step 5: Figure out how you want to eat now

Personal anecdote time (she says nearing the end of an obviously personal blog): I couldn't sustain 20 hours of dance a week, 16 miles of biking a day, and full time food service on my feet under 1200 calories. But I also couldn't do it eating exclusively carbs and fats. It helped me to keep it simple initially. Eat when you're hungry, stop when your full. Resurrect that food pyramid and try to eat from all the major food groups every day. Some structure is okay. It's hard to go from tracking everything to tracking nothing, so don't worry if you flounder a bit. 

This takes time. Sometimes you eat a whole bunch and get really sick. Sometimes you don't eat enough and get really sick. Sometimes your digestive tract takes a while to adjust to eating normally and you feel like garbage for a few weeks. Sometimes you get stressed out an calculate everything you've eaten over the past week in a matter of minutes. Don't let this getcha down. It's okay to not be perfect. 

The End. Good luck. God Speed. Happy Wednesday.