Now, as a fully fledged member of the lavender persuasion, I am known for being over the top, high maintenance, unreasonable, highly strung and have the tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, I do consider these to be among my best qualities. But for once in my life, I don’t think I am over reacting, and feel like I am being harassed, so my question is, what constitutes as harassment?
A while back I posted about a difficult situation I had found myself in at the workplace with a fellow lavender, JT. I have had many emails from my lovely readers asking what happened when I had to contact him to set up a meeting with my boss (who we’ll call Kitty) after spurning his advances a year before. Well, as I predicted, he used it as a reason to initiate contact, and it is making me feel more uncomfortable than when I hoof myself into my ten year old 28 inch waist Levis jeans, being that my waist is now 32, and I refuse to accept that I, like my waist size, am no longer in my late twenties.
Here is how the email conversation went:
From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 10:09
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
Hi JT,
Tamsin has asked me to set up a meeting with yourself and Kitty before the 7th July. She is actually off this week and will be back on Monday. Do you have any time free in the diary between 11:30- and 1:30 on Monday?
Warm regards,
Tequila
I thought, keep it purely professional. Afterall, I do not know the man at all, he simply works for the same place I do, and unfortunately due to a restructure, he would now be reporting directly to my boss, meaning I’d have to develop a working relationship with him. Not an easy feat when he has already successfully tried it on and left me squirming, and not in the way that’s good.
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:42
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
Hi ya... Yes I have booked out the entire morning to see her, so fit me in anytime.
Thanks.
JT
P.s. Happy Birthday for whenever it was! LOL.. Saw the balloons on your desk!...
My birthday was actually in March but I still had a helium filled balloon in the corner by my desk. It had become part of the furniture really, and I didn’t even realise it was still there. This had turned out to be my undoing, as it was a perfect way for cunning old JT to strike up a conversation. However, I had to reply and confirm the meeting, and didn’t want to be totally rude by ignoring his comment altogether:
From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:50
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
Hi,
Excellent- shall we say 11:30? I'll send a proposal. I use both Outlook and MM, so I'll do one of each.
Thanks- My birthday was months ago.
Warm regards,
Tequila
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
LOL.. Oops sorry I was late! LOL... will have to buy you a bevvy one day!
Jesus Christ on a bike, what is with this guy and LOL?! And sorry he was late? For what- he doesn’t even know me and here he is apologising for not knowing it was my birthday. I have to say, I admired his perseverance in the face of such adversity and I celebrated his pluck, as he obviously thought- if at first you don’t succeed try to pin down the gay again. But no.
From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:57
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
I should probably take it down, I quite often have people wishing me a happy birthday.
I decided short, sharp and sweet. Not being rude, but giving nothing away by using closed sentences, and pretending not to have noticed him asking me out for a drink. If we have to work together, I don’t want to get a reputation as someone who is up his own arse. In my position there is the risk of that and a lot of people already think I am self important and consider myself a cut above the rest but nothing could be further from the truth. I suppose it is bound to come with the territory, being an assistant to a Director. Anyway, I hoped that would be the end of it.
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:59
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings
You should get as much out of it as possible a nice cute guy like you (hope you dont mind me saying that!).... I would milk it as much as possible! LOL....Im looking forward to the big 40 in 8 months I think your cute!.. Anyway!..... if you fancy a bevvy at anytime, let me know! I still feel very young!!
Ladies, Gentleman, undecided and pre ops, I didn’t know how to respond to that one, so I just ignored it and prayed to high lavender that would be the last I heard of him. It was starting to get scary.
A few minutes later I get an email to tell me that JT has sent a friend request via facebook. He has also sent me a message, quoting things he has read on my profile which I’m sure he thought would appear witty but was more "I'm not just gonna be ignored" Immediately I blocked him. Not long after I got the following:
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 13:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi
Hi ya.... only me again!... if you fancy a bevvy sometime let me know - here is my mobile (pers) 07930 ******.
Would be nice to get to know other people outside my dept! around my own age too.
So, not only had he now asked me out for a drink twice in one day, and stalked me via facebook, but to top it all off he was trying to say I was the same age as him? He’s pushing 40! That was the final straw, and I thought to myself -you may be a lot older than me, and in a far more hierarchical position here, but I, dear boy am going to remain professional despite being at the hands of such harassment and tell you in no uncertain terms that I am not interested. Before I had the chance to send an email back this came:
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:21
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi
Hi there.. you OK? hope did not offend you earlier?
JT
What that showed was that he knew he had been wholly inappropriate in his emails, and maybe he was starting to worry that as I assist the Director who heads up many areas of the organisation, including Human Resources, he may have tried it on with the wrong person. I sent him an email, not saying what I wanted to, which was ‘When I decide to engage in a bit of necrophilia, I’ll be sure to give you a call, but for now, fuck off you angry inch and stop breathing down my neck like some human hairdryer or I will see to it that you are torn, limb by limb apart and worn as a charm bracelet.’ I opted for:
From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:26
To: JT
Subject: RE: Hi
Hi JT,
Thanks for the offer, please don't be offended, but I tend to keep work and my private life separate and don't socialise outside of work. If you are going to be working with this Directorate a lot more, I would prefer to keep a professional relationship.
This is something I have always done and is not specific to this organisation; it's just not my thing.
T
From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:28
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi
OK, no worried Tequila - I understand.
J
In his haste and to possibly stop me from filing a sexual harassment compliant, he had sent a rushed and misspelt (worried instead of worries- the imbecile) message showing that he realised, at least I thought, that he had overstepped the mark.
When he came for the meeting I had scheduled, he arrived 15 minutes early, obviously hoping that he’d get to hang around and undress me with his eyes until Kitty was ready to see him. Thankfully, I knew exactly what this trickster was all about, and had left a half hour gap between her last meeting and the one with JT incase he pulled a stunt like that. He arrived and I simply ushered him in, then went to the toilet and had a panic attack, as I felt so unnerved. I also timed it that I would be out at lunch when the meeting had finished.
Other than an email he sent asking if I was going to Soho Pride, which I ignored, I knew better than to open up the lines of communication, and a few times when I have bumped into him in the canteen, I heard nothing from him. Until Monday of this week. I had to set up a meeting with him, his team, and Kitty, as they are officially joining our directorate, and as Kitty will be their boss from the beginning of the New Year, she wanted to get an introduction out of the way. The fear of emailing him was ever present, but knowing that it was a group email, I thought I’d be safe. Yeah, as safe as a female teenager going round to Fred & Rose West’s for a roast dinner.
From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 20 November 2008 13:44
To: TS
Cc: JT; LP; JC
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety
Dear all,
I've put an introduction meeting in the diary for you to meet with Kitty on the 2nd December at 4pm, in her office.
Any questions please let me know.
Warm regards,
Tequila
He couldn’t find anything to possibly come back to on that I thought, could he?
From: JT
Sent: 24 November 2008 14:41
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety
Cant recall if I have asked you this Thomas, many apologies if I have - but fancy a drink sometime?
Again, sorry if I have already asked - my brain is a bit "fried" of late!
J
I’m starting to wonder if this guy literally has rhinoceros skin. He will just not take no for an answer. Part of me thinks I should just go for this f*cking drink and be so supremely rude, which to be brutally honest, I wouldn’t find that hard, in the hope that he rues the day he ever started to try to get into The Mockings, stockings. Should I just give him the sexual equivalent of winning the lottery and let him have his wicked way?
I simply curse the day I was born with this face that could launch a thousand ships, these impossible piercing blue eyes, my razor sharp cheekbones, my cantaloupe tush and my lashes that defy the laws of gravity.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Don't You Want Me Baby?
So, the week before last, my dear Big Sis flew in from Califor-ni-gay, for the first time since she done broke my heart and left these shores for good over two years ago. To say I was looking forward to seeing her is an understatement. I have known Big Sis, since I was the very ripe and tender age of 16, when, in a bid to be able to feed and clothe myself, I got a job in a restaurant by embellishing I was in fact 18. Mercifully, the place itself, an American Bar & Diner in the city, was about as law abiding, upright and reputable as Osama Bin Laden, so they didn’t bother to check out my references or my age, and before I knew it, I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true…..
Now, the only other job I’d had, believe it or not, was working on a flower stall at the side of the motorway on Saturday & Sunday which I started doing at 14, (my father was a raging and abusive alcoholic, and well, someone had to go out and earn a wage to buy his booze for him as he was in no fit state to do it) so I was incredibly nervous about starting, as I had no experience of work really and I had a total lack of confidence. I was living in a homeless hostel (having been thrown onto the streets at 15) and felt completely inadequate, useless and a waste of perfectly good oxygen. I didn’t have the best start in life, and by that point I just assumed that nobody liked, or would ever like me, I had no self worth or respect and essentially considered myself a third rate citizen.
Because of my many misgivings about myself I was convinced that I’d get there for my first shift, and the manager along everyone in the restaurant would look at me, burst out laughing and say ‘Do you really think we would give a peasant like you a chance- get out and don’t come back’ or they would make me humiliate myself in a number of ways by passing initiations like cleaning the toilet floor with my tongue or making me run around in my underwear. But then I thought to my little gay self ‘This isn’t like at school, where the teachers were nuns who would make you do those things…..’
I was so scared, that I actually paced outside in the manor of an escaped lunatic for about an hour before plucking up the courage to finally go in. Straight away, a divine red haired American lady with chunky shoes, a passion for fashion and a very friendly face introduced herself, and told me she would be showing me the ropes. This was Big Sis, and immediately I knew I had someone who would take this poor defenceless queerling under her wing, and I felt at ease. And take me under her wing she did. We quickly established a rapport and we had a lot of fun. She was the only person there who was nice to me, and the only one to give me a share of her tips (I was only a bus boy after all). The other waiters, chefs, and bar staff paid me very little attention, and if Big Sis wasn’t around, they would completely ignore me and I felt like even more of an outsider. But when it was us together on a shift, even though it is still the most physically demanding job I have ever done, it was great fun, and I always looked forward to working with her. Looking back, and now knowing her situation back then, I realise we were actually both outsiders; her a veritible nubile from America who'd married a English Business man, that plucked her from her home in California for a new life in England, who truth be told once he got her here she rarely saw and when she did had to adopt the role of doting wife in front of his clients, all the while terrified of one of his aggressive outbursts once the evening was over, and me, a penniless 16 year old boy who was gayer that a neon pink alligator, living in a Christian Homeless hostel, with holes in his shoes that weren’t meant to be there and holes in his jeans that were. We were destined to be friends.
It was a very peculiar set up, and I was so naive back in those days, I genuinely believed that prayer was the best form of contraceptive. Before long, my eyes were open to the absolute underbelly of London, and I realised that the restaurant was actually a front for drugs, money laundering and all sorts of criminal activity. I really needed the job to support me, at that time I had nobody, so when I was asked to go the Jewellers ‘up the road’ and collect a package, I asked no questions. When I was asked to take the restaurant owners dog for a walk while he did afterhours ‘business’ in the office, I simply got my poop a scoop and headed off to the green, and when I was told to go and clean up the blood stained toilet floor one morning, what could I do but comply? Even when one of the managers slapped me around the face for dropping a bottle of wine I just got on with it. It was a very unsavoury environment, but I would do it all over again, because it gave me Big Sis.
Our friendship has lasted over 15 years, through countless failed relationships, a divorce, two stints of her going back to the states, two rhinoplasties (on yours truly), dramatic weight gain, dramatic weight loss, bereavements, and more cocaine and wine than you can shake a stick at. Big Sis is a friend for every season, and even though she insists that this time, she is staying in America for good we have kept in contact, and I know that we will always be in each others lives. I couldn’t wait to see her, and catch up on old times, and also, to meet the new man in her life, Jimmy.
We met in Balans, both being 30 minutes late, and quickly ordered in some Cocktails. A Kir Royale for moi, Big Sis and Jimmy opting for Vodka Martinis. I raised a toast, and simply said ‘Welcome Homo’ told her she’d proved her point, asked when was she moving back, and generally refused to accept that she could live anywhere, but in London. Three cocktails in, and I had decided that Jimmy was so delicious that I was gaining weight just by sitting with him, and that my darling Big Sis looked happier than I have seen her in a very long time, which obviously made me ecstatic, even though it dawned on me that in light of her happiness and her delicious man, the likelihood of her moving back was slim.
We then went for some Tapas at a place I can’t remember (I’d had a few cocktails by that point on an empty stomach) but I do know that we devoured cold cuts of ham and some lovely prawns with lashings of Alioli while reminiscing about the good old days, my bad taste in music, how Big Sis used to berate me for liking Mariah Carey by insisting she had missed her calling as a pest control expert as she could just walk into a building, sing, and the roaches would leave of their own accord, to the time I virtually emptied the restaurant and patrons fled in terror when I broke the valve on a cylinder of Helium I was using to fill up balloons and it almost exploded, to the fact that I had not fallen off the Columbian Bandwagon in three years and how great I felt about it. There was I, perched above all on my self righteous high chair claiming that I ‘didn’t miss it at all’ and that I would ‘never touch the stuff again’.
‘Oh, well, we’ve got loads of gear at our place, we thought you’d……’ before she even finished the sentence I was screaming ‘Taxi’ like I was a doorman at The Dorchester and we were heading back to North London, stopping in at the local off licence for Champagne and other much needed essentials for a night of some Columbian.
After a three year hiatus, I gave in to temptation and fell off the bandwagon. The thing I always say is that I don’t actually enjoy cocaine; I just love the smell of it. In order to smell it, you’ve got to snort it. So I did, and we stayed up to the wee small hours, snorting, drinking, talking, and snorting some more. After we decided to turn it in and call it a night- I got a cab home, during which the cab driver made a pass at me and started fondling himself when we were at a set of traffic lights, after having asked me about my sexuality and what bars I went to. What is it about cab drivers? Are they all perverts? And more importantly, are they all unattractive perverts? It was very uncomfortable and owing to the fact that I’d just put half a rain forest up my nose, I was feeling just a bit anxious. All I wanted to do was get in and drink the bottle of vodka I had in the fridge and listen to music and have myself a little party. Which is exactly what I did when I got in. I passed out at about 9am. Thankfully I’d booked the day off. In hindsight, maybe I knew just how badly behaved me and Big Sis would be once we got together, hence the fact I’d booked the day’s leave.
I awoke at about 7pm that evening looking like Amy Winehouse and probably smelling like her too. I walked into my living room to find every single Prince CD I own strewn across the floor, his Sign O The Times DVD still in the player, a few empty bottles of booze were on the coffee table (I finished off everything I had in the fridge) and I knew that not only had Big Sis come Homo, but I had flung myself off the wagon like a lemming, and thrown caution to the wind. I can’t say I’ll be doing it again in a hurry, but I do know that in my coked up state, I may or may not have stopped pestering Big Sis about coming back Homo, and agreed to give up my job, sell my flat, ditch everyone and move to Laguna Beach.
Whilst I would love nothing more, I just don’t know if London is ready to see the back of me yet. And more importantly, I’m just not sure that America would get me. Or let me in. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Now, the only other job I’d had, believe it or not, was working on a flower stall at the side of the motorway on Saturday & Sunday which I started doing at 14, (my father was a raging and abusive alcoholic, and well, someone had to go out and earn a wage to buy his booze for him as he was in no fit state to do it) so I was incredibly nervous about starting, as I had no experience of work really and I had a total lack of confidence. I was living in a homeless hostel (having been thrown onto the streets at 15) and felt completely inadequate, useless and a waste of perfectly good oxygen. I didn’t have the best start in life, and by that point I just assumed that nobody liked, or would ever like me, I had no self worth or respect and essentially considered myself a third rate citizen.
Because of my many misgivings about myself I was convinced that I’d get there for my first shift, and the manager along everyone in the restaurant would look at me, burst out laughing and say ‘Do you really think we would give a peasant like you a chance- get out and don’t come back’ or they would make me humiliate myself in a number of ways by passing initiations like cleaning the toilet floor with my tongue or making me run around in my underwear. But then I thought to my little gay self ‘This isn’t like at school, where the teachers were nuns who would make you do those things…..’
I was so scared, that I actually paced outside in the manor of an escaped lunatic for about an hour before plucking up the courage to finally go in. Straight away, a divine red haired American lady with chunky shoes, a passion for fashion and a very friendly face introduced herself, and told me she would be showing me the ropes. This was Big Sis, and immediately I knew I had someone who would take this poor defenceless queerling under her wing, and I felt at ease. And take me under her wing she did. We quickly established a rapport and we had a lot of fun. She was the only person there who was nice to me, and the only one to give me a share of her tips (I was only a bus boy after all). The other waiters, chefs, and bar staff paid me very little attention, and if Big Sis wasn’t around, they would completely ignore me and I felt like even more of an outsider. But when it was us together on a shift, even though it is still the most physically demanding job I have ever done, it was great fun, and I always looked forward to working with her. Looking back, and now knowing her situation back then, I realise we were actually both outsiders; her a veritible nubile from America who'd married a English Business man, that plucked her from her home in California for a new life in England, who truth be told once he got her here she rarely saw and when she did had to adopt the role of doting wife in front of his clients, all the while terrified of one of his aggressive outbursts once the evening was over, and me, a penniless 16 year old boy who was gayer that a neon pink alligator, living in a Christian Homeless hostel, with holes in his shoes that weren’t meant to be there and holes in his jeans that were. We were destined to be friends.
It was a very peculiar set up, and I was so naive back in those days, I genuinely believed that prayer was the best form of contraceptive. Before long, my eyes were open to the absolute underbelly of London, and I realised that the restaurant was actually a front for drugs, money laundering and all sorts of criminal activity. I really needed the job to support me, at that time I had nobody, so when I was asked to go the Jewellers ‘up the road’ and collect a package, I asked no questions. When I was asked to take the restaurant owners dog for a walk while he did afterhours ‘business’ in the office, I simply got my poop a scoop and headed off to the green, and when I was told to go and clean up the blood stained toilet floor one morning, what could I do but comply? Even when one of the managers slapped me around the face for dropping a bottle of wine I just got on with it. It was a very unsavoury environment, but I would do it all over again, because it gave me Big Sis.
Our friendship has lasted over 15 years, through countless failed relationships, a divorce, two stints of her going back to the states, two rhinoplasties (on yours truly), dramatic weight gain, dramatic weight loss, bereavements, and more cocaine and wine than you can shake a stick at. Big Sis is a friend for every season, and even though she insists that this time, she is staying in America for good we have kept in contact, and I know that we will always be in each others lives. I couldn’t wait to see her, and catch up on old times, and also, to meet the new man in her life, Jimmy.
We met in Balans, both being 30 minutes late, and quickly ordered in some Cocktails. A Kir Royale for moi, Big Sis and Jimmy opting for Vodka Martinis. I raised a toast, and simply said ‘Welcome Homo’ told her she’d proved her point, asked when was she moving back, and generally refused to accept that she could live anywhere, but in London. Three cocktails in, and I had decided that Jimmy was so delicious that I was gaining weight just by sitting with him, and that my darling Big Sis looked happier than I have seen her in a very long time, which obviously made me ecstatic, even though it dawned on me that in light of her happiness and her delicious man, the likelihood of her moving back was slim.
We then went for some Tapas at a place I can’t remember (I’d had a few cocktails by that point on an empty stomach) but I do know that we devoured cold cuts of ham and some lovely prawns with lashings of Alioli while reminiscing about the good old days, my bad taste in music, how Big Sis used to berate me for liking Mariah Carey by insisting she had missed her calling as a pest control expert as she could just walk into a building, sing, and the roaches would leave of their own accord, to the time I virtually emptied the restaurant and patrons fled in terror when I broke the valve on a cylinder of Helium I was using to fill up balloons and it almost exploded, to the fact that I had not fallen off the Columbian Bandwagon in three years and how great I felt about it. There was I, perched above all on my self righteous high chair claiming that I ‘didn’t miss it at all’ and that I would ‘never touch the stuff again’.
‘Oh, well, we’ve got loads of gear at our place, we thought you’d……’ before she even finished the sentence I was screaming ‘Taxi’ like I was a doorman at The Dorchester and we were heading back to North London, stopping in at the local off licence for Champagne and other much needed essentials for a night of some Columbian.
After a three year hiatus, I gave in to temptation and fell off the bandwagon. The thing I always say is that I don’t actually enjoy cocaine; I just love the smell of it. In order to smell it, you’ve got to snort it. So I did, and we stayed up to the wee small hours, snorting, drinking, talking, and snorting some more. After we decided to turn it in and call it a night- I got a cab home, during which the cab driver made a pass at me and started fondling himself when we were at a set of traffic lights, after having asked me about my sexuality and what bars I went to. What is it about cab drivers? Are they all perverts? And more importantly, are they all unattractive perverts? It was very uncomfortable and owing to the fact that I’d just put half a rain forest up my nose, I was feeling just a bit anxious. All I wanted to do was get in and drink the bottle of vodka I had in the fridge and listen to music and have myself a little party. Which is exactly what I did when I got in. I passed out at about 9am. Thankfully I’d booked the day off. In hindsight, maybe I knew just how badly behaved me and Big Sis would be once we got together, hence the fact I’d booked the day’s leave.
I awoke at about 7pm that evening looking like Amy Winehouse and probably smelling like her too. I walked into my living room to find every single Prince CD I own strewn across the floor, his Sign O The Times DVD still in the player, a few empty bottles of booze were on the coffee table (I finished off everything I had in the fridge) and I knew that not only had Big Sis come Homo, but I had flung myself off the wagon like a lemming, and thrown caution to the wind. I can’t say I’ll be doing it again in a hurry, but I do know that in my coked up state, I may or may not have stopped pestering Big Sis about coming back Homo, and agreed to give up my job, sell my flat, ditch everyone and move to Laguna Beach.
Whilst I would love nothing more, I just don’t know if London is ready to see the back of me yet. And more importantly, I’m just not sure that America would get me. Or let me in. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The US of Gay
Ladies and Labradors,
Since my last blog we have witnessed the historic events of the first black President being elected into The White House, something that I was fully behind. After The US of Gay voting in Bush for a second term, I did have my doubts, but when the final counts came through and I heard the news that Obama had made it, I felt, for the first time from a political point of view, as if justice had finally been served. I think it was a moment for human nature to be proud. Now in America, little black boys and black girls can grow up with the knowledge, more so than ever before that they can do something with their lives. That they can have a voice, and that they can be leaders. Of course, this is not an end to the racism over there, or anywhere for that matter, but let’s hope it is a start. Obama being elected affects us all, and I truly believe he will bring great change to America, and to the world. There were many reasons why he had my support, but the main thing for me was his pledge to pull the Troops out of Iraq. So after work, me and some friends went for a couple of mini bars and raised a glass to Obama.
However, it is funny how such elation could turn to disappointment when hearing that California had passed Proposition 8. So while America was busy patting each other on the back, self congratulating and generally heralding the dawn of a Brave New World by declaring itself the greatest democracy on earth, the literal same country deduces that those of the lavender persuasion do not merit the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never been for gay marriage- I mean, what happens if it goes wrong- who gets the Madonna collection? How on earth could that be split in court- it is, my dearest of readers, an image too utterly barbaric to picture, let alone live through- but still, it’s a little bit offensive, non? Why should Britney Spears be allowed to get tanked up, marry a bloke she once made out with in the back of an RV one day and get an annullment the next, if I can’t? Surely there should be some equality here?
I am of course being a tad extreme labelling the whole of America as Homophobic twits, and know that it has more to do with, what else but religious extremists, in this case the Mormons donating millions to the ‘cause.’ But I feel I have the right to express my disappointment that people still, in this gay and age, view me, and my lifestyle as unacceptable and that as a fellow human being I am not entitled to be able to share vows with another man purely because I am a pole smoker. A big fat flamer. A friend of Dorothy. A fudge packer. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely the money poured into this campaign might have been better spent, and I’m just throwing this out here, being pumped into homeless problems or to victims of hurricane Katrina for instance, or troops wounded in the Iraq conflicts, or people affected by 9/11?
Now I am all for Barack Obama, and the first Black president, but one has to wonder if me, and my sisters, will ever see one of our rabble in the White House. Or as I like to think of it, The Lavender House. It seems that as Mo’s, we still have a long way to go before we are really accepted in society, and things like this do make you wonder if we are merely being tolerated?
Rant over- next time, I will go back to light heartedness, and will regale all with my tale of falling off the Columbian wagon with my Big Sis when she visited me in London recently.
Since my last blog we have witnessed the historic events of the first black President being elected into The White House, something that I was fully behind. After The US of Gay voting in Bush for a second term, I did have my doubts, but when the final counts came through and I heard the news that Obama had made it, I felt, for the first time from a political point of view, as if justice had finally been served. I think it was a moment for human nature to be proud. Now in America, little black boys and black girls can grow up with the knowledge, more so than ever before that they can do something with their lives. That they can have a voice, and that they can be leaders. Of course, this is not an end to the racism over there, or anywhere for that matter, but let’s hope it is a start. Obama being elected affects us all, and I truly believe he will bring great change to America, and to the world. There were many reasons why he had my support, but the main thing for me was his pledge to pull the Troops out of Iraq. So after work, me and some friends went for a couple of mini bars and raised a glass to Obama.
However, it is funny how such elation could turn to disappointment when hearing that California had passed Proposition 8. So while America was busy patting each other on the back, self congratulating and generally heralding the dawn of a Brave New World by declaring itself the greatest democracy on earth, the literal same country deduces that those of the lavender persuasion do not merit the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never been for gay marriage- I mean, what happens if it goes wrong- who gets the Madonna collection? How on earth could that be split in court- it is, my dearest of readers, an image too utterly barbaric to picture, let alone live through- but still, it’s a little bit offensive, non? Why should Britney Spears be allowed to get tanked up, marry a bloke she once made out with in the back of an RV one day and get an annullment the next, if I can’t? Surely there should be some equality here?
I am of course being a tad extreme labelling the whole of America as Homophobic twits, and know that it has more to do with, what else but religious extremists, in this case the Mormons donating millions to the ‘cause.’ But I feel I have the right to express my disappointment that people still, in this gay and age, view me, and my lifestyle as unacceptable and that as a fellow human being I am not entitled to be able to share vows with another man purely because I am a pole smoker. A big fat flamer. A friend of Dorothy. A fudge packer. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely the money poured into this campaign might have been better spent, and I’m just throwing this out here, being pumped into homeless problems or to victims of hurricane Katrina for instance, or troops wounded in the Iraq conflicts, or people affected by 9/11?
Now I am all for Barack Obama, and the first Black president, but one has to wonder if me, and my sisters, will ever see one of our rabble in the White House. Or as I like to think of it, The Lavender House. It seems that as Mo’s, we still have a long way to go before we are really accepted in society, and things like this do make you wonder if we are merely being tolerated?
Rant over- next time, I will go back to light heartedness, and will regale all with my tale of falling off the Columbian wagon with my Big Sis when she visited me in London recently.
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