And In the Closet I Stay

Despite the fact that I’m obviously a super-huge mega-lesbian, I’m in the closet around most of my family. My family is pretty goddamn conservative, so coming out to them is going to be a rather difficult challenge.

Now, I made a promise to myself (and a few other people) that I would come out to my parents when same-sex marriage is legal in the state of Minnesota. If you’ve been following the news lately or saw my post from a few days ago, you know that Governor Dayton signed into law the bill allowing same-sex couples to marry as of August first.

I am really not ready to come out yet. If that weren’t enough, a recent conversation with my mother left me with the impression that the next time I piss off my parents will result in me losing my truck (it’s technically my brother-in-law’s truck and my parents pay for the auto insurance). Announcing my love of pussy will definitely piss them off. And while I don’t drive much, I still live in an area that basically requires a vehicle if I want to get groceries or leave town.

Yes, it’s a very first-world problem, but it just adds to the pile of reasons I’m staying in the closet. It’s not so bad in here, I suppose. The coats feel nice on my arms and all that.

Number Twelve!

As of 5:00 p.m. CST today, Governor Mark Dayton will sign into law the bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota. This makes Minnesota the twelveth state in the Union to allow same-sex couples to marry. The law will take effect on August first of this year.

WOOHOO! We did it, everybody!

Lovely Weather We’re Having, Eh?

Seriously, it’s just about 60°F (so 15°C, give or take). I am so flippin’ stoked, you don’t even know.

So I’ve been working a lot lately, but not enough to excuse the lack of updates. At the end of April, there’s going to be a poetry slam at the coffeeshop down the street. There’s usually one every few months during the school year, and I actually might participate this time. A while ago, I wrote a vent-y letter to my mother (unsent, of course), and I want to turn that into something. I’ll keep you updated.

When It Rains, It Pours

About a month ago, I had the opportunity to work at McDonald’s. I ended up sleeping in/suffering a mild catatonia/being too depressed to get out of bed/being too lazy to get up on my first day.

That same day, I got a call from Taco del Mar. I hadn’t even applied to work there, but the owners of that franchise also owned the Subway franchise a few blocks down, and had gotten my application from there. I interviewed and a few days later, was notified that I would be starting the next week (for reference, that was this past week).

The same week that I started working at Taco del Mar, I got a call from ShopKo asking to schedule an interview for the following Wednesday. I interviewed there yesterday and I am expecting to hear back from them tomorrow.

And then TODAY, my manager from Taco del Mar called me and asked if I’d like to pick up some hours at the Subway I’d initially applied to. She’ll be giving my number to that manager, and I’ll hear from her either today or tomorrow.

Let me get this straight, universe: for like, two years I couldn’t find a job to save my life, and now that I finally have one, you’re offering me a zillion more?!? Well, I guess I can’t complain.

An Awful Comedy Fan

Well this is embarrassing to admit. I’m normally so good with faces — and yet it took me months to be able to pick out one of my dear friends from a crowd, but anyway.

Concerning the men of Monty Python, I can’t match up names with faces. There, I said it. It’s the same with the Beatles — except for Paul. And with the Pythons, I can pick John Cleese and (after several years) Eric Idle.

Is it their Britishness or do I need to make flash cards or something?

Aaand You’re Out.

On Friday, I went to a meeting with my CSP (Community Support Program) worker to appeal my suspension from university. I fucked up again and didn’t finish as many credits as I was supposed to. The point of the meeting was for me to convince a slew of professors that I wouldn’t fuck up again. Considering this was my second time appearing before them, I had a hard time getting them to believe me.

I wasn’t totally surprised, then, when I was told after some deliberation that I would not be reinstated; upset, obviously, but not surprised. So I don’t have to go to class tomorrow! Or at all this semester, because I’m technically not a student right now.

To be honest, I don’t mind all that much. Lately, school has just been an expensive source of anxiety, and a few months away from that will save me a lot of money and headaches. Plus, this way I can work full-time or have the free time to finally get back to writing, or doing my little craft projects, or whatever.

Today I applied for a few jobs online – pretty much all the fast food restaurants in town. Tomorrow, I’m going to pound the pavement downtown and see what I can find. Since I’ve already applied at seven different places (eight, if you count both Subways in town), I’m hoping that I’ll get at least one offer.

I Resolve To…

I am not being modest when I say that I’m quite the fuck-up. Other folks with ADHD can probably relate. It’s probably one of the reasons I like making New Year’s resolutions; it gives me a bit of hope that this year is the year. Of course it never happens, but a gal can dream, can’t she?

What follows are a handful of things I’d like to do (or avoid doing) in 2013.

1) Lose my virginity. This was one of my resolutions for 2011 and for 2012, and it’s one of the many that I failed to accomplish. I’m still a bit hung up on the whole my-virginity-is-something-special thing I had hammered into my head as I was growing up. I’ve wanted to lose it for a few years now, but in the last one I’ve gotten less picky: I want my first time to be with a gal who’s experienced, but not too much to make me feel intimidated.

2) Come a few more steps out of the closet. I haven’t told my parents yet that I’m a lesbian. Even my granny on my mother’s side told me, “They probably know already,” but I haven’t gotten the nerve to tell them yet. I also haven’t officially come out to my older sister or her husband. I made an attempt last Christmas, but that’s a story for another time. I’ve got a handful of cousins and aunts and uncles to talk to as well, but the most daunting people are my parents and my paternal grandparents.

3) Come out as an atheist to a relative. Most of my immediate and extended family knows that I’m displeased with the Church, but the only person outside of my college bubble that I’ve told I’m an atheist is my half-sister’s half-sister. Coming out of this closet scares the everliving shit out of me, hence the one-person goal. This is the kind of shit I’m gonna lose family over.

4) Update the blog weekly.

5) Write daily.

6) Finish one semester of college without dropping out of or failing a single class.

7) Maintain employment for at least three months. The longest I’ve had a job is six weeks. I need to be able to pay rent.

8) Do three hours of yoga every week. Obviously I’ll spread this out over the week.

9) Visit France. The French department at the college is going on a three-week trip to France in the spring. You have no idea how badly I want to go.

10) Maintain a motivational reward system for myself. Yes, like the charts in grade-school classrooms. That’s what I get for being born without a decent capacity for self-regulation. I’ve already made up my own.

Here’s hope, eh?

Molar Oral; or, Why I Wish I Could Get Dentures

While I was growing up in the lower middle-class/upper working-class income bracket, going to the dentist wasn’t a high priority in my family. Hell, I only went to the doctor’s office if I was too sick to walk. That situation, combined with alleged bad genetics on my mother’s side, left me with a mouth full of not-so-great teeth. They look OK: they’re straight, I never had braces or a retainer, and they’re kinda white. When I went to the dentist this spring, however, I found out that I have at least four cavities in my mouth. I’ve never been told by a dentist that I don’t have cavities.

One of those cavities I’ve had for nearly ten years. When I was twelve (which, until about a year ago, was one of the last times I’d gone for a check-up), the dentist told me I had a cavity in one of my molars on the lower left side of my mouth. The odd this about this molar, though, was that it was a deciduous tooth (that is, a baby tooth) without a permanent tooth to replace it. This is probably one of the few times a dentist has said, “Now unfortunately, you won’t need braces.” If I’d needed braces, the tooth would’ve been pulled right then and let my crooked-ass teeth fill in the gap; since I didn’t, I’d need to get an implant to prevent — you know, I don’t even remember. My mother figured that surgery to that extent would be too expensive and too time-consuming for someone my age. So, since the molar was going to be sticking around for a while, the dentist filled the cavity with a silver filling instead of the temporary stuff they usually use on baby teeth.

So I’m twenty-one years old and I still have one of my baby teeth. Since I had dental insurance through my mother for about a year and now I’m on state medical assistance, I’ve been able to keep up with dental check-ups. Last week, I was supposed to have a check-up at the dentist’s office a few blocks from my house. Unfortunately, it turns out that the town I live in seems to be the only town in the entire fucking state of Minnesota that doesn’t have an in-network dentist’s office — for fuck’s sake, there is an oral surgeon’s office literally FEET AWAY from my house! Fortunately, my hometown is nearby, and my old dentist accepts MA.

The reason I’m writing this now, I suppose, is because I need to get this fucking baby tooth pulled. For a few years, it didn’t bother me at all. It’s always been a bit loose, but lately it’s been almost loose enough to pull out myself. In addition, it’s been aching off and on for around five years, and for the last few months it’s been more on than off. I’ve been chewing almost exclusively with the right side of my mouth for the last week. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m calling the dentist tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Please Don’t Vote Yes

This four-day weekend is my fall break from university, so my mother requested that I return home for a few days. One reason was because of an anniversary party for my brother-in-law’s parents, held today in a town about fifty miles south of my parents’ home in rural southwestern Minnesota. I was noticeably femme’d up for the occasion, so I got a few compliments from people and my mother kept passive-aggressively trying to hook me up with a young co-worker from her seasonal job. Anyway, onto the reason for this post.

We took two different routes to the party: on the way there we drove through a few towns, and on the way back we took more back roads. I saw fourteen “Vote Yes on the Marriage Amendment” lawn signs today.

 

In case you’re unaware, a proposed amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution is being voted on by the general public this November. Its aim is to super-ban same-sex marriage in the state of Minnesota; that is, to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. It’s already illegal for gay couples to marry here, and if this amendment is to pass, the future of marriage equality in this state is pretty grim.

 

I saw a “Vote Yes” sign for the first time a few weeks ago, and I’ll be honest, I let out a few sobs (to be fair, I hadn’t taken my meds that morning either). I ought to be used to it by now, but it still hurts to be reminded that such hatred against people like me exists.

 

I’m just glad my parents don’t have a “Vote Yes” sign in their yard.

I’m not dead…

I’ve been absent from this little project lately, but I’m still here. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t, though.

So I’ve started my sixth semester in college, and sadly, it may be my last. Last semester, I was put on academic probation, and I haven’t been able to get my completion rate up to a satisfactory level yet. And so far, this semester’s not looking good.
I kinda had to pick my spring classes at the last minute, since my loan didn’t go through until November, a whole month late. So I’m taking Modern Grammar, Creative Non-Fiction Workshop, Cultural Anthropology, Novel-Writing, and Intermediate French II. I barely squeaked into the online non-fiction shop, but I got in! And I haven’t done any of the work yet. I thought grammar was one of my required courses, but it’s showing up on my DARS as an elective. I have two friends in anthro, and I haven’t done much online work, but I feel like I can catch up in that.

My main problem is the novel workshop. Since it’s a five-week in-class/five-week online class, we’ve been given those five weeks to write a summary of our novels, then a detailed outline, and then the first 20000 words — fortunately, Professor Smith scaled it back to 15000 for those of us falling behind.
I’ve finished about an eighth of my novel’s summary and I’ve done nothing for the detailed outline, let alone the novel itself. In addition, I haven’t analysed any of my classmates’ work either.
Last Thursday, Smith took me aside and told me that I am really behind. Yesterday, I got an email from him, reminding me. He told that I should consider withdrawing from the class. If I withdraw, my completion rate drops even farther, and I get suspended. If I stay the course, I have an almost zero chance of passing, which results in my completion rate dropping farther and, you guessed it, getting suspended.

Tomorrow I meet with my counselor. Here’s hoping she can help, huh?