bebeocho mentioned you on a post
Mar. 10th, 2020 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/3cLKrXh
bebeocho mentioned you on a post “[…]Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable And lightness has a…”
bomberqueen17 i just missed seeing them live in concert and i’m so sad about it. but! that does mean you aren’t QUITE a thousand, if the indigo gals themselves are still kickin around
I don’t know if I can convey to you quite how… I mean any of the context… OK I lied, I don’t remember that song being released, but in 1994 I started as a freshman at a girls’ high school and there was a Gay-Straight Alliance club and they had Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco lyrics on their bulletin board in the hallway, and someone loaned me a CD, and I had literally never heard of being gay before, and there were these two women singing about being queer and I did not know what that meant and I wasn’t, yet, but I wasn’t anything else either (I was really really really ace then, and did not learn the word for that until much much later, so yes I was queer but nobody understood any of it)– anyway. I get that it’s so long ago now that it’s become a cliche and then passed back into acceptability, but.
and then four years later when I went to the UK for a year and I brought with me a bunch of Indigo Girls CDs that I by then owned, and there, I was queer (guess what demisexual means? but I didn’t know that word until at least ten years later so I just thought I’d changed and was confused), but quietly, and it was okay, a few others there were, and it was fine if you were celibate, like priests now, except you’d still get things muttered to you in hallways, but if they found you in bed with a girl, like my then-girlfriend’s mom did when we weren’t even at school but she reported it to the school for some reason, and we spent all of our winter break in isolation waiting to hear if one or both of us would get expelled over something we hadn’t even done at school (and what we were doing was sleeping, it was four in the morning and I was about to leave the country for two weeks and had to catch the early train and my girl was sick and upset and I was just asleep holding her, that was all), but I came down with mono (guess what she’d been sick with, that remains my only STD to this day) and spent a month in the student health center in quarantine and the whole thing blew over by then. And people in the administration said things like some of my best friends are gay and also said but we just don’t know what kind of example it sets and it’s for the best if you two don’t sit with each other in class and certainly don’t take her arm when you walk, that’s too provocative and that sort of nonsense. And they didn’t expel us but I spent the rest of my time at that school having things muttered to me in hallways and once, memorably, on the steps of the Uffizi during a class trip, which was mostly memorable because one of the witnesses later apologized for doing nothing at the time, which in retrospect was brave of an unrelated seventeen-year-old girl.
I don’t think it’s that different now, but I don’t know. I’m so old, Bebe, I’m so old, and it’s so long ago now, and I’ve forgotten things I didn’t ever think I could. I hope it’s different now, but I have a feeling adolescence is a misery no matter what, and worse if you’re Different.
Oh my gosh in my head the track rolled over to Secure Yourself, I don’t even remember the name of the CD but I definitely remember the track order.
fasten up your earthly burdens
you have just begun
bebeocho mentioned you on a post “[…]Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable And lightness has a…”
bomberqueen17 i just missed seeing them live in concert and i’m so sad about it. but! that does mean you aren’t QUITE a thousand, if the indigo gals themselves are still kickin aroundI don’t know if I can convey to you quite how… I mean any of the context… OK I lied, I don’t remember that song being released, but in 1994 I started as a freshman at a girls’ high school and there was a Gay-Straight Alliance club and they had Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco lyrics on their bulletin board in the hallway, and someone loaned me a CD, and I had literally never heard of being gay before, and there were these two women singing about being queer and I did not know what that meant and I wasn’t, yet, but I wasn’t anything else either (I was really really really ace then, and did not learn the word for that until much much later, so yes I was queer but nobody understood any of it)– anyway. I get that it’s so long ago now that it’s become a cliche and then passed back into acceptability, but.
and then four years later when I went to the UK for a year and I brought with me a bunch of Indigo Girls CDs that I by then owned, and there, I was queer (guess what demisexual means? but I didn’t know that word until at least ten years later so I just thought I’d changed and was confused), but quietly, and it was okay, a few others there were, and it was fine if you were celibate, like priests now, except you’d still get things muttered to you in hallways, but if they found you in bed with a girl, like my then-girlfriend’s mom did when we weren’t even at school but she reported it to the school for some reason, and we spent all of our winter break in isolation waiting to hear if one or both of us would get expelled over something we hadn’t even done at school (and what we were doing was sleeping, it was four in the morning and I was about to leave the country for two weeks and had to catch the early train and my girl was sick and upset and I was just asleep holding her, that was all), but I came down with mono (guess what she’d been sick with, that remains my only STD to this day) and spent a month in the student health center in quarantine and the whole thing blew over by then. And people in the administration said things like some of my best friends are gay and also said but we just don’t know what kind of example it sets and it’s for the best if you two don’t sit with each other in class and certainly don’t take her arm when you walk, that’s too provocative and that sort of nonsense. And they didn’t expel us but I spent the rest of my time at that school having things muttered to me in hallways and once, memorably, on the steps of the Uffizi during a class trip, which was mostly memorable because one of the witnesses later apologized for doing nothing at the time, which in retrospect was brave of an unrelated seventeen-year-old girl.
I don’t think it’s that different now, but I don’t know. I’m so old, Bebe, I’m so old, and it’s so long ago now, and I’ve forgotten things I didn’t ever think I could. I hope it’s different now, but I have a feeling adolescence is a misery no matter what, and worse if you’re Different.
Oh my gosh in my head the track rolled over to Secure Yourself, I don’t even remember the name of the CD but I definitely remember the track order.
fasten up your earthly burdens
you have just begun
no subject
Date: 2020-03-10 01:11 pm (UTC)When I first started listening to them, I had no idea they were gay. I had no idea until they played at my (womens') college. Hilarious to me now.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-10 06:40 pm (UTC)When I was told they were lesbians I was like... is that... a thing that's allowed? I had no concept of. Just. Being. You know? I didn't at all get it.
My first reaction was like "oh gosh it can't be 30 years ago" but on reflection, I can't believe that was 30 years ago, I can't believe that it was on a timeline contiguous to this one. I can't conceive of it. It's so distant from where I am now.
And it's extra funny because it's so long since I listened to any of those albums, I'd've said I'd forgotten them, except that if I look up the lyrics I can hear every note of it. I listened to those albums so much, but so long ago I don't remember doing it.
Ha, I guess that's my advice to young people-- memorize a lot of shit, and learn how to do a lot of shit, because in 30 years you will entirely forget having done it and the abilities you'll have will seem miraculous.
But that goes for me now, too. In 30 years when I'm 70, if I practice enough now, I won't remember not knowing how to play the banjo. If I take up tai chi at 50 by the time I'm 80 I won't really remember being a beginner. Right? Isn't that how it works?
no subject
Date: 2020-03-11 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-10 09:11 pm (UTC)