Lesbian Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Is it because of the food?? Absolutely. But it also has a little something to do with family. Thanksgiving is family. Not just blood family - world family. 

What? What's that? "World Family" sounds hoaky, cliche, and ultra lesbian????? EXACTLY. 

Let me explain.

This Thanksgiving, my family is away. Back in August or September, my Dad said, "Hey, I'll pay for you to go to Calgary or to Olympia for Thanksgiving, if you want." And I said, "Great!" And then I thought about it - Thanksgiving in Canada is in October - so no one would be off, and I'd just be celebrating for myself, and that's just awkward. Olympia was where I spent Thanksgiving in College - I LOVE Thanksgiving in Olympia. However, I wanted to be able to share it with my monkey (since it IS my most favoritest holiday - I was serious). And then, I started wondering who ELSE was around .... 

And I thought of my ex, Lara, who wasn't going to home to the Mid-West. Me, Liz, and Lara for Thanksgiving. Then I discovered my oldest friend in the world, Crystal, had no place to go on Turkey Day, and I invited her too. Crystal's NOT a lesbian, but she might as well be. On an off-chance, I thought of my good friend Josh, who's from Colorado, and doesn't usually go home for the Holidays. Would he like to come over too? Yes, in fact, he was! Josh - also not a lesbian. But he's funny, and he's been friends with me for a long time now, and he might as well be. 

Then, on Friday, Lara calls me. "Can I bring a guest to Thanksgiving?" Lara's been dating a woman in LA for a few weeks now, and I figured she could only mean Susan. So ... this Thanksgiving is going to be Me, my wonderful girlfriend, my wonderful ex-girlfriend, the woman she's dating, my oldest friend who might as well be a lesbian, and my friend Josh who should be a lesbian. 

THE MOST LESBIAN THANKSGIVING EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But all kidding aside, this is the very reason I love Thanksgiving. It's a transient holiday - a holiday where giving is the goal, and generosity is truly king. Christmas is wonderful, and likes to claim these things, but the commercialism that's invaded Christmas doesn't seem to make this true any more. Christmas is very much about family. Thanksgiving, is very much about giving whatever you can, to whomever you can. Don't have anywhere to go? Come over here! Share my turkey, let me cook for you. The best part, is that the meaning is in the name: It's the giving of thanks in as many ways as you can. That's it. And this year, it truly is. And that makes me so very happy!

This will ALSO be my first attempt at COOKING Thanksgiving dinner. It's going to be quite the experiment. Pictures will be taken. Let's just hope I don't burn the house down. 

I'll blog after the event - but I wish you and everyone at your table, whomever they may be, many many happy wishes.  

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My very own Inferno...

For the last two weeks, I worked a retail re-merchandising job inside of a Staples store between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m.* "What is re-merchandising?" You ask. Somehow, I don't think it's performing bizarre acts of manual labor in the wee hours of the morning, but that's what I was doing. For $11.00 an hour. Oh temp work ... how ... awful weird unsatisfying sucky interesting you are. But you know what? It's money. And bear's gotta do what a bear's gotta do.  I've decided that my college diploma doesn't get to be framed until it starts working for me. Until then, it's going to stay in the decorative protective envelope in my closet where it currently belongs; doing me not a lot of good. 

[*I also worked over time, so 4:30 a.m. actually turned into more like 6:00 a.m. most nights of the 2nd week]

Anyway, as I was lifting 60-75 lb. boxes up and down stock ladders, contemplating the shear perfection in which a semi-trained gorilla could do my job, I had often listened to the retail music loop that played every. day. for 10 days. Most of it was totally fine; some of it was even enjoyable. But the other 10% ... the other 10% made my eyeballs cringe and roll backwards in my head, like a Felix the Cat clock gone batty. 

And in the middle of a refrain from "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys, on a night when I was constantly fantasizing about dropping every MADE IN CHINA piece of useless crap on the floor from the top of my ladder - it hit me - I might be in hell. This might be my very own version hell. Which mercifully changed my thoughts from retail destruction to the deep contemplation of songs that, if played in a loop over and over, would almost certainly mean that I was in hell. Because if I believed in hell (which I do not), I would imagine that hell (and consequently heaven) would be specifically made on an individual level. So the songs that would play in my little flame-filled corner of Hell would not (necessarily) be the songs that would play in your little flame-filled corner of hell. Right?  So then ... what songs would play in my hell?

There are 10 - chiefly because, if played in a loop, would inflict the maximum amount of pain and torture. And when the devils and demons wanted to be REALLY sadistic, they'd change the loop order occasionally, just to lure me into a false hope of change, and then WHAM! It would be just another voyage of the 10 most cringe-worthy songs to my person, and the despair would begin anew.

10. Orinoco Flow, by Enya (I don't mind it once or twice, but in a loop? I think I'd despise it.)

9. Two Princes, by The Spin Doctors (An ultra low-spot in an otherwise interesting music decade)

8. Kiss on my List, by Hall & Oates (*gag!*)

7. Sk8ter Boy, by Avril Levigne (every morning in the dorm bathrooms for a semester in college was enough)

6. Everything I Do/Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman/most anything he's ever done, by Bryan Adams (Sorry Canada, he and Avril Levigne are MAJOR lemons on a nearly flawless record)

5. Desert Rose, by Sting (it's a loop in itself...)

4. Follow Me, Uncle Kracker (it verges on offensive, and I don't just mean the lame chord progressions)

3. Moondance, by Van Morrison (I seem to be the only person in the world that thinks this...so I apologize if I offend anyone. But I hate it.)

2. Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden (MAJOR. CRINGE.)

1. American Woman, cover by Lenny Kravitz (no words. only rage.......lots and lots of RAGE)

So there you go. 

My best friend and I once had a very lengthy, and impassioned discussion about the elements that need to be present in a good song. We basically boiled it down to more than 3 repetitive chords, and better lyrics than rhyming "love" and "dove." I think out of the above, the song that actually meets those requirements is Moondance. But it still drives me nuts. (I can't explain it, people ... my hatred is on a purely cellular level.) My gorgeous girlfriend hates Mr. Roboto with a passion, though also can't explain it. She loves Van Morrison, I love Mr. Roboto ... so long as neither song is played at our wedding, I think it'll be okay. 

Okay ... throw some at me!

PS - a song that I'm currently loving?

BAM.

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An Open Letter to Shonda Rhimes

Dear Ms. Rhimes, (may I call you Shonda?)

Firstly, allow me to say I'm a big fan. I think the scripts you continually smith on both Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice are among the best on television; quirky, fresh, and continually empathetic in creative and touching ways. I also think that your shows have been, since their genesis, leaders in diversity - and I cannot tell you what that means to me, personally. There are more actors of various colors on your shows than the rest of prime-time television put together; from your leads right on down to your extras. You've got a veritable human cornucopia of race and ethnicity, and it thrills me to no end!

There is one thing I'd like to say to you - and this isn't a criticism, so much as it's a plea.

Please, please, PLEASE - Shonda, I beg of you - do NOT write off the lesbians. (I mean that literally, I'm not being euphemistic) Do you realize that Grey's Anatomy is the only show on network TV that has a lesbian couple? And not just a lesbian couple - a non-stereotyped, empathetic, interesting lesbian couple. Do you realize how long people like me have waited for this? Do you know how *awful* sifting through 5 seasons of the L Word was?? It was like chewing glass and having to say "Thank you," through the painful lacerations continually opening and re-opening in my mouth, while swallowing at the same time.

I know Jessica Capshaw is away on maternity leave. I love that Callie needs to stay in Seattle, because let's face it, she has a lot to learn. But please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, keep Callie on the Sapphic side of relationships. I'll freely admit that I love Callie and Arizona together - but I'm not going to tell you how to write your show. If Arizona comes back and the relationship picks up again - GREAT. If not, I know for a FACT that Seattle has a HUGE lesbian population for Callie and Arizona to mine. But I don't think my little lesbian heart can take another trip with Callie to Mensville. Especially with (no offense!) the incredible heterosexuality of Seattle Grace ... lots of boy/girl meetings in supply closets, you know? It could be its own drinking game.

So please, Shonda. Do this longing lesbian a solid, and keep Callie on the female side of life. I can't stand another "bi-curious lesbian dalliance" joke made in the past-tense. I just can't.

Oh. And also, thank you for keeping Amy Brenneman on television. I love her a lot, and kudos to you for keeping her working, and televisionally married to Tim Daly. Whom I also love, and am glad he's working too.

This lesbian is for you and your continued success,
The Polar Bear

PS - I apologize for the gross over-usage of the emphatic ALL CAPS. It's ridiculously unruly, but as the science of fonts has yet evolve, it's all I have to work with.

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