My Carbon Footprint

I have quite small feet, corresponding to my small stature. A website has worked out my impact on our environment to be smaller than the average carbon guzzler. I admit I’m not environmentalist really. But according to this website I’m not a bad citizen.

I’m a vegetarian; I get the bus, walk, cycle or get the train everywhere (unless I’m at home, where I make up for the hours spent in the rain waiting for the bus by whizzing about at speed). I recycle glass and paper, and considering the amount of alcohol I drink, that is lots of glass. My current living space is terribly well insulated (to the point of killing my herb plants).

This environmentally friendly living isn’t too bad, as long as I don’t have to commute for too long in the cold and rain. I don’t mind recycling, as long as it doesn’t take much time. I have been a vegetarian for years, so the cows are safe.

My only problem is that I fly. Lots. Yes, yes, it’s very bad. But I’m not a big fan of boats, and I do live on an island, and have to study in the middle of another island. I think the new airline taxes should be variable. I’m so good for most of the time, VERY good. So why should I pay expensive airfares for my guilty trips home?

Taxes for most things depend on how much money you have. It makes sense then that environmental taxes are variable, according to your carbon footprint.

Not that the government ministers who fly lots and lots and claim it back as expenses care about my walks in the rain, my time spent cramped in a bus or trying to work a cycle lock....

Smoochy Much?

I won't let February 14th pass totally ignored. I could make you all sick by detailing the lovely day that I had, but that isn't like me. For the nosey among you, I woke up in the arms of my lovely, went to a few boring lectures, had a luxury dinner cooked for me, and went to a comedy night as part of Leicester Comedy Festival.

For the bitter singletons, it's not too late to send an Anti-Valentine's to others like you.

Yes, it's commercialised, materialistic, couple-centric and a waste of money. I know. But it's a good excuse to get spoilt when Christmas has past and your birthday is a few months away yet.

Flowers are still the most pointless gift ever though.

Replaced By A Puppy

Regular readers will know about my issues with my parents discovered that their daughter is a rug muncher. An update on the situation is a little too depressing. Ranting abounds, but only at sporadic intervals (usually when I least expect it). I’m still being urged to change my sinful ways, I’m still not the cherished daughter they knew and loved. I’m still a lesbian (if a slightly irregularly blogging one – sorry).

My dog, a beautiful Yorkshire terrier I grew up with, pass away in January. He lived a long and fulfilled 18 years, experiencing as much love as 2 children and parents could bestow upon his little ginger whiskers. Not living at home, it hasn’t fully hit me yet, but no doubt it will.

In reaction to this shocking (but not unexpected) event, my parents have indulged their wishes in buying a terribly cute Yorkshire terrier puppy. Aside from my slight annoyance that they bought a puppy after I’d moved to university, I am happy. A puppy! A little miniature doggy to love and take for walks and cuddle and feed (and clean up after, and pay for….)

Needless to say my parents are benefiting, as every dog owner does, from it’s unconditional love and general cuteness. Yes, indeed, it’s quite replaced me. Their every thought is of it’s needs. Phone calls are filled with it’s daily activities and they are training it to behave itself better than their daughter ever could.

Not that I’m jealous of the dog. He is after all terribly cute (see picture), and it’s not his fault – he couldn’t choose his owners, in the same way I couldn’t choose my parents.

But surely there is a better way to replace me than with a dog? What are they trying to say?

Northern Ireland: Insular Evidence

Many people assume that Northern Irish people are joking about how insular our wee country really is. They imagine knowing everyone in your town or school is simply a metaphor for being quite sociable. No, really. It’s true.

In Leicester, people with my dulcet tones are few and far between. Indeed, I’ve only come across 4 Ulster people. That’s not many I know, but considering the University I go to is off the beaten track for most N. Irish people, and while popular in England, I was the first person to go to it from a school with 90% of pupils continuing into further education.

The estate agent that showed us our future house for September 2007 was from a small country town called Cookstown – and went to school with my cousins, my uncle was his doctor. A student I served at the bar in the Student’s Union was babysat by my Godmother. A male student I met on the plane on the way back after Christmas was in a French A Level class with my gay best friend in another country town, Omagh. A girl who sings in my choir from Belfast, her best friend from home has played the organ for me at a church service a few years back.

Maybe I’m just well networked or something, but that can’t be normal. With a population of 1710300 are we all related? Can we ever escape the ties of our wee country?

One Shoe Only

I’ve recently discovered that while many people have no problem with gay people, they do have a problem with gay people in relationships (with other gay people). I’ve had some individuals who I would have counted as friends go right off me as soon as I entered into relationships. I know people who are acquaintances that have no problem with my sexuality – but they still won’t ask about the other half.

Like they’ve just realised what being gay actually entails, they suddenly remember a vague feeling of disgust as same sex relationships. One lesbian is fine, but two? I don’t think they mean to be hypocritical, I am happy to understand that some people find it hard to adjust to seeing two women together, but I do find it difficult to understand why it’s easier to accept a lesbian singleton.

Akin, to the lesbian repulsion at bisexuals - we are generally fine with them when they want to date the female sex, but as soon as they get a boyfriend they are frozen out of our social circles quicker than Birdseye’s fish fingers. In the same way a group of embittered singletons will say their close friend ‘changed’ when they found a partner and settled down into a ‘boring’ relationship, that we’d all rather like for ourselves.

Is it just an excuse not to remember your own loneliness, or are heterosexual’s inherent homophobes, whose thin veil is lifted only when faced with actual homosexuality.

Being Out...

Is over-rated. It hasn’t changed the quality of my life greatly. It hasn’t changed my friends. It hasn’t changed anyone’s attitudes to me, or has it made me a better gay.

Especially when you are a teen, coming out seems to be the Holy Grail, something to aspire to and prepare for. I know it was something I really wanted – the opportunity to be honest and not have to lie. Having come out, I’m still not telling the whole truth to my mother. Nor do I think it would be a terribly good idea.

Many gay people, and in particular gay young people, are put under much pressure to come out. My advice is, put simply, ‘Don’t’. It’s not something to rush in to, it’s not probably not going to make things easier or better, and it’s not necessarily going to change anything.

No fireworks, no cheers, no orchestral accompaniment or birds singing everywhere I go. A beam of sunshine doesn’t follow me. People’s heads don’t spin round as a flounce past with an obvious spring in my step.

Life is pretty average really – in or out. Same difference overall.

LGBT History Month

It’s February, which I hope you have noted. That means you can turn over the page on your Angelina Jolie/L Word calenders if you have forgotten thus far. It’s also LGBT History Month, which, in my opinion, you should also note.

I’m no expert on LGBT history, but despite what some rampant Christians say, it’s obvious that our prevalence and contribution to history has been great. From the Stonewall riots to Sappho, more and more we are having the non text book side of history told.

LGBT History Month claims to want to put an end to the legacy of silence that has dogged the history of the gay community, and gay history makers:

Now it’s time we began to deal with the legacy of silence. This is not only in the interests of LGBT people but of our whole society. Silence breeds ignorance and distorted imaginings. From these come, at best, embarrassment; at worst, hostility and hate crimes.

Not too much to add to that really, check out the website at http://www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/ and have a browse of the past, join in some of the events and tell your friends.

We can only hope it improves the future.

Something Kinda Ooooh.

I try very hard to seem like the hardened dyke I try to appear. I regard girl bands with a keen suspicion and sceptical eye. I shun reality television that doesn’t provide me with a nice lesbian. I will stand in a gay bar, soberly, not dancing. A few drinks sorts that particular issue out.

I desperately try to pretend the music they play in gay bars is not really to my taste. It’s just for all the fags… But secretly I love it. I really love it. I’m a total camp queen about music. Although I hasten to add I have a wide and varied taste, honest.

Queen to Scissor Sisters, The Communards to Erasure, right through to girly bands like Girls Aloud – I love it all. My toes are frantically tapping and the tune, and every single word, is thundering through my brain like a queen dashing to the dance floor.

I’ve tired correctional therapy – but even Ta Dah on repeat couldn’t sour me of ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’. I admit it, I do, I do feel like dancing like a drunken lemming in pants that are burning. I am guilty of performing the arm-in-the-air-wiggle-and-woo before diving head first into a taxi. The demon alcohol only causes me to loose my inhibitions and openly enjoy camp feasts

I shyly download giga bytes of my guilty pleasure, and wiggle in my seat as I play it.
I suspect other lesbians feel the same, for when soberer than normal, I witnessed that same glazed look in sober lesbians. We are all conditioned; we happily listen to KD Lang and various other women with guitars. All the while pining for something with maracas and a snare drum.