[Been rather emotional the past few days...]

Been rather emotional the past few days. I even cried for awhile the other day. I bought a new album, Elton John's Greatest Hits, and the songs touched me a strange way. Here's what it is: they got me thinking about all the hard times that all the homosexuals that have come before me have gone through...all the oppression and such. And I was thinking about how much harder is was back then, in the 70's, than it is now for homo types such as myself. For some reason this made me cry. I guess I was sort of romanticizing what it must have been like back then. The ideas I had in my head were rather poingnant and sentimental. I think it's really sad how much in-fighting there is within the gay community, how much everyone seems to hate everyone else. Especially "flamers": everyone seems to hate them. But it was brave, outspoken flamers who started the gay rights movement, and we all owe alot to them. It's also sad how alot of guys who were a part of all that are still around today, but get very little respect, because they're old, and considered unattractive. Since then I've been feeling a strong affection for those things that are considered to be characteristically "gay", but which are frequently looked down upon, like show tunes, gender bending, drag, etc.

One time I went to go see a documentary about the oldest living lesbian in the world. She was 100 and some odd years old. This was about 6 years ago maybe, so she's most likely dead right now. But she was really active and involved in the gay scence, remarkably open about it, especially for the times that she lived through, like the 30's and 40's. As a special treat, after the documentary was over they actually got the woman on the phone (an old black woman. she was), and sort of set up a speaker phone through the PA system, so we could ask her questions and she would respond. Well, most of the people, when they asked their questions, she couldn't understand a word they said, so the woman who was presenting the thing had to repeat the question. Well, I asked my own question. I forget exactly what I said, but it was something like "I'm really impressed that you were able to be so out of the closet back then. That couldn't have been easy. You were way more out of the closet than I could have been. How did you do that? Like, how did you keep yourself safe and things like that?" Well, the presenter started to relay my confused and jumbled question (much more confused and jumbled than how I paraphrased it above), back to the old lesbian, but she interrupted, saying, "no, no, I heard him." And then she told me her secret, that allowed her to do such amazing things, and to be so brave: "You have to love and respect yourself, and you have to respect other people."

That was it. I felt a little at a loss then; she didn't really answer my question, I thought. But I've often reflected on her advice during times when I felt like my sexual oreintation was coming into focus, or causing problem with the people around me, or causing doubt within myself about my own worthiness and such. It was, to me, really quite powerful, that advice. I don't know how to describe it, but I've always found it quite comforting. Actually, thinking about it now, I feel like crying again (I'm in a public place though, so I'll control myself).

This country seems to be swinging back to the right-wing conservatives, and they're bringing in the gay issue, to rally support against us, so as to tie their facist movement together more solidly, with bonds of mutual hate. I hope, that when life becomes hard for me, and the government and social atmosphere becomes more and more against me and my kind, that I'll have people around, brave homosexual men and woman, who have been there before, and can help me through it.