Quiet PRIDE
Even without being exposed to what it meant to be gay or lesbian during my young life, I felt different things. I just didn’t know what to call them. Sometimes I still don’t.
Circa.1980’s
I biked all the way to Safeway with my allowance tucked in my Keds, where my mom said it would be safe. It’s hot as hell. The heat smacks me in the face and steals my breath the minute I step outside. That wasn’t enough to stand between me and my Teen Bop magazine. I was the kind of kid that didn’t play much outside and as I approached adolescence I was happy to shut myself in my room, listen to the radio and write angsty things in my journals. I shared a room with my younger sister, which we divided equally. She wasn’t really into music yet and didn’t care much about what went up on the walls of our room.
I spent Saturdays clipping pictures of my favorite bands and singers with scissors stolen from my mother’s sewing basket and taping them on the wall next to my bed. I had a serious problem though, I was literally running out of room. A rapid migration fueled by fan girl syndrome and too much scotch tape led me to my bedroom door. I papered the inside and the outside, too. My mother looked on in a kind of irritation but didn’t say anything. The satisfaction I got from…
