This is a picture of the sign my bigoted neighbors in PA put in their yard when they realised that me and my girlfriend were moving out and the neighborhood children were safe from the sinful proximity of lesbians. We snuck into their yard and took this picture on our way out of town.
From something I wrote a while ago:
I used to hate people. When I was sixteen and living in my truck I would climb the big snow piles on the side of the road in the 6PM darkness and watch rush hour traffic. I’d look at the people and picture them going home to warm houses behind white picket fences that I could never cross. There would be a warm dinner with a meat, vegetable, and starch and they would sit around clean tables passing the peas and talking about school and work. Inconsequential things that they could claim as lives by virtue of their lucky births. I would sit in the snow watching them until I couldn’t feel my hands or feet or even my face and thighs. When I went back to the truck I’d turn on the heater and my flesh would thaw like liquid fire, frozen nerves coming back to life. That’s how much I hated those people behind the white picket fences.
I imagine that’s how people who hate me feel. People who keep their children away in case the lesbianism or the whorishness is contagious. They probably sit behind their white picket fences torturing themselves with my freedom while they grow their hatred. Unfortunately in my mind they are the same people. In my mind that woman who introduced me to her family as a whore reformation in process, her latest pet project, and went on about my sluttishness all night probably went home to a warm house behind a white picket fence and had a perfect life full of denial.
In my mind they’re all mixed up, the people who hate me and the people I used to hate. It goes full circle and creeps back in, so that even though I thought I was way beyond that I guess I still think I’m better than Them. Because there has to be a Them, doesn’t there?
you are better.
and there’s an us. talking to you last night was lovely, us.
forget it, you’re real, people like that are never real and are in the struggle of trying to find their real identity which is why they turn and they feel unified and justified in their hate. It helps them define themselves as something even if it’s bad or ignorant.
no matter who you are or how you grow up tara hate is a common problem that unfortunately gets ingrained in us from an early age only to take a lifetime to learn to ignore it and rise above such sillyness . so see your only normal after all lol!it takes all the colors of the rainbow to make life interesting !
no matter who you are or how you grow up tara hate is a common problem that unfortunately gets ingrained in us from an early age only to take a lifetime to learn to ignore it and rise above such sillyness . so see your only normal after all lol!it takes all the colors of the rainbow to make life interesting
You don’t have to hate them. I know I’m probably one of the people who looks like them, too. It’s not easy being a suburbinite, working for eight hours a day so you can pay your bills on time so you can go to work again, just so that the little leftover money you have can go towards making your dreams come true.
I think ambitions are great, but they can kill freedom. I could have lived with my parents and had thousands of dollars from my job to just blow on fun stuff, but I decided to be “on my own”, so now most of my money goes towards rent. I can’t do much of anything because I’m tied down to my home, my car, blah blah blah. I know these things sound trivial, and I could probably live without them, but I don’t know how I’d be able to handle it.
You’re very lucky you know who you are, where you’re going, and what your goals are. It’s not that easy for some of us suburbinites. A lot of us are just trying to live the way we know how.
Their loss, the morons.
Reading your blog is like sitting crosslegged around a flickering warm campfire of independence and brilliance.
(yes, really)
That’s just god-awful. You need to move to a different state. Really.
I think what the good life looks like is different to all of us. Coming home to a nice hot dinner (well, once I cook it) is something comforting and important to me. I spent years of my life wishing I could “leave it all behind” and strike out on my own, etc. Then, at some point, I realized that I like certainties, stabilities, etc. I am not wired for an unpredictable existence, as inspiring and exciting to think about as I find it. But I do not reform whores (indeed, there are plenty of people who probably think of me as one!), and I think everyone should live the way that makes them feel happy and comfortable, whether it be in a van or behind some white picket fence that I may never be able to afford.
Also, hi. I think this is my first time commenting here. I started reading when Susie Bright pointed your way.
My feelings, for what they’re worth. No, there doesn’t have to be a “them.” All that hate comes from not understanding some basic truths. Attacking hate is like scratching at a blackfly bite. It doesn’t help and you’re going to keep getting more until you do something about the root causes.
Peter
PA is a weird, weird state. It’s mid-Atlantic; the site of the writing of the most successful revolutionary document in human history, and most of its population is backwards as fuck (not what I tell my American History classes, but it’s pretty close). Damn, girl–pictures like this provoke a genuinely visceral reaction; I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to be on the receiving end of one of these displays. I wouldn’t have left quietly, that’s for certain. We have limited time and limited energy–like I said, I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to bear witness to such an act of personal vendetta–but just *look* at them. Christ, what ego, to be so deluded that such a sentiment is in any way a valuable (or spiritual) use of their time. I pity people like this. And with that, I’ll cease my blogging on your blog.
Peter. That was sarcasm. But thanks for the lecture anyways.
Never fails … ignorant people love advertising their lack of knowledge, as well as couth & tolerance to boot. I’ve enjoyed my trips to PA, but I can see where that would sour me to a place pretty rapidly. Anyway, Tara, screw them, right?
I knew there was a reason I didn’t live there anymore!