volume one hundred and five
questioning (may contain spoilers)
📍Written in part from The London Writers’ Salon cabin, and in part from my bed as inspiration struck before sleep.
🎤 Upcoming shows:
LIVE PODCAST RECORDING! of My Dad Stole My Limelight at Vancouver Pride Festival on August 6th
Too Funny Stand Up, The Show Cellar, August 15th
Last week was a rollercoaster. ‘Rollercoaster’ is so over-used. Let me try again.
Last week was a long flight, somewhere very exciting you have always wanted to go, with a smooth takeoff during a surreal sunset, and your meal is dropped off before everyone else’s because you are vegetarian and therefore very special, and there is an empty seat between you and the next person, and you have a really good book to read, and the movie you have been wanting to see is part of the inflight entertainment, and there is free wifi, and there is never a line for the toilet… but there is severe turbulence.
In other words, here are the three things you should absolutely not do all in the same week if you are questioning your sexuality.
one.
The moment Ken started soaking in the real world, I felt my body tense up. I knew this was the whole point — to give a tale to the very real patriarchy-filled life we all live and throw it in our faces — but in some kind of reverse. That didn’t matter.
My jaw tightened and my arms folded across my chest — my right hand squeezed the arm of my friend beside me every time Ken opened his mouth. I was pouting. I was irritated. I knew him. I know him. Too many of him. He is the kind of man who will, the moment the opportunity presents itself, choose to get himself ahead in life over the physical or mental well-being of a woman he supposedly cares for.
What was so special about him? Why was I so upset about this? Why couldn’t I see it for what it was and know, especially as a writer, that we have to go through a problem in order to end with a solution in the story?
Why was I distracted from the humour it was being presented in? Why was I so confused and so stuck in a state of anger?
I wanted it to be how it was before Ken messed it all up. I wanted to be back at Barbie’s dreamhouse, the Barbies being anything they wanted to be, with Issa Rae as my president and when every night was girl's night because girls rock and I wish every night was girl's night in my world, too. I wanted to be with the flowing hair and lip-glossed smiles.
I rolled up the top of my popcorn bag and put it at my feet, too intimidated by reality to keep shovelling it into my mouth.
He’s just Ken.
Subscribe for FREE just by typing in your email, there is no need to make an account.
two.
I lept up, throwing myself to the right, my netball skills returned from decades before as if I had never stopped playing. Once I was mid-air, I remembered my feet were enveloped in high heels. I anticipated the landing, hoping for it to be soft to my ankles and knees.
The bouquet fell into my hands above the heads of everyone else. 25 tables. 10 people per table. 250 people at the wedding. That was a lot. Only 5 people got up for the bouquet. That was a lot of people who were not single.
My feet met the dancefloor and I began my celebrations of zero per cent rhythm and one hundred per cent triumph. I had never caught the bouquet before. I won.
The celebration didn’t last long, as the photographer very kindly yet firmly instructed me to step to the side. Not away. Just to the side of the stage where I was to stand and wait. For what? My heart started racing, not from the adrenalin, this was happening because of fear. What was going to happen next? Wasn’t I just going to enjoy the victory?
The MC announced the next part of the evening was going to be the garter toss and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t fun anymore. The joy of the game was silenced by the reaction my entire body felt. I felt so out of place, and so on the spot. Everyone was watching, smiles huge, the music kept playing and everyone excitedly watched for what would unfold.
I told the groom, my dear friend, “You better not do me wrong!” and I laughed, but I hadn’t even looked past him to see who was there waiting. I never did. I still don’t know except for the eventual winner.
This was all for a laugh. I was meant to be having fun, just like everyone else.
So I knew I had to hide my disappointment when it was caught, knowing that my options were all men.
three.
The Boys Are Back In Town started playing. Very loudly. Breaking up the conversations, the people working, the anticipation. It was so loud it almost drowned out the screams of the crowd. Almost.
Electricity flowed from their euphoric mouths and carried over to my ears, burrowing in and venturing down my body to where my feet met the ground. This was a song I knew, a song I loved, a song known from watching men use it as a soundtrack over and over and over.
I knew on the other side of the tall, woven wire fencing covered in green mesh that made anything on the other side invisible, were three humans — who were not men — choosing that song as their entrance.
My voice grew louder, and everything I said became urgent. I was suddenly impatient. This was a group taking the stage, that until that afternoon I had never listened to. Now all I could think about was not missing a moment of them. Whatever was happening on the other side of that barricade, I couldn’t wait to see it.
My legs took over and carried me around the barrier, past security, up rotting paint-peeling stairs, through pockets of people, over discarded plastic cups and into another state of consciousness.
My heart made its beating known. Noisier, harder, magnetised and pounding, attempting to leap out of my chest and onto the stage. The three voices so far away coming from humans beetle-sized to my naked eye, harmonised to the tune of my soul. My skin quivered and I levitated, weightless of everything: stress, curiosity, pain, uncertainty. All gone.
Their voices were like paper aeroplanes, unexpectedly changing course along the way. They thought they were singing to their diehard fans, but boygenius were singing to a person who didn’t know the lyrics but was experiencing an awakening.
Lovely reader, Ken won me over by the end so I don’t need you to ask me about that, okay? It just was never the way the Barbies did.
I’m so grateful to those who read my substack 🧡 because I really love creating it for you. This substack will always be free, however, should you choose to become a monthly paid subscriber of this reader-supported publication, you’d be putting a little tip in my pocket as thanks for the work I put into every post.
🧡🧡🧡 Comments, likes, the chat, shares, listening to my podcast and kind messages are all other ways you can support me, too.
here are three things I struggled with this week:
❤️ Attending a Nigerian-Filipino wedding with a buffet from each family, with strict restrictions from the doctor on what I can eat. I ignored my doctor for the day, and I have no regrets.
🧍♀️Deciding to choose my own happiness over the happiness of others.
🪴 I threw a throw pillow off my bed for sleepy time and hit one of my snake plants and snapped one of her arms and I cannot stop feeling terrible about this.
here are three blessings from this week:
😻 The trust of a cat earned who was shy at first.
🕺 Dancing — at a wedding, alone in my room, in celebration with others, on zoom, as a way to say hello…
👢 Accepting that the three days I had set aside as possible Dollywood visits, are the three days Dollywood has decided to close for some reason. This means another, more special, trip will be planned! Dolly, I AM COMING FOR YOU, just later and in great company instead.
here are three goals for the coming week:
📅 Make time to see people I care about, even for an hour, because before I know it I will be off on another adventure again!
⏸️ Taking life one thing at a time (not one day, not one hour, not one minute) just the next thing. Because there are many, many things right now. Staying present and in the moment.
👐 Embracing the Q in 2SLGBTQIA+ to mean for me not only ‘queer’ but also ‘questioning’ and enjoy the process of constant evolution.
here is something I enjoyed this week:
Have I mentioned how lucky and honoured I am to volunteer with QMUNITY during my summers? What an incredible organisation.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to prepare for my first-ever live podcast show! (AKA fuss over my hair and try on 12 outfits before returning to the first choice). Can you believe it? I still cannot. WOOHOO!
LD
xoxo
“Embracing the Q in 2SLGBTQIA+ to mean for me not only ‘queer’ but also ‘questioning’ and enjoy the process of constant evolution.”
Felt this in my soul! In fact, I felt lots of this in my soul but this made me say “Ooft” aloud and so that’s how you know that I feels it!
Thank you for your words my dear pal!
I love you! 🧡 and CHOOKAS on your first live podcast! ahhhhhhh 🥳