TWENTY TWENTY HINDSIGHT

So long 25. What an interesting year you’ve been.

Election Night
Now that was a party. We danced, we cried, we waited in the cold to get into the bar for most of it. Months of hard work—all the witty jokes about Palin’s Eskimo pie, marching with the Obama contingent at North Carolina Pride to better peep potential life partners on the sidelines—it all paid off. There was the time we skipped work to watch Arcade Fire play for free in the Town Commons while brown-bagging Sparks and congratulating ourselves for living here, not just America, but Carrboro, a place even Canadians love. After the show we all went to the bar to drink domestic beer and congratulate ourselves again over what just happened, what we had just seen, what we had just done for Him, not for Jesus, but for Obama. Later we went to the afterparty, just a few of us, drinking more cold beer and asking Regine questions, important questions, questions no one else has probably asked her, like where did you get those boots? It was worth all the the bumper stickers that January morning when snow fleeced the East Coast and people flooded into the capital to see Aretha’s hat on the jumbo tron while blowing on their hands and wishing they had stayed in Connecticut and watched it on the couch. This was an especially important day for my family, immediate and extended. My mother may be a little disappointed that the Bash Bush Bashes she hosted for the last eight years are no more, but she’s pretty sure the renewal of civil liberties are worth it. My grandmother, an octogenarian fireball who spends her time gambling in Jersey City, signing petitions, and sending the findings of her closets to her children and grandchildren (e..g half-dead pens, rosary beads, decade-old postcards), couldn’t make it to DC, but she sent a contribution to my aunt who did attend: a box of Depends. Yes, that was one exciting snow day. We got to the bar at 11 in the morning, left when Erin M. got cut off at two in the afternoon, and went back late for a fancy dance party. On the way home, I slipped on some ice or maybe on my liver and smashed my face open and spit my front tooth on the sidewalk. I couldn’t eat, drink, or brush my teeth for a couple days, but I would sacrifice a tooth for our handsome new president anytime.

Equal Rights
The tide seems to be tiding toward gaydom. California denied the fags and faggettes the right to marry, but a bunch of other less important states realized that gay marriage will fix the economy. Who has more money than gays? Republicans, but gays still have a lot. Look at how many records Barbara Streisand has sold. The gays have waited forever to get hitched. When you’ve patienced this long, you’re not going to shotgun that shit. You want it all—the wedding planner, the tux(es), the destination, the hyphenated last name. Fuck the stimulus package. It’s all about samsie sex marriage. And while I’m theoretically glad to the whole gays-are-human thing is catching faster then Swine Flu, I’m actually a little disappointed. I like being oppressed. I like telling people that I’m a lesbian seperatist, which isn’t actually true but makes me feel like it’s okay if I forget to shave my legs every once in a while. And as much as I appreciate that my mom gets pleasure out of texting me with gay marriage updates (e.g. “gehys kn mrry n main! kl!”), it makes me feel kind of guilty when she says things like “I’ve got big plans for the garden. Maybe you can get married at home one day.” How does one say, “Mom. I’m never getting married. I’m never gestating. Any girl willing to marry me probably needs a green card. You want to talk gay marriage, I want to talk gay boobs.” I’m also afraid this is going to encourage straights to refer to their legally sanctioned husbands and wives as their “partners.” You people have everything. Do you need our oppression too?

Athletics
As dear Jenny W. used to chant over the bar, I finally became One Of Us. I caught Tar Heel flu pretty hard, although I pretty much talk through the first 43 minutes of the basketball games and pay attention only long enough to holler at the end. I did listen to the last quarter of the Villanova game on the radio, which is basically devotion to the max. But even though Tyler Hansbrough is the cutest special giant in the NCAA and I love nothing better than watching drunken co-eds set bonfires in street, I was maybe the sole resident of Orange County, NC who woke up without a hangover after the ball dropped because I stayed home to Tweet about Gossip Girl. It was a decision not based on a of lack of desire, but a fear of leaving my house due to previous Bad Decisions and Terrible Mistakes that finally caught up to me like a bad case of herpes. That shit was not good for my Fear of Missing Something Syndrome. I get weepy just thinking about it.

Romance
The best part of my 25 year was a gift from Craig’s List. I was the recipient of two Missed Connections, neither of which I responded to, but was, none the less, a little flattered and a little creeped. The second Missed Connection, said something about the Ramona Quimby tattoo on my arm, and inspired the following response from an anonymous w4w: The girl with the Ramon Quimbley tattoo is everywhere and she’s shady. Don’t bother. Now shady I get, but “Ramon Quimbley?” Seriously? Did your parents not read to you as a child? That’s just sad. Speaking of Craig’s List, no LTR this year. When I moved to Carrboro two years ago, I thought that all I would have to do is say, “Yeah, I just came from Portland,” and the girls would jump my shit like fruit flies on a nanner. Wrong. My chance of finding a boo here—or maybe anywhere–decrease every time I write this blog, but the comments are worth it.

But it’s all over now. As Kirk R. said, I am now looking down the barrel to my 30s. And even though my liver looks forward to the year my birthday involves a quiet dinner at home and maybe some mommy/mommy time instead of a lap dance and a WUI, I realized yesterday that if my friends in their 30s and 40s are any example, sometimes maturity just doesn’t take.