gay EXPLOSION

oh hi. guess what, invisible readers? i'm QUEER!

you probably already knew that, but writing it on a public blog feels so liberating because today is my

COMING OUT TO THE FAMILY DAY!!

here's the story...

my family is not okay with the gays. growing up, my dad would change the channel whenever anything slightly gay came on tv. he would say "ahh, that's disgusting." he swore he'd never watch another robin williams movie after the birdcage came out (tehe). we boycotted disney in like 1999 because gay people work there (or something)...that level of homophobia. they are 100% christian, conservative, midwestern...i'm actually not sure they've ever (knowingly) met a queer person. defintely unaware that the gays are among us. they are among us (creepy scary music).


well. at one point i considered never telling them at all...i knew it would make them sad, etc. and we live miles and miles away anyway...and i wasn't dating anyone, and excuses excuses blah blah blah.

lately though, i've been able to come up with fewer reasons not to tell them. and it's become a heavier burden as time goes on...and i have no shame and guilt about it. whatever--i just didn't need that albatross 'round the neck (i'd rather have it tattooed on my arm...coming soon). so for the good of myself, the good of the movement, and (ultimately) for the good of my parents, i decided to suck it up and out myself.

my first idea was to send them a big cake that said "i'm gay!" short, to the point, funny...and you get to eat the cake! cake softens the blow. if you ever have something difficult to tell me, it will be better received written on a cake.



shipping a cake to ohio seemed tricky. plus i don't think they would have appreciated the thought. so i decided on letters. one for mom, one for dad, one for 15-year-old sis. gave myself a deadline, wrote the letters, and dropped them in one of those blue mailboxes monday so i couldn't change my mind and dig them out. or at least it'd be really difficult too.

so all week i've been waiting. imagining worst case scenarios. biting nails. not sleeping. etc.

luckily i've been housesitting this week for one of my coworkers in my dream house with a front porch, wisteria, a sauna, and chickens! it's been peaceful. i've been smoking many a tragic cigarette on the porch. sharing my woes with the chickens.

yesterday i was sauna-ing and contemplating how i could convince kate to let me have her house...i came upstairs, checked my phone, and there is was: shit hitting fan.

my mom is kind of a mess, predictably. she's texting me with all sorts of questions and says she loves me, which is great. she also says this was the last thing she EVER expected to hear from me (wow...really? the last thing? the hairy legs, short hair, facial piercings, feminist politics, not dating men thing didn't tip you off even a teeny bit?). she wasn't ready to phone talk, but my phone was blowing up with texts all night. she says dad is calmer, which can't be good...leo/virgo cusp. yikes. and claudia hasn't been home to read her letter, which they might not give her, which is a bad decision on their part, which they'll realize on their own so i'm not too worried. claudia mad at mom and dad = maybe an extra point for me.

so all evening i had this crazy, unpredictable energy. at one point i was trying to make myself eat and i dropped a salsa jar on the kitchen floor. it shatter and exPLODed everywhere. all over. so i screamed and swore a lot and stripped off my salsa clothes down to my underwear and had to take EVERYTHING out of the fridge to clean it and walk outside to the garbage can in my underwear and it was terrrrribllleeeee.

but then i drank half a bottle of wine and felt better.

then i convinced of my friends who were feeling bad for me to come gay it up at changes karaoke night, where they love me and gave me free whiskey and told me how proud they were and said i did a good job singing "i think we're alone now."

a night out in the gayborhood and a hangover later, i'm a million times better.

and now that cat's out of the bag, i can tell EVERYONE! so spread the word and get ready for this blog to get gayer. i can write whatever i want.

like, about pretty ladies!

and...how i just bought the gayest flannel there ever was (see below).



and how i'm going to doula for a queer couple in july! lesbian babies!

and how much fun pride is gonna be.

any goddamn GAY thing i want to write about.

thanks to everyone who's supported me. thank you, urban family. thank you, boss and coworkers. thank you, malinda. thank you, changes, seattle's best gay bar. i love you all.

seek and ye shall find

"you will find it soon becca and it will look different than you expected."

if you are the mystery person who sent me this cryptic text on sunday, i'm very intrigued. like, very super intrigued.

perhaps you aren't a person at all, but just phone spam, although it doesn't appear so.

perhaps you were talking about something i actually lost, like...that old bike key. or all of the april tour deposit receipts at work. or that amazing christian coloring book page i had hanging in my room.

i found it in my house. this shit is authentic, from my childhood and everything. it was a drawing of a little boy with a cross on his t-shirt and weird boots, scratching his head. beside him were three pictures: a church, a hospital, and joe's bar. the heading of the page was: "which is the bad place? color it black!" it was absolutely perfect and i wanted it forever. and now *sniffle*...gone. not replaceable. i have been trying not to get upset about it and focus on not being attached to material items and how i will always have that image in heart. (but i'm still upset about it, actually.)

anyway...i guess i wouldn't mind finding something i've already lost. but if that's the case, i hope it looks how i expect. otherwise, it may no longer be of value to me.

perhaps you are just playing a 'lil trick on me. or you thought i would enjoy the fortune from your fortune cookie.

OR

my favorite possibility

is that you are elaborately scheming. that this is part one of a scavenger hunt. that there are more clues to follow. clues that will lead to wonderful, magical, unexpected things!

if this is you and this is what you're up to, here are some ideas on how to end said scavenger hunt:









just sayin'.

wafflehome

my favorite thing from the store comment box today. i want you all to really think about this and take it personally:

i like your style. thanks for being here today.

mercury report: personally, my distaster preparedness was fairly effective. i lost my keys once for a few hours. and had a few communication hiccups. it was everyone else who seemed to have a shitty time. sicknesses, stress, family deaths...bad things. but it's over. for the time being.

of course, plenty of good things happened. babies wearing eggplant hats. leading a giant group hokey-pokey. dancing around an illegal firepit for beltane. napping in my overalls on a boat. freckles emerging. april teaching me the best way to eat a strawberry (which i've been telling everyone). drag kings. grilled pineapple. the stuff summer's made of...

i just had a high school gal job shadow me. me!? i wonder if she really aspires to be a retail manager. she doesn't seem super passionate about...anything, actually. she asked me what i would do differently if i could start my career path over again. i said, more or less, "mmm...aside from my student loans. nothing. geez. i'm happy with my life."

i'm happy with my life!! maybe i'm just giddy because it's sunny and warm out or because we did all those hip openers in yoga last night (and that's really where i store my emotional blech).

either way. i have open hips and i love everything. playin' outside playin' outside playin' outside here i goooooooo

end and beginning

beginning:

wednesday at 12:45pm i saw a baby get born. i had an amazing close-up view 'cause i was standing on the right side of mama, holding her leg back while she pushed for an hour. (i was going to put photos of babies crowning to show you how beautiful it all was, but then i remembered that maybe not everyone wants to see that...so, you're welcome.)



my favorite part of the whole experience? everything. i liked everything. i was there for 11 of the 14 hours of labor. it was totally natural and mama, partner, and i were in sync and in our bodies and intuition. we were being present and breathing together through every rush (better word than contraction...).

i liked the noises. i liked that they just came from somewhere within her. they were so powerful they gave me goosebumps. and everything was quiet and peaceful in between.

i liked the pushing. the sounds were especially moving during this part. the midwife brought in a mirror when the baby's head was crowning and mama looked into the mirror and had fire in her eyes and made the most beautiful, terrifying, human sounds i've ever heard. this is the part where i secretly cried a little.

i liked that she reached down to touch his head to give her strength. then she dug her fingers into my arm again for the next push and i had baby juice on me. but it wasn't disgusting. it was more like...baptism.

i liked the pure, raw awe that happened when they held the new baby. i liked when the baby found her nipple and she just kept saying "he's so beautiful. he's so perfect. he's so perfect."

i liked the placenta and i liked videotaping and i liked biking to the hospital at 1:45am and stopping at the gas station to get them coffee and steamed milk.

i liked everything.

immediately after, i called my mom to thank her. and i felt totally intoxicated walking down the street. partly because i was so sleep-deprived, but mostly i couldn't stop grinning because i felt so...connected.

no matter how i try to explain it, it sounds ridiculous and woowoo, so bear with me or skip this part. i'll just say that it made everything so clear. and i understood why we do anything we do and what it means to be a person and how simultaneously fragile and temporary, yet strong and eternal we are. i learned something about being a woman and something about being a man and something about tenderness and purpose.

end:

my cleanse is over. in the end, i cared a lot less about it. i guess it was a good thing to do, but i decided against the liver flush. i want to enjoy food.

i want to eat delicious things and hang out with wonderful people and be okay with it all and smell every lilac tree i pass because lilac season is so short and i always miss it when it's over.

here's a quote from harold and maude, one of the best movies ever. then i will be done writing sappy bullshit and go outside and play:

"vice? virtue? It's best not to be too moral. you cheat yourself out of too much life. aim above morality. as Confucius says, 'don't simply be good. make good things happen.'"

yeah, that's damn right.

and they're all make out of pickles.

day 15 of me being particularly wholesome and vice-free. although i did eat a piece of bread last week and that made everything harder. bread= gateway vice.

also, my house is full of 400 POUNDS of chocolate right now, so i can't even get away from sugar when i'm not at work.



we saved 575lbs of cherry almond and mint dark (vegan) chocolate from its dumpster fate, and now i'm twisting everyone's arm to take some. if you are reading this and you live in seattle and you do NOT have at least one of these boxes in your posession, you must take one. if you are a true friend. please.

i wish there were more exciting things to write, but now that i'm so virtuous, all i really do is go to yoga and fall asleep at 10pm. well, also i go to roller derby and poetry slams and parade around the city singing "bad romance" with an accordion...


(he is playing while driving, yes)

...and eat burritos in the park on a sunny day and have my own private spa at hothouse and drink mud shakes and watch documentaries on a giant projector screen. and go to the tuliptown. it was like being inSIDE a bob ross painting:


(above is actually the tulip festival, not a bob ross painting...seriously.)








here is a broken tulip...in the 1600s in holland, a single bulb of a specific kind of broken tulip was more expensive than a fancy schmance house on the canal...then they found out the bulb looked that way 'cause it had a virus and the economy crashed and everyone got mad and started destroying all the tulips. oops:



life lesson learned the hard way by the rich dutch tulip fanatics of the 1600s: things aren't always what they seem. think about it. and if you're going to spend a shit-ton of money, buy a house, not an infected bulb. iesh. you can't live in a bulb.

well anyway, mercury is in retrograde. we'll see how my disaster preparedness works for me or if the universe is just going to make life more difficult to show me i can't outsmart it.

...i'm writing this whole entry to distract myself...my doula client just lost her mucus plug, which sounds disgusting, but is very exciting to me. it means i get to welcome new life into the world any day now...any minute now...*bites fingernails anxiously*...

flow

saturday someone told me that it's bad bedroom feng shui to have your bed against the wall and your head under a window. bah! mine is both of these things! plus, i have a trash can in my room, which apparently is also bad energy.

then last night i had a creepily vivid dream that i was having a baby. the dream was so long and emotional; at one point i was at the hospital in labor and the doctor reached inside of me and couldn't find the baby. then she found his foot and he started crying while he was still up in there. and he pressed his whole body up against my belly...you could see his face and hands and feet. *shudder* well i think there are plenty of reasons to explain why i'm having baby dreams, but nonetheless, when i woke up this morning, i decided it was time to rearrange my room.

if you've ever visited my shoebox of a room, you know i have very limited space to work with. i did what i could, but there's so much to think about and i know absolutely nothing about feng shui. internet searches direct me to sites with helpful, reliable-sounding information like: "Avoid the overhead beams, the low side of a slanted ceiling, sharp angles from interior corners, and an overhead fan in a room with a low ceiling are some of the common Feng Shui bed room tips that you can find in any Feng Shui book or web site. Beyond that, would you like to learn how to get rich without winning the lottery? If so, please click here." hmm...beyond that, i wouldn't mind getting rich by winning the lottery, either.

today was day 1 of my detox/de-vice. damn, i forgot how hard it is not to eat chocolate when you spend 9 hours a day in a chocolate factory. tomorrow, i start my psyllium husk-bentonite clay milkshakes to scrape out my intestines. if you think that sounds repulsive, you're right. i haven't even had one yet and i'm already gagging. so i'm supposed to drink these "shakes" twice a day for 30 days, then it'll be time for that extra-repulsive liver/gall flush....it's gonna be a long month. i better feel like a million dollars when this is over....like i've won the lottery...or gotten rich without winning the lottery 'cause i clicked on that sketchy feng shui link...

mmm, i love me some self-improvement in small, strong doses!

but i'm mostly focused and in it to win it; this weekend i got all funny business out of my system by frolicking around a park, looking for easter eggs. after wandering around a rainy park dressed in my deviled egg halloween costume, we returned home for "hoppy hour:" lots of ipa and rabbit stew. lots of delicious. and egg salad, of course. which was also delicious. and chocolate. everything was magical: we ate and ate and ate and played music and ate and told stories and ate until we all fell asleep and lived hoppily ever after...

p.s. i played a funny april fool's (fools? fools'? i never know how to properly punctuate that because they could all make sense, i guess) day joke on my tour thursday! i had them all take a bite of "mystery chocolate" and guess the flavor...then i told them we were experimenting with flavors inspired by the countries from where we source our beans and that they were the first test audience for the grasshopper bar. bah hahaha! APRIL FOOLS!

p.p.s. i got overalls at a clothing swap and i'm never taking them off.

becca spring cleaning

these are the orginal bob ross paintings. the first is called "colors o!" but i couldn't find it on the internetz...so here's a similar one that has similar trees:



and this is called "waves of wonder". at this point, most people present lost patience with our slow internet connection and started taking their world to the next level. you'll see:



and here are the paint-along interpretations:











it's our world!...and my cat is real cute. and he plays the kazoo.



i will be doing this a lot more often. probably more by myself, or with just a few other people, or with more wine in me.

***

other than that, i'm preparing for a giant cleanse of body and soul. starting on easter, right after "naked girls reading." i will be healthy and stop drinking and get rid of all of my vices at once...and go to yoga and meditate and be extra, extra nice and loving to all people everywhere. i'm also going to do this crazy liver/gallbladder cleanse that dustin told me about that involves epsom salt, olive oil, lemon juice, and "pooping like a goose" to get all my gallstones out and improve my bile flow. doesn't that sound magical? plus, i'm going to work on my rollerskating skillz so i can start skating to work. i will keep my room tidy and finally do my taxes and send out all those letters that i wrote on my typewriter.

i will, however, keep eating aloha sliders from the marination mobile that parks outside of work on wednesdays. it's really why i go to work on wednesdays. mmmlllllrrrrrrgggggg (sounds of delicious)...