handsome b. wonderful

you want women, of course. you want them, badly. and sometimes you wonder about that. is it because a man isn't real to you? this thing you have with men - is it only easier because you wouldn't have to change anything? your parents can pretend you're "straight", no matter how many times you exit the closet or say i'm at least half gay.

are you just... afraid?

because what if it's not true. what if kissing girls is just as easy - better, even - than kissing boys. what if dating girls means there's no weird subtle power imbalance; means that your life is full of laughter and love.

or maybe it's because if men don't find you attractive - well, okay, whatever. they can choke. you don't exist to make men happy, certainly. you can shave your head and let your leg hair grow out and dye your eyebrows because fuck what men think.

but what do women want? what if you try as hard as you can and you are not what women want? or worse - what if they do want you, but you have no idea how to treat them? certainly dating a woman is not dating a man; and you only have the manual (ha!) for one kind of relationship. everyone at this queer bar probably has kissed and hooked up and knows interesting positions to fold other women into. they've probably had sex in the bathroom and know where to slide their fingers into.

logically you know every body is different. there is no singularly correct way to have sex or kiss or love anyone of any gender. you know some people need to suck toes or do gymnastics or picture wife-roaches. so how hard could it be, really.

but you tell yourself - well, the dating pool is smaller. you have heard so many wlw horror stories from your friends - like their exes randomly appearing at a party, or the time three of your friends all accidentally dated the same person at once. and your lesbian friend warns you - wlw breakups hit harder.

and it's not like you're unhappy. you are happy, certainly. the man you're with now might genuinely be the love of your life. he paints his nails and likes bugs and treats you like a princess.

but still. in the late night, you feel your heart stutter. because what if it isn't really that difficult. what if you're just creating false assumptions in your head in order to fit a fear-based narrative. what if this is your internalized homophobia; what if it's heteronormativity; what if you're the only thing stopping you. what if those rules don't exist, and you're imagining scenarios so that you never take a risk.

(my own photos)

Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.

Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.

You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

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