RowdyHoltzy

- Kate McKinnon (in her autobiographical senior thesis performance/one-woman show “The Samantha Show” in 2005)

This sentence has changed my life. For two nights after I read it, I bawled myself to sleep. It was the kind of deep primal sobbing where your whole body shakes. I can’t fully express the release I felt…

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve had intense anger and anxiety issues that I’ve desperately tried to hide. In my early teens, something as simple as a dish breaking would send me into a fit of rage so consuming I felt like I could literally scream forever. One time, during my most anxious years, a friend made plans to come over and I was so nervous that I threw up. These are extreme examples, but the emotions behind them have been a constant for years.

Then as an adult, I stumbled across the review of Kate’s show and read that quote. I remembered/realized that before the anger, there was sadness. Deep sadness. I cried because the part of me that is the quiet, shy, peaceful, sad child finally felt understood and heard.

In high school I learned how to speak in public. I learned how to push aside my feelings and play with words to entertain. I learned how to become someone else, someone Not Sad, while convincing myself that I just wasn’t a sad person anymore (unsurprisingly, P!nk’s Don’t Let Me Get Me was my favorite song for years). After reading the quote, I realized I had been sad for all those years but shame had driven me to change it into anything else (which ended up being anxiety and anger). Just like what Kate describes, people saw my sadness and didn’t know how to respond and that made me feel so deeply ashamed.

In reading Kate’s words, those years of shame finally fall away. I adore Kate so much and so deeply. I love and admire her playfulness and goofiness and humor and joy. I know it sounds strange but right now she’s showing me that joy and sadness aren’t mutually exclusive. And I see it in Holtzmann too. You can see Holtzmann’s sadness in her post-battle toast/speech, when she references her life before meeting Abby. A lifetime of those feelings aren’t erased by even the best of friends - she still has all those sad lonely emotions inside her. But she also has so much joy and enthusiasm and passion.

I have that duality as well. I have things that I fiercely believe in. I have certain childlike qualities that I don’t think will ever go away. I’m strange and odd and playful and my thoughts often go on their own unexpected tangents. And I’m also a really sad person. And that’s okay.

I’ve had this realization for two days, during which I haven’t had a single anxious/angry outburst. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but for me it’s huge. I feel more at peace than I’ve felt in years. All the anxiety and anger never felt like me, and I’m now actually starting to feel like myself again.

Even though I know you’ll never get to see this, thank you Kate so much for how much you’ve helped me understand, see, and accept myself. A single sentence from a brilliant play you wrote over 10 years ago has helped me more than years of therapy. Words are failing me as I try to express how much I adore and admire you and have so much love for you and all the joyful beauty you put out into the world and how much that’s helping me and so many other women…

When I sat in the theater on July 15th and saw this magical little blonde introduce herself for the first time, I had no idea that she was going to change my life. I had no idea that she was going to help me see and embrace the parts of myself I had been most ashamed of. I had no idea that she was going to help me feel more comfortable in my skin than I had ever felt in 27 years of living.

I already wrote about how Kate has helped me finally feel at peace with the sad, quiet part of myself. This post is about how Kate helped me embrace the fact that I am, and always have been, a lesbian.

Growing up in a religious environment, as a child I thought “lesbian” was an adult sin I Didn’t Yet Understand. I didn’t know “lesbian” was being a 9 year old wanting to give a 12 year old a Valentine’s Day card because she was the most beautiful and captivating girl I’d ever met.

I thought “lesbian” was the slur that ruined Janice’s life in Mean Girls. I didn’t know “lesbian” was feeling pure bliss when my high school best friend would braid daisies into my hair.

I thought “lesbian” was two drunk girls pawing at each other while their boyfriends watched and another boy filmed it. I didn’t know “lesbian” was feeling my heart flutter every time I saw my college best friend, and wanting more than anything in the world to make her laugh.

I thought “lesbian” was a type of porn, a subcategory of “kinky”. I didn’t know “lesbian” was holding hands and suddenly, finally, feeling at home.

I thought “lesbian” meant seeing every woman as a piece of meat. I didn’t know “lesbian” could mean platonic physical intimacy, hugging a friend when she needs it because she’s a wonderful human and you’re a wonderful human and you care for each other as friends do.

In the last 2 months, I’ve cried and grown a lot. I’m still learning how to comfortably say the word “lesbian” out loud. To paraphrase Amy Poehler, I’m still unlearning a lot of what I’ve been taught to feel ashamed of. And in this journey, Jillian Holtzmann and Kate McKinnon are the role models I need. When I joke with my coworkers about being a “walking lesbian stereotype” (to see how they respond to the word) and my coworker looks at me and says “But you’re NOT, RIGHT?” and the only word that can escape my lips is “right.” When I come out to a friend and she seems cool with it but doesn’t ever hug me again. In these moments, Kate and Jillian are the role models who remind me there is nothing dirty or perverted or wrong with being a lesbian. I am not dirty. I am not perverted. There is nothing wrong with me.

Thank you, Kate, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being out. Thank you for being proud. Thank you for showing the world that lesbianism is as simple and pure and innocent as love is. Thank you for reminding me that lesbianism is about love.

"Jeremy, I'd really like my orbital sander back ^_^"

"... didn't know it was yours..."

(Legit excited, no sarcasm) "Someone ELSE has the original Box 20-Volt Brushless Cordless Detail Sander with Dust Management?!?!?!?!"

"...no..."

Teacher walking up like "Miss Woods, is that a nail file"

(Elle, blasting compressed air to get rid of the nail file sand)

"Actually, its an emery board. But yes! :D It's a finer grit than what we have, and I've always found these easier to handle"

"...Ok, fair enough."

Elle making friends with the 6 year old daughter of one of her classmates. (Child care ain't cheap, I get it. Bring your kid to class)

Elle learning how to drive a forklift/motorcycle/semi-truck

Elle giving an impromptu lecture in the break room about what gifts to give their wives/girlfriends/mothers

Fucking laser cut "bless this mess" sign on her locker (I lied. It would totally be live, laugh, laser)

Elle's car breaks down and 20+ dudes coming out to show her how to fix it. (And realizing her mechanic is ripping her off)

Every single guy in the building filled with instant despair when she gets with one of the butch lesbians in the program.

All this is to say that the fact that this octopus appears to be dreaming means one of two things. Either

a) dreaming is a very, very old thing indeed, going directly back to the Urbilaterian. This would mean that almost every animal, from insects to starfish to sea slugs to newts, is likely to have the ability to dream in some capacity or another (unless they have specifically lost it by evolutionary simplification).

or

b) dreaming evolved entirely independently in cephalopods when they developed greater intelligence. This would suggest, at least, that there’s something very fundamental about dreaming related to intelligence itself, which causes it to emerge independently when sufficient intelligence arises.