The Great Gaydar: LGBT Perspectives in Literature

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof, and none of the above, I'm positively giddy with excitement. As many of you school-aged readers will know, at any given point in time there exists a tense stalemate between the forces of good and evil, between darkness and light, between obfuscation and illumination. I am speaking of the uneasy draw between English Literature teachers and barely-literate parents who want to save their children from the dangers of differing perspectives, minority voices, and difficult concepts and feelings. Actually, scratch that. They want to save everyone's children from the dangers of critical thinking. I'm sure if they had their way, we'd all be reading from the Bible and those glurge-tastic "Then Einstein proved to his professor that ANGELS ARE REAL!!11!1!" chain emails. Nearly no book worth reading has escaped scrutiny, including everything ever written by my very favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut. So it brings me great pleasure to announce one fine, albeit short, piece of literature that has utterly escaped the patrol of the censors and the voracious flame of the Inquisitors. Its subtlety, while hiding its meaning, has saved it, because its enemies are unwilling to listen. And also, as mentioned before, barely literate.

What I Learned From Online Dating

I underestimated how complicated a person could be. (S)

It started with poetry, and ended with a phone call. In my longest blog post ever, I will share with you all a synthesis of one of my best and worst experiences in online dating. Before I start, I want to remind everyone of a few things. First, be careful. Second, after much thought, if you meet in person, meet in public and tell your friends if you will be gone, and how long. Third, and the main lesson I got from this experience: you don’t know someone until you get to know them in person. 

Pariah (2011)

 

Rating: R

Written and Directed by Dee Rees

Cinematography by Bradford Young

Produced by Nekisa Cooper

Starring

Alike by Adepero Oduye

Laura by Pernell Walker

Bina by Aasha Davis

Arthur by Charles Parnell

Sharonda by Sahra Mellesse

Audrey by Kim Wayans

Plastic bag

Time

Alone.

That is how you feel.
Your dreams tell you it's going to be okay one night, and bad the next.
But -

freedom,

is the thing you want more than anything else.
The one thing you have never known up to this point in your closeted -

life;

what you need to start having.
Every minute that passes by is like another dead leaf falling from a tree, never to return to the branch from which it sprang.
But first you'll need to be sure you'll have -

acceptance.

It's what you need to look for.
Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
It's normal to feel it's not the right -

time.

The answer to life's problems.
The indefinite continued progress of existence and events will solve the deepest anguish within you.
Time will tell when it's the right time to come out and be -

you.

The strongest human being I know.


by Patrick