Quickie: I GOT A JOB!!!

I don't think I've mentioned this on this site yet, but my ultimate career goal is to be a pediatric PA (Physician's Assistant). For those who don't know, PAs can do almost anything doctors can -- exams, prescriptions, diagnoses -- and in any area (surgery, OB-GYN, emergency medicine, etc.), but the education is much shorter (just two years). I've got to have a certain amount of experience (plus prerequisite courses) before I can apply to any programs, so I've been working as an EMT for a convalescent company for the past six months, but it's far from being my ideal job. I want to work with children, not old people -- and I want to practice medicine, not drive a van and maybe occasionally inflate a blood pressure cuff. Not only that, but my job's description falls very close to the line of plain old 'medical transporter' -- which many university websites say does NOT count for hours of experience toward PA school. So I've been applying to other jobs, almost ever since I got my current one. I got follow-ups from blood labs, family practices, insurance billing personnel, one OB-GYN place, a few chiropractors, and countless others that weren't the right fit. But finally, finally, finally, my search has paid off.

Today, I was offered a position as a medical assistant in a pediatric practice. MY IDEAL JOB.

I'll be rooming patients, taking their heights and weights, doing blood draws, immunizations, nebulizer treatments, throat cultures, urine dips, and assisting with other random things like stitches, or whatever the supervising physician needs. The office manager told me straight out that I'd be doing essentially everything the nurses do -- plus I'll get $13/hour and 80% benefits (as opposed to the $11.50 and 50% that I get now). And it's with KIDS. And it's the kind of experience I WANT and NEED in order to get to where I'm going. The only drawback is that the practice is 30 miles from our apartment -- but even that, I can learn to live with. I've got one more interview Wednesday morning (for a job I don't think I'm going to want, but feel like I should go through the motions for), after which I can formally accept the position.

Yes -- this was a good, good day.

Southern Barbie Meets a Lesbian

For the most part, all of my friends and coworkers who know I'm gay have been great, ranging from 'uninterested' to 'thrilled' on the supportive scale (one of my closest friends, a lesbian herself, shrieked "I knew it!" at the top of her lungs, wanted every single detail, and insisted that she'd had to constantly defend me as straight to her friends). If any of my coworkers are uncomfortable with it -- which is a distinct possibility, since the place I'm working now is relatively 'backwoods' with a lot of hardcore Republicans -- they've kept it to themselves. The two coworkers with whom I have gotten into in-depth conversations on the subject were casual, curious, and funny. And last month, Aphrodite came to our company's Christmas party with me, and everyone liked her a lot and treated her completely normally.

Except.

There is one woman I work with -- late 40s, long blond hair, nice body, Southern accent, looks rather like an aging Barbie -- who makes me feel, for lack of a beter analogy, as though I'm a bug under a microscope being poked with a stick. I believe that she is genuinely interested in my relationship on some level, and I don't really mind talking to her about Aphrodite or about lesbian relationships in general, but the way she goes about asking questions sets my teeth on edge. There's no hint of malice in anything she says -- but the general vibe just makes me so uncomfortable. It's hard to explain. I don't feel as though I can even talk to Aphrodite on the phone when she's around, even about everyday things, because I feel like she's hanging on my every word.

When I casually mentioned "my girlfriend" for the first time, in the context of a conversation about something entirely different, one of the first things out of Barbie's mouth was, "Oh, it doesn't matter to me. At my other job, there are these two guys who are homosexual and we just make fun of them all the time, and they do the same thing to us. Nobody cares that they're queer."

((I should interject here that I don't like to be described as 'queer' by straight people. I know there are some gays and lesbians who prefer to identify as 'queer' over any other term, and that's fine -- I don't have a problem with the word itself -- but for some reason it bothers me when straight people use it, maybe because it feels like they're telling me I'm 'queer' in the old sense of the word -- strange, odd, weird in some way. The closest I can come to an analogy is that nowadays, black people can call one another 'nigger' and it's perfectly okay, but if a white person tries it, he or she is liable to get jumped in a dark alley. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else -- but the point is, she put my hackles up right from the start. I'm surprised I didn't physically flinch.))

She rambled on about her daughter and how she would react if her daughter came out as a lesbian. "That doesn't mean I'd want to watch her shove her tongue down her girlfriend's throat, but I wouldn't love her any less."
"Well, most people don't want to watch heterosexuals stick their tongues down each other's throats in public either," I pointed out dryly.

A few minutes later, she began to qualify, "Now, I don't want to pry... I don't want to make you uncomfortable... I'm just curious..." blah blah ramble ramble." I braced myself, fully expecting a question about my sexual habits, wondering how to respond.

Five minutes later, when she finally managed to get to the point, what I got was, "Do gay and lesbian couples keep their finances separate or put everything together?"

I blinked. "Um. Well. Aphrodite and I keep everything separate, at least for now, but I know other couples who have joint accounts, because they have houses or children or whatever and it just makes sense. I mean, it's just like with heterosexual couples -- just personal preference."

"Oh." Silence descended.

...What was she expecting me to say?

At the Christmas party a few weeks later, she brought her 22-year-old daughter along. Our table was having a perfectly nice conversation about the music business, among other things, until Barbie managed to work the conversation around to what she was clearly dying to hear about: Aphrodite and me. Her daughter took the conversational reins from her after a few minutes and asked us both, "Did you always know? I mean, that you were... you know. Did you always know?"

(In the car, Aphrodite exploded, "She's known me for ten minutes! It's not that I mind talking about it -- but there is a polite, classy way to ask things like that. Honestly!")

After we summarized our 'histories' in as few words as possible, Barbie got into a conversation with Aphrodite about something else, and her daughter started insisting to me that Aphrodite and I should hang out with her and her friends sometime. "Yeah, we should all totally go out and do something together." And then, all wide blue eyes and blond innocence, she asked me, "You do hang out with normal people, right?"

What? What?

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Then I affected my own sweet innocence (blond and blue-eyed though I am not), looked at her, let a touch of fake hurt creep into my own wide eyes, and asked, "You mean we're not normal people?"

She backtracked so fast I'm surprised she didn't fall out of her chair. "No! No, that's not what I meant at all. I just... you know..." and on and on she stumbled. I kept a pleasant smile on my face, caught between wild laughter and the list of snotty comebacks that kept popping up in my mind ("So where did you get the Post-It on your forehead that said 'normal'?") Et cetera. Somehow, the party ended, and Aphrodite and I had quite a few good laughs in the car on the way home.

I haven't worked with Barbie much since then, but recently, we got a new employee, a girl just a few years older than me, with enough personality for three people. I'll call her Marcia. She identifies as bisexual (of the 'happily married to a man, but likes to fuck women occasionally' variety), and we've had some great conversations, ranging from the serious to the hilarious. In the past two weeks, she and I have worked together several times, with great enjoyment -- and, for completely unrelated reasons, she despises Barbie with a passion that transcends hellfire. Yesterday, she told me that she'd worked with Barbie the previous day, and that she (Marcia) had mentioned to her how much she enjoyed working with me. According to her, Barbie (who didn't know that Marcia knew anything about my personal life) responded, "Oh, yeah, I like working with Athena. She's pretty quiet, because of the lifestyle she leads, but if you ask her, she's really quite open about it."

Um, what?

My response: "Yeah, damn, it really sucks how having sex with women affects your vocal cords. All that screaming, you know."

Aphrodite's response, via cell phone amid gales of laughter: "So what you're saying is, you're discreet and that bothers her." As I cracked up, she continued, "Honestly, it's like they think we're a different species, like we all live in pink houses and sleep in hammocks."

Marcia's actual, sweet response: "Well, Barbie, seeing as how I've already 'been there' myself, I don't think I'd really have any questions for her."

How much would I have paid to be a fly on the wall during that conversation?!

Have any of you ever experienced a person like that -- not openly malicious, and seemingly interested and supportive, but you just feel that something is way, way wrong? I've experienced the two extremes -- verbal abuse and warm support -- but never felt this foggy middle ground until now. In a way, it's more uncomfortable than the slurs, because you don't know exactly where you stand.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

November 18, 2006: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

"OK, traffic moving now, be there soon," I texted Aphrodite as the rows of cars around me began to inch forward. I had just left an interview, and was supposed to be meeting her for dinner at a popular pizza place. This was part of a new, ongoing pattern, and one that I liked. I hadn't had a true, close friend since leaving my undergraduate institution nearly six months earlier, and Aphrodite -- my randomly-matched grad school roommate -- was rapidly turning into my favorite person in the world.

On Halloween night, we had made slice-n-bake cookies, drunk red wine (her) and Smirnoff (me), ridden a teeter-totter, and played football at midnight -- a night of high-school type fun, something that had been missing from my life for far too long. The next night, we'd gone to a popular, pricey rooftop restaurant, just the two of us, then come home, lit candles, poured wine, and played Name That Tune with our iPods. The following weekend, we'd gone to dinner at one of Aphrodite's favorite places, then gone to a student-produced play at her alma mater... and as the lights went down, I, the so-called straight girl, had a momentary flash of wanting to pin her against the wall and press my body into her. (Startled, I pushed the unprecedented thought from my mind and refused to think about it again.) Then, the next night, we'd watched the Wizard of Oz, held hands, and nearly, oh so nearly, kissed. To this day, I can see her head resting on my shoulder and mentally kick myself for not making a move.

This didn't even include the two weeks she'd spent in China as part of a school trip the previous month, before the two of us had gotten close -- when I had twice gone and stood in her bedroom, closed my eyes, and inhaled the familiar, comforting scent: vanilla candles intermingled with something all her own. I missed her more deeply than I could remember missing anyone -- a lot more than I should have, as merely her roommate. I couldn't understand why I should feel that way, why I should have wanted to leap into her arms when she reappeared on our doorstep with her suitcase. Again, I dismissed it. I was unable to justify it -- so I simply blocked it out. I was doing that a lot with Aphrodite in those days, but because I'd spent so many years doing so (with my camp counselors, my teachers, certain friends...), it didn't seem especially odd to me.

But I wasn't thinking about any of that as I dashed through the doors of the restaurant, nearly bowling over several unsuspecting patrons. I hastily apologized as my head practically spun in circles, looking for her. "Look right, look right," said Aphrodite through the cell phone, laughing. I looked right -- and there she was. Hair tumbling over her shoulders, pina colada half-finished in front of her, cell phone held to her ear, a certain smile gracing her face that I would soon come to realize she didn't bestow on just anyone. I grinned widely, and hurried over to join her.

Dinner went by in a haze of laughter and conversation, and before I knew it, our separate cars were following each other home to watch the Hurricane Katrina fundraising special with Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg that Aphrodite had been looking forward to all week. I checked my email and killed time in my room, not wanting to seem 'weird' by sticking to her like glue. Finally, I heard, "Are you gonna watch this with me, or what?" I walked across the living room into Aphrodite's room, and saw her duvet and pillows lying on the floor, facing her TV. She had lit a couple of candles and propped herself up against the bed, holding a glass of red wine, and was rapidly flipping through channels. She looked up, saw me, smiled, and patted the blanket next to her. I snuggled in beside her, being careful not to touch her.

The show was hilarious, but after the first half hour or so, Aphrodite said to me, for about the fourth time, "Oh, 'Thena, you are in so much trouble." She said that to me every time she drank red wine, and would never tell me why.
"Why am I in trouble?" I asked yet again.
"You just are," she sighed, smiling.
To this day, I have no idea what made me act -- but I sat up, turned, swung my leg over her, and straddled her hips, raising my eyebrows in a playful challenge and staring straight into her eyes. "Why am I in trouble?" I think the subliminal knowledge that she was attracted to me had suddenly risen to a slightly higher level of consciousness, just below the point where I could fully grasp it, and that indefinable certainty gave me courage.

She was utterly speechless, caught between shock and amusement (and, though I didn't really think about it at the time, arousal -- she'd been in love with me for a month, and here I was sitting on top of her!). Her eyes were wide, caught between laughter and alarm. I don't remember her reply, but I know I leaned forward, pinned her wrists gently but firmly to the floor, and said, "You keep telling me I'm in trouble. I'm not getting off you until you tell me why." I knew, knew what was going on -- or thought I did -- but I refused to get her out of this trap by asking, because there was no way in hell I was going to say it first. With the same hazy certainty as before, I knew that I had some sort of power over her, and that she would tell me, even if I had to wait her out.

Over the next 45 minutes, we danced around the truth we both knew. "You're gonna hate me," she kept insisting, almost tearfully. I assured her over and over that I wouldn't, and even tried to take a hard line at one point, "Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you--" feeling as though I were giving the game away with that statement -- "and to tell you the truth, I'm a little insulted that you'd think something could."
"No, oh, no, please don't be insulted," she cried, stricken, anguished. I abandoned that tactic and returned to gentle coaxing.

"How many words does it have?" I asked finally, expecting -- hoping -- to hear 'three'. Instead, she thought for a second and said, "Nine."
Hmm -- maybe I'm wrong, I thought uncertainly. "What's the first word?"
"'You,'" she said in a small voice.
"Okay, what's the second word?" I kept pushing, trying to stay matter-of-fact. She could not clam up on me now!
"'Make.'"
"Third word?"
"Um... it has two letters..."

And so it went, me coaxing the words out of her bit by bit, until I had assembled the message, "You make me feel something I feel I shouldn't." I had no idea what to do next, and it was obvious that Aphrodite was getting pretty uncomfortable with me pinning her the way I was.
"Could you--?" she asked, pausing and wincing as she flexed her wrists.
I relented. "I'll get off you, but you still have to tell me," I said, sliding off to lie on my right side, next to her, closer than before.
There was a long silence, so long that I almost broke it with words, then held my tongue. Two or three full minutes must have passed before she said, in a voice so low it was barely more than a breath, "I love you."

It happened so suddenly that I literally didn't think I'd heard her right.
Holy shit -- what now?! my mind shrieked.
Well, are you really gonna tell her 'NO'???
HELL NO!!!
She was facing me on the floor, terrified of my reaction. I could find no words, but didn't seem to need them. I smiled at her, holding her gaze, and reached my left arm up and over her body to hold her. Even though I couldn't find words -- I couldn't even begin to name the emotions and feelings tumbling through me just then -- I wanted her to know that she needn't be afraid, that everything was okay, better than okay, that she'd done the right thing in telling me.

Suddenly, our faces were so close together that I knew it couldn't end any other way but with a kiss. In a way, it was a huge relief. Nobody gets this close to someone unless they want to kiss them, I reasoned, and felt the weight of uncertainty lift from my shoulders. I had known what was happening -- on every level, apparently, except that last level of uncertainty, the one where you raise your hand to give what you know in your gut is the correct answer, and yet you're still afraid that the teacher might shake her head. Aphrodite's face being so close, even before she touched me, was the affirmation I'd been seeking.

Our eyes closed, and we drew ever closer. My nose rubbed hers; I felt the faint puff of her breath on my lips. I had no idea where I was, even who I was. Everything was magnified, and at the same time, nothing at all existed except this about-to-be kiss. I felt like every molecule of my body was funneled into my lips, like every neuron was awaiting the moment when our mouths would finally make contact. (Only afterward, analyzing my previous relationships, girl-crushes and indescribable feelings, did I realize that no man's kiss had ever even come close to making the world fall away.)

The no-man's-land of 'almost', of nose-rubbings and sighs and bated breath, might have taken five seconds or three minutes. I honestly have no idea. Nor do I know which of us made that final fatal chin lift. I remember a final, adrenaline-charged, almost panicky thought - what's she going to feel like?!

And then the world fell silent.

Amazingly, my first reaction was that her lips felt so damn familiar. Wildly, my mind screamed, oh no, you don't feel anything, it's like kissing your sister, what now?! Exactly one microsecond later, I realized that that wasn't it at all. Quite simply, Aphrodite was kissing me the way I had always wanted to be kissed, body, mind, heart, and soul, and never known it. Gently, sensually, perfectly, asking for nothing more than this. And I was kissing her back. Judging by her reactions -- not too badly, either.

We kissed there on her bedroom floor -- and then, eventually, in her bed -- for five hours. The first time I felt the faint brush of her tongue, I thought I would melt. When she gently climbed on top of me and pressed her body to mine, every inch of me caught fire. Hands didn't roam (that came the next day), no clothes came off (that came the next week) -- we simply made out, with techniques ranging from gentle and loving to 'horny seventh graders'. I eventually went to my room (only because our third roommate came home and interrupted things...) and we slept about six hours, then woke up and kissed in my bed for eight more hours the next day. We didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't even remember that we had jobs or classes. We were each other's whole world.

Though we slept together nearly every night, we didn't make love until two full weeks later. I had never moved that slowly with a partner. I had always felt like I was looking for something, some closeness, some unnameable sensation -- something I might find if I pushed on just a little more, let this guy or that guy go just a little farther. Needless to say, it never worked. But then again, I'd never been with a woman. In Aphrodite, I found everything -- everything precious, everything I never knew I wanted or needed. She simply knew me, fit me -- perfectly, through and through. Simply put -- she was, and is, my home.

She told me later that she thought we'd kiss for a minute, and that then I'd pull away and say "I can't do this." Or that I'd only want her for the occasional drunken makeout session until the end of the school year, and then we'd go our separate ways. But here we are fourteen months later, in a one-bedroom apartment, more in love than ever. That may sound overly sappy, but I can't lie -- it's how things happened.

She is the only woman I've ever been with, and I realize now that all those poets and authors I always thought were exaggerating -- 'you just know', 'nothing else matters', 'the world spins' -- were actually telling the truth all along. I always thought I knew myself really well, that I was level-headed, down-to-earth, successful, and just picky when it came to men. At the risk of sounding cliche, Aphrodite showed me who I am (not just sexually, either -- there'll be another post or two coming about all that self-discovery) and she's the one who will show me who I'm supposed to be as I grow older, the one I'll walk hand in hand with down the red carpet of this life. It's an amazing feeling.

I can't wait to see what's ahead.

In Case You Didn't Know - Keira Knightley Is Incredible.

For those who haven't heard about the new movie Atonement, it's finally been released in more USA theaters (it was only in the major cities at first). I saw it last night, and it took my breath away. I read the book a couple of weeks ago and couldn't put it down, and I'd really been looking forward to seeing it in the theater. (Keira Knightley having sex? Hell, I'll pay $7.50 every day of the week to see that...)

I won't give away too many details for those of you who have yet to see (or read) it, but there is one particular moment where Cecelia (Keira Knightley's character) opens the door to Robbie (James McAvoy) after he's sent her a letter that, ahem, ought not to have been sent. (If there is a more famous line in all of literature containing the word 'cunt' than this one, I've certainly never heard it.) It's a quick, thirty-second encounter, not really part of the main backbone of the film, but it brought out Keira's natural ability to such a degree that my jaw literally dropped. I've always had a bit of an obsession with her (and I didn't realize my sexual preferences until 14 months ago?!), but this is the first time I consciously noticed her pull something off that only a very select few actresses could have done.

In the scene, Robbie/James has arrived for dinner with Cecelia/Keira's family and is embarrassed (quite understandably), certain that he has no chance with her anymore after sending the 'wrong' version of his letter - easy enough for a decent actor to play. Cecelia/Keira, on the other hand, has to make us see that she feels she ought to be offended or shocked, but isn't really - combined with the things that she is feeling (surprise, embarrassment, slight amusement, and a certain amount of excitement and wanting). Difficult, to say the least.

Try to imagine how another actress would have demonstrated those feelings. I think most would have overplayed their hand - affecting 'embarrassed', adding a little barely-suppressed smile and maybe a demure-yet-inviting lowering of the eyes. It would have been a spectrum, moving from one emotion to the other like a checklist. And it would have been completely apparent what was going through her head, and the movie would have moved on to the next scene without anyone noticing anything unusual.

What Keira did, however, was to somehow display ALL those emotions on her face at the same time. I have no idea how she managed it - if it was conscious, if she was so 'into' her character that she just did it naturally and unconsciously, or if it was sheer luck (if the director chose the particular take where she was thinking about the pebble in her shoe or something). But rather than showing us a spectrum, rather than being overstated and making doubly sure we saw everything we were supposed to see, we saw it all together, subtly, right there on the same facial expression. This stern eyebrow is the bow to her socially ingrained response, that twitch of her lips shows her amusement, this tilt of her head demonstrates her embarrassment, that angle of her eyelashes shows her desire. It was all there. Unconsciously, I sighed in admiration, and heard Aphrodite murmur assent next to me, nodding, never taking her eyes off the screen. She saw it, too.

It was really just a quick moment near the beginning of the movie, a blip, and many of you might be thinking that it doesn't seem significant enough to merit a blog post. But I came out of the movie theater two hours after the fact still thinking about it. I've always thought Keira Knightley was beautiful and highly gifted, but this movie - hell, even just thirty seconds of this movie - moved her into a new class of talent in my mind. If Atonement is playing near any of you, I highly, highly, highly recommend you go and check it out.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my promise to post about Aphrodite's and my 'story'; it's just taking me a while to write it. Coming soon, I promise. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone.

Another Year, Another Silly Resolution List

On the first of every year, I list ten things that I've accomplished in the past twelve months and ten things I hope to accomplish in the coming twelve. I don't always accomplish everything on each year's list - it's just something I do, something that provides a sense of accomplishment and hope (and feels a lot nicer than resolutions to eat more vegetables or hate my job less).

For New Year's Day 2008, the lists run as follows:

2007 Accomplishments:

1) Completed the Disney half marathon (13 miles)
2) Saw Josh Groban in concert (and met him briefly afterwards!)
3) Earned my EMT certification
4) Completed a successful English Channel relay crossing
5) Traveled to the Netherlands and London again
6) Passed my personal 'longest relationship ever' mark
7) Moved to a one-bedroom apartment with Aphrodite (!)
8) Made the definite decision to become a PA
9) Bought my first-ever sex toy (oh, shut up)
10) Became 100% financially independent of my parents

2008 Aspirations:

1) Run a full marathon (26.2 miles)
2) Pass the CNA exam on the first try
3) Get a new job which provides medical experience
4) Finish writing my book, even if I don't submit it yet
5) Have a comfortable amount of money in the bank
6) Buy a new Mac laptop
7) Help my family to be okay with my lifestyle choice
8) Pay off my credit card
9) Compete in my favorite Olympic-distance triathlon again
10) Fall more deeply in love with every passing minute

Anyone else got any good ones?

Ah, What Fools We Mortals Be

I'll probably never write a post this long ever again, and I apologize in advance for the length, but I'm not going to try to cut this one down any further because all of it is relevant to understanding how I turned into me, Athena, as I am now. It's my love history, or lack thereof - things that happened, things that could have happened, things that should have happened, things that definitely should not have happened. (All names have been changed to protect innocent love objects!)

A lot of details about my life started falling into place on November 18th, 2006, when Aphrodite and I spent our first five delicious hours kissing on her bedroom carpet. Things I never understood or let myself think deeply about finally started becoming clear. Aphrodite, who was engaged to a man during her undergraduate studies, has said many times since then that, starting around age 12, she knew she was far more attracted to women than to men. Talking to her, I slowly began to realize - like a spreading sunrise - that I had always felt exactly the same way! I just didn’t define it as such... or wouldn't let myself define it as such. But the way my eyes would skim over girls (as they never did with guys), the wistful envy of the way someone looked, the admiration of a particular curve or feature... I always thought it was lingering adolescent insecurity about my own body, something every girl goes through, and that I was just a late bloomer when it came to guys - but I finally began to realize that every girl doesn't go through that. At least, not to that degree or for that long. I feel like I spent most of my adolescence crouched down in a corner, eyes squeezed shut, hands tight over my ears, rocking back and forth, whispering to myself, "I hope I'm not... I hope I'm not... I hope I'm not..." But if you have to hope not to be, well, that should make things pretty obvious, right? I was surprised and somewhat irritated to find that I'd been hiding this fact from myself for so long. It was a startling realization, like discovering an extra limb I didn't know existed, one that I wish I could have been exercising.

I never had crushes on boys when I was young - ever. I never planned my wedding day, like so many little girls do. I never wanted to wear dresses or pink things. I quit dance class after one season. I always kept my hair short. With my friends, we made clubhouses and played tag and rode bikes and climbed trees - never played House or School or Baby. In middle and high school, I threw myself into horseback riding, basketball and Ultimate Frisbee, while my female friends shied away from any activity at which they might break a sweat. When my high school friend Stacie casually said she could easily see herself married, but couldn't see herself with kids, I was thunderstruck. I realized, instantly and ashamedly, that I was the polar opposite. I had wanted kids for most of my life, ever since I started babysitting my cousin when I was eleven - but I could not visualize a man that I could love 'enough' to have him be the other half of those future kids. I could typify him - tall, broad shoulders, nice smile, intelligent, athletic, easygoing, preferably Dutch-speaking - but his face remained in shadow.

I never really thought any of it meant anything. I did question, at times, whether or not I might be a lesbian - but I hated that word, always have (and still do even now), and felt a sense of relief when I was 19 and fell in love with Danny, or thought I did. I was finally able to convince myself that I had been straight all along, that I had not gone through anything other girls didn't go through, that I was perfectly normal.

And - hard as it is to recall now - I did love Danny. I admired him, wanted to give him everything, wanted to spend my life with him. But there were little things I couldn’t get past - the smoking, for one, or the bouncing from one job to another. Even stupid things, like the hairy patch on his back or the silly, buck-toothed smile he'd get sometimes in pictures. I would catch myself thinking, "Is that stuff supposed to bother me? I thought 'love was blind' and all that?" But most of time, I was able to block those things out. He loved ME, and he spoke Dutch, and I connected with him better than I ever had with anyone - half the time, I didn’t even have to speak for him to know what I was thinking. That was what I fell in love with - not anything physical. And the long-distance aspect of the relationship didn’t help anything. It's incredibly easy to romanticize someone you don't see for more than a few weeks out of the year - especially when you have years of practice at mentally blocking things out. I fell hard, and I fell even harder when he broke my heart after seven months.

But that's what a first love (or pseudo-love) is for, I think - for the heartbreak that inevitably follows. To teach you about yourself, to test you, to show you exactly how strong you are on your own, when you don't have anyone to prop you up. In the months immediately following Danny, I was 'weighed, measured, and found wanting', and bounced from guy to guy as a result. After I finally came to my senses and dumped Michael, at New Year's of 2005, I had two full years to step back and decide that I didn't like the ridiculous person I had become, and that I would figure out how to be okay again. I poured myself into swimming, made new friends, and became an entity unto myself. It took time, and a lot of emotional turmoil, but I arrived at a point of being okay, really okay, not just putting on an okay face and letting myself be convinced that it was real. I liked myself again, and, thus, I liked being single. If Aphrodite hadn't come along, I might never have revisited the sexuality issue at all (though I'd probably have ended up an old maid). But once we kissed, I couldn't avoid confronting it - and it became more and more obvious to me that something was different about me, and always had been. Exactly where I fall on the homo-to-hetero spectrum still eludes me to some degree (Aphrodite is just slightly closer to the 'completely gay' end of things than I am, we've decided), but once she and I got together, I started remembering a lot of things which made me slap myself in the forehead. I was so blind!

Jillian Dunkirk, 4th grade. She was tall, slender, worldly (she was the one who explained sex to me, when we were ten), friendly, artistic, athletic, well-liked... and I was her best friend to the point of extreme possessiveness. We had handmade friendship bracelets, golden necklaces, secret languages - all of which were initiated by me. I monopolized her, and did my best to drive away anyone else who tried to spend time with her. I tried to keep my possessiveness a secret, but when it became too much, I would occasionally articulate, "It feels like Cassie is trying to steal you away from me," and feel incredibly embarrassed voicing those thoughts out loud. The jealous emotion was a permanent knot of tension in my stomach, but I didn’t know how to stop it. At the time, I was too young to know what I was doing - and looking through the glassy hindsight of young adulthood, I always thought it was just typical childhood jealousy. But how many times over the course of my life have I felt that jealous, that desperate for someone I liked to reciprocate and feel that I, and only I, was their whole world? Many.

Rachel Harris, 8th grade, summer camp counselor. Australian and beautiful, she had long white-blond hair, tanned limbs, blue eyes, a pierced belly button, and enough confidence for three people. I sought her out at every opportunity all summer, watched her constantly, wrote her a special goodbye note, secretly bought all the camp photos that she was in, fantasized about her watching and admiring my horseback riding (I was one of only four highly advanced riders at camp), and couldn’t believe my luck the day I got to ride a jet-ski with her. I drew pictures of her in the margins of my class notes for weeks after camp ended, memorized her address in Australia - even now, I remember that her street was called Dolphin or Ocean or something very fitting - and fantasized about being her pen pal, about going to visit her on the other side of the world. I didn’t know what to think about my obsession. Part of me wanted it to go away, but part of me liked it, too. Yet something told me it was definitely something I shouldn't mention, something other people wouldn’t understand. I never told a single soul.

Shania Twain, 10th grade. I watched a taped concert and felt something change inside me. Afterwards, I ran to my room and played her entire CD - not just the three or four songs I had known previously - and didn't stop for an entire year. I became fixated on her - I wanted to meet her, know her, get inside her life and be the best friend she ever had. It was a powerful obsession, the strongest to date. Part of me knew it was weird and that other people didn't feel this way, and another part of me loved her so much that I threw caution to the winds and plastered my room with her posters, created the most detailed fansite on the web, changed my email addresses to include her name, decorated my school backpack with her photos, and even began to aspire towards being a singer myself (utterly in vain). I grew my hair long (for the first and only time in my life), bought a guitar, and started turning my writing skills toward song lyrics. Everyone in my life knew I was a Shania fan, but I kept the singing and songwriting very private - something about that felt too personal to share.

Juanita Hernandez, my 11th grade Spanish teacher - 29 years old. This was the biggest one. That was the year I poured everything I had into Spanish class. I wanted so desperately to impress her, to be her favorite student, to be her friend. I called it admiration, respect, fondness - never a crush. Like all the others, I never imagined her naked, never (consciously) thought about her physically, except in the sense of 'God, I wish I looked like that - she's perfect.' We had fun together - sang on the bus on the way to the state competition, videotaped performances together, giggled over Google pages of information on random things (botflies?), planned her wedding online - and I remembered everything, without even trying. Absolutely everything that she ever did or said was indelibly ingrained in my memory. At the end of the year, I wrote her a letter which ran, no joke, nine single-spaced typed pages. And I actually gave it to her. I remember thinking I should make it shorter, but being unwilling to cut anything out. I don't dare to reread that letter now because the thought of what it must have said - or, perhaps more importantly, what was in between every line - makes me cringe. I was so obvious - it was so obvious - to everyone but myself. Juanita did come to like me, even love me a little, maybe, but it was never enough. I did become her favorite student - which was what I'd thought I had wanted all along - and yet it still didn't feel like enough. The yearning never went away, even though I didn't know what I was yearning FOR. Sixteen-year-old Athena wouldn't figure that out until six years later, when one very special girl came along and, like a fog lifting, gently showed her who she was.

Annemarie Vandervoort, my Dutch teacher, freshman year of college. Just a few years older than me, she was tall, blond, confident, and a native Dutch speaker. Abandoning Spanish - something I never, ever thought I would do - I poured myself into Dutch, trying to be the best, the most eager, the quickest learner, the hardest worker. I journaled, more than once, about how much I wanted Annemarie to like me, how jealous I felt that another classmate was 'in the running' for her affections, too, and how silly and babyish I felt for feeling jealous. But I never let it show - at least, I tried not to. And she did come to like me - I eventually became the favorite student, just as I had with Juanita, and then, eventually, a friend and confidant as well - and I hung on her every word. For that first college semester, she was my idol. Yet I still thought these girl-crushes were something everyone went through, something other people felt and just didn’t talk about. I was so naive. I see it through new eyes now.

Ricki Durant, my junior year roommate. The most obviously athletic girl I have ever seen - 5'11" and 180 pounds of solid muscle, with wild curly hair and linebacker shoulders atop a size-six waist. I loved that little Olympic tattoo on her shoulder. She was the reason I suddenly got so into swimming. I worked my butt off, and lived to impress her - if not through my skill, then through my dedication. I knew I could never be as good as she was, which (as a perfectionist) was depressing - it was the first time in my life that I wanted to match someone at a physical skill, rather than a mental one like a language, and it is simply impossible for a 20-year-old with an adult body, no matter how hard she works, to match someone with seventeen years' experience who started intense swimming at age six and had developed and grown into a sport-specific body type. But at the same time, I just wanted to be included in her world, to understand her life, to BE her. I admired everything she did, and all year, all I wanted was for her to like me. She could piss me off like no other, but a smile, secret confidence or quick word of praise from her fell like sacred balm on my ears. She was a massage student, and gave me an hour-long full-body massage during my last week in town. Heavenly. I wrote her a letter at the end of the year in which I admitted that I loved her, though I veiled it carefully in jokes and memories so that it would seem like any good friend could have written it (and I refused to let the letter run longer than a page - I had learned from my Juanita experience!). I recognized the Juanita-feeling, the horrible, panicky, 'oh-my-god-she's-leaving' feeling, but still (still!) didn't realize consciously that it meant something other than friendship.

There were others, too - not just these six. I felt something similar, in varying degrees, for Lily, for Jai, for Shakira, for others whose names and faces have fallen away over the years. But my social naivete kept me blissfully ignorant of myself - I never comprehended exactly how other people felt toward their friends, how they interacted, what they kept hidden. I had no reason to think I wasn't 'normal'. I didn't think about girls naked, or want them sexually - sure, I looked at their bodies and wished I were that thin or that pretty, but the intensity of my crushes always took the form of admiration, adulation, and a desperate desire to become that person's whole world, to be all they saw, all they needed, all they wanted. And though I cannot define why, I always felt that these feelings were something I should hide - maybe because the last thing I wanted was to frighten the object of my affections and make her withdraw from me. Yet, even in the hiding, I always felt like others knew, like they could see right through me and know exactly what I was thinking. God, I hope, I hope, I hope I wasn't that obvious - though I suspect I was, at least in Juanita’s case. If I had been a boy, it would have been transparently obvious; my being a girl may have left (some of) my objects' judgments of my feelings for them at 'cute' or 'sweet' rather than 'creepy'. Here's hoping. I'll never know for sure.

New Beginnings

After a long hiatus - almost a year - I'm back on Blogger. Only this time, I'm anonymous.

It's probably appropriate to start out with a short FAQ, right?

What's with the site name?
No, it's not Lesbian Tics! Lesbian + Antics = LesbiAntics (pronounced LEZ-bee-AN-tics). I went through a few other possibilities (Lesbiantically?), but liked this one best. I actually hate the 'L-word' (a close friend of mine calls me and Aphrodite 'pixies', which I love), but for some reason I liked it in the blog name. So sue me.

Am I going to be interested in your writing if I'm not gay?
I certainly hope so. Many posts will be about gay- and lesbian-related topics, sure, because my partner and my lifestyle are a big part of me, but just as many (if not more) posts will just be about me as a person, and my thoughts and feelings, and things that are going on in my life. Don't get scared off by my being gay - there are lots of interesting things about me besides that (at least, I like to think there are :)).

Is Athena your real name?
No. My girlfriend (wow, it feels good to be able to write that 'out loud') calls me Athena, because she says that with my curves and muscles, I look like what she imagines Athena would look like. (I'm pretty sure Athena would have had hair longer than two inches, but to each her own.) Another reason is that I prefer to compete in the Athena category when I do my triathlons, rather than in my age group (for the self-serving reason that I'm far more likely to scrape an award from a category with fewer women in it). So in turn, I call her Aphrodite - goddess of love. No, those aren't our real names, but they'll serve the purpose.

Why are you anonymous?
This requires a little bit of background. I've had a website in some form or another since I was 14, but I finally started blogging in earnest in mid-2003, when I spent a year and a half abroad. It gave my family and friends a way to keep up with me while I was overseas, and once I got back, it was such a strong habit that I just kept it up - and they kept reading. But then Aphrodite came into my life, and I realized that for probably eight years, I had been hiding the fact that I was gay, even from myself. (I'll be posting about that soon.) The blogging became intermittent, then stopped altogether, just because there was so much I couldn't say. I've since come out to most of my friends (with very positive reactions) and my parents (with not so positive ones), but the rest of my family, plus some of the friends who read the previous site, are still in the dark, and I don't intend to enlighten them (again, I'll be posting about that soon). That means I can't write about Aphrodite on the old site, and I desperately want to be able to do that, so I started LesbiAntics. A few of my closest friends know this address, but the rest of the reading population comes from the glorious abyss that is the Internet.

How long have you and Aphrodite been together?
Thirteen months now. Our anniversary is November 18th, 2006 (something else that will be detailed in a future post).

What's that list over on the right-hand side?
That's my Life List - or, if you prefer, Bucket List (I think there's a movie coming out soon by that name, but I've been keepng that list for way longer than they've been working on the movie). In short, it's stuff I want to do at some point in my life. It used to be a lot longer, but a lot of things that I desperately wanted a few years ago (to swim at the Olympic Trials, to learn Swahili...) have lost their appeal now that I'm a little older, so they've been banished from the list. The things listed here are the biggies - things I really want to do that aren't likely to change. The crossed-out items are, obviously, things I've accomplished already.

Can I email you?
Sure. I read all my comments, too (and respond to most of them), so feel free to respond in that way if you'd like.

I have a site like yours. Will you link to me?
Sure. Leave a comment, and I'll start a list in the right-side column. Also, feel free to link me on your site if you like; you don't need my permission the way some webmistresses demand.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll update the list. I look forward to getting to know you all.