My First Femme

You know when thoughts come to you out of nowhere for no reason? And yet they continue to return, taking you back to a time you thought, perhaps, had its due? This happened to me tonight as I was looking for a musical to listen to while writing another page for my paper. Scrolling down my "Musicals" folder on my iPod, I saw the Grease soundtrack. (Incidentally, I struggled over whether to file this album under the "Soundtracks" folder, rather than "Musicals." Sure it is a soundtrack of the movie, not of the musical. Why, I thought to myself, would I include this in "Musicals" if I filed "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" under soundtracks. I have the movie soundrack of the latter, not the stage soundtrack. I did spend some time on this issue, ultimately deciding to put it under "Musicals." No rhyme or reason went into this decision. And yet, I have learned to live with it.) Before deciding to listen to it, something I never listen to, because, well, there are only a few songs I like on it, I thought back to a conversation I had a couple of months ago with my friend Yvette about Olivia Newton John.

Yvette has always loved Olivia. While my affinity for Olivia is not as strong as Yvette's or anywhere near that of, say, Nicole Kidman, I nevertheless thought back to being six years old, the age I was when I first saw the movie Grease. I was going along, not understanding anything that was happening, when all of a sudden I saw her walking to the beat of "You're the One That I Want." Holy shit.I didn't know what was going on at all with my six-year-old libido, but I knew that, in some way, I had to have Sandy. My heart pitter-pattered; I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Her dirty-blonde hair was done up, she was wearing make-up, and that black tank top situation was hanging on for dear life off her shoulders. Every time I see that scene, I go back to being six years old.

And every time I hear that song, I become John. So this is the song I decided to listen to. And it did take me back to my first femme. Then I thought about my second femme. There was this show called "Charlie's Angels." Yes I wanted them all at some point, but there was this poster that hung on the walls of many pre-pubescent boys, not-so-pre-pubescent boys, and burgeoning butches. Although I didn't have the poster myself, my uncle did.

I apparently had a thing for done-up blondes back then. This goes through phases thankfully, as I would hate to discriminate, what with all of the different formulas of Clairol out there. Nicole Kidman is my femme of choice these days, but Farrah and Olivia opened my imagination up to the world of possibilities that were out there. The possibilities are shrinking, as I still appear to be drawn to the perpetually unavailable woman, but whatever.

Beauty is beauty is beauty and I'm just learning. That's all. My friend Marek and I went to dinner tonight. He ate, I drank. As we were walking to the train, we passed by a socialist group collecting signatures for a petition in support of gay marriage. I signed it but not before telling the woman I wasn't anywhere near ready for marriage myself. She invited us to attend a rally on Saturday at Columbia. That might as well be in a different state, so I already made up my mind not to go. But then I considered the possibility of meeting someone. Shameless, I know. But I need to get into politics some way. I'm not going to that, after all, but I am going to bed.