2008 Woodie Awards
It's hard to hate your friends
Galen Sanford, Staff Writer
Issue date: 2/27/07
Last Updated: 8/9/07
If you see her in summer you'll remark on the colors on her arms. A fairy tale of characters meander on her shoulders. You'll see her crystal eyes, note her platinum pixie hair glistening like rain.
She works at FedEx. Stare long enough and she'll snap at you, a harshness that hides the kindest heart I know. Her compassion is for kids and cats and the sick.
Get her talking and she'll show herself impulsive, and brilliant. Her tongue stud will flash like her intellect, like her eyes, competing and challenging.
When we were kids everything was a contest. We'd make up enormous multiplication problems which she'd solve a second ahead of me. She was better at darts, I at checkers. I at talking my way out of trouble, she at getting exactly what she wanted.
We raced everywhere. One day we were racing out the door, down the stairs, to the car, in the car, to get our seat belts on. My Mom got fed up. She leaned over the front seat and said somewhat seriously, "If you two don't stop racing, I'm going to throw both of you in that garbage can." Laura retorted, "Well, we'll just fight about who gets thrown in first."
These are the things we talk about now. The time when we were nine and she was losing at Chinese checkers, and she backed away from the game board just to fall the six feet off the edge of my bunk bed. Or the time I punched her for beating me at darts. Playing ship, roller blading, memorizing all the sharks at the Point Defiance Zoo, high school teachers and high school grades (we graduated with the same GPA), college, odd jobs, parties, books, games, families. Recently her Mom gave my Mom a kidney, uniting our families in blood. Her brother is my little brother. She is my sister, these 22 years.
So how often does it come up that she's a lesbian? Only once or twice in the past couple of years. When I met her girlfriend. When we grimace at the whispers. When people mention it. They say, "You know Laura right?" I nod and they jump to their pulpit. "You know she's a ... right?" I nod again, but before the actual preaching starts, I excuse myself. When they see Laura they see a challenge, a target for their proselytism. They're missing out. When I see Laura, I see her first perm, AP English, Grandma Ware's house, jumping on beds and senior Prom; I hear her laugh and her frustration against impersonal authority. I know her and I remember our experiences.
Otherwise her sexuality comes up in conversation as often as my straightness does. Which isn't much. There's better stuff to talk about. Our sexual orientations are not ignored, or unacknowledged, but they don't define us. Our sexuality takes back seat to what does define us: attitude and antidisestablishmentarianism, alcohol and opinions, and friends.
Which is why I wonder why homosexuality is such a popular, controversial topic. My friends can't be defined so simply as "gay" or "straight." Gay or straight, they're all complex, unstereotypical. They defy lazy summarizations. You'd probably like them.
She works at FedEx. Stare long enough and she'll snap at you, a harshness that hides the kindest heart I know. Her compassion is for kids and cats and the sick.
Get her talking and she'll show herself impulsive, and brilliant. Her tongue stud will flash like her intellect, like her eyes, competing and challenging.
When we were kids everything was a contest. We'd make up enormous multiplication problems which she'd solve a second ahead of me. She was better at darts, I at checkers. I at talking my way out of trouble, she at getting exactly what she wanted.
We raced everywhere. One day we were racing out the door, down the stairs, to the car, in the car, to get our seat belts on. My Mom got fed up. She leaned over the front seat and said somewhat seriously, "If you two don't stop racing, I'm going to throw both of you in that garbage can." Laura retorted, "Well, we'll just fight about who gets thrown in first."
These are the things we talk about now. The time when we were nine and she was losing at Chinese checkers, and she backed away from the game board just to fall the six feet off the edge of my bunk bed. Or the time I punched her for beating me at darts. Playing ship, roller blading, memorizing all the sharks at the Point Defiance Zoo, high school teachers and high school grades (we graduated with the same GPA), college, odd jobs, parties, books, games, families. Recently her Mom gave my Mom a kidney, uniting our families in blood. Her brother is my little brother. She is my sister, these 22 years.
So how often does it come up that she's a lesbian? Only once or twice in the past couple of years. When I met her girlfriend. When we grimace at the whispers. When people mention it. They say, "You know Laura right?" I nod and they jump to their pulpit. "You know she's a ... right?" I nod again, but before the actual preaching starts, I excuse myself. When they see Laura they see a challenge, a target for their proselytism. They're missing out. When I see Laura, I see her first perm, AP English, Grandma Ware's house, jumping on beds and senior Prom; I hear her laugh and her frustration against impersonal authority. I know her and I remember our experiences.
Otherwise her sexuality comes up in conversation as often as my straightness does. Which isn't much. There's better stuff to talk about. Our sexual orientations are not ignored, or unacknowledged, but they don't define us. Our sexuality takes back seat to what does define us: attitude and antidisestablishmentarianism, alcohol and opinions, and friends.
Which is why I wonder why homosexuality is such a popular, controversial topic. My friends can't be defined so simply as "gay" or "straight." Gay or straight, they're all complex, unstereotypical. They defy lazy summarizations. You'd probably like them.
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