I don’t know if I want to be in the Green Party anymore. It’s mostly because someone is going to run who’s not good enough for me. A petty reason. I went to the GP social last week at the bar I picked because it’s close. Then I went. And it was weird. It was only two other people. I had picked a black bar. I’ve been before and it had good reviews. I pictured 10-15 people there, eating. I drank and all that before I went. I drank a lot that night. But it was only two people. I gave them my full social attention. It was one of the leaders, and a guy from Texas who said he had moved here for school. I forgot for what. I thought he looked like a drifter, and he reminded me of a roommate I had around 2006, named Phil. He was a slob, and a womanizer, and he chainsmoked inside, wanted to tattoo rats, stole my whiskey, and had impulsive sex in the middle room while I was home, and we had to hear it. My cat was traumatized, but I was living a chaotic life so it was only a detail. The leader told me that before I got there, the patrons came over to them and said, “You guys are making us nervous,” because they look suspicious. The leader is petite, and (to me, at least), flamboyantly gay. He’s wrapped in rainbows, and talks like a kindergarten teacher. The only guy DOES look like trouble! That’s why I grilled him, and he put up a high, thick wall, and hid behind it. He was young, a little handsome, wearing a jean jacket-jeans type outfit with shoulder length, brown hair. He sipped a single drink for an hour. I offered to buy him another, and he declined. Both guys took the bus to the bar. I felt bad that I got to drive home, afterward, and they’d be waiting for the bus. I thought about driving the Texas boy home, but immediately didn’t feel safe. Who knows who he is? He didn’t show me, that’s for sure.
I tried to convey friendliness and a tiny bit of insider connection by naming the song playing, while ordering drinks at the bar. “Jodeci,” right? The bartender ignored me. “Forever My Lady.” See, all the people in the bar were my friends in high school. They don’t recognize me, because I look different than I did then, in 1995 in South Minneapolis (12 hours from here, at least). I was in a black community there, a diverse, mixed community, and my best friends were biracial with black and white parents. Most of the moms were white and black dads weren’t there anymore. My first boyfriend was mixed like that, and “Forever My Lady,” by Jodeci was popular in 1991 when I was about to meet him. The other bands we liked were: Boys to Men, BBD (Bel Biv Devoe), and singers like: Mary J Blige, Sisters With Voices, and En Vogue. I went a long way from home, but I started there, with them.
Now they’re at the bar- this is their bar- this is their SPOT, their family, These patrons come here every single night. The music is loud. We don’t fit in. The company I invited look like Hitler (gay boy has a Hitler mustache) and your average hitch-hiker/serial killer, and I’m high on legal stimulants. I put in time and we left.
Then the next night I actually went out again for my sister’s birthday. I had fun dancing to grrrl power punk rock from the 2000’s and both earlier/later- like, the YYYs and Bikini Kill. It was a white scene. I noticed that. But it was a soldout party and we reveled in memories. In college, my life was like that— all female parties all the time. They are way better than parties with guys, I’m sorry, but it is. I’m not sorry. Men ruin everything. They make shit scary, when it was silly and they’re always on the prowl. At lesbian events (more or less) we only let in a half dozen guys that are safe, because they’re gay or in some other way, aware that this isn’t a place to fish for prey.
We had fun. The next day and rest of the weekend I was hungover and mostly slept it off. Then I bailed on social events I had loosely committed to, like coffee with thh DSA at a cafe downtown (“too far”- I say about anything where I need to cross a bridge in my car). I was supposed to do outreach calls for the Green Party, and I said I was going to the Democratic Socialists (our friends) coffee event. But I knew deep down I might not go.
I have a writing group online every saturday and sunday morning. After that I like to walk my dog. Then go back to bed. But I wanted to go. Working takes up all the energy. At least my work is love work. Practicing radical acceptance and love. We’re good enough, we’re lovable, we deserve safety, we deserve acceptance, we deserve access to resources, just the way we are. Just the way you are, no matter what.