I just had to tell someone...

... so let me just tell the whole internet.

I've been away for a few weeks now (might write about it later, might not). Currently staying at a hotel in Orlando.

And I have the biggest crush EVER on the guy who works the front desk at nights.

There. I said it. He's so tall, and gorgeous. And he said my accent was cute. AND he said he liked my new t-shirt (it's MIB-inspired).

I still like my boyfriend. I promise.

But this man is just so good-looking. He has a good voice as well, deep. Southern accent. Just makes me want to ruffle my taffeta and my long skirts and invite him to my impossibly large mansion for lemonade on the porch. (Yes.)

Maybe I'm just starved of that sort of attention. So when I've not seen my boyfriend for a month and an attractive man comes along, does his job (i.e. he's competent and friendly) and tells me that English accents are cute, I'm going to notice him.

I didn't do anything though. Don't really want to. (Window shopping is much better.) Although when I asked him to help me find my brother in the bathroom tonight (he'd gone missing), there was a lady who was like "What's the problem?" and I'm like "There's no problem" and she's like "Suuuuuuure" and I KNOW she thought I was going to have one with him in the bathroom. That's kinda gross. (If it's going to be public, choose somewhere more hygenic, or more inventive, while you're at it. The gym? The computer room? How about a conference room?)

I'll forget about him soon, no doubt. He'll just be a gorgeous hazy memory after we check out on Friday.

But, it doesn't stop him from being some very good eye candy for the next day.

I want my boyfriend back. Sadface.

Kylie, cocktails and boys.

There was a good piece of news recently, marred by a weird statement from the judge who created said good piece of news.

Good news: queer people actually have a chance of getting asylum in the UK for being persecuted because of their sexuality. Two men from Iran and Cameroon got the right to asylum after having been refused first time round. Quote from the article:

They had earlier been refused asylum on the grounds they could hide their sexuality by behaving discreetly.

Now, that's not fair, is it? A straight couple can hug each other, kiss each other on the cheek or hold hands in public. People would be in uproar if someone said they weren't allowed to show small signs of affection to their loved ones in public. And yet, it's okay to tell a queer person, "Well, given that you can just have a relationship behind closed doors, I don't see there's a problem."

Putting aside the inequality, rumours spread fast, especially in small communities. An unmarried person who solely entertains members of the same perceived gender to their house, well, it's not the norm, is it? Questions like, "Why does Woman X always have Woman Y over? Why doesn't she have a husband yet?" are inevitable.

Anyway. So, now the judge has ruled they can come in to the UK. Hooray! His two cents on the matter were:

Just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.

I think that this is the sign of the journey that people are taking, when it comes to learning what LGBT+ people actually are. 50 years ago, we were abominations, nasty people with nasty lives, godless, decadent, wrong. Now, people see that, just like heterosexuals, we're people too. We have lives that we want to live. Some of these lives are more fabulous and glitter-laden than anything you could ever conceive, that's true, but not all of them. In the same way that not all straight men shag or fight everything they see, not all gay men wear glitter and sequins to work and say everything is fabulous.

But it's a start. It's a stereotyped start, but it's a symbol that says that progress has been made. I think that a lot of people in the community are too quick to say "This is bad, this is wrong, this could have been done better, I'm offended now." We need to look back, and see where we've come from.

We're not where we were. We're further on. We got somewhere. That's good!

~~~

On a slight tangent, I've been thinking about campaigning. Breaking down barriers like racism, sexism, queerphobia, etc. is like demolishing a wall. The first step is to get a bulldozer and ram it. Hard. Little chips here and there from hammers won't help. You need to get some strong force behind it, and break through. Now, once you've broken through, then you need everyone to get a hammer and start to chip away at the hole you made. If you try to use a bulldozer again to work, then people think, "Why do you need a bulldozer? That's overkill." and then, no matter how important it is to break down the wall, people only think of the fact that you used a bulldozer to knock over a few bricks.

What I'm trying to say is that we've had our Stonewall riots. Queers are doing relatively well today. Not as well as we could be, but we're doing well. We need to be more subtle in the way we change hearts and minds in places where we are doing especially well, such as the UK or America (of course, in places where queer people are still being killed, we still need to keep a bulldozer handy). Illustrating that queers are just normal people with normal lives, rather than constantly pointing out how we are SO DIFFERENT, will probably help with the whole "Treat us fairly" aspect of our campaigns.

I do my bit by just showing my friends that my queer life is pretty much the same as theirs, except sometimes I want to fuck people that have the same genitals as me. But that's just my two cents.

Questions of science, science and progress.

I got my third year results yesterday. 74 to the nearest whole, that's a First. It was what I had hoped for, and I think it's what I deserved, given how hard I worked, and how much I had to put aside and overcome to get there.

One more step to ascend. One more year, then I'll have done it. I'll have a Masters degree. Master of Maths. Sounds kinda awesome. (Not quite as good as Master of Physics, which is what my boyfriend now is. YES!)

I got an email out of the blue, from a familiar source. I used to be a part of Great Writing, a website where I would put all my scribbles and musings in poem-shaped parcels, and let the internet decide if they liked it.

I got a comment today, from one of the last poems I wrote. I wrote it right at the beginning of first year. I went along to the writing society's gathering, and they told us to write a poem, and I wrote something that wasn't what they were expecting. I wasn't sure if it was any good, so I put it up, and I got some good comments.

And today, I got another one. Same vein as the others, liking the same stuff.

I ended up looking through the whole back catalogue of work I've done.

It's good. Objectively, I just think it's quite good.

I need to start writing again. For my music, for my poetry, even my prose. It's not something I'd want to make a career of; I'd hate taking something creative I love and making it my paid work, and the fear of writer's block is enough to make me want to pick something I can consistently deliver, you know?

I love how when I'm just going about my life and then all the sudden a phrase pops into my head, followed in quick succession by a whole stanza, then nearly a whole poem. It's how I write; it's as if I'd been thinking about it, letting the poem gestate for weeks, and then I give birth, and there it is. Pretty much ready. Except you don't get really fat-looking if you're working on a poem subconsciously. (At least, I don't think you do.)

So, what's the summary?

I am a good mathematician, objectively. I was a good poet, objectively. I think I can be a good writer again. (It'll probably be easier to pick up chicks with good writing than with good maths, anyway.)