Bi. Ex.
Friday, 05.19.2017 - 7:22 pm.

This has been quite a week for my queerness. I joined the LGBT+ university staff mailing list (I'm getting a rainbow lanyard!). I was confirmed as a volunteer for Pride. My nephew and I stood under the rain for an hour to attend a small but hopeful gathering in the city centre for International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. One of my participants casually(?) mentioned she was bi and we got to chat after she took part in my study.

PLUS, I came out to two of my dearest friends, Victor and Virginia. The latter has been crucial to me in LGBT terms, because of her own personal and political visibility as a lesbian (and just general brilliance and humor and her friendship), and because I ran to her when I realized maybe not all women desire other women in the same way they desire men. She sent me that Bowie gif/video in which he says he's bisexual, and the interviewer grills him and questions him like he's hiding something and he just grins "I've answered the question" (however he ended up identifying, even if as a "closeted heterosexual", is none of my business; what he did at that time was essential for a lot of people and continues to be).

I feel so at home with myself, and I've also been feeling less lonely. I'm following more bi-related twitter accounts and learning about other people's experiences. I can now accept my crushes on women as much as I accept my crushes on men (currently it's two fellow PhD students...a boy and a girl, go figure. They're both from the same Latin American country but unrelated to one another. I see either of them and I just fucking melt, and the girl calls me a term of endearment and that's just so precious to me). Regardless, or perhaps because of all this, I'm as happily married to Andrew as ever.
I'm here, I'm queer.

Now, onto not so good news. Coming out to my friend Victor got us catching up about our lives (he's getting married in November, yay!). Because of this, he told me he'd seen Joseph frequently "a while ago" near his office. He used to go there and sell food to people who worked in nearby offices, and he used to go with someone who Victor presumed was his wife.

I said, oh, good for him, so he put on a business. Victor said no, it was a very informal thing, it was a bit pitiful. It was not a commentary on the work they were doing (anyone who makes meals for others is a bit of lifesaver) but on the conditions of it. Victor felt sorry for him, "I said in my head, man, if she saw you like this...". She meaning me. Victor bought a few meals from Joseph but Joseph didn't recognize him, or didn't remember him, or pretended he didn't. I don't recall introducing them to each other so it's likely that Joseph didn't know or remember that Victor is my friend.

I asked Victor how Joseph looked. He's gained weight, he said (I suspected, I'd seen a picture when FB reminded me of his friend request), but dresses very much the same, in rocker style. He said Joseph used to arrive with his partner-maybe-wife to sell food, then it was just him, then he stopped coming. It didn't seem like a formal business but rather a way to get through the day. I thought Joseph's kid must be like six by now.

It made me sad to know this. I must confess not *that* sad, inasmuch I haven't seen the guy in almost 10 years(!!!), but I really cared for him. Hell, I was in love with him, a part of me will always be in love with him, I cannot not want the best for him. Even with all the dick moves he pulled on me, I wouldn't wish he'd have a precarious livelihood, especially while having a family.

I think he could have done much better in life than just sitting on a sidewalk at noon to sell food, considering the opportunities his family background afforded him. Or maybe he didn't have those opportunities? I was never entirely clear about his relationship with his parents, they loved him and seemed keen to support him, but often his situation would suggest otherwise. Still, he had some privileges that could have helped him get ahead. I think. I could be wrong, like I've been wrong before about him.

The death of Chris Cornell also reminded of Joseph, he was (is?) a huge grunge fan. Grunge takes me back to his bedroom, and I'm just remembering all that after a long time and I'm tearing up a bit. His bedroom was Incubus and Stone Temple Pilots, and him shirtless dancing, no, swinging to the beat. I became a fan of STP because of him, he got me No. 4. My nephew here is currently using a backpack Joseph gave me in our last stages of our relationship, it's probably one of the last things I have of him. The sunglasses he gave me for driving, I lost them last year in Houston. That broke my heart a bit, another piece of him gone.

Ok, stop. I just wanted to say I'm very sad for Joseph, and maybe I shouldn't be.

Back to good news: my dad's cancer hasn't spread like we thought! And lastly, Andrew and I are going on a day trip to Cambridge tomorrow! My nephew will be at a music festival so it'll be just the two of us. In this regard, I'm also looking forward to being on the road to read on my kindle...I've uploaded my novel to my kindle. My AF story, I can call it a novel now. It may be ready. I've been reading one of the winners of the novel contest I'm going to enter at the end of this year. I think I could win.

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