Queers to the Rescue!

So, how was everyone else's Labor Day? I hope it was pleasant. Oh, how was mine, you ask? Thank you so much for your inquiry. I'd love to oblige with an answer.

Mine made me want to slowly gouge my eyeballs out with a hot poker and roast them over a bonfire.

Too far?

I think not. My boyfriend has a group of friends that I'll call the collossal bores. They're friendly enough, but they are the kind of straight-laced, conservative white folk who one goes to great lengths to avoid telling that one used to be a stripper. Know what I mean? They live in the Valley, are in their early thirties, have sensible bank accounts and mortgages, don't talk politics or religion, and are settling in to Life with a Family, just like they're Supposed to Do.

Every Labor Day weekend, this group of friends goes out of town together, and this weekend was no different. Since "we're" friends with them, this weekend found me up in a ranch by Tahoe (but not in Tahoe, no, that would be far too pleasant for me), sans cell phone reception, and surrounded, horrifically, by small children, daytime activities, a profound and shocking lack of curse words, and adults whose lives have swiftly come to an end, marked by plastic pickup trucks and sippy cups.

For the first few hours of the trip, I held on to the hope that maybe we could still get blasted throughout the course of the day. We had come prepared with tequila, whiskey, wine and beer. But the most anyone drank from noon till nine (bedtime!) was one or two light beers.

It didn't take long for myself and the other childless female in the group (perish the thought!) to resign ourselves to sitting sulkily sitting by the pool, having nothing to do as the the big gender divide descended over the house like a storm cloud over a midwest sky. That's right: the women tended to the babies in the kitchen, and the men threw the football over the pool outside.

I shit you not.

And so -- call it intellectual subversity, a cry for help, a blessed escape -- as the other childless female sat next to me flipping through bridal magazines (oh, did I leave that out?????????), apparently anxious to join the ranks, I sat reading about queer San Francisco courtesy of Valencia, by Michelle Tea.

I literally did that all weekend. Through every lunchtime, every nap time, every fucking hike and trip into town and board game, I injected Michelle directly into my veins for the most immediate and effective high. As glossy-eyed moms called over the banister to their husbands that lunch was ready, smiling as though they had inhaled massive mushroom clouds of valium, I watched Michelle fist a tattooed girl who held a knife to her nipples.

Anyway, we're back now, and I survived. But you know what? Parenthood -- at least this version of it -- kills me a little on the inside. I just hated it. I hated every waking minute of plastic toys and white bread and deli meat and talking nicely and bedtimes. I hated the dads in the game room trying to act like they didn't have kids. I hated the undercurrent of resentment mixed with smug contentment that ran between the moms and everyone else. I hated that so many subjects were taboo, that I'd never be able to tell them who I am, that I had to lie and act like I wanted to play games with their kids when frankly, I wanted to get back to my book and to Michelle's glorious lube-covered fingers.

And I don't hate kids. I think kids are swell. I just hate the loss of fun that so many adults feel like they have to take on when they have them. Adult shit is fun, people. That's why we have strippers. :)