As much as I privately try to enjoy the holidays in my own gay, secular fashion—surrounded by people who love me but who do not understand me or see how their behavior is offensive towards me, at times degrading, and often difficult to respond to—I’m kind of glad to be skipping out on the Holidays at Home this year.
It sounds cruel, but I don’t think straight people realize how hard it is to just be around them like that. They are often insincere, and insecure, and they have all these weird manners and preoccupations I don’t understand, just like they don’t understand me. I mean, I never cast votes for people who want them dead in protest—but it is what it is.
In conversation, for example, I just don’t have a job. It doesn’t come up! I live in New York City on my own, doing nothing. That’s the story! No job here. Of course, if I ran a vegan button company and I made any kind of profit, my hometown would throw a parade and my mom would give a speech in front of everybody and probably cry. But instead, it’s as if everything in my life would be too shocking or embarrassing for them to talk about, so I’m relegated to pretend conversation or pithy quips to pass the time. And they wonder why I gotta be stoned?
My interests, things in the news that piss me off, my struggles and my personal hurts, none of it is really gonna land. They really just don’t know shit about gay people or think we have any real lives. It’s a lot of work to hide behind that politeness. And after a year of bullshit, poppycock, and nonsense, I’m too tired for the Patriarchy Olympics. I’m out of manners and fucks to give.
It’s unbelievable what we have seen this year. The government giving out $1,200 and telling us to go fuck ourselves. (At least they know the market rate). The police brutality. The fucking Republicans. The fucking Democrats. The audacity. After a year of seeing how bad “normal” is, I’m just not ready for Normalween.
I need a cultural reset. I cherish time with family, as Turgenev as the whole ordeal can be, but the reason for the season isn’t love, family, and togetherness: It’s God, genocide, and capitalism. That’s the brass tacks, babe. So this year? I think I can skip the part where we all stop what we’re doing, pipe down, and bow our heads so our wealthiest, Trump-voting family member can offer up a prayer of thanks.
Read the goddamn room.
And also, what? I’m also supposed to pretend I’m not smoking weed? In this climate? Grow up. We’ll stick to being aggressed via Zoom.
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