Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Cousin: Have you ever seen Mean Girls?
Em: Dude.
Cousin: Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're from Tumblr.
Em: I'm from the 1980s! I saw Mean Girls in the movie theater!
Cousin: Whoa.
The biggest difference between my parents and my relationships with each of them:
Dad lets me use the chainsaw and Mom won’t let me open a plastic bottle of salad dressing.
Happy Thanksgiving
That awkward moment when my aunt’s best friend’s gay brother remarks on how great it is that a straight girl works for the gay yellow pages and asks if I’m texting my boyfriends after dinner. Passing problems.
Then he said I look like “what would happen if Blaine and Kurt from glee had a baby” and damn me, that might be the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.
So, theoretically…
If I just told my 14 year old cousin that I will buy him condoms should he ever need them and be somehow unable to get them, would that win me the Best Cousin Ever or the Worst Cousin Ever award?
Theoretically.
For science.
My 14 year old cousin just told me he refers to me among his friends as “my cousin Emily, the one person who I am related to that I can relate to”.
This was the day my heart grew three sizes.
Wow family I came out to you guys nearly six years ago and you have either forgotten or you never took me seriously in the first place wow that’s awesome remember that nearly three year relationship I was in? Obviously guess not because you never really accepted her or maybe you thought it was a phase that one’s my favourite.
Me: Did you see anybody you knew at the reunion?
Mom: Yeah, one of my friends from freshman year, Terri. We got arrested for shoplifting. We stole some pretty awesome stuff, like this one Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album.
Me: How....how did you even get that out of the store?
Mom: We didn't, we got arrested!
6 years after she died and I still maintain that my paternal Grandmother was not only the kindest, gentlest, most loving and wisest person around who made the greatest strawberry rhubarb cobbler and played the most beautiful songs on the piano, but was also the best looking person to have directly contributed to my genes.
Grandmother, I think of you whenever I think of childhood summers and the Rocky Mountains, or whenever I see rows of pansies or whenever I hear Pachelbel’s Canon. I think of you every Christmastime, making your shortbread (I gave the recipe to some Germans - I hope you don’t mind, they’re practically family and you would’ve liked them). You look good. And I look nothing like you. But mostly, I miss you.
Skyped with my parents tonight and for the first time since I came out nearly 6 years ago my Mom asked me “do you have a girlfriend or boyfriend?”.
Compared to other queer people’s parental horror stories, mine are nearly laughable and for this I am incredibly grateful. I never worried about being kicked out, yelled at, sent away, cursed or damned. But at the same time, I never dreamed about my Mom joining PFLAG or marching with a sign that says “I’m proud of my bisexual daughter”. All I wanted was for her to acknowledge the fact that she has one.
She finally has.
But guys, my little (hahaha the kid is probably, like, at least 4 inches taller than me by now) 14 year old cousin has a girlfriend. That’s equal parts adorable and depressing.
from tonight’s skype call with my parents
Mom: I was reading an article in a travel magazine about Lower Saxony, that’s kind of where you are…
Me: Uh, not really…
Mom: But isn’t that near you? In the black forest?
Me: Mom, you visited me….
Dad: You’re kind of in the best part of Germany, aren’t you? Bavaria’s the best par-
Me: I don’t live in Ba-
Dad: Isn’t that where Munich is?
Mom: Yes, like you said, in Bavar-
Me: MOM WHERE DID YOU VISIT ME LAST YEAR?
Mom: Aren’t you in the black forest?
Me: ….
Dad: Wait, isn’t she near Frankfurt?
Me: Where do you send me letters? What’s the city?
Mom: Well it’s Mainz in Rheinland-Pfalz. That’s where I visited you. Of course I knew that.
Dad: Wait, she’s not in Bavaria?
Me: You are messing with me.
