A Common Goal Makes a Community

I never understood the idea of a community until the summer of 2010. I had been a supporter of gay rights ever since I could remember, but unlike many of my LGBTQ friends I had never been to the Seattle Pridefest. The event at the end of June brings together people from all different economic classes, ethnicities and religions. They come together to celebrate the fact that they are all different. I consider it to be more of a salute to diversity itself then to the gay lifestyle, but the reason this community has come together is to strive for the common goal that is equality.

Members of the LGBTQ community have always referred to it as such because they strive to keep a united front. They share the common value that equality and respect is a necessity to human happiness. Many gay people feel as though they are considered second-class citizens, and by making their presence known in America’s other communities they further validate their argument that equality is a right rather than a privilege.

I’ve had gay friends tell me that the biggest problem within the gay community itself is the differing lifestyle choices of the newer generation of LGBTQ people compared to the older. Older gay men and women believe the “swinging” lifestyle some younger people choose to live puts the validity of their fight for equality in jeopardy.

As a supporter of gay rights, I’ve felt very welcome in their community. I was told by a friend that more so than he likes meetings a fellow LGBTQ identified person, he likes meeting “a straight person who has an open heart and mind.”

A Wallet Full of Odds and Ends

I've been carrying around the same bright blue, sparkly wallet for about the past three years. I chose the obnoxious case because i was certain that with a color so unique, it's be pretty tough to lose track of. Yet somehow I managed it last year. For the two days that my wallet was M.I.A., I believed i had lost my entire life. I couldn't purchase anything without my debit card, and I certainly couldn't drive without my license. When I found my glittering wallet buried beneath clothes in my closet, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I could resume my daily life, and in a sense I regained my identity.

But what would have happened if I hadn't simply misplaced my wallet in my mess of a bedroom? If I had dropped my wallet on the street, and someone had picked it up, what would they have concluded by taking a gander inside the blinding, blue case? They would have to shuffle through the ridiculous amounts of receipts and sort through the many different identification cards, all of which would assumingly belong to a cluttered, albeit, busy person.

The stranger who recovered my wallet may assume that the heaps of receipts, along with a Macy's credit card, mean I am a sport-shopper. A girl who can't save a dime for a day. But looking closer at the receipts, they'll notice that none of the items purchased were frivolous. Gas to get to and from school, books for my classes, food for lunches for the entire week. While it is easy to jump to conclusions when pay stubs spill out on to the floor everytime i open my wallet, it's read these things that provide a true insight into who I am.

While sorting through the jumbled mess, one would happen upon a ticket stub, to a rap concert from 2009. The item is merely a momento and holds no significance to my current life, but some people are quick to typecast people who listen to that particular genre of music. Inside my wallet is also the business card for a tattoo shop. This stranger may quickly typecast me as perhaps a hard-edged person, when in fact, I'm often described by others as the exact opposite.

Looking back on the period in which i was wallet-less, I realize that what makes up my identity is far too complex to be written on scraps of paper or credit cards. The chaos in our back pockets and purses are merely odds and ends, not the sum of  our parts. In order to know someone's true identity, you need to know much more than where they've been and where they are going.

Music (THIS IS A TEST!)

"You just pick up a chord, go twang, and you've got music. "
-Sid Vicious.

Sid Vicious had never picked up a bass guitar in his entire life before Malcom Mclaren asked him to join the group he managed called the Sex Pistols. On stage Vicious was known to carelessly strum on the chords, sometimes even neglecting to play a single note during an entire song. It was Vicious's image that added to the band, not his musical skills. But to the Pistols' fans, he was a musician because of what he represented. And thus when Vicious stood on stage with  his bass guitar hanging from his body as if it were solely for decoration, he was seen as a musical genius. But only because he didn't care about being one.