Gay.

It’s been about a year. Since I came out. I feel like it’s been about 10 years. The first couple times I told people I couldn’t say the word. It was like, “I feel like maybe I’m…you know.” They knew. But I wasn’t strong enough to say the words.

A year later I can say the words. I haven’t said them to everyone. I know they won’t care. I know. But there’s no turning back from that. There’s no turning back from “I’m different.” I have never wanted to make anyone uncomfortable. I’ve always just wanted to go unnoticed. And now I’m afraid of being so noticed that I make everyone uncomfortable. No. Listen. No, I swear I’m not thinking of you that way. Don’t be creeped out. I’m normal.

I’m of the age where everyone, and I mean everyone, is now in either a long term committed relationship or married. And the babies. Goddamn the babies. Procreation everywhere. And I’m 13, afraid of everything, afraid of my body, afraid of everyone else, confused about what I should do. I should have known sooner. I did know sooner. I should have let myself know sooner.

I’m drunk now. I went to several holiday parties and watched as my attractive friends had a good time. And it just made me sad. Sad that they were attractive and young and had bright futures that could easily be betted on now. He’ll propose in 9 months. She’ll be knocked up in 2 years. But where will I be? Shouldn’t it be exciting that I don’t know? No. I’m 30, I should know. Where is my happy ending? Where is my super cute boyfriend that will make everything normal?

I’m never going to have that. I’m never going to have that. Nothing will be normal for me. Which is poetic I guess. I’ve never liked normal. I’ve never liked status quo. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. But sometimes I see everyone else’s drum and I’m jealous. Why can’t my drum be like everyone else’s? Why do I have to be alone?

I don’t know. I hold onto the hope that someday I’ll meet someone and be all, “Oh, yeah. This is why I had to wait.” But they’re (she’s) taking her damn time.

I can't decide if the ad creator should be given a raise or fired.

Dear Megan Mullally -

What did you blow your Will & Grace money on that made it necessary for you to make this commercial? Whores? Crack? Did you lose it in a Ponzi scheme?

Love,
Rachel

Tune-Yards is (are?) AWESOME or When did LA get culture?

The Natural History Museum has these events called First Fridays. They do them the first Friday of every month. They have special lectures and concerts and such, usually by people you've never heard of. Sounds pretty boring.

But, I was excited about it, because just about a week after my obsession with Tune-Yards started, they played at the NHM's first First Friday of the year.

Because I'm anal-retentive and like to have a plan in place, I bought a ticket ahead of time (which is just regular admission to the museum), but wasn't expecting much of a problem. This was a museum on a Friday night in Los Angeles after all. I was expecting me and about 15 other people. I didn't think anyone would show up for the lecture on spiders.

Boy howdy was I wrong.

I show up to see this massive line in front of the museum. And by massive, I mean probably about 200 people. But I'm bad at estimating, so who knows. I walk up and stand in the line for a bit, but every time I stand in line, this little voice in my head reminds me of my friend Jamie who is infuriated by people who just stand in lines without knowing what they're for. They stand there because it's what the majority is doing, but they aren't sure if it's the right line for them. So after a few minutes I asked the people behind me to save my spot and went up to the doors. Good thing, because guess what, me and my advance ticket - we got to go right on through!

This is a load off my back because the concert is supposed to start in about 10 minutes. But then I see it - the line to get into the concert room. It's longer than the line to get into the museum. It's longer than the line I stood in to get into the airport 2 days before Christmas. No, it's longer than that line AND the security line that I went through. This line crosses the museum and heads down a flight of stairs before I stop and rethink.

There's no way I'm getting in. So, I head back up to the front of the line and just linger, wishing I was a little more confident or at least drunk so I would be able to slip into line. It was just me after all. Instead I hung around until some security guy said we had to step back, but not to worry because the show would be projected onto the wall.

And so that's how it came to be that I stood next to a T-Rex and a roomful of hipsters to watch a concert projected on a marble museum wall. And I'll tell you what, I don't even care. The concert was that awesome. Merrill Garbus was there with the bass player guy that's always around, but she also brought three chicks to play drums. She played a lot of new stuff, which was awesome, but also a little sad because I knew it wasn't released yet and I'd just have to wait around forever. But, it was totally amazing, and I'm glad I went. Now I just have to wait a little more to see a proper show.

There were a ton of people there to see the show, but apparently a lot of people went to the spider lecture and some people were just hanging out. I'm still a little confused, as it doesn't really seem like an Angeleno thing to do. The other thing I can't figure out is why the museum doesn't do it more often. They had to be making bank! Not only with the price of admission, but they were also selling booze. I guess Silverlake's hipsters are standing behind their personas.

Anyhoo, I still highly recommend checking out Tune-Yards. And if she plays at a museum near you - GO EARLY.

tUnE-YaRdS "Fiya" from dublab on Vimeo.

tUnE-YaRdS "Hatari" from dublab on Vimeo.

tuneage

I recently came across this band that I am now obsessed with.

And when I say band, I mean "just one chick who uses a whole name for her band. But it's really just her."

That would be Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards. Actually, it's TuNe-yArDs or something like that with odd capitalization. I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if I'm supposed to say, "I love their stuff," or "I love her stuff." There are a lot of grammar issues here. I feel like maybe I should diagram a sentence or something.

Anyway, she does looping things to make a whole song with just her. I mean, it'd be cooler if she had one of those "one man band" outfits with the cymbals on the knees and the bass drum. I just realized anyone who didn't grow up watching Looney Tunes might not know what I'm taking about. It looks like this:



...But, as it is, she's got short hair on one side and not on the other and she plays a ukulele, so she's pretty bad ass, even without cymbals strapped to her knees.

Check out the video below and then go to iTunes and download her stuff (especially Hatari, Sunlight, and Fiya). And if you're really cool, you'll show up to the Natural History Museum tomorrow (January 8, 2010) to see it all live.