in the few short years that i have been able to make a full claim on adulthood i have come to learn many things about what it means to be a grown up. and one of the most important things i have learned thus far is that, if you are given an excuse to drink and act stupid, no matter how flimsy that excuse is, you should hang on to it for dear life. and this is why halloween is more for adults than for kids. its the perfect excuse to don fake weapons or a really slutty nurse outfit and not be seen a headcase. its really the only excuse to dress up in public (excluding Otakon, but i dont see that so much as an excuse to dress up; its more like something that should be addressed in the DSM). and being drunk on halloween is almost a requirement. it makes the costume that much better….really. in college, halloween was THE event to celebrate, second only to mardi gras. and mardi gras was really only exceptional if you were heading to new orleans, halloween could be exceptional in any city. but…since halloween typically falls on a school night, the saturday night before halloween has begun to pick up a lot more popularity. think of it as halloween observed….for those who hold steady jobs….and like to keep them. i went out last saturday night to kiss cafe in canton for “last kiss”. and not because it was the saturday night before halloween specifically – i go to last kiss usually anyway – but dont ya’ll think i went all dressed up or anything. that would be silly of course. im much too mature for that….

Todays word(s) of the day are for all the guys out there:

medorthophobia (me – DOR - thuh -) : the fear of the (erect) penis.

medectophobia (me – DEK - tuh -) : the fear that the shape or contour of one’s penis is visible through one’s clothes.

Clearly, these are very useful words.

on tuesday night, i went out to rams head live in baltimore to see a cyndi lauper concert. it was AWESOME. you might be thinking that i am in fact a wee bit young for cyndi lauper. and yeah, you could make that argument. i was born in 82, which makes me too young to have listened to lauper the first time around. but im also a HUGE 80s fan (insert your mockery here), and cyndi lauper and her hit “girls just want to have fun” are icons of the 80s. cyndi lauper was the first (and possibly the only) person to take punk and make it look cute. so, even though i was not old enough to appreciate her when she was big, i can certainly appreciate her now. and to see a 53 year old punk/pop rocker dancing barefoot on a piano wearing an outfit that was not only in style in 1983 but is ironically also back in style now, with short bleach blonde funky hair, is just a riot. and for 53 – that woman is still in great shape. she was plain old fun. also… a control freak. she was very clearly running the show. her manager must pull his hair out nightly. she stopped songs midway through because she didnt like the way the band was doing it, she paused the concert in the middle to sign autographs for 10 year olds (who probably have no idea who she is), she instructed the band on when to do solos and who to solo and when to stop…it was insane, but amusing. she mentioned that she will finally be doing a “True Colors” tour soon. so i encourage everyone to see that if you get a chance.

so i have to admit, im beginning to feel a little frightened of the upcoming winter season. i have lived in maryland my entire life and not once in that entire time can i recall a single year where every season happened in a proper and timely fashion. the thing about maryland is this – the weather is moody. and not moody as in occasionally cranky, i mean moody as in i need a sams club size bottle of paxil and i need it NOW moody. spring and fall usually last for an average of 28 minutes give or take a few miliseconds; summer brings waves of sauna like heat with occasional bursts of freezing cold days (this usually happens on saturdays) and either a drought or small oceanic flood; and winter means long periods of freezing cold and no snow (though if marylanders see even a single grey cloud in the sky, all the toilet paper in the supermarkets will be gone) followed by sudden heat waves and then a blizzard. this is maryland weather. and i love it. its predictably unpredictable.

but this year? the weather is up to something. something very very sneaky. the seasons have come almost perfectly to the day and have been…well…seasonal. the spring was cool and wet, warming slowly into a warm, but not hellish summer with no drought or flood and now fall has come very gently, with warmer days and cooler nights. either the republican party has finally succeeded in creating an artificial dome around the earth to trick us into thinking there is no global warming (GLOBECONDOM), or maryland has migrated north. either way, this could mean two things.

1. winter will follow the pattern and be cold, but not freezing with occasional snow but no blizzards or…

2. this is going to be the winter from hell, where all the normal abnormalities of maryland weather which have, until now, been held off will finally gain enough strength to push through, descending upon us poor little southern northerners with the force of three thousand locust plagues. meaning i should purchase a pair of snow shoes as well as a new bikini for the upcoming months. possibly a kayak.

so yes…i definitely fear the approaching winter season.

but….in the meantime….i will enjoy the very pleasant fall we are having while secretly stocking up on freezedried milk products and rolls of toilet paper.

yesterday, Oct 11, was National Coming Out day. gay people celebrate this holiday by hiding in closets across the nation and then jumping out of them wearing very colorful, flamboyant clothing and screaming “HERE AND QUEER!” to scare the living heck out of the straights.

ok, so maybe not, but that would be funny wouldnt it?

typically, the thing to do on national coming out day is to share your coming out story. and thats not just for the queer either – straight people come out to. so do gay allies.

now youre looking at me funny arent you?

no, really. you come out as straight the first time you tell your parents you want to have a member of the opposite sex over for dinner. or the first time you introduce your opposite sex significant other as your boyfriend or girlfriend. or when you take their hand in public. even placing a photo of your significant other on your desk at work. youre making an unofficial announcement to the people around you—“this is me, this is what i like”. straight coming out is often unnoticed. your mother does not break into tears, your father does not refuse to speak to you for months, your friends dont suddenly distance themselves and people walking by you on the street dont stare or yell “Breeder!”.

coming out as an ally is a little bit more difficult. people come out as gay allies when they announce to their friends and family that, while they themselves are not gay, they support gays and gay rights. its more difficult because anytime you support something controversial you run the risk of alienating friends and family. once again though, you dont have your parents crying or people freaking out over it – unless they assume that you are in fact gay as well. which is something a lot of allies have to deal with. once you announce your support for gay rights, most people automatically assume you must be gay.

so, i have heard a lot of coming out stories the past couple days. some funny—allies whose parents still do not believe that they arent actually gay themselves so they have to constantly be coming out as straight, gays who came out only to discover that everyone already knew, straights whose friends assumed they were gay and were shocked to find out that they were in fact straight, bisexuals with very confused friends and family, a father who is so supportive that he actually tries to set his son up with other boys . these are all great stories and they really make you think that the world is becoming a more welcoming place. then there have been some not so funny stories—fathers who no longer speak to their sons, some who have gone so far as to throw them out of the house, women who have had things thrown at them from passing cars because they were holding hands and looking a bit too “dykey”, families who, while they did not reject a son, daughter or sibling, refuse to acknowledge that they are gay, a lesbian who left her girlfriend of 5 years because her parents found out and made her choose between having a family and being gay. these arent from the 80s or 90s, these are things that have happened in the last 5 years. some in the last couple of months.

then there are the bad stories. kids who are living on the streets because their family has abandoned them. (did you know that GLBT youth make up almost 40% of the homeless youth population in NYC?), gay bashings, murderes like matthew shepard. these are the stories that didnt turn out okay.

its those bad stories that keep so many gay men and women in the closet. for some people, the risk is too high.

i would share my coming out story, but it really isnt worth it. it can be summed up in the following dialogue:

Steph: “Um…I have something to tell you…..Im gay”
Everyone: “um….duh. we knew that”

so, what i ask of you this week is to share your own coming out story (not necessarily with me, though that is encouraged), no matter what your sexual preference. look back and think about all the times in your life, starting with the first, that you have declared your sexuality to your friends, family, coworkers, etc.

and honestly, if you arent GLBT, think about how different those situations would have been if you were.

i have made a few an extraordinary amount of bad decisions in my lifetime. the most recent of which was – taking two graduate level computer science classes simultaneously (one upper level programming, the other discrete mathematics) while working full time and still trying to get to the gym three times, two times, even just once a week, maintain a social life, eat and sleep.

im not even half way through the semester and i have already lost several valuable hours of sleep and days from my life. this is time i will never get back people. gone. just gone.

its sad.

and im sad about it.

but theres no time to be sad. there is work to do, and homework to do, and packing to start because – im moving! in november, i will be leaving the apartment i have called home for the last two years and moving in with my brother for 6 months. yes…just 6 months. its a sublet kinda thing. then? dont know. any and all suggestions are welcome, preferably those that allow me to keep my current job. but..i still have 6 whole months to figure that out. in the meantime…its packing and cleaning and IKEA!

can you see the stress vein in my forehead bulging?