May 25, 1977 and June 20 1980

I didn't have words for people like me when I was growing up. I lived in a terribly small mill town, and as far as I knew I was the only person like me in that town, and quite likely the world. I didn't even know what I meant when I thought "people like me". I only knew that I had already experienced first love by the time I was six. And that love stayed with me for years. It all began when I went to see this new movie that everyone was talking about: Star Wars.

Now, I know there are a lot of Star Wars fanatics out there. I agree with them on one thing and one thing only: Star Wars was our movie. It came at the perfect time in history. It came to a generation that was yearning for something fantastic, epic, mythological. Ours was the first generation to experience a collective cynicism at such a very young age. I know that every generation fancies themselves unique, and thinks that no other generation before or since went through what they did, so I'll spare you the cliche's. However, there was a sadness that permeated our childhoods, even so-called idyllic ones. Many of my friends had fathers who were MIA, or just back from Vietnam. One of our friends lived in a house that was shrouded in darkness (literally and figuratively) because his father was suffering PTSD (although I think we called it something else then). Another friend's father was MIA-I don't know if they have found him to this day. I only know these things because as I grew up I figured it out. When we were kids, it was all a secret. We just heard our parents whispering about it, and knew it was something we shouldn't talk about. It was the post '60's let-down. Nixon had just lied to the country and resigned. Elvis was fat, and playing gospel to Vegas crowds in too much polyester and diamonds (and would die before the year was over). All that which had excited an earlier generation was now fading to the brutal glow of disenchantment and a "now what are going to do with what we tried to create?" directionless meandering. We were in the early stages of reconstruction from the revolutions that the generation before us had participated in. There is that other generation between the boomers and us (we were unfortunately, and lazily referred to as "genXers") they were the teenagers listening to the Bay City Rollers and wearing green eye shadow. I have nothing to say about that generation except for the fact that I'm glad I wasn't born into it. They stole all that was good from the gays and blacks and watered it down until they got the BeeGees. Not my thing.

I always wanted to write a story or a screenplay about the subtle strangeness that was childhood in the 70's. Because it was surreal. I have never been able to capture that subtlety to my satisfaction. There was a movie many years ago that I think came as close to capturing it as I think might be possible: The Ice Storm by Ang Lee. I don't think he quite got it, but certainly more so than anything else that I've seen attempted. The TV show That 70's Show sort of pisses me off because it lacks any element of the 70's besides the fashion and the furniture-and even that is a half-ass attempt (it's less authentic than an Ikea retro couch). Nirvana did the best job of exemplifying what my generation experienced growing up. And I say that with reservation because quite frankly I think Nirvana is given much more credit than they deserve, and I am sick of hearing about how they are the voice of my generation. However, I can't deny how well they exposed us, and gave our weird childhoods a voice and an image. Damn them. Damn them to hell (ha ha ha).

At any rate, my love of Star Wars is quite unlike other Star Wars fanatics. I can't tell you anything about the finer points of the plot. I don't know what the hell a Sithe is, or even how to spell it. I don't care about what Han Solo's ship was called (although a quick google search told me it was the Mellenium Falcon). I remember the boys I played with all knowing such amazing details about it in spite of the fact that I went to see it every Saturday afternoon until it was out of the theater.



I am sure that my parents took me, at least the first time I saw it, but I don't remember them being there at all. When the movie opened I sat there holding my breath reading those words knowing that this was something special. Whether I went willingly or whether I was being pulled into it, I was entering an entirely different place, and was about to experience something that I would rarely, if ever, experience again. And in that theater that first time I saw Star Wars, I knew that this adventure was my own. It was my world away from my parents. No one could possibly go there with me.

I remember with acute clarity walking out of the theater thinking two things: "I want to do that. I want to give that to people. " and "I love Princess Leia" (I even had to do a google search to find out how to spell her name)! The latter was what was most important to me. I loved Princess Leia in a very different way than I thought a girl could love her.

It was during this time that I came out of the closet. I mean, as well as I could given the fact that I didn't know exactly what was happening in me. My dad and I were driving down the road, I'm not sure where we were going. I was talking incessantly about Star Wars. Even then I think I was a theorist (ha ha ha) because I was talking about how it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and that when I was in the theater watching it I felt high (of course that isn't the language I used). My dad totally understood and said that he had felt that at movies before. We talked about how amazing and magical movies were.

It was then that I said "I want to be a boy when I grow up".

My dad, being the lovely man that he was, and being very protective of his tom-boy daughter growing up in a very sexist culture said, "I know, it's not fair that Luke gets to be the hero. I have a book where the girls get to be the heroes, and when we get home I'll give it to you."

I said, "I don't want to be Luke Skywalker. Well, I guess sort of I do".

"Listen, girls can have adventures just like Luke. You'll see, trust me." My dad was so great, but just didn't get what I was trying to say.

"No, I mean, I want to be a boy so that I can marry a girl like Princess Leia" I said (still in the dark like the rest of the world that we would find out that Leia was Luke's sister).

"Oh," he said. He turned the radio down, and added, "Oh!" He cleared his throat and said, "Listen to me. You don't have to be a boy to marry a girl. You know your Aunt ____?"

"Yeah".

"And your Aunt ____?"

"Yeah"

"Well, they are married. You can marry whoever you want. Some people might tell you that you can't, but you don't have to listen to them".

This was 1977, a mere 8 years after the Stonewall Riots.

So from that moment on Star Wars meant something else to me. It was the world I entered where I could be a girl that was madly and passionately in love with another girl. I could have adventures and go anywhere in the universe. Not only could I have a conversation with talking (and quite gay in my humble opinion) androids, I could fall in love with other girls. I know I was young, but I think Star Wars became my outlet for my developing sexuality.

June 20, 1980

Both of my parents were passionate about music, particularly the blues and jazz. My mother loved Billie Holiday. And my father adored Miles Davis. They also smoked weed and loved Saturday Night Live. So it was inevitable that they loved John Belushi and The Blues Brothers.

Now my parents were far from perfect. They made a lot of mistakes, and I've got the therapy bills to prove it! But in spite of their many shortcomings, they quite enjoyed spending time with me. They rarely got babysitters for me. When I was very little, my sister babysat me. There was a strike at the mill that my father worked at. He was management, and was exempt from the union, but he refused to cross the picket line, and so he and my mother both had to get jobs to keep us afloat until the strike was over. At this time my sister took care of me. Other than that, my parents and I spent a lot of time together, and genuinely enjoyed each others' company.

So I went with them to see the Blues Brothers. I sat between them in the darkened theater not quite understanding the movie, but I did love the music and the dancing. I sat there watching, trying to act like I understood the humor when there she was again. My first love. With her brown eyes looking up at John Belushi. Plus there she was with a gun and all tough (seriously I did not understand what any of this meant).

I was in love all over again and felt like this secret of mine was something amazingly good. That feeling. That's what I called it in my mind when I thought about what it was like to see Carrie Fisher on screen. "that feeling". I was a little lesbo totally hot for Princess Leia, and my dad had told me that it was OK. I couldn't help wondering and hoping that she was "like me". I spent the better part of the next ten years looking for girls that were "like me" and damn it if not one of them were anything like Carrie Fisher.