Making Community

My wife and I often talk about finding ways to make community. When we were younger and childless, it was fairly easy for us to travel about and make friends-single friends, queer friends-none of us had children so it was easy to see these people. Children bring a new dimension to socializing-one must always think "is their home kid-friendly" "will traveling to (fill in the blank) exhaust the kids?" "are these kid-friendly people" to name a few. Throw in the "hey these are two women raising children" and I don't know it all seems impossible.

Moving to the suburbs has been an education-particularly for this writer who is a city chick through and through. I haven't figured out suburban mores enough to know how to insert my family into the fabric of the community. I know we are known here-our family is fairly unique-but I wonder, is it that we are gay? that we are women of color? that our kids are cuter than theirs (I had to put that in :) )


In any event, I think it's time to be more proactive. Family Pride week in P-town is approaching and I am determined to make community for my family, one queer family at a time.

Lesbian Dad

About
I didn't realize I didn't post my thoughts on this awesome blog. I've been reading Lesbian Dad since I did a search for queer parent blogs a year ago, desperate to read/connect with other Lesbian and Gay parents out there and lucky me, there was LD. I love reading the insightful posts, and the photos are a welcome and appreciated addition. If you get a chance, read this blog. Good reading to you all!

Blogging for LGBT Families Day

Hello All:
I hope to get a new round of readers soon during the upcoming LGBT families Bloggers event. This is why I am sitting here this beautiful Memorial Day listening to the Indigo Girls and getting back in touch with writing on my blog about being a Queer woman of color raising two kids with my wife of almost 12 years. I began writing this blog in hopes of exploring, no maybe more dissecting through writing how we live our lives given that no blueprint has been set out for us.

Parenting is no easy task, and I never thought it would be. Some of the things I think are unique to same-sex parents that need to be talked about, dealt with, resolved, and supported, are 1-we constantly are thinking about how people will view our family. 2-we have to remind our children that not all families have a mom and a dad. 3-we have to remind people in the community that not all families have a mom and a dad. 4-people question how we came to be parents. 5-people don't monitor themselves when saying things like "wow your kid looks nothing like you." 6-Canada is much more queer family friendly than the States. 7-we are often the only kind of our family in most places we go (unless it's a queer family event and even then we are often the only POC present). 8-people still expect that one parent is the mom and the other is the dad.

These are certainly just a few things of course. As a woman of color, I often have the feeling that when people see our family they are assuming we are single moms, unfortunately a reality in our communities. I find it hardest for me to be out in the POC community, but I think that's because I just don't know other queer parents of color-at all. Here lies the reason for this blog-to connect with families like mine. I suspect many other LBGT POC parents who are spread across the States or elsewhere might be looking too.

I know we exist-and I hope you reach out to me to let me know you're here via email

Thanks to the Mombian blog I can at least participate in something like this. I think this blogging event is very important given that I have found several other bloggers I visit often via this event last year and I have made a great many connections via the Internet world to other LGBT parents.

I hope to write more as soon as my kids give me a moment to breathe. Cuidate mi gente. Peace.

All About Avatar

Originally uploaded by OfficialAvatarMovie

If you can spare almost three hours, this movie is worth your coins. Run to see it.

2009 coming to an end

It's almost the end of 2009 and I haven't written as much as I'd like...the holidays are coming and my town is already celebrating. Here in South Jersey, the towns bring in Santa in a fire truck. Last year, the kidlets and I were home waiting for the Mrs. to come from somewhere, and unbeknownst to me, the lighted fire trucks blasting their sirens and bright with Christmas lights, came riding up and down our streets. Firefighters handed out candy canes, and Santa waved from the truck. I probably was more excited than my two kids.

A Queer NY State of Mind

Back in the early 90s, I was a young Latina dyke finding herself in a wonderful moment for queerness. Coming out of the closet was certainly difficult, but as my generation found their way to the queer light, they found a community ready to fight to be seen, loved, and celebrated. Reminiscing right now, listening to "Love and Happiness" with La India's fabulous house diva voice, I can easily transmit myself to the streets of the West Village, when on any given night, the streets were packed with a queerly marauding crowd. We looked, we "kee-kee'd", we vogued, we made out under streetlights, we crept on crumbling piers and held on tight to the brown sugar love that came our way by way of the wonderfully useful NYC transit.

And yet, with all that queerness, nothing at that time prepared me for being a 30-something dyke in the 'burbs, a wife and 2 kids to boot. That life was transient, the moment of gayness in that degree feels far removed from me.

Of course, I realize I was living in the zeitgeist of the 90s, a much freer, positive moment in recent history. Sitting here in my introspective mood, my Itunes playing the house music of Little Louie Vega, I sense that spirit is too much a distant memory.

Perhaps that's why I enjoyed watching RuPaul's Drag Race so much, and why I was so drawn to Nina Flowers...I remember literally bumping into RuPaul at the Pyramid, the most East of the Village I ever ventured to.

Justice Sotomayor

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

How exciting for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. This Bronx-born Nuyorican is very proud to have heard the news of today's vote.

Listen here, from NPR
More to follow...

what you find on the Internet

Mombian

Mombian

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LGB parents please read

One of the things I am most proud of is how my partner and I share the joy of reading with our children. Our kids clamor to hear our voices telling stories--about trains, funny stories, rhyming stories...books that don't insult their intelligence by being commercials for television shows.

As a follower of Mombian, a queer website about queer parenting, I appreciated being alerted to a great kids' book by the famed author of "Heather Has Two Mommies", Leslea Newman The board book is a wonderfully sweet book about the every day life of a child in the home with a Mommy and a Mama. At first reading, it reminded me of the books by Todd Parr, another favorite in our household. But earlier today as I sat with my daughter in my lap waiting for her Mama, my wife, to come back from running errands, it dawned on me that this book was more than a simple board book. In fact, I truly felt that here was a book that soon-to-be (same-gendered) parents could use to guide them in seeing how queer parenting really is. Beyond saying "look we're just like everyone else", it's comforting to read how easy this recounting of life for queer parents can be. I know not all queer moms go by Mommy and Mama, but in my family we do, and my daughter who isn't even two could point to the pictures and say Mommy and Mama and point to me and my wife. She saw her family, something I can't say she does in 99 percent of the books we read.

Now, convincing heteros that queer parents are just as good is a whole other animal...

NYC Pride 2009

Ahh to be in NYC for Gay Pride. What a great joy to any out loud and proud queer in the city. Even though the queer life I once knew has morphed into something else, pride in NYC seemed the most logical place to go to show my kidlets what a great community we have, even far away in the 'burbs of South Jersey.

(video from El Blog de PJ)


Gay Pride in NY with kids is very different. First, how do you explain pride to toddlers? We did have the pleasure of going to the Gay Center's "Center Kids picnic" in the Village. I had hoped that we could one, expose the kidlets to other queer families (particularly Daddies and Papas) and two, to meet other queer parents to just talk. I think I hoped for too much given the short amount of time we would be in town and, it is very difficult as an adult to strike up new friendships as we once did...

I'm delirious tonight. More with pics soon...

I'm back...and, the sad news

I had been meaning to return to this blog and today was going to be my day.  I got a text message from my sister who told me Michael Jackson died.  I didn't immediately comprehend what she wrote and couldn't believe it.  Lo and behold in fact Michael Jackson, the voice of my childhood, had indeed died.

I

I cannot say that the madness of his adulthood was appropriate or questionable, but I can't deny his music was the proverbial soundtrack of my childhood. I truly feel like today, a part of my childhood has died.

Nelly Furtado-Powerless

Yes, I think she's hot.

Cafe Tacuba-Ojala Que Llueva Cafe

Okay. It's been some time since I posted anything, but I am very much in love with this version of Juan Luis Guerra's "Ojala que llueva cafe" by Cafe Tacuba and you all must must watch this great performance. What I would give to to play any instrument like that violinist/fiddler?

humor, Philly style

My good friend Amy is a nut-and a great singer/actor/comedian. Check her out

Aviva Chomsky, Immigrants, and such

Browsing through the books at my alma mater, I noticed the book "They Take Our Jobs" and 20 other myths about immigration by Aviva Chomsky. Sounds like a book we should all read, especially you over at CNN. As reviewed in Colorlines Magazine:

Review By: Daisy Hernandez, ColorLines - July 1, 2007

“If ever there was a need for a pithy primer on immigration, it’s now, and scholar-activist Aviva Chomsky has provided just that. She considers myths from the book’s title, “immigrants don’t pay taxes” and then gracefully and in plain language delivers arguments with lessons on history, law and racism. In other words, this is the book to give your xenophobic mother-in-law at the next family barbecue.”

bilbao is grey

bilbao is grey
Originally uploaded by txiribiton

I really need to get to Spain. I found this great photo on Flickr

music and more of what I miss about NY

Today I am really missing NY. First, sadly it is the 6th anniversary of September 11th, though unlike that day, today is a dark, dismal, rainy day. I can't believe how much my life has changed since that time, including the fact that I no longer live in my beloved city. Please take a moment to remember all those who perished that day, and to pray for peace and the bringing home of our women and men serving in Iraq.

On a much different note, my buddy over at Blabbeando posted this and other great videos of a party in Brooklyn reminding me how much I miss the spontaneity of NYers coming together to party out in the park or anywhere else where finding the spirit that moves us is present in beautiful, dancing brown bodies...

Coming Out at 88

Living in the 'burbs, hell, living in Philadelphia has often made me feel like I retreated into the closet and if I sit and think about it, queerness feels much different now that I'm a parent trying to live a quiet existence in a safe neighborhood. These days, it's my son who outs me regularly as he tries to explain in his toddler voice that I'm his mommy and my partner is his mama while strangers smile and look bewildered.

Found this great essay at MSNBC/Newsweek about an 88-year old woman who has finally been able to say she is a lesbian. Her essay can be found here.