Confessions of a Babydyke

The Real First Kiss

2008-11-12T03:39:00.000-08:00

So I've realized that I have been ignoring this blog because everything directly before and after "The Biggest Lie Ever Told" is really dramatic and/or sad so I don't want to write about it. Thus, I have decided to screw chronology and write a few posts about firsts.

The year between my fake-first-girl-kiss and my real-first-girl-kiss felt like eternity at the time. By the end the summer of 2001, I was feeling pretty desperate. Despite the fact that I had always counted myself up-a-year during the summer, I stayed fourteen as long as I possibly could. I was horrified by the idea of turning fifteen and never having kissed a girl. Whenever anyone asked my age, I didn't offer, "I'll be fifteen in September" or "almost fifteen." I simply replied that I was fourteen and basked in the fact that they often thought I was older.

During the intervening year, I had switched schools, made a whole new group of friends, and started attending a teen institute called "Human Understanding and Growth Seminars" or HUGS for short. It was a weekend on Shelter Island five times a school year, full of hugging and processing. Through HUGS, I met other young, queer, anti-establishment Long Islanders. I was carving out a place for myself in the world. Many of my HUGS friends were from Sayville--a town which happened to be on the other shore and 45 miles West of home. Nevertheless, I took frequent trips over the summer to visit them. At one point, Bryan and Annie, twins with whom I was very close, decided they would try to set me up with their bisexual friend from Westhampton Beach. And we all know how well things work out when you decide to set up two people just because they happen to be queer--they go along with it.

I first met really Abby at Bryan and Annie's 16-and-a-half birthday party. Since their birthday was in the middle of the winter, there was no way to have a barbecue. Therefore, their parents threw them a 16-and-a-half birthday party which turned into a giant sleep-over, as parties in Sayville were wont to do. Abby was one of the most charming people I'd ever met. Instantly, I could not get enough of her. She adapted Annie's nickname for me, Leen, into Ween and won my heart. If I recall correctly, we sat on the porch and watched the sun come up together. I learned quickly that Abby had a constant string of boys in her life and even at fifteen, I think she had kissed more people than I have to this day. Clearly, she was unattainable which just made me like her more.

I'm going to start splicing in LJ entries from the time. Don't judge! I know you were fourteen once.
This is what I had to say about the party:

August 5th, 2001 (12:40 pm)

Friday nite was probably one of the best nites of my life. Even tho I got absolutely no sleep. oh well. I think I found my soulmate.
and work sucked last nite I burnt the hell outta my hands. gr.

Followed by (no really, if you kept a journal when you were fourteen, go look at it now for comparison, everyone sounds like this when they are fourteen)

August 6th, 2001 (12:07 am)

we wear our hearts on our sleeves
trading pain for pain
sorrow for sorrow
blood for blood
scar for scar
we're still little girls, we are, with the same helpless faces and blank stares
knocking down those with their lies and empty notes
betcha if we compared our stories all that would be different is the punctuation.
I normally don't do this with people
trust my dear is the hardest thing for me to gain
fear the easiest of course
but why won't my mouth stop talking?
I swear i'm not controlling it.
So here's my pain, can i have some of yours?

A few weeks later, she began what would become a tradition of showing me my firsts. She took me into the city for the first time without my mother, on the LIRR for the first time, to my first show (excluding the Backstreet Boys in junior high). Along with her friend Tanya--with whom I would also later have a thing, we saw Alkaline Trio on the Plea For Peace Tour at the Wetlands. I was decked-out in homemade bondage pants and other unfortunate attire. It was about two weeks until my birthday, but I was still proudly declaring that I was only fourteen to strangers. Here is what a fourteen-year-old Colleen had to say about the day:

August 28th, 2001 (11:29 am)
current mood: excited
current song: eyeliners- don't go

AH!
So yesterday was my first official punk show... my ears are still ringing.
I got up at 7 and Jessie drove me to Sayville train station (cos out here we only have one train a day), then at the next station Abby and her friend Tanya got on the train, we then met a guy who wants to jump Tanya's bones, named Joe. I handled the whole train ride, we got off at Penn Station (OFFICIALLY THE LEAST SANITARY PLACE IVE EVER URINATED!). We met up with Abby's sister's boyfriend, Alan, who showed us to the Wetlands, since we were 2 hours early we hung out with these two rad girls and made friends. I was like having a breakdown cos there was no grass, what the hell?! How can there be no grass? (my first time in the city can ya tell? lol) and when we got inside we were the first ones in so we sat like ON the stage, (technicly i was on an amp) and there was some crazy Asian guy who was great playing first, then the Eyeliners (who we made friends with and intend to see with the Donnas. The guitarist, Gel, signed Abby's shoe cos they had the same pair, and after the show Abby signed hers) then Thrice, then a sorta scary band, but the female guitarist had the raddest sparkly guitar, then a few more bands, then Hot Water Music, then ALKALINE TRIO... the last song they played was radio and they let people on stage, Abby like ran up there... and got her shoe signed by the drummer who brought it backstage so Matt Skiba could sign it, then she got her picture taken with the bassist, then her and Tanya got their pictures taken with the Eyeliners....
Then we left and when we were going to go back Penn Station a guy handed us flyers for a free Bouncing Souls concert... he said "yeah its a short show were only going to like jam" Tanya said "We?" he's like "yeah im the bassist" she nearly died,
dude, I met the bassist of the Bouncing Souls!
I had his autograph on a piece of newspaper but it was lost in my makeshift pocket, oh well, I still met him!

I might still count that as one of the most badass days of my life. It certainly added to my growing affection for Abby. Two months later, after I had unfortunately missed her sweet sixteen for one of many conferences I went to in high school, we met up in Westhampton Beach. At the time, I was not aware of how incredibly stoned she was. We basically walked around for a few hours, occasionally stopping to stare at the harbor. We went into a toy shop.
"Ween! Lookit the dirty elephant! Oh man, that's so cool," she said, pointing to a Beanie Baby.
"Uh, I think it's a mastodont. It's furry."
"No way, it's totally a dirty elephant. Go hold it, let me take a picture!"
I don't know why that is such a strong memory, other than the fact that I know there is a picture out there somewhere of me holding a mastodont Beanie Baby. We argued about it for a while and I think she even bought me the Beanie Baby months later. Before I left, she gave me two mixed tapes she had made me--one labeled punk, the other ska. Both said something to the effect of "To Ween <3 Abby." I listened to them non-stop for months and still listen to them occasionally. Again, what my fifteen-year-old self had to say about the day:

October 27th, 2001 (07:17 pm)

I went to Westhampton Beach to see Abby
'twas lots and lots of fun
YAY for mixed tapes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Horrah!
I need more lilac mints. mm

A few weeks later, Abby, Bryan, and I went into the city on a shopping trip. It was less than two months after 9-11 and everyone thought we were crazy. But to Long Island kids, the city held endless wonder. I marvelled at the armed gaurds in Penn Station while I ate my cinnamon-sugar pretzel. Now, Abby was showing me around SoHo for the first time. I distinctly remember the same guy trying to sell Bryan opium twice. What a glorious place this was!

On the way into the city, I had half-fallen asleep in Abby's lap while we sat in the ever-so-desirable LIRR seats that face each other. I thought myself in heaven, unaware of what was to come. When we got back to Sayville that evening, we decided to go see Abby's ex-boyfriend's play at the high school. Bryan went in first and I hung outside with Abby while she smoked a cigarette. She decided she wasn't really ready to go see him. We sat on a grassy knoll and talked while Sayville kids skateboarded in the parking lot behind us. I have absolutely no idea what we talked about, all I could think of was how close to me she was sitting. Eventually, she stopped talking and kissed me. It was probably only for a few seconds. She turned around and saw that the skateboarding guys had stopped.
"Do you think they saw us?" she laughed. I said something akin to "nyehereh." She wasn't worried they had, but more amused. I couldn't think about skateboarding boys or the fact that I was sitting on the edge of Sayville High School parking lot having just returned from my first post-9-11 trip to the city and having just experienced my first lesbian kiss. I could only think about the fact that I was paralyzed. A shiver went down my spine and I got the lower-back-tinglies that I still get at the start of a new relationship. I couldn't feel my legs at all. I had never felt so amazing in my entire life but I couldn't move. Abby decided we should go inside and kiss while her ex boyfriend played Hamlet. I tried to stand but my knees gave out, which I blamed on my leg having fallen asleep. A few more seconds of recovery, and I was good to go. We did not actually kiss during the play, but sat nicely with Bryan, who had a knowing grin. On the way back to his house that night, I allowed myself a second to think about the kiss while they talked about something else. Again, shiver, tingles, weak-knees. I managed to make it look like I had tripped over a large stick that was in the gutter of the road. One kiss had made me fall down twice.

Back at Bryan's, Abby and I walked along the creek and sat down somewhere for her to smoke some pot. After another kiss, she said, "So I want you to know that I do like kissing you, Ween, but I don't want a girlfriend or anything like that. I can't do that now. Not now. I mean. I like kissing you, but I can't have a girlfriend." I should have realized that spelled out trouble for my fragile babydyke heart that had already been pining for her for two months, but all I could think was, "less talking, more kissing."

So, it has now been nearly seven years to the day since the first time I kissed a girl. I wonder if anyone will ever compare to Abby. Will anyone ever make me fall down... twice? Or was that just my own glasses moment?

I will this post with my incredibly eloquent processing of the situation seven years ago:

November 11th, 2001 (11:22 am)

current mood: loved
current song: punk tape

MAHMLAMSHAGHADHGREGTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeppp!
IM me and I'll explain

Oh went to the city yesterday with Abby, Bryan, Abby's sister, and one of her friends
we look like cartoon characters
and some random college student took like 20 pictures of us for her photography class. heh.
I got a new wallet, blue plaid vinyl with a chain!
Abby, Bryan, and I took pictures in a photobooth so I have a picture of us in my new wallet already!

Flashback 1: Before Tatu and Katy Perry

2008-10-21T03:07:00.000-07:00

With regards to chronology: let's call my first entry (which took place in October, 2000) the beginning. However, since there are important stories that predate The Biggest Lie Ever Told, we'll call those flashback which will, hopefully, from now on, be in chronological order. When these few flashbacks have been told, I will pick up again after The Biggest Lie Ever Told. Flashbacks are a very gray area since they came before my first blog. Nevertheless, they are crucial to my hopefully-not-overly-cliche coming of age story.

In the spring of 2000, when I was in the eighth grade, I was beginning to accept that I was probably queer. In retrospect, it was a huge event in my life. At the time, it was nothing like I've seen portrayed before. I did not spend hours in agony over my sexuality. I'm not sure how much I even really thought about it. I wasn't worried about coming out to my sisters, parents, and friends. I was too busy trying to find an excuse to hold hands with Hannah.

In junior high, I floated between cliques a lot. Everyone may have at my school. It seemed like there was constant gerrymandering of friend groups during those two years which is surprising since there were, at most, forty students in my class and we probably all could have been in one group. At this point, my main group of friends was a new combination of girls. Sara and Hannah were two of the dozen students who joined us for junior high and high school from a nearby district that had no upper-school. They were brilliant--the only two students offered to take advanced science in addition to advanced math. I had always felt cursed for excelling in school until I met them. At first, the biggest part of our friendship was note-writing. We would write epic notes, pages and pages long, every day. Everyone had their own trademark fold. Eventually, we even got diaries that we wrote notes in and traded back and forth. Mine was rainbow, furry, and purchased at Claire's. It had this intoxicating scent that I came to associate with my friendship with Sara and Hannah. There were others in the group too, a combination of new and old friends, the most curious of whom was Tiffany. I had been in school with Tiffany since kindergarten or maybe even nursery school, but I don't think we were ever in the same class. We had never really been friends and the extent of our shared history was being in Daisies together. Our lack of previous interaction made us very distant despite being in a close group of people. Nevertheless, the four of us became the core of this friend-group.
In the beginning, my relationships with Hannah and Sara were essentially the same. As time progressed, I grew more emotionally-attached to Hannah and had a strange friendship with Sara. We would often write to each other, wondering and worrying about what really went on inside of Hannah's head. They had been best friends since kindergarten but their friendship was changing and Sara always wanted my perspective on things. What is so strange to me now is that I can recall very clearly notes between Sara and I about Hannah, but not what Hannah and I wrote to each other. At the time, the latter was much more important. I wonder if Hannah ever really shared her thoughts with me the way Sara did or if Hannah's detachment was what kept me so intrigued. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed broken somehow--a trait I apparently have always been attracted to. There was always something big going on for Hannah but I doubt anyone ever really knew what it was.

How we went from being Colleen, Hannah, Sara, Tiffany, & co. to what happens next, I have no idea.

Bisexuality must have been a thing in our school at that time. As I said last time, Ashley Graves and I were talking about it at roughly the same time--though at this point it was only the theory of bisexuality and not our own. We spent a lot of time speculating about the high schoolers and discussing those who were openly queer. But that could not compare to how the topic played out in my other group of friends. We were all in the same home ec. class and we absolutely loved our teacher. She would let us hang out in the home ec. room during lunchtime and study halls. I can't believe she put up with us that much. It was a cool place to hang out. We could drink iced tea and sit close together; there may have even been a couch.

Somehow, crocheting granny squares led to feigning bisexuality en masse.

I always remembered it as something Tiffany started. I think the peripheral girls may have been involved at first, but it came down to the four of us pretending to be bisexual. There was humorous and incredibly brief boob-grabbing. Proximity was also important. We sat very close to each other which we thought was an unmistakable sign of our hilarious sapphistry. As the game went on, we progressed to hand-holding and lap-sitting. We also seemed to end up in mock-couples. Sara with Tiffany and me with Hannah. I don't remember what the rest of our class or anyone we paraded this joke for said about it. I was part of a group, being different but in a way that was apparently safe and I had physical affection for the first time in my life. My family had never been big into hugging and I had dumped boyfriends for getting close to me, so this was all very new.
One day I remember clearly, we were working on our granny squares in the home ec. room during lunch. Our teacher was sitting there with us. Goodness knows what she must have been thinking about the whole situation. I wouldn't be surprised to find the faculty had meetings about the overwhelming spread of The Gay in our school. While we crocheted, we made jokes. It was always Sara and Tiffany that started it and that pushed it further. Hannah and I blushed and played along. Sara and Tiffany were working from the same skein of yarn, joking that when they got to the middle it would be like Lady and the Tramp. At one point, they traded gum which was supposed to be a sign that they had made out--and when you're thirteen, trading gum is just about as intimate as making out. I loved it, but felt a little uncomfortable. I knew on some level that while they could stop pretending whenever they wanted and boys would always like them. Hannah and I were not so small, not so skinny, not so pretty, not so out-going, not so fashionable, and overall, less desirable to eighth grade boys. She seemed a little uncomfortable too and at some point confessed that she was jealous of Sara and Tiffany--how they would always have boys with crushes on them. Again, at this point I was definitely aware that I was attracted to women but it just didn't seem that important. I didn't contemplate the idea in general, but I worried a lot about my "relationship" with Hannah.
How long this went on for, I have no idea. It could have only been a week or two, but the importance of the game made it much bigger in my mind. Soon, it was time for the annual eighth grade trip to Brewster, New York, for a retreat. It was our first overnight field trip with school, making it kind of the first co-ed slumber party. Needless to say, it was something you started looking forward to years in advance. Again, friend-boundaries were being renegotiated. So on the bus ride there, I ended up sitting with old friends from different groups. For some reason, I sat next to Alex, my first boyfriend from seventh grade whom I had recently decided I wanted to date again because I wanted to prove myself attractive in a way. We fought constantly. Yet, we spent most of the time with his had on my knee. I came to understand later, after looking at photos, the reason why. I had just had a growth spurt in the breast department and did not wear a proper brassiere. In fact, I believe my boobs have been roughly the same size since then. Another friend asked when looking at the pictures if I had a tennis ball in my shirt. Not one of my finest moments. Alex, like any thirteen-year-old boy, did not mind a bit.

Things changed once we got there. The girls cabin was at the bottom of the hill, separated into two halves by a shared bathroom. It was strange to have a bunch of friend groups together in one place and everyone felt the stress of it. Luckily, most of my friends ended up in the same side. Sara and Hannah, being best friends for so long, naturally took a bunk together. I was jealous and felt left out. I was determined to spend more time with Hannah over the next three days. After we got out stuff settled in, we went to dinner. After dinner, Alex asked me to be his girlfriend again despite having a girlfriend from another school. I happily declined. I never felt so empowered in my life as when I stood up from the conversation and actually sauntered away. On some level, it was definitely about Hannah.

I did get to spend a lot of time with Hannah because we were put into the same group for activities. Meanwhile, Sara was spending more time with other girls. I was blissfully unaware of what was going on inside of Hannah's head. It rained one night, so we watched The Sixth Sense. Never one for scary movies, I was terrified. I sat next to Hannah. I lunged at her whenever something scary happened and used her as shield. At the point where the kid turns around and has the back of his head blown off, she lunged towards me too. (How much time in my adolescence did I spend watching scary movies as an excuse to get clsoe to girls?) But at night, Sara and Hannah slept not in the same bunk, but in the same bed. Apparently, it was okay since they were BFF for so long. Now I was unspeakably jealous.
Our last night there, everything fell apart. The fact that Sara had been spending a lot of time with other girls was fine with me but Hannah finally broke. She cried, the other friend groups got involved, we all started crying. I think there was some sort of fight between me, Ashley Graves, and the third of our group at the time as well. I don't remember most of what happened but everyone else seemed to feel comforted in the end, but I was glad we were going home the next day. It was too weird having everyone together like that. I think I was a different person with different groups and just had no idea how to act in the situation. There's a picture I still have, all of us red-eyed, most people looking relieved, but I still was in so much pain. Maybe it was my first true understanding of awkward.
On the bus ride home, I sat nowhere near the people from the bus ride there. I sat near the front, with Hannah. Near the chaperons and bad kids. The last move in the game of bisexuality was telling one of the other kids that we do kiss when he asked. Clearly, we were joking and he just laughed (very different from The Biggest Lie Ever Told). But, Hannah and I spent most of the ride cuddled up together, with her resting her head on my shoulder. I held out my camera and took a picture that has part of both of our heads cut off, but to this day is one of my most prized possessions. I felt so peaceful next to her. At one point, her lips grazed my neck and I imagined what it would be like to kiss her. She was definitely my first love.
I've always thought that there was something a little off about her act during the whole thing. So did Sara. We wrote notes to each other about it in the weeks after the game had ended. We both wanted to ask her, but didn't know how. Towards the end of the summer, I got up the nerve. I had already been discussing my own sexuality with some friends, but I remember sitting in my room at my dad's house, my heart racing as we spoke on the phone. I didn't know what she would say, if she would hang up on me, or if she would confess her own sexuality and we would get together (and live happily ever after). The conversation went something like this:
"You know when we used to.. you know, pretend about stuff? Well.. I think.. I might be bi, uh, do you?" I asked. There was a long silence.
"I don't know," she said. And we left it at that. Forever. Hannah comes back into my story at a few other points. She always was incredibly sweet to me and never turned her back on me. A part of me is still in love with her. I haven't spoken to her in years, but I check her facebook occasionally. According to it, she's straight. But I still wonder sometimes.

The Biggest Lie Ever Told

2008-10-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about where to start this. Should I present it chronologically, starting at the beginning? Then do I start with the dreaded Coming Out Story? No one wants that on a first date which is kind of how I consider this first post. Maybe it goes further back, the first girl I had a crush on? But then do you count the crush you were fully aware of or those that you only see with retrospective goggles?
None of that.
In true "confessions" spirit, I am going to start with the Biggest Lie Ever Told. This lie dates back a long time and essentially isn't my lie, but rather one that I felt obligated to confirm. It somehow was absorbed into my homohistory and persisted long past when I should have put it to rest. I think that for a while, I even forgot it wasn't true. This lie is so huge that when I relate it to new girlfriends and dyke-friends, out of habit, I feel like I have irrevocably taken away any chance I had at a true honest relationship. This lie has made me a hypocrite in every relationship or friendship in which I have demanded honesty from the other party, which is to say, every relationship and friendship I've had since its inception. Sometime last year, I vaguely told the true story to a peripheral friend who had never had the chance to hear the lie; it felt strange and thrilling. I decided a long time ago that I need to come clean. Here goes.

In late October of 2000, nearly eight years ago, I did not Ashley Graves at Sixty-Seven Steps; nor did I kiss her later that evening in the back seat of Tom's Buick Regal Custom.

So, how did such a small lie grow to be so big? It starts with Ashley Graves. Never in my life have I had a more toxic friend. From the sixth grade, when she started a rumor that I said our mutual BFF stuffed her bra which completely ruined my life for two months, through the ninth grade, Ashley Graves continued to worm her way into my social circle only to have me kicked out. Again and again, I would forgive her and let her back into my life. She had some sick kind of charm like a serial killer on CSI. Near the end of the previous school year, we had mutually admitted to being bisexual, though she insisted that I was just doing it to be cool. This meant that we became best friends while we were in competition to be more queer than the other.

A month before the night which led to the Biggest Lie Ever Told, I had ruined my homo-street-cred by dating Tom. The reasons for dating him were simple:
a) I was fourteen and had never been kissed. Granted, I had opportunities and usually broke up with junior high boyfriends for even trying to kiss me, this was still a problem to me. One that I needed to suck it up and remedy.
b) He was a senior. I was a freshman.
c) He had a car.
However, he had broken up with me about a week before the incident because I was never going to let him anywhere near my hoo-ha and I was obviously less mature than he was. Now, it was time to start proving my worth as a queer. Enter Ashley Graves.

That night, a group of us went to see Blair Witch 2, for at least the third time, at the theatre downtown. The group happened to include Holly, another on-again-off-again best friend from the same time period whom Tom was currently trying to seduce. We were probably the only people in the theatre. The seating arrangement was Holly, Tom, me, Ashley Graves, and her cousin. My ex-boyfriend was sitting next to me on what was basically his first date with one of my best friends. The only logical thing to do was canoodle with Ashely. We held hands at scary parts and eventually continued to for the whole movie. Babydyke head rush! It didn't matter who she was. I never wondered if she liked me or what it meant. I was holding hands with a girl who also liked girls.
After the movies, we went to sixty-seven steps. I'm sure there was some painfully awkward conversation between Ashley and I about holding hands. I don't remember what was said until she made the decision that we would pretend to kiss. We were backlit by headlights in the parking lot, so it as a fairly easy sell. Lean in close, move our heads a little bit, and no one would know. "I will kiss you for real, I swear, but let's do this first," she said. I hadn't thought about how utterly ridiculous that lie sounded at the time. If she was going to kiss me for real, then why not right now? But a fake girl kiss was closer to a real girl kiss than any other prospects I had. I agreed. A few seconds into the head moving, she showed me the thumb-kiss technique that I came to know well. You appear to be grabbing someone's face, but really, you are covering their lips with your thumbs which you then press your lips to. As far as fake kisses go, it was a pretty good one.
"What are you doing? Did you two just kiss?" her cousin shouted. She laughed.
"Yeah, so?" she called back.
"Holy shit, Colleen and Ashley were totally making out!" he relayed the information to Holly and Tom.

And so it began. Who was I to set the record straight? Tom still didn't believe I had any queer tendencies, mostly because of the overwhelming power of his denial. I felt like I had a lot to prove. While Tom drove us to another beach, Ashley and I continued to thumb kiss, which he caught glimpses of in the rearview mirror. In the reality that everyone else was experiencing, I was kissing a girl in the backseat of my ex-boyfriend's car while he drove. Badass. I felt guilty that it wasn't exactly true, but I let Ashley continue to spread the lie.
When I switched schools about a month later, the lie came with me. Being only one town away, there were too many people who might know. As I grew older and became friends with people from other parts of the island, I was afraid of it coming up in conversation with some of my friends from my own school, so I continued to tell the lie. By college, it almost seemed like it had really happened. Every time I talked to people about coming out at a young age, The Biggest Lie Ever Told would just slip out. I told the story without thinking. Every time I thought about it, I felt unfathomable guilt. I knew it was a lie but it was a lie that was deeply a part of me. But the truth will out. And now, I can start to tell stories about the real first time I kissed a girl and went literally weak in the knees--and fell down.