The story of Ali and Lee

So hate to disappoint anyone out there holding out for the fairy-tail no problems ever story, or the lesbian girl get's in straight girls pants and magically turns her gay story, or the lesbian turned straight by prince charming story or the wild porno story.

Yeah none of that happened.

What did happen thou in my opinion is far better because it was real and full of loves and snuggles.

It starts out much before Ali thou. I was ridding back in the car with Mom from my high school and I looked at her and said "I think I have a crush on a girl. Her name is Femmy and she's smart and funny and so pretty and––,"
"You don't have a crush on her, you're confusing admiration for something else."

And I argued for maybe a moment more then quit and took her word for it. After all she was older and I still bought into the Mom knows all. I was stright. Why not I know I could be attracted to boys and that they didn't have cooties. Straight was less trouble and less arguing. I dated a very nice young man for almost two years, and then broke up. A few months later went to Hollins.

Enter Ang.

Ang and I were in a circle of friends that were very close and I found my self with another 'admeration' for a woman. Little did I know she had a crush on me as well. Long story short it didn't go anywhere. I thought she was to traditional and would never like me that way. She thought I was too straight and catholic and would never like her that way. She left Hollins later that year and is now engaged to a wonderful man she loves and we're still good friends.

Center stage Ali

So Ali and I became very good best friends. Lots of platonic snuggles and cuddles. Well one day we were snuggaling and I asked her to teach me how to kiss.
Yes.
That is how I broke the ice.
Not "I think you're cute. Lets go down town to that hotdog place." or anything like that but "Can you teach me how to kiss?"

And we liked it.
so we did it again.
and again
and again
and again
and never told anyone.

We didn't want to. Everyone had been teasing and telling us that we would both end up dating and then were rather rude about it when we said "No we're just best friends. And we're straight."We were. We identified as straight so there for we were. Also the 'gay-er' we acted in privet the straighter we felt. There wasn't a sudden urge to go kiss the female population of the world. We would joke around and sing "you are the only aception..." to each other.

And then we both started thinking and it very slowly came to be "you are that other aception."

Yeah.

but we knew we weren't gay. We like guys. After much talking and deep thought we decided we weren't straight, but we wern't gay. Ali is bi and I'm pan, leaning demi. About a year later we came out to our friends in privet, and then several months after that we just started showing affection in public like cheek kisses and quick kisses on the lips but only when family wasn't even thinking of being around. We are still not ready for parents to know.

For awhile it was Ali and me. Then this past summer I got a job for the BSA.

Enter Lee.

First of watching him shoot is like watching a god. Just saying.
Anyway.
I was a first year out there, and apparently earned the tittle of badass. (I like hard labor. It;s good thinking work and you feel wonderful when it's done.) I got to teach archery, but had never taught a merit badge class before. Lee came over to help me and I spent a class watching him and how he did it. I fell for Lee pretty quick but didn't say anything. I was at a BSA camp. the Boy Scouts of America is not well known for their acceptance of the Queer Community. Not that I thought he would go spread it around or anything like that. I trusted him to keep my secret that I was pan and currently dating a woman. (I was not open at all about my love life. As far as anyone besides my tent mate knew I was single and just not looking...also most of the other staffers there were all jail-baite and I like staying out of jail and not being creepy.) I trusted him but I had already forged a good friendship with him and did not want anything to change that.

Little did I know that he liked me too.

He had told me once but I thought he'd meant as a friend.
Hi I'm JR and things fly over my head.
And that's not the only thing that flew over my head.
"If you beat me in archery I'll take you out to dinner."
He ment it as asking me out. I took it at the face value of a bet.

Now there were a few people I had come out to. Mostly the few other female staffers. The important one in this part of the story is Kitty. Kitty seemed pretty fascinated with the idea of being polly and pan and asked alot of questions and I was more than happy to answer them. She promised she wouldn't tell and she was far from judgeing. It was wonderful.

Well Lee asked Kitty about me and she told him. She'd known him for a long time and well I'll still throw something at her for it but probably more the size of a washer than a rock. She did that on week two I belive. Two or three. He found out about Ali and even thou I was polly he didn't want to accidentally mess up something I already had so he didn't say anything other than the bet.

Now I thought it was just a bet. And I beet him with a score of 63 the first time. and we went out to dinner. and I thought that was the end of it.
nope.
When I beet him again with a score of 99-98 and then again with 112-111 I got dinner.
My tent mate and I were using all our womanly skills to get to the bottom of this. It was really just her singing "Heeee liiikes yooou" and me saying, "There's no way it has to be something else....you really think so?" and Ali on the phone, "He obviously likes you back, go kiss him already!"

The powers of female logic.

Well it's the last week of camp, on the last night off, it's my birthday, shooting sports and aquatics have gotten together in the traditional party on a beach off camp. The party was really fun, they surprised me with cake. the sand was soft, the food was good, the cake was delicious.  It was just a good time all around. Every one under 21 had to be back at camp before midnight so all us non-drinking age staffers got in the van and Lee drove us back. He dropped the guys off at their side of the camp and was driving me to the far corner where female staff stays. It was my birthday. Just us in the car. Why not.

So I took a deep breth. "I like you."
"...okay?"
silence for a moment, as we pulled up next the female hideaway I looked at him, "When I said I liked you. I ment I liked you liked you. Well goodnight!"

Next day at the range.

Lee: "I was really tiered last night, so I might have miss heard. What was the last thing you said before you ran away?"
Me: "I didn't run I skipped!"
Lee: "Before you frolicked away. What did you say?"
Me: "That I like you."
Lee: "...You sure took your time telling me."
Me: "Well you didn't say anything."
Lee: "I asked you out to dinner!"
Me: "When....oooooohhhh." *faceplam*

We danced around in conversations figuring out what we were to each other for a few days before settling into ourselves and it's been wonderful since then.

We got to go out on three dates after camp and before I left for school. Once out to the arboretum at night to see these wacky glass sculptures. Once to go out shooting. Once to go to the zoo and then meet his family.

So that is the tail of Ali, Lee, and me.

For the Broken Women

*This is a quick jot down so not very edited.  

Sandrah Fluke is coming to speak at Hollins, and the shit storm has already begun. There is a group that has formed to protest this event but it seems divided. The one who started it isn't even a Hollins student, and he is protesting Ms. Fluke and all she stands for. (And what he thinks that is I have no idea) The other half is protesting that Hollins doesn't have more Conservative/Republican speakers. 

Now For the half that want speakers that represent them, by all means go for it, but a protest when she speaks is not the way. Go prove that there is an interest in your speaker and go through the steps that are there to bring a speaker to campus. It's not that hard. Also Sandra is not a person who makes her living in the political field, and there for protesting her anyway is well...not very efective

For the other half, you know not what you do. Sandra dose not stand for women saying that the government should pay for their sex. When I hear her speak or when I read what she said, I smile because finally someone is standing for those like me.

“For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor, her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wan

ted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay. So clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy for her.
“After months paying over $100 out-of-pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore, and she had to stop taking it.
“I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of the night in her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room. She’d been there all night in just terrible, excruciating pain. She wrote to me, ‘It was so painful I’d woke up thinking I’ve been shot.’
“Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary as a result.
“On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony, she was sitting in a doctor’s office, trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe.
“Since last year’s surgery, she’s been experiencing night sweats and weight gain and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. She’s 32-years-old.
“As she put it, ‘If my body indeed does enter early menopause, no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies simply because the insurance policy that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school, wouldn’t cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.’
“Now, in addition to potentially facing the health complications that come with having menopause at such an early age – increased risk of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis – she may never be able to conceive a child.
“Some may say that my friend’s tragic story is rare. It’s not. I wish it were
“One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis, but that can’t be proven without surgery. So the insurance has not been willing to cover her medication – the contraception she needs to treat her endometriosis.
“Recently, another woman told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and she’s struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it.
“Due to the barriers erected by Georgetown’s policy, she hasn’t been reimbursed for her medications since last August.
“I sincerely pray that we don’t have to wait until she loses an ovary or is diagnosed with cancer before her needs and the needs of all of these women are taken seriously.
“Because this is the message that not requiring coverage of contraception sends: A woman’s reproductive health care isn’t a necessity, isn’t a priority."

Women wanting birth control to be able to control the children they bear, and thus control their financial situation, ability to care for themselves, their health and their families, are somehow controversial and called sluts..

-Fluke

I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. 

I have been told by society that I am not a woman if I can't have children. That if I take the pill for any resin at all I am a sex crazed slut. I can't win.

Yet here is a woman. A non slut, unbroken woman standing up for those like me. 

When she comes I will shake her hand and thank her. She will never know how much her words mean to me. 

Mother Dear, and little pollywog me

Something I have noticed is that the stress in my life doesn't come from where most people would expect. Or rather where my mother and her churchy friends would expect. 

It's not because I'm Pansexual. 

It's not because I'm Poly and currently dating two people.

It's not because I'm oh so far away from home.

It's not because I've lost my faith.

It's not because of a lot of things.

I'm very sure of my sexuality. I am in the very least Pan, possibly leading towards Demi. I'll let you know after I do more research. But this doesn't stress me out at all. I'm very happy with my sexuality. It's not stressing me out or anything. The way I see it, I have more chances to find the ones I love and I just couldn't be happier with who I have found. 

Which brings us to point two. Surprise surprise, dating two people is not stressful. That is not to say it doesn't have it's stress, every relationship dose. But there's no real drama in my life from them. I am currently dating an absolutely wonderful man, A king among men I would say, Lee, and Ali, an amazing woman who is an angel. Both of them are fully aware of each other and have seen each other over skype and it's all good. It's not stressful because there is a pletharla of communication. Amazingly when everyone is honest and checks in frequently there is a dearth of drama.

Now point three. I don't get homesick. I felt really bad about it freshman year but I don't. I've only gotten homesick and that was over the summer wanting to go back to Hollins. You see Hollins is more than a school it's a home. Your friends become family and it's amazing. I do miss my family that I have blood ties to, really I do, but I don't miss living with them. I miss seeing the little ones grow up and being there for them and all that but I don't miss being used as free baby-sitting at the drop of a hat. I don't miss having them still try and control my bed time and my life when I go home for school holidays. I miss them. I just don't ever want to live with them for years and years or even months at a time again. 

I have not lost my faith. God is a really nice guy and Jesus is cool and I'm actually doing more in depth research about the Bible and more firm in my belief now that I have lost my love for religion. It's put rather nicely here. See I would go to church and slowly begin to realize...I'm not getting anything out of it. I feel more in touch with the holy three when I'm just wandering about have causal conversations with them in my head. I saw the most preachy 'divout' people act hypocritically and very rarely practice what they preach. So rather than fallow them I just metaphorically stood up and walked out. 

What's stressful is that my Mom doesn't know any of this. 

Mom and I used to be incredibly close. We would share secrets and laugh and be completely open with each other. That changed when I went away for my first year. I didn't realize it at first. I thought we were still very tight and snuggly. I would reassure Ali that should the shit just hit to many fans with her family we could run away to mine. 

Because my Mom was going to accept us when we came out. 

I didn' realize it till after my brother came out to her as gay that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to speak up and snuggle close. He's still around and loved in the house but there is this sadness Mom gets for him. This absolute sorrow that he will go to hell should he ever act on that feeling of love he might develop. She made it clear that he was not to tell anyone else in our family and that he was not welcome to bring friends over unless they were women. 

I was at this time slowly poking around and contemplating that I may not be straight. I had always known I could be attracted to guys and that was what seemed to be approved so I had stopped there in high school and not gone...soul searching? But Mom's very clear brimstone view stopped my plans to talk with her and get another look at it. 

So I backed away a step or two there. 

Now the next year she came to family weekend. Met Ali. Spent maybe at most 4 hours with her around, and that's being generous. She then came to me months later and confessed that she vary nearly packed my bags and brought me back home, because Ali was obviously "grooming" me to be her love interest and was going to molest and rape me.

Uhm. No. 

She didn't even know we were/are dating. Ali never takes advantage of me, and should I ever be even the slightest bit uncomfortable, she stops. Just stops and we talk and then maybe try again if I feel better or we do something else. And not a "Come on just relax and go with it" but a "What is wrong? It's okay you're safe. Why did you feel that way? What do you feel okay doing now?" kinda talk. And I do the same for her. 

Not a rapist. 

At this time Ali and I decide that being poly is something that makes sense to us. The idea that love is not a limited amount and by loving two people, one dose not love ether any more or any less. We gave it a try with a friend. It didn't work out for various reasons. This was the friends first time in a relationship so it was hard for her to give us any clear "This is what I want and where I want to go and how fast/slow" as well as other things. So it didn't work out but she is still one of my closest friends Ali and I have. 

This year I, along with my friend Juliette make the realization that as much as we love the Church...we don't quite fit anymore. Mom also starts getting more churchy back home. 

This past summer was very tense at the house. I was trying my plan of "Convince my mom that my school is not liberal heathen brainwashing" so I had to stay quite about my self and tried to put on the conservative, husband-seeking, church loving face she wanted. 

I actively lied to my mom. Actively. To her face. 

This was something that I would have never dreamed of doing before, but if she knew dear Lord...I would be shipped off to a cloistered nunnery. Or if I was allowed to go anywhere for school again it would have to be a coed campus, close to home, and not ever two inches outside of the state. 

I lucked out and got a job working a BSA camp as a Range Master. 

Exit me from house for two solid months. 

Enter Lee. 

The story of Lee, Ali, and Me is a post in it's self, but in short hand, I fell fast and hard. Checked with Ali about every night when I called her to see how she was and she was okay with it ("Go kiss him already!") And by the end of it we were dating. (this really is a post on it's own)

Mom simultaneously aproves and disapproves when I come back and she meets him, and we go out for the last month I'm in the state. 

Positives

• He has man parts=daughter not a dyke!
• makes daughter happy
• brought cookies
• is very much the gentle man

Negatives

• Has ear piercing
• is not in collage
• hair is dyed

It's like Mom watched to much Disney and expects that to be exactly what I walk through the door with, fluffy animals and songs included. Well Lee is better than Disney, so there. 

She is aware I'm in love with and dating Lee, but not Ali.

And it's not even so much her disapproval that stresses me out but how she will act on it. Pull me out of school, never let me leave the house, never let me leave the state. I am very much protected by those that love me and by the fact that I am across the country at school but I am also very, very venerable to anything that happens back home.

It's just scary sometimes that the one you used to trust most is the one you're most afraid to turn to. 

Here I go....

Sometimes it's hard to talk when your not sure people want to hear. That's the wonderful thing about writing, only those that are interested read. Now I know that there are things like required readings for school and when you have to read something that your budding writer friend/family member made to not hurt their feeling or to pass a class, but there's still an interest. and interest in a relationship. an interest in your grade. There is an interest.

I suppose the first post I should go on about who I am and why I feel the need to have story time with the interest and such, but I don't know that this blog will stick to what I put down, so the best I can give you is this is my life and how I see it.

It's the moments, and the thoughts and everything outside and in between I care to put down.

I can garentee you'll hear about religion, sex, love, family, probably food, psychology, literature, and an eclectic mix of the rest of my life and all the ambitions hobbies and bad habits.

I change everyday and so I wouldn't be surprised if this blog did too.

And here is the other wonderful thing about a bloged conversation between me and you. You can leave. I won't hunt you down or get my feelers hurt. I won't fallow you around begging to read me. Or you can stay and you and I can carry on in conversations, exploring discussing and all around just being.

And maybe one day this will be published the same way there are those princess diaries and Ann Frank. Perhaps blogs have become the new form of diary, and will one day be published for generations to read and see what the bloggers saw and wrote down from those moments.

Ither way you are welcome to this conversation, and you are welcome to leave, pop in and out or spread around.

Just do what ever interests you.