All Hallow’s Eve
I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. On the one hand, it’s hard to argue with candy, parties, and costumes. On the other hand, it’s the day before my birthday, which means I’m always obligated to be doing Halloween-ey things instead of whatever party I’d like to be having. I actually got Halloweened-out for a few years as a teenager, because I’d had Halloween birthday parties for the previous decade.
This year, my roommates and I are again having a Halloween party. It’ll be on Friday, the 30th, so planned to leave time for everyone to go out and/or go to the other inevitable parties on Saturday, the actual night of Halloween. I’m actually pretty psyched about the party; it should be good friends, and my roommates are indulging my ridiculous costume idea: one of them is dressing in a gold dress, and will be a gold-backed currency, I’ll be in a silver dress, as silver-backed currency, and the other is going to wear a shirt saying “What would you trade for me?” as a barter-based economy! (I’m a giant dork…)
The assumption seems to be, though, that we’re also all going to go out together on Saturday night. But I’m really not interested in going out to Wrigleyville again, even if this time everyone will be in ridiculous costumes. And, thus far, the only other party I’ve been invited to that I’d really want to go to is also on Friday…I can’t exactly ditch my party to go to another one. What I’d like to do is have my birthday party on the 31st, on the weekend of my birthday, and stay in with drinks, Rock Band, maybe some singing around the piano… But I’ve been told (repeatedly) that I’m not allowed to do that, and no one will come if I try. (Which isn’t unreasonable, but does speak to the lousy birth date I have.)
This is also all part of the larger feeling I’ve been having, of a dearth of queer friends and an utter lack of queer community. And I don’t feel close enough to the few queer friends I do have – or, at least, the queer people I’m friendly with – to simply invite myself to whatever they’re doing for Halloween.
None of this was helped by the conversation I had today with my therapist. I was talking about this lack of community that I’ve been feeling, and she said Chicago was, to her knowledge, unique among US metropolises. Chicago – unlike NYC, San Francisco, LA, Portland, Austin, and so on – had ridiculously isolated communities among the GLBT population. She did stress she’s only lived in Chicago, but from speaking with other GLBT people she’s gather that a lot of other major cities have much more of a “queer” population, OK to be joined under that umbrella, whereas Chicago has much more isolated pockets.
This fits with my understanding of Chicago as ridiculously neighborhood-based, of diverse but nonetheless self-segregated. Of a political attitude where disagreement results in, “Well, fine! I’ll start my own (whatever)!” My therapist commented on how there was Gay Pride and Black Pride, which has further split into Windy City Black Pride and Chicago Windy City Black Pride…
She said this kind of leaves lesbian-identified trans women (such as yours truly) out in the cold: the lesbian community isn’t particularly welcoming, and the trans community doesn’t exactly have the resources or commonality to provide solid support. Basically, said my therapist, I need to figure out how to piece community together, since no one resource is really going to provide what I’m looking for.
I know I have at least a few Chicago readers in my audience, so I’d love to hear if you have any advice… Or, I suppose, people from other cities: how do you find a new community, a new social group, when it feels like everyone your age is already set in theirs? Feel free to leave thoughts in the comments, or email me at blog [at] fridaythang [dot] com
Themocracy
Well, I don’t know what to do about your desire for a birthday party on the 31st or the problem of Chicago’s fragmented queer community, but I do think you should come to the Halloween party that you were invited to on the 31st which I see you have marked “maybe” on the evite. The party both a) is not in Wrigleyville and b) will have some awesome queers in attendance. Just sayin.
Maybe I will… ::stroking chin suggestively:: maybe I will…
Call up those cool queers we hung out with when I was in c-town and say “what are you doing for halloween? can i come?” it’s totally legit to invite yourself to a holiday like halloween. just do it.