Please Hold

Technical difficulties. We, that being me, appreciate your patience and continued patronage. Also, you're pretty.

UPDATE: An internet outage, work craziness, life complication confluence occurred today meaning no full post will be forthcoming. But, rest assured, come hell or high water or locust invasion, things will be back up and running on Surrenders tomorrow. As a sincere apology and peace offering, please enjoy this video of a cute puppy and pretty lady. It's really the least I could do.

Merry Merry, Happy Happy

Merry Christmas and happy whatever you believe in.

My Weekend Reflection

It had been, for whatever reason, a long week. I don’t know why, but my birthday week always sits heavy on me. It’s not the actual act of getting older, because we do that every day. Perhaps it’s just the reminder of one’s own mortality. Small speck. Enormous universe. Silly, I know. And in so many ways it has been a perfectly lovely week. Calls. Visits. Cards. Gifts. All of the wonderful birthday wishes from all of you wonderful people. I couldn’t be more touched, kittens. You’re too sweet, as always. Yet still, every year, the week ends with a strange sense of not entirely melancholy, but quiet reflection. There is so much unnecessary misery around us sometimes – violence, injustice, inequality, greed. So sometimes, sometimes I just like to remind myself that we’re not just a bunch of hairless apes with an unusually advanced ability to use tools. We are also kind, loving, generous souls who believe in the magic of each new day. I posted this once before on my Tumblr. And since then I’ve actually played it for myself several times just as a little reminder. This is summer solstice in Poznań, Poland with 11,000 paper lanterns set to Mumford & Sons. Every once in a while, we tiny humans do beautiful things. Happy weekend, all.

My Weekend Comment

Dear people who hate me yet keep coming back to my site out of masochistic tendencies I do not fully understand:



Insult me all you want. Really go to town. Get creative. Open a thesaurus. Have the time of your life.



I’ve made it my practice to leave the comments section open to everyone without interference. I hardly ever wade in because, again, that’s your space. I get the whole frontpage to blather on and on and – yes – on some more. So say whatever you want about me.



But, please, do not insult my readers. These are just good, intelligent, thoughtful folks who come here in peace seeking discourse, amusement and pictures of hot girls in tank tops. They’ve done nothing different than what you’ve done – read the musings of one gal on the internet who stays up way too late every night and writes way too much about pop culture.



If you want to dislike me, that’s cool. Though I would prefer you not be a dick about it. But leave my readers the fuck alone.



Sincerely,

Ms. Snarker

(a.k.a. Captain Dick Winky McCock-a-saurus Rex)



p.s. Same goes for my friends. Seriously, do not fuck with my friends.

Reality check

Let’s talk, for a moment, about this horrible trend of fake lesbian bloggers. Both the authors of A Gay Girl in Damascus and Lez Get Real were revealed as frauds when, after amassing followings and support, they confessed to being married straight white men. They even flirted a little with each other as fake lesbian bloggers, which is the most and only funny part of these stories. Because what they did represents an insane breach of trust. Sure, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. You can’t even believe half of it. But you expect that people who dedicate themselves to writing about important issues of equality and justice come from, at every least, a place of truth. Now, these two men could care very deeply about LGBT rights. They could, in fact, be great advocates. But they can’t do that while lying to their readerships. And what they did hurts us all. It makes people wonder, is it all fake?

Well, no, it’s not. I want to go on record and say, again, that I am not a straight white married man. I am not a man. I am not straight. I am not married. I am not any combination of the three. I am a gay gal who loves to write about pop culture and has done so online since 2006. The fact that married straight white dudes want to masquerade online as lesbian bloggers boggles my mind beyond comprehension. I really don’t understand why they bother. This isn’t a road to riches or any kind of quantifiable fame. It’s hard work that takes day-in-day-out commitment. Did they think this would be a way to somehow hook up with lesbians? Did they want to fantasize about being a gay woman? Did they just want to find better recipes for homemade hummus? I have no idea. But it makes me sad.

I write online because I love it. Writing, engaging, finding people who obsess about TV as much as I do. And I don’t reveal my “secret identify,” such as it is, for a number of reasons. I was always a shy child, and continue as an adult to fight persistent flashes of the tendency. That’s made me a private and cautious person. I seem to have missed the internet exhibitionist gene that afflicts so many these days. I also believe that writing is, ultimately, about the words. Without a face to put to them, it’s only about ideas and thoughts. So then it also becomes about trust. Do you trust the person on the other end of a glowing screen? I hope you do. I hope in the more than five years I’ve been banging away at a keyboard you’ve come to understand a little something about little old me. I don’t think you need to know what a person looks like to know what’s in their heart or mind (in my case: tank tops, girls in suits and a life-sized cut-out of Tina Fey). So today what I’d really like to do is thank you. Thank you for trusting me enough to come back, day-after-day, and to share this little corner of the Internet together where we can talk about high art and low art and really smart girls. I never take it for granted.

p.s. Yep, that’s really me in the picture. Well, at least my lips and terrible cuticles.

Swan Queen

Right, so I should probably tell you who won the “Black Swan” Blu-ray. Contests are always fun until I have to do the actual work of contest administering. But enough with the suspense; I promised prizes. And the winner, thanks to my friend the random number generator thingie, is … drum roll … Amanda aka jazzytrumpet[at]gmail.com. Honest to blog, the random thingie doesn’t lie. Please email me to collect your winnings, Amanda.

For everyone else, thank you for entering and thank you even more for your ridiculously kind words about my blogiversary. I should make you guys tell me how long you’ve been hanging around here more often. Makes it feel like old-home week or something. Actually, that so many of you have been around for so long makes me feel almost bashful. Like, you know so much about me yet I know so little about you. What’s your favorite color? How do you take your coffee? Who was the first pershttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifon to call you beautiful who wasn’t a family member? I’ll start. Blue, but it used to be red. Black, with one sugar. Pam, but that’s another story for another day.

While we’re in a sharing mood, I’ve been wondering if there’s anything more you’d like from me. Yes, I know – a picture. But that’s just not going to happen until certain pre-determined conditions occur. (Your move, Jodie.) Plus, you’ve already seen plenty of my thumb. And that’s probably my fifth best feature anyway. But I mean more like topics, interactions, community atmosphere. I’ve long had an insanely strict policy about not replying in comments. This is partially due to my lack of time, but also because I believe it’s your space and not mine. I get the whole top of the post to pontificate. But if you feel that’s something you’d really, really like to see, I’ll consider it.

I’ve noticed that while traffic has about remained the same there’s been a slow down on comments the last couple of weeks, which happens. I’ve been doing this for long enough to see the ebbs and flows. Or perhaps you’ve all got finals right now or – you know – full and complete lives outside of the internet. But I’m always open to suggestion to make things more interactive. The not-so-secret secret about us online writer types is that comments are to bloggers as applause is to Tinkerbell. Fine, we don’t need them to live exactly. But they sure help us feel like we exist.

Oh, and speaking of existential crises, just in case you’re still feeling blue about not having won the “Black Swan” Blu-ray, you can still enjoy some of the mindfuckery here. I share because I care. There, now doesn’t everyone feel like a winner?

My Weekend Tumble

Ich bin eine Tumblesbian. Yep, I’m on Tumblr. I’ve long been drawn to the flock, what with their big pictures and funny gifs and compulsive reblogging. But I’d never succumb to their siren song before because, well, I’m kind of busy. I write for two blogs. I write for work. I write a lot. A LOT. But then, that’s the beauty of Tumblr. Photos. Gifs. Not so many words. And I have all these pictures just waiting patiently, patiently on my hard drive for a chance to see the light. Plus Tumblr has this little button that lets you co-opt other people’s creativity and use it for your own personal gain with no more than the tap of a finger. NEAT-O.

But, seriously, Tumblr is an elegant blogging platform, one I have long lurked on but never partaken in until now. So what’s changed? Well, clearly not my levels nightly sleep levels. Nor my amount of free time. And certainly not my workload. But I think it might make a nice little bridge between the daily blogging I do here and more newsy near-daily blogging I do for AfterEllen and then the incessant 140-character randomness bombs I drop around Twitter on the regular. Not a tweet, not quite a blog. Maybe this will be the happy medium Baby Bear spot for all the things too small for a full post on Surrenders and too big for a tweet on the Tweeter Machine.

You are certainly not required to follow me on Tumblr. I’m sure you get more than enough of the various flotsam and jetsam that bangs about my skull here. But if you do choose to, I will try to make it fun and enjoyable and silly and even – just every so often – informational.

Things you should know.

1. I can be found at dorothy-snarker.tumblr.com. Yes, with a hyphen. Yes, I’m annoyed by that. Oh, well, at least the gal who has it without the hyphen liked Pushing Daisies.
2. I plan to swear and be naughty, which is, you know, par for the course.
3. I don’t know how frequently I’ll post. I just have no idea. Probably too much or too little – if I had to guess.
4. I don’t entirely know what I’m doing. I’m still tweaking the layout and figuring out the posting options. Like how do I make the text margins the same as the photo margins? It’s driving me nuts.
5. I am open to ideas. Cool things to do with the design. Cool features. Cool widgets. Cool tumblrs to follow. Your tumblr to follow. Anything. Everything.

So there you have it. And my timing is pretty perfect. Because if it goes badly I can say it was all just an enormous April Fools’ Day joke. Right then, and for those extreme suckers for punishment, here is a full accounting for the ridiculous numbers of ways you can find me online besides ye olde blog.

• AfterEllen
• Twitter
• Tumblr

Jesus. What the hell am I doing? Happy weekend, all.

Operation Pity Vote

Whaaaat? No, really, what? I somehow slipped in and was nominated for the Eleventh Annual Weblog Awards, or The Bloggies for short. Now, um, these awards go to, like, actual big-time blogs like Dooce, Boing Boing, PostSecret and Go Fug Yourself. So, yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing there either. But there I am among an amazing group of queer bloggers up for Best LGBT Blog. Crazy, I know. Scanning the list, I am in beyond impressive company:

• Lesbian Dad – Thoughtful ponderings on gay parenting.
• Queerty – Really, really gay news
• Effing Dykes – Hilarious ruminations on lesbian life.
• AfterEllen – The Mothership

Yeah, you saw that last one, too? That’s, um, my employer and stuff. So…awkward. No, not awkward, because AfterEllen deserves it and then some. No other lesbian website has been doing it for as long and as comprehensively and as successfully as AfterEllen. And no other website has such an amazing compilation of talented gay lady writers, artists and photographers as AfterEllen – many of whom I call close friends. Frankly, I’m shocked AE hasn’t been nominated before. So does that mean I’m going to graciously step aside and pay rightful deference to AfterEllen, as I should? Hell no. I’m going to be an ungrateful, spoiled child and campaign anyway. Hello, Operation Pity Vote.

Yes, that’s right, I am campaigning solely on pity. Because, when you look at my accomplished competition, there’s really no chance I’ll win. So, therefore, please take pity on me. Though, seriously, it is – as the cliché goes – just an honor to be nominated. I’m fairly certain some sort of clerical error was involved. But I’ll take it. And, as always, I thank you wonderful people for coming around day after day and putting up with the random, sleep-deprived ramblings of a gal and her laptop. You, kittens, are the only award I need.

OK, that’s a lie. I’d like actual awards, too. And prizes. Possibly a pony. But I’m a realist. I mean, where would I even put a pony?

Right, so if you feel so inclined, please pop over and throw a bone to yours truly for Best LGBT Blog. The polls are open until Feb. 20. You can vote once per person/email. And don’t forget to click the link in the verification email afterward or your vote won’t count. Operation Pity Vote is nothing if not a stickler for the rules. You can click here to vote.

p.s. You don’t know how relieved I am that the awards were announced yesterday when I attempted to write a semi-intellectual post instead of my normal semi-literate prattle about tank tops. You’ve got to fool the new visitors somehow.

To infinity, and beyond

What is it about our childhoods? The holding on, the reaching back. I guess it’s because things were simpler, we were simpler. Nostalgia, on its own, is a powerful thing. But when coupled with other emotions – love, loss, regret, hope – it can comfort us better than any blanket. Over the weekend my mother’s best friend, a woman I’ve known since the fourth grade, died suddenly. Wife, mother, grandmother, friend. She was one of the most gracious, hard-working and thoughtful persons I’ve ever known. Our families were close. We spent almost every Christmas Eve together – including this past year – for decades. Yet there, on the other end of that phone call, I wished I was closer. But the 2,000 miles between us meant I could only offer condolences and platitudes. Once the call was over, I was left alone with just thoughts of her family and my mother and all those shared holidays and meals and laughs. So I sought out my own comforting nostalgia. And what I turned to for a surrogate hug was Pixar. It may seem silly to find solace in movies. But that, after all, is what they’re there for – entertainment, diversion, understanding, truth. This weekend I marathoned all the “Toy Story” movies. Can you believe I’d never seen them before – and I’m a Pixar fangirl. And then, when I had trouble sleeping that night, I pulled up “Finding Nemo” on my iPhone and let it help me drift off to slumber. Yes, I’m a childless adult with “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E” on her phone. While they’re not a part of my childhood, they bring up the universal emotions from childhood. Regardless of age, they’re a reminder of what mattered then isn’t really so much different than what matters now. Love, laughter, loyalty and how lucky we are to have good friends pass through our lives.

Make the yuletide gay

The one, the only, the original Dorothy. Merry Christmas, or happy whatever you celebrate. Make the yuletide gay.

p.s. Just don’t go decapitating all the snow people like Tootie did afterward in the movie.

One size fits none

Last week, as I wrote my response to the Marie Claire controversy, I knew someone would mention all the pictures of slim women on my site. I knew this because I’ve been doing this a long time and have developed a sixth sense about what kind of comments I am likely to receive. I had considered addressing it in the post, but ultimately thought that would take away from my main message which was that people deserve to be happy and respected, no matter their perceived differences. Heavy, thin, gay, straight – we’re all human and shouldn’t be shamed for the simple act of existing.

Now, it’s also true, I do post pictures of mostly slim women. Part of this is symptomatic of my chosen topic: the entertainment industry. There just aren’t that many women in Hollywood who are larger than a Size 0. The vast majority of famous women in Hollywood are conventionally thin. And unless I want to write about Queen Latifah, Nikki Blonsky, Gabourey Sidibe and Camryn Manheim every day, my options are limited. Even the women who sometimes get lumped in with the “plus-size” category aren’t really all that plus, like Sara Ramirez, America Ferrera and Christina Hendricks.

But this isn’t to say I shouldn’t do better. I should. I try not to glorify or perpetuate the unhealthy – in either direction. I don’t regularly post photos of models, because I think most are beyond unrealistic looking. (But not all, and those I celebrate to the fullest.) I don’t regularly post overly Photoshopped pictures, because there’s nothing realistic at all about the overuse of the liquefy tool. (I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hate over Photoshopping. For real.)

Which brings us back to the topic of size and what I post on my site. I actually do think about inclusiveness, be it size or race or left handedness, a lot. A lot, a lot. But it’s not always that easy. I post about what I watch and enjoy because, well, it’s my site. But not all the TV/movies/music I watch and enjoy includes women of varying sizes. “30 Rock” – maybe Sherri Shepherd, but she’s on maybe twice a year. “Glee” – Amber Riley who is perpetually second fiddle of Lea Michele. “Rizzoli & Isles” – those two could fit on a twin-size bed with room to spare, trust me, I’ve imagined it. “Buffy” – Xander got a little chunky in the later seasons. “The Vampire Diaries” – nada, blood must be slimming.

I used to write about America Ferrera more often, but then “Ugly Betty” got bad and now it’s off the air. I write about Queen Latifah sometimes but closet organizing gets old after a while. And then, it can start to feel like tokenism. I’ve got to throw the Queen into this post, I’ve got to add Gabby to that post. Like I said, it isn’t always easy.

Also, do you know how hard it is to find pictures of some of these ladies in tank tops? The one, one, I’ve ever been able to find of Sara Ramirez I posted.

I guess this is all just a long, rambly way of saying – I do care and I do try. I want to be representative and I want to be inclusive. But I also write about a sliver of our popular culture that tends to be show women who look like a sliver. So trust me when I tell you, my love for women is not one size fits all.

p.s. Apologies to those expecting a post on the midterm elections today. I just couldn’t, it is too – well – ugh.

Happy BirthFey

Today is my birthday. I know, blah blah blah. Yay, day of my birth. Now, I say this not for the self-congratulatory acknowledgment of growing another year older. Well, not exactly. But really I say this to apologize for the lameness of today's post. You see, I had kind of a hell of a weekend. So I'm basically incapable of writing a full post. Also, it being my birthday and all, I thought I'd take this opportunity to be both a) lazy, and b) self-indulgent. So here is Tina Fey dancing. Happy birthday to me.

P.S. Also, Tina and the other lovely ladies of "Saturday Night Live" will be on TV tonight for an SNL special. I'm considering that her present to me, as it should be.

Make it a better place

Kids can be cruel. This is nothing new. Human can be cruel, period. Bullies have been around since the beginning of time. But that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate them. What has happened in the past month with five high-profile suicides of gay teens is as tragic as it is unacceptable. This must stop. No young person should feel like ending his or her life is the only option. Ever.

The statistics on GLBT youth harassment could not be more stark or sobering:

• 9 out of 10 LGBT kids get harassed at school.
• LGBT kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts.
• A third — A THIRD – of all LGBT kids have attempted suicide.

The suicides of these five young men make me sad beyond words. How can we live in a world where this keeps happening? Thankfully there is a lot of justifiable public outcry right now about bullying. The unfettered harassment of GLBT youth must be addressed in schools across the country. Curriculum must be created, bills must be passed. But this isn’t just a classroom issue. GLBT bullying doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sure, kids have always picked on other kids they think are “different.” Yet we live in a country that still allows for the wholesale discrimination against GLBT people.

Gays and lesbians are not allowed to legally marry. Gays and lesbians are not allowed to openly serve in the military. Gays and lesbians are not protected from being fired for their sexual orientation across all 50 states. None of these rights and protections exist on a federal level.

So, then, why are we so surprised when teens pick on gay kids? When a government says it is OK to discriminate against gay people, kids think it's OK to hate them. All politics are personal, and nothing is more personal than being treated like a second-class citizen.

So this, this is why Prop. 8, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, etc. all matter so much. While on the surface they may seem like they’re about a single issue — marriage, military service, employment — they’re a gauge of what we as a people believe is important to protect. They’re the legal harbingers of our overall acceptance and, ultimately, full equality.

And they’re also why it is so very important to vote come November. Will the repeal of DADT or Prop. 8 end GLBT bullying overnight? No, of course not. Are they are an important step to creating a culture of tolerance? You'd better fucking believe it.

Whatever disappointments we might have in this administration, in this congress (and, believe me, there are many), think long and hard about the alternative. We’re up against an extreme opposition that hates us. I am so fucking disappointed that President Obama hasn't been more proactive on DADT and Prop. 8 and all the rest. But if you think not voting is a way of showing him, then I hope you enjoy that bullet hole in your own foot. Change comes slowly and painfully and is never perfect. But sitting idly by will ensure it never happens. It won’t make life better for you and me, and it won’t make life easier for the gay teen getting picked on every day at school.

When something like this makes the headlines, we often feel helpless. How can we reach out to these kids? How can we tell them they aren’t alone? How can we encourage them to hold on? Things like the It Gets Better Project are wonderful. Things like The Trevor Project are essential. But we can, and we must, help in other ways, too. That means calling out homophobia when we see it, whether by the teen on the street or the pop starlet on the stage who uses “so gay” as a put down. That means electing people who, at the very least, don’t think we’re an abomination. That means continuing to push our leaders to give us the same basic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as everyone else. That means reaching out if you see an LGBT kid struggling.

They say sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. But that simply isn’t true. Words can do as much damage as a fist and, as we’ve sadly seen these last few weeks, sometimes even more. While the bullies of the world, be they in the school hallways or the political pulpit, will continue using words as weapons, we can use them as a shield.

If you need help, feel alone, want someone to talk to, call The Trevor Lifeline toll-free any time of day or night: 866-488-7386.

Believe me when I say this, things do get better. Kids can be cruel, but you are not alone. We are with you. We are doing everything we can to make sure it gets better. We want you to be alongside us when it does.

My Weekend Blogiversary

So tomorrow marks my fourth blogiversary. Yep, folks, I’ve been at this for four fucking years. Dayum. They say if you give a bunch of monkeys with typewriters long enough eventually they’ll give you Shakespeare. Well, seems I need some more time with my keyboard. But, hey, it’s good to have goals. My first year, I thanked everyone from all over this big, crazy world who comes to visit every day. My second year, I wrote a completely unsolicited FAQ. Last year, OK, last year I was too busy drooling over Yvonne Strahovski in a tank top to be bothered to commemorate any dumb anniversary. But this year, I’ll address what is one of my most frequently e-mailed questions: Will you post a picture of yourself? The short answer: No. The longer answer: Still no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t at some point – maybe.

There are several reasons for this, but mostly it’s that I am an intensely private person. I was a very shy child, grew into pretty shy teenager and have spent my adult life – through chosen profession and personal work – trying to overcome the inclination. But, believe me, it’s hardwired. Still simple aversion to the spotlight isn’t the only reason. I think when you don’t know what the author looks like, it make you focus more on the words. Now, this could be good or bad depending on the quality of the words. But visuals are so powerful, they make it easy to project personality and prejudge. And finally, I stay anonymous because everyone loves a mystery. Using one’s imagination is hot.

But, in the interest of further disclosure, here are five true things about me that you may (though more than likely may not) have known:

1. I am Asian-American (but then, I’ve mentioned that before).
2. I have long hair. No, really long. OK, not Crystal Gayle long, but long.
3. I wear at least four pieces of jewelry every day: Three earrings and a silver ring I’ve had since high school.
4. I never wear dresses. The last time was to a friend’s wedding – we are no longer close.
5. I have pointy ears. Not Spock pointy, just friendly woodland elf pointy.

So there you have it – a little more about me, your humble host. As always, these kinds of milestones make me stop and reflect. I’ve spent the same amount of time writing this blog as I did in college. Man, you’d think I’d get a diploma or at the very least a bronzed beer bong or something. But, in all seriousness, it still boggles my little mind to think that what started as a whim four years ago has grown into this. I am continually and eternally thankful that you come back day after day and share your stories and humor and disagreements and joy with me. So, thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for emailing. Thank you for following me on Twitter. Four more years? We’ll see. But it has been my great pleasure to have you along with me for the last four.