CommuniKate

Congratulations to Annette Bening on her Oscar nomination in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, for the role described by the NYT as “a controlling lesbian.” I say it’s about time! Time not just for Annette Bening to get an Oscar. It s way past time for controlling lesbian to be so honored.

Really, it’s an honor just to be nominated. And I’m not just saying that. Look at this year’s other nominated roles: really sad mom, have-you-seen-my-dad teen, really beautiful in love girl, nutzoid ballerina. We are honored just to be in the company of these groundbreaking roles, but since we so rarely get this far, I hope this really is our year. Unlike the Jets.

Make all the controlling lesbian jokes you want. Red carpet: “What are you wearing, Eddie Bauer flannel?” After-party: “YOU read Vanity Fair?” Post-Oscar: “Will you put your Oscar near your softball trophy?”

Of course there have been lesbians in film: British teacher lesbians, serial killer lesbians, nun lesbians, cowgirl lesbians, horse-loving lesbians, soccer lesbians. Just this year Angelina Jolie was one shoot-em-up, mankiller badass in SALT. But she never came out as a lesbian. She didn’t have to. Sue Sylvester is not Jane Lynch and besides that would be for the Emmy. This is a first for a boldly controlling open lesbian.

I’m working on some ideas for the controlling lesbian acceptance speech. Word to the wise: don’t you dare start up the band music while the she is thanking her gym teacher, Title IX, and PFLAG parents. That would not be pretty.

I know I speak for all controlling lesbians, when I say, “Let this be our year! Or else.”

My galpal calls it “Seasonal Off-Road Disorder”.

Every year after the Christmas digression, I like to invoke my personal hibernate function before I have to power up again and hit the road. I look forward to a couple weeks of feeding off my stored holiday body fat, shallow breathing in my desk cave and setting my metabolic rate to bovine.

And every year, instead of the desired state of fallow, creative receptivity, I become a twitch, a principle dancer in the local St. Vitus Day Troupe.

The energy is good for tackling long-postponed projects. I recently spent hours decommissioning tech-tritus – husks of old burned-out laptops, three pound cell phones, palm pilots still packing the original graffiti stylus and I-phones that sound like baby rattles.

Oozing green virtue, I unsnarled miles of cordage and put it all in a bag for the local Gadgets for Grannies electronics drop-off. When I stood back to admire the cleaned shelf, I noticed the bag of CDs I had collected for the LGBT Center Archives in last year’s cleanup.

Thankfully the Twitter valve is an outlet for any pent-up need to comment on the day’s news: the black bird die-off and the Angry Bird craze; the House reading of the Constitution and direction reading after assemblage; women’s real tears and men’s lower testosterone levels; kidney donating and parole.

Still the twitching. I do impromptu mini-performances for the five and two year olds across the hall. They are unimpressed with my ironic monster. I josh annoyingly with confused deli workers. At dinners with eye-rolling friends, they ask, “Are you trying out new stuff on us?” My dear galpal groans with every obvious pun, witty aside and bad accent, then asks, “When’s your first show?”