"Parting Glances" Circa 2009

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

A Chat with Survivors of the Era

The owners of the B&B, where we're staying in Ogunquit, have a large DVD collection and yet we had seen most of the mainstream and gay titles already. "Parting Glances" was supposed to be a gay classic, and they owned it, and it was one that we had not yet seen, and so we watched it last night.

It was like getting into a time-machine. Ah, so that's how the movies depicted what it was like for the guys when I was trying to find myself as a 20-something lesbian! The B&B owners referred to it as a "sweet movie" in a tender tone and so I was hoping for a highly-poignant film experience.

Really, it was no better than most of the lesbian films we've ever seen, which didn't make me happy, but which was validating, at least, that we weren't the only ones who were so desperate for images of ourselves, being ourselves, that we accepted sub-optimal plots/acting/cinematography just to glimpse people who looked like some of us, living their lives.

This morning over breakfast, one of the owners asked, "What did you think of the movie?"

I didn't want to hurt him or insult his taste, which in every other way, e.g., the landscaping of the B&B and its interior, was lovely -- even stylish -- but I told him that it reminded me of the quality of so many of the lesbian films I'd seen over the years, i.e., not great, but that I could understand how wonderful it felt simply to see two guys simply being affectionate on the big screen.

Yes, he agreed; that was its chief appeal.

Then I said, "And I loved the soundtrack! Whatever happened to the Bronski Beat and Jimmy Somerville?"

"I don't know," he said and broke the spell. We were no longer back in Chicago in the '80s -- or for him, I imagine Pittsburgh; we were dolloping Greek yogurt that I never could have afforded back then into generous bowls for breakfast.

Kvetching Constructively

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Chuckle-flavored Yogurt

Reading "The Hindu" at breakfast this morning, I saw an article on an archeological dig, where the team determined that modern people were in India even longer ago than was previously known, and that they probably came from Africa, from where all of humanity originated.

"Why did *everyone* come from Africa, Pat?"

"Because that's where the aliens landed."

God, she's just what I need! Comic relief is so precious. I told our realtor of the exchange when we were apartment hunting today and she said, "That's a good one," barely laughing.

Pat said, "My humor's not as funny to anyone as it is to Sarah."

Home, Which Home?

The hunt drained us mentally, and we don't yet have a place for certain. It's between two and we'll have to see what's viable. We should know within a few days.

We rejected a third option because a) it was around the corner from where we heard the chanting on Saturday night and b) the tiny swimming pool looked more like an emerging terrarium.

A number of times during my commute to work, looking at street scenes, I've felt like I was in a time-machine, where I was part of ancient and modern eras at once.

Just now, thinking about looking for a home and about the newness of the assignment, I feel like I'm in a personal time machine, too, where I'm revisiting my past, of trying to find new shelter, which Pat and I haven't had to do since we bought our house 11 years ago, and of glimpsing my future, which seems to be wedded to helping leadership in emerging countries...I hope.

It's an exhausting and much more vivid life in parallel. I've written to some friends that either I'll age 10 years in India or become 10 years younger.