Nothing fills my heart with immeasurable joy like seeing the Twitterverse explode. The seemingly endless stream of tweets expressing opinions on important issues are what, I believe, makes this country not just a great country but a country with an extremely high sense of self-esteem.
I'll admit that my self-esteem hasn't always been so high. But when I look at how many tweets I've managed to send since January 18, 2009 (835,456), I can't help but feel a warm, liquid-like sensation creeping up my back. And it's not sweat. That's the thing.
This time, it's NOT sweat.
As expected from the close-minded, recalcitrant morals of the Baby Boomer generation, my parents did not understand.
Because I've lost weight. I'm well over my expectation for tweets in 2015. I've got over 18 followers on Tumblr. And I'm immersed in a social mediaverse explosion of concern over civil rights.
You see, I majored in Civil Rights in college. It was a create-your-own major kind of thing. The Suits in the Ivory White Tower tentatively named it "English," but I think we both knew what was going on. I think we all know what this was. The great thing about a liberal arts create-your-major major is that you attend all your own classes, you write all your own text books, you give all your own lectures.
My favorite lecture was reading my 2008 postings of news articles on my Facebook page. Illuminating. My second favorite lecture was reading the top 250 Twitter tweets from May 2009. Life-changing. My third favorite lecture was a survey of all tweets and Facebook news article postings re-posted to my Tumblr page in January 2010, so that people could review anything they might have missed.
"I know I haven't missed anything," is a tweet I sent myself on September 14, 2014 (#640,299). But I had.
In the midst of the terrible civil rights violations that occurred in cities and states and countries throughout the world and the United States, I was ignoring a violation of my own human rights. "Yes," I tweeted after realizing this, "as a human being I have civil rights, too." (I later re-tweeted this on Tumblr and posted a link on my Facebook page. December 30, 2014, 2:14 pm EST)
I realized that I have a right to be in a same-sex relationship.
No longer will we be a footnote in the world of intimacy.
My parents had no idea this was coming. I had pre-emptively notified my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yelp, Google+, PhotoBucket, and Flickr followers that this would occur so that they might be prepared for the fallout. Unfortunately, I forgot that my father was connected to my LinkedIn account, where I had listed him as an employer (an unfortunate mistake during my neophyte days as I tried to accumulate a robust resume, citing my household chores for Business Management).
He knew and told my mother.
I was sitting in my room when they knocked on my bedroom door. My girlfriend and I sat up from making out and looked at each other. "It's time," I said.
My parents opened the door…confused. My father said he'd received an update from me about being in a "same-sex relationship." He pointed to my girlfriend and asked if she was a girl.
"Yes," I confirmed.
He asked if we were currently dating.
Again, "Yes."
He asked if I was bisexual and in an open relationship.
"No."
He was confused. I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. I asked my girlfriend to place a hand on my mother's shoulder to ensure gender equality, thereby assuring no civil rights would be violated in expressing MY civil rights.
"Father, my girlfriend and I are in a same-sex relationship."
As expected from the close-minded, recalcitrant morals of the Baby Boomer generation, my parents did not understand.
"When did you realize this?" my father asked. The hands of my girlfriend and I were still placed comfortingly on the shoulders of each parent.
"Do you remember last night after dinner?" I asked.
He nodded, and then added, "Yes, you were supposed to take the garbage out and I had to do it."
"Your father ASKED you three times at dinner to take the trash out," my mother interjected.
"Three times!" my father bellowed.
"You know how his back is!" my mother screamed murderously.
With my free hand, I held up a comforting palm. One that those who followed my series "Pictures of Gandhi" (Tumblr posts, March 2013), may remember. (It was my fourth favorite lecture, in fact.)
"Last night," I said, and put my free hand around my girlfriend's arm in a completely non-possessive sense, "I realized that we were having sex with each other at the same time."
As I expected, my parents rolled their eyes. They sucked their teeth and went back to the living room to finish washing the dishes.
I held my girlfriend closer at that moment. We'd been rejected, but that was okay.
I knew from several articles that I had posted on Facebook about same-sex couples in August 2013 that we were not alone. There was a community out there.
This article is a call for unity. We are not the only ones. There are other people who have sex with each other at the same time. Perhaps we could get together and share our experiences. Maybe we could even make a video and sell it to websites supporting same-sex couples. That money could be used by my girlfriend and I, who hope to set up a non-profit organization in an affordable two-room apartment in downtown San Francisco.
We are setting up links on Tumblr, Facebook, and LinkedIn and I am including links on all future tweets to our Indiegogo and KickStarter pages.
This is money that will directly help those affected by discrimination.
Money to afford an apartment. Money to buy a Prius. Money to buy food at the Whole Foods and attend the next St. Vincent concert. Money to buy an iPhone 6 when it goes on sale.
With your support, we will push for greater acceptance of same-sex couples. We will refuse the isolationist methods of the moral majority. We will proudly announce that WE are the 99%.