what should be several posts, in one

there are so many things going on right now that i want to be writing about, but when i have the energy i don't have the time, and when i have the time i don't have the energy. it's a common problem for me. topics include:
-drag, and various aspects of [my] performance.
-head-shaving, and ways this time was similar to and different from the first time.
-family-watching on the Plaza.
-making a final decision as to where i'm going to spend the next two years of my life, writing the check, and searching for an apartment.
-getting ready for graduation, whatever the hell that means. (very little, actually.)

might as well start at the top of the list and see what happens:

drag.
the two people i most want to share their opinions about the ballsiest thing i have ever done have said nothing (or practically nothing) to me about it. damn.
i'm not quite sure what i want to write about that, to be honest. i really want to write a story about it, and write about how i used it to tell a part of my story (in keeping with the theme for the year). but i don't know how to go about it. it seems like everyone needs to further collect their thoughts on the drag show, myself included, despite and perhaps because of my deep involvement with it.

head-shaving.
sunday afternoon, i shaved my head for the second time (the first was september 2, 2007). i absolutely loved it the first time and thought it was the best thing i'd ever done for myself, and i've just been waiting for the right time to do it again. my original plan was to wait until after graduation (april 26!), dye my hair blue, and then shave my head....sometimes, things just don't go according to plan. i'd gotten out of work and gone to sit on the grass with a couple of friends, and it was sunny and warm, and [certain] impulses must be followed in circumstances like these. i don't really have anything important coming up between now and graduation....not that i need to look particularly professional for, anyway. and who cares if i have hair at graduation. silly hats and all. the idea is that my hair should grow enough in 3-4 months that i'll be able to look like a grown-up by the time i have to start clinic in the fall, but i think i can look perfectly professional with a buzz cut. to look "professional" in this case means, of course, to look feminine, which is probably deserving of its own examination.

one big difference between this instance of head-shaving and the first one had to do with the other people involved. Shannon was still there to hold my hand and take pictures, just like she was the first time. (Shannon being my only straight female friend, and one of my oldest friends of any kind at the moment.) now, the last time this happened, the person who did the actual clippers-to-head bit was the boy who lived upstairs from me at the time; we had shared a wall for the year prior; we kind of hated each other. this was our bonding experience: i got to be grateful to him for relieving me of my hair, and he got to laugh at me for being bald and know that he was the cause of it. we left each other alone for the rest of the year, instead of complaining about things. but this time, someone i actually like shaved my head, and that was a different kind of bonding experience entirely. there's one moment that stands out particularly clearly, when she put her hand on my shoulder--and i felt completely relaxed & content. and i'll be honest: Shannon took the scissors to my hair and started chopping it off in chunks beforehand, and that made me nervous. the word "trust" is floating around in my brain right now, but i don't know what sentence to put it in.

today, it rained. the city could not have chosen better timing.

family-watching.
(jeez, i might as well have worked in noun-incorporation...)
this has been a pastime of mine since the summer after sophomore year, when Shannon and i first started spending too much time on the Plaza, particularly in the late evenings and on sunday afternoons, when the families come out to play. i hadn't done it in a while, and i was past due.

family can be a touchy subject, for a lot of people and for a lot of reasons. for me, it's touchy mostly because of my potential future(s); for others, it's often touchy more because of their past. i was raised in a very "traditional American" family, and for a long time, i had that vision of my future with a husband and 2.3 children and a dog and a white picket fence in the suburbs. and when i broke up with my high school boyfriend (of 3 years) and subsequently started dating my first girlfriend, i grieved for that. it was a life lost, albeit not in the conventional way of losing such things. it required coming to terms with, and part of me is still working on that. it's reassuring, in a way, to see that stereotypical/heteronormative/"normal" family, especially when they're together and happy. then again, my life requires redefinition of the word "family," in any number of ways. i still want to make one of my own, but the probable method keeps changing. i don't know if i have a preference anymore. i'm sure i do, but i might be hard pressed to describe it. (also probably worth its own examination.)

decision-making.
i'm making it official: i will be spending the next two years in Pittsburgh for grad school.

i knew as soon as i opened the envelope.

with any big decision, there's always that moment when it becomes no decision at all.

graduation.
i'll be graduating from college with a BA and a BPhil in less than 3 weeks.
it occurred to me today that this is actually quite an accomplishment, and that maybe i should be proud of it, because i've worked hard to get where i am. i don't tend to think of it that way. both my parents graduated from college, although i'll be the first in my family to go to grad school. it always just seemed like what you do, and i'm one of those kids who's still waiting for school to get hard. part of me hopes that it will in the fall; part of me dreads it.

so much has happened in the last four years that it's not even funny. the girl i was when i came here might not recognize me now, and would probably want to kick the shit out of me pretty frequently. (what was that comment the other day? "we don't need bisexuals"?) i've changed a lot in a lot of directions, and i won't say for better or worse because i don't believe it's either. but i have learned a lot, which i don't believe can ever be a bad thing.

this is still my city, and i still own it. and it still makes me, on a daily basis.