Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

I took the TV away from my 7-year-old this morning so I could
watch. Here now! Stop feeling sorry for the boy! It wasn't exactly
like that little Gremlin, "Gizmo", tooting his Christmas horn until
that evil "Stripe" shot a big wad of spit at him. The boy only had
to walk a few feet to his brother's room and sit in the X-Chair to
watch his cartoons. Anyhoo, I cruised the channels (no, I was not
looking for pr0n--it was 9:30 a.m., for cryin' out loud) and I found
"Mean Girls". I love this movie. I just had to watch it. I love Tim
Meadows in that wife-beater and arm cast. He looks like Michael
Jackson in that video where he jumps up on top of the car and acts
"bad". The movie made me think how people judge each other,
and of course reminded me of an embarrassing story to blog about.

I was going to title this one "My Date With a Lesbian", but I thought
it might bring in some of those pr0n people. Stop all that heavy
breathing. It's not what you think. I also didn't want to perpetrate
false advertising in blog titles. It's quite a tame story, actually, about
what people think of others.

Once upon a time, I might have mentioned that I lived with a lesbian
couple in college. Don't get all excited about that one, either. I also
lived with a party girl, some potheads, a boring scholarship athlete,
a gay construction worker, and an anal-retentive high school teacher.
Not all at once. At different times. I didn't exactly win the roommate
lottery. But I was never bored.

And now, for our feature presentation...Please turn off your cell
phones, control your children, and pick up your trash when you
leave. My lesbians had quite a few friends of the same persuasion,
and were wont to throw parties every weekend. So I met quite a
cast of interesting characters. In addition, I had college classes with
some of them. When there was a lull in the learning, I would look
around at the students, and think "I know a BIG secret." OK, so
with some it really wasn't much of a secret, but it entertained me.

There was one couple who we will refer to as Jingle and Belle. We,
meaning me and my lesbians, did not quite get this relationship. Talk
about the pots calling the kettle gay, my lesbians were as guilty as
me in judging these two. Jingle was a college gymnast. We were
not a big university, but the gymnastics team was nationally ranked,
and had a well-known coach. He pretty much made chicken salad
out of chicken s***, if you get my drift. So Jingle was pretty good
at the gymnastics stuff. She was about 5'3", kind of tall for a
gymnast, I think, and wasn't even anorexic. She seemed to have
it all together, as much as a 5'3" lesbian gymnast at a midwestern
university can have it together. What we couldn't figure out was
her choice of a partner. Picture Chris Farley here, making quotation
marks with his fingers: Belle was not what you call "attractive".
She was not "pleasing to the eye".

And now, for a bit about Belle. She looked like a cross between
a troll doll and a Weeble. Or maybe like one of those Chinese
nesting dolls, the small one that fits inside a bunch of others. Belle
was only about 4'8". She was egg-shaped. Her hair was kind of
a short, mousy brown, painted-on helmet. She had stubby little
hands, and bug-eyes. I guess it goes without saying that she wore
no makeup. Not exactly one of those "L-Word" lesbians, our
Belle. But she was as nice as could be. She and Jingle were very
devoted to each other. Jingle made no pretense of trying to hide
the fact that Belle was her woman.

Now it's not like some male stereotype where one of the couple
is the "man" and the other is the "woman". That's one major concept
I learned from living with my lesbians. But even they wondered why
Jingle didn't "get herself a good-looking one." Belle did not have
money. She did not even have a car. I guess she had charisma.
Nobody disliked her. They were just puzzled by the dynamics of
the Jingle/Belle relationship.

Jingle went out of town on a gymnastics trip one weekend. There
was some movie showing that was a big deal. It might have been
something like Star Wars, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
or some such Sci-Fi kind of thing that really didn't interest me. But
Belle really wanted to see it. She happened to be at our apartment
as a party was winding down, and very few people were left. Belle
asked me if I wanted to go to see the movie the next day. Not as
a date or anything, because she had a girlfriend, you see, and she
was kind of WAY not my type. I had no plans, and I was just trying
to be nice, and I said, "OK". Belle said, "Oh, you know that you
will have to drive. I'll buy the popcorn." My lesbians were cracking
up in the background. All the next morning, they chanted, "Hillbilly
Mom has a DAAAAATE! With a WOOOOO-MAN!" Ha, ha.
They thought they were so funny.

Then I started to stress a little bit. I knew it wasn't a date. Belle
knew it wasn't a date. But those other people in the movie theater
didn't know it wasn't a date. So I was kind of uncomfortable, what
with picking up Belle at her apartment, driving her to the movie, and
letting her buy me popcorn. The whole time, I thought, "Everybody
thinks I'm on a date with Belle." I felt bad for being embarrassed.
I felt prejudiced. And I was. I felt like leaving a chair between us
like homophobic guys do when two of them go to the movies. But
I didn't. Belle had a good time. And that was that. Except for my
lesbians every now and then telling me, "Remember when you went
on that date with Belle?" OK, they were pretty funny sometimes.

So I guess the point of this story, other than to brag that I went on
a date with a lesbian, is that you never can tell what people see in
each other. You can't judge a book by its cover. Get over yourself
and stop labeling people. Live and let live. It takes all kinds. There's
someone for everybody. Yada yada yada. Pick one, and go with it.