From: "Shelly Roberts" Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:30:16 +0000 Subject: ROBERTS' RULES: QUESTIONING FATE Editor, Sorry about the first send, it had not been proofed. As always, the copyright and ID notices have to be included at the end. Please notify me if you are NOT using the column, or are using it irregularly or occassionally. You will not be removed from the list, but I am trying to determine where and when it is actually running. Thanks. Shelly. ********************************************** ROBERTS' RULES by Shelly Roberts WHADDA YOU KNOW?! Some times it's hard to tell whether we're riding on a high speed train or a see-saw. Just about the time you think we are moving forward at a very rapid pace, you get suddenly called up short to discover that we're staying in the same place and just moving up and down instead. For those of us pundits who spend our time trying to draw community road maps, it's getting harder to see a real direction. As a consequence, I find myself asking a whole lot of hard questions lately: Why do those nice people hate us so much without bothering to know any of us, that they want us dead? If they don't want us "promiscuous," and they won't let us marry each other, what else is there? Is it or isn't it good that our enemies are mostly concentrated in groups that everyone else sees as overbearing and self-serving? How could a judge award custody of a child to her grandmother who has already proved that she can raise a lesbian? How much do we owe to Anita Bryant? Her gay husband? Johnny Carson's AB jokes? How much do we owe Newt Gingrich? His lesbian sister, Candace? What do the Boomers owe Pre-Stone-Wallers? What do the X'ers owe the Boomers? Whatever happened to the bartender at Joanie Presents? Whatever happened to Joanie Presents? Whatever happened to Joanie? Would my folks have been different if they'd been born in a PFLAG era? How does k.d. lang make new friends? When will the men stop dying? At the end will there be only one guy left who is in everybody's will? Who do I know who has Sandra Scoppottone's e-mail address? Will I live happily ever after? Will everybody? Will anybody? How is that possible? Is it possible to say an entire paragraph without being Politically Incorrect? Who's judging? Are we chic enough for them to let Ellen out on TV? How does Ellen make new friends? What did we do before Prosaic? What will we do when they outlaw it? Is "community" on the Internet real? More real? Surreal? Is there personal without the political? Would that be a great relief? Why is my hair cut like this? How will we know each other when we're done? Does progress always breed boredom in the progeny? How come we don't have any leaders except the self-proclaimed? Where are we anyway? Who chose purple? Did we vote? Did I vote? Does wearing green and yellow on Thursdays still mean anything to grade school kids? How is it that when you travel from city to city, you always meet the same lesbians, only they have different names? Was it any more fun when we were secret and dangerous? Will the lesbians, the feminists, and the lesbian-feminists ever come to terms? Or agree on them? How come the men never worked on gender parity till we told them they had to? Why couldn't I play with fire trucks and erector sets? What difference does it make that Jamie Lee Curtis is XXY? How long will it take for all of us to get smarter than this? Who's in charge around here? Who cares? Why was what Urvashi Vaid had to say worth a hundred thousand dollars in advance? How much in hindsight? How come we don't all vote for ourselves? How will we know when we're done? These are merely rhetorical questions. (Like gravity merely keeps us on the planet.) They don't require answers. Unless you have some. If you have rhetorical answers, (or Sandra Scoppettone's e-mail address) let me know. Send them to shellyr@bridge.net. Questions I have. Answers I need. ________________________ (C) 1996. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. May be reprinted only in its entirety with written permission. Shelly Roberts is the author of the #1 best-seller, Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living. Spinsters Ink.