You know gurl. I've been on my soapbox for you before. But I may be busy clipping my nails this time. First of all, this font looks like a monkey got aholt of Powerpoint. Is the Haus of Gaga just wasted all the time now? And is this like some play on "Harley-quin"? That would at least be clever. The artwork release was coupled with a line from an album song entitled “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love):”

Well I'm no business professional, but I assume that trannies don't make it far in the hiring process. Except maybe for RuPaul's Drag Race or Dr. Witt's receptionist offices. You can put on your zoot suits and your business best, but there exists a far more telling presence than yourself. Your online presence. Your "fame monster." What does your facebook and twitter say about you? Mine sure as hell says alot that I may not want everyone to think. I know that and I STILL let things invade it that make me just look like a damn tranny hot mess. And on some accounts, I may just be. But that doesn't mean I need to sling my cat around the Internet willy nilly. It's time to edit myself. And you should do the same.

Social media may be killing us.

I don't think that means forsaking everyone and acting like Mr. PrissyPants PoostyTwat. Just edit. Look at what you have, figure out what says what about you, and make decisions that protect your future rather than make you look cute now. Because what's fun now is just sad later. We are drunk off Facebook and the hangover is coming gurl.

Some of you already do this. Good. Some of us don't. Or perhaps think we do, but don't. My Birmingham momma (C. R.) always warns me of the potential danger I pose to myself with the tranny show that is my Facebook. I know he's right. I know to fix it. I just haven't because the real world has been existing outside of my happy bubble of college life. With a year before that bubble bursts, I'm now faced with the reality that has been looming. I want to be a wedding designer. What bride wants a cracked out, bumbling little boy putting together the biggest day of her life? Well, not a bride that I want at least.

I think once we all hit that senior year or so, it's time to start getting our shit together. Wouldn't you agree? Be proactive. Don't just try to even clean up your act. Polish it. Start creating a true presence that people want to look at. Invest in yourself. As RuRu always says, "If you can't love yourself, how the HELL you gonna love anyone else?" I think that fits into the moral of this story.

Don't let your own talents be marred by your "Facebook Fame." Edit yourself and evaluate what really matters. Gays have more fun. We all know it. We no longer have to prove it. So that one photo with you motor-boating a drag queen while spilling a drink on a gap tooth lesbian may have to go. It doesn't mean we're going to forget it happened.

Control, right-click, delete. 


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Today, April 15, is marked as the annual Day of Silence. Across the nation supporters of the gay community take a vow of silence to observe and bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in our schools. Spectrum is providing handbills you can pass out to people you encounter to let them know you aren't speaking and inform them of why. I already have a handful prepared in my purse. As well as the silence from 6am-6pm there are other events coinciding with the Day of Silence.

Noon
When you get hungry, you can be a part of a silent lunch at the Ferg with members of Spectrum. I think a large silent area could be interesting in that shit show so the more, the better.  

3pm 
The fabulous women of the Alapine Community near Mentone, AL will be at the Ferg Forum to have an open discussion. On Day of Silence? Well just bring a whiteboard and we'll play pictionary. I have heard only wonderful, wonderful things about these women who in live in an all-lesbian commune and look forward to finally meeting them.


6pm
Breaking the Silence event at the Ferg Game Room with a reception following will close out the day with a few speakers I presume as well as the awarding of the Elliot Jackson Jones Scholarship courtesy of Capstone Alliance, the faculty LGBT organization. Come have some snacks, break your silence, and do some mingling!

Get your handbills. E-mail professors to let them know you won't be throwing your two cents in for the day. And don't go through any drive-throughs. I went to the door at the ChicK-Fil-A on McFarland last year and wrote down my order. (PS - Still going strong on the Chick-Fil-A boycott. Werk.) Make this simple gesture to encourage people to think about the words they say with cruel intentions. School was rough. You remember. Be silent for them.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

So I'm sitting in my wedding planning class this morning. I want to design other people's weddings. Obviously not my own since me sitting at home knitting sweaters for my cats with a another man filing our convenient tax breaks we receive as a married couple would indeed not please Jeeeeezus. Where was I? Wedding class. 9am. Right. Now these other sorostitutes are in there planning their own weddings I have come to assume. Today's subject was "Life After Marriage." I sit in the back because I'm tall, always late, and a tad poosty. I'm watching these girls take notes and it's like a damn marionette show. Every little thing has to be written down for later examination. They aren't even listening anymore for fear to lack a punctuation mark.


Everytime, all those little noggins bob down and you can hear their hot lead furiously scratching away. Then they look up and await their next vital piece of information. It. Drives. Me. Insane. Just listen dammit! Notes are to help you later recall. Not to publish a dossier. That is what is wrong with us. With me and you and your cousin Billy who has this fabricated, capitalist dream disease called "ADHD." (No, it's not a disease. It's a reason to sell parents drugs because they're kids are being to kid-like.) What's wrong with our generation is PROCESS.

We don't know how to think, process information and adapt it, or form ideas. We want A, B, C, or D. And we want it now. Did we get it right? Can we move on to the next question? Are we the winner on the Price is Right?!

But it's not our fault. It's George Bush's. As usual. No Child Left Behind began its haunt while we were getting to the age of standardized testing. It demanded that teachers be assessed on how well students performed on those standardized tests. So teachers said, "To hell with actual instruction! Let's just make sure they can get the majority of those answers right so we can move on and I can pay my rent another month." So here we are now with no ability to implement things we are supposed to learn. Fortunately in college, professors have room to be professors. Too bad their students are too slack-jawed and note obsessed to hear them. We have got to learn to let go. You can't think or be creative by being rigid and stuck inside your damn iPod bubbles. Jot down helpful notes and listen for once. 

Oh and none of that applies to bullshit core classes. No. You can just figure out A,B,C, or D for those and take notes. They already expect you to I guess.

Take it for what it's worth or not worth. Take out your earbuds. Look people in the eye. Listen. Comprehend. Utilize. Because what happens when your A, B, C, or D become an essay exam? What do you really know?


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Photography by CAL - As seen at Alabama Art Kitchen.

There's something significant about a lesbian discussing love and sex with a throng of queers and queer-likes from a porch in Alabama next door to a worship center while a car bee-bops down the alley blaring "Born This Way."

Porches have always been significant in southern culture. We like big wide porches where we can drink sweet tea, discuss who we do and don't like, and wave at the passerbys who may come our way. In theory at least. I personally think a porch is a private stage where one can slip on a dainty corset and werk, drop, and werk. Last night a few brave people werked the stage at the Alabama Art Kitchen as part of a reception for the Breaking Boundaries queer art gallery put on my Creative Campus. (Those kids are really growing on/impressing me.) I was a tad late as my pit stop at the bar took longer than expected after that last one goldschlagger shot. You know how it is. But anygay, Brenna Horrocks shared stories of her own as well as a professor, Wendy Rawlings, who read from her book The Agnostics. It was a tad long-winded for someone with the attention span of a limp tulip, but it sparked this appreciation for what it really was that they represented. They were sharing personal moments on this porch. This stage. It was out loud and unashamed and really beautiful. And we gathered on the small stretch of earth and spilled onto government sidewalks and street pavement and we listened. Not just a handful even. I said earlier a throng. Not just because it makes me giggle. But because it was such a large group of queers that are diverse even in their own queerality. Activist gays, party gays, fag hags, academic lesbians, and just straight up homosexuals by nature were all there.

Brought together by art.

It's what unites us. All art has a way of erasing the lines and bring us together for at least one night it seems to me. Whether it be hanging from a wall downtown or leaping across stage on campus, we appreciate expression. I personally appreciated the expression of my face as one of the pieces last night. Was not expecting that I'll assure you. You can see the photography of Corey Lollar, the writings of Brenna Horrocks, and absolutely more if you stop by the Alabama Art Kitchen this week. If you're confused where it is, its on University Blvd, past the two 69 bridges on the right. Figure it out from there. Go be united by art. Be a part of our collective expression just by popping in for a mere five minutes.

Thank you to Creative Campus, Leigh Thomas, and all the contributors for initiating this expression and making a stand for queer art!


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Okay you artsy-fartsy queers. The following transmission is for you. Creative Campus and the Alabama Art Kitchen are hosting an art gallery and reception, Breaking Boundaries, next month featuring pieces created by and for the queer community. If you have any type of artistic piece, either written or visualized, this would be a great way to contribute to queer rhetoric and give you a chance to show off what you've got. You can find out all the details on the Breaking Boundaries Facebook, Campus Creative Website, or contact Leigh Thomas.

You need to act fast. The deadline for submissions is April 1st ( Next Friday!) Don't hesitate with silly questions inside your head. When you're in the shower and Opportunity comes knocking, you don't put on a towel, dry your hair, and floss before you answer the door. You swing it wide open (naked and moist) and say, "Good morning Opportunity! I've been expecting you."

Now for you left-brained dull number crunchers, you can be a part of this too! Visit the gallery at the Alabama Art Kitchen downtown from April 4-15 or be at the Creative Campus reception at the AAK April 12, beginning at 6.30pm.  Support the students submitting art as well as the ones putting together this event. It's a free and open event so bring your friends as well. Even the ones who aren't limp-wristed, flame fanning, penis doodling, eyeliner wearing nelly bottom queens. No matter straight, gay, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, you're on the right track if you attend the Breaking Boundaries queer art gallery. See you there!


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

My idolized future lover Cazwell is back with his boys. And monkey hats. His newest video for "Get My Money Back" brings back his excellent taste in NYC's finest gogo boys, ability to remove clothing at any given point, and caricature rap style. You'll notice this time he's refining his style with less spastic ass popping (but who doesn't love that?!) and incorporating more choreography. Fortunately I can say he does pop right back into what seems like a scene from "Ice Cream Truck" with hot boys doing free style solos with all his monkies sitting around watching in some seedy part of the Big Apple, where the world's supply of crack cocaine is produced. I love this video. I need my monkey outfit immediately. I feel like Cazwell is really starting to mature in his artistic style. As much as a gay rapper who can't locate his shirt can mature that is. Myself and Misster Mackey give a hats off and over our lady parts for him and his lovely mistress, Amanda Lepore. I'm sure that bitch was on the set somewhere popping pills and sticking monkey tails where they don't belong.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Maybe you've noticed. I've lost the blogging spirit that once inundated your news feeds. I haven't given up though as much as perhaps I've lost direction and inspiration. It takes determination to continue a blog with even just 1-2 posts a week. Especially now that I've ended what used to be my main focus with CampusQueer - Social Life. I know exactly to what my readers responded. Parties and party pictures. No matter what eloquent and moving messages I could craft, these bitches loved to see themselves and others getting trashy. And I don't blame them. It's slightly intoxicating. But it also painted a picture of a gay community alive, well, and together for the ride. Unfortunately, I think I had to excuse myself from the Monster Plantation boat.

You may have noticed or may not or maybe don't really know who the hell I even am. I just don't do it anymore like I once did. Maybe it's too early to tell and I'm just taking a disco reprieve. But club walk-offs and after parties have subsided to dinner and a night in with close friends and maybe the occasional straight bar romp during the week. I used to associate with so many of you, but now keep to a tighter knit group. Which worries me. Is it just me or is the community we have built falling back into cliques? I really don't know. I don't go out enough to know.

But what is true is that I have lost that connective spark that fueled this blog for over a year. The people and the dancing and the craziness inspired many of these posts. So I guess I just have to gather new wind in my sails. If I can't be a strong social voice, I can still be a voice. And what's even more powerful is the idea that I can regain some substance. I know my average visitor wants photos, photos, photos. I've never been shy with words even though I know most blog readers don't want to do any actual reading, but now it's about even more words and ideas.

I refuse to be the average person who starts a blog, posts for a little bit, and then sees something shiny across the room. As they say in the Krewe, "We've gotta push on through!" So CampusQueer is not over. At least not today. If anyone has made it this far, you should either be doing some yard work, paying attention in class, or doing something more extraordinary perhaps. But thank you for reading. I write for the love of writing and the hopes that it reaches someone who needed to hear something as much as I needed to write it.

So what you and I need to glean from all this is simple. The party is never over. It's just a DJ change. If you get that, run with it. If you don't, then just dance. I'll be on the speaker box throwing the glitter of thought.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Negative. That's right queerlings, the results are in and your queer on campus is HIV negative and happy. Now there wasn't some huge shadow around the idea for me, but since the SOC 360 class and WAAO teamed up to make testing available at the Ferg yesterday and today, I knew there was no other choice. Free testing is provided always by the West Alabama AIDS Outreach here in Tuscaloosa, but with it being made so convienent as just a few hundred yards from where I sit now, I had to oblige. I always speak for HIV/AIDS awareness, so I have to practice what I preach. This was my second test to date and much easier and less faint-worthy than last time. I had to give blood. Ick.

A lot of people my age like to talk about what they think HIV/AIDS is. A lot of people like to talk about people who are living with what has now become a manageable disease with proper healthcare. But not many people my age are even sure of their status, much less the facts of a disease clouded by stigmas and hearsay. The only way to know is to get tested. Don't go to the Student Health Center. Bad decision. They will drip your blood dry and blow up a huge testing charge on your student bill. And from what I hear, confidentialtiy does not run high. If you haven't been tested in the last year, but have been getting your moist debbie cake ravaged, get tested. Protect yourself and protect the people with whom you share yourself. As I always say, "What's scarier? Getting the test and knowing for sure? Or not knowing and making it worse for yourself and others?" There is power in prevention and early detection.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer