"but you could do whatever you wanted with your life!"

every time i talk to virtually anybody about my plans to work on a boat and my lack of stress for the undecided period to follow, they FREAK OUT.
"well, what, are you just going to work on a boat your whole life?"

maybe.

"but, you should be going to school so you can get a good-paying job!"

uhhh. no?

my mom loves to tell me to go to nursing school and get a good paying job at some hospital and marry a nice doctor and have babies and raise them to join the army and love the american way.
how about not?

why is a problem that i have decided to NOT go to college, to follow my heart, to do something that i feel is way more meaningful than becoming some sort of western medicine perpetuator?

"but you are so intelligent, why are you wasting your life? you could do anything you wanted!"

but. i AM doing anything i wanted. in fact, i'm going to do EVERYTHING i wanted. without going to college. without being rich. without without without.

why is it so hard to let me be HAPPY?

to all you babymakers:

wtf. i mean, seriously. every day i walk down the street/take the bus/ride the train, and i see more and more of you people doing stupid shit. just in case you didn't realize, here's a list of things you DON'T do to your children.

-put two toddlers in a one seated baby stroller.
-feed your babies soda, alcohol, or pure highfructose cornsyrup juices.
-let your child run around that janky ass bus or train barefoot.
-beat your children in public (or otherwise, really.)
-tell your child straight up lies. (i.e. "that bump on your tongue is from lying." yeah...that'll really get your kid to understand the value of honesty.)
-feed your baby flamin' hots.
-buy your baby formula.
ETC.

really, people. what's the deal? i guess there's really no such thing as common sense, so i can't really say that you all should be using it. but come on! none of those things are okay!

i propose that there should be a mandatory "family planning" class in highschool. this class would not only give you the materials you need to combat babies and have none, but also give you the tools to take care of them if you so decide. EVERYONE needs to know how to take care of a baby. everyone. even you.

run along now, and read a book.

"but...you were so pretty when..."

between getting anonymous messages in my facebook honesty box, hearing friends gripe, and having people yell at me on the street about how dreadful i look with a mohawk, you'd think i would have cried myself to sleep several nights in a row/gotten a wig by now.

nah, i just take it like a womyn and tell them all the fuck off.

i don't understand what the big deal with my appearance is. oh wait. yes i do. it fucks with your head. i dress so girly and ridiculous and yet- i have a pretty short and "unfeminine" haircut. (not to mention my hairy legs.) i'm femme but not at the same time! i don't fit your gender expectations! sometimes i don't even wear a bra! how are you ever supposed to classify me?

hmm. how about...you don't?

every single day i get a comment from somebody directed towards my legs or my hair. from strangers it's generally "ARGHCOPTER." from friends and family, it's usually "...hey. tomi. i'm so sad you cut your hair. i mean...you just looked so much prettier with long hair."
and? since when am i taking votes on my appearance? my body is not a democracy!

it's not that my feelings are hurt by these statements. i know that you all are secretly jealous that you can't fuck around with your gender appearance for fear of the same comments that you are giving me. so, you do what any other self respecting american citizen would do: try and put me back in the girl box!

well. i don't want to go back in the girl box, and i'd much appreciate it if you kept these comments to yourselves! i am a beautiful womyn. i think so, and in this situation, my opinion is the only one that matters. i obviously feel prettier with my hawk, or else i wouldn't have cut my hair like this. and, in the end, what the fuck does it matter what i look like? i could dress up like barney every day and you still wouldn't have the right to tell me (even subtley) to change how i look/am.

dear straight people,

please stop trying to support a cause you know nothing about.
everybody is all about gay marriage these days. it's the "in" thing to support.
i get it. you "believe in equal rights." you want to be part of a generation that changes the world. okay. so do i. however, supporting gay marriage isn't the way to go! right now you are saying, "but, tomi, aren't you queer?" (or maybe you're saying "what the fuck, i didn't know you were gay.") my response to both of those statements is YES! yes i am queer, and that's all the more reason to oppose the evil assimilation tactic that is gay marriage.
right now you're thinking that i'm evil or crazy or maybe both. you want to know why i oppose a cause that it seems like i should be all for. (or maybe you don't really care that much.) "but tomi," you're saying, "don't you want to get married and spend the rest of your life with a woman that you love? don't you want to be able to give your pension/hospital visiting rights/health care to that woman?" the answer to the first question is no. no, i don't. i don't want to spend the rest of my life with anybody, really. i'm polyamorous. i want to spend the rest of my life with many, many people. maybe all at once. but i'm not opposing gay marriage just because i don't fall in line with the marriage institution. no. i'm opposing it because i don't think we should be tying rights into marriage. a lot of people think that once we have gay marriage, we will all have equal rights. uhh. no. all of the unmarried people of the world will still not have the rights that married people have, even though unmarried people deserve health care and pension rights just as much as anybody else. you know what i want to see us fight for? universal health care! our right to choose where our money goes! our right to choose who visits us in the hospital, who takes care of our dead bodies, who can choose whether or not to pull the plug. we ALL deserve equal rights, people. not just the married folks.
and that's not even all of why i oppose gay marriage.
nope. stay tuned, straighties, there's more.
there are queer youth/of color kicked out on the streets every day because they are not accepted by their families. the same people that are advocating for gay marriage are ignoring the pleas of their own homeless youth.
queer/youth/of color are being attacked and brutalized by police forces every day. once again, instead of fighting for their justice, we are fighting to change wording on a piece of paper.
we are the mobilized forces of the white elite! they control not only where our money goes, but where our hearts go as well!
dear straighties, i know you mean well, but until you know the big picture, until you know what is ACTUALLY going on in the queer community, what is hurting us, DON'T try to support causes that affect us.

we can handle it ourselves.

to: greenpeace people and their other-organization counterparts

dear people from organizations that stand on the street trying to eat my monies,
"ma'am! do you have a minute to fight global warming?"
...what you REALLY mean is "hey lady, give us some money to feed your guilt about ruining the environment." see, the thing is, i DO have a minute to fight global warming. i have a whole lifetime to fight global warming. and i WILL by doing productive things like refuse to use pesticides and aerosol cans of hairspray and other activities of that manner. what probably won't help is me giving you a dollar a month or more "if i can give" so that you can...what? do more SCIENCE? isn't science how we lost the o-zone layer in the first place? ...but i digress. what REALLY gets me is the "starving children in africa" people. uhhh...you're standing on every street corner in BOYSTOWN. have you noticed the homeless queer youth of color wandering the streets and being harassed by police while their older white, rich, gay men and women try to ignore their existence and keep them out of their perfect neighborhood? how about you stop campaigning for african children that you have never seen and will never have a connection with and OPEN YOUR EYES and look at the starving children of african descent in your own country, on the street that you're standing on?
oh, but the suffering is so real when it's right in front of you! guess you should put your all into it, if you really want to change the world, or not put anything into it at all.