Cap’n Allegra

In the words of Logan Echolls, “I think we have a choice. I think we could take a tough, but survivable amount of pain now, or stay together and deal with unbearable pain later. So I vote for the pain now.”

It is with the heaviest hearts that David and I announce our breakup.

A whirlwind romance worthy of legends at first, it’s not really a secret that we’ve grown into people with very different priorities. I will always credit David with encouraging me to reflect on my issues and bad habits, and I am a better person for that. In the almost 2.5 years we were together, I finished school, wrote my licensing exam, dealt with a lot of emotional baggage I had left over from previous relationships and have made so many deep connections with amazing people.

David surrounds himself with wonderful, funny and caring people who see the best in him and I was very lucky to be among their company. Our motto was “Si non esses, neque essimus,” which translates to “If not for you, we would not be.” I used to think that it was about how two very different people managed to fall deeply in love without losing themselves. Now I see that the “you” really referred to the communities who loved us, who supported us and who (for lack of a better term), “shipped us.” Some of you will stay in my life, and I’m thankful for that.

There are no winners in this breakup, and I am miserable that it has come to this. It turns many of my plans for the future upside down, because I always imagined we’d be by each other’s side for all the professional and personal victories, holding hands and sharing everything with friends.

I’m not going to say we’re still good friends, or that there are no hard feelings, or anything else people usually say to appease people who don’t want to pick sides. Y’all will make your own choices regardless of this. I can say that I will be okay eventually, but I have a lot of work to do to get there, and it seems really overwhelming right now.

To everyone who has offered an ear, a meal or a drink: Thank you. I have felt very socially isolated in past breakups, so I appreciate those kindnesses more than you know. Please keep inviting me to things, but also please don’t be mad if I need to be a sad sack on my own sometimes.

To Dave’s family, who are some of the warmest, kindest and smartest people I have ever met: Thank you. Being included so seamlessly in Sunday dinners and the trip to Germany meant more than I can express. I will miss talking about books and sports and exchanging vegetarians recipes. I considered you all to be family, and losing that hurts more than I expected.

To David himself: You are a fireball of potential. Don’t squander that the way we squandered ours. We’ve talked so much about next steps and I hope you accept support from people who want to help you grow. I’m sorry I have to watch it from the sidelines.

Thanks for reading this far, folks. I know there’s something perverse about the airing of otherwise-private grief, but getting this out in the open now is preferable to telling stories 50 times via messenger. Feel free to ask questions IRL, though.

xoxo Allegra

I’ve never spoken to anyone in the LGBTQQTSetc. community who has just one coming out story. Friends and immediate family are almost always separate, then extended family, then casual acquaintances. There’s a pop culture emphasis on one over the rest – the tearful “Mom, Dad… I’m attracted to people of the same gender identity as mine.” or “Friends, please address me using this particular set of pronouns.” or even “Best friend, these are the feelings I have for you.” The people I know, though, are perpetually coming out.

I never felt the need to “come out,” really. I have always been pretty open about my attraction to women – from the time I rolled my eyes when Dulcea from the first Power Rangers movie kissed Adam on the cheek when I was seven, I never thought anything was *wrong* because I was equally attracted to men.

I never made a formal “YES, I AM ATTRACTED TO PEOPLE IN SPITE OF GENDER” announcement because I assumed everyone was the same. The way boys in my class talked about hockey players fooled me for years. A friend of mine – raised a girl but who would much later start HRT to change that – would often use the boy’s bathroom in elementary school. I only thought it was gross because I assumed there was pee everywhere. My first Sex-Ed teacher was openly gay, so it was always about PEOPLE being sexually involved instead of a man and woman. I thought Betty and Veronica were each too good for Archie and should just hang out with each other. My most formative musical years were spent listening to strong female voices – Jewel and Melissa Etheridge and kd lang and No Doubt in my poppier moments.

It wasn’t until grade 8 that I even CONSIDERED that it may be a bigger deal to other people. A friend of mine came out as a lesbian*, and I was one of the first people they told. I thought, “that’s great!” and my friend disagreed. Their parents were conservative, and they didn’t know how they’d take the news. My friend didn’t know how to deal, and I said I’d help. We only had rudimentary access to the internet, but we listened to music by openly queer musicians and tried to figure out (in theory only) how people have sex if there’s no penis involved. I don’t know if my friend knew I was exploring as much to satisfy my own curiosity as I was to help them find their comfort zone, but I am STILL grateful for it.

*That friend would later come out again as a transgender man, and when I talk about him now I use male pronouns as he requests. However, because he and I explored as curious young girls, I’ve taken the liberty of using ungendered pronouns when detailing his role in my past. I apologize if that’s completely uncool.

In high school, other rumours would swirl about other friends – she likes girls, he’s dating a guy – it was a progressive school in that people weren’t bullied (to my knowledge), but so many students still didn’t come out until after graduation.

My first sexual experience was in grade 11 with a straight friend of mine who, several years later, drunkenly asked me during a university house party why I’d never tried to kiss her. I never mentioned it to anyone until after that.

In grade 12, I lost one of my best friends when she accused me of trying to interfere with the moves she was putting on the boy she liked at one of her birthday parties. She accused me of liking the same boy. I said “No, I don’t care about him. I like YOU.” She flipped out, asked me to leave and only spoke to me again when she asked me not to speak to her. I still think about her sometimes, when I hear Jimmy Eat World or watch Buffy reruns.

And all while this happened, I dated boys. I publicly announced my (very real) crushes on male musicians or guys who worked at the record store or whatever. My dramatic experiences with my female crushes didn’t even make it to my high school LiveJournal, which saw libraries written about everything else. I did, however, always include female celebrity crushes like Jessica Alba circa Dark Angel and Neko Case in my frequent “THESE ARE PICTURES OF HOT FAMOUS PEOPLE!!” posts.

My younger brother figured it out before anyone else in my family, and would tease my Mormon father (whom I saw infrequently then and see even less often now) about my ~unknown sexual preferences~.

The first time I used the word “bisexual” (which is still not the term I am most comfortable using)** to describe myself, it was under MySpace’s “sexual preferences” option. I think that was in 2006. My mother saw it, and, while I can’t speak to her reaction in private, I give her credit with the easiest coming out ever:

We were in her car and she said “When were you going to tell me that you’re bisexual?”
“I didn’t think I needed to.”
“Fair enough,” She shrugged.

**The term “bisexual” implies belief in the rigid gender binary, which is exclusionary of trans* and intersex people. Erasure like that is NOT in line with my views. Bisexuality, however, is the closest term that people outside of the community recognize.

My friends were slowly introduced to the idea and none of them reacted negatively. I doubt most of them were even surprised. I was even nominated for “Most Gay For Girls” in the joke awards thread of the Sloan message board three years running. I lost all three times, but it truly WAS a pleasure just to be nominated.

When I started dating my first long-term boyfriend, I came out to him and he said “That’s cool. Just don’t kiss other girls while we’re dating. If you like women as much as you like me, I’d consider that cheating.”
Fair enough, I thought, and we dated for over two and a half years. Over the course of those years, though, I’d look. Constantly. Not at other men, but at a girl in my residence; a young woman in the laundromat; the frontwoman of a local band. I wanted to sleep nestled into a soft, hairless chest. No woman in particular, but the idea of one.

We broke up because I was unhappy with everything in my life. A small part of that was that there were SO MANY WOMEN around me and I felt guilty even talking to them. But while I was single for six months, I didn’t make a move on anyone. Every girl who’d expressed an interest in me while I was dating a dude suddenly backed off and was no longer interested. I guess I’d been a safe outlet for their own curiosity.

When I started dating my next boyfriend, he understood a little better. It was a “save the last dance for me” situation, where we could both flirt with whomever without guilt, but if I wanted to kiss anyone else, he wanted to know. I kissed his best friend (a woman) a lot. She dedicated Katy Perry songs at karaoke to me pretty often, if you know what I mean. It got to the point where I was calling him “my beard with a beard.” Ultimately, though, that didn’t work out because he and I just didn’t enjoy spending time with each other.

I immediately met a lovely young woman and we started dating. She’s still probably one of the prettiest, funniest girls I’ve ever met. I liked being seen with her and kissing her and I would travel every day to the other side of the city to watch movies and be in her comedy sketches and for two months I was SO HAPPY because I liked her and so I guess I must be a lesbian! But she had aspects of her life that prevented us from being in a relationship, and so did I. Mine were, basically, that I felt too much pressure to be gayer. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about men I found attractive, because she couldn’t relate. My mother said I was purposely making my life harder for myself to prove a point. I still don’t think that’s exactly true, but being as gay as I was expected was more work than being ~true to myself~ was supposed to be.

Then Sean came back into my life. I’d met him in first year university and a download of my twitter archive confirms that it was love at first sight. But we’d both been seeing other people and it never worked out. I was still dating my ladyfriend in summer 2011 when he messaged me and asked me out to dinner. As we got to know each other again, he learned about (and was cool with) my attraction to men and women. He even told me he had a similar sexual identity. He was fine with something non-exclusive, and that made me like him even more.

When my grandmother passed away at the end of August, my grandfather, cousin and I flew out to Scotland to pay our respects. I knew that when I returned to Canada, I would choose either Sean or my ladyfriend. I talked to my cousin about it (effectively coming out to her), and she (being a good Christian girl) was uncomfortable and said I should probably go with Sean.

When I returned to Toronto, I was 90% sure of my choice. I went to visit her and bring her the British chocolate I’d bought her. She mocked me for enjoying Scotland (she’s English, accent and everything) and started in on the stereotypes. I ended things, and ran (cinematic movie style) to Sean’s work where his shift was just ending.

In the almost two years since then, we (as two queer people in what passes as a heterosexual relationship) have become very comfortable with the role that our same-sex attractions play in how we interact as a couple with other people. We individually can go on same-sex dates but neither of us has any doubt in the world that our love is the number one priority. I don’t feel like anything is missing; I’m politically involved in queer events and causes. I go to roller derby games and don’t feel out of place at the after-party. I dance at Cherry Bomb and give as much money as I can afford to the Dyke March fundraiser and I’m completely comfortable in my sexuality.

A few days ago, my grandfather sent out a mass email about Canada Day in which he said homophobic things about Ontario’s openly gay Premier, Kathleen Wynne.
“HAPPY CANADA DAY,” it read. “In Ontario , with a Lying DYKE as Prime Minister, it is the only thing to make you happy.” (emphasis his)

“Grampa,” I replied.

“It’s completely unacceptable for you to use dyke as pejorative. I sit and ignore the forwards I also disagree with, because those aren’t your words.
This email IS in your words, and they make you sound hateful. You could attack Kathleen Wynne for a dozen other things, but YOU chose to attack her for being a gay woman.

– Allegra”

It was the strangest feeling – FINALLY, a classic coming out story to tell.
But his reply, which was long and rambling, showed that he misunderstood.
He thought I meant that Kathleen Wynne isn’t gay, and he spend three paragraphs insisting that she is.
He said that he only knew that I wasn’t going to give him great grandchildren.
He said that he’d love me despite my choices but did I realise that Sean’s a man?
He said that I was raised by my mother to be a girl and to not forget that.
He said that just because I liked women doesn’t mean I’ll end up with someone as good as my mom or grandmother.

I posted on facebook my story, and the comments culminated with a comment from my youngest half-brother, who lives with my dad and whom I see on an annual basis.

A simple “???” from him made me realize that there are still so many people who know me superficially and think I’m a hetero girl in a hetero relationship. I guess that’s what some people call passing privilege, but it makes me feel like I have to come out again every day. My relationship, for all its unconventionality, still looks like the status quo. There are people, like my grandfather, who still take comfort in it. Short of constantly talking about queer issues, and expressing my attraction to women, I don’t know how to fight that.

No one can make me feel bad for loving who I love.

I have long said that there are only two constants in my life: my mother and Sloan. It’s a weird thing to say, and an even weirder comparison. My mother gave birth to me, worked hard, sacrificed, showed me what love was, continues to support me in any way I need and tries to understand why I do what I do even if she doesn’t agree with it. Sloan are a band – four grown men who know who I am but don’t have any personal investment in my feelings or well-being. I like to think that I have a special relationship with the band, but I’m not delusional enough to think that my love is returned to the same extent.
It hardly seems fair to my mom, arguably the most important person in my life, that I group these four men in the same category of influence.

Last night, Sloan played “Twice Removed” (the best Canadian album of all time) at the Phoenix. My enjoyment of their performance, and my hyperbolic love in the first paragraph, needs a bit of context:

I have had a life full of changes – my family moved around a lot, and even though I still had all the same classmates, I shuffled around groups of friends. My popularity fluctuated in sine waves. I picked up and dropped hobbies at the same rate. My mom supported me in all of it, but I had nothing to which I could dedicate myself. I didn’t feel strongly about anything in the long term, and while my classmates learned every sports stat or horse fact I was half-heartedly trying to find something to love.

I discovered Sloan in my formative years but without the Internet I had no way to really connect with anyone over it. I was too young to go to concerts, too unpopular to be a tastemaker and too immature to be secure in liking anything without mainstream approval.

For a few years I considered Sloan an afterthought – I liked and claimed obsession with whatever my friends liked (as embarrassing as it is that I was a pretty big Hoobastank fan when I was 13, it’s even worse remembering that it wasn’t entirely genuine). 13 year old me liked “Let Go” by Avril Lavigne enough, but most of it was because EVERYONE my age liked that album.

When I was fourteen, I made some friends (I’d started making some genuine connections by then) who liked Sloan’s MuchMusic-friendly cohorts – Our Lady Peace, Matthew Good Band especially. They knew of Chris, Jay, Pat and Andrew, and that was good enough. Sloan’s albums started rotating into my discman at school. I also started playing bass. My instructor scoffed at my “popular” music tastes but was happy to teach me “Snowsuit Sound” and “Everything You’ve Done Wrong.” After a year of building my confidence in my musical taste, I started to be upfront about it. Sloan were MY thing now.

In the summer I turned 15, I met a girl from Calgary named Ruhee over livejournal. She was a year younger than me, but in the same grade. She’d just discovered Sloan, and we became very fast friends. She introduced me to the livejournal Sloan community, where everyone enjoyed the band just as much as I did.

We all fed off of each other, and we were all pretty obsessed not long after. I was still playing bass, and I discovered that I also had a passion for writing. I started going to Sloan shows. I’d meet people at those shows, who’d introduce me to other bands. I documented all of this on my livejournal, and my new friends would comment. I’d read about their lives as well and I’d know that all across Canada (they were pretty much all canucks) there were people with whom I had more in common than just one band.

Soon my network of Sloan friends became more important than my school friends. They didn’t understand. I’d bring a classmate along to a Sloan show and they’d look at me sideways as I’d cry and scream and make the kind of ass of myself the way twi-hards do these days.

I got to play on stage with them once, and that was when I met Maddie. I asked Chris to prom (and he said no, but it’s still a good story). I sent Jay fan letters and collected their Japanese and American releases and learned every song off by heart. I’d debate with other fans the merits of Pretty Together. We would dissect every lyric in every song and giggle at every mondegreen (“She’s dating an albino,” anyone?)

I was a Chris girl, through and through, but it really was about the music. I chose “The point is not the grammar, it’s the feeling” as my yearbook quote in grade 12 (the year I wanted to be a journalist). When that changed (and THAT story is for a different day), I followed it up in my fifth year of high school with “I’ve stayed in school this long but still no one will tell me why. They figure who would know better than I? I know I’m a conformer but I’m sure it doesn’t matter. My new friends are all adults and my old friends all have scattered.”

A few weeks after my stepdad passed away, I went to see an acoustic set that Chris and Patrick were playing at a radio station and it was the first time I’d smiled in ages.

Sloan stayed my favourite band after high school; after I stopped playing bass; after I lost my faith in my writing; after breakups and rejection; after at least six changes in career trajectory. They’ve been the soundtrack to everything I’ve experienced since puberty. Sloan, and the wonderful people I’d met through them, have helped me through it all. Was there anything before Sloan?

We may not be the obsessive borderline fanatics we once were. We’ve all moved out of our parent’s houses. We have jobs and significant others and GROWN-ASS LIVES, but we all have that undeniable unified history.

We reunited for the first time in forever last night. Every song has a dozen different memories attached to it. We laughed at nine-year-old inside jokes and sang our hearts out and screamed and hugged each other. It felt like coming home. These are my longest-running friendships, and I can’t imagine a life without them.

Thank you, Sloan. Thank you for being my constant. Thank you for every friend I have. Thank you for helping me grow into myself. You have no idea how much the past 10+ years have meant to me.

Everyone I know has been a little negligent in updating their blogs, and I can certainly understand why. The holidays come around and suddenly there are exams and parties and shopping and twice as many retail shifts…
I guess I’m no exception. I’ve been done school for a week (starting up again in January), my agenda is filled with social events and hangouts and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Tonight, for example – Harold the Herald has invited me to be his date for the holiday ball his corporate overlords are throwing. I haven’t been to the venue since my prom back in 2006, so at least the precedence has been set low. This will be my third time as his +1 to one of these things (see: Halloween and Wonderland and I can’t wait. I’m even busting out my favourite fancy party dress! The phrase “perfect hourglass” may have been used to describe it. Plus Harold and I got to go shopping for his outfit – many thanks to our saleslady at the Le Chateau outlet in Scarbs – and the guy looks GOOD. I’m not the world’s best mall shopper, but damn if shopping for men isn’t a fun way to spend a few hours.

I’ll be sure to recap it fully, now that I’m back online.

I was told yesterday that I listen to “girlfriend” music. I suppose that’s true in a few senses – I usually enjoy the most accessible songs in any given genre, and I’m very inclined to listen to whatever weird genre the person I’m dating enjoys.

A prime example of that is Steven Wilson, whom I was lucky enough to see in concert on Wednesday. I am only familiar with his work through some of my dudes – Ethan, for example, has called Porcupine Tree one of his favourite bands for years. I didn’t actually listen to their music until a few songs of theirs appeared on a birthday mixed CD. The maker of said mix explained that he chose their most accessible, poppy tunes (Drown With Me and Blackest Eyes) because he wanted to ease me into a Steven Wilson fandom easily. Normally I enjoy being thrown into the deep end, but it was a smart move.

My talent crush on Steven Wilson grew the more I heard his music. I even watched a PT concert DVD, which is something I never do. I started to love his more meandering solo material (though his cover of Momus’ “The Guitar Lesson” is creepy like whoa). He’s just so CHARMING, you guys.

Now imagine the second-most charming English accent you’ve ever heard coming out of that mouth. (This, by the way, is another Girlfriend Rock curse – there’s always a bit of a crush on the frontman)

I have had this fantasy about him since I first heard about him, wherein I sell him a REALLY NICE pair of glasses. I worked the day of the show, but alas – he never came into my store. Should he ever read this, the offer stands. Steven Wilson, your next pair of glasses are on me. It’s actually a lot more likely at this new store than my old place of work…

Anyway, I was very excited for Steven Wilson’s show, and I wasn’t disappointed! I missed the film beforehand (though I hear the reviews are very mixed about that section) because I had a closing shift, but I made it in time to meet up with Logan about twenty minutes before the show started.

Let me tell you – SW fans are not nice people, from what I can tell. There was so much snarking and pushing and tall people moving to stand right in front of short people on purpose. Luckily, I was able to find a nice spot from whence I could see the man as he sang and conducted and played his LED-lit guitar. Songs that didn’t grab me on the new record, Grace for Drowning, were much more lively when seen firsthand. A highlight for me, of course, was “Postcard.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a show where there was that much SOUND. The drummer was an absolute madman. The reverb of SW’s vocals made every hair stand on end. I couldn’t tell many of the songs from one another, but it wasn’t about that. I loved how the band was able to make the sound feel like it was washing over the audience. I was grinning and loving it from the first note to the last.

Also, kudos for the classiest exit ever! He had the names of his supporting band projected onto the wall at the back of the stage and a “thank you, goodnight” message to the fans. He really ought to be known as the gentleman of progressive rock. Other people will have more technical reviews, but I’m not enough of an authority to try. I had an amazing time, and I would go see him again in any incarnation.

Bonus points for running into Ethan, Pogo, Rob and Ali! Good dudes clearly have good taste in music, too. Ethan and I haven’t been spending as much time together since the Dwayne residency ended, and I seriously miss that guy.