Life with Craig

The depressed musings of a 30-year-old homosexual.

[lifewithcraig]

Sawyer Hemsley

If Sawyer Hemsley and I went to the same high school, and he were outed, I would feel mortified.

But we are not teenagers. He's 33, I'm 31, and while I can ethically concede that outing someone is wrong, I find it impossible to sympathize for him.

Sawyer Hemsley has been a registered Republican since the first Donald Trump presidency. He saw Trump's diatribes against the Mexican American community. He heard Trump refer to COVID as the "China virus." He saw the uptick in school shootings and in violence toward marginalized groups in the United States. The Parkland High shooting. Charlottesville. George Floyd. The Stop Asian Hate Movement. The overturning of Roe versus Wade.

In just the past month, the Supreme Court has begun work on reversing the law that allowed gay people to wed.

And either he was completely unmoved by these events or he simply did not notice him. Because why would a rich, conventionally attractive, straight (enough) passing white man need to be moved by these events when he is unimpacted by them?

Actions have consequences, and his failure to empathize with people like me, in turn, has rendered me unable to empathize with him.

Outing someone is wrong, but as a public figure, why poke the bear? He could have not voted. But he did. He voted for a party that oppresses others because although he is gay, he is rich and white first, and is ultimately unaffected by policy.

Why would he care about marriage rights, when living a discreet life allows his business to flourish among his conservative clientele and him to relish in the privileges of being a wealthy, white man in the United States?

For some of us, being able to choose who we love and express that freely is one of the only joys and autonomies we have. And when he voted for Trump, he chose to stand with the same people who oppress us. Because he ultimately does not see the most marginalized and disenfranchised among us as equals.

The outing of Sawyer Hemsley is the reaction of an oppressed people. Like the storming of the Palace of Versailles carrying Mary Antoinette to the guillotine.

And in my mind, I can't help but to feel, why would you put yourself in this position to begin with? Maybe when Sawyer Hemsley had the power to help (or hell, at least not do anything to actively make living as a queer person in America worse), he shouldn't have said, "Let them eat cookies."

[lifewithcraig]

That MLM or WLW ship you're obsessed with? It's never going to be canon if Trump and Vance ban all the gay books. Here is a list of MAGA attacks on queer literature:

Why this Florida school literally threw LGBTQ-friendly books into a dumpster

DoJ and 16 states back lawsuit targeting LGBTQ+ book ban in Georgia schools

NC school district removed books featuring gay parents. It now faces federal complaint

Right-wing groups, including Moms for Liberty, are trying to ban books that mention LGBTQ+ people from Pennsylvania schools

Only library in Michigan town to close after voters defund it for refusing to ban LGBTQ books

ACLU report reveals surge in LGBTQ+ book ban attempts in Michigan

Two Wisconsin school districts remove library books on LGBTQ+ topics

Arizona Book Ban Targeting Authors Of Color and LGBTQ+ Topics Now in Effect

More than half of 2023's most challenged books have LGBTQ themes

Alabama library flagged a children's book because the author’s last name is 'Gay'

Tennessee law expands book bans in schools, targeting LGBTQ+ content and more

Judge orders books removed from Texas public libraries due to LGBTQ and racial content must be returned within 24 hours

Appeals court lets SF 496, Iowa’s infamous book ban and ‘don’t say gay’ law, go into effect

‘Freedom to read:’ Books on LGBTQ+, racism banned in 32 states

When you are the constant target of bullying, discrimination, and violence for the entirety of your childhood, LGBT representation through books, movies, and social content is one of the only things that make you feel normal, like there is a world outside of your home where you can belong. Please vote tomorrow if you haven't already.

[lifewithcraig]

“Realizing how little people think of you really makes you think less of yourself.”

[lifewithcraig]

So sweet

The thing about being "sweet" is that people perceive it as an invitation.

An invitation to belittle you.

To lie to you.

To take.

And take.

And take from you.

To act without consent toward and on behalf of you.

To play with your life recklessly like a belligerent God.

And every year that passes, every year you are forced to live among other people, you feel just a little less whole than you did the year before.

Until one day, you wake up and realize you're not sweet at all.

You're just the bitter rind of the person you used to be.

And every kind smile and soft spoken word thereafter is just... artificial sweetener.

The illusion of something real that is not actually there.

Not anymore.

[lifewithcraig]

“They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If that's so, can I be committed for still expecting someone, anyone, in my life to show up for me?”

[lifewithcraig]

“Thanks for reminding me to close the door to my heart shut. I keep making the mistake of letting people in.”

[lifewithcraig]

Broken promises

You always used to get mad at me for saying, "If we're still friends in 10 years."

"We will be! We will be!"

You would exclaim with so much conviction.

You were so adamant. So incredulous.

But where are you now, huh?

Where are you now?

I'm not even mad at you for abandoning me.

Everyone does it.

I'm mad at you because I gave you an out, and you gave me back false hope.

I'm mad at you because now I have to be mad at myself. For believing you would keep a promise I knew you would break. For thinking once again for even a fleeting moment that this time might be different.

[lifewithcraig]

“In fact, I took it personally that people would reject a perfectly good house because of circumstances beyond the house's control.”

Martha Grover, The End of My Career

[lifewithcraig]

“If the job requires energy, in the end, is the pay worth a portion of the limited time I have left on earth?”

Martha Grover, The End of My Career

[lifewithcraig]

“Don't ask questions. If you don't know what something means, pretend that you do. Inspire confidence even if you don't know what the fuck you're doing.”

Martha Grover, The End of My Career

[lifewithcraig]

“My father, a proud union member, has given me one piece of advice in regard to jobs. "Fuck them before they fuck you." And I suppose on a certain level I have taken it to heart. This sentiment is not to say that I have hated all the bosses and jobs I've ever had. Instead, it's a warning. The company will always care more about a nametag than they care about you. It's not personal. Basically, the manager of Gap was telling me: It doesn't matter what you do. You could be anyone.”

Martha Grover, The End of My Career

[lifewithcraig]

“I could survive financially without the job, but I didn't like the feeling that I was somehow coasting along, not living up to my fullest potential.”

Martha Grover, The End of My Career

[lifewithcraig]

Is this the end?

In 30 years, I feel like I've lived and died a hundred times.

I've been taunted and touched without my consent.

The people who were supposed to love me the most have instead hurt me the most.

I've become a pawn in someone else's chess game.

My life, my goals, my dreams handled with the reckless indifference of someone who knows they will always win whether or not I'm on the board.

My chest is hollow where my heart should be, and my head is a catacomb of buried memories too painful to awaken.

In each of my past lives, I have always known how to get back to the land of the living. 

But this time feels different.

I don't know how to come back from this. 

I don't know if I can. 

Maybe this is where it ends.

[lifewithcraig]

“I want to hurt myself because it's the only way I know how to hurt you.”

[lifewithcraig]

“You can't give me hell more than I give myself.”

[lifewithcraig]

Take

The sweet and innocent thing? It's not working out for you, babe. Next year is your year of profection in the seventh house. The house of relationships.

You have to work on your relationships at work.

You have learned firsthand this place runs on relationships. Close mouths don't get fed.

You have also learned that there is still a lot you need to learn, and maybe your style of creativity is not what the agency wants. You need to lean into people who know more than you.

And you have to be better at collaborating. It will prevent you from presenting too much. And it will also help your art directors actually want to work with you.

Take some inspiration from Evelyn Hugo, and take, take, take. She's exactly the kind of person who would succeed here. Focus on your relationships, what you can take from them, and how they can help move you forward.

Next year, your job is to learn. To learn from people. And to learn about people.

Because your seventh house is also in Aries. It is time to let the ram out. Be fierce. Be competitive. Be angry. Be aggressive. Stop letting people walk all over you because you want them to like you because they simply don't care. Look people square in the eye, and don't retract.

What you need to do is make an impression because you have not done so thus far. But do it in a Craig way. A calculating and measured Aquarius, Virgo, Libra way.

What would an Aries do? Push their way forward with pride.

Maybe one of my Saturn return lessons is to lean into the repressed parts of myself and let them out. My repression is stagnating me.

[lifewithcraig]

“My life is normal, but I feel like I don't know how to be normal.”