Carmen to return to our screens in the L Word

Great news, I just found out via @watchshowtime on Twitter that Sarah Shahai will be on the L Word again! It has been confirmed that Carmen will make an appearance in the final episode (only the final episode though, ah well I'll take what I can get!).

I also just read something that's quite interesting about Carmen's name -

de la Pica Morales could be translated to "of the scratchy (or itchy) morals," an interesting name for a lesbian character, especially since being queer is taboo in most communities of color.
- http://ismsandsuch.com/TLW/carmen.html

Oh, and look at who just popped up on Twitter!

Related links:

• The L Word
• Sarah Shahi: Carmen on The L Word
• Sarah Shahi

I joined Twitter and I'm now following Alice, Bette, Ilene Chaiken and someone called Who Killed Jenny

I love it!
I just set-up a Twitter account for this blog. If you don't know what Twitter is check out this YouTube video, "YouTube - Twitter in Plain English", which explains it all! If you're on Twitter connect with me here: http://twitter.com/theljournalist

I have set this blog to automatically feed any new blog posts to Twitter using a handy little tool called Twitterfeed.

So, far I have found some interesting people to follow including:

whokilledjenny

betteporter / Bette Porter
Dean of CU Art Department

thusspokejenny
writer, filmmaker, poet, dreamer.

itsjustshane / shane
i don't have a plan, that's the point.

alicethechart / Alice Pieszecki
webmistress, writer, radio/tv host and total vixen.

helena_uk / Helena Peabody

call_me_max / max sweeney

mama_ti / Tina Kenard

ask_ilene / Ilene Chaiken

klubmonokel / Lesbian Club Monokel
Only lesbian club in Slovenia located at the very heart of Ljubljana. We aim to promote lesbian culture, education, lifestyle and make socialization events.

onemorelesbian / One More Lesbian
onemorelesbian.com aggregates the world's lesbian film, television, and video content on one site. We do not accept porn.

janinaz / Janina

afterellen / AfterEllen.com
lesbian entertainment news

gltv / Gay Life TV
We preserve, protect and exhibit gay video history.

CandyBar
FOR GIRLS WHO LIKE GIRLS!

View all of the people that I follow. Now, all I have to do is go find Carmen and speaking of the aforementioned minx, I have just learned of some great news via Twitter, which I am going to write a new blog post about next.

World gets its first gay head of state: Iceland's new Prime Minister is a lesbian

Johanna Sigurdardottir is Iceland's new Prime Minister

The first government collapse of the global economic crisis is about to yield the world's first openly-gay leader.

Great timing. But hey, better now than never!

If the difference between Ireland and Iceland is one letter and six months, can we expect our first gay head of state by the Autumn? Watch out McAleese!

Though she is famous across the island, having been a top politician for years, her lesbian union was no big deal in this calmly progressive nation of only 300,000 people.

Unfortunately, I think we have a lot longer than six months to be the same as Iceland in this respect.

She did stand for the leadership of her party back in 1994 and lost badly, but in her concession speech she predicted "my time will come". And some 15 years later, it truly has.

Our time has come!

Read the full story here and while we're on the topic of pioneering gay politicians, go see the new film starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk titled Milk, which is getting rave reviews.

Also, via The Independent (scroll to bottom of page):

Pink power: Four pioneering gay politicians

Harvey Milk

First gay man elected to US office when he was voted on to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Was assassinated in 1978 and is the subject of a new film.

Bertrand Delanoë

The Mayor of Paris is perhaps one of the most influential gay politicians in the world. He is said to harbour ambitions of running for the French presidency in 2012.

Penny Wong

Holds the crucial Australian cabinet post of Minister for Climate Change and Water. No other openly gay politician in the country has risen so far up the ladder.

Angela Eagle

Britain's first openly lesbian MP has been a Treasury minister since 2007. She followed a trail blazed by former minister Chris Smith, who came out in 1984.

A beautiful word cloud

Above is a 'wordle' that I have created based on the words that are currently used in this blog.
I really like it.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Create your own.

The Kool Kids

I've never fitted in...
Not in school, didn't hang out with the groups/ cliques that I was meant to hang out with - was pretty enough to fit into the pretty girls group, was smart enough to fit in with the nerds, was sporty enough to fit in with the sports teams, was posh enough to fit in with the upper-class, was just about rebellious enough to fit in with the rebels, was musical and gothy enough to fit in with the indie group... but the fact that I was just about enough in all of the above meant that I could never really fit in with any of them because by virtue of fitting in with one group you automatically had to resign membership of another. When the year got wind of how I might be gay in transition year, that was cool. Apparently it was trendy then. But not if you were still a lesbian in 6th year, it was only cool while it was a phase in transition year... although my girlfriend was the one who received the homophobic comments at our debs, not me (and yes, we went together). Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. Back to the point of this post. I didn't fit in at school... or in college... or in work.... or on the gay scene.

There is this group of gays, maybe they're not all gay but I think that I'd like to get to know them. I'm basing that on the fact that they are into music, culture, theater, clubbing, movies, writing and other general creative-ness. I know one of them from being introduced to her from mutual acquaintances over the years. She either doesn't remember me or pretends not to each time we're (re)introduced. I also used to sorta kinda date (sorta kinda cause we're talking like 4 or 5 dates here) one of the girls that they seem to be part-time friends with. But how do you fit-in with a group that have already defined their group... what's the etiquette for these things? And how would they ever get to know me? It seems near impossible to meet people and get to know them on that level on the scene, which I have never felt fully comfortable on anyway and as such have increasingly distanced myself from it. Why can't I just fit in somewhere?

Scared

Scared of...

what this means
what this doesn't mean
what this will mean or won't
where this will go or won't
feeling
getting hurt (again)
hurting her
the future
being tied-down
making a wrong decision
writing about this...

It was a lot easier to write about it when I was writing about events and feelings in hind-sight and I had distance from them/ her. Now that she's back I feel like I'm betraying her almost... or am I just betraying myself?

Sex with an ex (sEX)

Thought that title might get your attention!

So, when is it ok to have sex with an ex? After coffee apparently!
I'm only kidding... or am I?

Seriously though, when is it ok to hook back up with an ex?
I guess it all depends on the individuals involved, the circumstances under which they broke up and the present situation... and whether it's just sex (no strings attached, "bonus night" etc., which I have never been able to do, ex or no ex!) or more... like getting back together. No shit Sherlock says you!

Anyways, when I was contemplating meeting up with J after Christmas I did a bit of googling to see what advice the all-knowing interweb could offer me. Search terms included "should I meet up with my ex", "getting back together with an ex", "can I be friends with an ex", "how to look shit-hot to your ex"... ok, maybe not the last one but you get the gist. And most articles that I read all stated that sex was absolutely out of the question if you were serious about having a second chance at a meaningful relationship or else trying to salvage a friendship from the broken relationship (something else that I have never managed to be able to do, not for lack of trying). You know, it makes sense logically - better to talk, communicate, discuss the issues that drove you apart the first time, give each other space, distance, time and not confuse the physical with the emotional etc. But what if while you are talking and getting emotional and all the rest, you are looking into each others eyes and you feel closer than you've ever felt before and you both know that it's gonna happen one way or the other, sooner or later. And seeing as how you've already had sex many times before what's the point of waiting? All logic, will-power and the pain of the last couple of months seem to go out the window...

The sex was f*cking great.

Raw call

I phoned her...

The text messages, e-mails and voicemails were getting ridiculous and I couldn't leave them unanswered. She wanted to meet up with me and we had set a day. The day came and went (almost). It was 6.18pm. I still hadn't replied to her request of setting a time/ place to meet. So I phoned her. That was hard. The only and best word to describe the conversation was raw.

Raw - unnaturally or painfully exposed, as flesh, by removal of the skin or natural integument. Painfully open, as a sore or wound.

She said what she wanted to say. She apologised. She said that she didn't treat me well at the end or in the way that I deserved. She told me that I was amazing and that she really hoped that I would meet someone that would love me in the way that I deserved. That really irritated me. She told me that she didn't want to bother me but that she did still want to see me. I told her that she was bothering me and what was the point of meeting up if she had said all she wanted to say. We had a bit of a chit-chat then (as you do!) and I reached my threshold with the chit-chatting. So we left it at that. I hung up. I cried for an hour and a half.

I texted her happy new year on New Years Eve, imaging her with someone else (I couldn't bring myself to ask on the phone). She replied with the usual new year's wishes. I didn't expect to hear from her again, after that. That made me sad. So... I texted her the following week - "Do you want to meet for that coffee". She replied "Yes, I'd like that".