Like A Virgin

When I was 13, my friends and I huddled during the break of our Christian Youth Theater class to hear Monica Thayer regale us with tales of seeing MADONNA in concert. "Like a Virgin" was breaking the sound barrier into the pop stratosphere. Always a half-step behind the times (due no doubt to the constant Alice in Wonderland journey in my head), Madonna to me was just a catchy new singer. She was on the radio a lot. She wore underwear outside her clothes. Her songs were cool and easy to remember. Testament my innocence, part of that huddle was my education that "Into the Groove" meant way more than dancing.

Monica laid it out scene by scene, the concert. But to this day, what freezes me in time is what she said Madonna did with her boom box. I'm hanging on every detail, the lacy white dress and corset, the leather jacket and ratted hair, the dancing. And then she says Madonna STRADDLES her huge boom box and starts GRINDING on it while she's singing!! And then, bye-bye, I am lost, suddenly separate from the mass of girl bonding, traveling through my head with the implications..."Does her DAD see her concerts??"

The question has echoed through my head ever since. Mostly in relation to my surfacing as an artist. I say "artist" as someone who creates something for popular consumption, said creation always coming from the heart, the head, the grind of life and observation of the individual in relation to the whole...whether in concert with the whole or isolated from it.

See that? See that intellectual hat dance? It's my default. Because the poet, the artist, the exhibitionist in me (because, sitting naked on a park bench after all is what if it's not exhibitionism?) is scared to be naked in front of my DAD. How does Madonna do it?

All of this to say that Tania and Lisa and I were laughing about my ancient dilemma. I had a funny blog to post and couldn't because I hit my Dad-wall. So we toyed with creating a parental rating system...along the lines of PG and NC-17, but more like NP (No Parents) or for especially shocking posts ND (No Dads). For the protection of their innocence. Maybe it'll grow to include NM (No Men) for especially gorey girl talk, or FG (Female Guidance), for those men who may want to venture in, but need support.

My self-pep-talk on the subject last night, after a vodka gimlet at Laura's bday party: I'm 36. I'm an adult now. I have... I have .... sss- ... (excuse me while I get liquored up to welcome to these next letters in succession) ... oh wait, let's implement the rating system (ND: Warning, the material you are about to read may be unsuitable to some parents. Reader discretion advised.)

I have sex, goddamnit. Well, on a good day anyway, when the stars are aligned and the guy is right.

How is it that life has been a series of ever more situations for coming out? I came out when I was dating women. I begrudgingly came out again when I had my first boyfriend after many years on the home team. I'm effectively coming out right here, though this particular outing is like being female and coming out as female, or being Caucasian and coming out as such, or being very clearly brunette and coming out as…BRUNETTE!! Clearly I am all of those things. Clearly I am 36, I am not wearing a nun’s habit, I’m a contemporary woman in these scintillating times, and yet, just in case you wondered if it is NOT the way it seems, rest easy, my friend. It is all painfully, joyfully, obviously the way it seems.


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