I Forgot...

In the confessions of my "eating machine" syndrome of yesterday, I forgot a couple of other items that I ate. Another of my indulgences was one of those quick-cups of macaroni and cheese that I plopped some canned peas into...and yet another was (get this) a bowl of high-fiber Kashi cereal. You know, the kind that has almost half of your daily fiber needs in one cup? Hmmm...wonder if that was the piece de resistance that threw my digestion in the crapper...literally? *Oprah did a show today looking back on a few of her "Coming Out Day" stories, where she had gay guests that talked about how the shows had changed their lives. Almost without exception, the guests--both male and female--said they knew they were gay when they were quite young. How is that? I was probably in junior high school before I even knew what homosexuals were--largely because the boys all called each other "homos" on the playground. (Back then, the term "gay" still meant happy and carefree.) What did we know about homosexuality back then? (What do we know about homosexuality NOW?) *I was one of those kids who played cowboys and Indians. I always had to be Roy Rogers, yet I am female. I had toy guns (much to my mother's chagrin). I climbed trees and went barefoot all summer. I had dolls, but I rarely ever played with them. I was an outdoor kid, a rock collector. I didn't think babies were ooooh, so cute, and I didn't particularly like to dress up or be treated like a princess. In short, I was a tom-boy. If I had been thinking about sexuality back then, I might have wondered if I were a lesbian. I didn't have interest in boys OR girls back then. I just wanted friends to play with because we moved to often for me to have any. *One of the female guests on Oprah today mentioned that she fell in love with another woman while married to a man. She apparently had no inkling that she was lesbian before that. Well...I remember falling in love with another female back in junior high. We had just moved to Oak Park, IL. My newfound friend's name was Kathy. She wasn't particularly pretty; she had arms like Michelle Obama and could do more chin-ups than any of the boys, as well as outrun them all. She was very smart (in fact was skipped a grade in junior high) and came from an affluent family. Her parents treated me like I was another member of their family, and my parents threw another plate on the table for dinner if Kathy was staying. (She'd always ask what we were having first because she wouldn't stay if we were having liver and onions.) She good-naturedly made fun of my folks' little pot-bellied aluminum salt and pepper shakers (that I still have, just because of that). She wasn't quite five feet tall. If she was going through the hall at my house in one direction, and my dad was in the same hall going the other direction, he backed her down the hall with his belly. She laughed. Her father and I danced all over their living room while we were listening to "The Rain in Spain" from My Fair Lady. I loved everything about Kathy and wished I could be just like her. After she'd go home after spending the night, I'd lie on my bed and cry because I missed her and could still smell her hair on the pillow. Did that mean I was a lesbian? Of course not! *So how do all these people know at age 5 or 15 or 35 that they are homosexual? Because they played like people of the opposite sex or fell in love with someone of the same sex??? I'm not doubting them. I'm just saying that I don't get it. Maybe I'm not supposed to...