“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”- James Baldwin

Defining queer is just as difficult and as much as an abstraction as defining love. Love in it's purest essence is rather queer both physically and metaphorically. And being queer is all about love's decisive fluidity. It is because of these vague metaphysical alchemy between love, body and spirit that I always knew I was "queer".

When I asked my mother at four what I should be when I grew up she literally told me, "a lounge singer or an erotic novelist." Of course, I didn't understand the appeal and the romanticism of these professions but now at the age of 26 I profess I think my mother was right. And although she wasn't right about a lot of things, she was also right about another thing--I have been bisexual since the day I was born.  She would tell everyone that I liked both boys and girls . I have had crushes on both boys and girls since earlier than a child usually remembers. In preschool, I had both a girlfriend and a boyfriend and we walked around kissing each other. When I learned to read at an early age, I did so by reading my mother's trashy harlequin romance novels, so my sexuality was never daunting to me. It was something completely normal. When I first discovered poetry it was at 10 years old when one of the nun's at my Catholic school gave me Sappho. And of course the list goes on. Art and sexuality have always been intrinsically tied for me. 

I am now a senior at UCLA. I came to UCLA with ideas of becoming a sex and relationship therapist, but realized that my "ideas" were dissimilar to my "dreams" of becoming a writer and an educator. Now I am an English major and women's studies/ LGBT minor. I came into realizing my "dreams" later in life because from 16-24 I worked full-time in the music industry, sang in a rock band in England, had a career, and then woke up one day feeling completely dissatisfied with the way I was using my intellectual capacities or how I was filtering my artistic yearnings. My "dreams" now are to go to grad school and study metaphysics in sexual dissidence in romantic and bohemian literature and to one day....teach a class to students such as yourselves! 

My facebook can be found from my e-mail address : thesnakecharmer@gmail.com

And my myspace is http://www.myspace.com/jurassique

My AIM is DontFreeWinona

Oh! And I live in Silverlake right near Video Journeys where they have an AMAZING LGBT film selection if you are looking for something and you need me to pick it up for you. Or if you want to discover the mountainous beauty, urban culture, and artistic integrity of the Eastside, come over yourself and I'll show you why the Westside sucks. ;) Yes, I am an Eastside elitist and PROUD!

"Love and other inside sports",

Nadia