Interesting Facts about Space

by Emily R. Austin

One of the perks of being a lesbian is that it is less critical for me to vet whether my date will kill me.

I often go as far as to leave out books that I think reflect well on me, or to pause a premeditated show on my TV. I welcome my guest inside, acting as if I was just casually reading or watching, and not as if it has all been staged.

I smile as they exit, flustered. I hate being startled. I prefer controlled forms of fear. I like my podcasts, horror movies, and ghost stories that I can pause and rewind. I handle fear sort of like a warhorse. I could charge bravely into a planned battle, take in the sights of bombs and corpses, but I would still be spooked by an unanticipated barn rat.

They helped him anyways, because of the broken arm schtick, and because women are trained to be polite to men even when men are ugly and make them feel uncomfortable.

I can tell that I wouldn’t be attracted to him, but that is true of every man except for a few very specific celebrities, and some fictional male characters who were written by women.

There are parts of me I wish I could train out that I can’t. You can train a dog not to bite, sit on the furniture, or piss in the house, but you can’t train them to become birds.

I think I wanted to become a nurse in the same way I wanted to become a man’s wife, or a mother. I thought it would look good on paper. I thought people would think favorably of me if I was a nurse. It would prove something. I thought of it as a feminine career that required higher education and that attracted the type of girls who I felt judged by, and who I judged. I think I considered becoming a nurse synonymous with becoming normal.

I managed to overcome aspiring to appear normal but never really figured out what I should aspire to be. I have a feeling that what I should try to become has nothing to do with my job, though. If I had to guess, I’d bet I should be aspiring to become happy, or a good person, or something. That’s probably what enlightened people do.

I thought I was evolving. I had accepted parts of myself. I was openly gay, I dressed how I felt comfortable, but socially—I was still trying to figure it out. I didn’t know how to have friends. I still don’t. I was faking it.

“Let’s promise to never meet again so we can’t ruin it. Let’s stay nice people to each other to balance out how we’re bad for other people.”