When we were kids our great-aunt Olly used to give my sister and me a roll of dimes and a pack of granny panties every Christmas. They were so enormous that we’d pull them up to our necks and pretend they were strapless leotards while we mimicked the dancers on Fame.”
– Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy
memoir
Sara Barron on meeting a lesbian couple at a childhood holiday party
The party was an altogether transformative experience, for it led me to the belief that lesbians were but magical confections that brought joy to all the land. They were regal, special, and festive. They were like beautiful unicorns, those lesbians, for you had to search to find them. Oh, yes. You had to dig around. I had gone a full eight years without knowing they were out there, hidden away in luxurious penthouse apartments. But now I knew, and on the car ride home gazed out the window at Lake Shore Drive and all its gorgeous aspirational housing where the lesbians were, where the lives were happy.
I’m going to be one, I thought. I’m going to try.
– Sara Barron, The Harm in Asking, Random House, 2014