??????

I imagine question marks tumble over in my aunt's mind.

My cousin, who over the years I've introduced to Bindlestiffs, Manuel Ocampo, and other artistic delights, came to the Kreatibo Show last night. She chose our show over the Philippine Improv troupe at Bindlestiffs. She called just before saying she was going to invite her mother along.

I asked my cousin, "um, ok. Your mother does know that the show is all Queer Pin@ys, right?"

"oh, yeah, I'll tell her."

"um, you do that."

Oh, this is going to be exciting. My family knows that I write and perform. My family doesn't know what I write and perform. Often, I am comforted by their ignorance because I'm not sure they would really understand and it would take a lot of heart to heart discussions with them to understand where I'm coming from and for now, I'm not ready for that.

Anyway, my cousin did ask my aunt, but my aunt was too flustered with trying to get dinner cooked that she declined. But in response to the fact that the show was all Queer Pin@ys, she asks, "Why is your cousin in a show like that?" I imagine her say this with a crinkled forehead, trying to reconcile how someone in a hetero relationship with plans of marriage in said hetero relationship could be included in a Queer Pin@y show. My aunt then wonders why her daughter is going because you know "they" might hit on her.

My cousin and I have a good laugh at this after the show. I'm glad she came. Not often that I have relatives at my shows.

The other weekend, my sister decided to mess with my cousin's husband who seems a bit straight-laced being a very devout Christian. I had missed a gathering due to the Before Their Words show. She told him that I was at a poetry reading and he asked about the kind of poetry I do. So, just to mess with hiim, she told him about my Balut Haikus, that on the surface are actually very tame, but when put into the context of "Eros Pinoy" or "Clit Chat" (the launch we did for Eros) well, the poems take on a different life. She said his normally droopy eyes widened as he put two and two together.

Now, for the record, the poems are created as such that it's not MY dirty mind doing any of the dirty work.

As I said before, Kreatibo is one of the best groups to work with. I came to realize last night that part of this is due to the fact that in many ways the people in the group share alot of similar values and beliefs in terms of doing community cultural work, and allowing people a true freedom of expression to simply be who they are. This allows them to put together some really great work. This show combined various spoken word and poetic pieces with video clips from their trip to the Philippines, exploring what Lolan described at the beginning of the show "what is means to be a Queer Pinay and the different ways of expressing that."

One of the Pin@ys is getting married later this fall. We spoke about what made their relationship work which included a relationship contract, which mediated the rules of engagement in terms of how to deal with the difficulties that came between them. Rules which included never saying, "I'm going to break up with you." and being able to call for a cool off period of 2 hours so you always knew the other person would be coming home. They had many things that couples who have been together for years I've seen come to an understanding with, perhaps not as written as theirs, but to similar understanding. They understood the practical nature of love and committment that sometimes making a relationship work is about agreeing upon who takes care of the cat.

In the adjoining room were pictures of many of the newlyweds from San Francisco City Hall where the group took one of several pictures: "the hard look" "the smiley goofy look" and the "pose like you were a thug in high school look." Many of the pictures surrounding us had smiles of content and relief. Some frames showed photos over the years.

I'm sure my aunt wonders if I'm gay. I'm sure if I didn't have a fiance, she would think I was. There were years where I wasn't sure if I was either. I'm not the most femme hetero. I like to hang out with "the guys" and feel quite comfortable with Queer Pin@ys. What does that make me exactly? But that's the thing about last night's show, it was a journey of falling in love and being in love with oneself however they sought to evoke that.

Walking past the wedding pictures, I stopped by one of Del and Phyllis, two Pinays in Barong Tagalog formals, recently wed. Their sparkle, their joy, their contentment, their relief. I wondered if someone could really "hate" this, then do they really understand the committment of love.