thelesbianlifestyle.com

Pink Coloured Glasses

Her Stats

Name: Cal
Wordpress login:pink coloured glasses
Age: 30
Location: Oslo, Norway
Relationship status:     happily married (to a woman)
Favorite color:     blue (like most people I’ve met intriguingly)
Favorite song/band: “Cornflake Girl” by Tori Amos, “Where is my Mind” – Pixies, “Jesus” – BETTY, Barcelona – Freddie Mercury, “She” – Elvis Costello, “Ironic” – Alanis Morisette, “Better” – Regina Spektor, “Losing my Religion” – REM, “Too Drunk to F**k” – Nouvelle Vague, “Grace Kelly” – Mika,

Her Bio

I was born in October 1977. Accordingly I am a thirty year old Libran, I have only recently started to read about astrology as I spent years being very undecided about it all, in a typical Libran fashion. Other Libran traits I posses are an obsession with fairness and equality issues, verbosity and hair that refuses to be slicked back resulting in me using a lot of hair gel and wearing a lot of hats. I consider myself a writer and hope one day for many others to share that view.

I am already much preferring my thirties to my twenties (in which there were plenty of sequins, slicked hair and a spell of depression, rather like the era). I tend to be a wanderer in both the nomadic roaming and also the dreaming sense of the word and last year spent months cycling hundreds of miles around France with my lover. I am British but have emigrated to live in Oslo with my lover (she is half Norwegian).

The Interview

When did you come out?

I had a very literal epiphany. It was my first year of university and I met a young intense English student. I had not yet confronted my now-very-evident sexuality (I am very gay and not in the least bisexual). At a hall ball, a guy offered to buy me a drink and asked me to dance. Said close friend (an out bisexual) fled in tears. I left the guy and ran from the ball/s after my friend. I offered to step aside if she wanted the guy as I was “really not interested in guys”… The rest is herstory, I stood the guy up and…well… we laid ourselves down.

What made you want to become a TLL author?

I think that it is vital that gay women have a voice. We are so invisible in society, our needs, experiences and desires are so often not acknowledged. I love the sense of community and solidarity in lesbian environment where every point doesn’t have to be laboured, or issue spelt out.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

It shall be the big 4-0. I shall be settled with my lover. I shall be definitely greyer, hopefully wiser and calmer. I have a list of goals I wish to achieve which is too long to articulate or even enumerate- predominantly literary and academic. A literal “where”, I cannot say.

Who do you most admire and why?

I admire my lover’s patience and sense of perspective. I am very impatient and often can’t see the wood for the trees. Accordingly I am in awe of people who can pace themselves. This neatly introduces an early iconoclasm…

I had a teenage adulation of James Dean, allow me to spell out why, largely because of his association with the phrase “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today”. This was the spark that lit a hundred cigarettes for me and kept the candle burning at both ends for endless nights. I have since given up smoking and insomnia- the two events coincided incidentally.

If you could live anywhere where would it be?

I currently live in Oslo with my partner. If we could live anywhere it would be half the time in a thriving metropolis with a phenomenal women’s scene for cultural events, stunning architecture and a supportive community; hot balmy summers… and affordable rents. The other half would be a stone cottage by the sea with books piled from the floor to the ceiling, a log fire, beautiful writing desks and an old piano in the corner. I looked it up on a map: it’s called Utopia.

Your idea of the perfect woman would be?

She is gentle and strong, beautiful and handsome, honest, kind and compassionate, talented, intelligent and funny. I have met her, she is my soulmate and she is my wife.

Tell us a bit about your personal blog

Title:  pink coloured glasses
URL: http://pinkcolouredglasses.blogspot.com/
Content description: Left-leaning lesbian view of the world and its details: dyke culture and Sapphic double entendre. A Libran-esque balancing act of cynicism and realism with liberal use of liberal irony. Angelina Jolie bathing in Willy Wonka’s chocolate river and a dildo emporium (my local cornershop in fact) both also feature.

Things people probably wouldn’t guess about you.

I make very strong coffee and very weak tea.

I once worked in a mortuary for a very short time, which gave me greater respect for the fragility of life.

What gives you inspiration?

People who dare to love, to think, to care, to dream.

The following poem keeps me going, it is called “If” and is by Rudyard Kipling. (Disregard the gender-biased language.)

If
Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

What is your view on the legalization of gay marriage?

Where do I start? Straight people have had a monopoly on it for a long time and they’re not doing particularly well; nor are they at parenting for that matter (another aspect sanctioned for heterosexuals but not homosexuals).

I am a married gay woman; my marriage is not seen as valid as it predated civil partnership legislation in the UK (I’m British). My (Norwegian) lover and I are in the midst of getting the papers in order to marry here in Norway “officially”. I see the legalization of gay marriage as an essential stage of equality, acceptance for gay rights at large and for validation of gay relationships. I believe that gay couples should have the option of marriage too.

What would your advice be to a young girl just discovering she may be gay?

Sexuality is a natural part of life, whatever its form may take. Sexuality is not something to ever be ashamed of, feel guilty about, to hide, to sublimate or to redirect. Be open to new experiences, to new concepts, to new feelings and to a new sense of self-identity.  On a practical level, exploration need not be in tandem with the complications of another, feel free to experiment and to get in touch with oneself. Do not allow someone else into your bed or head before you feel ready. Learn to love yourself in all terms of the term.