A bit about me.

A bit about me:

Intelligent, out-spoken, liberal, yellow dog democrat, jew by choice, 28, born in colorado, been in arkansas since I was 13, played clarinet since i was 10 (albeit not very good anymore I never really practice),loyal, cold-natured, 5'11, moderately hairy, collector, lover of the70's and 80's, gay, odd upbringing, opinionated, eccentric, voracious reader, want to be legally married one day

To me college is:

GROWING UP fast, learning, rising above old opinions, new horizons, finally deciding what you wanna be when you finish growing up, meeting new folks, forging your own identity, being extremely busy, juggling time, adjusting to being on your own, a chance at a new life all your own.

Sports:

I dont mine watching some sports, I mainly prefer in person if I am the spectator, I enjoyed attempting to play soccer when i was little,beyond that I have never been very good at sports and did not take thetime to get better, much more of a bookworm I guess you could say, Ido enjoy, canoeing, walking, hiking, a good fishing trip is a goodmystery sitting on the bank while others fish, a secret like for tackyprofessional wrestling.

Food:

Alfredo, spaghetti, lasgane, tacos, burritos, cheeseburgers, fastfood, chili's, firehouse subs, McAlister's ( J'eet yet?), steaks,chicken, turkey, healthy choice dinners, tomatos out of the garden,cucumbers, milk, american cheese, swiss cheese, apples, oranges,grapes, chinese food, thai food, eggs, cake, ice cream, all types ofsherbet, I am sure there is more.....

Work:

I work in the Archives at the University of Arkansas at little rock,we have a wide array of collections dating back past the civil war. Itis very interesting most days.

Quotes:

PLeasant?? DAMNIT I AM PLEASANT!! Why just this morning I saw Drum Etondon down at the Piggly Wiggly and I SMILED AT THE SON-OF-A-BITCH before I could help myself! - Ouizza from Steel Magnolias

Sometimes it just takes a fairy! - Vida Bohem Too wong Foo

Listen here you mollet, why don't you light your tampon and blow yourbox apart, 'cause its the only bang you're ever gonna get sweetheart!! - Bernadette in Priscilla

For the love of God i know there is a bottom in here somewhere!! (knocking on podium trying to find a place to set down her drink) Catia??? Catia??? - Chartity Case Miss gay America 2001, refering to Catia Lee Love Miss Gay America 2000.

Everyday I dread having a career. - Brian our student worker.

Sometimes there are voices that fight to be heard, so much to mentionbut you can't find the words. Listen to your heart! - Listen to yourHeart by Roxette.

Ahhh clarinets, one cannot imagine an orchestra without the sound ofclairnets! - Mozart

who I would like to meet:

friends, people that can have to sort of off the wall intellectual conversations I like to have, people to have as e-mail buddies, cutegay jewish boys who can tell me what it was like to actually grow up jewish.

What I look for in a friend:

This one is much harder to define, I am extremely open and I will befriend anyone if they show the initiative and give me respect andtreatment that I give them. I am the most fiercly loyal individualaround. You can always mess with me but God help you, you DO NOT messwith my friends I will go down to the bitter end protecting anddefending them. This is very much how I am in relationships too. I have to be attracted mentally and physically, if the mental attraction is not there I dont care how pretty your are it won't work. I am big on intelligence, either be intelligent or at least be striving to better yourself. I do like the idea of meeting a nice jewish boy to be friends with, I am not a gung-ho religious fanatic, in fact I am not really religious at all beyound I love jewish culture and community and very much wanted to be a part of it. We have a very nice reform temple here I like it a lot.

My interests:

Reading, mystery novels, cars, camaros, Russian, Russian Literature,Hebrew, Israel, Israeli mysteries by Batya Gur, lesbian mysteries,school, history, russian history, astronomy, Roxette, Sweden, Norway,Denmark, Most of Europe really, learning other languages, Dogs, Cats,The 80's, the 70's, collecting, nostalgia, gardening, shopping, fleamarkets, looking for a good deal, quiet weekends, I am going to stop here for now I could go on for days.

Music:

Bette Midler, Roxette, pretty much all 80's music, Frogpond, MelissaEtheridge, Reba McEntire, Chicago, Cabaret, Evita, Bring on the men,Disco, Old country music, george strait, classical, Puccini, MioBabino Caro sp?, the shirelles, Ani DiFranco, U2, AC/DC, Guns andRoses, basically I am as ecclectic as they come in my music taste.

Movies:

I have a real affinity for chick flicks, I like action movies sci-fi,again i am equal oppurtunity, if a movie is good it is just good. Someexamples: Steel magnolias, Fried Green Tomatos, The Color Purple, AllStar Trek Movies, Star Wars, She-Devil, Auntie Mame, Fiddler on theRoof, The Women, The Exorcist, The new Amityville Horror, Willow,Harry Potter Movies, Lord of the Rings movies, Too wong Foo, PriscillaQueen of the Desert, Jeffery, Wizard of Oz, A Beautiful Thing, Alongtime Companion, Its my party, The end of the Affair, The englishPatient, Carrington, War Games, ET, The secret of my Success, Back tothe Future, Mickey & Maude, Moulin Rouge, In Good Company, ThePrincess Diaries, Beaches, Big Business, Hocus Pocus, Sleeping Beauty,Cinderella (cinderlli, cinderelli, night and day its cinderelli! ),Chicago, Evita, Victor Victoria, Practical Magic, Miss Congeniality, Icould go on and on in this topic.

Television:

West Wing, Reba, Law and Order SVU, anything on the history channel,Trading Spaces, Overhaulin, In A Fix, Veronica Mars, anything late80's and early 90's because of my child hood, Scarecrow and Mrs King,Kidd Video, Dukes of Hazard, Murder she wrote, Gi Joe, The Care Bears,The smurfs, trandsformers, Go Bots, WWE, Roseanne, Golden Girls,Designing Women, Queer as Folk, Dead like me, Dark Angel, Will and Grace another section I could go on and on.

Books:

This is a section where I could go on and on, I read a book a week give or take so i have read a lot. Some I reccomend, Harry Potter, TheAlpine Series by Mary Daheim, The Sophie Greenway and the Jane Lawlessseries by Ellen Hart, Queen Noor's Memoirs, She's not there: a life intwo genders. by Jennifer Finney Boylan, Coosing a Jewish Life by AnitaDiamant, Good Harbor by Anita Diamant, Leslie Meier's books, There are so many books I have read ask me about a specific genre and I can reccommend.

Heroes:

This is a hard one for me, I guess I am most impressed by people whoare not afraid to be themselves and the world be damned if they don'tlike it.

Education:

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, home of theArkansas Razorbacks!! Woo Pig Sooie Razorbacks!!!

Hometown:

Ozark, Arkansas.

Well I think that is enough for now.

-Timothy

On being Jewish.

I dont' know when I actually started thinking about being Jewish.

When I was a small child I would look at the calander and say what are those holidays? I never really knew until I started to get older. Most people just said Chanukah was the Jewish Christmas and that really confused me.

I continued on in my confused state trying to understand why there was so much anti-Semitism in the world. I knew very few Jewish people as a child. Oddly enough my best friends all through elementary school and high school even were Jehovah's Witnesses. I am guessing because in ways we were all social outcasts from the mainly evangelical christian majorities in our schools.

I guess I should say that I was not raised any particular denomination. My mother is a Baptist by her own choosing and my Dad is a Catholic. I was a rebellious child who hated church and anything to do with God. Even Christmas has always been a secular holiday for me, more about the season than anything. I loathed the mornings my parents compromised and drug us off to the local Nazarene Church. Now mind you all of the people were very nice and I enjoyed sunday school there because I met a lot of nice kids I could not stand to sit through a sermon. Now as I have gotten older I have gone from agnostic, to athiest, to saying I had my own ideas. I now have decided where I really needed to be is Judaism.

I began reading books on the faith, books such as The Complete Idiots Guide to Jewish History and Culture and Choosing a Jewish Life. As I did this I couldn't help thinking where had this been all of my life. Well it had been all around I just had failed to see it or to realize this is where I needed to be. I remember when I first decided to tell my friends I wanted to become Jewish, it was like coming out of the closet all over again. I had no idea how they would react. I remember leaving the bar one night and telling Mimi that I had been thinking of going to beauty school for the shits and giggles of it and oh yeah I wanted to become a Jew. She just looked at me and said "well go on girl do hair and be a jew!" I just laughed. I never have made it to beauty school. I decided i wanted to finish my BA in Russian Studies first. I have however started my journey towards becoming a Jew. I have been observing the holidays and festivals. I have added things that make my home stand out as Jewish, although I still need a muzuzah to be mounted on my front door I just haven't been able to find one yet. I have books on Israel, a Menorah, a Chanukah snow globe all sorts of things. Of course these just add to it being a Jewish home, what makes it a Jewish home is the fact that though I have not had my conversion ceremony yet I feel every bit of me is a Jew. I feel like a member of this wonderful community of people already though my formal entrance won't be until the fall.

Even though I feel i am a Jew already I do believe heavily in re-incarnation. I say this just because I think there have been people through-out time that have been sent back because they were so good the first time that there is a need for that type of goodness again. I feel like I was an old yenta in another life. I have taken to hebrew as if I have always known it and I leave services feeling re-newed and whole. Most of all I feel spiritually happy and that is something until I decided being a Jew is who I was I hadn't felt in my life.

So I guess I will end this with the thoughts that being Jewish isn't just a faith or a religion it is about you as a person, about a people and community as a whole and also about how you live your life. On that I will end this post.

L'Chaim! (To Life!)

-Timothy
aka Sasha Harrison

How do you want to be remembered?

How do you want to be remembered?

That is a question most people dont think about and when asked it gives them great and utter pause. Because most people don't know how they want to be remembered.

I guess the better question is will people remember you and how will they remember you?

This is a question I had not pondered much until a read a somewhat sad but insightful entry in Nathan Jone's Smalltownboy blog on here.

He talked about an estate sale he had been to and how horribly impersonal it all was. This was someone's life being sold and no was giving a second thought as to who these people were or had been in their life.

Now this brings me to something that I absolutly adore doing. Spending entire weekend days in smart and comfortable shoes and clothing, trolling around flea markets and second hand shops. I had never thought about it but a lot of the stuff you encounter in these sorts of places is the same type of thing you might get at an estate sale. I have in my life known people that have opened a flea market booth with items out of say their grandmother's house. This has all made me stop and think is this all your granny meant to you? It is very sad to me that we live in a world where so much and so many are forgotten.

I freely admit that there are things I want in my grandmother's house when she is gone, but I dont want them to sell later. I want them so that parts of my Granny will continue to live on and be preserved. I want to look at that armoir she has in her bedroom and stop and be reminded of being little and being enamored of the art deco style of it. I want all of the old records we use to listen to while we baked or cooked and just in general spent time together.

I guess my overall thing here are we all just doomed to fade away into oblivion when we are gone?

Drag Pagaent Season

Ahhhh it is that time of the year again!! Yes it is getting nice and warm the days are longer and school is now out, but it is also one of my favorite times of the year!

What time is that you ask?? Pagaent seaon of course, the time of year all of us that eat, live, and breath drag just cannot wait for.

This year is turning out to be a rather interesting one.

I will take a moment to highlight some things that are happening or have happened this year in the competition world of drag/female impersonation.

I will start with the exciting and wonderful things.

First off I want to give a HUGE congratulations to Jerry Bird and the Miss Gay US of A System. This is their 20th Anniversary and what a year it is turning out to be. The 2006 contest was just held in Dallas and Tamisha Iman was the winner! Congrats girl you look FANTASTIC in your new crown!! I would also like to say that Layla LaRue did an outstanding job as Miss Gay US of A and that SanAntonio should be very proud of its hometown girl! Now that this has all passed it moves back into the realm of prelims for next years competition until October and the At-Large contest in Dallas.

Catia Lee love is also back in competition in the Entertainer of the Year system. I wish her all of the best and am very sure that she is going to let them have it!

I am also very excited about the number of people coming back to Miss Gay America this year that have been gone for awhile. Angela Dodd, Truly Fabu, Nicole DuBois, some great names in the MGA system that have been out of the loop briefly. I am also glad to see Coti Collins coming back this year. Girl we could use you as MGA let em have it!!! There is also expected to be a great number of formers coming back this year as far back as 1987 with Blaze Starr, I hope any others from earlier than that will turn out as well. The system needs your support now more than ever.

Now on to the sadder topics.

Miss Gay America was sold this year to a new promoter, this is only sad because it means a bit of uncertainty at least through this first National contest in October and maybe even the first couple of years that the system will continue to thrive and hopefully begin to grow. I hope it does very well under their leadership. The pagaent is over 30 years old now and to me is a wonderful piece of Gay American History that I would hate to see wither away and die.

With all of that said the season is now into full swing. There have been several state and regional prelims in the America system, with the season just beginning again for the US of A system. I am enjoying keeping up with who is winning what and who is still out there lurking keeping everyone guessing about if we will see them this year. All I can say is keep it coming girls the spring has been great and let summer be even better!!!

All my love!

Sasha Harrison