While indulging myself in free food, free access to a washer and dryer, and to a lot of cable t.v. at my parents' house over the holiday, I discovered a local Racine public television channel that was airing a city council meeting from a few weeks ago. Now, usually when I see things like this I flip through it to get to the latest Suzie Orman, you know, to catch her telling people what they can't buy(love IT!).

Anyway, what caught my eye on this channel was a thick eyeglass wearing woman ranting about how bad it would be if Racine allowed a L.G.B.T center for youth. "Ya know that Jeffery Dahmer... that murderer? Yah, ya know he was gay! We could be creating young Jeffery Dahmers! We should be scared of these people wanting to take our kids!" As the baggy sweatshirt woman waddled of the screen and a few selected audience members at the meeting applauded(and after I took my hand to lift my dropped jaw back in to place) I realized what I had just gotten myself in to... an entire hour of watching local Racine citizens step to the podium to scold homosexuality.

"Ya know, I didn't know what L.G.B.T. stood for until I looked it up on that there internet. It's just a cute way of saying lesbian, gay, bisexual and tranny!"

OR

"How far low are we gonna go? We can't even get our streets plowed now we're gonna get those gays a place to hang out?"

OR (and my personal favorite).

"Now, I am a Christian woman... and I love everyone. I mean it. I love everyone. I've never met someone I don't love. Except gay people. I don't love gay people."

This January with mark seven years living in Chicago. Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be in a city. When I'd visit cities as a kid I would walk the sidewalks with my neck craned back looking at the buildings all towering above. My favorite part was the different types of people that lived and worked there. Different colors. Different backgrounds. Different types of jobs. I wanted to be one of those people. I'd imagine myself having friends that weren't just white(because, hello, Racine) and I'd imagine meeting people from all over the world and hearing their stories and learning from the lives they'd led before they met me. I would be apart of them by living on the tip-top floor of one of the fancy metal skyscrapers.

Now, even though I don't live in a sky scraper, I've pretty much reached my dream of meeting some pretty fucking amazing people. People from all kinds of backgrounds. People who were once prostitutes who are now teachers. People who were once rich with family money, but now disowned for standing up for what they believed in. People who are so completely opposite to me, but who have made me and my life and the things around it so much better.

But the one thing that these people I've met have in common? They weren't scared of change. In fact, they welcomed it.

You can hear it their voices. The people who don't want this "different" place coming to their small town as they rant about the sin of gay. They way their vocal chords shiver like hands that have been left too long in the cold. The way they lick their lips because they are drying out from within from nerves. The idea that a change could come to a place that has always been so much the same terrifies them. Especially when it's something so... so foreign. Often, that's how it feels to visit this city. Like when I went to Germany and all I could do was burp out quick phrases to get a loaf of bread or to catch a train to Munich. I felt so out of place. I felt like I constantly had to apologize for myself... for not belonging.

"These people never needed a place before", a woman wearing a puffy winter down jacket says in to the podium mic, "what makes them think they need something now? They just don't belong in Racine."

I'm often asked by old friends and relatives who still live in Wisconsin or even in Racine: "Would you ever move back?" My answer: "I just don't think I belong there anymore."