Higher Education

I haven't written much (anything?) about Dan Savage since, like, July, which I think is just a scheduling issue more than it is anything else: his new columns come out on Thursdays, and Thursday is when I'm really tired and lazy, and have to be at work earlier than any other day. So I end up skipping over him. And I by skipping, I mean never-getting-around-to-writing-about. Because I still read every week.

Anyway, this week's column seems as good as any to link back to--it's a summary of his latest speaking tour around several universities "out East." This is particularly appropriate because I knew nothing about Dan Savage until he came to speak at MY university several years ago, which led to my reading his entire online archive, and following the weekly updates on The Stranger's website.

At these events, students submit anonymous questions on 3x5 cards, and Dan selects the most entertaining/useful/horrifying/enlightening ones, and reads them and answers them aloud. The column features questions that he didn't get to in his speaking engagement, such as:

When did you first realize you were LGBTQ, and how did people react to that? Did you struggle to find support?

I didn't realize I was L, B, T, and Q until I arrived in Albany. And I'm not sure how friends and family are going to react to my recently discovered lesbianism, bisexuality, impending transition, and questioning status—question: now that I'm LGB and T, what outstanding Qs could there be?—but I expect they will be supportive. Just as confused as I am, but nevertheless supportive.

When I was at IWU, I didn't really have any basis of comparison for what other schools were like. Now that I go to a school 20 times its size, when I see entertainers on TV or in print that I heard speak there, I wonder what they thought of our tiny little stage in the Hansen Student Center, and if we were completely ridiculous. Ah well, how much better can a columnist or comedian do than wind up with an intelligent-yet-ridiculous audience? Seems ideal to me.