cream puffs, city life and pop gay culture

i want cream puffs. don't know why, but the craving hit me a couple hours ago. got a recommendation for a nice italian bakery in deer park, which i'm going to try tonight, but it's iff whether they will have cream puffs. i also hear that trader joe's has yummy frozen puffs, but i don't feel like going there tonight; the italian bakery is kinda sorta on my way home.

hmmmm.

i miss being in d.c., where there was this nice italian bakery at the food court, of all places, in union station, vaccaro's which had yummy cream puffs for not too much money. ::sigh.:: i think it's becoming more and more apparent that i need to live in a city; i grew up in rurality for 18 years, but i crave the convenience and "we-have-everything"-nesss of a major city. long island is close to nyc, but damnit, it's not close enough.

...in other news, i watched queer eye for the straight girl last night, partly out of curiosity on how these women would be made over, and partly out of curiosity to scope out the resident lesbian. i don't dig queer eye for the straight guy -- the men on that show get on my nerves. i don't know why, but i thought that *maybe* this one would be a little better... not so much.

the men are as gay as ever, but what irked me more than anything was the res les, honey. i'm ok that she's a little (actually, verry) femme-y -- hell, i'm a little femme-y -- but what irked me was that while all the guys had specific occupations/purposes ("the look," "the life," "the locale"), honey's purpose is just as "the girl." her whole purpose, it seems is to come in and serve as a nice lezzie accompaniment who swoops in to give the poor straight girl make-up tips, as if one of the guys couldn't give her even better makeup tips (actually, robbie, "the look" was putting on makeup while honey helped rebekah apply lipstick correctly). add that to the fact that while the men are verrry gay, honey was just ... there.

that tapped into another pet peeve i have with mainstream pop culture; while there are plenty of gay men running around all through pop culture, with a good mix of gay men (will and grace is a perfect example of that), there are so few gay women out there. where are the good lesbian role models out there? one could argue ellen is one, but forget that -- while she was with her partner, tho she could clearly be seen with a ring on her left hand fourth finger, she never once mentioned her on the show. and while she said she doesn't want to be seen as a political force, she could at least mention some aspects of her gay life from time to time.

all that's left is rosie o'donnell, who seemed to go crazy and mean in the public spotlight after she came out (exhibit a - that damned flock of seagulls haircut) and a dearth of lesbian characters(all you see are softball-playing butch women or the male-fantasy-ish supermodel kissing a supermodel).

the only positive thing i've seen is the l word, which while having issues with rarely having any butch-y lezzies on the show (altho, it's in la, so maybe even the butch-y girls look glam), is a positive show that shows women who love women that aren't solely defined by their gayness, but are significantly affected by their orientation.

far be it for me to pass judgement on whether someone is gay enough -- i'm barely out to most of my co-workers and you certainly don't see my running around with any gay paraphenalia -- but it's still unnerving to me to see that there are so few positive gay women and/or characters out there that are willing to talk about their gayness at least once in a while.

i'll get down from my soapbox now, especially since i started out this post talking about cream puffs. :)