what may or may not be hard reality

Hah. I am now the proud single owner of a new community. todayinchely. I will use it to post random daily *squee* about Chely Wright!

If you like Chely, or you like to hear me ramble, head over there and join! todayinchely! (Seriously, if I get more than 5 members, it will be a raging success... :P I'm doing this mostly to keep track of my own ramblings...)

todayinchely

So this Chely Wright thing has shaped itself into quite the perfect "hiatus obsession" (not to mention that she might just possibly be the perfect woman, but I'll get to that in just a bit). With Sanctuary on hiatus, and still 7 months to go until Amanda-con it's a good thing to have something else to focus on for a while (kinda like Mariska last spring while I was waiting for Defying Gravity). And musicians don't usually last that long as "main obsession", I need characters and plot and fanfic to maintain anything over a longer period of time. (And besides, I'm not a music person. If I had to choose between music, TV, and books - for the rest of my life - books would win, I wouldn't even have to think about it. No sounds or images created externally can ever be as powerful as the ones evoked in my head when I read something well-written. Which is why fanfic is so important to sustain an obsession over a longer period of time.)

However, back to Chely. I'm seriously considering the possibility that she's the perfect woman. She's got the basics; gay, pretty, makes good music. She's also intelligent, has a lot of opinions (big and small) that I approve of, and she can articulate them well, both in speech off the cuff, and in written text. Not to mention that she's both vocal and articulate about being gay, which I always appreciate. And when she might just seem to be taking herself a little too seriously, it turns out she has a pretty sweet sense of humor, both about herself and about stuff in general. She has cute dogs, an awesome dad, and most of the time I like her outfits, not to mention how very sexy she is in her librarian glasses. Her brown eyes are pretty, and I can forgive the blonde hair because I know she's naturally a brunette - and the blonde hair does suit her. And to top it off (and I just realized this last night, while stalking reading her twitter - in part prompting that rant I posted) she's also a - wait for it - a grammar nerd! If that's not the perfect woman, I don't know what is!

So yeah, this Chely thing is really working out well. I love her new album, and I've grown to love a lot of her older stuff (which wasn't really hard, I do like country), and her book is heartbreaking and beautiful and all those things, and she writes well (see 'articulation' above), and there are a ton of fantastic interviews floating around the net. She has a fantastic way of using her story as an example but yet make everyone included. She'll get these pointed questions, and she'll someone make it apparent that her story is not exclusive to her, that there are a *lot* of people going through what she's gone through, but she makes a point of saying that her story is special beacuse it's a story that isn't being told and she's damn well gonna use it to give a voice to all those who feel completely alone in the world and aren't allowed to tell their truths.

A few of my favourite songs under the cut (with the disclaimer that I'm still waiting for a few albums, so I haven't actually heard her entire repertoire)

( Songs yay! - there are videos and everything! )

A video that has amused me lately is THIS ONE. Chely and Rodney Crowell and she makes a short announcement that she really is working with Rodney Crowell... then he takes over, and says that the record is good and all, but it's not the thing of real importance here, the thing that's her destiny, including stuff like "We don't want it to slip out there too soon" and "Gender has nothing to do with it"... the fact that it's about to become known that she's the world's greatest cyclist. Meanwhile she's giggling kinda like a child who's high on cotton candy. It's cute.

( And a few favourite pictures under this cut! )

This'll be first a little bit soapbox and a then little bit swoon-y adoration - I think I have a leetle bit of a new crush. Her name is Chely Wright and she just recently came out. You know, she was on Oprah and Ellen and in all those magazines, and that morning talk show, and I'm sure you've all heard of her. :P And there are a lot of people who are writing a lot of stuff about this being a publicity stunt, and how she's not famous enough to warrant this kind of attention, and yadda yadda.

Yes, she timed this really well, with the album and the book and the coming out. Sure. But why shouldn't she be a smart business person about this? Can anyone tell me why we should deprive this wonderfully articulate person of maximizing her 15 minutes of addressing the issues still faced by a lot of gay people all over and the world on national television? Sure, teenagers these days are coming out all over the place, and they're brave and articulate and stand up for themselves and their rights... but these teenagers don't make up the entire population of gay teenagers.

10 years ago when I was in high school there was a boy the year above me who killed himself because he was gay. I didn't know him well, but he was a friend of friends, and I wasn't out at the time, and it was terrifying. I'm pretty sure that still happens. (And shame on you, New York Times, for saying that coming out doesn't matter anymore.) So what I wanted to say was that she claims that's her goal, to reach those kids who don't have anyone at all. And just because she timed it well for maximum exposure doesn't mean those kids don't exist. In fact, by maximizing her exposure she's making sure she's reaching as many of those kids as she can, while being quite the posterchild of a gay posterchild.

She's only been doing this a short while, but so far I'd say she's doing pretty darn well! I admire her a whole lot for being so seemingly at ease in a situation that should be frightening as heck - which is where someone might point out that of course she seems at ease, she's a great actress, and this is how she markets herself, to which I ask again. How is this in any way harmful to the Cause? That she's comfortably and articulate while talking about gay issues? I'm clearly on Team Chely here!

Which is how we got to the adoration and the crush thing. Seriously, she's so pretty! And she's articulate and smart and has that long gorgeous hair going, and I really admire her. My dad raised me on the older, bluesier kinds of country, Patsy Cline was a bit of a house goddess, so in all honesty Chely's music is a little to modern and pop-y for me, but I still like it, in a generic country kind of way - haven't listened to the new one yet, it's in my next online shopping order, and they say it's a little different, so we'll see, but I'm still crushing a little bit on her. Of course it matters that she's gay. I'm really not much of a music fan, I very rarely listen to music, but I am a fan of pretty and well-spoken ladies who talk openly about being gay.

Go Chely Wright!