Letter From the Editor

One time, when I was in 8th grade, I had a shop teacher.  His name was Mr. Stawovy and he was missing three fingers.  

I used to be a part of my school’s TV news program called Cougar News.  Mr. Stawovy, when he wasn’t helping us use the lathe to make candlestick holders or showing us how to make C02 cars, was in charge of Cougar News.

One morning before our broadcast, Mr. Stawovy was in rare form.  He is a very short, but hairy man, except for he is stark bald on top of his head, and in retrospect I believe that he was probably suffering through a divorce or midlife crisis when he said this to us (maybe he was even drunk, who knows?), but one morning he looked at our young, naïve faces and said: “Love and hate are only inches apart.”

With his troll-like demeanor, sawdust-covered jeans and plaid shirt, Mr. Stawovy didn’t seem very worldly to us pimple-faced, over made-up, pubescent teenagers, but deep down I knew the man was saying something important, and that stuck with me for the rest of my life.

In the here and now, as a soon-to-be graduate from a communication program (it turns out Cougar News changed my life and completely began my love for my career today as an independent filmmaker; The Cougar Review, the school news letter in high school, got me started on journalism later), I reflect on those words.  Love and hate are only inches apart.    

I think what Mr. Stawovy was trying to say was that the things in life that you love are the very things that you also hate.  Think about the deepest love that you’ve felt, and you’ve probably felt the deepest hate at some point in time for that same person or thing.  

When I first moved to Philly for school, it was a shock to the system for sure, but I felt that most of my major life changes happened when I was in 8^th grade.  In that year, I dumped my last-ever boyfriend, got my first-ever girlfriend, found out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, came out to my friends and family, AND puberty dealt me the biggest boobs in the school (I was later surpassed in high school).  

As my college years now come to a close and I get ready to graduate this month, I think about that time and I kind of feel myself swinging back to some of the rapid changes I was facing during the Cougar News era of my life.  Oddly enough, even my last-ever boyfriend and my first-ever girlfriend from that time even contacted me simultaneously, when I hadn’t heard from either of them in two and seven years.  

One thing I can say that I’ve discovered is that we really are growing.  Sometimes people that were a part of your past don’t fit with who you are now, but they will always be there because they are a part of you.  There are people in your past that you have loved deeply, and now you either hate the situation that you’re friendship is in now; you hate the person they’ve become, that you’ve become; or, likewise, someone you hated in your past you have found that you love now.  I think that you’ll find that as life goes on, the things that you like disappear, but things that you love turn to hate – which means they are always only inches away.  

That being said, I present to you, The Love/Hate Issue.

 

P.S. Speaking of hate, I hate that LYKE mag is late.  Sorry!  The good news is we got lots of great submissions this month.  I definitely recommend checking out all our essays (in the personal essays category) about what you LYKE DYKES love and hate, as well as Izzy’s film column, LYKEable Celluloid (check all the submissions out in the different categories listed on the home page).  The bad news is, though, our editing WOman-power is limited.  Your dear editor is battling senior thesis and also had a nasty run-in with the flu, while Izzy is battling his master’s courses in journalism.

 

 

I know, excuses, excuses.  All I’m saying is, unless you want to get in here and edit some stuff yourself (which would be really, really helpful if you have the skill set – see submissions page), then Lyke is going to have to be like a covert, secret lover that you have brief, steamy encounters with in inconspicuous, spontaneous places, and which are fleeting but fill you with enough passion to keep pursuing daily life – until our next rendezvous.

 

P.S. Also check out our partner, Philly Gay Calendar as well as Fuse and the Dyke March.  Fuse has a party coming, Emerge, that you should DEFINITELY check out.  You can find the info on Phillygaycalendar.com or Myspace.com/phillyfuse