I tried mightily to “get” Gimme Sugar, the lesbian-themed reality series on LOGO.  But, every time I turned on an episode, there was some sort of drama or other occurring.  I chalked it up to the stars being young and on television, where drama of all sorts is not only encouraged, but drives up ratings.  At least we knew that The L Word was fiction, even if all of us could relate to some parts of its drama.

Maybe-lesbian Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson kept the drama roller coaster twisting and turning through months of breakups and get-back-togethers.  While all of this was done in the public eye, all sorts of behind-the-scenes lesbian drama can be witnessed at any given time in bars, womyns weekends, and Whole Foods outlets across the country in numbers that boggle the mind.

Then there’s poor Melissa Etheridge, who falls for and runs off with Lou Diamond Phillips’ wife, Julie Cypher.  They have two kids together (father David Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Nash and I’m still puzzling over that choice).  Then, Melissa lets Julie sleep with kd lang so Julie can make sure she’s really gay, but she isn’t.  Buh-bye Julie. Melissa got a happy ending eventually.

Author and feminist Rita Mae Brown has been steeped in drama in ways I cannot even imagine.  When she was involved with then closeted Fannie Flagg (author of Fried Green Tomatoes) she actually interrupted the relationship Flagg had been living in for years.  Brown didn’t name the lover in her autobiography, but it’s believed in some quarters to have been daytime actress Susan Flannary.  Then—and hang onto your seats—Brown takes up with Martina and lets Flagg go.  Martina has an affair with a straight woman and lets Brown go.  Then, Brown takes up with the straight woman.  Who knows what Brown’s up to now, but really, my heart can’t take any more.

Some of us take it to extremes.  Like the woman convicted in 2007 of the notorious South Dakota “Deaf Lesbian Chainsaw Murder.”   Daphne Wright was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Darlene Vandergiesen, a friend of Wright’s former partner of whom she was jealous.

And, this week in the news, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld state Senator Julie Boseman’s (D-New Hanover) parental rights of the child she formally adopted and former partner Melissa Jarrell gave birth to six years ago.  I say, “Hallelujah” because besides an end to the two of them tipping the velvet, we may have tipped case law into the realm of dismantling DOMA.  But, c’mon Melissa.  It’s okay to have the drama, but leave the kid out of it.  You can’t have it both ways – expect to have any rights in your lifetime with a same-sex partner, yet call “foul” when things don’t work out between the two of you.  They are also squabbling over the foreclosure of their house and properties in a battle that sounds as though they can’t put aside their disdain long enough to ensure either of them will still  have any money left in the bank.

So, what does it all mean?  Are women, as some men might opine, unbalanced, overwrought, and even crazy?  Or, is the combination of two women in an intimate relationship charged with all the intensity of 10,000 suns on a good day and on a bad day, the Supernova we’d all hoped we’d avoid?  All I know is the alternative is unacceptable.