| on getting older |
[Jun. 22nd, 2011|01:53 am] |
I was thinking the other day about how i would have seen the world right now if i were the same person I was when i was in my twenties. more and more i find myself being glad that i have aged some; i remember my twenties as being hard and tumultuous. full of roller coaster feelings and experience i wish i could have either lived forever or erased from existence.
I think the problem was in the knowing versus the understanding. i had a lo of people around me thinking i was "too young to know anything" this wan't true, of course -- I knew LOTS. I'm pretty sure what they meant was "You don't UNDERSTAND anything", which was definitely true.
Understanding you only get from experience, so it isn't fair , i suppose to expect a tweenie to have much.
I suppose If I were there to talk to my former self i'd want to be told the difference, but most of all I wish I had had someone to let me know it was just a matter of time. Growing up gay and in the eighties was hard. Doing it alone was much much harder. |
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| crying for the vanquished |
[May. 9th, 2011|01:15 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
i was at lunch today with friends, eating a late breakfast and enjoying the company. as usual, we got to joking around, and some jokes started getting passed around regarding Bin laden. I felt distinctly uncomfortable; i understood that this was letting off steam about the despicable acts this man had done, but something about making fun of the dead always seemed wrong to me.
I kept wondering if I was alone in how i felt. I know there was plenty of precedent to be angry over what was done. I would have understood anger.
Is it wrong to have wished that such a man could have been a better person? that he could have made more humane, life affirming decisions? To regret that he now has no chance to turn back? I was thinking of Elphaba in the book Wicked. Does anyone really know enough about the man to judge him in toto? Perhaps he was not fully responsible; any number of things could have been in him to make his actions seem right.
I know we all carry baggage and we all make mistakes. it's really only a matter of how severe they are, isn't it?
I mentioned how I felt at the table. Perhaps i shouldn't have; I don't know really. I would simply have felt wrong not doing so. To the guys credit, none of them are cruel or lacking in compassion and they saw my point as soon as I made it.
Perhaps we should light candles for the souls that have been judged harshly. Ask God to forgive those who have done harm and not known it. |
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| Choosing cards and dealing with the somplexities |
[Oct. 29th, 2010|12:07 am] |
Ok. I was out and about a cupla weeks ago, trying to find a card for a friend who was just back from his Father's funeral. I Totally feel let down by the whole greeting card industry.
Admittedly, it's hard to find a card that says the emotional equivalent of "I'm here for you and understand your feelings, even though you had a hateful relationship with him but still had to go see his dead ass in the box" Still, there should have been something like that available. we've had hundreds of years now to perfect the art of the greeting card. I would have even been happy with a blank card with a picture of a bulldog on the front; I could have written better schlock than half of what I read.
I read about the Arkansas school board member who resigned his seat because of his anti-gay comments on his Facebook page. He was backpedaling like nobody's business, saying he didn't think kids should kill themselves. or be bullied. No commentaries about the "i'm glad gay people give each other AIDS and die" comment though. The school board weren't any better for all their "we completely disagree with his comments sort of commentary. Reminded me of a quote I live from Ursula Leguin in left Hand of Darkness.
The gist of the quote is that it doesn't matter whether you are for or against a subject. both sides are "on the same road". Only by forging a new path do we ever escape the road and become free. I hope we can find a new road soon. I'm getting mighty tired of these cobblestones.
It occurs to me that we have a real problem; people are becoming very polarized on issues, and this could lead only to one of two ends in my mind. We either have to sit each other's asses down and say "Look, we don't have to agree on everything, but we have to allow each other to be. We have to be able to live with each other..." or we start racking up the body count in an eventual jihad across social lines. when people can't agree to let each other live when it comes down to children seeing their lives as hopeless and ended and then making their perceptions reality, we are bound to have a bad millennium or two.
I'd like to be able to tell my brother's twin girls that there is hope for the world, but i'm simply not sure any more. |
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| Writer's Block: Peace for sale |
[Sep. 16th, 2010|12:08 pm] |
Well, I would think certainly it is part of a government's mandate to protect the people that it serves, and so the answer is definitely not none. It's definitely not All, either, because the government is responsible for quite a lot of duties... enough that it would take several days to give a complete list of them.
I do believe that we spend WAY too much on defense spending at this time. Per the True Majority website, we're spending something like 40 times our next strongest neighbor on defense spending, and our next strongest neighbor is our friend.
I think my biggest problem is that we're spending a good portion of our defense budget keeping old, outdated and essentially useless tech in working order. If we simply pared away the technology that is so out of date that it would never be used, we would have surplus enough to do things like revamping our energy system to be more green-compliant and environmentally sustainable. we could make sure no one goes hungry or misses out on an education. We could make sure our first responders get the equipment and support and pay they need to keep providing the services they do without worry.
The list of things that I can see that need to be changed is enormous, and I would not expect this to happen overnight. I do, however, hold with the idea that standing around discussing and never taking first steps is a wrong notion.We need to get moving, even if it's in the wrong direction at first. We can correct and learn from mistakes. we can't learn from actions that are never taken. |
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| Writer's Block: It's allergies ... really! |
[Aug. 22nd, 2010|01:09 am] |
Well, I would love to say it was something incredibly passionate and manly, or something soul-rending, but it wasn't. I have those moments, i guess, but I am very slightly embarrassed to say that it isn't anything like that. I also know I'm gonna get ragged for this because it plays to the stereotype so well [even though as a whole the stereotype doesn't fit me all that well.]
I cried while listening to Falsettoland.
In my own defense, the musical hits a lot of the themes that seem to have coalesced in my life... the sort of things that seem to lodge in your back-brain and ache when the weather changes. The ones you remember 30 years later and think "If I had only..." or "why didn't i see that back then?" the story is about a boy coming to ageand to terms with himself while his mother and father and extended family (his step father the psychiatrist , his father's HIV+ male lover and the lesbians from next door) are dealing with the barmitzvah and with Whizzer's (the lover's) illness. Trust a musical with gay themes to get me deeply involved. Sigh. If it were just this musical, I guess i could just point to it and say "Great work... expressive as hell and moving."
It Isn't.
I have the same response to Sondheim plays, Hallmark specials... hell, even the 'very special episode of Blossom' might do it to me. It depends on just how absorbed in the story I am and how much it resounds in me.
I'm not private about it either. While watching the Prince of Tides in the movie theater, when I realized what was happening in the traumatic, climactic scenes near the end, I was openly bawling there in the movie theater. (I wasn't making a lot of noise, mind you, but i am sure people noticed.)
There are times when i berate myself for letting myself go when i do something as simple as watching And the Band Played On or listening to Sunday in the Park with George. There are also times when I feel good that I can feel those feelings, because there was a time, long ago, when I couldn't.
Oh well. I'm not planning on ever returning to that walled in isolated person I was if I have anything to say about it, so I guess I have to accept the consequences. |
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| Writer's Block: Surfin’ Safari |
[Mar. 8th, 2010|09:00 pm] |
Oh yes. My laptop is closer to me than my wallet. closer to me than my best friend, sometimes. Why, you might ask. The answer is simple. It's my mind.
When I traveled across country by bus from Akron, Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona, it kept my sanity whole, my pictures organized, my hours endurable and my path recorded. My pictures got stored there. My raw thoughts at each stop recorded so I could remember them years later. It remembered the phone numbers that I had forgotten for years. It kept me in touch with my sweetheart thousands of miles away.
When I travelled around the southwest, it gave me a home base to spring ideas from. emails and letters grew from the spaces i inhabited into the greater world, and when my prosaic mind overflowed, i filled the laptop' memory with my own.
Work -- of course I did some on it. Play? Heck, yes I did (and still do). The most important thing, though, was what it helped me to be. It helped me to be wholly me. |
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| Writer's Block: Raining cats or dogs? |
[Mar. 6th, 2010|12:30 am] |
Most definitely. I am unashamedly a dog person. I have had many of each type, by the way. (at one time I owned 5 dogs and 3 cats). While I appreciate that cats are a bit easier to care for, particularly when you have to be away overnight, I wouldn't choose my pet based on how they would behave when I'm gone. it is FAR more important to me how they behave when I come back.
What I really look forward to in a pet is one who wants to spend time with me. One who waits for me at the door and wants to be at/on my feet or near me all the time. I want a pet who comes every time I call. One who can play and who can cuddle with me. (I tend to prefer the lap-sized dogs to the ones that can tow you around the park)
While some cats will do that when it works for rhwm, more often than no, the cats I've experienced rarely want this level of companionship. I also normally don't get clawed by pups.
I've seen it said that cats are dilletantes in fur. a far as I can tell, that is very true. the dogs that I have had, with one exception, have been very loyal, very loving creatures. Even the one that wasn't was there for me in her own way.
Incidentally, I m so much a sucker for the pound/ pet stores / rescue people. I have to avoid them or I'll come home with a handful of fur every time.
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| Writer's Block: Marital license |
[Mar. 1st, 2010|08:24 pm] |
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000105 EndHTML:0000010025 StartFragment:0000003033 EndFragment:0000009989 Do you think a marriage license should have a renewal or expiration date, just like a driver's license? View 1398 Answers |
It took me a moment or two to understand some of the underlying issues involved with the question on this. I can see both sides of it. Before I would answer this, i would want to define a few things just so my answer is understood in the light I mean.
First off, from a pragmatic viewpoint, I don't think any solution is going to be totally effective for everyone. The truth is that we as humans change, and sometimes the relationships we form simply are not nurturing (or sometimes even healthy) after time has passed. We always need to be concerned with what we legislate, because it will have a far-reaching effect of some sort, good or bad.
Secondly, marriage can be considered from three separate viewpoints.
It is a contract, for one viewpoint (arguably the simplest). Two parties are making promises to each other and forming basically a verbal (or possibly even a written) contract. Some contracts have specified time limits and exclusions, some don't. I think the important thing here is to remember that as a contract, you have obligations to live up to, or you need to end the contract.
It is also a deeper relationship, which to me means that it isn't something to be entered into or bailed out of lightly. When you are married, you become entwined in each other, like two old trees that have their roots intermixed. Separating them causes damage and is sometimes not healthy for either. Nonetheless, there are times when separating two trees to remove one from danger or something unhealthy is called for.
It is finally something sacred or sanctified. The original meaning of those words translates something like 'set apart' and 'raised up' as in a sacrifice. Marriage is a combined gift to the Power that created life and to the rest of the world that interacts with the couple. Again, there is the implied responsibility to others in being set apart as a guide and an example of something holy.
All that being said, I think that yes, there should be a way to end a relationship should it become non-viable, dangerous, or unhealthy. I also think that I also think what sort of example you set as a married couple should have a bearing in whether a couple should stay together. It's implicit in all of the writings about marriage that it should be extremely sacred and not entered into lightly, as many have written here, but we must also take into account the powerful effects of change. The ultimate decision for me if it were my marriage involved, would be "Is love still present in our relationship and is it still helping both of us to grow?" The presence of deep caring about my partner and wanting to help them grow and become who they are called and designed to be would definitely influence my decision. If I couldn't care les about them, the relationship is already gone, and getting out is merely a formality. |
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| Writer's Block: Back from the dead |
[Jan. 24th, 2010|05:54 pm] |
I have to say that I would answer this question with a qualified yes, but anyone who knows me knows I couldn't leave this subject without a couple of comments. This question seems doubly relevant, as one of my best freiends just lost his Dad, and i find myself wanting to be there and comfort as much as I can.
Firstly, as to the Yes: Being able to come back and console people here that they are not to worry about what comes next would be one of the biggest services one human could do for another. Eliminating that worry should not make our lives any less precious, and it wouldn't really matter what you found on the other side, as we are seemingly infinitely adaptable creatures. Whatever comes, we can handle it, one way or another.
That being said, the question itself is somewhat flawed. It presupposes that there IS someplace else to go to and that you could go there and come back. The biggest problem with the fear of death is not necessarily 'where' you go, but IF you go anywhere. The question, then, presupposes an answer that skips the major portion of the fear.
Also, are we really needing to go to the other side and come back like some supernatural field reporter for the Enquirer? I would think we're intelligent enough to make some deductions about what comes next from the clues and things we experience now. Do we really need to know one way or the other in order to comfort each other?
Ultimately, for me, I believe that we DO go somewhere. this is based on my wholehearted belief that we are too "well-ordered" and wonderfully made to have been brought randomly out of the ether, even with evolution's help. I fully expect to be that much closer to seeing/understanding the one who made everything when I die. I don't have any proof to back it up, but then again, isn't that what Faith is all about?
Wishing you peace, joy, love and hope in this new year.
Chris |
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| Writer's Block: The morning after |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|05:40 am] |
The first few weeks after christmas and the new year have passed for me are a weird combination of relief and sorrow/joy. Given all of the things i inevitably get entrenched in for the celebration of the holidays, getting them over and out of the way is definitely a relief, but then I find myself wondering what to do with myself for a while. if I could rest, i would, but it seems like i get myself wound up for the seasons, and have to find something to do to let that go.
I'm usually happy because I like winter. being a person born in the middle of the Sonoran Desert does tend to make one appreciate cool, fty weather. All the same, the holidays remind me that the nice cool times are roughly half over. it's sort of the "it's already August and I have to go back to school again" thing. I want to make good use of the temperate lovely weather that we get while the rest of the world alternately freezes and drowns. I spent three years in a relatively mild winter place called Akron, Ohio, where we got a decent abount of snow and a similar amount of rain, and so while I miss the seasonal thing there i so appreciate not worrying if my next step is going to be on some slippery Ice.
I Don't know how I'm going to handle the post season blahs this year. things are definitely on par with last year and last year was rather difficult to get through. i guess it'll be one day at a time. here's hoping that you, my friendly reader, have a better year. |
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