I Fight the DJ

Stories

2012-02-12T11:55:00.003-05:00


Tohono O'odaham Artist Unknown Tohona Chul Park collection http://www.tohonochulpark.org/wordpress/index.php

Successful litigators are masters at weaving stories and telling tales. I don't mean "stories" or "tales" as in what my aunties called "lies." Rather, we attempt to help the judge and/or jury understand and rule in favor of our clients. In order to do so, we must be able to relate the events and actions that led to the present case in a way that reaches others, both mentally and emotionally.

We learn that bit the first year of law school. Many of us chose law because we want to save the world, at least before the first day of class, because we are frustrated doctors who suck at chemistry, or because our undergraduate degrees left us without other graduate education options.

And some of us are natural story tellers.

I've never set a foot in court, and I'm not licensed to practice in any state, yet I love the law. I also love weaving a good story told over drinks or during a sunrise, through a blog, or in bed. My stories are not exaggerated truths. Neither are they peppered with lies. My life is exaggerated and honestly led.

I don't know that it means anything to lead an exaggerated and occasionally embarrassing life, a life that does not seem to be mellowing as I enter middle age. Maybe it means that this is who I am, and this is how I always will be.

I've spent enough time trying to hide my "wild" nature, my strange mind, and my geeky interests (Walter Isaacson's Jobs biography is sucktacular, BTW, and a great cure for insomnia). I own these traits or flaws and only wish that I were geekier.

And, so, despite the fact that I do not practice, I know how to weave a tale, and that tale weaving begins now.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

2012-02-10T05:30:00.005-05:00

Reveille occurred at Oh-three-hundred hours prompted by a full bladder. It was an unwelcome wake-up call, as the troops came close to mutiny the previous evening.

"Look, pretty kitties! I have a surprise for you," I announced while shaking the heart-shaped toy. They approached cautiously. "Is this an enemy trick? Sure she feeds us and releases us from confinement on occasion, but we are Troop Kitteh, and we do not fall for hoomin wile."

Lily, the bravest of the bunch, came closer, sniffed, rubbed her face on it, and turned away. Boop sniffed it, adopted a bored visage, and went about other important business like licking his tukas. But Princess, surely Princess who loves all things jingly, would be enticed. She hid behind some boxes.

Saddened that my present was rejected with the particular apathy only felines can muster (if they feel like mustering), I realized that I skimped on the catnip, at least for this group. I retrieved my knitting materials, and began to create something that might be pleasing to human and cat alike.

As I pulled the catnip from my knitting basket, the troops double-timed it back into The Room of Confinement and stared at the container of catnip. I stared at them, amazed by and wary of their moxie. And then, I caved, fearful of the damage they are capable of inflicting on both animals and inanimate objects.

I sprinkled catnip here. I sprinkled catnip there, and yet their appetite for catnip did not diminish but grew exponentially. They meowed. They swatted me with claws retracted, reminding me that should they so choose, they could claw up my head. They have tasted blood.

Catnip they wanted; catnip they received until they commandeered my bed and slept the sleep of drugged-up victors.

I quietly knitted another heart, determined to get it right this time.

Dad's Reply...

2012-02-07T19:29:00.000-05:00

Hi JNOV,

That's funny.
BTW, you can cash/deposit that check immediately.

Love, Dad

Dear Dad, One of the Many Things I Inherited from You...

2012-02-05T17:07:00.004-05:00

I like to people watch. I enjoy sitting outside and watching people walk by. I even "eyeball" sometimes. :-)

I'm waiting for the bus from AC to Pleasantville, and I'm watching the occasional person walk by. I'm in Bungalow Park, and most folks are watching the Superbowl pre-game show, and some are pushing babies in strollers following their helmeted older children riding bikes outfitted with training wheels.

A clammer is emptying its hull of water, and the sun is setting. The bilge is noisy, yet it's still peaceful here.

I enjoy being alone. Solitude gives me time to observe and not be the center of attention. I can think about others, like I'm thinking about you, and be happy.

At What Point Do You Just Back the Fuck Off? NOW!

2012-01-04T19:57:00.013-05:00

How do you negotiate an adult relationship with your child? I've been struggling with this question for the past ~30 years with my own parents, and now I find myself on the other side of the equation with my son.

My son is 22 years old. He is a college sophomore. Yes, he is older than most sophomores, but like many people, he needed a little more time to bake before being set free from the mold. I didn't want him to crumble.

Besides, I was 29 when I was a sophomore at the same school he attends, so, yeah, I'm not too distressed about his age. I was also divorced, had finished a six-year stint in the Navy, and he was six years old. At the exact age he is now, on this very week in 1989, I received a positive pregnancy test run by my friend in the lab. So, yeah. I think I know a little more about life than he does, but that notion is open to debate and discussion.

I had also pretty much raised myself and felt like an autonomous individual since I was 16, while my son lived with me until August 2011. Yes, he was away at school since Fall 2010, but at least we had the same address.

We no longer share an address because I am unemployed, I live in my aunt's unfinished basement, and my mother now claims my son as a dependent despite the fact that I try to provide for his basic needs through what I receive from unemployment compensation.

But none of that is the issue. The issue is: He no longer needs me.

(Jump!)

Does he need me? Of course he does, as I still need my parents. But he doesn't want to need me, and I am beginning to understand some of the crap I've put my parents through but on a much wider scale than what I'm going through with my own child.

I've been uncommunicative or occasionally communicative or gruntingly communicative with my parents for years. I have no idea how they dealt with it. I told myself that they didn't want to hear from me anyway, because they never seemed to want to talk to me when I was growing up.

I know that I went through a similar stage with my son; there were a few years where I was pretty much unable to do anything for myself, and he was my caretaker. I doubt he sees those years as I do, but one day he will.

Because of those years, and times interspersed where I just fucked up in general, when he needed a caretaker (even as an "adult" over the age of 18), I was pretty much fine with it. We have common symptoms of depression and mood disorders but not on the same scale or due to some of the same environmental causes.

But the genetic link is there.

I see him acting as a caretaker for his girlfriend, and I think, "Shit. I taught him to do this. Is it good? Bad? Neither? Am I envious?" I don't know.

The child who used to ask me questions about almost anything and everything is finding his own answers. That's good, right? Sometimes his answers don't meet muster with me, they don't jibe with mine, they seem flat fucking out wrong, but he's supposed to be independent of mind and allowed to make mistakes, right?

Or sometimes he might be right, and I might be wrong. Or we both might be right. Or neither of us is. I suppose the being isn't as important as the difference. I mean, I told myself that I didn't want to raise a clone, but maybe I did want to. And in thinking so, I inadvertently allowed him the freedom to tell me to back the fuck off.

We try to lovingly raise happy little people who will hopefully become autonomous happy big people, right?

Then why is it so hard to let go?

(At least I got him into AiC even if The Who and The Beatles didn't stick.)

"Where Do I Begin?" by The Chemical Brothers

2011-12-21T13:40:00.001-05:00

Dig Your Own Hole

Although We Haven't Eaten Yet, I Am Ready to Air Some Fucking Grievances

2011-12-17T00:30:00.002-05:00

Grievance #1: I come from a Blame Family. Something is always someone's fault except for the people pointing fingers at each other.

FAMILY -- sometimes crap is just crap without rhyme, reason, or blame. Stop wasting time blaming each other and maybe look for solutions to the issue at hand. Much more empowering, Folks.

(Jump, Baby! Jump!)

Grievance #2: Quit it with the fucking gossip, ESPECIALLY sharing everyone's medical conditions and sex lives. You don't understand WTF people have anyway, and you give out ridiculously bad information. If Cousin Ernie wants to talk about his polyps, fine, but let him choose whom to tell. No one cares who is fucking whom. Really. Get laid yourself and crow all day (and night) if you want.

Grievance #3: Stop pretending to know things you don't. There's nothing wrong or shameful about saying, "I don't know." It's even cooler to say, "I don't know -- let's find out." Kudos if you are able to have, "I don't know -- please tell me," cross your lips.

Grievance #4: STOP GIVING ME PARENTING TIPS! Last time I checked, things weren't going so well with your relationships with your offspring. Spend some time working on that shit, and then maybe we'll talk.

Grievance #5: STOP WORRYING ABOUT PEOPLE'S MONEY! Who cares how Cousin Ernie bought that car/guitar/tattoo/whatever? It's none of your fucking business unless he's stealing from you.

Grievance #6: Stop telling people what to do with their bodies! Until someone ties you down and tattoos you/dyes your hair/pierces your nipples/gauges your ears, SHUT THE FUCK UP! It is NOT YOUR BODY. Over 18 = legal body mod.

Grievance #7: Just because you call it "constructive criticism" doesn't mean it's not really destructive and nasty.

Grievance #8: Don't apologize unless you mean that shit. Really. No one is so stupid to think you mean it and that it isn't some transparent attempt at ending a painful discussion.

Grievance #9: STFU and LISTEN sometimes. You might learn something.

Grievance #10: Same-sex marriage is a motherfucking RIGHT. No, our young cousins with two moms don't look sad because they have two moms. Maybe they're just sad little kids.

Oh, I forgot -- the only happy kids come from "nuclear" families. Too bad you've all been divorced at least once. You guys put the "nuke" in families, BTW.

Grievance #11: (and last one of the day): Stop judging. Look inward. Reflect. Be honest with yourself. It's scary, but it's good.

Postcards from Hell or Emails from My Mother

2011-12-07T22:00:00.006-05:00

I can't remember the last time I received a postcard, but I sure as shit get some nutty emails from Mom. Keep in mind that she has been using email for at least 15 years, and she's a retired graphic designer.

Here we go:

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Hellloooooo!
Date:     November 29, 2011 6:58:34 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Do you have plans for December 9? I've agreed to participate at the Holiday Bazaar at [Shitty] City [Shitty] City Hall and would appreciate any help you can offer. I've got to get busy making stuff, but think I'll have enough to make a few bucks. I know you're busy as a handyman helper but if you want to sell any of your knitting you are more than welcome to do so.
Love, Mom
N.B. Please see comments following - I copied your style! [<-- Pay attention to this sentence]

On Nov 29, 2011, at 4:12 PM, JNOV wrote:

We bought the concrete today ( <$10, so no worries). It's good fine stuff, but if we see any rocks or crap, we'll sift it first I have to talk to [pervy dude], but if the weather forecast is correct, Sunday should be a nice day to put it down. Do you still have that Stanley (?) broom in the shed? If so, may I use it to clean out the hole before we put in the concrete. It's a good outdoor broom and should work well for this.
Okay.
Friday I go the VA for my extra mammo films. I should have an idea of what's going on before I leave. The appointment is at 1 PM. I'll call afterward and leave a message if you aren't home.
Thank you.
On Thursday, I'll send you a check for $50 for putting up [JNOVJr.'s GF] and [JNOVJr. for Thanksgiving]. I hope to have the other $50 next week or maybe sooner. I still haven't received my retirement money from the [Shitty State Job]. I'll try to remember to call them.
I'd rather have cash which you can give me whenever you see me.
Do you have any card stock suitable for business cards that you don't need and I could use? Nothing fancy. If not, we'll pick some up at Kinkos. I'm going to use their paper cutter anyway. This is a project for next week and not an immediate need.
Yes, I have card stock. FYI - they now sell it at Dollar Tree. I was shocked, so I bought some and it's not bad - will probably yellow sooner than the pricier stuff, but what the hay!
<3
JNOV
______________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Patching walkway and fixing foundation
Date:     December 1, 2011 8:21:08 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Okay - I'm having issues with e-mail. What time are you going to [Shitty City farther away] tomorrow for your study/appointment?
On Dec 1, 2011, at 7:18 PM, JNOV wrote:

Dearest Mom,

Is it okay with you if [pervy] and I come by on Sunday at 11:00 AM to fix your sidewalk and foundation?

Love,
JNOV
______________________________________________

From: JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell

Subject: Re: Patching walkway and fixing foundation

Date: December 2, 2011 4:10:57 AM EST

To: JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Good morning - it seems I can only "reply" and not create e-mail ... oh well. Have a safe and happy [HAPPY‽ I MIGHT HAVE BREAST CANCER!] trip - I am ever hopeful for a positive outcome. Please let me know what is determined from the first reading of the images.
As you see I'm awake - have so much on my mind and have not been able to go back to sleep. I'm going to sort out the craft room after I drink my coffee. Doing that will allow me to spend time this weekend getting ready for the show on 12/9. So happy that you helped me with the attic - now I know where all the Christmas supplies are - I still have things that need to be stored up there to clear the craft room but I'll put the heavy or cumbersome things in the guest room. [Bitch snowbird friend of hers] keys came so I was able to spend a little time in the workroom at [Bitch snowbird friend's rental property] yesterday - still have to go to the [dumb place] to get a few supplies - plan on doing that when I get off today. [Bitch snowbird friend of hers] had the good idea to "Christmas" some of our existing designs by simply adding greens and bows.
I am working at [local public school] on Monday and perhaps Wednesday too - after taxes I take home a whopping $53/day - gotta love it. My attitude is that it is a supplement to my "So-so-Security" and I'm spending so little on gas and not buying lunch that it's worth a lot more!
Did you find out if my cell phone plan [AARP scam] allows free calls from your [not much better] phone?
Corny little smile face, huh? [Um. Where?]
Love, Mom
p.s. I saw two hairline fractures in the foundation at the very back of the house - one to the left of my bedroom window and one between the back steps and the opening to the crawl space. There may be more around the house but I haven't checked yet. It's good you have the smooth stuff. Also need to "winterize" the openings to the crawl space with foam board. I bought some for that purpose at the Dollar Tree but used it for the [don't ask] posters - must remember to get more.
Damn I'm chatty this morning!

On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:21 PM, JNOV wrote:

I leave at 6 AM. My first appt is at 10 AM. The mammo films are at 1 PM. I'm going to ask for a wet read before I leave.

Love,
JNOV
___________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Questions because you're smart
Date:     December 6, 2011 6:22:36 AM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

On Dec 5, 2011, at 12:48 PM, JNOV wrote:

1. Do you think I can fill the washer with cold water and just swish the sweater around in mild soap (I'm thinking the soap I made), rinse it with more swishing, and spin it? Maybe dry it for 20 minutes on low heat and then air dry?
YES [Okay. Why is she yelling?]

2. Would you pack it up and make it pretty for me so I can mail it on Saturday?
YES [She reneged]

3. May I help you craft and pack your car on Thursday, arriving as early as you like, and go back to the basement? I promise to arrive as early as you like on Friday. Please know that I do appreciate your generosity and love by extending me so many kindnesses, but I need to be in the basement every night. I can explain more later, but the short of it is that [batshit great aunt] has truly gone off her nut.
YES, we will discuss details later.

I'll also bring some Christmasish yarn I have on hand and knit up some ornaments. They're easy and fast. I'll help you with yours, too.
GOOD

Words can't express the love and respect I have nor the joy I feel when you're happy.
SAME WITH ME AND YOU
JNOV

P.S. Might need to take a short hop to Michaels if I'm thinking I have yarn that I don't. I can't check right now, because I'm at the library, but I'll let you know when I get to the basement and check out my inventory.
OKAY - I HAVE TO GO THERE MYSELF [Reneged on this, too] - WE'LL COORDINATE, MAYBE TOMORROW - TRYING TO STAY HOME TODAY AND MAKE PROGRESS. PLUS I HAVE COUPONS FOR MICHAELS AND ACMOORE.
_____________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Are you interested ...
Date:     December 6, 2011 11:48:48 AM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Huh? Did I answer myself? [SMH]
____________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Tomorrow and Friday - Plans
Date:     December 7, 2011 5:33:27 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

On Dec 7, 2011, at 12:38 PM, JNOV wrote:

Hi, Mom --

Tomorrow: I have my yarn and needles together and a poinsettia I made last year as a model. I'd like to go to Michael's to buy tissue paper and a box for the sweater as well as a four or five balls of that cheapo yarn in Christmas colors. I also have some dish clothes we can try to sell for maybe 50¢ a piece.
ARE YOU SPENDING THE DAY THURSDAY IN [Equally Shitty City] OR [Her Shitty City]?
I BELIEVE MICHAEL'S OPENS AT 10, SO I'D LIKE TO PICK YOU UP AT 9:30. I'LL BRING THE SHIRT BOX AND TISSUE THAT I HAVE - I THINK I SAW IT IN THE ATTIC WHEN I WAS LOOKING IN THE GIFT WRAP CONTAINER - THAT WAY IF WHAT I HAVE IS SUITABLE YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPEND THE $. NOT SURE HOW OLD THE SHIRT BOX IS [Oh. My. God]. YOUR DISH CLOTHS ARE WORTH MORE THAN 50¢ EACH - I BOUGHT SOME 3/$10 MANY YEARS AGO. WILL DIG OUT THE BASKET AND ADVERT THAT I USED AT THE [dumb place she sells shit] - WILL BRING THAT WITH ME TOO SO YOU CAN EVALUATE.

Friday: What time would you like me to arrive? How long is the fair? What time do you think we'll be back and unpacked? Is it cold in there? I'll be wearing business casual.
THE EVENT STARTS AT 8 A.M. SO I SHOULD BE THERE BY 7:30 TO GET A GOOD TABLE IF IT'S FIRST COME-FIRST SERVED. IF YOU DON'T MIND GETTING OFF THE BUS AT [Shitty City Rock Star Road], JUST COME IN THE LOBBY OF CITY HALL AND LOOK FOR ME. NEVER SURE IF THE TABLES ARE ASSIGNED OR NOT. NEW GUY MANAGING IT THIS YEAR. YEAR-BEFORE-LAST I WAS SHOVED IN A HALLWAY LESS TRAVELED. WHENEVER YOU CAN ARRIVE IS FINE WITH ME - I KEEP THE $$ ON MY PERSON AND HOPE NOBODY DISTURBS THE BINS UNTIL THE CAR IS EMPTIED.

I'VE FOUND THE LOBBY TO BE COLD UNLESS WE RE IN THE FRONT WINDOW, THE SUN COMES THROUGH IN LATE MORNING/EARLY AFTERNOON AND IT CAN GET HOT. BUSINESS ATTIRE IS GOOD ALTHOUGH I HAVE A HOLIDAY SWEATER YOU MAY WANT TO WEAR, JUST TO GET IN THE SPIRIT, [I'm an atheist] OR YOU MAY WANT TO WEAR ONE OF THE CHRISTMAS PINS. [She knows I hate pins.]

Love,
JNOV
_____________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Tomorrow and Friday - Plans
Date:     December 7, 2011 5:56:18 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Please pardon the hell out of me! I thought it would be easier to read.

On Dec 7, 2011, at 5:51 PM, JNOV wrote:

WHY ARE YOU TYPING IN ALL CAPS? IT'S THE EQUIVALENT TO YELLING, HARD TO READ, AND UNNECESSARY (each reply text is given it's own color by MacMail or any other email client).
______________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Tomorrow and Friday - Plans
Date:     December 7, 2011 6:21:42 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Yes, understood - never expected to reply in more than one or two words - when I read the e-mail you returned to me with the interwoven replies it was difficult for me to tell who said what. A thousand pardons!

On Dec 7, 2011, at 6:18 PM, JNOV wrote:

You're the one that taught me that all caps are hard to read. ;-)
____________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Not to trouble you
Date:     December 7, 2011 6:26:04 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

Although it is impossible to judge without hearing your voice, it seems that you are under stress today. I don't want Friday or thoughts of Friday to add to any difficulty you are having. You are always welcome in my presence, but I want you to be happy too.

On Dec 7, 2011, at 6:19 PM, JNOV wrote:

Mom, I would like to work with you on Friday. Now, if you'd rather not work with me, let me know.

On Dec 7, 2011, at 6:01 PM, JNOVMom wrote:

Dear JNOV, If you'd rather not work with me on Friday it is not a problem. We can still go to Michael's tomorrow morning if you want, you can still look at what I have, not a problem. I don't want Friday to add stress to your life in any way. No hard feelings. Love, Mom
_____________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Tomorrow and Friday - Plans
Date:     December 7, 2011 6:29:00 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

On Dec 7, 2011, at 6:21 PM, JNOV wrote:

Are you going to address my questions/replies to your questions or fume?
__________________________________________

From:     JNOVMom@baneofmyexistence.hell
Subject:     Re: Tomorrow and Friday - Plans
Date:     December 7, 2011 7:10:42 PM EST
To:     JNOV@shitshouldIreadthis?.ugh

That was a joke.

On Dec 7, 2011, at 6:26 PM, JNOVMom wrote:

I am not fuming at all. I'm as placid as the lake of that name.

Uh huh.

On Dec 7, 2011, at 5:56 PM, JNOVMom wrote:

Please pardon the hell out of me!

________________________________________

I picked up the phone and called her.

Titty Update - We Don't Know, but We Think You're Okay or Watchful Waiting Is Crazy Making, and I Don't Need the Help

2011-12-07T19:25:00.001-05:00

Not my titties, but I'd take them, and the arms..not married, either.

Kay-O. My follow up mammo was a whopping inconclusive. w00t fucking w00t.

Mom, "So, if it's cancer, will you quit smoking?"

Dad, "Keep me updated on the situation."

Son, "Chirp."

I'll be having mammos every six months for two years.

So That Fun Post I Was Writing in My Head...

2011-11-23T22:02:00.002-05:00

Not my tits

It'll have to wait. Another year, another bad mammo. Today I received a letter telling me to call to schedule more films. Happy fucking holidays!

I Owe You a Post

2011-11-22T20:38:00.002-05:00

It'll be worth the wait. Trust me.

Until then, thank you for the visit.

Twitter is always a decent option: jnovjezebel

Love and all that good shit,

JNOV

Okay, I Really Didn't Because...

2011-11-21T21:18:00.000-05:00

You're kinda boring.

I Met a Tahrir Protester, and He Is Awesome

2011-11-19T21:17:00.008-05:00

(Not the kid I met)

I met a Tahrir Square protester last night. He’s 27 years old and studying in the states. When did he join the protest? When the government turned off his cell phone. There’s much more to the story, but yeah, that’s when the kids got pissed. (More after the jump)

His mother was marching before he was, and he didn't understand why she cared.

When a friend told him to check his land line because he would no longer have cell service the next day, he thought his friend was nuts. The next day, his phone had no signal.

When he wrapped his mind around the idea that the government was silencing dissent, even though he wasn't a dissenter at that point, he thought more about the role of government and his duty to others. Sure, it started with him being pissed about his phone, but that anger led to questions about limits on government power and what type of society he wants to live in.

He risked his privileged status as the son of a Supreme Court justice to fight for rights he didn't even realize he had. He became conscious of class issues in Egypt in a way he never had been before. He accepted the previous regime because he received benefits others didn't, and it was all he knew. But then he observed and really paid attention with a critical eye and joined with people with whom he would never have shared tea. He realized that he and others were lulled into complacency, because the poor always complained. Maybe their complaints had merit after all.

He learned about critical mass. He is determined that he and his friends won't allow the Muslim Brotherhood to take hold of his country. He camped in Tahrir Square. He cleaned it. He changed his life, but his mother led the way.

When we spoke last night, he beamed. He was incredibly proud that he played a part in such a monumental undertaking. He beamed when describing how the Copts created a human chain to protect the Muslims when they prayed, and the Muslims did the same for the Copts. I beamed with him and told him that when dictators are toppled and when occupiers leave, a vacuum is created. People vie to take power and will kill to acquire and keep it. He said that he and his friends would not let another oppressive regime take the place of the old.

I'm incredibly concerned. The military has started attacking civilians again in a blatant attempt to keep itself in power and to control and manipulate the upcoming elections.

The people won't have it. And many will die. Again, I'm certain his mother will lead the way.

I Walked Past Your Old House Today

2011-11-17T19:30:00.006-05:00

My god! Today it was cold and rainy and miserable out. That's the price you pay for Shore Living, and it's worth it.

I had to go to the courthouse in your old town to get something notarized. When I was leaving, I thought, "I know he lived around here somewhere, but where?" Then I remembered you saying, "If you pass the police station, you've gone too far." I remembered this information that you told me time and time again after I'd walked too far. So I turned around.

Your street is still lovely. Despite the rain, two guys dressed like the Gorton's Fisherman were power washing a deck. Farther down the street, I heard your voice tell me, "It's the second to last house on the left." And there it was.

I remembered your red jeep that used to be parked in the driveway. I remembered how you worked your ass off in Ocean City to buy that wonderful thing. I remembered how I begged you to remove the soft top, and you told me how difficult is was to put it back on. It was a bitch.

And I remembered you calling me one day -- the top was off. Let's go for a ride. I said, "This is the best Stones song ever," and we listened to "Gimme Shelter." When we rode in my old beater, we listened to The Spin Doctors. Yes, it's hard to exist.

I remembered working on math problems with you at your kitchen table. I remembered you telling me that my dread-locks, ahem -- more like long, wavy hair -- were blocking the page, so you brushed them aside.

I remembered your father, may he rest in peace, quite fondly talking politics with me and making me watch Casino with him. I remembered your little brother asking me if I'd go out with him once he turned 18.

You were 19; I was 27. I remembered wondering if this was wrong. Your mother had a clue that this could be wildly inappropriate, but as long as we were doing homework, it was okay.

I remembered your koopa shell necklace. I bought my son one in Santa Cruz. I also bought him one last year for his 21st birthday.

I remembered you inviting me to dinner at the country club -- I was too shy to accept.

I remembered visiting you up north when my cousin was in intensive care at Roger Wood. I remembered your frat house.

I remembered that I could not remember why we lost touch.

I remembered shooting paint balls at your neighbor's shed, and you made me stop, because it was wrong and we could get in trouble. I remembered you showing me how to play the basic rock beat on the drums and then going upstairs while I struggled with it due to performance anxiety (I MUST be perfect). I remembered you shouting down the basement stairs that I'd got it. I'd got it.

I remember you fondly, and I hope that you are well, Bright Point in My Life.

Thank you.

Keep surfing.

In Light of Recent Events...

2011-11-15T11:42:00.007-05:00

Now that I understand a little more about what you're going through, I think it's best that I give you some breathing room.

Please know that I've thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with you, and nothing would please me like seeing you in person again. But in light of recent revelations (you're still married and hope to reconcile with your wife), it would probably be best for you and your family if you and I stopped communicating unless you initiate it and want to have me as a friend, but not as a friend with benefits.

No, I am not looking to be more to you than a friend, but our history, such that it is, might preclude that possibility.

I don't think that true platonic relationships exist: There is always an undercurrent of sexual tension, even if it only emanates from one person.

Also know that I care deeply about you, and that's one of my reasons for pulling back. Another is that I need to protect myself. You say that "It's complicated." I couldn't agree with you more. The thing is that all interpersonal relationships worth anything are complicated. That's the nature of the beast known as friendship.

I will now, with much sadness and after some reflection, remove a potential complication: me.

I'll be around if you need me.

Hey, You -- Yes, You Know I'm Talking to You

2011-11-15T10:15:00.004-05:00

You hate me. You've hated me for a good year or so. I see that you're still lurking my blog from home AND from work.

Please, please, please give it a rest. Spying on your husband through my blog isn't going to save your marriage, and per your ultimatum, I haven't been in contact with him since (except when someone from your old area code was calling me at 3, 4, and 5 AM). Maybe you should try, oh, talking to him and not chasing him around the intertubes. I think that change in behavior might yield more concrete results.

If you are truly interested in what I write apart from hunting for tidbits that might reveal something about your husband, you're welcome here. Otherwise, your search will be fruitless and a huge waste of your time.

Letter to an Old Friend [UPDATED]

2011-11-14T16:29:00.009-05:00

Recently I reconnected with a friend I met at [Shitty] State University. (He might disagree with the "Shitty" part, but it was pretty shitty for me.)

We've been in touch through phone calls, emails, and chat, off and on since 1998 or so. Mainly off, and I can't remember the reason we stopped communicating about two years ago. Because I can't remember that reason, our disagreement was probably over something quite stupid.

We've been chatting for the past two days (I reached out to him), and we spoke on the phone recently. We're kind of hashing out our lives, especially since we're now both single for the first time since we were freshmen, and we're trying to decide how our relationship should proceed.

[UPDATE - just found out that he is NOT single -- has been separated for over a year, and would like to reconcile with his wife.]

Is it about sex? Is it about friendship? Those are my questions. When he stated that he wasn't interested in a relationship, I thought it best to try to define what we each mean by "relationship." Also know that I was an idiot and didn't realize how much he cared about me when we were in school. We've never even held hands, and 27 years later, we might meet in person again.

My email after the jump...

Subj: I think I missed something you wrote on AIM

When I wrote that I wondered if life had beaten the sweetness out of you, I didn't mean [at Shitty] SU. I meant all of the things you've been through since. In the past, you told me about some very painful things that had happened in your life, and sometimes when people mistreat us, we change in an attempt to keep ourselves safe, or we lose...hope in people.

I would never presume to speak for you -- I only know how people's actions have affected me. I learned early on that most people cannot be trusted. I carried that around with me for 30 some years, and it affected my judgment and behavior a[t] [Shitty] SU.

I was having a horrible time in general, and I made some bad choices. The reasons are long, boring, and pretty personal -- let's just say I was never a good judge of character, and I couldn't discern those who cared about me and those who meant me harm.

Once you confided in me that you had wanted me to be the first... . I wish I had been, but I didn't know how to love anyone, let alone myself, and I still struggle with self-hate. It's just easier to joke around and send you a picture of my [redacted] because -- I don't even know why. I mean, that was an odd thing to do.

I'm pretty broken, although I'm much better than one year ago or five or 25 years before today, but I still am not okay. I'm not looking for a relationship either, in [the] sense that you meant. I do want to get to know you, but I'm not looking for a boyfriend or anything like that.

I don't do relationships well. The only decent relationship I have in my life is with my son, and as he grows and becomes his own adult person, that relationship is changing. It should, and I'm glad that he's growing and learning and just being himself. He's a pretty amazing person, and he has taught me more about unconditional love than I've ever learned from my family.

I never expected to be married, and yet, I was married twice. I'm not sure why. I never wanted to depend on someone for my physical, mental, financial, or emotional well-being. I've always wanted to take care of myself and not have anyone boss me around, because my mother abused me, and I wasn't going to let anyone get close enough to hurt me again. Yet I ended up with two husbands who basically wanted me for sex, abused me, and that's kind of how my life seems to have always been.

I don't have a clear conception of self -- whom I think I am often depends on the reflection of me that I see in others. I'm trying to stop that thought process.

So why did I send you a picture of my [ugh] breast? Because that's really the only way I seem to know how to relate to men (with a few exceptions), and I knew that based on conversations we've had since we've grown up, it might get your attention. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't sent it, not because I hold some puritanical view of sex -- I don't -- but because I think it took us back to when you chatted with me on the sly and told me about personal things, and I did, too, but I think back then I decided, "Yup, he's just like the rest. I am a piece of meat to him."

[But] now, all I can remember is that sweet, shy kid, and I regret not getting to know you better before life whipsawed us even more. Not because I think we would have ended up together forever or anything like that -- I'm certain that I would have messed it up in some way (plus there is no way I was going to have 18 bazillion kids! ;-) ). I wasn't ready for someone to treat me kindly and with tenderness and caring. The funny thing is that [when] I've treated people that way, ... they've hurt me badly.

Often we behave a certain way hoping that the message will get through that we would like to be treated as we're treating our partner. Here's a silly example: I've always wanted someone to hold my face in his hands and look into my eyes and kiss me, so that's what I do -- I hold someone's face when I kiss them hoping they'll like it and do it back [to me]. Rarely does anyone hold mine. That might seem like a trivial thing, but it's little things like that that touch me in a place that isn't usually touched.

I have no idea why I'm writing all this. Maybe I'm trying to explain that you dodged a bullet. The timing was off, and while I'm still the same person in the sense that I am empathetic, I try to do the right thing (and often fail), I am a loyal and supportive friend, I do the best I can by my son, I forgive, I give, and I try not to take -- that's whom I am inside, that's whom I've always been, but my behavior doesn't always reflect that.

And then I copied and pasted part of this.

I don't know if we'll see each other, but I hope we continue to talk. He wrote a kind reply, one that I'll never share, but I'm hopeful that a friendship can rise from these ashes.

Four Interviews over Six Weeks

2011-11-14T09:58:00.001-05:00

with one company. Opened email this morning: I didn't get the position.
Yay me!

"My Poor Brain" -- Foo Fighters -- Still HIV Deniers? We Might Never Know

2011-11-12T14:26:00.009-05:00

I have serious issues with these guys and HIV denial, so I doubt I'll ever buy their music or attend a concert until they own up to their douchebaggery. Yes, the WBC counter-protest was nice and all, but Towleroad got it right: These fuckers need to make a public statement retracting the misinformation they quite publicly spread about HIV, the means of contraction, testing, and treatment. Silence on this life-threatening matter does NOT equal retraction or indicate that they have changed their misinformed opinion. If anything, it indicates a business decision to shut the fuck up and hope the issue dies a quiet death. Pun absolutely intended.

Their music speaks to me, or I would never have bought it in the first place. Because their art speaks to so many, they are indeed role models whether they want to admit it or not. If they were not role models, they never would have used the stage as an avenue to deny HIV in the first place.

WAKE THE FUCK UP, FOOS! People are dying and inadvertently spreading this disease and not getting treatment because of your idiotic and bogus claims. How much blood is on your hands? How much more do you want?

JNOV: HIV- as of October 2011, will be tested again in January 2012.

I'd Like

2011-11-11T16:44:00.002-05:00

to be
seen
as more than
a
piece
of meat.
But then
I worry
that I will become
invisible

I Am a Broken Fucking Person

2011-11-10T16:41:00.002-05:00

No matter how hard I try to hide
that fact
the fractures show.

Once you needed x-ray vision
to see.

Some did.

Now they glow
radioactive
in the dark
in the light.

Fix me?

Went to VA Benefits Meeting...

2011-11-10T16:22:00.002-05:00

then went straight to liquor store. I can't deal. Glad Blue Moon has twist off caps so one can drink in the public library bathroom.

Happy Birthday, USMC! Here's to you and all the lives the military has destroyed: vets, their families, the collateral damage abroad and at home.

Smokin' Joe Frazier Banned Me from His Gym and Later Invited Me to a BBQ

2011-11-08T22:09:00.003-05:00

I was sad to read that Joe Frazier died and that at the time of his death, he was living over his gym. The house I visited was modest by champ standards, and the apartment over the gym was pretty gross -- some of his boxers stayed there.

Why was I banned? Because Joe was a little confused.

A housemate of mine from Altoona was recruited by Joe. Great kid -- Kevin Fasick. Anyway, we were about the same age, maybe Kevin was a little younger, and he used to invite me to the gym. One day I finally went, and, well, I was nineteen, okay?

Lots of people kind of milled around and hung out and worked out, and it was something to do instead of going to class. Joe thought I liked his nephew or cousin or something -- there were a ton of guys he called kin who weren't. I *think* Marcus isn't his son son, but is related and maybe was adopted or something. I'm not sure about that, but whatever.

Marcus was the main attraction, and Kevin was being trained, and I met this guy I did like (who lived over the gym), but the guy Joe thought I liked I actually didn't like.

Joe got tired of seeing me there, I guess, was afraid I'd make babies with his nephew who already had several and wasn't a boxer or really doing much of anything that I could gather, and maybe Joe was a little tipsy.

He started cussing me out, grabbed me by the arm and threw me out the door, and told me to never come back.

When Joe Frazier gets in your face, even if he's wearing a suit vest, no shirt and drinking a wine cooler (really), you get the fuck out with the quickness and You. Don't. Go. Back. (Unless it's late and you sneak upstairs to see the guy you *do* like.)

The Honeymoon Is OVER

2011-11-07T18:23:00.008-05:00

Silly me to think that reconciling with my mother would be easy after a 13-month estrangement.

At first we tiptoed, floated around each other keeping enough distance so as to not jostle the other and to protect ourselves.

I was so busy being angry and then sad for the past year+ that it never occurred to me that this vacation from each other might give both of us a sense of relief. Not having to worry about the next barb shot over bullshit was comforting to us both. Being in contact was a source of anxiety. For both of us.

When we finally started to address our issues, she alternated between yelling at me and asking me how she could fix herself. For once, the yelling didn't bother me. Her requests for fixing did.

I told her that she is who she is, and that if she is happy with that person, that if it doesn't impede her life or relationships, that if she is happy, she doesn't need fixing.

I also told her that as long as she tries to impose her ideas and way of life on others, she'll be surrounded with passive people or those who act as echo chambers rather than sounding boards. If she wants to limit her interaction to those groups, then there's nothing to fix.

But if she wants to have real discussions with people, if she wants to see the world outside of her provincial and fundamentalist Christian lens, she needs to be open to people and ideas that vary from hers. I am one of those people, and I can't have a meaningful relationship with someone who isn't open to at least listening.

We also agreed to try to deescalate arguments before they became fights, to seek clarification. To communicate.

We were doing these things, awkwardly at first, but better through practice, and then she started describing things I did or said as "dumb." When I asked her to stop, she said I was being too sensitive.

Well, things have been deteriorating since. The questions I have to answer are: When do I give up? How much is too much? What do I need to change about myself? Is this relationship salvageable?
She needs to answer those questions as well.

When I left her today I said, "Mom, I don't like how I've been sniping at you on Saturday and today. This isn't the person I want to be."

I don't know who she wants to be, and she probably doesn't know herself. But that is her issue to handle. I have my own fixing to do.

Palin Blast from the Past - 2008 Trip to Philly in Pictures

2011-09-15T23:04:00.001-04:00

I took these at the Irish Pub in 2008 with my crappity BlackBerry (pleased to now be an iPhone devotee). Anyway, I thought someone from work outed me about my blog, so the pictures went poof along with the rest of my blog up to that point, but luckily, the Palin pics were cross posted at Stinque (thanks, Nojo). Without further ado...

Migrating from FB to Google+, but I Still Want diaspora*

2011-08-31T21:41:00.004-04:00

Great Fucking Movie! Shitty Experiment.

Since I joined FB, I've managed to friend or communicate with guys I had crushes on when I was 13 and dudes I left for no good or apparent reason in my 20s. Before FB, I always wondered what would have happened if I'd done something differently. Would we be married? Would he have gone to the prom with me? Would he have been my first kiss? Did he like me, too? Would he ever come to grips with alcoholism?

Well, I'm happy to report that I had no business having a crush on that guy (he was and still is a crap dude), and I did right to break up with that guy who married a Glenn Beck fan. Many other bullets dodged along the way, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Sometimes it's nice to know I'm not a total fuck up.

Touch Me

2011-06-25T14:48:00.008-04:00

I happened upon a bar, and after about an hour I realized that it happened to be a gay bar. I was then felt up at the gay bar, and my kid is laughing at me because I’m really confused because I was felt up. At a gay bar. By a gay dude. I’m not upset or offended or angry — just kinda confused. Okay, pretty bordering on really confused. And he had great hands. I was kinda like, “Um, am I fucking up the vibe in here? Should I leave?” [Written when I arrived home at 2:18 a.m.]

[This morning I'm asked how on Earth I didn't realize I was at a gay bar after being there for an hour]

It’s like this: I got off from work, and I didn’t want to hang out at home doing solitary shit like I always do. So I walked to the dive bar across the street. I like dive bars. This dive bar had a palpable insular vibe, so I left and walked a half block to this other dive bar that has a pretty outdoor area. I went in, got a beer, and sat outside. Being that it was a little after 5, the bar was virtually empty.

I sat outside and just kinda enjoyed watching people walk by, and I went in to use the facilities and close out my tab. While I was outside, a few guys came and introduced themselves to me, I met the owners, I mean, it was kinda cool, and, yes, I thought that some of them might be gay, but it didn’t matter to me. Even when the bartender mentioned a gay bar in the city (we were talking about meth problems), I still didn’t realize that I was at a gay bar, because it didn’t matter.

So, I thought I was on my way home, and I met two women, one with a really awesome sleeve. We talked some, and she introduced me to her girlfriend who didn’t like me much, and I was starting to think, “Wow. It’s cool that so many gay people are comfortable at this bar.”

Then I met two young guys, and we started talking, and then I met another bartender, and someone was like, “Honey, you are at a gay bar!” And I was like, “Okay — this is a happy turn of events for me, because I’ve always wanted to go to a gay bar, but I didn’t want to be a spectator, like it was some sort of anthropological study or some shit like that.” I never wanted to be like, “Oh, I think I’ll go to a Gay Bar this evening just to see what it’s like.” I don’t want to treat people like they’re curiosities or devalue them or not respect them, and I always thought that if I went to a gay bar just because I was curious, that would be wrong of me in some sort of Brave New World observer but not participant type of way. It’s hard to explain.

So, I finally got a clue because it was handed to me, and I was quite happy because I’d been there long enough to realize that I could be myself and not get hassled. I had really interesting conversations about what it means to be human and to live an authentic life in general, and some sort of veneer of posturing bullshit that I usually see in straight bars wasn’t there — for me, at least. That’s not to say that people weren’t checking each other out and all that, but I wasn’t on the table, so I felt safe. And I never lost sight of the fact that I was a guest in their house.

So, when this guy started rubbing my back, I was like, “Human contact is nice, and I miss it, and he probably does, too.” When he started talking about his straight life and kids and stuff, I started to wonder if maybe he was a guest, too, but I was pretty sure that he was a regular, but it didn’t matter all that much.

And then he started quite publicly rubbing my ass.

Okay. I wouldn’t have put up with that in any other bar, but I let him because I was not sure how to handle it, and it felt nice, and I was somewhere were public touching wasn’t verboten, and that was nice. But I was pretty confused, and I could tell that his friends were not happy about what was going on. I didn’t know if I should leave or tell him to stop or I don’t know what all, because I liked it. I liked it. But I also didn’t want to get tossed or behave inappropriately for that scene or lose what seemed like the first welcoming community I’ve found since I moved here.

Fuck.

So, the rubbing went on for I don’t know how long, and then he got all protective of me because he thought some sketchy dude he knows was giving me the stink eye and might follow me when I left (I think that was all in his mind, and if anyone was getting the stink eye, it was him). When he reached for my crotch, I excused myself.

His friends took him home, and I sat there for awhile trying to figure out what the fuck just happened and did I do anything wrong and why did I let him do that and did I blow my chance to find a community of people who accept me because I was being selfish or lonely or vain or something. And did I damage this guy who came out later in life but might still miss parts of the straight life he led?

Did he just want to know that he’s still attractive to men and women? It’s not like sexual preference makes you blind to beauty or makes you not want to be noticed, even if the person who is looking at you isn’t sexually attracted to you. Beauty is beauty (and I’m not talking about only physical beauty), and it’s a sin not to acknowledge it, so Sug says.

One of butt rubber’s friends stayed behind and told me that he thought that this guy realized that I was safe — that human contact is so important, and if he touched me, there’d be no expectation of anything else following later like there might be if he had been touching a man. He told me that maybe right then and there, he just needed to connect with someone and that they realized from the beginning that I am safe and that, yes, while I am a guest, I’m a welcomed guest.

I dunno. I’m less distressed about his behavior than I am about mine.

Why did I let him do that, and why am I so fucking conflicted about it? I wish I knew. And should I go back?

[This afternoon - after even more reflection. I hope this reflecting shit ends soon.]

All of this, “I didn’t notice it because it really didn’t matter” isn’t accurate or true. I assumed that I was at a straight bar. I’ve never used the descriptor “straight” before because straight is the default just like white is the default and male is the default.

I just came home from the farmers’ market where I ran into the last person I spoke with at the bar. He told me to go back. I probably will.

You Just Press On

2011-06-19T22:49:00.002-04:00

Wow. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because it's Father's Day and I haven't seen my father in three months and my son hasn't seen his in maybe three years. I can't remember when he was around last.

Maybe it's because I am profoundly lonely. I don't know. I mean, people say that loneliness comes from within as if there's something you can do about it. Like it's some sort of personal defect and if you were just Okay with Yourself, You Wouldn't Be Lonely; Therefore, If You Are Lonely, You Are Not Okay.

Like many clichés and platitudes, I just kinda accepted that The Loneliness Cliché was based on some deeper truth I was too young or dull-witted to understand. Well, I'm not so young anymore, and I think that it's just a stupid fucking saying that has only served to minimize a real feeling. On some level, we are all alone.

Another trite saying is that we are born alone and we die alone. That's not exactly true, either. We're born, and unless our mothers squeeze us out unattended in some wilderness and then immediately die, we are not born alone. Most of us do not die alone in the sense that there are usually people around us. Hopefully family can comfort us and each other as we die. Some of us will die under hospice or hospital care, but unless we're out in the wilderness (again), we usually don't die alone.

That's not to say that the experience of birth and death aren't unique to the individual and aren't things that we each face alone. We are alone in our thoughts and fears and hopes when it comes to pondering death, BUT birth and death are also things that should bind us more tightly than any other experience we'll have, yet they don't.

Maybe we're too self-absorbed to recognize that we all die, but we don't want to. Maybe if we kept that thought in the front of our minds we wouldn't be able to harm each other easily. Or maybe we'd pause before we did.

I don't know what it is, but I'm not lonely because there's something wrong with me; I'm lonely because I'm alone.

"How Can I Turn the Other Cheek? It's Black and Bruised and Torn..."

2011-06-19T15:52:00.003-04:00

"I've been waiting since the day that I was born... ."

~ O My God

Religion truly fucked me up. I mean, it fucked me up to the point that I think I'm never going to get over its effects.

I think about it all the time. I can't help but think about it, and when I do think about it, I usually don my grouchy pants.

I hate my grouchy pants. They are way too constricting. I wish my life were never imbued with this nonsense, and I wish I weren't angry about how, despite the fact that I've been an atheist for almost 20 years, my life is still affected by my exposure to religion.

You can't fucking escape it. Read the paper, and some nutjob policitican is using religion as some excuse to do something shitty or to believe something else equally ridiculous. Someone's religion colors everything that affects us, even if we don't subscribe to that belief system.

People have always and will always fight over resources if those resources or scarce or if we've been convinced that there isn't enough to go around. The truth is that there is enough to go around, but resources are poorly distributed. Slap a religion, race, ethnicity, creed, color, sex, gender, nationality or whatever you want on that struggle, and you have a war of the mind, heart, and too often, of the hands.

Religion is bad.

Sometimes I think about you, and I wonder how you are

2011-06-12T01:04:00.004-04:00

There's a parade of people who come and go in each of our lives. Some stay longer than others. Some leave and never return. Some return on occasion, and it's as if all of the intervening days, months or years never existed, and you pick up where you left off, and then you lose touch again. In those relationships, time never matters.

I don't know what type of friendship we had. I don't know if we'll ever have one again. I don't know if it ever was healthy. I don't know how I feel about you or what I think about you, because both change over time. And change again, and again.

I'd like to believe that underlying it all, we did have a good relationship based on something, but I can't put my finger on what that something was. Because I can't even sort out my own self, I wouldn't ever attempt to try to sort out your thoughts or feelings about the friendship we had or how you feel about how it ended.

Just know that the time we had together – time spent in physical proximity and over the phone or internet – that time is still important to me, even if that time included a portion of pain. I don't think a person can have a human relationship worth anything that doesn't involve some sort of pain. The more important the relationship, the greater the potential and, sadly, resulting pain, I suppose.

So, know that I think about you from time to time. I wonder how you are. I wonder how last year went. I wonder where you'll be in the fall. And I'm proud of you.

The 9th Ward, June 2010

2011-01-23T22:00:00.011-05:00

Here

2011-01-23T21:18:00.002-05:00

Sometimes
I wonder
how I arrived
Here.

I
don't
know

Why Do People Suck?

2010-07-12T22:20:00.008-04:00

N.B. Present company excluded from post title. Also note well that I'm going to rehash some stuff I've complained about before, so if you're tired of my shit, please feel free to stop reading now.

I suppose we all develop different coping strategies and defense mechanisms to deal with pain, suffering, I don't know, just the general state of the world. For the past 30 years, my attempt to avoid pain worked reasonably well. It wasn't great, but it kept people at a distance; it gave me the illusion of some sort of control over not necessarily what happened to me (I can't control that so much), but I was able to exercise some sort of control over how I reacted to pain.

My mother started abusing me on a pretty regular basis when I was about eight years old; the physical abuse continued for ten years. The emotional and psychological abuse continue still. I'm not comfortable going into a whole lot of detail, but let's just say she almost killed me once, and she never misses a beat when she has an opportunity to try to hurt me now, her wayward godless hell-bound daughter.

The thing is, when I was 13, I decided that I would no longer cry when she beat me. I told her so. I've got this weird thing where I have almost total recall of almost all conversations, so most of the quotes I ever write here on the board are pretty much verbatim.

She was about to beat me for something -- that I don't remember because she never really needed a reason. Maybe I left a fork in the sink. Maybe I didn't wash a glass or rinse one out -- something about the sink sets her off, even to this day.

When the abuse began, I developed some sort of OCD response to try to keep myself safe, because I never knew what was going to set her off. I developed mental checklists/rituals: carpet vacuumed, dishes done, nothing sticky on the kitchen floor, bathroom clean, TV not warm to the touch (I wasn't allowed to watch TV if I was home sick. I used to miss, on average, 20 days of school a year), milk in the fridge (if I drank the last of the milk without replacing it, she'd lose her shit). Anyway, from the outset I knew I was in peril, and I was helpless. I tried to reach out to my father (he left when I was five), and all he'd say is, "Your mother had a rough childhood, JNOV." She did.

So, I'm living with a walking fucking time bomb, and even if everything on the ever-growing checklist was completed, I still never knew what was going to happen when she came home.

So, that day when I was 13, after I stripped down for the beating and laid across the bed, I told her, "You can beat me, but I'm never going to cry again. Put a bag on my head and beat me." I'm not sure what I meant by the bag thing.

She wailed on me. I didn't cry. And ever since that day, when I realized that I was able to suffer in silence, I pretty much stopped crying. Maybe I'd cry twice a year, but it wasn't that real headache inducing wailing stuff. Usually it just felt like something was stuck in my throat. Eventually, I choked it down.

The real kicker to this whole thing is that she was following a Biblical directive by beating me. She should not spare the rod. I suppose I was spoiled. I knew on some level that what she was doing was wrong, but I also internalized it and thought I deserved it.

If I didn't deserve it, then why didn't Jesus make it stop? I prayed for it to stop. My entire childhood was a plea to God for this to stop. I figured I wasn't praying correctly, and I developed a checklist for my prayers:

1. Address God politely: Dear God/Heavenly Father/Lord Jesus

2. I am a sinner

3. I am not worthy of Your Grace

4. Thank You for dying for my sins/for suffering on the cross/for being abused when You lived a perfect life/for being the perfect sacrifice

5. Jesus/Heavenly Father/God, I need Your help

6. Please come into my heart and save me from hell/damnation/hell on Earth

7. Please make this pain stop

8. Please rescue me

9. If the answer to my prayer is "No," I'll try to understand because You know all. Thy will be done.

10. In Jesus's name I pray, Amen

That checklist didn't keep me safe. I figured I lacked faith or Jesus didn't love me, even though the Bible told me so. Or maybe I wasn't worthy of God's Grace -- so unworthy that His Grace was being withheld even though I did everything, I mean everything, I was taught to do to be saved -- saved spiritually, emotionally, physically. God/Jesus/Heavenly Father either ignored me or said, "No."

So, I don't cry. If I can't let you in, you can't hurt me. I'm tough. I don't take shit from anyone. Fuck off and die if you can't deal with me. I will never be a victim again. Oh, what? You snuck in somehow and singed me some? No worries. I'm going to get you back and then some, and letting you in was MY FAULT for trusting you because you are not safe.

I have not felt safe since I was six years old. Never. I'm constantly on alert, always on guard, quick to strike without thinking. I push people away. PTSD.

I don't ask for help unless I think that asking you for help means you'll do something I don't feel like doing myself. Manipulation. Life is a fucking power play, and I want all the power because I was powerless for so long. Change the rules, change positions. Fuck over or be fucked over. That's how you keep yourself safe.

That's really no way to live, at least not for me. I'm not like that, and don't want to be like that, but I behave like that because it's all I know. All I want to do is be safe.

In an effort to be safe I have never felt love. My son aside, I have never been loved. Sure people say it, and maybe they mean it at the time, but damn if they don't lure me into almost feeling safe and then they do me dirty. And then I blame myself for trusting. Self-loathing adds to the pain.

So, I recently did something stupid. I made a conscious decision to try that love thing again. It didn't turn out well. Okay, it turned out to be one of the worst experiences of my life, and I'm still reeling. I'm mourning, I'm trying not to beat myself up, I'm trying not to have a personal pity party (I'm tough, right? Haha). I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I allowed myself to hope. I expressed hopes and fears and joys that are so personal that I didn't even realize that they were in me until I articulated them. I was wary, but I thought I was finally safe, and I was willing to give it a shot. I mean, I don't want to die without knowing what it feels like to be loved.

Well, yeah. I still don't know what that feels like. I was talking to a friend of mine (I'm finally learning how to reach out and ask for help), and I said, "[Friend], I will never know what it feels like to be loved by a man." [Friend] said, "Yes. I know."

Obviously, we don't *know* that for sure, but based on my experiences so far, that kind of looks like how it's going to go for me. I thought I'd made peace with it. Apparently not.

I'm not talking about growing old with someone or the fear of dying alone. Sure, those things do run through my mind at times, but all I really, really want is to know what it feels like to have someone love me without me pretending to be someone I'm not. I suppose that's part of the human condition and not something that's unique to me.

But GODDAMMIT IF THIS SHIT DOESN'T HURT! It snaps me right back to my childhood and to every time I chose wrong and fucked up and trusted and got burned.

So, I'm looking for that silver lining. I'm no longer afraid to cry. It's not a sign of weakness or defiance, and despite this killer headache I've got, it's kind of nice to just fucking cry. It's also kind of nice to *admit* very publicly that I'm fucking crying. Maybe that means I won't be so hard-hearted and cruel and mean and vindictive, not only to others but also to myself. Because every time I lash out at someone, I'm hurting them, and I'm also hurting myself because I am NOT LIKE THAT.

I'm pretty sure I'm not like that. I know I don't want to be like that. I understand why I've become like that, but deep down inside, there's just this scared, traumatized kid that used to like to stare at the Lilies of the Valley on our fence and wonder why they wouldn't ring like tiny bells when the winds blew.

Tenuous Grasp on Semblance of Sanity

2010-07-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

My hands are weak.

We Are Water

2010-07-11T06:23:00.007-04:00

We had a breeze here last night. The porch was cool, and the recent rains had yet to evaporate. The grass was wet; I could smell the loam and the vermicast. The air smelled damp, distinctly different from times when the sky is clear, yet I could feel and smell the approach of pregnant clouds.

I don't feel it like the arthritic. I don't ache and rub my knee and fear the oncoming deluge. Instead I sense that the air is changing. I look toward the western sky to see if it has begun to darken. It never has, but I know it will. I'm expectant.

Scientists seed clouds. They chose that word because during times of drought, they're farmers of the sky trying to coax nature into action so it will nourish the earth. What they don't understand is that the sky is a woman. They can't sense when she's ripe, yet they try to impregnate her and harm her and induce premature labor. The earth, the mountains, the valleys, the streams aren't Mother Earth; Mother Earth is the ocean. The terrain above sea level, our kissing cousin, always returns home. The canyons and life below, our siblings and progenitors, wait for our return. We forget from whence we came.

We come from the sea and eventually we become one with the sky as our bodies desiccate, the moisture slowly released into the earth or up to the heavens through the mortician's drain, a green burial, a Sanskrit cremation - eventually we return to the sky and fall as rain. "Ashes to ashes..." should be "water to water..." We don't come from ashes; we come from the sea, and we fall as rain on our children's faces, as snowflakes on their tongues.

Elightenment

2010-07-10T23:42:00.007-04:00

Haha! You’re comical!
You think you can hurt me with your words
Hateful?
Feral?
You loved my claws on your back last night

You’re a fool
You’re afraid
And you have no idea who I am
Worse yet, you have no idea who you are

You groomed me
You told me you were safe
You bided your time
Before you struck

You struck me full force
Fist clenched
Teeth bared in a twisted smile
But your arm is weak
Your will is weaker
You will be my bitch

How can you hurt me with your words when

He told me I fucked niggers
And tried to slit my throat
He told me I’m a whore
And tried to break my skull

She told me she should have aborted me
Had she known how I’d turn out
She told me at 16
She told me at 17
But the second time kind of lacked that certain punch

Repetition is boring
And you’re not original

You tell me I’m hateful
You didn’t mind it last week
When I defended you
Because you were too chickenshit to defend yourself

And now I ask for one thing only
I ask you to think

Why you do what you do
Why you like what you like
Why you hate what you hate
Why you think what you think
Why you say what you say
Why you hide what you hide
Why you show what you show
Why you loathe yourself

You globetrot trying to heal the world
You thrive on solving conflicts
But internal conflict scares you shitless
And you do not know why
You may never know

Gaze into that navel
See what you might find
Among the dirt and the grime
You may find your true self

But you’re a coward
You’re unaware
You laser in on others to avoid your own pile of shit

I tried to unburden you
To show you that there isn’t much distance between
The man you are
And the man you hope to be

Enlightenment eludes you because you will not try
You are not honest with yourself
How can a liar heal the world if he won’t admit he’s wounded?
You spread your disease

I scare you
I’m your mirror
But you don’t have the balls to look

©2010 JNOV

Hollow Earth, Hollow Head

2010-07-10T22:56:00.007-04:00

I yearn to connect
I reach for you
And I fall

Into the center of the Earth

You have many names
I reach for you
And I fall

Into the center of the Earth

I dream to stand on peaks
To see with monks’ eyes
You take me to the precipice
Promising sight
And then you release my hand

I lose my footing
And I fall

Into the center of the Earth

Vertigo
Nausea
My body rejects what my heart and mind want
They know I’m in peril

That I will fall

I want to see
But I’m intentionally blind
Your motives are hidden and known
And yet I reach

And I fall

You abandon me
Immobilized
Dizzy
Terrified
Confused

You sweetly shove me with kisses
And I fall

I fall into the center of the Earth

I fear
I yearn
I ignore
I forgive

I believe
Someone
Somewhere
Will catch me
One day

When I fall

Trusting
Dreaming
Feeling
It’s a fool’s game

And I leap into the center of the Earth

I forever reach
Not grasping
Trying to touch
Ephemeral wisps
Of you
With my fingertips

If I didn’t reach
Why should I live?
I’ll burn in the center of the Earth

©2010 JNOV

My Dream for You, As You Sleep...

2010-07-03T23:50:00.003-04:00

I think of you
and wonder what you're dreaming
Absinthe?
Fireworks?
Or do you think of what you have
What you had
And all of those things in between

My dream for you is to be free
Unencumbered by the past
Free from fear
Free from The Committee and
Free to live

You give all and take little
Yet you are owed a debt
Of gratitude
Of love
Of compassion
Of understanding

Are you different?
Yes
No

Are you understood?
Yes
No

Are you loved?
Yes
No -- but your harshest critic is yourself

Fire The Committee
They repeat all you've heard since you were small
They tell you you don't deserve to be loved
They tell you you're a failure
That your efforts will never matter
They tell you you're alone

But they're background noise
Useless chatter
Listen to the ones who know you
And love you
And believe in you when you don't believe in yourself

Are you loved?
Yes
Forever

Now, get to work

© 2010 JNOV

Once Upon a Time, I Was a Runaway...

2010-03-14T18:58:00.007-04:00

Things were kind of crappy at home. My mother had just given birth to my baby brother, my stepfather had been arrested and jailed, my mother went to live near his prison which was located in another state, and I moved in with my father. It was the first time I had lived with my father since I was five years old when my parents had separated.

My stepmother didn't like me so much, and I was 16, a tough age for everyone, and things at my dad's house weren't going so smoothly. My father and I had a fight the night I came home late and drunk and deflowered by some dude whose first words after the deed was done were "Don't tell [redacted]!"

Don't tell [redacted]?!?! I had no idea he was dating [redacted]. Surprise, surprise, surprise. So, I walked "home," only to be greeted by my father who then read me the riot act for being out so late. Oh, and he told me to vacuum the living and dining rooms when I got up the next day.

So, I got up, vacuumed and went to work where "Don't tell [redacted]" AND [redacted] also worked with us. [Redacted] had heard bits and pieces about the party we had the night before, uh, minus the sex business, and she wanted to hang out. I called my father and told him I'd be home by midnight, and he told me to come home right away and bitched me out for not vacuuming. O_o

Needless to say, I didn't go home. Instead I wandered around West Philly trying to wrap my head around recent events:

My stepfather was an incarcerated felon
I had slept with some dude thinking he was my boyfriend (or would be)
Sex wasn't nearly all that it was cracked up to be (my opinions about sex have since changed)
My dad called me a liar
There was no place for me in this world (yes, I've got the melodrama bug)

My best friend at the time lived on a block called "Little Osage." There were tons of other kids in the area, and we all knew each other through interconnected webs of schools, parental friendships, through siblings and households where we'd congregate. One such place was a porch in on Little Osage across the street from my best friend's apartment.

I used to see the other kids hanging out there, but I didn't really know them. I was too shy to go over and introduce myself, and they seemed to be kind of insular and not really interested in having someone new join their group. But on that night that I didn't have a home, I mustered the courage to approach them and ask for help.

Sitting on the porch was a kid named Jon. Jon was blond before he decided to shave his head. :-) He'd been going at it with a razor blade until his nicked-up scalp was too much for him to bear, so his sister helped finish the rest. Jon, who didn't know me from Eve, said I could come stay at his house. So, off I went.

I didn't know Jon well, but there are several things about him that I'll never forget. In no particular order:

Jon loved punk. I mean loved it. I had no idea what those folks were screaming about, but I figured it was some secret language that I might understand one day if I was lucky.

Jon smoked. We were both 16, and if I recall correctly, Jon smoked Marlboro Reds. In his room. At his mom's house. That blew me away. I was equally blown away by the fact that he wasn't the least concerned about how his mother would react when she found out that he'd brought some girl home, and I was worried. But he was cool. So was his mom.

Jon would not share his drugs, but it wasn't due to selfishness -- Jon didn't want me to get hooked. Up until that point, I'd been drunk once (uh, the night before), and I'd smoked pot. I don't know what Jon was on, but he seemed to know that it had him by the throat, and he wasn't going to introduce someone else to the personal hell of addiction.

Jon loved. I was only at his house for a few days. His mother had a friend who was an attorney, and we discussed whether or not I could petition the court to be emancipated and win. The answer ended up being "not likely." There was also the issue of Jon's mother possibly getting in trouble if she was found to be harboring me. I didn't want to involve her and her family in my nutty life.

So, I called my dad. My mother had driven up from Virginia to get me. Dad didn't want anything more to do with me. I said good-bye to Jon and his mother and went to meet my parents far from Jon's house so no one would get in trouble.

Jon was loyal and trustworthy. So, yeah. What 16-year-old kid with an addiction problem is loyal and trustworthy? Jon was. I used to cat sit for folks in the neighborhood to earn some extra cash. Problem was, I was about to be states away from my charges. The cat people were coming home in a matter of days, and Jon agreed to feed the cats for me until they returned. The last time he fed them, he slipped the key under the door.

I'm not so sure why I've got Jon on the mind today. In November I found out that Jon committed suicide in 2006. I'd called Jon when I was living in Virginia, and I remember speaking to his mother. She told me that Jon liked me. I liked him, too. But somehow we slipped through each others' fingers.

People who knew Jon well -- people who knew Jon better than I ever did -- planted a tree and placed a plaque next to it in Clark Park. I'm going to find that tree, and I'm going to try not to think of all the lost opportunities and the failures and the sadness and the general fuckedupedness of this fucked up world. Fuck!

Random Moments of Beauty

2010-02-06T09:51:00.002-05:00

I kind of suck, and I kind of don't

2010-01-28T14:29:00.006-05:00

Well, I'm still working on this dress. I had the front finished, but I'd been using the Continental technique, and my stitches weren't perfectly uniform:

so, I ripped the whole thing apart last night and started over (top photo is where I'm at now).

That's the thing about knitting, and I guess life, too: You have to be willing to say, "This isn't right. I don't like it. I'm going to fix it," so I'm about fixing it right now.

I had my unemployment hearing today -- I did the best I could, and I'll find out in a week how it went. No matter how it goes, I feel pretty good that I gave the best showing possible.

That's the news! Huzzah!

So Sorry -- Still Carzy Busy

2010-01-26T10:57:00.003-05:00

Sorry -- Busy. Doing Stuffs

2010-01-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Your Morning Dose of Loop

2010-01-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

This is baby alpaca wool from Peru (did I show you this already?). I imagine a bunch of very happy little alpacas loping along, jumping, playing and spitting and doing their alpaca thing in the highlands along the Inca Trail; I have a fertile imagination. And then they happily allow themselves to be sheared for this cool wool. I love working with this stuff!

On deck I've got to finish a dog sweater (yes, another one, but this one is easy -- it's for Precious for those of you who frequent RfM). I've got a 4T dress to make from that Egyptian cotton I showed you yesterday, and I'm making a kick-ass men's sweater from this yarn. I hope to have all three completed by Friday.

Happy Happy! Joy Joy!

Yarn Porn

2010-01-23T14:30:00.001-05:00

Egyptian cotton -- there's nothing like it!

Relief! I'll Be Brief.

2010-01-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

Not only did Jr. remain awake and alert for the section he tanked last time, he friggin' completed it! Hurray! Now, I must take to my bed, for this stress has triggered a migraine. Oy!

Okay -- I'm Officially Freaking Out!

2010-01-23T11:59:00.005-05:00

I go pick up JNOVJr. in 30 minutes. So what have I been doing for the last, oh, 24 hours? Freaking the fuck out! I mean, majorly.

JNOVJr. was rather composed this morning when I dropped him off at the testing center, or maybe he was still asleep. Who knows? Maybe he fell asleep on the SAT again. Who knows? No one knows right now, so I'm freaking the eff out. Big time.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA! AIEEEEEEEEE! MOFO! <-- That's my version of primal scream. So, yeah. I'm all freaked out, but soon it will be over, and all we'll have to do is wait...the waiting is the hardest part.

Your Morning Dose of Poop

2010-01-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Oh, c'mon! Don't act shocked. You knew it was coming -- I was running out of things that rhyme with "Boop," and my alliterative skills were waning as well. At least the cats bury their shit. Sheesh.

Well, I'm about to take Jr. to sit for the SAT. Huzzah! Let's get that boy in school and out of the house! For reals.

No, let's get that boy out of the house and exercising his ginormous brain -- that's the truth. I hope he knocks this test out of the park. He's got the skills. He's had the preparation. He's in prime condition, so I hope he kicks this test's ass.

BTW, there is a stronger correlation between how many bathrooms you have in your home and your SAT score than there is between how well you perform in college and your SAT score. Just putting that out there.

Enjoy the day! MWAH!

Your Morning Dose of Overexposed Boop

2010-01-22T09:17:00.005-05:00

Boop. Ratty Pendleton blanket. Catnip. Broken leg. You know the drill.

Well, my unemployment hearing file contained nothing from my former employer. Curious. So, I've got a game plan, and I might have a chance to prevail at my hearing as long as I don't choke. There's always that.

Tomorrow will be a regular day -- no LDS bashing this week. I have a lovely sweater I'm working on, and I'll show you pictures of it as I make progress. Here's that dog sweater -- all I have to finish is the chest panel, assemble it, and ship it off to my friend who will take professional pictures of it on her pupster. Then I'll post those pictures to Etsy, and hopefully some will sell. This sweater was a bear to complete, mainly because of the faux cabling. Let's see if we can get a good picture up instead of those crappity ones I've been posting.

I still have to weave in the ends after I've assembled it. I wish her dog weren't so big. Sheesh. But I'm sure she'll do amazing things with this sweater if it fits! We've run into that sizing problem before.

So, have a great day. I'll check in later when I need a break.

MWAH!

Why I Fight the DJ Wins!

2010-01-21T13:19:00.014-05:00

First and foremost, you gotta go to Bo Bartlett's site and check out his work. He is a phenomenal artist, and while he's not a native son of The City of Brotherly Love, he did study at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was Andrew Wyeth's protege and neighbor in Chadds Ford, PA, and Bo is just an all-around nice guy.

This picture is his painting, "Goddess," lifted off his site, and I hope I don't get hit with a DMCA take-down notice, because this is the best. painting. ever. I also love this one and this one. I love Bo. A lot.

Hokay, so now that I've hopefully sung enough praises of Bo that I won't get slapped down by his lawyers, I'm going to give you some background on why I fight the DJ and how it all started.

Once upon a time, I was a commenter at Jezebel, and I used to lurk Wonkette. Megan Carpentier [Ed. - Ugh. Air America went under this afternoon. Shit.] used to post as the Anonymous Lobbyist until Gawker (Nick Denton's blog ~~empire~~ sweatshop) got her to go all public and out herself.

She wrote for Jezebel and Wonkette, and did a damn fine job (warning, graphic pictures of real life), and then she was unceremoniously fired. A bunch of Wonkette commenters (Homofacist's Army) went on strike (three years ago), and we and Megan moved to Cynics' Party (don't bother clicking unless you want to see dead air space).

There's a lot of disagreement over whether the commenters make the blog, or whether the posts make the blog, and I'd say it's both. Many times commenters are taken for granted, and often (at least in the Gawker universe) commenters say, "Fuck you!" and leave for other sites.

Things at Cynics' Party were good. Good stuff started happening for Megan, and people got busy, which is good. No one at Cynics' Party was being paid. The posts slowed down to a painful drip, but people gotta eat, right?

So, Cynics' Party started to blow up or break down or whatever, and Nojo, tech maven extraordinaire, kept CP up and running (for free!) while keeping his day job, and an interesting thing happened at Cynics' Party -- we commenters became a community. Threadjacks were not only allowed but encouraged, and some of us have met in real life. FSM knows I wouldn't still be here if it weren't for the love, support and encouragement I've received from that online community.

So, yeah -- Cynics' Party started to blow up in a bad way (comments were disappearing, all manner of weirdness was happening), and two of the original bloggers (not Megan), came back after a long winter's nap and started acting all insane. They didn't want any more threadjacks, they wanted to shake up the blogger line up, and they posted the dumbest podcast I've ever heard.

Soooo, there was this big fight, and another commenter exodus ensued mainly because the site sucked ass in the sense that the mechanics of it were all dicked up, and we had evolved into something more than just a blog, and all that was about to change thanks to our absentee overlords (not Megan).

Sooooooo, off we went to Stinque, which is where we now reside. Stinque is *awesome*, and, as one commenter put it, "This entire blog is a threadjack." And it's true. And some of the smartest, kindest most wonderful people comment there. We're a bunch of disaffected progressives (we have a token Libertarian), and well, our progressiveness falls along a spectrum. I'm kind of like "Eat the rich," but most of the commenters are more sane. Most.

I write all that to say that one night I couldn't sleep. I went to the pharmacy at 3 AM to get some Lunesta, and some dude tried to pick me up at 3 AM outside the CVS while I was smoking and drinking a Coke, waiting for my prescription to be filled. Our conversation went a little like this:

Dude: Want some gum?

Me: Sure. Thanks.

Dude: What are you doing out here.

Me: I'm getting a prescription filled. You are soo fucked up!

Dude: Do I look that bad?

Me: Uh. Yeah.

Dude: Wanna party?

Me: I'm getting antibiotics.

Dude: Oh. Wanna party?

Me: I'm contagious.

Dude: Let's party.

Me: Dude, you are truly fucked up. Are you even good to drive? You need to go the hell home. Thanks for the gum.

When I got home and waited for the Lunesta to kick in, I wrote a series of comments at Cynics' Party about fighting the DJ. Those comments are now lost thanks to Cynics' Party blowing up and eating comments and other manners of weirdness, but RomeGirl (who has the Best. Travel Blog. Ever. And buy her book!) suggested that I start a blog and make each comment a post, so I did.

There was something beautiful and poetic about how I told the story the first time (drugs'll do that to you if you're lucky), and I know I won't be able to recapture that thing that compelled me to write the story in the first place. The conditions are different, and time has elapsed. But I'll try.

Your Morning Dose of Loop

2010-01-21T07:44:00.005-05:00

Good morning! I'm almost done with that @#$% dog sweater (don't know why it always photographs as orange when it's red. User error, I'm sure).

I have to run into the city to pick up my unemployment file for my hearing. I'm not exactly stoked to find out what my former employer has submitted to the unemployment people, but I've got to deal with it, so, I'm on my way.

On my way home, I'm running to the yarn store to see if they have any more of the yarn above, a sweet baby alpaca, because one of my dear friends has commissioned a sweater. Huzzah!

So, I'm off doing stuff again. Have a great day, everybody, and I'll check in soon. That is, if reading my unemployment file doesn't cause me to have to take to my bed. Temporarily. ;-)

Your Morning Dose of Boop

2010-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today we find Boop lounging on that catnip-covered ratty-ass Pendleton blanket I ruined by running it through the wash. Ugh. He's been trying to use his broken leg some, and he gets extremely frustrated when he can't scratch behind his right ear due to his right rear broken leg.

He's been hopping along at an impressive gait, all things considered, and I comb the areas he can't reach due to his injury. And he purrrrs. And to think they wanted to put this cat down rather than have him treated. >:-\

I've got a knittin' to do -- I might have some new orders in soon (yay!), and I'm still waiting on that Egyptian cotton yarn (boo!). Customs is a bitch. And I still need to finish that dumb ass red dog sweater. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate knitting dog sweaters, and none of those fuckers have sold! This is the last one I'm making, for reals. Unless I'm making one for some do re mi.

Goodbye, Daily Tally of ldschurch.org Lurking Asshattery

2010-01-19T17:41:00.008-05:00

It is with a tear or two, and with a whole lotta relief, that I am now taking down the Daily Tally of ldschurch.org Lurking Asshattery. ::sigh::

They haven't been by (officially) for at least ten days, so I think it's time to give the good ole boys in SLC a break. For awhile. I still plan on having Misogyny Day and Seed of Cain/Bigfoot Day in the near future, but I'm not going to stress myself out about them right now.

Instead, I'm going to knit, knit, knit and try to stay sane, sane, sane. And catblog, cuz that's how I roll.

The poll to the left is about to close. "How I Came up with the Name for this Blog" has a slight lead over "How I Got the Fuck out of Fundamentalist Christianity," so, there's still time to vote, but it looks like I'll have to tell you why I fight the DJ.

I'm going to apologize in advance -- the first telling was great. It was induced by insomnia, hypomania and The Lunesta Haze. I had to deep six it when I deep sixed my blog in a paranoid fit some time ago, but I'll try my best to recreate the story.

So, Goodbye, ldschurch.org! Hello, Why I Fight the DJ. Coming soon...

And Just Like That, My Mood Changes

2010-01-19T12:35:00.004-05:00

This is actually a tattoo of the sun setting behind the Pacific, but we're going to pretend that it's the sun peeking through the clouds.

I'm off to the head doctor in a few hours, so relief is right around the corner! I've spoken to my county's Legal Aid office, and while they can't provide me with an attorney for my unemployment hearing, they will advise me on how best to represent myself. Huzzah! In order for them to help me, I had to gather all of my documents (which were scattered hither, thither and yon), so I feel better now knowing that they're all in one place, and I'll be able to find them later.

Still no word about my meds, but I'm not freaking out about them (at this moment), so, yay!

It's at times like these, I think of this:

Your Morning Dose of Boop and My Trip to CrazyTown

2010-01-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

Here we find Boop stretching his aching bones after a long nap.

I took several long naps yesterday, because I tend to shut down when the going gets tough. In my case, when the going gets though, the tough get going to bed.

I called one lawyer -- can't afford him. I've reached out to Legal Aid to see if they can help me with my hearing. Yesterday was a holiday for most folks, so I guess I'll hear from them soon. I'm also going to reach out to NAMI to see what they can do.

Dad is taking me to the doctor this afternoon, and I contacted my ::cough:: insurance provider to see why my drugs aren't covered. Of course, my caseworker has to make any changes to my benefits, and she was off yesterday. Hopefully I'll get in touch with her today.

So, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it may not be an approaching train. We'll just have to wait and see.

To all of you who have sent me emails and notes of encouragement, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I promise to get back to you individually as soon as possible.

Again, my heart is full. Hopefully my head isn't empty. ;-)

Love,
JNOV

Your Morning Dose of Boop

2010-01-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, we're back to cat blogging until I get my shit together.

Today we find Boop basking in the glow of a successful kill. No catnip-covered-fake-ass mouse stands a chance against this formidable killer.

Boop seems to have adjusted to life as an indoor cat, and he seems to have accepted his fate -- real-life kitty kills are now a part of his past. I think as long as we keep him in catnip, he'll be cool with that.

If I manage to reach out to my father for help, call the lawyer, call my insurance benefits department, make an appointment with my head doctor, etc., etc., I'll let you know. I know that each of these tasks are minor and can be tackled in turn. But I feel all freaked out because my insurance provider might give me the finger, I don't know how I'm going to pay a lawyer, and I hate, hate, hate asking my father for help. I was the smart strong one. Now I'm the dumb weak one. And he worries. It kills me to make him worry. But the last thing I need is another visit to the psych ward, so I'm going to work to avoid that.

So, there you have it. If you feel like adopting me, let me know. ;-)

If You've Been Following My Blog for Awhile, You Know What This Graphic Means

2010-01-17T20:02:00.003-05:00

The bipolar disorder and the PTSD are winning again. I hate losing. A lot.

I've got a hearing coming up with the unemployment office, and I'm worried. My father has prostate cancer and an as-yet-undiagnosed mass on his kidney, and I'm worried. My shitty state-sponsored medical insurance only covers birth control and diabetes meds; I need neither. I've been off one of my branded crazy meds for a month, I've been off my hypertension meds for almost three months, and I'm worried. Here comes the depression -- I feel it stalking me, and the panic attacks are pretty much non-stop. Yay!

My father already has so much on his plate, but I need to ask him to help me...again. I need him to find a NAMI lawyer who will represent me at my unemployment hearing. I need him to make an appointment for me with my head doctor and to pay for the visit. I'll probably need him to drive me, too, because when I get like this, I can't drive. Well, I can't drive far without losing my shit and coming home to hide. The world is scary. It used to be filled with wonder, but right now, I'm filled with fear.

My doctor can give me samples of the one branded crazy med I'm on. The others are generic, but they still cost a ton of money. The depressive component of my bipolar disorder is the equivalent of major depressive disorder, so they've brought out the big guns to beat back that black dog. So, he'll give me samples (yay!), but then it'll take a good two weeks for this med to work (boo!). I swear.

I used to try to comfort myself by thinking that what makes me crazy also makes me quirky and interesting and creative and maybe even smart, but that self-perception could just be the bipolar talking, you know, inflated ego and feelings of grandiosity. At times like these I'd settle for average, normal and not depressed. I used to think that if bipolar disorder was the price I had to pay for those talents I think I might possess, but maybe I don't, that price was fair. Now I'm not so sure.

So, yeah. I think I'd give up the intuitive leaps, the racing thoughts, the creative quirk, the musical talent and all that other stuff just to be a normal human being with a normal brain that doesn't sell me the fuck out whenever it chooses.

I've taken to my bed, but I've got so much to do. I'm so overwhelmed, and I hate being a burden. If anyone ever tries to tell you that psychic pain isn't as intense as physical pain, fucking punch them, okay?

Your Morning Dose of Boot

2010-01-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Wow. The past two days have been blogging hell. Today I need to do real-world stuff like go to BJ's (shut it!) and knit a stupid dog sweater and a scarf. And hopefully take a nice, long nap.

I hope you guys have a great day, and I'm sure we'll be in touch soon. Oh, and I re-opened the poll so you can vote on what you'd like me to blather on about, because cat blogging is a sin.

A Few Choice Words from Today's First Troll

2010-01-16T18:28:00.011-05:00

Kold_Kadavr_flatliner decided to grace us (or as he writes "U.S.") with his presence! Welcome, Kold_Kadavr_flatliner!

He had a few things to say in the comments:

Kold_Kadavr_flatliner said...

God would LOVE to have you in the Great Beyond, but, alas, God also gave U.S. all free will: God knows the state of thy immortal soul. I don't. See my point? --- Now, lemme giveth unto thee some Good News: I hope you'll join me for a BIG-OL party celebrating our resurrection Upstairs on my drawbridge. God bless.

January 16, 2010 6:08 PM

Kold_Kadavr_flatliner said...

Correction: Jesus is THE Boss of U.S. whether you or anyone else disagrees, you'll still have to face Him. And that da fak, Jak -Stripes (with Bill Murray)

I had NO IDEA that Barack Obama is Jesus! All along I thought he was the Anti-Christ! Silly me!

But what really interested me is this snippet from his blog (I wouldn't go there unless you really want to take a trip to Racist Religious Homophobic CrazyTown. If you're prone to epileptic seizures, do not visit his other website. And in case one blog and webpage aren't enough to ensure his salvation, we've got this):

You cannot live a double-life, America; you cannot sit on the fence acting all hypocriticalNself-rightous because you voted for the first Negro, supporting Barack's abortionNhomosexual agenda and receiving Holy Communion.

Uh. Okay. Thanks for stopping by! Please come again! And consider changing your name to "Kold_Kadavr_flatearther." I'm here to help. God bless!

Thank You for Joining Us Today

2010-01-16T13:00:00.002-05:00

Phew! It was a busy night/morning, and I'm so glad you stopped by. Hopefully you learned something and felt incensed, perplexed and empathetic.

I'd like to thank Colleen Christensen Parkinson, flattopSF and Robert for sharing their stories and for hopefully shining a bright ass light on the LDS church's asshattery and the damage it has caused to so many GLBTQIA and straight people, both in and out of the church.

A special welcome and thanks to Measure76 and the folks at reddit, to Pam's House Blend for allowing me to blogwhore like a maniac and for their superb coverage of the Prop 8 federal suit, to Pharyngula (will someone please tell me how to pronounce that word?) for also allowing me to blogwhore, to all my FaceBook friends and Twitter Tweeps and to Recovery from Mormonism -- without RfM, none of this would have been possible.

My heart is full.

Love,
JNOV

PS Please excuse the typos -- I'm sure there are many. That's how I roll.

Of Murder and Suicide

2010-01-16T12:45:00.005-05:00

[Ed. The following was stolen from flattopSF]

One of Matthew Shepard's murderers was a Mormon. Was he influenced by the cult's teachings? Who knows. Let's just say the cult, unlike other religious organizations, did not publicly decry the tragedy. Nope, From them there was only dead airspace. Maybe a bit of static...and this:

Of particular concern is the recent re-release of the pamphlet "To Young Men Only" which admonishes young LDS men to "protect themselves" by physically assaulting gays when confronted with their homosexuality. This was re-released at the same time as the Matthew Shepard murder trials. Very few people in the LDS Church are aware that one of the two young men convicted of Matthew Shepard's beating death was a young Mormon Priesthood holder. As parents of gay children, it is difficult for us to understand why the Church, in the face of the national attention surrounding Matthew Shepard's beating death, would re-release something as inflammatory, insensitive and troubling as this.

The Mormon church member who they are referring to was Russell A. Henderson. After his conviction, the cult decided to excommunicate him. What a gesture: create and use the tool, then discard it!

[Ed. Back to JNOV ]

The pamphlet they're referring to contains this language, written by Boyd K. Packer:

After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, "I hit my companion."

"Oh, is that all," I said in great relief.

"But I floored him," he said.

After learning a little more, my response was "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way."

I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.

There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it. They are just "that way" and can only yield to those desires. That is a malicious and destructive lie. While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil. No one is locked into that kind of life. From our premortal life we were directed into a physical body. There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits. Boys are to become men—masculine, manly men—ultimately to become husbands and fathers. No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers.

"To Young Men Only," General Conference Priesthood Session, October 2, 1976.

Henry Stuart Matis (1967-2000) killed himself at the Los Altos, CA LDS chapel in response to the Mormon church's involvement in Prop 22.

Affirmation has created a memorial to GLBTQ Mormons who have committed suicide. Their memorial was created in response to "four gay Mormons kill[ing] themselves within four weeks" in March 2000 "while leaders of the LDS Church were engaged in a costly anti-gay crusade in California...." They have compiled a list of church members who should never be forgotten.

This is what it all boils down to: Real people are simply trying to live their lives the best way they can. Being gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer, intersex or asexual is not a crime, and it's certainly not a crime against nature. It is nature in all its beauty and splendor and diversity.

It's time to stop worrying about who's putting what where, because it's nobody's damned business. And it's time religions STOP PREACHING HATE. So many religions foment violence against innocents who are just. trying. to. be. These religions also shame adherents into believing that they are other. That they are less than. That they are not worthy. That they are damned. That they must change the fiber of their beings to reach exaltation. Well, you know what? That's some bullshit right there. As soon as I can stop being brown (oh, wait), my GLBTQI brothers and sisters will start being straight.

No one chooses to be straight. No one chooses to be GLBTQI. It's just how we are. It's part of who we are, but it's not what defines us, no matter how hard the bastards try to box us in.

Human beings are lovely, complex and beautiful in their diversity and in their individuality. We are whom we are, and we love whom we love, and at the end of the day, we should be pleased that some of us are able to find meaningful and lasting love. That is the meaning of life.

To the Mormon Church, We Are All Gay

2010-01-16T12:30:00.001-05:00

A person's sexuality is one of the quirkiest and unique things about them. You learn that if you change sex partners or if you catch someone telling the truth about what he or she likes and does sexually. Our sexuality is also, in important respects, a fundamental, deep and persistent part of our personal identity. So, it is with alarm and anger I have witnessed the Mormon Church over the years insist that people choose whether or not they are gay, and proceed to shame, cajole, or coerce them to adopt the church’s teachings and norms regarding sex and sexual identity, too often to the great harm of those people and their families.

The Mormon Church has insisted—although this has changed somewhat for the better recently—that gays choose their sexual orientation. To “help” their gay members make this “choice,” some of these men were encouraged to marry—essentially, to pass as straight. Such encouragement often resulted in betrayed wives, ashamed, guilty husbands, and heartbroken families. Other gays, desperate to change their sexual orientation, consented to aversion therapy administered at BYU, the church’s university. These men were instructed to look at the gay porn while electrical shocks were applied to their testicles or they were administered chemicals that made them vomit.

Many gay Mormons, feeling lonely, displaced, hopeless, and ashamed, killed themselves. Some still do. Mormonism is still not a gay-friendly culture.

According to some knowledgeable LDS observers, the church leadership has in recent years moved officially to a neutral position on the etiology of homosexuality and the Mormon Church is a more tolerant place for gays. Notwithstanding the official position, Mormon apologists, however, continue to argue homosexuality is a choice, perpetuating the backward, intolerant, and misguided attitudes and behaviors toward gays that have typically characterized the church.

Whether the church leadership’s failure to correct its apologists comes from a desire to avoid alienating loyal members, to avoid the implications to their authority of accepting scientific evidence, or for some other reason, their move toward neutrality should not cause us to forget that the Mormon Church strongly backed Proposition 8 in California, removing the rights of gay couples to marry.

By now you have probably noticed I am not the Mormon Church’s biggest fan. In the interests of disclosure and transparency, I’ll tell you why, and why, in my opinion, to the Mormon Church, we are all gay, even if we are straight. I was a Mormon convert at age 19. I attended BYU, I worked as a teacher at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT, I married in the Salt Lake Temple, and I was a Mormon for 13 years. The early years of my membership were generally good for me. The church provided me with community and direction when I needed it most, and I was—and still am—grateful for that. However, as time passed, I discovered many things about Mormonism which disturbed me, among them that the Mormon Church is very intrusive, particularly about sex.

The Mormon leadership does not limit itself to regulating gays; it attempts to micromanage the sex lives of its straight members as well. Both youth and adults undergo periodic “worthiness interviews” by the male leader of their local congregation (bishop) to ensure they are living up to the standards of the church. Some of the questions inquire as to the member’s “moral cleanliness.” The bishop may ask in a general way, “Are you morally clean?” or, too often, he may ask very detailed questions. It depends on the bishop. The interviewee may be a boy or girl as young as 12, a teen, a married father or mother of six, or a grandmother or grandfather.

Interviews are done one-one-one behind closed doors, even with boys and girls. More than a few former Mormons report feeling violated by the process and identify it as a cause of sexual problems later in their lives. (Some former Mormons, including myself, believe this breaking down of boundaries makes young people more vulnerable to sexual abuse and to experiencing difficulty generally resisting intrusive demands.) Almost none of the bishops have any training in counseling and or sexology and too often advice or counsel coming out of the interview is uninformed not outright harmful.

The Mormon Church prohibits masturbation and any sex outside of marriage. Young men are given stern warnings against masturbation and were once told it leads to homosexuality. Sex outside of marriage is strongly condemned and extramarital sex is characterized as a “sin next to murder” in seriousness. If you are unlucky enough to never marry you are expected to remain celibate your entire life. Gays, of course, are also relegated to a lifetime of celibacy because they are prohibited from marrying.

Not even sex between married couples escapes church scrutiny. Couples married in a Mormon temple are told to “refrain from every unholy and impure practice.” While the ceremony doesn’t specify what those unholy and impure practices might be, in January 1982 the church president at the time issued a letter stating, "The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it." Eventually, the letter was withdrawn, apparently due to complaints by local leaders that the instruction was too explicit and intrusive.

However, the prohibition against “unholy and impure practices” remains, with oral sex implicitly continuing to be one of them. A recent Mormon Church president, Gordon B. Hinckley said, "Married persons should understand that if in their marital relations they are guilty of unnatural, impure, or unholy practices, they should not enter the temple unless and until they repent and discontinue any such practices. Husbands and wives who are aware of these requirements can determine by themselves their standing before the Lord."

I myself was unfortunate enough to run afoul of this Mormon purity rule when I was a newly married husband. As a convert, I wasn’t raised Mormon and was unaware of the prohibition and inhibitions of Mormon sex. (Not that it would have helped much had I been raised Mormon, as there seems to be very little frank talk about sex in Mormonism, anyway.) Naturally, I was excited about sex with my wife. I hadn’t had sex before becoming a Mormon. I admit this was due to my being quite shy and anxious rather than my great moral rectitude; in fact, I felt relieved Mormonism provided me with a comforting rationale for my fear of sex. Still, I was looking forward to trying some things out and one of those things was oral sex.

It was after this experimentation the condemning letter from Salt Lake City was issued. My wife and I, duly embarrassed and ashamed, made an appointment with our bishop and confessed our sinfulness. The bishop, an elderly and kind man, to his credit seemed as uncomfortable and embarrassed to have to deal with this issue as we were. Rather than lecture or condemn us, he gave us a light penance and told us to try not to do it again. In spite of the bishop’s kindness, the effect of the experience on me was to curtail my joy of sex, raise my anxiety, and to create a wedge between my wife and me on the issue of whether or not anything I wanted to do beyond missionary-vanilla was “church approved.” For several years I had a recurring nightmare of being watched by church leaders while I had sex and being chided for it. The Mormon marital bed gets crowded when you start including God, his prophets, and the bishop!

It wasn’t until some time after I left Mormonism I started to become relaxed about sex and started to figure out what I like and don’t. My sexual ethics these days are straightforward and not overly-complicated (although I think some people would characterize my standards as “low”): Sex is consensual for all parties and none of the activities result in medical or psychiatric intervention.

So, to my gay friends and to the gay community, if it is any comfort, you are not alone. Some of us straight people, particularly many of us former Mormons, have also experienced, at least in part, sexual scrutiny and oppression, and while we may not experience it as constantly and intensely as you do, we “get it.” As for the Mormon Church, it is a profound failure of empathy and humanity that the sexual outcasts of the 19^th century cannot see gays as fellow human beings who deserve tolerance and full civil rights.

Part 4/4: Holy asshole, Batman, what's that? That, Boy Wonder, is an @$$-Holy-O.

2010-01-16T12:00:00.005-05:00

For all their own whining about persecution, those Mormon @$$-Holy-O's sure know how to stick it to everyone else. Now we have Mormon @$$-Holy-O's rampaging across the country making everyone else's home state a stinking hole of Mormon values, just like theirs.

If you see a hole when you’re crossing the road and you fall into it, who is responsible for that — you or the hole?

For my first 23 years, adherence to Mormonism and its whack-job rituals determined my entire existence.

Birthdays were celebrated by ritual advancements: baptism, ordinations, mission. Indoctrination starts early. Jesus wants me for a Sun-BEAM!

Sundays were occupied in ritual remembrance of Jesus’ apocryphal ritual suicide. OMG...again? The guy died 2,000 years ago—get over it already!

In their temples, Holocaust victims' spirits were rescued for eternity through ritual holy handshakes and through-the-veil groping. So were the spirits of all their Nazi murderers. "We interrupt you for this short announcement: The Final Solution is now being played out in Planet Kolob's Celestial City. All interested bigots, please report there immediately. Thank you."

In daily life, simple tragedies like car accidents, cuts and bruises, rabid dog attacks, and speeding bullets were averted through the ritual wearing of holy underwear. Holy underwear, Batman!

The common cold, mental disturbances, and various other maladies, ailments, addictions and afflictions were magically “cured” through ritual incantations: rancid olive oil rubbed into the scalp, and a half-hearted prayer muttered by some uncaring half-worthy Peter Penishood...boy! I feel better already!

But I had a condition no amount of ritual could cure. A condition, it turned out, that was so diabolically natural, common and benign that, having been trapped, bound, and blinded by the craven irrationality of Mormon ritual, I turned myself inside out and damn near almost killed myself trying to excise it. Until one day when I understood that I must choose between living an insane obsessive-compulsive neurosis, or just simply living. My condition fixed me: I stepped sideways and avoided that hole in the road.

Heterosexual Mormons try to claim that being gay is a lifestyle choice, but as with so many other things they’re too Mormy-centric and 19th-century and ignorant and sheltered to know what the hell they’re talking about. The decision is not whether one will be gay or heterosexual. There's no deciding those things.

The choice which must be made is whether or not one will live an authentic life.

Throw the Mormon church out and start living beautifully. Life is too short for stupid ugly junk.

8^D

Part 3/4: Rewriting that DULL AS DIRT Temple Script.

2010-01-16T11:45:00.010-05:00

And flattopSF went forth and lived in this garden known as the Real World, wherein were placed all manner of fruits, flowers, and vegetation. Of every tree of the garden flattopSF freely ate.

And of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, flattopSF did taste of some of the fruit of that tree. In fact, he did taste of extra-large portions in abundance.

And yea, he found that it was delicious to the taste and very desirable. And yea, then it came to pass that flattopSF realized with a surety that Mormon doG was a goddamned liar, for in that very first taste he knew there was nothing wrong with the gay existence of flattopSF.

Life became worth living. And let me tell you, it's been good. I have been blessed beyond my dreams.

But one day...:

One day in 2001 I was on the phone with my mother and had just run down the list of the Mormons’ anti-gay campaigns across the nation...Alaska, Hawai'i, Vermont, and California, with Proposition 22—the “Knight Initiative”. I spelled out how much of her tithing money it had cost.

She said: "That is a lie."

I said: "Excuse me, did you just call me a liar?"

The phone got real quiet for about a minute.

She said: "Yes. That is a lie."

I said: "That's the second time in my life you've called me a liar. It just proves the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is up to, doesn't it? I didn't know you were in the habit of reading the investigative articles in the San Francisco and Los Angeles newspapers [she lives in the Midwest]."

She said: "I'm not and I don't need to, to know what I know. I don't believe they're doing what you said they did. You're just making these things up to start fights with us whenever you call. They got up in church and read a statement telling us that we should love our homosexual family members."

I said: "Since when do you need permission from your church to love your own son?"

I knew then my mother had abandoned her son for her church. A couple of months later I received an extremely manipulative 12-page letter from her, and never heard from her again.

I was done with that.

I'm worth more than that.

8^D

Part 2/4: You're not the boss of me. I am.

2010-01-16T11:30:00.002-05:00

Mormons tell me that if I run my life their way and succeed a little it’s through no virtue of my own: it’s because their god favored me. And I should have tried harder anyway. But if I run my life their way and fail it’s my own fault: I’m not worthy of success. Fucked without a kiss if I do, and fucked without a kiss if I don't. Subtext is everything when it comes to trying to understand the Mormon church.

Here’s what happened before I came out of the closet:

I sat through 23 years of Mormon Sacrament Meetings, Stake Conferences, and General Conference broadcasts during which I was gently and regularly reminded that people like me need to be beaten up for my own good (Packer. To Young Men Only. General Conference Priesthood Session, October 2, 1976). That loving another man made me worse than a murderer (Kimball. Miracle of Forgiveness. Bookcraft, 1969). That I was better off dead (Kimball. Love Versus Lust. BYU Devotional, January 5, 1965).

My TBM older brother figured me out. Three times before I was 23 he tried to kill me with his fists, on the advice of the aforementioned church leaders. He failed. I guess his Mormon doG wasn't guiding his fists. I guess he must have been unworthy. Mormon doG works that way, you know. Pity. I decided I didn’t need to acknowledge TBM older brother's Pre-existence, his Present-existence, or his Post-existence. At all.

Here’s what happened after I came out of the closet:

My TBM mother went into deep-space orbit. We could send a NASA probe to Uranus a lot faster if we'd tied the spaceship to her anus. Tantrums. Pouting. More tantrums. Attempted manipulation. More tantrums. Whatever.

My TBM younger brother ran hot-and-cold for 15 years on whether I was an asset or a liability to his pathetic dating life. Can we say “conflicted”? After I paid for his wedding, I got dissed. Something about his new wife thinking “gay” was contagious.

Shunned or avoided by 90% of the Mormons I knew, even when I saw them on the street which was thankfully not often. I became the object of gossip and conjecture! I’m so glad I later had the opportunity to experience all the things they were saying I’d done already.

One TBM “friend” claimed "it doesn't matter!" Then she assumed that quitting the church and coming out of the closet meant I suddenly had no moral standards whatsoever, and took huge liberties with my generosity after she got herself unemployed, bankrupted, repossessed, and evicted. My response: "No, I can’t pay your bills for you. Especially since you're already living under my roof rent-free, eating my food and not contributing, and bar-hopping all night with your girlfriends, while I make sure your seventeen year-old son gets to work and school on time every morning. Buh-bye!"

Another TBM “friend” and his family re-edited all our conversations inside their own heads: apparently the word "gay" was miraculously blocked at the eardrum as they tried to emotionally blackmail me back into the church. They introduced me to several BYU co-eds under the assumption that one of them would instantly "cure" me. Failing that, he informed me that my lack of cooperation with his method of spiritual guidance was making him look bad to his kids. What the hell?!?
<<click. dial tone>>

8^D

Part 1/4: flattopSF’s Top Ten Super-Gay Reasons He’s Not A Mormon Anymore

2010-01-16T11:15:00.009-05:00

1. Does anything they believe make any sense? Fourteen-year-old sees doG the Father, Jeebus H. Christ, and Casper the Holy Ghost? Riiiiiiiight. Eternal Polygamy Math, anyone? 1+ 34 = Prophet! (And Mormons accuse teh gheyz of being promiscuous?!? Sheesh!) Here’s some Free Agency: I want some of whatever Smith was smokin’. It musta been good.

2. God? doG? Either way you look at “him,” anything that demands THAT much devotion from you and gives absolutely nothing back is seriously dysfunctional. See a psychologist and learn to develop REAL relationships.

3. Because who needs to live their life according to what some pathetic bigoted murderous old redneck corporate thugs 1,500 miles away dictate? Shove a cricket-choked seagull up your collective puckers, @$$-holy-O douchebags.

4. Because there are a lot of better things to do with 10% of your hard-earned income. Shopping and lunch, anyone?

5. Because let's face it: churchchurchchurchchurchchurchchurchchurch seven days a week is not only mind-numbingly boring, it leaves you no time to have a life. When do they even have time to fuckin' fuck and make all those kids?

6. Because those temple clothes are a really big fashion don’t. Really. Big. Faux Greek Baker meets Fig Leaf? It looks Too-pud on thin people and it looks Poppin’ Fresh on tubby ones. Eew. If that's the celestial garb, send me to hell now. I'll take a stark-naked real-live Greek any day of the week, thanks.

7. Because any group of people who would censor a Rodin sculpture and call it pornographic are uncultured rubes at best and idiot hillbilly philistines at worst.

8. Because Mormon women are simply way too conflicted to mold into adequate fag-hags.

9. Because Mormon men are so infected with the Power of their Holey Penishood that they‘re knuckle-draggingly unattractive in every way. (OMG, how superficial was that?)

10. Because I'm gay. If that ain't good enough for them, well too fuckin’ bad.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly,
flattopSF loves another gay man, no lie.
Won‘t stop lovin’ that man o‘ mine.

8^D

In Her Own Words (Part 5 of 5)

2010-01-16T11:00:00.001-05:00

A lot has happened in the past 14 years (since he left), the past 25 (since we married) and the past 27 since I found out he is gay. About six years ago, my good friend's daughter was getting married. She told me every time something would go wrong with the wedding plans that her daughter would say, "The church is still true, so what does it matter?" I couldn't get that thought out of my mind. I finally sat down and wrote in my journal that IT MATTERED. It mattered to me. I had based all my life decisions on Mormonism and it had led me here.

For a time when my husband first left, I hated him and I hated all gays. I felt that they had done this to me and that he should have stayed -- that I would let God figure it out. As I kept my distance from the LDS church, the "programming" died. Little by little, the fog lifted until one day about five years ago, one of those non-Mormon guys from my past had suddenly appeared back in my life.

I had tried many times to go back to the LDS church for a few weeks at a time, but I would always become confused and realize that when I had done everything humanly possible to live a good life, this is what had happened. For a week, I emailed my boyfriend from my past trying to explain to him why I no longer believed. He couldn't believe it, as he had known how devout I was 28 years before when I had dated him. I finally told him some of the things the leaders had done to me, and he then believed me.

That week, whatever last beliefs I held onto fell apart. I knew I no longer believed in any fashion -- that they had been wrong. I didn't know any history. I didn't know all the "facts" that Mormonism is untrue. The only thing I knew, as my therapist says, is that I had tested Mormonism to its very limits and it had failed me.

Over the years, my ex and I have made peace and became best friends. I let go of believing that he was somehow flawed and that someday God would give me my answers. I don't know how I came to that point. I credit a lot of it to the fact that I love him. I was willing to see his pain. I saw his struggles. I KNOW that if there is anyone out there who wanted to have the "dream" Mormonism promises, it was my ex. He will still defend Mormonism, but I see how much damage it did to him.

He has lived a double life since a young age and I see the damage. I can't really explain what brought me [to Wildflowers] and it just occurred to me, LOVE. Love brought me here. Loving someone enough to let them go. My relationship with my ex is more than enough, more than anyone could ever have told me it would be. I love him unselfishly. I just want him to be happy -- as a gay man.

Me, I have the "love of my life" back: the non-Mormon I let go at age 20. Our kids love their dad and have a great relationship with him. We always do things together.

I still love my ex-husband so. All I ever wanted for him is that he is happy, and now he is. I will NEVER be able to embrace a religion that would tell me that he isn't okay just as he is, that he isn't worthy and has no value because he is gay.

What I do know is that gays only want what straights have. Being gay is not just about having sex like the LDS church would like us to believe. It is the whole relationship: sexual, physical, mental, emotional, psychological. If I ask my husband to change from being gay, he ceases to exist because being gay is an essential part of who he is.

It was some months later that my therapist told me about Recovery from Mormonism. Until then, I had no clue about a lot of the "issues" in Mormonism. I had found just from life experience, from loving a gay man and where that led me, my experiences, the hell we went through to find the peace we have now. Now we have the relationship we always should have had, as friends.

In Her Own Words (Part 4 of 5)

2010-01-16T10:45:00.000-05:00

We went to more therapy. The therapist told us to make pros and cons lists of why we should get a divorce. I made a huge list, but my reasons for getting a divorce had nothing to do with him being gay. He didn't even make a list; he told the therapist that he couldn't BE DIVORCED and he couldn't imagine his life without me. Just as I'd get stable, feeling like things wouldn't change, he'd tell me he was leaving (usually on holidays or birthdays). I'd get prepared for him to leave, and he'd say, "I'm not leaving."

One Christmas, things were uneasy. On January 3rd, I walked in my bedroom, and I knew something was wrong. I walked over to his side of the closet, opened the door, and everything was gone. He had left me a taped message by my computer. He came back the next day, came home the following Monday and told me he wanted a divorce. I kicked him out.

He lived with some friends for a few months, but we decided to have the basement finished so he could move back and we could raise our kids together, but he had already met someone new. My husband moved back in, and this "friend" of his moved to California. In October, my husband said he couldn't be away from this guy, so I said "Go—go to California and see if you are happy."

He went. He cried the whole time he was gone.

I had gone inactive before my husband left when the bishop of our ward had told me my husband would be one of the next bishops. I knew he was cheating although he was executive secretary, but I refused to go to LDS church leaders again. It was very damaging before we were married to go to the church leaders, especially when they not only DID NOT HAVE ANY ANSWERS, but they had the wrong answers. It was very damaging to me to have them as voyeurs in my life and part of the reason I married my husband was to get them out of our lives so we could figure this out.

In Her Own Words (Part 3 of 5)

2010-01-16T10:30:00.000-05:00

We had twins 14-1/2 months later--a boy and a girl. He had been told as a child that his first child would be twins. That was the first thing he asked the doctor when we went to the first appointment, "Is it twins?" In so many ways it seemed our life was charmed. We got the house we wanted, our children were robust and healthy even born a month early. I landed a job that made it possible for me to work at home ... the list goes on and on.

When our children turned 6, he told me that he had been cheating on me since 2-1/2 years into the marriage. We went through therapy through a well-known psychiatrist in Salt Lake City, and now I suspect that psychiatrist was gay although married. He would tell me that we had a chance all the while telling my husband "You are nice looking; you can easily find a partner."

We made it through that situation. We determined to stay together. I gave him leeway -- I didn't want him to go and he didn't want to go. I had learned early on that his gay attraction and his cheating had nothing to do with me (but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt). This was between him and God, and I loved him. We WERE --and I mean this from the bottom of my heart--WERE the best of friends. We were close, closer than most couples we knew. Of course, we had our issues that all couples have, but he was the one I always turned to, and he to me, emotionally.

He had a hard family life and we were everything to him. He was an EXCELLENT father. My children still tell me how they had such a happy childhood—they spent hours and hours hiking the hills, hunting bones, lighting fires up the canyon, and we went on trips. He bought an old camper and fixed it up and we camped all the time.

It was always hide-and-seek when dad came home: the children would hear him come in the garage and they would hide, and he would hunt them down. If he got home and we weren't here, he'd hide and they'd find him. We had a really good life. Why let it go?

He was also in many church callings. He is the outgoing one and I'm the "reserved" one. We had a lot of friends in the ward, and I had several people tell me that he was the nicest person they had ever met. They adored him.

Then my older brother had a brain hemorrhage while going to University of Utah at age 42. I went down several times a week to go to rehabilitation with him. My husband met me on Friday evening in Primary Children's Medical Center parking lot so he could go to a Family Fellowship Conference while I took the kids home with me. He came home on Sunday and told me that divorce was inevitable.

In Her Own Words (Part 2 of 5)

2010-01-16T10:15:00.000-05:00

I fell into a suicidal depression over this situation. I talked to the bishop over and over again. I did typing for the bishop and we were already good friends beforehand, and my boyfriend was the financial clerk, so I spent a lot of time sorting through things with the bishop. I didn't feel like I could tell anyone else. I felt completely and totally alone.

It was a huge burden. I was suicidal for a year thinking about how God could put something like this on the Earth and not have a solution for it. How could this person be damned if there were no answers? I saw God as an authority figure sitting at His judgment bench with his gavel. But as time went by, my feelings changed. My belief system completely changed. I had to deal with all the things that had happened in his past and learn to forgive him for it. I had to either let him go or stick it out. He asked me over and over to wait for him to work through his problems and that he'd always dreamed I'd come into his life to share his burden.

The bishop and other church leaders were supportive of this relationship. For one thing, I was told that if he didn't change, he would be damned. I was also told that not even 1 in 10 "make it." So, basically, he was damned. At that time, the LDS church considered even claiming gay attraction was a sin.

The bishop felt that we could see if he could be attracted to a female. I got the idea that the attitude was (in 1983) that if a gay could just have sex with a woman, he'd never go back -- that they had just had sex with the wrong gender first (my ex had had sex with men since a young age, many mormon gays have not had sex with anyone in their 20s).

So the bishop asked me to experiment with him: just give him "free rein," and he would work with my boyfriend and me. He assigned my boyfriend to take me out and then French kiss me, but not to tell me, that it should appear spontaneous. My boyfriend knew I had never French kissed anyone before because I was afraid I'd have to repent to my bishop. I lived in absolute fear of bishop interviews all my life. Suffice it to say, my boyfriend had the sense to tell me the bishop's plan. Well, I wanted to save him, so I went along.

After that, the bishop gave us more "assignments," and I was very uneasy about it, but I was also suicidally depressed. Nobody knew my boyfriend was gay but the leaders, my boyfriend and me, and I had no one to talk to. I can still see the bishop shaking his head and saying, "But we have to do it this way," when I would voice my concerns about "chastity." I was never comfortable with doing much, so I didn't. At one point, the bishop even told us we could do anything up to intercourse and he would make sure we were able to go through the temple.

I dated more the year after my boyfriend told me he was gay than in my entire life (probably because I was so distracted that I really didn't care), when lo and behold, I met someone new. This person scared my gay boyfriend and, after I moved to get away from the situation, he asked me OVER THE PHONE while I was at work to marry him.

I spent the next day in bed. A very good friend--who was another bishop that I worked with--gave me a blessing. He promised me that my husband would never leave me. He said to me, "How would you feel if God gave you this and you turned your back on it." I know he said this only because he truly believed it and still does. I was already STUCK.

The bishop of our ward told me that it would be okay -- that if I had any doubts in my mind, to put them aside. The LDS Social Services therapist told me that it would be okay if we got married, to just not worry about it. I just realized this past summer that once I was in the situation -- there was no other choice -- I had to go forward. I had to take the chance. I had to give this person more in his life than I saw the gay world as offering him. I said yes. When I finally said yes, I had joy that I had never felt before. I had my doubts -- many, many, many, many doubts as the three months passed to our wedding day, but the day I went to the temple for the first time, those doubts flew out the window. My suicidal depression went away while in the temple. The day I married him was one of the happiest days of my life. Everyone told me that I couldn't have this—and here it was MINE.

In Her Own Words: Colleen Christensen Parkinson's Story (Part 1 of 5)

2010-01-16T10:00:00.001-05:00

Colleen Christensen Parkinson is an ex-Mormon who grew up in Brigham City, Utah and now resides in Hyrum, Utah. This is her story:

I think the thing that surprised me the most by the story I read on Wildflowers (ex-wives of gay Mormons) is that there are still women marrying gays in the Mormon church -- let alone in the world -- when things are so much more open now. When my story started, I thought all gays lived in San Francisco and that they were a limited bunch. I had even had a heated debate with a Catholic friend of mine about gays a few years before I started dating my future husband.

I had been in a singles ward for several years. I had been presented several opportunities to marry to men outside the church, but I wanted the "for time and all eternity" marriage. I wanted to be assured that I would never be alone, that I would never lose the man I loved, and so I held out for that "dream."

I was giving up on that singles ward when in early June of 1982 I had a dream about someone that I would meet in my ward. A month later, I had another dream that that person who would be my husband would be at church the next day. The dream was so vivid that I waited in the foyer watching each person come in. I finally went into opening exercises late and sat down by a friend on the back row. Within minutes, another friend of mine came in with someone new and they sat down right next to me -- with the new person sitting RIGHT next to me. It was crowded on the bench, so it was rather obvious that he was the one. I was never one to pursue guys or flirt, but this was the one I had dreamed about and so I made an effort to get to know him, and it wasn't long before we were friends and then began dating.

After seven months of dating, I was confused about where things were going, so I confronted this guy as to how serious he was about our relationship, and it was then that he told me that he was gay. I remember staring out the window of his apartment and thinking, "I'm not my mother's little girl anymore."

Prop 8 and The Mormon Church

2010-01-16T09:30:00.006-05:00

California is one of many states that allows voters to write legislation and change the state constitution through the initiative or proposition process. Sounds like democracy in action, right? Wrong. Wealthy interest groups or individuals, often out of state (e.g. Ward Connerly's meddling in Michigan and Washington State), bankroll these initiatives and propositions: it's not like Joe Blow down the street usually has the time, inclination, money or know-how when it comes to putting propositions on the ballot. Big money and special interests are almost always at work.

The precursor to Proposition 8 was Proposition 22 enacted in 2000, and invalidated by the California Supreme Court as unconstitutional in May 2008. Prop 8 was introduced to change the state constitution so that GLBTQ Californians could no longer have marriage equality. Prop 8 passed in November 2008 and was upheld by the California Supreme Court on May 25, 2009, but all of California's same-sex couples who were wed before Prop 8 went into effect are still legally married.

There is currently a federal case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, before the US District Court. Pam's House Blend is providing spectacular coverage and analysis of the case as it unfolds.

The following letter was sent from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that's them up there) to Church leaders in California to be read to all congregations on 29 June 2008 in preparation for the vote on Prop 8:

Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families

In March 2000 California voters overwhelmingly approved a state law providing that ‘Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.’ The California Supreme Court recently reversed this vote of the people. On November 4, 2008, Californians will vote on a proposed amendment to the California state constitution that will now restore the March 2000 definition of marriage approved by the voters. The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children. Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage. A broad-based coalition of churches and other organizations placed the proposed amendment on the ballot. The Church will participate with this coalition in seeking its passage. Local Church leaders will provide information about how you may become involved in this important cause. We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.

Mormons were more than happy to answer the call to arms. Although Mormons constitute roughly 2% of the Californian population, it's "estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts." Mormons didn't just give of their time, they gave money, too: "In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons." Utah led out-of-state contributions to ProtectMarriage.com.

Want to learn about some more Mormon meddling political asshattery? Then click here.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, AKA TORTURE

2010-01-16T09:00:00.004-05:00

This is the location of Evergreen, the Mormon church's "reparative therapy" headquarters.

"Reparative/conversion/reorientation therapy" is not only torture built on junk science, bigotry, homophobia and violence, it also beats into the victim the incorrect notion that there is something fundamentally flawed with who they are. Fuck the assholes who came up with this bullshit idea!

For YEARS BYU conducted "experiments" on young gay men to try to "cure" them of a non-existent illness. These men had electrodes placed on their genitals, and they were shown various pornographic images. If they became aroused "inappropriately" (measured by this device patented by Robert Card) they received electric shocks to their genitals. Some were given drugs that caused them to vomit if they became "inappropriately" aroused.

All these kids were trying to do was to become "good" Mormons so they could reach exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. They wanted to be "normal." They wanted to fit into the rigid Mormon mold by which all members are confined. Why couldn't they be free? No Mormon in good standing is free, but these young people were not only alienated by fellow members, but they were also tortured in the name of God. Amen.

Affirmation discusses Evergreen and has several links to more in-depth articles and first-person accounts by people who have been involved in Evergreen as "patients" and as leaders.

Here are some videos (courtesy of antideity at YouTube) of interviews with gay men who underwent the torture "therapy" at BYU. Know that Evergreen is still in business, and the electroshock torture continued waaay past the 70s when the LDS church claims it halted the practice.

When in Doubt, Kick Them Out!

2010-01-16T08:30:00.005-05:00

Some GLBTQ Mormons wish to stay in the church, and Affirmation is a group of activist GLBTQ Mormons (some still active in the church, some who have left due to excommunication or of their own volition) who believe:

in the worth of every soul regardless of their sexual or gender orientation. We rejoice in life. We reject the tyranny that would have us believe that who we are—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender—is evil or wrong. We affirm that we are all children of loving Heavenly Parents; that our sexual orientation and identity are not an accident, but rather a special gift from God. Our lives and our relationships can be compatible with the Gospel and are a special part of God’s creation.

Despite their efforts, most GLBTQ Mormons are excommunicated if they come out to church authorities and continue their "gay ways." Gamofites, a group of gay Mormon fathers, faced excommunication, and their accounts of church harassment and excommunication were the subject of a Nightline Special, "Gay Mormons Face Excommunication."

These men recount their attempts to abstain from all but church-sanctioned hetero sex, they married and had children, some underwent "reparative ~~therapy~~ torture," to try and fix something that doesn't need fixing, but what they really want and need is to be accepted as the people they are. They're hoping and praying the church will change, but the likelihood of that happening is slim to none in a church that doesn't even recognize the existence of bisexual or transgender members. Gotta be a temple-worthy, tithe-paying breeder to get into the Celestial Kingdom. Sorry!

What Do Head Honcho Mormons Say about GLBTQIA Members?

2010-01-16T08:00:00.003-05:00

Spencer W. Kimball (dead LDS Prophet, Seer and Revelator) promised that if you masturbate, you'll evolve into a homosexual:

Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation-practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality....

The Miracle of Forgiveness, 1969, pp. 77-79, 81-82.

More Spencer (kick out the gays):

Let it therefore be clearly stated that the seriousness of the sin of homosexuality is equal to or greater than that of fornication or adultery; and that the Lord’s Church will as readily take action to disfellowship or excommunicate the unrepentant practicing homosexual as it will the unrepentant fornicator or adulterer

The Miracle of Forgiveness, 1969, pp. 81–82; italics in original.

And yet more Spencer -- here he recommends the death penalty for homosexuality:

I do not find in the Bible the modern terms "petting" nor "homosexuality," yet I found numerous scriptures which forbade such acts under by whatever names they might be called. I could not find the term "homosexuality," but I did find numerous places where the Lord condemned such a practice with such vigor that even the death penalty was assessed.

"Love Versus Lust," BYU Devotional Speech, January 5, 1965

Guess who! Spencer warns that homosexuals are looking for converts:

Homosexuality is an ugly sin, but because of its prevalence, the need to warn the uninitiated, and the desire to help those who may already be involved with it, it must be brought into the open.

Can't get enough Spencer? Here civilization is going down the shitter because of homosexuality:

This heinous homosexual sin is of the ages. Many cities and civilizations have gone out of existence because of it.7

Boyd Packer (President of those 12 Quorum guys) on gay bashing -- it's encouraged because those gays are asking for it:

After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, "I hit my companion."

"Oh, is that all," I said in great relief.

"But I floored him," he said.

After learning a little more, my response was "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way."

I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.

There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it. They are just "that way" and can only yield to those desires. That is a malicious and destructive lie. While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil. No one is locked into that kind of life. From our premortal life we were directed into a physical body. There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits. Boys are to become men—masculine, manly men—ultimately to become husbands and fathers. No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers.

"To Young Men Only," General Conference Priesthood Session, October 2, 1976.

Elder Richard G. Scott (one of those 12 Quorum guys) -- extramarital sex will turn you into a homosexual:

However, those intimate acts are forbidden by the Lord outside the enduring commitment of marriage because they undermine His purposes. 7 Within the sacred covenant of marriage, such relationships are according to His plan. When experienced any other way, they are against His will. They cause serious emotional and spiritual harm. Even though participants do not realize that is happening now, they will later.

Sexual immorality creates a barrier to the influence of the Holy Spirit with all its uplifting, enlightening, and empowering capabilities. It causes powerful physical and emotional stimulation. In time that creates an unquenchable appetite that drives the offender to ever more serious sin. It engenders selfishness and can produce aggressive acts such as brutality, abortion, sexual abuse, and violent crime. Such stimulation can lead to acts of homosexuality, and they are evil and absolutely wrong. 8

Kaye T. Hanson (I have no idea who she is) defines "sex perversion":

The Lord specifically forbids certain behaviors, including all sexual relations before marriage, petting, sex perversion (such as homosexuality, rape, and incest), masturbation, or preoccupation with sex in thought, speech, or action”

(FSOY, 14–15)

Asshats.

Heaven, Mormon Style

2010-01-16T07:30:00.003-05:00

Hokay. Mormon theology is ubercomplicated. You've got Kolob, Kokaubeam, Moon Quakers and Three Nephites (immortal dudes who find lost car keys and such), Adam-God, varied versions of The First Vision, the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, I mean, it's a lot to keep straight and digest. So, we're just going to deal with Mormon Heaven.

There are three levels to Mormon Heaven: The Celestial Kingdom, The Terestrial Kingdom and The Telestial Kingdom. The Celestial Kingdom (CK), is where you wanna go, because that's where you get to be a god of your own very planet with many wives (if you're a dude), where you'll have a perfect human body and have sex all the goddamned time. I mean, like forever.

You have to have forever sex because you'll be creating spirit children who will then populate your own planet, separate from the one you're living on, and the people on your planet will then have sex to give physical bodies to your spirit children. Got it? Good.

So the whole point behind Mormonism is to get past Go and have your own planet with your own harem so you can have sex with your flesh-and-blood body and have your wives pump out those spirit kiddos.

In order to get to the CK, you must be temple married on Earth and a worthy member of the church. To be a worthy member of the church you must pay 10% of your gross income (some say net, but most members pays on their gross as added insurance -- unemployment and government assistance are subject to tithing), you can't masturbate, you have to wear your garments, do temple work, and probably a lot of other things I haven't mentioned. But above and beyond all, you have to be a temple-wed hetero breeder.

Don't want to get hetero married? Kiss godhood goodbye. Don't want to have children? Kiss godhood goodbye. Not tithing properly or doing temple work? Kiss godhood goodbye.

No pressure, just conform and all will be well.

Welcome to GLBTQIA Day: Celebrating Nearly 180 Years of Mormon Homophobia, Bigotry and Violence!

2010-01-16T07:00:00.009-05:00

But first, your morning dose of Boop (I scratched him, then he scratched me, but I'm the only one bleeding):

Thanks for joining us for our second weekly installment detailing 180 years of Mormon asshattery and dumbfuckery! Last week on "Lamanite" Day, we established that Mormonism is fundamentally based on racism. (We only addressed the racist tenets held about Native Americans and Pacific Islanders -- we will be addressing racism directed at Africans and people of African descent in the near future.)

In addition to being fundamentally based on racism, Mormonism is also fundamentally based on sex. Now, there's nothing new about a religion telling you whom you may fuck and in what position said fucking must occur, and many religions tell you that God doesn't like you very much if you're not a 0 on the Kinsey scale. But Mormonism takes sex to a whole 'nuther level that could possibly only be matched by those wacky Raëlians. Joseph Smith, Jr. liked sex. A lot. I mean, he liked sex so much that he was married to at least 30 women at the same time, and some of them were already married to other living dudes.

Now I'm not going to fault Old Horny Joe for enjoying sexual encounters with multiple sex partners -- that's the one thing we have in common. What I am going to call him out on is basing exaltation on being a temple-married breeder, and on Misogyny Day, we'll talk about how Smith married underage girls -- two of them 14 years old.

But today we'll be discussing a wide range of topics w/r/t Mormonism and GLBTQIA (although Mormonism really only recognizes gays and lesbians) members and the GLBTQIA community outside of Mormonism -- I guess Mormons have to take their bullshit ideas of love and marriage on the road and impose them on the rest of the world.

As a straight nevermo, I don't have any personal experience to draw from, but I get by with a lot of help from my friends. Today I will be joined by three guest bloggers, all ex-Mormons with first-hand experience of Mormon ashattery and dumbfuckery when it comes to sexual preference, gender expression and gender identity.

We'll be publishing a post at least every half hour; personal story posts will be published every fifteen minutes.

Expect:

1. Some background on LDS doctrine w/r/t the three levels of heaven and why GLBTQ folks who do not consummate hetero temple marriages will not get into the highest level of heaven;

2. Notable quotes about GLBTQ folks from church leaders;

3. A discussion about the excommunication of GLBTQ members;

4. A comparison of the process of acceptance of sexual identity and the process of leaving Mormonism written by an exMormon marriage and family therapist;

5. The despicable history of Evergreen, past and present, including BYU aversion torture;

6. An overview of Mormons and Prop 8 meddling;

7. Stories of church-induced suicide and violence;

8. To learn about how the church pressures members to marry someone of the opposite sex even if a member is out to the local church authorities; and

9. Personal stories posted by GLBTQ exmormons

We've got a lot of ground to cover, and our posts won't be exhaustive, but we will provide you with the ability to continue your study of this fucked up bullshit if you so choose. Connell O'Donovan has crafted a well-researched and comprehensive book, "The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature": A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980, revised in 2004. We can't come close to providing you with the depth and breadth of information and analysis Connell O'Donovan provides, and I encourage you to read further at his site.

So, thank you for joining us, we hope you learn something useful, and please feel free to comment, correct, challenge and vent. The anonymous commenting option is open, and comments are not moderated.

Your Morning Dose of Boob

2010-01-15T07:00:00.004-05:00

I'm really a Gibson Grrl, but all I've got is this Fender shirt I ripped off my kid who ripped it off his ex-girlfriend's dad. So, yeah.

Your blog has hit rock bottom when all you do is write about your cats and your knitting. Either it's hit rock bottom or you're a helluvalot older than you realize. I'm not saying I won't write about teh kittehs anymore; I'm sure I will, but I thought I might shake things up a little bit and talk about one of my other loves: The GIT-tar.

I love me some git-tar, especially this baby right here.

My personal Guitar God is Derek Trucks:

but I love me some Sunny War and blues-style finger picking. I hate picks (I'm tactile, remember?). She's about 18 years old in this video:

If you can stomach John Mayer, check out this Rolling Stone interview with Derek Trucks and John Frusciante, and, well, douchetastic John Mayer being less douchetastic than usual:

Here we've got Derek Trucks and some other dudes:

Hope you had your git-tar fix for the day.

<3

One Hat down -- One Scarf to Go...

2010-01-14T16:48:00.005-05:00

When you have three cats putting their furrrs all over the place, how can you knit and keep your customers' items cat-hair free? It's a friggin' process, I tell you! I have one spot where I sit and knit, and all of my yarn is bagged up tightly so that cats won't curl up on it and nap. I sit on a clean sheet placed on the couch, and I have to watch those creatures to make sure they don't sit and shed in my spot when I get up -- they think they're slick. They've learned not to bug me while I'm knitting. Every once in a while, a cat will think it's being all sly and cat-like, and it will try to chew the yarn as I knit, but one quick, "Hey!" usually gets them going about other cat business that is more pressing. Bad kittehs!

And as much as I love cats and all creatures great and small (well, except for raccoons and bears), I could never do this. BLARGH and BARF!

Got Yarn?

2010-01-14T12:42:00.004-05:00

I do! I order some of my yarn from the UK -- this is Colinette yarn from Wales that I'll be using to knit a hat and matching scarf. Hopefully I'll get 'er done today and shipped tomorrow. Happiness is a warm head. And true joy is working with the good stuff like this yarn. I'm a tactile person, and it's a sensual pleasure to work with lovely hand-dyed stuff like this. I'm waiting on some Egyptian cotton for a dress I'm making. I'll post pictures when I'm done. It's nice to be off the dog sweater treadmill for awhile.

Okay, Boop Did Something Cute

2010-01-14T09:02:00.009-05:00

Here we see Boop assuming the position. He looks like he wants his belly scratched, right? Wrong! Boop is a wily creature, and this is his "Come hither" look. It used to work on me, but no more. This is really Boop's "Come hither so I can claw the fuck out of you and bite you hard enough to break your metacarpals" look. Don't fall for the ~~head~~ belly fake. I was fooled too many times to count (sometimes I don't learn all that quickly), but I won't get fooled again! No, no, no!

My Body is Telling Me to Slow Down, but I Have So Much to Say

2010-01-13T18:31:00.006-05:00

Here's a brief overview of my life:

I have Bipolar Disorder, and it's probably been causing me to take on grand projects like this feud with ldschurch.org, and I'm out of one of my meds (can't afford it)
I've been unemployed for months now, thanks in part to the Bipolar and because my workplace was unable to meet my accommodations request available under the ADA
My unemployment compensation claim was denied because the unemployment office determined that I had not exhausted my options w/r/t reasonable accommodations
I have appealed that decision and am awaiting the outcome of the appeal and steeling myself for a possible hearing
I'm behind on my rent
I have another cat I can't afford
My father has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I accompany him to appointments and try to help him stay calm while I'm screaming inside
My father may also have a cancerous renal mass found during the work up for his prostate cancer. We're going to Johns Hopkins in a couple of weeks for second opinions w/r/t his prostate CA and for evaluation of his renal mass
I've got crazy people bothering me on Etsy
Haiti
Prop 8
People suck asshattery in general

My response to these stressors is:

After this Saturday, I'm going to chill on the ldschurch.org feud for awhile
I'm just going to keep putting on a happy face for my dad
I'll try not to worry about the unemployment thing -- I'll try
I might take down my Etsy shop temporarily
Eventually I'll write a post about Haiti -- I've been there, and I have a lot to say about its history of corrupt government officials as well as our complicity in Haiti's troubles: they were the first slave colony to oust their oppressors, and they are still paying the price for being uppity and wanting freedom
Rent? Ugh. Not going to think about it
Cat? Love him and believe I made the right choice to save his life even if it means we have $10 in the bank
Internet -- gonna take a break until Saturday. Tomorrow and Friday I'm going to be writing and coordinating Saturday's posts, but otherwise, I'm putting the computer down

What this means for you:

This will most likely be my last post until Saturday unless Boop does something extremely cute
I'll still have access to email

Please pray that the FSM touches me with his noodly appendage. Times are tough. Ramen.

Boop Tries to Kill the Vet

2010-01-13T11:26:00.005-05:00

Boop, up to his usual shenanigans, tried to kill the vet and the vet's assistant. Preemptively muzzled, Boop managed to remove the muzzle not once, not twice, but three times. After the third escape, all plans to muzzle Boop were deemed to be foolhardy.

Here we see Boop rolling about in catnip, because, well, we reward our cats for what some might consider bad behavior but what I consider appropriate feline fighter behavior. Who, in their right mind, wants to have a thermometer shoved up their ass (don't answer that) and to have their broken leg manipulated? (He also received another shot of antibiotics.)

Yes, his leg is broken, but we're taking a wait and see approach -- it wasn't wrapped or casted, because Boop will likely remove any type of dressing on his leg, especially because he has an abscess that would be covered by any dressing.

He may never regain full use of his leg, but we're going to give it 1-2 months to heal on its own. If it doesn't, we'll treat him for osteomyelitis -- his leg may end up being amputated.

Your Morning Dose of Boop

2010-01-13T07:00:00.002-05:00

Here's Boop on that raggedy Pendleton blanket I ruined. Ugh. We're off to the vet this morning, so I'll check in later.

I've got a couple of things I've been thinking about telling you, but I'm not sure which to write first, so I'm going to see if I can get a poll widget to work.

See you soon!

Your Afternoon Dose of Boop

2010-01-12T16:32:00.005-05:00

Well, let's say Dad was probably a little over medicated for his MRI, but he sure as shit didn't have any anxiety about it. I rolled him to the car and drove him home (and he wasn't so out of it that he couldn't engage in typical backseat driving, as is his wont). I walked his dog, and I'm thinking Dad's out for the night.

I'm off for the night as well. There has been no ldschurch.org lurking asshattery today, so I might have to remove the tally if they keep up the good work. We'll see how they behave tomorrow.

I was also able to cancel the Etsy transaction with that customer who tried to get me to falsify official government documents. I issued her a full refund, and hopefully that's the end of that.

I'm pooped, and I still have a crapload of stuff to do. Boop goes back to the vet because he bit him and we have to make sure Boop's not some sort of feline Cujo thanks to a certain someone's neglect of this lovely creature. He still doesn't walk on his right hind leg, so maybe we'll get it x-rayed tomorrow. Hopefully we won't need to, because Honey has no money! At least it still isn't three or four times its normal size, and the abscess looks good as does the abscess on his tail.

So, that the new from Phila-del-phi-a. Hope you all are well.

MWAH!

Your Morning Dose of Benzos

2010-01-12T07:00:00.001-05:00

I'm sorry -- no Boop this morning. :-( I have to take mi da to have an MRI, and he's quite claustrophobic, so we're going to dope him up good. Real good.

Being well-acquainted with benzos myself (thanks, PTSD!), and knowing mi da as well as I do, he's getting 1mg of Ativan (prescribed -- I don't share my stash). I'm going to have him cut it in half, because I'm not going to be able to carry him out of the car if 1mg knocks him flat on his ass.

So, enjoy your day -- I'll be back later after his study. I still have some dog sweater knitting issues, but I'm trying to cancel an order: The buyer wanted me to lie on the customs forms I'd have to fill out. I'm sorry, but no. I will not be lying to the Federal Government so some already difficult customer can save some time and money. No, no, no.

I Fight the DJ

Stories

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Dad's Reply...

Dear Dad, One of the Many Things I Inherited from You...

At What Point Do You Just Back the Fuck Off? NOW!

"Where Do I Begin?" by The Chemical Brothers

Although We Haven't Eaten Yet, I Am Ready to Air Some Fucking Grievances

(Jump, Baby! Jump!)

Grievance #3: Stop pretending to know things you don't. There's nothing wrong or shameful about saying, "I don't know." It's even cooler to say, "I don't know -- let's find out." Kudos if you are able to have, "I don't know -- please tell me," cross your lips.

Grievance #4: STOP GIVING ME PARENTING TIPS! Last time I checked, things weren't going so well with your relationships with your offspring. Spend some time working on that shit, and then maybe we'll talk.

Grievance #5: STOP WORRYING ABOUT PEOPLE'S MONEY! Who cares how Cousin Ernie bought that car/guitar/tattoo/whatever? It's none of your fucking business unless he's stealing from you.

Grievance #6: Stop telling people what to do with their bodies! Until someone ties you down and tattoos you/dyes your hair/pierces your nipples/gauges your ears, SHUT THE FUCK UP! It is NOT YOUR BODY. Over 18 = legal body mod.

Grievance #7: Just because you call it "constructive criticism" doesn't mean it's not really destructive and nasty.

Grievance #8: Don't apologize unless you mean that shit. Really. No one is so stupid to think you mean it and that it isn't some transparent attempt at ending a painful discussion.

Grievance #9: STFU and LISTEN sometimes. You might learn something.

Grievance #11: (and last one of the day): Stop judging. Look inward. Reflect. Be honest with yourself. It's scary, but it's good.

Postcards from Hell or Emails from My Mother

Titty Update - We Don't Know, but We *Think* You're Okay or Watchful Waiting Is Crazy Making, and I Don't Need the Help

So That Fun Post I Was Writing in My Head...

I Owe You a Post

Okay, I Really Didn't Because...

I Met a Tahrir Protester, and He Is Awesome

I Walked Past Your Old House Today

In Light of Recent Events...

Hey, You -- Yes, You Know I'm Talking to You

Letter to an Old Friend [UPDATED]

Four Interviews over Six Weeks

"My Poor Brain" -- Foo Fighters -- Still HIV Deniers? We Might Never Know

I'd Like

I Am a Broken Fucking Person

Went to VA Benefits Meeting...

Smokin' Joe Frazier Banned Me from His Gym and Later Invited Me to a BBQ

The Honeymoon Is OVER

Palin Blast from the Past - 2008 Trip to Philly in Pictures

Migrating from FB to Google+, but I Still Want diaspora*

Touch Me

You Just Press On

"How Can I Turn the Other Cheek? It's Black and Bruised and Torn..."

Sometimes I think about you, and I wonder how you are

The 9th Ward, June 2010

Here

Why Do People Suck?

Tenuous Grasp on Semblance of Sanity

We Are Water

Elightenment

Hollow Earth, Hollow Head

My Dream for You, As You Sleep...

Once Upon a Time, I Was a Runaway...

Random Moments of Beauty

I kind of suck, and I kind of don't

So Sorry -- Still Carzy Busy

Sorry -- Busy. Doing Stuffs

Your Morning Dose of Loop

Yarn Porn

Relief! I'll Be Brief.

Okay -- I'm Officially Freaking Out!

Your Morning Dose of Poop

Your Morning Dose of Overexposed Boop

Why I Fight the DJ Wins!

Your Morning Dose of Loop

Your Morning Dose of Boop

Goodbye, Daily Tally of ldschurch.org Lurking Asshattery

And Just Like *That*, My Mood Changes

Your Morning Dose of Boop and My Trip to CrazyTown

Your Morning Dose of Boop

If You've Been Following My Blog for Awhile, You Know What This Graphic Means

Your Morning Dose of Boot

A Few Choice Words from Today's First Troll

Thank You for Joining Us Today

Of Murder and Suicide

To the Mormon Church, We Are All Gay

Part 4/4: Holy asshole, Batman, what's that? That, Boy Wonder, is an @$$-Holy-O.

Part 3/4: Rewriting that DULL AS DIRT Temple Script.

Part 2/4: You're not the boss of me. I am.

Part 1/4: flattopSF’s Top Ten Super-Gay Reasons He’s Not A Mormon Anymore

In Her Own Words (Part 5 of 5)

In Her Own Words (Part 4 of 5)

In Her Own Words (Part 3 of 5)

In Her Own Words (Part 2 of 5)

Titty Update - We Don't Know, but We Think You're Okay or Watchful Waiting Is Crazy Making, and I Don't Need the Help

And Just Like That, My Mood Changes