Ignore the Raving Insomniac

I want to disappear to a world where I'm not stuffed in a 12 by 14 cell. A world where I don't have to share a bathroom with sixty billion other people. A world where I can't hear people having sex inches away from my head. A world where bottles and cans recycle themselves, where I don't have to choose between clean clothes or dinner that night, where the shades are always up and the curtains are always parted. The sun is always shining and there are never spooky things in the woods. There are no research papers, no theses to invent. Huckleberry Finn is forever floating down the Mississippi with Jim and we never have to have a classroom discussion on the matter.

Someone stole one of my spoons. I have four normal sized spoons and four soup spoons, and now I have three normal sized spoons.

I had a lovely day of shopping and running between the rain drops, but I think it's pretty clear that I've been cooped up for too long. But it's 1 am... and I've no one to go for a walk with me because campus is dead right now. If I still smoked I could just go for a walk with my cigarettes and my thoughts and no one would think I was crazy for walking around in the middle of the night by my lonesomes.

All they play on television at this hour are commercials for hippie music, but they never play the whole song, which is upsetting.

College makes me an insomniac. I really like Carly Simon.

I'm Not Bitter

If I had a nickel for every time I was treated with disrespect because I am (clearly) a lesbian, I think I'd have maybe 10 cents, but that's pushing it. I don't really recall ever being treated differently in any respect because I'm gay, either better or worse.

I guess I never really expected to be treated differently.

All of my friends parents know (basically everyone knows except my mother, but she's not dumb) and they're all cool about it, very cool in fact. When I came out to each of them, nothing in that relationship changed, which is exactly what I had hoped for.

My roommate's entire family knows, and they're basically the best. I love my roommate and her family to pieces. Couldn't ask for a better roommate.

The whole coming out process for me was kind of like "whoa, I got myself all worked up over nothing?"

But then this has to happen, and I wonder to myself "what the fuck?"

The "this" I am referring to is something that one of my very best friends told me the other day. She and I hang out a lot, and a lot of the time we're hanging out with a bunch of our mutual friends. Some of the time we hang out just the two of us, for no reason other than the fact that sometimes it's nice to hang out one on one instead of having to deal with six people all competing for attention. I make one on one time for all my best friends.

Hope you don't mind that I'm telling your story, I know you're reading this right now.

Anywho, so my friend told me that her grandmother (a very old country Roman Catholic) found out that I'm a lesbian (because it was a big fucking secret, obviously) and doesn't want her to hang out with me anymore. "People will get ideas." What the fuck does that even mean? People will get ideas? If people wanted fucking ideas they would use their heads!

I've been friends with this girl for a very long time, I know her family and they know me. AND SHE'S NOT GAY. Does her grandmother honestly think that I'm going to change her? Or that I have any desire to?? And why the hell does she care what people think? The people in this town who know I'm a lesbian, the only people who would potentially talk about it, first of all DON'T MATTER, and second of all wouldn't talk about it because I'M NOT THE ONLY GAY PERSON IN THIS FUCKED UP TOWN.

And then, her little sister who is a friend of mine, basically asked her if she and I were together because we spend so much time together. Are you kidding me? Is this SERIOUSLY happening?

I'm not in high school anymore, I do not need to deal with this sophomoric bullshit.

I don't understand how or why things like this happen. I can't have friends anymore because obviously if I'm friends with a girl it means I'm in a romantic relationship with her? I can't spend time with the same group of girls I've hung around with since elementary school? I would have been a lesbian whether I came out or not, I was always a lesbian. I was a lesbian when I blew out the candles on my seventh birthday cake, I was a lesbian when I kissed a boy for the first time in the fourth grade, I was a lesbian when I walked across the stage at graduation. I have always been and will always be a lesbian. Would society rather that I stay in the closet and continue to suffer? I don't want the answer to that question, and I refuse to believe the truth.

It hurts so much to know that there are people out there who think of me differently just because I'm gay and just because I'm out and just because I am proud of who I am.

I will never regret coming out, I would have died if I hadn't. The pain of leading a life you weren't meant to lead is far worse than the pain of being made to feel "different."

I wish, more than anything else, that I could talk to my mother about this, and that she could tell me it's all going to be okay. But I don't believe that will ever happen.

I'm a damn good friend to ALL of my friends, the fact that I'm gay shouldn't matter.

I just don't understand.

The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me

Why are people so angry? Maybe the better question is why are people so angry in God's name?

I'm not perfect and I never professed to being perfect. God made me the way I am, just like He made you the way you are. We are made in the image of Love, and therefore we should LOVE each other.

The Bible says a lot of shit, and I will be the first to say a lot of it upsets me. I think maybe the best way to describe the Bible is to compare it to a modern day individual who goes around trying to please everyone. You simply cannot please everyone, and that is the Bible's major flaw.

I don't really feel like getting into the Bible's shortcomings. We all have shortcomings.

That is organized religion's major flaw (and I'm not just talking about Christianity here, I'm talking about all of it). Islam SAYS it wants everyone, just like Christianity and Judaism and all of the other major world religions. You don't START a religion for one group of people, just like you don't FOUND a country for one group of people. You don't see people walking around with pointy hats and funny looking pants talking about the winter and the Indians anymore.

Religions and nations aren't founded for the present time. People are mortal, fallible, ignorant, and only here for the present. We have no concept of time outside of ourselves. God is the ultimate embodiment of time, God has no time constraints and no restrictions.

God wasn't made for black people, or white people, of straight people, or Gay people. God wasn't made for men, and God wasn't made for woman. God MADE all of us, we have NO RIGHT, absolutely NO RIGHT to act as though we understand God in any capacity. We can never understand God. We can't even understand ourselves, how could we possibly ever understand God? That's not to say that speculation isn't okay, because it is. We are human, we are thinkers. God gave us brains for a reason, and if we use those brains to will God away from our lives, that is our prerogative. However, if we use those brains to elevate ourselves above others, we are defeating the purpose of faith: all inclusion. I'm not better than an athiest because I'm a Christian. I'm not better than a homeless person because I'm from the middle class. No one is better than anyone else, because everyone came from the same place, and will eventually return to that place. And we all have the right to our own beliefs and opinions, and should share those beliefs and opinions because that is why we have brains, and that is why we have mouths to speak and ears the listen. We should use our ears more often, maybe we would learn something.

It's so hilariously disappointing to me that we as a world still hold ourselves to the same standard as the people who lived in Biblical times. We don't live to be 600 years old, and then we die. Most of us don't tend sheep for our livelihoods, have 15 kids in the hopes that at least 1 will live on and carry on our DNA.

Not many people these days disclose dicussions with God to the public. If you hear God, and you talk about it, it's probably your ticket to the mental hospital.

Why can't people just look outside themselves for ONE MINUTE and see how small their lives are?

Don't quote the Bible at me and tell me I'm a sinner and that I need to repent. Don't spout your hate at me. Hate has no place in the Bible, hate has no place in ANY body of faith. Faith isn't founded on hate, and it isn't built over hate. God is love, whether you believe God is an actual entity, a living person, multiple people, an idea, or NOTHING AT ALL. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE SOMETHING.

We ARE a great people! Together we are beautiful and our lives are meaningful. I believe that no matter what you believe, we are all a part of the same family, and we are all just trying to live. We live until we die, and we all die. Is it so much to ask to just be allowed to live?

I can't love you because I'm a woman? I can't love you because I'm white? I can't love you because I'm gay?

This is me saying I will love YOU until it hurts. I will love without anger and in God's name.

The Bible is a book, just like any other. God didn't write the Bible, God never wrote anything. God never said that anything in particular was a sin. We know in our hearts and our minds what is right and wrong. Trust yourself and your rationality and you are trusting God.

Life in a Northern Town

Mighty Mouse died.

I really don't know what to say, because it's just not fair to the poor little baby mouse.

I picked him up out of the cage and held him close for a while, and told him how sorry I am, and promised God that I really tried. I'm not sure I did the right thing, but I tried. And I loved him, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

I took him outside and paced around for a while, trying to think of what to do with him. I saw a big mouse scurry into the bulkhead that leads into the basement. It was probably the most upsetting part of the whole event. I assume this mouse is a relative of mighty mouse, perhaps his mother searching for him.

I searched high and low for her yesterday. Where was she yesterday? So I left his little body in the bulkhead, where he will be safe from bigger animals and I will be able to find him tomorrow to bury him, but where tonight maybe his mom will find him and know that she doesn't have to search anymore.

I don't know anything about mice but I assume they aren't as sentimental as people are. But if my baby went missing and I couldn't find it, I would at least want to know what happened to it.

I'm super sentimental, I know, and probably a big cry baby because when I was holding mighty I was dripping big tears all over him.

I told him that I'm sure God has a special place in the palm of His hand where he can nuzzle his little head, and I'm sure it's true. There has to be something special for innocent little creatures.

All creatures great and small
All things bright and beautiful
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all

He gave us eyes to see them
He gave us lips to tell
How great is God Almighty
Who has made all things well

When I get upset I turn to my faith. Sometimes it is trying, as no one can ever understand God's motivation. I DO understand the motives of people (most of the time...), and people are most certainly not God, which is why I disagree with much of organized religion. Too many people doing "God's work" and screwing over everyone in the process.

And I would never, EVER, push my faith on another. But when I needed guidance, God was there for me, and my Pastor was there for me, even when I didn't know him. Everything happens for a reason, I just happen to believe that God is everything.

When I hear people say they don't believe in God, I get kind of confused, I'll admit it. But I have been there, and I respect everyone's decision to believe or not believe. It's a free country, it should be a free world. I believe we should all enjoy this life, because life is meant to be enjoyed. Bad things happen to everyone, good and bad. Good things happen to everyone, good and bad. Life is just life. But I do believe there is more.

When my father died, I said on any number of occasions that I hated God. But hating something proves that you believe in it. I hated everything, I hated life I hated death, I hated myself.

I've grown up a lot in the, geez almost 11, years that my father has been dead. I've lived a lot more and experienced a lot more. I don't hate anything anymore, and I attribute the freedom from hate to my faith. And that's just me.

I wasn't in the room when he died. And I'll never forgive myself for that. Ever. My sister was out to dinner with her husband, on her way back. We're both scarred by it, I know. We both know what it is like to have an absent father, so to speak. She was twenty-five when he died, but my father wasn't allowed to father my sister when she was young (her mother made sure of that, we're half sisters, but that's another story). And my father wasn't allowed to father me, as fate would have it.

He was a wonderful man. He never got to hear me play my violin, or play lacrosse, or graduate high school, or move into college. He wasn't there to knock the cigarette out of my hand outside the shop class garage in high school. He wasn't there to teach me how to change the oil on my car, something I had to teach myself. He wasn't there when I had my first kiss, my first date, my first heart break, the first time I broke someone else's heart. He wasn't there to see my big mistakes, my little mistakes, the happiest moments in my life, the saddest moments in my life, the days when I couldn't get out of bed, the days when I couldn't wait to greet the sun with a smile.

He never got to hold his granddaughter, or his grandson. To see their first steps, to hear their first words. To look into their eyes and see his own. To know that he played a little part in the great mystery of it all. To know that, he touched their lives, even though he never knew them.

And all I can do is carry on his memory, his kindness.

Which loops me back around to where I think I began this rant. My father was very much like me, where he couldn't just leave a helpless animal to suffer. I remember, vividly, the time that he found a baby bird in the pool. He build a makeshift nest and left the baby out in the trees behind our house. When we went to check on the baby the next morning, it was gone. Whenever I see a healthy young robin, I think of the bird that was saved. I'm sure its mother found it, and I'm sure it learned how to fly. Because my daddy saved it.

I hope somewhere, my father is proud of me, the way I am still so very proud of him.

I know you tried daddy. All we can ever do is try.

4%

If I got 4% of my paycheck, and the rest was taken out for "social security" that my generation will never see, I'd be mighty pissed.

If I was having a house built and only 4% of the construction was finished on the day that the entire home was supposed to be done, I would be very upset.

If I were in a terrible accident and only 4% of my body was salvageable... I'd be dead.

I live in a country where 4% of the states allow EVERYONE to be married.

I, unfortunately, don't live in one of the states where marriage is a civil liberty. Well, I'm a registered voter in CT and I've never been employed in any other state, and I write resident of CT on paperwork, but I do reside in the great state of Massachusetts 9/12 of the year.
I don't want to live in a country where marriage isn't a civil liberty for everyone. Where bigots run the nation. Where honest, hard working people aren't granted the same rights as other honest, hard working people, for no reason other than who they love.

At least they are capable of love.

At least they don't have to hide who they are and have anonymous sex with people in airport bathrooms, or take advantage of young people in our nation's capitol, or hire prostitutes, or any number of the outrageous things our elected officials, THE CIVIL SERVANTS OF THIS NATION, do, constantly. And with YOUR tax money.

I work, I drive a car, I live in a home, I have a family who is counting on my having a future, I go to college, I have friends and family who love me, I LOVE my friends and family. I also am attracted to women. So where's the crime?

Once I didn't have enough money to pay for a pizza, and I promised the man I'd pay him back the next day, and I've never gone back since. That's the first and last time I ever "stole" and I certainly didn't mean to.

Sometimes I yell at the people I love when I get frustrated.

I don't keep my room as tidy as I should.

I drink sometimes, and I smoked cigarettes before I turned 18. That's the extent of my illegal biddings.

My country would have me think that because I like chicks I am a second class citizen. STILL. After all these years. It was just over half a century ago, I believe, that homosexuality was taken out of the APA manual of psychological disorders. I don't have a psychological disorder. Certainly the ability to love another human being isn't a psychological disorder. It's a gift from God that should be cherished. Gender is of no consequence.

And don't bring God or the Bible into this. YOU IGNORANT BASTARDS! Read the Bible!!! Don't take it out of context and listen to those scumbags who spout hate!! They also beat their wives and children and perpetuate violence!! They also have 10 mouths to feed at home because they can't put a damn glove on it!! THEY ALSO ARE NOT THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION!

Most people are honest, hard working, quiet American citizens, just trying to get by, and love their families and make the most of the time they're given. THEY ELECTED YOU! Take their tax money and put it to good use!!

We all deserve the right to love whoever we chose, and to not be afraid to walk down the street holding hands with our lover, and to not be confronted with hate DAILY from the people who are supposed to be doing OUR WILL!

WASPS are not the majority anymore. I am a WASP, I am a woman, I am a decent, law abiding American citizen.

LET ME LOVE WHO I WANT TO LOVE IN PEACE!

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, that's all any American wants. And if anyone wants to take away the ability of other Americans to enjoy those rights that are guarenteed by our Constitution, well THEY will get a big dose of LOVE from me!!

P.S. that was kind of a rant, but it made me feel a lot better. Congratulations to California, God Bless all who are being married there now and in the coming months and God grant freedom for the rest of the nation!!