Why?

My roommate and I were talking the other night. She's going through a lot right now. Her best friend is moving out to LA, thousands of miles away, maybe forever. Needless to say my roommate is broken hearted.

She also told me something that I was completely unprepared to hear, something that I don't think anyone is ever prepared to hear.

Her other best friend out in Arizona recently told her that he is HIV positive.

He's HIV positive.

I think I said oh my god about a million times.

He's my age, and he's HIV positive. He'll never live the carefree life of a young adult again. He can't just be a normal kid anymore.

So I have to ask why.

Why do things like this have to happen? Why is HIV so prevalent?

It's so preventable. There is no reason why people should get HIV, why young lives should be cut short.

And if the person who gave it to him knew he was HIV positive? Well that person is a murderer. If you're sick, let the people you are with know about it. Don't have anonymous sex.

I just don't get it.

I know bad things happen and there is nothing we can do about it, and there are some things we just have to accept.

Forgive me, but I just cannot accept the fact that people are dying of a completely prevantable disease. People are dying, families are being destroyed, futures are never being realized.

And that's just OK with the U.S. government? There has to be more we can be doing to find a cure, to find a vaccine, to do SOMETHING.

I'm really scared. I've never known someone who was HIV positive (that I'm aware of) and even though I don't know my roommate's best friend, I feel like I know him. He's our age, he's shared memories with one of my best friends.

It scares me because it's not okay. It's not okay at all, and it never will be until someone does something about it. This isn't one of those problems that can just be passed along from generation to generation, and hopefully one day one generation will say enough is enough. This is a big problem that needs to be fixed right now. It needed to be fixed years ago.

I guess I'm just at a loss for words. It doesn't make any sense to me, at all. And it never will.

On a lighter note, Mighty Mouse is doing fine this morning. The cats even knocked his cage over some time last night, and the little one is still doing fine. He really is just a little baby, he can hardly walk, but he loves burying his little head in the palm of my hand and curling up into a ball. He hates the milk I try to give him (it is fat free, I don't really blame him, but it's all we have) but he seems to like bird seed just fine. I had mice a long time ago, I've even had baby mice, but the baby mice had a mother to take care of them, and they were store bought mice, not wild mice. He's not out of the woods yet, but I think he's getting there.

I guess some things will never make sense.

Mighty Mouse

I'm really tired, but I can't stop thinking about the poor wee baby mouse. My friend decided that his name should be Mighty Mouse, and I think it's fitting.

I'm very worried about him. But once he dies, there will be no more worry, right? He'll go to heaven, where all the baby mice, and the doggies, and the dads and the cousins and the strangers go. And he'll have his own place in the palm of God's hand, where he can bury his little whiskered head and soak up all the body heat he ever dreamed of. All the fleas will melt away. He'll never go hungry or thirsty again.

And some day, hopefully, I'll get there and meet him, and tell him how sorry I am that I couldn't save him. All I want to do is save the poor baby and I'm so powerless. I hate being powerless more than anything else in this world.

And Mighty Mouse can share a seat on my daddy's lap with Kashi, and Ducky, and Candy, and Johnny Pig, and Rex, and all the animals that went before him and all the animals that are bound to follow him.

I hope God knows how much I want to save this little baby, and how confused I am as to why I had to find him, and why he couldn't just live to be an old mouse with lots of little mice babies of his own.

It's just not fair. Babies, human or otherwise, shouldn't die. I don't understand why God would create life only to take it back.

And I don't want the God works in mysterious ways bullshit. I just want to understand.

On an equally heart wrenching note for me, I talked to my best friend tonight.

I think I mentioned that we "broke up" and she made me cry. A lot. And my madre is looking for blood. According to her I am selfish, and dominating, and only care about myself, and haven't been a good friend to her in the past five years. These are things she said in anger. And at the time that she was saying them, I said "we're just angry right and saying things we don't mean." But she assured me that she meant the things she said. And that she no longer wanted to be friends. After hanging up with me and leaving me heartbroken, beyond repair I believe, she called our two other best friends to tell them the situation and to basically get their approval.

She called me tonight to apologize and to see if we could work on things. I wasn't really angry until tonight. I was beyond angry. Beyond completely pissed off. Past the point of no return.

I called her back and ripped her a new one.

How dare she end our friendship of thirteen years, and then so casually call back and ask for things to be better. How dare she. How dare she rip my heart out of my chest, put it up to my nose, and tear it into little shreds right in front of my eyes. How dare she drag our other friends into the equation when it was completely unnecessary.

And I said these things to her. And I hurt her the way she hurt me. I told her I'm leaving town after this summer, and never looking back. I'll come back for holidays and visits, but I'm no longer living in CT two weeks from now. I heard the fear in her voice.

I told her the friends I've made in the past year have been better friends to me than she has been in the past five years. I heart her heart break.

I told her that she isn't my best friend anymore, and she probably never will be again. I heard her heart rip apart. The little part of me that died the other night died inside of her tonight.

I feel bad because the whole "you hurt me so now I'll hurt you" thing is so not me, and so unbecoming, and it doesn't feel good. But I hope she knows now. I hope she knows how much she hurt me. She hurt me worse than any ex girlfriend, than any fight with my mother, than anything I've been through in the recent past. It was like someone killed the one constant in my life.

No one can revive the best friend that I lost. That person is dead. Maybe we can start again, but it won't be the same.

I just want everything to go back to normal so badly. So badly. But it never will.

Growing up is too hard.

The Baby Mouse Blues

I've blogged about how I feel about animals before. Nothing has changed since then.

I'll start from the beginning.

My beloved rose bush that I planted last summer died a few weeks ago. I tried to revive it all summer, but nothing worked. It was a beautiful plant.

I bought a new rose bush to put in its place. I currently have three, one that is doing wonderfully, another that is getting by but has only had one flower so far, and my newest.

Something is apparently wrong with the soil where I am planting it because this plant is fading, just like the last one did. So I carefully dug it up and replanted it in a different location last night. Today I went out to put some soil around the base of the plant and put some rose food down for all the roses, and I did, and then decided to plant some beautiful little annuals that I got a little over a week ago that I haven't gotten around to planting. I dug the holes for them and went to get them in the pool yard when I saw it.

There was a baby mouse swimming in the pool. At first I thought it was a vole, a blind little critter that I've spotted around the outside of the house a few times. I waded into the pool, shorts and all, and plucked the wee baby out of the water.

I held it for a long time, despite the fact that it was covered in fleas. I determined it wasn't a vole, but was in fact a mouse, and a very very young mouse at that.

I called the madre, no answer.

My hands were covered in dirt and little fleas, and of course a soaking wet baby mouse.

I can't just leave these little creatures who need help.

Luke 9:48 "And said to them, Whoever shall receive this child in my name receives me: and whoever shall receive me receives him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great."

I believe that everything matters, every life is there for a reason, even a seemingly insignificant little baby mouse.

I put him in a cage in the house, lined with newspaper. I cut up a rag into three pieces, one small piece I soaked with water, another small piece I soaked with milk, and another big piece I folded into squares and heated up for 10 second in the microwave to simulate his mother. At least I'm hoping it simulates his mother a little bit. I just want him to be comfortable. I want him to live, and turn into a strong mouse and have lots of little mouse babies and grow old. But if that can't happen, I just want him to be comfortable.

It really is breaking my heart. I don't know why these things have to happen to innocent little creatures.

I can't stop thinking about the Secret of Nimh and the little baby mice and how the mother only wants to save her sick baby. This little baby's mother is out there somewhere, missing him, worrying about him. And he's here, worrying about her, worrying about his future.

I hope he'll be alright. I really don't know what else to do for him. If he is still alive in the morning, and I really pray he is, I think I'll just put him outside and hope for the best. I searched for his mother or his nest or any sign of mice, and found nothing. Where is his mother?? How could she just leave him like this!

I can't help but feel really upset with his mom. Maybe she is hurt somewhere, maybe she is dead somewhere. Maybe she just let her little baby wander off. Whatever happened, it's not okay, and it shouldn't be this way. I don't want anything to do with wildlife. They are wild for a reason. But I can't just let them suffer and die without trying my hardest to help them.

Funnay Funnay

I didn't really go in depth about the Celine Dion concert, and I really should.

First of all, there were SO many people there. Lots of middle aged men with their mothers and twenty-something year old couples on dates, etc. More little girls wearing homemade "I love Celine" t-shirts than I was anticipating.

And then, there were the gays. Some people might be offended by the term "the gays" because it sets us apart from the rest of society. Well, I'm just using the gays as a term to differentiate between the homosexuals present in the audience and the heterosexuals. Sorry if anyone is offended.

There were SO many lesbians. I was expecting gay men, because it's Celine, I mean come on. Celine, Cher, Barbra, Diana. The gays flock to them like Kathy Griffin on steroids. I was not expecting so many lesbians.

I was also not expecting them to check me out. In front of my mother. VERY obviously.

I'm out to everyone except my mother/her family. I'm fairly certain my sister knows, and anyone who I encounter who assumes my heterosexuality is quickly corrected.

We were standing in line to go in to the theatre and get patted down or whatever, so I was concealing my guns and my shanks (just kidding of course) when the madre turns to me, very slowly.

"Rachel, can you take your bracelet off?"

I wear an HRC rubber bracelet that has the HRC logo, a heart, and a peace sign on it. I guess I kind of wear it so that if anyone has any doubt when they see me, they will know. But it's very small, and not all that noticeable.

"Why?" I turned to her.

"Because there are lesbians checking you out."

My face turned bright red and I turned around and looked forward, so that the crazed lesbians wouldn't know that I knew they were checking me out. I saw them doing it too, and they were SOO not my type at all. I'm just a wee little lesbian, and I guess I look like a lesbian, but I don't announce it to the world. I was so horrified that they were checking me out IN FRONT OF MY MOTHER.

"Ma, maybe they're not checking me out, maybe they're just looking."

"Rachel, I know the difference between looking at someone and checking them out."

Well, I refused to take the bracelet off, and my mother worried that I was going to be molested by lesbians for the rest of the evening. She said "You have to be careful wearing things like that, you don't want people to get the wrong idea."

They have the right idea, Ma, they are dead on.

Lesson: If you're going to check a girl out, make sure she isn't with her parents. PLEASE. It's embaressing to her AND to you. If my madre was a little more bold, she would have gone up to you and given you a piece of her mind. I do believe she would have done to same to a dirty old man looking at me too.

I laugh every time I think about that.

Identity

A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to summarize.

I went to New York City with five of my best friends for my best gay boyfriend's 20th birthday. It was a great day in the city, we went to Central Park and Times Square and had a really expensive meal and went to the Museum of Natural History. The bgbf and I saw Avenue Q and it was AMAZING. All in all it was a great, but very long, day, and all of us were ready to go home and not see each other for a long time afterwards.

Unfortunately my best friend and I (not the bgbf) are not longer speaking to each other. We've been best friends for at least 13 years and we got into an argument and she decided we can't be friends anymore. After crying about it for no less than a day, I have decided that I'm better off without her. She is the love of my life (in a not romantic way at all) and she is my soulmate. Being without her for long periods of time is like going without oxygen, like living in a house of carbon dioxide. Eventually I will suffocate. Until she comes around and sees that we need each other, I'm pretty broken hearted. But, like my mom told me when I sobbingly asked "Isn't loving someone enough?" sometimes loving something, in fact often times, isn't enough. And that's all I have to say about that.

The madre and I saw Celine Dion in Boston at the TD Bank North Garden. The concert was AWESOME!! Nothing like True Colors, if you ask me, but it certainly was awesome. Celine Dion really really REALLY knows how to put on a show. I'd be hard pressed to find a better entertainer out there. It was good to get away for a while too and spend some quality time with the madre.

I've been trying to explain to the bgbf and my roommate how I am feeling right now. Everyone knows that I have a broken heart as a result of the break up with my best friend, and everyone is being very nice about it.

But lately I've been feeling really really weird. Not about anything external but about sometimes inside me that I can't really explain. It's really hard to articulate but I'm going to try here.

I've always considered myself feminine, and I have lots of feminine qualities. For example, I use girl shampoo, I wear girl clothes (most of the time), I feel more comfortable with long hair (though I've always wanted to try short hair), I have a girl's voice, I have a girl's shape, etc. etc.

But I don't feel like that's me anymore. I don't want a girl's shape, and I never did. I HATED when in fifth grade things started to change. Girls and boys weren't basically the same anymore. I couldn't hang out wit my guy friends the way I used to. They didn't want to wrestle with me anymore because they were worried they would hurt me, or they thought I had cooties (even though I never had cooties cause I was always just one of the guys). They didn't want to sit around and talk about girls with me anymore because I had BECOME a girl. For the longest time I was just one of the guys, we talked about how silly girls were and how tough we were. We got into fist fights just for fun, to prove how strong we were to one and other.

I was a girl scout, and I loved going on retreats into cabins in the deep woods, sleeping on a mattress on the floor surrounded by a room full of girls. I played softball and soccer. I was first base in softball, and I was goalie in soccer (most of the time, my position varied as the years went on). I enjoyed the time I spent with girls, and eventually I managed to weed out having to be around guys (except for "boyfriends" and their friends, and the guys I was in orchestra with who were like brothers).

I took on a persona in high school that I absolutely hated. Up until then I was the biggest tomboy ever. I had the anything you can do I can do better attitude and I owned it. My cousin cried once because she wanted to get me a makeup kit for Christmas and I wanted a t-ball set. During middle school, she got me the makeup kit, and I still have it, with the same makeup from middleschool in it.

I don't want to wear girly clothes, I don't want to dress up. I don't want to wear skirts and dresses and frills and tweed. I want to be flat chested like I was before the fifth grade, with no curves, and nothing to make someone believe I'm just some chick. I'm not just some chick.

I want to cut my hair short and I was strong arms. I want more tattoos. I want to be the embodiment of androgeny.

I bought a new sports bra today and I was wearing it under my grateful dead t-shirt. I walked past my mother in the kitchen and she said "I like that one, it doesn't flatten you."

First, I was mortified because my mother was checking me out. Ick. Then, I was upset because I only get sports bras that I believe will flatten me. This one, clearly, is not going to serve the purpose I intended for it. Then I was kind of happy because that means the other ones that I wear do serve their purposes.

In any event, I feel like this might be a big year for change. Last year was a big year for change, but this year might be the finishing touches. Maybe it's all a big process that we're never done with. Gender expression is never ending I suppose.

I guess the long and short of what I am trying to say is that I always considered myself feminine (femme if you're into that kind of terminology) but I don't think that's me anymore. I don't think that ever really was me. I am the same tomboy I was before the fifth grade. Maybe they don't call us tomboys anymore. Maybe tomboys who also happen to be lesbians are called queer? I'm not sure. I always called things that were weird "queer," and only recently heard it used to describe anything that wasn't heterosexual and "normal."

So maybe I'm becoming the big scary queer lesbian I never thought I would be. It's hard to go through things like this and not have anyone to bounce ideas off of. I wish someone would just say to me: It's okay to want to cut your hair short, hair will grow back. It's okay to wear tight sports bras. It's okay to wear boy shorts and boy swim trunks and t-shirts. It's okay to not allow anyone to hold the door for you or to treat you like some kind of girl. I'm not some kind of girl. I'm just me.

Life Rant

Ever since I converted to Christianity when I was 15 I've been proud of my faith. I was mainly proud of the fact that I discovered it within myself, I wasn't forced into it by any means.

But I'm not sure if I believe in that faith anymore. I'm not even sure that I believe in God anymore.

I think it's lovely to think that there is something after death, but I don't think I buy that anymore.

We're on a schedule here. We've been on a schedule since the moment we were concieved. If I might be allowed to draw off some aspects of Christian theology: I believe that when we are born our death is predetermined. I don't believe putting that cigarette down right now will change your date of death. I do believe putting that cigarette down right now, if that is what you are SUPPOSED to do, won't change a thing. There is nothing you could possibly do to throw off the balance of the universe because everything is happening the way it is supposed to happen. That's not to say I believe that the Christian God, or Allah or Yaweh (who are also the Christian God, by the way, but that's another story) or any diety for that matter is in control. I'm not even sure I believe a cosmic force controls everything. I think everything just is, and everything happens exactly the way it is supposed to happen.

I just had a very Sirens of Titan realization. If you've ever read that book then you'll know that the history of mankind is shaped around getting a part for a spaceship back to an alien who is stranded on his way to Earth.

But where I'm going with this is to say that everything happens for a reason. You could look at it that way. Or you could look at it as everything happens for no reason. There is no reason why your house burned down. There is no reason why millions and millions of innocent people, men women and children of all backgrounds, were needlessly slaughtered by a great world power less than a century ago. There is no reason why it is still going on today. There is no reason why I am typing these words (not only because no one besides me will read them.. this is about principle!). Everything is meaningless.

But it's not okay to live life without meaning. Why? Why is it not okay to live a life without meaning if there is no purpose to life? Why not drop dead right now?

Because you are. I am and you are and that baby who was just born (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) is and that old man who just died holding his wife's hand was and we all are. We are here together.

Jesus and God answer a lot of questions about life in a very convoluted way.

Why can't I give up God?
God- Because my Son DIED for you and you'll be grateful, dammit!

That's the jist of the New Testament anyway.

Life is a gift, whether it was given to us by God or whether we were created solely to play a role in the cosmic quest to retrieve a part for an alien space ship. Screw the people who said sex is a sin and being angry is a sin and making mistakes is a sin. Sex is beautiful and wonderful and meaningful. Anger and bursts of emotion make us human. Mistakes make us alive.

We are human and we are not perfect and no one should even bother telling us to aspire to perfection. I admire Jesus and Mother Theresa, but I will never be them no matter how hard I try. I like drinking and smoking and sex way too much.

The long and short of my rant is: make the most of your scheduled time here. Don't kill yourself or each other, because you are a gift, your neighbor is a gift. Your lives, your beautiful meaningful meaningless imaginary crazy *insert random adjectives* mistake filled lives are gifts. Cherish every single second.

Top of the Heap

One of my very best friends is turning 20 on Friday. He wants to go to New York, and well, gosh darn it, we're going to New York! It started out as just he and I, and now it has branched out to several of our mutual friends (definetly not complaining there, although I absolutely love one and one time with all of my friends, having a big group is always a lot of fun too). We're going in to Manhatten, taking the train to Union Station from New Haven and wandering around from there. Our first stop of the day will be the TKTS center, where hopefully we'll find a cheapish musical that we can go to, same day. Those of us who don't want to see a musical/can't afford it can wander around in a group and we'll all meet up later for a really nice birthday celebratory dinner. It's going to be fabulous.

I always get a little nervous when I go to cities, particularly New York city (I haven't been since my junior year in high school... almost three years ago eek). So many people and buildings, and really really tall buildings at that.

People with briefcases and cell phones. People who couldn't care less about your well being. People who live in boxes, people who live out of shopping carts, people who only wear Prada, people who can't speak English. So many people, so much going on. It's such a culture shock to go from quiet suburbia to loud and blaring city.

I get the same way when I'm in Boston, but to a lesser extent. Boston is my kind of city, there are huge business districts but then it tapers off. And I think the T is much more doable than the New York subway system.

In any event, I'm very excited to be going in to the big city on Friday. I'm not excited about having to wake up at an ungodly hour, however. I'm very unpleasant when I haven't gotten my 8 hours, and based on my sleeping patterns I can almost guarantee I won't be getting my eight for Friday.

Now I just need to find something "cute"ish to wear. I have no fashion sense at all, but I do love fashion. I'm really gay, but I don't dress like a lumberjack (most of the time). I want an outfit that says "Hey, look over here, I'm really gay but I have style too!!"