What would you spend nine years of your life on?

Someone asked me if I'd checked Chris' blog lately and I thought maybe it was time to. Interesting reading with a lot of emotional zigs and zags, I guess I was ready for it overall.

The one thing that struck me the most was that his parents have finally talked to him and let him know that they still love him in spite of him being gay. Maybe now he'll finally be willing to accept that people really can love him unconditionally. Knowing what that means, I couldn't be happier. Well, I guess I could be if it had been something we'd shared, but that's not the way things turned out.

But if you had the chance to spend a portion of you life, even a large one - and the end result was that the person you loved was able to get the one thing you had always wished for them that would be the biggest thing possible for their long term happiness - then how could you have regrets?

Sure, it could have happened differently - and for a lot of selfish reasons, I wish it had. It would be too easy to be bitter, perhaps that's the hardest struggle I've had these last few weeks. But considering where things went and how they got handled, I guess this is probably the best outcome I could have asked for. So, it's enough to be happy for him and to know that all of them will be better off now - to have a closer, more honest and open relationship finally - one not impeded by closet walls.

Most of the people asking how things are going for me eventually wind up asking some form of "do you regret it?" My answer has been no, but maybe now I have a better reason for that. It wound up being the best thing that could have happened to him - that makes me feel really grateful and gives the past a value beyond just good memories.

I guess I have learned something from this already

Never trust a grown man who can't tell his mother who the most important person in his life really is.

He's had way too much experience keeping secrets and learned too well to hide what's really going on. Don't get involved with someone who always makes you spend all the holidays alone because he can't tell his family about you - if he doesn't have the balls to do that, he won't have them when he's ready to hit the fucking door.

The only courage he'll be able to find is to be an actor on the stage - pretending to everyone around that everything is fine, while secretly planning his get-a-way. As he moves on with his pretend life, instead of actually living it. His heart as barren as the place he moved to.

I'm sick of being numb. I just want to start crying so I can take this fucking ring off. But not now, when I feel more robot than human.

Asked, answered - bridges burned

Not in the way I imagined, but a definite answer nonetheless.

And me, the one who always said you weren't that cold, that you really had a heart - what a fucking fool, huh?

To take such a cowardly way out isn't surprising in the least, but to not even leave a note? You couldn't even leave me decent memories, I really did fuck up standing by you all those years.

And if it came down to a phone call?

Hundreds of scenarios, thousands of conversations in your mind - and it comes down to one you never expected. Everything that you thought you'd prepared yourself to hear except that one. That you're a nobody, nothing of consequence. Karma Judy?

No matter how often you told yourself not to get your hopes up. Who the fuck did you think you were kidding? Magic wand, party of one.

So it comes down to how to regain the balance you've carefully built up over all those years. No matter what you find to distract yourself, there's still that hole. Another decade's going to go by anyhow, what else do you have to do with your life?

Tuesday, 3 am
once again I'm wide awake
waiting for time to mend this part of me
that keeps on breaking

Newspapers I threw away
wash the dishes in the sink
3 am on Tuesday,
I have too much time to think

I could call out to Heaven
I could crawl down through Hell
Nothing can change the way things are
and nothing ever will

He thinks I can't hear him cry
and not pretend that I don't know
about all the 3 am's
he spends wrestling with your ghost

I hear him call out to Heaven
I watch him crawl down through Hell
He still can't get over you
I know he never will

Nothing he says can bring you back
He's got nothing left to show
but a pocket watch and a memory
of a kiss out in the snow

I hear him call out to Heaven
I watch him crawl down through Hell
He still can't get over you
I know he never will

I hear him call out to Heaven
I watch him crawl down through Hell
He still can't get over you
I know he never will

Ironically, I've walked that mile in your shoes, I know what's run through your mind all these years. All those secret "I wish" moments, I've been there.

If only I could muster up the courage to push that SEND button - there's so much I can't give you back in all that time, but there really is a lot I could share.

I'm tired of being a ghost. But I have no option but to respect your timetables, no matter what the cost. I certainly owe you that much at least.

Maybe next week?

Suspending reality to support your beliefs

Now, I support anyone's right to choose any religious belief that they want - just as I support my own right to make fun of how far they will stretch their mental limits to not violate the things they claim to believe that just don't all fit into their theories. I was reminded of this now that the State of Florida has decided to cave into the religious ignorance some people have by labeling evolution a theory in some last minute negotiations.

So here you go - the Top 100 Fundamentalist Quotes - they are freaking hilarious.

http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/top100.aspx?archive=1

And just to whet your appetite, here's a couple of entries:

I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!

Linda, Good news prayer room [Comments (2923)] [2006-Oct-28]

-----------------------

[Said at the Florida public hearings on the state's new education standards (which include evolution, of course)]

"I brought these oranges down here today, and I was gonna eat them [...] but I know without a shadow of a doubt, this orange right here is the first cousin of somebody's pet cat. [...] and this orange here is no doubt the parent of somebody's pet dog. And I wonder, would you agree with me commissioner that these [oranges] are related to human beings? I've read, and I'm happy to report, that evolution supports my belief that these oranges are in fact related to human beings!"

[Watch the whole thing, it's a tour tard de force of fundie intellect!]

Dallas "The Orange Guy" Ellis, YouTube [Comments (30)] [2008-Feb-21]

We really don't count for much.....

I was an Edwards supporter for a variety of reasons, since he's dropped out, I've been spending time at both Obama and Hillary's websites, trying to find who I'd feel most comfortable supporting.

I've always been pretty aware of the fact that candidates in general tend to give alot of lip service to our issues, saying what they need to say to entice the pocketbooks to open and the proper levers to get pulled in the voting booth without any real commitment to our issues as GLBT citizens. And I've listened to plenty of "civil unions=good/marriage=bad" from all the contenders to know that this isn't really going to strike high on their agendas once the ballots are all tabulated.

But after researching, I've come to the conclusion that they really think we're that stupid, and it pisses me off to be played that way.

In spite of all the talk from all the candidates about ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell - damn if I can find it on their websites. Plenty of space for all the wonderful things they plan to do for veterans once elected, but nothing for me, a veteran who's career got ended when someone told.

In spite of all the happy words about repealing/changing DOMA - not one word again, I looked in the Families section, the Strengthening the Middle Class section, the Faith sections.

In spite of all the great rhetoric about civil rights and equality - I sure have a hard time finding GLBT information being included in any of those online issues pages. Are we not civil enough? Or maybe we've been too civil before.

And it dawned on me that the President isn't the one who would be introducing that sort of legislation in the first place - it would be a Representative or Senator (flashback to 8th grade civics class). And who do we have running this election? 2 sitting Senators, neither of which has introduced any legislation to rectify those issues they keep telling me they're so deeply concerned about and planning to fix once they get elected.

Now certainly, there are those who will tell me I should just suck it up and vote for anyone with a D behind their name because the one's with R are so much worse. After all, I shouldn't be such a "single issue" voter. I should take a look at all of the issues and make my decision based on that. So here is my recap of all the issues:

• Taxes - my status as a gay man means that I'll pay about $4,000 more this year than if I was married)
• Economy - I live in a state that is only attracting economic growth in one city, the one who happens to have the largest employer base of GLBT friendly companies in the SouthEast)
• Healthcare - I am not eligble to be on my partner's health plan. And if I was, instead of him getting a tax break for it and paying for it with pretax dollars, he'd have to pay it with after tax dollars AND the gov't would impute the amount his employer paid on my behalf and my partner would have to pay taxes on that portion as well.
• Social Security & Retirement - As it stands now, neither of us will be able to pass along whatever benefits we've accumulated through Social Security. And instead of a 401K passing on to me without a tax penalty if I recognized as a spouse, I get the joy having that income dumped on top of mine for the taxable year, pushing me into a higher bracket.
• Civil Rights - Plenty of talk about equal access to all, regardless if woman or minority. But it rings pretty hollow to those of us in this country who are treated differently every single day. If I worked for someone else, I can still be fired for being gay. Imagine the uproar if I fired one of my employees for being black or a woman? But still perfectly legal to walk right up to someone and tell them they're fired for being a faggot or a dyke.
• Faith - All the candidates are touting their personal faith and their commitment to strengthening the faith based communities. But that really only applies to those faiths that don't actively support equal treatment of all regardless of sexuality. Should my church provide their blessing/ritual/ceremony to support my commitment to Chris, those outside don't want it to have the same validity as when their church does the same for straight couples.
• Strengthening Families - Yes, all the candidates are for families. Well, those that fit certain molds and societal norms. Because the family that came about when the gay couple chose to adopt the special needs child that no one else wanted doesn't need the same protections as the straight white couple down the street. Because I haven't seen any bills or amendments introduced by any of the candidates that would have cover the GLBT spouses or parents on an equal footing as everyone else. Or prevent states from discriminating based on that for adoption placements.
• Immigration - Plenty of discussion about reforming our current immigration system, but haven't seen anything introduced by any of them that would allow a foreign born spouse of GLBT to be treated the same way as if they were actually married. Or even to recognize those who have been actually married in those countries progressive enough to allow that. But I do know couples who aren't living together because of these archaic rules as they wait for someone to finally clear all the hurdles that are only in place for certain people.
• Poverty - I've seen plenty about the need to tackle the issues of poverty in this country, along with specific plans for certain people. But the concept of life partners where one dies and leaves the other in total poverty because the laws allow the deceased partner's family more rights to their combined assets than the GBLT spouse who survives (in spite of wills and all the other loopholes we have to jump through to try to protect ourselves) are still on the books in many states and I've seen no leadership from the Federal level to try to remedy that.

So the next time someone wants to criticize me for being a "single issue" voter, please take a look at this list again. I have a hard time finding any part of the domestic policy agendas that don't treat me and other GLBT differently that other Americans based on who I love. And if you think that I'm unfairly bashing your chosen candidate, please show me where they have actually done something to address these issues (not just talk about it at the gay friendly fundraising events). You see, they are real issues to many of us, in a country where we're all supposed to be treated the same under the law.

And if you can't understand that it really is different for some of us and can't bring yourself to say that we really do have a valid point and that it isn't right to treat some of us differently based on this one characteristic - please examine your own labels again. Perhaps it's time to stop referring to yourself as a Progressive.

We lost something today....

I say we in a collective sense, us as in all Americans. The one person in the whole campaign who isn't beholden to big corporate money, the one person who I thought might actually begin to turn us from the path we're on where the corporations control the agenda and conversation with the amount of money they can muster compared to We, the People.

The generation coming after me isn't going to have it as good as I did, that's been pretty well documented by now. There are plenty of my generation who's main thought is "I got mine, fuck you" Sadly, there's too many of them. I'm not really sure where it goes from here - but one thing I feel certain about - whatever voice we had, the great unwashed masses who make up this once great country, lost a champion today. Obviously, the big corporations didn't want his populist message to get out - way too many studies by way too many groups from all sides of the political spectrum that show Edwards only got about 7% of the coverage given the corporate blessed candidates - Hillary and Obama.

After flying to PA and back this week, I was already feeling bummed - trying to figure out how we could possibly undo some of the damage that's been done. It's really a different perspective to be up at 20-30,000 ft and looking down on the US. The incredible network of roads that aren't being used at that time of night, the endless number of lights left on in case someone comes along, the fact that a strip mall seen from that height is just as ugly as it is on the ground, and looks just like every other one in America.

So we wind up with a couple of candidates who are owned by the big corporations. Who would rather spar over who has the most experience (a pair of first term Senators!) who act like a couple of 6 year olds in a pissing contest - neither of them really inspires me to think that they want something best for everyone in the country rather than that they want to be called Mr or Madam President.


Oh well, I've never really counted on anyone besides myself for whatever I needed, I don't know why I was actually allowing myself to hope that someone was actually going to make a difference.....

The following is a transcript of this moving and memorable speech by John Edwards. Please share it with your friends and family, and ask them to put pressure on whichever candidate they support to incorporate Edwards’ anti-poverty mission into their platform:

John Edwards in New Orleans, Jan. 30, 2008

Thank you all very much. We’re very proud to be back here.

During the spring of 2006, I had the extraordinary experience of bringing 700 college kids here to New Orleans to work. These are kids who gave up their spring break to come to New Orleans to work, to rehabilitate houses, because of their commitment as Americans, because they believed in what was possible, and because they cared about their country.

I began my presidential campaign here to remind the country that we, as citizens and as a government, have a moral responsibility to each other, and what we do together matters. We must do better, if we want to live up to the great promise of this country that we all love so much.

It is appropriate that I come here today. It’s time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path. We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history. We will be strong, we will be unified, and with our convictions and a little backbone we will take back the White House in November and we’ll create hope and opportunity for this country.

This journey of ours began right here in New Orleans. It was a December morning in the Lower Ninth Ward when people went to work, not just me, but lots of others went to work with shovels and hammers to help restore a house that had been destroyed by the storm.

We joined together in a city that had been abandoned by our government and had been forgotten, but not by us. We knew that they still mourned the dead, that they were still stunned by the destruction, and that they wondered when all those cement steps in all those vacant lots would once again lead to a door, to a home, and to a dream.

We came here to the Lower Ninth Ward to rebuild. And we’re going to rebuild today and work today, and we will continue to come back. We will never forget the heartache and we’ll always be here to bring them hope, so that someday, one day, the trumpets will sound in Musicians’ Village, where we are today, play loud across Lake Ponchartrain, so that working people can come marching in and those steps once again can lead to a family living out the dream in America.

We sat with poultry workers in Mississippi, janitors in Florida, nurses in California.

We listened as child after child told us about their worry about whether we would preserve the planet.

We listened to worker after worker say “the economy is tearing my family apart.”

We walked the streets of Cleveland, where house after house was in foreclosure.

And we said, “We’re better than this. And economic justice in America is our cause.”

And we spent a day, a summer day, in Wise, Virginia, with a man named James Lowe, who told us the story of having been born with a cleft palate. He had no health care coverage. His family couldn’t afford to fix it. And finally some good Samaritan came along and paid for his cleft palate to be fixed, which allowed him to speak for the first time. But they did it when he was 50 years old. His amazing story, though, gave this campaign voice: universal health care for every man, woman and child in America. That is our cause.

And we do this — we do this for each other in America. We don’t turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what — but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.

For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn’t register in political polls, they didn’t get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don’t know how it started. I don’t know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn’t afford to pay for heat.

We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can’t organize and can’t put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn’t turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, “We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you.” And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.

Now, I’ve spoken to both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. They have both pledged to me and more importantly through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency.

And more importantly, they have pledged to me that as President of the United States they will make ending poverty and economic inequality central to their Presidency. This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause.

And I want to say to everyone here, on the way here today, we passed under a bridge that carried the interstate where 100 to 200 homeless Americans sleep every night. And we stopped, we got out, we went in and spoke to them.

There was a minister there who comes every morning and feeds the homeless out of her own pocket. She said she has no money left in her bank account, she struggles to be able to do it, but she knows it’s the moral, just and right thing to do. And I spoke to some of the people who were there and as I was leaving, one woman said to me, “You won’t forget us, will you? Promise me you won’t forget us.” Well, I say to her and I say to all of those who are struggling in this country, we will never forget you. We will fight for you. We will stand up for you.

But I want to say this — I want to say this because it’s important. With all of the injustice that we’ve seen, I can say this, America’s hour of transformation is upon us. It may be hard to believe when we have bullets flying in Baghdad and it may be hard to believe when it costs $58 to fill your car up with gas. It may be hard to believe when your school doesn’t have the right books for your kids. It’s hard to speak out for change when you feel like your voice is not being heard.

But I do hear it. We hear it. This Democratic Party hears you. We hear you, once again. And we will lift you up with our dream of what’s possible.

One America, one America that works for everybody.

One America where struggling towns and factories come back to life because we finally transformed our economy by ending our dependence on oil.

One America where the men who work the late shift and the women who get up at dawn to drive a two-hour commute and the young person who closes the store to save for college. They will be honored for that work.

One America where no child will go to bed hungry because we will finally end the moral shame of 37 million people living in poverty.

One America where every single man, woman and child in this country has health care.

One America with one public school system that works for all of our children.

One America that finally brings this war in Iraq to an end. And brings our service members home with the hero’s welcome that they have earned and that they deserve.

Today, I am suspending my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

But I want to say this to everyone: with Elizabeth, with my family, with my friends, with all of you and all of your support, this son of a millworker’s gonna be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine.

And I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard — all those who have volunteered, my dedicated campaign staff who have worked absolutely tirelessly in this campaign.

And I want to say a personal word to those I’ve seen literally in the last few days — those I saw in Oklahoma yesterday, in Missouri, last night in Minnesota — who came to me and said don’t forget us. Speak for us. We need your voice. I want you to know that you almost changed my mind, because I hear your voice, I feel you, and your cause it our cause. Your country needs you — every single one of you.

All of you who have been involved in this campaign and this movement for change and this cause, we need you. It is in our hour of need that your country needs you. Don’t turn away, because we have not just a city of New Orleans to rebuild. We have an American house to rebuild.

This work goes on. It goes on right here in Musicians’ Village. There are homes to build here, and in neighborhoods all along the Gulf. The work goes on for the students in crumbling schools just yearning for a chance to get ahead. It goes on for day care workers, for steel workers risking their lives in cities all across this country. And the work goes on for two hundred thousand men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America, proud veterans, who go to sleep every night under bridges, or in shelters, or on grates, just as the people we saw on the way here today. Their cause is our cause.

Their struggle is our struggle. Their dreams are our dreams.

Do not turn away from these great struggles before us. Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for. Do not walk away from what’s possible, because it’s time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one.

Thank you. God bless you, and let’s go to work. Thank you all very much.