The Case for Fear

I don't pay attention to the daily sensationalist "news" so I hadn't heard about the murder of young Larry King of California.
Here's a boy going to middle school in high heeled boots and make-up. Middle school.
It's wonderful that young people feel comfortable enough to be out at younger and younger ages.
I wonder, though, if they aren't getting a gilded view of reality for our media.
The problem is you don't know who you can trust.
In my experience, people judge you before they bother to get to know you. I was tormented in college, verbally. Bodily harm was spoken of by cowards in windows not showing their faces.
My friends were threatened. The writing was on the bathroom walls.
I read stories about crimes against gays and lesbians ranging from discrimination to death.
A student at the college I attended was murdered with her lover on the Appalachian Trail... and it wasn't the first time homosexuals were targeted and murdered on "the Trail."
People all over, with their guard down, have been tricked and beaten and murdered for sport.
I salute the young people in Okeechobee, Florida who just won the right to have a Gay Student Alliance, a fight that started in the Fall of 2006. Small victories are big steps. You can call Okeechobee "a hick town." Something amazing has happened since I was in school.
And children aren't growing up aware of the dangers of being different.
I wonder if it is worthwhile to be true to yourself only to have your life cut short.
Was it worth it up to the final moment?
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to live in a world where the simple act of holding a hand isn't viewed as a threat, punishable by any means including death.
This young man should not be dead. He should be anticipating the coming school year.
Whatever told Larry to be free in his self-expression, opposing forces told to his schoolmate to be an activist for fear and prejudice.

The Vortex

In the early years of our second family, I felt lucky to live apart from my father and step-family.
There was so much turmoil all the time, I felt like I was standing alone outside of a whirling vortex and just sticking a finger in sucked me in entirely.

Now that the kids are older and out of the house, there's still trouble but it's more like a fast river with lots of rocks on the bottom and I can wade in without getting dragged downstream.

The kids troubles are more adult. Fortunately, I get along with both of the kids. We communicate in peace. We like each other.

The sad thing is that my step-brother is in deep doo-doo.
Today, if he hasn't left, he is in "Detox."

This is the second time he has sought help. The first time, my stepmother only took him to a doctor, who prescribed some drugs for him to take to help him get off of opiates.
He sold the pills.

Why can't he just be a pothead? Good grief.
He's not 21 yet and he has already seen a friend die of an overdose.


Heavenly Father, Thank you.
Today I am especially grateful for the roof over my head and the bed I sleep in.
Please bless the families in Okeechobee who lost their homes to fire last weekend.
Please incline the hearts of those who can help them to help them.
Thank you for sparing their lives. Thank you for allowing me to be of some assistance.
Thank you for my family. Thank you for allowing our family to celebrate my father's 78th birthday this weekend.
Thank you for the peaceful and loving relationship that I have with my family.
Please bless them and help them to have a more peaceful and loving relationship with each other. Please let the realize each other's true value and how much love they are actually capable of. Thank you for allowing me to be a confidante to my step-sister. Thank you for allowing me to have a positive and caring relationship with my step-brother.
Thank you for my step-brother. Thank you for all of the times I was able to share with him when he was younger. Please help him resist the irresistible lures of peer pressure and the highs and numbness of drugs. Please guide him to the path of responsibility and sobriety. He is a kind person who is out of control. Please help him find something that will make staying off of drugs worthwhile. Please help him live. He is greatly loved and we want to see him have the happiest and least self-destructive life he is capable of. Please help him know that he is not alone.
Please incline the hearts of the people who want to hurt him to find other outlets for their anger that do not hurt anyone.
Please take my step-brother into your arms so that if he does die, he finds his paradise and doesn't remain on earth as a restless and unhappy spirit. Please don't let him suffer.
Thank you for the peace and kindness I find in my every day life. Thank you for my lover's family. Thank you for their welcome. Please help them find complete peace and acceptance with our relationship.
Thank you for my co-workers and the laughter we share. Thank you for guiding me and please help me choose the actions that will allow me to remain vital and employed.
Thank you for keeping me clear of the trouble I see on the streets and in other families everyday.
Thank you for my loving friends and please help me give them the attention they deserve and that I want to give them.
Thank you for my personal gift. Please help me to hold on to it and to exercise it regularly.
Dear Lord, please help Joey be healthier. Her illnesses are very wearing on us both. Please give me the stamina and fortitude to continue.
Thank you for allowing me to take the burden of caring for her from her mother. Please help her mother heal and live long enough to see her grandchild into adulthood. Please help her step-father cope. Please help her find peace with her real father. Please help her pass through her grief. Please help her understand the nature of love.
Thank you for my health. Thank you for showing me alternatives for continued health.
Thank you for keeping war away from American doorsteps so far. Please guide our leaders in the direction of peace for all people.
Thank you for the wonderful animals in my life. Thank you for the special blessing of the relationships I have with other people's companion animals. Dogs wag their tells and cats come to me everywhere I go and I really love it. Nice work on the furry creatures there, G.
Please incline other people to forgive me for my indiscretions and selfishness. Please help me keep a giving and forgiving heart. Please help me to keep good thoughts about people who don't always behave well. Please help me to be calmer, more patient and friendlier. Please help me control my temper and my tongue.
Please forgive me for the things that I shouldn't have done and for the things I should have done but didn't. Please help me forgive myself.
Thank you.

amoresperros

I have been pet-sitting, in different houses, for two weeks and I go to another house this weekend.
Life is simpler at other people's houses because I have a change of clothes and some books and movies and that's just about it.
Don't get me wrong. I fill a suitcase for even a day's stay:
Toiletries, a library bag-full of entertainment, my favorite pillows and a blanket, cell phone, a computer for watching the movies on (because other people's TV/DVD/direct TV/cable set-ups are too mysterious to operate correctly. When did they get so complex?)
It's easier because I'm only responsible for minding the animals, collecting the mail and newspapers, and making it look like I was never there.
There's not another person there who needs attention. The television is off. It's just me, my duties and something to do in between.
Today, I go over to another house in the afternoon. This is the best one of all; it's less than two miles away, it's a very good friend's house and the pets are the coolest.
Do "golden retriever" and "old, fluffy Persian cat" not explain everything?

Mama's heart

My mother had several therapies, after the stroke that left her paraplegic.
Part of the therapy consisted of asking her questions to try her memory and encourage her to learn to talk.
The therapist asked her what three things she would take from her house if there was a fire.
My father overhead this question.
My mother named her three items: my father, my sister and me.

Irony

I traded in my old car in May.
Today I got a phone call from the guy who I nearly had to choke $500.00 out of for the trade.
He said, Cars like yours are in high demand now. If you've been considering selling, now is a good time.
I laughed and erased the message without hearing anything else.

petty game

I started playing on-line Reversi this morning and I was kicking ***. Then I realized that the game was set on the beginner level.
I bumped myself up to intermediate and things didn't go quite as smoothly.
Sometimes it seems like I've forgotten everything I've learned.
You aren't ready to move up to the next level until you kick everyone's ***, but then again... getting your *** kicked is the way to learn to be better.
I just don't know if my ego can take it. If I play in the morning and don't do well, it seems to set a tone for the day.
I wanna cover the board. I wanna eat the bear.
And I wanna find an opponent who is good and doesn't mind playing many games.
Unfortunately, in the particular game I play, you can't communicate or get identities with which you can look for an opponent again.
My father has played Chess with a man who owns a restaurant for decades. Whenever Dad appears, his friend pulls the Chessboard down from the top of the freezer. It isn't optional.
My father learned to play Chess from the soldiers on MacDill Field in Tampa when he was a boy.

I found a fun new website: http://www.doubletongued.org/
It turns out I'm not a gay-lister. I'm okay with that.

My friends at work were talking yesterday, because the computers were all down, about the Aztec calendar and how precise it is. The Aztec calendar predicts the end of the world as we know it will be December 21, 2012.
Can I stop paying my credit card bill now?
Not to be facetious. If that really is the last day of life, I don't really care. Nothing means very much really. All human endeavor eventually fades to dust. Ironically, all of my library holds expire on 11/11/2011. Do I know something I don't know I know?

Seriously, survival is what we do. Love is all that matters. Everything else is vanity.

Why were we put here? It beats the hell out of me. My presence here isn't really making any difference. I know that people are happy to see me... unless they've caused me to react to maltreatment of some kind, because I turn into the essence of the color RED. Or maybe I should say "scarlet."

Telephone features are vanity, too.
I wait for people to start speaking before I answer the phone. What are you paying for caller ID?
What could you be doing with that money?

These days not having caller ID seems as freaky to the madding crowd as not having gleaming white teeth. If I could piss away $500.00, it would be on retirement investment. White teeth won't chase away death, but you will have an appealing skull. LOL

Banana Conspiracy

Most Tuesdays, we go to dinner at Joey's parents' home. Today I wanted to go to the chiropractor after work, so I skipped.
This evening when I got home, Joey had food for me.
I enjoyed it in the kitchen while she puttered in her room.
I joined her after I ate. We usually spend a little time together watching Law & Order or some other show.
She said, "Did you put the plates in the refrigerator?"
"Yes."
"The dessert plate is all for you."
"Oh?"
"Yes, Mom put bananas in it."
"Oh. What was she thinking?"
"She forgot." (Joey does not like bananas.)
"Good, " I chuckled, "more for me!"
Joey huffed in a way that indicated her chagrin.
I couldn't help myself. "She should put bananas in every dessert!"
Joey pulled the blankets up and stared at the TV.
"She likes me better," I teased.
Her reaction was instantaneous. "Ohhh nooo!," she warned. (Meaning: Don't even think of kissing or touching me because you are in trouble now.)

She got up and walked over to the phone to call her mother and tell her what I'd said.