Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Autumn Sandeen's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, April 29th, 2006
12:57 pm	Article: A Parent’s Conundrum A Parent’s Conundrum Education in the Public Schools Roslyn Manley April 28, 2006 I often feel that it really would be comfortable to live in a black and white world where issues and answers clearly fell on one side or the other of “right.” As a case in point, I truly believe that homosexuality is a God-given birthright. It is not a choice, but simply the way some are wired. As such, homosexuality should no more be criticized than being left-handed, green-eyed, having Down’s Syndrome or Parkinson’s Disease. A corollary to this position is that such people should be fully accepted for who they are (not tolerated), and such lessons in a perfect world would be communicated to our children in the normal course of the many lessons passed from parent to child. Now, some California legislation and Boston litigation has me in a conundrum as a parent, as a lesbian transsexual, and as an in-your-face activist. In California, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transsexual Caucus (aka The Rainbow Caucus) is promoting Senate Bill 1437 introduced by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles that adds language to previous legislation passed in 1999 forbidding discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation. Assembly Bill 606 puts some muscle behind SB 1437 threatening schools with the withholding of fiscal support if schools choose to ignore the legislation as the Westminster, California School District did several years ago. Kuehl's current bill relates to educational materials. Educational materials, it states, may not reflect adversely upon people based on race, gender, ethnicity or religion and if the governor signs SB 1437 language will be added to include sexual orientation. Secondly, the bill would add that in teaching California history lesbian and gay people will be represented along with other groups already specified by law. The bill does not discuss unisex bathrooms, co-ed sports teams or the glorification of a homosexual lifestyle. So far, so good. I do have a few questions, however. How is the normalization of gayness going to be presented after the dust and litigation settles? Will elementary-level historical stories be modified to reflect the sexuality or gender identity of our heroes? If so, when: first grade, fifth grade . . . eighth? Who would be among them? Greek mythological figure, Achilles? Alexander the Great? Hans Christian Anderson? Susan B. Anthony? Marie Antoinette? Sir Francis Bacon? Pope Benedict IX? Football hero, Terry Bradshaw? This list is very long, as you would expect. One such list may be reviewed at http://www.sexuality.org/l/lesbigay/gayceleb.html. How about Sir Winston Churchill or closeted gays within religion? Now, in Boston, a parent of a six year old is suing the school district after the teacher read “The Two Princes” to the second grade class. The storybook is about two princes who fall in love and get married . . . presumably in an accepting society. The parent considers homosexuality to be immoral and same-sex marriage to be wrong. On the other hand, the story reflects the reality of Massachusetts in that the state passed a same-sex marriage law several years ago. The parent alleges that this was a “sex” class and the school district, I assume, will respond that sexual activity is not even mentioned. The story is, instead, about society. No matter how you cut it, there will be laws making controversial issues legal and illegal. Beside those laws will be people who support the laws and people who are morally opposed to the laws. Were I the parent of this second grade child, even as an LGBT activist, I would also have been upset. Reading such storybooks is simply too overt an action for a second grader. At the end of this treatise you will find links to three newspaper articles that can shed further light on the legislation and the litigation. From my confused perspective as a fairly conservative parent and an in-your-face activist, here are my concerns: Acceptance and tolerance issues are primarily parental issues. K-6 classrooms should, in my opinion, do little more than support acceptance and oppose intolerance as guided by the courts and the school districts. I really feel that our K-6 educators have too much to accomplish in too little time while attempting to accomplish the essentials of their occupation . . . reading, writing, arithmetic, history, computer skills and critical thinking. Each time an additional task is added to the curriculum, valuable time spent on essentials is diminished. While intolerant behavior must be stopped and intolerant thoughts should be discouraged at the K-6 schools, promotion of sexuality, i.e., saying one orientation is “better than” or even “as good as” another must be avoided at all costs. Children in this age group are fearful of catching “Cooties” from the other sex and generally prefer to play with, and relate to other children of the same sex. We must be very careful to avoid taking any action that might encourage the child to view their playmates as more than that. Now, I really don’t know if this is a true risk, but as a parent and grandparent, and as an accepting and hopefully, understanding activist, I don’t want our public schools to tread upon these waters. From my perspective, the argument changes drastically as our children enter high school. Peer conversations, television, movies, magazines and news media have, by now added to the child’s knowledge. Parents have, hopefully, participated in the learning process and even though children of this generation are pretty much lost to the church, messages still leak out to the kids . . . some accepting and some intolerant. Sexual orientation and gender identity are by now known quantities to the kids . . . they are often more knowledgeable on these topics than their parents and certainly their grandparents. When I speak in front of high school students I always ask for a show of hands from those who know somebody who is gay or transgender. Almost without exception, half or more know a gay person and somewhere around a quarter know somebody who is transgender. If that same question had been asked of my classmates during the early sixties, perhaps one or two would have raised their hands saying they know a gay person and I truly doubt if anybody would have admitted knowing a transgender person. The word, “admitted” is used here intentionally, because there would be some guilt assigned to even knowing such a person. Junior High, to some degree, and certainly high school becomes the time to raise the topic to the discussion level by using the books and system to define sexual orientation and gender identity . . . along with some other formerly taboo subjects. We cannot pretend that the students aren’t discussing LGBT issues any more than we can pretend that a substantial percentage have not recognized their own sexual orientation or gender identity. Beginning in GenX, and drastically increasing in GenY and Millennium students is overwhelming acceptance for LGBT individuals. I attribute this to the increased knowledge and discussion about the issues. I even find that many Baby Boomers who would have been intolerant in the 60s and 70s, are becoming increasingly accepting. While I have difficulty with a second grade teacher reading “The Two Princes” to their class, I strongly support our public High Schools being required to spend “some” and not “all” or even “a great deal” of time normalizing homosexuality and transgender behavior. The goal should be to raise the subjects to open dialogue and to neither encourage nor discourage membership in any sexual orientation or gender identity population. Historical documents tell us that Pope Benedict IX was a woman living as a man who died during reign while giving birth. History and current events tell us that many influential individuals were transgender and many, many more were homosexual. The important message to be communicated is that their differences were “normal and natural.” Even though these individuals usually hid these attributes for societal concerns, they were highly productive, important, and contributing members of their society and our history. While some parents may object that such perceptions conflict with their moral or religious views, the objections should not, in my opinion, stop the schools from raising the social dialogue. Involved parents who disagree should have discussions with their children where they talk about lgbt issues, evolution, or even which god is greater. That is their privilege and right. Sometimes it is difficult being a parent and an activist. If only I were Queen. CALIFORNIA Bill would include gays in public school texts Plan will reignite debate over who controls curricula http://www.vvdailypress.com/2006/114536867659041.html http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/16/BAGHLIA0M41.DTL Daily Press Tuesday, April 18, 2006 Students, teachers protest Kuehl bill http://www.vvdailypress.com/2006/114536867659041.html FOXNEWS.COM HOME > NATIONAL Parents Sue to Stop Schools From Reading Gay-Themed Books to Kids http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193527,00.html (Comment on this)
Monday, April 10th, 2006
7:34 am	The Lesson Of The Good Samaritan One of the most defining bits that form my character is the story of the Good Samaritan.  In a nutshell, Jesus taught that you should love our  neighbors as ourselves.  The Good Samaritan used his own bandages, wine, oil, donkey, and money to care for a hurt man he did not know.  The parable was given to implore an expert in Jewish law to show love for his neighbors by meeting their needs.   How times have changed.   From an article in the April 10, 2006 edition of the Los Angeles Times:   Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.   Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.   Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.   Whether she should have the free speech to speak to her beliefs is beyond the scope of this little piece.  My only comment is to the speech she wishes to speak in the name of Jesus Christ:   My.  How times have changed. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 4th, 2006
1:44 pm	One binary please, supersize One binary please, supersize    (The MacDonaldization of Intersex activism)       My response to the following article  Why Doesn't ISNA Want to Eradicate Gender?    By Curtis E. Hinkle   March 4, 2006 Imagine a world in which the main division between individuals were size.  This would be the first thing noticed at birth and would have to be indicated on the birth. certificate.     Imagine a world in which big people dominated little people and made it very difficult for a little person to become a big person and vice versa.     Imagine a world in which medium sized people could not exist legally without being designated as a big person or a little person. In this world, here are the possible solutions for granting personhood to medium-sized people: forced starvation or forced feeding so as not to have that dreaded ambiguity because we all know that everyone really is a big person or a little person.  They might just be a big person born with a defect which makes them look more like a little person or vice versa. In order for big people to remain in power, the division must be legally and socially imposed on all members so we all know our place as a big or little person. Here are some consequences of this legally imposed norm: 1) Big people can only marry little people and vice versa. 2) Big people are entitled to more money, power and prestige. 3) Little people are to take care of the everyday needs of big people. 4) One can change from a little person to a big person only after having been diagnosed as mentally ill and then agreeing to forced feeding under a doctor's supervision. 5) No one can ever become a medium-sized person.  That is illegal. A group of people which is medium-sized (Group A) feels marginalized and decides to fight the oppression of the binary size-based system because they feel it is oppressive and imposes unnatural treatments on them to make them fit in.  They also feel that their natural size is not recognized and that their identities are erased in such a system. They feel that classifying people by size it not necessary and only reinforces oppression not only of themselves but others.  One should simply be a person and have the rights under the law that all others have.  Another group of medium-sized persons (Group B) feels that the binary division based on size is perfectly fine because they know that they really are a big or a little person and feel quite comfortable with this binary division. My question is:  Which group of medium-sized people is being exclusionary and marginalizing the other group? Next question:  Group B alleges that Group A is fighting for a sizeless society.  Is that really the truth? No.  Group A is fighting for the right of people to be any size and to have the same rights as everyone else regardless of size.  They do not feel that size is something that will just disappear.  They feel it is not something that should be imposed on people against their will and with only two possible choices - big or small.  They wish to put an end to sizism.      Copyright © 2006, Curtis E. Hinkle and TransAdvocate.com   (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
11:50 am	Scietific Method The original opinion piece I'm responding to is The abolition of man (and woman). --Autumn-- What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars fortell", avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! --Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love" Dear editor, There are more authoritative views on biology and gender-neutral marriage than Nathanael Blake ["The abolition of man (and woman)"]. One that should be reference is Eric Vilain, Chief of Medical Genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Blake is also not an authority in psychology; I would defer to the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) before accepting Blake's opinion on transgender people as a reasoned opinion. On April 19, 2004, Vilain wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times entitled "Gender Blender; Intersexual? Transsexual? Male, female aren't so easy to define." (re-posted here). Vilain concludes his article: Sex should be easily definable, but it's not. Our gender identity our profound sense of being male or female is independent from our anatomy. A constitutional amendment authorizing marriages only between men and women would not only discriminate against millions of Americans who do not fit easily in the mold of each category, but would simply be flawed and contrary to basic biological realities. In a separate article (Is sexual identity hard-wired by genes?; Genetics may explain male-female differences, scientists say), Reuters reported that Eric Vilain's team identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and female brains look and function differently. Vilain was quoted in the article as stating: Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel male or female? Sexual identity is rooted in every person’s biology before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome. From a genetic perspective, student Nathanael Blake's piece referencing microbiology seems deficient -- this is because it doesn't address Vilain's current research, and doesn't address the significant exceptions of "millions of Americans who do not fit easily in the mold of [male and female]." And, from a psychological perspective, Blake's statement "If I proclaimed that I’m really a woman, from a physical standpoint, that’d be a mental disorder only slightly less severe than if I proclaimed that I’m an eggplant" doesn't reflect the mainstream thoughts of the medical community. The DSM-IV recognizes gender dysphoria, and HBIGDA has a standard of care that doesn't equate transsexuals with eggplants, and offers a defined treatment plan. Blake's description of transsexuals is simply specious. To quote Benjamin Cardozo, "Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it." Eminently authoritative sources in the fields of genetics and psycology exist, and these sources counter the standpoints of Nathanael Blake. What "science" there is behind Blake's arguments doesn't appear to sustain his conclusions regarding discrimination. When the "science" of Blake's arguments is pealed away, what we're left with the logical fallacy of "Tradition;" when one considers that Blake is a science major, one has to consider that his use of that particular logical fallacy doesn't speak well for his ability to reason by scientific method. Autumn Sandeen Autumn Sandeen is a member of California's Transgender Equity Alliance and a board member of San Diego's Transgender Community Coalition, but is only speaking for herself in this letter. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 20th, 2006
9:46 am	awash in despondency in the darker shades of my grayscale pallet, hopelessness dyes my being. I'm paralyzed in disbelief,             swallowed in a riptide of nothingness,                         breathing seems too much in effort--                                     I want badly to just give up-- I want to feel the whole of darkness                                                             instead of this pain of despair.   flattening,             leveling,                         awash in despondency, I fight to breathe more misery and gloom.             to inhale more anguish--                         I can't bear the thought of it-- sensing my insignificance, I want to feel the whole of darkness instead of this pain of despair.   but I won't feel the whole of darkness,             I remember too well pleasure and warmth,                         I rationally know my despair is disproportionate to reality, yet here,             beneath a current of ineffectuality,                         I fight to rise-- to breathe in the biting air... I tire of my aching existence,             yet within it I live a prolonged unfulfillment.                           when do I get to feel delight                                     for an extended period of time?   an unanswerable question...             so I continue in despair,                         and hope for unmitigated joy.   breathe in, breathe out, again and again.   *sigh* (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006
12:14 pm	Sexual orientation bill threatens people of faith ? Bah, Humbug. (I was responding to a letter to the editor by Peter J. LaBarbera, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute. That original letter is found here: Sexual orientation bill threatens people of faith)   ------   Christ does not keep homosexuals from kingdom   Sunday, January 15, 2006 Madison County Record, IL   To the editor,   Peter J. LaBarbera's statement that "there are thousands of ex 'gays'" is unsubstantiated. There have been no long term studies of ex-gays determining the effectiveness of "reparative therapy."   Per Robert L. Spitzer (professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and chief of the New York State Psychiatric Institute's Biometrics Research Department), "The study that ought to be done is a controlled study where people go into the therapy, and then you initially evaluate them, and then you evaluate them later and see how many actually changed. But that study is not going to be done, unfortunately."   Peter J. LaBarbera also stated "Homosexual lobbyists cry tolerance but they really don't respect peoples' religious beliefs." Yet the Illinois Family Institute states on its website:        "[Homosexuals claim they] cannot help being homosexual any more than a black can help being black. In short, homosexuals claim that sodomy is a natural occurring act that should be protected by law in a manner similar to the legal protections afforded race.        "However, skin color and sexual behavior are entirely different. The first is an inborn characteristic while the second is behaviorally based and has everything to do with individual character, moral choices and society's basic rules of conduct. If civil rights laws can be used to justify the behaviors of homosexuals, there is virtually no place to stop."   What LaBarbera fails to acknowledge, however, is that religious creed is a protected class, and is arguably more mutable than sexual orientation -- one doesn't need to go through reparative therapy to become an ex-Christian. If the legislature applied the same logic of "mutability" as a test for civil rights and protections, then religious creed should be removed as a protected class.   Lastly, LaBarbera also states "Illinois now becomes one of just seven states that provide special legal 'rights' based on 'transgendered' behavior. Thus the law will also be used to force businesses and even religious-based groups to accommodate extreme gender confusion..." I'm actually surprised by this stand by LaBarbera.   John Boswell, in the book "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality," offers us an understanding of how ancient people in Rome, Greece, Europe and the Jewish states viewed sexuality.   Transgender people were unmistakably included within the definition of the Biblical term "eunuch." These days, we tend to think eunuchs are men whose testicles have been removed, but that is an incomplete interpretation of the term within Biblical cultures.   Scriptures that mention eunuchs include Acts 8 and Isaiah 59:4-8. Christ is quoted in Matthew 19:12 as saying "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."   If being a eunuch/transgender is a mutable condition, it's definitely a condition Christ acknowledged as not being one that kept them from the kingdom of heaven.   Basically, if the Illinois Family Institute were really interested in knowing if homosexual behavior was mutable behavior, it would fund a controlled study in the model Dr. Spitzer suggested, so they could authoritatively state that homosexuality is mutable. And then, if the organization really believed that all groups that exhibit mutable behaviors shouldn't be included in governmental protected classes, then the Illinois Family Institute should be intellectually consistent and lobby to remove religious creed from the protected classes of civil rights laws.   I'll not be holding my breath.   Autumn Sandeen San Diego, Calif.   Autumn Sandeen is a board member of San Diego's Transgender Community Coalition, and a working group member for California'sTransgender Equity Alliance, but is not speaking on either of these organizations' behalf. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
12:00 pm	Join my GLBT_News YahooGroup Subscribe to GLBT_News Powered by groups.yahoo.com (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
10:55 pm	CWA Says Barbie Website Promotes Gender Confusion Interesting side note on the Christian Post's CWA Says Barbie Website Promotes Gender Confusion The article's first sentence has been changed from The Barbie Doll website is asking children aged 4-8 for their sex. to The Barbie Doll website is asking children for their sex. The following was added to the bottom of the original story: Christian groups were incensed when the Mattel brand, American Girl, launched a campaign called "I Can," and donated to the pro-choice, lesbian and anti-abstinence group, Girls Inc. Christians launched a protest in New York, which they deemed successful. The poll can be found here: barbie.everythinggirl.com/activities/btv/poll/ [Editor's Note: On the day after this article was published, the third option on Mattel's Barbie Poll changed from "I don't know" to "Don't want to say"] Here's why: From: Autumn Sandeen Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 1:03 AM To: 'rhoda@christianpost.com' Subject: Re: CWA Says Barbie Website Promotes Gender Confusion Dear Rhoda Tse, If one checks the Barbie Website <http://tinyurl.com/dx778>, The actual age range listed is from 4 to 70+. When the CWA first reported their story, they missed the scroll bar on the side of the age range. Your article in the Christian Post repeated the incorrect age range without you adequately fact checking it. The fact should be corrected. Regards, Autumn Sandeen P.S. To navigate to the Barbie Poll from the Barbie.com home page, one would first select the green computer near the center of the flash screen on http://www.Barbie.com. That selection links one to Barbie's "TV Studio" webpage. On the TV Studio webpage, there are six selections under the "headline" of "Awesome Entertainment." From these six, selecting the "Barbie Poll," which is far left selection on the bottom row, takes one to the poll in question. The poll still has the "I don't know" selection available as of the writing of this e-mail. After the Christian Post changed the article, I sent Rhoda Tse the following: -----Original message----- From: Autumn Sandeen Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:20 PM To: 'rhoda@christianpost.com' Subject: Re: CWA Says Barbie Website Promotes Gender Confusion Dear Rhoda Tse, I note the article "CWA Says Barbie Website Promotes Gender Confusion" has changed significantly from yesterday, when it was originally posted. Some of the changes I note as are as follows: - There is an editor's note on the bottom of the article. - Someone removed (without comment) the part about the age range being from 4 to 8 originally found in the fist sentence. - A direct link to the poll is now provided -- Apparently derived from the TinyURL link I sent to you, or from how I told you how to navigate to the poll. Instead indicating a CWA / Christian Post fact checking error when the Christian Post added the editor's note, the editor-in-question just removed the text relating to age. That seems less than fully honest ma'am, especially as the CWA's original audio media content heavily emphasized the 4 to 8 age range. That doesn't speak well to your character ma'am, or to that of your editor's, and to that of the Christian Post's. Regards, Autumn Sandeen ----- ~~Autumn Sandeen~~ Transgender Equity Alliance team member San Diego Transgender Community Coalition Board Member transgendernews YahooGroup Moderator GLBT_News YahooGroup Moderator "In a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right." Paul Martin ----- (Comment on this)
Friday, December 30th, 2005
12:41 pm	Article submitted to TransAdvocate.com Does a better future include intolerance?   We have flown the air like birds and swum the seas like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers. --Martin Luther King Jr.   By Autumn Sandeen   Chris Crain, the Executive Director of Windows Media, wrote a blog entry recently for Windows Media.  In the entry, Crain talked about how against ignorance and intolerance became very personal for him after being on the receiving end of an anti-gay hate crime.   I had one of those same kinds of horrible awakenings too back in 2000 -- during the last year of my twenty-year US Navy career.  I was sexually harassed by a subordinate and my Executive Officer (XO) for being perceived as an effeminate gay male.    My subordinate and XO violated the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" (DADT) policies that had been put in place a few years earlier, trying to initiate an investigation into my sexuality to see me discharged eight months prior to my scheduled retirement.  I wasn't gay, I was a closeted transgender sailor; but the effeminacy I couldn't hide identified me to my peers as gay.   I learned numerous things from my DADT experience.  One was that DADT policy impacts closeted transgender soldiers and sailors as well as gay ones, because effeminate behavior is perceived as stereotypical gay male behavior.  I also learned how important it was to know "the rules" regarding equal opportunity and anti-discrimination, as the in-depth knowledge I had of the rules protected me from being completely victimized by my harassers.   Distressingly, I also learned that learning is not a requirement.  The Department of Defense was aware well before my personal male-to-male sexual harassment experience that this was a serious issue -- Pvt. Barry Winchell's killing by male soldiers who were harassing him occurred before I was personally harassed.  Like Pvt. Winchell's killers, my harassers received light punishment for their homophobic crimes.  The US military hadn't learned from its experiences.   Profoundly, I'm well aware of Chris Crain's writings on transgender people.  He has previously described transgender inclusion in federal anti-discrimination legislation as "'Trans or bust' is still a bust."  He's written "A number of us have criticized transgender rights activists for 'trans-jacking' federal gay rights legislation by not only demanding inclusion of 'gender identity' but also insisting that gay rights groups oppose even gay-inclusive legislation that failed to include trans protections," as well as "Beyond these ideological fissures, the 'trans or bust' strategy is every bit as wrongheaded and immoral today as it was when the Human Rights Campaign and other national gay groups caved into it last year."    This seems a long way for Crain's statement of "...I welcome 2006 with the hope that with time will come progress. I for one will redouble my efforts to be a part of changing the future for the better."    What Crain apparently did not learn from his personal experience with hate crime is the lessons Martin Luther King Jr. learned from his civil rights struggles: "The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers."  So, I wait for Crain's next blog or editorial that in some way states that transgender people have trans-jacked his ability to obtain equal rights and protections with the rest of American society -- Crain's vision of a  better future apparently embraces intolerance towards transactivists who want the same protections for the transgender community that Crain wants for the gay and lesbian community.     -- Autumn Sandeen is a board member of San Diego's Transgender Community Coalition and a team member California's Transgender Equity Alliance, but isn't speaking on their behalf.   © 2005, Autumn Sandeen (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 29th, 2005
5:16 pm	A link to a passion of mine... (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 24th, 2005
10:05 am	A neighborhood kat named Maggie..... I adopted a neighborhood kat named Maggie into my home just yesterday, after planning this for weeks. She's been previously owned twice, and even after being in my apartment for just 24-hours, she's more affectionate and easier to get to purr than Bon-Bon. I love having two cats. Sadly, Bon-Bon and Maggie have taken to hissing at each other though, and Maggie throws "claw in" swipes at Bon-Bon when Bon-Bon agressively sniffs her. I guess I was dreaming that they wouldn't have a war of wills to determine which was the domminant cat. At the same time this feels like I'm doing a nice thing for Maggie -- and thus for me -- I hear Bjork's song from Debut in my head: "There's more to life than this." This adoption is less than fully satisfying for reasons I can't identify. Gotta be the general depression/emptiness I'm feeling today. Gotta be the holidays. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 20th, 2005
11:38 am	asphyxiating I dared to hope, dreaming of future good. I hoped for warmth in people indifferent, I keep holding my breath… waiting.   I dared to cope, only later to quiet. I dared to scheme, pacifying my incompetence, I fell short of inhaling... slumping.   I dared to point where people seemed pointless, I dared to stargaze beneath a cloudy sky. I kept rejecting faint breezes… asphyxiating. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 18th, 2005
1:41 pm	walking, walking, in the sand walking, walking, on the sand, the is greenish with grains of bland, gray, the color of the sky, as the water washes on the shoal, I ponder the pigments of my soul. (Comment on this)
1:18 pm	glints and glimmers the ocean roars in the quiet of night, to raise my fears on the beach's blight, hope glints and glimmers, it's only a lark-- black is the color of the dark.   (Comment on this)
1:09 pm	seventeen voices of god I run my hands through sod, I hear the seventeen voices of god, anger, mortality--at the end of a string... or something. (Comment on this)
1:06 pm	Too funny...Olive The Other Reindeer Sometimes I see TV shows, and get all emotional. Just today, I saw Olive The Other Reindeer again, and my eyes welled with tears. Idealists succeeding in making their optimistic dreams come true -- throw in some sentiment, and I tear up. :-P (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 11th, 2005
3:08 pm	you seem to see me as bête-noir bludgeoned by my own rose-colored blindness, I can't help but feel I've misdirected my kindness. I've upgrading depression that crushes my chest, it seems at our perceived friendship's -- and stupidity's -- behest.....   my dear friend, I loved you dearly. But seem to see me as bête-noir, and leaves me disheartened. If I'd done anything that had qualified for distain...   but I know I haven't. you're holding resentments for nonsensical reasons, I don't suppose to understand why.   I live with the belief on the surface I'm congenial, but deep within I fear I'm unlovable, your pet distain has played to my fear... The realization you dislike me when I thought of you as my friend has left me feeling depressed, empty, loathsome.   My dear friend, I loved you dearly, but it seems the love flowed only one direction, I have to let go, say good-bye in my heart, and treat you the way you treat me. Good-bye, dear friend, I'll quietly shed tears for the loss of the nothing I thought was something. (Comment on this)
2:58 pm	I've insourced your aches Aching inside, I've insourced your stings. First you see a child's death in your arms At the hands of a drunken driver, Then you transition to align your sex and gender, Then you experience job instability, Then sexual harassment-- not once, but twice-- Now your niece may have been sexually abused by a relative.   I've insourced your aches, My dearest friend, Listening to your anguishes, while starting myself in rundown and depressed condition, My moods swinging in bipolar rhythm-- You're paralyzed with grief and stress, And so was I, And so am I.   Where do we go to regroup?... Where do we find new strength?... What do we do?... I'm at a loss for words, I'm at a loss for action, Neither of us seem able to frame a plan, Neither of us are likely to find any peace soon.   But even though I'm deep in my own pain, I'll stand with you. I love you, My dearest friend, If nothing else, We can feel numb together, Or we can weep, But I will be there for you no matter what. (Comment on this)
2:48 pm	breathing in more caustic aches curling close, my knees to chest. aware of nothing, east, north, or west-- if only the sky would give me sun, yet attentive am I to just oblivion.   somewhere, within my heap of now, feeling all the pain I believe's allowed, I'm breathing in more caustic aches-- the kind that find me in bed-- awake.   surveying my disastrous mess, longing for peace, and peaceful rest, there's aches I feel within my chest-- here I am, not east, north, or west. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 9th, 2005
10:26 pm	Emptines...It knows my name. emptiness... it knows my name. it finds me in regress... again. if I could live a lullaby, I'd hibernate instead of cry. dreaming, dreaming, of something, something, to be dull-witted instead of crumbling... if only circumstances were there that I could blame, but no. emptiness... it knows my name. (Comment on this)