Enough Already! I am not in need of a change!

My brother posted an article about some Focus on the Family (American, James Dobson, queer hating "christian") sub-group spouting the possibility of changing "orientation". Basically its possible if the subject is willing enough. Just give it the old college try, smash the "feelings" of homosexuality way deep down, and come back to the heterosexual life.

Funny, but the article and most of Dobson's work focuses on male homosexuals. Not much about the lesbians, or the bisexuals, or the "feared" transfolks. I had to read through the stupid thing, like watching a TV car crash in slow motion. You know a lot of special effects are involved, and most to all is not real, but you have to watch anyways. I read so I can remember what my siblings (not all, just some) believe down deep. That this phase of my life will pass, that I could change if I tried, that I am still following that "false Jesus" who loves me as I am.

So, my brother, why bother posting this information? Do you have a lot of queer readers dying for a morsel of truth so they can change their wicked ways? I don't think so, as I am the only one of his family or friends who is openly gay and doesn't give a damn who knows.

The only thing in my life that needs a change right now is the dang light bulb over the stove. It keeps burning out. I keep replacing it. Maybe if its willing and tries hard enough, if it believes in itself enough, it will stay lit all the time and never burn out. Let's all pray it does!

Naughty = Bipolar Disorder? Behavior Disorder? Having a Bad Day?

Behavior is the topic at our home. Manage the ones whom we've brought through some serious stuff. Help them cope with emotions by helping them find and use the right tools. Then a new situation pops up, and we are off again.

Our four year old is a peach. At parties, school, church, with the neighbors. Wherever he is "ON" he behaves beautifully. But get him alone with the family, where he doesn't want to do SOMETHING (go to bed, put away a toy, finish his dinner, put on a pull-up) and the explosive tantrums begin. He spits, kicks, hit, name calls, runs up the street. He shreds paper, breaks toys, throws whatever is near at hand. The child passes from OK and generally following with the flow to a demon child. We are waiting for his head to spin around and the green pea soup to come out of his mouth while he speaks in a creepy deep voice.

We've tried medication and he is off all meds for now. We've met with a behavioral specialist from the county. Our son weekly receives OT for sensory issues. We need to get him into a psychiatrist to see if this is related to his FASD, ARND, or some other disorder. I want to believe this is a phase that will pass, but I have enough parenting experience to know better.

Have I mentioned how much I get pissed at the birth mom for her use of narcotics and booze during pregnancy? Well, today I really am because this darling boy started out life with a big minus against him, thanks to her.

Summertime, and the living is, uh, interesting?

Last I wrote the kids were nearing the end of school. I had a summer plan. Really, this time I did!

We'd cruise through the end of the school year. Have a couple weeks with me and the kids, first one taken up with going to visit Granny and Grandpa. (My partner's parents whom I dearly love.) Then one week swimming, working in the garden, and enjoying each others company. Then my personal care attendant, hire for the two middle kids, would ease us through by providing a gentle pair of 17-year-old, energetic hands.

HA! Want to get the universe to laugh at you, not with you? Start making plans, baby, because they will be turned upside down when you least expect it!

We did OK for the first week. With the grandparents. At first. But.... Did you know you can spur-of-the-moment hit a restaurant in Chicago and run into your brother, his kids, and zealot wife? Oh, yes, truly it is possible! Pouring rain, enduring a long train ride from the suburbs into downtown Chicago, a little shopping, and on to meet my partner's local friend at said pizza place. We order, wait, eat and are ready to pay the bill and "TADA". Here comes brother with 5 of his kids in tow. Curiously, brother's wife, who wrote me the prior posted letter, remained seated across the room. I don't see much of this brother on purpose. But the blessed stars aligned to add a "sparkle" to my day!

My family of origin was meeting in Madison a few days later for a wedding celebration. I knew this brother would be attending, but really, seeing him in Chicago? For another opportunity for this woman to ignore us and remain seated while her family came over to "say hi?" I like my nephews, they are a good lot. But, my brother and........ SHEESH!@

On to the wedding. If you have not attending a fundamentalist baptist wedding you've missed out. On what, you say? The opportunity to hear how marriage is supposed to last forever, that people are to remain virgins until married, how the wife will submit and look to her husband for leadership and protection, how marriage is between a man and woman as god planned, how the world is going to hell because marriages today aren't commitments like they were in the old times, and how you need to accept Jesus as your saviour so you can go to heaven and have fabulous riches. Most people attending (as I knew many who were there) HAD been married and never divorced.

Many young people wore the unbelievably vain "promise ring" on the wedding finger to show their pledge to remain virgins until marriage. (Hey! Look! I am a VIRGIN! Take that you sex loving perverts who defile yourselves by fooling around! I'd never do that because god would burn my ring finger right off by activation of the IMPURITY alarm within the promise ring!) Isn't the decision to have sex or not have sex before "marriage" a private decision? And don't get me started on the idea of the insane "Purity Balls" (*snort*) the fundies like to have for their precious virgin-stock females. (Hey everybody! My daughter's virginity is mine to protect! Keep away from her pants!)

After successfully navigating our lesbian, multiracial selves through this snow white event, we moved on back home. The next week summer school started and our PCA started helping out. I am able to accomplish much with another person watching the risk-taking trio. Then camp for two of the kids, then I had surgery. Then my aunt died. And on to another interaction, quite emotional, with my family of origin.

I work on not being drowned by my past. It's hard, but I've made quite a bit of progress. But put me at a funeral, put me at my aunt's bedside for a couple days before she died, place me in a room filled with people from my past (some I've not seen for over 30 years) and the switch is activated. I can easily slide into the girl who didn't fit in, who had too many questions, who seemed to always be on the outside, who was and never would be good enough. My aunt always supported me, altough I'd lost touch with her in the past 10 years (the whole lesbian coming out, brother shunning me and manipulating family gatherings held without my knowledge, alcoholic in recovery thing. And the lesbian wife, lets not forget her!)

The last weeks dumped me deep into depression. Working through the feelings of loss, of accepting I can never be welcomed with open arms, with seeing people who have had successful marriages and are still together after 20+ years, that takes a toll. I want to be the smartass who gets by, who can "sarcastic" her way out of any situation, but I am not. The tears still fall. If I have any regrets for the past years they are allowing other people to hold me back, to hold me down. My aunt was a giving, loving person and I could have been in her life had I the strength to say "what the hell" and plan my own gatherings. I can't change the past, but I can change what I do in the future.

I am OK for who I am. I know this. The time is now, for me to act, react and be a part of life. I started by contacting the "good cousins" who love me for me and planning get togethers. I have phone numbers and email addresses. I've made the hospital visit for a friend who had surgery, rather than sitting on my ass and thinking I should do something.

Life lessons suck, they do. But coming through these past weeks I've shed some of the sensitivity which has burdened me. My family is my family, my friends are my family. The people related by name or blood, well, some I don't define as my family. They are under the same catagory as irritating neighbor or door-to-door solicitor. I can acknowlege their presence but they don't HAVE TO mean much to me. My choice, either way.

Words from Someone Who Really Loves Her God

I ranted about facebook friending not meaning you were going to marry the person who friended you. Or believe everything that person stood for. This is a passive aggressive forward from a person who I try not to talk to ever.

"To be honest Fred, both you and Sappho have been incredibly deceived. You have both mix- (OK, what is this supposed to say? Mixed it up? Mix and matched our clothes?)

You have abandoned the truth of scripture and have bought into a multitude of lies from the enemy. I am extremely saddened by what I have read in your profile and very concerned for your soul. Sappho has also forsaken the truth of scripture in favor of a "user friendly" version that completely denies everything that the Bible teaches about morality. (Oh, yeah, and you are covering your head as a sign of submission, not speaking in church, not eating seafood, not walking your ass on the Sabbath.) The very disturbing thing about it is how you both believe that you are in the Christian faith. You have both accepted a different gospel and are following a false Jesus.

I really resisted saying this to you (yeah, for about 5 minutes) but I feel I have no choice if I am to be faithful to the teaching of Scripture. (My brother, and her husband) has tried several times to appeal to Sappho and she is not able to hear the truth anymore.

I pray that God will grant you repentance, but I cannot pretend that your beliefs line up with the Bible. The instruction I see in scripture is that I need to separate from you based on the fact that you are claiming to be Christian yet walking in darkness. (She is the one who friended this man, why friend him when you are already aware of who he is and what he stands for?) Please come back to the truth. You are in a very dangerous place. Hebrews 6 has some very serious warnings for you to consider.

(My loving brother's wife.)"

Really, what a bitch she is. Why bother sending me a note, if I am following a false Jesus? Aren't I lost already?

Facebook Friending Does NOT Mean you are ......

Facebook has become a new obsession for me. I am not a phone caller, and much prefer writing to keep up with my friends. I have family on Facebook, many of whom are on my friend list.

But, what is up with these family member who don't respond to my friend request? How stupid is it to have everyone in the family on my friend list except one person? Yes, this is a rant, but really. I can handle the fact my right wing fundies in the family object to the me of me. I object to the them of them. But does this mean we can't keep up with birthdays, graduations, milestones in life?

The only request I never accepted was someone I'd never heard of who must have thought everyone with my last name wanted his totally right wing, republican ass, fundamentalist person as his friend.

***Grumping****

I will be nice, I will take the higher path, I will save my ranting for my anonymous blog.

Take that, you tight ass family members!

My Son - Caught Between Kid and Teen

My son is moody. One minute Hermes is my loving little son. The next a prickly little cactus. Tonight he's mad because I said he could have ice cream. My partner said no, because it is too late and the tween-ager won't be able to sleep. So he started crying.

I remember being an emotional kid. I felt so much all the time, like sensory overload. I used to resent my mom because she seemed unhappy all the time. Now I realize I am more like this son than I care to admit. I feel sorry for my mom because I must have been a pain in the ass much of my tween years.

What's More Important - Our Life Now or Our Afterlife Later?

Anytime I have overexposure to my family of original I am bombarded by memories of my past and an overwhelming feeling of life repeating itself. What I learned then is still envogue. Repeated and revered by today's young.


Take for example the idea of heaven. I was raised to believe heaven awaited only those who had a definite moment of conversion. Where they committed their life to Jesus and clung to this date as proof they'd be ensured a future after-life mansion. A relative talks about this fact in their blog, where its clearly stated "I believe salvation buys us a home in heaven filled with delights. To not accept Jesus as your savior guarantees death and eternal damnation."


OK, I think, I will accept Jesus because who doesn't want a home in heaven? But its not that simple. I often hear or see the phrase "I believe (so and so) is really saved." Like, now that one person has accepted Christ, they naturally have gained a truth magnifying glass and can tell when someone is faking conversion.

The conversion experience must be matched with a life lived by clear, scriptural principles. (The guidebook Bible says so, literally interpretating a book barely reflecting original manuscripts with authors named who didn't themselves write the books and traditions such as stoning, multiple wives, and murdering nations.) So by believing in literal translation, we know certain things.

Like heaven, the place this conversion guarantees. We aren't supposed to have solid bodies, frail human frames which give way to suffering and eventual death. Our revised selves will walk gold paved streets leading to our new homes. We do good here, we have a great place in the afterlife, complete with maid service, many rooms, and an olympic sized pool. We don't. we end up in a roach filled apartment which smells of fried foot odor.

The problem I've experienced with those who claim a great heaven for good works is questionable motivation. If I do X & Y I will have a great place to stay with God. If I only do 1/2 of X I will have a so-so place to stay in heaven. So what's the motivation here? Seems selfish.
Not to cast stones, but I've met folks claiming Christian status who seem to act as if they've been saved and don't care to do good now. They've got their pass and they're going to ride it to the end, roach motel or not.

I think to live life as if no afterlife (good or bad) existed is a better choice. A motivation to improve THIS life one of greater impact. To help ease another's suffering by listening. To use one's talent to build low-income housing. To mentor a teen who's struggling with drug and alcohol use. Isn't an immediate impact here and now better than a life-after-death bonanza?

Sure, we could say "what's the point" and go crawl in a hole and starve ourselves to death. We could do nothing. Or choose to do as much damage as possible before we end in blankness. We could choose this option knowing we were saved but not caring. We want the roach motel, right? But isn't that a version of hell? Being a miserable bastard who cares nothing for no one? Who is lonely and not cared for? Who wrecks everything and everyone they touch?

I choose to live for doing good now and the rest will fall into place. As for the whole conversion process, I believe we have a lifetime of acting like Jesus in service to others, finding riches in the smiles and impact we leave behind. Not a momentary flash of Jesus-ness followed by banking on eternal riches.