Do What You Will, This World's A Fiction And Is Made Up Of Contradiction.

Oct 31st 2009

Boo! Halloween is upon us all…

I’m thankful for within my mind, some true peace has begun to take root…And once again, I can actually hear beautiful music playing in my head much of the time…A curse is lifting! Because my mind can become a treacherous place before I know it, filled to the brim with incessant and repetitious thinking…Although, I’ve been told that obsessive thinking is nothing uncommon for people like me…Although I’m diligent about overcoming the wreckage…

This has been a busy week for me, but worthwhile and good nonetheless…

I am actually getting the hang of being a day person after all! And definitely beginning to relinquish my nebulous ways, finally! This was the first (difficult) choice I had to make, when considering transformation for myself…To stop living and working through the night, when much of the world was sleeping…But honestly, I’ve always been happiest living under the moon, I did my sleeping while the sun was shining and while the rest of the world was living…I don’t believe that I was hiding from life and the sun necessarily, as much as it’s just my natural way to spend my life in the moonlight…The adjustment hasn’t been easy whatsoever but it has been rewarding…An advantageous arrangement, I would say…

I’m becoming acquainted with consistency and routine…I’m am becoming stable! Consistency and routine have been absent throughout my entire life, but I’m welcoming to both these days…It’s a wonderful but strange feeling to be so far removed from the instability I’ve always known before…

My ever-growing relationship with my Higher Power is the key…This relationship brings forth grace and releases me from self-destruction, it releases me from the desire to be perfect…By understanding it’s simply about the progress that I make and not about the perfection after all…The desire to be perfect at anything or attempting to be perfect for anyone is quite the character flaw actually…Thus perfection is deceptive! Knowing, but most importantly ‘remembering’ this lifts me out of despair. Oh the damage that despair can do to a soul is infinite! Because it was despair that led me to keep my vulnerabilities and needs a secret from other people, which then led me to being completely incapable of true intimacy with other’s, which led me to the desire to isolate myself from them, which then ultimately led to such loneliness…The most painful feeling a human being can endure is loneliness…I could be in a room with 500 people who loved and adored me and I would still feel all alone *sigh* I suppose without the ability to trust people, it’s not possible to believe they can love you either…So, if you’re a person (like myself) that has felt unworthy of anything that’s worth having. Plus, you aren’t capable of trust either…How can Hope persevere? How can Love persist?

The answer for me and many other’s struggling through life, is the 12 steps…When our spiritual revolutions begin…It’s hitting our bottoms, the lowest point throughout our lives, where we simply give up entirely…When you hit your personal bottom, where else do you have to go, than up? When you’ve hit the place where it becomes emotionally impossible to sink down any further and remain among the living…This is where our (collective) glimmer of hope comes into view. I suppose that many people will just give up and turn their heads away, refusing to see it…While some of us are most grateful for the glimmer of light peering through the darkness and choose to follow where it leads…This becomes our new beginning! This is the point where we evolve into maturity and transformation begins…The place where we begin to trust and we find ourselves in the hands of a loving God…

I respect religion, but only to a point…When it becomes less about your individual and personal relationship with the God of your understanding and more about politics and a God that is hell-bent (pardon the pun) on punishment and undue destruction. Rather than a God that corrects and disciplines us with love…By letting us think for ourselves and then letting us suffer the consequences…By learning our life lessons from falling down so often, as the mortal beings we are after all, but unconditionally give’s us a Divine hand to get back up again afterwards…Respectfully, I’ve come to believe that this is how our relationship with God deepens and ripens…But, the whole notion of my God is better than your God is redundant and I shall differ from the proud and arrogant who believe in these very profound ways…

Chaz Bono

A while back, I wrote about Chastity Bono and her journey to manhood as “Chaz” Bono.  Her decision to become male was the least newsworthy even that week but I couldn’t pass up on commenting about it.  And maybe for her and the GLBT community, that was the point.

Well, Chaz is in the news again, garnering some prominence on CNN with a status update on “his” progress.  Wow!  Newsworthy?  Again, No!  Comment worthy?  Of course.

So here’s what Chaz had to say (in part):

“I always felt like the male from the time I was a child,” he said. “There wasn’t much feminine about me.”

“I believe that gender is something between your ears, not between your legs. That is something I discovered in the early ’90s. It was just a long process of being comfortable enough to do something about it.”

Really?  Why do anything about it?  If gender is really “between your ears”, then by your own admission, you were already a male.  You would medically and surgically alter what you received genetically to fit a mental image of who and what you are.  Pray that you don’t one day wake up and realize that you are indeed a female.  It’s not like changing shoes.  And I know, the process is long and involves evaluations before this can be done.  That’s not to say that things won’t change later.

I know someone who claims to be suffering from gender dysphoria and my challenge to this person was that the mental state is what needed to change, not the physical state.  Amazing thing, Chastity, that you were willing to take male hormones and have your body altered to become what you felt in your mind you should be—but were apparently unwilling to keep your body and to instead take female hormones to better become what you already were.

I am no more an expert on the subject than you are, but clearly, if it’s in the head, isn’t that the easier place to start with a change?

MORE:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/30/chaz.bono.man/index.html

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20286040,00.html?cnn=yes

http://trebord.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/chastity-a-lost-virtue/

29 October 2009

Good evening all,

Well, the kid in me just has to say… one more sleep.
That’s right… tomorrow evening, the wife and I will be flying to South Africa for a whistle-stop tour of the coastal cities. Not really, but hell… I think that it really is going to feel that way after a few days. On our list of places to go is Johannesburg (admittedly, only the customs queue, but if they are having a strike… as they have had the last FIVE times we have flown through… it FEELS like forever.), East London (where the bulk of the visit takes place) and a family road trip that will take in Knysna and some other places in the Eastern Cape. Lastly, we get to fly to Cape Town to hook up with our old roommate, his girlfriend (soon to be wife) and their sprog.

(You know we’re looking forward to seeing all the new additions to the Bear Family Squire.)

So, things have been a little busy, what with the list of jobs and niggles that need to be squared away before our trip. There is some rule that even though we won’t physically be here, we still need to pay rent on the place. (Which sucks.) And the bills need to be paid whilst we’re away. All of our classes at school need to be prepared for while we are not here and some substitute teacher takes them. (Of course, this rule doesn’t apply to everyone, and I actually was left with a class for THREE days by a colleague.. and the bastard didn’t even leave me a fucking book. Thanks “bru”. Assbag.) Still, the wife and I are getting things set up so that there is a minimum of fuss for when we return.

Let’s see. In other news, I have now received the money for the sale of my bike, and all the paperwork has cleared too. As a result of selling my bike, I have been going about on Shank’s Pony for the last week. This isn’t all that bad, as it is a 4 block walk to the MRT (Subway) station from my place, and then just a one-stop ride to my destination station, and then literally door-to-door service from the MRT to my school by bus. The trick of course is simply to work your way through a bus timetable. In Chinese.
(Is it just me, or are bus timetables the world over deliberately obtuse? When I lived in Ireland, the bus timetables there would regularly confuse the crap out of me. And there is little worse than bouncing around in sub-zero temperatures waiting for a bus that is ALREADY late, and you’re not sure will be coming anyway.)
Of course, all of this public transport has given me the chance to get re-acquainted with my iPod. Yes yes, I am one of those “anti-social” people who ignore everyone else when they travel. I’d get defensive, but more than likely, I simply don’t want to talk to you.

I am most likely NOT going to be online very much while I am in South Africa. Let’s face it, the South African concept of “broadband” in the household is that black rubber band that holds the braai wood together.
Yeah yeah, all my South African friends are going to have something to say about that, but I am going to miss the 10Mb line I have here at home. (For which I am paying a princely R180 a month for. Uncapped.)
This means that you will be without these regular blog updates for a while. As a make-up for the desertion, I will upload some semi-decent holiday shots on the next blog back.

One last bit of personal news – Bunny and JebbX have made it to the three year mark. Congrats guys.

********

This week’s musical contribution comes from Carl Sagan and Steven Hawking.
Enjoy.

1. A computer error gave two women in America called Patricia the same social security number. When the two women were brought together in an office to rectify the blunder they discovered that they had both been born with the names Patricia Ann Campbell. Both of their fathers were called Robert Campbell. Their birthdays were on 13th March 1941. They had both married military men in the year 1959 (within eleven days of each other). They each had two children aged 19 and 21. They both had an interest in oil painting. Both had studied cosmetics. Both had worked as book-keepers.

2. In 1893, Henry Ziegland ended a relationship with his girlfriend. Tragically, his girlfriend took the news very badly, became distraught and took her own life. Her distressed brother blamed his sister’s death upon Henry, he went round to Henry’s house, saw him out in the garden and tried to shoot him. Luckily, the bullet only grazed Henry’s face and embedded itself in a nearby tree. In 1913, twenty years after this incident, Henry decided to use dynamite to uproot a tree in his garden. The explosion propelled the embedded bullet from the tree straight into Henry Ziegland’s head – killing him immediately.

3. On December 5th 1660, a ship sank in the straights of Dover – the only survivor was noted to be Hugh Williams. On 5th December 1767, another ship sank in the same waters – 127 lost their lives, the only survivor was noted to be Hugh Williams. On 8th August 1820, a picnic boat capsized on the Thames – there was one survivor – Hugh Williams. On 10th July 1940, a British trawler was destroyed by a German mine – only two men survived, one man and his nephew – they were both called Hugh Williams.

4. Mr McDonald was a farmer who lived in Canada – nothing extra-ordinary in that – until you learn that his postcode contained the letter sequence EIEIO.

5. In 1996, Paris police set out to investigate a late night, high speed car crash, both drivers had been killed instantly. Investigations revealed that the deceased were in fact man and wife. Police initially suspected some kind of murder or suicide pact but it became apparent that the pair had been separated for several months – neither could have known that the other would have been out driving that night – it was just a terrible coincidence.

6. Michael Dick had been travelling around the UK with his family to track down his daughter, Lisa – who he had lost contact with ten years earlier. After a long fruitless search, he approached the Suffolk Free Press, who agreed to help him by putting an appeal in their newspaper. Fortunately, his long lost daughter saw the appeal and the pair were reunited. The odd thing was, his daughter had been right behind him when the free paper took the photograph – shown in the photograph above. What are the chances of that!

7. A fifteen year old pupil at Argoed High School in North Wales was to sit his GCSE examinations in 1990. His name was James Bond – his examination paper reference was 007.

8. In 1965, at the age of four, Roger Lausier was swimming off a beach in Salem – he got into difficulties and was saved from drowning by a woman called Alice Blaise. In 1974, on the same beach, Roger was out on a raft when he pulled a drowning man from the water – amazingly, the man he saved was Alice Blaise’s husband.

9. British cavalry officer Major Summerford was fighting in the fields of Flanders in the last year of WW1, a flash of lightning knocked him off his horse and paralysed him from his waist down. He moved to Vancouver, Canada, six years later, whilst out fishing, Major Summerfield was struck by lightning again and the right side of his body became paralysed. After two years of recovery, it was a summer’s day and he was out in a local park, a summer storm blew up and Major Summerfield was struck by lightning again – permanently paralysing him. He died two years after this incident. However, four years after his death, his stone tomb was destroyed – it was struck by lightning!

10. Businessman Danie de Toit made a speech to an audience in South Africa – the topic of his speech was – watch out because death can strike you down at any time. At the end of his speech, he put a peppermint in his mouth, and choked to death on it!

This week’s PURE AWESOME video is this.

And now? PEEKCHUZZ!!

The Babysitter?

I met a hot young woman.

She is, well, the same age cohort as my babysitters. She is but two years older than The mohawked vegan, the Vista worker, the architecture student, and the one with the great tits who isn’t sure what her major will be. She is a Cute Young Thing.

Flattered, I am.

She tells me I am listed as “Hot mom” in her cell phone. She told her friends on the way home “She said she’s 40, but I don’t believe it”. One of my (so-called?) friends shot back “She is. Believe it. I was at her 40th birthday party”.

She texts. She calls. She lives in another state. Fortunately.

I have a dream that I am 50. “Gee, I don’t look 50” I say to myself as I look in the mirror. And I am completely puzzled as to where my 40’s may have slipped away to. I don’t seem to remember them at all.

She is adorable.

She would make a great babysitter. Oh, the fantasies!

Gay is ok - Congratulations Daniel and Charles

I am disgusted with the way that Kenyan journalists have covered the marriage between Charles Ngengi and Daniel Gichia, the two Kenyan men who married in London.

Listen to my podcast titled Gay is OK: hit back on Kenyan journalists about my response to Nick and Marcus on Classic FM who were gay bashing and calling Kenyans to ‘slap gays’

Why have I done this podcast? Because when good people stay silent bad people can get away with doing horrible things.

Don’t be silent – complain to the Classic FM station master Paul Illado (20) – 4447404

Fax +254 (20) – 4447411 Paul Illado (station master) and complain about Marcus and Nick for gay bashing program that calls viewers to slap gay people.

Be a proud Kenyan, Say NO to xenophobia, racism, bigotry, chauvinism, homophobia in Kenya.

“Talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, fucking crying, drinking, riding, winning, losing, cheating, kissing, thinking, dreaming”

Tekst fra ‘The L Word-sangen’, yir.

Jeg havde en særlig – i virkeligheden ret heftig periode –, hvor jeg var totalt besat af The L Word (amerikansk tv-serie about a L.A-lezbo-gang. Pretty nice, huh?). I virkeligheden finder jeg serien meget smuk.

Umiddelbart lyder serien ret banal, og folk, der ikke har set den men blot hørt om den, ville måske uden videre smide den i samme skuffe som vores egen ‘2900 Happiness’ eller nye ‘Lærkevej’. ‘The L Word’ kunne, med dens udgangspunkt, nemt være faldet i den lange række af kendte faldgruber, og være blevet en lidt for fed cocktail af ‘The Days of Our Lives’ og ‘Baywatch’… MEN. Den FALDER ikke i fælden! Den sniger sig uden om den, og dét med snilde og elegance.

OKAY. Der er måske en tand for mange sexscener med, der ingen videre betydning har for historien – i de helt katastrofale tilfælde kan man få den mistanke, at ens tv, uden man selv har lagt mærke til det, automatisk er zappet hen på TV1000’s ‘Softcore Lez-night’ i stedet. Følgeslutning: Der er meget sex i den. Noget der irriterer mig hver gang er, at der i starten af hver udsendelse er en, host, hm, “lille forfilm” – en teaser, du ved. Som om producerne regner med, alle seerne ligger derhjemme og leger med en dildo under udsendelsen, og lige ville forære os et visuelt forspil til at komme ordentlig i gang – ja, som en venlig gestus, måske? Nej, tak!

Nå. Men UDOVER det. Så synes jeg, karaktererne er ret fantastiske. De har en dybde i sig, en gennemførthed og unikhed – de indeholder hver deres fantastiske og helt forfærdelige sider.

Nå, men dét jeg egentlig ville med dette indlæg var at fortælle, at jeg er TOTALT VILD MED BETTE PORTER. Hende dér^. Spillet af Jennifer Beals. Jeg fik at vide af en veninde, at det var sjældent at se én, der fulgte Bettes storyline i historien, og at de fleste generelt var mere appelleret af de “unge, lækre chicks” i historien som fx. Shane og Carmen. I dag satte jeg mig ned og tænkte lidt over, hvorfor jeg netop er så vild med lige netop Bette.

Jeg tror, det bunder i en fascination af hendes modenhed og den dér gennemgående ro, hun bærer med sig. Hendes sans for ansvarlighed og hendes beskyttende, kærlige og hjertevarme væsen. Hun har noget power – også på arbejdsfronten. Hun arbejder indenfor kunst – hun er professionel, stærk –  oftest succesfuld – og hammerdygtig karrierekvinde. Dét tiltrækker mig rigtig meget. Og så har hun på samme tid en ynde, elegance – og en skrøbelig side. En side som hun egentlig helst undertrykker og gemmer væk bag hendes panser – hvilket i virkeligheden også er én af de personlige dilemmaer, Bette gennemgående kæmper med. Og dét virker skide tiltalende. Men jeg tænker, du skal SE serien i stedet – opleve hende! Jeg er så vild med hende, og en periode følte jeg mig næsten helt forelsket i hende.

(Hurtig skør tilføjelse: Det var i sommerferien, jeg fik øjnene op for denne serie, og jeg så alle sæsoner in a row. Den fyldte SÅ meget i mit liv rent følelsesmæssigt og mentalt. De var som mine veninder – eller en del af mig (haha). Jeg følte, mit liv blev beriget, da de skulle have en baby. Jeg følte, noget dyrebart var blevet frarøvet mig, da Nina mistede sit ufødte barn. Følte mig utilstrækkelig og svigtet, da Nina fandt en mand at være sammen med i stedet for Bette (og mih, haha). Jeg kan huske, jeg følte mig glad og forelsket i livet, når Bette og Nina havde det godt. Og jeg blev deprimeret og ked af det, når de ikke var sammen (til sidst sprang jeg bare konsekvent de udsendelser over, hvor de ikke var kærester… Ha, dem har jeg faktisk aldrig fået set! Måske jeg skulle gøre det nu? – Eller måske jeg skulle vente til en dag, jeg har totalt følelsesmæssigt overskud til det. Eller måske… måske jeg bare skulle lade være… ) Tænk at jeg indrømmer det overfor jer. I må jo tænke, jeg er totalt crazy.

Well – som følge af dette indrømmer jeg gerne, at

jeg er totalt crazy. Jeg er totalt crazy med ‘The L

Word’. Jeg er totalt crazy IN LOVE with ‘The L

Word’.

Swedia Perbolehkan Pernikahan Gay

Swedia Perbolehkan Pernikahan Gay

Posted: 23 Oct 2009 12:41 AM PDT

SWEDIA–Gereja Lutheran Swedia memperbolehkan melakukan perkawinan sejenis bulan depan, November 2009. Sekitar 70 persen dewan gereja menjadikannya salah satu dari beberapa gereja-gereja global untuk membolehkan pernikahan gay.

Pemerintah Swedia memperkenalkan hukum baru yang memungkinkan pasangan gay memiliki hak perkawinan yang sama seperti heteroseksual.

Tiga perempat dari Swedia adalah anggota gereja Lutheran, meskipun jemaat yang datang ke gereja rendah. Gereja Lutheran mengatakan pasangan gay sekarang bisa menikah dengan salah satu dari para imam awal November.

Gereja yang memisahkan diri dari kontrol negara pada tahun 2000, mendukung keputusan pemerintah untuk melegalkan pernikahan gay pada bulan Mei. Akan tetapi, beberapa ulama mempertanyakan apakah upacara  perkawinan  harus disediakan seperti serikat heteroseksual. Banyak yang menentang  dengan alasan itu bertentangan dengan Kitab Suci.

Menanggapi hal tersebut, Uskup Agung Swedia, Anders Wejryd, mengatakan kepada wartawan, “Bagi saya, keputusan yang benar diambil, tapi saya bisa berempati kepada banyak orang yang percaya keputusan tersebut terlalu cepat.” katanya, seperti yang dikutip dari BBC.

Komunitas  Gay Swedia, Swedia Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual dan Transgender Rights (RFSL), menyambut baik keputusan pemerintah melegalkan pernikahan gay di gereja.

“Kita mengucapkan selamat kepada Gereja Swedia untuk mengambil keputusan itu. Homoseksual dan biseksual anggota akhirnya akan dapat merasakan sedikit lebih diterima dalam masyarakat,” kata salah seorang komunitas itu dalam sebuah pernyataan.

Swedia adalah salah satu negara pertama yang memberikan hak secara hukum pasangan gay  pada pertengahan 1990-an, dan untuk membolehkan pasangan gay mengadopsi anak dari tahun 2002. Swedia menjadi lima negara Eropa, setelah Belanda, Belgia, Spanyol dan Norwegia, yang mengakui perkawinan sesama jenis. (Republika online, 23/10/2009)