My apologies

I know I haven't written in a while, but there has been a lot happening. Waves of things coming right on top of the other and I'm not focused enough to pick a topic yet. Lots of good stuff though. Pretty sure, tomorrow, I'll start writing. 

My Father's Son

"I know everybody thinks I'm the asshole of the school," I was saying in defense of me yelling at the kids. Even as the words came forth from my mouth I regretted them. My father (who I really am, much to my chagrin exactly alike) used to say the same thing to us three when we'd chastise him for being too harsh. Borrowing another line from Dad's phrase book I proceeded to tell my co-workers that I didn't care how I got the kids to learn, I was going to do anything it took to get them to do so. 

I'm not sure they bought it, but I always have pangs of guilt. Everyday I rewind the tape of the day in my mind. Everyday I see something I don't like. Everyday I pray to my Maker for forgiveness. Everyday I think to light the St. Jude candle. Everyday I hope to no longer be The Lost Cause. I have to work on this this summer. Being calm, and collected and being a Light for my kids.  I know that really they see so very little light. Knowing that I am my father's son, I am certain that he felt the same pangs of conscience. 

I heart the Written Word

This weekend I noticed I've developed an "issue". Apparently in my effort to be Southern Belle Pleasing I've gone and caught a stammer. That's right, all of the sudden I'm 3 again, except that instead of making me look nervous and a tad bit cute, I look like a dumb ass who can't find figure out how to make his mouth work properly. 

My other (not-so-new) habit that has been called to light is what Chaz calls My Need to Be Right and what I call My Need to Have No One Be Upset with Me. This condition is usually manifested through the qualifying phrase "I mean," or "That's Not What I'm Saying" or any other quick mouthful that might negate the unpleasant sting of someone reacting adversely to an opinion of mine they disagree with. 

I really have no idea how this started. I'm sure it has something to do with my Dad being in a really bad mood for this part of my life I like to call Growing Up and then the subsequent revelation that folks don't really like loud-mouthed sissies. It's my passive aggressiveness coming out; What is the answer that everyone wants to hear so that there's no yelling and no hurt feelings? Then there's the thought that if someone is pissed off; how pissed off are they and how fast can we just get them to be happy again?

In all honestly I thought of these speech addendum's as clarification. A little present at the end of something negative that would let the receiver of my message know that even though I'm probably calling them the stupidest person in the world, I really don't want them to slash my tires for it, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the fact that someone, somewhere finds their life and opinions valuable. Later, when I felt like everyone hated me, and my brain was addled for lack of food i did this so that I wouldn't have to fight with anyone about anything. And then sometimes I can come across far more harshly or negatively than I mean to and so I started using these little "endings" as a kind of buffer in college.

 How naive is it to think that "clarification" will really make the person I'm talking to stop looking at me like I'm the biggest bastard in the world? 

Words, written down on the other hand I find far less faulty. The written word provides ample opportunity for us to revise, to clarify and to make "better", even though this too is also subjective. Writing allows us to go back and change a word here or there so that we can say what we need to say exactly how we want to say it.  Writing also lets us play with the language, much like a jigsaw. Each piece must be in its exact place for the puzzle or sentence to work. So while there is a finiteness to words on a page, in black and white, it has a certain grace. And once it's all there on the page in black and white, there is no taking it back and really no refutation. It's so much easier to do it that way.  You can plan out what you want to say, and you don't have to deal with a staring a person in the face should you happen to fall on opposite sides of the fence. 

Having written all of this, I know that really saying those things makes me a coward. But I so rarely see that because I hate (HATE) to think of myself that way. But also writing this, somewhere deep inside of me is that little kid who just wants to avoid the yelling or hurt that comes along with someone being angry. If we all put as much thought into speaking as we are allowed to put into writing wouldn't communicating be better all around? In the end, I suppose this is my new goal. I don't have to be pleasing. All I have to do is think about what I'm saying and how I'm saying it. 

Finally something to write about

I haven't blogged in a few weeks for a number of reasons: Mostly I just didn't have anything I really got fired up about. Sure, there are some things going on, but I'm going to have to start journal-ing again; that way this blog stays what I'd like it to stay, more of a forum of my opinions instead of a window into my soul. 

Did anyone happen to see GMA yesterday (along with every other subsequent celeb-gossip/news format show)? Did anyone happen to notice Bristol Palin advocating (not very successfully) abstinence? While this offers a wide variety of WTF moments, like the fact that the 17 yr. old high school junior is the un-wed, single mother of a baby after being in an "abstinence" only household (WTF?), or the fact that the longer the Palins are in the spotlight for anything you just have to stop what you're doing and say WTF? because you find out what redneck morons they really are. Or are you saying WTF? because you realize that un-wed baby mama Bristol is just a political puppet for her mother. 

Yesterday, during his interview, GMA's Chris Cuomo read Bristol some of the unflattering criticism of her mother. Fox and Friends even had something about Sarah "pimping" Bristol out, and how this was just a way to get a buck (which the "pit bull with lisp stick" must need as Sarah! has been named in several civil suits). Most of this is valid criticism. In the post-Britney- meltdown- day and age we have to question the motive of parents who put their children in the spotlight to earn a buck or spin a message. All of America knows that Sarah! is all about Spin!

What I find most alarming, however, is that so few people are talking about what was actually appalling with all of the interviews and talkies Miss Palin the Younger did. After a full day on TV, to share a "message," Bristol actually said very little. When queried about how she would convince young people not to have sex or how she would answer the argument that she herself wasn't abstinent, she just said that being abstinent was the only option. The  only response Bristol did have is that having a kid, while being a kid, was just hard work. 

Even if I had wanted to get someone pregnant in high school, this sage advice wouldn't have been enough to keep me from doing it. Even worse, while Bristol is just telling folks to "trust her" she never once tried to build empathy with young girls who might be in a similar situation by telling them her story. It was all very much "Do as I say, not as I do". How is this being a true advocate? 

Also conspicuously ignored is the fact that unlike other girls who become pregnant, Bristol Palin has many advantages. She has a large family to support her, a family that can more than likely hire a nanny or afford child care so that she can go to school (and eventual hope of going to college which would allow her the opportunity to actually support her child), and she also has name recognition so that she can land these little income earning opportunities. 

In parroting (there was no discussion or even acknowledgement of any personal question), err...touting the no sex ever before marriage party line, Bristol is also foolishly ignoring not only the reality that abstinence only education doesn't really work, she is also ignoring the reality of those feelings and wants (that she herself felt) and ignoring the fact that when you don't know anything about having sex, you won't also know about the fact that putting on a condom might not only keep you from becoming a teen parent, it may just keep you from dying. 

What Happens if You Survive?

Yesterday in school we had the shortest staff meeting ever about suicide. This must have come in the wake of an 11-yr-old boy who took his own life after being taunted mercilessly with "gay" and "fag" and equally asinine names because he acted "flamboyant" and "feminine". His parents are now suing the school administration and teachers for "doing nothing". As a teacher, who happens to have received this complaint, there is a certain amount of powerlessness that you have. We aren't with the kids every hour of the school day, and it's exceedingly hard to undo prejudice that has been taught at home. This is another problem with having to teach values at school. I wonder if the mother who brought me this complaint was mad at the insult, and not just the fact that it was being used as a club against her son. 

National attention is being paid to the bullying that causes death. Everyone is talking about how "something has to be done" to combat the fact that people are made to feel inferior. We have to combat the fact that "words hurt".  But what about the survivors? What happens to the kids who survive being called "fag" and "queer" and "homo"? Well with any luck they end up like me, a little pistol with an acerbic, scathing wit who won't take shit off of anybody. 

 I don't know why we don't pay more attention to playground bullies anymore. It could be because parents have decided that their children have rights, and so, these days their teachers do not. Discipline must be witnessed and documented with dates and times and everything short of what underwear both students are wearing (because that would mean you're a pedophile). I know that part of me dismissed the complaint I got because I am that bullied kid. The one they called "fag". I think to some extent it gave me character. You see, true or not, bullying prepares you for the dog-eat-dog mentality of the real world. You become strong, and learn to fight back and survive. As a homosexual I learned to fight tooth and nail in the school yard and against my brother in the backyard. 

I can also imagine what little Carl Walker-Hoover was feeling when he decided to hang himself after school one afternoon. To this day I'm always watching and searching. Passing if you will. If I go into a certain bar, or hang out with certain people I try to make sure me being gay doesn't come up. I always hold my breath when it does. But I know that I can't do anything to change it. Now I wouldn't want to. I have to remember it's "their" problem. But it isn't just "their" problem because we're the ones dying. 

There is no easy solution. I learned long ago that you cannot change the hearts of men. You certainly can't do it over night, by magic or wishing or plaintive prayer. So with any luck, there will be fewer victims and more survivors. More survivors like me who realized that every body's fucked up. More survivors who walk around with, what Mary Karr, calls cobs of "fuck you" so that you can survive in the real world. In any case even though life may not be fair, everyone deserves a fighting chance. 

Home Sweet What the Hell Did We Get Ourselves Into?

So I woke up this morning to what we've come to affectionately term Day 3. This really started as a joke on Sunday when I told Chaz that he had survived Day 1 of living with me. Last night when we got into bed, he asked me how I liked Day 2... so I'm sure this will become a running joke at some point, but in the meantime there is a very real way of surviving the beginning of co-habitation. 

I knew that both Chaz and I living together would introduce a whole new part of our personalities into our relationship. We're both smart, a little persnickety and really used to getting our own way. Now imagine putting all of that under one roof.  Sure, we did the sleep over, pretend live together a few nights a week thing for a while now, but when you have that two-day break where you get to do your own thing, that's still living very much apart.  So how was Day 2. Day 2 was great, aside from the fact that I had to work and he still had to move things. By the time we both got home, and sat down to eat it was all I could do to keep from wanting to walk by the back of the couch and hit the back of his head. I know from the fact that he was less than talkative before dinner that he was dreaming up something equally juvenile for me. 

Before you (or he) read farther and think that I don't feel like the luckiest queer in the world, let me set the record straight; I think things will be OK. Even better than OK, great, grand, wonderful, and lovely. 

But this isn't my best friend from college, or my potluck freshman roommate who was so poor that he ate baloney sandwiches hot out of the microwave. What makes living together so hard as a couple is the fact that it's building a life. With all those other people, I still had my own things and freedom, and instead now, those have become things that you get to share with somebody else. 

This means that you have to put aside your petty differences and likes and dislikes and actually communicate. This isn't always me best characteristic. It's so much easier to just shut up or yell and scream than it is to stand rationally and explain my position, but it's something I have to work on. Along with saying explicitly what I think/want/need. So here's to more personal growth than you can sink your teeth into, oh and Day 3. 

Just a quick thought

Packing for D.C. tonight, and even though I haven't written in a dog's age this will be short and mildly pointless. Chaz was putting Q-Tips in the toiletry bag (I have a ditty case) and I couldn't help but think of the little travel Q-Tips I bought a while back. Then I have the travel lotion and travel toothpaste ready to be tucked away so as not to upset Homeland Security. 

My oh-so-important epiphany was that I love travel kits and travel sizes. I love them because they are small. I'm fairly diminutive myself, and have never outgrown that childhood feeling that you get when you're small and you see a desk or chair or water fountain (It was years before I realized those were for people in wheelchairs) that is, in the words of Goldielocks, Just Right. Even at school, while my collegues feel their knees yelp over the precipitous drop into one of the chairs around the kidney table, I smile inwardly, satisfied that no matter how far I advance in years, I won't ever feel that pain or inconvenience. 

Wonderful things come in small packages.