Not that I’m patriotic, but….

I am sick and tired of Canadians talking about how shitty life is here.

Do we have a functional government? Clean water? Well, we’re doing better than the entire population of Somalia, who has been without a functional government for about 15 years. And I don’t mean like, their elections suck and by some fuck up they elected Stephen Harper. Twice. I mean NO GOVERNMENT TO SPEAK OF. Gangs running the city. Looting, raping, and constant murder. You cannot go into the country (as a white westerner) without armed Ethiopian escort, and even then, there is a very good chance that you will be shot for money, food, whatever. You need to wear a bulletproof vest and independent travel is considered suicidal. This is the most lawless city on Earth, a place that even East Vancouver or the dregs of Toronto doesn’t compare to.

Women can go to school. Awesome. In most places in Afghanistan, that is still a rarity. Are you required, by law, to wear a burka here? As a woman, I enjoy having right and freedoms, like voting and wearing pants. And don’t get me wrong, I have high respect for Islam. I just don’t like the idea of women being treated as cattle or something to be owned. Also, the majority of Afghanistan is a war zone. Not necessarily because of foreign occupation (but, to be fair, that has had a detrimental effect), but it has been involved in a civil war since the late 1970’s. The Soviet (remember them?) invasion didn’t really help things. The topple of the Taliban government in 2001 led by the US just served to cause even more problems.

And hey, gay folks? You can marry here. Visit Sana’a, and you’ll likely be stoned or hung to death. Homosexuality is punishable by death. In fact, homosexuality is illegal in the following countries: Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, The Gambia, Sudan, Tunisia, Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, Guyana, Palastine Turkmenistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Most of those places, the penalty is a monetary fine or jail time. However in Yemen, Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran the penalty is death. That’s legal – not including the abuse you will likely suffer if you are revealed to be gay to the general populace.

Yes, the government has kinks. For one, the Conservative party. Stephen Harper. Our environmental policy could be leagues better, and we need to get our fucking armies our of other countries. Yes, Canada has done some things that no Canadian should be proud of (ie, the mining and displacement of people in Guatamala, the war in Afghanistan, etc). But that by far does not represent the majority of Canada or Canadians. Most of Canada does not want to fight a war. Most Canadians are moral, conscious people who want Canada to be seen as a place of beauty, freedom, pride. I am not going to subscribe to some ‘white person guilt’ because of the happenstance of where I was born. I could have just as easily been born a poor street child in Nairobi. I feel blessed that I grew up with food on the table and a roof over my head. I got to go to school and be educated. I have the option to go to post secondary as many times as I like (provided I have the funds).

Try and fight for the things you believe in, and try and change policy for things you care about. Peaceful protest and talking to the MPs is a good start. Hell, voting is a good start. Sitting back and bitching, complaining that Canada sucks is not progressive or in any way helpful. If you don’t like it, leave. We don’t want you anyway.

I despise people who think communism is the be all and end all and are using it as a way to be ~edgy as fuck~, but don’t know much beyond what they’ve read in their ‘manifestos’. They are incredibly sheltered, and often do not practice what they preach. Nine times outta ten, they have never encountered fascism or oppression in their lives.

Because communism is working so well for North Korea, am I right?

Out with the old.

I always feel like I need to shed skin at this time of year. Sometimes I feel like I shed too much, but in the end it always ends up being for the best.

I just removed about 10 or 12 people on Facebook that, for whatever reason, I had on my list. Either classmates I never spoke to or hung out with, or classmates that decided that I wasn’t worth their time (which is fine), or people I met a few times who added me. It’s odd to look at the ebb and flow of people in my life. The folks that are in, and then out again, like a boat with the tides. People who choose prestige and status over friendship.

I’ve been more crafty lately – making little bits and bobs. I keep my hands and brain busy while I wait for my answer from NSCAD so that I don’t think too much into it. I’m trying to only think positive thoughts (and now is the good time to laugh, because I am hopelessly negative), which is a challenge in itself.

I’ve also been more clumsy lately. I’ve hurt my ankle numerous times, pulled my back and chest once, and (the most recent offense) dropped a hot pyrex dish full of bread pudding on to myself (piping out of the oven, folks) – resulting in first and second degree burns on one leg and multiple bruises on my pelvis which are just starting to bloom. Yes, I said the pelvis. I can’t catch worth shit with my hands, but throw it to my crotch and the bitch is jumping to catch it.

Does that make me a slut?

Anyway.

I’m trying to shed old habits, old friends, and things that no longer hold meaning for me.

So here I am, at 2:30am, shedding my skin.

In the beginning there was hum, from a poet whose pulse felt DRUM DRUM DRUM!

I am attempting to inject some positivity in my life.

I’ve applied to school, and am trying to remain positive. I am trying to attract positive things into my life. Things get hard, and I get angry – and I cannot do that anymore.

4 times in the last week I have pulled the same card from my tarot deck – release. I am trying to figure out if I need to release that anger, to release something else, or to be released. At times I really feel something clouding my judgement and mind, but I try to push past it to get to the clarity I know is hidden in there.

I am trying to plan something fun coming up, because I feel if I don’t hang out with someone I don’t live with, I am going to go mad. I get discouraged, mostly, because I am finding more and more that people are unreliable and just … different than I expected. It really disappoints me, because I want to see the best in people, but it’s hard when people let you down. Maybe I just need an injection of new people or ideas into my life.

I feel the need to be inspired.

Better alone?

I used to be the queen of being alone. In fact, I had no problem and often preferred the company of myself to others. I could go out for the day to the park, or the beach, or the mall and be perfectly fine. I would have a great time.

Now, I find, I am lonely when I am alone. I actually prefer the company of others. I like being able to talk to other people and spend time listening to others. I actually have a hard time dealing with being alone. My aversion to being alone has most manifested itself on Twitter, which has become an outlet for me to talk to someone, anyone…

I also have a terrible habit of automatically thinking people are blowing me off when they have other plans – like they’re making excuses. I guess I’ve had a lot of people do that to me in the past, but it really doesn’t happen often now. Even so, I find that thought is the first place my mind goes. It drives me mad, because I can’t stop that feeling, hard as I try. I just end up feeling dejected and hurt – all at my own fault.

The majority of my days off are spent alone. Dave sleeps throughout the day, and Drew is at work. I sit in front of the computer, looking for some conversation, some interaction to keep me from feeling like I have such a terrifying personality that people don’t want me around. Today is a fine example. It is butthorn hot out there, and I want to go swimming, but it’s like I’m afraid to go alone. Instead, I spent my time researching stuff on schools and surfing the net, feeling like crap because I cannot motivate myself to leave the apartment. The apartment is safe.

I have been enochlophobic for most of my life. I avoid live music, usually, because of all the people. I don’t do bars. It is hard for me to attend events and festivals because of all the people. It makes me anxious and fearful and angry. I want to do all of those things, but I just… can’t. I actually dislike the thought of going to a university with large class sizes because of the idea of all those hundreds of people crammed into a room. Ugh.

And my social life suffers.

All I need to do today is leave the house. I need to shower and go to the library to return books. As much as I would love to go to the beach, I don’t drive and lack a vehicle. No buses go to the beach. I could walk from the end of Cow Bay Rd to Rainbow Haven, but it’d take about an hour, and there are no sidewalks.

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I’ll go to the pool tonight with Drew and Dave. It’s an adult only swim, not too many people.

But for now, I just need to force myself to leave the house.

Fat hate

I found these videos via a forum I frequent. As someone who society considers a big ol’ fatty, watching them made me feel empowered and happy. I hope that out there, it helps someone else too.

Thank you, Joy Nash.

Stupid health.

So yeah. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks in odd fluctuations of poor health.

I went camping in Cape Breton at the end of June. I had a lot of fun and took some great photos. I also got devoured by bugs. Bugs really like me.

One of said bug bites (what bug, I don’t know) got infected with 24 hours of my return to Halifax. It swelled up like a balloon and provided me with the displeasure of the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I could barely walk and was, at some points, hysterically sobbing with pain. So, I went to a walk in clinic and got medication – which happens to be the same stuff they give for malaria and staph infections. I was required to take these large pills 4x per day for 10 days.

And that medication provided me with a mosaic of horrible side effects. Without going into too much detail, most things that I suffered were almost the opposite of what the expected side effects were.

And then I woke up this morning, with only 2 days left of pills, covered in hives. My legs, the backs of my arms, and my entire front chest. Over the course of the day they spread.

I went to the doctor (again) – this time my actual doctor. He told me to stop the pills, to double my normal dose of Reactin, and come back and see him Wednesday.

I am miserable and covered in calamine lotion. I have taken a baking soda bath, a black tea bath, and I’m about to down some peppermint tea in hopes of feeling human again.

I really hope that I wake up tomorrow NOT dead. Or itchy. 3 weeks of itchy is starting to get old.

This is a personal topic. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is completely intentional.

I know that inevitably, change is a good thing.

It often doesn’t feel that way when it happens, instead sending people into darker places they might have forgotten to visit recently. I have always thought it is important to embrace the darker things about ourselves – the things we sweep under the rug and avoid until the bump becomes big enough to trip over.

I have recently ended a friendship. I think it was, by far, one of the easiest and hardest things I have ever done. I think that I was prepared for it, but I still mourn it with a tang of newness and surprise. I maintain that it is ‘for the best’ – you know, the things mothers tell their heartbroken daughters when their first crush rejects them for the cheerleader with the ample bosom – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to adjust to. When you welcome someone into your life to learn from and to learn from you, you always hope for and expect the best. I do not trust easily, so this makes this even harder than for most, even though it was ‘for the best’.

How did I know when to end it?

Much like any relationship, you need to look at it with pros and cons. What are you getting out of your friendship? A friend should make you feel wanted, needed, and special. When the cons start to outweigh the pros, you need to approach the person and try and fix it. Failing that, sometimes it is just better to cut things off before they end even worse. Over the past 7 years, things have progressed from a tentative trust to a full-blown trust, back to a hurtful betrayal. I simply weighed my options, and decided that if I was going to be as mentally healthy as I could be, I could not let someone who was doing harm to my self worth be a part of my life.

What were the grievous offenses?

- showing no respect to me as a woman, to the point of being sexist and almost misogynistic.
- alluding to the fact that they thought I was fat and ugly, no less than 3 times in the past 6 months (and multiple times in the years before that)
- breaking plans with no notice and no notification, thus wasting my time, repeatedly
- no remorse for actions done, regardless of admitted wrong
- treating women as worthless in general, even though it has been expressed multiple times by multiple women that this is wrong
- doesn’t care that I have ended the friendship (really, that’s the kicker)

But, of course, there have to be pros:

- generous with time and money
- similar interests
- close understanding
- supportive about school

To me, it just didn’t add up.

I am still grieving. To me, it feels as though someone had died – and it some ways, it is that way. The person I knew is dead. People are ever changing.

I know that I am not the easiest person to get along with, nor am I everyone’s cup of tea. I have a strong personality that can be overwhelming at times. Beyond that first impression, I am a good person. I am funny and kind and supportive. I like listening to people talk. To say that I have never done wrong would be ludicrous. But I function enough as a normal person to know when I have trampled over that line into ‘no’ territory.

I have my memories of good times, fun, and tears. I will remember the platonic love I once had for this person and will hold it dear, like a long dead relative.

And I will grieve for this. I will slide into the darker bits, and I will get through this. I will move on.

Rob Thomas: the next new hero

I am a straight man, with a big gay chip on my shoulder.

A while back on my Twitter page (yes, I know how ridiculous it sounds), I mentioned that, if I believed in the devil, Pat Robertson might be him.

Being a fairly liberal-leaning guy with either liberal friends or Republican and Christian friends who don’t believe that being one has anything to do with the other, I was surprised at how many people took offense to what I had to say.

These people weren’t friends of Mr. Robertson but friends, apparently, of God. They had “spoken” with him and he had assured them that he was no friend of the gays. He also told them that he loved America more than any other country and was a huge fan of Dancing With the Stars.

The small controversy or “Twitter-versy” (patent on phrase pending) all started when I had made the mistake of asking why two people of the same sex shouldn’t be able to make the same life-long commitment and (more importantly) under the same god, as straight people. Why can’t my gay friends be as happily married as my wife and I? It seemed simple to me, but let me start off by telling you a series of things that I believe to be true:

I am a person who believes that people are born gay. I don’t think you have any control over what moves you or to whom you’re attracted. That’s why it’s called an attraction and not a choice.

I believe that America is a great nation of even greater people. I also believe that anyone who says that this is a “Christian nation” has RHS, or revisionist history syndrome, and doesn’t realize that most of our founding fathers were either atheist or at least could see, even in the 1700s, that all through Europe at the time, religion was the cause of so much persecution that they needed to put into their brand new constitution a SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE so that the ideals of a group of people could never be forced onto the whole. (I also find it funny when people point out to me that it says “one nation under god” in our pledge of allegiance, not realizing that this was an addition made in 1954 during the communism scare of the McCarthy era. It’s not surprising, however, knowing that these same people would punch me in the mouth if I called Jesus a Jew.)

I believe the fact that an atheist, who doesn’t believe in God at all, is allowed to enter into the holy land of marriage while a gay Christian is not, shows that this law is arbitrary. Are we to believe that anyone who doesn’t live their life according to the King James Bible isn’t protected by the same laws that protect those who do? Using the same argument that I’ve seen on the 700 Club, that would mean that Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim weddings are also null and void.

I believe that to deny this right to the gay population is to say to them, “this god is not your god and he doesn’t love you.” There isn’t one person who is against gay marriage that can give me a reason why it shouldn’t be legal without bringing God or their religion into it. Still, I’m amazed at the audacity of a small, misdirected group of the ultra-conservative Christian right wing, to spend millions of dollars, in a recession, on advertisements to stop two men or women who love each other from being able to be married, but when you present any opposition to them, they accuse you of attacking their religion. Isn’t it funny that the people who are the quickest to take someone’s basic rights to happiness are always the loudest to scream when someone attacks their right to do so?

But this isn’t a paper about religion. How could it be? Since we clearly have a separation of church and state, how could a conversation about laws have anything to do with religion at all? I’m writing about basic civil rights. We’ve been here before, fighting for the rights of African Americans or women to vote, or the rights of Jewish Americans to worship as they see fit. And, just as whites fought for African Americans or Christians for Jewish Americans, straight people must stand up and be a voice for gay people.

I’ve heard it said before, many times, that if two men or two women are allowed to join into a civil union together, why can’t they be happy with that and why is it so important that they call it marriage? In essence, what’s in a name?

A civil union has to do with death. It’s essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It’s about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of “separate but equal” and we know how that works out.

The support of legalizing gay marriage is in no way meant to change the ideals of the section of Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin. But we should refuse to let other people’s ideals shape the way we live our lives. Each of us has a short ride on this earth and as long as we stay in our lane, and don’t affect someone else’s ride, we should be allowed to drive as we see fit.

The Big, Gay chip on my shoulder

Fucking sing it, brother.

Prop 8 was not amended. People need to wake the fuck up. There are only 7 countries in this world that allow gay folks the same legal rights and freedoms (including marriage) that I have. And I am so proud to be living in one of them (for reference, they are Canada, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands).

Gay is not a choice, or a lifestyle. It is a natural evolution – for animals and people.

I am also straight, with a huge gay chip on my shoulder.

In which I wonder how to survive.

At my age, there is no reason for me to waste time on things that aren’t working.

I cleared my physical stuff out earlier this month. There is some lingering bits but most of the unnecessary clutter is gone. In a couple months. I will no longer have scholastic clutter (for the time being) and I will have graduated from a post secondary institution.

I am practically breathing frustration. A lot of people in my life are under a lot of stress, and it is negatively impacting on everyone else. I spent the majority of today in a foul mood from picking up on everyone else’s foul mood.

I am just so tired of everything. Of not being able to properly mourn my great uncle. Of not being able to go to Montreal. Of being poor and frustrated. Of having no one understand me (or even try to). Of being alone and forgotten, like a once loved dress at the back of a closet.

I just want to move far away and never have to talk to people again.

They say that the trials make life worth living… do they really?

Fatty bo batty, apparently.

A person who I consider to be a good friend recently alluded to the fact that they think I am fat twice in the last week. Both times we were in some manner of shop.

Well, thanks. I really appreciate when people point out my flaws while I’m in a public place.

Let’s face facts, folks: I am not a skinny girl. I never was, and I think it would take me being very ill to become so. I come from hardy stock – my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc are/were all pear shaped. I inherited the unfortunate trait of carrying most of my weight on my stomach. I am comfortable with having meat on my bones. I know I could be thinner, but I don’t usually worry about it too much because I know I am healthy. I exercise, I eat well – not a lot of greasy crap and lots of fruits/veg. I tend to gain around 10 pounds in the winter, and lose it all by summer from walking, hiking, cycling.

However, that does not give someone the right to insult me. I have serious self esteem issues and yes, it does bother me when people say cruel things to me. Things that should be thought but not said. I can’t read minds, so I don’t give a flying fuck what people are thinking. This person seems to lack the ability to filter what they are thinking, and they do not think what they say is wrong. Ever. If I want someone’s opinion on my weight, I will ask them for it. Hell, if I want someone’s opinion about anything to do with my personal appearance, I will ask. Criticism of my genetics is not welcomed.

And yes, before people get all ‘you should talk to them!’ on me, I have tried. It is rather like talking to brick wall. I don’t think this person actually respects me enough to be concerned with how they hurt me. They tend to avoid, ignore, pretend nothing happened, and hope it’ll go away. And this keeps happening, again and again. I feel like I’m in some kind of abusive relationship – hoping they’ll change, knowing they never will, but going back for more abuse. As someone who HAS been in an abusive relationship, it definitely feels like it all over again.

I am very tired of toxic people in my life. I’m good at talking myself into being depressed and suicidal, thanks. I don’t really need anyone’s help.

Is it too much to want my friends to respect me?