13 Lines to Live By
I've had these in my inbox forever. I really like them and haven't wanted to delete them. I figured I could preserve them for posterity here.
- I love you, not for who you are, but rather for who I am when I am with you.
- Nobody deserves your tears, and whoever might deserve them, will never make you cry.
- Simply because somebody doesn't love you the way you want them to, does not mean they don't love you will all their being.
- A true friend is someone who takes your hand, and touches your heart.
- The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting next to them and to know that you will never have them.
- Never stop smiling, not even if you are sad, because you never know who might fall in love with your smile.
- You may be only one person in the world, but for someone you are the whole world.
- Don't spend time with someone who is not willing to spend it with you.
- Perhaps God wants you to meet many of the wrong people before you meet the right one, so that when you finally meet them you will know to be grateful.
- Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
- There will always be people that will hurt you, so keep having faith, and be careful with whom you trust twice.
- Make sure that you know who you are before meeting somebody else. Don't expect someone to figure that out for you.
- Don't try so hard. The best things happen when you least expect them.
Please shoot me now.
Woke up this morning some time before four o'clock feeling feverish. I don't know exactly what time it was because the room was spinning so bad I could not focus on the clock. As long as I laid absolutely still and kept my eyes closed I felt mostly okay. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom. Big mistake. Aside from a spinning room making it difficult to walk, let's just say my stomach had a violent reaction to my being veritcal. There was a repeat performance when I had to go wake my daughters up for school. Vertical bad.
I know what you're thinking. No. I was not drunk. One: my children were spending the night with me. Do you really think I'm going to have that much to drink if they are here? Two: I never have that much to drink. At first I thought it was a reaction to some antibiotics I'm taking. Dizziness is one of the possible side effects. However, the doctor said that was too violent a reaction and it was possible I have an inner ear infection of some kind. He recommended I take dramamine to help with the nausea. Problem: my bedroom is upstairs. The dramamine I have in the house is downstairs. Now that was an adventure. Got up, went to the bathroom, threw up violently, then headed downstairs before the next wave hit.
I can stand up with out puking now, but I still don't feel very steady on my feet. Fortunately, I have good friends, one of whom is coming to take me to the doctor. My experience this morning reminded me of a story a friend once told of when he got "the spins." Of course his experience was brought on my drinking too much Jaeger. People do this to themselves on purpose? Unbelievable.
All knees, no brains
I do work on some software for HP. Since said software is distributed world wide I occasionally get to fix bugs that turn up in languages such as Russian, Korean, Greek and Czech. I have a machine on which I can install whatever language version of Windows I need. To make my life a little bit easier, I only install it once then use Ghost, by Norton, to make a disk image I can restore later. It also makes it so I am certain I have a clean machine when I'm testing software installation: no registry crumbs left laying around.
Here is where the fun starts. Apparently someone at Norton felt the need to try and protect Ghost from being pirated. As a result in order to restore a disk image you must manually type in your 12 digit license key every single time. That would be annoying in and of itself. What takes the cake is the license key is displayed in bright bold letters on the startup screen. Oh, well done. So what exactly have we accomplished by making me type in the damn thing every single time I restore a back up if the key is displayed for me at start up!
I don't have an issue with companies trying to protect themselves from software piracy. I do have an issue with companies having a knee jerk reaction without bringing any brain cells to bear on the problem which only ends up making using the software a pain in the ass.
Way to go, George.
Apparently, according to the Sunday Mirror, W has decided to snub the Royal Family of Britain by not welcoming Prince Charles' soon-to-be-wife Camilla Parker Bowles into the White House. The Mirror seems to think it's because she's a divorcee. It likely has more to do with the affair the two had while Charles was still married to Diana and the fact that Diana is still a beloved figure in America. It would be a bad PR move for the President to welcome "the other woman" into the White House, even if the relationship will soon be legitimized through marriage.
Nevertheless, how tacky. One would think a president would be above such petty social contrivances, but apparently not. After all, isn't Prince Charles demonstrating that "traditional marriage" is still alive and well in Britain?
It was an arranged, political and loveless marriage. I mean, come on, you're a young, beautiful, modern woman with aspirations of your own being married off to a stuffy, old-school aristocrat. Your only real role in the family is to produce an heir. You really think that's going to work? But who cares? As long as we have "...a glittering storybook wedding with all the royal trappings imaginable." As has been the royal custom for centuries, Charles had his public wife and his private love. Diana had her private loves as well.
Where tradition broke down is not in the "sacred institution of marriage." It broke down in the form of beautiful Diana, a strong, intelligent woman who wanted and knew that she deserved more from marriage than to be a royal show piece. She wanted love, affection and companionship. Not that any of those things has anything to do with marriage. Also absent in Diana was the willingness to play the part, or maybe it was her inability to act, or perhaps it was the lack of a belief in the necessity to do so.
It was a tragic situation created by rigid tradition. While Diana is by far the more likeable of the two—and the more tragic figure, given her untimely death—it is hardly fair to say she was the only victim. Charles finally has the woman he loves at his side. Shouldn't we be happy for him?
I stand corrected.
Last night I went for karaoke night at a local bar with some friends. One of guys got up and started singing and was joined at the bottom of the stage by some guy drunk off his ass and singing along and swaying. So far so good. It's a bar. People get drunk. People do silly things when they're drunk. Here's where it enters the realm of the unbelievable: his pants where belted about mid thigh leaving his boxers flapping in the breeze.
For his boxers to be long enough to make said fashion statement they were a little large, which means they were baggy, which means they ended up looking like some toddler who is carrying a load in his shorts. Oh, yeah. That's attractive. I actually thought the look of your boxer waistband sticking out of the top of your low hanging jeans was kinda sexy. This definitely falls into the "less is more" category. A lot less. Please.
So I will extend Mr. Howell an apology of sorts. You're not a blithering idiot. Just an idiot. Legislation is still not warranted, but maybe the Virginia Fashion Police? I mean, where are the Fab 5 when you need them? We've got "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl." Maybe someone should think about doing a "Queer Eye For the Clueless Queer Guy."
Parents Indeed
It's 3:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake, so here I am blogging. Let's talk about the latest homosexual celebrity, Maya Keys. Actually let's talk about her parents. Her father is Alan Keys, notorious "family values" adjitator, who recently lost his bid for an Illinois Senate seat to Barak Obama. Perennially outspoken about the moral decline of America, Alan Keys has recently shown us what his family values are by disowning his lesbian daughter. Despite the fact that Maya put off college to help her dad with his campaign (even though she disagrees with him on just about every political issue), even though she will not say she is glad her dad lost his campaign, her parents have thrown her out of the house, refuse to help pay for her college education, and have stopped talking to her. Maya continues to hope for a future reconcilation. Traditional family values indeed.
Still, that's nothing compared to the Mormon mother who let her son commit suicide. The family had been privy to his struggles with his sexuality. Privy to his late night anxiety attacks which kept him pacing till all hours of the morning. Privy even to his decision to kill himself. Did this mother have him committed and put on suicide watch? Did she get him into counselling? Did she get him to a doctor of any kind? Nope. True to his word, he blew his brains out on the church steps. She writes that she felt peace with his decision. Was that peace or relief? Was it just easier to have him gone and let God sort it out than to have to actually deal with it? She says she was assured by a prominent church leader that there was room enough in the Savior's atonement for what her son had done. If you ask me, it's not her son who needs forgiveness.
Obviously it's because I'm gay and so I can't possibily understand family values, but what the f***ing hell? I can at least make some sense of the Keyes family. Even if their beliefs on homosexuality are wrong, as a parent there are lines you have to draw. I'm sure they feel they are doing the right thing. While I think it's shameful, I can at least see the twisted logic in their reasoning. But how can you let a child fall so far into despair that he kills himself? How can you know of his intentions and do nothing?
And just for the record, I have two daughters, 10 and 13. I am not speaking hypothetically of parenting. Nor do I pretend to be the perfect parent. We all do the best we can, but I can't even begin to imagine treating my daughters like this. It's just wrong. Is this what your religion teaches you? Then you can keep it. This is your idea of a "moral America?" Then I will fight you every step of the way.
Balance?
I've read two reactions to the vote in Iraq. One from The Opinion Journal and one from The Nation. Basically they're polar opposites of each other. I'll start with The Nation.
The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq."
Does this surprise anyone? The Iraqi's want to feel like they are running their own country. Of course they're going to vote out the temporary government. But that's not Iraqi's asserting their independence, it's Iraqi's sending the U.S. a "single digit message." Does this mean Iraqis want U.S. forces to commence an immediate withdrawal? I don't read that in there. They want a timetable. A plan. Bush refuses to set some arbitrary date. He's been lambasted every time his predictions for a turn of fortune turn sour. Now they want him to make another one? Still, I doubt that the U.S. would object to sitting down and making a concrete plan for training and deploying Iraqi military forces.
Iraq's elections were delayed time and time again, while the occupation and resistance grew ever more deadly.
Wait a minute. Every article I've read says it was the Iraqi's requesting a delay. Well, the Sunnis mostly. Their reason? They are concerned about security at the polls. What a touching change of heart. Just a few months earlier they were going to boycott the election because of the U.S. led offensive against Falluja. But wait. Wasn't Falluja the largest center of terrorist activity? Isn't it terrorists who are causing security problems at the designated polling stations? If the Sunnis are really concerned about security shouldn't they cease to harbor Baathists and foreign jihadists like they've been asked?
...if it weren't for the invasion, Iraqis would not even have the freedom to vote for their liberation, and then to have that vote completely ignored.
Who said the vote is being ignored? Just because Bush won't give some arbitrary date for withdrawal? In case you haven't noticed, the terrorists have been targeting other Iraqis. Sure we could drop a ton of weapons and ammunition at the door of the new parliament and say, "Here you go! Have a good time!" How long do you think it would take before it degenerated into a blood bath? Maybe that's why Bremmer "summarily shot down" early spontaneous, disorganized attempts at elections. On what authority would they have taken place? Who would have recognized them as more than local power grabs?
And that's the real prize: the freedom to be occupied.
Occupation. There's that word again. The Webster definition that seems to best fit the intent here is "the act or process of taking possession of a place or area." Since when has the U.S. ever intended to take possession of Iraq? The U.S. is there to maintain some semblance of order while a fledgling government tries to get its feet on the ground. Maybe there was a reason Iyad Allawi "refused to ask the United States to leave." Where do you think Iraq would be right now without U.S. forces? Would they be holding elections? Hell no. It would almost certainly have degenerated into chaos with the group with the biggest guns and most ammunition winning out. You think that would have been the 8.5 million poor, unarmed Iraqis who voted? Yeah, right.
The Opinion Journal article is essentially a run down on the election results, what it means for each of the groups vying for power.
...the coalition of Shiite parties, known as the United Iraqi Alliance, took 48.2% of the 8.5 million votes cast ... this falls short of what the Shiites had hoped for, which means they cannot dictate terms to anyone and will have to make compromises to form a working coalition government.
Sounds like tyranny of the majority which was brought up by alarmists isn't going to happen.
Then there are the Sunnis. Their candidate slates are barely represented in the new parliament--in part because many Sunni parties boycotted the election, and in part because the comparatively low Sunni turnout did little to help those that took part. As a result, prominent Sunni figures like State Department-favorite Adnan Pachachi did not even win a seat in the parliament.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face...
Do you notice a pattern here? Is it just me or does one article sound much less inflamatory and editorial than the other? If you haven't seen it thus far compare the following two quotes:
We hope the Bush Administration looks at all this with confidence rather than concern, and that it especially resists the (CIA) temptation to play kingmaker or otherwise try to influence the result. The next Iraqi government will surely make some calls with which the U.S. is going to disagree... As it is, it's difficult to imagine a democratic Iraq being any more hostile to basic U.S. interests than, say, France.
The Opinion Journal
So what's the prize? An end to occupation, as the voters demanded? Don't be silly--the US government won't submit to any "artificial timetable." Jobs for everyone, as the UIA promised? You can't vote for socialist nonsense like that.
The Nation
The left seems hell bent on bringing our troops home now. There's really nothing wrong with that. No one wants our men and women in uniform in harms way any longer than is absolutely necessary. And yet, the left has been carping from the beginning about the loss of American life on Iraqi soil. If we pull out prematurely and Iraq goes to hell, then the deaths of those who were fighting to free Iraq from tyranny really will have been for nothing. To assume the terrorists will hang up their guns and head to the polls if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq is naive and foolish. The U.S. is simply the symbol for the very thing they fear and hate: democracy, the ability for a people to determine its own future and not have it dictated to them by someone with the will and the power to do so.
Label Queens
In the traditional sense of the word, a label queen is someone who has to wear designer clothing. It is a testament to the fact that I am not a label queen that I'm not even sure I can name more than one or two designer labels. Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch don't count. I don't know any gay man who hasn't drooled over their ads. Brand name recognition in this case has little to do with the clothes. Let's see there's Armani. And the guy with the square shoes. Oh, yeah. Kenneth Cole. Ummmm...Tommy Hilfiger. I'm sure if I sat and thought long enough I could come up with some more.
Label Queens in the traditional sense are, at worst, amusing. There is, however, another kind of label queen that I generally find irritating. It's generally something more human than specifically gay: the need to label people and put them in neat boxes. I get rather tired of people trying to categorize me and make me fit into some predefined box. I have a hairy chest, but I don't like being called a bear. I'm not butch. I'm not nellie. I'm just me. I'm not terribly fussy about my decor. I do like having fresh flowers on the table. I have been a fan of Cher and ABBA for as long as I can remember. I also like Def Leppard, ZZ Top, Bon Jovi and Tomoyasu Hotei. I like staying in a fancy hotel. I spend at least a week every year backpacking or canoeing and sleeping in a tent. I did drag for Halloween once. I don't see myself ever doing it again, but I love a good drag show. I have a couple shirts which can't get much gayer. One is an electric blue flower print that is fitted and is gathered ever so slightly at the shoulders. And let me tell you: it looks fabulous on me. Today, however, I'm wearing flannel. Brian would be horrified, I am sure.
Categorizing people in any one of a million possible ways seems foreign to me. Maybe it's because I was guilty of doing that very thing for so long attempting to hide my sexuality and justify my existence and most of my attitudes from that time in my life seem foreign to me now. Maybe it's just because I find the intricacies that make up a person fascinating. Maybe it's because it's most often used as a tool for dismissing someone without even getting to know them. I'm not even really sure where I'm trying to go with this. Is there a point? I think I'm just ranting so I'll stop now.
It boggles the mind.
Virginia lawmakers apparently have nothing better to do with their time than craft inane legislation and waste taxpayer money. It seems Virginians are very concerned with the fashion trend that exposes the waistband of boxers to public view. It was thus very important for Algie T. Howell Jr. to introduce a bill imposing a $50 fine for exposing your underpants. 
It's not an attack on baggy pants. To vote for this bill would be a vote for character, to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia, but for this entire country.
Well, Mr. Howell, keeping your pants up hasn't helped you out at all. You're still a blithering idiot. Do you really think that's why you were voted into office? Because people were worried about teenagers' underpants? Was that one of your campaign promises? "I vow to enact legislation that will abolish the obscenity of exposed boxer waistbands that is corrupting our young people today."
Must be nice to live in Virginia where the worst thing lawmakers have to worry about is teenage fashion trends.
Oh, he’s good.
Today in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, Brendan Miniter comments on Germany and France's sudden support for democracy in Iraq...now that most of the hard work has been done. Capitializing on and continuing with the George Bush as cowboy metaphor, Miniter likens the European nations to wayward cattle and Rice as Bush's most trusted hand bringing in the strays.
That is so perfect. Europe loves painting George Bush as a feckless, impetuous cowboy. And where do they end up in this picture they have painted? The cows. Priceless.