That whole "falling for the twenty-one year old" thing? (Who will henceforce be known as <3, because I'm crazy anyway, and why the hell not?)

*headdesk*

Yeah. I'm doomed. I'm still at lalalala friends, but what I'm getting back is "I'm smitten, too, and by the way, I'm not buying that you aren't, but there are so many better things to talk about, let's do that, because this is inevitable."

Doomed.

I'm sticking with lalala as far as it'll take me, and reminding myself that when I broke my first horse, <3 was in fact still pre-verbal, but dear sweet everything, I am so much toast.

I could make myself not start anything. Make myself not respond?

Toast. adjkfdsl. Mostly that.

O.O Help me! Quick! Someone say something impossibly cynical and even insulting! Please?

Date:	2009-07-05 22:54
Subject:	Murrr?
Security:	Public
Mood:	indescribable

I am terrified I am falling helplessly, hopelessly in love with a twenty-one year old. O.O

I didn't like tweny-one year olds when I was one. I've never dated anyone less than five years older than me, even when I was a teenager. Twelve years younger than me? Am I INSANE?

A baby. Baby, baby twenty-one year old. Right? Right. Sweet everything, but - everything in the world I value, the innocence of intention and the active, curious intelligence and the forge-hot belief that decency and devotion and knowing are the most meltingly hot things imaginable, that life is there to be lived and embraced and that love carries a high price utterly worth paying and if you take the world as you find it you're a waste of space. And not rah-rah cheap college fire, but sweet, deep, carried-for-a-lifetime fire. But the lifetime has three years as an adult. INSANE. I am INSANE.

A baby. Twenty-one. I swear, I haven't flirted a word, but I'm - good grief. Smitten. I understand the word "smitten." Simple words in text the most achingly affecting things I've ever seen, articulate and brilliant and tough-minded and a believer that the best is possible.

I'm terrified. I am helplessly falling in love with a baby, I take it all back, river, the finding out the age only killed it for a little while, and now it's all back and jeeeeeeez.

I never ever do this ever at all. I've been in love for the space of a traffic light and vaguely love-ish when I was crazy anyway for a few months - in my LIFE. I cannot be falling in love with a twenty-one year old English major from Kansas. Not Possible.

I have had a very emotional night that had nothing to do with this, and I solemnly hope it just blindsided me and I'll be sane again tomorrow. Sane. Friendly, yes? Yes. Just friendly. Friends.

I'm falling in love with a twenty-one year old. Shouldn't the world be EXPLODING OR SOMETHING?

*whimper*

O.o

Date:	2009-06-08 08:37
Subject:	Random of Random
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah
Music:	yipYIPyipyipyip

a. Name your 15 absolutely favourite fandom ships (try to pick different fandoms)
b. Ask people to see what trends and similarities they notice about your ships.

I saw this in ten different places with different headers, but this day SUCKS and the sun's barely up, so I am going to entertain myself and not worry about it.

(In random order.)

1. Watson/Holmes (Sherlock Holmes)
2. Kirk/Spock (old school TOS, I haven't even seen the new movie.)
3. Xena/Gabrielle (Xena Warrior Princess)
4. Hercules/Iolaus (Hercules, and Young Hercules, and actually some weird amalgam of them that bred in fandom.)
5. Jack/Daniel (SG-1) (When they're not written as daddy/son creepiness)
6. John/Rodney (SGA)
7. Garth/Dick Grayson (DC)
8. Sirius/Remus (Harry Potter) (Only in AUs where they don't die as throwaways)
9. Draco/Neville (Harry Potter)
10. Ziva/Jenny (NCIS) (This one should really be first.)
11. Tim/Abby (NCIS) (They're just so cute!)
12. Faith/Robin (BTVS)
13. Sam Vimes/Sybil Ramkin (Discworld)
14. Fraser/Ray K (Due South) (All fandom - I've never even seen the show.)
15. Crowley/Aziraphale (Good Omens)
16. Ronon/me (What? It's a fandom.) (Of one.)
17. Faith/me (Ditto)

Now if the question was BFFs...

1. Batman/Commisioner Gordan (DC)
2. Batman/Martian Manhunter (DC)
3. Sam Carter/Teal'c (SG-1)
4. John/Ronon (SGA)
5. Spock/Uhura (Old school TOS)(The playing, the singing, the keeping Kirk off-balance, <3)
6. Gibbs/Ducky (NCIS)
7. Wooster/Jeeves
8. Abby/Kate (NCIS)
9. Xander/Willow/Buffy (BTVS)
10. Charles/Wesley (Angel)
The problem now is that most of my OTP I also love as BFF. Hmph.
11. Tim/Abby (NCIS)
12. Xena/Gabrielle (XWP)
13. Kirk/Spock (TOS)
14. Jack/Daniel (SG-1)
15. Watson/Holmes

today that had "And people are crazy!" at the end of the chorus, and I laughed so hard I completely lost track of anything else in the rest of the song.

Life right now is not at all bad, compared to how it's been since, ohh, all those crazy Murphy's Law things I've survived. Health is better, crushed leg is mostly functional most of the time, I got mostly-unlaid-off after a fairly brief time, which puts me in better shape than most people where I live. I have an owl and a hawk living in monster hickory trees behind my house who get into bitch fights at dawn every morning from either side of the corner of the house where my bedroom lives. There are cuddly doggies, and acres of woods and a creek. I know wonderful people, and have one Thousandth Friend. And, at the moment, spinach-mushroom sauteed in honey-sesame-teriyaki sauce folded into mozzerella-melted-on-panini.

Things could be so much worse. Things have actually been so much worse. I am a fortunate soul.

People are crazy, though.

Delicious exciting fascinating intriguing creative insane.

Batshit lunatic manipulative delusional-memory corrosive insane.

I got all that second kind out of my life, though, a lot of years ago, and never looked back.

Even without the rest of it, that alone makes life good.

This has been a Life Update brought to you by an NCIS marathon and the hysterical hyper happiness that comes from getting that one piece of feedback that Just Gets It about something you were way too invested in. :p

Peace, love, and blessed distance where necessary.

Your Animal is the Stag

You are a proud, independent person. You take care of yourself and are very attractive. You keep a bit of a distance from the world, but you still understand it well. You are both spiritual and intuitive. You are sensitive to all of the creatures around you. You enjoy travel, especially when it involves a long journey. You especially love traveling outdoors.

So I got into this long, ridiculous, impossible conversation with someone (no one within a million miles of lj or fanfic) recently about "being open-minded and non-judgmental and loving" versus "having convictions and speaking and acting for them."

Huh, right? Setting that up as a "versus" kind of dooms the conversation from the start.

I had said something about how much I value fidelity, and that while I believe only the people in a relationship have any right to define what that means to them (from completely open to outside partners, to don't you even LOOK) I reserved the right not to get into a relationship or stay in a relationship with someone who had different ideas about what fidelity meant. That I completely respected the other's ability to have their own opinions, but that they could have them down the road with someone else if they were too different from mine.

I also said that people who *didn't* have a mutual standard and understanding with their partners sneaking around and serving their lower standards behind their partners' backs made me ill. Betrayal is my big sin. (I didn't say that there.) Gaining someone's trust and then indulging yourself in a way that breaks that trust or harms them is just - no. And I can't respect anyone who does that. (And I made it clear that I was very aware that life was complicated, and that I wasn't in any way talking about any situation of abuse, etc.)

She gave me her life story in three acts in excrutiating detail, apparently all in defense of the fact that while she was nobly martyring herself in an unsatisfying marriage for the sake of her children, she had every right to the profound emotional affair she was having and how dare I say she didn't.

And the thing is? I don't know anything about her life. I don't know how true or not true her statements or her conclusions were. Maybe she really is a heroic martyr clinging to the only shred of happiness available to her. (although she spends ten hours a day screwing around on the internet and doesn't work, so she's got a lot more ease than most people.)

But it doesn't matter. She's made a choice. She doesn't want to change it. She's doing something I find repugnant. She doesn't need my help. There are billions of people in the world. The ones among them who make the compromises she does are not ones I want anything to do with. I'm not hurting her by saying that (not that I said that to her either.) But I do not suddenly become the Evil Judginator because I honestly feel that certain people's moral choices are beyond my comprehension. I'm not stomping around saying that on flagpoles, or putting my opinions out there like that either. It was a discussion about "what do you believe counts as cheating." I didn't single her out. But seriously - pages and pages of this weird, edged, "Well, but PEOPLE who suggest that they are BETTER THAN my POSITION are just JUDGING and I have NO RESPECT for them *flounceflounceflounce*"

And I finally got to whatever about it, but it just reminded me how crazy-making the "if you refuse to validate me, or even obscurely say something I can interpret not to validate me, I will attack you" people are. Everyone needs a certain amount of that from their friends or whatever, but going out looking for a fight with the whole world? This is not a fragile snowflake woman, she's one of those domineering creeps who, if you persist in not bowing before her, will suddenly wilt and cry "bully" - because not letting her command you breaks her fragile soul, dontcha know.

Well, sure. Whatever. I'm 33 years-old and it took me a long time to get to where I could tell even the people closest to me that I thought they were not being fair, to be able to have a reasonable conversation about mutual expectation and consideration. It took me a long time to feel I had the right. I do believe in self-determination, personal responsibility, sexual responsibility, and the sanctity of marriage. I do believe in taking the hard, sharp paths, not the long, corrosive ones. I believe it for ME, and for the people I choose to care about. I have reasons for all of that with no self-righteousness behind them. I refuse to feel guilty for that.

And maybe this should seem like it should go without saying, but it doesn't. The label of "judgmental" has become the ultimate insult to throw. But I do believe the saw about "don't be so open minded your brain falls out or so open-hearted you bleed to death." There are people in this world I want to understand, because understanding other minds is an occupation I value, but who I don't want to associate with. And I sometimes need to say that really plainly, because god, I've spent so much of my life being so easily drawn in, I get very blind in affection.

So here endeth the blahblah with something by someone much smarter and with conviction strong enough to turn the world over. At the end of the day, all takes aren't equally valid.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
-Rev. MLKJ

I think the world is full of frogs.

No, really! Bear with me here.

I had something get carried off by a dog to the other side of a shallow-water-but-deep-ditch creek. My clumsy limpy butt did a skip-clomp thing to get to the other side. It is, in fact, February. A frog THE SIZE OF A TRUCK HUBCAP sounded off like a bull gator and leapt just as my foot passed him and was able to throw water in a big splash AS TALL AS MY HEAD.

That was a few days ago. Now? It's still February, for those playing the home game. It has been really cold here. Nevertheless about an hour ago I was awakened from my happy slumber by a sound like ARUOMMMM, ARUOMMMM, ARUOMMMMMM. It was almost a fan whumwhum, but - not. I thought something was wrong with the heating unit, maybe a branch had fallen just amazingly wrong to be poking through the mesh or something, so out I stagger with a flashlight to a chorus of exited doglets, and around back.

Nada. Nothing to see. Can't even hear the noise. Back inside with me, hopping and saying dire things about cold damp grass and house sandals and how it is a star-crossed love affair betwixt them.

ARUOMMMMM ARUOMMMMMM ARUOMMMMMM

I try to peek through the office blinds, wondering if there's some mutated cow sneaking up through the pasture to the back of the house when I'm not looking. I lose my balance leaning around the chair and PULL THE BLINDS DOWN, fortunately not on my head. Naked windows! No noise.

I slot the blinds back up, and sit in my office chair, feeling very, very, deeply offended by all things in the universe EVER, including poor little mes who are never allowed enough sleep EVER and who feel very sorry for ourselves about it.

ARUOMMMARUOMMMARUOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I hit the window, pointlessly.

Silence.

Ding!

I go back outside with the flashlight and point it at the window ABOVE the heating unit (with now-crooked blinds.)

It was the size of my thumb. If my thumb was on a diet. It didn't like the light, but apparently knew it was busted, because it just got LOUDER.

So hey, nature girl, I'll just catch the frog and set him off in the bushes and all will be happy with the world. So I step out of my sandals and up on the heating unit, which is SUCH a good idea for me to be doing for, oh, half a dozen reasons.

And I step on a frog.

A DIFFERENT frog.

And not step-on-frog-go-squoosh-I-need-to-wash-my-foot. Step-on, feel squishiness, yank foot off, manage not to kill frog, turn ankle, loose balance, try to twist and jump, realize wrong leg, kind of roll but mostly go THWUMP full length in the grass.

WHERE THERE IS ANOTHER FROG.

I don't know if it was frog number two or frog number three or a brand new frog number four, but at this point? Oh, yeah, how little is it even POSSIBLE to care?

I got the waterhose.

They are now a number of very clean frogs who are not attempting to rocket-pee at me (yeah, I spared you that part,) or get under my feet, or go ARRUOOMMMM in my window like a deranged Buddhist, because they have played slip'n'slide across my yard into the ditch with Bull Gator Voice, where hopefully they are being instructed in the errors of their ways by their wise elder, and not made into snacks.

There is quiet in the land. I am thumped, soaked, pee'd at and WAY hyper.

Yeah, I'm getting back to sleep now. PSHHHH.


In should-be-more-serious-but-I'm-too-cracked, but I do mean this -

I hope everyone is all right. There's a lot of scary shit going on right now, and a lot of less-dramatic but equally bad things happening, and I don't keep anything close to in touch even with people I like very well, because I firmly believe you are all out to eat me, and this makes me tired.

I hope you're all well, and happy. And if you're not, I hope you're at least safe and fed and warm. And if you're not, drop me a line.

I have lots of spare bedrooms in this house, and frequent flyer miles I'll NEVER use. ;]

Take care of yourselves. Be well.

Mostly? I'm just wondering how on earth I've managed to miss this all this time.

How Not To Write a Hercules Slash Story by Helena Handbasket

Not that Hercules, himself, was a homosexual. He was not typically attracted to men and besides some experimenting with Iphicles as a child and a few dismissable instances with Jason, Theseus, Salmoneus, Derek, Autolycus, Iloran, Hades, Ares, Hephaestus, Strife, Cupid, and Apollo at various desperate moments in his life, he didn't have a lot of experience. Oh, and then there was that time with Charon, but he did his very best to forget about that one. Such was the passionate nature of his eternal love for Iolaus that it transcended gender and focused on the pure and naked beauty of the soul; and then, of course, there was the pure and naked beauty of the body which, in Iolaus' case, was not to be underestimated.


No, I have no idea how I got here. Yes, it had something to do with Yuletide links. No, I have no clue how I got here from there. Yes, as always, it is River's fault. Yes, whether it actually is or not.

Two smartest things said to me today :

Some people need WAY more trouble in their lives, if they're so bored they can get up to this shit.

On the art of sophisticatedly wanking people across fandoms, continents, and years, to blame them for what an asshole you were at 21.

And

Friendship is about give and take; I give you unwanted affection, you give me your ass. In response to http://i37.tinypic.com/30igi1e.jpg Crantz is made of awesome. This always bears repeating.

I have come through the holiday angst! Yay! And so there are silly thing.

<td> <table border="0" width="450" bgcolor="#000000">

You will take over Comoros using only some kickboxing moves you picked up on the street

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

</td>
</table>

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

And they return.

Stupid woman wasn't actually very sucky. She obviously cared about the pups, and they were well taken care of, and seemed quite fond of her.

Just, please, entire world? Puppies are *work.* Even grown dogs are work when they come to a new environment, but puppies, even older puppies, are lots and lots of work. They chew and dig and romp and pee, until you teach them better, and are firm about it. Even if they've been taught not to in another place. Because they are PUPPIES, and they will get away with what they can. And that's just normal puppies. Survived-poisoning-by-crazy-evil-man(mom almost died and sister and brother died) puppies, almost eight months old who've only known one home where they were spoiled to make up for nastiness? Take lots and lots of work. Vague good intentions just don't cut it.

I'm still grumpily bitter I had to drive that far, but I'll get over it. They really are terribly sweet little puppies, and they remembered me, and there was much tiny cuddling.

So, internet world - Anyone out there who wants a (see above) puppy who might be a little high maintenance at first? Neither of them is aggressive, just shy, and they are house trained, and good about it when they aren't frightened (in which case it's the remotest corner they can find.) Both are boys, both are Peek-a-Poos, both had a really tough start in life. One's a long haired pure white who'll probably be a bit over ten pounds, one's a shorter haired black and white who'll be maybe eight. The white is pretty outgoing, although still shy. The black and white is very shy, but incredibly cuddly as soon as he stops being afraid, and his coat is so silky. They've had all their shots and worming and heartworming and flea treatment and all that. I also have their sister, who is smaller with honey-colored shorter hair, but she would need someone with experience - she's not only shy, she does still have an aggression-when-frightened thing going I haven't managed to break her of yet, although she's the cuddliest and loviest of the bunch with me, and craves tummy strokes.

One brother and one sister have gone to homes that took the time and effort, and they've had zero problems, and both were well-adjusted within a few weeks, although still not quite ready to welcome strangers with enthusiasm.

I also have their father, who is the reason four out of five pups ended up with no aggression despite everything - he's possibly the sweetest boy I've ever had. I would *love* to keep him, but I already have enough dogs of my own that I'm keeping. He's a frosted black Peek-a-Poo with the longer, straight hair, and he loves babies and kitties and puppies, and I swear you would think he's his babies' mom rather than dad, he licks and loves and curls up around them, even though they're half-grown, but he's not got that whiny submission that goes with that personality sometimes. He's just bright and sweet and friendly and a doll. Smart boy, too. He's fathered thousands of dollars worth of babies, and will be so very neutered by the time he leaves me.

These dogs are registerable and run between $400 and $600, but I'm asking for good, decent, PREPARED homes, and a reasonable tax-deductible donation (You'll get a slip.) Pass the word, they'd make awesome Christmas gifts to the right person, and I don't mind driving to meet people (can I again stress the WHO ARE PREPARED.)

Stupid woman takes puppies, stupid woman decides puppies are too much work, now I have to go across a state to get puppies back. Hatred for people who think none of it's work. (Even if that isn't fair, venting, so nyah.)

So, I was cleaning out the refrigerator-object, trying to cook things before they died. I ended up with some random chicken dish, kind of a spiced-but-not-spicy orange-chicken with glazed walnuts. Random-refrigerator-leftover-marinade-chicken is a staple to all single people, right?

Now, my problem.

I need a lab to analyze this stuff. I could make millions. I haven't the faintest idea what ended up in, so without some speedy analysis my millions will be lost. Also, damn, but I'd like to be able to make this again. Anyone with a good palate want to drive to the middle of the woods? I can feed you. And if you write out my recipe, I will let you be played on by small balls of fur. (and possibly provide alcohol.)

I was half watching Prisoner of Azkaban just now, half working on some things for tomorrow, and I happened to glance up when the first picture of Crazy Sirius is shown, the one in the newspaper, where he really does look barking mad and is holding up his Prisoner Number Card or whatever you call it. Two symbols, and three numbers.

Those symbols happen to belong to one of the few Runic alphabets I'm familiar with, the only one I don't have to sound out. And those runes can mean phonetic sounds or numbers, or they can stand for simple objects, or they can symbolize rather complex ideas, and they have religious, magical, and divinatory meanings that varied wildly among the peoples who used them.

All of that is just a disclaimer that I don't have a clue what else it might mean.

But when I glanced up at the screen and saw Sirius, "Mysterious Protector" I almost laughed myself sick.

Seriously. That's what those two symbols mean, at their simplest. Sirius, Mystery (or secret knowledge, or even fate) Protection (of the "keep away, you will hurt if you trespass here" sort) 390. There is no direction I don't like this from. If you squint it could be Secret Protector, so maybe that's where she started, but I do at least give JKR props for looking at things sideways. Now I have to go find my chart of the numbers, because I don't know those off the top of my head, and see if the 390 means anything. Although the symbols used here predate the 0 concept where they're from, I think.

I haven't even said the funniest part, the part that took it from a giggle to death by giggles.

Phonetically? Those two symbols say "Pa." As in daddy dearest, or puppy's foot. It's even the soft "a" sound.

Did I just miss where some other geek mentioned this? Maybe someone who's already sorted out the more complicated bit so I'll get to know even if I get a sudden attack of laziness and don't look up the rest?

After a week of no-sleep yada, I get to go into a weekend with some really good hopes. This makes me almost as happy as knowing that I was Brave and got all my Must-Do list accomplished before close of business today. *staggering dance of relief*

So, in the world of crazy layoffyness, we discovered that enough people accepted the buyout that we'll open and run on schedule next year, after a long Christmas break. (And two weeks off at Christmas, how bad is that? Reminds me of high school.) And with that news, I now have an 80% chance of still having a job come January. So, major relief.

Then after work, my direct boss came out to have a cigarette and told me baldly that he was pushing for me to get a promotion I almost got three months ago. (The story on that is not relatable, since it makes my ears steam.) He pushed for me before, and got over-ruled, for directly-stated I-could-EOC-sue-their-asses-over-it reasons. I didn't make a thing out of it then, other than smoking over the reason, because I didn't actually want the promotion. It isn't that much more money, and it requires a level of mobility that my physical therapist will severely frown on. But the thing about it now? Damn my leg, if I get it, I have a 100% chance of still working here come January.

I mean, I don't want to be job hunting in this economy, but I didn't have any trouble in the mini-lay-off before. The thing is - I like this job. I like working in an international company where I can still live utterly in the woods and only be six miles from work. I like the travel. I like that even though it's a boys' club and still Alabamian - it's really not bad. Not for here. And not for PC reasons. Most of the management, most of the time, comes down by emotion and principle on the side of decency. I mean, *here*, I work in a place where, the day before the elections, we spent an hour yelling the walls down (the whole office, leaning around partitions, and some of the drivers who wandered in) for over an hour, and the nastiest anyone got was when the volume knob didn't dial down fast enough when a phone rang.

I'm not going to be in this state much longer. Maybe another year and a half. I finally let go of the last of the things I came back here for in the first place. Now I just have to wrap up the loose ends. I would like to spend that time in these lovely woods, and going to a job that I don't hate, even on bad days, and kind of love on good ones.

Good wishes welcome. Love.

Have some spam, little flist, just because I'm having a moment of utter exhaustion on trying to see the other fellow's point of view, and the giving of vast tankers full of benefit of the doubt, and it's nice to see someone be angry for all the right reasons and unapologetic about it.

Dear Kael,

On Tuesday night, our community felt the emotions of electing a pro-equality President and expanding our numbers in Congress and state houses across the country, but the next morning our hearts were broken as the dust settled and it was clear we lost the marriage ballot measures in California, Florida and Arizona. I will certainly provide you with further insight in the coming days to how we effectively organized and motivated LGBT voters in elections throughout the country, but today, as we find ourselves in this agonizing intersection of victory and defeat, I felt it was important to try and give some perspective about our losses.

I've drafted the following op-ed that I wanted to share with you. I know that mere words aren't enough to provide the salve for our wounds that we desperately need but perhaps they will begin to shape a path for how we move forward. And for those of you who gave your time and resources, your sacrifices were not in vain. You've helped lay the foundation for the victory that will one day be ours. And I thank you.

You can't take this away from me: Proposition 8 broke our hearts, but it did not end our fight.

Like many in our movement, I found myself in Southern California last weekend. There, I had the opportunity to speak with a man who said that Proposition 8 completely changed the way he saw his own neighborhood. Every "Yes on 8" sign was a slap. For this man, for me, for the 18,000 couples who married in California, to LGBT people and the people who love us, its passage was worse than a slap in the face. It was nothing short of heartbreaking.

But it is not the end. Fifty-two percent of the voters of California voted to deny us our equality on Tuesday, but they did not vote our families or the power of our love out of existence; they did not vote us away.

As free and equal human beings, we were born with the right to equal families. The courts did not give us this right—they simply recognized it. And although California has ceased to grant us marriage licenses, our rights are not subject to anyone's approval. We will keep fighting for them. They are as real and as enduring as the love that moves us to form families in the first place. There are many roads to marriage equality, and no single roadblock will prevent us from ultimately getting there.

And yet there is no denying, as we pick ourselves up after losing this most recent, hard-fought battle, that we've been injured, many of us by neighbors who claim to respect us.

By the same token, we know that we are moving in the right direction. In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22 by a margin of 61.4% to 38.6%. On Tuesday, fully 48% of Californians rejected Proposition 8. It wasn't enough, but it was a massive shift. Nationally, although two other anti-marriage ballot measures won, Connecticut defeated an effort to hold a constitutional convention ending marriage, New York's state legislature gained the seats necessary to consider a marriage law, and FMA architect Marilyn Musgrave lost her seat in Congress. We also elected a president who supports protecting the entire community from discrimination and who opposes discriminatory amendments.

Yet on Proposition 8 we lost at the ballot box, and I think that says something about this middle place where we find ourselves at this moment. In 2003, twelve states still had sodomy laws on the books, and only one state had civil unions. Four years ago, marriage was used to rile up a right-wing base, and we were branded as a bigger threat than terrorism. In 2008, most people know that we are not a threat. Proposition 8 did not result from a popular groundswell of opposition to our rights, but was the work of a small core of people who fought to get it on the ballot. The anti-LGBT message didn't rally people to the polls, but unfortunately when people got to the polls, too many of them had no problem with hurting us. Faced with an economy in turmoil and two wars, most Californians didn't choose the culture war. But faced with the question—brought to them by a small cadre of anti-LGBT hardliners – of whether our families should be treated differently from theirs, too many said yes.

But even before we do the hard work of deconstructing this campaign and readying for the future, it's clear to me that our continuing mandate is to show our neighbors who we are.

Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in Bowers, the case that upheld Georgia's sodomy law and that was reversed by Lawrence v. Texas five years ago. When Bowers was pending, Powell told one of his clerks "I don't believe I've ever met a homosexual." Ironically, that clerk was gay, and had never come out to the Justice. A decade later, Powell admitted his vote to uphold Georgia's sodomy law was a mistake.

Everything we've learned points to one simple fact: people who know us are more likely to support our equality.

In recent years, I've been delivering this positive message: tell your story. Share who you are. And in fact, as our families become more familiar, support for us increases. But make no mistake: I do not think we have to audition for equality. Rather, I believe that each and every one of us who has been hurt by this hateful ballot measure, and each and every one of us who is still fighting to be equal, has to confront the neighbors who hurt us. We have to say to the man with the Yes on 8 sign—you disrespected my humanity, and I am not giving you a pass. I am not giving you a pass for explaining that you tolerate me, while at the same time denying that my family has a right to exist. I do not give you permission to say you have me as a "gay friend" when you cast a vote against my family, and my rights.

Wherever you are, tell a neighbor what the California Supreme Court so wisely affirmed: that you are equal, you are human, and that being denied equality harms you materially. Although I, like our whole community, am shaken by Prop 8's passage, I am not yet ready to believe that anyone who knows us as human beings and understands what is at stake would consciously vote to harm us.

This is not over. In California, our legal rights have been lost, but our human rights endure, and we will continue to fight for them.

Warmly,

Joe Solmonese
President, Human Rights Campaign

Yesterday morning I staggered in and fell dead asleep.

I'd had about 4 or 5 hours sleep in two and a half days, and I spent all night with NPR and the BBC, and I listened, and I don't think I was processing. Because all my celebrating was, when I got out to my car from work, writing "WE WIN" in the melting frost on my back windshield, and staring at it until someone asked me if I was okay.

It wasn't until I was driving home, on the little back country two lane, and this radio show by these two idiots was coming on. They always start their broadcast with "Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light..." and the sun was just coming over the hills.

And it hit me. Not a savior or a revolution had come our way that night, but a saving grace and a renewal of hope had been brought by our hands. And I just felt like I broke open as the sun spilled down over the pastures, and I was too tired to deal with it, and so I laughed a lot and cried a little, all the rest of the way home.

Today I can say, it was all worth it. Even with Alabama red red red. Because 39% (from the data I saw) of Alabamians voted for Obama. And *that* was why I bothered to try, and to talk, and to persuade and argue and laugh at and with people I would cross the street to avoid, all these months, and why I bothered to cast a vote I knew would be useless to the cause.

I wanted to see that line in the paper. I wanted to see "A surprising X% of Alabamians voted for Obama." I wanted to be able to say, "Even if every single black person in the state voted for Obama, that leaves X% left, and those were people who got over themselves far enough to vote on the issues and not the colors." "Yes, that happened here."

I wanted to be able to say it to myself, to feel the hope of it, and to others, to share the hope of it.

Not "we won."

We win.

Despite work being in slowdown/layoff mode, I gots me the good assignment for next week. *dance of glee* One of the seniormost guys who has in no way had his time cut is going on vacation, and I get to cover. There is so much yay in this I can't even say.

*cartwheel*

I GOT HOMES FOR TWO OF THE ALMOST-POISONED PUPPIES! GOOD WONDERFUL-PEOPLE HOMES!

*breathes*

Sorry. Just. So much with the yay. And the women brought beds and toys and cuddly things to take them back in the car, and argued in a completely non-obnoxious way about who got to sit with them, and the big scary marine fiance started doing baby talk with the shivery one, and got kissed, and I swear he cooed.

And they came big with the donation money. Which gets a cartwheel, too, eventually. When I catch my breath. ;]

In other news, I ended up back working for Mercedes. O.o I was actually only laid off for, like, three days, then they called a few of us back in a panic before I even got to orientation on the going-to-be new job. I'm not holding my breath for how long this will last, but it is six miles from my house, and I'm going to stick with it until there's a real layoff.

I love my house. Really. It's a wonderful old house, built to last, well-kept over all these years. But when it comes to not having 70's wallpaper in the kitchen, having to remove eighteen layers going back to 1930 is really just beyond the pale.

However, I have victoriously hit actual wall, and may soon have Victorious Blue Painting of the Kitchen. This makes me happy.

I also have people driving in from a state away to possibly take two of the Survived the Poisoning by Evil Man puppies, who have really been doing so well lately, and they really may give me a seriously good donation for the rescue organization. This also makes me very happy.

Also? The tiny library in this tiny place that's only open two afternoons a week managed to scrape up enough funds for a permanent sign (they'd had a vinyl banner), and the Literacy Council is at least willing to listen about organizing some English as a Second Language courses there. Progress, possibly. If Mercedes keeps laying people off, a lot of the latino population in this area who've been going along and getting along with minimal English these last eleven years or so are going to be oh so very screwed.

Also, it's autumn, and beautiful. Love.