Today it felt like I held the congregation in the palm of my hand while, interestingly enough, I was reading the Psalm (poet and don’t know it, etc.). The psalm was from The Message, which allowed me to add emphasis that couldn’t normally be there because ancient language doesn’t ring the same way. In fact, I took my post on poetry slams seriously and decided to see if I could do it.

I thought it was awesome.

Because things are in such flux right now, I am tired of focusing on everything I do wrong, and trying to focus on what I’ve done right. It’s not so much trying to brag as it is getting down this memory so that when my world is upside down, I can point to today and say to myself, “calm down.” You’re doing fine. No one gets everything right, and if they did, I’m pretty sure they’d look like my wife, Dana.

Although, to be fair, I was right twice this week.

Dana being right all the time is not a sore spot between us. It would be if I was contractually obligated to like her every day. We’ve decided on Thursdays and holidays, and we’re still debating on Sundays.

I think we can add Sundays ok, I just don’t want to like her any more than I have to. I have a reputation to uphold.

That was a joke. It’s funny.

I wrote this a few years ago, but I put it in my SkyDrive and let it sit. I think that this issue is still culturally relevant, so I’m publishing it, anyway

–

My partner, Dana, and I have been discussing what happened between Sam Adams and Beau Breedlove. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same take on things… which has led to a bit of friction as we try to talk about it. Her point, and she does have one, is that because Beau Breedlove was 17 years old when it happened, he can’t be completely innocent in all of this. I think that he’s responsible in only the way a 17 year old can be responsible, which is, to me, not very much. The average 17 year old balks at having to take out the trash. They don’t have enough life experience to know that doing a few chores is infinitely easier than the maintenance and upkeep of the whole house. The gift that comes with age is being able to look at the whole picture. Life experiences add, then multiply, with each year. How are we to expect that Beau Breedlove and Sam Adams could even be compared? To me, saying that Beau Breedlove wasn’t innocent, and was truly capable seeing what he was doing is only raising or lowering them both to the same standards.

Even if this were an extraordinary 17 year old, are we really to take his actions into account? For those who are brilliant beyond their chronological ages, there is no evidence that they are more socially adept than those of their “regular” peers. Because there are so many people interested in dating older (and by that, I mean all sexual orientations), it’s not so strange that Adams would be the object of his interest… even lust. Lust makes people do crazy things, especially teenagers, because again, they haven’t been alive long enough to see major consequences play out long-term.
Sam Adams had long passed the threshold that stands between adolescence and adulthood. It’s called a “threshold” because we don’t become adults all at once. In fact, most of us kind of stumble towards it, and hope the rest of adulthood is better than what we’ve seen so far. Breedlove was in that place- trying on the clothes of adulthood, and like most teenagers, finding them just right in some places, and too loose in others.

In terms of their stations in life, the clothing of adulthood for Breedlove was closer to The Men’s Wearhouse, while Sam Adams was sitting comfortably in Brooks Brothers… and perhaps a Louis Vuitton “murse” just for panache.
This controversy has nothing to do with whether Beau Breedlove and Sam Adams had sex before Breedlove turned 18. Although statutory rape is illegal (even when both parties consent), it happens all too frequently- even those running for high office. The real issue is an ethical one. Do 17 year olds have the presence of mind to fully understand the consequences of a relationship with a much older person? Does the older person have the presence of mind to fully realize what they might do to this young person’s life? Age gap relationships are notorious for generational quirks that are hard for people out of the public spotlight. On top of that, Breedlove has been subjected to an unreal amount of media attention- something that has made him infamous.

Sam Adams must have had the forethought that if anyone found out about the relationship he had with Breedlove, they both would have been skewered by media and public opinion polls. Is it fair to go into a relationship with a younger man (and a minor when the relationship began), knowing what you know? Especially the part about how it’s going to be seen as illegal? Does there have to be actual penetration for Sam Adams to have done the wrong thing? The man dated a child, setting a date for sex arbitrarily for two weeks after his 18th birthday.

The problem is not a large age-gap relationship- people of all ages date for all kinds of reasons. The common thread among those relationships (the healthy ones, anyway) is that when they met and started dating, they were both fully comfortable with their adulthood… established in that identity before the relationship started. How is that possible if Beau Breedlove was still enmeshed in the world of high school? It is unfathomable to me that an adult would be comfortable in a relationship where their lives have been and will continue to be so different.

Alternatively, how would Beau Breedlove get along in the world of high-profile politics? Could he be taken seriously as the Mayor’s partner? Perhaps I am reading way too much into this, but none of Adams’ or Breedlove’s interviews point to one night stands. It was ongoing, to the point of Adams attending Breedlove’s birthday party at his parents’ house. Whether or not Breedlove’s parents were aware of the situation is irrelevant. The point is that the affair was ongoing. Sam Adams treated Beau Breedlove like an equal, much to his detriment.

Children are protected by statutory rape laws for a reason. They may have the technical ability to blaze new pathways into the future for our entire society… but at the same time, does that replace human experience? Does that take into account the incubation period that needs to happen before an adult can say that he or she is capable of running his/her life smoothly? Does a quick mind replace the hard-earned lessons that life dishes out? The kind of relationship that Adams was cultivating with Breedlove is tantamount to stealing his ability to grow and mature at his own rate, instead of adulthood backing him into a corner.

Being 17 is all about learning to navigate the troubled waters of relationships, without the added pressure of having a boyfriend who’s already been thrown in without a life jacket. There’s no way to muddle through together.
With this particular relationship, there’s also no way to deal with that frustration privately. Breedlove and Adams will be analyzed in excruciating detail- something for which Adams hasn’t publicly acknowledged. We the people have the right to hold our leaders to certain standards. Not breaking the law is (should be?) one of them. However, we have also ripped a now 21 year old’s life to pieces, intentionally, because our drive to know more is overshadowed by the part where Breedlove’s privacy has been slashed to non-existent and he gets to wonder where the hell his old life went.
…and that’s the part where Breedlove will have to take responsibility. The affair is over, he is now past the point of any shelter from the law (unless the statute of limitation hasn’t run out), and soon the next big news story will make him less of a target for media attention.

That’s why what Sam Adams did is under investigation. If Adams had an affair with someone of his own age, they might already have the resources (emotionally, financially, etc.) to rebuild. And while I can’t accuse Adams of intentionally trying to hurt Breedlove, I hold him accountable for feeling urges toward a minor without suppressing them. Adams told Breedlove the first time they kissed that they shouldn’t be kissing. Sam had already reached adulthood, been through lovers and breakups and whatever else. How could he not know that he was changing this boy’s life?
Relationships between adults and children are supposed to be about enculturation, which the dictionary defines as the process by which a person learns the requirements of the culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviors that are appropriate and/or necessary in that culture.

Though Sam Adams may or may not have slept with a minor, and may or may not be prosecuted for that crime, the mere fact that he was willing to overlook this boy’s station in life and treat him as an equal hasn’t yet been positive or life-affirming. Treating him as an equal was a way to justify having romantic and sexual contact. Now that the story has broken, being treated like an equal to the Mayor has turned into him into Nabokov’s Lolita, planning and manipulating himself into Adams’ finely woven, yet completely unwilling, pants.

Which spin doctor came up with that brilliant plan? What journalist or press secretary was adamant that the only way to release this to the press was to vilify the person who wasn’t legally capable of making the decision to date a 42 year old man? It’s sickening to think that somewhere out there, a committee gathered to discuss what to do, and this is the best they could come up with.

Let’s turn our focus away from the Mayor for a second, and broaden into the cultural war waiting to happen.
This sex scandal upholds every value that fuels the backlash against gay marriage and other civil rights… a story that will be held up for years to come regarding why gays and lesbians cannot be trusted with children. Even though there are plenty of straight men out there that regularly patrol high schools for 16 year olds that look as if they could be 25, those cases rarely splash across the TV at 11:00. Though conservative Democrats are just as likely to be afraid of granting gay marriage and adoption, the Republican right-wing machine has clearly cornered the market.

In an article written for Mother Jones about former Congressman Mark Foley, author Cameron Scott had this to say:

Foley apparently includes being gay among the “wrongs” that the fifth step of Alcoholics Anonymous’s 12-step program requires him to admit. Foley, however, has yet to admit “the exact nature of [his] wrongs” against the teenagers who worked for him. Even more troublesome is the former Congressman’s conflation of pedophilia with homosexuality.

This stereotype is so widespread that even relatively tolerant people don’t address its absurdity. But, says psychologist James M. Cantor, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, there is no scientific evidence linking gay identity and pedophilia. That bears repeating: there is no evidence that gay men are more likely to be attracted to or to molest underage boys (emphasis mine). Cantor suggests that the Christian right’s consistent depictions of “homosexuals” as pedophiles—the same stand the Family Research Council is currently taking—relies on “mere sophistry.” To generate these claims, right-wing researchers simply refer to a man who has molested boys as homosexual.

Because he’s the Mayor of Portland, Sam Adams will be that one guy inflated to represent millions of gay men. You know why they can get away with it? First, that Sam Adams developed a relationship with a minor is actually a fact; Second, there are more people in America that read headlines than all the way to the bottom of an article… so even if the article has a disclaimer, it is doubtful that the masses will see it, much less remember it in their talking points.This leads to questions that have vague answers at best:

• Has the GLBT community in Oregon suffered as a result of Adams’ misconduct?
  • If so, how much time will it take to erase that damage?
• How do these problems in the Portland GLBT community affect the way all heterosexually challenged Americans are treated?
• What are the steps needed to ensure progress in erasing the image that gay and pedophile are inextricably interrelated?
  • By the local GLBT community in Portland?
  • By the people of the nation?
  • By state legislation and arbitration by the state’s Supreme Court?
  • By national legislation and arbitration by the Supreme Court?

As a political science student whose favorite, yet most difficult class has been Constitutional Law, I’m not in a position to discuss precedent in depth. Skimming the surface, however, it seems as if there is plenty in the Constitution to guarantee equal rights to the GLBT community- equal protection, right to privacy, freedom from religion, and that’s just the big three. There have been countless suits brought in lower courts that would also uphold same-sex marriage… not because there is precedent for marriage itself, but because the cases refer to federal rights that would have been granted automatically by marriage to begin with.

Marriage cannot and should not be defined as one man and one woman by the state, because it is not based on any sort of statute- only religious or cultural beliefs. As a result, it’s incumbent on the federal government to allow same-sex couples to marry… if for nothing but the fact that marriage is a civil contract that carries monetary, medical, and right-to-survivorship benefits.

So if marriage is a civil contract, why doesn’t the GLBT community have access to them?

In so many ways, homophobia has become kinder, less obvious. But the flip side of the coin is that sometimes, the GLBT community isn’t doing much to help itself. In years past, I have always had a great time, both watching pride parades and walking in them. The flip side is that the pride parade always includes those floats (and people, you know what I’m talking about), that force everyone to participate in a small group’s sexual fantasies. Those floats are even more obvious when the media shows up, because they always seem to miss the floats with PFLAG, Open and Affirming churches, COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), and the ever-increasing supply of mainline companies that commit serious money to having parades in the first place. The longer we keep putting sexualized images into the public arena, the longer people will think that being gay is only about sex… because true to form, the media will never cover something such as mundane as the children’s coloring tent at the back of the pride festival if there are men wearing only micro-shorts in the front.

That brings us back around to Sam Adams, and what he really did wrong. In addition to putting a minor/young adult through a horrible situation, he’s managed to cover up all the things that the GLBT community is doing right. If Sam Adams is correct that sex never happened before Beau Breedlove turned 18, then of course, he hasn’t done anything illegal. It remains to be seen, however, if not committing a crime also releases him from responsibility.

I started thinking about all the baby gays in the world, and the idea of this letter came to me. No, it’s not original. It’s a thing now, and I’m just following the crowd. Deal. You’ll have plenty of time to come back for jokes about your mother and how my wife can irritate the piss out of me without even trying.

–

Dear Leslie,

You are now 35 years old. I know this may come as a shock to you, given that right now, you are only 14. If you are actually reading this, then Doctor Who is real. I know you don’t really know about Doctor Who yet, but when you do, the reference will make you giggle.

Because I’m you, I know that you’ve just had a hell of a summer. You broke up with the best boyfriend in the entire world because you didn’t think you loved him the way you thought you should. The person you could talk to about that stuff is four hours away when you thought she’d be there for your freshman year of high school. You slept with your parents the night before your first day because you were so terrified of starting this new life. You think you are incredibly uncool, and in a sense, you are right. But you are also one of the most loved people in your grade, you just don’t know it.

Because you’re so sad, you miss out on a lot of stuff. It’s ok. Your 14-year-old mind works kind of like your 35-year-old mind, and I can tell you that you miss a lot of stuff your whole life. You’re an introvert. No one will tell you this. You will have a queen bee attitude in public because that’s what your life requires. But inside, you brood, and you think a lot, and sometimes you write it down.

That’s going to come in handy. You’re going to meet girls (I know that’s a load off your mind, since at this point you are still wearing a Luke Perry t-shirt and purple striped overall shorts). That “writing it down” will become instrumental in your girl-getting power. Use the force, with great power comes great responsibility, etc.

When you’re a little older, you’ll meet your first love. It will be terrible and wonderful like all first loves are. She’ll treat you like crap in public and you’ll take it for the sweet, stolen kisses when no one else is watching. You don’t even think about leaving because it’s not like there are girls wound up around the block.

When that girl finally disappears, you’ll spend three years processing everything that happened to you because it’s not just about processing the relationship, it’s learning that you are indeed REALLY, REALLY gay and you have to learn to live your life differently and just the same as everyone else.

You will still flirt with boys your entire life because it’s just too easy.

You learn to cope. You get out of the South, three times. You move to DC once and Portland twice. You get away from your first family and breathe, not because they’ve ever done anything negative to you, but because you’ve never been without them in a strange city and there’s so much to explore and you don’t know whether they’ll approve or not. You decide they’re not here and try to find yourself.

You do. As of right now, you are in a great marriage that you never expected would happen. Here’s a tip: when Dana invites you over for Easter lunch, GO.

Love,

Leslie

p.s. The President is black.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was- somewhere between 17 and 19- when my friend Scott started doing poetry slams. He had been a couple of times before I joined him, and the bar looked like the scary part in Pinnochio. Loud colors. Dark. Has an air of weird you just can’t place. Or at least, that’s what I thought when I walked in.

Scott was a little bit older than me, so he ordered me something to drink. He asked if I liked sweet or savory. I told him that it didn’t matter. I had never tried either one.

It was a perfect dirty martini with olives and ice chips and oh, God- I’ve never had anything like it. It’s salt dripping on my lips as if pickles could dance and I think to myself, “I have to remember to tell my friend Diane the name of this drink. She likes salt on everything!” I had no idea that the martini is basically the most famous drink in the ENTIRE WORLD. I can only imagine what that conversation would have looked like. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’VE ALREADY TRIED ONE?!”

But I digress.

Scott wasn’t just good. Scott was amazing. He had gotten a following together, and they all met at this weird bar that in Portland, would look upscale. In Houston, it looked like it backed up to Crack Ho Estates.

After the poetry slam, the poets and our friends would all gather in the loft and shoot the breeze. A couple of times, they smoked pot. I say “they” very clearly because I was not cool. I thought the pipe looked like a weapon and I knew drugs were bad, mmmkay.

So it was just my job to turn up the music and make sure Scott got home ok. Because of this, I would only have one martini a week. I kept a very fastidious schedule because the talent was counting on me and that’s all we could afford between the two of us, anyway. I earned an allowance of my age per week. This usually consisted of one CD at Half Price Books, one cup of coffee at Crossroads, and cover to get into whatever club Scott was reading at that week. He bought the martini.

I’m writing about this because it is a memory fragment that needs preserving, but there’s not necessarily a beginning, middle, and end of the story. Scott is still a great writer, and I adore him, but there’s never going to be another first martini, there’s never going to be another first look at a pot pipe and thinking that it was probably going to kill Scott in his sleep.

To me, it’s important to remember the little things, because they serve you later, especially as a writer. My stories would not have half the depth and breadth that they do if I didn’t listen with a tape recorder in my head. If there is a writer that I would like to emulate, the one that runs across my head the most is Dominick Dunne. I have little interest in the trials of the rich and the very rich, but I still want his title. Simple, Clean, Efficient.

Diarist.

 

Here, for remembrance sake, are the stories that my friends and I still tell when we get together.

Alberto’s parents are out of town. He invites us over to watch movies, but says I can’t come because his mom doesn’t want girls in the house and his parents have spies watching the house (you can say that shit in Sugar Land and it might be true). The time comes for James, Michael, Alberto, and David to leave for Alberto’s. Michael says “I got a carpet pad roll in the back of my truck. Let’s go scare the shit out of him.” So the boys ROLL ME UP IN THE CARPET PAD and show up at Alberto’s door with them standing at the door like contractors. They bring in the carpet pad and set it down. When they unrolled me, Alberto’s eyes almost turned inside out. He said, and I quote, “WHAT THE FUCK, you guys!”

–

James, Michael, Alberto, and I used to go out on the golf course at the country club and play in the sand. I’m sure we wrote some unprintable things. We were leaving the golf course after raking it over, and Alberto said that he had night vision. Just then, he stepped into a puddle up to his knee and we all rolled on the ground.

–

James is a famous prankster, so he got on one phone line in the house and got his mother on the other. Allison, his sister, is listening in. In this memory, James is recounting the story, and I am asphyxiating with laughter. It didn’t matter that I didn’t see it firsthand.

James (talking like a deaf person): Hi! I’m calling from the American Society of Deaf Individuals. Are you, or anyone you know, a deaf individual?

Mom: N-

James: THAT’S GREAT!

This goes on for another few minutes, including a donation ask, before Mom hangs up the phone.

Allison, FTW, walks past her mom and says, absolutely deadpan, “Geez, Mom. I can’t believe you hung up on a deaf guy.”

–

I hated Mr. Skomski, my senior chemistry teacher. To this day, I think it was because he was Asperger’s and I didn’t recognize the signs… because he could do complicated algebraic equations in his head without notes, and at the same time, told a bunch of high school seniors that he was a bouncer at a club in New Orleans for a time. We thought he was weird and uncool, and I’m sad to say I took advantage of him. But I tried to exasperate him in the most clever of ways, because when he told us that he had been a bouncer, for me it was like, “you know we can see you, right?”

The first day of the class, we were in the lab. I think we were doing an experiment with water or playing cards or something like that. Completely non-toxic and extremely un-dangerous. Mr. Skomski is getting up in my face about putting on my safety glasses. He has come over to my table three times to politely ask me to put on my safety glasses. He is getting so pissed that his eyebrows are coming over his forehead, and I’m thinking, “it’s water and playing cards… LET. IT. GO.

But he won’t leave me alone, so I put them on my arm. Defeated, he turned on his heel and walked off. It’s children like me what cause unrest; I regret it, but come on. You have to admit. It’s funny.

–

Like when I decided I had a crush on Meagan Atkinson. She had office work every day during my chemistry class (bringin’ it back around), and would come to pick up the attendance every morning. Every damn morning of my senior year, I interrupted his class by, no matter what he was doing, yelling out “hiiii Meagan!” when she arrived. Skomski gave up after about three weeks, and I got the girl. Funny how life works out like that.

–

Here is the story of how Meag decided she had a crush on me.

We only had one class together, and that was English with Hudel Steed. Steed and I had a healthy relationship in that I had a healthy fear of her. She was a lawyer and proved to be incredibly clever (and evil). For instance, on the first day of class, she said, “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a few minutes late every day. In their infinite wisdom, the administration has decided that teachers with the most seniority are the ones that have to watch the bathrooms and check for cigarettes. If this is what the administration thinks of seniority, they can shove it.”

Hudel Steed also has my undying respect for two things- a) making me a writer b) introducing me to my first girlfriend (remember that?). Let’s take one thing at a time. We’ll do the girlfriend first since that’s more interesting.

The first day of class, Dr. Steed said that her class was so fucking hard (and I’m paraphrasing) that we could not leave without getting someone’s phone number. CHECKMATE. Meag sat kitty-korner to me and I lunged for her desk.

I walk in the door to my mother’s apartment and the phone is ringing. I had given her every phone number I owned, like you do.

I pick up the phone, and without even saying hello, she said “I’m just curious. Why do you wear those rainbow rings to school every day?”

I said, “because I’m a lesbian. Do you have a problem with that?”

She said, “Noooo! I’m a Melissa Etheridge fan.

“I’m not, but thank you for giving money to my people,” I replied.

From then on, we were inseparable, and all it took was English.

–

In my haste to get things posted, I realized that I forgot a story from HSPVA… my 15th birthday. For starters, I wasn’t always the kind of kid that wanted to go to school when she was sick. I didn’t just have the sniffles, either. I was full-on miserable. However, it was my birthday, and I wanted to go. So my parents let me, against their better judgment.

Some time before, my friend the Judge had gotten our entire family into the Republican National Convention. I KNOW!, RIGHT?! While I was there, I bought a shirt made of an American flag. It was a button-down, and it was made of real flag canvas. I was so proud of it until…

I walked into Honors Band, which was first period. Everyone in the entire band was getting ready for warm-up. Those assholes stood up, saluted me, and then sang The Star-Spangled Banner in four-part harmony. With a cymbal crash at the end.

I was mortified. And psyched. For one solid moment, I felt cool.

Originally posted Mar. 7th

For some reason, I start out with the premise that I can learn Arabic just by hanging out with the Saudi boys on campus. It’s not that hard- they say everything with their hands and their eyebrows. Or at least, it’s not that hard until I realize that several minutes have gone by and I haven’t understood anything. Ali can switch between Arabic and English pretty handily. Yossef cannot. I often say things slower and louder, as if I am visiting Saudi Arabia as a tourist.

Do not let Yossef fool you, though. He knows more English than he lets on. Apparently, English words make a lot more sense when there’s a lot of Arabic around it. For instance, Yossef does not know the words “dog” or “sandwich.” But get him on the phone and all of the sudden, he knows things like “double major.”

I kidded him today that we should just switch to Arabic. I said, “salaam alaikum.” He said “Akbar.” I said, “you have now reached the end of my Arabic.” Everyone laughed except Yossef, who looked on quizzically. When it was translated for him, he nearly fell off a park bench.

These boys are one of the best parts of my day. The fact that they accept me for who I am and just let me hang out with them is a miracle. I don’t know that they realize I am a gay person (hell, I’m not even sure if they know I’m female), and I’m not going to tell them. It might ruin what we have… and what we have is a dorky white female trying to learn about their culture because I’ve watched “Little Mosque on the Prairie.”

Yossef and I have more in common than the rest of the boys, which is sad because I don’t know how to talk to him. In Saudi, he works in the king’s palace as tech support, which Ali told me because Yossef wanted to know where I worked as well. These friendships are easy and unencumbered, because I’m not really part of the crew. I’m the lady that knows English. Yossef says that it’s fun to practice. It will be more fun for me when I don’t have to have Ali translate because Yossef’s verb agreement is upside down and backwards.

I call them “boys” even though they are married or betrothed. This is because there is a school on campus called “Pacific International Academy,” which is a preparatory school before college to give them a leg up on language. They’re young, almost painfully so to be so encumbered with life- the balance between their lives in Saudi and their lives in Portland is difficult. Salim’s mother doesn’t drive, and he takes her everywhere. More than once I have heard Salim talking her off the ceiling because she is losing her mind over her baby being so far away and unable to take her to the market. I told him to watch the video “Why Saudi Women Shouldn’t Drive” to make him feel better. He responded by pulling out his phone, looking up the video, and snorting Mountain Dew through his nose and across the room.

They are also mischievous in their own right. The first time I met Yossef, I told him that I liked his shoes. Ali translated that into “she likes the way your wife dresses you.” Then it was my turn for soda to come out of my nose.

Being with them is a mind worm. I wonder what will happen to them when they leave PIA. I wonder if they will stay here long enough to finish a degree. I wonder if Salim’s mother will chill out long enough to let her baby fly, because he is so attached to her that there is no way he won’t go back *eventually.* I worry that they’re getting enough out of school to really make a difference in their English… not because *I* want them to learn it, but because it’s so important to them.

So that’s what goes through my mind as the lunch sun beats down on us and Yossef is leaning in the grass, singing ancient Arabic tunes to a drum beat no one else hears.

 

Yesterday was red letter for “Stories,” and I couldn’t have done it without help from my friends. Kristie Berthelotte shared my piece on marriage, and within one day, 47 people had read it. For someone who just started a blog, that’s incredible. It’s more attention than I deserve, and I am grateful.

But part of the reason I’m grateful is that those 47 people gave me a platform to say what I wanted to say, and took it all in.

In her last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah said something poignant that I will share here:

When I started, not even I imagined that this show would have the depth and the reach that you all have given it. It has been a privilege for me to speak to you here in this studio, in this country and in 150 countries around the world on this platform that is The Oprah Winfrey Show. You let me into your homes to talk to you every day. This is what you allowed me to do, and I thank you for that. But what I want you to know as this show ends: Each one of you has your own platform. Do not let the trappings here fool you. Mine is a stage in a studio, yours is wherever you are with your own reach, however small or however large that reach is. Maybe it’s 20 people, maybe it’s 30 people, 40 people, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your classmates, your classroom, your co-workers. Wherever you are, that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show, and that is where your power lies.

That one paragraph encompasses everything I want to do with this web site. I want to use my platform to share goofy stories and bad jokes and awful colloquialisms in the hopes that I can change minds and hearts. I never forget that I have the chance to change someone’s opinion about something, and to do it in the absolutely best way I know how- writing for people to read.

Why would I say that?

Because I am just presenting my side of the story. You’ll take it away, mull it over, and decide whether I’m right or not. There’s no being put “on the spot,” no need for a reply. It’s just a way to put things out there.

You decide what you’re going to do with it.

The very beauty of a blog. If you get offended, you can click somewhere else. If you don’t, maybe something will resonate and you’ll pass it on. Either way, I am grateful for the chance to be heard.

Welcome to my platform.

On Dec. 20, 1990, I was the only one home when our house started burning. These are my recollections, originally written for my web site in 2005.

———–

My hair was in curlers. I was wearing black pumps, black pantyhose, and a Snoopy nightgown. I was watching The New Mickey Mouse Club on television because it was keeping my mind off of the dance I was preparing for later in the evening. My mother and sister had left the house to go shopping. My dad was delivering communion to little old ladies who couldn’t make it to church. It was a typical Friday afternoon… everyone was busy, including me, even though I didn’t look like it on the outside.

There was so much to think about! Who would I dance with? I wanted it to be Topper Caraway, even though I mostly hated him. It just seemed to me that of all the sixth grade boys in the world, Topper was the least repulsive. There was always the possibility that I would meet someone from another church. What would he look like? Would he be taller than me? Wear glasses? Know all the words to a Poison song? Like Guns and Roses as much as I did?

I was jarred from my thoughts by a strong smell that I couldn’t quite place. It was sort of like something was cooking, but I knew my mom wouldn’t leave something in the oven for me to take care of without telling me first. I decided to investigate. I opened the door that separated the living room from the hallway and shrunk back in horror. Black smoke was pouring into the hallway from the ceiling.

The television was still blaring (…”cause Fred and Mowava and the Mousketeers say, ‘We gonna rock right here!’”). Time seemed to speed up so fast it was as if it was tangible, heading for a brick wall where it would shatter and define everything from that moment on. I thought about what to do next. I was only twelve. I didn’t have much life experience to draw on.

I decided to leave everything as it was. There was no mad dash to save one last thing, a question so popular in games of Scruples. Because those things are very easy to think about when you are sitting around your dining room table in pursuit of academic discussion. When the moment hits you, the moment you truly realize that your house is burning down and there is not one damn thing you can do to stop it, waves of utter and complete helplessness wash over you. There is no time to save anything. If you are lucky, you will be dressed at the time, and physically able to get out.

I ran next door to the Brabhams, hoping that someone would be home. If they thought it was unusual that I was on their doorstep in my pajamas and curlers, they didn’t say so. I asked if I could call the Fire Department. I dialed the numbers with shaking hands and gave the dispatcher my address.

It seemed like ages before a fire truck pulled up in front of the house. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it would have seemed like ages no matter what. It was all so surreal. Here I was, in my nightgown and hair curlers, watching every possession that I had ever owned disappear in clumps. I worried about my computer. I worried about the pair of British Knights that my mom had gotten for me the Christmas before. My teeth clenched. The dress that I had bought to wear that night was hanging on a curtain rod in my bedroom. I’d never get it out in time. That’s when it hit me.

I didn’t have any clothes.

It was just about then that my mom and sister drove up, terrified to see a fire truck in front of the house. My mom would recount for many years to come how she drove up into the cacophonic scene, wondering if I’d been able to escape and wailing on the inside for she could not immediately find me.

There was palpable relief in my mother’s face when she went to the neighbors’ and saw me sitting on the couch. I was glad to see them for I was tired of being alone, feeling like this fire was my responsibility to take care of, aching for a grown-up to come along and take the weight off my shoulders. The firemen were doing the real work. But I wanted to be saved of being the only person in the family with the knowing- the stomach churning, bile inducing knot of fear that says, “everything is gone.”

I could rest now. My mother was here. My mother could be the one in charge. I gave myself over to the shock, in such a trance that I don’t remember my father coming home, discussion of what we would do next, or in fact, what actually did happen next. I “woke up” a few hours later at my maternal grandparents’ house. The only thing I remember about those missing few hours was going to a store in Daingerfield called Gibson’s and buying enough clothes for the next few days… and the only reason I remember that is because I hated the clothes at Gibson’s. Wearing clothes like that, with no designer label, would get me murdered in sixth grade. I was uncool enough. In retrospect, I know that it was wonderful to have clothes at all. But that was no use to me then.

Over the next few days, once the fire had subsided, we were able to go back into the house and grab anything that didn’t look totally and completely ruined. What we didn’t know was that once something has been through a fire, even if it hasn’t actually been touched by flame, is ruined.

There is nothing that I have left from that period in my life that doesn’t still reek of smoke… a different kind of smoke. Not the comforting kind. Not Paw-paw’s pipe smoke. Not hickory flavored meat cooking smoke. It’s a dense, acrid kind of smell. One that conjurs images of pain- forest fires in which animals are overtaken… crematoriums… hell.

It was some time later that we learned, through a report, that the fire had been caused when a wire that hadn’t been capped started smoldering in the attic.

Total cost of the cap?

Seventeen cents.

Good God. I’ve become the blogger I didn’t want to become… again. I suppose it’s a natural thing, like going back to what you know, but I didn’t expect it to take hold this fast. I am literally a slave to my post views, as if I’m expecting to explode overnight. I’m like one of those people who constantly watches their stock portfolio, instead of concentrating on the overall picture.

I’m also constantly thinking of new things to write. I make mistakes because I’m trying to get content together. The true Catch-22 of blogging is that if you don’t pay attention to your hits, you will wind up in obscurity. That’s because every time you post, you give the Google bots a chance to find you. Other people come in and leave their contact information. You visit their web site and leave your URL. More hits.

If things go right, you’ll end up like Dooce. Dooce has been my hero since she first started blogging. The blog starts with writing about struggles with her Mormonism, her job, and her life in general. The blog started to explode nationally to the point where she was able to support a family just by posting, taking great pictures, and talking about herself.

Man that seems rude, talking about yourself.

Until you realize that you can’t write about anything else, because writing something else would never satisfy the need to communicate with your soul. It’s the need to express the things going on in your life so that your friends and readers can come along and say, “Oh my God! I felt exactly like that when…” The trick is to write well, and to open yourself up to both criticism and praise. If you don’t, then you’ll get down when the trolls attack you and your hits are exclusively created by bots and not readers.

Writing well is about taking an experience and making it universal. With some things, I just can’t do that because the situation is so weird that you can’t equate it to anything else. But with almost everything else, you end the post with an invitation to action, even if that action is as small as a smile of remembrance.

Because smiles of remembrance lead to sharing, building more than a web site. Building an online space where people can come to commiserate, laugh (often in spite of themselves), and leave comments that will interact with me, but more importantly, allow my readers to interact with each other.

If your blog can’t run independently of you, you’re not doing it right. Because these are the same people that will read you over and over again, not because you’re that great a writer, but your web site is where all their friends are.

At first, I thought Facebook was the way to go. I have a built-in audience of over 600 people there. However, with Facebook, you really don’t have the design control that you do with a real blog. At this point, it is more crucial than ever to create hits, because unless I’m missing my mark, most people get their “friend news” on Facebook and rarely venture out into other areas of the web.

That’s why Dooce is so special. She was before Facebook, and she grew this web site into such a juggernaut that she’s been a Jeopardy! question.

I can only hope that I can create that kind of safe space on my own web site, where we can get together and start talking. We’ll share and share and get through life together. Thank you for making me part of your life.

I need the hits. :P~

In a space where life is disheveled, you have to create your own structure. For someone who is ADD, this is not all that easy. I cope with it by having a writing schedule. Without fail, I am at my computer by 9:00, and I am writing… whether it’s crap or not.

Sorry you have to suffer through these posts. I know they’re kind of scattershot, and so do you, but you’re willing to read me anyway until I get this whole posting schedule thing down. Because right now, I don’t have the luxury of a back stock of entries. I can’t just tell the web site to post something incredible on a schedule, because I’m starting from scratch (and by that, I mean cron jobs, not that the computer can post for me. My computer is a moron).

It’s as if my body is saying that it doesn’t care whether I’m tired or not. There is new content to be delivered and t-shirt graphics to be fixed and the house is a mess and nothing will get done if I think of everything I have to do as one large mass.

I get overwhelmed and panicky, as if the nuclear bomb is already set and I’m just the guy standing next to it. I’m not even quick enough on my feet to be MacGruber.

My one saving grace is Google. I’m not kidding.

If you let it, Google will save your life. Their calendar app alone is worth signing up.

For truly heartfelt instructions on how to set up an .ical feed, leave a comment. I’m not typing up all that stuff for my non-nerds. 🙂

Forgiveness is hard.

Forgiveness is so, so hard.

Forgiveness is hard because it has its own therapied vocabulary that, in the end, does work. But it doesn’t erase the questions around why you had to forgive in the first place. Those are the tabs that stay open in the Firefox of my mind.

Some of forgiving and being forgiven is about learning new words for it. There are three outcomes to a conflict, and they rarely change:

1. Both people are happy
2. Both people are miserable
3. One person gets what they want, and the other person doesn’t

The first two are easy. The last one will keep you up at night. Both people being miserable might seem hard, but you can go to sleep knowing that both parties are in equal pain. Only one person getting what they want is damned unsatisfying.

However, if you’re the person that got what you wanted, there’s really no reason to go over and re-negotiate. Why should you? You got what you wanted! The other person may still have unanswered questions, but it’s ok. Your part is over. Go drink a margarita and celebrate your victory. Good job! You’re done.

If you are the one who didn’t get what you wanted, no margarita for you. Because you have more important things to do. You lost. You’re covered in loss soup with loss croutons on top. You have been beaten, and it hurts.

Time to pick a therapist. Mine is a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt (Today is Free Cone Day), but do what works best for you. Preferably both. Get a therapist to think about your grief, and get the ice cream to forget so that you can put down an impossibly large mind worm.

If you’re on the right track, though, the impossibly large mind worm is going to start with yourself. Taking credit for what you did wrong seems counter-intuitive, but it’s not. By admitting your side of the story, you are releasing yourself from a situation “that happened to you,” into a situation in which you have some control. You may think that someone is withholding information from you, but really, you’ve just missed the signs that have been cropping up all along. In our humanness, we have a tendency to just stop communicating because we have no idea how to say what we need to say. Often, when the truth is what’s necessary, it’s avoided and covered up to save someone’s feelings.

It’s a human trait to try not to hurt people (or, at least, I hope it is). It is also possible for passive aggression to lead to thermonuclear war. The longer you lead people on, the harder it gets to extract yourself. Waiting to tell someone the truth morphs with the lie until you believe it, too. But the other person doesn’t know that. Doesn’t see the way you pull away because they aren’t aware of the possibility… aren’t prepared for the possibility.

If there’s anything we as humans hate, it’s to be caught off guard. It makes people angry because it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to think of how much time you’d been doing something wrong and been denied a chance to make it better. It’s embarrassing thinking about how long this person must have been “putting up with you,” because no human wants to be an obligation. When you call someone on something they’ve been doing for a very long time, they tend to respond like a wounded animal because they didn’t know there was a problem in the first place. It’s injustice. It’s more painful than the explosion that would have happened when you were angry, because it would be over.

Carrying around a grudge against someone is like accepting their resume and never calling them back. They’re hanging on to the hope that they still might get an interview, and you’re concentrating on your anger so much that every day that resume sits on your desk, you’re adding more wood to the fire.

Passive aggression is kindling for emotional destruction. Send a response, even if that response is “I hired someone else.”

I always get those memes that ask questions like, “tell me something that I don’t know about you.” Sometimes, answering those questions are hard, like, “I have to pick just one?” Today, that answer is easy.

Because I grew up as a preacher’s kid with very specific instructions on what I could and could not say (self-imposed, being the oldest child), I am an avid fan of cringe comedy. My heroes are Jim Norton, Bill Burr, Bob Saget, Lisa Lampanelli, and the list goes on. Before you go through my list of comics to hear them, let me warn you that Bob Saget is the dirtiest motherfucker you will ever hear in your entire life. He’s not the “safe one of the bunch” just because he played Danny Tanner on Full House.

Actually, come to think of it, I think Bob Saget is as dirty as he is for the same reason I’m as dirty as I am. It’s a rebellious phase. It’s lasted a while. Maybe we should see a doctor.

This has caused no end of hilarity and confusion as people realize that I am funny, perky, innocent, child-like, etc, and at the same time, when playing Cards Against Humanity, the black card was “How did you lose your virginity?” The white card I put down was “African children.”

I’ll wait while you gather yourself. Yes, I am that dirty.

I only have three or four friends who can go down that rabbit hole with me who I know for sure won’t disown me, because they know that I’m just going for the cringe and I don’t mean anything harmful by it at all.

It’s just the one time that the mask comes off, and I’m not pretending to be anything other than who I am… a middle-aged white woman who is tired of being a middle-aged white woman and all the implications that come with it.

Cringe comedy is a way not to be invisible.