The One with the Questionable Campaign

So, I have a Morally Ambiguous Situation™ here, and I wonder the general opinion of my. . .2 readers.

This happened.  The gist of it is that this pastor said that all gays (and lesbians!) should be rounded up and locked electric fence-style, men seperate from women, so that the gay gene would die out.

Never mind this doesn't make any sense, as I believe (but don't quote me on this) that most gay people are spawned from hetero parents.  I believe that the pastor in question is a horrible representation of Christianity, and is one of the worst kinds of people.

But. . .I don't know if the article's suggestion of retribution is the best way to go.  He suggests that everyone send a donation to some gay-friendly organization in the pastor's name so the pastor will be innundated with thank you letters from the organizations.  The author provided the pastor's address, phone number, and e-mail with which to do the signing up.

Now. . .at last count, I saw 190 people who had said they were doing this, sending some donation to a group in the pastor's name.

This is where it gets a little sketchy for me.  Is this pastor dead wrong?  Absolutely.  Does he need to be prevented from speaking in public ever again?  Yes.  Yes he does.  Is he the reason so many people hate Christianity?  For sure.

But this seems. . .over-reaching to me.  I don't know.  I can't reconcile it in my head.  What, exactly, are these people hoping to accomplish?  It's awesome that all these organizations are getting donations, but. . .why does it have to be done this way?  I can't decide if someone as douchey as this pastor is also giving up his right to privacy and not wanting to receive literature from these organizations by being douchey.

And then there were a couple of comments left on this article that REALLY bothered me.

One lady ". . .did this for a 'Pro-Life' neighbor, made a donation to Planned Parenthood in his honor. They sent him a letter of acknowledgement. I never heard another word from him about the sinful pro-choice people;-)."

Like. . .it's the guy's right to be anti-abortion, and he's being sort of harassed about it.  What if the guy had sent pro-life literature to this lady?  Would that have been OK, too?  Granted, I don't know if he made a big deal about it or if he was a jerk or whatever, but I don't. . .think it should matter.

Then. . .

"This is an idea I did 30+ years ago to a preacher at a liberal arts college I was going to. Being Southern Baptist and feeling I needed to experience his god...got a postcard from the LDS church out of a magazine and filled in his information. Four years later...he was still wondering why he was getting twice yearly visits from LDS missionaries in the dorm. Last I heard...he had at least two copies of the Book of Mormon and one of the gigantic tome with all the writings in it."

This seems invasive, too.

But it was this one that really raised my hackles:

"I had a similar neighbor and he had a pro-choice bumper sticker on his car. I went over one veeery early morning and overlaid it with a pro-choice bumper sticker. It was weeks before he discovered it."

I feel like this one, if you want to be dramatic, borders on tresspassing and destruction of someone else's property.  At the very least, it made her even more douchey than the pro-life neighbor.  Why do people feel (on both sides of the fence) that if someone disagrees with them, they have the right to mess with the other person?

So what do you think?  Is it good to harass people through the mail?  Are you in the right?  Is the only opinion that matters yours?

This whole thing really bugged me, so I want to know what other people think.

The One With the Picky Eater and the Cake

K is a picky eater.

She doesn't like to try new things, and if you ask her if she wants to experience something new, usually, she'll say no. Generally, if you cajole her into trying something new, whether she likes it or not, she'll make this face, to prove a point:

She also doesn't like frosting. This actually isn't so unbelievable, because most frostings on store-bought cakes and cupcakes are teeth-vibratingly sweet. She's very adamant about the fact that she doesn't like frosting.

I was watching K last night while D was out working, and I told her I had to make a Big Gay Cake for my Big Gay Book club. (Well, actually, I just told her it was for my book club.), and she was watching me make the cake, sad that she couldn't have any of it until after the meeting.

I finished the cake part, and said, "OK, now I have to make the frosting." (Side Note: Boxed cake mixes and canned frostings are not allowed in my kitchen unless they're being used in a recipe for something else entirely.) She made the face like she'd eaten something terrible and said, "I don't like frosting!" and I said, "Good thing the cake's not for you." She blinked at me and ran off, singing/chanting with her face all colors of the rainbow, having literally stuck her face in the bowls to lick the remnants of cake batter.

She'd been licking the bowls, spatulas, and beaters and was already pretty hopped up on sugar, so she was literally bouncing around the apartment, making up songs about whatever was going on. ("Sarah's making a cake! La la la la la!! It's got lots of colors!!! La la la la la!!!! I'm going to play Super Nintendo now!!!!! La la la la la!!!!!!)

I mixed the buttercream frosting and she bounced back in, and just watched, eyeing the frosting suspiciously.

She inched closer to it, eyed it, and said, "Me try?" (Yes, she's 7. I'm not sure where the baby talk she occasionally lapses into comes from.) I said she could, and she stuck her finger into the bowl. After she tried it, it was like she had discovered a whole new world.

A whole new sugar-laden world.



Seems she didn't like frosting because she'd never had the good stuff.


Now she's all excited for me to get home from book club, because she wants a full piece (not just bits and pieces) of cake.

Also, this is what I found on our grocery list this morning:



Also, here is the cake, before and after frosting (I'll have a picture of it sliced after book club tonight):

The One Where I'm Socially Awkward Sometimes

I am feeling more awkward at this moment than any human being has a right to feel.

First of all, I have some. . .aspects of my personality that I have, previously, thought could be attributed to being autistic. Then I did some research (Thanks, hypochondriac-ism!) and found out that it's a thing that's diagnosed in childhood, and not in adulthood. I, admittedly, don't know a whole lot about it, and it is the furthest thing from my mind to insult anyone who actually has to deal with things of this nature, but, you know, you don't know unless you ask. Or, in my case, research.

I just find that a lot of things that happen to me in social situations are largely unexplainable, unless the explanation is that I'm just really, really awkward. I mentioned this to my mother a while back, and said something like, "Well, that's just because I'm socially awkward," and she's all, "Um, no you're not."

I feel like she has No Idea.

I guess the difference is that I am (sometimes) able to curb the awkward, pretending like I'm super-comfortable in social situations, when, in fact, I'd honestly rather be at home, by myself or with D, making Candy Sushi, which I will, in fact, be doing tonight. I guess if there were something, legitimately, physically (or mentally?) wrong with me, I wouldn't be able to fake it.

A lot of the symptoms (granted, they show up in kids, but I don't have anything else to go on), fit me. Stuff like autistic (children) may: (and I got all this from here)

* Be overly sensitive in sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste;

* Have unusual distress when routines are changed;

* May not respond to eye contact;

* Prefer to spend time alone, rather than with others;

* May find normal noises painful;

* May withdraw from physical contact because it is overstimulating or overwhelming;

* Gets stuck on a single topic or task;

* Has a short attention span;

* And so on.

I don't know. Obviously, I don't have this particular issue, but it WOULD explain weird behaviors sometimes, and would further explain why, in social situations, I find myself just not sure what to do or responding inappropriately. And then you throw in my OCD, and I find myself feeling uncomfortably, intensely horrible when I realize I've done something in a non-social normy kind of way. It tortures me.

If I DID have autism, it might also explain being unapproachable, which D mentioned today. That wasn't the first time I've heard that, but I think of myself as pretty friendly, especially at work, and it just kind of sucks that other people don't see me the same way I see me. But I really don't have any excuse except being. . .unapproachable, and apparently, unfriendly. (I'll get to that in a minute.)

Reminds me of about. . .12 years ago, I guess, when my mom's neighbors had their granddaughter over for a few days. She was my age, and I was introduced to her, and she and I hung out while she was there. The last day of her trip, we were sitting on the front stoop, and she was like, "You know, when I first saw you, you didn't look very interesting or very much fun. But you are!"

A compliment, ultimately, sure. But damn. I don't look very interesting, I don't look like very much fun, I'm not approachable, I'm intimidating, I'm not very pretty (thanks, guy in my Sociology class), and as a child, I had ears the size of small satellites. (OK, no one ACTUALLY ever said that to me, but I have photographic evidence, yo!) I do actually have a few friends here and here, and D's not someone I made up, so obviously, people like me a little sometimes. It's just. . .hard to acknowledge that you come across as so completely different than you think you do.

All this being said, I'm finally getting to the reason I feel so awkward right now.

Three people at work are leaving/have left this week and next. This one guy who, I wasn't FRIENDS with, per se, but with whom I had a healthy rapport was heading out. He stopped at the door and turned back to say bye to me. He comes up to my window, shakes me hand, and says, "Take care, Sarah."

And what do I say?

Nothing.

I do not respond whatsoever.

I half-smile at him and shake his hand, but no words come out of my mouth. No, "It's been nice knowing you!" or "Good luck at your new job!"

Nothing.

I stupid half-smile at him and then he turns and walks away, probably thinking to himself, "Wow! How unfriendly and unapproachable is SHE? Plus, her freaking ears stick out halfway from her head!"

And so now I'm sitting here, agonizing about it. I'm probably never going to see this guy again, but somehow, that makes it WORSE. Because now, any time he thinks of his last day here, he's going to be like, "Wow. . .she didn't even say bye!"

(Note: I, in all of my common sense, know that he probably will never think of that exchange again as long as he lives, but tell that to my stupid, stupid BRAIN!)

So after stewing in that for a few minutes, I did what any person in my position would do.

I went to the breakroom and cut myself a slice of his farewell cake.

What did you expect, really?

The One With the Second Gay Book Club Meeting

Had my second Gay Book Club meeting a couple weeks back and it was, as is to be expected, something worth making commentary on.

D and I got to the Busy Bee Cafe early. D's been carless for. . .a while now, so we pretty much have to either travel everywhere in a pack, or someone sits at home, unable to go anywhere except to the places of business within walking distance. This place was NOT within walking distance.

We'd been arguing about. . .something, I don't even remember, and we'd just grudgingly ended the argument, so we're sitting there, tersely, with our respective beers when Charles walks in, carrying his copy of the book, and a giant fruit tart.

Yeah, a giant fruit tart.

Turns out, when I'd RSVP'd for the October book club meeting, and I'd made reference to the fact that the meeting would take place the day before my birthday. Charles had mis-read what I'd said and thought that THAT day was the day before my birthday. So he brought me a celebratory fruit tart.

How awesome is that? Seriously. I've met this guy once, and he's bringing me birthday fruit tarts. Very sweet.

So we stand there for a few minutes, until 6:30, when we're supposed to start, and NO ONE ELSE has shown up. I introduce Charles to D, who is working on something for one of his clients, they make small talk, and then we decide that probably no one else is coming. Book club members be damned! We're going to sit and have a couple of beers, maybe some dinner, and we're going to talk about this book.

Now, if you'll recall, this is an LGBT book club. D, bless his heart, who is neither L, G, B, OR T (Just D), was all, "Hey. I'll join you!"

So he did.

We sat and talked some about the book (which I didn't like, Charles liked mostly, and D had not read) until this other guy showed up. I THINK his name was Derek. He was very proper. Nice enough. Just very proper.

We sat there, talking about the book, drinking beers, and eating hummus. The hummus was pretty good. Needed some more flavor, though.

(I'm realizing at this point that this story is not as interesting as I'd initially thought. Sorry.)

We ordered dinner. Charles had the "Hot" Ham Sandwich (ham with gouda, jalapenos, sweet potato paste stuff and arugula) which he said wasn't actually that hot. Derek(?) had a hamburger. He told the waitress, "When I say 'nothing but cheese' I mean I want nothing on it but cheese. No vegetables. No onions. No lettuce. Just. Cheese. Do you understand?"

Yikes.

D and I split a burger. The burger itself was really good. It was a "Tom & Jack" burger (with pepperjack cheese and fried green tomatoes). I wasn't too thrilled with the fried green tomatoes, but at least now I can say I've tried them.

And then there was the fruit tart.

My God, I love a fruit tart.

We stayed until 9:30 or 10, and then headed home (with the leftover fruit tart). D charmed the gay menz, and a good time was had by all.

Hopefully next time, when we read this book, there will be more people. It was fun with 4, though.

Also, I'm supposed to pick the book for November, and I haven't come up with anything yet. Any suggestions? (It doesn't have to be LGBT-centered, by the way.)

The One With the Gay Book Club

It occurs to me that I never really said anything about my Gay Book Club. I have had a thing sitting in my "posts to edit" list for a while about it, but I never went back to it. So here's that.

I wrote all about my first Book Club experience. Well, my first one HERE. When I lived in the mountains, I went to a book club a couple times, but I was the wrong. . .demographic. I know I'm going to be all mad about being older when I get older, but for the time being, it sucks how very few people will take me seriously, due to age. This was definitely the case at the Mountain Book Club.

So I searched for a different book club and came up with something called Q Readers. Q Readers is an LGBT book club, and I realized that here, I had found My People. (I don't. . .think I need to clarify which of those letters I fit under. I mean. . .if you REALLY need clarification, by all means, I'll tell you.)*

I'd signed up for the inaugural meeting, but was out of town. . .I think it's when Carol got married. . .so I didn't make it. Apparently, that was a good thing, because there are two Borders' on the road where it was held, and most of the people went to the wrong one. So there were a bunch of pissed off queens, and not a lot got done.

Anyway, the same week as the Awful Book Club of Doom, (Heeeey. . .the ABCD!), which was on a Tuesday, there was a Q Readers meeting that Friday. On Thursday, I got an e-mail reminder saying, "Hey! Your group is meeting tomorrow, and you haven't RSVP'd!" D was out of town, so I thought, "Why the hell not?" I RSVP'd "Yes" while I was at work and went to the library after work to get the book.

It was "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn. The book has 272 pages, so I knew reading it by the time book club rolled around the next night wouldn't be a problem. (Incidentally, I did finish it, and had time to start a second novel. I read quickly, as you might have guessed.) Why I did not like the book could take up an entire other entry, so I won't get into it. But I finished it, and that's what mattered.

I got to the (correct) Borders' and found the group's founder, Charles, a short, friendly black guy. We introduced ourselves and chit-chatted. Next to show up was Michael, a ridiculously tall, ridiculously LOUD white guy. The last person to show up was this guy named Craig, who I loved, by the way. He looked like that actor, Kevin James, but reminded me so much of my friend John from high school, I had to send John a text when I left telling him about it.

Me and three really gay guys. THIS was what I was used to. These were My People.

So we sat and talked about the book, and talked about other stuff, too. It was revealed that I am, in fact, not a lesbian (mark that letter off the list!), when Craig suggested another group I could join, made up of Professional Lesbians. This followed with a discussion of Chasing Amy, and a discussion about D.

After asking if I'd be willing to share D (I demurely declined), it was decided that he should become the club mascot, standing shirtless by the table where we meet and holding up a giant rainbow flag. These guys were all up ons the idea of D. (This sounds creepy. It wasn't.)

The other thing I should mention is that these guys all knew each other in one form or another from other groups, but they included me in all the conversations. Awesome.

Charles had what I believe was the comment of the evening, though, when he said, "I'm also a member of a gay law enforcement group. . .it's me and a bunch of lesbians." For some reason, I really laughed at that.

So I'll be going back this month, and possibly taking D with me. He said he'd like to go, because he's never been to a book club meeting before. This month's book is "Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal." It's OK so far. . .but it's kind of dense and hard to read. It's also very disconcerting that I got the "special edition" when I requested it from the library, and now it looks like I'm carrying around a Bible and randomly reading it. That makes me feel awkward.

No more awkward than carrying around the other book I'm reading, I guess, which is Kitty Kelley's biography on Oprah. For the record, I can't stand Oprah, but the book got so much controversy I, of course, had to read it.

*I was going to make some stupid joke like, "Obviously. . .I'm a MTF transsexual!" But then I was afraid that people would take me seriously and be looking at me funny. Also, it may or may not have been in poor taste. Of everything I've been called in my lifetime, a former man is not one of them. For the record, I have all my original ladybits. kthnx.

The One Where Craigslist Creeps Me Out

Last night, D and I were looking through the personal ads on craigslist. Not looking for anything in particular, just checking out the depravity that takes place online.

And what we found was amazing.

One that caught my attention was someone (a dude) who was looking for a woman who wanted. . .oral attention on the way home from work. He noted the highway he lived by, and said that if anyone (he specified people in relationships) wanted some "oral attention" on their way home from work, he would be more than happy to oblige.

. . .what?

Then there were plenty of people who wanted random hookups (those are to be expected), relationships (also expected), and one guy who was dying to get it on with a transgender person.

. . .WHAT?

I mean, I get that people like sex. I get that some people like a lot of sex with a lot of different people. But it's like. . .why specify that you want someone in a relationship? Why look for something when YOU are in a relationship? There was one that specified that the guy was in a relationship, and that he wanted a woman who was also in a relationship.

How about (and here's a crazy thought) you. . .have sex with the person you're in a relationship with? Even when I found myself in the Other Woman position (yeah, yeah. I know.), there was no sex. Was not a thing. I don't understand the people who go out and that's specifically what they're looking for: sex (or. . .whatever) with NOT the person they're seeing.

All of this doesn't even include how skeezy I find it to troll for sex online, even when you're single. Sure, when you're single, you can do whatever you want, but. . .why would you want to do random people? Not having had a giant number of sexual partners (Hint: That number is fewer than 2), maybe I just don't understand the allure. But I feel like posting pictures of your junk online is just gross. If you have to find someone online, why not try a legit dating Web site? (There was an ad for one on a Web site I visit called PlentyOfFish.com. See? Cute name AND I'm guessing there are no photos of naked junk. Although, to be fair, when all written out with no capital letters, it looks like the name of the site is Plenty Offish, which doesn't make any sense at all.)

What took the proverbial cake, though, was a listing D found. Apparently, a middle-aged homosexual gentleman had received. . .oral stimulation from a random, unknown 20-ish homosexual gentleman. He didn't know his name or anything else (CREE-PY!). His main concern was that his. . .junkular piercing (a sentimental gift of some kind) had gone missing, and the dude was afraid that the unknown young man had swallowed it. He wanted it back. Understandably. He even helpfully included a picture of what the ring looked like, in case the younger dude was crapping out several genital piercings and needed to know specifically which one this guy was looking for. Luckily, it was a generic stock photo of said piercing and not a photo in which the ring was. . .attached to anything.

My first question here, I guess, would be why in the name of all that is holy would you give something like that as a gift? WHO gave him this gift? Possible suspects:

1. Friend, as a gag gift;

2. Former Lover, not as a gag gift;

3. Supportive Grandmother

I really don't know. But I feel like, in this situation, rather than taking it to craigslist, the guy should call Grandma and fess up.

"Hey, Grams, it's Kris. Yeah, things are going fine. Work's good. What's that? Oh, yeah, Mom's doing well. I'll tell her to call you. Listen! The PA you got me for Christmas got swallowed by some random dude. . .I know, right? You'd think he would have noticed. No, I met him at a bar. Yeah. You think you could send me a new one for my birthday? Excellent. Thanks! See you at Thanksgiving! Give Snuffles a kiss for me!"

Snuffles, obviously, is Grandma's cockapoo. Ironically.

So there's that. How I Spent My Tuesday Night.

Synopsis: Craigslist is a little sketchy.

The One With the Gay Lion

As I sit here in Panera and write this, a girl that I went to high school with, who HA. TED. ME, is sitting across the room. I feel like she keeps looking at me, and every time I look over at her, and she glances up, I look away. I probably look like a stalker. She, apparently, has not ended her infatuation with men of other ethnicities. The guy that she dated all through high school and through most of the years I was in college was a black guy, and the guy she's dating now ("Jerry" according to the guy who just called out that their order was ready) is Hispanic. None of that is relevant to anything, except that it's making me nervous that she's sitting there, and I haven't seen her in. . .at least 5 years.

So I started work on Monday, and I must say, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Basically what I'm doing is working for a company that works with publishing companies. The project I'm working on is something they were commissioned to do for either Texas schools or Ohio schools (I can't remember which), where they are "measuring" the textbooks used to see if, by using these textbooks, the students are getting the proper amount of knowledge for use in either college, or after college graduation.

I have to admit here that when I was initially told I was going to be "measuring" books, I thought they meant that literally. Like, I was going to be seeing how long the books were. This was before I knew what the project was (I'm assuming that the length and width of a book has nothing to do with its readibility.) So I load the scanned books into this software program that "reads" them and highlights information as either being text, pictures, graphs, or whatever, and I go through and delete all the information that doesn't need to be run through and analyzed. Stuff like pictures, page numbers, chapter titles, headers and subheaders and stuff like that.

I'm pretty sure that my description of this is really, really dull, but I'm actually really enjoying my job. I can wear jeans to work, I can listen to music while I'm working, and nobody bothers me. My supervisor comes over, like, once a day to check and see how things are going, and the woman that works with my supervisor comes over to bring me hard copies of the books I'm working on, but other than that, that's it. Plus! They have a fridge full of soda (Diet Coke included) that I can help myself to. It's pretty much ideal.

The only issue I'm having is that while I'm going through these books, I have a tendancy to want to stop and read them. A lot of these have really interesting essays and stuff like that (I'm doing mostly English and grammar and rhetoric books) and I have to fight to keep from reading them a lot of the time.

The other day, I was editing a section on arguments, and an essay (that I didn't read in its entirety, but that I read parts of) caught my attention. The author was arguing that The Lion King is racist and homophobic. Her (I think it was a woman) point was that the hyenas (which were dark, which means they were black) were sequestered to the otuskirts of the Pridelands, along with Scar (whosed mane was also black), who, apparently, represents gay people. The point was that the "black" and the "gay" characters were being shunned.

This? Blew my mind. I can pretty much find gay undertones in anything you put in front of me, but I have never until now even considered that there was anything gay about Scar. If you were to say, "Sarah, find something gay in The Lion King," I would point to Timon and Pumbaa. Scar might sound a little bit British, but other than that, I just don't see it.

I was going to do some more in-depth research on this, looking at other places online, to see if anyone else had said anything about it, but I haven't done that yet. What I have done, however, is present the theory to D, who I expected to find it just as ludicrous and I did.

That is not actually what happened.

This is:

"Yeah," he says. "I had never really sat down and thought about it, but yeah. I think he represents the gays."

I asked him to elaborate, and he says, "Well, he's thinner, sleeker than the other, 'straight' lions. . ."

"He's ostracized and doesn't get enough to eat!" I argued.

"I don't know," says D. "I feel like there's nothing stereotypically gay about him, but that you just kind of understand that he is."

"I don't understand he is," I say.

I can't necessarily remember the rest of that conversation, but the basic gist (jist?) is that I am, apparently, the only person ever who didn't see that Scar was gay. Anyone else? I don't know how many people actually read this, but I'd be interested to get some other input. Do you think Scar is supposed to be gay? Am I missing a huge thing here? (Yes. I realize how 'stereotypically' gay he looks in this picture. It's called irony.)

I'm really disturbed by this whole concept. Not that he's (maybe) gay, but that I didn't see it. Then again, I tend to miss obvious gays. The subtle gays, I'm like, "Hey! He likes men!" But if it's right there in front of me? I tend to miss it. Par example, when I saw Adam Lambert for the first (and only) time on the one episode of American Idol I was roped into watching, I insisted he wasn't gay.

Yeah.