Bower of Bliss

One person CAN make a difference

Last week I wrote about how I had gotten into an e-mail dialogue with the pastor of a Baptist church after I wrote to him expressing my concerns over one of those "save hetero marriage from the fags" banners hanging on the church lawn. We actually went back and forth a few times before I accepted that he was never going to do anything but spit Jesus and scripture back at me as the answer to all of my arguments that what he was doing was perpetuating bigotry and violence toward gay people. I also wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper expressing my outrage as a citizen that more people were not disturbed by this banner hanging in their community. Well, today I walked past the church, and the banner is gone! I don't know if I had anything to do with it, for the paper never actually printed my letter and the pastor was pretty adamant that he had righteousness on his side, but the banner is gone, so this is a banner day, then, for equality everywhere. Every day I come to understand more and more what the Dalai Lama meant when he said "Be the change you want to see in the world." I'll sleep tonight knowing that one person does make a difference.

Annie Proulx wrote a story called Brokeback Mountain, about two cowboys who fall in love in Montana and how their love remained even after each man got married and led separate lives. It's a pretty sexy story. Ang Lee "won" the rights to turn it into a motion picture, and Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger are to play the lead roles. Lee recently has gone on record that he will be cutting the sex scenes out the movie because he feels that the sight of two men herding sheep is sexier than actually watching them get it on. What the fuck? Is that supposed to NOT make gay-panicked Americans think of sex with sheep when they think of gay men? In his next movie, will he show Jennifer Connelly and Colin Farrell milking cows and slopping pigs together instead of male/female intimacy? I don't know if I am more outraged at his explanation or the fact that he is willing to destroy the integrity of the source story because he's afraid of making a movie that will challenge people's fears. But then again, look what he did to The Hulk. Does anyone in Hollywood have any integrity left?

I heart Susan Sontag. And here is just one reason why. Regarding the Torture of Others The link requires NYTimes registration, but it is so worth it (and free) to read Sontag's essay on the Iraqi prisoner torture.

My body aches from a weekend of cutting down trees and dragging giant stumps into the woods. Not an ache like I threw my back out and drying myself off after a shower is an ordeal, but an ache like I used my body for good things this weekend. I'm the first person to rally for a weekend spent on the couch watching movies and eating carbs, but there is something visceral and satisfying about making the earth bow to your demands. I used a chainsaw so much my whole body was still shaking two hours later. SweetieKins and I are actually starting to see our yard taking the shape that we imagine. And we've scouted out the primo spot for the pool, which if all goes well will be installed in a couple of years!

Splash!

I've gotten myself into a very interesting debate with a pastor I've never met. I was walking past a Baptist church the other day and they had a banner outside heralding the defense of marriage. I actually walked up to the door and was going to shout SHAME at whoever was inside. In the house of the Lord, however, no one was home. I went back to work, found their web site, and wrote the pastor an e-mail telling him that he should be ashamed of himself for acting in this very un-Jesus like way, dividing and separating insteadof joining and loving, urging him to tear that disgusting banner down. To my surprise, he wrote back, and not to my surprise, he called me a sinner and threw Bible passages at me. I, of course, wrote back, throwing his Bible passages back at him and throwing in some more for good measure. I'm not really sure where this is all going. He's never going to change his mind. I'm just a sinner until I embrace Christ. But it feels good to call people out on their bigotry even if they don't see themselves as bigots. Maybe once this is over I'll post our dialogue, since I am saving all of the correspondence. I expect him to respond. You know these fundies just have to get all up in your pew and have the last word. Word!

We are unofficially at war with the local town tax collector. The story is way too long to blog, but we basically owe 155 dollars to the town for a 6-year-old car tax bill. Because we are now property owners in a town we previously lived in then moved out of then returned to, they have found us, though we didn't even know we were being sought after all this time. The local town office admins exist on that level of hell right below DMV employees. And you can imagine how not happy that makes them. If you've ever had to "fight city hall," you know there is no winning (sorry Carol Brady, that shit just didn't happen!). While there may not be winning, there is something to be said for poking the monkey in the cage. I wonder how much 155 in pennies weighs? The guy said we can pay in cash, and pennies are cash.

I finally put in the new mailbox yesterday, woohoo!! No more Christmas tree stand, although I must revel in my ingenuity in using the stand as a makeshift mailbox post. **patting myself on the back** It's like we have a whole new front yard. What a difference a little white post makes!

Yesterday was good day after a weekend from hell. Working in the yard was like an emotional bandaid for me. It felt good to reconnect to something real and tangible, something like dirt that doesn't try to shame you.

Angela Rita

I love you for always holding my hand, for feeding me sometimes strange but always delicious food, for humming in the kitchen as you cooked, for singing along to my piano playing while I was still learning to play, for never playing favorites, for always smiling, for your mammoth jigsaw puzzles, your fridge that always had apple juice, your garden in Queens that always had basil, your insatiable appetite for bingo, for grabbing my hand as I walked past you and twirling me around in a dance, for your New York accent we all loved to tease, for hard bread and gravy, and the secret for keeping the bread from turning soggy, for insisting on displaying that picture of me with the perm, for Michigan rummy penny gambling, for making the world seem safe, for the sweetness nothing could taint.

Rest in peace. You’ve earned it.

As if anyone needs another reason to hate Disney, they are trying to block Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 911, from being released in the states. I feel like driving down there and grabbing that mouse by his little rodent balls and shoving him up George Bush's ass. At least then he'd have an easier time milking Bush's prostate.

I thought America meant freedom. I'm not so sure anymore.

I still can not get over the amount of porn spam I get at work. It's not that it bothers me, in fact I don't see anything wrong with starting the day with an eye full of wang, but the overwhelming majority of the spam I get is nasty girlie porn with close ups of dripping orifices, and I am so not about the bisquit. And it's not like people at work haven't pointed out to our IT geeks that there is a LOT of porn getting through our filters. I was thinking this morning that all of this porn spam is targeted to straight men, as most porn in the world is, and that if there was suddenly a flood of guy-on-guy action coming into our e-mail inboxes that it would ostensibly be a priority to get rid of the spam, because that of course would be offensive, and what straight guy wants to look at rock hard wang? None that will admit it at least. But as long as there are dripping twats for the horn dogs to gawk at while they slowly hit that delete button, the porn will continue to flood in.

It's a conspiracy theory I am comfortable believing. And I'll stop complaining about the porn as soon as I get to see some dick dripping man eggs. Although I have to admit that I am oddly drawn to looking at the granny porn. Not in a sexual way, but in a train wreck, who-would-do-such-a-thing way.