Overheard

Yesterday sitting in the chair at my hairdressers (hi Sara) overheard the stylist at the next chair and his client talking about alcholics anonymous.

client:  You know at my first meeting when I spoke?

stylist:  Yeah.

client:  I was drunk

stylist:  I know.  We all knew

client:  You did?  How?  My breath?

stylist:  We could smell the booze on you the minute you walked in the door.

client:  I am so embarressed!

As I was listening to this conversation, I thought what happened to the anonymous part of all this?

Crap

It has been awhile since I posted anything about 580 and my commute.  I think that is because I am now listening to books on CD as I drive.  This is good and bad.  Good cause I listening to one of my favorite series - The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon - hearing it is so much different from reading it - but no, you still can't borrow my books.  And bad cause I don't see as many things along the way.

But this week along 580:

• A pair of sunglasses, sitting nicely on the side of the road next to the barrier.  Totally fine, they looked like they were waiting for someone to grab them off the table on the way out the door.
• A shoe, a shirt, a pair of pants and the remaing shoe.  All in a row like someone had undressed in the car and just thrown them out the window.
• Wild turkeys on the hills - not really crap, but I am sure they leave quite a bit of crap behind.  Yeah really bad, I know.
• Grass growing in the cracks between the lanes.  I would think that there is so much traffic that this would not happen.
• And biggest crap.  The guy driving next to me in traffic on Thursday night.  He had an older car that looked pretty well taken care of.  In the dark I could see the screen of his sound system in the car.  The sound was so loud that stuff in my car was ratteling.  Everytime the bass hit a certain vibration his rear license plate would lift up from the back of his bumper like a leaf being blown around by a leaf blower.  It was awful and I could not get away from him.  Traffic was really bad and he was behind me or next to me or in front of me for miles.  I wondered how he could sit in that car with it so loud.

The Love of a Mother

After my previous post I need to write something nice.  This post is about my mother.  It could not have been easy raising six children.  Our births spanned twenty years of her life.  My oldest brother was close to nineteen when our "baby" was born.  Oh the horror!  My mother believes that she raised us all the same and loves us all equally.  But I question that, since I am her favorite!  My mother has always said "I just want you to be happy".  That could not have been easy for her to say sometimes, but I know she means it.    My mother has also always said don't ask for my opinion if you don't want to hear what I have to say.

In my own pain over the passing of Prop 8 I sent an e-mail to just about everyone one I know about it and my Mommy Dearest was the only one who responded and here is some of what she had to say:

I just was not sure what to say to you so I just thought about it for a while.  Just think my child how far this has come in just a few short years.  Things are changing and you will be seeing it more and more and some day when you look back it will seem a short time.  It all depends where you are looking from. 

I just hope that like most things my mother has told me, that this will also prove to be true.

Broken

I am sometimes so heart broken over something I read.  There are many very sad stories in the newspapers or on line.  We all read them every day are horrified at the things our fellow humans can do.  Sometime I wonder what makes us different?  What makes some people do horrible things?  What separates us from them?  This week I have read two stories - one in England and one here in the Bay Area - they both deal with child abuse and the death of the children involved.

The first was Baby P.  From the picture I saw he was a beautiful 17 month old little boy who lived for so short a time in England.  His mother, her boyfriend and the boyfriends brother did things to him that were so awful that I will not go into them here.  Just think of this, when the poor baby died his back had been broken for at least a few days.  

Here in Antioch 15 year old Jazzmin Davis was so abused by her aunt that she died weighing 78 pounds!  In this story as well the abuse was so awful I find it hard to imagine.  What happens over the course of 15 years that the baby you took in dies with burns from an iron on her?  

In England the legal system protects the identity of the murderers, they can not be named in the press, but the internet population has been very vocal about who they are and what should be done to them.  The unnamed may get 7 years for this horror show.  Our legal system has no such protection and Shemeeka Davis faces murder charges that could send her to jail for life.  And poor Jazzmin's twin brother also faces a life sentence of dealing with abuse he received and the guilt he must feel for still being alive.

In both these cases there was a common element - child social services.  Both homes received visits.  In the Baby P case, he had actually been taken away from his mother but had been returned.  The police had stepped in and asked that he not be returned to the home, but had been over ruled by social services.  Jazzmin's Antioch home had been visited by her social worker who saw nothing amiss.  One could argue that Jazzmin was old enough to speak up, but I just imagine how afraid she must have been to not say a word.  Baby P was not old enough to even understand what was happening or to tell anyone, but I am sure he must have also been so afraid.

There must have been others that noticed.  That "thought" something was just not right in these homes who did nothing.  I want to hope the most of us would do something.  I am sure that we all think - of course I would do something.   You are outraged that I would even suggest you might not.  But it just all leads back to my first thoughts - what is the difference between those that can do things like this and us?

Prop H8 demonstration

On my way to the demonstration I sat with a mother.  She was also the Fremont president of PFLAG.  She was on her way to Oakland to join a demonstration there.  He son is 47 and lives in the City.  She told me the story of how he came out to her and her own struggle to accept and let him be him.  He told her that he was the same person he was before he told her he was gay, she just knew one more thing about him.

We stood in front of the beautiful San Francisco City Hall on a beautiful day.  Thousands of people.  Gay, Straight, young, old, babies.  They did not have a real good sound system and we had some trouble hearing some of the speakers.  But you could hear the crowd.  Mark Leno spoke, I always like hearing him speak, wish I could have heard him better.

There were lots of great signs.  Lots of t-shirts with great slogans.  

We stood for a couple of hours before leaving.  I actually felt good that I had come, but wondered what will happen next?

Overhead

On Bart, Saturday on the way to the march on Prop H8.

Father to daughter while watching a small child just learning to walk trying to walk around the train.

Dad:  I miss that stage of parenthood.  I can't wait until you kids have kids.  Of course, there is no hurry on that.

Daughter totally grossed out:  Dad!  I'm thirteen.  Stop talking like that.

A muni driver on his way to work got on at Castro Valley.  He carried a briefcase.  I wondered what did he carry in that case?  His lunch?  A book to read while at lunch?  A map, not a happy thought.  Anyway, about 10 minutes after he got on he and a woman noticed each other.  They seemed to have known each other in the past and had friends in common.  He said to her:  How is your sister?  She said:  Which one?  He said:  Tina.  She said:  Tina?  Tina is dead.

Oh crap is what went thru my head.

Sometimes you overhear things that you don't even understand.  

A woman sat next to me.  A friend of her's got on a couple stops after her and sat across from her.  When the person across from me got up the second woman moved over to her seat against the window.   The woman next to me said what I believe was:

first woman:  hey, I can see your underwear.  

Now, I know this because I could see her underwear.

second woman:  Are you sure?  What color are they?

first woman:  white.

second woman:  oh.

and closed her legs and put her jacket in her lap.

Now, they were not speaking English and I really do not know what they said, but that is what it sounded like to me.

Facebook

I don't get it.  I mean yeah, I get it, but I don't get it.  Why do I need a facebook page?  I write in this blog, if you want to know what is going on in my life, you can read it here.  Do I have to maintain another site?  What would I put there that I don't put here?  If you are interested in me, read and see it here.  I am going to stop my split personality, I am just going to blog and skip the facebook stuff.  It is all making me a little crazy anyway.  Too much pressure and not enough time.

Shut the Fuck Up!

Listening to Cake the other night, they have a song that says:

Just Shut the Fuck Up.  

And it just made me think about something I heard that supporters of Prop H8 have said.  We had an election.  The people of California have spoken.  They do not want gay marriage.  Let it go.

Shut the Fuck Up.

What about that damn Prop 4.  Trying to make young girls tell their parents before they can get an abortion.  This is the 4th time something along these lines has been on the ballot.  

I got news for you.  The people of California have spoken, we don't want this.  Let it go.

Stop using arguments against us that you don't pay attention to when you don't like the results.

Shut the Fuck Up.

Public Demonstration

I am going to my first demonstration tomorrow.  It is at City Hall in San Francisco and is part of a nation wide demonstration against prop H8.  They are hoping to have 1 million people across the country demonstrating in support of gay marriage.

Overhead

I don't even remember where I was when I overheard this.  It was someplace where I could not see who was talking.  Maybe at the movies, yeah, I think so.  Two women were sitting behind me discussing Thanksgiving plans.

One said her mother really wanted to visit her sisters and wanted the woman speaking and her sister along with their spouses to go as well.  I don't know where they were going but it would require a long drive.  Her sister had suggested that the woman speaking and her husband ride to t-day with she and her husband in their RV.  Sounds like a plan.  The woman speaking did not seem to thrilled:

"Imagine being stuck with my sister in a RV for a week.  Travel time up and back.  You know they had to buy a special re-inforced RV because my sister is so fat."

At that point I thought - imagine the poor sister being stuck with you.

Bittersweet

Well it has been three days since we made history in this country.  The first black president.  I am so glad that Obama will be sitting in the oval office.  I feel that he will do as much as he can to make this country better.  To return us to a country that people admire, rather than laugh at.  

But, I cannot participate fully in the joy lots of you feel.  My heart is saddened by the passing of Prop 8 in California.  I just do not understand how a state that could help elect the first black president could then on the same ballot vote to write discrimination INTO our state constitution.

Today at work they had a victory party for Obama, it was lovely to hear the stories of all the people in our office that went out and worked the election.  Some had been working the campaign for months, given so much of their time.  Then some went to other states to guarantee voting rights for people.  To help oversee places where they actually make it difficult for you to vote.  Imagine that.

While I enjoyed the stories, all I could think about was does any of this really matter to me?  I would guess that 99% of the people in my office of about 80 people voted no on prop 8 and I appreciate that.  Only six people have mentioned to me how angry they are that prop 8 passed.  That they just don't understand it.  Me either.

I mean that if I am not equal under the constitution of the state I live in, what am I?  I am sick and tired of hearing people say that as domestic partners we have all the same rights as married people do.  That is so not true, stop saying it!  We don't.  Until we are considered equal to all the rest of you, we are second class citizens and that makes me sad and mad.

Pins and Needles

Sitting here watching election results and I am on pins and needles.  Well, not really because it already looks like Obama will be the winner.  I am on pins and needles waiting for info on Prop 8.  What will happen either way?

My beloved and I were at the polls at 6:30 this morning.  We wanted to be early so that we did not have to wait in a long line.  Well we were number 2 and 3 in line.  We found out something we never knew.  The first person in line when the polls open has to go in and check everything out.  They have to verify that the polling place opened on time, that the ballot box is empty, that the machines are running and who knows what else.  It was interesting.  My ballot was the first one in the machine!  I was number 001.  I walked in with my little cheat sheet and it took me about two minutes to vote.

Hilter and Prop 8?

Reading this mornings Chronicle has made me physically sick.  The arguments from supporters of prop 8 have finally made me afraid.  At a recent "Yes on 8" rally a man named Brad Dacus of something called The Pacific Justice Institute (justice, for whom, I ask) told the crowd that the fight for prop 8 was like the battle against Hitler and urged the crowd not to stand quietly and accept what happened as the Germans did. 

What does that mean?  As far as I can tell the Germans and it seems most of the rest of the world stood by and in some instances participated in, by means of ignoring what what happening, the extermination of not just jews, but the mentally ill, the handicapped, Jevohovah's Witnesses, the Gypsies, the Polish and let us not forget the homosexual.

Nazi Germany started by taking away property, then rights, then dignity, then lives.  Is this what Mr. Dacus means?  Write into the constitution discrimination against one group?  Then lets carry that one step further and take away something else, cause "they" don't deserve to own a home, or have other property, or a job, or a bank account?  Is this what you mean Mr. Dacus?

Most gay men and women I know are out in some way.  Out to our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers.  Due to the internet, causes we give money to, organizations we belong to, places we go can all be easily found.  Would you like our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers to give you our names.  Will you make them afraid that if they don't turn on us that they will be next?  Will this make it easier for you, Mr. Dacus to track us down and slap pink triangles on us and take away our homes, our jobs, our children because you don't consider us "human" enough to have the same things you have and want? 

To those of you that support prop 8 keep in mind you could be next.  Take a good look at your own life and wonder what could happen in a future where rights are taken away because you don't fit someones idea of what is correct and good.  Do you take an anti-depressant?  Does your kid suffer from ADD and take medication?  Can you not have a child?    In Hitler's world all of these and so many more things could have gotten you a one way trip to a death camp and it all started with taking away a right!

I am no longer afraid, I am pissed off.  So Mr. Dacus tattoo a fucking pink triangle on my forehead and keep trying to make us citizens, but not equal under the law.  We won't stand quietly and accept what is happening.  We will go kicking and screaming into the future and in the end, in the perfect world we all long for, we will be able to love, honor and cherish whomever we want.