From the Worst Day Ever to the Best Day Ever

My day started with my boss screaming at me. Aparently last year I was a wonderful employee and she does not know what has happened to make me the plague of the earth. She cut my hours from over forty to thirty five - not one minute over. I'm not sure how we're going to eat with The Fiancee getting so few hours. And there is only one way she could know that I'm such a "horrible" employee. My one bakery co-worker: The Baker. The Baker tells me all fucking day that I'm "number one" and "flawless". All fucking day. And then this. And when I didn't say a word to her all morning she played dumb. "I know nothing! What happened?"

Right.

Then I took my glasses off to go into the freezer (they fog up for half an hour when I don't take them off) and on my way out I knocked them off the table and stepped on them. Best day ever. Now I have to see if my frames are ruined and go all the way back to Costco to have them fixed. Until then I shouldn't drive.

But tonight (after I passed out on the floor in the bedroom of exhaustion an hour before I SHOULD have gotten home) The Fiancee and I went to the tavern to have a drink with the Mothers of the Brides. And I feel sooooo much better.

We met to discuss whether or not we're going to put the deposit down on the place we want to get married. We thought we'd have a drink, sign the papers and be done. We ended up being there over two hours and a couple glasses of wine each. We had the waitress who knows us by name and loves us to death, who inquired about our planning and started telling us just what kind of wedding gowns we should wear. It was wonderful. We talked guest list, told stories from our childhoods, joked that the mothers of invention t-shirts should be edited for the mothers of the brides. The Fiancee and I were crying when they handed us checks for the deposit. Both of them are giving us so much, and I don't mean money. They are whole-heartedly supporting us, throwing out ideas, telling all their friends, getting excited over different options for table decorations.

The Fiancee's mother kicked her out when she found out she was gay years and years ago. She has come a long way.

They made me feel so good. It ultimately doesn't matter what happens at work. I would like to avoid drinking Miller Lite all summer (like last year) but this is not my career. I'm going to be a history teacher and I have a feeling I'm going to love it. This is just some shit job I'm doing while I'm in school getting to where I'm going. It's hard to remember that when I'm paying the bills or standing silently ten feet away from someone who talks shit about me behind my back. But it's true. I am blessed. I have a supportive family who loves me and whom I really do like. On her side and my side. And talking to my mother about her meeting all my friends made me glow. I can't wait. She will love them and I think they will love her. She's smart, no nonsense and motherly at the same time. And, of course, I have a woman with whom I am madly in love, who can reach over and put her hand on my knee and make my problems melt away.

Seeing our mothers tonight made me feel like I can go into work tomorrow without the anger and without fighting the tears as I did today. I have a feeling I will be slamming things around and swearing less, too. And you know what? I like The Baker. She's a fascinating person. Even if she deals with things poorly and is scared shitless of confrontation. I'm going to go in there to study her fucked-up brain and when things get overwhelming I'm going to think of my future wife and our evening with our mothers.

Blessed Be

Ruane

I thought the Bush Administration was bad about giving favors to friends. THIS makes me fucking crazy.

Okay, so Policitian can't pay into a retirement fund because of technicality. In 1994, he has the option to start paying, BUT DOESN'T. Then he gets old. Then he gets sick. Then someone notices that he has no money. Then the state government decides that it is their business to give him money. Because he was a good Polician and they like him/feel bad for his wife. Then they spend weeks of lawmaking-time figuring out how to give him money. And they do. But they don't want it to appear that they're just giving him the money, so his family has to sell his house and pay that to the state to make up for what he would have paid had he contributed his whole life. When they all die. Basically they get money but don't leave a house to their heirs.

I am sure that he was a very nice man. I'm sure that if I met his wife I would feel bad for her too. And it is unfortunate that his pension crap worked out the way it did. But his lack of financial planning is not my government's probem. HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A FULL PENSION FROM PAYING FOR ONLY TEN YEARS STARTING IN 1994! If every state employee who didn't plan for retirement got help, we wouldn't have a government, we would have a bank. I don't care that his family is paying the state. Any legislation enacted for one person is sketchy. Very sketchy.

If the rich politicians feel so bad for him, why don't they use their influence to start a private fund for his survivors? They would end up being able to give his wife a lot more money without wasting everybody's time. But no. Rich politicians use their influence to make us pay for it in time and money.

I'm sorry that he's died. But he had his whole life to plan for this. He could have fixed everything in 1994. No one can say he didn't know about the legislation HE WAS A LAWMAKER. That's like a lawyer claiming not to know stealing is against the law.

He should not get his own legislation. But he is. The State has failed us on this one.

Pardon Me While I W(h)ine

I proof, bake, bag, sticker and stock more bread than pictured every single day if you count rolls.
By myself.
My employer does not understand the phrase "understaffed".
This moment of self-pity was brought to you by:
AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I miss my blog. I feel as though we've been apart a long, long time.

I began working at the bakery at the grocery store again June 1. It took me until four days ago to want to kill someone. That's not bad. But I'm going to complain anyway. What's a blog if not therapy? Most of the people who read this work twice as hard as me (coffeesnob) and I have no right to complain. But today I don't care.

Working 8-5 5-6 days/week. Get screamed at for punching out late (I really leave between 5:30 and 6:30). Boss tells me "working faster is this wonderful new concept, you should try it". Fridays my co-worker (who freaks the fuck out whenever I ask questions, but if I do anything wrong gets all upset - can't win) says she's schizo. It's true, Fridays suck because we have to bake bread for the weekend, do a bunch of orders and get like three different loads in that all need to be put away in the negative twenty degree freezer sometime inbetween it all. But on Saturdays my boss, my boss' boss, my boss' boss' boss, the store manager, and occasionally the owner and owner's son all hang around the bakery impeding our progress, asking stupid questions, joking with us grunts because they're oh-so-in-touch, giving us new orders to do this and that and add this and that (without adding employees or hours) and making my co-worker even more frazzled.

UGH!

The upside of the bakery: no meat. I am not up to my elbows in ham and franks like in the deli. Not swimming in raw (and often questionable) fish or racking raw chickens for hours. All good things. Don't have to wear my "other" shoes because of drippings and ickiness. But I do have to exercize unbelievable amounts of self-control not to eat frosting and cake all day long. I think I gained five pounds my first week back - even with all the running around and heavy lifting.

So I get home at the end of the day, take off my horrible little uniform, and lie on the floor and stretch my aching body (I didn't remember how much physical work the bakery involves versus the deli or the kitchen). I spend half an hour on the floor stressing over The Fiancee's lack of hours, my inability to get more, how I can manage to make my schedule match hers more (only one day a week together, and when she works she leaves just as I get home), and the rest of it. Then shower, wine, food, wine, tv, wine, and, finally, bed-later-than-I-should-because-I-love-being-exhausted-at-work-oh-so-very-much.

So the blog has been neglected. While I'm bagging bread I'm writing blog entries in my head. Sad, I know. I hope to get to writing down a few of the ones festering in my brain in the next few days. The Fiancee's working a few nights that leave me home alonely in the near future, so maybe I can get them done then.

Oh, and planning a wedding is not stressful at all. There aren't a million little aspects to worry about and two mothers of the bride trying to help and get their two cents in. Nope. No stress here.

The Crap That Straight But Not Narrow Folks Don't Know

A friend recently posted about a musician being attacked and it got me thinking. All my friends and almost everyone I know is totally supportive; these are the people who think the way they should - that being gay is no big deal. Shruggable. They don't blink when they find out someone is gay. The Fiancee recently had this wonderful experience at work.

But these people, the ones who think exactly the way I want them to, are often the most ingnorant about how bad things really are. They don't care that people are gay. Most people they know don't care that people are gay (especially around here). So things must be getting better for gays and lesbians. Right?

Wrong. My own mother thinks we're fine and dandy. I've given up trying to tell her about how close we are to losing everything and going backward forty years. Check out 365gay if you want to know what is really going on. Look it up every day for a week. For every one positive article there are three negative ones.

But my point here is that I want to share the not-so-happy events in my homosexual life. I came out at 14 and with relatively few exceptions was well-received. For your education, and my therapy, here is some of my story, emphasis on the negative.

It occurred to me that I might be gay one day around my thirteenth birthday (seventh grade). I spent six months in a suicidal state, battling with myself over whether I was straight (didn't think so), bi (maybe) or gay (uh oh). Even for kids like me, raised in a liberal household with gay aunts, it was terrifying to think that I might like girls. This messed up all my ideas of what my future would be like. It made me wonder who my friends would be once they knew. It made me want to know what the hell being gay meant anyway. I have one very special teacher to thank for my not killing myself.

The summer after eighth grade I went to camp. There were three girls who were friends in my cabin. I was very homesick. I could not sleep. My bunk was squeaky. So when I rolled around not sleeping all night, they decided I was watching them. Their little boyfriend called me dyke all week. I came about two inches away from a fist fight with him. It was one of the worst weeks of my young life.

I came out at a diversity training meeting at school. It was just before my fifteenth birthday, beginning of freshman year of high school. I had told a few close friends before that, but that day I came flying out of the closet, screaming at the top of my lungs. I didn't face anything directly, homophobia in the liberal town I grew up in was always behind my back. It was the slow distancing of certain people. It was the car driving by me at night, with an unidentified teenager screaming dyke out the window. It was the kid at the dark beach party screaming to me and my friends "which one of you is the dyke? wanna suck my dick?". And even the best of my friends replying "not me".

Before The Fiancee and I were living together we would go down to the beach at the bottom of her (now our) street a lot. That is until one day, when we were standing there holding hands. Not kissing. Holding hands. There was a little old man who always watched us out his window. That day his wife stuck her head out and screamed "You can't do that here! Get the hell away from here! You're sick!". We were so dumbfounded we stumbled away and never really went back. We've had sticks thrown at us. Snickering at the mall, the grocery store. She gets it worse than me. She has short hair, and therefore is more dykey to your average straight white male. She gets snickered at. Pointed at. Even when I'm not around. It's the worst right after she gets a hair cut. When it happens while I'm with her, I want to kill someone and cry at the same time.

We're careful not to call each other honey in public. We know when and where not to hug, kiss, bump hands against each other. I've felt very, very unsafe in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Maine. One day we were driving to the liquor store from Market Basket, and a white trash bitch in a jeep ended up stuck in traffic right in front of us. I think she expected us to go right, but we wanted to go straight. When we just sat there she leaned out the window and screamed. "What? You fuckin dykes. What? You wanna go? You wanna go you fuckin dykes?" The Fiancee turned right and decided to get the fuck away, to go to another liquor store. We ended up driving toward the main road, parallel to her in the parking lot, with a median in between. She kept right up and kept screaming. I looked right out my window, eye contact all the way to the street, and had my eyebrows up, mouth wide open in a "are you for fucking real? this is hysterical" face. But it wasn't funny. I laughed at her, which pissed her off more. I thought she was going to have a heart attack in that trashy little jeep. But when we got home I felt so unsafe. It took a long time for that feeling to wane.

I would have short hair but I don't want to get snickered at. Is that giving in? I had short hair in middle school and was asked if I was a boy or a girl every fucking day. And before I realized that what was wrong with me was just homosexuality, I wasn't quite sure. I don't have short hair because I'm scared and I never want to be called sir again. I'm a fucking pussy. I give my Fiancee so much props for going out in public every day never knowing what she is going to get.

I'm not even going to go into everything revolving around power of attorney, hospital visits, dealing with our bank account together, or me taking her to the dentist to help her with her phobia. Every little couple thing we do we are afraid that we'll be treated like shit, threatened, laughed at, or kept apart. God forbid we ever have an emergency outside of our home state. Even in our home state there is the threat of a homophobic paramedic who decides to give shitty care to dykes. She needs polish for her engagement ring and we don't want to go to the jewelry stores in the mall together to get it because it becomes far too obvious that we're gay. We need to go to one of the most homophobic parts of Florida in July to attend my uncle's wedding. We're going to be very, very careful - hyperalert.

Straight people will never understand what makes Provincetown so special. It's just another little Cape town. But for us it is the only place we have ever been where we could put our guard completely and totally down. The feeling of relief and relaxation when we step off the boat is indescribable.

Liberaltarian

I kind of like this little quiz. It seems to have been quite accurate. I am exactly between liberal and libertarian. I believe in having the smallest government possible while still providing social services to those in need. I want very few laws governing my behavior and very many services helping me to help myself should I need them. I do want some check on trade and big business, but I also want individuals to be as free as possible. The flip side of the coin is responsibility for what one does with one's freedom. When people harm others they lose their freedom. Violence is the worst type of crime; drug laws have to go. They're costing us money and jamming up our jails. If someone wants to ruin their body, let them. If they want help stopping, help them. If they take drugs and complain that they are miserable, laugh at them.

I do not mind taxes, but I want the majority of my money and government power in the hands of my state. I feel very strongly about local government and states' rights. I don't give two shits what the other 49 do. Federal should watch over trade, deal with foreign relations, have a strong military and provide aid to states in need. All law enforcement should be at the state level with a very small FBI to come in only on inter-state and state corruption cases. I want taxes managed well and welfare-like-programs made rip-off-proof (or at least better than now). I believe that social services for the poor are good for the country, but I also believe in not getting fucked over by people who have kids just to get government money. There will always be an element in society that is poor and miserable. But that group can be smaller with fiscally responsible social services that balance compassion for the poor with a demand for their taking responsibility and working hard to become independent.

Few laws governing behavior.
Many services helping the poor to no longer need services.
Small federal.
Medium state.
Fiscal conservative.
Social liberal.
Liberaltarian.

Psycho Babble Bullshit

It seems we're looking to make everything a disorder. I'm sorry, but "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" (the guys in Iraq know a lot about IEDs, but those aren't assholes with road rage) is bullshit in any case where there is not some sort of brain damage. I read about a case where a guy had a tumor on his brain and became violent. But people who can't handle their rage were raised by monkeys, not mentally ill.

I know that these people need therapy to learn how to not be assholes. I believe that in cases like this, basic cognitive/behavior therapy works really well. And I know that to have health insurance pay for it it needs to have a name. Blue Cross does not cover "issues" or "baggage". It's when the psychologists start believing in the "disorder" themselves that I get really, really disappointed. The disease model makes it not one's own fault. This is true for everything from alcoholism to temper tantrums. GIVE ME A BREAK. The name is not the problem. The behavior is the problem. But finding out how many people do things that fit your favorite new term does not help anyone. OH MY GOD! Did you know that one million percent of Americans get pissed off and throw things? WHAT WILL WE DO?

You'll help those who need help. It does not matter how many people you are going to make money off of. It does not matter what you call their issues. Come up with a name to get the insurance companies off your back and get over yourself. You have NOT discovered anything new. You have just come up with a new name for it. Which does nothing and means nothing.

Why are psychologists so goddamned obsessed with semantics? I will never understand how new labels help folks understand themselves and become better people.

Hell No

Disclaimer: I realize that both the Catholic Church and Tibetan Buddhist Church have true holy men in their ranks. My focus here is on those who are not holy. I mean no disrespect nor do I mean to give the impression that all priests and monks should be seen in a negative light.

I've finally seen enough "Free Tibet" bumperstickers. I have to write about this.

The Dalai Lama (pictured above selling computers; real fucking holy) touts "Free Tibet" everywhere he goes. But the more I learn about both the Dalai Lama and Tibet, the more I think he is just a celebrity politician looking out for himself. Yes, Tibet was terrorized by the communists. And Tibet should not be run by the Chinese. At this point I don't even think China should be run by the Chinese. But the Dalai Lama should not return to being Tibet's sole ruler.

I believe that local government is the best government, everywhere in the world. The closer to home the politicians and rulers are when things go wrong, the better. In that sense, Tibet should be "free". Free to be self-governed.

I also believe in freedom of religion. Religion and government are the two most dangerous institutions; they both hold massive power over the human heart, mind and body. Having both means that they can keep each other in check. If the government fucks up, religious leaders are there to help and lead the people. And vice versa: government can protect people of all religions, and can even protect people from their religion, like in the case of putting pedophile priests in jail.

The DL wants a return to the way things were pre-communist-takeover. Which means that he is both religious and government leader. This is a problem. To put any religious leader in charge of a country's government is dangerous. Not only will Buddhists who disagree with him be vulnerable to incarceration and police action, those who are not Buddhist, the Bonpo, will be in position to be royally screwed. The original religion of Tibet is Bon, a shamanistic, mountain-worshiping religion. They are not well-known outside of Tibet, have no celebrity face to help get Western sympathy, and could easily be taken advantage of if the DL ruled.

About Buddhists who may not agree with the DL: there are two major and three minor schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as numerous mini-schools and wandering lamas. In the late sixteenth century, the position of "Dalai Lama" was given to Sonam Gyatso of the Galupa school by a Mongolian emperor who wanted to recreate the dynasty of Ghangas Khan and needed a spiritual advisor. Because Sonam Gyatso was supposed to be the third incarnation of his series, he became the third DL. All the other schools were at a great disadvantage. Much war and pain ensued. Not only did the other schools have to fight for recognition, power and resources, but every time the DL died there was a battle over who would be next. The position of Dalai Lama is not "natural", ancient, or universally accepted. It is historically a position of hot politics.

What the DL never mentions to his adoring Western fans is that the Tibetan Buddhist Church (for lack of a better term) is more like the Catholic Church than any other institution. It has the same bureaucratic skeleton. It has a history of mysterious DL deaths when they weren't pleasing the rich and powerful. It has a history of little boys getting diddled, as a vow of celibacy is not really all that broken if it's with a little boy. Each monastery had its' own police force (big guys with huge keys attached to long chains, used for crowd control). And many monks became monks because it was easier than farming at 12,000 feet. And they could get drunk every night, even if they weren't supposed to.

I believe that Catholics should be free to be Catholic, and Galupa should be free to be Galupa, despite the hypocrisy and corruption rampant in both institutions. But neither should ever run a country. (I know they will have a lot of power anyway, but there needs to be as much separation as possible).

Tibet is in need of a local government; the Dalai Lama should not be it. When he says "Free Tibet", what he really means is "Give Me Tibet".

Hell no.