Why I hate religion.

Religion is one of the worst things that can happen to someone. Faith is fine; belief is good. Trying your best to be a good person within the context of that faith or belief is a laudable goal, but not if religion gets involved.


I mean, religion is one of the most divisive, excluding pigeonholes we Homo sapiens have devised for ourselves. Who cares if you are Catholic or Protestant? The Northern Irish do. What's the huge difference between the Jews and the Christians, persecuting each other for centuries? A testament and a hippie.
I personally identify as agnostic. I believe there might be something out there bigger than myself, a safe place for the souls of my mother and all those who've gone before us. But I don't claim to know what that is, so I prefer not to claim I do.

Religion causes hatred. It encourages bigotry and fear and intolerance. Faith is a wonderful, beautiful thing, and some days I truly wish that I could believe with my whole heart in something I can't see or prove. I think I'd be happier if I could.

But using the "Word of God" (or Allah) to hate, to kill, to ostracize, to bully, to punish, to confine? "God" should not be about those things. The unspeakable atrocities carried out in any god's name are not the fault of faith or belief. They are the fault of religion.

Religion does not create communities. It teaches islationism and intolerance, especially in the "One True Way" religions.

Having been raised in a cult (look it up; Catholicism is a cult) and since broken away from it, I gotta say the idea of a less-structured faith appeals, but I still haven't found anything that truly speaks to me.

Maybe I'll find it; maybe I won't. But you know the worst way to get someone hooked on your particular brand of Kool-aid? Forcing it down their throats. Coming to my door and telling me that I am going to hell is not the way to get me to come to your church. Even if you promise me brownies.

In My Shoes

The shoes I have to wear in public are too tight.

People are always surprised when I claim to be an introvert. I don't like big crowds, lots of people, or loud noises. But I like to be liked; I like to be noticed. So I pretend. And that's when the shoes get too tight.

Around certain people, the shoes change. With some of my friends, they become flip flops or really comfy slippers.

With J, I can be barefoot all the time, knowing that she will rub them and put Neosporin on the blisters that come up when I have to wear my too-tight public shoes.

At work, they are pointy toed heels, just tight enough to let me know they're there, but I've been doing my job for nine years, so they've become broken in, and I mostly feel capable in those shoes.

With most of the people of my acquaintance, I feel like I have to wear different shoes at different times. I have to wear the combat boots with my LARP friends, my ballet slippers with my theater friends, and brand new wedges for the people I knew in high school. None of these are terribly comfortable; all feeling like they are too new, too unwieldy.

Some would probably say that if I wore these shoes more often, they would fit better, but the truth is, I hate shoes. I'd rather be barefoot all the time. But if I do that, I step on rocks and sticks, so my feet always hurt worse when I'm barefoot in public.

So I wear shoes that are largely uncomfortable because it's expected of me.

But lately, I cannot merely grin and bear the discomfort of shoes I didn't choose. I cannot stand them. I walk through someone else's life, wearing shoes I don't even own. And the person they belong to has narrower feet and non-existent toes.

These shoes don't fit. They aren't my shoes. These shoes leave me hobbled, too afraid to take a step because I will twist my ankle, leaving me sitting on the sidelines, as usual, in my fabulous, yet terrifyingly uncomfortable shoes.

Nothing fits, and I end up staring at a rack filled with more shoes than I know what to do with, because it's easier than wearing them.

I probably will never feel like I can be barefoot all the time; that just leaves my feet too vulnerable to the perilous places I have to walk. Maybe some day, I will find a pair that really fits, but for now, I will continue to be barefoot with J, and pretend that the shoes I wear with everyone else don't leave me with blisters Band-aids can't cover.

My Grass Cuts Itself

Scratching my itch with a razor blade

Feelings pouring out red and black

Tired of living but too scarred to die

I just wish I could get the feeling back

I wanna be happy, but I don’t know how it goes

Wishing you were here to make the pain go away

I wanna be content to live one day to the next

Wishing there was something more to say

You lay your body down to protect me when I’m tired

Living with you frees me to do what I detest

I’m hurting and I’m bashful and wishing you were here

I’m sick and I’m weary and so very unimpressed

I wanna be happy, but I don’t know how it goes

Wishing you were here to make the pain go away

I wanna be content to live one day to the next

Wishing there was something more to say

Today is the first day of the rest of my life

But what’s the point of living at all?

Is the “rest of my life” sleep or nothing more?

Can you show me how to stand up when I fall?

I wish I could see what you see when you see me.

I wish I could be that girl for you.

I wish you could remove the blindfold from my mind

and show me that what you see is true.

I wanna be happy, but I don’t know how it goes

Wishing you were here to make the pain go away

I wanna be content to live one day to the next

Can you tell me how to make it one more day?

Changes, or, My Life in Pictures

I've been thinking a lot lately about the changes that have happened in my life lately. I'd like to walk through these changes in pictures.

Here I am at 11 months old:Wasn't I adorable? Don't you wish you had one just like me? No? Ok, moving on.

I think I'm about 3 in this picture:


That's me and my bubby in front of my Grandparents' house, going to church one time when we were visiting them. I don't do that anymore, go to church OR visit my grandparents.

Here's me in a play in 7th grade. Note: I did not choose to look like a psycho Prussian girl scout.

This one is from the morning after prom. I don't know why I look so happy in this pic, since my head was throbbing and.....stuff.

Here's one taken by my good friend, M, one night when we were all out drinking and doing karaoke...



That brings us to J. She has become a very important part of my life. In fact, she is the most important part of my life. Here's a couple of shots from our commitment ceremony (you will please note how happy I look in these pics. This is not a mistake. I'm actually *happy.*):


Here's us at Hogwarts (no, not the school; we were at the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" in Orlando with her family):


So that's my life, kinda, in pictures. Do these capture every moment? Of course not. Pictures don't generally show us when we're lonely or depressed, or guilty, or whatever. They usually just show us being happy.

So are pictures truth or lies? Do they just show what we want people to see? Or do they show an inner truth that can only be captured on film (or a memory card)?

I don't know the answer to that question. I know, that I, for one, won't be trying to capture images of truth. My emotions are too plain to begin with. Why would I want to have those emotions captured for everyone to see?

Crowded

I pretty much never leave the house anymore. My car's been out of service for a while, but I haven't minded too much, simply because of all the really scary stuff outside my door.

People, for instance.

I don't know that I could classify what I'm feeling as agoraphobia, because I'm not afraid of being outside, per se. I prefer to call it "hermitting" or "nesting." Call it what you want.

Mostly, I just don't have the energy to deal with the outside world.

At home, I can sit in MY space, eat MY food, listen to MY music, hook MY projects.

I'm still connected to the world via the net, and I still occasionally leave the house to go be with the world.

But it's really too much effort. All of it. I feel...crowded. By everyone.

There are people in the world. Truly stupid people. Truly hateful people. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Bill O'Reilly. Not that I come across these people in my corner of Ohio, but the Palinites, the Beckians, and the O'Reillese are there. I live in a conservative place while holding extremely liberal views. This sometimes gives me a headache.

There are people in the world. Rude people. Inconsiderate people. Intolerant people. Either in action or in deed, they make the world a little bit worse for the rest of us.

Sure, I know that for every pontificating dudebag on the planet, there's at least one decent plodder who doesn't make waves. And for every hundred million or so of those, there's someone I care about personally.

Doesn't mean that I want or am even able to deal with the arseholes to get to the people I love.

So, fair warning. I'm not coming out unless it's something 1) I can't avoid doing, or 2) I really, really want to do.

It's not that I don't love you anymore. It's not that I don't want to see you. But seeing you means that I have to see people I don't want to see, and that is physically causing me pain at the moment.

And if your suggestion to me is that I have people over to socialize without having to go out into the world, my answer is no. I have to have a space that is all mine. I found the one person I am able to successfully share my space with, and I (in a totally non-legally binding sense) married her.

So if I feel up to it/can't get out of it/need to do it, you'll see me around. Otherwise, I'll be back to you later.

Is This Home?

Home. What does it mean? Where is it?

In my life, I have lived in 4 cities. Three in Indiana, and now one in Ohio. None of them have felt like home. I've lived with family, with friends, alone. Alone, a lot, by choice. And none of those places ever felt like home.

I've traveled a bit, but not as much as most people I know. I've seen New York City in the spring, Louisiana and Texas in June, and Wisconsin in January. I've never left the country. I've wanted to, but circumstances have just never jelled so that it has happened. I want to travel. I want to see Ireland and New Zealand, Wales and Australia, but not in that order. I want to see the canals in Venice, the monoliths on Easter Island, and the moose in Alaska. (I know I could see a moose in the zoo, but I'd really like to see one walking down the main street of some tiny Alaskan town, ala Northern Exposure.)

But none of the places I've traveled have felt like home.


As I was leaving Wisconsin this January, I finally realized that I was going home. It didn't matter to me that I'd lived in Indianapolis for more than a third of my life, or that for the first eighteen years I'd lived in Evansville. Suddenly, with no more warning than an aneurysm, I realized that a suburb of Dayton, Ohio was home.

And it wasn't because of the house, or the cats, or the weather, or anything else that might've tied me there. It was HER.

I was going home from a blizzard-ridden business trip, because she was there.

She's my home. And it doesn't seem to matter what the street signs say.

So to quote Mr. Joel: "Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike or Indiana's early morning dew. Home can be the hills of California; home is just another word for you."

It's Not Okay...

It’s not okay to tell someone that they are wrong because they don’t do things the way you would do them, as long as they aren’t hurting themselves or other people.

It’s not okay to make someone feel bad about themselves for exercising their legal avenues of redress when their rights have been violated.

It’s not okay to re-victimize someone. Ever.

Actually, it’s not okay to victimize someone.

It’s not okay to make this about your own victimization when you are wrong.

It’s not okay to intentionally hurt someone to make yourself feel better. Ever.

It’s not okay to hurt my family or my friends.

It’s not okay to be passively aggressive.

It’s not okay to be aggressively passive.

It’s not okay to be mean to someone just because the relative anonymity of the internet makes you feel safe. What it makes you is a coward and weak.

It’s not okay to force the way you think and feel on other people.

It’s not okay.

Little Things

A while ago, a friend of mine sent me a knitted false breast pattern for women who have had mastectomies. She asked me if I could redesign it in crochet. I did, and it has been well-received. I have gotten numerous comments on it from people who have donated scores of them to cancer centers and oncologists’ offices around the world.

Here is a picture of the one I made:

And yes, I pierced the nipple. I was being silly. Not quite sure now why I made it in teal, though.

Yesterday, I got this comment:

You have saved my sanity! I cannot thank you enough for this pattern. I had a mastectomy 4 years ago after a botched lumpectomy. At the time, prostheses were available free of charge (in Australia), but when I elected to have a prophylactic mastectomy 2 years later, they were no longer free & would have cost $800AUD. Of course, I couldn’t afford this, so have been wearing a liftup bra with a removeable bag which is SO uncomfortable & HOTTTTT. Now, I can wear all my pretty bras again. Again, thanks for giving me my life back. Warmest regards, [Name redacted]

My heart is so full right now. A simple, little thing that took all of an hour to re-work and crochet has given this woman and others like her a second chance to reclaim a piece of their femininity.

I am in awe of all survivors out there.

The Gift of Misery

Ok. This is a song that I wrote the other day. It's depressing, but it's reflective of my headspace when I wrote it.

"The Gift of Misery"

The tears I shed
Have never dried.
The voice in my head
Never lied.
He told me I was a monster,
So I believed it.

He scraped away
Bits of my soul.
Day after day,
I would never be whole.
He told me I was imperfect,
So I achieved it.

For two dozen years,
I crashed and I burned.
I gave nothing
And got it in turn.

The truth in the lie,
The fire in the ice,
The pain in the heart,
It doesn't think twice.

The fear in the dawn,
The hope in the night,
The gift in the misery,
Better end it right.

What is Beauty?

What is beautiful?

An argument could be made that beauty in a person is a combination of physical attributes, assembled in a pleasing manner. A tiny waistline, large brown eyes, full lips.

It could also be said that beauty stems from personality traits. Self-confidence, a sense of humor, compassion.

It could also be that beauty is a combination of those things. A sweet smile, a loving heart.

A friend of mine expressed some concern about finding a woman to be striking, and yet not being physically attracted to her at all.

I pointed out that, in my experience, a “beautiful” face, when attached to an ugly personality, becomes ugly in my eyes.

Likewise, homely features can become more attractive when they are found gracing a kind soul.

So being beautiful is not, I think, a mere matter of being graced with distinctive features or the money for a good cosmetic surgeon. It’s about allowing the good attributes of one’s personality shine through unprepossessing features.

Being beautiful surely has something to do with a nice back side or a pixie nose, but it’s more to do with the light in your eyes or the words from your mouth.

And everyone is beautiful to someone, even if that someone is only yourself.

Be beautiful.

This Christmas

Friday is Christmas Eve. Normally, this time of year is seriously dread-filled for me. Everywhere I look, I see penguins (mom’s favorite animal), snow globes (something she collected) and Christmas lights (she loved going about to see everyone’s house).

I hear carols in the air, which reminds me of her singing, which was truly a thing of beauty. I see her standing at the lectern at midnight mass, leading the congregation in song.

This year is the eighth without her, the ninth Christmas since she’s been gone. By all rights I should be sad and longing for her.

The weird thing is, I’m not really missing her all that much. Or, at least, I’m not missing her in the same way as has been my wont.

I’m not spending too much time weeping, as I have in year’s past, or indulging in the whiny misery of “I Miss My Mom.”

It’s not that I don’t miss her, because I do. But this year, a dull ache has replaced the stabbing hurt that I’ve nearly always felt before.

And I feel guilty about it, but I’m not feeling *too* guilty about it. So I’m feeling guilty about that. It’s a vicious cycle.

So I’m actually feeling pretty good about Christmas this year. Getting to see my parents and Herself’s. This whole being married thing is making things a bit more complicated, but we’re working it out. There’ll be food and drink and presents and a lovely time had by all.

I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m just going to enjoy it.

Merry Christmas, yule sona, Festive Non-Denominational Winter Gathering, Happy Saturnalia, etc.

Simply Having a Wonderful Hooking Time

Ah, yes, Christmas. That joyful time of year when kids try to be on their best behavior, when not pulling their frustrated and tired parents through store after store demanding things that Santa can bring them.

Watching snow fall, sitting in front of a merrily crackling fire (on DVD), eating too much and deciding the calories consumed on holidays don’t actually count.

Spending time with people you love but don’t really know very well, spending time with people you can’t stand but must because they are related to you.

Wrapping gifts made with my own two hands. This is a big deal for me, and one I hope the giftees in my life appreciate. Not the wrapping necessarily, because I am a big fan of the gift bag and tissue paper route, but the making of things.

I start in October or November, and I don’t stop until the last person on my list has something that I think fits their personality or their attitudes.

This is very special to me, because I put a lot of time and effort into making things. More than that, I put my heart and my love into crocheting the right thing for the right person.

This love affair is not easy to explain to most people, because most people simply don’t understand the need I have to make. To create. To pour a little bit of my soul into a yarn and crooked stick to cause something new to come into being.

And Christmas gives me a huge excuse to make a bunch of stuff, particularly stuff I want to make but don’t want to keep. My friends give me the excuse to make beautiful or silly or weird things that I don’t have room for or the inclination to keep for myself.

I can’t really explain the pride I feel when I walk into the inlaw’s house and see her mom wearing the socks I gave her last year, or when I see a very special baby wearing an Owl hat that I was asked to make for him.

I love being asked if I can make something, and saying, “Well, of course, I can,” particularly when the person asking starts with “I don’t know if you can crochet it, but…”

But I’m getting to be more selective about who I will hook for. I won’t just make something for someone because they ask. Even if they are willing to pay me. That’s too much like being in the business of making things, and that zaps all of the fun out of it for me.

I won’t crochet for anyone who doesn’t seem to appreciate the work and the love that goes into something. I create because it makes me whole and well and not a little un-crazy. But I can’t give something of myself to someone who tosses the creation aside.

I love giving something to someone whose eyes light up when they receive a gift. I love making things for people I love. And I love making things for people who love me back.

Because something made by hand is a part of the maker. I’ve been crocheting since I was 12 years old. I’m really quite handy at it. I’ve crocheted things that boggle even my mind. I’m not bragging, but I’m very proud of the work I do and the time and care I take with it.

So if someone gives you something handmade this year for your self-chosen Holiday experience, remember: they are giving you a piece of their heart. Treasure it. Use it. Wear it. Display it. Unless it’s something inappropriate for Grandma to see.

Circles

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about the value of the people in my life.

Every person I have met has affected me in some way, whether I realized it or not at the time, whether it was produced a good effect or ill.

I have made friends and family, with love, with amusement, with ease.

I have lost friends and family, with pain, with carelessness, with heartache.

But the people in my life who matter most have traveled with me through the hard times and the easy, the sad times and the happy.

I met my girl because of my best friend. I met some of my best friends because of gaming. I stopped talking to some people because they couldn’t accept me for who I am.

Some I have let go. Some have let go of me. But the people who matter most to me have stuck.

Miles don’t seem to matter. I can live within twenty minutes of someone I have known since second grade and not make the effort to see them, or I can drive for two hours simply to be in the company of a family who have made me theirs and I them.

Last night, I spent the evening with people who have come to mean a great deal to me in a short period of time, when, in times past, I would have elected to spend the evening at home, alone.

Life is all about intersections and connections. Who knew eight years ago when I left Evansville that I’d have so many people to call my own?

I’m really starting to appreciate my own value because I’m starting to see myself through their eyes.

As Christmas draws near, I wish to celebrate the friendships I hold most dear. To friends, old and new, I say, thank you. Even if we have never met.

The Bitch of Living

When I was in the second grade, I asked my mom when she and my dad were going to get divorced so I’d be like my other friends.

Turns out, it was when I was fifteen.

This affected my brother more than it did me, at the time. I don’t know why, but it never really seemed like a big deal. I mean, of course it was, but it wasn’t. It was just one of those stupid things. I felt more alienated from my mom, abandoned by my dad. What’s new?

The real slap in the face of it was my stepdad. He was a self important bastard who treated me like a slave, a lesser, a gnat. And it didn’t help that I was a self important sixteen year old trying to prove that I was better than I was.

My junior and senior years came and went, like all of high school should. Boring mostly, with little highs and lows interspersed.

It started with headaches. And forgetting words and names. She’d go to say, “Cat.” And out would come something else, or nothing at all. This brilliant, beautiful woman that I couldn’t stand most of the time started losing her mind.

So she went for an MRI. And they found a spot. Without so much as a biopsy, her doctor told her it was nothing. “Just a benign spot.” Nothing to worry about.

Two weeks after I graduated, I had orientation at Ball State, where I was supposed to start in the fall. Then, I came home, my step-dad sat me down and told me that he had taken her for a biopsy while I was away. And he told me that it was an inoperable brain tumor, just at eye level. They would try radiation, and chemo, but with the treatment, they were giving her two to three months. With the treatment? A year, tops.

And then he walked away, after handing his seventeen year old stepdaughter a lighter and a pack of Marlboro lights.

I believed fervently in the power of denial. Ignore it and it’ll go away. That was my motto, my raison d’etre. I would go to work, I would go out with my friends all night, and she wouldn’t be sick.

I found myself trying hopelessly to ignore the fact that she never called me by name anymore. Or said much at all. They shaved her head to put in the shunts to relieve the pressure in her brain. She had to wear an eye patch to help with the double vision.

She got so sick from the chemo that she stopped. She did one treatment round and just quit. Not that I was around when it happened. I was at work, or with my friends, or doing god knows what just to be out of that damned house.

Because when I wasn’t there, I could pretend. I had a mother who was whole and safe and not married to a stupid son of a bitch who treated me badly.

But I couldn’t pretend for long.

She had her first symptom in May. She died in August.

I moved to Indianapolis on August 10, 2002. She died on the 28^th. Of course, I wasn’t there. And most of my family can’t forgive me for that. They don’t understand how I couldn’t have been by her side while she slipped quietly out of her coma and was gone.

I was so mad at myself for a really long time because I couldn’t make myself be there. This woman who was there for me every day, I couldn’t watch her leave this world. She kicked my ass out of the house while she was sick because she couldn’t remember who I was, and I couldn’t face her leaving me.

I’m going to regret it forever. Was she proud of me? Did I tell her enough that I loved her? Will love her, forever? The answer is: I don’t know. I’ll never know if she was proud of me, if she’d be proud of the woman I am, with all my faults and foibles.

I was seventeen when she died, just three days shy of my eighteenth birthday. And it kills me that my own kids will never get a chance to meet her, to hear stories of the hellion I was in my youth, the too serious and angsty teen. At least, not from her. There are others still around who knew me then. But it’s not the same.

Sometimes I wish I had died when she did. Because I’m selfish and didn’t want to deal with the pain. Still don’t, as a matter of fact. But life goes on, whether or not you actually want it to.

And if she were here, she’d slap me up one side and down the other for feeling sorry for myself, for wishing my mother would have been there on my wedding day, for wishing for so many moments we could have shared.

It’s the bitch of living. You can’t always have what you want. So, I’ll just raise a glass to my mom, Alice Marie.

Thinking Deep Thoughts

I am a swamp of emotions. Not just for my wife. She is in me and through me and all around me and sometimes I feel like I will burst if I can’t see her or touch her or tell her how much I love her.

But also for my friends. I see the face of a new parent, the love in a husband’s eyes, the simple, the complex, the need, the home.

I think I’m home now.

When did I come to know that shutting myself off wasn’t what I wanted or needed anymore? When did I realize that “my people” doesn’t have to be a small, inclusive group?

I don’t have to let everyone in, because I can’t. I have been hurt too much to let everyone see the real me, to let them have my time, and my love. But I don’t have to limit my heart and my love. I don’t have to push the wanting more away because I don’t know enough people that I can trust with me.

Because I do now. I have so many people that may only see the smallest glimmer of who I am, but there are others that see the more. While I want to share all of me with just one person, I can still share parts of me with more people.

I am who I am in large part to the friends I have chosen, or have had chosen for me. Would I be where I am if I hadn’t gone to the drive-in that June Saturday night? Would I be where I am if she hadn’t come to the theater to see that show? Certainly not. If I hadn’t opened myself more to the unknown, I wouldn’t have most of the people I love, respect, admire.

Did I wait too long to come to this? How many potential friends have I missed because of the need to hide, to fear, to wallow? How many do I have because someone wouldn’t let me?

Mostly, it’s her. It’s the need she has to be around like minds and similar souls. It’s battling the deep seated fear that they only tolerate me because they want to see her. It’s giving in to that fear sometimes. It’s holding on to the frightening because it is so familiar.

Why should it be so? Why should the negative be so easy to believe, when the positive is, maybe, possibly, true?

Because I don’t see what they see, maybe. Could it be that the people I love actually value the fact that I can quote most of the geekier movies and books I’ve devoured? Or that I say the answers on Jeopardy before Alex can finish reading the clue? Or that the happiest moments in my life come from seeing someone I love using something that I made?

It’s ridiculous. To hold on to the feeling that I am less because I’m not a size 3 or a neat freak or wealthy or an Einstein or a Mozart or a Curie or a Da Vinci or….

I’m not less than anyone else. I matter. And while I will never actually know how much I matter to some people, I know that I am loved. And, I may never been as comfortable in a crowded room as I am sitting in bed, reading a book, I still matter.

She thinks I’m beautiful, and crazy, and sexy, and smart. She thinks I’m one of the best things going. Who knows? She might be right.

Or she might be crazy. Haven't discounted that yet.