impatiently waiting

If I were a better blogger I'd have been posting more than bimonthly lately, but we've already discussed that, and I can't go back in time. Let's just leave that one alone.

However, there is a subject somewhat near and dear to me that I've neglected to discuss, and that is a certain trial that is happening right now in San Francisco. Saying it's happening right now isn't really as accurate as it could be.

Today is the last day that the two opposing sides will call or question witnesses at which point the judge will take a few weeks to mull it over. Apparently then there will be closing arguments and then at some point a decision by the judge.

Do you remember when California legalized same sex marriage? Yeah, I don't really like the term either. I prefer marriage equality because that's a more accurate desciption. Either way, you either remember or you don't. If you don't remember then you may also not remember that, soon after, Proposition 8 was introduced because the "will of the people" needed to be heard. Of course that meant leaving the rights of a minority to the whims of a majority.

Yes, those are scare quotes around "will of the people." There's a point at which the will of the people erodes civil rights and makes things worse. You may not remember, and I am certainly not old enough, but there was a time when a certain group of people in this country were treated like absolute shit. Because of the color of their skin they were assumed to be lesser people. They were not allowed to use the same facilities or eat in the same dining rooms as white people. The language many white people often used to describe this other group was inherently demeaning and dehumanizing.

It took a huge court case and a lot of blowback from racist whites, but eventually the laws were changed to allow all people to recognize that they were equal and deserving of the same rights, protections and responsibilities. There was a whole nother trial years later in which laws were finally changed that allowed people of different colors and racial backgrounds to get married. Of course the people opposing this also didn't think of themselves as racist or bigoted or prejudiced, but they fought it just as they had every single piece of legislation that attempted to enforce the idea of true equality.

It wasn't a huge percentage of people that got prop 8 passed, but they did, effectively taking away the right to marry for same sex couples, aka the gays.

The ongoing trial I mentioned above is actually known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, but since the governor of California isn't soiling his hands with it, it's commonly known as the Prop 8 trial. Basically, the idea is that it wasn't cool for a bunch of religious types to decide that their ideals are allowed to trump civil rights in a nation in which we insist on a separation of church and state, that the church isn't allowed to use it's beliefs or doctrines or scriptures to set civil law.

The thing is, if it IS okay for religious organizations to decide what is or isn't civil law, then where do we stop? Do we take the Christian's word for it that the US is a nation based on the exact sect of Christianity of which he or she is a member, or do we incorporate all religious belief, giving as much credence to Hindu beliefs as we do Judeo-Christian?

Anyway, I'm sitting here, drinking my coffee, thinking about breakfast, and waiting somewhat patiently for today's updates. 10:19 here means 7:19 there, and the trial won't be starting for the day for at least another hour. It isn't televised, and you can't catch it on YouTube, but there are people liveblogging, and I've been keeping up at Courage Campaign's trial tracker.

It hasn't all been fun, but if you have a few free hours any time soon you might enjoy looking over the posts and updates that have been posted over the last couple of weeks.

ouch

Did I tell you about my head? Yeah, I hurt the shit out of it.

You are probably not familiar with my house or my basement. It's not my house or basement, but the fact is that I do still live here for the time being. And the basement is accessed through a door on the outside of the house.

The door is a plywood frame with some old corrugated sheet metal covering. Open it to reveal a rather dangerous looking set of stairs. At the bottom is a doorway into a dirt and cinder block walled hole with a concrete floor. Right near the bottom of the stairs is the water heater, and past that in the far corner is the hole into which is sunk the pump that doesn't always work properly when enough rain falls to wash a bunch of shit into the hole and clog the pump. If you don't get to it soon enough and make sure the pump is working when there's enough rain you end up with a flooded basement and an extinguished pilot light.

None of that is the point. If you are my height and stand up in the door way you are quite likely to slam your head into the top. If you do that you will meet intense pain.

I did exactly the thing I've mentioned and met the exact pain I mentioned. I have a nice lump and bruise to go with it. It hurts now because I forgot what I'd done and scratched my head not so long ago. I aggravated the hurt and hurt all over again.

It's not even a little bit fun, but the basement is drained, and the water heater pilot is on, so we have hot water. That's good considering that the kids needed bathing tonight, and they did both get as clean as they tend to get themselves. I'm not willing to confront that issue, but I trust them somewhat.

It's all tied together, but really my issue is the pain. It's the opposite of fun. But, like most things, it'll heal soon enough. For now, however, my head hurts, and I'm tired, and it's bed time.

also

It used to be a shit ton easier to hit the "Publish Post" button. Lately I edit too much, and upon rereading I get scared. I tinkle my pants a little and decide not to click. I need to not do that as much. Here's hoping this is the end of that.

haven't even

I haven't even looked at this blog in nearly two months. That's a shit record, but it's a record nonetheless.

Chances are that I showed up tonight because I finally checked my email.

I haven't looked at Yahoo in even longer. I let it go a couple of days, and then another couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, and then I just didn't want to bother. I knew there was a backlog of nonsense waiting for me, so many bits and pieces from the random places I've attempted to keep up with.

I've let so many things gather in the bottleneck, and I've just ignored them. I ignored family requests that I visit for the holidays. I missed a couple of comments to this blog. I've just been so far into my own trying to forget that lots of things got overlooked.

It's not so much trying to forget, but I'm also not really sure what else to call it. It's at least some amount of just avoiding thinking about things so that I don't get depressed, and I've done a great job of not being depressed lately, and some of that is just not recognizing, just ignoring.

Am I about to come out of it finally? about to rejoin life in all its bitter yet sweet ups and downs? I find that doubtful. I don't seem to work that way.

I really don't know what it is. I went and started a new blog, but I haven't been any better about that than I have this one, and I've sort of let it go fallow as I've done this one. I didn't meant to or want to, but it's gotten hard to post. I fear sometimes I've run out of things to say, but maybe the truth is slightly worse, that I've grown scared to post.

There was a time when I was like any other anonymous blogger. Sure, there were the blogging friends that I'd made, and I still love that I was able to create this thing that some people seemed to enjoy, but then they all started getting in, started getting too close. I think that's part of a pattern, that if anyone gets too close I start to shut down.

I know that it's part of a pattern. I do in fact shut down when people start to get in. I don't want to be that way, but it's become a bit of a habit, and it's a hard one to break. It becomes a habit because I don't know what to do when people get in, when they start to get to know me.

There was a time when I knew exactly what to do, but that exact knowing meant that I turned into an ass and drove them right back out. It wasn't a conscious effort, but from where I am now I can see that that is what I did. I can see that that is what I do. I don't like people getting in, because then they get to know me and stuff.

Recognizing this pattern is hopefully the first step in fixing it. I'm not sure what fixing it entails, but I'm quite certain I won't like it. It's going to require that I find some comfort and an ability to accept that there are more people at the party than I'm quite okay with. It's going to take me doing stuff, and me doing stuff is not my happy place.

But then that's life in general. I need to do stuff. I've been quite comfortably not doing stuff for too long, and it's really about time that I do do stuff.

p.s. yeah, haha, I said doodoo, but not like that.