Work is going great. We've been really busy since September. Even a recession can't keep us down.
The girl child is now 14. She has finally decided on a high school and will be going to school down the street from my house.
The boy child is getting much better at reading. He's still behind grade level, but is catching up finally. I don't know where the motivation came from but I'm not going to question it.
The husband is good. Married life suits us. I can especially appreciate this after reading some of the old e-mails form when I was still living in Hawaii. We have come so far together.
I'll try and get better at updating, but I make no promises.
It actually looks as though I won'e have Kendrick for a week starting after lunch on Christmas. No kids on New Years this year!!!
So my dilemma now is, what do we do for New Years this year? First new years married, and the first one that I don't have to worry about being home by noon. Hell, if we go somewhere I can even sleep in! Suggestions are welcome, as I haven't had to plan something for New Years since I live in Hawaii, and I sucked at it then.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.
This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.
If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
---
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...
Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.
"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:
"So I be written in the Book of Love;
I do not care about that Book above.
Erase my name, or write it as you will,
So I be written in the Book of Love."
-From Countdown with Keith Olbermann
wedding pics in the next update
As soon as I get the rest of the pics from family and I edit them, I will post some wedding pics. I think Swalls may already have some up from his phone. My camera had a major attack of the red eye. yay photoshop!
Highlights:
1. Pip forgot the marriage license at home. Good thing the wedding was only 15 min from our house.
2. My mom and my dad in the same room for the first time in about 20 years. (and they actually managed to have a conversation without bloodshed!
3. My adorable children and my niece all dressed up, and they even managed not to wear any of their dinner
4. Still have a week off to do absolutely nothing!!!
EDIT:
Here is my fave pic of the night
For your reading enjoyment here is a list of the top 100 challenged books from 1990-2000. Since some of these books looked strange to me (why are they on the list) so I decided to investigate. If I found a reason I listed it... in my own special way. Pardon some of my more snarky comments.
The comments are not synopsis of the books. (edit: some that I couldn't find a reason for, I wrote the main theme of the book) My new goal is to read all of these books, except the development ones, I know how they end. I marked the few that I have read already. Hell I've even written term papers on a few.
~Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz - probably the same reason Goosebumps in on here, but I get ahead of myself
~Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite - Even Sarah Palin tried to get this removed off the library shelved in Wasilla
~I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - Apparently true stories are too harsh to be read. And my god there was pre-marital cohabitation!
~The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier - beware bullies and sexual ponderings
~The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
~Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - offensive and vulgar language
~Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling - promotes witchcraft and the occult
~Forever by Judy Blume - teenagers having a mature discussion of sex, and a girl is on the pill
~Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - kids shouldn't know about death, and secular humanism is a bad thing
~Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - #1 in 2003 on the challenge list for sexual content
~Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman - do I need to explain?
~My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
~The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - in 1981 it was both the most banned book and the second most taught book in public schools in the US
~The Giver by Lois Lowry - "inapropriate for young readers"
~It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris - What do you mean you want to know why your body is changing? you aren't old enough to know yet.
~Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine - sometimes violent content
~A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
~The Color Purple by Alice Walker - explicit content and violence... and real life.
~Sex by Madonna - if I have to explain this you have been leading a very sheltered life
~Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel - unconventional sexual practices
~The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson - language and subject matter
~A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle - "challenges religious beliefs" and lists Jesus "with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders"
~Go Ask Alice by Anonymous - sex, drugs, rape, profanity, this book has it all
~Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers - two words, Vietnam War
~In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak - naked kid
~The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard - may encourage children to be disobedient, like they need encouragement
~The Witches by Roald Dahl - One would think the crazies would love a book where a kid is trying to kill witches (I've seen the movie but haven't read it)
~The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein - duh.
~Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry - references to beer, Playboy and suicide (though no suicide actually occurs)
~The Goats by Brock Cole - nudity and bullying
~Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane - child prostitution and sodomy
~Blubber by Judy Blume - offensive language
~Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan - kids kidnap a teacher. he dies when he can't get to his medication
~Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam - WTF. possibly age inappropriate, but WTF?
~We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier - adult themes
~Final Exit by Derek Humphry - assisted suicide
~The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - anti-religious content and sexual references
~Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George - attempted rape
~The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison - racism, incest and child molestation. What being on the Oprah book list isn't enough of a reason?
~What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras - yet another book on development.
~To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - rape, profanity, racial slurs
~Beloved by Toni Morrison - sexual abuse and violence in slavery
~The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - violence, drug and alcohol abuse, all the kids were from broken homes (I wrote my honors senior English term paper on SE Hinton)
~The Pigman by Paul Zindel - can't find the reason, but based on the summary, probably death themes and the kids relationships with their parents.
~Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard - kids have a seance
~Deenie by Judy Blume - masturbation and sexuality
~Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - main character struggles to express his sexuality. (I need to re-read this book. it has been a long time...)
~Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden - main character "discovers" she is a lesbian
~The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar - occult and youthful sexuality
~Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
~A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein - no, seriously.
~Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - it "centered around negative activity"
~Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) - a very good read. not surprised to see it here. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.
~Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole - are we really trying to keep generations of kids ignorant of the changes they go through as they grow up?
~Cujo by Stephen King - so we know they weren't trying to ban this one "for the children"... so why?
~James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl - anther one with death and killing
~The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell - duh
~Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy - see above
~Ordinary People by Judith Guest - sex (one scene at the end)
~American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis - you name it, its here.
~What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras - see the 3-4 others exactly like this further up the list
~Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume - what is it about girls getting their period that makes people want to ban books?
~Crazy Lady by Jane Conly - use of profanity
~Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher - teenagers talking about racism, homophobia and sexuality
~Fade by Robert Cormier - incest, violence, murder
~Guess What? by Mem Fox - leads people to develop a positive impression of a witch
~The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende - rape, murder
~The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
~Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - realism in war, sex
~Lord of the Flies by William Golding - downfall of society, violence (even though I found this book disturbing as hell, I still liked it. I'll have to dig it out)
~Native Son by Richard Wright - their reasons: rape, violence, murder... the real reasons: depicts racial inequality and social injustice
~Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday - not even going to explain this one
~Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen - or this one
~Jack by A.M. Homes - homosexuality
~Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anay - witchcraft and not so positive views of Christianity
~Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle - illustrated facts of life
~Carrie by Stephen King - violence, supernatural powers
~Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume - death, grief
~On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer - death
~Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge - sexuality, gay uncle
~Family Secrets by Norma Klein - divorce, sexuality, drug use
~Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole - another "don't tell the kids what happens after sex"
~The Dead Zone by Stephen King - violence, supernatural powers... it's Stephen King, you can pretty much put anything here
~The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
~Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison - I have no idea, but the summary of this story is bizzare
~Always Running by Luis Rodriguez - vulgar language, sexual realism
~Private Parts by Howard Stern - yeah.
~Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford - WTF you ask? all because the beach scene has a woman with bare breasts
~Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene - abusive family, prejudice
~Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman - it was published in 1899, give me a fucking break.
~Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - rape, violence, affairs
~Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
~Sex Education by Jenny Davis - 3 guesses?
~The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene - prejudice, gay rights, religious hypocrisy
~Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy - gee, another sex book?
~How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell - seriously, just because they eat worms? really??
~View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts - kid witnesses a murder and fears for his own safety
~The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder - witchcraft
~The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney - negative portrayal of Arabs and Muslims
~Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Oprah must have a thing for this list, she has a fair few of them as book club choices.
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