Less Than Human

Dear Utah Lawmakers:

Over the course of the past few months, as I have seen the legislature tear down the hopes of a Common Ground between Utah's Straight and Queer communities, as I have read the harsh words of Senator Buttars and Governor Herbert, and now watched the "trial" of DJ Bell, I have come to learn something, something that is a harsh, terrifying reality to me: In your eyes, I am less than human.

It's a funny thing, you see, that you consider me thus. I am a registered voter in South Salt Lake and since moving back to the state in 2005, have not missed an election - primary or general. I pay my taxes - state, federal, and sales. As I am a single adult, my taxes are no higher than a single adult who shares a similar situation. I attend Salt Lake Community College and in doing so, sit alongside many other students. I keep my car registered and insured, and when I am pulled over for failing to yield or when I receive a ticket for an expired meter, the cop does not ask if I am gay or straight. The ticket does not have a clause that instantly increases the cost if it were to be known that I am a member of the Queer community. I work, full time, thereby increasing my ability to contribute to the economy which I do by attending community events such as concerts and Jazz games. I am healthy, therefore the health insurance premiums my company so generously pays for me are lower. When I need care I seek it and I make sure to not miss my annual exams, no matter how much I may hate them. My dog is always walked on a leash and I do my best to clean up after the waste she leaves behind. I do admit to being a loyal University of Utah fan, but that fact alone cannot make me stand out as Queer.

Like most of the men and women who surround me, I do my best to pay my bills on time. Only once in the past year have I been faced with an overdraft in my checking account. On the income I pull in as a staff member for a local non-profit, I help to support my mother who, due to a disability, is on a fixed income and the hours she herself can work are limited due to health and Social Security requirements. As Medicare does not provide any transportation and Flextrans holds her to a conditional riding provision, I am her primary means of transportation and so I work her working and school schedule and doctor's appointments into my every day working schedule. I am lucky enough that she is willing to be flexible with my own schedule. Refusing to put my mother into a nursing home, I share her residence, providing care she needs on a daily basis. Most of it is minimal, but because I am in her life she does not need to rely solely on frozen dinners but together we can have fresh foods and as a result she is healthier. Around me, countless others make similar provisions for aging parents, and many of these fellow residents are also trying to raise children and make a marriage work.

In many ways, I am indistinguishable from my fellow Utahans. Even without being raised in the Mormon faith, living in Utah has granted me a respect and understanding of those around me who believe. Most Sundays I can be found waiting for my mother while she attends the Catholic Parish of her choice. I am "Aunt Shauna" to many of my friend's children. I donate time to a local non-profit. I am the organizer of a community group of writers. I am part of this community.

Daily, I stare at the three, stubborn gray hairs on my head and wonder if it is time to begin dying again. I work out - but not enough. I pass out in front of the television.

Yet you, my lawmakers, would chose to set me aside. You would chose to label me as deviant, different, dangerous. My membership in a community of people for some reason scares you. Because I do not base my choices in love on gender alone, I must be ostracized. Because my friends love one of the same sex or gender we are told we are less than you. We can be spit upon, beaten, and ignored by police and you will do nothing but nod with deaf ears while our few friends who sit among you plead for change.

I will not bring the argument to your level by reminding you that once, you were treated as different, deviant, and dangerous by a government you now accept stimulus money from all the while decrying expanded spending on the federal level. To reduce the argument to that level takes the humanity from all of us. To say, "you have to be nice to me because you were once bullied" is as useless as a newspaper in a desert downpour. All I can do is continue to vote. All I can do is continue to spend my money wisely - at local businesses and on causes that I believe in. All I can do is continue to write, to reveal the insanity of your argument.

I am human. By the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, I am even considered equal. While law upon law passed in the name of preserving the family (at both the federal and state level) reminds me that I am not allowed to marry should I fall in love with a woman, that at any moment I can be fired or evicted for being out about my sexuality, and states that if I am the victim of a hate crime the same laws that apply to others do not apply to me, I am as human as you are. I have family I love, a faith I am devoted to, dogs that I walk, cats I care for, and fish I love to watch swim in their tank. I fall in love with TV shows and read glorious books and work too hard for too little pay.

In the end, there is no difference between us. If it is your religion you follow, may I remind you that God, any God, is a God of love. That we, as human animals, are destined for love and joy and pain and sorrows. And that we, members of the Queer community, are your daughters, your sons, and your grandchildren.

Remember that as DJ Bell sits on trial.

Sincerely,
A member of your population.

venting ...

I've been holding back a lot of what I've wanted to say recently. I don't know why. Maybe because I haven't wanted to get into it with the world at large, but it's definitely contributing to my case of the blahs this week.

But I turned on Queensryche's Tribe album today and of course it got me thinking. One of the many, many post 9/11 albums that dealt with the problems in American society, I think it is also one of the most powerful. Say what you want, I know I'm biased, but there's no pulling punches. And much of the blame is leveled on society. The US needs to get it's collective head out of it's very large, french-fry eating ass.

For example ...

Not everyone who disagrees with Obama is racist, no. Hell, I disagree with him more than I agree with him and I support the guy. But it cannot be denied that in the opposition to anything he says, there is a very vocal, minority, subculture undercurrent that is fueled by racism. Even latent racism. They are older, they are white, they were born into segregation and while they always liked that "nice black family" down the street they were never threatened because that family wasn't in power. I think the media is completely overblowing Carter's comments and what people have said. I also think to ignore the reality means we do not move forward. Much of the opposition has used blatant, Jim Crowe era visuals to represent Obama, the White House, etc. (Think watermelons, monkeys, etc.) Remember that before you think that some people aren't fighting him with racist tactics.

Speaking of the president, It doesn't matter that Obama called Kayne a jackass. It was off the record, and if we had a nickle for every time Bush said something stupid off the record, we'd have never had a crash in the economy. And before you talk about the Joe Wilson thing - it's Congress making hay out of that. The President accepted his apology and he moved on.

What drives me crazy is not the lazy, someone-else-can-do-it attitude that permeates this culture. What drives me crazy is that no one bothers to actually think critically anymore. We are all, myself included, reactionary. We do not study our history. We take what is said to us on face value. We refuse to allow ourselves to go through the transformations that will change our lives. We are held back by fear, by the idea that we will not conform to the world, that someone *gasp* will look at us.

We are sheep. Every last one of us. We follow along with our celebrity culture, with our reactionary politics, and as a result, have lost the art of conversation. As a loner, as someone who keeps a few close friends and shuns too much public interaction, I am hardly advocating that everyone step out their door and hug each other ...

... But we have to do something.

there will never be others like them

Winning Was the Only Thing that Mattered to John Stockton









I could go on and on and on.

I CRIED during Stockton's acceptance speech. Poor Sloan looked SO uncomfortable up on that stage, reading his speech from a folded piece of paper ...

Thank you both, for EVERYTHING. Thank you for teaching me the love of the game, the fundamentals of the game, and that sports is about more than championships. It's about team work. Though winning is nice ... :)

something isn't sitting right ...

I've finally figured out what it is.

A couple of days ago, I posted some rambling thoughts at my livejournal about my Decade of the 60's class and where my own brain was going. Per usual, they were mostly scrambled thoughts, meant to spark other ideas that I would blog about when I had the time. I'm always terrified of forgetting what I meant to say.

A couple of people commented, opposite ends of the spectrum really, and both sets of comments got me thinking. That's the point. That's why I do this sometimes. Your thoughts help me put mine into words. But I realized this morning that I'm not ... I'm not giving myself enough credit. I post and then forget I did and then something will bring my thoughts back and I realize that I never did expand on those thoughts.

My biggest problem is not my short, staccato thought processes that never get finished. It's that I have SO many ideas racing through my head and not enough time to write all of them down. There are some moments when I realize exactly why it is that writers can go crazy. The thoughts spiral and spiral and want to be shared but we as writers are only human. I love the comments that DO get posted to my short bursts of energy because they either give me a whole new perspective or they reinforce what I was going to write. But I want more. Finding balance is so hard sometimes and I know that even if I was making a living as a writer, I still wouldn't have time to write it all down.

Maybe I worry that for all my writing, be it long or short, no one will read. No one will comment. No one will care. Maybe I worry that I don't express myself the way I want to. Maybe I just want there to be more time in the day. Maybe all of the above.

Maybe the problem is the word Maybe.

It's all business!

The webzine I write for has been undergoing major overhaul over the last year. Determined to not let it die, our tireless editor has made change upon change until she opted to switch to a blog format. This means making sure that a) we don't lose our old posts and b) we find a way to get our readership back. Oh the joy of copy and paste and upload.

Soon I will have links up to my entire portfolio, which is exciting. In addition, pageantzine.tumblr.com will soon be rolling. Be on the lookout. :)

On Aspirations

Like most self-described authors and writers, I read. I have my favorite authors, my inspirations, those who walk me down roads into new adventures with strange characters - real or imagined. But there are very few whom I say when I read their work, "I want to do that. I want to be that. I want to move my readers like that." My list is short, really. Michael Cunningham - especially his writing in The Hours. Virginia Woolf. Margaret Atwood - especially in works like Cat's Eye. And Sherman Alexie.

White. Indian. Black. Martian. It doesn't matter. Alexie's words reach across all races and boundaries and leave us with a view of ourselves as tortured, haunted, honest, failed, scared, beings. It is not a sentimental view of the world, but one that is plain and honest and demands as much thought to read it as it feels he put into writing it. When he puts pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and blesses us mere mortals with something to read, he is inviting us into his world, his universe, his center, and to appreciate the truly awesome gift he has given us, we must do more than detach ourselves from the multi-tasking life that surrounds in ever spirling intensity and give our selves over to the written word. Even a short passage, a twitter-length sentence if you will, is an entire world in and of itself.

But the masterpiece of Alexie's style is not that he is able to create such magic and mystery with mere words on a screen (or page) but that he is able to make you laugh, even while you cry. He has captured the truest of all human emotions. And even while you are laughing, you are crying, and he is twisting that knife in, deeper and deeper and when you least expect it, he pulls and you bleed - laughing then at yourself and your own imperfections as a mere, bleeding human.

I dream of that skill. I work for it daily, but still feel I have yet to master the pure humanism I am reaching for, that unsentimental connection between us and our universe, that world that is far more emotional than any Hallmark movie or flash in the pan publicity concept would ever allow for. Emotion does not lie in Lifetime Network heartbreak but in how we, every day, look at our world and chose to live in it.

And so I write. And read. And aspire ...

When Music Touches Me ...

Daughtry's done it. They've accomplished their goal. I've had the album on almost non-stop repeat since I first put it in my CD player 24 hours ago. All music should catch the listener on a completely personal level, but there's one song that just seems to grab me ... for reasons that I know they never intended.

September touches me deeply. Not because of my own past memories, but because of the images that come to my mind while I listen. They are so thick, I have to ... to borrow the cliche ... brush them away with my hands. The slide show in my mind is of a young Marc Gadling, dancing out in the rain, living out his world with such innocence. He never dreamed he'd face the end of his days when he did. He thought he'd lived through hell as it was. Perhaps he is our lesson. Never dare the universe to make it worse. Oh, it will. Never dare the universe. It's listening.

It's interesting for me. As with all writers, I'm passionately, devoted to my characters. And as with many writers, these characters have saved my life. So when I hear music that moves me for them, it feels almost even more important. Almost more magical. Is it fair for me to have recently submitted a review to Pageant given the way this music touched me? I think so. The point is ... Daughtry got it right, at least for me. They found that part of my soul that music is supposed to connect to. And for me, while I'm closing my eyes and envisioning Marc's life, someone else is closing their eyes and seeing something completely different. Isn't that the point?

But why September? Why of all the touching, nearly cliche songs on this album, is it September that catches my heart? Because Marc died in September. Almost two years to the day after he learned he had AIDS, he passed through time and to a different realm. Perhaps I live too much in this world in my head. Perhaps if I lived more in this one I'd have a different life ...

... but (to glean the meaning of September) would it be worth it in the end?

I don't think so.

Random, perhaps. But I think it was supposed to be.