So in London, and Manchester, at the Holiday Inn if you're looking to get a good night's sleep, all you need to do is give a ring down to the front desk and let someone know that you want them to fire up ye old bedwarmer - that is, you want to have a human crawl into the bed and curl up so that the bed can be toasty when you crawl in.
Not to knock the Brit's newest, uh, invention? But I'm not sure that I want to have some stranger crawling around in my hotel room bed, and making it warm...wouldn't an electric mattress pad, or a hot water bottle, something a little more sanitary maybe work better? I dunno. But I can't knock their lack of ingenuity.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
This is taken, wholely, from The Ferrett, at the Watchtower of Destruction
Homosexuality Is A Choice
When I speak to people who are against gay marriage, the one thing I've heard a fair amount is that "Being gay is a choice." Which is, if you're not gay, a fair assumption: if you've spent your whole life being straight, as I have, why not assume that everyone is the same way as you?
So let's take a moment and assume that you're right: being gay is a choice.
Let us assume that every gay man carries the same instinctive revulsion that you have at the idea of kissing another man (or a woman, if you're a woman). Let us assume that, for some reason, someone just like you woke up one morning and said, "Today, I'm going to try to get another man to touch me" - and that they felt the same turnoffs that you did when they had this thought.
Why would they do that?
The traditional answer is "To act up," and I guess I could see that. I mean, when I was a teenager, I decided to show how nonconformist I was by listening to heavy metal music, growing my hair out, and wearing frightening clothes. Yeah, I had the long hair, and the earring, and the jean jacket with the picture of a giant demon throwing a priest into a lake.
I'll be the first to admit: I liked it. I liked scaring the mundanes, I liked stickin' it to the man, I liked being part of a culture that was at odds with society. I liked being someone who wasn't just some other good kid in school. It made me badass (for some quasi version of badass), and that gave me an identity.
There's a difference, though; being all metal, all the time got tiring.
Sure, it was fun while I was experimenting in high school, but maintaining that kind of facade takes an effort. I got tired of finding patches for my jean jacket, and wearing the big stompy boots, and eventually I realized that a lot of the music I listened to simply wasn't very good. I got tired of getting crappy, gas station jobs because I looked so metal, man. I got tired of having to go to all the loud concerts where I couldn't even see the damn band.
I was trying too hard. I gave up. That's the way it usually works.
For most people, "rebellion" has a half-life that can be measured in grades. There's a good reason why heavy metal concerts are mainly young kids, with only a light sprinkling of the burn-out guys and gals in their fifties - for most people it's something they do, and get their charge out of "being on the EDGE," man. That charge doesn't last for most people. As you get older, all those silly teenaged habits tend to fall away. You put your emo clothes in the closet because you just don't need to show off after a while. You stop blaring rap at a hundred decibels because man, who are you trying to impress?
Putting away the emblems doesn't mean you renounce everything; I don't wear the jacket any more, but I still grin when someone plays "Holy Diver," even if I'm a little embarrassed by that "let's offend the parents!" cover. And a few people find that metal suits them, and stay with it forever.
But in general, those kinds of teenaged signals? They fade. There's a reason that most people look back in horror on the fashions of their youth; they were trying to adopt an identity, clinging to other groups to make it happen, only to discover that it wasn't, ultimately, who they wanted to be.
Freaking out your parents is fun for a while, but it's hard to make a lifestyle out of it.
But there are a lot of people in their fifties and sixties who are gay. I mean, a lot. Sure, you can always point to a few folks who've switched back thanks to heavy pressure from their church - but the truth is, once you come out, you generally don't go back.
Does that sound like a choice?
I mean, dude, my toll for being a heavy metal monster was that I got crap jobs. Being gay carries a lot more than that. You can not only lose your job, but get a beating; be too "out" at the wrong time, and you run the risk of getting your ass killed. You often have parents who will never talk to you again, relatives who will scorn not just you, but the fact you exist. You can have your medical rights taken away. You can lose everything.
Now, think about your own sexuality. Think seriously, for one moment, about all the revulsion that you as a straight person have about kissing someone of your own sex. Internalize the entirety of that "Whoah, not for me." And then think, seriously, about what it would take for someone just like you, with all of your instincts, to go, "All right. Though I feel this queasiness at putting my tongue on a man's body, I'm going to do this because it will piss off my parents. And I'm not just going to do this once, no! I'm going to keep doing it, never enjoying any part of this aside from the thrill of alienating society! And I'm going to find new people to do it with, even though the jocks might beat me for doing it, and I might lose my home and chance at college when my parents reject me. And I'm going to do that, my whole life, until the day I die."
Seriously? Do you still think this? Because essentially, what you're saying is that every gay man and woman is gay just to piss you off. And isn't that a little egotistic? To think that all these people are enduring all of this discrimination and hatred, every night bedding down with someone who they are physically repulsed by, all for the sole purpose of making you uncomfortable?
You might still argue yes, but remember: rebellion? Usually a pretty short half-life. It's easy to talk about people "choosing evil" and so forth, but there's a reason teenagers have a brief period of rebellion, then settle down; it takes a lot of continual effort to do things for no better reason than irritating your betters.
So is that a choice? Or is it even vaguely possible that, just as you never woke up one morning and went, "Well, today I like girls!" they had the same kinds of instinctive attractions that you did - but with different wiring? Where they just found themselves drawn, as you are, to one sex, with no choice at all?
Think about what they go through. Think about how realistic it is that they're just doing it to annoy you, or to annoy Jesus, or to annoy anyone. Think about whether there's a choice you're making about your view of their choice. Because I am begging, begging you to reconsider.
When I speak to people who are against gay marriage, the one thing I've heard a fair amount is that "Being gay is a choice." Which is, if you're not gay, a fair assumption: if you've spent your whole life being straight, as I have, why not assume that everyone is the same way as you?
So let's take a moment and assume that you're right: being gay is a choice.
Let us assume that every gay man carries the same instinctive revulsion that you have at the idea of kissing another man (or a woman, if you're a woman). Let us assume that, for some reason, someone just like you woke up one morning and said, "Today, I'm going to try to get another man to touch me" - and that they felt the same turnoffs that you did when they had this thought.
Why would they do that?
The traditional answer is "To act up," and I guess I could see that. I mean, when I was a teenager, I decided to show how nonconformist I was by listening to heavy metal music, growing my hair out, and wearing frightening clothes. Yeah, I had the long hair, and the earring, and the jean jacket with the picture of a giant demon throwing a priest into a lake.
I'll be the first to admit: I liked it. I liked scaring the mundanes, I liked stickin' it to the man, I liked being part of a culture that was at odds with society. I liked being someone who wasn't just some other good kid in school. It made me badass (for some quasi version of badass), and that gave me an identity.
There's a difference, though; being all metal, all the time got tiring.
Sure, it was fun while I was experimenting in high school, but maintaining that kind of facade takes an effort. I got tired of finding patches for my jean jacket, and wearing the big stompy boots, and eventually I realized that a lot of the music I listened to simply wasn't very good. I got tired of getting crappy, gas station jobs because I looked so metal, man. I got tired of having to go to all the loud concerts where I couldn't even see the damn band.
I was trying too hard. I gave up. That's the way it usually works.
For most people, "rebellion" has a half-life that can be measured in grades. There's a good reason why heavy metal concerts are mainly young kids, with only a light sprinkling of the burn-out guys and gals in their fifties - for most people it's something they do, and get their charge out of "being on the EDGE," man. That charge doesn't last for most people. As you get older, all those silly teenaged habits tend to fall away. You put your emo clothes in the closet because you just don't need to show off after a while. You stop blaring rap at a hundred decibels because man, who are you trying to impress?
Putting away the emblems doesn't mean you renounce everything; I don't wear the jacket any more, but I still grin when someone plays "Holy Diver," even if I'm a little embarrassed by that "let's offend the parents!" cover. And a few people find that metal suits them, and stay with it forever.
But in general, those kinds of teenaged signals? They fade. There's a reason that most people look back in horror on the fashions of their youth; they were trying to adopt an identity, clinging to other groups to make it happen, only to discover that it wasn't, ultimately, who they wanted to be.
Freaking out your parents is fun for a while, but it's hard to make a lifestyle out of it.
But there are a lot of people in their fifties and sixties who are gay. I mean, a lot. Sure, you can always point to a few folks who've switched back thanks to heavy pressure from their church - but the truth is, once you come out, you generally don't go back.
Does that sound like a choice?
I mean, dude, my toll for being a heavy metal monster was that I got crap jobs. Being gay carries a lot more than that. You can not only lose your job, but get a beating; be too "out" at the wrong time, and you run the risk of getting your ass killed. You often have parents who will never talk to you again, relatives who will scorn not just you, but the fact you exist. You can have your medical rights taken away. You can lose everything.
Now, think about your own sexuality. Think seriously, for one moment, about all the revulsion that you as a straight person have about kissing someone of your own sex. Internalize the entirety of that "Whoah, not for me." And then think, seriously, about what it would take for someone just like you, with all of your instincts, to go, "All right. Though I feel this queasiness at putting my tongue on a man's body, I'm going to do this because it will piss off my parents. And I'm not just going to do this once, no! I'm going to keep doing it, never enjoying any part of this aside from the thrill of alienating society! And I'm going to find new people to do it with, even though the jocks might beat me for doing it, and I might lose my home and chance at college when my parents reject me. And I'm going to do that, my whole life, until the day I die."
Seriously? Do you still think this? Because essentially, what you're saying is that every gay man and woman is gay just to piss you off. And isn't that a little egotistic? To think that all these people are enduring all of this discrimination and hatred, every night bedding down with someone who they are physically repulsed by, all for the sole purpose of making you uncomfortable?
You might still argue yes, but remember: rebellion? Usually a pretty short half-life. It's easy to talk about people "choosing evil" and so forth, but there's a reason teenagers have a brief period of rebellion, then settle down; it takes a lot of continual effort to do things for no better reason than irritating your betters.
So is that a choice? Or is it even vaguely possible that, just as you never woke up one morning and went, "Well, today I like girls!" they had the same kinds of instinctive attractions that you did - but with different wiring? Where they just found themselves drawn, as you are, to one sex, with no choice at all?
Think about what they go through. Think about how realistic it is that they're just doing it to annoy you, or to annoy Jesus, or to annoy anyone. Think about whether there's a choice you're making about your view of their choice. Because I am begging, begging you to reconsider.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The best things in life *are* free
Wow, I'm going to sit and be a somewhat egotistical jerk. And gloat just a tad, while laughing. It appears that while I hadn't really given it a lot of thought for quite a while, I'm still being followed on both Facebook, and over here on my blog (which I haven't even been writing on a whole lot lately, because I've been either sick of busy, or both). I actually loosened up the restrictions on my FB search parameters, because I've been adding some people, my boyfriend's family, my cousins, people like that, and it was a pain in the butt having to search out everybody. And when I was writing a post somewhere, I realized that somebody have vanished from somebody's friend list...and then it dawned on me, that they hadn't disappeared....*I* got blocked. Which is comical, since the only reason to block me, was if she'd gone looking for my page in the first place :P
So yeah, since she's reading my blog...we're deliriously happy. We're living together, and absolutely nauseatingly happy. We spend time with his family, who accepted me just fine. I've met the parents, the grandparents, the cousins, the aunts, uncles, etc. It's just a big, happy lovefest. We're both in school, working on our degrees, and after all this time as it turns out, you having wrecked my life and having made him so miserable? Was the absolute best thing you could have done to me, because he loves me more than anybody thought possible, and he appreciates me more than *I* ever thought possible. So thanks for that, because it would have taken a lot more time, had he not had a reason to see how close he came to losing me completely.
So, goodnight internets. I've got a movie to finish watching, and then snuggles to have, and sleep to follow.
So yeah, since she's reading my blog...we're deliriously happy. We're living together, and absolutely nauseatingly happy. We spend time with his family, who accepted me just fine. I've met the parents, the grandparents, the cousins, the aunts, uncles, etc. It's just a big, happy lovefest. We're both in school, working on our degrees, and after all this time as it turns out, you having wrecked my life and having made him so miserable? Was the absolute best thing you could have done to me, because he loves me more than anybody thought possible, and he appreciates me more than *I* ever thought possible. So thanks for that, because it would have taken a lot more time, had he not had a reason to see how close he came to losing me completely.
So, goodnight internets. I've got a movie to finish watching, and then snuggles to have, and sleep to follow.
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