Don't get it twisted

I'm not normally the type of person who falls in love with television shows. Well, with the exception of South Park and Family Guy (I absolutely idolize Cartman and Stewie). Recently, I've got into shows like Parks and Rec. Their new season began this past Thursday and during the episode (stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled) features our blond protagonist accidentally marrying two gay pengins. A representative of a group, who I don't think ever really identifies as being religious or conservative, meets with her and requests her resignation citing that she showed support for gay marriage and her job requires her to remain non-political.

Now, I had been drinking with Brandon while watching our shows so admittedly I am less patient in every way, however, the message the representative was spewing out of her face infuriated me. I know the show is fake but the scenerio was life-like that I couldn't help but unleash the rage.

After telling my dad "I'm at least bi" (what a joke, right?) he would later say "I just don't understand it" so here's what I'm saying now: I just don't understand why gays can't get married. Or at least, for Christ's sake, be allowed civil unions that offer the exact same benefits of marriage (since apparently gays using that word is taboo).

There is no argument that has any weight to it. Homosexuals marrying will destroy the family system? Oh, wait, straight couples like Phillip and Nancy Garrido have that shit on lockdown. Oops, did straight people with varying viewpoints wanted a viewpoint that's not confrontational? Go here, Seattle Weekly, they are much more eloquent and NICER than I ever will be.

Sometimes, proponents for homosexual equality (no taxation without equal representation anyone? or does that only apply to religious majorities?) hear the argument "If we allow gay marriage then what will be next? Where will the line be drawn? Could someone marry their guinea pig then?!"

Are you fuckin shitting me?

There is a huge ocean worth's difference between two CONSENTING adults marrying than... say... a man marrying his guinea pig that can only occasionally speak high-guinea-pigish. Fucktards.

I wonder what would happen if homosexuals stopped paying taxes? Could such a thing even be put into action? Probably not, we're not that organized, but there would be some action then, wouldn't there?

If I have to see another soccer mom from Columbia, Missouri babbling about what's morally acceptable again I'm going to contaminate her fuckin tampon with rat poison while singing praises to my obvious master and lord, Satan, only to prove that yes, every fuckin gay person is the epitome of evil intentions and corruption. Bitches.

Am I jaded? Yes. Am I way the fuck out there on this? Yep. Am I determined to hammer home the point of equality? You better fuckin believe it.

Seven Cents

Raiding the piggy bank: Here I am again, posting way after I should have provided the world with a much needed update on my life (that's supposed to be sarcastic) and a much needed cathartic release.

Today is Brandon and my four month anniversary. Four months is a long time! Well, maybe not to the reader, but for me, that's like an eternity! He has successfully completed the task of becoming my longest relationship ever. My experience has created a little rule that I've applied to everything until I met this guy. That rule is this: I either get tired of someone new within three days or they get tired of me within three months. So far in my life, this has held up and for the vast majority of my experiences I've been in the position where I've gotten tired of someone else. A very few select people have been in the reverse. I don't handle the other option very well. Just sayin.

Brandon has... tamed the beast... I guess you could say. I rarely, if ever, care about what other people think in relation to myself unless it will benefit me. With him, however, I've become domesticated! I go home hoping to hang out with him, cook dinner with him, clean up after ourselves, do our laundry, play soccer together, go drinking together, laugh at the plight of others together (okay, that one is more me than him), and whatever else we feel like doing. I'm not gonna act brand new, I love the man. This is where I knock on wood.

Aside from living the life of a young, poor, gay couple I've been doing my best to create a better world around me. Now isn't this entire post some sort of oxymoron already? I've already stated (and hell, if you're reading this blog you probably know what kind of person I am) that I rarely, if ever, care about what others around me think and yet here I am writing about the good I try to inflict on the world. It's difficult for me to explain what kind of person I am. I probably belong locked up or as some kind of military weapon to be unleashed on countries where we want to steal oil. I'm reminded of a statement one of my friends from college once said to me that floored me because she seemed to understand me without me ever having to try to explain how my mind works. Jennifer, during one of the many executive board meetings I was a part of and probably causing shit in the middle of, said... oh hell, I can't remember it word for word (I'm almost twenty-six: old) but it was something along the lines of how I say and cause so much strife but it's always about issues I really care about. She was talking about my fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi, when she was saying this to me. She was right and I had no idea anyone could read me so easily.

Back to the point. I won't be able to be an adult volunteer for Young Heroes this coming school year for two reasons. The most obvious reason being that I work on Saturdays. The second, and possibly incorrectly assumed, reason being that the new Program Manager is not a fan of me. She's the girlfriend of the woman I wrote a little about in the previous post and, although both of them are not supposed to know about why I left my old job at the Gap, they probably do not like me for the reason why I had to leave. I don't want to go into that here because I'm embarrassed a little. All I can say is that I always learn things the hard way. If my Saturdays were free I would love to go back to working with the kids in Young Heroes. Especially this year since the PM is new and both of the Service Leaders are new. The program is going to need some experienced direction to be successful in this difficult point in time.

I'm also trying to set up some service opportunities for my soccer club, Rain City Soccer Club. Right now, we are working with Seattle's Lifelong AIDS Alliance during their annual AIDS Walk. Drumming up volunteers from among our crowd is going a bit slow at the moment but I'm hoping the soccer players come around. We're also working more of a recruitment aspect with the intention of increasing the club size and adding more talent/younger players. I've got us signed up to work a table at the University of Washington in a few weeks. I'd love to bring in some college level athletes for the more competitive teams within the club as well as more young people for the more recreational level teams. I failed at getting on the board this year but I'm going to be next year. I promise.

I also recently received my acceptance to the Alumni Board for City Year Seattle and am really excited to be able to work with and for the current corps members in whichever way I can. I know how important it is to have people who can work on behalf of the corps members who are putting a ton of time into AmeriCorps programs like City Year.

I want to go on a rampage now, so, if you want to see what's in my piggy jar, keep reading.

One Cent: When we, as a soccer club, first announced that the proceeds from our recent Shorts vs. Shirts soccer match were going to Lifelong AIDS Alliance and that the donated items requested were going to the Lambert House we received negative feedback in the form of sex favoritism towards the male.

First of all, bitches (I can write this here because this is my blog and I can write anything I want but this is definitely not a directed gender based slander - or hell, take it that way, I don't give a shit), AIDS doesn't discriminate against having two X-chromosomes or having an X- and a Y-chromosome. Women can get AIDS just like men and while the gay male population in the United States is a large portion of this crowd this isn't the only group that makes up those infected with HIV or AIDS. We decided to partner with Lifelong because they have shown us some love in the past for one of our soccer club's teams.

Second of all, the Lambert House, although it will come up on Google as Lamber House Gay Youth Center, services transitional homosexual youth from every single LGBTQ denomination. There is absolutely nothing male-skewed about collecting donations for this organization. If we, as a homosexual soccer club, can't identify organizations that directly help our entire community then something is definitely wrong.

Two Cent: Someone would really have to be living under a rock to not know anything about the current Healthcare debate. I'm for the public option only because I've worked with kids and families who haven't been able to afford any type of healthcare and feel that anyone and everyone should be able to live lives without having to avoid care because they can't afford it. I've read the part of the new bill that some individuals are saying references death panels and someone seriously needs to relearn how to read. And guess what, that someone isn't me.

What does fill up my hate meter is how one of our political parties is using the general laziness and mob mentality of the people in our country to spread and encourage statements that are not only incorrect but idiotic as well. I'd vote for the new healthcare plan and if doesn't work I'd also vote to get rid of it.

Another topic of extreme importance and relevance to me is the topic of gay marriage. There's huge support right now to oppose gay marriage on the foundation of protecting families. The simple truth of the matter is that keeping an entire tax-paying population from equal rights is unconstitutional. Period. Our country has been down the road of discrimination before. There is little difference besides available resources between the homosexual plight and past discrimination battles.

I can't comprehend how someone could be so blinded that they would be willing to keep an entire population from equality. If I had absolute control, I would abolish religion from the government. Marriage, which began as a religious enterprise, would also be removed from governing documents. Civil unions would take the place of marriage in every instance. Marriage can remain something that is religious based while still allowing everyone to be able to live and love freely.

Three Cent: Drama pisses me off. There is nothing more bothersome, to me, than having to experience useless, unneeded, unnecessary drama. I like life to be streamlined and easy-going and if that's not possible then my hurtle better be something that is conquerable rather than intrigue and gossip inspiring.

Something happened where I've lost contact with a group of people who were once my friends. This isn't a single group but rather two different groups. A group of soccer guys who I used to be included on things with have written me out of the picture and the people I live with are no longer as close to me as they used to be. The fact that there seems to be multiple groups who I feel I put out by makes me wonder if I'm in fact the problem. Maybe. Probably. It would make more sense but I can't identify what I'm doing wrong so I'm going to blame them instead.

I don't respond well when I feel like I'm being wronged. I turn into something more akin to a holier-than-thou zealot and attack rather than listen. The fallout, historically, hasn't been pretty.

Four Cent: Two weeks ago, I checked my bank account to see if I had enough money to buy pizza for lunch (it had been a really long morning) and found out that I was seriously overdrawn. There was even some sort of fee on my account called "Item Return Fee". Now, I'm not perfect, I've overdrawn myself before but have never seen this type of fee before. So, I called the bank and was told that I had written a check at a Rite Aid for an amount that my account couldn't cover.

Two alarms were triggered in my brain. One, I only use my checks for my rent and utilities. Second, I haven't been to a Rite Aid in over a year. I asked the representative for my bank if she could tell me anything about the check and she gave me the amount and the check number. The check number was way out of the range of my current checks but I didn't have my book with me to prove that fact. I asked her to open up my rent check and compare it to this one in question. The first thing she said was "Oh, these signatures are definitely not the same." I wanted to say "No shit, Sherlock" but I work in a customer service role, I know how much it sucks to have people get mad at you for something that isn't your fault. I restrained my tongue through tremendous effort. She then read off the name, address, and phone number on the top left of my check and the man (I guess since I already posted his name on Facebook it's okay to do it here as well), a Thomas P Connor, was using checks with his name on them and my account number.

The lady transfered me to check fraud claims and I ended up getting all of the money returned to me but had to close the account and old checks. I have a connection at an international security company and they located the man. I want very much to go down the route of revenge but am wary of legal ramifications. I'm going to follow up on the case and probably explore prosecution. My revenge can be laughing at him when the verdict is announced in court. Hope your work release program has a one-strike contingency.

As far as how he got my information, the bank representative that I ended up meeting with said it could have happened any number of ways ranging from random number generation to going through my trash. I'm thinking that bank statements are now going to go into my "BBQ fuel starter" pile.

Five Cent: I've had the desire to go back to my high school roots and pick up pottery again. I used to be what some people would call an art freak in high school. A special class had to be created for me to keep exploring in the world of ceramics after I had already exhausted the available resources in my high school's art repertoire.

I want to get back into this hobby and have already started doing some research on clay, tools, and firing resources in Seattle. I keep telling myself that once I have the money I can pursue this again but that state of mind is only leading me into a spiral of putting it off. This first step is probably going to be the hardest: getting a wheel because I want to throw when it suites me, not someone else. After that, everything else is gravy.

Six Cent: My cousin and I have started working on something that I'm really excited about. It's putting my over-active imagination to work alongside his technical know-how to, hopefully, create something amazing. I want to protect what we're working on so I can only leave this much information out there. I can't have any other opportunists capitalizing on my shit.

Seven Cent: What would an adult blog be without the opportunity to complain about work? I'm frustrated all to hell with how my work operates. I work for a non-profit that likes to think it's a for-profit business. The majority of what we bring in goes towards paying the salaries of the higher ups when it should be returned into making this place better. Oh, our ponds that were created in 1962 are leaking? I bet that shit would have been fixed had some of what we're paying people to do nothing was put towards repairs a long ass time ago.

There's a whole gaggle of employees who have no right being in the position they are in and no one seems to be willing to replace them. I'd do it. In a heart beat.

I want to overhaul the entire organization and trim the fat. Is this going to be helping the situation of the economy? Probably not. But would doing this help make this non-profit more efficient and streamlined? You better fuckin believe it.