I have not been able to stop smiling since I heard the news.

SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

I know I've said this before, but I have the best mom in the world, y'all.

While we were out driving, we saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, "I love my gay son", and my mom said, "I want a bumper sticker like that. Do you think they make one for gay daughters?"

"Yeah," I said, "but you don't like bumper stickers."

"Well, I could get that on a t-shirt or something. Maybe I could make one."

Now, my mom has been really gay accepting, but I was still a little surprised. "You mean, if I got you that t-shirt, you'd wear it?"

"Of course I'd wear it! I'd wear it to work."

"Really."

"I'd wear it to general conference," she said. "I'd wear it all the time." And she sounded really excited about the idea, too.

So I went and bought this for my mom. :)

Today I ran errands with my mother, which I really enjoy, because it gives us time to talk. In the middle of a discussion on gay marriage, my (fairly gay positive) mother said:

"I don't understand what two women can do together."

To which I responded, after a minute of confused spluttering, "Well, do you want me to tell you?"

She looked flustered. "No, no, that's okay--"

"Because I'm sure I can find pictures or something, if you need."

"No, you don't need to do that."

"Or maybe I could check out, like, a sex manual from the library. If you're curious."

"Erin!" she exclaimed, and man, she was bright pink. "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS WITH YOU."

And hey, I can take a hint. So I dropped the subject and we continued running errands. A few minutes later, my mom asked, "So how do you know so much about lesbian sex?"

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

And that prompted a discussion about what Mom knew about sex before she got married. Turns out the extent of her pre-marital sexual information was a textbook "penis goes in vagina" explanation and her mother saying, "Now don't let him go sticking it inside you all willy-nilly" before her wedding night.

So I had to explain that times have changed, and while I a) haven't had sex or b) watched lesbian porn (seen a few pictures, but that's all), I do have a pretty comprehensive idea of what two women can do together.

My family is so weird.

I'm trying to process something my mother said. Quote:

"I'm glad your grandfather died before he found out that you're a lesbian. Not that I think he would ever have stopped loving you, but he wouldn't have understood. He wouldn't have known what to do, and that would have hurt him, because he would have wanted to fix it."

Okay. So I feel a little offended, and a lot sad, and guilty. Guilty because I've had that exact same thought, and I did always think in my mind, "I'll come out when Grandma and Grandpa are dead, because they wouldn't understand." And I feel like I lied to them. I feel like I should have trusted at least my Grandpa, who was very sharp up until the moment he died.

I have no idea why Mom said that, and I had no response. I just said, "Oh," and she changed the subject, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Okay, rambly post with no real point. Huh.

Today was awesome.

Saw one of my best friends today for the first time in ages. Y'know, we go months, sometimes years, without seeing each other, but when we get together, it's like no time has passed. Also, there was no drama about the gay thing, which I was a bit worried about. She was totally cool. Amusingly we managed to discus it without once saying the word lesbian. (Hey, Tori: I'M A BIG DYKE, YO. See, I can say it, as long as I'm not looking at you!)

I escorted my friend, her boyfriend, and her mom around the city. We didn't do much...Japantown and the Wharf...but it was fun. Her boyfriend is adorable! He gets the Erin Seal of Approval. Bought much pocky and hi-chews, and managed to refrain from buying manga that I can't afford.

We're getting together later to watch Supernatural and squee about incest! Finally, someone I can share my filthy new habit with.

So today rocked, even though I'm going to pay for overextending myself for the rest of the week. I was on so much pain medication to keep going that I hope I wasn't too loopy. But so, so worth it. :)

Dear Straight People of the World:

If it's your opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal, than it's my opinion that you're an asshole. Full stop.

If you, as a straight person, believe that you have the right to dictate to me, a gay person, who I can and cannot marry, than you, straight person, are homophobic. I don't care if you know a gay person or like a gay person or write NC17 fanfic with gay persons, you're still a homophobe, and you're still an asshole.

If you believe gay marriage is wrong, don't get gay married.

Fuck you very much,

Me

(::eyeroll::)

OK, so World O' Crap already talked about this a little, but...

Michael Medved is horrified to learn that under the new CA law, prisons must allow gay conjugal visits. Cue a lot off bullshit, but there is one glistening nugget that I must share with you all:

Gay conjugal visits should cause the public to look past platitudes about love to focus on the raw actuality of male-male eroticism.

OMG. It's not just me, right? That's like an incredibly gay thing to say, right? Come on. I'm trying to figure out what the point of that statement is, but all I'm coming up with is a vision of him saying: "Sorry I took so long in the bathroom, I was, uh, focusing on male-male eroticism."

Dude, come out of the closet and join us on the other side. We have cookies.

When I heard they were making a movie version of The Martian Child, I was thrilled, as I'm a huge fan of David Gerrold in general and The Martian Child in particular. A clever,touching, semi-autobiographical story about a gay science fiction writer adopting a troubled boy who thinks he's a martian? Awesome.

I just found out (yes, just, apparently it's been all over and I haven't seen it) that they took out the gay. Now John Cusack is playing a man mourning the death of his fiance. So, um. Wow. That totally sucks.

David Gerrold seems cool with the change (scroll down for the blog entry where he talks about it), but it still irritates me. I'll probably go see the movie, because John Cusack is love and the basic plot is still good, but I would much rather see a movie based closer on the book.

Seriously. It's 2007. Shouldn't we be past changing the sexual orientation of a character?

PS: I'm watching Lost and Delirious. I used to love this film--still do, really--but I'd forgotten how annoying Mischa Barton is.

I came out to a friend today. I was a little nervous, but she was totally cool about it. She said, "Yeah, I figured," (which wasn't much of a surprise, I suck at hiding stuff), then added, "It doesn't matter if you like girls, boys, or chickens. You're my friend, and my feelings aren't going to change."

My first thought was: "Yay! I didn't lose a friend!"

My second thought was: "Chickens. That's kind of weird. Girls...boys...chickens...one of these things is not like the other. Do I look like I would be into chickens?"

My third thought was: "Her feelings wouldn't change if I suddenly announced I was sexually attracted to chickens? Um..."

Folks, if I turn into a chicken fucker, I hope your feelings towards me would change. In fact, I'm begging you. Please, please, if I start going after chickens (or any animals, really) do everything in your power to stop me. Stage an intervention. Help me get the proper therapy and medication. Call the SPCA. You have my permission, right now, as a totally sane non-chicken lover, to do everything up to and including kidnapping to save me from my chicken-sexual self. Just thought I should make that clear.

I really need to find another church to attend.

It's not that I don't like the church I'm going to now. I do. I love the people; it's a small congregation, and it feels like we're all family. And I know I might be biased, but I think my mom is a great pastor, and I almost always learn something or just find another way of looking at the passage after her sermons. There's a lot of opportunity for service...I lead worship (which, again, I adore doing), work with the children and teens, visit people in the hospital. It's a wonderful community.

But I'm giving serious thought to taking that last step outside of the closet. I've put it off since the age of fourteen. I've never had a serious relationship, never had sex, and it seemed pointless to rock the boat when I'm not a "practicing" lesbian. I figured I'd come out once I met someone special. But my grandfather died without ever knowing who I really am; he died believing a lie about me. And I don't care if it's an implicit lie, I still feel like I am deceiving people, and it makes my skin crawl. I'm tired of acting like being gay is something I should be ashamed of, or something I should protect people around me from. I'm just...tired.

Which brings me back to church. Being a part of a church community, not just attending Sunday morning but being an active part of the body, is really important to me. And once I come out, I'll no longer be allowed to participate in the activities I do at my church. I certainly won't be able to lead a bible study or sunday school class. It's an awful position to put my mom in...she loves me, believes in me, thinks I'm a good Christian and a good leader, but she has to follow the rules of her denomination, and one of those rules forbids gay folks from being in positions of leadership. She doesn't want to have me step down--heck, she needs me--but I'm not going to force her to chose between her church and me. That's just not fair. It sucks, but it's the way it is.

Right now, I feel so super dishonest. If I started a relationship with somone tomorrow, nothing would change. My views would be the same, my gifts, my qualifications. I'd be the exact same person. Christ makes it very clear that a sin in the mind is still a sin, so if being with a woman is a sin, than longing to be with a woman is also a sin. It shouldn't make a difference if I'm a "practicing" lesbian or not (and man, I hate that term). And I just can't stand living in a loophole like this.

I want to find a church I can become a part of, but it's hard. I love my church, I love my mom (and this whole situation really hurts her), I even love my denomination, flawed as it is.

Gah. Sorry for rambling. I know this probably wasn't very coherent, but I needed to get it out.

In Spanish class yesterday, we had to write a personal ad in order to practice our adjectives and possessive pronouns. So, unthinkingly, I did. Then I realized our professor wanted us to read them aloud. And so I had a mini crisis, because it was fairly obvious that my personal ad was addressed to a girl.

As various students around the class were reading theirs out loud, I was thinking...

Please please please don't call on me wait what am i worried about it's not like it matters but i really don't want to tell everyone i'm gay like that oh my god i'm such an idiot why am i acting ashamed of it well it's personal but i bet none of the straight kids are having a panic attack over this i am such a bad lesbian maybe i can change all the genders when i read it out loud why would i do that i'm very happy with my orientation please please please please don't let her call on me.

And, amazingly, she didn't call on me. So, crisis averted.

*headdesk*

(For the interested, my pretend personal ad read: "Me llamo Erin. Soy de California. Soy intellegente y simpatica. Me gusta cantar y leer. Busco un chica similar. Mi novia ideal es inteligente, simpatica, y intrestante." Don't judge to harshly, I've only been in this class for a month. Out of the, like, five verbs and adjectives I know, I cobbled this together.)

Well, I got a job at Home Depot. It's not very glamorous--I'm a cashier--but it pays well, and it's a nice environment to work on. Also, I didn't think I fulfilled enough lesbian stereotypes, so this is one more I can check off the list. :)

Oh, and DRAMA at my house (when isn't there drama?). Apparently, while cleaning out Grandma's house, my auntie found a couple books with gay themes (Stranger at the Gate and Taking a Chance on God). I knew Aunt D. was going through some of my grandma's things, but didn't even think of her pawing through my stuff, considering all my things were out of the way and apart from Grandma's. Oi.

So my aunt, of course, had to tell the rest of the extended family "for my own good". She called my parents, all frantic, "Do you know what your daughter is doing?" etc. My mom finally told her that she loved me and was proud of me, which created even more drama. She sent me a very long, very hurtful letter. I haven't even finished the letter, because a page into it I was so pissed off, I just set it aside. Dad wants me to write her back and thank her for her concern and assure her that I still love her and will consider what she said (OMG I COULD KILL MY FATHER. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT, DAD.) while Mom says I should ignore it and wait for it to blow over. Two of my other uncles have already called Dad for the 411, and I'm so glad that my sexual orientation is causing a nice distraction from THEIR MOTHER'S DEATH.

ARRGH.

So between working at Home Depot, joining the GLBT club at school, and the unplanned outing drama, I feel like a super dyke. I thought about getting a superman-like t-shirt made with SD in the middle. :)

I saw Pirates II, and didn't really care for it. There's not much I can say about it, I just thought it was a mediocre movie. My 11 year old brother loved it, thought, so maybe I didn't watch it with the right mindset. :) (Norrington was hot though, and in a completely different way than in the first movie, where I also thought he was smexy.)

Surgery is one week from today. Saw the doctor last Friday, and she described what they were going to do. EWWW. I could have lived happy without knowing. "We're going to scrape the inside of your uterus with something that looks like a grapefruit spoon" is just not what I want to hear, ever.

Yesterday was fun. My brother and I dropped my other brother off at camp in the Sierras. As it was about 60 miles from Reno and we'd never been, we decided to go the long way home. :) We went to Reno and picked up the 395, which connects to the 50 in Carson City (we saw the Nevada senate building, which was cool). The 50 goes right past Lake Tahoe, which is something else I've never seen. Even though we got home around 2 and spent 70 dollars in gas, it was so worth it.

I tried the low-carb diet thing. I continued to work out all week (I usually get 1-2 hours in at the YMCA a day), and went down to 20 carbs a day. No processed sugar, no grains. Gained 2 pounds. FUCK IT.

One of my good friends from way back (I think we've been friends for 17 years) knows I'm gay. I think. We haven't really talked about it. But I haven't done a very good job of keeping it under wraps. This is all complicated by the fact that he a) is a very conservative Christian and b) we used to date. In fact, he's asked me to marry him. Like, 3 times. SO TENSE.

Today, I'm going to clean my room. If y'all haven't heard from me in a while, call the authorities. I have no clue what's lurking in there.

I think space aliens have taken over my mother's brain.

My mother did not handle my coming out well at all. She dragged me to ex-gay therapists, forbid me from reading anything that would possibly contain a positive mention of homosexuality, and generally acted like the super conservative religious worrier that she is (was?). While I knew she would always love me, I figured my orientation would be source of conflict for...well, ever.

Happily, that seems to not be the case!

It really struck me yesterday how far she's come. We were talking about marriage, and Mom used gender-neutral pronouns the entire time. She said things like "partner" and "spouse" instead of "husband". It was wonderful--this is the same woman who up until last year talked about the boy I'd settle down with. She's supporting me in finding a gay-accepting church, and said that while she hopes our church will learn to accept gay people (and gay ministers), she doesn't see that happening in my lifetime, and she wants me to have a church where I can feel accepted and contribute.

I never thought this would happen. I don't really know how to properly thank her for being so cool, but I really feel loved right now.

So after my last rant about christianitysex, I said I'd post the next time there was something good that came from the community.

Here you go.

The comments are very reasonable and, dare I say, Christian. It instills hope that perhaps there are decent people in the Christian community. :)

(Note: I linked to the general entry, not specific comments. It has yet to get ugly, and I'm holding out hope that it won't.)

Edit: And my hopes were thwarted. Oh well. The original responses were awesome. Specific links: jadeejf, seanozee, corin13, and bluebedroom.

( Edit the second behind a cut tag because I ramble. )

Edit the third: cheebah is a fucking idiot. Somebody stop me!

I have to write a paper for Multi-Ethnic Literature, responding to an assigned poem. Needs to be a page long, at least. I have three lines. Three bloody lines, and I can't think of one more thing to say. (For the curious, I have: In A la Mujer Borringuena, Sandra Maria Esteves tells the story of Maria Christina, “a Puerto Rican woman born in el barrio.” Maria is a strong woman clinging to her heritage while taking care of her family in a society far different. She is proud of her strength and perseverance.) *pout*

In other news, that girl I had a crush on? It has blossomed into love. ::sigh:: She's so beautiful. And smart. And sexy. And nice. And I love her, honest. Too bad she's straight. :( I'm so sitting here with a goofy smile on my face, thinking about her. It's been a long time since I've fallen so hard (and in such a short amount of time). We ended up sitting next to each other during a seminar, and every time she talked to me, I kind of blushed. I made a complete idiot out of myself, but she was really cool about it, and hopefully she'll chalk it up to n00b nervousness and not a painful crush.

GRRR. I wrote tenish pages of Tobias/Ax today, I can damn well kick out a page of analysis.

EDIT: Finished! It sucks, but it's better to turn it in for partial credit than skip for none at all. :(

So I found an open and affirming UCC congregation in the area. Only problem is that it is certainly not walking distance, I'm sans car, and the buses don't run on Sundays. :( I'm thinking of calling the church to see if they have a ride program--I know a couple other churches in the area do--but I'm not sure. I would advertise on the student bulletin board, but I'm already considered a heretic, so...

Went to the chapel service today and sat through an hour of Love Won Out crap. The poor woman who was speaking looked so uncomfortable, even though I know it's her job. She was in a tailored dress and nylons, for goodness sake, and...anyone here watch the L-Word? Anyone see the episode where Shane wore a dress? Yeah, like that only even more awkward. Like I said, it was about an hour service, but all I heard was "Blah blah blah homosexual lifestyle blah blah blah god loves you blah blah blah molested blah blah blah now I like dresses!" I'm probably a bad person because I felt bad for her life partner of eight years who got dumped when Melissa found out she was in love with Jesus, instead of sympathizing with the speaker.

The part that really irritated me, though, was how she said that after being "cured", she had to learn to act like a woman. Which, in her mind, means (and this is all stuff that she said): getting pedicures, manicures, expensive haircuts and highlights, wearing skirts and panty-hose, buying nice clothes, and learning how to apply makeup. No lie. Considering that until very recent history, Christian women were to abstain from even thinking about appearance and spending money on looking good, I found this a bit odd. I confess to having the uncharitable thought that perhaps her money would be better spent if given to...I dunno, the poor?...instead of being spent on clothes. As she said, "I never knew it was so expensive to be a woman!" It's not, doll. You were still a woman when you were "living homosexually" (her words, not mine). *eyeroll*

Chapel buddy was very fun, though. Every few minutes, she'd mention being cured, and one of us would intone (under our breaths--as I said before, we're far back and can talk without disturbing people) "Or maybe you're bisexual." He did laugh out loud, though, when she said, "There's no scientific evidence that homosexuality is innate."

Here's a thought: Melissa also mentioned that every lesbian has had a bad experience with men, be it molestation or abuse, or whatever. Which got me thinking...hasn't every woman on the planet had a bad experience with men? I may have had a okay upbringing, but I sure as hell have had bad experiences. And when the rate of female sexual assault is one in four, I think her point takes a serious hit. Something to think about.

I usually don't like the chain-letter type LJ posts, but I thought this was cute.

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Wrong

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eye glasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour "just-for-fun" marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.