arrrrgh, this immigration shit is giving me a headache!

I am not sure exactly how this whole hubabaloo revolving immigration came about, but it's now really ticking me off that so much time is being spent on it, and theres this flurry of talk about how we need to deal with the immigration situation. Let's be real, what Bush and "Arnie" are really saying is "how do we keep those mexicans out". They fluff it all up under the guise of "immigration" but you dont hear them talking about the vietnemese or the polish that migrated here and dont have their green card, or any other nationality. It's all focused about protecting our "mexican border". I agree that if you are going to be here, then you need to be legal. But what is wrong with saying ok, ....everyone here, get your ass in gear and lets apply for the green card, and as long as you are in the process, we wont deport you. If you dont get the green card and are caught, well deport you. I dont agree with this load of crap that they want to make it a criminal offense! what the hell is that and how does that fit into our philosophy of "land of the free". I just dont think the whole prosecution thing is necessary. This whole spending time and money and sending national guardsmen to "protect our border" is not a efficient use of our forces or resources.

Dont get me wrong, I am certainly not an avocate of being anywhere illegally, I just take issue with how we decide to deal with it and WHO we are really profiling when this country says "immigration laws"

caffienated thoughts

First off, the title has nothing to do with the content. It's merely what brought on the thought process.

Im different and I have always felt different. It can be exciting and admiral, or it can be lonely and frustrating, it just depends on the circumstance and the day. As far back as I can remember, I always knew I was different. When I was a little kid, I didnt like to play with dolls and dress up. I wanted to play with Lego's and play in the dirt. This made me different then most of the girls. I accepted this and never really thought much of it, other than, "im just different". As a young adult, even though I had found friends that liked to do the same things as me, they became interested in boys, which yeah I liked to play with boys, but they wanted to plaaaaaayyyyyyyy with boys. This held zero interest in me and again I though, ok, I am just different. By my senior year in H.S. I figured this "difference" to be that I was gay, and I felt a weight lifted. Ahh, this is why I feel different then everyone else I know, and found this youth group in Chicago where I met lots of people like me, and hung out for the first time feeling like I belonged. But......again the feeling crept up, that I was still different then these people. This feeling was coming from the fact that I did not "party" like all of my other friends and I was always the sober one, taking care of my fucked up friends. This lasted through most of my 20's, where I was still "odd man out" amongst my group. I ended up with more gay male friends, because I loved to dance and go to the clubs. Even within my lesbian clan, I was still the only one who liked dance music and was not singing kumbya (however you spell it) and fawning over Melissa Etheridge. Nothing wrong with her, but it wasnt the music I was drawn to, and that I was passionate about. So, I was the token lesbian at the boy clubs, dancing to the music, who didnt drink. My other lesbian friends were playing softball or drinking at the savoy playing darts. And so it has been for all of my life, I usually am different then most people I know. I have a few friends that understand me well, but what I have been babbling about is that I am old enough to know that I will always be different. I will always think differently, and it's not something that I can shake. I have embraced it most of my life, and enjoyed my interests but come to find my fate is not ever being in the majority.

I now have a new interest, that AGAIN, is not a popular one. Because I am not an A student, med school is out, and being a medical examiner is out too, but, I am good with my hands, and am fairly mechanically inclined, so I decided to take some auto mechanic classes.

They have some intro courses at DeAnza which can get me started. I figure it's a good way to find out if I want to learn more and pursue this further, without investing a lot of money. I know I am probably going to be the only woman in the class, but I feel up to the challenge. I feel confident I can handle myself if any adversity comes up. Coffee sure gets my mind racing to all kinds of obscure topics.

ticked....

This weekend was an adventure for me. Saturday I went bike riding over at Wilder Ranch, and it was definitely wilder this time. Because of all the rain, this winter/spring the brush had grown crazy, I could not see the path below my feet. The trees and brush were about 6 feet high, so I was hoping that I wasn’t going to just end up in a swamp. Now of course doing this, I wasn’t thinking about the bugs that are in the brush, I am just thinking, “Geez, don’t let me dump into a swamp”, and Diana was probably thinking, “please don’t let a rattlesnake jump out at me”. So we kept going forward, found the trail up the cliff and carried on our merry way.We go to the beach and there was a dead seal that had washed up onto shore. I kept smelling this rancid fish smell, but didn’t know why, until I almost stepped on the thing. On our way back, we saw 2 snakes, and I almost ran over one. Thank god I was able to stop, and it ended up slithering through the rim of my front tire and off into the grass.
After our adventurous ride, I got home about 4:30pm. I am telling you the time because as you read more below, it will become apparent how much time had passed and why I was so mortified.
OK, it’s now about 9:30pm and I need to take a little pee. I drop my drawers, and I spot this black thing moving, and think “oh, a bug” I am not real concerned until I go to flick it off my shorts, and I realize that this is a bug that I have never seen before. The floodlights come on over my head and suddenly, the image of riding though dense foliage in Santa Cruz comes back to me. TICK. This might be a tick! I call for Laura, because I have never seen a tick in real life and still am not sure what it is. I show her and she’s like “yep, that’s a tick alright” I am mortified. Not just because it’s a tick, but because it was big, and I found it in my crotch, and it was there since I have been riding hours earlier! Laura gets concerned because she now is thinking if I had one, I brought a whole crew home and we have dogs/cats. I jump into the shower and scrub down, so she can inspect all the areas I cant see.
I was ok , but definitely traumatized for the evening. I of course start feeling itchy, and think that every time I do, Im going to find tick. The next day I was fine, and to tell you the truth, I am glad it happened, because I now know what they actually look like, and I don’t have such a huge fear of them anymore.

chickens... really

do you ever have one of those "aha" moments where suddenly everything becomes clear and you know you can never go back to before the "aha' moment happened? Well, that happened to me this evening. As I was out getting dog food for our "dainty" eater Kaycee, I stopped off at the local starbucks for a black brew. They had a paper out on one of the tables as i stood waiting for my beverage, so I started to read the headlines. It went something like "Google branching out into eggs" or something to that nature. it peaked my interest, and reading on, it was about how large corporations are doing their part to not purchase caged eggs and how Google was going to start buying only "free range" or cage free eggs for their cafeteria's, not wanting to support cruelty to animals, and what happens to chickens that are in large farms. It went on to say how they can put up to 6 chickens in the same small 24" pen, and they dont let them peck their own food or out of the pen for up to 6 months after aquiring them. I am sure there are many statistics I have left out, but my point is that I had NO idea about this. I try to be a fairly "eco" conscious person if I can, and this is a example of how ignorance is bliss. Before I had this information, I could eat an egg from anywhere, not really think about it. But after reading what I did, there is no way in hell im going to eat an egg that is not marked cage free. I will make that little extra trip to the natural foods market where I can get free range eggs. I just did not know that they treated chickens like that, though after thinking about it, it's not surprising. I just am perplexed that I didnt realize it before and glad that I took a look at the story.

Me? Social?

some thoughts I have been chewing on……
I have long since thought of myself as a typically “mildly social” person. I really enjoy my time alone, and require a fair amount of personal space, and have never been one to have a gaggle of friends around me all at once. I am not a “party” person, nor am I a hermit. I just enjoy 1 on1 time with my select friends, and occasional outings with my “casual friends” (more then an acquaintance, but not quite a good friend.) As of late, I have had a bit more alone time on my hands, and have been finding out that I really am a bit more social then I had thought. I enjoy emailing people much more, and talking to people much more then in the past. Maybe it’s a comfort level that I have reached, or something else. Now, I don’t want to have a extremely social life, I enjoy time with my partner alone and our select friends, however, I have noticed that my feelings get a bit hurt when I don’t hear from my friends in a while or from my close friends. I start to get that out of sight out of mind feeling and don’t feel quite right. This got me to thinking, because I have always thought in my head that it wouldn’t matter if people talked to me or not, if they said we were friends and we got along, then all is good. Admittedly, I am not the best communicator, and a little flakey because I seem to go along thinking that everyone “knows” how I feel anyway, so why the need to say I treasure the friendship? I m getting off track. Ok, back to the thoughts at hand, what I am trying to say is that friends and the people in my life are much more important then I had thought, and though having time to myself is great, I also crave the coffee run, or the email, or the little text messages just to let me know that I came across their mind. Maybe that’s a getting older “needy” thing, but I see nothing wrong with that. We all deserve to be thought about.
Tangent**
Speaking of being though about, what the hell is up with Chris and American Idol? I cant believe they booted that guy off instead of Katherine.
What the hell is wrong with people?

My oh my how high school has changed

Today I went to Mountain View High School to speak on a PFLAG panel. I have been on the speakers bureau for about 2 years, but really only speak to students about 4 times a year because of conflicts with work time. But everyonce in a while, like today, I take an "extended lunch" and speak to youth about awareness and what it's like to be Gay.

First off, this school was immaculate. well kept feild, beautiful views of the hills, and over all very clean. There were flyers up everywhere from issues such as a protest against animal testing to a rally against immigrant discrimation. *wow*. The class was a gender studies elective course and had sophmores through seniors. I couldnt believe that they had such an elective course, let alone all the freedoms you get in class now. They were allowed to have food, beverage, and even chew gum! almost everyone had an ipod.

Now when I was in high school, I went to a 3 story brick building (this was back in Chicago) and we werent allowed anything in class. The only protests we had were race driven. Basically there was a huge riot my freshmen year between a number of black and white students. I stayed away from school during that week, not wanting to involve myself in the crazy melee. I definitely felt old coming out of that class, since everyone that was in it was born in or after 1989. nothing like a dose of reality to bring you to the present. All in all, the questions were great and so were the kids. They asked good questions, and seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. I think thats why I stay on the bureau, because I always get something out of it when I go and I love hearing what our youth in thinking in present day.

So as I was making dinner tonight, (which consisted of Tuna, a branch of broccoli and celery w/cream cheese for those of you interested) I had the news on. There was this story that came up about how consumers that have bought SUV's and Trucks are striking back at the mfr. of those vehicles, barking that they dont get efficient enough mileage. This is all sparked because of the insane gas prices. Excuse me, but since when does ANYONE buy a huge honkin vehicle for the economic fuel efficiency?????? If the gas prices werent so high, then no one would be complaining that the manufacturers dont regulate the efficiency of the larger vehicles. Yeah that would be great if they did, but when little sweet pea is sitting in their Escalade, do you really think they give a rats ass about the environmental impact their ride is having? NO! they are thinking about how "cool" they are looking. People got on fine without the era of the "personal bus" to cart around the 1 or 2 kids they might have. My feeling is, if you are looking for economic choices, you dont buy an SUV. If you do want one, thats fine, but dont whine about the manufacturer not making a economic enough vehicle. It's the classic MacDonalds hot coffee syndrome. You know the coffee is hot. it says it's hot on the cup, and yet, in America, you can sue and win for burning your mouth on that hot coffee.UGH.

thats my rant. I feel better now. Also a little hungry. That tuna and broccoli didnt last so long. totally have a hangering for fruity pebbles. oh well, i guess I will just brush my teeth, since that always seems to kill my desire to eat, because my teeth are clean.