My final eng 101 paper.... got an A+ on it.

Polyamory as a culturally and socially acceptable alternative to monogamy.

Most relationships formed in the modern culture of the United States are based on the idea of two people meeting somehow, falling in love and then living happily ever after. This fairy tale ending is perpetuated my most modern media including movies, books and many songs. This ideal can be presented either in the positive, that is, people actually meeting and falling in love and living happily ever after, or in the negative, such as sad or angry songs about infidelity, break-ups, or the loss of a soul-mate. This ideal is unfortunate in that it forces on people the responsibility to be everything that their spouse ever wanted or hoped for, forcing them to change who they are, give up dreams, and possibly even compromise their morals and values in order to meet these expectations.

However, there are alternatives to the unrealistic expectations of the fairy tale ending available to people. Polyamory is the philosophy and practice of having multiple significant, non-possessive, honest, responsible, intimate and loving relationships simultaneously. Contrary to what popular culture would have people believe, polyamory is a valid relationship style and deserves to be as culturally and socially accepted as monogamy. This essay will explain the social and cultural merits of polyamory including how it allows people the freedom to form relationships based on what feels right for the individual, how the poly lifestyle encourages the development of stronger communication and interpersonal skills, and how it grants better community and support networks to those involved. This essay will also debunk some popular misconceptions about the social ramifications of accepting polyamory into mainstream culture.

In traditional and modern western culture the three key elements of a relationship are that sexual relationships should be between a man and a woman, they should be strictly monogamous, and that the woman should be submissive to the man. This is illustrated and perpetuated in endless Hollywood movies, pop songs, and self-help books (Barker 76). In ‘Bourgeois Marriage, The Woman Question’, F. Engels goes so far as to state that monogamy is “a restrictive state reflective of the ownership of goods and people inherent in capitalism, with women being degraded and reduced to servants, slaves to male lusts, and instruments for the production of children” (Barker 77). The objectifying and disenfranchising nature of this style of relationship removes people’s ability to seek out happiness and focuses on the ownership and transactional elements of the relationship.

The culture of monogamy tends to place a very high value on self-denial, that is, the sacrifice or willful refrain from pursuing or meeting one’s own desires or interests. Unfortunately, this leads those who seek to satisfy their desire for pleasure to be seen as immature, disgusting or even sinful. Since all people have desires, these puritanical values often lead to self-loathing, a disdain of our bodies and of our turn-ons, and fear and guilt about our sexual urges (“The Ethical Slut” 23). The unfortunate side effect of having these feelings of self-contempt, aside from any psychological effects, is that people then tend to assume that any relationship that arise lie within themselves or their partners, rather than realizing that it is very possibly just an issue with the methods they are using to have their needs met.

The monogamist cultural ideal also tends to assume that the purpose and goal of all relationships is to form a lifelong bond with a single person and that any pairing that fails to attain that lofty goal has utterly failed. There is no room for any grey area in this black and white world view. Polyamory, however, lies in the gray area, viewing a relationship that is short-lived not as a failure, but as a whole and complete relationship that has reached its natural conclusion. As one polyamorist put it “Polyamory gives me the opportunity to have relationships up and down the spectrum and appreciate them for what they are” (“Opening Up” 24).

Polyamory grants the freedom to seek love and intimacy in the way it makes sense to the individual. The Poly relationship style is one that promotes the idea that people are perfectly capable of loving more than one person. Much as a child can simultaneously love his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, polyamorists believe that we all have the capacity to love, share emotional and sexual intimacy and commit to multiple partners, without detriment to any of those relationships. Furthermore, polyamorists tend to see happy, free, guiltless connections with others as a cure for the wounds caused by the self-loathing inflicted by the current culture of self-denial, and that intimacy and sexuality is vital to people’s sense of self worth and their belief that life is good (“The Ethical Slut” 23).

By having multiple people sharing in the intimate details of a relationship, people who practice polyamory are often forced to develop a number of skills that are not consistently addressed or developed by those who practice only monogamy. Those skills include, but are not limited to: giving and receiving constructive criticism, effective listening, the ability to give reassurance and support, being emotionally honest, and clearly stating one’s own needs, limits and desires. These skills can be developed independently of polyamorist relationships to be sure, but the abundance of self-help books for people wishing to learn these tools clearly demonstrates that it is by no means a very common set of abilities for one to possess in our modern society.

Jealousy, an umbrella term for a wide array of feelings including insecurity, fear of abandonment, envy, possessiveness and feeling left out, is often disdained by modern society (“Opening Up” 153-156). It is generally considered to be a universally and naturally occurring emotion and is by no means strictly limited to either monogamist or poly lifestyles. However, the nature of the polyamory relationship style tends to cause those feelings to come up more frequently for poly individuals than for monogamous ones. Adherents to the poly lifestyle often view these feelings as a socially reinforced learned behavior rather than a universally occurring emotion and seek to confront them and learn from them, rather than viewing them as a culturally acceptable excuse for divorce, or even murder (“The Ethical Slut” 108).

In order to learn from jealousy, to grow as a person and move past those socially reinforced emotions, polyamorus individuals are forced to learn those social skills that help them develop a sense of one’s own limits in order to inform their partners of those limits, own their own feelings for those times when previously unknown limits are accidentally crossed, and develop strong sense of emotional intelligence to maintain open lines of communication despite being confronted with strong feelings. By developing these often overlooked and neglected skills, poly people are often very well suited to dealing with many of the social issues life throws at them; whether it is a school yard bully, a demanding boss, pulling a team together to meet a work deadline, or meeting the love of their life.

One of the strongest arguments against the idea of accepting polyamory as an equally viable relationship style is that it is deemed morally unacceptable by religious leaders, either because the Bible states that it is against the will of God, or because it will cause the downfall of modern society by undermining traditional family values. Unfortunately for the opposition, this is completely unfounded. The argument that it will cause the downfall of society has no scientific, sociological or otherwise provable evidence. Furthermore, claims that polyamory are immoral are an argument based on beliefs, and the beliefs of one party in an argument are no more or less valid than those of the other party involved.

This rule of strict monogamy, which is widely regarded as sacred among the majority of Christians, does not appear to be in the Bible according to many theologians. Nowhere does the Bible specifically and explicitly condemn polygamy, polyamory, or any similar derivative. It does, on multiple occasions, suggest that having more than one lover or wife is a complicated situation that is best avoided, but the only place where it states that a man is to have only one wife is in the case of a man desiring to be a clergyman (NIV, 1Ti 3:2-3). Not only does the Bible not condemn polyamory, it actually states in a number of books that there were multiple men who had many wives and concubines with God’s blessing including Abraham, Solomon, David, Jacob, Moses and quite a few others. Most of the arguments made by people advocating for monogamy who cite the Bible as reference are either based on interpretations taken out of context, interpretations heavily biased by personal belief, or are based on streams of logic riddled with fallacies.

Those that argue that allowing polyamory will lead to the downfall of society often have an altogether different outlook on the debate. Rather than quoting the Bible directly, they infer meaning from their belief in what their religion, usually based on the Bible, says is acceptable and moral. By using such common fallacies of logic as the appeal to belief, the appeal to consequences of belief, and the appeal to tradition, these opponents are able to appeal to those people who have similar religious or ethical beliefs, but this fails to provide a satisfactory basis for a logical argument (Ashbee, 103-105). Indeed, the idea that just because the majority of people agree on a point of view makes it right is a fallacy of belief in and of itself. Regardless of how many people they have on their side of the argument, it will not change the validity of the view and opinions of those who oppose them.

The two predominant forms of family arrangement are the extended family and the nuclear or traditional family. The traditional family is generally defined as a man, his wife and their children. The concept of the traditional family came about after the advent of industrialization when people no longer required the additional infrastructure, income and support of the extended family, which was primarily facilitated by housing becoming more affordable after the industrialization era in America. However, people have been living in extended families since pre-biblical times.

In order to protect themselves from many dangers of the pre-civilized world, early humans banded together in groups. These collectives were almost always composed of people who were biologically related to each other. These families were often led by one strong, skilled person, and the older, more skilled members taught the younger ones. This social structure increased the chances of survival for all individuals in the group and allowed them to pool their labor and resources and develop specialized skills. Families developed in every culture, because they helped people meet their physical and emotional needs, and it gave family members a feeling of security and belonging (“Families” n. pag.).

“The idea of giving and receiving support, help, knowledge, and protection within a group of trusted people is still the basis of the modern family” (“Families” n. pag.). Some of the advantages of the extended type of family are that it contains more people to serve as resources during a crisis, and it provides more role models for modeling the behavior of values on the younger members, as well as providing all those involved with the psychological benefits of feeling that they belong to a larger family unit. In one study “An overwhelming 88% of people suggested that their immediate family was one of the most important groups defining a sense of identity and belonging” (“Belonging” 13).

Another benefit is that by having multiple adults in a household, children have a greater chance of an adult being available when the child needs them, whether it’s for help with homework, playing a game, fixing a computer problem, or just listening to them when they have a question or need someone to talk to. Additionally, if an adult is in school, at work, sick, or otherwise unavailable, there is more than one other available adult to help with the increased workload in their absence. By collecting their families, lovers, partners and children into a larger collective, or extended family, people who practice polyamory are able to provide a broader and more stable support network for each other, thereby enhancing their ability to weather the constant struggles that life presents to everyone.

The various alternatives available to the socially acceptable relationship style choices that are prevalent in today’s American culture are slowly gaining ground. This essay has shown that not only is polyamory a valid relationship style, but that it has many merits, and that in some ways it can be not only equal to monogamy, but it can be a superior lifestyle choice for many people, and offers advantages not found in other lifestyles. For these merits alone, polyamory deserves to be culturally and socially recognized and accepted as an alternative to monogamy.

Specifically, this essay has demonstrated the social and cultural merits of polyamory, how this style of relationship allows people the freedom to form relationships that are meaningful to them, how the poly lifestyle encourages the development of stronger communication and interpersonal skills, and how it grants better community and support networks to those involved in the extended families so common in the polyamorus culture. If we are to be a fair and equitable people, with morals based on equality, acceptance, love and compassion, we must recognize and accept polyamory, and all other alternatives to the monogamy relationship style, both culturally and socially as equally valid alternatives.

My own personal Ezekiel 25-17

I've just realized that I, much like Jules in the diner scene from pulp fiction, am in a transitional stage in my life. I remember hearing jokes and stories about old guys sitting on the toilet eating a bowl of bran. The punchline was always "eliminate the middle man, just throw the bran in the toilet." It makes me wonder: I wonder what middlemen in my life I can get rid of. I wonder if there's anything internally that can be expedited. Not food related mind you, I'm talking about mental processes, programs, habits and the like.

No one is perfect, especially not me. So I know there must be stuff in there cluttering up the way things work, but I can't seem to find any errant code running amok in my head. I know it's there because I can see the end results of the messed up coding in my everyday life.

It's everywhere. It shows up every time I procrastinate, every time I overact being confused or playing dumb when I'm only moderately not up to speed. I see it when I get all emo and butt hurt over stupid crap, and I really see it every time I get jealous. Which I've recently (re)discovered is more a blanket term for a whole mess of stupid emotions. I'm trying to unlearn being jealous, since it is after all just a learned behavior, but it's not easy.

So, if I see all these myriad effects of faulty wiring up there, why can't I identify a single cable that needs to be cut or spliced? Not a single middle-man that needs to be booted out of the program?

I suppose the good thing is that now I recognize these issues so that I can better deal with them, and finding the faulty wiring will just be something that takes time. On the upside, I still have lots of time. So, I'm going to go sit on the toilet and eat a bowl of Trix now while I contemplate my own inner subroutines.

Homework

In an attempt to write about something not horrible that happened in my past, tonight I will describe my online class and the homework from it. Also, I think I've run out of horribleness from my past, but I'll keep you posted.

So, my class is about designing web pages. Or, more specifically, coding them. The text book that we are supposed to be working from is riddled with typos. A few of which cost me a couple points in the class due to A) not knowing what the book really wanted me to do for my homework, which would normally not be a problem except that B) I can't read the professors mind , and he doesn't really seem to do anything other than record completely useless "lecture videos" and tell us to read the book, so C) (see A). Get the picture?

Now, I don't mean to trash talk the professor, I've never had him in a real class, so who knows, maybe he's really good at the whole "in class" thing, but then again, maybe he sucks there too. Who knows? Either way, this online class sucks. As to which case is the reason for the suckage, I'm going to faithfully assert that it is the fault of the online nature of the class. This is based on the fact that I spoke with one of the other professors in the CIS department at my school and he said that overwhelmingly, neither the professors nor the students like the online classes, and many, many, many of them have said so, but the school people don't care and are actually pushing for more classes to be made online because they're cheaper or something (that last bit is my guess, I really don't know why, the other professor didn't say).

It doesn't help that the quizzes that the teacher gives are in a different lexicon than the book. For example, the book calls this certain thing "linking to an 'ID'." However, when the teacher writes the quiz on it, he calls the 'ID' an 'anchor'. No where does the book call anything an anchor. Example number 2: In one of the quizzes he asks which are all the types of relative measurements when making a web page. The correct answer included the "ex" measurement. Our book does not mention the "ex" measurement. Anywhere. At all. I looked. /Sigh

Anyway, so the last homework that I just got done doing had this as one of the parts:

"3. Insert a comment above the floating frame indicating its purpose on the Web Page."

So I wrote this in the code I turned in: Quote -

Theoretically, the purpose of the frame is to show pictures of the home for sale so that you can click the links to the left over there and then we can display all kinds of photos of the house without having to open a new window or make you click the back button after each photo takes you to a different photo page. Realistically, however, the purpose of this floating frame is to get credit for doing my homework. Hopefully your browser supports this functionality. If it doesn't, you should upgrade to the latest version of firefox. Also, you should see the picture of the house anyway because we've included this nifty alternate content code block. But the real question here is: "Can mobile homes rampage?"

- End Quote

Mind you, adding the links and making them point at the inline frame in question wasn't done till step 5. So unless you did the homework backwards, or read ahead, or already knew and hence don't really need to be in this class, you really had no idea what its purpose was and so couldn't actually answer the question properly. I'm pretty sure this is the worse edited text book I have ever personally seen.

Oh, and I had a pretty darn good weekend. I confessed a certain something to someone, and although I was quite worried about the process, it turned out pretty darn good in the end.

And now, time for my push ups & sit ups.

One more go at the past

Ok so I haven't written in a few days. I'd like to say I was busy, and I was, but that's not why I haven't written. I'm actually in a good mood, and don't particularly feel like writing about crappy stuff from my past tonight. However, I am pretty sure that the reason I haven't written is because I am avoiding talking about the thing that I shall discuss tonight. And since it apparently bothers me enough to not write about it, that's exactly what I'm going to do just to get it out of the way. And with it out there and done and over with, I will hopefully keep writing. Also note that I changed the age of my beating two posts ago. I asked mom and she said I was closer to 6 than 8, so I changed it in the post.

So more memories. I mentioned at the end of my previous posting that my grandparents lived in Hawaii for a time. I believe I was about 4 then. I could be wrong. Anyway. I still lived in California with my mom, but she would send me to visit grandma and grandpa in Hawaii for summer vacations. So I recall my two cousins playing with toy lightsabers in the back yard. I'm not sure if it was their back yard or my grandparents since I know my uncle lived in Hawaii also at some point back then. I remember being able to look out from the yard and see the ocean, so I'm pretty sure it was my uncles house, because I seem to recall seeing a giant forested valley from my grandparents back yard. But there was also a big window in the house and we would look at the navy ships with binoculars. It's all kind of a mish mash in my head, too long ago to make sense of it all. I remember chasing and catching lots and lots of green lizards, they were everywhere over there. In the showers, trees, every room of the house, you name it. They were cute, small and harmless. I think.

That reminds me of a different story. Not in Hawaii. In California, where I was raised by my mom. I think I was about 4 still. We were in a house of some sort (we moved a lot) that had wet lands near by. Or at least somewhere where frogs liked to hang out. When they hatched once a year there were tiny baby frogs everywhere for a few weeks. We would find them in the garden, back yard, sidewalks, and dozens of other places, sometimes we would even find them in the house in the bathtub or some such. Well. One evening I was playing outside and decided to see how many I could catch. I goit a clean 5 gallon bucket from .... somewhere .... and proceeded to capture as many tiny  frogs as I could, the smaller the better. I even threw back some bigger ones I caught. I think I got the bucket maybe a quarter to a third full before my tiny arms could barely lift the bucket. Then I brought it in the kitchen to show mom. After being very careful not to drop it or anything (didn't want to hurt the frogs) I had set it down and mom was looking at all the cute froggies and we were discussing them and watching them in the bucket. I can't remember exactly how, but somehow, the bucket got tipped over on it side and a massive wave of froggies swept across the kitchen floor in all directions looking for freedom. The catch (inside) and release (outside) program was in full effect. For weeks. =)

I recall my grandpa chopping fresh fruit out of trees in his backyard in Hawaii and letting me eat it. I still love fresh coconut, mango, pineapple and various tropical fruits to this day. I have, on numerous occasions, eaten fresh pineapple until my mouth bleeds from the acid. On one of these trips to Hawaii, where the beach called to my grandma and she would take me and my two cousins to play in the sand and warm water, I slipped and fell. It was on a Sunday, and we were walking from the car to the sand and while twirling around parking meter poles, I slipped and skinned my knee. No big deal. But 2 hours later as we're leaving the beach, I am still bleeding, just a trickle, from my scraped knee. Must have hit a vein or something. So grandma takes me to the doctor. But its Sunday, all the doctors are closed, and I wont stop dripping. She finally finds one doctor, and he agrees to give me stitches to stop the bleeding and get us on our way. I'm not sure if my grandma knew it at the time or not, but apparently the only reason the good doctor was in the office that fine Sunday afternoon was to get completely and utterly hammered. I'm surprised he didn't amputate my leg in his drunken stupor. I still have a scar on my knee from those stitches almost 30 years later.

Which reminds me of the time I fell on a double headed cement spike. It went up into my knee, which was bent at the time, so the spike went under my knee cap, and went all the way in up to the head of the nail, parallel to my femur. It locked the joint so I couldn't bend my knee because of where it was. So I hopped over to my dad (my paternal father whom I was visiting one summer), he told me to look over there, and then he pulled it out. I went back to playing. That also reminds me of the time I got a wire coat hangar poked all the way through my foot while playing outside in the grass one summer day. Completely separate place and occasion. No idea how old I was for either of those events. maybe 10ish for the cement spike?

Warning - it gets adult level "graphic" from here down. you may want to stop reading now.

Ok, so. When I was about 6 - I was molested, I think I was about 6 anyway, maybe 7. He was the son of a friend of my moms from work, he was a few years older than me, no idea how much really, but he hadn't graduated high school yet for sure, and maybe wasn't even in high school yet, not sure. I had gone to their house often, both to play and to be babysat. His parents and my mom were, as I said, friends from work, and my mom needed a babysitter every so often for work and, I assume, for dates as well. There were a few time I recall being picked up rather late from there, and I know I spent the night more than a few times as well. There were a few times that he and his sister (who was younger than him, but older than me), would play games in and around the house that involved her kissing me, or us getting "locked" in the closet together, and other various seemingly innocent things. But I recall that at other times the games weren't so innocent, things like "put your finger in here" and other various oddities where brother and sister would end up in the closet together without me. I can only imagine now in retrospect that they were probably sexually abused themselves, but you never know, maybe they were just perverted little kids. Well, one night I was sleeping over. I was staying in the boys bed with him, as was perfectly natural and normal and innocent when you're that age. He was pretending to be asleep, and I was still awake, laying on my stomach and staring out the window into the darkness outside. He would flop his arm on me and talk "in his sleep", and I would put his arm back. I'm not sure how I knew he was faking, but I did. you just know sometimes.

So he continued putting his arm on me, and I would remove it, then he would roll over on top of me, and I would roll him back. Rinse repeat. His "talking in his sleep" was clearly meant to make me think that he was dreaming about sex. And he kept insisting, by rolling over onto me in his sleep. And I kept rolling him back. And then one time, one fateful last roll on his part, I - for some ungodly, unknown reason - gave up. I didn't bother rolling him off me again. I still have no idea to this day why. I just didn't bother. I could have easily just rolled him over again, or got up and left the room, or a million other things, but I didn't. Who knows why little kids do or don't do some of the things they do? But I gave up, I was tired of saying "no", and I just caved. I don't really remember what exactly happened to be honest, but I know it wasn't anything violent, or even really "grandiose". To be honest, I kinda seem to think there wasn't even really any penetration at all. But that's not the point. The point is, I gave up, and I let him do whatever he did to me. And that's some f-d up stuff right there. It's not the actual act itself that caused the issues, at least as I see it, it was the giving up.

Now days I never give up, not when it matters. Sure I procrastinate and don't bother to follow through with certain things and don't care to finish others. But when it comes right down to it, my will is iron. I am unshakable and unbreakable in my will now. You better be able to physically beat me these days, because you don't want to have a contest of will with me, trust me on that one. I'm ok with what happened to me now. I am actually fairly open about. I don't go telling everyone I meet on the street or anything, but I'm not ashamed of it if the topic of people getting molested when they were young comes up. Same with being beat when I was a kid. The things that affect us in life make us who we are today. And I like to think I turned out pretty damn good all things considered.

So there. Next time I'll try to not mention my past at all. At least no bad stuff. We'll see how that goes.

Old Horizons - Almost New

Well, a few days have gone by, I suppose I better write again, or I may never pick up the proverbial pen and paper again. It has been an interesting few days. I feel like I should write about something fun and current since my last entry was kinda a downer. I don't want to get stuck in a rut of writing only bad emo stuff about my past, but, I figure since I started this, I might as well finish it. So I'll write a little more this post, and maybe another one later sometime. Just until I get it out of my system I guess. I'll try to make this post not have any bad stuff in it, we'll save that for next time.

My childhood was a pretty darn good one from what I recall. I had a wonderful mom, and the best grandparents anyone could ask for. My grandparents on my dad's side were around, and very supportive and loving, and wonderful, and I miss them now that they're gone. They were great people, and I wish they were still around so I could say thank you. But unfortunately I was never really super close to them, from what I recall. I do remember going over to their house and I would play on my grandpas computer, or in the garage fitting pipes together, or watching daytime tv with my grandma. Sometimes I would spend time penciling designs onto chunks of wood, and then putting them together after my grandpa cut them out with his various saws.

The next door neighbor had a small yard, half of it was fenced because she had a pet tortoise or two. I liked to watch them if I recall correctly. It was in the unfenced yard however that I apparently tried to brain myself while playing catch with my mom. We had gone to visit my grandparents who weren't home when we showed up, so we decided to play catch in the little grassy area next door, I think I was about 6, if that, so we didn't need much room. Well, you know how little kids run half the distance to you before they actually release the ball to throw it to you? Cute right? Well, in this case, after I tripped, and did a face plant on the grass, it wasn't so cute when we realized that there was actually a cinder block buried in the yard, and not like nice and flat buried on purpose, it was just in there, so the corner point was actually barely sticking straight up out of the turf, which I hit dead center of the forehead. BAM! Headshot! I think I still have a small scar in roughly the same spot 25 years later. So if you ever wonder "What's wrong with that guy?" - now you know.

I loved both sets of grandparents, but my other grandparents, the ones on my mom's side of the family, were my favorites. I know it's not nice to say that, but it's true, and I might as well be honest. They were awesome. We were very very close. I recall going out to their house where we would ride around on the little roads in the mobile home park on the moped my grandpa had fixed up for us kids. I was just old enough to ride it by myself and it was fun. We would also mow the very small back yard with the old school push mower, which, at that age, was still considered "fun". I also remember playing poker with my two cousins and my grandma, using pretzel sticks and marshmallows as poker chips, and all play acting like we were tough gangsters or card shark cowboys or some other random thing. I also remember playing Atari in the back room, Joust was very cool.

Further back, I think, was when they lived in the house on.... Ginger Street was it? There was a big back yard, which at some point was almost completely taken over by hundreds of bike frames, wheels, handle bars etc. I have no idea where my grandpa got all those scrapped up bikes, but he would shuffle through them in his free time to get enough parts to put one together every so often and give "new" bikes to the kids in the neighborhood. When he wasn't putting bikes together however, my cousins and I would build forts out of bike frames and have water balloon fights, or play laser tag. Real laser tag, back before it was outlawed. Wow, that just brought back a long forgotten memory. I think my cousins got those laser tag guns the same Christmas that my older cousin got this 'mad scientist' kit where you packed muscles and skin onto a preformed plastic skeleton, which was basically just like play-doh, except that then you prepared this vat with some special powder, and when you dunked the "man" into the clear vat, you could watch his skin melt and dissolve into bubbles and foam and goo. I think he (my older cousin) May have had chicken pox that christmas. They were living in a really cool house then.

I think that was the house where my uncle was teaching my cousins to box with gloves, and I wanted to 'play'/learn too. My cousin pwned me. He was bigger, had more practice, and actually kinda knew what he was doing. I, on the other hand, hadn't a clue what to do, had shorter arms, and got frustrated really quickly and easily, which just made me suck that much more. Luckily I was so frustrated that he decided to drop his guard, laugh, and say "hit me". So I did. I literally laugh to myself as I type this, because even though I lit him up and took him to the ground with one punch to his astonished face, via a wide hay-maker swing to the jaw, there's no way I would have ever even connected at all had he not let me hit him. Even still, he was dazed and amazed, and I think my uncle almost peed his pants from laughing at the scene. Needless to say, he didn't ever let me hit him again as far as I can remember. I was a lot stronger than I looked, and still am. I guess I'm what you call "wirey". I miss my younger cousin very much as well, and wish he was still around, but I always did seem to get along better with my older cousin.

Life has led my uncle, my cousin and I on a really wild ride. We're not really as close as we were back in those days, but I still love them just as much. I miss them too. Unfortunately I'm really bad at keeping in touch with people, I never seem to find the time to write or call, or even email. Then again, they don't write either, but I'm not blaming, it's just who we are and how we are. We know we all still care about each other, we just have funny ways of [not] showing it. So, if you guys are out there in cyberville, and you read my blog, here's me saying hi, I miss you, and I love you both, and "Hey, remember that time when..." And you too grandmama. And grandpapa too, if they have internet access up there.

I'll have to talk about when my grandparents lived in Hawaii next time. I have a few vague memories from there too. Something about lightsabers in the back yard, lizards in the shower (and everywhere else), and a drunk doctor who got his hands on my skinned knee. But for now, I have laundry to do.

Old Horizons - Middleground

 I just finished doing my homework for a class in college. I turned it in exactly 1 hour before it was due. I've had a week to get it done. I really need to stop being such a good procrastinator. After doing a little bit of research online, about 5 minutes worth to be precise, I found that it takes roughly an average of 4 months of doing something daily for it to become a habit. Depending on the person and the habit you're trying to form it will often happen faster or slower than that - hence rough average. So I decided to go ahead and write another entry. I will go do my push-ups and sit-ups when I'm done here.

 I only remember bits and pieces of my childhood, nothing solid really, it's all kind of jumbled up and nonsensical, in a very M.C. Escher sort of way. I can never really figure out when something happened relative to when something else happened, let alone trying to remember exact dates. And some things I can't remember at all, and when I relate them all I'm really doing is telling the story that my mom once told me, or what I'm pretty sure happened based on the emotions surrounding some forgotten/blocked out event. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but generally I have swiss cheese for a memory about anything further back than the last decade. And sometimes even the last decade doesn't work too well.

 I remember the first time I ever got to try a Pop-Tart. The kid who brought it to pre-school/day care/kindergarten (can't remember which it was) got it out of his bag and hid under a table with it to eat it. I saw him, perceptive little bugger that I am, and went under there and asked what he had. He said sure and broke me off a piece of the crust. No fruit mind you because according to him it was poison and you couldn't eat that part. So I helped him eat the crust. The little parts of poison that I ended up with tasted pretty good, but I didn't complain, it was his Poison-Tart after all, so who was I to complain that I didn't get more? After I left he disposed of the poison. I'm fairly certain he dug a hole and buried it under the table since he didn't have the dangerous substance when he emerged a minute later.

 I remember the first girl I ever had a crush on. Her name was Maria Santa Cruz. I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when I was at the G.A.T.E. program school. She used to play on the playground with her friends, and I would play with them every so often, but nothing ever came of it. I suppose when you're that young it's pretty rare for anything to come of anything, but for some reason I still remember her name, and I think I can kind of still envision her face as it was then. She was Hispanic I think, or maybe Spanish, and quite beautiful to my young eyes, and to everyone else as well, she was one of the most popular girls in school, or at least my grade. I think she may have also been the first girl I ever had dreams about. Of course when you're in 3rd grade dreams about girls aren't nearly as 'interesting' as they are when you're in high school or college. I think the dream was about going swimming with her or playing on the play ground or some such. They say you never forget your first crush. I suppose it's true.

 I don't remember being beaten as a kid. My mom remembers it because having your asshole boyfriend beat the shit out of your 6 year old kid, and then throw you up against a wall, and then hold you both hostage for three days, apparently leaves an impression. I remember pieces. I remember getting home and going straight to my room cause I was in trouble. I remember him coming in with his security guard style belt (you know the 4 inch tall black ones) and closing the door behind him. I remember turning around to protect myself after a while of being beat on my backside from my neck to my knees, and I remember that when I did turn around to protect myself, he didn't stop swinging. I remember not being able to stand anymore, so he held me up by my arm to keep hitting me. I remember my mom coming in to stop him, and catching his hand as he swung. The next thing I remember is my mom wrapping me in a soft green blanket we had and telling me to be quiet as she put me in a car. It was night time. I remember the car ride vaguely, and recall hitting lots of green lights.

  It wasn't until many years later that my mom told me the rest of the story. Apparently I slept through the next couple days, or blocked it completely from my memory due to pain and trauma, who knows? After my mom came in to save me, he threw her up against a wall and held her there by her throat. He then prevented me from going to school and my mom from going to work for the next three days, I can only assume cause he knew my mom would go to the cops and we wouldn't be back. But then maybe he was just dumb enough to think that the worst thing that could happen was that someone at school might ask why I couldn't walk, and then he'd be found out. Either way, a few days later, while he was sleeping, we snuck out of the house, jumped in a car with someone whom I don't remember, but appreciate immensely, and went to the police station. I assume we never heard from him again.

 I also remember playing with my grandpa Jim and grandma Jo and mom at my grandparents house as a kid. My mom, and her mom and dad were the best family anyone could ever ask for. Ever. But we'll save that for a different post. I have push-ups to do.

Old Horizons - In the beginning...

 I often say I'm going to start a journal, or a blog, or some such, but I never do. Or at least I never follow through beyond one or two posts. Recently however, my life has taken a turn for the better. Some might call it a turn for the surreal. Most might call it that actually. In this newly surreal state I feel that perhaps now is the time for me to finally start writing down the squishy bits of my life, if for no other reason than so that I can come back and read what I wrote later and wonder what the hell I was thinking. I suppose some background might be in order, otherwise it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense when I claimed to finally feel like I am actually part of the human race for a change.

 When I was born two months premature, the doctor told my mom that she probably didn't need to bother naming me because I wasn't going to make it. I suppose things don't get much worse for a new mother, I don't know being as I've never married and don't have kids, but I can only imagine. Oh wait, they can get worse: the reason why my mom went into labor two months early was because she caught my paternal father in bed with another woman. I suppose it could have still been worse - I could have instantly burst into flames. But I didn't. I survived. Two months later, about the time I was supposed to have been born, my paternal father decided he couldn't handle being a dad right then, so he decided to do what was best. He sold most of what we owned and leased a corvette and left us.

 I grew up as a very bright child, I became relatively fluent in ASL before I got into school at all because my mom was taking it in a college course and I would watch and learn while she practiced in the mirror in the evenings. By 1st grade the teachers wanted to sedate me, or - more accurately - hop me up on ritalin. Thank dog my mom told them to shove it. So instead of getting all my work done for the day in the first 15 minutes of class, and then disrupting everyone else, I got to copy pages of the dictionary.

 By 2nd grade I was placed into G.A.T.E. (Gifted And Talented Education) and shipped off to another school every morning on a short bus with the other kids that were too smart for their own good. We learned spanish and higher math, and how to write checks out of a check book, art history, creative writing. You know - the stuff they teach in high school now days. If you're lucky.

 We moved around a lot when I was young. My mom switched jobs a lot, switched houses a lot, and generally did anything she could to make a good life for us, always keeping me at the top of her priorities list. You couldn't ask for a better mother. Really - I mean that. It did however cause some interesting social issues for me. I changed schools more often than grades. Significantly more. It seemed that every time I finally started to make a few friends and fit in somewhere, it was time to go elsewhere. Well, for some that would be fine, but for someone who was generally disruptive in class, a bit of a clown, had an exceedingly wild and active imagination, and was significantly smarter than all his classmates, fitting in quickly and making new friends wasn't my #1 skill. I often identified with and had better rapport with my teachers than other students.

 My mom met my dad (step) when I was around 13 if I recall correctly. He is an awesome dad. We moved to Missouri. And believe me when I tell you that the name of that state is pronounced "Misery". Although, I'm sure if I moved there now it wouldn't be so bad, I've grown a lot since then. But as a kid who played D&D and hated wearing jeans, moving to a really really small town of mostly farmers and bible-thumpers wasn't my cup of tea. I still almost exclusively wear blue-jeans to this day though, except when I'm wearing my 20-holes and all black wardrobe, which I'm still trying to expand on. But jeans are now my comfortable daily wearers.

  When we moved back to California 8 months later, I was relieved, but then had to figure out how to fit into a new school with only 2 or 3 months of school left in my 8th grade year. Believe it or not, I actually did. I made a few friends, mostly skaters, got a crush on a girl, my 4th or 5th ever, which didn't work out, but was still fun, and generally had a good summer vacation before starting high school. For the sake of brevity (too late) I'm going to skip high school for now. But it wasn't too bad. I still didn't really fit in anywhere, and was an outcast, but I was a very well known outcast thanks to a variety of factors.

 After high school, I moved to LA for school, which didn't work out as planned. While I was in LA for a year or so, my parents moved to Olympia, WA. So when I needed to move back home for a wee bit to get my feet under me, home was now an extra 2 states north. C'est la vie. I went through some rough times up here, but I feel I've been on the up swing the last few years. Most especially the last few months. The upswing started a few years ago when I got a job as a graphic designer. I ended up dating one of my co-workers for a while. That was upswing #2. She was awesome and we're still friends to this day, I hope that will never change. She introduced me to a few people here and there, and a few new cultural scenes that I'd never really dabbled in, but found that I seemed to fit in rather well and quickly. Then I had a bad spell, we broke up amicably, and things were generally not bad, but not super great either.

 Then my upswing got even better. I lost my job. You may ask "upswing"? Yes. For the first time in my life since high school I was in a position where rather than feeling the need to get another job, I felt ready, able and willing to go back to school. So rather than seeing this as a bad thing, I chose to view it as a blessing in disguise. And so far I've been correct. I also used the fact that I was unemployed to go back to dying my hair odd colors. Only now, I finally got to dye it the color I'd wanted since High School. Bright Blue!

 I met some amazing friends a year or so ago when doing a theatre production of Romeo & Juliet. These friends introduced me to some friends of theirs and we all got to hang out at a really big convention, the size of which I had never been to. After the con was over I immediately started community college on unemployment, attempting to take advantage of the worker retraining program that is offered in this state. I am now in school, and I'm finding more out about myself now and in the last few months than I did for the first two - or possibly three - decades of my life. Some of the people I met at the con have taken a liking to me, and I feel like the shiny new toy in this group of friends. I'm really enjoying meeting new people and making new friends and being, in an odd sort of way, popular for a change. I fit in to this group. They are intelligent, have very similar senses of humor and interests. There is one in particular of whom I am rather fond. We seem to be very much on the same page, very often.

  So when I say that I am finally feeling like I'm part of the human race, I guess what I mean is... well, I'm not sure how to put it into words. I can only imagine it must be kind of like when a grown up who never knew their biological parents finally meets them. Not so much with the crying and the "I've been searching forever", but more along the lines of the person who already has kids of their own, and a husband or wife, and is more or less happy and complete and content, and then stumbles upon their parents, as if in a dream. There's no major out-pouring of emotions, just a vague sense of finally knowing what home really feels like when you've been searching for it and didn't even realize you were missing it this whole time.

I guess sometimes it takes a village.
A really weird, gothy, geeky, intellectual, mixed up & wonderful village.

Now we just need to see if I make any more posts after this one...